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Saturday Learning Series - Philosophy #17 (Death)

More introductory philosophy, this time, on the topic of death:

COVID19 Deaths vs. New Cases in America

The number of COVID-19 related deaths in the United States is clearly declining, even as the number of cases rises. This of course explains the media's new obsession with the number of cases as it paints a worse picture for the president.

The two charts below show the decline in deaths and the rise in cases in a time series.

This is not to say that deaths might not surge once again, but there are a lot of factors in play here besides reopening states for business: seasonality, the increasing number of tests being conducted, people's behaviors, co-morbidity and how the cases are being counted, the demographics of the newly infected, BLM protesters not being admonished for not social distancing, and a number of other things.

To draw any conclusions about the path of the disease over the next few months is no better than speculation.  It is incumbent on the media to report both the above trends rather than sensationalizing the news cycle or using it for political purposes. 

Does Democrat overreach mean the death of Obamacare?

The slow, quiet death of Obamacare is upon us and in progress. Chief Justice Roberts in upholding the taxation view of the individual mandate in the Supreme Court's decision on Obamacare mapped out the way to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. Whether it was inadvertent or a shrewd conservative ploy does not matter at this point. What matters as Obamacare's slow death plays out, is the Democrats' attempt to frogmarch the nation towards nationally unaffordable Medicare for all and how to fight that effort.

The Jefferey Epstein death saga

Sargon of Akkad spent a lot of time on trying to untangle the conspiracy theories and strange circumstances surrounding the death of "billionaire pimp" Jefferey Epstein.

Here's the background:

Here's the first part of who killed Jefferey Epstein, another part is apparently in the works.

Count me among those who find the whole thing suspicious but at this point all we really have is suspicion.

Friday Musical Interlude - The Death of Melody

A sad but accurate commentary on the state of music.

This is the death of video evidence

Believe none of what you see or hear anymore.  This technology is very cool, but even more scary than it is cool.  How can we trust video evidence after this?  Watch Bill Hader's face turn into Al Pacino's and then Arnold Schwarzenegger's.

Saturday Learning Series - Death of a Technology

Continuing with the Yale course from professor Douglas W. Rae, moves away from some of the economic discussion and moves towards a more real-world analysis of a corporate situation but looks at it in relation to capitalism in general.

The slow agonizing death of free speech continues

Michigan - Tea Party banners were banned from a Tea Party rally because they were too controversial. Free speech is being tortured to death by political correctness and those who don't like what's being said. Lindsey Graham's recent comments come to mind, but this is even more of a violation of First Amendment rights than the Graham wish list.

A federal lawsuit claims a Branch County tea party group was denied the right to display banners and signs at a tea party rally at a public park in Coldwater because it was “too political” and “too controversial.” The Coldwater City Council then passed a resolution banning all banners and signs in that park.

The Thomas More Law Center law firm filed its lawsuit last week in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan. Attorney Robert Muise of the Thomas More Law Center alleged that Coldwater City Manager Jeff Budd objected because the Common Sense Patriots of Branch County were “too political” and “too controversial.”

It's a slow agonizing death for free speech and it's being perpetrated by the left with political correctness and now more directly by banning free speech. Watch for book burnings with Thomas Paine, Milton Friedman and The Federalist Papers on the the menu. The Constitution's next.

Conservatism will outlive the Fairness Doctrine

Take heart conservatives, as unfair as the impending draconian imposition of the Fairness Doctrine may be, it won't last. Not as long as conservatism will last. The ideology is out of the bag, it cannot be stifled forever. Unfortunately the same could be said for Marxism. Someday it will rear it's ugly head in a big way again. Maybe in 100 years or 1000. But despite it's stupendously dismal failure in the Soviet Union, Marxism is unfortunately, not dead. And American conservatism is far, far from dead. Despite being knocked on it's heels by a Democrat 1-2 punch in 2006 and 2008, conservatism is vibrant and will be ready in 2010 to take back some ground from the liberals. The new Chi-coms (no, not Chinese communists, the Chicago communists).

Let's look at the Fairness Doctrine with a little bit of level-headedness. Something it's authors would never do. The idea that a specific medium like talk radio, dominated by conservatives, would be required under the threat of fines, to provide equal time to liberals is in itself unfair. Why? It only applies to the media that the Democrats don't totally own. Specifically talk radio and potentially the Internet. It's the liberal version of Nazi book burnings, and I bet they won't even bat an eye at that, since they believe they are doing humanity's work (I'd say God's work but, well, you know.)

But here's the thing even if they manage to railroad this absurd legislative idea through the House, the Senate and across Obama's desk with a Republican filibuster either non-existent or a mere speed bump along the way, IT WON'T STOP CONSERVATIVES. Why not? Because we're mean, angry SOBs who are zombies of the destruction of freedom. Not really, but it sounds scary.

Seriously though, conservatives should hearken back to our own principles and remember one thing. The Free Market. More specifically, borrowing from the economic treatises of Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations), The Invisible Hand (of zombie death). Boy, I hope some liberals somewhere are reading this and taking the zombie thing seriously.

This is how I see this playing out;

1) The Fairness Doctrine gets passed, in all it's rancid glory.

2) Radio stations, knowing that Air America was a failure (possibly set up to do so, in order to encourage this exact action down the road), decide rather than adding liberals to radio, it's cheaper to throw the conservative shows off the air.

3) The opportunity to take over the Internet media dies at the same time, since it's been included in the legislation as along with some obscure pork barrel project for Hawaii involving a T-shirt factory, gummy bears and $27 Billion in bailout TARP money.

4) The liberals throw a party, snort coke and cheat on their spouses, then lie about it.

5) This is where it gets interesting. The Invisible Hand takes over. People like Rush Limbaugh see that their capacity to educate, entertain, and generate income have been entirely smote by the legislation. They try to find another way to maintain their audience and continue to be heard.

6) The only place they can go is either (a) some medium that has not been invented yet - not possible, or (b) the Mainstream Media because it is not covered in the legislation. Wouldn't that be an interesting turn of events?

7) Conservatives manage to find their way onto television and into print, providing actual competition to liberal domination of the MSM, and bringing an unwanted sense of accuracy to those who'd rather just be pushing their own warped, liberal agenda. And the reason this will happen is because the Invisible Hand yet again - the numbers will bear out the profit-rationale of letting conservatives have an outlet for our ideas. And it doesn't matter if the head of broadcasting for CBS doesn't want conservative views to get air time, Westinghouse can see the dollar signs. Rush has 20 million listeners? Sign him up, he can do even better on TV (with the right production resources behind him every step of the way). Ann Coulter controversial? Great! Michelle Malkin shut out of Twitter now? Get her a prime time show! If the business case makes sense, the ideology floats away.

8) It almost makes sense for conservatives that the travesty of the Fairness Doctrine should happen during the recession. The dollar signs will be all that more appealing to bottom-line-conscious executives.

9) Then the living dead will turn up and try to eat the brains of liberals, only to die of starvation.

Remember, every threat is an opportunity in disguise. Or, a zombie.