Socialism Gaining Popularity

May 26, 2024June 10, 2024 George Noga

Socialism Gaining Popularity

Socialism may appear to succeed briefly, but it always ends the same

GEORGE NOGA
MAY 26, 2024

In recent polls, 41% of US adults have a favorable view of socialism. Among Gen Z support for socialism is 49%, while among Millennials 50% had a positive view of socialism. A majority of Americans age 18-29 believe socialism is the ideal economic system. Socialism is gaining in popularity among women and Black Americans.¹

In this post I address (1) how socialism can appear to succeed briefly; (2) how it always ends; (3) what young Americans believe about socialism; (4) the truth about socialism in Sweden and Scandinavian countries; and (5) the good, the bad and the ugly.

Socialism and the Illusion of Progress

When collectivists first take over a nation, there often is a period of time – perhaps a few years – when socialism appears to work. That is because socialists plunder the wealth of the nation to pay unsustainable benefits using the following artifices.

Socialists confiscate assets of foreign businesses and the wealthy. However, this is a one-off thing; assets can be seized only once before they are gone forever.
They loot businesses and replace competent managers with political hacks who run the business into the ground. Case in point: Venezuelan oil industry.
They strip and plunder natural resources – despoiling the environment.
Progressives run huge budget deficits and borrow to the hilt before defaulting.
They tax the upper and middle classes into oblivion.
They hyperinflate and print worthless currency, as in $100 trillion banknotes.
They pillage banks and make phony (unrepayable) loans to acolytes.
Price controls and rent controls are imposed and evictions forbidden.
Currency and exchange controls are imposed to prevent anyone fleeing.
Corruption and bribery run amok as officials steal billions.

Socialism Always Ends the Same

All the above actions are used to finance the appearance of progress for a time. However, all socialism ever accomplishes is ransaking a nation’s patrimony to achieve an unsustainable and short-lived illusion that things are getting better. Socialism never creates sustainable prosperity. There is not one example in human history where collectivism has produced sustained economic gains.

Socialism always ends the same, it runs out of other peoples’ money and things to plunder. In the end, socialism has nothing to offer except starvation amidst plenty.

Brutality or Indoctrination?

Aldous Huxley (Brave New World) and George Orwell (1984) carried on a lively correspondence about the best way for collectivists to cow citizens into obedience. Huxley argued technology and drugs were were more effective than brutality.

“The world’s rulers will discover that (youth) conditioning and drugs are more effective as instruments of government than clubs and prisons. . . . Suggesting people into loving their servitude will satisfy the lust for power better than flogging them into obedience.”

Young Americans Fail to Understand Socialism

The support young Americans have for socialism is based on ignorance. They harbor warm and fuzzy notions of some abstract egalitarian utopia that does not exist and cannot exist in the real world. Simultaneously, they embrace a dark vision of capitalism, which they see as a dog-eat-dog system with great wealth disparities. They conveniently ignore socialist hellholes like Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. . . . those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” C.S. Lewis

When pressed, young Americans do not see socialism as state control of industry and of the entire economy. What they really want is more government social welfare programs, i.e. a classic European-style social welfare state. When Millennials are asked how they would fund their version of socialism, their support for it plummets. They favor taxing the wealthy into oblivion, but oppose (by large margins) across-the-board tax increases and higher sales taxes. In short, they are clueless.

Socialism and Sweden

Progressives and the young who favor socialism, invariably trot out Sweden² as the poster child. Many adult Americans and most young Americans harbor some fantastical, glorified, unrealistic and unattainable vision of Sweden and, to a lesser extent, other Scandinavian countries as socialist utopias. However, Nordic nations impose much higher taxes on the middle class than the US. Furthermore, the top 10% of Americans pay a greater share of taxes than in the Nordic nations.

All Scandinavian countries have had free market capitalist economies for many decades. Sweden briefly flirted with socialism in the 1970s and 1980s. It failed abjectly and the Swedes rejected it in favor of a return to capitalism. Moreover, Sweden is nowhere near as prosperous as young Americans believe. If Sweden were a US state, it would be poorer³ than our poorest state (Mississippi) by 30%. The GDP of Houston, Texas is higher than that of all of Sweden.

The Good – The Bad – And The Ugly

If there is any good news, it’s that younger Americans really don’t want socialism per se; they just want more government programs – but they don’t want to pay for them. The bad news is they want a European-style social welfare state. The ugly news is that they are woefully ignorant about socialism, capitalism, history and economics.

There are numerous polls and surveys available; I have used an average number.
I have written extensively about Sweden and socialism. My most recent post is October 7, 2018 entitled “Nordic Nations and Socialism”. You can read it on my website: www.mllg.us.
When adjusted for the cost of living.

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

Transgender Marxism

March 31, 2024April 7, 2024 George Noga

Transgender Marxism

Progressives’ next target: pedophilia

GEORGE NOGA
March 31, 2024

A transgender went shopping and xe bought apples for xerself; xe ate xyrs apples for xem lunch. A pangender, shopping in the same store, bought oranges for themselves. A gender fluid shopper, ve bought plums for perself; sie ate ver plums for vis lunch. The preceding are all approved uses of gender pronouns. There are now 107 recognized genders – each presumably with its own set of personal pronouns.

I am taking a spring break for the month of April. Regular posts will resume May 5th.

Before transgenderism became a cause celebre, it was generally understood that 99.94% of people were cisgender, meaning the trans population is a miniscule .06%. Thus, the true trans population of the USA is about 19,200 and could fit comfortably inside most NBA arenas. How has an issue affecting such an infinitesimal part of the population come to dominate America’s culture and politics?

Marxists Hijack Trans Movement

After the fall of the USSR, Marxists were homeless. Collectivism, in light of the ignominious collapse of the Soviet Union, was discredited and toxic. However, Marxists were not chastened and continued to guzzle the commie cool-aide.

First, they took over the environmental movement and later the climate change movement. Now, they have hijacked the trans movement. But their focus and goals remain unchanged, i.e. to destroy western civilization and impose collectivism.

Marxists believe gender is a social construct and a false binary that underpins a white male heterosexual power structure which must be deconstructed. They see the trans movement as a bridge to communism in our time – a new communist way of relating to one another. In her book, Transgender Marxism, trans activist Rosa Lee argues:

“Trans people can serve as the new vanguard of the proletariat, promising to abolish heteronormativity in the same way orthodox Marxism promised to abolish capitalism.”

Perspectives About the Trans Movement

Following are some thoughts about the transgender movement.

Transgenders, who are part of the .06%, deserve our support. They also are victims, as what should be a medical issue has become hyperpolitical.
Progressives, Marxists and their media lapdogs have hijacked the trans movement to achieve their unrelated goals – which are so noxious they must be masked.
The vast majority of youths (70%) who claim to be trans really are homosexual.
Those who make a fuss over pronouns enjoy calling attention to themselves and making others feel uncomfortable. They really don’t care about the pronouns.
Activist teachers and health care workers propagandize by using the euphemistic gender affirming care, just as abortion is described as choice.
Follow the money. Gender surgery has become highly profitable. What has become of the physicians’ oath to “first, do no harm”?
If people can change their gender identity, why not their disability status, age, race, ethnicity, income cohort or any other aspect of their identity?

Children and Transgenderism

One day, sooner rather than later, the surgical and chemical mutilation of children as young as 10 will come to be seen with horror. We as a society will grapple with understanding why and how we came to tolerate such atrocities. Children are easily confused and influenced – recall how children were manipulated during the day care abuse hoaxes. This has become a red state, blue state issue. At fashionable California dinner parties, at least one of the attendees is likely to have a child in transition.

Next Target: Pedophilia

Transgenderism moved rapidly from the fringes of society to the epicenter after it was hijacked by twenty-first century Marxists. The media jumped on the bandwagon and soon the money flooded in. Eventually, all the usual suspects came on board and, voila, the trans movement became a wedge political and cultural issue.

The Marxist playbook that has worked for the environmental, climate change and transgender movements can be made to work for other issues as well. Issues, currently on the fringe of society, that are likely to be catapulted onto center stage within the next five years are pedophilia followed by plural marriage.

However, next on progressives’ radar screens is pedophilia. They euphemistically relabel pedophiles as minor-attracted persons. They won’t attempt to remove the age of consent all at once. They already are advocating lowering it to 16 . That soon will be followed by a push to lower it to 14 and then to 12 before abolishing it entirely.

If you think this can’t happen, the age of consent in some US states already is 13 and 14 (with restrictions); many states are at age 16 with no restrictions. Germany and many South American countries are at age 14 with no restrictions. Africa has one country at age 12 without restrictions. Muslim nations have no predetermined minimum age of consent for sex or marriage; it is based on custom.

If you believe pedophilia could never become legal in the USA, think again. If one believes it is okay for children as young as ten to be chemically and surgically castrated and to have their genitals irreversibly mutilated, it dosen’t seem like a big stretch to argue that these same kids should have the right to choice about sex. If this seems far-fetched to you, so did transgenderism a scant five years ago.

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

The “Root” Cause of Poverty

February 25, 2024April 7, 2024 George Noga

The “Root” Cause of Poverty

America has spent $25 trillion in its war against poverty

GEORGE NOGA
FEB 25, 2024

This is a companion post to my offering of last week declaring victory in America’s war against poverty. If you missed that post, it is available on Substack and on my website: www.mllg.us. The above headline notwithstanding, poverty has no root cause; it is the natural condition of mankind. We begin in paleolithic times.

The Natural Condition of Mankind

At the dawn of civilization our ancestors subsisted as hunters-fishers-gatherers. There was no economy per se. People were divided into small families or clans, each of which functioned as a putative economic unit. They coexisted with other such units, mostly peaceably, sometimes not. Their lives, short and brutish, were on a bare subsistence level – wholly dependent on the fickle bounty of the sea, the exigencies of the hunt and the caprice of nature.

What economic lessons can we sophists of the twenty-first century glean from such primitive people? What, if anything, can they teach us? Surprisingly, they teach us an ineffaceable economic truth applicable across all time and space, i.e. the natural and normal condition of mankind is poverty. There is no known instance where any aboriginal population existed in any state other than poverty.

Most people understand the natural condition of man is poverty, but fail to grasp its implications. Progressives prattle about the root causes of poverty and even have declared war against it. America has spent $25 trillion since it declared war on poverty in 1964. In 60 years of that war, poverty has not been reduced one whit.

Those who consternate about the causes of poverty are wasting their time. They are asking the wrong question. The question we should be asking is: what causes wealth and how can we bring it about. Wealth is not a natural condition of mankind and is rare throughout the sweep of human history. Wealth creation must be understood and fostered. It is only by understanding wealth that poverty can be alleviated.

Progressives assert that, for example, lack of education creates poverty. This is a posteriori reasoning. People are born uneducated. To create wealth they need to become educated. Education creates wealth; ignorance does not create poverty.

What Causes Wealth?

Harken back to our paleolithic fishermen ancestors. They struggled to spear enough fish to survive, until a nascent capitalist thought of a net. Since capital did not yet exist anywhere to finance the construction of this fisherman’s net, he had no choice but to create his own. He worked every waking hour for months accumulating enough extra fish (his capital) to allow him the time to construct his net.

The net worked as planned and our budding capitalist now generated a surplus of fish to trade for other goods – in the process giving birth to the division of labor. His capital investment made him wealthier than the others in his clan – but it also made everyone else better off. He now generated capital which could be used by other entrepreneurs in his clan to increase the prosperity and well being of everyone.

Capitalism Creates Prosperity and Eliminates Poverty

What worked for our capitalist paleolithic fisherman is the same thing that worked for the capitalists who founded Wal-Mart, Amazon, Tesla, Apple and Microsoft. They have become immensely wealthy, but in the process they have enriched all our lives and increased our productivity. Not one of these successes was created by government or socialism. Who has done more to benefit the common man – Henry Ford, Steve Jobs and Sam Walton – or any king, president or commissar?

Capitalism has created a cornucopia of wealth unprecedented in human history. Extreme poverty worldwide is nearly eliminated and every metric of human well being is improving. Average folks live better than monarchs a few decades ago. Luxuries a short time ago are selling for ridiculously cheap prices at Wal-Mart and Costco.

To continue to improve the lives of everyone and to end poverty, we must shed our shibboleths. Unlike our stone age ancestors, we do not blame poverty on deities, animal spirits or the position of stars. Today, progressives and the media blame poverty on bogeymen like greed, multi-national corporations, western civilization, capitalism, fossil fuels, racism, free trade and lack of diversity, equity and inclusion.

In the twenty-first century we understand how to create wealth and eliminate poverty, but we fail to do so because of obeisance to the false gods of progressivism.

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

Twelve Inconvenient Truths

February 11, 2024February 11, 2024 George Noga

Twelve Inconvenient Truths

Top 12 Truths about Climate Change

GEORGE NOGA

Feb 11, 2024

Climate change is one of my signature issues; I have written about it more than any other topic. Recently, I updated my prior work and ranked the inconvenient (for climate alarmists) truths in ascending order, with #1 being the most profound.

polar bear on snow covered ground during daytime

#12 Polar Bears are Thriving

Far from being threatened, polar bears are thriving. Climate alarmists predicted 67% of them would disappear due to warming. Instead, the polar bear population is now over 30,000, up 600% from the 1950s and up 400% from 1960-1980 period.

#11 Voters are Balking

Voters in Europe and the US are pumping the brakes on climate spending and mandates which have doubled their energy bills and degraded their quality of life with no measurable climate benefit. EVs are stacking up on dealer lots in the US. The political consensus necessary for climate spending and mandates is evaporating.

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#10 There is No Existential Threat

There is not now and there never was an existential threat from climate change. Neither the UN-IPCC nor any other recognized authority has ever asserted the threat from warming rises to the level of being existential. The worst possible outcome for humanity does not come even close to threatening mankind’s existence.

#9 Population Collapse Will Solve the Problem

The global population collapse, already underway, will lower CO2 emissions below today’s level and realize climate alarmists’ fondest dreams and without spending any money. Population in 100 years will be less and collapsing rapidly. World population will peak in the 2060s and could be as low as 6.3 billion by 2100. Demographics is destiny. A population collapse, once underway, is nearly impossible to reverse.

#8 China, India, Africa and Developing Countries Dissent

Without buy-in from the countries named above, any actions taken to reduce CO2 are doomed. Not only are developing nations not going along with the climate change narrative, they are aggressively pushing back. Whatever the US and Europe may do is irrelevant. The energy minister of India, Raj Singh, called net zero “pie-in-the-sky” and said, “You can’t stop developing countries from using more and more fossil fuel.”

#7 Moderate Warming is a Net Benefit to Humanity

Twenty times more deaths are caused by cold as opposed to heat; consequently, higher temperatures save far more people than are harmed. Also, warmer temperatures are a boon to agriculture and help feed humanity.

#6 Trillions Are Wasted While Potential Solutions Are Ignored

If the US achieved net zero emissions tomorrow, there would be no discernable temperature impact. Nor would there be any impact on future GDP. A CBO report revealed future GDP would be infinitesimally less in many years if there was a 2 degree rise in temperature. While we waste trillions on feel-good solutions, we ignore those that could have a positive impact such as a carbon tax or atmospheric seeding.

#5 There Has Been No Extreme Weather

Weather,, including hurricanes, is no more extreme, severe or frequent; floods have not increased; Greenland’s ice sheet is not shrinking more rapidly; heat waves are not more common and wildfires actually decreased – all compared to past periods.

#4 Climate Activism Causes More Harm Than Climate Change

Utopian green energy fiascos are causing great damage to our economy and to our national security. We are wasting trillions on programs that, even if successful, have no measurable climate benefit. Such spending has made electricity less reliable, jacked up energy prices, created shortages and empowered dictators.

#3 Correlation is Not Causation

Inevitably, it always comes down to climate alarmists brandishing a graph showing temperature moving up in lockstep with CO2 – with the starting point cherry picked to achieve maximum impact. Different plot points such as during the dust bowl years, when temperatures were high and CO2 emissions low, would make the graph show the opposite. I could replace CO2 on the graph with women’s hemlines to definitively “prove” hemlines caused warming. That one graph is all climate alarmists have.

#2 Science Tells us Little About Climate Change

The earth is warming and mankind exerts a warming influence. That’s all science can tell us; anything beyond those ten words is not science – it’s climate religion. Earth has been warming for 160 years. Although humans exert a warming influence, it is impossible to know how much is attributable to mankind. Observed warming throughout our solar system closely parallels warming on Earth leading to the conclusion that very little, if any, of Earth’s warming is anthropogenic.

#1 It’s Not About the Climate; it Never Was

Communists, socialists, progressives and the media – along with their acolytes who guzzle the cool aid – have hijacked the climate change movement to achieve their unrelated goals. They are following the same playbook they used when they hijacked the environmental movement, and now the transgender movement. They cloak their anti-capitalist agenda in green language; truth is irrelevant because the ends justify the means. They know their ideas are politically toxic, so they search for another way. It’s not about the climate; it never was!

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

Fascism in America Today

October 30, 2022November 2, 2022 George Noga

Liberals always are guilty of doing the things they accuse others of doing.

Fascism in America Today

By: George Noga – October 30, 2022

The true fascists in America today are found on the left. Biden, progressives, the media and just about everyone else has it backward. Mostly, this derives from an ignorance of fascism; therefore, we begin with the following dictionary definition of fascism.

“A political philosophy, movement or regime that exalts the state above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.”

I’ll put it directly: Joe Biden, progressives, the Democratic Party and the media are the true fascists in America today. Don’t take my word for it; compare the dogma and actions of Biden and progressives to the definition of fascism above.

The progressive blob considers any beliefs but their own illegitimate, impermissible and a threat to democracy, even if held by 76 million ordinary Americans like Trump voters. Liberals threaten the institutions of our democracy by espousing court packing, ending the filibuster, packing the senate and abolishing the electoral college. They want to end competitive elections by nationalizing election laws and open borders.

They favor an all-powerful state and distrust the people, states and truth. They revel in the exercise of ersatz dictatorial emergency powers. They use the DOJ to criminalize mainstream Americans, like those attending school board meetings. They brook no dissent and use their control over social media to suppress, silence or even criminalize it. They lust for economic and social regimentation and control. They already have the answers to everything; hence, debate is not necessary. The ends justify the means.

They want total control over every American institution. They already assimilated, controlled or corrupted entertainment, social media, education, DOJ, science, sports, immigration, criminal justice, academia, corporations, fact-checkers, religion, election systems, politics, economics, military and social media. They are coming after the few they don’t yet control such as talk radio, Fox News and the Wall Street Journal.

Donald Trump and the MAGA movement are anti-fascist

I’ll be direct once again: Donald Trump, MAGA and conservatives are anti-fascists. They are for free people and free markets; they want to return power to the states and to the people. They place the individual above the state. They are for lower taxes, which reduces the power of government, and they oppose 87,00 new IRS agents. Again, with reference to the definition supra, Trump and MAGA are close to being the polar opposite of the definition of fascism, i.e. they are the anti-fascists.

Per Rush Limbaugh, liberals always are guilty of the things they accuse their opponents of doing and so it is with fascism. Joe Biden’s contempt for all who disagree was on lurid display in his Philadelphia speech. Bathed in a menacing red light and flanked by men brandishing guns, he vilified and cast his political opponents as devils.

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Our fearless forecast for the election is revealed in our next post November 6th.

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The Raison d’etre of Government

January 23, 2022January 23, 2022 George Noga

The answer is not more government or even better and wiser government.

The Raison d’etre of Government

By: George Noga – January 23, 2022

Preamble to the US Constitution

“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.“

Since the Neolithic Revolution 12,000 years ago, when humans transitioned from nomadic hunter-gatherer clans to settled agricultural societies, people have banded together for security from internal and external threats to their lives, property and liberty. The Declaration of Independence proclaims all men have an unalienable right to life, liberty, and (property) pursuit of happiness. The Constitution, in its preamble above, establishes the raison d’etre for our government as being mostly about security, i.e. justice, domestic tranquility, defense and liberty. Indeed, the social contract between man and the state always has been, first and foremost, about security.

Americans expect government, above everything else, to protect their lives, property and liberty. Progressive government at all levels, national, state and local, is failing in this, the most basic role of government. The Biden Administration is failing to provide for the common defense. Its manifest weakness, on full display in Afghanistan, is an open invitation to Putin, Xi, Kim, Iran and to tyrants everywhere. Moreover, Biden is slashing (real) defense spending as progressives always do when in power. The most potent asset in our defense arsenal is our economy and Biden is weakening it.

Progressives in control of state and local governments refuse to protect citizens and property from mob violence. They defund police, decriminalize larceny, abolish bail, create sanctuary cities and refuse to prosecute serious offenses. They impose gun control to keep citizens from defending themselves and their property from mobs; instead, they prosecute those (McCloskeys, Rittenhouse) who exercise their rights.

Rather than defending Americans’ lives, property and liberty, Biden and his top advisors, all selected based on identity rather than merit, are putting us at greater risk. They are destroying the property and life savings of many Americans by the pernicious inflation they have unleashed. Their profligate spending is hastening the arrival of a debt crisis and a lost generation for our children and our children’s children.

Progressives, and those who enable them, have lost sight of the reason Americans have a government in the first place. It is not for transgender bathrooms, CRT, identity or wokeness. They are placing our lives at risk from both foreign and domestic threats. They are failing to protect our property from criminals, looting and mob violence. They are assaulting our liberty in myriad ways – using the pandemic to abolish our right to assemble, to worship and to be secure in our persons (vaccine mandates).

Ironically, the evils catalogued supra all were promulgated by a form of government most people consider to be among the best in the world and even throughout history. The root cause of our present accursedness is not a failure of government or even bad government – although we presently have both. Rather, it is due simply to immutable human nature and to our government behaving like governments always do.

Indeed, the entire sweep of human history in the 12,000 years since the Neolithic Revolution instructs us that it is foolish to believe people can control government. We can’t; but we can limit it. Dear readers, the answer lies not in better, wiser or even enlightened government. The answer lies in more liberty and less government.

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Our next post January 30th is about taxing billionaires.

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Trump Derangement Syndrome

March 5, 2017March 5, 2017 George Noga

TDS, or Trump Derangement Syndrome, is a mental disorder that causes loss of all sense of proportion, civility and ability to think or act in a controlled manner.

Trump Derangement Syndrome

By: George Noga – March 5, 2017

Trump Derangement Syndrome or “TDS” is a mental illness with a known cause but no known cure. It’s most prevalent on both coasts and college campuses. Sufferers avoid treatment because the malady releases endorphins, makes them feel smug about themselves and is virtue signalling. The main symptom is uncontrollable expressions of outrage at even the slightest non provocation. Victims lose all sense of proportion, civility and ability to think or act in a controlled manner. In the disease’s end stages, victims lose their grip on reality and can’t tell fact from fiction. TDS sufferers are mired in a state of denial. Note: there are no electoral votes in the state of denial.

TDS struck the 60 Democrat congressmen boycotting the inauguration. Madonna had a severe case, making her muse about blowing up the White House. Meryl Streep became unglued with TDS during the Golden Globes. The Rockettes were afflicted as were many celebrities asked to perform at the inaugural. Among senators, Cory Booker and Pocahontas, err, Elizabeth Warren suffered severe amnesia, forgetting their earlier passionate support for school choice when questioning Betsy DeVos.

When conservatives lose elections, liberals and the media always attribute the loss to repudiation of their candidates and policies. When progressives lose, it is always because of fear, anger, hate, bigotry, Fox News, Drudge, talk radio, internet memes and now Russia. Obama attributed the 2016 loss to voters “afraid, suspicious and fearful“. This follows his remarks claiming voters “get bitter, cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade frustrations“. Liberals can’t imagine voters rejecting their vapid ideas, hence TDS.

TDS caused liberals to draw the wrong conclusions about the election, to deny reality and to set a disastrous course for 2018 and 2020. They face erosion in support from both blacks and private sector unions in the rust belt. Their leadership in the House is all over 75 years old. How will a party led by Chuck Schumer, Tom Perez, Nancy Pelosi, Bernie Sanders and Pocahontas fare in 2018 senate races in states like North Dakota, which Trump carried by 36 points and Heitkamp won with 50.2% last go-round? Their main presidential candidates for 2020 are Andrew Cuomo, Cory Booker and Pocahontas – George McGovern redux. Meanwhile, Republicans are only one state legislature short of the two-thirds needed to call a constitutional convention.

The Sturm und Drang on college campuses is a TDS symptom but also is due to the realization their liberal god has failed. Obama was likely the most liberal president America will ever have and he failed to accomplish anything. Students have total control over campuses yet demand even more; they are beginning to eat their own. Progressives spent like drunken sailors, still the economy is sclerotic. For the first time ever, they will be worse off than their parents. And then along came Trump!

The entire world is moving rapidly to the right; the black swans are circling and the Gods of the Copybook Headings, with terror and slaughter, are beginning to return.

Next Post on March 12th is: Restoring Confidence in the Police

The Truth About Matthew Shepard

January 17, 2014April 3, 2016 George Noga

By: George Noga – January 17, 2014

Like me, you probably accepted the media version of Matthew Shepard’s murder; there was, after all, nothing to contradict it. As reported by the media, on October 6, 1998, Matthew Shepard, a 21 year old University of Wyoming student, left a Laramie bar late one night with two men, was brutally beaten and crucified to a fence post where he was left to die – although he clung to life for 6 more days. He was murdered solely because he was gay in what universally has been touted as the hate crime of the century.

Shepard’s vicious murder became a bedrock of liberal-progressive shibboleths about the hate permeating middle America. During the 15 years following Matt’s murder, liberal and gay rights organizations have orchestrated the activities listed below; they continue to this day with unabated intensity and undoubtedly will persist ad infinitum – whether or not they are true.

Even before Matt died, national gay rights groups trumpeted Matt’s story as one of extreme homophobic cruelty and violence; they condemned Laramie, and by extension all of middle America, as a crucible of intolerance. The national media uncritically bought in and made the case a cause celebre. Matt was portrayed as an innocent martyr.
At least four TV movies have been made – each one increasingly mawkish.
The Shepard saga has spawned a panoply of art, poetry, publications, studies, museum exhibits, merchandise and dramatizations – which continue 15 years after his murder.
Matt’s mother founded the Matthew Shepard Foundation, which sells goods including a hoodie emblazoned with “Erase Hate”. She travels widely and gives 50 speeches a year.
The most successful commercial exploitation of Matt is The Laramie Project, a play staged thousands of times; it is among the 10 most ever performed plays in high schools. It depicts life in middle America as ugly, violent, intolerant and hopelessly psychotic.
Schools throughout the land use “Laramie” study guides that direct classroom discussion about homophobia, our culture of violence and rampant injustice in fly-over America.

There is one thing wrong with the previously accepted facts of the Matt Shepard murder saga: they all are lies; none of them is true. What really happened was a murder resulting from a drug (methamphetamine) deal gone sour. To top it off, one of Matt’s murderers, Aaron McKinney, was also gay and likely had a prior sexual relationship with Matt Shepard. Also, the crucifixion to a fence post never happened. This bears repeating in a bigger font.

“Matt Shepard was murdered by his gay lover in a drug deal gone bad. Everything you ever thought you knew about Matt Shepard is a lie.”

The real facts have come to light only recently, primarily in a book published in October 2013 entitled “The Book of Matt“. Its author, Stephen Jimenez, is both progressive and gay. To his credit, he ended up writing a book far different than the one he originally intended by following facts wherever they led him. Jiminez studied Shepard’s murder for 13 years, interviewed hundreds of witnesses and scoured thousands of pages of public records. His book has been critically acclaimed even by gay groups and favorably reviewed by the Advocate.

The Real Lesson From Matt Shepard’s Murder

The abject fecklessness of the media in the Shepard case is hard to fathom – even by someone who believes they are slime. It’s not just that they blindly accepted “facts” provided by biased sources advancing a point of view. Most disturbing of all is that Matt’s saga exposed their universally and deeply held belief that the monstrous brutality of Matt Shepard’s murder occurred solely because he was gay; moreover, such events were de rigueur in small town middle America. After all, these rubes all are gun-toting, homicidal, psychotic homophobes.

“The visceral contempt and hatred liberals, progressives and

the media have for America is the real hate crime of the century.”

I also am disappointed with myself for having accepted the “official” media version of Matt’s death. At the time it happened and as the years have passed, I could not reconcile the ersatz facts of the Shepard case with my view of America. In the America I know and love, the events as originally reported could not have happened. I was right; they did not happen.

The visceral contempt and hatred liberals, progressives and the media have for America, on full display for all to see in the Matt Shepard case, is the real hate crime of the century.