You matter, you are important and you are capable of knowing more than you do. You know that you exist and that can lead you to knowing other truths. If you bother, you can know other people and their truths.
If you are interested in a subject, click the tag at the bottom of any post for more posts on the same general subject.
Couchgate is the new media focus. Just like the boy who cried wolf the corporate media is once again demonstrating their bias and lack of relevance. A group picture in the oval office was taken showing Kellyanne Conway sitting with her feet underneath her on a couch. This made the news for two days and was presented as a scandal. How is this news? It isn't.
The thing about the corporate media is that they are globalist and they are monopolistic. A story this stupid should not have been covered at all; but, instead all the major publications talked about it. The corporate media will talk about garbage like this and spend almost no time investigating why anti-trust laws are not being enforced or how your tax dollars are used to subsidize private companies through grants.
Consider all the talk in the corporate media about Trump's taxes. How many times have you heard the corporate media show how much they pay in taxes? If you make over around $100,000 a year, you will pay over 30% in taxes; but, the corporate media doesn't pay that and neither do most companies because the vast majority of tax breaks are for larger companies. We actually promote monopolies by giving them tax incentives to consolidate; but, that isn't discussed in the news.
By the way, here is an article showing how Michele Obama sat with her foot on the chair in the white house.
Lets say you have never smoked and are now over 60, it is a great time for you to start. It takes 30 years to get cancer from smoking and really, how many people will live to be 90, I won't. Same goes for drinking. If you are over 60 it is the perfect time to start smoking and drinking if you never did before. It won't hurt you career and there is a reason so many people smoke and drink, it is pleasurable.
We don't let people under 18 smoke and we shouldn't tax retired people who do. Tobacco taxes are unfair to the elderly. Smoking has been decreasing for 40 years so more older people smoke and as they age we tax cigarettes more which means it hurts the elderly. We don't tax marijuana and that is smoked more by the young.
Imagine if someone proposed putting a 50% tax on marijuana, you think young people would vote in favor of that? Nope; but, they are willing to see a 50% tax on cigarettes. Lets get rid of all use and sales taxes and just tax income. Lets tax people as they benefit from the system, not put them in positions of taxing lifestyles based on which we like.
It is interesting which cities are not sanctuary cities. Do you think Beverly Hills, Brentwood or Malibu are sanctuary cities? Is Pasadena a sanctuary city? These places don't even provide sanctuary to the poor and homeless. They do provide sanctuary to people in the entertainment industry. The ones with lots of money.
I wasn't going to talk about that, just occurred to me. Do you know what it meant when a church offered "sanctuary"? It meant that you would be provided food and board and protection. That you would be cared for and could stay as long as you needed. Julian Assange of WikiLeaks is being given true sanctuary in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and it has cost Ecuador it's relationship with England and the United States. Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and San Francisco provide illegal aliens with no shelter or food or protection from being removed from their cities. They just refuse to help. Oh, my what a courageous stand (as you can literally see the sarcasm dripping from my mouth).
Find me a city in the United States that provides real sanctuary to any of it's residents. Los Angeles does regular homeless sweeps and many of those it sweeps are illegal aliens; but, the city doesn't then feed them or give them a place to stay, they just leave them on the streets. How dare it call itself a sanctuary city when it provides no true sanctuary. It should call itself a non-participant city or a not actively involved in people's lives city or maybe even a hypocritical city. This is not the first time. When the Occupy Movement was living at City Hall they told them to stay as long as they wanted and then later removed them using the police and destroyed everything that had been there.
What if we were truly a "sanctuary" nation? What if we promised anyone we gave sanctuary to was provided shelter and food by the government? That would probably mean we would have to offer the same to our own citizens. We would probably think real hard about who deserved sanctuary and how they would impact this culture or giving. Would we allow in bigots or sexists or people who believed in female circumcision or killing gays? Would anyone call for open borders if it meant that the government would have to provide all of those who came with real sanctuary, food and shelter?
I was going to talk about going to dinner with friends or going over the few measly news stories I saved to write about; but, I started writing and this just happened. Pimpernel writes what he writes when he writes. Easier to write than say no doubt.
The media in this country is viciously propagandistic. It's industry is influence peddling for money. There are two ways to con someone, convince them you are dumber than they are or convince them they have nothing to gain by convincing you of something. That is how the con game begins. The media wants you to think they know better than you so the only way they can con you is by making you think they have no skin in the game and are therefore honest. Want to guess how much money the mass corporate media made last year? It is an industry.
New York Times Magazine - YouTube’s Monster: PewDiePie and His Populist Revolt. PewDePie has come under attack for only one real reason, the corporate mainstream media does not like competition from the internet personalities that they don't own.
San Fernando Valley Business Journal - BYD to Install Streetlights in Lancaster. Here is a line from the article, "BYD Energy is part of Chinese electric vehicle and battery manufacturer BYD Co. Ltd. Its Lancaster facility opened in 2013 and now employs more than 400 workers that make electric buses and other vehicles."
I think most of the people that read this site are probably over 30. I assume I have an older audience for two reasons. Firstly, I am not on YouTube, Snapchat, Twitter or any of the more used platforms. Secondly, I don't write about things that a younger person would be interested in.. I am going to use the video above to help you to understand how big and important YouTube is.
This video was made by Owen Shroyer (I hope I spelled that right) of a website and YouTube channel called Infowars. The site is owned and controlled by a man named Alex Jones. I do not trust Alex Jones. A man I wrote about previously, Bill Cooper, proved Alex to be a liar years ago. I don't think Mr. Shroyer is a liar; but, he works for the same site. I actually like Shroyer and think he would be fun to talk with. He seems like a decent guy.
As an older person, I have friends that are also older and they have never heard of Alex Jones and do not use YouTube. Most of them watch Fox or listen to Rush Limbaugh. I am a socialist surrounded by friends who are conservatives. Heck, I preached at a church of homosexual illegal immigrants and they loved me; but, they don't read this blog. Few of them read English. They just don't ask me to dinner since I stopped preaching. They were all pretty liberal.
I am not posting this video to support the producer, Alex Jones, I think he is irrational. I think he has some decent people that work for him. I guess I could say that about any company. Long set up for a simple video analysis. Mr. Shroyer was at President Trump's speech today and spoke to some of the protestors. What they discuss on both sides is semi-irrelevant to my analysis. I want to talk about the protest itself.
Lets talk about how organized these protests are. The protestors are behind a pinkish barrier and mostly stay behind it. As the video progresses you will see people with safety vests on and often megaphones telling the protestors what to chant. Some wear pink scarves around their arms. The ones of the same side of the pink barrier as Owen are the safety vest peoples supervisors.
Now lets talk about how the leaders of the protest respond to Mr. Shroyer. Firstly, they block the cameras view of the protestors. Why would you do that, why ask people to make signs and protest and then not want them to be seen? Think about that for a bit, it is about numbers not messages.
This guy is continually asking people to say what they think and the supervisors tell people not to engage with him. One lady, claiming to be an attorney protesting Trump, told the supervisors that she could speak for herself and they didn't like that. At about eight minutes in, Shroyer talks to one of the cat hat wearing supervisors and even she cannot answer his questions.
I want you to watch the whole video and think about the questions I am asking. How are these people so organized; but, not in thought. They don't all have the same answers; but, the just about all follow the same supervisors.
Now to the point of including this video. Who is organizing these events and what are the protestors being told to do, say and who is in charge of them? More importantly, why does everyone leading this protest call him a "Alex Jones Troll". That happens at 10:15 into the video. How did the women supervisor know that Shroyer worked for Alex Jones, his microphone said Infowars. That means that the leaders of the protest had been told to watch out for Infowars reporters.
In the last few months I have heard the mainstream media talk about the leader of Infowars more than I would have thought possible. This guy Jones is not on the radar of most people over 50, they are more likely to know who Bill O'Reilly is. Jones has about 2 million subscribers, PewDePie is the biggest on YouTube and has about 60 million subscribers and doesn't talk about the news. CNN can only dream of having 60 million viewers a day. Jones is nowhere as big as PewDePie and yet the protestors all know who he is.
The corporate media is in a death spiral because of the internet. The news industry is being challenged by the internet and people like Jones and they don't like it. They are quite happy to see America lose it's industrial jobs; but, are desperately afraid of losing their jobs to internet publishers. Older people don't know who Alex Jones is; but, younger people do.
In the last few weeks the media has been attacking PewDePie and spreading fake news about him. The guy is not political, he is just a guy that talks about video games and is a lousy comedian and he scares the mainstream media because every second you spend on the internet is a second you do not spend watching television or the mainstream corporately owned media. That is why you should check out YouTube; but, be careful as there is plenty of garbage on it. You have to find objective voices that can at least separate themselves from the strict dogma of their core beliefs.
This is the state of the corporate media. Major media outlets have now attacked Trump for liking his steaks well done, questioned if he wears a robe at night, hyperventilated over the fact that his sons have business interests and are still provided with Secret Service protection like every other member of the Presidential family and now they want to talk about how Trump told Christie that he had to have the meatloaf at the White House because it was amazing.
All of these meaningless things are treated as major news stories by the like of the New York Times, Washington Post and CNN amongst others. Here is a story they could have gone with, what does the average unemployed ex-steelworker eat? What does the average service worker in America eat compared to the average CEO? So many questions can tell us about this world; but, the media is more concerned about attacking Trump for telling Christie to have the meatloaf at the White House, which by the way was the same thing Trump ate.
The act states "Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both."
General Flynn had met with a Russian official after Trump had been elected and prior to being made the National Security Advisor. When asked about sanctions against Russia, Flynn reportedly said that he thought Russia should wait before imposing sanctions of it's own until Trump was in office. After much media hoopla, Flynn ended up resigning.
The truth is that the Logan Act is never used to prosecute anyone and is probably not constitutional. The problem for the media will come in the future. By having taken the position that they have they will now have to address the Bilderberg Meetings, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Tri-Lateral Commission. These are all meetings where private citizens, including representatives from the New York Times and Bill Clinton prior to his being elected President, attend to negotiate with representatives (elected and non-elected) from foreign countries over laws in secret.
The media has given Trump a bully pulpit to arrest any American for attending those meetings in the future without Presidential approval. The actions of the media in regards to Flynn was a tactical mistake on their part. This same law can now be used against the Rockefellers too. Be careful what you wish for is the moral of the story.
Now lets get to the intelligence community. The phone conversation between Flynn and the Russian representative was tapped by the intelligence community and was released to certain newspapers. Aside from the illegality, something more is at work. Consider that tapped conversations are almost never released and very few would have even had access to the conversation so whoever released it can be tracked down. It is not as if every intelligence agent had access to the tap, these things are closely held unless their is a criminal prosecution and they were legally obtained via court order.
Clearly there is something going on in the intelligence community. Remember when General Petraeus was taken out by the intelligence community. Why hasn't the intelligence community gone after the people who wrecked the economy? The two things are connected. In fact, the intelligence community is responsible for seeing these systematic failures and informing the President. Just some things to think about.
Here is the short on the article. Basically Democrats and Republicans want to make national laws to promote and regulate self driving vehicles. The first issue they want to address is getting rid of pedals and steering wheels. Lets be clear, there is no reason to get rid of steering wheels or pedals, they do not prevent the car from being self driving, they just eliminate you having the option to drive.
Now lets talk about how this may effect you down the road, so to speak. When you are prevented from driving yourself then you have to rely on the car for where you go and what route you take. If you go on Google earth, there are certain places you are not allowed to see. Self driving cars will be prohibited from going certain places too. It will start with sex offenders, the cars will recognize them and automatically take routes that keep them away from schools. You will support that gladly. Later cars will be prohibited to go to certain places, like Area 51 or wherever unless you have special permission.
What if the government doesn't want people going to a protest, well, with this technology they could prohibit cars from going to those events or even near them. You may not believe what I am saying; but, most people thought self driving cars would not be accepted in their life time when I began writing about them. About 8 years ago I was telling people that Australia was going to try and censor the internet and I was laughed at to my face. After WikiLeaks released the list of sites that Australia had planned to censor, those same people were not laughing. Never underestimate the establishments hatred of democracy.
I want to ask a question. If in the future almost all jobs are automated, which nation gets the revenue from taxes? I will ask that in another way. Nations make money to take care of people from taxes. We tax everyone; except those who have no money, no income. You cannot get blood from a stone. What happens when you don't need people's labor, when they have nothing to sell?
You are born in this world with 2 things, your mind and your body, that is it. Society tells us that we are born in debt, at least most of us. We are told that every child born owes X amount because of our national debts. That is garbage. You cannot be born in debt. Debt is an illusion. Debt without an agreement by both parties is slavery. You might be able to sell yourself into slavery morally; but, you cannot be born into it morally.
If someone is born today, why should they respect ownership of the world by those who were born before them? Read that slowly. How does being born mean you owe others? That is silly. Being born means owing nothing to anyone else. If your mother's vagina is attached to a queen or king, you are born owning lots of stuff. How is that right? How do we allow some people to be born with no options or chances and others to be born with all options and no chance of going without. Do you think Prince Harry's kids could possibly end up homeless and with nothing?
I don't know if my readers can see my real point. If all jobs are automated, do newborn babies wake up with debt and no way to pay it? This is about inherited wealth and real privilege. It is about why we should not accept a rigged where we start with nothing and others start with everything. The world is not based on merit, it is based on dishonest and unfair advantage by a few.
Here is what has actually happened. Firstly, a couple of states sued the federal government over the ban. They asked the court for a temporary restraining order (tro) and was given it while the case goes forward. The federal government appealed the tro and the higher court refused to vacate the lower courts order.
The problem with the President's initial order was that it included people with visas and legal residents. If it had merely banned the issuance of new visas the court would have not issued the tro. Some of the people kept out already lived here and were merely returning home. The executive order by the President also said it would allow religious minorities in these countries to come here. That was unnecessary he could have stuck with existing language that allows people who are being persecuted to come here; but, he wanted to specifically appeal to the Christian community in this country. The fact is Christians are being persecuted in some of the countries that were included in the ban; but, they are not the only ones. Women and gays could easily show that they are also persecuted in the countries listed.
I don't believe the ban was done poorly by accident, I believe it was intentionally done the way it was so that Trump could play the victim attempting to protect us while attacking the courts.
Just for fun and to change up things for my readers, I am going to begin regularly posting the best YouTube video of the day. I will mainly post political commentators; but, I will through some comedy and generally interesting videos too.
Mark Dice - CNN: Calling Us "Fake News" Is Like Using "N-Word"
The Jimmy Dore Show - What Trump Voters Know That The Democrat Elite Don't! (Mark Blyth Interview)
Late Night With Seth Meyers - How Democrats Are Responding to Trump: A Closer Look
I won't usually watch Seth anymore because he anti-Trump all the time. He stopped being funny when the elections began because he had a personal problem with Trump. In fact he attacked Trump at the Press Corp dinner in 2011, long before Trump ran for office or stated any policies.
I am posting this one because I was writing a post about the stupidity of the media making a story about whether or not Trump wears a robe or not. It is pretty sad when the media thinks the big news is about whether or not Trump wears a robe. The media is merely attacking every ludicrous item they can and still won't address the issues that elected Trump or how the media is seeking to be a monopoly where only one voice is heard.
I have liked many Springsteen songs over the past 30 years. To be honest I got sick of "Born to Run" after all it's airplay a couple of decades ago; but, the guy wrote some good songs and gave good concerts from what I read. He also managed to cheat on his wife with a backup singer. It is estimated he is worth about $200 million. He made that money singing about working class guys; but, now he is more concerned about Muslim refugees than the people who bought his albums. Just try buying his albums in Iraq not off the black market, good luck with that.
Springsteen wrote a letter to the Observer, linked to above, that really demonstrates his overly self-important psychosis. He claims he could have stopped Trump from winning the election by singing outside of Trump speeches and he believes that. He actually believes that people would have voted for Hillary if he had sung to them regardless of the fact that Hillary spent practically no time in the Midwest states that Trump won and regardless of the fact that she did not care one bit about their jobs being outsourced.
Kid Rock is not one of my favorite musicians; but, I like a couple of his songs. What I will say about Kid Rock is that he still lives in Michigan and takes care of his neighbors. Kid Rock keeps his ticket prices down so that working class people can still see his concerts. Kid Rock watched his friends lose their jobs in Detroit and cares about them.
I don't expect much in the way of in depth thinking from people who have dedicated their lives to making money as artists, they tend to be self-absorbed and it helps them to be better artists. I am just disgusted when they start believing their own press and thinking that the world really does revolve around them.
I would be impressed if Springsteen said he was going to work to get Democratic candidates elected WHO WERE GOING TO BRING BACK JOBS AND STOP ALLOWING AMERICAN COMPANIES TO OUTSOURCE. He didn't do that, he didn't address any of the issues that led to Trump being elected in the Midwest because he doesn't care. Shame on him.
Lena Dunham famously came out and said that she wished she had had an abortion. To be kind she was trying to say she wished she had stood up for that right; but, her words betrayed something deeper. Imagine if she had said that she wished she had been raped. What if she said she wished she had been raped so that she could justify her abortion. Read that again and instead of having an emotional response, think about the statement she did make.
How bout this, what if she said she had wished she had had a cavity. That is a pretty non-political thing. Why does someone wish they had anything bad happen to them? Or, maybe does she not see getting pregnant and not wanting to be a good thing? I personally don't know any women that "wanted" to have an abortion. I do know a few who didn't want to be pregnant and had abortions; but, it's not like they were actually looking forward to the procedure or even the idea of it. I think they would have preferred to not have gotten pregnant in the first place.
We are witnessing political hysteria and irrationality. Passion occurs among the ignorant, compassion occurs when you do understand people's pain. Compassion is calm and caring, it is understanding and empathetic, it seeks to understand others pain not their faults. That is called maturity. Passion blinds us to our own opinions, compassion allows us to see where others are coming from. Passion is selfish, it is done to express our feelings. Compassion is done for others for their feelings.
The Washington Post - How Tulsi Gabbard became Assad’s mouthpiece in Washington. Pure and utter establishment lies and propaganda. Gabbard is a Hawaiian Progressive Democrat who is opposed to war. The article also mentions Dennis Kucinich met with Assad, guess what, Kucinich is also against war. The Washington Post has very little tolerance for people who don't like endless wars in the middle east. Wait, maybe I work for Assad because I am against war too? The article goes as far as to say that Here is a line from the article, "She also asserted there are no moderate rebels in Syria and that the United States is funding and arming al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. Neither is true, but both match the talking points that the Assad regime has been pushing for the entirety of the war." I want you to remember that when you read the emails where Hillary Clinton talked about arming the radicals.
LastWeekTonight - Canadian Election: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO). A funny little video where John Oliver tries to effect the Canadian election and makes fun of Canadian laws that make that a crime. Funny how he is another one who was concerned about Russia having an opinion on our election. Hypocrisy is essential to the media because they want to pick the winners.
MSN - Bloomberg - Trump’s Next Immigration Move to Hit Closer to Home for Tech. While the tech companies spend millions to stop Trump from tightening visa restrictions, there real reason isn't because they care about Syrian refugees, it is about getting tech people from India and other countries to come here, work cheap and take away jobs from American tech workers.
Yahoo - AFP - One income for all: far-fetched, or future fact? If the west doesn't need workers, what do you do with the people. The solution is to give them just enough to survive, entertainment on their phone and a mini-living space.
Fox - Group to Trump: Tear down country’s 10 worst highways. The wealthy dislike rural towns and prefer the poor to be centralized in cities. Think I am making this up, then go back and read the Rockefeller Commission Report from 1971 on population sustainability. I have posted links to it before.
Ferdinand Lundberg wrote a book called "The Rich and the Super-Rich". When I was 12 a television producer who was teaching at my church gave me a copy of it to read. After reading it we had a number of fascinating discussions, you see he had met some of the families mentioned in the book. Lundberg also wrote another book called, "America's 60 Families" about the families that own this country. If you want to read the books here are some links.
Lundberg discussed the press in America's 60 Families and he brought up a fascinating point, he pointed out that the press didn't mind being owned by these families and actually rather liked it. Lundberg pointed out that prior to the depression the financial press was discussing amongst themselves the coming crash; but, didn't publish their findings. In fact, after the crash 80% of the press fought to keep out FDR. Lundberg lists numerous cases where the press almost unanimously failed to publicize event or presented false accounts to benefit the wealthy, nothing has changed.
Consider that prior to the stock market crash in 2007, the media ridiculed anyone who dared to say that we were in a bubble and after the crash the media insisted that it could not be foreseen, yet, that was a lie. Ask yourself why the media has not called for the jailing of the people who responsible for the crash and the rigging of financial markets.
Go back and read media reports about the Occupy Movement. The media despised the Occupy Movement and the Tea Party because they represented movements against the establishment in support of the populace. Read the media reports from the last year and a half that showed Trump or Sanders in a positive light, good luck. The press almost never writes about how 6 companies own 90% of the media in this country. Think about how the press refused to discuss the emails discovered by WikiLeaks that Podesta wrote, if not for the internet the press wouldn't have discussed them at all.
I don't like Mike Pence. I just want to start with that although I wrote that before we finally voted for President last year. I think he is much more of a totalitarian than Trump would ever even consider. Pence wants to regulate your body, Trump doesn't.
Pence comes from a "religious" part of the party, Trump had been a Democrat. Why did Trump stop being a Democrat, why didn't he run as a Democrat? Have you ever asked yourself that question? Trump has almost never discussed abortion in public. They were not able to go back and find statements by him condemning abortion and he had been in the public eye since the early 80s. When Elton John got married he sent him a congratulatory letter. He openly stated during the election that he did not care which bathroom Caitlyn Jenner used in Trump properties. He had the sister of a transgender sing the national anthem at his inauguration. The media acted as if they thought Trump didn't know about Juliet Evancho or the fact that she is involved in a lawsuit over transgender bathrooms in Pennsylvania. I knew about it. I wrote about Juliet Evancho days after it was announced that she was transgender. Do you really think Trump didn't know about that when he selected Jackie to sing at his inauguration? Yet, the media never talked about Trump having Jackie anyways. The media did not talk about Trump's show of support or the fact that transgender Juliet Evancho was invited to come. You know how I know Juliet was invited to come? Because she turned down the invite and stated she had a prior engagement.
Juliet Evancho had the opportunity to attend the Presidential inauguration as a transgender and turned it down. Juliet made a mistake, Jackie did not. Jackie sang at the inauguration and Juliet failed to show up. Imagine a transgender female showing up at the inauguration standing next to his sister. That would have been on the news and would have normalized people like her even more. It was a public relations dream for Juliet's issue and she didn't take it. Why not?
I guess I may get readers of this post that don't know my feeling and thoughts and haven't read me before talking about the Evanchos because I don't have that many posts on them, maybe five in four years. Jackie Evancho is a great singer, I have seen her twice in person and really enjoy her. She had a brother who is now a sister. He seems like a nice kid, now a girl or young woman or whatever now named Juliet. My attitude about transgender is unusual. I am neither for nor against. Having said that, I am not for sex change operations. I believe wanting to change your natural physicality is harmful and unproductive. I believe we should accept our physicality as much as possible. Some people are tall and don't like it. I would not support them cutting their legs in half to be shorter. I would rather want them to accept themselves as they are. I don't think you can force nature. This should not be surprising as I am against genetically modifying people as a rule. I think nature does that better, if you believe in evolution you will too.
Maybe you cannot see how the title and this tie in. Mike Pence wants to outlaw abortions. He would probably outlaw transgenders too. Mike Pence is pretty much against welfare programs as far as I know. Trump is not, he just wants to create jobs so we people have options. I don't like Pence. There are many people who identify as Republican that are "Pro-Life" or against abortion that are not in favor of social programs. They are happy to see you born; but, don't care what happens to you after that. they just don't want you to be gay or transgender. Read that again if you have to.
Once you are born the world wants to tell you what kind of life you can have. Think about that insanity. Would the extreme pro life people allow abortions of gay babies? What if they could identify "gay sperm", the sperm that creates gay people, would they be okay with killing just those sperms? Would they allow the abortion of hermaphrodites, people born with the sex organs of both sexes? Which bathrooms should hermaphrodites use? Will they give the same answer for transgenders?
If you believe babies have a right to life shouldn't you believe they have a right to choose what that life is? Trangenders are choosing what to do with their body. Some people to have choose tattoos, some people choose to have abortions, some people choose to become exercise freaks or bodybuilders or incredibly obese, we make lots of choices with our bodies. It is as ludicrous to regulate what people can eat (like transfats) because they are unhealthy as it is to outlaw people taking a pill that makes them abort. Regulating how someone treats their body is as morally corrupt as slavery. In fact, it is the essence of slavery. Think about it, think about what right you have to demand that people take care of their bodies or use their bodies as you wish them to.
Last night a conservative, gay speaker name Milo Yiannopoulos was prohibited from speaking at U.C. Berkley by rioters. This is ironic in that Berkley was the home of the free speech movement in the 1960s. It is also ironic in that many, if not most of the protestors, would tell you that the internet should be free and not have speech restricted.
Many will assume that the protestors are just a bunch of crazy Californian liberals; but, that would be a mistake. In fact, the U.C. campuses have been increasing the number of out of state students for years in order to increase revenue as in state people pay less. The cost to attend Berkley for non residents is about $60,000 a year, the cost for residents is about $23,000 a year according to their website. The average household income is about $50,000. So, how many families can afford to send their kid to UC Berkley, not too many. It is way beyond the reach of most middle class families and is getting even more remote.
Lets consider the reality of a college education for the middle class. Well, to begin with if they take out loans they could end up with a quarter of a million in debt and the opportunity to make eight dollars an hour. The higher education system is a business anymore, it is about branding and selling. It is a privilege which is very much limited to the children of the well to do and the colleges sell them on the idea of a good time. College is no longer as strenuous or difficult as it once was and the focus of classes has moved from business and science to social issues. As it becomes harder and harder for middle class families to send their children to college, the colleges themselves become populated more and more by the privileged and those children become less and less exposed to the middle class.
The people protesting at Berkley and now worried about manufacturing or farming jobs in the United States, they are much more likely to be interested in starting or working for internet companies. We are creating an America of two classes which are completely removed from one another and that is dangerous in many ways. What are the shared interests? Can we find common ground when there is no shared interests? The truth is that Americans attending UC Berkley have more in common with students who go their from other countries whose families are well off than they do with the middle class in most of this country and certainly than with those in the Midwest.
What we are witnessing is the effects of the technological revolution in the same way that the industrial revolution split this country into different classes with different interests. Look beyond the simple left right paradigm and look at the class paradigm or you will not understand what is going on.
