President Slime and his little Slimes

STwitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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Remember the outrage when Hillary Clinton was accused of selling access in exchange for charitable contributions? Lest you have any doubts about the criminality that soon will invade the White House, read this:

For a price, you too can buy access to Team Trump

Ivanka Trump reportedly will have a White House office, which she’ll be able to use to advocate for policies – a step she’s already taken with preliminary calls to Republican members of Congress.

This follows a series of meetings Ivanka Trump has joined with her father, foreign leaders, domestic business leaders, and prospective cabinet members.

Remember, Ivanka has not been elected to anything or cleared for anything. But, seemingly she plans to use the White House to run her businesses. Is that even legal?

Who cares? Right?

When Ivanka auctioned a lunch with her for tens of thousands of dollars, it raised eyebrows. Though the charitable auction was eventually scrapped, it appeared Donald Trump’s daughter was putting a high price on access to an influential member of the incoming president’s orbit.

This week, it’s apparently Ivanka’s brothers’ turn. Time magazine, among others, reported:

A new Texas nonprofit led by Donald Trump’s grown sons is offering access to the freshly-minted president during inauguration weekend – all in exchange for million-dollar donations to unnamed “conservation” charities, according to interviews and documents reviewed by the Center for Public Integrity.

Trump’s “charities” have a history of benefitting Trump financially. He even has been fined for that offense for which he falsely and ironically accused Hillary Clinton.

The notion of Trump, the global warming denier and friend of big oil, having “conservation charities” is ludicrous.

And the donors’ identities may never be known.

Prospective million-dollar donors to the “Opening Day 2017” event – slated for Jan. 21, the day after inauguration, at Washington, D.C.’s Walter E. Washington Convention Center – receive a “private reception and photo opportunity for 16 guests with President Donald J Trump,” a “multi-day hunting and/or fishing excursion for 4 guests with Donald Trump, Jr. and/or Eric Trump, and team,” as well as tickets to other events and “autographed guitars by an Opening Day 2017 performer.”

The prices aren’t cheap. For $250,000, donors can receive a “private reception and photo opportunity” with Donald Trump himself. To hunt with Trump’s adult sons, donors should expect to write a check for $500,000.

There would be no legal requirement to disclose the donors’ names to the public.

Here we are, watching leading members of Team Trump put a generous price on access to themselves, and engaging in the exact behavior the president-elect condemned as a candidate in the very recent past.

You can just hear the water being drained from the swamp.

Oops. Like all other Trump promises, the swamp-draining now is cancelled.

Based on history, there is no reason to doubt that the Trump public-private partnerships will net billions for Trump and his family.

This is the same Donald Trump who promised to do as all other Presidential candidates have done:

  1. Release his tax returns
  2. Divest himself of any assets that could result in his self-dealing as a President

Not only has he refused to do either, but in the case of those self-enriching assets, he has indicated there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it.  His words: “The law’s totally on my side, meaning, the president can’t have a conflict of interest.”

“Ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe.” The “why” is that Trump plans to use the White House as his personal piggy bank, to enrich himself.  

Period.

Trump’s followers essentially have told him, “We don’t care how crooked and slimy you are. You can do anything you want and we still will back you.”

And it’s not just his followers. The entire Republican party is in on the scam:

REPORT: Republican lawmakers are AFRAID of Trump

Politico is reporting that some Republicans who would normally never go for an Obama-like stimulus plan are now entertaining the idea of a Trump infrastructure plan. Why, because they are hypocrites? No, according to Politico they are afraid of Trump:

POLITICO – To understand the spell Trump has cast on the Republican Party, just listen to the members of the House Republican Conference these days:

The same gang that made slashing spending their singular cause in Congress are now entertaining — and in many cases embracing — the president-elect’s pitch to pump billions into the economy in the form of a massive infrastructure package.

The irony, expressed privately by lawmakers and leadership aides, is glaring. Privately, House Republicans complain that Trump’s infrastructure plan reeks of Obama’s stimulus package.

They say his tariff proposal is ridiculous and using the White House to force companies to stay in the U.S. is inappropriate.

Many are afraid to publicly oppose Trump because of his fondness for retribution and use of Twitter to publicly shame his critics. So now, they’re left crossing their fingers that his rhetoric doesn’t translate into actual policy proposals next year.

“Sometimes it’s the pioneers that end up with arrows in their backs,” said Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.). “Sometimes, for preservation sake in a political sense, people don’t want to pioneer in teeing off on a newly elected, and at this point popular, presidential nominee.”

This is indeed irony. What we wanted was for a Republican Congress to rein Trump in and keep him on the straight and narrow when it comes to spending and trade (and other things he decides to go liberal on). But now we’re hearing that they are considering Trump’s liberalism because they are afraid of him?

The next four years are not going to go well if Congress doesn’t get some balls.

Congress get balls?  Who can forget what Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Mitt Romney, and Chris Christie had said about Trump and what he had said about them, then seeing them genuflecting before Trump, hoping to get some political assignment?

If that isn’t vomit inducing, nothing is. Well maybe Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan are:

Mitch McConnell Speaks Out in Strong Support of Trump
Breaking a pattern of staying on the sidelines, the Senate’s GOP leader issues a call for a ‘powerful’ President Trump.

Ryan: Last night and again this morning, I spoke with president-elect Donald Trump and I congratulated him on his great victory. And now, Donald Trump will lead a unified Republican government.

So McConnell always stays on the sidelines, but this time he issued a call for a powerful President Trump. And Ryan called repeatedly to congratulate Trump and to assure him the party is unified behind him. (“Mr. Trump sir, we all love you, sir.”)

I can hear the kissing and sucking sounds, all the way here in Chicago.

If you give a proven liar and cheat an open invitation to steal, what do you think that proven liar and cheat will do?

Welcome to the slimy world of our President and his family and his Party — the Party that supposedly will rein Trump in.

Will someone please count the silverware in the White House. The Trumps are coming.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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The single most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the rich and the rest.

Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.

Implementation of The Ten Steps To Prosperity can narrow the Gaps:

Ten Steps To Prosperity:
1. ELIMINATE FICA (Ten Reasons to Eliminate FICA )
Although the article lists 10 reasons to eliminate FICA, there are two fundamental reasons:
*FICA is the most regressive tax in American history, widening the Gap by punishing the low and middle-income groups, while leaving the rich untouched, and
*The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, neither needs nor uses FICA to support Social Security and Medicare.
2. FEDERALLY FUNDED MEDICARE — PARTS A, B & D, PLUS LONG TERM CARE — FOR EVERYONE (H.R. 676, Medicare for All )
This article addresses the questions:
*Does the economy benefit when the rich can afford better health care than can the rest of Americans?
*Aside from improved health care, what are the other economic effects of “Medicare for everyone?”
*How much would it cost taxpayers?
*Who opposes it?”
3. PROVIDE AN ANNUAL ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA, AND/OR EVERY STATE, A PER CAPITA ECONOMIC BONUS (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB) Or institute a reverse income tax.
This article is the fifth in a series about direct financial assistance to Americans:

Why Modern Monetary Theory’s Employer of Last Resort is a bad idea. Sunday, Jan 1 2012
MMT’s Job Guarantee (JG) — “Another crazy, rightwing, Austrian nutjob?” Thursday, Jan 12 2012
Why Modern Monetary Theory’s Jobs Guarantee is like the EU’s euro: A beloved solution to the wrong problem. Tuesday, May 29 2012
“You can’t fire me. I’m on JG” Saturday, Jun 2 2012

Economic growth should include the “bottom” 99.9%, not just the .1%, the only question being, how best to accomplish that. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) favors giving everyone a job. Monetary Sovereignty (MS) favors giving everyone money. The five articles describe the pros and cons of each approach.
4. FREE EDUCATION (INCLUDING POST-GRAD) FOR EVERYONEFive reasons why we should eliminate school loans
Monetarily non-sovereign State and local governments, despite their limited finances, support grades K-12. That level of education may have been sufficient for a largely agrarian economy, but not for our currently more technical economy that demands greater numbers of highly educated workers.
Because state and local funding is so limited, grades K-12 receive short shrift, especially those schools whose populations come from the lowest economic groups. And college is too costly for most families.
An educated populace benefits a nation, and benefitting the nation is the purpose of the federal government, which has the unlimited ability to pay for K-16 and beyond.
5. SALARY FOR ATTENDING SCHOOL
Even were schooling to be completely free, many young people cannot attend, because they and their families cannot afford to support non-workers. In a foundering boat, everyone needs to bail, and no one can take time off for study.
If a young person’s “job” is to learn and be productive, he/she should be paid to do that job, especially since that job is one of America’s most important.
6. ELIMINATE CORPORATE TAXES
Corporations themselves exist only as legalities. They don’t pay taxes or pay for anything else. They are dollar-transferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the government (the later having no use for those dollars).
Any tax on corporations reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all corporate taxes come around and reappear as deductions from your personal income.
7. INCREASE THE STANDARD INCOME TAX DEDUCTION, ANNUALLY. (Refer to this.) Federal taxes punish taxpayers and harm the economy. The federal government has no need for those punishing and harmful tax dollars. There are several ways to reduce taxes, and we should evaluate and choose the most progressive approaches.
Cutting FICA and corporate taxes would be a good early step, as both dramatically affect the 99%. Annual increases in the standard income tax deduction, and a reverse income tax also would provide benefits from the bottom up. Both would narrow the Gap.
8. TAX THE VERY RICH (THE “.1%) MORE, WITH HIGHER PROGRESSIVE TAX RATES ON ALL FORMS OF INCOME. (TROPHIC CASCADE)
There was a time when I argued against increasing anyone’s federal taxes. After all, the federal government has no need for tax dollars, and all taxes reduce Gross Domestic Product, thereby negatively affecting the entire economy, including the 99.9%.
But I have come to realize that narrowing the Gap requires trimming the top. It simply would not be possible to provide the 99.9% with enough benefits to narrow the Gap in any meaningful way. Bill Gates reportedly owns $70 billion. To get to that level, he must have been earning $10 billion a year. Pick any acceptable Gap (1000 to 1?), and the lowest paid American would have to receive $10 million a year. Unreasonable.
9. FEDERAL OWNERSHIP OF ALL BANKS (Click The end of private banking and How should America decide “who-gets-money”?)
Banks have created all the dollars that exist. Even dollars created at the direction of the federal government, actually come into being when banks increase the numbers in checking accounts. This gives the banks enormous financial power, and as we all know, power corrupts — especially when multiplied by a profit motive.
Although the federal government also is powerful and corrupted, it does not suffer from a profit motive, the world’s most corrupting influence.
10. INCREASE FEDERAL SPENDING ON THE MYRIAD INITIATIVES THAT BENEFIT AMERICA’S 99.9% (Federal agencies)Browse the agencies. See how many agencies benefit the lower- and middle-income/wealth/ power groups, by adding dollars to the economy and/or by actions more beneficial to the 99.9% than to the .1%.
Save this reference as your primer to current economics. Sadly, much of the material is not being taught in American schools, which is all the more reason for you to use it.

The Ten Steps will grow the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and you.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

22 thoughts on “President Slime and his little Slimes

  1. Perfect:

    Fox contributor Newt Gingrich wants Congress to change ethics laws for Trump
    Newt Gingrich has a take on how Donald Trump can keep from running afoul of U.S. ethics laws: Change the ethics laws.

    “He also has, frankly, the power of the pardon,” Gingrich said. “It’s a totally open power. He could simply say, ‘Look, I want them to be my advisers. I pardon them if anyone finds them to have behaved against the rules. Period. Technically, under the Constitution, he has that level of authority.””

    Hey, why not. Who needs ethics when you’re the President?

    Details emerge on ‘Trump University’ settlement

    U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel issued an order Tuesday evening giving an initial sign-off on the settlement…. Trump University must produce the $25 million to fund the settlement by Jan. 18. If it doesn’t do so, Trump himself has to come up with the money.

    No American president has ever been accused of defrauding members of the public and knowingly running a scam operation, bilking unsuspecting victims of their money. It’s one of many reasons Donald J. Trump is in a league of his own.

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    AN INVESTMENT BANK SHOWS DONALD TRUMP HOW TO ADDRESS CONFLICTS OF INTERESTS
    That’s how low the ethical bar is now set.

    A president-elect owing hundreds of millions of dollars to a bank is already an ethically thorny issue, but this particular bank also happens to be under investigation by the Department of Justice on a number of fronts, including stock trades for wealthy clients in Russia—a nation with which Trump and his various political appointees have their own eyebrow-raising ties.

    If the matters aren’t settled by the time Trump is sworn in, which would seem unlikely, then the investigation into a bank that Trump has personally guaranteed outstanding loans will be overseen by a Trump-appointed attorney general.

    Like

  2. Speaking of universities…

    Ignorance is always voluntary, and the penalty is always slavery and suffering.

    Example…

    The governments of Austria, Finland, and Germany cannot create money out of thin air, and yet they offer a free university education to all, even to non-citizens.

    By contrast, the U.S. government *does* create money out of thin air. However average Americans don’t want a free college. They don’t want a “free lunch,” since people below them on the social ladder might also get a “free lunch.”

    Average Americans prefer lifelong debt slavery, since it means that people below them are suffering even more. Average Americans prefer to believe that the U.S. government “has no money.” Or they prefer to be apathetic about this entire subject.

    If you speak the truth in the reader comments sections of other blogs, twenty percent of readers will attack you. The other eighty percent will ignore you, preferring instead to whine about trivia.

    If you have outstanding student loan debts, your Social Security benefits will be cut to “pay” the “debts.” Of course, the party that originally lent you the money was long ago repaid by the government. Plus, any dollars collected from your SS benefits are destroyed upon receipt. However this doesn’t matter. As a peasant, you “owe” the rich your entire life.

    Everyone around you likes it this way. They insist on it. Don’t believe me? Try talking to them about it.

    People over the age of 50 are now the fastest-growing group with student debt, outpacing younger generations. Americans 65 and older have seen their total student loan debt grow by 385 percent since 2005. In 2015 alone the Department of Education deducted $171 million in disability benefits (DISABILITY!!!) from borrowers aged 50 or older. That $171 million was destroyed upon receipt. And the amount keeps rising each year.

    It is extremely difficult to get SS disability benefits. You almost have to be a quadriplegic. The application process is byzantine, and it takes years. Meanwhile judges and bureaucrats are paid to find any and all reasons to deny you benefits. If you are lucky enough to get benefits, the government will cut them as a penalty for student loan debts. (And of course retirement benefits are also cut.) These deductions are for life, since the U.S. government claims (falsely) that the money is used to “pay” interest and penalties that keep compounding for life.

    Elizabeth Warren squawks about this, but she echoes the Big Lie in service to the predators and the gap.. After all, you don’t get to be a U.S. Senator by helping average people. You must pretend to help average people while you screw them.

    Of course, Warren is only giving the peasants what they insist on.

    More info here…

    http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/12/21/older-americans-pushed-poverty-feds-garnish-social-security-student-debt

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    1. Well spoken, Elizabeth,

      The student loan scam is brilliant in that it widens the Gap between the rich and the rest in three ways.

      1. It saddles rest with a debt from which they have difficulty recovering, even into retirement, thus forcing them to work longer and harder.

      2. This debt makes it difficult for the young people to start businesses that would allow them to move up the financial ladder.

      3. The prospect of debt forces the not-rich young people to seek out less prestigious, cheaper universities (making them less competitive in the job market) or to give up college altogether (making financial advancement less likely).

      The student loan program guarantees the rich of a large and desperate population of underpaid workers to toil in job slavery.

      As I said it is genius, especially since the populace doesn’t object. Aside from FICA, the student loan program is the single, most regressive federal program.

      I’ll try to find time during my vacation, to write yet another article about this scam.

      Like

  3. Getting back to President Slime:

    a fifth billionaire joined the president-elect’s team yesterday.

    Donald Trump has named billionaire (#5) investor Carl Icahn, a frequent critic of some Obama administration rules and a major fossil fuel investor, a special advisor on regulation, the president-elect’s transition team announced Wednesday.

    Trump’s team said in a statement that the activist investor will aid him in an “individual capacity” rather than as a federal employee or special government employee.

    Icahn won’t face any reporting requirements and won’t have to put any distance between his investment portfolio and his undefined responsibilities to the Trump White House.

    The potential for conflicts – and scandal – are hard to overstate.

    Icahn, for example, is deeply interested in how the Securities and Exchange Commission will affect his investments, and Trump has given Icahn “a central role” in choosing the next chairman of the SEC.

    Icahn is also concerned about what the Environmental Protection Agency might do with an oil refinery company he co-owns, and Trump put Icahn in a position to help choose the next EPA administrator.

    To have an active businessman formally in a position to do the regulatory work is a fairly open invitation to corruption. And that’s the kind of thing that past administrations have tried to avoid.

    But since Donald Trump himself is tied up in unprecedented conflicts of interest, that apparently lowers the bar for the rest of his team too.

    Icahn, who’s vague job will require no confirmation process and who’ll answer to no one except Trump, will tackle “regulatory reform” – which may very well include changes to existing policies that will affect the enterprises he continues to own.

    Apparently, there are no slime limits in the White House.

    QUESTION FOR YOU WHO ELECTED HIM: IS THIS REALLY WHAT YOU VOTED FOR?

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    1. Rodger and I disagree about the nature of Democrats versus Republicans. I say that regardless of their rhetoric, they both lie, they both work for the rich, and they both have their respective forms of political correctness. Hence, for me, they both are the same. One is not better than the other in terms of morality, or in helping average Americans.

      Rodger disagrees (even though he agrees that we have not had a progressive Democrat President since Johnson.) Fine. However, since I see both parties as effectively the same, I only pay attention to actions, not rhetoric.

      For example, the corporate media outlets are condemning Trump because Trump says he wants to enhance the USA’s nuclear arsenal. Somehow this makes Trump worse than Obama, who wants to spend at least ten trillion dollars on the same thing.

      If you enjoy attacking Trump, then have fun. But if Trump keeps you awake at night with worry, then do what I do. Ignore all the talk, the threats, and the doom and gloom. Focus on what actions occur. What are the laws? What was the vote result of each law? Where does the money actually go? Who is actually getting killed? (Literally and figuratively.)

      Trump is a monster. His nominees for ambassadors, cabinet posts, and Executive Branch directors are abominable. But for me, life is too short to worry about what these creeps say, and what they might so. I focus on what they *actually* do from here on out.

      We can make predictions about what they will do, based on their past performance. but they remain predictions until they become actions.

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          1. “The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes,” Trump wrote on the social media platform.” Donald Trump

            Feel good about his finger on the button?

            By the way, enjoy the most painful interviews of the week: http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/trump-tweet-startles-with-nuclear-policy-reversal-839983683604?cid=eml_mra_20161223

            and

            http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/ethics-questions-loom-over-trump-hhs-pick-rep-tom-price-839983683992

            No, they aren’t all “the same.” Trump is unique slime.

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          2. Okay so the crux of our disagreement is this…

            For me the behavior of Democrats is identical to the behavior of Republicans. (I don’t care about rhetoric.) Both champion the Big Lie. Both are warlike. Both work for the rich. Both oppose Single Payer, and so on down the list. Democrats in their actions are the same as Republicans. No President since Johnson has been progressive.

            You say the two parties are different.

            This is where we do not meet.

            I say this “difference” is an illusion designed to make average people think they have a choice. The Big Lie, for example, is the Big Lie, regardless of who tells it.

            We will never agree in this issue, but at least we are clear on what we do not agree on. Therefore some progress has been made.

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  4. POWER COMES FROM A LIE

    Today the U.K. Office for National Statistics announced that the U.K.’s current account deficit is the largest is almost three years. Each month (on average) the U.K.’s imports of goods and services exceed the U.K.’s exports by a value of 8.6 billion pounds sterling.

    “Current account” sounds more sophisticated than “balance of trade.” You have to sound sophisticated if you want to deceive people with the Big Lie, especially when you use terms like “debt” and “deficit.”

    Regarding pounds “sterling,” five different nations call their sovereign currencies “pounds.” In addition, eleven British overseas territories and crown dependencies call their own sovereign currencies “pounds.” However pounds “sterling” means U.K. pounds, and nothing else. (Likewise, twenty nine nations and dependencies call their sovereign currencies “dollars,” but these are different from U.S. dollars.)

    Okay, so the U.K. has a trade deficit of 8.6 billion pounds sterling per month, on average. This is no problem for the U.K. government, since the government creates infinite pounds out of thin air, and since U.K. pounds are accepted worldwide.

    The **bullshit factor** is that the Bank of England claims that the U.K.’s current-account deficit is a “potential risk” to foreign investment. This is nonsense, but it sounds good to average people.

    ** “Let us handle the finances. You don’t have the expertise. Just be grateful that we throw you some crumbs once in a while.” **

    If U.K. pounds are accepted worldwide, then how can there be any “risk” to someone who wants to do business in the U.K., or anyone who wants to conduct business in U.K. pounds, anywhere in the world?

    Granted, having a large trade deficit means that U.K. jobs are being moved to foreign sweatshops. However the Bank of England is not talking about that. The Bank loves for U.K. jobs to be moved abroad, since offshoring widens the gap between the rich and the rest.

    The Bank of England is simply bullshitting (like when the Bank claims that all money is created as loans). The purpose of this bullshit is always the same: to support the Big Lie. Rich people, politicians, bureaucrats, central bankers, and economists make you grovel before them by falsely claiming that the U.S. and U.K. governments have a “funding crisis” and a “debt crisis.” Everything with the central government is a “crisis.”

    This is how they make you grovel and beg. Imagine living on an island with 100 people, cut off from the rest of the world. The islanders use money that you create out of thin air. You alone create all the money. You would have supreme power over the islanders as long as you kept them convinced that there was a “crisis” in funding.

    >>In human societies, all power comes from lies.

    Different groups have special powers and privileges based on special lies. Naturally they deny that their lies are lies, and they are offended if you question their lies.

    I have specific lies in mind, and I could list them, but it would offend some readers here who use the lies for personal gain or personal satisfaction. So in this blog I only discuss the lie about government finances.

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    1. The problem is when nations allow religious laws to take precedence over civil law. That is why the separation of church and state are so vital.

      In America, many people don’t understand that, so there is this constant push to put crosses and 10 Commandments in public spaces, because those are “our” religious symbols.

      But it becomes dangerous, when the envelope is pushed further and further, and soon we’ll begin stoning for abortion.

      Muslims are people. They have families, loves, hopes. As with Christians, Jews, et al, they want peace.

      To control the zealots of any religion, we must make it abundantly clear that civil law, not religious law, will be followed. Anyone breaking civil law should be punished, and religion is no excuse.

      Some of our recent Supreme Court decisions have skated dangerously close to theocracy, and we have only ourselves to blame if we believe “our religious” beliefs should prevail over civil law.

      There should be no exception to laws just because of religious beliefs so long as the beliefs do not trample on the rights of non-believers.

      The Hobby Lobby decision falls into that category. It was an exception to the law because of religious beliefs that trampled on the rights of employees.

      Once that line is crossed, you are on the way to theocracy.

      Like

      1. As I see it, there is no such thing as a religious war, and never has been. All wars are political, i.e. they are all about power and ownership. Some wars have religious veneers, but this is mere window dressing.

        If I call you an infidel who worships a false god, I am saying that you deserve to be enslaved by me. I am saying that you owe me obedience. You owe me POWER.

        As for theocracy, it is not about God. It is political tyranny cloaked in metaphysical bullshit.

        All power in human society comes from lies (e.g. the Big Lie). All lies are faith-based. Call this religious if you like. I call it mental illness.

        Faith-based fanaticism is everywhere, and it is always political. It is all about power. Rodger says that “soon we’ll begin stoning for abortion.” Yes. In the past you would be imprisoned for questioning the king’s “divine right to rule.” Native Americans would be exterminated for questioning the “manifest destiny” of European invaders. Europe today imprisons people for questioning the “holocaust.” Fanaticism is everywhere. No society is immune. And it’s all about power. A classic example is the Big Lie.

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    2. Comment on the video…

      The Big Lie symbolizes how average people make stupid choices in order to indulge their selfishness, while claiming to be “victims” of their own stupid choices. They talk about “freedom” and “human rights,” while they pretend to be automatons with no free will, and therefore with no responsibility for their own decisions.

      An example is the refugee problem. Average Europeans choose to support the imperialism that creates refugees. Then white people pretend to be “victims” of the wars that white people support.

      The video above blames everything on refugees, not the imperialistic white neoliberals who create refugees in the first place. It portrays average white Swedes as innocent “victims.”

      I don’t buy it. Average white Swedes don’t care how many refugees their government helps to create, as long as the refugees don’t come to Sweden. This apathy and self-righteousness is a choice.

      If you don’t want refugees to come to your country, then stay out of their country.

      BY THE WAY: the video portrays Swedish culture as “liberal” (read “superior”) while Muslim culture is “conservative” (read “inferior”). NONSENSE. Swedish culture is politically correct. It crawls with militant feminists, “gay rights” militants, and so on. Average Swedes defend the Big Lie and neoliberalism, which is ultra-right-wing. They are fake leftists — i.e. closet fascists. By imagining themselves to be “superior,” they tacitly support the right-wing imperialism that creates refugees.

      THE VIDEO SAYS that refugees create insular enclaves that no outsiders dare enter, including the police and the military. Is that true, or are the refugees consigned to living in desperate ghettos as hated untouchables?

      THE VIDEO SAYS that the Swedish government gives generous social benefits to refugees, including jobs, housing, clothing, stipends, food, education, and so on. Is this true? I need a lot more corroboration before I believe it.

      THE VIDEO SAYS that European politicians have made a “huge mistake” in admitting so many refugees. NONSENSE. Politicians work for the rich, who boost their profits by bringing in refugees to drive down wages. Welcome to the Age of Neoliberalism.

      THE VIDEO SAYS that refugees refuse to adapt to Swedish culture. NONSENSE. Refugees (created by the Empire’s wars) come to Europe and find very few jobs or opportunities. Their young males commit crimes in desperation. Videos like the one above blame everything on refugees. The videos claim that refugees expect Swedes to submit to the refugees’ culture. Is that true, or do the refugees just want someone to understand their desperation?

      When you exclude foreigners from opportunities, it is easy to imagine that the foreigners choose to remain outcasts. When you deny them jobs it is easy to imagine that they refuse to “assimilate.”

      Habitually blaming everyone but ourselves is like habitually drinking alcohol. It’s fun while you are drinking, but the hangover is lousy, and it gets worse each time.

      Like

        1. Just to be clear, I am not pro-immigrant; I am pro-accurancy. One anti-refugee video claims that refugees are committing rape en mass. That is not sufficient proof for me.

          Actually this is one of the oldest tricks in the book when we want to vilify a group of people. We always portray a hated group as crazed rapists. “They’re coming for our women!”

          When the NATO powers decided to destroy Libya, they claimed (laughably) that Gaddafi was distributing truckloads of Viagra to his men so they would rape anything that moved.

          When the USA invaded Afghanistan to set up the massive heroin production, the USA claimed that its mission was to “save Afghan women.”

          In the USA, cannabis was present in almost all tinctures and medicines in the early 1900s. But after the Mexican Revolution, many Mexicans came to the USA. Mexican used cannabis like the whites, but the Mexicans called it “marijuana.” Once again the cry arose, “The invaders are coming for our women!” Marijuana was outlawed to counter the (fake) “rape epidemic,” and to create excuses to search, arrest, and deport Mexican immigrants, and later to harass blacks. Whites claimed that marijuana made Mexicans (and then blacks) into rapists.

          “They’re coming for our women!”

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      1. Exactly.

        And (as you have noted in the past) most people’s desire to widen the gap below them is greater than their desire to narrow the gap above them. Most people’s fear of falling is greater than their dream of rising.

        Average people (eighty percent of them) favor austerity and the Big Lie because they want to widen the gap below them. This is why they love chanting “There’s no free lunch” (except for the rich). They see themselves as “makers,” and see everyone below them as “takers.” They claim to have “earned” their government benefits, while they regard everyone below them as “freeloaders” who get “entitlements.”

        Politicians exploit this. They use average people’s selfishness to screw average people. They keep the middle class down while saying the abuse is necessary in order to keep the lower class further down. And middle class people are thankful for their misery.

        Regarding the gap above, it can be narrowed by bringing average people up, or by bringing rich people down. Average people favor the latter. Rather than have everyone be equally prosperous, they want everyone above them to be equally miserable. Hence they call for the rich to pay more taxes. They do not call for the elimination of FICA taxes.

        Ultimately our position in society (lower, middle or upper class) is not so much a result of our own wealth and power as it is a product of our personal habits, attitudes, and beliefs.

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        1. There you go guys, we have more in common than the mainstream media tells us. So how about we stop fighting about Trump and Hillary and realize that the only true enemy is the politician who does not accept that federal finances ≠ the finances of everyone else.

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  5. You’ll never stop the mainstream media from polishing up the message they are paid to convey. The rentier parasite class has corrupted the parasite political class and the parasite media.
    Short of a revolution there’s no solution. A revolution is no solution either as everybody loses. The planet might breathe easy as our destruction slows, although as we collapse nothing will be sacred or saved.

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