Tag: Liberalism

MLLG

Why Liberals Hate Capitalism

George Noga

Why Liberals Hate Capitalism

Capitalism is to each according to his accomplishments

America is engaged in a great culture war for the preservation of capitalism along with liberty – which is symbiotically linked to capitalism. As economist Joseph Schumpeter predicted a century ago, capitalism has sown the seeds of its own destruction.1 Schumpeter laid the blame at the feet of liberal professors who, freed from the need to work, would promote anti-capitalist dogma which eventually would result in people voting for a social welfare state, i.e. socialism.

College professors indoctrinating socialism

“Capitalism will not survive. Its demise will not be due to economic failure; instead its very success . . . creates conditions in which it cannot survive.” Schumpeter

Just how bad is the anti-capitalist mentality? In recent polls, a majority of Americans ages 18-29 believe socialism is the ideal economic system2 They embrace feel-good notions about some abstract socialist utopia3 that never has existed and never can exist. They simultaneously harbor a dark vision of capitalism as a dog-eat-dog system. Clearly, the vituperation of capitalism by professors has infected college students and wafted into the general population. It appears Schumpeter was prescient.

Why Liberals Favor Socialism Over Capitalism

There are many reasons progressives hate capitalism and embrace socialism.

  • Capitalism evolved organically. No intellectual wrote a capitalist manifesto. Adam Smith did not invent capitalism; he merely explained what people did naturally. Capitalism just happens; it doesn’t require academics to theorize.
  • No one is needed to control capitalism. Socialism however requires controllers, i.e. socialist intellectuals who deign to know what is best for everyone.
  • Capitalism is egalitarian. Some uneducated bloke can make a fortune stripping junked autos for parts because he provides a valuable service to consumers. In contrast, the intellectual feels unrecognized and unrewarded.
  • Professors are rewarded by bureaucrats, not markets. They succeed by pleasing statist employers, not by providing value to consumers.
  • Capitalism is to each according to his accomplishments, not his intentions.
  • Liberals believe their advanced degrees, pet theories and pristine intentions should be rewarded and override the free decisions of consumers, if necessary by using the police power of the state. Capitalists believe in laissez faire.
  • Collectivists prefer government regulation to the chaos of the marketplace.
  • Consumers are sovereign. Intellectuals enjoy no special status and the common man holds all the power via his decisions to buy or not to buy. The most powerful economic force on earth is a consumer armed with a free choice. Wealth can be achieved only by serving sovereign consumers – with every penny a vote.
  • Capitalism brooks no excuses for failure. Those who fail are found wanting by their fellow man. Both the carrot and stick are real. The economic landscape is littered with failed businesses and crushed dreams of wannabe entrepreneurs. Under socialism, there are no consequences for failure.
  • Socialists desire control over others because they know what is best for the poor ignorant rubes in flyover land. Capitalists just want to be left alone.
  • Intellectuals see themselves as heroic figures reining in greedy capitalists, saving helpless victims and basking in the approbation of mankind. Capitalists simply want to provide a product or service consumers value more than its cost.
  • Liberals focus on the perceived inequalities and social injustices of capitalism rather than on its astounding success in ending extreme poverty on our planet.
  • Progressives ignore the total failure of all collectivist systems ever imposed by man. They ignore Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea and the former USSR and believe they will get it right the next time. Capitalists know better.

Schumpeter’s Prediction: True or False?

Over 100 years ago Schumpeter predicted the success of capitalism would lead to its destruction. He feared the demise of capitalism, along with its corollaries of wealth and liberty, would usher in a new dark age resulting in a lengthy and unspeakable Orwellian torpor where men lead lives of quiet desperation. We are now in the end stage of a great cultural war to decide if our children and grandchildren inherit a world of free men and free markets or one of a never-ending socialist miasma.

I fear Americans have lost the critical connection between capitalism and the wealth and liberty it produces. By most objective metrics, it appears socialism is on the ascendancy. Even in America, that great bastion of capitalism and the richest country on earth, its youth favor socialism. Hopefully, this post will help explain why America’s liberal intelligentsia hate capitalism and love socialism.

Liberty is like a beautiful but fragile garden in the middle of the jungle; it requires constant vigilance to survive. It is not a natural state, but must be protected constantly against forces trying to destroy it. We Americans are not doing a good enough job tending the garden. Nowhere is it written that the garden will survive.

  1. Please see my posts of March 4, 2018 and March, 11, 2018 for a comprehensive analysis of Schumpeter’s prediction. All my posts are available on my website: www.mllg.us.

  2. See my post of May 26, 2024. It is available in the Substack archives and on my website.

  3. Most college students who favor socialism trot out Sweden as an example of a socialist nirvana. They are blissfully ignorant that Sweden is a capitalist state with sky-high taxes on its middle class. If Sweden were a US state, it would be 30% poorer than the USA’s poorest state, Mississippi.

    © 2024 George Noga
    More Liberty – Less Government, Post Office Box 916381
    Longwood, FL 32791-6381, Email: mllg@cfl.rr.com

MLLG

Liberals Live In a Plastic Bubble

George Noga

Liberals Live In a Plastic Bubble

They prefer an ersatz sheltered life to the real world

George Noga
Oct 13, 2024

Tod Lubitch, the boy inside the plastic bubble, was the hero of the 1976 movie of the same name. Tod was born with a malfunctioning immune system and contact with unfiltered air could kill him; hence, he lived in a protective bubble insulated from the outside world. Similarly, liberals have a malfunctioning belief system that can’t handle contact with the truth; hence, they live in intellectually isolated bicoastal enclaves. They live their entire lives without ever coming into contact with a conservative, evangelical Christian, Trump voter or anyone from flyover land.
Boy inside plastic bubble

The liberal bubble covers schools, academia, workplaces, government, pop culture, sports, and religion. It even has its own song, Living in a Bubble, by Eiffel 65.

Living in a bubble baby
A bubble's no reality
You've gotta have a look outside
Nothing in the bubble is the way it is supposed to be
And when it blows, you'll hit the ground

Preschool Through 12 Education

The bubble begins with education. Nascent liberals attend government schools or elite private schools where they are indoctrinated in a statist secular religion. They are taught by progressive unionist teachers from a woke curriculum that includes political correctness, Critical Race Theory, The 1619 project, DEI, gender dysphoria, climate madness and wacko environmentalism. They are taught that the only universal values are that there are no values; everything is relative. There are never winners or losers and, just like in Lake Wobegon, they are all above average.

University and Academia

This is a continuation of the indoctrination from the K-12 curriculum. Students are brainwashed with liberal shibboleths; they experience diversity in every way possible except of ideas. Their professors all are dyed-in-the-wool progressives. Any speakers with different points of view are subject to violent protests and are prevented from speaking. Students are indoctrinated in a collectivist, pro-government, anti-capitalist orthodoxy. They are cloistered in a cocoon of conformity and coddled with trigger warnings, safe rooms, speech codes and playdough. They extend their middle finger to flaunt their disrespect for middle America values, patriotism and religion.

The Workplace

Liberals gravitate toward jobs that reinforce their world view. They choose jobs in government, NGOs, foundations, media and other areas that are not focused on being competitive, satisfying customers or making a profit. They are steeped in DEI rather than meritocracy. Wokism has infected even capitalist workplaces with speech codes, sensitivity training and political correctness.

Government

Liberals cluster in deep blue sanctuary cities and states with one-party rule, often for half a century. Their progressive beliefs support toxic governance characterized by identity politics, high taxes and living costs, forced unionization, massive debt, neglected infrastructure, failed schools, homelessness, open drug use and sidewalks as open sewers. Housing is scarce, dilapidated, rent controlled and evictions banned. Climate madness and environmental religion run amok. People are pitted against one another based on age, gender, race and income. Crime is rampant along with decriminalizing shoplifting, defunding police and eliminating cash bail.

Liberals have come to accept all these horrors as, not only normal but, necessary to achieve equity. They lemming-like vote progressive; there is no other choice.

Pop Culture, Media and Sports

Consuming left-wing media reinforces liberals’ beliefs. Business is portrayed as greedy, price-gouging and preying on hapless victims. Crusading government and journalists are presented as saviors of the planet, exposing the evils of the private sector. Progressives accept that a strong six-foot, five-inch 225 pound biological male competing in women’s sports is not only normal but noble.

Life Inside the Bubble

The combination of schools, academia, the workplace, government and pop culture – along with physical isolation in liberal enclaves – make life inside the bubble comfortable. Once inside the bubble, escape is well-nigh impossible. Nor do the denizens of the bubble realize they are living in a bubble. They don’t know what they don’t know. No one they know or nothing they see or read pierces their cocoon.

On those rare occasions when liberals are confronted with truth, they don’t know how to react. Just like Tod Lubitch, contact with the unfiltered truth could kill their liberal beliefs. Their first reaction is to deny the truth. If that doesn’t work, their next reaction is to call the truth-speaker racist, sexist, homophobic and evil.

Escape From the Bubble

Tod Lubitch finally left his bubble, but few liberals ever do. After all, life inside the bubble is comfortable and venturing into the real world is fraught with risks; things are not so dogmatic and simplistic and thinking is required. Liberals are happy with their life inside the bubble even though in unguarded moments they realize such a life is a lie – because liberalism is a lie. I close with more lyrics from the song. Living in a bubble baby But it’s not the place to be Cause it’s a place with lies and hype Don’t believe the bubble cause it’s nothing but a dream And when it blows you’ll be alone

Living in a bubble baby
But it's not the place to be
Cause it's a place with lies and hype
Don't believe the bubble cause it's nothing but a dream
And when it blows you'll be alone


© 2024 George Noga
More Liberty – Less Government, Post Office Box 916381
Longwood, FL 32791-6381, Email: mllg@cfl.rr.com

MLLG

Dreaming of a Woke Christmas

George Noga

Dreaming of a Woke Christmas

Warning: candy canes resemble a shepherd’s crook

GEORGE NOGA

NOV 26, 2023

Santa Claus (please, no fat shaming) has been cancelled because he (preferred pronoun) is a phallocentric, cisgender, heteronormative, oppressive white male existing solely within an ageist authoritarian hierarchy. He is misogynistic and fraught with mansplaining, bropriation, toxic masculinity and white fragility.

Only unwoke children adhering to bourgeois capitalistic values and to moral absolutism (by not being naughty) receive gifts during the Celebration of Winter (formerly known as Christmas). Such children are brainwashed and seduced into a lifelong exploitative and metastasizing addiction to conspicuous consumption.

santa claus with red background
What? Me cancelled!

Santa’s bribes to gift-addled children are made by degendered, height-challenged, marginalized elves at the North Pole, a hostile post-colonial, non-union, right-to-work setting. The oppressed elves and reindeer must avoid stepping off the shrinking polar ice cap. At least ze (preferred plural pronoun for elves) no longer need to watch out for polar bears on passing ice floes due to their rapidly shrinking population.

Woke Christmas Shopping and Decorating

Scrooge-like robber barons such as Wal-Mart lure unsuspecting shoppers with elaborate decorations, holiday music and even (horrors) low prices. Some stores stoop so low as to provide ersatz Santas to lure, confuse and coax young children into an anti-proletarian lifestyle. If you should feel overwhelmed by microaggressions while shopping, seek a safe room with elevator music, teddy bears, images of frolickingly puppies, Play-Doh, warm milk and cookies. Should you need a rest room, make sure there is one available that comports with your gender identity at that moment.

Décor for the Celebration of Winter must exclude trees and anything intended to hang on trees. Also offensive are images of Santa, reindeer and anything red or green. Most offensive are nativity scenes. Avoid snowflakes and snow globes; however, making snow people is acceptable. Avoid holiday lights unless the power comes from solar or windmills as the energy wasted will lead to more fracking and pipelines. Be on high alert to avoid candy canes which resemble a shepherd’s crook – bummer.

Gift Guidelines for a Woke Christmas

Eschew toys made in China with slave labor; however, it is just fine to buy EVs that use child labor in Africa. Buy locally to avoid leaving a humongous carbon footprint. Take care to avoid cultural appropriation and non-intersectionality. Don’t use wrapping paper or cards as the environmental impact of paper products requires clear cutting of old growth forests and sacrificing spotted owls on the altar of unbridled consumerism. Moreover, disposing of all the waste requires countless new landfills. Lengthy after Christmas lines to return gifts attest to their utter depravity; obviously, people neither needed nor wanted the gifts. This is not gaslighting.

Avoid gender specific gifts; above all, this means NRA-inspired toy guns for the deplorable and irredeemably racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic and xenophobic boys in flyover land. They will cling to their new guns along with their religion. Avoid gifts from companies guilty of greenwashing.

Certain woke gifts are acceptable, such as birth control pills for birthing people on rape-infested college campuses. Personalized N-95 masks are a good choice. If all else fails, a Che Guevara sweatshirt always is sure to please your woke friends.

Vacations to socialist utopias such as North Korea, Gaza, and nearby Venezuela are popular with progressives; however, remind your recipient to bring zer (preferred pronoun) own toilet paper. If you can’t afford foreign travel, California, New York or Illinois are good substitutes. If you want to impress your favorite liberal, give zem (preferred pronoun) a U-Haul to Florida. For a really big splurge, you could provide private security to your blue state BFF in a sanctuary state where crime and looting are rampant, guns are banned, police have been defunded and cash bail eliminated.

Woke Christmas Dinner

Once all the unwanted gifts and materials are properly recycled with zero waste, avoid binge eating f/k/a Christmas dinner – an affront to those with food insecurities. Avoid grace or even a moment of silence as this is but a veiled attempt at prayer. Eat only organic, non-GMO, sustainable, local and fair-traded foods. Consider a vegan, PETA approved menu; tofu is a great alternative. Avoid turkey which is not free range and is loaded with growth hormones, mutagens, carcinogens and antibiotics. Bon Appetit.

TRIGGER WARNING: Merry Christmas to all our readers from MLLG!

© 2023 George Noga
More Liberty – Less Government, Post Office Box 916381
Longwood, FL 32791-6381, Email: mllg@cfl.rr.com

MLLG

Progressivism is A Maze of Contradictions

George Noga

Female fetuses are aborted for gender selection to protect their rights as women.

Progressivism is A Maze of Contradictions

By: George Noga – October 23, 2022

Liberals believe the darndest things including obvious and preposterous contradictions. They champion anti-American Palestinians, governed by dictators, who pay bounties to families of suicide bombers, throw gays off tall buildings and treat women as chattel. They demonize Israel, a pro-American democracy, that goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties and respects and protects the rights of women and gays.

Their mantra is “follow the science” but ignore it when it doesn’t support their dogma regarding GMOs, vaccines, fracking, organic food, and pesticides. They believe it is okay for millions of illegal immigrants to be unvaccinated, but Djokovic cannot play in the US Open and young children must wear masks even when playing outdoors. They are for less emissions but oppose natural gas and nuclear, the best ways to cut CO2.

Liberals oppose photo IDs for voting but are fine with requiring them for air or train travel, TSA, hotels, passports, renting a car, buying a gun, getting a mortgage, hunting or fishing license, job, unemployment, Medicaid, welfare, food stamps, bank or brokerage accounts, cell phones, buying alcohol or tobacco, taking the SAT, giving blood, adopting a pet and for admission to the Democratic National Convention.

Liberals are passionate about a woman’s right to choose but oppose her right to choose where to school her kids, to buy a gun, to get vaccinated or to join a labor union. They claim their bodies are sacrosanct while demanding coerced vaccinations. They believe a young girl can have an abortion or undergo gender transition without parental notification or consent but can’t get a tattoo. In what has to be the most preposterous contradiction of them all, progressives believe in abortion for gender selection – in which 99% of aborted fetuses are female. In other words, progressives believe females should be aborted in order to protect their rights when they are women.

They call Republican claims of election fraud insurrection while asserting Stacey Abrams is governor of Georgia – despite losing by 50,000 votes. They are feminists but are okay with trans women (biological males) destroying girls’ sports. They believe Sweden and Nordic nations are socialist, but they are capitalist with taxes less progressive than in the US, where the bottom 60% pay no income tax net of credits.

Progressives want to tax the rich but protect carried interest, which benefits only private equity and hedge fund tycoons. They want unlimited SALT deductions that benefit only the top 3%. Instead, they raise corporate taxes, of which 98% are passed on as higher prices to working Americans. They unleash 87,000 new IRS auditors to suck out the sustenance of small business owners. They believe corporate money in politics is evil but megabucks from labor unions is peachy keen. They believe MSNBC is mainstream, but Fox News is extreme. They applaud the FBI for going after the Trump family but not Hunter Biden and the Biden family’s corrupt dealings.

Liberals beg dictators in Russia, Iran and Venezuela to produce more dirty energy, thus enriching our enemies and despoiling the environment, while doing everything possible to cripple clean energy production and distribution in the US and Canada. They rail against child labor in third world countries that produce goods for Walmart but are silent about child and slave labor working in deplorable conditions in the mines of Zambia, Congo and China that produce lithium and cobalt for EVs driven by elites.

Progressives consider abortion a constitutional right although it is not mentioned anywhere in that document nor is it deeply embedded in tradition. But they believe the right to keep and to bear arms is unconstitutional although it is explicitly stated in the Constitution and deeply rooted in American history and tradition. They believe labor unions are beneficial even though 94% of private sector workers reject them.

They believe America is racist despite a two-term black president, a sitting black vice president and political control of most major cities. In a recent survey, those who identified themselves as “very liberal” believed 10,000 unarmed blacks were killed by police last year. Those who identified as “liberal” put the death toll at 1,000 unarmed blacks killed by police. The actual number last year was six. They believe 50 million abortions since 1973 are just fine but that 1,500 legal executions are evil. They believe in open borders today but condemn them when Europeans migrated to America.

How is it possible for anyone with an IQ in triple digits to believe so many obviously and preposterously contradictory things? To be a progressive in America you must believe all the absurd incongruities enumerated in this posting. But no worries, life in the progressive hive is very easy. There is no identity but that derived from the hive; there are no values but hive values and there are no thoughts but hive thoughts.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Next: We reveal the identity of the real fascists in America today.

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Laboratories of Democracy – Part II Sixty Years of Liberal Governance

George Noga

After 60 years of total liberal control , all blue states can do is to cry “racism”.

Laboratories of Democracy – Part II

Sixty Years of Liberal Governance

By: George Noga – March 28, 2021

This is the second of MLLG’s four-part series: Laboratories of Democracy. In case you missed Part I – no worries; it is on our website: www.mllg.us. The idea underpinning laboratories of democracy is that, under our Constitution, states have enormous latitude to experiment with different laws and policies. States can, and often do, take different, and even opposite, positions on issues such as right-to-work, marijuana legalization and gun control to name but a few. Over a period of decades, it should be possible to compare results and to adopt the successful policies and to reject the failed ones.

If one political party, governing under one unified philosophy, could control all the levers of power in entire states for 50-60 consecutive years, surely that should provide ample time to demonstrate the success or failure of that governance. There are such places in America; this is the story of the ones that experimented with and tested progressive shibboleths and liberal dogma for at least the past half century.

Liberals and their media adjuncts are absolutely certain their ideas are correct and that opposing ideas are not only wrong but dangerous and even evil. Surely, if there were places in America where they could showcase their ideas for a long enough time, it would prove beyond any doubt that liberalism worked. Surely, their economies would thrive and hordes of people would move there. Surely, it would provide a great quality of life and social harmony. Surely, such a veritable Xanadu would demonstrate the utter bankruptcy and depravity of capitalism, free markets and conservatism.

What would such a progressive utopia be like? It would have a high minimum wage, no right-to-work law and universal unionization – with great pay, benefits, job security and early retirement with medical benefits. It would defund the police and abolish cash bail. It would be highly regulated by a massive bureaucracy. Its schools, controlled by teachers unions, would spend double the national average per pupil. It would tax (personal and business) and borrow whatever was necessary to pay for it all.

Such a utopia would be a sanctuary state with uber-strict gun control. The homeless would be welcomed even if it endangered public health and safety. Shoplifting, drugs and arson would be decriminalized. New pipelines would be banned and green energy mandated. Rent control would be universal and evictions banned. If a pandemic hit there would be lengthy lockdowns and closures – including all schools. To cap it off, government would be run predominantly by woke minority elected officials.

These progressive utopias exist and have names; they are called Illinois, Connecticut, Michigan, New Jersey, Maryland, New York and Rhode Island. What are they like after 60 years under the progressive yoke? Are people streaming in from red state hellholes? These liberal utopias, like all utopias throughout history, are dystopian wastelands where life has become toxic and people are escaping in droves to red states.

It is impossible to hold a perfumed handkerchief to one’s nose to somehow make these progressive snake pits smell right. People are voting with their feet. Liberalism failed and failed abjectly. Even liberals are tacitly conceding their dogma is poisonous. They know government schools can’t educate inner city children, so they quit. Instead of uplifting poor kids, they are destroying successful ones by abolishing advanced and gifted programs. By gosh – if everybody can’t get on the lifeboat, no one can.

It is incandescently clear: politics is not the pathway to black success.

So, progressives and their media acolytes simply quit. After 60 years they no longer can escape what so plainly stares them in the face. But, instead of taking responsibility for their failure, they are resorting to their old chestnut, i.e. blaming it on racism. In the end, liberals always resort to screaming systemic racism; that’s all they have.

There is one other critical lesson in all this. For the past 60 years, as black elected officials increased from 1,000 to 25,000 (including a two-term president), it is incandescently clear politics is not the pathway to black success. There is no relationship between the success of black leaders and inner city black families; maybe success has more to do with stable families, education, and hard work.

 

April 4th is Part III – Travels in Blue State America.

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Red October – A Tale of Six Islands

George Noga
Communism promises Xanadu, Valhalla, Elysium and Zion; it delivers North Korea,
Venezuela, USSR and Cuba. It promises a Garden of Eden but delivers hell on earth.
Red October – A Tale of Six Islands
By: George Noga – October 8, 2017
      Our month-long series chronicling 100 years of communism continues; this week we compare island nations with command economies to ones with market economies. There is something about the self-contained nature of islands that invites comparisons. For good measure, we contrast liberal US cities and states with conservative ones.
       Communist Cuba, a brutal dictatorship, has a failed economy; its GDP ranks 137 and its freedom index 171. Most Cubans’ take home pay is $30/month. It is a nihilistic society where one-third of all pregnancies are terminated. Socialist Greece, constantly being bailed out by its neighbors, is a failed state. Uber-liberal Puerto Rico is bankrupt; it owes $75 billion in bonds and $40 billion in unfunded pension liabilities – equal to $100,000 per household. People are rapidly fleeing this crime-riddled wasteland.
       Singapore is rich; less than 20% of its economy is in the public sector and taxes are half that of the US. It ranks #2 in the world for economic freedom. The #1 place for economic freedom is affluent and capitalist Hong Kong. Taiwan, a vibrant free market democracy, ranks high in both wealth and freedom. A mere few generations ago all six of these places were desperately poor. Today, the ones (Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan) that chose freedom and capitalism are all rich. The ones (Cuba, Greece, Puerto Rico) that chose collectivist, anti-market schemes are impoverished hellholes.
       Deep blue states (California, New York, Illinois) are hemorrhaging people with 1,000 each day abandoning them for deep red states (Texas, Florida, Utah). They move to escape blue states’ confiscatory taxation, job killing minimum wages, forced unionization, welfare fraud, choking regulations, green energy mandates and social pathologies. As humans always have done, they gravitate to places with economic freedom where household income is $10,000 higher and people are happier.
        Many cities have been governed by progressive politicians, often for more than a half century; Detroit, Newark, Cleveland, Chicago, and Washington come to mind. The legacy of such liberal stewardship is bankruptcy, shrinking population, failed schools, high taxes and crushing debt. They are dismal, dangerous and dirty places. If liberal policies worked, they should be thriving magnets showcasing progressive ideas and the failure of free market capitalism. Instead, contrast these failed cities with successful ones such as Dallas, Houston or Salt Lake City. Whether it be islands, states or cities, it is clear that more liberty and less government works and that socialism fails.
       As I oft have written, liberalism (and every one of its collectivist cousins) is a lie. They promise Utopia, Xanadu, Nirvana, Elysium, Valhalla and Zion but what they give you is death and desperation as in Venezuela, Cuba, the USSR and North Korea. Economist Ludwig von Mises nailed it nearly 75 years ago when he wrote:
    “The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and a resistance to every kind of improvement. They call themselves liberals, but they are intent on abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want the government to be omnipotent. They promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but they plan to transform the world into one gigantic post office with every man but one a subordinate clerk in a bureau.”
Red October continues next Sunday with “Socialism, Sweden and Scandinavia”.

Revenge of the Gods of the Copybook Headings

George Noga
Kipling warns mankind to heed the wisdom learned since we lived in trees.  When we ignore these eternal truths, terror and slaughter inevitably follow.
Revenge of the Gods of the Copybook Headings
By: George Noga – May 28, 2017
       Civilization is built on nuggets of wisdom learned from man’s behavior through the ages resulting in well understood and inviolable rules of conduct. Millennia of human experience have ingrained these rules and disregarding them inevitably leads to terror and slaughter. Copybooks once were used in schools to teach penmanship. Each page was headed by one of these nuggets of wisdom which students then copied such as “All is not gold that glitters“. These are Kipling’s Gods of the Copybook Headings.

     This post excerpts parts of the poem; the full version is readily available online. The first two stanzas of the poem follow.

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper protestations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
 
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
that Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
 
       The Gods of the Market Place refer to transient and ephemeral fads such as Tulip Mania and the South Sea Bubble. Today such Gods would include climate change, transgender bathrooms, open borders, microaggressions and government health care.

With the hopes that our world is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she even was Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshiped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
 
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed they sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”
 
     The Gods of the Market tell us what we want to hear – that we can spend and borrow without limit or consequence and that we can slash defense spending and still be safe. They tell us we can tax and regulate without choking economic growth. The Gods of the Market tell us we can have perpetual peace if only we ignore threats and appease North Korea, Russia, ISIS and Iran and negotiate ersatz one-sided treaties.

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”
 
     The Gods of the Market promise that every collectivist, socialist, communist and utopian scheme will deliver abundance for all. But such schemes are contrary to human nature per the copybook headings. Never has socialism worked for more than a family, clan or small tribe – perhaps 25 people max. Yet this eternal lesson is lost on the people of Venezuela and far too many other places. Following is the poem’s apt conclusion.

And after this 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!
 
     Kipling’s poem goes to the heart of human nature and is just as valid now as when he wrote it in 1919. Today, America is worshiping the Gods of the Market and defying the Gods of the Copybook Headings. We continue this only at our grave peril. Water still wets us and fire still burns; the only question remaining is: how much terror and slaughter must America endure before the Gods of the Copybook Headings return?
June 4th is MLLG’s not-to-be-missed high school graduation address

Why the Left is Unhinged

George Noga
This special MLLG posting explains why the left is so apoplectic after the election.
With a government so powerful it could incarcerate Mother Theresa, no one is safe.
Why the Left is Unhinged
By: George Noga – January 17, 2016
     Many of our fellow citizens on the left have become unhinged in the election’s aftermath. The main reason, thanks largely to Obama, is that presidents have become more like kings, wielding enormous power unthinkable to the founders. If presidents and all elected and appointed officials honored the Constitution, it would matter little who occupied the oval office, Congress or the judiciary. We are supposed to have a national government of few, limited and enumerated powers within a federalist system. Who is mayor or governor should be more important than who is president. However, kings affect our lives infinitely more than presidents acting within the Constitution.
     For those on the latte-left, government has supplanted religion. There was a time when we Americans saved most of our passion for religion. No more. The progressive herd not only has abandoned religion but now mocks and condemns it. They have transferred all their passion to politics, explaining much of their post-election angst.
     They not only lost an election but now see a veritable Lucifer wielding the same unchecked power Obama usurped. The progressive religion explains why libs have a messianic fervor about climate, guns, environment, identity, etc. They regard honest differences over policy as apostasy. If you have a different view about immigration, you are a racist, Islamaphobe and xenophobe – no discussion permitted. Moreover, they want to criminalize expressing your views as hate speech and to throw you in jail.
     Thirdly, everything is now political, including many things never before considered political such as science, religion, news, media and education. Science has been corrupted due to the vast quantities of federal money doled out in grants. The federal government spends $3,000 to every $1 spent by others for climate research. You get what you pay for. The media are now advocates; honest reporting has disappeared and fake news proliferates. Even fact checkers are corrupted. Facebook employs liberal censors and uses tainted, ideological fact checkers to control content.
    Finally, there is SCOTUS with one seat open and the federal judiciary with 100 open seats. There was a time when seasoned (older) largely apolitical judges were chosen on merit, served for a limited time (10-15 years), retired and soon moved on to the great court in the sky. Today, young judges are appointed because they don’t have a record that can be used against them and more importantly because, with today’s longer life expectancy, they can serve forever. As a result, the stakes for SCOTUS are sky high.
     I close with a favorite anecdote to illustrate the frightening power of the federal government. During the 1980s when Rudy Giuliani was US attorney for New York, he and his staff had a favorite game. They would select well known people from all walks of life and determine for how many federal crimes they could be indicted. Everyone, no matter how good his/her character, could be sent to prison. Included in this group was Mother Theresa. And that was 30 years ago; today it is worse – infinitely worse.
Next on January 20th is our special MLLG Inauguration Day posting.

Election Analysis and Afterthoughts

George Noga
Hillary had a world class marketing team trying to sell box wine to oenophiles, more baggage than a carousel at LAX, a paranoid streak rivaling Nixon and a limitless sense of entitlement.
Election Analysis and Afterthoughts
By: George Noga – January 15, 2017
     We got it right all year! My January 17th post cited 3 principles: (1) no permanent majorities; (2) the longer a party is in power, the more likely it is to lose; and (3) economics trumps all else. I also cited 3 keys: (1) polling is dead; (2) Obamacare is wildly unpopular; and (3) demographics, i.e. for Republicans to make gains among Hispanics, Asians, women and millennials would be easier than for Democrats to make gains among whites. All 6 of these principles and keys proved to be correct.
 
     My September 20th special posting began “I don’t purport to know who will win the election, but I know how it will be decided. . . . It will be decided by les deplorables, good-hearted, hard-working Americans branded as racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic and Islamophobic and revulsed by the latte-left’s perversion of America and outraged about being lied to.” Those words proved to be prophetic.
 
     Our final preelecton post on November 6th stated the race was tightening and Trump would win if all or most of the following happened: (1) polling was flawed; (2) there were late shifts in voter sentiment; (3) Obamacare repudiation was robust; (4) government failure drove voters as in the Brexit vote; and (5) blacks and millennials stayed home while evangelicals turned out in force. BINGO! All five happened. 
 
     Clinton and the Democrats lost because a good, decent and just society is based on a voluntary social and economic compact between citizens and government. That compact was violated, desecrated and trampled upon by Obama, Clinton and liberal elites who would be our masters. Voters demanded change from failed hyper-progressive social and economic policies. It had nothing to do with Comey or Putin; it had everything to do with deeply flawed governance and candidates.

Post-Election Reflections

  •     Hillary outspent Trump 2 to 1 and had a better organization but, in the final analysis, the best sales and marketing are limited by the product being sold. As one pundit nailed it, they had world class marketers trying to sell box wine to oenophiles.
  •     After every defeat, Democrats delude themselves into believing that their problem lay in not getting their message out. Their problem was that they did get their message across and it was soundly rejected by the voters. They never learn.
  •     Liberals exposed their churlish souls after the election: rioting, contesting the results, tampering with the electoral college and planning to disrupt the inauguration.
  •    Voters repudiated Obama’s policies and his method of governance, although he remains personally popular. Both Hillary and Obama immeasurably aided Trump.
  •     Demonization of opponents is dead. The Democrats won in 2012 by turning a good and decent man (Romney) into an unrecognizable monster. It did not work against Trump even though he was a target rich candidate. It may never work again.
  •     Democrats obsess with branding their opponents as racists. That abomination also may never work again. Disagreement about immigration is not racism. Over 200 counties that voted for Obama in 2012 changed to Trump; were they all racists? 
  •     Steve Bannon as a Trump advisor outraged liberals who were a-okay with Al Sharpton advising Obama. Bannon has degrees from Georgetown and Harvard, served 7 years as a navy officer and had successful stints at Goldman Sachs and Breitbart News. Sharpton attended Brooklyn College for two years before dropping out, never served in the military, owes $4.5 million in unpaid taxes and is known mainly for his role in the sordid Tawana Brawley affair that a jury ruled was a giant hoax.
 
    The fierce, frothing-at-the-mouth animus and virulence liberals are showing for Trump is not out of concern for America or because progressives are afraid he will fail. Au contraire; it is entirely because they are  terror-stricken that he will succeed!
 Coming January 20th – an Inauguration Day retrospective of the Obama presidency

A Cri de Coeur from California

George Noga
A gripping post-election letter from a disillusioned lifelong California liberal
A Cri de Coeur from California
By: George Noga – December 25, 2016
   Since beginning my blog in 2007, this is the first time I am devoting an entire posting to a single quote (edited for length). I am presenting this as an unplanned Christmas gift to readers, some of whom undoubtedly have already seen it on the internet as it is going viral. The writer wishes to remain anonymous for obvious reasons. Enjoy!
     “I am a secular/agnostic Californian and I want to share with you, from the liberal bastion of Northern California, that I am officially tired of the type of people who have surrounded me my entire life. In the wake of Trump’s election, I am experiencing “tribe fatigue”. I’m not tired of the Other, Deplorable Tribe; I’m tired of my own.
      I was raised a secular liberal; my parents were non-religious Democrats and my ex-Catholic mom loathes organized religion to this day. My college professors were secular liberals. During my journalism phase, my newspaper colleagues were secular liberals. My law school professors and peers were – in the vast majority – secular liberals. Almost everyone at my law firm was a secular liberal. My California neighbors and friends all are secular liberals as are my siblings and their spouses.
     By all rights, I should be a member in good standing of their tribe and joining their candlelight vigils against the evil Trump Administration. But November 8 and its aftermath revealed to me that I am just so tired of these people. I can’t be like them and I don’t want my kids turning into them.
  • I am tired of their undisguised contempt for tens of millions of Americans, with no effort to temper their response to the election with humility or empathy.
  • I am tired of their unexamined snobbery and condescension.
  • I am tired of the name-calling and virtue-signalling as signs of high intelligence.
  • I am tired of their trendiness, jumping on every left-liberal bandwagon that comes along (transgender activism, anyone?) and then acting like anyone not on board is an idiot/hater.
  • I am tired of their shallowness. It’s hard to have a conversation with people obsessed only with moving their kids’ pawns across the board.
  • I am tired of their acceptance of vulgarity and sarcastic irreverence as the cultural ocean in which their kids swim. 
  • I like pop culture as much as the next person but people who never raise their kids on junk food seem to think nothing of letting them wallow in cultural junk.
  • I’m tired of watching them raise clueless kids who go off to college and within months are convinced they live in a rapey, racist patriarchy; Make America Great Again is hate speech; and Black Lives Matter agitators are their brothers-in-arms against White Privilege.
  • I’m tired of their lack of interest in morality or self-betterment. They believe being nice, well-socialize people who hold correct political views is all there is.
  • I’m tired of being bored and exasperated by everybody. I feel like I have read this book a thousand times. Down with Trump! Trans Lives Matter! Climate deniers are destroying the planet! No cake, we’re gluten-free!
     Since November 8th, we have been taking the kids to church . . . secular liberalism seems empty in some way, despite all the things my former tribe has to be thankful for. I want more, especially for my precious kids; I’m trying. . . . I have come this close to buying a giant poster of the American flag for the living room. I may do it still.”
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Next up on January 8th is our take on the Legacy of Fidel Castro