Leaderboard

"One must never fail to pronounce moral judgment. Nothing can corrupt and disintegrate a culture or a man’s character as thoroughly as does the precept of moral agnosticism, the idea that one must never pass moral judgment on others, that one must be morally tolerant of anything, that the good consists of never distinguishing good from evil". AR -- Good men and women - or the youthful - staying silent when they witness a moral injustice (say, racialist and collectivist), a false accusation and any unfair slander on a kid and anyone else, perpetuates such attacks and lends it their tacit consent. Since "the authorities" might not be present - or unable, incompetent or unwilling (often) to take action - you, as the bystander, should take matters in your own hand to articulate a moral judgment. "This is wrong" - could be all that's needed. Broadly, if only a tiny minority speaks up they are not forgotten and cause far-reaching and beneficial ripple effects on the moral health of the school, tennis club, forum or whatever - and the society. Rising to his-her just defense is not only for the benefit of the verbally (or physically) tormented person, it is selfish - in favor of the institution which one is also a part of - - and of one's own moral character.

Slight aside, I note Rand was quite good at wide integrations, and her seeing through false dichotomies, more than one of them in fact, was always breathtaking. Many criticized Marxist Utopias by assuming their failure and evil outcomes was rooted in human failings to implement the system faithfully, Rand rightly noted their fundamental ideas were themselves evil. A modern Objectivist cannot but help to notice that our mixed economy, bloated paternalistic government, increasingly socialist and authoritarian, wasteful, and corrupt institutions are a failure to meet the founding fathers explicit vision of the republic, which no matter how far short of an Objectivist utopia, is revelatory, true and Good. Rand noted America had not ever met her full potential, never ripened to what she could and should be, but nonetheless she paid homage and great respect for her founders vision, adjudging that Republic as the greatest system ever conceived and executed heretofore. She did bemoan her fall and criticized both parties contemporary to her time, the so-called left and right parties which she rightly saw as being little different and in fact is the main reason she lambasted the right, for all its posturing towards individual freedom revealed all the more, its hypocrisy and dishonesty. So she blasted one false dichotomy, of theory versus practicality in the context of utopian politics, out of the water, as well as another false dichotomy (of policy) between the so called left and right. What is more impressive for her revelations is that she did this in spite of common and widely held beliefs in the culture, in academia, portrayed and disseminated by the “authorities” and the media. In her time she was what modern spin doctors would call a conspiracy theorist, and to give them their due, those doctors have identified that indeed sometimes reality and human nature, incentive structures, imbalance and control of information can “conspire” to present a picture which is misleading. They err in prescribing blind obedience and acceptance rather than further close inspection of reality. She was truly a rebel and yes a radical like no other. I wonder why so many modern Objectivists, seem not to have taken on her approach of seeing through the false dichotomies, of making wider integrations than what the predominant culture is feeding us, of seeing beyond the narratives of theory versus practicality, left versus right, of seeing where real and complex forces of human nature and power lead institutions and nations, of being brave in the face of those who attack bold unpopular ideas. I think it has to do with the statistically predominant life experience the type of person who becomes a philosopher comes from. Not all but most are sheltered, insular, academic and the same kind of errors (albeit of different content) which afflicted the Marxist Utopians, afflicts the Objectivist philosophers, it is as if “all we need is a globe of perfect rational humans then our institutions, laws, and systems, nations, trade, agreements, industries, local and global infrastructure, shipping, energy and food will all work…” and perhaps it would, but it wont. It cannot succeed, the systems that will succeed must take into account the global and human realities as well as the current state of things… it must be formed to take us from here, not to assume we are somewhere we are not or never will be… and it must be focused on the Republic itself not a universal utopia which lies centuries if not millennia forward. I wonder what Rand would say if she had lived through all the years since her death, observing, thinking, integrating, in her non naive rebellious way, what she would have to say about the best way forward given all the threats, in all their forms, throughout the world and from within. She certainly would find any fault, any little error, with the remedial cures being put in place but for sure she would be fully cognizant of the complex situation of the present moment and have a good view of the path forward.

Congratulations to backers of having a Trump II, such as prominent Objectivist philosophers Leonard Peikoff and Andrew Bernstien. They, and we square Trump opponents too, are getting what was promised from Trump for II. (Where is any criticism of Trump acts these last several weeks from those two philosophers? Those Presidential acts are just fine by them? Did Objectivist leaders stay silent during Nixon's Wage and Price Controls? During J.F. Kennedy's threats to US industries, such as TV and steel companies?) 3/19/25 – BBC

Apparently, Donald Trump has ordered the release of 80,000 pages of unredacted documents related to the assassination of President Kennedy, a subject that has busied conspiracy nuts for decades. Spoiler Alert: No matter what those papers say, it won't make a damned bit of difference for a certain type of person, whose archetype is Trump's head of health and human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. I have no patience with the many predicatable excuses conspiracy nuts spew for ignoring and evading documentary evidence, so we won't wallow in them here, but there is still a fair question for me: How do you know these documents won't make a difference? Image by the HHS, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.Kennedy's nephew, Bobby, has graciously provided the answer already, in the form of the recent announcement that his CDC is going to waste our money studying the long-discredited "link" between vaccinations and autism:The possibility of a link between vaccines and autism has been repeatedly debunked by hundreds of scientific studies. But Kennedy made a profile for himself as an anti-vaccine crusader, criticizing the Covid-19 vaccine and claiming childhood immunizations are linked to autism. He also founded Children's Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group. [links omitted]Interestingly, the scientific literature already consists of a number of pages comparable to the Kennedy papers about this very subject:When crossing the terms "vaccination" and "autism" on Google Scholar, there are 38,200 results with the leading topic being MMR (measles, mumps, & rubella) and the repeated evidence in many thousands of articles against its association with autism.That was four years ago: I got 77,000 just now for "vaccine AND autism". Even if only a third of the cited number are papers are primarily about this subject, if each is only four pages long, that's still over 50,000 pages! Does Bobby Kennedy not know about this literature? Does he not care about it? Is he unable to process it rationally? Is he deliberately ignoring it? He happily imputes bad motives to vaccine makers: Is this a case of the pot calling a spotless chalice a black kettle? I don't know and I don't care why this unqualified non-scientist won't see or admit the truth, but I'd say he proves my point. -- CAVLink to Original

Brook has recommended this, and I pass it along with a second: https://www.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-thinks-ayn-rand-071948623.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall

First of all, let me hand it to David Strom of the conservative Hot Air blog. I have lately found conservative media -- once a refreshing place for intelligent takes absent from conventional media -- to now be largely a stinky, festering swamp inhabited almost entirely by brain-dead conspiracy nuts, Trump fanbois, and other cranks. You can only read so much from people who generally seemed to know better five seconds ago, but are now racing to be the first to defend Trump's latest dumb move. But not this time. Strom takes the current administration to task for its Bernie Sanders-worthy witch hunt of "big egg" over the latest predictable increase in egg prices following a wave of bird flu:In just the past two months, over 40 million chickens were euthanized to prevent the spread of this nasty disease. The Trump administration, though, is following the Biden playbook and pointing fingers at egg producers and darkly suggesting that evil egg producers might be price gouging and driving up the price of eggs out of malign intent. That is just dumb, both as a theory for why egg prices are going up, and as a way to treat the intelligence of the American people. This is AOC-level economics, and I have to say it ticks me off more than a little bit. [bold added]Strom ends as follows:Yes, I know I am supposed to be a cheerleader for my team, and I do quite a bit of that when warranted, but I don't want my team to become the same as what I despise.Good on Mr. Strom for raising an issue I have long wished somebody MAGA-adjacent would raise: What's the point of 'winning' if all you do is turn around and implement the worst kinds of policies of the politicians you defeated at the polls? On that, see also Trump's anti-trade/high tax tariff foolishness (which the House GOP just doubled down on), the nutty left's anti-vaccine hysteria (now mainstreamed by RFK, Jr.), and our new, one-sided "alliance" with Russia, which is still an enemy to the West, including us. It is interesting to note that, just as Trump could quickly help our economy by dropping all his new tariffs, he could nuke the equally avoidable, government-induced egg price problems now and forever -- by getting the government out of the way of the poultry industry adopting the bird flu vaccinations other nations have used successfully. I won't be holding my breath: Between Trump's brain-dead "America first" jingoism and his enlistment of a crank as the head of HHS, I have a hard time seeing common sense prevail here. How many more own-goals will it take for sensible Republicans to see that they need to form a new team? -- CAVLink to Original

The author of the article in the OP could additionally think the earth is flat (he does not), but it has no bearing on the merits or demerits of this particular composition. As for your two views and derogations of people who don't buy the salvation you put forth, I'd say you are in the position with respect to me and probably most other audience of someone telling me of new arguments or evidence of the existence of God or of eternal life through letting Jesus into my heart. The challenge for such an apologist is in getting me to give any of my precious time to their renditions or reports in those two matters. The same goes for anyone telling me they have figured out that the frequency-energy relation is false, when I have more solid, established physics to spend my time on learning. Goes also for anyone proposing that the Asian Flu was a scam, and my folks should not have had me take the vaccine. Or that Covid and the vaccines are a scam (I take the vaccines; I've never gotten Covid, which is no evidence it does not exist; a lot of people died of it here in our hospital, and I'll rely on the regular medical professionals for getting to right diagnoses for patients, myself included). Well, I've spent too much time on this already. Must get to wrapping up important studies, philosophical (not skepticism sensible and not, at this time) and mathematical. The circumstance that some Marxists were on board with raising consciousness on US history of White-Black race relations is not relevant to the truth of historical facts and some White resistance to hearing of them. About 110 years ago, headlines of the statewide newspaper of the new State Oklahoma were "Something Must Be Done about the Negro Problem," while a big newspaper in Kentucky told of a race war simmering in OK. These and the details they report are accessible for research today, and for people with some interest in history, they are eye-opening and certainly should not be suppressed by politicians getting elected for anti-woke rhetoric. Fortunately, we now have ways more effective than ever for waking people up on this history (which the White America mythologists [and mainly low church Christians] want suppressed in public education) outside of formal education. Gotta get back to work.

The New York Post reports that Wall Street types are circulating a video (embedded below) of Ronald Reagan standing up for international free trade, including correctly calling punitive tariffs stupid. Reagan builds more broad-based political momentum in one six minute address than Trump has built (or can build) in weeks of name-calling and chain-yanking. Although, like Reagan himself, this video is far from perfect, it deserves wide circulation for several reasons beyond its clear explanation of why trade is good, which any intelligent adult can understand. First, here are a couple of brief excerpts, lightly edited from an automatically-generated transcript:Both developed and developing countries alike have been in the grip of the longest worldwide recession in postwar history. That's bad news for all of us. When other countries don't grow they buy less from us and we see fewer jobs created at home. When we don't grow we buy less from them which weakens their economies and of course their ability to buy from us. It's a vicious cycle. You can understand the danger of worldwide recession when you realize how much is at stake. Exports account for over 5 million jobs in the United States. Two out of every five acres planted by American farmers produce crops for exports, but because of their recessions other countries are buying fewer American farm products than last year. Our farmers are hurting and they're just one group. So we're trying to turn this situation around. We're reminding the world that, yes, we all have serious problems, but our economic system based on individual freedom private, initiative, and free trade has produced more human progress than any other in history. It's in all our interest to preserve it, protect it, and strengthen it.Much later:I'm old enough and hopefully wise enough not to forget the lessons of those unhappy years [the 1930s]. The world must never live through such a nightmare again. We're in the same boat with our trading partners. If one partner shoots a hole in the boat, does it make sense for the other one to shoot another hole in the boat? Some say yes and call that getting tough. Well, I call it stupid. We shouldn't be shooting holes. We should be working together to plug them up. We must strengthen the boat of free markets ...While I am glad that some are circulating this video, I think it is a mistake not to share it much more widely. For one thing, this is a badly-needed remedial lesson in basic economics, and if the current President can't wrap his head around it, we need everyone else to, so that there is some hope of a united opposition to his policies now, or at least a broad understanding of how to correct for them later. For another, this is also a much-needed glimpse of what leadership in a free society looks like. The people of a free society neither want nor need to be told what to do. A politician wishing to change course will speak to them like the adults that they are and earn their considered support by appealing to their intelligence and to their self-interest. This works, because Trump to the contrary, trade (within or across borders) is win-win, as apparently anyone but he can understand. -- CAVLink to Original

You don't know your own economy. US wages are not keeping up with economic growth, even after they're adjusted for inflation ("real" here means after adjusting for inflation): Some of it is due to demographic changes and rise in medical cost (which is also partly a political problem), but the biggest mathematical reason is that: The situation becomes clearer if you compare hourly wages (plus all indirect benefits) to hourly worker productivity: And the reason this is happening is political: It is due to the political influence of corporations. US institutions today are much more extractive than several decades ago.

An accurate statement would be: "if it's impractical, it cannot be moral" (and vice versa, the moral cannot be impractical). But just because something is more difficult doesn't mean it's immoral and just because something is easier doesn't mean it's more moral. Morality isn't about the path of least resistance. Whether or not some thing is easier or very difficult to accomplish tells you nothing about ethics. Also, the idea that your every action is morally correct just because you have the power to accomplish them is the ideology of a dictatorship. The idea that "might is right" is fascist. The idea that your enemy is always weak (and if they aren't weak, they aren't your enemy) is fascist.

At least she was right about the wreckage of the consensus that had produced the Johnson "landslide" (22.6% popular margin). Here's hoping for the wreckage of the showy current President policies of personal vainglory (1.5% popular margin). Rand would have opposed candidate Trump 2024 for the same reasons she gave for opposing George Wallace in the 1968 Presidential election (anti-intellectuality, shallow nationalism, and resistance to civil rights of Black Americans).

I read that some of those prisoners (in the recent "hostage exchange") said they didn't want to return to Gaza, ha. I'm happy in prison, I don't want to go back to that hell hole! The Qutari- Al Jazeera propagandists managed brilliantly, I have to admit, to turn the violent brutes into innocent victims and vice-versa, for public consumption. That psy-ops war they've handily won, aided by sycophantic media (BBC) and social media filtering down to mobs, the western "man in the street" (interesting that the large majority of "river to sea" nasty idiots you see pictured in the marches and campuses are women). How to achieve moral equivalency and later moral ascendancy to gain world support: first stage, we heard commonly: deny, deny. No "they" weren't raped, beheaded - etc., - until the weight of evidence Hamas itself provided on media quietly shut down that angle. Next, we see (like in this forum) what-about-isms abound: "the Zionists also do and did such and such - what about them?" A cunning maneuver by propagandists is what I'll call "the bug and the feature". The "feature" (characteristic) of the one people is the visible success, scientific advances, high standards, general life-and-peace values and freedoms for all Israel's inhabitants - remembering the Jews arrived there not long ago as penniless refugees from Europe and Arab countries, immediately defended themselves from outside aggression and yet against the odds made a vibrant country. The "bug" - for Israel - are the few individual citizens and soldiers who commit violent acts. Even the free-est nations will have those especially in tense periods. Promptly those culprits get arrested, charged and sent to prison, also widely condemned in the society. The trick, to transpose the bug into the feature, publicly amplifying the Israeli "exceptions to the rule" to be the major feature. By such means the Palestinian moral equation has been inverted, black turned into white, evil to innocence. Over there, the "feature" is ~anything~ but the Israeli success story. All Gazans have shown repeatedly by Intifadas and assaults, even when left alone to make a proper state, they are dedicated to death and destruction, their own included. Violence is their singular feature bolstered by hatred of other faiths, Judaism first. Atrocities are celebrated there as heroic acts, not punished. Somehow--quite incredibly, the shrewd moral manipulation has taken in many westerners, helped by weak minds and underlying Judeophobia. Excuse the long lecture on my favorite topic, mind control, Harrison.

Godel's result applies only to systems that consist exclusively of logically deducing propositions from other propositions. It does not apply to any system that involves induction or reasoning on the level of concepts or starting with the evidence of the senses or checking conclusions against reality. Thus it applies neither to human cognition nor to Ayn Rand's philosophy. Concepts are very different from sets.

Anti-objectivists are full of triumphant little fairy tales like this: "... and this, boys and girls, is why you shouldn't try to have any principles." But they don't have anything better to offer, and they know it. (In related news, I heard that Elon Musk blew up a rocket once, which proves that all of rocket science is pretentious and useless.)

Objectivist gossip gets less interesting as each generation passes.

A Friday Hodgepodge 1. I've heard of people opting for dumb phones and hunting for dumb television sets and cars with actual knobs for controls. And then there was that spamming refrigerator that made the news a while back. But now, people are rightly getting upset about dishwashers that require an internet connection to do simple things:You have to set up an account on Home Connect, set up the Home Connect app on your phone, and then you can control your dishwasher through the Internet to run a rinse cycle. That doesn't make any sense to me. An app? I mean, I can understand maybe adding some neat convenience features for those who want them. Like on my new fridge -- which I chose not to connect to WiFI -- it has an app that would allow me to monitor the inside temperature or look up service codes more easily. If I wanted those add-on features, which my old fridge didn't have, I could get them. But requiring an app to access features that used to be controllable via buttons on the dishwasher itself -- or are still if you pay $400 more for the fancy "800" model? That's no bueno.Sure, companies ought to be free to offer whatever kind of garbage they want on an open market, but I'll be damned if I'm going to reward ridiculous things like this with my business. And no thanks: I don't want the prospect of things like having to pay a subscription to do something I used to be able to do by pressing a button -- or suddenly being unable to use an appliance if its vendor goes out of business. This may or may not bother you, but I'm going be very careful and picky the next time I have to buy an appliance, even if no one in his right mind would think the internet is necessary for something like it to work. 2. An nice bonus to law and order is that, once in a while, you get to read a good dressing-down of a bad actor who chooses the wrong person to threaten with a lawsuit. I encountered a good example of this recently in the form of a letter written in response to a company with a reputation for extorting settlement money by threatening infringement suits over its intellectual property:I therefore think that it is important that, before closing, I make you aware of a few points. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1985, I spent nineteen years in litigation practice, with a focus upon federal litigation involving large damages and complex issues. My first seven years were spent primarily on the defense side, where I developed an intense frustration with insurance carriers who would settle meritless claims for nuisance value when the better long-term view would have been to fight against vexatious litigation as a matter of principle. In plaintiffs' practice, likewise, I was always a strong advocate of standing upon principle and taking cases all the way to judgment, even when substantial offers of settlement were on the table. I am "uncompromising" in the most literal sense of the word. If Monster Cable proceeds with litigation against me I will pursue the same merits-driven approach; I do not compromise with bullies and I would rather spend fifty thousand dollars on defense than give you a dollar of unmerited settlement funds. As for signing a licensing agreement for intellectual property which I have not infringed: that will not happen, under any circumstances, whether it makes economic sense or not. [emphasis in quote from blog post]Tort reform, including a "loser pays rule, would go a long way towards rectifying this situation, since many victims of this strategy can't afford to fight back. 3. There is a nonzero chance that the star Betelgeuse will go supernova in our lifetime. That sounds neat, but what will it be like when that happens?It will be visible during the day. It will be brighter than any planet. It will be almost as bright as the full moon. You'll be able to read a book by the light of the Betelgeuse supernova at midnight. But it will actually be painful to look at because unlike the full moon that is this gorgeous disc in the sky, Betelgeuse is still going to be a tiny pinprick of light. So it won't be comfortable to look at, and it will last a few months before fading away as all supernovae do. But as impressive as it is, it won't be dangerous.Bright enough to read by at night? Good thing it won't last more than too long, then. 4. It was through spell-checking a blog post that I first learned that restaurateur has no n. If that strikes you as odd, here's why:A restaurateur in the Middle Ages was a medical assistant who would help ready patients for surgery. Soon these "restorers" became known for the special meat-based rich soup they would prepare to restore and fortify a person physically and spiritually. That restorative soup was called "restaurant." It wasn't until later that the place where those soups (and other healthy victuals) were served also became known as a restaurant. After the French Revolution of 1789, chefs who used to be in the service of aristocrats began opening public eating places serving all kinds of foods -- not just healthy soups. That's when the restaurant as we now know it by its current name and style began to take shape.You'll have to go there for the main part of the answer, which is in the paragraph before the one quoted above. I found my knowledge of Latin helpful in understanding this, although absent the knowledge of the origin of the terms, I never connected the grammatical dots on my own. -- CAVLink to Original

You might be a little confused here. The reason Rand posits the universe as eternal is not because the law of causality forbids the production of something out of nothing. It's because the universe as a whole (which Objectivism considers to be an entity) is not subject to causality at all. The concept of "cause" is inapplicable to the universe (OPAR, p. 16). In short, the law "does not state that every entity has a cause" (ibid.), and the universe is precisely that kind of causeless entity. So how does Objectivism actually argue for the eternity of the universe? By reference to the concept of totality: "there is nothing outside the totality to act as a cause" (ibid.) Let X be the cause of all existence. Since X already exists, it is not in fact the cause of all existence. Note that Objectivism uses "entity" in a rather loose way, so overthinking it can lead to confusion. An entity means a self-sufficient form of existence—as against a quality, an action, a relationship, etc., which are simply aspects of an entity. . . An entity is perceptual in scale, in size. In other words it is a "this" which you can point to and grasp by human perception. In an extended sense you can call molecules—or the universe as a whole—"entities," because they are self-sufficient things. But in the primary sense when we say that entities are what is given in sense perception, we mean solid things which we can directly perceive. (Leonard Peikoff, The Philosophy of Objectivism lecture series, Lecture 3) So if you agree with this (conceptual) separation between "a whole" and "the aspects of that whole", then you can call any such whole an entity, even if it's too small or big for your human perception.

Miss Manners takes a question from someone who recently suffered the double misfortune of being hospitalized and having to share a room with a proselytizer:A few months ago, I was hospitalized for a couple of weeks. For most of that time, I shared the room with a very friendly, talkative woman who had been in the hospital for a long time. While still needing medical care, she was clearly on the mend; she was bored, a little lonely from her long stay, and pleased to have a new roommate to talk to. It immediately became obvious she was a committed evangelical Christian and all she wanted to talk about was religion. I started by making short, noncommittal responses and trying to change the subject, but my lack of enthusiastic response made her decide I needed to be "saved." For the remainder of our time sharing the room, I was bombarded by "give your heart to Jesus" appeals...The confrontation-averse patient ended up pretending to be asleep on the order of 23 hours a day to avoid the incessant evangelizing. Miss Manners gives good advice, as usual, but the most important lesson I took from her reply was not to forget that even hospital patients have agency. I wouldn't have trouble telling someone like this to can it, if my answers at the start didn't succeed in putting her off, but the solution of asking for a room(mate) change is gold, and one I will not forget. About a decade ago, a medical condition I did not know I had (and which I can easily control, now that I do know) landed me in the hospital for a couple of days. Believe me: There is no rest night or day, and the last thing on earth I'd want to deal with in such circumstances is being the captive audience of a magpie. Thanks again, Miss Manners, and may I never actually need this advice! -- CAVLink to Original

Over at RealClear Markets this morning, I encountered a link to a blog post titled "Tariff Men." This was quite an interesting read, but not for any sound argument in favor of tariffs. Rather, its interest lies in its being an excellent précis of the case Trump's acolytes and cheerleaders are making on behalf of the President -- who seems allergic to addressing the electorate as if we were adults but in fact just doesn't know what the hell he is talking about. Perhaps the most striking things about the piece are (1) the complete absence of argument or explanation as to what tariffs are or why they are supposed to be good for the economy; and (2) a highly ... selective ... consideration of the history of tariffs in America that reminds me somewhat of a contemporary school of "analysis" of the historical record of the Lincoln Presidency. The Founders used tariffs to avoid outrage over a (more obvious) tax? Whether or not they truly believed tariffs weren't taxes, that doesn't mean tariffs aren't taxes or that the Founders were right to do this. Britain become great through protectionism? Really? Call me crazy, but that greatest of British exports, rule of law, applied to an entire empire that presumably didn't levy tariffs against itself, probably had a lot to do with its rise to prosperity. (See "dropping domestic barriers" below, but on a glocal scale.) Dropping tariffs against the rest of the world would be an extension of the same policy, and not some kind of bolt from the blue. Say's Law? Never heard of it. Trade as mutually beneficial? Isn't it obvious that people become wealthy by stealing crumbs from the destitute and building mansion, yachts, and private jets from them? The piece dismisses the entire discipline of economics -- Today it is widely claimed that Trump's tariffs will lead to trade war and commercial ruin: the policy is decried as archaic mercantilism... -- but reveres the shallow arguments of a single school of that discipline:McKinley's understanding of economics grew out of the American School of Political Economy: a school of thought which argued that measuring wages, prices, and production against each other was the best way to understand the health of an economy. With this in mind, the American School argues for intense protection around the walls of America's economy: tariffs prevent products made by low-wage workers from undercutting American products and workers. But the American School also counters left-wing hostility to capital by minimizing domestic barriers to commerce, allowing productivity and wages to rise faster than prices.What's so magical about an international border that the same benefits that come from "minimizing domestic barriers to commerce" don't also accrue from minimizing international barriers to commerce with friendly nations? I don't know, either, but I somehow doubt that Donald Trump -- who seems ready to exterminate Canadians, but also wants Canada as a state -- does, either. Henry Hazlitt, whose Economics in One Lesson, deserves wide circulation, gives a tantalizing lead at the start of his chapter against tariffs:From another point of view, free trade was considered as one aspect of the specialization of labor... But whatever led people to suppose that what was prudence in the conduct of every private family could be folly in that of a great kingdom? It was a whole network of fallacies, out of which mankind has still been unable to cut its way. And the chief of them was the central fallacy with which this book is concerned. It was that of considering merely the immediate effects of a tariff on special groups, and neglecting to consider its long-run effects on the whole community. [bold added]See also the previous quote. -- CAVLink to Original

Donald Boudreaux adroitly punctures a popular misconception -- unfortunately shared by Donald Trump -- about tariffs in his piece, "Protectionism and the Fallacy of Composition." The brilliance lies in how he introduces the logical fallacy to his readers, who may be even less familiar with it than they are with economics:This fallacy is committed whenever someone concludes that that which is true for a part of the group is necessarily true for all of the group. The classic example is standing up in a stadium to get a better view of the game. If one or a small number of people stand up, these folks do indeed enjoy a better view. But obviously it's mistaken to conclude that "therefore, if everyone stands up, everyone will get a better view."This analogy instantly illuminates the logical fallacy, as well preemptively conceding the fact that tariffs do, in fact, comparatively benefit some participants in an economy. In the rest of his piece, Boudreaux uses the fallacy to show that tariffs are harmful -- twice:A second way in which the standing-up-in-the-stadium analogy illuminates some problems with protectionism is this: Just as it's foolish to conclude that, because a few people in the stadium are made better off by standing up, everyone in the stadium would be made better off if everyone stands up, it's foolish to conclude that, because one or a handful of producers are made better off by being awarded protection from imports, everyone in the country would be made better off if everyone received such protection.Boudreaux admits his analogy isn't perfect, but also shows that the imperfection does not harm his case. Whether you're unsure about the merit of tariffs yourself, or you're having trouble making headway in discussions about this once-dead topic, you could do worse than this 1000-word essay as a primer. -- CAVLink to Original

Only read Lessing's The Grass Is Singing.

Welcome to the forum, Cave_Dweller A change to my toenail also applies to myself, the owner of the toenail. So I don't see how something can apply to a thing, but not thereby to the Universe it belongs to. And yet, that's what's being suggested here by Rand: a sum of existents that is not "born", despite being composed of existents that do undergo birth. This oddity, I think, is resolved by the idea of a "base ingredient". Think of something like snow; from snow, various existents can be born: snowmen, snowballs etc. whereas snow existed prior to them. This idea, of a base ingredient, has existed since time immemorial and continues today in incarnations such as "mass-energy", which can only be indirectly observed through the forms it manifests in, be it wood or water or electromagnetic radiation. Why indirectly? Because this X is not a "thing" by itself, but rather what makes things exist and behave the way they do. This kind of X seems to be what Rand had in mind when she wrote: "Matter is indestructible, it changes its forms, but it cannot cease to exist." implying a separation between "things" as such (which are created, destroyed, created anew, so on and so forth) and the indestructible underlying X. In short, Rand is not exactly reinventing the wheel here. Unfortunately, Objectivists tend to have wildly different ideas about what the Universe even is (see this thread for example), so don't get your hopes up for a "universal" answer.

The Monkey's Paw Administration – Robert Tracinski

Miller's translation of and commentary upon De Anima and other psychological works of Aristotle was enormously helpful to me in composing the Aristotle Part of my study Metaphysics and Geometry.

“A Republic, Madam, if you can keep it.” - Benjamin Franklin

Titles and blurbs of two articles of possible interest in the February Scientific American: "How to Recycle Space Junk" "Orbital debris will become a crisis if we don't act soon." "Rocks, Crops, and Climate" "Spreading crushed stone across farm fields could inexpensively pull CO2 from the air while also increasing yields. But it would require a mountain of mining."

Brad Polumbo critiques Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on the heels of his recent remark that tariffs and trade wars would be "worth it," even if they cause a recession. The column does a fine job of succinctly explaining just how bad Lutnick is in terms any intelligent, thoughtful adult can understand. He does this by staying high-level and skipping the math, which is fine here since he has so much territory to cover. Lutnick: "Let the dealmaker make his deals. Let the best negotiator and the best person who cares about America, let him make the deals." Me: How on earth did anything get done at all in America before the coming of Donald Trump? Here, for example is his demolition of the ridiculous claim that the United States can replace its income tax revenue with payments to an "External Revenue Service:"The idea here is simple. Americans can stop paying taxes, and we can instead fund our entire federal government by forcing other countries to pay us through tariffs. It also happens to be utterly absurd and numerically illiterate. First and foremost, the math here simply doesn't add up. Even astoundingly high tariff rates could not raise half as much revenue as the income tax currently does, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics, meaning that even if Trump significantly slashed government spending, which is difficult to do without touching entitlement programs that he insists he won't cut, you still couldn't fund the government with tariffs. And even if you could, that still wouldn't make Lutnick's fantasies possible! Because, as economists across the spectrum acknowledge, a huge portion of the economic cost of tariffs is borne not by foreign businesses but by American consumers. So even if you called your new department the "External Revenue Service," it would still essentially be taxing Americans -- with regressive taxes that disproportionately harm poor and working-class people. All of this is stuff you would expect any 200-level economics student to understand. But the Commerce secretary either doesn't get it or is simply saying things to the public he knows to be untrue. [bold added]Many regulars here will already know most of what Polumbo explains, but there are some unpleasant surprises, such as Lutnick's dismissal of a volunteer committee of businessmen who had been advising the government on policy over the past quarter century. Even without the additional information, the column is worth reading as a review, and as good material to pass along to any persuadable adult. -- CAVLink to Original

Caplan, briefly https://youtu.be/l5OSWEF29VY?si=TbPM-rKW2VVOrPBU

The idea of separating state and economics is not widely known at present, much less widely held. I suppose it is possible to be a successful entrepreneur without ever coming across the idea. It is also very easy for the government to distort the economy in various ways and then for an entrepreneur to figure out a legal way to make money off the distortion. That may be what Elon Musk has done. He did not create the distortion in the first place. (However, he might find himself wanting to maintain it.) If the US cannot beat China, the problem is probably self-sacrificial regulations, and the proper solution is to get rid of them. Tariffs will not improve the situation; they will only force people to pay the full price of the regulations even if they order from foreign countries that don't have them. One can only hope that tariffs make the case for deregulation more urgent.

What makes me hesitant is that you could justify any mixed-economy move as the decision of an innocent victim forced to go along. Does it exclude anything? Can you give me an example (it needn't, at this point, be a principle) of any decision that can't be excused this way? Tesla's need for subsidies and bailouts says to me that the market didn't want it. Musk had the option of admitting this and moving on to some other venture; his company wouldn't even be there without government help. You say that Musk isn't Taggart. This presumably means that Taggart crossed some line that Musk did not, thus making Taggart guilty but leaving Musk the innocent victim. What exactly were Taggart's decisions that led you to this conclusion?

This question was asked in another thread ("About the Russian aggression of Ukraine"), but that thread's too big and I want to answer this question about what's going on in India (or at least prompt a discussion). As an introduction: India is governed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a Hindu-nationalist party under the leadership of Narendra Modi. Before BJP, Indian electoral politics was dominated by pressure groups involving thousands of castes and ethno-linguistic groups who wanted their share of political influence and tax collections. BJP recently came to power in 2014 and got re-elected in 2019 (the next national election is in 2024 and they’ll probably win again). The principal opposition is the Indian National Congress (simply, Congress), considered to be puppets of Western leftists/elites by the BJP, under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi (the heir of the Gandhi dynasty), commonly referred to as Pappu (name associated with a child or a stupid person). Modi simplified the electoral politics of India into “Hindus vs. Muslims” and sprinkled it with some utopian notion of a cultural revival of Hindu civilization after centuries of Muslim, European and leftist rule. BJP sees East Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea, Singapore, China, etc as the ideal, especially in terms of their homogeneity (or domination by one group, in the case of Singapore). They think the lack of homogeneity in India is the reason for identity politics in India and the reason India is so poor compared to North-East Asia (they make exceptions for Hindu vs. Muslim politics). BJP claims to dislike electoral battles between upper castes and lower castes and claims to want to end affirmative action quotas for lower caste Indians and minorities. In most states, around 50% of seats are reserved for various communities in most government institutions (educational or otherwise). Some states (like Arunachal Pradesh) has 80% reservation for some communities, with the rest of the population competing for the other 20%. BJP wants to make Hindi the national language of India (India currently doesn’t have any national language). They sort of want to create a pan Indian ethnic group. They claim that Indo-European migrations into India (esp. North India) did not happen and have their own Out of India conspiracy theory. Using this, they claim that there are no differences between North Indians and South Indians and that Aryans and Dravidians don’t exist/never existed (and any difference, if it exists, are gradual and doesn't suggest anything about history). They want to construct a narrative that Hindus (unlike Muslims and Europeans) did not invade any part of India and are indigenous to India and always has been. India has Sharia for Muslims which were implemented by previous leftist governments. BJP wants to introduce a Uniform Civil Code, a common personal law for Muslims, Hindus and everybody else. BJP wants to make Hindus the dominant group in India. In 2019, they passed the Citizenship Amendment Act, which gave citizenship status to non-Muslim undocumented migrants (this was partially inspired by Israel). This sparked protests all over India, resulting in 27 deaths. There are allegedly around 30million undocumented Bengladeshi migrants in India. BJP is in the process of creating a National Register of Citizens, which can be used to deport everyone not on the list, particularly Muslims. They have created detention centres to round up Bengali migrants. Another BJP policy inspired by Israel is the bulldozing of homes/shops primarily belonging to Muslims. Muslims suspected of being “anti-national” are accused of having no documents to prove ownership of their land/house and have their homes bulldozed by the government. In 2022, BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma called Prophet Mohammed a pedophile. This resulted in protests, some killings and a beheading (of Kanhaiya Lal). Modi presided over the 2002 Gujarat Riots as Chief Minister (of the Indian state of Gujarat). Rana Ayyub, who is a Muslim journalist from Mumbai claims that the 2002 Gujarat riots was a genocide and thinks more is to come. Propaganda songs and movies are also on the rise. Songs asking Hindus to harm or kill Muslims have become more common. In 2022, a movie called ‘The Kashmir Files’ was released accusing Kashmiri Muslims of genociding Hindus in 1990. The movie was made tax exempt by the BJP in many states and became the third highest grossing Bollywood movie of 2022. In May 2023, a movie called ‘The Kerala Story’ was released, accusing Muslims in Kerala of converting Christian and Hindu women in the Indian state of Kerala to Islam and turning them into ISIS brides. It’s the third highest grossing Bollywood movie of 2023 so far. Another movie, ‘72 Hoorain’ just got released two days ago. Regarding free speech, BJP has recently passed laws to give themselves power over what can be written online. In 2023, BJP banned the BBC documentary ‘India: The Modi Question’ which was about the 2002 Gujarat riots and later raided BBC offices in India, accusing them of tax avoidance. Economically, BJP follows Dirigisme. In 2014, BJP promised to bring ‘Minimum Government and Maximum Governance’. BJP is planning to invest over 1 Trillion USD on transport and other infrastructure in the near term. They want to replicate the successes of North East Asian economies. In 2020, BJP tried to deregulate the agricultural markets in India with the Farm Bills, but millions of people protested and it was repealed. Air India was privatized in 2022. They have a general policy of privatizing public companies which were nationalized decades ago. In 2016, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) was launched by the government for easy digital payments (making up over 50% of digital transactions in India now and is starting to be accepted internationally, along with ‘India Stack’, a system for authentication and online identity). BJP has significant collusion with the Adani Group (a significant number of airports and sea ports in India were sold to Adani by BJP). When Adani shares crashed after the Hindenburg report, BJP made the public LIC Corporation buy Adani shares to prop up their market value. India plans to start manufacturing chips in the near future with US collaboration. India is projected to be the third largest economy by 2030. Goldman Sachs projects India to be the second largest economy (nominal GDP) by 2075, but such long term projections don’t have much meaning. Now coming back to question of electoral autocracy and dictatorship in India: India has considerably centralized its powers since 2014. Some criticism of V-Dem’s characterization of India as an “electoral autocracy” has been provided by Salvatore Babones from the University of Sydney. Many leftists consider him to be on the BJP payroll. According to him, the reason India scores low on V-Dem’s democracy index is because its results are derived from opinion surveys of experts and he claims that the expert intellectuals in India are anti-India. He claims that the low score for Freedom of the Press in India is because they don’t normalize the deaths of journalists in India by the country’s population. If we did that, he claims that India is between Western Europe and USA in terms of journalist safety (and one of the safest countries in the world for journalists). Alternatively, according to the Economist’s democracy index, India gets a score of 7.04, the 46th most democratic country in the world and the 7th most democratic in Asia (including the Middle East). USA is #30. I’m not sure how India is among the freest quarter of the world in one index and a “dictatorship” in another index (I guess those are the perks of being one of the poorest countries in the world and where nothing really makes sense). My personal opinion is that the BJP is definitely becoming more autocratic but they’re liberalizing India’s economy to some extent. They’re called “neoliberal fascists” for a reason.

I am honored that one of my poems has been selected for inclusion in Invisible Poets – Anthology 3, strong wave after wave of human skill, genius, delight, and altogether hope. Amazing

It's funny you bring up Trump tariffs. Trump tariffs are a result of capitalist interests acting against free trade. Corporations are pushing protectionist trade barriers to insulate themselves from global competition while consumers are paying the price. Consumers pay the price while established corporations profit. Trump tariffs are because of capitalism, but cappie brains cannot comprehend this.

Where did Ukraine's nuclear arsenal go? Whoever convinced them to give it up is almost as responsible for this war as Putin. He's still the primary criminal, here; most of the guilt is his [...] 1. @whYNOT was not blaming the US/NATO and Ukraine for the failures you attribute to them - essentially, a lack of foresight. Instead, he was (and is - see his today's post) blaming them for alleged actions for which he refused to provide evidence. 2. Regarding Ukraine giving up its nuclear arsenal: Although the nuclear weapons were located on Ukrainian territory and technically belonged to Ukraine, the country did not have operational control over them. The launch codes remained in Moscow, under Russia's authority. Therefore, Ukraine did not relinquish a usable nuclear arsenal. As an aside: Experts suggest that Ukraine, with its thousands of engineers and scientists skilled in nuclear, aerospace, and military technologies, could likely have tampered with the launch codes. However, in the euphoric early post-Soviet years, the need for a robust defense was not strongly felt, and such efforts were not pursued. Additionally, maintaining the nuclear arsenal, including its delivery systems, would have been extremely costly - too costly for a struggling economy. Therefore, "whoever convinced them to give it up" had probably a relatively easy task... PS: However, I strongly disagree with the statement, "Whoever convinced them to give it up is almost as responsible for this war as Putin." Although you later amended it to some extent, my point remains: the responsibility lies with the aggressor—whose actions were unexpected and unprovoked—not with the victim’s unpreparedness..

The latter. It was a change in the relationship between government and industry and the relationship between the government and labor. It started with the circumstance that to obtain long distances of land for rail at a feasible price, the Eminent Domain clause of the Constitution had to be invoked. The story of this juncture and transition from a close-to free market economy to a regulated one is told in the book Capitalism in America – A History (2018) by Alan Greenspan and Adrian Wooldridge. The Nat Taggart sort had rail companies with more money than the US government. They bought legislatures and courts and got great influence in the Congress and President. Dagny would be running a transcontinental railroad with all the federal regulations and unionization and federal interventions in strikes that had accumulated by 1957, and that was a lot, even without the future government controls envisioned in the story. What actually happen in the real US future was the establishment of the Federal Railroad Administration and the demise of passenger long-distance rail service due to competition from US interstate highways and commercial passenger airlines. And for tort cases against railway companies (deep pockets), the law students' humorous heuristic "Railroad loses."

What caused the change from unregulated to post railroad expansion , a change in the way markets 'work' or the character of the government whose jurisdiction encompassed the actions of the market?

*ahem* There is one small difference between the power of a dollar and the power of a gun. Even if the gun doesn't have to be fired, and nobody actually dies, there is still a difference. Why don't you support Putin's plan to politically pursue his self-interest in Ukraine? Certainly, it's unfortunate that the Ukrainians resisted and people had to die, but would there have been anything wrong with him simply pointing all of his guns at the other country and demanding a concession in proportion to his political power? Scratch a Commie and you'll discover a robber.

Do I? Where? Oh, you mean that I'm a Nazi specifically because I support Israel, don't you? Would it prove that I'm not a Nazi if I threw on a turban, held up a picture of Hitler and said "from the river to the sea, this man was right about the Jewry"? Fucking wild how some brains work.

You jumped to exactly wrong conclusions Stephen. This is not personal. I neither made nor intended any insinuations-- to a single person here. I regularly point to "the powerful" and other similes. Clearly, to those on the global stage. The "evaders" here if there are such, are no concern to me. A little "charitable read", yes?

I've been rehashing this very thing (considering the USA and Israel): who are "the strong"? How and why did they become so? What actually is strength? And why is strength, in the spiritual sense (rationality, self-respect, independence, integrity -confidence), a vice today? From the altruist-collectivists, to whom "the victim" is of major importance, the "strong" man and woman - had to - have gained their (materialist) "strength" by sucking some victim dry, "racism", "exploitation" and suchlike. Therefore the victim possesses self-evident virtue. Those who uphold him/her/the tribe are necessarily virtuous themselves (by association) and find their one source of ('narcissistic') self-worth and purpose in that . Another approach, these folk can also assume that some humans are "gifted" at birth with mystical "strength", which gives them an automatic duty to provide ... etc., etc. - for everyone else. Where determinism has made inroads recently, it has communicated to the masses that "they can't help it". Strength is self-made. That idea of volition poses an existential threat to the very fabric of many-most people. Those: altruism-collectivism-mysticism-determinism, are all on graphic display and in glaring contrast between the Palestinians and Israelis. True also, that Israelis are not altogether immune to these vices/beliefs too and are often collectively confused by owning such "strength" and will repudiate it. The absolute worst of those: the "jewish self-hater". Outside in the West, the hordes "supporting Palestine" (and promoting Jewish genocide) - all cater to that identical "laundry list" (with old-fashioned Jew hatred thrown in). The Israeli wars consume every man and his dog who are strongly opinionated yet mostly ignorant of the history and facts behind the conflict, because somehow all can sense its *moral* significance sub-consciously.

Not being "pro" that entire cohort of the powerful responsible for this war - or, as bad, creating/allowing the conditions for one - signifies support for a single culprit? You were unwilling to name ONE cohort member, Putin, as at least co-culprit. You cited the US and NATO as culprits, but systematically refused to provide evidence for the "facts" you have invoked to support your claims about the US and NATO being the culprits.

The whining persists. Not being "pro" that entire cohort of the powerful responsible for this war - or, nearly as bad, creating/allowing the conditions for one - signifies support for a single culprit? I criticize such illogic and simplistic value judgment (on an Oist forum). *Everyone* knew what they were doing, everyone evaded the realities and ended up sacrificing Ukraine to their despicable agendas. Are you an "influencer" for the Atlantic Council, or the like? One has to notice your sole activity on this board for 3 years has been only to try to nullify the few dissenting voices to the pro-Ukraine propaganda machine.

The moral IS the practical. That is, everything that is moral, is also practical. But the practical is NOT the moral. That is, some things are practical but not moral. People going "Israel rich therefore good" are committing the intellectual crime of pragmatism.

What does the ideology of "the moral is the practical" consist of, in your view? And what this has to do with my claim that this forum tolerates pro-Putin positions?

In the context of military capability, one lacking the cognizance to recognize relative strength would be ignorant , those who do understand the relative strengths and advocate for 'unwinnable' actions are evading the discussion of the relative strengths. My claims are rather 'neutral', I've stated my prevailing view as a quasi-civil war and Khrushchev's fault anyway.

@tadmjones – The declaration of a national emergency was under the conditions that obtained on January 22, when the order was issued. A state of declared national emergency* allows direction of the US military to assistance of other enforcement agents in enforcing law, if I understand correctly. There was in fact no vast and dangerous invasion of people into the US, and the campaign talk of 20 million such invaders already here was a lie (and we'll not see 20 million people deported, just a lot of secrecy and smoke and mirrors). The invasion in my neighborhood this past year was from Pennsylvania, and it is the Japanese Lantern Bug. We civilians are dealing with it. Under a national emergency, I happen to know and this President would happen to know by personal experience, a draftee given a 4F exemption from military service can be called into service. I hope that were Trump or I called up, it would be for a real emergency, not fake ones such as his for show and power and lowering what counts as an emergency. In the US, Tad, can declaration of an emergency give the Pres. power to delay an election?

A load of bile from the local terrorist-apologist. The realization that the terror outfit, aka, Hamas 'government', fully intended to bring about its own people's demise - and so - get "more liked world-wide", in sympathy/solidarity is an elementary causal identification that I notice few can, or want to, follow. Their children killed was ~the purpose~ of the atrocities of Oct 7, and taking of hostages, etc.etc., - get it? What better proclaims one's "innocence" to western sentiments than having one's innocent children killed? Moreso, when loathed Jews commit the deeds. Is all this too complex? Israel would respond to Oct 7. Hamas' planners knew that. If all is not clear now by how events transpired, it never will be. As indeed Israel, being the single participant which values lives, was reluctantly blackmailed by Hamas into a ceasefire in order to recover any hostages left alive. No. Over 20,000 killed have been Hamas militants in plain clothes. Other civilians killed of the so-called 40 plus thousand, were "the martyrs" too many westerners admire: the world is indeed sick. Sorry, Hamas-lovers, but Hamas will be finished off. I have been placed under "warnings" (unexplained) on this Objectivist forum. How does this poster continue fomenting moral sickness here, Eiuol?

In 1968 Ayn Rand wrote: “But even Humphrey looks like the remnant of a civilized past—like a decaying dowager who is ending her days in genteel poverty and clutching at musty mementos—when compared to the third candidate in this election: George C. Wallace. "I have said repeatedly that the ‘liberal’ welfare-statist movement in this country represents not socialism, but fascism—a hidden, disguised, unadmitted, implicit fascism. (See my article on ‘The New Fascism—Rule by Consensus’ 1965.) George Wallace represents the emergence of an open fascism in this country—or, more exactly, the crude elements from which an explicit fascism is to come. “Observe the symptoms: RACISM (which he denies, but which is quite obvious in his own utterances and in his past record)—a primitive, undefined NATIONALISM (not a rational patriotism, but nationalism in the form of a pseudo-self-esteem)—militant ANTI-INTELLECTUALITY (not an opposition to a specific group or kind of intellectual, but to all intellectuals, to the intellect as such)—the constant appeal to ‘the little people, or ‘the plain people’ or ‘us folks’ (which, socially, is an appeal to the lowest elements in society, and, psychologically, an appeal to an individual’s lowest potential: to self-righteous mediocrity)—and FORCE, the explicit and implicit reliance on the ‘activism’ of physical force as the solution to all social problems. . . . “It is the fact that some of his statements—apart from and out of HIS context—are true and needed saying that deludes many people into the belief that he is a defender of freedom or capitalism. Quite obviously, he is not. . . .” In the past, I have often referred to Trump and his MAGA faction as proto-fascist. That would be a faction such as Rand had described in 1968. However, I now think that faction evolved into something more decidedly fascist. Much window dressing with the American flag, but the old representation of the flag for a nation of individual liberty is now fading. The rights and legal equality won by Black Americans during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s are being suffocated by the newly elected LEADER in control of executive Departments. On every front, the new administration is deliberately moving the form of government here at the federal level to the fascist form. It is not merely making moves which, independently, will be picked up and put into the purpose of fascism. If you visit whitehouse. gov, you find it has been dumbed down to adulatory photos and vague pleasant slogans, not the long-standing repository of texts of presidential public speeches and other presidential remarks. The free and independent press is under continual threats from LEADER. Loss of individual rights and the release of his Brown Shirts from prison for their individual criminal actions in support of his continuing rule coddling White Supremacist propaganda is called freedom and justice by LEADER and his ideological circle. Other public smearing of individuals opposing HIM and Big Lie after Big Lie, and HIS use of presidential power to rewrite history of his crimes and crimes of his Shirts is daily faire. To the glee of millions of citizens. Since 1968, there were changes in the proto-fascist (now deliberate) faction. They took over the Republican Party and thereby could win more than the seven States won by Wallace. The so-called Moral Majority became a block in the party which candidates therein must placate to win a nomination. The Party winners pay empty lip service to rule by the constitution and the rule of law it enables, but support every push by LEADER to test overrunning what remains of legal restraints on HIM. Additionally, an excellent diagnosis already in 2019.

For Jon, if your views are contrary his, your mind is just a joke. For some, such as Jon, thought beyond ad hominem is not their thing.