Another educational problem: several million people who have been made unemployable by being sent to college, for which they were unqualified. And being exposed to professors who are part of the education problem above.

If we really must avoid speaking evil of the dead, we will have to give up all serious history and political commentary. Traditional Anglo-American law recognizes this. Slander or libel against a dead person is not actionable because such person cannot be harmed by it.

The U.S.’s most hallowed military cemetery is on stolen property---indeed, property stolen from the family of George Washington.

Culturally, the U.S. is already a Third World country.  Just watch a few hours of daytime television. Or experience the raucous noise of public places. Or take a look at your local magazine rack.

In films about famous Americans of the past, the characters are almost always played by Brits or British Commonwealth natives.  (Lincoln has recently been played by the Englishman Daniel Day-Lewis and Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gelhorn by two Australians.)  Why is this? Could it be because there are too few Americans with the requisite intelligence or Anglo-Saxon appearance and demeanor?  The same is true, to a lesser degree for other American characters in film. If Brits, Canadians, and Australians were eliminated from Hollywood, there would be few major actors left.

The federal takeover of education and medicine a half-century ago, known as “the Great Society,” has been a colossal failure if its goal was a better society.  It has, however, made a lot of people richer than they were and provided politicians with endless opportunities for benevolent posturing, bribery, and patronage. Maybe that was its real goal all along.

A certain way to identify a Republican: one who blames economic difficulties on workers, unions, and the minimum wage rather than on the incompetence, irresponsibility, and greed of capitalists and politicians.

A society that will send poor women to fight while rich men wallow in luxurious safety is not worth fighting for and has a poor prospect of long-term survival.

Many Americans are alarmed right now about possible military force against American civilians in the future. They forget that it has already happened in a major way. It is known as the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Predictions of the end of history are premature.

The United States is not immune to history.

An economy cannot long sustain a dominance of consumers over producers.

Public debt of huge dimensions is always followed by economic catastrophe.

Public debt is of no benefit to society, only to politicians and the rich.

No branch of the federal government will ever restrain itself or any other branch from unconstitutional and undemocratic excesses of power.

The U.S. Constitution is a dead letter except for some procedural matters.  Nobody with high political power knows or cares anything about it—especially Supreme Court justices.

The  position of some Justices that “international law and opinion” can supersede the Constitution will finish burying the corpse.

Black children did better educationally in the old segregated Southern schools than they do now in big city Northern schools.

The South is the only part of the country in which schools and daily life are significantly shared by black and white people.

The United States political system has no ethics, despite popular belief.  Objectively viewed it is immensely corrupt and bears little relation to reason or ethics.

In the American judicial system now, justice is available only to the wealthy.  The average citizen has no real protection against government abuse.

A statesman, as distinct from a politician,  is one who, whatever the cost to himself, alerts a people to the long-range consequences of actions.  The United States has no statesmen.

Those with great political power in the United States, for a long time now, have been incapable of anything except short-term thinking.   They react to the promptings of the owners of the media, public agitation, and the limited alternatives presented to them by the muscle-bound federal machine.  Their actions are all directed at getting and keeping power, not at serving the American people.

A proper debate of public issues requires the ability to state your opponent’s position fairly.  This requires intelligence, but, even more, it requires integrity, fairness, and good will.   An overwhelming majority of  American journalists and professoriate are utterly incapable of this intellectual and moral exercise.  Wittingly or not, they  practice Lenin’s dictate: “We must write in language which sews among the masses hate, revulsion and scorn toward those who disagree with us.”

Indeed, it is questionable whether “the American people” really exists anymore.

For some years now, the top-ranking brass of the U.S. armed forces have lacked military virtues and even competence.  They are appointed for their eagerness to prostitute themselves and their services to politicians.   Witness Colin Powell and David Petraeus, among many others.

Quite aside from the changes brought by time, the Founding Fathers would find the U.S. today alien, repulsive, and not really American.

Voting decides nothing.  It does not prove that the people rule.  It merely makes a selection of which politicians will get the opportunity to pursue their self-serving agenda.

The American War of Independence and the conquest of the nearly empty North American continent  to create the United States was once celebrated as one of the great heroic achievements of history.  It is now being taught as a crime by those enjoying its benefits.  Perhaps this is not surprising since the descendants of those heroic Americans have long been outnumbered by those who came later.

I have lately been reading World War II memoirs.  Men like Churchill and De Gaulle and even to some extent Eisenhower were literate and knew much history.  They were able to write of the huge conflict with understanding of the motives and actions of men and governments in historical context.   Can anyone imagine Bill Clinton, the two Bushes, or Obama doing the same, of writing anything other than superficial platitudes?

People have a genuine desire to know the truth, but it has a lower priority than other desires.

We should never underestimate the power of pure inertia in public affairs.  It is a primary characteristic of bureaucracies and cowardly politicians unwilling to upset their apple carts.

I am so old I can remember when you could get a large soft drink for a nickel, a big ice cream cone for a dime, and a hot dog or grilled cheese sandwich for 20 cents.   A kid could get into the movies on Saturday for 9 cents and a gallon of gas was about 35 cents.  A youngster who got one toy and a bag of fruit, nuts, and candy for Christmas was quite pleased and one 10 cent comic book could keep you happy  all day.  Most boys had a .22  rifle and could shoot by the time they were 10 or 11.  And there was NO TELEVISION.

• immense wealth and influence are concentrated in a few hands
• an unelected, irresponsible, and heavily biased mass media control public discourse
• the political process is dominated by advertising men
• the population is rapidly changing from the massive immigration of foreigners
• the most important decisions are made by courts and the executive rather than the lawmakers
• much of government activity is secret
• much of the public has a childish attention span
• the education system turns out large numbers of people who lack both genuine learning and common sense, who think they are more intelligent and knowledgeable than they are.

Government and Big Business are enemies.

The U.S. practices a free-trade policy.

Wars are bad except those carried out by the U.S. because our intentions are always benevolent.

It is good that our daughters now have equality with our sons in the military.  Next they should be allowed to participate equally in draft registration.

All children are equally intelligent but some have better schools than others, and we all know that spending more money makes better schools.

Detroit is in terrible shape because of insufficient federal aid.

A college education is always a good investment.

A majority of citizens are opposed to Obamacare, affirmative action, immigration, and gun control.  However, freedom and democracy require that we obey these policies.

All cultures are equal, therefore immigrants should be allowed to preserve their cultures.  However, when Westerners immigrate to Uganda, Pakistan, or Guatemala, they should respect the national cultures.

• You can have a First World economy and military with a Third World population.

• Special privileges and billions of dollars in welfare can eliminate the resentments of minorities.

• Billions of dollars of foreign aid can win the friendship of foreigners.

• Being “a nation of immigrants” is a wonderful thing.

• Government subsidy of medical care improves care and lowers costs.

• Calling it “collateral damage” excuses the murder of innocents.

• The war of 1861-1865 was motivated by an altruistic desire to give freedom and equality to black people.

• Guaranteeing the profits of bankers and stock speculators makes for general prosperity.

• Taking off your shoes and belt at the airport and the county courthouse helps in the fight against terrorism.

• Iraq had to be invaded because it was responsible for 9/11 and had weapons of mass destruction.  (That  the attack was made by Saudi Arabians, from a country with which George W. Bush has profitable connections, is never noted.)

• Wars can be won by vast expenditures on complicated weapons and a military that is mostly a bureaucracy and  social engineering agency.

• America has the world’s best military.  (Despite the fact that a few morons armed with plastic tableware successfully attacked a major city and the imperial military headquarters and that many overseas expeditions have been mismanaged failures.)

• Politicians care about our wellbeing.

• “Gun control” reduces violence.

• Islam is really “a religion of peace.”  (George W. Bush says so, and he is a wise and good man.)

• Presidents are wise and well-informed and know what’s best.  (Except Nixon.)

• Democracy will flourish among all peoples if only bad leaders are thrown out of power.

• A society can survive and remain healthy when the entertainment media are suffused with filthy language, depraved morals, narcissism, and nihilistic violence.

• World peace can be maintained by American hostility to Russia, China, and Iran.

More freebies, welfare, government jobs, grants; satisfaction of leftist ideological malice; if you are a minority, the pleasure of sticking it to Whitey.

Reasons for voting Republican:

Unless you are a big capitalist, a defense contractor, an employer of illegal immigrants, or a politician hoping for the perks of office, there are none.*

*Historical note: The Republican Party prospered pretty well for a century and a half by never doing anything for its voters except giving them a sense of respectability, of superiority to the immigrant herd and Southern barbarians.  But now, except in the clueless boondocks, it is more respectable to be a Democrat.  (Some people have voted Republican in the hope of slowing down the Democrat destruction of the country, but they have been and are certain to continue to be disappointed.  To keep doing the same thing over and over although it never works is one of the definitions of insanity.  However, in this case it is not so much insanity as desperation and inability to think outside the box.)

Did you ever think you would see . . .

• Arrogant or sullen foreigners swarming everywhere you look in your own hometown?
• Obscenity and vulgarity beamed into every home 24 hours a day?
• Large numbers of people walking and driving about holding little machines to their ears and paying no attention to their surroundings?
• Two Muslim friendly presidents followed by a Mormon?
• American baseball stars who are not American?
• The foreign policy of the Republican Party dictated by Communists?
• That of the ten most common family names in America, three would Mexican.  (Among people below 25, Mexican names make 8 of the top 20. In Canada Patel is 6th and Wong 8th.)
• Men and boys unable to mow the grass without a machine to ride on?
• New York skyscrapers and the Pentagon blown up by dimwitted foreigners armed with plastic tableware?  (Those who lived through WWII and the Cold War would not have been surprised by an atomic bomb or invasion by hordes of Chinese.  But this?)
• Wars lasting decades in eastern places nobody can find on a map?
• People with unfortunate sexual tendencies publicly flaunting and bragging about their affliction and demanding special government privileges?
• Government control of medicine with the consequent astronomical costs?
• Your privacy invaded by calls from some creep in Calcutta who can barely mouth English and wants to cheat you with some phony prize?
• A college degree almost worthless and the rising generation of Americans certain to be poorer than their parents and lucky to have any job at all?
• Picking up a girl at her house and meeting her parents would be replaced by “hooking up”?
• The complete disappearance of teenagers eager to earn pocket money by doing odd jobs and delivering newspapers?
• Arrogant or sullen foreigners swarming everywhere you look in your own hometown?

"A public debt is a public blessing."  At the time of Alexander Hamilton’s famous statement in the early days of the U.S., everyone knew what he meant: Government debt is a blessing to the rich and to politicians who want to push their schemes while postponing payment for them.  The Jeffersonians detected the evil and held it in check until Lincoln’s time.  Since then it has been the Standard Operating Procedure of the U.S. government, though never so forthrightly stated.

Thomas Jefferson was anti-Christian.  Thomas Jefferson had a capacious, active, and questing mind, wrote prolifically, and lived through a more than usual number of years of more than usually full history.  To understand his religious beliefs requires careful and extensive inquiry.  Jefferson never scoffed at Christianity.  He never denied its divine inspiration or its importance or that man is made in the image of God.  He did want to remove the miracles from the Scriptures because he thought it made them less believable rather than more so.  He did believe, quite reasonably, that, historically, religious dogma had sometimes assumed the guise of superstition that had stifled intelligence and that religious establishments had suppressed freedom more than was justified.  His statement about the desirable wall of separation between church and state, though later hyped by haters of Christianity, was merely a standard American and Protestant  position and emphatically did not advocate the banishment of faith from public life.  When all is said and done, Jefferson’s belief, though not meeting strict definitions of Christianity (which disagree among themselves), differed little from that of many another Anglican gentleman then or later.  Curiously, the same people who calumniate Jefferson have sanctified the village atheist Abe Lincoln, who once wrote a treatise ridiculing Christianity and who, according to his closest associates, was never a believer.  The political context explains much about Jefferson’s thinking.  He thought that Calvinism was responsible for the peculiarly malicious and domineering nature of Massachusetts and Connecticut, which had introduced a distorting element into the American polity.  Calvinism, he wrote, was the mother of atheism because it presented God as unchristian, unloving, and unlovable.

Medicare and Medicaid can be fixed by electing the right people to implement the right policies.  It is theoretically possible to design a national medical system that is fair, workable, and affordable.  However, Congresspersons, who are owned by drug and insurance corporations, will  never enact such a system, nor can it ever be made affordable as long as the  immigration of new  unpaying clients rages unchecked.