Jeffrey Neil Jackson

Battle with the Bureaucrats

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“After all, the chief business of the American people is business” is a quote from Calvin Coolidge in 1925. From 2016 to 2020 America had a president who was primarily a businessman. While many politicians would see the presidency as their ultimate achievement, there are plenty of politicians who will never attain that office, for various reasons. It seems that someone with only a business background and no political experience would have no chance of winning the office of the presidency. Yet, in 2016, we elected a president who had never held public office before.

When faced with a pandemic of enormous proportion, in nine months, the president via Operation Warp Speed motivated public officials and the private sector to concentrate their efforts and created two vaccines, in a speed that will go down in history. Not that the president will be remembered for that, though. In 2020 the American stock market roared back, to heights that exceeded Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom, while home sales and automobile sales swelled.

Impeachment 2.0
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Democrats Disingenuous Demeanor

As quoted recently, on or about October 26, 2020 by political journal  The Hill, by reporter Celine Castronuovo, Rep. Alexandria  Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) took to Twitter late Monday to call for the  expansion of the Supreme Court as Amy Coney Barrett was sworn in as a  justice, with the progressive first-term lawmaker arguing that  Republicans don’t believe Democrats “have the stones to play hardball  like they do.”

More of AOC from The Hill:  “Remember that Republicans have lost 6 of the last 7 popular votes, but have appointed 6 of the last 9 justices,” she wrote. “By expanding the court, we fix this broken system and have the court better represent the values of the American people.”

OK, Um, don’t we have the Electoral College so that populous, left-leaning states such as New York and California do not run roughshod over the more sparsely populated states? If you choose to do  away with the Electoral College, then, by all means be fair, and offer  the states such as Wyoming, Iowa, the Dakotas and the other  conservative states the option of seceding, since it seems that they  do not share the “values of the American people.”

While AOC may be the spokesperson for socialist-leaning “let’s take from the rich and then give all the money away” folks in her congressional district, I’m not convinced that she is a “spokesperson for the American people.”

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Racism, Riots, and Our Republic

The tragic death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, has set into motion a public outcry that will go down in American history. In Mr. Floyd’s case, the officer who was responsible for his safety will be held responsible for his demise. Anyone issued handcuffs should be aware of the fact that handcuffed suspects who are laid on their stomachs cannot breathe because the pressure on the diaphragm restricts their breathing. If the officer charged in the death claims he was never advised of the potential danger, then he should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, under the much-used police phrase: “ignorance of the law is no excuse.” 

The United States is a nation of laws, where those who enforce those laws are the police. Accused of being the hands of unfair laws and enforcers of discriminatory policies, there are now movements to defund and even disband police departments. There have been riots, burned buildings, and destroyed public monuments. There have also been dozens of murders of those of the same race as George Floyd, all presumed just as innocent (certainly the murdered children were innocent) as Mr. Floyd. How the murders of innocent citizens will motivate legislatures remains to be seen. Which moves us to legislation.

Image Credit: NY State Senate
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The Mortality of the Meritocracy Mentality

*Who is the luckiest person you have ever met or known? Were they all wealthy, or did they have some other sources of satisfaction with their lives, be it love, family, religion, other than being filthy rich?

Clifton Mark, in an article on the website Aeon, closed a disappointing essay on meritocracy with the following:  “Despite the moral assurance and personal flattery that meritocracy offers to the successful, it ought to be abandoned both as a belief about how the world works and as a general social ideal. It’s false, and believing in it encourages selfishness, discrimination and indifference to the plight of the unfortunate.”

My first question would be: Don’t those people who were born into wealth, sent to expensive private schools (fully stocked with legacies), and who then take positions in organizations where legacies are the rule and not the exception, also have a considerable amount of selfishness, discrimination and indifference to the plight of the unfortunate? Why stop with meritocracy? Aristocrats have a long history of a callus disregard for those less fortunate than themselves.

The prevalence of the term “privileged” used to epitomize a generation that regards hard work as pointless is approaching its maximum; Mr. Mark is preaching to the choir of the privileged generation, who are dyspathetic to hard work of any kind. Keep Reading

China Goes Viral

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*The global economy has suffered and enormous punch to the gut, and the economies of many nations are coughing and wheezing while dozens of their citizens perish. The culprit in this calamity is the Coronavirus, also known as COVID-19. The origin of this pandemic (empowered by the global economy) has been traced to the city of Wuhan, in Hubei province, China, where it emerged in December of 2019.

Actually, according to Helen Davidson of “The Guardian,” COVID-19 was first detected on November 17 of 2019, and by March 13, 2020, had killed 4,702 people. The Chinese government only admitted that there was human-to-human contact on January 21 of 2020. Doctor Ai Fen of the Wuhan Central hospital lost four of her fellow doctors to the virus and is guilty of “criticizing hospital authorities for suppressing early warnings of the outbreak.” To further add to the global mayhem, Dr. Fen and whistleblower ophthalmologist Li Wenliang were risking their jobs as well as detention to reveal to the public about the conditions in Wuhan. The global economy advances (and kills) everyone equally, if not for the preparations by their nation. Keep Reading

President Trump: Excessive Examination and the Expected Exoneration

*On Tuesday, February 4, 2020 The Senate of the United States announced the acquittal of President Donald J. Trump.  Only the third president in history to be impeached, and just as the other two, (William Clinton and Andrew Johnson) he was not removed by the Senate. Richard Nixon would have been removed, but he resigned before that could have happened.

First, it was the Russian Investigation that was going to provide all of the charges to get Trump impeached. Instead, it simply drew attention to a Justice department that was taking the side of the Democrats, and F.B.I. managers who were willing to disregard the law in the interests of Democrats. The law was being ignored and testimony was doctored, with evidence (or lack of evidence) that was tilted towards a $24 million investigation that yielded very little. Keep Reading

Qassem Soleimani: Ravaging, Revolutionizing, and Retribution

*Richard M. Nixon’s book The Real War has a list of rules for the presidency. Rule number six is: “Never let your adversary underestimate what you would do in response to a challenge. Never tell him in advance what you would not do.”

Just so you understand, invading the embassy of a sovereign nation is the same as invading that nation. The embassy is the soil of that nation. Period. This is why citizens of a foreign nation can seek refuge in an embassy, because wherever that embassy is, whatever nation the embassy resides in, it cannot be violated by the hosting nation. Not that terrorists care anything about international law or have any respect for sovereign nations, mind you.

killing of Soleimani

Iran violated the aforementioned internationally recognized precept on November 4, 1979, lasting until January 20, 1981. Keep Reading

Amy Chua: Equality, Elitism, Ethics and the New American Elite

*In a June 13, 2019 article in the Financial Times (headquartered in London, England) journalist Edward Luce reported on Amy Chua’s “shrewd string-pulling” to get her daughter a position as a clerk for recently-appointed Supreme Court judge Brett Kavanaugh. To quote Mr. Luce: “This week Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld, Ms. Chua’s daughter, was hired as a Supreme Court clerk by Brett Kavanaugh — the judge for whom her mother vouched during his stormy Senate hearings last autumn. Ms. Chua is a shrewd string-puller. A Supreme Court clerkship sets up a young lawyer for life. Whether she is enjoying the publicity is another matter. Overnight the Chuas have turned into emblems of what Americans distrust about their meritocracy.”Was what Ms. Chua did a “quid quo pro?” And if so, how many quid quo pros are out there? The reality is that many myths and legends exceed their grandiose depictions. Keep Reading

Androgyny’s Abrogation

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*Here’s the call:

Dispatcher: 911 what is your emergency?

Caller: I think we have a heart attack victim.

Dispatcher: OK please tell me the age and sex of the victim.

Caller: I can’t.

Dispatcher: You can’t tell me the age and sex of the victim?

Caller: About 40 years old, I guess, but I don’t know the sex.

Dispatcher: You don’t know the sex?

Caller: They’re androgynous. Keep Reading

Bogus Blaming of Baby Boomers

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*One Lyman Stone, in The Atlantic of June 24, 2019, blames the Baby Boomers for many of the problems in America, in an article titled “The Boomers Ruined Everything.” According to Stone, the younger Americans (Gen X, Millennials) are having a hard time, economically and otherwise, because of the acts and behavior of the Baby Boomers. The Baby Boomers ruined everything about America? Hardly. Stone’s universal generalization is the first key flaw in his argument. But let’s take a look.

To start off with, Stone begins with this gem: “The average U.S. state constitution is more than 100 years old. We are in the third-longest period without a constitutional amendment in American history: The longest such period ended in the Civil War.” What about our treasured Constitution needs to be changed? He offers no suggestions, so allow me to suggest one. Keep Reading

Tumblr’s Tumultuous Tumble

*David Karp, the founder of Tumblr, didn’t invent Tumblr. According to Business Insider: “In March 2005, a 17-year-old German high school student named Chris Neukirchen invented this tumblelog system, specifically for super-short blogging.” Karp is in no way guilty of purloining the software, as demonstrated, again, by Business Insider: “It’s important to point out that Karp didn’t ‘steal’ Tumblr. His format was new and advanced the short-form blogging format in several ways.”

Lots of good ideas are started, and then someone takes the idea to a higher level. Andrew Carnegie didn’t invent steel, Henry Ford didn’t invent the automobile, but both became wealthy by capitalizing on an existing idea. Originally, the internet was a way for scientists to communicate with one another. Look where it has gone. Keep Reading

The “Squad’s” Squalid Statements

*Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is offering a lot of people hope. Hope for a new beginning, hope for a new life, hope for peace and prosperity. The U.S. government is supposed to wave its magic wand and grant all of those things to people from other nations who are innocent and only want the aforementioned. The pursuit of these goals is being vociferously advocated by citizens calling themselves “global citizens” a group of Americans who do not understand citizenship.

Did I mention that they themselves are hoping for a great deal number of people who will vote for them?

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Prisons ↑ Crimes ↓ – America 2019

*The crime rate in the U.S. has been going down since 1993. There are several explanations for the decline in crime, some of my favorites being that cell phones and the internet have lowered the crime rate. The folks that suggest that crime is going down have their favorite theories, and tend to insist that crime has gone down because of whatever cause for which they are currently stumping. I would like to consider a few reasons other than cell phones and the internet.

In a more expansive viewpoint, I would suggest that there are several factors that have caused the crime rate of the U.S. to decline. Of course, Chicago and several other cities have yet to witness any decline in crime, so obviously the decline has not touched those places; nonetheless, crime in the U.S. has declined since 1994. Every announcement of the continuing crime wave sweeping over Chicago is met with deep disdain and helplessness, as the futile efforts of the authorities seem unable to lessen the out-of-control violent crime, even for a county with some very strict firearm regulations. Keep Reading

Trump’s Tirade at the Coup

*The media of today (2019) are so incredibly inaccurate and uneducated that it is difficult to understand how they were hired as reporters or commentators. Zack Ford, on the website Thinkprogress thinks he can correct the president on the use of a political term that he doesn’t think is appropriately used. Mr. Ford, and many of his co-conspirators in the media, think that Mr. Trump is incorrect when he uses the term “coup d’etat” for the Mueller investigation. As one member of the media stated on one of the Sunday discussions, they insisted that President Trump was in error because “coup d’etat” means military overthrow of the government. Keep Reading

The Conceivable Chinese Contention

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*China is an interesting state, and becoming a bigger player on the world stage as time passes. Having lost wars to major powers in the more recent century, China is deliberately moving on the world stage and is determined to exercise its power in the twenty-first century. In terms of assets, China is creating man-made islands in the South China Sea, in order to enlarge its global footprint, claiming manmade islands as part of their sovereign nation and attempting to curtail traffic in the open seas. Keep Reading

College Cash Calamity

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*As the French say: “Those that profit from crime are guilty of it.” Your parents slid $50k to a university official and got you in to the college of your dreams. Some of the parents had people doctor their children’s SAT tests so that the higher score would smooth their way to getting into an elite college.  One of the “internet sensation” applicants spoke of the excitement of “game days” and “parties” and, for some strange reason, never mentioned long hours in the library researching hypnotic age regression, poring over financial reports to find the best company for which to write a paper, or going to the math lab for help with calculus.

Ah, college, all of the great memories; not having money, driving and older car hoping it doesn’t break down, lack of sleep, staying up late for tests the next day, the pressure of exam week, and all for the reward of letters and emails of rejection. They’re glad you got that degree, not that it means anything to them, mind you. Well worth it. Keep Reading

Automation’s Animus Against the Affluent

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*It has come to pass, that AI (Artificial Intelligence) and robotics (the word robot comes from the Russian language, meaning work) are moving ahead as fast as they can be built. AI and robotics are inseparable, presenting a one-two punch to anyone who gets in its way, or, in the way of the people who are creating it.

AI, robotics, the internet and the global economy, a synergistic economy-changing juggernaut, have made things very good for some and quite painful for others. As the unions in the U.S. declined, the wages of the non-union employees fell, as when there were unions they lifted all wages as workers tried to get a job at the union shop and the non-union employers had to compete with employers paying union wages. Why couldn’t the unions embrace the internet? Why couldn’t the unions organize around programmers and coders?

Unions couldn’t get the attention of programmers, systems analysts, and the like, because the demand was so high that wages skyrocketed, and there weren’t many companies abusing programmers for every long, because they would just be poached by another organization where the grass was greener; their gourmet  lunch could be ordered and prepared in-house and they made, median salary, $175,000 per year at Google or $240,000 at Facebook. (Those numbers might be dated, as supplied by The Wall Street Journal some time ago.)

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The Donald, Demographics and Democracy

*President Donald Trump, to many people, is one of the worst presidents in history. I see no point in attempting to change anyone’s mind about this, nor do I have any desire to persuade anyone to look at the president differently. What I want to do is to explain why he was voted into office.

Economic Determinism

One of my favorite questions to ask any economics professor, and I have asked many of my economics professors, is this question: Does economic determine politics, or does politics determine economics? Most of the professors will hedge their answer, saying that the answer is a little bit of both. Keep Reading

Glassdoor Reviews – Miscreant Managers Mangling the Message

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*We all know that internet is teeming with liars. Conspiracy theorists and quasi-governmental “officials” claiming all kinds of things that never happened, and denying things that actually happened, in order to create doubt or encourage beliefs that will help them advance their atrocious agendas. As long as the liars stay within certain parameters, their impact is minimized and their fraudulence doesn’t affect many people. But then, not to affect many people would not serve the motives of the lying internet scoundrels. Keep Reading

Masticating Machismo’s Miscarriage – The Myth of Toxic Masculinity

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*After some consideration, the American Psychological Association has determined that being masculine is “psychologically harmful.” None to my surprise, the APA has determined that there is more than one gender, and that you are not necessarily the gender of your biological sex at birth.  The APA has concluded: “socialization for conforming to traditional masculinity ideology has been shown to limit males’ psychological development, constrain their behavior, result in gender role strain and gender role conflict, … and negatively influence mental health and physical health.”

This is good to know, and in the next paragraphs of this article I will explain what this behavior has engendered. The study indicates the source of many problems, excuse me, “male” problems that have burdened society for far too long.

Toxic Masculinity Keep Reading