To explain the present, the Communist Party of China (CPC) often turns to the past. One of its favorite pastimes is to deploy China’s decorated history and the wisdom of its ancients to explain its policies and bolster its authority.

For example, the CPC frequently offers the (largely nonviolent) 15th century maritime voyages of Zheng He, who projected Chinese power and carried Chinese treasure to destinations as far flung as the Middle East and Africa, to support the notion of its “peaceful rise” in the 21st century.

Mao was fond of quoting Sun Tzu, while today Xi Jinping keeps a rolodex of wise sayings from political philosophers at the ready.

Yet despite the homage paid to these leading lights, Beijing’s behavior is growing increasingly at odds with much of their counsel. That is to the detriment of China and the world.

Many of China’s most prominent ancient political philosophers, including Guan Zhong, Laozi, Confucius, Xunzi, and Mencius, held that governing with humane authority—“winning the hearts and minds of the people at home and abroad”—was the key to becoming a leading world power, as Yan Xuetong points out in his book Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese Power.

In terms of its foreign policy, China has been doing little of this lately.

At the DNC Convention, Michelle Obama put on her victimhood hat one more time and declared, “I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves.”

But that’s too past tense. Michelle’s house continues to be built and maintained by slaves. Her lavish lifestyle of endless vacations, parties and public appearances is funded by millions and millions of slaves.

Michelle Obama lives a life that is vastly more lavish and luxurious than that of any plantation owner. She has 26 staffers that are part of a White House staff of thousands. That’s more than many crowned heads of state. Compare that to 12 servants for Thomas Jefferson.

Michelle’s house, her luxurious lifestyle, is built by taxpaying slaves who are forced to turn over their money to fund her pleasures. She spent more money on one night in Morocco than the average American family will see in five years.

The Obama lifestyle is just the tip of the iceberg. Tens of thousands of more modest government plantation owners cling to their skirts living off the stolen toil of the government’s slaves.

Government, like slavery, is an institution. Like slavery, it claims to civilize its dependents. In reality it exploits them. It promises them security in exchange for freedom. It takes away the products of their toil and then tells them that they didn’t build that. It claims a false moral authority to exploit them.

A Donald Trump presidency would be way more beneficial to the environment than a Hillary Clinton presidency.

Trump really needs to mention this point at his rallies, not just for the trolling, but also because it happens to be true.

Consider just one example: the hundreds of thousands of rare birds and endangered bats slaughtered in the US every year by the wind farms that Hillary Clinton applauds (and will no doubt go on subsidizing) and that Donald Trump loathes (and will no doubt starve of subsidies and cause to become as extinct as the Dodo).

As the Daily Beast recently noted, Trump’s hatred of wind farms is probably the most consistent and long-standing of all his political convictions.

Donald J. Trump Verified account ‏@realDonaldTrump "@noturbine: @realDonaldTrump Wind turbines kill up to 39 million birds a year, Industry hides evidence of kills http://www.cfact.org/2013/03/18/wind-turbines-kill-up-to-39-million-birds-a-year/ …"

Trump does have a point. If you care about flying wildlife, bat-chomping, bird-slicing eco-crucifixes really are about the most pointlessly destructive form of power generation there is – as a series of recent studies show.

On Monday (8/08), British Prime Minister Theresa May announced what is being called the “Frackpot” –  to redirect some of the future profits of shale gas production to households, rather than councils.

[Note that in the UK and most countries, unlike the US, the government owns the mineral rights under a landowner’s land.  Note also that – surprise – British environmentalists are denouncing May’s policy as a “bribe.” – JW]

After leaving the European Union, Britain will have to be quicker to adopt new technologies, the better to create wealth in the knowledge economy. For me that’s the biggest opportunity of Brexit.

But to grasp it we must find a way to persuade people to be more ready to embrace innovation and less suspicious. A country that can work out how to do that is going to steal a march on its rivals.

Innovation is the source of virtually all prosperity. It is the reason the average person now lives longer, feeds better, travels farther, is better entertained and sees more children survive than even a monarch did four centuries ago. A glance back through history shows that innovation nearly always does more good than harm.

So why is innovation so fiercely resisted?

Two recent news stories highlight how pernicious the welfare state has become in America today.

Fox News reported (7/18)  that food-stamp groceries can be delivered right to a recipient’s door. In New York, the program is being called Fresh Direct – note the website has a convenient En Español button.

Service with a smile. The Obama administration says it is too much of a hardship for those on welfare to actually travel to the grocery store. What’s next? Cooking the meal for them? If only the DMV would do home deliveries for drivers licenses.

The second story is the hullabaloo over a proposal by Maine Governor Paul LePage to prohibit food stamp recipients from using their food aid to purchase junk foods like sugary soft drinks and candy bars. He says that the state has an obesity problem and he will “implement reform unilaterally or cease Maine’s administration of the food stamp program altogether.”

The Obama administration rejected his request and the left activists act as if a welfare recipient can’t stuff themselves with Mars bars and Mountain Dew at taxpayer expense, it’s a violation of civil liberties.  The media in Maine promptly condemned LePage’s “food stamp recklessness” that shows “little respect for Maine’s poor.”

The welfare/entitlement state of mind has spiraled out of control in America. The cost of welfare is now well over $1 trillion a year.

OPEC's worst fears are coming true. Twenty months after Saudi Arabia took the fateful decision to flood world markets with oil, it has still failed to break the back of the US shale industry.

The Saudi-led Gulf states have certainly succeeded in killing off a string of global mega-projects in deep waters. Investment in upstream exploration from 2014 to 2020 will be $1.8 trillion less than previously assumed, according to consultants IHS. But this is a bitter victory at best.

America's hydraulic frackers are cutting costs so fast that most can now produce at prices far below levels needed to fund the Saudi welfare state and its military machine, or to cover OPEC budget deficits.

Scott Sheffield, the outgoing chief of Pioneer Natural Resources, threw down the gauntlet last Thursday (7/28) -- claiming that his pre-tax production costs in the Permian Basin of West Texas have fallen to $2 a barrel.

"Definitely we can compete with anything that Saudi Arabia has. We have the best rock," he said. Revolutionary improvements in drilling technology and data analytics that have changed the cost calculus faster than almost anybody thought possible.