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There's Got to be a Better Way
Let’s say that Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt is right and politics is just about gifting your friends and shafting your enemies. It certainly looks that way in the LA Mayor race where the unions are running an ad saying that Spencer Pratt:
is opposed to building brand new housing for our “unhoused neighbors”
thinks LA should have lots more police officers “rather than more social workers”
thinks “public employee unions should have less power”
Now, I watch that ad and wonder: who in the world thinks we need to spend more on the homeless, and more on mental health rather than policing?
But you can see what is going on here. The whole point of Democratic Party politics is spend more money on government services for the poor that in fact increase public employee jobs and grants to companies delivering services to the government. And if you disagree you are a fascist.
But the Trump strategy is the same, only different. Whereas the Democrats are providing free services to the lower class, delivered through the administrative and grant-consuming class, the Republican want to provide goodies for the ordinary middle class, such as Trump’s IRA for kids with a $1,000 gubmint seed. And then there is No Tax on Tips. etc. Free stuff for ordinary Americans.
And by the way, how come contributions to your kid’s IRA aren’t tax deductible!
What I wonder is how we get out of here.
Fact is that US Government Spending, federal, state, and local, was a guesstimated 40 percent of GDP in 2025 with 7% GDP on pensions, 8.6% GDP on Medicare and Medicaid, 5.5% GDP on education, 4.4% GDP on defense, and so on.
Can you imagine the pension you would have if, instead of the money going to FICA you got to put money in your own IRA?
Can you imagine the health care you would have if you had your own health insurance, and and health care providers mailed you a weekly ad flyer every week so you could shop for health care bargains like at the grocery store? Can you imagine how great education would be if it were run by neighborhood mothers?
OK, I know it’s impossible. Most humans demand free stuff in return for their votes: rich, poor, and in between. Many humans believe that if only you gave them the power they could create heaven on Earth. Many humans believe, with AOC, that “you can’t earn a billion dollars.” Many people believe that government protects us against big business.
The reason that government spends 40 percent of GDP is not because of corporate power, but because we are all humans, and government is a rather good reflection of the people: good or bad, smart or dumb, generous or greedy, stingy or frugal, informed or ignorant, angry or afraid: all rolled into one.
Hey, maybe we ‘Muricans should just be glad that we are not living in Putin’s Russia, or Xi’s China, or IRGC’s Iran, and stop complaining.
But I Have a Dream.
| Wed, 13 May 2026 22:57:48 GMT |
Are Trump & Co. Really This Smart?
I just read an X-post previewing Trump’ Trip to China by AJ Inapi.
Trump’s taking heavy hitters from Boeing and Citigroup, plus Elon Musk, Tim Cook, and execs from Goldman Sachs, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Meta.
Oh, and don’t forget that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent already left for talks with China’s VP He Lifeng in Seoul.
Inapi says that Trump has put the US in a position to pressure China with leverage:
Trade leverage.
Technology leverage.
Energy leverage.
Supply chain leverage.
Geopolitical leverage.
My point is this. I look at the current Trump administration and I ask: “who put all this together?”
It can’t be just Trump. Not one man.
It can’t be just Trump’s aides and staffers.
It can be just conservative think tanks.
It can’t be just Wall Street.
It can’t be just Bibi and Israel.
It can’t be just the tech lords.
I believe that what we have seen from the Trump administration over the last year has been unprecedented in my lifetime. It seems to incorporate a strategic vision that makes, e.g., Bismarck look like a second rater.
Now, maybe it’s all crazy cakes, and is going to plunge over a cliff, like the North American Buffalos of olden time. Maybe. Or maybe, “we’ve never seen anything like it.” Here are the events that have buzzed my secret decoder ring thus far:
Tech lords in battalion strength at 2025 inaugural.
Trump speech to Saudi Prince MBS — with Elon in the frame with MBS.
B-2 bombing raid on Iran nuke facilities.
Trump telling NATO to get lost.
US-Israel beheading of Iran regime and reduction of Iran military and oil exports.
Trip to China with tech lords all aboard.
Like I say, “we’ve never seen anything like it.”
But the thing that puzzles me is that we really don’t know what is going on. Is this all Trump? Is it Trump supporters? Tech lords? A foreign-policy cabal? Whatever it is, it’s been operating below the radar — or at least, my radar.
The only thing I am certain about is that the Democrats and the Intelligence Community have nothing to do with the case.
| Tue, 12 May 2026 23:27:07 GMT |
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Christopher Chantrill
He runs usgovernmentspending.com, the go-to resource for government finance data, and is a frequent contributor to the American Thinker. He lives in Seattle, Washington. Click for more.
“I love this guy.” — Steve Ballmer
A Commoner Manifesto
Commoners have nothing to lose but their shame
If you bend the arc of history, you do not get justice, but injustice.
The ruling class used to be a warrior class. Now the ruling class is an educated, intellectual class. Explain.
The simplest way to understand human society is as Three Layers such as Nobles, Yeomen, and Serfs.
My take on Three Layers is my Three Peoples Theory of Creatives, Responsibles, and Subordinates.
I believe that we moderns live in Three Worlds: the War World of politics, the Market World of the economy, and the Life World of family and neighborhood.
And the trouble with politics is that it reduces human society to a war against the enemy, as determined by Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt.
The world that we all live in today is the one created by the German Turn in philosophy, psychology, science, and meaning.
But our modern elite, the educated elite, has taken, I believe, a Wrong Turn and has imposed a cultural Great Reaction on the world, a lurch back to the primitive. This manifests in the elite’s conceited Activism Culture and its patronage of Subordinate people as its Little Darlings.
The principal reason for the elite’s Wrong Turn has been that it does not understand and does not want to understand how the Three Peoples’ Religions are necessarily different.
The root of the educated elite’s Wrong Turn is its conceit that it knows what the world needs. I think there is a better way; I call it “A Good Life Better than the Left”.
ABC of Politics – Activism Culture – “Anatomy of Revolution” – Allyism – Critical Theory – Downstream-ism – Dutch Finance – German Turn – Good Life – Great Reaction – Little Darlings – Perfect Plan – Women in the Public Square – Ruling Class – Three Layers – Three Peoples – Three Peoples Religion – Tribalism – Two Cultures – Wrong Turn
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