Obsession--Notes 2

Part 2 of my Notes on Obsession by Byron York

The Mueller team spent most of 2018 seeking obstruction of justice by Trump and others for a non-crime.

That might be the most frustrating part of any special council, the ability to force testimony and set up perjury traps. This is why no one from Trump’s team wanted him anywhere near an interview room. For Trump’s part though he was ready to go. I don’t think this was an act either. It’s in his nature to believe that he can sway opinion through the sheer force of will. At his core he is a salesman. The deals he made with his lenders on real estate projects speak to his belief in himself. It’s also the thing that got him in trouble with James Comey.

It’s easy to look back now and say that Comey should have been fired right after Trump took over. He always allowed Comey to meet in private with him and discuss Flynn. The whole Steele dossier mess happened when Comey agreed to brief the president on the ‘intelligence’ about Russian hookers in his room in Moscow. None of it was confirmed. It was salacious stuff meant to be leaked to the press; it didn’t matter that none of it was true. It just needed to be reported. I doubt anyone with the president’s interest would have allowed that kind of unconfirmed intelligence anywhere near the Oval Office. But Trump always believed he could get Comey on his side. It cost him dearly because he trusted the FBI chief.

Naturally the Mueller report was a dud. All this excitement and bogus information from the press for two years amounted to the special counsel saying “yeah we didn’t find anything”. Actually what they found was nothing on collusion; they remained inconclusive on obstruction. The reason I said it was the “most frustrating part” was that Robert Mueller and his team invented a new legal standard, the “not exonerated” standard. Their conclusion from the tedious two and half year report, on obstruction of justice, was “we can’t confirm and we can’t deny”. This was beyond their authority. It’s like the prosecutor in a murder trial case saying “Well we couldn’t find evidence that Mr. Santino ordered the hit, but we can’t say he didn’t either”. Nonsense. If no evidence is found you walk away. You don’t get to prove innocence.

I’m sure Mueller’s prosecutors know this. But because of politics they needed some way to hang suspicion over the president. They needed something that would hint at wrong doing beyond the black and white report. I read just last week that the team of lawyers on the Mueller team ‘wiped’ their phones. Imagine if anyone from the Trump administration tried that. The information is retrievable through the NSA’s database though. If Trump gets reelected I think a lot of these guys are going to jail, or at least in serious legal trouble.

The last thing I’ll mention is the failure of Mueller appearing before the intelligence committee to answer questions in his report. Bob was abysmal. He couldn’t remember significant details of the case, needed an aid to explain questions and had to walk back answers the following day. York and others think he had declined significantly since the beginning of the investigation. It suggests maybe Mueller wasn’t really doing the work anyway and farming it out to others. Was he really as slow as he appeared or was he playing up the I’m-just-an-old-guy-who-forgets defense. If his signature investigation was a waste of everyone’s time, how best to distance himself from it? Make it look like he wasn’t really in charge and never had been.

OK so maybe it’s far-fetched but a lot of people in the Democrat party were counting on Mueller finding fraud and election interference, or at least obstruction. They needed something concrete to take to the American people and say “See! Trump stole the election now he’s going to be impeached!” To say the leadership in the House was disappointed is to understate the obvious.

It’s why they were so quick to with their next move, the whistleblower complaint.  

Institutions of Yore

 

Two separate podcasts convinced me that the institutions of old are fighting battles from another age.

The first interview was with Condoleezza Rice after being appointed the new director of the Hoover Institution. Hoover, for those who don’t know, is a right of center think tank focusing on free markets and liberty. It’s housed at Stanford University and boasts history scholars like Niall Ferguson and Victor Davis Hanson among its ranks. For me, Hoover’s been indispensable in public policy information. The second interview was Ben Sasse on the Ricochet podcast. He’s a Senator from Nebraska with big ideas and a solid understanding of the constitution.

 I’m suddenly less enamored of their big ideas and intellectual heft.

Their plans are brilliant, their prose is eloquent. But they don’t see how far gone the institutions are that we've trusted for new ideas. Too many are sitting around like knights discussing the finer points of wheat cultivation over a pint of beer (mead?). Meanwhile the dragon is burning up the town while people scramble for cover.

Senator Sasse wants to amend the constitution and get rid of the 17th amendment. It’s the one that changed how Senators are selected. State legislatures used to appoint them to 6 year terms instead of what we currently have, popular elections. Conservatives think going back to the old way would ensure that, ideas have their day. The Senate is where debate happens. He thinks the Senators are too willing to be on camera, too willing to use soundbites for radio and unwilling to do the tough work of weighing ideas. He is probably right but it's not an idea for right now.

Rice is a true believer in the American experiment and promoting our values abroad. She covered Russia, China and education in this country during her interview. On education she hopes to see a change in how we think of charter schools. I was encouraged that she gets how wide the chasm between public schools in rich neighborhoods and poor ones. Still, the questions and answers had a ‘yesteryear’ feel to them, not because of the issues but because of the timing.

Sasse and Rice and a whole lot of others like them are planning for a country that might not be around in a decade. That might sound ominous. But these institutions we’ve come to view as agents of change are hollowed out husks, held together by brainy public servants and their pet projects. They’ve missed the real issue of the day because they don’t see it. They’re still telling their Ivy League jokes (Ha ha sounds like a Harvard man!) and going on as if the country itself will hold together despite the obvious rot eating it from within, corruption.

I don’t mean only the classic understanding of it, where an official awards some construction contract to his brother-in law. That’s always been there. Corruption is simply looking the other way while real destruction takes place because it would harm your personal interests. It doesn’t have to be money. It could be a threat to public image or standing. Journalists from western newspapers like Bloomberg and Financial Times that work in China know exactly what NOT to write about. The risk of getting kicked out of the country is too great. It might sound harsh to think of this as corruption, it’s certainly not illegal. But it does represent looking the other way for a valued share of the market.  

 Without recognizing this plague we stand a very good chance of losing the country.

 The United States will be around in some form or another, likely divided and hopelessly splintered. I’m not picking on elites for their money or success. I don’t begrudge either but they have a responsibility to get in the fight. That fight is cultural right now and it only gets fixed with honest reflection about our (America’s) lack of morality. The lawlessness in our cities isn’t a tantrum by angry voters, it’s an attack against the foundational principles of the country. Corruption is how we got here, corruption of morals, corruption of business, corruption of governance.   

This is a time for honest reflection and a collective turning back to God. In other words, humility. Time for God’s people to ignore a lot of the vitriol and push for unity—real unity, not the one splashed across a Nike T-shirt that football players have to wear.

I wrote about the worship leader Sean Feucht last week. With his team of musicians traveling to large cities and inviting everyone to lift up their voice to the Creator, he is leading a tip of the spear movement.

My frustration at politicians and big idea thinkers is mostly of my own making. It’s never been the place to look for real change. I’m starting to adjust my compass as I write, thing’s a little sticky though.

Congress might not be where the fight it but they can make easier for the rest of us. In other words promote freedom and ensure any threats to speech, religion or assembly remain obscure, contained.  Get back to protecting individual liberties found in the first 10 amendments. Leave the 17^th alone for right now.

As much as I’ve criticized politicians we do need them to pay attention to the influences around them every day. Don’t worry about the institutions so much (the Senate, Schools, even the Church). Focus instead on people and use your platform to promote morality and be willing to fight for it. This is the tough part. You won’t get a lot of criticism promoting pet projects and tweaks to the system. A lot of them probably know what it takes to turn the tide of rebellion but are unwilling (so far) to do it.

Individuals tapped into their spiritual calling will become what institutions used to be, idea centers. I’m praying for a ripple effect that brings us back from the brink.   

 

Obsession--notes

 

I’m reading Obsession by Byron York right now.

I wanted a thorough recap of the Trump Russian collusion stuff that didn’t bog down too much in legal detail. I think I have a good summary in my head of the events that led to it. I never understood the connection between each of these different issues though. I remember the George Papadopoulos stuff. It always felt like a setup to me. George sounded like some half-wit from the press reports, a guy boozing it up and giving away state secrets. Nothing could be further from the truth. He came out sounding like a guy that got screwed by a process crime (making false statements) for the sin of joining Trump inc.

There is too much to rehash here with Papadopoulos. The basic framework: expert on Mid East joins Trump and is given information about Hilary's emails and Russia. That information is used to begin an investigation on him and make it look like the administration was fishing for dirt on Clinton. 

I wasn’t as clear on Carter Page. That was one story I didn’t remember too well. He’d gone to Moscow apparently but there was nothing in his background that sounded devious or untoward. In fact, later we found out that he was working with the CIA, a piece of info that was specifically ignored so the FBI could surveil him. Everyone thought he was guilty as hell-including a lot of conservative writers who couldn’t believe that Page was actually a decent public servant.

It’s a testament to the power of the media that other media types also got duped by false notions about Page.

I remember the meeting with Don Jr, Jared Kushner and the Russian woman (Veselnitskaya) who lobbied to have some legislation removed that prevented (adoptions I think) between Russia and the U.S. Of all the possibilities pointing to collusion this one at least seemed the most likely. But like the others it was a big dud. Looking back it seemed designed to make the most noise for the press, big spashy headlines and secret meetings.

“Meeting with Russian agent at Trump Tower” or “Russians trade dirt on Hilary for Sanction Relief”. This looks particularly intriguing on a chyron graphic.

The sketchiest piece of the whole thing was the email sent to Don Jr. from the Russian woman’s publicist about “dirt” on Hilary. Jr. replied that he liked what he heard. It looked bad to be meeting with a foreign official for dirt on your opponent. But it was a smokescreen to setup the event, nothing more. So Jr’s willingness to get dirt might have sounded dodgy but no crime was committed. The meeting itself was a ruse to promote an unrelated idea. The campaign thought the whole thing a waste of time.

The Michael Flynn incident still isn’t resolved. He was placed under an FBI investigation before Trump even took office and basically got railroaded by the investigators. Even Bryon York isn’t clear on why he was placed under surveillance by the FBI. Officially he talked with the Russian ambassador before taking office (during the transition period) and asked him to hold off on any big moves until the administration was in place. This is proper for an incoming National Security Advisor to do. He was asked about it by the FBI and said he didn’t remember. He was asked by Mike Pence about it and apparently lied to him. That got him fired. I’m not sure how much is true regarding Flynn and what he told the FBI or didn’t. He clearly didn’t think he was under oath at the time. It might not seem like much but if they are going to charge you for it they need to let you know you are under oath. That’s a basic legal standard. I blame James Comey for that one.

York mentioned something that I wasn’t familiar with, Trump’s supposed “gutting” of the Republican platform on Russia. This one is the biggest lie of all. Nothing was changed except for some language promising to support Ukraine. It did not promise weapons though. A delegate from Texas wanted tougher language on Russia and specific sanctions. They rejected changing it. As Byron York says, the platform actually looked much tougher toward Russia than previously. It’s a dumb thing to do anyway if you plan to pimp for Putin and the boys. Why signal your intentions by changing a platform? Platforms are mostly for domestic politicking. I can’t imagine they have any lasting influence on foreign policy. I guess this is why I’d never heard of it, it went away faster than Steve Bannon.

I’m only a few chapters in but it’s clear by late 2017, Mueller and his team have nothing. Here is where it devolves into a fishing expedition. Mueller’s guys start turning the whole fiasco into a way to find obstruction of justice since collusion was a dead end.

The surprising part for me was how committed the Trump team was to helping Mueller end it quickly. They handed over almost all documents requested by the team and even met with Mueller himself to emphasize how quick they wanted it to end. I guess most of them figured by helping out, playing ball, it could all go away quickly. And if there really is nothing illegal, why not help? The investigation was cutting into the regular affairs of governing. Not to mention Trump looked weak and hobbled whenever he would meet with world leaders. They were understandably reluctant to engage with a president who might be gone in a matter of months. That a serious problem for a new president.

But Mueller had different ideas. The fact that the investigation started digging like this is proof, it was never about Russian collusion.

 

 

That Lovin' Feelin'

Occasionally I’ll dust off something I’ve written in my
journal and clean it up for the blog. When I do that you know I’m out of ideas.
For whatever reason I wrote it a year ago and kind of gave up on it. Maybe it felt flat.
Maybe it lacked purpose. Whatever the reason, I’m trying again.

As a kid I had trouble pinpointing the reasons I like a particular song. But I’ve always thought the musical (melody) part is where the memories are, not the lyrics. It’s the sound of the piece that takes you back. Like the Righteous Brothers “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin”. Since 1964 the track
has been played on the radio something like 8 million times. That number includes all versions of it (Hall and Oats, Tom Jones) but still, that's an impressive run.  It’s from a different generation that I grew in with but I always liked the way it evokes sadness and loss. 

A good song contains both pointed lyrics and emotional heft. I especially love the falling melody at the end of the verse, gone, gone, gone. It drops with every utterance of the word “gone” and feels heavier each time.  

You lost that lovin' feelin'
Now it's gone, gone, gone, whoa-oh

I saw an interview with the writers of the song a few years ago on CBS’s Sunday Morning. I don’t mean the Righteous Brothers, it was written for them by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil in 1964. Actually Mann and Weil didn’t know who they were writing for. Phil Spector, recording extraordinaire,
commissioned them to write it. Spector mostly recorded mostly Black artists but thought of this song for the Righteous Brothers. There seemed to be some animosity toward the artists and their lack of humility surrounding the success of the song. The sense I got from the interview with the composers was they didn’t think the Brothers deserved to get the song. Although light on specific reasons it was clear they didn’t work well together. It’s hard to untangle old knots and assign blame. I usually side with the writers because I imagine singers, like actors, are an arrogant group concerned with getting credit. 

This is probably unfair but we all have our biases. 

My earliest memory of the song was in Top Gun. The track isn’t actually played until the end but it
informs so much of the film that it feels like we’ve already listened to it a few times before the movie ends. The scene in the first act shows the young pilots embarrassing a beautiful woman at an open mic night in a local dive. It’s a scene built to show how assertive and care free the cocky pilots are.
But the song sticks in our heads until the end and at the closing credits we hear the verse, “Bring back that lovin' feelin' cause it's gone, gone, gone” as the fighter jet soars into a setting sun.

I like how they tie together Maverick’s (Cruise) lost love of flying with the death of his navigator Goose (Edwards). Sorry was that a spoiler? The first half of the film is love and passion and live for the day type recklessness. The second half is somber and measured with a focus on mortality. It’s a perfect emotional break for the song, what we used to have and what we need to get back. Even through the pain we remember how much it all meant, how much we loved.

Movies and songs no matter how sad and destructive should ALWAYS leave us with a hopeful sense that some spark still exists for better. The future needs to be always just out there, alive and within reach.

The song is an obvious reference to a couple that’s fallen out of love. No one knows how it started but the story is familiar. They took each other for granted; they looked other places for happiness or fulfillment. Every case is different but the feelings are the same. Trying to get back what
was lost is a different battle than trying to gain something you’ve never had. Whether romantic love or a passion for a hobby, hope is near if you can grab it.

But only if you remember how much you loved and hold on tight before it’s gone, gone, gone.

Why Worship?

 

Worship is just singing in church right, a way to pass time at church before the pastor comes out?

I’ve been following this guy Sean Feucht from California who has started setting up his worship team in large cities. He’s from a church in Redding called Bethel. (Yes, I had to look it up).  I’m not sure if he advertises these events or just goes on TV to get the word out. (Most of what I’ve seen are reposts from friends on Facebook). He has some kind of schedule because I know he started in Minneapolis after the death of George Floyd. I think it’s time to really support this as followers of Christ. Even if the music isn’t your particular brand or if you’re put off by emotional displays. A friend of mine once called it ‘feeling the music’ as in “That ain’t one them churches where people feel the music is it?”

 Now is not the time to nitpick. I’m not comfortable seeing cities get burned and looted while the media pretends it’s a legitimate civil rights event. I don’t see anyone else confronting the darkness gripping our cities and shining a light of truth. That’s not to dump on organizations helping the homeless and providing shelter. They do great work. But those are defensive measures in the spiritual war, a way of cleaning up the wreckage and providing hope. Few are willing to go on offense, stand on a stage and invite people to acknowledge the Savior.

So why worship? Because it’s an act of humility and on a big scale it’s unifying. Political change must begin with an understanding that we (Americans) need divine inspiration. Without that humility all the brilliant ideas are just bluster. Without surrender there is no improvement. Without a spiritual fight there is no victory.   

Sean’s focus on Portland and Los Angeles for his first couple of events show how committed he is to opening a front in the difficult areas. I read something he posted about not escaping to the suburbs anymore, where the applause is easier (my words not his). It felt like an admission that the hostile climates are where the real war is. It’s a challenge to himself and others to take our faith into unfriendly zones and worship. We’ve ignored cities for too long and now the sewers are backing up and flooding the landscape.

Whatever sins we’ve made as a country this isn’t a time to assign blame. That doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty to go around, but worship allows us chance to step into something larger than ourselves and surrender.

The lawlessness and cruelty are out of control. We can identify the problems pretty well. They start by removing God and end with societal collapse. The solutions are more problematic. It’s tough to get people to agree in normal political times, much more in a heated political season. But our problems aren’t really political in the sense that we just need to listen to each other. If that was the case Sean Feucht would be doing national dialogues. I think worship is what we’re left with because everything else has failed. Maybe we should have tried it first. Some of our cities and states, whole regions actually, are beyond the discussion phase. Violence and rebellion are the order of the day.  

Worship says “I can’t do this, but I know Who can”. Collectively it says “We can’t do this, but we know Who can”.  

 

 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.  Ephesians 6:12

Slow Pace or No Pace

 

I got lazy tonight and decided not to run.

I’ve been working hard and I know…yada yada yada…everyone works hard but sometimes I just want to sit. My regular schedule looks like this for now: Monday, run 3 to 4 miles with mild hills. Thursday, run 3 to 4 miles with hills unless at the gym. Saturday, early group run according to distance set by leader. Right now it’s between 6 and 7 but jumping up to 8 quickly. Cool mornings in August are refreshing rarity, like napping in the shade after a picnic. I consider myself blessed that last week was one such event, mid to high sixties with a little breeze. But summer giveth and summer taketh away; Saturday looks like another sweaty, torturous jaunt through the city. 

I probably complain and also praise the weather more than just about anything else. It’s the single most important external event to any running day. Yes, sometimes my foot gets tight and takes a few laps to loosen up, or my calves won’t stretch out, or my energy is low. Mostly it’s the heat and humidity. Part of my laziness this evening is firmly rooted in that sinking feeling that comes over me when I think about having to lace up the New Balances and hoof it around the park. It’s hot dammit! I have to train after work right now. I’m going in early so morning runs are out of the question.

I suppose I could get up at 5:30 a.m. but It’s not likely it would last beyond a few days.

That leaves afternoons in the heat which is at least a short affair. I barely get 3 miles in before stopping, overheated. But there has to be some benefit to putting in work in the afternoon sun right? Fine, no more complaining. 

I read something interesting about slow pace running that I didn’t know before. It’s actually good for you in a variety of ways. First it improves your endurance and strengthens the muscles to adapt to the rigors of long distance. I noticed how much stronger I was once I passed up older distance milestones. In order to hit the longer runs I had to seriously slow up. Slow running improves the efficiency of your cardiovascular system and improves glycogen stores. I’m not sure what glycogen is but it sounds important. There was a helpful table in a women’s running magazine I found online. Does it still apply to men?

“Slow” is defined as conversational pace or the pace at which you could comfortably carry on a conversation. Keep that pace up whenever doing a middle distance run (90 minutes roughly) and feel the gains!!! I was surprised to read that because I assumed faster was better. Marathon runners are constantly comparing notes on times, improvements, personal records (PRs). Why not run hard every time? The answer seems to be a combination of avoiding injury and burning out. That’s why proper training is so important. Nothing is worse than getting overwhelmed. This is true in other sports too. You build up to game level events through steady, consistent improvements.  

Take it slow and build up a reserve so when the test comes, the body is ready. The races are the test. They’re the event where all the tough slogs in the heat get to matter. You just can’t skip too many out of laziness.

Save Us From the Technocrats

 

I listened to a podcast with John Yoo the other day. 

He’s a legal scholar who knows the Constitution like a favorite passage of scripture. As a result he gets called to these shows to explain judicial decisions and Supreme Court rulings. I like to hear his explanations because he has a way of breaking it down (dumbing it down?) for people like me. Lawyers can get into the weeds pretty quick when talking case law. John was lukewarm on Trump after the election. He's on team Trump now after looking at the last 4 years and probably concluding, 45 isn’t the monster made out in the press.

He talked about technocrats in government and it reminded me of our Tulsa mayor who seems to be one. He pushed for mask mandates and wants to set up a board to review all police incidents. Want a good idea of how technocracy works to undermine official power? Read up on the fraud known as “Trump-Russia Collusion’ for a textbook example. A group of top intelligence officials spied on a campaign to undermine the election and then drummed up some nonsense about Russia being responsible. Then set up a two year false flag operation known as the Mueller Report to ostensibly cover it up.

The Mueller Report was the result of appointed officials deciding they know better than the voters. Forgetting their proper role, which is to evaluate intelligence and make recommendations, they seized the ship and tried to arrest the captain. That’s how it plays out in worst case scenarios. But the thinking that leads to mutiny is rooted in technocratic visions of leadership.

Technocrats like models, data, consensus and lab sourced ideas: while conservatives like to grow the economy and give tax incentives to businesses. Neither vision is easy to pull off but technocrats are more likely to ignore personal freedoms at the expense of broad consensus.  Mostly the left manages cities because the right doesn’t want to. But Republicans shouldn’t give up on cities any more than they should give up on education reform. Large and small cities need reform where technocrats have failed to deliver.

Cameras are everywhere in big cities; downtowns are connected and invasive. What is the point of all the data collection anyway? I’m all for improving efficiency in transportation and garbage collection. I’m for finding out where the heaviest traffic exists and designing better roads. I’m for closing bad schools and replacing bad teachers. I'm for structural improvements and water, sewer and treatment efficiencies.  

I'm against overbearing ordinances and mask mandates. I’m against letting the homeless sleep under bridges and put up tent cities. California’s governor Gavin Newsom mentioned the health threat during his state of the state speech last year (2019). He cited typhus and syphilis, medieval diseases reappearing along with the gathering of large populations of homeless. In San Francisco they are finally getting rid of tent cities a few hundred at a time. But does Newsom, who used to be the mayor there, attribute the meteoric rise over the last few years in bad policy by the city? Since 2014 they dropped mandatory treatment for the mentally ill. Proposition 47 also decriminalized hard drugs and allowed non-violent offenders to get out of jail without any forced treatment. They incentivize homelessness and open drug use by not cracking down on it. 

So why blame the technocrats? Because decisions about decriminalizing get made in groups responsible for making policy. They have agendas based on preconceived notions about homelessness, drug use, mental illness. Most think homelessness is a problem of expensive rents, ridiculous! How many people do you know get prices out of a market and decide to live in a tent? It's not as scientific as they would have us believe. When you start from a faulty premise you get a faulty result. Also these groups (activists, professors, wonks) don't need to get votes or show proof, creating an insidious shadow government. 

What is my problem with technocracy you ask? Not the idea of using expertise to improve life, but in thinking expertise is the ONLY thing needed to solve life’s eternal problems.

 People are messy. We are selfish and mean, arrogant and irresponsible. We drink and drug and gamble and cheat on taxes, we cheat on spouses. Some even refuse to wear masks (monsters!) and disregard speed limits. Adherents to expert rule believe they can change human nature to better fit with the zeitgeist of a modern society. Not all at once, but over the course of decades (millennia?) they believe in shifting opinions enough to replace ‘outdated’ notions like individual liberty. Why? Because what they offer is so much better, just wait and see what we can build!

Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler (behavioral economists) wrote about changing peoples’ minds so they make the 'right' decisions in the book Nudge. The idea is to suggest slight modifications in behavior to achieve a desired outcome. When Facebook opts you in for some service you didn’t want or ask for, it’s considered a ‘nudge’. You can still opt out of course but it’s not the default. The traditional way to do this is to opt in, like when the cashier asks for your email at Macy and you tell them to get lost. Facebook does it that way because it’s more effective at nudging people to do what FB wants them to.

Governments can also design rate hikes like this too. By say, raising taxes and forcing people to go to the ballot box to vote it down. It’s a sneaky way of saying “Don’t worry you still get to vote on it”. I can’t say if that has happened yet, but I wouldn't put it past a technocrat.  

So what’s the big deal when your ‘nudged’ decision may have been best for you anyway?

 Because why should local officials get to make the call on what is beneficial to a person, a group of people? Even assuming their aims benefit the community, what makes their collective decision the correct one? Especially on issues wearing masks for instance. Naturally you’d say because of the data, but the data is all over the map. Technocrats like to pretend they’re driven by pure science and numbers but when the numbers don’t support them, or aren’t clear, they do what other cities do. Which is just old fashioned peer pressure.  

It’s impossible to understand the needs of thousands of individuals that reside in your city, health or financial. City governments are notorious for overspending and under-budgeting. They have a record in most cities of making bad choices with money. The city of Boston built a very expensive tunnel highway to ease traffic. The project (called the Big Dig) was poorly managed and ran way over budget. At least they got something useful out of it.

Technocrats are people too and come with faulty software like the rest of us. They’re greedy and power mad and use their particular expertise to influence as much as possible. Doctor Fauci is a staple of our news updates now and he’s earned a measure of respect for his years of service. But he’s said conflicting things about masks and the nature of the Covid virus going back to February. He’s entitled to be wrong of course but the shifting in positions should be a warning to anyone that thinks doctors should be the final word in health care.

No one knows all and even with our fancy way of collecting data and monitoring everything from weather patterns to heart arrhythmias, we do the best we can. Decisions from government should be limited and local, mitigating the effects of sweeping changes on millions of lives.

No more shutdowns and no more mask requirements. John Yoo would agree.