A point I made yesterday in an essay on Dust in the Light was that we communicate with God in where we choose to direct our attention, and one of the ways in which we make that choice is by how we act. Taking an action is like moving your position on the landscape; your observations will be made in a world in which you took the action. Call it “action space.”
Revisiting James Lindsay’s analysis of Joe Biden’s trans-Easter affront has a related ring:
This provocation, published yesterday, is overwhelmingly likely aiming to feed into those prevailing active measures (“ops”) meant to drag Christians into a positions of fruitful reaction that the Regime can use to clamp down on them. Again, Christian reaction is their real action, and we know for certain that Christian circles are deeply infiltrated with a chest-beating and growing radicalism that is being baited toward and associated with a growing antisemitism. The responses to this post will almost certainly prove this out, btw. Your evil government wants this to happen. They are baiting you into it.
Because we live in a world of free will and Original Sin, God’s is not the only determinant of how the world responds to our actions. Other people play a role, and that can be manipulated. Activists can attempt to provoke actions, as Lindsay suggests, or they can use other techniques, like creating confusion by reacting in contrary ways.
In any event, such manipulation is contrary to fair play, pluralism, and democracy. It’s truly diabolical.
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Keep in mind that Thundermist Health Center is interwoven with Rhode Island’s political elite and is working within our school districts:
The “health center” is encouraging mental illness, not helping people with it.
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Somehow, despite ample reason for civic disappointment, I find I’m becoming less cynical as I get older, not more. Even now, when I come across reasoning like that expressed by young progressive Democrat Representative David Morales, I can’t help but feel hope that we can salvage reason from the flames of ideology:
Here’s the reality: if wages had kept up with worker productivity, the Minimum Wage would be over $23
Specifically, in Rhode Island, a single parent working full-time needs to earn $37 an hour to cover their family’s basic needs.
A $20 Minimum Wage isn’t radical!
The cynical voice of my younger self insists that Morales doesn’t actually care if he’s correct. He’s got marching orders for a particular policy (an ever-higher minimum wage) and will articulate any points he thinks will move it forward. Meanwhile, practical experience has taught me that points about economics and unintended consequences are discouragingly weak.
Arguments that the government is pricing many people right out of their jobs will fall to disbelief, reinforced with (questionable, in my view) progressive research, coupled with an underlying expectation that such consequences will only make the next stage of “progress” toward socialism easier. Suggesting that minimum wage jobs aren’t meant to be family-supporting — let alone hinting that we should also give some attention to the problem of single parenthood — smashes against non-judgmentalism about others’ expectations.
Nonetheless, I find hope in Morales’s attempt to bring productivity into the equation, because it indicates an area that he hasn’t thought through, and seeds of reason might grow in fallow ground.
A worker should absolutely make more money as he or she becomes more productive, because his or her work becomes more valuable per hour. However, when “workers” become more productive as a group because some technique or technology created efficiencies, it is a communal good whose benefit should be shared by all. If you discovered that a new, inexpensive, and easy-to-use tool enables your local car mechanic to finish an expensive repair in one-quarter the time, will you be happy that he’s kept his price for the job the same? No. You’ll look for another mechanic who has reduced the price. Then, competition between mechanics will divide up the benefits between the business owners, the employees, and the consumers.
Reality is complex and messy, but in a free system, the owners’ administration and investments would balance against the workers’ skill and the consumers’ wealth and access to other options. In the ideal situation, the owner would receive a proportional reward that encourages continued innovation; the workers’ reward would come in the value of their new skill and their ability to more-easily become managers and owners, themselves; and consumers would save money on this good or service and redirect that pool of wealth to the next area in which society places value and wants innovation.
When government gets involved — whether, in a given case, it is engaged in protectionism for the owners, redistribution for the workers, or socialism for the consumers — it is not working from economic incentives, but political incentives. Government introduces another group, politicians, who seek to take some of the benefit for their own gain in a way completely divorced from the actual transaction. They aren’t pure, and they aren’t guided by what’s fair and just. They profit by giving one or the other constituency more than it would receive if the balance were found naturally. It makes an economic transaction a measure of raw power.
Ultimately, those who share Morales’s view have lost sight not only of the individuals they imagine they support, but also the prioritization of the common good they claim to desire. They break us into warring factions of workers and bosses when in reality we’re a cooperative community, in which each of us usually plays all roles at different times and in different circumstances.
I believe the common good is an area of shared priority, and I hope our culture is still open-minded enough for progressives to remember that as they surge in power.
Featured image by Justin Katz using Dall-E 3.
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Roger Kimball has in mind, here, the attacks on Donald Trump:
The disappointing thing is how many Americans just don’t care, because the Democrats have whipped them into a frenzy of hatred. We are fortunate, indeed, to have basic rights protected in our fundamental laws, but no piece of paper can withstand the desire of a mob when it takes power. If too many people allow their principles to be corrupted, and if too few speak to uphold those principles that once were shared, the mob will have its way.
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Yes, we’ve reached the point that the place to get real, non-partisan journalism is on a social media platform from such people as “Mel,” whose X address is Villgecrazylady. For example:
The thread that follows explains how former Congressman Adam Kinzinger — a darling of the J6-investigation crowd — turned campaign donations into usable funds. Another good example is this pinned post from September 3, which observes the amazing and sudden shift of national politicians to micro-donations. There sure is a lot of smoke around this area; why aren’t mainstream journalists digging into it?
(Meanwhile, by the way, if you’re a Rhode Islander who wants to have some small effect on the well-being of your town or school district, you better find time to keep your miniscule campaign finances in order!)
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The point can’t be stressed enough that Rhode Islanders should understand the Washington Bridge debacle as a representative lesson on our state government. For that reason, not the least, Mark Patinkin’s conversations with local affected business owners is an article to print and review periodically in the future. Restauranteurs and venue owners bought and built their businesses with dreams of serving their communities. They have plans for improvements that would employ local contractors; they want to know their customers; they want the future to be better because of their work. And their revenue down by large percentages because of incompetent state government.
Perhaps the most–Rhode Island theme comes with this:
“We’re caught in the middle and nobody’s helping us,” said Steve. By “nobody,” he means the state. …
The only aid offered so far has been a low-interest loan from the federal Small Business Administration. But Bill Foeri told me that applying is arduous. And with a 4% interest rate after a grace period, it’s hardly a rescue package.
The state is offering debt, but these business owners don’t want debt. “That sinks us faster,” says one. They want grants, but that’s a trap, too.
Here’s the practical reality Rhode Island business owners have to understand: Our state government is not there to serve you. It’s there to take money from you. To bleed you. The business model of the state is to provide government services and funnel money to the key constituencies of the political machine (union organizers, lawyers, activists, partisans, etc.) and then to find others to pay the bill. If you’re not a perpetual government dependent and you’re not among those key constituencies, your role is to pay the bills. It is that simple and straightforward.
So, when the people who are supposed to pay the bills need genuine help, the RI Democrats don’t know what to do. They can maybe get you some debt, which ensures your creditors profit (because they’re insiders), and they might even manage to pay your debt off for you, if it indebts you to the politicians for votes and somebody else can be made to pay.
But think of all the possibilities that aren’t even on the table. The catastrophe is of the government’s making, so you’d think the threshold would be high for its response. The legislature is in session right now. They could cancel income taxes for affected businesses. Better yet, they could suspend the sales tax for the area until the bridge is rebuilt; that would be an instant 7% discount for risking the traffic for shopping. Parking restrictions could be lifted. All regulations could be reviewed to lift those with the least benefit for the burden. To speed things along, they could suspend at least some of the onerous labor rules that make public infrastructure so insanely slow and expensive in the Ocean State.
The list goes on and on. The first thing they could do is convene a commission to (quickly) assess all the ways in which the big-government-state government could help these families. I guarantee that a smart advocate with a mandate and a couple weeks could make up for most of the lost business with tax and regulatory relief.
But the politicians who run Rhode Island won’t do that sort of thing. The businesses are supposed to pay the bills, and if government behaves differently during a state of genuine emergency, other people might begin to wonder why a government that is supposed to represent them isn’t always looking for ways to make their lives easier and better. We can’t have that, now can we?
Featured image by Justin Katz using Dall-E 3 and Photoshop AI.
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I’m still puzzled by the presence of the leader of the Rhode Island Foundation in this image:
Is the foundation involved with this project, was this just a bunch of buddies hanging out for a photo op, or is there really no space at all between state government, federal government, and the non-profit sector — all united under the Party?
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To be honest, I feel for Gus Schumacher, the young man whom many conservatives mocked when he was the target of pointed questioning from Republican Senator John Kennedy:
Yes, it’s telling that an ostensible witness for greater government control as a response to “climate change” knows very little about the science, but we’ve raised several generations believing a progressive fallacy. Our focus should be there, not the least because it has such opportunity for revelations on their part.
An underlying conceit of progressivism is that what needs to be done is obvious. Schumacher may, indeed, be an expert on that which he’s observed as an Olympic cross-country skier, but he should have some humility when advocating for a particular interpretation of the causes and, especially, humanity’s appropriate response.
The urge to “just do something” is deadly dangerous, and I’m not sure mockery is going to change the hearts of those who’ve been indoctrinated to cultivate it as a first response.
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Arguably, Eric Abbenante— overstates the degree of “debate” in this clip featuring Dr. Phil and Bill Maher, but the difference in point of view he highlights is the crucial one. Here’s Abbenante:
Bill Maher and Dr Phil debate the importance of family and religion:
“You think family and faith are a big fix to the problems we have. I don’t have a family, and I definitely don’t have faith”
“Then you’re definitely not part of the solution”
Bill Maher being anti family is frankly, eugenic.
Maher actually nods toward — and quickly veers from — a key point when he says that the country is headed in his direction and that Dr. Phil might argue that’s why things are falling apart. That’s precisely what I would argue, but not in the direct, practical way Maher (and Phil) suggest.
There’s a step between “no faith or family” and “country falls apart.” What we have in the West, right now, is a meaning crisis, which is manifesting in all sorts of ways, and which will be the end of our civilization if we don’t turn back from it. Our loss is not a practical calculation that can be fixed. Dr. Phil argues that faith and family intertwine to produce children, the absence of whom necessitates immigration, which creates additional problems. To this, Maher and his sympathizers might respond that we need only solve those problems, and we’ll have solved the problem of lost faith, too. But they’ll never manage to knot all the loose ends of this unraveling fabric.
If Dr. Phil had made the full case I’ve heard from him on the shows of those who agree with his beliefs, Dr. Phil might have asked Maher whether he is genuinely happy. We can predict that Maher would have offered an enthusiastic “yes,” and while we might suspect he is not as happy as he claims, or is deceiving himself in some unhealthy way, we cannot read his heart. In any event, our suspicions will never overcome his own testimony about himself.
The happiness question is only to set up the next questions: Does he believe that he’s been fortunate in his life? Of course he has. How many people does he think can follow his path? Not that many.
And then to empathy: Does he think that those who have not enjoyed his good fortune might, on average, have needs — not material needs, but emotional and spiritual needs — that are, at least, distinguishable from his? Does he feel they deserve comfort and confidence in life, even where good fortune doesn’t supply material comforts in abundance?
Here, a socialist might take the microphone to insist we need only take some of the abundance from the Mahers and give it to those who are less fortunate. Even if Maher would assent, however, this wouldn’t fill the lack. People don’t want only comfort; we want meaning, as well… maybe above all. Being given comfort without having earned it does not answer our longing.
Yes, members of our society increasingly long for the life of the Mahers, both in financial success and the meaning we imagine comes with notoriety. This might explain the trend of young adults’ turn to social media to find a life like Bill’s as “influencers.” At least in his version of that trajectory, Bill Maher has encouraged genuine conversation and thought; how quickly his example deteriorates!
The rich man who happened to be out on his yacht when the flood came cannot claim his good fortune disproves the necessity of solid ground. And the rest of us should not look to a celebrity who enthusiastically applauds the decline in church attendance — which heralds the deterioration not only of organized religion, but also of family and community — as representative of anything other than a dark, cynical error from which we must turn away.
Featured image by Justin Katz using Dall-E 3.
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I don’t doubt Ken is being honest about his findings, or lack thereof, from his voter fraud review in 2020, but from the very first, I’ve though he’s was overstating his scope and the extent to which his investigation was conclusive. Very plainly put, “I did not find evidence” is not the same as “there is no evidence to be found.”
Mark Davis, who also investigated the election, takes Block to task on exactly these grounds in an important article on The Federalist which honest journalists would ask Block about in every interview. Unfortunately, we’re a long way from a civic society in which such things could be expected.
One suspects that if Block’s book told an opposing story — if it were Proven, rather than Disproven — its national promotion would have been much less enthusiastic. Odds are good the local media in Rhode Island would have ignored it entirely.
That’s the civil society in which we live. The guardians of the public square aren’t interested in robust, reasonable debate. It’s vulgar political warfare to them. And it’s disappointing to see a good-government advocate cash in on our devolution. Davis ends by suggesting Block won’t likely be hired to do such work again, given how publicly he’s betrayed the trust of his highest-profile client. Local reformers in RI should take note, too.
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