Undoing the Industrial Revolution

CTV News reports that former Vice-President Joe Biden has promised to end fossil fuel use.

Joe Biden is looking voters in the eye and promising to “end fossil fuel.”

The former vice-president and Democratic presidential candidate made the comment Friday after a New Hampshire environmental activist challenged him for accepting donations from the co-founder of liquified natural gas firm.

Biden denied the donor’s association to the fossil fuel industry before calling the young woman “kiddo” and taking her hand. He said, “I want you to look at my eyes. I guarantee you. I guarantee you. We’re going to end fossil fuel.”

The activist, 24-year-old Rebecca Beaulieu, later said she appreciated that Biden took her question seriously, but that he was not satisfied with Biden’s plan to eliminate net carbon emissions by 2050.

Essentially, Joe Biden and the other Democratic presidential candidates are promising to undo the Industrial Revolution. Our economy and civilization depend on the use of fossil fuels. There is simply no alternative to their use, except for nuclear power, which they’re also against if we want to maintain our current level of prosperity.

For most of history, the only available sources of power were human and animal muscles. These sources, supplemented by water and wind beginning in the Medieval Period do not provide much power. The amount of work that can be done with muscles, human and animal, is sharply limited. As a result, the great masses of people, in any society, lived in poverty, with barely enough to survive. Only a very tiny elite could live in any degree of comfort.

This situation only changed when humans learned to harness the power of fossil fuels. Burning fossil fuels could unleash far more energy than could be obtained through the power of muscles, energy to power machines that could do more work and produce more wealth than would have been conceivable before. Unlike wind and water mills, which were only usable at particular times and places, factories powered by fossil fuels could be placed anywhere convenient. The resulting industrial and technological revolution, along with the development of free-market capitalism, something else the current crop of candidates is campaigning against, allowed a higher standard of living than could ever be possible previously. For the first time in history, ordinary people could live lives of comfort. The difference between rich and poor in the developed world is no longer one of kind, whether a person has enough to eat or sufficient shelter from the elements, but of degree, how nice that house, car or food. At the present time, we are living in a world in which the greatest health problems of the poor stem from having too much unhealthy food to eat. We may be within a generation of eliminating poverty worldwide, thanks to fossil fuels.

What if Joe Biden and the other Democrats have their way? What if the use of fossil fuels is severely curtailed here in the United States, and elsewhere in other to combat climate change? Could renewable sources of energy make up the difference? No, they could not. Renewable sources of energy; wind, water, and the rest simply do not provide enough energy to maintain our current use of power, not by orders of magnitude. Nonrenewable sources are only available in limited times and places, necessitating the storage or long-distance transmission of energy, which can be difficult and expensive. Nuclear power could make up the gap, but the people who want us to stop using fossil fuels also dislike nuclear power.

A world in which fossil fuel use was eliminated would be a world in which energy was much more expensive than it is at present. As a result, all the necessities of life would be much more expensive. It would be a poorer world, a world in which a small elite could live comfortably while the majority of the population would be struggling to survive. It would be a step back to the bad old days. Even if it were conceded that man-made climate change was the dire threat to humanity’s continued survival and well-being, a concession I am not willing to make, surely the cures proposed by the Democratic candidates are far worse than the problem. I do not believe that any crisis can be resolved by crippling the most productive and innovative economy in the world. It may not be the intention of those proposing such radical solutions to global warming to create a neo-feudal world of impoverished masses lorded over by a tiny elite, but that would be the inevitable result.

There will come a time when advancing technology will make the use of fossil fuels obsolete. This time will come only if people are free to innovate in a prosperous economy. It will not come by stifling innovation with overbearing government fiats in a crippled and impoverished economy. That is just what the Democratic candidates are proposing.

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The Election of 1884

The election of 1884 was a vicious contest between James G Blaine, a man known for his personal integrity, but suspected of corruption in his public life and Grover Cleveland, a man known to be an honest public servant but with a somewhat scandalous private life. There were serious issues, of course. Tariffs were always a point of contention in nineteenth-century American politics and the country had been in a recession since 1882. Still, it was the contrast between the two candidates that everyone really cared about.

The Republicans met for their national convention in Chicago from June 3-6. President Chester A. Arthur would have liked to run for a full term. He was popular enough, but in the end, he decided not to run for re-election because of concerns about his health. General William T. Sherman was considered to be a potential candidate, but he absolutely refused to run, vowing to refuse to serve if elected. Robert Todd Lincoln, son of Abraham Lincoln was also approached as a potential presidential or vice-presidential candidate, but he wasn’t interested. In the end, the Republicans nominated James G. Blaine from Maine.

Although James G. Blaine had been born in Pennsylvania on January 31, 1830, his public like was spent in his wife’s home state of Maine. There he had owned a newspaper and become involved in politics, first as a Whig and then a Republican. Blaine had served in Maine’s legislature from 1858-1862, moving on to the U. S. House of Representatives where he served from 1863-1876, becoming the Speaker of the House from 1869-1875. Blaine had served in the Senate from 1876-1881. There, he had opposed President Hayes’s policy of ending Reconstruction in the South. Blaine had been a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 1880 but questions about the suspicious circumstances surrounding his sale of bonds to the Union Pacific Railroad derailed his candidacy and James Garfield was nominated instead. President Garfield made Blaine his Secretary of State, but Blaine resigned after Garfield’s assassination. The Republicans went on to nominate John A. Logan from Illinois as his running mate. Logan had been a capable general during the Civil War and had served as Senator from Illinois from 1871-1877 and 1879-1886.

James G. Blaine

John A. Logan

Blaine was popular among the Republicans, and he seemed to have a good chance of winning, but questions about financial improprieties still hounded him, especially after some letters were uncovered to Boston railway attorney Warren Fisher, one of which ended the command to “burn this letter”. The Democrats had a field day, chanting, “Burn this letter” at rallies and “Blaine, Blaine, the continental liar from the state of Maine.”

For their part, the Democrats met in Chicago from July 8-11. Grover Cleveland from New York was the obvious candidate. Cleveland had served as Sheriff of Erie County from 1871 to 1873, Mayor of Buffalo in 1882 and Governor of New York from 1883 to 1885. Throughout his political career, Grover Cleveland had earned a reputation as an honest and fearless reformer, fighting corruption and willing to take on entrenched interest in the name of a better, more honest government. The New York Party bosses from Tammany Hall hated Cleveland, but that was a recommendation for his reform-minded supporters. Grover Cleveland easily won the Democratic nomination for president, along with Thomas A. Hendricks from Indiana for Vice-President. Hendricks had served in the House of Representatives from 1851-1855, in the Senate from 1863-1969, and as governor of Indiana from 1873-1877. He was known to be an honest man and a strong orator, who had opposed Reconstruction.

Grover Cleveland

Thomas A, Hendricks

Because Cleveland had a public reputation for honesty, as opposed to Blaine’s alleged corruption, several prominent Republicans came out in support of Cleveland. These defectors came to be known as “mugwumps“, a name derived from an Algonquin word for chief. Although the name was given in derision, the Mugwumps adopted it with pride as champions of reform and honest government. Grover Cleveland’s reputation was stained by the revelation that he had fathered a child by Maria Halpin while a lawyer in Buffalo. When this scandal broke, Cleveland took the unusual step of instructing his campaign workers to tell the truth. He admitted to having a relationship with Halpin and while he was certain the child in question was his, he had paid child support as a public duty. This ex[planation may have appeased his own supporters, but the Republicans took to chanting, “Ma, Ma where’s my Pa?” at campaign events.

There were some third party candidates, including Benjamin F. Butler former Governor of Massachusettes for the Greenback Party and John St. John former governor of Kansas for the Prohibition Party.

Benjamin F. Butler

John St. John

The Election of 1884 was a close race and either candidate might have won, particularly whoever won the state of New York. The New York native Grover Cleveland might have seemed to be the obvious favorite, but James Blaine was also well-liked in New York, particularly by the Irish Catholics, since his mother had been Catholic and he was known to be anti-British. Then Blaine managed to destroy his chances twice in a single day. On October 29, Blaine made an appearance in New York City at which a speaker, a Presbyterian minister, made a remark about the Democrats being the party of “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion“, alienating thousands of Irish Catholics. If that wasn’t bad enough, Blain attended a fundraiser that evening along with some of the richest men in the country. There wasn’t anything particularly wrong about that, except that the optics, as they say nowadays, of hobnobbing with the rich and famous in the middle of an economic recession didn’t look good.

Ma Ma where’s my Pa?
Gone to the White House ha ha ha.

 

In the end, Grover Cleveland won a narrow victory. Cleveland won 4,914,482 (48.9%) popular votes to Blaine.s 4,856,905 (48.3%). John St. John got 150,890 votes and Benjamin F. Butler won 134,294 votes. In the Electoral College Cleveland got 219 electoral votes, sweeping the South and winning Indian, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut in the North. Blaine had 182 electoral votes winning the West and the rest of the North. Cleveland’s won New York by fewer than 1200 votes, and if not for Black Wednesday, October 29, Blaine would likely have won New York’s 36 electoral votes and won the election. As it was, the Democrats could finally respond to the Republicans’ taunts with, “Gone to the White House ha, ha, ha”.

 

 

 

 

The Election of 1884

The 1619 Project

For some years I have felt that I have been living in a country occupied by a hostile enemy determined to erase every vestige of our country’s history and heritage. The people who influence our culture and politics, the academics, the news and entertainment media, and so many others, seem to be motivated by a simmering hatred of America and its people. This feeling has abated somewhat, with the election of President Donald Trump, who seems to be leading a sort of resistance against the Occupiers, but the Occupiers are not about to give up their power and they have been orchestrating a furious counter-revolution against President Trump, and the people who elected him.

After trying and failing to discredit and delegitimize President Trump by peddling false stories of Russian collusion, the editors of the NewYork Times have decided to discredit and delegitimize the entire United States of America with the 1619 Project, an audacious attempt to reframe our nation’s history by tying it to slavery.

The 1619 Project is a major initiative from The New York Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are.

Now, there is nothing at all wrong, in itself, with examining the history of slavery in the United States. Slavery has played a major role in American history, with an impact that can be felt to this day, more than one hundred fifty years after the institution was abolished. The New York Times, however, seems to be going farther than merely providing a historical survey. Judging from their decision to count the year slavery was introduced into what would become the United States and some of the excerpts they provide from the essays that will make up the 1619 Project, the editors of the New York Times, seem to be trying to link America incontrovertibly with slavery. The history of America is a history of slavery and the one thing that makes America exceptional among the nations of the world is slavery.

The premise of the 1619 Project is false. The essays and articles that will make up the 1619 Project may or may not be factually correct. I have no way to judge without reading them, but the central premise of the project is false. Slavery has been a major theme in American history, but the history of the United States cannot be solely defined by slavery and the United States is not exceptional because of slavery. America does have a unique and exceptional relationship with slavery, but this relationship does not exist because slavery is somehow unique to America or that slavery in America was worse than in other times and places. Slavery has existed in every culture since before recorded history. The transatlantic slave trade was in operation for almost a century before that fist slave ship appeared off the coast of Virginia. What makes America’s relationship with slavery unique and exceptional is that slavery contradicts America’s founding ideals in a way that is not true of most countries. Most nations were founded by warlords who conquered and enslaved entire populations. Think of William the Conquerer, Clovis, Charlemagne, Qin Shi Huang, and many others. In contrast, the United States of America was founded by some of the greatest and most enlightened men who have ever lived, men who could write the immortal words,

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

These were the words by which our country was founded upon. These were the words that the Abolitionists used to demand the end of slavery. These were the words that Martin Luther King used to demand justice and equality for his people. No nation that was founded upon these words could ever be comfortable with slavery. The very fact that slavery and segregation were completely contrary to America’s founding ideals meant that these institutions could not endure in America. America’s true founding was in 1776, not 1619. America is a nation based on freedom, not slavery. The 1619 Project is fake history, propaganda, designed to mislead rather than inform the New York Times’s readers. 

Why are they doing this? A nation conceived in tyranny and dedicated to the institutions of slavery and segregation is a detestable nation. One cannot feel pride in being a citizen of such a country, only shame. One cannot love such a country, only despise it. Such a country is not worth defending. Its institutions are not worth preserving. Its borders ought not to be protected. In fact, the quicker such a nation is consigned to the dustbin of history, the better. This is what the left thinks about America. This is what they want their fellow Americans to think about America. 

This viewpoint, that America is a detestable nation founded on slavery and racism is already predominant in academia and among our supposed elite. The editors of the New York Times have decided that it is time to educate the deplorables about the true history of the nation they want to make great again. They need to realize that if America has ever been exceptional, it has not been exceptional in greatness but in iniquity. Other media outlets will follow the lead of the New York Times. It is, after all, the nation’s premier newspaper. Schools will teach this distorted history if they are not already. The New York Times has already provided a curriculum for use in the classroom. The hope is that the 1619 Project will become the consensus view of American history. 

Can a nation survive when its citizens are taught to despise it? We may find out unless we work hard to teach the true history of American freedom. 

Trump’s Tempestuous Tweets

It has become a familiar story. Once again President Donald Trump has used Twitter to express what was on his mind before thinking very deeply on whether the world needs to read those particular thoughts. Once again Democrats, the party of racism and national division have come forward to denounce Mr. Trump’s tweets as racist and divisive. Sadly, once again, too many Republicans, including former presidential candidate Mitt Romney have taken the opportunity to stab a fellow Republican in the back by echoing the criticisms of leftist extremists who hate them every Republican, even the ones they happen to be using at the moment.

Why do Republicans do this? They are always so quick to denounce their fellow Republicans for allegedly uncivil, inappropriate, or racist statements, that are only uncivil, inappropriate or racist by the definitions that progressives are using. Nothing any Democrat ever says or does is ever considered uncivil, inappropriate or racist by definition. Democrats always stand by each other no matter how vile their statements or actions are. It is as though Republicans are always agreeing to play the game in which their opponents set the rules and appoint the referees. Why not defend Trump by pointing out that what he tweeted was not racist, at least by the definition that normal people use for the word racism,

The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or

ability and that a particular race is superior to others.

which is notably different from the leftist definition

Any statement that might disagree with leftist orthodoxy on race, or really any subject.

Maybe we should look at what Trump tweeted before condemning him for racism.

 

 

So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly……

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019

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….and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019

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….it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019

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Where did he mention race? I don’t see any reference to anybody’s race at all. Trump’s tweets may be racist in the demented minds of the left, but then, they think everything is racist and should be disregarded.

I do have one problem with Trump’s tweets, though. These tweets were directed towards “The Squad“, that group of four extreme left-wing Democratic Congresswomen who manage to make Nancy Pelosi look like a moderate. The problem is that only one of the four is actually from another country, Ilhan Omar, from Somalia. The other three are native-born Americans, so they have no other countries to go to unless you count their ancestral origins. This makes the tweets factually inaccurate, as well as giving the tweets a somewhat xenophobic tone that perhaps might better have been avoided.

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez

Rashida Tlaib

Ayanna Pressley

Ilhan Omar

The Squad, or the Axis of Evil in American Politics

 

On the other hand, I believe Trump is stating a larger truth here. These four women, Colin Kaepernick, and many, many others of the left should be getting down on their knees and thanking God every day that no only do they live in the greatest and freest nation on Earth but also that they have been able to take advantage of opportunities that would not be available to them at any other time and place. These people have gained success in this country that simply would not be possible anywhere else in the world and they repay all the advantages the country that gave them so much with the worst kind of ingratitude and scorn.

They hate America. These are not patriots seeking to correct their country’s problems. These are people who despise their country. They believe America is flawed from beginning to end. The United States was founded on the principles of slavery and White supremacy. Its history is a history of genocide and oppression against people of color. Contemporary America is a mean country that builds concentration camps to house undocumented immigrants, permits the police to shoot African-Americans with impunity, and has an unjust economic system that takes from the poor to give to the rich. How could they not loathe such a horrible country? I would hate America too if I were as uninformed as they.

The question, then, is why are these people still here? Why do they continue to reside in a country that is so hateful to them? There are many places in the world where their talents could be put to good use. Why don’t they go there? Why doesn’t Ilhan Omar return to Somalia, if the United States is so oppressive? Why doesn’t Alexandria Occasio Cortez immigrate to Mexico or Venezuela? And, why do we put up with these ingrates, anyway? Why are we electing people who hate America to Congress where they can act to undermine the country and act as a fifth column for our enemies.

Trump is right. He may be obnoxious, xenophobic, or racist, but he is right about the Squad and leftists in general. If they truly believe America is a land of racism and oppression, they should go elsewhere.

Who’s the Nazi

A couple of weeks ago, a brave man named T. J. Helmstetter bravely confronted a Nazi who was eating a meal in a restaurant and found himself thrown by the pro-Nazi owners of the restaurant. The brave man then bravely took to Twitter to complain, before making his account private because apparently there is a large population of Nazis and Fascists infesting social media who believe in the Fascist idea that you shouldn’t harass strangers in restaurants just because they are wearing a hat you don’t like.

Okay, here is what really happened according to the Washington Post.

A public relations contractor who previously worked for the Democratic National Committee said that he was kicked out of Hill Country Barbecue Market after he confronted a diner wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat on the Fourth of July.

Around 8:30 p.m. — after President Trump had given his speech at the Lincoln Memorial as part of his “Salute to America” program but before the nighttime fireworks display — T.J. Helmstetter headed to Hill Country, a Penn Quarter restaurant that has been one of his favorite stops. In a text-message interview Friday, Helmstetter said that he, his partner and three other people found the place packed when they arrived.

“We had just walked in when I saw the guy sitting by the bar with the MAGA hat,” Helmstetter wrote. “I said, ‘Hey, are you from D. C.?’ ”

The man said no, and Helmstetter said he responded, “We don’t tolerate racism in this city.” The comment, according to Helmstetter, prompted the MAGA cap wearer’s companion to get up and jab her fingers into his chest. “I’m sure I said more things then, don’t remember what,” Helmstetter texted.

Did he curse at the woman?

“I’m from New Jersey, I’m sure I did. I might have said get your f—ing hands off of me or something like that,” he texted.

That’s when a Hill Country manager told Helmstetter, but not the target of his ire, to leave. On Twitter, Helmstetter said that Hill Country “chose to protect the Nazi’s right but not mine” to dine at the restaurant. Helmstetter then walked outside and called a Hill Country manager, who supported his staff’s decision to boot him.

In the cold accounting of Twitter, Helmstetter’s comment was getting “ratioed,” meaning his tweet had received more negative replies than likes. By Friday afternoon, before Helmstetter made his account private, his tweet had garnered nearly 2,300 likes compared with nearly 5,000 comments, many of them negative. Critics said Hill Country made the right call; they considered Helmstetter the aggressor and the intolerant one.

So no, Mr. Helmstetter wasn’t confronting a Nazi. He was bothering people who were minding their own business and trying to enjoy a meal. Wearing a MAGA hat does not make a person a racist who wants to bring back Jim Crow. Maybe they think America was great when you could have a meal in a restaurant without having some jerk decide that you should be made a pariah because he does not like what he assumes are your political opinions. Maybe they think America was greater when we did not call people we disagree with Nazis or Fascists, or when prominent people in the media did not tacitly endorse violence against supposed Fascists. Maybe America was better when you didn’t have to watch every word, for fear of losing your job or business for using the politically incorrect word for describing someone, and you could practice your religion without being called a bigot or having late-night comedians make fun of your beliefs. Making America Great Again could have all kinds of meanings, and I would venture to say that almost everyone wearing one of those hats does not want to bring back the bad things about our past, but restore the good things, like not calling people Nazis at the drop of a hat.

But if there is any confusion about just who the Nazis are out there, I will try to help make things clearer. If you believe it is your public duty to harass people who are minding their own business, you might be the Nazi. If you believe you should confront people at every opportunity, you might be a Nazi. If you believe violence against public figures, especially the president is ever appropriate, you might be a Nazi. If you denounce President Trump as a racist and anti-Semite, even though he is the most pro-Israel president we have ever had and is always bragging about the record low unemployment figures of Blacks and Hispanics during his administration, you might be a Nazi. If you even think of sending death threats to an eight-year-old girl because of her hilarious imitation of Alexandria Occasional-Cortex, you are definitely a Nazi. If you believe that smashing store windows and beating up people is a good way to promote your political viewpoint, you are a Nazi.

You may not share the precise political ideology of the Nazis and Fascists who took over Germany and Italy, but if you find yourself doing any of the above, then you are copying their methods and it is their methods that made them odious. You can have all sorts of ideas and opinions that others may dislike. but that is your business. It is when the ideas become actions that it becomes other peoples’ problem. A man wearing a MAGA hat in a restaurant is not a problem. A jerk trying to make him take it off is a problem. You can hate people all you want and that is your problem. When you act on that hate and performs acts of violence, even against people who really are Nazis and Fascists, then it becomes everyone’s problem, and you are the cause of the problem.

Maybe we should try confronting each other a little less and try talking to each other instead. Maybe if Mr. Helmstetter had simply talked to the man he would have learned that he was not a Nazi, but a decent human being. Maybe it’s worth trying.

Condemned to Repeat the Past

The philosopher and novelist George Santayana has famously said, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” No where could that be more true than in Denver, Colorado where an avowed Communist has won election to the city council by promising to impose Communism by any means necessary. Here is the story from the American Mirror.

Candi CdeBaca won a runoff race last week against former Denver city council president Albus Brooks, and she did it by promising to implement communist policies “by any means necessary.”

CdeBaca was among three candidates that unseated incumbents in the Tuesday runoff, preliminary results show, and she’s already drawing comparisons to Socialist Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the 29-year-old who unseated 10-term incumbent Joe Crowley in New York’s 14^th congressional district in 2018.

The upset victory, and two other incumbent defeats, marks the most significant shift in city leadership in over 30 years, and Valverde contends it “began a movement” toward more progressive policies once the new members are sworn in this week, The Denver Channel reports.

One might think that a candidate expressing support and promising to deliver Communism, a political and economic system responsible for the death of at least one hundred million people world wide, with the oppressive tyrannies in history would be absolutely toxic to voters, at least as toxic as a candidate espousing Nazism. Why is that not the case? Are people really that unaware of Communism’s horrifically bloody and repressive history or of the history of the twentieth century? What are they teaching in the schools that has large numbers of young people so ignorant?

A Harris poll conducted for Axios on HBO published Sunday found 55 percent of American women between the ages of 18 and 54 would prefer to live in a socialist country like Venezuela than the U.S. More broadly, the four in 10 Americans said the same.

Candi CdeBaca explains the need for Communism.

“I don’t believe our current economic system actually works. Um, capitalism by design is extractive and in order to generate profit in a capitalist system, something has to be exploited, that’s land, labor or resources,” CdeBaca alleged.

“And I think that we’re in late phase capitalism and we know it doesn’t work and we have to move into something new, and I believe in community ownership of land, labor, resources and distribution of those resources,” she continued. “And whatever that morphs into is I think what will serve community the best and I’m excited to usher it in by any means necessary.”

When we are talking about Capitalism, we are talking about the system that has made the world wealthy on a scale undreamed of in previous ages, a system that has lifted millions out of poverty. Look at this chart from Human Progress.

Notice how the world’s wealth has increased dramatically since the industrial revolution and exponentially since the arrival of modern Capitalism. For millennia, economic growth all over the world was very slow or nonexistent. It was Capitalism that changed that. All the various forms of Socialism, including and especially Communism would return us to the bad, old days of slow or no growth.

But Capitalism might benefit the the wealthy one percent, ignoramuses like Candi CdeBaca might argue, but it only promises misery for the great masses of exploited people. Not so fast, here are some more charts from Human Progress.

Contrary to what is often said, the rich may be getting richer, but the poor are not getting poorer. For most of human history, the overwhelming majority of the population lived in poverty with barely enough to eat. Not only is the number, not just the proportion but the overall number in an expanding population, of people living in extreme poverty is declining. For the first time ever, the number of people living in extreme poverty is a rapidly declining minority.

All this is very well, but can we really give credit to Capitalism. Well, yes. Let’s do some comparisons. We’ll start with North and South Korea. They have the same ethnic background, speak the same language and have the same culture. After the Korean War, both countries were equally poor. If anything, one might expect the more industrialized North to prosper.

 

North and South Korea

 

They began to diverge right about the time that South Korea began embracing democracy and the free market. Since then, South Korea has become democracy with one of the world’s largest economies, while North Korea remains a basket case.

What about East Germany and West Germany? Same language and culture, different results. Capitalist West Germany experienced an economic miracle in the decades after World War II. Communist East Germany’s economy was stagnant. In fact, the legacy of Communism has caused the former East Germany to lag behind the West.

One more. Taiwan and China. Before the economic reforms beginning in the 1980’s, the People’s Republic of China was actually poorer than North Korea, while the little island of Taiwan was experiencing phenomenal economic growth. China has been doing very well lately, but Taiwan’s per capita GDP is still much higher. Taiwan is a democracy while China remains a Communist state, albeit one that has made its peace with the somewhat free market. I would rather live in Taiwan than mainland China.

The science is settled, the facts are clear, the verdict is in and Candi CdeBaca doesn’t know what she is talking about. Our current economic system works very well. It is not a perfect system, nothing in this world is perfect, but our free market system has liberated millions of people from poverty and tyranny. Despite its faults, Capitalism works and socialism does not. We learned this fact with many examples in the twentieth century. Will we have to relearn it in the twenty-first? Are we condemned to repeat the bloody past because we cannot learn from the tragedies of others? What are they teaching in our schools?

Buttigieg and Jefferson

Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and one of the hundred or so Democratic candidates for president expressed his concerns about Thomas Jefferson’s legacy in a recent interview with Hugh Hewitt.

HH: It’s an interesting part of the book. Let’s go to policy now. A very blunt question, because you talk about going to every Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Indiana when you were running statewide. Should Jefferson-Jackson dinners be renamed everywhere because both were holders of slaves?

PB: Yeah, we’re doing that in Indiana. I think it’s the right thing to do. You know, over time, you develop and evolve on the things you choose to honor. And I think we know enough, especially Jackson, you know, you just look at what basically amounts to genocide that happened here. Jefferson’s more problematic. You know, there’s a lot to, of course, admire in his thinking and his philosophy. Then again, as you plunge into his writings, especially the notes on the state of Virginia, you know that he knew that slavery was wrong.

HH: Yes.

PB: And yet, he did it. Now we’re all morally conflicted human beings. And it’s not like we’re blotting him out of the history books, or deleting him from being the founder fathers. But you know, naming something after somebody confers a certain amount of honor. And at a time, I mean, the real reason I think there’s a lot of pressure on this is the relationship between the past and the present, that we’re finding in a million different ways that racism isn’t some curiosity out of the past that we’re embarrassed about but moved on from. It’s alive, it’s well, it’s hurting people. And it’s one of the main reasons to be in politics today is to try to change or reverse the harms that went along with that. Then, we’d better look for ways to live out and honor that principle, even in a symbolic thing.

 

I think we ought to cut Thomas Jefferson and the others some slack. These people did not invent the institution of slavery. Slavery in some form has been present in every civilization in history. They did not introduce slavery into the British colonies or inaugurate the trans-Atlantic slave trade. That had been done centuries before their births. For the founding fathers, slavery was simply a part of the cultural background. They were as much a product of that background as we are of ours, and could be no more expected to question the basic assumptions of that background then most of us question the basic assumptions of our our culture and society.

It is, in fact, rather remarkable that some of the founding fathers, such as Thomas Jefferson and George Washington did come to see that slavery was wrong. They were among the first to realize this. With the exception of the Quakers, no one questioned the institution of slavery before the late eighteenth century. Shouldn’t men like Jefferson and Washington get some credit for realizing an institution that was a integral part of the culture they grew up in was unjust and ought to be abolished?

It is easy for us in the twenty-first century to say they ought to have freed their slaves. It was not as easy for them to actually free their slaves. Slaves were valuable property and made up a considerable portion of a slave owner’s wealth. For a master to free his slaves without compensation might have meant consigning himself to poverty and a lower social position. There have never been many people willing to impoverish themselves for their stated principles. Also, many southern planters, such as Jefferson, were deeply in debt. Even if Jefferson had wanted to free his slaves, he could not necessarily act on such a desire. Not only did he require the income from labor of their slaves to continue payments on their debts, but slaves were often used as collateral. Jefferson’s creditors might have had something to say to him if he had freed his slaves.

It is not certain whether a master who freed his slaves was actually doing them much of a favor, considering the racist nature of southern society. In many slave-owning societies, such as ancient Greece and Rome, there was no racial or ethic distinction between master and slave. A freed slave could take his place as an equal to any free man, with only a slight social stigma about his former status. This was not the case in America, either before or after independence. There, a former slave’s dark skin, forever marked him as a member of an inferior caste. Most slaves were uneducated and illiterate, with experience only in unskilled farm labor. After Nat Turner’s Rebellion, many states actually made it illegal to teach slaves to read and write. There really wasn’t much of a demand in the job market for free Black unskilled farm workers. Moreover, slave owners did not want really former slaves giving ideas about freedom, by example to their own slaves and freed slaves were often compelled to leave their homes and states.

A general emancipation of the slaves would also have been difficult. It may be offensive to modern sensibilities, but the slave owners would have had to be compensated for the loss of their property, otherwise they would not have agreed to emancipation Compensating the slave holders would have been a strain on the young nation’s finances. Then, there would be the vexing problem of what to do with the freed slaves. It would be too much to expect that former slaves and their former masters would live together in a state of equality and harmony. It is more likely that the former slaves would continue be oppressed, holding the lowest positions in society and the economy, as indeed really happened, for the most part, after the slaves were freed after the Civil War.

Instead of condemning the founding fathers for failing to end slavery, perhaps we ought to give them credit for what they did do. The northern states abolished slavery during and after the American Revolution. They included a provision in the constitution banning the trans-Atlantic slave trade twenty years after ratification. The Northwest Ordinance banned slavery in the territories north of the Ohio River, making slavery a regional issue as the nation expanded west. Most of all, Thomas Jefferson’s immortal words in his Declaration of Independence;

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

sounded the death knell for slavery in America and throughout the world. No nation whose founding documents averted that all men are created equal could truly regard slavery as simply part of the natural order of things. No matter what excuses apologists for slavery might make, the Declaration of Independence that founded they own nation spoke against them.

The generation that fought for independence and created the republican system of government we still enjoy to this day was truly the greatest generation. They accomplished more than anyone would have a right to expect. It is not reasonable to condemn them for failing to end an evil that had existed since the beginning of history. They did what they could and most of them, including Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, expected their successors to continue to limit slavery until it died out. It is not their fault that succeeding generations of American leader leaders failed to continue the momentum towards eventual emancipation.

I will concede Greg Buttigieg one point, though. It is inappropriate for the modern Democratic Party to hold Jefferson-Jackson Day fundraisers. Both Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson favored small, decentralized government and the concerns of the common man over the elite, two positions anathema to the contmporary Democratic Party. I would recommend the Democrats hold Marx-Lenin Days as more representative of the Democratic Party’s ideology.

Hound Them From Restaurants

Freedom of speech is no longer a priority in academia if this article in Campus Reform is any indication.

A professor claimed Sunday that “vile little sh*tlords” who belong to free speech-themed clubs on campus should lose their jobs and be chased out of restaurants.

University of New Brunswick professor Matthew Sears made the assertion on Twitter in response to the San Diego synagogue shooting Saturday.

“We should name every white supremacist,” Sears said. “Name every writer, blogger, YouTuber, and politician that inspires them. Plaster their faces in public. Fire them from their jobs. Hound them from restaurants. Expose them and those that fuel them for the hateful pathetic wretches they are.”

This is an understandable reaction to a recent shooting at a synagogue, and even a staunch free speech advocate might not particularly like defending the free speech rights of the viler racists and anti-Semites, though it is understood that even the vilest among us have the right to speak out. Professor Sears, however, takes it further.

The professor lumped campus free speech activists into this group in a subsequent tweet.

“And that includes every vile little shitlord in a campus ‘free speech’ club who spends his time platforming white supremacist trolls under the banner of ‘free speech,’ and every grifting liar that goes on about campus ‘censorship’ and the ‘marketplace of ideas,'” Sears stated in a since-deleted tweet.

When lawyer Robert Barnes shared this latter tweet with his own followers, appearing to disagree with the professor’s opinion, Sears said “there’s a difference between free speech, and those who use ‘free speech’ as a deliberate strategy to put hateful and discredited ideas into the mainstream and give them academic credibility. But you know that, you liar.”

The professor told Campus Reform that, when he speaks of campus free speech activists, he means merely those who “invite bigoted provocateurs like Richard Spencer and Milo Yannopoulos,” but Sears has previously advocated for the harassment of a far more mainstream and high-profile figure.

After U.S. Press Secretary Sarah Sanders got kicked out of a restaurant in June, the professor tweeted “forget ‘respectability politics,’ forget the ‘politics of division,’ forget ‘civility.’ Let’s denormalize these folks and their ideas every single chance we get, including throwing them the hell out of restaurants. Like we should have done *from the very beginning*.”

Sears also suggested in April 2018 that a “Make America Great Again” hat was “the functional equivalent of a [Ku Klux] Klan hood or Nazi banner.”

“I suppose I reject the notion that civility is the ultimate goal, especially in the face of what are some pretty outrageous human rights abuses, such as what we see along the US-Mexico border,” Sears said, when Campus Reform asked about his Sanders tweet. “If someone like Sanders provides cover and routinely lies for someone like Trump, even if he is the most powerful person on earth, I fail to see how mouthing off to them in restaurants is beyond the pale. Yes, this could go both ways. But appeals to civility often only manage to maintain the status quo, and benefit those in power.”

So it is not just the people who just about everyone disagrees with who should be harassed, but really everyone who is to the right of Professor Sears, and even those who might agree with most of his positions but who happen to think the other side has the same free speech rights. Professor Sears evidently does not value freedom of speech as something good in itself, but only as a method to effect desired change. Speech which opposes change and social justice ought not to be allowed. People who opposed change are beyond the boundaries of decent behavior and do not deserve to be treated decently. It is acceptable to hound them out of restaurants.

I wish that people like Professor Sears would understand that both sides have fists and guns and both sides can hound the other from restaurants if that sort of becomes acceptable behavior. If harassing people with opinions we do not like becomes commonplace, people like Professor Sears may be surprised to discover that they are not in the majority. They may not like to be the ones fired from their jobs and hounded out of restaurants.

These people do not seem to understand that we do not support freedom of speech and, if not civility, some sort of mutually acceptable boundaries in expressing disagreement with one another, not because we want to be goody-goodies or because we want to tolerate hate and racism, but because the alternative is so much worse. As long as we are talking to, or even shouting at, one another, our differences can be resolved. If we give up talking to start persecuting and harassing the other side, the situation can only escalate as each side remembers grievances and injustices inflicted by the other side. It is only a short step to actual violence to resolve political differences. Petty harassment can escalate to street fighting between factions, assassinations and outright civil war. We don’t want that to happen. We also don’t want a nation weary of political violence to turn to a strongman who promises peace and security at the expense of freedom. It may be ironic that people like Professor Sears, who claim to be fighting Fascism are creating the conditions that would allow a Fascist dictator to seize power.

When political violence takes the place of political debate, it is rarely the people with the best ideas who win out. More often, it is the people who can muster the largest mobs, who have the most guns, and who are the most ruthless who win. In the history of revolutions, more often than not, it is the faction who is most ruthless and cruel, most willing to use violence against the innocent, most extreme in their positions and least willing to compromise with either their opponents or with reality who gain the power in the end. It is the thugs most willing to use the guillotine and the gulag, who end up running things. The intellectuals and professors who first agitated for revolutions usually end up in the gulag or up against a wall, devoured by the revolution they helped create. Professor Sears might want to think about that before he sends out more tweets promoting political harassment.

The Democratic Electoral College

The Electoral College has been under attack quite a lot recently. This method of electing the President of the United States is increasingly being assailed as an archaic and undemocratic provision of the Constitution which desperately needs to be replaced by a more democratic national popular vote, in which the candidate who wins a majority of the popular vote, throughout the nation, is elected president.

I think that electing the president by a national popular vote would be a bad idea for a number of reasons, not least because it would not, in fact, be more democratic. This may seem like a paradox, but we need to consider just what democracy actually is, and why it is a desirable form of government.

First, I have to commit a sort of political heresy and suggest that democracy is not actually the end all and be all of all good government. The essential purpose of government is, as Thomas Jefferson stated in his immortal Declaration of Independence, to secure the inalienable rights given to us by our Creator. Any government derives its powers from the consent of the governed. The best way to create a government that actually secures those rights and has that consent is for the government to have at least a democratic element in its constitution. At some point, the citizens ought to be consulted about policies. More democracy, however, is not necessarily better and even a democratic government can be tyrannical. If it is possible for 51% of the people to vote away the rights and property of 49% of the people, then that government is every bit as tyrannical as the rule of a dictator. Indeed, it would be preferable to live under the rule of a king or dictator who respects the rights of the people, than a democratically elected president who does not.

The men who drafted the constitution were as aware of the dangers of a tyranny of the majority as much as of the dangers of tyranny from other sources. This is precisely the reason they included such undemocratic features as an unrepresentative Senate and the Electoral College. The founding fathers were more concerned with preserving liberty than with creating what we would call democracy.

So, what is democracy anyway? Democracy can be defined as:

1. Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.

2. A political or social unit that has such a government.

3. The common people, considered as the primary source of political power.

4. Majority rule.

5. The principles of social equality and respect for the individual within a community.

Democracy is more than simply holding regular elections. Dictatorships have often held elections. Democracy is a system in which the people govern themselves and play a role in the decisions made by the state. Democracy works best in small communities, the city-states of Ancient Greece or the traditional town meetings of New England. The larger a community is, the less likely it is to be truly democratic, even though it may possess the trappings of democracy such as free elections and elected representatives. A nation, like the United States, with three hundred and twenty million that spans across a continent with an enormous diversity in geography and population cannot really be very democratic at all. It can only be ruled despotically. We may be governed by a democratic sort of despotism, but it is despotism, none the less.

Why do I say this? Because one person out of three hundred million has effectively no voice. Small numbers of people are always diluted or drowned out by the whole and the only way for anyone to have any influence is to organize a large number of people, which invariably takes time and money some people do not have. The individual really has no voice on the national level no matter how democratic the forms of the government might be.

Also, with such a large and diverse population, it is impossible for the national community as a whole to come to any real consensus on policy. Even if the majority makes the decisions, there is a minority of many tens, perhaps hundreds, of millions who feel the policies have been imposed upon them. This is even more the case if the people holding the majority and minority positions live in different regions. It is simply not possible for any government on such a large scale to take into account the opinions of every, or even most people when making decisions.

Consider this map of the 2016 election results by county

I think that it would be fair to say that the red and blue regions are roughly equal in population. Considering that Hilary Clinton won more popular votes than Donald Trump, it is likely that the blue regions slightly outnumber the red regions. If that election had been based on the popular vote Hilary Clinton would now be president. If we switched to electing presidents by popular votes, any candidate would find it easier to campaign in the smaller, more densely populated blue regions rather than travel out to the more sparsely, but wider, red regions. The issues and policies of the blue areas would take precedence over the issues and policies of the reds. Electing the president by a national popular vote would be more democratic in one sense, the majority would be electing the president, but it would be less democratic in a more important sense, large portions of the country would feel themselves ruled by a government not of their choosing and not concerned with them. It would not be long before they began to feel as though they were merely colonies of the coasts. How long before they decided to separate?

If democracy in a large, diverse nation is impossible, should we split the country into smaller, more manageable pieces? Well, in a way we already have. When the founding fathers drafted the constitution, each of the former colonies was meant to be a sovereign state within the larger United States. This is why they are called states, a term normally used to indicate a sovereign, independent political entity, and not provinces. The idea expressed in the constitution was that each state was to be independent, sovereign, and in control of its own affairs, with the government of the United States handling those affairs which concerned all the states; diplomacy, war, coinage, etc.

Over the centuries for various reasons, good and bad, the country has become more centralized, with the federal government gaining more and more power, at the expense of the sovereignty of the states, to the point that the states have almost mere administrative appendages of the federal government. There may be advantages to a more centralized national government, but it is going to be less democratic. Replacing the Electoral College with a national popular vote will be one more step on the road to making the states irrelevant, and the nation less democratic. We need to be decreasing the power of the federal government increasing the sovereignty of the states if we want to live in a truly democratic country in which the ordinary citizen has some influence on public policy. I would even take this a step further and suggest that some of our larger states; California, New York, Texas, among others, ought to be split up to create smaller, more manageable units.

If we really want to live in a democracy, we need to be making our politics smaller and more local. Abolishing the Electoral College is a step in the wrong direction.

Mike Pence Threatens Taylor University

I think the PJMedia’s article says it all.

Enraged Students at Christian Taylor University Left ‘Physically Shaking’ after Mike Pence Chosen for Graduation Speech

Here are some excerpts from the article describing what the controversy is all about.

On Thursday, the evangelical Christian school Taylor University announced it had invited Vice President Mike Pence to give its 2019 graduation speech. A tremendous uproar ensued, with students and alumni reporting that the decision made them “sick” and expressed support for “hate” and “harmful bullish*t.” The school told PJ Media it would not yield to pressure and was still proud to have Pence speak at graduation.

“Inviting Vice President Pence to Taylor University and giving him a coveted platform for his political views makes our alumni, faculty, staff and current students complicit in the Trump-Pence Administration’s policies, which we believe are not consistent with the Christian ethic of love we hold dear,” Alex Hoekstra, a former staffer for President Barack Obama and a 2007 Taylor University graduate, said in the petition.

Others proved more angry and visceral.

“I have never been made to feel so physically ill by an email before. Taylor University, you should be ashamed of yourselves,” Claire Hadley, who graduated from Taylor in 2015, began in a long Facebook post. “I am physically shaking. The fact that the school who claims to love and support me, and each of it’s [sic] students and alum, would invite such a vile individual to speak on the most important day of the year??”

“VP Pence is no friend of mine. He does not support me. He does not support equality,” Hadley declared. “He does not uphold the values that are at the very core of the church, my own faith, and I would hope, of this University. He is rooted in hate. To stand beside President Trump would have been enough to put him on my watch list.” She argued that Mike Pence “only values you if you fit in his very narrow, white, straight, box.”

“Taylor University, I feel personally attacked,” she concluded. “Please, I’m begging you. Don’t do this.”

Lindsey Snyder, a 2014 graduate, said she emailed Taylor University President Lowell Haines. “This invitation gravely concerns me, because whether intentional or not, it is politicizing Taylor University, aligning the school with the current administration,” she reported writing. “Many current and former Taylor students are adamantly against some of Pence’s stances and will no doubt feel unsafe at their own graduation. Even if it was someone less controversial than Pence, having a political figure speak at commencement alights unnecessary and grievous conflict.”

“As a Taylor alum, I am severely disappointed,” Abi Perdue Moore wrote on Facebook. “For this and other policies marginalizing members of the lgbtq+ community (not to mention students of color), you do not have my support. Do not invite this speaker to campus; do not burden the university with the cost of security and transportation; do not send the message that Taylor is a place where only straight/cis/white men are valued as leaders and disciples.”

First of all, I am not aware that Mike Pence only values straight/cis/white men as leaders and disciples. When did he ever say anything that might possibly suggest this? When did Vice-president Pence ever express hatred for anyone? It is true that as a Christian, Mike Pence upholds the Christian doctrine that marriage is between a man and a woman, but that is not the same as calling for discrimination or violence against gays. As Tyler O’Neil, the writer of the article puts it;

Indeed, Vice President Pence stands for traditional Christian morality and upholds people’s religious freedom to abide by such values. This means he believes marriage is between one man and one woman, and that biological sex is more real than gender identity. He disagrees with LGBT activism, but that does not mean he disrespects — much less “hates” — LGBT people.

Yet LBGT activists have conflated disagreement with violence. When bakers, florists, and photographers gladly serve LGBT people but refuse to use their creative talents to celebrate a same-sex wedding or a transgender identity, activists accuse them of discrimination and violating LGBT people’s civil rights. Activists demand that Christian schools and charities should have to hire employees who identify as LGBT, and celebrate their identities. When they heard that Mike Pence’s wife was teaching at a Christian school, outrage ensued.

Americans have the freedom to live by their beliefs, however. Christian organizations should not be forced to violate their beliefs by endorsing LGBT identities and relationships. They should treat everyone with respect, but respect does not involve the endorsement of a person’s ideas.

Precisely. If there is anyone motivated by hatred, it would be these left-wing activists who simply cannot live and let live.

Second, why are these people so afraid of Mike Pence, or really of any conservative speaker? What do they imagine Mike Pence is going to do, use his Christian Jedi mind powers to turn everyone in the audience into a violent, homophobic bigot? Pull out a concealed weapon and start shooting down LGBTWTF students and students of color? Call for a good, old-fashioned fag drag?

Since Mike Pence is not the demagogic hater they imagine him to be, he will most likely give a bland, uncontroversial graduation speech, congratulating the graduates and wishing them well for the future. Nothing for anyone to be afraid of.

Which brings to my third point. It is easy to make fun of these people who object to Mike Pence’s speech as fragile snowflakes too afraid to listen to opposing opinions, but that is missing the point. These people’s aim is to prevent Mike Pence, or really anyone who does not think like them from being able to speak in public. They want to delegitimize and censor opposing viewpoints. This kind of speech and thought control is antithetical to most Americans so they have to claim to be somehow harmed by such speech to justify censoring it. They play the victim in order to bully people.

Last, these graduates of a Christian college don’t seem to have much knowledge of Christian doctrines and beliefs. Mike Pence’s position on homosexuality is closer to traditional Christian doctrine than their position. Scripture and centuries of Christian tradition holds that sexual relations between two people of the same sex is sinful. This does not mean that Christians are to persecute the homosexual or fail to treat them with the respect due to our fellow human beings and sinners, but it also means that a Christian cannot support same-sex marriage or homosexuality as simply a harmless sexual preference. To do this is to ignore fundamental Christian teachings on marriage and sexuality. It is true that Christ ate with sinners, but he also called upon them to repent. He did not tell the adulteress that adultery was acceptable or the tax collector that extortion was acceptable. He forgave them their sins and told them to sin no more. A truly Christian approach to the issue of homosexuality demonstrates a greater degree of love and tolerance than the activists are willing to extend to people like Mike Pence. But, then, it never really was about tolerance or even social justice.