Category Archives: Economics

Culture, Economics, Governance, Representation, Taxation

Innocence, Debauchery, and the American Dream

November 17, 2018 Prudence Leadbetter Leave a comment

America suffers in the 21st century not from a loss of innocence, but from a loss of discrimination… a loss of judgment. Mankind has never lacked for debauchery nor for ways to debauch nearly every civilized function, from work, construction and development to education, medicine, churches and religion. Everything “we” have discovered or invented, we seem to have figured out how to besmirch and cheapen… like government.

Government, at least since Saul fell on his sword and bequeathed kingship to David, however inadvertently, has been occasionally a good invention, often completely inimical to human growth and perfection. Okay, okay, humans are perfected only in the rarest of circumstances, but, still, government is mostly inimical. In the long sweep of history, despite themselves, governments have brought a semblance of order, enabled scientific advances, established widespread education – some of it good – and provided measures of safety and peace within which individuals can seek happiness, or perfection, or both.
The last we call constitutional republicanism which stands out among the dozens of forms of tyranny still in use. Nevertheless, despite its promise, this form of self-governance has not been immune to the diabolical inventiveness of the forces of debauchery, of which there is space enough to discuss only a few.

Money is big in the debauchery field, as it is in the politician field, making it frequently difficult to discern between them. There never is enough money in the politician field, particularly where it intersects with socialist whims. Money, money, money means taxes, taxes, taxes and from time to time the working people object to taxation and politicians, who have the clarity of vision denied to workers, can perceive – if not create – hordes of dependents for whom that tax money is so sorely needed. That some dependents are billionaires is of little importance in the grand scheme of dependency. You’ve got your troubles, I’ve got mine.

So if taxation can’t be trusted to produce money fast enough, it becomes increasingly crucial that ways to expand the income of government be devised and, politicians having been elected and installed for their unique efficiencies, recognize that there is no point to re-inventing the wheel, as it were, in the matters of government income, so turn to the financial successes of debauchery for new ideas. Humans have left no stone unturned in the search for ways to cheat others out of their hard-earned money and one of the neatest tricks is the infamous “Ponzi Scheme.” It is easily explained:

A Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud where clients are promised
a large profit at little to no risk. Companies that engage in a Ponzi
scheme focus all of their energy into attracting new clients to make
investments. This new income is used to pay original investors their
returns, marked as a profit from a legitimate transaction. Ponzi
schemes rely on a constant flow of new investments to continue to
provide returns to older investors. When this flow runs out,
the… scheme… falls… apart. [From “Investopedia”]

When the government, itself – who convicted Ponzi for fraud in 1920 – follows Ponzi’s formula, it takes a longer view and fewer dollars from each “investor,” and calls it “Social Security.” No slouches in the debauchery of public trust, politicians are able to compel workers to “invest” by force of police power, and then restrict the “returns” to only so many dollars per month and only after leaving the “investment” fallow for decades. That way the originators of the fraud will have passed on before the scope of the trick is figured out by the “investors.” “Invested” funds are then used to get future “investors” to vote for future perpetrators.

Prudence would suggest that “investors” should contemplate the consequences of having personally (actually) invested 15% of their pay over their entire working career. Upon retirement they would have had a huge financial asset and they wouldn’t be dependent on government to dribble back their own money! Of course, empowering citizens to live WITHOUT government is as anti-socialist as it could be and virtually never allowed even lip-service.

We need to give politicians the power to make life, health and death decisions for us.

Social Security really took off after World War II, as payrolls grew and pay rates along with them. The river of money was “re-invested” in all sorts of vital, crucial, crisis-averting expenditures that any sane and humane investor would endorse… had he or she known of them. After 1968 especially, the number of non-citizens who arrived on our shores seeking the “American Dream” exploded, and the means to support their “disabled, disadvantaged” selves derived from the “lockbox” of Social Security cash. Naturally, thanks to Ted Kennedy’s (the lyin’ of the Senate) legislation (Hart-Cellar Act), the colors and origins of immigrants are more important than the needs of the United States, and their relatives became more important than immigrants who can actually contribute to the strength of the nation. Many had/have no marketable skills or are “disabled” and “qualify” for SSDI or SSI support derived from – you guessed it – the “investments” of those canny worker-investors who are so proud of their own district’s Representative and state’s two Senators… oh, yes.

Unexpectedly, the Social “Security” lockbox tends to empty more quickly than promised. More money is needed! What to do? What to do without “raising taxes,” of course? There must be a form of debauchery… uhmm, we mean, outright mendacity and fraud… well, not that, of course, but some kind of “wool” that can be pulled over enough people’s eyes… naw, that’s just an old political joke, ha – ha – ha. There must be a form of courageous legislative governance that can find “new” revenue to meet the nation’s vital, crucial, crisis-averting expenditures. Aha! Loans!

Fortunately, globalist bankers had finally convinced Congress to approve the creation of a means to provide constant DEBT to the federal government. Now, if you’re one of those worker-investors we were talking about, you’re asking yourself: “Who in Hell would want a supply of debt?” (And you’d be right, but it’s a different topic.) “Everyone wants to get OUT of debt,” you’d say to yourself, being right a second time, “and anyone trying to get more debt should have his head examined!” (Or, his ledgers… again, right!)

Growing governments while controlling countries is a long-term plan. The international socialists have been at it for a long, long time. The “income” tax was instituted by amendment in 1913. This provided a large enough river of funds to enable the government to “help” itself and more and more people. Interestingly and, it certainly must be coincidentally, the Federal Reserve Act – a 20-year project of the largest banks – was passed at the end of… well, ha!… 1913! Both long-term efforts needed a global statist like Woodrow Wilson to be president in order to come to fruition.

The only way to quietly undermine the nationalism and freedom of the United States was to plant the seeds of debt and a private bank that controls the nation’s money supply is the best tool to do so. The “Fed,” as it’s called, makes economic policy as it sees fit. The “governors” don’t take advice from elected representatives, most of whom are happy to not be responsible for too awfully much. Whenever the Chairman of the Federal Reserve testifies in Congress it’s to tell Congress how things are going to be and not to ask the people’s representatives how things should be. The “Fed” is about as “federal” as Federal Express.

So what about how a central bank can control a nation’s economy? Why would any Congress vote for that? Well for the first 20 years or so the new “Fed” was practicing frog boiling, and the financial waters were just pleasantly warm… until the crash of 1929 and the attempts by, first, Hoover, and then by Roosevelt, to force an end to DE-flation and unemployment by running deficits and pushing the private economy to adapt to federal pressure. The federal government could borrow in the face of the human problems that bad economics had wrought.

Adopting the programs initiated by Hoover, FDR managed to keep the U. S., and much of the world, in depression until the Second World War broke out. Prior to the emergency legislation passed during the “Banking Holiday” of 1933, the 12 “Fed” Districts made policy on their own, enabling some to do severe damage in parts of the country while recovery was stumbling forward in others. Naturally, the preferred answers to the crisis were always based in more central control, essentially the story and the outcome of the “Great Depression.”

Until the Federal Reserve was created the U.S., like most industrial nations, was on “the gold standard.” United States Dollars represented a number of grains of 90% pure gold. That is, an ounce of “.9 fine” gold “cost” $20.67 and had since 1900. Never failing to take advantage of a crisis, 1930’s era leftists – FDR and the “brain trust” – used the banking and international gold crises to obtain emergency legislation making private ownership of gold coins, metal or bullion illegal! That is, everyone had to turn in his or her gold in exchange for $35.00 worth of U. S. “dollars” (actually, Federal reserve notes) that were now backed by so many grains of silver or by 60% as many grains of gold than prior to the seizure. It was pretty slick.

The federal government had acquired tons of gold for, in effect, next to nothing, but gold was now valued at $35 an ounce of .9 fine purity. Suddenly the government had a lot of money to spend in its attempts to correct the severe deflation and unemployment afflicting the U. S. and other industrialized nations. Most of it helped but did not solve the fundamental problems in the economy; it took a big war to do that.

We have got to give the federal government total control over our life, health and death decisions.

Where there is a name for schemes like Social Security (“Ponzi”), there isn’t a moniker for what happened to America between the two world wars, except, perhaps, “Progressivism,” not to be confused with “Progress.”

In a Constitutional Republic, “Progress” is measured first by how large a fraction of the population DOESN’T DEPEND ON GOVERNMENT for basic needs like housing, food, clothing, employment and health care. It’s also measured by the quality of citizenship, the honesty of jurisprudence, of police agencies and individuals, the clarity and even-handed enforceability of laws, the honesty of education and the level of cultural agreement by and amongst the vast majority of its citizenry.

The worst chicanery of all is the structure of the federal budget, which is barely a budget at all since it is about 75% “entitlements.” Congress has NEVER cut the budget, has never cut an “entitlement,” has never gotten rid of an “executive” department, has never paid down the national debt, at least in the past 60-odd years, has not failed to borrow from our great-great grandchildren for a like period, and has never audited the “Federal” Reserve. That’s because it’s.., well…, too busy. They are so busy on our behalf of course, and so tired from “fighting” for the middle class and “working” families who are non-working families to a significant degree, fighting to “improve education” and “leveling playing fields,” that there is barely enough time to begin to explain why what rational people think should be done simply can’t be done, unless they write a check for the campaign.

Mostly, they are too busy raising money for re-election, which is the number-one mission after a couple of years in office, and helping their real constituency: the congressmen and women and senators who sit nearby, because THEY can help in the fight for re-election more than any other group in the country.

We elect them, you and I, because their counterparts in the other party – pick one – are such scurrilous bastards and bitches that we have to keep “our” representative or senator in there so that we can continue the fight to “take back our country.” And a check for the campaign is not only vital, right at the moment you tear open your mailer, but may be multiplied up to FIVE times if your check is received by midnight 4 or 5 days hence.

Save yourself and the “campaign” even more, maximizing the value of your support, by using a (bank) interest-bearing credit-card to make your nation-saving donation!

Leftists are loathe to argue principles but they love to set the terms of public discussion. To effect that control they have to change the meaning of words… like “democracy,” for example. Where ”democracy” once meant a system of civic governance where the majority ruled – right or wrong – it now means “when Democrats rule… right or wrong.” So, when non-Democrats are in power, having been elected by a majority of votes, they are “threatening democracy.”

The United States is not organized as a “democracy.” It is a Constitutional Republic with democratically elected representatives and, interestingly, democratically elected executives, part of an extraordinarily well-designed system of dividing powers and constituencies to which each must answer. But power is vested in representatives of the citizenry who, the original theory is, are knowledgeable, honest and willing to sacrifice for their fellow citizens. That last is where the system breaks down. There no longer is any sacrifice! Right under our noses “our” representatives have turned the tables on us and we didn’t smell the odor!

Being an elected official, legislator or appointed officer in any of our states’ governments, the federal government, certainly, most cities and in virtually every public school system on up through state colleges and universities, is a very sweet deal – far more lucrative and secure than any “private” sector position, and with better benefits, more holidays and many “perks.” The “public servants” in today’s equation are you and me: taxpayers… and we don’t get free healthcare when WE retire.

“Representing” ignorant taxpayers is the best job many reps and senators will ever have: high pay, big benefits and almost no responsibility beyond re-election. Americans, themselves, should have it so good.

And, finally, for this chapter, the biggest scheme of all: that “debt” we looked at earlier. A “ponzi” scheme would seem a bad enough swindle for elected representatives to foist upon their “constituents,” but the worst is far, far greater, and so slick that Republicans are regularly denigrated for attempting to slow it – not STOP it, slow it – by just a few billions from time to time. Somehow, Democrats tell us, not going further and further into debt to pay the INTEREST-only on earlier debt, is tantamount to treason and threatens to “ruin the credit rating of the United States of America!” God save the Queen!

If you are seeking a way to judge the veracity, competence, integrity, legitimacy or sensibleness of ANY federal Congress-person, just consider the CURRENT national debt. You do know that it’s closing in on $21 TRILLION dollars, yes?

You do realize that it threatens our very economic existence? That it represents how far beyond our national means we have lived for the past 60 years? That it exemplifies the utter inability of our elected representatives (so far) to manage the budget for which they ARE responsible… and for which job they have earnestly sought our votes?

Do you recognize that unlike wars and other existential threats, since the “Great Society” kicked in, in 1968, every social discomfort has been labeled a “crisis,” confirmed by rigged congressional testimony, making raising the so-called “debt ceiling” every year an act of “courage” and of patriotism. Those 21 Trillion dollars are the proof that socialism will destroy our freedom. It is taking a long time because of the exceptional work ethics of Americans, but our economic destruction is a safe prediction, given that the history of the last 6 decades of representative government in our (ostensible) 2-party system is one of utter economic debauchery.

But then, there’s always Broward County.

Economics, Education, Family, Governance, Politics 2018, Sex

The Potters of Socialism

October 27, 2018 Prudence Leadbetter Leave a comment

During a recent conversation, Prudence opined on the new trends of “body art” and unusual piercings, increasingly involving the bodies of young women. It has something to do with both feminism and socialism, Prudence suggests, and this view has caused demands for substantial clarification. Indeed. This line of reasoning could lead to a unified theory of wrong directions and unnecessary complexity.

Life is a test… a series of tests: momentary, hourly, daily, situationally – from birth to death. Humans, LIKE ALL LIVING THINGS, become stronger, more honest, more independent, by facing tests and “passing” them. What is the greatest dis-honesty, therefore?

It is denial of the test. It is humans’ penchant for convincing themselves that they might avoid the testing (which is the spiritual aspect of life) coupled with the denial of spirituality, itself. These fundamentals lead to lifetimes of failure, unfulfillment and even to widening circles of tragedy for other humans, particularly people the unfulfilled try to “love.” On the other hand, those tragedies are also tests that may be passed, leading to strength and growth.

Stated more simply, the worst lie is that which one tells to him or herself. We are in an odd time where such lies are celebrated, promulgated, codified and made, legally, into community-wide lies that form the new bases for anti-discrimination criminality. The hot one is trans-genderism. We call it an “ism” because it derives from belief and not from reality. Under it males tell themselves that they are females, in the preponderance of instances, and females tell themselves that they are males. It is the penultimate denial of human testing there could be.

It isn’t the absolute worst, any longer, because here and there are humans who tell themselves that they are not human, and who seek “rights” as this or that animal… often a dog: humans like dogs.

But, declaring oneself to not be what one is requires holding two conflicting ideas at once, ultimately leading, for most, to mental breakdown. This is not to say that some are not “happy” to be living outwardly as the opposite gender, but they are the minority. Still, they deserve their own happiness and other humans should not disrupt it. But the truth is that gender cannot be changed, only masked. Individuals who are emotionally secure may be happier adopting the mask. It is their mask, and by its artifice the individual attempts to avoid or deny the testing that his or her gender would otherwise face.

So, some would ask, what’s wrong with that? Lots of people avoid tests. We have an entire welfare system that purports to “help” them do so. And this shows the intersection of socialism as a construct of lies and the increasing lies of sexuality that some fight for as forms of “progress.” Both are means of test-avoidance, test denial, and both tend to leave the denier weaker spiritually.

What has this to do with tattoos and piercings? Both are forms of masks, are they not? Even homosexuality is a mask. It doesn’t mean individuals are not “happy” living as not being tested as a man or as not being tested as a woman, but it does mean they have made a choice to not face tests of emotion and feelings of one sort, and the growth their passing would provide. Because of anti-discrimination rules, declaring oneself homosexual means avoiding tests as either one’s gender or as one’s new identity.

In the 1950’s and 1960’s a big form of masking was hair. Girls would shave their heads or apply odd colors to their hair, for example, daring others to react to the change. In that way, at least temporarily, they could step out of the role of “woman” and be tested on the most ephemeral aspects of being rather than facing the tests of female growth and honesty. Boys at the same time would grow their hair to great lengths or shagginess, altering their “aura” as it were, too. Any troubles that came their way over rebellious hairstyling were deemed preferable to those that were associated with maturing in the role of “man.” Test denial. It’s what socialism promises to whole populations, inherently including a denial of spirituality.

In the midst of the “sexual revolution” last century, society, institutions and families fairly consistently encouraged the reality of acceptance of one’s role as man or woman. Most youngsters “grew out of” their odd experiments. Not all, though. By the mid-seventies several large trends were underway:

1. Welfare was federalized and entrenched under the “Great Society.”
2. Feminism was aggressively undoing traditional roles and family structures.
3. Leftist media were celebrating their successful castration of the Vietnam War
and all efforts against Communism that it represented.
4. Leftist media were celebrating the destruction of Richard Nixon, a flawed
conservative at best, over relatively minor crimes.
5. Attacks against organized religion were becoming normalized even as churches
themselves were corroding innocence within their ranks.
6. The Federal Reserve was prosecuting economic policies without regard to
elections or even office holders like presidents in the exercise of new powers
elected representatives could not grasp or counter.
7. Homosexuality was exploding in Western societies.
8. Black families were disintegrating with the help of federalized welfare.
9. Faith in the American idea was fading as quickly as American History curricula.

America is reaping the corrupt crops, now, from mutated seeds sown for fifty years. Youth are in favor of socialism, politicians are proud of it while other politicians flail about in their quest for proper rebuttals to socialist mendacity. Just like homosexuality and its ragged cousin, transgenderism, socialism requires believers to hold, and defend, two diametrically conflicting ideas at once.

Socialism intends two conflicting outcomes: 1) People will become better humans by virtue of changes in their physical surroundings and LACK OF RESPONSIBILITY; 2) If people fail to become higher-quality people thanks to socialism, socialists-in-charge will happily control them until they do.

Prudence’s correspondent had recently visited the waiting room of a plastic surgery and facial reconstruction practice and was struck by the number of quite young people, mostly females, who were there for recuperative follow-ups for various procedures. This, too, is a trend: Young people are having one or multiple procedures done to, they, hope, cause fulfillment of a physical image that is more pleasing, more acceptable, more attractive to society. That is to say, they are living out a dream of comparison to others rather than living on purpose.

Just like body arts or fanatical workouts, plastic surgery provides a mask that the wearer believes is more ”beautiful” than the innate self; this work, often painful, is endured in lieu of making ones inner, true self more attractive or charitable or loving. It is a personal dose of socialism whereby the physical or worldly appearance forms its own replacement spirituality and belief structure. There is no surprise that such shallow, literal children are unable to discern the corrosiveness of socialism. It is no wonder that socialists, and most progressives, are not nearly as happy as conservatives whose belief structures are based in spirituality that leads them to accept and pass tests in reality.

Changing ones physique or physiognomy to fulfill the expectations of society is a means of sidestepping true tests in life. Like the long hairs of the ‘60’s, others will deal with the mask rather than the real person and, it is hoped, the tests associated with the original person will never need passing. Growth is avoided.

Perhaps the most anti-spiritual, test-denial of all is abortion. Despite playing a role in conception of new human life, women have been convinced that the tests of motherhood may be avoided and that they will be more happy and fulfilled as a result. Indeed, not only have they the right to avoid those tests, but all of society, through government theft of others’ earnings, ought to support that avoidance. Perhaps there is less stress temporarily, but little happiness obtains.

Instead of accepting the tests of womanhood and motherhood and the concurrent civilizing of more animalistic males, females are encouraged to exist untested and to a degree, unfulfilled and incomplete. Obviously many of these women will see a logic to socialism and to government “nannyism” throughout their lives. Who needs men in that future? Socialism destroys humanity and abject feminism is socialism’s handmaid. How bleak.

The constant undermining and outright attacking of Christianity feeds socialism’s ascension to acceptability. Not the old testament, but the new, defines man’s relationship to God as personal and an individual responsibility – not as one of God’s chosen people, but as God’s chosen person, responsible to him or her self and to God to take the energy of life provided, and to multiply it by learning and following the rules laid out in dozens of religious traditions.

There is no room for the spiritual in socialism. Socialism is based on groups and denies individual greatness. The infection of education by socialism is obvious in the moves to eliminate valedictorians and salutatorians, or to have multiples of each. Another is to avoid “F’s” or other negative marking, to give everyone a trophy, to (claim to) not keep score in youth sports. One can also observe the same rot supplanting historical knowledge resulting in America’s being no more exceptional than literally every other nation. Rampant egalitarianism provides another patine of legitimacy: no one can earn more, be more worthy, honorable or valuable than the rest. Apparently, only government officials are permitted to be smarter than others, or more morally pure.

Ultimately, Socialism is the avoidance of human tests and, essentially, the avoidance of personal growth. Humans become stronger by overcoming adversity – everything from discomfort, to hunger, to tyranny and lack of freedom. We call the triumph over adversity, “freedom,” not the avoidance of it.

Avoiding adversity is a form of self-subjugation, leaving the subject/practitioner in a jail of his or her own making: less and less likely to ever overcome adverse circumstances. Dependence is the only result. Dependents are the most malleable of clays for the potters of socialism who are more than willing to offer ever more complete avoidance of tests, gaining perpetual power for themselves. Perhaps this little essay is testing the reader, right now.

Culture, Economics, Education, Family, Governance, Politics 2018

As Ye Sow…

September 13, 2018 Prudence Leadbetter Leave a comment

The alligators are circling and the Democrats are circling at the same time. The former are circling the Trump administration and the presidency, itself; the latter are circling the cesspool drain of socialism. Both the alligators of the “deep,” or now referenced, “steady” state, and the Democrats/neo-Socialists use the same set of tactics: Fascism.

“Oh, no,” you might say, “Fascism is a tool of the far-right and of White supremacists (whoever they are), and the left tries to fight them off!” Well.

You, the alligators and the Democrat left are confused. Fascism is a tool of the left. You have been taught the opposite, but a simple reading of history instructs us that we need to properly define Left and Right, perhaps starting with a change of terms. The left has changed the meaning of words repeatedly, but again, let’s use the right terms for Left and Right. “Liberal,” after all, described the colonists who fought against the British crown – which was “right” and which “left?”

Let’s consider that one trend in history, indeed the most common trend by far, is toward tyrannical control of people and economies. The alternative, individual liberty and actual democracy, is rarer, and, in combination with republicanism, more so. These two large trends can, roughly, describe almost every organized nation, today, and even the United Nations organization. Here’s where the permanence of word definitions becomes crucial. For our discussion Prudence suggests that “Liberty” be the direction of one trend, the rarer one, and “Tyranny… no, too pejorative a term… Control” be the direction of the more common trend throughout history. Societies and nations are on either a path toward greater individual liberty or toward greater centralized control.

On the liberty path we mark events like the invention of democracy, attributed to the Greeks; the Roman Senate, Christianity – which is not to say the Catholic or any other church unequivocally – the Renaissance, the Magna Carta, the English parliament, the Reformation of Martin Luther, the U. S. Constitution, Bill of Rights and other key amendments, the Civil War, World War II and the breakup of the Soviet Union. An incomplete list, certainly, but milestones nonetheless.

The story of control has always been marked by stronger over weaker people, conquest, kings, caesars and czars. As economic freedom and rights to private property took hold, the rise of socialism, always lurking but strengthened by unchecked economic inequality, became widespread enough in the 1800’s to create the dominant political forces of the 1900’s, including fascism and its ugly brother, communism. The new colossus, America, was not and is not immune from their blandishments.

We cannot examine our current status and our future, without recognizing the organizing morals of religion, and the educational value of churches. For “western” civilization the chief organizing moral structure has been, first, Judaism and the Old Testament, and then Christianity and the New Testament. The result of the long sweep of the Old Testament was to usher in the New and the examples and teachings of Jesus, the Christ. It is not one path, it is two, the second of which proclaims an individual relationship with God, and individual responsibility, as well. No longer was the story of God’s chosen people told about groups, but about individuals. No longer was the possibility of ascension into Heaven reserved for a handful of prophets, but it was made the business of every person. It was no longer an arcane secret, but instead the path was described and illustrated by Jesus, himself: “Greater things than I have done you shall do because I go unto the Father.”

Okay, enough of that. Let’s at least agree that Jesus’ teaching was that every individual was responsible for his or her own salvation or refusal of salvation. The doors of heaven were open to every person not committed to or consumed by evil… and each of us is responsible for the path he or she chooses – not so different from the Old Testament lessons, but personalized. It is the fundament of the Constitution and the concept of liberty, itself, and at no time divorced from responsibility: “As ye sow, so shall (must) ye reap.”

We can’t sow lies and expect honesty and truth to spring forth, for example.
Does this background inform the present? Prudence suggests that it does. Which actors are motivated by the desire to control individuals and their economic circumstances? Are they not “Democrat Socialists?” How do they propose to exert control?
The methods and tools are a very long list, but here are the most obvious ways:

Universal health care, or “single payer” or “Medicare for all.”

Comprehensive gun control.

Lower education standards for American history.

Nationalized Welfare.

Aggravated racial tensions.

Paid “antifa” thugs.

Those should be enough to show the direction that the left is taking, none of which is strengthening for the United States.

At first it is hard to understand why Democrats of today would be so fired up about the short list of 6 tactics, above. It is because they are socialists and socialism is about control and little else. You can see from the lowered education tactic that socialism’s resistance to the American experiment in individual sovereignty is not new, and if it must take 3 or 5 or a hundred generations, liberty’s ugly plans must be thwarted. The only defense against socialism is an alert, educated, self-disciplined citizenry… one that shares basic moral codes.

We can’t deny that Judeo-Christianity has informed our entire legal code and common-law bases for organizing this amazingly successful (western) civilization. We need not delve into matters of faith to recognize the practicality and reinforcing values of our legal traditions. It is informative that lately all things Christian are derogated and mocked, attacked, in fact. At the same time government and education institutions remove themselves from moral guidance or enforcement and even punish expressions of Christian values.

In the streets and in current politics, resistance to laws and their enforcement – and to their enforcers – is rampant, and deadly. These are socialists and fascists who are tearing down our legal and moral codes. Socialism lives on rules that society needs our wonderful governors to enforce (fulfilling the control instinct) since non-elite people cannot be expected to do almost anything correctly without them. This includes raising of children, imbuing them with morals, teaching them how to strive and excel, instructing them on proper relationships with and respect for the opposite sex, economic responsibility for oneself and one’s family, preparing them for independence and enlightening them with patriotism. These are all responsibilities of a benign, socialist government, after all.

When the Founders assembled the Constitution from the greatest civil organizing philosophies of freedom, they initiated a unique challenge to the prevailing organizing principles of tyranny, monarchy and theocracy. No other nation had attempted the creation of a government based on the principles enunciated in the Declaration of Independence. In the process, and following a bitter fight against arguably the most powerful empire in the world at that time, the “American Dream” was born. It is little understood today, but is defined by “E pluribus unum.” America – the United States – would be a nation where all kinds and origins of people can form a nation, live and work together under a regime of personal responsibility and shared morality, self-discipline and individual civic sovereignty. Remarkable, and the diametric opposite of socialist diffusion of responsibility – and morality.

Socialism is by origin and intent a system without spirituality. Every one of its tenets presumes that human-devised, rules-based micro-management will yield a better society than religious or faith-based moral structures have or ever will. Socialism, by definition, is antithetical to Constitutional republicanism, and this fact illustrates why socialists have been pressing socialist “solutions” to civic and economic problems in the U. S. since the post-Civil War era, an effort that gained strength with each World War, the Depression and the “Civil Rights” movements. The skids were greased by Lyndon Johnson, Ted Kennedy and “Watergate.”

Now we are faced with one of our two major political parties celebrating resistance to laws and to law enforcement, even as it cries for more regulation from a massive, unmanageable government. What sort of political future… what sort of governing future do its members foresee? Are they anticipating a society with better cohesiveness, or lower crime rates, perhaps? By what mechanisms shall order be assured after dozens, if not hundreds of crimes are deemed un-prosecutable? Even now attorneys general are fighting federal authorities in many jurisdictions; many candidates for those offices are campaigning on their willingness to overlook criminal prosecutions they don’t like. How, indeed, will order be ensured?

Disorder is far from the socialist model… control is its bedrock. These same who agitate and cry for legal disorder, swoon for ultra-left socialist candidates and for ‘antifa,’ itself. It is the grand disorder of freedom that they hate… the majesty of it left in the hands of a moral, independent people. We are socialism’s enemy and socialism is ours, if we have the mind to understand and the heart to defend, our Constitution.

We cannot sow socialism and expect freedom and individual liberty to spring forth.

Culture, Economics, Education, Governance, Immigration

America on the High Wire

August 25, 2018 Prudence Leadbetter Leave a comment

Constitutionalists and other conservatives, along with the rest of the world, are watching the American high-wire act being performed without practice and without nets. Having had top billing in the center ring since WW-II, The U. S. has also had unique control of the world’s money supply and, in the pleasant swaddling clothes of the so-called “Federal” Reserve Bank, has enjoyed unlimited debt creation for more than a century, financing sticky, anti-Constitutional socialism, sold so softly that once-conservatives defend its pillars, now.

Along the way the innate goodness of American ideals enabled the U. S. to also liberate and rejuvenate millions of people and dozens of countries, imperfectly, but with the best of efforts. On balance, the United States has done sufficient good in the century of its financial dominance that people living under much crappier politics still risk everything to get here. Unfortunately, unlike the struggle to get to “America” during the first 130 years of our existence, immigrants come less and less often for the opportunity to perfect themselves and their families, and more and more to grasp the socialist welfare for which we have indebted several generations to come, to provide for the “less fortunate,” who, in the minds of virulent anti-American socialists, comprise the rest of the world.

Therein is the outline of one of the strands of the high wire we, through our virtually inept governments, are attempting to navigate across a chasm so dark that most of the citizenry will not look into it… or acknowledge it, believing that nothing so threatening could possibly exist nor could our Senators and Representatives have allowed it to manifest. Yet here we are, gingerly sliding one fat foot before the other, hoping to cross to a better century to come.

In that better century we won’t be in debt up to our annual eyebrows, or obligated socialistically for many multiples of our entire annual economic output. We love our Social Security, our Medicare and a thousand other benefits. We love being able to shove the irresponsible in under the umbrella of Medicaid, lest we worry ourselves sick over them. But we aren’t loving the loss of independence that ungodly debt represents, nor the loss of freedom that taxes represent – at least we shouldn’t be. You do understand these concepts, don’t you?

Taxes are a loss of freedom? It should be obvious: freedom and economic freedom are symbionts. Debt, on the other hand, threatens freedom of the nation in terms of independence – economic independence. We owe a year’s economic output to someone, many some-ones, and a lot of that we owe to people who wish to destroy us.

Independence. It’s another strand in that taut, high wire on which America balances.
Most of those who would weaken, dominate or destroy the United States, removing us from our global economic chairmanship, and from our military empire, do not have the internal dissent that freedom allows. They do not have debilitating, enervating victim-based political mine-field governance. Nor are they constricted by waves of illegal and criminal aliens and hired armies of “antifa” street thugs who use violent force to make points that duplicitous media endorse. They aren’t required, politically, to attempt to coexist with a dozen opposing cultures within their borders, schools and core cities. They aren’t burdened by thousands of laws that are never enforced, or enforced differently for citizens and non-citizens.

And, like badgers, or jackals, they probe and push and nibble at our strength, waiting… waiting for the moment we are so distracted, or weary, or confused about our existence, that we can be toppled. Such an occurrence will mark a new dark age.

The high wire is not unable to hold our weight, or our debt or our dissension. Our confusion is more worrisome, but right now, it’s holding. There is no net. We have succumbed to debauchery, as it were, with governments decriminalizing activities and products they can tax… or gain votes from. It’s tawdry. What sort of government can profit from the temporary or permanent mental incoherence of its citizens? Our individuality no longer breeds responsibility or cohesiveness, rather division and wasted potential. As a people we are becoming more clever and less intelligent. Instead of rewarding success and improvement, we are rewarding failure, deviance… and incoherence.

Immigration, once a strength, we are now rushing – indeed fighting – to make a weakness and a threat. It’s not the stuff of socialism, but it is a weapon to prevent resistance to socialism. Socialism, a virtual denial of the spirit, is threatened by freedom – not by licentiousness, for that weakens freedom – because freedom, described by God in a million religious texts and well-distilled into our Declaration and Constitution, empowers individuals, not groups or classes. The majesty of individual sovereignty, barely recognized or remembered, today, is at the foundation of the American idea. For those blinded by the allure of socialism: the ability to get something for nothing – American independence of the individual is the enemy. The high wire is not yet severed, but the blowtorches of the original lie, now emboldened as “socialism,” are trying to soften its tensile strength.

Still we proceed, one foot before the other, carefully sliding and balancing, while the burdens of debt cower us and the rending of our muscles by a million jackals weakens us. The ideas of America – not her mistakes – are so strong that we are able to find new ways to rejuvenate her body, albeit more temporarily each cycle.

Belatedly, Trump is trying to “clean up” international problems that have encroached on our peace and prosperity for decades. Politically we have botched many circumstances, treaties, agreements and relationships around the world – too many to list. Currently we worry about North Korea, Iran, Russia and China, along with Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Turkey, Libya, Zimbabwe, Sudan and South Africa… oh, and Venzuela, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Mexico, Brazil, Haiti, and even Canada. Ooops, forgot Philipines, Indonesia, Somalia, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Other than that, things are pretty calm… unless we want to not overlook the entire EU and Britain in particular and the Balkans, Romania, Bulgaria, and Ukraine. And Georgia. Never mind the DNC.

The point is, it is a consummate balancing act the U. S. performs to keep its dominance through both economics and diplomacy, while shoveling huge volumes of “foreign aid” in the form of military aid, if not intervention, into over 150 countries. This doesn’t begin to quantify activities of the C. I. A. No wonder everybody loves us. All this while our enemies – every one socialist, communist or fascist (socialist) – watch for weakness, indecision, or introversion, or, for “leading from behind.”

If at some point the U. S. stumbles, fails to defend itself or, worse, fails to stand up for its majestic founding principles, the jackals will pounce to bring down – as in destroy the greatest affront to socialism and tyranny the world has ever seen: our great, lumbering hodge-podge of cultures and beliefs which had not the good sense to teach its own children the ideas of its founding and its exceptional place amongst humankind.

Our greatest balance pole has always been freedom, outlined in the Bill of Rights and elsewhere. We will do best to preserve ourselves and our countering role by cleaning our own house and by returning to our long climb toward honesty and perfection based on the sovereignty and individual responsibility of our people. We’ve drifted away from our ideals as we’ve carefully stepped far out above the abyss. Every reader knows the cleansing that must be done. There is no amount of political Febreeze that will correct for the rot it covers up.

We must regain our balance, and in fairly short order, Prudence indicates.

Economics, Education, Politics 2018, Representation, Responsibility

Earning a Vote

August 8, 2018 Prudence Leadbetter Leave a comment

People elected to office in the United States, from Senators and Representatives to state’s legislators, Governors and state-wide officers, Sheriffs, Judges, District Attorneys, Registers of Probate, Deeds and what-not, to cities’ councilors, Mayors, aldermen, local selectmen and various trustees of reservations, libraries, housing authorities and conservation commissions, all have an obligation, TO WHICH EACH SWORE ON HIS OR HER HONOR, BEFORE WITNESSES, to conduct him or herself and the business of the office at stake according to the law and in defense of various charters, bylaws, state and federal constitutions.

That is, each swore to be honest. Prudence recommends honesty as the best way to conduct the people’s business. Unfortunately, honesty, truthfulness are almost NEVER part of anyone’s campaign message, platform, literature or advertising, despite each knowing that he or she will happily SWEAR to be honest during the conduct of the office being striven for. Odd, that. In practice, all oaths to the opposite, many office-holders consider that honesty, in fact, extends only to the scrupulous fealty to the letter of the law: every jot and tittle and loophole thereof.

We do hear a lot about “working hard for you,” or “it’s time your group is treated more fairly,” or “my opponent, the incumbent (stated in a low voice) has not been honest with you,” or, if the case, “he doesn’t even pay his parking tickets!”

Because legislation – and regulation – is devised and designed by people who are hoping to find a way to gain personally from the “loopholes” they write into it… legally of course, voters rarely get much input to the process or the content of new laws. And, we are reassured from the rooftops as to the diligent efforts made on voters’ behalf, sometimes late into the night at great sacrifice, keeping their promises to “fight” for us and to “work hard for us” if entrusted with the office. After all, they swore an oath to uphold the law and the constitution, and there they are keeping every word of at least part of what was promised. And we re-elect them, sometimes for decades, as if we can’t imagine causing them to “lose” their jobs, for goodness sake!

Most gain considerable wealth while in office, and this is a very mysterious consequence of becoming a public servant. Some are paid from the public treasury quite handsomely, even exorbitantly, yet they continue to “sacrifice” in public service instead of accepting much more lucrative positions in the “private sector.” Just look at the millions paid to people like the presidents of nationwide banks, insurance companies, invest firms, Boeing, Amazon, Facebook and Exxon-Mobil. Yet still they toil on our behalf under terrible conditions and low pay, particularly in view of the tremendous responsibilities they carry for the rest of us. [See: http://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2017/03/31/massachusetts-vaults-into-first-place/]

Congress members and Senators seem to fare the best of all – at least the crafty ones. Politics, unfortunately, seems to attract those who are always looking for an edge of some kind… not a scam, necessarily, but some special advantage, like signaling what’s in your hand to your Bridge partner. One notices that there are many laws that specifically exempt the “Royals” (those currently in Congress) from their terms or penalties. For decades, for example, members of the House and Senate could take advantage of what in the private sector is known as “insider trading.”

That is, by virtue of knowing what laws and attendant regulations were about to be imposed, the Royals could buy stocks about to go up as a result, and short stocks that were about to go down as a result. It’s “edgy,” one could say, and we can be comforted in our beliefs that none of them would ever share that information with a mere civilian, since they all are sworn to uphold the law: every jot and tittle and loophole thereof. Moreover, they are forced to be away from their families and pay for extra housing in or near Washington, and it’s not fair to demand so much additional sacrifice on top of that already entailed in their “jobs” in Congress.

In response to negative press, Congress crafted the “STOCK” act, that essentially made insider trading by legislative employees (over 28,000 of them) and by executive department employees, illegal. President Obama signed it into law with cameras blazing. Not only was the trading illegal, finally, but everyone affected would have searchable financial disclosure statements available on some website, a requirement that was not very popular. A few months later, with most members absent, the House and Senate rushed a bill through and the President signed it with little notice or announcement. This bill kept the thousands of disclosures under lock and key in a basement room in the Capitol, where virtually anyone could review them… individually, by correct name, and even copy them for 10 cents a page. But they couldn’t be “searched,” per se, and you had to get to the Capitol and to that room during limited hours, and provide the correct name of the disclosure-owner. Nothing illegal, but just a little edge over the competition – us.

The search for truth is a competition, if you hadn’t realized that before now, and in this competition relative to our public servants, we have very wily opponents. Think of that: opponents.

How nice would it be to hear an office-seeker say in his “stump” speech: “I promise only a few things, ladies and gentlemen… just a few.” He or she holds up the fingers of one hand. “First, when you ask me a question about any part of my public job – the one you pay me to do – I will answer truthfully and fully, unless there is a specific statute that prohibits me from doing so. I will then explain that statute to the best of my ability, or get back to you promptly with the explanation. If there is a way for you to obtain the information from another person or office I will tell you and, if you need it, I will help you get the information… not just an ‘answer,’ but the information you are entitled to.

“Secondly,” holding up his pointer finger, “I will tell you the truth about the budget and about expenditures. The money we spend and allocate is all taken from your wallets and I will show you at least enough respect as American citizens, to tell you the truth about what’s being done with it.”

“And, finally, point number 3. I will not vote for any legislation that contains provisions that are ‘snuck’ into the wording because those provisions could not have passed on their own merits. In other words, some legislation is brought forth with titles that indicate it is about one issue, while hiding legislation about unrelated issues. Those bills are at least partial lies and I will not vote for them. On the other hand, I will fight to stop this practice. To do so I need your vote on Tuesday.”

Prudence declares her support for any such candidate. Sadly, none has presented him or her-self for consideration. On the other hand, if one were looking for someone who has crafted an articulate message of hate for certain groups, individuals or for the United States, there are several from which to choose.

The underlying problem with elected and appointed malfeasance is that it undermines the ideas of America. And there is no one to our West who will come to our rescue when our citizens lose all trust in our “self” governance. There is no one else with a more “free” system or where citizens have sufficient sovereignty to perfect themselves, who will ride to our salvation and help as throw off tyranny. We, the United States of America, still somewhat free, still somewhat honest, still somewhat Christian, are the last best hope on Earth. If, in our libertine libertarianism we allow Constitutionalism to perish, or if we fail to reverse our educationally slipshod descent into sexual confusion and feelings education, the whole experiment is at risk.

Indeed, for an American elected official to abuse his or her office, particularly for illicit, if not illegal personal gain, is among the worst offenses against our nation. It is virtual treason against the electorate, and utterly inexcusable. Compromised judges and law-enforcement officers naturally follow the path of rot blazed by dishonest elected officials. Tightening and increasing the penalties for official corruption should be the fourth part of our “honesty is the only policy” candidate wished-for above. Let’s hope.

Economics, Education, Politics 2018

Socialist is as Socialist Does

August 3, 2018 Prudence Leadbetter Leave a comment

The “flash” of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’ success over Joe Crowley in the 14th District in Bronx and Queens, New York, seems to have ignited latent socialist dreams in dozens of Democrat Party “leaders.” All of a sudden there is a “new” idea on the political landscape: more than half the people are downtrodden victims of capitalism and the “lucky” ones who work are the oppressors and should be forced, by law, to support those less fortunate. Hallelujah! We are saved.

Aside from the fact that there is absolutely nothing new about these views, there is also nothing new about their perpetual, predictable failures. Their primary justification is envy and, more frequently today, hatred. Those are sad and fetid foundations for a plan intended to “lift” people out of poverty and hopelessness. Ocasio-Cortez has done a service to America, however, by revealing the vacuum of historical understanding of human nature and of the American people in particular. Perhaps it is a reasonable reaction to the mess we have made of enlightened economics in the United States; it is not a reasonable reaction to the lessons of history.

If only Republicans and other mildly conservative people were awake to the rot eating away at the true American promise and premise, instead of being so deeply beholden to the salamanders of money.

Loosely described, the American economy (and political dysfunction) is a result of creeping socialism that has been gnawing at our strengths since the Civil War – more noticeably since the 1900’s.

Socialism and other forms of mis-identified Social Justice, can win votes, sometimes for very ignorant or, dare we say, stupid candidates for office. They get elected by promising to A) Punish the oppressors, and, B) Hand out free stuff. Sometimes they are neither ignorant or stupid, but evil; sometimes they’re all three. Unenlightened conservatives, at the other end of the pendulum’s arc, promise to punish the freeloaders and to enrich the productive, hard-working class. Deportation and prevention of illegal entrants is a perverse gift to their politicking, just as outrageous concentrations of wealth and power in the hands of some of history’s most accomplished thieves is to Socialists.

Ocasio-Cortez is a graduate of Boston University where she learned something about economics. Her statements about economics and “public” financing, however, would lead one to recognize that what one believes is far more motivating in both words and deeds than any expensive education. Maybe she believes what she says about Socialist distribution of wealth… if only there were a Socialist distribution of productivity that partnered with it.

One can forgive her misunderstandings of the current federal budget, tax rates and overall distribution of taxation, [see “http://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2017/11/04/a-few-words-on-capitalism-part-1/”] but it is a bit harder to overlook her total misrepresentation of her “Bronx” background and the supposed house-cleaning by her mother. She displays no better ethics than many disreputable politicians before, beside and in front of her. Conservatives, or Republicans, at least, seize on her ignorance and inconsistency, “progressive” socialists overlook it – belief trumps evidence.

It is harder to overlook the deliberate ignorance of both soft Republicans and hard Democrats who hold office, now. Well, perhaps ignorance is too generous; maybe most are stupid, or evil. Prudence indicates that holding office in the U.S., these days, is altogether too lucrative, too irresponsible and too secure against challengers. “Conservatism, Socialism… what’s the difference if I can snag the sweetest pension in the free world?”

It makes a lot of difference to the function and future of the United States. One needs, as does Ocasio-Cortez, to appreciate the origins and history of the U. S. The Europeans, Spanish, French, English, Dutch, Germans, Scandinavians and others, who came to the “New World” were very strong people. They were courageous enough to risk everything simply for opportunity. If they survived the first winter, there existed a chance they could make a successful life, one they’d have to carve out of wilderness. If they didn’t hunt game successfully or failed to prepare a field for planting, they could starve. Each had, or very quickly learned multiple skills since there were no hardware stores or clothing stores… or even cloth stores.

Virtually all were religious, Christian, mostly, or Jewish. Establishing churches was one of their first community projects; thanking God a daily ritual. Many died young from disease, injury, bad food, and from Indian defenses of their own lands and livelihoods. For women, childbirth was a major risk. Still, they came and slowly triumphed, knit by religion into common weal and defense, even when fighting other Europeans. The borders and nations we know in North and South America are the result, including hard-fought wars of independence from the European homelands. No matter how easy it is to smugly judge their actions it is admiration that we owe them, not condemnation.

They arrived with what they could carry. There was no welfare. Some were charitable, some more than others. There were no chits for free food and no subsidization for housing or health-care. Still, they came: strong, risk-taking, resolute, religious. Some of the strongest people in the world, and the government they formed, a constitutional republic, is based on the finest secular distillation of Biblical lessons ever devised: As ye sow, so shall (must) ye reap. It’s based on personal responsibility, if you don’t grasp the meaning in the King James version: personal responsibility for actions and inactions, successes and failures, honesty and dishonesty. Each is personally responsible for his or her actions throughout life. For many, there is a personal responsibility to God for everything good or bad. In lieu of that faith, personal responsibility is still the best approach to life, growth, personal improvement and the strength of society. Washing the concept out with the soft soap of Socialism is a choice made at great peril, threatening the strengths of society, families and individuals.

Today we are throwing out every vestige of the Bible we can identify. Ten thousand years of strengthening morals have been flushed away in a hundred years. America is losing its way at the very point that the original lie, Socialism, is rising up in the hearts and minds of poorly educated young people, led by the crassest of politicians.

One can recognize the original lie, easily. Under socialism individuals are absolved of individual responsibility, first by their identification with a group or class of people. Indeed, when it comes to politics, each identified group – and group member – is expected to vote the socialist ticket. If one can also be placed in a group that has been victimized by “the establishment,” which is defined variously as fits the socialist need, then that group is supposed to vote even more reliably socialist.
If a person runs afoul of the law, Socialism likes to diffuse the causes of that criminal activity, often by ascribing a history of victimhood and abuse, poverty, discrimination, lookism, sexism or, the trump card, homophobia. Therefore a long-term incarceration is unfair and we should extend the hand of additional welfare to help in the unjustly-charged individual’s rehabilitation. Just an example; no one can seriously imagine such an argument carrying any weight in a courtroom.

Socialism does not respect nationalism. For many of our young people, today, defining and defending of our borders is viewed as some sort of international crime, an affront to everyone who wants to live here instead of his or her own homeland. How twisted. How wasteful… that these people could have consumed $200,000 to $300,000 worth of public education and been granted DIPLOMAS ostensibly indicating successful completion of 12 or 13 years of learning. Yet they are so ignorant they don’t even know what they don’t know. They seem to “hang” with others who celebrate the same ignorance and who applaud statements and beliefs of abject stupidity… at least in terms of history and human experience.

It is incumbent upon Christians and Jews, and upon Constitutionalists, generally, to explain again and again why the morals and economics that help people perfect themselves, and that built the ideas and ideals of America, are better for this nation and the world, than ANY Socialist plan.

Culture, Economics

Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker

June 7, 2018 Prudence Leadbetter Leave a comment

The Colorado baker whose case the Supreme Court finally heard, has won only a reprieve and not quite a victory. “SCOTUS” ruled on the improprieties of how the Colorado Commission on Discrimination treated baker, Jack Phillips, during its proceedings and the ruling that followed, not on the right to withhold certain aspects of his services on the basis of religious belief. The larger fight looms.

Another case may be decided this month, as well, concerning a florist who refused to create bouquets and other floral displays for a same-sex wedding.

Then there is the “Sweet Cakes by Melissa” case where the family-operated bake shop was unmercifully attacked, boycotted and broken-into after a lesbian couple was denied a custom wedding cake. Oregon chipped in with its own punishment by fining the Greshams, themselves, $135,000.

So far, the arguments have been religious in nature and they, it seems Prudent to say, will eventually fail. The anti-religious, or, at least, anti-spiritual socialist power structures in place in the U. S. and the various states, cannot accept religious belief as the basis for any public act, since it can’t be touched, tasted or seen… or taxed. Through the looking-glass, however, these same happily accept the self-declared conditions grouped under “LGBT” even though they are equally un-provable beyond the declarations of adherents. Prudence finds it difficult to discern the logical distinctions; aside from the political.

The winning arguments, and those which may be legally definable – codifiable – will have to follow this path: public accommodation can be satisfied by requiring any retailer to sell its generic products to anyone who wishes to buy them; retailers will be allowed to retain their right to deny application of their artistic skills that would customize products for purposes they find offensive.

That is, no government should be able to COMPEL anyone to exercise creativity, imagination, or hard-learned and long-practiced skills unique to that individual. For skills and abilities that are widely held in the area of trade a store represents, it is reasonable that products produced thereby may not be restricted from sale to anyone who is able to pay for them. How the new owner of a product then decorates or uses the product – cakes or otherwise – is no concern of the original fabricator… or baker.

Economics, Governance, Representation

Strange Times, Unbridgeable Gulfs

February 23, 2018 Prudence Leadbetter 1 Comment

These are unusual times in Washington, DC, and in the whole country. The popular press and the Democrat party, which is to say, on one side, there are many voices trying to convince the unconvinced that President Trump is surely guilty of terrible acts involving Russian operators who “colluded” with the Trump campaign to put the electoral kibosh on the Hillary Clinton campaign. “Collude” means “conspire” generally and we know that Trump is guilty of that and much more because there is, after all, an investigation ongoing and going and going and “they” wouldn’t be investigating a PRESIDENT, for Heaven’s sake, if he were not guilty of something.

The investigation is under the aegis, which means an obscuring cloak, like a sheep- or goat-skin, of a person named as “Special Counsel” by someone high up in the Department of Justice, usually the Attorney General of the United States. There have been damned few of these. Democrats and the Press can think of only one other, when asked: Archibald Cox, who was the first “Special Prosecutor” (same thing as a special counsel if there actually is a crime to investigate) of the so-called “Watergate Scandal” and whose removal as such by President Nixon caused the resignations of then Attorney General, Elliott Richardson and of his Deputy, William Ruckelshaus over their refusals to fire Cox. Robert Bork, then Solicitor General, automatically became acting Attorney General and it was he who carried out the Presidents LEGAL order to remove Cox.

For Bork his legal exercise of authority, both his and the president’s, partly sealed his fate when he was nominated for the Supreme Court in the Summer of 1987 by President Reagan. Bork had become an enemy of Democrat justice and there are no resentments, there is no umbrage greater or longer-lasting than that of a liberal. Bork fired Cox. Even though Nixon’s brutal ending of the Cox investigations was a time of great Democratic rejoicing – Nixon having sealed his disgrace by that action, what could be more joyous – Bork was the one who provided the means and that was never, ever forgotten. Ted Kennedy, so-called Lion of the Senate, drunken murderer, he, prepared the most outrageous attacks and vilifications to sink Bork before he could even grasp what in Hell was being done to him. It had taken 14 years but justice was finally served… against Bork.

This is an example of one of the forces that mould and shape history: hatred. It is hatred of non-liberals, non-socialists, and it stems from the abiding leftist desire… need… to change humans. Human nature, designed, conservatives tend to believe, by God, is an affront to leftists who believe, essentially, that left-leaning humans can create not just a better world than God could and did, but even better humans than His. Heady stuff, and the fuel of giant resentments, perhaps explaining why liberals are always angry about something and why they are convinced in their hearts that people who disagree with them are in need of regulation and re-education, which require more government and LESS freedom. Freedom, itself, is resented by leftists, socialists, liberals, Democrats. Hence, anyone who defends freedom and less government, is an automatic enemy of the left. With so many enemies all around, it is no surprise that liberals aren’t happy very often.

Because liberals and other leftists are so convinced of their mission to separate people from human nature, they never accept a loss when they do, in fact, lose. What they do is immediately calculate how to win a slightly different fight on the exact same principle that they just lost. First they’ll need to devise a venue upon which the original battle can be recreated, whereupon some modified tactics might bring a victory that was simply not accomplished the first, second or third time. Of course, once the liberal victory is achieved, the result may never, ever be challenged since it is clearly on the correct path of history. None of that reactionary constitutionalism, freedom, independence or individual sovereignty and personal responsibility can be allowed to “weaken” the strength of the liberal welfare state.

After all, the reason socialism hasn’t worked before is because earlier practitioners were not as smart as the current crop. Actually what has always happened was that socialists ran out of money, and not their own. Today’s stripe of leftist, controlling types, have grown up in a world where virtually unbridled debt is somehow “normal.” Maybe we… they, can now afford to give up freedom for the opportunity to be coddled by socialists NOT because we won’t run out of money – that train, with its overpaid unionized crew, left the station long ago. No, it’s because we won’t run out of debt! So far, at least, the cliff’s edge is still out of sight. So long as there is unlimited borrowing from the future, there’s no crying need for wisdom, intelligence, historical reference or basic economics.

It’s sad to think that there are capable people who have made whole careers out of bringing us to this point.

How can we conduct rational discussions of public policy with a group that thinks non-liberal people are less than human and living in a past that they, liberals, hate. Not that liberals want to discuss policy with virtual Neanderthals who cling to guns and religion – what could they possibly add? – but there is a case to be made that what liberals would discuss is how to get conservatives to give up American traditions and historical truths… silly things like mother-father families and working for a living. It is a nearly unbridgeable gulf.

If individuals whose daily life is barely affected by these issues can’t discuss them, how can we expect congress-people to work out conflicts over the same ideas when their entire beings are consumed by re-election? Prudence tells us that there are honest liberals, as we know several just in the Merrimack Valley. And it seems still worthwhile to change their minds, bit by bit.

Culture, Economics, Governance

Is ‘drug’ the past tense?

December 31, 2017 Prudence Leadbetter 4 Comments

We seem to not be serious about – truly intent on solving – the growing drug threat in the United States. “We” refers to our governing and policing institutions… and to all of us, one supposes. While there are many subsets, and many individuals, of local, state and national agencies who are deeply committed to the fight, overall, our national policies have effectively allowed the trade to grow and corrupt many levels of law enforcement and justice. While doing so, this “business” has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans, destroyed families and spawned immeasurable volumes of criminal activity that has damaged many other thousands, if not millions of people.

Today our publicized problems center on “opioids” both “natural” and pharmaceutical. A market developed by criminal drug-dealers has proven too attractive to ignore for multi-billion-dollar corporations, corrupting them and their medically licensed facilitators, daily prescribing their FDA-approved wonder drugs at clinics, hospitals and back rooms, nationwide. Soft-headed federal welfare and subsidized medicine programs help irresponsible patients “pay” for their prescribed addictives. One statistic tells us that it’s long past when our national battle tactics ought to have changed dramatically: over 60,000 dead from opiate overdoses in one year.

Unfortunately, opioids represent simply and tragically just an aspect of the modern American drug culture. It’s a culture that begins with candies, ice cream and juice-boxes rewarding good, or at least not too embarrassing, behavior, by 18- to 84-month-old infants, continuing unabated through aspirin, Tylenol, Advil, “arthritis formula,” Cold-Eze, Thera-Flu, Nyquil, Dayquil, 5-Hour energy, cigars, cigarettes, chewing tobacco, nicotine “Vaping,” Claritin, dextromethorphan, Robitussin, Afrin, Aleve, Excedrin, Motrin, and hundreds of other variations of over-the-counter feel-better concoctions for aches and pains, “colds” and headaches, plus the dozens of prescription pain alleviators, allergy relievers, cold-symptom removers, cough syrups, tablets and inhalers… and we didn’t even get to actual pain “killers,” a most suitable name.

Every TV program advises consumers to question their doctors as to which sort of blood-thinner is best, what kind of goop will kill fungus, how to resolve breathing problems and 44 ways to get better sleep through chemistry… or better sex. Once all of these conditions have been restored to desirability, it is crucial to eat, swallow or drink something to improve regularity and then avoid and cure hemorrhoids. It’s a never-ending battle to achieve perfect health – or a perfect simulation of it.

Eventually we pay attention to ads for diabetes medications… other than juice-boxes, of course.

Doctors, in 2013, wrote narcotic prescriptions at a rate 272% of the 1991 rate. That is, 207 MILLION prescriptions! For 300 Million people?! Gross opiate production had increased from 3,520 kilograms (7700 pounds) in 1993 to an astronomical 70,000 kilograms (155,000 pounds!) in 2007, which MORE THAN DOUBLED just 6 years later, to 150,000 kilograms! What the Hell has our government done to protect the nation in this period? Why, they’ve forced a “cutback” to only 108,000 kilograms! Whoop.

Where did all this pain come from? How did humans ever evolve without Dr. Feelgood?

Today we give pills not only when we feel sick… because we ARE sick, we give them when we just feel, well, not right. We give boys hormone treatments when they say they want to be girls; we give related treatments to girls who feel like boys and even perform bilateral mastectomies on teenagers who don’t want to admit to being girls. Boys are mutilated by removal of genitals. What has “medicine” become? It seems similar to Nazi experimentation, except that people in favor of the mutilations – chemical and otherwise – are the ones accusing realists of being the Nazis.

Is it just profit? Much like the alcohol business, fortunes are not made in painkillers and other stuff from people who nurse a bottle of Scotch for 3 months. Big money comes from people who consume a couple of bottles/packages/ounces a week or more – Scotch or Advil, Oxycontin or Aleve, marijuana or Lunesta. Amidst all this we try to draw lines that cannot be crossed – like Bingo at the Parish Hall but no permitting of casinos, no, no, no.

We hate cocaine, for example, and we really hate crack cocaine, so no legalization for that stuff, no, no, no. And heroin! Oh… my… God, heroin? No, no, no – a thousand times NO! BUT(!)… if some powerful pharmaceutical manufacturer – powerful because of political contributions and constant lobbying – wants to distribute a few hundred Million capsules of SYNTHETIC heroin, then the mind/nerve altering effects can be described in wonderfully pharmaceutical terms and the distribution system liberally supplied – FDA approved, Medicaid-financed.

In an earlier career I worked with a Vietnam vet, a Marine, who had received shrapnel in one arm. It was badly scarred and made possible the receipt of a check every month for his “disability.” Every 3 months or so he had to go to Boston, to the V.A. hospital, and get tested for the level of feeling that was returning to his arm… or not. Meanwhile he practiced not reacting to pins in the flesh of that arm. Then, when he’d get tested, he could look stone-faced and continue his claim that he had no feeling in the arm, and the checks would continue.

Humans are very capable of lying to the point of severe discomfort, to get what they want. Do we think proto-addicts wouldn’t lie to keep receiving pain-killers? Even if all they were doing was selling each month’s supply? Is the medical establishment that performs hundreds of thousands of abortions each year, unable to withhold excessive quantities of opioids?

They certainly can’t refrain from prescribing. Two-thirds of patient visits result in a prescription… meaning upwards of THREE BILLION prescriptions for 300 Million people! That’s 10 each. We’ve all experienced the kindly scrip-recommendation from even the most caring physician (or nurse-practitioner). It’s no surprise; most medico’s receive constant “education” from the pharmaceutical complex and there exists an inherent desire by them to provide advice that patients will experience benefits from, and that often means a drug of some sort.

Unfortunately, there are about ONE MILLION adverse drug reactions every year, yielding some 100,000 DEATHS – the fourth largest cause of death in the U. S. We might consider that fentanyl-laced heroin or synthetic opiods also produce “adverse drug reactions.” The differences can be distilled to two: the INTENT of the seller/provider, and the legal status of all concerned. Both are interested in two things: making the customer feel better… and repeat business.

It’s all part of a national, societal culture of control of biology for human comfort. Whatever we don’t like about nature… there is a drug – a chemical – to “fix” it. “Addiction” is pejorative only because of the lesser qualities of the illegal providers.

Today states are racing to legalize marijuana, all 122 current strains of it because it will provide (choose a favorite): tax revenue for underfunded state budgets; ability to control quality and safety; stiff competition to illegal drug dealers, hopefully to stop illegal drug trade; funding for drug-treatment programs; reduced dependency on “bad” drugs; votes for those most supportive of legalization. Another, really important provision is eliminating Timmy’s criminal record for possession and, one other: freeing up the justice system to concentrate on serious crimes. After all, if “they” are going to get the stuff anyway, we might as well go along with it and raise some revenue to boot. Who are we to interfere?

There are no adults… we’re a nation of juveniles. And the drug “culture” is us, this most pampered generation. If you weren’t sure of where you stood on socialized medicine, be mindful that such a system will cement the drug culture even more firmly in place. Whoop.

Culture, Economics, Governance, Responsibility

“Trumpism” is a ghost

November 29, 2017 Prudence Leadbetter 6 Comments

Much is made, of late, about “white privilege” and “racism” and about some sort of racial “hatreds” that must exist, all bumper-stickered into the term, “fascism.” By denigrating everyone who is not negroid in appearance, the loose forces that aim to destroy the ideas of America and this nation/society/culture, itself, cause many to question everything about our heritage. The attacker always has the advantage until a true counterattack can be mounted.

What the “antifa” is fighting is not hatred or even racism, it’s anger – anger to which “whites” have no evident right – anger about the loss of the actual, historic, fundamental and incompletely codified American Dream: that all kinds of people can live and thrive together, sovereign in their God-given rights and responsible to themselves and others for the consequences of their own actions. That’s the “Dream.”

The dream isn’t home ownership, or multiple cars or too much to eat… and, it isn’t universal welfare (slavery) either. It’s freedom, a dream that is a nightmare for government types and other tyrants. It’s a nightmare for one-worlders and financial globalists whose ultimate wish is to control production and every producer/worker through taxation and sufficient consumerism to keep them quiet.

All that individuals need to do to become “an American,” is to adopt the culture of freedom and responsibility, and to respect our laws. It is the world’s winning-est formula despite all the flaws it is growing out of. The Dream is worth saving and preserving against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

There’s a common saying, that if you wait for all the lights to turn green before you back out of your own driveway, you’ll never get anywhere. It is infinitely more advantageous to everyone else, along with YOU, the driver of your life, if you will take responsibility for guiding your vehicle through the myriad traffic jams and delays on your way to YOUR OWN personal goal – your pursuit of happiness. Waiting for a government-type to provide both your goals and means is to adopt a new slavery that is attempting to trap every one of us in its web of when and how to live. God forbid.

Do you think the death-panels of socialized medicine are a form of freedom?

The anger that has been rather hidden through the fourth civil war and its consequences since the early 70’s, began to surface for certain during the Obama years. Perhaps a tiny fraction were angry because he was black (by choice, not genetics), but most cared not about his “blackness” but about his “pinkishness.” A virtual communist, Mr. Obama led us away from the true Dream as rapidly as he could, a goal that deserved the anger of those who still choose to be free.

Enter Mr. Trump. Sometimes the best expression of wisdom for a political leader is to recognize where the people are headed and run to get in front of the movement. America was, and is, uneasy. We like to “tolerate” exceptions to Protestant ethics and traditions; we DON’T like to have them forced upon us and, worse, protected by new laws that coerce us to adopt new ways of life. We are angry about having to fight century-old battles again, when there is no possibility of victory – at least, no victory that is good for the country. We are angry about being accused of being born guilty of other people’s sins.

Trump isn’t president because he’s the great leader a majority of Americans admire – far from it, as polls indicate. He is president because he speaks his mind and is not afraid of causing silly offenses. He favors what a majority favor; he points out duplicity that a majority can see; he stands up for what a majority will stand up for. Mrs. Clinton represented things a majority fears in government, and a direction a majority do not want to follow. It’s pretty simple; writing a book was not needed.

There is no “Trumpism.” The existence of the Trump administration does not represent a new political force focused on Trump, himself, nor will his family be slobbered over like Kennedy’s, sufficient to propel relatives or offspring into other offices. But the ideas, beliefs, loves and fears behind him will bring others into office. That’s not “Trumpism,” it’s Americanism.

The Civil Right