Lying Lester Asks: Are Money & Speech One In The Same?

Some say money is speech. At one time I argued that money was speech and corporations, individuals, political parties, and organizations (special interests) ought to be able to spend freely to "get their message out". After all isn't that one way voters keep informed?

But my position has, shall we say, evolved. Some say money can be considered speech if all parties have the same ability to spend large sums of it to get their voices "heard". Of course we all know this is not the case and realistically it never will be. The larger the corporation, the wealthier the individual, or the more flush the super PAC the bigger voice they have. So, what does this mean from a practical viewpoint? In a word INFLUENCE.

Money buys influence. Money combined with influence is power. And the more money that is available the more influence and power can be bought. So if you're the average person on the street, the small business competing against the big guys, or a politician with a small campaign war chest you simply don't stand an equal chance. The big money gets people elected, the big money buys influence, and the interests of the those without the same ability to spend rarely get noticed.

Some say the nation ought to be looking at real campaign finance reform and limiting the influence money has on the political process. The RNC, disagreeing with this position, has filed a lawsuit against the Federal Election Commission to allow it to solicit UNLIMITED cash amounts from individuals. Of course the argument is again the Article 1 of The Bill of Rights; aka the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Lawrence Noble, general counsel to the FEC from 1987 to 2000 and now an adviser at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center says that "if the RNC is successful, we will again see party committees brazenly soliciting $1 million contributions from wealthy contributors seeking to directly purchase influence over candidates and officeholders, with the party committees acting as the sales agent".

Lawrence Noble is right. Although I must say... what the hell is wrong with the idea of those with the most money having the most political influence? That is the place that Lying Lester's position has "evolved" to. At one time I argued that money was speech and corporations, individuals, political parties, and organizations (special interests) ought to be able to spend freely to "get their message out"... and now my "evolved" position is that I will argue this more fervently.

Because money and speech ARE one in the same. And I believe that considering money speech resulting in elections basically being bought by whoever spends the most - that is a good thing. Why? Because money equals influence, and influence equals power. And the wealthy - having proven that they are superior to the rAbble by the mere fact that they have more money then them - SHOULD rightfully have great power. That being the case, Lying Lester prays to the ghost of Ayn Rand that the RNC wins it's lawsuit.

Sure, I'd be happier if gOvernment were so small that buying influence with politicians would be pointless, but we don't live in that world. Elect Gary Johnson in 2016 and maybe we can do something about the situation, but in the meantime I strongly object to limiting the "speech" (or the buying of it with large amounts of money) of wealthy people.

Byline: This evolved commentary was authored by Lord Lying Lester: Man of Reason (AKA Lester Nation). Advocator of money equaling speech. LLIN-067.

Lying Lester Asks: Are dEmocrats More Fascist Than rEpublicans?

Fascism is a word tossed about frequently. Conservatives will say progressives lean fascist and pRogressives will say Conservatives lean fascist. So, what's the truth? Or is there some truth both display some if not all of the characteristics?

Dr. Laurence Britt, a political scientist who studied the fascist regimes of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Suharto, and Pinochet and found common themes running through of all these. He compiled a list called "The 14 Points of Fascism".

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism 2. Disdain for the importance of human rights 3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause 4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism 5. Rampant sexism 6. A controlled mass media 7. Obsession with national security 8. Religion and ruling elite tied together 9. Power of corporations protected 10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated 11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts 12. Obsession with crime and punishment 13. Rampant cronyism and corruption 13. Rampant cronyism and corruption 14. Fraudulent elections (Link).

Do you see any evidence that some (or all) of these are present in America today??????????????????????????? If so, which political party do you believe demonstrates the most attributes of fascism and why?

Frankly Lying Lester thinks the dEmocrats check off more points on the fascism list then do the rEpublicans. For example, dEmocrats express their disdain for human rights with their forcing of people to buy healthcare insurance they may not need or want (#2).

And dEmocrats excel at scapegoating rEpublicans (#3), bArack oBama has continued the wars begun by his predecessor as well as INCREASED the drone attacks... so he checks off the "avid militarism" box too.

Rampant sexism with their fake "war on women" (#5), a controlled mass media (#6), increased military spending by Obama disguised as "cuts" (#7), Obama's insistence that he is a Christian, even though that might not be true (#8), Obama's bank bailout and "stimulus"/giveaway to corporations (#9), failure to persue card check (a good thing IMO, but. (#10).

*Skip* (#11), lessening of sentences for drug crimes (#12), rampant cronyism and corruption... ABSOLUTELY. So true I put it on the list twice (#13), AND FINALLY...

Fraudulent elections? Possibly with help from ACORN (#14). In any case, Lying Lester considers the buying of votes - which the oBama admin has most certainly done - to be fraudulent.

So there you have it folks. dEmocrats fascist? The verdict is YES, which isn't to say the rEpublicans don't check off some of those boxes as well, but I shall leave it to my readers/commenters to make that case if they wish.

Anywho... the US a fascist/sOcialist country? Lying Lester says yes. Unfortunately. Surely Ayn Rand is spinning in her grave. Not that things were THAT much better in her day, but they sure as hell are not getting better. The slide into fascism/sOcialism continues. When will we wake up and realize that more liberty and not less liberty is the ONLY answer?

Byline: This pondering commentary was authored by Lord Lying Lester: Man of Reason (AKA Lester Nation). Purveyor of pondering. LLIN-044.

Lying Lester Asks: Are Men Superior to Women?

I recently came across an article from the Federalist that is intriguing and thought provoking. It is one particular women's response to an article in the Atlantic titled "Why Are Feminists So Insecure? 6 Reflections On The Confidence Gap". The Federalist article talks about risk taking and feminist perceived insecurities. What follows is from the article...

I read the piece and was completely flummoxed by it, for a variety of reasons. Here are six reflections on the most serious problem of our era week: The Confidence Gap. 1) It isn't about confidence. The article is really about risk-taking and how men differ in their risk calculations from women. To give just two examples from the article, and to give you an idea of its tone: "We watch our male colleagues take risks, while we hold back until we're sure we are perfectly ready and perfectly qualified". "If a woman walks into her boss's office with unsolicited opinions, speaks up first at meetings, or gives business advice above her pay grade, she risks being disliked or even—let's be blunt—being labeled a bitch". Leaving aside the melodramatic stereotyping and bizarre generalizations about how people love unsolicited advice from men but abhor it from women, you'll note that risk is the main ingredient in the supposed confidence gap. 2) Opportunity Cost. How does it work? And in order to have a conversation about risk, it's good to talk about opportunity cost, and even just the particular opportunity costs associated with risk-taking. We should look at how women, on average, value what they must trade in for the potential benefits of risk-taking. That's not well discussed in the article. Yes, men really do show, on average, a far greater proclivity for risk-taking. See, for example, all of human history. And they tend to have different calculuses about what they seek or are willing to make do with in terms of lifestyle and stress. It is true that risk-taking behavior works out very well for men. But it also works out horribly for them. How can that be? Well, they do have higher average outcomes than women. But when they fail, hoo-boy do they fail. We're talking job loss, demotion, loss of status, physically problematic stress, serious inconsistency in pay, homelessness, prison, and so on and so forth. None of the down-sides of risk taking are given proper weight, which makes the sloppily sourced article naive and unhelpful, at best. Maybe women should fight their nature and go match men in the CEO and imprisonment categories. I don't know. But we should at least be honest that women choose less risky moves in part because they frequently don't have to take risks like men do and frequently don't want to take risks like men do. The article also fails to note that women, on average, choose less risk for reasons having to do with things other than cash money. If you make one choice, you lose other choices. If you prefer making money and having a ton of power, you make different decisions than if you prefer having a nice work-life balance, a flexible schedule, non-remunerative benefits, and what not. The tradeoffs for risk-taking and aggression in a corporate environment might involve things that you are not comfortable giving up. This can be a bad thing, but it is by no means necessarily a bad thing. Either way, this issue should have been discussed far better. 3) Is second-guessing our nature really so empowering? The article on developing confidence ends by telling women that their brains are malleable: Almost daily, new evidence emerges of just how much our brains can change over the course of our lives, in response to shifting thought patterns and behavior. If we keep at it, if we channel our talent for hard work, we can make our brains more confidence-prone. What the neuroscientists call plasticity, we call hope. Nothing shouts "be confident in your natural abilities!" like "your brain is mushy and able to be reshaped by propaganda!" But maybe that's just me. Still, all this second-guessing of female traits doesn't feel empowering. At all. Feminists seem to be on a constant campaign of obsessive gender reflection, the net result of which is to tell women they're bad at what they're doing. Don't call bossy people bossy. Don't be considerate of others. Please keep kids out of the picture for the vast majority if not entirety of your fertility. If you do choose to stop fighting your fertility for a brief period, you shouldn't let kids affect your career. You need to crush or at least smother your maternal instincts at all costs. In order to succeed in life, you must be like men — emulate everything they're doing. I love being female, and I'm actually quite confident about being a woman, but the only time I even come close to feeling bad about myself is when major media outlets and elite feminists use their power to tell me there's some major flaw with me being female. Also, it's kind of funny that the article is all about obsessive overthink keeping women from taking the risks they need to in order to succeed. I do hope that whoever wrote this at least noted that an article ostensibly against such overthinking ran 7,242 insufferable words. By the way, I challenge you to read the first section without gagging, either at the over-the-top generalizations about how universally awesome women are or about how victimized the elite authors are by their gaping self-doubt. The humblebrags in that section alone are epic. "Katty got a degree from a top university, speaks several languages" and yet thought "her public profile in America was thanks to her English accent". Claire was CNN's Moscow correspondent while in her 20s but supposedly deferred to the "alpha-male journalists around her, assuming that because they were so much louder, so much more certain, they just knew more". The thing is that even if we're just talking about lower braggadocio levels, what if that's an ingredient that makes women better at social bonding? Leadership is important to society. Absolutely. But so is a basic functioning community. Heck, call me a woman if you must, but I could make a good argument that community bonds are even more important than CEO leadership. There's no reason that men and women must fill one or the other category (and every single person reading this knows men and women who fit various high-risk/low-risk/high-confidence/low-confidence categories) but neither do we need to insist on denigrating people who do the hard work of community bonding, whatever that given community is — in office environments, immediate families, extended families, local congregations, Brooklyn co-ops, boxing clubs, etc. So if women have, as the article claims, a "part of the brain [that] helps us recognize errors and weigh options", why do we want to get rid of it or curb it? Why are we ashamed of something that's awesome? Why are feminists so down on women's brains? I mean, again, leadership and risk-taking are great for humans. Don't get me wrong. But so are wisdom and restraint. (Sources: Atlantic article; Federalist article).

So, my takeaway from the article(s) is that men take more risks and thus have historically been the makers, the doers and the movers and shakers. For this reason I conclude that men are indeed superior to women with little exception. One such exception would be the great philosopher Ayn Rand. Surely she was a great woman who was superior to many men. But great women like Ayn Rand are an exception, in Lying Lester's opinion.

And, if there is sure indication that any given women is inferior, it absolutely is that she identifies as a "feminist". Feminists do not wish to compete on a level playing field, instead petitioning the government to grant them special advantages. That is why feminists disgust Lying Lester, as feminists disgusted Ayn Rand.

Everyone should be judged strictly on their achievements; achievements that should be earned by merit alone and NOT due to special favors or assistance from the State. This is why Lying Lester also opposes these so-called "equal pay" laws. If a woman deserves equal pay she should EARN it and not ask for a government mandate to force private employers to pay her more than she deserves.

(For the record, this blog is still closed as well as FOR SALE. I am simply waiting for the bidding process to conclude. When it does I will anounce the new owner before handing all passwords over to said buyer. LLIN thanks you for your patronage and hopes you will continue reading when the as-yet-to-be-determined new owner assumes control).

Byline: This honest commentary was authored by Lord Lying Lester: Man of Reason (AKA Lester Nation). Purveyor of untruth. LLIN-026.