Here We Go Again

Get ready for Kavanaugh 2.0.

The Democrats increasingly threadbare bag of tricks to take down Republicans has needed something new for some time now, and it seems the Dems have seized on the (for them) astonishingly successful smear trap of Judge Kavanaugh. If you can recall without cringing, the Senate confirmation hearing on Judge Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court was concluded, when the Democrats discovered a (gasp!) new witness with damning information on High-Schooler Bret Kavanaugh - Christine Blasey Ford. They then beat the drums to have her testify in open session, the media joined in, and the Republicans caved, setting off what should have been a days worth of work that was strung out for weeks as new witnesses and new crimes were invented. All the while, both the Dems and the Media hammered Kavanaugh's reputation to a pulp with speculation heaped atop lies, hoping that the Republicans would cave again and vote Kavanaugh down.

Vote him down despite the palpable reality that Bret Kavanaugh had never done anything wrong, and that as Lindsey Graham passionately pointed out, the entire Democrat road-show was a travesty.

So, how does this translate to an Impeachment trial of President Trump? Well, the Democrats have been beating the drum for weeks now that it will be important for the Senate to call witnesses. Mitch McConnel, however, has been adamant that it is the House that calls witnesses in furtherance of its Impeachment decision, and then delivers the evidence they find to the Senate for trial. It is not the Senate's job under the Constitution to find or introduce new evidence in support of the House's Impeachment decision. So, Mitch opines, there will be no new witnesses or evidence to supplement the House's Articles of Impeachment; it is not the job of the Senate to clean up inadequate Articles of Impeachment.

This seems pretty straightforward, and has the added advantage that that is how the Democrats in the Senate handled the Impeachment of their own party's President, Bill Clinton.

But the drum beat for witnesses, and even new charges, continues, so here is what is going to happen over the next few weeks. There will be shocking stories in the Major Media, based on anonymous sources, of some especially heinous perfidy by Trump, and an all out demand that the Senate investigate immediately. Mitch will resist at the outset, and the Senate will duly convene to hear the House's representatives present the Articles of Impeachment, the President will mount his defense, and after the submission of written questions, the Senate will be prepared to vote …. Except, there will be a motion for additional witnesses related to the House's charges, but also for the introduction of evidence of any new crimes the Dems and the Major Media can stitch together out of whole cloth. Four or five of the weak-sisters in the Republican ranks will then fold up under the pressure.

And then the games will begin. Once the door to additional evidence and witnesses is opened, the Dems will parade a slew of new witnesses and odious speculations, and we will all be subjected to a weeks long hatchet job on Trump. The crimes charges will be both tenuous and risible, but it won't matter because the goal, as with Kavanaugh, will be to simply fill the air with such a fury of Trumpian scurrilousness that everyone will be unable to see that there is not one jot or tittle of real, Impeachable evidence of anything.

Hopefully, Mitch or someone will stand up and break through the fog to close the sham of a proceeding off, like Lindsay did in the Kavanaugh matter. But that is not likely.

And so, the ugliness of our politics will again be on display, to the detriment of all of us. Our only hope then will be an appeal to the only group that the Democrats are, deep down, truly afraid of: the American voters. Hopefully they will throw all these bums out next November.

The Price of Eggs

We're into a little F. A. Hayek today. Try to keep up.

There is a generic critique of market economics making the rounds these days, that goes something like this: a free market is no guarantee that, at any given moment, things will be priced correctly, and therefore, we need government intervention to 'nudge' things - and people - back where they ought to be. The acme of examples for this notion is health care, primarily due to the fact that health care is unarguably a critical need for everyone, and its cost has wildly outpaced the ability of most people to pay for it without financial ruin. It is clear that something needs to be done about health care, and it must be done now, and the only solution that makes any sense is to spread these costs among everyone by spreading the wealth around and government is the best way to do this … because socialism.

Well, let's back up a second. Is it true that the free market is not a guarantee of correct pricing for goods and services? The naysayers cite complex economic theories and studies of distorting influences on markets, things like friction, sticky-ness, monopolies, oligopolies, and plain old fraud and greed, to make their case. But this line of argument depends on one big unstated assumption: that we can establish what the 'correct' price is independently of the market. But what independent criteria are they referring to? This reminds of the original mistake of the blessed Adam Smith, when he put forth his theory for the correct price of labor in his classic book, The Wealth of Nations. His argument was simple and straightforward and makes eminent sense. Labor is performed by human beings and human beings need to earn a minimum amount to buy food and housing, so therefore, any employer that paid less than that minimum amount would soon have no more laborers. This established a floor to wages that could be determined without regard to any particular local market forces - one need only total up the costs of the minimally necessary food and housing, and divide that by the hours a typical laborer worked, and voila! That's what employers must pay.

As I said, this argument was simple and straightforward and made eminent sense, but it had one problem. It purported to establish an objective value - a value independent of market forces - for something as fundamental in economics as the value of labor, and thereby took that science down a long road of error for close to a 100 years.

In truth, employers do (and always have) taken into account their employees need for a living wage, for the simple reason that they want them to come back tomorrow. But the real correlation of wages is with productivity - employers will pay a living wage so long as it is equal to or less than the revenues he will get from the effort of the employee. If not, then the employer will not pay the employee anything at all; he will not hire him in the first place.

This puts the price of labor squarely within the dynamic of the free market, unhitched from any other criteria to establish a value. This, of course, bothers many people, who believe a living wage needs to be imposed on the market regardless of any other considerations. But, again, they give us no serviceable objective criteria (beyond a spleen induced moral outrage) outside of the market that can serve to guide in assessing the 'correctness' of the market value of labor.

And here is the reason why they cannot furnish an appropriate objective criteria, which also answers the question whether free markets can guarantee the correct pricing of goods and services: because there is no objective price to anything until the market discloses that particular data point. Or, to put it another way, a market price is information about the price of goods and services at this contemporaneous moment, but not the future price, and the future of any system as complex as the market and prices remains uncertain at any given point in time. Or to put it still another way, they have their causation backwards: market pricing is not caused by the value of goods and services, but instead is the cause of their value, in the sense that it discloses the value, moment by moment.

For example, take eggs. I can buy a dozen eggs today for less than a dollar. But two years ago, they were more than $2.00. Which is the true, Platonic, price of eggs that I will see tomorrow? Well, I certainly want the price to be less than a dollar, but I can't offer any reason why except that I am cheap and prefer to reserve my money for other things than eggs. And this is what everyone else is doing as well, and producers of eggs with their hard working hens are wondering why they are busting their literal and metaphorical tails to give me eggs when I value them so little. So, more people are buying the cheap eggs, while at the same time producers are cutting back on eggs and furnishing more material to Chick-Fil-A for sandwiches, and the upshot will be - the price of eggs will probably rise, maybe not tomorrow, but at some point.

CONTINUED …

Impeach Trump Now!

Yes, impeach the guy. Here are the facts.

Joe Biden/Obama set US policy as follows: the Ukraine shall not be permitted to investigate corruption in a company within its borders that has Joe Biden's son on the Board. If they insist on doing so, then we will withhold up to a billion dollars in aid.

Donald Trump canceled that policy, reinstating the policy that was in effect prior to the Obama administration, and communicated this new policy direction to the President of the Ukraine, to wit, the US encourages the Ukraine to prosecute all corruption without regard to whether it would hurt or harm the son of a powerful US politician. The stated rational for this policy is that corruption in the Ukraine has been a major sticking point in foreign relations going back decades.

The impeachable part arises because Joe Biden is running for President, and the prosecution of his son for corruption might harm his chances of winning. Actually, it might or might not - perhaps old Joe could just distance himself from his son's activities in the Ukraine, like John Kerry's son did. Or perhaps he could just deflect the matter to some 'woke' issue that the media likes to report on and cruise right on to the victory that all the polls are predicting. Or perhaps …

Well, all that doesn't matter, because this is impeachable. Just look in the Constitution and its right there, or if not, I seem to recall something in Madison's notes from the Constitutional Convention about it. So, Original Intent! as you right-wingers like to drone on about.

Irrefutable conclusion: impeach him now!

Or, here's an idea: let the President run his foreign policy as he sees fit. This idea has the added advantage that it is actually in the Constitution. Look it up; our founding document is written in English and not that long.

The Predication Game

But, Easy, even assuming that Barr is sincere and intends to follow through, my concern is that I suspect he will find predication for the investigation. I think this because the intelligence and investigative agencies of our government are quite aware of what the 4th Amendment and Justice Department regs require before they can use the powerful tools at their command. And as I go over all the events of the last three years, it seems obvious to me that we are seeing a very sophisticated scheme to create a predicate and justification for an investigation. In fact, the scheme was so sophisticated that it beggars belief that this is the first time the FBI et al sought to begin an investigation in such a manner. This was obviously something approaching standard practice that the FBI et al had honed to near perfection for many years.

Consider: they want to investigate the Trump campaign to find collusion with Russia, but they have no evidence of such. What to do? Well, find a member of the Trump campaign and plant him with insider information about Russian involvement in the American election process, e.g. hacking Hillary's emails. Then, cover your tracks by having a seemingly independent source 'discover' that campaign member to have insider connections with Russia, and voila! You have the reasonable grounds you need to begin an investigation of the Trump campaign.

And this is clearly what happened with George Papadopolous. He tells them in early 2016 that he is joining the Trump campaign, and in the course of a few days - a few days! - they are able to put together a global initiative - global initiative! - to set him up as the 'evidence' that the Trump campaign had nefarious contacts with Russia. There is evidence that the highest levels of the Italian intelligence agency introduce him to the mysterious Maltese academic, Joseph Mifsud, who gives Papadopolous the information that Russia has 30,000 of Hillary's emails. Then the highest levels of British intelligence along with long time CIA assets introduce him in London to an ostensibly innocent bystander, Alexander Downer, an Ambassador from Australia, where Papadopolous is induced to pass on the information he got from Joseph Mifsud about the Russians having Hillary's emails. It is then Alexander Downer who passes on the 'information' that Papadopolous, a member of the Trump campaign, apparently has insider knowledge about Russia and Russian interference in the American electoral process.

At this point, the loop is closed and the FBI et al has the 'independent' evidence from the Australian Ambassador that will permit them to begin a full boat investigation of the Trump campaign.

Stated like this, it's all an obvious subterfuge to skirt the 4th Amendment and public policy prohibitions against turning the tools of the government against an opposing political party. But that does not take into account the sophistication and expertise of our high government officials in 'laying a predicate' for an investigation. As I said, a troubling aspect of all of this is that this looks like a practiced operation that has been honed to perfection by the FBI et al for many years. So, I suspect that Barr will find enough of a 'predicate' such that all the parties stayed just over the 'right' side of the line in beginning this investigation, even though the overall circumstances point to corruption.

Compare, Barr's recent decision not to prosecute James Comey for leaking classified and other information. James Comey is a smart, experienced guy, and he knew exactly what the rules and regs required vis a vis internal investigative information. So he fashioned 7 memos with particular attention to the type of information contained in each, and then meticulously distributed them in such a way that he would always stay just shy of the line of a violation - or at least, a violation concrete enough to warrrant prosecution. As a result, Barr had to pass on prosecution, and Comey skates.

Put simply, I suspect Barr will be similarly powerless to do anything about the corruption he finds in his "predicate" investigation, except by instituting new rules and regs to hopefully prevent this sort of thing from happening again. Which is a good thing, a very good thing - but far from a satisfying conclusion to this whole tawdry affair.

The Predication Game

I am a weird guy; I get excited over predication. No, no, not the grammatical variety, but the legal.

Finally, after more than three years and multiple investigations by the CIA, the NSA, the DOJ, the FBI, and multiple Congressional committees, someone in Washington has come up with the clear and concise issue that has been staring us all in the face like a grim spectre.

Attorney General William Barr tells us that he is investigating whether the FBI had a 'proper predicate' for opening and conducting an investigation against then candidate Trump and his campaign way back in 2016, and/or perhaps as early as 2015. And with simple clarity, a clarity in short supply these days in Washington, he stated that he needs to know the predicate for the investigation because it is an extraordinary fact that there was surreptitious surveillance (aka 'spying') by the highest levels of the US government against the campaign of an opposing party during a Presidential election contest.

This is not a complicated issue. Presidential election or not, the government cannot investigate anyone without an appropriate reason to believe a crime has been committed. This is basic 4th Amendment jurisprudence, and not controversial in any respect. But when the 'target' for an investigation is the candidate and campaign of a Presidential election, then the standard becomes even more stringent - because not only is the 4th Amendment in play, but also the integrity of our fundamental system of government. This is why the DOJ has numerous existing rules and regulations covering investigations and prosecutions that might interfere with elections at all levels of government.

What has obscured this otherwise obvious issue for the last 3 years (and counting)? It's basically been a studied disambiguation in support of a particular narrative, that Trump colluded with Russia. It was definitely a fact that Russia meddled in our election;  since the time of Lenin, they always have and there was no particular reason they didn't this time. But that is not evidence Trump or anyone colluded. Despite that, the FBI et al commenced an investigation, and covered their tracks publicly, with media complicity, by muddling Russian meddling with Trump collusion to give the impression that they had reasonable grounds to investigate Trump, when all they had were reasons to investigate Russia. And the fact that all of this was designated national security allowed the FBI et al to insinuate they had grounds to suspect Trump, but never have to actually show us anything.

But Mueller has now spoken that there was no evidence of collusion, and the real, serious issue is finally getting the hearing it deserves: what was the evidence that started the investigation, and was it a proper ground for an extraordinary, secret investigation of a Presidential campaign?

Here's hoping that AG Barr is serious about all of this. If not, it won't be the first time we've seen the Washington insiders deep six a matter of public importance. But let's wait and see.

The Will, Gracefully Free

Salvation through grace and grace alone. This is a bit of Christian orthodoxy that remains a stumbling block to many an otherwise good Christian. It remains an impossibility for them for the same reason Erasmus, the original Humanist, argued that to permit so weighty a matter as the eternal salvation of the human soul to depend only on God would deprive human beings of any worth or value. Without some decisive participation in the transition from mortality to immortality, mankind becomes nothing but automata, as little involved in their growth and development as a rock or stone. In essence, it is argued that  instead of inspiring men to become the very image of God, Christian orthodoxy annuls the greatness that man can be heir to, as well as the responsibility that may, if he is not diligent, consign him to judgment and death.

Free will is the key. Man must have free will in these matters or he is nothing. According to various doctrines adopted in this context, man might have a little part in his own salvation, with God carrying the heavy load, or a great part, with God sitting happily as his child grows himself up. But always there is a definite and decisive sovereign space for man apart from God that carries him to eternal life.

And yet … the most earnest of those who insist on the reification of man's free will in these matter, many of them some of the most effective defenders of Christianity in a dangerous world, have no problem with other gifts and capacities that they were given.  A powerful intellect, to take one example, that has enabled them to discern and teach some of most subtle truths of the Scriptures. They did not create that in themselves, but instead received the potential at birth, were nurtured by their parents, teachers and mentors. None of this bothers them at all: an undeserved gift, freely bestowed on them, which gave them a full and fruitful life with God.

But, they say, it was them that nurtured this gift with a will to become a better person, and it was this personal act that was decisive, not the initial gifts and help along the way. But this misses the point, so let me repeat it. It is incontestable that a powerful intellect can be a critical aid in living a more fruitful life with God and that in fact many of these people have utilized this capacity in their Christian work. And there are many other gifts of the Spirit that come from God - gifts of preaching, of teaching, of administration, or evangelism - that are similarly critical for many people who are trying to live a Godly life. And all of these gifts, properly received, are manifestly unmerited, transparently undeserved, mere contingencies of our lives that could have been different - except for the loving grace of our Father.

But to the Erasmus Free Will junkies this is all just fine. They are not bothered in the least that just about everything they hold of value in their lives as an actual existing human being is contingent, unmerited, and undeserved, so long as they can hold onto a singular human capacity: the free will, to choose salvation or not.

But, alas, our free will is no different from any other capacities and powers we possess. As we look across the range of human beings, it is clear that some have strong wills and some middling wills and some wills are downright weak or non-existent. This is the way it is in this world; de facto equality of all human beings is, in this context, a myth - or a desperately desired dream, depending on your politics. Our wills are strong or weak depending on many factors, our DNA, our upbringing, education, the wider culture we grow up in, the peers we choose at critical life moments, parents, friends, wives, children … the list is endless as to how and why we have turned out like we have. Because, to put it succinctly, we are contingent beings, born into a world not of our making and further formed by forces not in our control.

The degree of will power we possess is important in how we navigate our time and culture, as are such things as our native intelligence and our degree of sociability with our fellows. But it cannot be the basis upon which admission to Heaven is predicated, for the simple reason that it is limited and contingent just like all else in this vale of tears and Heaven is eternal. You might just as well try to elevate the number 212 to Infinity by some sort of legislative fiat. You can do it; you can issue a proclamation about it; you can organize parades of ecstatics in the street; but nevertheless a finite number will never in all of time and eternity be Infinity.

And we can will as hard as we like, with a will of iron and a purpose adamantine, and we will never be more than contingent finite beings - unless, by the perfectly free and unmerited grace of God the impossible is made possible by His Will.

On Wittgenstein

The question has been asked why I like Ludwig Wittgenstein, given that he has in some measure contributed to the relativism in vogue in some sectors of our society. Feminists for instance, take from Wittgenstein that there are no fixed truths but only language games that stereotype and oppress women. They then leap to the idea that if they can change the language it will change the reality of women in the world; ergo, the Politically Correct Crusade.

Wittgenstein's notion, however, was not really about language creating reality, but that language was a collection of non-interlocking puzzles or games - with emphasis on the 'non-interlocking.' For me, this was reminiscent of Thomas Kuhn’s scientific paradigm shifts, as well Kierkegaard’s three stages of life. For me, the key insight of all three was the same: that transitions between the separate spheres (however you want to define them) cannot be done logically or via any kind of rational construct.

Of course, they weren’t the only ones to come up with this insight. Of all the religions of man, it seems to me that Christianity was birthed in it. Leave aside the obvious fact of the eternal mystery of the Trinity, and just take one of many paradoxes at the heart of Christianity: the judgment and forgiveness of sins. So we are really and truly judged sinful and yet instantaneously forgiven? How does that work? Well, it does work, but definitely not as a logical syllogism concluding in an effortless Salvation. Muddle Judgment and Forgiveness together in some kind of logical synthesis and you lose both – and possibly your soul besides.

This is another example of how philosophers down through the ages keep coming up with new names for the same phenomena. Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein, and Kuhn each put forth a cutting edge philosophy, only to find that the new distinction discovered was at the very heart of Christianity more than 2,000 years ago. It gives a nice appearance of an advance in thought, I guess. But what it is really is the recovery of ancient wisdom that had faded from the cultural memory, and in that respect, these philosophical reiterations are very helpful.

So that’s why I like guys like Wittgenstein.

And you can’t blame Wittgenstein for the nonsense Feminists might do with his stuff. That’s like blaming manufacturers of a very helpful thing like glue for what teenage boys might do with their product and a paper bag.

Hillary & Bill Clinton

These two people, despite immense and obvious flaws, have cast a singular shadow (some would say "pall") over the Republic for lo' these many decades. So, after all this time, what is their current place in American politics? Here is an article that asserts an answer, from Fox Business News.

An interesting take, but I am afraid the fact that many Democrats want the Clintons to go away is old news. Everyone forgets that it was the New York Times that dropped the expose on Hillary’s private email server – just before she was going to declare a run for the 2016 Presidency. To me, that was an obvious hit-job by some higher-ups in the Democrat Party (probably Obama) trying to dissuade her from running. However, the Clintons have so much juice on the party machinery that they refused to take the hint and she ran anyway. At that point, the Dem’s had nothing else to do but ram her through the primaries and into the Presidency.

Except Trump.

Hillary is finished as far as a political office is concerned, as is Bill, but that does not mean they don’t still have serious political muscle on their side – no one who has behaved as these two have the last 30 years could have survived this long without something really significant to leverage their party leadership. Given their Arkansas background, it’s probably dirt on certain specific people coupled with photos. But it could also be the dirt, plus money, plus a demonstrated willingness to burn the Democrat house down unless they are allowed to continue their influence.

I suspect Bill and Hillary Clinton have in their heads a last goal for their careers: to match the achievement of Ted Kennedy. And that is, to continue to be a major player in US and world politics despite a very public and outrageous scandal. And you can almost hear the Clintons comforting each other on a cold winter night in their house in Chappaqua: "After all, we never killed anyone, right?”

Iconic Ignorance

I am not a Southerner by birth, descent, or location, but I have to say a few things against the statue smashing know-nothings currently exulting in the spotlight.

Most if not all these statues and monuments were erected to honor the soldiers who fought for the South's Terrible Cause in the Civil War. The know-nothings have one simple rule: hate the cause, then hate the soldiers and tear down their statues. And if you've got a little hate left over, expend it on all the rest of the Southerners today.

But as has been amply pointed out to largely deaf ears, most Southerners (95% or so) did not own slaves. Certainly many of these non-slave owners supported the institution, but this support was not for them the protection of their wealth and economic status. It was more in the nature of loyalty to the people and institutions one grows up with; solidarity with their own family, towns, cities, and cultures.

Misplaced loyalty? Perhaps; but a virtue nonetheless, as we can see in these divisive times where community fellow feeling is at a disastrously low ebb. If people exhibited a little more loyalty to the general community rather than banding together in their tight little identity tribes, it might help in hashing out our differences.

The second and more important fact is that, various provocations notwithstanding (principally Fort Sumter), the North invaded the South with massive armed force. Nothing the South had done before that time was of such a scale as this military response by the North. In our day, we talk of a 'proportionate response' as the only acceptable level of warfare. Well, I don't necessarily agree with the theory, but on any measure at all, the North's response was about as disproportionate as it gets.

Thus, the primary reason that massive numbers of young men leapt to their guns and joined the Confederate Army was to protect their very homes and families against an invading force. In this context, whether the South was to blame for provoking the North, and even the odiousness of the ultimate cause being served, was irrelevant.

Such times as were faced by the sons of the South were terrible and tragic. In the face of an invading army, a sudden decision was demanded of them, a decision that would show where their honor and loyalties lay and whether they were willing to sacrifice their very lives. Spoiler alert: the Southern young men stepped up. And they proceeded to serve not only with great courage but with a skill in battle that made them one of the most effective fighting forces in recorded history.

In the face of monuments to such men as these, the Social Justice Warriors ought to scuttle in shame back to their parents' basements.

Something About Kierkegaard

Continued from here.

A note on Kierkegaard. In his time, the nation of Denmark believed itself to be Christian because each and every citizen could state confidently that he had been instructed on the dogmas of the Christian faith and that he believed them to be true. The primary focus of Kierkegaard's mission was to unsettle the Danes from this notion by making a stark distinction in his authorship between knowing something intellectually and religiously-ethically incorporating that knowledge into one's heart and soul. As far as Christianity was concerned, the former did nothing, was nothing. The latter, however, meant not only a changed heart but a changed life - a new birth, if you will.

 In this mission, Kierkegaard was explicitly working on the assumption that for a changed life to occur as Christianity demanded, work must be done by each individual person within their subjective personality, work that only they could do. Rote following of commands, dogma of the Church, or Kierkegaard's own authority as an eminent thinker in Danish society, would not activate this potential in his readers. So he highlighted in both the structure and arguments of his books and in the plan of his whole authorship to withhold satisfaction from normal reader expectations, so that each reader would begin to do that deep, mysterious human agency thing that was needed.

Whether he was successful or not, whether he was altogether too artful in his production, is for the literary and philosophical critics to say.  But it is not true in the slightest to find in him support for the post-modernist presumption that all talk of faith or morality is groundless or nonsense. Contra Conant, the Postscript was not a work dedicated to branding high philosophical speculation about faith and morals as nonsense; to the contrary, it mapped a road of rationality to its pinnacle of perfection in a Paradox, and said, "No further." In doing so, Kierkegaard was not denigrating rationality or the truths of human reason, but bounding it all within its proper sphere where it is most effective. In this, he was in solidarity with the tradition of Kant, Aquinas, Augustine, Aristotle, and Plato.