Monetizing government

Idle thought.

The thought was stimulated by a link to Charles Creitz for Fox News that I didn't read. Rudy Giuliani slams Barack Obama saying ex-president could have stopped any potential Biden-Ukraine conflict.  Eh, it's an interesting video at the link. Giuliani is on fire.

Here's the thing: Obama weaponized government departments against his political opponents while Hillary C. and the Biden monetized government departments for their party and for their personal wealth enhancement.

I don't like like that. Nobody does. I don't know why Democrats dismiss it while concentrating on lesser things. Yes, I do know why.

I would like for those things to be illegal and prosecuted vigorously. I'd like for them to be impossible or for the departments that allowed them to be razed or at least cut back severely. Cut back to shreds. And the vacuum they leave filled with something else. I want government employees to be less secure.

And then I realized the very first political autobiography that I read was my hero at the time I was in the third grade and he did the exact same thing. Benjamin Franklin. He brags about making a good deal of money by setting up a printing shop and having the new government as client. He wrote that he could always count on steady business. That government was the best client ever. He used government to build his fortune.

So did Ross Perot.

For two examples.

And that takes them both down a notch. Not for doing business with government but for relying on government as source of their fortunes.

I'm interested in hearing what you say about that.




Only tangentially related:

I stepped out for a short walk and had a great time as I always do.

I got a haircut.

New guy.

Short, rocker type. Long white hair. Approaching middle age. Eye makeup, faint beard, woven bracelets. The guy is a mess. Somewhat an anachronism. Fits right into the place perfectly. There are rock concert posters all over the walls.

Old rock posters. The whole place needs updating.

They love me in there.

Seriously.

Shortly into our conversation he begins whispering about being afraid of nuclear war. About not trusting our president.

How odd!

Turns out he doesn't trust Trump.

I asked why.

He told me the usual half-assed litany. He's mouthy. He's irrational. He's unpredictable. He's disruptive. He included "Plus he said, 'Grab women by the pussy. There, now you'll pay attention."

I told him Trump said no such thing. He added that last part.

He challenged me, "Chuh ...  Chuh ... Okay, what did he say then?"

See? This is just stupid. It tells me that I'm dealing with someone of extremely low information value. His opinions will be based on the thinnest film possible of superficially lowest primary lingering un-mopped up residue. It tells me he knows nothing at all, that he's operating with the political mind of a child.

See what I have to deal with?

I told him Trump was describing to a member of a famous Republican family in a private conversation, in a car(!) how it was being a billionaire. And that conversation was recorded and saved for a decade. And that tells you more about the Republican who recorded and saved a personal conversation than it does about a political candidate. At the time his candidacy was in the future and no-wise clear,  he was describing gold-digger type women who latch onto him because he has money, lots of it, and would throw themselves at him continuously, much as your rock idols do, and much as other political principals do, and allow him any physical freedom including grabbing their pussy. Then in the next sentence Trump gave a counter example of one single women who stood out because she did not do that, who did not allow him any such freedom even though he tried to buy her favor with shopping for furniture and clothing and the like. We can expect all that was expensive but to no avail.

I didn't mention Clinton or Gore or any number of other Democrat subjects who make great counter examples but are protected.

I added that presently I've never felt safer.

I grew up during the cold war. We were actually taught duck and cover. We practiced getting under our desks. In case of a nuclear attack!

Now, even a child knows, what good would it be under a desk when the heat wave and plasma blows off your skin, all of us simultaneously?

I grew up in an era of the backyard bomb shelters. Although we didn't have one. We lived on or near military bases and they were all top targets. So I grew up in a state of national-fear. Unrealistic fear. Fear of spread of communism. After that it was fear of being conscripted to war. After that fear of of imminent ice age. Fear of overpopulation. Fear of pollution. Fear of Ozone layer depletion. Fear of DDT, Fear of CPVC, fear of acid rain, fear of plastic straws! It's always one fear after another and it's always primarily one crackpot political party instigating national and global fear.

I've never felt this positive, never felt safer, as I do right now.

But then, every person I know is Democrat, so you're in good company hating Trump.

Oddly, this marked me as independently-thinking outsider. And that is something the would-be rocker relates to strongly. That made him like me.

He stretched out my haircut.

It's a simple thing. Buzz, buzz, buzz, zip done.

But he fussed with specific hair. Little things that no one would notice On, in, around my ears. Eyebrows, cream and single blade to my neck. Back massage with a hand-held vibrator. Remove cape. More snipping. He fiddled and fussed to extend the haircut unnecessarily.  He made more cuts without the cape onto my shirt, blew off my shirt with the hair dryer. Blew off my back pack, and so on. We were actually done fifteen minutes before he released me. Then walked with me back to the counter to pay and extended our conversation further. He attempted to re-connect in the future even though he must change his location. He wants to talk more.

I don't think he's ever met someone who didn't automatically agree with his Trump nonsense.

Our conversation went a lot further than that. He talked about being a vegan. I asked him a few questions about that while relating a few things about different vegans of my acquaintance. I challenged him in amusing ways. I made him think to explain things. This allowed him to specify his positions precisely.

He mentioned his ex-wife and he spoke about her in general glossing terms. I asked him about her in specific terms. I got him talking about the failure of their marriage specifically. What exactly the signs were. What exactly went wrong. I don't think he is used to talking to people that intimately or covering that much ground in so short a period.

At any rate, he didn't hold my appreciation of Trump against me.

It doesn't matter because like everyone else his political opinions are poorly informed.