Stupid Things Conservatives Say, Fourth Iteration

“I am proud of my heritage and our inclusive American culture, which makes me a xenophobe.”

        Well, Bunkey, you had me on this one, right up to those last five words, which make you an imbecile. The words “inclusive American culture” and “Xenophobe” are mutually exclusive. I have little doubt that you are proud of your heritage, especially the all-white, Jim Crow part of it. The inclusive nature of our cultural landscape, however, certainly is far from a “Conservative” feature of our national makeup. It was persons who were at the time styled as conservative who discriminated against Catholics in the mid 1840s.  Look up “1844 Bible riots” and have someone read it to you. These same xenophobes blatantly discriminated and abuse Irish immigrants elsewhere during that time in a wave of “nativist” sentiment.     

       Your nativist ultra conservative forbears formalized that sentiment later, forming the American, better known as the “Know Nothing,” Party. Prominent from 1853 to 1856, they were antagonistic toward Roman Catholics and recent immigrants and members preserved its secrecy by denying its existence.  You know; like the Klan would 100 years and more later? Your forbears stigmatized later Italian immigrants in much the same way at the turn of the century.  California was equally hostile to Asian immigrants from the mid-1800s until the internment of American citizens of Japanese descent in 1941.

       Your initial statement is self-contradictory, but then recent events have made swallowing such drivel somewhat easier, huh? In Trump world, today’s Arabs, and Hispanics are yesterday’s Irish and Italians and eastern Europeans. We are a relatively inclusive society, but don’t you dare try to hijack it as a Conservative movement.  It was Benjamin Harrison (Republican) who signed the order giving federal authorities control over Ellis island, and William Howard Taft (Republican) who signed the (even worse) Angel Island facility on the West Coast into existence.

“I value my safety and that of my family and I appreciate the police and the legal system, which makes me a right-wing, cop loving extremist.”

        Again, it starts as a reasonable statement and then runs into a ditch! We all value our safety and that of our families, but that “all” sometimes includes kids shot for using a cell phone, holding a bag of skittles and a can of iced tea, or reaching for a driver’s license. Know what’s odd? All those examples are of persons of a somewhat more intense pigmentation than you, killed by those same police you idolize. If you believe the police are always right, even when they do things such as sodomize a handcuffed person with a broomstick, and brag about it, then yeah, you pretty much are an extremist. In August 1997, NYPD officer Justin Volpe, and three other police officers beat Abner Louima brutally in a police cruiser, and then back at the station house Volpe sodomized Louima with a broken broom handle while a fellow officer held him down. This is one of far too few cases like this which resulted in a trial of the offending officer, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison.  

        Law Enforcement personnel, like teachers, Nurses and other ‘trusted” professions are actually drawn from a spectrum of persons who opt for such demanding jobs for a variety of reasons. Of the three groups I mentioned, we trust the police to protect us in a more physical way, and the vast majority do just that. Many are exemplary, some average, and unfortunately, some, a minority, are, as an LEO former student and friend (still a friend, but not a student anymore, lol) classifies them, “Badge Heavy.”  It should be troubling to you (but probably isn’t) that in far too many cases, the same actions which would place you and I in jail, are simply blips on an officer’s personnel file. If I shoot an unarmed man in his car in front of his girlfriend, I’d be imprisoned for manslaughter or second-degree murder. If I do it as a cop, I may well do no time at all.

        What is troubling to me is, that while you rant about “personal responsibility” when it comes to most Americans, especially poor and minority folks, that “hold ‘em accountable” zeal just seems to evaporate within you if the accused abuser is a cop. I have no idea why you are so ethically crippled, but it is what it is.   

        And, oh yeah, if you truly “believe in our legal system,” that includes the courts which have blocked several of Trump’s attempts to bypass several civil protections. Are you appreciative of the Federal judges who have heroically blocked Trump efforts to derogate and legally endanger DACA participants? How about Roe V Wade? In truth, you appreciate the institutions when they work to your satisfaction or advantage, otherwise maybe not so much, huh?  

“I believe in hard work, fair play, and fair compensation according to each individual's merits, which today makes me an ‘anti-Socialist’.”

        The late physicist, Wolfgang Pauli, once described a student’s theses as “So bad it’s not even just wrong.”  Your statement above is of that genre. Actually, the first part of the statement is what, if you really believed it, might actually be indicative of the fact that you are a Socialist. 

       You cite “fair” compensation, as if you meant it, but I’m really sure you oppose raising the minimum wage to a level that enables a hard-working person who does the jobs you are “too good” to do can survive. The irony inherent in your bias is that maintaining a low minimum wage also insures more persons qualifying for welfare. In fact, a household with two full time working adults, after withholding of Income and Social Security taxes is still under the federal poverty level should they dare to have even one child. 
       
        Want to lower welfare rolls? Raise the minimum wage! Of course, I’m sure you don’t view minimum wage work as “hard” work. Try some. This is reminiscent of the English landowners and higher ups in the (Protestant) Church of Ireland, who, presented with the increasing numbers of Irish Catholic poor dying of starvation, simply reduced it all to, “The Irish need to learn to live within their means.”  

        In like fashion, I’m relatively sure you and I probably have vastly different concepts of what constitutes an individual’s “merits.”  In my world, “merit” omits net worth as a criterion. Based on your political choices, I’m pretty sure net worth, no matter how acquired is way up your scale. The fact that it is, separates, in a lot of instances, reflexive Conservatives from persons of conscience.  

Stupid Things Conservatives Say, Third Edition

Stupid things Conservatives say, third edition

“I believe in the 2nd Amendment, which now makes me a member of the vast NRA gun lobby.”

       Only if you are. Of course, you say “believe in” as if it (the Second Amendment) was the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus. With apparently no historic sense of what the verbiage is really about, I assume you meant to elide over the conditional clause. You know, that whole “well-regulated militia” thing? The poor discipline and material condition of state militias and the apparent poor training of them which Hamilton experienced first-hand during the revolution as George Washington’s aide, are most likely the genesis of this Amendment, suggested by Hamilton to James Madison for inclusion into the Bill of Rights.

       A standing army, which the British had maintained in the colonies, would have been an impossible sell to many Americans and/or state legislatures in 1791, so the militias were the sole sanctioned armed organized units in the United States, the Continental Army, having been disbanded in 1784 when the treaty of Paris went into effect. The exception was a group of 700 militia (there’s that word again) to man small frontier outposts. This “army” was, significantly, not based in populated towns, not unintentionally, as some still would have insisted on only state level militias, although the cost of training and maintaining them was another story.  

       In fact, the entire uniformed professional military “army” of the United states was a mere 700 soldiers in 1792, when increased British incited Indian threats on the frontier and the hostilities occasioned by British impressment of American seamen, led Congress to authorize an increase to just over 5,000. Dubbed the “Regular Army,” it was still usually comprised of regiments formed from State militias. In 1802, The United State Military Academy at West point was established, signed into law by that fan of states’ rights, Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson, who had originally argued rather strenuously against it, now asked Congress to send him a bill, which they did. He was bright enough to understand that the United States lacked both trained military leaders and that states couldn’t provide the training necessary for what he (Jefferson) understood were coming challenges. This was never more obvious than when, shortly after Jefferson’s return to Monticello, James Madison (you know, that guy who actually wrote the Constitution and the Bill of rights?) was faced with the events which led to the war of 1812.

         Militia trained Maryland troops massed to oppose the British army advance towards Washington, DC. Unfortunately, their shamefully precipitous retreat when faced with highly trained Redcoats is historically known as “The Bladensburg Races.” The White House was burned and the efficacy of militia against professionals now was seriously being called into question by Congress. 

       The early years of the academy were of little impact by 1812 for several reasons, as there were few standards for admission or length of study. Cadets ranged in age from 10 to 37 (if you can believe that!) and attended between 6 months to 6 years. The seeming inevitability of War caused Congress to authorize a more formal system of education at the academy, and legislation increased the size of the Corps of Cadets to 250.  It was a case of “too little, too late”, since by the War of 1812, only 89 officers had graduated, morale was low, and the Academy was in danger of being disbanded. Learning from the War, in 1817, a new Superintendent, Colonel Sylvanus Thayer, assumed the leadership of West Point. Known as the "Father of the Military Academy," Thayer immediately upgraded academic standards, instilled military discipline, and emphasized honorable conduct. Under his leadership, trained leaders of the modern US Army developed.

        Yeah, I know this is wordy, but I know you’re a tad slow, so I wanted you to, at least once, be exposed to why that Second Amendment was written, and why, due to intervening events, it is largely extraneous. Those well-trained militias (remember, the conditional clause?) now exist. We call them the National Guard. If you want an AR 15 or other high rate of fire weapon, call your recruiter. Otherwise, be glad you can hunt in open areas and feed yourself on your successes.

“I am older than 65 and retired, which makes me a useless old man who doesn’t understand Facebook.”

       You just might be the only person in the world to believe that. I’m 75 and I know better. I have only this to say about that: If you are 65, retired and useless, that’s entirely on you. If you like Facebook, use it. I do. If you don’t like Facebook, eschew its use. Either way, please don’t broadcast such incredibly ignorant drivel, or people might begin believing the “useless” part. Hell, even your socially retarded president understands how to use twitter, and he’s almost functionally illiterate.

        “I think, and I reason, therefore I doubt much that the mainstream media tells me, which must make me a reactionary.”

        I love this one, since all the previous dumb statements make the whole “I think, and I reason” allegation shaky at best. The slurring of “mainstream media” while popular with you and those who “think?” as you do, is unfounded for the most part, and don’t you wanna know why? Didn’t think so, but tough shit, here it comes:

        Main stream media, but which I would imagine you mean network news and newspapers, only survive if they have sufficient readership or listener- ship (?) to remain financially viable. Broadcasting editorial commentary disguised as news, only works if you happen to be Fox News, founded on the premise that, in Roger Ailes’ own words, "I created a TV network for people from 55 to dead,"  The effect of this, plus Ailes’ basic credo of slandering everything  centrist or to the left, was to politicize the media, a characteristic of banana republics everywhere. Ailes used the big lie to do it, which was that the “other networks (the hated “mainstream media” were dramatically liberally biased, a claim which if true would have already have cost then listeners, viewers readers. 

          Of course, Ailes’ background wasn’t in news at all, it was the Mike Douglas show. So, when Ailes decided to cordon off Republican audiences and craft/invent/editorialize news programming targeted specifically to them, he began the process of atomizing the entire media landscape into political fiefdoms – Fox for the right, MSNBC for the left, etc.  

        What you should consider is this. For decades, TV stations have run editorial commentary; however, they did it only after announcing that it was what it was and that it reflected opinions. Faux News (first) and the multitude of electronic sources now using false flag web addresses such as ABC NEWS US (which is not affiliated with ABC news in any way) don’t bother with such disclaimers. Faux News runs editorials disguised as news. Not only do the proffer opinion disguised as simple fact, they frequently air/print outright falsehoods, minus any disclaimer of any kind.

        I, as you claim to be, am actually am capable of thought and reasoned critical evaluation. When I watch a network news broadcast, other than Fox) I see fact being reported. I listen for bias, I really do. My daily briefing by Alexa includes NPR News. There is never, as in never, anything but factual reportage in these broadcasts. If one could characterize news as “sterile”, NPR News is just that. Likewise, all three real TV news organizations in their network broadcasts which are styled as “News” are factual, with zero editorialization. If you think these “for profit” news organizations would risk losing sponsors for sake of editorializing, you aren’t capable of thinking or reasoning.  

       You have been victimized by the sort of “agitprop” (screw you, look it up) that Roger Ailes mastered. Criticize NPR as fake news, not because anything they report as news is “fake” but because you can smear them as “liberal” since they also aired “Sesame Street” with all those “goldarn coloreds” and “immigrant Hispanics.”  News is news, facts are facts. TV broadcasters air what sells. Sometimes that’s a show with a gay person in a starring role. “Danger, danger, liberal TV show, network must also be using Fake News.”  If you can connect these two disparate concepts you are simply pitiful and a victim. If you characterize everything you dislike for whatever reason to a politically labeled mental dumpster, then you are the victim, not the rational doubter.  

Stupid Things Conservatives Say, Part Deux

Stupid Things Conservatives Say, Part Deux

“I am heterosexual, which according to gay folks, now makes me a homophobe.”

       Only if you think it does, Bunky. Most gay folks I know (and unlike you I know some, having a son, a daughter and two sons in law) never make that association. It’s much like “The Gay Agenda,” (a term invented by some conservative schmuck) in that no gay person I’ve ever talked to has had the faintest clue what the hell the gay agenda is. The primary reason, I think, is that persons like you, (apparently) ascribe your own biases regarding personal liberties and behavior to others. Without going into the imagined details too far, I’ve heard homophobic men speak of “recruiting” as a goal of the gay community. Since I am aware, without any fear of being less that totally correct, that being gay isn’t learned or acquired behavior, this makes as much sense as the Celtics “recruiting” me, a fat pleasingly plump 6-foot 1inch, 75year old, to play center. Can’t do it. Not gonna try.  

        If there actually was gay agenda it would be indistinguishable from the “straight agenda,” which doesn’t exist because straight persons don’t need one. Fair and equitable treatment under the law is as close to an agenda as the LGBT community has ever had.

        So, my right-wing friend, if you think being straight makes you a homophobe, then you almost assuredly are. I assure you that if only you are aware of such feelings, no LGBT person will ever assume them, based simply on your sexual orientation.

        And, finally, as a classroom teacher for twenty years and a member of an NEA and AFT affiliated union bargaining and contract team for twelve of those years, I was party to (too) many, situations where a teacher was accused of inappropriate activities with students. In none of these cases was a gay teacher involved. Not one. Likewise, I served almost 50 working years with teachers and Naval personnel whose sexual orientation never was an issue, gay or straight. So, maybe the problem is you?  

“I am non-union, which makes me a traitor to the working class and an ally of big business.”

Nah, it just makes you non-union. Now if you meant actually “anti-union”, then perhaps you should evaluate why that’s true. It’s certainly possible to not join a union in most states, even if many in your workplace are members.  Of course, that also means you really ought to have to negotiate your own salary and benefits. I once had a professor in grad school say in a business law class, that “Any company which gets a union, deserves one.”

        Working class persons in unionized industries who today opt not to pay dues and join, can do so due to the efforts, since the early 20^th century, of their forebears. If some unions have experienced corruption, that isn’t a rank and file issue, but a personal corruption issue. Unfortunately, the greed of those union officials deserving of censure pales into relative insignificance compared to men like your president, who has a well-documented history of making contracts with union labor and defaulting on them, daring them to sue. Anyone with a shred of history background, knows why unions evolved.

"I am not a Muslim, which now labels me as an infidel."

       Infidel (def): (literally "unfaithful") is a term used in certain religions for those accused of unbelief in the central tenets of their own religion, for members of another religion, or for the irreligious.

        Sure, you are, just as a Jew is Non-Christian, or a Chinese Taoist is non-Buddhist. It’s a word, dummy, and it means non-Muslim to Muslims. The radical Islamists who use it as a trigger word are, at this point, closing in on 14 centuries after the founding of their faith. Consider how European Catholics treated Muslims, Jews and just about anyone else non-Catholic (even other Christians daring to “Protest”) at the same time from Christianity's invention. Torquemada would have understood. However, acting as if all Muslims are Jihadists even though none has ever so much as threatened you, does make you an asshole.

Just a few Stultifyingly Stupid Rick Santorum quotes.

Just some from the collection of the absolutely dumbest Rick Santorum quotes. (bearing in mind that this dipshit’s legal resumé includes house attorney for the WorldWideWrestling Federation!)

“There are no Palestinians. All the people who live in the West Bank are Israelis. There are no Palestinians.” (except for all those folks who lived in the nation of Palestine until would be  Israelis, abetted by Great Britain, decided they weren’t Palestinians anymore.)

“There are people who were gay and lived the gay lifestyle and aren’t anymore.  (My note: No there aren’t, regardless of what Mike “It’s my closet and I’ll lie if I want to” Pence says) I don’t know if that’s the similar situation or that’s the case for anyone that’s black. It’s a behavioral issue as opposed to a color of the skin issue, and that’s the difference for serving in the military.”  (So all those formerly Black persons are reformed and  no longer Black?)

“In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That’s not to pick on homosexuality. It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be.” (Clearly, Rick Santorum doesn’t approve of man-on-dog marriages. What is missing here is the fact that in essentially every single civilization the definition of marriage has been primarily a legal one determining property ownership. Marriage got more complicated when religious leaders decided to inset themselves into the process.)

“What we should be teaching are the problems and holes and I think there are legitimate problems and holes in the theory of evolution.” (so, extrapolating this to a concrete situation: we should not teach the math concepts we do know, but rather those we don’t (this was his answer in a public school setting.)

“I don’t want to go to a trade war, I want to beat China. I want to go to war with China and make America the most attractive place in the world to do business.” (Rick Santorum wants to fight China. Someone tell him that China has more than 1 million more in military uniform, has nuclear weapons including submarines, and has 4 times the population of the US.)

"One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country.... Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that's okay, contraception is okay. It's not okay. It's a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be." (I got nuthin’ here, res ipsa loquitur, see below)

"The social security system in my opinion is a flawed design, period. But, having said that, the design would work a lot better if we had stable demographic trends. . . .The reason social security is in big trouble is we don't have enough workers to support the retirees. Well, a third of all the young people in America are not in America today because of abortion, because one in three pregnancies end in abortion." (So it wasn’t because of that whole Baby Boomer thingy?  What Santorum is categorically ignorant of is that the average number of births per woman of childbearing age in 1971 (pre Roe V Wade) was actually just slightly lower than in 2011, during the Great Recession! The actual impact of Roe V Wade on live births is by the highest estimate available, slightly less than one in twelve. This makes Santorum wrong by a factor of four. And he wanted to handle the US budget?

"The idea that the Crusades and the fight of Christendom against Islam is somehow an aggression on our part is absolutely anti-historical. And that is what the perception is by the American Left who hates Christendom. ... What I'm talking about is onward American soldiers. What we're talking about are core American values." (The History department at Penn State (Santorum’s alma mater) must have loved this one. Historically, the Crusades were sooo much about aggression by European Christendom against Islam. The current attitude, held by far too many is similar, in that all Muslims are seen as Jihadists (not so). Yet, if I compare all Christians to Westboro Baptist Church or the KKK, I’m anti-Christian.)

I hope this list of blithering statements from this moronic  talking head provides some insight as to why he must be ignored.

Stupid Things Conservatives Say part 1

       There was a recently circulated litany of amazingly misguided and naïve statements from a self-proclaimed conservative lamenting all the “things he’d become” in the eyes of others because of his political beliefs. Of course, he finishes by blaming all this on the Obama Administration. They demand attention and further examination. To address the entire thing would be a day’s work, so I’ll respond to two or three daily until I’ve either finished or have puked. For consistency across the project I’ll just head the entries “Stupid Things Conservatives Say”

                

“I used to think I was just a regular guy, but I was born white, which now, whether I like it or not, makes me a racist and responsible for slavery.”

        Aww, c’mon, you do like it, admit it. You’ll feel better. If you actually believe that pigment confers anything but skin color, you are far worse off than simply racist. You have a mental defect and are biologically illiterate. Attitudes, good or bad, regarding race are learned.  No one has ever suggested to you or anyone else that simply by being born Caucasian, anyone is a racist. Have some Caucasians treated persons of color badly, historically? Yep. Are you one of them? Therein lies the actuality of whether or not you’re a racist.

        Unfortunately, for you, the way you pose the statement answers my question. No living person of color has ever said the living white persons are responsible for slavery. They might, however, cite the attitude of racial superiority currently held by some highly placed members of the current administration, as continued proof that racial attitudes which led to America’s slavery disaster still exist.   Your statement comes from some ugly portion of your psyche which finds self-victimization to be a justification for the bias you apparently do hold. You use the phrase “whether I like it or not.” One who judges individuals as they are rather than as they look wouldn’t make such a statement, or even more to the point, wouldn’t feel the need to.

        The larger picture is that what you say is a stereotype with which you label the entirety of humanity who might not share your biases.  You justify being the angry white guy by transferring your unwarranted assumptions to others who you then feel justified in derogating.

        If I have an instinctive dislike or irrational fear of cats, no person of sound mind would label all cats “evil” or “dangerous” even though that’s how I, phobic as I would have to be, regard them. Most rational folks would understand that the problem isn’t cats, it’s me. The distorted mental perspective is mine. That’s a pretty fair analogy regarding your attitude toward race. The mental issue is yours, and that of those like you. And to be factual, which of course, you haven’t been, there are those of color who also see the world through the distorted lens of preconception and bias. Like you, their biases are products of acculturation, not birth. Both you and they are the anomalies. Both make life more trying for people of good will.

“I am a fiscal and moral conservative, which by today’s standards makes me a fascist because I plan and support myself”

“I went to HS, got a degree and have held a job and am here not because I earned it but because I had advantaged(sic), (Being White-Male).”

        These two are semi redundant, except that the first makes it quite clear that you have no real idea what a fascist is/was but is simply another of those “trigger words” you have heard somewhere. So this can be a learning experience for you, here’s the actual definition of “Fascism”:

  “Fascism is a form of radical authoritarian nationalism, characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and control of industry and commerce, which came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe.”

        None of the characteristics you so nobly ascribe to yourself actually fit the definition, do they (I hope)? And yet, as a self-proclaimed conservative, this definition might well trigger an “AHa moment,” because the man you elected to the presidency is running very close to this model in many ways. Let me be more precise, here; if you do support some of Trump’s policies, such as favoring wealthy industrialists and business high rollers at the expense of the rest of us, then, as Jeff Foxworthy might say, “you might be a philosophical Fascist.”  That said, the use of the phrase “moral conservative” seems radically out of place. There is absolutely no relationship between any of the aspects of fascism and morality. Nazism was fascism personified, was Hitler “Moral?” Harvey Weinstein went to college, got a degree, planned and supported himself, as did Donald Trump. Moral men? Hardly. In like manner, there are far too many poor, devout moral people who are barely able to support themselves. Feeling superior, are we?

        As for the second part, your return to your apparent fascination with being “White-Male” the real issue isn’t whether you earned it, but whether you had the opportunity to “earn it” and were hired to “earn it” because of your pigmentation. Today, it’s probably not as big an issue as you’d like it to be to justify your self-pity, although still unfortunately a factor in the workplace and education, but historically, yep.

         I see what you did here, you are obviously aware the historically and I mean recent history, as in the last 30-40 years, there was significant and widespread racial and gender discrimination in hiring, advancement and pay in many aspects of American business. Depending on your age, you may well be or have been a beneficiary of such a race/gender “head start.” Many like you were. Rather, however, than recognize the injustice for what it was and vow to do better, you imply that you just were “better.” How nice for you.

       So, you are well off, comfortable, educated and ....bitter? Poor you.

Good Guys with Guns?

       For quite a while I’ve been reflecting upon why we Americans seem so fascinated and attached to the gun, or more correctly, the concept of “the gun.” We see frequent, and frequently irrational, claims regarding the “good guy with a gun” as potential savior of the populace.

         How did we get here? Why us? I have concluded that we have been, to a great extent, brainwashed by out nation’s history. By that I mean that we have allowed ourselves to grow into the belief that historically, everything that our nation has done has been good, just, and justified. Unfortunately, gun culture has been a large part of that history.

       As immigrants poured into northeastern Atlantic coast cities and either integrated or moved west, the vast majority came from places where gun culture was far less prevalent. At the beginning of the colonial period, as the English, also convinced of the rectitude of their own religious convictions but demonstrably less zealous, settled, first in modern Virginia, followed by Massachusetts Bay, conflicts again, and probably inevitably, arose. Guns came to be primarily used in confrontations with the original inhabitants of the land.

        Indians were seen as “in the way” and, should they object to being so characterized, they could either (using New England as an example) move into pacified and, perhaps more significantly, geographically defined and limited, “praying towns” or be considered the enemy. One significant difference between North America and the Caribbean was that generally English settlers had far less interest in forced religious conversion that in land acquisition, especially in Virginia. In any case, there was no British royal conversion mandate as had been the case with Spanish conquistadors to the South. The massacre of the Mohegan Pequots is more exemplary. Daring to resist English colonial expansion, they became simply in the way, earning, thereby, the right to be killed, with guns, which almost all of them were, in 1637.

        The Spanish to the South, also with guns, and with Rome’s blessing had already accomplished this ethnic cleansing or subjugation beginning in 1492. Spanish Conquistadores were directed to read a document, in Spanish, which no native could understand, called the Requerimiento.  In brief, it claimed that: The Pope commanded then to obey Spanish masters and to convert to Catholicism. Failing this, they could be killed with impunity (with guns, among other even more hideous methods including being torn apart by dogs, burned alive, dismembered, etc.)  

       How odd that, as a people who would, in 1945, be appalled by genocide by poison gas, we would be remarkably placid in the face of 250 years of genocide by the gun in our own territory. 

        As the colonies, and eventually the nation, crossed the Appalachians, the Mississippi and plains expanding west, the gun was the principal instrument of subjugation, retaliation, and extermination of indigenous peoples and, too frequently, to anyone with whom the gun owner disagreed. It is instructive that the least violent removal of Indians was Jackson’s forced evacuation of eastern tribes (Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, Choctaw, Chickasaw) to what was viewed as empty land, now called Oklahoma, still in some ways pretty barren.

        Frontiersmen with guns became the good guys, regardless of reality, which was that many were simply greedy landgrabbers who regarded Indians as vermin. In fact, a not uncommon 19th century western  based cavalryman’s tobacco pouch was made from a dead squaw’s breast. Even decent homesteading farmers, albeit still taking land from natives, even if it had been declared “government” land, were subject to gun violence from landowners/landgrabbers  who had gotten there first.

         Frontier lawmen used guns against outlaws in confrontations where the good guy /bad guy line was often blurred at best. Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp and others frequently were only marginally more moral individuals than the bad guys they killed. So why do we venerate these men and the culture of the gun so much? Why so much more than other nations?

       I believe there are several explanations. One, is that there were several and often conflicting versions of how the West really was. To the homesteader in the west, trying to scratch out a living and perhaps raising sheep on public land or, even more daring, fencing his own land, purchased under the homestead act, survival could mean fighting Indians with a gun. Sadly, It could also mean hoping not to be shot by killers like Tom Horn, hired by rich open range grazing ranchers to keep things “the way they should be,” which meant unfenced.

        To Theodore Roosevelt, historian and author of the four-volume epic “The Winning of the West,” the West was "won" by people like him, sickly eastern adventurer who went west mourning his wife’s death and turned into the vigorous rancher who tracked down rustlers and lived the "strenuous" life, of which guns were a large part. He later parlayed that adventure into a colonelcy in the U.S. Army with absolutely no military experience and, again with the gun, charged up a hill in Cuba and into the White House.

           More persuasive perhaps, than all these, was the fact that for many Americans, especially those in the more densely populated East, the American West provided a more modern and immediate version, usually involving firearms, of the Good versus Evil struggle which British forbears had vicariously experienced in tales of knights and faire maidens rescued by them.

        In the United States, however, there was real immediacy, provided by the availability of cheap paperback books and novels.  The Western as a specialized genre got its start in the "penny dreadfuls" and later "dime novels." Published in June 1860, Malaeska; the Indian Wife of the White Hunter is considered the first dime novel. These books, cheaply printed in paperback and affordably accessible, capitalized on the stories, many inventions, most exaggerated, that were told about the mountain men, outlaws, settlers, and lawmen who were taming the western frontier. 

       Many of these novels were largely fiction, based on actual people, such as Bill Tilghman,  Wyatt Earp (who, with Bat Masterson, was still alive at the time), Wild Bill Hickok, Pat Garrett and others. Along the way, dime novels, as well as newspapers eager to sell news, any news, also glorified characters such as William (Billy the Kid) Bonney, Butch Cassidy, Jesse James and more, charismatic perhaps in print, but stone cold criminals, sometimes killers, in real life.     

        The common factor in all was the gun. In the Western dime novel, there was a sense of fair contest in the street, a la High Noon, far removed from reality, which was far more accurately portrayed in the modern in films such as "The Wild Bunch," "Tombstone," and "Unforgiven." 

       
       Owen Wister’s “The Virginian,” the first true major western novel, brought the “good guy with a gun” fantasy mainstream. Authors such as Zane Grey, Luke Short, Louis L’Amour and numerous others have perpetuated this notion, abetted, since the development of motion pictures, by a string of poorly acted B movie "Pulp Westerns” with a common theme – “nothing is so dismal that a good guy with a gun can’t fix it.” 

        Unsurprisingly, The first real story telling motion picture made in America was a western, Edison's "The Great Train Robbery." It was the beginning of what would become an avalanche of modern American morality plays featuring good guys  in white hats administering gun justice to bad guys in black hats. In the extreme case, we had The Lone Ranger simply shooting the bad guy's gun out of his hand. Riight! As a young boy whose grandmother loved her cowboy flicks, I grew up on a steady diet of western movies, all conforming to the formula. 

        Largely lost in the fog of gun smoke were better and more relevant works like Helen Hunt Jackson’s “Ramona.” This 1884 American novel is set in Southern California after the Mexican-American War and it portrays the life of a mixed-race Scots–Native American orphan girl, who suffers racial discrimination and hardship. This groundbreaking  novel became immensely popular but not to those who preferred the shoot ‘em up/evil Indian pulp. It has had more than 300 printings and been adapted five times as a film. All this aside, it is unlikely that most western Pulp, Comic Book, TV and Movie fans have even heard of it, due to its lack of conformity to the stereotype.   It is a safe bet that those who eschew Ramona and other factual treatments of history in favor of gun oriented violent stories are also those who see no problem with the proliferation of assault rifles.

             One actual historian who fell for this "romance of the gun" version of America was Frederick Jackson Turner,  whose  "frontier thesis" proposed that the constant struggle of the frontier as America expanded west was the most significant factor in shaping America's culture and character. Turner's proposition is largely discredited today, but to Roosevelt, it made perfect sense. The fact is that Turner ignored, as in fact TR did in his 4 volume opus, the contributions and influences of women and any other than white males. Facts, such as that the totality of what we would come to call "cowboying" is Mexican in origin were ignored. The eventual growth of stable communities due to the influence of women was irrelevant, and the many, uniformly negative, sometimes fatal, negative effects on indigenous peoples were simply of no concern. 

        We as a nation have been raised with the notion of guns as sometime cures for social ills. On the other hand, some of us have grown up.  

Misplaced Responsibility

       A recent letter to the op-ed page blamed the tragic Parkland shootings not just on the FBI, but specifically on the former director of the organization. Peripherally, the writer managed to slander Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as if they were somehow involved. His spurious claim that the Obama administration had knowledge of Russian election interference and did nothing, is especially asinine, since if true, bringing it to light pre-election, could only have helped the Democratic candidate. All that was missing from the blame game was a Uranium One backhand. 

       

         Reality is that we are still, and only after a significant amount of investigation with undue obfuscation by the Trump regime, uncovering the depths of Russian election interference. Not that we hold any ill will for the Russians anyway, apparently, since our President, over the vigorous objections of staff, personally congratulated Vladimir Putin for another 6-year term in a real “rigged” election.

        As to the principal allegation, that the entire FBI is to blame for the shootings: that would only be true if the local FBI field office had forwarded whatever information related to a possible threat they had received to the Director. In fact, the information never left Florida. It also, apparently, and in truth unforgivably, never left the Broward County Sheriff's Office. James Comey, however, 1200 miles away and uninformed,  was singled out for blame, which is analogous to blaming the Treasury Secretary for a bank fraud committed in the Villages. Ludicrous? Of course, it is.

        Sadly, nowhere in the letter does the writer allocate any shred of responsibility to the mentally unstable 19-year-old killer who physically committed these crimes with a high rate of fire assault rifle which he obtained from someone else who should, but is ideologically unable or unwilling to, share some of that responsibility as well.

         When in doubt, blame the evil government; that is until your Social Security check is deposited in your FDIC insured bank account, so you can afford your FDA approved medication copay with Medicare part D.

No one is entitled to their own facts.

        A letter in Today’s newspaper is so rife with outright falsehoods that space in my return allowed addressing only the worst, due to the 300-word limit. Rather than redo what was said in the original I’ll just add a bit in each short response paragraph. The topics will be obvious.

       Members of Congress have exactly the same medical insurance options as Villagers, by law.  (the letter decried their “private insurance plans” which is ludicrous, since we are backward and still believe health insurance should be profitable, instead of a citizen’s right.)  Like every insurance program in America except Medicare and Medicaid, those options are either individual or group plans. Many use the government employees plan, others use vehicles like Cigna, but none is free. 

       Likewise, there is no secret “Congressional” ward at Walter Reed where members get free health care. In fact, if a member becomes critically ill and is transported to Reed, their health care plan will be billed. No American is “told what insurance to buy”, except that insurers must meet coverage standards.

        No Congressman has, or has ever had, a “lifetime salary.” They have a retirement program which is OK but less than most executives of mid-sized or large companies. A two-term Representative failing to get a third term gets no retirement at all, since vesting requires five years’ service.

      To put this into perspective, a three term Congressman who loses his seat is "vested" and can draw retirement, but only at age 62, at which time his retirement would be 12.5% of his high three salary years. If you were elected in 2006 at age 36 to the House and were defeated in 2012, you wait 20 years to draw any retirement benefit, and then it would be 12.5% of $174,000, or $21,759. Not bad, but...a Navy Commander, (even if he was Supply Corps or JAG office and had never even gone to sea) retiring at 42 after 20 years would earn a minimum of $50,000 annually and would have been paid over $1 million dollars in retirement by age 62, at which time he also would draw Social Security.

        Lest you think this is a military phenomenon, let's look at a civilian 20-year career: firefighter. The average 20-year NYFD retiree earns in retirement just under $100k annually! NYPD is similar. Obviously, firefighters, law enforcement personnel and the military risk their lives while employed, but this is about retirement compensation, not active duty salary. That's what hazardous duty supplements are for. By comparison, Congress does fairly well, but not nearly as well as the lie portrays!

        The vast majority of immigrants, legal or undocumented, work, many below minimum wage. In many cases they do jobs which other citizens won’t do. The statement in the letter is simply false. Immigrants can’t “demand benefits,” because they are prohibited from welfare. Can’t get it. Nope.

Barack Obama provided a “real” birth certificate. Period.

The decision in the Uranium One instance was the unanimous decision of a 16 agency committee, of which Mrs. Clinton was one vote. Apparently, Mrs. Clinton intimidated the other 15 members, which included secretaries of Treasury (he chaired), Energy, Defense, and others. By the way, all these persons were confirmed by a Republican controlled Senate! The rest of the story, untold by Trumpists and others because it proves the lie to their rants, is that the US buys (and, historically, has bought) most of its Uranium from others who mine it in our own western states in the first place, and since neither Uranium One or Rosatom holds an export license, whatever they extract can’t be exported. Sorry, no “uranium to Russia.”

      Of moderately greater interest, one year after Mrs. Clinton left office, the same committee voted unanimously to allow the sale of western mining leases in the ore rich Dewey Burdock tract in South Dakota to China based Azarga Uranium, who does hold an export license. Remember the Republican outrage over that? I didn’t think so.  

The Clinton foundation remains a highly rated charity by Charity Watch, four stars out of four, based on transparency and expenditures. No one named Clinton earns or takes money from it.   

Every word of the above is categorically factual.

Send in the Clowns

“He that knows not that he knows not…..”

        The announcement of steel and aluminum tariffs by POTUS is a poor decision, taken unilaterally against the advice of many who know better, as the man prostitutes himself to 140,000 Americans at the expense of the rest.

       What he didn’t consider, and may well not even comprehend, is that these tariffs will actually undermine American job growth. The reality of our economy is that American companies that manufacture things out of steel and/or aluminum represent a much broader sector of the economy than the raw metal industries Trump is trying to shore up. Because of these tariffs, manufacturers of steel goods will have to pay higher prices for their raw materials.

       Calling this “tariffs” is misleading to a degree, in that while it is a tax on imports, it really is very little different that another government giveaway, farm subsidies. The difference is that with farm subsidies, the prices of domestically produced agricultural products are guaranteed by the government. Of course, this means that we consumers pay more than a market price for many agricultural items, ranging from corn to sugar to milk.  American farm subsidies are egregiously expensive, harvesting around $25 billion a year from taxpayers' pockets. Most of that money, yours and mine, goes to big, rich farmers producing staple commodities such as corn and soy beans in states such as Iowa. Defenders of subsidies assert that the $25 billion annual cost of farm subsidies (a bit less than 1 percent of total federal spending) is too small to bother reforming. Yet one-third of the federal budget — about $1 trillion total — consists of programs that each cost $25 billion or less.

        Tariffs, in that they will make import commodities more expensive, will raise the prices of both steel ad aluminum in a multitude of American industries, including, but not limited to, Beverage, Automotive, Oil and gas, Aerospace, Soups, Dow/Dupont, Aluminum Boat manufacturing, and every single business which must construct anything of steel and/or aluminum. 

       The steel and aluminum producers in America employ about 140,000 workers. The industries which will be hurt by the effects of increased prices for these commodities employ millions. Boeing alone has 140,000, Dow/Dupont 98,000, Auto parts (parts, not entire cars) employs 800,000 and the list goes on. Campbell’s soups employ 18,000 alone and packages their products in steel containers. This pales by comparison to the 2 million plus employed by the brewing industry, which uses aluminum cans. Of course, carbonated sodas use the same packaging medium.

        American-made finished products could also become less competitive if US trading partners impose their own tariffs in retaliation. Several countries, including China, Mexico, and EU members, have already signaled they would raise tariffs for US products in response. As a result, US manufacturers are likely to produce less—and hire less—in the US. A similar policy rolled out by the George W. Bush administration in 2002 resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs in the Rust Belt.

       So why, in the face of all this evidence of how bad an idea this is, would Trump do it. Easy answer? Because he can, and it makes him feel like the schoolyard bully again. Other reasons (not an inclusive list) might be: to divert attention from his other, equally "Stormy" issues, to look like a leader, even when the issues are above him, to appeal to those, like him, who believe that America should, and still can, dictate economic policy to the world.  

       Sadder yet, is that for those true believers and zealots who, for reasons I cannot even imagine, still defend this man, facts and economic concepts centuries old won’t faze them. As I write this, the news has broken that Rex Tillerson has been fired as SecState and found out when the news broke, without the courtesy of a Trump face to face. Send in the clowns…..don’t bother, they’re here.

A "Social" disease?

        I frequently play golf with a friend (a real and good friend) who is rather more politically conservative than I. We agree on some issues and disagree on others, which has no effect on our friendship or the civility of our discussions.

        Recently, as we were just chatting about current events, the subject of Social Security came up and I expressed some concern that people like Paul Ryan, himself, a SS beneficiary as a teen aged survivor, seems hostile toward the system. My friend then offered the opinion that Social Security is un(or less)necessary now because of access to things like 401Ks and medical spending accounts. It struck me at that point that there is a significant portion of our society who are simply unable to  understand or grasp the concept that there are those among our citizens who, even though they may work two minimum or low wage jobs, cannot even comprehend the idea of a 401K, IRA, or other retirement vehicle because there isn’t any money left over.

       The person with the 130 IQ and a university degree who has parlayed that into a hefty retirement from a major corporation and has spent 40 or more years in the workplace with annual disposable income far, or even moderately, in excess of that needed for sustenance essentials such as food, shelter, clothing, etc. cannot, in far too many cases,  fathom that it’s simply not that way for everyone.

        There are had working, good persons in our midst who will do their level best to provide for themselves and their children and still, unless it comes “off the top” like Social Security and FITW, won’t have significant “disposable income.” Social Security wasn’t incepted as a sole source of retirement income, but for many - too many - of our citizens, that’s what it has become. Why? The decline in meaningful pension plans other than savings is one reason, the cost of drugs in an aging and longer-lived population is another. The same Congressmen who bemoan the state of Social Security fear to even discuss the shameful drug industry stranglehold on drug costs legislated into existence by Medicare part D. For those whose incomes after retirement are marginalized, it is a travesty. One example with which I am personally familiar is an individual with a $600 monthly bill for medications essential to sustaining quality of life.

         This is because even the copays are portions of the full price which Medicare is forced to pay. This individual is one of a couple, both medically disabled (really, not through the machinations of a slick attorney!) and getting by on around $30,000 annually, all Social Security. The drug costs would be far higher if it were not for the VA covering the spouse. By the way, the VA does negotiate drug costs and copays are far lower. To express this in the general tone of this essay, this couple pays more than ¼ of their annual income for essential medications! Without Social Security….?

       But, those like Ryan (and in a far more civil tone, my golf buddy) simply see it as another “expense” to cut because of its cost. There is a logical explanation for that (increased cost), too. When the Social Security Act was incepted (1935) it wasn’t really about immediate Great Depression aid, since those elderly (over 65) and retired who were already unable to work received no benefits, nor did agricultural or domestic workers, regardless of age. The act also allowed the eligibility age to be raised from 65 to 70 any time prior to 1940, which never happened. 

       So, why the concern now? Two really simple reasons, actually. The first, in 1935 the average life expectancy of a US citizen (collectively) was 61. This meant that on average at the time of the legislation, many “average” Americans wouldn’t receive benefits, being deceased, even though their contributions had been paid into the system! Today, that figure is 78.7 years of age, meaning that far more of us are living far longer and receiving benefits. As an aside, even though we rave about our health care systems, this number is only 26^th in the world, and about 3 years lower than the 36 nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) average. Why? Ask your Congressman in the pockets of the health care and pharma industries.

        The second reason and just as easy to grasp is that the system is now dealing with the 76.4 million baby boomers born after WII. In the early-to-mid 1950s, the US was experiencing about 120 births per thousand women of childbearing age. By   about 1965, that rate was hovering where it is today at about 63 births per thousand. Again, for the math challenged, the birthrate is again relatively flat at only 52% of Baby Boom peak figures!        Since 1946 and onward, the this “bulge” in population has generated ripples in every sector of American life where age is a factor, be it obstetrics, insurance, TV preferences, music tastes, numbers of drivers, college admissions, you name it. It will obviously impact and in fact is already impacting, SS.  I’m 75 and on Social Security, born in 1942.

       What can be done is simple, but painful to many. Increase eligibility age to reflect longer lived and healthier people. Had the age for full eligibility been raised one year per decade from 1960 on, until the age reached 70, there would be no discussion now. Obviously, that would have involved “grandfathering” those close to retirement (say within ten years) and would have been relatively painless. Clearly, the issue now is that any such change will be delayed ten years in showing the desired effect.

        That said, it (incrementally raising eligibility age) should still be done, explaining that it is essential to the continued operation of the system. Secondarily, simply acknowledge that we “Boomers” will not be here forever, and if we do nothing but gradually raise retirement age, as of, say, ten (or eight or five years from now) there will still come a time when the number of citizens achieving eligibility will begin to decrease and he system will have “healed itself.”  Of course, all this requires   backbone on the part of our governmental leaders.  I am not overly optimistic.     

Televangelism redux

Reprinted for the post Billy Graham age

Televangelism 101 Syllabus/course outline Qs & As

Q. Why is there no section on moral responsibility?
A. You're kidding, right? Next question.

Q. How do we get people to come to us ?
A. Good question. The short answer is that most of them are afraid that they might have to be responsible for their own actions, take control of their own lives and be responsible for their own happiness. Religion on TV offers an easy way out. They already want to buy a stairway to heaven and we offer an escalator! Next?

Q. How do I get started with speaking in tongues without sounding like I'm just making shit up?
A. OK, this is easier than you think. Remember the guy in high school who always drank waaay too much at weekend keg parties? What you want to do is be as unintelligible as he was after 15 beers, but with a more guttural sound. If you do it right it'll sound like a combination of a pre-puke burp mixed with Hebrew numbers.

Q. How long should we actually pray over the prayer cloths they send us?
A. Pray? Why? Take the checks carefully out of the envelope and discard the rest, you don't know what kind of germs might be inside. Besides, who has that kind of time? Next?

Q. Isn't it dishonest to claim to actually care for these poor folks?
A. Define dishonest. We tell them God wants them to be rich. They believe it. They want us to be rich. Hell, we owe it to them, don't we?

Q. What's the best way to make yourself cry on camera when asking for them to send us their medication money as a "love offering?"
A. Now you're getting it! The trick is to focus on the mansion, the plane, the trophy wife and young "assistants" and when you reflect that you, with only nine years of school and a GED, have all this, tears of joy will flow. The marks...err "faithful,"  won't be able to tell the difference!

Q. How much actual theology do I need to know?
A. Not much really. All the things the viewers think is Biblical is really dogma and someone has already gone to the trouble of making it up centuries ago. When you factor in the marginal literacy of most of the viewers, shit you can read 'em the danged phone book and they'll buy it!

Q. But what about the hard line doubters?
A. Repeat the following: "abortionist Planned Parenthood baby murderers, Black President, Godless Liberals, Satanic yoga pants, commie homo-sexshuls, and "Trump loves you". If that doesn't wear 'em down, forget it and move on. Time for one last question. Anyone?

Q. How do we deal with occasional pangs of conscience?
A. What's a conscience?

"We're all sons-a-bitches here" (apologies to Clint Eastwood)

         Good column by a good sportswriter, Larry Croom, in today's paper. He calls out the agents and apparel companies for instituting and coaches for tacitly accepting (and in some cases abetting with hookers et. al.) the current state of corruption in College Basketball. I really should say Division I college BB, since that's where it seems to have concentrated.

         The primary, in fact only, issue I have with Mr. Croom is that nowhere is there any mention of the fact that this would not, as in could not, happen if there weren't dishonest players and their families willing to suborn it and participate in it. Don't go all "poor kids, innocent, etc." on me here.  If a prospective or current player is legitimately capable of being a student in college, he or she knows that taking service in kind or cash is illegal. If that player has to support a family while in college, there's a second bad choice. The entire "athlete as privileged person" concept is a largely American institution with relatively little merit.  

          Giving the players or their families a pass is analogous to blaming only pushers for drug problems. No demand, no supply. On a purely personal level, I also reject the concept that student athletes should be compensated (other than scholarship help) for their efforts.  As an example, a Freshman from out of state enrolling at Michigan State (most are comparable) is already, if a scholarship athlete, being compensated $49,000+ annually for tuition alone. Further compensation usually involves books and food/dorm coverage as well. Taking advantage of the educational component of that, or declining to do so, is their decision. Even golfers on the tour only earn if they win.

            While I enthusiastically agree with Mr. Croom that the NCAA as currently structured and empowered is a farce, I would still maintain that the need is very real for an umbrella oversight which keeps conferences like the SEC and  others (most others) from simply wiping away uniform restraints in the area of amateur athletics in favor of allowing dynasties to grow to suck up to donor alums. Just what has happened over the years in the SWC with regards to blatant play for pay schemes at good "christian" (lower case intentional) schools like SMU are proof enough.   In 1987, an NCAA investigation found that 21 (football) players received approximately $61,000 in cash payments, with the assistance of athletic department staff members, from a slush fund provided by a booster. Payments ranged from $50 to $725 per month and started only a month after SMU went on its original probation. Later it emerged that a slush fund had been maintained in one form or another since the mid-1970s). Also, SMU officials lied to NCAA officials about when the payments stopped. 

        In the absence of a consistent and objective regulatory body this could well become the (allowable) norm, and we’d see the “Alabama Yankees” as the Steinbrenner approach took hold in college sports. Want a quick fix? Have the commissioners of the NBA & NFL proclaim that any college athlete implicated in such amateurism violations would be ineligible for the respective league until such time as they would have graduated plus a two-year penalty period.

         Second, any attire manufacturer (UnderArmor, Russell Athletic, Nike, Adidas, etc. implicated in such illegal compensation could be forever banned from outfitting teams in the respective sport. Would that work? Yep. Most likely. Will we ever see such altruistic behavior? Nah.   

Walter Williams is a Liar

        Professor Walter Williams’ latest backhand slap at his favorite boogeyman comes in the form of an op-ed column titled “Deinstitutionlization is a Liberal Created failure.” His allegation is that the reason for the plight of America’s mentally ill citizens is squarely at the feet of “liberals.” As usual, he either doesn’t know what he doesn’t know or he’s simply a liar. I lean toward option 2 since the information regarding his scurrilous claims is so contradictory to his thesis. As usual, historical perspective is necessary, and he has little or none.

        Institutionalization of the mentally ill for all practical purposes began in London’s Bethlem Royal Hospital, the name of which was colloquially shortened to “Bedlam,” which word became synonymous with chaos and violent disorder. Founded in 1330, by the 18^th century, the directors had taken to admitting public visitors as an afternoon’s diversion for a fee, as there were rarely sufficient funds to truly care for patients, although in truth “care” usually consisted of confinement, little else.  Enough has been written about the treatment of the mentally ill in the past. More modern innovations included electro convulsive treatment, lobotomy, forced sterilization, and when all else failed, as it frequently did, brutal punishment.

        Most persons who ended up in American asylums were patients suffering from dementia, seizure disorders, diseases involving paralysis, or advanced neurosyphilis. These individuals were incurable by the available treatments of the day. Asylums thus became long-term homes for chronic patients whose care consisted of restraint, sedation with medications, such as bromides and chloral hydrate, or experimental treatment with opium, camphor, and cathartics. These treatments were neither effective in curing patients nor could they ever create improvement that could render patients able to survive outside the facilities. Populations in America's asylums swelled to more than 500,000 during the 1950s, with an all-time high of 559,000 United States psychiatric inpatients in 1953.

        The vast majority of mental facilities, in fact essentially all of them, were state run. Williams must know this but mention of it is strangely missing from his column. The story of deinstitutionalization is essentially a state budget story, complicated by withdrawal of federal funds, and to an even greater extent by events of which Walter Williams is apparently ignorant.    

        By the beginning of the 20th century, increasing admissions had resulted in serious overcrowding, causing many problems for state psychiatric institutions. Funding was often cut, especially during periods of economic decline and wartime. Asylums became notorious for poor living conditions, lack of hygiene, overcrowding, ill-treatment, and abuse of patients; many patients starved to death.

       The first community-based alternatives were suggested and tentatively implemented in the 1920s and 1930s, although asylum numbers continued to increase up to the 1950s. In 1946, President Harry Truman signed the National Mental Health Act, calling for the establishment of the National Institute of Mental Health to conduct research into neuropsychiatric problems. This was not a “liberal plot, and deinstitutionalization wasn’t its goal. The movement for deinstitutionalization moved to the forefront in various countries during the 1950s and 1960s with the advent of chlorpromazine and other antipsychotic drugs. This was not a liberal/conservative issue, but an economically worsening one. Marketed as Thorazine by Smith-Kline and French, chlorpromazine hit the market in 1954 (the Eisenhower administration!), as the first antipsychotic drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration. It quickly became a staple in asylums. Patients treated with Thorazine became tractable and controllable. By 1955 there were an estimated 560,000 patients in psychiatric hospitals and institutions in America.

        In 1963, John F. Kennedy signed the Community Mental Health Act, which aimed to provide federal funding for the construction of community-based preventive care and treatment facilities. Sadly, following JFK’s death, between the Vietnam War and an economic crisis, the program was never adequately funded. If this is one of Williams’ “liberal” actions, it must be pointed out that the law was passed to him for signing by Congress overwhelmingly with only 1 “Nay” vote in the US Senate and 18 in the House. This 96% affirmation was as close to bipartisan as we’ve seen in many years.

        In 1965, Congress passed the Medicaid bill, by an (again bi-partisan) 75% majority, but, with the passage of Medicaid, states were incentivized to move patients out of state mental hospitals and into nursing homes and general hospitals because the program excluded coverage for people in “institutions for mental diseases.” It is significant that the reason for the language was resistance of GOP hardliners (not “liberals,” as Williams implies) to actually paying for medical care for mental patients.Two years later, in 1967, California Governor Ronald Reagan signed the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act into law. Again, a bi-partisan law, not “liberal malfeasance,” it made involuntary hospitalization of mentally ill people vastly more difficult. One year after the law went into effect, the number of mentally ill people in the criminal-justice system doubled. That damned liberal Reagan!

        In 1973, a federal district court ruled in Souder v. Brennan that patients in mental health institutions must be considered employees and paid the minimum wage required by the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 whenever they performed any activity that conferred an economic benefit on an institution. Following this ruling, institutional peonage was outlawed, as evidenced in Pennsylvania's Institutional Peonage Abolishment Act of 1973. Until that point, inpatients who were capable of work of any kind, did so, generating revenue for the facility. This "forced labor by those in custody," concept goes back to the Magdalen Laundries of Ireland. The Magdalene Laundries , also known as Magdalene asylums, were institutions of confinement, usually run by Roman Catholic orders, which operated from the 18th to the late 20th centuries. They were run ostensibly to house "fallen women", an estimated 30,000 of whom were confined in these institutions in Ireland, but were, in fact, money makers for the Church..


        The myth, perpetrated by those of Walter William’s ilk, and  assumed by many is  that the advent of modern psychotropic medications was the catalyst for deinstitutionalization in the U.S., 
however, large numbers of patients began leaving state institutions only after new laws resulting from Souder vs Brennan made unpaid patient labor illegal. In other words, when patients no longer worked for free, the economic viability of many state institutions ceased, and this led to the closing of many state hospitals. It should be noted that these are all state issues, not federal initiatives. So, who is to blame for the admittedly under serviced mentally ill population’s plight?

       Start with the Reagan Administration. Where Truman had ordered a study and Kennedy had tried to increase funding. Jimmy Carter actually signed legislation, the Mental Health Systems Act (MHSA), aimed at restructuring the community mental-health-center program and improving services for people with chronic mental illness. While these three Democratic Presidents had done nothing to promote deinstitutionalization, Reagan signed an Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act in 1981   repealing Carter’s community health legislation and establishing block grants for the states, ending the federal government’s role in providing services to the mentally ill.  Federal mental-health spending decreased by 30 percent. Reagan gave the appearance of making an ethical decision because he presented his repeal of MHSA as an action that would best serve American society and do more good than harm as a result. The MHSA gave mental patients a choice to seek treatment outside of a mental institution, an option to seek treatment at clinics at the state level, and the freedom to administer their own medication.  There is little doubt that Reagan, underinformed and under concerned as usual, was hasty in taking unsound advice to repeal MHSA because his real motive was to cut the federal budget.  He was a leader who “never exhibited any interest in the need for research or better treatment for serious mental illness” (Dr. E.F.Torrey, 2017)

         I cite Dr. Torrey, only because his book is apparently the source of essentially all of Williams’ column crucifying “liberals,” yet he (Williams) never mentions the arch conservative Reagan, who Torrey singles out as the source of many of today’s woes. I guess the pages stuck together. Williams also fails to mention that the proposed repeal of “Obamacare,” House Republicans who last year made good on longstanding promises to overhaul the mental health system could roll back coverage for millions of people with mental illness and addiction problems by overhauling Medicaid as part of an Obamacare repeal package. Goddamned liberals!

        Legislation as originally marked up would phase out Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, which covers 1.2 million Americans with serious mental illness and substance abuse problems, as well as scrap baseline coverage requirements. The change means certain beneficiaries would no longer get coverage for mental health and substance abuse treatments guaranteed under the Affordable Care Act. More liberal malfeasance?

        Finally, what do we actually know about the results of the increased numbers of mentally ill persons into society? In 2004, studies indicate that approximately 16 percent of prison and jail inmates are seriously mentally ill, roughly 320,000 people. That same year, there were only about 100,000 psychiatric beds in public and private hospitals. That means there are more than three times as many seriously mentally ill people in jails and prisons than in hospitals. Is our safety truly threatened by those non-  institutionalized mental patients, for whom there is no bed or custodial care? Unlike Walter Williams, who is by trade an economist, I will simply let professionals tell us:   

"Although studies suggest a link between mental illnesses and violence, the contribution of people with mental illnesses to overall rates of violence is small, and further, the magnitude of the relationship is greatly exaggerated in the minds of the general population (Institute of Medicine, 2006)."

“the vast majority of people who are violent do not suffer from mental illnesses” (American Psychiatric Association, 1994)."

"People with psychiatric disabilities are far more likely to be victims than perpetrators of violent crime (Appleby, et al., 2001). People with severe mental illnesses, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or psychosis, are 2 ½ times more likely to be attacked, raped or mugged than the general population” (Hiday, et al.,1999).

And finally, confirming that Walter Williams is just another hack, 

"The vast majority of news stories on mental illness either focus on other negative characteristics related to people with the disorder (e.g., unpredictability and unsociability) or on medical treatments. Notably absent are positive stories that highlight recovery of many persons with even the most serious of mental illnesses" (Wahl, et al., 2002).

        You might think a college professor with a Doctorate in any discipline would understand the need for research and valid commentary. Not so much in professor Williams’ case, apparently.