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Leakers Purge March Begins: White House aide quits before Scaramucci can fire him - The Last Tradition

Hotcoldwetdry Is Going To Heat Up The 2018 Midterms Or Something” - The Pirates Cove

RUNNING OUT OF FINANCIAL ROAD

- Guest Blogger Nitzakhon

RUNNING OUT OF FINANCIAL ROAD

There’s an expression: Kicking the can down the road; defined in-use:

If you kick the can down the road, you delay a decision in hopes that the problem or issue will go away or somebody else will make the decision later.

Few things more beautifully exemplify the application of this phrase than its applicability to government finances.

THE STARK FACTS

From the website US Debt Clock, we’re pushing $20 Trillion in debt. Think about that for a second. Put it in scale: a million is a one with six zeros after it (10⁶); a billion has nine zeroes (10⁹)… a trillion, twelve zeroes (10¹²). This is just the US government’s debt; not states, not cities, just the feds. And are there any world governments not in debt, and with aggregate amounts that likely dwarf the amount of wealth in the world? Consider this report: Global debt reaches US$ 217 trillion.

Now throw in America’s unfunded liabilities (which I suspect, but do not know, are not included in the above world debt figure; they’re definitely not included in the US debt figure). These are monies the US government has to pay that it has no clearly-identified way of funding which, by the way, would be illegal for a private entity – it’s good to be the King, isn’t it? Depending on which estimate you read, and I’ve heard it as being anywhere from $60 T to $123 T, possibly higher… much higher… even with the smallest number this is an amount of money that doesn’t exist in the US to pay it off; it dwarfs the recognized debt. Doubtless other governments have similar, off-the-books, issues – if true, that $217 T figure, above, is terrifyingly optimistic:

“[W]e will have to deal, one way or another, with the largest twin bubbles in the history of the world: global debt, especially government debt, and the even larger bubble of government promises. We are talking about debt and unfunded promises to the tune of multiple hundreds of trillions of dollars – vastly larger than global GDP.”

And while this article, Global debt hits all-time high of $152 trillion as IMF warns of world-wide economic stagnation, shows a lower global debt figure, contemplate 217 vs. 152. That’s a disparity of over $50 trillion in estimates of the global debt, which shows that nobody really knows what it is with any accuracy.

I speculate that even if we strip-mined the planet down to the Moho, this could not be repaid.

PIGPILE!

But wait, there’s more! Roads and bridges are necessary infrastructure, are a multi-trillion dollar budget item and, like with all such public projects, this number is doubtless conservative; again, this is just in the US. How about the water infrastructure, or electrical? For example (links in original, bolding added):

One trillion dollars to upgrade older water pipes? And that's only the most urgent and immediate need? How many more trillions will be required to fix non-urgent, non-immediate problems? When you put that sort of money together with the sums bandied about to repair other elements of our infrastructure, plus that needed to upgrade and secure our electric grid . . . the figures become even more mind-boggling. We could be looking at multiple trillions of dollars over the next couple of decades - and that's just to fix the most serious problems 

And leave us not forget the pension crisis; Illinois’ impending collapse because of public pension commitments is just the first domino wobbling. From states all the way down to individual cities, e.g., New York City, politicians have promised taxpayer monies in return for public union votes and election help… counting on the fact that the can will be far enough down the road so they can safely retire before the bill comes due. And again, doubtless other nations have similar issues.

Who will be asked to pay for these commitments by politicians long out of office? Whether at the federal, state, or municipal level, it’s you.. through more borrowing to “prime the pump” that will need to be repaid (and never works), forgiving loans (someone has to eat the losses), bailouts (paid for by more borrowing), inflation from running the presses, or higher taxes, or higher prices as companies get tapped to pay more taxes – it’s you. Get up, go to the bathroom, look in the mirror. You.

WHAT CAN’T GO ON FOREVER, WON’T

National, and even state, governments are spending at rates that put drunken sailors to shame. The answer is obvious – stop spending:

"Obviously, the federal government will not be able to balance the books no matter

how greedily it taxes us unless it reduces spending, which will entail drastic reductions in its size and scope. The alternative is inevitable economic collapse, because if something cannot go on forever, it won't."

But they can’t do that though some want to try. That would alienate those who vote for a living, like this charmer, causing trouble in Thomas Sowell’s “Number 2” (two thoughts added in []):

"No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians [and, in parallel without the re-election concerns, career bureaucrats] are not trying to solve our problems.  They are trying to solve their own problems -- of which getting elected and re-elected [or protecting their power turf] are No. 1 and No. 2.  Whatever is No. 3 is far behind".

I would argue No. 3 is to leverage their positions gained by Numbers 1 and 2 to feather their nests as fast and lavishly as possible. Just look at Barackus Rex, now living a life so extravagant even his fellow Leftists are scandalized (silly liberal, did you really believe that “spread the wealth around” BS?). And et tu, man-of-the-people Bernie Sanders? And of course, the above are pikers compared to Her Corruptness, Shrillary.

The Constitution, The People, and long-term national interests are not even on the gold-silver-bronze podium of politician and bureaucrat priorities, but fall into the “also ran” category.

WHAT’S HOLDING IT UP?

In one of the sci-fi short stories by Larry Niven about known space – forgive me as I don’t recall which one – there was a story of a ship that normally had three legs for stability while on the ground; tripods being stable by definition. In the story one leg had been damaged; it was not touching the ground and the ship’s computer compensated by spinning the ship’s gyroscopes faster and faster. Close to the end of the story, the capability of the ship to compensate for the instability maxed out, and the entire ship toppled and crashed. Just before that happened, the good guy asks the bad guy – whose ship it was – a question: “What’s holding your ship up?”

I fear the world, not just the US, is nearing that point financially (on the video, at 1:15, quote: “…the economy, according to the CBO, shuts down in 2027…”).

The above image is from here; so I’m far from alone in seeing this. And from This is fiscally obscene (link in original text):

“The brutal reality is, we're teetering on the edge of national bankruptcy. Yes, I know, the federal government can simply 'print money' to pay off the national debt if it wishes; but that will also cause so much inflation as to render our currency meaningless. Think Weimar Germany.”

Ultimately, it will collapse (bolding in original); it cannot NOT collapse:

A world in which "we do these things because they're easy" has one end-state: collapse. Believing that debt has no consequence, that the status quo is permanent, that all the promises based on soaring debt can be paid--it's all an appealing fantasy, magical thinking at its most enchanting. Believe these fantasies at your own risk.

DESPERATE MEASURES

I have no doubt that people who are really watching and not deluding themselves with fantasies of some magical growth formula turning this around are getting desperate. Desperate people do desperate things. Even unethical things. Even illegal things. Consider this excerpt from a 2012 essay about Wisconsin (bolding added):

Wisconsin, a posterchild for the national and international trends of democratically elected governments to feed upon their own to sustain the ideal of achieving the universally secure life, had found over the last ten years the supposed  promise of  guaranteeing security to all had become an unholy burden.  Locked into having to produce a balanced budget by a constitution written years earlier by a more fiscally responsible and mature citizenry, increasingly unethical fiscal tricks were required to assure the entitled their unfettered cut of the budget.  Multiple elevations in the tax rate for both individuals and businesses eventually proved insufficient to feed the multi-billion dollar requirements of entitlements and the democrat Governor Doyle did the only rational thing felt he could given the inseparable link of the entitled to the health and power of his party – he stole.  First hundreds of millions from the transportation funds exclusively set aside through energy taxes to maintain the transportation system, and then from health care professionals and patients through the state’s malpractice fund.  When that didn’t prove to be enough, he took what he could from a one time subsidy from the federal government’s stimulus funds, and retired, leaving the whole stinking pile for the next governor to deal with.  The election of 2010 between Scott Walker, a fiscal realist, and Tom Barrett, mayor of Milwaukee, who promoted a further expansion of unsupportable tax mechanisms, was Wisconsin’s first dip into the cold water of fiscal reality and stunned every one with electorate’s decision to go with the adult in the room, and promote Walker to Governor.

Governor Scott Walker made progress on that and the parasites fought him tooth-and-nail; I predict that as soon as he’s gone from office, they’ll revert (as they will at the federal level if the Democrats get back in the driver’s seat). It wasn’t enough. It can never be enough. We cannot tax our way out of this. As British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said, sooner or later you run out of other peoples’ money.

As the cracks start, there will be other desperate measures to keep stability going. One thing bandied about has been to federalize 401k plans; essentially, they’d seize the entire private retirement wealth of American workers and hand out IOU slips in return. Officially denied, and scorned by the Left as paranoia, there are trillions of dollars of retirement wealth in private hands; just the sort of thing to keep the American ship from crashing for another few years… assuming the world doesn’t drag us down anyway.

The last time I brought it up online, someone actually replied “So what if they do? Your account will be backed by the full faith and credit of the US government; you don’t trust them?” When I replied that I did not, I was… swallow and put your drink down… is that drink down?... excoriated by a screaming-militant Leftist for not being patriotic.

Another sign of desperation will be a renewed push to go to a cashless society – one in which no transaction or income, at any level, will go untaxed.

A VORLON PROVERB

Multiple people around the Conservative blogosphere have opined and commented on what to do. Certainly, having cash and other trade goods on hand is a good idea; another column with other advice thoughts here. Being prepared with food and water is a good idea too – even if you have, say, a month on hand you’re better prepared than most (the conventional wisdom I’ve read is that 90-120 days of survival will be needed before things get stabilized after a crash). Guns and ammo to hold what you’ve got. A joke I saw goes like this:

I asked my financial advisor what he’s buying. He replied “Canned goods, guns, and ammo.”

Speaking of, financial people and other well-off folks really are prepping:

Survivalism, the practice of preparing for a crackup of civilization, tends to evoke a certain picture: the woodsman in the tinfoil hat, the hysteric with the hoard of beans, the religious doomsayer. But in recent years survivalism has expanded to more affluent quarters, taking root in Silicon Valley and New York City, among technology executives, hedge-fund managers, and others in their economic cohort.

Ideas about prepping in myriad flavors abound; seek out those far more knowledgeable about it than I. But there’s one basic point…

The Vorlons were an ancient alien species from the TV show Babylon 5 (fantastic show!). They had several proverbs, and one applies perfectly to the amount of road that’s left. The crash, it’s coming… and it can’t be stopped.

The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.

Prepare yourself.

L’nitzakhon! (To victory!)

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Wells Beach, Maine

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MISSILES IN A MAGICIAN’S HAT

- Guest Blogger Nitzakhon

MISSILES IN A MAGICIAN’S HAT

In their performance a skilled illusionist will use theatrics to get you to pay attention to one thing that is trivial while they, or their assistant, do something core to the trick elsewhere. It’s called misdirection, defined as:

MISDIRECTION (noun): the action or process of directing someone to the wrong place or in the wrong direction

NORTH KOREAN FIREWORKS

So “Little Kimmie” in North Korea has nuclear weapons. Gee, thanks President Clinton, I thought the deal you made with them was going to preclude that. And now they have a missile that can, in theory, deliver a nuclear payload to Alaska or Hawaii.

With some work – OK, not so easy I admit – that range could be extended to the Left, er, west coast… and onward to all of the US. Of course there are factors like re-entry, guidance, targeting accuracy, fusing, reliability of the warhead, and all sorts of other hurdles that I’ve read about in multiple analyses.

But when I heard about the launch and the subsequent media circus about it, the one thing that immediately crossed my paranoid and sneaky mind was a very simple question: Are we being misdirected from something else?

BAD PEAS IN A POD WITH A SIDE OF MANIFEST DESTINY

That North Korea and Iran are working together is an open secret. Apparently, Iranian scientists and technicians have attended North Korea’s test launches. Iran has tested a missile with North Korean origins. They both hate America… and snowballs melt in Hell, water is wet, Democrats are seditious traitors WINK! What else is new, right?

Iran is a Shiite state run by fanatics. And while I certainly will not claim to be an expert on Islam in general, or Shia Islam specifically, I think I know more than the average bear on the topic. Shiite Islam has, as a central belief, the concept that the Islamic version of the Messiah will not return until there is a world war:

For those unacquainted with the more obscure tenets of Islamic theology, the 12th Imam is held by devout Shi'ite Muslims to be a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammed who went into "occlusion" in the ninth century at the age of five and hasn't been seen since.

The Hidden Imam, as he is also known by his followers, will only return after a period of cosmic chaos, war and bloodshed – what Christians call the Apocalypse – and then lead the world into an era of universal peace.

This peace would, by necessity, be built on the ashes of a destroyed non-Islamic world. Of course, the Iran Deal, and in general conciliatory gestures by the West towards Iran are not seen by them as we see them, but as displays of weakness:

For Khamenei, the appeasement policies of the West, and particularly the U.S. administration, are viewed as a sign that the non-Muslim nations are becoming weaker and that Muhammad’s “divine guidance” is coming true. The ayatollah does not view the lifting of sanctions on Iran as a “diplomacy” being triumphant, but rather reaffirming his religious belief in Allah and the Mahdi.

The Islamic world is built on a shame culture, not a guilt culture, thus it is easy to paint the West as being shamed by weakness. This essay by Dr. Sanity, SHAME, THE ARAB PSYCHE, AND ISLAM, is a must-read, must-share, must-bookmark essay on that as it relates to Arabs and Islam specifically, with good insights into shame culture in general.

This insight is doubly-critical because North Korea is also a shame culture (and thus it will be very difficult for Little Kimmie to “walk back” his bellicosity), as are many in Asia; but we also have another aspect to be concerned about: “Scientific” Marxism.

Committed Marxists believe, with a true-believer zeal, that it is inevitable that societies will “evolve” towards the Great Utopia. This zeal matches the Jihadist fervor (frontpagemag.com’s founder, David Horowitz, is spot-on correct in calling our domestic Leftists missionaries). Thus, assuming Little Kimmie is such, he would believe that even his death would only be a setback in global progress towards “real Communism”. According to many accounts true-blue Commies like Castro and Che both urged the USSR to use its missiles on Cuba to attack America – because it would take out the USSR’s adversary and thus advance The Cause.

Whether fanatic Shiite Iran or Communist North Korea, both sides have strong motivation to eliminate America from the global scene and a belief that this is necessary for their Cause to advance.

A FLASH IN THE SKY

On July 9, 1962, the US detonated a high-altitude thermonuclear warhead in a test called Starfish Prime. The resultant shower of high-energy particles hitting the atmosphere created an Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP). Fortunately, it didn’t do much damage to critical infrastructure being mostly over the ocean… and given the relatively crude electronics of the day. But it opened eyes to what a nuclear explosion above the atmosphere really does.

Today, the EMP threat is far greater because of how dependent our society is on electricity. Here’s a PJ Media video on it. The not-very-conservative Economist chimes in. And while Slate’s article is dismissive of the level of risk – not considering that it is the risk as weighted by the consequences that is the important consideration – note this one paragraph (bolding added, one thought added in []):

An adversary looking to carry out such an attack on the United States would need ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. The missiles either need to be capable of an intercontinental launch or have a platform [like a ship] that can both move within range of the U.S. homeland undetected and launch a missile.

Consider this 90-minute fictionalized account, American Blackout 2013 - National Geographic, of a ten-day national power outage caused by a cyberattack (also a concern, but more rapidly fixable). Now, multiply that power outage time by 10… by 20… months without any electricity at all.

Nukes? Check. Missiles? Check.

SHADES OF THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER

Early in the movie The Hunt for Red October (and, IIRC the book too) one of the characters comments that the Russians could – with that titular silent nuclear missile submarine – park a couple of hundred warheads right off the east coast and it would be all over before anyone even knew what was happening.

But it wouldn’t take that many. Just a few individual ships, each with 1-2 missiles, would do the EMP trick quite nicely. Judge Jeanine Pirro did quite a good piece about the threat, video here.

Iran has been suspected of making dry runs, and has been observed launching missiles from ships to proper EMP altitude. They’ve talked about EMP attacks. And Russia has a cruise missile that can be hidden in a cargo container… what a plausible-deniability way for Russia to attack us; apparently according to the Pirro video above, the Russians gave EMP advice to the North Koreans!

Rockets capable of launching into EMP altitude? Check. Practicing missile launches from ships? Check. EMP understanding? Check.

SUMMING UP

So, are these Nork missile launches just a distraction to make us all a-twitter about them, while their ally Iran progresses towards triggering the war that would bring the Mahdi – under the cover of the North Korean misdirection? Or could the Norks also be working towards it on their own? I suspect both: that each country is working towards an EMP attack, but that they are also cooperating.

Given that:

1. Both nations want America gone from the world stage. (As do others!)
2. Both nations believe in the inevitability of their ideology’s success.
3. Both nations have ideologies that are willing to sacrifice millions to gain their goals, including their own peoples.
4. Both nations are working on missiles and nuclear weapons.
5. Both nations are known to be cooperating in developing those missiles and nuclear weapons.
6. Both nations understand the critical role of deception in war.
7. Both nations understand asymmetric warfare against a militarily-superior foe.

Incentive? Check.

It’s not if they try, just when; soon, they’ll have means, motive, and opportunity. So harden the grid; write your local officials, your state officials, your Senators, your Congressmen. Write to the President. The grid must be hardened, tested, and hardened more. While purchasing and storing spare transformers and other critical materials will not be cheap, the alternative is catastrophic. And each one of us must, to the extent they can, prepare for the possibility that the power goes out – and for a long time.

As Bill Whittle concludes, “…if we keep ignoring this threat, we’re in trouble.”

SQUIRREL!

Will this be our future?

Bright-eyed satellite image analyst to their commanding officer: “There will be several freighters roughly equidistant from the east, west, and gulf coasts in a few days…”

Commanding officer: Don’t worry about it – focus on the upcoming North Korean missile launch.

L’Nitzhakhon! (To victory!)

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Whitehorse Beach, Plymouth, Massachusetts

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We’re Not Alarmed Enough About ‘Climate Change’ Or Something - The Pirates Cove

The Leftist Sense of Self

- Guest Blogger Nitzakhon 

The Leftist Sense of Self

Let me begin by stating that I am, at best, an amateur psychologist. If I found myself back in my college years, I’d multiple-major in Psychology (and Economics) in addition to what I did study; it’s really fascinating. But I have done a fair amount of reading on the topic.

So if you’ll permit my observations of the stereotypical Leftist, let me begin with this excerpt from what I consider a seminal essay by Evan Sayet, Regurgitating the Apple:

What I discovered is that the Modern Liberal looks back on 50,000 years, 100,000 years of human civilization, and knows only one thing for sure: that none of the ideas that mankind has come up with--none of the religions, none of the philosophies, none of the ideologies, none of the forms of government--have succeeded in creating a world devoid of war, poverty, crime, and injustice. So they're convinced that since all of these ideas of man have proved to be wrong, the real cause of war, poverty, crime, and injustice must be found--can only be found--in the attempt to be right.

The moment I read this, doubly-reinforced when I saw his video about the “Unified Theory of Liberalism”, I realized he was spot-on correct: Leftists will deliberately choose evil, every time, to prove to others in their group (and themselves) that they aren’t trying to be right. (What’s that old joke? “A liberal is someone who is so open-minded they won’t even take their own side in an argument!”)

There’s more in that essay and video, but I want to add my observations of the Leftist mind. Note that I also have started to read – warning, IMHO it’s pretty academic (and thus quite dry) so far – the book The Liberal Mind. I’m only in the first chapter, but it’s looking promising. (In parallel I’ve also started The Closing of the Liberal Mind: How Groupthink and Intolerance Define the Left.) Both being read, mind you, in my copious free time. HA!

Just as one sample consider this. A gay pride parade banned displays of the Israeli flag and Magen David (Star of David)… why? Because it might offend their Fakestinian* buddy-buddies. You know, the same people who – in “Palestine” – kill gays. (Just as, more broadly, Muslims in general kill gays almost everywhere in the Islamic world.) It fits the theorem to a “T”: gays taking the side of those whose as-practiced ideology would throw them off a building, or hang them from a construction crane.

The mind boggles.

DRUG ADDICTS

In the days when I debated in the local paper’s comment section I was one of the few regularly-posting people from the Right. One day a Leftist sneeringly replied to one of my comments “Do you realize nobody ever ‘likes’ your comments?” My reply was something to the effect of “I didn’t realize we were in a high school popularity contest.”

But that got me thinking that Leftists are herd-beasts (I started keeping track – all the good little Leftists would like-swarm each others’ comments). They move together. They think together. They studiously avoid thoughts that are not of The Collective. A former co-worker was, one day, ranting about eeeeeevil Conservative attacks on Planned Parenthood; he then commented “I don’t know anyone who is against abortion.” I raised my hand, and he sneered and dismissed me outright. That reprises the apocryphal quote “I can’t believe Nixon won. I don’t know anyone who voted for him.”

Liberals are constantly checking their views against those of their fellows because, deep down, they’re not sure of their own. I think that it’s one reason they slide to further and further extremes. It also simply explains, as in Occam’s Razor, why they can turn on each other so readily when one strays off the reservation. But consider this essay, which makes me think that these people actually get a high off the rush of approvals by their fellow liberals. So what happens with drug addicts? They constantly have to increase the dose. So, liberals constantly go further and further in being SJWs to exceed the last person who got adulation.

Ultimately, for the Leftist, it’s not about what they think, it’s about what others think about them. Read this essay by a psychologist whose work and essays I really like; alas, she’s gone dark after Obama’s re-election. And then READ IT AGAIN – it’s that good. They’re not strong enough to stand on their own convictions.

PRETZEL LOGIC

So the above explains the absolute contortions that Leftists will put themselves through to maintain the groupthink.

Leftist will never grasp Occam’s Razor. They can’t. When the simplest explanation flies in the face of their preconceived prejudices, they would rather twist themselves into pretzels to make their bigoted explanation fit than to simply admit they were wrong.

Why, because nothing terrifies a Leftist more than ostracism by their peers. Consider this video: AFDI Video at #WomensMarch: Violence, Profanity and Hate, Our Reporter Attacked; watch how viciously this reporter is treated for asking questions that violate the shibboleth that Islam is peaceful and tolerant (in general, note how they savage anyone who steps away from The Collective). Despite the actual facts of the Islamic Hijra Invasion, something I’ll speak to in another essay, they’ll deny-deny-deny – just as whenever any liberal, per Dr. Sanity above, will outright lie even when accused of something provable; and when the truth comes out, will admit to just a smidge of it, but deny the rest. Watch The Clinton Lie Ratchet as just one example.

Consider the absolute insanity of a German woman, raped by an immigrant, who apologized to her attacker. Doubtless moving in social circles dominated by the Left, she accepted being raped rather than go after him legally – because to do so would lead to her being shunned. Further, I’ll opine that she received applause in her social circle for doing so. Another example: the Czech girl scout who I am sure not only believes what she said about getting over the physical harm of being raped by a Muslim immigrant, but I’d bet good money she got praises and letters and flowers too. That can be a serious dopamine rush!

FLAWED FOUNDATION

I am convinced that, in addition to their desperate drug addition to the monkeys-on-crank applause by their fellows, they are wedded to a crippling lack of a core personality. What I mean by this is, to build on Krauthammer’s famous quote “Conservatives think they have better ideas; Liberals think they are better people.”

Consider the following statement:

I hold this set of beliefs; therefore, I am a good person.

Mull it over for a while.

A BIT OF HISTORY

I was raised liberal, very liberal. As I said in my Introduction, I was born in the “People’s Republic of Massachusetts”. My parents were far left, as was virtually everyone I knew; I believed all the “correct” things – that tax cuts were bad, guns were evil, abortion was fine, Republicans were racist and selfish, the military should be slashed, and so on. Name the Leftist belief, I believed it. Like a fish, I didn’t notice the waters in which I swam because I knew no different.

I was living in the Midwest when my police officer neighbor remarked that I should get a gun for self-defense. Having been raised, all my life, to believe that civilian gun ownership was wrong, it shocked me to my core that – of all people – a cop was telling me this.

Unlike most Leftists – and have no doubt that I still was one – I didn’t dismiss this as a flier data point stated by a knuckledraggingslopedforeheadredneck, but rather it made me think those great two words that often stand at the threshold of a new insight: That’s weird…

I started to pay more attention to the ads being put forth by the gun control lobby; data that, hitherto for, I had accepted at face value because they matched what I already thought (i.e., confirmation bias). I wrote to the NRA and what was then Handgun Control Inc. I would follow up with requests for more information on specific topics; e.g., I’d get something from one side, so I’d write the other side for their data on the same topic. I wrote to the researchers whose works were being cited to ask follow-up questions based on their works (most responded!). And I’d cross-check, compare, and lo and behold, I realized something very fundamental – something that, of course, the Rightward side already knows: In virtually every instance, the NRA was far more accurate and complete in its picture.

One egregious example was this famous ad by gun controllers (multiple versions exist). Utterly convincing on its gut-reaction face, upon considered reflection I realized it did not normalize for the population size. Just that fact alone made me suspicious; years later I heard the phrase “Local instability means global instability” as related to my career – the same holds true for propaganda: once a side is shown to be not just biased (after all, every side puts forth information sympathetic to its argument!), but outright deceptive, all credibility falls away. I, like most people, have a strong aversion to being intentionally lied to.

As a result of this revelation, not only did I switch from being a ban-them-all gun controller, but it was one of the defining moments in my move away from the Left and towards the Right.

STRENGTHS & WEAKNESSES

So think back to that phrase I told you to mull over.

I, even in my callow youth, had the strength of personality to not tie my image of myself as a good person to any one specific belief. I knew who I was. My sea-change awareness and switching sides on gun control, and subsequently more issues, did not change who I fundamentally was or how I viewed myself.

But for the average Leftist, their sense of self is fundamentally tied to their belief they are a good person because they believe certain things. That belief system is constantly reinforced by their peers and their enemedia intake. Force them to confront a belief founded on flawed information, their very personalities are threatened as you are undermining their view of themselves as “good people”.

This is, by the way, why the Left so nastily attacks conservative ideas – for fear that the above revelation, as happened to me, might happen to others. Take their utter hatred for Rush Limbaugh (and Conservative talk radio in general). For years I had heard only the worst about him. Racist. Misogynist. Selfish. Hater!!!!!!!!! I very deliberately avoided listening to him because of what my peers said about him. One day I was radio-channel surfing in my car and I stumbled across a man talking. I didn’t know who he was, but he had a nice voice and what he said intrigued me. I listened to him, agreeing with most everything and accepting the well-laid-out persuasiveness of his argumentation on the remainder, when he identified himself before a commercial break.

I was utterly floored. I had been assured that Rush was one small step away from the Devil Himself, but I’m agreeing with him. Again, that’s weird…; Rush had two books out – The Way Things Ought to Be and See, I Told You So – so I bought them at a used book store and devoured them. Wow. Even, at the time, still believing myself a liberal I found very little to disagree with him. It was then that I realized: maybe I’m not a liberal.

What do both events, and others, have in common? That I was willing to accept information that didn’t match what I already “knew” was true, because changing my mind didn’t affect my core perception of who I was. Compare and contrast this with a Leftist who is confronted with, say, strong and hard evidence that “global warming” is a fraud; even with charts, graphs, data, etc., they will not accept the information – even if published in peer-reviewed venues – because to accept that their core belief about saving the world from eeeeeevil CO₂ is wrong, would mean they are no longer a good person.

THE LEFTIST MIND

To sum up, the average Leftist:

• Has beliefs, but these beliefs are more based on what is popular amongst people with whom they associate, rather than stemming from true conviction.

• Holds beliefs that form the foundation of why they believe they are good people; any questioning of one of their beliefs is taken as an attack on their goodness – not just on the belief itself.

• Will twist themselves into pretzels to explain away hard and provable information that contradicts those beliefs lest they not only undermine their sense of self, but risk exclusion from The Collective.

• Is quite literally a drug (dopamine) addicts looking for their next fix, which drives them to ever-greater extremes of Leftism to get lauded as the edge constantly moves farther Left.

The above essay and bullet points yield clues about potential strategies to deal with them in a debate, which is a whole different essay… as this has gotten a lot longer than I planned; my apologies.

L’nitzakhon. (To Victory.)

* I refuse to honor them by giving them their claimed name, “Palestinian”. There are no Palestinians; their entire identity was made from whole cloth as a vehicle to attack and undermine Israel – something I will cover in depth in another essay.

Good Morning

Enjoy Your Sunday

Lake Winnipesaukee, Laconia, New Hampshire

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