Gun grabbers and their enablers in the social sciences are fond of cranking out studies that show high gun ownership correlates to high suicide rates or high murder rates. They collect up some statistics from crime reports and then try to match that up to gun ownership rates or gun laws. Usually there will be some sort of scary heat map showing the bad places in bright red and the good places in a nice color like green or blue. The point of the exercise is to claim that science! is against guns.

One of my favorite gags is to point out to these very serious people posting these claims that their “reasoning” is based on magic. After all, the underlying premise is that the mere presence of a gun causes someone to kill or commit suicide. It’s as if they think people see a gun and are suddenly compelled to shoot themselves or someone else. The shaping of metal and plastic into a gun imbues it with magical powers that seizes the minds of normal men, causing them to go violently crazy.

This sort of magical thinking is so common in the education rackets that no one bothers to notice. The chant, “Diversity is our strength” is just assumed to be true so no one thinks about it. If a school does not have black kids in it, then it is assumed to be an incubator for the Klan. If a school has no white kids in it, the assumption is that the school is a plantation. Only through the right mix of hues can a child magically absorb knowledge.

No one bothers to explain why diversity is good or beneficial. The reason for that is there is no explanation. The “experts” look at numbers on a page and say, “these school have good results while these schools have bad results. The solution is to send the kids from the bad schools to the good schools!” The magic lies in the building as that can be the only explanation, other than racism, of course. Racism is always a good fallback if magic is not a good answer.

Nowhere is magic more obvious than in the topic of race. The other day I did a few riffs on this story about how the sandman is a racist. When considering physical phenomena, the logical place to start is with biology, if it involves living creatures. Otherwise, physics is the place to start. That’s entry level reasoning. Yet, in matters of race, biology is immediately ruled out in favor of mysterious forces that can be quantified with statistics, but only explained with the Ouija Board.

Steve Sailer has been having a lot of fun with the cooing over Raj Chetty’s big project, pointing out the many methodological flaws. In John Derbyshire’s latest transmission from the bunker, he introduces us to a new term that describes what Sailer has been discussing. It is called “Magic Dirt Theory.” The dirt in places like Utah where children do very well possess special qualities that are lacking in the dirt of places where children do poorly.

Magic Dirt Theory is what’s behind the push to export troublesome populations out to the suburbs. Through the use of Section 8 housing vouchers, the oppressed can be sent out into the burbs to live in apartments built on the magic dirt that makes the suburbs so attractive to white people. In no time, those troublesome populations will magically transform into highly productive, self-actualizing citizens, contributing to the wonderfulness of suburban life.

The beauty of Magic Dirt Theory is it reinforces the magic of race. If the whites raise an objection to having their neighbors owning pit bulls or having loud parties on weeknights, it is just proof that the horrible bad whites are trying to deny blacks access to the magic dirt. The only solution is to redouble efforts to transplant more blacks into places like Ferguson Missouri. If the magic dirt does not take, then it just shows how powerful the magic of racism really is and why the good thinkers must never quit trying to beat back the bad thinkers.

Magic Dirt Theory. The cause of and cure for all that ails the Progressive mind.

Steve Sailer did a post on this hilarious story in National Journal. I say it is hilarious because of the absurd claim that racism is keeping blacks up at night. Blacks are obsessed with race, but even they take a break from the topic on occasion, like when they go to bed. But, the scolds who are forever lecturing us never take a break. They are eternal.

What caught my attention was this line:

“ON THE QUES­TION of how to ex­plain the black-white sleep gap it­self, re­search­ers have a num­ber of re­lated the­or­ies. (There is a con­sensus that in­nate bio­lo­gic­al dif­fer­ences between blacks and whites are not a factor.)”

It’s not enough to just ignore what the author clearly thinks is racist. Just ignoring it could be viewed as insufficiently enthusiastic for the One True Faith. The author puts that disclaimer in there so everyone can relax and focus on the candy the Great Pumpkin is going to bring all the good little boys and girls in the pumpkin patch. The rest of the article is just a long pat on the head for the faithful.

It’s becoming a standard feature these days in public writing. The author feels it necessary to sprinkle their work with quotes from the catechism, enthusiastic dismissal of bad-think and the celebration of good-think, even when none of these things has any place in the story. Fundamentalist Muslims do this as well. They could be sending driving directions to a relative and it will be sprinkled with praise for Allah and maybe a verse from the Koran, just so there can be no mistake.

Anyway, I added a comment to the Sailer post which got this reply from someone labeled AndrewR:

In the most recent NR issue there literally was an article about attracting more blacks to the GOP. There were paragraphs dedicated to advocating the end of policies with “disparate impact” on blacks.

https://www.nationalreview.com/nrd/articles/425617/civil-rights-republicanism

As an aside, it’s juvenile and needlessly inflammatory to say things like “sodomite adoption.” You appear to have the intellect to avoid saying things like that, so please do so.

My guess is that AndrewR is a homosexual. The worship of buggery has reached a point where homosexuals now think they are a priestly class, entitled and obligated to police the thoughts of others. He follows that up with this:

“Sodomite” has an obviously derogatory connotation.

No matter what one’s feelings about gays or any related issues, there is absolutely nothing to gain by alienating gays and their friends, but there is a lot to lose. Gays are not ideologically monolithic and many of us want nothing more than to be able to discreetly live lives true to themselves in a legal and dignified manner. Personally I can’t stand most of the Gay Pride types. Most of them are basically radical feminists with dicks. Many gays abhor the degeneracy understandably associated with the gay lifestyle (pride parades, etc), and many have no need to call their relationships “marriage.” As for adoption, I think straights should take precedence but it’s very hard to argue that a child would be better off in the foster system or in an orphanage than in a stable, loving house with gay adopted parents. As for natural birth, I strongly oppose gay couples choosing to have biological children but I’m not sure it should (or could) be legislated against.

But I’m digressing here. My main point is that no person who actually cares about effecting political change can afford to alienate gays at this point in time. Certainly a couple generations ago there was very little cost to alienating a group that largely lived in the shadows and had few defenders. And no one knows what sort of fate the future holds for gays in terms of political power and visibility. But undoubtedly at this point in time no serious political movement can afford to use language that would alienate essentially all gays.

To repeat, my guess is this guy is gay and one of those strangely prudish gays that tsk-tsk any bawdy talk, as if they are living in 19th century England. The image of gay males on TV is always the flamboyant, Liberace type that is outlandishly promiscuous in his homosexuality. There’s another type that is the complete opposite of that popular image, the type that thinks gay pride parades are an embarrassment.

Even if my assumptions here are all wrong, the point is that homosexuals now have a veto over public discourse. They’ve become an axe wielding lunatic in the middle of public debate that everyone tip-toes around in order to avoid setting them off. My interlocutor in the Sailer post is walking around thinking he could be sent to the lithium mines if he upsets the local homos. No doubt he truly believes he is doing me a favor my warning me about the dangers of angering the gays.

It’s not going to stop with the homos. Every fringe weirdo is lining up to get their veto. Halloween has been canceled on the college campus because it is impossible to dress up as anything other than a block of wood without upsetting someone with a grievance. Vast swaths of knowledge about the world are now off limits because people fear upsetting one of these scolds.

This is the logical end of Utopian cults. The adherents endlessly compete with one another to be the most pious. Think of a herd of zebra where the animals are always jostling to be in the middle of the herd, away from the outer dangers. The herds eventually gets so densely packed it ceases to be a herd at all. It’s just a a jumble of snouts and hooves.

That’s what is happening with the Left. Each group of weirdos wields their veto with increasing ferocity, in pursuit of perfect purity. It’s a recursive cycle of lunacy that eventually consumes the whole thing, like a dying star collapsing in on itself. The trouble is these nuts are going to take a whole lot of normal people with them into the abyss.

Cults need enemies and when real ones are not around, they invent monsters to give the faithful something on which to focus. Orwell understood this, even though he did not use the word “cult” to describe the maniacs of his age. Where Orwell was wrong was in thinking that only apostates could become the Emmanuel Goldstein. The truth is, any bogeyman, real or imagined can fill the role.

You see it is this story on gamergate:

Two media organizations are threatening to withdraw from the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, next year after organizers canceled two controversial panels dealing with online harassment.

SXSW organizers this week said they would cancel the panels in response to threats of violence. In response, BuzzFeed and Vox Media said they would not participate in SXSW if the event does not find a way to address the online harassment issue.

One canceled panel centered on “Overcoming Harassment in Games” and the other was titled “SavePoint: A Discussion on the Gaming Community.”Organizers apparently feared the panels would become a flashpoint for the ongoing controversy in the video game community pitting those who say the games need to be more diverse and progressive against those who say games are being tainted by political correctness. This latter group has dubbed itself “gamergate.”

You have the usual elements. The bullshit claims that they are receiving threats followed by a move to keep contrary opinions from getting a hearing. It’s another example of how the front lash anticipates the backlash with make believe. Of course, the whole thing is coordinated so the lefty media can then pile on and claim Emmanuel Goldstein “gamergate” is the villain.

The censoring of bad-think is a singular obsession these days with the Cult. The reason is the internal logic of cults prevents them from accepting contrary opinion. They either find a way to filter it out or they find a way to stamp it out. That’s why there is a war on comment sections. It’s not that the Cult wants to suppress dissent. It’s that they want to be insulated from it.

That’s where I think people err, when it comes to examining the motivations of the Left. What drives them is a physical revulsion to facts, opinions and arguments that contradict the One True Faith. People who join mass movements do so to swap out their detested identity with that of the group. Therefore an attack on the group identity feels like a physical assault to them.

Of course, people inside a cult think it is perfectly logical and moral. It’s why Progressives have taken to dressing up like nerds and waving tables and graphs around while shouting the latest slogans. Science! has taken the place of God and the moral authority that binds their received logic with moral certainty. I have friends who can’t count their balls twice and get the same number lecturing me about the science of global warming.

To circle back to where we started, the gamergate stuff is a non-violent version of what we are seeing in Mesopotamia. ISIS shows up in a  village and declares their version of Islam the default and everyone has a choice, convert or die. Progressives show up in the rough and tumble world of gamers and declare themselves the arbiter of what is and what is not diverse and progressive. Everyone else has a choice, submit or be cast out as a bully or harasser.

This tactic is being applied to social media, comment sections of news sites and anywhere else the fundamentalist Progressives see weakness. Progressive say they encourage “feedback” but it has to comport with a set of rules that makes it impossible to contradict the One True Faith. Whole swaths of reality are ruled off-limits because they are deemed “offensive” or “insensitive.”

Again, look at the choice of words. Contrary opinion is viewed as a moral assault, equal to a physical assault. Telling someone to bleep off on twitter is the same as punching someone in the nose. Both are called “bullying” as if they are the same things, because to the hive mind, they are the same thing. The One True Faith is what defines these people so anything that undermines the faith threatens their existence.

My favorite defense mechanism is when they declare contradictory opinion to be a personal attack. Telling someone, for example, that they are bad at math for thinking socialized medicine can simultaneously increase demand while lowering prices on a fixed supply is deemed a hate crime. Personal attack has now been defined as anything that makes a Progressive sad.

I think if you want to be a sunny optimist, you have to look at these little wars where the Progressives try to censor dissent. They tend to lose them and lose them ignominiously. They look like idiots trying to harass fat dorks who like playing video games where they pretend to be a macho stud getting the busty girl. They sound like shrill harpies when they rail about science fiction being too science-y.

Just as Islam is running out of gas and collapsing under the weight of its internal contradictions, this latest manifestation of Public Protestantism will collapse as well. When you’re reduced to championing a mentally ill man as woman of the year or as a feminist icon, you’re in the end phase of your movement. These attempts to stifle dissent are probably a last gasp attempt to keep the tide of reality from swamping their dingy of lunacy.

I have a friend, who is a typical moonbat in that he repeats all the current opinions in The Hive, but insists he reasoned his way to these positions. On more than a few occasions I have pointed out to him that his “reasoned opinion” is identical to what is in the lefty media, often word for word. The result is silence as members of a cult just filter out anything that contradicts the faith.

This is a common feature of mass movements. The people inside don’t think of themselves as members of cult. They think the opinions and beliefs they adopted from the movement were arrived out by reason. They don’t notice that their opinions are identical to their coreligionists. They just think the people who think like them are smart like them. This insider/outsider mentality is a feature of every cult.

You see this in the Cult’s never ending fear of The Backlash™ that has become a staple of modern news stories. After 9/11, all of the moonbats were wringing their hands, fearing that the sight of the Trade Center in rubble would cause those evil white men in the provinces to go bonkers and attack innocent Muslims, who just want to live in peace because Islam is the religion of peace. After all, nothing is worse than The Backlash™.

This obsession with The Backlash™ was on display with Clock Boy in Texas. The narrative says Texas is the epicenter of evil white men so they must really hate Muslims. If The Backlash™ is going to appear anywhere, it will be Texas, or maybe South Carolina, when they are not busy hanging negroes. That’s why the Cult was so easy for Clock Boy’s old man to troll. He grew up around fanatics. He knows how they tick, pun intended.

The frustrating thing about The Backlash™, from the point of view of the Cult, is that there is no such thing as The Backlash™. It’s imaginary. That’s why it fails to show up and do its thing as all the prophesies predict. The solution is to simply fake it so the faithful will not lose faith and there is no better place to do it than the college campus.

The American college campus is a land of make believe where every sort of lefty lunacy is celebrated and indulged. Professors who are not sufficiently enthusiastic for the latest fads are hounded mercilessly. Those who are not of the One True Faith keep their heads down and avoid notice, fearing the lunatics in the same way people avoid the Religious Police in Saudi Arabia.

That’s why the list of college hoaxes is so long. You have the highest density of fanatics, absolutely convinced The Backlash™is going to appear at any moment, so it is conjured.

A coalition of interest groups wants the U.S. Department of Education to require colleges to monitor social media and protect students from threatening and offensive comments.

The request was made last week by 72 women’s and civil rights groups, who claimed that harassment and threats on anonymous apps like Yik Yak are an emerging Title IX issue, according to Inside Higher Ed. “Students on college campuses throughout the country have with increasing frequency used anonymous social media applications, such as Yik Yak, to target women students, students of color, and sexual minorities with harassment, threats, and other forms of intimidation with impunity,” the coalition said in a press release. “Earlier this year, students at the University of Mary Washington (UMW), for example, were threatened through Yik Yak with rape and murder after they spoke out against rape culture.”

The groups complain that the typical response to such incidents by university administrators has been “to disclaim responsibility for harassment and threats that occur on that platform” because the site is anonymous and accessible without using university servers.

In the UMW case, Feminists United on Campus (FUC) and Feminist Majority Foundation (FMF), both members of the coalition requesting federal intervention, filed a Title IX suit against the school, charging administrators with a “systemic failure to protect students from a sexually hostile school environment, from sex-based cyber assaults, and from threats of physical and sexual violence.”

The pattern is always the same. The lunatics make a nuisance of themselves and then say they are the victim of The Backlash™, claiming death threats or now, rape threats. In this case we have two imaginary bogeymen, The Rape Culture™ and The Backlash™. The Social Justice League is real, but it’s enemies are not as there is no such thing as a rape culture or a backlash.

These prurient scolds calling their group Feminists United on Campus (FUC) cannot see how this looks to normal people. They lack that capacity. They think they are being provocative, when they are simply being vulgar. The insider/outsider logic, however, only sees the outsider as an undifferentiated other. The people inside the group all think it is funny and meaningful and that’s all that matters.

In the not too distant future, the robot historians and archaeologists – I’m assuming the robots wipe us out –  will puzzle over a number of things.The most obvious will be why humans invented robots that would be smart enough to wipe out humanity. The other will be why those same humans suddenly decided to start worshiping black people as if they possess magical healing powers.

In modern America, whites fear being called racist more than anything. I would imagine that you could put a gun to the head of most anyone in academia, for example, and demand they shout the “N” word. Their response would be to turn and put their mouth over the barrel and force you to pull the trigger. For most Americans, death is a better option than being a racist.

This of course has made it easy for blacks to be raging bigots. In another age, blacks looked to assimilate into the dominant culture because they feared the wrath of the majority. Now that the roles are reversed. blacks are encouraged to indulge in the most outlandish acts of racism. It’s not just the World Star Hip-Hop types either. It’s allegedly responsible members of the community like this Louisville judge.

Unhappy with the number of potential black jurors called to his court last week, Jefferson Circuit Court Judge Olu Stevens halted a drug trial and dismissed the entire jury panel, asking for a new group to be sent up.

“The concern is that the panel is not representative of the community,” said Stevens, who brought in a new group of jurors despite objections from both the defense and prosecutor.

And this wasn’t the first time Stevens, who is black, has dismissed a jury because he felt it was lacking enough minorities. Now the state Supreme Court is going to determine whether the judge is abusing his power.

On Nov. 18, after a 13-member jury chosen for a theft trial ended up with no black jurors, Stevens found it “troublesome” and dismissed the panel at the request of a defense attorney.

“There is not a single African-American on this jury and (the defendant) is an African-American man,” Stevens said, according to a video of the trial. “I cannot in good conscience go forward with this jury.”

A new jury panel was called up the next day.

After that, the Jefferson County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office and Attorney General asked the Kentucky Supreme Court to look at the issue and see if Stevens has the authority to dismiss jury panels because of a lack of minorities. And last month, the high court agreed to hear arguments.

Imagine a white judge dismissing black jurors in a case because they were black. Ironically, Batson v. Kentucky was where the Supreme court ruled that a prosecutor’s use of peremptory challenge in a criminal case may not be used to exclude jurors based solely on their race. Here we have a judge doing it and everyone is nervous about doing anything about it.

Putting that aside, look at this from the story:

Jefferson County has long had a problem with minorities being underrepresented on local juries. Several black defendants have complained over the years that they were convicted by an all-white jury – not of their peers.

The Racial Fairness commission – a group made up of local judges, lawyers and citizens – has studied the issue for years, monitored the make-up of jury panels and found them consistently lacking in minorities.

For example, in October, 14 percent of potential jurors were black, far below the estimated 21 percent for all residents of Jefferson County, according to records kept by the commission. In September, 13 percent of potential Jefferson County jurors were black.

The premise of this is that blacks and whites are not peers and can never be peers. I’ll grant that the intent is to imply that whites can never stop being racist toward blacks, but the further implication is that blacks and whites can never be peers, which means we can never be fellow citizens. Hell, it could mean we cannot be fellow human beings.

That’s the sort of logic that has to flow from the narcotic of anti-racism. If blacks are objects of worship as whites try to cleanse their souls of racism, then blacks and whites can never be on the same footing as citizens or human beings. if so, what’s the point of having integrated societies? Why are we turning ourselves into pretzels to have diversity when we are not the same species? It’s like insisting everyone live with bears or mountain lions.

No one thinks about it because it really is just another area where meddling fanatics get to make war on normal people. They don’t really worship blacks. they just like it when this crazy judge outrages the hillbillies down in redneck country. It’s why they encourage Black Lives Matter to attack cops and cause mayhem. It’s all about hating the bad whites. Hating whitey is just another front on the cold civil war.

This will not end well.

My previous post used health care as a jumping off point to rant and rave about the consequences of putting lunatics in charge. I did not get into specifics about the potential consequences as I was running long and I’m trying to keep these blog posts from sounding like manifestos.

The general point was that we live in what feels like an “infinite margin of error” world where the people in charge are free to indulge their wildest fantasies, because we have so much extra, society can take the hit and bugger on. Whether or not that is true is debatable, but you have to admit that decades of lunacy have not brought the roof down on us yet. Maybe all the hand wringing is misplaced.

After all, what harm is there when a magazine dedicated to female sexuality names a mentally ill transvestite as woman of the year? The editors are just trying to demonstrate their fidelity to the One True Faith. The “tranny issue” or the “homo issue” is standard stuff now in the magazine world, a sure fire way to get the other howling lunatics in the press to notice you.

The moonbats think they can piss off the squares from the safety of their Progressive cocoons so they never really pay any price. It’s a low risk way to look butch on behalf of the One True Faith and it gets some yuks at the expense of the rubes in flyover country. If there is even the slightest rumble of push back from the normals. Glamour Magazine goes back to posting stories titled “ten ways to please your man in bed.”

On the other hand, the same people ululating with ecstasy over the latest perversions don’t wave around the examples where real people suffered real harm from this stuff. Every day, people are encouraged to spend money on “professionals” who may as well be toting around Ouija boards and tarot cards. People who should know better allow these scams to go on because it is easier than doing their job and policing their ranks.

This Rutgers professor in the story was clearly a nut. She should have remained a harmless nut, but she was promoted to the point where she is the Chairman of the Philosophy Department at Rutgers. The poor people victimized by her could be forgiven for trusting their betters to make sure they were not putting the stamp of approval on lunatics by giving them lofty titles.

That’s ultimately the damage that comes from this unwillingness of our betters to uphold their end of the bargain. Being king comes with duties. You never hear rich people talk about their duties and obligations. The ravenous vermin that occupy political offices yammer on about their “public service”, but we all know that’s a lie. They are getting rich through politics. Otherwise, no one talks about their duties and responsibilities anymore.

When was the last time a plutocrat talked about his duty to his fellow citizens? Or, his obligations to hold up the key values and institutions? Even more laughably, make sacrifices for the good of their country? Instead, they prattle on like college freshmen about transforming the world, when they are not railing against the customs and traditions normal people rely on to maintain a happy and peaceful life.

Scipio Africanus, the man who beat the great Hannibal at Zama, was more than a great general. He was a great politician. Part of that was always showing the people that he was first and foremost committed to upholding the customs and traditions of the people. He was a man committed to public virtue. He would regularly make a show of his devotion by conducting public acts of piety.

Today, all of our betters are the inverse of Scipio in that they are big on public acts of piety, but their commitment is to destroying the faith of the people. Turn on the TV, listen to the radio, surf the Interwebs and you see example after example mocking the beliefs and customs of the common people. The Christians under Diocletian had more reason to be optimistic than Christians today. How long before they declare Christianity a hate crime?

It’s not just words either. It’s deeds. Take a look at the pictures in this story. Waves of savages from beyond the horizon are being invited to flood into Europe, attacking and displacing the native populations. For no good reason the people in charge of Europe are sowing violence and discord into their own societies, simply to spite their people. That’s what it is, spite. Like petulant children the leaders of the free world are throwing a tantrum and unleashing hell on their own citizens.

Again, it is assumed that the West can keep absorbing the body blows from these reckless acts by the people in charge. Our betters just assume they will forever remain immune from the consequences as they are hidden away behind high walls and armed guards. Maybe they are right and maybe we have evolved beyond paying any real price for this reckless disregard for reality.

Maybe. Maybe not.

It’s popular on the fringe to mock democracy, pointing to the endless supply of examples where “citizens” sign up for idiotic causes. The simple fact that 50% of people are below average in intelligence should be enough to shake anyone’s faith in democracy. As I’m fond of putting it, find the dumbest guy you know and give him a veto over your life. That’s democracy.

That said, the alternatives are not much better. If your system of government permits the deranged, insane and berserk to get control of the levers of power, eventually they will and you will be ruled by lunatics. Charles VI was king of France in the 14th century. He also thought he was made of glass. Christian VII of Denmark was a chronic masturbater who would randomly slap people in the face (with his hand) for no reason.

The great check on this for most of human history was scarcity. Human societies were a bad harvest away from serious unrest unless the people in charge were on top of things. That motivated the ruling class to police themselves. That was best done by killing off the deranged, the insane and the unpredictable. If the king’s son was a dangerous nut, then he would die in a hunting accident before he became a problem.

I’m exaggerating for effect, but the point is valid. When misconduct or misjudgements by the rulers had catastrophic consequences, the people in charge had no choice but to be prudent. This limited innovation and stifled technological progress, but it kept lunatics from gaining too much influence. Plus, burning heretics at the stake was fun.

In the current age, the people in charge can be reckless. We live in a post-scarcity time when even big mistakes by the rulers do not threaten our survival. At least it seems that way. We’re certainly testing the theory by allowing anyone with a crackpot idea to get a shot to try it out on the public. This story about health insurance in Colorado is a great example.

With Colorado’s shaky Obamacare exchange in peril, some health care advocates are calling for voters to scrap it and replace it with something far more ambitious.

Proponents of a statewide single-payer health care system have submitted 156,107 signatures, far more than the 98,492 required to qualify for the November 2016 ballot, to the Colorado secretary of state’s office for verification.If the measure qualifies, Colorado would immediately become ground zero for a national debate on the concept of steep tax increases in return for guaranteed health care coverage for all residents, all against the backdrop of a pivotal presidential race.

The program, called ColoradoCare, comes with a steep price tag: $25 billion, which would be raised with a 10 percent payroll tax increase. At the same time, the plan would provide all residents with Medicare-style health care coverage and allow the state to dump Obamacare.

Whether Colorado voters would agree to take on that kind of tax hike is another question — two years ago, they rejected a comparatively paltry $1 billion tax increase for education — but there is no doubt that the “no-more-Obamacare” argument resonates with certain segments of the population.

“For some people, I say, ‘It gets us out of Obamacare,’ and some people cheer,” T.R. Reid, a spokesman for ColoradoCareYES, said during the signature-gathering campaign. “It’s a purple state, and we have this purple plan that can appeal to both sides.”

The premise of this proposal is that the people who screwed up the old system with the central planning thing called ObamaCare now want to “fix” it by replacing it with an even nuttier government plan. They are not hiding from this or even sugarcoating it. It’s right there. The solution to government run health insurance is government run health insurance.

Of course, most of the people behind this are not insane, but many of them are. They are convinced that if you arrange the laws just the right the way, two plus two will equal five. The trouble is the cynical backers who seek to profit by having the crazy convince enough of the stupid to go along with another robbery. This can only happen when the people in charge are no longer policing their ranks.

Even in a post-scarcity age, the iron laws of supply and demand apply. There is a finite amount of health care. That means it must be rationed and the only way that ever gets done properly is through price. Even Chinese Marxists get this basic reality. For essentials like basic health care, food, shelter, etc., charity steps in so those with extra can help those in need.

You never hear anyone say this in public. Instead, pols from both parties come up with plan to summon the good spirits of plenty to vanquish the evil spirits of want. They don’t put it that way, but it is what they are saying. The fault is not that some people believe this. The trouble is the people who know better encourage this sort of reckless nonsense. At some point, the tab for indulging the reckless and stupid is going to be paid.