Month: August 2022

Libertarians and libertarianism are not an alternative political party or a different ideology or political philosophy.

They are anti-government, any and all government, because they are against any and all laws and regulations that stand in the way of their bottom line. Libertarians are a disgruntled and angry group of selfish, loathsome, economic opportunists. The only thing they value is money, their money. If you are a regular person who thinks that libertarianism is a valid alternative form of governance and you do not have exactly the same goal of tearing down the government or you do not follow lockstep in their behaviors and beliefs, you can never actually be a real member of that dystopian group. At best, you would only ever be a peripheral inconsequential number.

Libertarians and libertarianism are not an alternative to political parties or ideology. If they are anything, they are anarchists. If you think anarchy is good, libertarianism might really be your thing.

The Ukrainians who are fighting the war would disagree with your opinion that it is a proxy war of the United States. It’s a war of aggression that Russia started and it was unprovoked. Putin started this war because he had a grudge that he chose not to ignore and he foolishly thinks he can subdue an entire slavic country that has a clear desire to be independent and to throw off the corruption of the old regime. This war did not have to happen. But it did because Putin has a swollen and bruised ego and he doesn’t give a shit about the loss of any life, whether it’s Russian soldiers or Ukrainians. Putin doesn’t care. The loss of life in this war is ALL on Putin. He violated the sovereignty and territory of Ukraine. Whatever consequences result from this war, they are ALL on Putin.

Украинцы, которые воюют, не согласятся с вашим мнением, что это опосредованная война США. Это агрессивная война, которую начала Россия, и она не была спровоцирована. Путин начал эту войну, потому что у него была обида, которую он решил не игнорировать, и он глупо думает, что может подчинить себе всю славянскую страну, у которой есть явное желание быть независимой и избавиться от коррупции старого режима. Эта война не должна была произойти. Но это произошло потому, что у Путина раздутое и уязвленное эго, и ему плевать на гибель людей, будь то российские солдаты или украинцы. Путину все равно. Жертвы этой войны ВЕСЬ на Путине. Он нарушил суверенитет и территорию Украины. К каким бы последствиям не привела эта война, ВСЕ они на Путине.

So, what, exactly are the pundits on Fox News? News Anchors? I don’t think so because news anchors usually follow a certain pretty well defined set of standard objective behaviors and usually mostly try to keep opinion and speculation out of what they are seemingly presenting as (factual) news. None of that really applies to Fox News pundits.

So, what are they, exactly? I read the term “network host” in an artlcle today. Or, at least that is the first time that I really paid attention to the phrase if it has been around for a while. I just didn’t really pay it much attention. But, the question as to what they are and how to define them has been on my mind for a long time.

I think “network host” works. Hosts can state opinions, even as facts when they are not. They don’t have to provide any reasons or factual back up to verify that what they are saying is fact-based. Hosts can be emotional and seek to evoke emotions in their audience. They can state their opinions and speculations and if they do so with the right amount and the right kind of emotion, usually anger or trepidation, they can elicit their desired responses from their audience.

But what are pundits? A pundit is an expert in a particular subject or field who is frequently called on to give opinions about it to the public. But when that person who is acting as a pundit is expertly delivering non factual speculation and/or opinion and conspiracies or false narratives or disinformation, that is no longer an expert offering an opinion. That is a propagandist.

A billion dollars is 1,000 million dollars.

The net worth of Bill Gates: 111.8 billion dollars

The net worth of Elon Musk: 264.9 billion dollars

The net worth of the Sackler family: 14 billion dollars

The net worth of Mark Zuckerberg: 60.2 billion dollars

The net worth of the Walton family (they own Walmart)

238 billion dollars

The net worth of Robert Mercer: about a billion dollars

The net worth of Warren Buffet: 101.6 billion dollars

The net worth of Bernard Arnault: 167.8 billion dollars

The net worth of Jeff Bezos: 166.4 billion dollars

The net worth of Oprah Winfrey: 2.5 billion

This is just a sample list of 10 billionaire individuals and families.

In 2020 in the United States there were 614 billionaires.

What are these people ever going to do with that much money? How much is enough for them? Is there “enough” for them?

Some billionaires get involved with charities and giving away their money. In return they usually end up coming out richer than they went in because of the tax breaks they receive on charitable spending. Their philanthropic activities are all a matter of personal preference and pet projects. The Sackler family of Purdue Pharmaceutical fame (and the opiod epidemic) for example, spend their charity dollars on having big famous museums named after them. They believe this is good public relations and that it removes the tarnish and stain from their good name. But does it?

Billionaires involved in philanthropy do it for two reasons: tax breaks and write offs, and to scrub their names publicly. The usefulness of their philanthropy is debatable. If billionaires ever engage in philanthropy for purposes of burnishing a meaningful legacy, whether or not they will achieve that goal probably depends on their projects. In order for it to mean anything significant and to have it be a permanent, brilliant legacy, it has to be meaningful. Andrew Carnegie gave the United States a system of beautiful and grand libraries. That gift will ensure that his legacy will be eternally brilliant. But what about other billionaires? Will their legacies be as brilliant as Carnegie’s? Is that something that is important to them or that they even care about?

If they want to do something that is meaningful, billionaires could spend money on solving the many grave problems we have.

The following is a sample list of ten big problems that could, if billionaires chose to use their money to solve them, provide an excellent legacy for any billionaire who wants one.

1. Clean the world’s oceans of plastic and fund R&D into the repurposing and/or safe methods of disposal of the recovered plastics.

2. Build desalination plants for the metro regions of San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego.

3. Help Los Angeles develop a plan of green spaces, natural habitats, parks, and to restore a more natural watershed.

4. Distribute large scale carbon capture technologies around the country.

5. Fund R&D to develop powerful jet engines that do not use carbon based fuels and that have long range flight capability.

6. Put money into a new and improved train and freight shipping system.

7. Put money into building mass transit that will move people in large numbers in all urban areas and significantly decrease the need for traveling on dangerous and congested freeways.

8. Build affordable housing to house the homeless of America.

9. Build and fund health clinics that treat mental illnesses and that could also possibly provide job training.

10. Put money into pubic education and vocational training systems.

Yes, this is a list of my very own cherry picked pet projects that I believe would be of a great and meaningful significance to the country and to the planet. These are the types of endeavors I personally would engage in if I had billions of dollars to work with. These are the types of philanthropic activities that I am sure would forever be viewed as being truly meaningful and beneficial and that legacy would last forever and remain forever significant. But, that’s just what I think. And, of course, these are just ten problems that we need to fix. There are many others that could likewise use a little bit of billionaire money thrown at them.

Billionaires, because of their hoarding, are a principle cause of wealth inequality. They make the world a worse place for the rest of us.

Billionaires use their money creatively. They use their money to influence and control politics, to manipulate and mould culture and society in ways that are useful to them, and to further diminish the tax that they (mostly don’t) pay. They engage in these activities mostly anonymously via tax exempt, dark money organizations that use 501c3 non profits to remain anonymous. Their ability to do that was a gift to them from the United

States Supreme Court in Citizens United.

When billionaires want to scrub their reputations, they do so publicly by spending small allotments of their money openly and publicly for “charitable” purposes.

Billionaires pick and choose from their own pet projects for philanthropic investments. Are the pet projects of billionaires what everyone wants and needs? Not necessarily. But they are a great vehicle for making something that’s also not necessarily done altruistically or for the purpose of doing good, seem like it’s something good. There is also the issue that philanthropic endeavors may end up not being beneficial at all for many people. Yes, no, maybe so. That’s generally not the point. Billionaires spend money to make money or to get other things for themselves. They use philanthropy to do this.

So, is it good for ordinary people to accept the gift of philanthropy from billionaires? Is it a good thing for people to think they depend on the goodness of billionaire philanthropists to get good things in life? Doesn’t the philanthropy of billionaires establish a sort of obligation because of the gifts they give? After all, there is no such thing as a free lunch, is there?

Question:

Would it perhaps be better to simply tax billionaires sufficiently enough so that instead of passively receiving billionaire pet project gifts that they think we need and want, we can have what we want and need and do those things that would be of the most benefit for the most people, without billionaires having to make those decisions for us?

Why not adequately tax the rich so that we can dispense with their philanthropy and get what we truly need and want, not what they want for us?

It’s great that In Kansas voters stood up for their rights and defeated a referendum to overturn the abortion rights contained in their state constitution.

But in Indiana the republican governor and republican state legislature just made a law that criminalizes abortion any time after 10 weeks after conception and got rid of abortion clinics in the state.

How can a state that makes laws that violate human rights be compelled to rescind such violations? Especially as long as the Supreme Court condones, encourages, and empowers such laws? The Supreme Court may not think of them as human rights, but we do.

One state preserving access to abortion is good but it doesn’t preserve reproductive rights in other states that want to follow the lead of the Supreme Court and take rights away from women.

This country would be so much better off if personal rights and responsibilities and individual freedom and liberty were not put on the chopping block by fascist zealots in the name of church or any other ideology or doctrine or dogma that is not universal and is used to subjugate people.

This country would actually be closer to having justice if the government no longer trampled on the privacy of individual citizens making their own decisions about their own lives when doing so harms no one, is not illegal, is not a danger or a threat to other people, and it is not the business of the government to intrude in this fundamental right of self-determination by individual citizens, in this case, women making their own reproductive decisions.

How did this country veer so far off course that it now has a Supreme Court, supposedly the highest court in the land, that so blatantly acts on and imposes specific church doctrine and has foregone all sense of the constitutional principle of separation of church and state?

The five conservative members of the Supreme Court when they eviscerated Roe v Wade, condemned American women to a status of subservience to the state when it comes to reproduction. How is that justice? How can the people of the United States allow that decision to stand and to go unchallenged and unopposed?

The Supreme Court opened a can of worms when it rescinded the right to abortion services in Roe v Wade. This action on the part of the Supreme Court emphasizes that the process of securing human reproductive rights remains undone and continues to be a controversial hot button issue.

Is this the end of this issue? Is the Supreme Court’s deletion of a right the end of the line for such a right? Will the country be able to resolve this debate once and for all? What will be the end result? Will American women eventually have the right to make their own reproductive decisions without interference by the government and courts?

It is bizarre that getting an abortion continues to be a controversial political issue and fight in the United States. It is bizarre that politicians and some judges would take rights away and interfere in matters of personal privacy and decision making.

The conservative members of the Supreme Court may believe that they have accomplished a victory in this desision. But have they? Is their ruling going to be the final say on the matter? I don’t think so. But how will this issue play out? There will undoubtedly be many more court battles and actions and the struggle for and against the rights that women do or do not have will continue to rage until the matter is resolved. Will the people eventually have a secure right to make their own health care decisions free of government persecution and vilification? We shall see.