on quid pro quo

TL; DR: "quid pro quo", meaning "this for that", or basically the concept of negotiating a trade, is a valuable concept in business and in government.  whether the trade is good or bad, right or wrong, legal or illegal, moral or immoral, or ethical or unethical, depends completely on what is being traded and why.  "quid pro quo" by an elected official that serves constituents is proper, but when the prime motivation is in serving the elected official himself, it is improper.  trump's conversation with ukrainian leader zelensky was improper.

 

we elected a businessman, remember?

we elected a businessman to run the country with the efficiency and competitiveness of a business, and business runs on quid pro quo. that’s the only way business works.

if both sides negotiate and get what they each want, then that’s a fair trade and it probably baffles trump that something like this would be wrong, when his whole business life it’s been how things work.

when i read the transcript of trump's call with zelensky, my first impression was, i absolutely believe, that trump absolutely believes, that there was absolutely nothing wrong with that conversation.  trump later described the call as "absolutely perfect", and in the world of business, he's absolutely correct.

here's what happened:

trump has something that zelensky wants: aid, arms, javelin missiles, etc.

zelensky has something that trump wants: information that will damage his political opponent.

that's how business works.

not only is quid pro quo perfectly legal and acceptable in the business world, it also happens to be the ONLY way that business works.

i want a gallon of milk more than the $5 bill in my pocket.
the clerk wants a $5 bill more than the gallon of milk back in the dairy case.

the clerk and i BOTH get what we want, and life moves on.

that is The Art of the Deal!

the right will tell you that trump, being a law-and-order president, was simply inquiring about an investigation about some possible criminal behavior on the part of hunter biden, and possible misuse of power by the former vice president.

and if that's as far as you want to look into it, on paper, it seems logical, seems fair, seems proper.  if someone broke the law, they should be held accountable.

i would suggest two things, though:

1. trump seems to be very selective, maybe a lot too selective, about this particular criminal investigation that he's so concerned about.  i have to believe that criminal investigations that involve both the US and ukraine probably number in the dozens, if not hundreds per month.  why. that. one?

2. it hardly took the president of the united states, calling the president of the ukraine, to get an update on the biden investigation.  in business, sometimes you need to pull the boss card.  and almost always, it's because getting the boss involved means you're after something a little more than what you're asking about.  you want to influence the speed and outcome of the issue.  always. it's called "management escalation", because otherwise you're wasting everyone's time.

he has something ukraine wants, and they have something he wants.

they agreed on principle to trade fairly, so what’s the problem? this is how business works, right?

when two high school basketball players got arrested in china for defacing a sign, and trump himself chose to get involved, he was successful negotiating the release of the students.  one might figure that trump had to give something up in order to win back the students and gain some PR points.  if so, so what?  presidents use quid pro quo in these kinds of situations all the time.

trump did a great job with that. he did his duty. everyone was proud of him.  but then the father of one of the players, not only failed to thank the president, he stated publicly that he refuses to thank the president.  which is of course, his right to do.

what a president should do is, perhaps be a little dismayed or disappointed in that response, but at the end of the day, know that he did his duty to our country and our citizens, regardless of whether or not it is appreciated.  protecting these young americans was the right thing to do.

but not trump... no.  trump replied that maybe he shouldn't have worked to release the students, and he should have left them in china, in jail.  and all because one of the fathers wouldn't praise him.

yikes...  but hey...

that's how quid pro quo works.

we elected a businessman.  we should NOT be surprised when he acts like one.

on boot camp

TL;DR: despite the fact that service members, veterans, and military culture itself leans heavily to the political right, i found it funny that most of the lessons i learned in the military, especially in basic training, were communal, socialist, and stressed personal sacrifice for the team, and the needs of the unit outweighing the needs of the individual.  i don't understand why more members and veterans of the military aren't liberals.

 

why did i enlist in the US Army?

and why did i later choose to accept a commission as an officer in the US Army?

when people i talk with learn that i spent a few years in the army, some ask me what was boot camp like? and what were things i learned there that i remember now?

sorry trumpist "conservatives" you're not going to like this shit at all.  best stop reading now.

:-)

in short... every life long lesson i learned in boot camp was socialist, communal, and emphasized the greater good of the whole over the individual.

did you just feel a chill up your spine?  good.  fools...

for those who've never served, it seems to me, the general public's impression of boot camp is mostly from the movies.

so in that model, boot camp is pretty much about how some tough battle-hardened bastard in a campaign hat yells at you, identifies your weaknesses, flips your bunk, dumps your lockerbox, makes you run and do push-ups, makes you clean stuff way beyond clean, and forces you to drill every skill over and over until each one is automatic, and you conform to what they see as "training to standard".

you might hear things about about needing to "break you down", followed by weeks of "building you back up", or something like that.

those images are impressive.  they move your emotions.  they're entertaining. and on one level, most of those stories have a lot of truth to them.  but at the same time, i think they miss the point completely.

would you like to know what i think is the most valuable lesson i learned in boot camp?

i'll get there, but you need to read some more to get there.

i was 17.

i there for the most part, because a plain clothes recruiter came to my house and spoke to my parents. told them how far i exceeded on the asvab test.

i qualfied for ANY "occupational specialty" in the army. signal corps, military intelligence, whatever. i chose eleven bravo infantry anyway. i figured if i'm going to join the army, i may as well be an infantryman.

the recruiter told my parents that my love of country would serve me well through hardship.  and he got them, to allow them, to take government possession of their spawn a full year ahead of legal consent. in other words, if i'd waited til i was 18, they wouldn't need them to sign off.

but y'know... my parents were fine with that.

here's how i think they saw it:

my father volunteered for the marines in '67, and was half way thru boot camp at parris island before the army drafted him. (ha).  then served honorably in vietnam, receiving 3 purple hearts, a marine corps combat action ribbon, and others.

and i will never in my life forget the most important part, that he volunteered.  

(he might have had bone spurs too, i dunno. he didn't let anyone find out. i doubt that would have stopped him anyway, because he was in fact deaf in his right ear... completely deaf... he hid it.  he picked up a rifle and deployed to southeast asia, because that's what his country asked him to do.)

my mom trusted me, and knew that i knew what i was doing. i earned that trust through hard work, and she was fine with that.

ok here goes.

i learned a lot of things in boot camp:

- how to make my bunk. at hard angles. to the point where even after a long day, you stare at it a few seconds, and you're afraid to sleep in it... seriously.  sometimes you slept carefully on top of it, so that you could buy 10 minutes of sleep the next morning not having to remake it.  seriously.

- how to brush my teeth and wipe my ass (because apparently i've been doing it wrong my whole life,  thanks mom) ;-) 

- how to display my locker  

(hint, there is no "one way". just do it the way everyone in your platoon does it... uniformity is more important than conformity. 

meaning, if your squad leader puts six rolled up wool socks on the left side of the bottom drawer, 3x2, then that is where your socks better fucking be.)

- how to get beat on the side of the head with a trash can lid when i don't wake up and stand to, in time.

- how to lower my heart rate using breathing patterns, in order to knock down a tiny target 300m away with a 5.56mm round using nothing but iron sights and passionate focus, else i can eat later than everyone else (even though after a morning 5 mile run, and an evening 10 mile ruck march, i'm pretty fucking hungry)

- yes, when it comes to learning how to kill something at age 17, they figured out that hunger is the most powerful motivator.  it works.  i never failed after that first day to knock down that target 300m away.  (i like to eat)

- how to shine my boots to mirror finish using black kiwi, spit, and nylon stockings from the PX that i bought off this guy for $5, from the next company over, who i met on CQ tour, and he was two cycles ahead of me. cotton cloth doesn't work.   gotta go with the nylon.  i'm sure he only gave me a piece of it, and he paid less, but i didn't fucking care. my boots looked awesome after that, and so did those of everyone in my squad, for free.

- how to sneak in extra shit into your ruck, so that when your buddy gets caught short of something, he doesn't go without and get punished. (he will pay you back next time. buddies are good to earn.)

- how to bend rules without getting caught.  because in life, if you're not cheating, you're not trying. (by the way... in life, this works a lot too)

but the singular most important life lesson i learned in boot camp, that i think this country would be much better if everyone had a chance to learn this lesson, is...

how to silently and directly eat the blame, and bear the punishment, for something that wasn't your fault. 

how to resist the urge to lash back, to plead your case, to expect that life is going to be fair, and the expectation that the authority punishing you for the offense even gives a shit about the facts of the matter.

it's hard.

it's harder than 100 pushups.

when you're blamed, and you know it's not your fault, you want to fucking scream.

whenever something went wrong, and it wasn't my fault, and i got blamed, yelled at, judged, and punished for it, in my mind, i felt offended. i felt aggrieved. i felt that if i could just logically state my case, i would be absolved, and that justice would be served, and the leveling of the world would come back into balance.

i kept those feelings in my mind, to myself.

i learned that in life, fuck what you expect.

when something happens, bad, to you or your team, and they blame you. you fucking eat it.

eat. it. 

shut up.

forget it.

move on.

your team is counting on you. (life isn't about you)

drill sergeants. part of what they do is set you up in catch-22 bullshit. and if you keep expecting justice you will continue doing push ups.  hundreds.  and they hurt after a while.

they don't fucking care.

and life doesn't either.

and that's a GENIUS MOVE for teach a teenager this.

the moment you accept the blame, you will eat their anger they spit at you, but you won't have to do pushups anymore.

i've never forgotten that lesson.

prepare.

control what you can control.

and then reach out and help others who haven't prepared.

you might have to eat their blame, and next time, despite your best efforts, they might eat your blame.

but ANY TIME your buddy fails and they blame you. eat it.  that's the meaning of sacrificing to something bigger than yourself.

the mission is more important than your feelings.

the reason why this country could use a draft ISN'T because we want more teenagers to learn how to march, shoot, and get yelled at.  that's horseshit that don't mean nothing.

the reason why this country could use a draft is to GIVE EACH young adult the humility and HONOR they need to understand that while their own personal needs and desires deserve respect, the needs and desires of AMERICA require and deserve greater respect.

EVERY soldier who was maimed, or died, due to to the call of their nation, over the last few centuries, booked a debt that is your duty to pay back with whatever might, public or private, you have, to the progress of our nation.

i often fail to understand why those in the military are conservatives.

it's maybe because they're too young.
they respond more to strength than they do to logic.

or they apply socialism at scales close to them, but conservatism at scales larger than they can mentally wrap their heads around.

to salute the flag, is to respect the fact that we are a collective society.  we decided that joining together is a great way to deal with things best handled collectively, that we all use: highways, border protection, military, environmental protection, law enforcement, courts.

it sickens me when today's conservatives get their panties in a wad when someone doesn't do something with or toward The Flag that they find acceptable. especially those who never served. in doing so, they never grasp the perspective needed to understand what's really important and what's not.  what's worthy of being whiny about and what's not.

the one thing i always take away from folks on social media poppin off about what they think is right, what they demand as fair, is this: the more they whine, the more they show themselves to be soft.

when you talk hard but act soft, we're laughing at you.

i really wish we would bring the draft back.

it's not just about extracting service from those who benefit, for life, from the society built and defended by those who stand a post--no--it's more about how to eat shit for the greater good. to understand that, while your feelings have value, that value is worth exactly about 1/320 millionth of America, and not one bit more.

here's how to reclaim your worth.  reach down. grab the wagon handle.  pull it for us.  help people.  make the world a better place.  try... really try... to understand the perpective of someone other than yourself.  when you're in disagreement with someone, rather than seize the opportunity to force everyone to see how right you are, appreciate the opportunity to learn something new.  pay your taxes--and also get involved.  then at some point, die.  that's all you're worth.  you did a good job.

and if you do it right, someone might recognize you and give you a thumbs up. or not. the rest of us don't give a shit, k?

on the electoral college

TL;DR: the electoral college made more sense when states had more power then the federal government, or basically, back when the 10th amendment was the most important one.  the president runs the executive branch, and the federal government's role was designed to be a somewhat unifying organization of the states working together.  the reason why it doesn't make sense over the past century, is that the president is seen as the leader of the american people, and the federal government has more laws, dictates more actions, taxes heavier, spends more, and asserts control in more aspects of our lives than ever before.  to fix this, we should either abolish the electoral college, or we should atrophy the size, scope, and power of the federal government, returning most of the power back to the states like back when the US was formed.

 

the electoral college is the right way to elect the president and vice president of the united states--and i can prove it.

and i will.

but for a moment, let's back up and unpack some new (and some old) ideas that fuel so much drama and misinformation about this topic.

one of the hidden problems in this debate, and it stirs a lot of confusion, is that, when it comes to right vs left--each side thinks they're right and the other side is wrong.

what many don't realize (or don't want to realize) is that they're both right, and both wrong. and i'm about to show you how.

understanding and finding common ground between all of us, united, as americans, relies on us first cutting through the wrong aspects of our position, *and* at least *trying* to understand the others' thoughts enough so that they can either be logically accepted, or logically set aside.

first and foremost, if the extent that you understand the problem doesn't go further than the fact that in some recent elections, *your* guy got elected based on the electoral college tally, then you may not have enough attention span to make it through this thought exercise.

two examples:

1) Dear Conservatives:

if you're happy that trump got elected because it proves that the electoral college is setup so that the entire country isn't controlled by urban coastal elites, or so that the tyranny of the majority is held in check, or some other foxnews-invented pseudo-plausible reasons not based in fact or reality, then it's perhaps time to realize that you might be a little too brainwashed to dig any further. in which case, you either don't have the interest, or maybe don't have the ability to see this any way other than the way that fits what you want to believe.

or...

2) Dear Liberals:

if you believe that the office of president should be elected by a simple majority of americans, because to give the office to someone who received the second most american votes, over the person who got the most american votes makes no sense to you at all, then it's perhaps time to realize that you might be a little too brainwashed to dig any further. in which case, you either don't have the interest, or maybe don't have the ability to see this any way other than the way that fits what you want to believe.


ok, so if you've made it this far, and if you think one of the two examples above fit you to a T, then probably best to bail out on this article, and pull yourself back into your calm, soothing, ego stroking "yeah yeah" bubble.

still here? ok, let's dig in.

then i'm thinking you're ready to explore this issue a little further...

Here is where the RIGHT is CORRECT

at the federal level, we are a republic of states, united. and to a great degree, the states are treated as equals in the eyes of the federal level of government. so given that, are the needs of the people, despite one's state of residence, important to the federal level of government at all? yes, the people being equally represented is already covered by the house of representatives, which is half of congress, which is 1/3 of the federal government. how this works is, congress makes the laws that fairly serve the people (the house) and laws that fairly recognize and serve the needs of the states (the senate). for a bill to pass into law, it must serve and protect the interests of people and states. then of course the judiciary ensures that all are working fairly within the system, and conform to the constitution. 

so here we are. all we're left with is the executive branch. these are the agencies that take those laws and programs and money and put them into action. that branch needs a leader, a chief executive, and that is the president.  if we look at it like this, then it makes perfect sense that we don't elect the president by popular vote. after all, the president's primary job isn't to represent the people. rather the president's job is to run government operations the way congress decides, and in the manner that the judiciary backs up.

but, of course, if it were only that simple. Which brings us to...

Here is where the LEFT is CORRECT

it's been well over a century since we can look at america and see a place where you are a citizen of a state first, and the nation second.  there used to be a time when the powers of the federal government were correctly applied (and more importantly, mostly not applied). one could say it's more important that the federal government recognizes what it should NOT be doing, and LESS important for it to assert involvement in everything as the dominant force in our lives.

but for the past 100 years, in this context, the federal government has moved in the opposite direction than intended. it has grown in power and scope to the point where it has almost completely stripped the sovereignty of our 50 states down to the nib. sure, we have pride in "our state", but the degree that quaint idea is shifting toward full anachronism is rapidly accelerating.

the federal government has more laws, dictates more actions, taxes heavier, spends more, and asserts control in more aspects of our lives than ever before. it's arguable that 2/3 of what the feds do should be done by state and local government. but it's been so long, and so many generations since we saw a model of how that works, that the habits and muscle memory of who we are as a people have completely crushed those collective historical memories.

so now that we're left with a country that is almost all National, and what's left over for the states is not much more than local application of national patterns and practices, it makes perfect sense that the president, who is now more Head of State representing us all, than he is simply the executive that brings federal level legislation into action. it makes sense that we have been homogenized.

and when we all live in a flattened, unified nation where state borders are barely noticed anymore (politically), why should an individual vote in wyoming be worth *four times more*, than an individual's vote in california when electing the president?

but...

Here is where the LEFT is INCORRECT

so in short, i see where the left is coming from. but where they are wrong is that this is not how the federal government is designed to work--it's simply how for the past 100 years we've allowed it to *slide* into working.

so, if this is the way that the federal government is broken, then you don't "fix" that by breaking the presidential election process so that it fits. rather, the way to fix it, is to somehow get the federal government to go back to working the way it used to. back when the 10th amendment was more important than the 2nd. then the electoral college would make perfect sense again.

and if you had to look up what the 10th amendment is, then you just helped prove my point. It has become a remote figment and remnant of an earlier time.

but at the same time...

Here is where the RIGHT is INCORRECT

1) they say that the reason for the electoral college is to act as a bulwark against the tyranny of the majority. this is of course factually and historically wrong.

and this point is well-documented.

i mean, you don't prevent the majority from acting like a bully by giving power to the minority, effectively making *them* the bully.  after all, the majority opinion on any matter deserves legitimate respect. to some degree. and minority positions also deserve legitimate respect. to some degree.

no... rather... the bulwark against the majority enacting mob rule is made up of two components: an ethical legislature that represents all of our interests to the degree they can, backed up by a judiciary who make decisions with the intent of protecting everyone, majority and minority positions, along the lines of constitutional intent.

this can never be perfect. living in a society, and benefitting from a society has costs, and one of those costs is that you don't get to have everything your way. you occasionally need to respect the needs of the whole over the wants of yourself, and recognize that we all have creator-endowed rights to live and pursue happiness in a framework that defends everyone's freedom to the degree it can.

2) they say that the reason for the electoral college is to ensure that the needs of rural america aren't steamrolled by the desires of coastal urban elites.

no. Not only is this not mentioned anywhere in the constitution or federalist papers, the actual measurement of this is so tiny to be almost completely, statistically insignificant.

here's some propaganda meant to convince those outside of urban centers that the electoral college is meant to protect them.

if I lived in a rural area or rural state, feels like I'm going to get bullied by city folk.

looks like a big difference huh?

speaking of propaganda, here's another map that goes even *worse* in the other direction, in an attempt to show that rural areas actually have *more* righteous authority than they do, or should.

president trump loves this map down here on the left. It's the one he has hung in his office. He loves it because he knows that while it doesn't actually reflect reality, it's plausible enough to be brilliant marketing. Big swaths of red where the dirt is, and dots of blue so dense with humanity you can't see it without squinting. 

and note, neither map below has anything to do with the electoral college. check out these two maps. truth and lies in the same data.

the problem with this map on the left, is that it ignores population density (and thus ignores *people*) completely. This map is statistically, measurably, intellectually, and cartographically bankrupt. whereas the map next to it on the right, well, that one maps people. imagine that.

sucks to be that stupid map. ;-)

ok time for a reality check...

If the intent of the founders was to create an electoral system that prevents against "mob rule" they clearly did a shitty job of it.

the map on the left shows the relative strength each state has on the electoral college as a whole, based solely on the number of electors each state gets.

the map on the right shows the relative strength each state has on America as a whole, based purely on popular vote pure democracy.

the difference can barely be noticed.

by the way, it's already possible--given the current electoral college system--for the president to reach 270 electors by winning the 10 most populous states, ignoring 40 states.

how is that a bulwark against the majority? a defense against urban elites? or assurance that rural voters are respected? It's just math, folks. and the click-bait right-wing media lies about this. all. the. time.

maps feel so authoritative, it makes them an excellent propaganda tool.

i'm not going to say the founding fathers were not geniuses. because many of them were geniuses. but if one's argument for them being geniuses involves something they didn't do, on purpose, or by mistake, then you simply don't know what you're talking about, or... you have signed over your critical thinking skills to the propaganda arm of your chosen political party. congratulations.

you remember the electoral college don't you? the president does. and yet again.. he is wrong.  thank goodness the president has no power to change the system that put him in office.

and, oh, by the way, if your knee-jerk reaction to the tweet above was something along the lines of "but the US is not a democracy!!", then here's what i have to say about that..

let's hope the electoral college remains. but let's also hope that the federal government goes back to staying in its own lane when it comes to governmental authority. push it downward. feds push authority down to state; state to county; county to local; local to people and personal responsibility. that's the American way.

on abortion

TL;DR: ten reasons i support pro-choice, and most of them are consistent with just about all of the other traditional conservative values, oddly enough.  it's odd that in this particular case, conservatives gladly take rights away from the individual, and hand full domain over to big government.

 

these 10 ideas below are mine, and i believe they are completely consistent with one another.

why are they rarely--if ever--combined this way?:

1. life begins at conception. there is zero scientific evidence to the contrary.

2. gestation is a biological process that is inextricably linked to a woman's body. there is zero scientific evidence to the contrary.

therefore the progress of a pregnancy is the domain of the woman undergoing it. no one else's.  therefore, there is zero logical support for a government having greater domain over a woman's body, than the woman has.

continue...

3. the woman can choose to get advice, care, services, procedures from a qualified medical physician, or not.

4. if the woman, with or without medical advice, chooses to end the gestational process, with or without the advice of others, that is her business and no one else's.

5. if the man who biologically contributed to the pregnancy, is unmarried to the woman, then he has as much say in this as the woman wants him to have. if she chooses none, then it's none. period. full stop. shut up and go home.

6. however if the man who biologically contributed to the pregnancy, is unmarried to this woman, and SHE chooses to bring the gestation to term, deliver the baby, and raise it, then HE is 50% responsible for this child, and fully obligated to support that child, at a minimum, financially, until the child is 18 or 21, or whatever is required by local laws.

7. (dear unmarried men: if you don't think 2 through 6 are fair, then maybe next time put more consideration into who you choose to have sex with. there are many reasons why sex outside marriage is risky. this is one. you accepted the risk. you have no say in it going forward, but you are fully obligated to the consequences.)

8. if the man who biologically contributed to the pregnancy, is married to the woman, then he has exactly 49% say in how the gestation process continues, 51% of course being reserved to the woman in this situation, and her physician, if she so chooses.

9. (dear married men: #7 mostly applies to you too, by the way. sorry, be more careful next time.)

10. making abortion illegal does not get rid of abortion. it only results in dangerous abortions and deaths of women. and by "women" i mean poor women, because of course women with resources, money, or political influence, even those who love the baby Jesus, will ALWAYS be able to get safe abortions when it's convenient for them. yes... every bit of sociological research, in every country, throughout time, has shown this to be true. there is no historical evidence to the contrary.

----------

ok, reals? honest? let's fucking bottom line this bullshit, and expose the full picture to those who think it's their job to tell others what to do, and take some twisted comfort in only seeing HALF the problem:

A. abortion is surely a tragic thing. even women who choose this path know this to be true, and the decisions they make never go away, and they know this too.

B. practically no one believes abortion is a good thing. an aborted fetus is a potential human who never got to be a kid, grow up, learn, explore, fall in love, help others, build a life, nuture a family, grow old on their own terms, and reflect on memories of a life well lived...

C. but as free people, we are free to make decisions for ourselves that could haunt us, and could fill us with regret and guilt, *as much as* we have the right to make decisions for ourselves that we could look back and consider was the right thing to do. these two eventualities extend to all of our life's decisions, well beyond the abortion issue--all of our decisions.

BUT...

...at the end of the day, a woman's gestation, pregnancy, fetus, is hers. it. is. hers.

we as americans have been given the gift of freedom. many have labored and died to build and defend that freedom. we are free to live our lives, and when it comes to our bodies, men's or women's, we all have rights that should always supercede the government's.

if you're part of the "new right", and you'd like to claim some moral high ground to tell other people what you think they should do, here's my advice: shut the fuck up. no one asked you.

on hannity (or, the anatomy of a right wing lie)

TL;DR: the federal government always shows a surplus every april, if by "surplus", you're comparing the amount of money the IRS receives--just in april, with the amount of money it costs to run the government--just in april, which is of course not really a surplus.  in this article, i dissect and flatten a sean hannity article, showing how building a fantasy story around an out-of-context truth nugget.  in our new post-factual world, telling the truth simply means telling people what they want to hear.  basically, a case-study in confirmation bias.

 

check out this recent story...

in short, this is a lie, and i can prove it using hannity's own words, and his own article.

watch this...

ok, for starters, if you support trump, then you have no incentive to look behind this curtain.

but as a good citizen, trump supporter or not, you really shouldn't believe anything without looking a few steps into it.

in short, right wing media has discovered, that their followers aren't interested in the truth, as much as they are interested in reading reports that confirm what they already believe.

they've also discovered, if you craft a story's title carefully, you can get the reader to draw the conclusion that you want them to, and even get them to believe it was their own intelligent reasoning that got them there. i mean, who do we believe more than ourselves, right?

so let's go...  let's break down the anatomy of a sean hannity lie.

the idea hannity wants you to think you came up with yourself, is that the federal government, under trump is turning the corner when it comes to generating revenue. and that is, if you lower taxes, let individuals and businesses keep and spend their own money, the stronger the economy will become. in this scenario, if you lower tax rates, the government will actually pull in more tax revenue. this actually happened a few years under clinton. it hasn't happened since, but it is possible.

i won't even touch the idea of why conservatives think it's a good thing for the federal government to have MORE money, but let's assume what they mean is that we can take that $160mill and pay down a bit of that $22bill national debt. i think he hopes you come up with that idea "yourself" too.

problem is, that isn't what happened here.

in the body of the hannity article, they're very good to give you a couple of hyperlinks to inform you that they got this information from the associated press. so for those who want this story to be true, there's little incentive for clicking on that link. hey, hannity gave me some reputable links, so surely it must all be true.

after all, clicking more might be confusing. it might contain some if's and but's that i don't want to cloud my happiness, or worse, might actually lead me to believe that trump is doing a bad job with the economy, and i just don't want to believe that.

ok, so let's click it anyway...

wait... not yet.

let's first realize something hannity isn't telling you. the federal government ALWAYS has a monthly surplus EACH and EVERY april, because that's the month that most of its taxes are collected. so basically, according to hannity, part of what makes "AMERICA GREAT AGAIN" (according to the title of the article) is the fact that the IRS collects more money in april than it costs to operate the government...just for april.

really? that's what makes america great? that the IRS collects a lot of taxes in april? [eyeroll]

other than during the clinton years, which enjoyed a couple of *annual* surpluses, every president since ONLY turns a surplus in april, every april.

so straight away, at best, this article is well cultivated manure.

ok, so let's click through now...

"But even with a flood of tax receipts, the deficit so far this year is running 37.7% higher than a year ago."

funny... hannity didn't mention that part

"The deficit for the first seven months of the budget year that began Oct. 1 totals $530.9 billion, compared to a deficit of $385.5 billion for the same period a year ago."

yikes... i wonder what might have caused the annual deficit to go up?

"The deficits have increased following congressional passage in December 2017 of a $1.5 trillion tax cut promoted by President Donald Trump as well as a boost last year in spending on domestic and military programs."

"This year’s surplus was down from a $214.3 billion surplus in April 2018."

Interesting... so, the 2017 budget (one could say, obama's last budget) resulted in a $214b surplus in april 2018, while trump's first budget, in 2018, resulted in only a $160b surplus in april 2019. man... and i wasn't even going for the whole "blame it on the other guy" thing. ;-)

for some reason hannity failed to mention that either... huh...

ok, so, forget obama for a second. so, EVEN if you say that both 2018 and 2019 april surpluses "belong" to trump, fine, then how does hannity explain why 2018 was better than 2019?

a. he doesn't
b. he actually claims that the 2019 $160bill is an "all time high" (uh, but it's not)

"So far this year, receipts [from trump's new tariff strategy] are up 1.8 percent to $2 trillion while [overall federal] spending is up 7.6% to $2.57 trillion."

so much for "revenues are at an all time high"... lies.

the small-government, fiscally conservative republicans are spending more money we don't have than the democrats ever did before.

and to find all this just took one more mouse click and a few more minutes of reading.

hannity does this crap all the time.  but he's smart, he knows that if he tells his adoring audience what they want to hear, he knows good chance they aren't going to click through and check it out.

on the new scientific method

TL;DR: science is supposed to be the relentless pursuit of trying to prove yourself wrong. more and more these days, it ends up being the opposite. may as well evolve the scientific method itself so that it better reflects modern times.

 

the OLD scientific method

observe:
--make an observation or ask a question

do background research:
--review other similar experiments and their results 
    
hypothesize:
--develop what you believe is a possible explanation

test:
--conduct an experiment, get results
    
analyze:
--examine the results, and determine the degree it does or does not support your hypothesis

repeat:
--...with an emphasis on trying to find evidence to the contrary



the NEW scientific method

observe:
--make an observation or ask a question

do background research:
--what is the position of your political party on the issue?

hypothesize:
--adopt the position of your political party on the issue

test: 
A. seek out sources that support your predetermined opinion. social media is really good at this, because algorithms are carefully designed to show you a lot of what you already agree with

B. any info that disagrees, just toss out, because the source obviously cannot be trusted

C. if you find yourself with a hypothesis where 95% of evidence is against you, that’s just proof of some nefarious deep state liberal conspiracy scientific establishment big money grab for power, money, and your freedom. even more reason to stick to your guns and highlight the 5% loud and proud as The Truth That the Main Stream Media Won’t Show You. but by all means, don’t give up! YOU are the oppressed underdog, and the world is counting on you to spread the truth

analyze:
--no need. let’s face it, those who confirm your position are the only ones telling the truth and looking out for you, thank goodness. all other outlets are only there to confuse you—they are only trying to destroy america after all

repeat:
--...with an emphasis on trying to find evidence that backs you up
 

the new scientific method works best when you stay in your echo chamber. that's where you will find the most people agreeing with you.

also, the more you can find agreeable sources of information, and find more allies in your struggle, and find ways to just keep agreeing with yourself, the more confident you become. this is called “being an informed citizen”

on democracy

TL;DR: many conservatives lately love reminding everyone that the US is not a democracy, it's a federal constitutional republic, using that fact to explain and rationalize political phenomena that benefit the right, when a pure democratic approach would benefit the left. the nature of the electoral college, as one example, as if there is no democracy anywhere within our political system, or that our political processes aren't even based on fundamentals of democracy.  to many on the right, it's more importantly to smugly sound correct, than actually be correct.

one popular falsehood that conservatives have been spreading lately, swirls around the concept of "democracy" and whether or not the US has any. i dunno, i don't really understand what they're after.

but let's unpack this, and see if we can show it for the--stupid--that it is.

in any kind of political conversation or debate, just wait for someone who leans left to make a comment about "american democracy", or that something or other is a "threat to our democracy". that's pretty much when those on the right will climb all over themselves to blurt out with smug pride "you're wrong. the US is not a democracy, it is a constitutional republic." as if there is no democracy, pure or representative, anywhere in the system at any level. after all, for these folks it's more important to play smart, than it is to be correct, or understand the context of the conversation, let alone try to understand how our government works and why.

a pretty good example of this the past couple of years is the debate around the electoral college.

(spoiler alert: i actually agree with the electoral college process, but that’s a blog article for another day.)

let's for a moment get out of the way that both sides are a little bit wrong about the facts behind their position. meaning, when the left pops off about how the electoral college is a relic from the past that needs to be replaced, it's really mostly about the fact that they lost two recent presidential elections to it. and of course when the right pops off about how it needs to stay because of some lofty originalist ideals (that they may not even fully understand), it's mainly about the fact that they won, twice recently, while losing the popular vote, and that the electoral college is the only defense the real americans from the heartland have against urban elites. sigh...

even president trump was famously against the electoral college...
wait for iiiiit... waiiiit for iiiit...
until he won.

smdh. [eyeroll emoji]

but, see? this is today's political right... ethics, morals, and critical thinking are out... winning and loyalty are in. being confident is more important than being correct. y'know, it's a little disorienting for the party of self described right-wing patriots to continue becoming more and more anti-american.

so here we go...

when someone from the left uses the word "democracy" in a conversation about the electoral college, no doubt the smug ignorance of the right will come back with their misinformed "the US isn't a democracy..." nonsense.

sigh... pure nonsense... almost completely wrong.

even conventionally educated people actually believe that the US government is not built on principles of democracy!

nope, wrong.

here are the facts about the US, and they are undisputed:

our systems of government throughout the US range from municipal, to counties, to states, and up to the federal government. most (but yes, not all) decisive actions taken by these levels of government are based on the collective tally of a purely democratic, majority wins, vote. often that involves all citizens voting. often it involves the voting of elected representatives (city council, state assembly, the US congress). even in those situations, most often that collective tally is done by a simple majority, reflecting a pure democracy or representative democracy. occasionally, in well-defined situations, a super majority is needed. even then, the decision is based on core principles of democracy.

even in the various levels of the judiciary, when panels of jurors are involved, it's a majority or well-defined super majority that rules. when panels of judges are involved, even up to supreme court decisions themselves, again, a majority is that it takes.

in fact, there are ONLY TWO collective decisions made in this country, throughout any and all levels of government, the ONLY ones that does not rest on a simple- or super-majority based on democracy, is the way we choose the person who is selected to "preside" over the executive branch of our federal government, and the way we amend our constitution.

at this point you may be thinking i'm making a case against the electoral college, i'm not. if there is only one place where a simple majority should not rule is in this case.

i do get the vibe though. the electoral college design came from a time when states were individually the most significant governing force in the lives of americans. the federal government, while in a position to override decisions that support more than one state, was primarily an loosely organizing force. there was a time when the 10th amendment was the most powerful one. (and if you just found yourself having to look up what the 10th amendment is, you kinda just helped prove my point).

the federal government is one that we put in place to handle things that are more efficiently handled collectively (transportation, national defense, environmental protection, interstate commerce), things that naturally ignore boundaries or are simply more efficient when regionalized. the executive branch of the federal government are the agencies put in position to provides those services to and between the states. as a result, voting for this president using a nationwide majority vote (ie, pure democracy) didn't make sense, because presiding over the federal government's executive branch was more about representing the needs of our collection of states, than it was for representing the people, per se.

fast forward to modern times, the most powerful governmental force in americans' lives is no longer the state government, rather it is now the federal government. the feds control more, tax more, give more, and demand more than any other level of government. in many ways, starting early in the 20th century, this country operates like a single entity. and the more powerful the federal government gets, the weaker and more anachronistic the idea of a state government becomes. so with that in mind the electoral college--a design for when the country operated very differently--seems out of place. if the feds are the most powerful level of government, then why does a citizen from wyoming have a vote that is worth more than a citizen from new york?

conservatives and republicans will try to weakly rationalize, using pseudo-intellectual pretzel gymnastics, about how the electoral college is a bulwark against the tyranny of the majority and prevention of mob rule, when they have no idea what they're talking about. it sounds good, but is completely empty in meaning regardless of what direction you look at it. for the most part, they buy into these lies through right-wing clickbait sites who feed it to them in ways that keep them clicking, and in doing, convince the easily-convinced of made up reasons that don't reflect history.

in short, this isn't what the electoral college is for. the design has nothing to do with political majorities/minorities at the individual level. rather, the office of president is in place to execute services nationwide, between the states, and lead foreign policy collectively on behalf of the states united.

the federalist papers are right there... read them...

the electoral college was designed to be a *mix* of two things: primarily, the defense of the rights of the states, and to some degree the proportional rights of the people being governed. nowhere in anything written by any of our founders did the idea appear that it was a bulwark against mob rule. that truthiness is simply the result of 21st century internet fiction.

that's the difference between truth and truthy. something that is truthy is true to me, because it feels like it should be true. and when it comes to why the electoral college exists, conservatives don't care about what's true, only about what is truthy, because the truthy story fits better to what they want to be true.

as for protecting the rights of minority positions and defending against mob rule and the tyranny of the majority, that is what a responsible legislature does, checked by the judicial branch, and put into action by an ethical executive branch in a way they interpret and implement. to pretend that a voting system that fills one single federal office is the protector/defender the right claims it to be is simple ignorance, created by lack of education, combined with manipulation by echo chamber media, designed to anger and scare.

another way to put it is this: the way to prevent the majority from becoming a mob is NOT to give the power to the minority, effectively making them the mob. this doesn't work in either case, and thus makes no logical sense. that is, of course a role of the courts. they are empowered to interpret the law and ensure there is a balance between the legitimate claim of the majority to influence what it wants, and at the same time ensure that the rights and considerations of the minority position are protected. a law that is passed by simple majority, that is interpreted to unreasonably take from or penalize members of the minority position, quite often provides the grounds for that law being struck down as illegal or unconstitutional.

for those who say "if it wasn't for the electoral college, there would be no incentive for presidential candidates to campaign outside of major urban centers". well, that's simply misleading at best, wrong at worst:

1.  it is already possible to earn 270 electors by simply winning 11 states, ignoring 39 others. but no one does that.
2. presidential candidates already ignore most states. the fiction that a candidate would only campaign in urban states has been replaced with the unfortunate reality that candidates pretty much only campaign in a few swing-states. those states, big or small, that are seen as a lock one way or the other get ignored. so even if conservatives were right, it's still true that most states are being ignored.
3. the president of the united states is simply not as powerful as many think the position is. the dumber this country gets, the less we realize or remember that the president runs 1/3 of the federal government. he's not a CEO, he's not an entrepreneur, he doesn't have the power to do much beyond what the congress and the judiciary, and thus the american people allow him to do.

so based on all this, should we fight to repeal and replace the electoral college? no. we shoudn't.

i still take the position that the electoral college is a good thing for our country, for the reasons i stated above (not to mention the reasons stated by our founding fathers), and luckily it would take a strong bi-partisan effort across several levels and branches of government to change. therefore, getting rid of it is never going to happen until we pretty much all agree we want it to. but we don't.

but to look at the way we elect the president, which does not use a purely democratic nationwide popular vote, and extend that to mean that nowhere in the US do we govern using principles of democracy is just lazy. it comes from a selfish desire to appear smart and shut down the conversation even when one is wrong. that's worse than bad citizenship. it's blatantly anti-american.