Category: Liberalism

Will Liberals Please Just Leave Me Alone

George Noga

Mankind divides into two camps: those who seek control and those who want to be left alone.

Will Liberals Please Just Leave Me Alone

By: George Noga – June 13, 2021

Political labels abound. There are democrats, fascists, liberals, communists, centrists, conservatives, progressives, populists, republicans, socialists, libertarians, anarchists, democratic socialists and many others. Labels notwithstanding, all mankind is divided into two camps: those who want to control others and those who want to be left alone.

Robert Heinlein (Stranger in a Strange Land) wrote, “Humanity divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.” Grover Norquist wrote that people divide politically between the “leave us alone” and the “takings” coalitions. Thomas Jefferson nailed it 260 years ago: “Men are divided into two parties. There are those who fear and distrust the people and wish to place all power into the higher classes. Then there are those who identify with the people and have confidence in them. In every country these two parties exist. Call them by whatever name you please, but they are the same parties and pursue the same object.”

Liberals want people to be controlled and they want to be the controllers because they know best what is good for all 330 million Americans. Liberals don’t want to leave people alone; they want to take from them. Liberals fear and distrust the people and the states and want to arrogate all power to themselves. They believe in the supremacy of the state and thereby reject the principles of America’s founding documents. They must control individuals to control society in order to bring about their vision of Utopia, inevitably resulting in hell on earth, as in all Utopias throughout history.

Why Liberals Hate Capitalism and Love Socialism

Liberals fear and loathe capitalism even though it has created enormous wealth for all Americans and indeed for the entire world. They reject it because they cannot control it. Following are the main reasons liberals hate capitalism and love socialism.

Capitalism happens organically: Adam Smith did not invent capitalism; he merely explained what happens naturally. No intellectual ever wrote a capitalist manifesto. No one is capable of controlling capitalism, whereas socialism requires controllers.

Capitalism is egalitarian: Anyone, including uneducated blokes, can make a fortune by providing a valuable product or service to consumers. In contrast, intellectuals are unrecognized and unrewarded; they are repulsed by successful capitalists.

Consumers are sovereign: The common man holds all the power; his decisions to buy (or not to buy) make suppliers rich (or poor). Wealth is achieved only by serving consumers; socialists and intellectuals have no special status or benefits.

Capitalism brooks no excuses: Success is based only on the ability to provide value to others. Capitalism is to each according to his accomplishments, not to his intentions.

Socialists are not rewarded by markets: Socialists succeed only by pleasing their government masters, not by providing value to others. Socialists prefer regulation to the chaos of markets and believe their pet theories should override the free decisions of individuals, if necessary by invoking the full police power of the state.

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Liberals covet control over others; they don’t understand why the poor ignorant rubes in flyover land believe they know what is best for themselves and for their families. Socialists, often highly educated intellectuals with pristine intentions, envision themselves as heroic emancipators, crushing greedy capitalists, saving helpless victims, creating a socialist Utopia and then reaping the approbation of all mankind.

Recorded history began 5,000 years ago with Sumerian cuneiform script. During the entire span of 5 millennia there is not one record of a successful socialist or Utopian state. But modern day liberals believe they will get it right next time if we give them just one more chance. My message to them is simple: Please, just leave me alone.

Next: For the first time, we devote an entire post to the minimum wage.
More Liberty Less Government – mllg@cfl.rr.com – www.mllg.us

Laboratories of Democracy – Part II Sixty Years of Liberal Governance

George Noga

After 60 years of total liberal control , all blue states can do is to cry “racism”.

Laboratories of Democracy – Part II

Sixty Years of Liberal Governance

By: George Noga – March 28, 2021

This is the second of MLLG’s four-part series: Laboratories of Democracy. In case you missed Part I – no worries; it is on our website: www.mllg.us. The idea underpinning laboratories of democracy is that, under our Constitution, states have enormous latitude to experiment with different laws and policies. States can, and often do, take different, and even opposite, positions on issues such as right-to-work, marijuana legalization and gun control to name but a few. Over a period of decades, it should be possible to compare results and to adopt the successful policies and to reject the failed ones.

If one political party, governing under one unified philosophy, could control all the levers of power in entire states for 50-60 consecutive years, surely that should provide ample time to demonstrate the success or failure of that governance. There are such places in America; this is the story of the ones that experimented with and tested progressive shibboleths and liberal dogma for at least the past half century.

Liberals and their media adjuncts are absolutely certain their ideas are correct and that opposing ideas are not only wrong but dangerous and even evil. Surely, if there were places in America where they could showcase their ideas for a long enough time, it would prove beyond any doubt that liberalism worked. Surely, their economies would thrive and hordes of people would move there. Surely, it would provide a great quality of life and social harmony. Surely, such a veritable Xanadu would demonstrate the utter bankruptcy and depravity of capitalism, free markets and conservatism.

What would such a progressive utopia be like? It would have a high minimum wage, no right-to-work law and universal unionization – with great pay, benefits, job security and early retirement with medical benefits. It would defund the police and abolish cash bail. It would be highly regulated by a massive bureaucracy. Its schools, controlled by teachers unions, would spend double the national average per pupil. It would tax (personal and business) and borrow whatever was necessary to pay for it all.

Such a utopia would be a sanctuary state with uber-strict gun control. The homeless would be welcomed even if it endangered public health and safety. Shoplifting, drugs and arson would be decriminalized. New pipelines would be banned and green energy mandated. Rent control would be universal and evictions banned. If a pandemic hit there would be lengthy lockdowns and closures – including all schools. To cap it off, government would be run predominantly by woke minority elected officials.

These progressive utopias exist and have names; they are called Illinois, Connecticut, Michigan, New Jersey, Maryland, New York and Rhode Island. What are they like after 60 years under the progressive yoke? Are people streaming in from red state hellholes? These liberal utopias, like all utopias throughout history, are dystopian wastelands where life has become toxic and people are escaping in droves to red states.

It is impossible to hold a perfumed handkerchief to one’s nose to somehow make these progressive snake pits smell right. People are voting with their feet. Liberalism failed and failed abjectly. Even liberals are tacitly conceding their dogma is poisonous. They know government schools can’t educate inner city children, so they quit. Instead of uplifting poor kids, they are destroying successful ones by abolishing advanced and gifted programs. By gosh – if everybody can’t get on the lifeboat, no one can.

It is incandescently clear: politics is not the pathway to black success.

So, progressives and their media acolytes simply quit. After 60 years they no longer can escape what so plainly stares them in the face. But, instead of taking responsibility for their failure, they are resorting to their old chestnut, i.e. blaming it on racism. In the end, liberals always resort to screaming systemic racism; that’s all they have.

There is one other critical lesson in all this. For the past 60 years, as black elected officials increased from 1,000 to 25,000 (including a two-term president), it is incandescently clear politics is not the pathway to black success. There is no relationship between the success of black leaders and inner city black families; maybe success has more to do with stable families, education, and hard work.

 

April 4th is Part III – Travels in Blue State America.

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More Liberty Less Government – mllg@cfl.rr.com – www.mllg.us

Liberals Believe the Strangest Things

George Noga
“Liberalism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy.“
Liberals Believe the Strangest Things
By: George Noga – December 2, 2018

          It’s time to throw some red meat to our conservative readers and to challenge our progressive ones. The quote in the preheader above is from, you guessed it, Churchill. The liberal credo is sentio ergo sum, i.e. I feel, therefore I am. Liberalism is an emotional state in which obvious contradictions, disdain for facts, utopian fantasies, obsessive desires to control others and antipathy for all who differ – in various degrees and patterns – come to dominate a person’s thinking. For those who believe this definition is too long, it can be reduced to just four words: liberalism is a lie!

        Progressivism is antithetical to objective reality; it embraces dogma, mythology, political correctness, identity politics, unreason, ad hominem attacks and junk science. Progressives have corrupted politics, science, media, religion, government and even sports. It is the god that failed. Their ideas have gone bad: Obamacare, welfare, public housing, government schools, affirmative action and diversity programs. They have contempt for America, western civilization and all who differ. The failure of liberalism explains why progressives are eagerly turning to socialism as their next best hope.

       Liberals accept preposterous contradictions. They believe in manmade global warming but oppose natural gas which lowers CO2. They are against nuclear power although more people died at Chappaquiddick than at Three-Mile Island and Fukushima combined (from radiation). They tout Nordic nations as socialist successes even though they are capitalist, while ignoring real socialist states like Venezuela. They believe America is racist despite a two-term black president; they believe unions help workers even though 94% of private sector workers reject unionism as a bad deal.

       They believe in government health care despite its failure with the VA, Native Americans and in Canada and England. Sixty percent (60%) of Americans pay no income tax (net of credits), but they believe the tax system is not progressive. They demand organic food although there is no difference in taste, vitamins or pesticides and it uses 30% more land and costs much more. They panic over GMOs which feed the poor of the world and reduce the land required for agriculture. They believe in gender specific abortions because it is necessary to kill females in order to protect their rights.

       Progressives believe it is okay for a young girl to have an abortion without parental consent but not to open a lemonade stand; fifty million abortions are good but 1,000 executions are evil. They fanatically support choice but oppose a woman’s right to choose where to school her children, to own a gun, whether or not to buy health insurance or to join a labor union. They profess compassion and good intentions, but it is all virtue signalling. They oppose school choice, but not for their own kids.

        Liberals oppose corporate money and Citizens United, while vastly outspending their opponents. There was no blue wave this past election, but there was a green wave of money from unions, Soros, Bloomberg and Steyer. They supported Beto O’Rourke, who has an hispanic nickname but no hispanic heritage, over Ted Cruz, whose father was 100% hispanic. They believed Brett Kavanaugh’s uncorroborated accusers while dismissing much more credible charges against Keith Ellison. They use scare tactics about climate change while fiercely opposing common sense forest management.

       Progressives cluster in bi-coastal, bien-pensant tribes, living, learning, working, socializing and intermarrying, often for generations. Many don’t know even one Christian or anyone from flyover land. They live in intellectually vapid and isolated bubbles where their myths are constantly reinforced. Life in the liberal tribe is easy; tribal members never have to think; whatever the tribe believes is right; whatever others believe is wrong. Consequently, liberals believe the strangest things.

Next week’s posting contains a collection of short topics.
More Liberty Less Government  –  mllg@mllg.us  –  www.mllg.us

Revenge of the Gods of the Copybook Headings

George Noga
Kipling warns mankind to heed the wisdom learned since we lived in trees.  When we ignore these eternal truths, terror and slaughter inevitably follow.
Revenge of the Gods of the Copybook Headings
By: George Noga – May 28, 2017
       Civilization is built on nuggets of wisdom learned from man’s behavior through the ages resulting in well understood and inviolable rules of conduct. Millennia of human experience have ingrained these rules and disregarding them inevitably leads to terror and slaughter. Copybooks once were used in schools to teach penmanship. Each page was headed by one of these nuggets of wisdom which students then copied such as “All is not gold that glitters“. These are Kipling’s Gods of the Copybook Headings.

     This post excerpts parts of the poem; the full version is readily available online. The first two stanzas of the poem follow.

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper protestations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
 
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
that Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
 
       The Gods of the Market Place refer to transient and ephemeral fads such as Tulip Mania and the South Sea Bubble. Today such Gods would include climate change, transgender bathrooms, open borders, microaggressions and government health care.

With the hopes that our world is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she even was Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshiped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
 
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed they sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”
 
     The Gods of the Market tell us what we want to hear – that we can spend and borrow without limit or consequence and that we can slash defense spending and still be safe. They tell us we can tax and regulate without choking economic growth. The Gods of the Market tell us we can have perpetual peace if only we ignore threats and appease North Korea, Russia, ISIS and Iran and negotiate ersatz one-sided treaties.

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”
 
     The Gods of the Market promise that every collectivist, socialist, communist and utopian scheme will deliver abundance for all. But such schemes are contrary to human nature per the copybook headings. Never has socialism worked for more than a family, clan or small tribe – perhaps 25 people max. Yet this eternal lesson is lost on the people of Venezuela and far too many other places. Following is the poem’s apt conclusion.

And after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
 
     Kipling’s poem goes to the heart of human nature and is just as valid now as when he wrote it in 1919. Today, America is worshiping the Gods of the Market and defying the Gods of the Copybook Headings. We continue this only at our grave peril. Water still wets us and fire still burns; the only question remaining is: how much terror and slaughter must America endure before the Gods of the Copybook Headings return?
June 4th is MLLG’s not-to-be-missed high school graduation address

Trump Derangement Syndrome

George Noga
TDS, or Trump Derangement Syndrome, is a mental disorder that causes loss of all sense of proportion, civility and ability to think or act in a controlled manner.
Trump Derangement Syndrome
By: George Noga – March 5, 2017
     Trump Derangement Syndrome or “TDS” is a mental illness with a known cause but no known cure. It’s most prevalent on both coasts and college campuses. Sufferers avoid treatment because the malady releases endorphins, makes them feel smug about themselves and is virtue signalling. The main symptom is uncontrollable expressions of outrage at even the slightest non provocation. Victims lose all sense of proportion, civility and ability to think or act in a controlled manner. In the disease’s end stages, victims lose their grip on reality and can’t tell fact from fiction. TDS sufferers are mired in a state of denial. Note: there are no electoral votes in the state of denial.
      TDS struck the 60 Democrat congressmen boycotting the inauguration. Madonna had a severe case, making her muse about blowing up the White House. Meryl Streep became unglued with TDS during the Golden Globes. The Rockettes were afflicted as were many celebrities asked to perform at the inaugural. Among senators, Cory Booker and Pocahontas, err, Elizabeth Warren suffered severe amnesia, forgetting their earlier passionate support for school choice when questioning Betsy DeVos.
      When conservatives lose elections, liberals and the media always attribute the loss to repudiation of their candidates and policies. When progressives lose, it is always because of fear, anger, hate, bigotry, Fox News, Drudge, talk radio, internet memes and now Russia. Obama attributed the 2016 loss to voters “afraid, suspicious and fearful“. This follows his remarks claiming voters “get bitter, cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade frustrations“. Liberals can’t imagine voters rejecting their vapid ideas, hence TDS.
     TDS caused liberals to draw the wrong conclusions about the election, to deny reality and to set a disastrous course for 2018 and 2020. They face erosion in support from both blacks and private sector unions in the rust belt. Their leadership in the House is all over 75 years old. How will a party led by Chuck Schumer, Tom Perez, Nancy Pelosi, Bernie Sanders and Pocahontas fare in 2018 senate races in states like North Dakota, which Trump carried by 36 points and Heitkamp won with 50.2% last go-round?  Their main presidential candidates for 2020 are Andrew Cuomo, Cory Booker and Pocahontas – George McGovern redux. Meanwhile, Republicans are only one state legislature short of the two-thirds needed to call a constitutional convention.
     The Sturm und Drang on college campuses is a TDS symptom but also is due to the realization their liberal god has failed. Obama was likely the most liberal president America will ever have and he failed to accomplish anything. Students have total control over campuses yet demand even more; they are beginning to eat their own. Progressives spent like drunken sailors, still the economy is sclerotic. For the first time ever, they will be worse off than their parents. And then along came Trump!
     The entire world is moving rapidly to the right; the black swans are circling and the Gods of the Copybook Headings, with terror and slaughter, are beginning to return.
Next Post on March 12th is: Restoring Confidence in the Police 

Why the Left is Unhinged

George Noga
This special MLLG posting explains why the left is so apoplectic after the election.
With a government so powerful it could incarcerate Mother Theresa, no one is safe.
Why the Left is Unhinged
By: George Noga – January 17, 2016
     Many of our fellow citizens on the left have become unhinged in the election’s aftermath. The main reason, thanks largely to Obama, is that presidents have become more like kings, wielding enormous power unthinkable to the founders. If presidents and all elected and appointed officials honored the Constitution, it would matter little who occupied the oval office, Congress or the judiciary. We are supposed to have a national government of few, limited and enumerated powers within a federalist system. Who is mayor or governor should be more important than who is president. However, kings affect our lives infinitely more than presidents acting within the Constitution.
     For those on the latte-left, government has supplanted religion. There was a time when we Americans saved most of our passion for religion. No more. The progressive herd not only has abandoned religion but now mocks and condemns it. They have transferred all their passion to politics, explaining much of their post-election angst.
     They not only lost an election but now see a veritable Lucifer wielding the same unchecked power Obama usurped. The progressive religion explains why libs have a messianic fervor about climate, guns, environment, identity, etc. They regard honest differences over policy as apostasy. If you have a different view about immigration, you are a racist, Islamaphobe and xenophobe – no discussion permitted. Moreover, they want to criminalize expressing your views as hate speech and to throw you in jail.
     Thirdly, everything is now political, including many things never before considered political such as science, religion, news, media and education. Science has been corrupted due to the vast quantities of federal money doled out in grants. The federal government spends $3,000 to every $1 spent by others for climate research. You get what you pay for. The media are now advocates; honest reporting has disappeared and fake news proliferates. Even fact checkers are corrupted. Facebook employs liberal censors and uses tainted, ideological fact checkers to control content.
    Finally, there is SCOTUS with one seat open and the federal judiciary with 100 open seats. There was a time when seasoned (older) largely apolitical judges were chosen on merit, served for a limited time (10-15 years), retired and soon moved on to the great court in the sky. Today, young judges are appointed because they don’t have a record that can be used against them and more importantly because, with today’s longer life expectancy, they can serve forever. As a result, the stakes for SCOTUS are sky high.
     I close with a favorite anecdote to illustrate the frightening power of the federal government. During the 1980s when Rudy Giuliani was US attorney for New York, he and his staff had a favorite game. They would select well known people from all walks of life and determine for how many federal crimes they could be indicted. Everyone, no matter how good his/her character, could be sent to prison. Included in this group was Mother Theresa. And that was 30 years ago; today it is worse – infinitely worse.
Next on January 20th is our special MLLG Inauguration Day posting.

Election Analysis and Afterthoughts

George Noga
Hillary had a world class marketing team trying to sell box wine to oenophiles, more baggage than a carousel at LAX, a paranoid streak rivaling Nixon and a limitless sense of entitlement.
Election Analysis and Afterthoughts
By: George Noga – January 15, 2017
     We got it right all year! My January 17th post cited 3 principles: (1) no permanent majorities; (2) the longer a party is in power, the more likely it is to lose; and (3) economics trumps all else. I also cited 3 keys: (1) polling is dead; (2) Obamacare is wildly unpopular; and (3) demographics, i.e. for Republicans to make gains among Hispanics, Asians, women and millennials would be easier than for Democrats to make gains among whites. All 6 of these principles and keys proved to be correct.
 
     My September 20th special posting began “I don’t purport to know who will win the election, but I know how it will be decided. . . . It will be decided by les deplorables, good-hearted, hard-working Americans branded as racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic and Islamophobic and revulsed by the latte-left’s perversion of America and outraged about being lied to.” Those words proved to be prophetic.
 
     Our final preelecton post on November 6th stated the race was tightening and Trump would win if all or most of the following happened: (1) polling was flawed; (2) there were late shifts in voter sentiment; (3) Obamacare repudiation was robust; (4) government failure drove voters as in the Brexit vote; and (5) blacks and millennials stayed home while evangelicals turned out in force. BINGO! All five happened. 
 
     Clinton and the Democrats lost because a good, decent and just society is based on a voluntary social and economic compact between citizens and government. That compact was violated, desecrated and trampled upon by Obama, Clinton and liberal elites who would be our masters. Voters demanded change from failed hyper-progressive social and economic policies. It had nothing to do with Comey or Putin; it had everything to do with deeply flawed governance and candidates.

Post-Election Reflections

  •     Hillary outspent Trump 2 to 1 and had a better organization but, in the final analysis, the best sales and marketing are limited by the product being sold. As one pundit nailed it, they had world class marketers trying to sell box wine to oenophiles.
  •     After every defeat, Democrats delude themselves into believing that their problem lay in not getting their message out. Their problem was that they did get their message across and it was soundly rejected by the voters. They never learn.
  •     Liberals exposed their churlish souls after the election: rioting, contesting the results, tampering with the electoral college and planning to disrupt the inauguration.
  •    Voters repudiated Obama’s policies and his method of governance, although he remains personally popular. Both Hillary and Obama immeasurably aided Trump.
  •     Demonization of opponents is dead. The Democrats won in 2012 by turning a good and decent man (Romney) into an unrecognizable monster. It did not work against Trump even though he was a target rich candidate. It may never work again.
  •     Democrats obsess with branding their opponents as racists. That abomination also may never work again. Disagreement about immigration is not racism. Over 200 counties that voted for Obama in 2012 changed to Trump; were they all racists? 
  •     Steve Bannon as a Trump advisor outraged liberals who were a-okay with Al Sharpton advising Obama. Bannon has degrees from Georgetown and Harvard, served 7 years as a navy officer and had successful stints at Goldman Sachs and Breitbart News. Sharpton attended Brooklyn College for two years before dropping out, never served in the military, owes $4.5 million in unpaid taxes and is known mainly for his role in the sordid Tawana Brawley affair that a jury ruled was a giant hoax.
 
    The fierce, frothing-at-the-mouth animus and virulence liberals are showing for Trump is not out of concern for America or because progressives are afraid he will fail. Au contraire; it is entirely because they are  terror-stricken that he will succeed!
 Coming January 20th – an Inauguration Day retrospective of the Obama presidency

A Cri de Coeur from California

George Noga
A gripping post-election letter from a disillusioned lifelong California liberal
A Cri de Coeur from California
By: George Noga – December 25, 2016
   Since beginning my blog in 2007, this is the first time I am devoting an entire posting to a single quote (edited for length). I am presenting this as an unplanned Christmas gift to readers, some of whom undoubtedly have already seen it on the internet as it is going viral. The writer wishes to remain anonymous for obvious reasons. Enjoy!
     “I am a secular/agnostic Californian and I want to share with you, from the liberal bastion of Northern California, that I am officially tired of the type of people who have surrounded me my entire life. In the wake of Trump’s election, I am experiencing “tribe fatigue”. I’m not tired of the Other, Deplorable Tribe; I’m tired of my own.
      I was raised a secular liberal; my parents were non-religious Democrats and my ex-Catholic mom loathes organized religion to this day. My college professors were secular liberals. During my journalism phase, my newspaper colleagues were secular liberals. My law school professors and peers were – in the vast majority – secular liberals. Almost everyone at my law firm was a secular liberal. My California neighbors and friends all are secular liberals as are my siblings and their spouses.
     By all rights, I should be a member in good standing of their tribe and joining their candlelight vigils against the evil Trump Administration. But November 8 and its aftermath revealed to me that I am just so tired of these people. I can’t be like them and I don’t want my kids turning into them.
  • I am tired of their undisguised contempt for tens of millions of Americans, with no effort to temper their response to the election with humility or empathy.
  • I am tired of their unexamined snobbery and condescension.
  • I am tired of the name-calling and virtue-signalling as signs of high intelligence.
  • I am tired of their trendiness, jumping on every left-liberal bandwagon that comes along (transgender activism, anyone?) and then acting like anyone not on board is an idiot/hater.
  • I am tired of their shallowness. It’s hard to have a conversation with people obsessed only with moving their kids’ pawns across the board.
  • I am tired of their acceptance of vulgarity and sarcastic irreverence as the cultural ocean in which their kids swim. 
  • I like pop culture as much as the next person but people who never raise their kids on junk food seem to think nothing of letting them wallow in cultural junk.
  • I’m tired of watching them raise clueless kids who go off to college and within months are convinced they live in a rapey, racist patriarchy; Make America Great Again is hate speech; and Black Lives Matter agitators are their brothers-in-arms against White Privilege.
  • I’m tired of their lack of interest in morality or self-betterment. They believe being nice, well-socialize people who hold correct political views is all there is.
  • I’m tired of being bored and exasperated by everybody. I feel like I have read this book a thousand times. Down with Trump! Trans Lives Matter! Climate deniers are destroying the planet! No cake, we’re gluten-free!
     Since November 8th, we have been taking the kids to church . . . secular liberalism seems empty in some way, despite all the things my former tribe has to be thankful for. I want more, especially for my precious kids; I’m trying. . . . I have come this close to buying a giant poster of the American flag for the living room. I may do it still.”
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Next up on January 8th is our take on the Legacy of Fidel Castro 
MLLG

Letter to Liberals

George Noga

Defining Liberalism – Part 4

By George Noga – November 22, 2014

Dear Liberal Friends:

Although I find liberal ideas (to the extent such exist) jejune, vapid and repugnant, I always have accorded you personal respect and dignity, a courtesy few of you have reciprocated. This is akin to the Christian concept of condemning the sin while loving the sinner. Most of you have been quick to call me racist, evil and other vile epithets but I do not reciprocate, again defaulting to a Christian concept, turning the other cheek. Although I have many liberal readers, my blog is not aimed at those impervious to truth and logic. This post is an exception and is expressly for you, my liberal friends.

Our personal lives, dreams and hopes are not dissimilar; we all want a brighter future for our children and a healthier planet; we live within our means; we assist those in need; we consider ourselves moral and try to do the right thing. We live-and-let-live, which interestingly is a libertarian principle. We enjoy similar pursuits and generally get along very well together. When politics rears its head however, it seems we are from different planets – make that different galaxies.

“Your credo is sentio ergo sum – I feel therefore I am.”

I view your liberalism as an emotional state in which obvious contradictions, disdain for facts, utopian fantasies, obsessive desires to control and to take from others and antipathy for all who differ – in various degrees and patterns – come to dominate your thinking. It seems that you feel rather than think; hence your credo is Sentio ergo sum, i.e. I feel therefore I am. Notice I say liberalism is an emotional state; I do not, as do many others, term it a mental illness. Churchill described your liberalism poignantly as: “the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy.”

Perhaps your liberalism was caused or exacerbated by fluoridation, EMT, the ozone hole, acid rain, GMOs, Thimerosal, dioxin, PCBs, acrylamide, BPA, pink slime or any combination of these and the 50 other instances of junk science in which you once believed – and perhaps continue to believe – and all of which have been proven false or grossly exaggerated. Did I mention anthropogenic global warming and organic foods? You embrace unreason because your progressive dogma is antithetical to objective reality and you prefer the ersatz comfort of mythology to the real world.

“Your liberalism is a lie.”

You believe the darndest things – many of which are contradictory. It is okay for a very young girl to have an abortion without parental knowledge or consent but not for her to sell lemonade in her front yard. Gender specific abortion is fine because we must kill females in order to protect their rights. Fifty million abortions are good but 1,300 executions are evil. Choice is your gold standard but you believe a woman cannot choose where to school her children, to own a gun and whether or not to buy medical insurance or to join a labor union. You believe more money improves schools, raising the minimum wage helps the poor, voter ID laws suppress minority voting, there is a war on women, government creates jobs,ad infinitum. Such modern day witchcraft inevitably leads to the syllogistic conclusion that your liberalism is a lie.

Most of you live inside a plastic bubble with other bien-pensant libs, in intellectually isolated and segregated enclaves; you live your lives without ever conversing with an evangelical Christian, conservative, libertarian or anyone from fly-over land. You attended government schools with a liberal curriculum using liberal textbooks written by leftist professors and taught by progressive unionist teachers in a milieu of political correctness.You are taught there are no values except that there are no values. There are no winners or losers because no one keeps score and everyone is above average. The media, pop culture and even religion reinforce your liberal mythology. If you ever venture outside your plastic bubble and perchance encounter truth, your first instinct is to deny it; your second is ad hominem attacks.

Your last liberal refuge is compassion and good intentions about which you never tire of regaling me. However, recent scholarship exposes your ersatz compassion as pathological altruism in which your attempts to promote the welfare of others, instead results in harm. The entire point of your falsetto compassion is for you to feel better when another’s suffering provokes unease; but this does not assure the sufferer of relief. Your interest is in accruing compassion points that you and others will admire. If you’re trying to prove your heart is in the right place, it isn’t. You regard your compassion as the central virtue that makes you good as distinguished from mean-spirited folks like me. But to bolster your rush of pious, pompous reaction, you need more victims in exactly the same way an addict needs more drugs.

“If you’re trying to prove your heart is in the right place, it isn’t.”

If you are so anguished about others’ suffering, why are you so disinterested in wasteful, misdirected and ineffective government programs? It is because you care much less about actually helping than you care about caring. Hence, it is more important for you to say or to do something rather than to accomplish something. Once you have written, spoken or even held forth at a social gathering about some government program, your work is done and you can bask in your own pious reaction. You always want a bigger welfare state for self validation rather than for helping others. That’s precisely why your mantra always is to spend more – it is really for your benefit for you to feel better about yourself.

To conclude dear liberal friends, you are all about feeling rather than thinking. You bought uncritically into every bit of junk science in your lifetime. You routinely accept grotesque contradictions as dogma. You believe so much that simply isn’t true, the only possible conclusion is that liberalism is a lie. You live in a plastic bubble where your myths are constantly reinforced. If you ever experience a conflict, you first deny the truth and then default to vicious and ugly ad hominem attacks. Unsurprisingly, studies show liberals hate more than any other group, a fact to which I can attest.

Even your compassion is phony; your tears are crocodile tears. If you really cared about the poor more than pumping up your self image, you would be more interested in the effectiveness (results) of programs intended to assist them rather than forever mindlessly spending more and more of other peoples’ money. By the way, study after study shows you talk a good game but don’t deliver; folks like me donate far more to charity than folks like you. You take great pride in your compassion and pristine intentions which you wear on your sleeve for all to see. Everything you do is to show your heart is in the right place; but if you’re trying to prove your heart is in the right place, ipso facto, it isn’t!  Have a nice day.

Acknowledgment and credit are due for the ideas presented herein dealing with the nature of liberal compassion. The books Never Enough: America’s Limitless Welfare State and The Pity Party both by William Voegeli, as well as his summary in Imprimis, were sources for this posting.
MLLG

The New Age of Unreason

George Noga
By: George Noga – October 17, 2014
     Fluoridation, pesticide dangers, Laetrile, overpopulation, global cooling, organic food benefits, electromagnetic transmission lines and electromagnetic fields, acid rain, the ozone hole, Alar, silicon breast implants, falling sperm counts, killer bees, GMOs, vaccines and autism, global warming, swordfish overfishing, Mad Cow, SARS, landfill shortage, vaccines causing harm, Avian Flu, Thimerosal, Swine Flu, dioxin, PCBs, BPA, pink slime, manmade climate change, paper consumption harming the environment, cell phones and brain cancer, spousal abuse peaking during the Superbowl, anti-packaging paranoia, harm from saccharine and artificial sweeteners, fracking and the water supply, evils of plastic, acrylamide, ethanol and bioenergy, US infant mortality being worse than in Cuba and the Keystone Pipeline.
“The gestalt is that we are entering into a new age of unreason.”
      The preceding list has at least two things in common. Every item is junk science and has been shown to be either grossly exaggerated or, in nearly all cases, wrong and thoroughly debunked. Second, progressives bought hook, line and sinker into each and every one. What’s even worse is that liberals continue to cling to most of them despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Last year the citizens of Portland, Oregon, caught up in a time warp, voted 60% against adding fluoride to the drinking water. The uncritical acceptance of junk science on such a massive scale is due mainly to  liberal dogma and political correctness. The gestalt is that we are entering into a new age of unreason.
       Space limitations preclude addressing many of these exemplars of junk science; therefore, I will focus on only two of the most widespread, egregious and enduring myths, i.e. manmade global warming and organic foods. Alas, this is my parting shot at these topics – two of my favorite whipping boys over the many years of writing this blog.
Manmade Global Warming

       This remains a religion to its acolytes – all the mounting evidence and logic opposing it notwithstanding. To be clear, I always have acknowledged there has been a solar-caused secular warming trend for about 150 years. I also will aver there is a possibility that mankind, in some small and insignificant way, may be contributing as it is impossible to prove a negative. The evidence against a meaningful role for mankind can be summarized as follows:

  • There has been observed warming by NASA on our moon, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Triton, Pluto, Titan, Dysnomia, Eris, Enceladus and elsewhere in our solar system. There is no instance of observed temperature decrease anywhere in our solar system. Moreover, the measured warming is in lockstep with that on Earth. Clearly, these measurements prove to anyone but a Luddite that warming is a solar phenomenon.
  • There has been no observed warming for at least 17 years and up to 25 years depending on which measure is used. This defies all computer models. Warmists can only dissemble; the best they can come up with is that the warming is hidden deep in the oceans – a proposition which, of course, can neither be proven nor disproven.
  • Virtually all other claims made by warmists have failed to materialize. The shrinking of the Arctic icecap (which they tout) has been far more than offset by the increase in the Antarctic icecap, which is 10 times larger than the Arctic icecap. Recently, the Arctic icecap has begun to increase. There have been no major hurricanes to hit the US since forever and there has been no more extreme weather than in the past.
       Even if, a arguendo, anthropogenic global warming existed, the warmists still are dead wrong about how to deal with it. Firstoff, moderate warming is a net benefit to mankind as has been acknowledged even by the UN-IPCC; if warming helps mankind, where’s the problem? Second, any actions taken by the USA and western world are meaningless without participation from China, India, Russia and Africa; how can you tell 25% of the population in India and China they can’t have electricity? Finally, the best way to deal with warming is to maximize economic growth so that we will have the ability in the future (should it be needed) to mitigate its effects. The warmists are wrong about every aspect of global warming; what they advocate will cause great harm to mankind.
Organic Foods

       Not only are proponents of organic food wrong at every level, their actions, if left unchecked, will wreak havoc on the planet and without any benefits whatsoever to consumers of organic foods; consider:

  • There is absolutely no difference in taste between organically grown food and conventionally grown food. Every independent, scientific taste test has shown people cannot tell the difference. I will put up $10,000 to back the claim that there is no statistically significant difference in a scientifically conducted taste test.
  • Organic foods have no added benefits for vitamins or minerals, i.e. they are not more healthful in any way.
  • Both organic and conventionally grown foods use pesticides; the difference is organic uses so-called natural pesticides in massive quantities and it leaches into the groundwater causing grave environmental harm.
  • Organic requires 40% more land, is more labor intensive, has 20% to 50% lower yields and costs up to 300% more. If adopted on a large scale, it would result is clearing millions of acres and destroying critical habitat.
       Organic is a lie; it is the holy eucharist in the church of progressivism! Organic food tastes the same, is not more healthful, uses pesticides and harms the environment; moreover, it is not sustainable if expanded to a larger scale and it is not local as 25% comes from China. Much organic food is fraudulent and has false organic certificates which are readily attainable. Organic even uses GMOs, the only difference being it won’t use GMOs resulting from gene splicing. Only liberals eat organic foods, a fact well understood by Whole Foods which locates its stores only in progressive enclaves that also have strong anti-vaccine movements and where Obama got 81% of the vote. How do you spell g-u-l-l-i-b-l-e?
The New Age of Unreason – Scientists versus Witch Doctors
       Scientists use logic, experiment, replication and the scientific method; true science is never settled. Scientists deduce conclusions from objective data; they have made breathtaking progress and have created a cornucopia of marvels. Space travel is commonplace; medicine routinely performs miracles; and personal electronics are mind boggling. Technology improves in quantum leaps and every measure of human and environmental well-being is the best it has been in 50-75 years and continues to get better all the time. Thanks to scientists, we inhabit a world of scientific and technical marvels.
“Unreason flourishes because progressive dogma is antithetical to objective reality.”
      Despite all the progress noted supra, we are now in a new age of unreason and it promises to get even darker. Unreason flourishes because modern progressive dogma doesn’t square with, and is antithetical to, objective reality. Liberals eschew science in favor of dogma, mythology and vapid political correctness. They are akin to modern day witch doctors; they screech in unison like imps and banshees believing that the more often and louder they repeat their pallid screeds and mantras and attack the real scientists somehow will make them right.
      Like witch doctors, they shriek incantations, bring out leeches, administer arsenic and bleed the patient. For maskirovkaand misdirection, they use euphonic names like class equity, moral equivalence, internationalism, fairness, environmentalism, and disparity of outcome. Many are former communists who have transmogrified into green commies and hijacked the environmental movement. Metastasizing liberalism has spawned and midwifed an endless sea of banalities and inanities interspersed with downright lies. It truly is nothing less than twenty-first century witchcraft!
       In the first paragraph I listed over 40 specific instances where progressives took the side of unreason. For about 25 of these issues (by my reckoning) they continue to believe in thoroughly discredited canards, continue to embrace feel-good fallacies and continue to sin against logic. Science has become politicized and spawned an epidemic of misinformation. It really all comes down to liberal politics trumping science and reason because liberalism is based on myths and lies that are antithetical to objective reality; given this choice, liberals would rather embrace witchcraft than the real world.