7 thoughts on “The American Mediocracy”

  1. The part I don’t get is that there is a headline somewhere that Oxfam, Greenpeace and other environmental groups are “furious” with Manny Macron for promising to reduce fuel taxes that provoked the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) protests where people took to the streets wearing the mandatory high-visibility garment required by law to be kept in all motor vehicles.

    The only reason Mr. Macron is doing this is not that he has abandoned his commitment to Saving the Planet from Climate Change, rather, he is trying to spare himself the severe neck injury experienced by Louis XVI?

    As a young person (it is a long story), I was taught “how the Left and especially Communists” operated, and I was told something about the “dialectic” and how “to hammer a nail, the hammer sometimes needs to advance on the nail to strike and other times to retreat from the nail to make the next strike” and that Communists were particularly good at reversing course if their ideas weren’t popular, to give it another try next time.

    Now I didn’t hear any of this from actual Communists but rather from anti-Communists in the Conservative Movement, so I don’t know if they got it quite right. But I did have the impression that any actual Communists in the U.S., especially those in the CPUSA that got its direction from the Kremlin, were very patient people about advancing their agenda, and clever about not calling attention to themselves until “the correct moment.”

    If there were a popular revolt, say, against an increase in the gasoline tax, I was under the impression that at least the Communists would say, “Preserve the gas tax, oh no, not us, that was Macron’s idea — we stand with the people!”

    So Leftists-Liberals-Progressives lack even half the good sense of Communists to not push an idea lacking popular support? It appears that at the top of Ms. Pelosi’s agenda (besides Impeach Trump) is Climate Change.

    So of all the things Mr. Trump is doing that one can stand in opposition to as hurting the working man, the Democrats want to take their stand on the hill that low gasoline, electric and natural gas prices that are the underpinning of the current tight labor market, which started in the latter part of the Obama administration despite his best effort to prevent them, and are continuing under a Trump administration regarding such as a good thing, are something they want to reign in?

    Is there anyone in this land of ours making under 6-figures in family income who thinks, “cheap gasoline, electricity and home heating fuels need to be a heck-of-a-lot more expensive because we are wrecking the Global Climate”? Of all the things to be mad at Trump about, they are picking that?

    1. The communists had one job: to boil the frog slowly.

      And for decades, they managed that. Then they handed power to the Millennials, who were brought up to expect that everyone should get prizes right now.

      So, instead of waiting another generation until the battle was won through simple attrition, the Millennial leftists pushed for having it all, NOW.

      And now the frog has woken up and started fighting back.

    2. Nice analogy about the hammer and nail.

      Would anyone making less than six figures want more pain in their life to save the planet? Granted energy hits people hard in the pocket book but consider many people embrace flagellation as a form of penance and sacrifice to Gaia, Nature, or whatever they conceptualize their unnamed god as.

      People go through great lengths to recycle even though in many cases, it does very little good and often wastes resources. In typical leftist fashion, the costs and process of this are shrouded but people pay their bills, separate their junk, and even wash it. The more effort put in must make god happier right?

      electric and natural gas prices that are the underpinning of the current tight labor market, which started in the latter part of the Obama administration despite his best effort to prevent them

      This can’t be stated enough times.

  2. For quite some time, the Ivy League has produced American Mandarins. Based on them allegedly being “the best and brightest”, they believe they’re uniquely qualified to run the government and tell us lessor beings what to do and how to live. At the same time, they’re ran up a national debt of over $20 trillion plus long term liabilities many time that large. They’ve made a mess of US policies across the board. Maybe our Mandarins aren’t so elite after all. Maybe, instead of a meritocracy, we have a crededencialocracy.

    Given the old cliche about insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly while expecting a different outcome, perhaps we need to reevaluate who gets hired to run things. The current bunch isn’t doing well.

    1. When was the last time congress passed a budget?

      The media doesn’t want budget literacy because then politicians might be forced to do something and that would be bad for Democrats. Instead the media carefully creates deceits. Every single article about budgets and debts says that Trump’s tax cuts are a large part of the deficits. That is demonstrably false. All it takes is a few minutes of research to prove that isn’t the case but it reported as fact and much of the populace believes it.

      People like to call Trump a liar. He is just as much a BS’er as any other politician but I can’t think of any carefully crafted deceits he has used to do this on par with starting proxy wars with Russia, giving Iran permission to develop nuclear weapons, or seize control of entire industries. The media though? Every single day, in every single article, there are carefully crafted deceits about the most serious issues down to the most trivial.

      The media has never been more corrupt.

      1. Passing a budget and the corresponding appropriations legislation is one of the most fundamental and important functions of Congress. I can’t recall the last time they passed a budget. I remember them doing that back in the 1980s, sometimes before the start of the next fiscal year. Times have changed. Tax revenues are at record highs but spending is rising much faster. We don’t have a tax collection problem. We have a spending problem. Damn them all to hell.

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