Tag Archives: culture

Should Folks Stand for the National Anthem?

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Progressive-Democrat Vice President and Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Kamala Harris was asked that question, and she gave an answer that, at first blush (at least in this edited clip) seems a non sequitur. It was, but it needn’t have been had Harris actually understood the question and the significance and importance of our national anthem and of standing for it whenever it’s played. Her answer:

I think that one of the beautiful things about our country is that we were founded on certain principles that we articulated in 1776, that we are all to be treated as equals; we articulated those principles in our constitution. And part of what we decided that makes a fair and just and noble society is, in a democracy, a true democracy, is freedom of religion, freedom—right—to association, freedom to organize—first amendment. So, that is part of who we are as a country, and I will defend it to the core, which is that we give people certain choices in our country.

Her words are muddled, but in context, I think are substantially correct (leaving aside that we’re not a true democracy, but a republican democracy, but that’s a distinction for another time), but her problem—the Left’s problem, our problem, our nation’s free speech problem—is that Harris doesn’t understand why her muddled words are correct. That context of her lack of understanding makes her words, counterintuitively to be sure, wrong.

Her words themselves are consistent with accuracy for two reasons. The first is where she didn’t directly answer the question. Yes, I answer for her, folks should stand, and face our flag or face in its direction, hats off, hand over heart, or salute if in uniform, for our national anthem. Doing so shows respect for the symbol of our nation, respect for our nation itself, respect for all of those who’ve fought under our flag in defense of our nation, and especially for those who have been killed or maimed in that defense.

That’s what makes possible the intent of Harris’ fuddled words: not standing cannot be a protest of anything if standing is not a requirement, of respect if not of law. Absent that requirement, there is no counter; there is nothing to protest.

The Utility of Automation

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The International Longshoremen’s Association is demonstrating that, in spades, with its strike and its intent on inflicting maximum damage to our nation and our economy. Here’s the ILA MFWIC, Harold Daggett:

We’re going to show these greedy bastards you can’t survive without us!

Pretty nice business you got there. Pay up, suckers.

People are going to sit up and realize how important longshoremen jobs are. They won’t be able to sell cars. They won’t be able to stock malls. They won’t be able to do anything in this country without my f—ing people.

Automation will make such threats to business’ ability to function at all destructions of the past.

In today’s world, I’ll cripple you[.]

That’s Daggett’s response to speculation that the Biden/Harris administration might invoke Taft-Hartly to force the union workers back to their jobs. In the process of crippling our nation, he’s said he’d include slow-walking every step of every task.

Oh, and robots won’t hold out for a 77% pay raise as a precondition to entering into any negotiations at all.

The sooner this union is replaced with automatic facilities at the docks, the better off we’ll all be—including those dockworkers.

“I Don’t Believe in Taft-Hartley”

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Those were Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden’s words when a reporter asked him if he’d intervene in the now in progress International Longshoremen’s Association strike against East and Gulf Coast ports.

Q    Mr. President, will you intervene in the dockworkers strike if they go on strike on Tuesday?
THE PRESIDENT:  No.
Q    Why not?
THE PRESIDENT:  Because there’s collective bargaining, and I don’t believe in Taft-Hartley.

Taft-Hartley authorizes a President to intervene in strikes that create a national emergency—such as, for instance, a strike that shuts down all of our ports on the East and Gulf Coasts, a strike that thereby cuts imports of food, vehicles, heavy machinery, construction materials, [and] chemicals as well as cutting off critical supply chain imports needed for those and for other products all across our economy, which is still in a fragile state, for all the headline numbers. The strike also cuts off all our exports to trading partners, friends, and allies that would leave from those ports. Those exports include products like oil and LNG destined for Europe, whose economies are in a fragile state from the reduced energy availability due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

This is Biden is proclaiming his disdain for a law he’s sworn to enforce. That disdain is consistent with his disdain for immigration and border control laws and, by extension, for our laws in general.

This is the Party that wants to reign over us for the next four, and more, years.

Self-Sustaining

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Elon Musk wants to get a self-sustaining colony going on Mars in his lifetime—his current goal is to get that started in the next four years with crewed flights, albeit not yet with colonists along. I agree with him in the goal of a self-sustaining colony and with his rationale—that getting off planet in a sustainable way using only the resources available on the second (and further) planets is critical to the survivability of homo sapiens.

I have questions, though.

What will be the long-term effect of living lifetimes in Mars’ gravity field, which is roughly 38% that of Earth’s? What effect would that great difference have on human (and food animal) gestation?

At the very bottom of human metabolism, of Earth-adapted metabolism in general, are a suite of minerals that plants, animals, essential bacteria need. Many of these are used in trace amounts only, but they seem to be critical. Will all of these minerals be present on Mars? What will be the effect, even if the minerals are present in some amount, on the bacteria on which all the other life depends, and on the plants on which all the animals depend?

And one more question: say a self-sustaining colony has been a going concern for some number of generations. With those generations’ adaptation (focusing here solely on the human population) to Mars’ gravity and to that planets’ mineral suite—especially in the latest generations there—will those folks ever be able to come back to Earth and live and operate in our much higher gravity field? Will those folks even still be homo sapiens, or will they be something different—homo mars? It seems likely the two populations still would be capable of interbreeding, much like homo sapiens with homo neanderthalensis and with denisova hominin.

Getting sustainably off planet will facilitate our ability to survive natural disasters and our own machinations, and thereby extend the life of homo sapiens as a species. But evolution won’t be stopped by getting off planet. That will only generate new pressures that guide evolution, new pathways for evolution to follow. And that includes the evolution of homo sapiens, even here on Earth.

A Hard Question

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It has a simple answer; unfortunately, it also has a gaslighting answer.

A San Francisco shoplifter was fatally shot in the end game of a fight with a store security guard who was trying to recover the merchandise being shoplifted. The headline and the first clause of the subheadline ask the question and gaslightingly answer it:

A Shoplifter Gets Shot Stealing Candy at Walgreens. Who’s to Blame?
More than a year after the killing, the official answer is no one….

The article went into many pixels worth of description of the event, but the question posed in the headline never was seriously answered. The perfectly straightforward, utterly simple answer to the headline question is: the shoplifter is to blame. The shoplifter even had two opportunities through which to avoid the outcome. His first, and most important, opportunity was to not have shoplifted in the first place.

His second opportunity was to surrender the stolen goods when confronted by the security guard instead of fighting with him.

But even in this city’s pretense of tightening shoplifting laws, the emphasis remains on holding the criminal blameless.