About That Danish Minimum Wage Study

On the heels of the debate about the specious Seattle minimum wage study, a new Danish study is currently making headlines.  Denmark has a de facto minimum wage (set by collective bargaining) of over $20/hour, or about $14.50/hour when adjusting for purchasing power parity.  That is the rate for adults 18 and over.  Prior to that age, the de facto minimum wage is significantly lower, and suddenly jumps by 40% upon turning 18.   The researchers did a regression discontinuity design to determine what effects on employment that would have, and they found a 33% drop in employment within the first month after turning 18.  And it apparently takes a full two years for the employment rate to fully recover to what it was just prior to one's 18th birthday.

So what do we make of this finding?   This study actually leaves the reader with more questions than answers.  One should note that age discrimination in employment is illegal in Denmark, with one exception:  it is in fact perfectly legal to fire someone upon turning 18 in order to avoid paying the higher minimum wage.  Yes, really.  Thus, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how that creates a powerful incentive to preferentially hire 16 and 17 year olds temporarily, use them up, and throw them away like so much garbage upon turning 18.

However, this study does not actually prove that a higher minimum wage is a bad idea overall.   The biggest takeaway from this study is that age discrimination is a bad idea across the board, not that the minimum wage is too high.  So close the goddamn loophole in the age discrimination law.  And if they still see a need to set the minimum wage lower for workers under 18, at least make it graduated and less of a difference from the adult minimum wage.

For example, the TSAP party platform calls for the minimum wage in this country to be raised to $15/hour for all workers over 18, with the minimum wage for workers under 18 set no less than 80% of the adult minimum wage (i.e. $12/hour), on a sliding scale rather than one sudden and sharp jump. And it should go without saying that firing someone upon turning 18 (or any age, for that matter) just to avoid paying them a bit more should be illegal, period.  As this latest study shows, caveat lector, anything less is basically asking for trouble.

Latest Minimum Wage Study Reeks of Junk Science

A new study claims that Seattle's minimum wage law cost jobs, despite the fact that their unemployment rate dropped dramatically since the new law began to be phased in, faster than the rest of the country, and is now one of the lowest in the nation at 2.6%.  But there is far less here than meets the eye, and their methodology is highly questionable.  For example, they curiously omit data from the entire fast-food sector, ostensibly due to lack of data (riiiiight!), and assume that any decrease in the number of workers earning below a certain wage is a result of fewer jobs rather than those workers simply getting a raise.  Yes, really.  All this specious study really proves is that if you torture the data enough, they will confess to anything.  And of course, Occam's Razor would strongly disagree with these results, which are way out of line with other recent studies.

One should note that the unemployment rate in Seattle has dropped so low that it has now reached Massachusetts Miracle territory, albeit for reasons unrelated to the minimum wage.  In the city's white-hot economy, restaurants are having a hard time finding help due to the tightness of the labor market, and are essentaily forced by the laws of supply and demand to pay employees significantly more as a result, regardless of the legal minimum wage. Keynes would have a field day.  And this alone could potentially account for the anomalous results in this yet-to-be-peer-reviewed study that should essentially be considered a radical outlier in the field.

With the issue of the minimum wage now in the spotlight again, we must keep in mind that the whole debate is a giant workaround. Thus, I will let the late great Buckminster Fuller answer the question:

"We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living."

And he said this back in 1970, mind you. With today's technology, it would apply *a fortiori* to our time, if it weren't for the greedy oligarchs who siphoned up all the labor productivity gains since then. How do we put his plan into action, you ask? A Universal Basic Income Guarantee for all is the best and most efficient way to do it.   Until then, by all means, raise the minimum wage.  Fight for $15!   But the root of the problem ultimately needs to be tackled as well, especially in a world of increasing automation and globalization.

Reflections on the Alexandria, Virginia Shooting

On June 14, 2017, James T. Hodgkinson III opened fire on a group of Republican Congressmen practicing for a Congressional baseball game, critically injuring Rep. Steve Scalise and grazing three others.   The shooter was shot and killed by police shortly after that.  Fortunately, there were no other fatalities.

What we know about the 66 year old shooter from Illinois is that he 1) hated Trump and Republicans in general, 2) was an ardent "Bernie Bro" who hated Hillary at least as much as he hated Trump, 3) had quite a dark side underneath his veneer of progressivism, including a history of domestic/dating violence against women, and 4) was clearly mentally disturbed to one degree or another at the time of the shooting.   These are the things we know so far about this angry white man, while anything else is purely speculation.

We at the TSAP whole-heartedly condemn this shooting and any other acts of (non-defensive) political violence of any kind, regardless of who does it or what their political views may be.  In fact, Bernie Sanders himself feels the same way, despite the extremist "Bernie Bros" putting words in his mouth in order to push a much darker agenda.   But we as progressives are not going to allow our movement to be tarnished by one crazy extremist that does not accurately represent progressivism, especially Bernie's brand, which (unlike fascism, white supremacy, anti-Semitism, misogyny, homophobia--in other words, Trumpism) is not an inherently violent ideology.  That is the crucial difference here, though it is horrible nonetheless regardless of the political motivation.  And when we fight fire with fire, we all get burned in the end.

For those who feel that Hodgkinson was some sort of hero or martyr, we say you couldn't be any more wrong.  This guy was a coward who snuck into a baseball practice armed to the teeth, assuming that no one there was armed, and opened fire before anyone knew what was going on.  That is nowhere even close to a fair fight by any stretch of the imagination.  So get those "warrior" tropes about him right out of your head right now, as he was no warrior.

Additionally, we need to say that "enough is enough" with all of the almost-daily (!) mass shootings these days, and need to pass more sensible gun laws while still respecting the Second Amendment.  After all, the shooter is a poster child for why men with a history of domestic/dating violence should not be allowed to buy or own guns of any kind, and that it is far too easy for the mentally ill to get their hands on such killing machines.  With no apologies to the NRA or the MRAs (just one letter different), of course.  And how ironic that the injured Congressman, Steve Scalise, who had voted to allow the mentally ill to buy guns, was himself shot by such a disturbed individual.  We all know what they say about karma, of course.  I swear, you really can't make this stuff up!

Impeachment Or Resignation: It's Only A Matter of Time

Looks like any day now, Trump (and hopefully Pence and the rest of the administration) will be "Out Like Flynn".  In fact, former NSA head Michael Flynn apparently decided to "plead the Fifth" about the burgeoning Trump-Russia scandal.  But that's not all.

Just when you thought that Trump's really, really messed-up week (in which he fired former FBI director James Comey) was his worst, the past two got even worse still.  Most notably, Trump discussed classified information about a terrorist plot in a closed-door meeting with the Russian ambassador and foreign minister, Sergey Kislyak and Sergey Lavrov, respectively. That's right, he literally gave sensitive secrets to the Russians, and willingly.   And now, justifiably, Israel won't share intelligence with the USA anymore--especially since they were the source of the intelligence that Trump shared with Russia.  Oh, and an independent special prosecutor has been appointed to oversee the Trump-Russia investigation.  Just in time for recent revelations (from Kislyak himself) that Jared Kushner wanted a secret communications channel with the Kremlin.  I swear, you really can't make this stuff up!

But Trump didn't stop there, no.  On his recent trip to Europe, he just had to go and insult our NATO allies, especially Germany.  He just had to shove the Prime Minister of Montenegro out of the way just to get a quick photo-op.  If there were any doubts left that Trump was Putin's puppet on a string, those doubts are basically gone.  Ditto for anyone who still thought that he had any sort of class or decorum at all.

And the European intelligence community is supposedly prepared to leak some serious dirt on Trump in the very near future.  Whether that dirt is incriminating or merely very embarrassing, either way it does not look good for a president and administration that is already imploding at warp-speed.  There is already enough evidence to impeach him for obstruction of justice, abuse of power, conflicts of interest, and perhaps misuse of classified information as well.  Will these next leaks be enough to add TREASON to this list as well?

UPDATE:  As of May 30, it looks like Michael Flynn is finally ready to break his silence and basically roll over on his former boss. Not like Trump needs any help self-destructing, as he seems to be doing a pretty good job of that already.  BIGLY.  Believe me.

As the Russiagate Scandal Is Exploding, the Trump Administration is Imploding.

It's been a really, really messed-up week for the Trump administration, believe me.  And the week hasn't even ended yet!

Let's see:  Sally Yates (who Trump previously fired ostensibly for opposing the Muslim Ban, but more likely for knowing too much) and James Clapper both testify about the Russiagate scandal.  James Comey, director of the FBI, had requested more resources for the burgeoning Trump-Russia investigation, and the FBI very recently issued grand jury subpoenas for Michael Flynn and his associates in regards to potential collusion with Russia.  Trump abruptly fires Comey from his position as head of the FBI, and apparently Attorney General Jeff Sessions recommended that Trump do so.  And of course Trump, Pence and others in the administration doggedly deny that the firing had anything to do with the Russiagate investigation (riiiight)--not that that stopped Trump from lawyering up. Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer goes into hiding (literally in the bushes!) and refuses to talk to any media other than Faux Noise.  He has Sarah Huckabee Sanders stand-in for him and hold a press conference in his place, and it was a total disaster. Move along, nothing to see here folks....

All this in a matter of just three days, and no sign that this will go away anytime soon.  It's only a matter of time before Trump, Pence, and perhaps even the entire administration are "Out Like Flynn".

I swear, you really can't make this stuff up!

UPDATE:  On Thursday, two days after firing Comey, Trump finally admits that it was because of the Russiagate scandal--which of course he still claims is a "made-up story" and "fake news".  Riiiiiiight.

In Defense of Nationalism

Nationalism.  That is a word that gets thrown around all the time, usually with a rather negative connotation.  It seems to have many definitions these days in fact.

Recently, author E.D. Hirsch, Jr. penned an excellent article in Democracy Journal, aptly titled "A Sense of Belonging".  In it, he discusses how misunderstood, underrated, and often unfairly maligned the concept of nationalism in the USA has been for the past several decades, and how our lack of the sense of belonging that nationalism provides has left Americans alienated and discontented.   He discusses how our educational system (particularly elementary school) has been recently failing to impart the essentials of a shared national culture, history, and citizenship, and how the left's overzealous avoidance of the (very real) dark side of nationalism ultimately ends up throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.  The trends of the past several decades towards both hyper-individualism as well as an explicit anti-nationalism end up inhibiting our overall social cohesion and sense of community, with negative consequences resulting.  And this is coming from an author who one can safely say is on the political left himself.

He basically argues, in a more eloquent and detailed fashion, something not very different from when Bernie Sanders famously cautioned fellow progressives against overreliance on "identity politics". While this was not very well received and he came across as tone-deaf and failing to check his white straight male (etc.) privilege, he was not in fact against such intersectionality at all.  Rather, he was concerned that focusing too much on the pluribus at the expense of the unum would be detrimental to the overall progressive movement.  Which in turn would make it harder to maintain a united front against our real enemy, the oligarchy.  And while he did not use the word "nationalism" by name, it was certainly implied that the left needs to reclaim nationalism, lest it fall into the hands of the right--which did in fact happen.  Consider the following chillingly prophetic words by Richard Rorty in 1994:

"The nonsuburban electorate will decide that the system has failed and start looking around for a strongman to vote for—someone to assure them that once he is elected the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salesmen, and postmodern professors will no longer be calling the shots. . . . All the sadism which the academic left has tried to make unacceptable to its students will come flooding back."

Which basically describes the whole Trump phenomenon in a nutshell.  That is what happens when the left neglects the need for nationalism:  disaffected voters will seek it out from other sources, namely the right.  And the right's version is virtually always going to be toxic and jingoistic, if not altogether racist, fascist, and authoritarian.  There is a reason why so many Trump supporters openly call themselves "white nationalists", after all.

Nationalism can indeed be a very good thing if it is of the proper sort and in the right hands, while the wrong sort and/or in the wrong hands can indeed be horrific.  All the more reason to reclaim it from the right. To quote Hirsch:

"The right kind of modern nationalism is communal, intent on including everyone. The wrong, exclusivist kind, exemplified by the racism of the Nazis, gave all nationalism a bad name and helped turn the post-Vietnam left away from nationalism of any sort. The sentiment was that most countries are pretty bad, especially big ones that prey on little ones."

As we like to say, nationalism is like nitroglycerine:  it can either be used to blow up bridges or heal hearts.  And the TSAP represents the good kind of nationalism that is so desperately needed to heal the wounded and heavy heart of America.

The "Spiritual Ruin" of a Universal Basic Income? No, Not Really.

Recently, there was an article in The Week by Damon Linker titled, "The Spiritual Ruin of a Universal Basic Income".   He basically argues that it is a bad idea for the left to pursue the idea of a UBI because 1) it fails to address (and perhaps even intensify) the psychological and spiritual consequences of joblessness, which are (in his view) distinct from and worse than the economic consequences, 2) most people couldn't handle joblessness even with a basic income and would thus become depressed and purposeless and give themselves over to video games, porn, and/or drug addiction, and 3) the left should not concede that automation (and the resulting job losses) is in any way inevitable.

And all of these things are in fact false.

First, only a person of relative privilege could possibly see the economic consequences of joblessness as entirely separate from, and less significant that, the (admittedly real) psychological and spiritual consequences of same.  The former can indeed cause or contribute to the latter in a big way, and it is very difficult to disentangle them.  Poverty and desperation are well-known to be harmful to the mind, body, and spirit, and only meaningful work (as opposed to work for the sake of work) can be said to be beneficial to same.  When the economic consequences are resolved via a UBI, the remaining noneconomic consequences of unemployment would in fact become that much easier to tackle.

Second, there is no logical reason why a UBI and the sort of New Deal 2.0 jobs program that Linker advocates would be mutually exclusive.   The TSAP, in fact, advocates exactly that combination, with both a UBI and a Job Guarantee program for everyone who wants one.  We also advocate shortening the workweek as well, which would spread the remaining work among more workers, thus more jobs.  Thus the noneconomic consequences of joblessness can also be adequately dealt with as well.  So that is not a valid reason for the left to abandon the idea, anymore than it would be a reason to abandon the idea of a social safety net in general.

Third, the idea that UBI will cause most people or even a particularly large chunk of the population to become lazy and/or self-destructive is not borne out by the facts.  Numerous experiments with UBI and related schemes have been conducted in diverse cultures and locations in the past half-century, and the overwhelming weight of the evidence strongly suggests that this will not occur.   If anything, one notable effect is an increase in entrepreneurship due to a decreased fear of failure and more time and money to invest in their goals. Students and new mothers will likely work fewer hours than before since they are no longer forced by dint of economic necessity (the effect on hours worked is likely negligible for everyone else), but is that really such a bad thing?  Of course not.

Nor is there any credible evidence that substance abuse would significantly increase either as a result of UBI, and it may even decrease.   But just to drive the point home even further, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Sam Altman argues that even if 90% of the population sat around smoked weed and played video games instead of working, a UBI would still better on balance than not having one, as everyone would be free to pursue their passions and the remaining 10% would innovatively create new wealth.  Not that he thinks that 90% would actually do that, of course, but the point was well-made nonetheless.   One can also point to the Rat Park studies as well.  It is amazing how addiction diminishes or even disappears when rats (or people) are not treated like caged animals in the "rat race"!

And finally, a real pragmatist would realize than automation really is inevitable in the long run.  Contrary to what the neo-Luddites like to argue, fighting against it will not stop it, only delay it a bit.  The best that we progressives can do is admit that fact and do whatever we can to ensure that the fruits of this automation will benefit all of humanity and not just the oligarchs at the top.  To do so, we must take the power back from the oligarchs.  And a crucial step to that goal is a Universal Basic Income, so We the People can actually have some bargaining power, no longer dependent on our employers for survivial.  Whether we get this one right will basically be the difference between a futuristic pragmatic utopia (as Buckminster Fuller envisioned) or a horrifying technocratic dystopia straight out of 1984, Brave New World, or [insert other dystopian novel here].  So let's choose the right side of history!

After all, as the late, great Buckminster Fuller--the Leonardo da Vinci of the 20th century, famously said in 1970:

We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.

Thus, on balance, a Universal Basic Income Guarantee for all is a good idea regardless.  A win-win-win situation for everyone but the oligarchs.  And the only real arguments against it are paternalistic and/or sadistic ones, which really means there are no good arguments against it in a free and civilized society.  So what are we waiting for?

Trumpcare 2.0 Passes The House

Well, the Rethuglicans finally did it.  On May 4, 2017, they passed a new and even crueler version of Trumpcare in the House.  Apparently it was cruel enough to win over the arch-conservatives, since it guts Medicaid and throws people with pre-existing conditions and chronic conditions under the bus.  It will ultimately result in roughly 24 million people losing their healthcare coverage if it becomes law.

Fortunately, though, it does not seem likely to pass the Senate.  Thus the Senate is working on their own milder version of it to appease the moderates, which means that if it passes, they will still have to hammer out the differences between the two bills.  It's either alienate the moderates to appease the conservatives, or alienate the conservatives to appease the moderates.   And that will likely be the sort of catch-22 that ultimately kills Trumpcare once and for all.

Capitalism Must Die. The Only Question Is How and When.

With all of the latest articles about how climate change is likely worse than we thought, and how our fragile biosphere that we all depend on is in increasingly grave danger, it is becoming increasingly clear just how unsustainable our current system really is.  We are bumping up against the limits to growth, and only a fool or an economist (same difference) could believe that infinite growth on a finite world is possible.  And make no mistake, capitalism cannot exist without growth, so capitalism must die--or the whole planet dies including us.   Either the virus kills the host or the host kills the virus, but either way, the virus dies.  That's right--there can logically be no such thing as "green capitalism", for the same reason that rain is not dry.

So which choice will we make?  The TSAP has already outlined several means of solving the world's vast and interconnected problems in our party platform as well as in our annual State of the Planet Address.  Most notably, we need to phase out the use of fossil fuels as quickly as possible before we irreversibly burn up our precious planet, and we need to end our addiction to growth for the sake of growth, the ideology of the cancer cell which eventually kills its host.  But the prospects are looking increasingly bleak that our recommendations will actually be put into practice given the current leadership in Washington who continue to blithely fiddle while the Earth burns.  In fact, with climate-denier Donald Trump as POTUS, and thus the Trump-Putin-Exxon Axis of Evil effectively ruling the world now, it is even worse than we initially thought.

We know that any serious attempt at sufficiently rapid degrowth measures (read: ecological austerity) is 1) political suicide for anyone who proposes it, and 2) even if implemented is likely to backfire since such measures simply cannot kill the hungry beast of capitalism, which will only rebound after being weakened a bit and the costs will inevitably fall on those least able to bear them.  And if the root of the crisis (capitalism) cannot be struck in like fashion, hacking away at the branches in a piecemeal fashion would be inherently fruitless.  So what can be done instead?

Enter this seemingly crazy idea.  While it may seem like a sop to the fossil fool industry at first glance, it will actually be giving them the rope for them to hang themselves with.  And not only will it kill Big Oil and Dirty Coal, but it will also humanely euthanize capitalism in general via the one thing that capitalism simply cannot survive--ABUNDANCE.  That's right, capitalism needs scarcity to function, and it has done a marvelous job of creating artificial scarcity for the past 500 years or so.  But uncontrolled abundance, whether of resources, energy, or capital, is basically a fatal overdose for the system of capitalism.  And thanks to the current exponential growth of renewable energy and related technologies, such abundance is very possible in the near future.  And it will be decentralized, so the system can't readily control or stop it once it gets going.  All of this dovetails rather nicely with Buckminster Fuller's vision of a pragmatic utopian future.

If we go that route, it actually would be possible to simultaneously implement the carbon tax-and-dividend idea in Steve Stoft's Carbonomics, provided that 100% of the revenue is refunded to We the People, and that the tax rate starts out low so as not to front-load it too quickly.  The timing is very important.  But any other type of carbon tax scheme would be out of the question, as would most other future restrictions on fossil fuels (especially oil) until the cost of solar and wind energy drops below that of such fossil fuels.  Not like the Trump-Putin-Exxon Axis of Evil would allow that anyway.

Another idea that the TSAP had once laughed at can also be given a chance as well:  the Capital Homestead Act.  While it may seem like a pro-capitalist sop to Big Business on the surface, it will actually kill capitalism in the long run as well due to an overabundance of capital and the fact that the workers and owners would essentially become one and the same.  Combine it with the Universal Exchange Tax and a Universal Basic Income Guarantee, and the overall impact will be maximized and accelerated.

Additionally, in our transition towards a steady-state economy, we would also need to abolish usury and debt-based currency (without growth there can be no interest payments) and have debt jubilees every so often as well.  And once capitalism is relegated to the dustbin of history, it will in fact be a piece of cake to do so.  Though there is no reason not to pass the NEED Act in the meantime to get the ball rolling.

Of course, capitalism is not the only problem.  The 7000 year old War on Women, often known by its euphemistic name "patriarchy", is every bit as much a cause of our world's problems, and the two are basically joined at the hip.  While patriarchy can exist without capitalism, capitalism cannot exist without patriarchy.  And both evil systems are killing this planet and need to end, yesterday.  Let's face it, it ain't gonna be us fellas who will save the world, that's for sure. Fortunately, women have been making huge strides (while men are becoming increasingly redundant), and if current trends continue it seems likely that women will become the new leaders of the free world in the not-too-distant future, as Buckminster Fuller himself once predicted. In fact, that is one of the few things about which the futurists are virtually unanimous.

At least we hope that will be the case.  But timing is everything, and we have a very narrow window of opportunity to act.  So what are we waiting for?

Trump Just Bombed Syria, Because Syria Bombed Syria. Or Something.

Well, it finally happened.  Trump ordered an airstrike of 59 Tomahawk missiles on a Syrian Air Force base on the night of April 6, 2017.  Ostensibly in retaliation for the horrific sarin gas attack by the Assad regime against their own civilians, this marks the first time the United States directly attacked any targets of the Assad regime, as prior to this, we were solely attacking ISIL and al-Qaeda affiliates' targets, effectively as grudging and uneasy "co-belligerents" with the regime as well as Russia.  So unless this is just a one-off for show, this marks a major shift in foreign policy and military strategy in the region.

Of course, this may very well just be a way of "wagging the dog", distracting us from the ever-growing Russiagate scandal.  And while the Putin regime predictably condemned the airstrike, it is very telling that Trump told Russia about his plan before he even told Congress.  And it's not like the attack was particularly effective:  it didn't really do much damage to Syria's Air Force, and in fact the very next morning they launched another poison gas attack (this time with chlorine gas) against civilians in another town.   And even the initial sarin attack came just days after the Trump administration gave what can be interpreted as a not-so-subtle green light of sorts for the Assad regime to do as they please with impunity--kinda like Trump appeared to do with Putin just before the final Aleppo massacre in November.

Oh, and did you know that those same Tomahawk missiles used in the airstrike were manufactured by Raytheon, whose stock price jumped dramatically the day after the attack?  And which plutocratic potentate owns stock in that exact same company?  You guessed it.  As Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler once famously said, "War is a Racket".  And his 1935 book of the same name should be required reading for everyone.

It is funny how Trump supporters who voted for him because they feared Hillary would attack Syria, now have face the fact that Trump just did exactly that.  And yes, Hillary most likely would have done so.  Not to condone Hillary's plan for Syria, but at least Putin was afraid of her, and she could have used such leverage to keep Russia and Syria from getting too out of control.  And we all would have seen big, tough, macho Putin begging a powerful Woman for mercy.  And that would have been priceless in itself.  Of course, Bernie would have been better, but alas that was not to be.

While the TSAP unequivocally condemns the brutal chemical (and conventional) attacks on civilians by the evil and genocidal Assad regime, we do not belive that Trump is taking the right path in his reckless and impulsive unilateral attack on Syria.  If we do intervene, we must do so along with the international community, and pursue diplomatic measures to bring the Syrian civil war to as quick an end as possible.  History has shown that, military action, should we even pursue it at all, should be a very last resort and should be well-planned and coordinated with our allies, with a clear exit strategy and a plan to actually win the peace.  Otherwise, we risk WWIII, or at the very least another Middle Eastern quagmire akin to the worst of Libya and Iraq combined, on steroids.

We ignore history at our own peril.  The song "2 Minutes to Midnight" by Iron Maiden comes to mind.  Which is basically where the Doomsday Clock is set now, thanks primarily to the drunken Darth Vader wannabe and his orange ventriloquist dummy in the White House.

Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage: The Results Are In

Well, it's official.  Seattle's most recent unemployment rate dropped to 3.5% or even as low as 2.9%, depending on whose data you are looking at.  Either way, that is about as full employment as one can practically get, essentially at or close to the level of the 1980s "Massachusetts Miracle" during which the labor market was extremely tight and workers had a lot of bargaining power as a result.

And this drop occurred during the phase-in of the $15/hour minimum wage in the Rainy City, which is currently at $13.00-13.50 (and $15 already for large employers that don't pay health benefits) as of January 1, 2017 and has been at least $11 since April 1, 2015.  Not only is unemployment now lower than the national average of 4.7%, but it generally dropped faster than the national average as well. While correlation is not causation, of course, it certainly does put the lie to the naysayers' claim that it would be a job-killing disaster.  Thus, any putative negative effects on employment were clearly either small, short-lived, or (most likely) nonexistent.

As for automation of fast-food restaurants, guess what?  That is going to happen regardless of the minimum wage, just like it already has in so many factories, gas stations, etc. in the past few decades.  It's inevitable.  And outsourcing/offshoring is practically impossible for most remaining minimum wage jobs.  So we certainly shouldn't let that deter us from Fighting for $15.  Call their bluff!

The True Spirit of America Party currently advocates a national minimum wage of $15/hour, indexed to inflation, phased in within a year or two for businesses with 500+ employees, and within two to three years for smaller businesses.  And with no tip credit. After that, the only exceptions should be 1) small, non-chain businesses with 10 employees or less, 2) workers under 18, for whom it would be on an age-based sliding scale from 60%-90% of the normal rate, and 3) circus performers.  That latter one is so we can (with tongue firmly in cheek) say that any hypothetical people who are priced out of the job market for an extended period can go join the circus, the employer of last resort.  Of course, we also advocate implementing a Job Guarantee program (similar to the one that already exists for senior citizens) as well as a Universal Basic Income Guarantee as well, so regardless of anything the labor market would be fairly tight regardless, and workers would have far more bargaining power going forward, much to the chagrin of the rentier class.

What better time than now?

A Gateway to Single-Payer for All Is Finally Within Reach

With the utterly embarassing and monumental failure of the Trumpcare/Ryancare bill occuring in tandem with increasing awareness of both the real and imagined flaws of Obamacare (even though it is not actually imploding OR exploding), we now have a very limited "Overton Window" of opportunity for true progressives such as Bernie Sanders to push through an idea that will be a gateway to single-payer healthcare for all.  And that idea is to simply lower the eligibility age for Medicare, effectively creating a public option that will put a ceiling on private insurance costs due to competition while also relieving insurance companies of the cost having to cover older Americans, further bending the cost curve downwards.

  

While we at the TSAP ultimately prefer a full-fledged single-payer system for all, this idea is a great steppingstone towards that goal.  First, lower the age to 62, then 55, then 50, and before you know it, the age limit will be lowered to zero, covering everyone if they so choose to participate, while (at first) leaving the rest of Obamacare intact.  Combine that with allowing prescription drugs to be imported from Canada as well as having the government negotiate lower drug prices over here via monopsony power, and the current private, for-profit sick-care racket will soon be history.  Then Medicare and Medicaid can be combined, and we will truly have single-payer for all, similar to Canada and most other industrialized nations.  And poll after poll shows that the majority of Americans support single-payer.

Ironically, Trump himself originally went on the record as having supported single-payer healthcare back in 2000.  Perhaps We the People ought to keep reminding him of that fact, and hound him about it until he finally returns to that idea, before he wipes the egg off of his face from his recent defeat.

Anything less would be uncivilized.  Believe me. 

Ruh Roh. Trumpcare/Ryancare Just Failed, BIGLY. Believe me.

Looks like Mr. "Art of the Deal" couldn't even negotiate his way out of a paper bag. That is, he couldn't get Obamacare repealed and replaced even with both houses of Congress controlled by Republicans.  Yes, really.

On March 24, 2017, exactly seven years after Obamacare passed in 2010, Trump gave Congressional Republicans an ultimatum.  Either vote on the Trumpcare bill today, or he will take his marbles and go home, and forget about repealing Obamacare at all for a while at least.  And it backfired, bigly.  Thing is, the last-minute changes made to the bill to appease the arch-conservative Republicans, which actually made it even WORSE, would have ended up alienating too many moderates, and thus they still didn't have enough votes to pass it.  Thus, to avoid further embarassment, Trump and the Republicans decided to kill the bill before it was brought to the floor for the vote, pulling the bill indefinitely while they focus on othet priorities.  And now both Trump and the Republicans have egg on their faces.  Bigly.  Believe me.

Meanwhile, the Russia scandal isn't going away anytime soon, nor are any of his other numerous scandals.  Even Wall Street is apparently getting impatient with him.  The honeymoon is officially over, and it really doesn't look good for him.  Sad.

And So We Learn What the Republican Alternative to Obamacare Really Is

In case you missed it, the Republican replacement for Obamacare is basically Obamacare-Lite, which is a giveaway to the rich and the insurance industry, who will see gratuitous tax cuts, but not so much for We the People, who will see less healthcare coverage overall.  Officially called the American Health Care Act, this bill does the following, among other things:

• Replaces the unpopular individual mandate with a "continuous-coverage" provision that allows insurers to impose a 30% surcharge on customers with more than a 63 day gap in coverage
• Replaces the income-based and price-based tax credits with (weaker) flat tax credits that vary only with age of the customers
• Phases out the Medicaid expansion after 2020, pissing off both Democrats and Republicans in the process
• Jettisons the employer mandate (a relatively minor component of Obamacare)
• Removes the Obamacare taxes (that fell primarily on the wealthy)
• Scraps the tax deduction cap on executive pay for health insurance companies
• And of course, defunds Planned Parenthood, despite the fact that the funds really go to birth control, STD tests, and cancer screenings.

Outside of Trump loyalists, generally the only people who really support the bill are the greedy insurance industry.  The American Medical Association and many others have come out against it, given that it will most likely reduce coverage and increase costs across the board.  Ironically, some of those most hurt will be Trump's white working-class supporters, especially in the red states.  In other words, it is at best a solution in search of a problem, if not a new problem in itself.  At worst, it's classic Trumpian chaos manufacture.

There is some nuance that we should note, however.  The very fact that the insurance industry is not worried about an impending "death spiral" should the bill pass is a good indication that we shouldn't worry about that either.  If there is in fact one, it would likely be a result of weakening the subsidies and other aspects of Obamacare, not a result of replacing the individual mandate with the surcharge for not maintaining continuous coverage.  The effectiveness of that provision, for all its flaws, is likely equivalent to that of the mandate it replaces, thus largely preserving that particular "leg" of the "three-legged stool".  The TSAP does support that particular change to the law, even though we oppose the rest of the Republican bill for the most part.

The TSAP, as you know, supports single-payer healthcare for all as the only real alternative.  We also support a public option as a steppingstone to this ultimate goal.  But as long as those are not on the table, we do not believe that we should rip out the heart and soul of Obamacare as the Republicans are trying to do, as that will result in disaster and chaos, doing far more harm than good.  We do support making any incremental improvements in the meantime, however, so long as they do not lead to a significant number of Americans losing health coverage, especially for the most vulnerable members of society.  Every Republican alternative to date, including this one, has failed to meet this standard, and thus we will oppose it.  Because people literally die as a result of losing their healthcare.

One thing is for sure.  This replacement should indeed be called Trumpcare, or perhaps Ryancare.  That way, they get to OWN it.  BIGLY.  Believe me. 

One Weird Trick, Part Deux

It just so happens that the very next day after we posted our "One Weird Trick to Rescue Economy" article, the highly progressive former Democratic Congressman Dennis Kuchinich posted an article of his own at The Nation.  Titled "Our Political Economy Is Designed to Create Poverty and Inequality", the article discusses how the economy is currently rigged in favor of the top 1% (especially the top 0.01%) at the expense of the ever-growing poor and ever-shrinking middle class.  This rigging is done through the tax code, obviously, but also through more subtle machinations such as the privatization racket (where formerly public services and utilities are privatized, at the expense of the people and for the benefit of the rich) which also includes our monetary system and the privately-owned FERAL Reserve that has controlled it for over a century now.

And most notably, he discusses a bill that he himself sponsored in 2011-2012 called the NEED Act, which would have ended this monetary racket via an independent Treasury (much like Ellen Brown's public banking idea) and the abolished the scam known as fractional-reserve banking.   The newly-created greenbacks would then be used to create full employment via funding much-needed improvements in infrastructure as well as education, healthcare, and other government spending, which would have been a great stimulus to the economy.   The bill would also restore the federal usury cap to an even lower 8% (it was 12% before it was removed in 1978) as well.  It even had the potential to also create a citizen's dividend (aka a Universal Basic Income), provide universal healthcare, shore up Social Security, and solve so many other problems at once.  Overall, an excellent bill.  But of course, the cowardly and venal Congress unfortunately did not pass it.

In case you were worried whether such an idea would create hyperinflation, allow us to put that fear to rest.  Currently, the private banks create new money out of thin air all the time, every time they make a loan.  The FERAL Reserve does this too, most notably the secret $16 trillion (which eventually became more like $29 trillion) bailout of the banks just a few years ago.  So why not have this process be publicly controlled and used for the benefit of We the People rather than the oligarchs?

As Ellen Brown notes, the Weimar hyperinflation in Germany from 1921-1924 occurred while the money was being created by the private banks.  Germany had been punished with crippling debt by the Allies in the aftermath of WWI, and they needed to create a lot of money to pay it.  The biggest problem, though, were the speculators who shorted their currency (betting that it would go down in value), which became a self-fulfilling prophecy. And the banks just kept on printing more and more marks to satisfy the speculators' demands, creating a vicious cycle of runaway hyperinflation.  The madness only stopped once the government got a handle on it by finally taking back control of the money supply in 1924, which was followed by a few years of relative prosperity before the deflationary Great Depression began in 1929.  And Brown also notes, as we noted in our previous article, that Germany got out of the Depression by using the "one weird trick" themselves (too bad they didn't do it much sooner, that is, before you-know-who took over in 1933).

(And just in case anyone predictably tries to play the "Jew card" after reading this, keep in mind that most oligarchs/banksters are actually WASPs rather than Jews, and have been for quite a while now.  Even the Vatican has their own bank now.  And the TSAP does not condone anti-Semitism of any kind.)

So what are we waiting for?  Let's finally put an end to artificial scarcity and artificially-created unemployment for good. Yesterday.

One Weird Trick to Rescue Economy, Defeat Oligarchy, and Pre-empt Fascism--Banksters HATE This!

As the classic clickbait-y title implies,what if there was a way to accomplish such a thing at little to no cost, and would also result in lower taxes for the masses as well? What if that option has always existed, but knowledge of it has been suppressed by the elites for decades out of fear of losing their power?

Well, it's actually true, believe it or not.  It's so simple that people tend to overlook it, and it's called public banking.  To wit, the government would print/create its own money interest-free, independently of the banks.  And thus the FERAL Reserve (which is about as "federal" as Federal Express, given how it is privately owned by the big banks) would become truly federal for once, with banks serving We the People, not the other way around.  National debt would become a non-problem overnight.  (This idea can also be implemented at the state and local levels as well.)  Of course, the banksters would absolutely HATE that.  For example, both JFK and Lincoln tried to do such a thing in fact, and we all know what eventually happened to them.  But the fact remains that We the People, through our elected representatives in Congress, nonetheless have to power to do exactly that.  We essentially gave the banksters their power, and we can also take it away--were it not for their venal and cowardly puppets in Congress today, that is.

Ellen Brown, author of Web of Debt (2007) and The Public Bank Solution (2013), has a lot to say about such an idea.   She brilliantly illustrates just how important the democratization of money is to a free society, and the history of just how much the bankster oligarchy has been ripping us all off for centuries.  For example, did you know that nearly HALF of the taxes we pay essentially go towards servicing the massive government debt to the banksters?  Did you know that nearly HALF of the price of practically everything we buy is a result of cumulative compound interest and/or hidden taxes embedded within such prices?  Did you know that infrastructure costs can also be cut in HALF simply by financing them with public banking?  And did you know that private banks actually create money out of thin air via a perfectly legal and centuries-old racket known as "fractional reserve banking"?  And that interest charged, not the expansion of the money supply, is the real cause of nearly all of the "inflation" that we see?  And for decades now, wages have not only lagged behind productivity gains, but haven't even kept up with such inflation?  Meanwhile the top 1%, and especially top 0.01%, have made out like bandits at the expense of the bottom 99%, with resulting inequality (which hurts the economy) soaring to levels not seen since the 1920s or even the Gilded Age.  If that doesn't make you feel RIPPED OFF, check your pulse 'cause you might be dead!

So what does all of this have to do with fascism?  Well, it appears that a certain little painter from Austria decided to exploit a rather similar situation in 1930s Germany after taking over.  In fact, rescuing the ailing economy, especially reducing or abolishing unemployment, was one of Hitler's biggest campaign promises.  And he did in fact succeed in doing so, and did so better than FDR despite Germany starting out in much worse shape than the United States was in 1933.  So how did the Nazis manage to pull it off?  By thinking outside the box and having their government essentially create their own money independently of the banks. Their country was literally bankrupt from the aftermath of losing WWI as well as being hit particularly hard by the Great Depression, but by creating their own money and spending it to "prime the pump", they were able to transcend their economic woes, and were thus able to restore full employment within a few short years.  In fact, their unemployment rate dropped by HALF within a year!  Contrast this with Austria, whose unemployment rate remained stubbornly high and barely even budged from 1932-1937, only dropping significantly in 1938 after Hitler annexed their country as part of the Third Reich.  Prior to that, the Austro-fascist regime was essentially following the outdated Austrian School austerity policies that Ludwig von Mises himself would have likely approved of.  The point of this discussion is NOT to praise Hitler or the Nazis in any way, but rather to show what opportunists they were and how to prevent such an evil authoritarian regime from ever rising again--if only the (erstwhile) free world had the foresight to get their economic policies right in the first place.  Because then, there would be essentially no legitimate grievances large enough for such a regime to exploit.

Of course, we would be remiss if we didn't also note that Hitler's "economic miracle" came with a serious dark side as well, even before the Holocaust began in earnest.  At least part of the drop in unemployment was the result of 1) removing Jews from the workforce after revoking their citizenship, replacing them with ethnic Germans, 2) removing women from the workforce (i.e. by firing many of them and also paying mothers to stay home), replacing them with men, and no longer counting women in the statistics, 3) bringing back the draft, and 4) spending ludicrous amounts of money on the military, financed by debt.  But since none of these things occurred until 1935 or even later, one could safely conclude that at least the first two years of the "economic miracle" can be easily traced to the pump-priming that resulted from their independent money creation.  The point is, there is no logical reason why that policy cannot be replicated minus the dark side, as fascism/racism/sexism/militarism is NOT a prerequisite for sound fiscal and monetary policy, any more so than it is for making the trains run on time like Mussolini did.

And just in case you thought that this "one weird trick" was peculiar to fascism, keep in mind that Hitler in fact got the idea from--wait for it--ABRAHAM LINCOLN.  Yes, really. Meanwhile, fascist Austria did the opposite under Dolfuss and Schuschnigg, and they messed the economy up so badly that the Austrian people actually eagerly welcomed the Nazis when they eventually took over in 1938.

Bottom line:  we know now what economic policies really work in practice, as opposed to half-baked voodoo economic theories and crank science.  As the saying goes, "it's the economy, stupid!"  So how long till we finally get it right?

State of the Planet Address 2017

Every year since 2011, the TSAP has been giving our annual State of the Planet Address in mid-January.  This year, because of all the madness going on in Washington recently, we have delayed it to February. Yes, we know it is a bit of a downer to say the least.  So sit down, take off your rose-colored glasses, and read on:

Our planet is in grave danger, and has been for quite some time now.  We face several serious long term problems:  climate change, deforestation, desertification, loss of biodiversity, overharvesting, energy crises, and of course pollution of many kinds.  Polar ice caps are melting.  Rainforests have been shrinking by 50 acres per minute.  Numerous species are going extinct every year.  Soil is eroding rapidly.  Food shortages have occurred in several countries in recent years.  Weather has been getting crazier each year thanks to climate change.  We have had numerous wildfires, floods followed by long periods of drought, and a "storm of the century" at least once a year for the past few years.   And it is only getting worse every year.  In fact, 2016 has been the hottest year on record, and the third straight record year.

None of this is an accident of course.  These problems are man-made, and their solutions must also begin and end with humans.  We cannot afford to sit idly by any longer, lest we face hell and high water in the not-too-distant future.  Our unsustainable scorched-earth policy towards the planet has to end.  Yesterday.

While we do not invoke the precautionary principle for all issues, we unequivocally do for the issue of climate change and any other environmental issues of comparable magnitude.  In fact, for something as dire as climate change, as of 2015 we now support a strong "no regrets" approach.  With no apologies to hardcore libertarians or paleoconservatives, in fact. We are not fazed one bit by the naysayers' pseudoscience as it does not really "debunk" the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming. The only serious debate is about how fast it will happen, and when the tipping point (or points) will occur. It is not a matter of if, but when. And the less precarious position is to assume it is a real and urgent problem. We need to reduce CO2 emissions to the point where the CO2 concentration is at or below 350 ppm, ASAP.  And it is currently at an unsustainably high level of 400+ ppm, and growing.

Solving the problem of climate change will also help to solve the other ecological crises we are facing, for they all ultimately have the same root causes, not least of which is our insatiable addiction to dirty energy.  However, there is a right way to solve it, and several wrong ways.  Technology is important, but it won't be decisive on its own (economics geeks may recall Jevons Paradox).  The real problem is the paradigm that our society has been following, and that system is based on wetiko, the parasite of the mind and cancer of the soul.  It often seems that the only difference between capitalism and cannibalism is the spelling.

The TSAP endorses the ideas embodied in Steve Stoft's new book Carbonomics, most notably a tax-and-dividend system that would tax carbon (i.e. fossil fuels) at the source, and give all Americans an equal share of the revenue generated from this tax.  (Note that our proposal to tax natural resources and pay out an Alaska-like citizen's dividend already includes this.)  Yes, prices for various things would undoubtedly rise due to this tax, all else being equal, but the dividend will allow Americans to pay for this increase. The average American would in fact break even, but those who (directly or indirectly) use less energy than average will effectively pay less tax, while the energy hogs will effectively be taxed more, as they should be. Thus it is certainly not a regressive tax, and may even be mildly progressive. This is both the simplest and most equitable way to reduce carbon emissions as well as other forms of pollution, not to mention waste of dwindling non-renewable resources. The real challenge is getting the feds to accept something that won't directly benefit them (in the short term).  Carbonomics also includes other good ideas, such as improving how fuel economy standards are done, and crafting a better verison of the Kyoto treaty.  

In addition to the ideas in Carbonomics, we also support several other measures to help us end our addiction to fossil fuels once and for all.  Our Great American Phase-Out plan would phase out all fossil fuels by 2030 at the latest, via alternative energy, efficiency, and conservation.  One good idea to further the development of alternative energy would be the use of feed-in tariffs for renewable power sources.

We support ending net deforestation completely, and putting carbon back in the ground through carbon sequestration. One method is known as biochar, a type of charcoal made from plants that remove carbon dioxide from the air, that is subsequently buried. This is also an ancient method of soil fertilization and conservation, originally called terra preta.  It also helps preserve biodiversity.  Another crucial method would be regenerative organic farming, which also turns the soil into an effective carbon sink as well.

We've said this before, and we'll say it again.  Our ultimate goal is 100% renewable energy by 2030, but we need to hedge our bets.  We can phase out fossil fuels, or we can phase out nuclear power, but we can't do both at the same time--and fossil fuels need to be phased out first, and quickly.  Nuclear is doing a pretty good job of phasing itself out as it is.  So let's not get rid of it prematurely. 

But the biggest elephant in the room (make that the elephant in the Volkswagen) is overpopulation.  It does not make for pleasant dinner conversation, but it must be addressed or else all other causes become lost causes in the long run. We absolutely need to have fewer kids, or nature will reduce our population for us, and the latter will NOT be pleasant to say the least. The TSAP believes in voluntarily reducing the total fertility rate (TFR) to 1.5-1.9 children per woman to do so, along with reducing immigration dramatically, but let us be clear that we do NOT support draconian and/or coercive measures of population control (like China has used).  We believe that more liberty is the answer, not less.   In fact, the two most effective means of reducing the birthrate are poverty reduction and female empowerment.  Fortunately, America's TFR has recently dropped to below 1.9, with no indication of rising back above replacement rate in the near term.  But clearly we cannot keep growing and growing, that's for sure (in fact, we need to shrink). And our insatiable addiction to economic growth (despite being decoupled from well-being) is also every bit as harmful as overpopulation as well, if not more so.  Growth for the sake of growth, the ideology of the cancer cell,  is clearly one of the most asinine obsessions our nation (and world) has ever had.  We clearly need to transition to a steady-state economy, most likely following a period of what Naomi Klein calls "selective degrowth" as well.  And to do that, we need a radical paradigm shift to happen yesterday.  Put another way, we need to leave room for Nature, lest Nature not leave room for us.  We have been warned, decades ago in fact.  Unfortunately, such warnings have largely fallen of deaf ears until very recently.

Last but not least, the TSAP now believes that as long as men remain in charge, we are all merely rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.  Let's face it, it ain't gonna be us fellas who will save the world, as the past 7000 years or so have shown.  We paved paradise and put up a parking lot, we created a desert and called it peace.  We devoured and suffocated our own empire, and our proverbial 15 minutes of fame is almost up.  Only when women finally take over and reclaim their rightful position as the new leaders of the free world--and they will--will there be any real permanent solution.

Bottom line: we need to take the environment much more seriously than we do now.  We ignore it at our own peril.  And while the current administration in DC clearly doesn't care, We the People must act nonetheless.

Oh, by the way, wanna hear a joke?  Peak Oil.  Not saying it won't happen, of course--it will eventually peak and decline at some point--but climate change kinda supersedes it.  While conventional oil most likely has already peaked, there is more than enough total oil (including unconventional) to deep-fry the Earth--and most of which needs to stay in the ground if we wish to avoid catastrophic climate change.  Fossil fuels are, after all, what Buckminster Fuller referred to as our planet's "energy savings account", which we need to wean ourselves off of and save just in case of a planetary emergency--and he first said this in 1941!

Welcome to Necrotizing Fascism

A recent article confirms what we have already known all long:  too much inequality is bad for the economy, and extreme inequality (like we currently have in the USA as well as globally) can eventually lead to economic collapse.  This occurs because of the "science of flow".  To wit, just like a living organism needs good circulation, so too does an economic system.  And when circulation gets cut off, that results in necrosis--the death of tissue that eventually overwhelms the whole system.  Inequality, and the hoarding at the top that causes it, indeed cuts off the circulation of money, and it is very telling that nearly every major economic crash or depression has been preceded by relatively extreme economic inequality.

We should also note that, as history has shown, such resulting economic crises tend to breed authoritarian political systems, most notably fascism, when such crises are not resolved within short order.  And austerity policies only worsen recessions and depressions, making fascism even more likely.  Look no further than Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the Golden Dawn party in Greece in the 2010s, and of course the Tea Party followed by Trump in the USA as well.  And the resulting fascism only makes inequality even worse in the long run, despite any initial short-term benefits that may occur.  And the vicious cycle continues.
  

Thus, when such necrosis breeds fascism, and that in turn breeds further inequality and necrosis, we have coined a new term for it.  We call it, "Necrotizing Fascism", named after the flesh-eating disease "necrotizing fasciitis".   And that is basically what we have now under the Trump regime.  Believe me.

Trump's Immigration Policy is Cruel, Callous, and Counterproductive

One issue on which the TSAP has changed considerably over the years for the better, especially more recently, has been immigration policy, which we have recently updated in our party platform.  And not coincidentally, that very issue is emerging as one of the most controversial issues concerning the new Trump regime, who is currently displaying a very angry, paranoid, hard-line, nativist, racist, xenophobic, and Islamophobic character.  Such toxic and regressive attitudes toward immigrants and immigration clearly do far more harm than good overall.  Because like it or not, America has always been a nation of immigrants, and we always will be, believe me.

National security is an important issue, no doubt about that.  But Trump's method of dealing with such concerns, most notably the draconian Muslim Ban that was recently struck down by the courts, is far too crude and extreme, and ultimately makes us less safe on balance.  Most Muslims are good people, only a tiny fraction are jihadists, and we have more to worry about from reich-wing extremists in this country than we do from jihadists nowadays. In fact, you are statistically more likely to be struck by lightning than killed by a terrorist of any kind.  And slamming the door on refugees (who are fleeing unimaginable horrors due in part to American foreign policy blunders, and were already being vigorously vetted under Obama) is downright cruel and un-American. Besides, such draconian and xenophobic policies only alienate more people in the Muslim world, and are thus a yuuuge propaganda victory for ISIL and their fellow-travelers.

"Building the wall" along our border with Mexico would also not be a particularly wise idea on balance.  Especially Trump's idea of demanding that Mexico pay for it or reimburse us for it (or slapping a tariff on goods from Mexico to pay for it), all $15-25 billion dollars of it.  That is practically the definition of chutzpah!  And it would be wasteful.  We already have a fairly large fence in place along most of the land border, and the rest of the border's terrain is really not very suitable for building a wall there.  And it would still have to be patrolled, wall or no wall, so investing more in patrols and technology would make more sense if border security were really the goal.  In practice, it is starting to sound less like the Great Wall of China (which ultimately failed to keep out Genghis Khan and his Mongol hordes, by the way), and more and more like the infamous Berlin Wall (which effectively kept half of Europe prisoner for decades).  Now, if only Gorbachev would tell him, "Mr. Trump, tear down this wall!"  (The irony.)

What about all those mass deportations that Trump has promised, and have apparently already begun to some extent?  Well, those who support such an idea apparently haven't exactly thought that one through.  First of all, it would be a logistical nightmare in practice to round them all up.  Secondly, deporting all or most of the currently undocumented immigrants in this country, or causing them to "self-deport", would basically blow a YUUUUGE hole in the economy, particularly in agriculture where they are a YUUUUGE part of the workforce, and the resulting labor shortage would cause food prices to go up.  BIGLY.  When Alabama tried such a crackdown a few years back, that was exactly what happened, so imagine that happening nationwide.  (As for the old chestnut, "dey turk ur jerbs", most of those "jerbs" are ones that very few native-born Americans are willing to do at current wages and conditions.) And last but not least, doing so would be downright cruel and callous indeed, and would break up countless families with children.

And about all that crime that immigrants supposedly bring to this country with them?  Well, the best studies find that more immigration actually tends to reduce crime overall.  And sanctuary cities also tend to have lower crime rates (and better economies as well) compared with similarly-matched non-sanctuary cities. Another myth bites the dust.

What we really need to do is pass comprehensive immigration reform like Obama and Congressional Democrats had tried a few years ago, but Republicans had severely obstructed.  The system is clearly broken as it is, and so many problems can literally be solved with the stroke of a pen.  We need to make it easier to enter legally, and also easier to become a naturalized U.S. citizen, as the current process is ridiculous.  We need amnesty and a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who are currently here, we need to pass the DREAM Act yesterday, and we need to speed up the ridiculously long backlog of people waiting years to get in legally.  After that, of course, we should still reduce the quotas so going forward we let in no more immigrants than the previous year's emigration rate (around 200,000 per year) in order to fight overpopulation.  Note that this last bit is still part of our party platform, and has been since 2009, though we should note that the very high immigration rates (both legal and illegal) that prevailed under Bush have actually plummeted under Obama for a variety of reasons.  And finally, we need to focus on the "push" factors in the sending countries, not just the "pull" factors. 

Anything less would be uncivilized.  Believe me.

Drug Policy Discussions Have Moved

Since the ingnominious 2016 election has concluded, the True Spirit of America Party has essentially moved all new drug (and alcohol) policy related posts and discussions to our other blog, Twenty-One Debunked. Except of course for those drug policy issues directly related to the Trump administration, which will likely be significant.  Please keep following that other blog as well.