The Futile Effort To Misrepresent James Hansen's Climate Predictions From 1988 Continues

 Incredibly, in the face of all the evidence the denier brigade continues its incessant drumbeat to ignore what's happening all around us and regard climate change-global warming as a myth, or at least its predictions as sensationalized and exaggerated. Here in Colorado no one is stupid or ignorant enough to believe either of those tropes. The current drought has seen the least snowpack in almost ten years and all the signs are there for a severe fire season such as we last beheld in 2012-13, e.g.

Indeed, the "416 Fire" has already wrought massive destruction in La Plata County and it's only June.  Recall for reference here that an NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) projection given in 2002 forecast the American West would see extended drought, hotter weather and fire conditions into the near and distant future ...on account of climate change-global warming.    Right now seven Colorado counties classify as disaster areas because of the drought and things will only get worse as the summer progresses. Meanwhile, several rivers have reached peak flows, the Rio Grande - which originates in our state - is  down to barely 250 cubic feet per second compared to over 1400 cfs several years ago.

But the global warming "exaggerations"  nonsense keeps churning, the latest appearing June 22,  WSJ, p. A15 by two lackeys from the Libertarian CATO Institute (Pat Michaels, and Ryan Maue).  Of course, according to Libertarian ideology every manjack must cope on his or her own, such as in Puerto Rico after being flattened by Hurricane Maria. You are not supposed to "grovel" to the government for any "handouts", but do what Ayn Rand would have: do for yourself even if it means drinking toxic water out of waste dumps. Hey, at least you won't die of thirst!

According to the CATO pawns all of  James Hansen's forecasts from 1988 were either wrong or overblown by the media.  Hansen delivered three "scenario" forecasts, A, B and C with A based on "accelerating emissions" for CO2, B based on more moderate emissions, and C "the least likely" e.g. only constant emissions commencing in 2000. We now know the last was a pipedream - see top graphic-  given the relentless increase in global mean temperatures.  Despite this,  Michaels and Maue  insist: "scenario C is the winner" because:

"Global surface temperatures have not increased significantly since 2000, discounting the larger than usual El Nino of 2015-16."

But this bejabber flies in the face of the data during that time span and shown the top graphic.  Thus, "14 of the 15 warmest years occurred since 2000." This was including 2014 which "broke all records".

What gives? Are the CATO authors ignorant or just low IQ dupes? Actually, mainly ignorant.  A first clue appeared thanks to Thomas Karl, Director of the National Centers for Environmental Information of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in a June 4, 2015 paper which appeared in the journal Science.

This concerned inconsistent data treatment, particularly in processing sea surface temperatures - especially as measured by buoys.   This error was likely compounded in conjunction with the misinterpretation of Hadley UK Center future projections on climate that I've already discussed at length, e.g.
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/06/george-will-no-warming-for-last-16.html

I would even venture to say that the preponderance of false judgment by too many (mainly conservatives like George Will, i.e. in his first and only recent appearance on Bill Maher's Real Time) is due to inadequate study of the climate backstory. That includes the role of changing carbon isotope ratios over geological time, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2010/12/carbon-isotope-ratios-and-climate.html

As Thomas Karl noted, quoted in Eos Transactions - Earth & Space Science (July 1, 2015):

"The biggest takeaway is there is no slowdown in global warming".

Indeed, he added that warming the past fifteen years is the "strongest it's been since the latter half of the 20th century". Putting an exclamation point on that, July that year (2015) was the hottest July since records were initiated.

A good summary of the paper may be accessed at:

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2015/noaa-analysis-journal-science-no-slowdown-in-global-warming-in-recent-years.html 

Why the measurement difficulty? Well, because the data gathering and process of analysis are inherently complex.  In order to achieve such a measurement as how Earth's average global temperature is increasing, there's a lot of "sausage making".  First, scientists must combine thousands of measurements from Earth's surface, taken by land instruments, ships. buoys and orbital satellites.

Second, each of these has its own random errors, all of which must be identified. Not only must researchers comb through the data to eliminate these errors, they must also correct for any differences in how each type of instrument measures temperature.

Thus, the authors of the Science paper had to dig into NOAA's global surface temperature analysis data to examine how sea surface temperatures (SSTs) were being measured. SSTs are measured in various ways:

-  collecting ocean water in a bucket and measuring its temperature directly

- measuring the temperature of water taken in by a ship engine as a coolant

- using floating buoys moored in the various oceans

Each technique records slightly different temperatures in the same region so scientists have to adjust the data. In the past couple decades the number of buoys has increased - adding 15% more coverage to the ocean. But because buoys tend to read colder temperatures than ships at the same locations, a measurement bias is introduced which must be corrected for. This was the primary task set out by Karl et al.  They corrected for the bias by adding 0.12C to each buoy temperature. 

By then combining the ocean data with improved calculations of air temperatures over land around the world, Karl and colleagues found that overall global surface warming over 2000-14 was 0.116C per decade or more than twice the estimated 0.039C starting in 1998 that the IPCC had reported.

 

Basically then the WSJ's  CATO contributors are guilty mainly of rank ignorance in: a) not knowing how sea surface or other global temperatures are processed, and b) failing to appreciate the significance and why the rise in temperatures fully comports with Hansen's model.

All of this also comports with the latest data from the United Nation's World Meteorological Association that notes the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration has now reached 403 parts per million.   

Note here that every increase in CO2 concentration by 2 ppm increases the radiative heating effect  by 2 W/m².  Further, the increase has been by 3 ppm since 2015-16. So no surprise the UN Report concluded:  

 

"Geological records show that the current levels of CO2 correspond to an equilibrium climate last observed in the mid-Pliocene (3 - 5 million years ago) , a climate that was 2-3 degrees Celsius warmer  - where the Greenland West Antarctic Ice sheets melted - leading to sea levels that were 32- 64 feet higher than those today."

This, of course, torpedoes the CATO authors next claim e.g.

"In a 2007 case deposition Mr. Hansen stated that most of Greenland's ice would soon melt raising sea levels 23 feet over the course of 100 years."

Hmmm....looks like Hansen was pretty spot on to me, judging from the UN WMO report!  Indeed, it looks like he was way too conservative, projecting only 23 feet increase in sea level vs. the 32- 64 feet from the WMO report based on now being in a Ploiocene climate (given the CO2 concentration at 403 pm). 

Again, the two CATO clowns misjudge and misinterpret as when they cite a Nature paper  which "found only modest ice loss after 6,000 years of much warmer temperatures than human activity could ever sustain".

Failing to note that the latest findings (June 13, Nature) disclose Antarctic ice melt has tripled since 2007.   They use this to project a 15 cm sea level rise by 2100 - but this study takes no account of the Greenland melting rate - which is accelerating faster from Jokulhlaup (cf. Jokulhlaup Observed in Greenland ice sheet’, appearing in Eos: Transactions of the American Geophysical Union (Vol. 89, No. 35, 26 Aug. 2008, p. 221). The cited paper specifically noted an increased frequency in occurrence of “jokalhlaups”or sudden glacial bursts of melting runoff from glaciers. It was this phenomena that also played a role in the “unusual cracks" that set off the separation of a “chunk of ice the size of Manhattan” (19 sq. miles)from Ellesmere Island in Canada’s northern Arctic. In the case of the increasing Greenland Jokulhlaup we are looking not just at one massive breakoff, but the loss of perhaps 45% of the entire Greenland ice sheet on account of the underground splintering effects producing ever larger cracks in the ice and the inability of it to support the overlying permafrost and other ice. Thus, onset will be sudden and perhaps more like a "terror attack" from nature.

So again,  the CATO authors did not do due diligence in the preparation of their article. Other missteps are also in evidence, e.g.

 

"Have hurricanes gotten stronger, as Mr. Hansen predicted in a 2016 study? No, satellite data from 1970 onward shows no evidence of this in relation to global surface temperature."

Again, wrong.  According to SciCheck, a division of FactCheck.org:

"The most recent analysis of what’s known about the effect of climate change on hurricane activity comes from the June 28 draft of the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s Climate Science Special Report.  One of that report’s key findings said that human activities have “contributed to the observed increase in hurricane activity” in the North Atlantic Ocean since the 1970s. The Gulf of Mexico, where Harvey formed, is part of the North Atlantic Ocean.

The draft report echoes the findings of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2013 assessment report, which found that scientists are “virtually certain” (99 percent to 100 percent confident) that there has been an “increase in the frequency and intensity of the strongest tropical cyclones since the 1970s” in the North Atlantic Ocean."

Again, this follows logically from the current 403 ppm concentration of  CO2  in the atmosphere which also must be tied to higher surface temperatures (see the graphic again) and also note he planet is currently  subject to a radiative heating effect equivalent to 2.5 x 10 ⁷  TJ injected each year into the atmosphere or roughly 400,000 Hiroshima size A-bombs.   This in turn conforms to the observed  addition of 2 ppm  per year  in CO2 concentrations and an associated heating increase per year of             2 W/m².    

Result?  The temperature of the planet is currently out of balance by 0.6W/ m²  and this is almost entirely due to the annual rate of CO2 concentrations increasing. This is not due to any natural phenomenon but to human injection of carbon and other greenhouse gases into the planet's climate system. The end result of which is to RAISE global temperatures!. 

The CATO clowns then dig themselves in deeper, asking:

"Have storms caused increasing amounts of damage to the U.S. Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show no such damage measured as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product"

But that is because gross domestic product is an unreliable measure, given it omits so many "externalities"  i.e. the loss in potable water, electric access after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico.  And as noted in the WSJ :'The Hurricane Lull Couldn't Last', (Sept. 1, p. A15):

"The U.S. has seen 20 storms causing a billion dollars or more in damage since 2010, not including Harvey, compared with nine billion-dollar floods in the full decade of the 1980s." 

This definitely shows an alarming increase in damage, never mind the  bogus invocation of % of GDP    As  Financial Times contributor David Pilling explained in a TIME Viewpoint article ('Why GDP Is A Faulty Measure Of Success',  Feb. 5, p. 41):

"Invented in the 1930s, the figure is a child of the manufacturing age - good at measuring physical production but not the services that dominate modern economies. How would GDP measure the quality of mental health care or the availability of day care centers and parks in your area?  Even Simon Kuznets, the Belarussian economist who practically invented GDP, had doubts about his creation."

GDP is supposed to measure the total production and consumption of goods and services in the United States. But the numbers that make up the Gross Domestic Product by and large only capture the monetary transactions we can put a dollar value on. Almost everything else is left out: old growth forests that maintain cooling and act as CO2 repositories, watersheds, animal habitats, e.g. the Everglades, and costs of infrastructure maintenance. But ALL of these count toward  the physical security and welfare of a society, and assume particular import after being majorly impacted in a monster hurricane - such as the type seen over the past decade.

Michaels and Maue claim next that the "list of what didn't happen is long and tedious"  - but I could counter that by asserting the list of my subsequent demolitions of your arguments about Hansen's  "failed" predictions is also long and tedious.  For example, the dynamic duo argue:

"Hansen's models and the UN's don't consider more precise measures of how aerosols emissions counter warming caused by greenhouse gases"

Which is pure poppyock, because we've known for decades - from thermal physics - the effects of aerosols on global warming, and the former don't even make the cut of an ant fart in the wind. In this regard, .one can't forget or omit diffusive reflection and re-transmission of radiation, say arising from particulates . Chandrasekhar in Radiative Transfer, (Dover Publications) shows that for angles of incidence in the range : 0.5 < i < 0.8 radian, diffusive reflection allows the radiation reflected normal to the incidence direction to actually have higher intensity than the original. (E.g. for optical depths 1.0 < < 2.0).

In effect, if conditions in the lower atmosphere incorporate such optical depths (and angles of incidence for scattering, diffusive reflection), on account of increased presence of particulates, aerosols, then we will expect to find an "anomaly" say in the temperature. The most alarming aspect of global dimming in this regard - as made public by global dimming researchers (e.g. Dr Peter Cox) is that it has obviously deceived many (like the CATO clowns) into underestimating the true power of the greenhouse effect, including the role of CO2.

Hence, Michaels and Mauer's tripe is expected only if one hasn't properly reckoned the presence of dimming particulates- aerosols ,  especially their scattering, re-reflection (and hence false albedo effects) into global warming models! 

The key clue to the REAL agenda of the authors and their persistent misdirection is embodied in this remark:

"Why should people world wide pay drastic costs to cut emissions when the global temperature is acting as if the cuts have already been made?"

Actually, my fine pair of CATO clowns, the global temperatures are NOT acting any such way other than in your fevered imaginations.  Again, see the top graphic of continuous increases in worldwide temperatures.  The point here is that Maue and Michaels have exposed their hand as primarily concerned with economic costs, hence they qualify as agnotologists - not climatologists.  Stanford historian of science Robert Proctor has correctly tied this shtick to the trend of skeptic science sown deliberately and for political or economic ends . In other words, the supporters of agnotology - whoever they may be- are all committed to one end: destroying the science to enable economic profit and hence planetary ruin. 

Michaels and Maue fit this profile to a tee, and is the biggest reason why their op-ed needs to be taken with a grain of salt, or ... with the gravitas of a solitary ant fart.

Are Mensa's Libertarians Really As Dumb As They Write?

Even wifey was appalled to read one of the letters published in the latest Mensa Bulletin,  (January, 'Brainwaves' p. 10) written by a Mensan named Dennis Ward. It read thus:

"Taxes! Taxes! Taxes! People are always complaining about taxes, so the  'smart' members of Mensa have the right solution: It is neither ethical nor moral to force anyone to do anything against their will unless in self-defense. Many people will ask: 'How will we run the government without taxes?'  My answer is that it is neither ethical nor moral to force anyone to do anything against their will unless in self-defense."

Wow! This character repeats a mantra and he makes it appear as if he's delivering some unique wisdom from atop Mt. Olympus,  channeling a Mensan version of Zeus. Give me a break! At best this is regurgitated  from Libby idol Ayn Rand, who blabbered in her book, The Virtue of Selfishness (p. 116):

"Since the imposition of taxes does represent an initiation of force...in a fully free society, taxation, or payment for government services, would be voluntary. Since the proper services of government - the police, the army, the law courts - are demonstrably needed by individual citizens, and affect the individual's interests directly, they should be willing to pay for such services as they pay for insurance.....Men would voluntarily pay for insurance protecting their contracts."

One method of such voluntary government financing would be a government lottery"

and (ibid.)

"A fully free society is one that has been constitutionally reduced to only its most proper, basic functions"


This is also undoubtedly where the pet libertarian canard that “taxes = theft’ comes from. But let's look at it objectively:  the reductio ad absurdum conclusion is that every human resides in a kind of bubble or vacuum wherein he or she presumably controls all.  Face invasion by a foreign army? Develop your own counterforce, or....round up enough soldiers to try to protect you.  Your town flattened by an F5 tornado and all electric power and water gone? Well, try to get neighbors together and dig your own wells for H2O while you cut lumber to put up new telephone poles and look around for electric power lines.  H3N2 flu killing one person after another in your town, and there's no flu vaccine - or Tamiflu - because, well you didn't want to pay  taxes to support the CDC or government health services? Hey, no problemo! Go mix up some camphor balls and listerine and see if that works!

 This elicits two questions, not entirely unrelated: 1) Is it practical to expect an individual in any society to shoulder all responsibility for all possible adverse events - that may not only affect him, but also others in his proximity or region?, and 2) Is it possible to have a "fully free society"?

Let's take the last first and note the libertarian creed has a primary fetish for "full freedom" especially on the individual level.   But this arises from fantasies that bear no relation to the real world we inhabit. This includes such natural threats and affronts to individual freedom as: floods, fire storms, mudslides - such as recently swallowed dozens of California homes, monster hurricanes, tornadoes,
and disease pandemics - say from Influenza,  Zika or dengue fever.

I believe we can agree that each of these, if occurring in a populated place, impinges adversely on the inhabitants' freedom, say to live or even prosper. In nearly every case resources are suddenly limited, including electric power, water and even food. The frequency of these natural enemies of total freedom also appears to be increasing as climate change goes on.

The conclusion then is that a fully free, autonomous and independent society is an impossible concept. This is because no one living on this planet - in any society, country or continent- - can be free of the vicissitudes and vagaries of the multiple possible natural disasters, events that can afflict any given community. Once your domain  is devastated by any natural disaster of any form your "freedom" becomes circumscribed.  Ask the Puerto Ricans still without electric power after Hurricane Maria.  These hapless folk cannot cook their rice, access potable water, refrigerate their medications or watch television news. Or even have lights by which their offspring can do homework - hence why many thousands have abandoned the island to live in the U.S.

By extension then, we can generalize and assert once your domain is subject to any kind of natural disaster (including a pandemic flu) your basic freedom to live and prosper is limited.  This axiom applies to all humans across the planet, no exceptions.

As a corollary let me add that ALL individuals exist as part of communities, they do not exist unto themselves as one hundred percent self sufficient entities. Even if  an individual might conduct his  own home school to teach his own offspring, he'd be hard pressed to  build his own roads, bridges, sewer and water lines, hospitals, airports etc.  So it is daft to believe any individual can live on his own detached from the resources of a greater collective, unless he is maybe another Ted Kaczynski. So seriously, are Ward, Ayn Rand and fellow Libbies asking us to generate 300 million Ted Kaczynskis?  Give me a break!

So moving on to inquiry (1), what then is the Libby solution for a community or even a state, if it is suddenly struck by monster storms, floods or wildfires? Well,  if I am a Puerto Rican and my power and water was knocked out after Hurricane Maria,  I suppose Ward's "solution" is that I retrieve my own telephone poles, power lines, and also machinery to excavate my own water wells.  I suppose also he expects all other Puerto Ricans  to do the same. No dependence on outside (tax-funded) government agencies like FEMA or the U.S. Army to help or lift a mitt.

What a freaking system- of idiocy!

If an H5 N1 Avian flu pandemic arrives, as many (e.g. Dr. Sanjay Gupta)  predict sometime in the future, would Mr. Ward also demand cutting all tax-support for the CDC - which tracks pandemics? Would he prefer we all just fend for ourselves, without even a flu vaccine to help?  I mean, in his deformed stunted world it would be "force" to have any upstanding citizen pay taxes to support the preparation of vaccines or the CDC in its keeping Americans apprised.

But again, this is the problem when one relies on mantras instead of reason and critical thinking, even if a "smart" Mensan.

This bids us also look again at Ayn Rand's solutions to our dilemma of what to do in case we  need police, army, fire fighters, health care or any other ostensible service of government that ordinarily woould be provided via tax dollars. But since taxation is "theft" to her and Ward, then we are to EACH purchase our own services "like insurance"".  Must I really spell out how stupid this is, and that if one is really going to individualize costs - as opposed to share them via a tax commons-  they are going to be astronomical.

Must I also spell out to the libbies that taxation is totally justified by social contract theory. On this basis we in the public sphere democratically allow people (like Warren Buffet and George Soros)  to accumulate wealth only with the understanding that a portion of that wealth would be allocated for public use.  Go ahead and establish whatever business empire you wish, but be aware that your use of our railroads, state highways, airports, etc. makes it incumbent on you to pay into the collective, the  tax commons. And no, this is assuredly not a "voluntary" matter as Rand suggests.

This brings us to one of the most apt criticisms of libertarianism:

"I don't need force to commit theft or fraud. This is a bit of rhetorical sleight of hand that libbies like to play so that they can pretend they are different from government”.

To fix ideas, Bernard Madhoff put a gun to no one's head to part with their money. He merely plied clients with fantastic visions of unearned extra wealth via his investment offerings. They weren't forced to purchase these instruments. This in itself shows the libbie's version of force as theft is poppycock.. Conversely,  taxation is not force if person X opts to live in a state or city whereby that habitation gives tacit agreement to be subject to the state's tax.  If I dislike the terms of that agreement I am at liberty to do what  one hedge fund billionaire once did and live on my own ship outside international waters.

Enter now  Prof. Ernest Partridge take on libertarianism in his 2012 article, ‘Liberals and Libertarians’:

“Now consider the implications of this denial of the "independent existence" of "the public" and "society." If there is no "public," then there are no "public goods" and there is no "public interest." If there is no "society," then there is no "social harm," or "social injustice" or "social (and public) responsibility." It then follows that government has no role in mitigating "social injustice" or promoting "the public interest," since these terms are fundamentally meaningless. Poverty and racial discrimination, for example, are individual problems requiring individual solutions”.


The same critic cited earlier puts thus:

“Libertarians make exceptions for defense of property and prosecution of fraud, and call them ‘retaliatory force’ But retaliation can be the initiation of force."

Libertarianism clearly posits initiation of force for what it identifies as its cosseted minions' interests and calls it righteous retaliation, then uses the big lie technique to define everything else as “evil initiation of force". They support the initial force that has already taken place in the formation of the system of property (e.g. the seizure of Native American lands and violation of umpteen treaties), and wish to continue to use force to perpetuate it and make it more rigid. It is this inchoate ethics that translates into the system’s weakness and exposes libertarians as true hypocrites.

Thankfully, it appears fewer in the higher Q societies have been buying into this codswallop over the last few years. Maybe it's because Ayn Rand's rubbish of "objectiviem" - disguised as philosophy - has also been exposed on a number of fronts.

See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/richard-eskow/53353/what-america-would-look-like-if-libertarians-got-their-way

Skewering The Myth Of "Absolute Individual Sovereignty"

No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee  - John Donne


In the fantasies of the Libertarian segment of humanity,  each human is an autonomous "island" unto himself and in an absolute sense. He or she requires no government "nannyism" or oversight (in governance)  since any degree of such limits and impedes the Libbie's imagined absolute "inalienable" right to total individual sovereignty and liberty.  The grandest exposition of these memes probably was compliments of Ayn Rand, in her "bible" : The Virtue of Selfishness. 

For example, on the issue of government financing in a free society, Rand writes (p. 116):

"Since the imposition of taxes does represent an initiation of force...in a fully free society, taxation, or payment for government services, would be voluntary. Since the proper services of government - the police, the army, the law courts - are demonstrably needed by individual citizens, and affect the individual's interests directly, they should be willing to pay for such services as they pay for insurance.....Men would voluntarily pay for insurance protecting their contracts."

One method of such voluntary government financing would be a government lottery"

and (ibid.):

"A fully free society is one that has been constitutionally reduced to only its most proper, basic functions"

In other words, Steven Bannon's destruction of the administrative state come to fruition. No oversight or regulations regarding food quality control, so you can get botulism, E coli or salmonella infections at any time, no CDC funding so if the Bird flu strikes you're on your own, and no regulation of worker safety so you can be killed on the job any time and no one will care - at least in the company that developed the meat cutter or other machine that did you in.

All of these memes have been regurgitated again in an essay, 'A Controlling Concept', by Iloilo Margaret Jones, appearing in the April issue of Intertel's Integra.   In her opening paragraphs Ms. Jones professes that each day she begins her commitment to one overarching concept: the "absolute sovereignty and inviolate nature of each human being on Earth."

She never elaborates on what she means by "inviolate nature" of each human, but in the context of her essay as a whole it likely means no human can be "violated" by any external entity, especially a government.  This assumption is supported when she writes:

"Government, as we all know, is for maiming and hamstringing productive people very, very slowly and keeping us alive and functioning just enough to continue to produce a bit of 'marginal utility' for the state'. Then we wonder why so many people need Prozac and other opiates!"

Actually, "so many people need Prozac" because of the widening gulf of inequality spurred on by: 1) wage stagnation since 1973; 2) job losses driven by automation and globalization, as well as  (3) a perverse capitalist imperative (exhibited in corporations) known as Pareto utility. See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/06/modern-economics-its-evil-basis-pareto.html

And if one is lucky enough to have a job it is more often than not in a proto-fascist corporation. These can dictate how underlings wear and style their hair, when they can eat, how long they may use the rest room (and how many times an 8-hour day), how often drug tests are imposed, as well as invoking the right to rifle through belongings in your desk any time they want. They can also monitor you through the day using hidden cameras, and freely inquire concerning off-hours alcohol consumption, exercise habits as well as childbearing intentions. Why doesn't Iloilo Jones bitch about these corporate infringements on her precious "individual sovereignty and liberty"?  Well, because "government" is the standard go-to 'tackling dummy' for all dedicated libbies. Like the 'great Satan" is to the Iranian mullahs.

Jones even goes so far as to try to recruit the Declaration of Independence to her cause, writing:

"The Declaration of Independence was written to free humans from oppressive government . Unfortunately, it took only a few years for many of those same authors to decide to put into place a replacement government, organized and created with enough flaws to allow the present conditions to prevail. What happened to the inalienable rights elucidated in the Declaration?"

Here, she mistakenly invokes the Declaration as the cornerstone of individual rights and governance when it is in fact the Constitution - written later- that articulates these in the Bill of Rights.  The "replacement government" she slams is none other than the one that is constitutionally -based. The Declaration was not written to "free humans from oppressive government" but to posit a basis for Americans to revolt against British rule. As summarized  in Wikipedia:

"The Declaration of Independence is the statement adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at the Pennsylvania State House (Independence Hall) in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies, then at war with the Kingdom of Great Britain, regarded themselves as thirteen newly independent sovereign states, and no longer under British rule. Instead they formed a new nation—the United States of America."

The Declaration also laid the basis to remove a government if it fails to adhere to the Constitution and principles of liberty enshrined therein, e.g.

"Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government"

But again, this is taken to be in the context of a working Constitution, not in some libertarian "individual liberty" vacuum. "Consent of the governed" is then manifest through the representatives of the people who form the government and they are sworn to uphold the Constitution. It is not, as Iloilo imagines, a prescription for individual anarchy devoid of any constitutional contexts and by extension governance, say in the federal system established under the Constitution.

Governance, further,  presumes and demands the non-passive act of governing, which means the projection of force for enforcement of laws  - arising from the Constitution, or federal, state and local statutes.  Someone is invariably and actively setting standards of expected action, and also providing the means to uphold the standards. In other words, force inevitably backs up governance. Why do you think cities maintain police forces, and the nation a large volunteer standing army - along with assorted weapons to control crowds?  It is to sustain coherent and FORCE-ful governance.

The libertarians, then, espouse a philosophy which cannot possibly work in the real world - because that world implicitly recognizes and declares government the primary agent of force, i.e. to enforce laws. Look around for a "force-less" government, i.e. which retains adherence and respect for its laws with no use of force. I defy you to name one.

If governments aren't enabled to enforce their laws , what’s the point? It’s all an exercise in mental masturbation. People can do whatever they want: set up sex store emporiums or pot shops next to schools, or sell cocaine  and semi-automatic weapons in open stalls on the sidewalks of major cities!  Freedom thereby becomes perverted into a veritable "free for ALL". In other words, unless governance declares limits to actions - and someone (coercively) enforces governance, a functional society becomes  impossible. Maybe there IS a docile libertarian principle of “governing suggestion”- but this in no way is the same as “governance”. I also warrant such "suggestion" will always remain that and never be adopted.

One of the examples assorted libertarians invoke is that public tradespeople or entrepreneurs ought to be free  to decide with whom they trade. Thus, the druggist, the restaurateur, the hobby store, the home renovation store owner - whoever- ought to be free to decide with whom they trade. Of course, this is a prescription for absolute chaos. If every person, corporation, etc. could decide with whom they trade we'd have market bedlam. Economics would be in an even worse predictive position than it is presently.

In the preceding context it was inevitable Iloilo Jones would take on taxes, the favorite target of Libertarians since the year dot. According to her:

"I am against any tax.  In my eyes there is no acceptable level of taxation, being as it is the use of force to steal production."

Yes, this lady really wrote that and is a member of Intertel, an organization made of the top 1 percent of I.Q.  She literally, despite that qualification, believes she shouldn't pay a red cent for any tax, never mind that taxes cover such civil necessities as roads and highways, military defense, and protection of the population - e.g. by the research of NIH, CDC and other agencies- from pandemics or other health threats.  So she'd rather risk worms in her brain from eating unregulated pork than pay a buck in tax. Oh, her solution for military defense, you have to read this to believe it:

"I would support and join a volunteer militia too!"

Really, Iloilo? I am sure the one million man North Korean army will be elated to hear that as well as the three million man Chinese army - especially if both decide to invade the US of A if enough of you libbies get into power!  Seriously, Iloilo appears to be caught up in the 1770s when "volunteer militias" were the main national defense. She needs to bring herself up to date on modern warfare, maybe starting with World War I?

Her polemic against taxation echoes Rand's from her 'Virtue of Selfishness'.  Recall Rand's statement again (p. 116):

"Since the imposition of taxes does represent an initiation of force...in a fully free society, taxation, or payment for government services, would be voluntary"

Hence, her appeal to a "lottery" to pay for military needs. Well, that would have to be a hell of a lottery to cover everything from F-35s to manning over 600 bases around the world!

One of Jones' most nonsensical statements I've saved for the last, where she writes:

"If a conflict arises between individual and public good, then public good, existing as it does as a only a fictional collection of the good of separate individuals, must be abandoned for the good of the individual."

Let's pierce this codswallop in one fell swoop. Consider the "anti-vaxxers" adamantly gaining support that their stance - to refuse any and all vaccinations - is part of their "personal liberty" and an  "individual good".  Hence, any demand - say from CDC or other gov't agency  - they get vaccinated, against measles, whooping cough, mumps, diphtheria etc. is unwarranted because the anti-vaxxers are really just a "fictional collection" of separate individuals.  All vaccinations must be "abandoned for the good of the individual", i.e. the anti-vaxxers.

But we know the public collective of a vulnerable society is real  and hence its "good" (not getting sick from an unvaccinated idiot) is as well. Recent evidence shows this with assorted measles outbreaks, as well as whooping cough in various places. Hence, these "fictional collectives" of anti --vaxxer individualists pose actual health threats to the rest of us. As any specialist from the CDC can tell you, it is precisely "herd immunity" which protects the aggregate, say from a future smallpox pandemic. This is assuming that horrific virus ever emerged again (even from a biological attack or release, since both the U.S. and Russia retain samples).

What this example also shows is there can exist no "individual good" apart from the societal or aggregate good. If healthcare is a universal, collective good - as it is - then it follows there can be no "individual good" that foregoes it.   If Ms. Jones somehow contracts Avian flu or an E. Coli infection - it behooves the larger society to learn how she was infected. The reason is that these infections can impinge on the overall public good, i.e. the health of the larger society. If the larger public good didn't really exist - as she claims - there'd be no worries about possible epidemics or pandemics, such as occurred with the Spanish flu in 1918. (Up to 100 million estimated killed by that virus).

Thus, if no investigation of her condition was enabled or allowed, and a pandemic or widespread infection occurred, it conceivably could affect the entire national productivity. (Indeed, some gaming of future infections, say from a Bird flu pandemic, contemplates up to 50 percent of the working U..S. population being disabled.)

Prof. Ernest Partridge highlighted Jones' mode of erratic thought in his 2012 article, ‘Liberals and Libertarians’:

“Now consider the implications of this denial of the "independent existence" of "the public" and "society." If there is no "public," then there are no "public goods" and there is no "public interest." If there is no "society," then there is no "social harm," or "social injustice" or "social (and public) responsibility." It then follows that government has no role in mitigating "social injustice" or promoting "the public interest," since these terms are fundamentally meaningless."

Hence, if Jones' postulate of government having no role in establishing a "public good" were true, then it follows logically it should have no role in halting a Bird flu, smallpox, or diphtheria epidemic. Nor should it have any role in investigating a massive salmonella or E. coil outbreak, never mind how many people suffer loss of kidney function from the latter and need dialysis.  Why do so if no public good, i.e. that affects the larger society, exists?

A few things for Iloilo Jones and her Libertarian friends to ponder.

Why Rand Paul Has Zero Chance Of Any Presidential Nomination (His Groupies Ought to Quit Now)

GOP presidential candidate Rand Paul cut short an interview with The Guardian’s Paul Lewis 2 weeks ago Friday, leaving the reporter in the dark (literally) after being pressed for specifics on campaign strategy and criminal justice. After offering a terse response to Lewis on how he plans to reach both the Republican base and more centrist voters, Paul abruptly shut down the conversation and walked away from the reporter, who continued to push for “a specific answer.”

It doesn't matter as Rand Paul has no chance in Hell of ever getting nominated. Let's leave out for the moment the loopy Libertarian creed to which he subscribes which maintains the world belongs to the 'creators' (like Ayn Rand's fictional Howard Roark) and everyone else became "second -handers" or parasites. We even leave out for now that Alissa Rosenbaum (Ayn's original name) grew up a total deprived neurotic after the Bolsheviks took over and dispatched her family to more humble surroundings in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Little Alissa grew up vexed to the core and vowed that one day she'd get what she had coming to her and so came to America - where assorted family and friends, relatives handed her virtually everything on a platter. (She never thanked any of them either, according to the new book, The Age of Selfishness). Later, she found a niche in a studio as a screen writer and managed to get a bloated, half-baked novel ("The Fountainhead") published - which later became a crappy movie - and managed to find a hubby. (She also found a lover in Nathaniel Branden - a doofus who actually agreed to have his name changed to fit 'RAND' into it!)  She insisted to her hubby that rational people should be allowed to make such choices, and so arranged for trysts with Branden thrice weekly. (This was until the dupe eventually wised up and dumped her - after which - in a fit, she scuttled the "Nathaniel Branden Institute" - where lecturers expatiated on the benefits of "Objectivism".)

After Rand's  first novel she went on to write other folderol as well as developing the hokey philosophy called Objectivism. Basically it maintained that selfishness is the true virtue and we all ought to practice it. At least those who aspire to be "individualists"  as opposed to parasites sucking on the marrow of winners! Every man for himself, devil take the hindmost and all that. This garbage later became the fodder for Neoliberalism as well as the fuel that nearly brought down the economy in 2008- given one of her former acolytes (Alan Greenspan) was full tilt approving of an unregulated derivatives market. And so it goes.

Back to the other "Rand", Rand Paul. First, the guy has zero chance of winning anything national or major given all the reasons I cited in this prior post:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/07/why-libertarians-will-never-win.html

But more disconcerting for him, as an expose of his sordid campaign in Mother Jones notes, is that it's already been tarred and permanently. It is guaranteed to implode sometime in the near future and all bets will be off for anyone dumb enough to back this guy. (Even forgetting for the moment he already walked back one of his key principles, of not extending military might into the Middle East or anywhere else - which had at least rendered him partly preferable - say to Ted Cruz or Chris Christie)

The "time bomb" associated with the Paul campaign would shock the living hell out of the centrists and Millennials to whom Paul is trying to appeal. In fact, it involves a bunch that goes by the title, The National Right to Work Committee which has a mantra - according to one ex -staffer (MJ, May-June, 2015, p. 52):

"We're Right to Work. We hate everybody"

Ha! Charming bunch of douchebags!   Oh, another thing they won't tell you is that the group's origin is firmly on the far right. (Got that, centrists?) Their longest serving President was, in fact, Reed Larson, affiliated with the John Birch Society. For those short on political history the John Birch Society was almost the biggest bunch of nuts around in the 1960s.

But anyway, this sordid background isn't Rand Paul's biggest problem. No, that attaches to Paul's campaign picking up a former NRTWC operative named Kent Sorenson- also a former Iowa state Senator.  After "secretly negotiating for months to lure Sorenson from the Bachmann campaign" back in 2011 the Randians finally got their wish. But the problem is it looks now more like  serious liability.

Reason?

"The Sorenson deal exploded into public view in 2013 thanks to a pair of whistleblowers from the Ron Paul and Bachmann campaigns and the episode now hangs over Rand Paul and his inner circle like a cloud". (Ibid.)

This could be because "Sorenson pleaded guilty last year to two criminal charges for which he faces up to 25 years in prison."  As MJ goes on to note (ibid.)

"It has pulled back the curtain on the roguish band of advisors, political organizers and fundraisers whose sometimes sketchy tactics have fueled Rand Paul's political ascent. This crew - call it Paul World- reflects the damn the rules, libertarian world view of the candidate himself".


As I noted in a previous blog post:

The libertarians espouse a philosophy which cannot possibly work in the real world - because that world implicitly recognizes and declares government the primary agent of force, i.e. to enforce laws. Look around for a "force-less" government, i.e. which retains adherence and respect for its laws with no use of force.

So it would be quite natural for a Libbie like Rand (or his campaign) to disregard all laws, rules and regulations and act like they're in the Wild West. This is given, as Charles Murray has written ('What it means to be a Libertarian (p. 6)::

"...the first libertarian principle of governance: In a free society individuals may not initiate the use of force against any other individual or group."

As I went on to note:

If governments aren't enabled to enforce their laws , what’s the point? It’s all an exercise in mental masturbation. People can do whatever the hell they want!  Set up sex store emporiums or pot shops next to schools, or sell cocaine  and semi-automatic weapons in open stalls on the sidewalks of major cities!  Freedom thereby becomes perverted into a veritable "free for ALL". In other words, unless governance declares limits to actions - and someone (coercively) enforces governance, a functional society becomes  impossible.


Could we really afford having a nut like Rand Paul as President? Think about it! Do you really want what's left of our society to become totally dysfunctional - say like Paul's current campaign - running along with a hidden "bomb" (Sorenson) soon to go off?  More, do you want a guy who tries to appeal to centrism and reason but secretly harbors extremist right nuts whose motto is We hate everybody?

Young people who believe Rand Paul is the answer to all their political concerns and yearnings need to take note, and perhaps now take the time to consider backing another "horse". One not crippled by toxic baggage!

Tea Baggers Calling Out "Collectivists"- Do They Even Know What the Word Means?

Yet another bunch of bull pockey parroted by the "constitution loving" Tea Party adherents is that those who disagree with them (they call them "anti-Constitutionalists" but are really anti-Tea Baggers) are "collectivists". Hence, again, they disclose their lack of education by confusing definitions - in this case of "collectivism" with socialism.

Collectivism, according to the definition given in the Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary, means "supporting or promoting the takeover of all means of production by the state". But no liberal I know supports any such thing, nor do the democratic socialist nations such as Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Barbados.  In fact, what these tea bagger zealots are really attacking is socialism - which means "the redistribution of resources from the well off to those who have less."  In our country this is usually done via taxation (for example, the FICA tax) which allocates money from current earners to beneficiaries in the Social Security system. While it is a form of redistribution, the most well off largely escape because the payroll tax threshold is at $118k - so the richest have to cough up only a tiny fraction of their total earnings each year. But to the hard core Randian Libertarian, or Fiscal conservative it still qualifies as "socialism", because the force of coercion (stiff prison sentence) is invoked if you fail to pay the taxes to support it.

Now, again, the tea bagger - given his lack of perception and insight - is likely to grab on to this and then carelessly declare all progressives, liberals, as "socialists".  However, if he receives ANY kind of government benefit - even VA disability - then HE is a socialist too, or at least supporter of socialism! As any true right winger, Tea Party advocate or Libertarian will attest- any unearned gov't benefit (which is to say not accrued via current paid employment) means you are reaping the rewards of others' earnings via the tax and benefits systems). Thus, all Social Security is included under this banner as well as Medicare, Tri-Care, Medicaid, Social Security disability and all VA benefits. (To the Libertarian and arch -conservative the response: "I earned those benefits serving in the Army, Air Force etc." doesn't count  - because you're still benefiting now from a gov't redistribution program based on tax coercion).

I actually winced four years ago, as I tuned into Rush Limbaugh's radio talk show just for the hell of it (I always like to keep up with the whack nut drivel from time to time).  At the time a nervous guy from Indiana had phoned in and asked El Rushbo if he could still be conservative if he took his Social Security disability as he "needed it". Rush lit into him like a Komodo dragon after a wayward rat,

"If you accept any government benefit" Rush blustered, "then NO, you are not a real conservative nor do you respect the Constitution. That applies to Social Security, Social Security disability and even VA benefits. Anything received which others have to currently pay for with current wages is SOCIALISM!"

Ouch! But it brings home the point.  That was also reinforced in a recent scurrilous attack (latest issue of Intertel INTEGRA) by Thomas Nelson on all forms of altruism (including "political"), where he actually invoked the ultra-Libertarian Ayn Rand. Recall Rand once compared receiving Medicare to bank robbing. Rand's actual words were (from her 'Virtue of Selfishness', pp. 82-83):

'Isn't it desirable the aged should have medical care in times of illness?' "Considered out of context, the answer would be 'yes' it is desirable. Who would have reason to say no? But the fog hides such facts as the enslavement and therefore the destruction of medical science, the regimentation and disintegration of all medical practice and the sacrifice of professional integrity...

"There would be no controversy about some young hoodlum who declared: 'Isn't it desirable to have a yacht, a penthouse, and to drink champagne?' And stubbornly refused to consider that he robbed a bank and killed two guards to achieve that desirable goal."

"There is no moral difference between these two examples: the number of the beneficiaries does not change the nature of the action, it merely increases the number of victims. In fact, the private hoodlum has a slight edge of moral superiority: he has no power to devastate an entire nation and his victims are not legally disarmed."

Rand isn't any easier on the military! On page 116 she asserts:

"Since the imposition of taxes does represent an initiation of force...in a fully free society, taxation, or payment for government services, would be voluntary. Since the proper services of government - the police, the army, the law courts - are demonstrably needed by individual citizens, and affect the individual's interests directly, they should be willing to pay for such services as they pay for insurance."


Thus, she dismissed the importance of the military as being either worthy of citizen taxation or support, but instead ought to be "done by insurance contract' (ibid.) That is, the government negotiates a private insurance contract to support its forces - which can then obviously be only limited. We would never get to the stage of 4,400 bases around the world.  Or nearly $4 trillion blown on useless, wasteful excursions. Rand's take on military benefits is the same and follows logically from her take on military insurance contracts. In other words, if military benefits or disability payments are advocated they also need to be done via insurance contract. You pay for the insurance at the outset, and if you suffer X, or Y injuries - say from Agent Orange or PTSD - you are compensated according to the payment provisions in the contract and no more. In effect, a private business or company is taking care of your needs, which you originally committed to via contract.

You aren't depending on the government's taxation of others to provide the benefits, never mind all the flag waving about "giving back for their service".  To Rand, that's basically a non sequitur. If a nation or a citizen is insecure (about mishaps or external threats) then it is obvious that insurance is the answer,  not government use of force by taxes to amass its armies or benefits.

Again, Rand is a self-proclaimed Über-defender of the "Constitution and Freedom" just like many self-proclaimed "constitutionalists".

This take is supported by Nelson in his Intertel Integra (July, p. 18) piece, wherein he states:

"Tax money is used for whatever the politicians decide to label as altruistic at the moment, This will be perverted into schemes to make an ever-increasing stratum dependent on government benefits for their daily needs."

Again, by Nelson's and Rand's take the stalwart defender of liberty and the Constitution takes no largesse from any government source, for ANY reason. If you do, then you are actively benefiting from redistribution of income and to all technical intents are a "socialist" or at least support socialism as defined earlier.

It would seem, again, the "constitutionalists" (aka Tea Baggers) are hoist on their own petards - in this case not being able to see that if they receive any benefits they are no different from progressives or liberals- at least from the POV of the most rigorous "freedom and constitution" lovers!

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/dean-baker/57577/the-entitlement-of-the-very-rich

So Wait - Paul Ryan Presumes to Lecture Pope Francis?

It's almost too hilarious, too imbued with extreme chuckle factor to relate without rolling on the floor in a laughing fit. But evidently, the econ doyen of the Repukes - Paul Ryan - has actually sought to lecture Pope Francis on capitalism after Francis came out swinging against trickle down BS economics, e.g.  http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/11/bravo-to-pope-francis-for-warning-of.html

Francis, in an 84-page document known as an apostolic exhortation, headed "Evangelii Gaudium" of the Holy Father, made it clear that NO moral theologian could embrace "trickle down, or supply side" economics or the Pareto model that it's based upon.(E.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/06/modern-economics-its-evil-basis-pareto.html )

Francis was blunt - too blunt for many conservos - as he proclaimed:

How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality. Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape.

And this was evidently way too much for Paul Ryan as well - he who formulated and presented his noxious 'Path to Prosperity' several years ago, based on more tax cuts, more military spending, cutting food stamps and replacing Medicare with vouchers (which a senior could take to an insurance company and hope to buy up to $10,000 a year in health care  -never mind if his cancer treatment costs $55,000).

This is germane given that today some 1.3 million Americans will lose their unemployment benefits- growing to 4.8 million through the new year as the 26-week cutoff point rolls forward.  They can thank Rep. Paul Ryan. He took the lead in negotiating a pseudo-bipartisan budget deal with Democratic Sen. Patty Murray that revealed again the Dems have no balls, no moxie and don't know how to deal with Repukes. As the authors of 'Banana Republicans' put it - they "carry knives to a gun fight" (when they ought to be bringing UZIs and AK-47s)  On behalf of his party, Ryan held the line against continuing extended unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless.

Those who are left out of benefits from today, and those affected in the weeks to come - and who are faced with hungry, crying kids-  can thank Paul Ryan for his dastardly imposition of harsh austerity while the military and Spy state grows fat  to the tune of over $800 b a year. Make no mistake, it is the preferential favoring of the military -spy state that is costing people food, warmth and likely the very roofs over their heads.

Anyway, in an interview Ryan told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

"What I love about the pope is he is triggering the exact kind of dialogue we ought to be having now. People need to get involved in their communities to make a difference, to fix problems soul to soul.”

Ah yes, the "charity solution". The one favored in the 19th century by philosopher Herbert Spencer who coined the term "survival of the fittest" (not Darwin!) and used it in his theory that natural selection could be applied to the human race to prune away "undesirables". He railed against government assistance - even for the disabled - and proclaimed that "if they are not fit to survive on their own then they should not survive".  Instead, he offered the chestnut of charity- if people only donated more time, money then all would be well and the poor would be raised up, ennobled. And without the government Nanny state!  Never mind, even with people today donating some $6 b a year it still falls short of the needs and demands - with 48 million people at or near the poverty level.

"Soul to soul" is nice - a kind of cuddly trope to warm the cockles of the Neoliberal heart-- once you're in heaven - assuming it exists! On this Earth, and without the government's assistance, you're still going to see millions of kids hungry, in rags, and people homeless.

As evident in the interview, Ryan still couldn’t suppress either his right-wing politics or his ignoble capacity for condescension as he chirped:

“The guy is from Argentina, they haven’t had real capitalism in Argentina. They have crony capitalism in Argentina. They don’t have a true free enterprise system.”

So wait....let me get this straight: because the Pope is originally from Argentina he's not free to comment on the U.S. Neoliberal capitalist system? The implication being he has to be ignorant (hence unqualified to comment)  if he isn't living here? Has Ryan ever heard of books, libraries, newspapers?  Does he believe Francis inhabits a vacuum or bubble like his Repuke - Tea Party clones?

The fact is that the Pope,  based on his experience, is probably much better qualified to discuss the limits and defects of capitalism than Ryan is, blinded as he is by Randite bunkum. Recall Ayn Rand's solution to helping others as she put it in her book, The Virtue Of Selfishness (p. 45):

The proper method of judging when or whether one should help another person is by reference to one's own rational self-interest and one's own hierarchy of values: the time, the money, or effort one gives or the risk one takes should be proportionate to the value of the person in relation to one's own happiness.

Now compare this to the biblical view: cf.  1 John 3:16:

"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers."

One wonders whether Ryan, as a Catholic, ever had real occasion to study his Bible in depth (assuming he owns one).   In the same Rand book (p. 120),  we see how his idol compares those receiving Medicare to thieves "robbing a bank".  In fact, this harridan actually proclaims (ibid.) "the private hoodlum has a slight edge of moral superiority since he has no power to devastate an entire nation and his victims are not legally disarmed."

Are you shitting me?  So, please now, if Ryan is an acolyte of Randian econ how the hell can he also be a sincere Catholic and be enjoined to follow Francis' injunction to care for the poor and those tens of millions marginalized by Neoliberal market capitalism?  Never mind, Ryan has pulled another rabbit out of his cocked hat even as the Beltway morons of the Neoliberal corporate empire gawk and faun.

Ryan actually professed to an aide to BuzzFeed’s McKay Coppins, that he is going to deliver an anti-poverty agenda as soon as the spring. “This is my next ‘Roadmap,’” Ryan told him, adding:

“I want to figure out a way for conservatives to come up with solutions to poverty. I have to do this.” 


Yes, indeed, he "has to" because his previous "Road Map" blew up along with all the Beltway buffoons that supported it and glorified it.  Recall that the previous incarnation of tomfoolery BS and bunkum busted out the deficit for years and didn’t balance the budget until 2040, thanks to its generous tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. In other words, the guy who impressed Ezra Klein as a serious, albeit deficit-obsessed budget wonk,  turned out to be terrible at math. Maybe Ezra needs some math retreading too, if he is going to be able to discern serious "wonks" from self-seeking assholes and fools.

In the meantime, I will go with Francis' take on capitalism, having already seen the extremes that trickle down can have on other nations, i.e. Barbados, when it was tried there in 1986.   As for "crony capitalism" I don't know what planet Ryan inhabits but the US of A is the hallmark and empire of cronyism. It is "pay to play" to the Googleplex power: the lobbyists and other scum bribe our officials with perks and money, and they deliver the 'goods' in the form of laws or policies in the money-changers' favor. Meanwhile, the 99 percent suck salt.....or shit, as the case may be.