In what way does all of the political malice, deceit, and bad policy come to a head?

 I am probably undercounting the ways, but from my personal observations as a rigorous follower of events across the globe, all of these aspect streams point to a future marked by the following trends. If not counteracted, we will likely see:

·a proliferation of various cultures of victimhood;

·demands to restrict freedom of speech and stifle debate using the notion of being offended and triggered;

·the blacklisting/boycotting of opponents for ideological reasons;

·the politicization of the sciences, including such organizations as the WHO and the EPA, the CDC in the United States plus their adjuncts elsewhere in the West;

·An ever-increasing surveillance state coupled with the ease at which people are willing to forgo their individual sovereignty in the name of security and safety;

·repeated demands for activist judges to undermine democratically elected bodies/persons;

·the dangerously short pipeline between media, big tech, and governmental institutions at the expense of local and effective decision-making;

·globalist anti-border policies and the off-shoring of manufacturing initiatives that weaken the nation-states;

·Appeasement of Beijing by moneyed and political interests in the West:

·Contempt for the rule of law and due process of law. Included in this is the differential application of the law based on identity characteristics.

Liberalism v Leftism... A quick reminder.

Liberalism is a political philosophy that emerged during the Age of Reason in 17th-century England. At its core, it is centered on the notion of liberty. The philosophy emphasizes the necessary exchange of ideas, free speech and openness to debate, free markets, private ownership of property, and the rule of law. Liberalism values a political system (republican, parliamentary, or some other facsimile) built on a foundation of scientific rationalism, empiricism, and healthy skepticism. Individual rights sit at the cornerstone of liberalism.

Leftism is a useful group name for the philosophies that emerge from the extremes of progressivism. On an extended level, it is a grouping of thought structures that are motivated by a litany of attacks on empiricism and established norms in favor of an eventual utopia.

In Leftism, there is a need for a nouveau elite who will carry through the necessary collectivist programs of social engineering. Leftists believe that the environment is the critical variable that can be manipulated to establish their specific utopia. The individual, by necessity, will always be secondary to the collective.

Some Parental Advice....Let your kids be their own person.

 There is a strong tendency for parents to want to recreate their children in their own image. It is only natural. After all your kids have your DNA and you provide them with the environment so by extension they should be copies of you.

This of course is pure folly. Life doesn’t work like that. Your kids are your offspring but they are also unique individuals. The blend of nature v nurture doesn’t have to conform to our expectations and that is a good thing. A whole myriad of combinations can arise and your kid is one of them.

Value your children for who they are not for who you want them to be. They will have their own strengths and weaknesses. Some of which you will recognize others you won’t. Beating square pegs into round holes of your own preordained dimension is a losing proposition. Two people will emerge unhappy from such action... you and your child.

I have seen this with my own kids. I am a science person my son isn’t and I am fine with that. He has other passions that he will hopefully make use of to guide him through his life. What I can do though is offer him important advice with the generalized life problems that arise. Problems such as confidence of being, organization of thought, time management and decision making techniques. These have universal application.

Let you kids breathe. Don’t smother them with your expectations. Help them whey need help but avoid go out of the way to cushion every blow that life deals them. Sometimes failure within safe parameters is the best teacher. We learn through experience. Their pathway may not be your preferred direction but it their life not yours..

All of this like most parental challenges is of course easier said than done. We want to use our life experience to give our kids the leg up. Why not? Life is difficult enough.

But stepping back with necessary caution and allowing your loved ones to frame their own life is the best gift that you can give them. Let them know that you are there for support but give them the opportunity to manage their being. Stepping back a few steps ultimately equates to more meaningful  gains elsewhere. We  as parents need to put our ego and notion of our own importance on hold as others need to develop their personal  sense of self and life trajectory.

Latest Update

I am in the finishing stage of completing my book Navigating the Chaos. It is in the terminal editing phase which involves back-and-forth tweaking of the writing. So far all looks well. I will post more updates here as they become available.

Thoughts for the Day 1

It astounds me as to how often the media makes a mistake and then seemingly brushes it off with barely a shrug. Imagine if other professions - medicine, dentistry or engineering - were so error prone on the big items you could likely lose your license to practice. Not so with journalism where after having one story debunked you simply move over to the next.

There is no such thing as the objective media. All that exists are countering narratives with various degrees of truth, hyperbole, falsities and intended omissions.

One does not need brute force to bring about a dictatorship the mere threat of being ostracized from the herd will suffice.

People rarely vote for what is right or wrong. They are mostly guided by personal convenience. It takes a brave person to resist such an urge.

Very few politicians are foolish enough to delve into the specifics of a plan on the campaign trail. This is of course completely intentional. If the plan succeeds then they can take credit for, if it fails then they will say that the plan initiated was not the one that was spoken of earlier. Interventions from other sources necessarily weakened it.

When old religions die it is imperative to invent new ones. 

The most important ingredient in any religion is the establishment of a priesthood that has access to a particular knowledge that cannot be questioned. This is the reason that scientism works so well.

How Democracy dies...

 Signs of the emerging totalitarian state.

1. Fusion of the media and the party elite

2. Takeover of supposedly non-Partisan Institutions

3. De-platforming of alternative views

4. War against critical thought

5. Corruption of the Science

6. Growth of the surveillance state

7. Replacement of the family by the State

8. Narrative set as truth

9. Transformation of the language to suit new goals.

10. Over-zealous use of security as an excuse for state intrusion. Action to avert false flag insurrections.

11. Projection of totalitarian desires onto opponents

12. Deliberate weakening of the education system in the name of nebulous goals of betterment. Ideological manipulation of the curriculum.

13. Emphasis on Equality of Outcome over Opportunity.

14. Disregard for human life.

15. Forced stratification of class

16. Increasing double standards

17. Binary division – With me or against me?

18. Constant culture of pathogenic fear

19. Forced dependence economically on the state

20. Attacks on the independent Judiciary

21. Promotion of cultural apathy.

22. Purging of the military brass.

23. Inverted moralism

24. Interference in the personal banking system.

25. More bread and circuses for the populace.

More reckless spending for votes...this isn't a coincidence

There seems to be no limits that a politician will go to in order to ensure success at the ballot box. Such is the case with Joe Biden’s recent student debt relief proposal. The proposal offers ten thousand dollars (going as high as twenty thousand for some) of debt forgiveness on student loans for individuals who earn less than one hundred and twenty five thousand annually.  

On the surface this seems commendable. A little bit of digging reveals otherwise. For starters it introduces a further 300 billion dollars to the economy when inflation is running upwards of 8%. Moving money into the economy at a time when demand exceeds supply is economically irresponsible. Inflation after all is a tax on everyone’s savings. Essentially the population as a whole will be subsidising the portion that collect. This isn’t right.

Why should the non-college educated be forced to pay for those who make the life decision to follow the college track? What about those who have saved, worked and earned the financial rewards to pay off their college degrees? Why should they be excluded? The inequity here is obvious. One group is deliberately been favoured at the expense of others based on a handout that will add to the federal budget deficit,  negate a whole slew of current anti-inflation methods and further indebt the nation at a time when interest rates are on the rise.

And for what?  This is not a fix as Joe Biden alluded to. Not even close. The US post-secondary education system has been broken for some time. It is far more expensive than comparable systems elsewhere in the developed world. The cost of education for students has been growing at a rate that definitively exceeds wage increases. Subsidies are met with further increases by the college and universities that in real terms render these subsidies moot.A positive feedback loop in driving costs upward with each government spending initiative does not need further stimulation

Of course this would be somewhat reasonable if the quality of education was improving but the evidence in this regard indicates this is not necessarily so. Many students are graduating with degrees that have limited utility in the work world creating. The market is not responding to this supply. What is also true is that a vast amount of the money that finds its way into the Academic institutions goes to strengthening college sports and funding building initiatives on the campus which have questionable pedagogic worthiness (lazy rivers are the big thing now).

So why add fuel to the fire? 

The answer of course is that this has nothing to do with education. Nor is this an attempt at genuine education reform. That would involve the capping of university fees and the decoupling of the universities from the sports industrial complex. Neither will happen and politicians from both parties know this.

Now Congress can block the executive initiative (they ultimately control the purse strings) but in a midterm election year this could place a number of politicians on the hotspot. Student debt holders are vital to Democratic Party success especially in a year where the White House sits far to the south of the favourability line.  Handouts help. Nobody likes having freebies removed. Spend now and push the debt can further down the road. Remember stupid it is the election that matters. The greater problems will be dealt with later if that ever comes around. This is the rationale.

The Mar-a-lago raid

The FBI raid on the Trump resort at Mar-a-lago continues to dominate the news. So many questions remain and  as has been the case for most of the Trump era, it is not clear who can one trust to report the news accurately. Certainly not the Establishment voices.  The Legacy Media  (aided by Google search algorithms) is once again tripping over themselves to spin this as negatively as possible for Trump and while it is likely that he did act in a cavalier fashion it is still far from certain  as to what he did wrong here. The buzzwords are the 'National Archive'. Something that was completely played down when Hillary Clinton's e-mails disappeared into the ether during her controversial Servergate scandal several years ago (the FBI under Comey then declined to investigate further....rather helpful for her) but for some reason it has national security importance in the present. How times have changed? 

Trump has been out of office for a year and a half now but it is at this very moment that the FBI/DOJ have a sense of urgency. Why did it take so long if the documents were so critical? Is National Archive recovering protocol that important that they require this type of high profile intervention? Why was a warrant issued when Trump wasn't even at Mar-a-lago? Could this not all be accomplished by subpoena? How much did the Biden Administration know about this raid beforehand? and why does this all look so convenient?

From the outside it stinks to high heaven. The January 6th investigations are going nowhere, Biden's popularity remains in the doldrums, Trump looks to be the GOP candidate in 2024, the midterms are around the corner and the economy is teetering on a recession. If MAGA candidates do well in November the establishment will take a big hit.

None of this is helped by the fact that public trust in the FBI following the Russian collusion farce is at an all time low. The higher ups in the Federal police have politicized the organization in a way that cuts against any anti-establishment figure - a moniker that fits Trump - and even if they have a point right now why should the populace believe them? The same can be said for the hyper partisan Merrick Garland (the same guy who threatened to go after anti-CRT parents as Domestic terrorists while ignoring Hunter Biden's indiscretions). 

Trump is correct to sue the US Government.  As President he had the power to declassify whatever documents he saw fit. Others have done this before him. The raid looks to be a classic example of state push back on an oppositional candidate. Trump has shown that he is willing to cooperate and yet he is still been dragged through the earth like a common criminal. Now the onus must be on the state to prove their case with a whopping amount of evidence.

If they fail to do so the only gain from this will be the increasing polarization of the country. Media voices cheering on what looks like a 'give me the man I will show you the crime scenario' ought to be ashamed of themselves. 

The Need for Parallel Institutions

 It can be depressing working alone and maintain one’s sanity in a civilization that is in decline. However take solace in that a great deal of people feel the same way as you do. Cultivating friendships, forming groups of like minded individuals, building parallel institutions and widening a platform to share one’s ideas with others is vital.

 Destructive ideologies, dressed in pearls, have a way of expanding rapidly especially if it driven from above by institutions whose leadership has structured itself to deceive, obfuscate and conflate as it sees fit. Its internal workings are opaque to the public and it acts with a transcendence that is confident in its own lack of self reflection. Byzantine networks built on a maze of regulation have conspired to reframe the destiny of the people in many cases without our consent. Where we have agreed it is part of the Faustian bargain of trading comfort for individual agency. No more.

 

One should celebrate our individuality but work within a community. It is the community spirit that invigorates. Give support to groups, speakers, political forums, online and in person, that push back against the insanity we now face.

 

Resist coerced speech, oppose all aspects of the post-Truth culture, rejoice in your defiance and fight both actively and passively the overreach of decadent institutions and structural organizations. Hold them to their standards and work from the inside as well to transform these megaliths. This is how the madness ascended in the first place. Two can play the same game. Sanity can recapture the power structure if it works at it. One needn’t wait for a messiah an aggregated beach landing on many fronts is just as effective. Buttress a fight for the institutions with parallel systems as a safeguard.

 

Challenge these noxious ideologies and force them to trip over their ideals. Ridicule them and make a mockery of their lack of standards and never apologize for your own stance. Push them on the defence and don’t let them use the power of coercion or emotional black mail. Once they start weakening and collapse it will happen quickly. The parallel structures and communities that you have helped built will then augment the vacuum left.

 

Make it a priority that the authoritarian framework dies a necessary death and don’t give in an inch to their appeal to pseudo-intellectualism and politically motivated scientism. Our future can be reset to a brighter outcome if we take the initiative. Now is the time.

 

"The only way you can predict the future is to build it." -Alan Kay

Economic Overload

Economists often muddy the waters and like other social scientists have a tendency to overcomplicate their field with excessive use of terminology and imprecise definitions. For the lay person this can be overwhelming. What follows is a list of realities that will do wonders in removing the veil of confusion and allow you to sail past the various obfuscations.

 Increasing money supply will cause an inflationary spike if it is not met by subsequent supply of goods.

b.      Rent Control leads to housing shortages[1].

c.       Inflation is essentially equivalent to a tax on one’s life savings.

d.      Minimum wage increases are invariably passed on to the consumer which will have negative demand repercussions for non-elastic goods in particular. They can also lead to worker dismissals and a surge in unemployment numbers.

e.       Government payouts incentivize people to not work.

f.       High tax rates are the best driver for the underground economy and don’t necessarily translate into high tax revenues.

g.      Wage increases mean nothing if you ignore the rate of inflation. Only real Wages matter.

h.      Growth rates coming off bottomed out economies will initially be high. However the number is misleading as the base is so low.

i.        There is no such device as a government spending program that will reduce inflation no matter how much we wish to believe that such a program is possible.

j.        Popularly reported unemployment numbers are usually much lower than the real numbers as they often do not include the percentage of the population that has completely dropped out of the work force.

k.      High Inflation is best countered by sharp increases in interest rates but this radical therapy is very rarely carried out as the political consequence of such action are severe in the short run. The end result is that inflation persists for longer than it should.

l.        Governments will never truly control debt so long as the Federal Reserve is free to print money with limited constrains.

m.    Over time the interest on outstanding debt will take up a large proportion of the Federal budget.

n.      There are very few deficit hawks on either side of the political aisle as the inclination for either side to spend is so high. Short term thinking is a trade off of our political system.

o.      The tax code could be very much simplified however there are enough vested interests out there to ensure that it never really is.

p.      Excessive government meddling in the hope of shortening a recession invariably lengthens it.

q.      Student debt forgiveness merely passes on the debt to the entire economy as a whole so that non-students without a choice subsidise the education of others.

r.        Pumping money into an economy that is overregulated will result in stagflation (high inflation and a low growth case).

s.       Economic statistics are out of date as soon as they are published. Using them to plan is a poor substitute for the dynamics of the instant feedback market.

---

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/06/15/comeback-rent-control-just-time-make-housing-shortages-worse/

On the Corporate Media

Distilled to its essence the corporate media’s principal function is to reinforce a narrative. Education is a mere after thought.  Through repetition the media entities inundates the milieu with a message that reinforces a broader consensus that aligns with the vision of its ownership.  The cultivation of an echo chamber is its raison d‘etre and in this regard it is unapologetic

If internationalism,  and by extension interventionism, is the critical focal point then one can be sure that the necessary drums touting such action will be heralded.  Positions to the contrary will be marginalized. Today these same drums reverberate to the tune of policies that seek looser border restrictions, the off shoring of wealth and a Post-Westphalian order that does away with the pesky stumbling block of the nation state. The new citizen must be global and by necessity eschew all nationalism.

A radical transformation of the ethos and value system of the culture sits front and center. It is of prime importance. Media outlets advance the methodology by highlighting identity politics, outrage culture and various hysteria/crises that together take aim at the institutions of the country and its foundational bedrock. Nothing happens without purpose

In doing so it seeks to change the perception of the voting population thereby sweeping clean a pathway for the emerging paradigm. Ideas deemed to be of worth are selected, stressed and reinforced while others are tossed aside or damned. Within time the views of the Übermensch will be parroted by those that are too punch-drunk to think otherwise. The role of the media is to make sure that this happens sooner than later

A double cheer for Free Enterprise

Corporate Capitalism and Free Enterprise systems are not synonymous. The former rejoices in oligarchy. The latter detests it.

What made the US great for much of its history was a belief in its own exceptional destiny, its flexible labour market, high degree of innovation and its emphasis on individual freedom. It is also was motivated by a culture of self-reliance that eschewed the class structure of Europe. The country has a market economy and it is this adherence to free markets that have generated the wealth that underpins the success of the nation. The same is true of Hong Kong and Singapore.

So why do free markets work? Essentially they provide through the price mechanism immediate feedback that allows supply and demand of goods and services to reset in a timely manner to a new equilibrium situation. Excessive regulation, price controls and government interference (well intended or not) needlessly complicate the resetting mechanism resulting in shortages, price hikes and unstable situations.

The market aggregates knowledge in a far better way than any committee of elites or central planning forum could ever hope to do.

This does not mean of course that there isn’t a role for government on the economic front but its main purpose should be to provide a legal framework that will facilitate market economics, ensure competition and sustain a level of spending to adequately protect the most vulnerable in the society by providing necessary services.

The Demise of America

The United States is the most critical nation with respect to the immediate future of Western Civilization as it is the economic, technical and military powerhouse for the Liberal world. As it goes, so goes the civilization, for better but largely for worse. Unfortunately the country is being hollowed out at a breathtaking pace. Giant transnational corporations with little loyalty to the population have moved production facilities offshore. Rampant bureaucratic creep has complicated the market place. Public and private debt has soared and an ideologically dominated education system has seen to a fall in standards. Narcissism dominates over modesty with the country being subsumed by an epidemic of racial and gender politics that have cut across all strata of society. American exceptionality is looked on with disdain by a great deal of the population who see the country’s constitution – the role model for the protection of individual rights as an impediment to an internationalist world order that promises a new heavenly earth. If the US is an exporter of anything now it is that of bad ideas (racial essentialism, white privilege constructs, multiple genders, porous borders) that is clearly eroding family, community and national frameworks of cohesion.

For activists and internationalist elites this is deliberate, a necessary step in the tearing down that precedes the rebuild. However the Europeans have added to the deadly mix  (thart has found its way across the Atlantic) with falling birth rates, demographic transformation and surveillance state pressure. This has placed future generations at the mercy of centralized control that is as faceless as it is unanswerable to the population. Natural rights are being sacrificed to the collective will with freedom taking a back seat to authoritarianism.

Has the Frankfurt School destroyed society?

Not yet but in the absence of a push back it will. It has contributed to a significant decline already.

Cultural Marxism itself has its origins in the Frankfurt School (place of birth Frankfurt, Germany 1929) whose idealism incorporated a synthesis of Freudian, Marxist and Hegelian reasoning. It views history as march to an inevitability that can be directed by the control of institutions to facilitate necessary social change. In this way it deviates from Orthodox Marxism whose focus is largely on the economic.

Key thinkers here include Marcuse, Adorno, Horkheimer, Habermas and Fromm. Social Emancipation and critiques of capitalism dominate the discourse and its impact across Academia (in particular the social sciences and humanities) cannot be understated. From here it has spread influencing both the biological and physical sciences, the professions and education. All of the disciplines (indeed all facets of life) are viewed as a platform that can be used to advance the necessary social change favored by the ideologues.

In the United States and other parts of the Anglosphere , this fusion of cultural Marxism and post-modernism has worked its way from the university into the mainstream. The intent is to bring in trans formative change consistent with a re-calibration will to power and by all accounts it appears to be gaining the upper hand. Push back began during the Trump era but the failure of conservative elements to seize the initiative earlier on means that the necessary resistance is playing catch up. The power dynamic has shifted to favor these authoritarian leftist ideologues and all strata of society will be the worse off for it.

Cultural Marxism envisions a restructure society in a way that opposes the capitalist infrastructure in support of a top down rearrangement that will advance outcomes that are believed to be more equitable. Critical Race Theory, the dichotomy of the oppressed and the oppressor and a general hostility to the Judeo-Christian core of Western Civilization are vital aspects of its praxis. The mode of thinking is a definite outgrowth of a metastasized leftism but unlike the radicalism of the Bolsheviks, and various State socialisms it has settled for a patience that was willing to bide its time with a slower walk through the institutions.

This walk though has picked up having fueled a ride on the globalist bandwagon that has oxygenated its outreach. It has found a necessary ally in post-Modernism deconstructionist thought, which also abhors legacy structures and tradition.

As it stands today I have very little doubt whatsoever that the West is in decline. The institutions are showing all the rot of ideological take over with identity politics dominating over merit based philosophies. The corporate, governmental, academic and educational worlds have all been infected by the mind virus of guilt ridden wokeism with the subsequent fall in standards making its presence felt ubiquitously.

But like all tunnel-visioned marches that eschew self-criticism it will forge a landscape of collateral damage. Truth will be its first victim followed only slightly by its inability to entertain contrarian initiated free speech. In this it echoes a Maoist zeal that will torch history to rewrite a narrative. Nothing is sacred, definitions are fleeting and victimhood serves as a weapon to justify what is needed. At its core it knows no constraints and if not checked will furnish a body count of lost lives and torched careers that for expedience of power will leave the gains of the enlightenment burning in a smoldering heap

What happened to Tsar Alexander I of Russia?

(My answer on Quora)

He died of typhus in December 1825 and since he had no legitimate heirs (his two daughters died in childhood) a succession crisis following his passing. This was complicated by the military supporters of the Decembrist revolt who favored Tsar Alexander’s earlier liberal reforms. The revolt failed and the Tsar was eventually succeeded by his reactionary brother Nicholas I.

It is worth noting that Alexander I ruled between 1801–1825. He was the same Tsar that helped turn Napoleon’s 1812 invasion of Russia into a disaster for the Corsican. Although Alexander introduced reform in the early part of his reign he became increasingly despotic in the latter portion of his life and was dominated by a religious zealotry that was becoming increasingly regressive. Rumors persisted after his death that he was actually alive and was living as a hermit in Siberia. This hasn’t been substantiated.

Why is the UN useless?

 (Asked on Quora). My answer below.

Useless is a bit harsh as it has had some success on the health and political front. The campaign against polio and the military action in Korea (1950–1953) can be viewed in a positive light. The decision to divide what was left of the British Palestinian mandate (Transjordan - later Jordan - had already been cut off) into a Jewish and Arab state was another good move. It was the best of all possible options at the time.

Unfortunately there are more negatives than positives.

United Nation failures though are largely a consequence of several factors

1. The lack of a common vision. Words mean less than action. Enlightenment and Human right ideals are not shared by many of its member states even if they give lip service to it. It would be better if the UN were a league of democracies and had standards for admission
2. The politically expedient use of Veto politics that weaken security council decisions. This was a common feature during the Cold War Era and continues today.
3. Bloc Voting on Key decisions. This pigeon holes necessary debate,
4. The UN has become a platform for local vendettas that detract from the bigger picture eg. look how its anti-Racism conference in Durban was turned into a hate Israel fest.
5. It is overly bureaucratic. Red tape rules. Too many levels of organization that cut against grassroots initiatives. Ownership of deliverables disappear into the aether
6. The United Nations all too often lacks the teeth to enforce its actions on the ground. When pushed by hostile parties it often backs down.
7. Its Programs are often burdened by corruption eg. oil-for-food funds.
8. Many of its Committees have become parodies of themselves eg. Human rights abusing countries sitting on Human Rights Commissions.

Is the Western elite losing the support of the Common People?

 (My answer)

The elites, who traditionally dominate the major parties in most Western nations appear to be losing their grip on the power structure within their respective political domains. What you are seeing now is not necessarily a new phenomenon but an expedite of the ‘disillusionment-with-the-establishment’ process that goes back to WWI.

It makes sense. The elites were chosen to be stewards of the economy and guardians of the nation state. They were elected to protect our rights. Their first priority was supposed to be that of the electorate. In this regard they appear to be failing - economies have been mismanaged, manufacturing sectors gutted, privacy rights infringed, and cultural traditions compromised in the wake of falling education standards, a deleterious lockdown and crumbling institutions. Elite loyalties seem to reside with globalist orthodoxies setting the stage for the emergence of a statist/corporatist bureaucracy that views the unwashed as ‘items’to be managed by the deliberate control of information.

The elites have starved the system of oxygen and may finally be paying the price. Its about time.

List of Observations.

 (Some appeared in an earlier list)

There is no more certain avenue for disappointment than looking to a politician for moral and ethical guidance.

At its core the powers controlling a real world communist nation are the embodiment of the ideal corporate capitalist as there is no more powerful monopoly than the unopposed government.

In any political system it is a virtual certainty that the same types of people will acquire bureaucratic power. The only safeguard that the public has is the foresight of those who anticipated this eventuality, to have put in place, the necessary stop gaps.

To those in power the constitution is at best an inconvenience.

False Messiahs are never in short supply.

Beware of politicians who promise change. What they inevitably fail to mention is that change need not be positive.

The stock market thrives on natural and artificially created uncertainty and is driven by expectations that often detach themselves from reality. It is consequently a poor judge of the overall state of the economy in the short run.

There is nothing more expensive than a government program that promises something for free.

Civilizations prosper when responsibility exceeds entitlement. They atrophy when the balance flips the other way.

You can bury any reasonable conclusion under a statistical mudslide.

The surest sign that a civilization is in decline is the deterioration of the quality of art and the excess in excuses for it offered by the creative class.

The reality is that ignorance is a source of comfort for many.

A great deal of evil can be committed in the name of community safety.

The more you alleviate danger the greater the public propensity to fear the irrational.

Very few people are as great as their resume would have you believe.

Institutional survivability selects for grafters.

Any large organization will eventually collapse under its own weight.

The problem with all ideals is that they are without exception predicated on a misunderstanding of human nature.

There is perhaps nothing as toxic as distorting the gift of science to march head first off a cliff while claiming to advance the greater good.

The world itself is most in need of a serious dose of humility.

Avoid the temptation to marinate in your own propaganda.

Most system critiques far exceed in quality the counter solutions that they propose.

A great deal of government folly is driven by the need to push ahead with absolute certainty into a milieu that is ridiculous at best.

Most problems that exist are a function of an over correction somewhere down the line.

Given enough time and any system will become corrupt

Why do Far Leftist activists all too often have meltdowns when they can't win debates?

 (My answer in Quora)

Far Left ideologies are usually rooted in the anti-Enlightenment Romantic movement that has its origin in the writings of Rousseau. It appeals to emotion and the will of the people and is centered on the ‘ought’ as opposed to the ‘is’.

At its core these ideologies (whether Marxist or neo-Marxist) are utopic and see the ‘other’ as reactionary stumbling blocks in a Manichean world of good versus evil.

A defeat in the context of a rational debate taps into a visceral response. Meltdowns are all too often a consequence.

Do you think Putin's chilling warning to Russian 'traitors' and 'scum' is a sign things aren't going to plan?

(My answer in Quora)

It is certainly something out of the Communist Party playbook .

In 1937 (during the Stalinist Purges) a letter was sent by General George Yakir to the Soviet leadership begging for the safety of his family. Yakir was awaiting execution on trumped up charges.

The letter was published by the Soviet Government in 1961. Four comments were written on it. Look at the similarity of the language to Putin’s recent statements. The dehumanization is obvious.

Stalin: ‘Yakir, trash and traitor.’

Voroshilov: ‘ An exact description’

Molotov: ‘Entire agreement with Stalin.’

Kaganovich: ‘A traitor, a pig.’

Yes. I think it is fair to say that the situation is not going to plan (although it does not mean that the Russians are necessarily losing). The same lines of paranoia that impacted Stalin have come home to roost again. What is even more ominous is that life will look to rapidly deteriorate not just for the Ukrainians but for the Russians as well.

In Putin’s worldview you are either with him or against him. Very little room for a middle ground.

Is the current Liverpool side stronger than the 2019/2020 vintage that won the League?

 As a Liverpool fan I think that it is. Here is my rationale.

In defense Liverpool have replaced the inconsistent Dejan Lovren with Ibrahima Konaté who looks to be a world class defender in the making. There is also dedicated coverage for Andy Robertson in the form of the ever reliable Kostas Tsimikas.

Adam Lallana has left to go to Brighton and in his place the Reds have the brilliant Thiago Alcântara. However the biggest plus has been the way the offense has been greatly strengthened by the acquisition of the exciting duo of Diogo Jota and Luis Diaz. In addition Curtis Jones, Takumi Minamino and Harvey Elliott are better players than they were two years ago.

In what ways do American governmental agencies violate the Constitution?

(My Answer in Quora)

There are a number of ways that they do this. The most obvious one is the mass surveillance program that the NSA has undertaken that has morphed into a violation of individual rights to privacy.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nsa-spying-idUSKBN25T3CK

Another example is the way the FBI (most notably under James Comey) acted to undermine the Trump campaign.

You may have seen him on a prayer candle, but James Comey is no saint

New revelations have made clear the conclusion many of us had already come to: James Comey was a reckless and untrustworthy FBI director.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/08/30/james-comey-fbi-memo-leaks-trump-inspector-general-report-column/2157705001/

Fortunately it backfired.

Trump Is Winning His War on the FBI

Within the Bureau, there’s an asymmetry that even those who seek to play by the rules cannot ignore.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/09/fbi-trump-comey/597523/

Then there was this attack on an innocent civilian (Carter Page). The entire case was built on a stack of lies.

Trump-Russia Steele dossier analyst charged with lying to FBI

Igor Danchenko, who worked on a largely unsubstantiated 2016 dossier on Donald Trump, is arrested.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59168626