Two institutions, the IRS and The Fed (thanks Woodrow!) are massive roadblocks to "going back to the basics of adding value in real ways once again" - both institutions are unconstitutional or at the very least, quasi constitutional.
Until these are removed, DC Borg assimilation will accelerate, ... until some sort of collapse or systemic failure that cannot be ignored or money printed away occurs. DJT appeared to be moving in the direction of taming the Fed by folding it into Treasury, and those changes have not been reversed by the current zombie admin. Curious.
At any rate, nothing will be fixed by working within the current rigged system. The psychopaths who built slave planet were extremely smart, evil but smart. Fortunately for us, the creatures now running this shitshow are mediocre intellects AND seem to be lacking cohesion and leadership. Our best and perhaps only opportunity to remove them is at hand.
Things that are unsustainable end, so we know this ends. We just don't know how yet or when.
"citizen regulating bad behaviour is known as lynch mob"
Our founder didn't want a pure democracy, aka "the mob". They were as wary of the "mob" as the state
"centuries of empirical data for various kinds of regulation of human behaviour"
I don't have to go that far back, just the 20th century. Democide, your precious state(s) killed 100s millions (and probably more). It also another reason our founders were wary of the Leviathan. Just go and watch Netflix special on Waco massacre. It will rips any pretence of any alturistic state in America. It is a local example for me, the Ds zap a bunch of women and kids in Waco '93 from this earth because they didn't like the their religion. That was your precious state. We could go on...and on.....Iraq, Afghanistan...Ukraine...and on and on. Your precious state.
"I can happily trade hyperbole all night."
I can't! Life is way too short and there is many things to do with my limited time beside "trading hyperbole" with an id1ot for the state. I think I have slapped you around enough. ALL HAIL YOUR PRECIOUS STATE!
SC - "Government employees use their offices like kingdoms, to pay off the ones closest to them — and ignore their actual duties in the process.... Government has simultaneously demanded to ‘handle’ more and more of everyday life, but spectacularly fails just when we need them most.... when the shit hits the fan, government shits the bed right along with it because the current ‘ruling class’ no longer has the ability to actually get the job done. (No matter what that job is, it seems.)"
None of this is by happenstance, they are getting the job done, exactly as planned. We wreck it, cause crises and a fearful populace clamours for us to rescue them. More power? Create more crises, wreck more things, scare the populace shitless. Terrorism is the oldest playbook known to man. The real terrorist's seized your government long ago Mr. Mulder.
It is easy to beat up on USPS but USPS is not so much a political organization as it is a political victim, especially bought(sic) about by the 2006 "Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act" and politicians meddling with it to try and kneecap it further.
Note the part about USPS being forced to provide uneconomic service to remote locations which is then used by the likes of Fedex and UPS to prevent otherwise their own similar uneconomic delivery.
Insightful comments about government and incentives, which are sadly under appreciated. Governments exist to address alleged “market failures” such as pollution, the underproduction of “public goods”, and to protect us from private monopolies. In truth, the biggest polluters on the planet have always been governments, the market always finds a way to deliver desired public goods (such as lighthouses), and even monopolies can only exist when protected by government coercion. The incentives of government and the dynamics of Power create a perverse Midas Touch: anything touched by government turns to shit.
We've gone from no regulation but the utmost barebones, under laissez faire capitalism and industrialisation, which resulted in misery and death never seen before on the planet, until the communists go going in the 1920s -
- to regulation regulating regulation so that all that can be regulated is regulated in how its regulated.
Which is then regulated.
Toothpaste containing radium was a bad idea, but no regulation but the free market existed, so radioactive toothpaste was sold over the counter.
The governement decreeing that if I was to make myself self-sufficient re: heating, electricity, food and water? I still have to sell electricity to the grid and pay taxes on all the other stuff as if I had bought it in a store.
And somewhere in between those is a nice balance, where SimCom is free to rail against the Heavens to his heart's content, and I'm free to pay or mooch according to the agreed upon terms.
But when it comes to something I can't test except taking the plunge at the risk of my health or life, even? Oversight, impartial inspectors without profit-motive and a basic set of rules intent on helping and guiding vendor and customer both get a fair deal is necessary for there to be a free market at all.
If you starve, you can't negotiate and "shop around". Neither can the homeless too poor to get even worn-out caravan. And so on. Labour makes you free is a very much malihgned slogan nowadays - no wonder why - but it is true and was one the labourers and small businessmen and farmers all united around in the 19th century, against an increasingly corporatist state (same as today).
And that necessary oversight is the slippery slope where the do-gooders and the corporations and politicians all jump on the same bobsleigh and off they go.
Seems there needs be some regulation as to what those with power over others may do.
Regulation in theory sounds good, but “agency capture” started almost immediately after the agencies were set up. The railroads and the ICC, Big Ag and the FDA, teacher unions and the Dept of Education. Could there be any more telling example than Big Pharma and the CDC, NIH, WHO?
The alternative to agency capture isn't no agencies. That would be akin to banning cars because of drunk drivers.
Besides that, go look at the century of a half or more before there were any agencies at all. The quip about radium toothpaste is based in reality.
You see, the free market delivers that which creates profit now for the profiteer (aka capitalist), with no other considerations - which means if it's more profitable to let Mercury seep out into waterways, that's what's going to happen - and is indeed what did happen until the 1970s in many nations.
The opposite is silly stuff like politicians and worse, unelected officials decreeing when and how a car should be repaired instead of the mechanic and the owner deciding.
Re-capture agencies and bring them back to their intended purpose creates the optimum outcome: free market competition because the customers will be able to trust the sellers of goods, that said good isn't dangerous to use. A very simple fix is to hold everyone owning stock in a corporation found cheating (like Pfizer f.e.) to be personally liable. No tricks with "firewalls" between your property and the corporation's: invest to reap profit must go hand in hand with an equal obligation to pay for any malfeasance by the entity you own part of, or the scales of justice no longer functions.
That, plus of course full criminal repsonisbility for the decision-makers. If selling dangerous hurtful products under false pretenses (again: Pfizer) it shouldn't matter if it's a streetside dealer of heroin cut with talcum powder or a medical corporation - one count of manslaughter for all board-members for every death due to shoddy product, lies, fraud et cetera.
Agency capture happened almost immediately, starting with the first attempt at regulation, the ICC. Railroads ran it almost from the start. The cult of expertise dictates that this is inevitable. After all, who are the “experts” in transportation, education, health matters, etc? Why, the people who actually work in those industries, of course. And it is they who will write the rules, conveniently making sure to eliminate any competition from the small businesses who can’t afford the cost of compliance with ever more minute regulations.
We cannot re-capture agencies. There has never been a truly independent agency, so there is nothing to go back to. Regulatory agencies are there only to provide cover for big business to eliminate their smaller competitors.
We should've spent more effort on separating corporation and state, as well as the church, when the robber barons showed up. How does one go about measuring a person's potential for corruption?
I think you are right that the problem is far more advanced in America.
Congress clearly has the power to pass regulatory laws, subject to judicial review. The Clean Air Act and No Child Left Behind (an education regulation bill) come to mind.
For the last 20+ years, Congress has been at almost a complete impasse, with the political divisions blocking the passage of laws. This leaves the unelected regulatory agencies free to impose whatever they like. Only recently have courts made any effort to rein in their power.
The only question is: what do you call a system of corporate power wedded to government power, virtually unimpeded by legislative bodies?
Is it actually beneficial to the public at large, cleaning up corruption and grift and getting things in order?
Or is it a corrupt kleptocracy consisting of embedded clans of oligarchs who control the arms industry, the printing presses and the legislation and use them to maintain their position on top of everyone else?
(And am I in a position where I profit from the system or am I being exploited and oppressed by it?)
My experience from political science is, if we like it we used a label with positive connotations and assoiations, such as "Our Democracy". Otherwise, we call it some kind of -ism we don't like.
Personally I don't give a used fig for what -ism a system is called. I measure it on what it does and nothing but that.
I listened to El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele’s CPAC speech and he laid it out perfectly. He was able to turn El Salvador around from being the most violent country in the world to the safest country in the world after he was 1st elected president in 2019. A good friend of mine that I’ve known for 17 years is from El Salvador, left there with family almost 40 years ago because of the corruption & violence. She traveled back to her home country earlier this month to cast her vote to Bukele who won reelection with 84% of the vote. He brought a message of hope to the US. I hope that people were listening. And I hope we aren’t too far gone to fix this mess. We shall see.
I like how he told Kamala to go back home and fix her problems before telling him how to fix his. He doesn't look like someone to mess with but it also means that bad people won't mess with him.
I actually don't have a problem with the post office losing money. I don't want them to lose money, but if that is what it takes to have a manned post office in every podunk town in the USA that is open 6 days a week, I'm for it. Sometimes you have to pay for society.
Switch All government employees to 401Ks like almost everyone else in the country as the pension promises are not sustainable. Privatize the post office, amtrak, air traffic control, etc. Do we really still libraries everywhere? Way too many untouchable bureaucrats.
So it needs some tweaking. Nothing is perfect. But I really think the Post Office is so far down the list of Federal problems, it shouldn't even be considered.
Border control, autism and ADHD out of control due to the FDA-CDC-NIH cabal, MIC, MSM owned by the Feds, weaponized DOJ and IRS, the Army is going to war in drag, it goes on and on. So stamps cost an extra 50% than they should, at least my mailman says hi and doesn't literally try and F me over, unlike every other Fed.
Yeah, you gotta be careful with praising nerds, we'll get more self centered than we are now. You haven't lived until you have to sit through weekly process improvement presentations by your staff that are done in 2 hour blocks of soul killing power point.
A capitalist system functions in the following way: your whole goal is to make the most amount of money with the least amount of effort. That's why people get educations, work for promotions, make a product they can trademark. And there's nothing wrong with that until . . .
Until you attempt to socialize part of it. And now you have two system relying on entirely different, even antithetical mindsets.
And that doesn't mean that I think we shouldn't have public education, or a public police force, or a post office. What it does mean is that we have to require even more accountability in those systems and watch them even more closely because they are not subject the the usual forces that counterbalance laziness and corruption in an open market. You can't put "public servants" up on pedestals, because while public service may attract some altruistic, civic-minded people, it attracts a lot of parasites who can only survive in a system that doesn't have accountability. And if you're unwilling to separate the one from the other, and reward the first while purging the system of the second (in quite a draconian manner if need be), you end up where we are.
Well, I tend to believe otherwise, but it's a complicated conversation. A democracy, any type including representational, requires a literate and educated public. The most ideal way to do that is a nationalized education system. However, ours is not living up to the task and is actually doing more damage.
I have long since come to the strong opinion, Lillia, that "education", like "labor" and "time" and...(you get the point), is best valued individually, not collectively.
Let the market tell the individual what others' value-ations are.
While I see your point, what you're witnessing at the moment is a public that is uneducated (I don't care if they've been to school), and therefore lacking in the necessary foundation of knowledge to make any actual informed decision at the ballot box. In any system where the masses are given a say, each person has to be something of a scholar and an expert. Otherwise, you get what we have: masses that are easily led around by the nose or frightened into a stampede. That is why we need an educated public. Otherwise the system ends where it has, with the voting public utterly ignorant and incapable of reasoning and given to exploitation.
Claudine Gay didn't really get fired, she just lost her position and title. Mayorkas was impeached but will almost certainly keep his job. Mayor Pete is still Transportation Secretary while East Palestine continues to smolder. Lloyd Austin is still defense secretary despite going AWOL. If no one can be fired then it seems like we are in some sort of feudal system and we are the serfs.
"Oh, Dennis, there's some lovely filth over here!"
100%. Deflating the bloat should be high up on the priority list. The majority of the "deep state" reside there. Foot soldiers, maybe, but they're the ones who get shit done. That and recognizing that communism is not the way we operate here, freedom of expression be damned.
"That’s right — the exact same people who have been bleating about January 6th and overturning an election are now talking about overturning an election. As I’ve said over and over, nobody’s worried about Trump taking power if he LOSES the election — they’re all talking about preventing him from taking power IF HE WINS. To save democracy, of course."
“The whole impeachment inquiry has been built on the foundation of a lie and conspiracy theories, propaganda and disinformation promoted by Russian intelligence agents,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, Maryland Democrat.
We decided our long-time informant is bad and that invalidates everything we know! If Putin likes it, that's bad. Unless Putin says he wants Biden to win.
Why is it that Democrats get away with this endless game of Musical Boogeyman ? It’s Russia, don’t be silly, it’s not Russia, it’s China, don’t be silly, China is on the verge of collapse, it’s Russia… it’s always been RUSSIA!!
" (Although stimulus checks and unemployment cash certainly contributed to inflation, the bigger factor was the trillions being handed out to the public health complex.)"
Here’s the disconnect…. The majority do not compute that our tax dollars pay for running the ENTIRE government. So , therefore WE=Government. Too many succumb their autonomy , blah, blah, blah…
Here's a gem of a recap, lest we forget what the State has done to *us* via persecution of DJT.
https://amgreatness.com/2024/02/26/russia-russia-forever-an-anatomy-of-a-left-wing-obsession/
Two institutions, the IRS and The Fed (thanks Woodrow!) are massive roadblocks to "going back to the basics of adding value in real ways once again" - both institutions are unconstitutional or at the very least, quasi constitutional.
Until these are removed, DC Borg assimilation will accelerate, ... until some sort of collapse or systemic failure that cannot be ignored or money printed away occurs. DJT appeared to be moving in the direction of taming the Fed by folding it into Treasury, and those changes have not been reversed by the current zombie admin. Curious.
At any rate, nothing will be fixed by working within the current rigged system. The psychopaths who built slave planet were extremely smart, evil but smart. Fortunately for us, the creatures now running this shitshow are mediocre intellects AND seem to be lacking cohesion and leadership. Our best and perhaps only opportunity to remove them is at hand.
Things that are unsustainable end, so we know this ends. We just don't know how yet or when.
"citizen regulating bad behaviour is known as lynch mob"
Our founder didn't want a pure democracy, aka "the mob". They were as wary of the "mob" as the state
"centuries of empirical data for various kinds of regulation of human behaviour"
I don't have to go that far back, just the 20th century. Democide, your precious state(s) killed 100s millions (and probably more). It also another reason our founders were wary of the Leviathan. Just go and watch Netflix special on Waco massacre. It will rips any pretence of any alturistic state in America. It is a local example for me, the Ds zap a bunch of women and kids in Waco '93 from this earth because they didn't like the their religion. That was your precious state. We could go on...and on.....Iraq, Afghanistan...Ukraine...and on and on. Your precious state.
"I can happily trade hyperbole all night."
I can't! Life is way too short and there is many things to do with my limited time beside "trading hyperbole" with an id1ot for the state. I think I have slapped you around enough. ALL HAIL YOUR PRECIOUS STATE!
Ruby Ridge was my wake-up call.
Pre-internet, the paper made them out to be white supremacist and neo-nazi. When I read the accounts of it later, it made me question our FBI.
SC - "Government employees use their offices like kingdoms, to pay off the ones closest to them — and ignore their actual duties in the process.... Government has simultaneously demanded to ‘handle’ more and more of everyday life, but spectacularly fails just when we need them most.... when the shit hits the fan, government shits the bed right along with it because the current ‘ruling class’ no longer has the ability to actually get the job done. (No matter what that job is, it seems.)"
None of this is by happenstance, they are getting the job done, exactly as planned. We wreck it, cause crises and a fearful populace clamours for us to rescue them. More power? Create more crises, wreck more things, scare the populace shitless. Terrorism is the oldest playbook known to man. The real terrorist's seized your government long ago Mr. Mulder.
PS. Careful whose GIF you use, the person depicted in today's is another useless late night parroting CUNT (as defined by Billy Butcher & the Cambridge Dictionary.) https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/cunt
It is easy to beat up on USPS but USPS is not so much a political organization as it is a political victim, especially bought(sic) about by the 2006 "Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act" and politicians meddling with it to try and kneecap it further.
There's plenty of info on this, here's one such: https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/06/business/congress-usps-funding-problems/index.html
Note the part about USPS being forced to provide uneconomic service to remote locations which is then used by the likes of Fedex and UPS to prevent otherwise their own similar uneconomic delivery.
Terrifying is a gross understatement.
Insightful comments about government and incentives, which are sadly under appreciated. Governments exist to address alleged “market failures” such as pollution, the underproduction of “public goods”, and to protect us from private monopolies. In truth, the biggest polluters on the planet have always been governments, the market always finds a way to deliver desired public goods (such as lighthouses), and even monopolies can only exist when protected by government coercion. The incentives of government and the dynamics of Power create a perverse Midas Touch: anything touched by government turns to shit.
Well said.
We've gone from no regulation but the utmost barebones, under laissez faire capitalism and industrialisation, which resulted in misery and death never seen before on the planet, until the communists go going in the 1920s -
- to regulation regulating regulation so that all that can be regulated is regulated in how its regulated.
Which is then regulated.
Toothpaste containing radium was a bad idea, but no regulation but the free market existed, so radioactive toothpaste was sold over the counter.
The governement decreeing that if I was to make myself self-sufficient re: heating, electricity, food and water? I still have to sell electricity to the grid and pay taxes on all the other stuff as if I had bought it in a store.
And somewhere in between those is a nice balance, where SimCom is free to rail against the Heavens to his heart's content, and I'm free to pay or mooch according to the agreed upon terms.
But when it comes to something I can't test except taking the plunge at the risk of my health or life, even? Oversight, impartial inspectors without profit-motive and a basic set of rules intent on helping and guiding vendor and customer both get a fair deal is necessary for there to be a free market at all.
If you starve, you can't negotiate and "shop around". Neither can the homeless too poor to get even worn-out caravan. And so on. Labour makes you free is a very much malihgned slogan nowadays - no wonder why - but it is true and was one the labourers and small businessmen and farmers all united around in the 19th century, against an increasingly corporatist state (same as today).
And that necessary oversight is the slippery slope where the do-gooders and the corporations and politicians all jump on the same bobsleigh and off they go.
Seems there needs be some regulation as to what those with power over others may do.
Regulation in theory sounds good, but “agency capture” started almost immediately after the agencies were set up. The railroads and the ICC, Big Ag and the FDA, teacher unions and the Dept of Education. Could there be any more telling example than Big Pharma and the CDC, NIH, WHO?
The alternative to agency capture isn't no agencies. That would be akin to banning cars because of drunk drivers.
Besides that, go look at the century of a half or more before there were any agencies at all. The quip about radium toothpaste is based in reality.
You see, the free market delivers that which creates profit now for the profiteer (aka capitalist), with no other considerations - which means if it's more profitable to let Mercury seep out into waterways, that's what's going to happen - and is indeed what did happen until the 1970s in many nations.
The opposite is silly stuff like politicians and worse, unelected officials decreeing when and how a car should be repaired instead of the mechanic and the owner deciding.
Re-capture agencies and bring them back to their intended purpose creates the optimum outcome: free market competition because the customers will be able to trust the sellers of goods, that said good isn't dangerous to use. A very simple fix is to hold everyone owning stock in a corporation found cheating (like Pfizer f.e.) to be personally liable. No tricks with "firewalls" between your property and the corporation's: invest to reap profit must go hand in hand with an equal obligation to pay for any malfeasance by the entity you own part of, or the scales of justice no longer functions.
That, plus of course full criminal repsonisbility for the decision-makers. If selling dangerous hurtful products under false pretenses (again: Pfizer) it shouldn't matter if it's a streetside dealer of heroin cut with talcum powder or a medical corporation - one count of manslaughter for all board-members for every death due to shoddy product, lies, fraud et cetera.
Agency capture happened almost immediately, starting with the first attempt at regulation, the ICC. Railroads ran it almost from the start. The cult of expertise dictates that this is inevitable. After all, who are the “experts” in transportation, education, health matters, etc? Why, the people who actually work in those industries, of course. And it is they who will write the rules, conveniently making sure to eliminate any competition from the small businesses who can’t afford the cost of compliance with ever more minute regulations.
We cannot re-capture agencies. There has never been a truly independent agency, so there is nothing to go back to. Regulatory agencies are there only to provide cover for big business to eliminate their smaller competitors.
We should've spent more effort on separating corporation and state, as well as the church, when the robber barons showed up. How does one go about measuring a person's potential for corruption?
Seems like a uniquely american problem then.
Here, such caputre didn't even start happening until after 1995, when neoliberal economic policies had been enforced.
Before that, private and public was kept well apart and public servants had a work ethos that made them almost incorruptible.
Goverment regulation for "bad behavior" is like giving yourself chemo for a stomach ache!
And citizen regulating bad behaviour is known as lynch mob.
I can happily trade hyperbole all night.
We have centuries of empirical data for various kinds of regulation of human behaviour in various cultures.
I think you are right that the problem is far more advanced in America.
Congress clearly has the power to pass regulatory laws, subject to judicial review. The Clean Air Act and No Child Left Behind (an education regulation bill) come to mind.
For the last 20+ years, Congress has been at almost a complete impasse, with the political divisions blocking the passage of laws. This leaves the unelected regulatory agencies free to impose whatever they like. Only recently have courts made any effort to rein in their power.
The only question is: what do you call a system of corporate power wedded to government power, virtually unimpeded by legislative bodies?
A: Fascism.
Depends.
Is it actually beneficial to the public at large, cleaning up corruption and grift and getting things in order?
Or is it a corrupt kleptocracy consisting of embedded clans of oligarchs who control the arms industry, the printing presses and the legislation and use them to maintain their position on top of everyone else?
(And am I in a position where I profit from the system or am I being exploited and oppressed by it?)
My experience from political science is, if we like it we used a label with positive connotations and assoiations, such as "Our Democracy". Otherwise, we call it some kind of -ism we don't like.
Personally I don't give a used fig for what -ism a system is called. I measure it on what it does and nothing but that.
Fascism.
I listened to El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele’s CPAC speech and he laid it out perfectly. He was able to turn El Salvador around from being the most violent country in the world to the safest country in the world after he was 1st elected president in 2019. A good friend of mine that I’ve known for 17 years is from El Salvador, left there with family almost 40 years ago because of the corruption & violence. She traveled back to her home country earlier this month to cast her vote to Bukele who won reelection with 84% of the vote. He brought a message of hope to the US. I hope that people were listening. And I hope we aren’t too far gone to fix this mess. We shall see.
I like how he told Kamala to go back home and fix her problems before telling him how to fix his. He doesn't look like someone to mess with but it also means that bad people won't mess with him.
Agree. Unfortunately the MS13 gang members & criminals that weren’t arrested probably fled & ended up in the US.
Venezuela emptied out its prisons and insane asylums.
They’re not the only ones. We’re getting the dregs of society from EVERYWHERE. By design
Criminals, like water, follow the path of least resistance.
I actually don't have a problem with the post office losing money. I don't want them to lose money, but if that is what it takes to have a manned post office in every podunk town in the USA that is open 6 days a week, I'm for it. Sometimes you have to pay for society.
Agree, but that's turned into a whole generation of 'public servants' who are abusing the pension system.
Switch All government employees to 401Ks like almost everyone else in the country as the pension promises are not sustainable. Privatize the post office, amtrak, air traffic control, etc. Do we really still libraries everywhere? Way too many untouchable bureaucrats.
So it needs some tweaking. Nothing is perfect. But I really think the Post Office is so far down the list of Federal problems, it shouldn't even be considered.
Border control, autism and ADHD out of control due to the FDA-CDC-NIH cabal, MIC, MSM owned by the Feds, weaponized DOJ and IRS, the Army is going to war in drag, it goes on and on. So stamps cost an extra 50% than they should, at least my mailman says hi and doesn't literally try and F me over, unlike every other Fed.
The post office has been weaponized along with the others. They are a valuable surveillance tool and the Feds aren’t going to let that go away.
https://reason.com/2021/07/12/the-usps-semi-secret-internet-surveillance-apparatus/
Just one of the ways the USPS is not just USPS.
Yep!
Agreed. We could run through a hypothetical two-term libertarian administration and never get anywhere near the post office.
And no, I'm not a mail man!!
Civil Engineer
Ah, one of those responsible for the largest improvements of public heath in the history of the world.
Yeah, you gotta be careful with praising nerds, we'll get more self centered than we are now. You haven't lived until you have to sit through weekly process improvement presentations by your staff that are done in 2 hour blocks of soul killing power point.
No fan of Ed Demming I take it?
What we need to do is synergize our core competencies into a new paradigm of efficaciousness. We will now listen to several hours of presentations...
A capitalist system functions in the following way: your whole goal is to make the most amount of money with the least amount of effort. That's why people get educations, work for promotions, make a product they can trademark. And there's nothing wrong with that until . . .
Until you attempt to socialize part of it. And now you have two system relying on entirely different, even antithetical mindsets.
And that doesn't mean that I think we shouldn't have public education, or a public police force, or a post office. What it does mean is that we have to require even more accountability in those systems and watch them even more closely because they are not subject the the usual forces that counterbalance laziness and corruption in an open market. You can't put "public servants" up on pedestals, because while public service may attract some altruistic, civic-minded people, it attracts a lot of parasites who can only survive in a system that doesn't have accountability. And if you're unwilling to separate the one from the other, and reward the first while purging the system of the second (in quite a draconian manner if need be), you end up where we are.
There should be *no* "public education."
Well, I tend to believe otherwise, but it's a complicated conversation. A democracy, any type including representational, requires a literate and educated public. The most ideal way to do that is a nationalized education system. However, ours is not living up to the task and is actually doing more damage.
I have long since come to the strong opinion, Lillia, that "education", like "labor" and "time" and...(you get the point), is best valued individually, not collectively.
Let the market tell the individual what others' value-ations are.
Edit: changed "others" to "other's"
While I see your point, what you're witnessing at the moment is a public that is uneducated (I don't care if they've been to school), and therefore lacking in the necessary foundation of knowledge to make any actual informed decision at the ballot box. In any system where the masses are given a say, each person has to be something of a scholar and an expert. Otherwise, you get what we have: masses that are easily led around by the nose or frightened into a stampede. That is why we need an educated public. Otherwise the system ends where it has, with the voting public utterly ignorant and incapable of reasoning and given to exploitation.
Now I get it.
Two different aspects/definitions/contexts of the word "education".
Yes, totally agree that we need *non-ignorant* voters!
Claudine Gay didn't really get fired, she just lost her position and title. Mayorkas was impeached but will almost certainly keep his job. Mayor Pete is still Transportation Secretary while East Palestine continues to smolder. Lloyd Austin is still defense secretary despite going AWOL. If no one can be fired then it seems like we are in some sort of feudal system and we are the serfs.
"Oh, Dennis, there's some lovely filth over here!"
100%. Deflating the bloat should be high up on the priority list. The majority of the "deep state" reside there. Foot soldiers, maybe, but they're the ones who get shit done. That and recognizing that communism is not the way we operate here, freedom of expression be damned.
I know how to build barns!!! Use to build barns in Texas; post/frame……
"That’s right — the exact same people who have been bleating about January 6th and overturning an election are now talking about overturning an election. As I’ve said over and over, nobody’s worried about Trump taking power if he LOSES the election — they’re all talking about preventing him from taking power IF HE WINS. To save democracy, of course."
Lolol
So well said, M. Sim. Just saying.
Did you hear Jamie Raskin?? Say what??
This?
“The whole impeachment inquiry has been built on the foundation of a lie and conspiracy theories, propaganda and disinformation promoted by Russian intelligence agents,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, Maryland Democrat.
Oceania has always been @ war w/ Eurasia & vice versa….
I think today things have gone a step or two *past* war.
I think this forming forever global war is being run, and the issue 100% *used*, by the neocon/neolib police State cabal infecting our public sector.
We decided our long-time informant is bad and that invalidates everything we know! If Putin likes it, that's bad. Unless Putin says he wants Biden to win.
I never thought they would think they could go so public, so obvious-in-motive with their putsch.
Why is it that Democrats get away with this endless game of Musical Boogeyman ? It’s Russia, don’t be silly, it’s not Russia, it’s China, don’t be silly, China is on the verge of collapse, it’s Russia… it’s always been RUSSIA!!
DC is totally broken. Hard not to scream continuously, but we’d go mad.
" (Although stimulus checks and unemployment cash certainly contributed to inflation, the bigger factor was the trillions being handed out to the public health complex.)"
Mmm, love me some parentheticals!
What! Russel Berman!!
Why, you!
Okay, I got halfway before having to spout the following.
The taxpayer is the ultimate enabler.
In lieu of the taxpayer, the Fed will do...
*Exactly* the problem with economic ignorance in the population at large.
Here’s the disconnect…. The majority do not compute that our tax dollars pay for running the ENTIRE government. So , therefore WE=Government. Too many succumb their autonomy , blah, blah, blah…
Still...it's a pretty good deal...