Scattershots – 14jun19 (updated 20jun19)

George Rebane

Proto-socialists on parade.  I noticed in the 14jun19 Union’s lead op-ed another example of a good-hearted, light-thinker wailing about our country’s unequal distribution of wealth, and its pitifully inadequately small government.  A Ms Becky Goodwin laments that no “millionaire” attended her kids’ college graduations to pay off their student loans, and why should such largess be a sometime thing instead of a universal benefit across the land.  She gives no evidence of understanding how such inequalities contribute to the overall wealth and weal of a nation.  As a devoted leftist, she eschews private charities and wants all such benefits to come from a much larger government that gets such monies from taxing the bejeezus out of rich folks who just happened to belong to what was known as the middle class (more here).  The country is chock full of these proto-socialist Beckys who deny the label but would eagerly vote for every Bernie, AOC, and Green New Deal that comes their way.

Growing populism and middle-class anger.  If there’s any hope for liberal governments, then it may well begin with what VDH summarizes in his ‘Why Are the Western Middle Classes So Angry?’  He outlines six “gripes” that are also part of RR’s mantra –

• Illegal immigration and open borders have caused institutional chaos and cultural compromises – e.g. multicultural identity politics.
• Globalization that has enriched Western elites who have “outsourced, offshored, and ignored their own industries and manufacturing.”
• The viral explosion of unelected bureaucrats at all levels of government consisting of sinecured, feedback-proof regulators, planners, auditors, inspectors, and adjustors.
• The global lamestream media reaching and indoctrinating billions rather than practicing what was known as ethical journalism.
• The post-educational academia that now functions as a “shrill agent of cultural transformation … charging more for less learning.”
• “Utopian social planning”, a la Agenda21, that has “increased housing, energy, and transportation costs.”

VDH concludes that “because elites have no answers to popular furor, the anger directed at them will only increase until they give up—or finally succeed in their grand agenda of a non-democratic, all-powerful Orwellian state.”

Who ‘Deserves’ to Go to Harvard?, asks our favorite Heather MacDonald of the Manhattan Institute (see also here).  This paragon of academia, that enjoys a $39,000,000,000 endowment made possible only through the largess of western capitalism, is now teaching its students that, in fact, capitalism contains “systemic inequities”, and the “capitalist ethos” is false because it teaches that “we deserve to win because of our skill, our hard work, and our contributions.”  Not at all, maintains Dean Rakesh Khurana, because in reality capitalism is a zero-sum game that rewards its players simply on the roll of Fortuna’s dice – remember “you didn’t build that”.  Khurana most recently disseminated this blather at Harvard’s commencement in a speech which pointedly ignored that his “parents emigrated to the U.S. from India, one of the events leading him to conclude that at least 85% of his current status is due to circumstances beyond his control. His parents presumably came to the U.S. because they saw opportunity, not “systemic inequities.” That opportunity arises from Western civilization’s accomplishments: the rule of law, property rights, freedom of expression and inquiry, and the relative absence of corruption—all matters about which Mr. Khurana was silent. This civilizational inheritance allows social mobility and wealth creation unimaginable in most of the non-Western world.”  Read MacDonald’s article for the full story.  (H/T to correspondent)

‘Socialist’ Nordics are moving toward private healthcare – what a revoltin’ development!  As we have reported for years, free healthcare is unsustainable, and its dive into the mud is slowed only by providing fewer and slower services.  The answer to it is - seatbelts please - private healthcare funded through private health insurance.  Daily Signal reports that quiet trend has been going on for years with increases in such insurance purchases by 7% of Norwegians, 4% of Swedes, and leading the way, 22% of Danes who have been able to augment their ‘free’ healthcare.  A good piece, that covers what is offered to whom, when, and for how much in various countries our socialists are trying to emulate, is detailed here.

[17jun19 update] Our broken Constitution and legal system.  SCOTUS upheld the cynical double jeopardy provision that our Constitution specifically prohibits.  The Daily Caller reports,  “The Fifth Amendment’s double jeopardy clause prohibits multiple prosecutions for the same offense. An exception to this rule called the separate sovereigns doctrine allows state and federal governments to bring successive prosecutions for the same crime. Monday’s decision leaves the doctrine in place, meaning any person Trump pardons remains exposed to state prosecutions.”  The only reasonable conclusion here is that our Constitution does not apply equally to the federal government and those of the several states.  The ‘separate sovereigns doctrine’ and the entire quagmire of a sub-rosa administrative law legal system give continued evidence that our legal system is both broken and corrupt.

Cap & Trade slush fund.  Years ago when CO2 cap & trade was first proposed, I and my fellow climate change skeptics predicted that such monies would soon be used for all kinds of other progressive vote-buying give-aways by Sacramento.  Well, that day has arrived (more here).  The scumbags in the state legislature, who have claimed CA is flush with cash, can’t hide the truth any longer and have to go after money wherever they can find to fund their follies, or just to keep minimal government services going.  RR readers, of course, know what the response of the local lefties was to such predictions. (H/T to reader)

[20jun19 update]  My new favorite communist is Umair Haque. I have reported on his virulently anti-American essays before.  This prolific, yet amazingly ignorant, ultra-left ideologue is published regularly on Medium.com which is an outlet primarily by and for Millennials, and therefore deserves a regular look-see by those seeking to keep up on their thought and sentiments.  Umair’s (that’s how he signs himself) latest mind bending contributions are ‘(Why) There Was No Jackpot at the End of Capitalism’s Rainbow’, ‘The Pattern of the 21^st Century is Predatory Collapse’,  and ‘The Soviet Union of Capitalism’.  Enjoy your visit.

Comments

[Don Bessee]

Oh my, a non-socialist heath care improvement whoda thunk -

https://www.foxbusiness.com/healthcare/trump-administration-pre-tax-accounts-health-insurance-coverage

;-)

[Don Bessee]

The hammer is coming down in conjunction with the mexico accord!

He’ll be a border czar, he’ll be very much involved with the border, he’ll be reporting directly to me, he’ll be probably be working out of the White House but probably spending a lot of time at the border,” Trump said. “He’s a good man. Done a good job.”

Homan served as the acting director of ICE in the Trump administration in 2017 before he joined Fox News Channel as a contributor in August 2018.

Trump noted that he was bringing in other “tough” people to handle immigration, such as Mark Morgan to lead ICE and Ken Cuccinelli at the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/06/14/donald-trump-announces-tom-homan-as-border-czar/

;-)

[Don Bessee]

And so the asymmetric attacks continue to roll -

berg) -- A group of hackers that shut down a Saudi Arabian oil and natural gas facility in 2017 is now targeting electric utilities, according to the cybersecurity company Dragos Inc.

The group, Xenotime, has been probing utilities in the U.S. and Asia-Pacific regions since late 2018, Hanover, Maryland-based Dragos said in a blog post Friday. They’ve focused mostly on electronic control systems that manage the operations at industrial sites, Dragos said.

U.S. officials have long warned grids are acutely vulnerable to cyber attacks. Disrupting a region’s electrical infrastructure could cause widespread chaos, triggering blackouts and crippling financial markets, transportation systems and more.

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/hackers-that-took-down-saudi-oil-site-probing-u-s-power-grid-1.1273504

;-)

[Bill Tozer]

This may not fit under VDH’s piece or “Who Deserves to go to Harvard” but it is the most inspiring 3 minute video I have seen on Western Civilization and why so many are deeply distraught over the movement to erase it from the face of our modern culture.

Douglas Murray is the brilliant author of The Strange Death of Europe. Everything he writes is worth reading and everything he has to say is worth hearing. Someone put his thoughts together in this most elegant video. Highly recommended for a Sunday morning.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=145&v=RN2feGKyOdA

[George Rebane]

BillT 935am - That link takes you to a Noam Chomsky interview Mr Tozer. Correction please.

[Bill Tozer]

Dr. Rebane @ 10:45 am

Worked fine just now. Maybe the last person linked to Norm off the link. A great mystery. Ok, I will hit it from another angle. Your wish is my commando. 2 min, 49 sec.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RN2feGKyOdA

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/06/meaning-western-civilization.php

[Bill Tozer]

Good Doc

Mystery solved. I had autoplay on, which means Norm was up next.

[George Rebane]

BillT - Thx Mr Tozer, very enjoyable.

[George Rebane]

We note the absolute silence from the proponents of nationalized healthcare. They've known for years that what they are proposing is unsustainable and that the EU countries are all looking for a way out before their programs break the bank and/or start street riots for providing inadequate 'free' healthcare. To them, this has made no nevermind.

[Bill Tozer]

Re: ProtoSocialists on Parade and Denmark healthcare, education, taxes.

It is getting more apparent that Bernie’s main mission right now is to teach America that socialism is a good thing. It’s splendid idea. Socialism is good.He is out there full time softening up any opposition to the idea among his biggest base, i e, dumb kids who got dumber at our liberal colleges. He is not talking about Russia or Cuba mind you, he is talking Nordic-like socialism. Good socialism as opposed to bad socialism.

From a Dane

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tzEPKrHalaY

[George Rebane]

Thank you Mr Tozer for that excellent dissertation on Denmark.

[Bill Tozer]

Long read....scenes would have loved it.

The Empty Radicalism of the Climate Apocalypse

“And yet, as my imagined narrative of a climate change presidency illustrates, what is striking about the Green New Deal and similar proposals coming from climate hawks and left-leaning environmentalists is not their radicalism but their modesty.”.....

“If one believed that the climate crisis was already under way and that the world had only a decade or so not only to stop the growth of emissions but to slash them deeply, an emergency mobilization to rapidly cut carbon dioxide emissions would seemingly be the only sane response. But the apocalyptic rhetoric, endless demands for binding global temperature targets, and radical-sounding condemnations of neoliberalism, consumption, and corporations only conceal how feeble the environmental climate agenda actually is. The vagueness and modesty of the Green New Deal is not proof that progressives and environmentalists are closet socialists. It is, rather, evidence that most climate advocates, though no doubt alarmed, don’t actually see climate change as the immediate and existential threat they suggest it is.”

https://issues.org/the-empty-radicalism-of-the-climate-apocalypse/

[Bill Tozer]

Proto-Socialists on Parade

Like the AP—Warren, Sanders, and the Post focus on state funding, which declined after the Great Recession. However, they fail to mention that federal funding rose by more than state funding declined. Looking at the big picture, data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis shows that inflation-adjusted government spending per college student has risen by nearly three times over the past century and is currently greater than it has ever been:

“Perhaps most importantly, even among graduates of 4-year colleges, many are not learning practical skills that increase their productivity, which is the main driver of living standards. In 2014, Professor Richard Arum of New York University and Assistant Professor Josipa Roksa of the University of Virginia published a study using the Collegiate Learning Assessment to measure the “critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing skills” of 1,666 full-time students who entered 4-year colleges in the fall of 2005 and graduated in the spring of 2009. The authors found that if the test “were rescaled to a one-hundred-point scale, approximately one-third of students would not improve more than one point over four years of college.”

Whatever the ultimate causes may be, the facts are clear that students, parents, and taxpayers have paid increasingly more for higher education, with dubious results. Yet, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and various media outlets are misleading the public about these issues while calling for taxpayers to provide even more money.

https://www.justfactsdaily.com/leading-progressives-blame-the-wrong-culprit-for-rising-college-costs/