Goodbye LIttle Brother, Hello Big Brother

One-baby-families summon big government.  Demography rules and it means "goodbye, little brother, hello Big Brother".  The math is easy.  You can explain it to a kid in Grade Three.  After two generations of one-kid-only, this is what you get:  No brother and no sisters.  No cousins.  No aunts and no uncles.   Say goodbye to a support system  and shared values outside the nuclear family of three. Going to church as a family for Thanksgiving, and singing Christmas carols with people from your neighbourhood, saying the Lord's prayer and singing "God Save The Queen" before class, cheering for the same hockey teams, watching Bonanza and Ed Sullivan Sunday nights and talking about it Monday morning: It's all extinct or trending there.

We need family and community.
Today's alternative has to be collective. 
The top candidate is The Deep State. 
A close second and gaining is the shame-chamber of Social Media.

The generation I'm looking at is the one coming right after the precious snowflakes now in the news for their petty rage.  These young adults will have no kinfolk, just parents and step-parents, and tons of grandparents.  Demography is merciless.  These folk will ask for more government and get it.  They will join digital tribes and mobs in exact measure as the family shrinks.  We need family and community.  This is today's price.

Goodbye little sister, little brother.
Hello Big Bro.

I prefer popular government to gentry rule

Those baying against populism must prefer unpopular government.     You've heard "Trumps rise proves how dangerous populism is for democracy" (NBC)  Enough of that!  I'm thinking back to Barack H. Obama's fund-raising trips to LA.  The secret service shut down entire streets for his cavalcade to by-invitation-only celebrity luncheons in gentry homes.  I compare that to crowds of ten and twenty thousand streaming out to hear Donald J. Trump in person.  Tickets free.  No roads closed. You don't have to show your wallet to get in.  In other words, a populist appeal and one unprecedented in my lifetime. .  

At the end of the day, and by that I mean by tomorrow night, we'll know if popular is coming out ahead.  Trump has been flying out for one and even two GOTV talks with hearty endorsements every day.    Congress folks will be glad of the ride on Mr. Trump's coattails.

Trump's Rise Proves How Dangerous Populism Is for Democracy

Trump's Rise Proves How Dangerous Populism Is for Democracy

Village idiots are back

Thanks to social media, the exercise of power has reverted to our neighbours, our digital neighbours. Doxing, shaming, hounding and generally keeping everybody in line is the new norm. We are giving up the freedom of the city and reverting to our old ways, pre-industrial village ways. The exercise of power is the character of government. Although parliament and congress retain powers of taxation and death over citizens, the social media village has its own laws that have garnered greater and more immediate reach. We’re at the beginning of this digital atavism. Until protocols are built to guard freedom of choice on the privately run webs, we will be pushed a little further into the night, away from civility (”Civitas”, Latin word for “city”) and towards paganism with iphones. ( “Pagus”, Latin word for “countryside”)

The Digital Swamp Has Overtaken The State. Welcome to The New Village. You May Be A Target.

We have rules to govern the state: Elections, rules of order, recorded votes, pages of policy minutiae, backed by threats of force, but now the digital swamp is bigger than the state and it's unruly and snoopy.  You may have more to fear from "unfriending" and blocked twitter accounts than from the state. 

In village and tribal settings, we bump into all our neighbours every week. We are often blood relatives  and take great interest in their sexual unions, their work and kids, their status, beliefs and deeds.  We like to reinforce beliefs and behaviour by shaming, story-telling, kinship rules, force of habit and brute force. 

For groups much above 100, policy trumps relationships to maintain order.  Impersonal structures develop to safely form beneficial groups of towns, cities, states, parties, armies, guilds,clubs, and NGO's.  This includes double-entry bookkeeping, secret ballots, money, reading skills, concepts of "citizen, constitution, corporation", and the rule of written law.

Source

But now we’re back in a village, a global village, thanks to the speed of light. It just got personal again.   Social media, twittering and texting, internet and email have shrunk the world electronically.  Linked-in people may be thousands of miles apart, but the digital time to connect  is less than a second and the cost is less than a penny.   Connect means “reach out" and “like”.  It also means, “Target” and "Hack."

What’s next?  Thousands of people who care little about me are now my neighbours in time and effort but not in place.  They vote me up and down at will when I appear in the digital swamp. Most of the news and fake-news is about this phenomenon.  Trump is attacked for culture, not for policy.   The news media are players. The parties are players.  So are bakeries. So are restaurants, billionaires, and corporate giants.  So is the state.   This is the wild wild west and if you’re lucky, you’ll just be un-friended for speaking your mind.  Your safety, your job security, your wealth and your reputation are visible in the digital swamp and you may lose them.

Yeats wrote, “What rough beast slouches towards Bethlehem?”  For a few hundred years, the state helped keep order but the digital swamp is now bigger than the state.  The rules are unwritten.  What is next?  

New forms of government, cultural government are in the wings.  I want them to stay clear of my liberty to do what's best for my and my family.  Yet I want safety, fairness and community strength.      "It could be heaven.  It could be hell".

Democrats retreat to cities. Are Canada's politics different?

In the quarter century since Bill Clinton's anomalous mandate, Democrats have retreated to the cities. See counties won out of a possible 3112:

1992     Bill Clinton      1494
1996     Bill Clinton      1693
2000     Al Gore             642
2006     John Kerry        567
2008     Barack Obama  833
2012     Barack Obama  649
2016     Hillary Clinton  454 (A second source says 489)

The stunning graphic bears study.  Columns are counties.  Column height is population. Column colour is the percent advantage for the party.  Los Angeles county has 10 million citizens favouring Hillary by 25 to 50 % over Donald.  One link is 3D interactive.

What I see in Canada is the same cities/globalist trend-line but zones in Quebec and the Maritimes have their own populist back histories.  We are not immune but have some breathing room to watch the political lab to the south as it goes toxic.  This is a natural phenomenon, arising from the behaviour of complex groups, and it won't be going away any time soon. What is next?

Thank God Ottawa is more diverse than Washington

Click to enlarge (source)

If you live in Washington D.C., you probably don't know a single person who voted Republican. DC is a government town and 23 out of 25 voters went for HILLARY.  All of America's big cities tell the same story, but 9 in 10 is more typical.
 See the evidence.






In Canada this is a trend rather than a great divide.

Source at 308

In fact, if you look at this chart, it's hard to find a clear pattern.

Socialism kills and impoverishes. Why does it keep popping up?

Learning the average Venezuelan has lost 19 lbs since Chavez and now Maduro took over, has got me thinking.  Why does socialism keep happening with popular support at first and why do we never seem to learn when it fails?  My tentative answer:

Nuclear family, shared DNA

It's baked into our DNA.  What works to manage a genetically-linked family doesn't scale up well to tribe and nation. Nations are the new kid on the block and strategies to prosper them are in their infancy.   The top-down guidance and distribution of resources for the good of the pack works for a reproductive pair and their dependent infants but fails for a nation. It isn't total failure but it fails.

Extended family.

Problems of scale and inter-relatedness

Top-down "for-your-own-good-kiddies" government will always be with us.  The impulse to look after our kids and to tell them what to do extends to a lesser degree to watch our for our kinfolk and even our tribe. It starts falling apart at the scale of the nation state that has multiple genetic backgrounds.    Because a treasure trove of resources is concentrated in centralized government, there will always be predators attracted to feed on the taxes. These rewards help perpetuate a bad governing trend.  People in government cream those goodies, doing well for themselves while believing, at first, they are doing good for others.  That and our tendency to go along with going along perpetuates a destructive governing style.  Until, that is, things fall apart, riots start in the street and millions starve.

Then what?  One approach recognizes we are genetically nearly the same, all one big family that can live in harmony. (The Kumbayah theory)  The other main approach recognizes that we are genetically varied and calls for competition and markets.  The flaw I see in Ottawa and Washington is that the competition is split into parties and only one party is in power at a time.    When you go downtown to buy groceries, you don't expect all grocery stores to be shut except one for the next four years. Let's find a way to encourage more internal markets within parties.

Trump's Border Wall: Promise Kept For Free

The wall along the US-Mexican border is already built, stopping three quarters of the migrant invasion.  It's been done for free with a change of attitude from the top.  As we enter peak inbound travel season, the numbers go down instead of up.  See year over year chart.  Policy moved the needle more than money did.

While Congress won't release wall funds that were already kabuki-style voted, let alone add the new ones President Trump asks for, I think the voters are satisfied.  The illegal alien problem has been shrunk four-fold for free.

Canada can move the needle with policy instead of borrowed money, too.  For example, all citizens can be first class, not split into regular citizens and Indian Affairs wards.  All food bought and sold in Canada can come and go at the price consumers will pay at home and abroad instead of what the cheese and milk police and their friends say.  Remember how the world was going to end when the Wheat Board died?  It didn't.   The same goes for lumber:  While we sing the blues about the tariff attack by the US, we have protest dirges when people in China will pay more for our logs than mills in B.C. think the logs are worth.

Government trust plunged from 75% to 20%

 A PEW poll shocks me.  The question asks if you trust the federal government to do the right thing most of the time.  While Democrats and Republicans have swapped places several times for trustworthiness since I was a kid, the electorate is saying "a pox on both your houses".  The average respect has plummeted from 75% in the late fifties to about 20% now.  A marker of change can hardly be more bleak than this.  Trump will be but the first in a line of populist leaders.

Can this be part of the explanation? There is not a single congress person who writes legislation or laws. The people who hire the lobbyists do.  The number of congressmen divided by the amount invested in lobbying comes out at $5.8 million per lawmaker per year.

Ivanka Trump, role model and "Yi Wan Ka goddess" in China

President Trump's right-hand daughter is widely admired in China by upwardly mobile women. The New York Times wrote it up. This is true diplomacy and augurs well for peace between China and America.  Culture is senior to Politics.

Ivanka ("Yi Wan Ka") has a booklet of wise sayings that you have never seen but is read by millions of Chinese women.  It's on line.   See examples below.

What does the NYT say they love about her?

xinhua.net  "elegant"

She's an elegant symbol of power and ambition.
She reflects Confucian values, converting to the Judaism of her husband.
She started her own fashion brand instead of focusing just on her father's real estate business.
She's called a "goddess" on Weibo.

Arabella

Millions on Weibo watched her daughter sing in Chinese. (The daughter actually speaks  Chinese, learned from her nanny).
"A lot of people think Ivanka is the real president. We think she has the brains, not her father."
They seek to emulate her tenacity and  confidence.
They study her speeches on how to make a sales pitch.
And most shocking of all:

“She represents what we’re looking for—
to marry into a decent family, to look good,
and to also have your own career.”

This is true diplomacy.  We exported rock 'n roll to the world.  This is better.

Some of Ivanka's "Wise Words"

 

Canada's Ho-hum Birthing in the British House of Commons

The National Post has a wonderful write up on the passage of the British North America Act and the creation of Canada. 150 years ago this month,   The Colonial Secretary apologized for taking up their time. The order paper was shared with The Criminal Lunatics bill.  Voting in part of northern Ontario was amended from being open to "every British Subject" to being open to "every Male British Subject". Sir John A. McDonald, who observed from the gallery thought it was treated like a “private bill uniting two or three English parishes”. The next bill up stirred greater debate.  (“I see no reason why the duty payable for a greyhound should be reduced 75 per cent, nor why the tax upon poodles and pug dogs should be reduced”)

Enjoy.


Mark Twain: “If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed.”

Mauldin on Men Without Work - an out of the box view.

Four keys from John Mauldin's March 28th  letter and the underlying book being reviewed, "Men Without Work" by Eberstadt.    Canada has an advantage.

Male participation declining for 60 years.

Work age males have been steadily leaving the paid work force for 60 years. Who knew? The loss of male workers was masked by the many females who entered the workforce from 1970 to 2000. Net participation is on the decline again.

Male and female joint participation rose for 30 years
and has been falling for 20 years

At the same time, life expectancy for white males in the 45-54 (top earning) range has been increasing in most developed countries but has not in the United States. This is noteworthy because Canada next door has not taken part in the U.S. stagnation. The chart is in deaths-per-100,000 people.


The U.S.A. has about 20 million people with felony records and more with dismissed felony charges. These are mostly men, their population has quintupled since the sixties thanks to policy change, and they have a hard time getting hired.  There is no door back in for them.

Lastly, who is most likely to be full-time in the work force?  It's not race and education. It's who is married and who is a first generation immigrant.   These are the males most likely to be at work this morning.  They are the most motivated groups.

Justin meets Donald. Two observations and a picture of small hands.

First the small hands.  The photo shows our prime minister's hand buried in the larger hand of the U.S. president.

I was puzzled last night that President Trump tweeted he'd be meeting with our PM and some business women today.
That seems to be exactly what happened except the business women didn't get a high profile news conference.  What is our man doing as part of this joint US/Canada group, standing behind the ladies with his smile? Did Donald Trump think the roundtable discussion was a bigger deal than a meet-and-greet with the Prime Minister of Canada?  Perhaps it was.


  Both Trudeau and Trump called on lesser-known press reps (including The Daily Caller Blog) and got substantial economic questions from them, as Breitbart reports. Mainstream media whined, as The Washington Times reports.  They wanted gotcha questions to embarrass Trump over Flynn, not analysis.

“By handpicking reporters, Trump manages to get through a news conference without being asked about Flynn,” New York Times reporter Peter Baker lamented on Twitter." (See several other quotes at the Washington Times story link.)

Update 8:20pm PST: Breaking news, Flynn has resigned with the finger pointing to credible evidence that he could be blackmailed and with evidence that he lied to presidential staff about talking to Russia about sanctions.  Added:  His letter of resignation posted on line.
Update: CBC has an informative report on the meeting (which I should have read first). It's noteworthy for being reportage, not persifilage.

I've seen the future: You get a real butler, not Siri, Alexa or Google.

Today we're toying with corporatist assistants from Google, Apple and more.  They can influence our vote to support a Trudeau and shun a Trump.   They shape the news we see, guess the ads and maps we will ask for and stand ready to answer whims day or night. Google tells me it's time to leave for the airport because it read the ticket in my inbox, offers a map of YVR while I'm there and comes up with a review page of the restaurant I'm sitting in.   Our characters are so varied that ultimately only a custom product will serve.  This means default "OK Google" and "Siri" software will be displaced by hundreds of competing and customizable apps that will be like a friend and like a servant.

Authors Ezrachi and Stucke write:

 "As the digital butler seamlessly provides more of what interests us and less of what doesn’t, we will grow to like and trust it. Communicating in our preferred language, our assistant will develop the ability to anticipate and fulfill our needs and requests. They can do so, based on our connections, data profile, behavior, and so forth.     The digital assistants have the potential to usurp the current super-platforms, namely Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon. Not surprisingly, each of these companies is now seeking to become our digital personal assistant. The winner will become our primary interface."

I disagree with the last sentence.  The big players will have an influence, just as Windows can be found in many computers without controlling what you do on them.  Competition demanded by the millions of nearly unique users means big players will be swamped by startups.  Compare how a few network broadcasters and newspapers owned the news twenty years ago and now dozens of medium sized sources and thousands of smaller ones are being watched and read every day.

I look forward to my first fully customizable butler, available online and off-line, a butler with a sense of humour that amuses me, a butler who can take a hint, that will go look for stuff I need or am curious about, a butler who asks unobtrusively if I want to send a thank you note to Aunt Tottie for the slippers.

Neil Stephenson wrote about a future where you buy a suitcase and say"Follow me" to it.  The rest is looked after.   We'll be shopping for personal assistants too and saying, "Follow me!".

Winning: Support for Islamic terrorism in Pakistan suddenly muted in late January

The threat of adding Pakistan to the list of temporary travel bans is making our world a safer place and doing it cheaply.  "What made this threat so convincing is that the newly (since January 20th) installed U.S. government started keeping campaign promises".  (Strategy Page).   No bullets were fired or marines deployed.

"Surprisingly the vocal popular support for Islamic terrorism in Pakistan was suddenly muted in late January as the military made some unexpected concessions regarding its support for terrorism and the government was able to go after a major Islamic charity that was long known (by literally everyone) as a front for Islamic terrorist fund raising. What caused this sudden change was the unexpected American threat to declare Pakistan a supporter of Islamic terrorism and restrict the movement of Pakistanis to and from the United States.What made this threat so convincing is that the newly (since January 20th) installed U.S. government started keeping campaign promises and banned seven nations (Syria, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen) that have long been the source of most Islamic terrorism. Many in South Asia believe Pakistan should be on the list. Afghanistan and India have long called for such action against Pakistan but Pakistanis thought the Americans would never do it. The leaders of Pakistan’s Islamic parties, who normally call for violent demonstrations against any effort to shut down Islamic terrorists who only attack outside Pakistan were quiet. That was because many of their key supporters may be enthusiastic about Islamic terrorism, they are more concerned about family in the West, especially the United States, or seeking to go there. ... The fear may not last, but it’s a refreshing change of attitude for people in the region, including most Pakistanis."

And this: "January 29, 2017: In Pakistan, three days after pro-Islamic terrorist host Amir Liaqat was banned from appearing on TV, four of five online critics of the military who had mysteriously disappeared three weeks earlier reappeared and two of them promptly left the country."

Voter fraud? The exception proves the rule

You've heard the line about progressive politicians: "If they didn't have double standards, they'd have no standards at all".  (Maybe this applies to all successful politicians.)

Dissent was the highest form of patriotism, and then it wasn't and now it is again.  A supermajority was needed to pass important bills until Obamacare when a majority of 1 was enough. Now a supermajority is back for Democrats.       Filibuster was good until the Democrats got the upper hand, when it became bad.  Now it's good again.   The electoral college was good until it didn't favour Democrats and then it was bad.  Fearing Russia's power was foolish '80s policy but the danger of Russia is now obvious to every Democrat in Christendom.   Texas secession was for crazed rednecks but now it's favoured by one third of enlightened Californians.

The one standard that never changes when Democrats are in power or out of power is the claim there's no problem with vote integrity.  That tells me that leaving an unexamined and undisciplined voter policy in place is a bedrock value.   Voter integrity doesn't affect their sojourn in Washington but it must play a big role at the margins for getting Democrats there in the first place.

Some painful background on the voting swamp: Read the excerpt from Fitton of Justice Watch's book.
You get a pdf download of a chapter that is worth reading.

The First Hundred Hours

No need to debate "The First Hundred Days" of President Trump.  The first hundred hours is enough Winning.   Never in my life have I seen more consequential leadership. Even press conferences are entertaining and move the needle. A sip of this cordial will be nice in Ottawa too.

The Trump Restauration (and Ezra's comment)

"Restoring something to its proper or original condition, renewal of something which has been lost." Domestically:  This morning, business leaders and union leaders were equally enthusiastic about President Trump's support.  (See quotes below). In the Middle East:   Israel is enthusiastic about Trump's direction and some Arabs like the Iran angle.  (See quotes below).  
Enemies finding common cause? Better than dogs sleeping with cats.

Quotes from the business leaders:
Andrew Liveris of Dow Chemical: "He is going to make us more competitive"
Mark Fields of Ford Motor Company:  "The president is very, very serious about making sure that the United States economy is going to be strong.  And have policy, tax, regulatory or trade, to drive that. And I think that encourages all of us."

Quotes from the union leaders:
Wayne Ranick of United Steelworkers said on behalf of the group: "When the President laid out his plans about how he is going to handle trade, how he is going to invest on infrastructure, and how he is going to level the playing field for construction workers and all Americans across this country...and then took the time to take every one of us into the Oval Office and show them the seat of power in the world...the respect he just showed for us ... and when he shows it to us he shows to three million of our members in the United States .. was nothing short of incredible, and we will work with him and his administration."
And two more union quotes from the last couple days:
James Hoffa of Teamsters:  "Today, President Trump made good on his campaign promise to withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. With this decision, the president has taken the first step toward fixing 30 years of bad trade policies that have cost working Americans millions of good-paying jobs."
Rich Trumka of AFL-CIO said TPP withdrawal is "a good first step toward building trade policies that benefit all workers.".

Quotes from Israeli leaders:
Jerusalem mayor, Nir Barkat: "I applaud President Trump on his historic announcement that the White House has begun discussions regarding moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem.  President Trump has proven that he is a true friend of the State of Israel and a leader who keeps his promises."
Tzipi Hotovely, Israeli deputy minister of foreign affairs:  "I think that all the declarations of the Trump administration were showing a deep friendship to Israel.  They understand the complexity of the situation in the Middle East."
Prime Minister, Netanyahu: "After eight years in which I withstood enormous pressure on various issues, primarily Iran and the settlements, I certainly welcome the change of approach, President Trump believes that peace will only be achieved through direct negotiations. Does that sound familiar?” said Netanyahu. “He spoke to me at length about the threat from Iran. He also believes the nuclear deal with Iran is a bad deal. That certainly must ring a bell. We are facing great and significant opportunities for the security and future of the State of Israel."

Quotes from the Arab world:
The first foreign government to congratulate Trump November 9th:   'Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi congratulated Donald Trump on Wednesday on his victory in the U.S. presidential election and said he hoped his election would unleash a new era of closer ties with Washington. The Egyptian Arab Republic is looking forward to the period of Donald Trump's presidency to imbue new spirit into the path of Egyptian-American ties with more cooperation and coordination in the interests of both the Egyptian and American people," he said in a statement.'
From a Maclean interview in Dubai: 'Gulf Arab states are quietly applauding the arrival in the White House of a hawkish leader opposed to their adversary Iran, even if they suspect Donald Trump's short temper and abrasive Tweets may at times heighten tensions.'
Also quoted, Abdulrahman al-Rashed, a veteran Saudi commentator:  "Trump does not look like the kind of guy who will bend towards Iran or anyone else. .. If he behaves as he says, then we will see another Ronald Reagan, someone all the forces in the region will take seriously. That's what we have missed in the past eight years, unfortunately."  "We hope Trump can correct (Obama's) policy, and while we are not sure of that yet, his choices to run the administration all sound experienced."
A Gulf Arab businessman:  "I think he is going to be very, very tough on Iran. He will be decisive", noting he expected the deal-maker Trump would demand something in return.

A rince-bouche to finish the tale, this one a tweet from Ezra Levant:
"While the Media Party was obsessing over tweets and crowd size, Donald Trump just took over the blue collar wing of the Democratic party."

Holding the election is more important than winning it. Kudos to Stephen Harper for Bill C36 (2007)

A fair open challenge by popular vote at regular intervals is far more important than which party wins.  The body politic is forced to renew itself or displace its rulers bloodlessly.  This is done by institutionalizing the violence that otherwise would develop.    Calls in the U.S. to have a third term for Barack Obama or to overturn the results of the 2016 vote invite the death of democracy.

Has it not always been so?  The latest iteration is Turkey's Erdogan:  "Democracy is like a train. You get off once you have reached your destination".    In Canada, we don't have a president-for-life as Kazakhstan seems to have, but we used to game the system with election dates.  The prime minister could juggle to get a three to five year term, watching the polls and choosing the best moment in two years to strike and recapture the spoils of power.  The party in power always had its thumb on the scale.

Stephen Harper brought in Bill C-36 in 2007.  Wikipedia summarizes:

 "It requires that each general election take place on the third Monday in October in the fourth calendar year after the previous poll, starting with October 19, 2009. During the legislative process, the Liberal-dominated Senate added an amendment listing conditions under which an election date could be modified, in order to avoid clashes with religious holidays, municipal elections, and referenda, but the House of Commons, led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives, rejected the amendment and the Senate did not pursue it."

Kudos to Stephen Harper.

 

Toronto Zoo and Orangutan Earwax - Too good to skip

From a US health and medicine website comes this gem in Statnews on the dangers of poking at earwax:

"Ear canal cleaning is a hard habit to kick. It may be as innate as tool use itself. (Dr. Vito) Forte was once called to the Toronto Zoo to treat an orangutan that seemed to be having ear trouble — and found out that the ape was known to pick up secondhand wads of chewing gum, check them for stickiness, and then use them to extract whatever might have been buried in its ears."

Picture source 

The article also cites a survey of a teaching hospital that found over 90% of the health professionals there admitted sticking objects into their ears to get at wax.