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

The Advantages of Outsiders

Job interview for an 'outsider'.

----------

Hi, my name is Donald and I would like to apply for the job of CEO of your company.  Here is my resume.

- I notice you have never been a CEO before.   What makes you think your experience as Mayor in anyway prepared you to run a business?  Running a business is not the same as being a politician.

Well, they are both managerial positions, I'm sure I can pick up anything I need on the job.  Besides, I have to be better than your last guy - he ran the business into bankruptcy FOUR times.  And look at the IRS scandal - how could engage in such unusual tax practices?  I have never declared bankruptcy and have no tax scandals at all.  That's not the kind of man I am -  I would never take those particular tax risks. Especially when I have such cool, new innovative ideas that the IRS has never heard of before.

- True, but you ran a city that was given a set budget and never had to file taxes.  Basically I have to take your word that your new tax strategies are legal.  

Perhaps, but notice my main competitor, Hillary, has been severely yelled at by the IRS and her tax issues were declared faulty, even if she was not sentenced for any crime because they had no evidence of intent.  The IRS has never yelled at me for any of my tax strategies.


- But the reason you have never failed is because you have no experience.  You can't get away with claiming your methods are better if you've never tried them.  I'd have to be a complete idiot to trust someone that has no experience actually implementing their program, simply because they have never failed. 

Look, do you want to go with someone that's had proven problems, even if they didn't get arrested, or do you want to go with someone that has no experience at all, so can't possibly have proven problems? It's that simple.


- The thing is, you have no experience, so even if you honestly and truly believe your plane will work, because you have no experience, your own opinion about your plan is worthless.   It's like asking a first time pilot how well he thinks he is going to do - he doesn't know how hard it is.  Tell you what, tell me your plan, and I will have it looked over by tax experts.

Oh, I can't do that.  If I tell anyone the plan, our competitors will hear about it and take steps to prevent it from happening.


 - Then talk about something that isn't a secret, or give me an example of how you would fix another company problem.

I'll get back to you on that later.   Look, your company doesn't work.  I, being an outsider, can at least try something new.

- But our company DOES work - we have a real profit.  Yes, it could be better, but we are still looked up to by most of the outside world.

Trust me, ignore the statistics that show your company's doing well both economically and lower workplace accidents.  Doesn't it FEEL like your company is doing poorly?  So shouldn't you try something new?

- But the math says our feeling is wrong,  and it's not just something new it's untested with WILD claims.  I'm sorry, but we can't go with someone with no experience, no record, simply because our other main choice has made some mistakes in the past.  Frankly, Donald, even if we feel bad about our economy and safety, things are going OK.  It looks like we will hire Hillary.

OK, so when do I start?  And when should we talk about salary?

- Goodbye and good luck with your search.

Where are you going?   What's going on?

-----------------
Outsiders are a great idea for the Senate and Congress.  They have experienced colleagues there that can ensure we don't screw things up too badly, and for that same reason, they need that innovation.

But Presidents are different.   He is the top guy, no one can really tell him no, as he appoints his own men.  That particular job needs someone with real experience in politics.  Business is too different, among other things we encourage businesses to fail, while we want a more conservative approach to government.

As such no sane person truly wants an 'outsider' to be President.  We need someone that has at least spent a couple of years in a political job - congress, senate, governorship, or at least mayor of a large city.  That gives him the back ground necessary to judge his own ideas, as well a record for us to judge him (or her) on.

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.

How should we talk about political opponents?

Politicians  love to insult their opponents.  Watching Trump and his pawns use words like "stupid", "evil", "crooked", and "liars" proves the point.

That is not helpful - not to society as a whole, nor to their election chances.  Why not?  Because while it engages the faithful, it does not convince the independents and worse, it enrages the victims of that name calling.

Because that's what it is, just name calling.  Even when it's true, (yes, both sides - Democrats and Republicans - have stupid, crooked liars working for them), it in no way convince any real independent to vote for them.

Frankly, it's like a small child calling another child 'poopy head' - it doesn't convince an adult they are right, it just makes you look childish and pisses of the independent.  Pure Insults (where the character and nature of the activity is by definition wrong/evil), are LESS effective than claims of excess (where you imply that "it's OK to do this a little, but that is just way too much.")

So, if those kinds of insults don't work, what does?

Here are a few words to call your opponent, that actually increase your political chances, rather than just make your base happy:

Paranoid
Partisan
Cheap
In the pocket of big...
Racist
Politically Correct
Religious Fanatic
Virulent Atheist
Callous
Reckless
overly trusting
Asleep at the wheel/negligent
Arrogant

For example, I could call Donald Trump a callous, arrogant paranoid, partisan, racist.   Or the GOP could use other words on that list to describe Hillary.

The advantages of these words, are clear I am avoiding ascribing an evil motivation, and instead describing character flaws.  I make no claim that Donald Trump wants to do evil, just that he will make major mistakes because he doesn't know better.   You can be all of those things and STILL get into heaven.

Why is this important?

1)   When you attack motivation, you are making a claim that is both very hard to prove and unlikely for you to have any real evidence of it.  If you did, you would be pressing charges, rather than having to convince people not to vote for them.  No one is going to vote Madoff (an actual crook) into the White House.  If they were really that bad, they would be in Jail, rather than have convinced many good people to vote for them.   Everyone knows you have no real evidence of the crooked/evil/bad motivation, and your words get dismissed as just a partisan attack.

2)  They can explain how they got other people to vote for them without insulting the character of their supporters.  It's OK for me to like someone that's reckless - that person may have done a lot of good work even if they are reckless.  Similarly, the focus ceases to be on the nature, but instead on the extremeness, i.e. you can be religious but still decide not to vote for a religious fanatic.

3)  They don't involve assumptions that ONLY your own people make.  Almost everyone thinks that being reckless is wrong, and they also think that being paranoid is wrong.   It's not like claiming that they are horrible spendthrifts.


Calling Hillary "crooked" will not convince anyone not to vote for her.  Only people that dislike her will believe you.  It's not convincing.   It won't affect her supporters, and doesn't do much to the independents.  If she really were crooked, the FBI would have arrested her, and they didn't.

But if you call her ignorant of proper security procedures, quite a few Democrats would agree with you, and you might convince independents to vote against her.

Similarly, calling Trump evil won't do anything to any Republicans or independents. But if you bring up the fact that he never EVER admits he or anyone working for him was wrong - whether you are talking about plagiarized speeches, stopping all Muslim from entering the country, whether Hispanics and women vote for him - then you make independents question whether they can trust him and remind Republicans that he is not what the party wants.

Subject Vs Citizen

The difference between a Subject and a Citizen is that Subjects just obey the laws of their government, while Citizens make the laws of their governments (as well as obey them). 


One of the things I have noticed, particularly among the more conservative subjects (not citizens), is the tendency to say "you can't make a law that says that because their is no inherent right to...".
 
The thing is there is no such thing as 'inherent rights'.  Rights are things we grant each other via laws.

When we talk about making, amending, changing, or removing laws we are talking about making, amending, changing or removing rights.

We are talking about how we want people to act in the future, and how government should respond to their actions.

There is nothing that is sacrosanct except what we declare such.  If we are despicable, we could make laws requiring crimes (rape, murder, theft, torture, all the evil stuff).   That is in fact what many of the evil empires of our world have done and still do  (NAZI Germany, Stalin's USSR, the current state of Daesh).

Or we can make laws that allow crimes, but not requiring them.  This is what happens when we do not act, when we try for the laissez faire form of libertarianism.

Or we can choose to do our best to out unethical actions, encouraging and promoting ethical actions.

This is not government over-reach, it is the appropriate actions of a government.

Government over reach is when it stops and prevents ethical actions for one of three reasons:

1. People in power are hurt by those ethical actions and dislike it (corruption)
2. People in power are trying to stop real unethical actions, but have written a law too broadly so it catches innocent people (incompetent use of power)
3. People in power have a personal/religious belief that certain actions are unethical, despite the general consensus disagreeing (abuse of power).

Here are some examples of this type of activity:

When certain states try to stop Tesla's 'no-dealer' business strategy because it hurts the dealers in their state, that's corruption.  It's not government's job to help one business over another.

When the government uses "civil asset forfeiture laws" to take the money of honest, law abiding citizens without any evidence of illegal activity, that's incompetent use of power.

When state legislatures try to prevent legal abortions via abusive regulatory requirements (such as requiring doctors to have admitting privileges or that abortionists meet the requirements of a surgical center) , that's abuse of power.

But when you pass a law to prevent fraudulent/cheating behavior that is designed with loopholes for ethical actions, that's not government over reach.

Citizens have the right to create appropriate laws.  If you think a law is inappropriate, then you need to show how it will either benefit those in power, catch innocent people, or  how the actions it intends to prevents are really ethical.  Simply claiming that 'people have no right to fairness' is not a valid objection.

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.

Brexit and Immigration: More Millionaires than Terrorists.

Britain just decided, via a close vote, less than 2%, to leave the EU.

This is in my opinion a major mistake.  I am not British, nor am I European, so some may think I have no business talking about it.  That is ridiculous - I have no business voting on it, but I am free to discuss it, just as the British and other Europeans discuss our election.

From an economic viewpoint, larger economies are always better than smaller ones.  It's not just economies of scale, not just saving money by doing things once rather than multiple times (one decision about cigarettes, one decision about food dye #7, etc.).  Nor is it only about having to painstakingly re-do a multitude of treaties.

There is also the innate power of free trade.  It is the great equalizer.  Yes, certain British businesses lose out to more efficient European ones - but the British people benefit from the superior companies. Or they used to.   They won't anymore.

But more importantly, Britain is NOT the 'weaker' part of the EU, as such they are the ones with the better companies that will eat the lunch of the Greece and Portugal.  Yes, separate from the EU, they can set Interest rates and other government regulations to deal just with local problems, rather than European ones, but frankly this is not that big a deal.   If we TRULY knew and understood how to do that then we wouldn't have those issues at all.  Sure, we know enough to prevent extremely high inflation but quite frankly we don't really know the ideal value.  As such, our attempts to control things are misguided.  Yes, they can save a small (relative) amount of cash they contribute to the EU, but they lose out on the economies of scale, etc.

But nationality is not just about economics.  There are also social values.

I could see leaving a Union of the majority of the EU was culturally opposed to the values of Britain.  But that's not really the case.

The main 'cultural' issue that is upsetting Britain is Immigration, and quite frankly most of the EU is anti-immigration and anti-Muslim.  That's not a real difference.  The only real difference is the severity of the anti-immigration movement, which is more so in Britain than in other countries.  Not surprising, as Britain won World War II without being invaded, making them far less sensitive to accusations of tyranny than other European nations, which still the bigotry that the NAZI party forced on them.

But Britain's new bigotry isn't going to help them.   It stops one in a million terrorists, while also keeping out thousands of innovative, brilliant, creative, citizens.   There are more soon-to-be millionaires in those immigrants than Terrorists.   Hard working immigrants outnumber the criminals and give more in taxes than the criminals cost.  The net result is a worse Britain, not a better one. 

 So why do people dislike the immigrants?  They are culturally disruptive. The new millionaires invade the old institutions and demand services.   Those new hard working immigrants take jobs from hard working native born.  And the immigrant criminals steal things the native born criminals wanted to steal.    It's all about the competition, and no one wants it.  Sound familiar?  It is - it's the free market at work.

Just as a free market beats a mercantile one, an immigrant friendly country beats an anti-immigrant one.  It's the exact same principle - let anyone do it and let the market decide who is better.

Britain leaving the EU is a huge mistake.  It's obvious to the financial markets and that's why things are getting bad.    Plus side, good time to buy.

Progress: is it inevitable?

If you are a student of human history, you know that out path has not been easy.

There were long periods of time where progress was lost.  Technology and political progress were created then lost to the mists of time.

Whether we are talking about the western greco-roman culture that technically invented the steam engine just after the birth of Jesus of Nazareth (only to have it forgotten for 1500 years) or the Qin Dynasty's near total destruction all science and knowledge in China, 221 BC, technical and political history has had long periods where we regressed rather than progressed.

The question is, is progress fundamental and if so why did we have these lost periods.

First, let's define progress.   Progress is at hear an increase in efficiency.   Whether we are talking about a way to get 11 bushels of grain from a given land instead of 10 bushels, or simply a form of government that has 10% unhappy citizens instead of 11%, if it works better, that is what we call progress.

Next we have why we would ever regress - go back to the old, less efficient ways.  Well, there are several possibilities.  1) We forgot how to do something better, 2) Someone is extorting/blackmailing/forcing us to use the worst method.  3)  People are lying about how efficient something is - either denigrating the best method or promoting a faulty method.   Those are the three main reasons progress isn't smooth and we sometimes regress.

The first possibilities is no longer a real problem.  The much higher world population, along with the incredible gains we have made with information storage and transmission make the danger of forgetting a better method almost nil.   We aren't going to forget how to make titanium now that we know how - even if few people actually posses that information.

The second is still a real issue, particularly in politics.  Entire countries are forced to use inefficient methods (North Korea) for politics, patents prevent the wide spread use of superior technological methods, and religion still pushes itself into politics.   But such methods are not perfect, and if they were to spread worldwide, the fractious nature of politics ensures that at least one country would violate the spread, keeping the more effective methods alive - if only for the advantage they offer.

The last has become the real threat - the only way to stop progress is to convince enough people that it isn't progress.   Often done for political reasons (global warming deniers, Trump-ism, etc.) it is the last real danger.

But can it be overcome?   The honest truth is that over time, the liars tend to lose.   All humans are NOT sheeple, despite the fears caused by public stupidity and success in small scale cases.  The real advantages of progress - the greater efficiency - can be tested and once done, people fight the lies.

Thousands of years ago, information storage and transfer was so limited that you could kill everyone that knows how to do something by accident (usually via wars).  Hundreds of years ago, you could use a combination of wars, and politics to prevent progress.  Now we are stuck using lies.   Communication, storage, and education have progressed to the point where we are no longer in danger of forgetting how to do something.

Barring an extinction level event, (asteroid/nuclear/biological weapons of mass destruction)  Progress is now inevitable.   No political party - whether it is the Communist party, the Republican party, or the Democratic party can stop it.

That does not mean that the latest and best will always be taken up.  China has proven that they can take "free market", but still retain their ancient bureaucratic government.  This doesn't mean their government is better, just that it is good enough. Similarly, the US has proven we can refuse to take up certain science facts, as our current system is good enough.

But it does mean that the better systems will continue to survive somewhere - and that that somewhere will gain a clear advantage over those that done. 

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.

Don't compare Trump to Hitler - Trump is nicer than Hitler

Everyone loves to compare their political opponent to Hitler.   He is the 'go-to' bad guy.  Unarguably evil, unarguably a bad military and governmental leader - despite having significant public speaking skills, he makes for a powerful and therefor overused comparison.

Let me be very clear - Donald Trump is not Hitler.  There are several ways that Trump is better.   Hitler was stupider than Trump (Hitler dropped out of college and repeatedly screwed up good military strategy).   Few if any people will disagree when I say that Donald Trump is nicer than Hitler.  (Good T Shirt...) That statement is pretty clearly true.  A low bar, but Trump can make it over the bar.

But there IS a World War II leader that Trump is comparable too.  No, I am not going to compare Trump to other bad guys.  It's not Stalin or Mussolini.   It's Henri Petain, leader of Vichy France, the 'Lion of Verdun' that surrendered to Nazi Germany, and was later sentenced to death for his treason (sentence was commuted to life in prison).

The similarities are clear.  Petain was a bigot, that refused to help refugees based on things he had heard about their religion.   Previously he demanded a giant wall to keep invading murders out.

Petain was an anti-Semite that went beyond preventing Jews from entering France, he also specifically removed protections originally granted to french Jews.  (source)  He was scared that the Jews would not be loyal to France - and instead would engage in acts of violence, perhaps try to take over France.  In truth, the Jews were just fleeing persecution.  Trump, like Petain, want's to block a group of refugees - Muslims in Trump's case - from entering the US.

Petain was one of the major forces behind the Maginot Line - a giant wall that was supposed to keep Germans out of France. (source)   But the Germans had  airplanes to fly over the wall.   It was also so big, that it had week spots - too expensive to build a strong wall that large.  Similarly, Trump want's to keep Mexican out because he thinks they are murders.   Petain at least was right about Germany, but Trump doesn't even have that going for him.  

Petain also married a woman 20 years younger than him, violated the Constitution of France, and ran the government along the lines of his previous profession (military) rather than using the normal political means.  Trump has married a woman 20 years younger than him, has been told by the military that they will not obey illegal orders to torture the family of enemy soldiers, and claims that he will run the government like his previous profession (business).

Donald Trump is nothing more than America's Henri Petain.   We can't afford to let Trump do to America, what Petain did to France.

We need to do better.  We need someone that does NOT simply try to offer up simple, obvious solutions to complex problem.  Because if the answer was simple, we would have already solved it.

Real life is complex and requires harder, more difficult solutions.   Simple solutions are simply wrong.  Walls haven't worked since the invention of the airplane.   Judging people - even for a short amount of time - on their religion is called prejudice, and history has shown that it is evil, not good.

Interesting take on China

There is an interesting speech given by Eric X Li at TED.


In it he offers five basic statements:

1. Democracy is not for everyone
2. China does quiet well with it's non-democratic, Bureaucracy
3. Bureaucracy is not for everyone either
4. Democracy has it's own problems that China doesn't.
5. China does have some problems but it is working to solve them and will succeed.

I agree with the first three.   I don't believe Democracy is for everyone.   To have an effective Democracy you truly need many things, including but not limited to an intelligent, educated public.   You can't run a democracy with people that are too stupid and uneducated enough to sell their votes cheaply.


China has been doing well in large part because it has a path to follow, blazed by the west.  Bureaucracies don't innovate well, but they follow very well.  As long as they are behind the west, they can follow at breakneck speed.  But they can't innovate.

Which of course is why I agree with part 3.

Now for the last two.  Those I find to be laughable.   All the problmes that US democracies have, China has as well, they just don't publicize them.

Key problems that the US currently has include Congressional stagnation caused by dramatically different political views.  China has that as well, they just cover it up by letting one side win and burying their opponents.  

Other issues that the US deals with include things heavily involved with morality, of which China ignores one side completely.   Whether it's homosexuality, abortion, torture, we lead the way on issues they sweep under the rug.

Ignoring an issue is not dealing with it.  The US looks so combative because we face the major issues head on, rather than sweeping the other side under the rug.

He brags about China's leader's experience, and the lack compared to US politicians.  Experience is the enemy.  We want innovative solutions, not the same old stuff.  We want new blood, which is why terms like maverick, new blood, outside the beltway, are all positive terms.

Honestly, if we already knew the solution, then it is easy to solve the problem.  That is why bureaucracy works so well in those situations.

But the US is not following the path of another country. We are blazing the path. China is, to use a  Nascar analogy, drafting behind us.    We solve problems that NO ONE knows the solution to.   To do that, you need the innovative power of Democracy, not Bureacracy.

Mr. Li. knows a lot about China's history.  But fails to understand why it has succeeded.  He fails to recognize that it's success is on the back of the work done by the West.   Just as we taught them how to make cars, computers, etc, we also taught them how to run a country.  

He thinks China will continue it's growth.  He predicted that China will become the largest economy in the world.  That is likely - population counts.  He also predicts it will do well on a per capita basis, that is not going to happen.   When you pass the lead car, you can no longer draft, and that's the only economical technique they know how to do.  They can't get anywhere near us without the drafting.  I can see their per capita rising to about half of what the US will have, but not much more than that.

He thinks corruption will be curbed but not eliminated.   That is likely.  He also thinks they will do a good job of curbing.  I doubt that.  Their system by it's very nature lends itself to corruption.   Bureaucracy is not good about curbing it's corruption.  Their culture and system is about respect, not challenge, which lets corruption flourish.

He also thinks that economic reform will accellerate.  I disagree.  It is already near the economy they are drafting against, they have to put on the brakes to avoid cruising past the west's car.

He also thinks political reform will continue, which is a given, and the one party system will hold firm, which I also agree is likely to happen.  It takes a generation to realize your mistake, and they haven't made the mistake yet.  China has at least 40 years of one party system left to go.   

Not because their system works so well, but because they are blind to the fact that they are drafting behind the west's economies.

Why Obama Should Pardon Edward Snowden

First, for purposes of this article (and only this article), I am going to make a false assumption.

We will presume that the NSA's actions are entirely legal, appropriate and in no way an invasion of privacy or an abridgement of American rights. Edward Snowden has clearly committed a crime of treason and by all rights should go to prison.


Now, given that 'fact', I still say President Obama should pardon Edward Snowden, with certain conditions (specifically he must return to the US to answer questions in front of a closed session of congress and no longer talk tot he press about anything that happened prior to his pardon, and agree to never again reveal any information whatsoever about his work for the US government).

Why should we do this?

First, given the situation with Julian Assange, we already know the likely outcome for Snowden.  Most likely he will remain outside of US clutches, in the worst case locked up in an embassy of a foreign country. If we offer a pardon, we can at least avoid the embarrassment of having another Assange case out there.  Ending bad publicity is itself worth it.

Second, obtaining him will not end the issue, it will instead make it worse.  If we get him back it will look like we are holding a political prisoner, even if (as we presumed in this article) he is a traitor to this country and deserves no less than life in prison.

Third, capturing him will in not way discourage others from following in his footsteps.  Instead it will do the opposite.  Look, this is no man selling secrets to obtain a better life.  He had a better life and gave it up for principle.  He (and many others in this country) considers himself a patriot willing to give a six-figure job, a model girlfriend, and a home in Hawaii, all to fight the nasty evil dictatorship.  It doesn't matter that he is wrong and the US is a benevolent democracy.  He (and those that agree with him) considers himself to be Nathan Hale.  He regrets that he has but one life of pleasure to give up for his country.

You do not discourage heroes by imprisoning them.  That ENCOURAGES them to fight on.     The people that think we need to discourage copy cats are right - but trying to put Snowden in prison will not in any way discourage them. 

Fourth, the way you convince honest, honorable men to lay down arms is to offer them trust and forgiveness, not jail.  It discourages others by making them look stupid, not heroic.  What, the hero is bravely standing up to fight against the injustice of being told he is pardoned and can go on his way????

Fifth, it would stand as a beacon to other countries showing them the fair, democratic way to handle dissent.  By pursuing Snowden we give China, Iran, and other countries moral standing. See, the US is no better than they are, we have our own 'political prisoners'.   By pardoning Snowden, we show them that a truely powerful country can handle a bit of dissent - as opposed to dissenters as criminals, we forgive and forget.

Sixth, we get control of the situation back. He will have to agree to certain conditions, we get to question him and we can stop further leaks of information other countries may want.



I see little if any upside from pursuing a criminal case against Snowden.  I see huge international political capital to be generated if we pardon him.

How to tell if you are a Partisan Fool.

There is nothing wrong with being partisan.  It just means you believe in a cause.  We should all believe in causes, and I pity the person that doesn't believe in anything.  I would go further and say:

If you don't have something worth dying for, then you don't have anything worth living for.

 But you can take things too far.  You can care more about your beliefs than they are worth.  Being willing to kill anyone that thinks a certain brand of cookies doesn't taste good is not a good thing.

Neither is putting the needs of your political party above the needs of your country.  Even if you think your party is correct and the other party is sent by the devil himself to destroy your country, you still can NOT put the needs of your party above the needs of the country.  Not even for a little bit.

So lets talk about the cases where people have their priorities backwards, where their partisanship has gone to the extreme and they are nothing but a joke.

Here are signs that you are a partisan fool:

1. You do whats best for your party, even if it is bad for your country.
2. You insist that EVERYTHING has to do with your group.  Anything bad you ascribe to enemies of your party, and anything good must be caused by your party.
3. You can't conceive of a good person being both informed and not on your side.  You think the only reason good people are not for you is that they are ignorant/uneducated.
4. You can't conceive of an informed person thinking your issues are irrelevant.  If they understand your issues than they must either be good people and on your side or bad people and your enemies.  No one is allowed to be informed yet remain neutral  (Thus you think the media must either be with your or against you, no neutrality)  "You are either with us or against us."
5. You can't conceive of being wrong on even the smallest of side issues.  You think any scientific studies that prove you wrong must be invalid - done by the opposition and designed to fail.
6. You defend (or refuse to attack) members of your own group even when you know they are wrong (or have committed a crime).

Political Parties are not the end all and be all.   The good of the country is far more important.

When you do these six things you are placing your partisan political party above the country, and have crossed the line from a loyal politically active person, and become a traitor to your own country.

It doesn't matter if you are liberal, conservative, fascist, communist, libertarian, monarchist, theocratic,republican, democrat, progressive, royalists, tory, whig, bull moose, or anything else.

Putting any political party above and beyond the country proves you to be a fool not worth listening to.   Political parties exist to serve the country, not the other way around.

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.

A Victory for the Cowardly Idiots

The TSA, an agency known for spending excessive amounts of energy and money to avoid miniscule risks, declared that it was safe to take Swiss army knives and similar sports equipment onto planes.

Then a bunch of scared fools complained.   They complained so loudly that the TSA had to back down.

This is how the terrorists win - when we become so scared of them that we give up minor liberties in exchange for ZERO increased safety.

The TSA does not say that the weapons and sports equipment (golf clubs for example) are dangerous.  Instead the TSA continues to insist that they pose no danger to the aircraft.

But do admit that they can be used to harm individual passengers.    Big deal. So can eyeglasses.  I'm not talking about eyeglass ground into a shiv.  I mean regular normal, unaltered eyeglasses.

Not to mention what you can do with an ordinary, non-sharp piece of alkali metal and the water they give you on the plane.

The devices they are preventing are NOT in any way a danger to the plane, nor are they any more dangerous to airline passengers, air-marshals, or stewards than everything else they let passengers take on a plane.

They are being outlawed because of stupidity, not logic.

The TSA has no business attempting to control people and protect people.   It's their job to prevent terrorist related crime, not all crime. Attempting to prevent all crime is way too expensive and a massive invasion of our civil rights.

The cowardly morons that are too stupid to realize how deadly your belt, crutches, eyeglasses,rings, etc are helping the terrorists to win.  They are wasting our money, our time, and slowly eroding our personal rights.

The search and removal of such items - which is NOT done in other countries - takes up time and effort of the TSA.

More importantly, it lets the terrorists perform simple blocking maneuvers without any risk.  I.E.  they send a shill with a simple Swiss army knife who complains loudly when they take it away, distracting the TSA and taking their attention while the real terrorists breezes through the checkpoint with a perfunctory check.

This is a sad day in American History.  Logic and wisdom has lost to fear and stupidity.

Why We Should be Good

At a very basic level, being good means exercising self-control.  Ignoring your base "I want" because you realize the potential consequences and don't think they are worth the cost.That cost might be direct punishment, or merely ethical, i.e. the cost of living in a world where bad things happen.

You see a pretty woman and want to have sex with her.  But you don't knock her out and rape her because you recognize that it is bad and don't want to live in a world where that happens.  Or if you are a little bit less philosophical, don't want to risk going to jail for your crime.

Now people with power, particularly politicians, tend to have ways to get out of punishments.  As such, the philosophical reasons tend to become more important.   The more power you have, the less fear you have of punishment and the more important the philosophical issues become - as if you have such power you recognize that your actions have a much greater affect on the world.

But the stupider you are, the less likely you are to care about the philosophical issues, no matter how important they are.

The fact that in the modern world we have so many ethical rulers is actually fairly surprising.   So many people recognize, either consiciously or unconcisouly the importance of their actions.

That also means we should not trust the unethical rulers, even if they are good at what they do.  Drug using mayors, child raping Italian leaders, etc.  all fail to either recognize the affect their particular actions have on others around them, or fail to care.

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.

Printable Guns

The age of the printable gun has arrived.   For now, printable guns aren't that big a deal.

The machines to print them are still relatively expensive (over a grand), and therefore uncommon.

But that will change, their price is coming down.   While we have some time, within 5-10 years, that time may run out.

So let's assume a thriving community of millions rep-rap devices easily and cheaply available for less than $500.


Right now the Government is trying to block the downloading.  I don't think that's a good idea.

So, there are the following issues:

1. First amendment (on top of the 2nd)
2. The infeasibility of blocking the information because it is now also available in servers outside of the USA
3. The fact that the new plastic guns often look like toys.  (Resulting in cops shooting kids with actual toys because they thought they were printed guns)

Now let's talk about possible real solutions to prevent widespread possession of downloaded guns by criminals, depressed people, the mentally unstable and children.

Note that last category.  Children, even  pre-teens , will be perfectally capable of building a gun in this situation.  While you may want adults to be able to print one out, as well as your own possible kids, what about others?

Very few people will be willing to let EVERY SINGLE kid in junior high school have access to a gun printing device.

Especially as they may leave them around for their younger kids to play with.





So here are some reasonable legal solutions to this coming problem.

1. Make it a new federal offense to print, paint or even posses a real working gun that is not painted/printed in a dark color.  Sorry, we need to protect the kids, you give up certain colors to be used solely by children.   This would be an add-on offense, counting as a separate felony for making it and for possessing it.  Similarly, they should continue to, by law, require a metal implant to aid metal detectors.  Printing, selling, or even possessing one without  such an insert would be an add-on felony., 10 years, no parole.   Why?  Because you do this only to hide a crime.
2. Pass a law that states while you can legally download gun plans, the government has the legal right to track your IP address, and doing so is considered sufficient evidence for a federal warrant if that IP address is associated with anyone that is on the government's "can not legally buy a gun".  (Note, it's already legal for the government to track your IP address, this just makes it clear that a warrant is justified.)
3. When such a blueprint is downloaded, the government has the right to send a message to the IP address daily for 3 weeks notifying the IP address that a gun has been downloaded.  This is to let parents know that their children may have done so. 
4. Any commercial business that lets customers rent their 3D printers should legally be required to prevent people from printing guns without first undergoing a background check.  
5. If you print a gun and then sell it, you need a license - even for a single gun.  Otherwise people could claim they only sold 1, when in fact they sold 1,0000.   This rule would only apply to selling printed guns, not to selling regular guns.

Note that this won't stop terrorists from printing guns and bring them onto aircraft.  Expect that to happen relatively soon.   We will need better weapon detection devices - I say devices that can smell gunpowder.

What does Religious Freedom Let you Do?

In America, the Radical Right has tried to expand the concept of Religious Freedom to mean anything any preacher has ever said. 

They love to use he words "sincerely held religious beliefs" as a get out of following the law card.  The problem is you can make up your own religion, putting in any crap you want - like the right to kill people portray your god in a photo/video - or even just cut your off in traffic.   They try to fix this obvious flaw by putting in limitations to prevent the most obvious abuses.  Obviously this leaves the less obvious abuses in place, and they think we are too stupid to notice.

At a lower scale, it would be possible to claim "my religion says it is a sin to pay taxes", or just "my religion says it is a sin to have any business relations with black people".   Don't like gays?  Have a preacher somewhere say that homosexuality is evil, then use it as an excuse to violate their rights.   Same for abortion, or healthcare in general.

Freedom of Religion definitely has limitations.  Obviously Freedom of Religion does not let you kill people that cut you off in traffic.   In addition it is NOT just the most obvious abuses that are limited.  We have a reasonable test for what is really a sincerely held religious belief and what is just made up bull.

So lets talk about what Religious Freedom actually means, starting with some definitions.

1. Reasonable Accommodations.   This is a key legal concept not limited just to religion.  For example, the same concept is used in the Americans with Disabilities Act.   With regards to religion, it means that you force people to ignore their religion when a simple and obvious solution exists.  You can't make them work Saturday, taking Sunday off if their religion says they need to take Saturday off.   In effect, this rule says no to silly technicalities.
2.  Religiously Required activities.  Here are things your religion requires you to do - take one day off a week, Confess your sins, observe the Sabbath, have a Seder on passover (including drinking alcohol and eating matzoh.).  These are extra important and need more protections
3. Religiously Forbidden activities. These are things the religion expressly forbids you from from doing.  They may be sins, they may be a dietary restriction - such as kosher or Halal, or they may simply be rules - such as the Catholic Church's rules on condoms.  Again, these are extra important.
4. Religious attitudes.  These are things that are not expressly forbidden, but are frowned upon.  For example, most churches frowns on excess nudity, but don't have actual rules forbidding it.   The Catholic Church may dislike strippers, but nudity itself not a sin, instead it is claimed the profession thrives on and creates the sin of lust.  As per the Catholic Church, if it is done without lust, it is not a sin - which is why parents may remove the clothing of their infants to bathe them.   By itself it is not a sin, even if it is RELATED to sinning.   Attitudes are not important - not to the law, and honestly not to the church.

Religious Attitudes are not sincerely held religious beliefs.   They look a lot like them, but are something far less important.   Compare them to the Required and Forbidden things.

• Things that are truly required and forbidden are OFFICIALLY WRITTEN DOWN.   They are distributed to all churches/clergy as dogma, not merely discussed on the pulpit.  If it is that important, then we want to get it right, and leave nothing to chance.  We don't simply talk about it, the holy people get together and write down exactly what is forbidden or required.  More importantly, they are sure to put down exceptions (such as Orthodox Jews being forbidden from start fires on the Sabbath - unless the fire is needed by a sick person/someone freezing to death).
• It is also written down BEFORE any laws about it were even discussed, let alone created.   While some 'religious' people play fast and loose with dogma, churches are not trying to game the legal system.   They are truly concerned about the spirituality of their flock and need to clarify things ASAP.  Long before someone writes a law, they write down the religious rules. 
• Religious attitude are heavily argued and people that belong to the exact same religion/church will have different opinions on it.  If some want to make it forbidden/required rather than merely a religious attitude, a schism happens and a new church breaks off, with one group retaining an attitude, while the other WRITES DOWN the new differences and declare themselves a new religion.  Why do they write it down?  To show the world how they are different from the other one.  (See the multiple Episcopalian pro-gay rights right Conventions.)
• What may only be a Religious Attitude in what religion may be a a Religiously Forbidden/Required act in another (obviously from the above statement).

Religious Attitudes are clearly not sincerely held religious beliefs.  If someone else in your church believes disagrees with you and you don't yell out APOSTATE and kick them out (or leave), then you have personally demonstrated that it is not a sincerely held religious belief. Instead it is a a religious idea that you are thinking about turning into a sincerely held religious belief.   Catholic priests may say anything they want, but only the Pope is infallible.

More importantly, it makes for a very easy test to pass.  If you sincerely and honestly believe it, then you are free to start your own church.   Nothing stops you from doing that - except social pressure, which should already be applied if you are trying to use your religious beliefs to break a law.

OK, now for the meat of the argument.

Reasonable Accommodation does not mean anything you want you get. If your religion requires you to spend 5 minutes praying every time you kill an animal, don't try to get a job at a slaughterhouse (at least not one that does not cater to your religion).

That also means if you religion does not let you fund abortions, then don't try to go into the insurance business - unless you expressly only insure people that believe in your religion.   Guess what - that includes self-insurance.  If your religion expressly forbids you from funding abortion, fine, you don't have to do so - your insurance company does.  That means you may have to give up the monetary savings of being self insured.  That is part of the price you pay for having your particular religious beliefs.   Religions have a long history of requiring their members to sacrifice freedoms.

What you expect OTHER people to pay the price for YOUR religious beliefs?  No.  You pay for your own religious beliefs.  You can't make me (or anyone else) pay for your beliefs.

If it isn't written down then it is NOT forbidden/required by your religion.   By not writing things down you are intentionally keeping it vague to prevent reasonable accommodations.  For example, orthodox Jewish rules expressly state that you can hire non-Jewish people to light fires.  This makes it quite clear what a reasonable accommodation would be for a Jewish business that was required to light fires every night for testing purposes.

So guess what - refusals to due business with gay weddings is not a religious right, it is just a prejudiced person attempting to use the false claim of religious freedom to over-ride other people's civil rights.  If was actually a religious belief you would have it written down someone.  That is not a very hard test to pass - write it down or shut up about it.

More importantly, once you write it down it gives actual evidence to the court.   They can examine it for loopholes (such as hiring other people to have contact with gay people.). More importantly, they can also examine it for consistency.    That is - if it lets you hire a gay man that is married to watch your kids but won't let you pay someone else to cater their wedding, the court can rule your beliefs are clearly designed to negate the law and are not sincerely held personal beliefs.