Woke Professional Sports: Ruining Professional Sports Enjoyment

I’ve been a professional sports fan since before I even cared about politics. I have always thoroughly enjoy watching games on TV and going to them in real life. I’ve been numerous professional sport events ranging from Major League Baseball to the National Football League, in addition to both the National Basketball Association and National Hockey League. I never remember much politics being involved within the sports environment. The high political action was usually done at the beginning of the game with the national anthem. But nowadays, almost every league is quite literally cancelling games in the name of political action. I’ve written about Colin Kaepernick before when he first took the knee. I wrote about it again when Kaepernick settle his lawsuit with the NFL over allegations of purpose blocking him from getting a QB gig. (If we’re honest, his QB skills weren’t up to par when he last played.) It seems that Kaepernick’s attitude has spread throughout the leagues.

In my personal opinion, politics and sports do not mix. I think they each serve different purposes. Politics serves to fill the greed and self interest of politicians who don’t give an actual fuck about you. Meanwhile sports is supposed to be wholesome competition and entertainment. Whether or not you enjoy sports, I think everyone can agree that sometimes activities are best without weird and unnecessary interruptions like political movements. Imagine if you’re favorite activity got cancelled for a political movement. You would probably feel the same way. You might be thinking “ok dude, but aren’t athletes allowed to have opinions and thoughts off the field, plus what if I agree with them?”

Yes, athletes can believe whatever they want, they can hold opinions and thoughts without any of my criticism. However, keep those political opinions off the field or court of play. Let me be clear: I don’t care if any particular athlete is communist, democrat, republican, BLM… it doesn’t matter. Just don’t push your philosophy on me in the sport you play. I don’t watch sports to get politically assaulted by politics that I do not partake in nor want to hear propaganda for. Play ball and keep your politics off the field. Sports is purely entertainment so if you aren’t gonna play sports then go retire to do politics. I really DON’T care.

So I haven’t addressed what exactly I’m referring to when I say “woke sports”. Recently the NFL, NBA and MLB all have adopted the policy of allowing players to take a knee and wear political messages on jerseys. In the case of the NBA, there have been games cancelled. The next logical question about all this is why is it such a problem now? I think woke sports has come about for two main reasons and one lesser reason. The first reason is money. Professional sports is a trillion dollar industry. Nearly every league makes billions of dollars. The owners of the teams are extremely wealthy. Professional sport garners huge TV contracts and billions in advertising revenue. Having all this money involved means it comes from somewhere. In this case of the NBA, the money comes from China which is a huge market share. Its the reason why you see Lebron James bending over for Chinese political interests. The second reason is influence. Nowadays, professional athletes have more influence than they ever have. They have social media platforms with millions of followers. They are on TV which can be streamed anywhere and anytime. There is a third lesser reason which is the background of these athletes. Many of them grew up poor and struggling to just survive. This garners a lot of empathy from public. The last ingredient that brings all the money, influence and empathy together is the political climate today.

We know that politics has changed recently into being much more toxic. I believe this is due to people adopting politics into their personality. It also has a lot to do with the technology that brings us news and happenings instantly around the clock. I’m on twitter and every time something crazy like riots happen, I literally can’t look away. Every event is being politicize and instantly streamed or uploaded to social media. Its a real shame that access to events and information is used the complete wrong way. Instead of accessing useful information to help make informed opinions, people would rather just react and give uninformed opinions. I think that sports was insulated from the politicizing of events until Kaepernick starting taking that knee. He was the Trojan horse. Every league had (yes had, in the past tense) rules against political messaging and political protests on the field. Now every league is bending to mob mentality over fear of being cancelled or losing fans who pay the money.

To conclude this post, I think the only and very unfortunate way to help sports league get the message that some or possibly a lot of people don’t like their politics in sports, is by not watching or buying jerseys. This will be really hard for most of us, including myself. But I think if fans are unhappy. we should vote with our wallets and viewership. If the political messaging bullshit stops, I would gladly tune back in. Sports is for entertainment. Politics is toxic and stressful. In all honestly, the ruining of sports by woke makes me blame the government even more. There no reason why we need a president for people to protest. Self ownership and voluntarism could easily replace the current system if people actually realized its never going to change.

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Economic Truth

I have written quite extensively on this blog about economics. I have done numerous posts regarding minimum wage, tariffs, and various other metrics. In this post, I want to update some of the information. I think of it more as refresh because the basics of economics never change. I encounter economic ignorance on a daily basis. Mind you, I am a self taught economist. I took exactly one college course in economics. I don’t like to label my brand of economics such as Kenyesian or Austrian. I would say that I prefer common sense over make believe. I like real life numbers and real solutions to problems that are posed by an economy. I also believe that politicians are undermining what little education anyone has on economics. Its not a required course of study. There is a lot of lies out there put out by politicians that give people false hope. Its sad because if only they understood the consequences.

This will be a two part series, in the first part I will discuss: supply and demand, GDP, basic monetary policy and basic banking information. In the next part of the series, I will discuss: the Federal Reserve, complex monetary policies, borrowing and wages.

Supply and Demand

This is a simplified graph but it is the basis of all economics. If you can grasp that law of supply and demand, then you can understand any economic theory or statement. Supply is the quantity of whatever is being produced or serviced. Demand is the desire to purchase goods or services. Generally speaking, if the supply goes up then the demand will go down. (There is exceptions everything I’m saying) If the demand goes up then the supply will go down. On the left hand side of the graph it says price. The price goes up as demand increases. The price goes down usually when the supply increases. Of course things change when other factors are involved such as government, environment and morale in the marketplace.

Gross Domestic Product

This will be a short overview because I did a whole post on GDP in the past. (Its good, you should read it too) Gross Domestic Product is generally considered to be a measurement of an economy of any particular country. The GDP isn’t the most reliable measurement but it is often cited by politicians. It can be calculated in three different ways: Value Added production, Income (by type) Approach, and the most often used way Expenditures Approach. (You will have read my other post to find out about the others) The Expenditures Approach is calculated using 5 different numbers: (marked by letters)

C+I+G+(X-M) 

In other words: Consumer Spending plus Investment plus government spending plus (exports minus imports). The problem with GDP is that it only measures actual goods made. This means GDP doesn’t count service based industries. Now a days this is especially a problem because a higher percentage of the economy is service based in the US. Its better to measure the economy with other measures that take full account of all economic transactions.

Monetary Policy and Banks

One the least understood industries is the banking industry. Banks are known to be shady especially when it comes to residual trading of default and junk loans. This practice of selling and trading bad loans was part of the cause of the housing bubble and following market crash in 2008. I’ll talk more about the federal reserve and its role in the crash plus how it operates in the next post. The banking industry uses a lot of government regulations to its advantage. Part of the corruption comes from the revolving door effect where banking personnel and government employees swap between the two sectors. This means that former banking professionals make the rules.

There are few important monetary policies that everyone should understand. First and foremost that the dollar or fiat currency is backed by the credit of the government. In other words, its backed by nothing. It used to be back by gold until it the Glass Stegall was repealed. The problem is that if the government happens to default, then the money loses all its value. When the money is backed by gold, then it will retain its value because the value of gold is relatively steady. The printing of money is also affected, because if the government prints too much, it will be devalued. The gold standard provides some protection from overprinting because there is limited value. Limited value or scarcity of currency is a good thing because it keeps it more valuable.

Another policy used by central banks especially under a Keynesian economy like the US is the adjustment of interest rates. Interest rates as of right now are set by the federal reserve. The primary instrument of economic control in a Keynesian economic policy is the adjustment of interest rates on borrowing and saving specifically. Typically the way its adjusted, is when the economy is perceived to be slowing down they lower interest rates toward zero. This is suppose to encourage businesses and individuals to borrow money. When the economy is booming, the fed will raise interest rates. This is supposedly to help fight inflation. Personally I don’t find this kind of policy to be very effective or efficient. I think that the main problem with this economic control is that it doesn’t really matter to everyday people.

Let me explain why it doesn’t matter to everyday people, the interest rate doesn’t account for how the economy actually functions. An economy functions through voluntary transactions and exchanges. The interest rates only focus on loans. The vast majority of transactions have nothing to do with loans. I believe that economic policy should focus garnering those voluntary exchanges. I also think that because keynesian focuses on such macro economic policy rather than micro economic policy it lacks the ability to actually help. In the end, it comes down to supply and demand because that is how the economy operates. Interest rates being raised or lowered won’t always alter the supply or demand.

A good example comes today with the pandemic. It doesn’t matter how low the fed lowers the interest rate, there just isn’t demand to borrow money. It also doesn’t help that government has forcefully interfered with the economy. If you want to read more about that you click HERE on my last post. The second part of this series will come in a few days.

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Economics of Tyranny

While I try to think of another series to write, I have been thinking about an economics piece. In fact, I have a draft of another post explaining some basic economic concepts. But instead of finishing it, more interesting topics came up. In this post, I want to explore how the government uses economics to keep control over the population. There are some certain policies in particular that contribute to the tyrannical overreach of government. The policies include a lot of monetary policy which is primarily the tool of choice. Monetary policy is usually directed through the federal reserve. The other policies include things like minimum wage and industry regulations on banking. Some more unusual measures are ones that we have seen recently in this pandemic like price gouging measures. My point in the post is to dispel some of the myths of benefits of all these measures. Many politicians will claim policies such as these to be in the “best interest” of everyone. But what politicians usually don’t offer is the potential consequences of these policies.

Keynesian Economics

You may have heard of this term “Keynesian”. Keynesian just refers to the name of the economist who came up with this type of economics. The basic principle of Keynesian economics is to control the economy through monetary policy. The monetary policy involves controlling the interest rates of borrowing and savings. I find keynesian economic policy to be quite ineffective for the economy. However, it seems to be extremely effective for tyranny. The federal reserve is responsible for installing monetary policy. Although the federal reserve is not elected, the head chairperson is appointed by the President. One of the policies that keeps tyranny propped up is the printing of fiat currency or dollars. As you are probably know dollars are now backed by nothing after the removal of the Glass Steagall Act which keep the dollar pinned on the value of gold. The dollar is backed up by the credit of the government. Which means if the government goes bankrupt then the dollar loses all its value. (Yes, the government can default, doesn’t matter how money you print) This all means that the government can easily control the value of the dollar. All currency must be limited in supply in order to keep its value. The value of money equates to purchasing power. The over-printing of dollars often devalues the purchasing power. We will talk more about purchasing power when minimum wage is discussed.

Another policy that relates to the federal reserve is bank regulations. Not all regulations are bad, to be fair. But there are specific regulations especially regarding business operations. It has to do more with the borrowing interest rates because the government tries to control how much and when businesses can borrow. But in addition, the banking and industrial specific regulations encourage monopolies. There is a common misconception that government somehow prevents monopolies. But the reality is that government is actually a monopoly in and of itself. Big corporations often use government policies to their advantage. Regulations keep the price of business high, and keep potential new-coming competitors from being able to get in. This occurs in many industries such as energy, telecommunications and healthcare. The government uses the federal reserve coupled with regulations to keep businesses and individuals from being “too successful”.

Minimum Wage

I’ve written about minimum wage a bunch of different times. Its one of those commonly pushed economic policies that are perfect of keeping tyrannical control. Minimum wage is a genius policy because many people buy into it without realizing the dire consequences that occur after its enacted. If you remember earlier, I mentioned purchasing power would come up again in this topic. Purchasing power is one of the main consequences of minimum wage. Its quite ironic that poor who usually support minimum wage often end up being hurt by it the most. If you are poor, it doesn’t make sense to devalue your money. If anything you want money worth more. The way that minimum wage hurts purchasing power is by increasing the wages of the lowest wing of workers. The lowest paid workers have increased wages also causes the workers just above to either increase or become the new lowest wing. In turn, this decreases the purchasing power and value of that wage. Secondary effects include lay offs from smaller businesses, and increased prices. The argument against minimum wage is similar to the one against basic income which does the exact same thing with added bonus consequence of taking away motivation to work. This leads perfectly into the next segment about certain pandemic policies that keep government tyranny.

Bad Pandemic Policy

Some policies like social distancing are good policies but have little to do with economics. But many policies enacted during this time like stimulus checks, bailouts, and price gouging controls are overall bad especially when looking long term. Let’s start with the stimulus checks because I just finished the last segment off about basic income. Although the stimulus checks were only one time, its not a great policy. Like I said, the government just giving out free money causes prices to increase, people to loss jobs, currency to devalue, and lack of motivation to work. Not to mention, it adds to the National Debt which you can see on this page. Stimulus checks help government tyranny by keep citizens loyal. As if government needed to garner more loyalty via big corporations, we have bailouts. Bailouts keep corporations afloat that would otherwise go under. Its perceived by many that bailouts are necessary because millions would lose jobs. However, its a fallacy just like the sun goes up and down, so do businesses. When a business goes under it shouldn’t be bailed out. Failed business means there is another opportunity for someone else to be successful. Its a better policy to let business fail and ensure that good business practices are reinforced. Government allows bad business practices to flourish. This tyrannical tool is often seen in the banking and healthcare industries.

Last but not least we have price controls, particularly against price gouging. We might as well also include anti-hoarding policies here. These all seem to helpful because they make the distribution of goods “fair”. However, this approach is flawed. Rather than letting the market sort itself out by raising prices where demand is highest, instead, goods just run out completely because production of those goods ceases. What incentive do suppliers have to make goods that will be under sold? They are not in business for charity but to make profits. This group of policies has contributed to food shortages and masks shortages. I think these pandemic policies are examples of government tyranny that results in more harm than good.

Conclusion

I think its pretty clear that government tyranny comes in a lot of forms especially with regards to economics. Its a rule of thumb, that most government policies while being tyrannical are also ineffective and inefficient. Thats sort of the irony when talking about the government controlling every aspect of your life. It should make most people consider that most people would be better off making their own decisions. Its really not hard to take care of yourself and your family without government interference. Then add into that non-violent actions and you have the perfect setup for a voluntary society. You also have to remember that economics is merely the voluntary transaction of goods and services between businesses and individuals. I think that this is where keynesian economics goes wrong, they focus on borrowing interest rates and saving interest rates. I don’t believe that interest rates are the right thing to focus on for economic policy. The basis of economics is the voluntary exchange of goods with currency. So its in the best interest to foster that exchange.

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Series Finale: Do you even Principles, Bro?

If you haven’t read the rest of this series then visit Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4. Also check out this book:Civil Government by David Lipscomb.

Background

In Part 4, we discovered that the will of each type of government is different. We found that civil government will is fueled by the lust of rulers. In contrast, the divine government will is fueled by being the antithesis of civil government. The civil government merely a counter-weight to those who support it and reject the love of God. This post will uncover another sort of level, in order to further the theological argument against government. We will re-visit civil government as punishment in addition to the principles that governments operate. Lastly, I will discuss how violence is viewed in light of the divine government. This may or may not be the last post of the series for now. I feel like its kind of been exhausted at least for me. I may re-visit it in the future.

Punishment

The point of this series is to add yet another reason to reject civil government. As any principled anarchist or libertarian does, we often find economic and social reasons for the government to not exist. The less argued, less beaten path is religious justifications. I believe its a requirement to be religious in order to use theological arguments. However, acknowledging God’s existence is necessary. Thus far, with Lipscomb’s help, I’ve fleshed out that Civil government is used as a punishment for revolting against God and his divine government. In addition, civil government is under the Devil’s domain of rule. There might be some confusion about the nature of Divine government because obviously the word ‘government’ implies some sort of force. Lipscomb helps make it sound a bit more anarchist/libertarian friendly:

He ordained human government as a punishment for rejecting his
government. Wherever and so long as man rejects God’s rule, he must be ruled by men, or as here developed he must be ruled by the devil. But Christ came to destroy human government by calling man back from sin to the rule and service of God. Man must come voluntarily at the call of Christ. Then Jesus proposed to destroy human government only as he destroyed sin and rebellion against God

You will notice that God never mandates that you must belief in him or participate in religion. You have to voluntary choose to do so. I think the voluntary element of religious participation makes it a viable justification within the anarchist/libertarian ideology. As I have discussed in other posts recently, if you don’t accept the presupposed notions or absolute truths then your whole argument negates itself. In my nihilism series, I focused quite heavily on this. The rejection of absolute truths and the Transcendental Argument for God are the main inspiration for this particular series. Lipscomb’s book really helps supplement  and give more context for why you should choose to believe in God’s divine government rather than the worldly and sinful civil government. Civil government only benefits those who rule it. The divine government can benefit those who serve it.

Principles of Service

On the topic of serving a government, Lipscomb brings up an eye opening passage. This paragraph that I will quote is based on the book of Matthew in the New Testament of the bible. However, the important takeaway is that principles matter. Principles are often the elephant in the room when it comes to politics. The problem in modern politics is that nobody has principles. Even libertarians/ anarchist are guilty of this. Its infuriating because principles are the anchor of the ideological ship. If you don’t anchor, you will keep floating and drifting forever. In this paragraph, we shall see how principles matter when involved in serving in a government:

He then lays down the principles that must govern in his kingdom. They are epitomized in 5th, 6th, and 7th chapters of Matthew. These principles are diverse from and antagonistic to the principles that have obtained and must ever obtain in all human governments. No human government can possibly be maintained and conducted on these principles laid down for the government of Christ’s subjects in his kingdom. The spirit that prompts the practice of the principles is opposed to the spirit needful for the maintenance of human governments. The two spirits cannot dwell in the same heart, nor the same temple, or institution. A man cannot be
gentle, forgiving, doing good for evil, turning the other cheek when one is smitten, praying “for them that despite fully use and persecute” him, and at the same time execute wrath and vengeance on the evil-doer, as the human government is ordained to do, and as it must do to sustain its authority and maintain its existence.

When people claim to be a believer in God yet support civil government there is no way both can be true. Either you believe God and his divine government or you are rebelling against God by participating in civil government. Pick your side wisely. Just remember that civil government will result in a punishment by God. You have to be principled, you have to stick a set of morals. The Devil can easily mislead you into thinking that somehow civil government is the right thing to support. You have to think critically about your decisions. This rings true for all things in life. Granted, everyone struggles with life decisions, I’m no exception. But there is power in God’s divine government that civil government doesn’t possess.

Illegitimate Violence

If you are anarchist/libertarian then you are probably anti-war. In fact, you probably don’t believe in violence for any reason with the exception of self defense. (If not, then consider not calling yourself anarchist) This is another topic in Lipscomb’s book that is necessary to address. In order to simplify ideologies, we usually place them into dichotomies, like Right vs. Left, You vs. State, and relevant to this: Violence vs. Non-Violence. In this quote, it isn’t suggesting that believers use violence or even that violence is answer. The suggestion here rather, is that civil government will die just as it came into existence:

all institutions built by the sword or by violence, must perish by the sword or violence. All human governments are built by the sword, therefore must perish by the sword. Christ’s church must be so built as to stand forever, therefore it cannot be built by the sword. It would seem that the sword was used to teach, that even though in the power and possession of the children of God they are not permitted to use it.

You can see at the end of the quote, it says “children of God they are not permitted to use it [violence]”. Earlier, I referenced the power of divine government. I think this quote sort of backs it up. Its very powerful to use only peaceful resistance to bring about the necessary violence to end the source of it. Simply put: God rewards those who follow him. I think that many libertarians/anarchists think that civil government will eventually collapse under its own weight and stupidity. Just because our ideology and religious beliefs say we can’t use sword, doesn’t mean there are not other methods. For example, counter-economics can easily bring down government. Jury nullification can stop injustice. There are little things that we can all do to help resist the government without using violence. Don’t worry, god will eventually use the same sword that brought about civil government to end it. God will start the boogaloo. Its coming.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed this series. I think the main takeaway from this post, is that we have to maintain the course, keep our principles and use non-violent methods to bring about positive change in society but also resist government tyranny. The theological argument against Civil government really gives a solid foundation for us to rebuild society again. Its clear to us that society is broken, we aren’t meant to be so dependent on government for direction and subsistence in life. Its not normal. The belief in God is voluntary just like being anarchist or libertarian. Its worth repeating that good ideas don’t require force.

There will more blog posts coming soon. I had a bit of writers block recently, hoping to get back on track.

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Managing the Pandemic: Voluntary Society

Taking a little break from other series which you can see the last part here. I’ve been thinking about writing a post about this topic for awhile. I know that everyone can relate to this post because we’re all going through it at the moment. I believe some people are probably experiencing less dramatic situations than others. The current event, a pandemic of proportions not unseen in history, has created a lot of government power grabbing. You may or may not know someone who has this virus or who has succumb to it. The inevitably of people dying is not something that humans can remedy. So this post will not focus on finding the cure or anything like that.

First, I feel like I should thank any front line nurses, clinical laboratory scientists, doctors, truck drivers, grocery store clerks and many others who must put their lives at risk. From my own perspective, I do know people with the virus. I do live in NYC  and it does have the most infections. Personally I don’t have it, nor does anyone close to me. I have a distinct point of view because my wife and mother in law are both front-liners. I drive them to work in Brooklyn nearly everyday. Often times, they tell me its been a pretty constant 50 percent rate of positives. They are clinical laboratory scientists, their job is to quite literally run the Covid-19 test. They have to deal with live samples of it in the thousands each day. Words really don’t do their efforts justice because they work 6-7 days a week for usually 12 hours a day. Not an easy gig.

Bad Government Handling

Many people feel underwhelmed by the government’s response to this pandemic. Others feel overwhelmed by it. I think the handling has varied depending on the place. Some governments have handled it better than others. But overall, I’d say that generally government does a bad job at handling stuff like this. The reason is because they try to apply policies that may or may not be effective to everywhere. The problem with blanket solutions is that sometimes that blanket doesn’t cover every situation. Take for example, in New York State, there are two distinct areas of New York State: Upstate and Down State. Upstate New York is mostly rural with lower population density. Down State contains New York City, a city inhabited by 8.6 million people with the highest population density in the USA. (Its ranked 8th in the world for population density of city proper) The State government in the beginning just spit out general regulations that were probably fine for upstate but in the city it wasn’t going to be enough.

I don’t think its a stretch to say that population density is a big factor in how fast this virus spreads. So its clear that here in the city, we would have need to be stricter on “social distancing” due to the close proximity of literally everyone. Especially baffling is the failure of the city to identify that public transit like subways are a hot bed for spreading. It took nearly a week or two before they decided it was a good idea to actually sanitize the train cars. (FYI they usually don’t clean subway cars in NYC, ever) In addition to all this, we’ve seen government bailouts which creates other problems that is probably entirely different post. However, I will address the mass unemployment.

Personal Responsibility

The goal of this post is to see how a voluntary society would handle such a pandemic. Let’s say that government didn’t exist. I think there are immediate changes that right off the bat would make a difference. First, without government there wouldn’t be shortages of medical equipment or hand sanitizer because there would be no restrictions on the production and release of those products to market. Second, without government there would be no food shortages, because the price of food goods would adjust to market value. While price gouging might seem unfair, its actually a protection for the supplier of that good. When the government tries to keep prices down artificially, it hurts the suppliers. It also hurts consumers because rather than having that good, its just sold out completely. Its better to have it especially in the case of something like bread, milk or eggs for a higher price. Instead with price gouging protections, we see high demand items sold out. Its because the producer or supplier can’t afford to make more, it makes no sense to put more out if they can’t get full market price. Its a loss for them.

I think the less obvious yet more important difference in a voluntary society would be how people and businesses go about protecting themselves. The main tool they would use would be personal responsibility. Remember there is no government to tell anyone what they should do or shouldn’t do. So it would be up to each individual to decide what is best. I know a majority will immediate disagree with me here by arguing that “nobody listens to government rules, what makes you think people will just naturally be responsible?” Sure its true that people don’t listen to government rules. However, the mindset of voluntary society is vastly different to compared to our current society. In a voluntary society, people aren’t complacent, they would be used to relying on themselves rather than on government for everything. But in order to answer these questions, we need to dig deeper into what personal responsibility actually looks like.

The personally responsible person would ideally take precautions, first and foremost for himself or herself.  This person would use common sense methods to prevent themselves from contracting any virus. Things like washing your hands, limiting public interactions, and generally just keeping themselves healthy. Now think about it: Keeping yourself healthy has additional benefits to society because if you aren’t sick then you can’t possibly spread the sickness. The same goes for businesses. A business can figure out how to operate without shutting down completely. We live in a world with technology beyond imagination. Surely nobody can tell me that technology can’t fix the government policy of total shutdown. Of course, before any business can innovate a way forward, the government steps in and subjectively rules between essential and non essential. In a voluntary society, businesses would only shut down if they absolutely had to. Technology would be able to cover gaps. I think in 2020, we have no excuses.

Let me also address something that media seems to find quite interesting: “No Libertarians in a pandemic”. Okay, first of all, excuse me but if you lose your principles on any basis like “an emergency” then you weren’t a REAL libertarian in the first place. Second, actual Libertarians and Anarchists don’t call on the government to do literally anything except shut itself down. Third, if your a libertarian or anarchist, and you think its rebellious to unsafely break “social distancing rules” then you are a part of problem. Listen, I’m not saying you should follow government guidelines because the government said so. I’m saying you should take some PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. It doesn’t matter what anyone says. Keep yourself healthy and keep others healthy too!

Conclusion

Last thing, I know that even in a voluntary society there would massive layoffs. A lot of business requires face to face interactions. Whatever technology can’t remedy, unfortunately some people would lose work. I have imagined that without government there would be a solution to this problem. Since without government, there would be no welfare state. Instead I think unemployment insurance would exist. It could be a multiple company, multi-trillion dollar business too. An unemployment insurance company needs to have very deep pockets to start or a large customer base. Either way it would work quite similarly to welfare.

In normal times, you would sign up by paying an upfront fee probably anywhere from 50 to 150 dollars. This fee would go straight to the company. Then on an app from your phone you would be able to set the amount deducted automatically from your paycheck. It would have to be in percentages with the lowest being probably 10-20 percent. That money deducted would be built up over the months and years that you work at any given job. A percentage deduction also means that the more money you make, more money you’ll receive if you do lose your job. Keep in mind that taxes wouldn’t exist so just imagine you get to choose how much is taken out. I would also think that a cool feature could be a retirement option. Let’s say you work 40 years without ever having to use this unemployment insurance. You could opt it into a 401k or IRA for retirement since you obviously put in the money and should be able to take it out eventually.

The moral of this post is that personal responsibility can be used in both a voluntary society and in today’s world. If you protect yourself then you will protect those around you too. Stay safe out there.

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Discussion on Objective Morality

An online friend from social media sent me an article he wrote about objective morality. The suggestion was that I add my thoughts in some form. I would encourage you to read the article, its linked here.  Hat tip @Unknownlone

Why I am writing this?

I have actually a few reasons why I decided to write about this. The first one is that objective morality can be directly tied into Nihilism, so this serves as sort of a bonus post. If you want to read that series start here with Part 1 after this post. Anyway, because its closely related to Nihilism, I want to discuss that. Also I do happen to have some opinions. First and foremost, the original article is very well written and I find no fault with either the evidence or arguments. I want to comment on three main issues with objective morality.

1. Relationship to Nihilism
2. The Role of God in objective morality
3. Why NAP is misunderstood

For starters, let me say that the original author got it exactly right in that laws from government are not based in morality but rather on an arbitrary basis. I also think that Nietzsche and Stirner are the perfect starting point for understanding morality. This is where I will start my commentary on how Nietzsche defines morality in the context of Nihilism. Most of this, I’ve written about in part 3 of my series, but I’m going to frame it a bit differently here.

Relationship to Nihilism 

In order to understand morality better, especially in the context of Nihilism, we need start with what Nietzsche says about the creation of value. Nietzsche writes about the creation of value as being subjective because value is relative to desires. For example, if you value something highly, its likely more desirable. The same is true in reverse, if you don’t value it highly, its less desirable. Nietzsche’s point was talking about the morality offered by religion. Nietzsche also wrote that because the church damned earthly existence through the believe in hell and heaven, the church’s morality was corrupted. He believed that in order to affirm your earthly existence, you need to search via materialistic earthly means. For Nihilism, this means that you reject the morality offered by God, and replace it with whatever you find in your search. Unfortunately that search will lead to the abyss of nothing and the rejection of truth.

You might be wondering what this has to do with objective morality? Well, Nietzsche is essentially laying down the framework to understand how morality is formed in a person. In the original author’s article, he mentions this:

thought-experiment of what an omniscient, benevolent being would wish for humanity (regardless of whether or not you believe in any god(s) and what characteristics you believe it possesses)

He’s talking generally about God, about truth. Nihilism serves to reject this truth. This leads to my next issue. But first, I think the argument can be made that objective morality cannot exist with god or a higher being. In my understanding, if you reject God and truth then what presupposed notions like logic, language and math can you use actually use to support your view on morality? In other words, God must exist and if he exists then its possible to form a morality. Its because the truth is a universal absolute, the morality is likely to be perceived uniformly especially when starting at the same stasis. The question remains, what point is that?

Role of God in Objective Morality

To be clear, I’m not arguing here that you need to be religious to find morality. My argument, is rather that you need to accept the existence of God to logically conclude what is moral. The original author gives us a good definition of morality to work with:

“A set of interactive behaviors between humans that are categorized as right (acceptable) or wrong (unacceptable),

I think that overall, I like the definition but the problem is that humans by nature are subjective in their experiences. Each person experiences their life differently even in the same exact events. For example, millions upon millions of women get pregnant and give birth. I would assume that each women has a different experience of giving birth. There might be some similarities but no two women and no two pregnancies will likely be the exact same experience. I think that God plays an important role in helping us move past the subjective nature of experience.

To be more accurate, its not so much the religious belief of God but rather that all universal absolutes or truths come from God. I think we are all born with some moral capacity. But it is also learned in a lot of ways. Its a safe argument to say that all humans can agree on logical outcomes like for example: 2+2 = 4. Nobody is disputing the outcome of the math problem. The basis of my argument is that objective morality has an subjective element to it. Its a case by case, circumstantial, evidence based process of judgment. I think there are easy cases like murder and rape. Life is sacred, especially to those who are living. If you don’t care about others dying, you likely don’t want to die. There is a simple logical outcome that follows this natural human thought, killing others is wrong. However, there is counter-arguments like is killing in a war wrong? Killing in self defense?

Its impossible to fully back up these arguments because of the ambiguous nature of morality. I find that Nietzsche provides at least one useful tool, in the creation of value. Remember that value is relative to desires, so therefore lets say that I value life very highly and my desire is to live. I believe this can serve as a sound logic for objective morality against murder. I also don’t think we can apply this to every person. Which leads me to my next issue: NAP.

Why NAP is misunderstood

The original author did a good job of presenting the actual issues with NAP as described by Huemer. I don’t believe that NAP is a perfect in anyway. But I think its definitely a good start. I prefer to think of NAP as more of rules of engagement rather than a replacement for laws. There shouldn’t be any laws because often times laws are unjust, unevenly prosecuted, or just illogical. If we think of NAP as a rules of engagement, I think it becomes more second nature. For example, take manners. When you’re at a restaurant, do you often thank your waitress for bringing the food? When you ask for ketchup, do you say please? Ok, I know its not life or death but why do you say please and thank you? Its a societal rule of engagement. Its standard way of doing things.

Hear me out, when people talk about NAP, they often mistakenly think that somehow laws would just magically disappear and suddenly this new set of laws would appear called NAP. Apparently according to some,  NAP would just result in everyone shooting each other and blowing up their neighbors house for the most minor violation! The reality of NAP is not like the memes so often circulated on the internet. When you consider NAP as tool of objective morality, it fits really well. Its creates rules that are enforced by you. You are responsible following NAP. Each person in the world is responsible. Now, of course if someone does violate NAP then the actions taken should be relative to the infraction.

I think this is where NAP breaks down in the public view. People forget that if each person in a society decided that NAP was the rule of land, and they were going to try to follow it, then it would rarely be broken. But even if not everyone did follow it, you could still follow NAP and keep others in line. However, NAP requires no other outside force like government to interfere, especially regarding rights. Gun rights (and property rights similarly) are not just important because the constitution says so. Gun rights are how you defend your right to live. Guns prevent any breaking of the NAP. I think that the right to make private contracts between two individuals or more is just as important to property rights.

Conclusion 

My point is that objective morality, if used in a way that appropriates the right to live peacefully without the interference or violation of rights, can be found in NAP. The problem still remains about the subjective nature of how people experience perceived infractions. Like I said before, the acceptance in the existence of God can help remedy that because at least we all have a discussion on the same stasis of argument. If we all accept the universal absolutes, then we have a starting point. I think that the majority of people would agree that the right to live, peacefully is the ultimate goal of morality. Morality means knowing what is right (acceptable) and wrong (unacceptable) but also doing what is right. I think that its right to live your life how you want, without hurting somebody else.

This is the basis of anarchism and libertarianism, its a building block. There is no politics in right and wrong. If we are to achieve the ideal voluntary society, we have to understand that getting there requires us to take a deeper look at what it means to be moral. What level of social and economic consciousness is required by everyone in society to attain a peaceful existence? We need to unite and go above politics, step back from this paradigm centered on nihilist destruction and focus on building freedom through peace.

Thank you for reading!

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Anarchy: A Misleading Name

In my last blog post, I wrote a parody based on some statist bingo cards. I mistakenly posted it on minds and had it boosted. I say mistakenly because not long after I had about 7 people commenting about how dumb I am. You can read my last post here. Most of these people were statists. In the beginning of it,  I even said if your a statist then you will get triggered. I read the comments and tried responding to a few without getting myself too angry. I then realized something about this very situation. They knew from my minds profile that I was an anarchist. A lot of comments focused on that. It was clear to me that they didn’t understand Anarchy. It was clear also that they wouldn’t going accept any explanation I gave them.

This is microcosm to a bigger problem among those of us who believe that Anarchy is the best way forward. Often Anarchy gets a bad rap because it has long been associated with communist anti-government terrorists. Anarchy is quite literally means “Without Rulers”. Which implies no government is necessary for society to operate.  Of course, detractors will say anarchy means chaos! Yes, it does but they ignore its other meanings. This post will focus specifically on how to achieve anarchy but in terms of education.

Different Means to a Voluntary Society End

I have probably written about this particular in at least 7-10 posts. There are numerous different ways to achieve anarchy. Every anarchist has a different opinion on the matter. My theory is that its fine to support different ways as along as your end is actual anarchy. I can appreciate the efforts of some people to try to educate on different ways that can promote freedom and evade government tyranny. There are a few different venues to approach the creation of a voluntary society.

• Agorism
• Voluntaryist (similar to Agorism)
• Bitcoin and alternative currencies
• Steppingstone method (A slow voting out of bad politicians to anarchists with the intent of abolishing government from the inside out.)
• Collapsitarian (Waiting for society to collapse and restarting fresh)
• Crowdfund Government (An interesting concept)

There are probably even more that I’m missing. I’m not saying all of these will be successful. I’m also not saying they will all fail. The real truth is that we don’t know if any of these will actually work. However, its important to not insult or discourage your fellow anarchists from trying to educate and promote about any of these. I think infighting in the anarchism community makes it harder to market any sort of venue to the average non-anarchist.

Educating about Anarchy

One of the smaller and less appreciated methods of spreading the message of liberty and anarchy is education. We all know that public indoctrination centers or government schools don’t spur critical thinking or lend to a free thinker attitude. Unfortunately, its up to those us of who have the knowledge to share it with those who want to learn. It an important aspect of anarchy is that its voluntary in nature. Its a dichotomy:

Government represents force. 

Anarchy represents voluntary choice (freedom) 

In this dichotomy, the anarchist will always support the freedom to choose. Just so I’m clear, the elections held in the current atmosphere are not a free choice. Sorry but voting by its very nature, is limiting the choice of others. Remember democracy is the tyranny of the majority.

The point is that education to those who want it, is very critical to growing the movement. I try to do my part on this blog. Although I do vary my content, I try to write about useful things for the average person to become an anarchist. I believe there are three areas you need expertise in.

• Politics
• History
• Economics

Although all three are vast categories of information, you have to understand the 5 W’s. I was a history major in college. One of the useful things I took away was the 5 W’s. When you want to answer a question, you should consider answering the 5 W’s. Ironically enough one of the words doesn’t start with W. ( lol ) The 5 W’s are Who, What, When, Why and How (W is at the end). So you have to ask yourself the 5 W’ when considering whether government is actually legitimate and gives us the most liberty. The answers will be found in history, politics and economics.

In my personal experience, I found anarchy in college. There were two different things that shaped my political views. I was a republican at 18 years old. In college, I met a few friends who were libertarian. From there I was introduced and started doing some research on it. Later in college, I was writing a research paper on the Military Industrial Complex. I figured out that the government didn’t hold the Department of Defense accountable with the handing out and execution of military contracts to businesses. The Department of Defense burned through about 21 trillion dollars in unaccounted contracts. This happened from 1960 to about 1989. I also researched the impact it had on the economy. You might know that government spending is a net-negative. So when the government spends its money which is stolen from the tax slaves, and its basically given to these corporations who make huge profits off of stolen money. The money is then taxed again in corporations’ employees income tax. At the end of the day, government spending is actually subtracted from GDP because its not legitimate. (I digress)

Sorry for the tangent, but the point is that education is extremely important. I was introduce to it and then did my own research. All people need is a wake up call then they will start researching on their own.

Unofficial Poll on Anarchy

So I did something unusual for me. I took poll on my twitter account.

I asked my 500 something followers what they thought anarchy was. Some people commented correctly that it was without rulers. But I gave people two choices. Neither are wrong answers. I was curious to see what people would choose. As you can see it wasn’t exactly a big sample size at only 36 votes. However, I think it illustrates an important point about anarchy.

72.2 percent said that anarchy is not hurting others freely. I strongly associate this answer when asked the question also. The other 27.8 percent thought that anarchy is solutions to government. This answer is not wrong but it is different. I think that the solutions are probably different to each and every person.

But when it comes down to it, if you were summarize the most basic principle in anarchy that would give anyone the jist of the idea instantly. I think many anarchist would say Anarchy is a society where people rule themselves and don’t hurt others by their own choice. I think Anarchy is misleading because people don’t realize that laws are meant to stop us from hurting others with punishments. Unfortunately, laws are written by humans and therefore flawed. People are also flawed. However, two humans choose to not hurt each other its usually a pretty easy agreement to keep. You would never hurt family so why not apply to everyone else?

Anarchy is a life choice and its doesn’t require force just a desire to live peacefully.

Thank you for reading!

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My Thoughts on Gulag Archipelago (Part 2)

Gulag Archipelago (Part 2) is book in a three part series written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Aleksandr was a POW and prisoner in the gulag system. He writes about the gulags themselves. He also writes his own experiences and others experiences in the gulag. I’m not going to re-hash the book because you should read it for yourself. I would highly recommend it. This post will contain my thoughts, feelings and how this book is useful for today’s political world.

Gulags are Shockingly Horrible.

The average person has heard about gulags in history class or on internet in memes. You know that Joseph Stalin created them for his political enemies. However, the gulag grew and expanded to a wide range of people. Its estimated that 40 to 50 million people went through the gulags. Many of them died. The shocking part is how they died. In a gulag, the typical schedule of a prisoner was this: Wake up at 4am, roll call, breakfast, march out to work in logging, a mine, earth moving, march back to camp at around 8pm, dinner, and bed time. Keep in mind that in most camps, the ration for breakfast and dinner was less than 10oz of bread. This isn’t your normal bread either, its black and has additives of who knows what. It wasn’t even served individually, its brought out on platter you have to elbow your fellow prisoners for it. In addition to bread, gruel was also served. Its basically dishwater. You can imagine that doing hard labor with no days off AND have such little food would easily take a toll. Many people starved to death.

But it could get even worse. If you fail to meet your work norms or you misbehaved in some way that could land a prisoner in the penalty isolator. I would compare it to solitary confinement. Except its not like a jail cell. Its mostly outside in a lean-to like structure. Russian winters are extremely cold. Gulag Prisoners also known as zeks wore thread bare clothing. While in the penalty isolator, many zeks would only in their underwear. In summer this meant being attacked by mosquitoes. In the winter, it meant freezing to death.

Of course there was instances of zeks just being shot and killed for no reason at all. In a number of camps there were mass shootings. In the book, there is many different ways the zeks died. Its shocking. Just the amount of suffering is not imaginable. Its really hard to put into words.

Gulag Mentality

The most interesting part of the book was actually near the end after the explanation of how the camps were run and how life was in the camps. Solzhenitsyn digs into how the gulags changed people, for better or worse. Typical people who were sent to the gulag, were sent for anywhere from 5 years to 25 years. Often from ages as young as 6 years old up to 70 years old. It wasn’t even hard to get a second sentence if someone had denounced you or sometimes the Russian courts would just make up something. Solzhenitsyn served 8 years plus the rest of his life in exile. He was charged under Article 58, which was the anti-revolutionary law. Most of the zeks were charged under Article 58 so they became known as 58’s.

Solzhenitsyn had 8 years to think about being a zek in a gulag. He came up with traits that were common among all soviet people not just zeks. I’m going to pick two or three of the 10 traits that he gives. The first one is Constant Fear. By constant fear, Solzhenitsyn meant the constant anxiety of having purges, inspections, the completion of security questionnaires– routine or extraordinary ones, dismissal from work, deprivation of residence permit, expulsion or exile. (Page 633) These fears loomed in freedom not even inside the camp yet. The second trait is Universal Ignorance. The basic premise of this is that because of the likelihood of being denounced or caught doing some counterrevolutionary activity, the people of soviet union didn’t trust each other. (Page 635) They kept secrets. This attitude of course leads to other traits like squealing, mistrust and secrecy. The third and last trait is Slave psychology. This trait wasn’t explained very thoroughly, but its obvious from reading the book that the type of environment created by the existence of gulags helped create a slave psychology. The free people of the Soviet Union just started to accept their fate as it was.

Relationship to 2019 and beyond

I have thus far given you my reader, a taste of what Gulag Archipelago is all about! I believe that today we can The Gulag Archipelago as warning similar to 1984 by George Orwell. I see the similarities today in America and elsewhere. When government starts to use mass surveillance, militarizes the police, institutes high tax rates, subsidizes big industries, and generally infringes on the rights of individuals. America has been pushing slowly toward socialism. Despite the efforts of many politicians on different occasions to squash it, it seems that government officials figured what Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and Fidel Castro already knew. Remember socialism is not just a bad economic system. Its a way to control the masses. In Gulag Archipelago, I learned that starvation and threat of death really motivate people to do whatever it is they are told. Interestingly enough, the more people who depend on government for their food stamps, healthcare and other services will increasingly be more willing to listen to the government about anything.

Just remember that government has no actual interest in your personal well-being. You are just a worker that funds their activities. The police are not there to serve and protect. I strongly encourage you to read The Gulag Archipelago. It will change your mind about socialism and communism. If being tortured, starved, mistrusted, constant fear and slavery excite you then I suggest you go see a therapist. I understand why people support “free” stuff offered by politicians. It is the same tactic that a salesman will use to get you to buy more.

Hong Kong Protest

I want to write a short tidbit on the Hong Kong protest because this relates. If you didn’t hear the free people of Hong Kong are protesting against the Chinese Government. The free people have their own constitution. The Chinese government wants Hong Kong to be back under communist rule. The protesters do NOT want to go back under communism. For obvious reasons too, the mass surveillance and tyranny in China is oppressive. Similarly, in America we fight against the government when they become tyrannical. Every American should support the Hong Kong Protesters.

If you don’t want America to become like the Gulag Archipelago please research and resist all government actions infringing the rights of individuals.

Thank you for reading!

 

Dangerous Censorship: Youtube Deletes Nazi History

I recently came across a very disturbing news article on YouTube’s new policy towards Nazi history. Here is the link if you want to read it. The whole point of the article is that YouTube which is owned by Google, is deleting YouTube videos featuring any kind of content that is Nazi related. Even the educational videos which are used for children. I have a few problems with this news.

Google Receives Government Money

My first problem is that Google and thereby YouTube are government contractors. I assume that Google uses the money to develop cyber attacks and defenses. But I am suspicious that Google also transmits personal data on US citizens to the government. This is besides the point, because my real problem is that receiving government money technically should  make the company a government entity. All government funded programs or companies are subjected to the Bill of the Rights under the constitution.

There hasn’t been a court case on this yet, however. It would make sense if a company is  getting government money then that company should have to comply the same first amendment rights. The lame duck argument is always “its a private company so they can censor whatever they want”. The problem is that taxpayers money to being used to support these tech giants. This stolen money is literally being used to censor us from history! That is absurd. How can a company like Google or YouTube censor everything which uses PUBLIC domain information to make money. To me, there needs to be a supreme court case on this because the evidence supports my argument. If a private technology company or any company meets any or all of these qualifications then they are not private:

A. Receives Taxpayer money

B. Is a for profit company

C. Uses the internet or public domain

I believe that all the social media giants plus most tech giants fit this criteria. I understand that private companies can censor whatever because they are not connected to government which obviously when PUBLIC money is involved it makes a huge difference.

Modern Book Burning

What is happening with YouTube trying to censor out precieved “bad” or “evil” history has been going on for the past 30 years. Before YouTube was even a thought, there has been blatant and obvious censorship in history textbooks. Patriotism has blinded history textbook writers trying to make students think that America has never done anything wrong, ever. The writers of textbooks also tend to ignore minorities, downplay genocide and just completely makeup unreal stories about historical events. I hold a lot of contempt for history textbooks. Read primary and secondary sources instead.

YouTube is making a huge mistake by trying censor Nazi related history. I hope they realize the consequences for future generations. Listen, the Nazi’s were terrible, awful human beings. What Hitler did with the Jews in the holocaust should never be forgotten or mistaken as anything but a tragedy. On the other hand, different points of view should be allowed to be expressed. There are people who believe the holocaust never happened. YouTube is also censoring these individuals. On the surface, you might think “oh wow thats not cool, why question something like that?” But a deeper look into the revisionist history that holocaust deniers put out only motivate actual historians to dig up more evidence about the holocaust. A good debate always has two sides. It can be extremely beneficial to view an issue from the other side. In history, we call this critical lens.

Its obvious to me that YouTube doesn’t understand the complex consequence of censoring Nazi history. Just because you learn about something like Nazi’s doesn’t mean its going to convenience you to become one. That idea is unimaginably stupid. Imagine, you go on YouTube to learn about pilgrims sailing to America in the early 1620s. Does merely watching the pilgrims give smallpox blankets, rape and pillage Native American villages make you want to go to a reservation and commit genocide? Yeah me neither! My point here is that censoring educational videos or book burning is something that the actual Nazi’s did. So shouldn’t we be asking if YouTube is run by Nazis?

History Is Doomed to Repeat if kept ignorant of it.

This will be the main consequence. We can learn a lot about Hitler from reading his diary and the diaries from those around him. We can learn a lot about Nazism if we read newspaper articles from the time period. In order to prevent another Hitler, we need to learn what created him in the first place. The group that most reminds me of Nazi’s are the thin blue line folks. Their excuse is always “He was just following orders.”  Well guess what? So did most of the Nazis. Many of the concentration guards were literally just following orders. Of course, there were some who realized that it was all wrong. But acting out got you killed in most cases. YouTube will be responsible for the next Hitler, you heard it here first.

Read Books! 

Its unfortunate that Google is an evil corporation. I can’t say that I’m surprised that this is happening. My advice to those who want to learn and understand Nazism is to read books. Go to your local library and ask for books on Hitler, Nazism, World War 2 Germany. Books are not regulated by giant tech companies who think they run the world. Books contained real information that was researched by actual historians who obtain real evidence and primary sources. Also, in my opinion, there is nothing more satisfying than reading a physical book. Call me old school, I can’t read ebooks. I prefer the physical objects.

Taxation is Theft, Stay woke.

Thanks for reading.

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History Less Traveled: Cold War, Part 8 Final.

You can read the rest of the series if you click on all these links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7. 

This finale will be fantastic because it will be the ending of this extremely long series. I hope you enjoyed it and aren’t too sick of the Cold War. One my goals with this series is purely for education. One of things that your supposed to get out of this series is to learn how the past influences our decisions we make today. There are a lot of similarities in the past to the present. One of the main themes that I have discussed throughout the series has been Capitalism vs. Communism. I’ve also mentioned good vs. evil. However, depending on what side you take, communism isn’t necessarily always evil. Especially not with today’s friendly view of it. Another theme is hot vs. cold. This one refers to the cold silent of the arms race versus the actual wars in places like Korea, Vietnam and various US intervention in international conflicts. I believe that this series highlights the some of the darker shades of the cold war. I’m not intentionally trying to be negative though, rather I’m show that America has a flawed history. Schools teach patriotism which is fine, but whitewashing is too far.

Capitalism vs. Communism

One of the most intriguing story lines throughout the cold war period. It all starts after World War 2 with Joe McCarthy and his red scare trials. McCarthy really set the tone for the better part of 3 decades of anti-communist feelings. Despite the negative view of McCarthy years later, I think he was onto something. In hindsight, we know that communism just hasn’t ever worked. But more importantly in the cold war, the US thought communism the enemy. (You see good vs. evil here too) Then we have the Korea war which was America’s first war since World War 2. It was also the first hot war. In a reoccurring theme, the threat of communism provoked the US into a costly war. Then we had Vietnam which again thrust the US into a losing war. Kennedy’s assassination might have been catalyst for the escalation in Vietnam. This is purely speculation but we actually don’t know that JFK would have pushed hard in Vietnam like LBJ did.  It seems to me that JFK was more moderate than his successor LBJ. Luckily for the US, Nixon was able to turn the Cold War in the right direction. Nixon may have been one of the best foreign policy presidents. If not, in the whole of American history then definitely within the context of the cold war. His detente with the Soviet Union and his ending of the Vietnam war were both smart moves.

The struggles after Nixon with Ford and Carter in the late 1970s were evidence that the cold war was having a significant impact at home. In combination with the Great Society and massive war debt, America struggled. The late 70s also saw the sown seeds of the CIA overthrow in Iran in 1953 come to sprout. The Iran Hostage Crisis turned our attention to the middle east. It should be noted Eisenhower had focused on Iran and the Suez Canal. If you are interested in the Suez Canal crisis under Eisenhower I would suggest researching it. Anyway, the Iran hostage crisis showed the inadequacy of Carter but his personality remains one of the best. The end of the hostage crisis with the election of Reagan, yet another great personality. The pattern of American intervention with the threat of communism occurred more frequently in the 1980s but in different forms. Reagan used smaller force to attack multiple threats of communism. Reagan also revitalized the American economy. His tax cuts are still touted today by some conservatives. However, something that Reagan and today’s politicians still can’t figure out is that if you cut taxes, in order to actual save money you have to cut spending. Unfortunately, Reagan increased military spending which hurt the US in the long run.

The threat of communism really plays a large role in the hot wars of the cold war. I think its vital to understand that its a mentality. The next summary is going to focus on this mentality of us vs. them. I will also go into more depth about the good vs. evil them using the military industrial complex and NSC-68. Then I want to wrap up with the Soviet-Afghan war and the end of the Cold War.

USA vs. Them

One of the most important aspects of the cold war for understanding the why of the America’s arms race with the Soviet Union is a document called NSC-68. This document NSC-68 in combination with the military industrial complex can help you understand that government was truly driven to beat the Soviets. It was almost like their mission statement. We can say that NSC-68 was probably responsible for Korea and Vietnam. I would say the Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense for LBJ really brings to life what the NSC-68 document set out to do. The document wanted total annihilation of the Soviet Union. They wanted to destroy communism. However, the document itself is pretty harmless, just words after all. This is where the military industrial complex comes into play.

Eisenhower warned about the military industrial complex in his farewell speech. He warned that it was a dangerous relationship between military and industrial titans. He was so right. The military industrial complex or MIC gave the NSC-68 the teeth that it would need. The US government had been designating private industries to make war material since the Civil War. During the cold war, this all changed in size and scope. The department of defense opened up its wallet. They started offering big contracts without much strings attached. No accountability. The projects they were funding were now huge research and development projects for top secret government weapons. They weren’t just making rifles or jeeps. They were making nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballastic missiles. Unfortunately, the US didn’t even cutting edge technology because the Soviets were actually ahead in terms of technological innovation. The difference was actually just in money and production means. Fortunately, capitalism actually proved to be good. But please note that, government spending doesn’t count toward GDP. Too much government spending can actually hurt the economy. The MIC created a false economy and over-supply of government fed contractors whose only profit was through government contracts. It was stimulating thousands of jobs although the cost was high to the America taxpayer. Today this problem lingers over us like a big dark cloud. Our national debt is 22 trillion dollars. The same amount that has been estimated to be spent on the Cold War. (Its about 1 trillion dollars over that actual estimate now)

The good vs. evil really is dependent on what side you view. In some ways capitalism did good things for the US. In other ways, it became an unchecked bank account for the government to waste taxpayer money. In the Soviet Union, they saw communism surging in many countries including China, Cuba, Vietnam, Korea and others. But they also to deal with the US pushing back. The Soviets might have had superior technology and less weapons but they still had their problems. The Soviet’s struggled with national debt and lack of production since all their industries are state run. The Soviet’s even fought their own hot war, not against capitalism but against Muslim rebels in Afghanistan.  The Soviet-Afghan war foreshadow the current war on terror with the US taking the side of the Mujaheddin. The US funneled nearly 3 billion dollars into the war in operation cyclone. The US backing plus the guerrilla tactics of the rebels lead to a Soviet loss after 9 years of fighting. It made Afghanistan very much worse off than before. But more importantly for this series, it weaken the Soviet Union into submission.

The last straw was when Reagan introduced the Strategic Defense Initiative. Otherwise known as Star Wars it was supposed to be a very expensive missile defense system. This is why Reagan increased military spending. The soviets also had to increase their spending to keep up. This eventually lead to the Soviet’s signing an INF treaty or an anti-nuclear proliferation treaty. Reagan told Gorbachev to tear down the wall and that was the end of the Cold War. In the end, it seems appropriate that the Soviet’s wilted under their own economic system. The state run industries just couldn’t keep up with demand or supply. Free market proved to be better. Just imagine going from JFK bring the US close to the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis and Bay of Pigs to detente then to Star Wars then to tearing down the Berlin wall.

After all of this, I was born in 1990. Crazy.

Next Series:

So what’s next? I’m thinking about doing a post-cold war series or possibly civil war, let me know if you have a preference. Also I will start making podcast versions of all these posts. So stay tuned for that. Thank you so much for reading. I hope you had fun reading because I have fun writing these.

Thanks again.

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History Less Traveled: Cold War, Part 6

In case you missed it, I would highly recommend reading all the parts from Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5. 

In Part 5, we left off with the amount of debt accrued via the Cold War and now modern day spending. We can trace our 22 trillion dollar debt to this history. In Part 6, I want to move along a bit quicker, in this introduction, I’m going say one more thing about Nixon then I’ll be moving along. All we know that Nixon had his Watergate scandal and liberals love to compare him to Trump. This is despite all evidence that Trump hasn’t done anything wrong. However, I think Nixon has a wide edge on Trump in that his political savvy was unmatched. He really was crafty in his foreign policy, despite the incompetence of the next two presidents, he set America on the right path. Nixon marks a turning point in the cold war. In this part, I definitely want to cover a little bit of Ford’s presidency, both of oil embargoes and of course the Iran hostage situation.

Oil Embargoes: 

This isn’t necessarily Cold War material but I think its worth mentioning that America had two oil embargo crisises. The first one occurred in 1973 because Israel had invaded some surrounding countries making OPEC very unhappy. OPEC stands for Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. So OPEC decided to cut oil exporting by 5 percent until Israel withdraw from its “Yom Kipper War”. Since the US had been importing the majority of their oil from OPEC, it skyrocketed prices. The important thing to note is that America has now increase its domestic production of oil and relies less on OPEC. (Wow, we learned sort of?) The second incident that occurred in 1979 was because of Iran’s revolution. Now you may remember in part 1 or 2 I mention that Eisenhower had a hand in overthrowing the Iranian government in the 1950s. The revolution overthrew that government that Eisenhower had installed. This is where Iran really starts becoming a hot spot in the cold war. Although no war is ever fought there.

Ford’s Pardon

Gerald Ford came into office after Nixon resigned. Ford really struggled with the economy because of inflation. He really didn’t make noise on the foreign policy front. One of the most notable and controversial things he did was pardon Nixon. It was controversial because it obvious didn’t look great since Nixon had committed perjury among other crimes. In the end, I think Ford who only served 3 years a president just wan’t that impactful. I feel the same way about Jimmy Carter who was just as ineffective. As we will see, Carter really botched the Iran hostage crisis.

Iran Hostage Crisis

This crisis really draws the attention away from Vietnam and other various capitalist vs. communist hot spots. The crisis itself was a demonstration against the US. As I just aforementioned, Eisenhower installed a new government in Iran during the 1950s. The Iranian revolution looked overthrow the US backed Shah of Iran. We can see in this Iran crisis a little bit of current policy in middle east. After the Shah was thrown out of Iran, the Iranian people decided to make a statement. A group of Iranian college students took over the American embassy. The hostage crisis lasted for 444 days. The longest in recorded history. For over a year, President Jimmy Carter couldn’t get them out.

The crisis was not able to fixed with diplomatic relations because Iran really wanted no part of the US. They were angry because the US had forced them to have the Shah which they wanted to recall from the US to put on trial. Fortunately for Carter, he did try a rescue attempt but it did not go well. There was a second one planned too. However, with first attempt resulting in 8 deaths of US military personnel, it wasn’t popular. The only really great thing that came out of the crisis was a renewed sense of patriotism in the US. Remember, we’re only a few years past the Vietnam conflict in which the US limped out of.  For the crisis to end, it took another President to start negotiations.

Reign of Reagan 

When Ronald Reagan defeated Carter in the 1980 election, the negotiations seem to do better than ever. The Iranians held out until Carter’s last day in office to punish him. The basic deal for the release was the unfreezing of assets and the making a tribunal to help with claims. The assets frozen as punishment for Iran were worth about 7.9 billion dollars. So on January 20th, 1981, the hostages were released and the crisis was over.

As for Carter, he did pretty bad job with the crisis. Let me clarify that he isn’t a bad person at all. He is one of the most charitable presidents. Obviously, for Carter it wasn’t all his fault. In a way, he could blame Eisenhower for that 1953 coup d’tat that put the Shah of Iran in the first place. This event just goes to show that American meddling in other nations doesn’t really work. I think that has been made more clear by Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria.

In terms of the cold war, the Iran hostage crisis marked yet another turning point that forced the US to start paying more attention to the middle east. It really set the table for the later wars in both the Gulf War and Iraq and Afghanistan. In the next part, I want to discuss Ronald Reagan who has a lot of interesting thing happening around his presidency. I also want to discuss the Soviet-Afghanistan war. I just think it will be interesting to see how the Soviets handle Afghanistan. A part of series is to relate to modern times.

I believe there will be at least 2-3 more parts then I’m considering doing a post-cold war series. Let me know if you have any ideas. Don’t forget to tune back in for Part 7!

I hope you enjoyed and thank you for reading!

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Colin Kaepernick Settles Out Of Court

I wrote about Colin Kaepernick quite awhile ago when he first started to kneel during NFL games. You may or may not be aware that I’m a Jets fan and generally love to watch football. I rarely care about what players do in their personal time. Many of my favorite players are amazing human beings. Unfortunately, when people started to overreact to Kaepernick kneeling that’s when I decided to write. This will be my last post about this, I hope.

Confidentially Agreement

A few days ago, the news broke that the NFL and Colin Kaepernick settled their grievance case outside of court. Rumor has it that Colin made out with around 80 million dollars. However, aside from drawing criticism from being a sellout, there is another interesting and confirmed detail about the whole thing. A confidentially agreement was put in place as result of the settlement. This means that the NFL and Kaepernick can’t say anything or release any public information on the trial.

NFL Wins The Case?

Upon hearing about the settlement and confidentially agreement, I immediately thought that NFL had won this case. The NFL makes BILLIONS of dollars, about 8.1 billion according to google.  So imagine Kaepernick only received a mere 1 percent of their yearly revenue. Even better for the NFL, that got a confidentially agreement so Kaepernick or Eric Reid (other player involved) can’t make the NFL look bad. This is a pretty solid win for the NFL because although it is a first amendment right to kneel, the NFL is owned privately. What this result leads me to ask is what exactly were the motives of Kaepernick and Reid?

Money Motives?

If I were to replace myself as either Kaepernick or Reid, I don’t know that I would want to settle out of court even with 80 million on the table. Unless money was my objective. I was tricked, as were we all, into thinking that they wanted to make a political statement against the NFL. They wanted to show that the owners are racist. They wanted to prove that there is some kind of inside conspiracy against them because of their political activism. I’m not gonna say they were wrong about anything because the jury is still debating and won’t come to a decision since they settled out of court. However, you have to wonder why settle unless you knew could crush the NFL? So just maybe, they had no case or a poor case and decided to settle to save embarrassment. I’m just speculating here, but it seems to me that this grievance case either had no weight or they just wanted a payday. Now you could argue NFL put a confidentially agreement to protect whatever evidence they had. I’m sure there was some but it doesn’t matter because that will never be public.

Lesson Of Day

Let’s face it, taking down an 8 billion dollar corporation isn’t gonna be easy. Also if you want to prove a point you don’t settle out of court for money. Its really unfortunate because I thought Kaepernick actually had some balls and real motivation. I think that the NFL has a lot of problems especially in handling big name public relations scandals. They tend to just throw money at it until it goes away. Then they bury or destroy the evidence. I think the NFL handling of the concussion suit that it was hit with a few years ago wasn’t great. For years they denied that concussions were even a dangerous thing. In the lawsuit they settled on like a billion dollars for the healthcare of former players. Of course, in recent they have changed the game to make it safe. But to many purists, its tainting the competitive nature and changing how its play. Its complicated because players get paid a lot and the NFL has no health plan for them. In addition, players choose on free will to play football. So every person has a different opinion on how much responsibility the NFL actually owns for its player safety.

Obviously its an ongoing debate. There are some new football leagues like the Alliance of American Football and XFL which are installing rules that fit player safety standards from the start. Things such as no kickoffs and less full speed contact. Another positive for the AAF is that they actually have a health plan for the players. I think the NFL is gonna have make similar changes especially with other football leagues doing it. Granted, these leagues aren’t directly competing because they run in the spring.

Thanks for reading! If you would like to see more sports-related issues then please let me know!

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P.S Tomorrow will be Part 5 of History Less Traveled: Cold War. Check out Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4   (Click the Number!)

History Less Traveled: Cold War, Part 3

If you happen to be new and you want to read previous parts to this series, I would highly recommend clicking PART 1 and PART 2. Enjoy!

Welcome to the third leg of our journey through the cold war. We left off on part 2 with a bit of cliffhanger but I left you with a huge hint. Cuba. JFK is known for many different things as I explained previously. He’s known for his good looks, smarts, speech making, dating Madonna, being assassinated, and brinkmanship. Its alright to laugh here because he was actually a pretty cool guy. However, brinkmanship? What in the world is that you may be asking yourself?  Brinkmanship is a real word that is defined per google as:

the art or practice of pursuing a dangerous policy to the limits of safety before stopping, especially in politics.

JFK played a dangerous game especially when it came to facing off against the Soviet Union. You may remember I mention his rallying speech about doing whatever you can for the country. I would describe his foreign policy as brash and bold. All of this to say that JFK got information regarding Cuba and the Soviet plans to put nuclear launch silos in Cuba. The information was part accurate and part propaganda of the Soviets. The Soviets were in fact supplying Cuba with material and helping them build silos. However, this information didn’t come until after the Bay of Pigs.

JFK’s Bay of Missiles 

What if I told you that JFK decided to use a plan made by former President Eisenhower to overthrow Fidel Castro? This plan was based purely on the fact that Castro was an hardcore communist. Fidel Castro is now dead as of 2016. In the plan, code named Bay of Pigs, the US government sent in a team of secret operatives to overthrow the communist government of Fidel Castro. In the bigger scheme this makes complete sense in terms of how the US typically operates and for the security of the US. Eisenhower was no noob at government overthrows. Eisenhower overthrew on the order 2-3 governments, off the top of my head I can remember he did Iran and Egypt. If you hadn’t guessed it was all about the supply of US oil from the middle east. Sound familiar? We’ll come back to this topic later on in the series.

Long story short, JFK’s Bay of Pigs failed miserably. The operatives were met with strong resistance. Fidel stayed in power and became even closer with the Soviets. A little over a year later, the US government spy planes spotted aforementioned construction of missile silos in Cuba by the Soviet Union. This lead to probably what I’ve heard it call the scariest time in American history. In part 1, I mentioned that my parents and grandparents had lived through this time period. Curiously I’ve ask older individuals who lived through to describe what it was like. Imagine having bomb drills at school where you hide under your desk. I even know of school in upstate New York that still has a bona-fide bomb shelter. After the information got out to the American public, obviously fear took over.

The Cuban missile crisis as its become to be known, ended because cooler heads prevailed. In the end, Kennedy and Soviet Premier Khrushchev struck a deal. The basic terms were the US remove missile sites in Turkey and the Soviet Union would stop the construction of the sites in Cuba. The US had a crazy two years in 1961-1962. These two events reflect the dichotomies that I harken back to again and again. The US and the Soviet were in a race to both build weapons and prove each economic system was superior. Unfortunately in hindsight, the Soviets never had a chance. The US was chugging along pumping out more nuclear weapons and better economic output than the Soviets could ever have done. Remember the Soviets used a state run economy where the government set the production goals and owned all the businesses.

The Great Legislator 

JFK’s tumultuous tenure as President ended just as chaotic as it had began. JFK was assassinated in Dallas in an open roof limo. (Whoever thought that was a good idea forgot sniper rifles existed. Also after that incident, the President has never rode in an open roof car again) Now if your into conspiracy you can google the various theories about who did it and why and how. Before you do that let me move forward to the man that took over for JFK. His name is Lyndon B. Johnson from Texas. (LBJ for short) LBJ was a career politician who made his name famous in the senate. He worked his way up to the senate majority leader and eventually was JFK’s vice president. When LBJ was handed the reins somewhat abruptly, he used all the congressional experience to his advantage. There’s only really two significant things to discuss with LBJ: The Great Society and the Vietnam War.

The Great Society (Introduction, will be continued in Part 4)

The Great Society is known as LBJ’s greatest accomplishment, his claim to fame. The Great Society is the name of a bundle (quite literally) of legislation that was passed under LBJ’s six years in office. I can’t say that any President will be this productive ever again. However, the jury is out and unfortunately productivity isn’t as important as effectiveness. LBJ’s motives were pure. The problem is that his policy was flawed in similar ways to today’s democratic candidates. Before I start criticizing the man, I want give you a fairly in depth look at some of the important laws that he made. Some of them are actually good. Many of them are quite disappointing.

The Great Society touched almost every facet of American life. What is amazing is how LBJ was able to pull all this together with just SIX years in office. By the way, his first set of  bills passed in 1964. This was only  a year after he took office just two hours after JFK died. The Great Society encompasses things such as: Healthcare, Housing, Education, Poverty, Voting Rights and Civil Rights.  In addition to passing all this legislation, he managed to escalate the Vietnam conflict.

Its safe to say LBJ has an impressive record as President. But his mark left on the American nation is still relevant. A lot of today’s social programs were born in the Great Society. You may not be surprised to know that LBJ’s idol was Franklin D. Roosevelt. The New Deal heavily influenced his Great Society. The main difference being that America wasn’t suffering a major economic meltdown in the early to mid 1960s like it was in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Let’s wrap it up there. Next time on Part 4, The Great Society and the escalation of the Vietnam War. You can also expect to see the start of analysis of these events on current times. The Cold War is really going to heat up! Thanks for reading!

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Political Rhetoric is Stupid

Just a warning: This post might be all-over the place.  The reason is because I have nothing really specific to work with but I do know that there is something to political rhetoric being stupid.

I was thinking about my last post and the absolute trash of legislation that AOC and Democrats have come out with. To be honest, I haven’t been impressed by anyone in the government with the exception of the three libertarian congressmen (Rand Paul, Thomas Massie, Justin Amash) There has been a lot of talk in politics. Politics is after all, a debate about the greater good. But today, I think that talk is cheap and action is hard to find. For my taste, I like when politicians, in general, talk the talk and walk the walk. Not to be cliche, but shit-talking only gets so far.

I’m a libertarian-anarchist-whatever you call it. I believe that the best government is actually no government. I often find myself observing the current landscape of politics as a wasteland. You won’t find me supporting any party but I will support ideas that on the right track. Trust me, there hasn’t been many. The most interesting about political rhetoric is that usually just ends up making each side more extreme and entrenched in their own beliefs. On a weird note, it seems like whenever someone questions the party line or beliefs, that party doesn’t look to change direction. They decide to double down on their beliefs pushing them to the furthest extremes.

Let’s use two examples in both the Republican and Democratic parties. President Trump is a great example of the Republicans doubling down on immigration. I’m not gonna lie, I used read to a lot of Glen Beck in my early college years. In 2009, I would have voted for Trump. If you know Glen Beck, he was obsessed with building a wall on the Mexican Border. However, back in 2009, Glen Beck was seen as fringe of the Republican party. George Bush never really considered a wall. Nearly every president in recent years has sent troops to the border. The issue was boiling just below the surface. It seems like after Obama came with his amnesty plan that the Republican party just decided we need to take a harder line. If you take Trump’s presidency out of the vacuum that we often mistakenly judge politics in, then you can see why Trump would run based on “build on the wall”. Just look at Brexit, and the sentiment throughout Europe with mass immigration of refugees from Syria This was going on because of Obama and Russia intervention in Syria. The world in 2016 really started to scrutinize immigration policies more thoroughly as a whole. The point is that Trump basically is a perfect fit for this new thinking about immigration in Europe. Trump’s election is the result of dirty rhetoric by Democrats. How stupid is it that Trump was elected by his haters?

I literally can’t make this stuff up. Now lets do some Democrat rhetoric hard-line. I believe this one started with Bernie Sanders running against Hillary Clinton. Bernie is famous for many things like taking down the 1 percent and getting paid to lose an election then buying a third house. However, the thing about Bernie is that he challenged Hillary Clinton because she was fairly moderate until Bernie brought the hard-line socialist policies. In turn, Hillary Clinton went from running the usual Democrat platform to including universal everything, paid for by the government. This was just start of socialism in the Democratic party. Fast Forward to the most recent midterm elections and you have the election of AOC or Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. A millennial socialist. AOC has literally revolutionized the economy of stupid. Every idea that she puts out has Bernie Sanders written all over it. The problem is that whenever she talks, it just stupid bullshit that comes out. At least Sanders made coherent statements half the time.

If you clicked my linked post, then you know the Green New Deal just dropped into Congress like an economy wrecking bomb that it is. This is the summation of all the hard-line socialist policies pushed by Bernie and Hillary. Its really sad too. If you were to go back and read about John F. Kennedy, some young people would probably call him alt-right. JFK was probably the last decent minded democratic president. Before he was shot, Martin Luther King Jr was talking to him about a civil rights bill. That civil rights bill eventually came to pass in 1965 under LBJ. In history I can find democrats who actually did real helpful things for our society. Today, I can’t find a democrat who doesn’t understand that socialism isn’t the answer. Unfortunately, the Green New Deal is the climax of all the President Obama policies and 2016 Presidential campaign.

I said earlier that Trump was elected by his haters. I want to clarify that haters didn’t actually elect him. Unfortunately, Democrats chose to use hatred against Trump himself. Its weird because they hate anything Trump related. Trump proposed to pull out of the wars. Democrats blocked it because they hate Trump. Just a few years ago they were for it. I swear Trump could pass the Green New Deal and Democrats wouldn’t support it because Trump does support it. Its insane. See why political rhetoric is stupid? Its like being in a boxing match where you hit your opponent then hit yourself twice as hard. Chances are, your gonna knock out yourself first.

One last note, if the Democrats keep up hating Trump as person, and don’t attack his actual policies, they are gonna have 4 more years of him. This has been my pet peeve for years. People will focus on the personality of the President rather than his policies. Why does matter what a private citizen does in his own business? His policies matter. Its even dumber to think that we need a popular vote election. We already have it. Its already a popularity contest.

As a Libertarian/Anarchist, my thoughts on all this are pretty simple. Get rid of this shitshow and let people live their lives without interference. I truly don’t feel like society has benefited from government especially now.

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The Green New Deal: Make America Like Venezuela Forever– Brought to you by AOC

What I am about to write is no joke: Here are two links and you can see for yourself.

AOC’s Personal website

NPR article and Actual Proposal

I also encourage you to check out my other blog post about AOC because it introduces her logic and thinking.

So If you don’t know anything about New Deals much less a Green New Deal here is the low-down. The New Deal was originally Franklin D Roosevelt’s economic stimulus to get the US out of the Great Depression. It should be noted that it didn’t really work because just a few years later, we become involved in World War 2. After that we were a superpower. Anyway that the first New Deal, it used government funded projects to put people to work. The second “New Deal” was a bundle of legislation by President Lyndon B. Johnson or LBJ. Its often more well known as the Great Society. The Great Society in typical “New Deal” fashion was a bunch legislation that was supposed to lift people from poverty and oppression. The Great Society has some good parts. The Civil Rights Act of 1965 was co-written by none other than Martin Luther King Jr. who had a close with LBJ. The Civil Rights act has been a cornerstone of equal rights. All the other laws have pretty much either failed or are just really not doing so great. For example, the Education and Secondary Education Act which gave us federal funding for college has allowed students to rack up trillions in debt. Another example, the Housing act which was supposed to provide housing to the poor and people in inner cities led to riots and it hasn’t helped anyone. By history, the definition of “New Deal” is basically when the government tries to intervene in the economy to help the poor.

Let’s just forget for a moment that New Deals are mired in failure. So now AOC or Alexandria Ocasio Cortez has put out yet another “New Deal” but this time with Green in front of it. If you are wondering, Al Gore is very happy about this. (Google Al Gore if you don’t get it) The Green New Deal is basically an economic stimulus that also addresses climate change. Sounds pretty normal right?

Let me address the Green part of the deal. So I’m ok with cutting carbon emissions, I think we all need to do our part. I also don’t think we need to cut ridiculous things. You have to remember that the US isn’t the world leader in carbon emissions, in fact its not even close.  China happens produce way more emissions than we do. So even if the United States reaches the goal of the New Deal to be carbon neutral by 2050, I think that how much China cuts emissions is more important. I also believe that reducing threats to climate change can’t be legislated. I think its up to each individual person and business to do their part. No matter, the laws people will still find a way around it.

The absolute worst thing about this Green New Deal is the economic stimulus and the means to pay for it. If you read through the proposal its basically socialist gibberish. AOC wants to tax the rich like at 70-90 percent. She wants to pay for everything with taxes. She wants to provide money to those unable or unwilling to work. Just let that sink in. She is even willing to print MONEY for this. Here is how NPR (Left leaning, nice about it) summarizes the proposal:

• “upgrading all existing buildings” in the country for energy efficiency;
• working with farmers “to eliminate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions … as much as is technologically feasible” (while supporting family farms and promoting “universal access to healthy food”);
• “Overhauling transportation systems” to reduce emissions — including expanding electric car manufacturing, building “charging stations everywhere,” and expanding high-speed rail to “a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary”;
• A guaranteed job “with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations and retirement security” for every American;
• “High-quality health care” for all Americans.

What I am not sure about is how this deal is going to both pay for people who don’t want to work and also provide jobs to overhaul transportation systems and upgrade buildings? How are people going to be motivated to even do any of these infrastructure upgrades? What bothers the most isn’t even the high tax rate or lack of ability to actual create any jobs, its actually just how she wants to pay for it. Its insane, like you know who else printed money to pay for economic and social programs? Thats right, it was Hitler. I’m not saying that AOC = Hitler but I am saying that it didn’t work well for the Germans.

Let’s take a step back and try to break down why this Green New Deal will turn the USA into Venezuela. I want to start with the high tax rate. Usually, if you try to penalize people who make a lot of money they will do anything they can to avoid taxes. That is why there is Swiss bank accounts and offshore accounts. The unfortunate fact is that taxation is theft. The government is literally forcing you to give over 70 percent of your hard-earned money. Also, don’t try to give me the “oh but the rich have so much why they can’t they pay more” argument. OK, first of all, the rich earned their money just like everyone else. Granted some people are born into it. It doesn’t justify taking money because its morally right.

One of my favorite examples for this is actually Jesus. Jesus often is quoted as saying help the poor and give as much as you can. But what people fail to point out or even notice that Jesus never asked a government to force people to help the poor. So therefore, Jesus is a voluntaryist not a socialist.

The Green New Deal is going to drive away all the rich people. Whatever profit is expected by this new 70 percent tax rate is going to be much less in reality. Another rather huge problem with this deal is the job creation and more important motivation part. You literally cannot give people taxpayer money who are unwilling to work AND also expect to overhaul the infrastructure of transportation and buildings. If you were given a choice between working some infrastructure in a high paying job or a free paycheck from government because you are unwilling to work which would you choose? (Honestly who wouldn’t choose a free paycheck, why work hard if you don’t have to?)

The most dreadful part of this plan has to be the part where AOC literally endorses printing money to pay for everything. She is really going off the deep end here. This wouldn’t be my first time slamming a politician for suggesting this. You might remember when Presidential Candidate Trump said he would print money to pay off the national debt. History would tell us that printing money to pay anything is a bad idea. Like most failed socialist countries, it ruins the economy and brings nothing good. The reason why is very simple. Money has a value based on the trustworthiness of its backer. It used to be that money was back by a gold standard. Now money backed by the government’s ability to keep valuable aka pay back the debt owned on it.

So therefore when you print more money it devalues the money that is currently in circulation. Money works on the same supply and demand curve that every economic commodity or good follows. In essence, the more money you print, the less valuable it becomes. This is always true unless you have gold or sliver or something valuable to back it up. In this case, the US has very small gold reserves and basically nothing to back up. So printing more money would be a disaster that would end America as we know it. This isn’t fear-mongering. Venezuela went full socialist a few years ago. They sit on the most oil reserves in the world. Yet in Venezuela they have to eat rabbits and dogs. The people are fleeing to neighboring Colombia. Its a dire situation, where the government decided to try to implement social programs funded by high taxes and printed money.

The point of me explaining all this is to say simply that we shouldn’t let this Green New Deal see the light of day. Its like a cancer. If you are concerned about climate change, ride your bike, turn off your lights and stop breathing. (I’m kidding but breathing produces CO2)

I swear AOC is the gift of stupid that just keeps giving.

Thanks for reading.

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