Month: July 2020

A disproportionately high number of severe and intractable problems beset Black Americans. The survival of America’s experiment to establish a government on the proposition that all men are created equal may come to an end if Americans do not find ways to address those problems effectively. The drafters of the Declaration of Independence were aware that the word “men” included blacks.^[i] The vast majority of blacks are law-abiding, contributing members of society, but too many blacks are not receiving equal protection and treatment. Most of the unequal preferences intended to compensate for that lack of equal protection and treatment have not achieved the intended goal.

So, many of the grievances highlighted by Black Lives Matter are legitimate and in dire need of attention and address. Raising awareness of the problems and resulting complaints is a noble endeavor. Let’s identify some of those legitimate grievances and some others that are ignored or given short shrift by Black Lives Matter (“BLM”).

Compiling a comprehensive list of unique problems that blacks face in America would be impossible. Hopefully, the following will suffice to make the point that there are plenty of serious problems that need to be redressed.

Blacks are disproportionately likely to be:

• Suspected of being dangerous or up to no good,
• Defrauded, robbed, injured or murdered,
• Engaged by police,
• Negatively affected by law enforcement,^[ii]
• Be poor — even those who adhere to the same norms as whites,^[iii]
• Trapped in poverty by a welfare system that creates negative incentives to work,
• In poor health.^[iv]
• Raising children in single-parent families.
• Raising children in communities with debilitating customs and mores and relatively greater hopelessness,
• Living with the consequences of a welfare system that renders fathers unnecessary to a family’s economic well-being, if not an economic burden to the family,
• Denied access to effective schools,
• Unable to land an entry-level job (in large part due to minimum wage laws),^[v]
• Victimized by Affirmative Action preferences,^[vi]
• Deluded into believing that harmful disparities are the result of racism and positive disparities are the result of black DNA or black culture,
• Victimized by crony arrangements between elite politicians and corporations (“corruption”) who siphon wealth from the economy for their unproductive personal benefit — thereby draining job-creating vitality from the economy. Poor blacks can least afford such suppression of job creation and the preservation of higher prices of goods and services due to protection from competitors that such crony arrangements always provide to crony companies.
• Burdened with the soft bigotry of low expectations,^[vii]
• Debilitated by communities and schools that teach children that they are and will be exploited and oppressed by white people and to blame others for their allegedly inescapable plight, i.e., they are robbed of the motivation to learn what is needed to succeed.

Blacks confront unique obstacles to progress and success. Organizations whose mission is to address those unique obstacles constructively are much needed.^[viii] If such an organization was named “Black Problems Matter,” a retort by critics that “All Problems Matter” would be accurate, but it could reasonably be considered petulant.

The hearts of everyone of goodwill should ache about the unique problems facing poor blacks in America. Sadly, many of the issues listed are attributable to or exacerbated by policies advanced by well-intended politicians of all skin hues. Aggravatingly, too many of those problems are the result of policies promoted by self-serving politicians and race hustlers.^[iix]

Consequently, to a considerable extent, “others” are to blame for causing or exacerbating many of the problems that blacks experience, i.e., blacks are victims of indignities and bad policies adopted by governments mostly comprised of white people. Similarly, race hustlers and Black Lives Matter have and will continue to create problems for blacks. We’ll sort out some of that out in the following posts.

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^[i] Eleven of the 13 colonies wanted the following paragraph in Jefferson’s rough draft of the Declaration to be in the final document. “Glenn Beck uncovers the truth about slavery and America’s founders”

“[King George] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, & murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.”

^[ii] “Rand Paul: Conspiracy laws result in cruel prison sentences, particularly for Black Americans,” “Slowing the “School-to-Prison Pipeline”—At What Cost?,” and “Crime, Punishment, and Fairness”

^[iii] “Why Are Black Americans at Greater Risk of Being Poor?”

^[iv] “Race and health in the United States” “African Americans have higher rates of mortality than does any other racial or ethnic group for 8 of the top 10 causes of death.[22] The cancer incidence rate among African Americans is 10% higher than among European Americans” and “non-Hispanic black adults had the highest prevalence of obesity (38.4%) overall, followed by Hispanic adults (32.6%) and non-Hispanic white adults (28.6%),” i.e., blacks have 1.34 times the prevalence of obesity as whites.

^[v]“Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder For Blacks To Succeed” by Jason Riley. pg. 127 “The Even and Macpherson study found that for white males ages 16 to 24, each 10 percent increase in the minimum wage has a decreased employment by 2.5%… ‘But among black males in the group, each 10% increase in the minimum wage has decreased employment by 6.5%.’ The effect on black workers [in Chicago] was so pronounced, wrote the authors, that “employment losses for 16-to-24-year-old black workers between 2007 and 2010 [a period during which the federal minimum wage was raised by 41%] could have been nearly 50% lower had the federal minimum wage remained at the January 2007 level.”

^[vi] “Thomas Sowell: Affirmative action is a wrong answer,” “Walter E. Williams: The Effect Of Affirmative Action on Poor Communities,” “Thomas Sowell: affirmative action creates academic failure & resentment’” and “The Painful Truth About Affirmative Action.” I am aware of articles that attempt to refute the damage done to students admitted on affirmative action grounds (e.g.,   “Are Minority Students Harmed by Affirmative Action?,” “Does Affirmative Action Create Mismatches Between Students and Universities?”). Note, however, these articles do not refute the claim, they nit pick details about some studies that found the problem.

^[vii] “Biden’s Bigotry”

^[viii] For example, the small fraction of that tiny number of racist Americans who have some power (e.g., racist police) deserve to be called out and condemned.

^[iix] @ThomasSowell – Aug 18, 2019

“Racism is not dead, but it is on life support — kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as ‘racists.’” and “Eric Holder: A more dangerous race-card hustler than Al Sharpton”

The invidious death of George Floyd may prove to be an inflection point on the arc of American history. It caused multiple groups who seek the fundamental transformation of America to coalesce and intensify their efforts. Surely, more things are going on than meets the eye. It could be that the undiscernible things that are going on are more important than the ones that are. The discernable things, however, are monumental and well worth sorting out.  

Even this partial list of some of the discernable things that are going on is reason for alarm and validation of Benjamin Franklin’s doubt^[i] that the country would be able to keep the republic the founders proposed:

• Mass protests about police brutality, injustices, and income disparities experienced by black Americans.^[ii]
• Black groups demanding redress of and reparations for multiple grievances and significant governance changes, including the elimination of police forces and varying degrees of socialism,^[iii]
• A BLM leader threatened, “If this country doesn’t give us what we want, then we will burn down this system and replace it. All right? And I could be speaking … figuratively. I could be speaking literally. It’s a matter of interpretation… I just want black liberation and black sovereignty, by any means necessary.”^[iv]
• The multigenerational efforts by 1960s revolutionaries to turn K-University education system into leftist indoctrination/social justice warrior training centers is at last bearing the intended abundant fruit.^[v]
• Mobs are demolishing statues^[vi] and intellectuals reframing America’s history, e.g., “The 1619 Project.”^[vii]
• Antifa and other fringe groups using fascistic tactics to cow and silence people who do not support Antifa’s political objectives.^[viii]
• A pandemic and a botched response to the pandemic.^[ix]
• The loss of credibility by public health experts,^[x] “experts” generally,^[xi] polling,^[xii] government agencies,^[xiii] politicians,^[xiv] mainstream media,^[xv] and the intelligentsia.^[xvi]
• An unprecedented aggregation and exercise of dictatorial power by governors^[xvii] and local officials.
• Federal and state government officials establishing a state religion of scientism,^[xviii] while infringing on or attempting to banish traditional religions.^[xix]
• The mainstream media are rejecting journalistic standards^[xx] and becoming the propaganda arm of a leftist uprising^[xxi] (and China^[xxii]).
• The reality and power of Deep State are becoming more evident and ominous.^[xxiii]
• Globalists are attempting to exploit the chaos to advance their agenda.[xxiv]
• An acceleration of the cancel culture is underway.[xxv]
• Republican leadership revealing their fecklessness or complicity in the face of the leftist uprising.
• An unprecedented push to replace America’s cronyistic economic system with socialism^[xxvi] (which would merely replace a “crony capitalism” system with a crony socialism system), and
• The absurdity of the two major political parties offering up Trump or Biden as the best candidates they could find.

The above mess could be the result of a perfect storm (multiple groups independently snapping into action to prevent this crisis from going to waste), a mastermind puppet master pulling strings at his disposal, a conspiracy executing its plan, the inevitable culmination of universities’ 100+ year project to undermine the limited government established by the Constitution and 50+ year project to replace science and reason with postmodernism, or God using a variation on the Babylonian theme^[xxvii] to punish human hubris (destroying Babylonian’s ability to progress by making it impossible for various peoples to speak to each other — “talking pass each other” instead of communicating could achieve the same result).

Whatever the cause, the mess needs some sorting out.

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^[i] When asked as he exited Independence Hall in Philadelphia where the Constitution was hammered out what kind of government the convention produced, Franklin said, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

^[ii] “George Floyd Protests: A Timeline”

^[iii] “The Agenda of Black Lives Matter Is Far Different From the Slogan”

^[iv] “Black Lives Matter leader states if US ‘doesn’t give us what we want, then we will burn down this system’”

^[v] “The Revolution Is Winning”

^[vi] “A list of the statues across the US toppled, vandalized or officially removed amid protests”

^[vii] “Project1619,” “NYT Admits, at Last, That Its 1619 Project Is Wrong,” “The 1619 Project: An Epitaph” and “The Fight Over the 1619 Project Is Not About the Facts”

^[viii] “By Its Own Definition Antifa is Fascist”

^[ix] “The President and Governors Alike Botched the Pandemic Response”

^[x] “Public Health Experts are Embarrassing Themselves” and “Health experts fear long-term damage to CDC’s credibility” and “Coronavirus: Five Reasons Public Health Experts Have Lost Credibility”

^[xi] “Science’s ‘Replication Crisis’ Has Reached Even The Most Respectable Journals, Report Shows”

^[xii] “The Crisis of Polling” and See “These Truths” by Jill Lapore,” There was a time when polls had a chance of knowing what “Americans” think. When Gallup started polling in the 1930s, the response rate of people contacted by pollsters was above 90%. The response rate during the 2012 presidential race was less than 10%. In 2016, a past president of the American Association of Public Opinion Research said, “Election polling is in near crisis.” (And, of course, polling completely blew the election predictions.)”

^[xiii] “Victor Davis Hanson on Hubris, Nemesis in the Deep State”

[^xiv] “The Articles of Unity”

^[xv] “Now What the F**k is Going On? Sensemaking Series” and “Collapse Of Trust In Legacy Media Will Lead To Its Inevitable Demise”

^[xvi] “The Intellectual Yet Idiot 2” and “The Intellectual Yet Idiot”

^[xvii] “Virus Unleashes Newsom’s Inner Dictator,” “Gov. Gretchen Whitmer Signs Sweeping Mask Order Threatening Violators With $500 Fine” and “When Are COVID-19 Control Measures ‘Arbitrary’ and ‘Unreasonable’?”

^[xviii] “Scientism – COVID Stuff”

^[xix] “California Churches Sue Gov. Newsom over COVID Lockdowns”

^[xx] “Journalistic standards decline as the industry obsesses with war against Trump”

[^xxi] “Bret Weinstein and Matt Taibbi: Corruption and its Consequences,” “Media Keeps Confirming It’s The Propaganda Arm Of The Democratic Party” and “Bari Weiss’s resignation letter”

^[xxii] “Chinese Propaganda Outlet Has Paid US Newspapers $19 Million For Advertising, Printing” and “The Expansion of Chinese Communist Party Media Influence since 2017”

^[xxiii] “Glenn Beck Presents: The Democrats’ Hydra” and “Glenn Beck Presents: Democracy Does Die In Darkness”

^[xxiv] “UKRAINE SCANDAL EXPLAINED: Chalkboard on DNC Collusion, Joe Biden, Soros, Trump & more”

^[xxv] “Is Bari Weiss the New York Times’ James Damore? Insider Spills the Beans on Stifling Cancel Culture,” and “No Safe Spaces Movie”

^[xxvi] “The Rise Of American Socialism” and “Ocasio-Cortez: Collaboration with Sanders ‘Substantively Improved Biden’s Positions’ on Climate”

^[xxvii] “The Tower of Babel” and “Genesis, Chapter 11”

Everyone should be aware of “The Articles of Unity – A Patriotic Plan to Save our Republic.” It is a plan to address the problems that result in every four years Americans being left with the option to choose between two people whose primary expertise is evading questions, bunkum, balderdash, and bamboozling. As things are now, only people who have that expertise have a chance of winning the presidency. The exceptions to having to choose between the lesser of two morally flawed, technically incompetent, and often corrupt candidates have grown rarer over time.

The country has survived that growing trend because a large percentage of American voters used to believe in the American Creed and The American Experiment. Over recent decades, students are either not taught about those things or are taught to reject them.

Our incompetent and corrupt governments that resulted from the above situations cannot long endure. Much of the rancor, turmoil, and growing demands for fundamental change we are now seeing is the result of such corrupt and incompetent governments. Lesser of two evils politicians, who rely on pitting citizen against citizen, have proven that they will only exacerbate those problems and deliver mostly feckless outrage and gridlock.

@Unity2020 is a plan to elect competent patriots, one centrist conservative and one centrist liberal, as president and vice president who are not beholding to the powers that be. They will agree to share power in a way that will have a chance of saving the republic from the disastrous path we are now on.

I’m neither enthusiastic about all of the plan’s details nor optimistic about its success. It is, however, something that has a chance of effectively getting the country on a sustainable course. At a minimum, with a sufficient groundswell of support, politicians should be more inclined to change their corrupt ways. Without a groundswell, it will go nowhere.

For that reason, I have signed up in support of this challenge to the status quo. I urge you to do the same.

For more details see “The Articles of Unity – A Patriotic Plan To Save Our Republic” and “The Articles of Unity – A Patriotic Plan to Save our Republic (Bret Weinstein).”

On July 9, 2020, The Morning Dispatch reported^[i] the following:

“‘Some states, admittedly, opened up too early and too quickly,’ Dr. Anthony Fauci told the Wall Street Journal yesterday. ‘So that was something that probably should not have happened that led to this.’”

It is hard to tell whether this comment reveals Dr. Fauci’s lack of self-awareness, gracelessness, or political hackery.

Dr. Fauci made monumental decisions about when “flattening the curve” measures should be imposed and how severe they should be. When criticized for his recommendations, his most common defense is that his decisions were appropriate based on the scant information/data available at the time. Most Americans who believe the initial response was too severe assume that Dr. Fauci was not aware of how faulty both the Imperial College and the original IHME models were. Consequently, most of them have the grace to excuse Dr. Fauci’s judgments based on prediction models that either have proven^[ii] or might be proven to have wildly overstated the danger of COVID-19. (There is a consensus among modelers even now.^[iii])

Since the initial decisions, sufficient information/data has accumulated to reveal that his mitigation/suppression measures have killed and damaged the health of many people.

“…the disease has been responsible for 800,000 lost years of life so far. Considering only the losses of life from missed health care and unemployment due solely to the lockdown policy, we conservatively estimate that the national lockdown is responsible for at least 700,000 lost years of life every month, or about 1.5 million so far — already far surpassing the COVID-19 total.”^[iv]

Most people have the grace not to say of Dr. Fauci’s directives, “So that was something that probably should not have happened…” I have searched in vain for an admission by Dr. Fauci that his original “lockdown” advice was, in light of subsequent events, too harsh.

Dr. Fauci has said, “staying closed for too long could cause ‘irreparable damage’” and “I don’t want people to think that any of us feel that staying locked down for a prolonged period of time is the way to go.”^[v] To avoid such “irreparable damage,” states must reopen. Is Dr. Fauci unaware that the governors have insufficient data to determine precisely when or how rapidly to reopen? In other words, is he unaware that governors are in the same predicament that he was in when he advised the country “lockdown?” Though it is improbable, one cannot rule out the possibility that he is insufficiently self-aware to realize that he is doing unto others what he criticized others doing to him.

If Dr. Fauci is so unaware, he could redeem himself. For examples, he could admit that the severity of his “lockdowns” was overkill (literally), or have the grace not say about governors who must make agonizing and highly consequential decisions, “So that was something that probably should not have happened…,” or he could have gotten the National Institute of Health^[vi] to help the governors avoid “irreparable damage” to the people of their state and the country.^[vii] He has done nothing that I can find to redeem himself.

On the other hand, that may be too much to expect from someone in Dr. Fauci’s position. The primary expertise of anyone who becomes the head of any federal government agency is having the political skill and cunning to surpass all the other politically avarice people seeking the same job. People who have those traits tend not to have the level of expertise concerning the agency’s mission compared to those who devote their working hours to the agency’s mission. Politically avarice people also tend to be highly motivated to achieve political objectives.

Dr. Fauci has sowed fear-inducing confusion and has failed to explain the rationale for pivotal epidemiological issues, which people need to understand in order to assess the amount of danger COVID-19 presents. Such confusion and wondering adds to people’s anxieties (which weakens people’s ability to fight diseases) and fostered massive amounts of discord.

Fear and discord are quite useful if one seeks to transform a country fundamentally. Is that what Dr. Fauci is doing? Although there are signs that is his motive, a regular citizen can’t know. Sadly, however, the other explanations for why he is doing what he is doing are, at a minimum, unflattering.

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^[i] “The Morning Dispatch: New COVID Cases Hit Daily Record” 7/9/2020”

^[ii]  “We Will Regret Not Taking the Economic Effects of Mass Quarantine More Seriously” and “The Worldwide Lockdown May Be the Greatest Mistake in History”

^[iii] “The Madness of Competing COVID-19 Projections”

^[iv] “The Doctor Is In: Scott Atlas and the Efficacy of Lockdowns, Social Distancing, and Closings”

^[v] “Dr. Anthony Fauci says staying closed for too long could cause ‘irreparable damage’”

[vi] “The Real Issues Concerning COVID-19—Part IV, The Herd Immunity Messaging Problem” and “CDC to Revise School Reopening Guidelines After Trump Says They’re Impractical: Pence”

^[vii] “Kids and Teachers Are Going to Need Therapy if Schools Follow the CDC’s Recommendations for Classrooms”