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In Encore

Encore of Revival: America, August 12, 2019

Author SymphonyPosted on

Every time there’s a shooting, everyone uses emotion to say everyone was right and everyone else was wrong. “More killing, so all the rest of you should agree with my politics, dah!” It started with attitude. Mass shootings only indicate an already-divided country. People either demand guns everywhere or guns denied or some combination thereof; no one argues in favor of training the militia.

The Second Amendment guaranteed the right for all to own and carry firearms because all were obligated to be trained in the militia. Liberals want none of it and so-called Conservatives want the arms with not a single word about militia training for all. But, militia training for all citizens would solve the problem, both the attitudes of potential shooters and the readiness of the general public. People with “mental problems” wouldn’t be allowed in the militia and thereby wouldn’t be able to own firearms. Denying weapons to the insane and unstable in that way would calm concerns of the Right.

The Right is concerned that the Left wants to force the Right to behave like they are part of the Left. With recent laws that punish people for not agreeing to LGBTQ speech patterns, who can blame them? With Universal Studios’ The Hunt even having been filmed, who can blame the Right for feeling the need for self-defense? Still, we don’t need massive gun ownership without training; we need the militia for all people. The militia is what the Right-Wing’s precious Constitution calls for, but the Right-Wing has not. So, their fear of the Left, however justified, is well-earned.

Even in a Liberal utopia where everyone is filled with hatred, while all means of acting on such hatred have been removed, no one would be safe without public-wide training. The whole public needs to be trained to deal with every dangerous scenario, from a dictator’s takeover to an invasion to a mass shooting. It’s called the “militia” and it’s the one thing neither extremist nor moderate of our polarized political spectrum even peeps about.

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In Encore

Encore of Revival: America, August 5, 2019

Author SymphonyPosted on

Tariffs and trade headlines aren’t about trade or tariffs; they are about Trump. The trade war with China isn’t about China having taken US jobs since before the 1980s, it’s “Trump’s trade war”. The poor American farmers who planted crops to suit the Chinese are all beside themselves. A bad environment—whether in weather or economics—is the new normal and farmers are being told the same thing as American companies that depend on China: get used to it and look elsewhere.

America’s economy can’t be dependent on China because China is not dependable. Look at the self-contradiction of someone who says otherwise. Trump’s former economic adviser, Gary Cohn, says in one sentence that China was going to take down its own economy anyway, then in another sentence says that US trade policy is backfiring. Which is it? Was China going to do all this anyway or did the US initiate something that backfired? Both can’t be true at the same time.

Either the US affected China’s economic policy or it didn’t—for better or worse. Claiming that we didn’t make a difference while also claiming that we made a difference that backfired doesn’t indicate a well-considered economic framework; it indicates someone shooting in the dark, trying to find any argument that will convince people to dislike Trump. After all, America’s economy was wonderful while it made China rich, but once the US economy stopped serving China, it wasn’t a “US trade war”, it was “Trump’s trade war”.

Many Trump critics believe Trump supporters are stupid, but they still try to use reason to persuade Trump supporters. This is another self-contradiction, adding to the self-contradicting reasoning. Even if self-contradiction could persuade Trump supporters to abandon him, there would be no place to turn. Democratic infighting is at an all-time high.  It’s almost as if the Democrats want to lose the 2020 election, pretending to fight valiantly while they do. But, that wouldn’t be anything new. They have been doing that with human rights and civil rights for decades.

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In Encore

Encore of Revival: America, July 29, 2019

Author SymphonyPosted on

The anti-Trump spin machine is in full swing. It’s difficult to believe that 47% of Americans want him impeached by trusting only one pollster—Fox News, which wrongly predicted his non-election. It’s even more difficult to believe that polls, in general, aren’t being doctored when someone managed to anonymously change the presidential seal on a background screen into a Russian eagle that golfs. These things suggest a concerted effort to undermine the president. But, we already knew about that, didn’t we?

Trump can’t be labeled as the only source of drama in America. The economy is up, but so are spending and debt. Jobs are returning to America while manufacturing flees China as fast as peace is fleeing Hong Kong—which China blames on the US. The UK has a new prime minister who is just as opposed by the outgoing administration as Trump is opposed by Washington’s still outstanding swamp.

The contrived Russianewsgategate fiasco wasn’t a bombshell, it was more of a fizzle and pop, and its biggest explosion may be its backfire. Now that the fizzling and popping are finished popping and fizzling, the investigation investigations are starting up; Comey is the lead person of great interest.

Like bad habits, bad people don’t go away easily. It takes time and effort. Bad people lie just because they know they can’t win any other way. And, it takes having a head in the right place to know when that’s happening.

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In Encore

Encore of Revival: America, July 22, 2019

Author SymphonyPosted on

Washington is all excited because this week Mueller is scheduled to testify, again, about a report he already handed in. If the report had said enough on its own then there would be no need for him to testify, again. Democrats are all excited, but not as excited as Senator Graham, who plans to launch his own investigation investigation.  While Washington is distracted with theatrics of Russians and the “fab four”, a much deeper problem is swelling, one which will not escape Trump’s tenure unchanged: social media.

Social media giants are out of control. One current argument on the table is to make Google’s “index” public.

This “index” is Google’s inside stockpile of information that a “Google search” queries. Right now, it’s on lockdown and no one can access it without going through Google. Making it public would allow anyone to use it—if they know the right code, which code monkeys could learn. And, that’s where the trouble is…

Publicizing Google’s search index would be difficult to prove because it would need a new computer language—or API—to access. What’s to keep Google from making that API language too difficult to use? And, what’s to ensure the same idiots in Washington who tried to ram SOPA & PIPA down everyone’s throats—or wondered if Hillary wiped her server “with a cloth”—would know whether Google is making the API too difficult to use?

It could be done. It would need oversight. It should apply to Yahoo, Microsoft, and any other publicly traded tech giant with a search index. And, it would be a game changer.

According to Bloomberg, Google gets over 90% of all search traffic; Microsoft’s Bing at second place gets under 3%. That’s a lot of power to be in just one place.

While the current thinkers have “thunk” up this as the way to regulate Google under laws governing “public utilities”, there’s another important argument to consider. Google’s search index isn’t an index about Google’s own intellectual property—Google’s search index is an index about private information owned by everyone. So, the real question is whether it should be legal to “index the public”, which is essentially what Google does. If it’s legal to “index the public”, then of course the public should have access to that index, duh.

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In Encore

Encore of Revival: America, July 15, 2019

Author SymphonyPosted on

Justice Roberts doesn’t believe that the citizenship question in the upcoming census is about voting rights. He’s right, it probably isn’t. A more believable reason might have been to confirm the accuracy of immigrant statistics from other Federal reports. A better census question would have been multiple choice: citizen, green card, other visa, and entry not requiring visa—nothing incriminating about that. Putting the question on a separate form from the rest of the census form would skew the data to protect privacy. But, SCOTUS wouldn’t allow the question as presented for the reason as defended.

We have two big issues with this ruling. First, if census questions are too invasive, people won’t answer them, then the data is less accurate. Second, remember: The Supreme Court always votes in favor of the Court, more than Right or Left politics, more than constitutionalism or idealism. And, as we should expect from hard-working law school grads, supreme justices love to penalize sloppy homework.

If we wanted to know Roberts’s politics, the defense should have provided a better defense. Trump shouldn’t have let his lawyers give lame reasons for relevant questions because the true reasons are good enough: The government wants to know the accuracy of other reports. Now, those other reports will be collected, collaborated, and cross-referenced instead, which might have been a better rout in the first place.

The Democrats enjoyed the younger generation of voters accusing anything and everything of being about racism, even when it wasn’t. It came in handy as a wild carded, one-shot-for-all silver bullet for rebutting opposition to Obama. It helped them get elected under the auspices of fighting a never-ending battle that had to continue. But, when one such young person got elected, it messed with the non-democratic rank-and-file culture of the so-called Democratic party. Now, Pelosi and AOC are in a cat fight. The problem is that people care. It’s not news, it’s just politics as usual. Maybe it’s a nice wake-up call to what is usual in Washington.

Just as usual is the scandalous underbelly of Washington, including Epstein. When he was caught up in scandals with Democrats, he didn’t matter. Now that they can’t keep their underage pimp afloat, the salvage operation in the Washington spin-control department wants to tie Epstein to Trump to at least get some return for their great loss. They’ll have to find someone to replace him now. And, they’d at least like to say the same for Trump, but they can’t.

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In Encore

Encore of Revival: America, July 8, 2019

Author SymphonyPosted on

Trump’s tanks were unimpressive—that’s what Russian pundits think, anyway. Bringing out these old, beat-up, partially-disassembled relics of past victory and sacrifice proves nothing important. Parades should tout the latest, most intimidating, most high-tech muscle the military can muster. By all those standards, Trump’s parade flopped. Instead, he celebrated America’s heart and heritage—all things unimpressive in the eyes of Russians pining for their old imperial days of glory gone bye.

The Left, on the other hand, thought it was too much. JFK and Clinton celebrating bravery with marches and fly-overs were good, until Trump did it, then they weren’t. Perhaps next year’s Independence Day could host a bilateral talk between the Left and their recently-estranged Russian comrades.

Russia and America’s Left weren’t the only ones trying to tell Trump what to do. A leak from Britain’s Daily Mail shows disdain from the ambassador of the failed administration. Some suspect an attempt to influence fast-approaching election politics in the UK by painting Trump as the villain. More likely is a rogue, self-appointed hero who doesn’t like the manners of movers and shakers, pretending that his experience as an ambassador means his personal value for fecklessness should “trump” the White House, as it were.

Newt was the most out-spoken for Trump. He thinks not invading Iran was smart and that Trump is making all the right decisions on his successful path to re-election 2020.

Some important things happened in Civil Rights. The Republicans missed two great chances on these.

California finally passed a law, more or less, seeming to clarify what kinds of haircuts are natural for Black people. Though it doesn’t fit with the conventional Right of 20 years ago—always turning away from “touchy-feely” laws—it’s about time. What is wrong with Black people wearing dreads, anyway? Dreads are the easiest way for Black people wear their hair if they don’t go to the barber every other day. Why was this political and why was the law needed? The reason is probably because most White people don’t know that Black people need an entirely different kind of clippers at the barber shop. Some sad Republican politician who didn’t know as much just might complain about Cali, then lose his seat in 2020.

A DA in Philly won’t fine people in poverty beyond restitution anymore. Crime will be prosecuted, of course. Damages must be paid, of course. But, there’s no point in fining someone $1,000 who can’t pay rent and barely affords a car that’s worth less. Such a fine would effectively make the sentence an eviction. Current laws might as well say, “This crime is punishable by two weeks income if you’re middle class, an afternoon round of golf if you’re rich, and eviction if you’re poor.” Why didn’t Republicans make criminal and traffic fines proportional to income already? With the income gap gaping so wide, fines shouldn’t be measured in dollars, but in percentages. Some Republican politician probably won’t know that either.

Speaking of Republicans, Justin Amash of Grand Rapids’ district in Michigan took Independence Day to announce his independence from the RNC. His statement appeared as an Op-Ed in the Washington Post. Maybe he’ll be the one to start the People’s Party.

Whether it’s the communists in Russia and America quibbling about tanks in parades, getting Republicans to get along, being aware that Black and White people have different hair, or considering that flat fine rates aren’t fair, America has a lot to learn. We’re learning, we’ve come a long way in 243 years, we’re not there yet, but we’re inching along alright. We’re inching along.

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