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Bernie Sanders Fans: How to Overcome Socioeconomic Ignorance

December 15, 2017 by tornado Leave a Comment

Bernie Sanders lost in a rigged and patently unfair primary process over a year ago to the neoliberal establishment candidate and paid Goldman Sachs shill, Hillary Clinton. I get that. I agree with that. However, it’s time to grow up and lose the notion that what he had to say substantively was worth the electrons used to broadcast it to your screen.

Bernie-lemming “democratic socialists”: what is your major malfunction? Your very slogan — democratic socialism — is a self-contradictory, oxymoronic, and just plain moronic load of bull cookies.

Equality and fairness are not synonyms! We may be loved equally in God’s eyes, but God did not give us equal genetics, sizes, shapes, interests, intellects, or talents. No matter how hard I try, I cannot play basketball like MJ. MJ was not constructed to lift weights like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnold could never be the kind of scientist his fellow German-speaker Einstein was. Einstein wasn’t able to be on Mozart’s musical level…and so forth.

We each, individually, have different individual abilities, purposes and motivations. That’s true diversity! We are not made to benefit equally from economic outcomes, and therefore, we should not.

Socialism innately dissuades both diversity and productive quality. When you force equal outcomes across unequal individuals, by whatever sociopolitical means, you disincentivize productivity because (please read carefully!) human nature is fundamentally both selfish and survivalist. That’s just the cold, brutally honest truth, and you are not going to change that. People want reward for work, and consistent with human nature, that means money to buy what they both need and want. Having things provided for people “for free’ (at someone else’s expense, naturally) only incentivizes dependency. Dependency, in turn, yields sloth.

It’s not your job to decide what someone else should or should not possess — despite the patronizing attitudes of white liberals toward minority “needs”, and despite the fundamental arrogance of the socialist myth that the rich man’s money belongs to others who haven’t earned it. Yes, humans at all levels of the ladder are fundamentally selfish, economically. Anecdotal exceptions of altruism aside, people by in large demand tangible incentive (capital) to produce, to create, to innovate.

Less innovation, less incentive, less progress, less efficiency, slower gains, and loss of personal freedom…is this what you want, you fools? Because if you entrust centralized, federal Big Bureaucracy to mechanisms now done by for-profit business (however imperfect they are now), they will become more imperfect, more inefficient, with bigger overhead, less creative, slower, and more wasteful. Such is the historical, inherent, unavoidable, and inevitable nature of distant and detached central bureaus. If you do not believe this, then for once, study history. Or if in government, join a federal employees’ union, like I have — ironically, being a union member has shown me more than I ever could read in a textbook about the ineptitude, nefariousness and oppressiveness of upper management in a governmental bureaucracy!

There’s a lot more to this than I can give you here, and you need to do most of the lifting and learning yourself. For starters, though, look up and read and watch the related material from two highly regarded economists: late, Nobel-prizewinning economics professor Milton Friedman, and the Jim Crow-era North Carolina/Harlem-raised black economist and writer, Thomas Sowell.

Their expertise and credentials in these issues are much greater than yours, and you need to learn from them. And after doing so, don’t come back to me with the ridiculous and baseless arguments akin to, “That was then, this is now, we are better.” No provable basis exists for that argument. It is a logical and rhetorical recency fallacy, a head-in-sand mentality that ignores precedent and reality, in favor of a nonexistent Utopian dreamland full of unicorns crapping Skittles.

Consider health care and public policy…Bernie vs. Friedman:

And more general discussion on the end game of socialism itself:

In fact, in the last 100 years, the great majority of the tangible economic and efficiency gains in modern society are the result of capitalistic business. Yes, here in the U.S., government research developed many great ideas (lots of basic science and tech research), along with some horrible ones (nuclear war and forms of eugenics) that get ignored by pro-bureaucracy socialists. Private enterprise also developed others (such as Texas Instruments with the transistor…look where that has gone!). But only capitalistic business and its incentive to profit and make jobs took them from the ivory towers and flourescent-lit labs, made them real and mass-producible and tangible and workable, and put them into your hands. Never, ever, ever forget that.

      “Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.”

      “Social injustices are clearly greatest where you have central control.”

      “Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government.”

      “If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.”

— Milton Friedman

      “It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”

      “Socialism sounds great. It has always sounded great. And it will probably always continue to sound great. It is only when you go beyond rhetoric, and start looking at hard facts, that socialism turns out to be a big disappointment, if not a disaster.”

      “I have never understood why it is ‘greed’ to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else’s money.”

      “When Senator Sanders cries, ‘The system is rigged!’ no one asks, ‘Just what specifically does that mean?’ or ‘What facts do you have to back that up?’ In 2015, the 400 richest people in the world had net losses of $19 billion. If they had rigged the system, surely they could have rigged it better than that.”

      “The next time some academics tell you how important diversity is, ask how many Republicans there are in their sociology department.”

— Thomas Sowell

Filed Under: Not weather Tagged With: Bernie Sanders, bureaucracy, capitalism, centralization, democracy, democratic socialism, greed, health care, history, inefficiency, Milton Friedman, overhead, recency fallacy, socialism, Thomas Sowell, waste

Phooey on Political Parties

June 30, 2016 by tornado Leave a Comment

Recently this text-meme appeared on the social-media feed of a longtime friend, who also is a consistent, sturdy and respectable conservative.

D

While I agree with this statement, per se, it can be (and based on comments, often is) misinterpreted as pro-Republican. Instead it only lays down the truth about one half of the problem with political parties today.

Most of us who have decided not to play this binary, lesser-of-two-evils game anymore, can see the forest from the trees and clearly understand that BOTH parties have abandoned American exceptionalism, rugged independence, national sovereignty, wholesome family values, and the Constitution. Both treat the Constitution as optional and interpretive instead of as its own literal words read, the founding law of the land, changeable not by interpretation but only by amendment. Republicans too have been guilty of this, capitulating meekly to amoral social leftism and anti-Constitutional ideals such as “free trade”, globalism, unfettered immigration, and domestic spying via CIA and NSA. They have pandered to conservatism in primaries only to go to Washington and turn into a gaggle of center-left slugs who conspire with the Democrats to bloat the national debt, and who and put far more effort into theatrics than accomplishment.

That said, the Ds have gone much, much, much farther askew. They have become dominated by radically far-left lunacy unimaginable 20-30 years ago, and are veering so deeply into the weeds as to be absolutely unrecognizable to those (mostly before my time, sadly) who recall when such a thing as dignified statesmen actually existed in that party. To wit: John Kennedy’s taxation and military principles would be considered “Tea Party” today, and his opinion on so-called “gay marriage” was…what, exactly? I challenge anyone to look it up and tell me. I’d love to go back in a time machine and ask him. The answer likely would shock the sycophants who worship the false god of the rainbow flag.

Democrats? Republicans? Traitorous, one-world puppets and two-faced purveyors of slime, they both have become.

How befitting, really, that a noisy, unhinged, false-conservative opportunist like Trump has taken the Republican Party over from a bunch of weak, spineless, corporatist, bailout-pushing RINO sellouts. Meanwhile the Democrat Party (also decidely corporatist, free-trade puppets of big money…Bernie was right about just that one thing) has been conquered virally by a mass orgy of moral rot and corrupt “leadership” the likes of which only Satan himself can be credited with influence. That is a combination sure to doom this nation for ever and ever, without sure and speedy intervention.

At least 95% of them all should be exported to a faraway island and never allowed back.

Regardless of your inclinations–conservative, liberal, libertarian or some blend of the three, vote third party this cycle–and work to end political parties altogether. Political parties are corrupt, insular, lobbyist- and corporation-controlled bastions of greed and payoffs, and are malignant tumors destroying this country. As they are not enumerated in the literal words of the Constitution as a functional part of governance; national political parties are unconstitutional.

All national elections should be nonpartisan, with only names on the ballots. This way votes are cast solely on the stated positions of candidates, and we can work toward what we should have had from the start: a positional, issues-based meritocracy, instead of an executive and legislative branch controlled by distant, detached, elitist, globalist, “we know what’s best for you” arrogance, wolves in sheeps’ clothing, offering partisan machine politics where Democrat and Republican are distinguishable only by conveniently divisive hot-button issues.

Filed Under: Not weather Tagged With: Bernie Sanders, conservative, Democratic Party, Democrats, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, John F. Kennedy, leftism, liberal, Republican Party, Republicans, RINO

Scattershooting 160508

May 8, 2016 by tornado Leave a Comment

Scattershooting while mourning the loss of Blackie Sherrod, one of the greatest sportswriters…hell, one of the greatest journalistic writers, period, of my lifetime. He started the “scattershooting” tradition many decades ago; and I, for one, plan to carry it forward by doing the same from time to time, on this BLOG, in my style. Get ready for brutal honesty; it’s the only way I know.

…

I’ve been on five storm intercepts this year, four of them substantially in the same Frederick-Lawton-Marlow corridor. All have been wet, messy supercells or bow echoes–interesting and worth observing (given their close proximity to home), but not yielding much in the way of outstanding photography. Regardless, the mere opportunity to head out a short distance and observe a fascinating variety of severe-storm morphologies, multiple times per year, is a privilege I do NOT take for granted. Every storm intercept is a unique adventure and learning experience. I’d like to thank visiting Polish atmospheric scientist Mateusz Taszarek for his keen and enthusiastic company on all the SW OK storms so far.

…

As I ponder the upcoming High Plains storm-observing season, the mind’s eye wanders longingly toward those tremendous, post-frontal, upslope-flow supercells that roll off the Laramie Range a couple days each June, like clockwork. They never fail to plant astounding storm structure and/or a picturesque tornado in the viewfinder–sometimes both. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Raton Mesa, Palmer Divide and Cheyenne Ridge too. But all things equal (and how often are they?), I’ll choose the rotating slinky coils that lumber eastward to southeastward off the Laramies toward Yoder, La Grange, Morrill and Pine Bluffs. Their beauty and power mesmerizes me.
…

We’ll need to behold and appreciate all the natural beauty we can find, and seek solace outside this world (in the Lord), given the continuing degradation of mankind. Here we go…

…

Speaking of degradation, are you on the left and want someone to blame for Trump? Since leftists love to assign blame instead of solving problems, look no further than Obama. Yes, Obama begat Trump. Every overreaction has an unequal and opposite overreaction. The pendulum keeps swinging wider and wider. That’s the brutal and unpleasant truth. Trump’s support is the overreaction to the thoroughly and unequivocally disastrous Obama regime, which was an overreaction to a mixed-results Bush administration. Both Obama and Trump, at this stage of the game, were/are presidentially unqualified figureheads of pathetic personality cults; and indeed, one is the yin to the other’s yang. Sad thing is: Trump isn’t even an actual conservative; in many ways he is a flaming liberal. Celebrity-worshiper voters, willing to follow any Pied Piper who promises them hope and change, feed these political monstrosities, and the second monster was spawned by the first.

…

So Bernie Sanders’ supporters are dissatisfied by the powerful moneyed lobbyists and corrupt political climate of Washington, and the Fourth Amendment-violating invasions of Americans’ privacy by the NSA and CIA. So am I, actually, even if I think Sanders is a Utopian leftist crackpot with unworkable solutions, behind his facade of an affable and congenial old guy. So who has been overseeing that source of angst for the last eight years? Guess Obama didn’t deliver the “hope and change” you wanted, did he? Blame Congress instead? Bullcrap. The President and Congress were Democrat-dominated for two years and didn’t even accomplish then what Bernie and his far-left lapdogs want. In fact Obama’s underlings doubled down on the domestic spying from the Bush era. Hey, this is what you voted for. You should have known he, like the overwhelming majority of politicians, would sell out on many of your ideals. Guess what: so would Bernie. That’s right, so would Bernie. The only one I’d even partly trust to make any dent in the spying/cronyism machine is Rand Paul or perhaps the Libertarian candidate that emerges from their upcoming Orlando convention. The former is out of the race, and the latter is unlikely to win despite likely getting my vote. Hanging onto the promises of any one politician is a setup for disillusionment and despair when they inevitably break them. The sooner you realize this, the less naive and more truly enlightened you’ll be.

…

Bernie Sanders’ odds of winning the primary asymptotically approach zero as Hillary racks up “superdelegates” in a rigged party-machine system, and as more time passes with no criminal indictment against her from a Chicago Democrat-machine Department of Justice. Now, how convenient it is for many Bernie supporters, they of the religiously self-righteous, anti-corporate, income-inequality Puritanism, quietly to lose all interest in Hillary’s nasty habits of 1) covering for and going after the victims of her husband’s serial sexual predations; and 2) playing kissyface with corporate donors, speech-buyers and political influence peddlers. Harder to “feel the Bern” as one’s own principles are sacrificed to expedience, eh? Welcome to the real world, grasshoppers. You’re just pawns in their game, fools played for fools. That’s not cynicism; it’s the plain truth. The sooner you realize this also, the less naive and more truly enlightened you’ll be.

…

This is going to be the ugliest, most revolting Presidential election of my lifetime, by far. It’s making me consider tuning out politics altogether for a few months (for the first time since age 5 or 6), exiting that malodorous theater stage right, and paying even more attention to storms and sports. You tell me: why should I continue to watch this toxic train wreck that I cannot stop? I didn’t and won’t vote for either of these two vermin. If I’m a lot less conversant on social media about political subjects for awhile, you’ll know why. It’s largely pointless. Defeatist? No, instead realistic…I already cast my vote for a different, better candidate and lost, and will vote out of conscience for a third-party candidate who practically is likely to lose in November. Don’t blame me for whatever happens next. Do improve your survival skills, armaments and stocks of nonperishables, for the sake of dependents even more than self.

…

I am not depressed in the least, despite all of the above and more ills in the world. In fact I can sit and pragmatically observe this tragic circus, and adapt to the developments arising therefrom, while living reasonably well and happy, in a state of long-term peace beyond all short-term trouble! Why? Easy: Jesus. He is the cure for the disease of worldly culture and suffering. At the Father’s command, on a day and hour we cannot know beforehand, He (unlike any politician) will fulfill His promise. He shall return, then set about cleaning the earth of all its rubbish: literal, figurative and spiritual. His whip-cracking, table-tossing tirade in the Temple, against the money-changers, was small change compared to what’s to come; Revelation promises such. The sooner the better, as far as I am concerned! Until then, through all tribulations, then forever after, glory be to Him!

Filed Under: Scattershooting, Weather AND Not Tagged With: Bernie Sanders, Donald Trmp, Great Plains, Hillary Clinton, immorality, Jesus, lies, politics, sellouts, storms, supercells, weather

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