Do not engage with him who has nothing to lose. It is to fight at a disadvantage, for the other enters without encumbrance, because unaccoutred even of shame; and having auctioned off everything, he has nothing more to lose, and so may allow himself every insolence; ... Gracian #172
George Rebane
As we continue our tailspin, here are a couple of milestones just passed (pardon the mixed metaphors).
The 13aug13 WSJ reports that “Federal judge Shira Scheindlin ruled on Monday that the New York City Police Department’s 'stop and frisk' policy violates the constitutional rights of minorities.” The basis for her ruling was the now institutionalized and insane litmus test for detecting “racism”. The judge and the plaintiffs simply pointed to “the large number of minorities stopped relative to their representation in the overall population”. That was the sum and substance of what passes for liberal logic. Never mind that blacks compose the overwhelming proportion of perps – e.g. almost 4 out 5 shooters – on the city streets (more here). Mayor Bloomberg and most of the city’s residents are enraged at the prospect of the return of high crime rates, and we will track this case as it is appealed to higher jurisdictions.
(BTW, the graphic in ‘The Liberal Mind – Expendable Dead for More Votes’ illustrates the situation of population and perpetrator proportions. Moreover, it suggests the utter innumeracy (insanity?) of allocating remedial resources according to wrong population proportions – here the fraction of blacks in NYC vs the fraction of black perps in NYC.)
Distinguished author – Bell Curve (with Herrenstein), Coming Apart: The State of White America 1960-2010 – and former liberal scholar Charles Murray points out in his latest – War on Poverty – that the national pathology being promoted by progressives is creating additional legions of dependent Americans through welfare programs like SNAP (food stamps). He makes the strong case that such pathologies are now becoming mainstream, as in these cadres also morphing into dependable Democrat voters. A compelling piece of evidence for this is that poverty rates kept decreasing after the Great Depression, and then started increasing after the launch of the War on Poverty in the mid-1960s.
“Liberal pension excesses are now jeopardizing liberal priorities.” reports the 12aug13 WSJ. The only leftwingers still denying the ravages of union impressed pensions, both public and private, on the cities and states across the nation are the local know-nothing echo chambers and nationally prominent Democrats. The latter no longer deny the fact, but remain conspicuously silent on the matter. The cogent summary of all that is –
“Many people (including RR since 2007) have been predicting this crack-up for years, the inevitable result of a political alliance in which unions elect Democrats who pad benefits for unions, which then spend to re-elect Democrats, who repeat the cycle. The music stops only when the taxpayers are tapped out or the city and state can't borrow any more. Detroit had its reckoning last month, and Chicago may be headed the same way unless its liberal politicians decide that a crisis of their own creation is a terrible thing to waste.”
With the loss of the USS Enterprise (CVN-65) that was decommissioned this March, we are now down to ten nuclear super-carriers. Recall that it is through these ten carrier task groups that the US projects force throughout the world and puts backbone into its (recently abandoned) diplomacy. We note that it takes twice as many carriers to field a given number on active operations – the other half is being maintained and/or in training exercises. It was not long ago that our force level was at twelve such carriers. I note again that the power of the pen depends entirely on the sword that backs its scribbles.
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