History Lessons

View 771 Friday, April 26, 2013

Apologies for not being very active this week. I am still catching up, and apparently have a spring cold slowing me down agan.

Reflections on the Boston Marathon Bombing

The major lesson I would draw from the Marathon bombing case is that it would be very wise for us to reexamine the ‘refugee status’ immigration visas. When Tamarlan Tsarnaev voluntarily returned to his country of origin, surely it then became obvious that there was no emergency need of refugee status? But earlier than that his parents returned to Russia. Why were they not required to take their children with them? I know, I know, there were incidents during the Cold War involving minors attempting to escape from the USSR in which we granted emergency refugee status visas to escapees, but that was a different world. The Soviet Union had 25,000 nuclear tipped missiles aimed at the United States, the Cold War Games were in earnest, the Red Army was poised just east of the Fulda Gap, and chiliastic Communism had a powerful minority position within the governing Politburo of the USSR. The world was a different place in those days.

Even then there were distinct signs that the Melting Pot, in which legal immigrants became Americans in spirit and their children became Citizens, was being overflooded. Of course the notion of the Melting Pot making Americans of those from all nations – one from many – was discarded by the American Left in favor of Diversity. That was a bit strange since the Communist system remedy for the “nationalism problem” and the “racial problem” was the Leninist process—everyone becomes a communist, the most enthusiastic get to join the Party, and that Party rules. What Stalin created out o that probably wasn’t quite what Lenin envisioned, but officially it was, and official meant the Party Line, and in American academia e pluribus unum was replaced by hymns to Diversity.

Of course American academia no longer studies history, and thus can prove anything it likes by making up historical theories that replace what actually happened without much fear of contradiction.

A second lesson from the Marathon bombings was confirmation of something long known: the Miranda Rights Experience ends all cooperation with intelligence gathering. The Constitution required assistance of counsel in a trial, and by extension insists that evidence obtained without the advice of counsel cannot be used in obtaining a conviction. Since no evidence is needed to make the case that the Brothers Tsarnaev were in fact guilty, and they had voluntarily told at least one victim of their rampage that they were the ones who done it, why is a constitutional protection against self-incrimination and a constitution right to counsel before and during trial translated into a prohibition against being interrogated? It is likely to be an unpleasant experience to have intelligence officers questioning you, but then it is an unpleasant experience to be blown up just as you are finishing a Marathon race; it is unpleasant to have your legs blown off; it is unpleasant to have your car hijacked; and one presumes it is unpleasant to be shot dead because your uniform shows you have a gun, and one of the brothers wants it to arm the other. In an age of terror.

The drums are beating for American involvement in the Syrian Civil War. The end of that game will be no better than Libya and probably worse; how can we know? We have no plan and no objective. Meanwhile there are demonstrations against American intervention in Syria. Meanwhile it is hard to see an American interest in killing more Middle Eastern people, given the success of our efforts in Libya, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

It took me an hour to get from Wilshire Blvd to Inglewood and three hours to get from Inglewood to the Valley.  I was more than thirty minutes late getting to Inglewood; I missed my appointment in the Valley by about two hours.  I did not need the LA Times to tell me:

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Los Angeles has reclaimed the dubious honor of having the worst traffic in the United States, according to an annual congestion scorecard.

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http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-la-traffic-20130423,0,7346891.story

It’s not only time you lose; you lose money in gas.  And — God forbid — if you have a business, do you know how unprofessional it makes you look when you don’t have a crystal ball telling you how traffic will flow?  How many people lose how many clients over this? 

Four hours on the road is half the working day, which leaves most people with another four hours of productive time at best.  I spent a total of six hours on the road that day.  I got an hour of face time and an hour of office time.  And they want to increase taxes to improve the eternally worsening roads and the ever increasing congestion..

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Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

I understand that Elon Musk has contributed a fair amount to a foundation trying to solve the 405 problem. Most of the mess is bureaucratic of course. There are employment rules, and those employed have to show that they do something, so everyone reads each others’ minutes and comments before anything gets done. Meanwhile some Caltrans officials have other jobs or own Internet companies on which they spend time so they don’t have time to read the memos that have to be initialed before another memo can be issued for circulation.

California provides an important example for the rest of the nation.  And the California government is so busy looking for ways to keep the ridiculous “High Speed Rail” scam going.  We have spent a billion dollars on that! It isn’t enough!  We need the full $150 billion before it becomes obvious that’s it’s a scam. And look how many people are getting rich off it.  California has much to teach the nation about the future.

The attorney general says that the way we treat our friends and neighbors who are undocumented is key to who we are. There are those who say that friends and neighbors obey the laws including immigration laws.