Why I Keep Politics Out of Facebook

One of the best things I’ve ever read:  http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-11-20/six-bad-arguments-for-u-s-to-take-in-syrian-refugees

The posts are not intended to convince anyone. They are to signal tribal loyalties to people who already agree with you, while you marinate in your own sense of moral superiority.

It took me years of writing on the Internet to learn what is nearly an iron law of commentary: The better your message makes you feel about yourself, the less likely it is that you are convincing anyone else. The messages that make you feel great about yourself (and of course, your like-minded friends) are the ones that suggest you’re a moral giant striding boldly across the landscape, wielding your inescapable ethical logic.  The messages that work are the ones that try to understand what the other side is thinking, on the assumption that they are no better or worse than you. So if you are actually trying to help the Syrian refugees, rather than marinate in your own sensation of overwhelming virtue, you should avoid these tactics.

Convinced me that my policy of keeping politics out of Facebook is the best, even though I have to grit my teeth at some of the stuff my friends post.

The History of the Economic Meltdown

https://www.nationalreview.com/nrd/articles/413259/government-sponsored-meltdowns

On the one hand, we have the likes of Barack Obama, Elizabeth Warren, Barney Frank, the Occupy clown show, etc., doing a sort of John Adams chorus: “Greed! Greed! Billionaires! Greed! Greed! Wall Street Greed!” And the response from the responsible Right is: “Because most PMBS held by financial institutions were rated AAA, they were used by many banks and other financial firms for short-term collateralized borrowing through repurchase agreements,” a sentence that appears in the introduction (!) to Wallison’s book.

The opening sentence of the next chapter is: “This chapter will explain the crucial relationship between mortgage underwriting standards and mortgage defaults.”

“Greed! Greed! Billionaires! Greed! Greed! Wall Street Greed!”

The 1% is more precisely the 12%

Internal Revenue Service data shows that from 1992 to 2010 the top 400 taxpayers in the country—some of whom are billionaires—changed significantly from year to year. From 1992 to 2010, 4,024 different taxpayers appeared on the top 400 list. That’s more than ten taxpayers for every spot in the top 400. Over 70 percent—2,909—made the list only one year.

The churning at the top means many Americans will have a day in the sun. Twelve percent of the population will reach the top 1 percent of income earners at least once. And 39 percent of Americans will spend time in the top 5 percent of earners, 56 percent will be in the top 10 percent and a whopping 73 percent will spend at least a year in the top 20 percent of earners.

http://dailysignal.com/2015/04/08/many-americans-will-be-in-the-1-for-one-year

A Day Later, Proof of KW's Point

At a meeting last summer in New York, website operators—including David Karp , CEO of Yahoo’s social-media service Tumblr—pressed White House aides for heavy regulation.  Mr. Karp sat next to Mr. Obama at a fundraiser the next day and again pressed his case, according to the Journal account. Then in November, safely after the election, Mr. Obama publicly demanded that the FCC apply the old telephone rules to the Web. The FCC dutifully enacted the Obama plan on a partisan 3-2 vote.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-ceos-behind-the-obamanet-1425513713

Free Markets vs. Politics

There are two ways of allocating capital: through politics, or through markets. Our progressive friends generally prefer to use politics when there is a choice, because they distrust markets, thinking them disorderly, irrational, vulgar, and prone to being dominated by the top-hat-wearing and bemonocled Mr. Monopoly cartoons that haunt their nightmares. Using politics is, in their view, more democratic. Most of the evidence is contrary to that proposition. In politics, it is quite easy for a small number of powerful people — wealth is only one form of power — to get their way. In politics, one rich guy can make a difference. 

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/414790/kings-road-kevin-d-williamson

My opposition to the “regulating the internet” thing explained in four sentences.