How can Justices be left or right leaning?

Hearing the justices speak and hearing commentators discussing how certain judges are left or right got me thinking about this again. How can a justice be politically biased? I thought they judged on the merits of the cases before them.

But, then we have the grilling that potential justices are put through to become judges and even there the questions don’t make sense. I guess I just don’t get it. Maybe I watched too many Star Trek episodes and now I think that somewhere or in some discipline there is a cold but accurate Vulcan logic being applied. No, there is just a bell curve and most of us are in the middle.

American presidential campaign 2012: Fail

Was just watching “Meet the Press” this morning. Gingrich was being interviewed. The host asked him a question. Boom! Out of Gingrich’s mouth spews out this gigantic attack ad against Obama. Another question. Boom! Resume the vocal upchuck, spewing over the airwaves. Of course, avoid really answering questions.

This reminds me of a question Romney was asked early in the campaign. A voter asked Romney what he would do with the illegal immigrants already in the USA. That is those already here. Already here. Romney, the question was, “those people that are already here”! Did he answer it? Nope, just spewed the usual border stuff, blah, blah. What does he really think? Round them up and do a march toward the border (or use one of those Cadillacs), including women, kids, and babies too? Provide some means for them to legally become Americans? Or just punt the issue and use it to spew more venom as to how Obama is destroying civilization as we know it?

And this is what campaigning is all about.

Funny, the only candidate really different then Obama is Ron Paul. All the rest are just pandering to various groups. The best Republican candidate is really … Obama.* LOL!

I can’t believe that in 2012 our politics is like this. It sounds like something that happens in Europe or the Middle East. What, in the year 2021 we will be spending trillions on campaigns and there will be artificial intelligence drones battling it out to convince our nano-drug dependent populace to click the link for one bozo or another?

Now I’m watching on my SlingBox the “Moyers & Company” show. Bill Moyers is interviewing Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson about the issues in their book “Winner-Take-All-Politics”.

Why are people who question and raise issues seen as left-wing liberals? It’s not even a pure political thing. Complain about the default line length in source code: oh oh, this guy is a loose cannon. Could be a herd thing: questioner = young bull after my trim.

*Obama has been following the Republican ideas to the letter. From continuing the Bush wars, to implementing the Republican health care policies and plans. Not to mention how the administration has still been benefiting the 1% rich. Again following the GOP playbook. How could it be otherwise? Democrat politicians are rich too; they suckle on the middle class’s teat.

Some links

• Jacob Hacker & Paul Pierson on Winner Take All Politics
• Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer–and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class
• Are retirement investments just fueling the wealth divide?

‘Get Over Culture’, the only thing the rich and poor have in common

Was just reading an article about one person’s experiences working at a Walmart. The article gave a few examples of the rampant welfare cheating going on. How food stamps and other means for “temporary” assistance are squandered on junk and the corresponding Entitled nature of the users. Good article.

This is not new, of course. Just another example of how human societies are probably based on various forms of symbiosis, parasitism, and other relationships on a continuum of bad thru good. Listen to any “conservative” talk radio show or read resources that cater to this, and you will find many other examples. Yes, there is definitely a problem. No denying that.

However, do any of these resources also bemoan the “getting over” that is practiced by the non-poor and educated? Nope. In fact, at the other end, getting over, inside info, loop holes, arbitrage, usury, cheating the system, and other techniques are what you do with what you can get. At any costs. You can even buy professional help in getting over.

From tax write-offs for gambling losses, vacation homes, and luxury yachts to subsidies for their ranches and estates, the government is subsidizing the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Multimillionaires are even receiving government checks for not working. This welfare for the well-off – costing billions of dollars a year – is being paid for with the taxes of the less fortunate, many who are working two jobs just to make ends meet, and IOUs to be paid off by future
generations. — link

This getting over is encouraged by business, society, and government. It must be, it fuels commerce. Happy people don’t need big screen TVs.

Perhaps, the wealthy are really predators, and the best food is what can come from what the middle class pays in taxes. Ant Milking Aphids comes to mind.

The poor have the poverty pimps and liberal political machines that cater and partake of this feeding frenzy, so called help of the unwashed stinky masses. At the other extreme we have the wealth pimps, the fake conservatives, those that promote the rich gospel and in the guise of spreading the wealth, merely sustain the ever widening gap between the haves and have not.

But genuine welfare for the poor, like TANF and food stamps, barely amounts to a CBO rounding error. Adding up the so-called “defense” budget, two unfunded wars, “national security” spending on DHS, CIA, DOE and NASA, and interest on debt from past wars, the bulk of the federal government’s budget goes to welfare for the Military-Industrial Complex.

Indeed, the dominant feature of the American polity is welfare for big business and the rich. This welfare consists of a wide array of government interventions into the market to enforce artificial scarcities and artificial property rights. — Welfare State for the Rich

What astounds me is that many consider America to be founded upon and led by Christian moral values. But, I see nothing today that pays back the suffering of Jesus on that cross. In fact, even in the religious realm there is a Getting Over: We pray and attend church so that in the Coming we too will be saved to that welfare state in the sky.

Wow, where did this rant come from?

Addendum
While browsing the web on this subject I found a whole bunch of weird stuff. What a wide range of political-economic “thought”. From anarchists to libertarians, liberals, conservative, blah, blah.

Is it really so hard to understand and see facts without the bullshit? What ever happened to good ole logic and math? The world is gray! All the little fancy colors, the red and the blues, the leftish and rightish are just figments of the social delusion, a trick of the light. No wonder dogs are great animals, they see the world as it is.

Further reading

• My Time at Walmart: Why We Need Serious Welfare Reform
• Michigan cuts off food aid for $1-million lottery winner
• Subsidies of the Rich and Famous
• Crony capitalism
• Corporate welfare
• Socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor
• Cheat, lie, break the law? Chances are, you’re rich via another WordPress blog
• A Banker’s Thankgiving
• Wealthy Staten Island Couples Accused of Medicaid Fraud
• welfare for the rich system
• The Power of Nightmares
• Money. What it is. How it works.
• The Real Housewives of Wall Street
• Welfare fraud
• FACT CHECK: Are rich taxed less than secretaries?

Are retirement investments just fueling the wealth divide?

Various investment structures, in particular mutual funds, charge fees. These fees generate fantastic riches for the various fund families and investment banks. If you want to make millions just start an investment fund. And, more and more, ordinary people are being “forced” to partake into this system, via 401K, IRA, and other investment products. If some political parties have their way, also for everything else: health, social security, education, and so forth.

Nothing wrong with fees. If you do a good job you should get paid. The problem, just like CEO compensation, these fees are owed no matter how the investment performs. Thus, wealth is being redistributed, not earned.

Is Wall St., in the guise of retirement funding, rearranging chairs on the Titanic, just giving the upper crust the better view?

As Lipper Analytical Services has demonstrated, the vast majority (94%, as of the most recent 5-year survey) of managed mutual funds have historically underperformed the stock market as a whole, making inexpensive index funds, which attempt to mirror the performance of such market indexes as the S&P 500, a more lucrative investment. It seems strange to us that so many investors are willing to pay the higher fees of managed mutual funds when they can do better with the cheaper index funds, and even better by managing their money for themselves. If mutual funds are wise, we think it’s better to be a Fool. We’ve been saying that since 1994.

What about that wealth divide?
When someone criticizes the disparity in wealth, I’m sure there are some who view this as a negative viewpoint. However, critiquing the disparity is not the same as saying everyone should be financially equal. After all, there are those who don’t contribute or strive to do better, there are those born with silver spoons, and then there are those whom by luck, cunning, or genius made riches. Who would not want to be rich? By the way, if you are rich and don’t like it, I can help you out.

The problems are:
1. It is just plain vulgar. That some are making billions while the majority are buffeted by the winds of political-economic-financial-war side-effects and must work multiple jobs, and, well, you know the spiel,… It just doesn’t compute.

2. Ok, so we have the rich class (do they rule?). In our social-economic psuedo-capitalistism this is inevitable. But, why such a large difference? What happened to trickle down?

3. Yes, the pie just gets bigger, blah blah. The thing is, we live in a finite planet, the center cannot hold. Already we are pooping more then our fair share. In my state, for example, the largest man-made structure is the garbage dump!

Further Reading
Mr. Gardner Goes to Washington
Mutual fund managers land on ‘richest’ list
Index fund

999 should be 6789

The Cain 999 tax simplification is attracting attention. Well, it should. In this political climate the major candidates have not been proposing anything bold, just the same phrases, party lines, and lack of answers to specific questions.

But, perhaps the 9-9-9 plan is too bold and as some critics are writing, lays the burden disproportionally on the 99%.

My counter proposal is just as simple, 6789:

• 6% – income on the 99%
• 7% – sales tax
• 8% – corporate tax
• 9% – income on the 1% rich

That is more equitable. Of course, economists and mathematicians can tweak the numbers. Most importantly, these numbers should be part of a feedback system. Why is everything “fixed” when the world is dynamic?

Based on economic performance and quality measures, the whole sliding scale could be shifted up or down. For example, in an overheated economy it could be shifted up, and in a difficult period, like now, it could be shifted down, such as, 5-6-7-8, etc.

Further Reading

• What would Herman Cain’s ’9-9-9′ tax plan really do?
• 9-9-9 Plan
• Cain’s 9-9-9 Plan: Just Like SimCity?
• Fuzzy Tax

Do we need an ad-free top-level domain?

From its roots as an information sharing infrastructure, the internet is now increasingly composed of marketing and sophisticated attempts at private information harvesting. This has led to an adversarial relationship between providers and consumers.

Advertising is important. Commerce is important. Getting information on new products and solutions is important. Consumerism as culture is not important (it leads to a debtor nation). Advertising that preys on the bases ‘instincts’ and misinforms is not good. There are no easy solutions to fair advertising and fair use of personal information. Invariably, the consumer will be pimped.

When telephone soliciting became absurd, a Do Not Call registry was created. The same approach may not work in the web, for even the act of searching for something is subject to ad-fluenced manipulation.

A top level domain (TLD) that prohibits advertising will be useful if and only if it is also transparent. Since it must be funded and probably would not survive on donations or sponsorship by users, an ad-free domain must rely on organizations and companies. These must be explicit. No shenanigans like we have in the political process where influence is nefarious like the Political Action Committees (PAC) that subvert the democratic process.

Some difficulties:

• What is advertising? How can it be identified?
• Who does the filtering?
• What people, organizations, and companies can become part of this domain.
• What to call this? Radio Free Earth (rfe).

Oh well, perhaps a bad idea. It was out there, my brain picked it up.

I wrote about advertising and privacy before, but in a fictional short story format: Scattered.

Further Reading

• National Do Not Call Registry

Whatever happened to higher level discourse?

I am watching The McLaughlin Group TV show. The panelist are discussing the President’s use of “Corporate Jet” tax breaks as examples of need for tax change, etc.

The panelists get all flustered and indignant. One of them even mentions that Corporate Jets are made by people and creates jobs. Another, that Corporate Jets as a tax issue is irrelevant, would generate miniscule returns, and that executives use Corporate Jets to conduct business to save time and other benefits.

I’m astounded. Clearly the president used the Corporate Jet issue as a symbolic example of the perks and privileges that are available to the super rich and not available to the majority of Americans*. Only one panelist understood this, Eleanor Clift? I doubt it; I hope not. Were the rest just playing the game, entertaining?

The problem is that this type of fixed thinking or reactionary vs contemplative response is amplified in popular media. There seems to be an epidemic of abstraction level miscommunication: where people who have not agreed on definitions, are deluded that they are arguing about the same thing.

“The beginning of wisdom, is the definition of terms” — Socrates

See also

• This column will change your life: To be or not to be…
  
• Buffett blasts system that lets him pay less tax than secretary
  

*If you use a vehicle to just get to work, you can’t claim any tax benefits, afaik. In fact, in addition to the taxes you already pay that eventually get used for roads and other infrastructure, you will probably pay even more taxes for the vehicle, fuel, and maintenance. And, unlike those with formidable legal and tax departments, more then likely you can’t exploit all the loop holes of corporate tax complexities to reduce your pain.

What is up with Fox News?

Ok, we know that Fox News is biased. There is no denying that. Very hard to be non-biased. And, we know that the Fox “non-news” shows are unbridled lunacy and cater to the lowest reptilian brain area of otherwise nice people, that “Fox Geezer Syndrome“.

But, is there an excuse for just being a bad News network? I’m watching* the Sunday morning news shows. Fox News Sunday, of course, has some Republican talking head discussing the Libyan crisis. But, instead of getting into the issues and exploring the nuances, the GOP guy just uses this to critique President Obama. In contrast, on “This Week With Christiane Amanpour”, there are probing questions that reveal that the issues are not ninth grade reading level cut and dry.

The world is complex; who would have thought? No wonder they want to get rid of NPR.

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One future day on Fox news:

Obama: Well, my second term is up. My last executive action is to give the Rethugs, I mean the Republicans their chance. I will start them off running. I decree that rich people will pay no taxes (since we know that trickle down helps everyone, <wink>). I will eliminate minimum wage requirements. No limits to foreign worker visas. Consumers should directly pay capitol gain taxes, no financial bait-and-switch needed to do it anymore. Humanitarian bleeding-heart liberal welfare state programs will be stopped, and the extra money will go to the military; we need a few more barely functional weapon systems. All regulatory agencies are now dissolved, the Market (which we should bow down to) is self-policing and destined to take us to libertarian heaven. Health care is gone, if you can’t take care of yourself, what are you living for? Further, …..

Fox news: But, where is your long-form birth certificate?

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Very insightful observation:

The popularity of vigorous rage merchants like Beck and Olbermann are not a sign of our political culture’s vitality, but rather its decadence. We live in a time and place that puts high value on emotion, and that views emotions as self-validating. To feel something is thought by many to be sufficient evidence of its truthfulness, or at least its authenticity. This is a mark of the barbarian. I understand why post-Sixties liberals make the mistake of believing that nonsense. But conservatives? — R. Ramsey

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Another individual, Ira Rosofsky, in a blog post gives some background material on today’s “emotional” extremism. See “The Paranoid Style in American Politics“. He states that Richard Hofstadter wrote about this in 1964.

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^*I’m using my old SlingPlayer box to watch boob tube^** at my home workstation. Cool. SlingPlayer is prob one of the best and least known solutions.

^**No, not that tube. Oy veah.

Further Reading
The Effects of Semantics and Social Desirability in Correcting the Obama Muslim Myth

internet + demographics + culture = revolution

Look at what happened in Tunisia and is and may echo in Egypt. This is just the start.

An essay, “A Time for Choosing” by Daniel E. Geer Jr., has this as its first paragraph:

The Internet was built by academics, researchers, and hackers—meaning that it embodies the liberal cum libertarian cultural interpretation of “American values,” namely that it is open, nonhierarchial, self-organizing, and leaves essentially no opportunities for governance beyond protocol definition. Anywhere the Internet appears, it brings those values with it (treating censorship as a routing failure, say). Other cultures, other governments, know that these are America’s strengths and that we are dependent upon them, hence as they adopt the Internet they become dependent on those strengths and thus on our values. A greater challenge to sovereignty does not exist.

That last sentence is great: “A greater challenge to sovereignty does not exist.”

[What follows was not the point of the referenced essay above and is my own naivety.]

Now look at what happened in Tunisia and is and may echo in Egypt. This is just the start.

What will happen in America? I think the possibility of violent revolution is very remote. Then again, with the rich just getting richer across a very wide gap and jobs going overseas, we are creating new kinds of classes. Not very prudent.

In the middle east and other countries the demographics is of a very young population. In the USA we are old. If we simplistically assume that revolution is the dramatic change to an opposite, then a revolution in America due to its demographics would be opposite to that in other countries. We have freedom (compared to many countries), so a revolution would be to non-freedom. Is the rise of anti-science, extreme right wing politics, hate-radio, renewed gun fervor, all fueled by internet misinformation, fear-mongering, and irrational thinking the result? It seems that the Taliban is winning the war, we are becoming them.

I don’t have to belabor the point. Just look at non-fox news for evidence: politicians calling for stopping of support for public radio, Creationism and anti-science in schools, and so on, and so on, and so on.

Young people here would be wise to put away the game machines and yakking on Facebook and start seeing what is really happening. The future has swallowed empires of old. Its gaping maw is opening again.

Arguments for the elimination of the internet?

Of course, the title of this post is ludicrous, the internet has a been a marvel and has changed the world.  Who would have thought that we would have Farmville, perverts showing their wieners on Chatroulette, terrabytes of 140 character notifications of bowel movements on SMS, people spending thousands of waking hours on virtual worlds, every flavor of pornography, advanced multiprocessor systems for perfect transmission of misinformation, and a host of low moral technological advancements. 

The above is all in jest.  Of course, any new technology will have positive and negative ramifications.  Automobiles get you places but also kill people.  However, there are more indications for reasons to be more cautious in providing Internet access in places like schools, children at home, and workplaces.

Jerry Mander wrote a book on reasons for eliminating television.  This was way before the internet broke out into common use in a big way.  I wonder how those arguments would play in this new medium?

The automobile ushered a new ere in social evolution and freedom.  However, today we are reaping the results of not thinking it through:  the energy costs, health, resources, and employment costs.  I bet we spend more on total automotive upkeep (from road maintenance, energy use, automotive legislation, to health costs due to injury and environmental unintended consequences) then we do on education.

Will the Internet years from now be as much of a minus as a plus? A bigger minus; already we see rampant security and privacy incursions. Even the criteria of truth is changing, just as digital imaging allow the reconstruction of reality. Will decades later be a realization of a cyberpunk continuum, where the everyman is just an information tuple ripe for exploitation by an extremity of views but nowhere a lasting gestalt to hold it together and sustain society?

Updates

7/22/2010:  Today I had to cook supper and forgot how a certain dish was prepared.  The explanation I found in the book “How To Cook Everything” did not really explain it so I, of course, went online.  I found out how to do it on YouTube.  Yea, amazing.  There is no excuse for being ignorant in today’s world.

Links

Mander, Jerry; “Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television”,  Harper Perennial, 1978, http://www.amazon.com/Arguments-Elimination-Television-Jerry-Mander/dp/0688082742

Internet Access Linked to Lower Test Scores, Katie Ash, Digital Education, http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/DigitalEducation/2010/06/home_internet_access_linked_to.html

“Do home computers help or hinder education”, http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/07/13/0120233/Do-Home-Computers-Help-Or-Hinder-Education?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Slashdot/slashdot+(Slashdot)

“The Acceleration of Addictiveness”, Paul Graham, http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html

“Video killed the Radio, the Internet killed Thinking”, http://blog.generationjava.com/roller/bayard/entry/video-killed-the-radio-the-internet-killed-thinking