Just a thought on dictatorship.

     The bloody dictator of Soviet Russia Joseph Stalin had a right hand man named Lavrentiy Beria who was once quoted as saying "Show me the man and I'll show you his crime."

     Isn't that what we see looking at the Democrat Party leadership today ever since the 2016 election? Since then the M.O. of the entire Dem party leadership has been "Show me the Republican and I'll show you his crime."

     Yes, Soviet Communism or something close, is now the goal of the Democrats. They thought they were going to get their communist dictatorship with Hillary but Trump crashed that party. Now they are digging in for another shot and are pulling out all stops. 

     What the US needs is a long range plan to restore our Constitutional Republic where every individual policy must be clearly based on the principle of individual rights. More thoughts on that soon.

Michael Neibel

A big SORRY to all for not posting in the last 8 months.

August of 2022 is almost over. Aside form the warm weather there were 2 happy events here in Michigan.

 First was the retiring of the jersey of Lou Whitaker, second baseman for the Detroit Tigers 1984 MLB champion team. He and Alan Trammel turned 751 double plays, most in history. This honor was way overdue. I reveled in watching all the fanfare.

Second was the happy (for me) ending of a political dynasty here in Michigan. For the better part of 50 years Sander Levin in the House and Carl Levin in the Senate dominated Michigan politics. Both are retired now (Carl has since passed) but Sander's son Andrew rose to take his dad's seat in the House.

In my view, both brothers were what Ayn Rand called in her essay* "The left, Old and New" members of the old left which she referred to as having some respect for individual rights and freedoms. But as the Democrat Party was eventually taken over by the new socialist left, the pair joined the movement. This I believe is what Andy Levin experienced in school.

Every time there was a shooting Andy Levin called for more restrictions on all gun owners who didn't do it. Instead of looking for a reason why some men choose to kill others (I suggest progressive education) he blamed the availability of guns and tried to place more restrictions on all gun owners.

He was advocating the illegal and immoral principle of preventive law. I'm not talking here about preventive crime where police are notified of a impending crime and move to prevent it, an idea which our Constitution supports. 

Preventive law is based on the principle of the presumption of guilt, the exact opposite of the Constitution's presumption of innocence principle. Preventive law says you are presumed to be guilty of a future crime and must prove your future innocence today by obeying a forced rule of behavior today. 

So, if you don't obey this rule of behavior your crime, instead of being a rights violation will be that of a rule breaker. That's how free nations devolve into dictatorships. The crime of rights violator is replaced by rule breaker. Once a society accepts this reversal, it is done for. That is why I'm glad Andy Levin lost in the primary. There's hope.

I have no idea whether his ouster,  Haley Stevens, will be any better but I'll see..

*The above essay can be found in Rand's book collection of essays titled "Return of the Primitive" which is still in print.

There's no doubt now. The government needs to be removed from the economy.

 Today every thing is regulated by government and everything is collapsing. Do you see a connection there? I sure do. Everything the government controls is a disaster. 

Look at the pandemic. It's not doctors, nurses or other medical scientists who are deciding how to heal us but governors, mayors and other politicians. Government controls health care. Why are we doing this?

 Look at transportation. Hundreds of cargo ships waiting offshore to get unloaded but can't because there are not enough workers to unload them or truckers to deliver them to our stores.. Government controls transportation of everything. Why are we allowing this?

 Look at education. Kids are being taught to hate this country and even their parents. They are taught America is evil incarnate and needs to be replaced with some form of collectivism-- communism, socialism, fascism or some combination of these. Why? As one historian--whose name escapes me now-- once pointed out that the goal of the collectivists has always been to create new generations of young adults who will not be eager to fight/die defending a nation they know nothing good about. Government controls education. Why do we tolerate this?

Look at the economy. Inflation is destroying the dollar's purchasing power. The dollar has lost most of its store of value since being divorced from gold and silver backing. This has resulted in the prices of everything rising faster than wages. Government controls the economy.

I could go on but we all need to realize that government's role should only be that of an observer in the market place, that is, to have a presence so it may be summoned should some citizen's rights be violated or threatened.

We now need to start looking for candidates who will vow to start dismantling the regulatory state and vote them into office. In my view the most urgent regulator to privatize is the Dept of Education.

We almost had such a society in our beginning years but for slavery and women's suffrage. Those mistakes have been corrected. It's now time to correct the enormous errors of the government regulated  economy. 

Michael Neibel

New post on capitalism

 Here is a link to a good post on the importance of reversing our current slide to tyranny. This is from the website of Capitalism Magazine.com, a website I highly recommend. 

The ultimate goal of course is to bring about Laissez-faire capitalism i.e. a society not regulated by government but rather by the marketplace in which millions of individual choices determine almost everything economic. 

The government's only role is to protect individual rights by having a presence so it may be summoned if someone's rights are being violated.

Michael Neibel

The new world order is here.

 I'm sure all my readers can clearly see that the Democrat Party leadership has been taken over in its entirety by globalists seeking a one world dictatorship with them and international allies like the UN, the World Economic Forum, the World Health Organization et al in charge.

They even have a motto they are openly pushing: "You will own nothing, and you will be happy." Please consider the real meaning of those words. They very accurately describe the attitude of a rancher toward his herd of cattle, or a shepherd toward his flock of sheep.

That is exactly how they see you and me. They are saying in essence "We (Globalists) will feed and look after you and tend to your physical needs." But the happiness they provide will not be your real happiness but rather their idea of what should be your happiness.

In fact, it won't even be happiness. It will be a forced contentment. Animals including pets can feel a perceptual joy at seeing their master or shepherd nearby, or at feeding time. But in my view, it is a perceptual joy, not the kind of conceptual happiness we humans experience when we accomplish the goals we want to achieve. There will be no achievement of your goals but rather theirs.

In short, you will be expected to give up your happiness for a forced contentment which you are expected to enjoy. Not only is this an assault on the concept of happiness but on life itself. Since to live your life you need to acquire those things that sustain your life and you need the right to possess those things. That is what the concept of property rights means. 

If you don't own the things that sustain your life then you must be renting them. From Whom? The real owners of everything, the globalist elite. That's their goal. 

The only antidote to this is the concept of individual rights and for us to start electing candidates who will promise to start tearing down the regulatory state by privatizing some and completely shutting down others. Government has gotten way too big. By refocusing our government on the protection of individual rights we can regain our right to our life, our liberty and our pursuit of our happiness.

Michael Neibel

Victims of Whitmer?

 Some people in Michigan are fighting back. There is now a blog titled Victims of Whitmer.com where Michiganders can write in telling their story of how they and/or their families were hurt by the Governor's lock downs. I'll be complaining about my grand kids being denied in person school. Perhaps other states may follow if they haven't already done so.

Defund the Police?

 The Antifa and BLM rioters have been calling for de-funding the police across the nation with a lot of support from the Democrat Party and the mainstream media (MSM). But what would that mean? To find out we have to take a more fundamental look at the concept of 'police.'

In my view, the American policeman is an enforcer and what he enforces is the laws of the U.S. Constitution as determined by the judicial branch. All those laws are supposed to  be based on our founding principle of inalienable individual right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

But how many police men and women will continue to work for less or no money? My guess is next to none. So if there is no one protecting our rights, then in fact, we will not have any such rights. How can we have a right to anything, like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,  if it isn't going to be enforced? We can't and won't.

But there will be order of some kind. There has to be in any human group activity. As soon as these Democrat governors and mayors discover that their anti-violence social workers cannot persuade thugs not to bash in their skulls with a tire iron, they will see a need for brute force enforcers.

Here we need to make a critical distinction in the kind of force used. The American policeman was supposed to be charged with the retaliatory use of force only and to be used on behalf of victims against their aggressors. 

But the new enforcers will have the power to use initiatory force--the starting of the use of force--to exact obedience to the governors' and mayors' notions of governance. Those notions will not include your right to life or anything else. Our Constitution will have been nullified when its enforcers were laid off (de-funded).

What will that future look like? I can only surmise it will be some version of the New World Order as determined by the United Nations and other globalists seeking a one world dictatorship. The Democrat Party is dying to make it happen. They see themselves as major commanders of that dictatorship. 

You see, the United States has the most powerful military on the planet. And the most productive/wealthiest economy. It is not unreasonable to conclude that many of today's Democrats lust for control of this future dictatorship.

History shows us that the bloodiest dictatorships of the last century, to retain power, had to reduce their  populations to a manageable number.  It's been estimated Soviet Russia starved and executed up to 20/30 million of its own citizens. Mao's Red China estimated to have starved up to 60 million of theirs.

If you think today's Democrat Party is not capable of this kid of behavior, well, look at the nonchalant, devil-may-care attitude of Democrat governors and mayors towards the wanton destruction of the lives and livelihoods and futures of their own citizens at the hands of terrorist groups like Antifa and BLM etc.

A global New World Order is the ultimate goal. But for now the goal of the America haters is to nullify the Constitution. Getting rid of its enforcers is the chosen method for now. We can't let that happen.

What powers are behind the shutdowns?

Some thoughts I had a few weeks ago. Still relevant.

As far as I can see this virus seems to be more contagious than others but also seemingly less deadly. I don't believe the death numbers projected by the government in past months.. The government on 04/09 reduced their death projections significantly with the possibility of further reductions to come. It is known in the testing industry there are often things called false positives.   But even if it was as deadly as the seasonal flu, why close the economy?

I think that what we are seeing with this shutdown of our economy is a trial run by the political powers that be who are following the orders of the philosophical powers that be.

These philosophical powers are the university professors in the social sciences. They are the army of foot soldiers marching to the strategy of political Progressivism.

The generals are the professors following the philosophic strategy of postmodernism. For more on this I recommend this essay Postmodernism by Stephen Hicks.

 These generals of philosophy are taking notes. They want to see how many Americans are willing to surrender their rights, freedoms and cash for a little safety. They're learning.

Progressives also want to see who and how many are resisting this policy of partial house arrest. They're also learning who they can rely on to be their enforcers when next the Democrats regain all three branches of government and declare martial law to save us from climate change.

They have to like certain governors and mayors who have reflexively threatened to prosecute doctors and other medical professionals for not 'following orders.'

* Here is link Mr Hicks essay on Postmodernism.

Euthanasia of the elderly not a new idea.

  [Some people may have wondered where did some of our governors and mayors get the notion that the elderly are disposable in a pandemic so we can expose them to things like viruses? That kind of thinking isn't new. This post from my blog of May 2008 originally included a post on our military erecting a golf course in Iraq which is irrelevant to this post below. I did some editing for clarity.]

Disgusting

The May 5th 2008 Detroit News has two stories that are disgusting in their premises and implications. The first is what I call introduction to euthanasia and is titled "Medical disaster plan touts whom to let die" by AP writer Lindsey Tanner. It says in part:

" CHICAGO -- Doctors know some patients needing lifesaving care won't get it in a flu pandemic or other disaster. The gut-wrenching dilemma will be deciding who to let die."

   "Now, an influential group of physicians has drafted a grimly specific list of recommendations for which patients wouldn't be treated. They include the very elderly, seriously hurt trauma victims, severely burned patients and those with severe dementia. (....) The proposed guidelines are designed to be a blueprint for hospitals "so that everybody will be thinking in the same way" when pandemic flu or another widespread health care disaster hits, said Dr. Asha Devereaux. She is a critical care specialist in San Diego and lead writer of the task force report. The idea is to try to make sure that scarce resources -- including ventilators, medicine and doctors and nurses -- are used in a uniform, objective way, task force members said."

This isn't some right or left wing wacko group. It's your friendly altruistic (Sacrificing life to death) government.

   "The suggested list was compiled by a task force whose members come from prestigious universities, medical groups, the military and government agencies. They include the Department of Homeland Security, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services."

So who gets to die?

     "To prepare, hospitals should designate a triage team with the task of deciding who will and who won't get lifesaving care, the task force wrote. Those out of luck are the people at high risk of death and a slim chance of long-term survival. But the recommendations get much more specific, and include:

    • People older than 85.

    • Those with severe trauma, which could include critical car crash injuries and shootings.

    • Severely burned patients older than 60.

    • Those with severe mental impairment, which may include advanced Alzheimer's disease.

    • Those with a severe chronic disease, such as advanced heart failure, lung disease or poorly controlled diabetes. "

Please understand that this policy reverses the usual hospital practice that those most critically injured be attended before those who are not. If you have one leg in the grave and the other on a banana peel, well, to hell with you. But if you're healthier than that, you get care.

Look at those guidelines closer. Everyone over the age of 85 is doomed. What are their chances of "long-term survival"?

"Those with severe trauma.." That would include most people in a widespread disaster wouldn't it? Since when does being over 60 disqualify burn patients from care? Since when did human life become worthless after 60 or 85 or any age?

If the mentally impaired are among the victims, well, they are out of luck too along with those with "poorly managed diabetes"!!!

"Those with severe chronic disease..." Evidently, only those with a good chance of survival will get care. Man! have you ever heard of a more anti-life, anti-human proposal before? Adolph Hitler would love such a policy. Oh wait! He had one didn't he? Did you ever see that video of German newborn infants moving down a conveyor belt and being thrown alive onto a huge pile of writhing and dying babies if there was the slightest physical defect?

Remember, it's not the doctors and nurses who are deciding to do this. They are just "scarce resources" like "ventilators" and "medicine" who will be following orders. And how degrading is it to regard doctors and nurses who spent years learning medicine to be regarded as "scarce resources" like "ventilators and medicine?"

 If you're wondering why would anyone want such a policy? Power. The lust for control over others. There is no mistake about it. The desire by some to regulate the health care of others is the desire to control all of it including the end points, birth and death.

This proposal is essential altruism, human sacrifice. Its only antidote is a life-respecting, man-respecting moral code, rational egoism. In a laissez-faire capitalist society there would be no Homeland Security, or dept. of Human Resources, and the CDC, if it existed, would be entirely private and probably making a ton of money testing for the medical industry.

 But are any of these regulators actually ok with the idea of deciding who gets to live or die? It's hard to say. More likely they just think that making such decisions is doing their altruistic sacrificial duty and that is what is wrong with altruism.

There are other things wrong with that news story as well. One of them is the notion of who to let  die. It is not a matter of letting people die. It is just a fact of reality that some people will die simply because the doctors can't get to them in time. To frame it as a matter of 'letting' or 'allowing'  is suggesting a controller deciding who lives or dies.

A second is "so that everybody will be thinking in the same way." Does this mean no independent thinking by doctors will be allowed?

[This above post was written 12 yrs ago. Government euthanasia of the elderly and weak is not a new idea. To prevent more of this government imposed death control we need to begin a campaign to get government out of health care completely and let the doctors and other medical professionals make those decisions.]

Regulatory failure.

Today my Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer announced steady as she goes with her economic and political shutdown. Although she hopes for an end soon, she said we have to rely on the scientific facts. Well, I say no. We should be relying on the Constitution and its founding principle of inalienable individual rights. The economy should have been left running while people were encouraged to self protect.

The alleged reason for the shutdown was to prevent the hospitals from being overwhelmed. But our hospitals have been overwhelmed before from things like tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, etc. and they simply did their best. Yes some people died unable to be attended to as happens in all such overloads.

These can be managed better if the health care industry were privatized. A private market in medicine means hospitals, clinics even doctors offices would have their own stockpiles. I can see a chain of private warehouses stockpiling vast amounts of test kits, ventilators and other PPEs and rotating them as needed.

But our health care industry is heavily regulated by government. Did you know that the Center for Disease Control wrote regulations forbidding private companies from making test kits without getting permission from the CDC?

 There were hundreds of testing labs and diagnostic clinics across the country asking for permission to make testing kits. The CDC said no. It required them to use the CDCs own kits. In another massive failure of government, those kits were flawed. They didn't work. So people died as a result.

I don't know if President Trump was aware of this or even knew that the National Strategic Supply had been depleted fighting the swine flu during the Obama administration and never fully restocked. If he did he should have been outraged at the gross incompetence of the regulators.

In my view he should have issued an executive order temporarily suspending the permission granting powers of the CDC and the FDA (with a view toward making them permanent) and then unleashed all those private labs to go full blast creating test kits. We would have been drowning in them in a week or two.

Then we could have had a massive testing campaign (like South Korea did) to see who tested positive and quarantined them while letting the negatives go about their lives but still practicing protective measures. Alas, that did not happen here.

Next post on why the economy should have stayed running.

The Government Control Virus

In my last post I mentioned our government's reaction to the COVID-19 disease is a perversion of the natural roll of government which in normal times is to protect the individual rights of its citizens. But I also know that in times of emergencies government may be justified in using extreme measures to protect citizens from natural threats like telling people to evacuate homes during fires, floods etc and quarantining people during epidemics.

 I will say that during an epidemic government does not abandon it's rights protecting duty. In fact, every thing it does should should be done within the framework of how best do we exercise our rights while protecting the rights of everyone else. In this regard I highly recommend her essays "The Nature of Government" and "Man's rights" in Ayn Rand's book "Capitalism:the Unknown Ideal." In fact I recommend the entire book. 

In the former essay Rand writes: 

"A government is an institution that holds the exclusive power to enforce certain rules of social conduct in a given geographical area." (italics hers pg378)

And:

 "If men are to live together in a peaceful, productive, rational society and deal with one another to mutual benefit, they must accept the basic social principle without which no moral of civilized society is possible: the principle of individual rights." (pg379)

She goes on to show the difference between initiatory force and retaliatory force and points out that government must never be allowed to use initiatory force by saying:

 "If physical force is to be barred from social relationships, men need an institution charged with the task of protecting their rights under an objective code of rules.

This is the proper task of government--its basic task, its only moral justification and the reason why men do need a government. 

A government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of physical force under objective control--i.e., under objectively defined laws." (all italics hers.)

So, what happens when the government decides to adopt the initiatory use of force against citizens who have committed no crime, who have not started the use of force against anyone? Well, the answer is: a free market that is no longer free but is controlled by a gang of regulatory agencies.

Our founders envisioned a nation of rights protecting laws that protected citizens' rights with retaliatory force. But over time our government has persuaded us that it needs to protect us with government regulations over the entire marketplace.

Thus government has secured control over roads, bridges and all transportation, over education of our children's minds, over healthcare, over the economy over everything. Very few people have noticed that government has usurped to itself the initiatory use of force.

For now it exercises more control over some parts of the economy and less over others. But that will only get worse. When government takes control of anything it is almost impossible to get it back into the control of the marketplace.

So how does this relate to the COVID-19 pandemic and the failure of our caring, loving, concerned government to be prepared for this disaster? It relates in the sense that while there is plenty of blame to go around--China, Wuhan, CDC, FDA, Obama's not restocking our supply of PPEs which he used on the Swine flu, the Democrat Party's lust to impeach Trump while ignoring the virus, I'm afraid that much of it is on us, the American Citizen. More on that in my next post.

The virus is bugging Michigan.

Like the rest of the nation, my state of Michigan is under siege from the covid-19 virus and a loving, caring, but strict paternalistic government. Thankfully Governor Whitmer hasn't instituted martial law yet.

 I thank her for that. But she hasn't taken it off the table either. So she is practicing the standard authoritarian policy of  "Have gun, will nudge." As of midnight Monday all non essential stores are to be closed. All social gatherings forbidden etc. etc. I know she means well but here are some of my thoughts I wish the governor would consider

 #1. is the fact that this virus transmits itself though the air. Airborne viruses are almost impossible to contain. The earth is a windy place.  Even if small droplets can hover for about 6 feet,  a gentle breeze can move them farther. Air conditioning and furnaces can move air around in buildings.

#2. A proper response to an epidemic is to quarantine the sick, that is, those known to be infected or exposed to the virus. But the healthy should not be quarantined. That is counter productive. Their healthy immune systems need to be out there killing the virus or slowing its spread.

In this regard, South Korea is doing the right thing. It's not shutting down its economy, but rather is unleashing its private markets in medicine and diagnostics. These in turn are mass producing things like masks, ventilators, test kits and whatever is needed.

Here in the US there were testing labs and diagnostic centers asking the CDC for permission to develop them. The CDC response? No. In fact, some of these labs were told  to go get permission from the FDA first then come for permission from the CDC. Such permissions usually take 6 to 8 weeks. Meanwhile, people die. This is insane. Congress or the President needs to remove the permission granting powers from these two agencies. To his credit President Trump recently fast-tracked the permission granting powers of the CDC.

The American economy is the most productive economy in the world. It needs to be free to do what it does best; massively produce goods--like test kits and ventilators and other PPEs (personal protective equipment)--and services like delivery of these things. 

A network of private labs would be working to develop vaccines. Just think of how it would be if all these private labs were free to jump in back in January.

In my view, we citizens have for way too long been turning over to government all the things we value. My generation, my father's generation, his father's generation and who knows how far back, have over time given to government all the values we hold dear and which a free market would be providing such as:

Our roads and bridges over to government infrastructure, our children's minds to public education, our health care to public health care, our insurance to Romney Care or Obama Care or what ever is coming next. We have to stop it. 

Yes I'm afraid we have brought much of this on ourselves. We need to take back these things from the government and return them to the free market where it will provide for our needs and wants in abundance.

Dismantling the regulatory state, which happens to be the deep state, is in all of our interests. I think the Center for Disease Control should be completely privatized. It would make a fortune testing for private enterprise. The FDA should be completely shut down. It has been deemed the Federal Death administration. It's ridiculous waiting times for bringing new drugs to market has resulted in countless numbers of unnecessary deaths.

In the meantime I can only hope Governor Whitmer  sticks to her three week deadline and even rescinds it sooner. It just isn't needed.

About gun control

Since the Las Vegas shooting the Democrat Party, media and academia have been barn-storming for more government restrictions on guns. Yet we already have laws against fully automatic rifles, against killing other humans and the hotel I'm told, was a gun free zone. None of these laws prevented the shooter from murdering 59 people.

Criminals by definition don't obey laws. The notion expressed by Senator Charles Schumer and the power lusting Democrats that more laws will magically result in criminals obeying them which will then make us safer is beyond the pall of sloppy thinking or any other seemingly innocent rush to judgement. There is nothing innocent about it.

The leftists (progressives) that now dominate the Democrat Party care only about power, the power of force over the masses. You can't reason with them. If you try to talk to them in terms of principles like for example you point out that the method of killing-guns-is not the problem but rather the act of killing is the crime, you may as well talk to a wall. They are not open to reason.

A truck was used in Paris to kill 85 people. Should we call for a ban on "assault trucks"? The notion that a weapon can have a designation of 'assault' is to impart free will to inanimate matter, it is to believe  that guns run around jumping into the hands of people compelling them to pull the trigger. To designate assault as the only purpose is to deny its ability to be used in self defense, a major but required evasion for progressives.

But, you might ask, Democrats don't really believe that do they? Yes they do. Democrats have a long history defending robbers, murderers, rapists, (Hillary defended successfully the raper of a 12 year old girl) various psychopaths and other maniacs claiming "It's not your fault. Society made you this way."

And so it is with Mr Paddock. The availability of guns made him do it. He is only partially responsible I presume, for not understanding the evil intent of the guns. You see, he is the victim of an irrational society flooding him with these evil guns. But I say to put any blame on the guns at all is to remove some blame from the shooter and there is nothing morally good about that though it is standard MO for progressives.

Many Democrats are claiming that guns are out of control. But the question to be asked is "Whose control?" Every gun owner I know is in control of his guns. Mr Paddock was in control of his guns. They weren't out of control. Obviously the only control acceptable to Democrats is governmental control and that--a disarmed citizenry, is the real goal of the Democrats.

The claim that Democrats are only concerned about public safety is a real stretch. All statistics show that where guns are plentiful, murders by guns are way down and where guns are heavily restricted murder rates skyrocket. Yet you can't even communicate these facts to them. Whatever their motives, a concern for public safety is not one of them.

More articles on gun control can be found here.

They only care about maintaining control

      The tooth and nail tenacity with which the Democrat, Republican and media establishments are resisting President Donald Trump's attempts to drain these swamps reminds me of a commercial I saw a few years ago on local TV. It showed an elderly gentleman standing in an auto repair shop in front of a larger man in mechanic's coveralls. The elderly man looks at the camera and proudly announces: "I always take my car to Joe's. He's fixed my transmission 26 times."

     I think we can all agree that TV commercials are prone to wild exaggerations and this is certainly one of the wilder ones.

     I now ask you to imagine with me that this commercial was not an exaggeration after all, but rather true: this gentleman-we'll call him Phil-actually did take his car to Joe's to have his transmission fixed 26 times. Fact.

     Now, given this fact, would you say that Phil's highest goal was to get his car fixed right? Or that his highest goal was to keep Joe in charge of fixing his car? It's rather obvious that after 26 times, Phil's main goal is to keep Joe in charge of fixing his car, and that the goal of getting it fixed right is further down on his priority list, and probably not even on it. I'm sure we can all be telling ourselves yes, that makes sense but I for one would never be guilty of that. Right?

     Well, I'm here to say wrong. We are guilty of it. All of us.

     First, year after year we see our roads and bridges crumbling. Pot holes that require more money to patch this year than two years ago. Endless lines of orange barrels turning our roads into obstacle courses. Yet our political and intellectual leaders in academia and the media keep advising us of the practicality of  putting our transportation needs in the hands of Joe's public transportation.

     Second, not year after year but decade after decade we see our kids coming out of school, especially in the inner cities, unable to read, can't write coherently about what they read, can't give change for a dollar without a calculator and can't get into college without taking two, three or more remedial classes.

     Even outside of the big cities, many graduates cannot think in principles. They can't identify the premise on which a particular idea is based. Our primary and secondary schools are failures. Yet our professional leaders insist it is practical and moral to continue placing our children's minds under the auspices of Joe's public education.

     Third, now we are told that it is practical and moral to put our lives and that of our loved ones under the control of Joe's public health care. In fact we are constantly told to let the government provide almost everything our lives require. So the question is, why are we allowing ourselves to be put into these boxes? Why can't we start thinking outside the box of Joe's government control?

     This is my main point. It is we who have to teach ourselves how to think outside the box of Joe's government control. It is you and I that have to research things like private roads in America, toll roads in America and how else can they be funded. We must look at private for profit and non-profit educational systems, private health care and so on. How can we identify a candidate's ability to think outside the box if we don't know what that looks like ourselves? Happily, some of this research has already been done.

     For example:

     There are lots of private roads in America and they are maintained nicely. We need to study these and call for the government to begin a process of auctioning off some of its roads.*

     The same with education. The public school problems have been around for a long time. A March 25 2002 Detroit News article headline reads "Voters to politicians: improve the schools"

Another Detroit News article on Dec 11th 2003 headline "District parents: Dump new math"

A Detroit Free Press article of Oct 16th 2004 says "Detroit students fall farther behind state." Those articles are 13 to 15 yrs old. So what have the media been saying recently?

     A Mar 17 2016 Detroit News article by Ingrid Jacques headlined "Mich. residents believe public schools failing." She cites a poll showing "...less than 30% of residents believe Michigan's school-age children get or have access to, the best education possible."**

     Another editorial this time in the Detroit Free Press by staff writer Nancy Kaffer is titled "To fix Michigan schools, we must fund them."***  It's an endless plea for more money which has never helped in the past. So we see nothing has changed in at least 15 years.

     The same with health care. First Lady Hillary Clinton tried to get Hillary Care passed during President  Bill's first term. It didn't fly then but with constant pressure from academia and the media to put our health in the hands of Joe's government, they tried again with President Obama and succeeded, for now anyway.

     So it is up to us to make it happen, to educate ourselves and seek out candidates of like mind. The politicians aren't going to do it themselves. They are the Joes who are determined to stay in power and maintain control over us. Do you really think our present Senators and Congressmen are going to start thinking outside the box of government control anytime soon? They have spent their entire careers creating these boxes and nudging us into them. It's time we climbed out.

     I would like at this point, to indicate what I think are two first steps to climbing out of these boxes: shutting down Joe's federal Dept of Education and electing freedom candidates to local school boards.

     The Dept of  Education doesn't teach a single thing to a single student. Instead it controls the purse strings of indoctrination. It actually threatens our kids by declaring for example that the states had better teach subject X or it will have to withhold federal dollars. It is child abuse.

     By turning education over to the states it will begin the process of decentralization which should continue within the states down to the local level where it belongs. The states will do things differently from each other. Best practices will tend have best results and those results will be out there for all to see, debate and copy.

     In closing I want to emphasize this point: when Joe controls education he will be sure to teach all his students the value of....Joe, that Joe cares about them and that Joe's control--and Joe's money--will be the solution to all of their future problems. Sadly, there have been several generations of American adults who have gone through Progressive Education and have been thusly indoctrinated. That's why it's absolutely critical that if we want to get education fixed right, we must first break the stranglehold that Joe has on the minds of our young, and do it soon. We need to stop being Phils and make sure our kids don't become new Phils.




   *http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimpowell/2012/07/29/no-president-obama-it-was-private-business-that-made-our-

**http://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/columnists/ingrid-jacques/2016/03/16/michigan-public-schools-fail/

***http://www.freep.com/story/opinion/columnists/nancy-kaffer/2016/12/29/school-reform-michigan-funding/9570479

The same ole New Year on the Left

It's New Years day and the leftist Detroit Free Press is at it again. The Freep's chief political cartoonist Mike Thompson presents his Auld Lang Syne year in review with a collection of past cartoons. One of them shows a family of four in a sedan with dad driving, mom next to him and what seems to be a daughter and son in the back seat and a small dog sticking his head out the window all of whom are smiling except the dog. This I presume is supposed to represent the traditional American family.

But in front of that car we see eight adults and two children standing in line just below a sign saying "Flint Bottled Water Distribution" with an arrow pointing the way. None of these people are smiling. In the upper right hand corner are the words written in cursive: "There's no way like the American way."

These two images together are conveying the notion that the American way is to go from having Happiness-the smiling faces, and having independence-driving the family car, to unhappiness-no smiling faces-and dependence, standing in line for emergency charity. So the American way is to go from happiness to unhappiness.

There is a lot of truth to this cartoon though I don't think its the truth Mr Thompson wants his readers to glean. The truth is that the traditional American family existed in an era of more political freedom, that is to say less government control and more self reliance.

But since the sixties that 'American way' has been reversed. Today we are constantly advised by the chattering class that it is wise, nay even morally ideal, to place all our economic needs--not just political ones--in the hands of government controllers. And I say it is the government control of the water supply that is responsible for the disaster in Flint.

On that note I just want to point to all that clean water being trucked into Flint. Why is it clean? Because it is produced by big, huge, giant corporations in business to make profits. They have the economies of scale that allow them to bring massive amounts of water, that small mom and pop businesses could not match, to those who need it.  They can't afford to poison their customers even accidentally. They would lose too much money. Government doesn't face that prospect.

So, the lesson to be drawn from Mr Thompson's cartoon is that the modern American way of trusting government to provide for our economic needs is unwise, nay even morally wrong. Thus the resolution we should all make for 2017 is to work hard to remove government from our economic needs and urge Mike Thompson and the Detroit Free Press to join us in that endeavor.

Gun control self defense pt 3

In my last post 'Gun control self defense pt 2' I explained how today's intellectuals use anti-concepts to deceive the public. Talking about the concept 'gun violence' I pointed out that:

"The method used to pull this off is as follows: the word 'violence' in 'gun violence' is not aimed at the listener's reasoning mind. It is aimed at his feelings. It is designed to evoke an emotional response on the order of "ewe" or "ugh" or "no" or "no I don't want violence in my life."

The hope is that these emotional responses will translate into an action favorable to the gun grabbers such as support for gun control laws and candidates. The tactic is to package a noun with a potentially evil or dangerous attribute of the noun while ignoring any life preserving attribute. With the designation of violence as a negative, unwanted attribute of guns, the positive attribute of guns--self defense--is removed from public discussion. Another concept that serves the same purpose is 'assault weapon' (next post)."

And so 'assault weapon' is another package deal designed to deceive. Like 'gun violence' it packages a noun 'gun' with an undesirable attribute 'assault', condemns both as evil under the newly packaged 'assault weapon.' With the designation of assault as a negative, unwanted attribute of guns, the positive, life preserving attribute of self defense by retaliation is removed from public discussion.

So 'assault', like 'violence' is aimed at the listener's feelings in hopes of triggering an emotion like "no" or "no I don't want to be assaulted so I should support more gun control."

We have to be on the lookout for package deals that combine nouns with certain attributes which are then condemned as evil. We have to ask the question are there any positive attributes being ignored here? If certain human activities can be a danger to human life, does that activity have any human benefits that are being evaded? These questions are not being asked in our media today.

The push for gun control depends on the public being unaware of the nature of principles and how they grow. For example, if the public can be convinced that some government gun control can make them safe, then logically, a little more control will make them safer and still further, complete government control (confiscation) will make them safest.

So if safer and safest are ideals to be achieved, then gun confiscation will be the ideal method of achievement given the original premise. But is the original premise right? Does government gun control make us safe?

I have a drivers license and had to take a written test to get it. Does that license make me a safe driver? No. Just about everyone in an accident has one. I also have a weapon in my house and took a class in safety. Does that mean I'm a safe gun owner?Of course not. What makes my gun ownership and driving safe are the decisions and attention to both I give them.

Gun control is a euphemism for people control. I will close repeating the fact that if you don't have a right to defend your life, then you don't have right to life and that is the  gun grabber's ultimate goal, your right to life in their hands not yours.

This concludes the thread on gun control self defense. I will of course continue to post on gun control in other contexts if the need arises.




 

Government control, the uber value, Pt 4

In most of human history man has been ruled by kings, emperors and assorted thugs and rulers. Most of these had witch doctors at their side. The task of the witch doctors was to justify the antics of the ruler to the masses. Basically, the witch doctors' main role was to champion the ruler's rule as being in the serfs' interest. Nothing has changed in many millenia.

 The 6/12/16 Detroit Free Press's witch doctors (editorial page) are still trying to convince the emperors in charge (government) to annex (loot) the suburbs in order to make Detroit prosperous again. This time it is staff writer John Gallagher's editorial "Detroit is smaller than El Paso. Wait, What?"

Mr Gallagher correctly points out that metropolitan Detroit's population in 1950 stood at 3 million while today it is at just over 4 million. "All of that growth occurred in the suburbs, while Detroit bled itself to feed the sprawl" he said.

Now what does he mean by 'bled itself'? Did Detroit build the suburban roads, bridges, hospitals, schools? No it didn't. So he must mean that Detroit bled itself of people. But how did that happen? Aside from the 1967 riots, the urban renewal fiasco (dubbed urban removal), the insane war on drugs, a hostile attitude towards business as such, several decades of neglect by police and fire caused by corrupt city governments, it's really not surprising growth preferred the suburbs. In a rights respecting nation though, people are free to move into or out of cities. So how did western cities not bleed themselves of people?

"Using annexation, Sun Belt cities captured most of their post-war growth. Cities like Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, and yes El Paso, gobbled up their expanding suburban regions and made them part of their city proper, capturing the growing population and tax base."

It may be true that western cities were able to annex suburban land and Detroit could not. But in my view, so what? If a city can no longer afford to provide services whether directly or by annexation, then the morally proper thing to do is to stop offering them. Why force the population to put up with substandard services? When a school loses enough students it is closed down. When a business no longer has a product or service the public wants, it goes out of business.

You can't force nonexistent students into schools. A business cannot force customers into its doors. Only government with its legal monopoly on force can foist a failing infrastructure on citizens and force those citizens to pay for it. And only such a government can legally limit competition.

There is no reason cities like Detroit can't do what families and corporations do when facts call for it, downsize. Detroit should actually get smaller. Sell off outer parts of the City to surrounding suburbs. Sell or auction off city services to private or nonprofit entities.

But nowhere in Mr Gallagher's oped is there a call for privatizing or downsizing of any kind. This tooth and nail resistance to taking the responsibility for providing so-called infrastructure is proof again that providing infrastructure is not the goal, government control of it, is.

But let's look at other places that put quality services ahead of government control. Sandy Springs, Georgia is a city next to Atlanta that was facing  bankruptcy a few years ago. It privatized all services except police, fire and some public schools. According to this Huffington Post article and 8 min video they have no long term debt. Since then 5 other nearby cities have adopted the Sandy Springs model. (I strongly urge Detroit and Flint city leaders to read this article and watch the video.)

In the summer of 2007 City Journal had a good article on "The New Privatization" about how more and more cities are making big bucks privatizing services.

I know Detroit and Flint are strong union cities and unions want nothing to do with any privatization. That will have to change eventually.

What has to be challenged today is the religious like devotion to the idea that government must be the one to provide infrastructure services instead of the market.

Government control: the uber value, Pt 3

Following up on my last post regarding how the press and academia holds the value of government control over economic services to be higher than the general value of human betterment, I present part 3 of the thread, part 1 being "Flint Needs Privatization" and part 2 being "Government control, the uber value."


The Thursday, May 19th Detroit Free Press carried a news article by reporter Lori Higgens titled "Michigan's kids in free fall in reading." The article cites a report,

"[F]rom Education Trust-Midwest, a nonpartisan education research and policy organization based in Royal Oak. The organization analyzed more than a decade's worth of results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress--of NAEP, a tough exam given to a representative sample of students in each state."

"In 2003, Michigan ranked 28th in fourth-grade reading. In 2015, the state was ranked 41st."

The article adds that Michigan also ranked 42nd in fourth-grade math, down from 27 in 2003. So it's not just reading but also math that has fallen. It doesn't take a scholar to see that if reading and math are lacking, the child will have a difficult time learning much of anything else. So what is the future prognosis?

"But Martin Ackley, spokesman for the Michigan Department of Education, expressed optimism that current efforts to change the trajectory will be successful."

"He said a current effort by the MDE and the state board of education to transform Michigan into a top 10 performing state in 10 years--coupled with Gov. Rick Snyder's creation of a 21st Century Education Commission--will identify the steps the state needs to take to turn around things."

Great! Just what Michigan education does not need, another bureaucracy! And when that fails another governmental group will be formed to investigate it. No, Snyder's new commission will fail too. The evidence for that failure can be seen in six of the 31 strategies the board of education is proposing? ( I don't believe there are 31 solutions to any problem in education. There is one major cure though, a rational curriculum.)

1. "Parents, teachers and students should sign an agreement that outlines individual academic and personal goals for students."

Sounds nice but I don't think it can work. This is a good recipe for private, individual tutoring but I can't see how it would work in a classroom setting.

2. "The state should expand nursing, mental health services and health centers in schools."

No, expanding these things will not bring fourth grade reading and math scores up.

3  "Schools should be run more efficiently so more money goes into the classroom." 

Notice the concrete bound nature of this one. It's like saying 'schools doing a lousy job of financing should do a better one.' No kidding! Genius solution!

4."The state should ensure that all students have access to career and tech programs and postsecondary courses while in high school."

Again No! This is something that can happen after the fourth-grade reading and math scores are raised to acceptable levels.

5."The state should expand access to publicly funded early-childhood programs."

As far as I can tell, all public education is publicly funded. So the implication seems to be to avoid private early education. But why? Again, I don't see how early education will raise fourth grade scores since we've had early education for a while now. I say that because there is nothing in this article identifying the cause of fourth-grade failure. More on that in a bit.

6."The state should expand access to free adult education services and family advocacy support programs."

I feel like a broken record. This too misses the point of raising fourth-grade reading and math levels.

But notice what concept is missing here: curriculum. Totally ignored by these so-called educators is the recognition that it is curriculum that teaches. So if today's kids fail to read or do math at fourth-grade levels you would think anyone who cared about children would hasten to demand that the curriculum be examined with a fine toothed comb. But no one is doing that.

To focus on the curriculum would draw attention to the philosophy of modern education. People would discover its name, Progressive Education, its creator John Dewey and his purpose of ignoring the task of teaching students how to think i.e. concept formation. Instead Dewey wanted to replace 'mere learning' with socialization which is not about teaching Johnny how to get along with Tommy. It's actually about graduating uncritical, unthinking, obedient followers who will not question authority, especially government authority.

To make sure the public doesn't get wise to the anti-cognitive nature of the curriculum, government press releases and media reporters blame every failure on lack of standards, or proper tests, or lack of money or lack of access ad infinitum.

 If you look at those 6 proposals mentioned above, you'll see they are anchored with 'state should.' There is no mention or suggestion of removing education from the hands of the institute that has been failing for decades: government. So it is obvious on the face of it that the primary concern, the value to be defended at all costs is government control.

We are constantly told by our media and politicians how much they care about educating children. But what does it mean to care? My dictionary says to care is to have a troubled mind for or concern for someone or something. To be concerned then means to value something or someone, to have strong feelings for. But to value anything presupposes an answer to the question 'of value to whom and towards what goal'?

It has always been the case that parents care most about the goal of their children's education. Yes, teachers care too. Many of them love the art of teaching young minds. But it remains the parents who care the most. Parents usually take care to provide good food, clothing and shelter for their kids. If parents are dissatisfied with the food from one store or the clothing from another, they change providers. They are legally free to do so.

Such is not the case with public schools. Very little freedom of choice is available for parents. And such choice as does exist is resisted fiercely by public school bureaucrats. One has to wonder why? When charter schools are doing a somewhat better job of teaching, and private schools even better yet, how can the the tenacious resistance by the public bureaucrats be evidence of a concern for teaching?

Obviously the number one concern of government schools is continued government control. There can be a variety of reasons government control can be appealing to some people. It can be politicians seeing themselves as the great providers of knowledge, which they certainly are not. Or union leaders seeing enhanced income in dues from teachers. The more teachers in public unionized schools the better for them. There is the public that has been lied to by intellectuals claiming only the rich can afford private education, a blatant falsehood.

Regardless of the various reasons for government control of education, it remains true that the main goal of every government is to sustain and grow itself. The most efficient way to do this is to indoctrinate students with the idea that government--legalized force--is the solution to all problems including education, health care, roads, energy and virtually everything. No it isn't.

Government by its nature is unfit to control any market activity. In the face of all the failures mentioned above, the government's refusal to relinquish control of education proves it's the control that is the uber value to them, not education. Time is now to start moving public schools to the private sector.

Government Control, the uber value

Pursuant to my last post "Flint needs privatization" which is here, I want to focus on how the most important goal to be achieved by government is the continued existence and growth of that government i.e. the absolute iron clad requirement that government stay in control of economic activities no matter how much they hurt and destroy human life.

In that post I mentioned how despite all the suffering caused by government control of Flint's water supply, the media refuses to consider the prospect of changing the provider of that service from government to the private sector. To them, the government must stay in control. This is true regarding all the so-called 'core' services the government wants to control like roads, gas, electricity, education and so on.

The evidence for this is overwhelming. I plan to present more such evidence in the next several posts but for now I want to focus on an editorial in Thursday's May 5th Detroit News by editorial director Nolan Finley regarding the sorry state of public education in Detroit. The opening paragraph:

 "All lawmakers should be worrying about in terms of the Detroit Public Schools is how to extricate the state from this mess."

An excellent way to extricate the state is to remove it from controlling education in the first place. It is the students and parents that need to be extricated from public education via privatization. He continues:

 "The district can't be saved. No amount of oversight from Lansing will keep it on financial track or improve its academic performance. The state needs to admit defeat and get out of DPS as quickly as it can."

That the state needs to admit failure is certainly true. Not only in financing but in teaching as well. The students aren't learning much of anything. Academic performance in DPS has been abysmal. Mr. Finley adds:

 "DPS is a rotten enterprise that defies reform. Even under the watch of the state's EM, more than a dozen DPS principals got caught up in a bribery scheme and are now facing federal charges."

 Such corruption is systemic in any collaboration between learning and legalized force (government). There is no skin in the game for government controllers. They are not going to lose a lot of money for failing to teach your child how to think. A private company or even a nonprofit, guilty of such failure would lose tuition money and investor money. A private concern cannot force your child into its classrooms like government does. Bad teachers can be fired in a private school. They are protected by tenure and government sanctioned unions in government schools. What then is Mr Finley's proposed solution? He wants the state to write a check and payoff the DPS debt.

"So the state should orchestrate a clean exit. Let the citizens of Detroit elect a school board this fall, return management of the district to that board, and see if the district can balance the books and provide a decent education with the extra $1,200 per pupil freed up by the debt payoff."

Here he wants to return responsibility back the the same entity that failed so massively in the first place, the city DPS, but with these two fixes: 

 "The first is a strict limit of future borrowing. The school board should not be allowed to begin accumulating more debt the state will be stuck with in the future."

 When the state has the power of force and the citizens don't, who is going to enforce that strict limit? Is it realistic to expect any government to put a strict limit on itself? And how long would such a limit imposed by the state last when all DPS has to do is cry 'It's for the children" and the state controllers would drop to their bail outing knees?

          "The second is to preserve unfettered school choice."

On this Mr Finley is 100% right. He continues later:

"DPS advocates are desperate for legislation that will let a mayor-appointed commission decide which charter and traditional schools open and close. Charter operators are absolutely right that their schools will get the short end of that stick."

          And don't buy the oft-repeated canard that Detroit charters are no better than DPS  schools. Half the city's families choose charter schools for a reason: They work for their children."

I fully support Mr Finley's call for unfettered school choice. But unfettered would have to include completely privatized schools as well. He doesn't mention that. It seems then that Mr Finley holds the view that government control to some lesser extent as in charter schools must be maintained.

Look also at the above mentioned fact that DPS wants authority to decide closings of charter schools even though they are doing better that DPS schools. Despite the sad examples of failure so aptly described by Mr Finley and many others in the media, it should be obvious that there is one value that is not to be changed or even questioned: government control of education. Why? Why is government control of our children's minds, in the face of widespread incompetence, failure and corruption, still considered the highest value to be maintained?

The controllers at the DPS and state boards of education evidently see the slightly less controlled charters as a threat to their power lust. And THAT I contend is the main problem. The goal of public ed is not teaching Johnny how to think but rather to maintain control--the power of legalized force--over him. This push in academia and the press for government control over the people is the uber value not to be examined. It critically needs to be. Education needs to be the highest value, ownership second.

If a little more freedom of choice is good for education as in charter schools, then more, as in private schools, will be even better. I'm glad to see News' editorial director Nolan Finley taking a significant step in the right direction. Lets hope he takes more steps in that direction. Now, we just need Michigan's politicians in both parties to agree with him. Education is the uber value, not government ownership. Parents are the best judge of their kids' education, not bureaucrats in city hall or state capitals.