Rebane's Ruminations

Quo Vadis Democrats? (updated 31aug18)

George Rebane

It turns out that my ongoing assessments of our Great Divide have been in error – the gulf between America’s Left and Right is significantly wider than what I have been reporting.  This latest epiphany came to me as I was perusing ‘Another Day of Conflicting Realities’, Bob Crabb’s latest post and comment stream in which he takes me to task for my posting “left/right polarization will make a quantum leap to a much higher level in the next twelve months, exceeding by far anything we have witnessed to date” (here), and then goes on to verify this assertion.

Sandbox – 27aug18

[I voted for John McCain in 2008, even though I considered him a weak entry by the Republicans.  But he was a man who had fought the good fight for America, and was a military hero in the true (old) sense of the word.  While not agreeing with all of his politics – especially that climate change should be a national security issue for the US – but he did hew sufficiently to the conservative views on property, security (e.g. US as world's white hat hegemon), and liberty.  His parting shot at President Trump will assure that his funerary plaudits will make political history.  Thank you for your service, and RIP Senator McCain. gjr]

Ruminations – 25aug18 (updated 31aug18)

George Rebane

That Lady Justice today only wears a patch over one eye is apparent to at least half the country.  Mueller’s ongoing investigation, along with the FBI et al investigations that preceded it, gives clear and compelling evidence to the bloom of corruption that has compromised our justice system over the last decade.  Kim Strassel’s ‘When Justice is Partial’ in the 24aug18 WSJ compiles a short and bitter summary of what has gone down.  And here is the strong letter to follow by Canadian Conrad Black.

Mueller’s "Witch Hunt" Metric

George Rebane

According to Rebane Doctrine, there’s a definite way to hold Mueller accountable for an alleged witch hunt without affecting the current claim that his investigation needs to continue because he’s on to some developing evidence that could resolve the question he was commissioned to answer – Was there any criminal collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia that was either illegal and/or affected the outcome of the 2016 election?

1. Mueller puts all the evidence to date into an ‘envelope’ that supports his contention that he is being prudent and professional in continuing an investigation that to date has claimed no culpable evidence, or evidence relevant to his charter.
2. The ‘envelope’ is sealed and entered into escrow with a reliable third party not privy to what is being escrowed, say, a specific federal court. The escrow instructions state that the contents of the ‘envelope’ be made public when the Mueller investigation is formally concluded.
3. Inspection of said contents at the conclusion of the investigation will then either support Mueller’s current contention that he has probable cause to continue the investigation, or show that he had nothing culpable to that date, and was simply proceeding on a ‘hail Mary’ basis with the hope that something significant might later turn up – i.e. confirming that at least up to the present he really is continuing to conduct a witch hunt.
4. Depending on how the investigation ends and what verbal assurances (under oath?) Mueller makes upon entering escrow, his reputation and fate will be determined either by the court of public opinion or a court of law. Mueller has no reasonable basis for refusing to enter into such an arrangement given that he has conducted the commissioned investigation, and is continuing it because it shows some promise of producing evidence of criminal Russian collusion.
5. In any event, with such information in escrow, the investigation can now proceed under the explicit expectation that Mueller has something that constitutes a reasonable basis for continuing the investigation without the need to release any supportive and/or compromising intermediate results.

Luxury Communism, the Siren Song

George Rebane

[This is the transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 22 August 2018.]

Among an alarming fraction of today’s younger generation, capitalism has become a dirty word, and communism has lost all of its historical barnacles.  Along with socialism, today communism is viewed by our millennials as a more socially just system, a version of which should replace capitalism as our society’s organizing principle for wealth generation and commerce.  Millennials, also known as Gen Y, are the generation born between the early 80s and the late 90s.  Today they number about 80M in the US, and academically they have tested and demonstrate themselves as not our brightest generation.  (more here)

When they assemble to support politicians like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Maxine Waters, and Alexandra Ortega-Cortez, they frequently become an unruly and violent mob to express their anger through assaulting university speakers they don’t like to smashing shiny store windows representing the capitalistic wealth of our nation. (more here)

Today there is rising the idea of a ‘fully automated luxury communism’ or FALC that paints a future of humanity living lives of leisure in harmony with communally-owned advanced technology that does all the work and produces all the wealth that is equitably shared by the people.  In that world, no longer is anyone stressed striving to labor in order to own property that makes possible the good life.  Today, organizations such a Plan C are expanding young memberships, inviting these to work for a world “centered on the commons” in which people will ‘naturally’ behave unnaturally as altruists.

Spokespersons such as Aaron Bastani of Novara Media teach listeners that “there is a tendency in capitalism to automate labor, to turn things previously done by humans into automated functions, … in recognition of that, then the only utopian demand can be for the full automation of everything and common ownership of that which is automated.”  Bastani sees FALC achieving something closer to that — “a society with collective control over its own high-tech, work-reducing gadgets. He believes what little work will be necessary in the future, such as optimizing 3D-printers and agricultural robots, will be organized much the way editors currently manage Wikipedia — in a decentralized, non-hierarchical fashion.”  Students of history recognize this as the achievement of the Marxist/Leninist communist ideal in which all humanity lives in unregulated harmony after the then superfluous state has withered away.

But what none of these pied pipers talk about to their eager young audiences is the nature of the path required to get us from here to there.  After listening to the animated exhortations of over-zealous speakers, these audiences, innocent of history, leave such emotional rallies to gather in the streets to proclaim the advent of their new world.  But what none of them realize nor are prepared for is the draconian aftermath that must now come when the exhilaration and excitement of street demonstrations end.  Then must begin the real fight, or as Bastani says, “if you want this, what you need to do is seize the means of production. We need to get automation and make it subordinate to human needs, not the profit motive. It’s about seizing the bakery rather than stealing the bread.”

Then will begin the long civil war required to take what’s not yours and kill those who resist such takings.  The road through the way station of socialism to communism has never been an easy one.  Revolutions such as occurred in Russia, China, Vietnam, Cuba, and many other lands, all took long, slogging years of civil war that spread wholesale misery across the land and took lives of millions, and then in the aftermath of devastated economies and terrorized societies, destroyed the lives of uncounted more millions for decades to come.  And in the end, for some reason not taught in our schools, the halcyon days that Marx and Lenin promised never came to pass in lands and among peoples who abandoned the fundamental rights to personal property, individual security, and shared liberty.

This is the real battle for the hearts and minds of Americans in which we are now engaged.

My name is Rebane, and I also expand on this and related themes on Rebane’s Ruminations where the transcript of this commentary is posted with relevant links, and where such issues are debated extensively.  However, my views are not necessarily shared by KVMR.  Thank you for listening.

Sandbox - 22aug18

[Well, as testimony to the exciting times in which we live, the old sandbox filled in a day or so.  Please use the last Scattershots to ensconce your comments about the implications of Cohen's attempt to incriminate his former boss of illegal campaign spending.  gjr]

Scattershots - 21aug18 (updated 23aug18)

Slow to believe, and slow to cherish.  Maturity is recognized in the deliberateness with which a man adopts his creed. ...   Gracian #154

George Rebane

Trump needs a court jester.  In olden days wise kings employed a court jester to provide scheduled entertainment and also ad hoc off-the-cuff remarks during court proceedings.  The court jester was most likely one the wisest people in the kingdom, and his function was to be the commissioned observer of courtly affairs, national politics, and a sanctioned critic of the king.  He performed all those functions through the use of humorous and witty metaphors, allegories, parables, etc – all carefully composed and delivered so as to avoid lese majesty at all costs (e.g. losing his head), yet assuring that the message was understood by selected audiences that always included the king.  Around our dinner table we frequently lament that President Trump lacks a court jester, or better, a close friend who in private can tell him, ‘Donald, cut that crap out, you again stepped on your good news, and allowed your enemies to instead focus the news cycle on your recent asinine tweet.’  Readers know that I am a supporter of almost all of the president’s policies, but no fan of the brash and seemingly thoughtless persona that he projects.  Employing a modern version of the court jester might help.  (more here)

The Trump/Russia affair has now become a tangled web of events, pronouncements, discoveries, statements, etc all resulting in a mish-mash from multiple sources at various times over the last years that antedate the 2016 election.  For those of us who dabble in debates about all the ins and outs of this affair, knowing and keeping straight what happened when instigated by whom and so on becomes a necessity to keep from sounding like some overzealous naif.  NPR has performed a public service to provide this information in an accessible graphic timeline that can be accessed here.  Enjoy your research.  (See, I can say something nice about a news outlet with a marked list to port.)

‘Congressional Reform Act of 2018’ is an email making the rounds that spells out how a reformed Congress should be term-limited and compensated.  The basic message is that congress critters should get reasonable wages, benefits (e.g. healthcare, SS, retirement, …) like the rest of us, and no extraordinary sinecures that make politics a career from which politicians become millionaires.  I shared this with a longtime close friend who is also a debate buddy because he is well-read and sits a bit left of my perch.  His concern about such a reform is that it “would complete the takeover of the US Government by the wealthy classes as only the independently wealthy people could afford to hold a Congressional seat.”  First, it appears that this argument promotes the established congressional careers of politicians of modest means becoming rich beyond their salaries in the course of their service.

My concern is that such riches are accumulated by the money-grubbing politicians by doing ‘favors’ to special interests that result in the misspending of public billions so that they can garner their private millions – ‘Always make as much as quickly as possible since you may be thrown out in the next election.’  I tend to favor the well-to-do politician over the pauper.  The well-off can afford to practice the ideology that they touted while running for office; that has been true since the days of our Founders.  And in general, these same folks are more likely to be better read and aware of what’s happening in the nation and the world.  By making politics a regular job for dedicated people, instead of a get rich quick career for hucksters, we would avoid double dummies like Maxine Waters and Hank Johnson (‘Guam would tip over.’) to decide public policies and how tax dollars should be spent.

[22aug18 update]  President Trump definitely had a bad day yesterday with the guilty pleas and findings of Cohen and Manafort.  Cohen’s pleading guilty on two counts of ‘election fraud’ for the payoffs to two women for their silence on their alleged encounters with citizen Donald Trump are politically most damaging, and possibly could even be legally damaging.  There the charge is that his payoffs to salvage his image as a candidate were really unreported and illegal spending to influence the election.  That’s now just an allegation by his former lawyer Cohen, but if it becomes a legal finding, then we have entered onto a very slippery slope that drops off to no one knows where.  Many people will then reasonably argue that any such unreported spending by a candidate to improve or maintain his image in the eyes of the voters would be judged an equally culpable attempt by the candidate to influence the election.  Qualifying acts of crime would then range from spending to have a facelift in order to appear younger to hiding monies spent for surreptitious medical procedures that cover up any sort of infirmity that would reduce the suitability of the candidate in the eyes of the electorate.  I could go on, but you get the picture that all of such ‘cosmetic applications’ would then come to question as possible criminal perpetrations of fraud.

[23aug18 update]  We note that our ever racially sensitive lamestream is totally ignoring the violent land grab by South Africa’s socialist cum communist government, taking without compensation the lands of people of the wrong skin color and giving it to those with the correct skin color.  It follows perfectly their far-left agenda – thou shalt not criticize collectivist policies no matter how incoherent.  The sad thing is the continued silence of our own feds both at State and the UN.

The Dems’ bankable bureaucrats are a gift that keeps giving.  The most recent is the timely revelation of Duncan Hunter (R-CA) embezzling campaign funds during 2009-16 that was tracked for months and could have been exposed long ago.  But such findings and announced indictments by a left-leaning deep state are not to be wasted, instead they are banked until the most fortuitous time for exposure.  I would like to see someone delve into possible communications between the investigators and the Dem leadership regarding the timing.  The decision when to release such valuable dirt was not made by some faceless snuffy in some faceless building.

The law and related jurisprudence is a foggy field that fills the coffers of charlatans aka lawyers who can argue equally any side of an issue that promises profit.  The example du jour is today’s circus of legal beagles buzzing about whether using personal funds for hush money is legal or not, even if the bought silence about a past non-criminal act may bear on the outcome of an election.  From here this seems like a straightforward question with an easy answer.  Instead, barristers from notable law schools take totally opposite positions on the media, so that viewers are left with more evidence that not only is justice blind, it is also totally arbitrary (ignorant?).  It isn’t the law that decides the matter, but them that can afford the best mouthpiece.  Exit question: do you really think that all the lawyers arguing the issue really believe what they are spouting, or are some of them in the bamboozle-for-bucks business?

Sandbox - 20aug18

[OK boys and girls, it's time to do exercises that "help our mental health the most" - and heaven knows we need a lot of help there these days.  I won't give away the punchline, but you can read all about it here.  gjr] 

‘Does Diversity Really Unite Us?’

George Rebane

The short answer to that important question is NO.  We have studied the arguments of scholars and thinkers on this for the life of RR and longer, and have found nothing to persuade us to abandon the blatantly obvious and common sense answer in the negative.   Unity is based on fundamental principles of cohesion – first and foremost, all peoples feel the greatest comfort, security, support from, and support for other people who in the aggregate share their beliefs and worldview.  The desire and willingness for such sharing has been the basis for assimilation and of America’s strength as an enduring idea, while other countries have sought to endure through maintaining their core ethnicity, no matter what form of governance they happen to fall under in the passage of time.  This belief is a fundamental tenet of what in these pages is filed under Rebane Doctrine.

I claim no originality here, but freely admit to being a student of my betters in such matters.  Most recently (11apr18) the distinguished political scientist and professor emeritus Edward J. Erler delivered a lecture on the titled subject to a national leadership seminar sponsored by Hillsdale College.  The transcript is also published in the July/August 2018 issue of the college’s widely read Imprimis.  From there I will excerpt some seminal points of Prof Erler’s talk.

… Progressive liberalism no longer views self-preservation as a rational goal of the nation-state. Rather, it insists that self-preservation and national security must be subordinate to openness and diversity. America’s immigration policies, we are told, should demonstrate our commitment to diversity because an important part of the American character is openness, and our commitment to diversity is an affirmation of “who we are as Americans.” If this carries a risk to our security, it is a small price to pay. Indeed, the willing assumption of risk adds authenticity to our commitment.

… Our progressive politicians and opinion leaders proclaim their commitment to diversity almost daily, chanting the same refrain: “Diversity is our strength.” 

… This should not be surprising. Greater diversity means inevitably that we have less in common, and the more we encourage diversity the less we honor the common good. Any honest and clear-sighted observer should be able to see that diversity is a solvent that dissolves the unity and cohesiveness of a nation—and we should not be deceived into believing that its proponents do not understand the full impact of their advocacy! (emphasis mine)

… The American people can, of course consent to allow others to join the compact that created the American nation, but they have the sovereign right to specify the terms and conditions for granting entry and qualifications for citizenship.

… Immigration policies should serve the interests of the American people and of the nation—they should not be viewed as acts of charity to the world. Putting America first is a rational goal. It is the essence of sovereignty. And the sovereign nation-state is the only home of citizenship—as it is the only home of constitutional government.

Attribution in Dialogues and Debates

George Rebane

Conversations and debates advance toward productive conclusions when each participant in turn builds on what has already been recognized – either expanding or rebutting, but most certainly acknowledging that a notion, idea, or report of a happening has already been presented and made part of the discussion thread.  Admittedly RR presents many topics in complex formats that rely on already established positions, multi-subject posts, single topic commentaries, and uncounted sandbox threads.  Recently it seems that more of us posting in these pages often arrive breathlessly, to introduce something they think is new to the current thread, that really turns out to have been posted as a preceding comment or the subject of one of my (often recent) posts.

Doing this is, well, not nice, because it places the just-arrived contributor under a narcissistic mantle – ‘I don’t care to discover what others have contributed to this thread, this is my most recent thought on the matter, and you all need to re/acquaint yourself with my thoughts on the topic.’  If we were all sitting in a comfortable room around a blazing hearth, flagons of brew and wine at hand, Harry would never dream of suddenly introducing, out of whole cloth, something that Sue had already brought to bear, and the group had already made some progress in its expansion or dispute.  In such case Harry would look either the inattentive fool or the self-centered ass seeking group credit for the contribution just because he was the most recent one to regurgitate it.

Having found another revealing citation or even one of his own brilliant thoughts, Harry would be embraced as a well-mannered and welcome contributor would he but utter something to the effect, ‘Sue brought up a (good, confusing, bad, informative, … ) notion on (topic) that I’d like to (expand, correct, support from a different perspective, dispute, …).’

I don’t claim to always be innocent of the above charges, but as one who has had a career in generating new ideas and building new things within fiercely competitive R&D communities, early on I had it pounded in to me that you ALWAYS acknowledge any and all primacy that is known to you.  When you do, people will respect you for your generosity and knowledge of the field, and will want to work with you or share things with you, knowing that they will never be made to stand in your shadow.  But if you don’t, … well then, ‘nuff said.

Our horizons are expanded by the shoulders on which we have gratefully been allowed to stand.

Ruminations – 17aug18 (updated 19aug18)

George Rebane

Obama’s PPD-20 has hamstrung America’s ability to defend and counter cyberattacks against us.  President Trump is recalling that Presidential Policy Directive to “ to push decision-making authority down the chain of command, could empower military officials to launch more frequent and more aggressive cyberattacks against adversaries like Russia and Iran.”  (more here)

2017 saw 72,287 opioid overdose deaths in the US.  That’s like a jumbo jet crashing every weekday, and it beggars stats on all other human-induced deaths like attributed to ‘gun violence’ and motor vehicle accidents.  America’s murder capital Chicago apparently leads the way here also with progressive policies stifling its LE agencies’ abilities to intervene.  Blacks account for more than 50% of opioid deaths, and, of course, gun deaths on Chicago’s streets.  Progressives care not a whit (actually spelled with an 's') for black lives; for them all such deaths are useful when recognized, and not to be wasted in blaming the whole thing on conservatives.

Arrest of ISIS terrorist and multiple re-entrant Omar Ameen in Sacramento confirms again that our immigrant vetting process is totally broken.  The feds admit that vetting a refugee depends on the story they tell, and not on any required 3^rd party documentation, which either does not exist or will not be provided if the refugee thinks it will be pejorative.  Counter to lamestream claims, President Trump has been correct in his assessment of this.

Russian online influence on America’s thinking about issues and candidates has turned out to be less than insignificant according to recent analysis of foreign placed ads and social media accounts, so reports Bruce Levey of the Institute for Justice (here).  He also points out what we've known for years, that we and other nations place such ads in each other’s jurisdictions whenever it suits our interests to attempt to influence other countries’ decisions.  Bottom line, Russia's influence in our 2016 election was bupkus.

Dumbest cartoon in a coon’s age was published in the 17aug18 Union.  Have no idea how this got by the newspaper’s editorial policy.  Nothing against the paper publishing anti-Trump stuff, but this contribution is simply butt stupid, and doesn’t reflect well on how The Union thinks of its readership.

[More]  Our intelligence institutions (including the retirees) are now totally political.  The letter signed by former intelligence heads claiming that Trump limited Brennan’s speech by revoking his clearance is both false and butt stupid or worse, evil since it is designed to bamboozle the tens of millions of light-thinking Americans.  As President Trump observed, Brennan’s voice will now be louder than ever.  Let’s see how long these newly minted politicians will keep up that spiel.

[18aug18 update]  In ‘The Press Abets a Coverup’ (18aug18 WSJ) Holman Jenkins contributes an incisive and revealing recounting of our intel community’s shenanigans designed to oppose Trump, but that plausibly gave him the necessary push over the top in 2016.

[19aug18 update]  Kudos to columnist (19aug18 Union) George Boardman for outing Mike Dent, director of the county's Department of Child Support, Collection and Housing.  Mr Dent is a prime exemplar of the double dummies ensconced in government.  He is seeking bids to build and operate a homeless shelter for the winter, but doesn't have a clue how much it costs to run such a shelter through the cold months - hence, no bids to build one.  It really irks me and many others that our tax monies have to be diluted to pay the salaries and retirement benefits for the likes of the mentally dented Dents out there.

Scattershots – 14aug18 (updated 15aug18)

You can get away with a lot of  illiberal theatrics and demands in a liberal society, and one of the great, eternal challenges for democratic governments is to figure out how much one can tolerate before the forces of illiberalism corrode the liberal order.  Jonah Goldberg (2018)

George Rebane

‘Google gives back’ gushes the 13aug18 Union reporting that the company “invests $100K (gasp!) for Nevada workforce development”.  The affair lasted one day and was a marketing event for the company’s business software under the guise of “helping Nevadans develop digital skills needed for job placement and advancement”, which ‘development’ in one day is a joke.  But it did give Reno’s JOIN, a government sponsored workforce development agency, a little feather in their cap – at least they’re doing something.  Meanwhile, Google got a real PR boost and advertising multiplier by spending less than they accidentally drop off their loading docks on any given day.  The real news to note was the mention of Nevada’s net yearly migration rate of 5.5% - #2 in the nation – ably boosted by emigrants from California driven out by our state’s butt stupid palette of public policies, regulations, and taxes.

Trump’s ‘the press is an enemy of the people’ understood contextually is something that has needed to be said and explained in more detail than possible in a punchline tweet.  The few center right news outlets, compared to the legions of leftwing outlets, survive primarily because of their outsized audiences who frequent them for the markedly more comprehensive coverage of what’s happening than is available in the carefully self-censored lamestream media.  A local confirmation of that over the years have been RR’s leftwing readers whose comments reveal that they first ‘hear’ of events, ideas, and happenings from RR commentaries and its commenters.  They then label and attack the same as products of a few isolated and fevered far-right brains from these foothills, being completely unaware of the related national reportage and debates.  If CNN, MSNBC, HuffPost, NYT, … didn’t cover it, then it never happened.  When such news coverage blankets the country, then Americans who are already overly challenged, under-educated, and busy with their daily affairs are effectively propagandized from one perversely ideological perspective.

Today's contribution from our cartoonist RL Crabb, filched from the pages of the 14aug18 Union, is a view from the purported mid-road vantage that appears to suffer a bit from Bob's ongoing bout with TDS.  I wonder what pinned dolls he would have pictured with Obama had he been so inclined.

Speaking of the lamestream’s promotion of the ‘white supremacist threat’, it turns out again that there is no such threat simply because the number of white supremacists in the country is insignificant.  Their only voice is the one manufactured and given to them by the Left which needs an ideological bogeyman against which to play their socialist siren song.  The weekend’s ‘Unite the Right 2’ march of the 20 gave ample evidence of that, as it also demonstrated the alt-Left’s ability to marshal mobs of counter demonstrators, numbering in the thousands, whose hate-filled prescriptions for the United States and its leadership were duly recorded on numerous videos, of course, not aired on the lamestream.

“Curmudgeon” nobelist VS Naipaul (Literature, 2001) died over the weekend.  Naipaul had the courage to observe that all cultures are not of equal worth or quality, and “unapologetically insisted on the universality of Western beliefs.”  For this he was vilified by progressives as a racist.  Naipaul identified “the idea of the individual, responsibility, choice, the life of the intellect, the idea of vocation and perfectibility and achievement” as the tenets of a “universal civilization” contributed by the west that stood in stark contrast to the Islamist world’s “philosophical hysteria”.  This hysteria has yet to be recognized and denounced by the Left, whose elitists see it as a manageable and existential force that can be used to weaken and bring down western civilization.

[15aug18 update] Sen Fauxcahontas Warren (D-CT) finally exposed her communist destination for us by introducing legislation in Congress that would launch the biggest government grab of private property in the country’s history.  She describes it in ‘Companies Shouldn’t Be Accountable Only to Shareholders’ in the 15aug18 WSJ.  There she instructs us that “American corporations exist only because the American people grant them charters. Those charters confer valuable privileges—such as limited legal liability for their owners—that enable businesses to turn a profit. What do Americans get in return?”  Well, for openers, the answer to that is EVERYTHING that we see around us.

Her Accountable Capitalism Act would remove corporations generating more than $1B annually from shareholder control and make them assume “fiduciary responsibilities beyond their shareholders”.  The new order would make such businesses into “benefit corporations” under a hodgepodge board and management structure which is guaranteed to completely truss up for-profit enterprises in new deep layers of regulation and litigation.  More specifically, “Benefit Corporations fundamentally change how a company is permitted to act. In addition to creating shareholder value like other for-profit companies, a Benefit Corporation must provide a general public benefit, namely, a material positive impact on society and the environment as a whole. Specific examples include providing low-income individuals or communities with beneficial products or services, preserving the environment, promoting economic opportunity, and improving health in the community.”

If that socialist cum communist has her way, then ‘Venezuela here we come’ will be the new tune on everyone’s lips.

The Democratic Party is now our openly declared socialist party in fact and deed.  It has finally realized the reason the Socialist Party of America closed its doors in 1956 – ‘the Democrats are adopting all of our social goals’ – as its former members migrated to their new political home.  Today, according to a just released Gallup poll, almost three of five Democrats view socialism favorably over capitalism, and confirm that ‘Democrats are Officially the Party of Socialism’.  But you can bet the farm that once they get back in power, they ain’t stopping there (see Fauxcahontas above).

Sandbox - 13aug18

[Would you attend a demonstration for something you support if you knew ahead of time that you would be outnumbered and confronted by thousands of counter-demonstrators with a history of fomenting violence and dedicated to silencing your viewpoint?  gjr]

The bigotry of the Left

George Rebane 

This post grew out of comments by one of our prominent leftwing readers who hides his identity under the letter M.  This commenter ascribed a quote by white nationalist leader Jason Kessler about the variation in IQ scores between individuals of various population groups. (more here)  M rejects such results (here) and considers such citations as evidence of “the Conservative Echo Chamber Revealed”.  The man(?) has persistently proven himself to be poorly informed, yet continues to demonstrate that deficit at every opportunity.

Bigot: a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially one who regards or treats the members of a group (such as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance. (Merriam-Webster)

I believe M and his ilk would have demonstrated against limited access roads (aka freeways) had he known that they were invented by/under Hitler.  He has left an ample trail in these pages to confirm him as a bigot according to the M-W definition.  While many RR commenters don’t agree with the full credos of white nationalists and, say, ‘black lives matter’ proponents, there is no evidence of hatred or intolerance here when debating their ideas.  Just because Kessler or Sharpton state something, should not mean that it must be rejected out of hand, and those vilified who happen voice agreement with that particular statement.  But that is not the way of bigots.

For those who share M’s deficits, the ranking of aggregate IQ scores among the various ethnic/racial groups has received the imprimatur of none less than the American Psychological Association, the largest and most prestigious professional organization of psychologists.  I summarized that ranking in ‘How many people do we really need?’  To show the wholesale bigotry of the progressive Left, they believe in uni-step that humans, a species that has measurable differences in all their attributes, cannot have them in certain politically prescribed dimensions, IQ being one of them.  And anyone who cites counter evidence or even proposes additional studies on the matter are labeled as racists and either attacked or summarily dismissed.  (more here)

We must always return to the sad fact that the orthodox Left is and has been the most sclerotic and unscientific ideology embraced on God’s green earth.  Wherever they have managed to seize the reins of government, they have inevitably hewn to policies that have repeatedly taken populations down the road to disaster and despair.  That is why in the best style and teachings of Saul Alinsky (Rules for Radicals), they loudly accuse their opposition of their own shortcomings.

The Liberal Mind Revealed – Example #439 (updated 11aug2018)

‘The beatings will stop when morale improves.’ – wall sign in forced labor camp

George Rebane

“Trained historian” Paul Moore’s piece in the 9aug18 Union argues that ‘Investigation is not done until you have all the evidence’.  I kid you not, this gentleman really has a mind that works out such logic.  And I can guarantee you that he also takes these cognitive powers into the voting booth.  Moreover, the saddest part is that Mr Moore is not some one-off in our community, nor in our beloved land.  There are millions like him out there with such neurological wiring, all working to fundamentally transform America.

Mr Moore starts out by taking Darrell Berkheimer’s 4aug18 column (here) to task for asking that Mueller conclude his investigation in a timely manner.  Our trained historian then lectures us that such investigations don’t and can’t have a natural or externally prescribed terminus.  Why?  Well, according to More, Mueller was tasked to dig up culpable evidence of Donald Trump’s criminal wrongdoings, so his logic inexorably leads him to to conclude that such evidence exists, and that the investigation’s natural conclusion should be when such evidence to impeach and indict President Trump is finally discovered.  In Mr More’s universe the probability is one (certainty) that Trump is guilty, the evidence of that guilt exists, and is yet to be discovered.

In that same universe there is no concept of investigations which continue to turn up negative results will also lower the likelihood that the sought for evidence actually exists.  Specifically, the Mores of the world don’t understand the notion that the longer an ongoing investigation comes up empty, the lower the chances that it will ultimately come up with the sought for evidence.  The converse of that is that the longer an investigation produces no evidence, the higher the probability that no such evidence exists.  In more reasonable worlds, such demonstrably barren investigations have been regularly terminated as a matter of course.  But today, people of Mr Moore’s ideologically constrained capacity can conclude only that the reason no such evidence has been found is that we haven’t yet looked long enough.  So it appears that Mueller’s people have landed in some very attractive federally paid sinecures, charged with conducting a nationally divisive, perennial investigation that can terminate only after having found “all the evidence” of a criminal or treasonous conspiracy required to indict and convict a sitting president.

[11aug18 update]  In the sense of full disclosure, I need to again remind readers (especially those of the leftward tilt) that I am a child, student, and defender of western civilization.  And when we talk of nationalism, I am a nationalist who conforms to Merriam-Webster’s definition.

Nationalism: loyalty and devotion to a nation; especially: a sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups.

Now the logic of the local lefties immediately extends those declarations to people who are therefore necessarily oppose non-western civilizations, and who actively and without cause suppress the interests of other nations.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  As an occidentaphile, I become a defender only when western civilization is suppressed and/or attacked.  Else, as a conservetarian I promote diversity in the Westphalian sense, since such diversity underpins global decentralization of knowledge and control, and provides the world with multifarious ongoing experiments in governance so that all can see what works and what doesn’t.  (Also known historically among our several states as the Great Experiment.)

In the same sense I am an American nationalist when other countries, geo-political institutions, and/or those seeking an extra-constitutional transformation of our country seek to suppress, abbreviate, or attack American interests – the prime being its endurance on the American landmass as the sovereign constitutional republic which was bequeathed to us by our Founders, and which we have defended with our blood and treasure over the centuries.

Now, since I am white, which is an acknowledged ‘race’ by non-whites, am I automatically then a white nationalist?  Not necessarily, when we study its broadly accepted non-partisan definition.

White nationalism is a type of nationalism or pan-nationalism that holds the belief that white people are a race and seeks to develop and maintain a white national identity.  Its proponents identify with and are attached to the concept of a white nation.  White nationalists say they seek to ensure the survival of the white race, and the cultures of historically white states. They hold that white people should maintain their majority in majority-white countries, maintain their political and economic dominance, and that their cultures should be foremost.

As my apologetics over the years attest, I am therefore not a white nationalist, since I don’t consider culture to be race-dependent as is obvious by the worldwide acceptance of the major tenets of western culture by people from all races and backgrounds.  By various kinds of ongoing intercourse, all cultures and races have evolved, homogenized, and will continue doing so as we trade and mate with each other.  All forms of ‘racial purity’ will be erased sooner or later, if that has not already happened.  What people (of all races) like me oppose are the rapid fundamental transformations of their cultures and nations implemented through fraud or force as dictated by ideological cohorts working to overturn the established (traditional?) order that is accepted by a free people.  And all such bets on tolerance are off when we encounter threatening tyrannies who unabashedly abolish the Bastiat Triangle of rights.

Bar to Employment is Lowered

George Rebane

[This is the transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 8 August 2018.]

Used to be that for most jobs you had to show some serious education and experience in your background in addition to good appearance and character.  And things really got tougher during the depths of our last recession, employers could be real picky about whom they hired.  Well things have now changed, and the change confirms the new growth track that our economy has taken since the 2016 election.

According to some leading staffing firms, we hear of companies now hiring people, not necessarily on the basis of what they know, but how motivated and teachable they appear to be.  One such large firm “estimates one in four of (its over 10,000) employer clients have made drastic changes to their recruiting process since the start of the year, such as skipping drug tests or criminal background checks, or removing preferences for a higher degree or high-school diploma.”  Of course, one demonstration of teachability and motivation is what kind of skillsets you’ve been able to garner on your own.  (more here)

Several staffing firms are even turning down clients who are not aware of today’s jobs landscape, and refuse to budge on tight salaries, required education, and relevant experience.  Their message to such employers is “we can’t help you fish for the few underpaid or unaware applicants (still) left out there.”

Before we start celebrating this new twist in the employment picture, let’s consider the kind of people, specifically voters, that such hiring practices will produce.  Pre-educated hires will be taught a very narrow and focused set of skills in their new workplaces – initially, just enough to do the job.  From where would they then get the breadth that a broader education provides about our country, societal issues, basic civics, and fields other than the one in which they have landed?  My concern is that prematurely terminating an education will produce a lot of what may be called one-tune piano players – good at what they do, but knowledgeable in little else.

We already see examples of that when we look at today’s wealthy and prominent entrepreneurs who quit school early, pursued their dreams, and were successful beyond their wildest hopes.  And now that they’re rich, their uninformed opinions on matters way outside their fields are valued as if they were oracles on Mt Olympus.  But the overwhelming fraction of today’s young early hires will not become rich, and they will have to pick up their broader knowledge of the rest of the world and its happenings from backyard BBQ conversations, and whatever time they can spare after work from family and TV.  Not a promising path to becoming an intelligent voter, and a very promising way to become someone who will base their vote on a silver-tongued politician’s unexamined and most recently broadcast sound bite.

So let’s turn the page from this hiring surge and consider what more and more experts are saying about the longer term prospects for jobs, people who understand the increasing role of intelligent machines in the workplace.  As you have heard in these commentaries, machines are replacing humans at an increasing rate in all kinds of tasks imaginable.  In the latest (7aug18) issue of Forbes, Dr Kiran Garimella, chief scientist & CTO at a high-tech company, writes ‘Job Loss From AI?  There’s More to Fear’.  He points out that we have already started the transition from human to machine workers.  And the skills most “immune to AI” are also “the most impervious to mandatory formal training methods because they stem from innate passion or prodigy-like natural skills. Examples are higher math, theoretical physics, the higher levels of art and music, and so on.”  In short, not too many of us are blessed with those passions and natural skills, and even those workers will see “their role will become either minimal or move up the cognitive scale.”

Personal relevance remains the overarching issue.  Contented people have always found a good answer to ‘what do I do that sustains the community of which I am a part?’  When that question no longer has an answer, then social order becomes brittle, and all futures look uncertain and not very promising.  How many voters even now understand enough to prepare for such a future?

My name is Rebane, and I also expand on this and related themes on Rebane’s Ruminations where the transcript of this commentary is posted with relevant links, and where such issues are debated extensively.  However, my views are not necessarily shared by KVMR.  Thank you for listening.

Sandbox - 8aug18

[Here is the latest on the real 2016 collusion AND conspiracy with foreigners (British and Russians) that was designed, bought, and paid for by Hillary and the DNC to derail the Trump campaign.  Since there is no evidence of the obverse, why are not Hillary and the DNC being investigated?  gjr]

The Ninth Circuit Court on CCW and Open Carry

George Rebane

Recently a three-judge panel of the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the “U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment guarantees a right to openly carry a gun in public for self-defense, finding that Hawaii overstepped its authority to regulate firearms possession outside the home.” (more here)

This ruling brought up questions on how we Californians, especially those with Concealed Carry Weapon permits, will be impacted.  Since CCW permits are issued by county sheriffs, in a private communication I asked our Nevada County Sheriff Keith Royal –

1. Will current non-CCW permit holders in California now have open-carry included in their 2^nd Amendment rights?
2. What is the impact of the present rulings on existing Nevada County CCW policy?
3. Will California’s sheriffs come out with one unified coherent interpretation of how this impacts our 2^nd Amendment rights, or will we wind up with county-specific interpretations that may or not arbitrarily criminalize the unwary who cross county boundaries, or will everyone remain silent on the matter and let Californians just take chances sorting it out by themselves (sort of like the MJ situation between feds, state, and counties)?

With Sheriff Royal’s permission I share his response with our readers –

“Our current laws stay in effect until a court of competent jurisdiction finds the laws of the State unconstitutional or the laws are changed by the legislature.  Our State Sheriff’s attorney has advised us that the case was remanded back to the trial court to proceed.  Chances are that the case will again end up back before the 9th Circuit for an “en banc” panel review, and based on the outcome, may invalidate California’s current laws and/or then be appealed to the US Supreme Court for final determination.  We have been advised things remain status quo at this time.  Stand by to stand by. … As an FYI, the 9th indicated that the 2nd Amendment does not pertain to or cover CCW’s.  We’ll just (have) to wait to see how it all works out.”

Due to the sheriff’s last observation about the 2A and CCWs, I offered that “it does cause me a bit of puzzlement why the 9th indicated that the 2A doesn’t pertain to cover CCWs.  CCW permit holders are the most law-abiding people in the land according to FBI crime stats.  Sworn LE officers have a very low crime rate, but one that is still SIX times higher than that of CCW holders, and the 2A doesn’t cover (them)?”  Sheriff Royal’s response to this was - 

“Interestingly, the three judge panel were all repub. appointees. I think when this issue comes back to the 9th, they’ll render an opposing decision because the majority of that court is liberal leaning thus forcing the issue to the Supreme Court. In light of the soon to be composition of the Supreme court, you may see the ultimate decision be supportive of open carry.”

So, per Sheriff Royal’s counsel, the open carry and CCW provisions will remain unchanged, and it will be business as usual as we “stand by to stand by.”  Question asked and answered.

Scattershots – 4aug18 (updated 8aug18)

“It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know that just ain't so.”  Mark Twain, et al

George Rebane

Leftwing columnist Darrell Berkheimer makes his occasional foray into substantive socio-political subjects and blows it again.  In his ‘Will Violence or a Funeral End Incendiary Talk’ (4aug18 Union), the man demonstrates his limited abilities in spades.  He blames today’s politically polarized incendiaries as being solely fomented by President Trump, and executed by rightwingers.  His evidence?  He can only cite the reception of CNN’s extremely virulent leftwing journalist Acosta at a Trump rally who was greeted with shouts of ‘CNN sucks!’, and then some crazy individual (political affiliation unknown) with a bat smashing a TV station’s car.  And there ends his research into the country’s political incendiaries.  He is totally blind to the literally hundreds of incitements from the political left and leftwing public confrontations that by charitable estimates are practiced around 50:1 by Democrat politicians, journalists, and leftwing street mobs.  Nowhere are mentioned such Congress critters as Maxine Waters and Lizzy Warren, and NYT editor Sarah Jeong.  Nowhere does he see the Left’s countless demonstrations and thuggery performed in office buildings, at neighborhood residences, in stores, on blocked streets, college campuses, classrooms and auditoriums, … .  It’s only the Right that is the progenitor and practitioner of hate speech and violent confrontations.  But then, we have never expected anything more from Mr Berkheimer.

The cost in lives and cash of natural and political disasters has declined markedly under the post-war world order led and maintained by America.  The Left would have us believe that all has been going the other way, and they have published reams of fake factual lies to make their case.  The real fact of the matter has been studied and documented by more sober analysts like the late Swedish statistician Hans Rosling, of the Gapminder Foundation documented in his Factfulness (2018).  It turns out that death rates and property losses have plummeted as the world has grown more populous, densely packed, and with enormously more stuff at risk since WW2.  This reality does not fit well into the anti-capitalist progressive narrative, so it has been both suppressed and redecorated into an ongoing political and journalistic barrage to convince the light thinkers and otherwise engaged of exactly the opposite.  It’s easier to argue for more central planning, control, taxes, and regulations if you can make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse. (more here)

[6aug18 update]  As many have known for some years, the alternative energy source biofuel mandates have not lived up to their hype.  The EPA recently released its ‘Biofuels and the Environment: The Second Triennial Report to Congress’. (access here)  It turns out that all the extra thousands of acres of corn and soybeans planted to make the ethanol based fuels are “wreaking havoc on the atmosphere and soil” (more here).  So what was initially sold as another feel good alternative to fossil fuels has just had its list of dirty laundry extended by none other than the agency that has been champion of cleaning up the environment.  This is nothing new, the problems with biofuels have been known and reported for years – here’s a 2008 piece from none other than The Washington Post.  But somehow the Left’s narrative on the negative effects of biofuels hasn’t been affected by these longstanding findings.  It seems that environmental quality is really not that high on the progressives’ agenda.  I wonder what their real objective is.

[7aug18 update]  US land use is an important piece of knowledge for the noggins of those of us debating public policies in these pages.  A reader sent me this link (here) to a Bloomberg news piece that has a whole lot of land use information presented in an interesting graphical format.  Be sure to puzzle on it for the upcoming quiz.

Hilary Hodge is returning to politics after losing in a close race to Supervisor Dan Miller in the June primary. (more here) She will next try to get on the Grass Valley City Council, and she’ll be bringing all her qualifications, enthusiasm, and outside support to her next attempt to enter the local political game.  As most people who recall her Union autobiographical columns know, the lady is woefully short on private sector economics and work experience.  She would greatly bolster her resume and ability to serve the public were she able to show that someone took money out of his own pocket to pay her for demonstrating some productive skills in the job market.  But as most of us have come to know, politicians don’t have to have experience in the private sector before regulating and legislating for it.

[8aug18 update]  The Left (including some locals) claim that the real accomplishment at the 9jun16 Trump Tower meeting with the Russian lawyer was an agreement for the Russians to release Hillary’s emails that were sent and received on her private email server.  However, those emails began to be released prior to 2016 to all, including Wikileaks, by our State Dept, not the Russians.  Wikileaks collected these emails and made them available in a searchable online archive with the included statement – On March 16, 2016 WikiLeaks launched a searchable archive for over 30 thousand emails & email attachments sent to and from Hillary Clinton's private email server while she was Secretary of State. The 50,547 pages of documents span from 30 June 2010 to 12 August 2014. 7,570 of the documents were sent by Hillary Clinton. The emails were made available in the form of thousands of PDFs by the US State Department as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request. More PDFs were made available on February 29, 2016, and a set of additional 995 emails was imported up to February 2, 2018.

So it seems that to plan the release of the purported (not confirmed by our intelligence) Russia-hacked Hillary emails after their release had already commenced is a moot argument designed for people not versed in the use of calendars. (more here)

However, our intelligence people state that Russia did hack the DNC email server, and purloined over 100,000 emails with much embarrassing information about the internal operations of the Democratic Party and by Democrat bigwigs. (more here) These were first released to DCLeaks in June 2016 and then later in July 2016 to Wikileaks.  None have claimed that any of these emails were doctored or contained false information.  And no one has tied the Trump campaign to the acquisition and/or release of these emails to the public at large.  All we have is a daily stream of allegations through and by the lamestream that somehow Donald Trump was behind the whole thing since Hillary lost.  And today Mueller stands ready to indict the entire White House in a week or two - as Eliza assured us, 'Just you wait 'Enri 'Iggins, just you wait!'  And waiting we still are.

Sandbox - 3aug18

[A reader sent me a link that reminds us that the contention that a large fraction of Democrat voters are developmentally challenged is actually a fundamental truth that the Democratic leadership and liberal elites jealously believe in and fight/oppose public policies that will expose its fallacy.  Yes, it is the Dem leadership and elites who believe that their constituents are simply too dumb to figure out how to get voter IDs (more here).  gjr]

Cato on Immigration and Open Borders (updated 3aug18)

If Democrats don't want foreigners involved in our elections, why do they think it's OK for illegals to vote?

George Rebane

The Cato Institute is the nation’s foremost libertarian thinktank.  It has a long record of publishing well thought out and researched policy analyses which it freely makes available on its website.  I have now and again cited their research, and even a few of their opinion commentaries, although I don’t always agree with all their libertarian viewpoints – that is why I call myself a conservetarian.

Yesterday (31jul18) Dr Jeffrey Miron, Cato’s Director of Economic Studies and director of undergraduate economics studies at Harvard, published a commentary in USA Today titled ‘Forget the Wall Already, It’s Time for the U.S. to Have Open Borders’.  In it he argues that the US should open its borders to allow free ingress and egress to one and all with no interference or mediating actions by our government.  When I read Miron’s piece I was shocked at what appears to be an insane policy proposal by an organization which the Rebanes have supported for years.  I still don’t know whether this is Miron opining on his own, or announcing Cato’s considered policy on borders and immigration.

The main takeaway from my now several readings are that his proposed policy will end America as we know it in literally all dimensions. Open borders will do away with the sovereign nation-state, the first attribute of which is that it controls transit across its borders, and what goes on within those borders.  This is the fundamental tenet of the Westphalian order under which the international order has been conducted since 1648.

The United States, and any country for that matter, with such open borders will quickly experience the full brunt of the tragedy of the commons (cf Garrett Hardin) as people across the globe make their way into America in the attempt to enjoy our economy, freedoms, and social welfare programs.  The duration of such happy times will end very quickly as Americans of all political hues realize what a tragic mistake we have made as the country’s institutions begin to collapse.  (more here and here)

And such migrations will be doubly disastrous if the borderless world envisioned by Miron comes to pass.  Miron promotes global government with central planning and control taken to the limit.  And he naively asks us to believe that massive cross cultural human movements will not immediately require draconian control measures put in force to stop lawlessness and riots on a scale never before witnessed on this planet.  Miron is unaware that for good reason nature abhors monolithic structures of control and repositories of data/knowledge.  What the man advocates across the world is nothing less than the end of civilizations with a Mad Max world contending with Big Brother trying to maintain control.

I annotated Professor Miron’s commentary.  You can download the annotated pdf file and read it in your Acrobat reader if you wish.  Download Forget the Wall Already - GJR

[3aug18 update]  Here It’s again worth pointing out that the Right believes America to be exceptional because of the system of governance and commerce our Founders bequeathed us.  The Left continues to tell us that America is not exceptional, it is evil, and that our system must be changed.  Now the rest of the world, especially those who vote with their feet, fervently believe that America is indeed most exceptional since they are willing to leave everything and risk everything to enter our land by hook or crook.  So here’s the ongoing contradiction that the Left and the so-called centrists ignore – since by the world’s vote America is exceptional, and yet by the Left’s argument it was not our social systems that made us so, then the only explanation that remains is the racist one that it was the white Europeans and their melded cultures rewarding work and risk that have made America the most desired destination on this planet.

This explains the Left’s insane (and racist) assault on western culture and America as the exceptional sovereign nation-state.  Our continued existence as a capitalistic country populated by a free and entrepreneurial people flies in the face of everything that the Left preaches in our schools, throughout our public forums, and in concert with our enemies around the world.

Today’s Employment and Entrepreneurship

George Rebane

So here’s the drill.  In our risibly insane land we have the following three factors in some kind of convoluted and crazy collision when it comes to work and making workplaces.

In today’s economy unfilled jobs abound by the millions.  Construction jobs not requiring a college education are near the top of the list, and would be an ideal place for young people to get into the workplace and even make an excellent career of it.  But our young have been rejecting these opportunities at ever greater rates.  Laura Kusisto tells us that “Disinterest in construction work is contributing to a labor shortage that has meant fewer homes built and rising prices—possibly for years to come” in her 31jul18 piece ‘Young People Don’t Want Construction Jobs. That’s a Problem for the Housing Market’.   The numbers tell the story – “nationally, the share of young construction workers declined nearly 30% from 2005 through 2016”.

Then we have progressives in urban areas doing all they can to raise minimum wages in their cynical campaign to keep their constituents on the plantation.  It has been known for over half-century that raising minimum wages destroys exactly the jobs that allow the young and poor to enter the workforce and/or start climbing out of poverty.  But today where in the Trump economy the unemployment rates for minorities are at historical lows, liberal politicians are even invoking the Constitution to provide the fundamental argument for raising minimum wages.  Jason Riley of the Manhattan Institute explains the matter in his ‘Does the Constitution Mandate Minimum Wage Hikes?’, as he describes “a misguided court ruling (that) ignores the history of labor laws intended to keep blacks from working.”

And finally, we have to consider the best part of our overall immigration problem.  Professor Edward Lazear of Stanford looks at what kind of immigrants benefit America the most and serve our country’s national interests.  The answer, he presents with numbers to match, are the young and educated who are standing in line for legal immigration into the US.  These are the people who overwhelmingly will fill valuable jobs to keep America competitive, and these are the same future Americans who will start the businesses and enterprises to keep the country prosperous and generate jobs for us natives who are not so prone to undertake the risks of entrepreneurship.  In his ‘Send Us Your Young, Your Educated’ Lazear argues that “there is an excess supply of potential immigrants.  The US should be smart about whom it chooses.”

But half of our country is either too cynical or lacks understanding of why America should continue to grow and prosper as the world’s font of capitalism and free enterprise.  Their progressive narrative calls first and foremost for admitting immigrants who will become reliable leftwing voters and dilute extant American culture on the way to something economically and socially more like the country from which they chose to flee.  And the last thing these same socialists wish to promote are public policies that shrink the plantation by enabling more people, especially minorities, to lead lives that don’t depend on regular checks from the government.