Month: May 2023

Who Runs This Country?

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Of course, that title question is a joke.  Everyone knows who runs this country.  Just ask the people who thought they were protesting on January 6th.  The managerial class runs this country.  They control the federal bureaucracy, almost all of the private corporations, the non-profits, the media, the colleges and the schools.

Using the federal bureaucracy, they can crush any resistance regardless if the threat is a well-financed opposition party or a single citizen speaking his mind against tyrannical overreach.

I was reading an article that speculated that the Supreme Court was likely to rule against the long-established precedent that allowed federal agencies to essentially write laws by utilizing “expertise” to decide how a law allows them to regulate some aspect of life in America.

For instance, the EPA gets to decide that carbon dioxide is a pollutant.  The gas that is emitted by every living thing on earth is a threat to the planet that needs to be taxed, banned and demonized.  This ignores the fact that fire has been a human tool that produces light, heat and power for eons while producing a carbon dioxide as a necessary part of the combustion reaction.  It also ignores the fact that penalizing the use of fossil fuels is already bankrupting western countries and threatening the health and well-being of poorer individuals.

So, there is the chance that the Supreme Court could decide that Congress and the courts should be allowed to overrule unelected lawmakers in the federal bureaucracy when they decide to promulgate laws that no one voted on and most people don’t want.

But the first thing that came to my mind was that this will push the next Congress to add six more justices to the Supreme Court and in the meantime the agencies will just ignore whatever the Supreme Court says that they don’t like.

The Trump administration proved to me that the managerial class can and will game the system to resist any attempt by the common people to wrest power away from them.  It’s as simple as that.

Now that might sound both horribly pessimistic but I think the happenings of the last few administrations bears it out.  No outrage by anyone working for a federal agency has caused the least harm to that individual.  Even the one guy who was convicted of perjury during the Russia-gate scandal was reinstated and had his conviction reduced to a misdemeanor that didn’t even cause him to lose his law license.

And on the flipside every enemy of these bureaucrats has been put through a meat grinder where just waiting for a trial is made an ordeal that may include imprisonment in a dungeon with unbelievable abuse heaped on innocent Americans.

So, our enemies are immune from punishment for any and all offences and at the same time they can destroy the reputations, livelihoods and even lives of anyone who dares to challenge them.

I’d like to think that disgust at the tyrannical methods being used by this junta would eventually rally enough Americans to vote the Democrats out of office and allow the Republicans to defang the FBI, CIA, IRS and the other enforcers of the regime.  But I no longer think that likely.  The younger people in the country are mostly brain-washed to obey their masters.  And a huge chunk of the country is made up of people dependent on the federal government to continue a lifestyle that doesn’t include work.

I realize this is a pretty depressing post.  But I also think it’s necessary to face facts.  As far as any bright side, well, I guess the only advantage is you’re almost completely immune to horrible surprises.  You can basically see these things coming a mile away.  And alternatively, if anything goes unexpectedly right, you’re always pleasantly surprised.

I hope I haven’t ruined anyone’s week.  As I’ve been writing about lately it’s still possible to work around these odious people but expecting the feckless Republicans to beat them is laughable.  And America isn’t united in wanting them gone.  For the foreseeable future they own the country.

Supporting the Revolution

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Every aspect of our lives is touched by the division that splits the people of the United States into two almost completely non-overlapping groups; the Left and the Right.  Sure, there are people who claim they are outside these two groups but they’re wrong.  And that’s because the Left will not let you be exempt.  You’re either inside their orthodoxy or you are a pariah whose destruction they will pursue doggedly.  And for those of us on the Right, we have to struggle to survive this pursuit.

But no one just wants to survive.  We want to enjoy all aspects of life.  We want family, friends and things we can do to make our lives enjoyable.  And we want to forget about the Left and their lunacy whenever we can.  Now I won’t delve into the problems of avoiding the governmental controls that the federal government imposes or the even more onerous controls that blue states force their citizens to endure.  Let’s save all that for another day.

Instead let’s talk about what we can do as individuals to create the options we want in our lives.  A trivial example is the recent outrage over Anheuser Busch and their fake spokeswoman.  Here is an opportunity to use your status as a consumer to punish a company that went out of its way to antagonize its patrons and you can make a statement to the rest of the beer companies that you value a company that at worst stays neutral in the culture wars.  Even better would be finding a company that openly supports traditional values.  But neutrality will do.

Now look at that example.  And translate it into as many other choices and decisions that you make in your life.  The bank you keep your money in, the stores where you buy your groceries, the places you shop for your hobby supplies, the browser you use on the internet, even the social media sites where you interact with the on-line world.  All of these are potential choices.  Of course, some of them will be non-starters.  Amazon, Walmart, Target and the rest of the retailers are hopelessly left-wing.  The best you can do is occasionally try to shop directly from manufacturers who you know to be non-leftist.  That’s not such an easy thing.

But in other cases, there are choices.  Recently, Elon Musk has significantly reduced the anti-right activities on Twitter.  He’s un-banned numerous people on the Right and openly refused to silence even outspoken right-wing voices.  As an experiment I’ve recently decided to pay him his eight bucks a month to get the controversial “blue check” and I’m not saying it’s been some kind of golden ticket to viral success but I do enjoy some of the content I find on Twitter and I feel like I’m supporting a platform that doesn’t hate me.  So, if you have a choice between using Twitter or Facebook well that should be easy.    And I feel a hell of a lot happier with what I pay Twitter compared to the cable bill that supports the likes of CNN, MSNBC and the rest of the lefties that inhabit the various cable networks.  One of these days I’ll cut the cable and just use the channels that don’t hate me.  That will be a big day.

For another example, I use the Brave and DuckDuckGo combination as my browser and search engine respectively.  They respect privacy and block a lot of the ads that usually follow you around the internet.  As for news I use the sites that at least provide both sides on current events.  Real Clear Politics balances their articles about 50/50 between Left and Right.  It’s not ideal but I can just pick and choose based on the sources.

In the future I’m expecting that there will be a major dedicated right-wing news site on the internet with some free and some paywalled content that I will be willing to pay for.  That’s because I expect that Tucker Carlson will be participating in some kind of a larger news/opinion project with some of his more ethical colleagues.  Maybe it will be on Twitter, maybe on substack, but I suspect soon there will be a service that will be worth a few bucks.

And I expect in the future more companies and platforms will start trying to brand themselves as friendly to the Right or to conservatives or traditionalists or some other words to that effect.  Now it’s going to take some vetting to eliminate the phonies and the grifters who just want to jump on a bandwagon.  Probably word of mouth from trusted sources will be most helpful.

But in general, I think it’s a good idea to go out of your way to find a product or service that is produced by people who don’t openly despise you and buy it.  Don’t get ripped off doing it.  The premium for patronizing someone on our side should be reasonable.  Is that 10 or 15%.  Sure.  But not 100%!  And the quality should be comparable, not noticeably inferior.  I remember I tried using a coffee brand because they advertised their sympathy for the military but the coffee wasn’t any good.  So, I had to drop that.

Anyway, you get the picture.  It’s time for us to start putting our money where our mouths are.  Look for worthwhile products on our side and support them.  And if they pan out, pass the info along on social media.

Fight the power baby!