February 4, 2004. Uncle Mike's Musings: Facebook Goes Live

 

February 4, 2004: Facebook Goes Live

Subsidiarity Economics. The times more or less locally, Part XV. The 2% solution?

 August 9, 2023

3%

That is what inflation has fallen to.

The target rate is nonsensically 2%, which still robs workers of their wages.  Given the recent inflation, a more sensical target would be at or about 0%, or better yet a slight deflationary rate of 1%.

That's the core inflationary rate, by the way. Real inflation is at about 4.1%.

The US is banning private equity investment in China and investment in some Chinese technology companies.

August 12, 2023

The EPA estimates that by 2055 most petroleum fueled vehicles will have attrited off the road.

August 16, 2023

From the Oil City News:

CASPER, Wyo. — Rocky Mountain Power, the state’s largest electric utility, is proposing to raise its energy rates by 29.2%.

August 24, 2023

Before more consolidation of everything is just what we needed:

Subway sandwich chain sells itself to Dunkin’ owner Roark Capital

August 27, 2023

France will spend €200 million to destroy excess wine in hopes of shoring up the struggling wine industry.  Wine consumption in Europe has been falling, while production increasing.

September 7, 2023

Chinese exports, upon which that nation depends, have decreased every month of 2023.  China's economy is dependent upon exports and there is serious discussion on the country going into a recession.

September 11, 2023

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez faced severe criticism from her constituents, after sharing a video on Instagram from the Kiwi left-wing Aotearoa Liberation League that accredited rising prices solely to corporations and described the discussion surrounding inflation as propaganda.

When I read the headline, I actually wondered if she'd reposted something of Robert Reich's. . . 

The bloom has really been off AoC's rose in recent months.

Trump has been heard at campaign dinners indicating that if re elected he will cut taxes, which are too low to start with, and use tariffs as a trade weapon.

September 15, 2023

The United Auto Workers are out on strike.

September 20, 2023

Ford Motors in Canada reached a deal with is union to avoid a strike there.

Republican infighting kept two budget bills from advancing there.

Cont:  

A drought in Spain has caused a 50% increase in the price of olive oil, which in turn is causing a spike in olive oil theft.

September 27, 2023

The Writers Guild of America has reached an accommodation with the entertainment industry and has ended its strike.

U.S. regulators and seventeen states have sued Amazon on Tuesday over allegations it uses its position in the economy to inflate prices.

The Senate has drafted a stopgap funding bill it will likely pass, but there's no certainty the dysfunctional House of Representatives will.

September 28, 2023

Kevin McCarthy, prisoner of GOP populists, will not take up the Senate bill to fund the government, making a shutdown impossible to avoid.

The House of Representatives is, quite frankly, dysfunctional.

And given this, we will close out this edition of Subsidiarity Economics, even though its barely gone, and start one focused on that theme.

But not before noting that the U.S. economy recently grew 2.1%.

October 1, 2023.

Crisis postponed. 

The following crisis that is:

Subsidiarity Economics. The Shutdown edition.

September 28, 2023

Kevin McCarthy, prisoner of GOP populists, will not take up the Senate bill to fund the government, making a shutdown impossible to avoid.

The House of Representatives is, quite frankly, dysfunctional.

And given this, we will close out this edition of Subsidiarity Economics, even though its barely gone, and start one focused on that theme.

Kevin McCarthy should hang his head in shame.

What all will close, assuming that the House doesn't get its act together today, isn't clear. Some things will, but "vital" things apparently will not.  Some Federal employees will be asked to work without pay, which is interesting, as working without pay is involuntary servitude, and was banned by a post Civil War constitutional amendment.

Congress, oddly, will get paid. 

The mail will continue to be delivered, as the U.S. Post Office funds itself.

Arizona and Utah have voted to spend state funds to keep their National Parks open.  Senator John Barrasso asked the Secretary of the Interior to use park entry fees to do the same.

Fat Bear Week is off due to the dysfunctional House of Representatives having been taken hostage by populists.

Government contracts and modifications to contracts will not be issued.

Medicaid will continue to be paid. Medicare will continue on.

The FHA will have limited staff and loans it processes will be delayed.

The SBA will shut down.

The ATF might not process background checks, which may lead to a complete halt on the sale of firearms by licensed firearm's dealers.

The latter is the thing that Wyomingites are likely to complain about right away.  People in industries supported by tourism are likely to notice the closure of the parks rapidly.

All of this, of course, is because this will be a managed shut down, which is really a limited shutdown or a slow-down.  If things continue for some time, and this time they might, a real shutdown may creep in, which Wyomingites, in spite of apparently disdaining the Federal Government, would really feel.  A closure of the airports, for example, could be expected at some point, And a cessation of petroleum production on Federal lands due to a lack of Federal oversight.  Perhaps a cessation of grazing on the Federal domain for the same reason.  And a lack of highway funds.

None of that will happen rapidly, of course.  Or maybe at all.

September 30, 2023.

We’re likely to avert a shutdown, but the clown show continues

Let the grousing now being.

Not from Reich, with whom I obviously have a love/hate relationship, but from the MAGA far right out in the hinterlands, who will be outraged, outraged I tell you, and they'll tell you on their way from the television to the refirgerator for a Coors Lite (can't touch that Bud, of course) who would, they'll say, have enjoyed the shutdown. . .right up until they didn't, and then somehow, it would have been the Democrats fault.Congress passed a 45-day stopgap spending bill yesterday.  In doing so, Speaker McCarthy noted:

We’re going to be adults in the room. And we’re going to keep government open.

Well now he has 45 days to see if he can do that.

The bill omitted funding for Ukraine.  President Biden noted that in his address regarding the stopgap bill.

Tonight, bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate voted to keep the government open, preventing an unnecessary crisis that would have inflicted needless pain on millions of hardworking Americans. This bill ensures that active-duty troops will continue to get paid, travelers will be spared airport delays, millions of women and children will continue to have access to vital nutrition assistance, and so much more. This is good news for the American people.

 

But I want to be clear: we should never have been in this position in the first place. Just a few months ago, Speaker McCarthy and I reached a budget agreement to avoid precisely this type of manufactured crisis. For weeks, extreme House Republicans tried to walk away from that deal by demanding drastic cuts that would have been devastating for millions of Americans. They failed.

 

While the Speaker and the overwhelming majority of Congress have been steadfast in their support for Ukraine, there is no new funding in this agreement to continue that support. We cannot under any circumstances allow American support for Ukraine to be interrupted. I fully expect the Speaker will keep his commitment to the people of Ukraine and secure passage of the support needed to help Ukraine at this critical moment.

McCarthy had to rely on Democrats to pass the bill, and will now surely face an effort aimed at his removal by his hard right. 

October 4, 2023

Facebook's parent company Meta is laying off 11,000 employees.

October 5, 2023

75,000 Kaiser Permanente employees went on strike Wednesday. Staffing levels are an issue.

October 8, 2023

California has put into effect a law requiring  requires public and private US businesses with revenues greater than $1 billion operating in California to report their emissions comprehensively.

October 9, 2023

Workers for Mack Truck are going out on a UAW strike.

October 11, 2023

The UAW's strike has expanded to include a Ford plant in Kentucky.

October 15, 2023

The price of oil has jumped 6% since April.

October 24, 2023

Icelandic women are on strike for wage equality.

October 27, 2023

The economy grew by 4.9% last quarter.

October 28, 2023

Governor Gordon sounded climate alarm bells in a speech at Harvard this past week, noting that Wyoming needed to decarbonize. This caused the Wyoming Freedom Caucus to freak out.

October 31, 2023

The United Auto Workers has scored a major victory.

It’s still awaiting a vote by union members, but it’s a big deal – a 25% wage increase over the 4 ½ years of the contract, cost-of-living increases that will further ratchet up hourly pay, the right to strike over plant closures, and a quicker time to reach top pay.

Robert Reich.

November 2, 2023

Headline:

Union sets its sights on Tesla

November 5, 2023

Voters in Maine are voting on a referendum to replace the state's two electric companies with consumer-owned Pine Tree Power Company.

The proposal goes to the polls on Tuesday.  It states:

The official ballot title is as follows:[12]

“ QUESTION 3: An Act to Create the Pine Tree Power Company, a Nonprofit, Customer-owned Utility. Do you want to create a new power company governed by an elected board to acquire and operate existing for-profit electricity transmission and distribution facilities in Maine?

[13]

”

Ballot summary

The official ballot summary is as follows:[14]

“ This initiated bill creates the Pine Tree Power Company, a privately operated, nonprofit, consumer-owned utility controlled by a board the majority of the members of which are elected. The company's purposes are to provide for its customer-owners in this State reliable, affordable electric transmission and distribution services and to help the State meet its climate, energy and connectivity goals in the most rapid and affordable manner possible.

The Pine Tree Power Company is not permitted to use general obligation bonds or tax dollars of the State. The company finances itself by issuing debt against its future revenues to purchase the facilities of investor-owned electric transmission and distribution utilities in the State. The fair market value of the acquisition is either negotiated or determined by a refereed process. The Pine Tree Power Company Board contracts a nongovernmental team to operate the facilities, and the operations team is required to retain all workers of the purchased utilities.

The company is subject to property taxation and must pay property tax in the same manner as an investor-owned transmission and distribution utility. The company is subject to ratemaking and other oversight by the Public Utilities Commission and is required to administer programs for net energy billing, nonwires alternatives, supply procurement and low-income assistance programs.

The company is governed by a board of 13 members, 7 of whom are each elected to represent State Senate districts, as well as 6 designated expert members. The board is subject to freedom of access laws and to laws preventing conflicts of interest.

The initiated bill also directs the Public Utilities Commission beginning January 1, 2025 to find a transmission and distribution utility unfit to serve and to direct the sale of the utility if the utility meets certain criteria. [13]

”

Fiscal impact statement

The official fiscal impact statement is as follows:[14]

“

This citizen initiative creates the Pine Tree Power Company (PTPC), a privately operated, nonprofit, consumer-owned transmission and distribution utility. It establishes a process for the PTPC to purchase the assets of an investor-owned electric transmission and distribution facility operating in the State. The PTPC will be subject to oversite by the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) as a consumer-owned utility. It is important to clarify that this fiscal impact statement does not attempt to quantify or include the cost to the PTPC to purchase and operate a decertified utility. The purchase is anticipated to be financed through the issuance of bonds and the debt service costs of those bonds and the costs of operation will be funded through utility rates charged to the consumers.

The PUC has indicated that its additional regulatory authority will require 3 Staff Attorney positions and 6 Utility Analyst positions at a projected cost of $1,294,169 in the first year and $2,275,349 in subsequent years. Since the PUC is funded by an assessment set to produce sufficient revenue for the expenditures allocated by the Legislature for operating the PUC, the increased expenditures will require a corresponding increase in revenue from assessments on transmission and distribution utilities. These costs may be passed on to electric utility customers through scheduled rate cases in the future.

The initiative also requires that no earlier than January 1, 2025, the PUC shall decertify investor-owned electric transmission and distribution utilities operating in the State that fail to meet criteria established in this initiative. This action, combined with provisions designed to force the utilities subject to decertification to sell assets to the PTPC, may result in litigation. Any litigation costs may be passed on to consumers.

The 7 elected members of a 13-person governing board may participate in the Maine Clean Elections program. The Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices estimates that up to 11 candidates may choose to use the program in the first election cycle after the PTPC is established for a cost to the Commission of $335,450 from April through June in the first fiscal year and $273,750 from July through October in the second fiscal year. Qualifying contributions from candidates are anticipated to generate additional revenue of $13,900 in the first year and $9,900 in the second fiscal year. Subsequent election cycles are estimated to require payments to candidates of $110,764 or $166,145, depending on whether 2 or 3 board members are being elected.

Additional costs to any state agencies and departments that provide assistance and counsel to the board, and to the Office of the Attorney General to make recommendations regarding a code of ethics for members of the board, can be absorbed within existing budgeted resources and will not require additional funding.

Since the PTPC will be exempt from income taxes, the State will see a decrease in General Fund revenue from the corporate income taxes that are currently being paid by the investor-owned utilities currently operating in the State. Confidentiality of tax records prevents disclosure of the amounts of tax paid by the existing utilities that will be decertified if this initiative is approved. However, some of this income tax revenue loss could be offset to the extent that the non-governmental entity contracted by the PTPC for certain operations has taxable income. The PTPC will still be subject to property taxes, so municipal property tax revenues are not expected to be significantly impacted unless there is a change in the location of facilities. [13]

November 9, 2023

The Air Force wants Congress to restrict the placement of wind farms near nuclear missle silos.

November 10, 2023

Moody’s Investors Service is revising the outlook on the U.S. government’s ratings to negative from stable but affirming the long-term issuer and senior unsecured rating at AAA.

Lest anyone doubt, this is bad for the economy and reflects a years long inability to get the deficit under control.

November 21, 2023

Ontario Knife Co. was sold to Blue Ridge Knives and all 56 employees at its Frankliville, New  York plant lost their jobs as a result.  Blue Ridge owns 800 brand names.

Last prior edition:

Subsidiarity Economics. The times more or less locally, Part XIV. And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Congress is shocked, shocked to find that Facebook acts like any other company.

Seriously, a body that can't get its act together on anything else is surprised that what is functionally a news outlet in a capitalist society acts like a news outlet in a capitalist society.

M'eh.

I'm not sure what it says that Facebook was down for a while day and. . .

I didn't know that until my wife told me she'd heard it on the news.

What's more, I really don't care.

And as the race heats up, mud files, and Twitter tweats. . .

it's worth remembering the Russians.

Eh?

Yes, remember the Russians.

Or at least recall that the Russians were messing around in our election in 2016, and they did that in no small part through Facebook and Twitter.

See a lot of extreme stuff coming from those quarters, and people rising to the bait?

Well, it's worth recalling where extreme political stuff on the net tends to come from.  And just skip it.

Remembering how people work

Or how they get paid, actually.

For a long time, this blog has had a Wednesday post called "Mid Week At Work".  In that post we usually take a look at a job from the past, although sometimes they're a current item.  This time, its very much a current item.

What I'm not commenting on is the comments the President made earlier this week expressing the view that sometime around Easter he hoped to have the country back to work.  That's been controversial (Wyoming Congressman Liz Cheney, who counters President Trump a fair amount, came out with a statement saying we should listen to the medical experts, no matter what they say).  I'm not going to chip in on that and that would be a long post indeed.

Rather, what I'm going to comment on is the ill informed snottiness that circulates in some circles on this topic.

Now, first of all let me note that I have a Twitter account.  I have it solely to link in stuff from here to there in the thought that some folks who read it there will come back here. That's about it.  But the fact that I have one and that I've followed a few people, mostly agriculturalist and historians, means that I get to read a lot of ill informed drivel that some people will post.

Likewise, the same is true on Facebook.

Indeed, on Facebook a very nice man I've known for decades now posts daily posts about how the COVID 19 epidemic isn't really real.  I've seen other posts claiming the whole thing is a hoax.  It isn't.  It's a real pandemic.  People are really going to die. And while I myself was skeptical about the need to shut the entire country down at first, I think that's now been well established for this period we are in, which is most a state matter and not a Federal matter.

Okay, now with that background I now see people debating the "quarantine in place" policies, some of which were ordered in some places and others which have been self imposed.  For reasons I'll detail, later, maybe, in another post, I've been reluctantly on one the past several days myself.

Anyhow, with the President's comments there are now quite a few comments around about the need for the country to get back to work.  I saw one in the local paper this morning in a letter to the editor.  These comments vary in type and nature, but basically what they state is that if this keeps on we're going to destroy the economy (assuming we haven't already) and that is a disaster of such magnitude that it'd be better to ramp the economy back up and hope for the best and accept the risk that entails.

Now that can be debated one way or another, and I don't intend to do that. Rather, I'm commenting on the Twitter type comments of the opposite nature which just fly off the handle, which typically take this tone:

OH MY GOSH, you stupid selfish bastard, I'm self quarantining if our forefathers were able to handle World War Two, we can handle this, you genocidal madman.

Again, take that type of comment for what you will, but I'm tending to note that they are often posted by people who have jobs that are highly secure and if they sit on their butts inside their homes for weeks, it isn't going to really matter to them, or they work in an occupation, like I do, where work can continue, at least for awhile, from your home.

And that's the point to be noted here.

Note everyone has these kinds of jobs.

Waiters, bartenders, and the like don't.  If they aren't on location and picking up tips, they're going broke, and they don't do very well to start with.  Their employers probably don't keep paying them as they can't afford to.  And even if they are, they aren't picking up their tip income, as they never did.  This would be true for taxi drivers as well.

Some members of our economy do piece work, like mechanics.  People tend not to know this, but most automobile mechanics are paid by the job they perform based upon the average amount of time it takes to do it, they aren't paid by the hour.  And they aren't the only members of the economy who do piece work.

Lots of people in the modern economy work in the gig sector of the economy.  Uber drivers are probably the classic example.  They only make money if they are driving.  If they take a day off, they aren't paid. . . at all.  Right now, they're making no money whatsoever.

Uber drivers are an example of independent contractors, and there are a actually a huge number of independent contractors in the modern world.  A guy may be wearing the XYZ Oil Company hard hat at work, but he may very well be an independent contractor for them.  If he's not working, he's not getting paid.  He's not even easily eligible for unemployment as his is, after all, self employed.

Indeed, if you look at the State of Wyoming's closure list, it's pretty much a laundry list of those who can least afford a disruption in their regular employment states. Those people are taking a pounding.

The point?

When people get on their high horses, safe in their university research assistant position which is paid for by the state, whose pay is the same marching or fighting, they ought to recall that many people don't work that way.  There really are people who will go from getting by, to not getting by, to out the door, to homeless.  Many thousands more will have months and months to make up for this disaster.

This doesn't mean that orders should be lifted or lengthened.  It means that if you are sitting in your apartment secure and sound with the next three months off from the University of Land Grant, you ought to look across the city and remember there are a lot of people sitting in apartments right now worried how they're going to pay for the rent on April 1.  It's all well and good to compare you sitting at home to service in World War Two, but remember that the comparison you are making is to occupying a position in the Bureau of Statistics during the war, while urging that others hit the beaches at Tarawa.  You aren't, they are.

Does that make Trump's point?  No. Sacrifices are uneven.  But we should at least be aware they exist.

Time announces its person of the year

Thereby guaranteeing with its choice a second full day of ranting, raving, screaming, proclaiming, crying, yelling, showing, and self righteous accolades and condemnations on Twitter, Reddit and Facebook.

And then there's December 10, 2019. . .

which I predict to be a particularly silly, self affirming, self righteous, day on Twitter and Facebook, as well as certain quarters of Reddit.

And I'm not even pointing fingers, I'd note, at any one side when I say that.

So, if in terms of combating Russian influence in the election cycle, there's one simple thing you can do. . .

which is not getting your news from Twitter, Facebook or any sort of social media.

Just don't.

Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, whatever.  The news there is junk.

Want news?  Get it from a local newspaper or a respected national one. And by that, I mean the print edition, not the online edition that has a zillion screaming comments.  Or get it from a respected radio source.  Get it from television, if you must (the least best alternative) but don't get it from the net.

That's the source that's easy to manipulate, which has been manipulated, and which is going to be manipulated.

Arguing in Ignorance

I can't  help but notice that a lot of the most strident opinions I see argued on the net, and mostly on Facebook at that, are done in blistering ignorance.

This includes, I'd note, recycled "why this or that" items other people have prepared that are posted in as if they're really informative, just because they exist.

Make no mistake, arguments, no matter how self convinced, that are presented in ignorance, aren't very convincing except to the already convinced in ignorance.  These mostly reinforce a strongly held, but not very well examined, belief the poster holds.  They don't advance any argument at all for that reason.

For example, there's a lot of people who argue for gun control that are completely ignorant on firearms, the use of firearms, and even on actual crime rates. . .anywhere.  Given that, we get stuff that's really stupid like "Why Japan has a low murder rate and why we should adopt Japanese gun control".

Japan does have a low murder rate.  It also has a really high suicide rate.  It's also xenophobic,  homogeneous, and frankly fairly racist and has a culture that really accepts nearly complete control on what people will or can do with their lives in all sorts of ways.

That's not a model for anything other than Japan, accepting that its a model for Japan, which it arguably shouldn't be.

The same sort of "walk this way" mentality that allowed Japan to engage in regional murder and imperial expansion in the 1920s through the 1940s allows it to control who will own what and why in terms of firearms.  It also helps create a culture in which a lot of Japanese would rather be dead.  And the culture is so vastly different from the American one, where people feel that they get to do what they want with what they want, that it's not a model for anything whatsoever.

But people who don't use firearms adopt the model because, well, they don't use firearms and haven't though thought it out.

It isn't even really accurate.  There is, for example, a thing on "Why Japan has a low murder rate" circulating right now that urges the US to adopt the same policies in cartoon form, but it doesn't even have Japan's policies on guns down correctly.  It claims that after a very difficult process a Japanese person who has a need for a firearm that's demonstrated, and who jumps through all sorts of hoops, can get a shotgun or an "air rifle". Wrong.

First of all, the Japanese policy on guns is difficult, to be sure, but not as difficult as people who cite to it like to claim.  Japan does tightly restrict firearms ownership, but in terms of simply banning an entire class of sporting firearms, only handguns are actually banned.

And, fwiw, Japan is experiencing a growth in hunting (and fishing) as women in the country enter those sports.  So, cartoon circulators, you're way off the mark.

Citing to Japan in the US in any event makes about as much sense as me making suggestions for NASCAR and football, both of which I can't stand.  I can't stand them, and I don't understand them, which is why I don't make suggestions for football and NASCAR.

But I could.

And some do. I  know, for example, that football has a tragic concussion rate and there are those who really worry about it.  I worry about that some, as I know that young people play the game.

But I can't stand the game personally so I try not to spout off about it.  But, perhaps, I could say that "Japan has a low youth concussion rate?  Why? Well it doesn't let its youth play football.  Instead, they draw anime on their computers and briefly flirt with weird cuteness and a culture that approves of cartoon character that feature a superhero called "Rape Man".  Yes, that's what we should do too".

Does that make sense.  No, and while there is a Japanese cartoon character called "Rape Man" and the Japanese culture does (or perhaps did) have a weird thing for "cute", I'm sure it's otherwise way off the mark.

Just like it is to suggest that Japan offers anything to inform us about gun control.  The only culture that can inform u son that topic is our own.

That includes Australia, I'd note.

I also see a lot of citations to Australia as a prime example of what we ought to do regarding guns.  Well, actually Australia's murder rate is just about the same as the US one in the states with low gun control.

What?  Yes, that's right.  US states with low gun control have low murder rates and Australia with high gun control has low murder rates.  Which suggest that perhaps the murder rates in these two English speaking and European culture countries might be tied to something else.

Indeed, in stupid arguments, I recently saw a post by an Australian that if he lived in the US he'd carry a gun all the time as its so dangerous here. Well, Oz, just about as dangerous as Perth, actually.  I.e., not very.

Of course Americans have done a good job of making their own cities look horribly dangerous by portraying them that way on television.  Most aren't, however.  Big ones usually have a district that is, but most big cities everywhere do.  Even cities that are really dangerous, like Chicago, aren't as dangerous as television and the movies portray them.  According to television, for example, Chicago is in a four alarm fire all the time.

And while we discuss "something else" in terms of English speaking European cultured countries, I saw a headline posted on the net the other day entitled "Why Canada Does Things Better than The US".  I'm not sure I'd agree that Canada does do things better than the US, but if it does, perhaps having a more homogeneous culture that has less than 10% of the American population might have something to do with that. 

People hate it when you say that, and Americans particularly do as we like to cite to the claim that "we're a nation of immigrants" and "diversity is our strength" but in truth, while it doesn't say anything for or against our immigration policies, homogeneous nations with lower population generally do everything better, except (usually) accepting immigrants. Canada, which has done that, except not like the US, is an exception to that rule.  Anyhow, if the US had a population of 30 million rather than over 300 million, yes it too probably would be doing everything just super.  That's not an argument for or against anything, but when you argue "we're doing super" and you are a nation of low population. well. . . .

But you can't pat yourself on the back, if you are Canada, for that, as it looks bad.  "Yes!  Our climate and history means we've kept the population lower and less diverse!  Hooray for liberal us!"  No, you can't do that.

Nor can you pat yourself on the back, really, for "good old American know how".  While I see memes on that sort of thing all the time, the US became the powerful nation it is in large part because it had a combination of English Common Law (which we didn't think up), free market economics (mostly accidentally) and vast unexplored natural resources (which we didn't put there).  Almost all of the nations that have shared these benefits, such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the US have done super.

On another topic, I have a couple of friends who are really hostile to religion. They hate it.  They are also amongst those whose personal lives are such a titanic mess that they could best benefit from religion. . .any religion, as they've made such a dog's breakfast of their own existence.  And yet they'll blame religion for everything.  "Christianity is keeping people down!"  Hmmm, your string of failed relationship, broken marriages, and drug use might have something to do with keeping your economic status in the dumpers. . . just saying.

These folks typically have no idea what the tenants of any religion actually are. They just now that religions, at the end of the day, say that there's something greater than oneself out there, and they hate that idea more than anything else.  They often also tend to be fairly hostile to life, for one reason or another, but don't recognize that.

On that, an ignorant argument by anti life, i.e., "pro choice" people, will be, "oh  yeah, well you pro life people sure don't care anything about life outside the womb!".  That's complete bull.

If you look at it, the same people who are pro life tend to be radically pro adoption and very very frequently opponents of the death penalty.  They're likely more charitable towards the young in stress or need than anyone else.

Which brings up an ignorant argument from the last election cycle.  Last election cycle, as things began to go down the tubes for Hillary Clinton, people kept saying "she's worked her whole life for women".

I'm not sure what Clinton did for women, but quite frankly you can't claim to be a worker for the interest of women and also be an abortion proponent, as over half the babies killed in that process are female.  So, in reality, if Clinton worked her whole life for women, it has to be qualified as working for women who are born only.  It's a fairly significant qualifier.

Also as qualifiers, quite frankly are the zillions of simple minded heart warming stories that start of with some surprising fact and then take you to some amazing conclusions.  You know, "This boy was left in the woods. . . wolves found  him. . . but they brought him a burger from a Burger King dumpster. . . " and you go on to find its Bill Gates.  Hmmmmmm . . .probably more to that story. . . 

I guess the lesson in all of this might be this.

Facebook advocacy snippets tend to be dumb.

I don't post political links on Facebook. . .

 

except, perhaps, on very rare occasion and limited, as far as I can recall, to attending the public lands rallies last summer.   And I suppose I "like" some pages that are on that topic. So I guess I do.

But it's not a constant stream.

Originally Facebook, I guess, was to allow certain distant people to follow each other.  At some point, and that some point was no doubt quite early on, that changed to where people started posting their political and social views often through links.

I'll do that here, to be sure, but then this is a different type of forum.  I don't do that, except as noted, on Facebook.  But it's gotten so bad on Facebook in some instances that I can identify who has posted the link simply by looking at the item linked in.  This may show, I suspect, how shallow American discourse on some topics has really become.  Or maybe it shows how shallow it always was, but it wasn't so obvious.

I have some friends who are radically Republican.  I mean radically.  And they're pro Trump to the he can do no wrong level.  Others, conversely, hate him.  I have one liberal friend who is obviously a massively unhappy person who is radically left wing, radically opposed to the Republicans and radically opposed to Christianity.  Indeed, while I know I shouldn't, I can't help but think of her a bit in the context of the tragedy that just occurred in which its' now been repeated that the shooter "didn't have any interest in any of that stuff".  And they wonder why he was a killer?  At least in my experience, people who are opposed, and that's what it seems they really are, opposed, to an afterlife are bitter to the point of at least suggested violence in about half the cases.

Some of my friends post their religious views constantly as well.  I'm less critical of that, as that's a deeper part of a person's personality, but here too I can tell who they are (as would make sense) simply by the post.  If a post is going after Pope Francis, it's one person.  If its a link to a Mark Shea column, it's another.  If its sort of generic Protestant, well that's another.  And if its Mormon, I know right away who it is.

Well, I guess that's all okay, or at least the latter part is.  But the former, where people flood Facebook with the "100% Red Blooded Trump For Life" site, or the "Good Timing Karl Marx Communism Ain't Dead. . . It's Just Resting Its Eyes" site, well. . . folks ought to reconsider that a bit.  Or at least ponder things a bit more deeply on occasion.