All posts by Jim Daniel

The GOP and the “Rock and Hard Place”

Politics

Recently I happened to read an article on the Politico website titiled “Angry GOP donors close their wallets” and it got me to thinking about just where the Republican Party has gotten itself.  The old saying my folks you to say to me “Well, Beau, you’ve gotten yourself stuck between a rock and a hard place.  Now what are you going to do?”  I think this is quite fitting to say to the GOP. So what is the Rock and wht is the Hardplace?

I think I will start with the Hardplace as it was the subject of the Politico article that started it all.  Simply put the Hardplace is all the Big Money the GOP and conservative have been freeing up the last few decades.  I’m not just talking about the individual donors, we’ve always had them, but also the dark money PACs.  We’ve all seen them with the great names like “committe to make america great again” or “Protect American Freedoms Committe” that tells you absolutely nothing about just what agenda they’re pushing.  An before you jusmp all over on me, yes there are PACs like this on the Left, it is just the Right is Soooooo much better at creating and funding them that the PACS are now causing the GOP more and bigger problems than the Democrats.  If you just look at the political science studies on campaign financing  you will see the GOP has more big money donors than the Democrats.  Warning: Becareful where you look way too many of the Think Tanks out there have a political bias that is often not obvious.

The Rock is a bit less obvious, it is the result of two factors.  First the gerrymandering of congressional districts and the 2nd is the ‘Make no Compromise ‘ mindset current in American politics.  Because of the extreme gerrymandering of too many of our congressional districts in too many of our states the only real threat to an incumbent GOP congressman is in the primary.  Given the fact that primaries usually have low turnout it is only the most ardent party members who vote.  Given, next, we have the “Don’t Compromise” attitude of the party faithful. Congressmen are more worried about angering a relatively small number of dedicated voters.  The problem is these self same voters are more often than not small donors, not Big Money Doners of the Hardspot.  Now add in that the Donor class and the dedicated voters often don’t want the same thing.  This problem can be handled if your careful.

As you may ask, why are the Donors the Hardplace and the Voters the Rock.  Basically it is this, the Donors don’t need to do anything.  They just stop giving money and fade into the background. The Voters on the other hand have to move to have any effect at all.  I’d also like to point out that many of the Big Money Donors are very good at various forms of gambling, be it dice, cards, horses, or stocks.  As the song “The Gambler” goes:

”You need know when to hold them, know when to fold them, know when to walk away, know when to run.”

What has been going on for way to long (I’d say since Nixon’s Southern Startagey but I could be quite wrong) is to come up with nice sounding theories on finance, easy fall guys to blame, and all the other classic political tricks and you can keep the average vote from noticing that they aren’t getting what they were told they would get.  Like, passing big tax cuts that go mostly to the very wealthy and corporations and give it a nice sounding name, say “Trickle Down Economics”.  Next when the average vote fails to see any positive change in there economic situation tell them they really didn’t get “Trickle Down Economics”  because of the “Libretard Socialist” who fought the tax simplification.  If that doesn’t really work you next blame it on all of the “Illegals” taking their jobs.  Now finally consider this; in politics, like all human activities, eventually you have to pay the piper.

You always have to pay the piper, always.  The time is coming that the Conservatives are going to have to face up to the fact that the GOP has been playing them for over 30 years and failed to deliver much, if anything, they have been promising.  The rock started moving when Donald Trump wan the GOP nomination and now the Hardspot has reared up.  Soon we will get to ask the GOP “What are you going to do now?” Because it looks like the Donor class is deciding to get up from the table and the only question t left is whether to walk or run.

Another Test of the NRA Meme(s)

Philosophy, Politics, Rants

I am sorry to see that once more a mad man with a gun(s) has come forth and provided us with data to test the NRA memes about how much we need “Good Guys with a gun”.  Before I start I wish to say I am heart broken that so many people have had to suffer and die.  To all the friends and families of the victims of the Las Vegas mass murder I can only say I grieve and sorrow with you.  My grief is not your grief, my sorry is not your sorrow.  I say this to you in the small hope that you get some small comfort knowing a total stranger grieves with you in some small way.

I do not know, and I will not even attempt to predict why this massacre in Las Vegas happened.  It is too early and we know too little to say anything definitive about motive of the perpetrator.  Nor will I enter into any discussion of pro and cons of gun control, this is not the time for this to take place.  What I will be talking about is the meme that the NRA is always pushing that the only way to stop a bad man with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

This is a very insidious meme.  Without a doubt this bad man with a gun was stoped by good guys with a gun.  The problem is that the good guys in question were highly trained professionals.  These good guys were not just someone who likes shooting, they were not just great marksmen, they are men and women who train for just this kind of crises.  They train individually and they train togeather.  They know what they are doing and they know what their team mates are going to doing and going to do.  An this is why the meme of a ‘good guy with a gun’ is so insidious.

This meme gives the impression that any good guy with a gun would be an asset in the kind of situation that happened last night in Vegas.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  Don’t just trust me, go ask any policeman or other first responder just what the effect of a bunch of armed civilians running around in the CF that Las Vegas was last night.  I won’t even attempt to give you any of the many scenarios that come to my mind as I write this.  What I will do is talk about ‘seeing the elephant ‘.

Let’s do a little experiment here, go find a combat vet.  Find an marine, or an army fire team member.  Someone who has been in actual combat.  Someone, as Bill Malden put so eloquently “a member of the benevolent and protective order of those who have been shot at” and ask them this:  What happens to someone the first time they are in combat, the first time they are shot at?  I think they will tell you there are just three things you will do

1) Break and run-a-way

2)  Freeze

3) Follow training/orders

An they will tell you one other thing; until you are in actual combat you have know idea which one of the three you will do.  If you are real real lucky and well trained it will be 2 or god helping 3.  But you will not know till you really do see the elephant.

This is why I will always fight this meme.

Incloseing I’d also like to point out that Nevada is a functionally ‘Open Carry’ state.  That is to say that the state laws regarding the open caring of firearms are enforced with a very light hand.  Next Las Vegas was getting ready for several gun shows and there was an influx of people with many many guns for these show already.  Given this there should be a good number of ‘good guys with a gun’ in the area of the shooting.  I await with great interest to see the data on just what all of these gun toting good guys did when the massacre started.

The Debate on Multiculturalism

Philosophy, Politics

Personally, I do not play the game of one culture is superior to another or all cultures are equal. I do this because I have yet to see any system of measuring the qualities of a culture that is not subject to sever subjectivity. There is no external, objective, measure. All we have is what he shows in his talk when he discusses Donald Trump’s statements. All that really be said is that “I” think, feel, etc, that being Innovative is a good cultural trait with out giving any objective measure of why it is good. You just as might as well say that Hawaiian culture is superior to Kansas culture because Hawaiian promotes surfing while Kansas doesn’t.

This does not make me a Multiculturalist. I do not believe all cultures are equally good/bad. There are good cultures and there are bad cultures. But just like Art/Music/Literature each and everyone of us must make our own judgement. Like Ethics and Morals culture is of vital importance to everyone and it is up to everyone of us to do what we can, no mater how great or how small, to improve the culture we live in.

See more in a coming new posting in “Don’t Drink The Koolaid”.

Argument Vs. Attack

General, Philosophy

For some time now I have been thinking about the problem of many people on the right saying that those on the left are attacking them.  That they, the people on the right, are tired of it and are now fighting back.  From my research I’ve found that most who say this feel this way because they are having what they use to identify themselves, that is “I am a Conservative/Republican/Christian”.  An what is happening is most often not that they are being attacked but the ideas/concepts/beliefs are being challenged.

I decided to do a little research and I found that often when people have those ideals/principles challenged they can often feel personally attack.  This is especially true when the person arguing against them is using logic.  Logic is a blunt instrument and when used unthinkingly quite brutal (another post on that later).  But even when logic is not used as a blunt interment many people do feel they are being attacked in a debate.  I have also wondered why I usually don’t feel attacked when I’m disagreed with, and other times I do.

I think I shall deal with this last item first.  After a little thought and more reflection I have come to the conclusion it is because of my ‘trained’ ear.  By this I mean more than most, I can hear and recognize the anger and/or hostility in peoples voices.  Not to say, in the least little bit that everyone does not hear the anger/hostility, no not at all.  It is just because of my early life I developed a very good ear to the underlying emotion(s) in some one speaking.  This was do to both being raised by a speech couch and also personal survival, that is to avoid highly dangerous situations I learn to listen to how people were talking and not what they were saying.  So what does this have to do with argument vs. attack?  Just this, when we let anger, or hostility, or contempt, or disdain, etc, et al, enter our voice the other person will, most likely, key off of this and Not hear your words.

Now, with tone of voice dealt with, let us move on to other things.  I submit that one of the problems is too many of my fellow Americans have never really been thought the deference between argument and debate.  Even our dictionaries are not much help here as more often than not they show a debate as a form of argument.  An in a sense this is right, but it is also very misleading.  The main point I wish to make here is that in a debate it is quite possible for one side to accept the position of the other without any loss of face.  In fact it is often as not seen as being the highest rank of a debater to acknowledge the validity of their opponent.  In an argument, this is not the case.  When you are in an argument winning isn’t everything, it is the only thing.  Or at least this is how way to many Americans feel.

In closing let me point out this one fact.  Disagreement is not an Attack.  It is just disagreement.  This country was founded and has grown strong with the principle that we can disagree with each other.  True there are too many time in our past that we have ignored or forgotten this principle.  It looks like we may be forgetting this principle now, I hope and pray not.  So I ask each an everyone of you to help yourself and others to remember:

Disagreement is not an Attack

Debate is not an Argument

Listen to the words other may speak

Appeal to Authority

Philosophy

Well, I have found Facebook is good for more than pictures of kittens and raising my blood pressure this week.  Got into an interesting debate on climate and got  accused of committing the logical Fallacy of Appeal to Authority

This accusation came about because in the previous post where I was given a link to a website created by a self professed  entrepreneur with no background in the study of climates that I preferred to base my position on listening to the debate on the subject of experts in the field.  This was held to be citing, appealing, to authority as a reason why my position on climate change was correct.  This has spurred me on to look up just what does constitute the informal logical fallacy of Appeal to Authority.

I went to just two sources, my textbook from my collage years (An Intorduction to Logic) an Wikipedia.  As they both agreed in form, if not detail, I did not bother with more research.

It should be noted that Appeal to Authority is no always an informal Fallicy, as is shown below

The argument is a defeasible argument and a statistical syllogism taking the form:

X is an expert on subject Y,
X claims A. (A is within subject Y.)
Therefore, A is probably true.

In actual fact the fallicy should be called Appeal to Unqualified Authority and/or Appeal to uncritical acceptance of Authority. An example of the former is

X is an expert on subject Y,
X claims A. (A is NOT within subject Y.)
Therefore, A is probably true.

In the later case

X is an expert on subject Y,
X claims A. (A Has not been study or researched by X)
Therefore, A is probably true.

As can clearly be seen these thre syllogisms are very simular but the second and third are fallacies.  The first because while A is an Expert A is not an Expert in the subject dealing with A.  The second is a bit more tricky in that X is and Expert in the Subject Y and A is found in Subject Y but X has no expertise in subset of Subject Y which A is a part.

This last is why listening to the Experts debate the subject is so important.  The two most important question a person who is being asked to accept the Appeal to Authority is

1) Is the person(s) really an expert in the subject

If so

2) Is the positions being put forward in the preview of the expertise.

So what does this all mean to the person(s) debating?  It is to as it is difficult do.  Listen carefully and the go check the credentials of the expert being cited.

Trump & Paris

Politics,

So, Pres. Trump has gone and done it.  He kept his promise to all those people who supported him because they think that doing something about Global Climate change has or will do something to harm him.  This action was not just taken for the benefit of the coal industry.  Pres Trump, or perhaps some of his advisors know that the causes of the decline of the use of coal and the consequently decline of the coal industry has little or nothing to do with the effort to do something about global warming.

It has been known for a very long time, on the order of 150+ years, that the burning of coal is very very dirty.  Just read some of the old Victorian novels if you doubt me, they have many a colorful passage about the coal smoke of the industrial cities.  Some even have graphic bits about the coal ash mountains and the effect on the lovely little village that was destroyed by the ash slide.  No, what Pres. Trump did today has a much more sinister foundation.

I submit that Pres. Trump withdrew from the Paris Accords for two simple political reasons that had little to do with economics or climate.  He withdrew to distract the media and the public from  maelstrom that has been his administration and that is threatening to gain in ferocity next week.  He also took today’s action to try and  shore-up his weakening political base, both in the country and in the Congress.  We will have to wait and see if this, in fact achieves it’s goals.

Personally, I think it will be just one more loose tree being thrown around in the coming EF5 that our dear President has been ignoring.

As the Experiment continues.

Politics

Soon it will be 120 days into President Trump’s administration, the great Political Science experiment into having someone with no political experience as President.  Not only does Pres. Trump not have any kind of expreance in politics, either Gran or  Petite we are just becoming aware of just how limited his business expreance is.  I have just read that his business expreance is quite limited too.  I wonder show many of  Pres. Trump’s base is aware that he has never once worked in, much less run a publicity held corporation?  That none of his much touted business ‘ come close to the size and complexity of the United States?

As strange as it may seem from what limited information I have been able to gather all of his business’ were/are what is called “closely held” with many of them being considered a “small business” even though most were worth millions or billions of dollars.  Stop and think about this, this is like making someone a captain of the largest luxury cruise liner whose only ‘captain’ a high powered cigarette boat.  Fortunately for us, unlike the aforementioned ‘captain’, the President is just leader of one of three co-equal branches of our government.   In case of fact there are people in the executive branch who’s it is their swarn  duty to tell him “no” when he try’s to do something that would put the ship of state in harms way.

In the next few weeks, while Pres. Trump is on his  foreign trip, this nation is facing what maybe it’s greatest diplomatic crisis’ since  Vietnam.  If the news reports of Pres. Trumps itinerary are accurate he will be meeting first to the Saudi’s over the weekend where his should be giving a speech.  This speach is proported to be about combating radical ideology and his vision for a ‘peaceful’ Islam.  Given his past performances I do not hold out much hope that the President will stay on script.  Indeed, I fear he will go badly off script and, as anyone with Even a casual  acquaintance with the sensitivities of Saudi’s about Islam it will take a very deft hand to avoid the landminds.  Like any devout people the Saudis do not take kindly being lectured about their fath by a nonbeliever.

Following his stay in Saudi Arabia the President is scheduled to move on to Israel where he as already managed to put his foot into it twice already.  First the Whitehouse seems to have a hard problem with dealing with the tricky issues of the Holly sites like the West Wall, that and the President doesn’t seem to know that this wall is, in fact, in Jerusalem.  I wonder if he even knows what the West Wall is a wall of? His next little  foo paw just came out today with his canceling his visit to Missada because he can’t land his  helicopter on the actual site.  But then, I’m sure he has no idea just why this is such an important place to the Jews of the world as he most like slept thru any Roman history class’.

Pres. Trump will next move on to a meeting of all the NATO heads of state and my mind totally breaks down here on just how many people he will manage to totally piss off.  I guess we will all have to wait and see and pray he doesn’t get his hands on the Illudium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator

The Tzar and Trump

Politics, Rants

It may just be the SciFi fan in me but somehow I can’t help but see the irony of what is happening now with Pres. Trump and what happened a hundred years ago in Saint Petersburg.  What is different is that the GOP has the opportunity to keep the government from falling with the leader.  Let me be clear that I feel that Pres. Trump will go the way of Tzar Nicholas II, I don’t.  I’m not even willing to say Pres. Trump will go the way of Pres. Nixon.  Flatly, I don’t have nearly enough information yet to make that prediction.

Pres. Trump like Tzar Nichols II is someone who should have never had the job.  The difference is that Nicholas didn’t ask for the job and Trump did.  It should be obvious to all who have eyes that see that Donald J. Trump has no clue how to be President.  He is doing exactly what he told us he would do, he is trying to run the United States like a closely held company.  A company where the Boss/Owner gets to do what ever he wants, anyway he wants.  The problem is, the United States is not a company, neither closely held nor public.  The boss doesn’t get to do or say what ever he wants when ever he wants to ever he wants.  There are other people with nearly as much power as the President and there are organizations of equal power that can and will oppose the President if need be. The President is not an autocrat and can not long act like an autocrat before other people in positions of power will bring this to his attention.  Otero in a most forceful and unkind manner.

What’s worse is Pres. Trump doesn’t seem to understand that the one thing the President can not do is make the Presidentcy loose its dignity.  POTUS is not just another owner/operator of a company.  He is not just the face of a company, he is not even the face of the government.  POTUS is first and foremost the head of state of the United States of America.  POTUS must not only be dignified but be seen to be dignified.  An one thing dignity requires is loyalty to those who work for you.  You must always show respect for those beneath you and the work they do.  You can not send them out to say one thing, one day, and then publicly say the exact opposite the next day.  This is not dignity, this is arrogance.

 

 

Trump and the Myth of the Lost Cause

General

Every  person who has studied the American Civil War knows the great myth of “The Lost Cause” therefore it should come as no surprise that President Trump knows it not.  There are many parts to this myth but one of the more prominent is the contention that if Lincoln had not been elected the war would not have been fought.  Almost before the first shoots were loaded, much less fired, the south has been saying everything would have been just fine if the north had just not elected that Black Republican Lincoln as President.

It should be noted here that even if Lincoln had not gotten the Republican nomination it would have most assuredly gone to William H. Seward.  Seward was even more unexceptable to the Cotten states than Lincoln ever was as his position on the Abolition of Salvery was well and widely known.  That the Republican Party, at this time, was strongly Abolitionist is one of the accepted facts of history so the chance of anyone who’s position on Slavery would be exceptable to the Deep South is highly unlikely.  Therefore what is being said that not electing Lincoln means not electing a Republican, that is electing a Democrat.

That our dear President is totally ignorant of this fact is not surprising, too many people in this country have only the sketchiest idea of the election of 1860.  Few know that there was not one, but two Democratic nominees, Stephen Douglas, for the Northern Democatic Party,  John Breckinridge, for the Southern Democatic Party.  There was also John Bell who was running on the Constitutional Union Party, giving us a grand total of four candidates running.  Add to this that not one of these candidates was on the ballot in every state.  Given this there was little to no chance of a Not Republican candidate winning out right.  In fact in many places it was hope that no one candidate would get a majority of Electoral College votes and thus through the election to the House where it was hoped that someone acceptable to all sides of the Slavery issue would miraculously appear to save the union.

Now we come to dear President Trumps contention that if Andrew Jackson had been President the Civil War would not have happened.  Strangely enough this has some validity, in a perverse kind of way.  Let us forget that Pres. Jackson died some 16 years before the Civil War.  Instead lets hypothesize a Jacksonest candidate, what would he be?  First he’d be a Democrat, why, because Andrew Jackson was a founder of the Democratic Party.  Next he’d be a southerner, most likely from one of the more northern and western slave states.  Finally he’d be of the Plantation  Aristocracy a slave holding self made man.  This would be a man who not only supported Slavery in the States but most likely would look favorably on it’s expansion into the territories, something not to be look on with favor in the Free States.

So, just what is our dear President, in is maladroit way, saying?  If I was generous I’d say “The Civil War could have been averted if we could have elected someone who could bring the nation togeather.”  The problem is that this is a pious but impossible wish.  Just read any of the great histories on the Civil War, read Catton, or Foot or even McPherson and you will soon see that anyone acceptable to one side of the issue of Slavery would be, by being acceptable to that faction, totally unacceptable to the other.  Neither side was in the mood to compromise both equally convinced of the righteousness of there cause and equally convinced of the evilness of the other.

Since I am not feeling generous I’ll just say I believe that dear President Trump has been listening to one of hisSouthron cabinet members again.

The 100 Days

General

Depending on who you are, where your from, or what what you have studied the phrase “100 Days” can mean several things.  For myself it usually brings to mind two things.  Either the 100 Days campaign that ended with the Battle of Waterloo, or, the First 100 Days of a new Presidential admission.  Today it brings both to mind.

For the past week POTUS Trump and his minions have been doing their best to down play the importance of the first 100 days of his administration.  With notable lack of success.  IMO a major reason for this is that he made such a big point of how much he was going to get done in the first 100 days during the campaign last year.  He seemed to be always tell the crowd what he was going to do in the first day or days as President.  Now he seems flummoxed that people are remembering what he said.

So why do I also think of the 100 Days Campaign at this time.  It is quite simple, let me  elucidate.  Most people know something about the Battle  of Waterloo.  If nothing else a metaphor for loosing the final battle.  What they forget, or never new, is that Waterloo was the last battle of a campaign that started with the surprise return of Napoleon to France.  Of the many things Napoleon promised the French was the return of the Glory of the Empire.  I won’t go into the history of how Louis XVIII failed to win over the French, needles to say he did, opening up the door for Napoleon’s return.  A shock to the world even greater than the victory of Donald Trump last November.  To return the Glory of Empire to France Napoleon had to win, and see to be winning against the enemies of France.  The easiest to get to were England and Prussia so he march north and attacked them.  He, and his armies won three out of four battles, Ligny, Quatre-Bras, Wavre, and Waterloo.  An all we remember is the one he lost, Waterloo.

An why is that?  Simple, really, Napoleon had to win every battle, all Wellington and Blucher need to do is not loose.  Like Napoleon, Trump must win every political battle and be seen to win.  He can not afford to loose, or even have a draw.  An why is this?  Once more it is basically quite simple, he sold himself to the electorate as the penultimate winner.  The businessman who always won, an in away he, Trump, did always win.  The problem is way too often his business’ didn’t.  That is what his multiple business bankruptcies is all about.  Trump seems to have always won but both his business, investors and partners didn’t.  Unfortunately the Strategy and Tactics that allowed him to always win in business don’t translate over into politics.

When you promise to get things done, fast, you need more than multiple photo-ops signing executive orders.  Those orders have to be something that people see in there everyday lives.  When you say you are going to repeal Obamacare the first day as President you have to deliver once you are seen to have put a bill before congress.  Not have the bill pulled because your own party in the House can’t muster enough votes to pass it.  Finally, you can’t make threats and then not follow thru on them.  If you make a public threat, like forcing a government shutdown if funding for you boarder wall is not in the must pass Concuring Resolution this week you can’t just fold you hand when your hand is called.

So, in closing, President Trump needs to be seen to be winning, but more to the point, he must be seen to having an effect in the everyday lives of the electorate.  Doing things that big business and big money see is not going to cut the mustard.  It is the everyday average Joe who will take down this President an so far he is on track to doing just that.