Category: Politics

If the working class has to pay for our Teslas, shouldn’t they also have to pay for our fuel-efficient private aircraft?

by philg

“Tesla, GM buyers would get EV tax credits again under Democrats’ climate bill” (CNN, yesterday):

Under a new green energy bill agreed to by Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin, automakers like Tesla and General Motors would regain the ability to offer federal tax credits to customers who buy their electric vehicles.

Under current regulations, buyers of electric vehicles get a $7,500 tax credit when purchasing an electric vehicle, but that full credit is limited to the first 200,000 electric vehicles sold by any given manufacturer.

In other words, the working class will once again be paying for the laptop class’s Teslas. The person who commutes 2 hours per day in a 10-year-old Camry will pay $7,500 towards the brand new luxury vehicle whose owner can pretend to work from home indefinitely.

The law fits perfectly into the American system of transferism, in which government’s main role is moving money from one group of voters to another. But I wonder if it could be enhanced. Here at Oshkosh, for example, there are a lot of new private jets displayed. Like electric cars, these can be characterized as more energy efficient than older airplanes. Here’s a single-engine Cirrus Vision Jet, for example:

Every time the start button is pressed, Mother Earth breathes a sigh of relief that an older two-engine jet wasn’t spun up. Shouldn’t the working class have to pay for part of each Vision Jet?

Separately, a trip to the nearby branch of the University of Wisconsin showed the value of the college educations that, via student loan “forgiveness” (transfer to taxpayers), are now being paid for by the working class. I think the idea is that people who do real jobs will benefit indirectly from the presence of the hypertrophied brains that American universities are producing. Here’s a sign from the cafeteria that serves the young geniuses who are being funded by those who clean pools, cut lawns, crawl into attics to service air handlers, etc. It reminds those who have soaked up hundreds of $thousands in education that pecan pie contains nuts:

Related:

  • “Yes, Immigration Hurts American Workers” (Politico 2016), in which a Harvard professor explains, “The total wealth redistribution from the native losers [working class] to the native winners [laptop class] is enormous, roughly a half-trillion dollars a year.” (adjusted for inflation, the indirect wealth transfer accomplished via low-skill immigration is probably at least $700 billion per year)
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How did Florida become so Republican?

by philg

At a family wedding recently, a cousin-by-marriage, on hearing that we had moved from a State of Virtue (Massachusetts) to a State of Deplorability angrily responded that he hoped we enjoyed living in a “fascist state”. (He is a retired vice president of NPR who used a massive inheritance to settle in an all-white suburb of D.C.)

A younger guy from New Jersey, without expressing any strong personal political beliefs, simply wondered aloud “How did Florida become so Republican?”

Another relative’s experience may provide the answer. He’s a 60-year-old ob-gyn physician who has carefully followed every aspect of Democrat dogma since childhood. The idea of agreeing on any political point with a Republican fills him with horror and he has always chosen to live in Blue states. Yet now he finds himself excommunicated from the Church of Righteousness because he holds the heretical belief that teenagers should not be provided with gender reassignment surgery.

I think that “Dr. Blue”‘s experience might explain what is happening on a broader scale in Florida. The Democrats nationwide have evolved faster than the Floridians who used to vote for Democrats, thus leaving behind Floridians who continue to agree with the Dogma According to Bill Clinton as knuckle-dragging Neanderthals. Consider that Bill Clinton’s economic policy reads a lot like today’s Republican stated policy, including cutting taxes on small business (though Republicans in practice, of course, are happy to cooperate with Democrats on massive deficit spending). Bill Clinton never proposed that student loan debt for college graduates be transferred onto the backs of working class Americans who never went to college. Bill Clinton never used the phrase “Latinx”. Bill Clinton never tried to force Americans to accept injection with an experimental drug.

At a local restaurant recently…

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Is it now time for the Bloomberg Abortion Bus fleet?

by philg

From 2020: Why can’t Michael Bloomberg run a fleet of abortion buses?

The Supreme Court has said that abortion is a matter for state legislatures to decide, just as states decide on most issues, including medical licensing and practice, and just as states did for the first two post-rebellion centuries of the U.S:

After making it to the 198th trimester, Roe V. Wade has been aborted. Conceived all the way back on January 22, 1973, Roe V. Wade has been struck down after a decision was passed down today by the Supreme Court.

6 out of the 9 Justices decided to terminate the longstanding federal law. According to Doctors who performed the procedure, “Roe V Wade did not feel a thing as it was ripped apart word by word, syllable from syllable as it was fed through the paper shredder.” … At publishing time, Planned Parenthood had acquired the shredded remains of the precious document and was reportedly selling the scraps for money.

From my Facebook feed:

from Los Angeles, a woman well past her childbearing years: channelling rage and wondering what rights will get trampled next?

from Maskachusetts, a woman who could possibly have had a baby in the 1980s (but did not): I truly never thought I’d see this day. 😢 It’s probably the beginning of the end!

from Virginia, a guy whose Facebook profile picture shows him with some kids around age 10: I don’t often get angry. But I’m angry today. I don’t post about politically-charged issues, but I am today. And I don’t want to hear from anyone about how taking away reproductive rights from women is a pro-life move. It should not be a partisan issue, but thanks to the Nixon administration, it became that way and remains so to this day. Men, if you want to keep your guns, you better get your head straight about protecting women’s reproductive rights or you’re going to lose your guns through the same methods that Texas is using to take rights away from women.

a retirement-age Jewish man in Maskachusetts: The tragedy of the Trump Supreme Court will infect this country for generations. There is an unholy alliance between the extremely wealthy and powerful with the far right religious freaks and white nationalists. The rich get to pay no taxes and control all branches of government. The others get all the guns they want, abortion outlawed, and to feel good about hating whatever group they love to hate. The country will keep sinking into anti-education, anti-science, anti-truth muck.

a big law firm partner in Los Angeles (identifies as a male?): The new Civil War has begun.

from a self-described TERF in Seattle (the only one in the group who is biologically capable of incubating a baby): Wild to me that we’re entering a period that’s going to be not unlike the collapse of slavery, where slave-holding states set against free states in insane ways. Obviously thousands of women now in red states are going to be travelling out of state to get abortions, and there’s going to be states pitted against each other to either assist these women or prevent them from leaving/accessing abortion.

I wonder if we’re getting into a situation like Californians and the unhoused. Californians are rich and they say that they’ll do absolutely anything to provide housing for the unhoused (not “homes for the homeless”!) except there is one little thing that they won’t do… build and provide housing. Californians who call themselves social justice advocates will buy new Teslas, indulge in $250,000 kitchen renovations, and splurge on European vacations instead of funding apartment construction. Similarly, advocates of unlimited abortions are generally elite and wealthy. They say that they will do anything to help “women” (somehow pregnant people in 73 other gender IDs are neglected) obtain abortions…. except fund transportation from the benighted states to abortion care facilities in scientifically governed states (abortion is legal in Maskachusetts right up to 37 weeks and beyond).

“‘Proterra Powered’ electric bus travels 1,700 miles using only public chargers, exceeding 300 miles during certain legs” (electrek) describes a comfortable electric coach from Belgium (where abortion is legal until 12 weeks after conception). Billionaire Democrats could save Planet Earth in two ways simultaneously via these buses: (1) transportation without burning any fossil fuel (except whatever was burned to generate electricity), and (2) reducing the growth rate of the human population.

Readers: Abortion has been subject to restrictions in a lot of states for at least 20 years. If abortion care access is as important to Democrats as they say it is, why aren’t there already convenient and simple Democrat-funded transportation+abortion services?

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In the wake of Uvalde, can we abandon the fiction that today’s 18-year-olds are adults?

by philg

When the United States was young, a person had to be 21 years old to be considered an adult. In order to vote, the person generally would have worked for 8 years (a young man would start work at age 13 and become eligible to vote at 21). This changed in the 1970s, according to Wikipedia: “After the voting age was lowered in 1971 from 21 to 18, the age of majority was lowered to 18 in many states.”

At the same time, the no-fault divorce revolution turned the U.S. from a monogamous society into a polygamous one. From H.L. Mencken’s 1922 book:

… the objections to polygamy do not come from women, for the average woman is sensible enough to prefer half or a quarter or even a tenth of a first-rate man to the whole devotion of a third-rate man.

Salvador Ramos may not have been able to calculate child support formula profits in all 50 states, but he was probably smart enough to know that a woman would be better off financially as a “single mom” who had sex with an already-married dental hygienist and harvested the child support than choosing to enter into a long-term partnership with a high-school dropout such as himself. Wikipedia says that Ramos’s mom was using drugs and having sex with at least one guy other than Ramos’s father. ABC reported that Ramos’s grandfather was a convicted criminal. Mr. Ramos was thus, at best, the “third-rate man” of Mencken’s example. See “‘Incel’ Texas school shooter Salvador Ramos’ chilling live streams reveal ‘disturbing threats to girls’” (The Sun) for how his interactions with females had gone.

Compared to the early days of the Republic, therefore, we have “adults” with 0-10% of the years in the workforce and a much higher percentage of the males recognize that they’re never going to be selected for mating.

Is it time to recognize that Americans should neither vote nor buy guns until they’ve shown some sort of evidence of adulthood, e.g., working for 8 years? It is tough to know for sure, but maybe after 8 years of W-2 labor Salvador Ramos would have become accustomed to his low status in society and incel-hood.

I’m reluctant to “fight the last war” by proposing a policy change that would have prevented a particular recent tragedy, but I don’t think Salvador Ramos is the last problem 18-year-old this nation will produce (criminality is heritable, for one thing, and the U.S. is packed with criminals).

(I don’t think it would be sufficient to use a simple age threshold, e.g., 21 or 25, because there are plenty of Americans who never take on what used to be considered adult responsibilities, e.g., by working.)

I’m particularly interested in hearing what the gun owners who read this blog have to say!

Related:

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What have we learned about Salvador Ramos, the Uvalde, Texas murderer?

by philg

The shooting in Uvalde, Texas is dominating my Facebook and Twitter feeds. Here’s an example:

(Joe Biden has been in the Senate or the White House since 1973. He didn’t do anything about gun laws, common sense or otherwise, during those 49 years, but “we have to do more” today.)

From an older guy in Maskachusetts on Facebook:

Does anyone really need these kinds of guns. I think if you want to shoot these kind of weapons you can only shoot them and keep them at gun ranges. Other than that, no one, other than law enforcement should have these weapons. I am sorry. There is ZERO need for them out in society.

What has been learned about Salvador Ramos and his motivation for killing elementary school kids?

From skimming the news, it sounds as though Mr. Ramos confirms the findings in The Son Also Rises. His grandfather was unsuccessful (“[grandfather] Rolando Reyes also said he has a criminal background and cannot have a weapon in the home.” (ABC)) and Mr. Ramos was on track to be unsuccessful (“The Robb Elementary School shooter went on the deadly rampage after apparently fighting with his grandmother about his failure to graduate from his Texas high school, according to a report.” (New York Post)).

“Salvador Ramos Was Bullied for Stutter, Wearing Black Eyeliner: Friend” (Newsweek):

“He would get bullied hard, like bullied by a lot of people,” Garcia told the Washington Post. “Over social media, over gaming, over everything.”

Could this be the motivation? Plenty of teenagers in the 1970s had access to guns. Bullying in the 1970s was far worse than today and physical violence was common, as it was outside of school as well during the high-crime 1970s. In the junior high school that I attended, kids could get bullied for wearing Sears Toughskins rather than Levi’s blue jeans. I don’t think coming out as transgender or gay would have gone over well. On the other hand, 1970s bullies couldn’t follow the weak members of the herd into their own homes via social media.

What about pills? Kids weren’t medicated back in the 1970s. Psychiatrists today poke at random into a complex system that they don’t understand (the brain). Some of the most commonly prescribed medications may push pill-takers toward violence. See “Precursors to suicidality and violence on antidepressants: systematic review of trials in adult healthy volunteers” (2016): “Antidepressants double the occurrence of events in adult healthy volunteers that can lead to suicide and violence.” But there is no evidence that Salvador Ramos was taking any pills.

What has been learned that could explain this terrible crime? (other than, in a country of 330+ million, there are going to be terrible crimes periodically)

Separately… gun nut readers: How are you going to sweep this episode of gun violence under the rug? If Americans were willing to shut down schools for more than a year and be locked down at home in hopes of slightly reducing the COVID-19-tagged death rate, why aren’t these same folks willing to repeal the 2nd Amendment? (China is the dream society, I think, for about half of Americans. China has zero COVID and no private gun ownership.)

Related:

  • the worst trauma is suffered by those who cower on the edge of a battle: “Amid criticism of the police response to the gunman’s hourlong rampage, including outrage among frantic parents who said that heavily armed officers stood outside the school restraining them rather than storming the building themselves, Texas officials on Thursday sought to express the difficulty facing community members and law enforcement responders alike. “It is so hard,” said Victor Escalon, regional director for the Texas Department of Public Safety. “We’re hurting inside. We’re hurting inside for the community members. We’re hurting inside for our local partners.” (NYT)
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Why are residents of Democrat-run states so upset by the leaked Supreme Court draft regarding Roe v. Wade?

by philg

Friends in Maskachusetts, New York, and California have been raging against the potential for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, thus enabling states to make their own laws regarding abortion. They say that they would personally suffer from any change in the status quo and that, in particular, they would lose their “freedom.”

Why I find this confusing is that the same people say that they will never visit a Republican-influenced state. So I don’t see how the abortion laws that prevail in the 28 states that are officially boycotted by San Francisco could cause them any personal suffering.

Here’s a Facebook exchange example:

  • me: How would someone in California experience any of the feared changes as a result of forthcoming Supreme Court decisions? How many California Democrats will ever visit, for example, Arkansas? Or talk to anyone in Arkansas?
  • Bay Area Righteous: Ha! It’s not just because of abortion. I’d be hard pressed to visit you in Florida, Philip, but not because of you. 🙂 Between humidity, anti-abortion, guns and…DeSantis (!), why would I? Okay, I’m being a bit snarky, but in general I do have more interest in visiting the more liberal parts of the country and the world. Well, that’s not entirely true. In the past 11 years I’ve visited Egypt, Turkey and Jordan (among other places).
  • me: Were you upset that abortion was strictly illegal in Egypt? Or how about Costa Rica, a much more popular vacation destination for Californians than most of the states where the Supreme Court’s return of this issue to the states would result in the law being changed? Do Californians protest the illegality of abortion in Costa Rica?
  • Bay Area Righteous: I was “upset” about all sorts of things in Egypt. We were in Cairo on January 25, 2011, the day the revolution began there. Learned a lot about their oppressive regime at the time. And since. But the difference (same for Costa Rica) is that it’s not our country. We have no standing there. The same is true about Arkansas, but unlike Costa Rica, we do have political interactions with Arkansans. We both vote for people in the House, Senate, White House, etc. Arkansans have influence over federal aspects of Californians. That’s not so for Costa Ricans.
  • Bay Area Righteous: I don’t avoid Arkansas only because of their stance on abortions.
  • me: So you would celebrate every additional abortion in Arkansas because it would mean one fewer person who could potentially vote for policies that you don’t like at the national level?
  • Portland (Oregon) Righteous friend of the Bay Area Righteous guy: master of the straw man! I’m against the upcoming ruling. It limits freedom and will likely pave the way to erosion of more freedoms. And until the crowd that applauds the decision also works for the rights and needs of the born, then I’ll gladly continue being sanctimonious.
  • me: How would [our mutual friend in San Francisco’s] freedom be limited by the Supreme Court saying that abortion was not a federal matter? Wouldn’t it be increased? The California legislature and Gavin Newsom would be free to establish any laws (or no laws) related to abortion that they desired. Or are you saying that Californians will somehow vote themselves into slavery (“un-freedom”) at the state level? ([our friend] has already explained that, even prior to this leaked draft, he was boycotting any state that he does not consider to be “liberal” so he is not going to travel to any place where a Republican might have any influence on abortion laws.)
  • Portland Righteous: I don’t really care about how this law affects [our friend]. It’s likely that any actual effects will be limited to his relations living in affected states. Though he might change his actions by giving more to pro-choice causes and maybe even host an abortion refugee from one of the affected states. It might affect other California residents who might consider relocation — depending on their level of tolerance for increased state scrutiny of reproductive rights. Being an Oregon resident, my state is actively supporting Idaho residents in need of abortion services though money and hosting. Anyway, bummer about how the state is getting all up in people’s business.
  • me: why do [our friend’s] relations choose to live in states that [our friend] had found (well prior to 2022) sufficiently deplorable to boycott and never visit?
  • me: the effects that you cite on OR and CA residents all sound positive to me. You now have a charitable cause that you believe in. When you take in a refugee or give money you will feel better about yourself and your life. See “Being Generous Really Does Make You Happier” (TIME) for some references.

Given that, from these Democrats’ point of view, the U.S. is already functionally split up into at least two countries (one good and one bad), why is the availability of on-demand abortion in the bad sub-country of more interest to someone who lives in the good sub-country than the availability of on-demand abortion in, say, Costa Rica? (the latter being a matter of no interest at all to the people who are outraged regarding the potential unavailability of abortion in Idaho)

Another example, this time from a woman in her early 50s who lives in Maskachusetts (she divorced her husband some years ago and therefore is not subject to male supervision):

  • Boston Righteous: A heartfelt “fuck you” to everyone who told me I was overreacting in November 2016″
  • “Joseph”: Wait you’re in Mass they will always allow abortions your reaction has no context
  • Boston Righteous: the fact that I happen to live in a state currently governed by sane people doesn’t negate the fact that as a fundamental rule, it’s not a problem to restrict my rights as a human being. The fact that some people don’t see that as a huge issue is repugnant.
  • Righteous Maryland female: The fact that you actually think [Boston Righteous]’s reaction “has no context” just illustrates the incredible privilege from which you are able to view this issue. You have absolutely no idea of the effects of this decision. Your rights have never been threatened. your gender has shielded you from many horrible things that women deal with every single day. to say that because [Boston Righteous] lives in Massachusetts and has no context for reacting to this issue is unbelievably insensitive and ignorant. If you don’t remember, [Boston Righteous] has a daughter. Perhaps her daughter may choose to live in another state at some point. … please, try to see that not everyone has the incredible entitlement that you apparently have. [But why would the daughter of a sane person who votes for sane politicians choose to live in a Red State?]
  • me: Where are the geographical limits of your concern? You’ve said that your concern extends beyond Massachusetts. Does it extend to Costa Rica where abortion is strictly illegal? If you accept that Costa Ricans can make different choices for their laws in this area than voters in Massachusetts have made, why can’t you accept that voters in Arkansas or North Dakota make different choices from yours?
  • Boston Righteous: I am quite aware of the atrocious laws against women’s rights in other countries. I had always believed that my country was better in this regard. Silly me, apparently. [Other than prejudice, what is our basis for thinking that that our country is better?]
  • me: Now that we’re deep into globalization I can’t figure out why an issue “in my country” is more critical than the same issue across a border that has become arbitrary. (It might be the case that people who live in Massachusetts are more likely to visit Costa Rica than to visit North Dakota or Arkansas. That wasn’t true before the Jet Age.) About 30% of residents of Massachusetts are immigrants or children of immigrants. They’re probably more connected to various foreign countries than they are to Arkansas or North Dakota.
  • Boston Righteous: I didn’t say that I didn’t care. But it’s substantially more personal now that it impacts me. Which of course you realize but for some reason are being obtuse.
  • me: I actually don’t understand how the laws of states other than Massachusetts impact you, any more than do the laws of other countries. Separately, Happy Mother’s Day!
  • Boston Righteous: because I’d rather not be trapped in MA? Because I’d rather my children not be trapped in MA? Because I’d prefer that the country of which I am a citizen doesn’t allow individual states to treat its residents as second class citizens? Weirdest conversation ever….. and finally, I’m not a jackass who only thinks of herself. I fully realize that as a wealthy, white woman, none of this REALLY matters to me personally. I can buy my way out of whatever I’d need. But I realize that makes me very, very privileged, and I don’t want others to suffer because they are not in the same boat. And frankly, just because. This is obscene and any rational person knows it.
  • me: people who love the Massachusetts laws are already unable to move to a lot of other states. Consider that Massachusetts shut down schools for more than a year and kept marijuana stores (“essential”) open, then ordered kids to wear masks in schools. Shutting down a school is illegal in Florida. A school system ordering children to wear masks is illegal in Florida (not against a governor’s order, but against a statute passed by the legislature). Running a recreational marijuana store is illegal. Is there a Red State that you would have previously considered moving to and now must be crossed off the list? … that circles back to my earlier point. If it is about concern for others, why not be upset about the unavailability of abortion after 12 weeks in Germany? (I never have heard you mention this.) That’s a population of more than 80 million under a law that you consider intolerable. And you would be willing even to support Germany by traveling there and spending money?

I remember her talking enthusiastically a few years ago about a vacation trip to Germany, which is why I picked that land of oppression for people who might become pregnant (to avoid inflaming the above folks, I did not point out their cisgender-normative prejudice in assuming that abortion is somehow an issue particular to “women” and did use the pregnant man emoji, though I was dying to do so.

I do find it genuinely confusing that folks in Maskachusetts, California, New York, and other states with sane government want a uniform national law. First, wouldn’t the Supreme Court just strike down any such law if the draft opinion turns into a final opinion? If this is a matter for states to decide, what difference does it make what Congress and Joe Biden do? Second, if this were a matter of federal policy, why do they think that the federal policy would allow as many abortions as MA, CA, and NY law allow? If the federal policy is set to some sort of consensus opinion, wouldn’t it more likely end up being kind of an average of current state policies rather than all the way at one extreme (abortion allowed at 37 weeks in Maskachusetts, for example)?

Finally, look at all of the times that the concept of “privilege” comes up in the Maskachusetts-centered conversation. This is why people need to attend liberal arts colleges. How else would they decode and participate?

Related:

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Apply for a permit to set up an abortion clinic in Chevy Chase?

by philg

“White House warns against ‘violence, threats, or vandalism’ after protests outside Supreme Court justices homes” (CNN, today):

The White House on Monday condemned “violence, threats, or vandalism” after protesters held demonstrations outside the homes of conservative Supreme Court Justices over the weekend.

And over the weekend, pro-abortion rights protesters gathered outside the private homes of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts in Chevy Chase, Maryland, outside Washington, DC.

“Keep abortion safe and legal,” a few dozen protesters chanted on the street of the tony, tree-lined streets outside the justices’ homes. Many held handmade signs.

“Keep your rosaries off our ovaries,” they said.

The protests were organized, in part, by Kavanaugh neighbor Lacie Wooten-Holway, who told The Washington Post, “I organize peaceful candlelit vigils in front of his house. … We’re about to get doomsday, so I’m not going to be civil to that man at all.”

I wonder what Mx. Wooten-Holway would say if someone applied to open an abortion clinic in his/her/zir/their neighborhood.

CNN continues:

Following the court’s confirmation that the leaked draft opinion was authentic, President Joe Biden condemned it. Psaki also reiterated the White House’s calls for Congress to act to codify the women’s reproductive health protections established in Roe v. Wade.

I wish someone would explain how a federal law would be Constitutional if the Supreme Court holds that Roe v. Wade was a mistake because abortion regulation is a matter of state law.

A quick Google search did not turn up the precise street addresses for the hated justices or Mx. Wooten-Holway, but one of the protests started in Chevy Chase Park, so that’s presumably nearby. Zillow shows that 5BR houses are available for $3.5 million. One of them could become the new clinic.

Related:

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Ron DeSantis and the Two Minutes Hate

by philg

Americans outside of Florida enjoy being outraged at things that the Florida legislature has done. Perhaps because they’re accustomed to their own imperial governors issuing executive orders, they attribute these new laws passed by representatives of Florida voters, to a single person ideal for inclusion in their Two Minutes Hate: Ron DeSantis.

One thing that DeSantis has done recently that you probably won’t hear about… “Governor Ron DeSantis Signs Bill to Guarantee Visitation Rights for Patients and their Families”:

Today, Governor Ron DeSantis signed SB 988, the No Patient Left Alone Act, to guarantee Florida families the fundamental right to visit their loved ones who are receiving care in hospitals, hospices, and long-term care facilities. No health care facility in Florida may require a vaccine as a condition of visitation and every health care facility must allow their residents and patients to be hugged by their loved ones.

In 2010, a Nobel laureate wrote about this (CNN):

President Obama has asked the Department of Health and Human Services to establish a rule that would prevent hospitals from denying visitation privileges to gay and lesbian partners.

The president’s Thursday memo said, “There are few moments in our lives that call for greater compassion and companionship than when a loved one is admitted to the hospital. … Yet every day, all across America, patients are denied the kindnesses and caring of a loved one at their sides.”

During coronapanic, governors in the lockdown states ensured equality by banning all hospital visitation, regardless of membership in the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community.

“How DeSantis Transformed Florida’s Political Identity” (New York Times, April 28, 2022) is an example of a typical DeSantis-related story in our national media. It starts with some factual inaccuracies (not to say “lies” because those come from Republicans):

Discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity prohibited in early elementary school. Math textbooks rejected en masse for what the state called “indoctrination.”

In fact, if a kindergartener wants to talk about his/her/zir/their weekend plan to visit bathhouses, he/she/ze/they can talk to the teacher about “The best Gay saunas in Miami – Relax, indulge and mingle!”:

With stunning Miami gay beaches, unbeatable glamor, and some of the most handsome locals anywhere on the planet, the Magic City is truly a fabulous place to be gay!

One of the best parts of Miami’s vibrant LGBTQ culture is the sauna and bathhouse scene in the city. Think about it; scorching rooms filled with nothing but steam and guys having a good time. The idea alone is enough to get you all hot and bothered!

…

We love this super-extensive sauna in good ‘ole gay Fort Lauderdale, which is just a forty-minute drive away from Miami. For our money, Fort Lauderdale might just be the gayest city in America right now and nowhere is this more evident than at The Club.

This place is luxurious, modern and super-clean, filled with handsome gay boys looking to mingle and make new friends. With a steam room, dry sauna, whirlpool and more, there are countless areas to relax in the company of gorgeous guys.

Discussions are not prohibited by the new Florida law, only instruction. I pointed this out in a comment and a reader from Brooklyn replied:

You’re missing the point. The point is that the law is intended to make people think that young children are being taught about gender identity in school. It’s a phony issue, similar to the the CRT and Sharia law hysterias.

Welcomingschools.org offers an extensive list of recommendations for pre-K and older, however. Under the subhead “Picture Books: LGBTQ+ Family and Who You Love” (to which I object due to the failure to use “whom”) we find, for example:

Baby’s First Words and Mis primeras palabras. Christiane Engel. (Baby – Toddler) Featuring a family with two dads.

Heather Has Two Mommies. 25th Anniversary Edition. Lesléa Newman. (Pre-K – K) Heather’s favorite number is two. She has two arms, two legs, and two pets. And she also has two mommies. As school begins, Heather sees that, “the most important thing about a family is that all the people in it love one another.”

I am Jazz. Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings. (K – 5) From the time she was two years old, Jazz knew she was a girl, even though others saw her as a boy.

The history page for this enterprise says that instruction began in elementary schools in 2008 and that the organization has reached 8 million students:

As of 2021, Welcoming Schools has over 150 facilitators who have trained educators in 43 states, DC, Canada, Mexico and Taiwan, reaching over 10.5 million students. The Welcoming Schools program has also formed strategic partnerships with national and state organizations, as well as large districts across the country.

What about the math textbooks that Emmanuel Goldstein Ron DeSantis personally rejected? The Miami Herald explains the impact:

Florida’s law remains clear: Individual school boards — not state officials — ultimately have the responsibility for selecting instructional materials. Furthermore, a district may spend up to 50% of its state funds for books that are not on the department’s list of recommended titles.

In other words, regardless if a book or curriculum is on or off the state’s list of approved materials, a school board still has the authority to purchase it for the district. (The list is the “initial adoption list,” according to the state education department, and has yet to be finalized.)

The NYT is “stunned” that a big corporation might have to live by the same rules as smaller corporations:

And, perhaps most stunning of all, Disney, long an untouchable corporate giant, stripped of the ability to govern itself for the first time in more than half a century, in retaliation for the company’s opposition to the crackdown on L.G.B.T.Q. conversations with young schoolchildren.

(Again the inaccurate reference to “conversations” being excluded from the K-3 curriculum when it is only “instruction” that is excluded. Separate question: What did schools in the Northeast and California drop from the elementary school curriculum when they started teaching sexual orientation and gender identity? They didn’t make the school day or year longer, right? So something had to be dropped to make room for instruction regarding the world of 2SLGBTQQIA+. (Maybe this is part of the reason for the NYT’s 2015 story: “Surprise: Florida and Texas Excel in Math and Reading Scores” (California’s students are 9 months behind Florida’s in subjects other than sexual orientation and gender identity)).)

The article mischaracterizes Ron DeSantis’s coronapanic polices:

But beginning in 2020, a politically attuned Mr. DeSantis seized on discontent with coronavirus pandemic policies, betting that economic prosperity and individual liberties would matter more to voters in the long run than protecting public health.

DeSantis’s stated reason for not ordering extended school closures, lockdowns, and general public masking was that he did not believe that there was scientific evidence that such measures were effective at stopping the spread of an aerosol virus. From WFLA (July 2021):

“There’s been talk about potentially people advocating for people at the federal level imposing masks on kids. We’re not doing that in Florida, OK, we need our kids to breathe,” DeSantis said. “We need our kids to be able to be kids, to be able to breathe – it’s terribly uncomfortable for them to do it, there’s not very much science behind it.”

While the governor says previous protocols for masks were not meaningfully effective, health leaders across the political spectrum say that we have all of the tools to beat the virus, but people need to use them.

DeSantis said that between schools that did and did not have mask rules in effect, the difference between outcomes was not “meaningfully different.” The governor went further, saying that parents were free to mask their children on their own initiative but that he was not supportive of “coercive mandates” on Florida schools.

In other words, DeSantis’s primary position was that what governors were doing in the Northeast and California was unsupported by Science and doomed to fail. The health leaders, on the other hand, were 100 percent sure that “we have all of the tools to beat the virus.” If DeSantis was wrong and the health leaders were correct, COVID-19 should have ended in the summer of 2021 in all of the states and countries where lockdowns, masks, and vaccines were ordered.

More than 73,000 Floridians have died of Covid-19, yet public opinion polls have shown that Mr. DeSantis and many of his policies remain quite popular.

The New York Times presents this number without the context of Florida’s large population and, more importantly, very large population of old people who are vulnerable to COVID-19. Florida is #31 in the nation in terms of age-adjusted COVID-19 death rate (the NYT’s home state of New York is tied with New Jersey at #16).

Switching channels… “DeSantis vs. Disney: Homophobia and hate are beneath the surface of high-minded, right-wing talking points” (CNN Business):

The Walt Disney Company, a longtime engine of Florida’s economy, now finds itself in a disorienting position: Enemy of Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis. And let’s be clear about the root cause: Resistance to LGBTQ equality. The impending removal of Walt Disney World’s special tax district is wrapped up in anti-big business rhetoric. But the chain of events that led to “DeSantis versus Disney” began with the Florida GOP’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law. Homophobia and hate are right underneath the surface of the high-minded talking points about “parental rights in education.”

But Disney is not opposing an executive order from the hated governor who is a homophobic hater. Disney is opposing a law passed by the legislature representing voters all over Florida (yet, despite its opposition to this law, Disney will not do the obvious thing and educate K-3 kids themselves while they’re in line at its theme parks and/or with a new dark ride).

It is a little strange for a Floridian to see the attention being devoted to Ron DeSantis outside of Florida. Here in Florida, it is the counties and towns/cities that collect most of the taxes (property tax being the huge one) and therefore it is county and local politics that get people excited. It is far more common for a person I’m talking to in Massachusetts or California to mention Ron DeSantis than for the Hater in Chief to come up in a conversation with someone down here. The state government is not a feature in day-to-day life. If you need to get a driver’s license or register a car, for example, you go to your county’s tax collector office, not to a branch of a state-run DMV bureaucracy.

Maybe the explanation is that Democrats are concerned that Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley will run for president in 2024? If we add their ages together, the result (93) is pretty close to Joe Biden’s age.

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Now that Texas is sending migrants to D.C., are some humans illegal?

by philg

One of the reliable features of non-welfare neighborhoods of Washington, D.C. has been a “migrants welcome” sign in the typical front yard. Now that Texas is sending asylum-seekers directly to D.C., however, it seems that the formerly popular “No Matter, Where You Are From, We’re Glad You’re Our Neighbor” signs are gone. I didn’t see a single one. Some houses still had the Progressive Catechism signs, which include “No Human Being is Illegal,” but not nearly as many as on previous visits:

The alarm system signs are far more numerous than two years ago. BLM signs remain as or more popular than ever. Here’s a variation (“Black Fathers Matter”), presumably from someone who has never been to an American family court:

For those who subscribe to the heresy that white lives might matter, the city has helpfully put up signs from when Northeast D.C. was, apparently, a mostly-white neighborhood:

Some more yards. Note the alarm system signs and the signs calling for D.C. statehood.

Migrants from Spanish-speaking countries might nonetheless feel welcome because a high percentage of signs are presented in Spanish. Example:

Here’s a sign in four languages:

Perhaps because the flow of the undocumented has been reduced during coronapanic, crime in D.C. seems to be up (we are informed by the media that filling a city with low-skill migrants reduces crime). In addition to all of the alarm system signs, I noticed that a Best Buy in suburban Rockville, Maryland, had hired off duty police officers for continuous on-site protection against “smash-and-grab” looting.

The police cruiser was kept parked in front of the doors while the police officer was inside wearing body armor and a gun. This is in Montgomery County, Maryland, mind you, which is one of the richest places in the U.S. (government employment, government contracting, and lobbying are, apparently, lucrative!). A “face coverings are required by government order” sign was out front as well, though I believe that the order has actually expired.

Related:

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An evening with Senator Tom Cotton

by philg

As balance to a 2018 gathering (see Elizabeth Warren helps another politician raise money on a “get money out of politics” platform), I recently attended an evening with Senator Tom Cotton. It pains me to say this about a Harvard graduate, but his knowledge of world history going back at least to the 1950s is impressive, especially regarding the Middle East and China. The voters of Arkansas picked a seriously bookish person to represent them. Cotton is 44 so by current American standards of cognitive excellence he won’t be ready to run for U.S. President until the year 2056.

Some of the guests (total of about 15) talked about quitting public company boards because of the pressure to jump on the social justice, BLM, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ bandwagons. I personally attribute this to the lack of competition in the U.S. European airlines, for example, are more numerous and ticket prices are lower for comparable trips. Therefore, European companies are less likely to have the extra profits to be able to indulge in non-business activities. An investor said that he thought companies waved the rainbow flag because it enabled them to recruit employees at lower wages. It wouldn’t simply be a job, but rather a mission. Senator Cotton thought that this was something that would be dealt with at the state level, e.g., California’s law to force companies to hire board members based on gender ID. From ca.gov:

Publicly held corporations were required to have at least one female director on their Board of Directors by December 31, 2019. … Who qualifies as a female director? A female is an individual who self-identifies her gender as a woman, without regard to the individual’s designated sex at birth.

Definitely a politician to watch, though I didn’t agree with some of his comments regarding China. If the mission of Americans is building a low-skill low-labor force participation society via open borders, a lavish welfare state, and tens of millions of low-skill migrants, I think we need to cooperate with, not confront, China. We’re not going to start making our own iPhones!

An older attendee, originally from the Midwest, asked why we couldn’t have bipartisan action on a range of issues that she believed to be important. None of those under 60 thought that there was any reason for Joe Biden and the Democrats to compromise.

As I was leaving, I thanked Senator Cotton for educating us on a wide range of topics but said that I wouldn’t be able to support him if he were running against Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle. He responded that he fully understood.

From the neighborhood where the gathering was held, white and Black can coexist peacefully:

And, of course, people in a full rainbow of race and gender IDs can enjoy the beach:

The adjacent playground has a sign reminding visitors that it is an “inclusive environment”:

(Not like the Playgrounds of Hate that are common elsewhere; see Harvard graduate discovers that the suburbs are packed with narrow-minded white heterosexuals in which the 2SLGBTQQIA+ minister talks about feeling excluded by the white hetero soccer moms in the playground back in Lincoln, Maskachusetts.)

An idea if you’re redoing the driveway…

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