The IRS and Fascism – Augmented

Note for our overseas readers: The” IRS” is the Internal Revenue Service. It’s the federal government’s main tax collection agency. It is widely feared and hated . Each individual state in addition has its own tax collection agency or agencies. S o does each county. The current scandal involves only the former.

If I wanted to set up a secret police in the US, would I try to create a Gestapo from scratch? Would I call it “Gestapo,” or “NKVD,” or “KGB”?

Or would I rather take an existing, comparatively efficient agency , familiar though unloved by the mass of the people, and simply extend the reach of such an agency? I mean the Internal Revenue Service, of course.

Do I believe that President Obama  ordered the IRS to discriminate against Tea Party-sounding groups and others identified as conservatives, against other political opponents? No, I do not.

I think he is responsible for the actions of low-level underlings because he created a statist, totalitarian atmosphere. He did this a lot through his non-actions regarding his old friends, in particular, including the bomber- terrorist Bill Ayres. He is responsible for allying himself with out-and-out extremist groups in his first election. The mainstream press is light-heartedly helping him erode democracy in this country.

None of these important actors is fundamentally evil (not even Ayres today; he is just a silly old man) . The president is a man who looks so good in a suit that he is the suit itself in the end, an empty suit. The liberal press is silly in the manner intelligent people who are seldom contradicted become silly. Many of the ordinary Americans who voted for Mr Obama are keeping their eyes and ears tightly shut in an effort to keep believing that everything is alright because they elected a “man of color.” I mean even college professors, aside from journalists. Black voters have been trained to have low expectations. They  tell themselves it’s good enough that the president is (more or less)  African-American. That their unemployment rate has risen dispropotionately under this black president they pretend is not relevant.  Another kind of supporters, unions, is as corrupt as ever. Take  all the teachers’unions, for example….or, rather, don’t take them try to leave them if you can!

I think Mr Obama is the non-Fascist leader of a genuine, grass-root American  Fascist movement. The movement includes prominent Senators that preceded President Obama in office.*The recent discoveries  at the IRS are just one manifestation of creeping fascism.

See also the Obama administration’s recent violations of freedom of the press.

The Second Amendment has rarely  been more relevant.

* “In September 2010, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus wrote to IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman requesting that the agency survey major nonprofits  involved in political campaign activity for their possible ‘violations of tax laws.’ In February,  2012, Sens Charles Schumer, Michael  Bennett, Al Franken, Jeff Merkely, Jeanne Shaheen, Tom Udall and Sheldon Whitehouse wrote a similar letter to Mr Shulman, and promised [threatened -JD] to introduce legislation if the IRS failed to ‘prevent abuse of the tax code by political groups.’”

Note: All the above are or were Democratic Senators.

Excerpt from an oped by Karl Rove in the Wall Street Journal 5/18/13

What Keeps Peggy and Me Awake at Night: the Second Term

I seldom miss anything by Peggy Noonan. I wait for her Saturday column in the Wall Street Journal to complete my own thinking on important political developments. That’s because her clarity of thought and of expression is irreplaceable. Peggy Noonan is one of my four or five thinking guides. Here is what she had to say on Sat. January 27^th 2013 in the WSJ about President Obama’s domestic program for his second term. I wouldn’t change a word or a comma.

He means to change America in fundamental ways and along the lines of justice as he sees it…. He does not care if you like him-he’s just as soon you did but it’s not necessary for him. He is certain he is right in what he is doing, which is changing the economic balance between rich and poor. The rich are going to be made less rich, and those who are needy or request help are going to get more in government services, which the rich will pay for. He’d just as soon the middle class not get lost in the shuffle but if they wind up marginally less middle class he won’t be up nights. The point is redistribution.

I am wondering, I keep wondering about two things:

1 Are there any Obama supporters who disagree that this is, in a capsule, the president’s domestic program?

2 Are there any Obama supporters who disagree with the program itself?

Peggy Noonan continues, pointing out the fears of conservatives like me vis-à-vis an Obama second term that would actually unfold along the lines she indicates.

The great long-term question is the effect the change in mood he seeks to institute will have on what used to be the national character… .Don’t you change people when you tell them they have an absolute right to government support regardless of their efforts? Don’t you encourage dependence, and a bitter sense of entitlement? What about the wearing down of taxpayers? Some, especially those who are younger, do not fully understand that what is supporting them is actually coming from other people. To them it seems to come from ‘the government,’ the big marble machine far away that prints money.

I would change one thing to the above: Many young liberal college graduates I know are well aware of the fact that the government does not just print money. Rather, they think that “the rich” control vastly more of the whole pie than they actually do. They believe that more taxes can be extracted from others without causing damage to the American economic machine. They believe, in a capsule, that there is no relationship between high taxes on others and their own difficulties in finding a reasonably well-paid job.

I wonder if there are any liberals who share this kind of concern. I even wonder if anyone who voted for Barack Obama’s second term had given this any thought at all. I am curious, eager for answers.

By the way, I think that complete self-assurance about the rightness of one’s ideas is not fascism itself but that it’s the antechamber of fascism.

Telling the Truth and Tarentino, Liberals, the Secretary of State, and the President.

I have a liberal friend with whom I have fairly frequent serious discussions. He thinks of himself as a moderate liberal, even a centrist because his owns guns and his guns are dear to him. Yet, he voted for Obama and he can give a spirited defense of every aspect of Obama’s policies and actions. That’s a test, in my book.

He told me once, but only once, that the administration’s program of at-a-distance- assassination-of-the-untried was not a problem for him. He dos not see how assassinating an American citizen, for example, on the presidential say-so, could be a problem, ethical or judicial. He does not discern a slippery slope. That too is a test.

He and I have had repeatedly two bases of disagreement. First, we have different values, of course. Thus, he insists that it’s fine for him to use the vote to take my money by force in order to give it to someone that he, my friend, thinks deserves it more than I do because he, the other guy, does not have health insurance.

I disagree.

Note that this is an actual example of a fundamental value difference because my liberal buddy does not have to go there to achieve the same results. He could try, for example, to convince me to give up some money on the basis of expediency: It’s unpleasant, even messy to have the uninsured dying on my front lawn for lack of medical care. (As they do all the time, of course.) Or, he could persuade me on fellow-human grounds. He does not feel like doing either because, I think, he has no moral qualm about taking my earnings by force for a cause he judges good. That’s a big difference between us.

Then, we have a separate, major differences about dealing with facts, about reality. I, for example, thought that the large number of uninsured in the US in 2007-8 the Democrats touted to justify Obamacare was mostly a liberal myth. (Ask me.) He insists it was real. (Incidentally, I don’t think people need so-called health “insurance,” I think they need medical care. But that’s another story. Ask me.)

My liberal friend always starts from the assumption that, we are more or less equal from an informational standpoint. That’s not plausible as far as the two of us are concerned. You have to ignore the obvious to believe that.

I spent thirty years in academia. Even if the better part of it was in a business school, the density of liberals anywhere in academia is impressive. There is good research that shows that university professors are Democrats about six to one. When I was a professor, I did try to avoid liberals as best as I could but it was not really possible. I kept bumping into them. It was difficult to avoid conversation without being rude. Some took my professed conservatism as a personal challenge and invaded my space. There is even fairly good evidence, though circumstantial, that a leftist -feminist university administrator tried to make a spectacular example of me. I ended up ruining her day. (This is another story. Ask me.)

In addition I have lived in or next to the People’s Green Socialist Republic of Santa Cruz for twenty-five years. I listen to National Public radio every afternoon. (I do this for about as long daily as I listen to Rush Limbaugh.) I even take in “Democracy Now,” the intelligent leftist station, frequently (which is more than my liberal friend can say, I will bet. I mean that I will bet, literally.) So, no, we are not equal. I know vastly more about left and liberal positions, reasoning, and versions of the truth than any liberal knows about conservatism. I would know more than liberals do even if I did not want to know anything.

Whee, whee, whee, he says, but I am busy. I work. I don’t have time for the media like a retired college professor. Sure enough and, believe me, I am grateful that he works hard and thus contributes to my Social Security benefit. But his hard work and my gratefulness do not change anything to the fact that I know his songbook inside and out while he knows little of mine. This is not a football game where he would have little time to train. Should my liberal friend defer to me a little because of my superior knowledge? Well, it would make some sense, wouldn’ it? (Would it?)

When we argue about politics, my friend has trouble staying on message. He keeps changing the subject very fast, too fast for me. I don’t have an explanation about why he does this although I have observed other liberals do the same: When you begin giving them several instances of the inanity of the warmist cult, for example, they will say, “ How about George Bush lying about weapons of mass destruction, hum!”

My friend also complains that I interrupt him. I do. That’s because, he frequently delivers himself of sentences of the form: “ As the sun rises in the west every morning….” It turns out that if you say: “All cats are black and it’s raining” the whole sentence is false. I did not make this up. I learned it as a freshman in college. It’s in Logic 101.

As a rule, I don’t make the rules and it’s not unfair or rude to expect the other guy who wants to argue with me to also play by those general rules. So, I usually stop him before he can assume that I agree with any part of the whole fallacious statement that follows his early false utterance. He could speak in a more disciplined manner. He could leave out the false statement about where the sun rises and get straight to his point. He could but he won’t. I suspect (I can’t prove it) that that manner of speaking is a form of self-serving self-deception, like this:

“So much stuff comes out of my mouth in such a short time that I can’t reasonably be expected to be responsible for everything I say. Don’t be an intolerant (and rude) bastard about it.”

Know what I have not said: My liberal buddy does not lie. I believe it would seriously disturb him if he caught himself lying. Small mistake, yes; lies, no.

Here is another deeply intellectual anecdote to illustrate where I am going with this.

One evening, my liberal buddy and I talk about what movies we have seen lately. Of course, we have both seen Tarentino’s latest gore fest, “Django Unchained.” (He is no more of a snob than I am.) And, here is a useful story within the story.

In the line for that movie, I bump into an important person. She is only a coffee shop acquaintance, but an acquaintance of long standing. I even held her hand a little when she was going through the agonies of tenure. She is a junior professor in one of the Humanities at a good university. She is one of my direction finders.

I don’t always know what’s intellectually cool but I always know who will know. My professor-acquaintance is one of those direction finders. I am not sure she is a real post-modernist in her heart because she is quite intelligent and thus probably not enamored of cliches or of deliberate obscurity. I am certain she is a post-modernist, or worse, at the faculty club. If she were not, how would she have obtained tenure?

Anyway, I ask my professor acquaintance jokingly in the Tarentino wait line, “ Are we slumming tonight?” She replies quickly, “Oh, no, Tarentino, Tarentino…” I can see she is embarrassed before her companion. I committed a gaffe (again). Tarentino’s products have high intellectual value somewhere, in a sphere where I don’t live. I thought I was going to see gore and fast action. It turns out there might be Culture and “signifié” there except I don’t know how to discern it. (And don’t ask me what that French-sounding word means; I don’t know that either.)

Well, back to my liberal buddy. I allow, in a bar, after only one drink, how I did not much enjoy “Django…” because there were too many mistakes of fact in the movie. I was distracted, in particular, by the segment where pretty, well-dressed young female slaves walk arm-in-arm in a southern plantation instead of attending to picking cotton. There were many other things I found disruptive of my attention. I wasn’t looking for historical accuracy, of course, but too many gross violations of accuracy interfered with my enjoyment of the bloodshed.

My liberal buddy looks at me in disbelief. “It’s a Tarentino movie,” he exclaims aptly – “What do you expect?” So, he is able to turn off his credibility measurement device. I am not. Or, his device is very blunt while mine is a bit sensitive. Big difference either way.

My liberal friend lives in a mental world that is different from mine. Its main component is a culture of indifference to fact. It’s a freely chosen culture of puerile, poetic representation of reality:

“There was a monster under my bed. My Daddy killed the monster.”

There was no monster, kid. Your Daddy did not kill any monster. Tough!

Secretary of State Clinton, testifying before the Senate on the Benghazi (Libya) massacre of Americans, said it well:

“What difference, at this point, does it make”… whether A happened in Benghazi, or B ( and one of your highest-ranking subordinates repeatedly made false statements to the American people) ?

In his inauguration address, President Obama announced a renewed offensive against the threat of climate change. He mentioned specifically :

raging fires;

crippling droughts;

more powerful droughts.

In fact, none of the above has been increasing globally for many years.*

The President is dealing in falsehoods on the first day of his new term.

His aides feed him statement without regard for their truthfulness; he is not interested in checking them; he does not have a fact checker; he knows none of his supporters is likely to call him on falsehoods. He is confident the media won’t look into them. They sound right, What else does anyone want? They are not positively in favor of falsehoods but they don’t care. They deeply don’t care. As I said earlier: The teenagers are in charge.

* My information comes from an article from the environmental activist (and trained statistician) Bjorn Lomborg in the Wall Street Journal of 1/24/13; “Climate-Change Misdirection”.

The Golden Age of American Manufacturing and the Chinese Bastards

The second presidential debate of 2012 gave me the maddening spectacle of two candidates disagreeing vehemently with each other within a shared context of falsehood. The subject was “shipping jobs overseas.”

Three weeks from the election neither presidential candidate has had the courage or the wisdom to denounce, even with a wink, the nested myths of a lost golden age of American manufacturing and of China as a big cheat.

In the fifties and sixties, there were many more manufacturing jobs than there are now. I won’t even bother to discuss whether the statement is absolute or relative: More manufacturing jobs total or just more as a % of total jobs (which would necessarily happen if the American service sector had grown even more than the manufacturing sector had grown.) My question is: So what?

I remember those days well. The widespread nostalgia refers to what were overwhelmingly bad jobs. They were assembly-line jobs for semi-literate idiots who were determined and proud to remain semi-literate, even trans-generationally. They were foundry jobs that managed to be both brain-deadening and dangerous. There were many more mining jobs than today, then offering a grimy life with a fairly good chance of death by suffocation.

The same people (or the same kind of people), the same organizations (unions) who currently lament the de-industrialization of America (an ambiguous idea. See my blog “The De-Industrialization of the U.S…“) then wailed over the horrible features of the same now lost jobs. When I began in academia, one of the main cottage industries in the discipline of sociology was the study of chronic unhappiness among blue-collar workers. (If you are going to Google it, use the key word “alienation,” N.S. !)

Many Americans, perhaps most Americans, exist with the vague impression that everyday life was better in some good old days that took place around the fifties or the sixties. It’s easy to get false impressions that way because few people have much ability to remember bad things. That would include your own grandparents. Below are a handful of facts to set the record straight.

In 1960, the life expectancy (at birth ) of Americans was 70; in 2012, it’s 80. That’s a 15 % improvement in a good thing. How many other things do you know that have become fifteen per cent better in fifty-two years? Besides Cognac, I mean.

(From the World Bank’s World Indicators)

The US infant mortality was 26 in 1960. It’s now 7 or 8. That’s a two thirds reduction in a bad thing . Do you know anything at all that has improved as much in fifty-two years? Disappointment in love? Sexual frustration?

(From OECDE Fact book)

OK, you don’t believe that being alive rather than dead is a valid measure of standard of living? Say it aloud, make sure to leave your name so I can quote you to all comers.

Yes but how about the quality of life, you say? Nostalgia for old black and whiteshows such as “I Love Lucy” notwithstanding, there were only three television chains, then. Choice matter. It doesn’t matter to you? Think it through.

Cars broke down all the time. That included beautiful leather-upholstered Cadillacs (proudly made in America by well-paid American workers). Not ever being sure of your car, ever, will put a damper on the quality of your life for sure.

More on quality of life: Simple, small things matter too if they tend to be repetitive. In 1960, in the whole continental United States, good coffee was to be had in about five establishments in Manhattan, in one in San Francisco (in North Beach) and in one in New Orleans (Le Café du Monde, of course).

Somebody or other might have been better off in the fifties and sixties but it wasn’t the working class (however defined).

America has become “de-industrialized” only in the narrow sense that there are many more easy white-collar and unobjectionable blue-collar jobs than there used to. Most of the hard jobs requiring no skills are gone. The few left are in agriculture and they are performed overwhelmingly by foreign labor. Meanwhile, the total value of American manufacturing only keeps going up. (Read this again!) It does so just about every year as compared to the previous year.

In constant dollars, in real dollars, the value of American manufactures recently was X times the value in _________________ (The answer is in one of my blogs. looking for it should be fun.)

Closely connected with the fallacious impression that Americans are worse off because of de-industrialization is the idea that China is responsible for our imaginary decline.

Most people would have trouble explaining how “China” does it. Most of what they would come up I had already heard in the 1980s in connection with …Japan. Japan was going to bury us. Instead it fell into an interminable state of stagnation.

Probably the most common perception is that American producers broadly defined cannot possibly compete with very, very cheap Chinese labor.

This perception is absurd on its face. There are other high-cost labor countries, countries where the average cost of labor is even higher than it is in the US, such as Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, and France. None of those has been wiped off the face of the earth. Expensive French industrial workers are still manufacturing the Airbus, not barefoot Chinese peasants who are content with one bowl of rice a day with a piece of seaweed thrown in on Sundays.

There is a basic arithmetic exercise about labor costs that hardly anyone seems to be willing to perform or to promote. Here it is:

Suppose the cost of labor accounts for 5% of the total cost of an item. Suppose that by switching to cheaper labor, you manage a phenomenal reduction of half the labor cost. Suppose further that this labor cost reduction is not accompanied by any loss of quality, not any. Suppose further that it is not associated with any loss of production effectiveness (as can be caused by delivery delays, for example). Under this rosy scenario, you have reduced the total cost of your product by 2.5%. In many case, you could effect this modest achievement simply by bargaining better with your suppliers. It’s true that in some cases, in a very few industries, price competitiveness is high and such savings matter. There are few products and few manufacturing industries where this is true. (It’s often true in major retail business though.)

How realistic is the assumption that labor only accounts for 5% of total cost? Obviously, this is a question with many possible answers, But, for American products today, across a wide variety of tangible products, by and large, the answer is: “quite realistic.”

The other common answer to the question of what exactly is the Chinese ogre guilty of against us is that the Government of China manipulates its currency to harm us, or someone who is not us because he is not me but who is related to me in some fashion. And of course. Manipulating the national currency is nothing any branch of the US government would ever do, right? (Think of the Federal Reserve Board.)

I taught undergraduates in a business school for twenty years. Let me assure you that the average person in this country does not know a damn thing about national currencies. In addition, most of what the few who know something on the topic know is simply false. So, let me help and don’t be offended.

Our political class accuses the Chinese government of keeping its money’s value lower against the dollar than it should be. Put another way, when you exchange your US dollar for Chinese money, you receive too much Chinese money. The result of this atrocity is that, according to our unspeakable political class, you are able to buy more Chinese t-shirts, more shovels, more flashlights, more plates and mugs etc, than you ought to be able to. The end-result is that you end up owning more stuff because the Chinese are sacrificing themselves. Bastard Chinese!

There are several other sizable falsehoods associated with international trade, the export of jobs, the loss of manufacturing jobs, and the arch-villain China. (Communist China is a villain but for other reasons.) Discussion of those are available throughout my blog. The wide reach of those falsehoods may ultimately decide this election and much of America’s future. Labor unions – which have a vested interest in the myths – often hold Democratic politicians by their soft parts. I regret that Republican candidates either don’t know any better or that their soft parts are not big enough to make them tackle the problem.

At the risk of repeating myself, let me sum up the issue of domestic manufacturing production:

Americans, collectively, have to decide if they would rather earn $6,000 making and selling a single computer chip or $5,000 with one ton of pig iron and ten thousand mouse traps.

It’s a simple enough question with powerful implications for national policies. Ask yourself.

My Obamist Friends: Pop-Sociology Updated 9/16/12

Another bad jobs report the morning right after President Obama’s triumphant speech. He couldn’t know yesterday about the dismal job report. Or, if he did have advanced knowledge, it did not make any difference. His declarations bear little systematic relationship to reality. The President was triumphant about what he is going to do next. Why not? He received the Nobel Peace Prize to reward his future achievements after all. His speech last night contained striking numbers pulled out of thin air, completely imaginary achievements, and taking credit for saying “yes” to the obvious (attacking Bin Laden in his lair). The speech was also very well delivered. It was more coherent than anything the Republicans gave at their convention (with the possible exception of Condoleeza Rice’s rousing patriotic speech). Republicans want to fix things. That gives you laundry lists. Barack Obama has a leftist, “no more injustice,” Third Worlder, “government-will- fix-it” vision. It was developed over the sixty years since World War Two by the international Left. Of course, it’s coherent.

It looks like this race is going to be between well-spoken histrionics backed by gut-feeling, on the one hand, and rationality and facts, on the other hand. Bad forebodings for me after brief conversations with three people in their late twenties.

One, a guy I have know since he was in elementary school, is an artist, a painter who actually paints, paints a lot. He sells some of his work but it’s not enough to support him. He lives off little. He has a small disability pension from the federal government. He is one of the able disabled, you might say. I can’t say more because I like him. His mother is your straightforward State of California bureaucrat. She works for a state agency I would abolish after one minute of serious thought and analysis if I had a chance. His father works in the real world but, like many others, he seems to be having a tough time right now.

One evening, I am buying the artist a beer and I ask him casually who he is going to vote for. Obama, of course, he replies. Why? I ask him. His reply has two parts. First, the government does not do much anyway. Obama has done fine with the minimal job of leading it. Second, he says, he looked at Romney and he couldn’t possibly vote “for someone like” him. In an instant, I see Romney with my young friend’s eyes: He wears a suit even when he does not wear a suit. When he actually wears a suit, he also wears a tie. The tie is not even elegantly tied. It’s a matter of style. My artist friend need not go further. He can’t vote for someone pokey, uncool. Romney is pokey; Obama isn’t.

There is an attractive young woman I know only a little. She lives in a smaller town in Northern California. I like her beyond her attractiveness. (I often have strong preferences in people. These things are mysterious. If I were not so sturdily anchored in rationality, I would believe this woman and I we were something to each other in a previous life. Maybe I am just fantasizing, of course. I am just trying to tell you that I am far from hostile to her.) She is a struggling student who works at mediocre jobs to support herself, I think. I have reasons to believe she has moral courage and independence of mind. (She wouldn’t even know how I know.)

My beautiful acquaintance posts on her Facebook, “Obama all the way.” I ask her why. She sends me a private message saying two clear things. First, Obama is pro-woman, Second she likes what he has done so far. First answer makes perverse sense: The rumor of a Republican “war on women” works for some. The Republican rigid anti-abortion platform does not help. Who is going to explain that party platforms are not binding? Who is going to explain that abortion is a state issue, that a US president’s position on the issue does not matter? Who is going to explain that Republican rank-and file differ little from the majority of Americans on abortion, that they believe what President Clinton said best: Abortion should be rare, legal and safe.

As for her second answer, I ask her what Obama has accomplished that she likes. She gives not answer, not even the obvious: health care reform. She is not embarrassed by her lack of response, I am guessing. Her non-answer resembles my artist friend’s answer: President Obama has done well enough at whatever he has done; no need to go into detail.

She has sent me a private message because, I am guessing, she would rather not her friends were aware that she even knows someone like me. Talking to me is a kind of slumming. Is there any other interpretation? Am I missing something?

Finally, I have the briefest of exchanges with the young woman who checks my membership at the gym. The truth is that I ambush her. She is curious about why I am sitting at her counter taking long notes (for this blog, actually). I explain briefly then I ask her abruptly: Who are you going to vote for? She volunteers that she is ignorant of politics but that she feels she has no moral right not to vote. Then she says she will vote for Obama. Why? Because of his “family values” she replies. I am guessing she refers to the attractive picture of Obama with his pretty wife and daughters on television much of the time. (I am just guessing. I can’t know for sure.) She admits readily she knows nothing about Romney’s family values. Of course, she did begin by asserting that she was ignorant.

I am underwhelmed by the experience of communicating with these three Obamists. There is so much to do and, at the same time, it’s so little. It’s only a little that nobody, but nobody seems to be doing. Here is what I would do if I had a chance. I would tell them this:

8%+ unemployment (and probably underestimated) is very high. Unemployment impoverishes everyone, not just the unemployed themselves.

2% Gross Domestic Product (GDP) economic growth rate is miserable for America . (In France, it would be an occasion for celebration; another story, obviously.) The dollar someone does not earn today is lost forever. That dollar will not have children, ever.

When unemployment is high and economic growth slow, women are among the first to suffer. Poverty is anti-women.

Both unemployment and low economic growth ( GDP growth ) respond to specific government policies. Any government that does not do what needs to be done is deeply stupid or criminal. (One does not exclude the other.)

The nation is obligated to support increasing large numbers of older people. It does not have the money to do so. Something has to be done.

Current high unemployment and low economic growth are pulling back this country to the level of much poorer countries and possibly toward economic disaster of Greek magnitude. (Explain Greek disaster.) There is no guarantee anywhere that the US cannot become a Third World country. It could even happen in a short time, in less than the lifetime of my younger friends. A high national debt will do that (explain national debt). Unfulfilled Social Security and Medicare obligations impose and even worse burden on the next generations, on people who are now I their late twenties, precisely

That would take an hour or so. Then, if I had another hour with them, I would try to explain what a corporation is. That would be a challenge. Every time I say in front of young people that I own parts of several oil companies and of several large pharmaceutical corporations they dismiss my words. That’s because I don’t seem rich. The “rich “ own corporations. (Would I make this up?)

My Obama-friends friends don’t know that the guy who made the best speech at the convention urging them to trust Obama again was himself impeached for lying under oath. If they have heard of it, they think it’s only a rumor.

As a teacher, I feel terrible, guilty by omission.

I wish I could vote for my neighbor, Clint Eastwood. He speaks more clearly than anyone in politics today. He does it with a great economy of words. As he said,  Obama is a hoax.

Updated 9/16

Nine days later. The reader who said in a comment that “reproductive rights” (abortion rights)  are being eroded state by state did not respond to my challenge to give instances, or an instance.  I don’t read much into this absence. People are busy. They have lives.

I do read something however in the lack of any other response to my simple challenge except one. Dr Terry, my most faithful liberal critic, also a professor well versed in empirical research, referred us to a something in the Huffington Post. The quality of this response speaks for itself.

The original commentator illustrated a general phenomenon: The overwhelmingly liberal media makes noises about this or that form of oppression from conservatives. The noises are so persistent that regular people end up believing that they correspond to something in the real world. People are too busy to check much of anything. They rely on media which they think wrongly to be objective. This is a source of sadness for me and of frustration. I do what I can but it’s not even a drop in the bucket. I wonder what it would take to cause the main liberal media to lose their undeserved credibility. I wonder what will happen that might remedy the fact that schools don’t train students to be critical. It would have to begin in the fourth grade or so. Instead children, and later adult students, are trained into mindless conformity.

American Fascism or Treading Water?

The President threatened the Supreme Court today. The carrion stink of fascism never wafts far from the Obama kitchen. It was already there during his campaign (and I wrote about it). So, he may be laying the groundwork for a constitutional coup:

“This constitution is too old. We need something better suited to our times. Anyone who does not see this is a racist.”   That’s on the one hand.

On the other hand, this speculation is not in line with most of what I have been saying on this blog: This is a man out of his depth.

It’s difficult to reconcile the cold cynicism required for a coup with Mr Obama’s practice of telling big lies that he has no chance of getting away with. This is a man who declared recently in stentorian tones that a vote of 219 to 214 is a “big” margin (or a ‘wide” margin, same thing). He does not realize that if five Democrats had had the flu that day and stayed home, Obamacare would have failed in the House. Or that if three Representatives had switched sides, the same thing would have happened.

I don’t see how that could have been a lie, I mean a deliberate distortion of the facts. I am guessing he is just treading water.What do you think?

Ron Paul’s Credibility: A Wrap-Up

In December 2011 or a little earlier, on the occasion of the Republican presidential primary debates, I began monitoring seriously Congressman Ron Paul’s statements. I did it because I am small-government Republican, someone who could be a libertarian, (but not easily.) For those who follow us from a foreign country: Mr Paul is a long-time Representative from Texas. He is running to be the Republican presidential candidate.He is favored by libertarian elements within the Republican Party and by many members of the Libertarian Party. The Libertarian Party does not seem to have a candidate of its own in this round of presidential election.

BY THE WAY, IF A DEMAND WERE EXPRESSED FOR EXPLANATIONS OF AMERICAN POLITICS, OR OF AMERICAN LIFE IN GENERAL BY NON-AMERICAN READERS LIVING ELSEWHERE THAN THE US, I WOULD BE GLAD TO RESPOND TO IT ONCE IN A WHILE. JUST SPEAK UP.

Following Paul’severy word, I soon discovered that there was almost (see below) no debate when Mr Paul didn’t make some strangely false declaration. I am not referring here to the usual politicians’ exaggerations or to spontaneous ridiculous answers to unexpected gotcha questions. I mean false information volunteered by Mr Paul that happened to support his quite consistent line of reasoning, his doctrine, in other words. I have reported periodically on some of Mr Paul’s misstatements. Paul followers have responded. My comments and the responses, all unedited, of course, are available on this blog, arranged by date. If you want to look for yourself you might also conduct a search of my postings using the key words “Ron Paul.” The comments are appended to each relevant essay. Below I review the Paul statements to which I took exceptions and I summarize what I think are the replies or explanations by Paul followers. Some responders/commentators will complain that I betray their thought. It’s all there for anyone to judge.

Here is a little political introduction: I generally agree with the congressman’s ideas regarding domestic policies. However, I think Dr Paul would be a foreign policy disaster on the scale of an President Obama or worse, if he ever became president. His isolationist ideas on foreign policy, I think, are based on false perceptions and tightly chained to adherence to a libertarian doctrine hardly troubled by simple facts. Incidentally, I know well that Dr Paul and mainstream libertarians object to being described as “isolationists.” I don’t mind that they mind. Let me admit, also incidentally, that I do not dispute the general libertarian analysis on the disastrous consequences that war has for the autonomy of civil society, for individual freedom from state oppression. However, this recognition does not require that I close my eyes and shut my ears to the nature of the world I which I live. Neither does this consciousness command suicide.

In brief, as I have said repeatedly, I believe Mr Paul listens to a different drummer. Or rather, he hears a whole bunch of drummers in his mind that no one else can hear. The mainstream press ignores his many failed grapplings with reality because it thinks (correctly) that Mr Paul will not be president, no matter what. Mr Paul’s followers don’t mind his missteps either. Some are too busy or too ill-informed to notice. Many, I suspect, don’t want to notice because the Paul group is largely (not completely) a cult. Some of his embarrassed rational followers cite his age (my age, as it happens) as an excuse for his missteps. That is, they argue implicitly that a man too old to avoid talking nonsense at debates is young enough to have his hand on the button. Congressman’s Paul’s followers are simply not inclined to look too closely into his pronouncements; I mean, the way I look into every single presidential candidates’ statements, for example, and no mercy given. After all, if I have my way, one of them will have his index finger on the same red button. Better I give each of them the middle finger first.

Dec 31st 2011

Below is a paraphrase, not an exact quote from Mr Paul. The number though is exact.

The Iraq war and the Afghanistan war are not only very wasteful, they are stupidly wasteful. So, for example, the US armed forces spend 20 billion dollars each year in those war theaters on air-conditioning alone.

The number if absurd on its face. One frequent critic of mine affirms that he proved right the figure or the statement in which it was embedded. I have no idea what he means. Someone else referenced a general that may well have been Paul’s source, if he had a source. Read the general and decide what he, the general, is up to. Ask yourself if you have ever heard of anyone doing cost accounting the way the general does.

January 8, 2012

Paul said that (American) minorities suffered more in war than whites. That’s not true. In current wars, since Vietnam, they die less, and they get wounded less often. Whatever else could “suffering” mean, lower pay raises?

In connection with Pres. Obama’s then-recent speech on cutting the US military budget, Paul also said clearly that those are cuts in increases to military expenditures, not absolute cuts. As one who has been reading the Wall Street Journal for the past thirty years and also for the past thirty days, I tell you that this is not true. I think it sounded good at the time so, the Congressman just said it, irresponsibly.

In rare form that day, Paul also said in New Hampshire that if the Straight of Hormuz were closed (by the Iranians or, presumably, by anyone), Eastern Europe would be “de-stabilized.” Makes no sense at all. Why Eastern Europe? He gives the impression that he knows something we don’t. Not in this case, for sure.

January 17^th 2012

In the Republican presidential debate that took place January 17^th or 16th in South Carolina, Ron Paul said, “We are still in Iraq.” Don’t bother to check, he said it, with exactly those words. Only one problem: “We” are not there unless you decide that contractors are “us.” Most people would think he meant “our military is still in Iraq.” It, the military, was already not in Iraq at the time the statement was made. This is at least a grossly misleading statement. misleading in a direction that happens to promote his isolationism.

January 2th^d 2012

Ron Paul did it again at the Tampa debate on Monday night 1/23/12 or 1/22/12. I mean he spread some information that only he, Congressman Paul, is privy to. Mr Paul declared clearly, under his own power, with no prompting whatsoever, that this country, the United States of America, is presently conducting a blockade against Iran. He used the word four times at least, both as a noun and as a verb. And, no, he was not speaking prospectively ( “If we conduct a blockade, in the future ….”) but declaratively and in the present tense. There was no blockade, there is no blockade, except in Mr Paul’s mind.

On February 07 2012, I challenged the Ron Paul website by email to give the source of declaration of Dr Paul’s about the Mossad, the Israeli CIA. Dr Paul had stated that the head of the Mossad had declared that an Iranian nuclear bomb would pose no “existential threat” to Israel. I received no answer from his campaign. Instead, a reader guided me to an interview by the same head of Mossad.

The head of the Mossad did say what Congressman Paul had reported he said. I was wrong to doubt it. I WAS WRONG. It was all my fault. I did not think long enough about the word: existential threat. See my mea culpa and explanation following on Feb 14th.

February 16th, 2012

A quaint statement issued by the candidate himself that he, Ron Paul, received more money contributions from the military than other Rep. candidates lead to a striking demonstration of the absurdity of the figures on which the claim is based. It highlighted the shocking lack of criticality of his shock troops. No one is watching; the candidate is allowed to run wild, quite wild if in his quiet way.

February 22^nd 2012

Dr Paul pointed out that Iran was “surrounded” by “forty-five bases.” I assume he meant American military bases. This “surrounding,” I understood the Congressman to argue, would justify Iran’s nervousness and therefore its apparent bellicosity. I protested that the encirclement statement was pure invention.

In response, Paul supporters produced, first and second, a map showing patently false information. Of course, this fact in itself, re-enforces my impression that Paul supporters are not serious about facts. It’s not difficult to eye-check a map, after all. Following this false start, there was much back and forth. And then, I agreed that the Paul statement was not false and not an invention if you only stretched the meaning of the word “base,” of the word “military, “and, especially, of the word “surrounded.” (There was no need to stretch the meaning of the word “American,” fortunately.)

Looking back on the exchange, I am inclined to take back my admission. There is a kind of Bermuda triangle logical problem involved: How far does the alleged triangle extend? How far can you go and still declare that a base contributes to “surrounding” Iran? One Paul supporter included Djibouti. Why not the much more significant military bases in Germany, I ask? And how about military installations in New Jersey?

I will agree though that the Paul “surrounded” statement is probably more true than I thought it was at first. This discovery makes me more optimistic about the future, from a military standpoint, than I used to be.

On Feb 29^th 2012 in the Michigan primary. Paul said two memorable things :

1 The wars we have had for ten years, he said (I assume he means Iraq and Afghanistan), have added four trillion dollars to the US national debt ($4,000,000,000,000). The statement surprised me only moderately. (It amounts to about $13,000 per American. )My problem is that again, I have no idea where the information comes from. I even doubt the contribution of the wars to the national debt can be calculated. Yet, I would be happy if this figure were merely a pretty good approximation. I would say it’s fine even if the order of magnitude were right. How demanding is this? At any rate, I sure hope this large amount included the 20 billion dollars per year just air-conditioning American forces in the two relevant countries Paul said it cost. (See above!)

2 The congressman announced that there was a “transfer of wealth from the middle class” to the rich. That’s not a surprising statement since it’s also the basis of the Obama class war. What is surprising is the way this transfer takes place, according to the congressman. It is through the erosion of the currency, the US dollar’s value, says Dr Paul. I don’t know how this could be. I have no quarrel with the idea that the US dollar has lost much value in say, 20 years, relative to something, to gold in particular. What I don’t know is how what is lost by the “middle-class” through loss of value of the currency (whatever that is) comes to accrue to the benefit of “the rich.” Here again, I am open-minded. Please, help.

There was no response to my second question, the question regarding the transfer of wealth. Another Paul dream, I guess, a nightmare, in this case.

Libertarian economist Fred Folvary of NotesOnLiberty suggested an interesting answer to my question regarding the origin of the Paul figure about the cost of the wars. He referred me to Paul Stiglitz, Nobel winner and idol to the American Left. I have not read the Stiglitz book of reference and Prof. Stiglitz’s status with leftists does not make his calculations wrong. (I did read another one of his books which convinced me  never to read another one because it contained so much intellectual dishonesty. But that’s a subjective personal response, of course.) Why am not surprised that Mr Paul gets some of his information from left-wing sources? (Does not make the info false, again.)

I am fair: On January 27^th 2012, I stated:

I am glad to report that during the second Florida Republican presidential debate, I did not hear Ron Paul make a single patently false, invented statement.

Maybe, by that time, I had got to him after all!

Now, of course, there remains the really important issue of whether Congressman Paul ever accused the Bush administration or parts thereof of being complicit in 9/11. I keep dismissing this allegation in my mind and forgetting it but it keeps coming up and don’t mean coming up through liberals or “progressives.” A couple of weeks ago, a local talk-show host in my area of Santa Cruz, California ,brought it up again. I have listened at least to 500 hours of this man’s show and I have never found him in significant error about anything important. He is a small-government conservative I know to be scrupulous with facts.

The apparent origin of this suspicion is that one of Congressman’s Paul’s former staffers accused him squarely of having been a “truther.” Dr Paul denied the whole things just as squarely:

“That’s complete nonsense … I never bought into that stuff and I never talked about it,” Paul said of the accusation made by former staffer Eric Dondero, who wrote in a blog post last week that Paul “engaged in conspiracy theories” surrounding the 9/11 attacks.

From Post Politics retrieved 03/29/12, here is part of the post:

“Ron Paul was opposed to the War in Afghanistan, and to any military reaction to the attacks of 9/11.

He did not want to vote for the resolution. He immediately stated to us staffers, me in particular, that Bush/Cheney were going to use the attacks as a precursor for “invading” Iraq. He engaged in conspiracy theories including perhaps the attacks were coordinated with the CIA, and that the Bush administration might have known about the attacks ahead of time. He expressed no sympathies whatsoever for those who died on 9/11, and pretty much forbade us staffers from engaging in any sort of memorial expressions, or openly asserting pro-military statements in support of the Bush administration.”

Paul also denied the same assertion unambiguously in Wikipedia.

Real Clear Politics of December 27^th 2011 describes how incomplete and unsatisfactory the Paul denials are on this matter.

Me, I understand the idea of a “disgruntled employee” trying to do harm and it’s not absurd, not by a long shot. But an evil little voice keeps whispering in a corner of my suspicious mind: Why did the disgruntled employee attack Paul on this issue rather than on the many others probably available to him as a former aide?

Why is my mind “suspicious” about this almost certainly good man? Several reasons. Here is one, a concrete and tangible reason. It’s something undebatably authored by Congressman Paul, not a rumor, not an indirect report, not spur-of- the- moment fallible ejaculation.

Shortly after 9/11, Congressman Paul introduced a piece of legislation he called: the “Marque and Reprisal Act of 2001.” Look it up; read a few lines of it. Reflect on the concept of a “letter of marque” applied to 21^st century conditions. You are not going to believe what you read. Then, wonder why Paul’s followers did not call him on it. As I said, no one is watching the Paul farm. And why would that be?

And, if you believe the “Act” is a serious defense proposal, please write me a note. I am willing to learn but it’s not going to be easy.

Republican Presidential Candidates

Pres. Obama has already lost the next presidential election as far as thinking people right and left are judging. It does not mean that Republicans will win. The GOP has to run with an electable candidate.

The field of Republican presidential candidates is becoming more readable, I think. Here is my summary.

Herman Cain is very likable and he speaks clearly about his genuinely conservative program. Besides, he looks like a president and women will love his manly manners. That’s not enough to get him elected or to make him electable. Americans will not vote to make president anyone who was not previously elected to something. No amount of good business experience will make up for this. (And Cain, has plenty of that.)

Newt Gingrich is a completely clear conservative. No one explains better than he does the main practical points of a conservative programs for 2012. Unfortunately, no one likes him, I think. There are good reasons to, including his unprincipled flirtations with government support for ethanol.

Gov. Perry lost it all in the last presidential debate. There is no way he can make up for it. He was facing the test of his life with Gov. Romney and he came to the test without having studied. He was not prepared. It’s not a default of knowledge as some pretend, it’s a character fault.

Romney is equal to himself. He is reasonably likable in a sort of metrosexual way. He carries a lot of baggage, including his Mass. health program he has never either really defended nor apologized for. That’s a lot of baggage, especially in 2012 because Obamacare, cousin to the Mass. plan, will be a number one reason to reject Pres. Obama. No one knows for sure whether Gov. Romney is a conservative by today’s standard.

Note: If I turn out to be wrong, it’s going to be about Gov. Romney. He may just be the half-way candidate where the Republican Party voters meet. I sure hope not.

Congresswoman Bachman is another Great Woman’s Hope in the ring. She is clearly a conservative and she is likable in a weird sort of way. (Rearing all those foster children surely was not pretend work.) Politically, though, she is not serious. She said something big-time wrong on the occasion of the second debate, about vaccinations. She will never recover. Here is a the rule of thumb: You may stumble when someone else hands you a question, especially when it’s an enemy handing you a trap question. (I am reminded of Gov. Palin being asked perversely what she thought of the “Bush Doctrine.” I would have flunked too.) You may not, however, tell falsehoods on a topic you, yourself chose. It matters little whether you are lying or merely ignorant. I am not even sure which one I prefer.

Ron Paul sounds like he whines. It may not be his fault. I could be like Pres. Bush’s alleged smirk, just a physical thing with no intention behind it. Paul will always get some support because there are significant numbers of loyal Libertarians who wish to work within the Republican Party. He will never get much more support because they, the Libertarians, don’t dupe anyone. Their isolationism in foreign policy is perceived as a lack of patriotism. (Full disclosure: I am a libertarian – small “l” – who is a registered Republican. I am struggling with the inherent contradiction between libertarianism and the necessary American armed stance. See my recent essays on the topic: “Libertarian Military Isolationism: Forward All with Eyes Tightly Shut,” “The Libertarian Project and American Military Power. “ )

Congressman Paul declared in the second debate that the armed forces spend 20 billion dollars (US D 20,000,000,000) annually on air conditioning in Iraq and Afghanistan. See the rule of thumb above. Like many ideological purists, he will come to believe just about anything that seems to support his ideology.

Then, there is what’s his name who stated categorically in a debate that, “ 97 % of climate scientists” believe in man-made global warming. You can’t say that. It’s  dogmatically stupid. If it were true, we would not know it and therefore, no one can affirm it. The man sounds a little stupid, perhaps because he answers before he thinks. Bad trait for a president. Forget him.

And then, there is the other what’s his name whose sole contribution thus far is a good wisecrack about dogs and shovel-ready jobs.

Gov. Christie of New Jersey keeps insisting he is not running. He is not the mincing type. I think he is telling the truth.

It all does not ad up to much, so far. Time to get excited.

Donkeys and Capitalism and the President’s Finger: Sunday Morning Haphazard Thoughts

This morning, I watched a French documentary on the equivalent of Animal Planet. It showed a middle-aged guy who has been walking around Europe with his donkey, like Robert Louis Stevenson did on a smaller scale in the 19^th century. After several years, the thought struck the French hiker that there must be people who don’t have the use of their legs who would enjoy doing the same. He is developing at his own expense a contraption, a special paraplegic-friendly cart, that can be drawn by a donkey.

In my town of Santa Cruz, there is an organization that puts wetsuits on variously handicapped young people, some severely handicapped, to make them experience the approximate joys of surfing. The kind of generosity of spirit these two stories illustrate, and the imagination, also the individual economic capability to follow through, tell us what’s a good society. The differences between France and the US pale before the differences between those kinds of society and others.

I would bet you, there is no such private endeavor anywhere in China, or in Russia, or in Cuba, or anywhere in the Muslim world. I stand ready to be corrected, naturally. I will publish any credible correction.

That’s the seldom-told story of real capitalism, of course. It’s the side of capitalism people who live in feudal societies and in semi-socialistic societies, and in societies that are a little bit of both have no way of knowing. It’s also the side of capitalism that home-grown leftists perversely refuse to see. It’s a major reason why leftists have to lie so much: If capitalism does everything better, including compassion, what’s left of our collectivist dream, they ask themselves?

Capitalist societies in fact give a better life to everyone and especially to the weak and defenseless. They do this by providing the highest standard of living for ordinary people and by being associated with a high degree of personal freedom. Combine personal freedom with escape from abject poverty and you get imaginative generosity toward the vulnerable, like the generosity of the Frenchman with a donkey. And yes, despite a hundred years of leftist folklore poverty makes you narrow-minded and stingy.

 

On to the domestic end-of-reign. The President first announces that he will give another speech, a speech on jobs, no kidding! Then he says it will be delivered on the same night as a long-scheduled Republican presidential debate. When criticized, he backs out and schedules it on the same night as an important televised sports event. Then, he backs out and schedules for yet another night.

Does this sound live an evil Machiavellian political genius to you? To me, it sounds like the actions of a clueless man, of a man at sea, of a man isolated, with no one to give him advice. I have said from the days of the campaign that Barack Obama is much more incompetent than evil. He had never accomplished anything in any of his several careers before he was elected; he still has not. Even if you are a deluded liberal and wish to credit him for the ObamaCare 2,000+ page law, you probably shouldn’t. If it survives it will be the Pelosi/ReidCare.

The President has become a pathetic figure. He acts as if he had been abandoned by all who had any sort of adult credibility. That would include many public figures I dislike intensely because I am a conservative and because I am intellectually honest. It looks as if there were no one left to guide his steps, no one to hold his hand.

Speaking of hand: His is still the hand that has the finger that could press the button. I am worried he might get pissed or confused and nuke Dallas.

Dear Mr President: A Few Words about Acrimonious Partisan Debate

You said recently that “we” must stop arguing from partisans’ standpoint and come together on what’s good for the country. I am not completely sure who the “we” refers to. It probably includes the media, citizens, and the politicians they elect.

In what follows below, I would hate to sound supercilious; I am trying to be compassionate, in fact. I hope you will appreciate, not hold it against me although I confess I am a conservative Republican who did not vote for you and probably will not in the future.

We are having acrimonious “partisan” discussions because Americans don’t all agree about what works or about what’s moral. Those are two excellent reasons to disagree loudly. Disagreeing loudly is how it’s done in a democracy. It’s hoped two good things will emerge from loud disagreements:

1 The nature of the disagreements will be better understood than otherwise would be the case. In other words, unseemly partisan discussion is expected to help us fight over real issues, rather than over misunderstandings,

2 When each party voices its viewpoint loudly and clearly, it’s easier to reach an agreement than would be the case if everyone stayed politely quiet.

To summarize: The political arena is not your bank vice-president grandmother’s living-room. Oops ! I should not have mentioned the fact that your grandmother was a middle-class person. That was a low blow. I am very ashamed.

When it comes to the parlous economic situation of this country, there is a Grand Canyon separating you and your team from people like me. I am glad to be able to help you measure the chasm.

You seem to believe in heaping more debt on our children’s and grand-children’s heads, and perhaps beyond. We believe that public borrowing interferes with the normal economic forces that create both income and jobs. This is not a minor difference of opinion. If one of us is right, the other is terribly wrong. There is no smoothing this over.

Your actions and statements of members of your team, and of your party (not so much your own statements) lead me to believe that you think the expansion of government is a good thing. People like me think it’s a bad thing. This for two reasons. The first reason is that letting the government do for people what they should do for themselves is debilitating. It’s injurious to their moral fiber. When I say ; “…people should do for themselves,” I mean singly or through their free association for limited purposes. I also refer to the things they can just buy on the open market if they are allowed to.

The second reason I think the expansion of government is a bad thing is that it entails government taking from people by force what they acquired through their efforts. That’s always immoral, of course although it may be necessary for a limited time and for limited purposes.

So, referring to the speech on jobs you are going to make in a few days, here are examples of some of the things you should say if you wanted my side to talk less loudly and with less acrimony. Those are just examples. I will give you a longer list if you ask.

1 Declare that you eliminate the federal Environmental Protection Agency or, at least pare down its budget. That’s not because we are against pure water, unpolluted air, or the Valley Salamander. It’s because my side has become convinced that the EPA’s main job is to interfere with the creation of jobs. Besides, I can’t find the place in the Constitution that puts the federal government in charge of protecting “the environment.” To be precise, I would not necessarily be against it. I think there should be a constitutional amendment allowing this.

2 Declare loud and clear that public employees unions have become too powerful. Even if we accept the dubious “right” of public employees to unionize, there is a big moral question about whether it should be combined with the job tenure public employees in fact enjoy today. Of course, I am thinking about teachers’ union but not only of them.

3 Declare unambiguously the American “right to work.”

If you don’t do these things, or similar things, there is no reason for you to expect that the partisan clamor will subside on my side. And, of course, if you don’t join us, we will try to defeat you in the next election to replace you with someone whose ideas about what works and what’s moral are closer to ours. That’s the way it works in a democracy.

Thank you for your attention. Don’t hesitate to call on my again, Mr President.

Sincerely.