Trygve, I owe you heartfelt apologies. It was obvious satire, it was clever (not precisely at your usual extremely high level, but clever enough), and having gotten the joke, it didn't occur to me to comment (what more was there to say? I got the joke. "Good one?"), which appears to have left you with a balance that is not typical for you: complainers and critics. Anyone who criticizes your writing or your intellect is a moron. Or jealous.
Apparently there are many of us who understood you well enough to know when you ventured into satire, so stop beating yourself up over the few who didn’t just because the many were too busy not celebrating independence to comment. And please forgive the run on sentence!
At the end his book "The Deep State" Mike Lofgren makes nine suggestions for "Overcoming Our New Gilded Age." Suggestions 1 and 9 are particularly relevant for today. I strongly suggest reading the book. If you are running for office I would consult with Lofgren. Note that this book was published before Trump declared his candidacy in 2016. Here are the suggestions -
1. Eliminate private money from public elections. This is the first
recommendation, because it is the key reform without which none of the
other policy changes will happen. We can’t afford to nibble around the
edges with another McCain-Feingold Act or other marginal changes that can
easily be bypassed. The only rational response after decades of ever more
arcane laws and regulations and ever more creative evasions is to scrap the
whole system and start from square one. We must get money out of our
elections—that means all private money. Federally funded campaigns will
undoubtedly create new problems, but can they be remotely as bad as the
auctioning of candidates that occurs today? With a small, guaranteed sum of
money during a limited campaigning season (perhaps from Labor Day until
the November election, a generous campaign season compared to election
campaigns in the United Kingdom, which last less than a month, or
Australia, where they last about six weeks) against an opponent who would
get the same amount, but no more, we could finally end the interminable
campaign season (which in the House begins the day a new member is
sworn in), and incumbents could at last spend time governing rather than
going to fund-raisers and dialing for dollars outside their congressional
offices.
Public funding would be a cost-effective investment in the long run. Let
us bear in mind that a few hundred thousand dollars in bundled
contributions led to a $550 million loss to taxpayers in the Solyndra
alternative energy case, and a few million dollars in Halliburton
contributions led to billions in waste, fraud, and abuse in Iraq. A politician is
a hog grateful to whoever is rattling the stick inside the swill bucket. It is
time to take the swill bucket away.
9. Abolish corporations’ personhood status, or else treat them exactly like
persons. Corporations in America now have it both ways: Citizens United,
Hobby Lobby, and other rulings now give them virtually all the
constitutional attributes of a U.S. citizen: their political bribery is protected
as First Amendment speech and their corporate officers’ “right” to impose
their personal views on their employees is safeguarded by the “free exercise
of religion” clause of that amendment. Yet the bedrock legal purpose of a
corporation has always been to shield its executives and directors from civil
or criminal liability for the firm’s wrongdoing—liability that a real person
could never dodge. Corporations also enjoy a myriad of tax advantages that
actual human beings do not have: can an individual claim personal
depreciation as he ages? Of course not. Corporations also benefit from
corporate inversion rules that exempt a company from U.S. taxes if it
merges with a foreign company and moves its headquarters abroad, even if
it continues to generate the vast bulk of its revenue in the United States.
U.S. citizens are still subject to federal tax laws when they reside in a
foreign country. The recently passed Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act
contains onerous and intrusive reporting requirements on U.S persons living
abroad, with stiff penalties for noncompliance. Corporations are exempt
from this law—the same corporations that squirrel away hundreds of
billions of dollars in overseas tax havens. Corporate executives need to stop
their whining about how the United States, a nation that has historically
coddled business interests, is some sort of incipient Bolshevik people’s
republic. They must face a choice: if they want corporate personhood,
accept all the legal burdens of a person; if not, agree to the tax reform in our
previous recommendation, which does not grant them aggregate tax benefits
greatly exceeding those of a middle-income wage earner. Otherwise, they
may want to entertain their libertarian fantasies by incorporating in the
laissez-faire playground of Somalia while contemplating how to make up
for their lost revenue from being shut out of the U.S. market.
Thanks for this rec, Alan. If the Democratic Party would ever get it together to provide the public with the Lofgren+ (plus being other common sense, essential reforms) plan, we might have a chance of uniting a coalition.
Mr Bromborsky, item 1 covers item 9. I have been saying this for as long as I can remember. And there's either no private money in politics/campaigning, or it's federal money, which comes from taxes, which everyone must pay according to income.
Until Reagan ended it, broadcast media were required to air emergency alerts, or tests of them, for free. According to my vision of it, that's what should happen with campaigning. All candidates get the same amount of exposure, for free, and no one is allowed to buy more than they get for free. As I would design it, anyone can declare. But maybe every two weeks (campaigning is also very protracted, and that ought to end), every candidate has to provide a list of signatures of voters who simply want to see them in the race. It's just interest in them, and not a commitment to vote for them. A voter can want none of the candidates, one of them, a few of them, or all of them. And every two weeks, let's say, the number of signatures required gets higher. When a candidate can no longer show enough interest in his or her candidacy, by producing the increasing number of signatures, he or she is out. At the end, there could be one candidate, two, three, or 28. That's the election.
Clearly, the broadcast media wouldn't like it, because they make a great deal of their income from campaign season. But they're not my concern. They can charge more for sneaker or automobile ads. (I don't watch TV, so I have no idea what they advertise.)
Please keep up what you are doing! I thought yesterday’s piece was terrific and most appropriate for Independence Day. Agreed, you can’t balance the other side by staying in the middle. I very much enjoy reading your material so please keep up what you are doing.
Introducing - or re-introducing - readers to the brilliance of Swift (or C. Brontë, or any of the other writers you generously allude to) is a benefit to us all.
My wife and I decided a long time ago that it was helpful on some occasions to put out a "sarcasm alert" for our children. When we said "That was sure a smart thing to do." in some cases they took us literally.
Keep up the good work. We live in an age where civility is a rarity. Look around when you are among people, overwhelmingly their attitude is the world revolves around them and to hell with you.
I think the Democratic Party had better get off the fulcrum or else they won’t tip the balance in the upcoming elections. I know a lot of people who are upset with the Dems, including me.
I love this: You don’t tip an unbalanced scale by standing at the fulcrum. Same goes for a tipping over sailboat; you lean the opposite way to save yourself.
Keep going, satire is a great art form, and a public service in a long game.
And the need for it, and the beauty of it are proven by the people who don't get it.
I like SWIFT and I like Hammer!
Pedal to the metal! 💪🏼
Trygve, I owe you heartfelt apologies. It was obvious satire, it was clever (not precisely at your usual extremely high level, but clever enough), and having gotten the joke, it didn't occur to me to comment (what more was there to say? I got the joke. "Good one?"), which appears to have left you with a balance that is not typical for you: complainers and critics. Anyone who criticizes your writing or your intellect is a moron. Or jealous.
I imagine Swift had the same problem. (And, like you, some readers who thought it was a terrific idea...)
I am sorry for those who did not get the satire.
It was fine. Needed in these stupid times. Don’t let the bastards get you down.
Apparently there are many of us who understood you well enough to know when you ventured into satire, so stop beating yourself up over the few who didn’t just because the many were too busy not celebrating independence to comment. And please forgive the run on sentence!
At the end his book "The Deep State" Mike Lofgren makes nine suggestions for "Overcoming Our New Gilded Age." Suggestions 1 and 9 are particularly relevant for today. I strongly suggest reading the book. If you are running for office I would consult with Lofgren. Note that this book was published before Trump declared his candidacy in 2016. Here are the suggestions -
1. Eliminate private money from public elections. This is the first
recommendation, because it is the key reform without which none of the
other policy changes will happen. We can’t afford to nibble around the
edges with another McCain-Feingold Act or other marginal changes that can
easily be bypassed. The only rational response after decades of ever more
arcane laws and regulations and ever more creative evasions is to scrap the
whole system and start from square one. We must get money out of our
elections—that means all private money. Federally funded campaigns will
undoubtedly create new problems, but can they be remotely as bad as the
auctioning of candidates that occurs today? With a small, guaranteed sum of
money during a limited campaigning season (perhaps from Labor Day until
the November election, a generous campaign season compared to election
campaigns in the United Kingdom, which last less than a month, or
Australia, where they last about six weeks) against an opponent who would
get the same amount, but no more, we could finally end the interminable
campaign season (which in the House begins the day a new member is
sworn in), and incumbents could at last spend time governing rather than
going to fund-raisers and dialing for dollars outside their congressional
offices.
Public funding would be a cost-effective investment in the long run. Let
us bear in mind that a few hundred thousand dollars in bundled
contributions led to a $550 million loss to taxpayers in the Solyndra
alternative energy case, and a few million dollars in Halliburton
contributions led to billions in waste, fraud, and abuse in Iraq. A politician is
a hog grateful to whoever is rattling the stick inside the swill bucket. It is
time to take the swill bucket away.
9. Abolish corporations’ personhood status, or else treat them exactly like
persons. Corporations in America now have it both ways: Citizens United,
Hobby Lobby, and other rulings now give them virtually all the
constitutional attributes of a U.S. citizen: their political bribery is protected
as First Amendment speech and their corporate officers’ “right” to impose
their personal views on their employees is safeguarded by the “free exercise
of religion” clause of that amendment. Yet the bedrock legal purpose of a
corporation has always been to shield its executives and directors from civil
or criminal liability for the firm’s wrongdoing—liability that a real person
could never dodge. Corporations also enjoy a myriad of tax advantages that
actual human beings do not have: can an individual claim personal
depreciation as he ages? Of course not. Corporations also benefit from
corporate inversion rules that exempt a company from U.S. taxes if it
merges with a foreign company and moves its headquarters abroad, even if
it continues to generate the vast bulk of its revenue in the United States.
U.S. citizens are still subject to federal tax laws when they reside in a
foreign country. The recently passed Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act
contains onerous and intrusive reporting requirements on U.S persons living
abroad, with stiff penalties for noncompliance. Corporations are exempt
from this law—the same corporations that squirrel away hundreds of
billions of dollars in overseas tax havens. Corporate executives need to stop
their whining about how the United States, a nation that has historically
coddled business interests, is some sort of incipient Bolshevik people’s
republic. They must face a choice: if they want corporate personhood,
accept all the legal burdens of a person; if not, agree to the tax reform in our
previous recommendation, which does not grant them aggregate tax benefits
greatly exceeding those of a middle-income wage earner. Otherwise, they
may want to entertain their libertarian fantasies by incorporating in the
laissez-faire playground of Somalia while contemplating how to make up
for their lost revenue from being shut out of the U.S. market.
Thanks for this rec, Alan. If the Democratic Party would ever get it together to provide the public with the Lofgren+ (plus being other common sense, essential reforms) plan, we might have a chance of uniting a coalition.
Mr Bromborsky, item 1 covers item 9. I have been saying this for as long as I can remember. And there's either no private money in politics/campaigning, or it's federal money, which comes from taxes, which everyone must pay according to income.
Until Reagan ended it, broadcast media were required to air emergency alerts, or tests of them, for free. According to my vision of it, that's what should happen with campaigning. All candidates get the same amount of exposure, for free, and no one is allowed to buy more than they get for free. As I would design it, anyone can declare. But maybe every two weeks (campaigning is also very protracted, and that ought to end), every candidate has to provide a list of signatures of voters who simply want to see them in the race. It's just interest in them, and not a commitment to vote for them. A voter can want none of the candidates, one of them, a few of them, or all of them. And every two weeks, let's say, the number of signatures required gets higher. When a candidate can no longer show enough interest in his or her candidacy, by producing the increasing number of signatures, he or she is out. At the end, there could be one candidate, two, three, or 28. That's the election.
Clearly, the broadcast media wouldn't like it, because they make a great deal of their income from campaign season. But they're not my concern. They can charge more for sneaker or automobile ads. (I don't watch TV, so I have no idea what they advertise.)
Please keep up what you are doing! I thought yesterday’s piece was terrific and most appropriate for Independence Day. Agreed, you can’t balance the other side by staying in the middle. I very much enjoy reading your material so please keep up what you are doing.
Introducing - or re-introducing - readers to the brilliance of Swift (or C. Brontë, or any of the other writers you generously allude to) is a benefit to us all.
My wife and I decided a long time ago that it was helpful on some occasions to put out a "sarcasm alert" for our children. When we said "That was sure a smart thing to do." in some cases they took us literally.
Lyle Best
Proof that the written word doesn't always convey the subtleties of its meaning, or its context. And it was GREAT.
Keep up the good work. We live in an age where civility is a rarity. Look around when you are among people, overwhelmingly their attitude is the world revolves around them and to hell with you.
I think the Democratic Party had better get off the fulcrum or else they won’t tip the balance in the upcoming elections. I know a lot of people who are upset with the Dems, including me.
I love this: You don’t tip an unbalanced scale by standing at the fulcrum. Same goes for a tipping over sailboat; you lean the opposite way to save yourself.
Thanks Trygve. Keep going…