I took my 1 year old son to Boston Children's Hospital's ("BCH") Weymouth location on June 29th for some bloodwork. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that the waiting room was BEDECKED with the Pride flag. There were at least 9 flags draped on every conceivable surface of the not-too-large waiting room/reception area, one of which was probably at least 3 x 5 feet.
For additional context, the BCH Weymouth location is co-located with a Brigham & Women's ("BWH") satellite location. I mistakenly took my son to the BWH phlebotomy lab at first, not realizing that there was an entirely separate space for BCH. There was not a Pride flag to be seen anywhere. Neither was there anything in the main entryway of the hospitals' shared space. ONLY the waiting room of one of the preeminent CHILDREN'S HOSPITALS in the COUNTRY was festooned with the flag. It was absolutely ridiculous, deeply offensive, and a WT ACTUAL F moment for me.
To heighten the surrealism of my BCH Weymouth experience, I had a hair appointment at my salon in the South End of Boston (Boston's gay neighborhood) later the same day. The salon is owned by a gay man, and many of the employees are gay. I counted one [very reasonably sized] Pride flag on the salon's front window. Frankly, I wouldn't have cared if my salon had 100 flags; it would have been appropriate if the salon's owner had made that choice. Not so much for a BCH waiting room.
I am working on a complaint to BCH that won't see the light of day, but I sure as hell hope that The FP et al. bring pressure to bear on these institutions, because they've completely lost the plot.
My wife taught high school math for years at a public school in our community. She saw the same thing. What 9th grade girl who isn't "popular" wouldn't love to be celebrated for "coming out" as L or T or Q? Hard to believe this isn't obvious to anyone with an open mind.
Agreed. I almost hate to use the term but its definitely a social contagion fueled by peer pressure and put into hyperdrive via social media. Parents who go all in and let their kids do the drugs/surgeries also need to have their heads examined.
I'm surprised more Parents aren't opting for homeschooling due to this bizarre phenomenon.
Of course social contagion is the source of this "epidemic" of young people suddenly developing severe gender dysphoria. It is blindingly obvious to anyone not invested in the trans activist ideology, and I'd say it probably is to them as well and that they have to perform some mental gymnastics to keep the cognitive dissonance at bay.
Me too, middle school teacher. And they switch “genders” as often as peer groups. If only we felt bold enough to express and discover our masculinity, femininity without making chemical/surgical alterations. Without labels. Just be a good person. Spend some time thinking about something other than yourself.
From my friends with kids in middle school....it is now considered cool to question your gender. What an easy way for a lonely kid to gain acceptance. So very sad that the institutions of education are supporting this very harmful nonsense.
It reminds me of the girls who made the accusations in the Salem witch trials. Girls have a tendency to want to join in with other girls, particularly if the behavior gains attention.
As soon as the governor of Massachusetts decreed that spectral evidence (the supposed visions) was not admissible in court, the girls stopped having them. One of the girls apologized publicly many years later, seeming almost baffled that she was caught up in something so very wrong.
Mostly due to how women evolved. Children are more likely to survive if they have a father who is a good provider and defender. Also more likely to survive if they have a mother/grandmother/aunt who is able to hold the family peacefully together and negotiate beneficial connections with other families without the need for bloodshed. Women are social because it benefits children for women to form social networks.
But just as men's innate impulses have a dark side, so do women's. Social cooperation can manifest as a willingness to go along with anything, just to remain part of the in-group. Indeed, a lot of bad things that feminists attribute to "the Patriarchy" are actually a result of women policing other women's behavior. Feminism itself seems to have no qualms about policing women's behavior.
So it is hard-wired in girls to want to cooperate socially. Not all of us conform with that wiring, but on the whole, women want to be approved of by other women. And that makes girls more vulnerable to being caught up in social contagions.
This reminds me of something that happened to me in a feminism course when I was studying for a masters in social work about 30 years ago. We had to write a paper on an example of how women are abused. I wanted to write a paper about the abusive nature of the large increase in Cesarean section rates. The professor told me that it would be an automatic F if I wrote this paper. When I asked her why, she said because we have already won this war- women are getting into medical school and there are many more female Ob Gyns. I said but women are still being harmed by unnecessary C-sections. She repeated, you will get an F if you write this paper.
The Salem witch trials of the 17th century, the nervous disorders of the 18th century, the neurasthenia epidemic of the 19th century, and anorexia nervosa, repressed memory, bulimia, and the cutting contagion of the 20th century all share the same protagonist, magnifying and spreading her own pain: the adolescent girl.
Yup, it is very much like that but where teachers and administrators at school will go along with the idea that your girl is a witch and get her a broom - keeping the magic secret from parents. Total gaslighting and creating psych damage via triangulation with parents. The girls go little step by step down a garden path to a bad place. At first they might think they are just being sweet "allies" to the Gay-Straight Alliance Rainbow club. Then, they try out a trendy name or pronoun or style.... just keep them away from the doctors and therapists and hormone pushers at Planned Parenthood!
Remember the daycare scandals of the ‘80s - the satanic and ritual abuse of children in daycares across North America. People were actually arrested and imprisoned. Scary stuff.
Puberty is a rough time. And modern life seems to have pushed puberty to a younger and younger age (some theorize this started with the widespread adoption of electric lighting). As a result, kids have fewer years of life experience before puberty scrambles their brains and bodies.
But it is sadly true that the adolescent female seems to be most susceptible to social contagion. Perhaps this is an unfortunate side effect of females having evolved to be instinctively skilled at forming social networks.
"some theorize this started with the widespread adoption of electric lighting)"
Hmmmm. I certainly do not know for sure, but I have assumed it has something to do with large-scale changes in diet to processed foods with high sugar content, coupled with way more sedentary lifestyles (sitting in front of TV or computer or phone screen).
Bovine growth hormones in hamburger have been implicated in rising numbers of children with "precocious puberty" (literally starting to get periods, for example, at age 6 or 7).
It likely doesn't help that we often infantilize our children for far longer. The experience many have before puberty is basically just playtime with some school breaking it up. Through most of history, and still in many parts of the world, children begin doing various forms or work as soon as they are able. Thus helping give them purpose and experience about what life will be like.
Childhood, as the modern world has conceived of it, is a fairly new invention, historically speaking. And devoting a tremendous amount of investment, as a society, toward entertaining children is even newer. The Greatest Generation fell prey easily to the impulse of giving their children the pleasant childhood that, thanks to the Depression, they themselves did not have.
Now we idolize childhood. We have attempted to extend it as long as possible by giving adolescents privileges that used to have to be earned, while permitting them to continue to revel in the lack of responsibility that comes with modern childhood.
Idolize is almost too soft a word it’s deified. Youth is beauty. Beauty is youth. Anthropologist David Lancy refers to it as the newly minted “neontocracy” where now children are now the most celebrated people in society. This is problematic for many reasons. The irrationality intrinsic to childhood is a major one.
Yes. For most of history we understood that life is hard. Bad things can and will happen. Cultures are full of myths, fairy tales, traditions, etc to teach these lessons. But now we are trying to prevent ANY difficulty in our lives and moreso the lives of our children, without realizing we are only making them even more susceptible to bad things because these children are not gaining the defenses to deal with them.
What is really sad is that doing a difficulty thing well or overcoming adversity is likely one of the most rewarding things humans do. When stripped of it we become weak and whiney (I am including myself in there).
They say that in Nazi Germany the doctors were the most easily convinced and adamant adherents to the Cause. I can think of several reasons that's true. I hate to say that my experience with my colleagues is that if one pisses on a fire hydrant, they all piss on the fire hydrant - and thy will be the first to go after you if you don't. One doesn't get through medical school without being able to at least fake being a follower. There are some true leaders, yes, but they're rare, rare, rare.
When the war in Ukraine started, our Mexican gardener said: “yeah, sure, go ahead, load them with weapons, that area will be in fire for a decade now…”
It will. It will be nothing short of Afganistán.
While our Silicon Valley highly educated elite is cheering.
Bari, thank you for another article showing the politicization of almost everything, medicine, law, biology, high school debate, et al. When science is beyond debate, it's propaganda. By the way, historically, there were far more transgender males than females, and their gender dysphoria began around age two. Now we have many more transgender girls who began feeling like boys in their teenage years with no such antecedent feelings. This is strong evidence that ROGD should be studied as a possible social contagion.
Uh, huh. In 1930s Germany the doctors were actually out ahead of the politicians. So, it was mostly the other way around with the medical community convincing the politicians who found it useful. Sound familiar?
"Still, doctors embraced eugenics with shocking enthusiasm and radicalism. They didn’t simply “go along” with Hitler, they were already so steeped in this quasi-scientific ideology that they were out ahead of Nazi politicians. “The German medical community set its own course in 1933. In some respects this course even outpaced the new [Nazi] government, which had to rein in the profession's eager pursuit of enforced eugenic sterilisations.”
"Echoes of Eugenics: What the Doctors Trial at Nuremberg Means for Us in the US
On the 75th anniversary of the trial of Nazi doctors at Nuremberg we examine Nazi medicine and gender-affirming care AUG 30, 2022"
Brandon went to town halls during his campaign and celebrated the "transition" of 8 year old girls, talking about "The Civil Rights Movement of our Time". In the same way, the politicians in Germany found the Ideology coming out of medicine very useful in the 1930s. Medicine was out in front of politics then as now.
BTW, Rick Levine really needs to be removed from his position as first female admiral health secretary - where he promotes harm to children and calls it "care".
The recent COVID situation is a testament - when doctors en masses turned away from therapeutic means to help sick and instead followed the treatment formula the party required.
"Physicians were one of the strongest demographics behind the Nazi vote. Lawyers were generally favorable to Nazi policies as well. Intellectuals are not a single group, but the ones with an economic interest in politics often favored National Socialism.
Doctors were interested in eugenics ideology, at the time a key Progressive platform. Lawyers saw growth in various racial law areas and expanding scope of criminal activity as new areas for work. Their economic interests were more or less aligned with Fascism.
Other intellectuals, such as Marxists were opressed, but it was very common for KPD members to join the Nazis and there was no particular problem with them doing so. Only active Communists were prosecuted.
In conclusion it depends on the type of intellectuals, but the white collar professions were generally Fascist. If you were to express it as a percentage it would be high among professional degrees. Finding unveristy data would be harder because there was no centralized state University system at the time.
Also, if it helps, Technical University Munchen was a major Fascist organizing ground."
Abortion and Eugenics in Nazi Germany Henry P. David, Jochen Fleischhacker and Charlotte Hohn Population and Development Review Vol. 14, No. 1 (Mar., 1988), pp. 81-112
German Lawyers and the State in the Weimar Republic Kenneth F. Ledford Law and History Review Vol. 13, No. 2 (Autumn, 1995), pp. 317-349
Thank you. Great and very pertinent information. Hitler may not have been particularly well educated, but the Nazi hierarchy was chock full of people with doctorates.
Fifty years ago I was listening to a CBS radio commentator say 90% of all SS officers had their PHD. If true, it proves you don't have to be a semiliterate red neck to be a violent fanatic.
There was a time when your average person held "Experts" in high regard, or at least defered to them. Today, Not So Much. (For Me) It started with Michael Crichton's State Of Fear, and the reaction to it. IF "They" (the Experts) are feeding me a line of Bull on The Climate, what else are they feeding me a line of Bull on? Sad to say as time has gone on, it appears, A Lot. When someone like Alex Jones is seen as just as credible as the CDC...Houston We Have A Problem.
Question: Is there a major national institution, that when they say This or That is True, your knee jerk reaction is to believe them? Because I'm having trouble coming up with one. We are seeing The Boy Who Cried Wolf syndrome being played out in Real Time/Life.
Exactly. Abigail Shrier called out the over reliance on "experts" in her book "Irreversible Damage". I was already jaded about government, banking/economists, media... Gender Ideology and the complicity of medicine, pharma , and the Education Complex added a few more to the list. We are in the lobotomy era only much worse.
Here is The Problem. Sometime They (The Experts) Are Going To Be Right. And no one will believe them. What if the CDC issues a warning about a new pandemic, and its a Black Death level pandemic and (say) 40% of the population doesn't believe them? By playing politics with Covid they have destroyed their credibility. I wish I had an answer.
When the next Black Death level pandemic hits, people will notice that 30-60% of the people they know are dying - they won't need experts to tell them to be careful.
Yes, I agree. They played politics with Covid and our children... maybe it was useful to have a "Civil Rights Movement of Our Time" as Biden said when he celebrated the "transition" of 8 year old girls on his campaign trail?
I liked this comment on a recent PITT substack article so much I want to reprint it here:
""Mama Ain't Playin'
Jul 7
See Bob Ostertag's book, Sex Science Self. Artificial hormones have always been a solution in search of a problem. They've been used to try to turn gay men straight; they've been used to chemically castrate sex offenders; and now they're being used to turn our daughters into cosmetic simulacrums of tiny men, and to turn our sons into false women.
I wouldn't trust an endocrinologist at this point any farther than I could spit a rat. (Dr. Will Malone of Idaho is the lone exception. He's been pursuing a quixotic challenge against his professional organization because of their creepy experimentation on kids.)"
The AMA lost its bearings years ago when it decided to become trendy. The AAPS--American Assoc of Physicians and Surgeons is pretty diametrically opposite to AMA: logic, not dogma. Reason, not populism. I tend to buy what they’re selling--subject to verification, of course. Ronnie was right.
American Assoc of Physicians and Surgeons. Never heard of them. Thanks, learn something new every day.
Wikipedia explains it ALL
The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) is a politically conservative non-profit association that promotes conspiracy theories and medical misinformation, such as HIV/AIDS denialism, the abortion-breast cancer hypothesis, and vaccine and autism connections. The association was founded in 1943 to oppose a government attempt to nationalize health care. The group has included notable members, including American Republican politicians Ron Paul, Rand Paul and Tom Price.
AT A revent meeting of the Death Club, one of our members said that he loved the group because there were no "experts". just a bunch of us talking about what the heck happens to us when we take our last breath.
As a 75 yea old Christian I am REALLY LOOKING FORWARD to it. I get to go Home. The Bible doesn't really say much about it, except its Really Cool. I fully expect my mind to be Blown, and to say things like Of Course! Why Didn't See This Before, Its All So Plain Now.
I still own the homeplace where my cousin-the-widower doctor grew up, and several years ago I brought him from his nursing home to stay in the Old Place for a night. He was in his early nineties and suffered horribly from joint pain but was SO glad to re-live older and better times.
He'd lost his wife about twenty years before. We were having a nice discussion about her over breakfast and he told me, "I'm looking forward to dying soon. I miss my wife so very much and I am looking forward to the day I can see her again." I hope he got his wish.
IMO the politicization of science started with climate change. It was born in ‘89 with James Hanson and has been a relentless wrecking ball ever since. Like most politicized science, there was a grain of truth in Hanson’s initial warning, but it has been warped and disfigured beyond recognition. Climate change alarmism should serve as a warning. After 35 years of failed prediction after failed prediction, the political movement is seemingly as strong as ever. No mountain of counter factual data discourages the enlightened class.
Well, the climate is changing and the Earth is getting warmer. There's no getting around that fact. The question is whether the pollution we create is responsible for that warming, or if Nature is doing it all on her own.
Me, I think Nature is doing what Nature has done for a billion years: Hot then Cold then Hot then Colt then Hot. Currently we're in a hot stage. Eventually we'll switch to cool, and then the next Ice Age. I don't see how the pollution we generate affects that very much,.
But reducing that pollution is a good idea even if doesn't touch the "warming" problem. Clear air and water is better for us than dirty, so why not reduce pollution on health grounds alone? Sure, if reducing pollution helps stem the heating, that's a bonus. But it's not necessary; getting rid of acid rain, forever chemicals, smog, and Cancer Alleys are worth it by itself.
Note that I said reduce, not eliminate. We can't eliminate pollution, not in the advanced society people want. But we can reduce pollution considerably, and should do as much as we can of that without melting down our economies.
Going whole-hog with modern nuclear will rid of us much fossil-fuel pollution. Rebuilding the national power grid will allow electric appliances and tools to replace many (though not all) gas-powered ones, cleaning the air even more. Capturing the methane generating by thousands of landfills and piping it into boilers can generate power locally. Planting billions of trees around the planet will clean the air, cool the land, and trap carbon, as well as provide homes for animals. Etc.
None of that hurts the economy, only enhances it; takes millions of tons of pollution out of land, sea, and skies; and may even slow the heating of the planet.
Carbon dioxide is not a "pollutant" in any normal sense. We humans generate a lot of CO2 with every breath. That CO2 is the most essential chemical for life on earth, after H2O. Every carbon atom in a corn plant or a Redwood Tree comes from the CO2 in the air. Co2 is not biologically harmful at 420 parts per million in the air. Increased CO2 has made the earth GREENER by an area the size of the 48 states. It is GOOD for plants, and ultimately good for all animal life, which depend on plants. There is a simple, straightforward way to address global warming if it ever actually becomes excessive. Solar Radiation Mitigation (SRM) is what happens naturally when a major volcano erupts and puts sulfate particles into the stratosphere. After Mount Pinatubo erupted in the 1990s, the earth's temperature dropped a full degree for a year. Humanity can cause that same effect intentionally by spraying sulfur oxides from the many commercial planes that fly across the northern hemisphere every day. Scientists have worked out that it is so cheap that any medium size nation could END GLOBAL WARMING FOR THE ENTIRE EARTH. Global warming alarmists are panicking because China might just do that, and take away their excuse for controlling our use of energy.
Thanks for this, Raymond. CO2 is not a pollutant in the sense that burning tires are, I agree. But too much of anything is not necessarily good for us. You say 420 ppm isn't biologically harmful. What level would be harmful, if you know, and where are we on that scale right now?
I have zero desire for any nation to spray sulfur oxides into the atmosphere to cause "global cooling." None. If it backfires, as so many tech schemes have, the result would be instantly catastrophic. It's not worth the risk, especially when you say that CO2 buildup is not harmful to us.
What is the "failure"? The earth is observably getting warmer. It's unrealistic to think that you can have 8 billion people, at least half of whom are burning coal, driving cars, etc. and have no effect at all on the atmosphere. We never had wildfire smoke days when I was growing up, rarely read about people dying of heatstroke, etc. Is some of it alarmist, sure, but even insurance companies and the military are factoring climate change into their decisions. They wouldn't be doing that if it was false.
The actual number of people dying from heat has been dropping drastically throughout the 20th Century since the invention of air conditioning. As for smoke, I am 73 and there was a lot of wildfire smoke over the years. The number of actual forest fire acres has dropped over the past century as we have gotten smarter. As Smoky Bear says, 90% of wildfires are caused by careless humans. Brush and trees do not spontaneously combust at 120 degrees. They need a careless cigarette or an unextinguished campfire to get going.
As this author is maintaining......it's about the cancellation of the discussion as much as the results of a certain kind -- not getting published. They limit the discussion to their view only. Dangerous.
For you to say Climate Change is real....because the military and Insurance companies say so!! My God......let's never stop hearing alternative viewpoints.
If you want to take an objective look at climate change, the first thing that strikes you is that for at least two decades this has been turned into a purely religious issue, with excommunication of heretics (“deniers”) and immense pressure on climate scientists to provide only “correct” answers in their study. As this immense pressure is brought on the scientific community and the public at large, all the legacy media would never say a word on the cultist aspect of the phenomenon. A dead giveaway is that the whole thing is sold strictly as a bundle: man-made climate change, “attribution science” (all negative weather events are due to climate change), what the priorities should be (prioritize disease elimination which can save millions of lives at relatively little expense or spend many trillions on forward models). Now if you’re just questioning the forced transition to EVs (which is clearly shown to have minimum results) you are a “denier”, just as much as if you would say there’s no man-made climate change. You have to be completely brainwashed not to notice these clear signs of a major con job.
History has shown "experts" to be spectacularly wrong time after time, particularly when they all benefit from having the same government-approved and funded point of view. No, show me the numbers. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
CO2 represents four parts in ten-thousand of the atmosphere, equivalent to the first four seconds of a 2-1/2 hour walk, to put it in perspective. And it's not even the most common after nitrogen, oxygen, and water vapor. It is 1/30th as common as argon (0.93%). So why don't the global warming people target argon? Because it's not man-made and can't be used as a cudgel to further their Marxist world-government agenda.
So a trace gas, constantly being removed from the atmosphere and used by plants to make the oxygen that keeps all animals alive, including humans, in an atmosphere that is a mere sliver compared to the size of the planet, is swamping the effects of radionuclide decay in the earth and radiant energy from a nearby star?
And poverty has declined by 90% in the last one hundred years. The scares of the 70s never happened. I read the books and was alarmed but huh, NONE of them actually materialized. Regarding insurance companies and the military, you can't be serious. You have noticed that the military has been lying the US into wars for a VERY, VERY long time and their observations about climate are not be trusted or believed. Insurance companies have no special knowledge beyond mortality and risk tables that price the insurance you buy. They do not know if climate will change in either direction as it has numerous times in history. The 70s and 80s were full of alarmism about global cooling and by the way, cold temps kill many more than hot temps and that is observable based on actual facts, not projections by Al Gore, one of the great hucksters of the last 40 yrs and those like him. These people make Fauci look positively honest and well intended, when we know in fact he was and is not.
"State of Fear" was great, especially if you dig into the footnotes to see how well Crichton documented all the statements about climate in the book. The propaganda techniques used on global warming worked so well the Left has adapted them to everything now. Climate scientists have been getting cancelled for telling the truth for decades.
Something I hear the other day. Our prehistoric ancestors needed to know 2 things. 1. Where The Lions are, 2 where the bushes with the good berry's are. If you don't know whee the bushes with the Good Berry's are, you don't eat today, But you might eat tomorrow. If you don't know where The Lions are, You Die. We're had wired to look for and expect the worst.
Thank you, thank you. I have been participating on this BBS for over a year. I consider myself to be a moderate conservative. I know to many moderate is a dirty word. I try to keep an open mind. On some things I am hard core conservative on others, not so much.
The point of this preamble is, I hope, to prove I am not some sort of right wing fanatic who sees a communist behind every bush. With trepidation I have been saying the Democrats are now socialists and some hard core communists. There is very little difference between a socialist and a communist if any difference at all.
In the past anyone who said that called anyone or an organization a communist was lumped in with Joe McCarthy as a glassy eyed nut case. You calling out the Marxists gives me some validation that I am not a glassy eyed right wing fanatic. I am not a fanatic. I am a realist.
I want to start an anonymous site called “how I became MAGA” and share stories from moderate conservatives and liberals on how the came to notice and disassociate from the extremes on their side and when and how they were labeled MAGA for breaking from the “woke” narrative!
I think of "socialist" sort of like I think of "agnostic," who's really an atheist without the strength of conviction. Maybe "commie-light" would be a better term, but no matter; in the end the effect is the same.
"There is very little difference between a socialist and a communist if any difference at all."
I dunno, one can hold that the government should be run for the benefit of ordinary people, not the globalist plutocracy. I don't think that quite equates to Stalinism. Denmark seems like a nice place.
... which makes them 'socialist' as most people use the term. One can define socialist and equivalent to communist but that's not what most people do, they define socialism as a more humane mixed economy. I know no self described socialist who advocates the downfall of capitalism, they rather want to tame it and redirect some of the benefits to working people.
The definition of socialism is the government owns all businesses and runs them. All businesses. The government can't run a lemonade stand much less a business.
Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.
The stage in Marxist-Leninist theory intermediate between capitalism and communism, in which the means of production are collectively owned but a completely classless society has not yet been achieved.
Specifically, in Germany, legislation, supported by Prince Bismarck, intended to improve the condition of the working-man. Among the measures included were the insurance of workmen against accident, sickness, and old age, and the establishment of cooperative associations under state protection.
People commonly used the 3d of those definitions. We have no need for a synonym for communism, but we do need to distinguish between plutocratic capitalism and the more humane variant. Righties seem to think that being careful to not label Denmark as socialist somehow changes any facts on the ground but it doesn't. People commonly call Bernie Sanders a socialist even tho he doesn't advocate for the end to private ownership. Words mean what we use them to mean. Some throw 'social democracy' and 'democratic socialism' into the glossary too but in the minds of most people socialism is what they do in Denmark, communism is what they did in the USSR or China, capitalism is what they do in the USA.
Denmark. Anyway, as I've said I'm not interested in labels since most political labels are now either useless or downright counter-informative -- the Left now being the enemy of the working man and the friend of the globalists.
Funny thing, that strange 30 year period between '45 and '75 when even working people enjoyed a considerable slice of the pie. We sorta got to accepting that as 'normal'. It wasn't. Never before and probably never again.
The U.S. taxes the living daylights out of me already so what's the difference. Everyone acts like Federal Income Tax is the only tax, and it's low compared to other countries, but add in 15% FICA tax and the 28% suddenly becomes 43%. Then state and local taxes and you're well past the 50% range. Then add health care costs on top of that which you wouldn't pay in most other countries and Denmark doesn't look so bad.
What I've believed for a long time, too: if you added up every single tax you pay over the course of a year--and don't forget the hidden ones like in your phone, cable, and water bills--our level of taxation would be in the range of Europe ... but we get a lot less bang for that buck in comparison. I don't mind paying high taxes for a high level of service, but we have the worst of both worlds--high taxes and mediocre to lousy services.
Perhaps instead of belaboring definitions it would be better to look at results. The US is a country in which the rich are getting richer (beyond the dreams of avarice, beyond the ability to even spend the money), and the workers are getting poorer. Call that whatever you like and it's been going on steadily under both parties. Denmark still has the remnants of the idea that the economy should work for the ordinary citizen -- again, call that whatever you like.
True enough. I remember reading a piece that described wealth like a 100 story hotel. Half the people are on the ground floor. The next 40% are on the first or second floor. The next 9% are on the third through fifth floors. Beyonce is on the 400th floor. Jeff Bezos is past the 15,000th floor. At one point last month, the 14 wealthiest people INDIVIDUALLY had more money than the entire U.S. government.
I totally understand that the harder you work the more rewards you can make, but at a certain point ($1 billion?) excessive wealth starts harming everyone else.
How? It's not a zero-sum game. A lot of the massive wealth at the top is simply because of growth in stock price of a given company. It is unrealized gain - not cash sitting in a bank.
But they say that Amazon paid zero federal taxes last year. A stat I love is that the 1% spend more money feeding their pets than the bottom half of the population spend feeding their kids. Nevermind! The libertarians assure me it's all for the best.
I'd call it Bidenomics. Under Biden, inflation has outpaced wage growth, the opposite of the previous administration, which also cut taxes in a way that benefitted almost everyone. OTOH, it's unfair to blame the ridiculous levels of deficit spending we've had for decades on one President or one party.
There's an honest remark. Indeed I've seen stats to the effect that the deficit has risen more under GOP administrations than under Rats. What is true is that for the last 40 or 50 years the common people have been getting poorer and the plutocrats have been doing very well.
The Scandinavian countries are different in that their socialism grew much more organically. They have long been societies focused on charitable giving (partly, I suspect, due to Lutheranism) and ensuring the common good (a necessity in their harsh climate). The idea of turning those efforts over to the government to administer more centrally (and theoretically, more effectively)--while appalling to us Americans--seemed perfectly logical to them.
But their Leftists have largely taken over, importing thousands of "refugees" who will not assimilate, and who are wreaking havoc on their societies.
Denmark seems to be the only one of those nations that has attempted to fight back. But with the collapse of the anti-immigration government, I have my doubts as to whether they will be able to hold the line.
It goestoshowya how nearly useless terms like 'Leftist' have become. By *definition* socialists are leftists, no? Yet, as you allude, the 'left' is now equated with the progressives. But IMHO that's a hostile takeover and as a paleo-socialist I can assure one and all that I loathe woke Progressivism as much as any Rightie. Meanwhile the Progressives, tho considering themselves lefties, have been seduced by the globalist plutocrats (are they lefties or righties? ) to do the work of dividing and weakening the working class. Good work comrades!
I am a hard core capitalist. Capitalism has worked for thousands of years. Communism has never worked, neither has a real socialist country if there ever was a real socialist country. Usually the left goes straight to communism, not socialism and then move to communism.
But the Danes (and the Swiss and many other countries) have managed to be 'capitalist' and yet the common people do well. Call it whatever you like. I call it government of the people, by the people, for the people (not the plutocracy).
The European countries you reference are infinitesimally smaller in population and GDP than the U.S. And until fairly recent history, they have been much more homogeneous, read not diverse, populations. With much greater social cohesion, work ethic, and shared culture, they have been much more willing to contribute to, and support programs for the common good. Their small size also makes these programs much less costly and easier to manage.
I'd not say 'infinitesimally smaller', that's a bit of an exaggeration but I agree with your point. Except that small size doesn't make anything less costly *per person* -- smaller outputs but smaller inputs too.
The difference is the people in Scandanavian countries have a strong work ethic which has been diluted by unfettered Middle Eastern immigration. The Swiss have always had very low unemployment rates. Again, a strong work ethic. When unemployment is low and the Swiss need workers they used to invite Spanish workers in to fill the employment gaps. As unemployment rises they ship the Spanish back to Spain. That is a fifty year old policy. It may have changed now.
As with everything else, it's all about culture. Americans descended from Scandinavian immigrants tend to have the same kind of work ethic, and therefore have similar financial outcomes to their cousins in Scandinavia. A lot the success of the Utah pioneers was due to Scandinavian immigrant converts to the LDS church.
Those countries are discovering to their sorrow that when you invite people who do not share the same basic understandings about society, those people will not integrate well. For example, when a Muslim immigrant rapes a Swedish woman, he thinks that is completely legitimate: she was alone (she should have been guarded by a male family member) and she was wearing the clothing of a whore (showing her legs, arms, and face).
Either Scandinavian societies will change to conform with the expectations of their non-assimilating immigrants or they will have to get serious about the issue and push back. And since they are being led by Leftists who try to prevent the media from reporting on issues caused by immigrants, I think it's easy to guess which way that will go.
Sure, a people need to 'deserve' a social welfare system. The 'wrong people' will ruin it. However the plutocrats will ruin it too for there own reasons and perhaps insuring that it becomes dysfunctional was always their plan. Again, the Marxist wokies and the globalist plutocracy might have different motives but they both agree that Western Civilization must be trashed, thus the latter promote the former.
I agree, Ray. It's a good model, and we should adapt the parts that help everyday people within our own shores. The problem we will have is that corporate and government interests in the status quo are so hardened that nothing significant will change ... and voters will not demand it change.
I think the difference between socialists and communists is that socialists win elections and communists have revolutions to gain power. Once in power, there isn't much difference. Whether the riots of 2020 were the beginning of the American communist revolution remains to be seen.
I don't believe there are capitalist's and communist's anymore. For instance, both Hitler and Mao were ultimately monster's capable of rationalizing any human atrocity for the sake of power and control. No ideology describe's the horror they represented. Even if captured no human punishment would have atoned for the human damage they inflicted. Label's like socialist/communist or capitalist, even corporate fascism serve as smokescreen's. None of those word's appear in our Constitution and we accept defeat when we allow what are actually avaricious thug's to control the American national dialogue by forcing the conversation into those term's. The brave judge in Louisiana that called out the D.C. surveillance state and placed an injunction against their collusion with tech billionaires to subvert American free elections and speech wasn't fighting an ideology, he is in combat with the DNC/EU/CCP/Davos perp's hoping to turn the world into an open air prison. (Subscription journalism helped make the ruling possible.) The perp's believe in power, throw away labor and the exploitation of resources without consequence. That's it. The Constitution is in their way.
The economic capture and compromise of elected political system's throughout Western "democracy" by billionaire financier's is allowing their obvious attempt's to re-engineer the political/social/financial narrative across the world and implement CCP style (15 minute cities/travel by permit/citizen mass surveillance, etc.) repression of individual freedoms like speech and movement. European's are fighting back. The so called "globalist" DNC/Davos crowd has wrecked every life and society it touched. The French riot's, the Dutch farmers, the collapsed economy in Sri Lanka, the hidden citizen rendition prison's in China (where they make their money), the American 2008 crash, arrest's for thought crimes in Great Britain, all.
Who, in the name of Bud Light, is funding and organizing the opposition to free speech and idea's in America? The tactic is certainly recognizable. False moral indignation, the mob pile-on, cancellation, career and character criminalization/assassination, the poseur expert and the corporate/federal grant given to well paid class war elitist grifter's who have no actual moral argument but somehow find support from MSM/surveillance state operatives. Who does chaos serve? Could it be the international looter's who gutted American industry and walked away with pension funds, homes and savings in 2008?
America is living inside a manufactured lie. Throw the rascals out (and prosecute).
I didn't think that anything was scarier than "equity" based science; I was wrong. Simply reinforces my bias against any doctor much younger than I am.
I’ve already decided to never go to a doctor who graduated from med school after 2020 (might also be my cutoff for finishing their internship and residency, we’ll see). The absolute nonsense they’re being force fed these days is appalling. Wait until people start dying from the future malpractice. One can only hope that the majority of the victims are those that DEI medicine was supposed to protect. Poetic Justice.
My wife, who is a pediatric nurse, has been saying this for years...because she is witness to it. It is more social pressure than physiology.
I took my 1 year old son to Boston Children's Hospital's ("BCH") Weymouth location on June 29th for some bloodwork. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that the waiting room was BEDECKED with the Pride flag. There were at least 9 flags draped on every conceivable surface of the not-too-large waiting room/reception area, one of which was probably at least 3 x 5 feet.
For additional context, the BCH Weymouth location is co-located with a Brigham & Women's ("BWH") satellite location. I mistakenly took my son to the BWH phlebotomy lab at first, not realizing that there was an entirely separate space for BCH. There was not a Pride flag to be seen anywhere. Neither was there anything in the main entryway of the hospitals' shared space. ONLY the waiting room of one of the preeminent CHILDREN'S HOSPITALS in the COUNTRY was festooned with the flag. It was absolutely ridiculous, deeply offensive, and a WT ACTUAL F moment for me.
To heighten the surrealism of my BCH Weymouth experience, I had a hair appointment at my salon in the South End of Boston (Boston's gay neighborhood) later the same day. The salon is owned by a gay man, and many of the employees are gay. I counted one [very reasonably sized] Pride flag on the salon's front window. Frankly, I wouldn't have cared if my salon had 100 flags; it would have been appropriate if the salon's owner had made that choice. Not so much for a BCH waiting room.
I am working on a complaint to BCH that won't see the light of day, but I sure as hell hope that The FP et al. bring pressure to bear on these institutions, because they've completely lost the plot.
My wife taught high school math for years at a public school in our community. She saw the same thing. What 9th grade girl who isn't "popular" wouldn't love to be celebrated for "coming out" as L or T or Q? Hard to believe this isn't obvious to anyone with an open mind.
Oh, wait, that's the problem.
Agreed. I almost hate to use the term but its definitely a social contagion fueled by peer pressure and put into hyperdrive via social media. Parents who go all in and let their kids do the drugs/surgeries also need to have their heads examined.
I'm surprised more Parents aren't opting for homeschooling due to this bizarre phenomenon.
I think they are the number of kids being home schooled is way up
That’s the shocking part about this whole story. If we want it to go away I suggest we stop the federal $$$$ it will disappear as if by magic.
Of course social contagion is the source of this "epidemic" of young people suddenly developing severe gender dysphoria. It is blindingly obvious to anyone not invested in the trans activist ideology, and I'd say it probably is to them as well and that they have to perform some mental gymnastics to keep the cognitive dissonance at bay.
Me too, middle school teacher. And they switch “genders” as often as peer groups. If only we felt bold enough to express and discover our masculinity, femininity without making chemical/surgical alterations. Without labels. Just be a good person. Spend some time thinking about something other than yourself.
From my friends with kids in middle school....it is now considered cool to question your gender. What an easy way for a lonely kid to gain acceptance. So very sad that the institutions of education are supporting this very harmful nonsense.
It reminds me of the girls who made the accusations in the Salem witch trials. Girls have a tendency to want to join in with other girls, particularly if the behavior gains attention.
As soon as the governor of Massachusetts decreed that spectral evidence (the supposed visions) was not admissible in court, the girls stopped having them. One of the girls apologized publicly many years later, seeming almost baffled that she was caught up in something so very wrong.
It’s true wonder why young girls are so vulnerable.
Mostly due to how women evolved. Children are more likely to survive if they have a father who is a good provider and defender. Also more likely to survive if they have a mother/grandmother/aunt who is able to hold the family peacefully together and negotiate beneficial connections with other families without the need for bloodshed. Women are social because it benefits children for women to form social networks.
But just as men's innate impulses have a dark side, so do women's. Social cooperation can manifest as a willingness to go along with anything, just to remain part of the in-group. Indeed, a lot of bad things that feminists attribute to "the Patriarchy" are actually a result of women policing other women's behavior. Feminism itself seems to have no qualms about policing women's behavior.
So it is hard-wired in girls to want to cooperate socially. Not all of us conform with that wiring, but on the whole, women want to be approved of by other women. And that makes girls more vulnerable to being caught up in social contagions.
This reminds me of something that happened to me in a feminism course when I was studying for a masters in social work about 30 years ago. We had to write a paper on an example of how women are abused. I wanted to write a paper about the abusive nature of the large increase in Cesarean section rates. The professor told me that it would be an automatic F if I wrote this paper. When I asked her why, she said because we have already won this war- women are getting into medical school and there are many more female Ob Gyns. I said but women are still being harmed by unnecessary C-sections. She repeated, you will get an F if you write this paper.
I'm not at all surprised at your experience. If you resist the official narrative, you will be punished for it in whatever way they can punish you.
Excellent reply Celia thank you.
Exactly. Social contagion.
The Salem witch trials of the 17th century, the nervous disorders of the 18th century, the neurasthenia epidemic of the 19th century, and anorexia nervosa, repressed memory, bulimia, and the cutting contagion of the 20th century all share the same protagonist, magnifying and spreading her own pain: the adolescent girl.
https://euphoricrecall.substack.com/p/gender-ideology-is-toxic-nonsense
Yup, it is very much like that but where teachers and administrators at school will go along with the idea that your girl is a witch and get her a broom - keeping the magic secret from parents. Total gaslighting and creating psych damage via triangulation with parents. The girls go little step by step down a garden path to a bad place. At first they might think they are just being sweet "allies" to the Gay-Straight Alliance Rainbow club. Then, they try out a trendy name or pronoun or style.... just keep them away from the doctors and therapists and hormone pushers at Planned Parenthood!
Remember the daycare scandals of the ‘80s - the satanic and ritual abuse of children in daycares across North America. People were actually arrested and imprisoned. Scary stuff.
Pretty sure that was entirely bullshit. Like repressed memories of dad the molester
Arrested, imprisoned, and harassed falsely as well
It was a blatant lie
Whatever happened to poltergeists? You don't hear about them any more.
Puberty is a rough time. And modern life seems to have pushed puberty to a younger and younger age (some theorize this started with the widespread adoption of electric lighting). As a result, kids have fewer years of life experience before puberty scrambles their brains and bodies.
But it is sadly true that the adolescent female seems to be most susceptible to social contagion. Perhaps this is an unfortunate side effect of females having evolved to be instinctively skilled at forming social networks.
"some theorize this started with the widespread adoption of electric lighting)"
Hmmmm. I certainly do not know for sure, but I have assumed it has something to do with large-scale changes in diet to processed foods with high sugar content, coupled with way more sedentary lifestyles (sitting in front of TV or computer or phone screen).
Bovine growth hormones in hamburger have been implicated in rising numbers of children with "precocious puberty" (literally starting to get periods, for example, at age 6 or 7).
very plausible, considering bovine growth hormones have also been implicated in increasing the risk of premenopausal breast cancer
Hmmmmm. Maybe?
You might be explaining Beatlemania as well.
LOL! Oh, the innocence of it!
It likely doesn't help that we often infantilize our children for far longer. The experience many have before puberty is basically just playtime with some school breaking it up. Through most of history, and still in many parts of the world, children begin doing various forms or work as soon as they are able. Thus helping give them purpose and experience about what life will be like.
Childhood, as the modern world has conceived of it, is a fairly new invention, historically speaking. And devoting a tremendous amount of investment, as a society, toward entertaining children is even newer. The Greatest Generation fell prey easily to the impulse of giving their children the pleasant childhood that, thanks to the Depression, they themselves did not have.
Now we idolize childhood. We have attempted to extend it as long as possible by giving adolescents privileges that used to have to be earned, while permitting them to continue to revel in the lack of responsibility that comes with modern childhood.
Very well said Celia! How do we reverse this?
I have no idea. There are too many Karens who will report you for child abuse if you aren't a helicopter parent. But Utah actually made a law that said parents could not be charged with neglect for allowing their children to roam freely, provided that they are otherwise well-fed and cared for. https://www.sltrib.com/news/2018/03/31/utahs-free-range-parenting-law-said-to-be-first-in-the-nation/
Still, I think we are fighting a losing battle, unless like-minded parents can form peer groups where the modern style of parenting is rejected.
Idolize is almost too soft a word it’s deified. Youth is beauty. Beauty is youth. Anthropologist David Lancy refers to it as the newly minted “neontocracy” where now children are now the most celebrated people in society. This is problematic for many reasons. The irrationality intrinsic to childhood is a major one.
Yes. For most of history we understood that life is hard. Bad things can and will happen. Cultures are full of myths, fairy tales, traditions, etc to teach these lessons. But now we are trying to prevent ANY difficulty in our lives and moreso the lives of our children, without realizing we are only making them even more susceptible to bad things because these children are not gaining the defenses to deal with them.
What is really sad is that doing a difficulty thing well or overcoming adversity is likely one of the most rewarding things humans do. When stripped of it we become weak and whiney (I am including myself in there).
Haidt and Lukianoff refer to this phenomenon as reverse cognitive behavioral therapy.
I am sure at least part of my opinions/knowledge of this comes from Haidt's books.
And social media makes it so much worse.
A perfect analogy.
When we eliminate all of the various academies and associations and organizations that went along with this people will say
“But we need medical professionals and institutions we can’t just expel all of these people from the practice of science and medicine.”
Yeah well Germany still needed aviation experts after WWII but that doesn’t mean you keep the Luftwaffe.
Starting from scratch will be a dramatic improvement over whatever this is.
They say that in Nazi Germany the doctors were the most easily convinced and adamant adherents to the Cause. I can think of several reasons that's true. I hate to say that my experience with my colleagues is that if one pisses on a fire hydrant, they all piss on the fire hydrant - and thy will be the first to go after you if you don't. One doesn't get through medical school without being able to at least fake being a follower. There are some true leaders, yes, but they're rare, rare, rare.
I appreciate this insight. I tend to think intelligent people think for themselves. I will adjust my thought on that.
When the war in Ukraine started, our Mexican gardener said: “yeah, sure, go ahead, load them with weapons, that area will be in fire for a decade now…”
It will. It will be nothing short of Afganistán.
While our Silicon Valley highly educated elite is cheering.
It is galling. Ang your fardener was spot on.
Bari, thank you for another article showing the politicization of almost everything, medicine, law, biology, high school debate, et al. When science is beyond debate, it's propaganda. By the way, historically, there were far more transgender males than females, and their gender dysphoria began around age two. Now we have many more transgender girls who began feeling like boys in their teenage years with no such antecedent feelings. This is strong evidence that ROGD should be studied as a possible social contagion.
Uh, huh. In 1930s Germany the doctors were actually out ahead of the politicians. So, it was mostly the other way around with the medical community convincing the politicians who found it useful. Sound familiar?
"Still, doctors embraced eugenics with shocking enthusiasm and radicalism. They didn’t simply “go along” with Hitler, they were already so steeped in this quasi-scientific ideology that they were out ahead of Nazi politicians. “The German medical community set its own course in 1933. In some respects this course even outpaced the new [Nazi] government, which had to rein in the profession's eager pursuit of enforced eugenic sterilisations.”
"Echoes of Eugenics: What the Doctors Trial at Nuremberg Means for Us in the US
On the 75th anniversary of the trial of Nazi doctors at Nuremberg we examine Nazi medicine and gender-affirming care AUG 30, 2022"
https://pitt.substack.com/p/echoes-of-eugenics-what-the-doctors
I recommend reading the whole thing.
"Sound familiar?"
Brandon went to town halls during his campaign and celebrated the "transition" of 8 year old girls, talking about "The Civil Rights Movement of our Time". In the same way, the politicians in Germany found the Ideology coming out of medicine very useful in the 1930s. Medicine was out in front of politics then as now.
BTW, Rick Levine really needs to be removed from his position as first female admiral health secretary - where he promotes harm to children and calls it "care".
Rare indeed. And generally vilified. Especially if they have the temerity to be correct.
As you know.
Never held YOU back, by God.
Well, I do have kinda thick skin.
And that's why I call you Moshe.
;-)
The recent COVID situation is a testament - when doctors en masses turned away from therapeutic means to help sick and instead followed the treatment formula the party required.
The more exclusive the institution, the more the people inside it will do anything they are told, in order to retain their position.
I think most of them don't realize their own behavior - it simply becomes the default to follow what the rest of the group does.
Lemmings.
"Physicians were one of the strongest demographics behind the Nazi vote. Lawyers were generally favorable to Nazi policies as well. Intellectuals are not a single group, but the ones with an economic interest in politics often favored National Socialism.
Doctors were interested in eugenics ideology, at the time a key Progressive platform. Lawyers saw growth in various racial law areas and expanding scope of criminal activity as new areas for work. Their economic interests were more or less aligned with Fascism.
Other intellectuals, such as Marxists were opressed, but it was very common for KPD members to join the Nazis and there was no particular problem with them doing so. Only active Communists were prosecuted.
In conclusion it depends on the type of intellectuals, but the white collar professions were generally Fascist. If you were to express it as a percentage it would be high among professional degrees. Finding unveristy data would be harder because there was no centralized state University system at the time.
Also, if it helps, Technical University Munchen was a major Fascist organizing ground."
Abortion and Eugenics in Nazi Germany Henry P. David, Jochen Fleischhacker and Charlotte Hohn Population and Development Review Vol. 14, No. 1 (Mar., 1988), pp. 81-112
German Lawyers and the State in the Weimar Republic Kenneth F. Ledford Law and History Review Vol. 13, No. 2 (Autumn, 1995), pp. 317-349
The Germans were inspired by the eugenics movement in America of the early 1900s. Woodrow Wilson was a fan.
European fascists were inspired by Woodrow Wilson. Another guy with a PhD.
The enlightened wonderful Swedes didn't stop eugenics until the 70s.
https://www.nature.com/articles/37848
Thank you. Great and very pertinent information. Hitler may not have been particularly well educated, but the Nazi hierarchy was chock full of people with doctorates.
Fifty years ago I was listening to a CBS radio commentator say 90% of all SS officers had their PHD. If true, it proves you don't have to be a semiliterate red neck to be a violent fanatic.
And the intellectual elites are quick to attack the intellectual capability/education of conservatives.
I've heard that too. They weren't just thugs, they were well-educated thugs.
There was a time when your average person held "Experts" in high regard, or at least defered to them. Today, Not So Much. (For Me) It started with Michael Crichton's State Of Fear, and the reaction to it. IF "They" (the Experts) are feeding me a line of Bull on The Climate, what else are they feeding me a line of Bull on? Sad to say as time has gone on, it appears, A Lot. When someone like Alex Jones is seen as just as credible as the CDC...Houston We Have A Problem.
Question: Is there a major national institution, that when they say This or That is True, your knee jerk reaction is to believe them? Because I'm having trouble coming up with one. We are seeing The Boy Who Cried Wolf syndrome being played out in Real Time/Life.
Exactly. Abigail Shrier called out the over reliance on "experts" in her book "Irreversible Damage". I was already jaded about government, banking/economists, media... Gender Ideology and the complicity of medicine, pharma , and the Education Complex added a few more to the list. We are in the lobotomy era only much worse.
Here is The Problem. Sometime They (The Experts) Are Going To Be Right. And no one will believe them. What if the CDC issues a warning about a new pandemic, and its a Black Death level pandemic and (say) 40% of the population doesn't believe them? By playing politics with Covid they have destroyed their credibility. I wish I had an answer.
When the next Black Death level pandemic hits, people will notice that 30-60% of the people they know are dying - they won't need experts to tell them to be careful.
Yes, I agree. They played politics with Covid and our children... maybe it was useful to have a "Civil Rights Movement of Our Time" as Biden said when he celebrated the "transition" of 8 year old girls on his campaign trail?
I liked this comment on a recent PITT substack article so much I want to reprint it here:
""Mama Ain't Playin'
Jul 7
See Bob Ostertag's book, Sex Science Self. Artificial hormones have always been a solution in search of a problem. They've been used to try to turn gay men straight; they've been used to chemically castrate sex offenders; and now they're being used to turn our daughters into cosmetic simulacrums of tiny men, and to turn our sons into false women.
I wouldn't trust an endocrinologist at this point any farther than I could spit a rat. (Dr. Will Malone of Idaho is the lone exception. He's been pursuing a quixotic challenge against his professional organization because of their creepy experimentation on kids.)"
I can't think of one either. The last 5-6 years erased the ones I trusted.
This may have been The Goal. How does a society function if Large parts of that society don't really trust its institutions?
For me, the last one to fall was the FBI. I had full belief in the FBI until 2016.
I would say by looking at our society that it doesn't.
The AMA lost its bearings years ago when it decided to become trendy. The AAPS--American Assoc of Physicians and Surgeons is pretty diametrically opposite to AMA: logic, not dogma. Reason, not populism. I tend to buy what they’re selling--subject to verification, of course. Ronnie was right.
American Assoc of Physicians and Surgeons. Never heard of them. Thanks, learn something new every day.
Wikipedia explains it ALL
The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) is a politically conservative non-profit association that promotes conspiracy theories and medical misinformation, such as HIV/AIDS denialism, the abortion-breast cancer hypothesis, and vaccine and autism connections. The association was founded in 1943 to oppose a government attempt to nationalize health care. The group has included notable members, including American Republican politicians Ron Paul, Rand Paul and Tom Price.
____________________________________________________________________________
Sounds like they are not buying The Narrative. This is a + for me.
AAPS. They are Good Dudes.
I lasted in the AMA for six months of a 40-year career, 'cos I needed the health insurance. Nincompoops, counterfeits, and psychopaths in the main.
Except there is no connection between vaccines and autism. If they are promoting that nonsense, then count me out.
They’re pretty up front about opposing it. One recent article was entitled “Covid-19: a weapon to fundamentally transform America.”
Should give you an idea how the group swings.
"We Are Five Days Away From Fundamentally Changing America"
Barack Obama Oct. 30 2008
WHAT if he didn't mean this a political rhetoric? Just asking a question.
AT A revent meeting of the Death Club, one of our members said that he loved the group because there were no "experts". just a bunch of us talking about what the heck happens to us when we take our last breath.
As a 75 yea old Christian I am REALLY LOOKING FORWARD to it. I get to go Home. The Bible doesn't really say much about it, except its Really Cool. I fully expect my mind to be Blown, and to say things like Of Course! Why Didn't See This Before, Its All So Plain Now.
If you have never read it before, check out Mitch Album's The Five People You Meet in Heaven. It is delightful.
I still own the homeplace where my cousin-the-widower doctor grew up, and several years ago I brought him from his nursing home to stay in the Old Place for a night. He was in his early nineties and suffered horribly from joint pain but was SO glad to re-live older and better times.
He'd lost his wife about twenty years before. We were having a nice discussion about her over breakfast and he told me, "I'm looking forward to dying soon. I miss my wife so very much and I am looking forward to the day I can see her again." I hope he got his wish.
IMO the politicization of science started with climate change. It was born in ‘89 with James Hanson and has been a relentless wrecking ball ever since. Like most politicized science, there was a grain of truth in Hanson’s initial warning, but it has been warped and disfigured beyond recognition. Climate change alarmism should serve as a warning. After 35 years of failed prediction after failed prediction, the political movement is seemingly as strong as ever. No mountain of counter factual data discourages the enlightened class.
Well, the climate is changing and the Earth is getting warmer. There's no getting around that fact. The question is whether the pollution we create is responsible for that warming, or if Nature is doing it all on her own.
Me, I think Nature is doing what Nature has done for a billion years: Hot then Cold then Hot then Colt then Hot. Currently we're in a hot stage. Eventually we'll switch to cool, and then the next Ice Age. I don't see how the pollution we generate affects that very much,.
But reducing that pollution is a good idea even if doesn't touch the "warming" problem. Clear air and water is better for us than dirty, so why not reduce pollution on health grounds alone? Sure, if reducing pollution helps stem the heating, that's a bonus. But it's not necessary; getting rid of acid rain, forever chemicals, smog, and Cancer Alleys are worth it by itself.
Note that I said reduce, not eliminate. We can't eliminate pollution, not in the advanced society people want. But we can reduce pollution considerably, and should do as much as we can of that without melting down our economies.
Going whole-hog with modern nuclear will rid of us much fossil-fuel pollution. Rebuilding the national power grid will allow electric appliances and tools to replace many (though not all) gas-powered ones, cleaning the air even more. Capturing the methane generating by thousands of landfills and piping it into boilers can generate power locally. Planting billions of trees around the planet will clean the air, cool the land, and trap carbon, as well as provide homes for animals. Etc.
None of that hurts the economy, only enhances it; takes millions of tons of pollution out of land, sea, and skies; and may even slow the heating of the planet.
Carbon dioxide is not a "pollutant" in any normal sense. We humans generate a lot of CO2 with every breath. That CO2 is the most essential chemical for life on earth, after H2O. Every carbon atom in a corn plant or a Redwood Tree comes from the CO2 in the air. Co2 is not biologically harmful at 420 parts per million in the air. Increased CO2 has made the earth GREENER by an area the size of the 48 states. It is GOOD for plants, and ultimately good for all animal life, which depend on plants. There is a simple, straightforward way to address global warming if it ever actually becomes excessive. Solar Radiation Mitigation (SRM) is what happens naturally when a major volcano erupts and puts sulfate particles into the stratosphere. After Mount Pinatubo erupted in the 1990s, the earth's temperature dropped a full degree for a year. Humanity can cause that same effect intentionally by spraying sulfur oxides from the many commercial planes that fly across the northern hemisphere every day. Scientists have worked out that it is so cheap that any medium size nation could END GLOBAL WARMING FOR THE ENTIRE EARTH. Global warming alarmists are panicking because China might just do that, and take away their excuse for controlling our use of energy.
Thanks for this, Raymond. CO2 is not a pollutant in the sense that burning tires are, I agree. But too much of anything is not necessarily good for us. You say 420 ppm isn't biologically harmful. What level would be harmful, if you know, and where are we on that scale right now?
I have zero desire for any nation to spray sulfur oxides into the atmosphere to cause "global cooling." None. If it backfires, as so many tech schemes have, the result would be instantly catastrophic. It's not worth the risk, especially when you say that CO2 buildup is not harmful to us.
Show me the $$$$, I will show you the bullshit, it’s as simple as that!
As my wife used to say about life in Big Corporate, "The answer to every question is 'money.' "
Yip that’s exactly right
What is the "failure"? The earth is observably getting warmer. It's unrealistic to think that you can have 8 billion people, at least half of whom are burning coal, driving cars, etc. and have no effect at all on the atmosphere. We never had wildfire smoke days when I was growing up, rarely read about people dying of heatstroke, etc. Is some of it alarmist, sure, but even insurance companies and the military are factoring climate change into their decisions. They wouldn't be doing that if it was false.
The actual number of people dying from heat has been dropping drastically throughout the 20th Century since the invention of air conditioning. As for smoke, I am 73 and there was a lot of wildfire smoke over the years. The number of actual forest fire acres has dropped over the past century as we have gotten smarter. As Smoky Bear says, 90% of wildfires are caused by careless humans. Brush and trees do not spontaneously combust at 120 degrees. They need a careless cigarette or an unextinguished campfire to get going.
As this author is maintaining......it's about the cancellation of the discussion as much as the results of a certain kind -- not getting published. They limit the discussion to their view only. Dangerous.
For you to say Climate Change is real....because the military and Insurance companies say so!! My God......let's never stop hearing alternative viewpoints.
If you want to take an objective look at climate change, the first thing that strikes you is that for at least two decades this has been turned into a purely religious issue, with excommunication of heretics (“deniers”) and immense pressure on climate scientists to provide only “correct” answers in their study. As this immense pressure is brought on the scientific community and the public at large, all the legacy media would never say a word on the cultist aspect of the phenomenon. A dead giveaway is that the whole thing is sold strictly as a bundle: man-made climate change, “attribution science” (all negative weather events are due to climate change), what the priorities should be (prioritize disease elimination which can save millions of lives at relatively little expense or spend many trillions on forward models). Now if you’re just questioning the forced transition to EVs (which is clearly shown to have minimum results) you are a “denier”, just as much as if you would say there’s no man-made climate change. You have to be completely brainwashed not to notice these clear signs of a major con job.
History has shown "experts" to be spectacularly wrong time after time, particularly when they all benefit from having the same government-approved and funded point of view. No, show me the numbers. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
CO2 represents four parts in ten-thousand of the atmosphere, equivalent to the first four seconds of a 2-1/2 hour walk, to put it in perspective. And it's not even the most common after nitrogen, oxygen, and water vapor. It is 1/30th as common as argon (0.93%). So why don't the global warming people target argon? Because it's not man-made and can't be used as a cudgel to further their Marxist world-government agenda.
So a trace gas, constantly being removed from the atmosphere and used by plants to make the oxygen that keeps all animals alive, including humans, in an atmosphere that is a mere sliver compared to the size of the planet, is swamping the effects of radionuclide decay in the earth and radiant energy from a nearby star?
I don't think so.
And poverty has declined by 90% in the last one hundred years. The scares of the 70s never happened. I read the books and was alarmed but huh, NONE of them actually materialized. Regarding insurance companies and the military, you can't be serious. You have noticed that the military has been lying the US into wars for a VERY, VERY long time and their observations about climate are not be trusted or believed. Insurance companies have no special knowledge beyond mortality and risk tables that price the insurance you buy. They do not know if climate will change in either direction as it has numerous times in history. The 70s and 80s were full of alarmism about global cooling and by the way, cold temps kill many more than hot temps and that is observable based on actual facts, not projections by Al Gore, one of the great hucksters of the last 40 yrs and those like him. These people make Fauci look positively honest and well intended, when we know in fact he was and is not.
It Is Frustrating. I just call it The Narrative.
"State of Fear" was great, especially if you dig into the footnotes to see how well Crichton documented all the statements about climate in the book. The propaganda techniques used on global warming worked so well the Left has adapted them to everything now. Climate scientists have been getting cancelled for telling the truth for decades.
State of Fear was one of his better novels.
Youtube
Michael Crichton | States of Fear: Science or Politics?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDCCvOv3qZY&t=545s
Also
"Global Warming" Michael Crichton on Charlie Rose
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh4dIkEyfd0
9:30 mark
Something I hear the other day. Our prehistoric ancestors needed to know 2 things. 1. Where The Lions are, 2 where the bushes with the good berry's are. If you don't know whee the bushes with the Good Berry's are, you don't eat today, But you might eat tomorrow. If you don't know where The Lions are, You Die. We're had wired to look for and expect the worst.
Thank you, thank you. I have been participating on this BBS for over a year. I consider myself to be a moderate conservative. I know to many moderate is a dirty word. I try to keep an open mind. On some things I am hard core conservative on others, not so much.
The point of this preamble is, I hope, to prove I am not some sort of right wing fanatic who sees a communist behind every bush. With trepidation I have been saying the Democrats are now socialists and some hard core communists. There is very little difference between a socialist and a communist if any difference at all.
In the past anyone who said that called anyone or an organization a communist was lumped in with Joe McCarthy as a glassy eyed nut case. You calling out the Marxists gives me some validation that I am not a glassy eyed right wing fanatic. I am not a fanatic. I am a realist.
Thanks again.
I want to start an anonymous site called “how I became MAGA” and share stories from moderate conservatives and liberals on how the came to notice and disassociate from the extremes on their side and when and how they were labeled MAGA for breaking from the “woke” narrative!
I think of "socialist" sort of like I think of "agnostic," who's really an atheist without the strength of conviction. Maybe "commie-light" would be a better term, but no matter; in the end the effect is the same.
Well put.
I refer to myself as a truth seeker. Much in common with you.
"There is very little difference between a socialist and a communist if any difference at all."
I dunno, one can hold that the government should be run for the benefit of ordinary people, not the globalist plutocracy. I don't think that quite equates to Stalinism. Denmark seems like a nice place.
None of the Scandinavian countries are socialist countries. The left would like you to think they are but they are not.
They are capitalist countries with large social programs and they tax the living daylights out of their citizens to maintain these programs.
... which makes them 'socialist' as most people use the term. One can define socialist and equivalent to communist but that's not what most people do, they define socialism as a more humane mixed economy. I know no self described socialist who advocates the downfall of capitalism, they rather want to tame it and redirect some of the benefits to working people.
The definition of socialism is the government owns all businesses and runs them. All businesses. The government can't run a lemonade stand much less a business.
socialism
sō′shə-lĭz″əm
noun
Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.
The stage in Marxist-Leninist theory intermediate between capitalism and communism, in which the means of production are collectively owned but a completely classless society has not yet been achieved.
Specifically, in Germany, legislation, supported by Prince Bismarck, intended to improve the condition of the working-man. Among the measures included were the insurance of workmen against accident, sickness, and old age, and the establishment of cooperative associations under state protection.
People commonly used the 3d of those definitions. We have no need for a synonym for communism, but we do need to distinguish between plutocratic capitalism and the more humane variant. Righties seem to think that being careful to not label Denmark as socialist somehow changes any facts on the ground but it doesn't. People commonly call Bernie Sanders a socialist even tho he doesn't advocate for the end to private ownership. Words mean what we use them to mean. Some throw 'social democracy' and 'democratic socialism' into the glossary too but in the minds of most people socialism is what they do in Denmark, communism is what they did in the USSR or China, capitalism is what they do in the USA.
We will have to agree to disagree. Socialism is "The race to the bottom".
There is such thing as democratic socialism. Give me one example of a democratic socialist country.
Denmark. Anyway, as I've said I'm not interested in labels since most political labels are now either useless or downright counter-informative -- the Left now being the enemy of the working man and the friend of the globalists.
Funny thing, that strange 30 year period between '45 and '75 when even working people enjoyed a considerable slice of the pie. We sorta got to accepting that as 'normal'. It wasn't. Never before and probably never again.
The U.S. taxes the living daylights out of me already so what's the difference. Everyone acts like Federal Income Tax is the only tax, and it's low compared to other countries, but add in 15% FICA tax and the 28% suddenly becomes 43%. Then state and local taxes and you're well past the 50% range. Then add health care costs on top of that which you wouldn't pay in most other countries and Denmark doesn't look so bad.
What I've believed for a long time, too: if you added up every single tax you pay over the course of a year--and don't forget the hidden ones like in your phone, cable, and water bills--our level of taxation would be in the range of Europe ... but we get a lot less bang for that buck in comparison. I don't mind paying high taxes for a high level of service, but we have the worst of both worlds--high taxes and mediocre to lousy services.
Good point.
Perhaps instead of belaboring definitions it would be better to look at results. The US is a country in which the rich are getting richer (beyond the dreams of avarice, beyond the ability to even spend the money), and the workers are getting poorer. Call that whatever you like and it's been going on steadily under both parties. Denmark still has the remnants of the idea that the economy should work for the ordinary citizen -- again, call that whatever you like.
True enough. I remember reading a piece that described wealth like a 100 story hotel. Half the people are on the ground floor. The next 40% are on the first or second floor. The next 9% are on the third through fifth floors. Beyonce is on the 400th floor. Jeff Bezos is past the 15,000th floor. At one point last month, the 14 wealthiest people INDIVIDUALLY had more money than the entire U.S. government.
I totally understand that the harder you work the more rewards you can make, but at a certain point ($1 billion?) excessive wealth starts harming everyone else.
How? It's not a zero-sum game. A lot of the massive wealth at the top is simply because of growth in stock price of a given company. It is unrealized gain - not cash sitting in a bank.
"Jeff Bezos is past the 15,000th floor."
But they say that Amazon paid zero federal taxes last year. A stat I love is that the 1% spend more money feeding their pets than the bottom half of the population spend feeding their kids. Nevermind! The libertarians assure me it's all for the best.
I'd call it Bidenomics. Under Biden, inflation has outpaced wage growth, the opposite of the previous administration, which also cut taxes in a way that benefitted almost everyone. OTOH, it's unfair to blame the ridiculous levels of deficit spending we've had for decades on one President or one party.
It was ludicrous for both administrations to claim that the crazy spending during during the pandemic was not going to cause inflation.
There's an honest remark. Indeed I've seen stats to the effect that the deficit has risen more under GOP administrations than under Rats. What is true is that for the last 40 or 50 years the common people have been getting poorer and the plutocrats have been doing very well.
I don't think so. https://www.libertarianism.org/media/around-web/are-poor-getting-poorer
The Scandinavian countries are different in that their socialism grew much more organically. They have long been societies focused on charitable giving (partly, I suspect, due to Lutheranism) and ensuring the common good (a necessity in their harsh climate). The idea of turning those efforts over to the government to administer more centrally (and theoretically, more effectively)--while appalling to us Americans--seemed perfectly logical to them.
But their Leftists have largely taken over, importing thousands of "refugees" who will not assimilate, and who are wreaking havoc on their societies.
Denmark seems to be the only one of those nations that has attempted to fight back. But with the collapse of the anti-immigration government, I have my doubts as to whether they will be able to hold the line.
I don't know if the Danish Gov runs any businesses. They through taxes pay for everything.
"But their Leftists have largely taken over"
It goestoshowya how nearly useless terms like 'Leftist' have become. By *definition* socialists are leftists, no? Yet, as you allude, the 'left' is now equated with the progressives. But IMHO that's a hostile takeover and as a paleo-socialist I can assure one and all that I loathe woke Progressivism as much as any Rightie. Meanwhile the Progressives, tho considering themselves lefties, have been seduced by the globalist plutocrats (are they lefties or righties? ) to do the work of dividing and weakening the working class. Good work comrades!
I am a hard core capitalist. Capitalism has worked for thousands of years. Communism has never worked, neither has a real socialist country if there ever was a real socialist country. Usually the left goes straight to communism, not socialism and then move to communism.
But the Danes (and the Swiss and many other countries) have managed to be 'capitalist' and yet the common people do well. Call it whatever you like. I call it government of the people, by the people, for the people (not the plutocracy).
The European countries you reference are infinitesimally smaller in population and GDP than the U.S. And until fairly recent history, they have been much more homogeneous, read not diverse, populations. With much greater social cohesion, work ethic, and shared culture, they have been much more willing to contribute to, and support programs for the common good. Their small size also makes these programs much less costly and easier to manage.
I'd not say 'infinitesimally smaller', that's a bit of an exaggeration but I agree with your point. Except that small size doesn't make anything less costly *per person* -- smaller outputs but smaller inputs too.
The difference is the people in Scandanavian countries have a strong work ethic which has been diluted by unfettered Middle Eastern immigration. The Swiss have always had very low unemployment rates. Again, a strong work ethic. When unemployment is low and the Swiss need workers they used to invite Spanish workers in to fill the employment gaps. As unemployment rises they ship the Spanish back to Spain. That is a fifty year old policy. It may have changed now.
I did not know or think of it in those terms.
As with everything else, it's all about culture. Americans descended from Scandinavian immigrants tend to have the same kind of work ethic, and therefore have similar financial outcomes to their cousins in Scandinavia. A lot the success of the Utah pioneers was due to Scandinavian immigrant converts to the LDS church.
Those countries are discovering to their sorrow that when you invite people who do not share the same basic understandings about society, those people will not integrate well. For example, when a Muslim immigrant rapes a Swedish woman, he thinks that is completely legitimate: she was alone (she should have been guarded by a male family member) and she was wearing the clothing of a whore (showing her legs, arms, and face).
Either Scandinavian societies will change to conform with the expectations of their non-assimilating immigrants or they will have to get serious about the issue and push back. And since they are being led by Leftists who try to prevent the media from reporting on issues caused by immigrants, I think it's easy to guess which way that will go.
Sure, a people need to 'deserve' a social welfare system. The 'wrong people' will ruin it. However the plutocrats will ruin it too for there own reasons and perhaps insuring that it becomes dysfunctional was always their plan. Again, the Marxist wokies and the globalist plutocracy might have different motives but they both agree that Western Civilization must be trashed, thus the latter promote the former.
I agree, Ray. It's a good model, and we should adapt the parts that help everyday people within our own shores. The problem we will have is that corporate and government interests in the status quo are so hardened that nothing significant will change ... and voters will not demand it change.
Yes. Desperate times. A hero is needed. A Marcus, a Churchill, a Lincoln.
I think the difference between socialists and communists is that socialists win elections and communists have revolutions to gain power. Once in power, there isn't much difference. Whether the riots of 2020 were the beginning of the American communist revolution remains to be seen.
JUST A THOUGHT TEX.
I don't believe there are capitalist's and communist's anymore. For instance, both Hitler and Mao were ultimately monster's capable of rationalizing any human atrocity for the sake of power and control. No ideology describe's the horror they represented. Even if captured no human punishment would have atoned for the human damage they inflicted. Label's like socialist/communist or capitalist, even corporate fascism serve as smokescreen's. None of those word's appear in our Constitution and we accept defeat when we allow what are actually avaricious thug's to control the American national dialogue by forcing the conversation into those term's. The brave judge in Louisiana that called out the D.C. surveillance state and placed an injunction against their collusion with tech billionaires to subvert American free elections and speech wasn't fighting an ideology, he is in combat with the DNC/EU/CCP/Davos perp's hoping to turn the world into an open air prison. (Subscription journalism helped make the ruling possible.) The perp's believe in power, throw away labor and the exploitation of resources without consequence. That's it. The Constitution is in their way.
The economic capture and compromise of elected political system's throughout Western "democracy" by billionaire financier's is allowing their obvious attempt's to re-engineer the political/social/financial narrative across the world and implement CCP style (15 minute cities/travel by permit/citizen mass surveillance, etc.) repression of individual freedoms like speech and movement. European's are fighting back. The so called "globalist" DNC/Davos crowd has wrecked every life and society it touched. The French riot's, the Dutch farmers, the collapsed economy in Sri Lanka, the hidden citizen rendition prison's in China (where they make their money), the American 2008 crash, arrest's for thought crimes in Great Britain, all.
Who, in the name of Bud Light, is funding and organizing the opposition to free speech and idea's in America? The tactic is certainly recognizable. False moral indignation, the mob pile-on, cancellation, career and character criminalization/assassination, the poseur expert and the corporate/federal grant given to well paid class war elitist grifter's who have no actual moral argument but somehow find support from MSM/surveillance state operatives. Who does chaos serve? Could it be the international looter's who gutted American industry and walked away with pension funds, homes and savings in 2008?
America is living inside a manufactured lie. Throw the rascals out (and prosecute).
Or, Lonesome, labeled a “MAGA, White Supremest, Racist, ... blah, blah, blah ... fill in the derogatory blank”
I totally agree (identify) with your statement!
Ah Ha! So in other words you are a Globalist, GOPe, RINO, Secret Socialist, who voted for Hillary Clinton. As we suspected All Along! :-)
"I need some new conspiracies, all the old one came true." Elon Musk
All of the above.
LOL!
I didn't think that anything was scarier than "equity" based science; I was wrong. Simply reinforces my bias against any doctor much younger than I am.
I’ve already decided to never go to a doctor who graduated from med school after 2020 (might also be my cutoff for finishing their internship and residency, we’ll see). The absolute nonsense they’re being force fed these days is appalling. Wait until people start dying from the future malpractice. One can only hope that the majority of the victims are those that DEI medicine was supposed to protect. Poetic Justice.