Real Clear
Clinical Psychologist and Psychoanalyst addresses relevant political and social issues of our times in a straightforward and honest manner. Taking on anti-logic factions that are growing in society. News and opinions that you can rely on for integrity and depth!
Real Clear
Part 1: Friday, Feb 21 Daily News & Analysis
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• Discussion of Mayor Bass' trip amidst wildfires
• Analysis of political incompetence and accountability
• Examination of climate change policies and fire management
• Debate on mass firings and immigration policies
• Insights into media freedom and government relationships
• Overview of conservative shifts and nationalism in Europe
• Focus on Trump's endorsement of Byron Donalds in Florida
It is Friday, february 21st 2025. Let's get into the stories today. I'm gonna start off with a big one close to home and I'm gonna come out swinging on this. La Mayor Karen Bass claims she wasn't aware of the wildfire warnings when she left for the country. This from the National Review, but also touched upon by other news outlets. What is your take on this? Do you think that the mayor, karen Bass of Los Angeles was 7,500 miles away from her city when it was going up in flames in January and that nobody told her that she shouldn't have gone on the trip? That's what she claims. No one told her. I don't know if you, like me, listened to just about every news station on earth which was talking about the fire season and wildfire risk about to descend upon California that week. The mayor somehow missed that and no one told her that she shouldn't have left the country when her county was going up in flames. Okay, I don't think this really requires too much political analysis. Mayor Karen Bass is, by anyone's measurement, incompetent. She was elected in the 2020s. Hysteria over race relations in the United States. I think that's pretty fair to say. I don't think that would be acknowledged on the left. The right goes for that like the jugular, and I think that there's reason for that right now. I think they are ultimately correct that she has no business being in the role she's in. Remember, she was one of the few people that Joe Biden said he was going to select as a VP. Instead, he went for Kamala Harris, and we all know how that worked out.
Speaker 1:The take on the issue from the left is that we have to fix the temperature of the earth before California can have more reasonable positions on fire maintenance and prevention. That's quite literally the position of people like Karen Bass, as well as Ricardo Lara, the Commissioner of Insurance in California. Did you hear what he's planning to do in terms of mitigating the exploding costs of fire insurance for the state? He's going to allow private companies like State Farm and others to charge people like me on the future prospectus of climate change on their bottom line. That's how he intends to re-invite them back to the state is to allow them to charge people like me and you, if you live here, based on what they imagine climate change will cost them in the future.
Speaker 1:This is obviously a psychotic delusion. I think the right has it right here. I think the left has it wrong when it comes to California. The idea that we have to change the temperature of the earth before we can somehow mitigate fire risk in California is probably actually a psychotic delusion shared across society. Fine, you can pursue best practices and energy, but I don't see what that has to do with clearing tracts of land, making more reasonable steps to mitigate fire here.
Speaker 1:Now, my definition of a delusion is that it's a belief that cannot be discussed. It's a belief whose validity is not up for debate. In other words, the right wing tends to say that there is no basis for climate concern and so on, and that this is all a bunch of nonsense conspired by the left. I don't think that's true. I have not exhaustively reviewed the data on climate change, but from what I have reviewed, it does seem as though it would be best practice for us to try to find ways to be wiser with our energy usage and, if we can, over the course of time, implement strategies to offset what we're burning and so on. That's pretty reasonable, but the left wants to enforce those things right now, and that's where they go wrong. They want to say the earth is changing, we're doing it and we know just how to change this? Why don't you work on balancing the budget first? That's my honest rejoinder. The idea that we know how to, within the arm of government, change the temperature of the earth is bananas. We do not yet know how to fix potholes. We do not yet actually know how to fix traffic jams. We actually don't know why they occur. Do you understand that? We do not, as a species, yet know why traffic jams occur? Nor can we balance our budgets, but we think somehow, if companies pay a carbon footprint tax, that we'll be able to change the temperature of the earth.
Speaker 1:Okay, moving on to other issues, obviously Russia and Ukraine is in center scope with everybody. The right wing generally supports Trump's direct talks with Russia and they view this as a practical and pragmatic attempt to reduce tensions and to promote American interests. In terms of the regional costs, trump's supporters of the president generally point towards European allies complicating this process and that a binary approach between the United States and Russia is the most direct path to resolution. The left wing is critical over Trump's moves here and claims that Ukraine is being sidelined, in addition to European Union parties, and this might weaken the overall stance against the Russian aggression against Ukraine. Just to sum up the domestic policies unfolding in the United States.
Speaker 1:The left-wing perspective is generally opposed to the mass firings at the level of government, and they view this as undermining labor rights and destabilizing public services. Many on the left right now view the current actions of the administration as politically motivated. They think that there could be an erosion of institutional knowledge and that this could, in the long term, stop government's ability to serve the public effectively. And the right-wing perspective on this is that the administration is streamlining the federal workforce through measures like mass layoffs and restructuring, and that this is necessary to get the bureaucracy out of Washington and increase efficiency. They think that this will lead to more accountability, higher productivity and greater fiscal responsibility. Their overarching aim here is also to reduce inflation by way of reducing the deficit.
Speaker 1:Immigration was the first issue the administration started off with, and the right-wing perspective is that an open border is a national security threat. An interesting story from San Diego County where I reside they closed down some immigrant shelters because no one was coming over. So the administration has been effective in its aims. Prior to that, especially over this past year, we've had so much illegal immigration in San Diego County that emergency responses have not known what to do with it. They've literally taken buses of people and just let them go at various places in the county. Left-wing perspectives on this include concerns that this is rhetoric that fosters what they call xenophobia, and that it dilutes more pressing long-term issues. People left of center are concerned about our movement away from what they call a compassionate immigration policy and they also worry about demonizing immigrants.
Speaker 1:My own take on this matter is that we need a sane immigration policy that you can't take in 20 to 30 million people over the course of four years. That's just not possible. If you don't have a border, you don't have a country. I think the country can walk and chew gum at the same time, meaning that we need to be able to have sane immigration policies and not become anti-immigrant. I think those two things are possible On this matter and, like many others, I think the two perspectives, if they're viewed as mutually exclusive.
Speaker 1:You're having a borderline process unfold. We can again, we can integrate, we can do both. We can have a wall, even we can have strict immigration policies. We can have a zero tolerance for immigrants coming in with criminal records, as we do now, and also embrace immigrants. Let's try to be whole people. Let's try to be a whole society in this way, and from here go to realclearpodcastcom or click the link in the show notes below to listen to the full episode. Just become a subscriber and that's all you need for your daily news and commentary.
