Vote fraud? There’s an app for that

The Democrats start the 2020 presidential campaign with a debacle in Iowa:

As hour after hour slid by on Monday night, it started to become clear to anyone paying attention that something was wrong with the Iowa Democratic Party’s counting of the results in the first caucus of the 2020 Democratic presidential race. Something was very wrong.

That there is no winner — or even a single tabulated result — reported by the party early Tuesday morning (or even a time to expect that result) speaks to the depth of the issue in what is the one major job of officials in every election: counting the votes.

As Iowa Democratic Party officials scrambled to explain what had gone wrong — “inconsistencies” in the tally — they were careful to note, in the words of a party spokeswoman, “this is not a hack or an intrusion.”

Then what’s the problem?  Given the shenanigans the Democratic National Committee played in shoving Bernie aside for Her Hillariness in 2016, and the surprise announcement over the weekend that final commercial polling data wouldn’t be published, is it really that much of a stretch to think something underhanded may be going on here?  The party is very clearly in fear Bernie may win the nomination — not necessarily because of policy differences, but because unlike most of them, he’s open about his desire to take America down the road of socialism.  For all they call themselves “democrats,” that party’s leadership clearly believes they know better than the average American.  What’s the saying?  “The voters decide nothing.  Those who count the votes decide everything.”

“It would be natural for people to doubt the fairness of the process,” Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale said in an emailed statement. “And these are the people who want to run our entire health care system?” (emphasis added)

A fair observation, that.

Setting an example

Many of us of a certain age are increasingly concerned about the growing popularity of socialism among the younger generations.  We rightfully point out that the horrors of communist life in the 20th Century have been minimized in our history classes, so that the siren sound of “equality” has regained some of the appeal it lost amid prior carnage.

The truth, though, is that America has been flirting with socialism for about a century ourselves — we just haven’t called it that.  And while the young may not be as wise as we might hope, they’re not completely blind to the hypocrisy:

…the irony is that these old anti-socialists already live in a wonderland of government generosity that bears a passing resemblance to the socialism they so dread.

The federal government already guarantees single-payer health care to Americans over 65 through Medicare. Senior citizens already receive a certain kind of universal basic income; it’s called Social Security. While elderly Americans might balk at the idea of the government paying back hundreds of billions of dollars in student debt, they are already the grand beneficiaries of a government debt subsidy: The mortgage-interest deduction, a longtime staple of the federal tax code, effectively compensates the American homeowner (whose average age is 54) for their mortgage debt, thus saving this disproportionately old group approximately $800 billion in taxes owed to the federal government each decade. The economist Ed Glaeser has likened these policies to “Boomer socialism.”

In this framing, Sanders is not offering his more youthful constituency a radically new contract. Instead, he is extending the terms of an existing social contract to cover more—and, necessarily, younger—Americans.

Now, while I’m inclined to agree with this diagnosis, I don’t agree with the proposed treatment: “Some, but not all, of the problems facing young adults would be well addressed with an expansion of government.”  The socialism we’ve tacitly accepted since the days of the Progressive Era and FDR has already warped our society and economy in harmful ways.  Government spending in the areas of healthcare and education (much of it debt subsidy in the latter) has allowed prices in those arenas to skyrocket far beyond the rate of inflation (itself a result of government meddling with the currency).  Want to reign in health costs?  Put the consumer back in control by forcing providers to post price lists and compete for business that’s paid for at the point of sale.  When someone else is paying the bill, there’s no incentive to reduce costs, and those who don’t have that “someone else” are left priced out of the market altogether.  Same with education – get the government treasury out of it, and institutions will suddenly no longer have funding for “diversity coordinators” that add little value to the transmission of useful knowledge that leads to gainful employment.

For many years I’ve said I’d love to have the option to sign away my claim to any Social Security benefits in exchange for never paying the tax again.  As I get closer to retirement, that’s obviously less of a good deal for me.  But while I’d love to have the taxes I’ve paid in my private accounts rather than in Uncle Sam’s, the fact is that *if* I draw what Social Security currently projects for me (something I certainly don’t count on), I’ll recoup my contributions in less than 6 years.  So if I live another decade or more after that, where’s the money coming from?

The paychecks of younger workers, that’s where — the very generation that realizes the system will not work for them as it has their elders.  Where their contributions don’t cover it all, Uncle Sam’s uses his credit card, the balance of which is a drag on everyone’s fortunes whether they realize it or not.  For example, Sam is desperate to keep interest rates low, so he can continue to carry that balance (and add to it!).  But in doing so, he robs those who dutifully save of the interest they would normally make as a result of their frugality.  Since the elderly on a fixed income can no longer live on interest earnings, Social Security becomes an essential part of most people’s retirement plans… and the cycle begins anew.

That which can’t go on forever, doesn’t.  Our current structures are unsustainable.  We are at a crossroads: either we double down on what is known to be a failed economic model (planned economies), or we get the government out of the driver’s seat.  We need to find a way to set the sun on Social Security and Medicare (just for starters), while putting consumer protections in place like truthful labeling of medical costs and investment risks.  Government is supposed to police abuses of the market, not become the major provider of a good or service.  I’ve said it before: the worst result of our current hybrid system is that it isn’t true market capitalism in many respects, but is believed to be.  As a result, truly free market economics gets a bum rap.

So it’s worth keeping in mind the difficulty of convincing Bernie Bros not to point our nation toward full-blown Marxism when we’re already relying on programs of which Karl would have heartily approved.

The value of the vote

Caution: this is a long post; that’s why it has a “jump break” on the front page of the blog.

It’s ironic that Bernie Sanders brought this up while I’ve been re-reading Heinlein’s Starship Troopers:

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said he thinks every U.S. citizen, even the convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, should be allowed to vote in American elections.  Sanders offered his stance at a CNN town hall Monday when asked whether he thought felons should be allowed to vote while they’re incarcerated, not just after their release.

He was pressed on whether it was appropriate to enfranchise sex offenders or someone convicted of a heinous crime like Tsarnaev, who with his brother carried out the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that left three dead and injured hundreds more.

“Yes, even for terrible people, because once you start chipping away and you say, ‘Well, that guy committed a terrible crime, not going to let him vote. Well, that person did that. Not going to let that person vote,’ you’re running down a slippery slope,” Sanders said in response to a question about restoring felons’ voting rights.

It appears Sanders is saying everyone should have the privilege of voting, regardless what they’ve done in their lives.  That’s not merely wrong, it’s disastrously dangerous.  Unlike the (poorly done) movie of Starship Troopers, the book discusses in great detail the importance of the franchise.  Indeed, the book is highly controversial for presenting a futuristic society in which the only full citizens with voting privileges are military veterans.  Pardon the excerpt from one of the book’s classroom discussions:

“What I meant to say was…”

One of the things I most detest about how our primaries and general elections work is that after months of working to make their opponents look like the devil incarnate (i.e. ad hominem attacks rather than careful discussion of substantive policy differences), losing candidates in the primaries suddenly endorse the winners and in many cases become their biggest cheerleaders.

And the political class wonders why the public is cynical and doesn’t take what they have to say very seriously.

That Ted Cruz stopped short of endorsing Donald Trump yesterday at the RNC convention garnered him lots of attention, much of it unpleasant.  I’m still not convinced Cruz is everything his supporters hope and wish him to be.  But his advice to the gathered crowd to “vote your conscience, vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom and to be faithful to the Constitution” is probably one of the sanest and wisest things to be said thus far this election season.

Trump is not inevitable

Update: another interesting take on the primary results thus far.  Again, this emphasizes Trump is not a fait accompli unless accepted as such.

***

Journalistic abuse is at its most obvious during an election year.  Reporters latch onto narratives (“candidate x is ‘unelectable;'”  “Trump’s momentum is unstoppable,” etc) rather than presenting facts objectively and allowing the citizen to make up their own mind.

After yesterday’s Super Tuesday results, the headlines revolve around the fact Trump won seven of the 11 states in play.  If mentioned at all, it’s noted that Cruz won “only” three (Texas, Oklahoma and Alaska).  Certainly sounds like Trump has jumped out to an insurmountable lead, doesn’t it?

Until you look at it this way:

Granted, Trump has more delegates than, say, Ted Cruz at this early point.  It’s important to note, however, that most of Cruz’s delegates were won yesterday (Texas is one of the bigger states, with more delegates up for grabs).  So counting “number of states won” is a misleading assessment at best (Vermont, for instance, had 16 delegates at stake yesterday; Texas 155!)  Instead of crafting a story about Trump’s supposed inevitability, the facts from yesterday would just as easily support a narrative that opposition to Trump may be finally coalescing around Ted Cruz.  Counting “superdelegates,” (a party practice I have a huge problem with, but that must be acknowledged as part of the process) Trump has garnered 488 delegates to Ted Cruz’s 305.  More than 1200 are needed for the nomination.  Put that way, Trump’s lead doesn’t sound nearly as commanding as “seven states to three,” does it?

I’m not here to say Ted Cruz is a perfect candidate.  I do believe he has more strength of conviction behind the conservative positions he espouses than does Trump the Opportunist.  As a Senator Cruz opposed the “Gang of 8” immigration amnesty bill that Marco Rubio was heavily involved with (and that alone sets my preference between those two right there, since I believe cutting off the invasion flood of ‘immigration’ is the essential issue of this election).  Finally, let’s face it: if the main reason for voting for Trump is the perception the establishment hates him (and I’ll be the first to admit I’m an anti-establishment voter), then Cruz is certainly a viable alternative:

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham thinks his party has gone “bats—” crazy, and joked Thursday that it’s possible to get away with murdering Ted Cruz if it happened in the Senate.

“If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you,” the former presidential candidate said at the Washington Press Club Foundation’s 72nd Congressional Dinner, referencing the Texas senator’s unpopular reputation on Capitol Hill.

(For the record I cannot stand Lindsey Graham, so if a politician is known by his enemies that’s an endorsement for Cruz!)

I have not yet made up my mind about which candidate to support, so do not construe this post as a whole-hearted endorsement of Cruz.  I am admittedly leaning that way, but my research there is ongoing.  What this post is meant to be is an antidote to the various media ‘narratives’ out there that are already trying to turn the 2016 election into Trump versus Clinton.  There are far too many variables still in play–including legal action against against both Trump and Her Hillariness–for that to be the case, so don’t meekly accept it as a foregone conclusion.

Do your due diligence, America.  Vote for for the candidate you believe in, not the one “everyone” is telling you is inevitable/’electable.’ Listening to those media-enhanced voices simply creates a self-fulfilling prophecy.  We should all know by now the lack of wisdom inherent in an argument that begins “well everybody knows…”

Be independent and follow your own conscience.  Not the masses.  And whatever you do, America, don’t let the justifiable anger you feel towards our governing class cause you to take an emotionally driven act you may later regret.  Plenty of people were only too happy to see Caesar cross the Rubicon, too…

 

Reaping what’s been sown

A friend recently wrote in a conversation we were having that “Trump is simultaneously the worst thing we could do and absolutely the best outcome we deserve.”  I think he’s on to something there.  Or, as another writer put it (links below added by me):

The truth of the matter is that America is finally under the judgment of God. Our nation has been given over to what it wants. America is under a deluding influence. Such a deleterious condition cannot be remedied with better and more aggressive public policy arguments. The Scripture teaches that people can go so far in their sin that God finally removes His hand of restraint upon them and finally gives them over to what they want to do. …

Why do I believe that America is now at this delicate tipping point? Largely, it is because of the meteoric rise of a person like Donald Trump in American politics. The man is a moral and verbal sewer. He has no political resume. Rather, his campaign has been buoyed by empty promises devoid of any real substance or meaningful content. He merely repeats mantras that the voters want to hear similar to the types of statements that Barack Obama gave us back in 2008. … This type of rhetoric seems more akin to that of a used car salesman rather than that of a serious presidential contender.  …

The fact that all the evidence indicates that Trump throughout the course of his entire life really never believed all of the conservative positions that he now supposedly holds is really of no consequence to people. …

Further evidence of God withdrawing his hand from America might also be found in the recent deaths of former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and Theologian Dr. Charles Ryrie. Both of these men were similar in their ambition to honor authorial intent. They were both giants and sources of great spiritual light in their respective fields. What Scalia was to the field of Constitutional interpretation, Ryrie was to the field of biblical theology. Yet, within the span of a few days, as both men passed, these lights to the culture were removed by the hand of God.

My friend made an interesting analogy to the book of Judges, which details the descent of ancient Israel into increasing disobedience and hard-heartedness towards God’s law.  God rescues Israel multiple times from oppression and disaster, but the character of the judges He raises as His instruments declines steadily over time (a reflection of the loss of the nation’s character).  Just before the story of rebellious Samson (a seriously lapsed Nazarite and a horrible judge of women), we encounter the story of Jephthah.   My friend proposed in his comments that “If Reagan was Gideon Trump is Jepthath.” 

If he’s correct, may God have mercy on us.  For if our trajectory parallels that of Israel, we are destined soon for captivity and worse.  I do not know whether Trump can provide the temporary reprieve for America that so many seriously flawed judges did for Israel.  I have serious doubts he can, and even if he succeeds in some material relief he will be a spiritual disaster.  The story of those judges, though, are a reminder that God can use the most unlikely of people to accomplish His purposes.  That does not absolve the faithful of looking for spiritual character in our leaders, but it might be a hopeful thought in this time when so few seem to have any.  We also need to be reminded from time to time of our Lord’s warning that “not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven.”  Far too many of our politicians — sadly, now including The Donald — profess a publicly convenient faith when their lives show no evidence of the fruit of such a relationship.

I’ve said it before and will continue to say it: I don’t know where all this is going, but I strongly suspect we won’t like the destination.  We have lost discernment as a people, and that includes inviting ever-larger numbers of people to our land who are actively hostile to the faith of our fathers.  This is a time-tested recipe for conflict.  As the Philistines were first emulated by Israel and then enslaved them, our importation into the West of millions of Muslims may result in the same fate.

If ever there was a time for a people to humble themselves and pray, and seek His face, and turn from their wicked ways, it is us, and it is now.  There is much we need to repent of, individually and as a people.  And as we watch the rise of people like Trump the Con Man, Clinton the Crooked and Sanders the Commie, it’s enough to make me wonder if God feels towards us the exasperation He once expressed to Jeremiah:

“As for you, do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you. Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?”

Dear reader, are you ready for the storm?  We’ve sown the wind for far too long, and are on the verge of reaping the whirlwind.  Just remember, no matter what happens, ‘the journey does not end here.‘

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

The rigged game

*Update:  While my original post focused on how a mandarin class in our society has rigged the electoral game, this post focuses on how the concept of representative democracy itself has some inherent flaws and weaknesses.  None can deny that the electorate is complicit in the development of the current mess.  After all, pitchfork parades and tar and feathers are still options.  And far too many voters think they’re “sending a message” by voting for candidate X, when in fact they don’t know candidate X’s actual record or stated positions.  In other words, they’re voting by emotion, not fact and reason:

…as noted above, many people vote as an expressive act. The typical Obama voter knew nothing of his policies, but wanted to be “part” of “something”. There are all sorts of cultural and emotional connotations associated with Team Pepsi, and people want to affiliate themselves with those signals. Team Coke is no better: many Republican voters are in favor of a culture of God, Flag, and Apple Pie, and cast a vote for the GOP as an expressive act, without knowing or caring the actual positions of the candidates they vote for.  ((This, too, figures into the Rise of Trump, since many of his supporters see him as a chance to wave a middle finger at the mandarins, but haven’t taken the time to actually parse what he’s said. — Jemison))

ORIGINAL POST:

Read these two articles, then ask yourself: why is it we put so much faith in elections in this country?

After the final vote count in Nevada, Hillary Clinton has 52 pledged delegates and Bernie Sanders 51 — delegates required to vote for them at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. All were acquired in state primaries and caucuses as a result of a vote of the people.

So Clinton and Sanders are virtually tied, right?

Wrong. Clinton is leagues ahead of Sanders in the overall delegate count, 503-70. This is because of “superdelegate” rules that allow 712 Democratic Party insiders to decide on their own whom to support at the convention.

The Democratic Party’s superdelegate rules, devised after George McGovern’s 1972 defeat, are not particularly democratic, reflecting an era when party officials were reluctant to lose control of the presidential nominating process.

The Republicans are little better:

That rule was fortified by amendments made at the Republican convention of 2012, ironically to handicap insurgent candidates in the future. It was a response to the phenomenon of Texas Rep. Ron Paul winning nearly all of the delegates in states like Maine, Minnesota and Nevada, in spite of losing wider initial contests in those states.

What point is there to elections if Elephant and Donkey insiders always get to pick the candidates?  We’re stirred up to resent the influence of “big money” in elections, but Big Political Party shenanigans constrain our ‘choices’ as much or more than does donor activity.  Is it any wonder our government’s policies are so out of line with what the people want?  The bi-factional ruling class makes sure the only “choices” the public perceives are slight variations around a tightly controlled mean.  That way they continue to do what they want, public wishes be damned.  The best explanation for Trump’s meteoric rise is that so many people think he represents a means to say “up yours” to the insiders rigging this game.  (He doesn’t; he merely represents another facet of that rigged game — the face that’s shown when the electorate needs to blow off a particularly large head of steam, as it does this year.  The real function elections seems to serve in our country is pacifying the electorate with the illusion they have some input into what Washington does.

As I’ve said in previous posts, I have no idea where this is going, but I’m pretty sure we won’t like the destination.  Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul were “insurgent candidates,” to use the term in the article above.  Agree with them or not, they had a developed view of how they would approach governance.  Perot self-destructed, but the other two were deliberately (and in the case of Ron Paul, frantically) marginalized by the party apparatus — and the electorate let them do it.

So, having passed those off ramps, the course our nation is on has led to The Donald and his yuuuuuge ego, Bernie Sanders and the usual “hey kid, want some free stuff?” come on of socialism, and Her Hillariness, who promises to do for Washington what she did for information security at the State Department.  At this point I’m tempted to just write in “George Washington” this November.  I don’t think it would make my vote count any less.

Wake me when it’s time to rebuild from the ashes.

Who is creating the problem?

With the meteoric rise of Bernie Sanders, we’re seeing an accompanying increase in class warfare rhetoric (part and parcel of the Marxist worldview, which relies on creating envy to generate much of its appeal).  One side effect of this “soak the rich” battlecry is that it presumes most, if not all material success in life is achieved through undeserved and ill-gotten gains.

The problem with this approach is that being wealthy is no more a reliable sign of insidious living than being poor automatically confers virtue.  Below is a much better perspective:

There are many who have worked hard, been creative, stayed “in bounds” of the law, and still achieved material success and social status.  Then there are those who have lobbied and bought influence to bend the system to their ends, using government force to exclude potential rivals, or to hire cheaper foreign labor to displace hardworking Americans… all to squeeze a few more cents per share of profit from their corporate cash cow.  But despite Bernie’s bellowing, those CEOs are the minority.

At the same time, there are those Americans who make use of a publicly provided “hand up” to get their life back on course after a disaster (loss of job or spousal support, or a bout with substance abuse or crime).  But there are also those who make public assistance a way of life, seeing no incentive to become self-supporting instead of living off the goodwill of others.

The problem we have is not one of “rich versus poor.”  It’s one of “workers versus looters” that crosses the spectrum of income.  It’s one of people at all levels of society who use government to take from others what they would not otherwise give.  CEOs and their companies who spend each day making themselves more profitable by providing better value for society should be applauded, not demonized.  The same is true for those who are saved by the “social safety net” but show the determination to climb back off of that net and start moving upward on their own power again.  These are the ‘workers.’

But those of any income who increase their worth primarily at the calculated expense of others — looters — should be rightfully condemned, whether they live in Manhattan, New York, or Manhattan, Kanasas.  This is yet another issue where Democrats and Republicans each decry a selected part of the problem, while both make it worse.  Republicans complain (rightfully) about those who purposefully live off the welfare system, while simultaneously supporting H1B visas, offshoring and other corporate goodies that force vulnerable workers onto unemployment and other forms of public assistance.  Democrats rightfully attack Uncle Sam’s “corporate handouts” (of which there are many), but then promise to hand out so many “goodies” to the citizenry that they promote individual dependency and an entitlement mentality.

Here’s a radical thought: how about EVERYBODY stop looking at government as Santa Claus?  How about we stop empowering government to pick the winners and losers at all levels of living?  This is supposed to be the land of opportunity, not the land of who-has-the-most-organized-lobby.  (By the way, if you truly want to study and go to college, the opportunities exist.  Stop waiting for government to make it “free.”)  Government should be a referee, not a retailer of tax loot.

Solving any issue effectively means first defining the problem accurately.  That is one reason why socialism ultimately fails.  It substitutes blind jealousy for incentives and a work ethic.  I suspect its growing appeal to the current generation is based in no small part on the failure of America to prevent the corruption of what was once a successful attempt at free market capitalism into a blatant and corrupt system of cronyism based on an alliance of Big Business, Big Government and a Bi-factional ruling party.

Neither of these is the answer to the problem.  Where are the candidates promoting individual freedom and personal opportunity?

Fighting hammer and tongs sickle

The lurch leftward continues for America.  Who’d have thought that, barely a quarter century after the spectacular indictment of communism represented by the fall of the Berlin Wall and implosion of the Soviet Union, that the two candidates for the Democratic Party nomination for President of the United States would both be lifelong disciples of Alinsky and Marx?  Someone forgot to teach history (as opposed to propaganda) to the kids.  As a result, an ideology that should by now be thoroughly discredited is enjoying a renaissance among the young.

Sadly, the GOP has its own addiction to big government, militarism and foreign adventurism, so there’s no real alternative there, either.  Marxists to the left of me, corporatists to the right… stuck in the middle with you.

The resilience of socialism

Britain’s Labor party tacks hard left, electing as leader a self-described “socialist” who has professed admiration for Hugo Chavez and considers Hezbollah and Hamas to be “friends:”

Jeremy Corbyn, a leftist former union organizer, was elected the leader of the U.K.’s Labour Party on Saturday, a result that signals a more socialist direction for the country’s main opposition and could herald a realignment of British politics…

Mr. Corbyn’s unexpected ascent within the Labour Party has happened at the same time as the rise of American antiestablishment figures such as Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a socialist candidate for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, and Donald Trump, the billionaire businessman and reality TV star who is leading the field of candidates for the Republican nomination.

Based on the experience of the U.S. over the last several years, Britons would do well to be wary of former “organizers.”  As the article points out, though, the rise of Bernie Sanders in the U.S. shows that we have learned nothing, either.  And while some would like to label all this flirting with leftism to be simple “antiestablishment” politics, it’s really just the resurgence of a pernicious lie.

In 1989, with the collapse of the Soviet Empire, it seemed Marxist collectivism in all its shades had been discredited.  As previously secret archives were opened for inspection, the true cost of the horrors of trying the sustain the ‘Worker’s Paradise’ were laid bare for all to see.  But just as 14 years is enough time to forget the real danger posed by Islamic fundamentalism, whether of the al Qaeda or Iranian variety, it would seem a quarter century is ample time to completely rehabilitate the image of socialism in the eyes of a new generation.  The persistent idea of using government force to play Robin Hood — to take from the “haves” (who must be guilty of something, since they “have”) and give to the “have nots” (who are assumed always to be virtuous and innocent of any responsibility for their station in life) shows that human beings are emotionally rationalizing creatures, not rational ones.

Socialism and its more militant Big Brother, communism, represents the politics of envy, a policy of entitlement rather than achievement, and a gross misunderstanding of the fallen nature of man.  It promises freedom, yet results in more concentrated power.  It promises utopia, but produces disharmony at best, and purges and gulags at worst.  The young flock to its banner out of inexperienced naivete, only to see their energy and idealism harnessed to produce power for the well-connected.

We are but a couple years from the centennial of the Bolshevik revolution, which itself was part of the larger story of the 20th Century — the bloodiest in the history of mankind, not only because of two world wars, but because of an ideology willing to kill an additional 100 million of its own countrymen in order to maintain power and conceal the contradictions inherent in the system.   Have we learned nothing?

“Before some audiences not even the possession of the exactest knowledge will make it easy for what we say to produce conviction. For argument based on knowledge implies instruction, and there are people whom one cannot instruct.”
– Aristotle, Rhetoric