Some Pretty Dumb Legislation

 

 

Asa Hutchinson is the Republican Governor of a very backward Republican state and I rarely agree with him on anything, but on Monday of last week he vetoed a ban on “gender affirming medical care,” calling it a “vast government overreach” and a “product of the cultural war in America.”

But Arkansas isn’t the only state where lawmakers are trying to pass this kind of law. As if to prove that this nation is really too stupid to have responsible voting, 17 other states have tried to pass similar legislation. And of course the thought immediately comes to mind: to what end? What is the motivation of the idiots who are promoting this kind of legislation?

Well, it’s hard to nail down because I don’t think the real reason, gender prejudice, has anything to do with the proposed legislation, but then these people are way too stupid to understand that.  For decades we have been dealing with homophobic prejudices in this country. That has been happening for centuries all around the world but that is not what this is about. Of course the clowns who are trying to pass these laws think it is, but as I’ve already stated, that’s only because they are too brute-stupid to understand what gender affirming medical care is. If they had the intelligence to understand it, they would probably be all out for it. Then again, maybe not!

But the bottom line should be, who cares? Why is it anyone’s business if a person who has been born with a psyche that doesn’t match his or her physiognomy wants to make a bodily change? Why should the government be interested in this? The reality is, and Hutchinson pointed this out, that Republicans, who are always whining about creating small government, should be outraged about this attempt at government interference in what is essentially a very private matter.

The fact is, these clowns who are dumb enough to be homophobic but don’t understand that this is not a homophobic question, really need a hobby, just one that’s not to mentally taxing. Blocks might be a safe choice.

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This blog has been attacking crony capitalism under many guises for a long time but it has recently come to my attention that there are many out there who are confused about the difference between “crony capitalism,” which is bad for the country and “entrepreneurial capitalism,” which is most often good for the nation. So let’s talk about that.

This nation was built on “entrepreneurial capitalism,” but it could be destroyed by crony capitalism if that odious strain of bad business practice is allowed to continue to pollute the economy.  The basic difference is; one is based on men with ability and ideas who are willing to put it all on the line to discover, create or develop a product or a procedure that will fill some need.  They create something that will move the needle forward. The other is the antithesis of creativity or chance taking. It is a process whereby the children of the idle rich manage the family business, which may have been created by an entrepreneur, in a carefully constrained manner that now leads in a direction in which no consideration will ever endanger the bottom line.

“Entrepreneurial capitalism,” is built on taking chances, jumping into the fire with the result of either great reward or utter failure. It’s the American Dream, the reason why people come to this country where royalty is acknowledged by success not blood lines and where fame and fortune are granted to those who reach out and grasp them by the throat.

“Crony capitalism,” is based on the protection of wealth at all costs. It’s based on deal making that rewards the already rich for making more money without taking any chances. It’s the CEO mentality that creates nothing but money, where the product and its quality are insignificant as long as the price of stock rises each year. Its model executive is one who has moved, year after year, up the corporate ladder, never taking a chance, never making waves and who now, as CEO, will keep the company stable by making deals that will have as their goal the creation of income, disregarding all issues of quality, health, environment or national security with an end goal of higher stock price and multi-million dollar executive bonuses.

Though not the birthdate of crony capitalism, its moment of acceptance as a significant part of the economy was the creation of Ronald Reagan’s “trickle down economics,” a phony scam that poisoned our economic structure ever since its inception. Instituted as an excuse to lower corporate taxes based on the false theory that the resulting profits would go to an expansion that would create new jobs, the reality was that they went to higher stock dividends and corporate bonuses. This disastrous scam has all but eliminated the economic structure of the middle class and destroyed the concept of a good day’s work for a fair day’s pay.  It has left us with a work force that must depend on food stamps even while working a full forty-hour week, a concept unheard of before Reagan’s ignorance of economics and his party’s greed ravaged the economic landscape of the nation.

Most entrepreneurial capitalists are small businessmen who succeed or fail on some kind of regular basis. If only there were a way to engender their spirit of adventure into the bloodlines of our current captains of industry, we might again become a nation on a path to a good sustainable life for all.