Cruel and Unusual Punishment

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This was a brutal week.  Traveling, problems at work, family health issues, snow and ice removal and on and on and on.  So of course, the week ends with my yearly trip to the tax accountant. But honestly it was kind of soothing.  I’ve got a few business-related problems that have been gnawing at my mind for the last few months but I let it fester because I knew I could talk about them when I had my tax appointment.  But in the last few weeks I’ve been getting some warning e-mails from the state so I was planning to do some research before the appointment to have all my ducks in a row.  But all this jazz that’s gone on in the last week harpooned my good intentions and so I showed up at this meeting annoyed and worried.  And my accountant, as all good accountants should, explained in a few short words what I had to do and told me to stop worrying about it and just put it to bed in February and I would never have to think about this situation for the rest of eternity.  After that he told me that the reason I hadn’t gotten a document from one of the brokerage houses I have an account with is because they have until the 15th of February to mail it out and if I had waited another week to do my taxes, I’d have the form in hand.  So, problems solved, headache soothed and fears dispelled.  So, until next week there’s nothing but smooth sailing.  Well, there are a few inches of snow predicted for tonight but that’s just so I don’t get bored.

And today, the Senate finally voted in Kash Patel as the next Director of the FBI.  I’ve been waiting impatiently for this one for weeks.  Only the loopy women Republican senators from Maine and Alaska voted against him.  Even crooked old McConnell voted for Patel.  Mitch announced he’s not running for reelection next year and probably wants to stay on Trump’s good side so he isn’t prosecuted for corruption.  I think FBI Director is the last of the really important appointments left.  At this point, Trump has his people in place to start getting things done.

The first clip I saw on Patel’s approval on YouTube was from MSNBC and so the tenor of the report was that Kash Patel would lead to the downfall of the United States because he was the actual devil.  They had all these Democrat senators railing against Patel because he would subvert the mission of the FBI by weaponizing it against Donald Trump’s enemies.  It was hilarious.  The sheer scope of the projection they were transferring from Biden’s FBI to Patel was staggering.  They swore up and down that Patel had a hit list of about sixty FBI agents that he would punish for their work against Trump.  I don’t know if it was true but it made my mouth water just thinking of it!  If only a quarter of what they say Patel has in mind comes true it would be a reason to celebrate.

I’m well aware that the US Constitution has an explicit statement prohibiting “cruel and unusual” punishment.  But both words in this description are somewhat vague.  I think all of Trump’s tormentors should lose all of their civil service benefits including pensions and be forced to work as janitorial cleaning staff at Trump properties at minimum wage for the rest of their lives or until Donald Trump thinks they’ve suffered enough.  Only in that way can they truly learn the humility that comes with being a civil servant.  Oh, and they should be forced to listen to an audio loop of Trump’s most memorable rally speeches during their hours of work.  That should do it.

How Else Should DOGE Change America?

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Up till now my thoughts on DOGE combing through the federal budget involved how much money could be stripped from the budget deficit.  But something else occurs to me.  In addition to the wasteful spending on hare-brained research projects and woke propaganda we will also learn which companies have benefitted most from government contracts (both defense and non-defense).  And this list may explain the agendas some of these companies follow.  For instance, how much money does Google get from the federal government.  Does this money represent a significant part of Google’s revenues?  Does it have any effect on the agenda that Google pursues?  Also, if that agenda is biased against conservative individuals and corporations can the Trump administration dissuade Google from this agenda by threatening their government contracts?

Here I’m using Google as an example.  For instance, defense contractors like Raytheon, Boeing, etc. depend for a very large chunk of their income on defense contracts.  They are beholden to the DoD for their very existence.  Forcing them to drop practices and attitudes that clash with the directives of the Trump administration is assured to work.  Using this kind of approach, it seems that great inroads can be made in the private sector.  Law suits, audits of corporate documents and whistle-blower activity could go a long way in de-woke-ifying much of the corporations that do significant business with the federal government.

Next up would be lawsuits against banks that “de-bank” conservative businesses and individuals.  De-banking has been the subject of frequent stories about individuals and companies that don’t toe the line on woke practices.  A good example is the free-speech social platform Gab that has been forced to go to incredible lengths to work around the de-banking and other financial boycotting that woke corporations have instituted against it.  It seems that a Trump administration Justice Department should already be investigating any and all complaints from conservatives and their companies both as individual crimes and as part of a RICO conspiracy.  In fact, I’ll go further.  Even though we’re only one month into the Trump administration, I’m already disappointed that investigations haven’t already been announced into these practices.

And if DOGE really wants something interesting to investigate let them set some of their AI geniuses loose on Google’s AI and find out why it always creates images of the Founding Fathers or Vikings or any other exclusively northern European individuals as if they were indigenous to Sub-Saharan Africa.  I’m sure people with the correct computer savvy would very quickly locate the smoking gun of anti-white discrimination in these Google products.  And then Google would be forced to explain how this little pet project doesn’t violate the ban on DEI in federal contracts to Donald Trump personally or risk losing the enormous contracts they currently have with Washington.

Well, maybe that last is too ambitious.  But you get the idea.  I’m convinced the federal government has been picking winners and losers by the selection of contractors and this selection is tied to the “politics” of these contracting companies.  Eliminating the biases by forcing changes on these companies, or better, by selecting alternative companies that do not have a leftist bias, could enormously shift the current leftist bias in corporate America.

And finally, the black hole of leftist bias, the dreaded “terms of service.”  Companies tack a wall of text to their service agreement that provides them with literally an infinite number of objections to anything you could possibly do as a sentient being in the Milky Way galaxy, but then refuse to tell you exactly which of the myriads of conditions, they claim you have violated.  What is needed is a federal law that states that if a company claims you are in violation of their terms of service, then they have to provide a detailed explanation of this violation.  And if a US citizen wants to dispute this claim there will be a federal arbiter to hear the dispute gratis.

Well, that’s enough of that.  Me daydreaming about Trump and Musk punishing woke companies is fun but farfetched.  But investigating the relationships between the federal government (and Congress) and the contractors that get government contracts will be an even bigger story of bias, waste, graft and corruption than the NGOs that have been such an interesting grab bag to fish around in.

That Would Be Great

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In the Hollywood film, “The Bad and the Beautiful” there is a discussion between an actor named Gaucho and a bit-part actress on the make named Lila.  Gaucho tells her that his producer friend Jonathan (Kirk Douglas’s character) is a great man.  But world-weary Lila laughs and replies “There are no great men, buster, there’s only men.”

So, are there any great men?  Were there ever any?  Is a Caesar or a Napoleon great?  Or were they just great generals.  Was Einstein great or was he merely a genius?  Was Socrates a great man or merely annoying?  How about St Paul?

It seems to me that the definition of a great man is one who is both intelligent and moral.  So, it’s not enough to be brilliant if the use of your intelligence is to do evil.  And it’s not enough to be a saint if you cannot somehow use this moral sense to benefit humanity as a whole or at least a significant chunk of it.

Framed the way I have here it’s not that easy to pick out these exceptional beings.  I guess religious leaders like Jesus, Buddha, Moses stand out.  They’ve had an outsized impact on the world.  They understood the problem of living in the world of men.  It’s so very hard to know what is the right thing to do in the multitude of decisions we make as we negotiate the confusing and frightening human world.  How often we choose the easier thing instead of the “right” choice.  We compromise our morals and standards to avoid pain or discomfort or even embarrassment.  How much more will a leader compromise because the stakes are just so incredibly high.

I guess the only leader that comes to mind is Marcus Aurelius; the philosopher king.  Not that he was perfect or that none of his philosophy was misguided.  But without a doubt he was intelligent and he used his powerful office to provide the best government he could to the millions who lived within the Roman empire in the second century AD.  Maybe this is an example of a great man.

So which Americans were great?  Washington, Jefferson?  Maybe.  In the last one hundred and fifty years I don’t think there’s been much greatness.  FDR had a large impact on the country but I don’t think he was wise.  And so many of our recent presidents are neither moral nor wise.  Some were truly awful, like Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and especially Joe Biden.

So where does that leave Donald Trump?  Well, morality is not his forte.  His private life is a mess.  You need look no further than the “Stormy Daniels” episode to see that he does not restrain his baser nature at all.  Then again do any of the wealthy ever do better?  As for intelligence, he’s not a stupid man.  He is an ambitious businessman who knows how to market himself.  Is he wise?  Well, he’s no philosopher king.  But I think he does feel affection for his countrymen.  I think he does want to make America a better place and make life better for Americans.

So, let’s just say that if he succeeds, Donald Trump will perform a truly great service for the United States of America.  He will save it from the forces that are currently destroying it.  He can vanquish the managerial bureaucracy that rules over us and is leeching away our strength and vitality.  He will succeed where a century of American presidents has failed to save their country.  That would be great.