Gaslighting

I sometimes watch NBC Evening News, typically until I am faced with a piece containing such virulent dishonesty that I vow never to watch it again. That usually doesn't not take long.

Last night they ran a piece on “Cyber Monday” holiday shopping, celebrating 5.8% increase in sales over last year and telling us that it constituted the “largest holiday shopping day in history” and that it was caused by “a mix of inflation and demand.”

It’s difficult to find what current inflation is, as the media is busy grinding axes and each outlet reports different segments depending on which point they are trying to make. Inflation is easing because gasoline prices are dropping, for instance, or it’s increasing because the price of spiral-cut ham went up.

The numbers that I can find for overall consumer goods ranges from 6.6% to 7.2% year-to-year, but no report claims as low as 5.8%. So a 5.8% increase in spending is not a “mix” of anything. It is caused entirely by inflation and represents a reduction of the actual amount of goods purchased, which makes the entire news story a lie.

Peak Insanity

The Department of Justice, increasingly a misnomer, has named a "Special Investigator" to pursue Donald Trump regarding the Jan 6th "insurrection," and in regard to papers which were stored in his home and which the FBI has revealed had no value other than as, um, sort of trophies.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Republicans have announced that as soon as they are sworn in and have control of the House they will commence an investigation of Joe Biden and his business dealings with various enemies of the United States.

So we now have both political parties investigating the heads of their opposing political parties and have become the Disunited States of Investigations, DSI, devolving from comedy into farce.

Football Sanity Question

Now that the Raiders, having been in the playoffs last season, have achieved the stellar record of 2-7, are they finally going to show the same good judgement that the Broncos did and fire Josh McDaniels? 

That is a sequel to the imponderable question of why in the hell did they hire him to begin with?

I watched as much of the Chargers vs. 49ers as I could stand. That was two sorry looking football teams. Looked like 22 drunks out on a field chasing each other.

A Plethora of Rights

San Diego City Council is considering a resolution to declare that “housing is a human right” to go along with what seems to be an established policy that “health care is a human right.”

The policy would be accompanied by laws requiring landlords to pay the tenant three months rent if they decide to sell the property, or if they decide to renovate it, but the details don’t matter. At issue, for me, is the basic one of one person’s property or service being the basis for another person’s “right.”

If I own a home, which I built or am paying for with my money, what valid principle gives you a right to live in it? On the other side of that coin, why do you have a right to live in a home that you neither built or paid for? In order for this idea to hold, one has to discard the whole concept of the right to hold property.

Similarly, health care is a service provided by people who are providing that service in order to earn money to house and feed their families. What gives anyone a right to receive the fruit of those people’s labor? Is a doctor a de facto slave to anyone who has become sick?

If a physician decides that he/she no longer wishes to perform that service, but wants to work as an auto mechanic in the future, can that person be prosecuted by the federal government for denying his/her patients their civil rights, that is their right to receive health care?

It’s a reasonable conclusion, is it not. The premise is that those patients have a human right to health care, and the doctor is denying them their right.

In one news piece the reporter was referring to a “person’s right not to be offended.” This country is becoming a morass of “rights,” mostly imaginary, which are designed to make life comfortable. In doing so they make the nation weak.