Sunday, June 05, 2016

A Campaign To Thoroughly Discredit Reagan

There is a campaign underway to thoroughly discredit Ronald Reagan, the Republican gold standard, and, surprisingly, it is not coming from the Democratic side. There are conservatives out to prove Ronald Reagan was exactly like The Donald before he got elected president. Reagan also supposedly hosted a talk show. Trump talks of Mexican rapists, Reagan supposedly holds the copyright on the phrase "welfare queen," an intentional gross exaggeration of the facts. There seem to be quite a few such parallels.

Facts-free racism, as directed against Barack Obama by a recalcitrant Congress, and facts-free sexism, completely unhinged from facts and logic, as directed against Hillary (for the umpteenth time, it is the Department Of Defense, not State, that has been tasked with protecting embassies) is a slippery slope. When you lack political mojo, but you practice it, then, it is a slippery slope. You keep falling. If it were evidence based decision making, data based, subject to logic, deliberation, and such, then you have something to hold on to, and you don't fall. But facts-free is slippery. You fall.

There is a very real possibility Donald Trump is the last of the Mohicans, I mean Republicans.

Lincoln moved above party, even country, a long time ago. He is not thought of as American, let alone Republican. Reagan was all you had. Trump is busy knocking out the facade. Emperor Reagan, it seems, was naked. Supply side economics is voodoo. That was Reagan fishing in the murky waters of the Cold War. It was voodoo from the outset.

I am for small government. There's stuff a government must do, and only the government can and should do, and I want all that to be done with as little money and people as possible. Efficiency is good for business, it is also good for government. But learn from the Chinese to respect bureaucrats.

I am for a total spread of democracy, but you get there by allowing everyone who lives in New York City to vote in the city elections. NYC is under colonial rule right now. Almost half of New Yorkers can't even vote in the city elections.

I am strong on defense, but the best way to get there is through a total spread of democracy and, yes, a world government, one person one vote one voice 24/7 local to global. Every country should pay 1% of its GDP as a membership fee. The world government is what will bring about a total spread of democracy, it's not the other way round. People are born equal, all people, everywhere.

 

Wednesday, June 01, 2016

Whose Job Is It?

Donald Trump went all the way to New Mexico to denounce the Republican Latina governor of the state for "not doing her job."

I wonder if he thinks the wall is her job. That there is no wall means she is not doing her job.

New Mexico is a border state, is it not?

Men's Genius On Abortion

That the way to eliminate abortions in society is by making abortions illegal, I have no idea who wrote those laws when they existed, but if I had to guess, those laws were written by men. Only manly genius could have come up with such a thing.

Like some dude said only a few years ago, the way to stop rape was for women to "shut the whole thing down," which takes us right down to Anatomy 101, back to the basics, as they say.

You could not make poverty illegal and thus end it. You end poverty through economic growth and public policy. That there is any trace of poverty on earth is a failure of public policy.

Abortion is the same way. You have to tackle it through a wide range of policy initiatives. Helping women attain purchasing power parity with men tops my list on abortion. Treating domestic violence as the top global security threat is right up there. Universal and easy availability of family planning services is a no brainer, and by universal I mean global. Sex education (yes, that would mean Anatomy 101) for men has got to be top priority, but not just sex as biology, but broadly speaking gender, with the social, cultural aspects. A sex educated man will not crack sexist jokes, will not make demeaning sexist comments, will complain about a sexist media, etc. Sex illiterates should not be able to survive a primary season.  

(I am starting to sound more and more like Elizabeth Warren. I guess I do admire her. She is the only person who seems to know how to absolutely demolish Trump. When Warren goes after Trump, it feels like Mike Tyson stepped into the ring. The fight might be over in a few minutes. She is so good at it, many Republicans wish she had her on their side during the primaries. And to think once upon a time early in life, she was a Republican indeed, just like Hillary was.)