Donation matching

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Georgia Public Broadcasting just concluded their October funding drive. Something I noticed and wondered about is all the matching.

They would say, “whatever you donate will be matched dollar for dollar to double [or triple] it.” Then sometimes explain the matching funds came from earlier donations.

Something about this feels like a Ponzi scheme. I guess the way this would be legitimate is the people providing the matching funds donated to that cause knowing that the people donating later are going to be enticed into helping using them. I might have heard something about that earlier, but I am not sure.

I remember a decade ago GPB using the matching less frequently. I guess they are getting more success with donations to back the matches.

Are there any numbers on how much came in for the matching funds? If not, then people are taking their word about whether there is enough to cover. They could just say a donation is doubled to entice it when they ran out of matching funds before that point.

Modern Red Record

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I read The Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States in 2015. It was a couple years after the start of #BlackLivesMatter. I read it after the mayor of Charleston claimed not to know about the treatment of blacks, so people created reading lists, and this was on them.

It came to my mind that #BlackLivesMatter is really a modern version of the Red Record.

The United States to create fairness has a justice system. Law enforcement makes an arrest. Criminal prosecutors charge the arrestee. A judge runs a trial. A jury makes a decision on guilt. In the case of the jury deciding the individual is guilty, there is a punishment applied. In the most severe offenses being guilty, the individual might get an execution.

Lynchings are where the individual gets an execution without a trial. A mob kills the individual. Or it might be a smaller group.

Law enforcement killing someone they sought to arrest circumvents justice where they are supposed to uphold it.

Election season: U.S. leader quotes on my mind

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Now more than ever the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption.

President James-Garfield, 100th anniversary of Declaration of Independence

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.

Abraham Lincoln

Election season: Founding Father quotes on my mind

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I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection.

Thomas Paine (1776)

Even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war; the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf.

Thomas Paine (1776)

The mobs of the great cities add just so much to the support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people, which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution.

Thomas Jefferson (1787)

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

Thomas Jefferson

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.

Thomas Jefferson

Where there is no law, there is no liberty; and nothing deserves the name of law but that which is certain and universal in its operation upon all the members of the community.

Benjamin Rush (1788)

A little matter will move a party, but it must be something great that moves a nation.

Thomas Paine (1792)

The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all citizens.

Thomas Jefferson (1816)

Election season: My re-reading list mandatory

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Is MAGA pro-Social Democrat?

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When people use Make America Great Again, the question is often posed as to what period? I often see the assertion to the late 1940s through the 1950s, which was before the removal of segregation. These are not usually MAGA supporters, but let’s hypothetically say this is true.

Something that came to mind is this was also a period when the United States was effectively fairly similar to social democratic countries.

  1. Unions were very strong. The CEOs of companies made 20x more than average workers rather than hundreds to thousands. The inequality we see between the middle class and 0.1% was not as great.
  2. Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid were just starting and heavily funded popular programs ensuring people were pretty well taken care of.
  3. The G.I. Bill ensure a huge number of men and some women attended college for free.

If this is indeed the period of time to which they are alluding, then I wonder why the despise the policies that helped make it so great. I often see references to them as Communist. Which was feared during this period.