Politics

Milton Friedman in an old interview: “Is it really true somehow that political self-interest nobler than economic self interest?”

The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants. [Albert Camus]

July 22, 2019:   I do not admire, or even like, Trump. He is an authoritarian, populist bully, with the morals of an ally cat.  Yet I still think our border should be controlled and that sanctuary cities enable crime… and that, like Obama, he is enforcing laws: the job of the executive branch.

And:

  • Studies show that minimum wages increase unemployment and decrease poor peoples’ income.
  • Every area that has gun control has more gun violence than those that allow guns.
  • Poverty has increased since the Great Society was started.
  • Socialism means government control of the economy, so always must end up with dictatorship. (And Nazism and Fascism are socialist ideologies.)
  • The “kids separated from parents” and “people in cages” statements are Bogus arguments to deflect from the fact of Gang and other immigrant crime in the US. Some of it very violent.
  • Crony capitalism and other forms of business controlling the dialog are major problems in our society.  My research in nutrition makes this Glaringly,  Painfully Obvious. The main thrust of my blog. Suspect same is true of climate and health care delivery (not the MD’s).

Since disliking Trump and understanding these other things seem inconsistent to most people I talk to, I will stop here.

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July 15, 2019: This is an area which I watch a lot. I think I am in some ways pretty naive, but in some ways see things for what they are.  As a high schooler DJ in a small radio station in Kingman, Arizona, I was subjected to the Dean Manion Forum on a weekly basis. Sort of a predecessor for Rush Limbaugh…  I also got to meet Barry Goldwater and at one point was involved in Young Republicans.  This also gave me an opportunity to observe some interesting facets about the news media, as our station was an affiliate of the NBC network.

Very prominent in my memory is this episode from the 1964 Democratic National Convention, which ended up nominating LBJ.  Late in the convention, Robert Kennedy addressed the convention.  NBC was going on about how “everyone in the convention, it was unanimous” was standing for Kennedy. Being me and being already a Conservative, I tuned in CBS to hear what they were saying. They were interviewing members of the Texas delegation and asking “why are you not standing?”

This fits with my college experience (U of Ariz) where there were demonstrations in front of the admin building. At one event about 10 students were picketing. A group of us noticed and laughed, then watched TV news that night that somehow managed to make it look and sound like hundreds.

Two Goldwater stories:

  1. when he came to record an endorsement for a local candidate, Goldwater asked her name, turned around and said “I have known Wilma Brummette a long time, now.” Crash illusions.
  2. In a high school assembly, Goldwater gave a talk. At question time, I asked how we could justify invading Cuba, given what he had just said.  He seemed surprised at the question and basically said .. good question.
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