Opinion: Why 2020 is NOT 2016

According to all polling, Trump is going to lose this election.  Now, I know Trump supporters are smirking, saying "Yeah. Remember 2016 where polls said Trump was losing? Get ready for that again!"

Certainly, it is possible that Trump is able to once again come from behind and get enough turnout in key states to win as he did in 2016. However, I find that considerably less likely the case this year for several reasons:

1. Hillary Clinton was, and still is, enormously disliked; indeed, the 2016 Campaign was whittled down to the two most disliked people running for President since Gallup started tracking candidate favorability in 1956. Regardless of the repeated smears about Hunter Biden, Joe Biden is well liked and trusted by a majority of the nation, even among many Republicans.

2. Hillary Clinton is a woman, and even in the 21st Century, there is still enough animus toward women in politics that some people who would have voted Democratic either voted for Trump or, more likely, didn't vote at all. This was not the main factor, but was certainly a factor in Trump's win. Biden...has a penis, 'nough said.

3. Trump supporters were smirking in 2018, saying that all the reporting about a "Blue Wave" coming that November was false, and that the "hidden Trump vote" would bring in a "Red Wave" of support for Trump. However, exactly what was predicted happened -- the House went seriously Blue, and the Senate, while still in GOP hands, did not see the gains that had been predicted in 2016, with Dem senators in Red States like Joe Manchin and Jon Tester winning re-election. Further, in 2018, the Democrats made huge gains in state governors and state legislatures. It was indeed a "Blue Wave," and all the polls were right.

4. Trump in 2016 was a political unknown, while Hillary was seen as a tool of the Establishment. Trump was able to hone in white rage, and that was what carried him. Now, Trump and his antics are well known. Certainly his ~30% core base will vote for him no matter what, but many of the people that took a chance on the outside "gasoline bomb" candidate in 2016 seem less likely to be ready to go down that path again.

5. What really cost Hillary and the Democrats the White House in 2016 was not so much the 'yuge' person of Donald Trump, it was the 100 million people that didn't bother to vote. Voting in the United States is usually dismal in any given election cycle, but in 2016 literally 100 million people did not go to vote. Clinton got 65.8 million total votes, Trump won 62.9 million votes, and about 6% of the total vote went to "others" like Gary Johnson and Jill Stein.

Hillary supporters like to say that it was Stein (in particular) and Johnson that cost Hillary the election, saying "well look, at say Michigan! Trump won by 11,000 votes, and 51,000 voted for Stein! That did it!" No it didn't, it was the much larger pool of Democrats not bothering to vote that "did it" to Hillary. According to Pew, 47% of Michigan registered voters are Democrat, compared to 34% Republican, and it was somehow all Jill Stein's fault? Please. Hillary would have stomped Trump in Michigan had her party come out to vote for her en masse. Far more stayed home than voted.

The 2016 malaise does not seem to be the same this year however. As of this writing on October 21, 2020, we find this report from NBC:

"More than 29 million people from 45 states had voted as of Tuesday [October 20, 2020] morning, either by mail or in person. Nearly half of those votes — almost 14.2 million ballots — had come from Democratic-affiliated voters. Republican-affiliated voters had returned almost 10.1 million ballots. And while not every Democrat will vote for former Vice President Joe Biden and not every Republican will vote for President Donald Trump, Democrats have a 14-point edge in returned ballots for which party affiliation is known."

I see no reason to believe that this momentum will shift, and while certainly a lot of Republicans will come out on Election Day to vote Trump, Democrats are very fired up to be rid of Trump, and they are coming out to vote en masse.  Why do you think Trump wants to "throw out the ballots?"  He knows that if given the chance, Dems will wipe him out this November, so he's planning as much voter suppression as he can muster to keep Democrat votes from counting.

I do not believe that will be enough, and while he will be successful in some level of democratic (small "d") undermining, it will not be enough to tilt the election for him.  

Now all that said, this is not any kind of actual "election prediction."  I am well aware that there is still a solid pool of support for Trump, support that is just as fired up to see their guy re-elected.  I realize that Democrat malaise might strike again.  I just don't think so:  Trump is a known commodity this time, we have a raging pandemic that he seems to want to put as far on the back burner as possible, and a lot of people in this country are tired of the "Trump Show" and want change.   At this point, I really believe it is Biden's to lose....or Trump's to steal if he can figure out how.  But we shall see.

Why Do People Riot?

One of the most puzzling things to many people is the sight of people rioting in cities.  As we see right now (of this writing of May 30, 2020), Minneapolis in particular, and many other cities in the USA to a lesser degree, are seeing rioters burning buildings, overturning cars, looting and causing all manner of chaos in urban areas.  "Why," asks the typical person in their house, watching this on the news, "do people do this?  Why do they destroy their neighborhoods?  What does taking things from a store have to do with calling for justice for a perceived wrong?"

Very good questions indeed.

First of all, we need to decry any form of violence and destruction of property -- the solution cannot be in the same level as the cause.  Violence does not mean violent responses are acceptable.  That said, if we want to understand why people riot, we have to look at the conditions that lead to the riots.

I know already a few people reading this are going "well, there you go, you're going to say that rioters are justified in some way."  Not at all.  I'm a sociologist and look at everything via that lens.  If we don't understand the socio-environmental causes of an phenomenon, we will be powerless to do anything meaningful about it.  A good example is terrorism:  "shooting terrorists" will not stop people choosing terror as an act, but finding why people are turning to terrorism, and reducing those causes, will reduce terrorism across the board.  Same with any form of crime.  Same with something like abortion:  why are women having abortions?  Reduce those causes, we reduce abortion.

We cannot justify destruction of property, but we can understand the underlying causes behind it.  If we want to deal with it, that is the course of action that must be taken.

First, we need to put rioting into historical perspective.  Rioting is nothing new.  The USA has a long history of all manner of riots.  Looking at the Wikipedia Page on Civil Unrest in the United States, there is a list of literally hundreds upon hundreds of riots that have gone on in the USA.  Up to the Civil Rights movement, these riots could be classified into three types, in descending frequency of incidence:

1.  Race Riots, specifically white violence against various minority groups, mostly blacks.

2.  Labor Riots, where workers rioted against their employers

3.  Religious Riots, involving anti-Catholic or acts against non-Christian religions.

Race riots are definitely the most common kind of riots we have seen in US History, as whites went into ethnic neighborhoods to destroy property, burn stores, and hurt and kill people.  It was only in the 1960s, as riots started to occur in ethnic neighborhoods, that riots became associated with minority groups in any meaningful way.  Prior to that, ethnic groups were afraid whites were going to come into their neighborhoods to commit violence -- violence that quite often was simply allowed to go on by the police and politicians of the day. 

Many times, in fact, power-elite groups used rioting as a means to attack their enemies.  Tammany Hall in New York City had many gangs of thugs at their disposal, one of the most notorious being the "Five Points Gang" that they could unleash at racial and political targets as needed.  From the Civil War to the mid 20th Century, any political machine group had their group of thugs, centered in Saloons, ready to go.  The movie "Gangs of New York" gives a Hollywood, ahistorical sheen to this period, but does allow the viewer some idea of the level of gang violence used by power-elite to riot.

By the time of the 1960s, rioting was a ubiquitous form of social action in major American cities that had gone on for all of US history.  The Harlem Riot of 1964, over the death of James Powell, an African-American of Harlem, by a white police officer was one of the first in the USA where minorities were the ones rioting.  After that, many inner city black neighborhoods started to see civil unrest, with the Watts Riots the next year, and then cascading social unrest in inner cities, but now done by minorities, rather than against minorities.

This was the start of a socio-political turn, with rioting going from being seen as either a racist or ethnocentric reaction of the presence of minorities (mostly racial, also religious), or involving labor, to something The Other was doing, dirty people in dirty neighborhoods causing all manner of violence and destruction.  The fact that for decades whites had gone into these neighborhoods and committed acts of violence and property damage seemed to be forgotten.

There seems to be an idea that rioters are all just a bunch of opportunists -- they get a chance to go out and loot, burn and hurt people, so riot on!  There are undoubtedly people that do that.  I remember after the LA Riots of 1992, I'd pass by a house in the San Fernando Valley coming home from work that had racks of clothes on one of those round racks for sale, right on De Soto Blvd!  Obviously they had stolen those racks from some store and were stupidly selling them right on the street (I often tell my Intro to Criminology class that "crooks aren't that bright for the most part -- if they were, they wouldn't be crooks, or at least white collar criminals.")  I also remember watching TV during the LA Riots, and a helicopter was watching a Porsche that was throwing firebombs at gas stations.  The guy driving the Porsche was white, and he was tossing firebombs.  Obviously he had a lot in common with Mr. King....

If this were the spark that set riots off though, riots would be happening all the time, daily, as bored people who want what others have, or just for the lolz, would go out all the time and commit a river of violence and destruction.   But what we do see is that these kind of street actions are usually tied today to some form of injustice.  Dr. Martin Luther King said this about riots in his speech "The Other America" in 1968 :

[I]t is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear 3 of 8 that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.

Dr. King was correct in his frame, but when we look at the history of riots in the USA, we can see three things:

1.  Up to the Sixties, riots were mostly the language of the heard white power-elite going into ethnic neighborhoods to remind them who they were, where they were, and that any time they could be hurt or killed and nothing could stop the white mob from doing it.

2.  Labor riots were certainly the unheard working against the unfair system of labor exploitation at that time, but the industrialists had the government and the police on their side.  Police would quell the riots, and even peaceful picketers would be declared by courts to be "restricting trade" and the cops would come to shoo off the picket lines. 

3.  By the Sixties to today, the above two had been replaced by Dr. King's point that rioting was now going on in inner city areas as a means to make voices heard.  He didn't say it was a good way to do this - in fact in "The Other America" speech he stresses his commitment to non-violent social change - but he also says that we cannot ignore why these riots are going on.

The riots in 1992 that tore through LA were preventable.  For years, African American neighborhoods were completely ignored.  Policy experts were telling the City Council long before the riots that what was then "South Central Los Angeles," with the complete export of good jobs, crime, gangs, drugs and rampant poverty, was a powder keg waiting to happen.  The problem was ignored until the Rodney King decision caused the city to erupt for days.  It should not be supposed that the decision in the case was the absolute cause of the riots -- oh yes, it was the flash point, but simmering problems for years were what led people to commit shocking destruction and property damage after that decision was handed down.

After that, there were changes in the short term:  LAPD was reorganized and put under Federal oversight, community policing became the standard that started to build bridges, attempts to bring jobs and remove blight were begun. 

While there have been some improvements, a lot of work is still needed in what is now South Los Angeles.  Is it a powder keg?  Maybe.  Who thought that Minneapolis was a powder keg?  Do not be fooled into thinking that the death of George Floyd is all that is causing this unrest -- a longstanding belief that the system is failing people of color, of systematic oppression, and of a government that doesn't really care is what is fueling the anger.  "Living while Black" is a real social issue that Black people feel daily, regardless of how ludicrous White people might find that phrase.  But then Whites are not Black, nor do Whites live in the Black world, do they?

No, there is no justifiable reason to destroy property and commit violence.  But when people are forced to live with pent up rage, when a video exposes what black people say happens all the time to them, and only now is it visible, sooner or later that rage will boil over.

Yes, people that destroy property and hurt others need to be brought to justice.  But if we want long term solutions to this, we have to look at the whole system.  A system is only a strong as the parts that make it up.  If parts of a system are broken, the whole thing is in danger of dysfunction.  These days of rage make that clear, but what lessons will be learned?  We will have to wait and see.

Treating Transgender Children is Abuse? I Think Not.

I was just brought to attention about an article written by Dr. Michelle Cretella on transgenderism and youth. The article, written in the Daily Signal, lists her credentials as such:

Michelle Cretella, M.D., is president of the American College of Pediatricians, a national organization of pediatricians and other health care professionals dedicated to the health and well-being of children.

Dr. Cretella is also an ideologue, as this page on the "Family Life Today" website notes:


"Dr. Cretella has been an active prolife advocate for over twenty years, and she has been published in several lay publications. Avocations include personal training, youth ministry and serving as a certified abstinence educator for her local Catholic school. She lives in Rhode Island with her husband of twenty years and their four children: Christopher, John, Michael and Marianna."

While well spoken, she obviously has a bone to pick with transgender issues, and this article appearing on the pro-Trump "Daily Signal" speaks to that. Also, when I see people talk about the "X Agenda" (just fill in the X with the disliked group), that pretty much throws me off from taking anything they are going to say very seriously, or at least with the proverbial grain of salt.

Some of the points she brings up are absolutely valid -- there are serious issues of physical development that are being affected when kids are given puberty blockers. Also, lack of fertility is a real issue as well when given such blockers accompanied with hormones of the biological opposite sex.

However, I have serious issues with Dr. Cretella’s article.   First of all, she's a bit disingenuous, lumping in gender non-conformity with gender dysphoria. The difference between these two is that a person who is gender non-conforming does not feel their body to be "wrong" and has no desire to make major physical changes. People that are transgender (as the word is used today) have feelings of gender dysphoria -- they dislike their body and wish to make changes. To bring in a little evidence based material from the APA and their fact sheet on adolescent gender issues:

Prevalence of gender diverse and transgender adolescents has been difficult to estimate given barriers to research, treatment, and disclosure. No systematic epidemiological studies have been published on the prevalence of gender diversity or transgender identity in youth. Gender diverse youth are thought to be more prevalent than transgender youth and may make up 5 to 12% of birth assigned females and 2 to 6% of birth assigned males. Transgender youth may be as prevalent as 0.5%.

As patient data is confidential, and data concerning children even more so, these numbers are anecdotal and come from generalizations with doctors.  That said, cross-sectioning these data with what we know about adult populations brings no surprise. The actual number of children that would desire to seek medical interventions is very low, while kids that express their gender in various non-conforming ways is much higher. Simply put, Dr. Cretella's anxieties are the proverbial tempest in a teapot.

The idea that the "Trans-Agenda" (which has conveniently replaced the "Gay Agenda" as homosexual acceptance has increased over the years) wants to have every kid that questions their gender to be on puberty blockers and on the hormones of the opposite sex immediately is patently absurd. Activists want those avenues discussed and open to families, along with doctors, that feel that such is the best choice for their kids. Are there some pushy activists?  Sure.  But the idea that doctors can’t decide what is best for their patients, and must bow to some PC line of thinking and treatment plan, is hyperbole.  The same is said of college professors, and I an attest, as a college professor, there is no systemic, PC line of thinking that all professors must hold or be removed.

Even if there is a decision made all around that such medical intervention is the best course, the other problem is the cost -- a cost that is most of the time not covered by insurance. As this much more balanced PBS Frontline article points out:

The cost of puberty blockers is approximately $1,200 per month for injections and can range from $4,500 to $18,000 for an implant. The least expensive form of estrogen, a pill, can cost anywhere between $4 to $30 a month, while testosterone can be anywhere between $20 to $200 a vial.

While well to do families might be able to afford this out-of-pocket treatment for their kids, this is out of reach for many, if not most, non-middle-class families.  The fact that most children would not want such changes doesn’t alleviate the fact that even if warranted in the small number of cases, such treatment would be out of reach.

As this article posted in the peer-reviewed journal for pediatricians, Pediatrics, points out concerning children who are having gender issues:

The pediatrician or family medicine doctor should be on the lookout for the child who is gender nonconforming. Sometimes during the physical exam the issue is revealed. The male child with gender nonconforming behavior will sometimes indicate that he wants his testes and penis removed or that he wants breasts. Likewise, the female child may be complaining of breasts and menstrual periods. The pediatrician who observes gender nonconformity should address the issue straightforwardly and look for a number of associated psychosocial problems including abuse, PTSD, difficulty in school, depression, or increased anxiety. Referral to and working with the mental health professional provides a good safety net for the child as he/she struggles with exploration of gender orientation, gender, and gender role as well as the related conditions. If indicated, adolescent patients might be referred to a pediatric endocrinologist for help in getting a better long-term physical outcome.

Telling kids that are having gender issues to just “deal with it,” that they’ll “grow out of it” and the parents will just “pray this sickness out of you” is not going work.  The APA fact sheet above clearly states that children that go from pre-pubescence into puberty questioning their gender will very likely NOT desist in their feelings, but those feelings will grow, and if not resolved could lead to a slew of self-destructive behaviors, family abuse, and potentially suicide.

The medical issues involved in these decisions are many, and they must be weighed carefully against the psycho-social needs of the child.  I would agree that in many, perhaps most cases, such medical intervention would not be necessary.  But for the small number of children that are increasing their gender dysphoria as they go into puberty, these things must be discussed, and the pros and cons carefully considered.  Simply labeling this as “child abuse” is short-sighted, and doesn’t consider the real needs of a small number of kids that are feeling more and more frustrated with their bodies vis-à-vis their gender.

This is an issue that is emerging.  I understand that ideologues such as Dr. Cretella will react strongly against it, just as Conservative activists did when the thought of discussing homosexuality with pubescent kids was considered to be proof of the “Gay Agenda” trying to convert children into “sodomites.”  Society needs a new boogie man, so now it is Trans issues that replace the Gay Plague.

Gal Gadot, Zionism, and Wonder Woman

Gal Gadot, the Israeli actress and former Miss Universe 2004 contestant who is currently playing Wonder Woman in the DC film series, is being skewered by some for being a “Zionist” and a poor choice to play Diana of Themiscyra.  The movie is being boycotted in Jordan and some other nations. 

The evidence for her alleged “Zionism” is this post that was made, with a picture of her and her daughter praying, in 2014 during the Hamas/Israel conflict in Gaza:

“I am sending my love and prayers to my fellow Israeli citizens,” she wrote. “Especially to all the boys and girls who are risking their lives protecting my country against the horrific acts conducted by Hamas, who are hiding like cowards behind women and children...We shall overcome!!! Shabbat Shalom! #weareright #freegazafromhamas #stopterror #coexistance #loveidf”

I do not know, as I have never seen her self-identify as a Zionist," if she actually is Zionist or not (and the whole term "Zionist" is very politically charged anyway.) As far as I can see, she was being very careful in singling out Hamas, a known terror organization, and its self-admitted use of human shields, rather than making any strident point about Israel destroying Palestinians. Agree or disagree, she was simply speaking as a patriotic Israeli.

It is perfectly possible to be supportive of Palestinian people AND to say that the citizens of Israel deserve to live in peace and freedom from sectarian violence. And it is also possible to look at the actions of both sides with a critical eye. Unfortunately, partisan politics from either side lead to myopia.

People may boycott Wonder Woman due to its star. That's their choice. I saw the movie and really enjoyed it, and I thought her portrayal of Wonder Woman was fantastic. I refuse to let partisan politics get in the way of what entertainment I choose to watch, but that's just me.

Domestic Terror in Dallas

The group that committed the vile police shooting in Dallas was a group called "Black Knights Sniper Assassins" which seems to be a sub-group of "Black Power Political Organization." According to news sources, the BPPO showed up on social media about five months ago, posting pictures of what appear to be black Africans with sniper rifles shooting the weapons, hiding in bushes, and working as such military members would do.

The suspect killed by police officers, Micah X Johnson, said that he was “upset about the Black Lives Matter [protest], about recent police shootings, upset at white people, and he wanted to kill white people, especially white officers."

What caught my eye was the "upset about the Black Lives Matter [protest]." This may be some extreme group, as the Nation of Islam was back in the 1960s, that decides that peaceful protest is not the means to deal with perceived problems, but violent, radical action. The BPPO was putting increasingly disturbing pictures and material on their social media feeds -- all have since been taken down, but it's unclear if it was by the media organizations or the group itself. What does seem to be clear is they do not have any known connection to Black Lives Matter, but chose this time and place to lash out in the sick, twisted way terrorists do.

Dallas police have several suspects in custody, and hopefully the local police working with the FBI can find out more about this group and locate further members. As an educated guess, as a person that studies and teaches on terrorism, I'd say this is a fringe group in the style of Weather Underground or the Symbionese Liberation Army, that used violence to forward their extremist, fringe causes.

My main concern is that we are dealing with a well organized terrorist group that had this well planned and obviously knew what they were doing. They say they will strike again, and I don't doubt that at all.

I work with retired and active police on a regular basis, and know that the vast majority of police do their job honorably, and in no way can such a twisted act or murder by the group be justified. My heartfelt condolences to the families of the five officers that were killed in their line of duty, and also to the families of the two civilians that lost their lives in this brutal act.

There will be no #Texit

Since the #Brexit vote, some folks in Texas have been pushing the idea for a #Texit, or Texas seceeding  from the United States.  This has been in Texas politics for a long time, and it rears its head now and then, but since the people of the UK voted to have their government begin a process of leaving the EU, some people in Texas have been re-energized in their ideas about Texas leaving the Union and becoming its own country.

The obvious difference is that the UK is a sovereign nation leaving a group of other sovereign nations, much as if the US said it were leaving the United Nations or Nigeria saying it were leaving OPEC.  Further, the referendum that was passed in the UK was just that, a non-binding referendum to gauge what the people of the UK felt about staying or leaving the European Union.  The government could simply choose to ignore the result -- it would cause some political upheaval, but unless Parliament specifically invokes Article 50 of the Treaty of European Union, there will be no true "Brexit."  

The Constitution explains how new States may join the Union in Article IV, Section 3, Clause 1:

New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.

Back in 2013 there was a movement to split California up into six separate States but that interesting political bowel movement went nowhere.  To split a state into multiple states, both the Legislature of the State in question AND Congress would have to approve, probably by a 2/3 majority (there is no exact formula here, but 2/3 is what is usually used for serious matters.)  The State Legislature wouldn't allow that, never mind Congress -- the chaos that would ensue as pieces of States wanting to break off from others would potentially cause a collapse.

However, nothing in IV.3.1 says anything about State leaving the Union.  The Confederate States attempted to leave the Union illegally, and we know where that went.  A conservative notable no less than Justice Antonin Scalia said that States have no legal right to exit the Union.  So any referendum on #Texit or #Calexit or any other #exit would have no legal standing, and even if everyone in Texas voted in a hypothetical referendum to leave the USA, it would have no judicial effect.  It might, if it turned rowdy enough, provoke that "invasion" of Texas that Gov. Abbot thought was about to occur last year by the Obama Administration.

That said, a referendum could be held in a State to ask its legislature to explore what legal means of secession could be initiated.  Since there is no process, the State of Texas would have to explore what means could be created.  I can see two ways that a legal process could be created, but neither would ever really occur.

The "easier" road (note the scare quotes) would be to bring a bill to the floor of the Congress that deals with secession.  This hypothetical bill would have to be proposed by members of Congress, go through a Committee (probably Judiciary, as this would pertain to laws of the United States), and have to also go to the other house and its Judiciary Committee.  It would almost certainly die there, as our noble Solons realize they'd be signing on to the death warrant of the United States -- Texas hypothetically leaving the Union legally would spark a slew of other States doing the same thing.

Even if it passed the Committees, it would have to then be voted on by Congress, probably on a 2/3 majority.  Again, it is almost certain our career politicians in Washington would never allow their jobs to be removed willingly like this.  But even say it passed Congress, it would almost certainly be vetoed by the President, and both houses would have to over-ride the veto.  Fat chance.

But let's be really cheeky and say that somehow it made it through Congress AND the President.  Then, the slew of lawsuits that would come up against it would stall it forever.  The lawsuits would have to wind their way through the courts, and eventually up to the Supreme Court, which would have to block it as there is no Constitutional means for a State to leave once it's in.

Of course, Congress could attempt to create an Amendment to the Constitution which would allow secession.  But do you see our career Solons even attempting such a thing?  Two-thirds of both the House and Senate would have to approve the draft Amendment (right..that will happen), and then it would go to the State Legislatures for their approval, again needing 2/3 of States to approve it and make it an Amendment.  I can't see 2/3 of the States voting for a dissolution of the Union.  Congress would be more likely to put through a bill trying to allow secession, and somewhere along the process above it would be killed.  

BUT, let's be really, really cheeky and say the SCOTUS approved the law.  Then, Texas would have to formally ask (via its Legislature and then its members of Congress) to leave the Union.  Whatever process were in the Law would have to be enacted and Congress would have to vote on their leaving, probably by a 2/3 majority.  Remember that what is happening here is that Texas would become a foreign nation -- the Law would not just have a system to leave, it would also have to explain exactly what the relationship to the remaining USA the new nation would have.

State lines would suddenly become an international border -- checkpoints would have be put in place.  People going to the US from Texas would need a Texas passport.  The political, social and economic upheaval would not be worth any desire for independence from Washington for Texas or any other State.  Businesses in Texas would have to do biz in the USA as foreign companies, rather than as members of the United States.  The chaos would be utterly insane.  Plus, a slew of OTHER laws would already have to be on the books to explain exactly what all these relationships would be.  Again, fat chance!

The other way this could in theory be legally done would be bypassing Congress and Texas trying to get 33 other States to form a Constitutional Convention to propose an Amendment to the Constitution that would allow a legal separation.  Good luck with that!  There has never been a Constitutional Convention invoked by the States, and even though it is perfectly enshrined in the Constitution itself, only the most libertarian Americans would see such a grouping as valid for such a serious matter.

Even if the 33 actually got together to do this, Congress would still have to provide legislative rules to the Convention, which almost certainly would be so convoluted it would nix any real chance of a secession amendment being put in.

But even if they did create such a proposed Amendment, 2/3 of State Legislatures would have to approve of said Amendment, and as I pointed out above with the Congressional attempt at an amendment, this would be signing the death warrant of the USA.  Not gonna happen.  AND even if it did, Congress would still have to create all the laws necessary to create a relationship between any new nation and the remaining USA.

So...people in Texas and elsewhere can dream of leaving the USA and falling into utter ruin, but at least Texas Gov. Greg Abbot seems to think this is a bad idea.  He is courting British businesses to move to Texas to take advantage of low taxes, and that's not a bad idea at all.  Let's hope it stays right there.

Moral Entrepreneurs and the "Boogeyman de Jour"

"Transgender people want to go into bathrooms, assault women, and rape kids."

The fear that innocent women, children and the treasured institutions of the USA are going to be warped by people not fitting themselves into the established gender paradigm is simply a new iteration of a longstanding methodology.

There is a long history in this country of the Moral Police peddling fear about all kinds of "different" people that are going to destroy the fabric of the USA. Between 1845 and 1850, when around one million Irish came into the USA, the moral police came out and railed against these Mick "Papists" that would fill our cities and destroy America. Then it was Italians and Jews about forty years later, it was Blacks coming up out of the South to Northern cities, it was Chinese, opium and the "Yellow Peril", it was Mexicans smoking marijuana and going on murder binges, it was jazz and jazz musicians that were destroying America, it was the dangerous move of Truman racially integrating the military and causing its inevitable collapse, it was Vietnamese driven as refugees by the war there that were a threat...on and on and on.

The Stonewall Riots in the 60s gave what sociologist Howard Becker called the Moral Entrepreneurs of the USA a fresh target: the Homo Peril. As homosexuals went from quietly asking the Establishment for some level of acceptance to advocates for equality, the Moral Police trotted out every possible argument about how "The Queers" were going to destroy the fabric of American society. Soon they'd be in your schools, molesting your kids! Queers will be pressing up against you at work! We must do something! Homosexuals were a great target because as racism was becoming somewhat passé, the Bible condemns homosexuality! Whoo hoo!

Now that homosexuals have pretty much gone the road of assimilation, a new boogeyman was needed, some marginalized group that can be trotted out as the new threat de jour...let's see....aha! Transgender people that want to go into bathrooms, assault women and rape kids! Oh no! We must do something about this! Even though there is not one...NOT ONE.. reported incident of an actual TG person attacking a woman or a kid in a bathroom, this new boogeyman will fly high for a while. The "horror" that women, kids and treasured institutions will be mangled by guys who think they are women will have decent play for some amount of time, as it fits the bill of "moral decay."

I suspect in a few years, as this one heads out of the mind of Americans, some new fear will need to be found, some horrid boogeyman that lurks in the shadows, waiting to do something destructive to the fabric of American society. Sociologist Barry Glassner wrote a seminal work on this topic called "The Culture of Fear." It really is required reading for anyone that wants to see how Moral Entrepreneurs peddle this nonsense to the public via the media, and people who like their information in simple, easy to digest bites scarf it down like a starving dog given a bowl of food.

Just as views on gay marriage literally turned 180 degrees in about 14 years, from 57% disapproving and 35% approving in 2001, to 55% approving and 39% disapproving in 2015 , I suspect that in fairly short order, Americans will start to be less concerned about this, the Moral Police will find another disappointing end to this moral crusade, and a new boogeyman will need to be found. What that group will be is an interesting question.

Thoughts on the Charlie Hebdo Murders

Firstly, I am appalled as any other right thinking person would be over these murders. There is *never* a justification for violence, never mind murder, and the cowards that broke into the offices of this magazine and shot people need to be brought to justice. I hope that justice is swift and severe under French law, and my heart goes out to the victims and their families.

What I am about to say is NOT a justification for violence or murder, but a criminological analysis. We have to understand why people do what they do.

The magazine, Charlie Hebdo, has been publishing some pretty vile stuff about Islam and the Prophet Mohammed for some time. As this quote explains:

Charlie Hebdo has been the subject of violent attacks in the past, following its publication of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad. Its offices were firebombed in 2011, and recent threats have also been made against it and other media groups. Riot police were deployed to its offices in 2012 after it published more Muhammad cartoons, including images of him naked.

I am 100% in support of Free Speech: it is a right that is not granted by a government, but inherent in each and every person. I am also in support of a Free Press. But, I am also in support of rational action.

France is a deeply divided nation, with a fast dropping native French birthrate and a growing immigrant population, largely from Muslim former French colonies. As we see in Germany, the native French culture and people are feeling at odds with and increasingly disliking the Muslim newcomers, which make up now 5-10% of the population according to the CIA Factbook. And, just as we saw in 2006 with the publication of the Islam mocking cartoons by the newspaper Jyllands-Posten in Denmark, a very strong reaction is going to come out of such actions.

Just because a person has an inherent Right to do something,that doesn't make it wise. Charlie Hebdo was threatened and attacked multiple times for these cartoons. And I'd like to point out, these were not well researched pieces of journalism that showed problems in Islam, or at least well thought opinion pieces, but vile things showing Mohammed to be gay, using the bathroom, etc.

Freedom of Speech means that the government cannot interfere with your political speech. It doesn't mean that you have the right to say anything you want, wherever you want. It further doesn't protect one from indignation and violence from people that would like to do harm over that speech. Imagine if I were racist and were putting out newspaper articles depicting African Americans as stereotypical dullards, eating fried chicken and popping out kids to add to welfare roles. Would I have the right to publish my nonsense? Sure. Would it be surprising if my office suddenly burned down, or I came to harm from some nuts who would like to do me in for that speech? Hardly. It doesn't *justify* their crimes, but I would certainly be indirectly provoking my own victimization (what we call "passive victim provocation" in criminology.)

The people that committed this crime are uncivilized trash. They need to be brought to justice. Civilized people do not use guns to deal with issues, but protest, boycott and other non-violent types of acts. But there are nuts out there that are waiting to do harm. What if I get mugged at an ATM at 3AM in a really seedy part of town? While the robbers should not have mugged me, haven't I indirectly put myself in danger by choosing dangerous surroundings?

The publishers of Charlie Hebdo had the right to publish what they wanted. Sadly, they provoked the wrong people, and death was the result. I realize this is an unpopular viewpoint, but I think they should have used a bit more circumspect judgment in deciding what to print. The balance between Freedom and Responsibility is pretty thin at times, and unfortunately, not everyone out there is sane, rational, or willing to deal with things in a civilized manner.

Faith of the Founders

Some posit that the Founders were all Deists or atheists, others posit that the Founders were mostly religious zealots that wanted to create some kind of theocracy (with certain naughty exceptions like Franklin and Jefferson.) The truth is actually, as usual, somewhere in the middle.

The Founders were mostly externally religious. This was a time when many States had "official churches" and not to be a member of some religious body was very suspicious. Only the gentried class, such as Jefferson or Washington, could refrain from religious practice, and even then most non-religious Founders still maintained a religious externalism. For example, Washington went to an Anglican church with his wife Martha for all the years he was President, although it was noted he always left before Communion.

 Most of the Founders most likely were similar to typical Protestants in mainline churches (such as Lutheran, Methodist, Episcopalian, and Presbyterian) today -- they had an inner belief, went to church on at least a semi-regular basis, and their faith informed their lives but not to the point of excess. Some were truly Deists, such as Jefferson, Franklin, Washington and Madison. Others were members of heterodox theologies, such as John Adams who was Unitarian. But what they mostly wanted to avoid was religious intolerance and religion trickling into the sphere of government.

 The USA of the 18th Century was a mish-mash of religious groups, many of which were opposed to each other on both theological and legal grounds. Virginia for example was nearly an Anglican theocracy -- Jefferson helped to break that apart and create religious liberty in his home state. Puritanism reigned in the North while the South was becoming Baptist. Other sects and groups gained more or less favor, and Maryland was the only State which was highly accepting of Catholics.

 The Founders saw the dangers in a State church -- the Anglican Church, which had "reformed" from the Catholic Church under Henry VIII, was as corrupt as its mother had been in the Middle Ages. In a much clearer way than we Americans today, they saw the dangers in fusing political and religious powers. While even the Deists in the group wanted to maintain the exercise of religious externalism, at the same time they wanted to avoid theocratic ideas taking hold, and turning the new Republic into what they had fought against.

Atheists like to paint all the Founders as Deists while some evangelical Christians view them as nearly religious fanatics. I think if we went back and time and saw what the Founders were really like, both groups would be sorely disappointed.

 Suggested reading:  http://www.economist.com/node/21541718

Why I'm Against Interventionism

In a discussion with a friend on Facebook, I started thinking about why I disagree with interventionism.  This basically encapsulates my views.

There have been slaughters of humanity since humans arrived on the scene.  I have a very negative view of human nature, rather Augustinian in view, in which humans are not good at heart or wanting the best for all by nature, but will do amazingly brutal things to each other in the "State of Nature" as Locke put it, unless restrained by the forces of society.  I'd imagine the first early man to start cave painting the antelopes he saw running around was killed by the first art critic with an antelope bone to the back of the head when the critic didn't like the painting, and so it went.  Here in the West, where 4000 years of slow process into the question of human rights and civil society has made it possible to have advanced culture and relative peace, we've still had our bouts of utter destruction of life and property.  And that's "advanced" by the standard of much of the world where life is cheap and shooting your neighbor in an argument about a property line or a chicken is a noble act.  I hate to seem like someone who doesn't care, I don't like seeing humans brutal to humans, but simply put there is nothing we can do about it.  Humans had been amazing evil to each other before the USA came on the scene, and if humanity is lucky enough to make it 10,000 years from now and the USA is long gone, humans will still be brutal to each other.  The Brits tried to police the world in the 19th to 20th Centuries, and look where they are now -- they have created a huge surveillance state where saying the wrong thing is "crimethink" and they posture over the useless Falkland Islands with 4th rate Argentina. Yes, some military actions are absolutely necessary -- the original action in Afghanistan after 9/11 was.  But what we needed to do rather than nation build was find OBL, kill OBL and his associates, stay just long enough to let the Afghanis decide what madman they wanted running their "nation" (scare quotes intentional) and then leave them to their own devices.

So I disagree politely with those who think that intervention is a necessity:   *interventions* are never necessary.  Some *military actions* are, but internventionism is simply moral do-goodism that saps our resources and is at best a band aid on the gaping wound of dark human nature.  Look at Iraq -- we were still occupying the country, and the Shia who had been empowered by our glorious "intervention" there started funding death squads to go about the country shooting people for listening to music, teaching subjects that were considered "unIslamic" in universities, and those just having some fun and trying to enjoy their lives. By at least come accounts, the political situation is as bad now as it was under Saddam Hussein, but certainly Iraq has not become -- nor ever will become -- a liberal (small "L"), Jeffersonian republic where human rights are respected and the dignity of the person is considered paramount in legislation and law enforcement.

It's a brutal world out there, and the USA will go bankrupt trying to crusade to make it better.  Better we stay in our own backyard and deal with our issues than make the world "safe."  Here are some wise words from a long dead US President, John Quincy Adams, about America's role in the world:

"Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.... She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit...."
                                                              -- John Quincy Adams, 1821

Left/Right Wing Politics and Socialism: Non-Equatable.

Stephanie Janiczek over at "Clash Daily" has written a blog in which she says that the National Socialist Movement was actually a "left-wing" movement rather than a right-wing movement to which it has usually been assigned.  I've seen these kind of things before from Righties trying to make Hitler a Leftie, I suppose so Conservative politics can be freed of the stigma of being somehow ideologically connected to Nazism. While Janiczek writes fairly well, she sadly falls into a series of missteps that derails her line of thinking.

The first problem with this piece is that it is written from a mistaken understanding of what socialism is.  Socialism is  an economic policy  in which the State controls various parts of the means and forces of production in order to provide on a (theoretically) equal basis for all persons.  Socialism is not "Leftism" -- it is only due to the fact that Marx and the Commies saw socialism as a step to end-stage Communism that people today associate Socialism purely with Leftist ideology.  Socialism can be used by any kind of a political system or social system  to achieve its ends.  Yes, it is historically connected to the Communists as they were the biggest purveyors of Socialism in the 20th Century, but that doesn't mean the economics of Socialism were only used by the Lefties in Russia and forced down the throats of captive nations.

Janiczek misunderstands the core values of Fascism (Nazism being a particular form of Fascism.)  She writes:

[W]e have him [Hitler]admitting his socialism. He doesn’t call Nazism by anything else other than National Socialism. Professors I know would be flipping their lids at me for daring to say what I am saying, but I knew they were lying when I was studying this. How could Hitler, who controlled Churches, Media, Schools, the Military, Health Care and everything else, be a right-winger? Was it because he was a racist? So, racism apparently makes a Nazi, or member of the National SOCIALIST German WORKER’S Party a right-winger? How convenient.

Well why don't we let the actual founder of Fascism speak to this, Benito Mussolini in his work, The Doctrine of Fascism:

The keystone of the Fascist doctrine is its conception of the State, of its essence, its functions, and its aims. For Fascism the State is absolute, individuals and groups relative. Individuals and groups are admissible in so far as they come within the State. Instead of directing the game and guiding the material and moral progress of the community, the liberal State restricts its activities to recording results. The Fascist State is wide awake and has a will of its own. For this reason it can be described as " ethical ".

In Fascism, the State is the literal embodiment of the people.  There are no individuals, no groups, and no associations that do not fall under the umbrella of the State.  Mussolini was never the huge racist that Hitler was, although he did have a very strong ethnocentrism in that he believed that Italian culture and the Italian people were the pinnacle of human achievement.  In that line of thought, he saw Fascism as the ultimate political system of a group of particular people in their nation, united in one purpose:  self-glorification through the State.

Both Mussolini and Hitler shared this world view.  Therefore, the Nazi and Fascist states controlled every aspect of life of their particular group of people with the purpose of self-glorification of those people. Socialism, as a system in which the State controls the important means and forces of production, was the economic system of this self-glorification.  While the Nazis embraced the term "socialist" since they saw Nazism promoting the welfare of the German people, Mussolini was less enthused in calling his system "socialist," as he wrote:

Fascism is therefore opposed to Socialism to which unity within the State (which amalgamates classes into a single economic and ethical reality) is unknown, and which sees in history nothing but the class struggle. Fascism is likewise opposed to trade unionism as a class weapon. But when brought within the orbit of the State, Fascism recognizes the real needs which gave rise to socialism and trade unionism, giving them due weight in the guild or corporative system in which divergent interests are coordinated and harmonized in the unity of the State.

Neither the Italian Fascists nor the German Nazis made any attempt to wipe out the historic class system that existed in their nations -- rather, they turned the class system to the ends of the State.  German and Italian industrialists made huge fortunes in colluding with the political system to gear up for war.  Both German and Italian working class people were told their labor was a great build up to national and ethnic greatness, and to work as hard as possible while praising the State.

Now, Janiczek might say "yes, and this sounds a whole lot like what the Commies wanted!"  There is however, a very key difference, and this is what separates Communism as a left wing socialistic movement from Fascism and Nazism as right wing socialistic movements.

Neither the Fascists nor the Nazis had any desire to empower other states or peoples.  Both in fact saw weaker nations as resources for their own population.  Both Fascism and Nazism were glorifications of a particular people in a particular nation.  Hitler, for example, saw Britain and the USA as equals as they were powerful nations made up of "Aryan" people -- other European nations might be "Aryan" to some degree, but they were not powerful and so were to be subsumed by the expanding Reich.  Mussolini, while not basing his doctrine on race per se, saw the Italian culture as supreme and so justified attacks on other nations as taking over "lesser" groups.

The Commies in principle didn't have this idea at all.  As Leon Trotsky wrote:

The present productive forces have long outgrown their national limits. A socialist society is not feasible within national boundaries. Significant as the economic successes of an isolated workers’ state may be, the programme of “Socialism in one country” is a petty-bourgeois utopia. Only a European and then a world federation of socialist republics can be the real arena for a harmonious socialist society.

This is the key difference:  Communism in ideology is a system of "brotherhood of man," bringing together all dispossessed people around the globe into the glories of socialist republics.  This has always been the Leftist approach since 1789 (and ideologically before).  Right wing social policies see a particular group in a particular nation, and acts with hostility toward other groups.  Thus, Socialist policies in those nations were for those people in those nations (to wit:  Germans and Italians).

Left wing politics in the USA are more accepting of the idea of more open borders, multiculturalism, sharing of wealth among all groups and using the State to ensure this equality.  Right wing politics are more toward closed borders, promoting a singular culture in public, and very accepting of the class system and see mobility as a personal goal rather that a social one.  The most reactionary Right Wingers, such as Pat Buchanan, live in dread fear that multiculturalism will destroy the "European cultural basis" of the United States.  I am not saying that the Right in the USA is "Fascist" any more than I would suggest the Left is "Communist."  My point is that both the Left and the Right in the USA have benign characteristics of the horrific, totalitarian systems that developed when either side went to their most extreme.

Once we get past the simplistic idea that Socialism is a "left wing doctrine only," we can see that the socio-political differences between the Commies and the Nazis/Fascists were quite different.  However, since both were oppressive, totalitarian systems, they boiled down to using the same repressive techniques to maintain social order.  In Western nations, we can have Left/Right discussions and counter-points without resorting to outright murder as our liberal (small "L") systems provide the means of political discourse.

So Janiczek is wrong:  Nazism and Fascism were very Right Wing movements.  Both used Socialism to empower their particular groups of people while seeing other nations at best as equals, and more often as pawns to be used.  Communism, in its internationalist scope was Left Wing, seeing Socialism as the means to the "glorious" (but unattainable) end of Communism.  They were not compatible in any way, nor were they mirrors of each other, except in the totalitarian ends they achieved from their particular political ideologies.