Tag Archives: responsibilities

Assimilation

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…of one culture into another.  This is the problem being experienced by eastern Germany since reunification.

Twenty-seven years after Germany’s reunification, the country’s political institutions are still struggling to break down what Germans sometimes call “the Wall in the head,” according to the leader of Germany’s Federal Agency for Civic Education (bpb).

“The domination of West Germans in the elites is still felt as cultural colonialism,” Thomas Krüger, the only former East German to head a government department not directly associated with East German affairs[.]

So much is true, but more importantly, it’s indicative of the long-term damage done by authoritarian governments.  The dominated culture develops an ingrained disdain for authority in general, which isn’t all bad for any people, but the individuals of that culture also have lost their initiative—their willingness, even their ability, to act on their distrust and to make their own decisions and then act on those decisions.  They’re still too used to being dominated.

It’s a generational damage, and it’ll take generations to overcome.  Eastern Germany has been free for only a bit over one generation after three or more generations of domination, first by the Nazis and then by the Soviets.

The Democratic National Committee

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Have I mentioned the racist bigotry of the Left and its Progressive-Democratic Party?  Here’s an example of the Progressive-Democratic Party’s openly direct sexist bigotry, via Power Line (click on the image to get a larger version).

The emphasized line (emphasis by Power Line)—the money line—says I personally would prefer that you not forward to cisgender straight white males, since they’re already in the majority.  The line gains yet more significance coming on the heels of the first paragraph of Madeleine Leader’s (DNC Data Services Manager) missive.  After saying the DNC needs to rebuild its Technology Team into a capability for “tackling all elections,” she emphasized [emphasis added]

What’s more important is that we are focused on hiring and maintaining a staff of diverse voices and life experiences….

The Progressive-Democratic Party’s sexism, masqueraded as virtue signaling, is more important than merit—except that they define merit on the basis of gender and racial diversity, not on actual capability.

This is the gang that would rule our nation.  What damage would they do in the name of a diversity that favors Party-chosen groups?

The Bigotry of the Left’s Identity Politics

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…writ large.  Here’s Van Gosse, of Franklin & Marshall College (I hesitate to call him a professor, even though that’s what he’s pleased to profess to do at the school) in his op-ed in Newsweek:

Why has the ascent of a bunch of people who in an earlier period might have been called Micks drawn no notice at all?

Maybe because they’re all Americans, who happen to have Irish ethnicity, and not Irishmen and -women who happen to have American citizenship.  This is the bigotry of the identity politics of ex-President Barack Obama (D), of ex-Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (D), of Progressive-Democratic Party Chairman Tom Perez, the Party in general, and the Left exposed.

This is the bigotry of the folks who would run our government and remake our nation made plain.

The silence of the Left, of the Party’s rank and file—of its politicians in Congress—on this rank racism is deafening.

Obamacare Subsidies

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Recall that under Obamacare, health coverage plan providers are required to subsidize low-income Americans (who, under Obamacare, are required to buy the plans regardless of need for the plans on offer or ability to pay the vig for them) for their costs in buying those health coverage plans.  Recall further that the Obama administration paid those plan providers monies to reimburse them for those government-mandated subsidy payouts.  Recall also that Congress never appropriated any funds for the purpose of making those payments to the plan providers.  Finally, recall that a DC District court ruled those payments to the health plan providers illegal—because Congress had not appropriated any funds for the purpose.  Then the Trump administration ceased those payments to the health plan providers.

Oh, the hoo-rah from the Left.  Eighteen Progressive-Democrat-led States sued in Federal court (in San Francisco, California, after judge-shopping to find a suitably malleable court), centering their beef on how stopping the payments would set the Obamacare markets a-roil.  Never mind, now, how cynically irrelevant that plaint is to the actual case before the courts, which is whether the payments are legal, not whether they’re convenient.

Federal judge Vince Chhabria, of the Northern District of California, headquarted in San Fran, wound up ruling against the 18 States.  He also wrote,

And although you wouldn’t know it from reading the states’ papers in this lawsuit, the truth is that most state regulators have devised responses that give millions of lower-income people better health coverage options than they would otherwise have had

And he

cited an October press release by California’s health care marketplace, which said the premiums of nearly four of five consumers will stay the same or decrease after surcharges tied to the lost subsidies are factored in. The judge said dozens of other states also have accounted for the end of the subsidies.

And

One last point on the issue of confusion.  If the states are so concerned that people will be scared away from the exchanges by the thought of higher premiums, perhaps they should stop yelling about higher premiums. With open enrollment just days away, perhaps the states should focus instead on communicating the message that they have devised a response to the CSR payment termination that will prevent harm to the large majority of people while in fact allowing millions of lower-income people to get a better deal on health insurance in 2018.

Oops.  Just another bit of disingenuousity on the part of Progressive-Democrats as they try to keep honest Americans trapped in the Progressive-Democrat welfare cage.

Judge Chhabria’s ruling can be read here.

Steve Bannon and the Progressive-Democratic Party

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Steve Bannon is acting more and more (and more openly) like a stooge of the Progressive-Democratic Party.

Is Steve Bannon working for my agenda—or his?

That’s the question Donald Trump might ask himself….

Indeed, since Bannon’s targets are Republicans of whom he disapproves—which is to say nearly all of them—all of us must ask for whose agenda is Bannon working so hard.  Bannon did, though, give his game away:

The only question on Capitol Hill, he warned Mr [Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell, is “who’s going to be Brutus to your Julius Caesar[?]”

Indeed.  Who’s going to play the role of assassin/traitor to the Senate?

Bannon intends to subject every Republican Senator who is rude enough to support McConnell to a primary contest with a view to removing that Senator from office and replacing him with a more malleable candidate in the general election.

I’ve written elsewhere of the likely outcome of Bannon’s campaign.  William McGurn, the author of the piece at the first link, has one take on Bannon’s motive for that outcome.  I have another.

If Bannon were truly interested in a Conservative victory in the coming series of elections, he’d be going after the Progressive-Democratic Party candidates instead of targeting Republicans, even those who aren’t conservative enough to suit him.  Instead, he’s carefully ignoring the Democrats.