Jason Rantz defends his honor against partisan smear by The Stranger

The Stranger’s Charles Mudede, for the umpteenth time, published another blog about me and my work. And it deserves to be addressed this time.

He appears to take issue with an editorial I wrote about why I think Washingtonians should start worrying about the future of Boeing. The company suffered a series of horrific news that could lead to the flying public losing confidence in them. It could force airlines to ditch Boeing for Airbus. If that happened, we would feel economic pain and people would lose their jobs.

I’m pretty sure Mudede was mocking me, derisively (and falsely) labeling me “far-right” (he is correct to note that I’m the “Seattle’s leading (conservative) voice,” though I would have appreciated him expanding my influence to the Pacific Northwest, not just Seattle). Now, I feel the need to defend my honor! (No one else will, thanks guys.) But I can’t because nothing Mudede writes ever makes any sense.

Trying to decipher Charles Mudede

Every attempt to read Charles Mudede unfolds in about the same way.

First, you read the first two sentences and vaguely understand what he’s talking about. (In this case, he thinks I’m in a place of despair because of Boeing’s woes. I may be experiencing despair, but that’s a side effect of my general self-loathing, thank you very much.)

Second, you read the next two sentences and you definitely don’t understand what he’s trying to say. (In this case, he quotes philosopher Baruch Spinoza to explain the state of “despair” I’m supposedly feeling. Side note: given the pro-Hamas position of the staff of The Stranger, I’m assuming no one knows Spinoza was Jewish?)

Third, you try to decipher one more sentence. But that final sentence ends up confirming the entire blog post — which is always a few hundred words too long — will never make sense. Alan Turing would need a stiff drink, a cheat sheet and about five months to get through a full paragraph. Who has time for that during March Madness?

Finally, you give up, angry you wasted even three minutes of your life trying to decipher the undecipherable.

KTTH Roundtable: The problems with Boeing and homeless housing

What we think he’s trying to say…

I confess I wasn’t that curious about what Mudede was trying to say because I assumed it was just another screed about the evils of capitalism and the virtues of Marxism. Reading his blog is like enduring a pretentious Mad Libs session in the aftermath of a fever dream you’re still trying to cope with emotionally. He recycles the same old arguments, but inserts a few new quotes from philosophers long forgotten.

But I do like to punish my former producer, so I gave him the blog to summarize. He is a hardcore progressive who, once he overcame his low self-worth, quit to work on a different show. If anyone could figure the blog out, he would be the man to do it.

He said: “OK, that took me a while, but I think all he’s saying is there is another option than Boeing recovering and Boeing failing and it’s that the government takes over the company. That way it’s not beholden to profits and it can focus on safety.”

Can Charles Mudede stump ChatGPT?

Not completely trusting my former producer (as I said, he’s a hardcover progressive), I asked ChatGPT to summarize the article.

The article draws on Spinoza’s philosophy to differentiate between hope and despair, suggesting that Rantz’s despair stems from his unwavering belief in the market’s ability to solve Boeing’s crisis. However, the situation has deteriorated, with Boeing’s problems exposing the limitations of market solutions. The piece also discusses Marxist economic theory, suggesting that government intervention might be necessary to salvage Boeing and contrasting this approach with Rantz’s market-driven perspective.

ChatGPT also was uncharacteristically snarky, but AI does learn from its user: “Summarizing that article felt like being in an intellectual escape room with Spinoza and Marx as the puzzle masters – and the clues are written in Boeing’s technical manuals!”

More from Jason Rantz: I witnessed a homeless man overdose and it highlights Seattle failures

I did not know that’s how I felt

Mudede’s interpretation of anyone’s work is kind of like a reverse Rosetta Stone that’s also written backward and upside down. It’s kind of close to what I said, but not really.

I think Boeing may cause flyers to lose trust in their products. If that happens, and Boeing suffers, it hurts the Washington economy and Washingtonians. But market forces aren’t the problem, they’re the solution. Boeing proves to consumers they’re safe, and then consumers reward the company with trust again.

That Mudede thinks the government is capable of running Boeing isn’t surprising since it’s based in a fundamental misunderstanding of … everything? One need not leave the Puget Sound region to see how how much of a success a government-run Boeing would be.

Imagine Sound Transit in charge of putting together planes. We’d still be producing the Curtiss Model D, but the plane wouldn’t be finished until 2056 (unsurprisingly not meeting the 2024 due date) and it would go billions over budget, requiring several tax hikes and a few ballot measures.

Listen to The Jason Rantz Show on weekday afternoons from 3-6 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here. Follow Jason on X, formerly known as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Follow @https://twitter.com/jasonrantz