Rebane's Ruminations

Scattershots – 28mar21 (updated 1apr21)

Why promote a minimalist government – “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.”  Thomas Sowell

George Rebane

I have to get a few things down for the record.  There is so much absolute crap coming out of the Biden administration that it’s really impossible to log all of it.

Dark Days Diary – 25mar21

The day our elected officials hid the efficacy of Hydroxychloroquine, it confirmed they would kill us to beat President Trump.  Never forget the evil we are fighting.  Racy Sicilian echoing RR

George Rebane

Dr Scott W Atlas, senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, asks ‘Science, Politics, and COVID: Will Truth Prevail?’ in the Feb2021 issue of the Imprimis.  My short answer takeaway is NO.  The C19 public information cesspool has become so soiled and sullied over the last year that it is easy to believe over 90% of Americans have little or no idea of what the true course of the pandemic has been and what ‘science’ has really had to say about the public response policies implemented across the land.  Dr Atlas, an internationally recognized expert in the relevant fields required to make sense of what’s been going on, writes –

First, I have been shocked at the unprecedented exertion of power by the government since last March—issuing unilateral decrees, ordering the closure of businesses, churches, and schools, restricting personal movement, mandating behavior, and suspending indefinitely basic freedoms. Second, I was and remain stunned—almost frightened—at the acquiescence of the American people to such destructive, arbitrary, and wholly unscientific rules, restrictions, and mandates.

As these pages record, it’s his second point that has concerned me over the years since the Obama administration.  In the large, we Americans no longer act as inheritors of the greatest legacy of liberty and freedoms bequeathed in human history by our more stout-hearted forebears.  We have become a population of state-succored serfs, compliantly accepting every government instituted ratchet that incrementally proscribes our spirit as a liberty-loving people.

Given the social goals of the Democrat Party and its newly adopted radical leftwing political posture, I fault the Republican Party for letting down America with its ongoing sanguine acceptance of the socialist/communist diktats issued by the Left.  The relinquishing of its position as the active and visible leader of the nation’s political opposition has left a power vacuum that can and will be filled by ad hoc factions of conservative and libertarian Americans with nowhere else to turn.  This is leading us in a potentially dangerous direction as Dr Atlas concludes –

With social media acting as the arbiter of allowable discussion, and with continued censorship and cancellation of those with views challenging the “accepted narrative,” the United States is on the verge of losing its cherished freedoms. It is not at all clear whether our democratic republic will survive—but it is clear it will not survive unless more people begin to step up in defense of freedom of thought and speech.

I urge you to read the entire piece and then contact your local and national political critters.  If you’re a Democrat, ask them to review the history of collectivist regimes and the equal opportunity misery they have instituted over their nations.  And if you’re a Republican, tell your representatives to read the party’s platform, then get off their collective asses and provide some active leadership that will rally Main Street to recognize and resist our headlong rush to autocracy.  In short, since our Left is cutting the Right no slack, tell them to tell it like it is, and cut the ‘go along to get along’ crap.

Sandbox - 24mar21

[Seeing what Bumblebrain has been able to accomplish in his first 100 days, can you imagine the damage that he can do if he becomes a two-term president, as he is "signaling" to his team and certain Dem leaders (more here)?  My money is still on his not completing his first term.  There's only so much patience Kamala is willing to put up with, unless she giggles herself into political oblivion.  gjr]

Working the Unity Myth (updated 25mar21)

George Rebane

Today’s Left seeks to suppress and supplant the legacy, history, and practice of Western culture as an evil instantiation of racism and white supremacy.

One of Jo Ann’s recent Union articles (here) addressed the futile attempts in the Left’s ongoing calls for unity, supposedly addressed to people like her – conservative, Christian women who pay very close attention to national affairs and are active in their communities. (more here)  The piece garnered a record reader response in print, online, and snail-mailed letters.  One heartfelt, well-written and long letter from a liberal woman gave Jo Ann kudos and concluded with a strong appeal for all of us to come together.  It is the ongoing flood of appeals like that, appeals that imply coming together is something as simple as throwing an attitudinal switch, that motivates the present reflection.

Scattershots – 15mar2021 (updated 19mar21)

George Rebane

The Ides of March.  2065 years ago, if I recall correctly, it was a very bad day for Julius Caesar – ‘Et tu Brute!’ and all that.  Bummer.

Speaking of inhumane acts, Sen Chris Murphy (D-CT) contrasted treatment of illegal aliens under Trump and Biden, and stated unequivocally that “Building a wall is the most inhumane policy.”  When you consider that statement in the context of the now invited hordes surging north, hordes that contain thousands of exploited unaccompanied children, then a statement like that is either evil or comes from the mouth of a blithering idiot.  To confirm this assessment, Murphy went on to declare that taking guns away from law-abiding citizens “will save lives”, for which there is not a shred of evidence.

The Connecticut senator is not alone in dispersing such messages and working feverishly to ensconce them into public policies.  To me that just adds to the evidence that we would not err much if we gingerly treated all Democrats as we would the clinically insane.

Along the same lines, the Dems now consider introducing a federal wealth tax to help pay for their disastrous $1.9T American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (breakdown here).  The so-called stimulus has very little to do with the Covid relief it was supposed to provide.  But paying for it with a wealth tax is beyond stupid.  Wealth taxes have not worked where they have been tried.  Europe had a fling with them and discovered that not only did such taxes not yield the desired revenues, it additionally drove away capital to more friendly shores, reduced jobs, and slowed economic growth.  So again, what would you call people like Sen Warren (D-MA) who reject such decades long and widespread evidence, and continue with plans to install such a disaster in America? (more here)

The $1.9T stimulus is going to shove a one-time $1,400 check into the shorts of millions of our fellow countrymen.  Talking to a local as I was waiting my turn at the Safeway deli counter, I was regaled by the wondrous things that his greatly anticipated check would make possible.  He was clearly a Biden voter who approved of such rewards for his loyalty in the voting booth.  This made me think about the difference between a politician offering money to a prospective voter to pay for his upcoming vote, to the same politician promising to pay cash money to the voter after voting him into office.  Is there really a difference in how those two kinds of votes are bought?  And what is the difference of such cash payments and a politician’s promise to pass legislation that will grow the economy, and thereby enrich all according to how they participate in the economy?

[17mar21 update]  Is Biden performing on green screen or edited CGI?  If so, have we entered a whole new era of bamboozling the public?  The video clearly shows Biden’s hand in front of one of the reporters’ mics, which from the rest of the (apparently composed) image should still be at least a couple of feet in front of him as he approaches. (more here)

The world has passed peak oil usage according to the International Energy Agency forecast. (here)  The post-pandemic usage of fossil fuels is projected to start going down as we convert to alternative ‘sustainable’ sources of energy.  The main factor in this reduction is the switch to electrically powered vehicles (EVs).  The IEA has not told us what the production pathway is to get the needed electricity to power the ever more higher count of EVs used for transportation.  Wind, water, and solar sources are still a long way off from satisfying the world's hunger for energy.

[18mar21 update] Today’s Union op-ed features a stellar local example of progressive thought in ‘What’s wrong with women’s rights?’ by Tom Durkin.  Among other women related issues Mr Durkin addresses abortion with, “Let’s get one thing straight. Anti-abortionists are not pro-life. They are just pro-birth. Once an unwanted child is born, anti-choice advocates lose interest — and responsibility — for the lives they claim to have saved. Way too often, unwanted children grow up in abuse, poverty and neglect. Where are the pro-lifers for these children?”  From this we are to understand that the anti-abortionists are responsible for the squalid conditions which led to women getting pregnant, and then have their un-aborted child grow up in the same squalor to a life of ignorance, crime, drugs, … .  All of this coming to pass on decades-long Democrat-controlled urban plantations that are perpetuated purposely for political power.  Now if this kind of argument does not represent evil or more evidence for leftwing idiocy (not ignorance), it’s hard to conceive what else would qualify.  From a careful examination of his nearby visage we may conclude in Mr Durkin’s favor that the gentleman most likely is not evil.

[19mar21 update]  Bumblebrain’s bungles jes’ keep on a’truckin’.  Never mind his problems climbing the stairs to board AF-1.  The only thing remarkable about that was the stone silence from his lamestream lackies who never noticed anything awry.  But the biggie was Team Biden confronting the Chinese in Alaska.  SecState Blinken confirmed that he is a naïf in the field of international diplomacy.  He and his team actually believed that they could get China to act contrite, kick their instep, and mutter ‘Well, aw schucks’ after Blinken gave them a sophomoric lecture on all their baddies re the Uighurs, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South China Sea, … .  China responded by outlining our lamestream’s own anti-Trump talking points to highlight our systemic racism, wanton killing of blacks, persecuting immigrants at our borders, … .  In short, any casual RR contributor could have easily predicted the disastrous reaction to Team Biden and accurately scripted the Chinese response.  But to the new flock of incompetents that Bumblebrain has assembled, it was all a surprise.  The guys from Beijing are getting an early cut on ol’ Joe’s jib – exciting times ahead.  (more here)

Bumblebrain’s Bungles – 14mar21

George Rebane

Here’s an exercise in critical thinking that’s been circling the backwaters of my brainbone.  Most of the nation has debated Biden’s mental capacity and come down on this side or that.  And during this time a lot of new evidence keeps coming in on the policies he’s intitiated and how he’s handling his office.  So, if we are to surmise that one of four mutually independent characterizations (i.e. hypotheses) of his administration is true, how do we incorporate the newly arriving evidence to update our belief across the four Biden cases.  Let me define these as follows.

H1 – Biden is mentally fit, politically strong, and in full charge/command of his office.

H2 – Biden is mentally fit, politically weak, and is an instrument of his party’s radical leftwing.

H3 – Biden is not mentally fit for the office, is politically weak, and is an instrument of his party’s radical leftwing.

H4 – Biden is not mentally fit for office and is being prepared for an early resignation.

Assigning beliefs (probability values summing to one) to these cases, we can now examine arriving evidence – e.g. his avoiding a press conference and spontaneous encounters with the press – and update our beliefs.  Once you determine how likely it is that the evidence supports each case/hypothesis, it’s real easy to update your beliefs.  With these four cases in mind, a piece of evidence E will let you assign four likelihood ratios L1 through L4, one for each case.

Sandbox - 13mar21

[Jo Ann and I got our second doses of the Moderna C19 vaccine yesterday in Yuba City.  Our overlords are contemplating having all kinds of new travel regulations that require proof of vaccination, or immunity, or studying critical race theory, or something similar.  I wonder if we all will have to start carrying government issued copies of our shot and indoctrination records with us at all times as the next level of controlling our behavior and whereabouts.  gjr]

Dark Days Diary – 13mar21

George Rebane

In less than 100 days of Biden’s administration, we have already gotten used to witnessing the next tragi-comic policy coming out in quick succession before the dust has settled from the previous one.  Bumblebrain is totally in the tank for the radical socialist/communist wing of the Democratic Party, and the Left’s fascist mobs are again loose on the streets burning businesses and government buildings while what’s left of the party’s leadership piously informs Americans daily that the nation’s greatest danger is from an insurrection mounted by right wing terrorists.  Evidence for this fear is a very visible fenced and razor-wired Festung Pelosi in which today sits our nation’s Capitol Building surrounded by thousands of armed soldiers.

The latest legislative atrocity to emerge from a one-party Congress and the pen of a barely-there president is the $1.9T ‘stimulus’ act.  Given how much of the last stimulus is yet to be spent (over $1T), this latest is historically the most blatant vote buying scam yet to come out of Washington.  It is another gargantuan fiscal folly launched this weekend that comes at the wrong time, for the wrong amount, and purposed primarily for pork.  As Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced yesterday, a detailed reading of the bill reveals that only about 9% of the monies will go for Covid relief, and even that amount will be spread out beyond 2021.

We are still looking for a single thing that Biden has done to benefit the country, and his promises for the future comprise are nothing short of a continuous pouring of sand into the gears of the nation’s economy and ongoing unconstitutional limits to our liberties.  The worst of these is keeping the nation’s union-ruled public schools closed.  Private schools have been open throughout the pandemic providing a deluge of data to corroborate the science that tells us open classrooms are not a danger to the students or the teachers.

And now the American Enterprise Institute reports (here) of the latest science demonstrating that keeping the schools closed has caused, and continues to cause, more damage to kids and families than if they were opened to operate normally.  The politicians who have backed school closures need to line up behind Gov Cuomo as the government’s executioners accounting for thousands of unnecessary deaths of both the old and the young.  The latter suffering horrendously from high rates of suicide, drug abuse, social crippling, and, of course, irredeemable dumbth.

Finally, I’ll end this entry by drawing your attention to Biden’s intention to get the government into the semiconductor manufacturing business, this, ostensibly, to alleviate the chip shortage that has come about because industry couldn’t follow the zigs and zags of the feds’ C19 response policies.  But instead of letting the markets straighten out the manufacturing and distribution problems, Bumblebrain thinks that injecting a bunch of socialist central planners into the mix will solve the problem.  No one on the Left has learned over the last century that government is the worst allocator of resources to solve ANY problem – shades of the USSR, post-war UK, Venezuela, Cuba, all of Africa, … .

Another Homemade Crisis

Taking cues from Orwell’s 1984, Big Tech has quashed discussion of 2020 election integrity.  However alarming this foray against our free speech rights, their larger aim is still more profound and threatening to our continued enjoyment and exercise of constitutional rights. … Indeed, the Left seeks no less than to assert total dominion over all conservative opinion with the goal to quell any and all challenges to their authority.  Charlemagne Institute

George Rebane

‘If you come, you can stay.’ is the message President Biden blurted before his administration had made any preparations for the hundreds of thousands that took the invitation literally to surge across our southern border, totally abrogating the existing border security policy and overwhelming the apparatus that had reduced illegal entrants to a trickle under the Trump administration.  Today the Biden Bunch is at wits end (for them a very short trek) to try and deal with the human crisis they have launched out of total ignorance and incompetence – they didn’t have a clue what any room temp IQ could have predicted about what’s happening now, and what is on its way north.

In bygone days farmers with movable outhouses had a working homily for dealing with such situations – ‘don’t shit in the old well until the new one’s dug.’  That piece of obvious advice went by the board with the current crop of double dummies in the White House who have opened the spigot for an uncountable number of illegal entrants.  We have now retied the hands of our border security people.  They can no longer return those they capture, but must find them humane and comfortable lodgings, or simply turn them loose into our nation’s interior.

Meanwhile, as they play word games with ‘challenge’ and ‘crisis’, Biden’s handlers have dispatched a WH team to the border area to find out what’s really going on.  During this delay, press prevaricator Jen Psaki tells us that the border crisis was “inherited” and is being kept from the president who will be duly briefed on it when the look-see contingent returns.  In the interval, she assures the assembled reporters, that there is no use of anyone asking him about the tsunami of illegal aliens since he really hasn’t been told yet.  That is another reason they are keeping Bumblebrain away from the mics and cameras while setting a record for the delay until the president’s first press conference.  It will be pure entertainment for all to see how they finally decide to pull that one off.

Ruminations – 6mar21 (updated 11mar21)

George Rebane

White supremacist hysteria has reached fever pitch among the progressive socialists.  Commenter BillT @ 835am cites (here) the dean of Arizona State University who announced that characteristics of precision, timeliness, quality expression (e.g. good written English), good work ethic, etc are all part and parcel of “white racial habitus” which perpetuates “white language supremacy” which means “it’s inherently white and racist”.  By the dean’s logic, then ‘black racial habitus’ that perpetuates black behavioral characteristics is inherently black and racist. (more here)

Covid science and disinformation is discussed by Dr Scott W Atlas MD, Hoover Institution senior fellow, former professor and head of neuroradiology at Stanford.  He recently gained a furious notoriety in the eyes of all Democrats and their lamestream lackies for serving as a C19 advisor to President Trump.  In the Feb 2021 Imprimus he asks ‘Science, Politics, and COVCID: Will Truth Prevail?’  I cite his short and very informative essay as another cogent summary of my own stance on the nature of the C19 pandemic and the various disastrous government response policies to the disease.  From all of my readings (also see below), the clear answer to Dr Atlas’s question is NO!

Fact-checking the fact checkers.  Today it is easy to make the case that media giants are “employing left-wing vetters to limit scientific debate”.  The work of fact checking by leftwingers primarily focuses on cherry picking a supporting counter-opinion report or two and using it to dun any scientific opinion that does not support the command/control narrative prescribing government diktats opposing federalist responses to the C19 pandemic.  The whole enterprise of fact checking is based on the Mega Lie that science speaks but with one voice.  The ‘one voice’ chosen by the ‘progressive health clerisy’ is then labeled consensus science to which all the hoi polloi must kowtow when thinking properly about such politicized issues as global warming and C19.  For more, see ‘Fact-Checking Facebook’s Fact Checkers’.

[7mar21 update]  Islam's goal in/for America.  Over the years in these pages I have been very clear and explicit about my assessment as to the objective of the Islamic diaspora, especially as it is directed toward America and its western culture.  The fundamental task of all expatriate Muslims is to be missionaries and bring the infidels into the embrace of Allah and his prophet Muhammad, to whatever destination they emigrate.  Practiced as a temporary and necessary ruse, assimilation into their host country’s culture is the last thing on their mind. Here is a video of a talk on Islam’s goal for America given by a very sober Muslim woman - Download Received_938000470288815. (H/T to correspondent)

George Floyd died of a fentanyl overdose and NOT due to police brutality.  The four policmen involved followed the training book and policy to the letter as attested by a continuous police bodycam video (here).  The 31may20 autopsy report showed that Floyd had almost 3 times a potential lethal dose of the drug in his system, and that he was already dying of fluid filling his lungs when the police encountered him.  The real question is why this information was kept until 25 August after three months of looting, rioting, and murder across the nation.  And given the overwhelming evidence, why are the policemen still being tried for doing nothing wrong?

[11mar21 update]  Nevada County Trembles.  The Board of Supervisors failed to pass an already lame and vanilla resolution (here) that asks Sacramento to behave more responsibly and competently toward Nevada County.  Along with other small rural counties, we have gotten screwed by the policies foisted on the state by Gavin Newsom.  I, along with many other local citizens, have encouraged the supes to step up and make our voices heard – to wit we want more local control of our C19 responses, and we don’t want to get screwed by the state in its distribution of vaccines, federal funds, etc that are supposed help pay for our pandemic related expenses.  It turns out that at last Tuesday’s BoS meeting, the supes were too timid to pass the proposed resolution, and instead they tabled it.  When are we finally going to get the courage to make a simple peep to protest the crap that keeps coming down from Sacramento?

Scattershots – 2mar21 (updated 5mar21)

George Rebane

Those who judge the past in terms of the here and now are doing a great disservice through their ignorance of the then and there.

The Left’s promotion of America’s new cancel culture is in full swing.  We now have full scale censoring of politically incorrect content on our mass media – broadcast, internet, print, entertainment, … .  This incorporates the modern version of book burning.  The latest volumes to be ‘digitally burned’ and no longer available from major outlets include Justice Clarence Thomas’s ‘Created Equal’ video and , and now Dr Seuss.  Dr Seuss has been an icon of Americana and children’s literature for a couple of generations now.  Even an annual children’s reading day (2 March) was ensconced to recognize the birthday of Theodor Seuss ‘Ted’ Geisel (1904-1991).  But today our commissars of correct culture have deemed many of his works to racist and contain “crude and offensive stereotypes in several drawings of blacks and Asian-Americans.”  But those well-read in the country’s leftward lurch will recognize that such book burnings are nothing more than pages out of Stalin’s and Hitler’s playbooks to erase the old culture in order to make room for instilling their brave new world.  It was ever thus. (more here)

Common culture counts.  That has been a fundamental tenet of RR, and is now being adopted by many other national voices to counter the Left’s all-out assault on America’s traditional culture.  Six former US education secretaries co-authored ‘America Needs History and Civics Education to Promote Unity’ (2mar21 WSJ).  In there they cogently argue for a national education plan “to help teachers instill an understanding that is complete and honest but not cynical.”  The 6jan21 frustration that was expressed by Americans on the Mall and in the Capitol is a harbinger that the country’s political leaders, those who truly want to promote unity, should take careful note of and respond with appropriate legislation and regulatory relief for our public schools.  It’s a tall order the chances of success for which are not high given the entrenched collectivists in politics and the teachers unions.  Nevertheless, the authors cite the ‘Roadmap to Educating for American Democracy’, the culmination of a 19-month project by 300+ “scholars, educators, practitioners, and students from diverse backgrounds.” (more here) In sum, a minimally common culture for a constitutional democracy “requires a citizenry that has a desire to participate, and an understanding of how to do so constructively, as well as the knowledge and skills to act for the common good.”  The Roadmap provides the guidance for the several states to develop curricula that can provide such an understanding.

Joe Biden puts all his credibility chips on a Big Lie, and takes a page of bombast from Trump’s playbook.  He and Team Biden, echoed in the lamestream, now trumpet the claim that he is the nation’s savior from Covid-19.  Specifically, “he is staking his legacy on the lie that the pandemic was out of control until the day of his inauguration.”  And a more comprehensive segue to the old days of ‘journalism’ was made possible by the former president’s CPAC speech.  The hiatus is over, we can now stop having to explain (or avoid) Biden, and shift back to coverage of Trump topics that fit like an old shoe.  Gerard Baker says it best (here) –

The return to the limelight of a certain former president has triggered an unfortunate but probably inevitable relapse for the Trump addicts of our news-gathering class.  They’d gone cold turkey for a whole month and there were tentative, encouraging signs that the cure might be taking. Deprived of their favorite drug, some were gingerly discovering other, more wholesome pursuits: tackling the mountain of evidence that Andrew Cuomo might be a mendacious, incompetent, bullying sex pest; investigating the slight but tantalizing possibility that not all of America’s social and economic woes can be attributed to white supremacy; slowly weaning themselves off the urge to ask penetrating questions of the White House about Joe Biden’s rescue dog.

What must ol’ Bumblebrain do now to get back into an adult-level news cycle?  After all, he’s still the president.  Isn’t he?

[4mar21 update]  A CPAC puzzle?  A straw poll was taken at the recent CPAC conference at which many Republican luminaries – including former President Trump – spoke.  The poll indicated that 68% wanted to see Trump run for president in 2024, and only 55% wanted to see him nominated for the office.  This conservetarian doesn’t understand how the excess of the 68% would have him become a Republican candidate in 2024 without first being nominated – especially after he made clear that he would not support or start a third party.  From my perch it looks like a collective brain fart.  Other solutions most welcome.

The Capitol Fortress.  Thousands of troops remain guarding our razor wire wrapped Capitol.  Why?  The Dems insist on fake intelligence reports of another imminent attempt at a rightwing ‘insurrection’ (when there never was one in the first place).  The disorganized and frustrated mob that charged the Capitol on 6 January had no idea what they were doing or were supposed to do.  They got in only because the on-duty Capitol police were incompetent in every aspect of operational planning and execution, or ordered to allow a politically useful penetration of the building.  And the mob had nothing to do with the deaths that day, that was another fabrication by the Dems and their lamestream media.  So, the whole thing today was a set-up for the Dems kabuki security theater to defend against a supposed repeat today of 6jan21.  This attack was supposed to occur according to some unknown advisory from an unknown agency in our intelligence community – perhaps the FBI.  In spite of today’s nothing burger, the military will continue to occupy DD for another two months – to defend against some unknown threat - at which time another fake intelligence advisory will launch the next phase of political histrionics to keep the public apprised of their assigned place under the heel of the state.

[5mar21 update]  ‘A Compromise on Creationism’ – in this little 5mar21 WSJ essay (here) physician/scientist Dr Joshua Swamidass calls for reaccreditation of colleges that teach creationism as long as they also permit discussion of and courses in evolution, along with some other provisions about the transfer of creationism course credits.  (He misses the reciprocal call for accredited secular colleges to also welcome speakers who counter theistically progressive narratives.) What again astounded me was the citing of a 2019 Gallup poll that “showed that 40% of American adults ‘ascribe to a strictly creationist view of human origins, believing that God created them in their present form within roughly the past 10,000 years.’” (more here)  Interesting to note is that 40% with college degrees believe that the evolution of Man was guided by God, which indicates a belief in Intelligent Design (here, here, and here) that for obvious reasons is purposely confused with and perfidiously equated to Creationism by our secular humanists.  My own concern is that these ‘strictly creationists’ reject most of what science teaches about how we and universe function, knowledge that is also the basis for the politics of public policies.  How do these religionists vote?

Sandbox – 2mar21

[The rabid Left is now advising all who would listen across the land not to hire or have anything to do with people who were part of the Trump administration.  And sure enough, that aspect of our now-arrived cancel culture is taking hold.  Today many of the Left’s lackies are publicly putting such people on their permanently banned list (part of their national unity campaign).  But how would it be if those of the counter-cancel culture grew some balls and started advertising for employees whose desiderata showed they had been a part of Trump’s administration - if not on the WH staff, then in one of the cabinet level departments or other agencies that were led by political appointees who brought along their high level colleagues and former staffers to help administer the federal bureaucracies calcified with thousands of career leftwingers?  If they can do it, why can’t we?  gjr]

A Sad Commentary About Unity

George Rebane

In his inauguration speech President Joe Biden went out of his way to emphasize and promise that his would be the administration to heal the chasm that separates Americans and bring us together again – he would unite us all.  From the policy statements that his WH started to issue immediately put paid to that particular inaugural lie; the new administration’s efforts to unite handily beat the setting sun to the horizon on that auspicious day.

But lying is not the only precursor to the Left’s love affair with disastrous public policies.  We have to credit them also with a genuine desire to benefit society, which, after all, has been the overarching objective of collectivists – socialists, communists, …, Jacobins – since the French Revolution.  Their problem becomes evident when they present the fruits of their deliberations and then attempt apologetics to bolster their freshly minted policies.  It becomes immediately clear to most who pay attention, especially those with some book-learning, that their supportive logic for any given policy simply does not tie.  It isn’t the kind of logic that the rest of us have been taught and successfully practiced in our professions.

This dichotomy between thinking processes by the Right and Left continued unexamined and fruitlessly debated for over two centuries until some psychologists and brain scientists at the University College London decided to do a clinical study and try to answer the question of why the logics used by the two sides are so different.  I reported on that study (here and here), and was a bit astounded to learn it revealed that collectivists use a different part of their brains than do the conservatives to solve policy problems that require use of logic tools.