Why Gen Z is depressed

 

GEN Z IS DEPRESSED AND ANXIOUS say numerous studies.  They first noticed this in a count of depression in 2014.  There was a big jump from 2012. And it’s been going up rapidly every year. Why? Further breakdown showed that older generations didn’t increase, just Gen Z.  Some psychologists speculate that just after 2012 was when people began to do selfies and post them on social media.  Then you find your perfect life is less perfect than others. The historic graph is a startling hockey stick shape.  

But it is further noted that it is the progressives that are depressed and anxious and in English speaking countries, not China or Algeria.  Why? Because many in the older generations have religious faith.  The Christian, once they have seen grace grab hold of them and understand it deeply, that God is with you and in you, and nobody can take that away from you—that instills an assurance, a confident hope that things will turn out all right.  This life may slam you around and is full of misery, but God will use it and in the end take you home. That tragically, is what many progressive leftists miss.  Hence 26% of Gen Z is depressed or neurotic.  It’s worse in girls which are over 30% affected, but boys of previous generations have gone from 9 to 13% depression. So the progressives fearful of not being in control seek to demand everybody be woke, and entirely in agreement.  The misery of their politics trumps all else.

Suppose you want to raise an entrepreneur.  What quality would you look for? It is dogged confidence.  People who are close friends of successful entrepreneurs say, "the poor devil never knew when he was beat.." She just keeps on going.  If life deals a lemon, they make lemonade and then figures out a daquri. But this is opposite a depressed personality.

Gen Z

GEN Z, KIDS BORN 1997-2012 WHO HAD MID-CHILDHOODS IN THE 20-TEENS VOTE D. But this is just the tip of the iceberg.  They have high rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm , and suicide. Social psychologist began to notice this in 2013 as these things began to suddenly rise.  But the syndromes were not higher in older adults—just Gen Z. By 2020 25% of teen girls had symptoms of major depression. So what happened in 2012 or just prior? First iPhone 4 came out and selfies became all the rage. The helicopter parenting of years prior meant instead of kids 7 or 8 years old being allowed unsupervised socialization (the traditional age) this had extended to 10 or 12 years of age. Thus instead of the normal rough interactions causing psychological strengthening in early childhood, kids spent a childhood largely through the phones.  The depression numbers weren’t so bad in boys, 9%, but larger than the old normal of 5%.  Boys were playing video games and groups of boys competed, a healthy interactive activity.  But girls were drawn to ‘visual platforms’—instagram and tiktok.  Those are about display and performance. You post your perfect life and then look at others who have even better perfect lives. This phenom is called “compare and despair”.  It seems social because you are communicating but it’s performative. You don’t actually get good relationships. People in despair usually go defensive. Defensive mode is when you focus on threats.  Discover mode is when you seize information and create.  And sure enough, Gen Z is seriously behind in innovation, not inclined to take risks.  This has dire implications for the future of business in USA. Also the new ideology of woke/CRT valorizes victimhood. Those not inclined to take risks, seek accommodations and play it safe.  You are not going to swing for the fences or start a company. Here’s what is interesting about this.  It occurs in English-speaking countries.  Slavery guilt has rapidly spread to Canada and UK, but not Germany or Russia or China. And it has spread to US business. When the manager is afraid to speak up  honestly because of fears of being shamed on social media, the corporate culture gets dishonest and backfires in its purpose.  The impact of political discourse then moves conversations from honest personal interaction to the Colosseum of social engagement.  We don’t talk to one another, we perform. Amazingly Gen Z is not in denial.  They recognize the app-based life is really bad for them.  They wished they had childhoods more like their parents—playing outside, riding bikes with friends, having adventures. And as jobs expand when the R’s get control of government, socializing comes back, and Gen Z may seek a new normalism. 

Recreational Marijuana

I must vote against recreational marijuana tomorrow!  OK has a referendum and I fear the people who want to smoke will turn out big while most other people will be apathetic.  We already have “medical” marijuana and such law gets abused, but the real problem is farms, cartels and violent crime.  Because KS prohibits cannabis, the northern tier of counties of OK have a huge marijuana farming business in order to reach across the border. OK charges only 7% tax while other states charge 30% or so. Grow it here! Cropland is cheap in OK.  The Chinese, through corporate entities hide their identity and buy most of this, growing it in hoop greenhouses. Why Chinese? They have other things to sell like fentynal and meth that is also hidden by this business. A friend of ours is a tall, 300 lb. guy who intimidates most people, told about building a stockade fence around one of the farms and said it was like working around armed MS-13 gangsters.  He said he was never so glad to get that job done in his life.  The only thing this industry does that is beneficial is drive up the price of farmland. 

     And then there is the violence in society.  I once belonged to our local jail ministry and one day a criminologist visited one of our gathering in the felony cell that houses violent guys.  He whispered to me, “*0% of these guys are marijuana users.”  Why was that?  In 2000 we didn’t know why, but now research shows that people who are paranoid schizophrenic, the main mental problem that fuels mass murders, have their syndrome increased by marijuana use. And today’s Mary Jane is a dozen times as potent as what college kids smoked in the anti-war years of the 70s. The Sheriffs and Law Enforcement groups are against this, the DAs too.

    Thus I can’t think of any good reason on God’s green earth to encourage this. 

Leftist Hippies now come to fruit

DON’T BE MYSTIFIED BY WOKEISM AND IT’S EVERMORE HEAVYHANDED TREATMENT. I ran into some leftist-type atheist/agnostics in college 54 years ago during the Vietnam anti-war era. I went to several Young Democrats meetings. Everything they said then is working its way into society now.  Leftists want control.  So they told me they saw all manner of evil in this world and what God would design something so bad?  Thus they didn’t believe in any sort of God.  And if there is no God, therefore there must not be any set morality. (Many atheists would choke on this. Nature dictates morals too.) If morality is just personal choice, we shouldn’t be too hard on people who do crime or heinous things. They are just acting by nature and can’t be responsible.  So I asked how then, if there are no morals, does one set rules by which government must act.  Oh, that is the design of really smart people like us, they alleged.  That is why we are here at this Party meeting.  The Party tells everyone what to think and do, and anyone who disagrees will be subject to persecution.

            In a nutshell, they want to control people.  Design a utopia and make everyone conform. I left the mtg. thinking how Marxist this was.  Today it is everywhere, many people accepting it dumbly. From the history you learn to the choices you have for lunch, you are threatened with control. It sneaks in. An example: Pocahontas.  Her true story is quite documented.  Young girl comes curiously to meet the Jamestown settlers. Becomes acquainted, learns English, admiring their winter clothing and tools and amazed at how determined and optimistic they are. She disappears for 3 years which her family says was a marriage and child where she was widowed and lost the baby. Came back to the colony stockade, was held in house arrest when skirmishes broke out between her tribe and the Anglos. Asked to become a Christian, was baptized, met John Rolfe who was also young and widowed.  They married, she had a son, Grandpa Powhattan and wives came to see the new grandson.  Big feast, 15 years of good will followed. Then she showed Rolfe how to plant tobacco.  He reaped an enormous profit, thereby providing England with a profitable reason to continue the colony. They went to England and she was a celebrity, but died on the return trip, her dying words were deeply Christian, full of love for son, Tom, and husband John.

            So what are a minority of modernist historians trying to say now?  They insist that they English captured her and made her accept Christianity, made her marry Rolfe and cough up the secret of tobacco cluture. All this flies against the duly recorded stories, but the historians are revisionists, trying to promote exploitation, racism, slavery, and European evil.

            The CRT, revisionism, and wokeism are just the angry demands of the “control leftists.” Truth be damned; they want their utopia. I heard this through the long unkempt manes and Vietcong sandals of these lefty hippies in 1969. 

What won't change

SOME THINGS WON’T CHANGE DESPITE THE ELECTION. 

Rs made hay out of the Inflation issue and crime issue, but frankly, what can a federal lawmaker do about crime? It’s a gang warfare and do idiot bail reforms. Police depantments have been defunded and officers let go.  Prosecutors are elected locally and they have been culprits in letting criminals walk.  And that will continue until people realize their problem and act on it in their area. 

            Likewise Ds made hay out of the abortion issue.  But realistically, what changes? Several states have no abortion clinics.  Even a national right to abortion won’t buy you one in those states.  Other states have numerous clinics and aren’t about to disallow abortions.  The Supremes have told everyone that Abortion Rights is not in the constitution and so it is a state’s issue.  Pass any sort of federal law about the right and it will be struck down by the Supremes. In real life practice, little changes with Dobbs. 

            Inflation won’t come under control for a number of years.  Bipartisan Congress passed $2T of relief in 2020. But then Biden added 3 bills of $1.9T,1.2T and .6T.  Plus the $.6T of normal gov’t deficit spending and another $1T from the Fed (remember they were still “tapering” purchase of bonds during 2021) The injection of $8T on top of money supply of $16T adds, over several years, almost 50% to the  amount of money in circulation.  That means roughly 50% inflation over a number of years. BUT that is true only if more stimulus isn’t added like Biden’s $500B debt forgiveness.  And then unions will strike wanting inflation added to their contracts in addition to the usual increases.  Now Congress can put their foot on the brake of spending as it occurs.

            Then too, prices go up, people cut back and that affects consumer spending which is 70% of the GDP.  This will bring Recession. All the talk of ‘soft landing” applies only to Fed raising interest to quell heated demand in normal times.  In Inflationary economies, we get stagflation—recession in the midst of rising prices. And what might tip off a recession soon?  Housing markets all around the world are crashing.  Prices are down 9% in Canada so far this year.  If a worldwide housing crunch takes place it will be like the one we had in USA 2007-2009.  Since the amount of buildings is 3 X the amount in stock markets, a housing crash is enormous, would draw USA in on it, and take a long recovery.

Meanwhile, smile about Oklahoma's R victories! 

What did Josh say!!!

 

JOSH HAWLEY GAVE A SPEECH AND THE LEFT WENT APE. There were incensed editorials from numerous lefty newspapers.  Good grief! What did Hawley say? “We are a revolutionary nation precisely because we are heirs of the revolution of the Bible.” This caused the Kansas City Star editorial board to scream, “No. Our constitutional government, and therefore our nation, isn’t based on the Bible, or any religious text.” Sheesh! Where did Hawley say “constitution”?  He was just voicing a platitude.  Hawley noted the Bible “gave us equality between men and women.”  This caused the Star to erupt over the Bible and the founders who definitely disliked inequality, loved slavery and were racist.  They continued to slam this “inaccurate history, dubious theology and extreme hypocrisy that should worry every Missourian who believes in the separation of church and state…theocracy…White Christian nationalism overtaking the Republican party, endangering religious freedom for everyone.” Hmm. It always makes me suspicious of an author when he has scant proof to offer and extends to to wild accusations.  That’s usually a writer who is dead wrong.

            To wit, the 1787 Constitution was a political compromise to re-write the Articles of Confederation which created a system that had resulted in discord between the member states and monetary problems.  Yet the Constitutional Convention wanted to preserve the Declaration of Independence in both sense of moral reason for the founding and in the actual union of 13 colonies into one federal system.  The Declaration claims that the people of this revolt were “All men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Who would have written this? Does an atheist believe in a Creator?  If said rights are ‘inalienable’ doesn’t that imply an active Creator?  What deist would write such a thing?  If all men are created equal, would a Hindu or Muslim assert such a thing? And it seems the Quran certainly doesn’t hold a right to life applies to pagans.  In short, these words fit only the Judeo-Christian beliefs. Indeed the quote, by Thomas Jefferson is almost exactly lifted from John Locke, the Christian and Government philosopher of Oxford University in Two Treatises on Government, 1675. In his day of divine right of kings, Locke was considered far out, but he took his ideas from Martin Luther’s Liberty of a Christian. The logic is simple. If a person has a god-given mission is life, no one has any business interrupting that lest they transgress God.  Therefore the Liberty is to let every person live the life they want to, unless it goes against the social contract (laws) of a nation. So when the Constitution calls for the “Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and to our children” that’s the same blessings gifted by the Creator of the Declaration. Oh, and by the way, 19 of 56 signers were clergymen. Only Thomas Paine and Ben Franklin were deists. Most of the deism movement came after we'd won our independence.

            And we have long been a nation of neither theocracy (where the priesthood rules) nor White Christian Nationalism. Tell me, do you know anyone who attended a White Christian Nationalism meeting in your neighborhood?  Moreover, such a social contract allowing Liberty to all seems acceptable to a good card-carrying atheist or agnostic as well. And those snarky comments about inequality not being a Christian tenant?  Then what do you make of the passage, written twice in both Gal. 3:28 and Col. 3:11 “For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith…There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free,. There is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Um, I hope the leftist writers of the KC Star can understand that 2000 years ago when they referred to “all sons of God” they mean daughters too-- a common literary style--and that the reference to slaves and Greeks doesn’t change the position of such people but means spiritually, not physically. 

          Perhaps we can send the Gideons over to the Star with a complementary Bible so they can read it.

Explaining LIz Truss

 

NOBODY, BUT NOBODY SEEMS ABLE TO EXPLAIN THE LIZ TRUSS AFFAIR. It’s easy.  Britain has inflation almost as high as ours.  Their central bank, Bank Of England, like our Fed dithered when it started.  And the British govt spent a lot on aid due to lockdowns which set off the inflation.  The Conservative party tossed their leader, Johnson, over scandals.  They elected (only party officials vote) Liz Truss.  She was insistent on a Reaganesque revival—low taxes, lower regulations.  But that is only half the equation when you have too much money and too few goods.  Less taxes/regs help the economic gains which will provide more revenue dollars eventually, but the Brits want no part of reducing too much money.  They like their welfare state and don’t want cuts in govt spending. And BOE waffled to take the hard steps in tightening the money supply.  So the pound is cheap, has gone lower, from $1.20 per pound to about $1.15.  The announcement of lower taxes without anything else, caused the pound to plummet on markets to about $1.06.  That means the banks would get loans paid back in cheap real costs, and lose money.  And international banking is a huge industry in London where the Conservative party has it’s greatest strength.  The howls were immediate from the elites of the party and they ran her out of the prime minister job.  She tried to stem the problem by announcing that only the lower taxes to the poorer classes would be in her program, cancelling the upper bracket cuts.  She fired her finance minister.  But in the end, she was drummed out of office and she resigned today.

            If our media people understood the fundamentals of how inflation must be fought, they would have been able to tell this simple story.  Instead they carry all the tit-for-tat and commentary from Britain and Brit migrants on our tube.  

            Reagan had a similar trouble selling his low taxes.  Everybody said it would result in more deficits. But he included de-regulation, and the fed had raised interest sky-high, to 18%.  In the end, RR’s borrowed idea from Laffer of getting more revenue from lower tax rates (because people were hiding their income from taxes) actually worked and worked in spades to the chagrin of Democrats and astonishment of establishment R’s who had called it Voodoo economics. The name Reaganomics was meant as a slur by the media and Dems.  Instead it became a rallying cry for R’s even down to this day.

Why inflation won't go away soon

MILTON FRIEDMAN published his classic paper on inflation in 1978.  He described 3 prior inflationary go-rounds that only led to higher inflation.  It goes like this.  Government initially inflates due to deficit spending (Vietnam and Great Society) followed by too much money chasing too few goods—inflation.  But the price increases cause consumers (70% of the economy) to cut back. This brings recession (1969,1973).  Politicians get cold feet at the sight of unemployment and overspend again.  This creates more inflation. It’s a cat-rat cycle.  You put a bunch of cats and rats in a cage.  Cats eat the rats and rats gang up on cats and eat the cats.  You get a lot of free skins.  In the case of inflation, govt and the bureaucracy gets the free skins of cheapened currency and lessened burden of debt.  But the people see their standard of living decline, jobs lost, and life savings shrunk.  Businesses see productivity declines, price controls, more regulation to try to curb prices, unions demanding big pay raises and govt demanding onerous taxes.  The whole country declines in malaise. But the bureaucrats find it easier to increase budgets (there is inflation!) and cheap currency means the real cost of national debt lessens.  Politicians say they can’t help further deficit spending because the Fed has raised interest rates and national debt must be serviced at higher interest costs much more. How much pain are the voters willing to take to tame inflation?  This likely drags on for years.

            Solution.  Fed creates tight money to reduce the “too much money” part. New blood in the politicians radically de-regulates business and lowers business taxes to increase the “too few goods”.  Productivity increases.  And it probably has to happen during a recession so that unions are scared to make high demands on wage increases. Meanwhile Reagan & Thatcher realized what many economists did not.  That if you cut taxes, govt actually gets increased revenue in a couple years. People and businesses stop fervently hiding their income from taxes, and actually pay more at the new lower rates. Plus the economy booms and they make more and pay more in taxes in subsequent years. (Laffer’s supply side economics). Caveat: This takes a number of years.

            We are just at the beginning of this long, hard road where Dem pols refuse to believe that deficit spending caused this and fantasize that more deficit spending will actually cure it. They’ve made enemies out of petroleum, gas, and coal, the 3 products necessary to make about 90% of all manufactured goods.  They are trying to remake social order by running off the police, border control, and military recruitment.  One of the great lessons in economics is that businesses die in a kleptocracy, central planning or an anarchy.  And it will take two more years to get Republicans into power.  But will they have the will to enact the solution? 

Salem witch trials and Wenatchee

 

The propensity of people to be gripped by self-righteous panic has been extensively studied.  Salem witch trials, Red Scare of 1920, McCarthyism, Watergate hysteria, have all been implicated.  A major television network is running a documentary of the Wenatchee, Washington child molestation scandal that came at the conclusion of 17 day-care scandals of the 1980s and early 90s --all proven baseless. These hysterias prove an important point.  Neither science, nor politicians, nor media brought an end to the false charges.  Christians, speaking in faith did.

            In the Salem Witch trials of the summer of 1692, two young girls began acting erratically—screaming, hysterical behavior, and rolling on the floor.  Two local women were implicated as witches by the children’s screams. Subsequently, accusations of over 150 people being involved in witchcraft ensued.  The Massachusetts authorities responded with an investigative court that implicated many of them. The newspapers spurred on the hysteria and 19 people were convicted, hung or drowned.  One man who refused to plead guilty was pressed to death with heavy stones--the old English peine forte et dure, contempt of court—the only time it has been used in American history. Cotton Mather, son of Harvard College’s President, was strongly involved with the prosecution. Where was the new thing called science?  Many scientists of the day believed that indeed, witchcraft might be happening. But when Increase Mather, Cotton’s father and President of the Harvard Seminary arrived home from a trip to England, he observed the trials and was appalled that Christians would treat others this way.  He called for an end.  Thereupon, even the Governor’s wife was implicated and that caused the authorities to come to their senses, disband the inquiry, and release those awaiting trial. This was the only ‘witch hunt in American history.  In 17^th century Europe, there were 160,000 witch trials. The anxiety of the local government in MA to confess wrongdoing, make reparations, and search for truth was the singular bright spot in the affair.

            At Wenatchee, like the McMartin daycare and many others in the 80s and 90s, investigators used anatomically correct dolls and ‘dream memory’ to draw out stories from children.  Interviewer bias also influenced child testimony. When an interviewer has a preconceived notion of the truth of the matter being investigated, the questioning is often performed in a manner to extract statements that evidence these beliefs. As a result, evidence that could disprove the belief is overlooked by the interviewer. Records also reveal, that many stories were coerced.  Wenatchee filed 29,726 charges against several dozen people after a mentally disturbed foster child of a policeman said she had been raped. One case worker, Paul Glassen, criticized methodology only to find himself charged with molestation. He fled with his family to Canada.  When Pastor Robert Robertson criticized the prosecution and evidence-gathering in a town hall, he found himself immediately charged with 8 counts of molestation of his church’s children.  He was tried but found not-guilty of all counts and jurors were incensed with the prosecution’s handling saying it should never have gone to trial. Yet the state of Washington steadfastly praised the investigation.  So some Christians from Pastor Robertson’s church formed Concerned Citizens for Legal Accountability and joined by others, filed complaint with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct.  Governor Mike Lowry’s hand was then forced to investigate the investigators. But when he asked US Attorney General Janet Reno for help, it was flatly refused. Eventually all those implicated, who fought in court, won.  Wall Street Journal had an expose and a 2001 jury found Wenatchee and Douglass County negligent in “record keeping” and were ordered to pay damages to falsely accused citizens.  However, many of the accused had plea-bargained and were poor or had mental disability.  Some had to fight for years to recover custody of their children.

            Science, stonewalling authorities, even judges proved to not bring down these hysteria scandals.  Christians acting in faith did.  None of the abusive authorities went to trial over their mishandling.  No journalist did a mea culpa of a false story.  Nor did any imaginative case worker or psychologist who coerced improper testimony of a child.  Nobody went to jail over that either.  The same was true for the McMartin daycare, Country Walk daycare, Fells Acres daycare or the other 14 implicated daycare centers in the 1980s. What would the world be without Christians to stand in the gap?

1973

1973.  I remember it well. Trying to finish a degree and programming with punched cards. I’d get tired of doing physics derivations that were 4 or 5 pages long and go over to the college library and read an economist I had just discovered, Milton Friedman, who wrote a monthly magazine article.  In the spring of 73 things were booming.  Farmers, flush with cash from Nixon opening up trade to Russia, bought all new pickups and tractors.  All their old equipment was circa 1948-52, the last time farming had been good. Food prices shot up 10% that spring and farm products rose at an annual rate of 50%.  All the other commodities then took off too.  Things looked oh so rosy. 8% annual growth!  Unemployment was 3.4%.(When Dems called Trump on his claim to lowest unemployment in history, they were actually correct until 2019 saw 3.3%) Nixon had lifted his price controls and people couldn’t get supplies.  Ponca City still has plumbing horror stories about copper-aluminum pipes that ruptured 15 years later , installed as a substitute in a copper shortage.  The Dems controlled Congress with a Veto-Proof Majority.  Nobody could stop their deficit spending. But Friedman was worried about Fed expansionism, keeping interest rates low.  He wanted us to watch the alternate money supply, M2 and adjust interest accordingly. And Congress was living on the edge, he insisted, with massive spending. Meanwhile, shortages of certain commodities started showing up.  Coffee went sky high. People substituted roasted barley and even milo for a true battery acid. Every product seemed rushed from the Chevy Vega to Disco music. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Stayin’ alive! Today we are all enthused about the end of COVID and want to travel.  In 1973 everybody went traveling too while Nixon fought for his political life, vetoing nothing.  By the end of summer inflation had risen to 11% and continued at that pace until 1980 when Paul Volcker’s Fed made the Fed Discount rate 18% and prime rate was 21%.  Gasoline went from 35 cents to over a dollar in 7 years. People felt so hopeless that only Jessica Beale’s movie “Flash Dance” about hope in dying Pittsburgh was relief. The Fed got inflation under control at the cost of a horrid 4-year recession. But that wasn’t the only recession with inflation (stagflation) in the 70s.  The 1973-74 winter saw things collapse with OPEC withholding crude oil  and Gerald Ford could just kiss his idea about running again good-bye.  But the thing about Congress is that they didn’t recognize any problem with deficits. And the Fed was slow on the trigger to raise interest rates.  You’d hear Congressmen argue that Congress had always spent money before to no ill effect.  The Fed argued that their quarter point raises were what they had always done before and things always went back upright.  If inflation gets its claws into a demand-fueled , supply constrained economy, it doesn’t let loose easily, Friedman warned.  Indeed, labor unions wanting a 3% raise would tack on 5% for inflation and demand 8%.  Suppliers “charged ahead” to next year’s prices.  Everybody wound up speculating in natural resource stocks that bubbled and collapsed in 1979.

            Today, it seems so similar. Obstinate Dems and Fed, commodities going up fast, people hoping for a spending spree after they buy that new house.  Demand everywhere, supplies low, housing wild. Maybe gild the lily with  popcorn ceilings, a shake roof, and  paneling on that house.    

Fukushima and Covid19

 USA has 9/11, Japan has 3/11.  3/11/11 was the date of the Fukushima earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster that has had some earthquake political implications for Japan.  1606 people died from the disasters but another 2317 died from a chaotic evacuation amidst lack of public health, medical care and suicides.  A sizable area of Honshu Island was evacuated, not just for days but several years.  Now it is ten years later and people are refusing to return.  Formerly the government was trusted and now there is nationwide great distrust. And this could be a similar outcome if the COVID lockdowns continue in USA. 

            The Fukushima area has been rebuilt with roads, railways, and many tons of decontaminated soil. But the long limbo for residents has taken a toll on their spirits.  Families were separated, livelihoods lost.  And the government which had quickly signed onto the Paris Climate Agreement intended to use nuclear energy to meet the goals.  54 nuke plants pre-Fukushima produced 25% of the country’s energy.  Today only 6 plants have re-opened and they produce 6%.  What has gone up?  Coal.  In areas that have received an all-clear for return, only 25% have, mostly elderly. Rebuilding a community is far more difficult than repaving the roads.  We in OK have found this to be the case with Kaw City when Kaw Dam displaced the residents.

            The last elevated-isotope result agriculturally was 6 years ago in almost all areas of the disaster, though a few lands and a small town next to the plant are advisory not to return yet. Power companies nationwide have poured billions into new seawalls, filter systems, hardened emergency generators and other safety assurances.  Why aren’t the other plants allowed to reopen?  Voter sentiment.  Government trust has gone from 61% to 24%.  Japanese used to trust their leaders but have now frozen the nuclear means to which those leaders wanted to become carbon neutral. Azby Brown of Safecast, an NGO in Tokyo observes, “Trust is not a renewable resource.  Once you lose it, that’s it.” Now Gov is advancing renewables, i.e. wind and wave energy to become 60% of usage (solar doesn’t work in a country with 80” of rain a year).  Experience shows these are capable of topping off supplies but hardly of the majority of power.

            Could a similar politics happen in USA in the aftermath of COVID?  First lesson from Fukushima is that keeping people away from their homes was a disaster.  Some say Japan should have only kept restrictions and people from their homes for a month or so.  It was too much disruption with many businesses closed forever.  Will the restaurants come back strong in NYC and the hospital in Slippery Rock?  What if studies show post-mortem that masks didn’t work that well, lockdowns for healthy people only killed lifestyles, that vast numbers of people were treated for depression (as per Fukushima), and statistics were much in error by the fault of people in government who had an agenda?  Trust will fall and particularly trust in government officials.

Oklahoma State of the State address plus statistics to magnify

 

Oklahoma! Following statistics for OK after Gov. Stitt’s State of the State.  The numbers are stunning of how well OK has done this year at least compared to others. OK numbers are from Stitt; I will add stats that compare. !0% of the state has been vaccinated just as happened nationally, but COVID19 new infections requiring hospitalization is down 45% from the December high.  10% of our students are virtually learning compared with 38% nationwide.  OK had 5 weeks of shutdown.  Half of states nationwide were shut down 8 of the last 10 months of 2020. The unemployment in OK is 4.9% compared with 6.7% nationally.  OK has 5^th lowest unemployment in USA, underemployment (U6) is 40-% lower than USA.  Stitt  says OK Business Relief Program has distributed $143M helping 8661 small biz guys. 

Biden’s attempt to ban leasing fed lands for oil and gas leaves OK somewhat immune with only 2 % of our land being federal compared to NM with 75% federally owned (you can see why NM is mad as a hornet at him.) 67% of US natural gas and 51% is produced by fracking in 2017—shows how US production doubled and vaulted to energy independence.  Oklahoma invented hydraulic fracturing in 1949 and had a large part to play in its development in the 1990s.  Since 2007 when it became common, OK has gone from 1% of US oil reserves and 6% of gas to 5% and 12% respectively in 2019.  Crude production has doubled in that tie and natural gass has increased 40%.

Stitt had 3 thrusts for his SOTS.  First to make OK among the top ten for business, deliver more  service for each taxpayer dollar and spur investment in OK.  So GDP growth increased 2.1% in OK in 2020 while it declined -3.7% for USA.  OK saw low growth but no recession.  OKC ranks #3 in metros in USA to do business.  OK ranked #5 place to start a new business, so we have somewhat of a start on this.  The Gov wants more money for the Quick Action Closing Fund which Fallin started.  That would be $20M out of the $32M proposed  Commerce Dept. budget.  Last year, the state tried hard to land Tesla or at least their truck plant in Tulsa, but they chose Texas.  However, OKC managed to land the Cattleman’s Congress which would be responsible for $50M economic impact.  They were formerly in locked-down CO.  Much recruiting effort in CA.  He would also like to see school funding be revamped.  Due to the way the state allows districts to choose a former “good” year to get funding, there are 55,000 ‘ghost’ students—who are no longer in the district but still count.  (This out of 700,000+ students) Stitt wants to allocate money for real student populations only. (plan is controversial. Dept of Ed. Disagrees)  ODOT reports a national study that shows OK in the top 10 in bridge conditions.  We’ve come a long way from #50 in 2004. COVID19 hit the Rainy Day fund which still has $58M but needs to be rebuilt.  Last year’s spending was held to 78% of budget which really positioned the state well to not have a massive budget cut. Stitt wants changes in rules for DHS employees to allow more merit promotions and ability to hire better workers.  Re-do Medicaid healthcare deliver by making it managed care (privatization) which 40 other states do. Finally McGirt SCOTUS decision leaves our state with a lot of unknowns. The 5 tribes established compacts with OK in the early days that determine who gets what responsiblitiy.  Now we have to iron out questions: Who gets to tax, how are agriculture, water, energy and business regulated?  And if there is criminal activity (probably white collar crime) does the tribe and federal gov’t try this or does the state. ( Tribes and federals don’t have legal system that can handle some of these issues.  Will there need to be massive additions to federal laws to halp OK continue state functions?)

Hippies and lockdowns

 

1980.The guy who had been my major professor on my Phd. in theoretical physics called me.  There was a new thing going around campus called Political Correctness.  He and I were like minds.  He an Alabama nerd and a whizz at numbers, and I a ranch kid who wanted to know how everything in the universe worked. But it seemed, he speculated, that every lazy hippie had become a sociology or psychology prof and they were the movers of the PC thing.  So what does PC mean?  Well, he said, it means you can’t ask certain questions.  Preposterous! I objected.  Whatever happened to Academic Freedom.  No, if it affects their views, you can’t ask, he insisted and they have a view of science that certain assumptions cannot be challenged.  This is crazy, I said.  You mean if that work I did with Brown and Bark (2 climatologists) on climate cycles offends them, you can’t ask?  Yes, exactly. 

            Little did I know I was speaking literal truth.  I scoffed at PC.  It would never succeed against scientific inquiry.  But it did!  Those who advocate climate cycles are shut out of grants and government programs.  They are in the same malaise as Einstein was when he tried to challenge Newtonian mechanics or any doctor from the 18^th century that challenged bleeding the patient.  They were outcasts for an era.

            When my colleague talked about hippies, everyone in the 80s knew how that was.  The “greatest generation” fought WW II, came home with many issues of war they just wanted to forget and not talk about.  They left suburban homes to work long days in the city and left the wife to raise the kids.  The boys suffered most—hippies who had a poor role model of dad.  They dressed in outlandish styles like women, grew long hair, took no responsibility, and when war came said “Hell no, I won’t go”—as much out of cowardice as conscience.  The rich ones got away with it, collected degrees at college and became professors. That was part of my Baby Boom Generation. Now my same generation is chewing on their tails like the lion in Wizard of Oz because of COVID19.  We must shut down!  We must trust government! Some states in USA have been under various shades of lockdown for 10 months.  Is it working?  Well, it flattened the curve of cases for the initial 4-week trial.  Then they upped the ante to lock down until the pandemic was over.  It didn’t work but that’s okay because it feels good to do something. 

            Especially the politicians.  Their normal mode of operation is to take Stands.  They stand for the end of racism or free speech or a border wall.  Just don’t ask them to actually do anything.  If they ever solved a matter, that would rob them of a Stance.  Now comes much research and “The Great Barringtron Declaration” that illustrates the lockdowns are not working. “Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health.”  Precisely what they meant to protect.  It has doubled 48,000 suicides per year, increased cancers 30% because of non-screening (150,000 deaths) and increased drug and alcohol use by unknown amounts. Are we fools or what?

            Meanwhile the schoolkids and the 20-somethings are having their lives crushed.  Fauci and Azar and the CDC and the VA are all saying they never meant to imply that business should be closed down outdoors.  Pols didn’t listen.  Masks aren’t very effective except to stop the worst of spray spittle.  Pols didn’t listen.  Nobody can truly define a non-essential worker.  Pols didn’t listen.  All of it playing to the hand-wringers over 65.  But count me among the ranch kids.  Nothing you do, including simply riding a horse comes risk-free.  And when my kids and grandkids are having their future ruined to sauve senior fears, my blood boils.  The hippies want to silence Christianity which they rejected, Institutions and traditions, statues of Lincoln—tore them all down. Now we’ll have perhaps an octogenarian leader and lockdowns.  Don’t blame me if I cheer the revolution of entrepreneurs and workers who lost their dreams. Hippies had it coming.

WWBD What would Biden do?

 

While we await the election, think of changes from a Biden win.  Revoke USMCA?  It is a treaty passed by the US Senate and would require 2/3 to revoke.  Moreover it was ratified by Mexico and Canada who both agreed it was helpful to themselves, in other words a win/win/win agreement.  USMCA will remain in effect. 

            Second, the matter of admitting new states might admit Puerto Rico.  But Republicans are in favor there at this time.  DC statehood is unconstitutional—Art. 2, Section 8, paragraph 17—which give Congress full power of governance of the seat of government.  Any statehood would be challenged.  Of course Congress could take away the seat of government from DC and make it a state. A friend of mine suggests an alternative of Salina, Ks.  I snicker since I know the city very well and it actually would make some sense.  Central location. A decommissioned  AF base on the west side of town and it is the intersection of important interstate highways.  Moreover, today’s sky-high cost of living would be averted since west of Salina is Lincoln County, a vast grassland area of only 3000 citizens. Then too, a move would give the Feds a chance to downsize some departments seriously.  Ahem. 

            Even crazier is the suggestion that US Virgin Islands be a state. Tiny population and area, Enormous debt. Or the proposed Micronesia.  In the middle of the islands, Chinese have seized a reef and put in a facility whose purpose would be to kill satellites and disrupt the Pacific in war.  We’d need to evict ‘em.  What’s more, most of Marshall Islanders I know are huge Trump fans. Art. 4 sect. 3 says you can’t merge two states nor split a state. So ideas like splitting CA into 5 states would be challenged constitutionally. 

Third item.  Article 3 governs the Judiciary Branch and explicitly says they have power over ALL judicial cases in the United States. What if someone brought suit against a SCOTUS packing?  The present court would then have jurisdiction and could argue and rule their own ideal concerning number of members.  And as I understand, many of the justices like 9 people—enough to sit around a table and hear everybody’s opinion yet diverse enough to provide majority opinions.  SCOTUS might just nix a court packing. And certainly it would provide a backlash among many citizens. 

Next is the idea of eliminating the Electoral College.  That takes a constitutional amendment of 2/3 of both houses of Congress and ¾ of the states.  But there are 13 states with less than 1.4 million people who get a lot of clout from the Electoral College.  Their dislike would make it almost impossible to repeal Art. 2, Sect. 1.  What about the notion of a bunch of states signing onto “whichever way the popular vote goes, our electors will support that candidate.” Won’t work.  Art. 1, Sect. 10 says no special compacts allowed between states.

Enough of this constitutional stuff. Could Biden resurrect Obamacare?  He’d need the votes to reinstate the individual mandate and penalties.  This is politically very unpopular and as of this writing it looks like a Senate which is closely split will happen this election. Re-enacting taxes on “Cadillac healthcare plans” would drive the unions into Republican arms.  How then could Obamacare be fully funded? Stop funding Medicaid expansion in 37 states and break them? This stuff gets real expensive and real ugly real fast.

Could they enact the massive tax Biden proposes?  Yes, but the political fallout would be bad. Look for everyone to get out their Tea Party signs again. What if he opens the borders and lets in a flood of illegal immigrants and gives them citizenship?  The Hispanics who worked hard to establish themselves will revolt.  So might the new conservative Afro-American movement.  Can he ban fracking? Yes, but directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing have both been common practice separately since the 1960s.  You could ban the drilling but that would nix all offshore platforms.  You could ban the hydraulic pressure fracturing but that would kill practically every revival of an old field in the country. And the idea of getting rid of fossil fuels is far-fetched.  Trying to make electric vehicles universal without market advantage might work for the rich, but the bottom quintile in income drive old iron.  Find out what they say if you raise gasoline prices to 5 bucks.

Can I be excused if I think a lot of this talk is hot air?  

The Trouble with polls

 

Polls this year seem to be at odds with observations.  Let me offer some insights about polls based on my experience as a campaign manager.  First, only about 1/3 of people will respond to a poll.  That’s not a problem as long as the poll manages to get a good sampling.  But what if one partisan group refuses much more often than the other? Then getting a good sample is very very hard.  That seems to be the case of R’s who don’t like pollsters.  Perhaps that is the perception that polls are conducted with bias for biased news organizations—to give the answer that media group wants.  Whatever the case, it is playing havoc with polls today.

            Secondly, in the past pollsters used land line telephones. With a copy of the county voting records in hand, a pollster could ask his questions and then assign a likelihood of voting based on that person’s voting history.  A respondent who had voted twice in the last 4 elections got a .5 weighting factor compared with someone who always votes.  But how can the people be polled accurately if they have cell phones or won’t identify themselves?  If no person or address corresponds to the person interviewed, the pollster cannot judge likelihood. 

            What happens if the respondent lies?  Trafalgar Group seems to have circumvented this somewhat by asking how that person sees their neighbors voting.  This can be telling if the voter is leery about answering correctly.

            Turnout is a huge factor in elections.  Only about 2/3 of all registered voters vote in a general election.  If one side turns out more of its base, that, not an overarching popularity may win. Base voters usually don’t split their vote and so there is more of a coattail effect in recent elections with a lot of partisanship.

            To check their prediction, pollsters often conduct polls of people right after they have voted.  But here, the trouble seems to be that many folks are particularly elusive about sharing who they voted for right after casting a vote—voting in secret is a well-guarded right!  These Exit Polls have been wrong in about half of recent elections.

            There are indirect polling measures that can give a predictive picture.  If an incumbent is at 47% approval or above, they are likely to be re-elected.  But if approval falls below, to 43 or 44%, they are likely to lose; 50% they are sure to win.  Evidently about 3% of people will say, “I don’t approve of this guy, but I’ll still vote for him.”  An incumbent is a known quantity.  If he polls low approval or in the low 40s against a challenger, that says that even though there may be a lot of undecideds, the one thing they have decided is that they aren’t going to vote for the guy they are saddled with now. In the old days the Right Track/Wrong Track polling told a similar story but has become unreliable.  Evangelicals will answer that the country is on the wrong track even if their guy is the incumbent.  They are reacting to the general moral malaise, not the candidate.

            Independents are somewhat enigmatic.  They vote only half the time as partisans.  They consist of many differing types of attitudes.  At least 20% are “hidden partisans”—people who hide the fact that they are, say, Democrats, in the midst of their Republican friends to claim superiority in open-mindedness.  Or their father is a harsh man who wouldn’t stomach them registering with the other party. Other Indies have a weird stew of issues.  Some have a premier issue that neither party addresses, like cockfighting or feral hogs.  Some have R ideas about fiscal budget balancing with D ideas about social issues.  They are people without a party.  Some are anti-political and simply refuse to listen until the last minute.  Hence Independents don’t vote all the time.

            So this year?  Clearly there are a lot of Trump voters who won’t talk to a pollster and maybe not even their overbearing friends.  Trump needs to get his approvals up over 47%, however.  Turnout?  That’s a big unknown. 

            One final note that belies the usual media message that the polls are tightening as we approach election day.  It’s B.S.  By October 1 all but 3% of people have determined who they are going to vote for.  By one week away, it’s only 1% of people still truly undecided.  The reason the media says piously that polls are tightening is to to squeeze more ad money out of the candidates.  They make an enormous haul during election season and they are pumping everybody dry, to make a few more bucks, and pollster play along with the game by making it seem like polls are tighter.

Just do what the scientists say

 

Uncle Joe wants to “Just do what the scientists say.”  (concerning COVID) Are those the economic scientists who just want to open the economy?  Or the oncologists who worry that USA had only about half the cancer screenings this year? Or are we talking about psychiatrists who are concerned about the skyrocketing number of addictions, suicides, and marital crimes during the shutdowns?  Or the federal medical bureaucrats who only want to solve a pandemic with quarantines? 

The trouble with the thinking of most people is that they think “Science” is a monolithic body of knowledge that has been decided.  It’s not.  Sometimes a ‘principle’ is equally agreed upon, but more often there is a minority who see the data set differently. Sometimes everybody agrees but most feel there is scant proof, so support for a ‘theory’ is a mile wide but an inch deep.  Or everyone agrees but then an upstart theory upends the comfortable ideas.  Most grievously, the general population things that there is only one pat way to solve a problem or to see the results.  This is due to the fact that they struggled in science class and having simply solved the problem once, threw up hands over any further notions.  Let me illustrate. 

A friend of mine was given a take-home test and the lone question was “How can one, using a barometer, find the height of a tall building?” Well, my buddy knew what the instructor wanted as an answer, but being a scientist, he tried to think of a few alternatives. The professor read his first answer and decided to give him a second chance.

Prof: You say you could attach a string onto the barometer, go to the top on the building and let out the string until it just touches the ground. Pull it back up and measure the length of string.  That will be the height of the building. Well, that would work, but I was wanting an answer that was remote to the building. 

Friend:  Then tie the string to the building’s corner and walk down the street letting it out as you go.  Keep sighting the top of the building with a 45-degree square.  When the top aligns with the sighting, you have just made a 45 degree right triangle and the height of the building is equal to the amount of string you have let out at that point.

Prof: Well, of course, but I want to know how you would do this by something other than triangulation.

Friend: Sure.  Measure out a length of string and attach the barometer at the end like a pendulum.  Swing the pendulum and measure it’s period at the bottom of the building.  Then go to the top of the building and do it again.  The difference of the periods is proportional to 2 X pi X length of string divided by g, the gravitational acceleration.  And g decreases by the gravitational formula depending on the distance from the center of the earth. Difference in distance from earth’s center for each case is the height of the building.

Prof: Yes, but I wanted an easier way.

Friend: Easy peasy.  Just go the janitor’s room in the basement and say, “Janitor, here I have one fine barometer.  It can be yours if you can just tell me the height of this building.”

Prof, no exasperated: I want to know the way to do it using atmospheric pressure!

Friend:Yes, measure pressure at the bottom of the building using the barometer and at the top.  Use pressure proportionate relationship to radial distance from earth center to find two distances and the difference between them is the height of the building.

Prof: Finally!  Why didn’t you say that the first time?

Friend: You method is too damn pat.  Pays to think about different ways to solve a problem.  That’s called Good Analysis.

 

The Historic "Frozen" and its lessons for today's partisan politics

 There’s a story from British Royal history, an analogy to “Frozen”, that holds lessons for D’s and R’s today.

Henry VIII fought with the pope over annulment of his marriage to Katharine, and bought support from the nobles by seizing church lands (1/4 the kingdom) then distributing it. They had a daughter, Mary, who quite Catholic like her mother, was put on house arrest. Minions of the king tormented the teenage girl telling her that any minute Henry would have her executed.  Parliament declared her a bastard.  But Henry died leaving only a 10 year old boy, Edward, as heir and he died 6 years later. Some  Protestant nobles conspired to enthrone Lady Jane Grey, a distant cousin, the new queen since she was Protestant.  She didn’t even want to be queen and ruled only 10 days when Mary declared herself queen, gathered Catholic allies, and marched on London. Princess Mary, after 22 years of patience in her humiliation surely would make a gentle queen, it was thought by Catholic England which comprised 90% of the population in 1553.

But Mary, who wanted to be a unifier, was frail, poor health, looked old beyond her years and didn’t have the political skill to handle the partisanship.  (Like Biden?) She relied on advisors who wanted REVENGE. She started with the idea of tolerance, that the Catholics would persuade the Protestants back into the Papal church.  No luck.  Every noble family now owned church lands they have to give up.  Worse, she arranged herself to be married to the Spanish king Phillip.  The Protestant nobles knew that if the Spanish came in, they would be hunted down like pirates.  The English people as a whole were terrified that Spain would make Britain a colony like they were trying to do with Netherlands—England’s woolens trading partner.  She flubbed one initiative after another until the people began to taunt her in public.  She outlawed Protestantism.  Executed  hapless Lady Jane. And at that point, several Protestant dukes, preferring to die in battle rather than on the block revolted.  Mary’s troops won the short civil war, but then she began to retire to make babies with Phillip and leaving enforcement in the hands of her Catholic advisors.  Thus began the infamous 4 year holocaust.  Elizabeth, her half sister and 15 years younger was implicated with the conspirators, but Mary wavered.  Had her sister done anything wrong?  Mary failed to get pregnant and her health was declining amid ailments that could not be treated in those days.  She went to the Tower, met a sister who like her, was bastardized by Parliament and persecuted and innocent of charges.  They both had developed a deep personal faith in captivity, though Elizabeth didn’t show hers in public. Mary, now reconciled, let her out of prison.  In 1558,as she lay dying, she sent Elizabeth the crown jewels and her blessing to succeed. This, rather than the rightful heir, Mary Stuart of Scotland, also a Catholic. Mary, desperate to have someone’s love, finally found her soul mate in a half sister.

Because of the 4 years of terror, Mary inadvertently earned the nickname “Bloody Mary”.  But she had been out of her league in the highly partisan politics of the day.  Not so Elizabeth.  She was sharp-tongued but fluent in 5 languages, sensed politics like no other monarch before or since. In this red-haired 18 year old girl lived the heart of an emperor.  After a quick harsh put-down of rebellious Catholics, she turned tolerant.  She was conservative and didn’t tax the nobles which they loved.  Athletic like her father, she tirelessly rode her horse and led a retinue from shire to shire drawing enormous crowds at every stop. (Sound like Trump?)  The people had gotten a taste of Catholic excess and started turning Protestant.  By her death 45 years later, the country was 2/3 Protestant, 1/3 Catholic.  Using her language skills she flirted courtship with just about every eligible continental monarch, thus keeping larger countries at bay, thinking they might marry into her kingdom. And England stayed out of war.  But to the English, she constantly reminded them of their prosperity and that she had chosen to marry her country.  Her speeches were compelling, riveting, and it united the entire nation against the Spanish Armada. 

At this writing, we don’t know if Biden or Trump will win.  But if Biden and the Democrats take over, if Biden leaves government to the Leftist advisors, and the country gets a whiff of socialism, it will cause angst and rebellion politically that will haunt the Dems for years.  If Trump wins and gets more mellow in a second term while still doing inspiring stuff, he has a good chance of being like Elizabeth, even if his economy goes south.  We will just have to see how this plays out.  

Oct 1 1949

 

Oct. 1, 1949 was one of the most monumental days in history but nobody notices. Just one week before, President Truman announced “We have evidence that within recent weeks an atomic explosion occurred in the USSR.”So how did they get the secrets of atomic bomb?  Ask the Rosenburgs. Or maybe ask the 1527 communists who had infiltrated the federal government.  Our cryptologist women of the Venona Project would later discover 406 of them as Soviet operatives.  (McCarthy’s estimate of 51 was far too low.)  The opening of the Soviet Union’s KGB files provided the rest of the names.  On Oct. 14, 11 communist leaders were found by federal court to have conspired to overthrow of USA. Lesson: This is what happens when you aren’t guarded about communist and fascist fanatics.  Nations such as China can destroy us. So can clever  socialist rioters in cahoots with sympathetic government officials.

Oct. 1 began a nation-wide steel strike that didn’t end until Nov. 11.  No wages agreed to but the union managed to get a massive increase in pensions, thus setting the stage for future contract agreements by unions.  Hence, part of the financial disasters in many manufacturers we have seen recently played out. They were due to the fact that current management kicked the can down the road, letting their company become pension providers in such extremum that they could no longer remain solvent in some future date.  Lesson: the same can be true of a country which promises more than it can deliver. On Oct. 26, 1949, the Minimum Wage Act was voted into perpetual continuance raising from 40 cents per hour to 75.

Sept. 7- Oct. 1 most of the Pacific Islands were transferred from military control to the US Interior Dept. as Territories. The month before Congress passed a program to encourage Alaska development and future statehood. USA was never colonial-minded and already plans were being made for these tiny populations to choose whether to remain territories or commonwealths or some other arrangement. Lesson: a wise move. By January we would be involved in arguments about protection of Taiwan-Formosa. Truman didn’t want it; R’s did. A colleague who was born there and immigrated declared that the R’s made a helluva wise move.

Finally, a couple days later, Congress appropriated funds for reforestation and revegetation of national forests and range lands—some argue, the first true environmental legislation.

Poland and the Atlantic and the left

Right after Trump was elected he went to Poland and gave a speech that had them cheering in the streets.  He spoke not of America but of Western Civilization and the Judeo-Christain ethic that spawned it. Poles celebrated The West.   But back home the speech brought out enormous animosity on the left. Vox: “an alt-right manifesto”, Common Dreams: “An ominous current running beneath Trump’s words.” Peter Beinart in Atlantic: “racial and religious paranoia”. Beinhart saw Trump defending religious and racial exclusivity. Jack Goldsmith, also in Atlantic: Will Donald Trump Destroy the Presidency?”On and on it went from New Republic to New York Tiimes. What was going on? Jamelle Bouje explained in Slate: “There’s no such thing as a good Trump voter.” Atlantic’s Chris Hedges did too writing a diatribe against “Trump and the Christian Fascists”. Nehisi Coates in Atlantic explained in a long article how Trump was not the enemy, just the leader of white supremacists and Christian Nazis.  Think of this when you see the now leftist Atlantic publishing an article where evidently one or possibly 2 disgruntled former office holders claimed Trump had dissed veterans in France. Even John Bolton won’t support the story and neither would 10 others present in the meeting.  Trump has quietly taken his own time to meet the planes bringing home dead soldiers and to meet with their families over the last 4 years.  He reformed the VA to much acclaim. He went to a military High School which he is proud of.  He increased defense spending (including pay raises for soldiers) and began a new Space Force.  Doesn’t sound like someone who would slam deceased vets to me.  But as for Atlantic and the Dems, they sound like they don’t hate Trump nearly as much as they hate us. That, tragically, is the real conflict. 

Anti-social behavior in Riots and looting

 

So you can’t reform a rioter, I heard at the Oklahoma Republican Committee Meeting. They had some new legislators introduce themselves and speak briefly.  Rep. Randy Randlewood of District 15 in eastern OK (been Dem represented for almost 100 years!) got up and said that he had checked this and discovered he was the first psychologist ever elected to the OK legislature.  Everyone laughed and cheered.  But I caught him after the talk and visited for awhile.  Illuminating.  His firm serves 115 public schools and the OK Corrections Dept. He began to talk about what was happening with Antifa.  The fact that they were indiscriminate in the damage they do, and to the people they beat to near death, worries psychologists--this is Antisocial Behavior.  That’s the way people behave when they have had so many abuses/traumas in their lives or have dug themselves into such a hole of crime that they are essentially beyond therapy.  Their hate is so complexly ingrained, they will slit a throat in the morning and then continue on the rest of the day as if nothing had happened.  Like the BTK killer of Wichita?  Randy agreed said that short of a true spiritual awakening, these folks are virtually unreformable and must be watched by authorities constantly.  When these folks are young they often torture and kill animals. And the indiscrimate attacks?  Normal people, committed to a cause think about how some behavior appears to others.  When someone tears down monuments to both Lincoln and a confederate general, or burns both black and white businesses, indiscriminate behavior, it shows they’re just tearing things down and burning—just showing hatred of everybody and everything, i.e. antisocial.  And if some group like the Democrats think they are going to take advantage of this anger, they will soon learn that such individuals will not stop looting and rioting when the Democrats call a hault. Only force dissuades and curbs them.