In a Modern World.

In looking at the great governmental debates going on in the United States I believe they really boil down to two simple (opposing) positions.  Do you believe the government is the answer to most problems or do you believe the government is a source of most problems?  This is a binary question and there are rarely binary problems or solutions, but if you look at the modern political debates everything is painted in absolutes and polarized positions. One side is good, the other evil.

There are clear things we must have a government for and people have organized since before recorded time to address those unavoidable needs.  I’m talking about things like defense, social order, the economy of effort, and other basic needs required for communal wellbeing.

Our founding fathers, as they wrestled with the failures of the government put into place following our divorce from England, argued about what the right kind of government was and how to implement it.  The failures of the Articles of Confederation were obvious in the way it limited the economic well-being and the defense of the colonies.  ThoughtCo provides a good synopsis on the weakness of the original government and the issues the founders hoped to address with their second effort.  In essence, the Confederation failed to provide sufficient centralized power to regulate the commerce between the states and raise a military to defend the colonies from either external threat, or internal rebellion when the need arose.  But in those debates, the fear of an all-powerful centralized government remained fresh in the minds of the political leadership who knew firsthand the potential abuses of the state.

As John Adams wrote,  “It is by balancing each of these powers against the other two, that the efforts in human nature toward tyranny can alone be checked and restrained, and any degree of freedom preserved in the constitution”[1]

I believe, since the Second World War, the government has grown far beyond what the founders could have ever imagined.  For example, Congress was not envisioned as a full-time job.  The capital, built on reclaimed swampland, was uninhabitable in the summer months, so the Representatives would meet for a little while, address the necessary actions and then return to their communities to resume a normal life.  Now they are full-time federal employees responsible more to the people who will offer them wealth than to the people they represent.  Senators were to be responsible to the state governments they represented, now they too are full-time employees seeking the wealth that comes from their positions.  The bureaucracy of the executive branch has never shrunk from what we expanded to in the war, only the roles and responsibilities have changed.  With the social legislation put into place during the Roosevelt years and greatly expanded during Johnson’s administration, we have created layer upon layer of workers and managers whose tenure is untouchable, overseen by the political appointees who will come and go with each new administration.

Ask yourself three questions:

Has this larger more encompassing government made our society better or has it simply reacted to the changing culture by fostering more dependence? 

Do the top-of-the-pyramid politicians shape the course of society or do they simply respond to it, as they vie for political dominance? 

Is the social order actually set by those who are beyond public scrutiny? 

What I find rather humorous, in my own cynical way, is that those who favor an all-powerful government are now emotionally outraged to the point of derangement over the fact their government is led by someone they despise, and he is doing things they don’t like.  It’s almost like they don’t understand Newton’s third law of politics (actually motion but I think you get my point).  To determine if an all-powerful government is really something even worthwhile let’s put that aside and talk about how wisely we, the nation, have chosen to spend our money to make America a kinder, more tolerant, and loving society.

Let’s put defense spending aside for a few minutes, for although that is frequently a topic of how much money the government wastes it is an increasingly smaller share of the total government spending.  Rather, let’s talk about the great social experiment we began with the creation of social security under the Great Depression-era President – Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  The idea behind social security was to create a safety net for those who had been unable to save for their retirement years.  It was planned as a self-paying program where those in the active workforce would pay into the account at rates equal to or higher than people would draw out.

It appears to be a natural condition in humans to believe if the government was going to pay them in retirement they could use the money they should be saving to meet their more immediate desires.  This is the path those in my generation “the baby boomers” chose.  As my generation matured and as the economy flourished the social security account prospered and grew.  Unfortunately for the social planners, the labor force in society has not continued to expand in size at the rates necessary to ensure contributions would always exceed the rates of withdrawal from the account. 

In the 1960s we saw the government add healthcare as an expense that should be borne/shared by the government, as well as the expansion of the social safety nets with increases in the welfare programs.  At the same time, the states began to look into providing their own supplemental programs in healthcare and welfare, and private industry (both healthcare, social welfare, and private insurance) expanded to profit from those new healthcare dollars.  All of these programs became “mandated” or “entitlement” programs and are in fact “must pay” bills the government is obligated to fund before it funds the discretionary things (like defense or infrastructure) that most politicians get rewarded for spending on. 

As the baby boomer generation retires it leaves a much smaller workforce behind to pay into the system that will now payout to the boomers who will live for another 30-40 years.  As a result, the mandatory spending on Social Security and Medicare become an ever-increasing portion of the nation’s gross domestic product.  Growing from roughly 4% in 1970 to 10% in 2016, with projections to grow to 15% shortly and with no relief in sight.  Expenditures are, according to several sources, growing at rates far greater than the general economy.

When you add in the fact that any money laying around on a balance sheet gives the Congress ideas on how to spend it on things like new programs you quickly see a problem where mandated spending will exceed mandated income.  There are always more problems than there are dollars to pay for them, and Congress (whether controlled by Democrats or Republicans) has shown little appetite to limit themselves to the money they will receive in taxes. The solution they always choose is to borrow money based on good faith in the country.  They will borrow until the lenders decide not to lend any more.  For my purposes, I assume the end of the lending train occurs about the same time the dollar stops being the currency of international trade.

The costs aside, what have been the social impacts of an expanding government with an ever-increasing demand for social engineering and social welfare programs?  Are we a better nation for the trillions of dollars we’ve spent on healthcare, social security, and social welfare? 

From my perspective, it sure doesn’t seem like we are.

Remember when the government said everyone should have the right to buy a house, and the government expanded its home-buying guarantees so even people who didn’t have the financial resources necessary to sustain the loans could get them?  We had Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac as pseudo-governmental guarantors of the loans.  Well, those programs certainly worked well, at least until 2008 when all the smoke and mirrors of the programs came crashing down and so many people found themselves in homes they couldn’t afford.  How many lives were impacted by those failures?

How about the basic building block of modern society?  I’m talking about the family unit.  Is the family unit as strong as it once was?  How about in the minority groups like African-Americans, the Hispanics, or the Native Americans?  Have the social support programs we’ve invested in made those groups more independent and stronger, or have they turned them into groups with an increasing dependence on the state?

We talk a lot about the “American Dream” where an individual with the drive and ambition can succeed in life and rise above the station he or she was born into.  Recently Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said this idea was absurd and no one could raise themselves up without the government doing it for them.  Some found this laughable coming from someone who just a couple of years earlier had been a bartender with a BS in Economics and was now making a six-figure salary as a Congresswoman.  But in one sense she was right.  It took her finding a government job that didn’t require any real skills (other than campaigning) to rise above the challenges she faced with the death of her Father.  Her biography is vague on what her parents did or how she was able to attend Boston University, so maybe she hasn’t pulled herself up at all and her statements are based on her real-life experiences. 

It seems, at least to me, the whole of the Democratic campaign centers on three main points.  First, we have the vehement anti-Trump rhetoric making claims that he is either a tool of the Russians, a bumbling idiot, or a criminal.  Next comes the campaign against wealth with the claims no one needs to be a billionaire and the idea the wealth of the rich takes away from the wealth of the poor (who are poor through no fault of their own), and finally a bigger government (run by the right party) would actually strengthen the middle class.

I’m sorry but after watching a bigger government unfold for the last 50-years, and regardless of the claims by the left’s adored leader, I’m not buying any of their claims.  The record is pretty clear, whenever government becomes the center of all society the middle class is actually weakened, if not destroyed.  It doesn’t matter if there is a Monarch, a Shaw, an Ayatollah, a dictator, a President for Life, a Prime Minister, a Chief, der Führer, or a General Secretary if the average person is totally dependent on the decisions of the Government for their welfare the middle class will be turned into the lower class within a decade.

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[1] https://www.britannica.com/topic/checks-and-balances

The Pendulum of Communism

1920-1945 – Communism is okay, look at how they are unifying the Soviet Union and helping fight the Nazis.  So, what if they have killed a few people to maintain power.  The workers are united, the progressive media love them, we should be more like them.

1945-1989 – Communism is bad, look at how many millions of people they’ve killed, they are trying to take over the world, they are spying on us and stealing our secrets, we have to stop communism and end the evils of the Soviet Union and China.  We must round up and blacklist everyone who liked communism.

1990-2016 – Whew we dodged a bullet, but it looks like communism is contained.  Look, even China is moving towards capitalism, so what if they are stealing a few secrets. 

2016-Present – Communism is okay, it will destroy those billionaires who are hoarding all the money and make life great for the workers.  It will solve all the problems with pollution and fix the climate problems.  Workers unite.  The thing is communism gets a bad rap so let’s call it democratic socialism, at least until we are in charge.   

BTW, see how well communism is working in China?

Completing the Transition -- Journalist to Social Influencer.

Sam Donaldson

Today’s example of completing the transition from a neutral media journalist to a social influencer is Sam Donaldson, ABC.  Sam, along with many of his old peers, has completely shrugged off the idea of reporting actual events as they teach their prodigies how to report and has now gone all-in for Bloomberg who I assume he sees as the Democratic savior for the nation.

I guess we’ll see how that goes, but I’m not sure Sam is anymore in touch with those in the heartland who love the energy of Trump in reviving the economy and addressing their concerns about the survival of the nation then is Michael “he’s more scared than a cat in a dog pond” Bloomberg. 

Just who does Sam think he will persuade?  Millennials?  Other reporters?  The minorities in the inner cities?  The farmers in Nebraska or the ranchers in Montana?

I’m not seeing an overwhelming legion of Sam Donaldson faithful, but then every endorsement Bloomberg can buy is one more Bernie won’t.

An Open Letter to those who “Stand with LTC Vindman”

On social media, I saw a few people post LTC Vindman’s picture along with the “I Stand” caption.  It gave me pause as I passed by without comment, but it has troubled me to the point I now feel compelled to respond with a warning Be Careful What You Ask For.

For those who dislike the President and believe he should be removed, that is okay.  It is one of the many rights you have as a citizen.  For those who are not citizens, you have the same right of opinion, and increasingly the Democratic party is arguing you should have the right to remove him as well.  The way to remove a President you don’t like is through the election process, not through a coup.

What has separated the U.S. military from so many other countries is the idea that our military is apolitical. 

Since our original rebellion, the oath administered to our soldiers has stated allegiance to the nation.  After the Civil War, the oath was changed to establish allegiance to the Constitution.  That oath, with some changes, remains in effect today.  The current oath of office was approved by the Congress in 1960 and has been in effect since 1962.  It reads…

I, [STATE YOUR NAME], having been appointed a [RANK] in the United States [BRANCH OF SERVICE], do solemnly swear [OR AFFIRM] that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the office upon which I am about to enter. So help me God.

This is the oath LTC Vindman affirmed upon his commissioning.  You can judge for yourselves whether or not his action was in support of the Constitution or an act of political rebellion against a President he didn’t like.

If you, like so many of the opposition, believe he had the moral right and authority to rise up against the duly elected President over what is a political and policy difference then you are agreeing that any military member has the right to use his or her office to attempt to overthrow the President.  And make no mistake, LTC Vindman was clearly standing on his military platform when he testified at the Intelligence Committee.

We historically think of military coups as the violent overthrow of the leader, either elected or not, the replacement of one dictator for another.  Consider the rhetoric coming out from the Democratic party about President Trump.  How often do the party and the media depict him as a dictator?  But, is that true?

Has he sent the Congress home?  Has he not been constrained by the checks and balances we have historically had in place?  Can he spend money the Congress hasn’t authorized?  Clearly, the answer to these questions is no, so where do we come up with the idea he is a dictator? 

If he is a dictator then is it okay for the military to overthrow the government as other military leaders have done through history?  That is what you support when you Stand with LTC Vindman.  Think carefully about that.  I don’t think you will like the outcome.

The Beat Goes On (with apologies to Sonny and not so much Cher)

In 2016, the two dominant political parties offered America a choice (abet a totally unattractive one).  We could elect a career politician who had demonstrated she was in it to get as much wealth out of the nation as she could grab and had no enduring position on any issue other than the right to kill the unborn.  Or, we could elect a billionaire who had made his fortune developing properties while he fed his need to be the center of the universe.  For many, it was an unattractive choice, but none of the alternative parties offered anyone who could compete with these two primary options.

Looking at the run-up to the election we see the DNC and its propaganda apparatus pull out all the stops to depict Donald Trump as a representative of evil incarnate while feeding their future queen all the softball questions and media praise they could pull from their hats.  They outspent Trump (who still had many detractors within the RNC) in the campaign, they fed Clinton the questions on the debates, and they broadcast poll after poll showing Trump didn’t have a snowball's chance in hell of defeating someone with that much political wisdom. As the (now) Speaker of the House once said, “Donald Trump will not be President, you can take that to the bank!”

What Donald Trump understood far better than Hillary Clinton was the message the average American working-class voter wanted to hear was that the President would stand with them, rather than with a political party.  Hillary’s campaign slogan was “I’m with Her,” Trump’s was “Make America Great Again.”  One played well with the urban elite who wanted, more than anything else, was to elect a woman, the other played well with people who were struggling to make ends meet. 

What they (the DNC and media elite) failed to understand was the dissatisfaction of the country outside the metropolitan centers.  At the end of the campaign their failure to understand the mood of middle-class voters and election process, as defined in the Constitution, meant Trump won.  The impossibility of that event led to an emotional breakdown for all those who want to rule the country as our lords and masters.  That phenomenon is now known as Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) and it remains on display as a daily reminder of how the DNC loyalists continue to blame America for their loss. 

Almost from the time the political experts on MSNBC burst into tears from the defeat of Ms. Clinton, there were organized protests against the new President.  We had the pussy-hat crowd marching to demonstrate their outrage against a man who had said women threw themselves at him and he could grab them in the privates.  The Antifa thugs are beating up anyone they could find that in any way represented what they viewed as someone who would have voted for the President.  All the entertainment celebrities who believe they have great political insight and clout have taken to social media to tell their followers how evil the man is.  Then we have elected members of the Federal government calling for his impeachment from the time before he was sworn-in.  Finally, we see a continuing drumbeat from ABCNNBCBS pushing the narrative of the left that the President is a criminal and will become a dictator.

When you tie these efforts with the cultural reality where we are changing the meanings of words to fit the message you want -- it seems like a struggle for the wealth of the United States has risen to a level unheard of before.  In 1964 a Canadian professor named Marshall McLuhan published a very short book titled: “The Medium is the Message.” I remember being in High School when I first heard of, and read the book.  It struck me as a rather simple insight.  Now some 50ish years later I am not sure I fully grasp the cultural significance of the idea that the mode of transmission is far more important than the actual message, but regardless of my lack of insight, there can be no doubt as to the accuracy of McLuhan’s statement.  We see the impact of the old and new mediums of message exchange on the way the political messages are controlled to ensure just the right spin.

Now, we are past the impeachment and as much as we will hear a continuing drumbeat about how bad President Trump is, I don’t think the Representatives and Senators have either the time or political will to begin another impeachment process doomed for failure before they forsake their day jobs to run for reelection.

Of course, this won’t stop the propaganda arm of the DNC from continuing to cast aspersions at the RNC, the Senators who voted to acquit, and the President, for that appears to be the only thing they have to campaign on coming into the 2020 election.  It will be interesting to see how successful that strategy turns out to be.

As one observer noted, maybe the Democrats could nominate Mitt Romney as their “centrist” candidate.  

And the beat goes on.

And So it Goes...

All the fire and fury of the House majority was wrapped up and sent to the Senate under the care and guidance of the Impeachment Managers.  They were supported by all the resources of the Speaker of the House as well as the Senate minority party and such powerhouses of legal wit and wisdom as Rachal Maddow and the folks at CNN. 

At the same time, President Trump’s legal team was made up of practicing lawyers, law professors, and a slew of House Republicans to cover social media and the broadcast news. 

For three full days, the House Managers laid out what they described as an overwhelming case of abuse of power and obstruction of the House investigation into the President.  In their three days of opening statements, they claimed again and again the evidence was overwhelming and beyond dispute, and it may have been if you a) are able, as Adam Schiff suggests, we can read the President’s mind, and b) ignore the fact what the President did has been done by almost all Presidents before him.  They showed videos of witnesses they interviewed by the House Intelligence Committee which led to their overwhelming and beyond dispute evidence of guilt.  At their best none of the witnesses whose testimony was shown to the Senate had direct knowledge of Presidential words or motives during his conversations with the Ukrainian President.  The closest they got was the transcript released by the White House.

  While they were doing this the Democratic Party, its media allies, and all the Democratic politicians that could jump in front of a camera were busy lobbying anyone who would listen the only way to have a “fair” trial was for the Senate to bring in witnesses the House didn’t interview to testify with regards to the President’s guilt because as mere Representatives of the people they didn’t have the power to force the President to cooperate with their investigation in the manner they wanted.

Remarkably, although not unexpected, a rumor of some new “truths” coming from the President’s advisors found their way into the mainstream media just in time to try and help them make their case.  Of course, these were from anonymous sources who had seen something in a manuscript that was not yet approved for publication.  Therefore, according to the Senate minority leader and his Democratic colleagues, the House Managers, and a Republican Senator or two they should call those witnesses the House Managers wanted. 

The kicker was the defense pointed out this could drag the trial on for weeks (and perhaps months) since they would demand witnesses they wanted should be called as well.  The also pointed out in the House’s investigation only the majority got to decide which witnesses would be asked to testify regarding the whistleblower’s complaint that allegedly began this whole affair. The defense took about half the time as the politicians from the House in their opening statements, for despite the assertions by the House Managers and Democratic Senators the President should prove his innocence that is not the way justice works in the United States.

In the public negotiation that went on through the question time, the House Managers attempted to make the Chief Justice the arbitrator of who would be called and who wouldn’t as well as whether or not the Chief Justice would cast the deciding vote if there was a tie.  The defense rejected this as a role for the Chief Justice.  The Chief Justice himself rejected the idea he would be the deciding vote in a tie.  As he pointed out a tie vote in the Senate traditionally means the vote fails.  Then came Senator Elizabeth Warren who weighted in and asked the managers to explain how the reputation of the Chief Justice and the SCOTUS would be destroyed forever if he didn’t go along with this plan and do what the Democrats proposed.  Thankfully, this pissed of just enough Senators to make sure he wouldn’t be put into that role.

Now that the Senate has voted not to do what the House couldn’t be bothered with, we will see all the expected outrage from the political left over how those evil Republicans have destroyed the America we love, and how they are keeping a corrupt President in power despite the will of the people (as expressed in some poll of about 1500 randomly selected individuals).

I believe this is playing out pretty much like I thought it would here.  Of course, all those who’ve invested so much emotional capital in attempting to correct America’s mistake of 2016 will come online to explain how the Senate has failed in its responsibility because of those nasty Republicans.  I’d point to this one tweet from Hillary Clinton as capturing the irony lost on those who live their lives inside an emotionally inflated political bubble.

If we flashback a mere 21 years ago we probably saw Republicans saying the same things, and if we use that trial as the modern benchmark we see some notable similarities, but it is really the difference in the House’s approach that stands out for me.

For example, as much as the Republicans may have disliked President Clinton I don’t recall a nearly continuous drumbeat of unproven accusations made by sitting members of the House following Clinton’s reelection.  With Trump -- Representatives Eric Swalwell, Adam Schiff and others (e.g. Maxine Waters) have had their faces plastered on TV since January 2017 talking about all the dirt they have on this President and calling for his impeachment.  I guess the question should have been asked, why wasn’t all that (the stuff they were bragging about having) included in the two Bills of Impeachment the House Democrats finally settled on?

The next thing within the House process was the independent counsel (Ken Star) actually found evidence the President had obstructed justice (as defined by the judicial system and not the politicians) before the Speaker and the House authorized the committees to begin an impeachment investigation.  In Trump’s case, the independent counsel found no such criminal activity and the investigations by the committees started before any such authorization.  The House Managers' explanation was the only the House had the authority to establish or question the process used by the House.  Therefore, under current House rules, they didn’t need authorization by the full body to do whatever the committee chairs wanted to do.

Then we come to actual Bills of Impeachment.  In the Clinton affair, the Judicial committee (voting along party lines) sent four articles to the full house for a vote.  Of those four articles two were for perjury in two cases, a third was obstruction of justice, and the fourth was an abuse of power.  In those votes, there was at least a small degree of bipartisanship with significant numbers of Republicans joining Democrats to defeat two of the four articles, and a small number of Democrats joining Republicans on the articles they did adopt.  We can’t say the same thing this time around.  No Republicans voted to impeach and a few Democrats broke with their party to either not vote or to reject the articles.  This was clearly a partisan vote, just as it had been in the committee processes.

Finally, we come to the issue of witnesses in the Senate trial.  Clearly, the Democrat’s whole spin on this is the Senate absolutely had subpoena witnesses to get to the “truth” of the matter.  The public spin is you can’t have a fair trial without witnesses and direct testimony.  How could a Senator make an informed decision if they didn’t couldn’t get the real dirt on the accused?  As we know the House Managers failed in their arguments for witnesses, again strictly along party lines, but let’s review the whole idea of witnesses as they were used in the Clinton trial.

There was talk of witnesses in the Clinton trial, although at the end of the day all the Senators got were some video depositions (decided on by a 70-30 vote) and the only witnesses interviewed for those depositions were witnesses who had been identified as key players in the Star investigation and the House had already interviewed or had been identified as witnesses as part of their pre-impeachment investigation.

Then we have the manner of presentation.  I wonder what the House Managers hoped to gain as they framed their talking points with ad hominem attacks of the defense counsels and Republican Senators who may disagree with their view the House had overwhelming evidence of “High Crimes and Misdemeanors.”  On the lighter side, it appears House Manager Schiff is unable to actually present evidence without telling everyone what was inside someone else’s head when they did or said something.  In such a partisan gathering that approach played well with 47 Senators, and less well with the rest.  This became especially clear during the 18 hours of questioning. 

Now, after the Senate voted 49 to 51 not to demand witnesses and clean up the flaws of the House’s case all that is left is for the losers to spin this as a failure of our Senate and the Republic.  Of course, they do this to keep their base enraged over those “other guys” in the GOP because anyone who disagrees with their views of the role of government is an illiterate, racist, Nazi-Capitalist protecting the criminal in the White House.  The drama will continue, perhaps unabated, until a Democrat once again sits in the White House, but then wasn’t this whole impeachment just one act in the political Kabuki that has been going on from the time the Trump was elected?

And so, it goes.