Rebane's Ruminations

Scattershots – 18oct18 (updated 20oct18)

George Rebane

All eligible should vote?!  In today’s (18oct18) Union ‘Hits & Misses’ we note the following – “HIT (from Editorial Board member Susan Rogers): To the massive turnout at the Miners Foundry for Indivisible Women of Nevada County's Get Out the Vote event. Even if you personally don't agree with the agenda of the group, any patriotic citizen should not have a problem with the concept of urging all eligible voters to vote.”  (emphasis mine)  Actually, many of us are not sanguine with that concept, so far as it involves voters ignorant of the issues on which they are asked to vote.  To do your country and community a favor, please don’t vote on matters you don’t understand.  As many have argued before, and we reinforce here, JUST being able to fog a mirror does not necessarily recommend your vote.  More on this important (nay, critical) notion is available from Bryan Caplan’s The Myth of the Rational Voter (2007), whose arguments are more valid today than ever, and are expanded here, here, and here.

Poverty, Transfer Payments, and GNI, oh my!

George Rebane

Abetted by progressive propaganda, the UN has found “shocking” evidence that 40M Americans live in “squalor and deprivation”, which comes to about 12.7% of our population.  The trouble with that piece of fiction is that none of the millions seeking entry into the US by hook or crook believe that bullcrap.  As we have pointed out before, our Census Bureau uses a complicated formula for computing the poverty threshold that uses factors such as income based on family size and composition, and totally ignores the $1.5T of government transfer payments along with the additional $500B of private charity benefits that our ‘poor’ receive annually.  Were only the government payments included in the calculation, our poverty rate would already be less than 3% which reflects realworld total household income data, consumer spending patterns, and the country’s immigration pressures.

But none of this would fit the vote buying and plantation maintenance narratives of our Left, now very busy moving the Democratic Party toward full scale socialism.  These elites need to play a hand that contains not only the poverty card, but also separate cards for inequality, racism, sexism, and more ‘phobics’ that emerge every day.  And the maintenance of this Big Lie is all made possible by their bought and paid for propaganda purveyors of the national media.  Were it not for the constant daily din of dunning news about how badly we are all doing because of President Trump and his 'illegitimate administration', people would forget what is drilled into their heads, go about their business and enjoy a real recovery from the last recession that’s finally worth its name.

Hugh Hewitt, Washington Post’s token conservative columnist, recounted the economic and public policy realities that we have enjoyed since Team Trump took up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.  In ‘Trump may be outside our norms. But he is succeeding for all of us.’ Hewitt recounts the impressive litany of this administration’s accomplishments including getting more people, especially of the minorities, working than anyone today can remember.  One of the tightly kept secrets by the lamestream media is the recent Rasmussen poll that shows a resurgence of blacks supporting the president more than doubling from one out of five to one out of three – that means people are beginning to notice where it counts, in their wallets.

Economists Phil Gramm and John Early in ‘Government Can’t Rescue the Poor’ provide the reader a snootful of pertinent stats about poverty in America, and conclude that with what our poor already receive in transfer payments and from charities, that there is no amount of money which will today motivate them to added efforts “to allow them to develop and use their capacities.” This was Lyndon Johnson selling his 'War on Poverty' in 1964, one of the historically least effective and most destructive programs ever devised by our government.  As supportive data, consider that in the twenty years since WW2, America’s poverty rate had steadily dropped from 32.1% to 14.7%.  And then in 1965 its descent stopped dead in its tracks by the advent of progressive give-aways, the only real measurable achievement of which was the destruction of African-American families.

Without the obligation of marriage to hold them back, black men impregnated willing black women who knew that each additional fatherless kid meant a bigger check from the feds.  The Census Bureau data confirms “how the War on Poverty produced an unprecedented decline in work effort among those who received benefits”, and over the years it “has been an abject failure, increasing dependency and largely severing the bottom fifth of earners from the rewards and responsibilities of work.”

Today the marriage, bastard children, educational achievement, and employment stats tell the story of how the Great Society has impacted America’s minorities.  But not to worry, as reported by Gramm and Early, the actual poverty rate of 3% is confirmed by the “Department of Energy Residential Consumption Survey, which finds consistently rising spending among poor families on cars, home electronics, cable, household appliances, smartphones and living space. The 3% poverty rate would fall even further if it accounted for transfers within families, some $500 billion of private charitable giving, and the multibillion-dollar informal economy, where income is unreported.”

This effect on the poor has been known for generations.  Even that great social engineer Franklin Delano Roosevelt warned us during the midst of his depression in 1935 that “The lessons of history show conclusively that continued dependency upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber.”

So now we come to Guaranteed National Income, which is suggested by many, including me (here), as the only prophylactic that will keep blood out of the gutters.  The only concern that nags me is a tenet in my credo that acknowledges 'relevance' as being a fundamental human requirement for maintaining stable civil societies.  Without doing work that obviously contributes to the well-being of his family and community, people will become dissatisfied with the general scheme of things that surrounds them.  And they will respond by either attempting to become relevant in their established environment, or disrupt that environment for a new, perhaps simpler (more primitive?) one in which they again see themselves as relevant.

No matter our politics, these are the certainties that will shape our world as technology advances and governments seek to soothe us, first with gratuities then with guns.

An evening with Victor Davis Hanson (updated 10oct18)

George Rebane

Last Saturday evening we loaded some friends in the car and headed for the Grand Sheraton in Sacramento to attend a fundraiser for Congressman Tom McClintock.  We’ve known Tom for years and continue to support him in our neighboring congressional district.  The evening featured a talk and Q&A with Victor Davis Hanson.  Professor Hanson is “an American classicist, military historian, columnist, and farmer. He has been a commentator on modern and ancient warfare and contemporary politics for National Review, The Washington Times and other media outlets.”  He is also an award-winning, endowed senior fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.

I have been a student of VDH for many years, and along with our friends, we were not going to pass up this opportunity to hear him in person.  Well, the lavishly catered evening turned out even better than expected.  We got there early and ran into the congressman in the hall, and after greetings and conversation who should walk up but Prof Hanson.  Tom greeted him warmly, graciously introduced me, and then left the two of us to chat.  We had a wonderful one-on-one for almost thirty minutes as we and the gathering crowd waited for the ballroom doors to be opened.

McClintock called the event to order, gave one of the best introductions that I have heard from a politician at his own fundraiser – a concise but warm welcome, proper summary of his guest's vitae, and mercifully short thank-yous to the event’s sponsors.  The good professor took to the podium and delivered a 30-45 minute talk that framed today’s national politics from an historical perspective, and then detailed the events and political tactics that have so split the country into factions that share few social objectives and no longer effectively communicate with each other.  After that, he took questions for about an equal period of time.  No one felt rushed, and there was plenty of time to delve deeper into the issues - a wonderfully cordial and informative evening.

It was no surprise to me from our private conversation and his invited talk, that the good professor’s historical interpretations and political observations flew in fairly tight formation with the Rebane Doctrine tenets published in these pages.  (In other words, we are both “alt-right” birds of a feather according to the local lefties who disparage yet track every word in these pages.)  I’ll conclude this report with a selection of Dr Hanson’s observations and talking points.

1. Obama’s administration was the most scandalized administration in recent memory.
2. Judge Kavanaugh’s rebuttal of Judiciary Committee Dems was on the mark, and of better ‘temperament’ than shown by Justice Ginsburg viz the Trump election.
3. The right of the accused to be presumed innocent until proven guilty has been thrown out by the Dems and the media with the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings.
4. CA is now an Orwellian state in which the middle-class has the nation’s highest tax rate, 20% of Californians live in (official) poverty, with one-third of the nation’s poverty stricken taking up residence in CA.
5. “Those who rule in California are never subject to their own ideology.” (e.g. Pelosi, Feinstein, Newsom, …)  “They can afford to be liberal at someone else’s expense.”
6. “Fences work and have always worked.” Examples – Israel today, Great Wall of China, Maginot Line, Zuckerberg’s private residence, … .  (Fences are militarily known as fixed field fortifications, they are cost-effective and work only to the extent that they are also manned.  They are NOT a ‘build and forget’ part of any defensive infrastructure.)
7. CA has the best natural water resources, and has had the best waterworks in the world, which began deteriorating and proving insufficient for California’s growth in 1983 when further expansion was halted.
8. President Trump has “restored the idea of deterrence” and put in place the best foreign policy and team in recent memory.
9. The US is becoming, or has already become a tribal nation.
10. The new “Socialist Democratic Party” has replaced the former Democratic Party.
11. There no longer exists any visible ‘common ground’ in the national debate between the global socialists and nationalistic capitalists – i.e. the Great Divide is already forming.
12. There is a very slim chance that our electorate will see the light in time to pull the nation out of its death spiral into global socialism.

[10oct18 update]  VDH has summarized the Kavanaugh confirmation affair that also gives lie to the charge that President Trump somehow dissed Dr Ford in his speech recounting the distressed lady's dreadfully fractured testimony to the Judiciary Committee.  His piece - 'One Ford Narrative Too Many' - examines the entire episode from a larger perspective and is worth a read.

American Retreat

George Rebane

Robert Kagan is a historian and political scientist with an endowed fellowship at the Brookings Institute.  He perches a bit left of center from where he has been a foreign policy adviser to both Republican and Democratic presidents.  Dinesh D’Souza is a conservative political commentator, author, and filmmaker formerly associated with the Heritage Foundation, who continues as a lightning rod for critiques of rightwing ideology.  Not so surprisingly, these two intellectuals share many insights into America’s post-war role in the world and the state of the world were America to “retreat” from this role.

Of D’Souza’s many books, his America: Imagine a World Without Her (2014) contains assessments that tie closely with Kagan’s sentiments as expanded in a major essay ‘The Cost of American Retreat’ in the 8sep18 WSJ.  (Essay based on Kagan’s latest book, The Jungle Grows Back: America and our Imperiled World, that comes out later this month.)  My commentary on this highlights that the Rebane Doctrine on foreign policy espoused here over the years also ties closely with what these essayists have gleaned from their studies and experience.  I believe that, in these times, the tenets from both bear repeating emphatically and often.  (Graphic by Brian Stauffer)

Kagan points out how the period of liberalism under the hegemonic umbrella of the United States has given rise to a most unusual epoch of human history.  During this epoch “liberal ideals triumphed because, for the first time, they had power behind them.”  And all this, because “a new player arose on the international scene: the United States. It possessed a unique and advantageous geography, a large, productive population, unprecedented economic and military power, a national ideology based on liberal principles, and a willingness, after the war, to use its power to establish and sustain a global order roughly consistent with those principles. … That order - with its mutually reinforcing security, economic and political components - has created a geographical and geopolitical space in which liberalism has taken root, spread and evolved. But it was always artificial and tenuous, challenged from within and without by natural forces - the always potent antiliberal aspects of human nature and the competitive and anarchic tendencies of geopolitics.”

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.

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.

Trumporama – 30jul18 (updated 1aug18)

George Rebane

These thoughts are motivated by a letter2editor in today’s Union by Richard Van Steen.  There this gentleman, who has graduated from TDS to TAD, tells us that all Americans who don’t want President Trump immediately impeached are traitors, pure and simple – kinda like the stuff he has between his ears.

Lately I’ve been a bit hard on our president’s foot-in-mouth twitter feeds and his tariffs derby (now beginning show some promise), so as one consigned to the nation’s population of irredeemably deplorable traitors, I should at least weigh in my ‘stubborn ounces’ to list some of the benefits we are enjoying in the new era of Trump.

The Existential Abrogation of Sovereignty

George Rebane

Across this land we are debating the wrong thing.  There is no contention about separating kids from parents.  No one want to do that gratuitously.  But as a society, we do it when we must.  And we do it daily with American kids by the thousands when their parents are jailed or otherwise detained through legal proceedings.  We have done that for decades and today we keep hundreds of thousands of American kids in foster care separate from their parents.  But just focusing on the kids is not my point here.

America’s Left has found a new casus belli to attack the foundations of our republic.  Their goal, as stated here many times, is nothing less than the abrogation of America’s sovereignty as a nation-state (cf. Agenda21).  Let me start with some fundamental tenets of governance that I assign to Rebane Doctrine (continuing to collect these under this label and efficiently refer to them drives the local Left nuts; another benefit).

1. A nation-state is first and foremost sovereign only to the extent that it can determine and control the access of goods and people to its territory. Secure and non-porous borders through which ingress, including immigration, and egress are effectively controlled is an existential measure of its sovereignty.
2. Anti-American – a person who opposes American sovereignty 1) as an idea through impugnation, and/or 2) existentially by actively working to reduce/eliminate such sovereignty.
3. Anti-American sedition – activities intended to radically and/or rapidly change the existing character, make-up, and/or established order of America through extra-legal means.

Today the media is full of reports and interviews with progressive politicians unabashedly promoting open borders without (yet) daring to say it in those words.  What they volubly promote instead is a 1) catch, 2) keep the families together, and 3) then release policy for illegal aliens caught after surreptitiously crossing the border.  They are to be released on the basis of 1) having purposely violated US laws, and 2) on the fiction that all illegal aliens have a prima facie legitimate case for seeking asylum.

What gives lie to all this, and is known to our anti-American politicians is that only about 3% of the illegal entrants return for their asylum court hearings which would legitimize their stay in the US.  The other 97% know they have no leg to stand on, and that they would be taken into custody and deported were they to present themselves.  Their only hope for staying here is to remain a fugitive long enough until our anti-American Left (presuming the existence of a pro-American Left) can muster enough public opinion to force the federal government to designate them as the next 'DACAs' or 'Dreamers' or … in sufficient numbers so as to make their en masse deportation no longer feasible.  And voila! We have yet another new tranche of Democrat voters who have no love or understanding of the country into which they have infused.  Their loyalty is only to the globalist progressive cause and its visible political and opinion leaders who are bent on taking us to that new future.

Par Force in the Second Amendment

George Rebane

On the morning of 19 April 1775, the communities surrounding Boston were awakened by riders alerting the colonial Americans that a battalion of British were marching out of Boston toward Lexington and Concord.  They were coming to confiscate a cache of arms and ammunition that the colonials had collected for the anticipated mounting resistance to years of tyranny by the Crown in distant England.  Later in the day the British regulars would be met by an ad hoc militia who would drive them back toward Boston while taking heavy losses before the colonials, out of ammunition, had to withdraw.

Word of the successful armed resistance spread throughout the colonies like wildfire.  The demonstration of what armed citizens could accomplish against arguably the best army in the world was simply inspirational and communicated the very hopeful art of the possible.  The battle marked the beginning of our Revolutionary War, and was soon followed by equally inspirational pitched battles such as that on Bunker (Breed’s) Hill a few weeks later.  The revolution was on.

In the early part of the war, all citizens forming into militias were required to provide their own weapons, ammunition, and generally their entire kit for operations in the field.  They were required to respond to the call to arms “at a minute’s notice”, hence they became known as Minute Men.

Trump and the Ugly Fat Kid

George Rebane

There’s more to be said about President Trump’s anticipated meeting with NK’s Ugly Fat Kid (aka Kim Jong Un), the murderous dictator who today runs the world’s largest forced labor camp in the world.  That Trump got the UFK off the dime and issue an invitation is laudable in itself, and has really miffed all the professional diplomats who for over more than half century have gotten nowhere with that workers’ paradise.  Actually, it’s been even less of an accomplishment than that; the pros have gotten us into a situation where today the UFK’s about to get a deliverable nuclear weapon that can reach the continental US.

The big deal now in preparing for the meeting is how do we make sure that Trump doesn’t wind up circling that Bamboozle Barn one more time.  Trump’s unorthodox and straightforward approach should work for him in this regard.  The conduct of the meeting should be on an announced no-bullshit basis.  Everyone knows that America (and others?) want to have the UFK give up his nukes program, and that should be as a precondition for whatever else we are willing to give in return.  Rebane Doctrine calls for such negotiations to be done on an open declaration of interests basis (cf the Harvard Negotiation Project).

Our interests are known to the world, but the UFK’s not so much – in fact, he really can’t openly declare them for fear of getting a bullet through the back of his head or worse.  (Recall he fed an entire family of a feared high-level muktimuck to hungry dogs in an arena where the rest of the NK leadership was forced to watch.)  The UFK knows that he is the most despised human being on earth today, and he’s got a tiger by the tail.  He’s finally run into a US leader who may actually launch an attack of black helicopters preceded by a massive fleet of stealthies taking out his SAM installations, followed by a squadron of C-17s dropping MOABs on the artillery positions overlooking Seoul.  In any event, he won’t survive such a scenario because then he will more than likely fall in a quick coup led by his generals who will have nothing to lose and everything to gain with his sudden departure.  And that kind of thinking defines the UFK’s interests – his own and his family’s survival.

‘Are We Free to Discuss America’s Real Problems?’

“He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.” John Stuart Mill

George Rebane

This is the title of a recent major essay by Dr Amy Wax that initially appeared (here) in the January 2018 issue of the Imprimis, and was also featured in the 17feb18 issue of WSJ.  I bring it to our attention because it asks and answers a question of great moment in today’s America, and it also totally reflects the Rebane Doctrine that I have promoted for years in these pages.  Her vitae abstract reads –

Amy L. Wax is the Robert Mundheim Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she has received the Harvey Levin Memorial Award for Teaching Excellence. She has a B.S. from Yale College, an M.D. from Harvard Medical School, and a J.D. from Columbia Law School. She is a former assistant to the United States Solicitor General, and her most recent book is Race, Wrongs, and Remedies: Group Justice in the 21st Century.

Dr Wax sets the stage with – “Too few Americans are qualified for the jobs available. Male working-age labor-force participation is at Depression-era lows. Opioid abuse is widespread. Homicidal violence plagues inner cities. Almost half of all children are born out of wedlock, and even more are raised by single mothers. Many college students lack basic skills, and high school students rank below those from two dozen other countries.”

On Immigration and ‘S#!thole Countries’ (updated 13jan18)

George Rebane

No matter what he actually said in that White House meeting on immigration policy, President Trump has again focused a policy discussion on a crux of the matter instead of continuing the same ol’ same ol’ circling of the barn.  I don’t want to debate whether he actually said “shithole country” as the press is attributing, but I hope he did if it gets us off the dime in deciding who should be let in to serve America’s interests as a sovereign and sustainable nation-state.

Because this is a family-oriented blog (hah!), and in the ensuing discussion we will want to continue using that colorful descriptor without gratuitously sprinkling dirty words all over these pages, I will use the three-letter acronym SHC in the sequel for both expedience and, perhaps, collateral decorum.  Nevertheless, the meaning of that appellation will be made and should remain clear.

Instead of working on a more polished commentary, I decided to quickly anchor my contribution to the topic in a structured list of propositions that I believe are also embraced more or less by other conservetarians.  If they are also Bayesians like me, then their beliefs of the following will range from near zero (impossible) to near unity (certain), and in the process never saying never for either extreme.

America’s Checkpoints

George Rebane

[This is the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 3 January 2018.]

Before we get into the more serious part of the commentary, I want to wish all KVMR listeners a healthy and prosperous 2018.  We all know it will be another extraordinary year no matter what your political outlook and hopes.

Last Sunday, New Year’s Eve, Jo Ann and I were preparing for a quiet and intimate evening with friends to enjoy a dinner in front of the fireplace, listen to some laid-back jazz, and play our favorite game of cards while keeping an eye on the happenings in Time Square with the TV on mute.  The Christmas decorations were still up, and the décor extended the festive mood from what turned out to be an entire month of holiday celebrations at our house.  And then I was suddenly reminded of what we saw on the news before our guests arrived.

The afternoon’s major coverage was about how secure the New Year’s celebrations were going to be across the country, starting of course with Times Square.  There we were shown long lines of would be revelers all lined up at checkpoints manned by police and other serious looking people with submachine guns at the ready, keeping their trained eyes on our east coast neighbors waiting to be allowed in and start celebrating.  We were assured by the newscaster and various officials that there would be, not one, but two cordons of security checkpoints that everyone would have go through before being granted ‘admission’ to one of the most public, open, and historically accessible spaces in the nation.  These scenes brought back many memories and a moist eye, because I was looking at what my country had become in a few short years.

Scattershots – 21dec17 (updated 23dec17)

George Rebane

Shortest day of the year (in the northern hemisphere) – winter solstice, a time for all kinds of alternative belief systems to hold ceremonies honoring their deities, ancestors, dark spirits, …, and, of course, Gaia.  Here in Nevada County (lat 39.13 degrees) the sun will climb to only 27.37 degrees above the southern horizon because today the earth’s axis is tilted its full 23.5 degrees away from the sun.  (For you artillerymen who remember your hand calibrations, that’s about a stack of three fist widths at your arm’s length.)  The earth’s axis actually wobbles between 22.1 and 24.5 degrees over about a 40,000 year cycle.  That also contributes to climate change, the migration of the magnetic poles, and the wandering of Polaris, the pole star approximately at the North Pole’s zenith.

The Seattle train wreck.  How in hell does a train engineer drive his train into a 30mph curve at 80 mph??!  The engineering solutions to prevent or avoid these recurring dumbass disasters are too many to count.  But to answer the question, one need only begin with the most obvious and telling factor – this was a government-run (Amtrak) train.  And when we combine Friar Occam’s dictum for the simplest explanation with Rebane Doctrine’s ‘When something goes wrong, assume the government is the culprit until proven innocent.’, then these explain everything from the qualification of Amtrak’s train operators to the deficits of its various management levels who design and oversee planning and operations.  Bottom line – it’s no way to run a railroad.

Red China uses latest technology to keep tabs on its citizens.  George Orwell had nothing on what the Chinese communists are doing to nip opposition and dissent in the bud.  The newest citizen monitoring and tracking systems are being tested in Xinjiang province populated by the mostly Muslim Uighurs.  Using everything from AI-driven automated facial recognition, retinal scans, directional mike arrays, smartphone monitoring/tracking, combined with uncounted police checkpoints where IDs are required to pass from one part of town or jurisdiction to another, the authoritarian government is quickly perfecting the ‘compleat surveillance state’. (more here and here)  Much of the technology is already installed and in use in other major Chinese urban areas, and you can bet the ranch that our security apparatchiks are not far behind.  Oh, how the security vs freedom see-saw tilts.  But in the end, when the usual bad guys are eliminated, then from whose comprehensive embrace do we need to feel secure?  Not to worry, that can never happen in Amerika.

[22dec17 update] – A refreshing Trumpian Tornado has blown into our foreign policy dealings.  Our president told the world that under his administration the US was also going to start acting in its own best interests, just like the rest of the world’s nations are doing.  And those who aren’t doing that, President Trump advised them to start doing it.  This flies in tight formation with Rebane Doctrine’s foreign policy advisories in these pages.  To wit, ‘On the world stage the United States will unabashedly act in all matters to promote its own best interests.  We have made and continue to make those interests known to all.  We invite other countries to work with us in maximizing our mutually shared interests, and will support those with whom we are successful in doing that.  We will not support countries that oppose our interests, instead, we will actively counter such opposition wherever and whenever it arises.’  (For more on diplomacy, I encourage reading Hillsdale College President Dr Larry Arnn's 'Three Lessons of Statesmanship' wherein he goes over the serious challenges faced by Churchill both at the beginning and ending of WW2.)

UN ambassador Nikki Haley gave strong voice to that policy as she responded to the resolution condemning the US for announcing its embassy’s move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.  Taking no prisoners, the lady told the assembled, “The United States will remember this day in which it was singled out for attack in the General Assembly for the very act of exercising our right as a sovereign nation, … We will remember it when we are called upon to once again make the world’s largest contribution to the United Nations.”  Then she got up and walked out of what Prime Minister Netanyahu called “the theater of the absurd.”

More still moving out of Kalifornia, than moving in, according to the AP.  This has been widely known for some time now by just about everyone save the local leftwing intelligentsia, who are merely doing their duty to discombobulate the lightly read and pre-educated.  The state that already houses more than one third of the nation’s welfare recipients within 12% of its population (more here) just added 300K more people last year, overwhelmingly contributed by our more fecund neighbors.  “More people moved out of California than in from other US states, but foreign immigration made up the difference.  Total net migration added 80K people.”  Anyone want to bet whether the state’s share of welfare recipients went up or down?

[23dec17 update]  California wildfires are the latest human-augmented natural calamity that needs to be used for political purposes by the state’s command and control team led by our governor.  As argued in the WSJ (‘California’s Political Fires’), the decision comes down to spending billions on the bullet train, or properly managing the state’s forests, overgrown with underbrush and littered with millions of beetle-killed dead trees.  The state has become expert in the bait-and-switch tax/fee schemes in which it promises to dedicate these impounded funds for fire safety and management, and instead uses the monies to “backfill the budget” and spend on “high-speed rail, public housing and transit and electric-car subsidies.”  Of course, the Left’s constituencies have been well prepared for such arguments and sleights of hand, having neither the critical thinking skills nor knowledge base to conceive of anything beyond what they are told by California’s ensconced Democrats.

Definitions Derby

Hold to nothing too violently.  Every fool stands convinced: and everyone convinced is a fool; and the faultier a man's judgment, the firmer his conviction; even with the proof on your side, it is well to make concession; for your reasons are known and your gentlemanliness is recognized; ... .  Gracian #183

George Rebane

In these pages we have sought, so far with limited success, to make our discussions and debates semantically crisper by using well-defined terms, and editing these definitions as necessary to capture the more nuanced meanings intended.  For example, many keyboards have been pounded over the years debating the definitions and the subsequent uses of socio-political labels such as socialist, communist, capitalist, liberal, progressive, conservative, conservetarian, etc.  The resulting definition derbies seem always to revolve around how attribute comprehensive should the labeled thing be before its assigned label is accepted.

Most people will accept a label such as ‘socialist’ or ‘conservative’ if the person, program, or policy can claim some sufficient number of attributes to unambiguously indicate its membership in the labeled class.  As an example, a policy can safely be called socialist if it expands state’s control of the means of production or mandates market-blind distribution of goods, wealth, etc.  Such common usage doesn’t call for implementing all (i.e. the comprehensive set) of the attributes of socialism.  In short, a useful discourse can be had if the parties either understand each other’s use of a label, or accept a working principle that doesn’t make ‘comprehensive’ the enemy of ‘sufficient’.

Debating definitions can also serve agendas, especially if you determine that your ideology must be sold carefully to broader audiences (e.g. your lightly-read constituencies).  In such cases you don’t want to reveal the complete picture too soon because your audience will then balk.  In these times such has been the case when collectivists of various shades want to hide behind easy-to-embrace social give-aways without going into the details of what it will take to sustain such transfer payments, or if sustainability is even possible.

So, when you believe in a future in which the state controls more than less of our property and behaviors, a future where markets are greatly curtailed or completely eliminated by state mandated distribution policies, then you don’t want to advertise that too early, even if you believe that such a system will ultimately provide the greatest good to the greatest number.  In that case you will decry the socialist label being prematurely attached to policies that are at best camouflaged in half-way houses on the road to socialism.  You then will argue in favor of the comprehensive definition, and dismiss any sufficient characterization of socialism that doesn’t check off all the dictionary items listed under socialism – ‘my policy doesn’t call for the elimination of all markets, therefore it is not socialism.’

With comprehensive definitions suppressing the merely sufficient, the debate’s progress will be successfully stifled until the destination is achieved at which time it will be revealed when all of its features or attributes are in place.  In such a forum, one is not allowed to identify himself, say, as a conservative unless he can check off somebody’s complete list of requirements for a conservative.  The same for a ‘free market’ which is then defined as one that is not allowed to have even a smidgen of regulations under which it must operate.  Or the obverse, mandating the ‘free market’ label when a massively regulated market still has a bit of wiggle room left.  It all depends on your agenda.

Quite often definitions are given in terms of an overarching concept that can stand on its own, but can be expanded to have one or more appended categorical components.  We recently ran into one such term – ‘collusion’ – that is much in the news these days, and forms the crux of an enlarged debate that is attended by participants all wearing ideologically colored glasses.  To illustrate, for the Right ‘collusion’ is seen simply as two or more parties proceeding in confidence to accomplish some end, be it innocent or evil.  The latter being the addended categorical component.  To pursue its current agenda, the Left can only view ‘collusion’ in terms of its categorical component of ‘evil’ firmly clamped to the overarching definition, with the attendant logic that colluding secretly or in confidence must always and necessarily be evil – no further proof is needed. (more here)

Unfortunately, such definition derbies often lap over to embrace countless faulty logics so prevalent in the comment streams of most blogs including RR’s.  The preceding semantical gymnastics are usually part of a drill that starts by characterizing everything in black/white or binary terms.  If you don’t explicitly condemn/embrace something, then the clear conclusion is that you must love/hate that same thing.  This is the most common and ham-brained way of rejecting the cautionary wisdom that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.  Related to this is the so-called ‘argument from ignorance’, so popular today, wherein one ‘asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false’.  Both appeal to the same logical fallacy.

In my experience, also confirmed in these pages, it is overwhelmingly the folks on the Left who don’t want to be explicit about what they actually believe (i.e. the tenets of their credo), and consequently in a debate they sail under false colors as long as possible, and then simply quit the field when such colors no longer serve.  I have yet to meet a person of the Right who, when asked, hesitates to declare the underlying tenet of his credo that gives basis for his argument on an issue.  Perhaps others have had the same experience.

(Readers may always examine my credo and glossary of terms so as to correct or confirm that my own apologetics conform to my previously stated beliefs.)

 

Texas Massacre and Gun Control (updated 11nov17)

George Rebane

When some dysfunction or disaster occurs in our land, first look to government as the cause or guilty party until proven innocent.

In various forms this aphorism has been a Rebane Doctrine tenet in these pages and the recent Texas killings by a deranged military outcast is again the latest case in point.  The killer bought his semi-auto rifle and fifteen 30-round magazines very recently as he was planning the murder and mayhem within which he intended to shoot his in-laws.  Had the Air Force followed regulations in a timely manner, and placed his name in the national database intended to stop such people from arming themselves, he would not have had the firepower to kill 26 and wound 20 more in the brief interval of time it took.

After the attack was in progress it required the heroic actions of a neighbor to quickly take his own rifle, put himself in harm’s way, wound the killer, and bring an end to the carnage, thereby saving untold additional lives among worshiping congregants.  As is often the case, it was fortunate that a legally armed neighbor was there when seconds counted and the police were minutes away.  After being hit twice by the NRA-trained civilian, the killer fled only to be pursued until he crashed and took his own life, thereby ending the rampage.

The Left’s gun confiscatory cohorts predictably rolled into action across the land, again prescribing additional laws constructively rolling back the Second Amendment, laws that would only limit the legal possession and use of guns.  The actions of the armed neighbor are of the kind replicated in uncounted occasions daily during which legal guns prevent murder, mayhem, and lesser crimes, often before the acts are even attempted.  And this also in countless and unreported times where the perpetrator is deterred by the strong likelihood that he will be confronted by a legally armed citizen – intended victim or bystander.

While the news media (most certainly its lamestream component) overlooks or purposely ignores these occurrences, the NRA documents some of these in their monthly American Rifleman column titled ‘The Armed Citizen’.  For an additional commentary on this tragic incident that addresses the above, please read ‘A Plumber With a Rifle’.

[11nov17 update] ... and had the existing gun laws been enforced, the 'Current Gun Laws Should Have Made it Impossible for Texas to Buy Gun'.  Such considerations make no impact on those whose agenda includes a disarmed America, and can also serve as a litmus test for reliably identifying gun banners.

The conundrum of culturally cohesive communities (updated 22aug17)

George Rebane

Cultural cohesion has been the propensity of humans living together for millennia and perhaps longer.  The clear and simple dictum is that people like to live with people who share their social values and view the world pretty much as they themselves do.  The benefits of such communities is both manifest and manifold because it engenders mutual trust and even affection as it lets people work without having to constantly watch their backs, and therefore specialize, knowing that there is a reliable clientele for their product or service.  Promoting this paradigm has been one of the foundations of RR and part of my personal belief system (more here).

People with limited ability to nuance concepts mistake the promotion of cultural cohesion with a childlike understanding of simple black/white alternatives.  For them, if you like cultural cohesion, then you are probably a racist who doesn’t tolerate the existence of other cultures.  It’s as simple as that.

On Responding to Russia

George Rebane

One would think that the record of these pages, which includes a considerable revelation of my background, would have cleared up any questions of how I view America’s relationship with and policy toward Russia – apparently not.  So let me attempt to spell it out.  For those expecting a simple view about Russia with a three-word policy epilogue, the sequel will disappoint, and to those I recommend other reading materials.

Russia is a thugocracy of about 145 million mostly slavic souls that is sovereign over a 6,590,000 square mile resource rich patch of earth that covers two continents.  It is a nuclear power with totally undefendable borders that has historically counted on its land area and winters to defeat its enemies.  Since these barriers will no longer serve in modern times, it has resorted to MAD as its defense against military invasion by a peer nuclear power.  This policy supports the proposition that nuclear weapons have saved hundreds of millions of lives since their invention and demonstrated use.  Russia today projects power by military bluff of small police actions – e.g. Georgia – but mostly through political skill – e.g. witness its dealings with the EU and Obama - and now technology based subterfuge.

As a thugocracy, the system of Russian governance is marginally stable as a standoff between Putin and his praetorian guard against oligarchs who generate wealth primarily through extractive enterprises which they can barely finance given the rate at which they export cash to more secure repositories across the world.  What is left over from such corruption (of which Team Putin is a party) makes up what may be called state revenues.  In short, Russia’s economy is in tatters which brings in the third leg of instability, namely its demography dominated by an aging population whose contingent of young bear children at 1.3 per fecund woman (2.1 is the accepted replacement rate).

To extend its life as a sovereign nation-state, Russia must conquer its more productive neighbors or morph into a law-abiding capitalistic state.  Socialism was tried, it didn’t work then, and what’s left of it now doesn’t work either.  Russia itself is still composed of many ethnic peoples with their own cultures who desire their own place in the sun that they lost after the Muscovy Russians started expanding in the 14^th century with the decline of the Mongols.  If today’s ‘greater Russia’ does not provide its citizens scattered over its large land area with a working economy that gives promise for future generations, then it will balkanize into political entities that will look much as they did in the 1300s.

The policy of the United States leading the western countries should be to bring an end to Russia’s thugocracy through a ‘soft landing’ similar to that which happened in 1991.  This will require 1) judicious containment by our demonstrated willingness to use military force to stop Russia’s current ‘outreach’ efforts, and 2) vigorous meddling in Russia’s internal affairs to support the oligarchs’ desire (efforts?) to topple Putin by assuring the new Russian democracy legitimate standing in the community of nations when they demonstrate themselves to be nation of laws.  A sweetener could be our assurance to the oligarchs to side with Russia in its defense of eastern Siberia (where a lot of oligarchs have their extractive industries) against the inevitable attempt by China to extend its borders northward to the Arctic Ocean.

So until Russia is governed by laws, not men (which I doubt under Putin), the US has to contain and compromise the thugocracy until one of the above scenarios plays out without provoking Putin to destabilize the world with his nukes.  This may involve coordinating with the Russian military to allow his and his family’s extraction to a life of opulent exile.  The preceding may be considered part and parcel of Rebane Doctrine as memorialized in these pages.

I hope that our left-leaning readers can understand the above response as to whether or not I “run with the crowd” of RR readers who show little concern for Russia’s now demonstrated inability to either change or influence any American votes.  In the meantime, we should do all possible to minimize their meddling in our affairs and maximize our ability to meddle in theirs.  Stopping criminal leftwing leakers in our security services would be a good place to start.

On Healthcare – one mo’ time

George Rebane

Before any serious discussion of America’s healthcare ensues, we must first come to grips with the answer to this question –

What right does any American have to draw on his neighbor’s pocketbook to pay for the repair of his health, the preservation of which he may or not have taken any prudent steps to safeguard?  (At this point we can cite the horrendous stats that describe the behaviors with which we Americans knowingly and willingly damage ourselves.  Take what you will, knowing that you, and not me, will pay the price.)

In this light Rebane Doctrine recommends the following (neither comprehensive nor sufficient) attributes for our healthcare industry.

• Patients choose their own physicians and participate in their own medical decisions to the extent that they and/or their supporters can afford the care.
• No one has the right to demand another to pay for his healthcare.
• The spectrum of health professionals is expanded greatly to allow practitioners of all skill levels and training to participate in delivering health related services.
• Tax policy is reformed to permit both private and institutional health savings accounts that belong to individuals and their designees – e.g. family healthcare account.
• Tax policy supports the founding of non-profit healthcare service corporations (NPHSCs) for the poor that are owned and operated by for-profit companies.
• FDA policies on drug acceptance greatly simplified, especially for the release of drugs and treatments for cases in which the standard of care provides no relief from certain death.
• Health insurance can be sold as any other product that comes under the aegis of the Constitution’s ‘commerce clause’ (Art 1, Sec 8, Clause 3).
• Catastrophic care will be provided by private charities or NPHSC’s where available. Where such care is not available, the federal government will provide for hospice care to alleviate end-of-life suffering.

To Declare Wars or Not

George Rebane

After the end of our last declared war, diplomat extraordinaire and historian George Kennan wrote in 1946 what has come to be known as the ‘Long Telegram’ (q.v.) outlining a policy to contain the post-war global aspirations of the USSR.  That was quickly followed by his now famous ‘X article’ – ‘The Sources of Soviet Conduct’ in Foreign Affairs – which expanded on the recognition that Stalin’s real objective was to dedicate the USSR to foment revolution to “defeat the capitalist forces in the outside world” which required the overthrow of western governments.  In this piece his oft-quoted seminal observation was that -

“… the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies ... Soviet pressure against the free institutions of the Western world is something that can be contained by the adroit and vigilant application of counterforce at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points, corresponding to the shifts and manoeuvers of Soviet policy, but which cannot be charmed or talked out of existence.”  (emphasis as in its subsequent references)

This policy with variants was adopted and implemented in its essence by all subsequent US presidents until the USSR collapsed in 1991.  Fundamentally, history has judged the containment policy through “adroit and vigilant applications of counterforce” wherever needed to have been successful.  During the entire period from 1945 to 1991 and to the present, neither the US nor any developed country has bothered to apply force or counterforce under an umbrella of a formal declaration of war.  World order, such as it is, has been maintained by the ad hoc application of military force by individual nation-states acting alone or within some loose alliances cobbled together for political reasons.

But the pragmatism that has underpinned such undeclared hostilities for more than half a century is easy to see.  Three principal reasons to proceed without formal declaration come to mind –

1. A declared war needs to have an objective of victory over an identified enemy that controls territory, people, and resources. The declaring party needs also then to put its nation on a wartime footing with all the concomitant sacrifices in force.
2. Foreign policy objectives can be achieved by the use of many kinds of force without the declaration of war which requires the commitment of foreign powers to declare themselves an ally or some other form of a committed partner of the declaring nation.
3. A formally declared war must continue until some formal instrument of peace or cessation of hostilities is negotiated and signed, else it continues indefinitely. Such terminating negotiations are more often than not difficult, expensive, and take a long time.

Now regarding Islamists and dawa, I tend to hold with Popper and Kennan as far as a responsive policy is concerned.  To understand what I mean, take Kennan’s paragraph above and substitute Islamist et al for the USSR et al.  It would then read –

The main element of any United States policy toward Islamism must be a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of dawa and Islamist expansive tendencies ... Islamist pressure against the free institutions of the Western world is something that can be contained by the adroit and vigilant application of counterforce at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points, corresponding to the shifts and manoeuvers of Islamist policy, but which cannot be charmed or talked out of existence. 

None of this involves a declaration of war against Islamism, since that in its essence is a state-less distributed assault, especially in its promotion of dawa inside the borders of western countries already suffering from unassimilating Islamic colonization.  Were we to seek the stasist solution, promoted by many libertarians and progressives, of waiting for Islamism to condense into an attackable nation-state, it would be too late for the simple reason that this will never happen.  That kind of a world has passed a good many years ago.

And if people still believe that our current Constitution does not already provide for America to fight for its survival, without the declaration of war, through the timely, adroit, and vigilant application of counterforce at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points, then we should appropriately amend the Constitution to make that possible.

Dump Trump and Pillory Hillary – 29aug16 (updated 1sep16)

George Rebane

OK, Donald Trump is beginning to sound more presidential as he sticks to the pillory Hillary script.  But I’m not sure of his new campaign leadership duo of Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway.  Today on Fox News Sunday Ms Conway was given an opportunity to showcase The New Donald while interviewed by Fox’s stealth liberal Chris Wallace.  Wallace was asked Conway a couple of loaded questions on Trump’s economic policy which Conway handled in due course, and then Wallace delivered the ‘clincher’ pointing out that there were “experts on the economy” who had given Trump’s policies a thumbs down – what did she have to say about that?  Conway was flustered, resorted to high blabberwocky on a side topic, and came out with egg on her face.

According to Rebane Doctrine the correct answer to the Wallaces of the world on citing expert economists should have been, ‘Look Chris, it’s yesterday’s news that the Federal Reserve, the Congressional Budget Office, the Office of Management and Budget, and the long list of academic institutions specializing in economics have a dismal record in correctly analyzing economic policies let alone predicting the performance of real economies.  The best they have ever been able to do is debate what they see in the rear view mirror, and even there they cannot agree.  Let’s face it, there are no ‘experts’ in economics, so quoting what some odd group of economists thinks is a gratuitous exercise at best that people cobble together to support some agenda or other.  What’s your next question?’

[1sep16 update]  For the record, I thought Trump’s immigration policy speech was excellent both in content and specificity (for this stage of the campaign).  While I question his ability to do all of his laundry list things on the ‘first hour/day in office’, even if he gets those processes started in the first 100 days will be a marked improvement.

Looking to the other side, it is hard to tell what Hillary is running on save that Trump is bad, and that what Obama has done is good.  The elements of her plan forward seem to be missing.  And that the woman is deathly afraid of an already fawning press says it all about how much she fears shoes already dropped and those yet to come from her many scandals.  The humorous part here is the consistent denials by her acolytes that what we see is a fire that has given rise to the considerable smoke that blankets her campaign.  Nevertheless, she continues to prove that it is possible to fool most of the people all the time.

Wages by Fiat

George Rebane

[This is the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 3 August 2016.]

Liberal economist Professor Alan Blinder of Princeton maintains that 'Only (Hillary Clinton) Can Make Wages Grow Again', and then launches into a lecture on how economic policies by government fiat will outperform the market driven nostrums advanced by Donald Trump.

He rejects out of hand Trump’s workforce supply and demand argument along with lowering the American employers’ tax burden as ways to encourage and promote the ability of companies to raise wages.  In Blinder’s epistle there is no recognition that workers’ wages are based on the value workers deliver to their employer, and that in turn is naturally dependent on the workers’ productivity.  There is no reasonable way around these age old economic principles save through force by the government gun, and history makes plain the kind of economies which result from such autocratic policies.

It is important to understand the good professor’s counsel because he serves as an economic adviser to Mrs Clinton, and is a prominent national spokesman for a cadre of progressive economists.  Blinder’s list of Clinton’s superior economic policies is 1) raise the minimum wage, 2) force corporations to share profits with workers, 3) launch government subsidized vocational education programs, and mandate employer provided apprenticeships, 4) compel states to provide pre-K education to all, and 5) increase the federal Earned Income Tax Credit.

Brexit Reflections (updated 25jun16)

George Rebane

Britain’s Brexit vote marks a watershed for Ruminations.  It delivered a robust confirmation of the conservetarian tenets posted and debated in these pages for the last ten years.  And given the state of the EU and what is happening there, we can expect more to come.  As I monitored last night’s election returns on the landmark referendum before turning in, a number of thoughts crossed my mind after posting the following update to ‘Ruminations – 21jun16’.

Today’s Brexit vote underscores in spades the RR teaching that mankind neither understands nor knows the transfer function of human societies in any of its undertakings.  For the layman, a transfer function is fundamental to understanding how a system works, i.e. with what outputs it responds to inputs.  Yesterday the markets were setting new highs in expectation that the Brits would reject Brexit – the Dow was up over 230 points, crude was significantly up as gold was down.  This evening at this writing the Dow futures are down 600 points, crude is down 5.66%, gold is up 4.66%.  And our double dufus divisions of central planners understand none of this as they continue to prescribe ever more one-size-fits-all national policies for America led by our fearless community organizer who has learned not one discernible thing about governance in his two terms in the White House.

Today we are witness to decades of socialism’s advance in the west, and capitalism’s advance in the east.  We have seen the demise of one great religion in Europe and the resurgence of another one in its underbelly.  The west has fought one form of collectivist repression to a standstill, and then refused to recognize the rise of a more virulent form that daily demonstrates its intent to continue the conquest of the world promised by its prophets a millennium ago.

Ruminations – 8mar16

George Rebane

Lord Keynes famously asked a critical journalist, 'When I get new information, I change my mind.  What do you do?'  Rebane Rule - A politician 'flipping' his views is welcome only when accompanied by what new information was received when which then caused the change.

The Union has invited Ms Hilary Hodge to be their new liberal columnist.  Ms Hodge will lend her voice to the growing progressive cohort that is now escaping to the hinterlands from the metro areas they have fashioned in their own image, and which are no longer suitable places to live. (Her website here)  In her inaugural column she gives a fine account of herself emphasizing her liberal education, professional career, and that she is gay.  She has a “passion for small business” and is a fellow Rotarian with me in the Nevada City Rotary Club.  RR welcomes her and looks forward to her commentaries on “local and national economic issues, policies, and trends.”   

The Left’s propaganda about Congress being in “gridlock” continues on all fronts – most recently in county clerk-recorder/registrar Greg Diaz’s column in the 8mar16 Union.  The informed reader knows that is not true.  The federal government is in a polarized gridlock because the administration has a demonstrated socialist agenda that prevents the passage of legislation from a majority Republican Congress.  Congress is doing just fine, but the leftwing lamestream continues the steady drumbeat that only the GOP are the obstructionists – the sound of the one hand clapping.

The cover-up of intelligence from the Central Command (Pentagon’s Mideast military) is another Obama scandal in waiting that our exciting election histrionics have put on the back burner.  It turns out that on-the-ground intel analysts in Afghanistan report that their dire findings have been ‘sanitized’ by the Pentagon to provide the administration with appropriate political cover during this election year.  This is one of the many reprehensible after effects of Obama’s purge of uncooperative flag officers during his tenure in office.  Autocrats (cum tyrants) – e.g. Stalin and Hitler – have always had their toadies tailor news from the front to be more palatable in order to avoid early ‘retirement’ in its various forms.

Universal gun registration – to track the movement of firearms – has always been gun control’s preamble to gun confiscation by government central planners.  Such programs are successful to the extent that populations are ignorant.  In America (see also RR comment streams) well-rehearsed progressive peans of denial are heard every time Second Amendment proponents point out another incidence of such confiscation accomplished or in the offing – see Canada’s recent experience (here).

In ‘Transformation of Economics’ University of Ohio economics professor Richard Vedder argues that in America economics has morphed into “political economics” along these major lines –

• Diminishing returns to research.
• Economics as ideology in camouflage.
• A disconnect between economic reality and public policy
• The rise of the nonuniversity research centers
• A major cause of America’s economic malaise: the government’s war on work

This insightful read concludes with - One reason living standards in the U.S. have stagnated: There were 12.7 million fewer Americans working in January than there would have been with the 2000 employment-population ratio. Disability insurance claims have roughly tripled in the past generation (despite greater inherent workplace safety because of the declining relative importance of manufacturing and mining); government-subsidized student loans and grants have lured younger Americans away from work; extended unemployment benefits prolonged unemployment; and food stamps now go to nearly 30 million more Americans than 15 years ago. The government has provided much more income that is only available if people do not work. So fewer do. As Charles Murray has noted, this phenomenon has contributed to declining social cohesion and arguably even largely explains Donald Trump’s electoral success.

The Good Kind of Blacklist

George Rebane

Well, our little union educated, progressive darlins have once more confirmed the longheld Rebane Doctrine tenet that the Left proscribes free speech wherever it can establish a beachhead of power.  You can feel visible hatred from these mobs of ‘university students’ against those who disagree with them, and more importantly, also those who don’t support their views with sufficient vigor.  They have no idea about the First Amendment simply because it and its place in American society has never been taught to them.

On college campuses in the 1960s, was it not their grandparents who relied on the First Amendment to support and protect their open protests against the government and university administrations?  It used to be that a university was anything but a safe place for any idea – there ideas were treated to rigorous intellectual enquiry and analysis, and discarded unmercifully when found wanting.

Now the little darlins even banish journalists from covering their rage against a society they deem insensitive to their own needs and demands.  In their public appearances they demonstrate both their ignorance and emotional fragility.  This is the generation that needs ‘trigger warnings’ on all things academic and otherwise that might fracture their brittle countenances.  They now need to set aside ‘safe spaces’ where politically incorrect speech and other communications are barred. 

They abhor violence to such a degree that they do not hesitate to use it against others in order to diminish it in society.  And, of course, they are against all forms of discrimination, stereotyping, and bias, as long as it all conforms to their own peculiar notions of goodness and light.  They rail against McCarthyism blacklisting communists during early cold war years, but today they have no problem blacklisting distinguished Americans from speaking or even setting foot on their campuses.  These young narcissists already know it all to an extent that they stand ready to remake their schools by vetting their own administrations and professors.

Our campuses have long been recognized as havens of collectivist thought.  But now we seem to be entering into a new era of what may at best be described as the lunatics running the asylum.  The progressive administrators and professors have a conundrum on their hands.  Their half-baked and mini-minded spawn are actually putting into practice the proletarian putsches they have been carefully taught.  Since they have been abandoned by their elders, the salvation of the American university now lies in the hands of the remaining serious cohort of students who are there for an education from institutions that can again be made to invite, nurture, and honor all ideas that illuminate and advance the human condition.  No more blacklists about who can and cannot speak about what on campus.

Here is what The Atlantic had to say about ‘The Coddling of the American Mind’.