What is the Constitution?

When our nation was formed the founders drew up a contract between the States and it's people for the establishment of a federal government. These same people had experience with a form of government, the Articles of Confederation,  that had existed from the end of the war and it was proving completely inadequate. They recognized the need for a stronger central government.

That contract detailed the form of the new government, the power the States relinquished to it, and the duties and limitations of that government to the States and to the people. 

The contract required the federal government to provide mail service  and the building of postal roads to support that service. It also empowered the federal government to maintain a navy and to raise an army. It gave the federal government the sole responsibility to regulate interstate commerce and the power to print money. 

The contract ceded the sole power to the federal government to negotiate treaties with foreign nations, collect dues and duties on goods imported.  

 The contract placed limitations on that same federal government regarding  the rights and liberties with respect to the States and it's people. The contract and it's first amendments, specified that the government shall not establish a state religion nor infringe on the rights of the people to assemble, the freedom of the press, their right to speak against the government nor to keep and bear arms.   

The contract also specified the manner in which it could be amended, and that has happened a number of times of the years. 

There are those that don't look at that contract as binding, but rather, it's merely a guideline to be taken seriously only when convenient, or in line with their thinking. They get very upset when the courts, specifically the Supreme Court, reaffirms that he Constitution is a binding contract and  it means what it says. 

The contract, The Constitution, clearly specifies that all powers not ceded to the federal government shall remain with the states. 

The left, more and more, want the courts to step in and legislate for positions that they are unable to get through their normal legislative processes, but recent Supreme Court ruling reaffirm the separation of powers between the states and the federal government. They recognized the Constitution as a binding contract that is to be upheld.  We will see how long that lasts. I hope a long time.

Has the left already won?

No matter how you look at it, the political left seems to be winning the battle over the hearts and minds of most of the voters, especially the young college graduates. They have captured the colleges, the entertainment business, most of the social media, the nerds at Silicon Valley, the whole education system and the main stream media, including all the major networks. I don't know a single large city, even in Red states, that are not deep blue. And, they often swing the general elections in favor of the left every two years.

The Republicans get to sit at the head of the table now and then, but they don't get to stay there long. A combination of infighting and poor organization results in a short life in that position. Look at the last time they owned all the seats, both houses of the congress and the White House. In two years the legislature did one thing, enacted a big tax cut, which did, in fact, stimulate the economy and, as a side effect, made the rich even richer.  Every other move that was made was by executive order. They promised much and delivered little. 

In those states, where the bulk of the population resides in the large cities, you can bet they will put a Dem into office, in-spite of policies that result in increased crime, high taxes, over regulation and have become a magnate for illegal aliens, among other things. 

There was a time, not to long ago, when the center of the Democrat and Republican Parties where not that far apart. They did cooperate on many issues. It was that cooperation that led to the balanced budget during the Clinton years. But, those days are gone, probably forever. 

The Democrats have moved far to the left. Their agenda can be encapsulated in a nutshell as being WOKE. They have pushed for and managed to gain seats on school boards, in the county district attorneys office and city hall in almost every major city. Major funding from people like George Soros have made that possible. 

The Republicans, on the other hand, have moved to the right. They are embracing Populism, or American First, ideas. They have become the blue collar workers champion. The Republican Party, once the party of the more affluent, low taxes, business friendly and fiscal responsibility has become the party of the people who build our roads, who move our products, who build our buildings, who grow our food, who mine our minerals, who produce our oil and gas, who work in our factories, i.e the blue collar worker and small business owners. They are far more religious. They want a strong military and generally have the support of men and women in uniform, now or past.  There is no longer a common ground from which to seek compromise between the two parties. They have entirely different agendas. 

Why is that? Let's start with the colleges. The students go into college, in general, with no firm political position. While in college they are fed a constant stream about the evils of capitalism and glories of socialism and even communism. They drag up every sin, by 2023 standards, America ever committed and feed that to the students as if it is norm for this country. These ideas and that political philosophy is especially prevalent in the liberal arts schools of Political Science, Journalism, English, Creative Arts, like acting, Broadcast Journalism and all the newly created majors and minors like Black Studies. History is taught from the WOKE standpoint. If you ask what George Washington did, the answer would probably come back that he was a slave owner. 

How much the Chinese government influences the major universities is hard to pin down. It is clear the huge sums of money are poured in universities, with donations through front organizations, and in research grants to individual professors. We do know that China secured 120 million dollars in contracts with US universities in 2021. The US government "discovered" $6.5 billion in previously unreported foreign donations to universities from primarily China and Russia in 2020. The PRC is the largest source of foreign donations to US universities since 2013. In addition, tuition paid by Chinese students is worth an estimated $12 billion per year.  Chinese sources have participated in donations or contracts worth more than $426 million to US universities since 2011. Apparently Harvard and MIT both received huge amounts of money in one way or another from the Chinese. Something in the order of a billion dollars each.

Although the law requires reporting large donations from foreign countries, the schools routinely ignore the requirement. 

One might conclude that the big universities don't want to anger the Chinese.

Even the STEM and business majors are subjected to this influence. After all, the degrees require courses in the liberal arts.

The law schools do not teach that the constitution is a contract between the people and the states with the federal government, but rather is nothing more than a guideline that should be interpreted to fit whatever political position the courts will wish. 

The big cities are populated by several solid Democrat groups. The people who look to the government for hand outs (welfare precipitants), the liberal arts educated who work in the offices, first and second generation Hispanics, folks who work directly for local, state and federal governments (there is a lot of them).

They may not totally agree, or they may completely disagree,  with the lefts position on a lot of things, but they check the boxes of the Democrat ticket every 2 years.

They have doing this for a long time, so the ideas and teachings have found their way into the workplace over the entire spectrum, especially the media and academia. The didn't need much help with the entertainment industry, it has been far left leaning for a long time, ever since the actors, producers, writers and directors who served in WWII left the industry.

They completely ignore the advancements that have been made in race relations over the last fifty years and paint white people as inherently bad, have significant advantages over other races, and exploit that advantage to suppress other races, especially blacks. This is from professors that have no real world experience. They never created anything. They never held a job that wasn't within the halls of academia. They completely ignore the failures and experiences in socialism that other countries have tried and failed miserably.  

They will not hear the points of views that is contrary to their own. Supporters of the conservative view are not invited to speak at most large colleges, and if a Republican is invited by some group, like the Young Republics, they are shouted down and even had to endure violence. Even Bill Mayer, the classic liberal, has problems with the college crowd.

The term White Supremacy has been coined to shout down anyone who dares to question any of their pronouncements. 

The graduates of these schools now populate the media, both print and broadcast, the entertainment field and the nerds in Silicon Valley. 

The left wants to become the rulers of the country. After all, they know best what is right and will dispense equality, not of opportunity but of outcome. The left believes that if they were in charge, all the evils of the world would be addressed and resolved. Homelessness and poverty would be a thing of the past. The rich would pay their "fair" share to support the programs they prefer. 

The Republicans have a big hill to climb. The registered Democrats outnumber them by a fair margin. The Democrats are much better funded and understand how to win elections better than the Republicans. They seek out and register every potential Democrat voter and get them registered. The work very hard in the legislatures to make registration and voting easier. They encourage the use of mail in voting and want it made as easy as possible and then they will "help" any voter with their ballot. They fight any restriction such as the requirement to show an ID or to verify that the signature on a mail-in ballot is authentic. They push for changes in registration laws so that a person can show at the polls and register to vote right then, without showing ID, or any proof of citizen. They are good at ballot harvesting, sometimes even legally. They have teams of people to make sure the registered Democrat voters vote. They work at this at every level. Your local school board, city council, prosecuting attorney, mayor and any elected state, county and county official are well supported by the DNC if they have the right political slant. 

That is why you have prosecutors that don't prosecute, school boards that want to teach CRT to very young students, Mayors and city councils that put highly restrictive collars on the police and reducing police budgets. The declare their cities or states as sanctuary for illegal immigrants and refuse to cooperate with ICE to notify them when illegals are jailed or released. The homeless littering the streets don't bother them, even though they give lip service to doing something for the them. They are first in slamming police anytime there is a shooting of a black man by a police officer, no matter the circumstances. The list goes on. We have selective prosecution of rioters who burn stores during "peaceful demonstrations", they are not prosecuted, not even arrested.  Almost legalized shop lifting is common, and the store worker prosecuted if they try to interfere. And, the list goes on. 

And the citizens of the big cities just pulling the Democrat lever.

So I ask you? Who is winning this race?

  

 

American Future?

All the signs of American decline on the world stage are there. Not that we will not remain viable, but our position as the leading economic and military power decline is almost a sure thing unless something changes, and in the present atmosphere, I don't see that happening. 

What will happen then, with two large and hostile countries on the same planet? Especially China that wants to replace the USA as the worlds leader in the two big categories of economics and military.  Not only those two but, two others that don't like us very much, Iran and North Korea. Not too mention most of the Muslim countries are not our friends, we're the great Satin. India, the largest nation on earth, by population, seems to be siding with China and Russia. It is not a friendly world out there. 

It has been said that in any form of government lies the seeds of it's destruction.  For a democracy, or a democratic republic as we are, the seed sprouts when the populace realizes that it can vote itself the contents of the nations treasury. We begin to spend more than we take in as revenue. A trend that was started by FDR during the Great Depression escalated. New entitlements were created and older ones expanded to include more of the population, although the treasury couldn't really afford a lot them over the long haul. Money was essentially printed and just handed out every time there was down tick in the economy.

That produced an appearance of wealth for awhile among the population; but what happens when the treasury finally runs dry? The population loves the social programs that government funds, and the left want even more than they are getting now, so the government borrows and continues borrowing in order to fund those programs. The populace are not happy with anything less and so they back the political party the promises to give them more. They want a high standard of living and even more social programs, free medical care, free college education, forgiveness of all past student debt, more welfare programs, among other things, but don't want to pay for it through the exorbitant taxes that would be required. If the government had to borrow money to pay, that was fine.

The last time the budget was balanced was under Bill Clinton, even then the debt wasn't paid down, just not increased. The government started to step in every time there was a hiccup in the economy and poured money into the system to weather the storm. What really put the icing on the cake was the arrival of the Covid-19 virus from China. The government, in it's infinite wisdom proceeded to shut down the economy in order to prevent the spread of the virus, or so they preached. The economy went into a tailspin. To shore it up the government, first under Trump and the under Biden, in his case with spades, pumped trillions of dollars into the economy by just handing out money to workers that were told to stay home.  That had a predictable effect. Inflation took off. There was to much money chasing to little goods. As a side effect, the workers don't want to return to work when the lock-down was lifted.

 The debt continues to grow as the government, through their elected officials spent more and more. Neither party seems to be willing to take on the problem, although the Republicans were able to slow down the massive increase desired by Biden and Dems during the last budget raising game. Maybe there is some hope for the future if the GOP can capture the legislature for any period of time, long enough to make a difference. And, if they have the guts to start making inroads in reducing the ever increasing debt or at least stop increasing it.

A look at the public debt reveals that we are now in a position where we owe more, with respect to the GDP,  than anytime since WWII.

 

   Public Debt over time as Percent of GDP

Our spending is really out of control over the last 8 years, especially since the Dems took the White House and both houses of congress in 2020. In 2022 we spent more than a trillion dollars more than we took in. We have locked ourselves into entitlement programs that leave little room to maneuver. So the Government printed money, lots of money. The result is high inflation. Wages are creeping up but inflation is raising faster. To make matters worse, Biden and the Democrat congress passed a measure called the inflation recovery act, which dumped even more trillions of dollars in the already over heated economy. That's Trillion with T. An ungodly amount of money, considering that the United States has less than 350 million people to pay it.

 

 The 2022 Spending and revenue

 All the borrowing is fine until you have to pay the interest on the debt. When you have to borrow more in order pay the interest on the current debt, you are headed for a big problem. After all the interest keeps compounding. Only Medicare and Social Security will grow to to remain larger than the money we have to pay in interest in the near future, but in the long term the interest will become the largest single item in the budget. And growing by the day, unless something is done, and soon.

The left believes that the way out is tax the rich and the corporations, with high capital gains and corporate taxes, not to cut back on spending, especially their pet social programs.
But, a bit of insight into the way the economy works would show that that is not a good idea. History has shown that it doesn't work. It would not produce enough revenue and the liberal forgets that money walks. The rich and their money will find other places for their investments.

Sometime, in the not to distant future, the chicken will come home to roost. We will have to do something to meet our obligations to pay our bills, or declare bankruptcy. Most of the options range from unpleasant to catastrophic. The one the politicians will choose is probably just to print even more money. The result will be massive inflation on a scale this country has never seen. The Federal Reserve will keep increasing interest rates trying to battle the inflationary spiral which might, and probably will, throw the economy into a recession.

What should be attacked is the large entitlement programs, and it should be attacked soon. Social Security, Medicare and Medical are the biggest items in the budget, dwarfing the defense budget. You would not have to take a hatchet to the two entitlement programs, just put some common sense into them. After all, when Social Security was enacted the average life span was about 68 years. It has not risen to around 72. People who reach Social Security retirement age will probably be on Social Security longer than they worked. What will be attacked is defense spending. Especially, if the Dems are in charge. They will not give up their entitlements without a fight. We will shave our military drastically. The politicians don't have the nerve to modify Social Security or the other entitlements. Ron DeSantis and others have tried to offer some solutions but, got no where, and is the subject of the Trump advertisements against him in the current Republican race for the White House. 

There will be no one left who can challenge the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, and the North Koreans, if they choose unleash their forces into areas they want. I suspect they will. Eastern Europe, all of Indochina, the middle east and most of the Pacific could very well be ruled by the communist governments or the Iranians. So far those areas are protected under the umbrella of the United States military power. That could well disappear in the future as we struggle with the public debt. 

How else have we shot ourselves in the foot?

We, you and me, along with help from the rest of the Western World, have pulled the Chinese from a third world country into the second largest economy in the world. How and why did we do that?

The United States emerged from WWII as the leading industrial power in the world. Our industries were intact, not having been bombed into to rubble as had many other of the worlds industries. We turned out products for the US market and for exports at a phenomenal rate as the world woke up from the war and started to want the goods that were only being produced in numbers by the United States.  This produced the highest standard of living in all of history for the vast majority of the American public. An explosion of the middle class emerged. The average worker could buy a house, a car, appliances for the home and could live a life that would have been the envy of older generations.

That generation suffered through the great depression and WWII. They remembered the past and showered their children with everything they never had. The Baby Boomers grew up having all the necessities of life and many of the luxuries. And, they liked it. Their children liked it even better and the later generations began to think of it as their right, their due. 

American manufacturers looking to capitalize on the abundant market rushed to get products out the door and shipped.  The products they were producing were still at pre-war standards. In their rush, they began making many poor products. The machine tools were still being made as they had been in the pre-war days. Large tolerances were the norm so the the mass production methods developed the US would keep running. 

But then, the other nations started to recover and rebuild their manufacturing. Their factories were newer and more efficient than the older American ones and in the Asian countries especially, they had an abundance of cheap labor. 

Japan decided that the future that MacArthur wanted them to go, wasn't in their best interest and they set upon a goal of achieving high levels of reliability and quality in their products. Their machine tools were the latest technology and far surpassed those of the American manufacturers. Consequently after a few false starts and a national commitment, the Japanese started turning out products noted for their high quality and reliability and because of cheaper labor and more efficient machines they were turning them out cheaper and better than the American manufacturers. This was especially noticeable in the auto market with the rise of Toyota and Nissan and the impact on the American market. Today Toyota is the worlds largest selling auto brand. 

After a few missteps by the Chinese, they abandoned their experiment in socialism as unworkable and took a big step toward capitalism.  Not exactly free market capitalism as we know it, but a form with the government heavily involved in over all direction of the economy. Even those large companies owned outright by the state are run as businesses under capitalist rules. They were run for profit. Those companies had to compete in the global market so the old Soviet Model wouldn't work. The Chinese created as many billionaires as the western world.  A strong one party system can do that. The Chinese had a very cheap and very abundant labor pool and could turn out any manufactured product far cheaper than the American manufacturers.

Manufacturing of goods and raw materials started moving to China. Pretty soon virtually everything that was for sale in American stores or online was made in China. The great American factories that had out produced the world during WWII were closed down. Americans were unwilling to pay the higher prices that local products would cost. They liked using cheaper foreign made products. The factory jobs that once were the backbone of American economy disappeared.

American Companies, like Nike, Adidas, Coca Cola, Disney, the NBA to name a few, saw that huge market of a billion people or a huge amount of cheap labor to produce their product and couldn't resist the urge to capitalize. Your Michael Jordan's shoes are made  by cheap child labor in China. Most American based companies that wanted to do business on a global scale sucked up to China.  

We did not produce enough goods of all kinds to export to China and other foreign countries to balance the scales, so we borrowed money to pay for those goods coming into the United States.  Other countries were also exporting goods to the US but not anything like China. So, a growing trade deficit emerged over time.

Where did the Chinese spend all that American cash they reaped from sales to the US markets? They begin to buy up America. They invested in real estate and other items. That GE refrigerator you bought was money that went into the bank in China. The appliance division of GE is owned by a Chinese Company. The holdings of Chinese in American is extensive and just too many to list, but a few may surprise you. 

AMC, Smithfield Foods, The Waldorf Astoria, Strategic Hotels Resorts, Legendary Pictures, Sheraton Universal Hotel in LA, Motorola Mobility, Terex Corporations, Marriott Hotel in LA, Ingram Micro, are wholly owned by Chinese companies to name a few. In addition the have a stake in Morgan Stanley, VISA, Ford, Reddit, Blackstone, GM and many more. Enough of a stake they have a seat on the board. Of course everyone knows that the social media TicTok is owned and run by a Chinese company.

If you want to do business in China you have to have a Chinese partner and transfer the technology you use to do that business to the Chinese partner. The same as giving it to the Communist party. 

The Chinese have infiltrated American business at many levels and influenced the politics of America for years. They give liberally to the Democrats and a little to the Republicans. They have a huge influence on the World Health Organization which went to great lengths to cover up Chinese involvement in the Covid-19 virus. 

They want and have a seat at the table for almost any discussion about China. Look at the Covid-19 episode. They did everything they could to muddy the waters about the origins of the virus. They have so much influence that the government went right along with them and worked to mislead the American people. 

The main government funded medical organizations, the NIH and the CDC were afraid to point the finger at China research, probably because they funded that research. The social media platforms worked, along with the Chinese, to misdirect the discussion of the virus origins. No posting on Facebook or Twitter that questioned the governments position was allowed. Serious researchers and doctors in the specialty of infectious diseases were banned from the social media platforms. 

Mainstream media, ABC, NBC, NY Times, Washington Post, CNN and others pretty much toed the government line.  Only Fox seemed to point the finger at the Chinese Wuhan lab as the culprit. 

They are engaged in a massive and intensive cyber war against the United States. They are after military and state secrets as well as personal data on American citizens. They are infiltrating every level of our society and mining information at a horrific pace. They are using social media to plant their ideology into the minds of the American youth. And we are helping them. Every posting on Tiktok is available to the Chinese. American youth seem to be in love with that platform and uses it constantly. 

I don't see how we get out of this mess until we hit bottom and the electorate wakes up and stop electing left wing politicians that advocate a global reach, even at the expense of the American citizen.  Perhaps I'm too pessimistic. I hope so. If I'm not, then our grandchildren will have a tougher time of it than the current generation had. For the first time the next generation will have less than their parents. That seems to be happening already is some ways.

 

 

 

What is a Woman?

 What is a woman? I know very well what a woman is. A woman is an adult human female. That is, she is no longer a child. I also know what a man is. A man is a human male that has reached the age of maturity. 

 Different societies at different times have varied a lot over when that age is reached, after all, the concept a teenager is relativity new. A few years ago there was no recognition of a period of development we call the teenage years. A person was a child and then they became an adult.

A woman, or female  is a person who carries the XX  chromosome set. A man, or male carries the XY chromosome set. There is no alternative. 

It is a necessary basic instinct that makes men and women attractive to each other. Without that basic instinct there would be no higher forms of life, at least as we know it. Every species that walks on the earth, crawls on it's belly, swims in the ocean or flies in the sky exhibits that same male/female attraction in one form of another. That is the way we propagate and the species endures. That is the norm.

There has always been a small percentage of humans, and maybe other species also, that do not share the common instincts that ensure the survival of the human race. That percentage seems to be somewhere between 2 to 10 percent of the population, depending on who is doing the counting. Something got off kilter in their emotional and mental make up that deviated from the norm. Any attempt to "straighten them out" has been, to say the least, unsuccessful. 

Different societies and different times have taken a far different views of that small group. In much of the world they would have been put to death when found out. In our own puritanical past a homosexual would have been shamed and pretty much cast out of society.  At other times and other cultures they were accepted as normal. It is likely that the whole Spartan City State readily accepted them, if you looked that the way they were structured. 

The wisdom today says that they are born that way and it's basic to their mental make up, i.e. it is their nature. That is fine and should not be punished in any way for that quirk in their beliefs. They are people just like the rest of us, some good, some bad and most in between. We know that some of our greatest artists in the theater, fine arts and entertainment are/were homosexuals. They hold positions in every walk of life from common laborers to board chairmen. Most people take the attitude that they can live their life the way they want too and make no stink about it. Many heterosexual people have friends and relatives that are homosexual.

But, lately there has arisen activism within a small minority of this group. This small minority of people want to take up a lot space in the alphabet and are trying to re-frame the narrative for all of us. If they constitute over 1% of the population I would be surprised. The problem is that the left leaning liberals among us are getting on the band wagon and joining them in their insanity. 

They want to change the language. They want to do away with the common pronoun he and she. They want to redefine what a woman and man is. The person who produces eggs and the person who produces sperm is their replacement for the terms woman and man. Isn't that a kicker. They want to make the definition of a man and woman be the name. But, the insanity doesn't stop there.

They want to, and have, succeeded in letting people with the XY chromosome compete against biological women with the obvious result. If this isn't nipped in the bud then they will destroy women's sports. Title IX will be just a memory. The people who run these sports are so afraid to be called homophobic that they don't step in and stop it. Women athletes who have publicly objected have been assaulted by liberals and called homophobes, Nazis, Hitler, racists and other less flattering names. 

They want to inject young children with sex altering drugs, even surgery, if they even suspect that they may fit the profile of a transsexual. Even when the child has no idea what that all means. That has, rightly, been called child molestation. If you object you are called homophobic. 

They want to and have, with the help of liberal educators, produced drag shows for very young students. They are striving to teach their version of sex education to very young kids in school. Kids that are too young to even understand what sex even means. 

And, to cap it off, they want to cut the parents out of the picture when it comes to their child's education. The government has helped them by putting parents who raise objections to what the school boards are doing on the FBI's domestic terrorists list. The teachers unions are in on this insanity and have stated emphatically that parents should have no say in their child's education.   

A man may think he would like to be a woman, or even thinks he's a woman, but he's a a man. The presence of the Y chromosome dictates that fact. He will have all the physical attributes that have been necessary for survival over the many thousands of years.  His legs are longer with respect to his torso helping him run faster. His lungs are larger. His upper body exhibits far more muscle mass and strength. His torso can take a lot more punishment and still function.  These skills were necessary for the species survival. He is made to be a hunter and a defender of the family, the clan or the tribe. He either could run fast, wield weapons and lift heavy objects or he, along with the whole species, die.

A woman may think she's a man but she is still a woman. The double X chromosomes assures that fact. She may want to be a man or thinks she really is a man but she isn't. Her body was made for child bearing. She can conceive and create another human being. She can nurse that young human in it's infancy. She has abundance of what may be called inner body strength. She endures.She has the characteristics because they are absolutely necessary for the survival of the species. We only exist because of a woman's characteristics.

You are  actually what your biology made you. Nothing can change that. Some men who have felt so strongly that they were born with the wrong body go so far as to have surgery performed along with injections of female hormones that transforms them into the appearance of a woman. That transformation does not make them into a true female. They can not do the things that define a woman. They cannot bear children. The cannot nurse a child. They fall into a unique category, that has been labeled as a transgender female. That does not give them the right to compete with true females in sports involving speed, strength and other physical activity. They still have all the advantages of a male. 

There, I've had my say. It may turn some peoples shorts in a knot. So?  

The War on Drugs

 The war on drugs has been long, highly financed, and generally a failure. 

The drug trade is governed by the same laws of supply and demand that as any other product. When the demand is high, and it seems it is, then there will people who will find a way to supply that demand. 

If the government decides that some product, for which there is a high demand, is illegal, then a black market will develop. We experienced that during prohibition when we outlawed the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages. The result was a rise in gangs that exploited the demand for beer and whiskey. That was the spur that created organized crime. There was just too much money involved.  

We tried the same tactics then that are being employed today to combat the flow of illegal drugs in to the country. We tried to go after the supply side of the trade. The feds tried to shut down the flow of spirits into the country. Indeed, they did make a lot of arrests. They displayed their haul for public consumption to show how successful they were being in shutting down the alcohol trade. But, what they managed to intercept was just a drop in the bucket to the massive flow of beer and whiskey.  The demand was just to great and the money just too good. 

Today we are engaged in "The War on Drugs", using the same tactics that were tried during prohibition. We are going after the supply side of the criminal activity. And, we're having about the same results. We capture some of the drugs, bust some of the drug gangs and lower bosses, but the drugs just keep on flowing in and the money keeps flowing into the syndicates that are supplying them. No matter what you do, the drugs will continue to flow as long as the demand remains high. 

One solution is simple to state, but likely impossible to implement. Shut off the demand. Clearly that is not going to happen any time soon although that would be the ideal solution. Drugs are highly addictive. But, the addict is not the only user. Some of the drugs appeal to a set of young people who use them for recreational purposes. They love the feeling they get. And then there is the set of users that are addicted to drugs as pain killers. They generally got hooked as a result of over use of pain killers originally prescribed by some doctor. If you really want to win the war on drugs this is where the emphasis should likely be. Cut off the demand or at least significantly reduce it. How you do that, I have no idea. It likely would take enormous amount of money and a concerted effort from a large number of people. How do you convince that college student that he or she shouldn't snort cocaine if they want to. After all that age group knows everything there is to know. And, they would never get hooked. It's just all for fun.

Another solution is to make the drug trade unprofitable by legalizing them. Make drugs regulated the same way we do alcohol. Some countries have done that without to many dour consequences. This approach has it's down side. If the repeal of prohibition is any indicator, legalizing narcotics would result in an increase in addition and all that implies in the public health arena. After all, people forget the prohibition really worked to a large extent. There was far less spousal abuse and public drunkenness during prohibition. Men were coming home with the paychecks instead of spending them in a bar.  Today's war on drugs has an effect of keeping a lot of people from trying narcotics for recreational uses, with the subsequent morphing into addiction, and pushing people into sometimes successful rehab programs.  

Of course a third option would hardly be tolerable to our neighbors down south. That would be to go after the drug cartels with all our military might. Literally invade Mexico. Send in the special forces including the Navy Seals, Army Rangers and any other elite group in our military, to wipe out the headquarters and personnel operating the cartels. That would not be a one time thing because even if all the drug cartels were wiped out with all it's leadership, we would have to maintain a presence. You can be assured that new cartels would arise. The money is just too great.

Something like 80 percent of the people in prison today are there because of some relation to the illegal drug trade. About 20% of them were under the influence of narcotics while committing a crime. Would this mean that the prisons would be emptied if drugs were legalized? I'm not sure what the result would be, likely a large number of the same people who were sent to prison for dealing or manufacturing illegal drugs would find some other way to break the law. That pipe line would dry up. The big money involved with drugs would disappear. But, there are lots of ways to make money by illegal means. Generally however, those methods don't effect to large population as does the drug trade. Human trafficking comes to mind. It's harder to smuggle humans around than it is drugs. But, that activity is already in place and flourishing.

 

Let's talk about gun control

 Suppose the 2nd amendment to the Constitution was repealed. Would government be able to get such a control on guns that violence associated with the gun would be greatly reduced? Would the murder rate in Chicago and other large cities be virtually eliminated?

I have a pretty good feeling that repeal of the 2nd amendment would have little effect unless the USA became, in effect, a police state. There are just too many guns out there and we virtually have an open border with Mexico, a source of guns of all kinds, including assault rifles. In addition we have long coastal waters which can't be patrolled all the time. To eliminate guns from our society at this stage would be a daunting task. About as successful as our war on drugs have been. Which almost everybody agrees is a total failure. 

Guns are widely held throughout the United States as shown in the figure below. Not surprising, the most liberal states, which already have strict gun control laws show the least percentage of gun ownership, at least legal ownership.

 

 

Also not surprising, is that gun death rates line up fairly well with the percentage of gun ownership.

   There are more guns in the United States than there are people. To get rid of that number of guns, without even considering smuggling, would be next to impossible without a extensive change in the current laws. The state would have to trample on essential freedoms and rights we think we have.

First, you would have to allow police officers and other law enforcement to raid any place they choose and stop and frisk any one without a warrant.

Second, you would have to make the owing or selling of an unauthorized firearm a serious crime, in and of itself. I mean serious, big fines and prison time.

You would have to limit, severely, the condition under which a permit would be issued and restrict the types of weapons that would be authorized. No sim-automatic, automatic, or large capacity magazine guns would be permitted. Essentially the guns that would be authorized, when clear need has been shown, would be the revolver or other limited magazine gun shot guns and sport rifles. Permitting would only be authorized by he federal government's ATF agency.  And, limit the sale of ammunition only to those people authorized the possess a gun.

You would have to make the punishment severe for anyone smuggling a firearm into the country.That means severe prison time. 

Next, but not the last, sentencing anyone who commits a felony with a gun to very long prison sentences, even up to life imprisonment or the death penalty. 

A look at the gun laws in Britain is probably the model for what gun haters in the US would strive for:

The following are generally prohibited:

• Fully automatic or burst-fire weapons, which may include some air guns.
• Semi-automatic or pump-action rifles that fire centre-fire ammunition
• Manually Actuated Release System Rifles (M.A.R.S) and Lever Release Rifles (not to be confused with Lever Action)
• Cartridge-ammunition handguns, regardless of caliber
• Firearms disguised as another item (e.g. walking sticks, mobile telephones, etc.)
• Rockets and mortars.
• Air guns chambered for self-contained gas cartridges. (Existing owners prior to 20 January 2004 w
• Any weapon of whatever description designed or adapted for the discharge of any noxious liquid, gas or other substance. This would generally include stun guns, or electric shock devices, (tear gas), (pepper spray), etc. Cattle prods would not generally be included, but it would depend on the type.
• Any weapon of any era is never allowed ownership subject to obtaining a firearm certificate)

Firearms that previously fell into a prohibited category cannot be made legal if converted into an otherwise permitted form. For example, a pistol which is adapted by permanently fitting a 60-centimetre (24 in) long smooth-bore barrel to it does not thereby become permitted.

It has been said that in the presence of restrictive gun laws only the criminals would have guns. That is obviously true. But, consider this. The events that gets the Woke crowd up in arms is the mass shootings that have become all too common place are not being done by known criminals. They are often carried out by a some disgruntled individual that has a bone to pick with the institution he attacks. All too often the warnings were there. A disturbed individual that just slips through the cracks.

All that, of course, presumes that the Supreme Court did not step in and declare that this range of laws were unconstitutional. One would suppose that a population that permitted the 2nd amendment to be nullified, might have elected a President and congress that appointed enough liberal justices that the laws would stand. An all to likely future event. 

.

All Electric by 2035?

Our boy Newsom and the states Dems have decided that California will be completely off fossil fuels to move cars and trucks by 2035. Isn't that great!

The problem is that the only steps that the state is taking to make that happen is to place exorbitant taxes on gasoline and diesel in addition to limiting any production of fossil fuels. That will indeed drive some people to move away from gas and into buying Tesla's and other electric vehicles.

The question then arises. How is the power grid going to supply the enormous energy that will be demanded when 10% of the nations autos start sucking on it to recharge batteries every evening? As shown in the following chart, California has, by far, the largest number of automobiles in the USA.

 

 California has the largest number of EVs but it is almost insignificant compared to the total number of cars.

 

 

 

The necessary growth in the EV market to meet the states goals will have to be phenomenal.

That is in addition to the ever increasing demand for power as homes with air conditioners and other electrical electrical appliances are built. And, residences aren't the only consumers of electricity. They make up only about a third of the demand for power. Note that transportation takes only a tiny bit at the moment.

Over the years there has been an ever increasing consumption of energy and there is no reason to believe that this trend will reverse.

The state is taking no steps toward building additional power plants, in fact they have practically outlawed the building of such faculties.   We experience rolling black outs every summer when the air conditioners kick in. What's going to happen when you add all the
recharging cars and trucks to the mix. Likely a complete failure of the power grid. 

The only source of power that stands a chance of meeting the power demands, and is not powered by fossil fuels is nuclear. And, the liberals that run the state are dead set against that.  A look at how the power is being generated of the last few years shows that most of the current power grid is supported by fossil fuels. 

They will probably give us the song and dance about how solar and wind power will do the trick. But, study after study has shown that wind and solar power will not do it. The above graph shows that we have a long way to go to meet our power demands from renewable sources. On top of that, mining and processing of the rare earth that is required to build solar panels is an environmental disaster.  We are already seeing the havoc that wind mills cause where they are being used. They are a danger to birds and the offshore ones seem to be having an effect on whales.  After all, there is no such thing as a free lunch.

So what we have is another pie in the sky flight of fancy from the left. The problem is, they are going to start passing legislation and regulations with idea of making that happen. I see a mass exodus from California over the next 20 years.

 

Dems must be insane

There is an old saying that if you do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result you must be insane. 

California Democrats grumble about high taxes, repressive  regulations, highest gas prices in the country, high coast of living, high crime in it's big cities, the homeless, and a number of other things, but they go to the ballot box every 2 years and re-elect the very people that causes all these problems to start with.

Some of them even leave the state to head for the greener pastures of the Red states, Texas for instance, and what do they do? They are over joyed to get away from all the problems of California, but they take their voting habits with them and proceed to try to make their new abode just like California. 

The Democrats deserve what they voted for. The problem is that they drag the Republicans along with them. 

 

You Must be a Democrat

If you believe that shutting down the production of oil and gas in the United States and driving the cost of gasoline and diesel to record highs, moving the country from a a position of energy independence and having to become a oil importer,  is a good thing and:

If you believe that the pull out from Afghanistan was a well organized operation that left hundreds of Americans and thousands of Afghans that supported us, at the mercy of the Taliban,with American soldiers paying the ultimate price, and:

If you believe the borders of the United States should be open so that any body can come in, including the cartels, wanted criminals and the millions of doses of deadly drugs, is a desirable position and:

If you believe that the police are all racists and they should be defunded and social workers put in their place, while crime is on the rise, and:

If you believe that criminals should be released without bail so that they can continue to wreck havoc on the general public and:

If you believe that printing of over 5 trillions dollars and giving it to the public, regardless of means,  resulting in massive inflation, where there are now more dollars in the hands of consumers than there are goods, proving once again that the law of supply and demand is true, was a smart thing, and:

If you believe that abortion should be legal up to the cutting of the umbilical cord after birth should be legal and encouraged, and:

If you believe that teaching young school children, below the 3th grade, about sex and about the validity of the group that takes up half the alphabet and any parent who objects, should be named a domestic terrorist and monitored by the FBI, and:

If you believe that election of Republicans in 2022 will be the end of democracy, in spite of our history that shows the country has undergone tremendous upheaval many times since our founding and democracy remains intact. Of course if you believe that without any evidence other than a failed attempt by a group that believed that the election in 2020 was stolen and decided to take a very ill advised action, and action which was doomed to failure from the start. That idea is being spouted with no idea how that could happen. The balance of power still exists and this Supreme Court has shown that it is very much in support of the constitution as it is written and not some interpretation favoring some ideology. The Roe versus Wade decision was a proof that they believed in the 10th amendment which clearly states that if a power is not given to the federal government then it reverts to the states. And:

If you believe that any opinion contrary to that of the government should not be allowed and should be banned on all the social media platforms. The contrary opinion of many medical experts about the actions on the Covid 19 outbreak taken by the government was ill advised as an example. That the government was able to get the social media platforms to squelch all papers showing data that did not support the government view as great. That the clear evidence that the virus originated in the Chinese lab, was man made, and somehow escaped, was denied by the government until lately and that idea was squelched was great. And:

If you believe that all the statues of the founding fathers of our country should be struck down because so many of them owned slaves or at least tolerated slavery or some other act that 21st century Americans found unacceptable. That we should no longer teach about the perilous position those people were in when they rebelled against a nation with the most powerful army in the world because that made them appear heroic, and:

If you believe that we should not recognize other significant people who were instrumental in the discovery, preservation and expansion of the Americas such as Washington, Jefferson, Columbus, Andrew Jackson, Pope, yes and even Lincoln, and:

If you believe that there was collusion with Russia to support Trump during the 2016 election and that the FBI did a bank up job in being neutral in the election cycle, in spite of the fact the the whole thing was made up by the Clinton campaign with the paper work generated by them and in collusion with key members of the FBI, who knew the papers were fake, but was used to get a warrant to spy on Trump and his campaign. And:

If you believed that it was Okay to suppress the information on the Hunter Biden laptop as Russian disinformation, in spite of the fact that the FBI knew that it was real and might, if released, influence the election in 2020 was a good thing. That the FBI informed social media that the whole thing was a false information and they should not post it  was great. Then:

You must be a Democrat.

 

 

The Second Amendment

 Have you ever wondered why our Constitution bakes into law the right of the average citizen to have a private gun? That is a right that is not given to it's citizens in any other country. 

Many third world countries are seen where almost everybody is carrying around an AK47 and shooting them off at will, but they haven't  been given that right under the law. Most, if not all, of the more advanced countries have severely restricted the distribution of firearms. Many have a total ban on the private citizen owning a gun. Why are we different?

There a several reasons why. When the first 12 amendments (only 10 were approved) were being written, the main purpose was to protect the citizen from an overreaching government, whether that government was federal or local. The early citizens of this country had only recently won a war against, what they thought of as, a tyrannical government. They were very wary of large government with unchecked powers. They were afraid that government would take away the freedoms that they had fought so hard to gain. Thus the first amendments to the constitution. The second amendment was part of that list of protections of the people from its government.

To start with, you have to remember the atmosphere of this country at it's basic formation and the conditions that existed here in the late 18th century. 

First, the founding fathers did not envision that the country would have a large standing army. The  Constitution specifically says that nation should raise and maintain a navy, but merely says that the congress can call up an army in time of need. And where was that army coming from? The militia of course. The is the main reason the second amendment is worded as it is. They coupled the restriction on the government from infringing on the rights of the citizen to have a gun by noting that a militia was necessary. They believed that if the country needed to raise an army, that the militia would be called up and the militia men would take their guns down from over the fireplace and an instant army would be formed. Each state was responsible for raising and training a militia. Added to that was a distrust of a strong standing army and the potential threat it might have to the nation if lead by strong leader. 

Secondly, everything west of the Atlantic states was completely unsettled by white men. The west was a hostile place. It was necessary, therefore, that the people that were on the frontier be able to defend themselves against the hostile natives that didn't care much for the white mans incursion into what they felt were their territory, because they won it in battle from some other native tribe.  

I'm sure that the originators of the first amendments had some other personal issues for wanting the 2nd amendment. They likely had guns themselves. But, essentially the amendment was written and approved to put a check on the rise of government power to the point where government itself became the enemy of the people. Our founding fathers were very highly educated people and extremely well read. They foresaw the course governments tend to take as they grew larger. Governments want to control everything. They 2nd amendment assures that the states had a large force that could oppose a large and overreaching federal grab for power over the states. After all the states considered themselves as semi-independent countries bound together only by the constitution. Recall that the 10th amendment to the Constitution specifically states that any power not given the the federal government by that document is reserved to the individual states. An amendment that seems to be largely ignored today.