Quote of the Day: Hardworking?

Over 2,100 comments were posted to "Why Rural America Voted for Trump", Robert Leonard, New York Times, 2017-01-05.

One of my favorites was submitted by Cam Chapel Hill, NC

"I'm sick of the expression "hardworking". Who doesn't consider themselves "hardworking"? I suspect being homeless and unemployed requires a great deal of 'hard work'.

"Be all this as it may: voting for Trump is like trying to lose weight on a diet of ice cream and cookies-you may enjoy the experience but you won't reach your goals."

Other commenters pointed out that agri-business has reduced the number of family farms, that Trump's billionaires are only posturing about their wanting to help rural America, and that one relative was working 60-hour weeks in New York City.

Adam Smith warned "Don’t trust Donald Trump’s appointees!”

 "The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it." - pages 142-143, Adam Smith, PDF version of "Wealth of Nations" transcribed by the Gutenberg Project.  You can download a text copy from http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3300.

Who are this "order of men”?  Those who live by profit.

Who has Donald Trump appointed to be in his administration?  Billionaires who have lived by profit many times over.  Is this a populist government?  Do pigs fly?

Given my small readership, I doubt you can make much influence.  But who knows how much influence you might have by passing this on to your Senators and Representatives?

The above quote originally appeared in “The Invisible Adam Smith”, 2012-10-25 Only 146 have viewed this page to date.  I feel like I’m just blowing in the wind.  But, Bob Dylan wrote, “The answer is blowin’ in the wind, my friend.”

Problem of conservative/liberal labeling

We see too much about liberal bias against conservatives and conservative bias against liberals.  But do we even know what a conservative or liberal is?

Are those who think billionaires should be free to run their companies without any government interference liberals or conservatives?  They are certainly "liberal" in their interpretation of the Constitution.  The true conservatives are those who believe the Constitution's power to the Congress to "regulate commerce among the states".

Are those who think the Constitution starts with "We the People" means persons as a collective liberal or conservative?  It seems that so-called conservatives are rather liberal in interpreting the opening clause as "We the Corporations".

Nicholas Kristof wrote a column about liberals and conservatives in academia.  For some of the letters in response see http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/15/opinion/sunday/politics-and-academia.html.

If "conservatives" have a problem being accepted into academia it may be because they are not open to change.  A true academic is a liberal-conservative: liberal in open to new views and conservative in evaluating evidence.

Is Donald Trump a black swan?

Nassim Nicholas Taleb wrote "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable" in 2007.  Is Donald Trump such a black swan and for whom?  Is he an unexpected creation of the Koch brothers?  Has the intransigence of Congressional Republicans created an opening for the likes of Donald Trump?

Maybe, just maybe, the Democrats can seize this opportunity to increase governance in this country that works for the people, not the corporations or the billionaires. 

Quote of the day: Capitalism and Liberalism

 "Capitalism is not a form of government."
- Ghost Dansing, comment to Roger Cohen's “Death of Liberalism” column, New York Times, 2014-07-14

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/14/opinion/the-death-of-liberalism.html?comments#permid=18202173:18206074

This link includes Ghost Dansing’s and my comments.

Blasé about sports

When I was in high school in Cleveland, an adult I knew, when asked what he thought about the Indians, exclaimed, "There's Indians in town? Run for your lives!"

Now I have the same so what attitude toward sports. With the demands of the Minnesota Vikings to have the taxpayers fund a new stadium for them, I say,

The Vikings of olden times plundered states.
The Vikings of Minnesota plunder the state.

or "There's Vikings in town? Hang on to your wallet!"

Another argument I've seen is that the taxpayers of Minnesota are being asked to pay over a billion dollars to a billionaire for a bar for 50,000 drunks.

If so many are calling for governments to live within their means, why can't sports teams live within their means?

Do we have a democracy or a plutocracy? Follow the money!

It has long bothered me that the Republican Party has morphed from a "big-tent party" to a "lock-step party".  Instead of being a party that discusses ideas to reach some consensus that fits the party's ideals, the Republican Party has become a party of the checklist.  If you don't agree with each and every item on the checklist, then you are a RINO, Republican In Name Only.

A party with a definite agenda that gets many people to agree with it has an advantage of a party that has a wide range of opinions.  Not every Democrat gets up in arms to save the whales or feels that the world will end if gay marriage is not legalized.  But, because these "wafflers" belong to a party who has a large number of people who support these issues, they have more difficulty defending themselves against a party in lockstep.

It has also bothered me how quickly items can be added to the checklist.  This is not a hallmark of a grassroots movement.  A grassroots movement, at least in a democracy, would be discussing the issues and forming some consensus about them.  This doesn't happen overnight.

Of course, we do have the Glenn Becks and the Rush Limbaughs who have many of their fans at their beck and call.  But somebody has to have an organization that translates these ideas into action.  Or, maybe somebody has an organization that feeds ideas to Beck and Limbaugh.  That is, maybe Beck and Limbaugh are at some hidden figure's or figures' beck and call.

I was overwhelmed when I read "The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party" by
Frank Rich, New York Times, 2010-08-28.  He wrote about how the Koch brothers of Koch Oil have been founding and funding libertarian groups to promote their laissez-faire ideas.  Not only should we follow the money, we should follow the associations.  Some employees of Koch Oil sit on the boards of these "independent" groups.

When you have ten minutes, I suggest that you read Frank Rich's column.

When you have an hour, I suggest you read one of his references,  "Covert Operations: The Billionaire Brothers Who Are Waging War Against Obama", Jane Mayer, New Yorker,
2010-08-31.

When you have a week or two, I suggest you read one of her references, "Merchants of Doubt", Naomi Oreskes, which "chronicles various attempts by American industry to manipulate public opinion on science".  Hm!  Is "junk science" any science that is contrary to somebody's short term interests.

This all makes me think of Robert Heinlein's "The Puppet Masters", an alien race that attached themselves to the backs of human beings and made them do their will.  In this case we have a plutocracy attaching itself to people's minds making the people believe they are defending democracy.