Too good to be trusted?

Lately, as Vivek Ramaswamy gains more notice in the polls, I notice more than a few negative Xeets(?) on the platform formerly known as Twitter: “Too good to be true,” “too esoteric,” “too slick,” – basically criticisms of his presentation. The impression you are supposed to get is that he’s a snake oil salesman; because the followup dissing is, “this guy just popped up out of nowhere,” “Soros?, WEF?”.

This doesn’t come from Progs. It comes from a subset of Republicans. The WEF and Soros connections are BS ad hominem complaints unworthy of any opponents of Joe Biden. They are worthy of Dan Goldman, Adam Schiff, or Eric Swallwell.

This sniping illustrates an OnlyTrump apprehension that Ramaswamy understands and presents MAGA better than Trump does. They do the same thing to Ron DeSantis for the same reasons.

If we’re criticizing the presentation of MAGA, maybe we need to consider whether Trump is the only vessel capable of it.

We should hope he is not. Trump is not forever, he’s 77. Fortunately, he is NOT the point of MAGA.

IAC, Vivek Ramaswamy didn’t exactly come from nowhere. I posted this in May 2021, but it seems appropriate to post again. 26 minutes. Via Hillsdale College:
Woke Capitalism Against America | Vivek Ramaswamy

There is a quite recent Ramaswamy interview with Jordan Peterson worth a watch just to observe Ramaswamy in conversation rather than with a set speech. It’s obvious he has thought long and hard about politics. And life.

There’s a segment where he talks about how he and his wife (a highly regarded throat surgeon) handle the stress of separate careers with two small children. They both thought long and hard about that, even before he decided to run for POTUS.

If you are of an OnlyTrump frame of mind you will agree completely with the Twitter criticisms I’ve noted. Or, for that matter, EVERY criticism of any candidate not named Donald.

While Ramaswamy is not likely to best Trump in the fight for the nomination, the contrasts with Trump are not so much in Trump’s favor. Ramaswamy has the certainty of Trump and is vastly more articulate. He speaks with crystal clarity. None of the ambiguity that repeatedly got Trump in trouble. Ramaswamy speaks specifically of American law and tradition when he explains his policy positions. This has not been a Trump strength.

If you are an OnlyTrumper absolute certainty in your candidate does not give you the slightest qualm. Yet Ramaswamy’s well articulated and seriously considered certainty, 90% congruent with Trump’s, seems to irritate you. So, how can you trust him? It’s early yet. And I’m unsure, but I did find one test.

As a rough measure of trust I compared Ramaswamy’s extemporaneity with Peterson’s. One of Peterson’s endearing features is that he frequently pauses when exploring his own ideas. You can see him thinking, “Is this true?, Is this how I should say it?”

Ramaswamy doesn’t do this, at least in the interview. In his defense he is speaking about well known issues. I doubt there is a policy question that would throw him.

I would like to see him grapple with concepts he hasn’t thoroughly explored, that would be a different interview.

IAC, so far I trust his certainty more than I trust Trump’s. He has historical justification, a superior grasp of economics, a better understanding of the law, and a first generation immigrant’s appreciation of what MAGA should be. And he wouldn’t be Joe Biden’s age by the end of the next POTUS term.

Remembrance of chads hanging

Naomi Wolfe was an Al Gore presidential campaign advisor in 2000. She instructed him (among other things) on not ‘presenting’ as a Beta male. This was impossible, but Al was desperate.

Wolfe has been red pilled. She’s been mugged by the Overton Window, which, true to form, framed a much more sane view in 2000. She has detected the shift. I subscribe to her Substack.

She remembers the 2000 election controversy very well.
“Happy Indictment Day!” – Outspoken with Dr Naomi Wolf

I am experiencing considerable inner turmoil at the spectacle of President Trump’s indictment, as well as at the almost animalistic glee that this spectacle has triggered in the solid bloc of Democrats that currently surrounds me.

I am extraordinarily sad — at the thickheaded ignorance of history that those who are celebrating tonight, reveal; and at what has become of our country.

Don’t people understand — much as they may hate this fellow — that this is exactly what coup leaders in every banana republic, do? Seek to imprison their political opponents?

Especially while the political opponents are on the campaign trail?

Another reason for my discomfort and misery is that I have a guilty conscience, because of what I experienced two decades ago and what I know — things that not that many people have experienced or know, and things that seem to be generally forgotten. These memories bear directly on current events…

I am having relentless flashbacks to where I was and what I was doing in late 2000, when I was a consultant for Vice President Gore’s campaign for the Presidency.

As I’ve written elsewhere — and as I am trying desperately to remind everyone who will now listen, on every podcast that will have me — I was advising from a distance, and looped in, intermittently, to discussions within the campaign that were both public and private, about exactly the same issues that are now apparently criminal offenses even to entertain, let alone to mention in actual words.

So were almost all of the lawyers, campaign consultants, advisors and staffers of Gore 2000. So was the candidate himself, visibly.

RTWT

Yes indeed, Babylon Bee

Garland Appoints Special Counsel To Cover Up Biden’s Crimes

“I have given Mr. Weiss full power and authority to investigate Hunter Biden and the Biden family. We must conduct a thorough investigation so we can know which crimes to sweep under the rug,” said Garland.

Plans to slow walk the investigation past all statutes of limitation have been revised to take advantage of expanded power to hide evidence from Congress.

Maybe not, Babylon Bee

I was chuckling over this Babylon Bee headline:
Democrats Say It’ll Take A Lot More Than Eyewitness Testimony, Bank Records, Audio, Video, Complete Confessions For Them To Believe Biden Did Anything Wrong

…when these popped into my email
In major escalation, Delaware federal prosecutor named special counsel to investigate Biden family
and
Prosecutors ask court to disregard Hunter Biden plea deal, raising legal jeopardy for first son

That special counsel, who is in charge of those prosecutors, is David Weiss. Appointed US attorney for the District of Delaware by Donald Trump. Trump said Weiss shared his vision for ‘Making America Safe Again.’

Weiss has been at least nominally in charge of the Hunter Biden investigation (admitted tax evasion, proven gun crimes, probable Foreign Agents Registration Act violations) since 2018. It’s logical for AG Merrick Garland to continue Weiss’ oversight of the investigation. Whether that serves Justice is a separate question.

In a March Senate committee hearing Merrick Garland insisted that he would not interfere with the investigation. Weiss, he said, had “full authority” to carry out the investigation and choose the jurisdiction if necessary. Weiss was “not to be denied anything that he needs.” Whether this turned out to be true is disputed.

Weiss is the same prosecutor who approved Hunter Biden’s plea deal – which constituted a gentle touch on the wrist (no slapping, absolutely no jail time) for crimes for which offspring not related to Joe Biden have received years long sentences. But, that’s only two of the three parts of the investigation for which Weiss was responsible.

His prosecutors tried to hide the FARA related parts (still under investigation, they say) of the plea agreement. The judge wasn’t fooled. When she challenged the buried and sweeping future immunity for FARA crimes (broadly, arranging favors for foreigners without registering as a lobbyist), Hunter’s lawyers withdrew from the plea deal. The Feds are now simply admitting the deal is kaput.

It must be getting serious if Garland is citing Departmental Rules. He’s a master of ignoring them. And the announcement wasn’t held for a Friday night information dump.

Joe is standing in front of an accelerating bus.

Then there’s THIS:
Judge sides with Trump on protective order, handing Jack Smith an early defeat

So, the odds on Biden being the nominee seem to be getting ready to jump off the cliff.

Update 4:58 PM, Aug 11, 2023.
Got a new email.

Above, I let the dates speak for themselves on the alacrity displayed by David Weiss in his investigation of Hunter Biden. It started in 2018. Hunter’s laptop revelations are nearing 3 years old.

Here’s a less charitable look:
Hunter’s new special counsel also needs investigating

Plus ça change,

…plus c’est la même chose.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Here is an excerpt from an Ayn Rand speech delivered live at the Ford Hall Forum on December 16, 1962. She’s talking about JFK’s ‘Camelot’ statism.

This bit speaks of Newton Minow, JFK’s Chair of the FCC. Who used primitive versions of the same screws the Feds applied to Facebook and Twitter on newspapers, radio, and television.

Formatting is a little funky. I don’t know why some of the hyphens are there. Maybe indicates a pause. It’s from a transcript

The Fascist New Frontier

“Freedom of speech means freedom from interference, suppression or punitive action by the government—and nothing else. It does not mean the right to demand the financial support or the material means to express your views at the expense of other men who may not wish to support you. Freedom of speech includes the freedom not to agree, not to listen and not to support one’s own antagonists. A “right” does not include the material implementation of that right by other men; it includes only the freedom to earn that implementation by one’s own effort. Private citizens cannot use physical force or coercion; they cannot-censor or suppress anyone’s views or publications. Only the government-can do so. And censorship is a concept that pertains only to governmental action.

Mr. Minow is trying to reverse that concept.

Mr. Minow has announced officially that any television or radio station which does not satisfy his unstated criterion of an unspecified “public service,” will lose its license, that is: will be silenced forever.

This, Mr. Minow claims, is not censorship. What is censorship, then? Believe it or not, censorship is a sponsor’s refusal to finance a television program, or a station’s refusal to broadcast a program, or a publisher’s refusal to publish a book—and it is the government’s duty to “protect” us from such infringements of our “freedom.”

Such is the “protection-racket” from the other side of the New Frontier:-the views, the ideas, the convictions, the choices of private individuals-on the use and disposal of their own material means—of their own property—are censorship. What, then, is non-censorship? Mr. Minow’s edicts.

This is a clear illustration of why human rights cannot exist without-property rights, and how the destruction of property rights leads to the destruction of all rights and all freedom. If the New Frontiersmen suc-ceed in obliterating in people’s minds the difference between economic-power and political power, between a private choice and a governmentorder, between intellectual persuasion and physical force—they can then establish the ultimate collectivist inversion: the claim that a private action is coercion, but a governmental action is freedom.

I should like to quote from an article I wrote on this subject in the March 1962 issue of The Objectivist Newsletter:
“It is true, as Mr. Minow assures us, that he does not propose to establish censorship; what he proposes is much worse. Censorship, in its old-fashioned meaning, is a government edict that forbids the discussion of some specific subjects or ideas—an edict enforced by the government’s scrutiny of all forms of communication prior to their public release. But for stifling the freedom of men’s minds the modern method is much more potent: it rests on the power of non-objective law; it neither forbids nor permits anything; it never defines or specifies; it merely delivers men’s lives, fortunes, careers, ambitions into the arbitrary power of a bureaucrat who can reward or punish at whim.”

In a recent issue of Barron’s magazine (December 10, 1962), you will find factual evidence to support and illustrate my statement. “Last week,” writes Barron’s, “the bureaucrat who uses words so well [Mr. Minow] for once was speechless. For the staff of FCC, taking their cue from their outspoken leader, had been caught sending letters of alarming frankness to television stations throughout the country. Unless-they proved properly receptive to the agency’s views on the content-and timing of programs, the message suggested, they might have trouble getting their licenses re-newed. . . . The magazine Broadcasting, which exposed the whole affair, bluntly called it ‘another step toward centralized program control’ and ‘blatant coercion.’”

Mr. Minow is not the only prominent member of the New Frontier’s border patrol; there is another, older one who has been waiting for many years for a frontier of just that kind.

On July 15, 1962, The N.Y. Times carried a story announcing that: “An Antitrust panel of the House Judiciary Committee is preparing a broad inquiry on the press and other news media.” The head of that inquiry is Representative Emanuel Celler.

“We are very much aware of the First Amendment,” Mr. Celler declared. “We are also aware that the courts have said you can distinguish between the business practices and the editorial operations of newspapers.”

Apparently, Mr. Celler regarded a declaration of his “awareness” as sufficient compliance with the Constitution—because he then proceeded to announce that the inquiry will deal with such (non-editorial?) issues as the “handling of news and the impact of syndicated columns on the gathering and presentation of local news.”

Mr. Celler will also investigate the fact that in some cities one man or company owns both the morning and evening newspapers. “We shall endeavor to find out,” he stated, “whether, in those cities, the news is slanted according to the prejudice or idiosyncrasies of those common owners; whether the editorial policy is consistently politically slanted.” (A non-editorial issue?)

Does this mean that the owner of a newspaper has no right to hold consistent political convictions and that a newspaper is not entitled to a consistent editorial policy? If the owner of one newspaper possesses the right of free speech, does he lose it if he acquires two newspapers? Who determines what is “slanted” and which political views are “prejudice or idiosyncrasies”? The government?

“Also,” declared Mr. Celler, “we are interested in seeing whether or to what extent the columnists might be drying up local talent in assaying the news of the day.”

Well, it is incontestably certain that the talents of the local “High School Bugle” could not possibly compete with nationally syndicated columnists.

Here we see the essence of the antitrust doctrines—in so grotesque a form that no satirist would venture to offer it as a caricature. Yet it is not a caricature, it is the naked, brutal truth.

If it is right to sacrifice ability to incompetence, or success to failure,- or achievement to envy—if it is right to break up giant industrial concerns because smaller companies cannot compete with them—then it is right to silence every man who has acquired a national audience and clear the field for those whose audience will never grow beyond the corner drugstore.

Rand, Ayn. The Ayn Rand Column (p. 118, ff). Ayn Rand Institute. Kindle Edition.

Common Sense, annotated

HeterodorxPodcast🍂🧑‍🦳 Tweeted (Exed?) this on X yesterday. It is sane advice which we can expect will be ignored. I supply the link since you may also wish to see any responses.

(The following is my neutral advice, not a list of my preferred policies)

To: Transgender Influencers and Leaders
From: A Trans Elder

You have really screwed the pooch. Let me offer this set of recommendations to fix some of the damage.

1. Immediately concede on the issue of males in women’s sports. Instead, push for male sports from k-12 all the way to college to be more inclusive of gender non-conforming men. Start with one sport (cycling? disc golf?) and build a partnership to show trans athletes being welcomed and accepted in the “open” divison. [sic]

Nice try, but they wouldn’t be happy even with their own separate division. That would not humiliate females.

The motivations of the Males Pretending to be Females (hereafter MPtbF) are not aligned with this idea. Those who deliberately encourage outrage wish to compete against females because they can dominate females, a biologically defined group of humans. They intensely resent females (I think you could say hate), because females are the scientific affront to their claims. That is, they hate the reality females represent. They’d have to give up on “transwomen ARE women.”

Fanatic TRA atheletes cannot fulfill their goal of humiliating women if they still compete against men. This proposal simply asks men who admit they are men to be tolerant of MPtbF in-your-face declaration of their “right to be seen.” Sitting on the bench is not the goal. From the sports establishment’s POV, it would drive fans away from significant sports like football and basketball. I already wondered in Dec/21 why womens college basketball is not under assault by MPtbF: hOOPS! and Dominatricks.

Finally on this one, the K-12 sports spectrum doesn’t actually include any men or women. So without (perhaps impossibly) strict enforcement of point 2 and 5 will only become another flashpoint. We have too many flamboyant TikTok teachers bragging about how they lie and deceive.

2. Align your messaging on “parents rights” on child transition. This means vocally opposing schools and protective services from transitioning children without parent consent. In fact, go further and demand that parents should always be informed about the mental health risks for their children.

Bravo!! That would also represent them as potentially good parents.

And 3. Immediately adopt the message that violent criminals, particularly ones who have committed sex crimes, can never be housed among vulnerable women. Stop accepting violent felons into the activist milieu. Stop demanding access to surgery, hair removal services, access to “gender affirming” accessories like makeup and underwear for any transgender inmate.

Add the military. This is a National Defense issue.
Remove the word “violent.”

4. Begin marginalizing “queer” activists from the highest and most visible activist positions. Most Americans are accepting of transgender people as long as they are seen as being just like anyone else. When you center activists who clearly state they want to destroy “cisheteronormativity” then you make an enemy of the majority. And frankly, most of us just want to get along and go along.

Yes. Jeffery Marsh and Dylan Mulvaney are examples of why this is necessary. It’s asking for the flamboyant bullshit to be confined to people who want to consume it. ALLOW everyone else not to care.

5. Clarify that schools should NOT be pressuring children to declare or define their “gender identities.” Support the removal of all types of SOGI materials from classrooms for children under 12. Acknowledge that identity formation in adolescence is fluid and that pushing children to commit to a trans identity is ultimately harmful to the child’s development.

Bravo!

If you follow my advice, you’ll change the direction of public acceptance. You all have screwed up. I’ve just given you some workable positions. I hope this helps.

It would help, but the fact that 2 examples rate a Bravo… This even had to be said?!