Archive for the ‘elections’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Review of the 2016 Election, Part 5: The Future

by Edward Posted: Sunday, 1/22/2017

PDF –>  ReviewOfThe2016ElectionPart5Future

The last topic to be considered is the future trend in our elections.  The next twenty years will determine which way America goes in the long run.

It seems to me that the activists favoring socialism will gain power in the long run, simply because their main selling point is that socialism can truly provide a better life for everyone.  Socialism has always looked good on paper, so long as the voting public is unable, or prevented from, observing the consequences of socialist policy.  It is easy to point to the immediate effect of a given policy; it is much harder to explain, or to understand, the second-order consequences.  For example, the “Great Society” programs of the 1960’s encouraged young women to start families without marriage: it looked great on paper, and some women were aided in the short run.  But it has led to a great undermining of the family in America, starting first with the poorest people in the inner cities, and now spreading to the suburbs.  The dismantling of the family unit has not returned any benefits.  Some will claim that the “Great Society” programs no longer exist.  It is true that they no longer exist as specific initiatives, but only because they are now fully ingrained and integrated into the functioning of the government.  They now have a life of their own, and can never be repealed, no matter how detrimental they are in the long run.

The fact that an open socialist like Bernie Sanders actually gained some traction is most alarming indeed.  He gained a great deal of support mostly among young people, with his promise of free college tuition and health care for all.  The rallying point was the notion of free tuition, no student loan debt, and a free and fair society for all.  Senator Sanders received about 11.9 million votes in the course of the Democratic Party nominating process.  Of the 11.9 million Sanders voters, about 10% of them have enough common sense to realize that tuition cannot really be free: their cherished liberal professors will still demand a paycheck; the lab equipment isn’t free; the heating and electricity isn’t free; the dorm maintenance isn’t free; everything involved in running an institution has to be paid for somehow.  It is these 1.2 million or so who understand enough basic economics to know that the government will have to pay those costs.

Of those 1.2 million, maybe 10% of them know enough about government financing to understand that governments do not really have anything except what they can extract from the taxpayers.  Those 120,000 realize that taxes on some other set of taxpayers have to be raised so they can get the free tuition.

Of the 120,000, maybe 10% of them understand that there will be considerable resistance to an increase in taxation, especially if those paying the taxes do not have college-age children, or whose children choose not to attend college.  Shall they get a rebate?  Shall those future young people not attending get a cash grant to start their own business, or to spend as they choose?  Anything else would be unfair, would it not?  This last 12,000 also knows that any such provisions in the tax code will come too late for them: they will be out of college, working, and paying taxes to send other people’s kids to college.

Senator Sanders was selling the same old “free lunch” theory that socialism is built upon, conveniently forgetting that government policies can turn the rich into the poor only once.  After that everyone is poor.  In order to manage what is left, and to ensure that everyone gets their “fair share”, it will then become necessary for the government to regulate everything, and the government gains absolute power.  Which explains why no socialist country has any free citizens except for the ruling class, and the U. S., if it fails to understand the history of socialism, will fall victim to its false theories like every other nation that has tried it.  Unfortunately, this is the thing that Sanders’ voters either cannot understand or choose to ignore:  if the government gives with one hand, it takes more with the other.

Tags:
Posted in elections, government powers, Student loans | No Comments »

Review of the 2016 Election, Part 4: The Media

by Edward Posted: Monday, 1/9/2017

PDF version –> reviewofthe2016electionpart4media

The so-called “mainstream” media is still in shock over the Presidential election; it is impossible for them to understand how their chosen queen, Hillary Clinton, could lose the election against such an unconventional and defective candidate like Donald Trump.  The best explanation they have come up with is that every half-baked retarded irredeemable deplorable in the nation suddenly sobered up on Election Day and decided to vote against their own best interests.  Their constant harping over the popular vote vs. the Electoral College vote only proves their unlimited power to make excuses.  It the Electoral College, dummies, as it has been since the founding of the republic.

We hear a lot about the “liberal bias” in the mainstream media.  It is actually a socialist bias, and it comes from several sources.  First, most journalists and commentators happen to be socialists or at least raving 1960’s liberals; convinced that their platform and ideology is the only correct one, it imperative (they think) to educate/indoctrinate all the unwashed ignoramuses as to benefit of arbitrary government power (except against them).  Underlying this attitude is the assumption that they are uniquely qualified to determine who should have political power and who should not.  Secondly, many in the media would rather create or shape the news rather than report it, partly to advance the cause, partly to widen their audience to justify higher compensation, and partly to get closer to the powerful as a means to gain influence for their own benefit.  The mainstream media has given up on checking the growth of government power; they are now actively endorsing it. The members of the media have become powerful by association with the powerful.  Third, their embrace of socialism requires that they believe in their own moral superiority; the causes they endorse are righteous because they are righteous; they are correct policy because they are correct policy, and nothing more need be said about it.  Fourth, in this day of 24-hour news channels, there is an enormous amount of airtime to fill.  It is now possible to provide time to those with the most extreme views as a way of making garden-variety socialism seem reasonable.  Fifth, the quest for revenue causes the news and opinion shows to have a great many commercials, and the “interviews” (I am using the term loosely), are so short as to be useless for an honest examination of facts or claims.  There is barely enough time between commercial breaks for the moderator deliver a sermonette disguised as a question and for the guests to shout their slogans or talking points over each other.  The long-suffering public learns nothing.  One tunes into ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, and PBS to be entertained, not informed.  FNC is only marginally better.  When you read The New York Times editorials, it suddenly occurs to you that Jayson Blair was the most logical writer they ever had.

Socialists in general are ignorant of history: they actually believe that paradise on earth is possible, which ignores the nature of mankind.  The only thing missing is enough government power to enforce paradise: so the media, probably without realizing it, promotes tyranny in the interest of freedom.  But it will never tolerate unfreedom for itself, only for you.  They are identical in function to the corrupt medieval Catholic church.

But the one thing the socialist mainstream media is most angry about is that Mr. Trump found a way via social media to bypass their filtering function.  He was able, using his formidable name-recognition, to take his message directly to the public (not to mention he had the right message for this election cycle).  I don’t think policy by 140-character spontaneous random neuron-firing is a good way to govern.  Unfortunately, the modern mainstream media is simply not up to the task of performing the important function of examining the government’s actions.  It is either too ideologically biased, too ignorant of history, too partisan, or too lazy.

 

Tags: , ,
Posted in elections, government powers, progressive | No Comments »

Review of the 2016 Election, Part 3: Polling

by Edward Posted: Saturday, 12/31/2016

PDF  –>  reviewofthe2016electionpart3polling

All the major polling organizations were pretty certain the Mrs. Clinton would easily defeat Mr. Trump for the Presidency.   How did it happen that these organizations, with a long history of reasonably accurate predictions and sophisticated techniques, got it wrong this time?  It seems a variety of forces were at work.

First, Mr. Trump did not pursue a traditional campaign.  Rather than coordinate and consolidate support among the traditional Republican operatives and organizations, he preferred to take his populist message directly to the public, mostly by “social media”.  This reduced the ability of the media outlets from filtering his message in favor of their candidate, Mrs. Clinton.  Secondly, the public in general had had enough of “politics as usual”; after the slow recovery during the past eight years, and believing that the nation was fundamentally on the wrong path, the voters were receptive to a candidate who offered a change from Mr. Obama’s policies.  But how did this affect the accuracy of polling?  It affected it because the polling organizations relied on past formulas and past assumptions; unable or unwilling to treat Mr. Trump as a viable candidate with a message appealing to voters in general.

One thing to remember about polling: it is not entirely random.  The polling organizations do not make phone calls to voters by dialing a random series of seven digits within each of the U. S. area codes, and asking questions of any voter who answers.  Every phone call made by a polling organization is made to a person whose characteristics are already known: age, race, sex, economic background, political preferences and religious affiliations.  The more sophisticated organizations probably also know even more: what clubs the target belongs to, what newspapers and magazines they read, and how much they give to charities and political actions committees.  Each potential respondent is grouped in with other like respondents, and in accordance with “identity politics”, a certain number of each targeted group is randomly polled in order to gauge that particular group’s opinions.  In that sense, each respondent is chosen randomly; but the choice of which groups to poll, and how to weight them, is not random at all.

There are two kinds of political polls: a) the ones intended to show the public that a particular position taken by a candidate is supported by a majority of voters; and b) the ones taken for the purpose of testing how well a certain message or position is received.  The first type may be considered “fixed”: the outcome is determined beforehand, and the polling organization chooses which of the aforementioned groups favor it, then randomly poll a sample among those groups to imply widespread support.  No one believes a poll with 100% favoring anything, so of course the poll is designed to obtain a reasonably believable number of dissenting views.  A typical example is the “debate” on man-made climate change: the pool of respondents is largely limited to those groups known to favor restrictions on industry.  Surprise, surprise, surprise: the general public (so they can now claim) believes that mankind is a virus and is responsible for changing the climate in negative ways.  Never mind that the climate has been changing every day for the past five billion years.

The first type is good old-fashioned deceptive advertising; the second type of polling is actually more dangerous.  The polls taken to test the politicians messaging is not intended to gauge public sentiment: its real goal is to help the politician evaluate and fine-tune their message.  This includes uncovering the best way to camouflage their true position such that the voter is conned into voting for a candidate or initiative that is the opposite of what he actually prefers.  These polls are not fixed: they are the way that pollsters help politicians tailor their lies to maximize the benefit for every dollar of advertising spent.

In regard to the 2016 election, the polling organizations failed on both categories of polls.  In the first type, they relied on previous history on how to weight the groups that they polled.  It is also possible that they ignored certain groups that were in fact favorably disposed to Mr. Trump’s message. They failed also on the second type of polling because Mr. Trump was immune to it: he did most of his own messaging without focus groups or elegant filtering.  The fact that he was successful in doing so should have informed the polling organizations that no amount of fine tuning by the other Republicans (in the primaries) or by Mrs. Clinton (in the general) would matter when the voting public preferred someone who simply said what he thought.  The change in style was too radical for the polling organizations to develop a suitable countermeasure.  Rest assured however, these mistakes will not be repeated.  The polling organizations are hard at work to refine their methods such they can react to future candidates like Mr. Trump.

I actually was targeted on 4 Nov 2016 as to my preferences for President.  Of course, I likely was chosen as described above, not purely at random.  Before the nice lady could proceed to ask her questions, I interrupted and told her that polls were fixed, and I would not be a part of it.  I told her to make up whatever answer would help her obtain the desired result.  Then I hung up on her.  I truly believe that no responsible voter should ever respond to an opinion poll.  Let them find out on Election Day.

Posted in elections, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Why Hillary Clinton Cannot Be Indicted, Part 2

by Edward Posted: Friday, 7/1/2016

WhyHillaryCintonCannotBeIndicted_part2  <–  PDF version

Since my last essay as to why Hillary Clinton cannot be indicted, a few interesting things have happened. First, President Barack “I lied, period” Obama stated on Fox News Sunday’s 10 Apr 2016 episode:

“I do not talk to the Attorney General about pending investigations.  I do not talk to the FBI directors about impending investigations.  We have a strict line and have always maintained it.  I guarantee it.  I guarantee that there is no political influence in any investigation conducted by the Justice Department, or the FBI; not just in this case, but in any case.  Full stop.  Period.  Nobody gets treated differently when it comes to the Justice Department because nobody is above the law.”

There are several problems here.  Obama said “impending” investigations, not “active” ones.  He did not claim that no one on his staff (such as the President’s Counsel) discusses investigations with the DoJ or FBI.  Every time Obama says “period”, you know he’s lying, like the time he said you could keep your doctor and your health plan, “period”.  If there really is no political interference, surely there would be no need to assure the public about it. Second, Obama endorsed Clinton on 9 Jun 2016.  Now ask yourself, when was the last time any political figure endorsed another, if there was even a 1/100th of 1% chance that the latter could have legal problems?  Never — that isn’t how politicians operate.  He endorsed her because he knows she will not have any legal problems because he and his staff have taken steps to make sure of it. Third, Bill Clinton met secretly with Attorney General Loretta Lynch at the Phoenix airport on 27 Jun 2016.  He went out of his way to wait for her private plane, then requested access (which was granted), and they spoke for about 30 minutes.  Of course, it was all about golf and grandchildren, if you are naïve and gullible enough to believe it.   The respective security details prevented anyone from taking pictures on the tarmac (a public place), and it was discovered only by local Phoenix reporter Christopher Sign (KNXV-TV) based on tips from his local contacts.  What political figure, or lawyer, or government official would be dumb enough to meet secretly with the spouse of a person being investigated by their department?  Ms. Lynch is not dumb. Today she stated that she would “accept” (not “act upon”) the FBI’s recommendation regarding Hillary Clinton.  What was the plan before?  Are we to believe that the fix was in before, but now that she met with Bill Clinton, she will go along with a criminal indictment if the FBI recommends it? Here is what I believe will happen.  As I said in my previous (8 Mar 2016), all the evidence against Hillary is being collected up to be destroyed or permanently sealed just the way Hillary wanted it.  But the FBI report will state that she “or her staff” had “accidentally or inadvertently” committed some “errors of judgment” that would normally amount to “technicality-type” misdemeanors, but in view of her “outstanding  public service”, and “to avoid a political crisis”, no charges will be recommended.  So Lynch will be off the hook.  Hillary, knowing the evidence is safely hidden or destroyed, will then pretend to issue an apology for some “inerrant carelessness by her staff”.  She will do her best to keep from bursting out laughing.  Then the whole thing goes away. That is how things work in banana republics, and that is how our federal government works when high-ranking political figures like Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Loretta Lynch, and Hillary Clinton are involved.  The one thing we do not know is how deep the corruption has pervaded the rank-and-file of the FBI and Justice Department.

Tags:
Posted in elections, Famous people, government powers | No Comments »
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »