Why hasn't there been a coup d'état in the United States?
It is a pity that more Americans do not know and converse with members of the US military officer corps. Especially senior members like admirals and generals, who are (generally) among the smartest and best educated members of our society, after scientists and medical doctors. While it is true their personalities and demeanors tend to be "conservative" in the older sense of that hijacked word, they are also very progressive about matters re maximization of use of talent which includes education, equal opportunity and also environmentalism. Above all, they are absolutely and quasi-RELIGIOUSLY dedicated to the utter superiority of constitutional civilian rule. And they preach it to the lower ranks. THAT is your reason why a coup won't happen... or at least one we'd call a coup.(Anecdotally, one might call the threatened mass resignations that led to the ousting of Donald Rumsfeld and the appointment of Gates and Mullen to run the Pentagon, then prying George W. Bush's incompetent mitts off of our military for a while, somewhat of an intervention. But it was all done meticulously legally and without any threats except that a lot of flag officers might leave, all at once. It did the trick and saved us all. It is was utterly quiet.)(BTW anecdotally, no president has been so loathed by senior officers than GWB.)Mind you things are mixed. The Navy has been largely immune to the campaign by Christian fundamentalists to take over the service academies, while the USAF Academy in Colorado Springs appears to have been dangerously compromised.People who discuss this issue without knowing any of this are bereft of needed information and alas lacked the curiosity to realize it. Do not be satisfied with smug nostrums and assumptions. David Brinworlds of DAVID BRIN
Are there any intelligent and/or highly educated people who support Donald Trump?
I know plenty of well educated “decent" people who support Donald Trump.Among them are several Ivy League grads, multiple MBAs, and Ph.Ds, college professors, multiple lawyers, including one who has argued (and won) a case before the Supreme Court, multiple M.D.s, several social workers, and many, many others. I can add small business owners, retired command grade military officers, corporate officers and a few rocket scientists- we are in Houston, the home of NASA.Most of these folks are generous supporters of various community projects to help the poor. Some, like myself are active in service organizations like Rotary (of which I am a member) that has nearly eradicated polio after raising and spending over $500,000,000 with the help of a matching grant from the Gates Foundation. Conservatives routinely give of their time to help others. In fact, it is a well established statistical fact conservatives give substantially more to charities than liberals. Liberals, on average give less than half of what conservatives give to charities. Liberals are only generous with government money.Margaret Thatcher wisely noted this when she observed “ The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.”Most of the generous people of whom I speak are members of my parish church, in long term committed marriages, with successful, stable lives, who care about others and who live decent, productive lives.I would guess that 80-90% of my parishioners voted for Donald Trump.I spent 15 years in the corporate world as a banker, I went to seminary and was ordained a priest in the Anglican Church in North America, where I first served as a church planter, and now as rector of a parish .I have been married to the same wonderful woman for four decades,. Together, we have raised two daughters.I hold an undergraduate degree from the University of Houston, two earned masters degrees ( Master of Arts in Religion; Master of Divinity). Related to my previous career, I am a graduate of the National School of Commercial Lending at the University of Oklahoma, and the Southwestern Graduate School of Banking at S.M.U. ( MBA in Bank Management).In 2008 I was awarded a Doctor of Divinity Degree ( Honorary).Most of the people I know personally voted for Donald Trump. So maybe you need to expand your circle of friends.Of course, I live in Texas, in flyover country. We are “deplorables”. You know, “ bitter people who cling to guns and religion.”
How effective will Obama's scapegoating of insurance companies be?
Everything they're doing was MANDATED by this legislation. Every price increase is the results of the legislation's MANDATES. The insurance companies have been told precisely what to do and how they must do it by this legislation. Insurance companies have no wiggle room and are under extraordinary scrutiny by the Federal government. So, how, exactly, are the predicted...and they were predicted, all of them!...outcomes of Obama's crap legislation the insurance company's fault? It isn't. So, how affective will his using the insurance companies as a scapegoat for his crap legislation be? Will the American people accept this? Will they call them on it? Or will Obama get yet another pass for his f**k up?
Why aren’t jobs coming back to the USA?
Those jobs are gone. They don’t exist anymore. They haven’t gone to China. They’ve just gone.Manufactured goods aren’t built by people any more. They’re built by machines. The people in factories are only there because, in China, a human being is cheaper than a robot for simple pick & place tasks. If you moved manufacturing back to the US, a robot would be cheaper, and there would be no humans in the factory, and thus no jobs.Computation isn’t done by rooms full of clerks with green eyeshades any longer. It’s done by computers (that are made in the USA). Ditto with filing.Five years from now long-haul trucks will all be robots, and a million jobs will disappear without moving anywhere at all.There are some new jobs opening up in the USA. They are for software engineers and technicians. Do you remember your friends Alice and Bob from high school. The ones who cut math class and gave stupid answers in biology? Do you think Alice and Bob are cut out for four years of college and a Computer Science career? What are Alice and Bob going to do?Other reasons why jobs aren’t coming back to the USThe US has laws against slavery, but some other countries do not.The US has laws requiring employers to protect workers from obvious sources of harm like carcinogenic chemicals, rotating machinery, and emotional trauma. There are countries that will still permit people to do these jobs. Are these the jobs you want to bring back to the US?Some employers offer a wage below the subsistence level in the United States. They must scour the world for places where living conditions are so poor, and people are so desperate, that they will do these jobs just to delay their death by starvation. You would think that desperate, needy people would be grateful for this work, but instead, they frequently revolt, torching the workplaces and slaughtering the managers. What ingrates!
What would you do to stop wasteful government spending in Washington?
Reward federal agencies for coming in under budget and STOP punishing them for saving money. Right now, if a group in the federal government does not spend all the money allotted in the budget for that year, they lose the money and they are further punished by having their budget reduced by that amount the following year. This flawed practice only encourages them to spend any excess monies at the end of the fiscal year to avoid having that money taken away and not getting the same budget the following year. I have personally seen millions and millions of dollars spent every year on things that are not necessarily needed just to zero the account by the end of the year. Why not reward them by letting them carry that money over to the next year and not cut the budget the following year. If over a period of three years, the budget is still not being spent, then reduce the overage by only 50%. We need to encourage agencies to be good stewards of our tax dollars, and stop punishing them for not spending everything that was allotted them that year.