Forum: Are China And The US Headed For War?

Every Monday, the WoW! community and our invited guests weigh in at the Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week's question: Are China And The US Headed For War?

Jeffrey Avalon Friedberg: War?

No.

One thing China is not: is stupid.

China can do much better on its Long March by simply stripping Earth away from the Americans, one sliver at a time, piece by piece, bit by bit.

They can do this in terms of physically taking things, such as our technology, American real estate, or by extending influence, as in Latin America, and actually being welcomed in.

Then, one day, poof! They are the majority—at a pinnacle of the majors—and are in control.

In this non-nuclear manner they can preserve a lot of real estate and personnel. I mean—none of the Chinese leaders want to live underground or in a nuclear cook-oven, am I right?

Right.

In the interim—there’s no rush. And it’s just a game. When the time comes, they can win. And nobody—like maybe the Rooskies—will be able to step in and take over the hand they are playing.

In a nuclear war with the USA they will be degraded militarily, financially, and morally, to a point where they will probably be overthrown by a sea of people who just want to eat....

...And who want to have some fun in life and living.

Rob Miller: To answer this question properly, it's helpful to know something about Chinese history and culture.

China has always been more concerned with keeping the quong fai (foreign devils) out then in expanding it's own territory. That's what the Great Wall was all about. Like Japan, China essentially was a closed society for centuries.

In the 1400s, China had the greatest seagoing fleet in the world, up to 3,500 ships at its peak.  Some of them were five times the size of the ships being built in Europe at the time. But by 1525, all of China's "Treasure Fleet" ships had been destroyed -- burned in their docks or left to rot by the government as the Ming Dynasty entered a 200-year-long period of isolationist slumber.

That ended with the Opium wars of the mid-nineteenth century, referred to quite accurately by the Chinese as 'the years of humiliation. Essentially, the Chinese wanted the very lucrative opium trade the British enjoyed stopped. The British actually went to war in 1839 to force the Chinese to keep importing this poison, and ended up with China ceding the Hong Kong island to Britain as well as 'treaty ports' at Shanghai, Canton, Ningpo (Ningbo), Foochow (Fuzhou), and Amoy. France secured concessions on the same terms as the British, in treaties of 1843 and 1844.

The second Opium War, fought from 1856–1860 actually increased the concessions to Britain and other European countries as well as the amount of the trade in opium. Russia also seized Chinese territory. And the hideous invasion of China by Japan was a major disaster. Aside from the loss of territory, the Japanese committed major atrocities.An untold number of Chinese civilians were literally murdered, whole cities were destroyed, thousands of Chinese young women (as well as Koreans and Filipinas) were kidnapped and forced into prostitution as 'comfort girls' for the Japanese military, and bizarre 'experiments' on human beings were conducted, especially in Manchuria (Manchuko).

My point here is that all this emphasized something to the Chinese...that foreigners were not to be trusted, and neither were China's corrupt governments. Most Americans underestimate the enormous achievement of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger in overcoming all this history and opening up China again.

I've been fascinated with Chinese culture for quite some time. In fact, I almost married a delightful Chinese girl who lived in Queens, the only woman I ever seriously considered marrying until I met my beloved. Among other things I learned from my Chinese girlfriend was how to play the Chinese game of Go. Understanding Go is a key to understanding how the Chinese think.

Western tactics are based on chess, which involves 'killing off' your opponent's power pieces, occupying territory on the board and surrounding the king to the point that any move the King makes results in the king's 'death.'

In Go, the idea is to not to occupy territory but to control access to territory, to make your opponent's 'soldiers' useless. There are no power pieces per se.

That's what the Chinese have been doing for some time, with trade agreements and lately, using a strategy of loans to both developing and developed countries like South Africa. It works like this...the Chinese loan money to these countries in exchange for trade concessions, with economically or strategically  beneficial resources as collateral. When the loans (which deliberately have terms very difficult for these countries to meet) are defaulted on, China gets control, sometimes with an additional loan as a sweetener. These are Go tactics.

Are the U.S. and China headed for war? Possible, but I doubt it.

For a quarter of a century, China enjoyed dealing with three of the worst U.S. presidents in history. The corrupt Bill Clinton, who the Chinese bought via a one million dollar loan after he lost the New Hampshire primary via his China connection, his  old friends and campaign donors the Riyadis. And
 then there was the Clueless George W. Bush, and the openly anti-American Barack Hussein Obama.
All of them allowed the Chinese as well as friendly American companies to export jobs wholesale to China while allowing cheap Chinese goods to flood the market. Both Clinton and Obama also cut back hugely on America's military. Clinton even  used heavy Democratic party donor and defense contractor Loral to funnel advanced military technology to the Chinese as fast as he could sign the paperwork. Most military analysts estimate that the Chinese made a Great Leap Forward of at least two decades in military technology during the eight years of Clinton's two terms.

A big part of the recent tension has to do with the fact that  the Chinese, having grown used to pushovers like this are now faces with an entirely different president in Donald J. Trump. The concept of intellectual piracy, copyrights and patents are foreign to the Chinese. They now have a president to deal with who insists on their honoring these precepts, and who is willing to use tariffs and even sanctions to change the unequal trade deals China has enjoyed for years.

What the Chinese are doing now, I think, is circling the wagons. Many of the armaments, like shore to ship missiles are designed to be defensive in nature, and it's worth remembering that China has only engaged in wars on their borders, in places like northern India, Tibet and North Korea. Even their new island fortresses in the China Sea could reasonably be seen as defensive in nature.

I see Xi's new role as emperor ( and I wouldn't call it anything else) and its more recent totalitarian conduct on the home front to be troubling signs, even something of a throwback to the bad old days of the Cultural Revolution, but not necessarily signs of upcoming hostilities. China needs the American market badly, a war would gain them nothing and might even result in domestic turbulence as jobs disappear and domestic supplies of staples increase in price.

Another sign is that Chinese with money have heavily invested here in America, especially in real estate. They understand that if their money's here, the Chinese government can't confiscate it. Remember what I wrote earlier about the basic Chinese skeptical attitude towards their government.

Don Surber:Red China and the USA are in a trade war and have been for 20 years. The Bushes and Clinton allowed Red China to steal technology, manipulate currency, and otherwise wreak havoc with trade.

The weasels who call this free trade are traitors. Let's look at the facts. For every $1 we sell in goods to China, we buy $4 worth of their goods. We are a thoroughbred running against a plow horse and losing because we are hobbled by environmental, labor, and other regulations.

Consider coal mining. The nation's coal mines recorded 15 deaths last year, including eight in West Virginia.

According to Xinhua, the number of deaths in 2017 in China's coal sector was 375.

We finally have a president who is a master of negotiating and an astute student of Sun Tzu. Scot Adams of Dilbert fame calls President Donald John Trump a wizard. Everything you know about President Trump through the media is a lie because he throws them off scent every step of the way.

The Chinese cannot fathom him. They are communists, a sheeplike people with great credentials but no intellectual curiosity. Their ideology requires a conformity that would be amusing if not for the deaths of tens of milions in the name of their religion. Muslims are nowhere near as bloody.

President Trump is an entrepreneur who thinks outside of the box. He lives to negotiate. He already has plucked the Korean Peninsula from Red China. Korea has been a protectorate of China going back 1,400 years although the Japanese held it from 1910 to 1945. (You could say World War II began before World War I.)

There is no doubt that Kim Jong Un is on our side. He is dismantling his nuke program. Compare how healthy and alert the last three hostages Kim gave us compared to the condition of Otto Warmbier. Something happened between June 2017 and May 2018 that turned Kim around. Just what, we can only guess at. Why, we know. President Trump flipped Kim, likely on a personal level as he did with Kanye West.

The answer to your question is yes, we are in a war -- a trade war - and we have turned the tide. Chairman Xi should surrender now while his economy is damaged but still alive.

Iran is on deck, and Russia needs to clean up its act.

Meanwhile, the European Union wants to cut a deal. Mexico is cutting a deal. Japan and South Korea have made their deals.

While he is doing all this, President Trump also has to deal with a witch hunt, work on immigration, and get his judges and justices confirmed.

He still finds time to golf on weekends.

Doug Hagin:Very doubtful. Not anytime soon anyway. And our currently having a strong president is a large deterrent to China. Another reason 2020 is so important.

David Schuler: here's more than one answer to that question. The first answer is that we've been at war with China for at least the last 20 years and maybe as long as the last 70 years. For the last several decades American companies, looking at a market of a billion prospective customers with dollars signs in their eyes, have convinced the politicians of both political parties that we're not. You need only look at the precipitous drop in U. S. manufacturing employment after the admission of China to the WTO, pictured below:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=kRPz

to recognize that as nothing short of economic warfare. Additionally, if you take the various pronouncements of Chinese officials on trade and foreign policy it is quite clear that they view them as zero-sum games, transactions with one winner and one loser.

The other answer is that we need not be headed for war with China. It would be a choice not an inevitability. If the Chinese leadership realized just how deadly war with the U. S. could be for them and everything and everybody they know, there would be no chance of war. But there are so many saber-rattlers on both sides of the relationship I think there is a genuine danger of war with China.

Laura Rambeau Lee: Yes, it appears China’s goal is to draw us into a war and we better be prepared. We are late in realizing just how great a threat China is to the west and the free world. We must secure our alliances and assure them we will be there to fight with them to oppose this existential threat. It’s not a matter of if, but when.

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Forum: Should The U.S. Leave The UN?

Every Monday, the WoW! community and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher's Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week's question:Should The U.S. Leave The UN?

James Kirwan: Good question. I believe the US should leave the organization and turn the building into rent-controlled apartments on Turtle Bay to help alleviate the dearth of affordable apartments in NYC. I’d love to see the General Assembly turned into a food court: they could even keep the flags if they add Panda Express and Taco Bell.

The truth is the current administration could simply walk out of the organization. Nikki Haley would resign her position and the President and Secretary of State would refuse to submit her replacement. Since the position is appointment, there is nothing Congress could do about it.

If Congress wanted to support the move, it could defund the organization by submitting and approving legislation to the President to do that. During both Bush administrations the USA withheld dues to the organization, but succeeding presidents Clinton and Obama reversed those moves.

Such moves would be temporary. The next Democratic administration could simply return to the organization by paying the dues and appointing a UN Permanent Representative.

Permanently leaving the UN would be a major change in diplomatic policy, and major changes are difficult to get done in a huge, bureaucratic organization with checks and balances built in. There would be significant bureaucratic resistance to doing so, with every step likely fought in the courts. It would take years and require like-minded Democrats - something that I don’t see happening without a major screw up by the UN. And an organization that promotes anti-Semitism, protects child rapists, and is incapable of protecting villages from genocide or the world from a nuclear North Korea proves it has staying power after some pretty serious screw ups.

But the truth is that the UN has little clout and with each scandal it loses more. Perhaps the best solution from the perspective of those of us who want the USA to leave the UN is to ignore it and allow the organization to sink into complete irrelevance through its own mistakes.


Now Renting - Great Location and Excellent Views

Doug Hagin:WE should leave post haste frankly. The UN (Useless nations, as I call it) is a nest of miscreant nations which always seem to favor dictators and terrorists while bad mouthing the western nations. Especially the US and Israel.


Rob Miller: Why now? Why not 30 years ago?

The UN was a good idea on its face after WWII. Unfortunately, FDR, the first world leader to recognize the Soviet Union insisted that 'Uncle' Joe Stalin have a major seat at the table and a veto. President Truman had a whole host of Soviet sympathizers and outright spies like Alger Hiss advising him that he inherited from FDR's administration. So he likewise compounded this grave error, even giving Soviet satellites who were basically colonies of the USSR their own seats and votes. Big mistake...totalitarian dictatorships never play well with democracies. That of course opened the door for all sorts of dictatorships and failed states to destroy the original premise like termites while milking western democracies for all kinds of cash.

The UN Human Rights Commission(UNHRC) was always one of the laughable misnomers ever. It was constantly dominated by some of the most despotic countries in history, and it's main objective, really, was demonizing Israel which made it a great group to be part of as far as Barack Hussein Obama was concerned.

A year year after it was established, in 2007, the UNHRC passed what they called Permanent Agenda Item 7. What it did was to establish a separate standard for judging anything Israel did. It provided a platform to automatically 'investigate' Israel and condemn it for just about anything it did to defend itself, while taking for granted any Palestinian libel against Israel.

In other words, special standards for Jews and Israel and a different one for say, Iran, Venezuela or Pakistan. There's a word for that.

To show you how this worked in practice, out of 135 resolutions the UNHRC passed, 68 of them condemned Israel for 'human rights violations.' By contrast, Iran was mentioned just six times.

UN organizations like UNESCO and UNWRA operate on similar levels. They're all simply just money pits for the U.S. taxpayer.

We get nothing out of it, and nothing of any value whatsoever is accomplished based on the UN's original goals. There's no reason for America to stay in the UN.




Laura Rambeau Lee: With a total of 193 member nations, the United States is assessed 22% of the United Nations regular budget and 28% of its peace keeping budget, which they calculate as our “fair share” contribution to this organization. This translates to over eight billion dollars annually our government is taking of our hard earned tax money which is being turned over to be redistributed to other member nations as they see fit. The United Nations is at the forefront of the climate change hoax, which is a scheme to redistribute wealth from developed to developing countries. Even more insidious is the impact the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has on our educational system. What started out as the International Baccalaureate programme, a high school charter school, now has programs beginning in elementary school and continues through middle and high school. The agenda has been to promote cultural diversity and indoctrinating our youth to believe they are citizens of a global community. This is pure Marxist and collectivist ideology and it is being inserted into much of the curriculum to which our children are being exposed. We should absolutely pull ourselves and our money out of the United Nations and get the United Nations out of the United States.


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Forum: Does Faith In G-d Bring Common Sense?

Every Monday, the WoW! community and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher's Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week's question: Does Faith In 
G-d Bring Common Sense?

Doug Hagin:Maybe it takes a healthy amount of common sense to have faith in God? Common sense often requires not over-thinking things, and accepting simple truths. many Atheists have that problem it seems. So, does faith bring common sense? Or is it required before faith? Hmmmmm


Patrick O'Hannigan:I do think that faith in G-d brings common sense, and although I haven't heard Dennis Prager's argument for that, he's a man who does his homework. The question reminded me of an old book by Catholic apologist Frank Sheed. After 50 years of streetcorner preaching (among other endeavors), he wrote "Theology and Sanity," which was first published in 1946, and is luckily still in print. If I remember his thesis correctly, Sheed said that it took sanity (for our purposes here, common sense) to recognize a higher power.

Mainline Christian theology teaches that the Holy Spirit is one of three divine persons in the trinity that is G-d, and ascribes to that generous personage (often described as "the love between the Father and the Son") seven gifts. Those gifts (wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord) read like common sense writ large.



Rob Miller: I have to say, I like Laura's approach a great deal as always. Before you can say whether faith in G-d brings common sense, you need to define what common sense is, n'est pah? Her definition of it as rational thought or right reason is excellent but it seems it works only so far. After all, look at what passed for common sense even a short time ago and how that has changed 180 degrees now to the point that many of us might find it ludicrous. How many times have you heard people of a certain political persuasion use the words 'everybody knows' as a serious argument or a means of ridiculing or demeaning others they disagree with? As someone whose name I can't recall once said(Cal Coolidge? Will Rogers?) the thing about common sense is that's it's very uncommon. My point is that common sense is a loaded term that means different things to different people. Just as everybody imagines they have a sense of humor, they also imagine they have common sense, no matter how inane their opinions and actions are. Bookworm's erudite example of 'Gaia Worship' in our universities is a fine example of how 'common sense' ain't what it's cracked up to be.

So in trying to peel this particular orange, my first thought is that belief in G-d can give you a kind of common sense, but that depends on how you approach it. Some hideous things have been done and continue to be done in the name of faith. The adherents of belief systems that that tolerate and even promote such behavior as showing 'faith' certainly consider what they're doing to be common sense. The proof that it isn't common sense can be seen in the retribution and end results of such behavior. There are numerous examples.

On the other hand, if you have faith in G-d and it means that you adopt a moral code that demands you respect and attempt to act with decency towards all people and even the animals G-d created, not just the members of your particular denomination, that is very different. If you also acquire a desire to live in accordance with His Divine Plan and do so to the best of your ability out of respect and gratitude for His blessings, then I'd say you're truly on the way to...yes,right reason and common sense! But the moral code I spoke of is imperative. It gives us a roadmap towards successful and happy living, which of course, is the ultimate in common sense, yeah?


Bookworm Room:What an interesting question. I'll try to avoid simply repeating Dennis Prager, whose marvelous exegesis of Exodus I just read.

The Bible spells out an ordered world, with a single ordered intelligence behind it. This differs radically from all other faiths (at least the ones of which I'm aware), which are predicated on chaos. Think of the Greek, Roman, Druid, Mesopotamian, and Egyptian pantheons, all of which have irascible, child-like, selfish, divine beings randomly creating and destroying their way across the universe. Likewise, all animist faiths are predicated upon assigning little chunks of meaning to everything and, again, endowing their many divinities with some of humanity's worst traits, including a striking lack of logic.

The same lack of logic applies to the Gaia worship that now controls so much of the Left. At its worst, it's simply animism and paganism all over again, with an angry Mother Nature continuously punishing humans. In that vein, while I though Disney's Moana was a visually gorgeous movie and Lin-Manuel Miranda's music lovely, it too preached the most primitive, unscientific Gaiaism to children.

Even when Gaia worship purports to be scientifically based, it lacks any common sense or logic. The fact that the whole climate change theory functions only by falsifying data bothers no one, because the data is merely a prop for the faith, in much the same way chicken or goat entrails would be for the pagan seer. Understanding that also explains why, no matter how often the data is proven false, the faithful are undeterred. "Global warming" doesn't work? Then "climate change" will? With that kind of divinity in charge, every thing -- heat, cold, wet, dry, etc. -- proves that the climate change divinity is firmly in control. That kind of thinking is downright hostile to common sense.

Today's hard science also defies logic, at least when it comes to our universe. I believe in evolution and the Big Bang to the extent that hard facts, and intelligent inferences, indicate that they are reasonable theories. I don't believe in them as matters of faith. And most importantly, I don't believe that the Big Bang is truly the beginning, because common sense says that something had to precede the Big Bang. For a long time, though, science insisted, against all common sense, that nothing preceded the Big Bang.

That lack of common sense has become too painful, however, so scientists are now positing all sorts of things such as endlessly repeating universes, black holes reborn, etc. Occam's Razor says that the simplest answer is the best and, ironically enough, common sense seems to say that, given the vastness and complexity of the universe, and given that humans are hardwired for God, may God is the answer.

I've sort of wandered around here, but I do believe that a book (that is, the Bible) with a completely coherent vision about the universe, about man's place in the universe, and about man's relationship to God and to other men, is a necessary foundation for logical thinking -- and common sense, after all, is nothing more than baseline logic. All other theories of the world are predicated upon the random and the magical, both of which are the antithesis of common sense.


David Schuler: G. K. Chesterton said that the first effect of not believing in God is to lose your common sense but I'm not sure that's quite right. He also called tradition "the democracy of the dead". We are not the only people to have lived, indeed, our little lifespans are only a tiny slice of the entirety of human experience. When you don't believe in God you cut yourself off from the vast trove of traditional wisdom, the distillation of that experience.



Laura Rambeau Lee:Let’s define common sense as rational thought; or right reason. Humankind existed thousands of years before the written word allowed us to communicate with one another beyond our families or tribes. If one believes in the Biblical tale of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, they lived in a paradise where everything was provided for them. They wanted for nothing. But they did the one thing G-d told them not to do. Eve was tempted by the serpent (Satan) and she ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Becoming fully aware and conscious she convinced Adam to partake of the fruit so he too would become aware. This consciousness is the spark of divinity we have all been endowed with by our Creator. This was the true beginning of mankind’s relationship with G-d. Whether one believes in the story or not, at some point we became sentient beings. And so in our conscious state we innately understand right from wrong and good from evil. Over time and out of trial and error and experience arose common sense. By the time G-d gave his commandments to Moses and his people they were already understood even if they were not commonly practiced. Common sense is right reason and is how we bring order out of chaos. It is how we structure our lives and our societies. But taking the next step, if we know right from wrong and good from evil, we have to question what makes us choose to be a moral and honest person and live our lives seeking a path of virtue, honesty, and goodness. Of what benefit is it to us? The answer is G-d. Our better selves strive to please our Creator. Perhaps the question should be does common sense bring faith in G-d? I believe it does.



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WoW! Forum: What's Your Reaction To The Special Elections?

Every week on Monday, the WoW! community and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher's Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week's question: What's Your Reaction To The Special Elections?

Bookworm Room : The special elections mattered only because the Democrats had three erroneous beliefs: (1) That Trump voters and former #NeverTrumpers want to disable Trump; (2) that money can buy votes; and (3) that polling is credible.

The reality is that even those conservatives who don't particularly like Trump, including those, such as Paul Mirengoff who have moved from being #NeverTrumpers to reluctantly Trump supporters, are pleased with what the President has been able to do despite the Progressives' unrelenting efforts to sidetrack him and, if possible, destroy his presidency entirely. Trump is busy rolling back Obama's unconstitutional executive orders, authorizing federal agencies to enforce laws already on the books, repealing onerous regulations, appointing conservative judges, and leading from the front in international affairs. Compared to that, his occasionally confusing or bombastic tweets seem insignificant.

It's also nice to see that, when it comes to deeply held principles, Americans can't be bought. Progressives can run all the ads they want in Georgia using money from the San Francisco Bay Area, but it's just not going to work. Again, while conservative voters (especially college-educated conservative voters) may not like Trump's style, they sure like his substance.

Finally, who in the world is dumb enough today to put all their faith in the polls?

The reality is that each of the special elections played out precisely as logic would dictate: conservative voters voted for conservative candidates. Wise Progressives (all three of them) have figured this out; the rest of them are providing us with delightful entertainment by attacking Nancy Pelosi and insisting that they would have won if only they'd pulled even harder to the left. You go, guys!

 Rob Miller: To borrow Kellyann's bon mot approprié, my reaction was to laugh my ossuff. More at the Dems and the media reaction than at the actual outcome, which I expected. The GOP totals alone in the election with 14 candidates running totaled more than Osssuf's with 1 other Democrat running.

What fascinates me more is the Dem reaction.  It has split the party wide open. Not that the split wasn't there before, but this has exacerbated it.

Julian Assange, has an interesting piece on Twit More that I dissected that explores this in depth. He says that the Democrat party is doomed. As a Bernie supporter, Assange paints a picture of what he sees as the party's future.

Mike McDaniel: My general reaction to the special Congressional elections in GA-6 and SC-5 is: so? I’m not demonstrating indifference or apathy. In fact, I don’t care about apathy. My point is I expected both Republicans to win, and within the five-point range, which is exactly what happened.

I was secure in this expectation because for decades, it has been apparent, and even proved through research, which the media has endeavored to keep quiet, that polls tend to favor Democrats by no less than five points. Some suggest it’s because pollsters always oversample Democrats, because of confirmation bias, because some pollsters misreport--purposely--results that favor Republicans, because the media don’t report polls that favor Republicans, particularly by significant margins…the list goes on, and all are likely correct to one degree or another. Therefore, whenever a Democrat is said to be likely to win a close race, I expect the Republican to win by 3-6 points, and am rarely disappointed.

Do I need to point out how utterly unreliable the media are? Do I need to observe if they report it’s dark at midnight, I have to go outside to confirm it? Need I note if the media think the Dem is a shoe-in, I know who is going to win? Thought not.

In the Georgia race, the arguments of the candidates also told the tale. Jon Osoff, as pure a pajamaboy as the DNC could find, began as a doctrinaire Democrat, but as election day approached, he began tacking sharply toward the center, sounding very much like--gasp!--Donald Trump. Karen Handel hit Osoff hard for his earned carpetbagger status, and for the tens of millions of out of state money--mostly from California--that made the race the most expensive in history. Her frequent invocation of Nancy Pelosi was also telling. Americans aren’t fond of her; she’s the embodiment of the San Francisco liberal, clueless, entitled and self-imagined intellectually and morally superior to the flyover country deplorables about whom she and Osoff pretend to care. The comparison stuck to Osoff even as he frantically tried to present himself as just one of the working middle class Democrats love to call racists in particular and bigots in general.

These elections don’t demonstrate quite as much as Republicans and Democrats claim. The Dems have indeed lost four in a row, but in the 2018 elections, they’ll win some--law of averages. I doubt they’ll take back the House, but may slightly narrow the margin.

However, the victory, and the Dem’s bizarre spin(s) regarding it, indicate yet again that Progressivism cannot be falsified. It is akin to religious faith for the aggressively and angrily non-religious. No progressive policy or tactic can possibly be wrong, and no evidence can ever exist sufficient to prove it wrong. If a policy or tactic appears to fail, it’s because not enough money was spent: more than $30 million wasn’t enough, and besides, the Republicans spent lots of money too and didn’t win by as big a margin as they should have! Not enough time has gone by for the policy or tactic to triumph as it inevitably must: yeah we lost now, but just wait until 2018 or 2020; Americans will love our narrative then! Or inevitably, Republicans have been allowed to exist to oppose the righteous: they cheated; it was the weather; Republicans lied about us and our candidate; Russia!, TRUMP!

This makes it very unlikely that Democrats will be able to diagnose their failure and make adjustments. They’ve spent decades so stirring their base into derangement, the entire party is essentially socialist, leaning communist, will all the totalitarian tendencies of those ideologies. Some Dems are apparently recognizing at least some of their huge liabilities, but it’s unlikely the base monster they’ve so willingly created will allow them to move anywhere near the center of traditional American politics.

Thank goodness--and Nancy Pelosi--for that.

Oh, and what must life be like for such perpetually angry, hateful and aggrieved people? All people of good will must pray for such miserable people.

Doug Hagin:Well, I am pleased with the results, although not surprised in the least. And, I am happy that the Democrats still do not get why they lost. They really are in denial.

Don Surber: The special elections represented five open congressional seats, which are the best way to flip a district, especially this late in the 10-year redistricting cycle.

However, all five seats -- four Republican and one Democratic -- remained in their respective parties's folds. This shows the regional partisan split continues.
Rare will be the state that has a Republican senator and a Democratic senator in the future. Last year, there were 34 Senate races. Republicans took all 22 in the states Trump won. Democrats took all 12 in the states Clinton won.

At present, the double victory on Tuesday gave Trump a boost. Democrats are deflated. The party is becoming a coffee klatch run by a bunch of bickering, catty, little old ladies -- Hillary, Nancy, and Chuck Schumer. To keep the troops moving forward, they dialed up the rhetoric to 11. It isn't working.
Obama will try to rev up the base, but he split the base by playing racial politics for eight years. The return of the Black Liberation Movement under the alias of Black Lives Matter makes politics less fun for white people.Who needs the guilt? So he is turning off much of the base.
On top of that, Obama has the smell of loser now.

Trump let the air out of all of Obama's programs. We are not even six months into this administration. Even Michelle's carrot sticks and kale school lunches are gone. Trump is feeding the kids corn dogs and cheese puffs.

Ossoff's head is on the pike. Pajama Boy is this year's Wendy Davis. Abortion Barbie meet Planned Parenthood Ken.

The Karen Handel Forget Planned Parenthood Money Act is coming. Revenge is being served hot and spicy.

We may not get tired of winning, but surely the big Democratic donors are exhausted from all that losing. DNC revenues hit their lowest in 14 years last month. Adjusted for inflation that is, let's see (gets out calculator) pitiful.

At some point, losing no longer is fun. You do something else. I say this as a Cleveland sports fan. About this time of year, you assess the Indians record and calculate if the Tribe is worth the emotional investment. This year the verdict is yes. Other years no. I went through 35 seasons in which the Indians had only 6 winning seasons. A fair weather fan is a sane fan.

So it is with politics. If Trump lost, I would have quit blogging. It's that simple.
Imagine people more marginally involved in politics. Has anyone seen Jane Fonda lately?
So the short answer is Democrats are deflated, Trump is pumped.

 Dave Schuler: The Democratic National Committee, with the obtuseness they've displayed for the last dozen years or so, chose to make the special elections a referendum on Trump. Now they're stuck with it.

No matter how much they wish it were otherwise, politics has been, is, and will remain local. The Democrats need to learn how to do retail politics again. Field qualified candidates who actually live in the districts they want to represent, who know the districts and are known by them. Formulate an agenda and run on issues. Build local organizations.

Don't expect the electorate at large to recoil in horror from Republicans the way you do. Other than in a few urban centers and college towns, most people just don't look at things that way.

Laura Rambeau Lee : The Democrats appear unaware the majority of Americans remain firmly center right. The Democrat Party of today offers nothing but nasty partisanship and hateful rhetoric. Their progressive Marxist ideology and identity politics appeal to a very small segment of the population. The American people do not want this continued chaos and division being stirred up by progressive agitators. We want good jobs. We want the opportunity to better ourselves and raise our families and for the most part to be let alone. We want less government intrusion into our lives, not more. We do not want a nanny state and we know that promises of free health care and college tuition are lies. We treasure our freedom and are seeing it slip away, particularly through policies implemented by the Democrat party.

The Democrat Party has no good leader and no message that appeals to the average American voter. These last special elections prove no amount of money or celebrity endorsements can buy our votes. As long as the Democrat party remains deaf to the needs of the American people and continues to push their radical agenda they will continue to lose support for their candidates.

As for me, I’m still laughing my Ossoff.


Well, there it is!

Make sure to drop by every Monday for the WoW! Magazine Forum. And enjoy WoW! Magazine 24-7 with some of the best stuff written in the 'net. Take from me, you won't want to miss it.

WoW! Magazine's Forum: What Will be The End Result Of Mueller's Investigation?

Every week on Monday, the WoW! community and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher's Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week's question:What Will be The End Result Of Mueller's Investigation?



Mike McDaniel: The results of Mueller’s investigation do not require the insight of an Old Testament prophet. Special prosecutors spends tens, even hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, and they prosecute as many people for as many crimes as they can… I was going to say “for as many crimes as they can find,” but the better formulation would be: “for as many crimes as they can manufacture.”

Take the “Russian collusion” narrative. Even Democrats are beginning to back away from that one. There is no such crime as “collusion,” which is nothing more than agreeing on a course or action or working in concert toward it. One might conceivably violate portions of the espionage statutes, perhaps money laundering, even RICO, which is often stretched to attack little girls running lemonade stands, but people may discuss, even make manifest, their common views on a variety of topics--collude, if you will--without violating the law.

There might be treason, but that’s so yesterday. Progressives have always loved the Russians and envied their totalitarian ways. They only changed their views because TRUMP. Only five people in American history have been convicted of treason, but Progressives would surely think it the most important statute in the history of the Republic if they thought they could use it against President Trump or someone close to him.

Another significant problem is that as head of the Executive branch, Mr. Trump has the unlimited power to fire the Director of the FBI; he’s part of the Executive branch. President Trump has the same power to demand any federal prosecutor, from the Attorney General down to the newest junior prosecutor just hired in Buffalo Breath, ND, cease prosecution of any case. He need not produce any reason. That’s all part of the rule of law, which progressives find so inconvenient.

Let’s review: Mr. Trump, apparently feeling kindly toward General Flynn, and thinking he had suffered enough, told James Comey he hoped--hoped--Comey could see his way clear to let the Flynn case go. Comey testified--in a Mittyish manner--he didn’t consider this an order to end the investigation, which by all accounts, was already ended. He also testified he did not do anything to end that, or any other investigation, and the current, acting head of the FBI testified no one has tried to influence or stop any investigation. Yet Progressives are screaming “obstruction of justice,” and “cover up.”

How can the President of the United States obstruct justice when he did not direct Comey to do anything, and when he has absolute constitutional power to direct Comey to end any investigation at will? Even if Mr. Trump specifically told Comey to drop a specific investigation/prosecution--and he didn’t--that’s not a crime, merely an exercise of the President’s prosecutorial discretion. Whether it would be a politically wise thing to do is another matter, but a political matter, not a crime.

Mr. Trump is right. It’s a witch hunt. Mueller has been hiring legions of known leftist lawyers. I remember not long ago when James Comey was universally hailed as a straight shooter, as a man who would never put his thumb on the scale of justice. As Sarah Palin would say: “How’s that workin’ out for yah?” Now Mueller is the straight shooter, but thus far, all his rounds are bending sharply to the left.

This is nothing more than standard progressive tactics, as in the case of former Texas Governor Rick Perry. Austin’s chief prosecutor, a real piece of work, was arrested for drunk driving, and her horrifically bad behavior, which required her to be strapped to a chair, and which included threats, was videotaped. As she was in charge of the state’s public accountability unit--prosecuting corrupt public officials--Perry thought it wise she resign. She refused, so Perry made it clear he’d veto funds for that sole function--not the entire prosecutor’s office--and when she still refused to resign, he did.

He was charged with multiple felonies, which came down to arguing the Governor could be convicted of crimes for exercising his constitutional authority. Perry eventually won; all charges were dismissed, but it took years, cost millions, and destroyed Perry’s presidential hopes, which, apart from the general, enthusiastic exercise of leftist hate and cruelty, was the point of the prosecution.

It is inconceivable that Mueller, who is reported to be hiring large numbers of plainly leftist lawyers, with no end in sight, will simply close up shop and announce no crimes were found. This is, in the finest progressive Washington DC style, an investigation in search of a crime, and someone to hang it on--actually, someone to hang in general. With that in mind, trifles such as probable cause, proof beyond a reasonable doubt, credible witnesses and evidence and the presumption of innocence until the state proves one guilty certainly won’t be bothered with.

In this case, Shylock will get his pound of flesh, and it will take him at least four years, or more, to get it. Just as with Rick Perry, that’s the point.

Rob Miller:Here's what I had to say about this elsewhere, and I'm sticking by it:

Expect that Mueller’s ‘investigation’ will end with him not finding any criminal charges (because there aren’t any that are remotely possible) but having enough to say about ‘improper conduct’ and ‘possible misconduct, but I couldn’t find any direct evidence’ to keep the Left’s fire burning. Expect Mueller to take his time as well…the Democrats are already saying they will push the bogus ‘Trump-Russia’ narrative through the 2018 midterms.

That's about as long as the Left is going to be able to keep this nonsense going. After that, the same tactic the Clintons and Obama used successfully is going to backfire on them...people get bored after awhile.

If the president does his job, the economy continues to do well, the AHCA is implemented, tax reform becomes a reality and illegal migration is curtailed, the American people at large aren't going to care about what the NYT or CNN manufactures. And the hard left will fail in its attempt to take over congress.

Dave Schuler: There will be no end result. It will grind on without much in the way of results until the end of Trump's second term, he's defeated in his bid for re-election, he resigns or declines to run for re-election, he dies in office, the investigation is terminated, either by the Congress or by the president, or some combination of the above.

Laura Rambeau Lee : The American people are outraged at the unsubstantiated allegations by unknown sources regarding the Trump Administration’s “obstruction of justice” accusations that continue to be reported in the media. Yet during former FBI Director Comey's testimony he revealed Hillary Clinton was in fact under investigation when Bill Clinton met former Attorney General Loretta Lynch on her plane. Comey also disclosed that Lynch directed him not to call it an investigation and instead he should call it a “matter” when discussing it. Shortly thereafter he reported they would not be pursuing charges against Clinton after reciting a list of the numerous illegal activities committed by Clinton. This is the very definition of collusion and obstruction. This is what should be investigated. And yet the media refuses to cover and expose this story.

This is a witch hunt by people who still cannot believe their precious Hillary Clinton did not win the election and their anger has not subsided. In fact, it continues to escalate as the progressive media pushes the narrative that President Trump colluded with the Russians in the election. Since none of our intelligence agencies could find any evidence of this, they are now pursuing obstruction of justice charges against President Trump for his firing of Comey. President Trump has the constitutional power and right to fire anyone in the executive branch at any time.

Nothing good will come of this investigation. We the people need to put unrelenting pressure on our congressmen and woman to support President Trump and insist on an end to the investigation. We need to allow our president to get on with his agenda and keep his campaign promises. And those Republicans who refuse to support our president should be primaried out in 2018 and 2020. Drain the swamp.


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Forum: What Would Real Tax Reform Look Like?

Every week on Monday, the WoW! writers, communityand our invited guests weigh in at the Wow! Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week's question: What Would Real Tax Reform Look Like?

Don Surber: Real tax reform would be 20% of all income over $120,000 with the end of all tax credits. But good luck getting rid of EITC. Until we stop using the tax code as welfare -- corporate and personal -- we will never see real tax reform.

But we live in a world where we can simplify income taxes.

Doug Hagin : Well, I would eliminate most deductions, loopholes, etc. The fewer of these we have, the fewer ways to cheat. The less ways to cheat, the less need for enforcement. Thus a smaller IRS. A far better system would be for everyone to pay 10% on income after the first $25,000. You make $35,000 you pay $1,000, you make $350,000, you pay $32,500. For dependents, an exemption of $10,000 each. For corporations, businesses, a flat 10%. In short, it should be fairly easy to file your taxes. CPA's and tax attorneys would hate my plan but, oh well.

In addition, I would eliminate or shrink most government agencies, and reign in foreign aid to nations that are not our friends. At some point the discussion has to be about spending less. There are things the federal government should fund, our military, veterans needs, protection for our coasts, borders, etc.

This is, of course never going to happen, it makes too much sense. And too many people are invested in the convoluted mess that our tax code has become.


Fausta Rodríguez Wertz: What Doug said!


JoshuaPundit: Whooo, tax reform! I have something of a contrary view. First off, let's remember where all these handy dandy deductions originally came from. They were efforts by the Feds to promote different industries and different social behavior at a given time, and while they might have been good ideas then, they've largely stayed on the books and been abused. And some of the good ones that still make sense were eliminated. F'rinstance, people in arts and entertainment who had been  struggling for years  to get a record contract, a book/script  deal or a movie contract  used to be 
able to divide that sudden huge chunk of moola by the years they had been struggling and reporting any arts income they made and pay taxes on just a percentage of the income they made during that first reasonably fat year instead of getting killed. Ronaldus Magnus took that one away. GRRR! OK, forgiven.

So the first thing to think about is what the goals are here, and here's my two cents (agorat for the initiated ; )

President Trump's skillful handling of the Chinese is going to eventually lead to the same thing that happened with Japan. To avoid tariffs (the stick hidden behind the carrots) they will build plants here, hire Americans and pay U.S. taxes provided they're competitive. Ditto with American companies. So the first thing we need to do is start more manufacturing here, which will create a great deal more activity that can be taxed and thus more revenue.  So the first goal is to lower the corporate income tax. Ditto with capital gains which means you pay twice for the same damned money.

The second goal is to simplify the IRS tax code. I never used to be a flat taxer, but I've gradually come over to that view as I realized the truth of  something a very wise fella once said to me once : "If it ain't yours, you don't worry about it."

Too many folks aren't paying taxes? Well yeah, but a lot of those people actually are because of legitimate itemized deductions deductions, or because of taking less W-2 exemptions which are subtracted from their gross income. That's not exactly unfair when you think about it. If you're self employed and have to pay money out to run your business, should you have to pay taxes on that money? So the first part of reforming our byzantine tax code is to go through it and eliminate deductions that once might have made sense but perhaps no longer do, like the oil depletion allowance perhaps. I'm a little wary about starting anew because some deductions actually pay for themselves and then some, like R&D. Goal number three is to parse the tax code and eliminate what no longer makes sense.

However, if we were going to start fresh with personal income tax, the best way is probably four brackets. I'd have to sit down with the numbers crunchers to come up with actual percentages, but say, 10% of income $20,000 and below, 15% on income $20,000 to $200,000, 20% on income from $200,000 on up. I would still allow a certain amount of deductions to the self employed. You want to promote small business..it pays in the end and cxreates more revenue.

I'd also keep the child credit for now. America's birth rate needs to pump up a bit so perhaps we're not so dependent on immigration. Whole countries in Europe aren't reproducing at replacement rates, and I  think you see how well that's working out with what they've imported to make up the numbers.

The bee-eeg enchilada, the home mortgage deduction? I would allow it for one, count 'em one family residence. The original idea behind that one was to promote home ownership, and that has a lot of sociological benefits. If people have a stake in things, they tend to care more about their neighborhoods, et cetera, et cetera et cetera.



And when people pay taxes, they also get concerned about the money the government is wasting.  Like my friend said, if it ain't yours...but OTOH, if it is, you definitely make it your business to get worried about it.I think the American people would go for that. it would suck for me personally, but there's always my old friend depreciation and some of the stuff's free and clear anyway, so I'd  swallow it. Grr again. Ehh!

Another problem with the tax code nobody wants to mention is the waste and fraud involved dealing with illegal migrants. We spend billions on earned income credits for people working here illegally and for child credits for children not in America whom may not even exist. Read the link to find out how that scam works.

Finally, as much as people dislike the IRS, I think fantasies  about eliminating them are just that. Some people simply won't  pay taxes. As ol' Ben said, if men had their way none of them would be taxed. So there needs to be enforcement, accounting and record keeping. Also, if we're going to eliminate the IRS, you're talking about a huge amount of unemployment for a class of people who make enough money to buy houses, cars, refrigerators, tires, clothes, food and other consumer items, all of which create economic activity that can be taxed. So while a hiring freeze and/or transfers into a different civil service branch correct this scenario, I think simply axing them is not too bright, as much as some of them may deserve it.

Off topic, one thing The Donald absolutely ought to get into is civil service reform that would allow these so-called public servants to be transferred to different job categories or face layoffs. It can be done, and Jeb Bush of all people did it in Florida, saving the state millions.



Bookworm Room :Real federal tax reform: A 10% sales tax on everything but food basics (milk, meat, produce, bread, etc.). It sounds regressive, but it's not because people's consumption tends to be consistent with their income and lifestyle. Marin's wealthy shop at Whole Foods, drive expensive electric cars, and buy their clothes at Nordstroms and Neiman Marcus. Marin's less wealth shop at Safeway, drive cheap cars, and buy their clothes at Goodwill or Costco.

Alternative federal tax reform: A 10% tax on gross income over $20,000. Those earning $20,000 or less would pay a 5% tax. Everyone should pay tax.


David Schuler : I'm not sure I can discuss this question adequately in brief but here goes. It depends on your operative definition of "real". I would say that real tax reform would have the following characteristics:

• It would not be financed by adding to the debt. That means it should either be revenue neutral or increase revenues.

• It must be politically possible.

• It must be either economically neutral or benign.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but no tax reform involving a reduction in the marginal personal income tax rates would be real reform under that rubric. Tax cuts only pay for themselves under very specific circumstances. Neither today's tax rates nor economy are the tax rates or economy of the 1980s. We don't make enough of what we consume for the Keynesian stimulus of putting more money in people's pockets to boost incomes to be effective and the prospects for a tax cut resulting in increased domestic investment are bleak. If a tax cut stimulated the economy it would be China's economy that would be stimulated not ours.

Cutting spending is equally problematic. About 75% of the budget is just four items: defense spending (including military pensions and the VA), Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and interest on the debt. With just paying for the federal courts and a minimal regulatory state, that would account for about 85% of the budget with the other 15% already being paid for by borrowing. So, no cuts in marginal rates.

The present deductions are fiercely defended by those who depend on them for their incomes. The biggie, the home mortgage interest deduction, will be defended to the death by the real estate industry. The deductibility of charitable contributions will be defended by not-for-profits. The deductibility of state and local taxes will, unsurprisingly, be defended by state and local governments.

From time to time you hear a national sales tax floated as a replacement for the income tax or a way of reducing marginal tax rates. That's not real, either. Sales tax is a matter of life and death for state and local governments and retailers.

And so on.

IMO the only prospect for real tax reform is that we might be able to reduce the corporate income tax to fall within OECD norms rather than their present very high level. The corporate income tax accounts for about 11% of present federal revenues. Cutting them in half would require about $180 million in cuts. That can be accomplished in any number of ways including reductions in military spending, trimming the budgets of some federal agencies, or even by a surtax on personal incomes over $1 million. Bringing the corporate income tax down would reduce the incentives for inversions and encourage companies to repatriate some of their overseas earning. That's something anyway.


Michael McDaniel:
I haven’t spent sufficient time on the issue of tax reform to propound at length, and with any special insight, to say nothing of the nuts and bolts of specific proposals, but I can suggest a few general principles that might have a positive effect:

Everyone needs to have skin in the game. At present, only about 47% of the public pays taxes, and a great many of those that don’t get tax refunds. Think about that one: refunds on taxes they don’t pay. Even the poverty stricken can afford a few hundred a year. Until everyone is a taxpayer, we can’t hope to have meaningful tax reform.

There is no reason individuals can’t pay their taxes on a post card. The simpler, the better.

We absolutely must dramatically reduce business taxes. Our current “progressive” tax system is among the most regressive in the world and is badly damaging our economy. It has been for a very long time.

There should be very few, and highly specific deductions, available only to those that actually pay substantial taxes, such as the middle class. A home mortgage deduction, deductions for dependent children, and perhaps for adults caring for elderly parents--an issue that becomes more common and pressing by the year--can be retained, and easily citied when filing one’s form 1040 postcard.

There must be no tax loopholes or exemptions for members of Congress or any other governmental employee. They sink or float in the same boat as the rest of us poor deplorables.

It should go without saying that corporate tax welfare is out. Temporary incentives to stimulate plant building, etc., sure, but we must let free enterprise do what it does best and get government out of the market.

Constitutional Amendment: the Federal Tax code may not exceed 50 pages, double-spaced, Times New Roman, 12 font. Felony penalties for anyone adding a period more.

Of course, none of this will be possible without repealing Obamacare, restoring sane immigration policies designed only to directly benefit America and Americans, and without dramatically reducing the size of government. President Trump is making a good beginning, but this is going to be a multi-generational project. Until Americans give up the idea that government can and should provide for all their needs, taxes will never be under control. And of course, whenever progressives are in power, we’ll be skyrocketing in exactly the wrong direction.

Doing this will have one additional useful effect: the IRS can be reduced to a fraction of its current size and power. Oh yes, felony penalties for any IRS employee that abuses their power, including total loss of employment, benefits and pension.



Right Reason :Tax reform cannot be accomplished overnight but we should set a goal to eliminate personal and corporate income taxes completely and stop the federal government’s theft of the hard earned wages of American workers. We have to starve the beast. Government must be forced to operate within a balanced budget. We can eliminate several cabinet departments such as the EPA, DOE, Dept of Ed, FHA… which have no legitimacy from a constitutional perspective. The federal government should operate the way any business is required to operate, spending no more than it takes in.

The federal income tax system is confiscatory theft. The American taxpayers are debt slaves to an out of control and too powerful federal government. As we saw under the Obama Administration the Internal Revenue Service became a political weapon of the left, targeting conservative organizations in an effort to keep them from being able to obtain 501c3 status. This seriously hindered their ability to operate and advance the conservative message going into the 2010 and 2012 election cycles and one might argue a major contributing factor to President Obama’s re-election in 2012. The Internal Revenue Service needs to be stripped of its power and reduced to a simple accounting division of the federal government if left to exist at all.

Real tax reform would be the implementation of a flat tax (a set rate based on income) or a fair tax, which is a consumption tax. I would prefer to see a fair tax replace the current system. Under a fair tax everyone would pay for the products and services they purchase. This fair tax would exempt food, medical care, medicines, and certain other products or services of necessity that could be negotiated and agreed upon by our legislators. We do not want the fair tax to be a regressive tax that would harm low income, elderly, and disabled citizens, but the less people consume the less they would pay. With a consumption tax everyone would contribute towards the operation of the government. Having skin in the game is the only way to make people aware of and care how their money is being spent. Today nearly half of Americans pay no income tax and many actually receive money and benefits without paying anything into the system. As long as they continue to receive government handouts they have no incentive to fix this broken system. A fair tax would also eliminate the need to file federal income tax returns.

Progressives love to tell us the rich don’t pay enough taxes while the fact is they pay the majority of taxes received by the federal government. The current system is pure wealth redistribution, which has been the goal of socialists since the implementation of the federal income tax nearly one hundred years ago.

The more money we pay in taxes the more the government spends. It is never enough. The Supreme Court ruled Obamacare was a tax and therefore constitutionally legal. Americans are seeing higher taxes and health care premiums and costs while experiencing less health care and less discretionary income. It appears the federal government’s goal is to take every last penny we earn to redistribute as it chooses. The national debt is nearing $20 Trillion Dollars. The government has borrowed on our future earnings and the labor and earnings of our children and grandchildren. It is theft and if not criminal it is most certainly immoral.

Well, there it is!

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Forum: Should 'Hate Crime' Laws Be abolished?

Every week on Monday, the WoW! community and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher's Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week's question: Should 'Hate Crime' Laws Be Abolished?

Don Surber: All crimes of person and many crimes of property are hate. All the hate crimes law does is politicize criminal prosecution. They are de facto blasphemy laws only against Muslims.


Michael McDaniel:Hate crime laws are inherently anti-American. They pick winners, and assert that some people, some victims, are of greater value than others. This is why progressives and Black Lives Matter activists and their supporters become so outraged when anyone dare suggest all lives--including black lives--matter. They claim special, exalted status. Such laws make a mockery of equal justice for all by giving preferred victim groups greater status before the law, greater value as human beings. As such, hate crime laws are a particularly vile form of virtue signaling.

A primary argument for such laws is as a sort of expiation of guilt for the mistreatment of Blacks in the past. Thus do contemporary Americans, who have trespassed against none, need to make atonement for the sins their ancestors--for the most part--didn’t commit. This too does not comport well with the principle of equal justice for the law, which holds all men equal before the law, taking them as they come, not dragging with them the sins--or none--of their ancestors of ages past. No man facing criminal charges should be forced to carry the sins of the ages with him into court.

There is a great deal of irony involved as well. It is progressives that commonly support these laws, virtue signaling being a primary way by which they identify themselves, and live. Yet it is the same people that work tirelessly to lower the sentences of vicious criminals, to shut down jails, to release offenders as early as possible, and as part of the Black Lives Matter movement, to actually immunize Blacks from arrest in the first place. It is these people who make folk heroes of cop killers and traitors.

And who are the criminals they wish to lionize and free? Usually blacks, who commit crimes out of all proportion to their population distribution, and usually against other blacks. However, hate crime prosecutions are virtually never applied when black criminals kill each other, or even black innocents. They are also virtually never done when black criminals kill white people, the social justice theory being that white people cannot, by virtue of their privilege, be discriminated against. No need to peer into the thoughts of black murderers; their race absolves them of all hate.

Hate crimes are reserved for those that commit crimes against favored victim groups.

Prosecution for hate crimes also requires far less proof--less than proof beyond a reasonable doubt--for conviction. Those pushing hate crime laws would deny this, and some even argue those that are accused of hate crimes deserve to be convicted regardless of a lack of evidence. That’s the point of the laws in the first place. Hate crimes, you see, are proved by mere race. A white person accused of assaulting a black person must, by virtue of their race, be guilty of hate. The principle has come to be applied to the LGBTQWERTY victim community. When one of these people is the victim of an assault, or virtually any other crime, the motivation must be hate. No other possibility exists by virtue of the victim’s favored gender/sexual preference, social justice status. This is why, in many cases, and in many places, it is nearly impossible for defendants to receive fair trials.

Another pernicious factor is the determination of hate must involve the establishment of thought crime. Juries and judges are required to read the minds, to determine the motivations, of defendants. For defendants choosing to stand on their Fifth Amendment rights, the prosecution may weave any outlandish theories of hate they wish, and because hate crime prosecutions always rest on an ever-shifting foundation of emotion and political correctness, conviction may be very easy indeed to obtain.

If the penalties for a given crime are insufficient, it is an easy matter for legislatures to correct such oversight. If legislators wish to add enhancements for specific criminal acts, that too is easy to do. The law, if it is to be equal for all, if we are to have a rule of law, must be race, gender and religion blind. Thought crime can have no place in a constitutional republic. How can any man know which thoughts are criminal and which are not, and under which circumstances?

Hate crime laws do not serve the public interest, only the narrow and vindictive political interests of Progressives. They are an element of social justice, not the rule of law.

Dave Schuler : "Hate crimes" should not be distinct crimes. There's a reasonable argument for taking hate into account at sentencing but not for "hate crimes" to be distinct crimes.

Bookworm Room: Hate crimes should definitely be abolished.

Murder is a criminal act, regardless of the victim. Assault is a criminal act, regardless of the animus driving the perpetrator.

A crime is a crime is a crime. Our government should never declare that some lives are more or less valuable than others in the hierarchy of criminal events, no matter how well-intentioned that declaration may be.

JoshuaPundit: Hate crimes? Nothing but a sop to 'protected' groups. You'll notice that blacks, homosexuals, Hispanics (especially illegal migrants) and Muslims are rarely if ever charged with them, no matter how egregious and racially motivated the offense. No, hate crime charges are largely limited to white males. The entire premise is ridiculous anyway. If a crime is committed with malice aforethought, that ought to be a sufficient basis for a trial and for sentencing.

Oh and by the way, let's bring back Ol' Sparky for capital offenses, shall we? A painless injection is no deterrent.

 


Make sure to drop by every Monday for the WoW! Magazine Forum. And enjoy WoW! Magazine 24-7 with some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere. Take from me, you won't want to miss it.

Forum: What Would Real Healthcare Reform Look Like?

Every week on Monday, the WoW! staff, community and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher's Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week's question:What Would Real Healthcare Reform Look Like?

Don Surber: The perfect health plan would leave it to the states. Medicaid would end. I'd keep Medicare because we paid into it and it's an inviolable promise to those 65 and older (I am 63). The marketplace would make health care better and cheaper, especially if we eliminated third-party payer.

But we won't agree on the perfect plan, and so we compromise. The following need to be included in the repeal-and-replace: 1. End the mandate for employers. 2. End the mandate for individuals. 3. End subsidies by 2020 (you have to give people time to adjust). 4. Finish the legislation by July 31 to give insurers time to prepare plans for next year. The open season begin in October.
My advice to conservatives is to understand there will be compromise, not because the people who oppose you are evil, but because they see things different, know things you don't know, and don't know things that you know.

As Bob Dylan sang:

"We always did feel the same
We just saw it from a different point Of view
Tangled up in blue"


Rob Miller: While I would generally agree that the less government in healthcare the better, c'mon. I live in the real world and it ain't gonna happen. Too many people want the government gimmees and the lollypops. And too many of our politicians are just tickled to give it to them. If you want to know the real reason why so many of our politicos want the status quo, or something close to it, the reason is dead simple, and you can read it here and see if you don't agree.

Two dirty words no one in DC wants to mention and the additional fact that illegal migrants are bleeding the system white are exactly why our healthcare system is in such dire straits now, and why the cost of care keeps skyrocketing.

And I think we can forget about the states being involved. A number of them like Illinois and California are essentially bankrupt and inept on top of it. California's Governor Jerry Brown actually wants to spend billions putting together a kind of universal healthcare in California. This is roughly the equivalent of a couple living from paycheck to paycheck with serious debt to deal with deciding that hey, this would be a great time to buy a boat! And maybe a summer house by the beach! And do we need to mention how many of Illinois's governors have ended up in jail?

Putting healthcare in hands like these would be like putting a sex offender in charge of a girl's school. It would not end well.

If the feds are actually going to handle healthcare, ( and the Ryan Plan is nothing less than that) maybe we might as well go government mandated. There's at least one system I'm familiar with that's mandated and it's one of the top rated healthcare systems in the world. And they managed to keep the virtues of competition and free choice intact while keeping care both affordable, efficient and high quality. We could mimic that, but to get anything remotely like  their kind of results, we'd have to change a few things that would not resonate well with a number of members of the political class.

  Dick the Butcher in ''Henry VI'' may have been on to something, present company excluded.

Mike McDaniel : In “repealing and replacing” Obamacare, Republicans, once again--still--are demonstrating why they so richly deserve the title: “the stupid party.” Oh no, they say, we can’t just dump Obamacare. Why not? How did America survive before Obamacare? As I recall--it was only about seven years ago--people that wanted health insurance had it. It was much cheaper, there were more choices, and deductibles didn’t render it impossible to use. There were more doctors, and much happier doctors, and no one was dying in the streets. One thing that has not changed is that hospital emergency rooms can’t turn people away. No matter how poor you are, they have to treat you.

Somehow, Republicans seem unable to understand this, or to speak about it.

As I also recall, merely having insurance has never meant having access to health care. They’re not the same thing.

Somehow, Republicans seem unable to understand this, or to speak about it.

Obamacare can and must be dumped, entirely, every word, every bit of punctuation. Unless we do that, unless we repeal the entire 2000+ page abomination, everything else is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. No one is going to be dying in the streets, though no one will ever know that if they’re waiting for Republicans, particularly the feckless Paul Ryan or Mitch McConnell to tell them.

What would real healthcare reform look like? Basically what Donald Trump has said it should be:

*Erase state lines, allowing companies to sell policies everywhere.

*Get the federal government completely out of it. Want to drain swamps? Getting rid of Obamacare is a great place to start.

*Allow insurance to be portable. Make it possible for people changing careers or jobs the option to take it with them.

*Allow people to band together in larger groups to take advantage of lower rates.

*High risk pools are entitlements, not insurance. If government wants to take that on, don’t urinate on our heads and tell us it’s insurance. But why not? We’re already racing headlong for the fiscal cliff on the high speed rail to nowhere? What’s another trillion or two?

*Allow people to buy any kind of policy they want. No maternity care for men, no prostate surgery benefits for women. If a young, fit, healthy 20-something wants only low-cost insurance for medical catastrophes, have at it.

There are other issues that could be helpful, including rescinding regulations that drive up the cost of drugs and make it almost impossible to bring new life-saving drugs and treatments to market. Deregulating the medical profession and easing the paperwork burden would be enormously helpful too, but that’s a topic for another forum.

The less government, at every level, has its fingers in patient’s medical charts, the better off everyone will be.

 Bookworm Room : I don't have anything intelligent to offer on the subject. I believe in the free market, which has been non-existent since health insurance's inception, when employers offered insurance as a way to circumvent wage controls during WWII. In the decades since then, the health insurance market has been corrupted even further thanks to thousands of federal and state regulations. It's been further corrupted by government price controls over fees and pharmaceuticals.

There's also the market perversion inherent in the fact that the consumer is not responsible for paying the provider so the consumer has no incentive to price shop -- which is hard to do in any event when medicine can be so specialized that the consumer may lack the ability to measure the quality of goods and services versus the price. Add in the fact that the consumer's demands are often on an emergency basis and you end up with a situation that challenges the free market's flow of information and openness to negotiation.

So while I see the problems, I don't see solutions. I just know that socialized medicine never benefits the consumer and that ObamaCare didn't benefit anybody at all. My instinct would be to take all that money the government shuffles around and return it to consumers in the form of an individual "health care savings account." Consumers could than make choices about whether they want to hoard the money (making themselves their own insurers) or invest in insurance that would be offered on a nationwide, rather than statewide, basis. I suspect that would a free market, there would be a lot of affordable options.

States could keep skin in the game by having websites that insurance companies based upon whether they meet metrics each state desperately wishes it could impose on insurers. I know that I have Progressive friends who would never dream of buying insurance from Texas because it lacks the regulatory control California imposes -- never mind that those regulations traditionally trebled the cost.

The Razor: I am a borderline anarchist on the subject.
The US healthcare system is so screwed up I feel like the only solution is to (rhetorically of course) burn it to the ground.

At this point I would take almost any other system than the one we have. Canada. Singapore. Israel.
Let’s outsource the problem to the Japanese I’m sure they’d come up with something better.
Honestly I am so angry with both parties on the topic because they have no clue as to how bad the situation is.

None.

Nuke it from orbit and start over.


Laura Rambeau Lee, Right Reason : Since Obamacare was forced on the American people we conservatives worked hard to elect Republican candidates who promised us nothing less than full repeal of Obamacare. After seven years we have secured Republican majorities in the House, Senate and now in the Executive Office. It is extremely disappointing to hear the reforms being proposed such as the “three buckets” of legislation, and the excuses of how this cannot be done all at once. They have had seven years to perfect a good plan to withdraw us off of Obamacare and return health insurance and health care into the hands of the people, doctors, insurance companies, and the free market. We have fought too long and hard to see these promises not kept by our elected and “trusted” servants.

One thing we have learned, for those who didn’t consider or realize it before; health insurance is not health care. Many middle class people have experienced premiums and deductibles so high they can never afford to see a doctor. We are being told that premiums will not go down with what is being proposed and that in fact some will see their premiums continue to rise.

Anytime government gets involved with such issues it distorts the system. The mandates for coverage and no co-pay requirements for such things as well woman visits should be eliminated. What happens is the government sets the mandates and insurance companies have to comply even though complying makes it impossible to make a profit. So the government promises the insurance companies they will be compensated for their losses and guarantee profits for a period of time through subsidies. Whether the insurance company collects revenue from the individual paying the insurance premium, or the government subsidizes the insurance company to assure they can turn a profit, it is all coming from us. Any law that harms even one person is not a just law, and Obamacare has hurt too many people. The Supreme Court was wrong in its decision when it ruled this law constitutional.

It seems like things were much better when we paid a reasonable premium for coverage we chose which met our needs and our budgets. If we wanted more coverage or lower deductibles or co-pays we paid a premium for that. If we chose to carry a catastrophic policy only and pay the rest of our medical costs out of pocket that was also an option.

Get government out of the health care business and return it to the free market. The laws should be lifted that insist on mandated coverages even when people do not need or want them. Allow insurance to be purchased across state lines. Make insurance more competitive.

Congress should put the repeal on Trumps’ desk that they put on Obama’s desk. This is what we elected them to do.

Well. there it is.

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Forum: Is Demonizing Putin And Russia A Smart Move?

Every week on Monday, the WoW! staff, community and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher's Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week's question:Is Demonizing Putin And Russia A Smart Move?

Don Surber: "Is Demonizing Putin And Russia A Smart Move?"

No, but it is one Democrats are stuck with. In order to legally spy on The Donald's campaign, they had to convince a FISA judge that Putin was in cahoots with Trump.

As Trump exposes the espionage, I believe most Americans will have a what-the-feathers moment and side with President Trump. We do not like wiretapping.

 Rob Miller : Ahh, Russia! A mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a wonderful sandwich of that Russian black rye,  turkey or roast beef, spicy Russian mustard and pickle with kasha on the side and a Stoly chaser (Sorry, Sir Winston).

First, let's not forget that Barack Hussein Obama and his $ecretary of $tate  Hillary Clinton gave Putin whatever he wanted in the beginning. They literally betrayed Poland and the Czech Republic by reneging on America's commitment to put missile defense units in those countries and all Putin had to do was glower a bit. 

 Russia's nukes at the time of the Hillary  'reset' were outmoded and out of date, So Obama and Hillary put together that ridiculous START treaty, which not only had the U.S. decommissioning state of the art American nukes on parity with Russia's obsolete ones, but giving Russia access to our top anti-missile technology like Shoot To Kill, with no quid pro quo from Russia at all. And that doesn't count Hillary giving Russia control over a chunk of America's uranium production in exchange for a nice donation to the Clinton Foundation and a $500K speaking fee for Bill. What the Clintons and Obama gave Russia hurt America worse and  was worth far more to Putin than  they and their surrogate's wildest accusations about anyone in the Trump Administration!

 But as to the question at hand... 

The major challenge of our age is the War on Jihad. Nothing else comes close. This isn't a clash between civilizations as Samuel Huntington put it, but a clash between civilization and totalitarian barbarity.  And the Russians know that first hand.

 In the 13th century, the Mongol invasion of the early Russian state of Rus was a catastrophe. Rus lost most of its territory to the Mongols and to the Polish/Lithuanian kingdom.  The Mongols devastated whole,entire cities and left them in ruins.Whatever was left of Russia had to pay tribute in slaves and treasure to the Tatars, the Muslim successors to the Mongols. And that lasted until  the 15th century, when the Russians finally drove them out. The Russians have been fighting jihad for centuries, and have recent, first hand experience of  jihadi brutality...like the 2004 takeover of a school in Beslan by jihadis and the subsequent rape, murder and torture of the children , teachers and other adults they held hostage. Even the most savage beasts would never have behaved in such a fashion. Beslan, Mumbai, Nairobi, Paris, Nice, Ma'alot, Orlando...it never changes except for the details.

If civilization is to triumph over barbarism, we must remain united,whatever our differences. That is how the West won at Lepanto and at Vienna. Different kingdoms put aside their differences to fight the greater threat.  And we will need security cooperation with Russia to win the War on Jihad.     

The uncomfortable truth of the matter is that Putin and Russia have been the ones fighting jihad, while Barack Obama and his cabal have been complicit in financing, empowering, arming and training it. It was Obama, after all,  who destabilized the Middle East, destroyed America's relationship with Egypt by trying to turn the country over to the Muslim Brotherhood, distanced us from the region's Sunnis by empowering Iran, and helped create ISIS and backed 'moderate Syrian rebels' who were al-Qaeda affiliates.

The entire Crimea dust up is the most ridiculous of all. What we did to Russia and the Serbs with Kossovo is far worse than what Putin did with the Crimea. And what's more, we didn't even have any national interests at stake there. It was simply wag the dog, to distract the news headlines from Bill Clinton's intern problems and look good to the Muslim world, particularly the Saudis. And it has negatively affected our relationship with Russia severely to this day. Memories are long in that part of the world.

Russia needs the Crimea as its sole outlet to the Mediterranean, and the warm water ports it can reach via the Black Sea. That's also one of the main reasons behind Putin's involvement with Syria...Russia's vital naval bases, the Syrian ports at Tartus and Latakia .

Putin might not be a leader Americans would appreciate, but Russia is a different place, where the country has only prospered under strong, autocratic leaders.  Putin is a Russian nationalist, but he also keeps his agreements. A sit down between Putin and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who Putin knows and respects  as a man of his word is likely to yield some important and necessary fruit.

Mike McDaniel : onald Reagan’s 11th Commandment was “thou shalt not speak ill of other Republicans. Immediately after he left office, the Republican Party abandoned that common sense idea, which was equally immediately seized upon by the Democrats, who have rigorously observed it, and practiced the opposite: “though shalt speak ill of every Republican.”

Speaking ill of the Russians is, mostly, a no-lose proposition for the Democrats. Sure, it’s insanely hypocritical for the party of Ted Kennedy, who actually sought the aid of the Soviets, an evil empire bent on the destruction of America, to help him sabotage Ronald Reagan. The same party’s presidential candidate, John Kerry, betrayed his fellow military members, and his picture hung, for decades, in the North Vietnamese war museum as a hero of the struggle against America. The dishonor role goes on and one, yet it is the same party now indignant that members of the Trump Administration may have had the slightest contact with the Russian Ambassador, a man whose job it is to have as much contact with Americans as possible.

President Trump, with his too friendly comments about Vladimir Putin only painted a bigger target on his back. On one hand, we certainly want relations with Russia to be as good as possible, consistent with America’s national interests and those of our allies, but it wouldn’t hurt Mr. Trump, even now, to take a bit of a rhetorically harder line with Russia.

Still, the Democrats are riding any mention of Russia like a rented mule, and their goal is to use that ridiculous, lame topic to do as much damage to Mr. Trump--and to the nation--as possible. They don’t care how much America is harmed in the world in the process, as long as they get Trump, and perhaps, even seize power again.

Putin is doubtless laughing uproariously. He could care less if the Democrats say bad things about him. He knows, no matter what, they will always be useful idiots, easily manipulated to the detriment of America. He could easily be working with Democrats to harm Trump, who any rational leader must understand is not going to be the feckless pajama boy and useful idiot Barack Obama was. Any weakening of America is to Putin’s advantage, and our Democrat Party is working for him, whether intentionally or not.

Until Trump, and the Republicans can agree to fight back and not give an inch, the Democrats, and Putin win. Merely acknowledging their false accusations and faux outrage surrenders without resistance. The media will, of course, do everything it can to attack Trump and help the Democrats. Unless they want to surrender the majority, and give the Congress and White House back to the likes of Barack Obama, Trump and the Republicans had better put on a unified front, and say: “yes, members of the Trump Administration have talked to the Russians, and they’ll talk to the Russians in the future, just as they will talk to representatives of every other nations. That’s what we’re supposed to do. You’ll see the result in our foreign policy. That’s all we will have to say on this issue, now get the hell out of my office.”

The Democrats do have a risk: Americans are sick of fake outrage and fake news. However, the Administration and Republicans need to show them they’re on their side. Thus far, Republicans seem determined to squander everything that fell into their laps. The real battle is an offensive one against Democrats who are subverting our republic, not a defensive battle against non-scandals.

Demonizing Russia may be a smart move, if Republicans continue to do more damage to Mr. Trump than the Democrats. It won’t take long to find out.

Bookworm Room: My glib answer is that, if the Democrats are doing it, is is ab initio a bad idea. Russia is exactly the same as it was when Obama promised Putin flexibility and then handed the Middle East over to it; when Hillary, in exchange for sizable bribes, was nice enough to give Russia control over vast quantities of uranium; or when Podesta did whatever it was he did to increase his wealth thanks to dealings with Putin's Russia. The problem is that, by playing this public game of demonizing Russia when nothing has changed, the Progressives are trying to force both Putin and Trump into an adversarial relationship that may not be to America's benefit.

In this regard, it's important to keep in mind that the Progressives have been unable to articulate an ideological rationale for this demonizing. This distinguishes the situation from that prevailing during the Cold War, which saw America stand worldwide for freedom and the Soviet Union stand worldwide for tyranny. It's true that Putin is a KGB oligarch and tyrant, as well as Russian who wants what Russia has always wanted: Control over vast tracts of land and people. Having said that,though, this is not the Cold War and we are not in an ideological stand-off with Putin or Russia. Progressives have simply chosen him as the Bogey Man because they can.

My take is that allowing Trump, who truly loves and "gets" America, to have a free hand in his dealings with Russia is probably the best situation. In that way, Trump can respond as needed to whatever situations arise, whether in the Middle East, in Europe, or domestically. Creating an artificial enmity, where none has existed for the preceding eight years, gains nothing and risks much.

So, back to my first point: As is true for all Democrat/Progressive ideas, demonizing Putin and Russia is a dumb move.

Laura Rambeau Lee : The Cold War never ended no matter how hard the left tries to convince us otherwise. Progressives love to demonize Russia and blame them for every bad thing. A lot of it is true, such as them trying to influence our political elections. They have been doing this for a very long time and are expert at disseminating propaganda and disinformation.

The dirty secret is the progressive left (many within the media and in high political office) is working towards the same goal as Putin – the destruction of the United States of America. We need to be very clear that Putin is a hard core communist and has illusions of restoring the old Soviet Union.

But demonizing Putin and Russia is not a smart move. We have been dancing this dance with Russia for decades; utilizing them as allies when it serves our shared interests and placing sanctions on them when they step out of line. Maybe with Gorbachev President Reagan could “trust, but verify.” With Putin there can be no trust, and always verify. But as a world power we will continue to need to keep diplomatic lines of communication open with Russia. Demonizing them will only make our tenuous relationship more difficult to maintain.



Well, there it is.

Make sure to drop by every Monday for the WoW! Magazine Forum. And enjoy WoW! Magazine 24-7 with some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere. Take from me, you won't want to miss it.