Is It Possible They Really Believe These Things?

When one is unable to persuade one's audience that one's position on an issue is correct it is easy to default to blaming the audience. They are just too stupid to understand what you are saying. Having failed to persuade most of the people I interact with of the correctness of my opinions I have a lot of experience at avoiding the "they are stupid" explanation of my failures.

That being said we once again find the left erupting in  furious fits at the appointment of Scott Pruitt as EPA administrator.

Via The Weekly Standard we get to share these priceless quotes:

"House minority leader Nancy Pelosi says the Pruitt nomination must be blocked "for the sake of the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the planet we will leave our children." New York AG Eric Schneiderman says Pruitt is a "dangerous and an unqualified choice." Independent socialist senator Bernie Sanders declares the Pruitt pick is not only dangerous but also "sad." The League of Conservation Voters calls Pruitt not just a global warming skeptic but "an outright climate denier.""

I have read countless times over the years that Republicans want to poison our air, water and children, in no particular order. Is it possible that the left actually believes this stuff? Is it possible that they do and really are stupid? I hope not.

Each time I read this stuff I wonder where it is that they think we Republicans get our air and water. Is it really likely that we want to poison ourselves and our children? In my experience most of us are pretty normal, nice people, dems too, for that matter.

I bring all of this up because of this article which posits this theory:

Conservatives often win elections because of the hysterical, overblown reaction their common-sense plans receive from the left.

 Read the whole thing.

Hysterical and overblown pretty much sums up the left's reaction to Pruitt.

Happily, the left never seems to learn anything from experience, to paraphrase John Hinderaker of Powerline fame.

The Clinton Method/Updated

The AP reported here on the number of meetings that HRC had with "...people outside of government". More than half of them were Clinton Foundation donors, according to the report.

The implications are clear that either:
a) If you want to meet with the Secretary of State to pitch your case you need to donate to the Clinton Foundation and/or,
b) If you are already a donor you can demand access in exchange for an undertaking to keep donating.

In either case, as is so often the case with the Clintons, the whole thing stinks.

Scott Johnson, one of the proprietors of the Powerline, blog writes today of a telephone interview HRC did with Jake Tapper of CNN last night. UPDATE: It appears that the interview was with Anderson Cooper, not Tapper

Mr. Johnson writes, correctly in my view, that HRC's attempt to explain all these meetings with donors away as innocuous is "pathetic". 

It is actually an excellent example of the Clinton method. Here is the gist of her explanation as reported by Mr. Johnson.

“I know there is a lot of smoke, and there is no fire. This AP report? Put it in context. This excludes nearly 2,000 meetings I had with world leaders, plus countless other meetings with U.S. government officials when I was secretary of state. It looked at a small portion of my time,”.

In time honored Clinton fashion she did not answer the obvious question of the appearance of impropriety. She answered a question that was never asked. I don't recall any commentators wondering why she was wasting her time with these meetings. They want to know why they happened at all.

The answer is unfortunately obvious to anyone with eyes and the willingness to see what is before them. The woman is hopelessly corrupt.

As Mr. Johnson says of her explanation, " One doesn’t need to be a genius to see through it." I guess I just proved his point!

Socialism, Again

The 2nd link below is to an AP story about Cuba which was brought to my attention by this Powerline post  http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/06/cuba-is-cursed-all-right-by-socialism.php.

The AP article's headline referring to Cuba's Curse is, of course, unintentionally hilarious. As John Hinderaker points out the article never does mention the real source of the curse. He is not so reluctant.

"Left unexplained is why a planned socialist economy couldn’t get along without foreign subsidies...Funny, too, how Cuba’s socialist benefactors bite the dust one after another."

 http://www.tbo.com/ap/cuba/cuba-hopes-detente-will-finally-break-curse-on-investment-ap_cuba-news6be9b13d4e134a73a4297afa5aa40328

Before anyone launches the US economic embargo argument as the source of the curse please keep in mind that the embargo prevented Cuba from trading with one country on earth. That left about 191 others it could trade with (the UN currently has 193 members).

Socialism fails every single time it is tried. This has been pointed out by far more authoritative sources than me.

I will mention again that the Scandinavian countries are not socialist. They are free market economies with very generous welfare regimes.

"The Nordic model (also called Nordic capitalism^[1] or Nordic social democracy)^[2][3] refers to the economic and social policies common to the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Iceland and Sweden). This includes a combination of free market capitalism with a comprehensive welfare state and collective bargaining at the national level.^[4][5]
Although there are significant differences among the Nordic countries, they all share some common traits. These include support for a "universalist" welfare state aimed specifically at enhancing individual autonomy and promoting social mobility; a corporatist system involving a tripartite arrangement where representatives of labor and employers negotiate wages and labor market policy mediated by the government;^[6] and a commitment to widespread private ownership, free markets and free trade.^{[7]Emphasis added)}
Each of the Nordic countries has its own economic and social models, sometimes with large differences from its neighbours.^[8] According to sociologist Lane Kenworthy, in the context of the Nordic model, "social democracy" refers to a set of policies for promoting economic security and opportunity within the framework of capitalism rather than a system to replace capitalism.<sup>[9] (Emphasis added)"  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model

Someone should bring this to Bernie's attention.

I think it worth noting that Israel tried socialism too. The Kibbutz regime of co-operative farms failed completely. I had the opportunity to visit the remnants of one two years ago. They failed for the same reason socialism always fails. It is inconsistent with human nature. Human traits are, in my experience, quite evenly divided among any group of humans. 

Socialism quite naturally appeals to those with a surfeit of the laziness trait, a considerable number of the total of any human group. After all, what could be better than being licensed to do as little as possible to provide for one's self and be fully provided for by the effort of others.

The others, the productive people seduced by the nobility of the socialist ideology, play along for a while, suppressing another common human trait, self-interest. Until they get fed up watching the lazy live off their effort.

In uniformly socialist countries, once the productive get fed up with watching the lazy live off their effort, a police state develops to coerce the productive into cooperating with the authorities. USSR, Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela. It never ends well. 

Happily, at least in this respect, Israel was a hybrid. Now it is not.</sup>