Did you miss me? I am back....

I've been quite busy for the last few weeks - balancing my work and family responsibilities left precious little time for explaining what is wrong with the world. But now I am back and ready to 
smack the afflicted and the comfortable, giving comfort to no one except a few selected people (if you were not notified of being selected, then get ready for the beating).

I occasionally visit this site in order to find out the views of mainstream left-wing Americans, who freely speak their mind. It's not a terribly impressive read, but it keep me informed of what the liberals really think. I think it makes sense to spend some time today and respond to a couple of the posts.

Where did the money go?
It is customary among the left to portray the industrialists as evil incarnate. In fact, it remains unclear why we even allow those horrible creatures (the industrialists) to exist - why not kill them all? This post brings forward a caricature of the company owners, and it is no less vile than the Nazi caricatures of the Jews. Why is it okay to depict all industrialists as murderers, while no such generalization is welcome for the Religion Of Peace? After all, when was the last time you saw a corporate CEO mutilating his workers - and when was the last time you've heard of people being beheaded in the name of Religion of Peace?

It's fair to say that it makes little sense to project the actions of a few Islamic extremists (how few remains to be seen) on the whole Mohammedan religion - and we are reminded of this daily by liberals. And yet, the same liberals are ready to depict the entire group of people as evil without any hesitation (heck, the liberals are actually ecstatic every time they can slander the industrialists). In case you are wondering, I reproduced the entire list of Danish cartoons - the cartoons that resulted in multiple riots by the proponents of Religion of Peace and hundreds of deaths - and were denounced by liberals as inflammatory.

It's fair to ask - which cartoon was more inflammatory - the one that showed industrialists maiming the workers or any of the Danish cartoons? But I digress...

When one reads the original article that accompanies the cartoon, it becomes quite clear that there is practically nothing to explain the viciousness of the caricature. The author does not even attempt to explain how it is the fault of industrialists that wages stagnated in the last few decades - let alone to provide empirical evidence that real after-tax income and benefits failed to grow. This article reminded of an old anti-semitic Russian saying perfectly illustrates the liberal view of industrialists:

Если в кране нет воды,

Значит выпили жиды.

Если в кране есть вода,

Значит ссут они туда.

In my translation it becomes:

If there is no water in the faucet

It means the Jews drank all the water

If there is water in the faucet

It means the Jews peed in it.

A more nuanced (but no less wrong) analysis is proposed in the Alexandria article and relies on a Washington Post article that discusses the root causes for the lack of upper mobility of American workers. As one would guess, the reason for this is pretty straightforward - the government does not spend sufficient amounts of money on education. And, as one could have guessed, the latest cruel cuts to the state budgets caused major pain and suffering - as numerous anecdotal evidence cited by the article tries to prove.

But apart from anecdotal evidence - what is the real deal with the US education? I've plotted two graphs which show total federal, state and local education spending in US as percentage of GDP. The second plot shows how total spending on Tertiary education changed with time. Both of these graphs prove conclusively that lack of funding is NOT the issue that is negatively affecting American education. If anything, the spending grew considerably from 3% of the GDP in the 1950ies to 7% in 2010 - and the growth visibly accelerated in 2008. The same is true for the tertiary education - it's share of GDP grew from 0.4% to more than 2% - an amazing 5-fold increase. In short, the rumors about underfunded education have been greatly exaggerated, and the education spending exploded in the last few decades - and not just in nominal numbers - it clearly outpaced even the GDP growth.

It took me about 20 minutes to get all this information and put it into the presentable form - why haven't the so-called "journalists" done same thing? What is the reason that the mainstream media feeds American citizens with plethora of anecdotal evidence, and is incapable of looking at the aggregate data? Is it because those journalists are stupid and ignorant - or because they are ideologues who refuse to cite the inconvenient numbers? My guess that it's the combination of all three - blind obedience to liberal ideology, stupidity and ignorance.

Federal, State and Local spending on education as percentage of GDP

Federal, State and Local spending on Tertiary education as percentage of GDP

Multiculturalism and liberalism

It's a common belief among liberals that all cultures are essentially equal, that a proclamation of  superiority of particular religion is morally and factually wrong. This article from Alexandria follows the usual script - an ultra-left-wing blogger Hector dared to suggest that Christianity was better than Islam, and he was attacked mercilessly by another blogger. When I read the posts like this, I always wonder if the liberals who write them are ready to include conservatism in general and Tea Party activism in particular in the list of protected ideologies (mind you that religious belief is inevitably an ideology). Should we assume that any liberal who claims the supremacy of his ideology over conservatism " as Osama bin Laden’s minions are demonstrating," is lead "inevitably to a claim to dominion"? In fact, if devoted liberal truly believe in their supremacy, then liberals should be organizing a terrorist network to establish the Kingdom of Liberalism on earth and Obama's friend Bill Ayers is not an extremist - he is nothing more than a consistent liberal.

There is of course, a bigger issue at play, which makes the comparison even less beneficial to the liberals. For example, one can believe that Jesus is the savior, and that all other religions are inferior to Christianity - while being perfectly resigned to letting other people choose their own "opium" of preference. It's not the same with people who strongly support liberal causes. For example a man who believes in supremacy of government-run medical care (aka "universal healthcare") cannot possibly support the right of other people to opt out from his plan. A president who thinks some people earn too much money, and he should have to power to seize their property at gun point and distribute it among the more deserving candidates (based on the famous Leninist concept of "revolutionary conscience") cannot allow the evil capitalists and the racist white middle class the right to choose their own way. It is ironic that liberals, people who by the very definition of their ideology require massive violence or threat of violence against the people to fulfill their dreams - to proclaim as unacceptable and tyrannical the pronouncement of supremacy of one's religious beliefs. The claim "it's for your own good" does not become any more benevolent if it does not deal with your afterlife and religious dogma - and instead requires you to give up your fruits of labor. I suggest all progressive conservatives should once and for all seize the incoherence of liberal message on multiculturalism and use it against them. It's fun, ain't it?

In order to make my blog even more entertaining, I will occasionally provide interesting quotes from interesting people. Here is what famous Russian writer Leo Tolstoy said more than a century ago:

 “...Будучи революционером, нельзя быть правдивым, нельзя не лгать, нельзя быть смиренным и добрым, а надо быть готовым для будущей мнимо благой цели на всякого рода гадости и совершать их”.

My translation:

"When you are a revolutionary, you cannot be truthful, you cannot not lie, you cannot be humble and kind - instead you must be ready to commit all kinds of awful things - and actually do commit them for the illusive future good of mankind".