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“…A lot of Dumb Things.”

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By Mike Cronin

The latest kerfuffle in the culture wars has put Dirty Harry in the camp of Donald Trump.  In the latest issue of Esquire magazine and in other recent comments, actor Clint Eastwood laments political correctness and the attention given to some of Mr. Trump’s brasher statements.  (He did not officially endorse Trump.)

One need not support Mr. Trump, (or any other candidate) to find political correctness troubling.  The First Amendment to the Constitution charges the government to protect our right to speak freely. This is an intolerable condition to control freaks who just know that their ways and opinions are right and everybody’s lives would be better if we just obeyed them. Political correctness seeks to accomplish by peer pressure and social sanctions what cannot be legally done by government: the limiting of personal expression.

Last week’s post was bout the spotty availability of formal training in logic and critical thinking in America’s educational institutions.   The purposeful omission of such fundamentals from curricula smacks of an elite trying to restrict entry to their ranks.  Now add political correctness to the mix.

According to Merriam-Webster online, political correctness is “conforming to a belief that language and practices which could offend political sensibilities (as in matters of sex or race) should be eliminated.”

Bottom line: giving offense should be eliminated.  We can’t have dissent. Do not speak freely. Protect everyone else’s feeling, but don’t have any non-conforming thoughts of your own.

Don’t look at the value of the dollar.  Don’t examine public education.  Don’t question the dysfunction of maintaining an immigration enforcement enterprise while rewarding illegal immigration. Don’t peer into the doings of your city, county, state, or federal government. Don’t read the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, or the Bill of Rights. Don’t ask probing questions.

Do not give offense. Don’t see the hypocrisy and irony of being offensive in the name of eliminating offensiveness, being racist in the name of eliminating racism, and churning out myriad petty laws in the name of reducing crime.

Do not think for yourself. Don’t find the insanity in trying to stimulate the economy by taxing real wealth out of it then pumping funny money back in. Don’t be self-reliant; rely on your elected rulers to use the power of government to steal from your more productive friends and neighbors and give some of the loot back to you.

Go with the crowd. Run the machines. Consume. Watch the latest reality show/sitcom/talent contest/news crisis on cable/satellite/internet.  Go find some Poke-mon.

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Most Illogical

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By Mike Cronin

We are often presented with the terms “logic,” “reason,” “critical thinking,” and “common sense.” They are often touted as valuable skills or traits in our society.  But are they really so appreciated?

You are likely to find enough differing definitions of those terms to keep you busy reading for a while, but there is a common thread.

I think Ayn Rand described logic quite eloquently as the art of “non-contradictory identification,” and common sense as the “unselfconscious” use of logic. Critical thinking and reasoning have broader connotations, but generally include, or go hand-in-hand with, logic and common sense.

There are formal courses on logic and critical thinking, but it’s hit-or-miss whether you encounter them outside of philosophy electives at a college or university or at law school.  By way of one example: my own formal education has included familiarization with debate (taught as a segment of sixth-grade English), and I went to a high school that prided itself on producing critical thinkers. I’ve earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Yet, to my recollection, not one of those sources presented a formal course of instruction on logic or critical thinking. Why?

I suspect that many of you can report a similar gap in your own formal education. Could it be that our educational institutions, and the governments and/or religions that run them, don’t want to produce an abundance of critical thinkers because graduates so equipped might then apply their reasoning skills against some of the irrational curricula or insane policies emitted by learning institutions or their political and financial overlords?

Consider:  In its current guise, the Department of Education, with an annual budget in the tens of billions, was signed into existence by President Carter in 1979. It’s stated mission is to “…promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.”

Has it accomplished that mission?  It certainly “promotes” student achievement.  Cranking out a single inspirational poster can “check the box” on that mediocre and vague aspiration. It has also made progress on the “equal access” portion – you would be hard-pressed to find someone in this country who has no access to some form of publicly-funded K-12 education. But it has failed utterly at preparing students for global competitiveness!   US scores in literacy, numeracy, and problem solving skills are now near the bottom for industrialized countries.  Perhaps the mission statement of the Department of Education has little alignment to its true purpose.

Don’t think I’m being paranoid here.  No less a luminary than Woodrow Wilson, then President of Princeton University (and later to become President of the United States) revealed the elite’s view of the purpose of public education when, in 1909, he said: “We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class of necessity in every society, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.” Note again that he said those words before he was elected President of the United States, so this idea did not overly detract from his elect-ability.

Nowadays, the elite’s plan seems to be to indoctrinate everyone with as much liberal education as they can absorb! Of course, the meaning of liberal has -ahem- been drifting left somewhat since Wilson illuminated the raison d’etre of public schools.

Might not the alumni of schools and universities that failed to teach courses on critical thinking or reasoning skills logically conclude they have been cheated?

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The Battle Begins. How Will you Fare?

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By Mike Cronin

Barring a “black swan” event, the race for president is down to Trump vs. Clinton.  Who will you vote for, and why?  Will you even vote?  Will your vote matter?

There are so many marginal factors that can shape an election, but there are some basic election fundamentals that seldom get explained.

First: From 1932 to 2012, the average voter turnout has never been higher than 63% or less than 49%.  That means on average only a little over half of the eligible population votes in any given presidential election.  Of the half that votes, roughly 32% are dyed-in-the-wool liberal Democrats and will always vote for the Democrat candidate.  Roughly another 22% of the half that votes is comprised of hard-core conservative Republicans who will always vote for the Republican candidate.  These groups are the “base” for a given candidate/party.  Once you exclude the 54% of voters that are going to automatically vote D or R in any given election, the real battle takes place over the remaining half of the half of Americans who are going to vote. Expressed another way: Presidential elections hinge on the lever pulls of slightly less than 25% of the adult population!

It gets better.  Where those 25% reside is crucial.  If a majority of them reside in states that are overwhelmingly likely to vote a certain way, their votes aren’t going to mean very much.  Conversely, if the bulk of those independent voters reside in states that could go either way (the so-called battleground states), their votes could wield enormous influence!

Are you one of the independents or third party members who vote but don’t blindly punch holes for any party’s candidate (or against the other party’s!)?  Where do you live?  Will your vote count?

If you are, how will you make your decision? Party loyalty isn’t your thing, so what does it for you?  Unfortunately, some will waste their votes on frivolous criteria such as the looks, race, or gender of the candidate, or on candidate’s oratorical prowess.

To do justice to our system and not waste my vote, I’ve developed a small list of criteria that I can rate each candidate against using a survey technique called a Likert scale.  Here it is:

Rate each candidate on how you believe they would:

Honor the Oath of Office and abide by the Constitution & the laws of the land Fail Marginal Mediocre Good Exemplary
Appoint Supreme Court Justices that will uphold the Constitution Fail Marginal Mediocre Good Exemplary
Command the armed forces and employ military force only to counter serious threats to the United States Fail Marginal Mediocre Good Exemplary
Act with integrity & honesty, and demonstrate character Fail Marginal Mediocre Good Exemplary
Govern transparently Fail Marginal Mediocre Good Exemplary
Reduce dysfunction and corruption in the Executive Branch Fail Marginal Mediocre Good Exemplary
Work to reign in government spending, promote capitalism and demonize socialism Fail Marginal Mediocre Good Exemplary
Work to audit, and possibly end, the Federal Reserve Fail Marginal Mediocre Good Exemplary
Work to end, or at least lessen and simplify, the income tax Fail Marginal Mediocre Good Exemplary
Overhaul the immigration system to allow maximum freedom to enter and remain in the country  consistent with preventing criminals, terrorists, and other bad actors in and without yielding an automatic electoral advantage to any party Fail Marginal Mediocre Good Exemplary

Obviously, you might prefer different criteria than what I’ve settled on, but whatever thoughtful criteria you select can still work.  Once you establish your criteria and rate each candidate, score them thus: 1 point for each Fail, 2 points for each Marginal, 3 points for each Mediocre, 4 points for each Good, and 5 points for each Exemplary. Total up the scores and vote for the candidate that earns the highest marks.

Still, there is at least one other major contextual factor that is seldom examined during presidential elections: Congress.  We can elect a president based on the most cogent criteria, but if he or she must deal with a Congress skewed to the opposing party, it is likely they will face high resistance to carrying out their plans or their mandate.  Even if he or she gets to work with a same-party Congress, your candidate could still find it hard to make headway if, like Donald Trump, they come from outside the beltway political establishment.

There is a simple (not easy!) fix to that: Help your presidential candidate get a sympathetic, same-party Congress to work with!

 

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Murderers’ Lives don’t Matter

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By Mike Cronin

Black lives matter, but Black Lives Matter doesn’t matter so much.  Cop’s lives matter, but the lives of murderous cops and cop murderers not so much. French lives matter, and so do the lives of nightclub partiers, but their jihadi killers not so much. School kids and theater goers and political rally attendees’ lives’ matter, but their lunatic assassins not so much. Kurdish lives matter and Shi’ite lives matter, but Saddam Hussein’s not so much. New Yorker’s lives matter, and servicemen’s lives matter, and airplane passenger’s lives matter, but Osama bin Laden not so much.

One of the supposed horrors of war is the dehumanization of an enemy – but who is doing the dehumanizing?

One of my brothers is a police officer.  He once had to shoot a man who would have otherwise shot him.  It was a case of “suicide by cop,” a phenomenon where a suicidal person decides to credibly threaten police officers with deadly force, thereby leaving the officers  little choice but to defend themselves and shoot first.  My brother regretted that he had to take such drastic action, but he felt very little remorse for the man he had to shoot, and rightly so, for the “man” gave up his heritage of reason the moment he pointed his gun at my brother.  Our ability to reason and to make value judgments is the thing that separates us from animal barbarism. Negating that ability is a reversion to the animal.

One of the “narratives” energizing social media is a call to end hate and live in peace.  Most of us don’t hate.  I know I usually don’t have the time or energy for it.  It has been said that the opposite of love is not hate, its apathy.

I contend that people that recognize other individuals as distinct human beings and treat them as if they matter, matter. Conversely, those few monsters among us who fail to recognize the most basic reality of human life, the distinctiveness and value of individuals and their right to exist, and act on that failed recognition to rape, torture, and kill, are dehumanizing others. In so doing, they dehumanize themselves, and forfeit any moral claims they have to rights. They have morally ceased to matter, and they don’t deserve the energy it takes to hate them.  They deserve instead our revulsion and apathy – in the same way we are repelled by, yet apathetic about, cockroaches.  When cockroaches remain in the sewer, we let them be, but when they intrude into our lives? We exterminate them.

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Blanket Guilt or Precision-Guided Accountability?

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By Mike Cronin

Q. What do all of the following have in common?

A. You might be tempted to answer racism or bigotry, but that doesn’t cover the last item. The correct answer is that in all of the above examples, an entire group is being held accountable for the supposed sin of an individual or individuals. It is a hallmark of collectivism.

Consider: The sniper who killed the Dallas police officers on Thursday was seeking revenge for the deaths of some black men who had been shot by some white police officers in other states.  In other words, in his mind, since some white police officers in other locations had killed black men, all white officers were racists. The sniper committed the very same crime he believed the white officers had committed:  he held a group responsible for the actions of a few, or of one.  He tried, convicted, sentenced, and shot the Dallas police officers for crimes they didn’t commit, or for the non-crime of being white.

Mr. Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims is less combative, but it still stems from a collectivist mentality: If some Muslims are coming here to do us harm, then we can reduce the potential for such acts by banning ALL Muslims from entering the country. There is certain soundness to the logic here: If no Muslims can enter, it must follow that the jihadist sub-set of Muslims can’t enter.  Nonetheless, setting aside the difficulties in enforcing such a policy, the idea goes against the principles of individual liberty: it applies a sanction to an entire group for potential crimes yet to be committed by some members of that group.

Consider:  If you take the Bible literally, then you believe God created Adam, the first human.  Adam was tempted by Eve (who was herself tempted by the serpent) to eat the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge.  Human souls have been tarnished by this “original sin” ever since. Put another way: Humanity is being held to account for a supposed sin we could do nothing about, because it happened thousands of years before any of our births. In essence, we have been born convicted of a crime we didn’t commit and commanded to atone for it or suffer eternal damnation.

The problem is that collectivism belongs to our infancy. Our country was founded on the principles of individual liberty and personal responsibility, but they conflict with the collectivist principles at the root of most religious doctrines, so there has been a constant duality in American culture.  For example: During World War Two, The US Government rounded up US citizens of Japanese ethnicity and “interned” them in concentration camps for the sin of merely having common ancestry with an enemy; yet after the war, our government largely did not hold the Japanese people accountable for the brutality of their vanquished rulers.  Instead, General MacArthur’s occupation forces went after the actual individuals who led the Empire.

It is all too human to project our fear, or anger, or hatred, or resentment over the sins or crimes committed by an individual onto a group, yet there is no justification for doing so. Humans have been doing this since we were stone-age primitives trying to protect our “turf” from rival clans. It takes some enlightenment to dial down our naked aggression and apply accountability with precision.  It is a thing we must learn if we are to advance as a species.

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The Desecration of Independence

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By Mike Cronin

Really, America?  Is this what you want?

 

IN SHAME, July 4, 2016.

The Desecration of the Independence once valued by the united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for ignorant people to encumber themselves with the chains of political bondage and to abdicate the powers of freedom, liberty, and individuality, in respect to the demands of power-mad politicians and demagogues, requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to their servitude.

We hold these fallacies to be self-evident, that all people must have identical outcomes, that they are given by their betters certain revoke-able Privileges, that among these are the claim to other’s Life, Liberty and Property.–That to secure these rights, Governments are inflicted on people, deriving their powers despite the dissent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes conducive to these ends, it is the Demand of the Ignorant to expand upon them, and to institute more Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Servitude and Misery. Ignorance, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that people are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their desire, to expand such Government, and to provide more Guards for their airport security.–Such has been the dream of these collectivists; and such is now the necessity which compels them to expand their rapacious form of Government. The history of the present government is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations to its original establishment, all having in direct object evolution to an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let the character of the credulous and sycophants and quislings be exposed to a candid world:

Scared of dealing with an opinion you don’t like?  Run to your “safe space” and call the whaaambulance. Then get the offending sentiment labeled as “hate speech.”

Can’t be bothered to earn a living for your family? Use SNAP for groceries, then spend your cash on booze, tobacco, tattoos, and “bling.”

Can’t get your mall built without Mrs. Smith’s property? Get city council to condemn it and force her out.

Believe it’s the state’s responsibility to educate your child? Get the government to confiscate your neighbors’ wealth to pay for your kid’s indoctrination…and despise the parent who takes it upon themselves by teaching at home or who pays for private school.

Can’t sell your sculpture of an octopus romancing a bagpipe to your neighbors? make them pay for it anyway by  getting government to install your gleaming atrocity.

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Can’t make a good product and sell it cheaper than an importer? Get your congressman to impose heavy tariffs.

Can’t offer a service at a better value than the up-and-coming competition?  Get your state to set ridiculous training and licensing requirements to make it difficult to enter the market.

Decide it’s too hard to work your way up from entry-level to supervision or management? Demand ridiculous minimum wages.

Unwilling to take responsibility for your own self defense? Work to deny that right to everyone else.

Don’t like your neighbor’s flag? Get the homeowner’s association to ban it.

Don’t think people should ingest substances you don’t approve of? Get government to ban them.

Scared your kids’ faith might be shaken before it’s ingrained? Get the school district to teach “intelligent design” as an alternative theory to evolution.

Can’t abide the idea secular law was influenced by scripture? Get the Ten Commandments banned from public display.

Feel compelled to save your neighbor’s soul, even if he’s not interested?  Have the government ban his vices.

Can’t stand the thought that you might be wrong about global warming?  Paint your critics as “deniers” (AKA “heretics”) and have them burned at the stake.

Can’t pay for your upside-down mortgage? Is your company “too big to fail?”  Get a bailout from Uncle Sugar.

Jealous of the wealth created by someone more inventive or industrious than yourself? Call him greedy and demand your “fair share” of his property.

Don’t think your favorite government program gets enough funding? Install politicians who will tax our earnings, tax our spending, tax our property just sitting there, and steal value from our money through currency devaluation…and still need to borrow more money from our children in order to overpay for it.

In every stage of these Oppressions Individualists have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: such Petitions have been answered only by further descent towards tyranny. A Government whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is fit to be the ruler of an indentured people.

We, therefore, the Masses of the Socialist State of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to Anyone in Authority for the rectitude of our intentions, do, without consent from the good People of this land, solemnly publish and declare, That this Socialist State, and of Might ought to be a dependent State; that they are Commanded to Allegiance to such tyrants that will own them, and that all political connection between them and Independence, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as a Socialist State, they have abdicated their power to the government in order to levy endless War, pretend Peace, contract entangling Alliances, destroy Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which tyrannical powers may of might do. And for the support of this Desecration, with a firm reliance on the protection of capricious enforcers, we mutually pledge to sacrifice the Lives, Fortunes and Honor of our neighbors.

I think the real thing is much better.

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An Open (and Polite) Letter to the Gun Control Faction

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By Mike Cronin

Here’s my take on the bitter firearms dispute vitiating our country. I offer my commentary without vitriol. No contempt. No condescension. No name-calling, baiting, or inflammatory rhetoric; just exposition.

Obviously, we have a fundamental philosophical difference.  I don’t know, but I suspect that your apprehension over firearms is energized by a belief that it is the government’s responsibility to protect the citizenry from harm, and that you see firearms in private hands as a huge threat, especially given horrific mass shootings.  Ergo, the government should further regulate firearms or ban them outright. If I am articulating it wrong, please correct me.

I can’t speak for every pro-gun rights person, but I suspect most of us subscribe to a quite different interpretation of the government’s duty to protect us than you do.  I see it like this:  All of us have the inherent right to defend ourselves from immediate violence.  It would be nice if there were always a police officer around to intercede on our behalf, but that’s just not feasible, so we compromise.  We retain the ultimate individual right to self-defense, but we delegate the right to retaliate after the fact (via impartial criminal prosecution and punishment) to government.

So far, you may not see a large gulf between our positions.  Yet there is a significant one:  It is my position that the right to self-defense is absolute.  By that I mean that I have the right to defend myself from ANY initiation of violence (or the imminent threat of same) from ANY initiator – up to and including government agents, should they act in the absence of due process or turn overtly tyrannical.  A shotgun or revolver is hardly proportional to such a threat. Since our own government, should it turn tyrannical, and the forces of other governments, should they unwisely choose to invade this country, possess weapon systems of devastating destructive power, it is more than reasonable for a free individual to possess mere firearms to stand in opposition, even if such opposition must take the form of a covert insurgency. It is reasonable that a free person possess firearms identically lethal to those his oppressors routinely bear.

Does that mean I think private individuals should be able to go down to “Booms-R-Us” and buy guided missiles and tanks and chemical weapons?  In the absence of a better argument, I’ll accede to this principle: the more indiscriminate a weapon is, the harder it should be for anyone to obtain.  That principle is already largely in effect. Regardless of anybody’s desire, there is no “Booms-R-Us” to go to in this country. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t legally buy a grenade, landmine, or bomb as a private citizen without an enormous amount of oversight, if at all. Conversely, hand-held firearms currently legal for possession are discriminate enough that law-abiding individuals should not be further barred or banned from buying and possessing them, regardless of militarized appearance, magazine capacity, fire rate, trigger function, or other minutiae, or whether some sociopath or jihadist has used one to commit mass murder.

There has been, and will continue to be, all manner of legal wrangling over the exact meaning of the oddly-phrased Second Amendment within the bounds of “the letter of the law.” However, the Founders made the spirit and intent clear in their other writings.  The Second Amendment does not primarily protect the right to hunt or compete at the skeet range, that protection is a byproduct.  It protects the individual right to self-defense. (Don’t take my word for it; the Supreme Court has said as much in D.C. vs. Heller.) A populace that can assassinate tyrannical leaders and their henchmen and fight a well-equipped guerrilla war against its oppressors is a populace that will not be easy to subjugate. The purpose of the Second Amendment is to guarantee that America has such a populace.

If we look at our positions from a purely logical standpoint, I posit that we are arguing from different premises: The pro-gun rights argument rests on the premise that individuals have an inherent and inviolate right to self-defense, and that our government is obligated by the Second Amendment to protect that right through non-infringement on keeping and bearing arms. If I have not misread the argument for the gun control faction, your premise is that government’s obligation to protect our rights gives it (or should give it) the purview to limit the potential for anyone to cause harm.

I contend that the more power you give to the government to prevent anyone from causing harm, the more pathological personalities you will attract who seek to wield that power…to cause harm!  Eventually, you will get a card-carrying totalitarian who will turn the United States into a Venezuela or an Iraq, or worse. The alternative is to accept some risk with your freedom: occasionally, a nut with a rifle will kill a bunch of innocent people.  The proper mitigation to both threats: A populace that can shoot back!

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Storm Warning: Orlando

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By Mike Cronin

There are many aspects to the tragedy in Orlando that defy reason, but we may yet be able to put many of the chaotic elements into context and derive some small degree of understanding.

Keep in mind the following as you watch the news and listen to the pundits and demagogues:

As we’ve discussed elsewhere, the news networks’ primary job is to sell advertising. They will dwell on every aspect of this story as long as they can in order to keep you coming back to watch commercials find out the latest breaking wrinkle.

The anti-gun fanatics will exploit our fears in order to advance their agenda to ban ___ (take your pick of anything gun or gun-related).  They’ll be sure to shout that this was the worst shooting in US history.  That might be true if you discount several massacres of Native Americans and the Civil War; I don’t know.

Pro-gun zealots will exploit the fear that the left is coming to take our freedom. They will jump up and down to expose every error the anti-gunners make about the specific gun used, how it was obtained, and about how it is already illegal to have a firearm inside a place that serves alcohol in Florida, so gun bans demonstrably don’t work.

Strident religious groups will be in a hurry to tell us that what happened in Orlando was God’s punishment for the sinful behavior of the club’s clientele.  In fact, one such group, ISIS, took credit for the attack!

Let’s try to unscrew ourselves from the ceiling a bit and put some more context to this storm:

Was it the worst mass-shooting in US history?   Ever hear of Bear River (~250 dead), Sand Creek (up to 163 dead), or Wounded Knee (150 dead)? They were but three of dozens of massacres of Native Americans committed in the 1800s.  How about the various battles of the Civil War (~600,000 dead)? (Granted, some might say those events don’t count because they weren’t “crimes” or terrorist attacks; instead, they were (directly or indirectly) government operations. I think that not only do they count, they exemplify the very reason we must not give up the right to keep and bear arms!)

Was it the worst terrorist attack on US soil? No; that was 9/11. (~3000 dead).

Surely it was the worst domestic terrorist attack?  Nope. That dubious title goes to the Oklahoma City bombing. (168 dead)

Nor was Orlando the worst nightclub attack; that distinction belongs to the “Happy Land” club arson fire in the Bronx in 1990 (87 dead).

It does look like Orlando might actually be the worst attack on the LBGT community; though there was an attack nearly as bad in 1973: 32 were killed at the “Upstairs Club” arson attack in New Orleans.

To like-minded folk that believe the second amendment is under attack and should not be infringed upon any further:  Yes, the anti-gunners will shamelessly exploit mass shootings.  We don’t need to follow their example and squawk and honk at each inaccuracy or inane statement made while the tape is still around the crime scene and the blood is still on the floor.  Those rounds are largely wasted.  Save them for the letters to the editor and to your politicians.  Let the anti-gunners make their mistakes in the heat of the moment.

As for the religious condemnation: If you believe Jesus was the son of God, then ask yourself: what would Jesus do?  Would he kill homosexuals?  Would he add salt to their wounds after such a tragedy by saying they were killed because they were sinful? Most especially, would he do that just to get attention? If he wouldn’t do those things, it might be wise to follow his example.

If you are a radical Muslim jihadist, I know that nothing I write here will sway you in any way. Even so, I must say it. If you purport to be a devout member of the so-called religion of “peace,” what is peaceful about slaughtering people whose behavior you don’t approve of, either here or in Syria, or Iraq, or the rest of the world where Islam holds sway?

If ISIS was indeed ultimately behind this attack, what have you gained? All you have accomplished is to show your clients and constituents that one jihadi with a gun and a lot of ammo can kill a lot of unarmed people.  And….what? Is this supposed to terrify us? We are not terrified. Is it supposed to gain you recruits?  You’ve caused just as many, or more, to deplore your cause.

We live in an era with instant news and constant competition for our attention. We are in the middle of one of the most contentious election cycles in recent memory. We are in a shooting conflict with ISIS. The Orlando massacre served as a catalyst to energize a storm of bloviating. We can let it die down a bit so we can hear ourselves think before making hasty conclusions.

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Tweets, Taxes, and the Pursuit of Happiness

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By Mike Cronin

Socialists of all stripes decry capitalism, but cannot achieve their vision of a classless, egalitarian society without first stealing the wealth created by capitalists! Case in point:

Mayte Lara, an illegal immigrant, created a brouhaha on Twitter by describing how she bragged during her Valedictory speech about being “undocumented” and yet still achieved a “full ride” scholarship to the University of Texas.  Why?  Federal law does not prohibit states from providing in-state tuition to “undocumented students.”  Why should there be an uproar?  I mean, it’s not as if Texas taxpayers will have their hard-earned money taken from them via the coercive power of government in order to pay for Ms. Lara’s college education at the expense of whatever they might do with it themselves, is it?  It couldn’t be that the price of a UT education is going up in part because there is no such thing as “free” tuition, could it?

This isn’t about race or hatred of illegal immigrants.  We could change our laws to reform the immigration system to make it easier to be in this country legally.  It’s the dysfunction, the absurdity, the gall of having laws on the books that are enforced at virtual gun point (i.e. tax compliance) while facilitating the wholesale abandonment of other laws (immigration) in order to expand the welfare state and the vast pool of voters dependent on government.

As a human being, Mayte Lara has as much right as anyone to seek out the best life she can find for herself.  We might even refer to such a right as “the pursuit of happiness.” Doesn’t that phrase have a familiar ring?  You might have read it before in a modest historical document.  But the right to pursue happiness is not the same thing as being given the privilege to be made happy at other’s expense.  Ms. Lara has no right to the wealth, time, or property others have produced.  Yet (perhaps without realizing it), she flaunted the fact that she was given a license from government to dispose of the wealth, time, and property of others (in the form of her tax-payer funded education).

Taking wealth from the citizens you are supposed to protect, and giving it to illegal immigrants you are supposed to deport.  Absurd!

In a related note, the Democratic National Committee is putting a wall around its convention site.  A Secret Service agent said the wall was for security purposes. Really? You mean it’s not meant to be a canvas for taggers?  It’s for security? From what, Bernie Sanders supporters? Thanks for the enlightenment, Agent Obvious!

Aren’t the Democrats supposed to be the party of inclusion and multiculturalism? They are certainly against the idea of putting a wall along our border with Mexico. If there were such a wall, future Democratic voters like Ms. Lara would have a much harder time getting into the US!

(I am also against a border wall, by the way, but for a different reason.  I think the best way to fix immigration is to make it easier to be here legally under a variety statuses and in a way that doesn’t automatically confer a voter pool to one party and a tax burden to everyone.)

Posted on by mikecronin2013

Is it a Conspiracy? Who Gains?

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By Mike Cronin

As we saw last week, Occam’s razor is one tool for helping us avoid falling into the trap of believing in every conspiracy theory that comes along.  Another way to evaluate conspiracy theories for credibility is by asking the simple question: Who stands to gain?  In 1998, when Hillary Clinton was First Lady, she alleged that there was a “vast right-wing conspiracy” to besmirch her husband over the Monica Lewisnky scandal.  The political right certainly made every attempt to tarnish her husband for his indiscretion, but that was not a conspiracy, it was simply opposition politics. The right stood to gain by impeaching the president, but it didn’t take any secret cabal to put together a smear campaign; each individual pundit and politician was able to drum up outrage on his own! On the other hand, Mrs. Clinton stood to gain if she could rally support by painting herself as the embattled victim fighting for truth and dignity, so she let fly with the allegation, and it became one of the most often-cited Hillary quotes.  When the president from one party provides his opposition with the ingredients of a scandal, OF COURSE the opposition will take advantage of the opportunity!  That’s not a conspiracy, it’s an axiom!

Like the “vast conspiracy” against the Clintons, sometimes the activity of a conspiracy theory is credible, but the motives and/or competence ascribed to the perpetrators are dubious: The political right is fond of alleging that the left controls the education system and is intentionally dumbing down our kids through Common Core, campus speech codes, revisionist history curricula, etc.  As with the right’s non-conspiratorial opposition to the Clintons, the state of our education system need not be attributed to a conspiracy of the left. Instead, the state of our education system is the accumulated results of long-term government control.  OF COURSE a government-controlled education system is going to promote and advance a pro-government agenda! That’s not a conspiracy, it’s an axiom!

Let’s look at another example:

Some allege that the wars in Iraq (Desert Storm in 1991, Iraqi Freedom beginning in 2003) were all about oil. It is easy to fan that flame, as Dick Chenney (President Bush Sr’s Secretary of Defense, and Bush Jr’s Vice President) was the CEO of Haliburton (a huge company that provides all manner of services to the oil industry) in between the Bushes presidencies. In the sense that the Bush administrations conspired to go to war in order to gain personal control of Iraqi oil, the answer is doubtful, as Iraqi oil remains under Iraqi control. However, there is a more credible context under which “oil” can be held as the reason for the wars: Saddam Hussein took over Kuwait and threatened to invade Saudi Arabia (his forces actually did cross the border at Najaf). That meant he held a significant portion of the world’s oil reserves (and therefore the lifeblood of international commerce) at risk. OF COURSE the Iraq Wars were about oil! That’s not a conspiracy, it’s an axiom…but not the same one some conspiracy theorists would have us believe.

Often, though, the conspiracy theories are just ludicrous. From the 1990s onward, the term “black helicopters” has picked up the connotation among believers that nefarious forces under the auspices of the United Nations patrol the US and engage in clandestine activities designed to bring about a “New World Order.”  IF such forces exist, and IF they used helicopters for transportation, it is highly unlikely they would adopt a “signature” that would defeat their efforts to remain hidden.

“Chemtrails” is another ridiculous theory. Supposedly, “they” are using jet airliners to spray mysterious chemical agents across the nation for unknown purposes.  The evidence: Contrails. Occam’s razor leaves us no guesswork here: The simplest explanation for contrails is that they are CONTRAILS, not weaponized chemical clouds. Who stands to gain?  The charlatans selling “reports” on chemtrails.

Probably one of the looniest has to be the flat earthers.  Yes, there are still people out there who believe the world is flat.  In order to swallow that pill, you have to ignore or evade absolutely proven scientific facts. For example, you have to believe that every photo and bit of video from orbit showing the curvature of the earth has been faked. That would require that all space programs across the globe have conspired to tell the same lie to billions of people since the USSR launched Sputnik in 1957. The real conspiracy here is the one being perpetrated by the theorists themselves in furthering this drivel.

“What is more likely, a complicated scenario that requires tortured logic to arrive at, or the simple explanation?” “Who stands to benefit, the alleged conspirators, or the person alleging the conspiracy?” When you examine a conspiracy theory and ask a few simple questions, OF COURSE you’ll get a much better sense of the theorists’ credibility!