16A029 Notes from the Asylum by Jim Davies, 8/9/2016    

The criminally insane are normally locked up and medicated, so as to protect the rest of us from irrational violent behavior; but in the political arena, things are different.

One of those wishing to rule us all recently called her principal rival "mad", and the media - which favors her uniformly - have parroted the accusation. He makes faux pas now and again, so they jump all over him. So is Trump crazy and Clinton sane? - not exactly.

Recently I took the unusual step of listening to a political speech; the one Trump gave when accepting his nomination. It was on YouTube, and the transcript is here. Now there are plenty of respects in which he is wrong - and his mate Pence too, as I wrote here long before he was picked; he has the nutty illusion that governors have the right to tell bakers for whom they can, and can not, bake cakes. But this speech was quite good. His prescriptions are very suspect, but his diagnosis was mostly on-target - and contrasts sharply with Clinton's insistence that there's nothing much wrong; that "America is already great."

Here's a short summary of what Trump said he sees wrong with America:

1. the killing of cops is increasing dramatically
2. violent crime is increasing dramatically
3. much of it is done by illegal immigrants already ordered deported
4. 58% of Black American youths are unemployed
5. household incomes fell $4,000 since 2000
6. the National [government] Debt is over $19 trillion and rising
7. 43 million are on food stamps
8. the infrastructure is crumbling
9. America has been humiliated abroad
10. Islamic terrorists are mass-killing, in America

Plenty there to quibble with (is #5 in real, or nominal terms? Is the violent crime rate higher among illegal immigrants than elsewhere, and if so by how much? - etc) but by and large it's not a bad list, as far as it goes. I would, of course, go a very great deal further, and I'd modify #1 to refer to the killing BY cops, more than the killing OF cops.

Trump promised to fix all that, but he gave so few specifics as to impair his credibility; he called himself the "law and order" candidate, but even if that's true it's no fix whatever. In the coming ZGS there will be very little crime (or rather, krime) and no government police at all. He deplored the economic stagnation, but showed almost zero understanding of the free-market economics which alone will repair it. He was outraged by ISIS and other malefactors abroad, but gave no more than the vaguest hint about withdrawing American force, which spawned most of them, from outside the country. In short, his "solutions" reveal that he is by no means a libertarian.

Oddly, I didn't find any reference in his speech to what is surely the most important and enlightened aspect of Trump's candidacy: his intention to do business rationally with foreign statesmen such as Putin of Russia. He is an accomplished negotiator and should be rather good at that, and benefit may flow from it including a much reduced probability of a major, nuclear war. He would run rings around his rival, the heroine of Benghazi. That's not of course to say that in a free society anyone should presume to negotiate for all its residents - merely that now in the short term, if such a war is not avoided all progress towards that free society will come to a screeching, irradiated halt.

Madness, further, is not easy to define and comes in various degrees. Someone unusual and unorthodox may be called "mad" because he thinks for himself and fails to bleat in harmony with all good sheep; that may be Trump's kind. Others hold that insanity doesn't really exist, but is an extension of cognitive dissonance; a person cannot cope with the pressures of life, so feigns bizarre behavior to escape it and attract sympathy. Yet another kind is what I'd regard as mad: failing to think rationally. That returns us to the political arena; since Trump correctly observes that this society is in trouble but Clinton denies that, she is clearly a great deal more insane than he is. She is in denial, while he is not.

Both are about equally insane, though, when it comes to fixing most of those problems; Trump because he mostly picks the wrong action and Clinton because she picks none. Those listed above would all melt away like the morning mist if government were swiftly wound down to zero, but neither of them are even dreaming of doing any such thing. That is the ultimate insanity and it affects both of them and everyone else aboard the ship of government; the irrational, crazy supposition that A has some valid business ruling B.

That's not just lunacy, unfortunately it's violent lunacy, kriminal. All government is saturated with violence; the compulsion to obey any and all of its rules is backed by violence, ultimately the fatal sort. It is funded by violence; pay us, or be caged, submit to our arrest or be killed. As above, Trump is less of a lunatic than Clinton, but (as far as one can perceive them) his proposals too are violent; instead of curbing police powers he would expand them, and instead of removing the artificially high-wage magnet for immigration he would enforce a wall of prohibition. His proposals to solve the other listed problems are so vague it's hard to nail them down, but I read and heard no suggestion that they will include wholesale abolition of the taxes and restrictions that cause them.

A Zero Government Society will come about only after everyone has been taught to think only in rational, economic terms; so the incidence of lunacy will be far less. Perhaps there will be a residue, of people unable to cope with stress, and they will be cared for charitably like others needing help. But if there is an even smaller residue of the kriminally insane, I doubt whether asylums will be needed; they will be treated like any other kriminals. Some will be shot in self defense when they initiate force, since most people will choose to be armed. The rest will be shunned, so preventing them earning a living by exchange; hence their miserable lives will be short.