Libera Voce

“True freedom requires the rule of law and justice, and a judicial system in which the rights of some are not secured by the denial of rights to others.” Jonathan Sacks

A few months ago I listened to a news program, I believe on BBC, about Jonathan Sacks who died last year. The program spoke about his influence on British political thought, and about his career as a former member of the House of Lords, a British Orthodox Rabbi, philosopher, theologian, and a well know public figure in the UK. At first it had no resonance with me as I knew little about him, but when they discussed his statement above that was particularly relevant to the current discursive discussion of race in the West, that resonated.

When compared to the mind numbing and perverse theories of White Supremacy, Critical Race Theory, and other collectivist and tribal theses, the Sacks’ quote makes the connection of concepts with systems and rights with such clarity, and yet so succinctly. I would have loved to have seen him as a guest speaker in American Universities and our Congress; likely he would have been shouted down and canceled in our current culture of misguided lock-step beliefs that are saturated with both obvious and subtle racism and classism. This is so regarding advocates of racial theories from all political groups, as if equality is a zero sum game, with rights that need to be rationed on the basis of race, and who is the perceived oppressor or oppressed.

I always found the biblical story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden being expelled because they ate the Forbidden Fruit from the Tree of Knowledge providing two metaphorical messages; one that knowledge is a sin, and two that this sin can be transmitted genealogically. While original sin is religious dogma, there are equivalent ones held by the perpetrators of White Supremacy and Critical Race Theory; in both cases belief in defective racial characteristics informs their theses and inspires their political activism.  

While many people today do not subscribe to the belief in original sin as they see it as a moronic and vile concept, unfortunately many also fail to see the absurdity of ascribing to a human being an inherent inferiority based on their race. I am not making this criticism as a justification for some of the perverse concepts of equality; empirically no one can be equal to anyone else, and in fact the same person is not even equal to themselves at different times. While all should be equal under the law as Saks notes, it is absurd to think that any two human beings can be equal to each other; that would destroy the very concept of an individual, of actually being human.

Therefore it follows that each and every human being should be respected as an individual, each with their own characteristics and abilities, but all with the same rights under the rule of law and justice, and at no time can any human being be deprived of those rights in order to provide advantage to another. While this fundamental concept of liberty is imbedded in the founding principles of our nation, and in our very constitution, it has been violated through much of our history. It is this disease of racism that is the cause of the internal strife in American society, yet unfortunately we actually perpetuate it and often with ideas that we profess are meant to cure it.

As an example we have the case of the Parents Involved in Community Schools v Seattle School District No. 1. The District provided students’ parents the option to apply to any high school of their choice but also used racial quotas to maintain the diversity of the district. The Parents sued the District and the case went through the process of circuit courts, finding its way to SCOTUS in 2007. While there were the usual precedential arguments as this was not the first time for such a case, SCOTUS found that the District’s use of racial quotas violated the Equal Protect Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. As Chief Justice Roberts stated, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” While SCOTUS’s ruling seems common sensible for such an obvious case of racism, it has not always ruled consistently on the issue. There were cases before and after this where SCOTUS ruled in confused and equivocating fashion regarding Affirmative Action, such as in the 2003 case of Grutter v. Bollinger, and other instances where racial quotas were employed; but the Parents v. District case did provide a precedential basis on which the law and justice are served.

For those who think that the cause for White Supremacy is fading, don’t be misled as the Klan is still very much alive, and in fact is reinvented with the rise of other such groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. For those that think that racism is limited to those groups, again don’t be misled as we have Antifa and DSA that embrace CRT. What is common to all these groups is the primitively collectivist thesis of race as a determinant of rights.

Inherent in all racism is this primitive tribalism corrosive to any civil society, whether that’s between whites and blacks, Han and Uyghur, Arab and Jew, the list goes on and unfortunately is plagued by seemingly intractable misconceptions of humanity manifested in both advocacy for and against racism. The concept of Aryan superiority is so obviously moronic that it does not require a high level of intelligence to reject its premise. However, while the same should be true of CRT, it’s apparent that it is making progress in infesting not only political activism in America, but in our educational institutions.  There are actually k-12 school districts mandating its inclusion in curricula. Like all forms of racism it basically rejects the natural laws of humanity, particularly those of the Enlightenment and the rise of Classical Liberalism as institutions based on Western Civilization inherently structured to oppress those who are not white, and that this whiteness is an unavoidable characteristic of all white people. Yes, the theme of original sin lives on, and in this obvious form of racism now being taught to children.

Contrary to what most Americans think, CRT is not new.  It has its roots in early post WWII America, and has informed many political activists since that time. The movement for Reparations is based on CRT concepts. The definition of reparation is making amends for a wrong one has done, most often by paying money or some form of help to those one has wronged. Since nearly none if any slave owners or slaves are alive today, the only logical basis for such reparations has to be racial. When I consider that this is proposed by many politicians today, I wonder how stupid they think Americans are when they tell us to end such racial divisions which they themselves have promoted for years.

Unfortunately what we have in America today is a widening gap on racial issues providing an opportunity for unethical politicians to manipulate to their advantage, and that is clearly the case in both main political parties, making tribalism that which informs much of the race discussion; as Thomas Sowell so eloquently put it, “Have we reached the ultimate stage of absurdity where some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, while other people are not held responsible for what they themselves are doing today?”

Unfortunately as absurd as Sowell may find our current condition, it is difficult to maintain an optimistic view regarding racism in America’s future. That said, and being an optimist by nature, I am heartened to read articles about parents groups taking action against the educational institutions that seek to include doctrinaire curricula such as CRT and racial quotas in our schools. The hope is that we love our children enough not to burden them with the psychological damage inherent in all racism.

In anticipation of the upcoming annual Economic Policy Symposium in Jackson Hole that started this past Thursday, many financial news organizations interviewed various Federal Reserve Governors regarding the published program agenda, entitled “Macroeconomic Policy in an Uneven Economy”. While many of the questions were scripted to the Federal Reserve’s narratives, there were some that were well on point regarding Fed policy and actual economic conditions, which the Governors should have, and in some cases did anticipate.  The answers were interesting in the jargon used to either avoid hard questions or spin like Orwellian Newspeak.

One question posed was what did the agenda title actually mean? I imagine that much of the public would not be able to tell the difference between macroeconomics and microeconomics. The phrase and definition of macroeconomics was first proposed by John Maynard Keynes in the 1930’s as a proposition that governments should decide on economic policy. Before then autocrats in monarchies and other authoritarian countries simply decreed whatever economic regulations they wished. Keynes attempted to raise such dictates to a science. We have another invented term as a corollary, i.e. microeconomics as the study of those decisions of individuals and businesses; seemingly regarded as the lesser stuff even though it’s what makes for an economy in the first place.

Now go to “…in an Uneven Economy” for more discursive thinking.  The answers were many and varied, but one consistency that became apparent is that no one could provide a coherent answer, but also none of the answers were consistent among the Governors.  This should be expected with an agenda so vague and ambiguous. All economies by nature are “uneven” as the very genesis of the discipline we call economics is about scarcity, i.e. if there was no scarcity in the world the study of economics would be meaningless. Further, no matter what policies any bureaucrat can conjure up they will never make any economy “even”, and empirically have made them worse.

Then we have the telling question for which we get very creative spinning. The question was “Is the Federal Reserve at all concerned about increasing inflationary trends far greater than either its target or its expectations, and the fact that it no longer appears to be transitory?” To the first part the answers were somewhat dismissive as if inflation did not exist or was unimportant; for the second part the answers by some governors were truly creative and included a common theme, i.e. we should not be thinking about the current inflationary trends as “transitory” but “episodical”. Wow, that one sent me to my Webster’s as I was not sure it was a real form of episode, but the Governors were grammatically right on, although regrettably disingenuous. The term itself regards a series of interconnected episodes, or in other words not something transitory, but something of a longer, and perhaps indeterminate duration. So there we have it, spinning a situation in such a way that we can actually see the spin.

Not to be swayed by the spinning, some more adventurous interviewers ventured into the QE area and the related topic known as tapering. The term “Quantitative Easing” first arose in the public lexicon in 2008 when the Fed started buying UST securities in order to increase the money supply.  But what do you buy that with? No problem since the Fed simply orders more Federal Reserve Notes, i.e. US dollars, from the UST’s Bureau of Engraving and Printing; it’s monetary inflation on steroids. Those USDs are in turn distributed to the regional Fed banks, who are required to put up collateral for the new money circulated; they in turn distribute the new money to the various commercial banks and lending institutions. It’s kind of a trickle down process, but the first at the trough are the big investment banks where their large clients in corporate America come to feast. Easy money at Fed repressed rates, creating the booming valuations in stocks and real estate, unfortunately at the expense of those dependent on market determined interest rates.

The spin on this starts with the name itself, which would indicate that there is some unnatural restriction that has to be eased, when in fact the reality is that investments and lending, in many respects similar but not always the same, should actually decrease as risk increases. This is the free market’s way of cleansing itself of bad assets and actors in the economy and redirecting money to where it will provide return on investments that would attract further investments, and so on, leading to real growth and the prosperity and jobs that come with that.   

When the Governors where asked about the plans for the Fed to “taper”, i.e. buy fewer UST securities and/or allow interest rates to return to market functions, and/or cool off the printing press, we get very fluid responses ranging from later this year, 3Q next year, or as late as middle of 2023. Asked if they think delaying tapering or continuing with their other “tools” would overheat the economy, or make our national debt even more of a dangerous burden, and we get varied responses, but again with a new consistent buzz word, i.e. the need to “balance” many considerations.

The first thing to understand is what the Federal Reserve Act mandates economically to begin with, and there are only two considerations, i.e. work to assure maximum employment and minimum inflation; admittedly these are inherently contradictory goals, but who are we to question the wisdom of Congress. The second thing to consider is the word “balance” as in a balance sheet.  One of the Feds financial regulatory duties is to assure stability in the banking system, and one of the procedural tools it uses is a financial stress test focused on a bank’s balance sheet, i.e. a bad balance sheet translates as a bank in financial stress. By all measures in that regard the Fed’s balance sheet is stressed beyond belief, itself dependent on the life support of massive doses of paper money as if it grew on trees….well close, dollars are printed on cotton that grows on a shrub, but let’s not get picky, no pun intended.

In summary the Fed has spun out of control, even by the metrics of so called Modern Monetary Theory; theories are nice as an academic exercise, but empirical evidence shows that MMT is little more than failed economics. When interest rates approach zero while inflation increases, you are essentially already at net negative rates, so the Fed’s open market operations such as QE are not only no longer effective, but are doomed to failure. Consider the fact that since 2008 we have had QE1…2…3 …4…get the point?

Dating back to ancient Rome and its imperial regimes, the need for more and more money to finance its hegemony of the then known western world, so devalued its wealth time and again until it imploded; Rome fell because it failed economically, and politically from within, and not because of some barbarians at the gate. Beware America, history has a way of repeating itself.

While mass media wrestles with the blame about the debacle of Afghanistan, and whose fault it is, and whether Trump lied about his conditions for withdrawal, and whether Biden ignored the intelligence reports on embassy evacuation or just simply lied about them, it’s all so painfully meaningless; so much sound and fury, ignoring the obvious.

The obvious question is why were we there to begin with?  The propaganda narrative, entitled “Operation Enduring Freedom”, was to destroy Al-Qaida, perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks, and to destroy the Taliban government. That government arose in 1994 when the Mujahedeen that defeated the Soviets in 1989, in turn went on to defeat the corrupt warlord dominated government that arose in the aftermath of the Soviet defeat.

What we should understand is that the 9/11 attacks were perpetrated by 19 terrorists, 15 of whom were Saudis, 2 UAE citizens, one Lebanese, and one Egyptian; not only were none Afghanis, but the funding has been confirmed to have been from Saudi elites. Did we get our geography wrong or were we stupid enough to believe the false narrative, and for twenty years!

In that time, the casualty list is appalling: US military 2.5K, US allies about 1.1K, US contractors about 3.8K, Afghan military about 66K, Afghan civilians about 47K, and the “enemy” about 51K; these figures do not include the wounded, many permanently disabled. Please note that the causality rate among Afghani civilians is nearly that of the “enemy”; we killed nearly as many civilians as the “enemy”, so who were we there to fight?

This does not include the devastation to the US economy; while this and the Iraqi War cost Americans about $2T, now $6.5T including interest since the US doesn’t “pay”, it barrows endlessly, the real question is not who ended this wrong; it’s who started this moronic ideology to begin with? The answer to that is not acceptable to those who deflect the issue to who’s to blame for what just happen with the US evacuation of our Embassy in Kabul; that was as inevitable as what happened in Saigon 46 years ago.

So here we are, nearly a half century later than the end of the Viet Nam War, with the same inevitable results, and the real question is what have we learned at these terrible devastating costs? Have we degenerated hopelessly into a warfare state, where by executive order we leash hell on our own, helpless civilians as collateral damage, and an economy so indebted to mindless violence that we kill nearly as many innocents as some poorly defined “enemy”?

While Congress grapples with the stupidity of another $3.5T in spending, consider some simple housekeeping to stop the military adventurism draining this country’s resources; let’s close the 800+ military bases in about 70 foreign countries; stop stupid money like the $1.5T F35 development for a plane that can’t even fly; and above all, return war powers to the only constitutional authority, the Congress of the USA, and end the despotism of executive war powers.

We have heard from various administration officials over the last few years how their decisions on policy will depend on the data and not some theoretical modeling or a priori intuition. Sounds a lot like empiricism, the basis for the scientific method, which relies on evidentiary proof based on actual life experience.

One of the problems that arise with data is when it’s subjected to an interpretation that supports a predetermined narrative. What’s needed in cases that are inherently subjective is an historical reference to what has been empirically established, if available, and not something viewed through the prism of what conveniently fits into some narrative. Unfortunately, that may not always be available.

Another problem is that quite often the data itself is misrepresented; this may be through omission, distortion or outright lies. We may not know that at the outset, but eventually it will become apparent either through further analyses or just plain calling out those who sought to mislead for whatever reason.

In either case this will create confusion not only about the decision making process, but the purported facts on which it relies. This issue is not isolated to any particular business, political party or institution as the lack of integrity and/or intelligence in policy making has become quite commonplace. We should always keep in mind Hanlon’s razor, which states “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

I am not suggesting that everything can or should be determined by data as neither common sense nor principles are subject to quantitative analyses. However, when seeking to understand natural or behavioral phenomena, good data, objectively researched and interpreted, will provide an empirical basis of understanding. That sounds all well and good, but if we judge our leaders and their so called experts based on experience we are left with a contradiction as the evidentiary proof is contrary to the policies adopted.

In economics, the most data saturated discipline there is, we can see examples of how data was used successfully or irresponsibly. Looking at just more modern presidential administrations provides us with some comparative illustrations. Nixon, who wanted to have no monetary restraints, and readily admitted that he was bored with monetary issues, severed the dollar from the gold standard.  The results were catastrophic as the dollar plummeted to the point where US Treasures’ had to be denominated in Swiss Francs in order to attract buyers; the obvious calamity of runaway inflation and lack of investment caused the infamous “Stagflation” that plagued the US for decades.

Eventually Paul Volker was made Fed Chairman under Carter and Regan, instituted policies that from 1979 to 1987 managed to stabilize the dollar.  With Regan and Clinton we get some data driven sanity through tax, health and welfare reform, fiscal restraint, investment incentives, free trade policies, etc.

I think it was the campaign strategist James Carville that told Clinton’s staff that the most important message they needed to understand was “It’s the economy, stupid!” Clinton’s campaign did not direct that message in those terms to the electorate, but they definitely got the message. The recession was not being properly addressed by George W.H. Bush’s campaign and that cost him the election. 

It took over two decades of fiscal restraint and reforms to eventually manage a recovery, and realize deficit and debt reduction to a degree that actually resulted in a surplus. That’s what honest data driven policies did for this country back then, and we sorely need that now.

Instead we got Trump, a president about as ignorant of economics as he was of ethics, a narcissistic reality show host that was incapable of dealing with reality. True he cut taxes, which mostly benefited the rich and corporate elite, but at the same time spent money with no focus other than to manipulate the market to benefit his cronies on Wall Street; all of that was clearly done despite the data that screamed further deficits and debt. When Jerome Powell started tapering CE in late 2019, Trump threw a tantrum even before Wall Street could, and Powell, the ever ineffective sycophant that he is, immediately reversed course.

Trump’s sole contribution to health reform was to attack the ACA; true, the mandate was a horrible breach of constitutional and ethical standards and should never have been enacted, but he offered nothing else to reform what the data showed was an ineffective and wasteful system.

He eviscerated free trade with an avalanche of sanctions and tariffs that in reality were nothing more than taxes on Americans; you didn’t need a data base to figure that one out. He promised to stop the endless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but failed to stop the fiscal and physical bleeding. He declared war on immigration, a strange policy considering a nation that thrives on it both economically and culturally.

It would be hard to see how things could get worse, but never underestimate a politician’s power lust.  In just a few months the Biden administration makes Trump’s irresponsible policies comparatively benign. I remember how we were all appalled at the record deficit the Trump administration had created, adding to a debt burden that screamed for relief; Biden’s administration is working hard to make that many times worse.

When even the OMB, ever more Fed governors, the GSA, and even some Wall Street elites who benefit from the most drastic CE in history, speak to rising inflation, we are told by the administration, and of course the ever accommodative Chairman Powell, that it’s all transitory.  Now here’s where the data makes either fools or liars of them all.  Since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913, the US dollar has lost 95% of its value as of 4Q 2019 due to monetary inflation.  Since then, even more to the point where the Fed now owns 76% of the Federal debt, a debt most economists know is likely to end the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency, and destroy the wealth of many Americans.

Artificially repressing interest rates has only exacerbated the problem.  With real inflation running over 5%, and the UST 10 year yield at about 1.25%, we have an actual negative rate of 3.75%. Understandably the Fed has had to step in and buy the debt as foreign sovereign purchases declined as the US Treasury is no longer a safe haven. The famous writer of the Dow Theory Newsletter, Richard Russell, once said “He who understands interest earns it. He who doesn’t understand interest pays it.” History has shown that there has never been a fiat currency that has not failed; eventually, in some way, shape or form, debt will take its tool.

“If you don’t read newspapers you are uninformed; if you do read them you are misinformed.” Mark Twain

The 2021 survey of trust in media among 46countries that are deemed to have a relatively free press by The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University ranked Finland first with 65% of its citizens trusting its media, and the US last with media trust at only 29%. The majority of Americans surveyed responded that they found that the media has embraced advocacy journalism, particularly for the “woke” movement, and found the media overwhelmingly biased in favor of the current administration and alarmingly supportive of that same woke movement, resulting in a quasi-state media where journalists are more bound to the government’s embrace of ideology rather than independent and objective reporting.

Those surveyed also expressed dismay at the lack of support for free speech manifested by the call in both government and mass media to pressure social media to censor anyone questioning that trend. In summary, they consider the media in general to be an echo chamber of ideology rather than a reliable information source. This included many that were opposed to Trump, but found Facebook’s and Twitter’s cancellation of his accounts a troublesome example of the slippery soap of the cancel culture regarding free expression.

While this phenomenon is ostensibly different than the PRC’s closing down “The Apple Daily” in Hong Kong for its open criticism of the crackdowns, and arresting its journalists, it is still alarming that the most revered liberty of American constitutional law and free expression culture is so obviously under attack by a minority radical movement whose ideology is embraced by the press and our own government. It was the prior administration that coined the phrase “fake news” in criticism of those in the media that criticized it, and whose supporters embraced such claims even to the extent of accepting the false narrative of a fraudulent presidential election.

Among the news organizations in the US we have Fox at 46% trust and then CNN, MSNBC and Buzzfeed at 37%; things decline rapidly thereafter. So where then can Americans look for reliable, fact based and unbiased news? There then is the dilemma that provides a mere overall 29% trust rating. But what was hopeful is that local news had a 58% rating. Apparently trust of news organizations on the national level declines markedly. Interestingly, trust in government has a similar phenomenon with the local doing much better than state, and state better than federal.

Trust is an easy thing to lose as it doesn’t take much for that to happen. Many political scientists have found that one of the main reasons for the swings in partisan success in America is the extent of wrong doing by those in power. Nixon won because Johnson made so many social and military blunders; Carter won because Ford was so tainted by Nixon’s Watergate; Regan won because of the incompetence of Carter; Clinton won because Bush Sr. ignored the economy; Obama won because Bush Jr. lied about so many things; Trump won because Hilary was such a manipulative politician who alienated so many people; Biden won because Trump was such a narcissistic moron. 

This decay of trust can be seen in differentials of approval ratings of recent Presidents reported by the five top polls; while there are variances in these polls, the average mean is telling. The most radical are found with the Bushs’ at around 60%; Americans don’t like body bags. Clinton, Regan and Obama all were around 30%; while reasons varied, consistency paid off. Amazingly Trump was the lowest differential at 15%, but then again he had consistently low ratings to begin with. For Biden it’s too early to tell; currently he has a 52% approval rating, but he is saddled with a wide ideological gap within his own party. Luckily for him, the Republicans are likewise fractured, perhaps even more so. The percentage of American voters who regard themselves as independents has steadily increased since 2000, now at about 41%, leaving 31% as Democrats and 26% as Republicans, and the balance with various third parties.

So along with the decline in trust, both in media and government, we have a decline in major party affiliation. But the swings in voting tendencies also indicate confusion, which coupled with distrust makes for a volatile political climate, increasingly polarized among shrinking partisan groups. In the past the press played an important role of informing the public somewhat objectively, providing a modicum of a reliable basis for a peaceful realignment and emergence of viable alternative parties.

The echo chamber of current times does not provide that. What we have instead is growing dissatisfaction, alienation and radicalization. History shows that one potential outcome is a chaotic and potentially not so peaceful realignment of political affiliations. Regardless of how it happens, the two major political parties are likely near the end of their era. Depending on what the political landscape that emerges looks like, that may very well be a good thing.

So what do we do about the echo chamber? Unfortunately for the average American there is very little to be done to change the current journalistic paradigm of mass or social media.  The best course may be abstention; shut off the noise, grab some classics to read, avoid sound bites, think in a common sense mode and follow your gut. While you may not be deemed the most informed, you will be a lot less misinformed; but be careful as George Orwell cautioned that “The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it.”

In his hit song, “Somebody’s Crying”, Chris Isaak laments that somebody’s lying; it’s a great song and a lyrical wonder by a truly gifted artist. It’s sad but true that in life we cry when someone lies to us, especially when it’s someone you love; so America, by now you should have cried oceans of tears as that someone is your own country, or more accurately, your own government.

I recently read that most of mass media relies on statistics based on what people click on social media to determine what they will print, and how to present it. The usual field is about a million of the most recent from which they will take about the top one to two percent. Most of the “Woke” movement is found on social media, so its migration to mass media is not hard to understand. The publisher’s motivation, besides their political and social leanings, is profits, i.e. income from advertisers; it’s what sells that matters, not what is true.  The result is the suppression of facts and the marginalization of contrarian views, a kind of journalistic cancel culture. Those that don’t fit in the program are either disregarded with whatever label is deemed the current villain, like “racists”, “fascists”, “oppressors”, “privileged”, “sexists”, “ableists”, etc., or simply fired.

A good friend recently told me that people just don’t want to read a lot anymore; newspapers that post articles that go beyond the front page are not as popular as tabloids. So while the above may seem a new phenomenon, it’s really just a variation on an old theme. Lies and labels are the tools of ochlocracies and autocrats, demagogues and dictators, in the sordid history of partisan politics. Think about America’s history just about a century back with all the stuff we were told to believe that was pure nonsense; true, we could go back further, but there’s plenty of material in this time frame.

Try the Spanish American War; “Remember the Maine!” was the cry.  The historical fact is that it was a faulty boiler explosion that sunk the Maine, not Spanish sabotage. Lots of people died in that fabricated conflict.  Yes, somebody was lying, so there was a lot of crying.

Then we have the 1913 Federal Reserve Act, to create a central bank to help stabilize our economy.  Really great job depreciating the USD by 96% to today’s value; now that has to be one of the great lies of all time, and sadly one many still believe. Imagine telling people for more than a century that inflation is a good thing while they wake up day after day with the dollar they have constantly worth less; no imagination needed, the lie continues while the cries go ignored. 

Then we have the 16^th amendment, providing for a tax formerly prohibited by the constitution, an amendment the history of which is loaded with as many lies as there were states voting on ratification. Contrary to what many conservatives say today, and many people believe, it was not proposed by the Democrats under Wilson, but by Republicans under Taft. The ratification process had so many irregularities that provide some very interesting questions which have never been resolved.  It also did not provide for payroll withholding at all; that was an FDR manipulation to fund his New Deal. One lie on top of another, and we really need a good cry.

Then we have the Great War, the “War to End All Wars”. The US joined the slaughter because the Germans attacked the Lusitania, a British passenger ship that was carrying munitions and with Americans on board.  That was not the story line reported, so someone was lying. About 4.7M Americans were involved in that war, of which about a half million died, were wounded or suffered from diseases in the trenches; that war should be renamed the “Great Lie”.

What followed the Great War were two catastrophic events that were to lead to so many more deaths. One was the Spanish Flu, which was named not because of its origins as many were told (Spain was neutral in WWI), but mysteriously out of an Army post in Indiana as later reported. Actually not so mysterious as the soldiers there were returning from the horrors of the “Trench Warfare” (more like sewers) of WWI, most likely the origins of this multimillion people killer; big lies cause big cries.

The second catastrophic event of WWI was the Treaty of Versailles, so vengeful and destructive, creating the social cesspool from which Hitler, Franco, Mussolini and Stalin arose. There are so many contrived reasons given for the rise of such dictators, most ignoring the social and economic chaos created by WWI, the Versailles Treaty and the pandemic that followed that we have to wonder at the gullibility of not just those lied to, but the liars themselves. The politicians that caused these horrible events must have lied to themselves to concoct and promote such vacuous reasoning, but the people cried from the suffering they caused.

Then we have the Great Depression.  We were told the causes were things like speculation, unregulated banking, stock market manipulation, etc. Missing of course was the real culprit of what today we would call “accommodative monetary and fiscal policy”, i.e. massive liquidity providing the boom and bust cycle we have come to take for granted, this one particularly chaotic.  We were told that FDR had a plan, the New Deal, to save the country, but it was a raw deal that made things worse; we were told it was for the greater good, and that was really lying, so we kept on crying. The New Deal did nothing to abate the Great Depression, but in fact prolonged it; sadly it was WWII that did more to end it than FDR’s irresponsible policies ever did; now that’s something to really cry about.

The beginning of America as a “Warfare State” really took flight with the Korean War, called at the time the “Korean Conflict”, which we somehow had to get involved with to stop socialism and Red China’s aggression. It was actually a civil war, but that was not the acceptable spin, and so again someone lied, many people died, and many people cried.

But why stop there? Liars love spin, and with the “Gulf of Tonkin Incident” you get a really big lie, and with Viet Nam you get a really big cry. In order to stop a fantasy “Domino Effect” we get the lie that bankrupted a generation and caused a social eruption that fractured a nation, and I’m not talking Viet Nam, I’m referring to the US.

Of course we can’t leave out one of my favorite lies, the “Weapons of Mass Destruction” of Iraq. So much a catchy phrase that we gave it initials, “WMD”. Apparently we’re good at that, but not seeing the big lie it was, and after more than a decade of “Nation Building” there and twenty plus years in Afghanistan, we hear stupid stuff like “mission accomplished”; yeah, killing thousands of innocent civilians not to mention US soldiers is quite an accomplishment, together with the inevitable bankruptcy it will contribute to. The bigger the lie, the longer we will cry.  

But we’re even better at the big lies economically, as in the “Financial Crisis”. Now even the name is a lie, it was an intelligence crisis.  We create the bubbles and wonder why they burst, and then we come up with an even bigger lie; we call it “Quantitative Easing”, and in true form we give it initials, QE, because we’re too damn lazy to say the entire phrase, more honestly being corporate bailouts.

Needless to say, the Trump Era (which may not be over yet) saw abundant lying, like the wall against immigration, Russian interference if not collusion, Ukrainian coercion, and of course voter fraud. Amazingly, the crying was more from those in denial of anything that Trump did wrong, but on the other hand, the hypocrisy from those who so dramatically expressed offense yet provided little in the way of meaningful and effective action. It was a circus of lies and ineptitude, but I think the most hurtful crying may still await us.

So true to form, when presented by what we call a “pandemic” for Covid, a true stretch of terms considering a world death toll nearing 0.05% compared to the Black Plague that claimed a death toll of somewhere (best guesses) between 21% to 57% of the world’s population, or more recently the Spanish Flu with a .10% death toll. We were told we needed to “flatten the curve” by cancelling all economic activity for just a few months; that then became a few more, and now we have more than a year and a half, killing the livelihood of millions, likely eventually killing many more than the pandemic itself. 

So when you lie, you find the need to keep lying in the hope of covering up your previous lies, which of course leads to the need to perpetuate the lies, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. Now we have the “American Recovery”, as if the very idiots that caused a massive economic catastrophe can somehow bring us to a so called recovery. There’s no Heimlich maneuver for that, but lies are the tonic for fools.

Remember Judy Mikovits? She was the scientist who took records from the NIH that would reportedly expose Fauci’s involvement with NIH funding of the Wuhan Lab’s chimeric experiments with Covid viruses. She was arrested without a warrant, detained and then released, but only after those records were retrieved. What we have now are insistent news stories into the origins of Coivd at those same labs, and an apparent US funding for its research. I wonder what lies await us.

We are told that green energy will lead to a cleaner environment, but what we are told is not supported by basic science and engineering, which informs us that the highest efficiency possible for conversion of the sun’s photons to electrons is 33%, and for wind 60%. Currently our best solar panels have a 26% conversion, and wind turbines 45%, so we are getting closer to maximum efficiency. However, the input to produce solar panels, wind turbines and electric car batteries takes ten times the quantity of materials compared with building machines using hydrocarbons to deliver the same amount of energy.

We also have the disposal issue; by 2050 the quantity of expired and non-recyclable solar panels will double the tonnage of all of today’s global plastic waste, along with over 3 million tons per year of unrecyclable plastics from worn-out wind turbine blades. By 2030, more than 10 million tons per year of batteries will become garbage. Now all this is not to say that we shouldn’t strive for cleaner energy, but to propose trillions of dollars of government funds to invest in technologies that are not only less efficient but actually require more mining of materials and produce more waste does not actually translate as a cleaner alternative.

No doubt the end of the internal combustion engine is inevitable given the accelerating rate of technological progress, but the alternatives being promoted by the cronies of government subsidies are far from sustainable; lies get access to the taxpayer’s pockets, but crying about that does not seem to impress the power elite. 

Lying and crying will not change facts, so Americans need to get the truth and get it out there for all to see. As John Adams said “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”

“A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.” Oscar Wilde

Often in life we are asked the simple question “So what do you think?” The issue at hand can be business, a friend seeking advice as to some problem they’re having, or just what’s going on with your favorite baseball team. None of the issues matter, what matters is what you think. But do we answer correctly if all we’re doing is providing opinions or beliefs? Actually were not as those things aren’t what we’re thinking, but are what someone else is writing or saying we should be thinking.

So what does it mean to think? This is not meant as a deep philosophical question, but something that is basically common sense. Try to remember the last time you were faced with a problem and despite all the advice you were given, whether you asked for it or not, you decided to move past all that conventional wisdom and came to your own conclusion as what to do based on your own experiences. I wonder what the reactions were of those that gave their advice you did not take?

True thinking is definitely something that is not what many say it is.  It is not opinion as that is something subjective and usually founded on the absence of factual information. Take for instance opinion polls.  All too often the polls show that people’s opinions are based more on what they read and hear others say about whatever the subject of the poll may be. As an example, consider the pool on COVID19 vaccines wherein many hold the opinion that it causes infertility in women. While there is still much research needed on these vaccines, this opinion is contrary to factual information.

Neither is belief based on true thinking. Belief is a “thought” that some have decided is true; it does not require facts, but it does require faith that what we believe is true even in the absence of a factual basis. Thinking on the other hand requires facts, which are irrefutable pieces of information. The trick of course is determining the irrefutable.

So back to the question as to what it means to think. In his last interview in 1996, Carl Sagan said “Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.” Taking that word “science”, derived from the Latin word “scientia”, which actually means knowledge or experience, we only need our common sense to understand what really thinking is, i.e. that which we know is fact based on our own experience; everything else is opinion or belief, usually based on what others have said or written.

Is thinking something that can be taught? Based on my own experience, I think so, but that doesn’t mean it necessarily is the only way to learn how to think. While I’m no fan of much that John Dewey represents, he was a humanist who actively supported independent thinking.  It is still odd that as a self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist he said that “The children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society.” Thinking for oneself is viewed as disruptive by conformist cultures and authoritarian societies, but by its nature, thinking is an empirical process, and since no two people have the same life experiences, how can it be possible for all people to always really think alike?

To put it as simply as George S. Patton did, “If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.”