Communism in America

The left showing its true colors...red.

A $250,000fine for not following leftist etiquette commands. Unbelievable.

Methods vs. Results

In a prior post I touched on the issue of “Methods vs. Results” as it related to the Trump presidency. Like most successful businessmen, he is directed primarily toward results. While his critics may often have lofty end goals, their obsessions are for applying a host of cumbersome methods and punitive legislation which, in significance, often override any end goal they may have.

Most of my appraisals are strongly colored by a philosophical template that sees manifestation occurring within the bounds of archetypes replicating as fractal-like constructs. Be it plant growth, family dynamics, economics, or political developments, the universe seems to have some very basic ways of manifesting. No matter how complex things may appear, simple principles continue to repeat - aggressive/passive, transient/enduring, course/refined, short-term/long-term...etc.

One of the recurring themes that occurs in social behavior, whether it be among mundane behavior or national policy, is the proclivity for applying one’s energies toward an end goal or a set of methods for achieving that goal.

I live in Japan, and by many standards it’s a great place to live. When I critique the environment here I feel the need to preface my comments with the fact that, for the most part, Japan is a superior civilization. The people are generally wonderful in a variety of ways. But... When one has settled down somewhere it’s easy to begin noticing things that you wish were different. With all its advancement as the world’s third greatest economic power, something that holds Japan back from fulfilling an even greater potential is a very basic but obsessive standard that Japanese culture directs to all aspects of life. In work, school, and daily interaction, Japanese society directs obsessive attention to method and procedure over results. It’s not to say that results are irrelevant In Japan but, first and foremost, a worker, student, friend, or acquaintance must follow a given procedure for anything — even if it interferes with attaining a desirable result or runs contrary to one’s own preferred style of action. A friend of mine was once in a cafe and ordered a sandwich. He asked that they omit the egg. He was told that it “comes with an egg.” The sandwich hadn’t been made yet (!) but the restaurant staff literally found it impossible to simply not put an egg on a sandwich that “comes with it.” I was once at a restaurant where I ordered french toast. It turns out that french toast only came as a set with coffee. I didn’t want a drink and told the waiter that I only wanted french toast. Of course, not bringing me a cup of coffee was impossible because...it comes with it — seriously (!) 🤪

Anyone living in Japan knows the horrors of dealing with the banks here — quasi-government institutions steeped in time-consuming and useless procedures. I once needed change to make a payment to a machine in a bank lobby. There were at least eight people “working” in the bank and no other customers. I went to the counter to ask for change and was told to “take a number.” I took a number and sat. After being called, I made my request and was given a form to fill out. Of course my ID was required as well. Getting change could pose a risk of some kind I suppose. ‘Better know the identity of the guy who got change. That was the procedure. One could get the impression that, if there is any end goal sought by Japanese institutions and businesses, it’s to inconvenience customers as much as possible. Japan is a top-heavy bureau-land with a rigidness of thought that adheres strictly to procedure. This mentality permeates all aspects of society. As a first-rate power, Japan has a surprisingly limited amount of Nobel Prizes awarded to it (often, when a Japanese citizen does get a Nobel prize we find that the person was working at an American university). It’s not that Japan lacks skilled scientists, it just lacks the benefits of free-thinking imaginative efficiency in daily activity. Amazingly, the society that has offered incredible imagination to popular expressions like Anime, restrains such creative independence and creativity in fields where standards are ordained in stone and adhered to with neurotic precision.

I note this issue as it applies to Japan but it’s a standard that permeates all institutions to some degree in all countries. It’s a manifestation of “bureau-mind” - the word I think I coined to describe rigid adherence to procedures and ideals over actual result.

How this relates to politics and government: the private sector in a capitalist system is primarily results-oriented (they have to be) and those who choose to tie themselves and their staff down with process-tedium inevitably reap the negative consequences. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen businesses in Japan forfeit additional sales because they’re bogged down in some procedure that reduces costumer satisfaction. The government by its very nature is “methods” oriented. It often has to be as the minions within a bureaucracy are usually too incompetent to make proper judgements. One size must fit all in bureau-land. In fact, this typical government stance is the hallmark of bureaucracy — perpetually bogged down in rigid concern for procedure over substance and end goals. It’s no surprise that when government gains enough power they seek to impose the same methods on the population at large. No one need get results but everyone must adhere to a procedure, be it recycling properly to using the “correct” vocabulary when speaking of and to others.

On more than one occasion I’ve watched obnoxious journalists pound away at the current president (in a way they never did for his highness, Sir Barack Hussein Obama). Trump is clearly a guy who goes for results...and, usually gets them. His methods are often those of the school yard; simple, instinctual, psychological, unpredictable. How many times have we heard Trump speak of how well he gets along with — and “likes” — the dictators of China or North Korea? I’d certainly be the last to sympathize with such sentiments but it’s beyond obvious to anyone not bogged down in the school of procedure-over-result what he’s doing. China and North Korea et al. know it’s B.S. but how can one publicly spar with someone who’s constantly telling the world that he likes them and has good chemistry with them. This method is simple, basic, and beyond the comprehension of egg heads in government and journalism who are obsessed with proper procedure over results. “Acting presidential” is far more important than getting things done in minds of the minions who nearly destroyed America in the last few decades.

There’s nothing wrong with establishing reasonable methods and guidelines for the purpose of finding solutions and reaching goals but the choices between actions and results lies on a spectrum. Free people with free minds can accomplish miracles when given a clear goal and trusting them to utilize effective methods for reaching it. People enslaved to decorum and procedure are bound to follow the procedure — the key word being, “bound.”

There are many styles of governance. Some are dynamic. Some are tyrannical. Some are inefficient...and, some are just stupid.

Micro and Macro Socialism...’Same Thing

I realize that some would see my rants on socialism as beating a dead horse but, it’s not a horse...and it’s very much alive. I’d say that the main point of this blog is to take issue with socialism and the other permutations of statism that would deprive me, my family, and fellow citizens of the freedom to pursue happiness. I’ve despised this clique of autocratic busy-bodies from a very early age. They show up in our lives in a variety of ways. In politics and government they appear just as they do in daily life when we are confronted with parasites and control freaks who think their business is to mind others’ business. Their bogus claims of humanitarian motivations are beyond transparent, a leftist will use any excuse possible to justify their claim over other people’s lives. Whether a sloppy inconsiderate roommate who steals your food or a government bureaucrat who seeks to steal your life, they are all kindreds spirits in the mission to truly oppress their fellow man or woman. In the process; entropy. We are all, willfully or not, participants in the play between order and chaos. The sentiments of the left are the mouthpieces of chaos which is no more than a preamble to an excessive imposition of “order.” Not the order of a simple and serene routine in daily life but the order of imposed control.

There are different reasons one may recoil against socialism. I wouldn’t be foolish enough to think it is ever going to go away. One could argue that all of history is the sway of societal constructs between individual liberty and the perennial appeal of collectivist sentiments. Not to bore one with autobiographical testimony but, a few things in my past directed me onto the road of at least suspicion if not outright disdain for a worldview born of envy and power-seeking.

Some of us are not as geared to collective allegiance as others. Not because we are “selfish” or “uncooperative.” Some people just prefer a large degree of latitude in making the choices that direct their own lives. Allegiances with people and beliefs should be a pro-choice circumstance.

I and my sister were briefly in foster care as children — I was probably about seven years old. Our mother was ill for several months and our father worked two jobs. He was able to visit us and take us out for several hours a week before having to return to his work routine. The foster family we stayed at was miserable. Vetting in the day wasn’t so good (and probably still isn’t in many locales). The family had a few children of their own as well as a drunk grandfather. To make a long story short, my father came by on Christmas Eve to deliver some gifts which we would open on Christmas morning. Upon waking Christmas morning, the entire family of proto-socialists were gathered around the kitchen table. Having opened my gift, they were all playing with it. Now some would no doubt see it as selfish of me to not be overjoyed at the thought of “sharing” my “property.” From my perspective (and any sane non socialist-inclined person), this was no more than theft, an intrusion into my personal life.

The aforementioned events are not meant as a pleading justification for my adult political values. They are mere example of the type of worldly encounters one may have with the socialist mindset that sees property and value as things to be “shared” and distributed in spite of one’s personal choices.

There are of course other observations made in life that have colored my appraisal of the values we refer to as “socialist,” “leftist,” or “progressive.”

Almost everyone has had experience with roommates, family members or acquaintances at work who take it for granted that others exist to make up for their own misfortune, shortcomings, or incompetence. You budget your money appropriately, make choices as to what you want in the refrigerator and you keep finding your portions disappearing (another true story). You call them on it and instead of apologizing and offering to replace the missing items, they act shocked at your “selfishness” for not wanting to “share.” On the macro level these same clowns now lord over a society where hard work, organization, and responsibility are met with demands to “share” the fruits of your success. After all, “you didn’t build that” (to quote Obama when he chastised small business owners for thinking their successes were largely the result of personal choices, risks, and a steady devotion to achievement).

Masters of projection; ...Is it any wonder that the average leftist is so angered by “greed” and “selfishness” when their own interactions with the world are so often based upon those very things?

Extrapolate the personal encounters one may have with micro-socialism into the world of the overbearing structures of the bureau mega-state and its punitive authority and one can at least see why some of us are not enthusiastic about new sophisticated ways to steal and impose authority.

Socialism always begins as a deceptive docile belief in altruism by government planning. It then “progresses” to a Marxist-style desire to remake society, and ends as a Stalinist gulag with distributed destitution.

Anyone claiming that Sweden and Denmark are models of socialism is full of shit (they’re free market/capitalist economies where private property, action, and thought are honored).

Venezuela is an example of a socialist society where the state is losing its grip but still tries to maintain power. North Korea is a socialist state that has successfully imposed a rigid framework upon its population and continues to hold absolute power.

Millennials enamored with socialism should be careful what they wish for. Virtually every trendy academic philosophy of the last hundred years has been a footnote to standard Marxism. They are all mere methods of arousing and channeling the human emotions of envy, resentment, and vengeance to establish the authority to enslave fellow citizens. The leftist can only see two players in society, the oppressed and oppressor. Themselves and some nebulous entities that are vicariously oppressed, and a conjured oppressor.

The socialist just assumes that, once “the system” is brought down their more just system will replace it. With that vague endpoint in mind, the leftists direct their energies towards the means to that end — destruction of society as it is. The economic system, the cultural traditions, the moral sense of right and wrong. It must all be ripped down, punished, and eliminated so the Jacobin fantasy of personal purity can rein over every aspect of existence.

Collectivism/statism is a cancer, a poison, and evil force that has never brought good and has always spread a paralyzing rot from within.

Compulsion, coercion, and punishment. The socialist triad. Libertarians simplify this appraisal even further - “force.” Socialism is ultimately about force. It is the enemy of both free will and the individual pursuit of happiness. How it justifies it’s use of force is irrelevant to the endgame. In fact, the means and ends are the same; compulsion, coercion, and punishment.

Call it “fascism,” call it “communism,” call it “democratic socialism,” call it the “Democratic party.” Leftism’s goals are always the same. Say it’s for “equality,” say it’s for “race purity.” Say it’s for “mother Russia,” the “class,” “the people.” ...”It’s for the children.” Whatever the proclaimed motivation or goal, the method is always force and it is always achieved through compulsion, coercion, and punishment. And afterward, all a society under its ugly scheme will have is theft and victims of theft. No doubt the thieves of state began their mission while playing with other’s gifts at Christmas and stealing others’ food from the fridge. Nothing changes.

“Tolerance” for all Cultures...but Our Own

If you note that someone goes to church twice a week and prays before eating, the left will sneer and remind you how backward and intolerant such a person is.

This, on the other hand, is an expression of diversity and cultural expression.

When you’re trying to pull off a “revolution” to put yourself in charge of everyone else’s life, common sense no longer applies.

Meanwhile, the Jacobin thugs are worried that they may be deprived of the right to kill a newborn baby and sell its body parts.

Breaking the Half Full Glass

I wouldn’t go as far as to say that all conservatives are optimistic and all leftists are pessimistic but it is reasonable to note that the world is a complicated place. At any given time the world, and the United States specifically, is a place full of problems, injustices, and cause for pessimism. Just the same, again, at any given time, the world and the U.S. are full of stunning examples of progress, achievement, success, and (voluntary) altruism. It’s not far-fetched to say that the public appraisals of leftists are decidedly negative. Conservatives tend to see America’s past as unique, dynamic, and successful, their approach to problems is to consider practical solutions. There is nothing “extreme” about creating a society where business activity thrives and the family unit is held in high regard.

To the left, America is little more than a failed enterprise wrought with racism, sexism, and an increasing list of other “isms.” They see America as a brutally unjust society where only a “few” reach any level of success and the many grovel in suffering and victimhood. To the left, America’s glass is always half empty and their only solution is to seize the water in it to mold to their vision — a new glass, new water, and all of it under their direct jurisdiction.

Case in point; the debates and daily soundbites from Democrat candidates for president. To hear all of them, one would think America to be one of the worst possible countries. One must remember as well that characters like Bernie Sanders actually have spoken admiringly about places like Cuba and Venezuela, as well as the former Soviet dictatorship (he didn’t go on his honeymoon in Sweden or Denmark).

Until Trump and his America First policy, Democrats, and most establishment Republicans for that matter, looked the other way while the communist dictatorship in China literally robbed the American worker blind and stole ideas and innovation in rampant intellectual property theft.

If America was indeed a hell-hole of failure and injustice, it would require someone to establish order, and that’s their point. “The world is going to hell and only we can save you. Your loss of freedom will be worth it.”

It would be considered extreme to suggest that many progressives today are basically authoritarian communists but more and more we see the daily expressions of a political view that is bitter, angry, and punitive in it’s plans for the future. This is no exaggeration. One of the front runners has just proclaimed their belief that the heads of fossil fuel companies should be put on trial for “crimes against humanity.” Hmmm, I wonder what the punishment for that would be? Prosecution for providing a needed service to a prosperous society — only in left-land and the Venezuelan playbook. Democrats regularly speak of imprisoning people for holding “incorrect” beliefs. How is today’s leftist industrial complex and Antifa shock troops any different than the red guards in China’s communist “cultural revolution?”

We still hold some semblance of the rule of law and Democrats, for now, still have to actually run for office, but each year new ideas are formulated to seize greater power and eliminate any chance for fair and democratic opposition. The fact that a compliant media and tech sector openly assists in the establishment of authoritarian government is now pretty well established.

A mere few Republicans now actively resist the real threats from statism and collectivism. Most are weak-willed sell outs to the cult of apology - “Oh no! I used the wrong word! I didn’t show enough sensitivity to the latest contrived victim de’ jour!”

There is literally only one person in the current political climate that is consistently taking on the momentum of social-globalism (and that is why they hate him).

Say what one will about “tone,” “intellect,” “cooperation,” — all debatable points — the fact remains that Donald Trump is the only candidate running for president who is fully committed to reducing the authority of the Washington bureau-beast over citizens’ lives. Likewise, he is the only candidate unwilling to sacrifice America’s prosperity, employment vitality, and sovereignty to China, the EU, unelected global bureau-structures or pseudo intellectual control freaks and demagogues.

On the flip side, every other candidate running is to some degree supportive of an increasingly more centralized, powerful, and authoritarian apparatus of state. Likewise, they all to some degree seek “cooperation” with (subservience to) international institutions that have no concern for America or its citizens. Their “collusion” is real. A collusion with powerful Orwellian high tech ideologues who would turn our feee and dynamic society into a dystopian surveillance gulag and, at this early point in the game plan, punishment for disagreement is already high on the list of strategies. If they get the grip on absolute power they crave, the firing squad will be close behind and there are pages of history and psychology to back up that predicable outcome.

Again, whine on about the perceived flaws of Trump the man and continue to foolishly act bewildered by those who merely wish to retain their freedom and recognize that there is only one candidate committed to addressing their legitimate concerns.

Keep the leftist thugs away from our half FULL glass.

Same as it Ever Was

Hong Kong. A free and open prosperous dynamic society.

The Chinese communist party. A stifling authoritarian institution that exists solely for its own aggrandizement of power.

Leftism

...Same as it ever was.

Honesty vs. B.S.

Most telling in the current lead-up to civil war (ok...maybe) is the way each side appraises their opposition. It’s occurred to me as I’ve watch the perpetual sparing between left and right in the Trump era that most conservative appraisals of the left are basically grounded in practical and objective understanding of what the left has actually outlined and stated. On the flip side, most appraisals of conservative policy and goals by the left are riddled with assumptions and often fabrications that have nothing to do with actual conservative belief and policy objectives, stated or otherwise.

The left says they want to see “walls come down.” They want a country where “everyone is welcome,” where convicts, teenagers, and non-citizens can vote and non-citizens receive “free” (taxpayer-funded) health care, education, and government “services.” They say this...often. Conservatives make no conjecture regarding these goals. There is no need to read between the lines. They are taken at face value. Conservatives believe that the left’s stated agendas are what they actually want to do.

The right says it wants a country where the rule of law and established standards are applied to America’s border and immigration policy, where practical vetting occurs to determine exactly who is coming into the country and how they hope to sustain themselves and vicariously contribute to fellow citizens standard of living and quality of life. The left’s interpretation? ...”Racist!” “Conservatives want concentration camps so they can eventually exterminate non-white people.”

The left views America and its history as uniquely evil, it’s defining characteristics exemplified by “slavery, racism, and oppression” by a ruling class of greedy capitalists. They state clearly that for America to atone for its perceived sins, it must radically alter its style of government and invest authority into the hands of...leftists (a state run solely by leftists). When conservatives regularly hear variations on this theme, they objectively assume that the left doesn’t really like America very much and is striving to radically change it.

The right is patriotic in the most traditional sense. They are proud of their country’s history of dramatic advancements, financial success, and dynamic creativity. While they may or may not be aware of the many warts that exist in America’s history, they see no need to dwell exclusively on past sins in a world full of far worse. The left’s interpretation? ...Conservatives support a nation of “racist Nazis and fascists” who believe in “white supremacy.” Patriotism is a “dog whistle” to fellow Klansmen. The left’s image of America is slavery. The right’s is a fellow citizen walking on the moon...and Disney cartoons on screens throughout the world.

The left views America’s unique constitution as a flawed document that is no longer relevant to the goals of an elite caste of intellectuals who wish to impose the whims of a moment. They see court justices as entitled to override the established standards of governance outlined by the constitution. The right objectively interprets the lefts’s perpetual desire to alter the constitution as a threat to the freedoms that the constitution guarantees.

Conservatives honor the constitution as the product of brilliant minds who had codified timeless principles to restrain the scheming ploys of power-seekers and tyrants. They see America’s constitution as guaranteeing maximum self-government and freedom so citizens may pursue happiness and success as they see fit. The left’s interpretation? ...Conservatives who admire the American system of limited government are, again, “racists” who “cling to their guns and religion” as a means of oppressing fellow citizens.

Leftist believe in the sanctity of the collective, that resources and policy be directed to state projects and that citizens should be compelled to obey government edicts and forfeit substantial amounts of personal wealth and freedom to bureaucratic decrees. Conservatives see this as a abridgment of personal liberty.

Conservatives believe in maximum freedom for the individual to decide who or if they wish to ally with groups of their choosing. To conservatives, the family and the individual are the bedrock of a stable and moral society. The left’s interpretation?...Conservatives hold a selfish disregard for the standards deemed best for society by the state and its well-meaning insistence that one affiliate with and sacrifice to abstract groups on demand.

The list can go on and on. In virtually every instance of worldview and policy the right and left are at odds. When they appraise each other’s sentiments, conservatives are fairly honest, objective, and accurate in taking what leftists say at face value. The left, on the other hand, is adamant about injecting their own fantasies as to what conservatives believe and what the motivations are for their beliefs.

The left believes in a powerful central authority to compel adherence to collectivist principles. The right interprets this as ...a leftist belief in a powerful central authority to compel adherence to collectivist principles.

The right believes in limited constitutional government and a proud defense of individual liberty and pursuit of personal progress. The left interprets this as ...”Racism...Nazism,...fascism,...selfishness, and greed!”

In the end, the entire conflict between right and left is one of pragmatism and objectivity vs. idealism, illusion, and emotional whim. The former has led to unprecedented progress for the United States and its citizens. The latter, to the collapse of progress, moral decline, and societal instability.

Conservatism wins for a moral stance of pragmatism and honesty. Leftism loses for an immoral crusade of deception and delusion for the sole end goal of imposing its will upon others.

The Real Implications of “Free Stuff”

Almost all policy platforms of Democrats - and all leftists in general - boils down to coercing and punishing fellow citizens.

Donating Your Fair Share of Blood

Here we go again. Election season. A mock crusade for people who pay little or no taxes (the bottom half of the population) and complaints regarding those who pay for most government revenue.

The rich are “not paying their fair share.” On the whole, they’re paying more than most of us — a lot more. “Fair share” seems to be a pretty subjective criterion and no doubt upon receiving 70% of government tax revenue from “the rich,” the drones of envy would then want 80% and upward. I don’t put “the rich” in quotes because they aren’t rich. They are. I do so because the moniker is used more as a label of badness than a simple statement on level of wealth. The typical next step after railing on “the rich” is then to demand that the middle class “pay their fair share.” After that, the great communal command center spirals everyone down to equally “fair-shared” economic destitution. The state’s insatiable appetite for power and the life-blood of a nation’s economic energy has nothing to do with a desire to be “fair.” The same clowns that weave tails about lack of fairness in federal income taxes seem to care little about continually adding to the tax burden levied on everyone through “invisible” taxes” like those on gasoline and public utilities. Even the food you eat is taxed somewhere in its chain of production. There are no taxes that are not eventually passed on in one way or another to virtually everyone. Then there is the biggest tax of all, the lifestyle and success that is diminished on an entire society as the state pig squanders for every conceivable scam imaginable.

When Donald Trump rails on unfair trade practices and how they have affected common American citizens, the people who criticize his trade policies the most are the same clowns who claim concern for “fairness.” It’s not fair that millionaires who pay the biggest percent of the federal tax burden aren’t paying more but if China screws the American middle class over...that’s just fine. After all, they’re a communist dictatorship and the left in general is always okay with that.

The taxation issue is one of the most significant sparks of the revolution that set America on its course as a society suspicious of government and dedicated to keeping it appropriately restrained. For many conservatives and libertarians today, the tax issue remains a major symbol of how slow incremental tyranny begins and advances. What could be worse than the double burden of a nations economic energy being drained from it and using the spoils to feed the agencies that further oppress and deplete freedoms?

I’m no fan of the taxation concept. I fully understand the sentiments of those who despise the tax man. On the other hand, it’s not one of the big issues that drive my hatred for the state and the fools who adore it. It is however hard to ignore it as a recurring talking point during every election season — the conjured boogeyman out there who isn’t contributing their fair share to Maxine Water’s pension and the latest study on bi-lesbian global warming and the mating habits of extinct amphibians.

Anytime I have noted the injustice of an overbearing state in regard to the fiat whims that direct it’s policies of raising revenue, there is always some clown to respond with the pathetic debate point that “we need fire departments and police.” As if that’s where major funding now goes. (Ironically the people who say this are typically not very supportive of police).

I’m not rich — not even close — but if I would ever become so, I’d want the state and its boot-lickers to keep their greedy minions from stealing my economic status. Envy is just another type of greed. There’s nothing wise or insightful about the ancient character flaw of jealousy.

And, just what is all this ”needed” money for anyway, so the state can further enhance its power and authority over all....so it can then command more theft? Money is never enough. Once they’ve successfully attacked your wallet, your soul is next on the list.

Death and taxes aren’t going to disappear from the human experience. Apparently, neither is envy and the anger directed at those who have more.

When subjected to genuine critical analysis, wealth envy, in the guise of “fair” taxation just isn’t that impressive.

I’ve got an idea, raise taxes on the rich (start with Obama’s pal at Amazon) under the condition that such revenue will always be directed to local governments and not the central mega-state. of course, that wouldn’t fly because this isn’t about fairness, its about feeding an insatiable political beast that wants nothing more than power over the wealth and souls of all.