The Nature VS Nurture Problem -- Part II  --

What Do We Mean By "Environment?"

 

Students of Darwinian "evolution" believe that all living forms have evolved gradually based on an essential and ongoing adaptation to their environment. Thus the giraffe's long neck is attributable to its ability to reach forage that lies beyond the reach of other ruminant animals, and the walrus' thick layer of fat allows it to survive in arctic cold waters.

But humans have survived in all regions of the world under every conceivable condition--from the jungles of Borneo, to the arid Australian outback, and the Northern tundra of the Arctic. How can this be? What happened to Jared Diamond's theory about climate and geography determining human advances?  The obvious fact is that modern humans, who first appeared 50-100 thousand years ago, and found themselves blessed with an innovative brain, have had little need to adapt because they figured out how to control and master their environment. Since the dawn of modern humanity, our inventions (like Fire, Tools, Clothing, and Mechanical Engines) have made us increasingly independent of the physical environment.

Now, there have been a few isolated regions, bereft of favorable climate and geography, that, as Diamond asserts, have limited the inhabitants' ability to progress from primitive conditions. But, those are exceptions; the vast bulk of the world's people lived in reasonably benign conditions and they steadily and increasingly advanced their well being--from violent and ignorant societies to advanced enlightened communities. Think Classical Egypt, China, India, and the Western Civilization that grew from Greece, to Rome, to Europe to America.  

Those successful regions of the world all made extraordinary advances in the degree to which they control the environment--just stay in a five-star hotel, or fly to a foreign luxury resort, or have a pacemaker installed at the Mass General Hospital, and you will understand this progress from our shared savage past. Or, equally important, recognize the personal safety and law and order that comes from our Constitutions, judicial courts, Bills of Right, and trained fire and police forces. Long gone, for most humans, are the constant dread of fang, claw, civil strife, and hunger. How did this huge progress happen?
 
We have reason to believe that those of us who inherited this success, and perhaps even added to it, are not any smarter than those who initiated it. Our artists, statesmen, and scientists are certainly no smarter than those who made ancient Greece a wonder of the world. The subsequent success has been due to a gradual accumulation of recorded knowledge and the development of beneficial social and political institutions.  Thus, our extraordinary "evolution" has been cultural, and not biological.
 
The cultural environment humans now grow up in varies around the world, and even from town to town, and family to family. In spite of the current fashion to consider all cultures as "equal," there is no doubt that those different environments have very different success stories.  Would you really like to have been born in Uganda, Iran, or sub-Saharan Africa? Or, equally undesirable, to a single welfare mom in Detroit or Chicago? Or into a radical Muslim community in the Middle East? The birth lottery, what largely determines a child's future, is not biological; it is not all about IQ or EQ, or one's looks or personality--it is primarily about the culture a newborn is raised in. A child will obviously live a happier and more productive life if raised in an empowering and ennobling culture. And a nation will rise or fall depending on how many of its citizens develop and mature within a positive empowering environment.  So, what is a good environment?

 It is currently in fashion to concentrate on the physical environment--the degree of poverty, the availability of modern classrooms, athletic and extra-curricular opportunities, social outlets, etc. The emphasis on these accessories to "growing-up" is a recent phenomenon, dating perhaps from John Dewey's time less than a century ago-- But, the world, and most of its people , made huge strides forward for thousands of years before that.  

 
If the physical environment needed for societal advance was merely to provide a minimum foundation, perhaps the same is true for individual children growing into adulthood.  If so, a relatively benign physical environment may be seen as only a first condition for success. In all those places, from Scotland to Japan, that possessed only average climate and geography something more was needed. And that something more is what allowed some societies to advance more or less than others.  The same is true for our children--it is not enough to be born into a clean safe neighborhood, and sent to modern schools and the most elaborate playing fields. Something else determines the child's future success and happiness.

There is really only one reasonable explanation for mankind's advances, and that answer also makes clear why some societies advanced more than others in comfort and freedom:  It has been the cultural attitudes and institutions that have allowed and encouraged productive behavior from its people. Similarly, even the future of those children from the most favored environments, will rise and fall based  on their values and attitudes.   Part III of this series will elaborate on which cultural factors have determined national advances and how that is connected with each individuals own growth.

The Nature VS Nurture Problem -- Part I --

What Forces Shape the Adult Person?

 

It is common knowledge that every individual is unique. But what determines the many combinations that make each of us different? And, let's face it, those final differences, at maturity, make some individuals much more competent and praise-worthy than others. Since we know that all human embryos, everywhere in the world, are endowed with an approximately equal range of potential, why do some end up as aborigines grubbing in the ground for food, while others end up teaching Astro-Physics at MIT? 

 

Most reasonable observers agree that all human adults are shaped from conception to adulthood by the interplay of two forces:  their genes and the environment they are exposed to. Those that stress the environment are of the general opinion that the new born infant is actually a "blank slate" waiting to be developed and matured strictly by whatever environment and nurturing he or she is exposed to. But even they, while advocating the supremacy of nurture over nature, will usually concede that each child is stamped with certain predetermined traits, most obviously height, skin color, body shape, hair and eye color, the various forms of intelligence, predisposition to specific diseases, and even individual personality traits. In those respects, we all tend to resemble our parentage.

 

The "nature" people argue, rather ineffectively, that most everything about a person is predetermined at birth with little subsequent impact from the environment. This argument is sustained only if you consider an adult to be no more than his physical appearance and personality. Numerous best-selling books by eminent academics stress this "predetermined" nonsense by concentrating merely on what are really quite superficial traits.  Being born a natural "blond," or with an attractive physique or personality, will help a person succeed in life, but there is much more to a mature adult than just a pretty face. Simple examination of history's great men and women shows that they functioned in extraordinary manner regardless of their widely different inherited characteristics.

 

Modern neuroscience has provided environmentalists with support for their emphasis on the importance of positive nurturing.  It appears that human beings have the unique distinction, compared to most all other living forms, of possessing brain structures that develop gradually after birth in response to challenges encountered and environments experienced. Unlike a gazelle, that can get up and flee a lion within minutes after birth, humans accumulate specific skills until they are about 25 years of age. Gazelles, like ants and bees, are pre-programmed, largely determined by genes, and lack the adaptability to acquire important skills best suited for their particular environment. This adaptability, a gradual accumulation of skills and knowledge by each young person, renders the human adult light years ahead of the child he once was.

 

 Now, granted, genes do contribute to some of those advances gained as a child grows up. A child with a certain type of brain, one that is especially facile with abstract or algorithmic concepts, may turn out to be a great scientist; and one with a high level of physical skills may be a great athlete or dancer. But those acquired skills cannot be developed in a vacuum. There are virtually no scientists or ballet dancers in the remote jungles of undeveloped areas of the globe. There has to be an enabling society and supportive institutions for any significant and positive development. And, even within an advanced society, one that offers wide exposure to enabling experiences, many great minds and bodies languish in obscurity, undeveloped, and never applied to beneficial activities, despite being endowed with the most favorable genetic blueprints. 

 

Thus, although it seems fairly well established that genes are a relatively small part of it, and environment is critical in shaping human development, there is little consensus on what the most favorable "environment" should be. Many parents devote extraordinary effort in trying to create the best environment for their children only to despair at the frequently mediocre results. Social engineers call for more school funding, headstart programs, more college scholarships, a "new" math, and every possible reform du jour. It would very helpful to know what really counts, and what is wasted.

 

Sometimes it pays to step back, take a fresh look, and see if you have strayed off course. The folly of pursuing useless policies, or accepting what are commonly accepted solutions, is an all too human failing. It may pay to re-evaluate the environment we are providing our children, and that will be considered in Part II of this blog.

 

How the Republicans won the "Fiscal Cliff" Battle

The compromised settlement enacted over the New Year Holiday has been hailed as a win for Obama who, as the main stream media spins the story, ran circles around a confused and incompetent Republican leadership. Nothing could be further from the truth. The hypocrisy of this Administration, that claims above all to be protecting the Middle Class, was revealed when it went into the negotiations with no intent on extending the payroll tax breaks. Right off the bat, they were intent on hitting the middle class and working poor with a substantial tax increase that will show up in reduced paychecks this week. So much for protecting those in the middle!

Further, the very idea of extending the Bush tax cuts went against everything they stood for-- for years they have criticized Dubya for that tax cut--and now they have extended them for a second time and made them permanent!  The increase of 3% on incomes over $450K is a paltry difference--most people in that category won't feel it, and will continue to get most of their income from capital gains, dividends, tax exempt interest, and sheltered sources immune to that 3% increase. Basically, the Democrats fought for the Republican/Bush tax cuts. Plus they renewed  the $5 million estate tax exemption, and even added a reduced tax rate on dividends and capital gains for those fat cats with income over $ 450K!

 I suspect the Republicans accomplished this huge win by using the good cop-bad cop gambit: The leadership "used" the tea party members as the bad cops, arguing they could not pass any legislation that did not slash spending and entitlements. But the Republicans then hinted that those sticky wickets might be deferred provided the Bush tax cuts were extended. The Democrats fell for this ploy by offering to extend everything Bush did except for a token 3% increase on ordinary income over $450K. The Republicans then hinted that that might pass muster with their base, provided the deferral of the entitlement spending cuts was only extended for two months. The administration then went ahead, got their minions to join enough Republicans to pass that compromise, and called it a victory.  After all, they had soaked the rich and avoided spending cuts.

Lost in the media blitz was the fact that Obama had campaigned on a $250K income threshold, a reduction in the estate tax exemption, and had repeatedly stated that those points were "non-negotiable."  But he caved on both! When will the media recall the "Read my Lips" line, which would lampoon Obama's stance throughout the "crisis."  

The brilliant aspect of all this was that the Republicans had cornered the Democrats from the beginning into seeking a virtually total extension of the Bush tax cuts and a temporary escape from the sequestration nightmare that will cut entitlement spending. George W. Bush must be very pleased today to see his oft-criticized tax reductions made permanent, and the Democrats crowing about it! And, hopefully, Speaker Boehner and his colleagues in the House are lying in wait for another win on March 3, when they might be able to head toward a balanced budget by cutting spending and slowing the spiraling national debt.

 

Our Failed Elite

Dr Barbara Bellar, senate candidate in Illinois, recently introduced Mitt Romney at a rally for women, and took a delightful poke at ObamaCare:

We are going to be gifted with a health care plan that we are forced to purchase, and fined if we don’t,” Bellar continues, “signed by a president who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, by a government which has already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare, all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that’s broke.  What could go wrong?" 

Obama's Failed Foreign Policy

Shades of President Carter Revisited.

On June 18, 2012, the Huffington Post ran a news story about the recent unfortunate turn of events in Egypt's latest change of government. The news story outlines how the fundamentalist Islamists are now taking on the military to establish Islamist rule. And it describes how in both Tunisia and Libya, the Arab Spring is bringing forth a new bevy of fundamentalist states:

"At their campaign headquarters, the Brotherhood officials and supporters were ebullient over the turn of fate: The fundamentalist group that was banned for decades and repeatedly subjected to crackdowns under Mubarak's rule now held the chair that their nemesis was ousted from by last year's 18 days of mass protests. The uprising was launched by secular, leftist young activists, joined only later by the Brotherhood's leadership as millions took to the street, seeking an end to the authoritarian, corrupt regime.

"Now some in Brotherhood were ready to challenge the generals. "Down with military rule," the supporters chanted.

"The Arab Spring uprisings have brought greater power to Islamists in the countries where longtime authoritarian leaders were toppled – but Eygpt is the only one to have an Islamist president. The Islamist Ennahda party won elections in Tunisia for a national assembly and it leads a coalition government, but the president is a leftist. Libya's leadership remains in confusion and there is no president, though Islamists play a strong role, and an Islamist party is part of the coalition government in Yemen."

This scenario has to remind us of the late 1970's, when under President Jimmy Carter's "enlightened" foreign policy almost a dozen nations fell under Communist dominion. That record number of lost nations, attained in a mere three years, dwarfed all the conquests the Soviets had made during the preceding 25 years of Cold War conflicts and Soviet backed insurrections.

Now, in just three years, President Obama has, by a series of ill-conceived gaffes in foreign policy, turned the tide in North Africa over to the Islamic fundamentalists. Hillary Clinton probably should share the blame in this turn of events which has placed Israel at ever greater risk. Now, with radical Islam on her Western flank, our strongest ally is truly surrounded.

And to attain this failure, the Obama administration had to join in the aerial bombardment of Libya, which posed no threat to America. That expensive conflict represented the worst type of aggression under international law, and signaled to the world that American presidential policy had added assassination of foreign leaders to its allowed tools of trade. By doing so, we gave good reason to the Muslims for hating America while opening the door to a new radical government in Africa.

Seeking Democracy in America: Vote 99

Seeking Democracy in America: Vote 99

This bogspot commendably seeks to stamp out corruption in Congress and work for the 99% instead of handing out favors to the 1% elite that are in bed with the Wall Street and Washington elites. Sound Good? Unfortunately, the writers seem to believe that the way to help the 99% is for the elites in government to hand out favors to the 99% and "to stimulate spending." Thus, a misplaced faith in government continues unabated. Instead of scaling back government, and allowing the entrepreneurs to do their thing, the proposed reform efforts are aimed at merely redirecting the failed government programs that got us in the present mess. It is so easy to state good intentions, but rarely do we see the intentions matched by actions that will gain those worthy ends.

Another Scientist Ignored--Political Correctness Strangles MSM

The Mainstream Media (MSM) is so degraded that I have recently taken to watching the Newsbusters site which reports news from a more liberated viewpoint. Plus, it features a comedy-video by Jodie Miller that happily and cryptically skewers today's political elite. Tuesday's edition was highlighted by Tom Blumer's article about Global Warming--reporting on a recent presentation by MIT Professor Richard Lindzen before the House of Commons. The professor brings a lifetime of expertise in atmospheric conditions and was introduced as "one of the world's greatest atmospheric physicists" by James Delingpole of the UK Telegraph.

Professor Lindzen remarked that "I will simply try to clarify what the debate over climate change is really about. It most certainly is not about whether climate is changing: it always is. It is not about whether CO2 is increasing: it clearly is. It is not about whether the increase in CO2, by itself, will lead to some warming: it should. The debate is simply over the matter of how much warming the increase in CO2 can lead to, and the connection of such warming to the innumerable claimed catastrophes.

. . .The evidence is that the increase in CO2 will lead to very little warming, and that the connection of this minimal warming (or even significant warming) to the purported catastrophes is also minimal. The arguments on which the catastrophic claims are made are extremely weak – and commonly acknowledged as such. They are sometimes overtly dishonest.

... Given the above, the notion that alarming warming is ‘settled science’ should be offensive to any sentient individual, though to be sure, the above is hardly emphasized by the IPCC.

... Perhaps we should stop accepting the term, ‘skeptic.’ Skepticism implies doubts about a plausible proposition. Current global warming alarm hardly represents a plausible proposition. Twenty years of repetition and escalation of claims does not make it more plausible. Quite the contrary, the failure to improve the case over 20 years makes the case even less plausible as does the evidence from climategate and other instances of overt cheating."

Professor Lindzen thus added one more expert opinion that the hysteria over GW has been grossly overblown. And Tom Blumer points out that Professor Lindzen's comment have gone virtually unreported in the U.S. establishment press. Indeed, Blumer's search for the professor's name at the Associated Press's main national site came up empty!

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2012/02/28/richard-who-ap-nyt-others-ignore-uks-lindzen-he-pwns-global-warming-alar#ixzz1nmZ2bx1e

Is President Obama to the Right or Left of Machiavelli?

It is commonly believed that Niccolo Machiavelli, the Renaissance philosopher and political advisor to the Medici Princes of Florence, was a scheming and devious man. The adjective "Machiavellian" in Webster's New World Dictionary is defined as "crafty, deceitful . . .characterized by the political principles and methods of expediency and duplicity set forth in Machiavelli's book, 'The Prince.'" However, when I read the book, most of Machiavelli's advice concerned the need of the leader to keep the good will of the people, resist the elites' demand for privilege, and not interfere with the common people. Such advice could well be given to today's leaders who constantly interfere with the people's rights, their independence, and their pocketbooks.

Machiavelli warned his Prince about excess oppression of the people: "A Prince sooner becomes hated by being rapacious and by interfering with the property and with the women of his subjects, than in any other way. From these, therefore, he should abstain. For so long as neither their property nor their honor is touched, the mass of mankind live contentedly, and the Prince has only to cope with the ambition of a few. . ." But our President ignores these admonitions and instead bails out the "few" on Wall Street and loads the people with regulations, mandates, and taxes. He talks democracy, but practices fascism, so he is to Niccolo's right!

Machiavelli also gave sound advice on budgetary matters: He advised the Prince to husband his country's resources and avoid the need to load down his subjects with taxes: "A Prince of a liberal disposition will consume his whole substance (in sumptuous display) and, after all, be obliged, if he would maintain his reputation for liberality, to burden his subjects with extraordinary taxes, and to resort to confiscations and all the other shifts whereby money is raised. But in this way he becomes hateful to his subjects, and growing impoverished is held in little esteem by many." Clearly, one of our President's shortcomings is that he is a bigger deficit spender than anything Machiavelli would have tolerated.

Now, it is true that Machiavelli also suggests that a Prince, in order to maintain stability, must on occasion be aggressive, cunning, and willing to change direction; that because of the vicissitudes of leadership, and the many dissidents who would overthrow or undermine his administration, the competent Prince cannot be above fighting fire with fire. Sometimes that requires some deception, dissembling, and heartlessness. Such realism sounds completely practical to me, and does not in my opinion make Machiavelli an evil man. Knowing that most intellectuals and academics almost universally demand perfection in their design or evaluation of political and social issues , I can see why they denigrate the wise and balanced advice of Niccolo M. When you seek perfection in human affairs, no system will prove satisfactory, and you will seek in vain.

The failed "theory" of utopian socialism calls for perfect equality and happiness-- and from that viewpoint, Machiavelli's acceptance of an occasional need to play hardball appears to socialist dreamers as both deceitful and immoral. But, let's look at how we are governed. In order to get ObamaCare passed by Congress, the administration gave huge exceptions to some to gain their vote. The supporters who are contributing a billion dollars to Obama's reelection are primarily the nobles--the elite that Machiavelli warned Princes to avoid: "The demands of the nobles cannot be satisfied with credit to the Prince, nor without injury to others, while those of the people well may, the aim of the people being more honorable than that of the nobles, the latter seeking to oppress, the former not to be oppressed.." President Obama ignored this counsel, and instead, went for the Bailouts and Stimulus packages which were rife with payola to special friends and supporters among the financial elites of America. The sad truth is that the utopian socialists seek a perfect and unattainable world, and to force their theories into practice, they end by oppressing the people and favoring the few--the 1%'s who provide the money for electioneering.

My reading of Machiavelli indicates that Americans would be better off and freer if the President followed the advice of Niccolo Machiavelli than the precepts of his community organizer background. The academics and the Leftist radicals have given Niccolo a bad rap and are actually to his right in favoring the all-powerful State and its elites with their constant regulation, oppression, and taxation of the common people.

PRESS RELEASE --- march 15, 2011 --- Now Being Published -- from Lost Nation Books

WASTED GENIUS -- The Sequel to Common Genius

Learn why Darwin is so irrelevant when dealing with human beings. Discover why all children, of all races, everywhere on earth, are truly born equal, possess comparable potential, and must be accorded equal opportunity, nurturing, and respect.

Wasted Genius takes a new look at how we raise our children and shows the harm done by the inflated role given to test scores and school grades. Based on recent discoveries on how our minds develop, the author explains the relative importance of the four factors that shape each person: human nature, the environment, genes, and free will.

Greene has coined the term “TCQ” -- a new yardstick to measure all of a child’s abilities--capabilities that go beyond IQ, EQ, and people skills--aptitudes that our schools and colleges are neglecting. Current standards reward “test-taking” ability while neglecting the real objective of schools--to teach everyone the basic skills required to survive in the modern world.

For More Information, or to order the book, go to

http://www.thewastedgenius.com/

THE FALLACIOUS REASONING OF ABSTRACT THINKERS

Margaret Tuchman's fine book The March of Folly reveals mankind’s propensity to follow disastrous policies to their most adverse ends. Her book, written in 1984, is about some of history's greatest blunders, and apparently has gone unnoticed by today's leaders for folly still permeates the world's capitols and the minds of those in power. The first decade of the new millennium, rather than showing a return to any measure of common sense, has indicated a continuation of folly among our leadership elites on the grandest scale.

In my new book, Wasted Genius, I attribute much of such folly to the rise of a new Ruling Class that is distinguished by their love of abstract concepts and theoretical reasoning which they arrogantly maintain is superior to the practical reasoning and simple common sense employed by the majority of Americans. Angelo Codevilla has written about how this new Ruling Class elite stands in stark contrast to the "Country Class" which includes most of the hard-working, less educated mass of common people. And, yet it is that country class of workers who make America run while the elites merely advise, criticize, commentate, and then initiate the disastrous policies that are bringing America to its knees and bankrupting the future financial well being of our children.

Our major problem comes from a previously unrecognized mental and moral deficiency in our intellectual elite, now exposed for the first time--for details go to http://www.thewastedgenius.com/

This new ruling class has been created by an educational establishment that maintains an almost religious Faith in the supreme importance of test scores and school grades. School policy and college selection has become a slave to the unfounded notion that IQ and SAT tests indicate an individual's worth. In fact, they merely reward abstract thinkers and hold back the practical minds needed to restore America's success story.

The tests are the darlings of academics and school teachers who like the ease of use and their seemingly scientific basis. Not to mention that a theory "proving" the stupidity of their students relieves the teaching establishment of responsibility for results. This long-standing infatuation with tests has been further cultivated by intellectual wanna-be’s who enjoy feelings of superiority, even if such pride is based simply on a good memory, a quickness with words, and well developed test-taking skills. And yet such academic virtuosity represents only a fraction of a person's total competency. We are neglecting the education of many superior students that possess more of several other essential cognitive abilities unmeasured by today's favored tests.

Because Americans have been hood-winked into respecting academic grades and abstract thought, and subordinate their visceral common sense to the apparent expertise of over-educated theorists, we have become dominated by a ruling elite that may appear very “bright” but is, in fact, subject to the worst kinds of folly. If there was a tipping point to this victory of abstractions over sense it may have been during the administration of Woodrow Wilson, the very revered and intellectual Princeton professor who (count these follies!) managed to launch us into “the war to end all wars,” invigorate the Progressive movement of big government, establish the IRS and Federal Reserve System, dream up the impotent League of Nations, and sign off on a Treaty that so crippled Germany that a subsequent World War became inevitable. No wonder the egg-heads loved him--he created a future for all the bright kids that didn't want to get jobs in the real workplaces of America.

Only an intellectual possesses the conceptualizing flexibility to believe in “a war to end all wars.” Similarly, it is primarily a mind crippled by abstractions that finds sense in such lofty phrases as “a war on poverty,” a war “to spread democracy,” a mantra about "hope and change," or foreign aid programs that give billions of dollars to dictators to “help” third world countries.

We currently are hearing an impossibly nuanced explanation about why our planes are bombing people in Libya--the administration claims to be "walking a fine line over the end game of the assault." It is avoiding for now any appearance that it aims to take out Gadhafi or help the rebels oust him, instead limiting its stated goals to protecting civilians, notwithstanding the fact that our bombers are killing many of those they seek to "protect."

We have just recently seen the folly in domestic affairs where our leaders in Washington took on a mission impossible--to boost the commendable goal of home ownership by subsidizing mortgages to individuals with little prospect of ever repaying the loans. Of course, this folly may have been perpetuated more by cupidity than by stupidity because the Ruling Class insiders stood to benefit financially by the conspiracy between bankers and politicians who rode the bubble in real estate to obscene profits and then dumped off the losses with securitized packages of worthless paper to unsuspecting investors, and ended by bailing out any favored insiders who got caught holding the worthless paper they had not yet succeeded in dumping on the public.

Only those with the cognitive agility to take great leaps of conceptual fancy will advance those kinds of incredible ideas as national policy and then forge ahead, convinced of the soundness of their reasoning, confident of the veracity of their theoretical justifications, enthusiastic with a confidence undiminished by any lack of positive results, oblivious or in denial concerning the adverse unintended consequences of their actions, but still managing to line their own pockets through it all.

Such persistence shows that this well-connected elite is empowered by an intellectual arrogance, a conviction that their critics are wrong and mean-spirited, and that the sheer power of their own intellect anoints them with the right to profit and rule over the common people, the Country Party to use Professor Codevilla's words, or what we have historically referred to as grass roots America.

Those are the kinds of minds that have usurped power in America. It is their new way of thinking that has reduced our leadership to community organizers, agitators, Wall Street speculators, and other self aggrandizing groups representing, not the ordinary people of this country, but the insiders concentrated on ripping off for themselves whatever they can get away with.

Unfortunately, many well meaning voters are in thrall to the supposed expertise of these frauds. And many voters are swayed by the promises offered, whether they be public employees, farmers, union members, grant recipients, subsidized businesses, or all the recipients of government hand-outs. Out of this muddled blend of self-interest and self-righteous compassion for others, half the country supports this elite's call for expanded government bureaucracies--even if the consequences bear constant witness to their folly.