An Open letter to Bill Maher

Bill, with fondness and respect, sometimes you don't know what you're talking about!

Vermont is not a socialist’s paradise, or a liberal stronghold.  Vermonters chose Bernie Sanders for their senator by 65.41% in 2006, by 71% in 2012, by 67% in 2018 and 63.16% in 2024, quite a record!  But Phil Scott, a moderate Republican, won the governorship by 60.50% in 2016, 55.19% in 2018, 68.49% in 2020, 71.29% in 2022, and 73.60% in 2024.  In the most recent election where Sanders and Scott were on the ballot at the same time – 2024 – the Republican Phil Scott outperformed progressive Bernie by more than 10 percentage points.  Maybe Vermont is not such a liberal hotspot.

AI, or Artificial Intelligence

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein story was not created out of thin air.  Indeed, her novel’s subtitle is The Modern Prometheus.  Prometheus, a Titan of Greek mythology, brought fire to humanity and enraged the gods who knew that humans would eventually challenge their supremacy.  Dr. Frankenstein creates a creature from human body parts, and the creature demands his right to be treated as a human.  In Blade Runner (1982), replicants (bioengineered humanoids) demand their rights to be treated as humans.  In Short Circuit (1986), a military robot convinces the film’s humans that he has human consciousness (or a soul) when he laughs at a joke.  We have always thought that consciousness was a peculiarly human trait not shared by our animal cousins (despite the fact that science has no clear and agreed upon definition of “consciousness”); we have wised up lately.  Lest I forget, the origin story of all these stories is Genesis’s Garden of Eden, where our ancestors are told not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (KJV, Genesis 3:5).

Some Common Sense Observations about Democrats

I, a New York Democrat, assert – with little fear of contradiction – that two New York City Democrats – Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader and Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader – are the most soporific (sleep-inducing, boring) politicians in the entire country.  In addition, one would be hard-pressed to identify what these two high-ranking Democrats actually stand for.  Well, maybe, “we don’t like Donald Trump” and “we’re not Republicans.”  Not exactly a winning platform.

In contrast to these so-called “moderate” Democrats, we have the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) crew of “progressive” or “far-left” Democrats.  Not only are they not boring speakers, but they surely DO know what they stand for.  And therein lies a huge problem for Democrats in the near and far future.  Who is entitled to call themselves Democrats?  The faceless moderates or the fire-breathing DSA crew?

On Being Trans, #2

Click for the TED talk

I wrote an essay called On Being Trans and posted it on July 23, 2023, not quite three years ago.  I’m writing this now because the politics of sexual identity has exploded out of control.

My first response is simple: the political issue of sexual identity is a Republican wedge issue, and wedge issues by definition are meant to distract from serious issues, like war and peace, the size of our National Debt, income and wealth inequality, etc.  Another reason this issue is not so important is the number of folks it affects.

President Pete Buttigieg

Only if you have a subscription to The Atlantic

First, some housekeeping.  You may call him Mayor Pete, you may call him Secretary Buttigieg, I will call him Pete, because I can.

Can Pete be elected president?  I say, unequivocally, yes.

Not one of my liberal friends agrees with me. They argue, “if a woman can’t be elected president, why do you imagine a gay man can be elected president?”  They cite the presidential election losses of Secretary Hillary Clinton and Vice President Kamala Harris, as proof that a woman can’t be elected president in today’s America. My response to that tired argument is: a) Hillary led Trump in the polls from the very start of the campaign all the way until Election Day, b) Hillary won three million more votes than Trump, and c) while Trump held twice daily rallies in the last weeks of the campaign, Hillary hosted fund raisers.  Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory! 

Mamdani’s Co-ops

The planned first store in the Bronx

On May 19th, New York City’s Democratic Socialist Mayor, Zohran Mamdani, announced that “the first city-run grocery store is coming to the Bronx”.

In the interest of full disclosure, I had (mis-)remembered that the first store was soon to open when I heard the mayor’s announcement on C-Span, rather than the first store will open in the Bronx in late 2027.  This error will not undermine my argument, but it will move back the test of its predictions by more than a year.

Thomas Paine quotes

1. 

   Please click on this image and read the article it takes you to.  Thanks.

   The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.
2. Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.
3. We have it in our power to begin the world over again.
4. These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. 

Running for Office

Ladies & Gentlemen,

Thank you for showing up, it means more to me than you can imagine.

My name is Ben Paine, and I am running for Congress.  Not as a Democrat or a Republican or a Green or a Libertarian, because all those choices cost money that I don’t have and that I won’t beg for.  I have called myself a "flaming liberal" but my political positions on issues are informed by common sense, not by anyone's liberal platform.  I mean to win your trust and your vote, perhaps not your agreement on your favorite issue.  So, if I impress you and you want me to represent you in Congress, you will have to write me in.  Ben Paine is an easy name to remember.

Understanding the MAGA Voter

The default way that rank and file Democrats think of MAGA voters is that they are “stupid,” by which they mean low IQ.  While it is true that MAGA voters are typically poorly educated (Trump: “I love the poorly educated”) (2/3 of MAGA voters are NOT college educated, while half of Democratic voters are college educated), that does not make them stupid.  And they feel disrespected, not without cause, by their better educated sisters and brothers.  Intelligence may correlate with education but history is replete with brilliant minds of little formal education and foolish PhDs.  In addition, my own definition of stupidity is stupid by choice (“don’t bother me with facts, my mind is already made up”), not by low IQ.   And stupid by choice (let’s call it “operational stupidity”) is much more pernicious than stupid by low IQ.  The clinical word that describes this kind of lazy and stubborn stupidity is “confirmation bias” (“I will only listen to news sources that support my own beliefs”).  But confirmation bias is not exclusive to MAGA voters.  A MAGA voter listens to Truth Social and Fox News, but a liberal voter listens to MSNBC and late night talk TV.  Indeed, confirmation bias seems to be universal among humans.  So, maybe we are all kinda stupid, apparently no one likes admitting he was wrong!  Or likes to THINK, rather than react without thought!

The Vanity of Donald J. Trump

I performed a Google search for “list of all things named after Donald Trump.”   This is what came up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_things_named_after_Donald_Trump.  Check out the web page, it’s fascinating.  It is 10 ½ scrolling pages long and it has a total count of 226 items, most (200?) of which were of his making.  This is the top level breakdown: Real estate, 49; Hotels, 24; Golf courses, 26; Casinos, 11; Streets/roads/government buildings, 20; Arts and media, 40; Food and drink, 7; Sales/retail/side ventures, 25; Transportation, 2; Species, 3; Tributes and homages, 12; Satirical and critical, 5; Political parties, 2.