George Rebane
'My allegation stands true until you prove it false.' The progressive's approach to debate and judicial process (see also Alinsky and Stalin's show trials).
An anti-American attribute of our Left is their imposition of process over performance in their planning and public policies. The leftist always seeks to increase government’s scope of control and revenues through legislation/regulation that increases arbitrary requirements and (tax/fee) costs for civil activities, public and private. This aspect of collectivist ideology is a reliable indicator of the, often hidden, political forces which promote a new law or regulation, i.e. process. How it affects the performance of individuals or organizations is of secondary importance, or not at all a consideration when corporatists lobby and leftwing politicians legislate.
Gov Newsom’s signing of a new law giving California school districts more power to block charter schools and gratuitously requiring their teachers to become more credentialed (here) is a textbook illustration that supports the above generalized proposition about the Left. Charter schools across the country have become one of the few remaining bright spots of our public education, and also the bane of leftwing teachers’ unions. Why? Because study after study shows that, more often than not, “test scores improve for all students when charters increase their market share.” (more here) And that’s a no-no for Democrats, especially in dense urban areas like NYC and Boston with large minority populations. The smarter that minority kids become, the less they tend to accept the ‘benefits’ of staying on the plantation and voting for ever more generous government handouts.
Facebook should not encrypt messages so that governments can not discover their content. So says AG Barr along with his British and Australian counterparts. (more here) In general, whether Right or Left leaning, governments really want us to have no means of communicating in ways that they cannot monitor. Both argue promoting “public safety” for expanding their ability to easily listen in on what we are saying. And, of course, in this age of facile global communication, terrorism is made easier when the scumbags can plan and coordinate in a secure manner. So the question comes to which is going to be more costly to depriving life/limb and our freedoms. Given that authoritarian governments have ALWAYS become the greatest killers of their own citizens, I lean toward more privacy and freedoms before I get too concerned about the number killed and maimed in our midst by acts of terror. Maintaining our liberties is a risky business; it was ever thus. [updated] 'Privacy v. Security is a False Dilemma' argues security officer Dave Weinstein in the 7oct19 WSJ. He correctly advises that terrorists and criminals would immediately migrate overseas to devices and applications not subject to US govt access were Facebook et al to cave and create an accessible chink in their encryption system.
[7oct19 update] Kudos to Union columnists George Boardman and Rob Chrisman. Boardman alerts us (here) to the latest atrocity committed by progressives in California’s high school curricula which now openly offer anti-American propaganda classes as electives, soon to be made a graduation requirement. To date such putrid pedagogy was mainly limited to colleges. Chrisman offers a succinct defense of capitalism and recount of the Great Recession’s causes much covered in these pages (here). Both necessary reminders during America’s progress from lurching to now leaping leftward with the lights of communism already twinkling in the distance as we hear the latest from the Dems’ leading candidate for 2020 (see below).
Socialist Sen Elizabeth (‘Fauxahontas’) Warren has now upped the ante with her long-festering Accountable Capitalism Act that will dramatically change the face of America’s economy into a state-controlled form of commerce and enterprise exactly as practiced in totalitarian countries like Red China. Her letter to the CEOs attending the recent Business Roundtable, during which many of country’s businesses were bludgeoned into putting ‘stakeholders’ ahead of shareholders as their primary business purpose, now demands that they also “endorse and wholeheartedly support the reforms laid out in (her ACA).” About all this, economist Milton Friedman advised that such actions “may gain them kudos in the short run, but it helps to strengthen the already too prevalent view that the pursuit of profits is wicked and immoral and must be controlled by external forces. Once this view is widely believed, the result won’t be control by social consciences or pontificating executives, but by the iron fist of Government bureaucrats.” (more here and here) The advent of communism-lite out in the open.
Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert) offers a rule of thumb (here) for evaluating political news and applies it to the ongoing Ukraine reports. His rule – “If a fact is reported the same by both the left-leaning and the right-leaning press, it’s probably a fact. If not, wait and see. It’s also smart to wait a week or two before you make up your mind, as the fog of war often makes early reporting unreliable. But after the fog clears, if all sides agree on a fact, it’s probably a fact. Or at least it’s credible, even if future reporting debunks it.” But then, all RR readers already do that, don’t we?
[9oct19 update] Sad to say that President Trump’s trade war has put US on the losing side. As a free trader of the Austrian School, I’ve been dismayed about his tariffs tiff with China et al based on the argument that eliminating trade deficits is good on its face. That has never been the case as von Mises, Hayek, and Friedman taught us long ago. A good summary of the failed aspects of this geo-economic strategy is found in the 7oct19 NYT op-ed by Mercatus Center fellow Veronique de Rugy (with whom I have met and had discussions on systemic unemployment) who writes ‘What Trump’s Aggressive Trade Tactic Have Achieved’. My only criticism of such critical articles is that none of them describe a better alternative solution. In this case she would recognize the blatant commercial rape that China, and to a lesser extent the EU, have committed against America, and suggest an alternative policy that would serve. Rebane Doctrine duns all ‘naked criticisms of policy’ in the sense that they just bitch about the bad stuff while offering nothing better.
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