Rebane's Ruminations

STEM education and careers – not for everyone

George Rebane

Our socially destructive culture has long done a number on students with the extraordinary capacity to study and make it in STEM careers.  Part of the socialist agenda for the US is to impress in the population a belief that we are fundamentally all equal, with all of us capable of anything as long as the state suppresses the bad angels of discrimination with which we, especially the whites, are burdened.  And to accomplish this we need to make sure that Billy and Jill grow up in an environment of mirror-fogging equity instead of merit-based equal opportunity in which today DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) is the chosen form of politically acceptable social environment.

Unfortunately, the realworld is fashioned on quite a different landscape where our capacities have developed differentially.  Today diversity is recognized, but in a highly qualified manner and under precisely and politically prescribed circumstances.  Diversity that leads to differential capacities to perform, especially in the cognitive areas, is not only rejected but also proscribed in some places by laws that may lead to incarceration.  Again, science confirms that in almost all dimensions that describe us we are created unique and develop unequally, and in some dimensions these differences are systemic and cannot be overcome by bending the twig according to the dictates of DEI.  

Nationally recognized scholar and political scientist, Harvard/MIT educated Dr Charles Murray, has written an illuminating essay about the extraordinary and special requirements for success in STEM education and subsequent careers.  His ‘The Roots of STEM Excellence - Finding and developing one of our rarest and most precious human resources is a paramount goal.’ here in the 30aug24 WSJ will now be vilified by all the usual leftwing suspects bent on reducing America into a second-world country.  In this piece he continues reporting on research that established the human diversities we reported on in his previous work Facing Reality: Two Truths about Race in America (2021) which was equally attacked and rejected by the Left. (more here)  (I wrote a Union column on it at the time which could not be printed for reasons its then publisher took great pains to explain to me over one of our lunches.)

The basic thesis Murray presents is that success in STEM requires cognitive abilities that are relatively very uncommon.  The cognitive abilities demanded are present in only the top 0.01% or one in 10,000 people – it’s just the way the cognitive cookie crumbles.  The bottom line is that just being dedicated and working hard will not cut it as it does for almost all other professional pursuits.  It’s the equivalent of not being able to make it in the NBA if you’re short or in the NFL if you’re skinny and slow.  Not everyone has what it takes to make it in any desired career – the playing field is not level, and it was ever thus.  This is diametrically contra to what is told to our K-12 students in progressive public schools.

To nail the point and outline the problem, I will quote some paragraphs from the cited essay by Charles Murray.

The task is to identify those with STEM talent when they are young. The good news is that standardized tests expressly designed to measure cognitive ability are an efficient way to do so. They are accurate, inexpensive, resistant to coaching and demonstrably unbiased against minorities, women or the poor. Those conclusions about the best cognitive tests are among the most exhaustively examined and replicated findings in all social science.

The bad news is that admissions offices of elite universities ignore this evidence. They use “holistic” admissions algorithms that treat tested cognitive ability as just one of many desirable traits. That isn’t necessarily an educational disaster for the next generation of brilliant performers in the social sciences, humanities and nonacademic majors. They can develop their potential in an ordinary college or even without college. The STEM fields are different, for two reasons.

First, the raw cognitive demands are greater in STEM than other disciplines. People who are merely in the top few percentiles of overall cognitive ability don’t face insuperable obstacles in rising to the top of non-STEM fields given enough determination and hard work. Nothing in their college courses is impossible for them to learn if they try hard enough. That’s not true in STEM. Much of the advanced math required for performance at the top of STEM fields is literally impossible to learn for anyone without math ability deep into the top percentile. Determination and hard work can’t compensate.

The Kamala interview that wasn’t

George Rebane

Last night CNN’s prerecorded 18-minute interview with Kamala Harris, with attendant training wheels Walz, was a giant nothing-burger – a disappointment but not a surprise.  While Kamala was asked some decent questions, she predictably dodged all of them as did her partner in perfidy.  What galled me the most was how she was allowed to bullshit her way out of the question about her manifold and desperate flip-flops on policies she championed in 2019 and her new ones with which she now apes Trump.

Her response to this line of questioning by Dana Bash was that “My values have not changed.”  And I almost gagged when Bash allowed her to skate with that.  Bash’s next question should immediately have been, ‘That may be, but the whole country has witnessed you doing 180s on your previously championed policies, and it will be your policies and not some ephemeral values that will impact the American people.  On what new evidence did you base your policy pirouettes?’ – or something in that vein.  Kamala’s lame answer again confirmed the low opinion that Democrats have of their loyal, yet demonstrably and reliably ignorant, constituencies who regularly swallow such answers with nary a qualm.

This brings me to my general complaint about the dismal state of today’s journalism that primarily includes the conservative media like Fox News.  Starting with lead political anchor Bret Baier, none of them are either smart or quick enough to follow up Democrats’ stated allegations about Republicans, wrong-headed realities, etc with ‘Sir, you’ve just stated an unsubstantiated allegation to my question ‘On what did you base your claim that …?’.  Please tell us again on what evidence do you base this and similar allegations you have made.’  Always ask for evidence when offered allegations.

Such a follow-up question will inevitably expose bullshit, and may even lead to a more productive discussion.  Instead, our stalwarts of the Fourth Estate just calmly soldier on to their next question to receive a similarly dissembled response by the progressive pundit/politician being interviewed.  And in the end, the interview has again turned into a non-interview in which the devious interviewee’s non-responses were not even exposed.  We viewers (well, some of us) expect to receive such performances on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, … .  But having to regularly consume them on outlets that attempt to champion the Right is downright nauseating.

Kamala’s Terrifying Speech

George Rebane

Kamala Harris’ speech at last night’s Democrat convention was terrifying in its unusually professional delivery and its absolutely vapid content.  That lady has surely learned to read a teleprompter.  But the scariest impact of her acceptance speech were the early returns of enthusiasm with which it was accepted by voters outside the convention center.

“The Vice President spoke with authority and admirable brevity (for) 37 minutes. … Kamala Harris introduced herself to the American public on Thursday, and her presentation was much like this week’s Democratic convention: well delivered, confident and optimistic, and mostly devoid of policy substance. Whether she can keep this up, unexplained and unexposed, for the next 12 weeks will determine whether she becomes America’s 47th President.”  This according to the 23aug24 WSJ (here).

But the real problem will be Trump and the Republican response between now and November.  Thomas Sowell’s warning is worth attending.  In his tempest fugit column (here) he admonishes “Republicans better get on the ball.  They haven’t made the case against Harris, (and) the clock is ticking.”

Instead of responding with “political jargon or snappy quips” wrapped in insults, the rebuttals should be a la Reagan, timely and in plain English.  “There are some Republicans today who seem to understand that. But they are not running in this year’s presidential election. Perhaps they may run in 2028. But there is such a thing as a country declining to the point of no return.  Four more years of disastrous Biden-Harris policies, at home and abroad, can take us past that fatal point.”

Bottom line, as they anticipated the 2022 ‘red wave’, the Republicans should never again underestimate the share of our fellow Americans who will swallow hook, line, and sinker the Democrats’ socialist swill.  Donald Trump does not once more need to demonstrate how he can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

America’s Downward Spiral – A Revealing Snapshot

George Rebane

Date Everything - Rebane Doctrine

In this election year which promises to be a political milestone (watershed?) two significant neo-Marxist messages from Democratic politicians blanketed the country yesterday.  Presidential candidate and VP Kamala Harris told the nation that her economic program (here) going forward would be based on government price controls in order to control inflation.  And Rep Ro Khanna (D-CA17) wrote an excellent article (here) in the 17aug24 WSJ contrasting his and VP candidate Sen JD Vance’s (R-OH) views on industrial policy.  Both progressive politicians cannot see America’s private sector making the country’s economy work without massive participation by the federal government that involves more regulatory controls, more directed subsidies, higher taxes on industry and ‘the rich’, and a heavily unionized workforce blessed with ‘living wages’ and price controls.

Rep Khanna’s piece is well written and very convincing to an audience mired in ignorance about economics, finance, human behavior, and the history of socialist governance here and abroad.  Unfortunately about two out of three Americans are so burdened as they attempt to make sense of the current daily tsunami of political punditry.  Khanna’s essay is both effective and impactive through the way he erroneously characterizes conservative thought, policies, and its ideological tenets.  He constructs excellent strawmen (i.e. lies) which are then readily demolished by his adroit wordsmithing.

One of the prime fallacies both Harris and Khanna promulgate is that government price controls actually work in managing a national economy to the benefit of its citizens.  Each presents that as an axiomatic notion of truth requiring no evidence to support it.  Central to their message to the benighted is that fixing prices does not affect supply and stifle economic growth.  The common thread from both politicians is that the Democrats have been and are the competent stewards of our economy who build factories and make jobs for main street.

No one of the Left understands any of the basic science of how nature manages complexity.  Their ideas about how complex economies work is based on a small trove of simplistic slogans and shibboleths that are demonstrably wrong.  And principles like ‘you cannot control what you cannot measure’ is also beyond their ken.  They still have no idea how primitive are our methods of collecting relevant, accurate, and timely economic data, and then using it to fashion information that would come close to supporting correct policy decisions made by a cohort of centrally controlling technicians.

As a coda to the above riff, I want to remind present day readers, most not all that interested in the view from my perch, that a prime motivation of this blog is to insert a collection of my observations into the great archive in the cloud – ‘the internet is forever’ – which may someday be dredged up by future data archeologists studying the mentality of the citizenry that allowed their great nation at its apex to go to hell in a handcart.

Scattershots – 16aug24 (updated)

George Rebane

The UK is on the threshold of totalitarianism.  To illustrate the devastating slippery slide that comes with socialism, one of Europe’s oldest democracies has now descended into prosecuting its citizens on the basis of thought control.  Not only is free speech in Great Britain’s past, but their hubristic bureaucrats promise to threaten foreigners outside their borders with extradition is they overstep the new restrictions on newly disallowed publicly expressed opinions. (here, here, and here)

‘Islam and the Future of the West’.  Islamophobia is a clearly warranted reaction to the long-standing writings and recently reinforced statements by leaders of trans-national Islam.  “Any reading of the Koran, as Robert Spencer, Raymond Ibrahim, Ali Sina, Ibn Warrak, Rebecca Bynum, and a host of other excellent scholars make abundantly clear, will reveal ayah after ayah commanding acts of grotesque violence against unbelievers. The reward for the martyrs who have been slain in service to Allah will be peace, loveliness, and virgins with pear-shaped breasts, as stipulated variously in Sura 44:45-55 and 78:31-36 of the Koran.” (more here) According to our neo-Marxists defending your culture against the promised and ongoing Muslim onslaught is ignorant and despicable racism.

“Inflation is down!” trumpet our lamestream media outlets.  NPR even coordinates its ‘news’ items with featured programming subjects in promoting this jaundiced view of the nation’s economy.  In their coordinated support of the Democrats’ campaign talking points, the Left’s lightly-read legions are spared the difference between ‘inflation level’ and ‘inflation rate’ in the constant cacophony they consume daily.  Contrary to what they experience in their wallets, they are led to believe that prices are actually going down in this Biden/Harris economy.

[16aug24 update] Dems move to red states.  The conspiracy to soil the remaining states not embracing socialism is in full swing.  There is now an organization called MoveIndigo -  MoveIndigo encourages Democratic flight to swing districts with Republican congressmen, often in swing states. Its goal is to “reset the balance in our country” and elect a more “representative” government. That’s doublespeak, but the group has also put it plainly: “It only takes a few Democrats moving to crucial toss-up districts . . . to take control of the House”—even to have “a profound impact on the Presidential race. (more here)  None of the migrating progressives are smart enough to ask what has made their selected red state so desirable compared to the shithole state they are abandoning, and moreover, what makes these leftwing double dummies think that the arrival  of more like them will not turn their new home also into the same kind of socialist quagmire they abandoned.

[update]  Georgia non-citizens registered to vote.  The Heritage Oversight project interviewed residents of a large apartment complex in Norcross, Georgia asking its residents 1) were they registered to vote, and 2) were they citizens.  14% answered that they were non-citizens who were already registered to vote. (more here)  With this kind of evidence of what is most likely happening to some extent all over the land, it was a very reasonable and legitimate request to Georgia SecState Brad Raffensberger by Trump to have their vote counts checked to discover more legal votes that may favor him.  There was never any demand to “overturn” the Georgia election.  Restricting voting to America’s legal voters is trumpeted as ‘voter suppression’ by our leftwing sleazebags, and their lightly read constituents lap up this ongoing lie.

Scattershots – 21jul24 (updated 22jul24)

George Rebane

Given the nature and extent of America’s ideological schism, all effective public policies should be made in the anticipation that this schism will endure.  Existentially we are no longer one nation.  Rebane Doctrine, 2024.

The mentality of collectivists – progressives, liberals, wokes, socialists, communists, neo-Marxists, … - ranges within a space anchored by insanity, cynicism, and evil. The evidence continues to pour in.  Today we hear leftwing commentators on lamestream media attempting to foster doubt that there was an actual assassination attempt on Donald Trump.  Their cynical cum evil proposals to their ill-informed audiences are that the blood letting was staged and/or was caused by some mysterious shards of broken glass exploding out of somewhere.

As expected, Bumblebrain is out and an even worse choice in Kamala Harris is now undemocratically foisted by the Dem elites as their new standard bearer. (more here)  But everyone knows Kamala will just be the next empty pipe to power for those who have been acting as the administration’s Star Chamber.  She will be a compliant conduit between the leftwing power brokers and the public policies they intend to implement, much like Joe Biden has been during his term.  From my perch I see the political landscape between now and November as a minefield for Republicans, especially Donald Trump.  There will be an opportunity to make countless politically destructive gaffs when shooting from the lip as the campaign really heats up.

[22jul24 update]  POTUS is NOT the hardest job in the world as any casual perusal of history will confirm.  In fact, POTUS may be the most fault tolerant job ever.  For how else do people with no executive experience and a woefully limited knowledge base perform more or less adequately – i.e. they didn’t start WW3?  Almost anyone who reads English can assume the position and make it through with on-the-job training that is amply available to a president.  Since FDR, consider the tenures of Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Obama, and now Biden.

PJ Media is not a credible source of news and information due to its conservative outlook – so again posits one of our leftwing commenters after I cited it above in reference to the ‘undemocratic’ way that the Dems have hoisted Kamala to be their standard bearer.  What I always ask these liberal critics is for the evidence they have to support their assertion.  They can never provide any such backing for their gratuitous conclusion.  This is in opposition to conservatives dunning liberal outlets like NYT, WaPo, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR, PBS as willing shills of the Democratic Party publishing years of unrecanted lies to their audiences.  As evidence just consider their years of ongoing reporting on the Russian election interference, that the border is secure, onset of inflation, Trump instigating insurrection, FBI doctoring FISA evidence, Hunter’s laptop as Russian disinformation, Hillary’s paying for generating the infamous Trump memo, and on and on.  And now we know that the whole cadre of the country’s Left has been covering up and lying about the cognitive breakdown of Joe Biden which has been obvious to Americans during his entire term as POTUS.

California does not teach kids to read

'All people are naturally political animals.  Politics is a dominant factor in how we run our daily affairs in both the public and private spheres.  The individual who sniffs that they are above or not concerned with politics is simply delusional or worse.   For humans politics is fundamental.'  Charles Krauthammer paraphrased.

George Rebane

In the 22jun24 WSJ we learn that California public schools are even worse than what we have discovered over the years since Great Society policies were launched in the late 1960s.  Former English teacher Daniel Buck, now at the Fordham Institute, writes ‘California Will Teach Kids Anything Except How to Read’, wherein he describes the latest neo-Marxist turn of the screw on children entrusted to the state for their education.  The bottom line of our grade school reading curricula is that “Gender ideology, social justice and Marxist ideas are all welcome in the classroom. Phonics isn’t.”

Most recently – “In 2021 the state ignited a brawl over its mandated ethnic-studies curriculum. Its content and instructional practices have roots in 1960s activism against American hegemony; the goal is to “liberate” students from the oppressive forces of capitalism, patriarchy and settler colonialism.

In 2023 California implemented a new mathematics framework, the first edition of which included “whiteness” and “social justice” as topics for instruction. The goal was to raise the “sociopolitical consciousness” of students—in math class. A revised framework was notably less political but required teachers to use a quantifiably ineffective approach to teaching called “discovery” learning, where students must be left to “discover” their way into long division or algebraic equations.”

As we have long pointed out in these pages, the evil Democratic Party needs legions of double dummies ‘graduating’ from progressive run academe to assure the re-election of socialist politicians whose ideology and the impact of their policies are not understood by their usual cohort of constituents.  This beat, not only goes on, but becomes stronger by the year.  An example staring us in the face daily is the output of polls showing enormous support for our Bumblebrain president.  One wonders who are these tens of millions of very light thinkers who walk around in a brain fog with no ability to give a reasonable basis for their political beliefs.

Inflation? Most people don’t have a clue.

George Rebane

Evidence rolls in daily that Americans in the large do not have a clue about what is inflation and how it affects their financial wellbeing and quality of life.  This wholesale ignorance is constantly being reinforced by our news media of all political colorations and the Democratic Party.  The egregious journalists mostly congregate on the Right since they have no hidden agenda to hide the meaning and impact of inflation today spawned by Bidenomics.

The confusion arises from the use of the single misleading ‘inflation’ to variously describe three distinct and separate attributes of inflation – inflation level, inflation rate of change, and the change in inflation’s rate of change.  (Mathematically these are known as simply the first three derivatives of inflation’s price curve – respectively the zeroth, first, and second derivatives.)  The figure below illustrates.

Today we hear all kinds of reports citing inflation numbers that totally confound the average American – ‘inflation was xx% under the previous administration’, ‘inflation is now higher/lower, ‘inflation is going up/down’, ‘inflation is slowing’, and so on.  What almost no one understands is that claims that 'inflation is going down' is a bald-faced lie designed to fool the light thinkers.  Whatever the current level of inflation - i.e. Biden's 9% increase in market prices (here) - it is already baked in.  You will continue paying them and they will NOT go down as long as demand increases and supply does not.  So Team Biden's propaganda that they are 'reducing inflation' (#1) is utter BS; even if they reduce the inflation rate (#2), the current level of inflation will remain and prices will still go up.

Nobelist Milton Freedman and his forebears long ago advised us that inflated price increases are always a monetary phenomenon in which the government ‘prints’ and releases more fiat money into an economy to chase the same amount of goods and services, hence prices increase and we call the whole thing inflation.  The overall impact of inflation has always been that prices only ratchet up (increase monotonically) over time, and consequently the dollar in your pocket inevitably buys less stuff tomorrow than it does today.  But that is only the beginning of the story of government misuses of inflation to abuse and steal from its citizens.  Historically, great empires have inevitably laid themselves open to collapse and/or invasion by diluting/cheapening its money to the point that people no longer want to use it as the medium of exchange, unit of account, and store of wealth.  Hence, the economy’s wealth generation grinds to a halt and tax revenues can no longer pay for implementing public policies including maintaining its sovereignty with secure borders and an able military.

The real story of inflation is much more opaque.  Inflation is really a multi-level tax levied by governments that can no longer openly increase tax rates, so instead the steal money from their own citizens.  Notice that over the years the general level of people’s wealth has not increased much, if at all.  To be sure, enormous wealth has been generated in our economy by the commercial/industrial sector due to the invisible hand of market capitalism and ever-present competition.  And along with that, the quality of life for the broad population has increased by the introduction and affordability of all kinds of new products and services generated by corporations and entrepreneurs to whom justifiably the overwhelming majority of the new wealth accrues, since they are the ones who successfully invest their own monies and undertake the risks such ventures demand.  In spite of that, a large share of the population still lives paycheck-to-paycheck and has precious little saved for discretionary spending, investments, or a rainy day.  Increasing their debt and succumbing to more government welfare is their only alternative.

Looking under the hood of our economy and taking note of how our government inserts itself to gather tribute from the unsuspecting masses, it becomes clear that it is Big Brother run by sleazebag politicians and their deep state bureaucracies that effectively and continuously scrape off any ‘excess wealth’ that may accrue to the unsuspecting on main street who are lulled by a constant stream of bread and circuses from our political betters and their elites.  The whole program of mollification begins with a public education system that guarantees our young will be carefully taught to believe in the largess of government and the evils of private enterprise.

Two years ago I presented RR readers with the chapter and verse of how all this perfidy is executed in the public square.  You can and should review ‘Inflation Tax – Silent Rape by Government’, it will put some scary meat on the bone of the above arguments.  Unfortunately the bottom line here remains immutably unchanged.  We witness no awareness of all this by our friends and neighbors – you have yet to see protesting throngs with pitchforks and torches demonstrating in front of government buildings across the land.  (Also check out this post's comment stream.)  No one is aware of what is being quietly vacuumed from their wallets by the various levels of government ranging from local to federal.  All is well, just reduce your carbon footprint and embrace DEI wherever it may next be introduced – behave yourself.

America's Dystopia has Dawned

Dystopia has dawned – Trump convicted on all counts.  The greatest American travesty has happened in my lifetime.  I have seen my country slide from its heights of glory to the now confirmed beginning of its dark age from which recovery to its former self is unlikely.  With evil and corruption now firmly ensconced in our government, it is doubtful that my children will ever again witness America in its full promise as the shining city on a hill. (more here and here)

Scattershots – 26may24 (updated 29may24)

George Rebane

Gracian (#261) speaks to Bumblebrain – Do not persist in folly.  Some make a duty of failure and having started down the wrong road, think it a badge of character to continue; they accuse themselves of error before the bar of their inner selves but before the bar of the outer world they excuse themselves, to the end that if at the start of their unwisdom they were marked imprudent, in its prosecution they are marked fools; neither rash promise, nor wrong resolve lays obligation upon any man; and yet some will on this account continue in their sulkiness, and carry on in their contrariness, wishing to be known as constant in their idiocies.

Reasonable fear of Islam.  If Islamophobia is the “unreasonable fear” of Islam, then what is the term for a reasonable fear of Islam?  I am among those who identify with such a reasonable fear the evidence for which abounds as proclaimed by both Muslim intellectuals and the Muslim street.  As an example, consider the opening comment to the 7may24 Sandbox (here).

[29may24 update]  The New York judicial system is rotten to the core as demonstrated by the Trump hush money trial judge’s instructions to the jury.  He never told them what was the specific crime that Trump was supposed to have committed when his financial records showed the $130K payment to Cohen as a ‘legal expense’ (which it was).  Instead he invited each juror to come to their own conclusion on whatever crime suited each the best, and the court would still accept that as a ‘unanimous’ judgement.  So now the precedent is set that New York (and other?) juries can be exhorted to convict the defendant on whatever crime each juror would gin up – no agreement or cohesive thought needed.  That’s one way to  avoid hung juries and nail whoever the trial judge does not like.

‘The End is Near’

George Rebane

Were we to discuss really serious topics beyond Trump’s trials and Biden’s lies, I can think of one no more important than that brought up by Victor Davis Hanson in a recent interview (here).  We have extensively covered the various national and geo-strategic factors that portend to end America’s run as the world's leading democratic republic, economy, and white hat world hegemon.  However, most of our neighbors neither care nor are aware of what’s happening.  As witnessed on these pages, if anything, they are more interested in Stormy Daniel’s testimony and various topical policy atrocities launched by our doddering idiot for president and Democrats at all levels of government (especially California).

This is not to say that there is no traction to the warnings issued by our more thoughtful political leaders and commentators (e.g. here) – so far, a sparsely populated bunch.  Today more people are starting to take notice that there is now in the offing a likely “extinction” of the United States we have known.  Letter writers (here) to serious publications like the WSJ acknowledge the current deterioration of America’s defense posture and industrial might, and are showing concern.

Material arguments summarize as follows –

• The US industrial base to make things from ships to medicines to machine tools is essentially gone.
• Our military is tragically under-manned and woke-corrupted with traditional cadres of enlistees no longer willing to join, let alone make military their career. Our country can no longer find enough people willing to fight for it.
• Our unimaginable national debt and reckless social spending programs are destroying the dollar and unseating it as the preferred currency for international commerce.
• Our open borders and illegal alien import policies are destroying the remnants of America’s public cultural cohesion with new levels of unassimilating multi-culturality never before witnessed in a sustainable and geographically compact jurisdiction.
• Our traditional allies in Europe and Asia are aware of America’s weak (non-existent?) leadership and feckless foreign policy, and are seeking alternative geo-strategic relationships that serve their national interests.
• Our electorate is split and largely ignorant of the issues facing the nation; and are in no shape to unify and support reasonably coherent policies to attempt a return to a usefully educated, economically healthy, fiscally sound, geographically secure, and culturally unified sovereign nation-state. Over half of us don’t care and want an autocratic global government run by elites, and the remainder want to return to a liberal constitutional government based on free-market capitalism.
• By passing laws, regulations, and prohibitive tax rates in a transforming neo-Marxist society, we no longer educate a sufficient cadre of high-end (STEM) workers with needed skillsets or provide them the means to produce wealth in an open-market capitalist economy.

So instead –

   

Dumbing Down Denied (updated 28apr24)

George Rebane

For years RR and its more enlightened readers have lamented and documented the degradation of our public schools and also of our higher educational institutions.  Over the last half century this decline has been relentless and extensively reported as anti-American socialists of all shades adopted policies and curricula designed to produce a workforce of diminishing value to our employers and benefit to our society.

Today with the woke movement the state of our education has reached new depths of idiocy.  Based on utter nonsense, school curricula are being removed, downgraded, restructured in order to eliminate what the Left says is our country’s ‘structural racism’ promoted by cadres of ‘white supremacists’.  These are identified primarily as whites of European descent who are now irredeemably racist, sexist, homophobic, …, the list goes on.

Apropos to this I refer to the latest op-ed, ‘Any learning loss recovery at local high schools?’, by my sweetie-pie Jo Ann.  Her piece in the 22mar24 Union (here) cited chapter and verse of the dismal numbers that document the downfall of our local public education system.  Since its publication the column has drawn a continuous stream of ire from our local leftwing loonies who also demonstrate their lack of prowess with the written word.  The initial criticisms were of Jo Ann’s purported attack on the incompetence of the teachers.  She did not single out teachers, but identifying the public school districts as part of the culprits hit close to home, and brought out the defense of the obviously weak component of our public education.  In that me thinks their ample protests are revealingly welcome.

To date these rebuttals have come in the form of the newspaper’s Other Voices columns, Hits & Misses entries, and Letters to the Editor.  This morning I was reminded of the Left’s desperate denial of this travesty by yet another letter to the editor, this time by one of our more prominent local Marxist worthies (here).  This time the criticism was not of Jo Ann’s quoted performance statistics, or of their perceived unfair umbrage against teachers, but the accusation that only rabid rightwing MAGA Republicans would dare point out such a devastating and divisive national deficiency.  The politically correct response to this ongoing educational tragedy and its long term impact on our workforce should instead be a prudent silence.

[28apr24 update]  I note the almost complete lack of interest in the dumbing down of the nation’s electorate.  It seems as if no one cares or is aware that it all starts with an ignorant horde of voters as our Founders feared and Bryan Caplan -The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies (here) - pointed out several years ago and RR has argued forever.  It is such voters who believe the politicians’ bullshit about the economy, how government can spend money better that they can, and how the rich are taking it away from the poor.  And perusing the news confirms that people really like to focus on the knock-on and silly ephemeral impacts of national dumbth.  I suppose the readers of this little blog just reflect the country’s real interests.

Scattershots – 24mar24

George Rebane

Some laments du jour that keep bubbling to the surface.

Progressives believe that there is no truth in or benefits from policy propositions that have not been tried and demonstrated to work.  That is the prime reason why there are few liberal entrepreneurs and why socialists are so risk averse.  Their best repartee for rejecting novel (to them) proposals is, ‘Show me where your proposal for undertaking XX is working.’  They also reject the failures of their own repeated policy mistakes by claiming errors in execution which will be corrected on the next attempt.

The leftists’ innate inability to reason is nowhere better highlighted than in promoting New York’s civil ‘fraud’ case against Trump, the outrageous cash judgement against him, and the intent to financially ruin/cripple him (and his presidential campaign) by granting him a ridiculously short time to raise almost half billion dollars in cash.  It is an act of punitive jurisprudence with no basis in law or fact, and no defrauded victims.  Yet it is justice embraced by all the progressive elites, and their thoughtless and lightly read Democrat constituencies.

No national conservative media really tells it like it is.  Led by Fox News, they are all reticent (afraid?) to point out the real reason why Democrats, led by Frankfurt school socialists, propose and implement anti-American legislation and regulations.  No one points out that their real objective is to eliminate American hegemony (the world’s white hat sheriff) and its opposition toward achieving an autocratic global government.  The apparent opposition of the conservatives only penetrates into arcane intellectual arguments of how unreasonable, unworkable, and/or silly are the machinations of leftwing governance.  In short, they characterize progressives as still good Americans who just have bad luck when they try to think.

‘The Intellectuals and Socialism’

George Rebane

F.A. Hayek was one of the world’s foremost economists and a giant among the original thinkers of the 20^th century.  In this post I want to interest readers in his ideas and works with a short discussion of one of his small and often overlooked monograms – The Intellectuals and Socialism - published in 1949, the year I arrived on these shores.

From the monogram currently published by the Mercatus Center of George Washington University we read,  “Friedrich A. Hayek, who won the Nobel Prize for Economic Science in 1974, is best known for the book the Road to Serfdom (1944), which has been widely translated.  Receiving doctorates in law and economics from the University of Vienna, Hayek served on the faculties of the universities of London, Chicago, Freiburg, and Salzburg.  (His major books may be seen here.)  Hayek has attracted a growing body of scholarship, and in February 2000 a writer in The New Yorker observed that ‘it is hardly an exaggeration to refer to the twentieth century as the Hayek century.’”

One of the main lessons from the monogram is the reader’s ability to distinguish between the purveyors of ideas variously, and often carelessly, labeled as ‘theorists’, ‘experts’, and ‘intellectuals’.  The first two are people who originate ideas and those who are actually able to implement ideas by applying their skills.  However, it is the countless intellectuals with whom we should concern ourselves.  They are overwhelmingly of the Left and populate our media, academe, institutions, and bureaucracies.  Hayek defines them as follows.

“The term "intellectuals," however, does not at once convey a true picture of the large class to which we refer, and the fact that we have no better name by which to describe what we have called the secondhand dealers in ideas is not the least of the reasons why their power is not understood. Even persons who use the word "intellectual" mainly as a term of abuse are still inclined to withhold it from many who undoubtedly perform that characteristic function. This is neither that of the original thinker nor that of the scholar or expert in a particular field of thought. The typical intellectual need be neither: he need not possess special knowledge of anything in particular, nor need he even be particularly intelligent, to perform his role as intermediary in the spreading of ideas. What qualifies him for his job is the wide range of subjects on which he can readily talk and write, and a position or habits through which he becomes acquainted with new ideas sooner than those to whom he addresses himself.” (emphasis mine)

The intellectuals are the distributors and champions of ideas formulated by the elites.  They are drawn to the Left and socialism primarily because of its simplistic utopian vision of the future.  This is opposed to the Right’s ideology having always emphasized individual liberty and its manifold benefits.  In short, the Left’s intellectuals distribute simple easy-to-understand, high-level ideas to the masses, while those of the Right attempt to communicate their more complex ideas of, say, liberty, individual effort, and market capitalism on a person-to-person basis.

We are a Republic, NOT a Democracy

George Rebane

The country’s socialists and globalists have found the corruption of language to best serve their purpose of blinding Americans to the critical aspects of our society and culture.  First and foremost is today’s established custom of considering precise semantics to be somewhere between irrelevant and unimportant, and most certainly politically incorrect.

As an example, many of us have come to accept open borders on the basis of promoting ‘immigration’, firm in the knowledge that today’s invasion of illegal aliens from countless countries violating our law is somehow similar to the process that populated our empty lands in days gone by, for are we not a country of immigrants?  No one from the highest levels of government to main street wants to acknowledge that immigration is a two-party process between willing participants – a pact between a discriminating government and the alien seeking residency in a new land.  Using the correct legal term ‘illegal alien’ to describe those wading across the river (formerly also known as wetbacks) has now become proscribed and not for proper use in a public forum.  Instead the naked term ‘immigrant’ is now the norm in lamestream media, and the right-of-center outlets barely use the appended ‘illegal immigrant’, all preferring more obfuscating labels like ‘migrant’ to describe the foreign lawbreakers crossing our borders.

Other similar examples can be offered to illustrate the desecration and demeaning of our language over the last several decades.

Perhaps the most egregious and dangerous of such examples is the new idea promoted by collectivists, especially of the woke variety, that our nation is a democracy that promotes (civil) equality.  Our Founders were keenly aware that democracies, promoted under the banner of indiscriminating equality quickly devolve into autocracies cum tyrannies.  This is the reason that they conceived and formed our nation to hold liberty sacrosanct within a constitutional republic, governed under a document that severely limits the powers of government.  As the thinking reader knows, universal equality and liberty are incompatible.  Our founding principles recognize and promote equality in the sense that we Americans are equal only under our laws and in the eyes of God.  Elsewhere, most certainly in our Constitution, equality is not mentioned and liberty is supreme.

Our socialists know this truth, and have twisted our public education, abetted by the media, to preach their unquestionable glories of equality cum equity in all things.  The damage to our republic that this perversion has caused was already evident almost sixty years ago.  Dan Smoot was one of the nation’s leading conservative commentators back then, and in 1966 he recorded this very clear and succinct 10-minute commentary about the real difference between a democracy and a constitutional republic (here), and the danger of our citizenry remaining confused about the two.  Today that confusion has been replaced by total ignorance.

Scattershots – 6mar24 (updated 8mar24)

George Rebane

The specter of California’s AB5, and raising the state’s minimum wage to $20/hr, are again and predictably wreaking more havoc in our small business community and providing another shot in the shorts for consumers.  A shot close to home arrived yesterday in a letter from our beloved Union.  On 2 April next, the newspaper will cease morning delivery of its pulp edition and start using snail mail instead.  Why?  Because AB5 and $20/hr will “restructure our ability to use carriers to deliver the newspaper.”  Note the compliant and uncomplaining manner in which this latest action of California’s butt-stupid government is described by a compliant and well-behaved leftwing business.

‘The rate of inflation is decreasing’ is today’s celebratory trumpet from the Biden campaign.  The message is perfectly designed to keep the nation’s marginally informed in perpetual ignorance about the impact of Bidenomics.  What these folks totally miss is that Biden’s inflation has already increased the prices that we pay every day, and these are not going down.  Slowly decreasing inflation will not fix another full-fledged feature of Bumblebrain’s economy – that wages have not kept pace with the baked-in inflation, and the buying power of all Americans has gone down under this administration, that in total contrast to what they did under Trump’s stewardship.  This adds to the Democrats’ lies that Trump’s reduction of regulations and taxes only benefitted ‘the rich’.  Exactly opposite of what government data shows happened – businesses prospered, middle and low income taxes were reduced, upper income people continued to pay more, and government revenues increased.  (Can everyone spell ‘Laffer’?)  And then came Biden.

[7mar24 update] 'Why Black Voters are Ditching Democrats'  Had lunch with a liberal friend who unsurprisingly was not aware that not only blacks but also other non-white voters - Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans, etc - are realizing that life has been bad under Democrats, and has gotten worse under Joe Biden.  Basketball great Charles Barkley explains the matter to those who will listen (here).

[8mar24 update]  Re last night’s SOTU – the corrupt sumbich just can’t stop lying every time he opens his mouth.  Check out ‘Fact-Checking Biden’s State of the Union Address’.

US Drops to 25th Place in Index of Economic Freedom

George Rebane

The Heritage Foundation published its 2024 edition of its Index of Economic Freedom (here) for all the countries of the world.  Thanks to Bidenomics the US continues to drop in the prestigious ratings to its historically lowest place.  And the alert reader is already aware of California's rank in the various freedoms being in the toilet among the states as recently reported in Cato’s ‘Freedom in the 50 States’ (here).

What continues to shake the confidence of so many Americans in their ignorant and/or socialist neighbors is that they have no clue that the more a nation or state restricts economic freedoms, the lower is its citizens’ standard of living.  Our leftwingers just continue voting for Democrats who promise to curtail business activities, reduce personal freedoms, and ‘tax the rich’ while expecting bigger checks from the government.  The graphic below summarizes it all.

They are VERY different from us

George Rebane

I view with reinvigorated alarm today’s broadcast joys of socialists, wokesters, liberals, and leftwingers in general celebrating the $400M+ fine demanded of Trump for what is termed his  committing ‘civil fraud’.  They uniformly and unanimously agree with the ‘legal basis’ on which the New York attorney general prosecuted and the judge adjudicated the Trump trial.  All these people look forward to a totalitarian state in which capitalism is banned, the beneficial mechanisms of market pricing, and the ownership of private property are dispensed with.  That is exactly the harbinger that letting the verdict stand will foster across the land.  (And students of our Founders and Bastiat know that the fundamental rights upon which our personal security and manifold liberties are based will also disappear.)

The other cohort of people celebrating Trump’s fine are those too stupid to think through these ramifications.  All their little TDS sotted pea brains can muster up is that if it hurts Trump, it must be good.

Nevertheless, some on the Right still believe that we can find common ground to reunite as the America of yesteryear – this even though no such path has been identified.  RR invites these worthies to step forward and illuminate us with their vision of how we regain E Pluribus Unum.  (And here is info on a related and contributing problem in our land.)

Iran still gets a pass

George Rebane

Our cowardly president gives us more reasons daily to loath him and fear his administration.  Among his ongoing tsunami of lies is the blatant whopper that he has done all he can to secure our borders, confident that his ignorant constituents know nothing about how President Trump implemented his border policy with illegal entry rates that were more than an order of magnitude lower than what Bumblebrain has foisted on the country during his watch.  Now he is fearful of starting a war with Iran after that country has been at war with us for years, and has been freely attacking our ships, bases, and killing our troops.

As noted previously in these pages, Rebane Doctrine has called for the destruction of Iran's infrastructure that generates terror supporting revenues in violation of established but unenforced sanctions, and lets it now direct attacks on American bases, naval forces, and international shipping.  The idiot does not understand that in warfare it only takes one to tango.

Scattershots – 25jan24 (updated 4feb24)

George Rebane

Evidence of the impassable gulf between the minds of dedicated collectivists (leftists, progressives, Marxists, wokes, …) and forms or reasoning/logic that work.  From that tribe a local worthy (Richard Howell here) contends that California’s offering free health care to illegal aliens does not impact their decisions to make our state their new home.  His understanding of human nature is that offering more benefit for some behavior does NOT encourage more of such behavior (Pavlov and Skinner call your office).  This fundamental chasm of ignorance is shared by members of our one-party state legislature who continue to make the public policies that power the Great California Exodus.

“I am SOMEBODY and I deserve full equality” reads one of the signs held by some of California's universities’ hunger-striking students here illegally.  The Daily Californian describes the participating students’ hope “that the strike will encourage the university to accept a proposal allowing for the hiring of undocumented students. Currently, undocumented students cannot hold any campus job, including research and teaching assistant positions.”  Apparently the plethora of benefits they already receive for being ‘somebody’ able to fog a mirror in California are not sufficient.  Nowhere in this discussion is mentioned the current availability of such jobs for students here legally.  (more here)

[31jan24 update]  The Pentagon prepares its cadres to fight domestic “rightwing terrorism” as one of its high hard operational objectives.  No one knows from what basis the DOD has adopted the suppression of domestic terrorism of any hue as one of its operational mandates.  Here is the latest on its internal efforts to spread the word and alert its cadres to imminent danger.  From their announcement of the meeting we read, “They (… the 2015 mass murder at a historic Black church in Charleston and the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol) are the latest flashpoints in a process that has been unfolding for decades, in which vast conspiracy theories and radical ideologies such as white supremacism, racism, antisemitism, xenophobia, and hostility to government converge into a deadly threat to democracy. … This talk, derived from the speakers’ new book, God, Guns, and Sedition (Columbia Univ. Press) discusses the rise of far-right terrorism in the United States, the impact of U.S. domestic terrorism on our foreign policy and our allies, and policy recommendations to counter far-right terrorism.”

[4feb24 update]  Illegals can vote in Arizona, “even though it’s a felony under federal law for an alien to register and vote”.  And then receiving a voter registration card, the illegal alien can use that as a bona fide identity to apply for and qualify for all kinds of additional government goodies.  Anti-American Democrats are, of course, all for it as another of their reliable vote buying gimmicks.  (more here)

Gavin Newsom, the Brylcreem Kid, let slip again how incredibly ignorant he is about almost everything to do with what’s happening in California, and how Democrat policies continue to damage California and its wealth producing citizens.  He was shopping in retail store while it was being openly robbed by a gang of thieves.  When they left, he excoriated the store’s staff for not doing anything to stop them.  His diatribe made it clear that he had no idea that today such thievery is perfectly legal in California, and the store’s employees are legally liable if they do anything to impede the thugs or the robbery in progress.  Police no longer respond to nor do the district attorneys prosecute such obvious criminality.  In response, stores are now moving out of (mostly poor) neighborhoods where such behavior has become the norm.  Another Democratic gift that keeps on giving as our culture spirals into the mud. (more here)

                                                   

California Stupid Perseveres (updated 10jan24)

George Rebane

As a part of its latest bevy of idiotic laws and regs, Sacramento continues its perennial attempt to remove the Second Amendment from the Constitution for those of us living in California.  It has passed a new restrictive law (currently appealed) that prevents the state’s CCW holders from carrying their concealed guns in 29 new public areas.  The explanation given to our sheeple is that the new law will save human lives, when in reality it will do anything but that.

The law is nothing less than the latest incremental ratchet to constructively remove firearms from the hands of law-abiding citizens.  However, it does communicate to the mentally deranged killers and terrorists that now here are more areas in the public forum which for them are free-fire zones where they can wantonly murder and create mayhem with no fear of being opposed by a legal gun.

The state’s claim that CCW holders are perpetrators of mass shootings is utterly without merit or evidence.  What the FBI data have consistently shown is that CCW holders are the safest and most responsible gun toters in the nation.  A recent study reveals that sworn law enforcement  officers, already a responsible and trustworthy cohort, are still six times more likely to murder someone than a gun-carrying citizen holding a CCW permit. (more here and here)

But being able to peddle that kind of pabulum to Californians confirms again that as an electorate we suffer from a widespread, massive, and chronic intellectual deficit (aka are butt stupid), which explains why decade after decade we vote for corrupt politicians of the anti-American evil party to make our laws and administer our beautiful state.

[10jan24 update] 'California Stupid Perseveres and Amplifies' - Now the troop of Democrat Socialists in Sacramento are again pushing through a tax on assets.  This is supposed to make the 0.5% Californians who already ante up 40% of state revenues to now start paying their "fair share". (more here)

Ruminations – 8dec23 (updated 18dec23)

George Rebane

Idiots on parade. ‘Court allows New York to ban guns in sensitive places’ (here)  None of these idiots understand that 1) mass shooters don’t care a crock about such prohibitions, 2) such prohibitions have never reduced the frequency of mass shootings, and 3) mass shooters take comfort in knowing where law abiding citizens must go unarmed.  Shouldn’t there be an IQ test or something similar for judges to pass before being allowed to sit on the bench?

New cohorts of ragheads are waiting in the wings for word from Iran to replace Hamas if Israel is ever successful in wiping out those low-life thugs.  We have to remember that it’s the entire Palestinian population that teaches its children to kill Jews and install terrorist organizations for their governance.  So what’s Plan B?

[10dec23 update]  The use of ‘some’.  Out of a cohort of a hundred people, a colleague reports that “some of them were wearing green sweaters.”  What does that communicate to you in terms of the range of the number of people wearing green sweaters – i.e. what is your max and min range for ‘some’?  After you determine your range, take a look at this link to see how the use of 'some' compares to your own sense of its meaning.

[17dec23 update]  A post-Singularity landscape is offered in this video that is sufficiently detailed to evoke interesting discussion.  The link was sent to me by a friend and RR reader who sometimes comments on these pages.  He asked for my thoughts, which I offered, and now I ask those interested for their assessment of the prognostications offered in the video (here).

[18dec23 update]  Donors From The Richest Zip Codes In America Are Throwing Their Support Behind Biden.  More proof that having money doesn’t make you smart, and that corporatism is now an indelible part of the state – companies that pay-to-play could not survive without the backing of the government gun to suppress their competition.

Ignorance Meets Evil

George Rebane

Here is an example of gross ignorance that begets the evil in our land.  This letter to the editor by a rabid leftwinger in the 6dec23 Union illustrates the historical gulf that separates us into two nations with irreconcilable ideologies.  The correspondent does not make a single assertion that speaks truth – where/when did Trump do anything that he claims?  And he is joined by tens of millions of like- and no-minded Americans.

&&&&&&

Let’s refresh our memories on what Trump said last week in a speech:  “We pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country—that lie and steal and cheat on elections. They’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American dream. The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within.”

We will never vote for Trump because he and his MAGA extremists want to dump American democracy, dump “We-the-People” pluralism, and replace it with white Christian nationalism implemented by their authoritarian cult leader. It's dangerous and un-American.

Trump’s disastrous presidency can be summarized with these 9 acts:

• passing huge wealthy and corporate tax cuts (pushing us 8 trillion $ further in debt),
• separating children from their parents at the border,
• basically ignoring covid,
• appointing unqualified ideologues to the Supreme Court and lower benches,
• damaging our global alliances, especially with NATO,
• promoting hatred against minorities, especially Blacks, Mexicans, Muslims, LGTBQ,
• attacking democracy through gerrymandering and suppressing votes,
• attacking women’s reproductive freedoms, and
• promoting an insurrection on January 6.

Will our election be safe from the GOP’s cheating and intimidation? Will Trump’s 91 felony counts assure us his dictatorial ambitions will not come to light?

Voters' memories will need to be refreshed.

Robert Gould, Nevada City 

Scattershots – 1dec23

George Rebane

In the Desantos/Newsom debate last night the California governor demonstrated to all what kind of a sleazebag politicians he and his ilk are.  Newsom did not give a straight answer to a single question asked of him – all of his responses were prevarications or more bald-faced lies.  Moderator Hannity illustrated many of his questions with data from various government agencies that compared and contrasted Florida and California.  The only good things California has left to recommend it appears to be the scenery and weather.  All of its public policies, overwhelmingly put in place by Democrats, have done nothing but promote an exodus of workers and companies, having left behind a list of what best may be described as shithole cities in the once Golden State.

Expatriate Californians are not welcome in red states.  This has become clear in news stories and reports from our friends who have sought greener pastures elsewhere.  Arriving Californians find themselves shunned by the longtime residents of their destination states.  The fear that the rest of the socially non-polluted country has is that our emigrants bring with them the dreaded ideologies for which California is now notorious.  Unfortunately, quite often such fears are misplaced because many (most?) Californians in their new homes arrive there to enjoy and preserve the values, mores, and social policies they find.  Shunning newcomers without first vetting them also allows insular leftwing cliques of immigrants to form and begin politically polluting their new nests.  A better policy would be to at least attempt assimilation of the newcomers.  I have yet to find a leftwinger contemplating a move who understands what has put our state into its dire straits.  And those concentrations already ensconced in red states are notorious for aggressively working to degrade the social fabric of their new homes.

‘Judaism and the Left’

George Rebane

Regular RR readers may recall the many posts in which I have questioned why so many people of the Jewish tradition continue to embrace all the various forms of collectivism – e.g. liberalism, socialism, communism.  This especially when all their acknowledged superior traits in the arts, sciences, and material wealth have been achieved in free market capitalist environments.  It is an enduring puzzle.

This week in the 16nov23 issue of The Union, columnist Terry McLaughlin provides an excellent overview – ‘Judaism and the Left’ - of this now centuries old phenomenon.  In it she also quotes several Jewish intellectuals who observe that “liberals have never done anything for the Jews.”  And this goes doubly for their uncritical adulation of anti-semitic American blacks such as the constituents of political leaders such as Maxine Waters, Al Sharpton, and Louis Farrakhan.

The best that I can figure is that such racially oriented anti-semitism is a cheap price to pay for a reliable block of bought-and-paid-for votes.