Juries, distributism, Ataturk, and the flu

View 806 Tuesday, January 14, 2014

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barack Obama, January 31, 2009

 

Christians to Beirut. Alawites to the grave.

Syrian Freedom Fighters

 

What we have now is all we will ever have.

Conservationist motto

 

If you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan. Period.

Barrack Obama, famously.

 

Cogito ergo sum.

Descartes

Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum. Cogito,

Ambrose Bierce

I keep saying I am going to catch up, then I fall further behind. I haven’t really recovered from this flu like thing, but I was getting there – then Roberta came down with it. She has been bed ridden since Sunday, and tomorrow Richard and his family will be here in LA. I can only hope she’s recovered enough to enjoy the grandchildren, and that I have enough energy to cope with everything.

I’ve been keeping notes as things get more and more bizarre. A governor’s political staff use public office to cause traffic jams in Fort Lee? I cannot imagine what they thought the upside of that action would be. In order for it to have any political effect it would have to be known that it was done as a political move, but how could it be known? As soon as it came out that it was caused, done on purpose, for political reasons, the entire operation was a disaster, as nearly anyone should have known.

Meanwhile, in Orange County, a rather highly educated jury – three of them had Master’s degrees –- after relatively short deliberation found the Fullerton policemen “not guilty” of anything after they beat a homeless schizophrenic to death. Six policemen, pounding on him with batons and the butt of a Taser, listening to him plead for his life; all this caught on film, and the film was played for the jury –it defies belief that anyone would have voted these police not guilty of use of excessive force. I can understand a reluctance to convict the one policeman, Ramos, of second degree murder, since I doubt that at any time he ever actually formed the intent to kill the man; but he most certainly had the intention of teaching him a lesson, as he put on his latex gloves and told his captive “These are what will F— you up.” And then used them to do so. Had the chap been black, there would be riots all over LA and Orange counties; but this was a white middle class schizophrenic who reminds me somewhat of the goofy chap in Silver Linings Playbook. Irritating, annoying, but hardly deserving a death sentence. I find the jury verdict appalling, and the precedent even more so. Rodney King actually led the police on a high speed chase, and was big enough and tough enough to be a bit scary; but there was none of that here.

The worst of it is that this makes for a perfect opportunity for the Federal Government to expand its power by charging those police with civil rights violations. However that comes out the result will not be good.

And former Secretary Gates has come out with a tell all book about his term as Secretary of Defense under both Bush II and Obama. I haven’t read it although I will. But it’s a bit early for that book, isn’t it? Had he left office when Obama came in, it would be one thing; but he agreed to serve Obama. He quite possibly fell into the myth – First Black President, reforms president, politics ends at the water’s edge, foreign and military policy in the national interest — and became disillusioned. Many did. But he stayed on, for reasons not entirely clear; does he not owe Obama at least enough loyalty to delay publishing the book until after the next election? But perhaps I am reading everything wrong.

The education disaster continues. University presidents routinely make a million dollars or more a year. The rich grow more powerful and the powerful grow rich. And the middle class is put into bondage. You are not longer wealthy if you cannot see to it that your children graduate from University without owing a lifelong crushing debt. Fewer and fewer can say that as time goes on. However much money we throw at the education system it will absorb it and demand more, while raising its prices. And apparently we will never catch on.

My hearing aids continue to work splendidly. I heard the homily at Mass last Sunday for the first time in years. I also found out what the warning of of failing batteries sounds like. Only the left battery was getting low, but I was told about it at increasingly frequent intervals until I changed the battery. Actually I changed both of them. I have about 90 batteries, and I am told they’ll replace the batteries free any time I am out at COSTCO. I have turn the volume down on all the listening devises in the house, and in fact I find I can do that several times. I turn the radio down until it’s comfortable, and a few hours later it seems a bit loud. I’ve been quieting the house down quite a lot. And I heard all the activities at the LASFS meeting last week. When we take a walk I hear birds, and all kinds of sounds. There is one peculiarity. When I first sit down to this keyboard, the clicks seem loud. After a few minutes they fade. When they have faded to near stillness they begin to get louder again. Meanwhile the radio in the background doesn’t seem to change in volume at all.

I also hear sibilants a bit more loudly than anything else, which can be a bit distracting. Not so much that I’d risk the overall improvement, but I wonder if there is a fine tuning possible. It’s great to hear what people are saying, dogs barking, mocking birds staking out territory, clerks in the grocery store not having to raise their voices… I had forgotten what it was like to hear what is going on around me. If you are wondering if it’s worth it, then it probably is. I am told there are effective hearing aids cheaper than the $2000 set from COSTCO, and I suppose there are – I hardly looked at everything – but I can say that the COSTCO aid work very well indeed. They become increasingly comfortable over time, and I often forget I am wearing them. It’s interesting getting used to hearing again.

How to Eliminate Poverty

Jerry,

A friend of mine told be about a way to eliminate poverty. Here is how it would work:

Every legal resident of the United States, both Citizens and non-Citizens with Green Cards, would receive an annual stipend from the Federal Government, say $32,000. Zone half of this amount would be withheld as Income Taxes.

The Income tax rates would be structured as follows:

Every one would pay a fixed $16,000 per year. That would be covered by the $16,000 withheld from the annual stipend.

The next $16,000 of income would incur no additional Federal Income Taxes.

Income above $32,000 would be taxed at rates determined to be sufficient to fund the Federal Government. There would be NO deductions of any kind.

Under this plan a Family of Four would have an annual income of $64,000 if none of the family members chose to work.

If members of the Family chose to work to generate additional income they could have up to $128,000 without additional Federal Income Tax.

Of course, the annual stipend might have to be lower or a different amount for Children under the age of 18. Using 2013 US Population Estimates the cost of a net $16,000 per person would be a little North of Five Trillion Dollars. This compares with Fiscal 2013 expenditures of 3.5 Trillion dollars and revenue of 2.8 Trillion Dollars.

A quick look shows that total personal income in the US for 2012 was about 13 Trillion Dollars.

Personal Income taxes have been a little less that 50 percent of Federal Tax Revenues. This would indicate that under the scheme above, a total of about 6.5 Trillion Dollars would have to be generated from Personal Income Taxes yielding a rate of something close to 100 percent for taxable earnings.

My Friend’s suggested stipend amounts are obviously too high, but it was his concepts that were important, not the actual amounts.

Something to keep in mind is that there would no longer be a need for payroll taxes to support Social Security Retirement Benefits. Welfare and Unemployment Benefits would also be eliminated.

It is left to the reader to envision the other synergies that a proposal such as this might yield.

Bob Holmes

It may well come to this: a minimum income available to everyone. I have not the energy nor the mental clarity to calculate costs here, but given time I can work on it – this is hardly a brand new idea, and variations of this are indistinguishable from some of the suggestions of Belloc and Chesterton; indeed there is a Jeffersonian character to the idea that everyone is independent of the government for the fundamental necessities of life. No huge bureaucracy need, no boards to determine who is deserving and who is undeserving poor. Some of the Framers in discussing Locke’s notion that everyone is entitled to life, liberty and property wondered if the right to property didn’t mean that everyone ought to have some.

My friend David Friedman’s father, Milton, proposed negative income taxes as the proper way to handle welfare: no big bureaucracy just for that. Just part of the tax collection machinery. We have a crippled version of that in the Earned Income Tax Credit.

Fine tuning can contain refinements like a poll tax: you are paid enough in the basic entitlement to afford a poll tax, say on the order of $250 a year. If you do not choose to pay it, you do not vote, nor can anyone pay it for you: it is paid through the same system that pays you the entitlement.

I see I am rambling. Odd, because I have thought about this since I was an undergraduate. The trick here is to make the basic minimum large enough to allow one to live, but not in luxury or even in excess comfort. Chicken every Sunday, perhaps, but not every day. And since it is paid to everyone, not just those who “need” it, a great deal of bureaucratic nonsense is eliminated.

As productivity increases – and it has done so for a hundred years – the “surplus” becomes greater. By distributing this there is likely a drop in the rate of rise of productivity – there is less concentration of capital – but that is not necessarily a bad thing. We are now at a point where there are individuals who could raise a private armored brigade. That happened in the declining days of the Roman Republic; Crassus was a needed member of the Triumvirate. His ability to settle Caesar’s debts was decisive. I am not terrified at the economic power of Bill and Melinda Gates, but I can think of people I would not care to see able to hire capable private armies. (Or to pay to maintain an existing army under a popular general, for that matter…)

Enough. It is something very well worth discussion.

The Kemalists finally make a move…

http://www.defensenews.com/article/20140102/DEFREG01/301020006/Turkish-Army-Demands-Retrial-Coup-Plot-Cases

This could be a portent for the secularists in Turkey to begin their resurgence in answer to government corruption.

David Couvillon

Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Retired.; Former Governor of Wasit Province, Iraq; Righter of Wrongs; Wrong most of the time; Distinguished Expert, TV remote control; Chef de Hot Dog Excellance; Avoider of Yard Work

The government established by Mustapha Kemal Ataturk, in which the Army is the guardian of the Constitution but does not and must not actually rule, has its roots in Plato and Aristotle, and a “rule of honor” society has been described in some utopias. Ataturk and his brotherhood were concerned that the people would overthrow the rule of liberty he had established, and the Army was given the task of protecting it. They did so for generations. The present government has jailed hundreds of the officer corps, and is said to have crippled the Brotherhood, and most observers think – with rather joy or dismay – that is so; but the roots of the Brotherhood go deep, and it is likely that it extends to the junior officers and senior non-commissioned officers of the Turkish Army. We can only watch and see; American interference in Turkey’s constitutional affairs would quite rightly be resented by both the Ataturk Brotherhood and the Muslim Brotherhood. I no longer have reliable Turkish contacts, and my views are not better informed than most.

The Syrian conflicts present the Ataturk Brotherhood with a terrible dilemma: as patriotic Turks they can hardly support the establishment of independent Kurdistan; yet the American have built a functional Kurdistan within Iraq. There are as many Kurds in Iran and Turkey as there are in Iraq; and of course there are many in Syria. The Syrian regime promoted religious tolerance among Muslims – Sunni, Shiite, Alawite, Jews, Marionites, Orthodox Christian, Protestant – in ways that few other Muslim regimes ever have. This tolerance has pretty well vanished now.

Prime Minister Ergodan has been frantically purging senior military and police and judicial figure in hopes of ending the Army’s role as guardian of the constitution.

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.