Update no.793

Update from the Heartland

No.793

20.2.17 – 26.2.17

Blog version:  http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/

To all,

            President Trump chose Lieutenant General Herbert Raymond ‘H. R.’ McMaster, USA, PhD [USMA 1984] to replace the ousted ‘Mike’ Flynn [792]. McMaster has a reputation as a warrior-scholar in a similar vein as ‘Jim’ Mattis.  ‘H.R.’ appears to be far less controversial than ‘Mike’ Flynn.  We shall see how this plays out.

            On Wednesday, the Trump administration issued guidance rescinding federal involvement in the transgender bathroom access issue.  I do understand the social conservative objection to the Obama administration’s Departments of Justice and Education guidance of Friday, 13.May.2016, extending Title IX protection to transgender students, although I emphatically disagree with that objection.  Like a citizen’s fundamental right to privacy, these questions boil down to some very elementary matters, primarily whether a citizen’s fundamental right exceeds the authority of the State to impose upon a citizen’s private choices.  The argument used to deny freedom of choice to transgender students (citizens) is quite like so many of the social conservative dicta – where are the boundaries?  The rationale goes . . . bad men will take advantage of the guidelines and assault disadvantaged females in female designated restrooms.  So, instead of enforcing laws already in existence, they have to pass a law similar to North Carolina dictating citizens must use the restroom for the gender they were assigned by the doctor at birth rather than the gender they identify with in life.  The tragedy in all this . . . the social conservatives seek to punish the innocent in broad strokes in the name of defending ‘defenseless’ females rather than focus any law on the lawbreakers.  They fret about bad men pretending to be women and assaulting women.  I am a state’s rights citizen up to a point.  That point for me is the denial of private freedom of choice (or infringement upon a citizen’s fundamental right to privacy) without a clear, demonstrable, greater public good or public safety requirement.  I thought President Obama did not go far enough to protect the individual citizen.  Now, President Trump decided to regress to placate the social conservatives who supported him rather than protect the most disadvantaged among us.  Unless we are going to pick up a common practice of examining the genitalia or inspecting the birth certificate of every person using a particular restroom, laws similar to North Carolina are unenforceable and only create a mean spirited environment for transgender citizens.  Transgender people have been using restrooms for as long as we have had flushable toilets with no discriminatory laws.  Grow up people!

            Comments and contributions from Update no.792:

Comment to the Blog:

“I still contend that Trump has no ‘policy’ concepts in the usual sense. He responds to the noise in his mind. Remember also that he started his adult life with enough money to be surrounded by sycophants. Hence, he probably still believes in his own business success despite the disagreement of such reliable sources as Forbes Magazine. That circle of yes-men continues, but now he has the attention of the larger world.  Many of us are more honest, as represented by the press.  Hence the strange statement on the Israel/Palestine mess. He said, ‘We’ll do the easiest thing that gets good headlines.’  He approaches everything that way.  Unfortunately, he so completely lacks empathy that he has no idea what people will praise.  The attacks on the news media reflect his desperate, failed efforts to receive acclaim.  If Trump were capable of empathy, he could get much more of the acclaim he seeks and do far less damage.

“I have discovered that Trump’s supporters have entirely different sources of information from mine. Their picture of reality arises from Breitbart, Rush Limbaugh, and talk radio. There may be others.  I suspect ‘conservative’ Christians have media using their religion to promote these same ‘facts’ not supported by any evidence. Lately, I have even seen Fox ‘News’ included in an enormous ‘liberal agenda’ conspiracy more than once.  Were I not aware that these Trump supporters have actual people delivering this material to them, I would think they had some mass mental illness.  In fact, people they trust mislead them.

“I disagree with your first-listed correspondent most of all on one point.  The notion that ‘private enterprise generally outpaces government efforts’ disregards the different goals of governing versus profit; the inefficiency of duplicated structure, marketing, and management in capitalism; and actual results.  The stunning example for me is privatized education. This idea is key to strengthening the oligarchy, both by promoting government-by-capitalism and by weakening education.  The push to privatize education has met with more success here in Ohio than in most places, and the result has been excessive profit for capitalists and loss, by any measurement I have seen, for the educational attainments of students both public and privatized. (The privatized students perform worse.)

“In your discussion with another correspondent, you mention that only a third of Germans voted for the Nazis. We can equally say that only about a quarter of (eligible) U.S. voters voted for Trump.  That doesn’t mean he didn’t win or that we are not ultimately responsible for him.  It means our election process has failed us.”

My response to the Blog:

            Re: Trump sycophants.  I cannot find a salient to argue.  I have long seen him as an insecure, narcissistic, snake oil salesman, who actually swallows his own worthless product and truly believes in the greatness offered.  I do agree with your assessment of his paucity of empathy; in short, he has no clue.

            Re: news sources.  The lack of a broad base of information sources is not restricted to Trump supporters.  The political extremes at both ends have commonly confined themselves to news sources that feed their peculiar sense of reality.  The key to finding information balance rests upon broad and a sufficiently populated spectrum.

            Re: government versus industry.  There are positive and negative examples for almost everything.  Education is no exception.  The problem in this debate, there are things best suited to government, and some best suited to industry.  The perpetual political struggle is finding the proper balance.  Now, the political intransigence of the last bunch of decades makes achieving that balance all the more remote.

            Re: 1932 German voters.  I could not find any data regarding the percentage of eligible voters, who actually voted for NSDAP candidates in the 1932 election.  The U.S. notoriously has comparatively low voter turn out, which complicates the election process.  My statements were only of actual votes cast.  My point was, Hitler’s fraction of the votes was sufficient to get him in the door; the rest of his history was done by legislative enabling (only if we discount intimidation of legislators by SA thugs).

            My very best wishes to all.  Take care of yourselves and each other.

Cheers,

Cap                        :-)