To start off this week’s edition of the Lexicon, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is we may finally get to see another round of COVID-19 relief in the near future. The bad news? It looks like it will be somewhere in the neighborhood of $600 per person, or in other words, the cost of a large popcorn and drink at your local movie theater, give or take a few thousand dollars.
Granted, if President Donald Trump gets his way, that amount may get boosted to up to $2000, so you might be able to afford to get some nachos with that popcorn. Still, there are questions, primarily from the Left, about whether the proposed stimulus package will be enough to help people. It’s a valid point, but it’s just one of the questions we need to explore before we cash the stimulus checks.
stimulus
What the Left thinks it means – monetary support necessary due to the economic hardships brought on by COVID-19
What it really means – the government returning a portion of the money it takes from us and expecting us to be grateful for it
If you really think about it (and I have because I don’t have anything better to do during quarantine), we’ve been played for suckers this past year because of the political weaponization of COVID-19. This isn’t to say COVID-19 is a hoax or a political scheme, mind you. What I’m saying is people more powerful than us have taken a medical issue and turned it into a way to manipulate the public into acting and acting in a certain way as a means to condition our responses under the guise of “believing the science” and “we’re all in this together.”
The endgame is pretty simple, really. If those who have the most to benefit from turning COVID-19 into a political football can get us to react predictably, they can use that to push a wider agenda using the same thinking that got us to this point. To do that, the powerful (namely Leftists) need a carrot to dangle in front of our faces to keep us Torgo-walking towards being happy little drones for the State.
Enter the stimulus package.
For all of their faults, the Left have an impressive understanding of the human psyche and an even better understanding of how to use us against us. Most people today have the economic understanding of a tuna fish sandwich, so it’s easy for the Left to play to that and our innate sense of greed and jealousy to make us chase the quick buck instead of taking a moment to ponder why there are so many good intentions paving this road to Hell. As we’ve seen since declaring war against poverty, it works.
Of course, that quick buck moves at the glacial progression (this is the government we’re dealing with here, after all), so we never quite reach the finish line. Every time we get close, there always seems to be a reason we have to keep going. Thus, we become George Jetson on that mechanized treadmill used to walk Astro. No matter how much we progress, there will always be a way to not only downplay what we’ve done, but also to set another goal even further away than where we’ve come. And as long as we keep following, the Left will keep that carrot in front of our faces.
There’s another side of this, however, that isn’t talked about much (due to either the Left trying to keep it hidden or, you know, the tuna fish sandwich thing), but is just as important to understand. The bulk of Leftist economic theory comes from John Maynard Keynes, who postulated the way to stimulate the economy is to have government pump money and resources into it and to lower taxes. Seems the Left forgets that last part and only focuses on the government spending side of the equation, but that’s neither here nor there in relation to this blog post. What’s important to keep in mind is who the Left thinks can solve economic problems. Spoiler Alert: it ain’t us, kids. In a crossover event no one but the Left asked for, social and economic policies are joined together in a Man With Two Heads monstrosity that has the potential to turn us all into unwitting wards of the State.
However, a government that has the power to give you the world has the power to take it away from you. And if we follow this line of thinking, we eventually come to the question of where our government is coming up with the money to give to people. It’s not coming from the Left nor the rich who are “paying their fair share.” It’s coming from us. Whether it’s $600, $2000, or one meeeelion dollars, we’re funding it with money the government says we have based on…well, I’m still trying to figure that part out given our national debt is higher than Charlie Sheen partying with Keith Richards in Amsterdam. And I’m not willing to take the government at its word that it has the cash. Call me a cynic, but any government who spends $600 for a hammer without getting a second opinion from Ace Hardware isn’t on my short list for entities to contact for financial advice.
The question then becomes what happens if the money we’re getting from ourselves with the government acting as a middle man isn’t enough. The short term answer from the Left is “people need more money.” And if that money gets allocated, we will be continue to spend money the government doesn’t have, which means we go further into debt, which means the government will tax more to make up that shortfall, which means things will get more expensive, which means the economy doesn’t get any better, which means people will need more help, which means the Left will say “people need more money,” and the cycle begins again.
I got winded just writing that last sentence! I’m gonna need a minute.
Hopefully in that minute you see the insanity of the Left’s stimulus process. As much as I would like to say the people can figure out the correct next steps to get our economy back on track, I really can’t. Economic literacy isn’t something that can be taught with emojis or hashtags or even TikTok videos. However, it is essential to understanding the next steps. One thing I can say is don’t depend on the government to provide for you and yours. To paraphrase the Margaret Thatcher, the problem with a Leftist stimulus package is eventually you run out of your own money. Only you know what you need for yourself and your loved ones. Expecting a politician to know that on your behalf is like trusting your retirement to an embezzler.
Come to think of it, is there a difference between the two?
In either case, all I can ask for you to be smart with the stimulus money. It is your money, after all.
Month: December 2020
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
With the Electoral College officially voting for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the 2020 election is all over but the screeching. The Left has taken a break from its regularly scheduled outrage to focus on unity. And the Leftists in the media have jumped on board, claiming Biden and Harris are responsible for lower blood pressure (per an actual opinion piece from the Washington Post) to intelligence and maturity coming back to the White House. As a result, we are urged to get behind the President-Elect and Vice President-Elect so we can accomplish great things.
Like…well…ummm…I’m sure they’ll get around to it, as soon as Biden finds someone to copy.
While we wait for that moment, let’s take a look at unity.
unity
What the Left thinks it means – coming together as a country to undo the damage Donald Trump left
What it really means – do what the Left says or else
Four years ago, the Left was all about resisting. It was #IAmTheResistance this and #NotMyPresident that for four years. Now, resistance isn’t seen as favorably and the “Not My President” statements are mean and hurtful. Funny how that works, isn’t it?
And that is by design.
When the Left is in power, unity is important because they can’t handle actual diversity. Instead, they will batter the non-Leftists until they comply or until they rebel. Once they rebel, it becomes easy for them to marginalize (i.e. insult) them. It worked to a point with Trump supporters, and it may work as well, if not better, under a Biden Administration. The Left and the media (one in the same) are already praising Biden’s ability to unify people…without presenting any evidence. And, no, “he’s better than Trump” isn’t proof.
This isn’t to say Joe Biden won’t be able to do it. He is a likeable guy…if you ignore the frequent mental lapses and the weird fascination with body hair. For all intents and purposes, Joe Biden appears to be a good guy, which begs the question of why he’s in politics, but that’s neither here nor there. The problem he faces is the country isn’t full of nice guys on both sides of the aisle. Whether it’s the extreme right or extreme left, America is so contentious it makes the Hatfields and McCoys look like an Amish barn-raising. And unlike on the campaign trail, you can’t keep ducking questions about the extremists within your own party and ideology.
Including…oh, I don’t know…your Vice President.
While unity is a wonderful goal to strive for, we have to understand the Left’s version of unity isn’t One Nation Under God but One Nation Under the Thumb of the Federal Government. Imagine the person in your lives who are control freaks. Give them access to the military, and you have the Left’s governance strategy. In this case, unity involves shared struggle for the most people, themselves excluded. Even if you agree with this definition of unity, the fact it involves suffering doesn’t exactly make it an attractive option.
Now, what I’m about to say is going to shock you Leftists, so be prepared. Maybe unity isn’t something the government can provide for us. Oh, it can provide for the common defense to the tune of billions of dollars each year, but when has any government actively brought people together? Instead, let’s turn our sights a little be closer to home. Namely…us.
After 9/11, we came together as a nation because the tragedy didn’t just affect one political party or another, one race or another, one creed or another. It affected us all. We looked to government to help us, but when it came to coming together, that was all us, kids. We found commonality amidst the chaos and uncertainty and for a relatively short time, we were a United States again. It felt good to reconnect with our neighbors again, didn’t it? We mourned the losses and praised the front line police, fire, and medical services who were trying to keep the number of fatalities as low as possible, to keep working and never giving up hope in finding one more survivor.
When we are united, not out of shared pain but out of shared pride, we can accomplish just about anything. I believed it on 9/12, and I believe it today. The Left wants us to unify under an ideology or a politician that is a means to an end. The unity I speak of doesn’t even involve the ultimately meaningless descriptors we give to ourselves or are given to us by others as a means to pigeonhole us. All it involves is stripping off those labels and seeing each other as people. The Left can’t do that because their ideology relies on finding and exploiting our differences.
If you want to unite the country with me, the line starts to my left and my right.
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
Yep, this is another Election 2020-related blog post.
The latest news out of the Election That Won’t Die revolves around 126 Republican Congresscritters who supported a lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump’s election team against four states due to election irregularities (you know, like…throwing away military votes for the President). This has the Left up in arms. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said these Republicans have “brought dishonor to the House.”
But that’s not good enough for Leftists. Leftist Twitter (but I repeat myself) exploded with claims these House Republicans are guilty of sedition. Probably not the best week to invoke this, given Rep. Eric Swalwell sleeping with a Chinese spy while he was running for the House, but let’s go with it. Do they have a point this time? Let’s delve deeper into sedition, hopefully without contributing to it.
sedition
What the Left thinks it means – advocating for revolting against and toppling the established order
What it really means – another example of how the Left doesn’t understand irony
For the past 4 years, Democrats and Leftists have been calling President Trump illegitimate and demanding he be removed from office because he didn’t win the popular vote and/or various crimes he and his family are alleged to have committed. They “know” Trump had help from Russia to steal the 2016 elections. In fact, they went so far as to hold protests across the country delegitimizing the Trump Presidency, up to and including violent overthrow of the government or blowing up the White House.
Yeah. These are the folks I trust when it comes to sedition.
On the plus side, Leftists are concerned with people who want to overthrow our government. On the down side, they’re going after the wrong folks. I’ll be the first one to tell you I thought the lawsuit was dumber than letting Jeffrey Epstein babysit, but does it rise to the level the Left wants you think it does? The short answer is no. The longer answer is still no, but has a lot more words connected to it.
The President’s lawsuit, although ill-advised, isn’t an attempt to overthrow the government or its rightful leadership. Neither is the support from House Republicans because…and this is the part the Left keeps forgetting…Trump is still President until January 20, 2021. This little detail makes the sedition charges harder to stick. After all, why would the support for the President’s lawsuit be seditious when the person bringing the lawsuit itself is the President? No violence called for. No threats against the President’s life or the lives of government leaders. Just support for a lawsuit.
Can you say “overkill”? I knew you could.
Even if you expand the focus to the lawsuit and its supporters hurting the government, it falls flat because of the forum used to address the President’s concerns: the courts. You know, the courts…that are established in the Constitution? If President Trump is trying to get people to rebel against the government, he’s doing a crappy job of it. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say the Left is reaching more than Reed Richards.
The funny thing (at least to me) is how quickly the Left is adopting conservative ideas. Since it’s their ideology that stands to gain or lose the most over the outcome of the lawsuit, they want to preserve the status quo of a Biden victory over Trump. If the courts agree with the Trump campaign (which, to date, they haven’t, making them the second most losing team in history behind the Cleveland Browns, but work with me here), that overturns everything the Left wants to accomplish. No Green New Deal, no tax hikes on the wealthy, no free health care and tuition, just four more years of Trump’s Tweets and Leftist meltdowns. Don’t worry, though. Leftists will still have their meltdowns because that’s what they do in lieu of gainful employment.
Once you get past the hyperbole, the Left’s concept of sedition in this case is frightfully strong in words, but frightfully weak in application. In a few short years, they’ve gone from “Dissent is patriotic” to “Dissent is treason.” Yet, the First Amendment gives people the right to not only criticize the government, but to redress grievances with the government. Under Republican Presidents, the Left uses, if not abuses, both concepts demanding they be heard. Under Democrat Presidents, however, they seem to “forget” these parts of the First Amendment exist. Funny how that works out, isn’t it?
This is by design, of course. Leftists believe anyone who doesn’t stay in line like a Rockette is intellectually and morally inferior, which justifies their actions (at least in their minds). To extend this thinking a bit further, anything a non-Leftist does is anti-American and dangerous to the country. And when that non-Leftist is connected to Trump in any way, it becomes an imperative to discredit them, if not outright punish them for not thinking the right way.
George Orwell called. He wanted to let you Leftists know “1984” wasn’t an instruction manual.
Regardless of my feelings on the Trump campaign’s lawsuit regarding the 2020 election, there is no way it rises to the level of sedition, even if you water the definition down like a drink at a strip club. It’s more of the Left conflating objections to their ideology with objections to the country. After seeing some of the Left over the past four years, it’s safe to say the two are mutually exclusive.
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
As George R. R. Martin is fond of writing, Winter is coming, and along with it comes the possibility of another round of COVID-19 breakout. To combat this, the same people who said we needed to stay quarantined to slow the spread (except, of course, if you’re ANTIFA, Black Lives Matter, or Biden/Harris supporters) are now saying we need to go back into lockdown to slow the spread again.
You know, because lockdowns worked so well last time.
Although we covered this topic earlier this year, the topic has been refreshed, namely because the Left keep acting as though the pandemic isn’t a thing. Which makes it perfect fodder for this week’s Lexicon!
lockdowns
What the Left thinks it means – a way to protect society from the spread of COVID-19 by limiting or canceling in-person activities, such as visiting a restaurant or going to concerts
What it really means – a means to control and manipulate people under the guise of science
When they weren’t telling us to ignore lockdown orders to combat racism, Leftists were enamored with idea of everybody staying inside to, as they called it, “flatten the curve.” Well, the curve didn’t get flattened so much as it got the Mamie Van Doren Special breast augmentation surgery. To cover this up, the Left kept moving the goalposts as to when the lockdowns would be over. First it was 2 weeks. Then 3. Then 4. Then 6. When it got to 12, I sold.
After blowing through the first couple of Leftist-designated goalposts, many people (including your humble correspondent) started to wonder if the lockdowns were actually supposed to control the spread of COVID-19. (Spoiler Alert: The scientists still aren’t on the same page as to the effectiveness of lockdowns. But we’re supposed to trust the science so…I guess we trust the ambiguity?) Then, Democrat governors across the country used the outbreak to enact restrictions stricter than my third grade teacher (to whom I still owe three weeks after school in detention), and people rebelled. Even though most people still considered COVID-19 a threat, they also saw the draconian moves by said governors to be as big of a threat. There is a debate to be had concerning freedom during quarantine, but the Left doesn’t want one. They just want to tell you what you can and can’t do.
Of course, those rules don’t apply to them because…reasons?
The reason lockdowns became a subject of discussion again is because Democrats leaders are getting caught violating the rules they want everyone else to follow. Who could have seen that coming? Even before now, Democrat governors and their spouses in some cases were caught defying their own mandates for personal gain. Imagine being told you have to stay in your house and not have Thanksgiving while the person telling you this is spending Thanksgiving with his family in a foreign country. If you’re living in Austin, TX, you know what that’s like because it actually happenedthis year.
You know, even Beethoven wasn’t this tone deaf.
At this point, the concept of lockdowns may be medically wise, but foolish in practice because we’re not all in this together, contrary to what the Left says. They’re in it for themselves and they don’t care who gets hurt in the process. That much is evident by how many businesses of all sizes have closed down due to lack of business or been forced out of business by governors who don’t have to worry about serving customers or making payroll. All they have to do is pretend to care when it’s election season.
On top of that, the Left hasn’t made any friends by, well…acting like Leftists. It’s hard enough to get everyone to go along with a reasonable request as it is, but it’s made even more difficult when you’ve given people a reason to distrust you. Congratulations, Leftists. You’ve made it impossible to achieve the right goal. And as someone who would benefit by the curve being flatter than pancakes in Nebraska, I’m not happy the Left used lockdowns to grab up power, hurt people and the economy, and create rules they don’t have to follow, but really should.
Thus, we see the facade of the lockdowns. Leftists used science to convince most of us to stay indoors and away from others, and we did. After weeks went by, the message stayed the same, even when the science didn’t back up their ideas. In the end, it was never about following the science or staying in lockdown until we got COVID-19 under control; it was all about control of as many people as possible.
And unfortunately it worked pretty well.
Where we go from here is hard to say. As I mentioned earlier, there is a valuable debate about freedom during the time of quarantine, and this is the time to have it. If President-Elect Joe Biden has his say, we will be looking at actions more draconian than the ones we’ve already experienced and he will try to justify it using the same method (i.e. the public good) the Left used during the first round of lockdowns. The thing is the same argument can be used to refute more stringent restrictions because of the number of people out of work due to the lockdowns themselves. The Left calls it putting profits ahead of people, but they also admit there are economic costs to a lockdown. When you don’t know where your next meal is coming from, profits are how you get paid. Put another way, the Left is putting politics and pain before people.
And you might need to dodge as the Leftists’ heads explode.