Space

A woman on TV who said she represented the scientist of NASA announced that all of the people in her group feel certain that there is intelligent life in the universe besides earth. Not only do most people agree with that but most also would like to have a visitor. The follow up question was not asked. If you believe there is life out there, using your wildest imagination, how would these visitors get to earth. The answer would be Star Trek’s warp drive which allows travel faster than light. Then ask those same scientists if this is a likely scenario and they will respond no. If such travel were to happen the visitors would lay out in a distant orbit and contact the earth and explain where they are from and their purpose for being here.

Disparate impact

Major tech firms are trying to hire more women techies. Women make up only about 30% of these positions. Using the rules of disparate impact this means there is discrimination involved. Men outnumber women computer science majors four to one. Men earn 80% of all computer science degrees. Using these criteria then that would explain why 80% of elementary teachers are women. Men are being kept out of these jobs because they are men. There may be reasons in the past why men and women chose careers but those reasons no longer exist but the trend continues. It is more likely that the causes of these discrepancies are not discrimination but rather the choice that people make for their careers. This is why the rules of disparate impact which state that any number in a group that does not agree with the statistical number in that group must be discrimination. Because women represent 50% of the population, they must be 50% of the teachers and the same goes for computer engineers. While there remains discrimination based on gender in both education and computer science in regards to salaries, it is not based on hiring practices.

Wealth gap

The Constitution is designed to protect individual rights rather than group rights. The push for group rights emerged in the mid 60’s with affirmative action, shifting away from the colorblind civil rights goals of the 50’s to remedies addressing historical discrimination. Free market capitalism is based on personal economic liberty, self determination and individual effort. Socialism is based on equal outcomes, equity. Democratic socialism operates within the capitalism framework but uses government regulation, progressive taxation and public assistance to lessen inequalities. The country vacillates between free market capitalism and democratic socialism depending on which party is in power. It is necessary that the buildup of wealth precede the redistribution of that wealth.

Rich

The old adage of the rich get richer is grounded in financial common sense. A forty-year-old man has assets totaling one billion dollars. He follows the strategy of borrow till you die and allows his estate to grow at ten percent per year and in forty years he will have $45 billion. He needs one million per year to cover his life style so he borrows that getting a low 5% rate using his assets as collateral. Over the next 40 years he will pay out $41 million in interest but his estate passes to his heirs without paying any capital gains tax or if the money is in an estate trust no estate tax. In addition, there are ways for him to deduct a good part of the interest. The rich do this generation after generation and the wealth gap grows larger. Some suggest raising the income tax rates but these very rich do not pay income tax. The way to stop this is to say that any estate over $10 million will pay tax. This allows small estates to pass without destroying the business and still keeps the super-rich from escaping taxes. Thirty years ago, the billionaires owned $240 billion in assets and today they own $7,800 billion in assets. Much of this money is passed to heirs untaxed. This will also offer incentives for the rich to risk investing in new business ventures.

Issues

What do Americans want for the future of America and is this what is best for America. Using the common-sense approach and tying that to what is practical there are policies that can be agreed to. Bringing manufacturing jobs back home. Having reciprocal trade policies. Asking Europe to provide for their defense instead of relying on the US. Using the Abraham Accords to unite Israel with the Arab oil countries to rebuild Gaza. Asking NATO to pay their share of expenses including troops. Recognizing that wind and solar cannot replace fossil fuels but nuclear can. Having a secure border. Remaining energy independent. Spread the cost of the UN among all parties and not just rely on the US. End the war in Iran. Take steps to reduce the wealth gap. Encourage foreign investment. Promoting private unions. Use AI to increase productivity to keep interest rates low. Increase oversight on government programs to reduce waste and fraud. This means to concentrate on economic and foreign policy and not be distracted by peripheral cultural issues like gender surgery on minors and men in women’s bathrooms and how many sexes there are.

Campaign strategy

As the warmups for the 2028 presidential election get underway the democrats have plans to exploit the anti-Trump energy simmering throughout the party. The policies of the base can be played down by playing up the Trump strategy. This is necessary because many of these policies are unpopular. According to many writers they will concentrate on Trump until after the election when they will be free to come out with their plans. They will rejoin the Paris Accords promoting wind and solar to replace fossil fuels. They will stop deportations and resume an open border policy. They will cancel all tariffs and allow other countries to resume the unfair tariffs of the past. They will resume sending money to Europe to help Ukraine. They will allow the Abraham Accords to languish into the ash heap of history. They will push wind and solar and ignore nuclear power. They will cut back on support for fossil fuels and pass legislation to make fracking more expensive. They will back off the push to bring manufacturing jobs back home. Their primary economic plan will be to tax the rich and use the money for more public assistance programs like universal health and childcare. On the cultural side they will promote men in women’s sports, including locker rooms. They will promote gender surgery on minors and special rights for gays. The writers are basing their idea by following the recent campaign strategies of the recently elected governors of Virginia and New Jersey.

Compassion

The basic platform for the democratic party is based on the old anti colonialism concept of the oppressors over the oppressed. This is founded on the idea that different groups are treated differently. White oppresses dark skins, men oppress women, straights oppress gays, rich oppress the poor, management oppresses labor, Christians oppress non-Christians, thin people oppress fat people, and majorities oppress minorities. Liberals are people who want to protect the powerless from the powerful. It is what Jesus preached and is the moral thing to do. Success is achieved when equal results are the norm. They often view law officers as oppressors and concentrate on justice for the accused. Their basic economic plan is the redistribution of wealth and income and the goal is equity, equal results. This conflicts, in many cases, with the basic concept of free market capitalism but seems to fit nicely with socialism. Keeping people in groups, identity politics, is a way to separate the oppressor from the oppressed. Compassion and the golden rule are the motivating factors.