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Two and only two alternatives

When someone starts offering two and only two alternatives, that's the cue to look for the fourth, fifth, and sixth choices.
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Political orientation

Political orientation isn't the problem. Politics is.
— NeoWayland
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NeoNote — The urge to meddle

Within our borders, absolutely we should have Truth, Justice, and the American way.

Outside, no. We should be an inspiration, not a hegemony.
— NeoWayland
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NeoNote — Not right or left

Rather than citing examples of "rightness" being a mental illness, I think I will just cite the old idiom Moderation in all things.

I will say that from my perspective it's not "right" or "left" that is wrong per se, but the desire to control others while avoiding the consequences of your own actions. The reasons and the justifications change, not the actions.



Just where do you think the "left" learned the self-righteous, sanctimonious posturing?

Frankly, I don't care who did it first, second, or most recently. Or what the scoreboard says.

You're playing the game, perpetuating the problem. And I have absolutely no assurance that if "your guys" win, my life will be better. Just your promises, which are worth exactly nothing based on past experience.

After all, you've just admitted that you can't stand dissent and disagreement.



If I've no investment in the ideology and your side "breaks the rules" to suppress dissent, then there is no benefit for me to support "the system" no matter which side "wins."

I'd be better off bringing down the whole mess and helping people pick up the pieces afterwards.

That's the stakes you're playing for. Not if your side wins, but if there will be a game left to play, or even if there will be recognizable sides.

So thought experiments aside, are you willing to play with these stakes?



The rules of the game mean you can't win. Neither can they. Oh, each side trades advantage with the other, but the conflict goes on and feeds on itself.

That's not being heroic, that's being damn stupid. What good does it do to protect the widows and orphans when there is no safe place to go?



Of course there are rules of the game, number one being winner take all. Number two being that the "truth" of the argument is determined by the winner of the conflict. Number three is that winning the conflict grants the power to silence dissent. Number four is that the conflict is far too important to allow ordinary people to ask questions.

This isn't Darwin, this isn't the nature of man, this is an artificial construct.

Should I go on?

I never claimed that I didn't answer. I implied you were asking the wrong questions. When anyone reduces things to an either/or premise, that is usually the case.



There you go again, assuming the only response is either/or.

You think winning is the answer.

I want to remove the possibility of either side winning and starting the conflict all over again.

Because after you win, after you put down your sword and gun, after you take a deep breath on the field of battle, I and those like me will be there.

Pointing at you.

Laughing.

And you won't be able to touch us.

Sometimes you don't have to win. Sometimes it's enough to keep the other guys from crossing the finish line and claiming their bloodstained glory.



If you think the socialists winning means that the President, Congress, and the courts have unrestrained power, then you already lost.

And they have exactly as much power over you as you choose to give them.



Either/or is a self-imposed trap. It presupposes that there are two and only two alternatives.

The greatest single expansion of the Deep State was signed into law by a Republican.



Would it help you understand my point if I (truthfully) told you that since a month or two after the handoff, I've said that Hong Kong will be remembered in history as the City That Ate A Country?



It's not a matter of free market DNA. It's the fact that Hong Kong has the most capitalist and competitive society on the face of the planet.

I agree we're talking at cross purposes. You see it as all wrapped up and I see a Gordian knot. In the case of Hong Kong, a free Hong Kong has a greater value than the Chinese military.

But for now, let's agree that we do disagree and move on.



And that is when you change the game.



Did you accept the rule set before you started playing?



Well, that is a interesting philosophical premise.

I'd agree that for most purposes, there appears to be an objective reality. From my purely subjective perspective of course. But pursuing that goes way beyond our conversation here.

Are the units autonomous? Well, that's another philosophical bit. For example, is the planet aware? Restricting our conversation to humans, are humans autonomous? I'd have to say that most individuals are not. No matter what the politics.

Are humans and specifically "leftists" dangerous? They can be, and mostly want to be. Are they more dangerous than "rightists?"

No.

As I said political orientation isn't the problem. Politics is.



I prefer Nolan's chart to the right-left dichotomy.

Politics is controlling the other.

I've spent a lifetime dealing with those who want to control others. Some do in the name of environmentalism, some do in the name of Divine moral authority, some do it for the "greater good." The justification changes, but the methods don't.



One of my biggest frustrations in today's politics is that people overlook what "their" side does even as they denounce the "other" side for doing the exact same thing.

We've reached the point where what is done is not nearly as important as who did it.

Meanwhile liberty takes a hit.



*shrugs*

My problem here is once you've won, then what? Especially if in victory you claim power and authority that you never should have had.

Earlier you told me that if the socialists won in 2020, I'll personally lose. My response was to point out that if the EEEEEVVVIIILLLL forces of government already had power to screw me on some technocrat's or politico's whim, then there is no point in me supporting your side because freedom is already gone.

Sure, you promise to fix it, you promise to Do The Right Thing, and I should believe that why?

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.
— H.L. Mencken



Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan between them escalated the "War On Drugs" and enabled the narco-state. Mandatory minimum sentences were made possible by the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. Wide scale civil forfeiture including sharing funds and proceeds with local police agencies was made legal by the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984. The 1208 program and the militarization of local police dates to 1990, although it was changed to the 1033 program and was expanded in 1996. The USA PATRIOT Act was signed into law by Bush League.

This is only a small portion of things that have happened on a Federal level.

I ask for nothing except the freedom to live my life as I choose while accepting responsibility for my choices.

Who is the "right" to deny me those things?



I'm going to point out again that you're willing to overlook the abuses of "your guys" while going after the "other guys."

I want less government than absolutely necessary. What I see is a long history of Republicans and conservatives who want to expand government, regulation, and spending. The Deep State owes just as much to Republicans than to Democrats.

I don't care who is "in charge." I don't care who is to blame.

I want less government than absolutely necessary.



I gave specific examples of Republicans abusing power in ways that rival anything that Democrats have done or will do.

You are stuck on the label when you should be looking at the institution.



“Nothing R's have done in your lifetime can compare to the damage of the D's.”

Watergate.

Ford's pardoning of Nixon.

Ford's "Hail Mary" pass to save the CIA and his nomination of George H.W. Bush to director. Since it was before my birth, we'll ignore the rumors about Bush's CIA related activities between 1959 and 1964. Also before my time but I'm doing extra credit, the question remains why Bush was pretty much the one American in his generation who could not "remember" where he was on November 22, 1963.

Iran-Contra.

Changing of banking laws and regulations during the early 1980s, leading to the savings and loan crisis, the eradication of regional banks, and the consolidation of American banks and investment firms into selected giants.

The USA PATRIOT Act, literally the climax of decades old Deep State wet dreams. Start with Inslaw and PROMIS, look at the Danny Casolaro murder, and then look at what has happened the last twenty years.

I could go on and on. I haven't even touched on what happened with the Contract With America, or how the leaders of both major parties colluded and conspired against the Tea Party.

The vice or virtue is not in the label. Democrats and the left are not especially evil. Republicans and conservatives don't get a free pass because they are doing the wrong thing for the "right" reasons.

I wanted to make this about government, the abuse of power and politics in general. You were the one making the case that Democrats and the left were irredeemably evil while Republicans and conservatives were mostly good.



First, stop blaming "leftists" for the evils of government.

Second, accept that the label Republican, conservative, or "rightist" doesn't make you saints or even the best qualified.

When you've done that, I'm ready to talk about the next bit.



I gave you examples, including Republicans who actively broke the law.

As for Republicans being the lesser evil, is there a one of them since Eisenhower who did anything other than go through the motions?



Start by admitting it is a government problem and not a Republican or Democrat situation.

Stop making excuses because some of your interests happen to line up at the time.

Until you do that, you're not ready to have this conversation.



You're treating a premise as an Article of Faith Not To Be Questioned.

As long as you hold onto that, you won't believe what I say or accept any solution that I propose. Because under that premise, it's absolute nonsense and can't possibly be anything else.

Or the premise is invalid.



That is not true.

There has to be a commonality to build on, especially for deeply held beliefs.

For example, I don't think humans need to be saved. So talking to me about a guy nailed to a cross isn't really going to resonate. Likewise, unless you accept anthropogenic climate change, the notion of a climate crisis won't make sense.

As for giving my views and the solutions, I have.



“There has to be rationality.”

Since when? Empires have risen and fallen without rationality. Trade agreements have been negotiated without rationality. Probably fewer than ten percent of Americans living right now are rational by any definition except they obey the rules they've been given.

Just to point it out again, I have stated the problem and the solution repeatedly. You reject the premise and therefore don't believe me. Government is the problem, even if it is a "friendly" government controlled by people you like. As long as you look to government for solutions, you make the problem worse.

Case in point, you've mentioned several times that we need to remove the left ideology from public schools and universities. Our public school system was created in part so that government could control what was taught. Did it never occur to you that as long as schools were publicly funded and government controlled, you can never remove the ideas that you don't like? Rather than taking control of schools and universities, maybe the answer is let the schools compete in a free market. The schools that can deliver value will thrive, the others won't. It's worked for everything from rye flour to smartphones, there is no reason to think it wouldn't work incredibly well for schools.



I haven't said anything about moral equivalence.

I just don't think that we should trust politicos to store and transport nuclear sludge in Hefty bags.

Don't tell me about the "virtues" of Republicans. Tell me why, despite their claimed support of smaller government, they haven't done anything substantial since JFK.

And he was a Democrat.



You've been telling me how virtuous the Republicans are. I'm telling you that based on their behavior, they aren't. There's less than a handful of effective Republican politicos on a national level who demonstrate honor and character. It's not because they are Republicans, it's because they have honor and character.

I gave you specific, catastrophic, and freedom destroying examples of highly placed Republicans turning government against the people. Some were felonies, and some weren't felonies only because no one had enacted laws against them yet.

I have offered solutions, you just don't like what I offered since it doesn't give conservatives legal and "moral" advantages that can be exploited against "leftists" because they are leftists.

“Just as we don't want other ideals imposed on us, we shouldn't impose our ideals on others. No matter how convinced we are that we are right.”

“The only thing they are really giving up is the power to compel behavior in others.”

You can't depend on government to do it for you.



Before Trump, who was doing it?

After Trump, who will continue doing it?

And that is assuming that Trump is a net benefit, something I do not believe.

All I've said is that Republicans aren't saints or "the better choice" because they are Republicans. The evidence supports my claims.

You've said that Democrats are more inherently more evil than Republicans. The evidence doesn't support your claims.

Show me people of honor and character and I will consider supporting them.

Show me Republicans and I will insist on honor and character. Show me Democrats and I will insist on honor and character. The label doesn't get a pass.

A man is measured in the lives he touched.



BTW, mandatory minimums, civil forfeiture of property without criminal convictions, and the militarization of police are hardly minor, superficial issues.



Your entire argument boils down to government is worse with Democrats in charge.

My argument is that government threatens liberty and rights no matter who is "calling the shots."

I gave you specific examples during Republican presidencies that have led to massive abuse of power.

I am not saying that Republicans are as bad as Democrats. I am saying that government is bad and it's time we reduced it's power and scope.

Otherwise we're fighting over who gets to be in charge with no evidence that Republicans are better or Democrats are better.



As long as we have government, let's make it too small to screw up our lives.

We have conditioned generations to believe that government is all wise and mostly benevolent. That government is the first, best, and last solution. That any problem can be fixed with more money and government expertise.

Provided no one asks inconvenient questions.

Me, I think government is radioactive and corrosive. I think it is occasionally useful in extreme circumstances but only if it is behind thirteen layers of protection. I think the risks of invoking government outweigh the benefits by several orders of magnitude.

And I do not trust anyone to use it wisely.

As far as the criminal abuse of the alphabet agencies, why do you think it began with Obama against Trump?
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

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Should have a voice

Thanks to this Wild Hunt article, I learned that there according to the 1835 New Echota treaty the Cherokee are supposed to have a delegate in the U.S. House of Representatives.

I think this is a great idea and I would make only two changes. I don't think that there should be any non-voting members of the House, all delegates should have a vote.

And I think that every Amerindian tribe recognized by the U.S. government should have a member in the U.S. House.

You should only get Senators if you are a state, but all tribes and protectorates should have an active voice in Congress.

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Bridge too far

Chairman Xi went a bridge too far in trying to seize control of Hong Kong. He is not dealing with barefoot villagers in the rice provinces. Hong Kong is a cleaner version of New York City. He is the emperor who controls everything except the city that keeps his empire afloat.
— Don Surber, Xi blinks in Hong Kong

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NeoNote — Gun checks

A terrifyingly surprising number of police officers also have "incidents of domestic abuse in their background." Not most to be sure, but the field seems to draw some really f…ed up people. Worse, police are legally shielded from the consequences of their own actions.

If the current "red flag law" proposals are any indication, almost all the criteria will certainly be political. Considering that most people including psychiatrists and psychologists are incapable of judging competence, motives, or morality without some intense analysis, that is asking for trouble.

Here's what you do not want to acknowledge. Most people are not criminal. Most gun owners don't casually shoot other people or property. And there is not a single background check that will prevent every possible mass shooter.

Now I could go on and on. I could point out that American gun laws originated to keep guns out of the hands of "blacks". I could list the puppycide incidents. I could point out the militarization of police, especially in the "War on Drugs." All of this overlooks one very simple thing. The Second Amendment exists because the Founders did not trust government.

All your suggestions, all your proposals, everything you've said will arm more government agents while making the populace unarmed. Tell me, do you want Trump's government heavily armed while you are not?
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

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The question changes

If government is not a net benefit, then the question “What can government do?” changes to “How do we limit costs?”
— NeoWayland, liberty question
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Gun violence

“Who Inflicts the Most Gun Violence in America?”

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The wealthy poor

The Poorest 20% of Americans Are Richer on Average Than Most Nations of Europe

A groundbreaking study by Just Facts has discovered that after accounting for all income, charity, and non-cash welfare benefits like subsidized housing and Food Stamps—the poorest 20% of Americans consume more goods and services than the national averages for all people in most affluent countries. This includes the majority of countries in the prestigious Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), including its European members. In other words, if the U.S. “poor” were a nation, it would be one of the world’s richest.

Notably, this study was reviewed by Dr. Henrique Schneider, professor of economics at Nordakademie University in Germany and the chief economist of the Swiss Federation of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises. After examining the source data and Just Facts’ methodology, he concluded: “This study is sound and conforms with academic standards. I personally think it provides valuable insight into poverty measures and adds considerably to this field of research.”
     — James D. Agresti
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“Heterosexuality "Not Working"? POLITICAL LESBIANISM | Ep 72”


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Commerce and the law

Once the law starts recognizing and enforcing differences, of course the rich and powerful will find ways to exploit and control the law. Of course politicos and technocrats will sell out and protect "their" companies from competition and "threats."

When the law complicates commerce, the law will be abused. This is not the fault of commerce or capitalism. This is the fault of influence peddling and politics. The only solutions are to have law control more and more, or to get law out of the way. The first way benefits established companies and government.

The second way is the only practical way to restore freedom and loosen cash flow.
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Playing around

Why are taxpayer dollars collected by force being spent on a playground? Any playground?

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“PragerU v. YouTube”

Are you trying to make me irritated with you?

You keep going off on these anti-pagan rants.

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Remember

Back in 1997, I said that Hong Kong would be remembered as The City That Ate A Country.

I've nothing to do with what is happening right now, but I think I was right.

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NeoNotes — Are you trying to make me irritated with you?

Mrs. Bookworm,

Are you trying to make me irritated with you?

You keep going off on these anti-pagan rants. This is what, the ninth or tenth? It's blood libel. You wouldn't stand for it if the targets were Jewish or Christian. I don't see why I should "turn the other cheek" when you target pagans.

Nature worship as such is not the problem. Any more than the KKK (a nominally Christian organization) is. Intolerance is the problem. Demanding that others follow the rules of your faith is the problem. Yes, Nature is red of tooth and claw. So are humans when untempered by civilization. And no, I do not mean civilization is Christianity. I regularly tell people that Christians (and the other two Big Monotheisms) are nicer people when they aren't the only game around. Yes, Christianity says some pretty nice things in that book. But it only plays by it's own rules when there is competition keeping it honest.

The vice or virtue is not in the label. It's in the words and actions of the individual. We're measured in the lives we touch.

You want to go after someone for intolerance, be my guest. You want to go after someone for monoculture and echo chambers, go for it. You want to go after someone for Nature worship, then you'll have to start with me. And I will turn it back on you with a vengeance. Not nicely, like I usually do with these discussions. Because you would do the same if it were your faith that was attacked. And so would everyone else here.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

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Vice and virtue

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.
— Winston Churchill
tip of the hat to Toastrider

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“Soph BANNED: The Youtuber They Don’t Want You To See”

“Soph, also known as LtCorbis, is a 14 year old girl whose YouTube videos, dealing with issues like LGBT and gay pride, Islam, and pedophilia, have drawn the ire and leftist Buzzfeed reporters everywhere. Recently banned from YouTube but still active on BitChute, we explore her videos, and whether minors like her have simply been indoctrinated, and should be free to post content they may regret later on.”

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Today's definition for Democrats

Those using tragedy for political benefit or opportunity, especially murder or a violent crime.
political ghouls from NeoWayland's lexicon
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NeoNote — Not slur words

Neo-paganism has nothing to do with devaluing human life. The term neo-pagan is a recent invention and has nothing to do with morality.

Honestly, Mrs. Bookworm, have you ever known me to devalue human life? Have you ever seen me treat anyone disrespectfully unless they disrespected me or someone else first? Yet I am a neopagan under the scholarly definition. I greet the sunrise. I dance naked under the full Moon. I've written and spoken against war, blood sacrifice, and coercion.

The fact is there is no monolithic morality among neopagans. Even most neopagans can't agree what the term means except in the broadest terms.

Neopagan and pagan are not slur words. I'd be happy to answer any general questions I can, or find you someone who can if I can't. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, I'd appreciate it if I could expect the same.



That may be true. But using pagan or neopagan as a way to describe low morality is unacceptable. Mrs. Bookworm and others here would not accept a slur like this against Jews or Christians.

I'm not asking anyone to participate. I'm just asking for the same respect that they themselves expect.



For what it is worth, I'd say that modern pagans are less tolerant of others who insist that their faith/belief system/rule set must dominate.

Sometimes the trick is convincing them that the nasty ole conservative Christians aren't always or even usually the enemy.



There we get into "no True Scottsman."

Just as an example, I can promise you that the first century Christian was a considerably different creature than his sixth century counterpart. Just as the eighteenth century version was very different. And how the early twentieth century version differed from the late twentieth, or even the twenty-first century incarnation. And that doesn't even allow for all the various sects.

The way I see it, faith is between you and the Divine. No one else.

I call myself pagan because I don't have a better term. I'm polytheistic and pantheistic. On alternate Thursdays and every third Tuesday I might admit to an animism bent as well. On the 13th of the month, I'll tell you (truthfully) that the label isn't really all that important, only the manifestation.
By most modern standards, I'm pagan. Certainly in the sense that I look for Divine manifestation outside of an official Book. Some of my stuff came by way of the new age fluffiness, sure. Some of it also came from gnosticism and the silence of a desert dawn. Does that make it less valid for me than yours is for you?

I'm not something less. I'm something else.



But is it better than being a gun toting redneck?

See, people today like to forget, but pagans invented civilization. And trade. And philosophy.

The Visigoths weren't intent on destroying civilization as much as they were controlling it.



The problem with the Visigoths wasn't that they were pagan. The problem is that they wanted to control others. We have the same kind of people today, and they are just as destructive. The issue isn't paganism, it's politics. Just as it is for certain Christians today.

BTW, my mother was born in Louisiana, my maternal grandfather was born in Tennessee, and my stepdad's family is from Arkansas. I'd put my redneck bona-fides up against any one else's.



For those interested in conspiracy theory, the Merovingian dynasty was the "Holy Grail" proposed by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln. That is, the bloodline supposedly descended from Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. If this sounds familiar, Dan Brown lifted it for The Da Vinci Code. This may be the justification of the divine right of the European royals, although there is a (disputed) theory about a sacred king being a sacrifice.

This gets murky real fast, especially since many non-Western royals also trace their descent from gods.

Anyway, I've confuzzled things enough for now.



Not to mention that it wasn't unusual for the same sacred sites to be reused again and again and again, which raises the question of who or what was originally worshipped. And so on, and so forth…

Getting back to your point though, yes the Visigoths were pretty civilized. And yes they were pagan only in the sense that they weren't part of the Officially Approved variant faith at the time.

Traditionally, before someone goes after another faith, they always stomp out their own heresies. It's about the politics and who gets to call the shots, not about the purity of faith.

And of course that never happens in pagan faiths.

*ahem*

I might have set off the exaggeration alarm there.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.
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Between you and tyranny

Do you really want to live in a country where the only thing between you and tyranny is the whim of the chief executive?
— NeoWayland
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Power to abuse

Again, the "problem" isn't who ever is occupying the office. The problem is that we give government power to abuse and then act surprised when the alphabet agencies take it "too far."
— NeoWayland
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Making your own choices

You're perfectly capable of making your own choices.

The real question is why politicos don't want you doing that.
— NeoWayland
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Engine that drives the political left

If I have learned one thing from life, it is that race is the engine that drives the political Left. When all else fails, that segment of America goes to the default position of using race to achieve its objectives. In the courtrooms, on college campuses, and, most especially, in our politics, race is a central theme. Where it does not naturally rise to the surface, there are those who will manufacture and amplify it.
— Ward Connerly

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Oppressed

Since the social victim has been oppressed by society, he comes to feel that his individual life will be improved more by changes in society than by his own initiative. Without realizing it, he makes society rather than himself the agent of change. The power he finds in his victimization may lead him to collective action against society, but it also encourages passivity within the sphere of his personal life.
— Shelby Steele

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Fight for the little guy

It’s often said that the Democrats fight 'for the little guy.' That’s true: liberals fight to make sure the little guy stays little! Think about it. What if all the little guys were to prosper and become big guys? Then what? Who would liberals pretend to fight for? If the bamboozlers fight for anything, it’s to ensure that the little guy stays angry at those nasty conservatives who are holding him down.
— Angela McGlowan

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NeoNote — Dualism

There is an assumption underlying American politics and to a certain extent our discussions here. In order for you to win, in order for you to benefit, someone else if not everyone else must lose. Some call it dualism, some call it either/or, and some call it IS or IS NOT. It's The Law of the Excluded Middle (more or less) and it's usually a false premise.

Something doesn't have to be black OR white. Sometimes it can be sour. Or fuzzy. Or octagonal. By accepting two and only two qualifying conditions, you eliminate all other possibilities, even if those other possibilities may serve your needs better.

For example, Sarah Waggoner is very much caught up in dualism. Any criticism of Democrats means she must attack Trump or Republicans in general. The idea that someone can be critical of Democrats without being a Republican is outside her expectations and almost outside her world view.

Meanwhile, from my perspective the problem isn't Democrats or Republicans. Accepting either premise ignores the obvious (to me), that too much government is the core problem. As long as the discussion is about either Party Red or Party Blue, we don't talk about an ever expanding technocracy that consumes more and more even as it restricts freedom. You can't talk about the dangers of government until you stop talking about the misdeeds of whichever party. Dealing only with Republicans or Democrats means you never look too closely at the system.

By design



Still, your first reaction to any criticism of Democrats is to attack Trump or Republicans.

You've never seen me "discuss" things like religion, sex, or crony capitalism with Republicans. Not to mention the occasional person who insists that their morality must displace all other choices.

My default is KYFHO. Keep Your F…ing Hands Off!

The fact is (and one of your major issues) that I assume that most people are perfectly capable of making their own choices. I don't think that government should be involved in most things. I don't think that government is first, best, and last solution. I do not trust in the wisdom of government.

Outside of sex and top-down morality, yes, that matches the mainstream "Republican" position. More accurately, the mainstream "Republican" position matches some of the classic liberal position. And yes, there is a vast difference between modern liberals and classic liberals. As I've said, my opinions on religion, sex and top-down morality (and what is dooming our culture) put me outside the Republican mainstream and squarely in with what might be called Democrat positions. Again, more accurately the Democrat positions match some of classic liberal position positions. And since classic liberals had those positions first, well, the Republicans and Democrats stole from their betters.

I could give you a hundred and thirteen things that Trump has done wrong. But I don't see Trump as significantly worse (or better) than his predecessors. At the end of the day (or term), we still have an ever expanding government that is destroying liberty. I don't think we should have a country whose liberty depends on the whims of those "in charge" this week.

Meanwhile Republicans and Democrats both want to expand government, only with their people in charge. The goal is not the government. The goal is not the system. The goal is liberty. Everything else is extra.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

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Problems

Let's fix problems caused by government with… more government!
— NeoWayland
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Some problems with the climate change panic

Let's start with the baseline.

Earth is approximately four and a half billion years old. The approximate span of human history is about ten thousand years. Recorded history is only about six thousand years or so.

That makes human history .0002% or so of the life of the planet.

Let's be generous and say that humans have been producing significant carbon emissions for about three hundred years. That's about three percent of human history and an amazingly minute speck of planetary history.

So no more "ten year deadlines," especially since the deadline is always ten years out.

Before we start examining what humans are pumping into the atmosphere, we need to measure what is happening to our temperature. It turns out that we can see that temperatures changes on Mars match some of the temperature changes on Earth. That means that Mars and Earth have to share the same modifier in at least some instances. The obvious candidate is the Sun.

The Earth's climate has shifted radically before, even before there were humans. We don't entirely understand what caused those shifts, which means we can't eliminate those reasons from our projections.

While increased carbon dioxide has been linked to temperature increases, we don't know if the temperature increases caused the carbon dioxide or if the carbon dioxide cause the temperature change. We do know that the carbon dioxide cascade effect used in some climate models has never been observed or proven in a laboratory. There is no "magic threshold" between acceptable carbon dioxide and unacceptable carbon dioxide. Based on what has been observed, if there is a causal relationship between carbon dioxide and temperature increase, it is probably linear and not logarithmic.

We do know that in the past there has been higher carbon dioxide without any long term effects except increased plant growth.

We don't know what causes climate change.

This is not an "all or nothing" situation. We can care for the World without placing control in the hands of politics and technocrats. We can reduce our waste. We can use water wisely. We can build to work with the Earth and climate instead of imposing our control.

It's our choice.

From what we've seen, we dare not trust government to care for the planet.

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“r/wokekids: TRANS, TRUMP-Hating Children?”

Now let's change that phrasing that a bit.

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“What's the Deal with the Green New Deal?”

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Allowed economic choices

The economic choices allowed by government to most American citizens are meant to control them, not to free them.
— NeoWayland
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NeoNote — Flow of value

Remember when I said that economics was about the flow of value? It's like piping water in a swamp. Yes, you can clean it up the water and direct it where you want, but there is still a lot of water flowing around. The more water, the more it seeps and looks for lower ground. You can only" fix" that by draining all the water and taking away what used to be widely available.

Now let's change that phrasing that a bit.

Yes, you can clean it up the value and direct it where you want, but there is still a lot of value flowing around. The more value, the more it seeps and looks for lower ground. You can only" fix" that by draining all the value and taking away what used to be widely available.

That's a whole new different perspective. Economic activity and free markets create more value. The flow of value and value in the wrong hands threatens the central systems and the elites. As the elites see it, their best interests are served by controlling value and directing it where they see problems. They want their choice to supersede the choices of others, particularly the unwashed masses who don't know when something is being done for the Greater Good.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

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Break the myth

Let's break the myth that government is the first, best, and last solution.
— NeoWayland
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Corrosive government

It always bothers people when I answer the implied question and not what they actually said.

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“Almost Every Major Franchise is Compromised”

It's not about abuse of power. It's not about moral failings.

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Who do you want to win?

I'm tired of being lectured to.

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NeoNote — Practical economics

Beer, cheese, and bread.

These things were discovered hundreds, perhaps thousands of years ago. We don't know exactly when. What we do know is that chemistry and science in general originated because someone wanted to make beer, cheese, and bread better.

Money, measurement and accounting in general started because someone tried to figure out how many goats their grain harvest was worth.

That doesn't even count fundamentals like fire or the wheel which are still basics of our science and technology today.

Science and technology use what works. When we find something that works better, we modify our science and technology.

And yes, economics in it's pure form is a science. The problem comes when we try to use economics to do things that it can't do well. Most of this is directly traceable to government interference in the exchange.

Economics describes the flow of value. We know how value moves as long as it isn't diverted. Rather than top-down "managing the system" and diverting (and diminishing value), I'd rather see new ideas in products and services. I'd rather see incremental improvements in technology than a clumsy effort to shift money by government edict. I'd rather see lower prices than tariffs protecting the "balance of payments."



No, the correct phrase is that when we find something that works better, we modify our science and technology. Sometimes it's an improvement, sometimes it is a dead end. Modify is appropriate, not improvement.

Your point is wrong. The poor are getting richer, in cash, opportunities, and in available goods (at a lower cost). Cell phones are dirt cheap. Grocery stores have a better selection and sell for lower relative prices.

There is a disparity between the rate of wealth growth of the rich and poor, but the majority of people are better off. But since that doesn't cost the poor, that's hardly a problem.

Are there problems with unemployment and low paying jobs? Yes, but it's not government's job to fix that. We know that when government tries to set prices or wages, things get worse.

You want specifics, then I will give you specifics. Cut taxes so that the combined (Federal, state, local) tax on anything is no more than ten percent. Do away with the income tax and it's reporting requirements. Prevent government from spending more than it takes in, possibly by punishing the legislators. I can give you hundreds more, but all of it is unimportant until taxes get cut way back AND government spends within it's means and no more.

If I say things that are correct and they don't fit your "mental image of the world," maybe that image isn't all that clear.



For American history, I usually work from about 1750 CE on. For Western civilization in general, I usually work from the age of Charlemagne or the Roman republic

Now, what you are talking about is the 20th Century. That just happens to be the century of American central banking, command economy, war as an industry, active intervention in the internal affairs of other nations, massive corporations mostly unbound by local laws, and the birth of "globalism." I put "globalism" in quotes because our "elites" don't mean opening up the world to trade and cultural exchange, they mean control. Specifically deciding what is and is not allowed under what circumstances.

I group these things together because they are closely and intimately related. These are also things that you are not supposed to pay attention to, indeed most of the media constantly tries to distract people from these things. It's just taken for granted that government is supposed to handle those things and we mere citizens aren't supposed to worry.

We're conditioned from birth to accept that government is the first, last, and best solution.

Plot the events and trend lines for yourself. Increase any of these six items and the impact falls mostly on the middle class and then the poor. These changes don't affect the rich as much as those trying to become rich. Changing your financial circumstances becomes harder. Indeed, a society that puts those six factors first "locks out changes," it resists any disruption from within the system. Usually the only change that can happen starts externally. For the elites, this is not a flaw, this is deliberate design.

So when I say that government is not your friend and when the solution to almost all widespread economic problems is to get government out of the picture, it's because I know what it has done.

The truly scary part is "helping the little guy" relies on more government intervention and control. Even though that is what hurt the them to begin with. Let's fix government… with more government!

The problem for the elites is that the economy can't be controlled, not even mostly. Remember when I said that economics was about the flow of value? It's like piping water in a swamp. Yes, you can clean it up the water and direct it where you want, but there is still a lot of water flowing around. The more water, the more it seeps and looks for lower ground. You can only" fix" that by draining all the water and taking away what used to be widely available.

Now let's change that phrasing that a bit.

Yes, you can clean it up the value and direct it where you want, but there is still a lot of value flowing around. The more value, the more it seeps and looks for lower ground. You can only" fix" that by draining all the value and taking away what used to be widely available.

That's a whole new different perspective. Economic activity and free markets create more value. The flow of value and value in the wrong hands threatens the central systems and the elites. As the elites see it, their best interests are served by controlling value and directing it where they see problems. They want their choice to supersede the choices of others, particularly the unwashed masses who don't know when something is being done for the Greater Good.

Build a system insulated from the free market that "controls" value and it will always serve the elites at the expense of everyone else. Manipulate the system, tinker with it, and the elites always come out ahead.



“When has an economist ever been right about anything?!”

Hernando de Soto. The Other Path: The Economic Answer to Terrorism. Almost any of the Chicago school of economics. But the politicos don't like a free market approach because it reduces their power and their ability to pick "winners" and "losers" in a national economy. Of course when things go wrong, that doesn't stop the politicos and pundits from blaming economics in general and the Chicago school specifically. Even if the politicos and technocrats did the exact opposite of what Chicago school of economics experts told them they needed to do.



Meteorology measures and predicts the weather within limits. No one expects meteorology to control the weather. Even in a massive internal environment like a skyscraper, no one uses the tools and techniques to of meteorology to control the "weather" except in the most basic ways. Meteorology is about understanding the weather, not controlling it.

Any meteorologist who told you that he could control the weather is either a fool or a con man.

Likewise, any meteorologist who claimed he could predict the wind by measuring the humidity isn't using the right tools.



The Other Path tells that story. de Soto was part of the international economics team brought in to advise to Chilean government how to grow their economy and how to deal with The Shining Path's promises. It's one of the best examples of practical economics and the Chicago school specifically.



A word of advice. Never argue practical economics with a small "L" libertarian.



A good economist isn't going to promise he can control the flow of value. What he can do is tell you that diverting value reduces value.

Value isn't something that can be generated by political dictate. You have to provide something that people want. Free market competition means that over time, goods and services become better, cheaper, and more widely distributed, even as the overall value flow increases. It's all based on choice without coercion. Voluntary exchanges between consenting adults.

When you get people who don't like the choices others make and see the coercive power of government as a way to change or stop those choices, that's when things get complicated. We effectively outlaw cannabis and cocaine, but nicotine and alcohol are only regulated. Sex is okay in marriage, but not as a commercial transaction. You can make a statue of a bare breasted Liberty leading the charge, but most American beaches require covered breasts.

The economic choices allowed by government to most American citizens are meant to control them, not to free them.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

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Hypocrisy

The issue is not that Trump is a terrible president who abuses his power and the trust people have in him.

The people making the biggest noises about the abuse of government power looked the other way when Obamacare was passed. Or when Obama went after journalists. Or when the deep state went after Trump even before he was elected.

It's not about abuse of power. It's not about moral failings.

It's that a Republican is in office.

Tyranny is okay if it's YOUR GUY calling the shots. Your justification changes, but the issue is that someone else is running things. Freedom doesn't matter if it's the right people for the Greater Good.

GFY.

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Government authority

By the democratic principles we espouse, government cannot have a right that citizens do not grant it. There are certain things that a person has no right to do. A person has no right to murder or rape another. Therefore, people cannot grant government authority to murder and rape. Similarly, no person has the right to forcibly take the property of one person in order to give it to another. Therefore, people cannot grant government authority to do the same thing. If I forcibly took property from one person, for any reason, most people would condemn it as theft, an immoral act. Theft or any other immoral act does not become moral because it is done by government acting on behalf of a consensus or majority vote just as murder or rape does not become a moral act simply because of a consensus or majority vote.
— Walter E. Williams

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Erase the past

One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.
— Golda Meir

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Definining libertarians

“"It's obvious you idiot" doesn't cut it.”

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Defining conservatives

A conservative tends to value economic freedom over personal freedom. Usually this means removing government obstacles to business while advocating a common moral belief system to join people together, even if someone has to sacrifice in the name of that system. In it's more extreme forms, that can mean dictating the personal behavior (and occasionally beliefs) of individuals through government actions. The bottom line and results take precedence over feelings.
— NeoWayland, Pagan•Vigil FAQ
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Defining modern liberals

A modern liberal can range from what used to be called a "progressive" to socialist. Roughly speaking, a modern liberal is all for personal freedom but feels that economic freedom and opportunity should be controlled by government action so that everyone "benefits equally" in the name of "social justice." In it's more extreme forms, it can mean that good intentions and lofty goals are judged over results.
— NeoWayland, Pagan•Vigil FAQ
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“No Liberal Seems Able to Explain to me How Trump is Racist”

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NeoNote — Five suggested books

The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich A. Hayek.

Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy by Thomas Sowell.

Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest & Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics by Henry Hazlitt.

For Good and Evil: The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization by Charles Adams.

The Tragedy of American Compassion by Marvin Olasky.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

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Feminists never notice

Feminists never notice crimes like this, because “violence against women” doesn’t matter when it’s committed by Third World men.
— Robert Stacy McCain, Death by Tourism
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Changing the economy

Ocasio-Cortez’s Chief of Staff: Green New Deal About Changing Economy

Saikat Chakrabarti, chief of staff for New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D.), said that the Green New Deal was not about the climate, but rather about tearing down the economy and building a new one, according to a report from The Washington Post.

"The interesting thing about the Green New Deal is it wasn't originally a climate thing at all," Chakrabarti said, according to the Post. "Do you guys think of it as a climate thing? Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing."

Chakrabarti made the comments during a meeting with Sam Ricketts, the climate director for presidential candidate Jay Inslee.
     — Graham Piro
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“Is the "Green New Deal" Realistic?”

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Underdog

Public pressure had nothing to do with it. Like most great moments in American history, ordinary people chose the right thing and to hell with what the elected officials thought or did. Americans have been doing that for almost 250 years. It's a part of our mythology. How many of our great stories and films are about the underdog taking a stand and winning?
— NeoWayland
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Renewable drawback

Physics of energy generation makes Polis’ 100 percent renewables goal unlikely

Electric grids are complex networks and interconnections that rely on a steady supply of electricity, but that also must maintain extremely close control of the frequency of the alternating current.

America operates on 60 cycles per second, or 60 Hz. That grid frequency can vary only about 2 Hz in either direction, says Griffey. “These are small variations, but if it drops below that you start kicking off loads,” he said. “Bad things happen and your system crashes.”

The grid is so sensitive to these variations that power producers must provide both reserve capacity to deal with sudden load increases and “grid inertia” to keep the frequency stable.

“You have to have inertia on the system that helps buffer load changes, and inertia is provided by turbines that spin. Renewables don’t have inertia,” said Griffey.

Without the electrical inertia available from fuel-powered, constantly-spinning generators, the entire grid can crash unexpectedly if the wind stops blowing while the sun isn’t shining.

This means that renewables like wind and solar will always require backup generators to provide both inertia and reliable power to take up unexpected loads.

And how much backup is required increases with the amount of renewables in the system.

“The more intermittent capacity you have, or the more unreliable capacity you have, you actually have to increase that reserve margin to carry more backup,” Griffey said.

“In the case of an all-wind system you’re going to be carrying 90 percent, give or take, to back it up because [windmills] only provide 5 to 15% of equivalent capacity,” said Griffey.

By equivalent capacity Griffey means that the advertised theoretical capacity of a wind farm of say 30 megawatts, called the “nameplate capacity,” only ever actually produces a fraction of that amount, called the “efficiency factor.”

Other sources place the efficiency factor of wind generators between 25% and 40%.
     — Scott Weiser
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Memo to Google and other Alphabet companies

Dear Google folks,

You don't make the world better by cramming speech and ideas you don't like in the closet.

Your job is not to pass judgment on the worth of any idea.

Your job is to provide access to all ideas so people can make their own choices.

Even if the choices are ideas you don't approve. Especially if you don't approve. People have the right to make up their own mind. Deny that and you deny freedom.

Don't be evil.

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The City That Ate A Country

That's what I've called Hong Kong since the British withdrew.

Watching the latest events, I think I called it right.

It's the most capitalist, competitive city on the face of the planet. And for generations, all those people know that you can't have large scale capitalism without guaranteeing human rights.

China doesn't dare show public protests on television. If the footage made it to the mainland, well, revolution comes to mind.

Popcorn?

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“The War on Backpage.com Is a War on Sex Workers”

“Michael Lacey and James Larkin's website, Backpage.com was seized in April 2018 and they were arrested for allegedly facilitating prostitution. They have maintained their innocence, saying the publishing on their website, which included adult ads and general classifieds, is protected by the First Amendment.”

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"People of color"

"People of color" don't need me to make them victims, they are too busy doing it themselves.
— NeoWayland
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NeoNote — The left today

Public spectacle to bypass the law and suppress dissent.

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NeoNote — HRC and the 2016 election

HRC was not that likable as a candidate. The image of HRC appealed more than the actuality. She's many things, but she's not appealing, probably because she doesn't seem to connect on a personal level. That was something that Bill Clinton excelled at, and the lack in HRC just came off as disappointing.



My claim was that people relied on the polls so much that they couldn't be bothered to double check what was happening.

The election of HRC was already in confusion, not in the least because she manipulated the rules to deny anyone else the nomination. It wasn't the first time that people decided they didn't want her as a candidate. Even her election to the Senate wasn't so much winning as controlling the process to get her a Senate seat as a power base. Without that and without a big push from her husband, she couldn't make it as a candidate. As Bill Clinton's legacy became tainted and Democrats started avoiding him, HRC's "star power" faded.

I don't know why she avoided so many public appearances in 2016, although I suspect it's health issues that she never told people about. That certainly didn't help her.

You can blame Comey, you can blame the LEAKED emails, but HRC was never a strong candidate. She didn't even want to go up against Gore. She didn't dare go up against Bush League in 2004 because she was afraid she be washed up if she lost. In 2007, she got sold out by the Democrat leadership because they didn't want her in the White House. In thirty years, her reasons for running for President was that she was a woman, and it was time. Her whole strategy centered on victimhood while implying that she was owed the Presidency because Bill and others had done her wrong.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

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“Thorium - The Future of Energy?”

Cross posted at www.teknopagan.com/files/Thorium190619.html

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“In Defense of Capitalism”

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NeoNote — Save us from the crusaders

Save us from the crusaders. “Here I come to save the day!”

Whatever form WestCiv and America specifically ends up with, you're still going to have to live with people who disagree and hate everything you stand for. You don't build communities by excluding people you don't like.

Crusading just means "your" side will win for a short while. And the the whole cycle starts again.



Unknown today. In his time, his writings were very well known and pretty influential. He wrote Our Enemy, the State among other things

I cited him in the first place is because a top down approach doesn't work for very long, if it works at all. People resent being told what to do, especially if you force them. I don't have a detailed plan because I don't think that any one person or any one group has all the answers. I think a big, big part of the problem is that we usually phrase our social problems in dualities, this or that. Dualities exclude other choices, it's all or nothing. So when I see phases like "save Western Civilization," it tells me that someone is reinforcing the original problem, not finding a solution.

No matter how good their plan may be, anything based on a dual choice and only a dual choice is doomed. That's the point that Nock tried to make in that article. People won't submit to Greater Authority for Their Own Good. The people you might convince won't listen until after the stuff hits the fan.



To start with, we could enforce the Constitution. The Tenth Amendment clearly outlaws most of the Federal government.

Given how little the Federal government pays attention to the Constitution and it's own laws, I don't think additional restrictions would work.



The Constitution was designed to rein in government. I'd encourage anyone interested to read the Federalist papers and the anti-Federalist papers. Unless the power is specifically granted in the Constitution, the Federal government doesn't have it. Or at least it shouldn't.

The one time that the Constitution was amended to restrict the people was a disaster.

It wasn't until the progressive movement of the late 19th and early 20th that the public perception of limited government turned to expecting an activist government with virtually unlimited powers.

I don't care about SCOTUS in the 20th Century, I'm pretty sure that time travel causes unintended consequences.



See, I'm not sure if adding more government is the solution to bad government. Hmm, I might have said something like that before.

And I don't think trading insults is the way to go. Sometimes winning isn't nearly as important as keeping the other guy from reaching the goal.



Isn't adding things like term limits and engineering the constraints adding to government?

I wasn't talking about insulting the voters. Imagine a boxing match. Which shows more skill, the ability to take and dish out punch after punch? Or the ability not to get hit while letting the other guy hurt himself trying to hurt you?

Which leaves you better able to go to work after?



Yes, the Constitution is a restraint device. But it hasn't worked. Why should another work? This is where you lose me.

Whatever Trump may or may not be, what happens next? Trump is rare, most people can't fight dirty for an extended time. If the only structure we can build depends on fighting dirty for every advantage, how are we better off?



No, it hasn't, not for at least 85 years. Although I think a strong case can be made that it hasn't more than a century. What we've been living under is the illusion that the Constitution is working and that more government is a good thing.

I've argued that term limits are meaningless when the major parties control who gets on the ballot. I've also argued that primary elections divert attention away from the real stakes. CGP Grey has a great video explaining why first part the post voting is not a good thing.

I keep returning to this because I think it is critical. We've been indoctrinated for generations to think that the way to fix a corrupt system is through system management. We've moved beyond the black mold stage, the pieces are so radioactive that using them not only risks our health but also could contaminate any new pieces we add. The benefits of "playing the system" and exploiting others and yes, even fighting dirty and ugly so outweigh long term thinking that there are actually severe disincentives to a long term IPD.

Case in point, and this one isn't even a libertarian thing. The US has more military bases in more foreign nations than any other power in history. Our military spending is bigger than the next thirty nations combined. We actively discourage other nations from establishing their own bases. We meddle in their internal affairs and throw hissy fits when people from other nations buy advertising aimed at our own elections. We bully others and tell ourselves that we fight the really bad bullies "for the little guy."

Why?

Do you think that Trump would stand down? Maybe close ten percent of our overseas bases? Do you think that American intervention leads to a safer world? Would you accept it if other nations did the same to the US?

Why is it bad when the deep state does it, but OK when Trump uses the same tools?



You misunderstand. I'm waiting for the system to rip itself apart. I don't have to work actively against it, I just don't have to patch it up or compensate for it's failure.

One area we do disagree is that the right is somehow more moral than the left. Another is that a system controlled by the right is preferable to one controlled by the left. The right gave us the USA PATRIOT Act, and the left gave us Obamacare. Hard to say at this point which has done the most damage. As for Trump, well, trade and tariffs alone are balanced on a knifeblade between what might possibly work if we are extremely lucky and what might cause disaster so epic as to make the Great Depression and World War II look like last Tuesday.



It's not the voters I don't trust. I don't trust the "options" the voters are allowed to have. You can have your left arm or your right leg cut off, but you must choose one.

I'm willing to let my principles compete without the coercion of the state or what is "morally right." That's more than either the right or the left want, they want to hold a gun to people's heads for Your Own Good.

The right is self-limiting? The War on Drugs. Too big to fail. An ongoing overseas war that for the first time in American history, has soldiers fighting who weren't even born when it started.

While I marginally prefer conservatives, no one and certainly no institution gets a pass because of the label. Branding is a horrific way to govern. What have you done for me lately?



The duality is an illusion. More accurately the duality is a condition required for the system to work. But that doesn't mean the system is a good idea or the best idea. Yet that duality by it's nature locks us into either/or and calls it the best choice.

The system wants us to choose the best baseball team when I want to swim.

My problem is that I see statists on "both" sides, and the right is no less threatening than the left. Your premise is that the right is a better choice and my premise is that statists (any statists) threaten freedom.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

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Power from victimhood

If you teach people to only take power from their victimhood, all you're really doing is teaching them to stay victims.
— NeoWayland
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Greet the sunrise

I also greet the sunrise every day that I can. That's something I learned from my Baptist deacon grandfather. Granted, I do it with a bit more ceremony than he ever did. He was content to do it from the front porch with a cup of coffee.

Oh, and I've been known to dance naked in the light of a full Moon.

You can't embarrass me for following rites and rituals, anymore than you can embarrass a Christian for taking communion or an orthodox Jew for keeping kosher. My faith isn't my politics, and it doesn't matter to me what others think about it. It's between me and the Divine.
— NeoWayland
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NeoNote — Abortion is not about women's rights

Abortion is not about women's rights.

Yes, I know most here do not agree. But there are two things you must consider. First, it's not a right unless the other person has it too. Which means that "reproductive rights" just excluded half the population. Now, that doesn't mean I am saying no abortions. I'm just pointing out that abortion is not a right, any more than designer shoes.

Second, not all women think that abortion is a right. You can denounce them, you call call them misguided, but they don't agree that abortion is a right.

Finally, before you complain about judicial decisions, remember that Roe vs. Wade was a judicial decision that circumvented existing law.



And as I told you before, "these people" see it as a matter of preserving human life. The "opening bid" was Roe vs. Wade. I don't agree with them on everything, but let's get the timeline right.

Like it or not, the rights of the fetus are a part of the discussion. As are the rights of the father. Reproductive "rights" can't trump that, but reproductive privilege certainly does.

If this were a matter of rape, you might have a point. But sex is still (mostly) a consensual activity.



Their passions and their beliefs are just as strong as yours are. They aren't going to accept defeat quietly, anymore than you would.

While neither you nor they will admit it, the other side has some truth.

And in case you hadn't noticed, you have damn little power over your health care now. The left isn't blameless and totally virtuous in this matter, and I wish we would stop pretending that they are. Government is government and power over is power over. No matter how noble the motives, no matter how much it's for the common good, it still takes away choice.



Practically every reason that healthcare is messed up is because of government interference. Whether it is special perks and privileges extended to major pharma firms, or the approval period for new drugs and procedures, or Medicare and Medicaid setting prices for procedures and treatment while exploding costs far beyond inflation, or the active suppression of nurse practitioners, or screwing up insurance so badly that people have no idea what they are paying for or if it would be cheaper not to go through their insurance, the list goes on and on.

It doesn't help that every government fix involves more government.

And why do people keep raising the issue of rape when it comes to women's medical care?

Just to point out the obvious, both Republicans and Democrats have turned women's bodies into battlegrounds where there can be no compromise.



*sighs* The original stat for American women was one in five women will be sexually abused in their lifetime. Abused, not necessarily raped. It's also not accurate.

I don't accept your premise of either/or.

Nor do I accept that sex and abortion are tied to rape. Funny, I don't think that most relationships have to be about who has the power.

If you don't think that Democrats exploit women's bodies, then why is it so important to denounce the women who don't agree?



The original study was the 2007 Campus Sexual Assault study conducted by the National Institute of Justice, a division of the Justice Department. Here's what two of the authors had to say:

As two of the researchers who conducted the Campus Sexual Assault Study from which this number was derived, we feel we need to set the record straight. Although we used the best methodology available to us at the time, there are caveats that make it inappropriate to use the 1-in-5 number in the way it’s being used today, as a baseline or the only statistic when discussing our country’s problem with rape and sexual assault on campus.

Second, the 1-in-5 statistic includes victims of both rape and other forms of sexual assault, such as forced kissing or unwanted groping of sexual body parts—acts that can legally constitute sexual battery and are crimes. To limit the statistic to include rape only, meaning unwanted sexual penetration, the prevalence for senior undergraduate women drops to 14.3%, or 1 in 7 (again, limited to the two universities we studied).

Until someone else mentioned it, I deliberately avoided mentioning rape. I specifically talked about sex, responsibility, and abortion. A casual reading of some of the other responses here (including yours) would seem to excuse a woman's responsibility before the fact because of, you know, rape. Maybe I'm just being extra dense here, but it seems like the only reason rape is introduced into the discussion mentioned is to specifically excuse women from responsibility.

When someone starts offering two and only two alternatives, that's the cue to look for the fourth, fifth, and sixth choices.

There are conservative women who disagree with you on abortion. Why aren't they a part of the discussion?

Why should your morality and choices govern the actions of another? Isn't that what you say would happen if conservatives "win?"

One other thing. Roe vs. Wade. Decided by eight old, rich white dudes and one rich, old black dude.



“You can't circumvent the topic of rape when discussing abortion.”

Why not? Are all or most women raped? Do all or most abortions happen because of rape? Why is it so very very necessary to make this part of the discussion when rape is not usually the reason for abortion?

Again, I am not saying that abortion should be illegal. I am saying that it is more than just the woman involved. I am not arguing over the definition of life. I am not dragging out charts and pictures to show a fetal heartbeat or how it responds to touch at what point in the pregnancy. I am saying that abortion is not a right when it excludes the man. And at a certain point (which I have no idea what is), the fetus.

If you want men to act responsibly, that means their sex partners should too. That means that yeah, women should think about consequences before sex. That means that if abortion is an option, it should happen before the last trimester and probably before the second. And yes, that means that the man should be involved in the decision. If they aren't, then men are just being encouraged to be irresponsible.

Just like what is happening now.

The default is for the man NOT to be involved. The default is for the man to ignore the consequences. Claim that only the woman can choose, and the man doesn't have to choose.

That's why abortion as it is now is not a right.



I am not denying that rape happens, although I do not think it is nearly as common in America as some claim.

I just think that always discussing rape when talking about abortion doesn't do your argument any good. As it is, based on what you say abortions should be performed if the woman was raped and never for any other reason.

Yes, I am arguing. I am saying that abortion isn't a right if even the discussion doesn't have to include the man. And the man is not usually or even mostly a rapist.

That's it.

Everything else is something that others have tried to hang on me.



*shrugs* Your choice has reduced this to either/or.

Here's the inevitable result. You can imprison them and/or kill them, or they can imprison/kill you. Force rules. Might makes right. Submission must happen. Power over, now and forever.

Is that what you want?



*shrugs*

Like I said, reproductive privilege excludes the man. And if a woman excludes the man from the choice, then he has no reason to be responsible. “He is literally just a donor of genetic material…”



Who said I didn't consider women as human beings?

I'm a guy who believes the aunts and grandmothers theory of history.

I seek the Divine in every lady I meet. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes not. Sometimes it's my fault, sometimes not. I knew my first strong woman from before I was born. She learned it from her grandmother, the strongest woman I've ever known (www.neowaylandDOTcom/files/StrongWoman170330.html).

Why do you assume that because I dissent on some things I would throw you to the Christian patriarchy?

Why are you measuring somebody's strength by something granted by politicos?

Again, I haven't said no abortions. I've just said that if it's only the woman's choice, then it's not a right.



For the last fifty years or so, American men have lost rights when it comes to children. Somehow the discussion about abortion always includes vague allegations of rape and domestic violence as if most men did terrible things to women.

Most men don't do these things. We're not guilty, we shouldn't be blamed for what we didn't do and are not likely to do. The presumption of guilt should not shape relationships and sex.

Even now, you are escalating. The discussion started about abortion. Then domestic violence got added. Then rape. And now you added murder.

Everybody shares a right. Privileges exclude people. Only some get privileges. Privileges are not rights, and rights are not privileges.

Now I am not talking about rape, I am not talking about domestic violence. I am not talking about what happened 100 years ago or last week in France.

What I am saying is that if the baseline of social behavior now means that a man will not be involved the decision to have an abortion, then it is a privilege, not a right



You keep assuming that I have their beliefs.

I don't.

I'm saying that it is not about rights when only one person is allowed to decide.



Then if the man's desires don't count, does that mean they don't owe child support?



"Want" doesn't have anything to do with it.

Accepting responsibility does.

But not if they are denied the choice.



Then give me numbers instead of allegations.

At the same time, I'll point out that by excluding men from the decision, they never have to be responsible. Under the circumstances, the surprise is not that some men flake out. It's that others don't.



It's not just "men" who have this opinion. That's the point. Women don't all agree with you and it's foolish to pretend that they do.

My first sex rule is "Consenting adults only.". The first derivation of that is "Your desire does not control another's choice."

I absolutely agree that children need happy families. I also think they need male and female role models, but that is another discussion.

I think the power and the responsibility doesn't just lie with men.



I do know that for a while, CA had a law that if the mother published the name of a man she claimed was the father a certain number of times, that man was obligated to pay support even if genetic testing showed there was no relationship. I know a few guys who got caught in that trap.



I am not saying most women are irresponsible.

I am saying that having sex without considering the consequences with your partner is irresponsible.

I'm saying that our "system" of excluding men from the decision about abortion encourages men to be irresponsible and guilt free.

Do I think that birth control is a good thing? Yes.

Do I think that abortion is a right? No, not if it doesn't include the man.

Do I think that late term abortion is a good thing? Definitely not in the third trimester and I would question any that happen in the second.

Do I think that men can be unfeeling jerks more concerned with their own pleasure than their partner's feelings? Yes, especially if they are not held responsible for their actions. If the man isn't allowed to talk about abortion with his partner, why should he care? That is the society we live in. He's encouraged to think it's the woman's fault if she gets pregnant.

The hook-up culture certainly hasn't helped. If the guy doesn't have to work at seduction, why should he pay attention to her feelings?

I still don't think that rape should be part of the discussion about abortion because most abortions happen without rape. The only reason I can see for treating rape as the norm for abortions is to silence criticism about abortion.

If you want to shut people out of the conversation for whatever reason, that is your choice. Just don't expect them to accept your "rights."

If you want to blame all of this on men, that's your choice too. But most of them will resent you for it because they didn't do what you are accusing them of.

So that's where we are. Because I said abortion wasn't a right, you've said I am anti-woman and a bad Pagan and a bad person. But I've not prevented abortions. I've not voted against abortion. I'm not arguing against abortion. All I've said is that abortion is not a right. I haven't tried to turn back the clock.

If you really want to fight what's happening in these states, you're going to have to find a justification other than the "right to an abortion." I'm being honest with you. I'm not attacking you and I am certainly not attacking women as a group. I am telling truth. It's what I do.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

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If the American government were a car…

If the American government were a car, you would have patched three tires, overhauled the transmission, replaced the electrical system, and washed the windows. Meanwhile it still leaks oil and has a disturbing habit of catching fire every once in a while.
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Selective company problems

None of these companies has a problem operating in European countries with much more restrictive abortion laws than those in the US, nor Arab nations which ban it outright. Disney has a resort in China, not a country known for its liberal approach to human rights. But apparently Georgia is now beyond the pale.
— Tim Newman, Personae non gratae

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Trust people


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Dead white male

Marx is a dead white male!
— anonymous
tip of the hat to Minatina

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Break the myth

Let's break the myth that government is the first, best, and last solution.
— NeoWayland
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Allegations

The allegations against Trump described the Clintons' behavior.
— NeoWayland
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Between you and paradise

Everywhere she goes, evil men die, and we cheer her for it. And she grows more sure that she is good and right. She believes that her destiny is to build a better world for everyone. If you believed it; if you truly believed it, would you not kill anyone who came between you and paradise?
tip of the hat to Panam Post

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Trump's one virtue

Trump's one virtue is that he's a disruptor.
— NeoWayland
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Practical feminism

In the event of a flat tire feminism will be suspended until a man has changed the tire.
— Kirby McCain

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NeoNote — Biblical morality

Then I choose not to follow a Biblical morality.

Read More...
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“Alyssa Milano's SEX STRIKE? Feminist Abstinence Fail”

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Fear mongering

Democrats have been fear mongering too. Especially since Trump announced.

I'm not going to say who is right or wrong, but I am going to point out that both major parties have done fear mongering over decades. If that is one behavior you're questioning, you should ask why is it bad when "They" do it and good when "We" do it?

I too get tired of the dualism. But I don't see it limited to one party.

My blocked follower on this site would tell you that I am oversimplifying. I don't think I am. Both parties do it. Both parties are contributing to the problem. Both have media allies who sing their praises.
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Complicating

Two criticisms of my libertarian ideas is that they are juvenile and too simple.

I'm frequently told by conservatives, “I used to be libertarian but I grew out of it.”

Let's not forget “The world doesn't work like that. We have to live in the real world.”

Is this really how the World works? Or is this how the self-appointed “experts” want you to think how the World works?

Let's take the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. Remember that the Constitution limits government, not people.

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

So is there anything there about barrel length, how big the magazine is, or if it's a scary black color or not?

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that every Federal gun law violates the Second Amendment.

Yes, that reading is subject to interpretation. By experts determined to prove that their expertise should trump your common sense.

Don't you believe me? Toss in the Tenth.

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Taken together, it's hard to dispute that every Federal gun law is invalid. Nothing about using guns only for hunting. Nothing about gun registries or background checks. Nothing about which guns can be sold to what people.

And that raises some interesting questions. Because if the experts are overcomplicating gun laws and regulations to get around the Constitution, what else might they be doing?

Except for the much abused interstate commerce clause, there is nothing in the Constitution that grants the Federal government power and authority over medications or intoxicants.

There is nothing that gives the Federal government power and authority over education.

There is nothing that gives the Federal government power and authority over banking, stock markets, and commodity markets.

Chances are if the Federal government claims authority over speech, elections, commerce, it doesn't have it.

So why do we think it does?

Because that's what the politicos, the technocrats, and the experts have told us.

The people don't benefit from complications. The experts do.

Let's make this basic. You know what a car should do. You know that the more extras you throw in, the more expensive the car is to own and operate. You know that a more expensive car is harder to design and is full of trade-offs. That last boost in performance is the most expensive. So you have to make a choice. Do you want something reliable that you can afford, or do you want to impress people?

Make it legislation instead of a car and that is the choice of the average Congress critter.

Do you want something that can do the job, or do you want to make yourself look important?

Experts complicate things that should be simple.

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Twitter

I've started using my long dormant Twitter account. There's nothing exciting there, just "political soundbites." I don't intend to follow anyone or comment on their tweets. I'm going to use Twitter my way.

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☆ Dear Democrats

Hi there. I'm called NeoWayland and I'm libertarian. That means I think there is too much government.

I'm not a Trump supporter. I don't like him, I don't trust him, and I don't think he's good for liberty or the country. But I've also been watching the man for a long, long time. There's an exchange in the original Pirates of the Caribbean film.

You are without doubt the worst pirate I've ever heard of.

But you have heard of me.

And that's where we are, folks. Trump may be the worst president you ever heard of. But you have heard of him. And he plays the press better than almost anyone else on the planet.

Think about it, Trump has made several careers over several decades doing exactly that. He keeps turning bad press into press for his goals. Then he gets most of what he wants. He plays the long shots, more often than not he gets the payoff. Trump has spent his life turning obstacles and adversity into triumphs.

No, I don't like him. No, I don't trust him. But I can't deny Trump's success. The orange hair clown is a distraction. He plays a character to divert your attention, but underneath there is a first class operator and a pretty good executive.

Any of this is obvious to any one who bothered to do the research. That brings us up to just before the 2016 election.

You don't have to take my word for it, do some digging. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama conspired to make HRC President. I'm not going to go over the shenanigans and rules lawyering that leveled the opposition in their party. It has it's roots in the superdelegates, and you don't need my instructions on how to clean your own house.

But HRC decided to go one step further. She decided that she needed a Republican clown to defeat. She picked Donald Trump. Without doing her homework, she bought into the image that he'd been selling for decades. HRC called in some favors. With Obama's help, Hillary set up a backup plan using ideas that have been very successful for the Democrats in the past. They tried to set up a false narrative that would give Democrats Absolute Moral Authority to denounce Trump and all Republicans for all time.

Or at least for the next eight years.

Yes, you read that right. Hillary Clinton picked Donald Trump to lose the election. And she called in every political marker she had to make sure he got the Republican nomination.

Hillary Clinton did not do her homework. Nobody in her camp did. They forgot that Trump turns adversity into advantage.

This isn't the first time Democrats have relied on false narratives. The Republicans are the party of Lincoln. Republicans were responsible for passing the 1964 Civil Rights Act over strong Democrat opposition. But because Republicans did not give special privilege and recognition to the designated victim class, they were "racist." In the public perception, "equal rights" got redefined into preferential treatment. But only for certain groups.

The later waves of feminism are way too complicated to untangle here. Feminism changed into a variation of the same theme. Preferential treatment AND special privilege on demand and as defined by certain very vocal women who claimed to speak for all. If a Republican politico did not support that instantly and without question, well, naturally they were misogynist and anti-woman. Never mind that the definitions constantly changed, or that the "rights" weren't always practical or even possible. No, certain women had to have what they demanded when they demanded and without consequence. Or the Republicans were keeping women down.

And then there is climate change. I've dealt with it extensively elsewhere. It doesn't use science, it uses the politics of victimhood. And you are not allowed to dissent.

There are other false narratives. But these are big ones from the Democrats. Republicans have their own, but I'm not going into those here.

Since at least the 1970s, Democrats have relied on the The Big Lie to manufacture narratives giving Absolute Moral Authority to denounce Republicans. Sometimes I wonder if the Democrat and progressive elites have forgotten how to do anything else.

And that brings us to the 2016 election aftermath. There was the narrative, Trump had colluded with Russians to steal the election. He was a traitor and a fool. All his supporters were uneducated and unsophisticated saps who Trump had exploited. Surely the virtuous Democrats could prevail against Orange Man Bad.

This time there was a difference. Any Trump watcher could tell you that Trump wasn't a politician. Most especially Trump wasn't the usual Republican politico who avoided political conflict in the name of bipartisanship. He couldn't be shamed or guilted into anything. Go after Trump publicly and he would hit back harder than you ever dreamed. Later he might call you up after and invite you to dinner and drinks, but that was after the hand was played.

This was Trump's background before he was elected.

And after? He was the Chief Executive. He just cleaned house a bit, put the right people in place at the right time, and was patient. He trusted in the American people and the rule of law. That law was on his side. All Trump had to do was the right thing. Talk about irony.

It could have been different if Democrats had gone after Trump for things he actually had done. Eminent domain abuses come to mind.

But no, everything was bet on one spin of the wheel. Democrats forgot that Trump built casinos. A well-run house never loses as long as it obeys the law and doesn't mess with the odds too much. All he had to do was the right thing.

Trump didn't "win" this one because of his virtue. He won this one because he played by the official rules. Not the unspoken rules that Washington has been using, but the actual official ones based in law and the faith of the American people. Because the Democrat elites didn't play by those rules, it gave Trump the Moral Authority to do what comes next. Not Absolute Moral Authority, but none of the Democrat leadership can challenge Trump when he goes after those who tried to take him down. Just for doing his job, Trump is going to be that much stronger in 2020.

So the Democrats are discredited.

If there is one piece of advice I hope you take from this, it's that you need to abandon the false narratives. Be true to your beliefs. By all means call Republicans out for breaking their word, but do the same for your own leadership. Don't look the other way because somebody famous claims to support your goals. Words matter, actions matter more, intentions don't. Don't take their word for it, see what they actually do.

If you are going to claim moral authority, you need to be true to your own morality.
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NeoNote – “What I do is not up to you.”

Not what they wear, not who they live with, not what they eat, not what happens in the bedroom, not what they read, not how they do it, and not who they do it with.

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FDR and the IRS

My father may have been the originator of the concept of employing the IRS as a weapon of political retribution.
— Elliott Roosevelt

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“I Built a City Of Lawless Anarchy and This Happened - Citystate”

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“Green New Deal: Fact versus Fiction”

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“CBS STOKES Political Division: The Good Fight”

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Language

Just to point out the obvious, previously language changed without being mandated or legally sanctioned or morally correct. It worked because people used it and decided that it worked.
— NeoWayland
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“Preferred Pronouns or Prison”

““He.” “She.” “They.” Have you ever given a moment’s thought to your everyday use of these pronouns? It has probably never occurred to you that those words could be misused. Or that doing so could cost you your business or your job – or even your freedom. Journalist Abigail Shrier explains how this happened and why it's become a major free speech issue.”

Read More...
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“The Debunkers Save Libertarianism”

From FreedomToons

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NeoNote — I am not.

You seem to think I am defending the Republican Party.

Read More...
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“John McWhorter: America Has Never Been Less Racist”

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“War Is A Racket” by Major General Smedley Butler

War Is A Racket

by Major General Smedley Butler






Chapter One - War Is A Racket


War is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.

How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?

Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few -- the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.

And what is this bill?

This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.

For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out.

Again they are choosing sides. France and Russia met and agreed to stand side by side. Italy and Austria hurried to make a similar agreement. Poland and Germany cast sheep's eyes at each other, forgetting for the nonce [one unique occasion], their dispute over the Polish Corridor.

The assassination of King Alexander of Jugoslavia [Yugoslavia] complicated matters. Jugoslavia and Hungary, long bitter enemies, were almost at each other's throats. Italy was ready to jump in. But France was waiting. So was Czechoslovakia. All of them are looking ahead to war. Not the people -- not those who fight and pay and die -- only those who foment wars and remain safely at home to profit.

There are 40,000,000 men under arms in the world today, and our statesmen and diplomats have the temerity to say that war is not in the making.

Hell's bells! Are these 40,000,000 men being trained to be dancers?

Not in Italy, to be sure. Premier Mussolini knows what they are being trained for. He, at least, is frank enough to speak out. Only the other day, Il Duce in "International Conciliation," the publication of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said:

“And above all, Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace. . . . War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the people who have the courage to meet it.”

Undoubtedly Mussolini means exactly what he says. His well-trained army, his great fleet of planes, and even his navy are ready for war -- anxious for it, apparently. His recent stand at the side of Hungary in the latter's dispute with Jugoslavia showed that. And the hurried mobilization of his troops on the Austrian border after the assassination of Dollfuss showed it too. There are others in Europe too whose sabre rattling presages war, sooner or later.

Herr Hitler, with his rearming Germany and his constant demands for more and more arms, is an equal if not greater menace to peace. France only recently increased the term of military service for its youth from a year to eighteen months.

Yes, all over, nations are camping in their arms. The mad dogs of Europe are on the loose. In the Orient the maneuvering is more adroit. Back in 1904, when Russia and Japan fought, we kicked out our old friends the Russians and backed Japan. Then our very generous international bankers were financing Japan. Now the trend is to poison us against the Japanese. What does the "open door" policy to China mean to us? Our trade with China is about $90,000,000 a year. Or the Philippine Islands? We have spent about $600,000,000 in the Philippines in thirty-five years and we (our bankers and industrialists and speculators) have private investments there of less than $200,000,000.

Then, to save that China trade of about $90,000,000, or to protect these private investments of less than $200,000,000 in the Philippines, we would be all stirred up to hate Japan and go to war -- a war that might well cost us tens of billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of lives of Americans, and many more hundreds of thousands of physically maimed and mentally unbalanced men.

Of course, for this loss, there would be a compensating profit -- fortunes would be made. Millions and billions of dollars would be piled up. By a few. Munitions makers. Bankers. Ship builders. Manufacturers. Meat packers. Speculators. They would fare well.

Yes, they are getting ready for another war. Why shouldn't they? It pays high dividends.

But what does it profit the men who are killed? What does it profit their mothers and sisters, their wives and their sweethearts? What does it profit their children?

What does it profit anyone except the very few to whom war means huge profits?

Yes, and what does it profit the nation?

Take our own case. Until 1898 we didn't own a bit of territory outside the mainland of North America. At that time our national debt was a little more than $1,000,000,000. Then we became "internationally minded." We forgot, or shunted aside, the advice of the Father of our country. We forgot George Washington's warning about "entangling alliances." We went to war. We acquired outside territory. At the end of the World War period, as a direct result of our fiddling in international affairs, our national debt had jumped to over $25,000,000,000. Our total favorable trade balance during the twenty-five-year period was about $24,000,000,000. Therefore, on a purely bookkeeping basis, we ran a little behind year for year, and that foreign trade might well have been ours without the wars.

It would have been far cheaper (not to say safer) for the average American who pays the bills to stay out of foreign entanglements. For a very few this racket, like bootlegging and other underworld rackets, brings fancy profits, but the cost of operations is always transferred to the people -- who do not profit.



Chapter Two - Who Makes The Profits?


The World War, rather our brief participation in it, has cost the United States some $52,000,000,000. Figure it out. That means $400 to every American man, woman, and child. And we haven't paid the debt yet. We are paying it, our children will pay it, and our children's children probably still will be paying the cost of that war.

The normal profits of a business concern in the United States are six, eight, ten, and sometimes twelve percent. But war-time profits -- ah! that is another matter -- twenty, sixty, one hundred, three hundred, and even eighteen hundred per cent -- the sky is the limit. All that traffic will bear. Uncle Sam has the money. Let's get it.

Of course, it isn't put that crudely in war time. It is dressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country, and "we must all put our shoulders to the wheel," but the profits jump and leap and skyrocket -- and are safely pocketed. Let's just take a few examples:

Take our friends the du Ponts, the powder people -- didn't one of them testify before a Senate committee recently that their powder won the war? Or saved the world for democracy? Or something? How did they do in the war? They were a patriotic corporation. Well, the average earnings of the du Ponts for the period 1910 to 1914 were $6,000,000 a year. It wasn't much, but the du Ponts managed to get along on it. Now let's look at their average yearly profit during the war years, 1914 to 1918. Fifty-eight million dollars a year profit we find! Nearly ten times that of normal times, and the profits of normal times were pretty good. An increase in profits of more than 950 per cent.

Take one of our little steel companies that patriotically shunted aside the making of rails and girders and bridges to manufacture war materials. Well, their 1910-1914 yearly earnings averaged $6,000,000. Then came the war. And, like loyal citizens, Bethlehem Steel promptly turned to munitions making. Did their profits jump -- or did they let Uncle Sam in for a bargain? Well, their 1914-1918 average was $49,000,000 a year!

Or, let's take United States Steel. The normal earnings during the five-year period prior to the war were $105,000,000 a year. Not bad. Then along came the war and up went the profits. The average yearly profit for the period 1914-1918 was $240,000,000. Not bad.

There you have some of the steel and powder earnings. Let's look at something else. A little copper, perhaps. That always does well in war times.

Anaconda, for instance. Average yearly earnings during the pre-war years 1910-1914 of $10,000,000. During the war years 1914-1918 profits leaped to $34,000,000 per year.

Or Utah Copper. Average of $5,000,000 per year during the 1910-1914 period. Jumped to an average of $21,000,000 yearly profits for the war period.

Let's group these five, with three smaller companies. The total yearly average profits of the pre-war period 1910-1914 were $137,480,000. Then along came the war. The average yearly profits for this group skyrocketed to $408,300,000.

A little increase in profits of approximately 200 per cent.

Does war pay? It paid them. But they aren't the only ones. There are still others. Let's take leather.

For the three-year period before the war the total profits of Central Leather Company were $3,500,000. That was approximately $1,167,000 a year. Well, in 1916 Central Leather returned a profit of $15,000,000, a small increase of 1,100 per cent. That's all. The General Chemical Company averaged a profit for the three years before the war of a little over $800,000 a year. Came the war, and the profits jumped to $12,000,000. a leap of 1,400 per cent.

International Nickel Company -- and you can't have a war without nickel -- showed an increase in profits from a mere average of $4,000,000 a year to $73,000,000 yearly. Not bad? An increase of more than 1,700 per cent.

American Sugar Refining Company averaged $2,000,000 a year for the three years before the war. In 1916 a profit of $6,000,000 was recorded.

Listen to Senate Document No. 259. The Sixty-Fifth Congress, reporting on corporate earnings and government revenues. Considering the profits of 122 meat packers, 153 cotton manufacturers, 299 garment makers, 49 steel plants, and 340 coal producers during the war. Profits under 25 per cent were exceptional. For instance the coal companies made between 100 per cent and 7,856 per cent on their capital stock during the war. The Chicago packers doubled and tripled their earnings.

And let us not forget the bankers who financed the great war. If anyone had the cream of the profits it was the bankers. Being partnerships rather than incorporated organizations, they do not have to report to stockholders. And their profits were as secret as they were immense. How the bankers made their millions and their billions I do not know, because those little secrets never become public -- even before a Senate investigatory body.

But here's how some of the other patriotic industrialists and speculators chiseled their way into war profits.

Take the shoe people. They like war. It brings business with abnormal profits. They made huge profits on sales abroad to our allies. Perhaps, like the munitions manufacturers and armament makers, they also sold to the enemy. For a dollar is a dollar whether it comes from Germany or from France. But they did well by Uncle Sam too. For instance, they sold Uncle Sam 35,000,000 pairs of hobnailed service shoes. There were 4,000,000 soldiers. Eight pairs, and more, to a soldier. My regiment during the war had only one pair to a soldier. Some of these shoes probably are still in existence. They were good shoes. But when the war was over Uncle Sam has a matter of 25,000,000 pairs left over. Bought -- and paid for. Profits recorded and pocketed.

There was still lots of leather left. So the leather people sold your Uncle Sam hundreds of thousands of McClellan saddles for the cavalry. But there wasn't any American cavalry overseas! Somebody had to get rid of this leather, however. Somebody had to make a profit in it -- so we had a lot of McClellan saddles. And we probably have those yet.

Also somebody had a lot of mosquito netting. They sold your Uncle Sam 20,000,000 mosquito nets for the use of the soldiers overseas. I suppose the boys were expected to put it over them as they tried to sleep in muddy trenches -- one hand scratching cooties on their backs and the other making passes at scurrying rats. Well, not one of these mosquito nets ever got to France!

Anyhow, these thoughtful manufacturers wanted to make sure that no soldier would be without his mosquito net, so 40,000,000 additional yards of mosquito netting were sold to Uncle Sam.

There were pretty good profits in mosquito netting in those days, even if there were no mosquitoes in France. I suppose, if the war had lasted just a little longer, the enterprising mosquito netting manufacturers would have sold your Uncle Sam a couple of consignments of mosquitoes to plant in France so that more mosquito netting would be in order.

Airplane and engine manufacturers felt they, too, should get their just profits out of this war. Why not? Everybody else was getting theirs. So $1,000,000,000 -- count them if you live long enough -- was spent by Uncle Sam in building airplane engines that never left the ground! Not one plane, or motor, out of the billion dollars worth ordered, ever got into a battle in France. Just the same the manufacturers made their little profit of 30, 100, or perhaps 300 per cent.

Undershirts for soldiers cost 14¢ [cents] to make and uncle Sam paid 30¢ to 40¢ each for them -- a nice little profit for the undershirt manufacturer. And the stocking manufacturer and the uniform manufacturers and the cap manufacturers and the steel helmet manufacturers -- all got theirs.

Why, when the war was over some 4,000,000 sets of equipment -- knapsacks and the things that go to fill them -- crammed warehouses on this side. Now they are being scrapped because the regulations have changed the contents. But the manufacturers collected their wartime profits on them -- and they will do it all over again the next time.

There were lots of brilliant ideas for profit making during the war.

One very versatile patriot sold Uncle Sam twelve dozen 48-inch wrenches. Oh, they were very nice wrenches. The only trouble was that there was only one nut ever made that was large enough for these wrenches. That is the one that holds the turbines at Niagara Falls. Well, after Uncle Sam had bought them and the manufacturer had pocketed the profit, the wrenches were put on freight cars and shunted all around the United States in an effort to find a use for them. When the Armistice was signed it was indeed a sad blow to the wrench manufacturer. He was just about to make some nuts to fit the wrenches. Then he planned to sell these, too, to your Uncle Sam.

Still another had the brilliant idea that colonels shouldn't ride in automobiles, nor should they even ride on horseback. One has probably seen a picture of Andy Jackson riding in a buckboard. Well, some 6,000 buckboards were sold to Uncle Sam for the use of colonels! Not one of them was used. But the buckboard manufacturer got his war profit.

The shipbuilders felt they should come in on some of it, too. They built a lot of ships that made a lot of profit. More than $3,000,000,000 worth. Some of the ships were all right. But $635,000,000 worth of them were made of wood and wouldn't float! The seams opened up -- and they sank. We paid for them, though. And somebody pocketed the profits.

It has been estimated by statisticians and economists and researchers that the war cost your Uncle Sam $52,000,000,000. Of this sum, $39,000,000,000 was expended in the actual war itself. This expenditure yielded $16,000,000,000 in profits. That is how the 21,000 billionaires and millionaires got that way. This $16,000,000,000 profits is not to be sneezed at. It is quite a tidy sum. And it went to a very few.

The Senate (Nye) committee probe of the munitions industry and its wartime profits, despite its sensational disclosures, hardly has scratched the surface.

Even so, it has had some effect. The State Department has been studying "for some time" methods of keeping out of war. The War Department suddenly decides it has a wonderful plan to spring. The Administration names a committee -- with the War and Navy Departments ably represented under the chairmanship of a Wall Street speculator -- to limit profits in war time. To what extent isn't suggested. Hmmm. Possibly the profits of 300 and 600 and 1,600 per cent of those who turned blood into gold in the World War would be limited to some smaller figure.

Apparently, however, the plan does not call for any limitation of losses -- that is, the losses of those who fight the war. As far as I have been able to ascertain there is nothing in the scheme to limit a soldier to the loss of but one eye, or one arm, or to limit his wounds to one or two or three. Or to limit the loss of life.

There is nothing in this scheme, apparently, that says not more than 12 per cent of a regiment shall be wounded in battle, or that not more than 7 per cent in a division shall be killed.

Of course, the committee cannot be bothered with such trifling matters.



Chapter Three - Who Pays The Bills?


Who provides the profits -- these nice little profits of 20, 100, 300, 1,500 and 1,800 per cent? We all pay them -- in taxation. We paid the bankers their profits when we bought Liberty Bonds at $100.00 and sold them back at $84 or $86 to the bankers. These bankers collected $100 plus. It was a simple manipulation. The bankers control the security marts. It was easy for them to depress the price of these bonds. Then all of us -- the people -- got frightened and sold the bonds at $84 or $86. The bankers bought them. Then these same bankers stimulated a boom and government bonds went to par -- and above. Then the bankers collected their profits.

But the soldier pays the biggest part of the bill.

If you don't believe this, visit the American cemeteries on the battlefields abroad. Or visit any of the veteran's hospitals in the United States. On a tour of the country, in the midst of which I am at the time of this writing, I have visited eighteen government hospitals for veterans. In them are a total of about 50,000 destroyed men -- men who were the pick of the nation eighteen years ago. The very able chief surgeon at the government hospital; at Milwaukee, where there are 3,800 of the living dead, told me that mortality among veterans is three times as great as among those who stayed at home.

Boys with a normal viewpoint were taken out of the fields and offices and factories and classrooms and put into the ranks. There they were remolded; they were made over; they were made to "about face"; to regard murder as the order of the day. They were put shoulder to shoulder and, through mass psychology, they were entirely changed. We used them for a couple of years and trained them to think nothing at all of killing or of being killed.

Then, suddenly, we discharged them and told them to make another "about face" ! This time they had to do their own readjustment, sans [without] mass psychology, sans officers' aid and advice and sans nation-wide propaganda. We didn't need them any more. So we scattered them about without any "three-minute" or "Liberty Loan" speeches or parades. Many, too many, of these fine young boys are eventually destroyed, mentally, because they could not make that final "about face" alone.

In the government hospital in Marion, Indiana, 1,800 of these boys are in pens! Five hundred of them in a barracks with steel bars and wires all around outside the buildings and on the porches. These already have been mentally destroyed. These boys don't even look like human beings. Oh, the looks on their faces! Physically, they are in good shape; mentally, they are gone.

There are thousands and thousands of these cases, and more and more are coming in all the time. The tremendous excitement of the war, the sudden cutting off of that excitement -- the young boys couldn't stand it.

That's a part of the bill. So much for the dead -- they have paid their part of the war profits. So much for the mentally and physically wounded -- they are paying now their share of the war profits. But the others paid, too -- they paid with heartbreaks when they tore themselves away from their firesides and their families to don the uniform of Uncle Sam -- on which a profit had been made. They paid another part in the training camps where they were regimented and drilled while others took their jobs and their places in the lives of their communities. The paid for it in the trenches where they shot and were shot; where they were hungry for days at a time; where they slept in the mud and the cold and in the rain -- with the moans and shrieks of the dying for a horrible lullaby.

But don't forget -- the soldier paid part of the dollars and cents bill too.

Up to and including the Spanish-American War, we had a prize system, and soldiers and sailors fought for money. During the Civil War they were paid bonuses, in many instances, before they went into service. The government, or states, paid as high as $1,200 for an enlistment. In the Spanish-American War they gave prize money. When we captured any vessels, the soldiers all got their share -- at least, they were supposed to. Then it was found that we could reduce the cost of wars by taking all the prize money and keeping it, but conscripting [drafting] the soldier anyway. Then soldiers couldn't bargain for their labor, Everyone else could bargain, but the soldier couldn't.

Napoleon once said,

“All men are enamored of decorations . . . they positively hunger for them.”

So by developing the Napoleonic system -- the medal business -- the government learned it could get soldiers for less money, because the boys liked to be decorated. Until the Civil War there were no medals. Then the Congressional Medal of Honor was handed out. It made enlistments easier. After the Civil War no new medals were issued until the Spanish-American War.

In the World War, we used propaganda to make the boys accept conscription. They were made to feel ashamed if they didn't join the army.

So vicious was this war propaganda that even God was brought into it. With few exceptions our clergymen joined in the clamor to kill, kill, kill. To kill the Germans. God is on our side . . . it is His will that the Germans be killed.

And in Germany, the good pastors called upon the Germans to kill the allies . . . to please the same God. That was a part of the general propaganda, built up to make people war conscious and murder conscious.

Beautiful ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out to die. This was the "war to end all wars." This was the "war to make the world safe for democracy." No one mentioned to them, as they marched away, that their going and their dying would mean huge war profits. No one told these American soldiers that they might be shot down by bullets made by their own brothers here. No one told them that the ships on which they were going to cross might be torpedoed by submarines built with United States patents. They were just told it was to be a "glorious adventure."

Thus, having stuffed patriotism down their throats, it was decided to make them help pay for the war, too. So, we gave them the large salary of $30 a month.

All they had to do for this munificent sum was to leave their dear ones behind, give up their jobs, lie in swampy trenches, eat canned willy (when they could get it) and kill and kill and kill . . . and be killed.

But wait!

Half of that wage (just a little more than a riveter in a shipyard or a laborer in a munitions factory safe at home made in a day) was promptly taken from him to support his dependents, so that they would not become a charge upon his community. Then we made him pay what amounted to accident insurance -- something the employer pays for in an enlightened state -- and that cost him $6 a month. He had less than $9 a month left.

Then, the most crowning insolence of all -- he was virtually blackjacked into paying for his own ammunition, clothing, and food by being made to buy Liberty Bonds. Most soldiers got no money at all on pay days.

We made them buy Liberty Bonds at $100 and then we bought them back -- when they came back from the war and couldn't find work -- at $84 and $86. And the soldiers bought about $2,000,000,000 worth of these bonds!

Yes, the soldier pays the greater part of the bill. His family pays too. They pay it in the same heart-break that he does. As he suffers, they suffer. At nights, as he lay in the trenches and watched shrapnel burst about him, they lay home in their beds and tossed sleeplessly -- his father, his mother, his wife, his sisters, his brothers, his sons, and his daughters.

When he returned home minus an eye, or minus a leg or with his mind broken, they suffered too -- as much as and even sometimes more than he. Yes, and they, too, contributed their dollars to the profits of the munitions makers and bankers and shipbuilders and the manufacturers and the speculators made. They, too, bought Liberty Bonds and contributed to the profit of the bankers after the Armistice in the hocus-pocus of manipulated Liberty Bond prices.

And even now the families of the wounded men and of the mentally broken and those who never were able to readjust themselves are still suffering and still paying.



Chapter Four - How To Smash This Racket!


Well, it's a racket, all right.

A few profit -- and the many pay. But there is a way to stop it. You can't end it by disarmament conferences. You can't eliminate it by peace parleys at Geneva. Well-meaning but impractical groups can't wipe it out by resolutions. It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war.

The only way to smash this racket is to conscript capital and industry and labor before the nations manhood can be conscripted. One month before the Government can conscript the young men of the nation -- it must conscript capital and industry and labor. Let the officers and the directors and the high-powered executives of our armament factories and our munitions makers and our shipbuilders and our airplane builders and the manufacturers of all the other things that provide profit in war time as well as the bankers and the speculators, be conscripted -- to get $30 a month, the same wage as the lads in the trenches get.

Let the workers in these plants get the same wages -- all the workers, all presidents, all executives, all directors, all managers, all bankers -- yes, and all generals and all admirals and all officers and all politicians and all government office holders -- everyone in the nation be restricted to a total monthly income not to exceed that paid to the soldier in the trenches!

Let all these kings and tycoons and masters of business and all those workers in industry and all our senators and governors and majors pay half of their monthly $30 wage to their families and pay war risk insurance and buy Liberty Bonds.

Why shouldn't they?

They aren't running any risk of being killed or of having their bodies mangled or their minds shattered. They aren't sleeping in muddy trenches. They aren't hungry. The soldiers are!

Give capital and industry and labor thirty days to think it over and you will find, by that time, there will be no war. That will smash the war racket -- that and nothing else.

Maybe I am a little too optimistic. Capital still has some say. So capital won't permit the taking of the profit out of war until the people -- those who do the suffering and still pay the price -- make up their minds that those they elect to office shall do their bidding, and not that of the profiteers.

Another step necessary in this fight to smash the war racket is the limited plebiscite to determine whether a war should be declared. A plebiscite not of all the voters but merely of those who would be called upon to do the fighting and dying. There wouldn't be very much sense in having a 76-year-old president of a munitions factory or the flat-footed head of an international banking firm or the cross-eyed manager of a uniform manufacturing plant -- all of whom see visions of tremendous profits in the event of war -- voting on whether the nation should go to war or not. They never would be called upon to shoulder arms -- to sleep in a trench and to be shot. Only those who would be called upon to risk their lives for their country should have the privilege of voting to determine whether the nation should go to war.

There is ample precedent for restricting the voting to those affected. Many of our states have restrictions on those permitted to vote. In most, it is necessary to be able to read and write before you may vote. In some, you must own property. It would be a simple matter each year for the men coming of military age to register in their communities as they did in the draft during the World War and be examined physically. Those who could pass and who would therefore be called upon to bear arms in the event of war would be eligible to vote in a limited plebiscite. They should be the ones to have the power to decide -- and not a Congress few of whose members are within the age limit and fewer still of whom are in physical condition to bear arms. Only those who must suffer should have the right to vote.

A third step in this business of smashing the war racket is to make certain that our military forces are truly forces for defense only.

At each session of Congress the question of further naval appropriations comes up. The swivel-chair admirals of Washington (and there are always a lot of them) are very adroit lobbyists. And they are smart. They don't shout that "We need a lot of battleships to war on this nation or that nation." Oh no. First of all, they let it be known that America is menaced by a great naval power. Almost any day, these admirals will tell you, the great fleet of this supposed enemy will strike suddenly and annihilate 125,000,000 people. Just like that. Then they begin to cry for a larger navy. For what? To fight the enemy? Oh my, no. Oh, no. For defense purposes only.

Then, incidentally, they announce maneuvers in the Pacific. For defense. Uh, huh.

The Pacific is a great big ocean. We have a tremendous coastline on the Pacific. Will the maneuvers be off the coast, two or three hundred miles? Oh, no. The maneuvers will be two thousand, yes, perhaps even thirty-five hundred miles, off the coast.

The Japanese, a proud people, of course will be pleased beyond expression to see the united States fleet so close to Nippon's shores. Even as pleased as would be the residents of California were they to dimly discern through the morning mist, the Japanese fleet playing at war games off Los Angeles.

The ships of our navy, it can be seen, should be specifically limited, by law, to within 200 miles of our coastline. Had that been the law in 1898 the Maine would never have gone to Havana Harbor. She never would have been blown up. There would have been no war with Spain with its attendant loss of life. Two hundred miles is ample, in the opinion of experts, for defense purposes. Our nation cannot start an offensive war if its ships can't go further than 200 miles from the coastline. Planes might be permitted to go as far as 500 miles from the coast for purposes of reconnaissance. And the army should never leave the territorial limits of our nation.

To summarize: Three steps must be taken to smash the war racket.
  1. We must take the profit out of war.

  2. We must permit the youth of the land who would bear arms to decide whether or not there should be war.

  3. We must limit our military forces to home defense purposes.




Chapter Five - To Hell With War!


I am not a fool as to believe that war is a thing of the past. I know the people do not want war, but there is no use in saying we cannot be pushed into another war.

Looking back, Woodrow Wilson was re-elected president in 1916 on a platform that he had "kept us out of war" and on the implied promise that he would "keep us out of war." Yet, five months later he asked Congress to declare war on Germany.

In that five-month interval the people had not been asked whether they had changed their minds. The 4,000,000 young men who put on uniforms and marched or sailed away were not asked whether they wanted to go forth to suffer and die.

Then what caused our government to change its mind so suddenly?

Money.

An allied commission, it may be recalled, came over shortly before the war declaration and called on the President. The President summoned a group of advisers. The head of the commission spoke. Stripped of its diplomatic language, this is what he told the President and his group:

“There is no use kidding ourselves any longer. The cause of the allies is lost. We now owe you (American bankers, American munitions makers, American manufacturers, American speculators, American exporters) five or six billion dollars.

If we lose (and without the help of the United States we must lose) we, England, France and Italy, cannot pay back this money . . . and Germany won't.

So . . . ”

Had secrecy been outlawed as far as war negotiations were concerned, and had the press been invited to be present at that conference, or had radio been available to broadcast the proceedings, America never would have entered the World War. But this conference, like all war discussions, was shrouded in utmost secrecy. When our boys were sent off to war they were told it was a "war to make the world safe for democracy" and a "war to end all wars."

Well, eighteen years after, the world has less of democracy than it had then. Besides, what business is it of ours whether Russia or Germany or England or France or Italy or Austria live under democracies or monarchies? Whether they are Fascists or Communists? Our problem is to preserve our own democracy.

And very little, if anything, has been accomplished to assure us that the World War was really the war to end all wars.

Yes, we have had disarmament conferences and limitations of arms conferences. They don't mean a thing. One has just failed; the results of another have been nullified. We send our professional soldiers and our sailors and our politicians and our diplomats to these conferences. And what happens?

The professional soldiers and sailors don't want to disarm. No admiral wants to be without a ship. No general wants to be without a command. Both mean men without jobs. They are not for disarmament. They cannot be for limitations of arms. And at all these conferences, lurking in the background but all-powerful, just the same, are the sinister agents of those who profit by war. They see to it that these conferences do not disarm or seriously limit armaments.

The chief aim of any power at any of these conferences has not been to achieve disarmament to prevent war but rather to get more armament for itself and less for any potential foe.

There is only one way to disarm with any semblance of practicability. That is for all nations to get together and scrap every ship, every gun, every rifle, every tank, every war plane. Even this, if it were possible, would not be enough.

The next war, according to experts, will be fought not with battleships, not by artillery, not with rifles and not with machine guns. It will be fought with deadly chemicals and gases.

Secretly each nation is studying and perfecting newer and ghastlier means of annihilating its foes wholesale. Yes, ships will continue to be built, for the shipbuilders must make their profits. And guns still will be manufactured and powder and rifles will be made, for the munitions makers must make their huge profits. And the soldiers, of course, must wear uniforms, for the manufacturer must make their war profits too.

But victory or defeat will be determined by the skill and ingenuity of our scientists.

If we put them to work making poison gas and more and more fiendish mechanical and explosive instruments of destruction, they will have no time for the constructive job of building greater prosperity for all peoples. By putting them to this useful job, we can all make more money out of peace than we can out of war -- even the munitions makers.

So...I say,

TO HELL WITH WAR!
Comments

Childlike moral binary

The childlike moral binary: only people who hold the all correct positions merit empathy or respect.
— Dorian Lynskey, 2:50 AM - 2 Apr 2019

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Fuel of war

Taxation is the fuel of war.
— L. Neil Smith

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Helped Trump

Journalists Matt Taibbi and Aaron Maté explain how the Russiagate narrative helped Trump

A sad irony is that the Russiagate narrative, which so many people clung to in an attempt to bring down Trump, only helped him. Actual occurrences that could have undermined Trump’s authority and damaged his reputation were ignored as much of the media and political class focused almost exclusively on a literal conspiracy theory that does not resonate with the voter base that stayed home on Election Day or the Obama-to-Trump voters. Surely, Trump has done awful things, coverage of which could get out the vote and galvanize opposition. But the Russiagate obsession perpetuated Trump’s narrative about being picked-on by a media that peddles fake news and a political elite that represents the status quo. Trump was able to come off, once again, as the outsider who takes on the establishment, which in turn persecutes him. And now that the Mueller report has said he didn’t collude with Russia, he’s celebrating.
     — Katie Halper
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Jefferson on democracy

Democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty one percent can vote away the rights of the other forty nine.
— Thomas Jefferson

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Franklin on democracy

The internet is the last, best hope for freedom. And the European Union can't stand that idea.

Read More...
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Say what you want about Republicans

The perception and focus of the Democrat party is that there are groups who have been disenfranchised by society at large and that it is time to "get theirs." It's not about rights, it's about the politics of victimhood. Interests aren't addressed, certainly not in a larger context of all rights for all people. It's about slights and injustices, even if those have to be manufactured.

Say what you want about Republicans (and I often say a lot), at least they don't define rights in terms of politically approved sub-groups to exploit victimhood and the divisions between people.
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One tenth the effort

If the mainstream media spent one tenth the effort looking at Democrat misconduct that it does looking for Republican misconduct, the nation would be far better off.
— NeoWayland
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“The EU Just Destroyed The Internet #Article11 #Article13”

tip of the hat to Samizdata

The internet is the last, best hope for freedom. And the European Union can't stand that idea.
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Not necessary

It's not necessary—and certainly not helpful to public discourse—to take a gratuitous swipe at the other side almost every time you share your political perspective. Maybe your view isn't that great if it can't stand on its own.
— Justin Amash (@justinamash), March 25, 2019
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NeoNote — The grand distraction

I'm not going to talk about Trump and his failings or if he is substantially worse than the other presidents.

What I am going to talk about (again) is that all these efforts to nail Trump show that the Federal government has too much power and that rogue elements and actors are not held accountable.

Yes, Trump's office was bugged. But that is just part of a surveillance state that has been in turbo boost since 9-11. And 9-11 isn't a good excuse, it just codified and focused secret plans that had been drifting around since the 1970s.

The issue is not Trump. The issue is not the Republicans. The issue is not the Democrats. These ongoing struggles over which party is on the side of the angels and public perception over crimes and misdeeds, that's just the distraction. While we're arguing over who did what, there are unelected and unaccountable elements in government and high finance who are taking power and freedom away from you.

No, you didn't win. The game hasn't stopped. We are still being screwed. And the next bit will make this look like robbing a kid's lemonade stand.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

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War & banking

It is no coincidence that the century of total war coincided with the century of central banking.
— Ron Paul, End the Fed
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Islam

Islam is a faith. Criticism of Islam is not racism.
— NeoWayland
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NeoNote — Unjustified privilege

You're making unjustified assumptions.

Is the climate crisis a thing? To some (like most pagans), yes. To others like (not conservative) me, no. It's an article of faith, not far removed from monotheism or forgiveness of sin. The issue is that because of the alarmism, those who believe in the climate crisis don't tolerate dissent because of the "urgency" of the problem.

At their best, American Christian conservatives are extremely community minded. A child lost in the woods? They are there looking. Death in the family? Somebody is bringing meals by. The problem is who they identify as being part of the community. Something that is not helped by some like pagans setting themselves outside the acknowledged community.

Most claims of conservative racism are because the conservatives involved didn't see any reason to grant special privilege when people already had rights recognized by law. It doesn't help when conservatives are routinely accused of white supremacy simply for being the wrong skin color regardless of their words and actions. There is a vast difference between not supporting the claims of groups like BLM and being racist. Because conservatives (and libertarians too) see rights as individual and not collective, the idea of identity politics is repugnant. You have rights because you are human, not because you are Hispanic, female, wore a pink hat in a march, or consider yourself non-binary.

What's more, the idea that only "whites" can be racist because of something that was done in their great-great-great grandparents time just doesn't fly. Racism comes in all colors. I've seen casual racism my entire life. I've also seen most people reach out for no other reason than someone else needed help.

Finally, judging people by label is a mistake. The label has no inherent vice or virtue. It's the individual who makes the label mean something through their words and actions, not the other way around. Power from victimhood depends on the pity of others and will make you less than you are.



Here are some of the demands for privilege I've seen during my life.

The idea that one skin color and one skin color alone can decide what is and is not racism. I still know people who try to convince me that a "black" minister saying "Hymietown" is not racist.

The idea that inner-city poverty is a more important than reservation poverty.

The idea that a person whose family came from Nigeria two generations ago has a claim on the success of a person whose family came from China five generations ago.

The idea that skin color should trump evidence in a crime.

And as long as we keep qualifying the legal definition of who is and is not allowed to marry, that problem will not go away. Previously I've pointed out in discussions on this site that somehow in the call for marriage equality poly marriage wasn't even a consideration. That selectivity is a consequence of defining rights by group instead of individual.



Pardon, but the bit about how some threw poly people under the bus should be stressed. Because the "struggle" wasn't about marriage in whatever form it could take between consenting adults, it was about "gay marriage."

It wasn't about rights. It was about privilege for some taken at the expense of others.

No, there wasn't a "polyamorous community" fighting to be recognized. I had some LGBT activists tell me emphatically that poly people didn't deserve marriage because they hadn't fought for it.

That is where my issue is. I'm perfectly willing to fight for equal rights. But I hear demands for "black" rights, Hispanic rights, women's rights, gay rights, and for all I know rights for people with ingrown toenails. Not to mention Christian rights, pagan rights, Muslim rights, atheist rights, and pastafarian rights. That doesn't even count the constant efforts of government to define government powers as rights (police rights, Congress has the right…). It seems that everyone wants to carve out their own piece but no one is willing to help carve out a piece for any group but theirs. Especially if they don't agree with other groups.

It's not about rights. It's about privilege for some taken at the expense of others.

Oh, and by the way, "white" cis males are guilty for all the troubles in the world. Especially when they don't abase themselves to the demands of self-identified victims-of-the-week. No matter what they personally have done or said, "white" cis males are undeniably and collectively guilty. Or so I am told. Again and again and again.

How that is not racist is beyond me.

Meanwhile "people of color" tell me that they are fighting for the rights of the victimized. And they are. But not if those victims live almost invisibly and don't advance certain causes. And definitely not if those victims have different politics. If there is an oil pipeline that gets TV coverage, the "champions" are all over it. But every day poverty on Amerindian reservations, well, that just isn't important enough.

So tell me, when is it reasonable when some victims are deliberately overlooked? Maybe it's not about rights. Maybe it's about privilege.

Human rights are the only ones worth fighting for. Maybe we should worry about the rights we share instead of a place in the pecking order. It's not a right unless the other has it too.



“I still wouldn't characterize them as privileges.”

I know. That's what's so frustrating. Human rights get moved to the back seat, then to the bicycle with a flat tire thirteen rows back.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

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NeoNote — This tragedy does not reflect on Heathens.

Kudos for not mentioning the shooter's name.

The shooter had absolutely nothing to do with Heathenry or pagan beliefs. I don't understand why any group should change their language, practices, customs or actions when the shooter was not part of the group or the community.

Guns are not the problem. There are many more responsible gun owners than crazy people. The people who pay attention to gun laws are not the ones you should worry about. I say this as a reluctant gun advocate. I hate guns and I would ban them if I could eliminate every gun.

This tragedy does not reflect on Heathens. I understand that you have issues with how some Heathens speak and act. I respect that and I expect that you should speak your conscience. This terrible event should not justify wholesale changes in Heathenry just to satisfy your political desires.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

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NeoNote — Brand D

Are you going to insist that Democrats are Democratic again?



Actually given the actions of the Democrat party leadership over the last century or so, Democratic is the last thing they should be called. It's always been about establishing an elite outside of the laws and rules that apply to everyone else. Often with veto power over the words and actions of others.

One recent example are the superdelegates. That is about as anti-democratic as you can get.

Just Newspeak in action. Again.



And you clearly didn't get my reference to Newspeak.

It's a brand name. It's no more democratic than Acme Company is "the best there is." Progressives and Democrats have a long undeniable history of coopting words into something that means the exact opposite. "Liberal" used to mean what we Americans call "libertarian" today.



And there we go. That's Democrat Tactic #45, Alinsky #13, and PeePeeTape #4.

Shift the focus away from the argument and towards the person who made the argument.



As I said, "with veto power over the words and actions of others."

Tell you what. I'll call them Brand D. That way you can ever so conveniently ignore the attempts to usurp language without being too obvious about it.



Do you really think you have the power to dictate my actions or words?

Do you really think that there is one person reading this site that will have any doubt whatsoever just which group I mean?

Brand D it is then.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

Comments

NeoNote — Naturally Good

As far as I am concerned, you have no business going after Republicans until you at least acknowledge that Democrats aren't perfect and are just as good at messing things up.
— NeoWayland
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“How to Red Pill a Liberal”

“We all get into intense discussions with frustrating leftists, but despite all the reason and logic in the world, we rarely make progress. In this video, I explore some ways in which anyone might effectively red pill a liberal.”

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“Stossel: Tax Myths”

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NeoNote — Wiretapping

To me, the interesting thing is that most of the mainstream media is willing to ignore things like this so long as it's a Democrat doing it to a Republican.
— NeoWayland
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Maybe the fault isn't in the "Right" or "Left…"

Maybe the fault isn't in the "Right" or "Left," but in the idea that other people's behavior must be controlled For Their Own Good and For the Good of Society. Rather than teaching people that freedom comes with responsibility, we condition people to obey the duly delegated Proper Authority for the sake of perpetuating the institution.
— NeoWayland
Comments

“Stossel: Academic Hoax”

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Jefferson on state's rights

I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power not longer susceptible of any definition.
— Thomas Jefferson

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Lincoln on state's rights

Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.
— Abraham Lincoln

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Lee on state's rights

… I believe that the maintenance of the rights and authority reserved to the states and to the people … are the safeguard to the continuance of a free government … whereas the consolidation of the states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it.
— Robert E. Lee

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Goldwater on state's rights

Today neither of our two parties maintains a meaningful commitment to the principle of States' Rights. The 10th Amendment is not a 'general assumption' but a rule of law. States rights mean that states have a right to act or not to act, as they see fit, in areas reserved to them.
— Barry Goldwater

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Hamilton on state's rights

The State governments possess inherent advantages, which will ever give them an influence and ascendancy over the National Government, and will for ever preclude the possibility of federal encroachments. That their liberties, indeed, can be subverted by the federal head, is repugnant to every rule of political calculation.
— Alexander Hamilton

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Madison on state's rights

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.
— James Madison

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Signs of liberal privilege



Excerpted from Seven Signs of Liberal Privilege by Timothy Daughtry.
  1. Assuming that you have the right to control what everyone else does, what they have, what they say, and how they think.

  2. Assuming that you have the right never to hear any opinion that contradicts your own, and using intimidation and violence if necessary to protect your ideological bubble.

  3. Assuming that feeling offended on your part constitutes a political crisis on the nation’s part.

  4. Having exquisite sensitivity to the moral speck in society’s eye while ignoring the beam in your own.

  5. Consistency is for other people.

  6. You must be judged only by your rhetoric and not by your results.

  7. And finally, liberal privilege means never having to say “not guilty.”
Comments

“Stossel: Sugar’s Sweetheart Deal”

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“Facebook Insider Leaks Docs; Explains "Deboosting" "Troll Report" & Political Targeting in Interview”

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NeoNote — Deliberately created panic

What we do know is that there are loud politicos who want to take freedom, power, and money from people "for the greater good."

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NeoNotes — Health care

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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NeoNote — Green New Deal

I think that for the politicos it was never about saving humans or the planet, it was always the justification for shifting massive amounts of power and cash without accountability.

Ocasio-Cortez is an idiot and a very noisy distraction.

What is going to hit next is The Compromise®. There will be some very well respected and high profile Democrats who will publicly proclaim that of course the Green New Deal goes too far. But maybe we should consider some of the proposals. Carefully. After all, people are scared.

And if the "reasonable" Democrats don't get The Compromise®, they can always throw their weight behind Ocasio-Cortez.

I suspect that "no planes" means no air travel unless it's Absolutely Necessary. With the Democrats deciding what is and is not necessary. Look for that in all the new proposals. That will be part of The Compromise® and how it will be sold to the public.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

Comments

“Bad Laws Cause Homeless Crisis”

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Short Thursday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Not a defect

Consider this. Is it possible that the corruption and graft are a function of the system and not a defect?
— NeoWayland
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Wednesday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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❝Why You Can't Argue with a Leftist❞

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Tuesday roundup

Donald Trump: ‘We’ve Got to Get Out of These Endless Wars’



The Winter is Wreaking Havoc on Electric Vehicle Batteries

Truthfully I hadn't really thought about this. Neither did most people. What use is a car that doesn't run when you need it? In my area, I still need something with about a 300 mile range and the ability to recharge in minutes.


Taxes Are Getting Weaponized for Partisan Purposes

“How willing are you to pay taxes when you know they’re intended to do you harm?”

The Real Problem: The Militarization of the NFL

“Professional sports should stop shilling for the warfare state.”

San Francisco — where drug addicts outnumber high school students

This is tied into their aggressive homeless problem. San Francisco used to be one of the most walkable cities in the country and a real joy to visit. I don't think that's true anymore.


Covington Student Nick Sandmann’s Lawyers Send Preservation Letters to Media, Celebrities

“The defamation lawyer tweeted a video that has crucial footage ignored by the MSM.”

Major DNA Testing Company Sharing Genetic Data With the FBI

Violating the Fourth Amendment "for your own good."


U.S. Coup Attempt In Venezuela Lacks International Support

Yes, the U.S. is after the oil. You should recognize this, it's a repeating pattern. “What's good for General Bullmoose is what's good for the U.S.A.”


The cheapest Chinese electric cars are coming to the US and Europe—for as little as $9,000

These might be a solution, but it doesn't fit my needs. They don't have the range and I wouldn't want to take them on an American highway or interstate.
“”

Trump Once Wanted to Negotiate With Russia Over Nukes. Then Mueller Happened.

If true, this is a perfect example of unintended consequences. I wonder if Trump can turn this around.
“”

The Democrats and the politics of division

The politics of division is the politics of victimhood. This is already biting the DNC. Who gets to be on top of the victim hierarchy? And for how long?


When Feminists Abandon Girls

The victim hierarchy strikes again. No criticism allowed.


Why Does the Federal Government Fail So Miserably Most of the Time?

For most things, the private sector and individual choice can do it better, faster, cheaper, and with deeper penetration.

Comments

❝Climate Change: What Do Scientists Say?❞

“The Nature of Sex”

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Education should not be pre-chewed

The classes teaching socialist and Marxist ideology aren't labeled as such. They are in fact part of the general education requirement. That wouldn't be so bad, except those classes are the only ones allowed. No one is allowed to dissent from the orthodoxy.

Once upon a time, university meant debating things that you disagreed with or that made you uncomfortable. You learned to think and defend your reasoning even if the words and thoughts you faced offended you.

Now, we have safe spaces to protect overgrown children from triggering because they shouldn't have to face something that actually makes them think and grow.

Education should not be pre-chewed. Education should be hard. Education should challenge you to be something more than you are right now. Education should be about understanding what you oppose. Education should be about finding what works.
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Monday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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No stadium scam

Government has power only to protect the rights of individuals.

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On the Equality Act

The Nature of Sex

If this sounds like a massive overreach, consider the fact that the proposed Equality Act — with 201 co-sponsors in the last Congress — isn’t simply a ban on discriminating against trans people in employment, housing, and public accommodations (an idea with a lot of support in the American public). It includes and rests upon a critical redefinition of what is known as “sex.” We usually think of this as simply male or female, on biological grounds (as opposed to a more cultural notion of gender). But the Equality Act would define “sex” as including “gender identity,” and defines “gender identity” thus: “gender-related identity, appearance, mannerisms, or characteristics, regardless of the individual’s designated sex at birth.”
     — Andrew Sullivan
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Powers are not rights

GFC Lessons Not Learnt

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Friday roundup clearence

It’s Negative 24 Degrees and the Wind Isn’t Blowing. This is Why We Need Fossil Fuels and Nuclear Power, Not Renewables



South Bend Mayor and Possible Presidential Candidate Pete Buttigieg Decries "Endless War"

A voice of sanity.


Bill Nye’s Latest Climate Warning: The Us Will Have To Grow Its Food In Canada

Another attempt to panic you. Seriously, why does anyone listen to this man when he has been wrong so many times?


Florida Gov. DeSantis signs executive order scrapping Common Core

One advantage of fifty states is so we can experiment and find alternatives that might work better. The Constitution does not grant power over education to the Federal government.


The 16th Amendment: How the U.S. Federal Income Tax Became D.C.'s Favorite Political Weapon

Pretty accurate analysis.


Whatever Mueller Finds, Gag-Orders and No-Knock Raids Should Appall EVERYONE.

Why is this accepted?


What the Press Missed About Vanguard Founder's Fortune

“John Bogle's life is a reminder that in capitalism you can make a fortune by saving your customers money.”

Venezuela Finds Out The Hard Way That Only Bitcoin Is Unconfiscatable

The implications are staggering. You'd better believe that this is getting a lot of attention.


VA announces new rules giving veterans access to private providers

A good step. So why wasn't this done years ago?


Primetime CNN, MSNBC Ignore Virginia Dems Supporting Late, Post-Term Abortions

So why isn't this a major story?


PRESIDENT PELOSI? House Speaker holds public bill signings — to compete with Trump?



Noncitizens registered to vote in Pennsylvania and Texas show vote fraud is real



Dems Are Shocked, Shocked To Learn That 'Medicare For All' Outlaws Private Insurance



No-Knock Warrant for Deadly Drug Raid Describes Heroin and a Gun Cops Didn't Find



Yoho’s ‘Zero-for-Zero’ Sugar Plan To Curb Foreign Subsidies Returns



Water From the Air and Power From Trash

“Technology extracts at least 2,000 liters of water per day from the atmosphere at a cost of less than 2 cents per liter.”

Politico: Liberals Developing New Phraseology to Hype 'Climate Change'

When people don't buy what you are selling, change the label.


Europe 'coming apart before our eyes', say 30 top intellectuals

Elites don't like it when the populace make their own choice.


South Carolina Police Hauled in $17 Million Through Civil Asset Forfeiture Over Three Years



France’s Red Scarves: Ready-Made Counter-Protest and New Media Darlings



Howard Schultz Shoots Down Liz Warren Attack With Passionate Defense of the American Dream



An American Nightmare

“Why were there more FBI agents sent to arrest Stone than Navy SEALs sent to kill Osama bin Laden? Why jackboots in the morning in America? Here is the back story.”

Don't Expect The EU To Cave On May's Brexit Deal Until The Very Last Minute



Chaos has reportedly erupted inside Facebook as employees find themselves unable to open the company's apps on their iPhones



After 4 Cops Shot in Houston, Police Promise to Go After and ‘Track’ Those Who Criticize Police



‘I’m Not Going to Enforce That’: Sheriffs Disobey New Anti-Gun Laws—Refuse to Disarm Citizens



When 'Former' Spies Run Wild, Bad Things Happen



84% of 18-24 year olds don’t know how to change a light bulb… but they think they can run the economy?

Then there is the obvious question, why does the economy have to be "run?"


Entrepreneurship Lifts Cambodia from the Clutches of Extreme Poverty in a Single Generation

“So long as there is peace and political stability in Cambodia, the future is looking bright for this growing economy.”

NANCY? Pelosi botches words, suffers face spasms, confuses Dems, GOP while vowing no border wall funding



Roger Stone faces a gag order. He has a plan to resist it.



The Unseen Costs of Humanitarian Intervention



Rep. Ilhan Omar calls for sharp tax increases on the wealthy: 'We've had it as high as 90 percent'

Amazing how no one talks about cutting spending.


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Roots of the housing collapse

GFC Lessons Not Learnt

In reality, the real causes of the financial crisis lie deeper; to problems going back a century. In the early 20th century, the American government faced an alarming problem. The Russian Revolution of 1917 terrified government officials. They believed that to deter the rise of communism, more Americans needed to become invested in the system of private property: the best way to make the average American a good capitalist was to make him a homeowner.

The federal government thus began insuring bank mortgage lending, thereby expanding finance available for middle class consumers. But there was a catch: any new housing must be racially segregated to gain federal insurance. No insurance was to be extended to African-American purchasers or to white purchasers moving into African-American neighbourhoods. This practice, known as “redlining” of neighbourhoods, largely provided home ownership for whites while denying it for African-Americans.

Unable to own their own home and forced into poor quality neighbourhoods, African-Americans missed out on generations of wealth-building opportunities. As house prices rose over time, the gap between minority and white household wealth grew greater. So by the time President Bill Clinton was inaugurated in 1993, he faced a familiar problem—too few low-income and minority Americans owned their home. Clinton was under enormous pressure from housing activists to radically expand homeownership. Activist groups were particularly critical of banks’ strict underwriting standards for home loans, such as requiring high credit scores and solid downpayments. They claimed these higher standards disproportionately hurt low-income earners and minorities. Their answer was to wield the power of the federal government to force the mortgage market to loosen its underwriting standards, so that more and more marginal borrowers could qualify for a home loan. Prominent community activist Gale Cincotta made this clear, testifying before Congress in 1991, that “lenders will respond to the most conservative standards unless [federal government agencies] are aggressive and convincing in their efforts to expand historically narrow underwriting”.
     — Daniel Press
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❝Super Bowl of Welfare❞

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It's never enough

Bottom line: the politics of victimhood always depend on the guilt of others AND avoiding personal responsibility. And no matter what the "guilty" might "sacrifice," it's never enough. Equal rights and equal opportunity is one thing, special privilege because of "past wrongs" is just asking for trouble.
Comments

Not about who is better

It’s not about who is better, it’s about what we can do together.
— NeoWayland
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❝Covington Catholic CLOSES: Lawsuits, Lies & Threats❞ by Roaming Millennial

“Covington Catholic and the MAGA hat kid may sue media figures for libel. The school closes down for safety concerns, and Trump tweets his support for the students...”

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❝The Truth - Nathan Philips / Covington Catholic Kids❞

“I normally avoid these sort of topics, but after seeing all this footage and all the people trying to destroy these kids lives, I felt like I had to do something.

We all need to do better, stop with this mob mentality over the first thing we see. Remember there's always two sides to a coin.”

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Racial segregation came from Washington

Washington Forced Segregation on the Nation

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❝What is a man? A response to Gillette❞

“A short film - Dedicated to all those who sacrifice everything to make the world safer and better for all of us.”

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Massive roundup to clear my files

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“Gillette SLAMS Toxic Masculinity: "Men, Do Better!"”

“A new Gillette commercial tackles toxic masculinity & metoo, but reactions say it's anti-male.”

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“Stossel: Government Shutdown Shows Private Is Better”

Now, see, I was going to make nice here and just touch on the subject.

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Oversized headline catchup

Mark Penn: FBI Trump-Russia investigation shows deep state was worse than we thought



The Shutdown Is Providing Evidence Of Private Businesses Making Government Obsolete



The shutdown’s real lesson: Government has taken hostage too much of the economy



Political Nightmares Multiply for Europe Ahead of Davos



Feds Can't Force You To Unlock Your iPhone With Finger Or Face, Judge Rules



The Game of Pseudo-Authenticity



Supreme Court to Consider Whether Police Can Order Blood Draws from Unconscious Drivers



Public Disdain For Russia Probe Intensifies, Trump Approval Climbs — IBD/TIPP Poll



Trump's Terrible Record on Property Rights

“The President's recent threat to use "the military version of eminent domain" to seize property for his border wall is just the tip of a larger iceberg of policies and legal positions inimical to constitutional property rights.”

California prohibits gender-based auto insurance: report

Ladies, expect your rates to go up

Democrats Failing to Control Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green Revolution

If Republicans were smart, they'd keep quiet while the Democrats self-destruct

Second Thoughts On Pot



Dems fly to Puerto Rico on chartered jet, meet with lobbyists, see 'Hamilton' as shutdown drags on

Just the Hispanic Caucus.

US approved thousands of child bride requests



Oh My: Catholic Archdioceses Admit Wuerl Knew Of McCarrick Abuse Allegation In 2004



Philly residents defy the city’s controversial ‘soda tax’



Inside Facebook’s ‘cult-like’ workplace, where dissent is discouraged and employees pretend to be happy all the time



5 Things To Do About Our Culture’s Antagonism Against Men



Gab Promotes Bitcoin as 'Free Speech Money' to Over 850,000 Users




The Recession Will Be Unevenly Distributed

“Those households, enterprises and organizations that have no debt, a very low cost basis and a highly flexible, adaptable structure will survive and even prosper.”

How Facebook Borrows From the NSA Playbook



5 reasons why there’s still no end to the shutdown

“They can’t end the standoff because Democrats and Republicans are trying to solve different problems”

The only acceptable answer: “None of your f(ornicating) business!”



Who gave National Review the power to excommunicate?



Employee at Ford Office Fired After Disagreeing With Transgender Post



Majority Preservation Act

“The first House Democratic bill aims to hamstring opponents.”

Nobel secretary regrets Obama peace prize



This Reporter Took a Deep Look Into the Science of Smoking Pot. What He Found Is Scary.



Carriers Swore They'd Stop Selling Location Data. Will They Ever?



Cory Doctorow: Disruption for Thee, But Not for Me


Comments

NeoNotes — Looking good

Unscientific test.

Two video monitors of equal size. A dozen people, some of who were Democrats. Both videos played side by side with the volume turned down. All but one person thought that Trump came across stronger, more confident, better body language, and more convincingly. One guy said that Pelosi and Schumer looked like high school student council candidates.

Again, I don't like Trump and I don't trust Trump. But compared to the Democrat leadership, well, there's no comparison.

Is anyone else reminded of the Kennedy-Nixon debate?

Kennedy vs. Nixon.

Regardless of what was said, visually Trump came across looking very well. Pelosi and Schumer came across looking like two high schoolers running for student council. That observation isn't mine, but I am caging it anyway. Why in the World were they sharing a lectern?

Trump came across as an executive with pictures of his loved ones in the background. And with only one American flag. Pelosi and Schumer looked like they got kicked out of the cafeteria and they dragged in flags to make the walls look good.

As an aside, the trend of using multiple flags behind you to show your patriotism is stupid.

Kennedy vs. Nixon.



If you'll remember, I told you before you need to focus on the things that Trump does that are actually wrong. I specifically mentioned his misuse of eminent domain in the past. Lo and behold, the key part of his emergency plan is eminent domain.

Peepers, you focus on the wrong things when you attack Trump. You have from the very first. And you continually mistake my not agreeing with you as support of Trump.

Trump has been making Democrats look bad since he announced. It doesn't help when Democrats continually underestimate him. Even if they ignore everything that Trump did before, there's not a one of the Democrat Congressional leadership who has ever negotiated anything outside government. Trump is playing this exactly right and the optics reflect that.

You want to take Trump down? I'll tell you what to focus on. Eminent domain. The volatility of the stock market. Not the direction, but how fast and how far it changes direction. There's some major instability there. His treatment of the EU, particularly downgrading the ambassador. National security, particularly spying on Americans. Healthcare. War on drugs. Prescription drugs and self medication. The Second Amendment. Social Security and pensions. The national debt. Military spending and accountability. Free speech. Protectionism. Start with those.

You can't treat him as a Republican politico because he isn't one. And don't forget that this man has been dragging his fights and negotiations through the press for forty years. Remember that exchange from the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie about the worst pirate. Trump doesn't care if the press is good or bad, he just wants the press.



This came from an unscientific experiment that some friends and I did. And yes, some of them were Democrats. We ran the videos side by side on two monitors with the sound turned off.

Trump looked like he belonged. Pelosi and Schumer didn't. Their body language showed that they were unhappy, probably because they were sharing a lectern and neither wanted to share the spotlight. Pay attention to their hands specifically. Trump looked friendly, Pelosi and Schumer looked like they wanted to strangle someone.

I never have liked the multiple American flag thing, not even when it started with Bush League. I think it was him, he was the one I noticed using it first. Certainly the Democrats of that time were doing it. I think it is purposely distracting. Come to think of it, that's when I remember multiple Democrats sharing a lectern. Or at least all standing behind one person at the lectern.

As for the Z group, I adjusted my tactics accordingly. They wanted to ignore the political implications when those same implications were central to the argument, whether they wished to acknowledge that or not.

You on the other hand don't like to deal when facts or actions don't fit your script. You think that opposing someone means throwing every insult and accusation possible at them in the hope that something sticks. You're not willing to look the person's history and adjust accordingly. You let the labels control your expectations and then get frustrated when things don't turn out the way you want.

I was never against criticizing Trump. I was against criticizing Trump stupidly foolishly in ways that would make him look stronger and better. Throwing insults at him doesn't work, he just pushes back. Treating him as the typical Republican politico who will back down out of civility or for the greater good doesn't work because that is not what he does.

It's not that I support Trump. I just think you are attacking him in very stupid and amazingly ineffective ways.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

Comments

NeoNote — Unstable people (and not who you think)

Now, see, I was going to make nice here and just touch on the subject.

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Insults

Stop insulting Americans just because they vote for someone you don’t like.
— Dan Crenshaw
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Oversized year change roundup

Union Scum: Seasonal UPS Workers Had Paychecks Taken By Local Teamsters Chapter In Boston



Firm Who Warned America of ‘Russian Meddling’ Caught Running Fake Russia Bot Campaign



Liberal Donor Apologizes For Funding Group That Falsely Claimed Russians Supported Roy Moore In Alabama Senate Race



New Studies Show Pundits Are Wrong About Russian Social-Media Involvement in US Politics



Imagine if We Paid for Food like We Do Healthcare



How Should Facebook (and Twitter, and YouTube, and...) Decide What Speech To Allow?



The angry lawyer who went on a racist rant that went viral got kicked out of his office space — and his week is only getting worse



Angela Merkel: Nation States Must "Give Up Sovereignty" To New World Order



A year after net-neutrality’s repeal, the Internet is alive and well — and faster than ever



A Holiday Mystery: Why Did John Roberts Intervene in the Mueller Probe?



NY police say 'Muslim Community Patrol' car not sanctioned by them



New Documents Suggest The Steele Dossier Was A Deliberate Setup For Trump



Yellow Vests Becoming World Wide Movement



France: Year's 1st yellow vest event brings tear gas, fires



Eminent Domain: The Wall’s Other Problem



Must Writers Be Moral? Their Contracts May Require It



The New Congress and the Rolling Catastrophe of the US Body Politic



Fact check: What's a 'national emergency,' and can Trump declare one to get his wall?



Movies for Libertarians: Little Pink House



House Lawmakers Prepare Rollout Of Gun Control Proposal



Man Sells Junk Guns To Buy-Back Program, Buys New Gun With Cash



The Vaccination Debate

“Now—we have remarkable new information: a respected pro-vaccine medical expert used by the federal government to debunk the vaccine-autism link, says vaccines can cause autism after all. He claims he told that to government officials long ago, but they kept it secret.”

How Medicare For All Could Become the Leading Cause of Death In America



Ginsburg missing Supreme Court arguments for 1st time



Airport Security Lines Grow Across The Nation As TSA Sickout Continues


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“Stossel: Does Silicon Valley manipulate users?”

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NeoNote — Politicos without sin

As long as you buy into the idea that one side is marginally better, the circus continues and you are cut out of the decisions.

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Tuesday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Monday super-sized roundup

Federal judge in Texas rules Affordable Health Care Act unconstitutional



VA Whistleblower Visited By FBI, Sent To Psych Ward, Set To Be Terminated From Job



FBI misses deadline to provide docs to Judiciary Committee probing whistleblower raid



Bare-Breasted 'Mariannes' Face Off With French Police; Tear Gas, Pepper Spray Used On Protesting Yellow Vests



Moscow To Set Up Military Base In Caribbean



The Green New Deal: eco pastiche



Personal Bank Accounts in Venezuela Frozen to “Fight Terrorism”



Every Bubble Is In Search Of A Pin



Will Half Of All Colleges Really Close In The Next Decade?



Mueller Destroyed Messages From Peter Strzok's iPhone; OIG Recovers 19,000 New "FBI Lovebird" Texts



Venezuela Joins the Social Credit Club



Million Plus NJ Gun Owners Defy State Law, Refuse to Turn Over Banned Gun Mags



New Jersey Magazine Capacity Restriction: Now What?



New Bill Prohibiting 3D Printed Firearms Introduced to Congress



One Year Ago Today, the FCC Killed the Internet


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“Hillary Clinton's $84 Million Money-Laundering Scheme”

The Anatomy Of Hillary Clinton's $84 Million Money-Laundering Scheme


I can't stress how important this is.

Trump has been accused, but Hillary Clinton did it.

Why was the special prosecutor authorization focused solely on the Trump campaign?

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Friday supersized roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Last resort

I'm telling you to stop expecting the law to save you. And I'm telling you that law should be a last resort.
— NeoWayland
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NeoNote — Pagans and climate change

Critics have also noted that much of the science doesn't hold up and that the ten year deadlines keep getting moved.



Pardon, but that is not true. It's a very small minority of critics have publicly claimed the science doesn't hold up. As for the "vast majority of the world's scientists," that's not true either.

This is one area where what little science there is has been buried under layers and layers of politics. It has become heresy to criticize the "conclusions." And the reactions to those who do ask questions are exactly like those historical reactions to those who questioned Islam or Christianity in a less enlightened age. We should be asking why it is necessary to crush dissent. We should also be asking if (notoriously unreliable) politicos are really on the side of Earth and Nature, or if they have their own agenda.

Then we get to the science which really isn't science. It's computer models built on a unproven assumptions, including a carbon dioxide cascade effect that has never been observed either in the laboratory or in the field. The models also minimize other known strong climate influences such as solar variations and atmospheric water, probably because those can't be blamed on human activity. But no, the science is settled and Must Not Be Questioned.

Those of us who follow Earth-centered paths want to believe that we are uniquely qualified to help. Part and parcel of that is the belief that we are uniquely qualified to hurt as well. While there are ecological problems that are human caused like pollution and water table damage and overharvesting the seas and rainforests, Nature adapts. If all humans disappeared tomorrow morning at 7:13 AM Eastern Standard Time, life would go on.

We need to find actual changes that make the World a little better. That doesn't include handing over massive funding and political power to politicos and technocrats who have no understanding of Nature and haven't the slightest idea how to solve the "problem."



As a rule, I don't think either/or solutions apply. It's not save the planet OR consume everything.

Are there solutions? Yes, and a lot of them are beyond our reach for now. When we get nanotech going (and we will), I expect one of the first large scale applications will be vat-grown exotic hardwoods that are virtually indistinguishable from the "real thing" other than cost and availability. Vat-grown stone will follow. Already vat-grown meat shows promise.
And that is just short to medium term.

We can make it better without the need for noble sacrifice.

We also need to address capitalistic solutions that may work. The American bison population is growing because some herds are privately owned and managed. There's evidence that works with African elephants as well. People take care of what they own.



"Eppur si muove."

This is public science we are talking about. Public science means telling the politicos what they want to hear. In living memory, public science has flip flopped on things like forest management, eugenics, recommended diet, humans have only five senses, and the role of sodium in human biology. When discussing public science, we should always ask "who profits?"

I focus on the political of climate science because unlike almost any other field of science, dissent is not allowed. It's not merely a matter of dismissing results, it's discrediting the researchers who don't toe the line.

For most of the 20th Century, we humans have treated Science as the new god. We forget we know much less than we think we know. We forget that science is a process and not an absolute. I just keep remembering a commercial I heard on an old-time radio recording. "Eight out of ten doctors recommend Lucky Strikes for their patients who smoke."

I'd probably ignore the whole mess except governments are demanding tremendous power to Act Now despite having no real solutions. And of course, it's too urgent for debate or to submit to public vote.



I am not anti-science.

I really don't want to turn this into a long debate on climate science or government power.

What I'd like is for people to ask more questions. Why the goalposts for action keep moving. Just what is supposed to be done and how much of an effect it should have. What will be done if the predictions fail to predict.

While Why neopagans of all people are treating this as an Absolute Revelation when we know that the World does things we don't expect.

Why we can't start with simple things like planting more trees.

I think asking these questions is important.



It's the political aspect that worries me. I won't kid you, the extreme climate change crowd are a major inspiration for what I call the True Believer™.

I think the science could work itself out, but partial conclusions and unproven techniques have been placed front and center of an agenda that has very little to do with saving the planet.



The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
— H. L. Mencken



*shrugs*

Like I said, if it wasn't for the politician's rush to do something now, and incidentally completely remake every social structure and institution, I'd be content to sit this one out.

I've done more than a little research on this subject over the years. I've written about it quite a bit. I'm notorious in some circles for being the pagan that doesn't embrace the climate change panic.

But more and more I see this as political. It's not the scientists who are making the noise. It's not the scientists who are calling for massive financial and social changes. And it's not the scientists who want to punish "climate deniers."



I've no problem with bottom up changes providing better alternatives.

I've every problem with unquestioned top down solutions imposed by force.

I firmly believe that there are two phrases which have done more to shape humanity and human history than anything else.

The first is Let me help.

The second is I can do better than that!



Can you name another topic where "science" is defined by consensus rather than it's ability to predict?



Science isn't neutral. Science is a process. As a process, it shouldn't be treated as a conclusion.

The Brontosaurus was, wasn't, and then was again. Our perspective changed, our acceptance changed, but those old bones didn't.

No one is measuring the value of plate tectonics by how many people agree with it. Validity is measured by how well the theory explains observed phenomena and predicts what will happen.

Yet when it comes to climate change, there is always an overwhelming percentage of consent consensus cited, as if this measures validity.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

Comments

Thursday super roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Practical politics

Australian government passes controversial world-first anti-encryption law amid broad criticism

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Monday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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NeoNote — There is no "Judeo-Christian faith."

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Sunday bonus roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Friday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Thursday oversized roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Wednesday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Tuesday roundup

The Amazon Deal Shows Why We Must End Corporate Welfare



Top Ecuadorian Diplomat Destroys Guardian's Claim That Manafort Visited Assange



Migrant caravan hits tourism



Will Dems Protest Clintons, Too?



Macron Looks to Tax Measures to Curb



Truth Is What We Hide, Self-Serving Cover Stories Are What We Sell



Will Paris Riots Scuttle Climate Accord?



Revealed: Marriott's 500 Million Hack Came After A String Of Security Breaches



Paris protests reveal fracture between France’s haves and have-nots



Miseducated or Stupid?



I quit Instagram and Facebook and it made me a lot happier — and that's a big problem for social media companies



Is the FBI Raiding Whistleblowers' Homes to Protect Robert Mueller?



I deleted my Twitter account. It's a breeding ground for thoughtlessness and contempt.


Comments

Monday roundup

Youngest kids in class may be over-diagnosed with ADHD



Destroyed for Nothing

“The closing of GM’s Detroit plant—erected at the expense of a vibrant urban neighborhood—is a final twist of the knife in a tale of displacement and destruction.”

Exclusive: Google Employees Debated Burying Conservative Media In Search

You can be an advocate or you can be a search engine. You can't honestly be both.

Obama Tells Wall Street to Thank him for Making Them so Much Money



The work-from-home doctor will see you now



The Ignored Legacy of George H.W. Bush: War Crimes, Racism, and Obstruction of Justice



The Forgotten Legacy of George H.W. Bush That the Media Won’t Tell You About



Post Office Has Boom Year: Loses More Money Than Ever



San Francisco's Wealthy Leftists Are Making Homelessness Worse



G20 Summit, Top Agenda Item: Bye-Bye American Empire



Texas Bill Would Set Foundation for a “Gun Rights Sanctuary State”



Landlord Tells Harvard Student to Move Out Over Legally Owned Guns



Supreme Court Deals Unanimous, Welcome Blow to Administrative State in Frog Case



Curtains for the Clintons



The Cities That Amazon HQ2 Left Behind

“Amazon’s yearlong search for the location of its second headquarters was billed as a chance to transform an American city. In reality, it made plain an economic system that increases inequality, monopoly power, and political polarization.”
Comments

Bonus Sunday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Choosing the most oppressed

Progressive politics revolves around choosing the most oppressed so that everyone else can be shamed into granting extra privileges to the designated victims.
— from the private journal of NeoWayland
Comments

NeoNote — George Soros and anti-Semitism

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Tuesday mini-roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Friday mini-roundup

Minneapolis' Healthy Foods Mandate Screws Over Ethnic Grocers

“The city's Staple Food Ordinance mandates that stores carry products customers don't want.”

Buried? Feds to release major climate report day after Thanksgiving



Mises Predicted the "Red Meat Tax"



Why A Revote Is Necessary After Brenda Snipes Resigns Amid Florida’s Midterm Insanity



Even California Cannot Defy Nature Forever



QE Created Dangerous Financial Dependence, Italy Hooked, Withdrawal Next, ECB Warns



Information Attacks against Democracies



Roberts, Trump spar in extraordinary scrap over judges


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Thusday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Wednesday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Tuesday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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“Remy: The Legend of Stan Lee”

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❝I can't be responsible for them…❞

Christianity, the Nation of Islam, atheism, Paganism, these are labels. Now people may use those labels as justifications for their actions, but it is not the label that is responsible. As a Pagan I'm not responsible for the actions of every Pagan out there. I'm responsible for my actions. Since I believe strongly that the measure of a man is in the lives he touches, I'll even accept some of the responsibility for the actions of the people I know and love. But someone I've never met? I can't be responsible for them, no matter what the label they choose. The label isn't responsible, the individuals are.
Comments

Supersized Monday roundup

In Democratic circles, anti-Semitism is becoming normal



The ACLU Condemns DeVos's Title IX Reforms, Says These Due Process Safeguards 'Inappropriately Favor the Accused'

“So much for civil liberties.”

Household debt hit a record high of $13.5 trillion last quarter



A Warm-Up For 2020: Arizona’s Maricopa County Just Stole The Senate Election

I'm not sure about the allegations, but I'm watching closely.

GOP Audits Elections Office In County That Swung To Democrats



Hanging On: Republican Congresswoman Mia Love Is Now Favored To Prevail In Tight Re-Election Bid



Stacey Abrams Acknowledges Loss In Georgia Governor's Race



Is an ‘Internet of Ears’ the next big thing for smart homes?



SAF, NRA File Federal Lawsuit Challenging Initiative 1639



Kansas City Health Department pours bleach on food meant for homeless people



Debra Messing Joins Alyssa Milano, Condemns Anti-Semitic Women's March Leaders



Gridlocked, in Fair Weather and Foul

“New Yorkers demand that the mayor clear the roads—but only in snowstorms.”

Bubble Trouble: Seattle-Bellevue Metro Housing Market Goes South



Democrats’ Way Back: Is the Resistance rooted in reality?



Identity Politics and American anti-Semitism



Brenda Snipes submits resignation as Broward elections supervisor



Hell Hath No Fury Like a Liberal Scorned: The Media Turns on Facebook and Google



Trump backs sentencing reform bill he says will give ex-inmates 'a second chance at life'



The Institutionalization of Social Justice



There's a Good Reason Many Women Make Less Than Men



Loggers support Trump's claim that wildfires caused by 'poor forest management'



Global warming alarmists pissed off by Canadian gov’t report that nukes their narrative about polar bears



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NeoNote — The Democrats aren't democratic

When they have eliminated superdelegates, they will have earned the designation.

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Defining a libertarian

The Merriam=Webster Online dictionary defines Libertarian as: “a person who upholds the principles of individual liberty especially of thought and action.”  I agree with that definition.  The same dictionary defines liberty as:” the power to do as one pleases.”  This definition I do not agree with because it is incomplete.  It differs from the definition that was universally accepted by those who wrote and ratified the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  They believed that liberty is the freedom to do as you please, as long as you do not hurt others, or interfere with the rights of others.  It is freedom with the responsibility to not hurt others or prevent them from exercising their rights.

A Libertarian believes that preventing individuals from harming others, or interfering with the rights of others, are the only legitimate functions of government.  They believe that individuals should be free to live their lives as they choose, free from any government interference, as long as they treat others properly.  They believe that government assistance, of any kind, is unacceptable, unneeded, and harmful.

Comments

NeoNote — the afterlife and This Side

That's the only thing we can really measure about each other.

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The inevitable progression of progressive politics

LGBT Splinter Group From Migrant Caravan Is The 1st To Arrive In Tijuana

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Thursday - November 15, 2018

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Unconstitutional

Maryland files federal court challenge asking judge to block Whitaker, install Rosenstein

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Oversized Wednesday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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❝Stossel: Why Some Capitalists Are the Worst Enemies of Capitalism❞

“Amazon lobbies for government favors and bad regulations.”

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I miscalled it

The election was tight, much tighter than anyone thought it could be.

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❝The Fallacy of Single-Payer Health Care❞

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Monday roundup

Pelosi On Broward County: ‘There Is No Election Fraud,’ Just ‘An Honest Count Of The Vote’



Arizona Democrat's Lead Now 'Insurmountable'



Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe

How Florida elections work—or don’t

This is What Retail Investors Did with GE This Year as it Plunged



Google’s Highly Cited Scholar Wants a ‘Farewell to Free Speech’



Lhamon’s Confession: She Gamed The Narrative



God and Guns in the Synagogue



Understanding the Global Recession of 2019



Former Hillary Adviser: “Hillary will run again”



‘None of the above’ tops list of potential 2020 Dems, poll shows



Alabama Voters Pass Amendment to Display Ten Commandments at Public Schools

This won't end well. Why is it that certain monotheists define religious freedom as their religion above all others?

Should We Abolish the Electoral College?



Judicial Watch sues for records on overlooked House IT scandal


Comments

Bonus Sunday mini-roundup

Poll – Dem Choice For 2020 POTUS Race: None Of The Above



Newly Unsealed Documents Show Top FDIC Officials Running Operation Choke Point

“Last week brought new revelations regarding Operation Choke Point, the Obama administration’s effort to freeze politically disfavored businesses out of the financial system.”

U.S. Secret Service Warns ID Thieves are Abusing USPS’s Mail Scanning Service



The DEA and ICE are hiding surveillance cameras in streetlights



Florida Sec. of State Orders Recount for Both Senate and Governor’s Races

“The mandatory recount occurs if the winning candidate’s margin is less than 0.5 percent”

Are We Becoming a Victimocracy?



Proof positive that these Dems were against Jeff Sessions before they were for him



Feinstein Urged Obama To Use Presidential Power To Limit Immigration: ‘No Legislation Necessary’


Comments

Friday roundup

As His Final Move in Office, Jeff Sessions Limits Use of Court Settlements to Reform Rotten Police Departments



I Think I Have Lost the Plot -- When Did AG Jeff Sessions Become a Liberal Icon?



What Causes a Normal Election to Spiral into Tribal Warfare?



Senate Judiciary Committee Report: 45 Interviews, Zero Evidence To Corroborate Claims Against Kavanaugh



China’s president vows to lower tariffs, increase imports amid tensions with US



Harvard's Racist Diversity



Why Are so Few Americans Able to Get Ahead?



Keith Ellison, Farrakhan groupie and go-to Congressman for anti-Israel activists, elected Minnesota AG



Note to Resistance media: The First Amendment wasn’t written to protect a reporter’s right to grandstand in the White House



Devastating wildfire blazes through California town: 'The community of Paradise is destroyed'



Florida Official Overseeing Vote Count Destroyed Ballots, Accused of Not Removing Dead Voters from Rolls



McSally vs. Sinema ballot update: About 9,600 votes separate the candidates, with Sinema in the lead



ABC, NBC Ignore Antifa Mob Assaulting Home of Fox News Host Tucker Carlson



Saudi prince MBS tells US evangelicals the world should focus on Iran, not him


Comments

If you can't trust your worst enemy…

I called the U.S. House election wrong.

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The more control they have…

But none of that is a reason to impeach him.

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Wednesday roundup

It's going to be tight.

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Election results.

It's going to be tight.

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NeoNote — Does that make me a Trump supporter?

But none of that is a reason to impeach him.

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NeoNote — 4:51 AM on election day.

The Gods Do Not Vote, So Why Are You Asking Them?

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Tuesday roundup - election day

If money was really speech, there would be no legal limit to campaign donations.

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Oversize Monday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Comments

The Gods Do Not Vote

The Gods Do Not Vote, So Why Are You Asking Them?

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NeoNote — Campaign finance reform redux

My idea for campaign finance reform.

You can't contribute to a campaign unless you reside in the area affected by the campaign. No one from Phoenix could contribute to a city council election in Tucson, no one from California could contribute to a proposition in Nevada, and so on.

No anonymous contributions. A current public list of all contributions must be maintained.

Any unused funds must be returned proportionally to all contributors or to a specified charity. If someone contributed .01% of the campaign's funding, then they would receive .01% of any monies left over.

Violating any of these rules would render a candidate legally unable to serve in any public office until the end of term for the office they ran for. If they ran for Senate, violation would make them ineligible for six years. In the case of a ballot proposition, the election would be voided and must be held again.



Money is not speech. No matter what the USSC says.

If they want to spend money, they can do so in their own home. If they want to speak against someone, they can do that where ever and when ever. But someone in Idaho doesn't have to live with the aftermath of an election in Illinois.



It's part of my SUPER SECRET PLAN TO DESTROY THE POLITICAL PARTIES.

Don't tell anyone.



People forget that the party system wasn't created by the Constitution. Yet they essentially control the nomination process. Take the cash flow and war chests and political action groups away and the parties collapse.

All without arguing over if cash is free speech.

Oh, and banning corporate campaign contributions. And union contributions. And political "matching funds."

*grins*



Money isn't speech any more than money is press. Money is a tool, a way of keeping score, and power, but it is not speech.

If money was really speech, there would be no legal limit to campaign donations.

If someone has more money, does that mean they have a bigger right of free speech or a bigger right of the press? If that is the case, we might as well do away with elections and just hold auctions.

It's telling that prior to campaign finance "reform," no one thought otherwise. It's also telling that the CFR was used to restrict speech.

Just because the law says something doesn't mean it's so. I'm still convinced that anyone born with a penis is a male.

Under my proposal, there are two restrictions on donating money. You have to be a voter and you have to reside in the area affected by the election. These are the two restrictions that every other proposed form of campaign finance reform tries to do away with.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

Comments

NeoNote - No news source is going to be unbiased

No news source is going to be unbiased. Everybody has a narrative they believe in and everybody is the hero of their own story. I've no problem with people advocating for what they believe in. I have every problem with one side presented as THE Only Acceptable Solution and all other sides demonized. I also have problems when one side is presented as nearly saints and people looking the other way when it comes to the flaws of their champions.

As a rule, absolutes don't.

No one person and certainly no group has all the answers. The Christians aren't all wholesome, but neither are the pagans. The Republicans aren't all righteous, but neither are the Democrats. The labels have no vice or virtue. Only individuals can take responsibility for the consequences. The answers lie somewhere in the middle where we meet and work out how to live without killing each other.

I'd be worried if I agreed with everything written here. That would mean that there is no room left for growth on any side. That would mean that we have silenced the magick for political expediency. It would mean that perception was more important than change.

There's good work here. Sometimes that means telling people what they do not want to hear.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

Comments

Friday roundup

Changing the Rules

Controlling the internet

Why Is Social Media So Toxic?



Have we really wiped out half of all animals?



If Dems win the House, ‘climate committee’ will return – seeking energy taxes



Napolitano Teaches Basic Civics to Desperate ‘Fox & Friends’ Hosts

It wouldn't be the first time Trump said something outrageous to set the discussion

We Need a #MeToo Movement for Political Consent



How Trump Is Winning The Midterm Elections



Pakistan acquits Christian woman on death row



Surveillance Cameras Can Identify Anyone by “Talking to Their Cellphones”



Everything you need to know about economics you can learn in the pet food aisle



'Stalked within your own home': Woman says abusive ex used smart home technology against her



If You Liked 'Axis of Evil,' You're Gonna Love 'Troika of Tyranny'



Foxconn: Failure & Fraud


Comments

Vitally important note to any and all politicians

If you can't be bothered to have an actual person call me, I can't be bothered to take your call.

And I won't think fondly of you when I am in the voting booth.

Comments

Libertarians believe

The FedGovs.

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Thursday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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“Who Owns The Statue of Liberty? (New Jersey vs New York)”

The FedGovs.

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“Illegal Immigration: It's About Power”

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Wednesday roundup

Civility 101: James Cromwell Says ‘There Will Be Blood’ if Dems Lose Midterms

If this is true, why hold elections?

State-Backed Digital Currency Offers Nothing for Canadians



Is This Worse Than '68?



Moving The Goalposts: IPCC Secretly Redefines what ‘Climate’ means



Bolsonaro is not a fascist



Dad at McDonald's with kids shoots and kills masked gunman who opened fire



Why Halloween Is America’s Most Neighborhood-Nurturing Holiday



Hillary Clinton Drops Super Racist Comment During Event

Can you imagine any Republican getting away with this?

The Misguided Rabbis of Twitter

“Calls to excommunicate pro-Trump Jews are not simply wrong. They’re poison.”

Election predictions

Why polls probably aren't working

Feds Order Google To Hand Over A Load Of Innocent Americans' Locations

Not guilty, just in the wrong place at the wrong time. So much for the "right" of privacy.

New Research Confirms We Got Cholesterol All Wrong

“The U.S. government has pushed a lot of bad nutrition advice over the years. Maybe it should stop advising us on what to eat.”

Warmists and Skeptics Should Agree That This is The Real Scandal in Climate Science


Comments

Tuesday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Comments

Oversized Monday roundup

Report: 3,000 SNAP Retailers Used Social Security Numbers of Dead People During Obama Administration



China Targets Control Over Internet of Things for Spying, Business



Once Again, NBC Sits On Story Related to Sexual Misconduct Until After It Matters



Corporate Speech Police Are Not the Answer to Online Hate



'#WalkAway' movement renouncing liberalism marches through nation's capital



One of the Best Arguments Against Blocking Speech on Social Media....

“...is so we become aware of who might be dangerous.”

Defensible Space

““Megafires” are now a staple of life in the Pacific Northwest, but how we talk about them illustrates the tension at the heart of the western myth itself.”

Deficits Do Matter: Debt Payments Will Consume Trillions of Dollars in Coming Years



U.S.-bound migrants enter Guatemala, others clash at border

Another 3000 strong caravan

Is Orwell’s Big Brother Here? Bezos & Amazon Team up With Defense, CIA & ICE



Murder in Pittsburgh and the Targeting of Alternative Social Media



Voters in Oregon Have the Opportunity to Create 10 “Gun Sanctuary” Counties



New Hampshire Privacy Amendment on the Ballot



Google’s smart city dream is turning into a privacy nightmare



Mexico offers caravan migrants benefits to stay; thousands refuse



Virtue-signaling and derangement in the wake of a massacre


Comments

Approval voting

Fargo Considers Whether to Turn Local Elections into a Voting System of Likes (and Dislikes)

“Measure 1 would introduce "approval voting" to the city, meaning voters wouldn't have to abandon independent and third-party choices.”
It's called "approval voting," and residents of Fargo (population: 120,000) are being asked in a ballot initiative if they'd like to be the first municipality in the United States to try it.

Rather than simply voting for one candidate, voters in this system are asked to approve or oppose each person on the ballot. The votes are all tallied, and the candidate with the most approval votes is declared the winner. Much like Maine's ranked-choice instant runoff voting system, this approach doesn't lock voters into supporting a single candidate. It thus allows voters to support third-party and independent candidates if they like them, without having to "throw their vote away" or spoil the chances of a major-party candidate they also support.

Approval voting is a pet project of The Center for Election Science, and the group has been involved in the education campaign in Fargo running up to the election. Polls show that support for this change is high, twice that of those who oppose the change. But more than a third of those polled say that they are undecided, so the center has some work ahead.
     — Scott Shackford
Comments

NeoNote — “Vote like it matters”

Will they tolerate similar "resistance" from conservatives?

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NeoNote — My politics

I'm for individual freedom and personal responsibility. That's not "alt-right," it's not right wing, and it's certainly not left wing.

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Comments

NeoNote — What happens when progressives are in charge?

Will they tolerate similar "resistance" from conservatives?

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Comments

Tuesday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry


An exclusive look at Cory Booker’s plan to fight wealth inequality: give poor kids money

Where does the money come from? Who decides who gets money and who does not? How is this not buying votes?

A Law Intended to Protect Crime Victims Is Being Used to Shield the Identities of Police Officers

Unaccountable authority will be abused.

Dear Resistance, listen to my lived totalitarian experience – you have no effing idea what you’re talking about



Politico Report Says Russiagaters Should Prepare To Kiss My Ass



Methods and Tricks Used to Create and Perpetuate the Human-caused Global Warming Deception



Divided Democrats struggle to answer Trump's claims on migrant caravan



Watching a Country Make a Fool of Itself



Saudi dissidents fear 'long arm' of state after Khashoggi murder



A Texas Police Officer Is Charged After Mishandling 130 Sex Crime Cases



Georgia Mayor Has Plan To Round Up Town's Sex Offenders on Halloween



California company that hires protesters is accused of extortion



Previously Deported Illegal Aliens Join Caravan: ‘It’s Time for Me to Go Back’



Judge bars New Hampshire proof of residency requirement for new voters


Comments

Hexing justice

As I said before, apparently the motivation for hexing Kavanaugh has moved from justice to attack.

This will have consequences, regardless of who did what where and when.
     — NeoWayland, NeoNote — Political hexing
Comments

"People just can't know that." McCaskill Hides Agenda from Voters, "semi-automatic rifle ban"

“Project Veritas Action Fund has released a third undercover video from campaigns during this 2018 election season. This report exposes how incumbent Senator McCaskill and individuals working on her campaign conceal their liberal views on issues in order to court moderate voters.”

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Friday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Comments

“Deep State Unmasked: Leaks at HHS; DOJ Official Resists "From Inside" and "Can't Get Fired"”

“Project Veritas has released the second installment in an undercover video series unmasking the deep state. This video features a Department of Justice paralegal Allison Hrabar reportedly using government owned software and computers to push a socialist agenda. Also featured is Jessica Schubel, the former Chief of Staff for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services during the last Obama administration.”

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“Deep State Unmasked: U.S. GAO Auditor Admits “I Break Rules Every Day””

“Project Veritas has released the next in a series of undercover reports which unmask the Deep State. This report features a Government Accountability Office (GAO) employee and self-proclaimed Communist actively engaged in potentially illegal political activity. Natarajan Subramanian is a government auditor for the GAO and a member of the Metro DC Democratic Socialists of America (Metro DC DSA).”

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Comments

Thursday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Comments

“#DeepStateUnmasked: IRS Officials "You Should Give Increased Scrutiny" to Conservatives”

“I don’t give a s**t if that is a crime.”

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Wednesday roundup

“I don’t give a s**t if that is a crime.”

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Comments

“Progressive Propaganda: BBC's Liberal Bias”

“The BBC's biased liberal reporting is on full display when it comes to Glamrou, gender, and diversity. Media bias examples abound, but the BBC's state-funding makes it especially deserving of scrutiny.”

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Comments

Tuesday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry


Elizabeth Warren’s DNA Test Is ‘Useless,’ ‘Inappropriate And Wrong’ Cherokee Nation Official Says



U.S. Has 3.5 Million More Registered Voters Than Live Adults — A Red Flag For Electoral Fraud



Saudis said ready to concede writer was slain in botched interrogation



A White Woman Falsely Accused a Black 9-Year-Old Boy of Groping Her

“Surveillance footage disproves her allegations—and reminds everyone not to automatically believe victims.”

How An Amateur Rap Crew Stole Surveillance Tech That Tracks Almost Every American



The Next Generation Of Democratic Leaders Wants To Move Up, But The Baby Boomers Are In The Way

I don't usually cite BuzzFeed, but this one is dead on.

Washington Post: “Double or Triple” Fuel Prices to Solve the Climate Crisis



‘60 Minutes’ Was Outmatched by Trump (Column)



The FBI Doesn’t Want Users To Know Who Hacked Facebook



On Eve of Harvard Bias Trial, Dueling Rallies Show Rifts Among Asian-Americans



More Entrepreneurship Would Help Progressive Causes, But Progressives Do Not Understand It At All



Facebook Slams Independent Voices With Latest Political Purge



Understanding "Brazil’s Donald Trump"


Comments

“What's Wrong with Government-Run Healthcare?”

Comments

Geniune Tree Hugging Pagan

I'm telling you as a Genuine Tree Hugging Pagan that anthropogenic climate change is a scam designed to seize money and political power.
     — NeoWayland
Comments

Regulations

Regulations exist so politicos can evade responsibility for unpopular choices.
     — NeoWayland, technocrat
Comments

Bonus Saturday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry


WATCH: #HimToo: Neil Patrick Harris Recalls Proposition From Whoopi Goldberg When He Was A Mid-Teen

So why isn't Goldberg being attacked over hitting on a teen?

Democrats agree to confirmations of 15 Trump judges

"Principle" bows to politics

Sometimes I Just Go Full Potato

“By engaging in this public surge and display of unfettered hate – for there is no other name for it – they are revealing themselves for what they really are: extreme radicals and bullies willing to do anything, including burn down the house while you are in it, to get what they want. They do not believe society’s laws and rules apply to them, because they regularly and intentionally (or stupidly) misinterpret the Law of the Land. They are encouraged to do so, and to traipse as close to the edge of anarchy as possible to get what they want, with no thought to the consequences.”

I Won’t Support An Elizabeth Warren Presidency While She Appropriates My Identity

So the author would support a liar as long as she stops lying about what's important to the author

We’re Not on the Brink of Civil War. Here’s Why.



How Kavanaugh’s Confirmation Finally United The Right Under Trump

Sad to say, totally accurate.

Six Months Later, People Are Finally Realizing That FOSTA Actually Is Putting Lives At Risk



Top Ten Alternative Media Sites BANNED on Facebook and Twitter



First They Came for Alex Jones — We Told You We Were Next — We Were



What Sears’ Bankruptcy Says About Amazon’s Future


Comments

Posers, the lot of them



We “refuse to be silent any longer”: magic as self-care after Kavanaugh



It's junk like this that makes me angry at the posers calling themselves pagans.

They don't want justice. The want attention. They don't know the least little thing about magick. But they know how to put on a show.

Exactly what is it that either Trump or Kavanaugh have done to threaten them?

It all boils down to putting conservative judges on the bench. Eighty-four so far.

The implications are terrifying. It means that most progressives know that they only way they can have a progressive society is by controlling the judiciary. Not by getting people elected, but by having a moral authority with the final say.

I don't like conservatives either. But the actions of the progressives are driving me away.

And progressives still can't point to one thing that has been done and say, "Look, here is the threat!"

It's about who is on the bench. Not about what was said. Not about what was done. But about who sits in judgement.

That is tyranny.

Comments

When politics define your personhood

When you let your politics define your personhood, there's not much room left for your personhood outside of your politics. Without your personhood, you can lose empathy and humanity.
     — NeoWayland label
Comments

“Camille Paglia Explains Why Feminism Is The Collapse Of Western Civilization - MGTOW”

Comments

Thursday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

Read More...
Comments

NeoNote — Human rights

For the record, there are no LGBTQ rights. There are no black rights. There are no women's rights. There are no Hispanic rights. There are no pagan rights. There are no Chinese rights. There are no Christian rights. There are no police rights.

There are human rights. Period.

It's not a right unless the other has it too.

Too many times there are privileges passed off as rights. Privileges benefit a select few at the expense of everyone else. Too often, what should have been rights for everyone were enforced privileges for some. This is a big reason why rights and privileges are confused.

It's not a right unless the other has it too.



Which means they get a head thump when they demand I submit.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

Comments

Wednesday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry


Study: Economic Boom Largely Ignored as TV's Trump Coverage Hits 92% Negative



The First Amendment protects your right to not be a rat.



Two Students Hooked Up. It Was Clearly Consensual. He Still Spent $12,000 Defending Himself.



With corruption like this, it’s no wonder so many pension funds are insolvent



Antifa Arsonists Vandalize Pro-Trump Truck — THEN TORCH IT (Video)



Antifa Shut Down Major Intersection, Threaten Citizens with Violence If They Don’t Obey



Pennsylvania's Libertarian Senate Candidate Gets Invited, Then Snubbed From Televised Debate



Fearmongering Article Falsely Claims 'Halloween Is Christmas for Sex Offenders'



Data Showing Navy's Poor Aviation Safety Record Disappears From Website



Sex Workers Pioneered the Early Internet—and It Screwed Them Over



That sign telling you how fast you’re driving may be spying on you



A Florida Man Faces Prison for Making Grills Without a License



What Seems To Be Going on At @Tesla, and The Risks Of Buying (and Shorting) $TSLA Stock


Comments

NeoNote — global climate change

*sigh*

Pardon, but global climate change is a scam designed to take political power and money away from people. The figures are not accurate, the goalposts keep getting moved, and the solutions always seem to boil down to "give us money and don't ask questions."

I've done the research. Short of reducing the number of people or removing access to energy, there is not a lot that can be done. At present, there are exactly two off-the-shelf technologies that can meet power needs without adding to the "carbon footprint." Those are hydroelectric and nuclear plants. There are a limited number of rivers that can be dammed up to produce power. There are very few alternatives to high-pressure fission plants. Nobody wants either close to their homes.

Despite what you've been told, most "green" technologies are anything but. Ethanol can't be produced economically without subsidies. It's much more chemically unstable, making it harder to store, transport, and use in engines. Electric cars don't mass as much, making them more dangerous in an accident. Manufacturing and maintaining electric car batteries has a bigger impact on the environment. Solar and wind require parallel systems to meet peak demand. The cost of solar is prohibitive. Wind power attracts and kills birds. It may also contribute to local warming.

This is a big mess, and it's not going to be fixed by a top down legal solution.

Given the games that have been played over the years, we don't know what contributes to global climate change. We don't even know if there is human caused climate change. Climate changes, it happened before humans were here, and it will continue long after our descendant's descendants have turned to dust.

Meanwhile, we're still pumping water into swimming pools and golf courses. We still have waste plastics and trash piling up. We're destroying the rainforests and wiping out species.

But that doesn't matter because we're going to fix global warming. Eventually.



Pardon, but I didn't say that nuclear or dams are an acceptable solution. I said that they were the only existing off-the-shelf solutions that could meet demand and not add to the "carbon footprint."

As far as the predictions being short of reality, well, no. Back in the 1970s, the fear was about global cooling. In 1990, the IPCC predicted that temperatures would rise by 1ºC by 2025. As of the end of 2017, the actual change has been between .3ºC and .5ºC, depending on which database you use. Wildfires were supposed to increase, they declined. Snow was supposed to become a rare event, it stayed about the same. The Arctic Ocean was supposed to become ice free, but there's been no measurable decline. The sea level was supposed to rise four feet by now, it's been three or four inches. In 2005, there were supposed to be 50 million "climate refugees" by 2015.

This is the problem. Someone will proclaim disaster, but they are never held accountable for previous predictions. The goalposts keep moving.



What I'd like to see is the ecological issues separated from the climate change claims. There is a tremendous amount of power and money at stake without any accountability.

That is what I meant by a scam. People want to help. Pagans and Earth-centered faiths especially want to help the planet. Somebody is profiting without actually "saving the planet." If it were anything else, we'd call them out. But because it's climate change, we accept the outrageousness.



I agree with you about the dams. They aren't a good solution. They are one of the very few proven technologies that can deliver the energy.

Pardon, I wasn't clear. Electric vehicles devote most of their mass to batteries. There have been some impact studies that do not show electrics in a good light.

I don't advocate reducing the population. But it is one of the solutions that is "on the table." Oddly enough, it's focused mainly on highly industrialized nations.



Pardon, but it is not about "deepening our understanding."

Somebody predicted something, it did not happen, and rather than owning their mistake, they predict more disaster just around the corner.

We don't know what makes climate work. I wouldn't trust anyone who claims to know what the temperature "should be."

I do know that we don't have big enough baselines. They talk about "the worst weather in a century." But the planet is more than four and a half billion years old. That's about .0000022% more or less.



If I told you that your favorite relative was coming in a red car, wouldn't you notice more red cars?

If the news was telling you that there were more storms, wouldn't you notice more storms?

You should ask IF there are actually more natural disasters or if someone wants more viewers/readers.

I'm not disputing that there are ecological problems. In my first post on this thread I mentioned water and waste disposal. What I am disputing is if global climate change is human caused or even a problem.

Electric cars have always had the battery problem. Add to that generating the electricity in the first place. Both have a huge environmental and economic impact.

Solar and wind are cheap, but converting them into something we can use is not. I live in Arizona, one of the sun shiniest states in the union. But that won't produce electricity at night or during a storm. The sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow.

Don't underestimate the power of profit and the free market. It's why we have things like grocery stores and comfortable shoes. Not to mention dirt cheap ballpoint pins, cheap computers, clean water, and affordable eyeglasses. See, the thing about the free market is that you have to offer as good as your competition or you lose business. If the competition makes it better or cheaper, you have to match them just to stay afloat.

And that brings us back to solar. In a world where practically anything can be sold at a profit at WalMart, don't you think that if cheap, durable, efficient solar cells could be made they would be?

I'm not asking for predictions to be one hundred percent accurate. But I do think the accuracy should be better than chance. Especially if the people doing the predictions want scads of money and tremendous political power to fix the "problem."



You're using solar supplementally. That's good.

Let me make it clear that I do not oppose solar. I just do not think it's practical or affordable as a primary source on a mass scale as it has been sold. I'm a big fan of decentralization. I also think that much of our architecture doesn't support the wise use of energy.

I'm not sure that solar is practical as a primary electrical supply, even on a small scale. Aside from AC, there are things like freezers, refrigerators, hot water heaters, washers, and dryers. These appliances are designed for a constant flow of power.

Ideally I think there should be earth houses or something along the lines of the works of the late Malcolm Wells.



The weather isn't the same every year. My high desert is having a very dry year on top of several others. Lake Powell and Lake Mead are at very low although not record low levels. It's enough to trigger the restrictions on the water treaties though, which means that Arizona and Nevada won't be getting their full allotment from the Colorado.

There was one year when I was a kid that there was snow every two or three days. Not a lot of snow, but very unusual for a desert and unheard of.

Even a human lifetime is not enough to establish a baseline. What is weather in a century when the planet is billions of years old? The planet has had several ice ages, which means there were warm periods too.

I want to stress that I am not dismissing environmental issues like clean water. When I first saw the PBS series based on Cadillac Desert I was horrified. That made me take a hard look at what was happening with water in the Southwest.

No, my issue is with anthropogenic climate change. From what I can tell, there are alarmists but no evidence. And a lot of failed predictions.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

Comments

Tuesday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry


Do Half of All Marriages Really End in Divorce?

“This outdated statistic has many young people hesitant to tie the knot.”

NATO to Deploy 45,000 Troops Near Russian Border—Calling it a “Defensive” Move



China confirms detention of former Interpol chief Meng Hongwei



U.S. not invited to Canada’s upcoming trade meeting — only ‘like minded’ nations allowed



How the mushroom dream of a ‘long-haired hippie’ could help save the world’s bees



ACLU's Opposition to Kavanaugh Sounds Its Death Knell



BOMBSHELL: audit of global warming data finds it riddled with errors



Politico: 'After Failing to Stop Kavanaugh, Dems Wonder If It's Time to Be More Ruthless'

"Next time they should just murder the nominee."

Former Google boss launches scathing Silicon Valley attack urging tech giants to end the delusion that it's making the world a better place



Trump Isn’t a Self-Made Man. His Wealth Is the Product of Years of Government Subsidies.



Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: 'Eliminate' Electoral College, It 'Undermines' Democracy

There is one thing good I can't deny about the Electoral College, it kept Al Gore and Hillary Clinton the Presidency.

IPCC Report Reaches Dire Conclusions Based on Models that Overstate Rate of Warming



The Democrats' Complaints About the Senate Being Undemocratic Are Pure Whining and Excuse-Making: Here's Why


Comments

Witch hunt

Trauma and Truth

That idea—that the presumption of innocence, fundamental to common law, should be suspended for accusations of sexual assault—has been the cornerstone of the campus-rape bureaucracy; during the Kavanaugh hysteria, that conceit jumped out of the ivory tower into the world at large. It will be no easy task to put it back. In preparation for the next Salem witch trial-like ordeal, therefore, it is worth empirically rebutting the #BelieveSurvivors mandate, as well as its corollary: the claim that if most self-professed rape survivors in our patriarchal culture don’t report their assaults, that’s because the “social and emotional” costs are too high, as California congressman Ted Lieu explained on MSNBC last Sunday.
     — Heather Mac Donald
Comments

Friday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

Read More...
Comments

“Big Brother Wants to Stop Your Private Online Conversations”

Big brother doesn't trust you.

Read More...
Comments

❝‘Rape Culture’ Is A MYTH | Change My Mind❞

“Steven Crowder takes the streets once again to have real conversations with real people on hot button issues. In this edition, Steven dispels the myth of ‘Rape Culture’ #Change My Mind.”

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Comments

Thursday roundup

People tend to repeat behavior that has been successful or will bring them an emotional high.

Read More...
Comments

Grassroots political activists aren’t really arguing about politics at all

The more time I spend covering politics, the more I’m convinced that a significant chunk of grassroots political activists aren’t really arguing about politics at all. These folks are actually grappling with personal psychological issues and projecting it onto the world of politics.
     — Jim Geraghty, Another Day, Another Unidentified Source

Read More...
Comments

Wednesday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

Read More...
Comments

Tuesday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

Read More...
Comments

NeoNote — Allegation is not proof

People tend to repeat behavior that has been successful or will bring them an emotional high.

Read More...
Comments

Sunday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

Read More...
Comments

“Stossel: Leaving the Left”

Comments

“Brexit Morons”

tip of the hat to Bookworm Room
Comments

Obligatory libertarian rant

ahem

Government Is Not Your Friend.

When government acts, there will always Always ALWAYS be less liberty afterwards.

Do we really want politicos and technocrats deciding what is and is not available based on a morality that was defined between the two AM sex party and the prayer breakfast?

==>Obligatory libertarian rant over. We now return you to your regularly scheduled comments.<==
     — NeoWayland
Comments

“What Is Net Neutrality?”

Comments

“Left or Liberal?”

Comments

NeoNote — "Race," IQ, and savagery

That is a phenomenally inaccurate and simplistic view.



"Run by blacks…"

They are run by Democrats who have spent the last 50+ years telling minority groups that they are victims and don't have to be responsible.

Gods, the absolute last last thing you should do is blame skin color.

Do you want to make things worse?



Of course you're blaming skin color.

Those "heritable characteristics" vanish when you start adjusting for quality of education, early childhood environment, and family support.

Next time read the disclaimers and qualitifications qualifications.



Yes, yes they do. Check the studies again. Better yet, follow it to the inevitable conclusion. If the "heritable characteristics" exist and are not modified by environmental factors, then by your logic "blacks" are inherently inferior.

Think about that very carefully.



The fact that you are relying on IQ tells me quite a bit.

The IQ tests are culturally biased. What's more, studies from the late 1970s forward have shown that the tests are sub-culturally biased. Those scores are significantly linked to quality of education, early childhood environment, and family support.

Yes, those things I mentioned earlier.

What's more, there's evidence of an inner-city sub-culture that is adamantly against doing well in school or on tests.



Look, here's the problem.

You're defining people by skin color, no matter what their individual accomplishments.

Benjamin Banneker, Frederick Douglass, George Washington Carver, Daniel Hale Williams , Booker T. Washington, James West, John J. Jasper, Daniel "Chappie" James Jr., Thomas Sowell, Huey P. Newton, Carter G. Woodson, W. E. B. Du Bois, Malcolm X, those are just some of the remarkable American men I remember off the top of my head.



Those averages only matter if you've allowed for all other factors.

For example, how many sub-Sararan sub-Saharan nations have a free market based economy? How many recognize the rights of the individual?

I already told you a third theory. There are significant cultural and environmental differences. What's more, put any skin color in unfavorable circumstances and watch how fast the "average" drops.



Unless a government recognizes & defends individual rights, corruption follows as surely as night follows day.

Those white South Africans you mention had special privilege and exploited people because they had the power to do so. When things changed, there was no living memory of anything except special privileges. The corruption stayed and the exploited targets changed.

A version of the same problem is happening in those Democrat controlled cities that you incorrectly insist on labeling "black run." Recognized rights have long given way to special privilege, and no one remembers anything else.



I didn't say anything about it not being their fault. I specifically said Democrats "have spent the last 50+ years telling minority groups that they are victims and don't have to be responsible."

Not so long ago, the Republican idea of race relations was to get out of the way and tell people to take responsibility. That's no longer the case.

I don't care about blame. I just care about fixing the problem. And you are making things worse.

You're making the Democrat case for them. You're saying that "blacks" will fail if left to themselves.



You mean other than the examples I gave you?

If you are interested in statistics, try the upward mobility of "blacks" between 1900 and 1960, before government interfered. The welfare statistics and the rise of single mother families are particularly telling. These have been well documented.

On the whole, two parent households do better over time. When the immediate cost of having children is reduced by government intervention, then a single parent household is less likely to move up the economic ladder.



I told you some of what was necessary for a society's success. Recognition and protection of individual rights. A free market economy. Those things are rare.

Those things are also not dependent on skin color.

I don't recognize "black" societies, I recognize human societies. Almost every single time when someone talks about "black" societies or "black"nations or "black" cities, it's about racism.

There's one race and it's human.



I said no such thing.

I talked about political systems designed to exploit victimhood and grant privilege.

That has almost nothing to do with skin color and everything to do with denying rights.



People designed those systems. Generations of people over centuries, trading, interacting, arguing, fighting, failing, and trying again. It wasn't because of one skin color even if you could define "white."



Because I said that people designed the systems, for good or ill?

Because I pointed out that it took generations?

Because I pointed out that you can't define "white" anymore than you can define "black?"

You lost this one the second you used skin color as a substitute for individual merit.



You haven't managed to identify any significant differences that aren't environmental in nature.

Instead, you keep focusing on skin color, a poor indicator under the best of circumstances.

There are hundreds of other factors, starting with how many parents the child has and if the child is raised in a loving environment. That doesn't even include the social factors I've already touched on.

As long as you focus on skin color, you're just perpetuating the problems.

The only way the question is reduced to a binary condition is by focusing on insignificant measurements such as skin color.



We've already established that IQ is culturally biased. There are also strong indications that IQ is sub-culturally biased as well. That means that part of what IQ measures is cultural conformity.

That's assuming that IQ is a relevant measure of intelligence to begin with. There are theories that one measurement of intelligence isn't nearly enough.

Like it or not, you have to allow for environmental and cultural factors in IQ scores.



Me and about two thirds of the researchers studying the possibility.

I suggest you do a web search for IQ cultural bias.



First, it's not the "warrior gene." A variant is popularly (and inaccurately) referred to as the "warrior gene." Technically the variant produces less MAMO MAOA .

Second, the evidences seems to show that the people with a low level of MAMO MAOA show higher levels of aggression when faced with social stressors such as ostracism, exclusion, or overwhelming loss.

You know, environmental factors.

ETA: Sorry about that, spell check fixed something I didn't want fixed.



With environmental factors, yes.

Would you like a list of genetic variations that are activated by environmental stressors?



I don't lie.

You keep stressing differences that derive from environmental factors.

Yet you keep blaming skin color.



Remember when I mentioned "family support?" Have you accounted for the incredible cultural pressure to succeed at schools and testing?



Yep, Obama was all about skin color. And his solutions worked out just so well for everyone, right?

There's a line I've been throwing around for a couple years now.

There were so many patting themselves on the back and proud that a black man had been elected President that no one bothered to ask if a good man had been elected President.


The politics are a much bigger part of the problem than the skin color.

It's the politics I blame.



And there's your problem.

You think it's about America.

It's about freedom.



Who said anything about pretending it's not there?

I'm disputing why it is there.



Actually I did. I talked briefly about incentivizing single parenthood and telling minorities that they are perpetual victims and how they don't have to take responsibility.



No, it wasn't the same environment.

I specified "telling minorities."

Politics are bad enough, but the politics are of victimhood are just despicable.



Because they don't have the same incentives.

Do you have any idea how much has been written and spoken about this over the last sixty years?

You might start with Goldwater's objections to the 1964 Civil Rights Act.



I believe they are indoctrinated to believe that they could only be victims no matter what.



Talked with more than a few. Slept with a couple.

I'm a bilagáana born on the res. I grew up next to the Diné, the Hopi, and the Havasupai. Spent a lot of time in Phoenix, Tucson, San Diego, and Albuquerque.

Still want to lecture me on the "races?"



Gods, you really are so ignorant that you can't be bothered to do a web search.

Roughly translated, bilagáana means "white man." There's more to it than that, especially for one born on the reservation. I'm what happens when Louisiana farming stock takes root in the Four Corners region.



Check again.

I never denied cultural differences, I just pointed out that they alone don't determine IQ or aggression.



I don't think I've done it in this thread, but I have pointed out that there is one race and it's human.

"Peoples" is a completely different concept and doesn't usually rest on minor genetic differences. The term is slightly more accurate than tribes.

Go back and reread what I wrote on this thread. I started by pointing out that what was being passed off as racial and genetic differences were actually due to environmental and cultural factors.



Ah, someone is making the right points.

First, IQ is not an objective measurement. One of my favorite examples is the Diné, their culture doesn't recognize time and distance as linear. With the possibility of multiple intelligences, things get more complicated. Gross motor coordination doesn't translate to spatial mathematical. Yes, I know the theory has problems like leaving out fine motor control, but this isn't the place.

We've not defined intelligence very well. There's a difference between following a recipe and walking in a kitchen just to whip up amazing food. IQ tests look for proven solutions, not for that creative spark. Sometimes that mostly works, sometimes not.

One set of parents can produce a musical genius, a good accountant, and a total slacker. It's impossible to say if a specific genetic line might produce. We know from domesticated animals that some traits will probably breed true, but we have to allow for environment and chance. We can't say that this family always produces good Rotarians and never any gamers. We can't say that every puppy from that Labrador will be good with kids. If you expand it to a group, the uncertainty grows too.



Interesting. You get to keep your preconceptions but I have to give mine up.

Okay, let's go back to basics. Part of science is eliminating variables.

The people we're comparing, are they on the same economic level? Did they have the same number of parents? Did they attend the same or comparable schools? Are they married? Do they have the same number of kids? Is their debt level the same? Is their education level the same? Do they live in the same or comparable neighborhoods?

We know that every single one of these environmental factors can influence someone's mental abilities, their tastes, their chosen activities, and their obligations.

And these are just the big ones.

Otherwise you're comparing apples from last year to next year's bananas. There's no way to establish a baseline.

There's no real comparison until you can account for most of the major variables.



I'm telling you (again) that until you can account for environmental differences, your measurements are useless.

There's a difference between a Walmart special and a finely made bookshelf. You can't just say that the one that is forty-one inches wide is better than the thirty-five inch one. You don't have enough information to judge.



It's a trick question.

It presupposes that there aren't any other variables that matter.

At the very least, acknowledge that the quality of schools makes a difference.

Mona Lisa Vito: It's a bullshit question.

D.A. Jim Trotter: Does that mean that you can't answer it?

Mona Lisa Vito: It's a bullshit question, it's impossible to answer.

D.A. Jim Trotter: Impossible because you don't know the answer!

Mona Lisa Vito: Nobody could answer that question!

D.A. Jim Trotter: Your Honor, I move to disqualify Ms. Vito as a "expert witness"!

Judge Chamberlain Haller: Can you answer the question?

Mona Lisa Vito: No, it is a trick question!

     — My Cousin Vinny


From my second response to you on this thread, I've pointed out again and again that you can not eliminate cultural and environmental factors.

The differences that you chose to highlight directly resulted in part from the culture and environment.

These are facts that we know and can easily be verified through a web search.

Children from single parent households tend to do worse at school and hold lower paying jobs.

Children from abusive households tend to do worse at school and hold lower paying jobs.

Single parent households tend to stay at lower income levels.

Some schools fail so much that most of their students can't read, write, or do basic math.

If children don't have enough to eat, they don't do well in school.

If people don't have shelter, they tend to have more health problems.

How much did environment and culture play a part? There is no way to know unless you can eliminate variables.

There's no comparison unless you can account for most of the major variables. This is true in science. This is true in statistics. This is true in life.

Your question makes no sense because there can be no comparison.



But you haven't presented evidence.

You've gone out of your way to dismiss the very idea that the culture and environment can have any possible influence on the differences you chose to highlight.

All you've done is lay out a premise that presupposes that no other factors can change what you choose to measure.

It's not science. It's not statistics. It's not even logically verifiable.

It's just prejudice.



You don't have evidence. You have observation, but you haven't shown cause or correlation because you have not allowed for environmental and cultural factors.

It's not even a matter of "interpretation." You've deliberately chosen one measurement and claimed that it defines the whole discussion. Can you say selection bias?



You can put tomato seeds in a salt shaker for nine months. That doesn't mean you'll be harvesting.



But I don't blame skin color at all. That's when I talk about this at all. Most people don't want to deal with uncomfortable truths.

I talk about politics, history, and the lies of government. Also basic economics and self-ownership.



Self-ownership and responsibility are a big part of what I write and talk about.

I also talk about strategy that exploits the politics of victimhood. I point out that the people who don't accept those lies from politicos and technocrats do better over time. Usually better than their parents. Which used to be a measurement of success in this nation.

A significant number of politicos (easily more than half) use the message that people are victims and their friend, the government, can help.

I tell people that government is not your friend, no matter how much the politicos say that it is.

That's not making excuses. That's showing that most politicos want problems they can stage manage. The politicos can't do that by solving problems.



It's a loaded question.

The premise is insufficient.



Neighbor, you're telling me that I am dealing in absolutes when I just listed seven major variables that we know affect intelligence and ability. These variables change everybody no matter what their skin color, nationality, sex, or ice cream preference.



I can stop you with nothing more than a few words.

Think about it. You're taking offense at what I write on a website when all I am really saying is "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…"

You would deny that?



I'm not defending today's mess.

I've written against it.

But (and this is the important bit), you're still defining people by skin color instead of what they are individually.

There's a phrase about "content of their character" that comes to mind.



I know, you keep defining people by skin color.



Tell me, what nationality are "blacks?"

If a "Chinese" has been granted American citizenship, when does he stop being "Chinese?" Three seconds after? Three generations? When he changes his name to Jones?

If Jesus Fernandez was born in Michigan and barely speaks Spanish, is he "Mexican?"

Or American?



I didn't say anything about stopping the Left with words.

I said I could stop you.

And I have.



Think you so?

Look at what's happened.

I've held my own against you and your "friend." Along the way, we've discussed history, psychology, morality, biology, and ethics. We've done it in real time for a few hours, and right now you are focused on taking me down, not in proving that "blacks" are inferior.

And all you can do is tell me that I don't deserve my citizenship.

You got stopped.



"The fact that blacks are not us."

Pretty sure my neighbors would disagree. Pretty sure your neighbors would too.



"Wait until your neighbors are Hindus, Muslims, Mexicans, or Asians."

Um, they are.



I could ask my across-the-street neighbor, but I'm pretty sure she's happy with her husband. I don't know their kids that well.



Because they are us.

The commonalities outweigh the differences.

These barriers, these labels that people like you keep using, they separate us. The labels keep us apart.

Those are the same stars, and that is the same moon, that look down upon your brothers and sisters, and which they see as they look up to them, though they are ever so far away from us, and each other.
     — Sojourner Truth


The Hopi are surrounded by all sides by the Diné. Can you tell me the genetic differences between the Hopi and the Diné? Good luck, because they've been intermarrying for a long time.

So what are their national characteristics?

As I said, I'm an American. I'm a mix. Part of my ancestry is Irish, part of it is English, part of it is Creole, part of it is German, part of it is Russian, and there's probably stuff on both sides of the bed that isn't officially acknowledged.

What are my national genetic characteristics?

I'm pretty sure I could father a child with any fertile human female if we tried hard enough. That's sort of how the species works.

And that's the important thing. We're one species, one "race." Throw us together and those distinctions fade. We get down and funky. We rut. We mix our genes.

It doesn't stop there. Ideas mix too. We argue with each other. We try to one up each other. We try. We look at what the other guy is doing. We borrow what works and tweak it a bit.

Synchronicity and syncretism happen, no matter how much you want "purity."



I'm not trying to change the labels.

I'm pointing out the truths.

Those labels are controlling your life.



"Truth and lies don't miscegenate."

Miscegenation has nothing to do with truth and lies and everything to do with sex and children.

Truth is subject to change. There was a time when people thought the speed of light was infinite. Now we know it's about 186,000 miles per second. In a vacuum. Put it through an atmosphere or water and it's something else.

We're human. That humanity matters more than any "racial" difference. It's why there are children of "mixed race." As time and people go on, the differences fade.

Until we meet a new population and it starts all over again.

I don't lie. I serve veritas.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

Comments

Politicizing funerals

Lauren Southern lets loose on organized libertarianism

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“The Problem With Libertarians”

Ever notice when someone picks a scapegoat, it's because they think the scapegoat can't fight back?

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“Yep, a Trump Pet.”

People can do most things on their own without government help, direction, or control.

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NeoNote — The nature of politcs

Ever notice when someone picks a scapegoat, it's because they think the scapegoat can't fight back?


I agree with you that politics is a source of great evil in the World.

I disagree that the Trump and the Republicans are the cause. Or even most of the cause.

One annoying thing about politics is that people are willing to overlook the misconduct of "their" side even while slinging wild accusations against the Enemy. The accusations may or may not be accurate. But you can count on the Enemy not being quite the Ultimate Horror Unleashed on Mankind. And you can count that your side is not quite the paragon of virtue and self-sacrifice that they claim.

Politics is about controlling the other. Never you, always the other. When government is involved politics is about control backed by force.

Politicians are never on your side. Even as they stand wrapped in the flag clutching holy writ promising that they will be your bestest friend ever no matter what.


I'm sorry, but I can't agree. Obama used the IRS and Justice Department against his enemies, among other things. And the Democrats looked the other way.

Rather than get into a long and pointless discussion of who did what worse, I want to point out something that most people overlook.

The politicos NEED you to blame the other party and never question the wisdom of your party's decisions. It's always the other party that is doing things Too Terrible and always your own party that promises to Save The Day. When you buy into that, you perpetuate the system. You're always going to be victimized and you're never ever going to be saved. If you were saved, you'd have no reason to vote the party line.


I know I have my political critics on this site, but believe me when I tell you that there are conservatives who are just as threatened by the Democrat leadership as you are by Trump.

Too often today, people make excuses for what their side does by trotting out the disasters from the other side.

I want less government. I think government is a terrible danger to liberty. I think politicos and technocrats complicate things because they don't want you asking questions and they don't want you changing the status quo. They don't want you understanding what they do.

So when I see someone insisting that this flavor of politico is slightly less objectionable, I tell them they are wrong.


Accurate, as far as it goes.

*sighs* Look, I know that other pagans think I am simplistic and partisan when it comes to politics. And believe me, I realize how ironic it is for me to denounce mixing paganism with politics while having a political blog called Pagan Vigil.

Politics is one of my darker passions. I'm better at it than any amateur has any right to be. I understand the temptations and lusts because those are my temptations, my lusts, but for a bit of discipline and some promises I made. There's a line from Doctor Who, “Good men don’t need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many.” These days I try to use my abilities and urges in a good cause. Mostly I succeed.

I've said that politics is about controlling the other. It's literally "power over." All the processes, all the carefully defined rules to protect democracy, all the blame exists SOLEY to keep people from looking too carefully at "the sausage being made." To keep people from asking how much freedom they are "supposed" to sacrifice for "the Greater Good." To keep them from asking themselves why expecting the other guy to sacrifice and compromise is GOOD but they themselves aren't supposed to sacrifice and compromise. To keep them from accepting that POWER OVER for their principles just might not be as as effective as power with based on things we all share.

Smashing the opposition just makes more pieces that can regrow.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

Comments

John McCain passes

Sen. John McCain, American ‘maverick’ and Arizona political giant, dies at age 81


I do not and would not wish death on anyone.

As an Arizona resident who worked against his re-election the last four times, I wish he had retired years ago.

Governor Ducey will be empowered by an act of the legislature to appoint a Republican to fill out the rest of the term. And yes, Arizona state law requires that the appointee be the same party.

I had my disagreements with McCain.

So did Barry Goldwater.

I stopped trusting McCain during the Keating Five mess.

I could say more, but I'll wait a month or so.

I don't speak or write ill of the dead in the first month after their passing. It changes nothing, and everyone deserves the right to deal with their passions and memories.

Edited to add:

McCain to lie in state at Capitol in Washington, Arizona


I know it's supposed to honor the “most eminent citizens,” but I still think lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda is political opportunism.

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NeoNote — No sane reason

I'm not something less, I'm something else.

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NeoNote — Absolutism

The problem with making the personal political is that you drag everyone around you into politics, whether they want to be or not.

The environment is a hugely complex topic. Where do we start? Water rights? Ethanol eradication? GMO seeds? Climate change? I'm willing to bet that no one here is going to agree on all of those.

Likewise the "religious right." Obviously we need to take a stand against people like Roy Moore. It took me twenty-plus years to get on speaking terms some of my relatives younger than me, I'd rather not throw that away. Not all of the religious right is a monolithic block, any more than all pagans. Individual relationships work better than shunning everyone with the wrong label.



Pardon, but I've found environmental issues particularly troubling, to the point where I'd rather discuss ecology rather than environmentalism. There are some in the climate change crowd who are just as absolutist as any hard core evangelical Christian. As another example, when I call for the eradication of ethanol because it is subsidized, requires food crops, consumes more than a gallon of gas to produce one gallon of ethanol, and is harder to store and transport than gasoline, I'm attacked because I am "in the pocket of big oil."

Perhaps it's that absolutist quality that is the real problem. There's more than one answer and one answer doesn't fit all. I'd say there is more than one problem too, but most don't want to deal with that.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

Comments

Making the personal political

The problem with making the personal political is that you drag everyone around you into politics, whether they want to be or not.
     — NeoWayland
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Vote for the label

Vermont governor's race: Christine Hallquist, Phil Scott win primaries

Vermont Democrats made history Tuesday by nominating Christine Hallquist as the first transgender individual to be a major party candidate for governor.
     — April McCullum

That's the first paragraph.

According to the article the transgender label is more important than the candidates qualifications. The label is more important that the candidate's character. The label is more important than anything you might consider.

This is the inevitable result of identify politics. The label must transcend all other reasons.

Sadly, this is the result of party politics too.

Politics is about controlling other people. You must not be allowed to make up your own mind. You might do it wrong.

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“How This Town Got Rid of Crime”

He speaks for himself.

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Divide & Conquer

What this illustrates is that racism in this country is dying, but the media appears to be fervently attempting to keep it alive.
     — Matt Agorist, Divide & Conquer on Full Display as Media Devotes Days of Attention to 20 White Nationalists in DC

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Censorship & corporate virtue signalling

So the big news is that Apple decided to remove the Alex Jones Infowars podcasts. YouTube and Facebook followed. Twitter did not.

Alex Jones is wrong almost all the time. He's not worth your time or mine. Infowars is not a good source.

Absolutely these companies have the right to decide who does and does not use their platform. It's their money after all.

But they are hypocrites when they declare that they support free speech while applying selective censorship. Especially if they allow the Islamist, the anti-semitic, the anti-conservative, the antifa, and the anti-white stuff to stay on their platforms.

That's the problem with hate speech. Somehow it's always about what the other guy said, never about what you said.

And all this still overlooks the obvious. If someone doesn't like what is in a podcast or a video, they don't have to pay attention.

Demanding it's removal for the greater good is the coward's way out. It means you don't trust someone to make their own choices. You want to meddle. You wouldn't stand for it if someone else did it to you.

People should choose for themselves. Corporations have lousy morals.

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Republican racism

Most of the claims of Republican racism are because the Republicans involved didn't see any reason to grant special privilege when people already had rights recognized by law.
     — NeoWayland
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NeoNote — Online monopolies

No, they are not monopolies.

When I sit down at a computer, I don't have to go through Facebook to check the weather or see what is happening at this site. If I wanted to message someone on my iPod or iPad, I don't have to use Twitter.

With AT&T, if you were in an area covered you had no choice. It was your regional Bell company and AT&T or nothing. The breakup fixed that, you could choose your phone company. And today, if I am not in range of the right cell tower, my phone still works as long as I am in range of a cell tower.

Facebook, Twitter, Google, Apple, all got big by offering something the competition did not have. No one was forced. Competition is the only way to reduce their hold. And the competition, like all competition, has to offer something more than "just as good as."

For a while, iOS and macOSX had software hooks so that Facebook and Twitter had easier access. That's no longer necessarily true, some of Apple's customers didn't want their data shared by companies that weren't trustworthy.

Government intervention is the last thing we need. There are already politicos who complain about "fake news" that isn't fake, it's just not what the politicos want you to think about. From the news in the last couple of days, it seems Twitter is going after conservative and libertarian users. Do we really want a world where government decides what may and may not be said?

Oh, one other thing. Monopolies rely on government support and intervention. Start regulating and you just planted a monopoly.



I agree it's a mess.

To get a site, you have to register a domain name. Then you have to get server space. If you use a company like Wordpress, you agree to carry their ads on your site in exchange for a reduced rate or free use on their server space. If you go on your own, you find a web host (like MacHighway) and you have more control over the site and advertising.

Think of it like a storefront that you have to rent. Depending on the terms of the lease, that is how much service your "landlord" provides and how much you provide to your visitors.

If Twitter provides the ability to block people you don't like, I agree that it should be available to ALL users. But the platform is not public property. The "landlord" can block out who they want when they want. But they shouldn't be shielded from the consequences of their actions. They are liable if they provide different services and benefits to their users. If it's a "free" service, then all "free" users should have the same benefits as all other "free" users. The "landlord" can ban conservatives, but if they allow conservatives (or one specific high profile conservative), then that person should have the same rights and benefits.

ETA: The real question is if the platform should ban offensive content and how that should be defined.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

Comments

“Damnatio Memoriae, or How to Erase Someone from History”

“How do you remove the memory of a particularly bad emperor from the history books? Or what if your brother is just so annoying that you can't stand the sight of him anymore, and don't want to share power? You perform a damnatio memoriae, erase all inscriptions, destroy all public images, and pretend as if he never existed.”

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“RIP in Peace, Net Neutrality”

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What's the point?

Liberty demands more than just deciding who is "in charge." If government means electing people who are kinda-sorta on your side on alternate Thursdays when there's no rain, what's the point?
     — NeoWayland
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NeoNote — Pandering

Since the last time I read your stuff, I've been racking my brain to remember any libertarians who "pandered" to pedophiles. I can't remember any. "Consenting adults" is a big priority.

As for "pandering" to homosexuals, well, we also "pander" to Jews, women, Rotarians, Red Sox fans, and classic car owners. Not to mention people with piercings, people with tattoos, people with nine toes, and almost anyone else you can name.

If you're threatened by "live and let live," by all means run away.



These are two different issues. The only one that I'm denying is that libertarians pander to pedophiles.

You want to use it as the modern political equivalent of blood libel.

It's probably because I am pagan, but I've found keeping minors at an arm's length when it comes to religion and sexuality solves more problems than it causes. It's one of those necessary compromises that keeps neighbors.



I think you'll find that most small "l" libertarians like me consider it a minor issue, if at all.

I will point out that the laws are not self consistent. Driving at 16 (some farm states allowed it at 14 in rural areas), voting and draft eligibility at 18, drinking age of 21, well, those are just some of the best known examples.

I've pointed out before that the whole extended childhood thing is mostly a post WWII American urban phenomena. Attitudes towards "child brides" were very different a few generations ago.



Can you tell me what the "American" position is on taxes? Does every single American agree with that? What about public schools? And immigration?

I call myself libertarian with a small "l" because when I say "classic liberal" most folks in the U.S. don't know what I am talking about. It has nothing to do with a political party and everything to do with liberty.

I believe that the freedom to choose is the mark of an adult human. Make of that what you will.



Classic liberalism predates the founding of the American republic. That is why I distinguish between "Libertarianism" and "libertarianism." Big "L" versus small "l." Party platform versus individual responsibility.

If you'll look closely at what I've written, I've always stressed "consenting adults" when it comes to sexual practices.

I pointed out that even the All Wise Forces of Government & Society® can't decide when a child is responsible or not.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

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Greed

It is amazing how many of the intelligentsia call it 'greed' to want to keep what you have earned, but not greed to want to take away what somebody else has earned, and let politicians use it to buy votes.
     — Thomas Sowell
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NeoNote — The farce continues

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Politics of shame

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Bright ideas

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Modest talents so richly rewarded

There are few modest talents so richly rewarded — especially in politics and the media — as the ability to portray parasites as victims, and portray demands for preferential treatment as struggles for equal rights.
     — Thomas Sowell
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FamousFeminist

New publication makes it easier

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Killing the goose

In short, killing the goose that lays the golden egg is a viable political strategy, so long as the goose does not die before the next election and no one traces the politicians’ fingerprints on the murder weapon.
     — Thomas Sowell
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“Hernando de Soto Knows How To Make the Third World Richer than the First”

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Understand politics

No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems – of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two. Whatever is number three is far behind.
     — Thomas Sowell

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Essence of libertarianism

That's the essence of libertarianism you see. It's not that we don't care, we just don't see government as an effective way to deliver what needs to be done.
     — NeoWayland
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NeoNote — Shame

You are aware that you just tried to shame me into keeping quiet and not offer a dissenting opinion, aren't you?

It's only shame if I accept the premise.

I did not deny that discrimination and oppression takes place.

Now, let's look at what I actually did.

I said people had tried to shame and shun me because of my sexuality, faith, and politics.

You know, like you tried to do.

I didn't proclaim my victimhood gave me the power to command others.

You know, like you tried to do.

It's only shame if I accept the premise.

I refuse to give blanket special privilege because of proclaimed victimhood.

If an individual wants help, I'll give what I think I can. If a vague class demands constant unquestioned deference because of some poorly defined list of potential offenses that may have been committed on alternate Tuesdays, I'll probably laugh.

The World needs heroes more than it needs victims.

I despise the politics of victimhood. That always ALWAYS means a hierarchy and oh so carefully deciding who has it worse. It's never about injustice, it's about injustice shown to a particular class. Injustice against other groups gets downplayed if not ignored entirely.

For example, I gave three reasons. You picked sex sexuality. Not just sex sexuality, but sexual politics as it applies to your letter salad. So heterosexual feminists don't rate high on your victim scale. And you treated all those carefully defined letters as One Monolithic Block, as if the needs and desires of the transfolks matched those of the gay bears.

You're not a hero because someone hurt your feelings or didn't give you what you thought you deserved. Heroes overcome adversity.



Yes, you did attempt to shame me. It's kafkatrapping, specifically invoking model A and model C. It was old when Alinsky wrote about it, under a different name of course. The goal of shaming is to morally prevent me from speaking or writing. It attempts to manipulate guilt of both the target and the spectators.

You're right, I don't know you. Nor should what you have experienced have any influence on my behavior. Unless you're expecting my guilty pity to overcome my beliefs and self-interest.

Even now you are ranking comparative victimhood as if that is what defines people. That is what intersectionality does, isn't it? It's all about the victimhood. Emphasizing the victimhood isn't going to do anything except create a pity party. It's not particularly healthy and it isn't a practical solution.

There are radical feminists who routinely try to shame and shun men all the time. Starting with allegations that America is a "rape culture" and that any PIV sex is rape by it's very nature.

You'll never get social justice because people don't agree on what it means.

You obviously don't know me or you'd know that I carefully think about everything I write. I pride myself on it. You have a problem in that my thoughts don't slavishly follow what you think is important.

I've seen people called heroes over hurt feelings. So have you. I've also seen people cashing in on the ordeals of others. So have you.

You chose to respond to my post. I had done you no harm. All I did was challenge your belief. You don't know who I am or what I've done. You don't know who I've helped or who I've hurt. All you know is that you think I should not be allowed to speak or write my opinion.



Pardon, but you're deigning to respond so you can prove a point. You're not doing me any favors and the act comes across a little hollow.

Yes, you did try to shame me. You're not the first or thirteenth or thousandth person to try. You don't get to set the terms of my shame.

Of course I want a better world. What I may not want is a better world on your terms. That's not because of my politics, it's because I'm human.

Yep, I did bring up self-interest because it's a major reason for people's behavior. You're not having this discussion because you're feeling selfless. You've convinced yourself you're doing it for the Greater Good.

Speaking of self-interests, one reason why private alternatives become better, cheaper, and faster is because of competition. A public program doesn't have the incentive to improve so it can keep and get more business. But that is a long subject well beyond the scope of this discussion. I will point out that if something is cheaper and more available, that means that more people can get it if they want it.

I'll also point out that the free market, voluntary transactions between consenting adults, has done more to raise people out of poverty than anything else in history.

Just so you know, I was born on the Navajo reservation and I've spent much of my life near it or the Hopi reservation. I've also lived in Phoenix, Tucson, Los Angeles, Provo, and Albuquerque among other places. I know about "people of color," but mine go beyond your definition.

And that brings us up to women, doesn't it? I knew my first strong woman from before I was born. Your issue here is not that I don't have empathy, it's that I don't have the empathy that you approve of. Actually the radical feminists I was talking about called themselves third and fourth wave. When I can, I regularly seek out people who disagree with me. No one person and certainly no one group has all the answers.

I didn't pass judgement on sexual assault and harassment. I said that power from victimhood is not a good thing and heroes overcome adversity.

You yourself cited the experiences of others to justify fighting injustice. So yes, you're cashing in and you know people who have done so.

You chose to confront my "hypocrisy" but you haven't proven it. It may not match your opinion, but that is a different issue.

By the way, asserting that I have a "privileged position" is kafkatrapping Model P.

Isn't it interesting how you can tell me that my ideas are flawed but you think I can't tell you the same?

Before you proclaim that US Aid is the answer to all the World's problems, you might ask yourself how much of it actually gets through the many corrupt levels of government? That's the essence of libertarianism you see. It's not that we don't care, we just don't see government as an effective way to deliver what needs to be done.

If I see a victim, I don't want them to stay a victim.

I didn't put the web addy up for you.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.
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“American Independence”

Samuel Adams delivered this speech from the steps of the State House in Philadelphia on August 1, 1776. This was the day before the famous parchment copy of the Declaration of Independence was signed.

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“#WalkAway Campaign- WHY I LEFT LIBERALISM & THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY”

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Asking to be abused

Democrats are remarkable at ignoring bad law if a Democrat is President.

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Gradual

There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.
     — James Madison

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Discriminate

The Right to Discriminate

The left has created a macabre myth that runs counter to the whole experience of mankind. The left has persuaded the gullible masses of America, including, sadly, most conservatives, that "discrimination" by individuals and businesses is wrong and that it violates the Constitution.

Precisely the opposite is true. All serious cognition and all honest moral judgments involve discrimination. When individuals and businesses are not free to discriminate, then the power to determine what is true and false and good and bad becomes the sole property of the state – or that even more odious creature, that lobotomized Frankenstein monster, "society."

Instead of diverse opinions and actions freely manifest, which are what happens when the state and society are denied the power to force a certain viewpoint down the throats of private citizens and enterprises, what happens is that all debate, all differences, and all individuality are crushed based upon what those who run the state or manipulate society deem sacrosanct.
     — Bruce Walker
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“Stossel: Jordan Peterson vs. “Social Justice Warriors””

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Republicans against Democrats

Pitting Republicans against Democrats or the "right" against the "left" is the distraction. It gives people someone to blame without solving the problem. And it certainly doesn't help that it's selectively reported, depending on which party holds the Presidency.
     — NeoWayland
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NeoNote — What conservatives see

See, that’s what I mean. No one has all the answers and certainly no group has all the answers.

Let me tell you what I think they see.

First, a nation where some people believe victimhood has become more important than merit. A place where people have been taught that certain groups must be forced to sacrifice so that the unworthy may prosper.

Let me talk about that word unworthy for a bit. In this case it means someone who expects that their desires be fulfilled with minimum effort on their part. It’s one thing to march with fuzzy pink hats. But who shows up to do the work? And no, marching with a hat is not the work. Work means getting your hands dirty. Work isn’t about raising awareness or pointing out injustice. Work is the every day effort to provide for yourself and those you care for. Work is not taking a weekend to show your solidarity.

Because for them, it’s not about skin color. It’s about merit. If it were about skin color, then people like Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell wouldn’t be celebrated. For them it’s about fixing the problem and getting the job done. It’s not about curing past injustices or preventing any possible future injustices (definition subject to change). A hand up instead of a hand out.

Thomas Sowell said “When people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination.” And he was right. Too many privileges today are passed off as rights. Temporary measures become permanent. Privileges are sold as rights, despite only applying to certain victim groups.

And when there is criticism of any of this, it’s called racism.

Second, a government that has lied to them repeatedly. And a bunch of politicos who keep promising that government will fix the problems.

And by the way, this crosses the “skin color” barrier. It’s just that we’ve been lectured that you can’t be a “real …” (black, Hispanic, minority) unless you oppose Republicans and conservatives because “the Man” wants to take it away. See the Sowell quote above.

Third, that Democrats exploit the victimhood.

I disagree with your figures about “the young.” I think the media have their own reasons to skew the news (90% negative stories about Trump).

I also think you are making a major mistake focusing on Trump.

I told you before that it is not Trump. People are losing faith in institutions because our institutions are failing to deliver what was promised. Trump is a symptom not the cause.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

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NeoNote — The process or the Republic?

I'm so very tired of progressive "elites" and reporters focusing on the "dirty tricks" of Republicans all while excusing the excesses of their own side.

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No one asked

There were so many patting themselves on the back and proud that a black man had been elected President that no one bothered to ask if a good man had been elected President.
     — NeoWayland
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NeoNote — What has Trump done that is so bad?

I'm not a Trump fan. I don't trust him and I don't like him.

That being said, when some of us said we didn't like Obama, we were told to sit down and shut up. Obama won, and it was his ball game.

That alone should raise people's hackles.

Right after Trump was elected, there was the woman's march thing. I asked a very progressive group just what was it that Trump had said or done that presented such a threat to women in particular. The only real answer I got was something about woman's reproductive rights. That's when I pointed out that Trump supported Planned Parenthood.

One year later, the same group was talking about supporting the next woman's march. I asked what Trump had done in the previous year that was a particular threat to women. I got something vague about the judges he appointed. I asked how that was different than a liberal President appointing liberal judges.

The complaints about Trump not being legitimately elected are mostly recycled from Bush the Younger. The complaints about Trump being a danger to world peace and being totally incompetent are being recycled from Goldwater and Reagan. I know, I went back and checked. Progressive will complain about Trump tweeting from the toilet, but they can't tell you what he has done that they find repulsive. Except judicial appointments, of course.

We've reached the point where we're told that Trump is E-V-I-L, but they can't say why. And meanwhile with overwhelming bad news coverage, he still has an approval rating of more than 50%.

I don't like him. I don't trust him. I think he is going to make some very bad decisions that will be very bad for the country. But meanwhile, he's screwing up the established government traditions and driving the technocrats crazy. He's disrupting things that need to be disrupted. He's changing government. I have to give the man credit for that.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

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NeoNote — Trump & North Korea

I'm not totally convinced that North Korea has anything left to work with. Something happened to that mountain. Most likely it's because of NK's own testing. Now they have the Chinese looking over their shoulder saying "Don't put radioactive stuff over our country!" Meanwhile, the NK leadership doesn't know how to deal with Trump and is looking for help where ever it can find it.

This isn't business as usual. It never is with Trump. The old diplomatic games won't work. He doesn't care about the shape of the table. Trump cares about getting things done.

ETA: Pardon, that was the wrong China article link. Here's the correct one.



Obviously I disagree.

I will say two more things. The people saying that Trump is going to bungle this are many of the same people who said the conference would never happen, that Trump couldn't bring the North Koreans to the table, that answering threats with threats couldn't possibly work, and most importantly, that Trump would never win the Presidency.

And I think it's too early to say how the table is set.



I think you are seriously underestimating Trump.

But more importantly, you are expecting Trump to act like a politician.

North Korea is treading new ground dealing with Trump.



I remind you how many times you have been wrong about Trump on this thread alone. You really should brush up on negotiating, not the diplomatic version but the commercial version.

I'm also amazed by how many are writing off this meeting before it happens. Many of them said there would never be a meeting between the leaders of North and South Korea, and that happened.

Kim Jong Un can't feed his people. After that happens for a while, even tyrants have to shift course.



I didn't say it would go well. I said you have been wrong about Trump. And so have a lot of "experts." Trump does things in his own way and he has accomplished quite a bit.

Quite frankly, the President (ANY President) should make his own decisions and not be bound by what the staff thinks is important. That's part of the institutional climate that needs to change. The staff serves at the pleasure of the President.

And if this were a Democrat President, you would be cheering his courage and independence.



Given that most of the news stories about Trump have been extremely negative, I think it's safe to assume there is a bias there. It's not that the news has been negative, it's been that is how it is written. Many of the "open sources" have long considered it their Duty to deliver the narrative, not the news. Stormy Daniels is a non-story, or rather it's a story in a way that no one wants to report. If she took money at the time to stay quiet (a voluntary act), then what kind of person is she to break her word and contract? And if she is that kind of person, how can she be trusted to tell the truth now?

The point is, the information that is being published about Trump isn't necessarily accurate. Career Washington politicos and lobbyists don't know what he is going to say from day to day, much less what he is going to do. And if they don't know and if the media regularly alters the news to fit the narrative, just how much good do those sources do for the North Koreans?
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

Comments

Skin color


Comments

Frank Zappa on civics


Comments

Memos

Comments

“This is conscious authoritarianism…”

Therein lies danger. Peterson may articulate an end goal of balance, but at the moment he's offering order against chaos, yang against yin. The effort is, by definition, reactionary, counter-revolutionary. But once you place yourself squarely on one side of the pendulum, you'll inevitably exaggerate the collective demerits of the other while indulging in-group excesses. Dogma throughout history has had its freedom-killing flaws, he readily admits, but, well, sometimes people just need to be told what to do. This is conscious authoritarianism, and Peterson is volunteering for the job.

Power corrupts, and relationships alter behavior. "This risk of being changed is one of the most frightening prospects most of us can face," Peterson writes at one point. In setting himself up as rule-maker to an adoring flock and flirting openly with the idea that he is being visited with capital-r Revelation, the professor threatens to become unmoored from the winning pragmatism of his clinical practice. Stepping into an exalted role as avenging angel against a feminine chaos can descend quickly into self-parody.
     — Matt Welch, Jordan Peterson Is Not the Second Coming

Comments

NeoNote — Not a Trump supporter

Trump has many faults, but he is intelligent. At least take the time to do some basic research before throwing out accusations.



You don't make millions of dollars again and again by being an airhead. Even bending and breaking the law, you have to have something on the ball.

Look, I don't like or trust Trump. I don't want to defend him. But only an idiot assumes that just anyone can function for decades in high finance, television, sports, and all the other things that Trump has done. If he didn't have intelligence, he would have been reduced to poverty decades ago. I keep telling people that to understand Trump, you have to realize his strength is negotiating. Nobody thought North Korea was going to come to the negotiating table, but guess what. Trump agreed on camera to everything the Democrat leadership said about immigration, knowing that when they broke their promise he'd be free to act as he wished. That's exactly what happened.

Blazes, the "most intelligent" Democrat minds picked Trump so Hillary would have an easy win, and we know how that worked out. At a fraction of the cost.



Look, I am not a Trump supporter. I think there are some terrifying things happening here, but no one is talking about those!

As long as liberals and anti-Trump people can't be bothered to learn what made him successful, they can't oppose him. And yes, Trump is successful. Before he went after the Republican nomination, some of his biggest critics now were tripping over themselves to kiss his ass. So when I read about how Trump is barely literate or how he owes it all to his daddy's money or how he can't negotiate his way out of a wet paper bag, I know that the person writing doesn't know Trump. And I know that they are still trapped in the old mindset of dealing with uppity Republicans. None of that is going to work on Trump. He's been dealing with bad press for decades. He's taken everything that can be thrown at him for the last two years, including television news that runs 90% anti-Trump, and he still does things while hitting around 50% in the polls.

The "Trump is an idiot" meme played out more than a year ago. The longer you use it, the less people are going to listen. The more you try to make this about Trump instead of his policies, the more ineffective you'll be.

I'm telling you this on the remote chance you'll pay attention. I think Trump does need criticism. But all this "Trump is a buffoon" junk just waters down legitimate concerns. The more you do it, the stronger he'll be. There's already a pretty good chance Republicans will gain seats in 2018, and I think Trump will win in 2020. There's a sharp first rate mind there, and he doesn't care about playing the clown if it gets him what he wants. I know this because it's been what he's done for decades.

Which you would know if you bothered to pay attention instead of sticking your head in the echo chamber.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

Comments

NeoNote — John McCain

For the record, I'm from Arizona. I've also actively worked against John McCain's reelection for decades. I was willing to give him a pass until the Keating Five scandal.

Being a prisoner of war doesn't not give license later in life to screw your constituents. John McCain is selfish, as proven by his last stunt. There's almost no chance of his returning to the Senate. So why hasn't he resigned? Why did he even run in 2016?



I don't care if it was talking about George Washington. John McCain is a dishonorable scumbag who is in it only for political advantage. He's cashed in on that POW experience so many times that it ought to have disintegrated by now.

I can't help but wonder if it would have defending John McCain so hard in 2008.



No. I mean running for office when one is pretty sure one will be dead before the term ends.

That should have been incredibly obvious by how I worded it.

Obviously your understanding lacks something. If you are not sure what I mean, ask me and I will explain.

One thing I will explain now is that I am not Republican.

ETA: Speaking of incredibly selfish actions, why is anyone discussing John McCain's funeral and his disagreement with Trump before the man has passed?



But why is McCain's funeral being discussed in the national press? And don't tell me it's because McCain is a National Figure.

It's not anyone's business except the family until after the man has passed.

Unless McCain thought he could get one more bit of of political posturing at Trump's expense out of it.

Like I said, the man is selfish.



I wish I could agree. Unfortunately, the man fancies himself a part-time kingmaker and has done harm to my state.
And. You. Are. Not. Allowed. To. Criticize



Sometimes not even then.

You get lectured on how he is an Institution.

Goldwater was an institution, and earned that status. Funny thing is, he didn't have people around him telling other people how important he was.

I met Goldwater when I was in high school. He makes McCain look like a drunk javelina with a missing back leg.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

Comments

“Socialism — Capitalism — Traditionalism”

Comments

“Why The Left HATES Jordan Peterson”

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Fair game

As for secession, no, it's not treason.

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Kafkatrap

Kafkatraps are THE keystone of victimhood politics and most identity politics. Without someone recognizing or assuming blame, kafkatraps cease to work.

Kafkatrapping centers on guilt. Don't accept it. Don't reject it. Act as if the accusation is so silly and undeserved it's not even worth discussing. They will repeat, and you still shouldn't pay any attention to the claims. Go on as if the accuser had said nothing of importance. Indeed, go on as if you are trying to keep them from embarrassing themselves further. You're doing them a favor if only they were rational/sober enough to know it.

Kafkatrapping came by way of certain Christian denominations and mala prohibita laws. "Ignorance of the law is no excuse."
     — NeoWayland, kafkatrap
Comments

“Control the Words, Control the Culture”

When government is "responsible" for something, regular people stop paying attention.

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NeoNote — California secession and the U.S. Constitution

“Delusions of Justice”

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Obliged

So if elected officials no longer honor the Constitution and rig the game so it isn't possible to elect anyone not approved by national party leadership, what obligations do citizens have to honor and respect the government?
     — NeoWayland
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NeoNote — Government should not be trusted

When government is "responsible" for something, regular people stop paying attention.

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“MN Blows Billions!”

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NeoNote — Not defense

I just want to point out that American "defense" policy involves military action against nations when Congress hasn't declared war.



Even Trump complained when Obama launched military actions without Congressional approval.

You tell me. Should we change the Constitution so the President can attack any other nation on his authority alone? Or should we insist Congress does it's job?

Is this about America, right or wrong?

Or is it about liberty?



How about multiple missile attacks?



And is it right to launch missiles into other nations? You've said that eight months is sufficient. Is four months? Is four weeks? Is four days?



Is it right for other nations to launch missiles into our country?

After all, we have a proven record of meddling in the governments of other nations.



So you are saying that the U.S. has the unique power to fire missiles into other countries.

So much for freedom.



Obviously there is.

And it's even covered by that top ten list of yours.



At the very least, I think using a missile against innocents qualifies as murder.rob



Too late.

I do have a solution for the opium fields. But it doesn't involve armies. It would be a lot more effective though.



13843a0ce5d79577f49445c87bded26a797c00dbe3fc34163efc10746d450733


Oh?

There are an awful lot of people who got shot at who would disagree with you.

ETA: Not to mention all those overseas military bases.



You're arguing over definitions and a matter of degree.



Might doesn't make right. I've told you that before.

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do something. Or that you are justified in doing it.



Justified?

And if we're wrong, does that make us weak? Or just a bully that no one wants to face?



There is a century old story that I tell sometimes. Back during the Russian revolution, President Wilson sent American troops to intervene. The "mission" was murky at best, which led to failed promises and out-and-out lies. Wilson did this without Congressional authorization, we weren't at war with Russia.

Fast forward a couple of decades. Some of the Soviet General Staff had faced American soldiers in the trenches. They knew exactly what American words were worth.

And after WWII, that shaped the Cold War.

All because an American President took it on himself to intervene in a revolution without Congressional authority.



Don't get mad at me. It's right there in the Constitution. And if Congress hasn't declared war, then why are American troops fighting?

Considering who has been President, do you really want no checks and balances when it comes to war?



So why do we have troops fighting when war has not been declared?



Politicos have sacrificed the nation's honor and the lives of American troops for what?

Why do we have troops fighting when war has not been declared?
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

Comments

Clinton lied

Clinton lied. A man might forget where he parks or where he lives, but he never forgets oral sex, no matter how bad it is.
     — Barbara Bush
Comments

NeoNote — Economics and Trump

One flawed legacy of Keynesian economics is that government can control individual action by government. Taxes and budgeting are not the same thing and shouldn't be treated as such. Taxes on the revenue side of the ledger are calculated in terms of their cost (expense side of the ledger) to government. This is probably the most fucked up part of modern government accounting. It's not about how much money government has, it's about how much money government takes from people. Money is power and choice, the more government takes the less people have. Government can't create value, it can only divert it.

There hasn't been a real government budget in years. What there has been is a series of continuing resolutions, essentially a short term agreement to spend at least the same amount as before unless specifically changed by Congress. There hasn't been a balanced budget in even longer. There's no cost to Congresscritters for not passing a balanced budget. If it were up to me, I'd say that Congress and it's staff only gets paid in years that a budget is passed and the budget is balanced. In years that the budget isn’t balanced, a Congresscritter should pay it’s salary to the government with interest.

In the case of the tax cut, the original CBO scoring said that the cost to government would not be offset by the revenue it generated. The new CBO report says that the cost to government was offset. Since people like having more money, Trump's popularity went up. People don’t care about the deficit. People do care about money in their pocket.

I’m not “you guys.” I’m not cheering for massive deficits (which happen with Democrat presidents too). I specifically said that he gave the economy a (mythical) boot into growth and that the tax cuts have paid for themselves and boosted his popularity. This is not the action of a drooling idiot. It’s not smart enough and it’s only short term, but it makes Trump look good and gives people more power today.

What I am doing is pointing out that Trump plays the populist better than any recent president, possibly any President since Jackson. The reason he can do this is because government has become more and more oppressive, no matter what party is “in control.”
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

Comments

NeoNote — Obamacare

Okay, let's talk about the ACA, a law so "good" that nobody was allowed to read it before Congress passed it. A law so well written that it had to be illegally modified by executive order again and again just to work. A law that was supposed to pay for itself, but was so dependent on government subsidies that states had to withdraw just so their citizens could have health insurance. A law deliberately designed to reduce the number of health insurance companies and choices available to consumers. That last bit and raising prices is the only thing that the ACA has accomplished.

The only reason government is involved in healthcare to begin with is because government enforced salary caps and companies had to offer something more to recruit and keep employees. Every part of healthcare that government has been involved with, costs have outpaced inflation, availability never meets demand, and innovation has been stifled.

If this is Obama's legacy, it has resulted in less medical care at a higher price and almost impossible to use. But it looks good.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

Comments

“Let's talk about gun control”

Comments

“The Left's War on Science”

“City Journal contributing editor John Tierney joins John Stossel to talk about the politicization of science and how the dominance of left-wing thinkers in academia and the scientific community impedes progress.”

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This just in

The same government that has repeatedly violated privacy laws and illegally collects data from all it's citizens, is lecturing the CEO of a company about violating privacy laws and collecting data from all their users.
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“Stossel: The Great American Tax Ripoff”

“Tax Day gets a lot of attention, but John Stossel says that attention is misleading, because the April 17th deadline is only for income tax. That's just a fraction of the taxes Americans pay.”

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Sum up

“Mueller Investigating Trump Over $150K Donation From Ukrainian Who Gave Clintons $13 Million”

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“Why Isn't There a Palestinian State?”

“Why don't the Palestinians have their own country? Is it the fault of Israel? Of the Palestinians? Of both parties? David Brog, Executive Director of the Maccabee Task Force, shares the surprising answers.”

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Friday supersized roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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NeoNote — Trump racist or Democrat legacy?

We'll start with basics. The game is not what you think it is.

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Tuesday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Political Opportunism

Personally I don't think anyone should be displayed in state in the Capital unless 1) They were the President, and 2) They died in office. ANYTHING else is political opportunism.

But that's just me.
     — NeoWayland
Comments

Friday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Comments

Thursday supersized roundup

Survey Says: Politicized Sports, Entertainment Driving Viewers Away

But some progressives have been saying it doesn't make a make a significant difference

Digitalships and Double-Standards



Document drop: Another fatal FBI fumble in Florida

What happens when diversity is more important than public safety

The Schooling of David Hogg

Public spectacle doesn't mean you'll get respect. See also Dear David Hogg, You’re a Lying, Opportunistic, Insufferable Little Toe Rag


California judge holds climate change ‘tutorial’ ahead of landmark case against oil companies

This alone should be enough to show the judge's bias

NOAA Data Tampering Approaching 2.5 Degrees

Completely rewriting climate history

EU reveals a digital tax plan that could penalize Google, Amazon and Facebook

The important thing is NOT that the EU is going after these companies. The important thing is that "traditional businesses" pay 23.2% in taxes.

Why Trump Is Right to Reject the Paris Climate Agreement

It was never about reducing CO2. It was about the United States paying through the nose.

The Problem With Social Justice Today -- Dividing Rather than Unifying

Labels, pronouns, and power over speech.

Trump is right: The special counsel should never have been appointed

I still think the Obama and Clinton Russian connections should be investigated.

Congress Is Still Ignoring Its Spending Problem as Deadline Looms for $1.3 Trillion Spending Bill

“Four out of five voters agree that Washington has a spending problem, but a new omnibus spending bill will add yet more to the national debt.”

Freedom-Loving Parents, Rejoice: Utah Approves Free-Range Kids Bill

Let kids be kids

The sad hysteria of the Southern Poverty Law Center

Targeting conservative people and groups

Elizabeth Warren’s Unaccountable Federal Agency Backfires on Her: New at Reason

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is unconstitutional. All government agencies should answer to Congress.

More California Cities Seek to Defy ‘Sanctuary State’ as Revolt Spreads

This could make the succession movement very interesting

France: Toward Total Submission to Islam, Destruction of Free Speech

All other things being equal, the side that can't stand dissent is usually wrong.

Syrup Smugglers Take on the Maple Mafia

The free market is economic activity between consenting adults. Funny how governments don't like that, "for your own good" of course.

CalPERS retirees are suddenly worried about their pensions. What happened?

Government took too much power and mismanaged the assets

Fired FBI official authorized criminal probe of Sessions, sources say

I'm not even sure this is legal against a sitting Attorney General

FOSTA Passes Senate, Making Prostitution Ads a Federal Crime Against Objections from DOJ and Trafficking Victims

Another headline grab for politicos

Comments

I promise you this

I promise you this, the second after America starts exiling, imprisoning, or permanently disenfranchising people for political opinions, conservatives will be kicked out the same as progressives. That "solution" depends on who controls the politics. What makes you think it will be people you trust who trust you?
     — NeoWayland
Comments

“Obama Campaign Manager Jim Messina Talks Big Data at the Milken Institute's 2013 Global Conference”

“In this series of clips from our discussion about Big Data at the 2013 Global Conference, Jim Messina discusses how the Obama campaign effectively used large volumes of data to identify voters. This ultimately lead to a more effective deployment of resources. The discussion provides fascinating insights into the way large data sets can be accumulated and used to change the outcome of an election.”

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Half her humanity

“Jennifer Palmieri: Hillary Ran With 'Half Her Humanity Tied Behind Her Back”

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One weakness of identity politics

This does point out one weakness of identity politics. The label trumps things like ability, character, and fashion sense. It's always going to be about who is first in the victim hierarchy this week. No members of unapproved victim groups need apply.
     — NeoWayland
Comments

Some men

And if there can be some men who don't have that opinion, why can't there be others?
     — NeoWayland
Comments

Wednesday supersized roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Comments

“Let Kids Be Kids”

“Lenore Skenazy, President of Let Grow, encourages parents to do what parents have always done: follow basic safety rules, and then let their kids be kids.”

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“The “Overheated” Costs of Climate Change”

“Oren Cass joins John Stossel to discuss the Paris Climate Agreement and how climate “catastrophists” are harming the debate over ways to adapt to changing global climate. The epithet “climate denier” has been used for years by activists to tastelessly smear critics of the Left’s preferred environmental policies. Cass argues that climate activists have drawn drastic policy implications unwarranted by current climate science.”

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Comments

Monday supersized roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Bonus Sunday supersized roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Friday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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“The Destructive Male”

This 1868 classic helped lay the groundwork for the 19th Amendment securing women's right to vote

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Thursday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Comments

What's the difference?

An AR 15 verses a Ruger Mini 14

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Comments

Wednesday roundup

Israeli officials meet Qatari, Saudi and UAE counterparts at White House

With any other president, this would be front page news. North Korea, the Middle East, Russia. So what exactly did Obama do for his Nobel Peace Prize?

Girl Scouts Write Anti-Smoking Legislation in Colorado

“A government for the children, of the children, by the children.”

FBI Insiders Blow Whistle on Massive Las Vegas Cover Up; Agents Told Not to Investigate Key Evidence Including ISIS Terror Link

Not sure this is true, but we still don't know what happened. Somebody is covering stuff up

Hungary “Ready to Fight” United Nations Plan to Facilitate Global Mass Migration

Refugee migration was a total disaster for the EU, even if the elites don't want to admit it

The Federal Government's TIGER Program Splurges on Sidewalks in Rural Florida and Recreational Boat Ramps in Iowa

“It was supposed to be a temporary stimulus program. Instead it's an engine for pork.”

Drunk History: When the Government Banned Female Bartenders

When government meddles, it costs freedom

The World Is Better Than Ever. Why Are We Miserable?

Something to think about

Stores use secret shopper score to track and decline returns

The article tries to sell this a Really Bad Thing, but really it's just the companies acting in self-defense.

REVEALED: Obama Campaign Hired Fusion GPS To Investigate Romney

The same company that the Clinton campaign hired to for the Russia dossier,

Last photographs of Stephen Hawking emerge showing him enjoying a night out in Mayfair as his children pay tribute to the professor's 'brilliance and humour' after he dies peacefully aged 76

What a brilliant man and a remarkable life

3 Questions Congress Should Answer Before Bailing Out Obamacare

I don't think it should be bailed out. The free market would lower costs dramatically

The Meaning of Freedom

“I learned that to be strong wasn’t good enough; you had to use your strength to help those who were unable to help themselves. I learned that it is better to build than to destroy, and violence, even amongst warriors, is always a last resort.”

Socialism Is Not Now, Nor Has It Ever Been, A Friend To Women

Freedom rests in choice and the free market

Comments

“Stossel: The Philly Soda Tax Scam”

Comments

Tuesday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Comments

Monday roundup

We’re Letting Mentally Ill People Walk Around. Do You Like The Results?

The problem is what do you do with the people? And who decides what is mentally ill?

Democrats Are Considering Dropping Superdelegates Altogether

There are reasons I don't like calling the Democrat party the "Democratic" party

A Heretical Plan for Cutting Spending on Education

“Government at all levels fuels an educational arms race through lavish and indiscriminate funding.”

Going to College Is Selfish

“Let's stop pretending education is a public good.”

The Women's March Has a Farrakhan Problem

“The group refuses to be accountable for a high-level alliance with an open anti-Semite.”

The Psychology of Progressive Hostility

Excellently written

There is No "Free Trade"--There Is Only the Darwinian Game of Trade

I don't like it but he has a point

Visa Refuses to Cut Ties with Semi-Automatic Rifle Manufacturers

Good for them

The Campus Victim Cult

“A dialogue about why colleges and universities have become so hostile to freedom of thought”

There Would Have Been No Soviet Communism If Not For Western Technology

Something to consider

Capitalism Has Proven to Be the Best System For Feminism

Feminism could never have existed except in a capitalist system

In 45 days, lawmakers pushed to expand and assert their power here, there and everywhere

Republicans can't be trusted with power either

Freedom of Speech Should Protect All Opinion



Comments

“Remy: I Like it, I Love it”

Comments

People are amazing

I prefer to assume that people are amazing unless they prove otherwise. Individuals may be awesome or terrible, but men as a group aren't guilty because of the behavior of some.

Treating all men as if they are guilty will not only cost you allies, it means that some good men will stop listening just because being called perpetually guilty is tiresome.
     — NeoWayland
Comments

Thursday roundup

Malthusian Specter Pushed Back Further: Crops Engineered to Use 25 Percent Less Water

Welcome news, especially in less developed parts of the World

Rand Paul, on Trump: ‘I Think He Will Sign Audit the Fed if We Can Get it to Him’

Noble goal, but I am not sure Trump will go along

What Forfeiture Reforms? New Hampshire Police Bypass State Law, Keep Taking People's Stuff

“The Department of Justice's loophole lets officials seize property without having to get a conviction.”

Trump DOJ sues California over 'interference' with immigration enforcement

Tenth Amendment advocate that I am, the states have no power over immigration

Seven House Democrats Have Direct Ties To Notorious Jew-Hater Farrakhan, Republicans Call for Their Resignations

“If seven House members had ties to David Duke, they would be forced to resign in disgrace. This is no different.”

DOJ to give Oversight panel more 'Fast and Furious' documents

This SHOULD years ago

Ryanair Threatens to Ground Flights and ‘Prove’ Brexit Voters Wrong, ‘No More Cheap Holidays’

So why should customers use this airline?

Florida Senate OKs bill for year-round Daylight Saving Time

Daylight Savings Time is unnecessary. A state doesn't need Congressional approval to change. There are some really silly regulations requiring states to go through the Department of Transportation.

Silicon Valley and the ABCs of Diversity

Sometimes diversity isn't the best standard

Ben Carson Nixes ‘Inclusive’ And ‘Discrimination Free’ Clause From HUD Statement

When it conflicts with the job, diversity should take a back seat

Want Boys to Become Men? Teach Them the Classical Virtues

The real answer to "toxic masculinity"

Jerry Brown accuses Jeff Sessions of lying, using California for a ‘political stunt’

Who is breaking the law?

What If We Operated Auto Garages Like We Do Public Schools?

We should rethink things

Comments

PragerU and the Alt-Right


In the interest of fairness, I am linking to a response. Obviously I don't agree with the response or I would feature it here. Here is another response I don't agree with.

First, I don't care about the technicalities or the numbers. Group identity politics are still about group identity. The average conservative is more likely to treat people mostly as individuals than the alt-right.

Second, there is one race and it is human.

Third, I don't care "what the other guy does." If you are raising your particular group above all others, then I'm not interested.

Fourth, you can spot all the Christian rhetoric you want. I'm more interested in how you touch other people. That's how I'm going to judge what is a "true Christian." Even if I am pagan, I've spent time studying Christianity for all it's flaws. Deeds, not words.
Comments

NeoNote — SPLC

No one person and no one group has all the answers. No one group should be vested with THE moral authority to decide who is and is not a hate group.

The SPLC needs competition.

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Comments

Wednesday Roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Comments

Dolly Parton is a class act

I’m not addressing that. I do not get into that. Of course I have my opinion about everybody and everything. But I learned a long time ago, keep your damn mouth shut if you want to stay in show business. I’m not in politics. I am an entertainer.
     — Dolly Parton
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Comments

Tuesday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Comments

Supersized Monday roundup

China Presses Its Internet Censorship Efforts Across the Globe

Will China demand censorship across the globe? A free internet is humanity's last, best hope.

Schumer Will Vote ‘No’ On Judicial Nominee Because He Is White

“The nomination of Marvin Quattlebaum speaks to the overall lack of diversity in President Trump’s selections for the federal judiciary. Quattlebaum replaces not one, but two scuttled Obama nominees who were African American.”

Schools are safer than they were in the 90s, and school shootings are not more common than they used to be, researchers say

There isn't a trend. See also School Shootings Have Declined Dramatically Since The 1990S. Does It Really Make Sense To Militarize Schools?

Google tried censoring 'gun' shopping searches. It backfired

Someone didn't think it through. Well, it was a bad decision anyway, but the unintended consequences…

The History of the 'Assault Weapon' Hoax. Part 1: The Crime that Started it All

“A 1989 shooting at a Cal. schoolyard began the national "assault weapon" issue. It was a consequence of law enforcement failure.”

More cover-up questions

Remember Seth Rich?

SHOCKER: Companies Pulling NRA Support Totally Backfires

People are taking the NRA boycott seriously. Just not the way the virtue signalers hoped.

Obamacare: Will States do the Job that Congressional Republicans Have Failed to Do?

All sorts of implications here

Seven Feet Of Snow In Northern California Puts Screeching Halt To State’s Drought

You mean climate fixes itself?

Why Did It Take Two Weeks To Discover Parkland Students’ Astroturfing?

This needs to be in the gun control (victim disarmament) discussion. Remember this The Parkland Teens Fighting For Gun Control Have The Backing Of These Huge Organizing Groups

High School Teacher Suspended For Pro-Gun Comments On Parkland Shooting

Thou shalt not dissent

How Lenders Are Turning Low-Level Courts Into Dickensian “Debt Collection Mills”

“Federal law outlawed debt prisons in 1833, but lenders, landlords and even gyms and other businesses have found a way to resurrect the Dickensian practice.”

YouTube Purge Begins=> Top Conservative YouTube Sites Taken Down in February Sweep

Thou shalt not dissent OR criticize

Reclaiming “Liberal”

In 1900 America, "liberal" meant what "libertarian" means today

Laura Moser Shakes Off the DCCC

This might be a glimpse of what happens next. See also When DCCC Calls, Hang Up the Phone

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NeoNotes — gun tragedy

I think it's despicable and dishonorable to capitalize on tragedy hours after a mass shooting, but hey, what do I know?

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Friday supersized roundup

Florida vote to post 'In God we Trust' in schools prompts a question: Whose God?

Why does government think it can choose someone's religion?

Behind name redacted Rampage: Obama's School-Leniency Policy

Disturbing

Dick’s Sporting Goods Bans Some Rifle Sales…Again

Virtue signaling…again

Google is censoring shopping results for AR-15, handguns and more

Chilling. Do you really want Google deciding what you can see on the 'net?

A rural county legalized marijuana farms. It took their tax money – then voted to ban them

Literally taxes are theft

The IRS Is Coming for Your Passports

This is probably seven types of illegal.

Police Unions Defend Bad Cops Who Do Awful Things. Why Won't They Defend Broward County Deputy?

Follow the money

‘Chappaquiddick’ to Open Film Festival… on Martha’s Vineyard

Beyond surreal

Stop treating the Southern Poverty Law Center like it's a respectable and responsible organization

The SPLC is heavily biased against conservatives, and moderately biased against libertarians

China banned the letter N from the internet after people used it to attack Xi Jinping's plan to rule forever

Why we need a free and open internet

Still More Bad News (For Democrats) About The GOP Tax Cuts

Blacks, Hispanics, and women hit hardest

Koch Brothers Group Launches Ads Against Tax Breaks for Amazon HQ2

Why should any company be shielded from the taxes that other companies pay?

The Parkland Teens Fighting For Gun Control Have The Backing Of These Huge Organizing Groups

Yes, it's BuzzFeed which I don't like using as a source. It's also accurate.

Some Billings students are opposed to planned walk-out

Funny how only one side of the debate is hitting the national media

Facebook Keeps Secret Files on EVERYONE Including Non-Users – Here’s How to See Yours

Exaggerating, but not by much

What Mueller Has and What He’s Missing

There is very little doubt that this was an attempt to derail an elected President

Derry business turning away Republican customers

If the tables were turned, don't you think a business would be shamed into servicing Democrat voters?

Italian Voters Set to Shake European Union to Its Core as Anti Mass Migration and Euroscepticism Dominate Election

What? You mean Brexit was not an isolated event?

Trump the 'Big Second Amendment Person' Becomes 'Trump the Gun Grabber'

“Trump's embrace of gun control is consistent with his views before he ran for president.”

Pittsburgh Still Won't Let Anyone See Its Amazon Bid

There's no reason voters shouldn't know the details

Shocker! Rent Control Makes Housing Scarcer and More Expensive

“San Francisco rent control reduced affected rental housing by 15 percent while boosting citywide rents by 5 percent”

How can a place with 58,000 homeless people continue to function?

Excellent question

What Has Capitalism Ever Done For Us?

Capitalism holds the roots of freedom

'Get on the Right Side of History': A Phrase G.K. Chesterton Would Have Understood

“Telling others to 'get on the right side of history' is not just a form of intellectual bullying.”

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Thursday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Wednesday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Tuesday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Rebuke

“CPAC speaker Mona Charen stuns with fiery rebuke of Trump, Le Pen”

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NeoNotes — the best tyranny

Once you start using force and the rule of law to go after your "enemies," what's to stop you from going after us next?

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Friday roundup

13 Ways Public Schools Incubate Mental Instability In Kids

The simplest solution is allowing more private schools unbound by most government regulation

Shooting Survivor: CNN Gave Me "Scripted Question" After Denying Question About Armed Guards

There is a political agenda, even if the kids are not crisis actors. See also CNN Scrambles: Denies ‘Scripted Question,’ Invites Pro-Gun Student to Appear

Judge Nap: Order From New Judge in Michael Flynn Case Is 'Unheard-Of

It's looking more and more like Michael Flynn was blackmailed by the special prosecutor's office

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Is Unaccountable. Trump’s Budget Tries to Change That.

No governmental agency should be unaccountable.

Wendy McElroy: Privacy Prevents Violence and Crime

This contradicts the government narrative about privacy. That is the biggest reason you should pay close attention. Government is not your friend, especially when it is pretending to be.

Money Laundering Via Author Impersonation on Amazon?

I didn't expect that

Armed School Resource Officer Stayed Safely Outside School While Mass Killing Was Underway

The professional

Competition In Technology Is More Vibrant Than It Looks

It doesn't fit in the normal market segments

Are We Free to Discuss America’s Real Problems?

“It is only when people are confronted with speech they don’t like that we see whether these abstractions are real to them. ”

Police Announce Program to Illegally Stop People for ‘SAFE Driving’ & Facebook Owns Them

“Safe driving is now a reason for police to pull you over, check the inside of your car, demand your papers, and stomp what is left of the 4th Amendment into the ground.”

“Cash Must Not Be Made the Scapegoat”

“In the War on Cash, a rare defense of physical money by an ECB Board Member.”

Mueller Files Sealed New Charges in Manafort, Gates Case

Why does this look more and more like blackmail?

Idaho is ignoring Obamacare rules. That could set off a catastrophic chain reaction.

Using the process against itself

Should Teachers Be Armed?

Sometimes even LewRockwell.com asks the right questions

Comments

Thursday roundup

Florida Shooting Survivor Says Media Is Exploiting Shooting to Push an Agenda

Brandon Minoff is a voice of reason. No, not the only one. And no, his opinion isn't necessarily the last word. But ask yourself, why aren't we hearing more from students like him? See also Parkland School is turning into America’s Grenfell Tower

Witnessing the Collapse of the Global Elite

It was always about promises they couldn't keep.

Unrestrained Judgment

Obama put a policy in effect by decree, and the judge claims that Trump can't repeal it by decree

School shooting survivor knocks down 'crisis actor' claim

David Hogg says he is not a crisis actor. See also Houston-area school district threatens to suspend students who protest after Florida shooting

The End of (Artificial) Stability

“The central banks'/states' power to maintain a permanent bull market in stocks and bonds is eroding.”

Officials Identify More Rotherham Victims, Number Up to 1,510

This is why nations must insist that the rule of law applies to everyone. No exceptions.

JOURNALISM! CNN harasses Trump supporter at her home over what she shared on Facebook

Thou shalt not dissent

Donald Trump's Listening Session With Mass Shooting Survivors Was Really Powerful

If this is acknowledged at all, within 24 hours someone will find a reason to dismiss it.

Broward Deputies to Carry Rifles on School Grounds: Sheriff

After the fact and it's only temporary

Cleaning Up Air Pollution May Strengthen Global Warming

Unintended consequences. Maybe.

Parkland shooter always in trouble, never expelled. Could school system have done more?

Not just the school system. 39 visits by police.

South Africa's Brand New President Wants To Confiscate Land From White Farmers

That didn't work so well in Zimbabwe. Bottom line, when government confiscates and redistributes, expect disaster

Dr. Gina Loudon: Do You Trust Federal Bureaucrats to Decide if You’re Sane Enough to Keep Your Second Amendment Rights?

The state is not a moral entity

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Power concedes nothing

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.
     — Frederick Douglass
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Increasingly suspect

Ah, "anthropogenic global warming/cooling/drastic weather." In a word, unproven.

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“The Truth About Climate Change”

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Monday roundup

Black History Month is a failure

Read Carter G. Woodson

Greg Gutfeld: How To Stop Mass Shootings Without Gutting the 2nd Amendment

Smart thinking here

Hillary Clinton Claims There Have Been ‘Over 230’ School Shootings Since 2012

Overhyped hysteria aimed at gun owners

Florida students turn to activism in wake of shooting

Feelings trump common sense

Top GOP donor threatens to cut off contributions unless party supports assault weapon ban

A reminder that most shootings in America use handguns

Women’s March organizing national school walk-out

More feelings trumping common sense

Google's firing of James Damore was legal, labor board says

Technically correct but morally wrong. Also ‘Advancing Gender Stereotypes’: You Can Be Fired for Telling the Truth, Feds Rule

Arizona House approves ban on harassment secrecy pacts

“The Arizona House on Thursday approved legislation allowing victims of sexual misconduct to talk to police or testify in a criminal case even if they signed a non-disclosure agreement as part of a civil settlement.”

‘Peace Through Strength’ Is a Racket

“The way to achieve peace is not to prepare for war but to reject militarism and empire, and embrace nonintervention.”

“Blockchain” Stocks Completely Disintegrate

Bubbles pop

‘Top Priority’ — Sessions Orders ‘IMMEDIATE REVIEW’ Of FBI, While FL. Gov. Calls For Director Wray’s Resignation

Not sure if it can be cleaned up, it might be time to blow it up and start over

Chronicle of a white supremacist PR crisis and the making of a hoax

Those who seek attention

Marijuana Criminal Cases Dropped En Masse by Philadelphia District Attorney

As Wendy McElroy asks, what about the people already in jail?

Comments

What we need

We should emphasize not Negro History, but the Negro in history. What we need is not a history of selected races or nations, but the history of the world void of national bias, race hate, and religious prejudice.
     — Carter G. Woodson
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NeoNotes — Let people make their own choices

There comes a time when the only way to win is not to play.



Just pointing out again that if you don't like government power, maybe the real answer is taking the power away from government.



At that point I'd have to stand and say no.

You can't exile someone because of what they believe. It's what they want to do to you. That doesn't make it right.

We need to have our ideas challenged by people we don't agree with. If the ideas are good, they will stand on their own merit.



Maybe it's time the libertarians (small l, not the party) were in charge. We could start by abolishing any political party, reducing the total amount of taxes to ten percent and making the politicos pay for anything government spends above that amount.

Then we can talk about who is allowed to have influence.



And organizing everything from the words anyone is allowed to say to the calorie count of a pizza slice, just how well is that working out?

The problem isn't who is calling the shots. Experience has shown that no matter what promises someone makes, as soon as they have power they will be just as tyrannical as the opposition. Look at this discussion. You are literally writing about who is and is not allowed to have influence. And making sure that capital L Libertarians are on display, but not allowed to influence policy. That's better for people how? We are supposed to trust in the benevolence of conservatives?

The answer is massively reducing the size and scope of government. Let people make their own choices.



Can you do that without pointing a gun at people?

Do you have enough courage in your convictions to do it without force?



And I am not convinced that conservatives can be totally trusted. As I rule, I trust conservatives more than I do progressives, but I don't trust you that much.

It's not easy to do it without a gun, but it's possible. The thing is, progressives don't start with guns. They start by establishing Moral Authority. You can do more by taking that away than you can with guns. Hurting them or killing them just makes martyrs to the "cause."

The Left doesn't like it when I do a lot of things. That doesn't stop me much.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.
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Before you get excited about Russians messing with American elections

tip of the hat to The Carol Moore Report
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“Can Climate Models Predict Climate Change?”

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Friday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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“Surprise: Voters Aren't More Polarized than Ever, Only Pols and Media Are”

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Tuesday roundup

Inside The Two Years That Shook Facebook—And The World

Very long but a good summary

Federal abuses on Obama's watch represent a growing blight on his legacy

Some of us knew this during his first term

'We are being targeted': Voodoo believers fear a backlash

There's a mess, but this article doesn't help sort it our

Is California Starting To Circle The Drain?

A long and almost unbelievable tale of what happens when the police aren't policing anymore

We All Live on Campus Now

Groupthink spillover

'Hire the best and fire the worst': Trump proposes biggest civil service change in 40 years

If this is a plan and not a negotiating ploy, it's a really good idea

Are Progressives More Biased Than Conservatives?

“Progressives generally assume that they're less biased than conservatives. New research shows otherwise.”

Woman Dragged Out of West Virginia House Hearing For Listing Oil and Gas Contributions to Members

It's an issue that should be examined before they pass any law

Catholic School Parents Fight Lesbian Teacher's Firing. Here's Why That's Good.

Shifting morality

If You Really Wanted to Ban Porn, Here's What It Would Take

Detailed look at exactly what it would take

New York Times CEO: Print journalism has maybe another 10 years

Digital works better for millions of people

California’s drought restrictions on wasteful water habits could be coming back — this time they’ll be permanent

Water is precious in the desert, and California has acted otherwise for decades

Commonwealth in secret succession plans

I didn't know that head of the Commonwealth wasn't hereditary.

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NeoNotes — More on climate change

Ah, "anthropogenic global warming/cooling/drastic weather." In a word, unproven.

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NeoNotes — Trump's facts & examining the 2016 election

I remind you that no American political fact for the last two years has been easily ascertained. Or static.

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“Liberty vs. Democracy | Why Majority Rule Isn't So Great” by Roaming Millennial

“Let's talk about democracy & liberty. Which is more important and why? Should we value freedom, or majority rule?”

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Bonus Saturday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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The Nation goes after the intel community

“Russiagate or Intelgate?”

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Obama's foreign policy & YOUR TAX DOLLARS at work

“Obama-era cash traced to Iran-backed terrorists”

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Look out for flying pigs

I'm not sure what is bigger news, Rand Paul's stand or the fact that CNN (and Chris Cillizza of all people) agreed with him publicly.


Rand Paul is right

When Rand Paul took control of the Senate floor just before 6 p.m. Eastern, virtually every one of his Republican colleagues grimaced. Five years ago, they would have cheered him.

Paul's speech, which slowed attempts to pass a massive budget deal before the government shuts down at midnight, was a savaging of his party -- a party that appears to have turned 180 degrees from the deficit hawks of the mid 2010s who insisted that government spending was ballooning out of control and was crippling the country.

"When the Democrats are in power, Republicans appear to be the conservative party," Paul said at one point. "But when Republicans are in power, it seems there is no conservative party. The hypocrisy hangs in the air and chokes anyone with a sense of decency or intellectual honesty."

He is 100% right.

The simple fact is that Republicans in the Obama era defined themselves primarily as committed to reducing government spending and shrinking the nation's debt. The ur-document of that age was Paul Ryan's budget, in which he proudly touted the need to confront entitlement spending and make the hard cuts necessary to keep the country solvent for the foreseeable future.
     — Chris Cillizza
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Friday roundup

Uranium One informant makes Clinton allegations to Congress

Clintons, the scandals that keep on giving

Canadian PM: Sharia law is compatible with democracy

In which the Canadian PM proves his idiocy beyond any doubt

Let Us Eradicate Poverty, Not Demolish Wealth

Smart headline, but the rest of the article worth reading

Before You "Buy the Dip," Look at This One Chart

I think this is sound advice

Judicial Watch Tom Fitton Reports 3rd Dossier Provided by Obama to Sen. Cardin

If there was a third dossier, was there a fourth and fifth? What did President Obama know and when did he know it?

Online Gambling -- None Of Washington's Business (But Its Enemies Don't Care)

Beware of politicos who promise things for "your own good"

Institute for Justice Sues New Jersey Over Ban on Home Bakers Selling Their Cakes

Notice how Big Government loves to go after the little guy

One year later: President’s regulations crackdown is working

Less government means more prosperity

Consumers Are Open to Superhuman Vision and Cognitive Enhancements. Are Regulators?

Regulators shouldn't have any say

Congress must stop union scheme siphoning funds from Medicaid

Yep.

Why are we still regulating Main Street like Wall Street?

Good question

Senate Report: Obamacare and Medicaid Expansion Contributed to the Opioid Epidemic

You mean reducing the cost of medicine by fiat made addiction problems worse? Gee, who could have foreseen that?

$20 Billion Hidden in the Swamp: Feds Redact 255,000 Salaries

Somebody is hiding stuff from the voters

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Thursday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Victim can't tell the difference

The Democratic Party is better than the Republican Party in the way that manslaughter is slightly better than murder: It might seem like a lesser crime, but the victim can’t really tell the difference.
     — Michael Harriot, The Democratic Party Is Not Our Friend
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Wednesday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Friday roundup


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Wednesday roundup

Bill Nye Does Not Speak for Us and He Does Not Speak for Science

Silliness

Democrats And Leftists Will Be Giving At Least Six Separate Responses To Trump’s State Of The Union Address

This disunity shows that the Democrats still don't know what to do about Trump

'Booze Equality' Bill Inches Forward for Virginia Craft Distilleries

“ The Virginia wine tax is $1.51 per gallon and the tax on beer is $0.26 per gallon. The ABC Board marks up the price for liquor sold on-site at distilleries by 69 percent. Once ABC takes its 54 percent cut of the purchase price, it ends up effectively taxing spirits at a rate of $30.88 per gallon.”

Man Incarcerated for 6 Years Without a Trial Because He Demanded a Speedy Trial

Yes, it happened. In America.

Second Trump-Russia dossier being assessed by FBI

“Shearer does not have a background in espionage, and his memo was initially viewed with scepticism, not least because he had shared it with select media organisations before the election.” First, the misspellings are straight from the article. Second, the only reason that this "dossier" is even being considered is because nothing in the original panned out.

FCC chair opposes nationalizing 5G network

The other commission members don't like it either

Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, JPMorgan Chase to tackle employee health care costs, delivery

The single biggest problem in healthcare is government, but this article doesn't admit that

Nope, Trump Doesn't Get Credit for Low Black Unemployment

It started before Trump was sworn in

National I.D. By Any Other Name Still Stinks

Americans didn't want it but we're stuck with it

How Trump is Retooling Politics for the 21st Century

The press and the politicos aren't coping with him

Kelly: White House to Release Nunes Memo ‘Pretty Quick’

This is the fork in the road

“Dreamers” vs. demons

Worth considering

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director RESIGNS after her purchase of tobacco stocks is exposed

The CDC is not a regulatory agency

Comments

Tuesday roundup

Minnesota, Plundered by Vikings

The stadium scam strikes again

Gillibrand Softens Tone On Clinton Sex Scandals

Selective outrage

Eliminate Google From Your Life

I know it's LewRockwell.com, but it's also dead on

Student Expelled for Sexual Assault Had Evidence His Accuser Was Dating the Cop Who Investigated the Case

The cop should be brought up on charges

In fight over Bombardier CSeries, Boeing loses friends as well as tariff case

Corporate cronyism exposed.

Democrats Turn To A Kennedy For Rebuttal To Trump's State Of The Union Address

He's a lightweight

Trust Is Collapsing in America

The important takeaway from this is that decline in trust predates Trump. Institutions have been exploiting and failing Americans for a long time, and it's beginning to show

Why Free Speech Matters

Great article

Environmentalists Ready to Sue to Fight EPA Deregulation

I don't think this has ever happened before

Seven Days in January

“The signs are already there as to the effort to exonerate Hillary.”

Rising Social Disorder Is Inevitable: Here's Why

“The status quo has not changed the inputs or added any new feedback loops, so the output of the system--extremes of widening income and wealth inequality--cannot possibly change.”

You Won’t Believe How Much the House Has Spent on Harassment Cases

You should ask why Congress wants to hide this

~$1 trillion of real estate is on the move … here’s why

Automatic cars will change the face of the nation

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What did President Obama know, and when did he know it?

“House Intel votes to release controversial surveillance memo to the public”

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Bargin with the state

Is it moral for the state to compel a product or service?

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Monday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Friday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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NeoNotes — compel an individual

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Wednesday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Will we be allowed

If we can't question the science, then will we be allowed to question the new regulations, taxes, and fees?
     — NeoWayland, from crux № 12 — climate change
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Tuesday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Monday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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from crux № 12 — climate change

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Friday roundup

California, Poverty Capital

Not all is golden

Real Federalists Need to Step Up to Fight Jeff Sessions' War on Weed

I still want to know where the Federal government gets the power to outlaw cannabis

She was 91 and dying of dementia. City Hall fined her $39K. Now it says her family must pay.

“In Coachella, Officials Buried A Great-Grandmother In Debt By Mailing Fines To The Wrong House, Then Took Her To Court After She Was Dead.”

Wells Fargo Glitch Leaves Customers With Empty Bank Accounts

I'd say it's time to change banks

Worst-case global warming scenarios not credible: study

Seems like the science isn't settled

Catherine Deneuve, #MeToo, and the Fracturing Within Feminism

This is more important than it looks. The RadFems DO NOT speak for all women. This also confirms a trend I've been watching for five years or so

Fear and Mass Surveillance: Our Constitutionally Toxic Political Cocktail

The politicos want you scared and not asking questions

House Report Concluded Pakistanis Made ‘Unauthorized Access’ To Congressional Servers

So why isn't this make more headlines?

I Propose the 48 Hour Trump / MSM News Rule

Why does this make too much sense?

These Hospitals Are Sick of High Drug Prices. So They're Starting Their Own Nonprofit Drug Company

Competition works

Mexican Cities Are Escaping Corruption and the Cartels through Secession

Now that is an interesting idea.

Massive flu outbreak? Here’s the real story the media won’t touch. The lies, the hoax, the scandal.

“That would mean the flu vaccine has been ineffective for decades.”

Bill Introduced to Stop Civil Forfeiture Funding of DEA Marijuana Eradication Program

“DEA's use of proceeds acquired through civil asset forfeiture to expand marijuana enforcement makes the already unacceptable practice even worse.”

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“Stossel: The Southern Poverty Law Center Scam”

The real problem is government.

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Carrying water

I don't like seeing others manipulated into carrying water for a "moral" cause that is in fact pure politics. You can't trust politicos, especially when they say "Let's you and him fight."
     — NeoWayland
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NeoNotes — Conservatives and big government

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Tuesday roundup

Policing Sexual Desire

Great piece.

HIDDEN CAMERA: HUNDREDS of Twitter Employees Paid to View “Everything You Post Online” Including Private “Sex Messages”

And making money doing it.

NAACP Says MLK’s Vision Can’t Be Achieved Without Fighting Global Warming

In all my studies, MLK didn't once mention global warming or climate change.

Backdoor Censorship through Libel Law

Here's something Trump is actually doing

Comic Convention Bans Christian Conservative Actor Kevin Sorbo For Friendship With Hannity

Guilty by association

How Conservatives Are Being Destroyed by Facebook, Twitter and Google Without Even Realizing It

There needs to be competition, these companies are breaking their promises

The Subtle ‘Tyranny’ of Regulatory Overlords

“Who really benefits from the 14,000 pages of Dodd-Frank?”

Collapse of Construction Giant with 43,000 Employees Globally Sparks Fear and Mayhem

Size doesn't always guarantee success

Jesse Jackson praises and thanks Donald Trump for a lifetime of service to African Americans

YouTube video - flashback

Kafkaesque campus sexual assault tribunal at Johnson & Wales alleged in lawsuit

“Female waited a year to complain, male not given copy of complaint, entire process only 5 weeks, no record of hearing”

Police Knew That Hawaii Missile Attack Report was False Within Five Minutes After Alert

I'm glad someone was on the job

FLASHBACK: The Obama Administration Called Netanyahu A ‘Chickensh**’

Funny how none of the major networks are talking about that one

Shrinks present latest plot to remove Trump from office

The unelected, unappointed, and answerable to no one believe they have the power to overturn an election. The only way to take Trump out is truth. Anything else will backfire, badly.

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Fake news checking

Google’s New ‘Fact-Checker’ Is Partisan Garbage

Now, you may believe that conservatives are hopeless liars in need of relentless correcting, so I’ll concede the point for argument’s sake. Even then, you’d have to admit it’s a small miracle that, according to Google’s search engine, not a single prominent liberal or mainstream site in the entire universe has ever uttered a dubious or questionable claim.
     — David Harsanyi
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Dick Durbin lied before

The White House Is Refuting A Shocker Of A Claim From A Top Democratic Senator

Oct. 23, 2013, 2:55 PM
A claim from the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), drew denials from House Republican leadership and the White House on Wednesday.

Durbin claimed in a weekend Facebook post that a House GOP leader told President Barack Obama that the leader "cannot even stand to look at" him during a recent negotiation over the government shutdown and raising the nation's debt ceiling.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said, flatly, that the exchange "did not happen."

A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner was baffled by Durbin's allegation.

"The Speaker certainly didn’t say that, and doesn’t recall anyone else doing so," Michael Steel, Boehner's spokesman, said in an email Wednesday morning.
     — Brett LoGiurato

tip of the hat to Tammy Bruce
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from crux № 17 — spiritual warrior

All I am saying is that you should check your experience with others who have a different perspective, people you can talk with face to face.

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Nothing scandalizes like the truth

Nothing scandalizes a leftist like the truth. Point out that women and men are different, that black Americans commit a disproportionate amount of violent crime, that most terrorist acts are committed by Muslims, and the Left leaps to its collective feet in openmouthed shock, like Margaret Dumont after a Groucho Marx wisecrack. This is racism! This is sexism! This is some sort of phobia! I’m shocked, shocked to find facts being spoken in polite company!

No one is really shocked, of course. This is simply a form of bullying. The Left has co-opted our good manners and our good will in order to silence our opposition to their bad policies. The idea is to make it seem impolite and immoral to mention the obvious.
     — Andrew Klavan, Of Crudeness and Truth
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The obvious

Of Crudeness and Truth

Let’s state the obvious. Some countries are shitholes. To claim that this is racist is racist. They are not shitholes because of the color of the populace but because of bad ideas, corrupt governance, false religion, and broken culture. Further, most of the problems in these countries are generated at the top. Plenty of rank-and-file immigrants from such ruined venues ultimately make good Americans—witness those who came from 1840s potato-famine Ireland, a shithole if ever there was one! It takes caution and skill to separate the good from the bad.

For these very reasons, absurd immigration procedures like chain migration, lotteries, and unvetted entries are deeply destructive. They can lead to the sort of poor choices that create a Rotherham. Trump’s suggestions—to vet immigrants for pro-American ideas and skills that will help our country—are smart and reasonable and would clearly make the system better if implemented.

So, when it comes to the Great Shithole Controversy of 2018, my feeling is: I do not care, not even a little. I’m sorry that it takes someone like Trump to break the spell of silence the Left is forever weaving around us. I wish a man like Ronald Reagan would come along and accomplish the same thing with more wit and grace. But that was another culture. History deals the cards it deals; we just play them. Trump is what we’ve got.
     — Andrew Klavan
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The people aren't…

The people aren't shitholes, the countries are. No one immigrates from a country where things can get better.
     — anonymous
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America meddled and made a shithole

“If You Think Haiti Is a Shithole, Then Blame America for Helping to Make It That Way”

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Friday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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from crux № 21 — American hegemony

In the name of the greater good, the US supported tyranny and dictators all over the globe.

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Wednesday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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“The Problem With The UN | Corrupt, Anti-Western & Useless”

“Corruption, abuse scandals, extravagant spending, and laughable committee assignments. Here are some of the biggest problems with the United Nations.”

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Tuesday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Monday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Comments

“Can't be sure if parts of it are true”

“The author of the explosive new Trump book says he can't be sure if parts of it are true”

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Friday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Thursday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Wednesday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Politics

Government is politics. Whenever you turn over to the government a financial, social, medical, military, or commercial matter, it's automatically transformed into a political issue — to be decided by those with the most political influence. And that will never be you or I.
     — Harry Browne, Principles of Government
Comments

Monday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Comments

Internet debates

Sometimes, you're wrong.

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Friday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Thursday roundup

United Apologizes To Passenger Booted For Congresswoman

also Sheila Jackson Lee’s Long History Of Being An Entitled ‘Queen’

Half of America thinks we’re making it up

And they are not wrong

UK Muslim No-Go Zones ‘Heading Toward Disaster,’ Non-Muslims Scared, Businesses Stoned

Radical Islam is a cancer and still remain so until other Muslims take a stand.

Homeland Security’s Multibillion Dollar Comedy Show

This agency never should have been created

10 times the intel community violated the trust of US citizens, lawmakers and allies

In the words of Claire Wolfe, "Only ten?"

Freedom Necessarily Includes the Freedom to Act Self-Destructively

Don Boudreaux answers his mail.

#MeToo Is Turning Into a Witch-Hunt

What happens when the radical feminists destroy their own goals?

Why Does Blow-Drying Hair in Arizona Require 1,000 Hours of Training?

Occupational licensing has become a bane on American society

Collision with Reality: What Depth Psychology Can Tell us About Victimhood Culture

I despise the politics of victimhood. This goes a long way to describing it.

Sen. Ron Wyden cosponsors bill to legalize marijuana across U.S.

It's amazing to me that marijuana is considered more dangerous than alcohol, despite all evidence to the contrary

H.R. 38: Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017

A Federal law for gun freedom?

Roy Moore files lawsuit to block Alabama Senate result

Back in 2000, I blasted Al Gore for demanding the courts intervene. Here is a result.

Another Arctic blast poised to usher in 2018

But, but it's global warming climate change…

Comments

NeoNotes - Real religion

Pardon, I don't think anyone is capable of judging what is and is not a "real" religion. I can't tell you how many times certain Christians have told me that my faith isn't real.

Pauline Christianity is something completely different that what Yeshua Ben Yosef preached. Gnostic Christianity is something completely different yet again. Which is true? Who knows? Who am I to judge what happens between someone else and the Divine?

I think these are the wrong questions. Christians are much nicer when they aren't the only game around. From what little I've seen, the same applies to Muslims.

I think what matters is how we treat others, especially others who do not share our faith and culture. Ramming it down other's throat by force will cause resentment. That's where some monotheists go wrong. It's not that they have the True Faith™, its that no other faith can be allowed. Because of their Greater Understanding and enlightenment, they can break society's rule for the Greater Good. Thou shalt not dissent.

Climate change alarmists stole the game lock, stock, and barrel. It's common for some of the radical feminists too. If anything, I think it indicates a weakness in the argument. Their faith isn't strong enough, they can't convince others, so it must be forced.

Getting back to Christianity, how much would history have changed if Constantine hadn't made it the state faith? How would it have developed if it had stayed one faith among many? How much of the Official® was really about politics and controlling the populace?

Could it be that control is really the issue?
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

Comments

Tuesday roundup

Israel to formally announce intent to leave UNESCO

Although I am not a blind supporter of Israel, there is no other nation that has been vilified for so little reason.

University of Minnesota Retracts Restrictions on Christmas Decorations

“In a memo sent by the University of Minnesota earlier this month, staff was told that Santa and Christmas tree decorations were “not appropriate” for campus buildings.”

Santa Calls It Quits

Parody

Cities, volunteers clash over feeding homeless in public

It's not charity unless it's Officially Approved

How Opaque Healthcare Pricing Mechanisms Rip Off Consumers

Or How Government Conspires to Keep Medical Costs High

Wrong-footing the NYPD

Going through the motions without fixing the problems

Christmas 2017: Why I'm Hopeful



Who Regulates Bitcoin Trading? No U.S. Agency Has Jurisdiction

No regulation is not necessarily a bad thing

Comments

Jesus is offensive

Family asked to remove 'offensive' Jesus sign from their Christmas display because it offended a neighbour

A family has been asked to take down a sign with the name “Jesus” from their Christmas display, after a neighbour reportedly claimed it was offensive.

Mark and Lynn Wivell said their homeowner’s association had made the request after they put up the display outside their home in Adams County, Pennsylvania.

"As part of our Christmas decoration, we would display the name Jesus to point out to everyone that we in this family believe that the reason for the season is to celebrate the birth of Jesus," Mr Wivell told the FOX43 news channel.
     — Henry Austin
Comments

Friday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Rebuke

U.N. Vote Rebukes U.S. for Jerusalem Move

The United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly Thursday for a resolution effectively rebuking U.S. President Donald Trump for recognizing the disputed city of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and pledging to move the U.S. embassy there.

The vote came despite threats by Mr. Trump and U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley that the U.S. would take punitive measures, such as reducing foreign aid and cutting contributions to the U.N., against countries voting in favor of the resolution.

The General Assembly resolution didn’t explicitly refer to the U.S., instead asserting that unilateral decisions such as Mr. Trump’s have no legal effect and must be rescinded. In the vote, 128 countries voted in favor and 9 against, with 35 abstaining.

“We will remember [the vote], when so many countries come calling on us to pay even more and to use our influence to their benefit,” Ms. Haley said during the General Assembly debate, adding the emergency meeting and the vote were signs of disrespect toward the U.S. for exercising its sovereignty by deciding to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. She said the vote wouldn’t affect Mr. Trump’s decision.
     — Farnaz Fassihi

So let's talk about this.

The UN has absolutely no power to interfere with the internal affairs of any member nation.

In the past, the UN has meddled for "humanitarian reasons" or to prevent greater violence. That hasn't worked out well at all.

Most of the money and most of the military might of the UN comes from the United States. Overwhelmingly so. If the US decided to take it's toys and go home, not only would the UN have to move, but it's ability to act would be less than a fifth of what it is now.

Since it's founding, the UN has tried to steer the World towards one world government. American elites have pursued globalization along the lines of the European Union. But centralized unaccountable bureaucracies seldom work. That in turn leads to more government, more technocrats, and even less accountability. For the last thirty years, globalization has be the goal.

Trump is going to disrupt things.
Comments

Thursday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Principles of Government

Standard Approved Government Solution

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Comments

Wednesday roundup

Can States Reimpose Net Neutrality?

More importantly, should they? Net neutrality is about something that might happen, not something that has happened. And once government starts regulating, existing firms are protected and new competition is discouraged.

Trump and the NFL Agree: Taxpayers Should Keep Subsidizing Stadiums

The stadium scam is one of the biggest boondoggles ever allowed in America

Rebuilding America First

Major priority shifts

Un-Merry Christmas: The Perverse Incentives to Over-Consume and Over-Spend

If you have enough, why do you need the Brand New Model?

How Activists Took Control of a University: The Case Study of Evergreen State

Social justice displaces education

Massachusetts Adopted Common Core – and It’s Beginning to Show

Another case of education taking a back seat to social objectives.

Would More Infrastructure Spending Have Stopped Yesterday's Derailment?

Politicos still aren't answering the big question. Is mass transit cost effective?

Ben Carson Admits War on Drugs Conflicts with War on Poverty

Major opinion change from the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Matt Damon faces backlash for latest sexual harassment comments

"We're in this watershed moment, and it's great, but I think one thing that's not being talked about is... the preponderance of men I've worked with who don't do this kind of thing."

Dictionaries as Propaganda Tools

Gods, enough of the social justice activism and toxic politics corrupting everything

Swedish Police Warn Rapes ‘Worst They Have Seen in 35 Years’

It's not the native born Swedes who are raping women

German Jews Told To Hide Jewish Symbols To Avoid Attacks By Muslim Migrants…

The first duty of government is to protect citizens. So where are the police and other authorities?

Hillary Clinton campaign, DNC accused of 'corrupt' money scheme in new FEC complaint

The corruption just keeps on coming

Comments

Tuesday roundup

The Big Con: The Truth Behind Net Neutrality and Why the Sky Is Not Falling

“Net neutrality was the government’s response to an actual problem. As usual, their response ignored the problem completely.”

The Modern Art Of Pervs

Changing mores and the sexualization of children

The secret backstory of how Obama let Hezbollah off the hook

“How Hezbollah turned to trafficking cocaine and laundering money through used cars to finance its expansion.” So Obama let them break the law. I don't agree with the War on Drugs, but the President should uphold the law.

CDC director says there are ‘no banned words’ at the agency

Well, I fell for this one too. I should know by now that the really bad stuff about Trump seldom turns out true. Also No, the CDC did not ban a list of words

Since Feeding the Homeless is Now Illegal, A Group Carried AR15s to Give Out Food—It Worked

Unsanctioned, unofficial charity.

The Other Tech Bubble

The ugliness behind the startup culture.

In Legalizing Marijuana, Uruguay Trips over the Dollar, US Laws, and Global Banks

or “Why Drug Lords Love the Patriot Act.”

3 Reasons Millennials Should Consider Ditching Karl Marx for Ayn Rand

“Karl Marx doesn’t align with what’s important to Millennials.”

Jedi Mind Trick: The Disturbing, Destabilizing Abnormal Is Now Normal

Change means disrupting the system. And there's plenty of disruption.

Is Your Cell Phone Protected by the Constitution?

The Supreme Court will decide, and it doesn't look good.

‘We Made This (Harassment) Law Up From The Beginning And Now We’ve Won’

Deliberately screwing up society.

Comey Should Be Indicted

It was obvious months ago, but now it's a given. It won't happen though. Indicting Comey is one step closer to HRC. And indicting HRC is one step closer to Barack Obama.

Right Wing Extremism vs. Islamic Extremism in the United States: A Look at the Numbers

Debunking the claim that most terrorism in the US is carried out by the right wing.

Comments

Monday roundup

Trump to remove ‘climate change’ as a national security threat

It never was a threat. It was an excuse to divert money and resources to a religious cause. Yes, the climate alarmists are a religion. Right down to treating dissenters as heretics.

Miami pulls the plug on its red light camera program

Too many cities have leveraged red light cameras into a revenue source and manipulated the light timing to maximize revenue.

Donald Trump, Lying, and Eroding Social Trust

Good questions. Presidents and politicos lie, it's what they do. The problems is believing one flavor is better than the other.

States Fight Calif. and Mass. over Meddlesome Livestock Law

Why should one state control how farming occurs in another?

Navajo Nation sues Wells Fargo in fake-account scandal

“Vulnerable” needs some explaining. There are cultural assumptions that the Diné have that most of the U.S. doesn't. This puts them at a disadvantage when it comes to legal issues.

‘Internet Service Providers Should Not Be Able To Decide What People Can See Online,’ Says Man Who Decides What People Can See Online

Mark Zuckerberg is a hypocrite.

The #MeToo Movement Is Destroying Trust Between Men And Women

“Demonizing Men Undermines Both Sexes”

Judicial Watch President: "Forget Mueller," The Real Question Is "Do We Need To Shut Down The FBI?"

The Bureau is compromised.

Democrats Can Weaponize the Sexual Assault Allegations Against Trump

It won't work. Trump is better at this game than the press or his political opponents. He won't go quietly when allegations are in the air.

Masterpiece Cakeshop: Are We Free To Disagree?

This nuance is important and often misreported in the media. Jack serves all customers; he does not want to be forced to create all messages.

UN Security Council weighs resolution saying Jerusalem decisions are void

Yeah. The UN has no authority in the affairs between two nations or in the internal affairs of any nation. Nor does the US. Nor should they.

CA Dems Proposing Spending $1 Billion Giving Health Care To Illegal Immigrants

As long as CA pays and not the rest of the country, I've no problem. But they will find a way to shift the costs, just watch.

Trump administration forbids CDC officials from using 7 words and phrases

I'm torn on this one. On the one hand, I don't think the administration should be banning words. On the other hand, I've seen some of the nonsense coming out of the CDC in the last few years.

Comments

244th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party

“The Tea Act: The Catalyst of the Boston Tea Party”

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Friday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Comments

NeoNote — Achievement

Odd tactic from the Grand and Glorious Imperious Leader

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“The pathetic legacy of feminism’s Women’s Liberation Movement”

Regular readers know that I've agreed and disagreed with Mrs. Bookworm before. She's one of my daily reads, and I am a semi-regular commenter at her site.

Well, she's done an excellent piece on The pathetic legacy of feminism’s Women’s Liberation Movement, Here's an excerpt.

The Women’s Liberation Movement, that bridge between Second and Third Wave feminism, might be summed up as follows: We are women and, with enough government programs, public service announcements, and Planned Parenthood outlets, we can eventually be invincible!

Except after forty years of this “you are woman, you are strong, you are invincible” yadda, yadda, yadda talk, the daily sex scandals are revealing that the whole empowerment thing has been a sham. It turns out that, when confronted with an unprincipled alpha male, women are weak. Women do not fight back when these brutes sexually bully, humiliate, or assault them. Women are victims not warriors.

The whole piece is worth your valuable time. And if you aren't a regular reader, give her a try. You may not always agree, but she does make you think.

Comments

Thursday roundup

Thoughts before election day

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“Freedom to Discriminate? | Wedding Cakes vs. Liberty”

Comments

Take away your liberty

You didn't think they were serious, did you?

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“Stossel: The Fight Against Food Trucks”

“Protectionism at play? Politicians say food trucks are "unfair competition" for restaurants.”

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Tuesday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Monday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Comments

Talkin' politics in 2017

tip of the hat to reddit/Libertarian
Comments

NeoNotes — blame game

Great quote that's right on the money

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Comments

“Stossel: Deceitful Bias in The NY Times”

A new study blames global warming, but provides almost no information

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Wenesday roundup

Former Dem Congresswoman Sentenced To Five Years In Prison On Corruption Charges

She used both her Congressional membership and a charity.

This Company Will Bring Health Care To Your Door, On Demand

As Obamacare destroys the healthcare system, expect smart people finding ways to make it work

They Don't Give Any Advance Notice When They Change The Narrative

Scapegoating on a massive scale

Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg warns of a “Me Too” backlash against women at work

The backlash is inevitable. The question is how hard and how long.

Facebook Is Banning Women for Calling Men ‘Scum’

And the backlash begins…

12 states ask Supreme Court to block California egg law

This is long past due. California likes to use it's size and power to meddle in the internal affairs of other states. Almost like they learned it from the Federal government.

Judge Halts Indiana Town's Cruel Attempt to Fine Residents Out of their Properties

Not eminent domain, but almost as bad

Moore spokesman calls sex assault accusers ‘criminals’

I'm not surprised given Moore's history. The sex accusations without proof don't bother me. I'm seriously disturbed that a theocratic Republican with a history of ignoring court rulings is about to be elected to the United States Senate.

Can States Compel You to Bake a Cake Against Your Will? The Supreme Court Will Decide.

Most of the pagans and progressives I know think this is a slam dunk. But they don't like it when I ask if that means that the states can force you to do things that violate your beliefs.

Comments

Destroyed their own brand

When the NFL players are on the field, that's not their time. They're being paid millions to play and put on a good show. That's millions by the fans in the stands and the viewers on TV. The NFL is selling a product, it's not something holy. If the fans and viewers don't like what they see, they will take their money elsewhere. And then where will the players be? Off the field on their own time, who cares what the players think? That's their time. Off the field, they have to prove their ideas just like anyone else. But when the players made their paid time political time, they destroyed their own brand.
     — NeoWayland
Comments

Tuesday roundup

Microsoft's new Chinese web portal censor's words like "freedom" and "democracy"

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Comments

The stack returns

Older headlines that don't merit their own entry

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❝Senator Jon Tester Disparaging Tax Bill❞

“Senator Jon Tester Showing How He Received the Republican "Tax Reform" Bill Just Hours before the Late Night Vote was Scheduled and how it was marked up in a way that made it impossible to read/understand. Is this even legal?”

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Comments

More from the stack

New Segregation Signs Pop Up in Leftist Establishments

Perpetuating racism in the name of freedom

Border Agents Seized American Citizen's Truck, Never Charged Him With A Crime

"You have no rights here"

The Senate Is Close To Undermining The Internet By Pretending To 'Protect' The Children

Justifying tyranny

We Didn't Normalize Trump. We Normalized the Left's Violence.

All other things being equal, the side that can't stand dissent is wrong.

Exclusive: US government wiretapped former Trump campaign chairman

So why isn't Obama called to account for this?

I moved from a blue state to a red state and it changed my life

"As I got to know my new Midwest home, I realize how living in a bubble and subscribing to the Middle America stereotypes is truly damaging to this country."

To Combat "Hate," Make Government Weaker

Worth thinking about

James Comey Tried to Discredit Trump’s Wiretapping Assertions That Proved True

Why isn't this man in jail?

Entire Volume of CIA Files On Lee Harvey Oswald, Set to Be Released in October, Has “Gone Missing”

Somebody is still hiding truth.

The Silencing of Dissent

A paranoid take that may be true

Trump: “Venezuela Has FAITHFULLY Implemented Socialism…” The UN Goes SILENT!

Trump is right on this

Hours After Hurricane Irma, Miami-Dade County Tickets Residents for Code Violations

You'd think there would be other priorities. You'd be wrong.

File a FOIA, Get Sued

Why do you want to know, Citizen?

Comments

Friday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Comments

More clearing out the stack

Older headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Taken stands

I've taken stands for gun rights, alternative sexual practices, the value of the family with men and women role models, religious choice, the free market, and good movies.
     — NeoWayland
Comments

Single issue

If I have a single issue, it's less government and more freedom.
     — NeoWayland
Comments

Bind me

If I can be moral without your faith, why do you wish to bind me to your faith?
     — NeoWayland
Comments

Beware

Beware anyone who offers an absolute.
     — NeoWayland
Comments

Questionable

Messing with kids, that's perverted.

Demanding that others acknowledge AND celebrate your sexuality, that's questionable.

Actually being lesbian, gay, transgender, or whatever else isn't.

Mixing your sexuality with politics is a pretty good sign that you're corrupt though.
     — NeoWayland
Comments

Path to freedom

Politics is about power over people. Once you understand that government is not your friend and the politico only wants to get re-elected, you’re on the path to freedom.
     — NeoWayland
Comments

Moral harm

Do you really want politicos deciding what is moral harm?
     — NeoWayland
Comments

Politicos lie

Politicos lie. It's what they do. The mistake is believing that one “flavor” is somehow morally better.
     — NeoWayland
Comments

We're allowing ourselves to be manipulated

The question isn't which politico is better. The question is why we're allowing ourselves to be manipulated into believing that government and Our Elected Officials™ know what's best and will serve us.
     — NeoWayland
Comments

Speak for me

Please don't presume you can speak for me. You do it badly.
     — NeoWayland
Comments

Distrust government

I distrust the very notion of government. Especially an ever expanding government with no apparent restraints where the only real concern is when “your guys” aren't in charge.
     — NeoWayland
Comments

Seeking power

History shows that politics corrupts faith. It's not the Divine who stirs up politics, it's the priests and priestesses seeking power.
     — NeoWayland
Comments

Politics corrupts faith

We know politics corrupts faith and religion. We've ample evidence what happens when the People of the Book try it.
     — NeoWayland
Comments

Mark 12:17

One of my professors pointed out that Mark 12:17 could be interpreted to keep politics out of religion and religion out of politics. It's probably not true, but I like the thought. Politics is about controlling others and we know it corrupts almost everything it touches.
     — NeoWayland
Comments

Human Choice

I'm certain that these people do not have demonic hordes from realms infernal on speed dial, nor are they in direct contact with your Prince of Lies.

I'm equally certain that there will not be a heavenly host to put right what once was wrong, and that you didn't get marching orders directly from on high.

The manifestation is human.

The problem came from human choice and the solution has to come through human choice.
     — NeoWayland
Comments

For Your Own Good

Right, because “For Your Own Good” was such a rousing success with Prohibition, explicit song lyrics, university speech codes, global warming, and Obamacare.
     — NeoWayland
Comments

Politics is not about reform

Politics is not about reform.

Politics is about control.

Politics is never about reform, even when the politicos say that it is.

By definition, reform can't come from within. It almost always splits off into a new thing.
     — NeoWayland
Comments

Collapse

At this point, I don't think anyone can stop the collapse. Nor do I think that's bad. There are how many laws on the books? How many regulations in the Federal Register? We've been conditioned to depend on government to help us. Cut spending, but not national defense. Cut spending, but not aid to Israel or Saudi Arabia. Cut spending, but not Social Security. And some banks and unions are Too Big To Fail.
     — NeoWayland
Comments

Science is a process

Science is an inquiry process. It's not a set of laws carved in stone forever and ever.

Everything you cited above (claims, explanations, proposals) come from people, not science.

Science just shows how well it works. Or if people need to look harder.
     — NeoWayland
Comments

Govern

We've been taught that government is supposed to govern and control the other guy.

That's the guy who is the problem.

Not us. Never us. It's not our fault.
     — NeoWayland
Comments

Reform

I'm obligated to point out that the quickest and easiest way to achieve those reforms is for the "ship of state" to sink.
     — NeoWayland
Comments

Charity

If I choose to give, that is charity and can be celebrated. If I am manipulated or threatened into giving, that is extortion. I don't care how good the cause is, if I am required to give without my consent, that threatens my freedom. I shouldn't be tricked into it “for my own good” or “for the greater good.” I want to know WHY, and I want an honest answer. I demand the choice to walk away.
     — NeoWayland
Comments

Blood of the unbelievers

It's not the gods calling for the blood of the unbelievers. It's the priests. It's the generals. It's the emperors.
     — NeoWayland
Comments

Fewer weapons

We could do with fewer weapons and soldiers if our politicos stopped the empire building.
     — NeoWayland
Comments

Wrapped in the flag

When a politico wraps himself in the flag, double check your liberty and count on finding brown stains afterwards.
     — NeoWayland
Comments

Meddle

People love to meddle. They want to control other people “for their own good.” Public education, foreign policy, sub-prime mortgages, all happened because someone thought they knew better and used force to inflict it on everyone else.
     — NeoWayland
Comments

Paradise

There are reasons why the World is not a paradise. One reason is because we silly humans can't agree on what a paradise should be
     — NeoWayland
Comments

Choice of faith

Faith is nothing without choice.
     — NeoWayland
Comments

Make the rules

Why in the World do you think you get to make the rules?
     — NeoWayland
Comments

“Why Are There So Many Mass Shootings Today?”

This was FDR's State of the Union address in January, 1941. It was another speech that changed everything.

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Comments

Truth from the Federalist - worth your time

“America’s Post-Charlottesville Nervous Breakdown Was Deliberately Induced”

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NeoNotes — Racism in response to oppression

My critique wasn't intended to capture the movement.

In the various moments however, I see one group excuse their violence and their racism because of their narrative. This one group gets a pass but others do not. That's certainly privilege and it hurts their case.

I've told people before. You want equality, I'll fight with you. You want privilege, I'll fight against you.

I can't take BLC BLM seriously when I read or hear the trash-talk some of the leadership directs at "whites." I'm not the only one. I'm against injustice, I don't think BLC BLM is.

You know the really ironic thing about this conversation? The motto of my political blog Pagan Vigil is "Because LIBERTY demands more than just black and white."



If group A gets something and groups B, C, and E are not allowed, that's a privilege. If things change and group B gets something and groups A, C, E, and H are not allowed, there is still privilege.

The definition of oppression keeps changing. Arguably things were worse for "blacks" in the 1920s after Woodrow Wilson re-segregated the civil service and the military. Not to mention all the Jim Crow laws that were still on the books. While there are issues today, they are no where near what they once were.

One of the biggest issues today is the prison population. This is usually one key argument about how the US is still a racist society. Before we can really look at that though, we should consider if there are some laws that in and of themselves might be unjust. Personally I think it's stupid to arrest people for being under the influence but not arresting people for being drunk. So if we take out all non-violent drug offenders, that reduces the prison population quite a bit. We're left with the violent offenders.

We know that a strong family, especially one with at least two parents, usually means the kids don't break the law. We also know that "black" inner city children in single mother households used to be about 7%, at one point that rose to well over 70% and is still a majority today. We know that this was made possible by well meaning government programs meant to provide. In other words, "the Man" paid single mothers not to get married and raise kids on their own. Yet any talk of reducing these benefits is immediately called racism. It's privilege, it promotes dependency, and yet it's seen as "compassionate." There's racism and oppression for you, but in popular opinion it's a "right." That doesn't mean that single mothers are evil or wrong. It just means that when a majority of households in a given population are single mothers, the kids (and especially the males) are much more likely to push the boundaries and get into trouble.

These aren't the only two things that put more "blacks" in prison, but they are two of the biggest. Yet instead, we hear how cops are racist. These are also two things that would take years, maybe decades to fix.

There are many other things too. Inner city public schools which are more and more like prisons. Public housing projects that displace neighborhoods and quickly become crime infested. Licensing laws that make it almost impossible for small household businesses to get started. These are real oppressions with absolutely devastating results, and yet we're arguing over who gets a slice of the pie. The oppressed demand action from the government and the institutions that are keeping them down. Star Parker does a much better job explaining this is her book Uncle Sam's Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America's Poor and What We Can Do About It.

Maybe the pie isn't limited. And maybe the person on the street isn't the oppressor.



Peer review? Then the next question will be if the correct peers reviewed it. And that still doesn't answer the real question: Is Star Parker wrong with either her observations or her conclusions?

Look at what happened here. In one reply you've moved from Black Lives Matter to certain Black Lives Matter more than the ones who have not been politically approved. It's Orwell. “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

What critical race theory doesn't tell you is the how and why of institutions, particularly those created to fight one cause or another.

I'm not going to assume the collective guilt. That's not my style, and that's not the way to fix racism.



Critical race theory isn't a part of sociology, it rejects much of sociology. It was designed as a political tool to silence dissent from an approved ideology.

I am not discounting peer review which can be a valuable tool. I just do not think that it should be the only tool, nor do I think that the only certain people should be allowed to do peer review.

I've run into abuse of the latter kind in third wave feminism "scholarship" where ideas aren't even considered for discussion unless the author has been approved.

Those are Star Parker's beliefs, she still has the right to write and talk about them. But she isn't hitting people if they disagree with her.

I was trying to find a quote from Thomas Sowell on critical race theory, but I can't seem to find it.



How widespread is critical race theory outside those who study it? Can it produce predictable models of human behavior? How well does it withstand analysis outside the discipline? These are some of the things that mark a science. At one point I was studying to be a Christian minister, that doesn't make Christianity true. These same things could be said about third wave feminism too. Even more in the case of third wave feminism, how well does it tolerate behavior that goes against what it teaches.

But the people in BLM who aren't hitting people aren't denouncing the people in BLM who are. And there have been pages and pages written about how the leaders of BLM are justified in their racism against "whites" with no one calling them on it.

If BLM is going to denounce the neo-Nazis for being racist and violent, shouldn't they be held to the same standard?



We let generations be victims when they deserved to be heroes.



You seem to want understanding and validation for your sexuality. You won't get that from me. But if you want the right to make your own choices as long as you accept responsibility for those choices, count me in.

Which is more important?

I don't care about BLM's "cause," especially since I think it's only cover for their politics. I care about human rights and making sure everyone has them.

Which is more important?



See, I don't think there are as many oppressors as you do.

Nor do I think that people should take a back seat to talking and solving things because of their skin color, gender, creed, political affiliation, sexuality, gym membership, or the coffee they like. If there is a problem, let's fix it together and figure out who to blame afterwards.



I'm sorry, but this keeps getting more abstract.

What I saw was two groups using violence. One was condemned and the other was not. Both have highly racist members. Both have said and done some despicable things.

Why is the one group that has bigger numbers, much better funding, better political connections called the oppressed and therefore allowed violence without comment?



I don't approve of violence, particularly against bystanders. I said that in the original article.

But if you are going to overlook the violence of one group because they are oppressed, those same standards apply even more against the neo-Nazis. BLM is less oppressed by almost every measure you can name.

You keep excusing BLM and antifa's behavior. I don't. Not because I support the neo-Nazis, but because any excuse for violence is wrong. The fact that many BLM leaders are actively and openly racist and that BLM is constantly involved in violence even without neo-Nazis is enough to tell me that BLM is just another gang demanding tribute. Just as people were wrong to support the KKK in it's heyday, people are wrong to support BLM today.



I'm saying that by the standards that you yourself used, the neo-Nazis are more oppressed than BLM is. Do I agree? No. Do I think that the racism and violence of the neo-Nazis is despicable? Yes. Do I think that the racism and violence of BLM is despicable? Yes.

BLM shouldn't get a free pass. Excusing behavior usually encourages more bad behavior.

In this specific case, I think BLM and antifa came spoiling for a fight and they want moral justification.



Pardon, this conversation was never about white privilege.

It was never about me denying that people are oppressed. It was never about me, period. What we have is two groups that have used violence and racism. Violence and racism are terrible things.

One group gets excused and the other does not.

Yet the bigger group, the better funded group, the group with the better political connections, the group with academic support, blames the other for all the violence and racism **People deliberately excuse them from the consequences.** They get what they want with minimal costs. This leads to further bad behavior. Which is then excused.

I've pointed out that it was good intentions of the FedGov that has kept people trapped in poverty and crime. I can't and won't be responsible for something that happened before I was born. As a libertarian, I won't take responsibility for government failure. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow, that's the history that I can do something about.

It's not about me. It's about the behavior I've seen and experienced.

There's a story about how after the assassination of MLK, Jesse Jackson came out waving a bloody shirt. The shirt didn't belong to Dr. King, it couldn't have given the timing. Yet there was Jackson, waving the shirt, accusing everyone in sight. Because even if they had nothing to do with the shooting, they should have done something. Even if it wasn't possible, they should have done something, faster, louder.

Jackson was aiming to be the new face of civil rights, and unfortunately he mostly succeeded. He turned it into an extortion racket in the 1970s and 1980s. If Jackson said that company X was racially insensitive, the company paid him off and he said the company had mended their ways.

That's how I see BLM, only with more thugs.

In Shelby Steele's White Guilt, he argues that the real problem is not racial oppression but white guilt. There are many people who have gotten power and money exploiting that guilt. I won't be a party to it.

You seem like a nice enough person. You and I are not going to agree on this issue. We can't even agree on what the issue is. I do think your heart is in the right place.

NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

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“Five Cities That Got F*cked by Hosting the Olympics”

“The smallest minority is the individual…”

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For future reference - What Trump first said about Charlottesville

“Trump Defends White-Nationalist Protesters: 'Some Very Fine People on Both Sides'”

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Thorium is the future

Never slaves & never Nazis

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NeoNotes — Consider historical context to violence

What is to stop someone else from deciding that it's a good cause to thump you over the head? Once the excuses start, what's to protect you from the politics of the day?

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Not going for the win

“The Taliban Tried To Surrender And The U.S. Rebuffed Them. Now Here We Are.”

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Name calling for politics

“Nazi-Hunting Fantasies Have Unhinged The Left”

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Violence

“…guard even his enemy from oppression.”

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Statues

“What to do with Confederate Statues?”

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Speech wars

The internet is the last, best hope for freedom.

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Conspiracy

Here's what we know so far.

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On public statues

Why should a city, state, or federal government put statues in public parks? Doing so addresses no plausible market failure, while using taxpayers funds and, as demonstrated tragically over the past few weeks, generates controversy, polarization, and violence. Thus governments should take down all statues, regardless of their political implications.

This is not “erasing” history but instead leaving it where it belongs, in the hands of private actors and mechanisms. Historians, textbook authors, universities, learned societies, the History Channel, and many other individuals and organizations can all present their own views of history and battle for the hearts and minds of the public. Government statues are government putting its thumb on the scale, which is one step down the slippery slope of thought control.
     — Jeffrey Miron, Statues

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☆ This last week in free speech

This article is cross posted at Pagan Vigil and Technopagan Yearnings. Feel free to repost as long as you credit me and one of those two sites.

Let’s talk about the mess that took over my life this last week. I had a hunch I could be in deep on Friday night when I got some phone calls asking me what libertarians had to do with Charlottesville, Virginia.

Some know I don’t like email and a few have my number. If I had company over or if I had been watching a decent movie, I probably wouldn’t have answered the calls. This was the first I had heard of Charlottesville. I thought at first they were talking about Charlotte, North Carolina. I poked around on the internet and found out about a torchlit protest. Hey, I told folks, they have a right to free speech too. As long as they don’t burn anything down or do any other property damage, it was no skin off my nose.

I didn’t agree with what white nationalists and neo-Nazis stood for, but that is what free speech is all about. They could protest all they wanted as long as they followed the law.

But, all my callers said, it’s hate speech.

So? I replied. I threw out the quote (from me) I had been using for a few months.

I am certainly against Nazism, supremacist groups, and misogyny. I just think they SHOULD be heard, if for no other reason than they can be laughed off the stage.

As loudly and as enthusiastically as we can.
I said that no libertarian would support bigotry. I could see the issues about protecting the statues and I thought that deserved a very public discussion. But the racist chants shouldn’t have anything to do with that. It was two different issues and they shouldn’t be mixed.

After the sixth or so call, the landline and the cell were both quiet. “Nice job,” I thought to myself. Another crisis averted. The folks I talked to would know that libertarians and Libertarians weren’t neo-Nazis or white nationalists. I patted myself on the back.

Then came Saturday. And I got flooded with emails. By Saturday night the phones were ringing.

I should explain. About twelve years back someone at Stormfront discovered Pagan Vigil and decided that I was something I am not. Some of my writings were passed around the internet. Worse, I was quoted out of context. Then some of my stuff was rewritten to make it seem that I supported certain causes and certain ideas. That took forever to mostly fix. But there are pockets left.

Then there was the mess from Florida. Long story short, white nationalists tried to co-opt part of the state Libertarian party. They were kicked out.

But here I was, a libertarian with supposed white nationalist ties. And a (scary? sexy? spooky?) pagan to boot. What did I have to say about vehicular homicide at a neo-Nazi rally?

Free speech is acceptable.

Unprovoked violence is not.

And you’d better be damn careful about “provoked” violence. Especially at a public protest.

People have the right to talk about their beliefs. People don’t have the right to impose those beliefs on others.

If you use force so others will listen, you’re doing it wrong.

All of the above went over pretty well. Here’s what didn’t.

I said that if the neo-Nazis were wrong to use violence first and not in self defense, so were the BLM members, the antifa, and the black bloc who had been doing exactly that for years. If you were a member of the right group, the authorities were mostly looking the other way. Mob violence had become part of American political culture again, and it wasn’t the neo-Nazis or the white nationalists who had made that happen.

Or for that matter, the Christian right, the Republicans, or the libertarians.

Violence was being used to shut down political discussion. What’s more, some groups were claiming moral authority because they had been victimized by American society. No one would be allowed to criticize if the proper groups were involved.

This. Was. Wrong.

This lay the groundwork for tyranny.

As you can imagine, those last five paragraphs did not go over well.

BLM, antifa, and the black bloc weren’t allowed to be guilty no matter what they have done or what they will do.

Anyone who says different is a racist. A fascist.

A Nazi.

And they must not be allowed to speak. At all. Under any circumstances. They must be silenced.

That’s when the pagan stuff started hitting the fan. If a pagan did not IMMEDIATELY drop everything and denounce the neo-Nazis and link them AND ONLY THEM to unprovoked violence, why, they were no better than the Nazis.

And therefore they must not be allowed to speak. At all. Under any circumstances. They must be silenced.

Suddenly free speech was only for the Morally Favored.

This made me angry. Not only was paganism getting dragged into a political situation (AGAIN) that favored progressives, but people were literally talking about Those Who Should Have Free Speech and Those Who MUST NOT BE ALLOWED Free Speech. Violence was ACCEPTABLE against Those Who MUST NOT BE ALLOWED Free Speech. The whole mess was pushing my buttons. I’m afraid I wasn’t always polite about it.

So that was my week. It cropped up again and again. Phone calls, face to face talks, internet discussion boards, and gods, the emails. People couldn’t or wouldn’t accept one simple idea. Take away someone else’s free speech today and you will lose yours tomorrow. Not might, will. The only sure way to protect your free speech is to protect other’s free speech. Even if you don’t like what they are saying.

Especially if you don’t like what they are saying.

Noam Chomsky (of all people) said something very similar.

Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.

That’s who I am. That’s where I stand. A right isn’t a right unless the other guy has it too.

     — NeoWayland, pagan philosopher, libertarian, and part time troublemaker

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Bannon out

Steve Bannon is out at White House

After watching the last few days, I'm pretty sure he wanted to be fired. I don't know what happened, but someone like Bannon doesn't just give a telephone interview on a lark. Word is he turned in his resignation on August 7th (pre-Charlottesville) effective August 14th, and it was extended to today.

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Free speech



That's what worries me most about this. Once people decide that some labels deserve free speech and others don't, where does it stop?
     — NeoWayland
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For the record, this is facism.

At least learn the definition

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“John Stossel vs. Noam Chomsky on Venezuela”

Yep, it was almost as if it were scripted. A myth for the ages - revised

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Friday roundup

The Google Memo: Four Scientists Respond

Google doesn't believe in diversity of thought. Related - The Most Common Error in Media Coverage of the Google Memo, Google Fires Engineer For Noticing Men And Women Are Different, The Google Firing Demonstrates That Identity Politics Is Incoherent and Vicious & Google is more afraid of liberal outrage than federal law


Graphic Video Shows Cops Hold Down Handcuffed Teen, Torture Him With Taser—For Sleeping in Truck

Why haven't these police officers been charged with assault?


The Guy Who Invented Those Annoying Password Rules Now Regrets Wasting Your Time

The rules don't work. Pay attention to the XKCD comic mentioned in the article.


Obama administration knew about North Korea's miniaturized nukes

That Pentagon report that has everyone worried lately? It's from April of 2013. The Obama administration was notorious for released revised news and figures later, usually on Friday when no one was paying attentinon.


Justice Officials Sent Talking Points to FBI on Lynch Tarmac Meeting With Bill Clinton

I'd say this qualifies as suspicious.


Venezuela inflation quickens to 248.6 percent in year to July: opposition

Socialism fails every time it's tried.


A New Report Raises Big Questions About Last Year’s DNC Hack

This one is from The Nation. It's the first major left wing source that even admitted that it may not be the Russians.


The Afghan War Doesn't Need to Be Privatized—It Needs to Be EndedSo when does the perpetual war end?


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When politics are at stake

Truth is subjective when politics are at stake.
     — NeoWayland
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☆ Soundbite politics

Barack Obama is a big reason why Donald Trump was elected President.

But I'll get back to that.

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“Why Did the Democratic South Become Republican?” from Prager University

“The south used to vote Democrat. Now it votes Republican. Why the switch? Was it, as some people say, because the GOP decided to appeal to racist whites? Carol Swain, Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University, explains.”

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Oh really?

Somehow I don't believe this.

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Wednesday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Reaction

Government is reactive. What individuals choose is much more important than the credit that politicos claim. Lasting change only happens when enough people got angry enough to demand change.
     — NeoWayland
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“13 Reasons Jeff Sessions is a @$#/!” by ReasonTV

“Jeff Sessions is on the ropes with Donald Trump. Good.

The president is pissed because Sessions recused himself from the investigation of Russian attempts to influence the 2016 election. But here are a baker's dozen of reasons to hate the attorney general, including his obsession with restarting the war on pot, his call to jack up mandatory minimums, and his support for civil asset forfeiture. Then there's his lack of interest in due process, willingness to subvert state's rights when they conflict with his desiblurb outcome, and desire to lengthen prison terms for non-violent criminals. Also, he might be some kind of statist elf.”

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❝One True Islam? | The Moderate Imam & Westernization❞ by Roaming Millennia

“In light of my interview with Imam Tawhidi, this video looks at whether Islam a religion of peace & compatible with the West, why the left always defends it, & whether moderate Muslims exist.”

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☆ Sins of the skin

I'm behind this week. I had issues with my blogging program..

Why is it that everyone is allowed to be proud of their ethnic heritage unless you're "white?"

And then there's "white privilege."

"If you can't see it, you've got it."

Guess what. That's racist.

Yes, you read that right. It's racist. People are being blamed because of their skin color. No matter what they say, no matter what they do, They Are Guilty and Can Not Be Redeemed. You can't get more racist than that.

They are not only guilty, but they are responsible for the actions and attitudes of people long dead.

Well, isn't that a kick in the pants. I can only speak for me.

I won't humble myself and acknowledge the sins of my skin color.

I won't abase myself.

I won't sacrifice my pride and power before their “need.”


Why not? Because I didn't do anything. You want to be a victim? Fine. Go do it somewhere else.

You want some help so you can stop being a victim? Then let's talk. Let's see what we can do.

Yes, the United States was not perfect when it was founded. There were a bunch of rich, "white" men running around controlling everything. Things got better. The US helped destroy the international slave trade. Women got the vote. Some of our greatest today aren't rich, "white", or male. Things got better. It's not perfect now. But we're getting better. That's the promise.

If you are not responsible for the sins of your ancestors, then neither is anyone else. Neither am I.

If you take pride in your ancestry, then so can anyone else. So can I.

Why?

Because I am not guilty for my ancestors.

My skin color doesn't make me racist.

Can you say the same?

We're human. Let's build on that. Let's start with today. Let's limit our judgement to what the individual has said and done.

Let's not blame the skin color. Or privilege. Or what we think they think.

Just what is said. Just what is done.

Can you live with that?

I can. Do we have a deal?

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❝Government Can't Fix Healthcare❞ by Prager University

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Token doctor? - revised

Our heroes are defined by what they have done and how they inspire us.

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Health care tied to your job

You can't get more racist than that.

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NeoNotes — George Soros

George Soros is one of the most dangerous men alive.

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I can't stress this enough

I can't stress this enough.

The state is not a moral entity. Government is not your friend, at best it is a bad servant.

Religion can not be allowed the coercive power of the state and the state can not be allowed the moral justification of faith.

You can't trust law to do the right thing. You have to watch it. You have to argue with it. And sometimes you have to fight it.
     — NeoWayland

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Monday roundup

House Advances Bill That Would Expand the DEA's Power to Make Legal Highs Illegal

Government can't keep up with regulating new products, so you have to loose freedom.


How Trump Can Avoid Impeachment: Order NSA to Declassify All Intel On Democratic Email Leaks

This is a Really REALLY good idea!


Why Middle America Doesn't Care About The Trump Jr. Narrative: Reuters Explains

Maybe the mainstream media should pay attention to what their audience wants


Tens of Thousands of Muslims Gather to Denounce Islamist Terror – Mainstream Media Ignores It

This is important. The Islamists will never be defeated until most Muslims decide to defeat the extremists. It can't be done from the outside.


VISA takes its War on Cash to US Retailers

“We’re focused on putting cash out of business.”


5 Cities That Won't Be Hosting the 2024 Olympics, and Why That Makes Them Winners

The Olympic Games lose money for the host city. I think the International Olympics Committee may have started the stadium scam, where the local government is on the hook for the bills and the sports team gets most of the revenue with no risk.


Congress is fleeing its warmaking responsibilities

“Congress is permanently in “Annie” mode. It will deal with its war responsibilities, like its myriad other forfeited powers, tomorrow, which is always a day away.” — George Will


Phoenix Taxpayers Lose $200 Million on Sale of Largest Hotel in Arizona

Government should NEVER finance private enterprise. Government is so bad at it that it never ends well for taxpayers.


Can property survive the great climate transition?

Here we get to the nub. Private property is the the foundation of prosperity, as explained in Hernando de Soto's The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else. Without private property, there can be no free market. Without a free market, the economy is screwed. The climate alarmist movement exists to redistribute wealth "for the greater good."


L.A. County sheriff can't give prosecutors the names of problem deputies, appeals court rules

So even if they lie, falsifiy reports, and stolen, the deputies are ABOVE THE LAW.


Is Russiagate Really Hillarygate?

The most important question of the 2016 election.

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from crux № 11 — Ultimate truth

I've seen the arguments in enough other contexts to distrust anyone who claims rationality prevents any opposing view. Even more so when they dismiss any other possibility unheard because they have the Ultimate Truth That Must Not Be Questioned.
     — NeoWayland
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Damage

A spate of recent articles corroborate what I already suspected, that holding elected office is the neurological equivalent of getting kicked in the head by a donkey.
     — Andrew Heaton, Science: Power Causes Brain Damage
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Friday roundup

DOJ let Russian lawyer into US before she met with Trump team

Something else about the 2016 election that traces straight back to the Obama administration. Gee, what are the chances?


De Facto Federal Legislation of Cryptocurrency is Nigh

“An upcoming meeting of the Uniform Law Commission (ULC) is likely to change how law enforcement across the U.S. approaches bitcoin. Right now, the meeting is under the radar, but its fallout could soon make a pivotal debate flare on a state-by-state level.”


Which Campaign Truly Colluded With Russia?

Many questions about Russian influence if people looked harder at the Obama administration and the Hillary Clinton campaign.


The Basic Formula For Every Shocking Russia/Trump Revelation

Thirteen steps that the media has used every time so far.


The crisis in America’s crime labs

No one person and no one agency has all the answers. No one is beyond criticism. No one is beyond question.


Illinois' Fiscal Problems Won't Stay in Illinois

“Wisconsin's budget takes a $51 million hit as The Land of Lincoln tries to extract more revenue from its residents, including those who work or live elsewhere.”


Jeff Sessions Wants More Mandatory Minimums, Less Justice

Mandatory miniumum sentences have seriously warped the justice system.


Damning New Report Shows How Oakland Cops Covered Up Their Sexual Exploitation of a Minor

Cops must be held accountable if they have powers. If proven true, this should result in immediate dismissal, arrest, and a fast trial.


Trump Jr. Entrapped by Obama White House to Obtain FISA Warrant and Spy on Campaign

Very interesting, but it's mostly speculation.


Kid Rock for Senate

I am not sure it's really happening or if it's a stunt. He'd be better than most of the serving Senators.


Radical Dem Worked For Russian Lawyer Who Met With Trump, Jr.

Odd how Democrats have the most Russian connections, isn't it?

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“Black, Millennial, Female and… Conservative” from Prager University

“Antonia Okafor, a young, single, black woman, recently discoveblurb that's she's a racist, sexist, misogynist. How in the world did this happen? None other than Antonia Okafor explains.”

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❝What are your questions?❞

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Thursday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Details, details…

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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☆ The special asterisk is a multiplier

Keep law simple and absolute.

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from crux № 16 — My beliefs

I want a government that is smaller than absolutely necessary.

I believe that people are perfectly capable of making their own choices and that society is the better if people do exactly that.

I believe that faith and religion can be a tremendous source of individual morality and a dangerous tyranny in society.

There is more but that will do for a start.



And there you go, presuming to speak for the Divine in regards to my fate.

I'm sure that makes you feel important. Worthy. Superior.

Do you think you would take offense if I did the same thing to you?

Or do you think your faith supersedes mine?

Just in case you've forgotten:

It always seems to come down to whose belief comes first, who presumes to speak for the Divine, and what happens when someone disagrees.



I think you're the first one here who asked me what I believe. You deserve a good answer. But this really isn't about me, it's about us finding common ground.

So to start with:

I call myself pagan because I don't have a better term. I'm polytheistic and pantheistic. On alternate Thursdays and every third Tuesday I might admit to being panetheistic with an animism bent as well. On the 13th of the month, I'll tell you (truthfully) that the label isn't really all that important, only the manifestation.

====================
My path involves recognizing and celebrating the natural cycles in ourselves, in the world around us, and in the worlds we touch in our dreams. I seek the Divine in human, Nature, and machine. I want to find the synthesis between mankind and ideas, between faith and technology, between what was and what will be.

I believe that all things have a Divine nature. Life is the universe's attempt to understand itself. I know that the totality of the universe is too vast for me to comprehend. So there are godmasks that I turn to for understanding, guidance, and strength when mine is not enough. I know that these godmasks are only representations and gateways to Divinity, not Divinity themselves.



I'll let you in on a secret.

I try to treat people online as they have treated me. I'm nice until someone shows they don't deserve it.

For life in general, I have three rules.

THE GOLDEN RULE - Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

THE SILVER RULE - Do for yourself at least as much as you do for others.

THE IRON RULE - Don't do for others what they can do for themselves.



I am totally for live and let live. It's the core of my most deeply held beliefs.

I really don't care about someone else's beliefs or politics unless they want to impose those on everyone else.

Going back to my original post on this thread, if the choice is between the absolute on the left side or the absolute on the right, I am going to pick freedom despite both.

I respectfully disagree with you on that.



There is a technopagan addendum to that.

"Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology."

Personally I don't think the two are as far removed as it would seem.

I started keeping my crux files because I noticed I kept getting into the same discussions in comment threads on other people’s web sites. After a while it just made sense for me to organize my thoughts by topic. These are snippets. It’s not in any particular order, it’s just discussions I have again and again.

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How many?

“How Many Federal Agencies Exist? We Can't Drain The Swamp Until We Know”

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And a pony

“In Congress, July 4, 1776”

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☆ Our permission society

Everything not forbidden is compulsory.
     — T. H. White, The Once and Future King

Once upon a time, the old saying applied. “Everything which is not forbidden is allowed” illustrated the freedom of the English citizen while “Everything which is not allowed is forbidden” applied to English authorities.

Today I want to recognize two societies, the liberty society and the permission society.

The liberty society assumes that people take responsibility for their choices. Unless it harms someone or their property, you are free to do what you choose, when you choose, and how you choose. You choose.

But you are responsible for the consequences.

The permission society forbids people from acting without permission. Or license. Or approval.

Sadly, America has moved well into being a permission society. And our politicos want to move us further.

Your income must be reported under penalty of law. Spend too much, and it is reported. Save too much and it is reported. Take it out in cash and cross state lines and it is confiscated.

You're free to take what drugs you need as long as you have a doctor's permission. Except some drugs can't be legally sold. And some you must sign for because government assumes you might be making other not so legal drugs.

You can buy alcoholic beverages usually. But some states require that you buy from the government. And some wines and beers can't be sold across state lines.

You can buy insurance if your state government has approved the policy in advance. Don't like what's offered in your state? Sorry, you don't have permission to buy anything else.

You can carry a gun or not as your state decides. You might or might not need a license. You might or might not be able to carry a concealed weapon. Oh, and just because you can do it in your state doesn't mean you can do it in another.

You can start your own business. If you get the proper permits and occupational licensing. And sometimes, if your would be competition doesn't object.

You can rent out your house. If the local hotels and motels don't raise a fuss.

You can use your car to drive people. As long as you don't charge them if you don't have a taxi medallion.

How is this freedom?

Where is the harm?

Why do you stand for this?

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Friday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Gilt

They think that gilt on the facade will solve the dry rot and termite damage.
     — NeoWayland
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from crux № 6 — Homosexuality does NOT equal pedophilia

There was nothing except comments from readers like you to link that to pedophilia or homosexuality.

To me, it's immoral and perverse that you've taken it on yourself to pass judgement when there is nothing to show that these people did the things you say that you oppose.

Would you accept them passing judgement on you?



Ah, I see.

Let me look this over. I'm meeting someone for coffee in a bit, and I may not get back to the computer until this afternoon.

One quick thing though, if you don't mind.

Going by the bit you quoted,

86% of pedophiles described themselves as homosexual or bisexual

Doesn't that tie into what I said above about using homosexuality as an excuse?



Homosexuality does not equal pedophilia, any more than deer hunting equals school shooting sprees. These are different behaviors, one does not indicate the other. Just because you don't approve of lesbians or pedophiles doesn't mean they are one and the same. Just as not every straight man is a rapist, or every Republican racist.

That doesn't mean that there aren't child molesters using homosexuality as an excuse.

I'll stand with you against sex with kids. But until and unless you can show that every homosexual (or even most homosexuals) target kids, I'll tell you that lumping all gays in with the child molesters is wrong.



Should I tell you the things I have seen passed off as the Republican agenda or the Christian agenda?

Do you have any idea the things that are regularly attributed to these groups? The hateful accusations that always seem to end with the downfall of freedom and the enslavement of humanity?

I will tell you what I've told the accusers in other forums.

Show me where everyone or even a simple majority has signed off on this agenda, and I'll look at your accusations again.

p.s. It was done better in The Protocols of Zion. And I didn't believe that one for an instant.



"No one is claiming every person with a homosexual problem target kids. Many target adults for sexual harassment, inappropriate behavior, disease spreading, domestic violence, porn, prostitution and murder."

One paragraph and you accuse all homosexuals of Horrors Too Terrible To Mention™. According to you if they don't target kids, they do something else wrong to other people because that is what homosexuals do. If someone can't see it, that someone must dig just a little harder because something ghastly will surely turn up. And if that doesn't work, why, you'll invent something.

There is still not much point in talking to you about it, is there?



You really do like to overcomplicate things.

Are there pedophiles who are not homosexual?

Yes.

Are there homosexuals who are not pedophiles?

Yes.

Therefore, homosexuality does not equal pedophilia.

Now, shall we discuss your obsessions?



It's not all "queers."

Any more than the exploits of Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy make all men serial killers.

The individual is guilty, not the group.



A very wise man said "You can't childproof the world. The best you can do is world proof your children."



No, it doesn't.

First, lesbians aren't male and aren't banging boys.

Second, most homosexual men aren't banging boys either.



No, not really.

For example, if I were to point out (again) that homosexuality does not mean pedophilia, several folks here would chime in that I was all for sex with children.

In another place, if I were to disagree (again) with the notion that Christians should be locked away on general principle, several folks there would chime in that I was all for religious oppression.

The biggest and hardest lesson that I've had to learn is that no one group has THE answer, and no group that says it has THE answer can be fully trusted.



You know, people keep acting as if there were some sort of golden age where adults didn't sexually molest children.

Guess what? It happened twenty years ago, it happened forty years ago, it happened sixty years ago, and it happened eighty years ago.

It is not something new, not some sign of the times, not some terrible symptom of a philosophy you do not agree with.

Now, you can spend time lamenting for a time that never was, denouncing all life paths you don't follow, or you can do something today.

If you want to denounce libertarianism for "enabling" behavior you don't like, how is that different from the progressives denouncing conservatives for behavior they don't like?



That's not the question and you know it.

Look, it's very simple. I stand for the rights of the individual. He's not guilty because of skin color, sexual preference, religious choice, or net worth.

A person is guilty because of what he has done.

Not because a given label has this "tendency" or because the "common wisdom" says that "his kind" does that sort of thing. That's what progressives do. They do proclaim guilt based on skin color, sexual preference, religious choice, and net worth.


And yet we still have innocent people accused of crimes because you don't approve of their life style.

It's not because they have committed a crime, it's because you think there is an outside chance that they may.

You seem to think I am defending homosexuality. I'm not.

I'm taking a stand against slander. Well, technically in this case it's libel. Let's settle for defamation.

Prove that every homosexual is a pedophile. Prove that every pedophile is a homosexual.

If you can't do that, then the rule of law has no meaning.



It's not moral equivalence.

It's a matter of injustice to claim people are guilty before they've committed a crime just because of a label.

Innocent until proven guilty.

If you can't show that every gay is a pedophile, then you have no authority to treat them as if they were guilty.

Anymore than the RadFems have to the authority to treat every man as a rapist.



The percentages don't matter.

All that matters here is that someone can be gay without being a pedophile and someone can be a pedophile without being a gay.

That means that homosexuality does not equal pedophilia. People can be one or the other but not both.

ETA: That last sentence is missing a word. It should be

"People can be one or the other but not necessarily both."

Sometimes my fingers don't work. Sorry.



Again, if there are homosexuals who are not pedophiles and pedophiles who are not homosexuals, that's beside the point.

Do all Baptists eat chicken? Are there non-Baptists who eat chicken? Is chicken uniquely Baptist?

That's the same silly game that you're playing.

You don't like homosexuals. I understand that. But if you "associate" them with a crime BECAUSE they are homosexual, you do no honor to yourself or your cause.

I started keeping my crux files because I noticed I kept getting into the same discussions in comment threads on other people’s web sites. After a while it just made sense for me to organize my thoughts by topic. These are snippets. It’s not in any particular order, it’s just discussions I have again and again.

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Politicos want problems

Politicos want problems they can stage manage.
     — NeoWayland
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☆ Media utopia

When I was a kid, I delivered newspapers. After school I read them. Oh not cover to cover, I'd skip the ads and the sports and usually most of the “lifestyles” stuff. It wasn't hard to spot a pattern. What appeared in the newspapers usually appeared on the local news within a day or so. By the time I hit high school, I had discovered the local and school libraries with their out-of-state newspapers. Once again, there was a pattern. Three papers would usually have the “important” stories first, the next day or so the major papers would have the stories, and then within a week or so the other papers and the local television news.

It wouldn't be every story. But it would be the big stories, the ones that everyone would be talking about. So if you wanted to stay ahead of the curve, you'd read those three papers every day you could. The three papers were The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. Oh, The Economist was good too, but I couldn't always find that.

These papers set the agenda that the rest of the nation's press followed. Not always the opinion, but definitely Which Stories Were Worthy. Even newsweeklies and the television news magazines followed the stories that these three newspapers had pointed out.

Telling people what has happened, that's reporting. But the best reporters went beyond that, they put it into context. If the President rapped his knuckles on the desk, they'd tell you what his predecessors did, when, and why. You'd understood how it fit.

There never was journalistic objectivity, but that was okay. As long as some differing opinions made it to press, the public would learn what happened. Reporting was the priority.

Over the years, the Washington Post grew convinced that it had taken down a President. Maybe setting the agenda wasn't enough. Maybe they could shape world events with their reporting. If they said it happened, maybe enough people would believe and the Elected Leadership would react. It worked kinda-sorta with Ronald Reagan, and it worked well with George H. W. Bush.

Then came Bill Clinton who wanted to change the world. So he cultivated and seduced the press. He convinced them that his administration together with the press could change the world if they only tried hard enough. And before the press admitted that there were all sorts of juicy tidbits in Clinton's background, it worked out pretty well. It also cemented belief that the press had a Higher Calling, and it was up to them to turn ignorance into enlightenment.

After Billy-boy came George W. Bush, Bush the Younger. Or Bush League as I eventually called him. Bush the Younger would have been a tolerable President, but then we had 9-11. And the press didn't want a war. Or at least, they didn't want an Official War® with heroes and patriotism and Amazing America riding to the rescue. So they decided to control the agenda. Most of the heroism coming out of 9-11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan never made the headlines. The failures, real and imagined, did.

Yeah, about that imagined bit. It was the Higher Calling. American ideas couldn't be allowed to succeed, especially on a world stage. America had to have more failures if only because America had more success. For most of his administration, George W. Bush could do no right according to the popular press.

And then came Barack Obama, the Imperious Leader, He Who Could Do No Wrong. The press loved this guy. For the first time ever, a president mostly played along with what the press said. The press didn't have to report it, they could create reality. That's what happened for eight years.

By 2016, the press had forgotten that their primary job was reporting what happened. No one realized that while the Grand Vision was put in place, they were losing Democrat lawmakers and elected officials to keep it into place. Meanwhile many people resented being dragged into a Utopia without their consent. Especially when Utopia was more expensive and more tyrannical.

So Donald Trump happened.

The press completely missed it. What happened wasn't nearly as important as what was supposed to happen.

The truth was a prison. The answer was to do what had worked for eight marvelous years. Reality had to change. Legality didn't matter. Morality didn't matter. Only the Utopia.

The untruths came fast. No one was going on record but it was obvious that Trump would fail if he got pushed. He couldn't hope to succeed. So stories of high-level meetings that never happened came out. Stories about sex orgies and golden showers in Russia. Stories about Trump hoarding the White House ice cream. None of these stories could be verified. The answer was to accelerate the news cycle. That was easy enough with the internet. Literally hours after each story was released came the debunking, new stories followed minutes after that.

We've reached the point where most of the “news” about President Donald Trump and his administration can't be trusted. The newspapers and news sources I used to trust can't be trusted.

I hate admitting it, but Trump is right about the press. And it's because the press won't report the news. The press wants the Utopia.

Truth doesn't matter.
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John and Cindy McCain's shaky foundation

Soros, Clinton-Linked Teneo Among Donors to McCain Institute

Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain in 2012 turned over nearly $9 million in unspent funds from his failed 2008 presidential campaign to a new foundation bearing his name, the McCain Institute for International Leadership.

The institute is intended to serve as a “legacy” for McCain and “is dedicated to advancing human rights, dignity, democracy and freedom.” It is a tax-exempt non-profit foundation with assets valued at $8.1 million and associated with Arizona State University.

>snip<

Critics worry that the institute’s donors and McCain’s personal leadership in the organization’s exclusive “Sedona Forum” bear an uncanny resemblance to the glitzy Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) that annually co-mingled special interests and powerful political players in alleged pay-to-play schemes.

The institute has accepted contributions of as much as $100,000 from billionaire liberal activist-funder George Soros and from Teneo, a for-profit company co-founded by Doug Band, former President Bill Clinton’s “bag man.” Teneo has long helped enrich Clinton through lucrative speaking and business deals.


Cindy McCain: Crony Philanthropist

It turns out the "freedom, democracy, and human rights" institute launched by Cindy and Sen. John McCain is supported by large donations from entities known for persistent rights violations, including Saudi Arabia, a U.S. defense contractor selling smart bombs to the Saudis, and a Moroccan mining company occupying land in Northwest Africa.

In fact, examining McCain's philanthropic record reveals a long history of personal abuse of nonprofit resources, shady connections, and shoddy work. For years, McCain has been playing the role of crony philanthropist, and now she is poised to bring her dubious advocacy to the highest levels of government.

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☆ Selective

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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None of my business

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Headline roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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“Five Clichés Used to Attack Free Speech” from ReasonTV

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NeoNotes — Deserved to be heroes

For length reasons, this entry appears on it's own page.

“We let generations be victims when they deserved to be heroes.”

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Roaming Millennial on Oppression

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Greatest crimes of our times

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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from crux № 10 — the system

Another classic that I've used in the sidebar for years.

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NeoNotes — Conversation - updated

“Climate is changing Because it's HUMANITY'S FAULT and WE'RE SCREWING UP THE PLANET!!!!!"

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Government shutdown

And this would be a bad thing how?

I know what CNN is saying.

But realistically, why would a government shutdown be bad?

We know what Milton Friedman said.
Pretty much everything else could be done better by the states or the private sector.

If your local grocery store closed because they forgot to order, you'd go somewhere else. If the plumber you called couldn't come because his truck got repossessed, you'd call another. If your favorite coffee place had no one to work and was closed, well, there are other options.

But with government services, there aren't options.

Government doesn't like competition.

Every year, statists tell you How Important Government Is and how the "other party" is about to screw up your life.

It's political theater.

There isn't even a budget.

The last time there was officially a budget was 2009. But it was pretty much a budget in name only. Even if there was a budget, it would be several thousand pages long, incredibly detailed on some things and disturbingly vague on others. It's meant to be abused. I don't want to examine the Federal budget process here but I will tell you that even if Congress makes no changes, each agency gets the same amount it had the previous year plus an automatic increase. This is the so-called discretionary spending.

That's right. It takes an act of Congress to keep spending at the same level it was in the previous year.

The default setting is more government and more spending.

Then there is the mandatory spending which isn't part of the budget process. Congress may revisit the rules every few years on mandatory spending qualifications, but it usually rolls along on it's own. Mandatory spending is about two-thirds of the budget, Social Security alone is about one-third.

And I haven't even gotten to earmarks.

Government doesn't like competition so it locks private interests out of the services it provides. It manipulates you into blaming the other party so it can tax and spend more of your money. And it expects thanks for it's hard work.

Government shutdown.

This would be a bad thing how?


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“Why They Attack Us & Why We Let Them” by Roaming Millennial

“What do the Paris, London, Brussels, Berlin and Stockholm attacks all have in common? Not a dang thing according to apologists.”

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What a liberal university used to mean

“In defense of the offensive“ & “A microcosm of the maddening mix of Progressive hate, ignorance, and nonsense at an American college”

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“American Indians Are Still Getting a Raw Deal” by PragerU

“American Indians are the poorest of all of America's ethnic groups. Why?”

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NeoNotes — Best intentions - updated

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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“Your Brain On Drug Policy” featuring Rachael Leigh Cook

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Roaming Millennial on Berkeley Lies!

“DaddyOFive Faking It? + Berkeley Lies!”

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Trump

r/libertarian vs r/socialism

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See truth with your own eyes

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All other things being equal, the side that can't stand dissent is wrong

“Democrats Ask Teachers To Destroy Books Written By ‘Climate Deniers’”

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Still think libertarians are paranoid?

NSA selfies

The question isn't if the NSA watches everything. We now know that they do.

Libertarians have been watching this for a very long time. Ever since the
Inslaw affair we've known. Rumors have been flying since the days of minicomputers that certain machines were modified to report to the various spy agencies.

So let's talk about the story headlines from yesterday.

Donald Trump and his associates were under surveillance, but not directly. They were incidentally surveilled because of active surveillance on other parties. This may have been taking place for up to a year before the 2016 election. At least one source dates the surveillance to 2011.

This is where we start getting into legalisms. Because Trump and associates were not the direct targets of surveillance, intelligence officials say that Trump was not under surveillance. Technically true and absolutely false.

By American law, the names of American citizens are "masked" in surveillance reports unless they too are under investigation. Or unless an authorized government official orders the names unmasked.

So the NSA spies on everyone but Americans are supposedly shielded and protected by a legal process. Even there the names would have only have been unmasked for that one official. Except President Obama had recently changed the regulations, some intelligence would be shared among 16 different agencies.

Washington is a political town, gossip rivals actual intelligence as trade goods. While it was illegal to share those unmasked names with those who did not have clearence, that's also business as usual.

And so far no one is asking what Hillary Clinton and her associates were doing for the same time period.

So the NSA spies on everyone on the planet.

One government official can unmask the American names in intelligence reports, even if those Americans had done nothing wrong.

And it all could be denied because the denial is technically true while absolutely false.

Your government. Working to protect you.

I'm going to tell you some secrets now.

The NSA can't monitor everything on the internet. They may record it to batch examine later, but there's no computing power that can watch everything in real time.

Despite all the enhanced algorithms, despite the focus on encrypted data streams, and despite the probability matrices, the system is half blind.

I don't remember which one, but when I was a teenager I read a novel about WWII spies. There was a bookstore in the novel, and every couple of hours a certain book was moved. From the noon position to the two o'clock, from the two to the four o'clock, and so on. The first thing that the spy ring did was check the window, if the book wasn't in the right spot they knew their cover had been blown.

So imagine a Facebook page and the picture on the top is a border collie. One day the picture changes to a pinto mare. Two hours later something blows up.

Imagine a reddit about French cooking. One day a newbie signs in and asks about substitutes for heavy cream. The next day a newspaper gets a tip about the L.A. water supply being contaminated.

Do you see?

All this spying can't reliably predict what might happen except by blind chance. It's amazingly good about putting all the pieces together after.

All these intelligence agencies are subject to political corruption.

So, does all this spying really protect you?

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Illegal spying on legal phone calls

“Former US Attorney: Susan Rice Ordeblurb Spy Agencies To Produce ‘Detailed Spreadsheets’ Involving Trump”

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Follow that trail

There is no evidence of any wrongdoing by President Trump.

But plenty of evidence points to Barack Obama's abuse of power. Let us follow that trail.
     — Don Sruber, Investigate Obamagate
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Susan Rice unmasked

“CNN Goes On Rampage Against Susan Rice Bombshell, Instructs Viewers To Ignore Story”

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Repeal Obamacare with just one sentence

Rep. Mo Brooks files bill to repeal Obamacare

Effective as of Dec. 31, 2017, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is repealed, and the provisions of law amended or repealed by such Act are restored or revived as if such Act had not been enacted.
     — U.S. Congressman Mo Brooks

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NeoNotes — The screws

Almost nobody bothers to ask if the screws should exist in the first place.

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Roaming Millenial on Trump's Ties to Russia

What We Know So Far

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Emma Watson on feminism - “I really don't know what my tits have to do with it.”

We pagans have become the worst that we saw in the People of the Book.

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Signs

We pagans have become the worst that we saw in the People of the Book.

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Damn it

The problem is government

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NeoNotes — Harder and harder

Which means under the 10th Amendment, Obamacare is illegal.

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NeoNotes — Taking on the alt-right

You don't have the might of the state on your side.

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Compromising elections

I've been poking around and I have a new theory.

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NeoNotes — Liberty should be the goal

We need solutions that don't exile people politically.

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“Should We Trust the Media?” from Roaming Millennial

Biased Journalism & Creative Reporting

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“The Racist Roots of Gun Control”

This overlooked 1995 classic reminds us about freedom

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Attack from the blacklist

“We’re Under Attack"

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❝Roaming Millenial on the Alt-Right❞

“What is the Alt-Right?"

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Secret group creates blacklist

Washington Post Disgracefully Promotes a McCarthyite Blacklist From a New, Hidden, and Very Shady Group

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Soros manipulating media

“Leaked Documents Reveal Expansive Soros Funding to Manipulate Federal Elections”

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Still plenty of ice

“Scott and Shackleton logbooks prove Antarctic sea ice is not shrinking… ”

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Abnormal

Dear Media: Please Stop Normalizing the Alt-Right

For Jew-hating racists, the attention means they can playact as a viable and popular movement with pull in Washington. In return, many in the media get to confirm their own biases and treat white supremacy as if it were the secret ingredient to Republican success.

Meanwhile, this obsessive coverage of the alt-right not only helps mainstream a small movement but it's also exactly what the bigots need and want to grow.

Check out the coverage of this weekend's National Policy Institute conference in Washington. As far as I can tell, these pseudointellectual xenophobic bull sessions have been going on for years, featuring many of the same names. These people have generally been given the attention they deserve, which is to say exceptionally little. If you read this week's headlines, though, you would have thought the German American Bund had packed 22,000 cheering fascists into the Ronald Reagan International Trade Center.

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Hoodwinking Congress - blast from the past (2005)

Buying Reform

Charged with promoting campaign-finance reform when he joined Pew in the mid-1990s, Treglia came up with a three-pronged strategy: 1) pursue an expansive agenda through incremental reforms, 2) pay for a handful of "experts" all over the country with foundation money and 3) create fake business, minority and religious groups to pound the table for reform.

"The target audience for all this activity was 535 people in Washington," Treglia says — 100 in the Senate, 435 in the House. "The idea was to create an impression that a mass movement was afoot — that everywhere they looked, in academic institutions, in the business community, in religious groups, in ethnic groups, everywhere, people were talking about reform."

It's a stark admission, but perhaps Treglia should be thanked for his candor.

>snip<

But this money didn't come from little old ladies making do with cat food so they could send a $20 check to Common Cause. The vast majority of this money — $123 million, 88 percent of the total — came from just eight liberal foundations.

These foundations were: the Pew Charitable Trusts ($40.1 million), the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy ($17.6 million), the Carnegie Corporation of New York ($14.1 million), the Joyce Foundation ($13.5 million), George Soros' Open Society Institute ($12.6 million), the Jerome Kohlberg Trust ($11.3 million), the Ford Foundation ($8.8 million) and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation ($5.2 million).

Not exactly all household names, but the left-wing groups that these foundations support may be more familiar: the Earth Action Network, the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, People for the American Way, Planned Parenthood, the Public Citizen Foundation, the Feminist Majority Foundation . . .

What did this liberal foundation crowd buy with its $123 million?

For starters, a stable of supposedly independent pro-reform groups, with Orwellian names you may have heard in the press: the Center for Public Integrity, the William J. Brennan Center for Justice, Democracy 21 and so on.

Plus, favorable press coverage. Here, the story — as laid out in the Political Money Line report — gets really ugly.

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When I thought Trump might win

By the end of September I was seriously impressed.

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Fake isn't always fake

“A libertarian tech revolt”

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Cult of Clinton

“America Called Bullshit on the Cult of Clinton”

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Not quite the hate

“Hate Crimes, Hoaxes, and Hyperbole”

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“Make Mine Freedom (1948)”

Animated classic from 1948 shows the politics of disunity

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Compromise

‟Ignore the Mob—Long Live the Electoral College”

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Cry Wolf!

“You Are Still Crying Wolf”

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Good thing she wasn't elected…

There's no incentive to make it better

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❝Roaming Millennial on the Election Aftermath❞

“The man has not even been sworn in yet.”

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NeoNotes — Government doesn't compete

There's no incentive to make it better

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❝CGP Grey on the Electoral College❞

“The Trouble with the Electoral College”

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NeoNotes — Pre-victimhood

The man has not even been sworn in yet. Nobody knows what he's going to do. Some this this same stuff was going around about both Bush the Elder and Bush League, it didn't happen.

Personally I'm a little tired of being lectured about which Tragic Victim Group I'm supposed to genuflect before to show my compassion this week. The second someone escalates their victimhood over all others because of a label is the second I lose interest. Might-be-victims are even less interesting.

You have rights because you are human. Not because you are gay or transgender. Not because you are pagan or Navajo. And not because you are a man or a woman. Because you are human.

I won't defend rights because of labels. I won't fight for privilege that comes at the expense of others. I won't acknowledge group rights. I won't accept responsibility for things I didn't do or say.

I won't feed the victimhood anymore. But I WILL take a stand for human rights. Talk to me when someone has been denied their human rights and we'll see what we can do then. If that's not enough, I can't help you.

Until then, it hasn't happened and I'm not going to worry about it. class="ghoster">

NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

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Bussed in protestors

The last couple of days I've been analyzing both parties and their leadership.

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NeoNotes — Laci Green

Because I lost a wager, I spent some time looking at Laci Green videos a while back. The stuff on sex is pretty good, the stuff on relationships is so-so, and the SJW stuff is just destructive. Although in her defense, I don't think she has thought through the implications.

Anyway, the chances of someone under 25 knowing very much about relationships are pretty slim. Particularly when their solution is for at least half of humanity to submit to their wisdom and change their ways. class="ghoster">

NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.
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NeoNotes — Analysis

The last couple of days I've been analyzing both parties and their leadership.

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Unholy alliance

Her politics don't allow for dissent.

That tells me more than I need to know.

I wrote that Friday morning about Laci Green.

I could have just as easily written it about Hillary Clinton.

Or most Democrat politicos and celebrties for the last sixteen years.

Basically since George W. Bush (Bush League) won the Republican nomination for President, conservatives and
especially Republicans have been called Evil Incarnate. They will destroy civil rights. They will arrest all immigrants. They will force all gays into conversion therapy.

It’s always an emergency. It always requires drastic action NOW this very second.

The words haven’t changed. The Republican nominee is always anti-woman, anti-black, anti-gay, and anti-anything if it sounds bad enough.

At least, that’s what the Democrats say.

Except it’s not the Democrats. It’s the Democrat
talking points. And they aren’t true.

Life goes on. The election of Bush League didn’t result in all those terrible things.

The election of Donald Trump won’t either.

So why are there carefully organized protests? Why are streets being blocked? Why is property being destroyed?

Now that is a very good question.


Let’s start with who is paying for and organizing these protests. Much of it comes from MoveOn.org. And most of the money from that comes from George Soros. Soros is a very interesting figure who goes out of his way to manipulate things while operating in the background. He’s funded astroturf groups to accomplish his goals, including campaign finance reform. He has often played one side of the Democrat party against another part.

Now, no one pours millions into something unless they have a clear goal.

Soros will tell you it’s for the greater good, but that is not true. Soros wants to benefit. He wants control and access to politicos. He wants technocrats hopping to his orders. He wants power and profits.

Soros gets that by wedding his corporate and financial interests to government in one of those unholy alliances.

George Soros was a major backer of Hillary Clinton. He’s almost certainly one of those who arranged for Clinton to be nominated while locking out all other Democrat candidates. The Soros connections to the Clintons go back to WJC’s Presidency.

Yes, that happened. Look at the Podesta emails.

Major figures in the Democrat party have worked with Soros over the decades. He’s been a major behind the scenes influence cutting deals with the Democrat leadership.

These deals have not been for the people. These deals haven’t even been for the Democrat rank and file.

These deals expanded George Soros power and wealth while protecting him from prosecution and competition.

Soros has spent heavily and gotten government backed privilege at the expense of the common man.

Meanwhile, the “little people” that the Democrats are pledged to help have been locked into poverty and helplessness for generations.

Every government benefit that you accept takes away your freedom.

This is an unholy alliance designed to keep poor people poor and less than human. Always dependent on The Man.

Well, George Soros is The Man.

Millions of middle class and upper class Democrats, convinced that they have to “do something to help NOW,” take their marching orders from community agitators and politicos paid by George Soros.

These “protests” distract attention from Soros. These “protests” blame Republicans. These “protests” spread lies and misinformation. These “protests” keep you from the truth.

So why are you still involved?


Understand, protesting is not the problem. It’s protected under the First Amendment. Nationally organized disruptions that damage or destroy, that’s the problem.

These “protests” were never about the election. They are about keeping people scared. Scared enough to demand government action. Scared enough to sacrifice freedom and liberty.

Ask questions. Ask yourself who benefits. Ask yourself if you
really trust people who have been lying to you for years.

Ask yourself if you want to live that way.

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The last thing I'm writing about the 2016 election

Hollywood celebrities always freak out when a conservative is elected.

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Undocumented means illegal

We can argue whether the law is morally right or not.

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Tiny houses banned

Tiny Homes Banned in U.S. at Increasing Rate as Govt Criminalizes Sustainable Living

As the corporatocracy tightens its grip on the masses – finding ever more ways to funnel wealth to the top – humanity responds in a number of ways, including the rising popularity of tiny houses.

These dwellings, typically defined as less than 500 square feet, are a way for people to break free of mortgages, taxes, utility bills and the general trappings of “stuff.” They’re especially attractive to millennials and retirees, or those seeking to live off-grid.

But government and corporations depend on rampant consumerism and people being connected to the grid.

Seeking actual freedom through minimalist living should seem like a natural fit for the American dream, but the reality is that many governments around the country either ban tiny homes or force them to be connected to the utility grid.

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See if they do

I’m going to keep track this time.

Celebs who said they’d leave country if Trump won

Bryan Cranston. Samuel L. Jackson. Lena Dunham. Neve Campbell. Cher. Miley Cyrus. Ne-Yo. Amy Schumer. Chelsea Handler. Jon Stewart. Whoopi Goldberg. Keegan-Michael Key. George Lopez. Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Al Sharpton.

Meanwhile, Shervin Pishevar wants to turn California into an independent country.

Now I am not noting this because I support Trump.

I don’t think these people have the character and honor to do what they say they will do.

Hollywood celebrities always freak out when a conservative is elected. Trump is no conservative, but they are after the publicity. They won’t leave the country, this is where they get paid.

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NeoNotes — Again

“Social Justice & Universities”

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“Hang on to your freedom! It's an election year!”

The political fringe and their crazy, insane ideas

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“Parliament is sovereign.”

This classic 1867 piece has lessons for today.

For length reasons, this entry has it's own page.

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“If Congress was your co-worker” starring Chris Pine

2016 is when more Americans will vote against someone rather than for someone.

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“Not Yours to Give”

If it’s true, it could destroy the government.

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Rigging against the voters

2016 is when more Americans will vote against someone rather than for someone.

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What a mess

People had their trust stolen and now they are almost ready to smash.

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Gay Thought Police

“…Like Soviet-Era Bullies”

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NeoNotes — People. Are. Pissed. Off.

People had their trust stolen and now they are almost ready to smash.

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How dare the FBI investigate her

This is bullying. More accurately, it is cry bullying.

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Berkeley cry bully bridge protest

Trump’s strength is not because of Trump

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Same as 2004

There are some ideas I have been playing with the last few years or so

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Borrowed strength

CGP Grey strikes again

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Politico elites lie

Rigged? In What Way Is This Election NOT Rigged?

The political and media elites are outraged beyond measure by Donald Trump’s charge that the election could be rigged. How dare he suggest such a thing, they say, for the system is as honest as the day is long!

It shows he knows he is going to lose, they say. It shows that he has no faith in the American system, and is really a fascist at heart.

In reality, it shows no such thing, but it does show that a conversation about whether this election -- and the political system in general -- is rigged is one that the elites most desperately do not want to have.

And that is why we must have it.

And, if we’re going to have it in an honest fashion, the question should be framed not as “Is the system rigged?” but as “In what way is the system not rigged?”

Donald Trump’s one merit in this election is that he is the system breaker.

No matter who is elected, no matter who wins the inevitable court case challenging the election, the two major political parties are done.

Finished.

There is nothing that can save them now.

Hillary Clinton’s machinations and betrayals are set out for all to see. The Democrat elites helped her shut out all competition. We don’t know exactly why. It certainly wasn’t because of her accomplishments. The takeaway is that the DNC elites can’t be trusted.

The RNC elites are gunning for Trump. He wasn’t supposed to win. The fix was in. The takeaway is that the RNC elites can’t be trusted.

Do you understand yet?

The takeaway is the the
elites can’t be trusted.

Government is not your friend.



A government smaller than absolutely necessary.


These are the things you should remember.

Hang onto your freedom.

HT Bookworm.

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3 Rules for Rulers video



One of my favorite YouTubers, CGP Grey, just put up a new video.

Watch it. Enjoy it. And think about it.


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Voters don't want

I played this game many times until I tired of it

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Wrong lizard

There was a good piece at Wendy McElroy’s blog. It's from Douglas Adam's So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.

...On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."

"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."

"I did," said Ford. "It is."

"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?"

"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."

"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"

"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."

"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"

"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in."

Sort of sums it all up, doesn't it?

When both choices are bad, and the system locks out any other choice, then why participate? The system is fixed.

It's fixed against you.

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Utah tries grabbing tribal land and pilfering tribal funds

Freedom loving YouTube channel

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NeoNotes — Sexuality & society

Most of the problems caused by illegal drugs come from the drugs being illegal in the first place.

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NeoNotes — Drug War

I believe in people and not government.

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2016 Election

I don't like either candidate. I don't trust either candidate. And I definitely don't trust the two major parties.

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NeoNotes — Sin

I don't agree with everything here, but you should definitely watch.

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All things being equal, the side that can't stand dissent is usually wrong.

I've said it before.

Many many, times.

It doesn't stop it from being true.

I'm not fond of the Republicans or the Democrats. But right now, the Republicans aren't demanding that we break the system and submit to their demands.

So here it is, plain and simple.

If you advocate violence, if you aren't willing to work within the system, you aren't entitled. You don't get respect unless you are willing to give respect.

I don't care what you feel. I don't care how right you believe you are. No one person has all the answers. No group has all the solutions.

And NO ONE has the right to impose their views by force. We agree on the rules or we have nothing.

There's no reason to respect you unless you respect others.

Even the ones you disagree with.

Pinned to the top until further notice.

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NeoNotes — The real "for their own good"

I'm libertarian. If I had my way, the government would be much smaller and not pushing either a progressive agenda or a conservative one. I'm convinced that a big reason WHY this is happening now is because conservatives built the Big Institutions to keep things working Their Way™ and progressives took them over for the exact same reason.

I don't believe the answer is in who gets to call the shots.

I think the solution is stopping people from meddling with other people's lives so that those other people HAVE to take responsibility for their own choices.

Because that's the real 'for their own good.' class="ghoster">

NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

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Political discussion

Any robo-caller demanding money is almost certainly a scam

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NeoNotes - I'm not the smartest guy in the room

Since I just spent forty-five minutes writing it as a post, you’re damn right I’m going to put it here.

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The Legacy of Obama comes to Arizona

The Scouts do it for all the national hollidays

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Racism or Tea Kettles?

Maybe it's not about making Americans safer.

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Catastrophe or Opportunity

The sky is not falling, and when the dust settles, Britain's decision may very well prove to be a pivotal event in the reshaping of global relationships and trade that will, in the final analysis, benefit all of us.
     — Gary Johnson, You Can Look at Brexit as a ‘Catastrophe’ or an ‘Opportunity’

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About that Brexit thing

Vice laws tell people that we don't think they can be adults

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Brexit

Competition keeps us honest. Progress never comes from satisfaction.

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Ali was cool

Get that? The science is settled. Don't question the dogma. Thou shalt not dissent!

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The system is rigged

The party system controls who runs for office & stops the public from interfering

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Local power

Originally published at Technopagan Yearnings

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NeoNotes — Environmentalism loses it's wind

He's one of those people you should have read about in school

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“For thee, not for me…or my friends”

There's only one question left

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Rebellion rumbles

Seven years ago, I wrote about the Free Market Rebellion. I said that people were fed up with their leaders and their institutions.

I haven't been the only one who noticed. I thought it would happen much sooner. Lately things have been coming to a head.

John Hackmann, a Fairview Heights, Ill., retiree, labeled it a “Washington cartel.”

“They just let the government do whatever they want,” said Jim Walker, an Arnold, Mo., businessman.

What is the establishment? Nationally, eight in 10 people told a McClatchy-Morning Consult poll this month it includes members of Congress. Similar numbers cited the Democratic and Republican parties, political donors, Wall Street bankers and the mainstream media.

They split on whether Trump, a billionaire real estate developer who’s thrived in the New York business world, was part of the establishment, but seven in 10 said Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton was.

In essence, the establishment lives and thrives in a small world that lives and works in New York and Washington, on Wall Street, in Big Media, and in Politics, connected by the high-speed Acela corridor and often by mutual self interest.

Many, perhaps most, do care deeply about the common good though they are anything but common themselves. They hire each other and each other’s children. They huddle at the same white tie and black tie dinners. And, they sometimes attend each other’s weddings.

Of course Limbaugh has been going after the establishment too.

Remember, the elites chose Bush and Clinton. Those were the two people who were supposed to get the nomination. It blew up in their faces.

There's only one question left.

If government doesn't trust you, why should you trust government?

Make your choice.


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Religion becoming the law of the land

Politics is about control

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One paragraph

Older journalists are being laid off and they aren't entitled to run their crusades

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NeoNotes — Political committment

This isn't news about this site

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NeoNotes — Politics is never about reform

Too good to skip

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NeoNotes — Immigration

Not all feminists & not all lesbians

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NeoNotes — Taking over the world

Some of the comments I make on other boards are worth saving

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NeoNotes — Dangerous beast

Perhaps the biggest difference between libertarians and conservatives/progressives is that conservatives and progressives view government as a Way To Get Things Done.

Libertarians see government as an extremely dangerous beast that if kept at all, must be severely hobbled and and three-quarters starved.

For the safety of the community. class="ghoster">

NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

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Twitterfied - updated

But here’s the thing. They make no secret of their opinion. If they think I am wrong, they tell me and they tell me why.

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NeoNotes — No real difference

Actually there is very little difference between the "leaders" of either party. They don't object to stuff being done, they object to the other "guy" doing it and getting the cblurbit.

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The money thing

It’s the only campaign finance scheme that blurbuces the size of government, returns power to the voters, and keeps local money only in politics.

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Who is racist now?

I did not humble myself and acknowledge the sins of my skin color.

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Prince Charles Wrong on Syria

I realize the man is trying desperately to make his mark.

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Cruz becomes

This is from an email exchange I had recently.

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What strategy?

No, I don’t think it’s the best solution.

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So Why Not Impeach?

No, I am not exaggerating.

Although the Imperious Leader does.

When he isn’t lying.

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She can speak for herself

We need to test our ideas again and again.

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This is why John Kerry won't call it a treaty

John Kerry and the State Department do a semantic shell game to avoid the law.

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Coward

Ever wonder why the Imperious Leader doesn’t ask before he commits the country?

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Moore stuff

The green movement and the climate change crowd can’t stand dissent

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Obama the racist

Remember the President Obama who was supposed to end racism in the United States?

Well, neither does the Imperious Leader. The NY Post has the story.

A key part of President Obama’s legacy will be the fed’s unprecedented collection of sensitive data on Americans by race. The government is prying into our most personal information at the most local levels, all for the purpose of “racial and economic justice.”

Unbeknown to most Americans, Obama’s racial bean counters are furiously mining data on their health, home loans, credit cards, places of work, neighborhoods, even how their kids are disciplined in school — all to document “inequalities” between minorities and whites.

This Orwellian-style stockpile of statistics includes a vast and permanent network of discrimination databases, which Obama already is using to make “disparate impact” cases against: banks that don’t make enough prime loans to minorities; schools that suspend too many blacks; cities that don’t offer enough Section 8 and other low-income housing for minorities; and employers who turn down African-Americans for jobs due to criminal backgrounds.

Notice how it’s selected minorities.

It gets worse. Here come the technocrat planners.

Now even ZIP codes are racist, and according to this race-obsessed administration, you're racist for living in a suburban area with little public housing. And it plans to change that.

In what may be the most ambitious social-engineering project undertaken by the federal government, the administration is mapping every neighborhood in America by race. The stated purpose is to use the data to compel local officials to loosen zoning laws and build more public housing, thereby offering more poor inner-city minorities better opportunities for housing and education.

But the unstated purpose is forced racial integration. The suburbs are just too white for Obama and his race-mongering social engineers. They think they "geospatially discriminate" against minorities, never mind that more and more middle-class blacks are flocking to them on their own.

The ham-handed government project is led by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Last week it proposed new rules requiring counties and other entities receiving federal grant dollars to "affirmatively further fair housing" in the suburbs for minorities. Grantees who fail to comply will be denied federal funding.

At the same time, HUD is pressuring suburban landlords to accept Section 8 housing vouchers.

They’re doing it for your own good.

Think about this. We have a government that claims it’s fighting racism by tracking people by the color of their skin.

It’s not helping people. It’s locking them into victimhood.

The Imperious Leader and the Federal government has already decided that no matter what, certain “races” can’t succeed without help from The Man. They are not good enough. They can never be allowed freedom.

This is what your government is saying. Are you willing to listen?

Or will you take your natural born freedom?


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Introducing the Love Gov

Recently someone sent me some videos from the Independent Institute where government is portrayed as an abusive boyfriend.

They are amazingly good. Take a look for yourself.










The videos say it better than I can.

Be sure to share with your friends. And maybe some of the enemies you trust.


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George Takei brooks no dissent - updated

They attack the person and avoid discussing the ideas.

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The weak, the poor, the minority…

We’re so conditioned to expect the government to “save us” that we overlook government oppressing us.

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It's not going to be fixed by government

Okay, the Supreme Court hosed the country on Obamacare.

It’s not going to be fixed by government.

So maybe it’s time to stop waiting for someone to save us?

After all, the Federal government works for the citizens.

If the citizens don’t want Obamacare and the FedGovs keep forcing it on us, then there is one question left.

Why is there still a Federal government?


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Flagging some questions

The “Confederate” flag (actually the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia) was raised over the capital of South Carolina by a Democrat governor in protest over the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

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Slow down the fast track

The Imperious Leader expects the American people to swallow the shit to get the good parts.

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Leave them alone

Give government all the power you think is necessary. Watch as the one person who you think can’t be trusted with that power commands it against everything you hold dear.

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Racism Today

Nope.

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No dissent, or The content of his character

Rhyd Wildermuth has shown me his character.

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Should the government…

Nope.

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Stop the denial

Marriage licenses exist so that the licenses can be denied.

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Accept but not celebrate

I won’t celebrate.

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Imperial

They’ve forgotten that their power comes from the people.

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99 years of dollar signs

This barely touches on the basics, but it should show some general trends.

A 1915 dollar has $23.24 in purchasing power today. Gold averaged $18.99 per troy ounce.

A 1940 dollar has $16.77 in purchasing power today. Gold averaged $33.85 per troy ounce.

A 1950 dollar has $9.94 in purchasing power today. Gold averaged $34.72 per troy ounce.

A 1965 dollar has $7.52 in purchasing power today. Gold averaged $35.12 per troy ounce.

A 1980 dollar has $3.06 in purchasing power today. Gold averaged $615.00 per troy ounce.

A 1999 dollar has $1.43 in purchasing power today. Gold averaged $278.98 per troy ounce.

A 2008 dollar has $1.11 in purchasing power today. Gold averaged $871.96 per troy ounce.

A 2011 dollar has $1.07 in purchasing power today. Gold averaged $1571.52 per troy ounce.

I’ll spare you the accounting explanation. What you should take away from this is that government rigs these prices so it can draw profit on your loss. Between the currency and the price of gold, you’re losing money.

It gets worse.

When it comes to “investments” on anything from a bank passbook account to stocks to bonds, if your return on investment (ROI) is less than the inflation rate, then you are losing money and government gets the difference.

It’s a rigged game. You can’t win except with very high stakes and if the government backs your play.

So this entry ends with a simple question.

Who rigged the game?

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NeoNotes — Tyranny of the absolute

If the choice is between the absolute on the left side or the absolute on the right, I am going to pick freedom despite both
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

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Voting

Remember the goal is FREEDOM. If the institutions don’t work towards that goal, we need to get rid of the institutions.

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By the content of their character

Obama lies. But that’s not the real problem.

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Dirty Water

Nothing to do with morality and everything to do with vote pandering

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Isn't this racist?

Why don’t liberals get the blame for their words and actions?

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Would you live in tyranny?

“Papers, please”

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Don't trust public science - updated

Fudging the numbers again

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Pocketing climate change

It only takes a simple program and a scientific calculator to show the holes in the climate change models

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Tyranny of the 16th

Bookworm is looking for scapegoats

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We can afford it? Not really.

Funny how much politicos want to spend your money.

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Reply to a Bookworm Rant

Bookworm is looking for scapegoats

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Choosing for themselves

More than one stream.

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State of discord

The Imperious Leader lied.

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Bright and shineys

Baubles & distractions

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When truth is dissent

Very silly.

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Human Lives Matter

So no matter what I’ve said before now, no matter what I’ve done before now, if I fail to do this now, I’m racist.

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NeoNotes - Choose your right

I believe that economics and morality should be based in free choice.

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No Clinton

Cashing in on people's fear

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Not a mandate

Let’s not pretend it was. Listen to the people.



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Less

Less government means more freedom



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The default SHOULD be None of the Above

All your life, you’ve been taught that SOME government is better than NO government.



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Bad press

Bad press! Naughty press!


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Comments

Practical Election Reform

Which laws are necessary and which ones are wasteful? Here is what you can count on a libertarian to say.

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Public Health Crisis

Did the FedGovs mess with immigration to create a public health crisis?

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Memorial or political rally?

This is a page from the original version of Pagan Vigil. There are some formatting differences. Originally published at www.paganvigil.com/C127135145/E20110113130905

Memorial or political rally?

No shame
This was the thing that put me off blogging for more than two years.

I'm angry right now.

No, strike that. I'm pissed.

There is absolutely NO REASON to turn a memorial into pep rally.

Every single time I've commented on a mass killing, I've been flamed. So this time, I thought I would stay out of it.

And then I see the President turn a tragedy into a bloody political event. Complete with slogan. T-shirts. Bumper stickers!

This goes beyond double standards.

So what good does it do to follow the rules of propriety if the "other guys" break every single one?

How is this different from what Bush 43 did? Or for that matter, what that diseased Westboro Baptist Church keeps trying to do?

They've got no shame. And they try to use YOUR SHAME as a weapon against you.

Fuck them.

They have not the right or the power. I'm not going to give it to them anymore. No matter what I say, they'll turn it political. They will demand that I give up my thoughts for the ones they dictate. They try to turn my acts of respect into silent acquiescement to THEIR agenda.

Just like they do now.

I'll say it loud and clear.

Obama has no class. He turned something that should have healed into politics. T-shirts? By all the gods, the man's a coward and an opportunist.

Death is too important for politics.

Posted: Thu - January 13, 2011 at 01:09 PM

A class="pvc" HREF="http://www.paganvigil.com
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In which George W. Bush proves he is a gentleman, even if he did do most other things wrong

Courtesy goes a long way

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McCain, AGAIN?

No shame
This was the thing that put me off blogging for more than two years.

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How to annoy two hundred million voters in one easy step

Courtesy goes a long way

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My version of campaign finance reform

Works like a charm.

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Measure your freedom

Automation, yeah, that's the ticket!

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Colbert was the distraction

The FCC sneaks in the back door on the cable companies

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Mexicans here before America was even an idea?

Odd tactic from the Grand and Glorious Imperious Leader

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Demand "None Of The Above"

When there is no "least bad"

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About the O'Donnell witchcraft thing

This is a page from the original version of Pagan Vigil. There are some formatting differences. Originally published at www.paganvigil.com/C127135145/E20100920142330

About the O'Donnell witchcraft thing

What does it say about Bill Maer? - updated

Gather 'round, friends and neighbors. I'm about to tell you what a Real Live Pagan® thinks about Bill Maher's "witch hunt."

The story is not that Christine O'Donnell dabbled in witchcraft during high school and decided it wasn't for her. Regardless of your personal beliefs, it's still about personal choice and personal responsibility. O'Donnell made her choice.

No, the story is that Bill Maher is okay with witchcraft until he can use it to embarrass someone who doesn't share his politics.

Think very carefully about the implications of that.

Maher exemplifies a certain liberal/progressive mindset. According to the "grand accepted wisdom," minorities are okay as long as they do what they are told and don't get in the way of their betters. In my experience, that extends to minority faiths. We're supposed to be on call for the dog and pony shows, but not to make too much fuss otherwise.

And if you think I'm off base, go watch some more of Maher's show.

For extra credit, see how many other high profile media liberals share the same attitudes.

Oh, Jason Pitzl-Waters of the Wild Hunt Blog gives his opinion here, and does a roundup of Pagan reactions here.

Update - I left out one word and implied that I knew O'Donnell. I don't, and up until this mess I hadn't followed the Delaware race. Blame it on chronic insomnia and limited time. My fingers don't always keep up with my brain, and I overlook typos when I am rushed.

Posted: Mon - September 20, 2010 at 02:23 PM

A class="pvc" HREF="http://www.paganvigil.com
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The “Tea Party” scares the political leadership

This is a page from the original version of Pagan Vigil. There are some formatting differences. Originally published at www.paganvigil.com/C127135145/E20100920121432

The “Tea Party” scares the political leadership

Something they can't control, even if it's not enough to take control away

Jesse Walker over at Reason Magazine sums up the Tea Party exactly.

The issue isn't whether "the" Tea Party will do those things. The Tea Party isn't an actual party; it's an extremely decentralized movement with room for several different points of view. It is not libertarian in itself, but it has opened a space for libertarian ideas; it includes good guys like the Campaign for Liberty, and it includes its share of scamsters and authoritarians as well. And it includes a lot of people who are not pure libertarians but are motivated by a libertarian take on one or more pressing issues.

My take is that the various Tea Parties scare the daylights out of the existing political parties because they are a bottom up movement instead of a top down organization. They don't take their "marching orders" from anyone except themselves. That's exactly opposite of how protests have been organized for the last thirty or forty years.

It's the politics of the everyman, not necessarily tied to election cycles.

The Republican leadership believes it can be subverted because they did it before. You may not remember the "Republican Revolution" in the 1994 midterm elections. When the newly minted members of Congress took their seats, the wheeling and dealing began. There was no way those freshmen Congressmen and Senators would get committee assignments unless they toed the line. The institutions of Congress and the political parties were designed to seduced and subvert anyone who might make change. That is exactly what happened.

This could be different. And I really stress that "could be." If people accept that the real change is only going to happen if they are involved and watching closely, then yes, it could get better.

Otherwise we're waiting for the system to collapse. And when the government starts spending more on debt service than anything else, it won't take long.

They established institutions of both major parties aren't interested in reform, they want power. Even if every candidate elected for the next three national elections was a "Tea Party" candidate, it wouldn't be enough to stem the tide. The only way the party leadership will accept reform is if they are running scared.

Posted: Mon - September 20, 2010 at 12:14 PM

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The AlterNet Tea Party article

Demonstrating that certain modern liberals don't understand economics

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Government insanity

Something they can't control, even if it's not enough to take control away

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Stop me if you've heard this one about the IRS Andover facility

This is a page from the original version of Pagan Vigil. There are some formatting differences. Originally published at www.paganvigil.com/C127135145/E20100905130903

Stop me if you've heard this one about the IRS Andover facility

Congresscritters pressure the IRS to waste your money to keep tax parasites employed. I know that is harsh but that is exactly what is happening.

TJICistan linked to this Lew Rockwell article. Usually I don't link to Lew Rockwell articles. When I read them, I take them with a grain of salt. And this particular piece has a definite anti-government bias ("tax subsidized chair-moisteners").

However, here are the facts.

The Andover IRS facility was slated to be closed, under pressure from the New England Congresscritters, that is no longer true.

The renovation of the Andover facility focuses on frills.

Representative Tsongas did suggest that the 1400 IRS employees slated to be laid off be used in make work programs.

So, let's summarize. The IRS was scheduled to shut down a processing facility and lay off the workers. Under political pressure from a few Congress people (not a vote of Congress, but simply a handful of politicos throwing their weight around), the shut down was delayed and the workers were given make work because keeping Federal agents employed is more important than the private free market. Meanwhile, the building is undergoing a lavish refurbishment.

So the FedGovs are renovating a building housing employees doing makework but whose main job is to collect and process taxes so the Federal government can operate…

…spending money keeping unneeded government employees in a newly upgraded facility.

We've crossed a line.

We're now paying government agents to collect money for their own employment in a very fancy building that is being renovated by that same money.

It's hard NOT to be anti-government after reading the stories for all of that.

Posted: Sun - September 5, 2010 at 01:09 PM

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Response to my Ebert entry

Roundup of the headline links

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Rogert Ebert wants critics of Obama to "Put up or shut up"

This is a page from the original version of Pagan Vigil. There are some formatting differences. Originally published at www.paganvigil.com/C127135145/E20100903114934

Rogert Ebert wants critics of Obama to "Put up or shut up"

Funny how that only works if there is a liberal President

Roger Ebert stepped over the line.

Here's the thing. Just because someone happens to be President doesn't mean that he shouldn't be criticized. He should be. Loudly. Publicly.

But for pity's sake pick the battles.

The fact is that there are those who lambast both Glenn Beck and Barak Obama (all hail the Imperious Leader, may his toenails never shrink!).

If it were a Republican President, Ebert would be at the head of the pack criticizing him. Oh wait, that already happened. Numerous times.

Sometimes I really hate being proven right again and again.

Now that it's "their guy," liberals like Ebert don't want anyone criticizing the President. And they will go out of their way to paint the most public opposition as "nuts."

Just like happened with conservatives and Bush.

Me, I say that the problems start because government tries to control too much of your life.

Yes, elected officials should be criticized. Loudly. Especially if they break their own rules and promises.

And if that doesn't work, just remember that the rule of law works both ways. If the "elite" won't abide by it, there is no reason you have to submit.

Posted: Fri - September 3, 2010 at 11:49 AM

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Celebrity Psudeoscience - Updated

Sacrificing rationality to sound vaguely important

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I answer the Neighborhood Game round 2

Are you ready to think about these neighbors? What would you do?

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Neighborhood Game Round Two

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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My thoughts on the neighborhood

Critics of my criticism

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Introducing the Neighborhood Game

These older blog entries have been reformatted and entered into the current directories.

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Why every election needs a "None Of The Above"

Does the common good come at the expense of the individual?

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United We Stand - Dragging religion into politics

Cashing in on people's fear

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Supermarket theory of government

This is a page from the original version of Pagan Vigil. There are some formatting differences.

Originally published at www.paganvigil.com/C127135145/E20071204130728


Supermarket theory of government


Demand your right to choose nothing and have it count

Sunni Maravillosa is part of a growing number of small "l" libertarians who believes that Ron Paul is no libertarian and voting for him sacrifices freedom.

I agree with her, but I don't think that is the whole problem. My answer is in the technopagan green.

Call me old-fashioned, but I still think the one True Answer is None of the Above.

If you HAVE to choose one from Column A OR one from Column B without the ability to walk away, that is not really a choice.

Oh, I may throw in refinements, like barring the losing candidates from serving in that office for the term of that office, or insisting that in order to "win" a candidate has to carry a majority of eligible voters and not just a majority of those who voted or a majority of registered voters. But in the end, it's the same thing.

Rejecting the choices offered is still a valid choice. Otherwise you're playing three-card monty and the red card is never where you think it is.

I call it the supermarket theory of government. I am not required to buy a cola, or even a soft drink, or any beverage at all. Indeed, I don't have to buy anything or even go into the store.

If there HAS to be a choice between 1, 2, or 3, there is no reason for 1, 2, or 3 to be significantly different unless there is a 0. And if it has to be 1, 2, or 3, there is no reason that the 1, 2, or 3 HAVE to appeal to the disaffected because 1, 2, or 3 will win no matter what the unhappy voters do.

I agree that RP is no libertarian. But he is a symptom, not the problem.

Posted: Tue - December 4, 2007 at 01:07 PMA class="pvc" HREF="http://www.paganvigil.com

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The real reason behind Prohibition

Nothing to do with morality and everything to do with vote pandering

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A Pagan looks at the “War Against Christians”

Some people are deliberately confusing the issues to advance their beliefs

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That time of year again

Certain fundamentalists trot out the scare tactics again

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Are blogs protected by the First Admendment?

Do Freedom of the Press and Freedom of Speech apply to websites?

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“Why does Sunrise, Florida have it's own SWAT Team?”

The Anthony Diotaiuto killing

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Judging a book by it's cover

Pagan and magick books do not a terrorist make

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Your tax dollars at work

The Salmon-Thirty-Salmon

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Victims and paying for bad choices

How a benevolent and socially progressive government drags people down

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Same thing only better with new management

Looks like it is the GOP's turn to celebrate Big Government solutions


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Should we waste money from your pocket or mine?

Because of the G8 summit, here are a few of my thoughts on global warming

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Ozone levels are falling

A pet peeve

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Law for the little guy

The real problem with "progressive" laws

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Global Warming

Because of the G8 summit, here are a few of my thoughts on global warming

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Why I MARGINALLY prefer
conservatives over liberals

Despite the "push for impeachment," it is not one individual or party we should be worried about

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Some things I have learned

The only worthy faiths and beliefs are those freely chosen

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Dwight D. Eisenhower on human rights abuses

This is a page from the original version of Pagan Vigil. There are some formatting differences. Originally published at www.paganvigil.com/C149884619/E668386334

This is awfully familiar. The U.S. has been accused of human rights abuses before


As usual, individuals with no responsibility in the matter, their humanitarian impulses outraged by conditions that were frequently beyond help, began carrying to America tales of indifference, negligence, and callousness on the part of the troops.  Generally these stories were lies.  The thousands of men assigned to the job of rescuing the DPs and organizing relief for them were Americans.  They were given every facility and assistance the Army could provide, and they were genuinely concerned in doing their utmost for these unfortunate of the earth.  But because perfection could not be achieved some so-called investigators saw a golden chance for personal publicity.  They did so at the expense of great numbers of Americans who labored night and day to alleviate the average lot of people who had suffered so much that they seemed at times beyond suffering.
     — General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe

Hat tip to William Katz at FrontPageMagazine.com

Posted: Mon - June 13, 2005 at 05:48 AM

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John Kerry on Iraq

Douglas Adams Passing Day

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Fresh meat or dry bone shards?

Does the secret Downing Street memo really tell us anything new?

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Edward Kennedy on filibusters

This is a page from the original version of Pagan Vigil. There are some formatting differences. Originally published at www.paganvigil.com/C149884619/E656387568

Did you hear what you thought you heard?

Again and again in recent years, the filibuster has been the shame of the Senate and the last resort of special interest groups. Too often, it has enabled a small minority of the Senate to prevent a strong majority from working its will and serving the public interest.
     — Senator Edward Kennedy, 1975

Just remember what he said then and what he says now. Then ask yourself what the difference is.

Posted: Fri - May 27, 2005 at 08:33 AM



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