George Washington’s Mount Vernon Christmas

George Noga
George Washington’s Mount Vernon Christmas is a holiday tradition at MLLG. Enjoy!
George Washington’s Mount Vernon Christmas
By: George Noga – December 18, 2016
      We are reprising America’s greatest Christmas story; it is 100% true but known only to few; it is deeply moving and uniquely American. The events that ended on Christmas Eve 1783 could not have happened anywhere but America. It shaped our republic in ways being felt today. It is an authentic, feel-good classic to be shared with children and grandchildren.
Note: This post is much longer than normal but I believe you will agree that it is well worth it.

Christmas – New Year’s Eve 1776

     Washington wrote, “The reflection upon my situation and that of this army produces many an uneasy hour when all around me are wrapped in sleep. Few know the predicament we are in.” Washington was desperate; 1776 had been the darkest year in American history. He had endured a succession of military disasters. The morale of his remaining army, starving and freezing, was rock-bottom; hundreds desert during the night. He is down to only 2,400 troops.
     On the New Year’s Eve march to Trenton, many have no shoes and wrap their feet in burlap during the all night march, leaving behind a crimson trail of blood in the new fallen snow as a sudden and fierce northeast storm engulfs his Continentals. The fate of the American Revolution has come down to this. Washington is down to one last desperate throw of the dice. And although Washington leads one of the most successful surprise attacks in history, it only buys time. Ahead is the desperate winter of 1777-1778 at Valley Forge. Indeed, every winter and Christmas until 1783 was the same story of hunger, cold and privation.

Quelling a Revolt; Word of Peace Treaty

       Just before receiving word of the peace treaty in 1783, Washington was confronted with a rebellion. He called a meeting of his officers, gave a short speech and then reached for a letter from Congress in his pocket to read aloud. He gazed upon it and fumbled with it without speaking. He then took a pair of reading glasses from his pocket which none had seen him wear before. He said, “Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in the service of my country.” This moved everyone to tears as they realized the sacrifices Washington had made; the rebellion died instantly.

       On November 17, 1783 Washington received word that the peace treaty had been signed ending the war. Only then could he resign his commission and return home to Mount Vernon, from which he had been away for eight long years – except for only a few days while enroute to Yorktown. Upon learning of the treaty, Washington yearned to be home in Mount Vernon in time for Christmas but he had less than six weeks, many duties to perform and many miles to travel. What follows is the story of Washington’s incredible 38-day Christmas journey.

A Mount Vernon Christmas: November 17 to December 24, 1783

   Farewell Orders to the Troops

     On November 17th Washington issued his “Farewell Orders” lauding his troops for their extreme hardship and urging them never to forget the extraordinary events to which they bore witness. He closed by announcing his retirement from service stating, “The curtain of separation will soon be drawn . . . and closed forever” meaning for all future offices. Instead of using such an opportunity to promote himself, he appeared above all human ambition. When his remarks reached King George III, he called Washington “the greatest man of his age”.

New York and Fraunces Tavern

      Washington left camp and arrived in New York November 21st; he thought it necessary to reoccupy New York but he had to wait for the British to evacuate. While there he made sure Tories who had secretly assisted the American cause were shielded from retribution. He also protected the British withdrawal to prevent untoward actions. Everywhere Washington was greeted as a hero with cheering and enthusiastic crowds; nearly every home had a drawing or lithograph of him in the window. Receptions and dinners were held nightly in his honor.
     On December 4th Washington hosted a farewell reception for his officers at Fraunces Tavern. He realized the inadequacy of any formal address and did not trust his emotions to read one. When all the glasses were filled, Washington offered a toast, “With a heart filled with love and gratitude, I now take my leave of you. I most devoutly wish your later days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable.” Following the toast, blinded by tears and his voice faltering, Washington continued, “I cannot come to each of you but shall be obliged if each of you will come and take me by the hand.” Each officer came forward suffused with tears and unable to utter a single intelligible word.

Philadelphia, Wilmington and Enroute to Annapolis

     From December 5-18 Washington’s journey took him to Philadelphia where he spent several days and then onward, via Wilmington, toward Annapolis, where Congress was then sitting. At every stop and all along his route throughout his entire journey citizens gathered to pay tribute. Always courteous, the general accepted every proffered hand and returned every greeting. America never before had and never again will experience such an emotional outpouring for one man. Every citizen understood that he conducted them through a long and bloody war that achieved glory and independence for their country. All knew viscerally that there never would be another such moment or another such man.

Annapolis and Returning His Commission

      Washington arrived in Annapolis, then the capital and seat of Congress, December 19th. From December 20-22 he was feted endlessly at lavish dinners and balls, always preceded with 13 toasts followed by 13 cannon shots. On December 23rd there was a special session of Congress to honor Washington and to accept his resignation. Attendance overflowed the facilities with people everywhere. He closed his address by stating, “I retire from the great theatre of action and  . . . here offer my commission and take my leave of all employments of public life.” Then he withdrew from his coat pocket the parchment given to him in 1775 that was his appointment as Commander-in-Chief and ceremoniously returned it. Some consider Washington’s Annapolis speech the most significant address ever delivered in civil history.

Christmas in Mount Vernon

       Immediately after his speech, Washington set out for Mount Vernon, still hoping to arrive in time for Christmas. It was so late on the 23rd and the days so short, he got only as far as Bladensburgh, Maryland before retiring for the night. The next morning, Christmas Eve, he rode to the Potomac River, crossed via ferry to Alexandria and rode the final miles. It already was dark when he approached Mount Vernon. About a mile away he could see its many green-shuttered windows – now all ablaze with candles; it was, after all, Christmas Eve.
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Much material is from “General Washington’s Christmas Farewell – A Mount Vernon Homecoming 1783 ” by Stanley Weintraub. The 174 page book is readily available on Amazon for $16.95 new or for under $5.00 used. If you enjoyed reading this post, I guarantee that you will love the book even more!
We are taking a holiday break; the next posting will be in January 2017.

A Politically Correct Christmas

George Noga
Trigger Warning! Despite our very best effort to be 100% politically correct,
this post uses the term “Christmas” and may contain other microaggressions. 
A Politically Correct Christmas
By: George Noga – December 11, 2016

      Begin by recognizing Santa Claus as a phallocentric, atherosclerotic white male existing within an ageist, authoritarian hierarchy. Only children adhering to bourgeois capitalistic values and to moral absolutism (by agreeing not to be naughty) receive gifts during the Celebration of Winter (formerly Christmas). Such children are brainwashed and seduced into an exploitative, metastasizing consumerism. Gifts are thinly-disguised payola intended to create lifelong addiction to over consumption.

Santa’s bribes to gift-addled children are made by degendered, height-challenged, differently-abled elves at the North Pole, a post-colonial, non-union, right-to-work setting. Regrettably, Obamacare has forced Santa to cap total elf employment at 49 and to limit their work week to 29 hours. The elves and reindeer must constantly avoid stepping off the shrinking polar ice cap and dodge polar bears on passing ice floes.

The tectonic pressure to exchange gifts leads to psychoses not covered by atavistic health insurance plans of rapacious insurance companies. Scrooge-like robber barons, like Wal-Mart, lure unsuspecting shoppers with elaborate decorations, holiday music and even (horrors) low prices. Avoid any stores that stoop so low as to provide ersatz Santas to confuse, coax and cajole young children into an anti-proletarian lifestyle.

PC decor for the Celebration of Winter excludes Christmas-centric trees and any ornaments designed to hang on trees. Also offensive are images of Santa, reindeer, and anything (even napkins) red or green. Even more offensive are nativity scenes and candy canes, the shape of which represents a shepherd’s crook. Snowflakes, snow globes and snowpeople are acceptable; after all, it is a Celebration of Winter. Avoid holiday lights; the energy wasted inexorably leads to more evil fracking and pipelines.

Eschew toys made in China with slave labor, subsidies and currency manipulation, then shipped around the world leaving a humongous carbon footprint. Don’t use wrapping paper or send cards as the environmental impact requires clear cutting of old growth trees and sacrificing spotted owls on the altar of consumerism; moreover, disposing of all the waste requires countless new landfills. After Christmas lines to return gifts attest to the depravity; obviously, people neither needed nor wanted gifts.

Avoid gender specific gifts, the most egregious being NRA-inspired toy guns for the deplorable and irredeemably racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, and Islamophobic boys in flyover land. They will cling to their new guns along with their religion. Certain gifts are acceptable like PCC pills distributed to snowflakes on rape-infested campuses, preferably with funds coerced from the Little Sisters of the Poor. Vacations to socialist havens like Venezuela and North Korea are popular with progressives.

Once all unwanted gifts and waste materials are recycled, avoid binge eating a/k/a Christmas dinner, a microaggression to those with food insecurities. Before eating, skip grace or even a moment of silence, which is but a veiled attempt at prayer. Select organic, non-GMO, sustainable, local and fair-traded foods; tofu is a good choice. Avoid turkey loaded with growth hormones, mutagens, carcinogens and antibiotics, although turkey is preferable to a Chick-fil-A washed down by a 24-ounce Big Gulp.

Ensure that a variety of rest rooms is available for GLBTQ+ who may use any one or more he/she/it/they wish depending on his/her/its/their gender self identity at that moment. For anyone overwhelmed, be sure to provide a safe room with elevator music, teddy bears, videos of frolicking puppies, Play-Doh and warm milk and cookies.

Next up on December 18th is our traditional Christmas posting. 

Media Bias in Person-of-the Year Honors

George Noga
It is the time of year when the media hand out awards. Their choices reflect their biases.
Media Bias in Person-of-the Year Honors
By: George Noga – December 4, 2016
     It is approaching the time of year when the media and others self righteously and pompously bestow their 2016 person-of-the-year awards. These awards reveal the media’s true values and provide a look deep into their arrogant, biased, progressive psyches. Following is an analysis of both international and local year-end awards.
    We begin with the Nobel Peace Prize. Since WWII there has been only one arguably conservative winner (Kissinger) out of nearly 100 recipients – a rate of 1%. Undeserving winners include: Red Cross, UNICEF, Amnesty International, Gorbachev, Arafat, Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, UN IPCC, and Barack Obama. Manuel Santos won in 2016 for a treaty his countrymen soundly rejected; Alvaro Uribe, who brought FARC to the table, should have won. What about Ronald Reagan ending the Cold War?
     Time Magazine has anointed a person-of-the year since 1927. In 90 years there have been only 6 businessmen named –  a rate of 6.7%, or one every 15 years. Business has a greater and more direct impact on people’s lives than government. Among deserving honorees missing are: Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Elon Musk, Charles Schwab, Steve Jobs, Fred Smith, Sam Walton, Walt Disney, Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
      Local awards are even more outre. Our Central Florida newspaper bestows an annual award and I have a list of the recipients since 1983. For the past 33 years, there have been only three business people who won the award and they won mostly for reasons other than their business success – one won because his private development was for a purpose supported by the newspaper and the other two won primarily for their philanthropic activities. Some of the winners noted below truly are laughable.
    • One winner founded an organization that has wrought considerable harm
    • Many politicians and public employees won for simply doing their duty
    • One politician won for passing a (totally unnecessary) tax increase
    • Another person won for politicizing a respected non-political organization
    • Someone won for donating a small portion of great inherited wealth
    Our local paper annually publishes the 50 most influential people in our area. During the recent ascendancy of the Tea Party, they did not list any of the Tea Party leaders in the top 50 – even though they wielded enormous power. It was comedic to see the people they included on their list as being more influential than the Tea Party leaders.
      I once had a friend fond of saying “whoever tooteth not his own horn, his horn goeth untooteth“. My final awards story is personal and inescapably involves tooting my own horn. In 1994 I founded the first school voucher program in Florida totally with private funds. We began by providing 250 scholarships to poor children from Central Florida and had another 2,500 on a wait list. Today that program funds 68,000 students at an annual cost of $300 million; overnight it transformed the school choice narrative. The paper was aware of our program, once giving it front page headlines.
      To my great surprise and consternation, I awoke one morning to read that the local paper had named an “Education Person of the Year“. The honoree was a two-bit liberal politician who had proposed an unneeded tax increase for schools which had zero percent chance of ever passing. Now – I don’t really care about such awards, but this one tells you everything you ever need to know about media bias and depravity.
      Year-end awards provide a bright spotlight into the dank, dark media psyche. Peace prizes, Time Magazine awards and local newspapers’ honors reveal their drossy values and their contempt for anyone that doesn’t imbibe the progressive Kool-Aid.
The next post tells a true and heart-warming Christmas story.

Guns in Switzerland and Honduras

George Noga
The gun homicide rate in Honduras is 44,000% that of Switzerland. The countries
are equal in population and Honduras has stricter gun laws and 90% fewer guns. 
Switzerland Versus Honduras
Gun laws, Ownership and Homicide
By: George Noga – November 27, 2016
      Switzerland (population 8.1 million) has gun laws similar to the USA and in sharp contrast to the highly restrictive laws of the European Union. Swiss males between ages 20 and 30 (34 for officers) are supplied with military assault rifles which they are required to keep at home. Once their service ends, they may keep their weapons. It is a common sight to see a person in active military service carrying his rifle in public.
       Data on Swiss gun ownership are maintained at the canton level and such statistics are often not reliable, especially for guns acquired before registration was introduced. Estimates of gun ownership vary but the accepted number is 60%, ranking Switzerland third highest in the world – behind the USA and Yemen. Switzerland has a strong gun culture and the government subsidizes and actively encourages recreational shooting.
      For the most recent year data are available, Switzerland experienced 49 homicides with 18 involving firearms. The total homicide rate was less than 0.5 per 100,000 and the homicide rate from guns was .000000225 – equal to .2 per 100,000. Both metrics are among the lowest in the world along with those of Japan, Iceland and Singapore.
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      Honduras’ population of 8.1 million is identical to Switzerland. Under current law, it is legal for Honduran citizens to own guns, but only under a strict regimen with mandatory registration and many other restrictions. Gun ownership in Honduras is 6.2% which is the 87th lowest in the world; few citizens own guns. Guns may be sold legally only by one outlet which is a branch of the Honduran armed forces.
      The homicide rate for Honduras is 104 per 100,000, ranking it highest in the world and twice as high as the second most dangerous place on the planet – Venezuela. Of all the homicides, 85% are with guns; this equates to a rate of 88 per 100,0000.
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   Comparisons are stark. Switzerland has relatively permissive gun laws – even requiring military and reservists to keep weapons at home. Gun ownership of 60% is third highest in the world; yet the gun homicide rate is among the lowest in the world. Honduras restricts gun ownership with only 6% owning guns, ranking 87th worldwide. Nevertheless, the gun homicide rate is the world’s worst – higher than Switzerland by a factor of 440, i.e. for every gun homicide in Switzerland, there are 440 in Honduras.
       I understand: (1) gun laws and gun availability are not related to gun violence and may even be inversely related, i.e. more guns equal less violence; (2) economic, cultural and social factors account for differences in gun violence; and (3) comparing countries as different as Switzerland and Honduras is problematic and that the ideal is to compare countries that are identical except for gun laws and availability. Note: go to www.mllg.us to see my “Guns in America” series which contains such comparisons.
      Nonetheless, the juxtaposition of Switzerland and Honduras is too tantalizing to pass up as it proves beyond any reasonable doubt, and in the starkest possible terms, that gun laws and gun ownership do not beget gun violence. It renders moot the entire gamut of gun control dogma and liberal orthodoxy about banning and confiscating guns. Honduras suffers forty-four thousand percent (44,000%) more gun homicides despite much stricter laws and only 10% the gun ownership of Switzerland.
Our next post, rescheduled from November 13, addresses voter ignorance.

The Real Story of Thanksgiving

George Noga
Settlers in Jamestown and Plymouth under socialism were reduced to cannibalism and eating rats; after switching to capitalism, they ate turkey and had enough to share with the Indians.
The Real Story of Thanksgiving
By: George Noga – November 20, 2016

       Jamestown, Virginia 1611: Colonists arrived in 1607 and found fertile soil and an abundance of seafood, game, fruit and nuts. Yet within 6 months all but 38 died – most from starvation. In 1609 another 500 settlers arrived and 6 months later 440 died, again mostly of starvation. People ate dogs, cats, mice and even resorted to cannibalism. The survivors gave up and headed back to England. As they sailed out of Chesapeake Bay they encountered three ships with new settlers and decided to give it one more try.

     On the ships was Sir Thomas Dale, the new Governor. Before Dale, everything went into a common store owned by everyone and hence no one. There was no direct connection between work and reward. Like socialism everywhere, people starved in the midst of plenty. Dale’s first action was to give each man 3 acres while requiring them to work one month for the common wheal – equivalent to a flat tax of 8.33%.

     Overnight, the colony began to prosper; people became industrious and inventive. Indians, who had regarded the settlers as inept, suddenly gained respect for them. John Rolfe, husband of Pocahontas who was an ancestor of Elizabeth Warren, wrote that the colonists engaged in “gathering and reaping the fruits of their labors with much joy and comfort” If Jamestown colonists had gathered to give thanks for their first harvest of abundance, it would have been in 1611 and as a direct result of private property.

     Plymouth, Massachusetts 1621: When the Pilgrims landed in 1620 they were governed by the Mayflower Compact which established communal property ownership. All benefits from farming, trade and fishing went into a common stock and were withdrawn as needed. Women washed clothes and dressed meat for everyone and not their own families. This was pure communism: from each according to his ability; to each according to his need. When everyone is entitled to everything, no one is responsible for anything. Soon they were eating rats and 50% had died.

     Just as Dale had done in Jamestown, Governor Bradford took action. He instituted individual property rights, granting parcels of land to each family. In Bradford’s words:
“This led to very good success, for it made all hands industrious. Much corn was planted; the women now went willingly into the fields and took their little ones with them to set corn which before would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.” At harvest in 1621 there now was an abundance resulting in the first Thanksgiving.

     United States of America 2016: The story of Jamestown and Plymouth is identical to the experience of all socialist, communist and utopian experiments throughout recorded history; i.e. starvation amidst plenty. They all fail because they are opposed to human nature and they break the link between work and benefit. In contrast, private property and self interest always have worked through the millennia.

     The Thanksgiving narrative today is merely a verisimilitude, a warm, fuzzy, politically correct, feel-good, multi cultural tale. Not one in 100 children in America today knows the real story of Thanksgiving. Readers owe it to their children and grandchildren to acquaint them with the real lessons of Jamestown and Plymouth, i.e. if you want turkey and enough to share with others, only private property can produce it. Socialism brought only unspeakable horrors and privation, starvation amid plenty.

The next post November 27 covers a variety of pithy topics.

Voter Ignorance – A Startling Perspective

George Noga
Most voters are ignorant of the issues and even about basic political facts.
What are the implications of massive voter ignorance for our republic?  
Voter Ignorance – A Startling Perspective
By: George Noga – November 13, 2016
    The election is history; whoever won was elected by voters ignorant of the issues and about our government. Most voters don’t even know our form of government, incorrectly believing it is a democracy and not a constitutional republic. Voters are ignorant of the identity of the vice president, who controls Congress, the branches of government, taxation and spending. Candidates shamelessly exploit this ignorance.
 
     The founders didn’t see voter ignorance as a problem because government had little power over peoples’ lives; politics was mostly local; and voting was limited to a small cohort of educated white male landowners. With federalism, states appointed senators. All this has changed with universal suffrage and vastly more complexity. Just how big a problem is voter ignorance? Does it doom democracy or, at least, argue for changes? Is it a serious concern voters spend more time planning a vacation than on the issues? 
 
    The answers may surprise you. Voters may be ignorant but they’re not stupid. Should a surgeon spend countless hours learning about foreign trade, immigration and tax policy? The ignorant voter, who spends many hours comparison shopping for a new television rather than learning the issues and the candidates, actually behaves rationally because his decision on the TV makes an immediate and significant difference in his life, whereas the chance his vote will make any difference is infinitesimal. 
 
     Just because voters are grossly underinformed and/or misinformed does not mean they always fail to act rationally. There are four ways voters evince erudite behavior.
 
1. Voters recognize and act on serious problems: When the nation is in the midst of social upheaval, beset with security issues and/or the economy is in a prolonged tailspin, voters invariably will vote out those perceived responsible. Even ignorant voters punish incumbents when there is clear-cut government failure. 
 
2. Prolonged one party rule is rejected: Even low information voters viscerally grasp that incumbency leads to complacency and corruption. Prior to 2016 only Reagan/Bush (since FDR) won 3 consecutive elections. No party won 4 straight (excluding only the civil war era and FDR) since 1801, beginning with Jefferson.
 
3. Peace and prosperity are rewarded: Just as voters react to serious problems by voting out the perps, they also reward success – particularly in achieving peace and prosperity – at least for a time but not for 3 or 4 presidential terms.
 
4. People vote with their feet. Under our federal system, people can and do vote with their feet, moving from one jurisdiction to another. Just as with the TV example, people analyze, rationally and non politically, where to live because it has a large, immediate and direct impact on their lives. That explains why there is a shortage of moving vans in California and a corresponding glut in Texas. 
 
   Surprisingly, perhaps startlingly, massive voter ignorance is not an uber-serious problem. Democracy (including constitutional republics) is not perfect, but what system is better? Even ignorant voters can and do trump demographics, money and special interests. And being ignorant does not always equate to being irrational.
 
   Ignorant voters almost certainly will vote for change in 2020 if the economy is torpid with no prospect of improvement and if America is beset with chronic and serious problems, not the least of which is Obamacare. They will vote for change if we are in the midst of prolonged one party rule and if we have neither peace nor prosperity.
Note to readers: I have been besieged with requests to write an election postmortem. During January 2017 I will provide same. Also as Obama leaves office, I will publish a retrospective on the Obama presidency – that is one post not to be missed and I hope one of the best ever.
The next post on November 20 is our special Thanksgiving edition.

Plague or Pestilence?

George Noga
Here are some final thoughts about the 2016 election and a far, far too early look at 2020.
Plague or Pestilence?
By: George Noga – November 6, 2016
      I have been a keen observer of US presidential elections beginning 56 years ago in 1960. This election is different than anything I have seen before; only 1968 comes remotely close. By any conventional method or measure, Clinton wins; nevertheless, there is a path still open for Trump if all the factors noted below break just right.
 –

     ##  The polls are wrong. For technical reasons (absence of landlines, etc.) polling is much less accurate than in past elections. Polling was notoriously wrong in many primaries, in the Brexit vote and most recently in the Colombian FARC treaty vote. Many people, especially Trump voters, do not divulge their true feelings to pollsters.

     ##  The massive global failure of government drives voters to make a change. Government is failing in the US, Europe, Japan, the Middle East and elsewhere. Change is in the air worldwide and the USA is not immune from this dynamic which was clearly manifest in the Brexit vote and in other recent European elections.

     ##  Voter turnout could produce a seismic swing if blacks and millennials stay home while evangelicals turnout in force. Polls do not properly account for turnout.

     ##  Obamacare is a festering wound and massive voter repudiation could happen.

A Ridiculously Early Look at the 2020 Election
Are you ready for President Tom Cotton?

     Believe it or not, I honestly think I can make a fairly accurate assessment of the 2020 election. Just as it can be easier to see longer term movement in stock prices, the same thing is possible in politics – especially given conditions and trends in the USA.

     Assuming Hillary wins in 2016, her policies will be a continuation of the failed Obama regime. The US economy will remain in a low (or negative) growth mode and lucky to avoid recession. Recessions occur every 7 or 8 years and 2020 would be 12 years since the last one. Hillary’s tax, regulatory and trade policies will prove disastrous and at some point this will be reflected in the financial markets. Obamacare will fester for four more years leading to massive voter repudiation. The global anti-government movement will build steam and morph into an unstoppable force.

     By 2020 the US will be an economic basket case with immense underemployment, stagnant (or even declining) middle class incomes and debt and deficits nearing critical mass. Malaise will define the national mood. The country will have suffered through 12 years of one party rule; historically this means change – which would have occurred in 2016 had anyone but Trump been nominated; it is merely being delayed four years. Did I mention a weak military, foreign conflagrations and a worsening of terrorism?

     It is ridiculously premature to predict who the president will be in 2021, but my bet is firmly on Tom Cotton. Remember, you read it first in this post. Heck – I am going to go all in on Cotton. Not only will Cotton win big in 2020, he will go on to lead a Reaganesque revival in America – provided America still is recognizable in 2021.

We are skipping next week; the next post is scheduled for November 20.

We are the Choices We Make

George Noga
America is the summation of the political choices we make just
as individually we are the sum of all our individual life choices.
We are the Choices We Make
By: George Noga – October 30, 2016

       Alexander Hamilton pondered: “Whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend on accident and force.” James Madison added: “What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature.”

     During the first 175 years of our beloved republic, Madison and Hamilton would have rested easy. We made good public choices; we saw to it that whoever was elected president or to Congress, and those they appointed and confirmed to the judiciary, had little power over our lives. Government had few, limited and enumerated powers and there were abundant checks and balances against the concentration and abuse of power. All branches of government stayed inside the constitutional box; states zealously guarded their federalist prerogatives; and the media were effective watchdogs.

     No longer! We are answering Hamilton’s question in the negative and to Madison’s dismay, the worse angels of our nature are dominating the better angels. If any society of men fails to get government right, it affects every aspect of our lives and life itself. If we get government right, we live our lives in freedom and prosperity; if we fail, happiness, liberty and property are forfeit and life becomes nasty, brutish and brief.

     If we don’t get government right, our children and our children’s children will survive in an Orwellian torpor with their lives and liberty constantly at risk because of obeisance to failed ideologies, fantasies, political correctness and the perpetual and futile search for utopias. They will pay dearly for our debt binge and intergenerational theft. They will people a dysfunctional world where nuclear arms proliferate in places committed to our destruction. They will be a lost generation in every sense.

      If we fail to answer Hamilton’s question in the affirmative, we will inhabit a Clockwork Orange world with our lives vastly diminished and trivialized in countless and unspeakable ways. We will live lives of quiet desperation. We will fulfill Kipling’s prophesy in the Gods of the Copybook Headings – the final verse of which follows. Note: By the term “Gods of the Copybook Headings” Kipling means the experience and wisdom of mankind through the ages.

“And after that is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as water will wet us, as surely as fire will burn,

The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!”

      Our lives individually and as a nation are nothing more than the summation of all the choices we make. If we make good choices in our individual lives, it will come to naught if the choices we make in our public lives are bad ones. Of the 110 billion humans who have trod this earth, fewer than 1% have lived their lives in liberty. We must make wise public choices or just as surely as water wets us and fire burns, terror and slaughter will return. And don’t think for a moment that it can’t happen here!

The next post November 6th contains some final thoughts about the election.

The Seen Versus the Unseen

George Noga
What we see is frequently far less important than what we don’t see. This is true
particularly for economic growth, international trade, climate change and poverty.
The Seen Versus the Unseen
By: George Noga – October 23, 2016

       Election issues, both real and fake, are viewed through the prism of what is readily seen and are juxtaposed against what is opaque or occult to most Americans. The seen versus the unseen is singularly germane for economic growth. The data Americans readily see are many years of positive economic growth and unemployment rates approaching historic lows. Looking only at what is seen, many people conclude the US economy is performing satisfactorily. But let’s look at the unseen.

     The US, in its eighth year of economic recovery, is averaging 2.0% growth in real GDP. Real economic growth since 1945 averages 3.3% and is 4.3% for the years following the prior 10 recessions. Had the US grown at the 4.3% post-recession average from 2009 onward, today real GDP would be $10,300 higher for every man, woman and child in America. The unseen 900-pound gorilla of economic growth is the $26,700 that is missing from every American household each and every year – forever. Had Obama simply achieved average results, we would be infinitely better off.

For foreign trade deals, what we can see are job losses, harm to affected industries and deleterious effects on communities impacted. The pain is visible, immediate, and concentrated, whereas the benefits are unseen, long term, opaque and diffuse. Every American household benefits $2,500 per year just from China – even if they manipulate their currency, subsidize exports and use cheap labor. The unseen benefits to Americans from foreign trade vastly outweigh short-term job losses and other impacts.

     For climate change, we see media reports of warming, melting glaciers, polar bears on ice flows, extreme weather events and receding arctic icecaps. The largely unseen is: (1) no warming for 20 years; (2) glaciers receding for the past 150 years; (3) record polar bear populations; (4) no increase globally in insurance claims for weather events; and (5) an increasing antarctic icecap which is 10 times the size of the arctic icecap. Completely unseen are the immediate benefits to humanity that could be realized if the trillions now being totally wasted on infinitesimal reductions in temperature were diverted to human needs such as disease eradication, clean water supply and nutrition.

     We are bombarded by media reports and images of poverty, homelessness and hunger although none of these conditions exist per se in America today. What we don’t see is that these conditions (which do still exist) result nearly exclusively from untreated mental illness and from a small cohort of Americans of low ability, i.e. those who struggle to fill out a simple form. These conditions, and their attendant social pathologies, are what result in poverty, hunger and homelessness. Political correctness prevents us from identifying and addressing the real underlying problems.

     We see gun violence whenever there is a shooting; we don’t see the 2.5 million times each year guns are used lawfully to prevent or to stop crime. We see that more Americans have health insurance; we don’t see the armies of under employed 29ers and 49ers and the high premiums, deductibles and co-pays. We see the spending but the debt and deficits go largely unseen. We see what is reported by the media; we don’t see many stories covered that run counter to the progressive narrative. We see what we recycle; we don’t see it going into the same landfill as all our other garbage.

What we see is often vapid and illusory and intended to beguile us into accepting progressive shibboleths and dogma. The unseen is frequently much more important.

The next post in our 2016 election series is scheduled for October 30.

Uber and Gay Marriage

George Noga

The hypocrisy runs deep. Liberals want anyone to be able to share a marriage but oppose consenting adults sharing a ride (Uber) or sharing an apartment (Airbnb).
Uber and Gay Marriage
By: George Noga – October 16, 2016

       The poster child for the sharing economy is Uber Technologies, Inc. but there are many others including Airbnb, Lyft and TaskRabbit. Sharing increases productivity via leveraging underused resources and labor; it has become wildly popular by providing platforms for people to exchange goods and services. Customers save big bucks while Uber drivers make $15 to $30 an hour and Airbnb hosts up to $30,000 a year.

     Customers log on to Uber; instantly their location and profile (name, photo, rating) are sent to nearby Uber drivers. The assigned driver transmits location, automobile, name, photo, rating and fare to the customer, who can track the Uber car in real time. In minutes the customer is in a spotless recent model car with complimentary bottled water. Payment via preestablished credit card is 50% to 65% less than a taxi. Drivers and customers rate each other; every incentive is in place for a favorable experience.

     Compare this to many taxi experiences. You call a harried dispatcher who can’t tell you when a cab will arrive or the fare. The cab arrives 25 minutes later and the driver is unkempt, speaks poor English, speeds and drives aggressively. The taxi has a musty odor and the radio is blaring obscene music in a strange language. You pay triple the Uber fare in cash without rating the driver. Forget about bottled water. Complaining is futile because taxis are a local monopoly and customer service is an oxymoron.

     Uber is incredibly popular with customers and drivers. Customers save big money and enjoy a safe, pleasant experience. Drivers work only when and where they wish at prices they voluntarily accept. Often, Uber drivers already were enroute to near where their customers wanted to go. The shared ride also saved fuel and reduced emissions.

     Given the contrast between taxis and Uber, why would any sane person wish to ban Uber and force the taxi monopoly on the public? Yet, that is precisely the liberal position. Every progressive group and politician that stridently insists any two people can share a marriage are adamantly opposed to any two people sharing a ride or an apartment. Liberal opposition groups include trial attorneys, labor unions, government rent-seekers, regulatory agencies, race-baiters, taxi cartels and, of course, politicians.

     Bill de Blasio wants to cap the number of Uber drivers; he said, “Uber skirts vital protections and oversight.” (Translation: He can’t collect taxes and enforce union wages.) Hillary Clinton said, “The gig economy raises hard questions about workplace protections and what a good job looks like.” (Translation: government intervention and regulation are needed.) Bernie Sanders, “I have serious problems with unregulated businesses like Uber.” Mayors of many liberal cities have tried to stop Airbnb. Other opponents include, inter alia, Elizabeth Warren, Diane Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi.

     The sharing economy has helped more people, especially poor, young, seniors and minorities, than any government program. It empowers more people to be their own boss and benefits the entire economy by increasing productivity and cutting costs. Liberals fear these new opportunities make people less dependent on government; they always choose government force over voluntary cooperation, i.e. markets.

     More so than any other benefit, liberal opposition to Uber and the sharing economy exposes raw hypocrisy like progressives’ ersatz claim to support “choice”. They are unwavering about a woman’s right to choose (Translation: to choose abortion) but oppose the same woman’s right to choose where to school her children, to own a gun, not to join a union or not to buy health insurance. Now they oppose the same woman’s right to share her car or to share her apartment. The hypocrisy runs very deep indeed!