When intellectuals and journalists of the left use the word “democracy,” they typically are not referring to elections and decision-making by popularly elected officials. For the left, “democracy” is another word for progressive policy aims, especially the widening of special political rights and welfare-state provisions to new constituencies. By that definition any Republican president is carrying out an “assault on democracy.” – Barton Swaim
George Rebane
California hides C19 data to insulate Newsom’s disastrous pandemic response policies from criticism. Surprisingly, AP broke this story (more here), and the rest of the lamestream immediately clammed up about it. As usual with the Left, this practice is well-established in all autocracies wherever they are implemented. Don’t let the public discover that their government is wrongheaded, stupid, pernicious, or a sordid amalgam of all three. Newsom is an established idiot with a penchant for control. For almost the entire past year his stratagems against C19 have been totally ineffective or markedly underperformed those of almost all other states. You have to be idiots-on-steroids like Cuomo and DeBlasio to outperform Newsom in governance. (It takes a union-educated progressive not to know that California is well on its way to becoming a full-fledged one-party autocracy. And California has them by the millions.)
Speaking of Newsom and the nationalization of California’s failures, here is a compendium of them by CA Assemblyman Kevin Kiley in a 21jan21 letter that he sent to President Biden. In it he responds to Newsom’s plea to Biden to implement the Golden State’s disasters nationwide. Have you signed the petition to recall Newsom?
Higher wages increase profits – well, at least “at times”, according to a 23jan21 piece (here) by Ray Fisman and Michael Luca in which they describe ‘efficiency-wage theory’. This theory by some prominent leftwing economists proposes that paying workers more will increase retention and productivity. And the cost benefits from these increases, for certain industries, primarily the 'shag and stack' kind, it may boost the bottom line for a while. However, the special cases in which this may be true are few and far in between, and most certainly don’t recommend a national minimum wage policy. Leftists who believe that some arbitrary amount, today $15/hr, will result in workers happy dancing in the streets are the same ones who still believe in perpetual motion, and that the moon is 1/49th the size of earth, even though it is further away. Henry Ford’s raising assembly workers' wages by almost double and reducing work from 9 to 8hrs/day did indeed increase productivity and retention enough to more than pay for itself. But that was primarily due to the long lines of applicants outside the factory gates to replace those Ford would fire for not working their butts off for the firm. This is not today's labor market. Everything has its market price, and no matter how much governments attempt to mangle those prices, in the end reality will rule. Biden’s Bunch knows none of this, and will do its damnest to show all how levitation by bootstraps will work.
[24jan21 update] On vaccine distribution and administration, under its disastrous Democrats California now ranks dead last in getting the stuff out to the people who need it. And double-dummy Newsom writes Biden to have the nation start following California's lead on public policies a bit more closely. I guess he figgers that if the rest of the country gets as crappy as we are, then Californians won't notice the difference, and they won't have anyplace else to go, and maybe we'll even stop the recall petitions now circulating around the state.
[25jan21 update] Bumblebrain’s latest Big Lie is one that is attributed to his victory over Trump, and also the ONLY thing the Dems could claim was his mandate from the electorate – to demonstrate how Trump was derelict in responding to C19, and to demonstrate how his administration will finally get the pandemic under control. Well, as pointed out @914am below, he has no plan of his own that is better than what President Trump achieved with both the historically rapid development of multiple vaccines (Project Warp Speed), and the meticulously planned distribution of the vaccines to the states using military logistics. What did the states do? The Dem governed ones loudly declared that they didn’t trust Trump, and sat on their collective asses instead of preparing their states’ distribution plans. Today most of their vaccines are still sitting on shelves and some are spoiling instead of saving lives. But the bottom line for Bumblebrain is that his handlers have finally explained the matter to him, which is that he can do no better than Trump. He admitted his Big Lie with “there's nothing we can do to change the trajectory of the pandemic in the next several months”. So, on what he got elected, he can’t deliver. Compare that to the share of promised accomplishments by his predecessor. (more here)
For Sale - White Privilege Card. I'm selling my white privilege card. It's over 70 years old and still in mint condition. It has never been used. Full disclosure - reason for selling is that it hasn't done a damn thing for me! No free college, no free food, no free housing, etc. Prefer cash but would be willing to do an even trade for a different race card that is much more widely accepted! Interested? Contact me on my non-Obama cell phone that I pay for every month… Serious buyers only! (H/T to correspondent seeking a similar transaction.)
I fear for our beloved Republic (updated 7nov20)
George Rebane
With the election over and unknown thousands of votes yet to be discovered, counted, and adjudicated, we have entered a virgin and wild land untrammeled in our history. Having arrived therein, today we are literally a polarized population of pioneers who see the other as savages to be subdued. Common ground for launching a healing dialogue was forsaken long ago.
History students understand that the conflagration of 1860-65 was not a civil war, as it is erroneously described today. In reality it was a War for Southern Independence launched by secessionist states that had no desire to ‘take over’ the United States of America. Were violence to be our fate, then one can foresee a similarly purposed conflict with the Right wanting to secede, and the Left opposing secession with the force of arms. That is a political asymmetry the Left has refused to acknowledge, as it vigorously opposes its natural outcome.
The Right wants to live in a land where it can practice its values of liberty, freedom, enterprise, and capitalism. The Right has no desire to force other people to adopt their values and mores. The Left, as the perpetual hatchery of totalitarian regimes, will force everyone it can control to adopt and practice its ideology, even if that necessitates a vast gulag and re-education camps. The Left has demonstrated again its perennial practice of soiling its existing nests, and then emigrating to unspoiled regions and communities to repeat the process. There is no evidence of emigrations in the opposite direction; the people of the Right continue to escape to a shrinking collection of unspoiled pastures with the vain hope that they will not be followed. It is anyone’s guess how long this pattern of migrations can continue.
The election of 2020 is yet to be decided, but the outlook for Republicans does not look good. I assess President Trump’s chance of being re-elected at less than 5%. The only hope for America dodging the fundamental transformation bullet for the near term is that Republicans retain the Senate, and that SCOTUS will revert to a strong constitutionalist bench in adjudicating the blizzard of cases it will encounter. With a Republican Senate under Majority Leader Mitch, we can hope for blockage of the most egregious socialist GND legislation that will issue from Speaker Pelosi’s House. Under the Harris/Biden administration gridlock will be good.
What disturbs (terrifies?) me the most is the fraction of the electorate that support a fundamental transformation of our Republic from the historical country of Makers to a country of government promoted Takers. This is the key attribute that illustrates our divided house, and therefore portends the Great Divide. None of our leading thinkers ensconced in their Institutions of Thinking has a clue on how to stop the ever-widening chasm so well illustrated this week, let alone providing even a rough outline for bringing us back close enough to preserve the Union. I say this because the Takers have been taught to believe that the only means to reduce their pain – real, imagined, or self-inflicted – is to have government take more from the Makers. As has been shown in so many other countries passing through socialism, there always comes a time when the Makers quit making.
The 2022 election will respond to whatever pain the Democrats inflict on the country. Even though fewer Republican Senate seats will be up for grabs, the solution of inducing more Makers to make more is not on any progressive horizon. If the Senate flips to the dark side, then Nellie bar the door; even a conservative SCOTUS on the way to the packing house will be of no help. This election, now going for the bumblebrain and socialist-in-waiting, demonstrates that we Americans no longer have the collective wisdom to preserve our liberties or our land of the free. Once a political monopoly is established at the federal level, it will take the country down the trail so visibly blazed by California and its like-minded coastal calamities. What happens then is anyone’s guess, but for sure it will not be pretty.
During this tendentious week, my final wish is that President Trump will act presidential when this election’s dust settles. And if he must depart, that he does so with newfound dignity and decorum, that were it practiced more frequently during his years in office would have guaranteed him a second term.
[7nov20 update] "Joe Biden is Elected the 46th U.S. President"
Posted at 10:16 AM in Culture Comments, Current Affairs, Great Divide, Our Country, The Liberal Mind, We the iSheeple | Permalink | Comments (88)
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