Just one more example of how dumb she is:

This is what is wrong with the Republican Party:  Part II

In the early 1990s I wrote to the Senate about the use of laser disks in education because I had promised myself, when in elementary school,  that I would do “something” to improve education.

The years passed by and as it turned out I was never in a position to do anything.  Then, (see Stolen Notebook fragment number 4), I thought there was one last thing I had to do.  What I could do, I did do, I wrote some letters, to the Senate and President Bush (41). 

For this crime of writing the Senate, I have been stalked and harassed and tormented by rich powerful people.  It “amused” them to destroy my life. Why?

Because as a conservative I disapprove of single issue politics I entangled my letters in other issues.  Our politicians have to deal with a large number of issues and I think it unfair of us to advocate exclusively only one.  Daniel Patrick Moynihan used to say that scholars of Urban Studies were often criticized for saying, ‘Every thing is connected to everything else,’ but, he would insist, “Every thing IS connected to everything else!”

This is why they set out to destroy me,  because I spoke my mind, because I testified, to the Senate, about the issues of the day.  One issue in particular was my undoing.  I argued that small groups, operating as a kind of “shadow Senate” controlled the national discussion.  So they set out to destroy me.  Thus am I refuted.

Perhaps I could have avoided this peril had I not wondered from my subject of laser disks.  However, when we turn to single issue politics we are abandoning not only the politicians, and our responsibility, we are abandoning our duty to society:  our duty to participate in life, in all of its complexity.  Single issue politics should be condemned just because it is easier.    

In life, unlike common political rhetoric, one has to choose between many closely related issues, values.  This is why I identified myself as a Republican.  Not because it made my job easier.  I associated myself with all the issues on the Republican platform not because I was in full agreement with each question, but rather because I did not want to appear to be ducking these issues.

Of course single issue politics is easier.  It is easier precisely because it eliminates all other concerns.  As was argued in the Last Letter, (see Moynihan Library), single issue politics is fascism.  [If your definition of fascism requires that the fascists to have control of the state it will do you no good.  If this is a requirement of your definition, you will only be able to identify the fascist after he has come to power; when it will be too late.  Our politics, our definitions, should help us navigate the present.]  

However, because I discussed the issues of the day; because my letters came to the attention of the Senate; I became the target of the elite “shadow Senate.”

Starting in 1991 and continuing to this very moment, I have been harassed, and tormented, and oppressed by a group of powerful, malicious people.

As can be seen there was no advantage to me in identifying with the Republican Party, (particularly in Northern California).  So this is the first thing that is wrong with the Republican Party:

1-     05-03-04:

It is not really a Party.  It appears to be a collection of politicians and wealthy contributors backed by a powerful fundraising organization.  Arguably it has always been so, at least for the last 100 years.  It is now a term of abuse among conservatives but the Party once really was a Rockefeller organization.

In California, every few years, millionaires take it on themselves to run for office.  They spend millions of dollars on TV ads, but they could not spare an hour of their time in the years preceding the election to organize the  Party.  Indeed, many of these millionaires may well have been Democrats.

In the absence of an organized Party any radio show host or columnist can claim to “represent” the Party.  As noted above, (see This is What is Wrong with the Republican Party: Part I), one prominent Republican, McClintock, claims that radio talk show hosts “are” the “new party bosses.”  (God save the Republican Party.)

For example, Pat Buchanan ran for president, and was allowed to speak at the National Convention, (giving the now infamous, Cultural Civil War speech).  Pat Buchanan had not months before argued that the U. S. A. should take Saddam Hussein’s offer of $9 a barrel oil.  [Because we live in a morally benighted age I must explain that Pat Buchanan was, in other words, recommending to us that we should purchase stolen oil that Mr. Hussein had taken in an illegal war, against all rules of law and morality.]  This was not then, nor since, thought to have disqualified Pat Buchanan from speaking “for” the Republican Party. 

His poor showing in the primaries is typical.  Radio talk show host are delighted with .6, or .5, or .4, shares.  Candidates would not even qualify for the ballot with such poor showings.  The point here is not that millionaires who are Rockefeller Republicans or lunatic right wing pundits like Buchanan and Weiner, are taking over the Party, the point rather is that, like Oakland California,  “there is no there there.”

2  - 05-07-04

Therefore who is surprised that Pat Buchanan regularly appears on the Weiner show.  (Hitler and Stalin entered into a partnership too.)  Pat Buchanan has visited this web site, but he knew about Weiner’s wrongful conduct years before this web site was created.  Senators McCain, and Hatch, Santorum, continue to appear on the Don Imus show even though they know how Imus has stalked me from my job at State Farm (1998) to GAB (2003).  Senator Hatch even thought to make a joke during his last appearance, mentioning that he had heard what Imus has “done to some of your listeners.”

Senator Dodd appeared on the Imus show and referenced the stolen notebook but who can doubt that other Senators also knew of the burglary and the notebook?   Sam Donaldson, Mrs. Jack Swanson, Don Imus, all have referenced the electronic surveillance that Michael Weiner has carried out for years.  It is doubtful that Republican Senators are unaware of this harassment.

But it follows from the first point, i.e. if there is no Party, no core set of principles that unites the people, they will not individually demonstrate those principles in their actions. Mrs. Jack Swanson is active in Republican Party politics, and her involvement in having me followed and then using her radio show to harasse me with taunting references to the surveillance, far from disqualifying her undoubtedly elevates her in the Republican Party.

03  -  05-10-04:

For such a Party, without a coherent Party platform or doctrine (1), and whose members feel no loyalty, or even harbor outright hostility towards one another (2), if follows that their actions are desultory, failing to build even a political party, much less a set of connections into the larger society.

The fact that best illustrates this point is this:  The Economics Faculty of Stanford University is 90% Democrat.   

I can well imagine Rush Limbaugh, the king of talk radio, refuting this point with some glib reference  such as “who needs Stanford” or the like, thus illustrating all three points:  Media pundits without loyalty either to the Party or Party Members not just distaining connections to the larger society but actively cutting off those relations.  Indeed in some cases, Weiner, we do well to examine if they are not covert agents deliberately attempting to sabotage the Party from within.

Many times I have heard it said that “in the long run,”  “eventually,”  “over time,” our message will get out and we will eventually convert the public.  I am sure that eventually, illegal immigrants from Mexico, and their children will vote Republican; if not in this generation then the next.  But as you look at how slowly votes are being turned up in the Black community, and among the Jews, and among the White ethnics; the Irish, (can you say Kennedy?), the prospects for a Reagan landslide seems to recede like an ebbing tide.

It is not just the universities, and the media, (two important centers of power that Republicans seem to have surrendered), but in most of industry, (corporate contributions are increasingly evenly divided), and the great foundations; not just the city centers but increasingly the suburbs as well, the Republicans serve increasingly as the punch line of a joke rather than as exemplars of political insight and leadership.

Reagan united the upper and middle classes, but now the Democrats seem increasingly positioned to unite not just the working and middle classes but to take a significant share of the upper class, which is increasingly characterized by its cognitive abilities rather than its stock portfolio.  (Not that stock ownership no longer characterizes the upper class:  capital distribution has continued a century old trend towards the upper, (ruling), class. Also the skewing of the income distribution is in part a function of the genetic distribution described in the Bell Curve, and about which public discussion is not allowed. (However, cognitive ability does not alone explain the entirety of  the income misdistributions.  The knowledge economy plays its part but is not the complete explanation.))

Increasingly the upper class has taken control of the levers of power, in part because cognitive ability has given them access to those levers.  However, once in place, like all ruling classes they have found it more convenient to remove the bother of meritocractic requirements.  The Republican have been as willing as the Democrats in assisting the upper class in this process of consolidation of power, but this is the point: for the Democrats this results in a possible expansion of power into what was formerly a Republican class, for the Republicans it represents the abandonment of its commitment to the middle class.

For example, Democrats are more likely to lead the final assault on standardized testing in public schools, but many Republicans have tried to kneel to the Soccer Moms of the upper class who disdain the tests of their children’s ability as an insult to their vanity.  What of the Meritocracy?  For the Democrats this is a continuation of their goal to eliminate all standards in governmental hiring and contracting.  (Can you say Affirmative Action?)  The great urban party machine that was the Democrat party never saw any value in Meritocracy or civil service. 

It was the great achievement of the late Nineteenth Century Republican Party that transformed the Party of Lincoln  into the Party of Reform of a more general and relevant kind.  True it was the Rockefeller party but as noted above as the upper class increasingly makes its home in the Democrat’s house, the loss of Reform as a Republican issue strips away every last element of its miniscule platform.

Many examples could be given however, let us try just a few and track how many visitors stay with us.

Microsoft is often set out as an exemplar of the information economy.  People like Mr. Limbaugh, the king of talk radio, use this as an example of the private economy moving on its own with out state involvement.  What if, however, I could show you in a paragraph or two that Microsoft represents not the free enterprise economy but a classic example of the upper classes using the state to solidify their position and eliminate the bother of market competition?

But first consider the housing market as an example of Republican abandonment of professed values, (free market, capitalist competition, individual choice, etc.), and the capturing of an industry and indeed whole sections of our society by Democrats.  The academic research, the facts, leave no room for doubt.  Government interference in the economy have caused bubbles in real estate, principally on the coasts.  (see 1948. Edward L. Glaeser and Joseph Gyourko
The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability
http://post.economics.harvard.edu/hier/2002papers/2002list.html  )

And yet even though the Democrats have distinguished themselves in this real estate manipulation by state and local government mainly, with the active support of the Federal government during both Democrat and Republican regimes, no Republican office holder or candidate has commented on this distortion and abuse.

Senator Feinstein, led five successive down zonings in the City and County of San Francisco during her political career.  Yet even as she down zoned the city she avariciously accumulated all the multi story buildings for which she could secure financing.   As a member of the County Board and later as Mayor, (ascending upon the murder of Moscone), she was able to secure a great deal of financing.  She bought low and sold high. 

The “tender loin,” a section of the city with many multi story buildings,  offered many low cost buildings.  As the repeated down zonings had their effect the value of her multi storey buildings rose, the increasing equity being used to finance still more acquisitions. Her tenants did not benefit from her rising prosperity.  Indeed, unlike the workings of a free market, controlled economies do not flourish on the voluntary decisions of free actors acting in mutual assent.  Quite the reverse. 

Senator Feinstein’s capital was built on the coercion of the free market;  by the remorseless operation of a state controlled market.  Remember, Senator Feinstein, the tenants had asked for weeks that the front door lock be repaired?  Just couldn’t seem to lay your hands on a spare few dollars?  Tenants would come in the building and the front door to the street did not lock.  The door was finally fixed, but unfortunately for the woman on the third floor, not until after a rapist had thus gained entry.  Well the insurance can take care of the details.

The last estimate, before the dot com bubble burst was that the imbalance in jobs to houses was 70,000; i.e. more jobs than places for the workers to live.  In one recent interview the KCBS reporter confessed that though the current imbalance between the average household income and the average home, now nearly $65,000, was bothersome for him ‘intellectually’; as a home owner he was reluctant to favor policies that would allow for the construction of more homes.  For he reasoned if the average price went down due to an increase in the supply of homes, how would he ever be able to pay his mortgage, wouldn’t his home also go down in value?

(Such is the state of Economics’ Education in California.  Does the average price determine what the KCBS reporter could sell his home for?  Class?  Answer: If the average price falls due to say the availability of 300 square foot condominiums, (such structures are illegal in San Francisco), would the radio man’s suburban 2,500 square foot home decrease in value? Indeed his value could well, most certainly would, increase if the availability of small worker homes allowed for an increase in economic activity.  Such things  are possible in a free economy of mutual assent.  All state controlled economies are, on the other hand, zero sum.  Indeed I wonder that share holders have not yet sued the management of concerns that continue to build plants and offices in such a constricted economy such as the Bay Area.  Intel, for example? Genentec?)

The point here is that you do not hear word one from Republicans.  Not at the national level, not state, nor local.  Indeed, the argument that the Party should involve itself in such an issue, arguing for free enterprise in construction and housing is regarded as being “socialistic.”  Who are we to interfere with these democratic institutions?  My question for you to consider is this:  Are the Republicans who argue this way, who block discussion of this government manipulation of the housing market, really working for the Party, or are they Democrat agents secretly working for the other side by steering the party in the wrong direction? 

In health care again the general confusion of the subject makes difficult any clear examination of either party’s position. But again, part of the confusion is deliberate.  For example, income transfer is really at the heart of most of the discussion.  It is to the Democrat’s advantage to cover up this fact. But what would a health care discussion cover if not income transfer?

Do not look to the Republican Party for the answer.  In trauma care and the financing of emergency rooms, (see Army Navy Club 12) we explained that a reform and elimination of duplicate coverages would lower the cost of coverage for trauma care and would simplify and lower the cost of health care generally.  (Note “Pete” Fortney Stark, the congressman, (known as Mary Stark), reacted angrily to this Republican’s foray  into this area of public policy which the Democrats hope to keep to themselves.)

All emergency room treatment is currently paid for by the patient, insurance or finally the government, which mandates that no emergency room patient be turned away.  However, owing to delays in payments, (for example when I left the AAA insurance claims office I estimated there were tens of millions of dollars in unpaid medical bills for which coverage existed but were none the less over 60 days old), the emergency rooms are being forced to close.  Highland Hospital reports $70 million in unpaid bills.  

Since payment for trauma care is guaranteed, by government, and since all serious emergency trauma cases are already being presented, the only issue left to discuss is how to finance them.  Yet this simple and obvious point appears lost on the Republican Party.  Similarly, with the President’s extension of Medicare to cover medicine, you would have thought, from their public discussions, that Republicans were in a position to eliminate Medicare completely. 

For it can be seen that once Medicare was established all costs for treatment had been agreed to.  The Republican complaints that this would “add” to the cost denied the fact that the medicines might well reduce the costs.  It was estimated that the savings might be as high as $14,000 per patient, in treating them with medicines, early, rather than waiting for them to present themselves later at the hospital.  Adverse risk selection is not an issue, or do you suppose more people will now present themselves for Medicare coverage now that medicines are partly covered?

Let us pause for a moment to reflect on what could be said for the Republican Party’s leadership if President Bush had not led the way in extending coverage to medicines.  It appears to be a party of one, for without President Bush there would have been no leadership.

Of vital importance in the Medicare discussion, (it could hardly be called a debate), was the question of income transfer.  Who is paying for what? Yet this important issue was overlooked by the Republicans and, no surprise,  the Democrats alike.   (Indeed, once again, it is only because of the President, that there is any means testing for payments, in the plan.  The only other politician who has insisted on fairness in public financed benefits is Tony Blair who required the bill for college be shared by the primary beneficiaries, the students, to general amazement of his country’s politicians.) 

But more generally in the health care discussion the Republicans fail to focus on the real issues around which they could build a party.  Income transfer is one.  An even better issue is government regulation and over regulation of the market and the consequential misallocation and misdirection that occurs.  Why does everything have to stay just as it is?  Why can’t Republicans lead the reform?  This failure is why the middle class doubts the Republican’s sincerity.  Are we really trying to help?

If you fail to solve a problem as simple as financing trauma care at emergency rooms, a reform that would actually save money how can you be thought serious about other issues? 

Can Army medics provide care to our troops?  Why then can they not also provide care to our citizens?  For example the “nurse practitioners” could help lower the cost of care in a great many cases, but medical men, understandably oppose all such reform.  Where are the Republicans?   Why can’t pharmacists issue their own prescriptions, for at least some medicines?  Where are the Republicans?  Automated systems for testing, diagnosis, and supervision have made huge advances, but you would not know it to look at the American medical system.  Where are the Republicans?

To all these questions,  Republicans, like Rush Limbaugh, the king of talk radio, complain about government interference in the “best medical system in the world.”  Best?  For whom?  Interference?  These are arguments for getting the government out of the way.  Why should the government take the side of the medical men when the nurse practitioners only seek to find their “market?” Why must government insist on a “doctor’s visit” for a simple prescription?  If automated systems improve care why should the government block progress?  No, we are trying to stop government interference.  

This contradiction, between what Republican say and what they do, is what caused the middle class to start moving steadily to the Democrats.

Now for Microsoft.  This entire monopoly is based not on the market but the law.  The law of copyright.  The state imposed limitation on the market place has forced out all of Microsoft’s competitors.  Not fair competition but the power of the state has created this monopoly.

How so?  Program developers were required to write code for one of four main operating systems.  Their programs, called applications, ran independently, with their own “look and feel,” from the operating systems.  But owing to the copyright law the application developers could not specify standard code to interface with their applications so that any operating system could run any application.  Which would have been a free market.  The copyright law was used by Microsoft to limit free competition.  Market power did the rest, after elimination of the competing operating systems, for want of applications.

Similar situations continue, and the inept, (deliberately inept one suspects), national government makes no effort to intervene.  For example, no law has yet been proposed let alone enacted, forget about being enforced, that would prohibit cyber trespass.  Programs constantly install themselves on private computers, with out leave, and not only has nothing been done but the Republicans appear to actually be on the side of the pirates.  This isn’t free enterprise.  Permission to board is not being requested.  There is nothing consensual in the arrangement.

Just as in the 1970s, when the government failed to use its powers to guarantee a free market in operating systems, to day, once again, the government contemplates no law to prevent cyber trespass.