Bernie's deception

Joseph Betz, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Villanova University, explains Bernie Sander's view of socialism: “Socialists like Bernie believe that every human has, by nature, the right to food, clothing, shelter, a job with a living wage, vacations, medical care, security in sickness and retirement and education. And each and every human has the justified claim to that amount of each of these which allows the full development of that person’s potentialities.” And who exactly does “every human” make that claim upon? The greater society in which they live? But what if everyone is claiming their right to a vacation or retirement, leaving the greater society without the means to provide such largess? Where does the money come from to cover the costs of these rights? Neither Bernie nor Professor Betz explain this side of the equation. Neither do they explain why “every human” does not include those who have not yet exited the womb?

The professor goes on to say, “A communist is also a socialist but is an autocratic socialist rather than a democratic one.” He then explains that we do not need to be concerned that Bernie’s brand of socialism would give us an autocrat like Stalin, explaining, “Yes, the USSR guaranteed everyone a job, an apartment, free medical care and good education. But the guarantor was a dictator like Josef Stalin, who ran roughshod over the democratic freedoms of religion, speech, the press, assembly, dissent and protections from arbitrary arrest, imprisonment and death.”

Returning to Bernie, Professor Betz asserts that it’s good that Bernie is a socialist, but the fact that he’s a “democratic socialist makes him even better.” This, he explains, is because “he would provide for disadvantaged people’s wants by working with them and their opposites, giving all of them the freedom to dissent, modify, even reject his means to his ends for them. A communist, in contrast, like Fidel Castro in Cuba, might provide jobs and education and medical care to an admirable degree. But the citizens who enjoy these benefits do so at the cost of losing their freedom to dissent or organize or seek an alternative government.”

These statements raise some serious questions. First, the professor says that Bernie would “give” the people the freedom to dissent, modify, or even reject his means to his ends for them. But what a man gives he can also take away. The professor seems to naively believe that an avowed socialist leader would complacently stand aside while the people he rules tear down his socialist utopia and replace it with a capitalist, free-market society. When in history have we ever seen such a compliant socialist leader?

Or in a more limited sense, what if the people decided merely to strip their society of the right to a job with a living wage and a justifiable amount of vacation time? Would any socialist leader be ok with that? Or what if his treasury simply did not have the funds to pay for medical care or retirement living for every human being under his rule? What if the funds were depleted due to a military necessity? Let’s face it, if Venezuela had to go to war today, the already impoverished population would face mass starvation. At any given moment there are only so many dollars.

What Professor Betz seems to be unaware of is that only an autocratic government can give everyone the bare necessities, and only a constitutional republic can protect everyone’s self-evident God-given rights. You can’t have it both ways. If we are free, we must take responsibility for providing for ourselves and pursuing our happiness as we are able. If we want to be provided for and have our happiness served up to us on a silver platter, we cannot be free, notwithstanding the hollow promises of Senator Bernie Sanders.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/joseph-betz-bernie-sanders-and-his-democratic-socialist-vision-for-america-have-my-support

Men vs boys

Truth...finally

Hillary Clinton — the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long — finally came out from behind the curtain yesterday, accusing me of being a Russian asset, asserting I was being “groomed” by Russian interests. 

Thus saith Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. Finally a Democrat who tells the truth!

What an idiot

Why has Michael Bloomberg become an apologist for the Communist Party of China? Could he possible believe the things he is saying? For example: “The Communist Party wants to stay in power in China and they listen to the public. When the public says ‘I can’t breathe the air,’ Xi Jinping is not a dictator, he has to satisfy his constituents or he’s not going to survive.”

He was then asked, “He’s not a dictator?” to which he responded, “No, he has a constituency to answer to.” The interviewer counted with, “He doesn’t have a vote. He doesn’t have a democracy. He’s not held accountable by voters. Is the check on him just a revolution?” to which Bloomberg answered, “You’re not going to have a revolution. No government survives without the will of the majority of its people, okay?” Bloomberg then suggested that if the US would lead on climate change, the Chinese people “can go to the government and say, ‘if America can do it, why can’t we do it?'”

The interviewer pressed Bloomberg on the idea that the CPC is responsive to the people of China, saying, “the idea that the Chinese government is responsive to sort of a Democratic expression of fresh air, clean air … ” Bloomberg then interrupted saying, “Oh, come on, of course they are.” The interviewer then said, “I’m looking at the people in Hong Kong who are protesting…” when Bloomberg, ignoring the crackdown on the protesters, said, “Go back and read the press, the days when you have big pollution in Beijing and they’re doing something about it.”

So Michael Bloomberg actually believes that Xi Jinping is not a dictator and is answerable to the people of China. And that the only reason his regime stays in power is because it is the will of the majority (not because he controls the media and military). I suppose the Kim Jong Un regime stays in power because of the will of the majority too. Apparently Bloomberg also believes that moving factories away from the cities will decrease carbon emissions. That sure makes sense! The truth is, carbon emissions are increasing in China and decreasing in the US.

Tactics exposed

By pushing to hard and too fast, the left has now exposed their two primary tactics (for all who have eyes to see). The first is the Hitlerian model: If you tell a lie often enough, eventually people will believe it." The unspoken corollary is that they will not believe it because of any evidentiary support; they will believe it only because they have heard it so often. The left uses this tactic when the accusation cannot be disproved. Examples are: "Trump's a racist," "Trump's a white supremacist," and "The death of the Republican Party is near." Over the past three months I have heard these assertions numerous times in the mainstream media.

The left uses the second tactic when they wish to create a negative impression of a person, but there are facts that could potentially disprove or discredit the specific assertion. This is where they make an outlandish, unsupportable allegation, and the next day, in the midst of the blow back, apologize. This tactic has the effect of getting the wild accusation into the news for all to hear, but allows the accuser to exonerate himself by means of his "heart-felt apology." Examples are: Larry O’Donnell, “Trump had Russian billionaires as co-signers.” “Oops, sorry. Shouldn’t have said that.” Kim Campbell, “I hope the hurricane hits Mar-a-Lago” “Oops, sorry. Was just joking. Shouldn’t have said that.” And the latest and most egregious example of this tactic: the New York Times' attempt to once again smear Justice Brett Kavanaugh: "Oops, sorry. Yes, we did leave out many of the pertinent facts." Clearly the NYT is no longer a reporter of the news but a driver of the leftist agenda.

Because of their frequency and the number of their practitioners, there is no longer any doubt that these dishonest, deceitful, and disingenuous tactics are being deliberately employed in an attempt to poison the minds of the American public prior to the next election.

For what it's worth

Agreement on SCOTUS decisions by justices appointed by the same president:

Bush II -- Roberts and Alito agree in 90% of decisions.

Obama -- Sotomayor and Kagan agree in 96% of decisions.

Trump -- Gorsuch and Kavanaugh agree on 70% of decisions.

So much for monolithic, politics-driven, conservative judges. Turns out it's the other way around. It's the liberals who walk in lock-step.

Is there really a climate crisis?

In the United States, there has been no increase in flood magnitudes in any region since the 1920s, and no nationwide increase in drought since 1900 as measured by the Palmer Drought Severity Index. There has been no trend since 1900 in the strength or frequency of U.S. land-falling hurricanes, and none in hurricane-related damages once losses are adjusted for increases in population, wealth, and the consumer price index.

Globally, the total area burned by wildfires has decreased every decade since the 1940s, and NASA reports that the number of square kilometers burned fell by about 25 percent between 2003 and 2019. In addition, all major indicators of human health and well-being such as life expectancy, per capita income, and crop yields have improved dramatically during the era of global warming.

Finally, whatever effects global warming may be having on the weather since the 1920s, the individual risk of dying from extreme weather globally has decreased by 99 percent, and since 1990, the relative economic impact of extreme weather (measured as a percent of global GDP) has declined. Where is the real-world evidence that climate change is a crisis?

The recent National Climate Assessment claimed that global warming could reach 14°F and lop 10% off US GDP by century’s end. However, to get that alarming result, the assessment ran an ensemble of models that on average project twice as much warming over the past 40 years as actually occurred. Worse, the modelers used an inflated emissions scenario in which coal scales up rapidly to provide nearly half of all global energy by 2100 – a percentage not seen since 1940.

Even with that biased combo, warming hits 14°F in only 1% of model projections – a detail the assessment failed to mention. Clearly, the National Climate Assessment needs to be fixed.

Victory for unborn babies

As of today, President Trump has successfully stripped Planned Parenthood of federal funding. When the worthless RINOs in Congress refused to take a stand against baby killing, the president did. And he gets all the credit. 

NPR reports: "The Trump administration has forced Planned Parenthood grantees out of Title X," said Alexis McGill Johnson, Planned Parenthood's acting president, in a conference call Monday. "The impact of the Trump administration's gag rule will reverberate across the country." Officials say that means patients are likely to see longer wait times or increased costs for reproductive health services.

The correct translation of that last sentence would be: "Patients are likely to see longer wait times or increased costs for killing their unborn babies." That's a good thing. Thank you President Trump.

What is the threshold?

Last weekend in El Paso a man killed 20 people, and a man in Dayton killed 9. The selection of which individuals to kill was apparently random, except that the man in Dayton killed his sister, which seems suspicious to me. The killings in El Paso took several minutes while the ones in Dayton took less than one minute (which was how long it took the cops to get there and take the dirtbag out). Both men killed their victims with bullets, which they fired from legally obtained firearms.

Yesterday a man in Southern California went on a wild, angry rampage and killed 4 people. His selection of who to kill seems to have been entirely random, and his killing spree lasted for two hours. This man killed his victims with a knife.

Now here is my question: What is the threshold through which a mass killing must pass to become worthy of national attention, flags at half mast, and a presidential visit? Is it the number of people killed, and if so, what would that number be? Recent events indicate it would be somewhere between 4 and 9. Or, does it have to do with how long it took to perpetrate the killings? I suppose that if it takes the killer two hours to get the job done, that's too long to qualify. But what if it had taken him only one hour, or 30 minutes, or 10 minutes? It seems to me that the number of people killed and the length of time it took to kill them are both too arbitrary. If it were 8 people, would it qualify, but not if it were only 7? Why would one more death make a difference? Or, does it actually come down to the type of weapon used? When it's a gun, the outcry is to ban guns, or at least pass laws that would keep guns out of the hands of potential killers (not sure how that would work). Yet when a knife is used, there is no outcry to ban or limit the sale of knives. (According to the FBI, 1604 people were murdered in the US in 2016 with a knife or other cutting instrument.)

Maybe to qualify the killer must have some sort of political motivation; yet when James Hodgkinson opened fire on a group of Republican congressmen, there was no outcry. His political motivation was clear, whereas the motives in El Paso and Dayton are vague at best. Their online ramblings seem to indicate they were both of a Leftist persuasion. The guy in California seems to have just been angry-about what we don't yet know. He was also Hispanic as were all his victims. For some reason the crime becomes more egregious when the killer is a white guy and at least some of his victims are people of color.

This past weekend also registered the 200th murder in Baltimore this year. These have mostly been blacks killing blacks, which explains why there has been no outcry that something be done. Yet why are 200 murders over a period of 7 months any less a mass slaying worthy of national attention than 9 murders in one minute? Could it be because genocide of the black community is part and parcel of the Leftist agenda, as Planned Parenthood demonstrates on a daily basis? Just asking.

I say all this to in order to bore down to the real issue. The outcry we have heard over the past few days has had nothing to do with the number of people killed or how long it took to kill them or what weapon was used to perpetrate the evil deed or what the killers motivations were. It has to do with one thing and one thing only: pointing a disingenuous finger at President Donald J. Trump! 

Oxymoronica?

"We have to stop demonizing people and realize the biggest threat in this country is white men, most of them radicalized to the right, and we have to start doing something about them." CNN's Don Lemon

"I will be leading a great movement to prohibit straight white males, who I believe supported Donald Trump by about 85 percent, from exercising the franchise (to vote), and I think that will save our democracy." Steven Clifford, former CEO King Broadcasting

OK, let me get this straight: no more demonizing, instead we'll just accuse white males of being the biggest threat to America (isn't that demonizing?), and we'll save our democracy by depriving about 80,000,000 citizens of their right to vote (wouldn't that destroy democracy?). OK, got it. Yep, that makes a lot of sense.