Is Government Healthcare Socialism?

This has become a standard plank of the 21st century Republican Party.    So lets look at what the GOP think the Government SHOULD fund without being called socialism:  

• The Military.
• The Police.
• The Fire Department.

The last two are particularly telling.   People generally call 911 if they want the police, the fire department, or an ambulance.  Why are the cop car and the fire engine paid for, but not the ambulance?

All of these essential government services have three things in common.   

1. When crisis happens, it is often time sensitive.   When you need these emergency services, most of the time, waiting even an hour will be a big mistake.  You don't want to delay dealing with a military invasion, a crime, or a fire.
2. They are often life threatening.  Invasions, criminals, and fires kill people.
3. They spread.  If the <sarcasm> dreaded Canadian scourge</sarcasm>  invades my neighbor's property, chances are those polite invaders will take my house next.   If my neighbor gets mugged, I could be next.  If my neighbor's house is on fire, might could be next.

These traits are pretty obvious.   They also directly impact capitalism, which is why the government pays.  The key feature of capitalism is a Free Market.  Free Markets require someone to think about something, not make a decision in a panic.  Free Markets require a free choice, not one done with a gun to your head.  Capitalism also do not work when your purchases or lack of purchases affects your neighbor.  That's not really private property, another requirement of capitalism.

 

So capitalism is ill suited in any situation that is an immediate crisis, deadly, or spreadable.  For those situations, capitalism  REQUIRES government intervention.   

 

Most of you can see where this is going.  The far majority of Healthcare falls in at least one of those three categories, if not all three.   Trauma, such as car crashes and bullets, is immediate.   The majority of health issues are potentially deadly, and infections are practically the definition of spreadable.

 

But not all healthcare qualifies.  Clearly cosmetic surgeries do not qualify for any of those three.   In addition, things like anti-anxiety treatment, impotence treatment, fertility treatment,  and unproven treatments (this is research, not healthcare).   Part of the issue is that private healthcare has taken to covering a lot of things that the government should not cover.  But there is no reason a government funded healthcare has to do the same. 

Government healthcare is not socialism, as long as it is restricted to covering: Emergencies, Life threatening issues, and infectious diseases.   

 

So why do people decry it?   Because they are not capitalists.  They are Plutocrats - people that believe in rule by the rich.   They WANT to abuse the rules of capitalism - to trick people into buying without taking the time to research, to buy when you have a gun to your head.  Most of the time an infection will be controlled and in times of plague you can issue 'emergency' orders to have the government pay for treating just that plague, rather than having your taxes give good health care for all.

 

Real capitalism has the government pay for all 911 services, including most healthcare.   Plutocrats hate real capitalism, so they lie and say government healthcare is socialism rather than capitalism.

The Democrats Game Plan for Impeachment and 2020 Election

A lot of people are wondering what the Democrats are doing.  The GOP clearly is still supporting President Trump and in order to remove the President, 20, yes, 20, out of 53 Republican Senators (more than one third) have to vote against him.

That is not going to happen.  Not unless a real surprise comes forth.  Maybe if  Rudy or Mulvaney or someone similar turns on Trump, admitting their crimes.

So why are the Democrats doing this?   To take the Senate back.

There is more then enough evidence to convict President Trump of multiple crimes - not just extorting/bribing (a technical legal distinction, and both require what is known as 'quid pro quo') the Ukrainians into an investigation of Biden's son.

Worse, most of the population has already realized this.   Look at polls based on impeachment (https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/impeachment-polls/)

But don't look at the Democrats, they don't matter.  Nor do the Republicans matter.  What matters are the Independents.   Honestly, even they don't matter - not unless they are in the swing states. It doesn't matter what the people in Utah and California think, their states are solidly behind one party.

But there are 18 Senate seats up for election in swing states.(https://www.270towin.com/2020-senate-election/)

Twelve of those seats are currently held by a Republican.  Two of them are not running for re-election.  They are retiring, most probably because they have too much honor and ethics to stay in Donald Trump's Republican party.

If the ten that are running again vote to remove Trump from office, that would piss off their base.   They likely will lose without their base and still not be enough to remove Trump.  If they vote not to remove Trump it will piss of the majority of independents and 'crossover' democrats (People that vote for a Democrat for President but vote Republican in local elections.)   Once forced to vote, they are in a no-win situation.

They will have a much harder time staying in office this November.  If (as I suspect) we do not remove Trump from office, this will create enough outrage to help keep those six Democratic Senators in Swing States in office.  Which will push the independents to vote democratic.  Yes it will enliven both bases, but they cancel each other out.

Which means of the 45 Democrat Senators + 2 Independents vs 53 Republican Senators could become 55 Democrats + 2 Independents vs 43 Republican Senators.

Some people are saying a failed Impeachment helps the President's part, mainly because they looked at Clinton.  But That was a failed impeachment on sex, something most Americans dismissed as purely a partisan attack.  While the GOP has pushed hard on this idea, that does not mean they have convinced the country.  Yes, their base believes it, but that does not matter.  What matters is have they convinced the independents and the crossover Democrats that it was a partisan attack.

Their arguments have been really bad, so I believe they have failed to do this.  They  tried Cohn/Trump's tactics of deny, deny, then ADMIT but claim it is not wrong.   That works with the base, not the country as a whole.  Which means this failed impeachment will help Democrats, not the GOP.

Yeah, the GOP will likely win some of the swing seats.  We may not get it all, but I bet the DNC ends up with at least 51 Democrats in the Senate, on top of the two independents.

Giving the Democrat President (whoever he or she is) effective control over the country once again.

Quotes and the 2020 election.

There is a quote, which I don't quite remember the exact details or who first said it (Hard to be sure of any quote's authors in the age of the lying internet).  I will attempt to paraphrase it:

• Under normal circumstances, conservatives should outnumber liberals.

This is based on the real definition of political conservatism: "The inclination, especially in politics, to maintain the existing or traditional order."    If the government is not totally screwing up, then most people are complacent and will be more afraid of losing what they have than of gaining benefits.

(The rest of these bullet points are my statements, not paraphrased quotes.)

•   Liberal political parties will correctly identify a problem that needs fixing, that Conservative party is ignoring.  Their solution might not work, but they will identify the problem.

This is part of the definition of a liberal party - they are trying to fix things that a conservative party is willing to ignore because they are afraid a solution will mess up things that are working well.

• Conservative ideals of today are identical to liberal ideals 50 years ago.

This again is the result of the definitions.  Liberals try to solve problems, conservatives stick to tradition.  Once a liberal solves a problem, 50 years later their solution becomes a tradition.  The liberals may try to improve upon it, but the conservatives like their parent's solution.  Hence conservatives went from being for slavery to against it but in favor of separate but equal, etc. etc. etc.

Some people mistakenly think the first quote (conservatives outnumber liberals) means most Americans are Republicans. Not true.   

•  Under normal circumstances, a moderate political party will outnumber any extremist party.

That includes conservatives, liberals, greens, hawks, doves, libertarians, monarchists, communists, or authoritarian.   This is true because a moderate party has a greater pool of voters.  It can draw from all sides, and the independents in particular. Extremist party, can only draw from their own extreme and some of the independents.  How do the Extremists win?   enthusiasm.

Moderates tend toward apathy, extremists have enthusiasm.  The DNC has tried to be a moderate party since Bill Clinton, explaining why they lose the midterms (voter apathy) but do better in the presidential elections (Since 1992 there were seven  elections, and the Republicans won the popular vote only once - George Bush's 2004 re-election.   Democrats won the popular vote all six other times, despite losing the electoral college twice)

• The Republican party, while it was a conservative party with libertarian tendencies for most of the past 70 years , has moved to a rural party due to successful  gerrymandering policy pushed by Karl Rove.

They knew they could not win the popular vote against a moderate party, so they ignored it and concentrated on other methods - gerrymandering the vote to gain rural seats.

• The Democratic party, while it started as a liberal party, is being pushed into an urban party by gerrymandering.  

If you can't win the rural areas due to gerrymandering, the party leaders become all urban, pushing the party that direction.


Now back to the 2020 election.  Remember the Karl Rove Gerrymandering plan?

• Trump undermined the gerrymandering movement, first managing to steal a whole bunch of suburban voters via a social media plan, but new trends show him losing them.  (https://morningconsult.com/tracking-trump/)

What is going to happen next?  Will the GOP return to it's rural based gerrymandering policy?  The Supreme Court could end that - they may be conservative but they are mostly honest and see the real undemocratic effects of gerrymandering. 

Will Trump leave a lasting mark on the GOP, turning it into a Social Media Party?  I don't think that will last.  It might work for him, but no one else seems to be able to duplicate his style of ignoring facts. 
 
I see the DNC regaining most of the electoral votes in the Great Lake States  (Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan).  When you lie (show his taxes, Mexico will pay for the wall, save the dreamers, etc.) you make short term gains but suffer in the long term.  That will give the Presidency to the DNC candidate.

The GOP may keep the Senate - though it is not certain.  They have enough seats up for re-election in states that are leaning against Trump.  They will almost certainly lose Arizona and Colorado.  The Democrats need to pick off at least one of Maine, Iowa, or North Carolina - all of whom dislike Trump. If the right presidential candidate brings out the voters and the Democrats pick good Senate Candidates for those three states, the GOP loses it's majority.


If the DNC gains three total, it's a tie.  Four and the DNC controls both the Presidency and Congress.  Ginsburg and Breyer will almost certainly be replaced by the next president.   If the Democrat does not screw up and get's re-elected, that means Alito and/or Thomas are likely to be replaced as well, giving the liberals a majority unless the GOP pulls some evil maneuver like they did to get Gorsuch into office.   (Obama should have had the choice, and the GOP got lucky Hillary - who won the popular vote - did not win the electoral vote)

Quadrant Voting Vs Gerrymandering

Gerrymandering is a complex issue.   We want to let communities vote without outside interference, allowing, for example, a hispanic community to elect a hispanic representative, despite being surrounded by non-hispanic people.  But we don't want one political party to use it to prevent subsections of people from having a voice in politics.


So here is a radical, new version of democracy to consider.  I call it Quadrant voting.

Basically, we group districts into sets of three to five contiguous quadrants, with a requirement of each state having no more than 3 quadrants having less than or more than 4 districts.  All votes are done over an entire quadrant, for the party, not the candidates.  

In the primary elections, the parties members select the four (or 5 if the quadrant has 5 congressmen), best vote getters, and they rank them from least to most popular.

Say your quadrant (like most) was entitled to 4 congressmen and the GOP had six nominees in the primary.  They would end up with the 4 highest vote getters being listed in the general, for example: #1 Smith (most votes), #2 Johnson,  #3 Rodriguez and 4 Peterson.

When the General election is held, you vote for the party, not the man, and you get just a single vote for the entire quadrant.   In a 4 district quadrant, if your party wins 21% of the vote, you get one congressmen, 42% you get two, 63% you get 3, 84% you get four congressmen.  (Three District, the numbers are 26%, 52% and 78%. Five District quadrant use 17%, 34%, 51%, 68%, and 85%).  So Peterson only gets elected if the GOP gets 84% of the quadrant's vote. 

Given our current system, most of the time the quadrants would be fighting to get to 63% for the third vote.

Note that this makes the primary more important.  The quadrant system basically ensures that the congressional make up will match the state's make up, and that party's best vote getter will always stay in power - it's only their secondary people that get kicked out.   It's really hard kick someone out of power if their own party likes them.

Moreover, it ensures that communities can elect someone that represents them.  Have a city that's 30% black, 30% Hispanic, and 40% white?   You are going to get one at least one black, one Hispanic and one white congressmen.  Only the last one is up for debate.

More importantly, gerrymandering is now meaningless.  Make one quadrant 90% black, you just gave them four congressmen and less than 6% wasted votes.  Make your own quadrant 63% Republican, your opponent still gets one out of 4 congressmen - two if your party does something stupid and loses some of the expected vote.

Basically, much fewer votes get wasted.

It would make minor changes more important for the general vote count.

The downside is you are voting for the party, not the man.  People at the center of big scandals would still get elected if they were more popular inside their own party - it would be their less popular associates that pay the price, rather than them.

Effectively, this Roy Moore would win, but it would also mean that they would have a lot less power. And his own party would be very very upset with him for losing them votes.

It would also mean that a lot more states would be much closer to 50-50. 

The governing party is always conservative.

There is a common refrain among conservatives that states:

In any stable country, the most common political belief is conservatism.

This statement, without any proof is usually taken at face value.

While I suspect it is true, they are ignoring several important factors.

First, it using the definition of conservative as "conserving the past and reluctant to change" and nothing else.   It is not the more commonly promoted anti-tax, anti-regulation, pro-religious politics used as propaganda by the current Republican Party.  The actual core philosophies of the Republican Party are different than either of these.  In the 2000's it was a rural party, and Donald Trump is remaking it into a fascist party.

Second, people and political parties are not one thing, they are often several things.   Life is complicated.   Every political party has some conservatism and some liberalism, they also have some aspects of authoritarianism, freedom, etc.  When I say a party is conservative, it generally means they are more conservative than most other parties they compete with.

Thirdly, there is the difference between the beliefs and philosophy claimed and the beliefs they use to decide how to actually govern.


Which leads me to my main point. 

Assuming the aphorism is true, not only are the majority of the population always conservative, but by definition so must the party in power be.  Regardless of what they say they are.   At least for their real beliefs, if not their claimed beliefs.  If they've been in power for more than two years, they become conservative because they cease trying to pass new kinds of laws and instead merely try to maintain the changes they already passed.
So at the height of Obama's power - just after he passed Obamacare - the DEMOCRATS were the conservative party.  Yes, they had hints of urbanism and progressiveness, but conservative became their major trait.   The democrats may have claimed to be liberals, but they were conservatives.

At that time, the Republican party, despite claiming to be a conservative party, was actually a "Radical Right" party - a political party intent on overturning the current improvements and returning to older methods.

When the Republicans get into power, after they pass their laws, they become a conservative party and the Democrats stop being conservatives and become progressive party.  They retained hints of urbanism as well as a few other flavors (pro-environment, anti-discrimination, etc.)

If you are wondering where the liberals are, they go by the name "libertarian".  The word liberal refers to someone that cares more about freedom and liberty than anything else.   But they can never truly gain power because their political belief is at heart against government power.  It's like a pacifist army - a silly idea that won't work.

P.S.  Just as the Democrats and Republicans aren't really liberals or conservatives, most of the time the people claiming to be libertarians aren't really libertarians.  Sometimes they are Radicals that like freedom, sometimes they are Conservatives that like freedom, and s

Texas voting, Likely vs Registered voters

In the past I have talked about how Texas is primed to flip from Republican stronghold to Liberal territory, mainly based on the growth of Hispanic population, along with long term trends such as senior citizens slowly dying and younger voters turning more liberal.

Recently (early September 1-11, of 2016), there was a poll done by Texas Lyceum, that has some interesting results.  As always, they do a lot of questions, and several different analytical methods.

The one they concentrated on was the "likely Voters, who do you prefer out of the four candidates",  There, Clinton came in at 32% vs Trump's 39%.  Johnson got 9% and Stein got 3%.   Trumps minute lead of 7% is ridiculous for a GOP candidate in Texas.  For comparison purposes, in 2012, the actual poll results were: 4,555,799 votes for Romney (57.2%), 3,294,440 votes for Obama (41.4%), 8,110 votes for Johnson (1.1%) and 24,450 votes for Stein  (0.3%).

Yes, Johnson and Stein - the candidates for the Libertarian and Green party - ran in 2012, just as they are running in 2016.

But that is not the whole story.  First, note that the poll is likely voter, not registered voter, not actual voters.

Likely voter is something that the POLLING company determines.   Good polling companies base it on answers to questions such as 1) Did you vote in the last presidential election? 2) Did you vote in the last non-presidential election. 3) Did you know where people in your district have to go to vote? 4) Rate your chances of voting.     Not-so-good polling companies try to do calculations such as x% of Democrats voted last time, so x% will vote this time. 

Second, note that lots of people will give their 'real preference' in a poll, but when it comes down to actual voting in the election, they will not vote for a third party candidate unless that candidate has over 20% of the votes in the polls.  That is, they only vote for a third candidate if they think they have a real shot.

Digging deeper into the polls, we find some more interesting answers, rather than the heavily biased "likely voters, out of four".

First, let's do the Clinton Vs Trump vs Johnson vs Stein, all registered voters.  That makes it 30% Trump, 29% Clinton, 10% Johnson, 3% Stein.  That's a big deal for Democrats.  Johnson and Stein stay about the same, Trump loses a lot, Clinton loses a moderate amount (those losses are 'undecided', not surprising in unlikely voters).  But most importantly it means a LOT of the people that are unlikely voters do not like Trump.   A heavy get out the vote effort from the Democrats in Texas could easily take the state.


Now lets' ignore the people that got less than 2% the last time they ran.

Likely Voters - 42% Trump, 36% Clinton.  not much difference there, Trump still wins by 6% rather than 7%.

But Registered Voters: 35% Trump, 39% Clinton.   Here we have a huge win for Clinton.  She finally beats Trump.

The problem is, that involves the registered voters that are unlikely to vote.  The Democrats really need a HUGE Get Out The Vote program to take Texas back.

Also note, a similar thing happens For the US Congress and Texas state representatives elections, although not quite that extreme (i.e. 31% dem vs 32% rep among registered voters).

The Democrats need to create a new, superior get out the vote program in Texas.  It should be the single most important priority for the DNC.  It has to do so in direct opposition to the GOP's attempts to stop people from voting in Texas.

It probably needs to be lead by a charismatic Hispanic Texan born Democrat.

What the People Respond To.

There is something that losers do (as in people that have lost, not people that are unworthy)  - complain about the test being unfair.  Sometimes they are right - the test is unfair.   For example, if you are entering a swimming contest, but they include the time it takes to take off your clothing and put on your bathing suit, that's unfair.

But more often they are wrong, the test was fair, they simply didn't understand what the test was.  This is most often the case with politics.

The politicians complain about either the media not covering or the people not caring about their point.  This proves they don't deserve to be president.   The people have no obligation to understandor believe you, you have an obligation to understand the people.

When you complain about no one covering or caring about your opponent 'corrupt' activity with an AIDS Charity guess what - that means you are wrong about their behavior being out of line.  Frankly, America doesn't care if a Secretary of State gives access to monsters that have given large sums to an AIDS charity.   We are fine with that.  


When you complain about being treated unfairly for your own relatively minor sins involving word choice, guess what - if they people don't vote for you because of it, that means the people think YOU ARE WRONG.  It is not a minor sin, it is a big one.  They are the ones that make that judgement call, not you. 

One of the major advantages of Democracy is that it forces the politicians to pay attention to the people, not the other way around.  Voting is not a test of the people that they win or lose, it's a test of the politician and the politician is the one that wins or loses.  (The term in office is the test of the people).

Part of the problem is the friendly bubble.  When you run for office you surround yourself with people that think you would be a good candidate. This makes understanding and playing to your base very easy.

But it also can make understanding and playing to the undecided and opponents very hard.

You have to know what they care about.  You can't convince them to change their mind using the same techniques that work on your base.  Your base believes what you say without evidence.  Your base disbelieves what the opponent says even if they have evidence.  The independent voter looks on you as if you are the liar, at least as much as your opponent.

Trump's techniques don't work at all on the independent voter.  Which is why he is going to lose.

Future of the Republican and Democratic parties..

It's up for grabs.

The problems with both parties are rather obvious - and dramatically different.

The Republican party is imploding.  It can't win a Presidential election, even when their competitor is Hillary Clinton - someone they have been gunning for more than 20 years.  Hillary is likely to win this election with the highest unfavorables ever.   That's how bad the GOP is doing - they can't beat a woman that nobody likes.

Why?  Because they over-promised to a small, motivated group and totally failed to deliver.   There is a fatal flaw in GOP strategy - cultivating a fanatical base that is far more radical than the US in general.  While that will help them win congressional districts and state representatives, allowing them to gerrymander at will, it pisses off the majority of the population, so they have no chance to win the Presidential race which means no Supreme Court Judges.  Most likely, sometime in the next 8 years, gerrymandering will be outlawed, by a 5:4 supreme court vote.  After that, the GOP in it's current form is dead.   Even without that issue, it will fall apart.

Currently, they have created a constant revolution in the lower ranks against the party leaders.  T Party candidates like Cruz get overthrown by Trump radicals objecting to the T party 'insiders'.  And two years from now, some new group will continue the process, throwing out the Trumpers and replacing them with some other new, radical group.

This dooms the dying Republican party to become an 'also ran' party.   When I say "dying" I mean it literally.  Every year their base will die off, while the Democrats increases.  More young, more black, more Hispanic, more Muslim, and more gay voters while the old, white, straight, male, Christian voters that used to dominate politics become an endangered species. They have already lost the majority of the population, they maintain their congressional majority via gerrymandering, which has limits and will be outlawed.

Which leaves the REAL dispute about the future of our country in the hands of the Democrats.  Hence the fight between the Conservative Democrats - aka Hillary Clinton - and the Liberal Democrats, aka Bernie Sanders.

That split isn't going away, it's going to get worse.   While the GOP descends into a death spiral, the Democratic party is likely to bifurcate into two parties - the Conservative Dems and the Liberal Dems.

This won't happen as long as the GOP is around to unite us.  We despise the elitist strategy of the GOP, catering to the politically motivated rather than giving the majority what they want.   As such, the Democratic party has attracted everyone that can't stand their "obey us way or be a traitor" philosophy.    But we are a disparate group with big differences.  We can only stay together as long as the big GOP unite us against them.

Is it possible for the GOP to save themselves?  Unlikely.  The quite truth is that Hillary Clinton was the candidate THEY should have put forward.  She occupies the real 'center-right' that they claim to represent, while being female and connecting to minorities.    The GOP's attempt to demonize the conservative branch of the Democrat party has made it impossible for them to regain their rightful place as the center-right party.

As they try to be a far right party (while claiming to be a center-right one), they slowly bleed voters to the Democrats.  The real question is what will happen after it's gone too far.  I see 10 years as the max.   If Hillary Clinton wins two consecutive terms and we get a third Democrat President after Hillary, that's
it.  By then either the GOP will implode or the SCOTUS will have outlaw gerrymandering, killing the GOP.   Once that happens, the GOP's bubble will pop faster than any stock market bubble.

For maybe six month the Democrats will relish their power - then the infighting will go from shouting "Hillary" over the Bernie Brothers chanting whatever they chant to outright revolt.   The Democratic party will split, Bernie and his successors will split off to form the first truly Liberal party we have had since Jimmie Carter, while Hillary and her successors will split of to form a real center-right party.  Only the far right nut-bags will remain with the GOP, making them a 3rd party, akin to the Libertarians.

Is there any way to stop the Democrat party from splitting after the GOP dies?  I doubt it.   Honestly, it may be for the best - the Bernie people do not like the Hillary people, and they deserve a political party of their own.  Then maybe we can have real political change in America.

But please note, the Democratic party will only split AFTER the GOP is dead.   But that shouldn't be long now, they are about to get their asses handed to them on a platter. 2020 is the real question - will Hillary (or Kaine, Hillary is getting old) be able to get re-elected.

With the right economy (a short recession in 2017, followed by three years of improvement), we will get a solid 16 years of Democrat ruling the white house and own the Supreme Court for the foreseeable future.

The only question will be how liberal the ruling party ends up.   Most likely it will be the conservative Democrats still in charge, but perhaps we can get enough liberal ideas to rejuvenate our government.

How Hillary is going to rig the US election

Donald Trump claimed 'someone' is planning on rigging the 2016 election.  I have a big announcement.

He is right - Hillary and the Democrats are planning on doing it.  I even know how they are planning on doing it.  It's a very simple plan, and very hard to stop them.

What she is going to do is get people that have no business voting to vote for her.

You know the types - the Hispanic Americans, the gay Americans, the black Americans, the disabled Americans, American Reporters, Muslim Americans, Seventh Day Adventist Americans, Asian Americans, American women, American veterans that were once POWs, American Gold star families, American Fireman, etc.

You know  - all the people that good, god fearing, white, male Republicans fear, that's who Hillary is secretly talking to.  

Hillary is going to get all of these people, and convince them to secretly vote for her.  That's her plan on how to 'rig the election'.

How dare these people vote?   How DARE they!  

Of course, please note that all these people that Donald and his followers fear - they have one thing in common with each other (besides hating Donald Trump for some unknown reason).  Something Donald forgot.

They are all Americans.

Racism

There are lots of different kinds of prejudice.  "Prejudice" just means judging someone/thing without knowledge of them.  I for example am prejudiced against the taste of manure.  While I have never actually tasted any, I fervently believe that it tastes bad and I have zero desire to test my belief - in fact I will strongly resist any attempt to force me to do so.

There are two major categorizes of prejudice:

• Intellectual
• Emotional

My prejudice against the taste of manure is intellectual and organized.  I can give you a list of well thought our reasons, from smell, germ theory, how much effort my body took to eliminate the stuff, cultural bias, etc.

But I also have the other kind of prejudice - emotional prejudice.  Emotional prejudice is less organized - it's practically subconscious.  Even if you somehow convinced me that this particular manure smelled nice, had been sterilized and did not come from a human body, I still would not be willing to taste it.   In fact, studies have shown that people will refuse to eat chocolate if it is merely molded into a shape reminiscent of manure.  That is not logical, it is instead purely emotional.

Emotional prejudice lasts long after the intellectual prejudice is removed.   You can't teach it away, it is self -reinforcing. 

Most (not all) of American culture has removed the intellectual racial prejudice.  No one goes around talking about racial superiority anymore.    For this reason, if you ask people if they are prejudiced they say 'no' and get offended.

But the emotional prejudice remains.  Studies have found that unconsciously, people still have racist reactions.  People are more afraid of black men then white men.   Porn stars are considered tainted if they have sex with a black men.  The list of unconscious, illogical, emotional biases go on for a very long time.

The problem is that it doesn't matter to the victim of racism if their racism is organized or unconscious.  Blacks don't care if they are pulled over because the cop thinks all blacks are criminals, or if the cop simply thought "hm, he looks suspicious".   Neither do Mexicans care if you think Mexicans are rapists, murderers and thugs or if you just think that Mexico sends their rapists, murders and thugs to the US.   Jews don't care if you think they are crooked thieves, or merely good with money, it's still prejudice.

Nobody cares that you don't want to be a racist, they care if your actions reflect inherent bias. And yes it does matter.   Ask any short guy or overweight woman that can't get a date.  It doesn't matter if the bias is intentional or unconscious, it still stings.

That is the major problem conservatives and the Republican party in particular have failed to understand.  They get the intellectual racism and stand firmly against it.  But they refuse to admit the emotional racism exists, they refuse to admit that under the civilized actions, we still harbor unconscious biases.  So they let them run riot.  They let TSA and cops racially profile, they allow situations where black kids get rejected from colleges not because they were black, but because they were arrested by cops six times (and found innocent all six times).

As long as we refuse to have government fight back against the pernicious emotional bias form of racism, we will never achieve a race-blind society. 

It's not enough to reject the idea of racism, we have to ensure that it doesn't affect our choices even without evil intent.

Why Donal Trump is not buying TV Ads.

I have no inner knowledge of the Trump Campaign, but I suspect I have figured out why he hasn't bought any TV ads.

I predict he won't buy any for all of July and August.

The reason is simple - it's too early. 

Yes, politicians have traditionally come out blazing.  But honestly we all know that political polls this early don't matter.  People don't make up their mind yet.  You can spend millions every month, get good polls, then lose it all in the last month.


The election is Tuesday, November 8th.   That is more than 100 days away.  A lot happens in 100 days.  People forget about the current scandals and new ones happen.  People die.  People turn 18.  


I think Trump looked at that fact and said "Hell, I can play the media via twitter and press releases, I don't need any advertisements yet."  Throw in a dash of PAC spending and all he wants to do is wait.

Till September comes along.  Sometime in September, expect to see a fusillade of pro-Trump ads.  Hopefully Hillary will still have enough cash to fight back.  

That's my theory and I am sticking by it.

Why poliiticans lie.

How do you tell when a politician is lying?  His lips are moving.  How do you tell when a politician is telling the truth?  When he's confessing.

All politicians lie - on both sides.   Republicans can point at Hillary and Obama etc, Democrats can point at all the Bushs, Cheney, Trump, etc.

If they lie so much, why do we keep electing them?   Because we DEMAND they do.  It's our own damn fault. Some of the more honest ones try to avoid lying simply by changing the subject.

Why do we demand they lie? Three very specific reasons.

1.  We give them no win situations, often set it up with contradictory goals.
2.  We punish them more for admitting they were wrong than we do for being wrong.  The worst example of this is when we punish them for changing their mind.  Lying goes unpunished, while admitting an error gets you thrown under the bus.
3.  We demand certainty and the use of hyperbole to prove sincerity.

No win situations are a common situation, often intentionally set up as traps - that's how we get the contradictory goals in the first place.   A good example of this was the Cash for Clunkers program.  in 2009, the US set up a program to give large incentives for people to trade old older cars (25 years+) in for newer vehicles.    It was originally designed to help fight pollution and to limit oil use, as the fuel requirements were for a vehicle of >22 mph for the newer cars and <18 mph for the older ones.  That's basically a 22% improvement.  The cars were disabled to prevent them being resold/re used.

But it was sold to congress and to the American people in part as an economic boost for the car industry.  That would be the secondary goal.  Guess what - it was a lie to convince republicans (pro business, anti-pollution prevention) to vote for it.  And as it was a lie, it had no real economic benefit.   If you check the wiki page, the first thing they talk about is the economic effect - basically null.  But the environmental effect was real - average mph per clunker was 15.8, new cares averaged 25.4, a 61% improvement.  This was a clear win from the point of view of environmentalists, but from a political viewpoint it was a guaranteed no win situation.  Goal posts were ignored, and people attacked the issue on the 'goals' declared by the opponents of the bill, rather than the goals of the proponents.


Politician being punished for admitting they were wrong is very common - they get accused of being a flip-flopper.    George Bush made that wonderful, humble quality into an insult they used to great effect against Kerry.   But we never punished George Bush at all for begin wrong about weapons of Mass Destruction, for being wrong about torture, etc. etc.  The weird thing is the goal of an argument is to CONVINCE someone to change their minds.  Changing their minds is the DESIRED end result, not a bad thing.  Losing an argument does not make you a worse politician, it means you are not perfect and are not an arrogant asshole that refuses to admit you are not perfect (talking to you Trump).

Certainty is practically a requirement.  We never accept "I don't want to raise taxes, and won't do so unless the circumstances warrant it".  Instead we demand "READ MY LIPS, NO NEW TAXES".  Then we slam the honest man for admitting that a recession hit as soon as G. H.  W.  Bush took over after Reagan, so he had to raise taxes.   He never should have had to say say that lie, we made him do it.


We get the politicians we deserve, not the ones we want.   Given our future - Hillary or Donald, that means we deserve to go to bed without dinner.   Hillary was pushed into making extreme statements about her innocence  - all of which she clearly believed, even if she was also clearly wrong.  Donald has discovered the simplest way to get votes is to ignore the truth and instead speak to what people WANT to hear in the most extreme way possible, thereby guaranteeing he will lie.   He can never admit he was wrong, whether it is about a judge or a Jewish star.

Hopefully we at least deserve someone that knows what is possible, even if she doesn't know how to get there, rather than someone that knows what he wants, and doesn't care if it is possible or not.

How the GOP could win back the Black vote.

Sixty years ago, the black vote went to the GOP.   Back then there were a lot of southern, racists Democrats.  In the 1960's Lyndon B Johnson turned that around, signed a Civil Rights Act and turned everything around - now blacks are among the most reliable voters for the Democrats.

The GOP keeps pushing their same, current philosophy and tries to convince people that it will help the blacks more than the Democrats.

It will never work.  That strategy has been tried and failed so many times, it has become my go-to example of Albert Einstein's definition of INSANITY ("Trying the same thing and expecting different results").

So, how could the GOP win back the black vote?  Yes, it is possible to do without abandoning their ideals.

They could do it by doing the following:

1)  Carry through on their false claim of fiscal responsibility and 'freedom from oppressive government' by massively reducing budgets for small and local government police mismanagement.   Note the "mis" in that sentence.

• Make it illegal to ever hold a person in jail for failure to pay a fine less than $5000.  Many poor people, a distressing number of whom are black, end up in jail, costing local governments hundreds of dollars per day, for failing to pay fines that are less than the government paid to arrest, adjudicate and hold in prison.    Stop that stupid crap and sentence them to community service, not time in jail.  (Note, this will also put a stop to abusive debt law suits.)
• Make it legal to fire any police officer or guard whose action - even if legal - causes the city to lose more than $100k  via a lawsuit.   If the police officer wants to fight the charges, they can pay to defend themselves.   Business fire idiots that get them sued, so should the government.
• Pass a law that any deal made with a prosecutor to prevent the government being sued is null and void.   Prosecutors have no business protecting the city from being sued, it is their job to prosecute the guilty - EVEN IF THE GUILTY ARE POLICEMEN.  They are not their to save money by letting the guilty go free, it doesn't matter if the guilty are cops or burglars, doing that is directly the opposite of their job.
• Have the GOP actively push for 'community policing' by requiring that all new hires and promotions of  police officers must be hired from within the community they serve.  Right now, police are about 30% less white than the communities they serve.  They want to police an area they have to live among them.

2)  Demand equal rights for black gun owners.  If a black man is arrested for using a gun that does not kill or wound an innocent, have the NRA/GOP pay for their defense.  Go all out defending their rights, something they do not do now.

3)  Stop insisting on using Sales Tax to fund local governments, it affects the poor far too much.  Instead, eliminate sales tax and use a state Property Taxes.   Property Taxes are shared equally by the rich and the poor - as rental prices go up when property taxes do.  Yes, that means property taxes (and rents) will go up a lot.  Not important.

4)  Speaking of property tax, insist that each school district gets the same amount of money per student enrolled.

5)  Start calling out racism and prejudice among their own.  Idiots doing things like "Make America White Again"  (actual billboard used by a Republican in 2016) should be literally kicked out of the Republican party.

If the GOP took these steps, ten years from now, they would have a whole bunch of new, darker republicans.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alberteins133991.html

Why Democrats are Better for the Economy.

Thirty years ago the Republicans were the party of fiscal responsibility.  They were for smaller government at the time when government was huge.

Then Ronald Reagan came along and they took over the government.  They got rid of the the excesses the Democrats had at that time created and limited government.  Yes, those spending cuts were modest - because the excesses the Democrats had created were modest.


The problem was the GOP saw a winning strategy and went with it long after it stopped winning.   And stayed with it for from 1981 all the way to 2016.  That's 25 years.   The problem with cutting the fat is that if you keep doing it for almost thirty years, YOU RUN OUT OF FAT.   Picture the blind butcher, who started out trimming the fat, but has now moved on to the muscle and in some cases is now carving the bone.   That's what the Republican Party is doing.

Yes, there may be some fat left on out shrunken, anorexic government, but only a pro-ana idiot with a microscope could find it.


How do you tell that we cut enough?   Simple, you look at Kansas.   Kansas is what happens when you keep on cutting taxes - you turn a $600 mill surplus into almost a $700  million deficit, get below average job growth (even the Kansas GOP can't kill the economy that Obama gave to our country), bankrupt school districts, and (Source).




You can only cut so long, before you hit bone.   They hit bone in Kansas and need to stop cutting.

Part of the issue is that the GOP gave up on actually reducing spending, and is now just cutting taxes - just like they try to do in the Federal Budget.   That doesn't work, no matter how much it did (or did not) work in the past, increased efficiency only gets you so far.

How do you tell if you have cut to the fat or the bone?  You compare with other countries.  First of all, note that the US outspends the next nine other countries when it comes to the military. It was the next ten before Obama - thanks Obama - but he cut us back some and convinced other countries to help out in the middle east.  Keeping that in mind, you can check the general list.

Let's look at per person spending (all data from Wikipedia). 


The World spends on average $2376.  But the bigger, first world countries (20 largest economies) spend on average $16,110.   The US spends only $11,041, #15 out of the top 20.  If we wanted to spend less than South Korea (moving us down to #16), we would have to drop to $4,556.  And we all know one of the reasons why South Korea's spending is so low.


This nice graph demonstrates the Federal net outlays a a percent of GDP since 1929.
Click here for this nice graph

It is typified by 4 things.  

1. A general trend up from 3% to about 20% now.  
2. A large spike up above 40's for World War II
3. A general decline starting in the 1980's (Ronald Reagan) and getting significant in the 1990's (Bill Clinton's incredible economy that kept going and going)
4. The HUGE spike that stated with George Bush (took up back above Ronald Reagan at it's worst) and that Obama almost entirely fixed.  Almost, but not entirely.

Yes, we aren't all the way down to Clinton at his best, but  we are already below Reagan at his best.

But more than 70% of the US budget is on Military, Social Security, and Health Care.   The only place the GOP is willing to cut that HAS enough money left to actually reduce costs is the Health Care sector.  But more than half of the healthcare spending goes to Seniors - Medicare again.  The biggest cut would be the $371 Billion we are expected to spend on Medicaid in 2016. (Source).
 
The only way to really reduce spending is to cut Medicaid to the bone (or cut everything else we fund).   That is why we haven't done it.

The real problem is that government actually DOES work.  People that join the military really do act as a deterrent, preventing other countries from attacking us.  People in education really do educate our students, allowing them to get better jobs and make more money.  Health care and Senior care really do let people take risks without having to save up money for unforeseen health issues and aging.   The police actually DO stop criminals, encouraging honest economic activity. 

Which means we have 3 choices on how to reduce taxes.

1) Eliminate neccessary services, cutting long term taxes in the future, for temporary gains that get eaten up IN ONE YEAR - as proven by Kansas.

2)  Keep current services and pray that our economy gets better, reducing the need for social services.

3) INCREASE spending on certain services that we KNOW have solid return on investment.  Things like half-way housing for the insane who currently end up in prison - something that costs a lot more than a half-way house.  Things like education for at risk students - children of homeless, drug addicts, and criminals - that are almost 50% likely to go to prison - with the plan of turning them into honest, tax paying citizens.

We need a President that ...

People love to talk about what we need in a President.  Sometimes they are right, sometimes they are wrong, and sometimes they are right but irrelevant.

What do I mean by right but irrelevant?  I mean they are referencing a quality that everyone has - often in an attempt to insult their opponent.  "We need a president that ....wears clothing/breathes/talks English."

Lets discuss some of the qualities and which are right, wrong, and irrelevant.  I am going to start with the irrelevant ones, because frankly, they are the most interesting.

• Strong Willed
• Good Leader 
• Makes the Right Decisions
• Willing to Take Risks

These skills are necessary but irrelevant for one major reason - you can't win a Primary unless you already have all of them.   For at least the last century, the US Presidency has been so valuable a prize, that the best men of a large, successful country (and not enough women, go Hillary!) have fought over it toe to toe.   No matter what the other party says, a weak person can not win a national primary - it's too nasty a gauntlet.   Whether it's your competition claiming you aren't an American citizen, claiming you had a black child out of wedlock, or calling up voters past midnight and pretending to work for your opponent, the US Presidency is not for the weak.

Similarly, making it past the Primaries, requires that you be a good leader, make the right decisions and willing to take risks.   All of these qualities are more than tested long before you make it to the General Election.  Yes one candidate may be slightly stronger than the other, but in the most extreme example, we are talking the difference between an 9 and 10, which isn't worth mentioning.

But people love to claim they have these qualities, implying their opponent doesn't.  It's easy to claim a winning move took no courage, was not their idea, was an obvious decision, and not a high risk.  Similarly, it's easy to claim a losing move was done out fear, after being pushed, a wrong decision, and was clearly far too risky.   Then they claim that they wouldn't do such a thing - or they claim they never would have been put into that position in the first place.  This is all bravado and lies.   All serious Presidential Candidates have been strong people, good leaders, made good decisions, and were willing to take risks.

Next are the qualities people think you need, but are not important for a President.

• Religious/Good Christian/Morale/"Character"
• Honest/Trustworthy
• Charismatic  (more than the top 10%)
• Intelligence (smarter than the top 10%)

All of these categories are not necessary to being President.  This is not a 'christian country', it is a country that goes out of it's way to ensure religious freedom.   The President has to abide by a set of rules that normal humans do not.  They are routinely placed in a situation where they have to order people to their death - both their own citizens and enemies of the state.   I am not saying that morality or religion is a bad thing (they are some people's best qualities) - just that they are not necessary to be a good President.   He can cheat on his wife (Clinton, JFK), flash his dick to everyone (Johnson), win an election using dirty tricks (Nixon, JFK, Bush), and make deals with terrorists (Reagan).   Being Morale/Good Christian is not necessary to be a good President.

Similarly, superior honesty is not necessary.  The Presidency requires that we keep secrets and lie to other governments.  Hopefully they won't lie to the American people but often you can't lie to your enemy without at least misinforming your own people.   Past Presidents have lied to our enemies and it helped the country - that's pretty much the definition of a 'covert' operation.   Part of being good at keeping secrets is being a good liar.

Charismatic and intelligence are also not needed because we can hire people to that part of the job - as long as you are not totally obnoxious or an idiot.  A good speech writer and good advisers can take care of those parts of the job.

Religious/morale, Honest, Charismatic, Intelligent  - these are all good qualities, that people like, so they pretend they are necessary for the job.  But they don't substantially help a person be a better president.


That brings us to the qualities a good President needs, but aren't guaranteed by the process.   Failing to have these make you far less effective as a President, and you can win the Primary without them.

• Consensus builder.
• Finger on the Pulse
• Good Judge of Character
• Flexibility

Consensus Builder - as Obama demonstrated, and Trump is proving again, you do not have to be good at building a real consensus to get elected.  You can simply be better than the alternatives.  The problem is this limits your effectiveness tremendously.   Aside from one major piece of legislation - Obamacare - we didn't as much out of Obama as some hoped.  He was a good President, but not and  FDR, nor a Reagan.   Trump would be even worse.  He can't  get his own party' support, let alone the Democrats, who are most likely to rule the Senate (and the Supreme Court).   But to be an effective leader, you need more than just the White House, you need to convince at least some of your political opponents to support your bills.  Hillary is a lot better than Donald Trump when it comes to Consensus Building, she has won back the Black vote after losing it to Obama. 

Also Consensus building is NOT negotiating.  Ambassadors and Secretaries of State negotiate.   Presidents do not negotiate.   Negotiating means you strive for the best possible deal at all costs.    Consensus means you give up the best possible deal in order to keep everyone friendly.  You negotiate with your enemies, competitor, and clients.  You build a consensus with you wife and Congress.

Finger on the Pulse of the Nation is a strange one.   In truth, you do need it beat the Primary, but from the time you win the primary, the process does it's best to rip your hand off the pulse.  You get surrounded by advisers, spin doctors, security, cut off from the people.  It is extremely hard to maintain the sense of what 'regular' people are doing.  Without it, you come up with horrible ideas that everyone hates and don't understand why they hate them.   The ability to stay in touch with the common man is tough.  Let's be honest here, neither Hillary or the Donald have any idea how normal people live.  Trump says he does, but then he thinks he will win the Mexican and Women vote.  Honestly, he understands how a certain subset of the US (disaffected male non-hispanic white voters) work, but is clueless about the rest.  Lies - even self delusions - don't help you out here.

Good Judge of Character: the ability to pick the right people for the right job is key.  If you are smart enough and charismatic enough, then you don't need this skill to win the Primary.  But being President takes more work than winning the Primary - no one can do it alone.   You need to be able to pick the right people who will do their jobs well.    Again, neither Hillary nor Trump has a good record.  Trump has many bad calls when it comes to failed businesses, and Hillary has issues with the people she trusted for email security and for state security in Libya.

Which brings me to Flexibility.  You need to be willing to admit when you were wrong and change your opinion.  Why?  Because no one is right all the time.  If you were right all the time, that means you were unwilling to take risks.  If you don't take risks, you can never be wrong - but you will always be behind the times, leading from the rear.  It means not pushing for Gay Rights, not telling Gorbachev to "Take Down This Wall."  because you are afraid of being wrong.  The only way to take risks is to accept that occasionally you will be wrong.  Trump is good about walking mistakes back, but refuses to admit that what he originally said was wrong.  He lies about it - and that pisses off his opponents who know he is lying.   Hillary on the other hand, is more willing to admit she was wrong (despite being wrong less often than Trump).  She has admitted mistakes graciously.

Note, most of the other Republican candidates failed because they never had their Finger on ANYONE'S Pulse.  Trump at least knew what white males were thinking.  If Bernie Sanders had been more  Flexible and a better Consensus Builder, he would have been a better nominee.  If Trump could figure out what gay, black, Mexican women really want (and be willing to support it), or if Sanders found a way to walk back some of the socialism and compromise with conservatives, they would be far better candidates.

Right now, Hillary is the best we have.   She is good  at Consensus and is Flexible when it comes to the tough choices.   She needs to get better at judging other people's character and find some way to regain a sense of what other people want.

Obama's successes

Obama's successes are fairly well known (and despised by the GOP).

The death of Bin Laden, the passage (and sustance) of the Health Care bill, and the two Supreme Court Judges, and the destruction of DOMA

In addition, he dealt a near mortal blow to Fox News, by proving them oh so very, very wrong about his election.  


It is looking more and more to me like he will also get a win major immigration reform.

The reason he has won is that the GOP is dysfunctional.  They got caught up in the idea of beating the liberals at all costs, even at the cost of what's good for the country.

As such, they moved very far to the right, so as to avoid compromising in any way shape or form. 

The thing is, as much as this ensures that the President will be a Democrat for the foreseeable future (at least the next presidential election - the GOP continues to push candidates that have no chance of winning), it is bad for the country.

The US needs a loyal opposition, not just an opposition.  The entire concept of Democracy depends upon it.

We need a Republican Party to yell at the Democrats for letting the NSA invade privacy.  We need a Republican Party to yell at government agencies from time to time, just to keep them honest.

We need a Republican Party to ensure that we get the best possible Democratic candidate, and not just some schlub that knows the right people.

And honestly, the GOP needs us Democrats as well.  Without our shining example, they would continue to believe their favorite lies - chief among them is that Americans like the GOP's political philosophy.

But most importantly, the GOP needs as incentive to raise their game.  They need to forget about the Minor leagues (state governments) and get back into the Majors.  They need to focus upon the things that americans focus on.  

Instead of letting the Democrats steel Healthcare right out from under their presidential nominee and make it our issue, they could have made it their issue.  They failed.  They failed BIG time when it came to healthcare.


Honestly, what they really, truly need is for the GOP to take David Frum's advice.

Specifically, they need to get rid of their sacred cows, talk about income inequality, deal with environmental issues instead of deny them, accept Healthcare, and stop labeling Obama as the devil incarnate. 

Because quite frankly, at this point it is obvious to all Democrats and quite a few independents that Obama is a very good President and their attempts make them look as stupid and out of touch as a Holocaust denier.

The Growth Stages of Empire.

Empires are a lot like people.

They start out young, small and weak.  They begin to learn, and as they learn, they grow larger.

Sometimes they lose a little power and come back.  But eventually they hit their prime, using what they have learned.  

Finally, they begin their real, permanent decline.  They try to hold on to old things they knew, talk about the good old times.

But they don't regain their power.  Instead they die.  A new empire takes over based in another part of the world, with a different culture.

The reason is simple.

Empires don't form because a country 'deserves it".

No.  Instead, the empire is created when one country invents/discovers something dramatic.  The US empire is fairly obvious.   A combination of capitalism and nuclear weapons made us a 'superpower'.  Those have spread to other countries, but by then we were already a superpower.

The truth cause of our success is the spirit of freedom and innovation.   Because you see, neither nuclear power nor capitalism were invented here.  Europeans (mostly Germans) invented nuclear power, but came to America because of the lack of freedom in Europe (Nazi Germany).  Adam Smith, a Scotsman, was the father of Capitalism.

The United States true power came from embracing progress and liberalism where other countries preferred conservative values.  Note I am talking about real conservatism which is founded on the respect for tradition, not the new pseudo conservatism that embraces libertarianism in theory (though not in practice).

Because you see tradition is what kills empires.  When you start valuing things because of how great they were once as opposed to trying to make things better, then you are going backwards as opposed to forwards.

You can never back into an empire, no matter how great the old empire used to be.  Instead you have to charge forward into the unknown.

Any country that talks about how good the good old days were and how bad (immoral) the young folks are is doomed.  They can never become strong and powerful because they are preventing new ideas from bringing new power to you.

You can't copy your old ways to get power because everyone else already knows your old secrets.  You need new secrets, new ideas, you need liberalism.

Why Government Should Fund Science.

One of the Republican Party's tropes is to kill government sponsored science.  They consider it to be a waste of money.   While they admit the obvious fact that scientific research is very profitable for the government (the Internet is just the most recent and obvious example), they think business can do it better. Instead of having the government fund research, they want business and non-profits, such as universities to do it. 


They base this trope on several false assumptions.

1. Any science that doesn't make a profit and can't be funded by by a non-profit is not worth investigating.  They typically bring up moralistic examples (research into the sex lives of animals).
2. Business are better suited to decided which scientific endeavors can make a profit.
3. Businesses care more about profit than about anything else, and therefore will investigate all potentially profitable areas.

All of these assumptions are false, and they are not just small errors.  They are incredibly large errors.

Lets start with part 1.   There are a lot of science that can't make a profit.   I could talk about the endless number of orphan diseases (diseases too rare for cures/treatments to be profitable).   I could also talk about the big science questions that require HUGE expenditures to answer - such as the age of the universe.   These things are worthwhile even without a profit, yet for various reasons are not appropriate for for non-profits to answer.  Among other things, sometimes these huge expenditures need steady funding that can't depend upon non-profit.  Which brings us to part 2.

The biggest tech boons of the past 50 years derive from government funded initiatives.  But there is a corollary to this fact, which is more importantly: There was nothing stopping businesses from doing the research themselves.   The most obvious one is the internet, but the space program also counts.  Business could have created the internet, but failed to step up to the plate.  So businesses have demonstrated an INABILITY to fund key, profitable research. 

Government uses different standards to decide upon funding than businesses do. Businesses do in fact make good decisions.  They invest in a lot of valid scientific research, and ignore many bogus ones.  But so does government - and more importantly government invests in different technology than business does.

Business has a rather short timeline.   Small business has to make a profit asap.  If they don't, they change their business model right away, and if they can't get a profit within two years, they die.  Public corporations usually can't look further than 1 year, and die after six years or so of losses.  Private business can look three-four years ahead but will die after ten years without a profit.

A lot of science however takes decades. Most of the twentieth century owes itself to the scientific work of Nikola Tesla.   Make no mistake, Tesla made a lot of money - when he was young.  But he gave up his patents to save Westinghouse (which failed to work, GE eventually stole them).  But even after he lost the money, he proceeded to invent a multiple of advanced scientific devices, all of which took DECADES to become profitable.  He made discoveries related to radar, microwave ovens, computers, and even VTOL airplanes.  Business did not actually follow his research until decades after he died.  They had their chance and failed.

Goddard did his first rocket work in 1926, but it didn't really become profitable until the early1940's when the Germans turned them into a viable weapon of war.  That's more than a decade.  Not to mention it took over fifty years from Goddard's first rocket to the big business of satellites.

The internet started before 1969, but it didn't become truly profitable until 1990, and internet commerce didn't start for another 4 years.

Lots of big, profitable science takes many, many decades to make a profit.  That far exceeds the schedule that business  uses.  Worse, if you waited on these things, it would mean waiting for the results.   Some things you need to pay to do asap.   Which brings us to part 3.

Bad timing isn't the only reason why businesses miss profit opportunities.  Businesses tend to be moralistic.  They have to worry about PR and can't get involved in certain things.   Banks will reject financially sensible loans because they don't want to get involved in sex businesses.  Not to mention prejudice about gays, women, etc.   Business can't research how ducks have sex, even if the biochemistry is incredibly interesting and can lead to real scientific progress with actual financial awards.

Sometimes businesses care more about security than profit.  As in, they would rather maintain their existing business then try to create a better business model that undercuts their current one.  Worse, they are quite willing to legal (and sometimes illegal) monopolistic tactics to prevent others from doing it.  Look at Tesla and their business model.  Existing large corporations undermine new companies research, just as they undermine new business models.


Why?  Because the risk-reward is is MUCH lower to undermine something than to try something new.

People and organizations with large amounts of money care more about risk than about reward.   Not that hard to understand, the more you have to lose, the more you care about losing it.

Governments have several specific immunities to this kind of risk.  Usually they don't have to answer to anyone about specific programs - in part because they are often looked at as jobs programs, in part because they amalgamate so many programs that some are doing well even if some are doing it poorly.   In the US, the government has so much money that even large science projects take up such a small part of the budget that no one cares if they fail.

For all of these reasons, government should continue to fund science.  They don't always do it better than business does, but the different priorities of government allows it to make hugely profitable investments that the business world simply can not or will not make.

Now a couple of extra points.

1. I am talking about funding science, not restricting research.  Funding is good, restricting is bad. Laws restricting research is about picking winners and losers.  They stop better technology by laws, not through money.
2. Funding is not picking winners or losers. You can still win if your opponent is better funded.  Just ask Nikola Tesla.  General Electric and Edison had much better funding than Westinghouse and Tesla.  As a direct result GE strong armed Westinghouse, but they ended up using TESLA's inventions.   Nikola Tesla won the science, even if Edison won the money.   While it might be unfair to Tesla, the country as a whole came out ahead, despite Edison's attempts to push into using the wrong technology.

Why Conspiracy theories are always wrong.

Conspiracy theorists make a lot of rather simple mistakes.

Here are a set list of the mistakes common to almost all conspiracy theories

1. They fail to take into account that in a free country, their are always intelligent, ethical people in government, the press, and most importantly the political party out of power.  They have huge motivations to expose the conspiracy.  And by intelligent, I mean more so than the conspiracy theorist.
2. They fail to take into account that conspiracies break down over time.  The longer the claimed conspiracy, the more likely someone will have discovered it and proven it to the public.   
3. They fail to understand that the more people in on the conspiracy, the more likely it will get exposed.
4. Bosses usually have motivations to expose conspiracies done by their subordinates, but hiding one from your boss is MUCH harder than it is to hide it from random people not in the organization.
5. They fail to realize that the conspirators know all of facts 1-4.

Lets start with some basic facts.  Few people will meet more than 100,000 in their entire lifetime.  One of those 100,000 people will be smarter than all the rest.

But the USA has over 300,000,000 people.  That means the smartest person you know, most likely has about 3,000 people smarter than them, in this country alone.   Quiet a few of them go into politics and some go into the press.

I guarantee you that there are people working for the government and for the press that are smarter than EVERYONE you have ever met.   That means if you can figure it out, they did before you did, and they probably predicted that you would.

Conspiracies break down over time.  First your opponent figures it out, and then they tell the world and the world believes them, because they get real, solid evidence (not bad video, not clearly faked documents, etc.)

In World War II there were several conspiracies.  The NAZI's tried to hide the fact that they were murdering Jews.  Hitler came into power on January 30, 1933, and the Soviets first started hearing about the Holocaust in June, 1941.   Eight years is all it took.   Yes, that's how long you can keep a major secret.   Note the Nazis were winning in June 1941.  The US did not enter World War II until Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, up until December of 1941, the Germans were crushing the Russians.  (source).    Multiple first person accounts were received describing exactly what happened

Similarly, the US began the Manhattan Project was first conceived in 1939.   The Soviets learned about it by December of 1944, eight months before the US drops the first A Bomb on Hiroshima.   They ended up with actual plans for the weapons, before the weapons were used.  Five years  is the max you can keep such a secret.

So, during wartime - when you can find patriots willing to die for their country by simply walking up to random people on the street corner - two of the most powerful countries in the world could not keep a secret for even a decade.

I absolutely assure you, that NO important secret that requires many people can be kept quiet for more than 20 years.  It will get out - and with solid irrefutable evidence.

So lets talk about bosses.  They have the ability to ask questions and fire the conspirators even without proof.  So if your boss (president, head of the IRS, whoever) doesn't know, you have to be so far above suspicion that there is ZERO chance that someone who is not your boss will suspect you.  That means the President of the USA must be in on any government conspiracy.  But he changes party.  Which means eventually he will not join it and expose it.  Then hold you up as the villain, blaming the entire other political party.

Lets talk about a non-government conspiracy.  Say for example Mrs. Obama decided that for some godforsaken reason, she wants her son to be President of the USA, even if failure means he gets thrown in prison for the rest of his life.   Keep in mind that being the son of an American, the ONLY benefit he gets is the right to be President - he would have been able to immigrate anyway and become a governor - just like Arnold Schwarnnegger.

At the very least, his mother must have been in on it.   Let's assume she also easily convinces Obamas father to be in on the secret (or maybe he wasn't present and she just tells him this.  So 42 years before I wrote this post, she falsely publishes a birth announcement in two Hawaii newspapers.  At some point, she also finds a way to add that info this Obama's father's immigration file.

She also gets one of her deer friends to confirm her lie.  She does all of this without telling Obama (why risk it?)   She then pays someone else to forge a fake short form birth certificate  (birthers claim this was a forgery).

But that isn't enough for her.  She must think so far ahead that she sees the birth certificate will be challenged.  So she pays off someone in the Hawaii's Health department to put in a real record of his birth in the records.   Then the Hawai Director of Health will confirm it as being real.

Somehow, this conspiracy genius, who has managed to get an old friend to lie about his birth, paid for a forged berth certificate, and also paid off the Hawaii government to get a real one, then FORGETS TO DESTROY THE FAKE BIRTH CERTIFICATE.   After all, if she has the real one, she doesn't need the forged one.

That is the minimum number of people.   It requires one friend, one criminal, and one member of the government to assist Mrs. Obama in the conspiracy.  And they all keep their mouths shut for decades.

All of this also requires that she gives birth alone, without anyone noticing it, Otherwise she has to hunt down the real birth certificate and destroy.

Also, there has to be some stupid reason preventing her from actually giving birth in the US.  It's not that hard to do it - illegal immigrants sneak into the USA every year to do it.  Not to mention wealthy Chinese people.

All for the minimal gain of having a black baby have the right to TRY to be president - back in the 60's when most black men have problem trying to vote.  She has no real motive to commit these major crimes.  The idea of her doing it is incredibly stupid.

OK, let's try this again - now, Obama himself decided to do it.  He has no motive until he becomes a senator.  Then, at that point, he finds that his mother, for no known reason happens to have given him a birth announcement in two newspaper that make it look like he is an American.  WHAT A LUCKY BREAK!  So Obama himself, a Senator who could easily and legally become Governor of a major state, decides to do the following:

1. First find someone to forge a birth certificate
2. Find an old teacher/family friend and convince them to lie about his birth.  
3. Pay someone to break into old immigration files and change his father's record to say Obama is an American born citizen
4. When the truth still comes out, he has to pay someone to alter the Hawaii records.  Let's assume this is the same guy for #1 and #3
5. He also has to hunt down and destroy any real birth record, not to mention pay off the doctor that delivered him..

As opposed to accepting a position as Hilary Clinton's Secretary of State, or some other similar position.

All of this has to be done by someone he trusts enough to commit multiple major felonies in his name. To be President of the USA, instead of the Secretary of State?  Worse, to be the first BLACK president of the USA?   The first one elected has to commit crimes to do it?  No way.   NO freaking way.   He would get caught, go to jail, and put back civil rights for decades.  No reasonable person that cares about this country would do it, and no one that doesn't care about this country would risk it.

Why not?  Because the person he pays to commit all these crimes will betray him..   In the first minute. Because the guy paid to do the crimes is either doing it for money or for political reasons.  If he is doing it for money, someone else (Trump) will offer more money.  If he is doing it for political reasons, the second he realizes Obama is willing to lie like that means he no longer believes in Obama - and betrays him.

The cost of the rime is all born by other people and it is physically IMPOSSIBLE for Obama to pay other people enough money to do the crime.

More importantly, he risks not just his career, but the future of the Democratic Party.   Hell, it makes more sense for a false-flag GOP non-citizen candidate to run for the Democratic primary than a real one.  

But it all comes down to risk vs reward.   For any small reward, usually the risk is worth it.  But the larger rewards always have risks that exceed them.   For a small reward, you can depend on anonymity, but not for the big ones.  You can easily still someone's wallet, but don't even think about breaking into the Federal Gold Reserve.  Why?  Because the security on your wallet would cost more than the wallet, but security for the Federal Reserve costs far less than it holds.

More importantly, Senators are smart enough to know that being the President's right hand man is almost as powerful.   Obama would have seen all the risks involved in this incredibly STUPID plan and instantly seen that being the President's Chief of Staff us far better,

But most importantly - all of this is done by the FIRST serious Black candidate for President.  No.   That title is too big for someone to try this stupid plan to get it.  The second black president, maybe.  But not the first.

And I assure the GOP would pay far more to uncover the issue than the DNC paid to cover it up.   Look at what they did in Benghazi when there was no cover-up.

Same thing for pretty much every other conspiracy theory.  People hiding aliens?  Not enough motive to do it.  Poisoning our water with fluoride?  Not enough reward for the risk.

President Bush causing 9/11?  Bullshit.   To much risk of impeachment for the relatively minor benefit.

Compare this with real scandals - the Fast and Furious gun running, the IRS scandal.  All of those are caused by INCOMPETENCE, with incompetent attempts to cover it up.

Never underestimate incompetence - and never think that your so called conspirators aren't just as incompetent.  

No, you CAN do these kinds of things in non-'free' countries.  China has no free press to investigate, nor any 'loyal opposition' party to complain and demand justice.  So who knows what goes on there.

But in the USA?  Not possible.  The Democrats or the Republicans would squeal on each other in an instant.

Republicans Abandoning Capitalism

Tesla is an innovative small business.  They are creating electrical cars, something the big automakers repeatedly claimed was unprofitable and not worth their time.

Part of how they do it is by not paying dealers.  They sell direct to the customer.  You want a Tesla, you email/call them - or go to a Tesla owned show room.. No need to go through a middleman.

The problem is a whole bunch of car dealers don't like this.   They are afraid for their jobs.

Now a normal capable person, when faced with this dilemma, proceeds to up their level of service and advertise.  They sell cars from multiple companies and go out of their way to help you compare products and make the right decision.

If you offer a service that people find valuable, they will willing come in and buy direct from you, as opposed to online.

It is how Barnes and Nobles continues to operate despite Amazon.  They offer things that Amazon can't offer - among other things, instant free service for their e-reader, free WiFi for their e-reader, instant service (as opposed to waiting a week).


But the dealers in North Carolina are NOT reasonable. They don't want to offer things at a reasonable price, they want to overcharge you for what they offer.

In order to do that, they need exclusive licenses from the car manufacturers.  Which they have from most manufacturers.

But not Tesla.  Tesla won't play their game.

So the dealers in North Carolina talked to their state congressmen.  They bribed, oh, excuse me, contributed to campaign finances, of the Republicans running the state house.  Whereupon, those same Republicans have passed a law banning direct car sales to consumers, claiming it is 'unfair'.

It's not the only Republican controlled state to do so- Texas won't let Tesla owned 'showrooms' offer test drives, sell the vehicles directly - or even quote a price.  Tesla is already suing the state of Texas over this law - and attempting to have it overturned by the Texas State Senate.

Why exactly it is unfair for car companies to directly sell to consumers, while it is not unfair for Apple, Amazon, and a hundred other internet based businesses is not clear.
 
All I know is that the GOP in North Carolina has sold their principles out.

They are attempting to kill a new technology company that can someday save the American Car Industry, all to keep alive a dying business model.

No, the GOP has a whole is not abandoning Capitalism.  But no one is calling these state level Republicans "RINO'S"

Because the GOP as a whole considers capitalism to be a secondary issue, less important than getting themselves elected.