Mark Ford

Saturday, September 30, 2023, Delray Beach, Florida

September 30, 2023 No Comments

Why Cowboys and Not Cowmen?

I don’t know why cowboys are called cowboys in America. But it makes sense in the cattle country of Western Nicaragua.

There, most of the ranches produce beef. And almost all the cows are free-range. Which is to say that they are regularly herded from one grazing area to another almost every single day. This sort of herding is not what you see in the movies. It is slow and boring. It’s slow because those that do the herding don’t do it on horseback. (There aren’t enough horses for that.) And they don’t use lassos. They walk and move the cattle along by hitting them with switches.

And they’re young. When I say young, I mean 12 to 14 or 15.

It took me a while to figure out why the herding is done by boys instead of men. It’s because as soon as they get big enough to do the hard work of farming, their parents recruit them for that. Herding cattle, a much easier job, is left to their younger brothers.

I can’t explain why cowboys are called cowboys in this country. But I can share with you this interesting history of how the American cowboy came to be. Click here.

News & Views

September 30, 2023 No Comments

I’m Feeling Good About the Supreme Court

Can we put aside the ruling on abortion for a moment? (Which I felt was correct from a constitutional point of view, although I’m in favor of mothers having the final say.)

I don’t think about the Supreme Court that often. But when the Biden administration issues executive orders that seem to me both insanely dangerous and unconstitutional, I think: Breathe. The Supreme Court will strike them down.

On the other hand, there are some cases that come to the Supreme Court that make me worry because of the possibly conservative bias of the justices. I worry (as I imagine Leftists and Liberals do) that the conservative justices will band together to make a decision that will be decided along “party” lines.

Happily, that’s not what happened this week. Chief Justice John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh joined the court’s three left-leaning justices – Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson – in striking down Alabama’s attempt to disenfranchise its Black voters.

Click here.

What’s Wrong with Color Blindness?

I’m adding Coleman Hughes to my list of Black Conservatives talking truth today. He’s young. But he’s smarter than his years. He also communicates his ideas and opinions clearly and carefully, which is a sorely needed skill for public influencers today. He has a growing online readership, and he’s being cited occasionally by the mainstream media. I see a big future for him, either as a major conservative thinker or a politician (if he makes the mistake of moving in that direction).

Recently, he gave a TED Talk on the subject of “color blindness” that provoked a backlash from some left-leaning, CRT-advocating, liberal advocacy groups that argue that color blindness is itself racist. Watch it here and decide for yourself.

Vaccine Conspiracies: Why Is Data Disappearing?

This is a disturbing story about how the province of Alberta, after years of tracking and reporting on claims of injury from the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine (as required by law), suddenly stopped publishing the data. Then they took it a step further by deleting all previous reports. This after the number of reports began mounting to scary heights.

In this, the last of a three-part series of interviews with Canadian Dr. William Makis, you can see what happened. (You can also access the first two parts from it.) Click here.

By the way, when I call this a conspiracy theory, it’s not because I think it’s untrue. On the contrary, I think it may be true, but I know that a large chunk of the people reading my account of it will assume it’s some sort of Russian or Right Wing generated fake news. If you find it hard to believe that the province of Alberta would do something so obviously unethical as deleting data that contradicts their biases, I invite you to hit the link, read the article, and decide for yourself. If you do so, and still think it’s a conspiracy theory, let me know how it is false. I’d like to know!

Worth Watching

September 30, 2023 No Comments

The Deer Hunter

Directed and co-written by Michael Cimino

Starring Robert DeNiro, John Cazale, John Savage, Meryl Streep, and Christopher Walken

Originally released (in LA) Dec. 8, 1978

I hadn’t watched The Deer Hunter since it first came out – almost 35 years ago. I remembered it as a very good movie. But I also remembered that it was a harrowing, almost traumatizing, experience. What I forgot was how long it is: three hours.

Though categorized as an “epic war drama,” The Deer Hunter isn’t very much about Vietnam. It’s about two things that it well and deeply explored: The range of masculine strength and weaknesses. And the depth and tenacity of male friendship.

What I Liked About It

* The acting – by both the principal and secondary actors.

* The depiction of a mining town in Pennsylvania back then. I knew that part of Pennsylvania a bit, and it looked very right.

* The depiction of how we (draft-age men) spoke and interacted. Every stunt and conversation was very true to my life back then.

* The depiction of PTSD. The event that caused it in the movie was, as far as I can tell, invented. But the trauma displayed by the men coming back from the war was real.

* The photography. It was almost crude. But beautiful.

* The pace. Very slow. A full hour on a wedding! But it created a feeling for how life was in such towns that, again, felt very real to me.

What I Didn’t Like So Much

* The portrayal of Vietnam and the Vietnamese was superficial, almost racist.

* The battle scenes were not particularly interesting.

* The performance of Meryl Streep. This was a very early role for her. I didn’t think she pulled it off. I didn’t know any young woman like the one she played.

Critical Reception

The Deer Hunter was widely praised by both critics and audiences. The only negative comments referred to the film’s “simplistic, bigoted, and historically inaccurate depictions of the Viet Cong and of America’s position in the Vietnam War.” It won multiple important awards, including five Academy Awards, a Golden Globe, and two BAFTAs. It has also been featured on many “Best Film” lists.

You can watch the trailer here.

Fun and/or Interesting

September 30, 2023 No Comments

Quick Bites: Inflation… Again!, More Corruption, Advice for Wannabe Writers, Amazon’s Stake in AI, and CNN Unleashes on Joe Biden

Another inflation storm is coming! Sean MacIntyre, my partner, the most entertaining polymath I know, talks about why the many dire predictions on inflation didn’t pan out and what his current data is telling him about the stock market later this year. He also gives a BA on inflation in just a single short video! Click here.
How corrupt is the medical/health industry? Click here to listen to Dr. Jason Fung on “Financial Conflicts of Interest and the End of Evidence-Based Medicine.”
Advice on how to become a successful writer from Octavia E Butler. She apparently failed to become one, but her advice is spot on. Click here.
Amazon is investing billions in AI. Specifically, in Anthropic, the company that published chatbot Claude 2, which is meant to be a rival for OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Click here.
And now CNN is going after Biden. As I said in the Sept. 19 issue, it’s already been decided that Biden won’t run next year. Here’s more evidence.

Readers Write

September 30, 2023 No Comments

Re the Sept. 26 issue…

From AS:

“It’s rare that I agree with any of your political views, but I agree with your thoughts on legalizing hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans. The decision to do so is ridiculous!

“Not only does it encourage more illegals, but you’re right about all the other nationalities that are excluded. Why are Venezuelans favored? Are they lighter skinned, better workers, have a better command of the English language?

“Are there a ton of Venezuelans in the US who can vote? Was there some kind of bribery involved? It’s unbelievable. Who advised that move?”

My Response: First, I should have said, in reporting this, that the estimated 472,000 Venezuelans that will receive “temporary” legal status along with work permits now is in addition to an estimated 274,000 Venezuelans that have qualified for “temporary” legal status already. (That was under a separate presidential order earlier this year.)

The legal status of the 274,000 who had come earlier was also labeled as temporary. But Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has just granted them an 18-month extension. This was needed because of “Venezuela’s increased instability and lack of safety due to the enduring humanitarian, security, political, and environmental conditions,” the department said in a statement.

So, we are talking about more than 700,000 “temporary” new US residents.

The Biden administration says it is granting legal status and work permits for these Venezuelans in order to provide financial relief for the cities that are currently housing them.

During the first half of the year, when the Biden administration allowed more than four million undocumented migrants to enter the US borders, border states like Texas, California, and also Florida were harboring the bulk of them. Back in April of 2022, those besieged governors decided to start transporting a small fraction of the undocumented immigrants to cities like LA and New York. (And even, by Ron DeSantis, to Martha’s Vineyard!) These are cities that had presented themselves proudly as havens, as “sanctuary cities” for illegals. Suddenly, the White House was hearing from all the influential Democrats in those places.

Liberals, who, it turns out, were very unhappy with having to support all those illegal immigrants, demanded federal aid to pay for the enormous costs of providing them with housing, food, and medical care. New York, in particular, was overwhelmed. Mayor Adams actually began making public media appeals to the federal government for help.

The rationale for giving these 700,000 Venezuelans legal status and work permits is that some of them could get jobs. Then they could pay for their own upkeep. This would reduce the financial pressure on state and local governments.

But why Venezuelans?

The Biden administration says it’s because of the chaos going on in Venezuela since Nicolás Maduro took over as president in 2013. He installed a makeshift socialist economic and political structure along classic Marxist lines. An “improvement” that has devastated the economy and everyday life for most Venezuelans. In their “socialist paradise,” they are suffering ongoing shortages of key necessities, random power outages, police abuse, and hyperinflation.

From KK:

“There’s a major flaw in your immigrant voting theory and that is your assumption that they will vote Democratic. In the previous election, the Republicans did a good job of selling the anti-socialist anxiety story to most immigrants from Latin America. In your state, the Democratic Party saw reduced support in Hispanic Miami-Dade and lost two seats in the US House. Trump performed well with non-Cuban Hispanics, and many Venezuelan-American voters passionately campaigned for him.

“Doral, the city with the largest Venezuelan-born population in the country, showed a 41% swing toward Trump. He had a 1.4% win in the city in 2020 after having lost by 40% to Hillary Clinton in 2016 when she received 52% of the votes.”

My Response: I held that optimistic theory myself for the last several years after reading about the trend you mention – the surveys showing that many Latinos are moving away from the Democratic party.

As you can see from this chart, Latinos’ party affiliation has been steady since 2019.

That said, you have a point re Venezuelans. Those coming here are fleeing a country that was wrecked by electing a communist dictator. Cubans, who came to America to escape the wrecked economy and political dictatorship of Cuba, are largely politically conservative. The Venezuelans may act like the Cubans and vote Republican. And if they do that, Biden’s gambit will have failed.

But there is a big difference between Cuban refugees that came in the 50s and 60s and the Venezuelans coming to America today. The great majority of Cuban immigrants are and have always been people that were or would be successful professionals and entrepreneurs in Cuba. They experienced communism under Castro. They know what socialist policies did to their once rich and free country. They don’t want to see communism taking root in the USA.

Most of the Venezuelans that are about to become legalized are relatively uneducated and poor. They will almost certainly want every dollar of welfare that the governors, mayors, and federal government are willing to give them. These are prime candidates for voting Blue.

From JM:

“Without even looking at the Taki piece, I recall a headline that read: Biden wants Ukraine to win… by the inch.

“We never seem to learn that war is not fought incrementally. That was the overarching lesson from Vietnam. Yet…”

My Response: Yes. It disappoints me to think about how many of my very smart, good-willed, and otherwise fair-minded friends and family members have become so supportive of our involvement in Ukraine. Surely, they know that we basically started it.

Like most of our generation, they must remember the Vietnam war – the damaging and devastating futility of it – not to mention Korea and every other proxy war the US has fought since President Eisenhower, who actually knew something about war, warned us about the military-industrial complex.

More from JM:

“I am not pro war or pro military. I am pro our American way of life. Which is fast disappearing. There are surely times when a country has to fight. What I am insisting on is that when it happens we bring maximum force to bear as GHW Bush did to defend Kuwait.

“Ukraine should have been handled as Kuwait was. Putin, like we did with Hussein, should have been given an ultimatum. Leave Ukraine or your army will be destroyed. If he failed to heed the warning, his army would be decimated in 72 hours.

“Yes, I know there is a lot wrong with that scenario. But not pushing back against Putin was a very large mistake.

“I think Putin has something on Biden, and more than likely it’s proof of Biden selling influence.

“In our lifetimes, we have never been in a weaker position to avoid war.”

My Response: You make good points. I’ve had the same thoughts.

When it comes to war, it’s difficult to have a “right” opinion. Wars are too complicated, too damaging, too terrible.

My bias when it comes to war is always towards pacifism. Not because I think that is always the “right” thing to do. But if I don’t know what the right thing is, not fighting seems like the wiser choice.

Of course, it’s easy for me to say that. I have no fear for my own personal safety when I imagine myself in war, as irrational as that is. I’m not against war for visceral reasons. It’s more theoretical…

Postscript

September 30, 2023 No Comments

George Carlin: “The Owners of This Country”

A good clip from JS, who says, “George died 15 years ago (2008), but it is abundantly clear he saw the future.”

Click here.

Tuesday, September 26, 2023, Delray Beach, Florida

Notes From My Journal

September 26, 2023 No Comments

Why I’m a Conservative, Part I

Bill Maher, who has identified (and been identified) as a typical Hollywood Liberal for most of his career, has, in recent years, felt the need to explain why he sometimes makes fun of Woke ideas and Woke ideology.

His explanation is pretty good. He says something like:

“They [the Woke mob] accuse me of abandoning the cause in recent years. Not true. What has happened is that the center of Liberal consciousness had drifted to the extreme left. My values and beliefs haven’t changed. Theirs have.”

I take that to be a fair and honest description of Maher’s personal experience. And when I first heard it, I liked it so much that I thought about using it as a response to friends and family members that accuse me of having suddenly become a “Conservative” (i.e., Fascist, Racist, Misogynist, Homophobe, etc.).

But then I realized that, unlike Maher, my political, economic, and social views have changed. And that’s because, when I was younger, my opinions were based on what I knew back then – which was, in terms of making adult decisions, next to nothing.

Work, for example. From the age of six, I had chores that I was obliged to do. And I had my first job (on weekends and holidays) at the age of twelve. So, by the time I was a senior in high school, I had a great deal more experience than most of my classmates in working hard to make extra spending money. But I had no experience with the kind of serious financial obligations I would be taking on as an adult – to meet my own needs as well as the needs of my future dependents.

I began working full-time when I was 18 and have worked full-time ever since. And during those years, I learned a great deal more about making money. I also, very gradually, learned to make smarter choices in the way I managed that money to chart a better and safer future for myself and my family.

This is what we do – what we are programmed to do. It is how we survive and prosper in an unforgiving world. It is how we propagate our species.

This takes me back to the assumption behind both the criticism of Bill Maher and his defense – that there is something good about maintaining one’s ideas, views, and values as time passes. Think about it. It’s a completely dumb idea. Having the same ideas, views, and beliefs at 50 that you had at 20 is not virtuous. It’s a form of willful stupidity.

And this takes me to my current thinking. I don’t feel ashamed of abandoning so many of my younger beliefs and ideas. I feel good about it. I feel like what is happening in both my rational and emotional brain parts is what nature intended.

Becoming conservative as one ages is good for the individual, the social and work environments one lives in, for one’s particular DNA, and ultimately for the survival of the species!

The Three Stages of Learning

At every stage (and facet) of life, there are three levels of learning: ignorance, knowledge, and wisdom.

* Ignorance gives one the ability to believe in and be stirred into doing the most incredibly brave and stupid things.

* Knowledge gives one the ability to teach and lead the ignorant.

* And wisdom allows one to teach and lead the knowledgeable.

We are all born ignorant. We are also born with an insatiable attraction to knowledge. Every major stage of life involves learning countless thousands of wonderous things and acquiring countless thousands of small, sometimes unconscious, physical, verbal, and mental skills. This is essential for not just survival, but success in every realm of human experience.

Wisdom comes from knowledge. Wisdom is about understanding the limits of knowledge and the danger of certainty. Wisdom is about realizing and remembering how many bits of certain knowledge one had at some point that turned out be untrue – or at least not as universally true as one had imagined.

Wisdom is a critical component of group intelligence – perhaps the most critical component, because it allows the group to try and fail, but live to another day.

In case you’re wondering where I’m going with this, I am not going to make the argument that political Conservatives are wise and political Liberals are unwise.

What I’m saying here is that whatever world one finds oneself in, there is always a tension around important decisions – between those advocating for quick and significant action, and those that pull back on the reins.

In Part II of this essay, I’ll give you some examples of how these three levels of learning work their way into just about every social institution and just about everything we do.

News & Views

September 26, 2023 No Comments

Conspiracy Update: The Election Fixing Plan Is in Full Swing

I almost can’t believe they’ve made this move so blatantly and so soon.

I’m talking about the Biden administration’s recent announcement that it was going to grant “temporary legal status” to hundreds of thousands of “undocumented” Venezuelans that have entered the US since Biden and Harris opened the borders in 2020.

The purpose, they say, is to make these people “eligible to work.” Huh? What has that got to do with anything? Illegal immigrants have no problem finding work in the US, so long as they are willing to work as unskilled laborers. And even if finding work was a problem, what’s the rationale behind giving 300,000 to 400,000 Venezuelans work permits but not the other +/- 7 million undocumented immigrants that crossed our southern border during the same period. What’s wrong with Argentinians? Or Salvadorans? Or Haitians. Or Iranians, for that matter?

It makes no sense.

Unless you subscribe to the theory I’ve been pushing since they opened the border so widely: This isn’t about kids in cages. Nor is it about people legitimately seeking asylum. (At best, that represents less than 5% of those that cross the border.) This is about a plan hatched before Biden was elected to flush in 10+ million, mostly poorly educated, mostly Latin Americans into the US, make them legal, and get them voting during the 2024 election.

Click here.

The “One-Government” Solution to Pandemics: Smart or Scary?

Last Wednesday, on September 20, the UN hosted one of three high-level meetings on health with WHO officials attending. The publicized topic: “Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness, and Response.”

That sounds like exactly what a global, peace-seeking organization should be doing. Right?

I thought so until I read the objectives. Here are some of them:

* Coordination and governance at the highest political levels

* The fair, equitable, and timely sharing of benefits arising from the use of pathogens [and] sequences with pandemic potential

* Digital transformation of health systems; big data

* Monitoring and accountability

* Countering misinformation and disinformation

* More immunizations

So, how does that sound to you? Smart or scary?

Worth Reading

September 26, 2023 No Comments

The Great Taki on the War in Ukraine

“What’s frustrating as hell,” writes Taki in his latest essay, “is the inability, or unwillingness, of Uncle Sam to stop the slaughter.”

Click here to read the entire thing.

Worth Listening

September 26, 2023 No Comments

An Amazing Conversation

Listen to this conversation between David Pakman of CNN and Dennis Prager of Prager U. Pakman is a Liberal. Prager is a Conservative. They are discussing some of the hottest issues that are separating Liberals and Conservatives today. And yet, by talking about what is reasonable instead of what is ideologically correct, they find common ground.

I can’t remember hearing any political discussion this hopeful since… well, in a long time.

Click here.

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