You could have comprehensive, no deductible Medicare for all. Why does the AARP tell you otherwise?

I believe the people at AARP understand that our government, being Monetarily Sovereign, never can run short of its own sovereign currency, the U.S. dollar.

They must know that even if all federal tax collections — income taxes, payroll taxes, etc. — and every other form of federal government income totaled zero, the government could continue spending forever.

The sole purposes of federal taxes (unlike state, local taxes) are not to provide the government with spending money, but:

To control the economy by taxing what the government wishes to discourage and by giving tax breaks to what the government wishes to reward.
To assure demand for the U.S. dollar by requiring taxes to be paid in dollars
And the hidden reason: To help the very rich become richer by widening the Gap between the rich and the rest.

Stated simply, the U.S. federal government can pay for anything it wishes without taxing anyone.

AARP claims it “is the nation’s largest nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to empowering Americans 50 and older to choose how they live as they age. Advocating for people age 50-plus is at the heart of our mission.”

So why does the AARP repeatedly indicate the federal government can’t afford to pay for a comprehensive, no deductible Medicare benefit for every man, woman, and child in America?

Could their lucrative insurance business be the reason?

Here are excerpts from an article in the October, 2023 AARP Bulletin: (By Dena Bunis, who covers Medicare, health care, health policy and Congress. She also writes the Medicare Made Easy column for the AARP Bulletin. An award-winning journalist, Bunis spent decades working for metropolitan daily newspapers, including as Washington bureau chief for The Orange County Register and as a health policy and workplace writer for Newsday.)

For decades, as Americans approached their 65th birthday, all they had to do to get Medicare, the nation’s government-sponsored health insurance for older adults, was sign up.

The program wasn’t all that complicated. You went to the doctor armed with your Medicare card. Your physician or hospital took care of you and billed Medicare. Then you — or the supplemental (Medigap) plan you bought — paid your out-of-pocket share. Easy.

Today’s Medicare isn’t your grandparents’ program. New enrollees have an immediate big decision to make: Should they enroll in original Medicare (also referred to as traditional Medicare) or sign up for the private insurance managed care alternative, Medicare Advantage (MA)?

But why? Why is a decision needed?

AARP doesn’t explain why there are two plans, and why people are forced to choose between them. AARP also doesn’t explain why everyone, young or old must pay for some form of healthcare insurance, or have an employer pay.

In short, AARP doesn’t discuss the true question: Why doesn’t the federal government simply pay for everyone’s healthcare?

AARP profits by providing in their words, “health security, financial stability and personal fulfillment. AARP also works for individuals in the marketplace by sparking new solutions and allowing carefully chosen, high-quality products and services to carry the AARP name.”

Clearly, Medicare for All would be a financial disaster for AARP.

The two options not only differ in how they operate but increasingly in what coverage and services they provide. Making the decision requires looking down two roads that more and more are heading in different directions.

Original Medicare’s biggest draw remains the freedom enrollees have to go to any doctor or hospital in the country that takes Medicare.

In most cases, you don’t need a referral to go to a specialist or get a covered procedure done. It’s a simple fee-for-service insurance structure that was once commonplace across America but has mostly vanished for those under 65.

In Medicare Advantage, plans can feel more familiar, as they closely resemble the managed care plans offered by many employers, often in the form of a health maintenance organization (HMO) or preferred provider organization (PPO).

An MA plan is the one-stop-shopping alternative that bundles hospital, doctor and prescription drug coverage.

Most offer extra benefits not in original Medicare. MA plans also cap how much beneficiaries must pay out of pocket each year, something original Medicare does not.

The sole purpose of government is to improve and protect the lives of the people. That said, there is no reason why a federally funded plan cannot do everything Medicare + Medicare Advantage + every company-funded plan does — and without charging the American people one cent.

That is one way our government should improve and protect our lives.

(And no, this isn’t “socialism,” which is government ownership and control. It’s merely government funding, which is what the government currently does millions of times a day.)

Another big difference: Original Medicare is managed entirely by the federal government (oversight by Congress, day-to-day operations by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), meaning it is not operated for a profit.

That’s not exactly correct. The payment is managed by the government, but the services come from the private sector. The doctors, hospitals, the technicians, etc. are in the private sector.

The exception is the VA health system, which is owned and operated by the federal government.

Advantage plans, by contrast, are operated by private and often for-profit organizations that get flat-rate payments from the government to provide health care to an enrollee.

The financial difference is more apparent than real. The federal government still pays, but with Medicare Advantage, private insurance companies and their profit requirements are inserted as (unnecessary) middlemen between the providers and the government.

MA’s promise of extra benefits and lower premiums has been effective. In 2008, only 22 percent of beneficiaries were in Advantage plans. Since then, enrollment in these managed care plans has more than doubled and continues to grow.

In 2023, more than half of Medicare’s 60 million beneficiaries who have both Medicare parts A and B are enrolled in an MA plan.

And that’s the irony of the entire system. The government pays for both medical plans, but they offer different benefits. Medicare could (and should) offer the same or even better benefits MA offers. But it doesn’t.

Why? Because Americans have been brainwashed into believing that Medicare “can’t afford” to provide such benefits, and that in some mysterious way, Medicare can run out of money.

Medicare now finds itself at a crossroads. Based on current patterns, it won’t be long before enrollment in MA plans substantially overtakes enrollment in original Medicare.

Does the original need to be changed to remain competitive with MA? More fundamentally, will original Medicare as envisioned by President Lyndon Johnson and Congress in 1965 cease to exist in the years to come?

“I genuinely do believe that the future of Medicare lies in Medicare Advantage,” says James E. Mathews, executive director of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), established by Congress to analyze the program and provide advice. Mathews expects there will be a “natural migration” to MA, but he’s not sure whether that means original Medicare will disappear.

“It remains to be seen whether there is going to be some subset of the Medicare population for whom Medicare Advantage simply will not work.”

Medicare and Medicare Advantage will work if the benefits of both plans are blended into a Medicare for All plan.

Preserving and strengthening Medicare is one of AARP’s key policy concerns. That includes maintaining original Medicare.

“We strongly believe that traditional Medicare should be protected and strengthened and that there has to be a level playing field between traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage,” says Megan O’Reilly, AARP vice president for health and family issues.

CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure oversees all Medicare operations. She says her priority is to strengthen both options. “I believe it’s critical that people have a choice between traditional original Medicare and Medicare Advantage,” Brooks-LaSure said in an interview with AARP.

It’s like claiming that people should have a choice between an all-meat diet and an all-vegetable diet. Most people would prefer to blend the two into one complete plan.

Even experts who are most bullish on Medicare Advantage say they don’t expect original Medicare to go away. The main reason is choice.

centers for medicare and medicaid services administrator chiquita brooks la sure

Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Does she really not know that the federal government can fund one plan that offers every benefit?

The case for keeping original Medicare

Under original Medicare, you can go to any doctor, lab or hospital in the U.S. that participates in the program (about 90 percent of medical professionals do).

In MA plans, enrollees mostly must go to providers within the plan’s network, and these networks are highly regionalized. Going out of network means facing a much higher copay for each visit. In some cases, the care may not be covered at all.

“There are always going to be a lot of people who are going to say, ‘Look, I want to go to a doctor I want, and I don’t want to be limited,’ ” says Tom Scully, who was CMS administrator from 2001 to 2003 and is a supporter of Medicare Advantage. As a result, “I think original Medicare will never go away.”

“I believe it’s critical that people have a choice between traditional original Medicare and Medicare Advantage.”

— Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, CMS Administrator

Until they enroll, many Americans don’t realize how costly and complicated Medicare can be. That is especially true if you choose original Medicare.

Most original enrollees must make three regular insurance payments: one for basic Part B coverage, one for a Part D prescription plan, and one more for a Medigap policy to cover some or all of the expenses that Medicare doesn’t.

And there are other expenses on top of the premiums; for example, original Medicare Part B has an annual deductible ($226 in 2023); there’s also a deductible for every hospital visit, which in 2023 is $1,600. Those charges take a heavy financial toll.

All those premiums, deductibles an lack of coverage are unnecessary. The federal government could, and should fund one program encompassing all benefits. Why force people to forego some benefits?

By contrast, an Advantage plan enrollee usually has just one recurring payment: It includes the government-mandated Part B coverage cost and, in some cases, a small additional premium, which varies by what plan you choose and where you live.

You pay various copays and deductibles for your services and doctor visits, but the rest is fully covered by the plan, and you know going in what the copay is for the different providers. Costs under MA can also add up, though, especially if you need hospital care; most plans have a per-day hospital charge.

An important dividing line when choosing a Medicare path is whether a beneficiary can afford to pay the added monthly costs of a Medigap policy to supplement original Medicare coverage, as well as for a separate Part D prescription plan.

The federal government could and should pay for the above coverages.

The difference in “choice” between original Medicare and an MA plan isn’t simply which doctor you can see.

In an MA plan, the care you need is likely to be more scrutinized than in an original plan.

Insurers that run MA plans often require what’s called prior authorization before paying for your tests and procedures; that means a doctor must get approval for recommended care from internal reviewers before the treatment will be covered.

Why does MA require prior authorization, while Medicare does not? MA is ruled by the profit motive, while Medicare is ruled by the political motive.

MA can refuse unprofitable procedures. Medicare can afford to fund procedures that have political support, regardless of cost.

Some MA plans also require referrals to specialists, meaning if you wish to see, say, a cardiologist, you’ll need your primary care doctor’s blessing.

People in original Medicare usually don’t need referrals to see specialists, and as long as Medicare covers a test or treatment a doctor orders, except in a few situations, Medicare will pay for it.

If you develop a health condition that requires specialized surgery or highly advanced therapies to treat; in an MA plan, you likely won’t be coveredif you seek care from a doctor or medical center that specializes in your issue but is out of the network.

The above is the result of the profit motive taking precedence.

On the other hand, most MA plans have benefits that original Medicare does not. The out-of-pocket cap is a big one; in 2023, MA enrollees know they won’t have to pay more than $8,300 in total annual health costs, although many plans have lower out-of-pocket limits than that.

Once again, there is no out-of-pocket cap in original Medicare.

Why are people subject to any out-of-pocket costs, when the federal government has infinite money to pay for medical care? No reason outside of the false claims that the federal government can run short of money.

Most MA plans cover basic dental, vision and hearing services.

Why does Medicare not cover dental, vision and hearing? Again, no good reason. Just the Big Lie about federal finances.

Some provide what are called Medicare flex cards that beneficiaries can use to pay for over-the-counter medications and other drugstore items, as well as healthy food.

In recent years, Congress began allowing MA plans to pay for making improvements to beneficiaries’ homes, such as wheelchair ramps and shower grips in bathrooms. Some plans pay for gym membershipsor transportation to doctors’ offices.

These are benefits the federal government could and should support; they increase the health of the people.

David Lipschutz, associate director of the Center for Medicare Advocacy, supports the ability of Medicare to help pay for nonmedical services that can help keep an older American healthy.

But he says it’s not fair that enrollees must be in a Medicare Advantage plan to take advantage of those extras. “One should not be forced to enroll in a private plan to access such services,” Lipschutz says.

No, it’s not fair that people should be forced to pay for any medical benefits when the federal government has the infinite ability to pay.

Imagine you have a few trillion dollars to your name, and your daughter needs expensive surgery. Would you pay for her the life-saving health care? The government has many trillions. It should follow its mandate to protect our lives.

Advocates and patients agree that MA plans seem fine as long as you’re healthy. But too often, beneficiaries with serious illnesses find it more difficult to get the care they say they need.

A 2022 report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a congressional watchdog, found that “Medicare Advantage beneficiaries in the last year of life left the program to join traditional Medicare at twice the rate of other beneficiaries. This could indicate potential problems with their care.”

The profit motive incentivizes private insurance companies to be excellent premium collectors but reluctant health care providers.

“Denials may be more frequent in Medicare Advantage plans than in traditional Medicare for people who have serious health problems,” says Tricia Neuman, senior vice president and head of the Medicare program at KFF, formerly the Kaiser Family Foundation.

That could be a real concern. When people age into Medicare, they tend to be healthier than they will be as they grow older and have more health problems, and that may not be top of mind.”

A federally funded, comprehensive, no-deductible Medicare for All would not have that problem.

Original Medicare may have another disadvantage: television. Throughout the year, but most prominently during Medicare open enrollment season each fall, ads for Medicare Advantage plans blanket broadcast and cable television stations.

From NFL Hall of Famer Joe Namath to “Captain Kirk” William Shatner to Jimmie Walker of “dy-no-mite” fame, celebrities urge older adults to call an 800 number and get lots of extras and benefits from Medicare Advantage plans.

Individual insurers also run ads, and some Medigap plans take to the airwaves. There are no such commercials for original Medicare.

Plenty of money for advertising; not enough for benefits.

“There’s nothing that helps lay out the trade-offs” between original and Medicare Advantage, says Gretchen Jacobson, vice president of Medicare at the nonpartisan Commonwealth Fund. “So if you just pay attention to the Medicare Advantage marketing, you may not really understand what the advantages and disadvantages are.”

To address confusion, CMS announced a crackdown this year on misleading Medicare ads.

“When we did focus groups with brokers, many said they are paid more to put people into Medicare Advantage plans, sometimes much more”

— Gretchen Jacobson, vice president of Medicare at the nonpartisan Commonwealth Fund.

And here is where the profit motive really comes into play:

“When we did focus groups with brokers, many said they are paid more to put people into Medicare Advantage plans, sometimes much more,” Jacobson said. But “if they were going into Medicare tomorrow, most of them said they would choose to be in traditional Medicare.”

These brokers do not get any commission for helping someone enroll in original Medicare. Likewise, they said most Part D prescription plans don’t offer commissions; for those that do, the rate is low.

As for Medigap policies, an agent might get some money for signing people up, but agents say it’s not as much as what they get for a Medicare Advantage enrollment.

The combination of insurance company advertising and insurance broker commissions puts people into Medicare Advantage, when that may not be the wisest choice, and certainly not the least expensive choice (which would be federally funded Medicare for All).

SO WHY NOT?

Here are the cons, per ProCon.org:

Universal health care for everyone in the United States promises only government inefficiency and health care that ignores the realities of the country and the free market.

“The VA system is not only costly with inconsistent medical care results, it’s an American example of a single-payer, government-run system.

We should run from the attempts in our state to decrease competition in the health care system and increase government dependency, leaving our health care at the mercy of a monopolistic system that does not need to be timely or responsive to patients.

The above supposedly is a negative about Medicare for All, except it isn’t. It is a negative about something no one proposes: VA-style federally owned and operated hospitals with providers being employees of the government.

It’s a fake, perhaps intentionally misleading, negative that no one wants. Medicare for All would be federally funded, not owned and operated. It would be an expanded version of Medicare without the FICA tax.

2. The challenges of universal health care implementation are vastly different in the U.S. than in other countries, making the current patchwork of health care options the best fit for the country.

Though the majority of post-industrial Westernized nations employ a universal healthcare model, few—if any—of these nations are as geographically large, populous, or ethnically/racially diverse as the U.S.

Different regions in the U.S. are defined by distinct cultural identities, citizens have unique religious and political values, and the populace spans the socio–economic spectrum. Moreover, heterogenous climates and population densities confer different health needs and challenges across the U.S.

Thus, critics of universal healthcare in the U.S. argue that implementation would not be as feasible—organizationally or financially—as other developed nations.”

Yes, blah, blah, blah, America is too big, too diverse, too climate-challenged, all great arguments except for one small detail. Medicare already has solved those fake problems. It funds health care all over our big country, and is quite popular, thank you.

3. Government control is a large driver of America’s health care problems.

Bureaucrats can’t revolutionize health care – only entrepreneurs can. By empowering health care entrepreneurs, we can create an American health care system that is more affordable, accessible, and productive for all,” explains Wayne Winegarden, Senior Fellow in Business and Economics, and Director of the Center for Medical Economics and Innovation at Pacific Research Institute.

Someone please tell Mr. Winegarden that bureaucrats wouldn’t be in charge of revolutionizing anything. They merely would write the checks, just as they do now for Medicare.

4. Universal health care would increase wait times for basic care and make Americans’ health worse.

If coverage was nearly universal, cost sharing was very limited, and the payment rates were reduced compared with current law, the demand for medical care would probably exceed the supply of care–with increased wait times for appointments or elective surgeries, greater wait times at doctors’ offices and other facilities, or the need to travel greater distances to receive medical care. Some demand for care might be unmet.

Rephrasing the objection: “If everyone could get free healthcare, there wouldn’t be enough doctors, nurses, and hospitals to treat us rich folks. It’s better that some poorer people do without, so we don’t have to.”

The same objection could have been made to original Medicare.

However, if the federal government, which can afford anything, pays enough to those doctors, nurses, and hospitals, more people will enter the profession and more hospitals will be built.

It is a fake objection, the purpose of which is to widen the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.

5. Universal health care would raise costs for the federal government and, in turn, taxpayers.

Medicare-for-all, a recent universal health care proposal championed by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), would cost an estimated $30 to $40 trillion over ten years.

The cost would be the largest single increase to the federal budget ever.

Here, we have come to the Big Lie in economics, the lie that federal taxes fund federal spending. It is a lie promulgated by the very rich to discourage those who aren’t rich from asking for benefits.

The rich use the confusion between monetarily non-sovereign local and state governments vs, Monetarily Sovereign federal government.

State and local governments cannot create dollars at will, so they rely on tax income to fund their spending. The federal government can create dollars at will, so it does not use tax dollars. In fact, the federal government destroys all your tax dollars upon receipt.

You pay your taxes with dollars from your checking account which are part of the M2 money supply measure. Once your tax dollars reach the U.S. Treasury, they no longer are part of any money supply measure. They effectively are destroyed.

The Federal Reserve creates dollars at will by purchasing securities from a bank (or securities dealer) and paying for the securities by adding a credit to the bank’s reserve (or to the dealer’s account) for the amount purchased. In short, the Fed creates dollars from thin air, whenever it wishes.

Former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan: “A government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency. There is nothing to prevent the federal government from creating as much money as it wants and paying it to somebody. The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print the money to do that.”

Former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke: “The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost.”

Thus, the federal government can, at the touch of a computer key, fund a free, comprehensive, no deductible, Medicare program to protect every man, woman, and child in America.

SUMMARY

There is not a single financial reason why the government doesn’t improve and protect the lives of the people’s health, one of the jobs for which it was formed.

Every argument against free Medicare for all is based on ignorance and/or a lie. In creating Medicare, we already have done the hard part. It is only left to us to expand Medicare while ending all medical taxes and fees, and voila, we have Medicare for All.

Sadly, the rich and the insurance companies prevent the government from doing its job.

You don’t have free, comprehensive, no-deductible health care. Don’t blame “insolvency,” lack of money, inflation, lack of caregivers, or any other factor.

Blame the rich and the private insurance providers like AARP et al, for promulgating the Big Lie.

And blame yourself for believing it.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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The Sole Purpose of Government Is to Improve and Protect the Lives of the People.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

What is consciousness? The hard problem. And the “sensingness” solution.

Have you ever tried to define consciousness? Every definition seems to cover human consciousness or that, plus nearly everything else. Wikipedia says,

Consciousness, at its simplest, is awareness of internal and external existence. However, its nature has led to millennia of analyses, explanations, and debates by philosophers, theologians, and all of science.

Opinions differ about what exactly needs to be studied or even considered consciousness. In some explanations, it is synonymous with the mind and at other times, an aspect of the mind.

In the past, it was one’s “inner life”, the world of introspection, private thought, imagination, and volition.

Today, it often includes any kind of cognition, experience, feeling, or perception.

It may be awareness, awareness of awareness, or self-awareness either continuously changing or not. The disparate range of research, notions, and speculations raises curiosity about whether the right questions are being asked.

Hmm. “Awareness, awareness of awareness, self-awareness, mind, aspect of the mind, introspection, thought, imagination, volition, cognition, experience, feeling, or perception” — well, that narrows it down. The Differences Between Your Conscious and Subconscious Mind | Blog

The Differences Between Your Conscious and Subconscious Mind | Blog

Given those definitions, what is conscious? A human being? Yes, of course — except when the human is unconscious or semi-conscious (?). Which of these is conscious: A sleeping human? A dreaming human? A lucid dreaming human? A chimpanzee? A dog? A porpoise? A fish? A bee? A spider? A mosquito? A sperm? A tree? Grass? A computer? A lake? A stone? A flame? The sun? The earth? The universe? Since generations and millennia of brilliant and not-so-brilliant thinkers have offered opinions, I might as well give you mine. In quantum mechanics, at the smallest level, objects do not have definite states, but rather a probability range of states until they are measured, at which point they “collapse” into one state. I believe “consciousness” is similar. Consciousness is not a “thing”; it is a range of “things,” with the “things” being reactions to stimuli. Consciousness is like the wave function that collapses when measured. Since everything reacts to stimuli, everything is, to some degree, conscious. You can measure that range and call what you measure, “conscious.” You believe your brain is conscious because that belief is part of how it reacts to stimuli. A stone is conscious because that is how it reacts to stimuli. So, is a mosquito conscious? Yes, to a degree. One might object that a mosquito lacks self-awareness and introspection. But does that mean a newborn human baby is not conscious? How, relative to consciousness, is that newborn different from a mosquito?

Consciousness isn't just the brain: The body shapes your sense of self | New Scientist — **Consciousness isn’t just the brain: The body shapes your sense of self | New Scientist**

So, are plants conscious? Yes, to a degree. Here is what Microsoft Bing AI says about plants:

Tropisms: Plants grow towards or away from a stimulus, such as light, gravity, or touch 12. Nastic movements: These are reversible movements in response to stimuli, such as the opening and closing of flowers in response to light. Hormonal responses: Plants produce hormones that regulate growth and development in response to stimuli, such as the production of abscisic acid in response to drought stress. Electrical signals: Plants can generate electrical signals in response to stimuli, such as the Venus flytrap’s electrical signal in response to touch. Chemical responses: Plants can produce chemicals in response to stimuli, such as the production of alkaloids in response to herbivory.

One might object, that though plants do sense and react to stimuli, they lack emotions. But who is to say that plants really do lack emotions? In Plutchick’s Wheel of Emotions, each core emotion can be expressed at different intensities:

Joy ranges from serenity to ecstasy Trust ranges from acceptance to admiration Fear ranges from timidity to terror Surprise ranges from uncertainty to amazement Sadness ranges from gloominess to grief Disgust ranges from dislike to loathing Anger ranges from annoyance to fury Anticipation ranges from interest to vigilance

Can a plant’s ability to grow towards or away from light, move, produce hormones, generate electrical signals, and produce chemicals, be considered plant emotions? Gardeners often say their plants show “distress” or look “sad.” They ascribe animal emotions to their plants. Plants communicate via sounds and chemical signals. When a plant receives such a communication from a fellow plant, it reacts. Is that reaction akin to an emotion? If having emotions is a criterion for consciousness, then is every animal conscious? Yes. An angry swarm of bees fits that definition of consciousness. And if bees, why not spiders, mosquitoes, and ants? What about a stone? Depending on its ingredients, it reacts to heat, water, compression, impact, gravity, radiation, wind, light, sound, and various chemicals — as does your brain.

How do two new books on consciousness close in on the elusive field? The Four Realms of Existence by Joseph LeDoux and Consciousness by John Parrington tell us a lot about human cognition, brain structure and evolution – but most of all they demonstrate how far this most tricky of quests still has to go, by Susan Blackmore, 22 November 2023

LAST month, two new books on consciousness added to the growing pile of literature on this contentious and difficult subject. One claims to give us a “new view of what makes us who we are”; the other offers “a radical new theory of human consciousness”. Bold claims indeed, but do they succeed?

Both authors take an evolutionary approach to the origins of language, thought and self, and survey research on perception, learning and memory in humans and other animals. Both are materialists: they try to fit consciousness into the physical world of living bodies and brains, where everything, including mental states and consciousness, results from material interactions between material things.

LeDoux’s aim is to provide a new theory of being human by dividing our evolutionary past into four realms: biological at the bottom, then neurobiological, cognitive and conscious.

Along the way are excellent accounts of the evolution of brain structures and cognitive abilities. Exploring jellyfish that move and hunt without a brain, as well as the capabilities of flies, birds and mammals, LeDoux tries to place each in its realm.

Parrington also tells an evolutionary tale, but his aim is to explain inner speech and thought, as well as the human capacity for self-conscious awareness. For him, the critical abilities are language and tool use.

Both authors mention the “hard problem” of explaining how subjective experience arises from the objective workings of a physical brain, but neither questions whether this is a soluble or well-posed question.

They also imply that since most other animals can’t sustain higher-order thoughts, they can’t be conscious. LeDoux doesn’t deny they might be, but says that “consciousness itself must be measured” if we are to find out.

In the current state of consciousness science, we have no idea whether “consciousness itself” even exists, nor can we separate it from the functions of brain and behaviour – let alone measure it.

While LeDoux has neither solved nor seriously questioned the validity of the hard problem, he is at least talking about subjective experience.

Parrington is not. Weirdly, although “consciousness” is mentioned on almost every page, he doesn’t explain any of the major ideas about it or propose his own. His work is devoted to understanding the neural circuits involved in perception, action, behavioral control and self-modelling, and his goal is to develop “a material explanation of human consciousness”.

I’ll interrupt to opine that no bright line ever will be found between human consciousness and other consciousness, just as no line will be found between human life and other life, or non-life, or human existence and other existence. I suggest the operative word is a “continuum.” Some things are more alive than others. The “alive-or-dead” debate about viruses demonstrates the difficulty.

He has done a great job of exploring material explanations of thought, perception, self-representation and behavioural control, but none of this gets at the deeper questions about subjective experience.

Equating consciousness with subjective experience at least moves us to declare that all living creatures are conscious, since all animals and even plants have what arguably could be called subjective experience. That would include bacteria, and it’s only a short step to viruses, which mutate in response to immune responses.

Are we humans different from other creatures? With his materialist understanding, Parrington puts the burden on human tool use and the inner speech other creatures lack.

Except that many non-human animals use tools, and how do we know what “inner speech” plants may have?

Yet he gives us no clue as to how inner speech can give us the ineffable experiences of the sky’s blueness, the smell of coffee, emotions of fear or sensations of hunger.

Shall we admit that plants are capable of experiencing the color of the sky, odors, hunger, and something that resembles human fear in avoidance.

In consciousness studies, there have been three main ways of facing the hard problem. The first accepts the problem as valid but claims it is too hard and works instead on the “easy problems” of cognition, perception and so on.

The second approach also accepts the problem as valid and tries to explain how subjective experiences “arise” from brain processes. No one has succeeded in doing this, including these authors.

The third way is to reject the idea that consciousness arises from brain activity. This is known as “illusionism”, which, in several guises, calls for the hard problem to be replaced with the “illusion” problem of how our false ideas about consciousness arise.

I’m not sure how “illusionism” does not arise from brain activity, but in any event, what says that not having a brain indicates a lack of consciousness? Trees and jellyfish might disagree. An octopus, which has nine brains, might experience the “illusion” of superiority.

These two books have much to teach us about human cognition, brain structure and evolution, but, above all, they show how far consciousness studies has to go.

In summary, the “hardness” of the consciousness problem lies with its definitions, or lack thereof. I suggest that consciousness is a range of reactions to stimuli, external and internal. You are conscious of your internal systems, your feelings of hunger, fullness, pain, temperature, fear, etc. You sense these things and your sensing is your consciousness. The “hardness” of the problem relates to the arbitrary requirement is that “consciousness” must be done by life — more specifically, “higher animal life” — and no one knows what life is, much less, “higher.” Eliminate the “higher animal life” requirement and the problem becomes less hard. The sun senses its internal and external systems; it is conscious of them, the number and type of elements it has created, its internal temperatures, its internal plazma flow, its corona and coronal ejections, the gravity of its planets, other objects, and gasses. It senses them and so, it reacts to them. Since by that measure, everything can be said to be conscious. The question is not about conscious vs. unconscious or non-conscious, but rather how conscious. Where on the consciousness continuum does each thing lie? The answer to that question requires an evaluation not of the thing, but of the thing’s ability t0 sense and react to what it senses. If you prick a conscious person with a pin, they will react in a way far different from a semi-conscious person or an unconscious person. But there are people who have CIPA, a rare disease that causes a person to not be able to feel pain or sweat. Prick them with a pin and they will not react. Are they conscious? Yes, but somewhat less so. They are not conscious of pain. The blind and the deaf are lower on the continuum of consciousness, though some blind people have greater hearing ability, which would raise them up the consciousness continuum. Many animals perceive light and sound at higher or lower frequencies than we can, so on those parts of the sensing continuum, they are higher. Plants can sense and react to chemicals we can’t sense, much less, react to. Bacteria can sense, communicate and react.

Quorum Sensing: How Bacteria Communicate, by Bonnie Bassler

Bacteria can communicate, and they speak multiple languages! Bacteria use chemicals as their “words.”

They use chemical communication to distinguish their own species from others, and in doing so, presumably reveal friend from foe.

Bacteria release their chemical communication molecules into the extracellular environment. When the level of these chemicals builds up to a critical level, a signal is relayed to the cell interior, which alerts each bacterial cell that other bacterial brethren are in the neighborhood and that they have reached a “quorum.”

The entire population of bacteria then act as a large, coordinated group, carrying out tasks that would be unsuccessful if a single bacterium acted alone. This process, called “quorum sensing,” controls bacterial behaviors ranging from symbiosis to virulence to biofilm formation to natural product production.

By most reasonable measures, quorum sensing and other bacterial communications, could be termed “consciousness.” When a person dies he/she loses some consciousness, but not every cell dies instantly. Often, some bodily functions continue for a time, and those cells continue to be conscious of the cells and chemicals around them. We die, bit by bit. Even our brains die bit by bit. At what point is our consciousness gone? A person who is brain-dead, might be kept alive, artificially, by heart and breathing machines. His body will continue to be conscious of its internal workings — digestion and oxygen consumption for instance. But he will have drifted down the consciousness continuum. I suggest that rather than embracing the hard problem (actually impossible problem) of “consciousness” we should talk about “sensingness,” the ability to sense and react to stimuli. Consciousness is a “hard problem” only because philosophers arbitrarily have made it hard. They made the unnecessary decision that something they call “consciousness” requires life, and not just life, but so-called “advanced life,” having a human-style brain. But why? Give me one good reason why science limits consciousness to human-style brains. I challenge you. It’s especially mystifying when you realize that many creatures have far superior abilities to sense their environment, and to communicate, than we do. (One is reminded of problems in geometry where mathematicians arbitrarily decided the problems must be solved using only a compass and straightedge. Because some problems could not be solved using just those tools, the problems were considered impossible to solve.) (One also is reminded of arguments about defining “beauty.” A bacterium might feel a warm, phosphorus laden pool is the ultimate of beauty.) Rather than arbitrarily limiting our investigations to something called consciousness — something that has no real definition — we should decide how much sensingness each object has. “How sensing is an adult person? How sensing is a dog, an octopus, a sunflower, a virus?” How much ability do they have to sense and react to stimuli? Suddenly, the problem becomes straightforward. It’s a big number, a monster number, but there is an algorithm: A finite sequence of instructions to solve a problem. List and measure every conceivable stimulus an object receives, and list the object’s reaction to each stimulus individually and in combination with all other stimuli, and you have its total sensingness. Yes, we can argue about the relative values of different stimuli, but at least with sensingness, we would argue in concrete terms, not in the vague, hazy, undefined, wonderworld of consciousness. Rodger Malcolm Mitchell Monetary Sovereignty Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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The Sole Purpose of Government Is to Improve and Protect the Lives of the People.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Inflation is not what the media and the Fed claim it to be.

You know what inflation is. Higher prices. That’s simple. So, why do the media, the politicians, and even the economists seem confused by it?

According to my friendly Artificial Intelligence site:

“Inflation describes the general increase in prices of goods and services over time. It can be measured by the average price increase of a basket of selected goods and services over time.”

Measuring is where things get tricky.

Nokia c3 hi-res stock photography and images - Alamy — **What is the price of a phone?**

The most commonly used inflation indexes are the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the Wholesale Price Index (WPI). The CPI measures the average change in prices paid by consumers for goods and services, while the WPI measures the average change in prices paid by businesses for goods and services.

According to Investopedia:

“While it is easy to measure the price changes of individual products over time, human needs extend beyond just one or two products. Individuals need an extensive, diversified set of products and services to live comfortably.

They include commodities like food, grains, metal, fuel, utilities like electricity and transportation; and services like healthcare, entertainment, and labor.

Inflation aims to measure the overall impact of price changes for a diversified set of products and services. It allows for a single value representation of the increase in the price level of goods and services over time.

Each person in America has a different set of purchases. A rich man might spend money on a yacht, fine wines, travel, expensive meats, high-end clothing, restaurants, an expensive home, and furnishings.

A poor woman’s purchases will be the opposite. Similarly, a family with young children will spend on different things from a single individual, an old person will spend differently from a young person, and a person with health problems will spend differently from a person with perfect health.

There is no “average person” with average spending.

And then, there is the issue of time. Products change. All electronic products — phones, TVs, music players, etc. have changed significantly. You cannot compare five-year-old phones and TVs with today’s versions. If the price of a phone or a TV changes, is that inflation? Or is it just the price of a different product.

Production systems change. Computerization of production has become more standard. Three-dimensional printing replaces hand-made. Even some homes are being three-dimensionally printed, not to mention the vast differences in home pricing.

Tastes change. Natural fur has been replaced by artificial fur and other materials. Steel yields to composites. Farming methods change. New seeds are more productive than old ones.

In myriad ways, obsolescence affects prices.

If you drive to work while I work from home, you may feel changes in gas prices, car prices, car repair prices, work-clothing prices, and restaurant prices far more than I do.

To distill all those changes — among people, products, and production methods — into one number can be a fool’s errand. Your inflation is different from my inflation.

Inflation is a comparison between the prices of things and the prices of dollars. While determining the costs of what people use is impossible, the money price is even less accurate.

Money can’t be viewed in a vacuum. Its price is mainly related to something else, while the costs of things relate to supply and demand. In one sense, the demand for money is infinite, and the pool is infinite for the federal government but constrained for the economy.

And all that is the source of confusion.

The Fed treats inflations as though they are money supply and demand problems. The reason: It’s all the Fed can control. This reminds one of the old saying, “To a hammer, every problem is a nail.”

To the Fed, every problem involves money supply and demand. Thus, to fight inflation, the Fed increases the demand by raising interest rates, while other Libertarian economists see money supply as the problem. They criticize “excessive federal spending” as causing inflation.

The consensus view among economists is that sustained inflation occurs when a nation’s money supply growth outpaces economic growth.

The Fed and the economists are wrong. Data does not support the intuition that federal spending causes inflation.

**The peaks and valleys of inflation (red) do not line up with the peaks and valleys of federal current (blue) or total (Green) spending.**

Similarly, data does not support the notion that “excessive” money supply causes inflation.

**Inflation (red) does not parallel the money measures M3 (purple dashes) or M2 (dots).**

Examples often are given of hyperinflations — Zimbabwe, Germany, Argentina, et al. Massive money creation by the central government provided a cause/effect illusion.

However, in every case, it was shortages of key goods — mostly food and energy — that created the hyperinflations, with the money-creation being a useless government reaction.

Had those governments used their financial powers to obtain or encourage the production of the scarce goods, the hyperinflations would have ended.

Raising interest rates increases the demand for dollars, T-securities, and private debt, both of which are money. This increased demand for dollars increases the dollar’s value, which fights inflation.

Meanwhile, raising interest rates increases the amount of interest the federal government pays, which increases the supply of dollars, an inflationary effect.

Yet contrarily, raising interest rates reduces the demand for private borrowing — mortgages and business borrowing, and is recessive, reducing the demand for dollars. However, the government’s added interest spending increases the economy’s supply of production dollars, an anti-inflationary effect.

In short, the Fed’s myopic focus on interest rates causes numerous opposing effects, which are slight individually but almost non-existent together.

It’s as though the Fed is rowing backward with one oar and rowing forward with the other.

The Effects of Raising Interest Rates

Increases the demand for dollars by increasing the reward for owning dollars. This makes dollars more valuable and is anti-inflationary.
Increases the supply of dollars by requiring the Treasury to pay more for its T-securities. This is presumed to reduce the value of a dollar, which is inflationary.
The added dollars increase the supply of production dollars, which is anti-inflationary.
Increases the costs of doing business. These costs resemble taxes in that they are passed on to consumers, which is inflationary.
Increasing business costs lead to recessionary and deflationary profit losses.
With cost increases, many businesses tend to cut Research & Development, which reduces GDP growth and is recessionary but not anti-inflationary.

The Fed’s focus on interest rates causes numerous offsetting effects; on balance, they are recessionary but not anti-inflationary because none of them address the fundamental cause of inflation: Shortages of critical goods and services.

You don’t need a degree in economics to know that when something is in short supply — i.e., demand exceeds supply — its price will go up. And when many things are in short supply, many prices will increase.

And the word for that is “inflation.”

So, the question becomes, what shortages can cause many prices to rise?

In today’s economy, the one shortage that affects nearly all other products is energy, specifically oil. The cause of most inflations is an oil shortage, and the cure is increased oil production.

The price of oil is reflected in the price of nearly every product and directly reflects the oil supply. Increased prices mean reduced supply and decreasing prices mean increased supply.

Thus, inflation parallels oil prices, which are inverse to oil supply.

**Inflation (red) parallels oil prices (blue).**

Oil shortages are the most critical cause of inflation. Second to oil in price importance is food, a universal need. Food prices reflect weather, oil prices, labor costs, shipping costs, and other production costs. When food prices rise, we have inflation.

Food prices (green) parallel inflation (red).

Ironically, economists use a “core” inflation measure, which omits food and oil prices. I see that as baking a cake without flour and sugar. “Core” inflation misses the two most essential inflation ingredients.

CURING INFLATION

Today’s inflation rightly should be called “the COVID inflation.” It was caused by shortages of oil, food, shipping, lumber, steel, computer chips, labor, and other needs related to COVID-19.

The cure for COVID-caused inflation is to cure COVID and the resultant oil, food, shipping, computer chip, metal, lumber, labor, etc., shortages, all of which is happening now.

Cure the shortages, and you cure the inflation. Period

28" Kids Electronic Backseat Driver Toy Steering Wheel with Lights & Sounds - Walmart.com — **Federal Reserve Chairman, Jerome Powell, thinks he controls inflation by steering interest rates.**

So, while the Fed will pat itself on the back for curing inflation without a recession, the cure has come from additional oil, food etc., etc. production. The Fed’s interest rate manipulations accomplished very little if anything.

Though the Fed claims among its missions: “To promote maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates in the U.S. economy,” it can do only one of those. It can “moderate” (whatever that means) long-term interest rates.

The Fed cannot promote maximum employment or stable prices. Those are the jobs of Congress.

We often have compared the Fed to a child sitting in the back seat of a car, spinning a toy steering wheel, and thinking he is steering the car.

Because the Fed cannot control the availability of oil, food, computer chips, shipping, metals, lumber, and labor, it cannot control inflation. Only Congress can.

The false perception persists because the Fed likes the illusory power, and Congress likes avoiding the responsibility.

IN SUMMARY

Inflation is caused by shortages of key goods and services, most notably oil and food.
Inflation is not caused by “excessive” federal spending or “excessive” money creation.
Curing inflation requires curing the shortages that caused the inflation.
The Fed cannot control the shortages that cause inflation.
The Fed cannot control inflation via interest rate manipulation.
Today’s inflation was caused by COVID-related shortages.
Today’s inflation is being cured by curing the COVID-related shortages.
Only Congress and the President can control inflation.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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The Sole Purpose of Government Is to Improve and Protect the Lives of the People.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Forget “cancel culture.” Ignorance is bliss, the right-wing mantra

Remember when conservatives criticized so-called “cancel culture.” That’s gone. Now they are the “kings of cancel.” Today, right-wingers have a fundamental belief (pun intended) that exposing children to harsh facts (i.e., “woke”) injures their little brains. Keeping children ignorant of realities helps them in some unknown way. These beliefs are based not on scientific research but on religious and political interpretations and intuition. So, young children should not be told about sex, sexuality, bigotry, crime, war, slavery, vaccination, or anything else that some parents don’t like. Never mind that other parents may want their children to have this information. Conservatives believe keeping children ignorant takes precedence over providing them with “dangerous, irreligious, or just plain icky” information. Also, never mind that children will receive twisted versions of the facts from their peers, and having no contrary factual information, they’ll believe the lies. As the right-wing tells you, learning the playground versions of sex, bigotry, crime, war, slavery, etc., is good. Learning actual facts in school is bad. Thus, gay people either do not exist or should be bullied, unprotected sex is OK, so long as it’s done in ignorance, and slavery either never happened or was benign or even beneficial because that’s what all the little playground friends and Tucker Carlson say. I was reminded of our return to the dark ages when I saw excerpts from an article in the local Sun-Sentinel, a Florida newspaper.

Some topics in AP African American Studies dropped. New curriculum gives DeSantis a few wins but still has the potential for another showdown. By Sommer Brugal and Ana Ceballos Miami Herald

MIAMI — The organization in charge of Advanced Placement courses offered in high schools across the country released the final version of its new African American Studies course, notably leaving out some lessons. Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Department of Education called out earlier this year for what they said was an effort to “push an agenda” on students.

The “agenda” has to do with slavery facts that might embarrass some white students. Presumably, it also has to do with queer facts that might embarrass some straight students. And some other facts that might embarrass certain Christian denominations. Seemingly, embarrassment is the test of education in right-wing minds.

A review of the 300-page course shows the College Board decided to exclude topics on the Black queer experience— a case DeSantis has singled out in his criticism — and only include the Black Lives Matter movement and the reparations debate as optional, meaning they won’t be required or contained on the final AP exam.

As every right-winger knows, there are no black gay people, and if there are, they should be ignored because being gay is a choice – a wrong choice – and those gay people simply should just straighten up (again, no pun intended) I can’t remember when I first made the decision to be straight, but it must have happened before I read any gay-oriented books, or I might have been convinced to be gay. Or so the right wing tells us.

However, the course includes Black authors and scholars flagged as inappropriate by Florida education officials, such as Kimberlé Crenshaw and Angela Davis. Ideas rejected by the DeSantis administration, such as intersectionality and race-related concepts, remained in the curriculum.

It’s easy to understand why thought leaders like Ron DeSantis would object to Kimberle Crenshaw because, as Wikipedia says:

She is a leading scholar of critical race theory (CRT), an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to analyzing how social and political laws and media shape (and are shaped by) social conceptions of race and ethnicity.

CRT also considers racism to be systemic in various laws and rules and not only based on individuals’ prejudices. The word critical in the name is an academic reference to critical thinking, critical theory, and scholarly criticism rather than criticizing or blaming individuals.

So clearly, her ideas are subversive because if there is one thing we wish to avoid, it is having our children think critically about race. It is much better to pick up bigotry from their parents and other kids.

And as for Angela Davis:

She is an American revolutionary Marxist and feminist political activist, philosopher, academic, author, and professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Davis was a longtime member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and a founding member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS). Here, the theory is the fewer kids know about Communism, the greater their ability to resist the siren song of communism (although being a revolutionary, she should be welcomed by Donald Trump, who attempted a coup. There’s nothing more revolutionary than a coup.)

In January, DeSantis argued against the inclusion of critical race theory and an attempt to use Black history for “political purposes.”

“Political purposes” is a bit mysterious. Perhaps it means telling kids that slavery was evil, which could reflect poorly on any Southerners who still fly the revolutionary rebel flag.

DeSantis and the Florida Department of Education are willing to prohibit content they deem “liberal indoctrination” in schools.

(As opposed to conservative indoctrination?)

Despite being challenged by the DeSantis administration and state reviewers of the coursework, ideas such as intersectionality — a concept that refers to how racism, sexism, and classism can overlap and affect people — and the plight of African Americans throughout history are highlighted as “essential knowledge” for students, meaning they must demonstrate mastery of the topic for the exam.

In one unit, “Freedom, Enslavement, and Resistance,” the College Board considers it essential for students to know how slavery prevented Black people from building wealth and has led to present-day wealth disparities along racial lines — a concept reviewers in Florida previously said could violate state laws and rules because it “supposes that no slaves or their descendants accumulated any wealth.”

Seed, it’s like this. If we can show that at least one slave or slave descendent accumulated at least a little wealth, then there is no reason for Florida students to understand how slavery prevented Black people from building wealth. Sounds reasonable — to conservatives.

The state Board of Education earlier this year approved new academic standards for instruction about African American history that include teachings about how enslaved people benefited from their bondage.

As every conservative knows, slavery was great for the slaves, and indeed, we all wish we had been slaves so we could have “benefitted from our bondage.”

Another unit, “The Black Feminist Movement, Womanism, and Intersectionality,” addresses the framework for understanding Black women’s “distinct experiences through the interactions of their social, economic, and political identities with systems of inequality and privilege.”

Themes such as migration and the African diaspora, intersections of identity, creativity, expression, and the arts; and resistance and resilience run throughout the course.

However, one of the most significant changes featured in the final work is the “Further explorations week,” said College Board officials.

The section, which would be taught during the final week of lessons, includes a list of optional topics, such as the Black Lives Matter movement and the reparations debate. Incarceration and abolition, Black women writers and filmmakers, African-American art, and culinary traditions are other topics that can be taught.

Conservatives don’t want our children to learn any of that stuff. It’s much better to claim it never happened, put up statues of traitors, wave rebel flags along with American flags, and deny elections. And then there’s this article, also in the Sun Sentinel:

Sanitizing public school libraries Moody

If you thought the purpose of a public school library was to enrich a student’s education, you’re wrong, according to Attorney General Ashley Moody.

As she sees it, it’s to promote the government’s points of view. Only.

That’s the gist of her breathtaking argument in a federal court lawsuit over how Escambia County bans books.

Public school libraries “are a forum for government, not private speech,” she has told the court. That is authoritarianism on steroids.

The case involves a well-known children’s book, “And Tango Makes Three,” about two male penguins who raised a chick at New York’s Central Park Zoo.

The book banners and burners have attacked it since it was published eight years ago. They claim it promotes homosexuality.

This all is based on the utter nonsense that talking about homosexuality makes kids gay. Supposedly, it’s something kids decide to do rather than it being inborn. Apparently, in a conservative world, there is a time when you make a conscious decision to be gay, and if you read or hear anything positive about gay couples, it will sound so wonderful you’ll make the “wrong” decision. I’m trying to remember the time when I made the conscious decision to be straight. I do recall that in my college fraternity, we had at least one openly gay guy, and it was all I could do to keep from turning gay. I mean, who could resist the taunts, bigotry, and ignorant hatred being gay engenders. Of course, it’s non-scientific idiocy. People may make a conscious decision to come out of the closet, but having homosexual feelings is not a decision. So, relax; reading about male penguins raising a chick will not turn your children gay. Why are the conservatives so terrified? My observation is that conservatives live in fear of everything. To begin, they fear change. That is the basic rule of conservatism: To conserve the past. They fear blacks, browns, yellows, reds, Jews, Muslims, gays, immigrants, and even women. That is why they exhibit so much bigotry toward these groups. Fear is the basis for hatred, and hatred is the basis for today’s Republican Party. They even hate each other as evidenced by their crazy House battles. They carry guns because they fear strangers. They fear “the deep state” and “woke,” though they have no idea what these are. And in their fear, they follow a “strong” (i.e., loud) leader who promises to destroy all whom they fear.

Escambia banned a range of books at the prompting of a teacher whom the suit claims was influenced by Moms for Liberty.

This Florida-based censorship lobby goes after books touching on Black and LBGTQ issues in particular. That teacher and others have challenged 218 books, according to the litigation.

In the conservative world, “Liberty” means constraining your kids from learning what conservatives fear. (Also, “patriotism” means attempting a coup and threatening to hang the Vice-President for not overturning an election.)

George Orwell revisited Moody’s argument in favor of the Escambia School Board is as extreme and dangerous as it could possibly be. It echoes the “Big Brother” dystopia of George Orwell’s prophetic fiction, “1984.”

It’s only a short, logical step away from saying that state university libraries and classrooms also can be purged of anything the government does not approve.

In fact, Florida is already halfway there. Laws promoted by the state’s other leading authoritarian, Gov. Ron DeSantis, forbid schools to teach about critical race theory or encourage diversity.

Anything about sexual orientation is taboo since the law depends on someone’s interpretation of what is age-appropriate.

That’s in what’s better known as DeSantis’ so-called “Don’t say gay” law, which was initially sold as applying only to kindergarten through third grade, then swiftly expanded through eighth grade by the Legislature the following year, and through 12th grade by the Florida Board of Education.

In the conservative world, 18-year-olds are too young to learn about sex, though old enough to marry, be executed for murder, or to kill and witness killing people in the military. Once censorship and bigotry blend, there is no limit to the books that can be burned. A case always can be made that any book is inappropriate for mass consumption, depending on the blueness of one’s nose. How about books about communism, for fear they will turn children into communists? Should DeSantis ban books about slavery that will make our children want to be slaves or slaveholders, and books about murder that will turn all our kids into murderers? It’s ridiculous. There is no limit to what the ignorance promoters can find to ban. Consider the following Hitlerian proposal. Read it slowly and imagine it being promoted in China or Russia:

A pending policy by the Board of Governors forbids Florida universities from fostering “Any activity organized with a purpose of effecting or preventing change to a government policy, action or function, or any activity intended to achieve a desired result related to social issues, where the university endorses or promotes a position in communications, advertisements, programs or campus activities.”

“Any activity” (including writing, talking, thinking, even doing nothing) . . . “effecting or preventing change” (for or against change; both would be illegal) . . . “government policy, action or function”” (say nothing about the government, for or against) . . . “desired result” (do not express any desire for anything to happen) . . . “social issues” (every issue can be construed as a social issue). . . “where the university endorses or promotes a position in communications, advertisements, programs or campus activities” (which covers everything the university does). I challenge you to name one thing a Florida university can do that does not run afoul of some interpretation of this policy. It forbids Florida universities from doing anything at all, including teaching. And this is all in the name of “Liberty.” Is that your interpretation of “liberty”?

That will spark more lawsuits in which Florida’s attorney general will oppose, rather than defend, freedom of speech and inquiry.

Moody wrote, “Viewpoint-based educational choices are constitutionally permissible because public-school systems, including their libraries, convey the government’s message, and, when the government speaks, it may ‘regulate the content…of its own message,’”

This is from the party that rails against the “deep state” controlling our lives.

Rebutting the student plaintiffs in the Escambia case, she argues: “The government has no constitutional obligation to present educational material with which it disagrees.”

In short, teachers must parrot the government’s message, and no disagreement is allowed.

Without limits on that chilling thought, a Republican state could bar Democratic authors from its school libraries. Or vice versa.

Hers is a prescription for education bleached of anything even remotely controversial. A school board controlled by religious fundamentalists could ban Darwin’s “Origin of Species.” Or, indeed, Orwell’s “1984.”

An uneducated population is the raw material from which dictatorships are made.

That is why Donald Trump said, “I love the poorly educated.” And, in fact, Trump, with his dictatorial bent, has done exceptionally well among poorly educated voters. The less you know, the more likely you are to vote for a conservative.

It’s not Moody’s first deep dive into right-wing extremism, however.

Attacking abortion rights, she claims Florida’s constitutional privacy provision applies only to information, not to keeping the government out of your bedroom.

She seizes on any pretext to ask the Florida Supreme Court to bar from the ballot any voter initiative she doesn’t like — specifically, gun control, legalizing marijuana, or abortion rights.

She supports DeSantis’ claim, in a court case, that he has “executive privilege” to keep secret any document he wishes.

The best thing about Moody is that she’s term-limited. Someone else will be elected attorney general in 2026. We can only hope it is someone who better values a well-rounded education as a cornerstone of democracy.

Sadly, in Florida, that “someone else” probably will be another right-winger who will spout off about ‘Freedom” as a vague concept. Then they will do everything possible to eliminate the free discussion of racial bigotry, slavery, sex and sexual orientation, guns, voting rights, gerrymandering, immigration, and any government policy. To a right-winger, “freedom” means “freedom to do exactly as they want you to do.” Ignorance is bliss in the world of MAGA. So burn more books or let the Republicans burn them for you. Rodger Malcolm Mitchell Monetary Sovereignty Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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The Sole Purpose of Government Is to Improve and Protect the Lives of the People.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

The case for keeping original Medicare

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