Tag: dysfunctional government

Ancient European History – Part 2

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In the first part of this essay, I stated that the Greeks and Romans utterly failed in their attempt at democratic or even representative government.  And that is demonstrably true.  Athens lasted less than a lifetime as a democracy and Rome was never anything but an oligarchy masquerading as a popular government.  Even when the emperor was the supreme power in the state somehow the plutocrats still got all the laws they needed to bleed the poor dry and prevent any least benefit for the people who made up the bulk of the empire.  So, yeah, Rome was a slave camp for everyone but the rich.

But how about us?  Have we improved on what the ancients had?  Well, we at least have eliminated slavery.  That is one absolute advantage.  And theoretically we have representative government.  In some sense I have a chance of someone who thinks the way I do writing the laws and enforcing them.  Okay, there’s something like that going on.  After all, look, Donald Trump is president for the second time.  He’s even been able to eject large numbers of Deep State ringers out of the federal government.  And he’s even been able to primary Republicans who vote against the reforms he’s pushing.  He has made some headway toward populist outcomes to some of the worst situations we live under.  He has been attempting to reverse unconstitutional laws and rulings like anti-white and anti-male discrimination.

But what we’re seeing is only the first steps.  And this is Trump’s last term.  Will more progress be made.  After all, even under the Roman Republic there were attempted reforms.  Tiberius Gracchus was a famous example.  He attempted to stop the patricians from robbing poor farmers of their land every time they were forced to fight in a war.  While they were in the army their families got into debt just to feed themselves and when they got home the government refused to forgive these debts in gratitude for their military service and these families ended up losing their farms to the greedy moneylenders who added these acres to their already obscenely large landholdings.  Gracchus attempted to bring these protections to a vote and was murdered by a mob for his trouble.  Interestingly Trump has already dodged two assassins already.  When J. D. Vance and the other republicans run for president in 2028, I hope their secret service protection is a lot better than what candidate Trump had in 2024.

So, yes, we have improved somewhat on the fairness of the government we have over the ancients.  But many of the same problems haunt us.  Graft, influence peddling, complete indifference for the working and middle classes and a bloated bureaucracy that swallows up enormous resources that should go to useful government projects like infrastructure and industrial planning that make it possible for businesses to expand and hire more people.

In the next part I want to look at whether the current method we use for selecting leaders which at least nominally is supposed to be based on Greek and Roman models is really the best method or whether some other structure would be better.

Tom’s World – 30MAR2025 – Human Nature

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TomD

Even if we had a total rebirth, and somehow had a new constitutional convention attended by intelligent and principled patriots who would write a new constitution correcting the fault lines that allowed to corruption to enter and begin the rot, how long would it last before constitution 2 was also brought to the brink of collapse?

I’m pretty sure that the founders would have become violently ill at the thought of lifelong congressmen becoming fabulously wealthy and self important and totally divorced from the wishes, needs and physical and moral well being of their constituents.

It seems to me that any enduring political structure must be built around just how self serving and corruptible humans can be. But any system created by humans can and will be corrupted by humans. There has to be some robust self centering feedback system built at the absolute core where it will be hard to get to and corrupt. Maybe, that was supposed to have been the function of the Supreme Court but we all see the result that political appointment has had.

Elections can certainly and are easily subverted.

Tom’s World – 13FEB2025 – The Ultimate Pyramid Scam

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TomD

The Federal Government is history’s absolute worst fiduciary administrator even theoretically possible. SS and Medicare are supposed to be involuntary pay in advance programs for medical insurance and pension. I seem to remember having roughly 15% of my wages deducted throughout my life and sent to the Fed, supposedly to supplement or finance my retirement. So, how did the benefits for which I paid in advance throughout my working career become a line item expenditure on the federal budget?

If you are a pension fund administrator and spend every cent the second you get it and hopefully pay retirees from current funds, there’s a name for that: Pyramid Scam, a felony.

Good Luck Then!

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Rolling blackouts, whole towns burned off the face of the Earth, multimillion-dollar shacks, endemic rampant crime, homeless encampments everywhere, endless drug addicts, legislated anti-white hate, LGBTQ lunacy, hopeless energy policies and an unaffordable cost of living.  I could go on but why bother?  California has become emblematic of absurd progressive policies and the disastrous effects they’ve caused.

And now when the wealthier parts of Los Angeles are literally going up in smoke some people are wondering if this is the moment when the Californians will turn away from the Democrats and bring in the Republicans to fix the mess.  Well, they might.  But if the Republicans are smart, they won’t sign up for the job.  Specifically, no Republican in his right mind should run for or even accept if appointed to the governorship of California.  Well, let me qualify that.  If the citizens of California also elected a majority of Republicans to the legislature too, then it might have some value.  If all of the insane laws that have been passed in the last thirty years could be cancelled and the state could be put back onto a rational basis then it might work.  But short of that it’s a death trap.  Look what happened to poor hapless Arnold Schwarzeneggar.  The voters elected him to clean up the mess from their previous feckless Democrat governor but basically all he could do was preside over the freak show that the Democrat super-majorities in the legislature ordained.  Of course, he really didn’t put up any fight at all.  So, nobody remembers him fondly.  And the state continued its slide into ruin right on schedule during his term.

Just as when we talk about New York trying to save a sinking ship, the reality of who the voters are in California has to be faced.  The state has an enormous illegal alien population and an equally enormous population of people living off the government in one way or another.  None of these people will ever vote for a Republican or anyone else who promises to balance the books.  No, the system will have to crash so hard that the welfare checks stop getting delivered before the bread and circus crowd will pay attention to how bad things are going.

So where does that leave things?  Well, it looks like any frame houses in Los Angeles are just waiting for the wind and the arsonists to find them.  If I lived in LA, I think I’d get together with my neighbors and cut down all the trees and shrubs in the neighborhood and haul them away.  Then I’d invest in fire-proofing materials to protect my house.  But most importantly, I’d sell my house at whatever price I can get and move out of the Golden State as fast as I possibly could.  Because every time some new atrocity appears on the ground everyone declares that it can’t possibly get any worse and in fact this will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and things will get better.  Well, I don’t think that is even remotely the case.  I think it will get phenomenally worse as more people leave.  The tipping point is already here and we’re just waiting for something like this fire season to find out things like there’s no water in the fire hydrants and the firefighters are now overweight lesbians who won’t be able to carry anyone out of burning buildings and the city has cut the budget for the fire department to pay for DEI training.

And that’s just for something minor like wildfires.  What happens when there’s a major earthquake?  Good luck then.

Guest Contributor – TomD – 29MAR2024 – Non-Engineering Engineering

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“I had to deal with the newer engineers that, in my opinion, didn’t have the skills needed to design quality work.”

Don’t get me started!

But, here’s a news flash: a just-out-of-school EIT or brand new engineer isn’t really expected to have any sense, just like a just-minted 2nd Lt. There are supposed to be competent superiors to mentor them through the know-everything-but-understand-nothing phase. Problem is that, increasingly, the mentors are non-existent.

I see so many plans where it is blatant that the designer hadn’t a clue for practicality, cost or effectiveness.

One of the my main gripes is that engineers used to be primarily involved with engineering. 90% of their time is currently used in government guidelines, government forms, government bureaucracy and government compliance.

I’m retired now but still have a few clients that I do things for on an hourly basis. One of the things is reviewing a US Gov grant for a public works storm drainage project to alleviate hurricane flooding. The multi-million dollar grant is coming from a covid money distribution to the State I live in. Other than being a legit public project, there is just so much wrong with that.

So Now a Federal Agency Says Lab Leak Most Likely Cause of COVID. Duh!!!

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So it’s official.  But unless you’re seriously mentally deficient or part of the coverup who is still saying it was just a natural occurrence?  No one.

But those two categories still contain millions of Americans.  And other than those two categories who still doesn’t realize that we paid the Chinese to produce this very thing by “gain of function” manipulation of bat corona viruses?

Our government had COVID  built in a substandard biological containment facility.  It got loose and they lied about its origin for years.  And yet we elected Joe “Mask Up” Biden and let him lock us down for another full year.  It’s a sad state of affairs.

Why Did COVID Happen?

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Lately there have been all kinds of stories coming out about how COVID happened and even discussions about how to prevent another lab leak.  What hasn’t been explained is why it happened.  Maybe you’d say it’s because the United States was paying a Chinese virology lab to experiment with gain of function on bat corona viruses.  But I’d say why were they doing it?

I think the answer is that this is the American germ warfare program.  After the United States signed on the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) in 1975 we were supposedly out of the germ warfare business.  But the CIA doesn’t take no for an answer.  So instead of being in the business of making bio-weapons, instead we’re in the business of protecting against bioweapons!  And how do you do that?  Why by making bioweapons!

And just to make sure that the whole world can get in on the fun we farm out the tinkering with viruses and bacteria to fun new places like Wuhan, China and Kharkiv, Ukraine.  Places that are far from the prying eyes of regulators or responsible government oversight.

The way I figure it, the US government is in the germ warfare business and intends to stay at the forefront of it no matter what we think or even what happens.  If they were able to get past responsibility for the COVID outbreak then nothing short of a full-blown world-wide small pox epidemic is going to make a difference.  And even that will be blamed on Russia or an “act of God.”

When more details of the “warp speed” roll out of the mRNA “vaccines” become known I wonder if we’ll find that they were just another part of the biolabs program that we run.  If so, we’re not getting our money’s worth.  The auto-immune responses that are causing things like myocarditis are awful.  If this is the level of competency we can expect then we are probably doomed.

I guess my only question is what pathogen will they unleash on us next?  Neo-bubonic plague?  Hyper-transmissible ebola? Or something more fun like gorilla pox?

Whatever it turns out to be we’ll know that our tax dollars are hard at work keeping third world virologists gainfully employed and CIA spooks out of trouble.  After all, while their minding their gardens of deadly micro-organisms they’ll be too busy to spend time spying on American citizens.  They’ll have to leave that to the FBI, IRS, ATF and the rest of the busy civil servants that we pay so handsomely and who earn their daily bread by keeping us squirming under their thumbs.

But it does make you think.  Wouldn’t it be easier to just let the Chinese or the Russians or the North Koreans attempt to murder us on their own and let Pfizer start from scratch on the vaccines they’re going to kill us with too?  I don’t want to sound unpatriotic but the pretense that we’re not creating the bioweapons ourselves is a dreary exercise.

Mob Rule or Oligarchy; Potato, Puhtatuh

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Going all the way back to Plato and Aristotle, Europeans have theorized and even attempted to set up the optimal form of government.  Aristotle divided all governments into one of three forms, each with its deviant version:

“The distinction between correct and deviant constitutions is combined with the observation that the government may consist of one person, a few, or a multitude. Hence, there are six possible constitutional forms (Politics III.7):

 

Form                     Correct                 Deviant

One Ruler             Kingship               Tyranny

Few Rulers           Aristocracy         Oligarchy

Many Rulers       Polity                     Democracy

I suppose we could make a case that our government has slipped from a polity into a democracy that Aristotle would consider a deviant form of government in which mob rule corrupts the correct governing of a state.  But many contend that we had long ago slipped into an oligarchy that is controlled by the combination of the managerial class inhabiting the federal bureaucracy and corporate boardrooms.

Be that as it may, the outward form of government is portrayed as a democratic republic or representative democracy.  But if an oligarchy has effectively captured permanent control over the federal government, then regardless of appearances, we are living under a regime that will not respond to our wishes or protests.

And this is not a surprising occurrence.  Every historical instance of democratic rule has eventually devolved into some form of tyranny.  Athens was overthrown by an oligarchy and Rome became essentially a military monarchy.  I guess it was inevitable that eventually a powerful faction would decide to impose its will on a state as rich and powerful as the United States of America.  The vast wealth was just too tempting.

But for us who remember the almost paradisical conditions that existed while the oligarchs had not yet consolidated their control over the levers of power it is problematic to know what to do going forward.  Many have just given up and now adopt whatever dictates and fashions the oligarchy and its servants dictate.  They do what is necessary to survive in the hive.  Some people call these individuals “bugmen.”  It’s a galling existence.  At any point it might be necessary to allow yourself to be denounced because of your sex or race.  You may even have to take a demotion in order to satisfy the diversity, equity and inclusion caprices of your employer.  But you’ll do it to keep the stock options you’ve been given and the connections you need to get your kids in a “good school.”

Of course, your children are also at the whim of the weirdos who run these good schools.  If things go poorly your son or daughter may end up as your daughter or son.  Which is another way of saying psychologically broken, sexually mutilated and permanently sterile.  And there is a very high probability that they’ll be taught to hate you and your ancestors for being the wrong color.

As you can see joining the hive is not without its sacrifices.  And perhaps in the long run is a dead end for all but the true aristocracy.  Then, the question is are there any alternatives?

Currently, the workaround most people resort to is moving to a Red State that resists the worst of the Left’s interference.  Ron DeSantis in Florida has of late become the champion of Red State resistance.  And consequently, hundreds of thousands of people have moved to Florida over the last couple of years from places like New York.

Another alternative is leaving for another country.  This is a much riskier proposition.  In most cases other countries are unsatisfactory to Americans because of economic and cultural concerns.  And in fact, few places provide even the freedoms we still seem to enjoy here.  Places like Hungary or the Czech Republic seem promising.  There are signs that they value freedom and traditional culture.  But it would still be making yourself a stranger in a strange land.

And finally, you can do nothing and hope that the country will somehow free itself from this subjugation we find ourselves living under.  There are no historical precedents for this.  But there are some circumstances that might provide some hope.  Poor management and incompetent leaders are contributing to a relative weakening of the United States with respect to the other larger powers in the world.  If America’s economic position should seriously deteriorate then it is very possible that the coalition that keeps the oligarchy in power could disintegrate and that would leave open the possibility that a different coalition could gain power and restore the freedoms that made the United States a desirable place to live.

Of course, this weakening could just as easily destabilize the country just as the military weakness of Rome destabilized that empire’s borders and allowed the Germanic tribes to overrun the western half of the empire.  Our ruling elites have flooded the country with tens of millions of refugees and by delegitimating their police forces they have reduced the big cities to free-fire zones, where chaos reigns supreme.  This environment may make it impossible to restore competent authority in large swaths of the country.  If that happens leaving these areas for safer locales or even different countries may not be a choice but necessity.

It’s pretty hard to know which choice to take.  Maybe the best advice is, keep your options open and wait for a tipping point to know which way to turn.  But one thing for sure, don’t depend too much on any government.  Have some good friends who have your back in an emergency.  You’ll need them.

So, we may be living through another laboratory experiment in the devolution of a democratic society.  Aristotle would not have recognized the trappings of our system as related to the Athenian experiment (although the Greek columns standing in front of our federal buildings would have looked familiar) but he would understand the transition from republic to oligarchy.  Maybe he would have blamed it on giving women the vote.  He mentioned that they shouldn’t be allowed to do that.  Apparently, he was ahead of our time.

Who Calls the Shots?

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When you consider the freak show that makes up the elected leadership of the federal government you may wonder how it’s possible that they have successfully gained permanent control of the United States of America.  I’ve wondered about it myself.  From what I’ve read people like Joe Biden are just placeholders for the powers behind the scenes.  Apparently, the corporate lobbyists are the ones who decide what will be in these omnibus bills that shovel billions of dollars into the coffers of defense contractors, social media companies, big banks and boondoggles like the “green” industries.  In concert with the bureaucrats at the Pentagon, the Intel agencies, the Department of Energy and various other groups, policy is decided upon by these shot callers behind the scenes and then when everything is decided they hand a script to actors like Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnel and Dementia Joe to tell us poor schlubs that we’ll just have to wait for the bills to be approved before we can find out what’s in them.

The actors make sure they get their cut too but in reality, they are a miniscule part of the puzzle.  Nancy Pelosi will have some number of millions of dollars but a Raytheon will pocket many billions of dollars.  Now granted they actually produce things like missiles and other weapons systems but the sheer scale of the contracts is stunning.  And what exactly does Goldman Sachs produce?  For that matter what has Pfizer done to earn the billions that the government shoveled at them?  Produced medicines that don’t prevent COVID but give young people heart attacks?  Any way you slice it, the government is run by a partnership between the bureaucrats and government contractors who have a gravy train going that they’ll never let stop.

So how does this end?  I guess the only way it ends is badly.  The people who run things have bought off and faked enough votes to keep themselves permanently in office.  The only thing that can stop them is the collapse of the United States.  In other words, things have to fall apart so badly that the average man on the street fears what’s happening in his life more than he fears the US military shooting him in the street.  That’s a state of anarchy.

That might sound like an exaggeration.  But if you think back to the George Floyd riots American citizens stood back and watched as the United States government tacitly allowed riot and arson to go on in the largest cities in this country.  There were almost no examples of people fighting back.  The one famous example, that kid Kyle Rittenhouse, is notable because he was arrested and charged with murder by the authorities.

I have to assume things are going to have to get much, much worse than that before the citizenry of this country takes matters into its own hands.  So don’t be fooled by the pathetic losers who play at being leaders on television as they occupy the supposed seats of power in Washington.  The real shot callers are quite a bit smarter and infinitely more invested in the decisions that are made.  They’re powerful, well-organized and they have every branch of the United States government supporting them.  And I think they’ll be around for a good long time while our country continues its descent into banana republic status.

That statement about there being “a lot of ruin in a nation” is especially true of a place like America.  We will stand helplessly by while the feds strip away our rights and then come for our material possessions.  It’s the frog in the pot.  Bring it slowly to a boil and it’ll just sit there and be cooked.

In fact, the only thing I can think of that would end the whole arrangement would be the crash of the US dollar.  After all, this is all about money.  If the dollar were no longer worth the paper it was printed on, all those corporations would have to go elsewhere to pay for their luxurious lifestyles.  And they’ll gladly go.  Money is money.  And maybe that’s the best thing that could happen to us.  But what a pathetic statement that makes about us as a “free” people.

December 26th 2022

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And just like that it’s over.  All of Camera Girl’s hard work has been expended and all the splendiferous foods have been eaten and all the children have gotten their gifts.  And we wake up on Monday morning and groan from the food we consumed and begin to straighten up the kitchen and the house and cart away the imperial ton of wrapping paper and boxes and put away the good china (of which one plate didn’t survive the exercise, requiescat in pace) and shake out the table cloths for the birds before they go in the washing machine (the tablecloths not the birds).

And we talk about all the moments we had with the kids and the grandkids.  And they are remarkable things these moments.  And we agree that it doesn’t get any better than this.  Spending time with the people you love and being relaxed and happy doing it is the pinnacle of life.  All of the hard work that went into the meal was repaid with interest by seeing the guests enjoy it.  Watching the young children playing together and sitting with the older children and talking about their lives and interests is the culmination of decades of work and is enormously gratifying to a parent and grandparent.

I was having a conversation with one of my sons-in-law.  We were talking about the uncertainty of conditions in the world for regular people and he said some things that told me he understands what’s important.  He said the only certain thing in the economy is that if you have a skill that people need, you’ll be able to survive.  And I said that’s true and I added, “No one is looking out for us anymore.  We have to depend on ourselves and each other.”  And he agreed.

And afterwards I thought about what I had said off-hand.  It’s true.  The government has abandoned us.  We’re looking out for each other or no one is.  If something happens to one of your family you may be the only thing between him and homelessness and death.  The government can’t be bothered.  The Canadian government, always ahead of us on the edge of progressivism, now uses the idea of assisted suicide for any situation where people feel abandoned by society.  If you can’t get help with a health problem, they’ll suggest, “Why not end it all with our convenient and economical assisted suicide kit.”  It comes with a YouTube video and on-line instructions to make sure everything goes smoothly.

I’m sure soon they’ll add it to all government FAQ pages as an option to all life’s difficulties.  Can’t get that rental house this summer?  Then end it all.  Can’t find that bargain on eBay you wanted?  Why not off yourself?  It’s fun and practical.  You won’t need to skimp on anything.  Just have a big weekend at a resort, run up an enormous hotel tab and then finish it off with an overdose of fentanyl.  Quick, painless and easy.

Well, excuse me if I don’t run for the exits.  Life is extremely precious.  Our overlords are working overtime to encourage people to give up.  Don’t get married, don’t have children, don’t buy a house, don’t work hard, just drop dead.

Well, too bad.  I won’t take the hint.  They’ve stopped pretending they’re our fellow countrymen.  The globalists say we’re all just one big world.  And it’s a world that has too many people in it.  Fine then.  We’re nothing to them and they’re nothing to us.  Less than nothing.  They’re our avowed enemies.

Let’s remember that and act accordingly.  We only have each other.  But the help of people that actually care about you is more valuable than anything else that you’ll find in this fake world of woke propaganda.  Recalibrate what you can and can’t depend on and decide what is worthwhile to do and what is a waste of precious time.  And you’ll be surprised how much less bleak things will appear.  Just find people you like and work together to make a little world around you that includes the things in life that actually matter.  That’s my thought on this day after Christmas.