As women all over the world join hands,minds,and hearts to claim equal opportunity and challenge male sexual and employment dominance,the USA because of MOM as POTUS finds the remarkable surge of its women diminished by the behavior of women with access,past and present,to occupants and rarely occupancy of high office. The love of money has bubbled up in the messy sexual cesspool.Now we are being treated to the additional dangerous spectacle of MOM alternately playing Samson and Androcles on the world scene.We are definitely at a low point.
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The Octogenarians 
Regarding Daedal2207n comment dated 16 Mar 11:40 am
Now, if only our beliefs as to what is “social good” and “avoiding social harm” were better correlated with the objective truth of things!
But that is the fundamental issue we on this blog have been discussing for years. The problem is illustrated by Daedal2207 given the way he ended his last statement: “Guns have saved more lives than they have cost? Palpably absurd!”
I can present both logical and empirical evidence that demonstrates that guns have, and continue to save massive numbers of lives. But when a-priori beliefs dismiss such consideration, education is stunted and decisions based in false belief will continue to impose more pain and loss than necessary.
Logical evidence: Historically, man has harnessed the forces of nature to create tools of power in order to meet the needs of survival. Food is high among the needed resources. Spears, and later the bow and arrow helped extend the survivability of the human population. With the invention of the gun the human population was greatly enlarged. It doesn’t take genius to understand that the invention of guns made it easier to put food on the dinner table – or, that the benefit leading to an expanded human population was massive. It is also true that power in any form can be used to inflict harm. When used to enslave, or extort, or threaten in any way, this negative use of gun power needs to be countered by its positive use. If it is true that the American Revolution led to a way of life that inspired greater invention and productivity, that gun-fought war eventually brought about a savings of life. This is true for all the guns used in all the wars that turned away an otherwise bleak future. In other words – guns have in high probability saved far more lives than they cost.
What about today? Only with a desire to acquire accurate statistics can we claim to know with high probability that the availability of guns in a given population will make us more (or less) safe. We know that “If it bleeds it leads” in the headlines of news organizations. We are bombarded with tragic stories about guns misused. But how many times did just the showing of a gun by a potential victim deter a tragedy that therefore never reached TV or the pages of a newspaper? This kind of research has been done. Researcher of political science John Lott Jr. published a book called “More Guns, Less Crime” in which he presents empirical evidence showing that (many) more lives have been saved because good guys had guns than because bad guys successfully misused them.
History indicates that there exists a troublesome human need – a desire to believe that we “know” with more certitude than we can know. There are issues about which we should not claim clarity until all the evidence is weighed. With some humility we can understand the needed questions and how to establish the answers (IN TERMS OF PROBABILITIES – NOT CERTITUDES) when required at any stage of the research. And we need to recognize that there are many big issues where the PROCESS of research will never end.
Further thoughts about Daedal2207’s comment 16 Mar 11:34 am
Daedal2207 – “Milton Friedman saw making money for owners and shareholders as the only legitimate function of a corporation. Many of today’s captains of industry see doing some social good or avoiding social harm as legitimate functions.”
Milton Friedman understood that a company that ceases to place the focus on its economic success is at a disadvantage against those that do. It does society no good at all, in fact harm is done, when it collapses into bankruptcy. Because government “leaders” or other (less dangerous) pressure groups embrace the generally false belief that guns do more harm than good, it does not mean that a CEO who shares this belief should overrule Friedman’s accurate recommendation for “captains of industry”. As for “flame-throwers” and fully automatic weapons, the NRA agrees that the greater benefit is achieved when they are by law banned from the general population. So clearly the issue is one of balancing the weight of good against the bad. Also, it should be clear that the leftist mind is not interested in “knowing” the positive nature of weights that exist on the “other” side of the fulcrum. Their “thumb” is consistently on the scale. A central question to those readers interested in human motivations: Why would groups of otherwise good people choose to do this dishonest thing?
Regarding Daedal2207 comment dated ll Mar at 8:09 pm:
I know that I do not have certain knowledge about the specifics of “Trump’s sexual antics”. My guess is that Daedal2207 too lacks such information. If Daedal2207 has access to proof of societally dangerous excesses would he please share this info and perhaps more of us could understand the appropriateness (or not) of his “fear” . As for a “lack of empathy, grandiosity, impulsivity and consciencelessness”, I think that I have been paying attention to interviews and to a fair amount of his history. My conclusions differ as follows: “Empathy” can be misleading given that those people and those things with which we identify vary with values. My guess is that Daedal2207 believes Trump lacks empathy because he doesn’t focus on the suffering, the needy, those who are down and out, but gives immense attention to those whose attitude is that of achievement and winning (the skillful earners). With this focus (on successful economies) I think that Trump knows that the “down and out” have the greatest chance to rise out of suffering and toward myriad forms of success. Because this benefit is probably true, he may indeed be empathic not narrowly for the poor, but for all. As an aside: Having lost a brother to alcoholism, in interviews that revealed this experience he has clearly shown deep feelings about the tragedy of addiction. “Grandiosity”? This is a characteristic of most “leaders”. (Add a “showman” trait and it is exaggerated.) It takes a lot of ego to strive for high levels of attention and importance. If his performance lacked achievement I would be concerned. I think that it may be his exceptional achievements regarding conservative (and not socialist) goals that lead Daedal2207 to see his “grandness” as something negative. Our read of “Impulsivity” too is dependent on context. “Look before you leap” is countered by “He who hesitates is lost”. Again, it will be his success (or not) relative to his decisions that will clarify if his judgments are negatively impulsive, or justly on time. He has been making decisions from a conservative’s point of view, so I am guessing that Daedal2207 sees more negatives in his timing than do I. “Consciousness”? I think it would be unconscionable for a leader to aim for anything other than that which works best for the future of humankind. Trump is showing himself not to be a socialist. For those who believe socialism is best, of course they would feel him to be lacking in conscience. My arguments have tried to explain why conservative values should prevail and by these arguments Trump is proving himself to be someone with high degrees of conscience.
“Greed” too tends to be one of those judgments that exists or ceases to exist depending on points of view. “Excessive” self-interest is greed, but “excessive” relative to what? We could agree that “greed” applies to those who hoard at the expense of others. The socialist mind tends to believe that the upper levels of the income “gap” are evidence of extensive greed (Like a pie being divided – if some have more, others have less). The pragmatist seeking life-saving productivity (Make the pie bigger thus more resources for all) views the fact of exceptional high EARNINGS to be evidence of great moral achievement – something worthy of pride. An interesting aspect of free market incentives is the fact that no matter the character of the producer’s motivation (most selfish to most altruistic), the fact of increased production benefits everyone. For the good of humanity the working force is maximized.
Milton Friedman is being challenged by many of today’s CEO’s particularly vis a vis gun dissemination.Profit as a societal motivation is not enough.Greed need not be interpretable as aimed at social harm.All it has to be is self motivated,individually, developmentally determined and OBLIVIOUS to its social consequences.Those intellectually superiorly endowed,given access to means,will rise to the top,and usually monetarily rewarded.( not always)It follows that a logical function of government is to avoid conflict by using its power to ensure the sustainability of life and the minimization of insurrection impulses among the non privileged.It also follows that government needs to assure access to opportunity to those who are intellectually and physically exceptional,without assumptions of knowability of such in advance of testing and performance.Taxation is government’s most powerful and least disputable tool.
As far as Trump’s behavior is concerned,the facts will come out,legal tricks,threats,bribes and lies notwithstanding.Further pursuit in these writings is a waste of time until more emerges.
It isn’t clear as to what is meant by today’s CEO’s challenging Milton Friedman (“particularly vis a vis gun dissemination”). And please explain how “Profit as a societal motivation is not enough”. Somewhat familiar with the leftist mindset, I can surmise that Daedal2207 might be comparing a desire to buy a gun with a mind-altering craving to do dangerous drugs. Those CEO’s selling guns could then be considered analogous to drug dealers, motivated not because they believe the guns they sell ACTUALLY deter sufficient amounts of bad behavior to ACTUALLY save many lives, but only because they are money crazed and don’t mind selling a destructive product to make an evil profit. Yes, that’s the ticket! Or, one of the “tickets” that helps a leftist-leaning mind to believe what it wants to believe in order to advance a sacred agenda. By creating a powerful government with a weakened citizenry and headed by left-thinking elites it can forcibly do away with the evils of social inequity (including wage gaps) and save the sick”. But this is just a guess. There may be other possibilities. Could Daedal2207 clarify?
“Greed”, defined as an excessive craving for things and money, would include all forms of harm, including those about which the perpetrator has no awareness. The issue about guns has to do with one side’s dramatically excessive certitude that access to guns does more societal harm than good.
Those “intellectually superiorly endowed” in a free market tend not only to make more money, they tend to invent and create the products that enrich and extend the lives of the less endowed. True, if those doing less well do not understand such benefits but instead are taught to believe that they are victims rather than beneficiaries they could insurrect and destroy those who are responsible for their survival. Not a good idea – but one embraced by those who have the “feeling” that capitalism is an evil that should be replaced by the overriding “good” of socialist equalities.
Government should strive to create the economic conditions whereby those of low cognitive ability have the highest probability of finding productive niches. I (and all the conservatives I know) agree with Daedal2207 that those truly incapable of such achievement are a sound reason for government to impose the required taxation and provide whatever assistance is needed.
Milton Friedman saw making money for owners and shareholders as the only legitimate function of a corporation.Many of today’s captains of industry see doing some social good or avoiding social harm as legitimate functions.DS speaks generically of firearms,avoiding the key issue of ‘what kind of firearms”.Where do you store your flamethrower DS? Guns have saved more lives than they have cost? Palpably absurd!
It is good to celebrate groups that inspire. It is not good to elevate the “group” above that which gives it form – the individual citizen.
This demonstrates a process called divide and conquer. Yes, “social justice” requires that we see ourselves as members of tribes. This view has us supervised by supposed-to-be intelligent elite. By them favored “groups” are to be allotted an equal quantity of all that is imagined to be “good”. With this as our dominant goal (our religion) we are definitely not to be considered first as individuals no matter group affiliations, lawfully guaranteed to possess an equality of rights.
If this “leftist” socialist sentiment is successful in destroying the original idea called America, we will have been “fundamentally transformed” into something that is less productive of the resources needed for a thriving humanity. With a diminishment of resources, those who would have survived will not.
Whaaat? Aside. From humiliation of the. concept of America, Stormy’s certainty of being able to identify MOM’s ” junk ” means what in resources and those who should survive? What ” tribe ” does POTUS. belong to based on her identification criterion ? Perhaps she is marking a target for a well placed Kim Il caratse kick.
I enjoy Daedal2207’s imagery. Sexual bantering and maneuvering has apparently been a favorite activity since sex was invented. While fun to think about, I consider the sexual escapades of important people to be sideshows of little significance, except to the degree that sufficiently large numbers of voters (are manipulated to) think them important. When your doctor is operating what is most vital, his sexual proclivities, or his skills as a surgeon? Enjoy the sideshow, but don’t let it interfere with the main operation having to do with curing our Country’s ills.
I fear that MOM’s sexual behavior,much more serious than banter and maneuver,is an expression of characterologic disorder that also includes lack of empathy,grandiosity,impulsivity and consciencelessness.Such a person can only add to the country’s and the world’s ills.Personal greed runs side by side with his lasciviousness.
This blog has referred many times to Weberian style setting proclivities associated with status and power.I doubt that DS would welcome a mass imitation of Trump’s sexual antics.