–Strange science: How does one brain justify both cruelty and charity?

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Mitchell’s laws:
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
●The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes. .
●Liberals think the purpose of government is to protect the poor and powerless from the rich and powerful. Conservatives think the purpose of government is to protect the rich and powerful from the poor and powerless.
●Austerity is the government’s method for widening the gap between rich and poor.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
●To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the Gap.
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Recently, we published: Is the descent into brutality our new American normal? Friday, Dec 12 2014

It included this description of the horrors we inflicted on prisoners:

Interrogations that lasted for days on end. Detainees forced to stand on broken legs, or go 180 hours in a row without sleep. A prison so cold, one suspect essentially froze to death.

The CIA also forced some detainees who had broken feet or legs to stand in stress-inducing positions, despite having earlier pledged that they wouldn’t subject those wounded individuals to treatment that might exacerbate their injuries.

Contrary to CIA’s description to the Department of Justice, the Senate report says that the waterboarding was physically harmful, leading to convulsions and vomiting.

Imagine a criminal trial, in which it was revealed that the police had done that to a witness. Any judge would have thrown out the testimony as being both unreliable and unconstitutional.

Yet:

Majority in U.S. say CIA interrogation methods were justified

Just over half of Americans say they believe the interrogation methods the CIA used against terrorism suspects in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were justified, polling data released by the Pew Research Center, Monday showed.

Most Republican elected officials have defended the CIA’s actions.

And, the majority of Americans agree it’s fine to make prisoners stand for days on broken legs, be deprived of sleep, be subject to hypothermia resulting in death, and be waterboarded into convulsions and vomiting — even though evidence shows these harsh methods don’t work, and victims will say anything, true or false, to stop the pain.

Because some members of the enemy (whoever they may be) does bad things, are we given leave to do horrifying things to some members of the enemy (whoever else they may be)? Is that our justification for torture, in violation of international law, our own Constitution and evidence of uselessness?

Or is it because the right wing, which loves to quote the Constitution when speaking of gun ownership or immigration, suddenly acquires Constitutional amnesia, when it comes to basic humanity?

Not only are we told to forget these evil acts, but we don’t even want to know in the first place:

According to the poll, Americans were evenly divided over whether the intelligence panel was right to release its report, with 42% saying it was and 43% saying no.

Are we Americans, who were outraged when we learned about the NSA’s secret breaking of our Constitutional right to privacy, now perfectly happy to remain in ignorance about our government’s war crimes. Is this the Sgt. Schultz, “I hear nothing; I know nothing; I see nothing” syndrome.

Or has the religious right so brainwashed us to accept their rationales for cruelty, that we simply have no human feelings about anyone outside our social circle?

Washington Times

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These “illegal immigrants” are people: men, women and children, with the same needs and desires we have. The vast majority are not bad people; most are poor people, trying to improve their lives — just like us.

The merciful alternative to deportation and “enforcing the current laws on the books,” would be absorption and changing the laws on the books, to make these humans legal.

Instead, we justify their torture (i.e. deportation and family separation) by saying it is in our own interest.

We are Americans. We are charitable. We care about people, even strangers.

We Americans justify dropping money into the bell-ringers kettle. We Americans justify writing checks to thousands of charities. We Americans justify rescuing a drowning stranger, or catching a baby tossed from a burning window. Unlike other nationalities, we Americans want wife beaters and child beaters sent to jail.

But strangely, torture is O.K. The physical and mental torture of foreign prisoners (as opposed to torturing domestic criminals) is just fine. The physical and mental torture of foreign children, by sending them back to a life of misery and death — that’s fine, too.

How do we do that, I wonder? How are we horrified by one, yet justify the other?

How does one brain simultaneously justify both cruelty and charity?

And feel so comfortable doing it?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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Ten Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Provide an Economic Bonus to every man, woman and child in America, and/or every state a per capita Economic Bonus. (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually. (Refer to this.)
8. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here and here)
10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)

The Ten Steps will add dollars to the economy, stimulate the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.
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10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
1. A growing economy requires a growing supply of dollars (GDP=Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports)
2. All deficit spending grows the supply of dollars
3. The limit to federal deficit spending is an inflation that cannot be cured with interest rate control.
4. The limit to non-federal deficit spending is the ability to borrow.

THE RECESSION CLOCK

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the growth lines rise. Increasing federal deficit growth (aka “stimulus”) is necessary for long-term economic growth.

#MONETARYSOVEREIGNTY