Articles in Folder “Aloud Musings”:
2554.\\ History's Verdict Coming Fast(er)
A number of interesting events this week that have totally slid under the collective radar. Frankly it is amazing given the level of discord on the subject of Iraq and George Bush just a few years ago.
Remarkable Newsweek cover for March 8.
And then there's this from the New York Times of all places:
At the same time, Bush profited from the fact that he kept a low profile and didn't snipe at his successor, a task left to his vice president, who therefore took upon himself the enmity and scorn previously directed at his former boss. Dick Cheney was, in effect, a lightning rod, and he was joined in that function by Sarah Palin, who slid neatly into the slot Bush had occupied in the mind of all good liberals for eight long years. Hatred and contempt of Palin is now the favorite pastime of those who have abandoned the cowboy from Texas and transferred their obsessive animus to the belle of Alaska (who, I say again, is more formidable than many in both parties believe.)Meanwhile, Bush's policies came to seem less obviously reprehensible as the Obama administration drifted into embracing watered-down versions of many of them. Guantanamo hasn't been closed. No Child Left Behind is being revised and perhaps improved, but not repealed. The banks are still engaging in their bad practices. Partisanship is worse than ever. Obama seems about to back away from the decision to try 9/11 defendants in civilian courts, a prospect that led the ACLU to run an ad in Sunday's Times with the subheading "Change or more of the same?" Above that question is a series of photographs that shows Obama morphing into guess who -- yes, that's right, George W. Bush.
And now, right on schedule, Bush has resurfaced (just as I imagined him doing a year ago last September ) to join Bill Clinton in a humanitarian relief effort. He is officially a member in good standing of the ex-presidents club, and the longer he lives the more his reputation will be burnished.
And then we hear about Bush being asked by Obama to help out in Northern Ireland. This in the UK's marxist Guardian:
Amid alarm in the US at the prospect of a UUP no vote, Bush telephoned Cameron last Friday to ask him to plead with the UUP leader, Sir Reg Empey, to endorse the deal. While the UUP does not have enough votes to scupper the deal, political leaders in the US fear a no vote from the UUP could undermine support for the settlement within the DUP and among the wider unionist community.The Guardian understands that the White House is so concerned that the US economic envoy to Northern Ireland, Declan Kelly, persuaded Bush to intervene. The former president, who took a close interest in the peace process during his years in the White House, telephoned Cameron to ask him to use his influence to persuade Empey to vote for the deal.
"There was a feeling that a conservative to conservative conversation was the right way to go about this," said one source familiar with the transatlantic negotiations. "This conversation was borne out of the concern that Empey is holding out." Another source familiar with the contact said: "This is the most active thing George W Bush has done in his post-presidency period. He has been incredibly restrained and diplomatic since leaving the White House. He has maintained radio silence."
One source familiar with thinking on Northern Ireland on both sides of the Atlantic added: "The fact that George W Bush has decided to intervene is really significant. He was interested in the peace process as president and appointed an envoy. It is a general sign of how concerned people are in the US about what David Cameron is up to."
Could it be that with everyone's hatred focused elsewhere and with a few years of history that people are looking back and thinking, "You know, he wasn't Satan after all. Hell, he may just have been right about that Iraq thing."
And here is what he said 7 years ago:
Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country.
In this battle, we have fought for the cause of liberty, and for the peace of the world. Our nation and our coalition are proud of this accomplishment -- yet it is you, the members of the United States military, who achieved it. Your courage -- your willingness to face danger for your country and for each other -- made this day possible. Because of you, our nation is more secure. Because of you, the tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free.
Operation Iraqi Freedom was carried out with a combination of precision, and speed, and boldness the enemy did not expect, and the world had not seen before. From distant bases or ships at sea, we sent planes and missiles that could destroy an enemy division, or strike a single bunker. Marines and soldiers charged to Baghdad across 350 miles of hostile ground, in one of the swiftest advances of heavy arms in history. You have shown the world the skill and the might of the American Armed Forces.
This nation thanks all of the members of our coalition who joined in a noble cause. We thank the Armed Forces of the United Kingdom, Australia, and Poland, who shared in the hardships of war. We thank all of the citizens of Iraq who welcomed our troops and joined in the liberation of their own country. And tonight, I have a special word for Secretary (Donald) Rumsfeld, for General (Tommy) Franks, and for all the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States: America is grateful for a job well done.
The character of our military through history -- the daring of Normandy, the fierce courage of Iwo Jima, the decency and idealism that turned enemies into allies -- is fully present in this generation. When Iraqi civilians looked into the faces of our servicemen and women, they saw strength, and kindness, and good will. When I look at the members of the United States military, I see the best of our country, and I am honored to be your commander in chief.
In the images of fallen statues, we have witnessed the arrival of a new era. For a hundred years of war, culminating in the nuclear age, military technology was designed and deployed to inflict casualties on an ever-growing scale. In defeating Nazi Germany and imperial Japan, Allied Forces destroyed entire cities, while enemy leaders who started the conflict were safe until the final days. Military power was used to end a regime by breaking a nation. Today, we have the greater power to free a nation by breaking a dangerous and aggressive regime. With new tactics and precision weapons, we can achieve military objectives without directing violence against civilians. No device of man can remove the tragedy from war. Yet it is a great advance when the guilty have far more to fear from war than the innocent.
In the images of celebrating Iraqis, we have also seen the ageless appeal of human freedom. Decades of lies and intimidation could not make the Iraqi people love their oppressors or desire their own enslavement. Men and women in every culture need liberty like they need food, and water, and air. Everywhere that freedom arrives, humanity rejoices. And everywhere that freedom stirs, let tyrants fear.
We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We are bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous. We are pursuing and finding leaders of the old regime, who will be held to account for their crimes. We have begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons, and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated. We are helping to rebuild Iraq, where the dictator built palaces for himself, instead of hospitals and schools. And we will stand with the new leaders of Iraq as they establish a government of, by, and for the Iraqi people. The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done. And then we will leave -- and we will leave behind a free Iraq.
The Battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11th, 2001, and still goes on. That terrible morning, 19 evil men -- the shock troops of a hateful ideology -- gave America and the civilized world a glimpse of their ambitions. They imagined, in the words of one terrorist, that September the 11th would be the "beginning of the end of America." By seeking to turn our cities into killing fields, terrorists and their allies believed that they could destroy this nation's resolve, and force our retreat from the world. They have failed.
In the Battle of Afghanistan, we destroyed the Taliban, many terrorists, and the camps where they trained. We continue to help the Afghan people lay roads, restore hospitals, and educate all of their children. Yet we also have dangerous work to complete. As I speak, a special operations task force, led by the 82nd Airborne, is on the trail of the terrorists, and those who seek to undermine the free government of Afghanistan. America and our coalition will finish what we have begun.
From Pakistan to the Philippines to the Horn of Africa, we are hunting down al-Qaida killers. Nineteen months ago, I pledged that the terrorists would not escape the patient justice of the United States. And as of tonight, nearly one-half of al-Qaida's senior operatives have been captured or killed.
The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We have removed an ally of al-Qaida, and cut off a source of terrorist funding. And this much is certain: No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more.
In these 19 months that changed the world, our actions have been focused, and deliberate, and proportionate to the offense. We have not forgotten the victims of September the 11th -- the last phone calls, the cold murder of children, the searches in the rubble. With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States. And war is what they got.
Our war against terror is proceeding according to principles that I have made clear to all:
Any person involved in committing or planning terrorist attacks against the American people becomes an enemy of this country, and a target of American justice.
Any person, organization, or government that supports, protects, or harbors terrorists is complicit in the murder of the innocent, and equally guilty of terrorist crimes.
Any outlaw regime that has ties to terrorist groups, and seeks or possesses weapons of mass destruction, is a grave danger to the civilized world, and will be confronted.
And anyone in the world, including the Arab world, who works and sacrifices for freedom has a loyal friend in the United States of America.
Our commitment to liberty is America's tradition -- declared at our founding, affirmed in Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms, asserted in the Truman Doctrine, and in Ronald Reagan's challenge to an evil empire. We are committed to freedom in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and in a peaceful Palestine. The advance of freedom is the surest strategy to undermine the appeal of terror in the world. Where freedom takes hold, hatred gives way to hope. When freedom takes hold, men and women turn to the peaceful pursuit of a better life. American values, and American interests, lead in the same direction: We stand for human liberty.
The United States upholds these principles of security and freedom in many ways -- with all the tools of diplomacy, law enforcement, intelligence, and finance. We are working with a broad coalition of nations that understand the threat, and our shared responsibility to meet it. The use of force has been, and remains, our last resort. Yet all can know, friend and foe alike, that our nation has a mission: We will answer threats to our security, and we will defend the peace.
Our mission continues. Al-Qaida is wounded, not destroyed. The scattered cells of the terrorist network still operate in many nations, and we know from daily intelligence that they continue to plot against free people. The proliferation of deadly weapons remains a serious danger. The enemies of freedom are not idle, and neither are we. Our government has taken unprecedented measures to defend the homeland -- and we will continue to hunt down the enemy before he can strike.
The war on terror is not over, yet it is not endless. We do not know the day of final victory, but we have seen the turning of the tide. No act of the terrorists will change our purpose, or weaken our resolve, or alter their fate. Their cause is lost. Free nations will press on to victory.
Other nations in history have fought in foreign lands and remained to occupy and exploit. Americans, following a battle, want nothing more than to return home. And that is your direction tonight. After service in the Afghan and Iraqi theaters of war -- after 100,000 miles, on the longest carrier deployment in recent history -- you are homeward bound. Some of you will see new family members for the first time -- 150 babies were born while their fathers were on the Lincoln. Your families are proud of you, and your nation will welcome you.
We are mindful as well that some good men and women are not making the journey home. One of those who fell, Corporal Jason Mileo, spoke to his parents five days before his death. Jason's father said, "He called us from the center of Baghdad, not to brag, but to tell us he loved us. Our son was a soldier." Every name, every life, is a loss to our military, to our nation, and to the loved ones who grieve. There is no homecoming for these families. Yet we pray, in God's time, their reunion will come.
Those we lost were last seen on duty. Their final act on this earth was to fight a great evil, and bring liberty to others. All of you -- all in this generation of our military -- have taken up the highest calling of history. You are defending your country, and protecting the innocent from harm. And wherever you go, you carry a message of hope -- a message that is ancient, and ever new. In the words of the prophet Isaiah: "To the captives, 'Come out!' and to those in darkness, 'Be free!"'
Thank you for serving our country and our cause. May God bless you all, and may God continue to bless America.
You know, it just doesn't seem that controversial in hindsight.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, George W Bush, Iraq, Mission Accomplished, President
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PERMANENT LINK2553.\\ Access to Information is Not a Fundamental Right
In times such as these, where more people believe in alien abduction than have faith in the fidelity of the Federal Government, it is often with distress and alarm that I encounter news reports of such utter nonsense that it literally causes heart palpitations.
I shouldn't be surprised, I suppose, that the great intellectual powerhouse that is common wisdom believes the things it believes. My 4 year old believes that Lost should be on every day, for instance. My 13 year old believes that any logical argument can be countered with 'whatever'. I'll lay odds that if you polled the world on who best represents the best hope for mankind they might just pick a fictional character. I would choose Jack Bauer, but that is beside the point.
To paraphrase Marcus Aurelius, it is pretty ridiculous to be surprised at anything which happens in this life. So it comes as no great shock, although with a meaningful level of distaste, that 4 out of 5 people polled around the world believe that the Internet, and access to it, is a fundamental human right.
I'll wait just a moment to permit Locke to finish turning in his grave. Excellent. Thank you John. And now allow me to disabuse 80% of the masses of their silly notions of 'rights'.
I think that in 2010 we must allow for the premise that rights devolve into two general categories: Natural and Civil (or Legal). Natural rights exist existentially. Humans are born with natural rights derived from God or Nature or the Cosmos or Nothing or whatever you believe in. These rights exist as a result of our existence. They are universal, are not granted by anyone or any group, cannot be revoked, cannot be given up voluntarily, cannot be modified or added to. They simply are and they are inalienable. The right to exist would be the classic one in this category. By virtue of being human and coming into this world, we have the right to live.
The Romans gave us an early sense of the right to our own imagination, conscience or soul: "the body indeed is subjected and in the power of a master, but the mind is independent, and indeed is so free and wild, that it cannot be restrained even by ... the body." And while Seneca was probably not the first to ever conceive of the notion, he may have been the first in the West to apply natural rights to the issue of slavery in order to argue against it. He pointed out that slavery was something imposed on the body from outside. It wasn't something you could do to yourself because at the heart of it, the freedom of the soul is an inalienable right. Slavery, therefore, could not exist as an extension of nature but only as an artificial socio-political construct imposed upon people. Seems obvious now, but it made him pretty unpopular since it basically argued that no man ought to be enslaved.
Inalienable rights were also described in early Sharia Law. The Islamic formulation sounds rather familiar and prevented "the right to take away from his subjects certain rights which inhere in his or her person as a human being." Fascinating that it predates John Locke by 1000 years.
Speaking of the Enlightenment, this is where we get some of our greatest thinkers on the subject of natural rights. But I'd go back a bit further and quote Martin Luther on the subject. Luther enhances the notion of the freedom of conscience and applies it to religion: "Since, then, belief or unbelief is a matter of every one's conscience, and since this is no lessening of the secular power, the latter should be content and attend to its own affairs and permit men to believe one thing or another, as they are able and willing, and constrain no one by force." Boom. Separation of Church and State and the liberty of conscience.
Thomas Hobbes took a slightly different view. He argued that the single natural right was that of self-interest. Or as he puts it in Leviathan: "to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own Nature; that is to say, of his own Life; and consequently, of doing any thing, which in his own judgement, and Reason, he shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto." The right to life and conscience naturally flows from the innate right of liberty that we are born with. By having the latter you guarantee the former two.
John Locke gives us three inalienable rights. We have the right to life in which everyone is entitled to live once they are created. We also have the right to liberty in which everyone is entitled to do anything they want to so long as it doesn't conflict with the first right (i.e. you don't have the right to kill someone and violate their right to life). Lastly we have the right to estate or property whereby everyone is entitled to own all they create or gain through gift or trade so long as it doesn't conflict with the first two rights. I think Locke would pour cold water on the notion that music or software on the Internet is and ought to be owned by everybody who can download it. It is owned by the person who created it by natural right. Nothing you can do will ever change that.
The Scottish Enlightenment thinker Francis Hutcheson worded it slightly differently: "Thus no man can really change his sentiments, judgments, and inward affections, at the pleasure of another; nor can it tend to any good to make him profess what is contrary to his heart. The right of private judgment is therefore unalienable." You quite simply cannot by any will or force give up your right to liberty. It is therefore inalienable. Since you can't voluntarily give it up, it is there whether anyone agrees or not.
Thomas Paine added to the notion that natural rights cannot be granted by fiat or ruling or charter since this would imply that they could be revoked by the same instrument that granted them (i.e. a Constitution). As he says: "It is a perversion of terms to say that a charter gives rights. It operates by a contrary effect -- that of taking rights away. Rights are inherently in all the inhabitants; but charters, by annulling those rights, in the majority, leave the right, by exclusion, in the hands of a few. ... They...consequently are instruments of injustice."
Which leads us to the second category of rights: those that are not natural but constructed and agreed to by compact between men, groups, tribes or between the ruled and the rulers.
I'll call them civil rights. These are derived from legal constructs and are based on customs, laws or actions by legislatures. The classic example is the right to vote. You're not born with this as part of your innate human nature, it is granted by a state. It is only applicable in a state. If the state went away, so would the right. They are relative. They depend on a context established by culture and politics. The right to vote would have no meaning in a society where there was no voting.
Civil rights are artificial. They exist only as a result of the social compact between people. There is no right to go to school if the school doesn't exist because we are stone age homo sapiens in small nomadic tribes in the savannah. In that context, the right to school would only exist by permit of some law or other element of the social compact as it is in our society today. My test for what constitutes a civil right versus a natural right is simply to ask would that right exist in the absence of modern civilization? What rights do Jack Shephard and the other surviors of Oceanic 815 have while they're on the island? Certainly not the right to Medicare. They have natural rights only. As the series progresses, they form various types of social compacts to establish other rudimentary forms of civil rights such as voting on where to go and what to do. But as a whole, the characters have only their natural rights. If the right is temporary or based on some grant in the form of a law, charter or act of legislature, if it exists only within a certain socio-political context, then it is a civil or legal right, not a natural or fundamental right.
The early Sharia Law granted various civil rights. In the Constitution of Medina written in the mid-600s, the rights were specifically enumerated. In fact, that document describes rights for various groups and classes of people. It provides various civil rights to non-Muslims, for example: "The security (dhimma) of God is equal for all groups; non-Muslim members have equal political and cultural rights as Muslims. They will have autonomy and freedom of religion; non-Muslims will take up arms against the enemy of the Ummah and share the cost of war. There is to be no treachery between the two; non-Muslims will not be obliged to take part in religious wars of the Muslims." Pretty straight forward and rather progressive. One wonders what the world be like today if they had adhered to that formulation.
At any rate, the Islamic example highlights another aspect of civil rights. They have various subdivisions and subclasses that differ between contexts. There is, for example, a distinction between positive rights and negative rights. A positive right grants permission to do something or receive something. Receiving welfare would be a positive right. Negative rights grant permission to do nothing or receive nothing. This the right to be left alone, an entitlement to non-interference. The right against robbery is a negative right. However, because civil rights are contextual, some rights are both positive and negative depending on the political context. In the United States voting is a negative right, that is, you have the right to vote but you don't have to vote. In other countries voting is a positive right. You have the right to vote and you do not have the right to not vote. You must vote or face a penalty.
There are other classes of civil rights. There are individual rights, group rights, liberty rights and claim rights. There are even other formulations entirely of civil rights. The most popular one divides them into a hierarchical set of three 'generations' of rights, each dependent upon the previous generation. The point is that all of these are established only via social compact between peoples. They don't exist without that government or charter or law.
Yes, various historians and philosophers have argued that natural rights don't exist at all or they do exist but only when civil rights are first established. Thomas Aquinas sliced and diced the meanings of natural and positive civil rights. Edmund Burke, Rousseau and Jeremy Bentham are among those who think natural rights are rubbish and any right to life can only exist when laws permit it. There are others who quibble about the natural right of a man do something versus the natural ability of him to do it. I would say that it is a complicated matter. But what cannot be denied is the basic principle of the right to liberty of one's own conscience. No law granted by any authority can violate this right to thought. It exists in nature, it exists without government, without law and without agreement. It is involuntary and inalienable. Given that this 'natural' right exists regardless of context, I cannot but endorse the notion that there are at least two categories of rights. Even if there is only a single natural right, there is still at least two categories.
Which brings me to why I felt compelled to write this history of philosophy lecture. There is no natural right to the Internet or the information on it. Let me repeat, humans do not have a fundamental right to the Internet. The Internet only exists because it was invented by man. Access to it only exists because governments have permitted that access. The information on it is only consumable because the owners of that information permit its use. Whether any of this is desirable or progressive or needed is irrelevant. The fact remains that access to information on the Internet (or off it for that matter) is permitted and that permission can be revoked at will. It is most certainly not a fundamental right.
You may even argue that it isn't a right at all. If it is any kind of right, it is a civil right. And within that category it may still not even be a right. If it is at all, it is not a First Generation or even Second Generation right. It may be covered under the Third Generation right to communicate but even that seems a stretch since you can communicate without the Internet. In any event, none of the Second or Third Generation rights are even universally recognized or granted. Even the First Generation rights are applicable to only a fraction of the human race. It is entirely dependent on law, politics, policy and societal context.
There is no right to own a dog. You may own a dog, it isn't illegal, but you do not have a right to it that is enshrined in and protected by founding documents. The act of owning a dog is enabled or prevented by local laws. I would argue that the same principle applies to the Internet. It is a medium. You have no more 'right' to a medium than you do to a dog. Secondly, there is nothing that the Internet provides that cannot be obtained some other way. You don't have a 'right' to watch Hulu or chat with perverts on Chatroulette. You can get medical advice without WebMD. You can learn history and philosophy without ChrisCam. Sure the Internet makes it easier to get information or communicate. But in the same way a car makes it easier for me to get to New York, I have no entitlement to a car. I can walk to New York.
Perhaps there are societies out there (looking at you Scandinavia) where the social compact includes an entitlement or civil right to a car (or free access to the Internet). This is likely to also be the society where the civil rights are so vast and so enumerated in such detail so as to adversely impact the natural right to liberty. You can already see some of this in our own society. Recently passed hate crime legislation makes it worse to commit a crime when thinking something that is disagreeable to the majority of the society. It may intend well, but it treads on the natural right to liberty of conscience and liberty of thought upon which the entire social edifice is built. Such a society cannot, therefore, endure. It will eventually contravene natural rights to such a degree that it will collapse by decay or armed insurrection. Our Founders understood that. That is why they constructed our social compact to protect natural rights as the bedrock of the system. Violate those rights and the rest is meaningless.
The Internet and/or access to it is not a fundamental right. Neither is it a civil right. The act of attempting to make it so will by its very rationale trample on the natural rights which underpin the civil ones.
TAGGED AS: Aquinas, Civil Rights, Edmund Burke, Hegel, Hutcheson, John Locke, Liberty, Lost, Luther, Natural Rights, Paine, Rights, Rousseau
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PERMANENT LINK2552.\\ Sowell: Too Many Apologies
Brilliant piece today by Thomas Sowell.
I think he hits it straight on when he identifies and laments the absence of personal responsibility in our society. It has been creeping for years, of course, even decades. But the success of the American Republic is absolutely dependent on individualism and responsibility not collectivism and blame.
We are now embarked on a grand experiment in collectivization and group think. It may work out. But it certainly represents the end of the experiment that began in 1787.
Best bit:
For more than a century, the intelligentsia have been trying to get us to focus on the "root causes" of crime-- supposedly created by "society"-- instead of locking up thieves or executing murderers.If some people don't have the money or the achievements of others, that too is society's fault, in the eyes of those for whom personal responsibility is an outmoded idea.
Personal responsibility is a real problem for those who want to collectivize society and take away our power to make our own decisions, transferring that power to third parties like themselves, who imagine themselves to be so much wiser and nobler than the rest of us.
Aimless apologies are just one of the incidental symptoms of an increasing loss of a sense of personal responsibility-- without which a whole society is in jeopardy.
TAGGED AS: America, Constitution, Thomas Sowell
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PERMANENT LINK2551.\\ The Economist on What's Wrong With America
Great article today in The Economist. The basic premise of much punditry lately is that American Constitutional Democracy is broken and dead and we really need some Chinese style dictatorship to make things work.
The Economist disagrees. And so do I.
Best Bit:
America's political structure was designed to make legislation at the federal level difficult, not easy. Its founders believed that a country the size of America is best governed locally, not nationally. True to this picture, several states have pushed forward with health-care reform. The Senate, much ridiculed for antique practices like the filibuster and the cloture vote, was expressly designed as a "cooling" chamber, where bills might indeed die unless they commanded broad support.
I couldn't agree more.
TAGGED AS: Constitution, Democracy, Federal Government, Federalism, Government, Obama, Senate, The Economist
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PERMANENT LINK2550.\\ Don't Mess With Rhode Island
Failing schools, poor community and students at risk. Bleak picture to be sure. In one Rhode Island town the school superintendent saw an opportunity to increase the role of education in solving the social ills of the community.
She asked the teachers (who make 3 times the median income of the town) to help tutor the kids a bit and give them an extra 25 minutes per day. The unions revolted. So the superintendent fired them. All of them. Every last person at the school.
One suspects the replacements will be more than happy to help the kids out a bit.
Best bits:
"However, it's hard not to draw the conclusion that the teachers and administration at this school are a big part of the problem. Asking teachers making three times the average of the town's median income to contribute an extra 25 minutes a day to rescue students in obvious failure does not seem like an outrageous request. The two-week summer training period may have infringed on their vacation plans, but their school faced an existential crisis, and their students were being doomed to a lifetime of competitive handicaps. One may have thought that teachers and administrators would have a sense of mission, rather than a sense of entitlement, especially considering the failure to which they had all contributed at least in part."
Another good example of why the government shouldn't be in the business of educating our children. It is the role of parents and local communities. To paraphrase Hillary Clinton.
TAGGED AS: Education, Public Sector, Rhode Island, Ronald Reagan, Schools, Unions
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PERMANENT LINK2548.\\ Krauthammer: Closing the New Frontier
NASA is on the chopping block and the US is abdicating space. This is sad and depressing. Not to mention dangerous to our national security.
I happen to think that space travel should be driven by the private sector. But the market isn't there yet. It'll take a few more decades for private industry to get the right mix of cost, performance and safety. Until then the government is the only mechanism for incubating the needed industries and technologies and ongoing research.
And we're totally giving that up. Defeat and retreat. We're leaving control of space to China and Russia because we can't scrounge up $3B extra per year to fund the space program. How much are we spending on porkulus and porkulus II ? Oh that's right, trillions.
Nice work Mr. Obama. You, sir, are no Jack Kennedy.
TAGGED AS: China, Finance, Krauthammer, NASA, Obama, Politics, Porkulus, Space
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PERMANENT LINK2547.\\ I Don't Usually Post A Self-Fulfilling News Story, But...
I did so earlier today it seems. Apparently Berlin has refused, in no uncertain terms, to bail out the Hellenic Republic. That isn't good news for Greek national solvency, terrible news for the rest of the PIGS, and ultimately a complete embarrassment for the European common currency.
What it portends for what remains of Western Civilization is still in the future. The only question is how far in the future that definition can be pushed. My money is on a total meltdown before 2012.
2544.\\ Coming to America: Crisis
Niall Ferguson's article in the Financial Times yesterday cuts to the core of the apparently insurmountable fiscal disaster we face. He repeats Larry Summers rhetorical question "How long can the world's biggest borrower remain the world's biggest power?"
I think it is absolutely fitting that the final implosion of Western Civilization is starting in the very birthplace of liberal democracy. Greece is doomed, that much seems increasingly clear. The dominoes will fall across the Club Med region. Berlin and Paris and London will attempt to right the ship, but it is a matter of rearranging positions in the lifeboat. The ship is lost. Europe has been on the slippery slope for years and is now in a headlong slide down the hill to ruin.
America seems next. Our collapse would make Greece's look like a minor nuisance. It seems pretty clear by now that the current one-term Administration is about as capable and up to the task of saving America as my 4 year old son. Unlike my son, however, Obama lacks modesty. He'll be the one at the helm loudly proclaiming how he, the second coming of Christ, did away with all the terrible things George Bush did as the bridge submerges and the stern rises out of the ocean. The reality is that while we might have been set on course to strike the iceberg by the previous Administration, the current one grabbed the wheel, locked in the course and put us a flank speed all the while loudly strutting and clucking about how great things will be because they took over the captain's chair.
It is, in short, a fast approaching disaster of epic proportions. Forget 1929, I'm talking 476 here. From this inflection point outward in the timeline, we will become a shell, a joke, America in name only. We'll be ruled by oligarchs and corporations and foreign governments, in short the barbarians. Oh future generations will still think of themselves as American, aping our ways and taking our titles, but they won't be any more American than the Ostrogoths were Roman.
Crisis, disaster, my friends, looming ahead. It may already be too late.
****UPDATE:
Von Mises agrees with me at least in part
****UPDATE 2:
And the BBC by way of Breitbart's Big Government
TAGGED AS: America, Debt, Deficit, Disaster, Finance, Financial Times, Niall Ferguson, Politics, Rome
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PERMANENT LINK2541.\\ Even the Monarchists Get It
I love reading the media in my native country when it is observing the happenings in my adopted country. There's something just delightful about the way Canadians write. It is sufficiently British in style to differentiate it from US English but not so much that it is self-righteous and patronizing (or is that patronising?).
Although it is sometimes annoying to have to listen to people with limited understanding of American society talk down to us, we seem to put up with it quite well coming from the liberal elite in this country.
So I enjoyed the Macleans article on our recent State of the Union address.
My favorite bit:
"Even dear old Justice Ginsburg seemed nonplussed and disapproving, though no doubt she seems much the same way when she's watering plants or eating a sandwich. I was hoping for Chief Justice Roberts to rise to his feet and lead the black-robed group right out of the building. Better still, perhaps, if they'd just dispersed in all directions like a murder of crows startled by a gunshot."
The language evokes imagery that makes me laugh for some reason. Why couldn't our media be more like this?
TAGGED AS: America, Barack Obama, Congress, Constitution, State of the Union
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PERMANENT LINK2539.\\ The Debt Commission
I have some libertarian leanings. I'm not overly conservative when it comes to social matters. I'm not foaming at the mouth, ranting and raving from the lunatic fringe on the right.
More importantly, I hate taxes. I think progressive income taxes are unfair and unconstitutional. Payroll taxes are simply socialist wealth redistribution in disguise. The State confiscates my property routinely and gives it away to others and spends it on some pretty dubious things.
That being said, however, I am also cognizant of the yawning crisis in our nation's finances. That the public debt problem and ongoing budget deficit is the result of outrageous spending on a multitude of things of doubtful utility is reality. Congress seems to think it has no restraint on its power, regardless of who is running the place. Since the 1960s they have spent us into financial ruin. The root of the problem is runaway spending, without a doubt.
However, and I say this wearing my realist hat, there is a zero percent chance that my libertarian idealism in fiscal matters will ever manifest itself in legislation in the current climate. Congress won't ever repeal the income tax, won't eliminate the nanny state, won't abolish the IRS and won't institute a flat tax. Without cutting spending and without increasing revenue, the nation will be bankrupt within a decade. In fact, interest on the debt alone is currently north of 20% of Federal revenue and will be greater than all Federal revenue within a few years if the trend continues. That means if we cut spending to ZERO on everything...defense, government operations, entitlements...everything, then we'd still not have enough revenue to cover the interest on what we owe.
Tell me how that is sustainable. Clearly, it isn't.
So, given that fiscal irresponsibility on the part of politicians got us here, it seems to make sense that we need to invest some other body with powers to help resolve this issue. Yes I am aware that I just made the same case that was made in Rome when Caesar was vested with dictatorial powers. It is also the same case that Napoleon and Hitler made. I'm going to follow it up with another bit of rationale that has been repeatedly used in history to justify all manner of terrible things: desperate times call for desperate measures.
In our case, however, unlike the Roman Republic we still have strong checks and balances between our branches of government. It is extremely unlikely that sufficient power could be gathered into a single place to totally rend the Republic asunder and replace it with something undemocratic. Of course, I could be wrong.
But I have faith in the people of this country. To wit, over the past few months, faced with growing absolutism and rule by fiat in Washington, the people of varying party affiliation rose up and dealt the ruling party a series of electoral blows that ended its ability to ram through its agenda without popular support. Frankly if it came right down to it, and I've mentioned this before, there is always the likelihood of armed insurrection to prevent descent into dictatorship or corrupt plutocracy. I honestly believe that would happen. It happened before in this country and it could certainly happen again.
And so this morning the Senate will vote on whether to form an independent, bipartisan commission to tackle the fiscal crisis. This panel will be composed of various private sector luminaries and former politicians. It will study spending and income at the Federal level and recommend changes with the goal of setting the nation on sounder financial footing. The far left opposes this because they fear the panel will recommend cutting entitlements. The far right opposes this because they see it as a veiled attempt to raise taxes with the cover of bipartisan support. Frankly, both are probably right and to be honest both things have to happen. Taxes must go up and entitlements must be cut.
We cannot grow our way to fiscal solvency at this point. We're so deep in the shit that even 10% annual GDP growth wouldn't pull us out. Yes taxes should be low across the board in normal times. Yes lower taxes increase Federal revenue receipts in normal times. Yes in normal times a great nation such as ours must have safeguards to help those who for whatever reason cannot help themselves. Yes in normal times there is room for a fiscally strong Republic that has world class social programs for the poor and weak. However, these are not normal times. We cannot afford to act as if they are.
We will not get out of debt to our Chinese masters and we will not remain at the top of the global order if we do not address this problem now. It has been estimated that we have 10 years to get our act together before it is beyond all hope. We cannot simply cut taxes to the bone and grow our way out. Reagan did that but at the cost of adding trillions to the debt. Barry O has tried the Keynesian way of spending our way out and it hasn't worked but it has nearly doubled the debt. The reality is that our social programs must be drastically cut and our taxes must go dramatically up.
The first order of business is to cauterize the financial hemorrhaging by ensuring that more money is coming in than is going out. This means ending the bailouts, stopping new entitlement legislation (i.e. Obamacare), instituting an across the board spending freeze, and...get ready...bringing the legions home. Defense spending has to take a hit. Wind down Iraq and get our guys out of that graveyard of empires called Afghanistan. Turn it over to NATO or the reformed Taliban or whomever. I don't care. We can't afford it anymore. Yes it will expose us to risk. Yes it will haunt us in 20 years. All true. But right now we are facing the collapse of our entire Republic and frankly that is a bit more pressing.
Secondly, get the Debt Commission into action. They need to act quickly and get us a report pronto. They must recommend tax increases across the board and major cuts to entitlements. Then they have to follow up with sets of binding recommendations that have to be taken in a yes/no, up/down series of votes in the Congress. Nobody will be happy, but they have to be bold and do the right thing.
Third, a balanced budget Constitutional Amendment and a line-item veto Constitutional Amendment must be taken up with haste. We must enshrine fiscal discipline into the fabric of our system of government and our way of life. The Bill of Rights is meaningless if those natural rights cannot be guaranteed by a solvent, functional government.
I'm not an economist. I'm sure the geniuses like Bernanke and Krugman have all sorts of smoke and mirrors trickery that in theory would make the problem go away. I simply know that we are on an unsustainable path of insane spending and illogical, complex taxation that will ruin us.
Put that in your State of the Union and smoke it.
TAGGED AS: Congress, Conservative, Constitution, Debt, Deficit, Finance, Liberals, Libertarian, Politics, Spending, Taxes
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PERMANENT LINK2536.\\ Fair and Balanced
I have to say that I've noticed a marked increase in the number of left-wingers on FNC these past few months. I mean, Hannity had Willie Brown as a panelist the other day. I think the universe may be imploding.
At any rate, they continue to absolutely crush the competition in ratings. I guess all those bitter people out there have turned to news and commentary in addition to guns and god.
And my word, what in the hell is going on over at MSNBC? It is an absolute meltdown.
TAGGED AS: FoxNews, Insanity, Keith Olbermann, MSNBC
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PERMANENT LINK2535.\\ All That Wind...
Report from Reuters suggesting that wind energy could generate up to 20 percent of electricity needed by the US East of the Mississippi. Course it wouldn't happen until 2024 and would require a hundred billion dollars.
I think they should work on capturing the wind emanating from Washington DC. Surely that is enough to power the entire eastern US in perpetuity and since we already pay for it, it should be free.
TAGGED AS: Green Energy, Politics, Reuters, Wind Power, Windbag
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PERMANENT LINK2534.\\ The Proletarian Vanguard
Charles Krauthammer puts a stake through the heart of Democrats' excuses for losing Massachusetts.
Aside from coining my new favorite descriptor, "The Proletarian Vanguard", the best bit has to be this:
"After Coakley's defeat, Obama pretended that the real cause was a generalized anger and frustration "not just because of what's happened in the last year or two years, but what's happened over the last eight years."
Let's get this straight: The antipathy to George W. Bush is so enduring and powerful that ... it just elected a Republican senator in Massachusetts? Why, the man is omnipotent."
Classic. I love this man.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Charles Krauthammer, Democrats, Massachusetts, Scott Brown, Senate
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PERMANENT LINK2533.\\ Supreme Move
A lot of huffing and puffing has been done since yesterday's 5-4 Supreme Court decision upholding First Amendment rights for corporations and other entities.
My personal favorite is a bit reported in Politico's Morning Score:
GINSBERG WARNS: Republican campaign lawyer Ben Ginsberg and his colleagues at Patton Boggs argued in a memo Thursday that the decision will dramatically empower outside groups, at the cost of political parties. "Unless the laws change, the political party as we know it is threatened with extinction," they wrote. "With the limits on the amounts and sources of funds they can accept, the parties will be bit players compared to outside groups that can now conduct those core functions with unlimited funds from any source."
Yes. That is exactly right. And thank God for it. Or rather, thank Justice Kennedy for it. The Republic will be immeasurably stronger if party politics is dealt a body blow. That's two Kennedy bombshells in one week. Imagine that.
TAGGED AS: Congress, First Amendment, Freedom, Supreme Court
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PERMANENT LINK2532.\\ Senator Brown is on board
I love Peggy Noonan. Her writing is always enjoyable. Her piece today strikes the cautiously optimistic tone that resonates with me and with what I believe is an increasing portion of the population.
Best bit:
"Is it a backlash? It seems cooler than that, a considered and considerable rejection that appears to be signaling a conservative resurgence based on issues and policies, most obviously opposition to increased government spending, fear of higher taxes, and rejection of the idea that expansion of government can or will solve our economic challenges."
TAGGED AS: Democrats, GOP, Obama, Peggy Noonan, Politics
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PERMANENT LINK2531.\\ Krugman Gives Up On Barry O
I have to say that this shocked me.
Channeling his inner ancient Hebrew Priest, Krugman declares that Obama is NOT the messiah leftist progressives have been waiting for.
Not all that surprising maybe, giving his persistent criticism of Barry O from the left. But even in his most critical pieces, Krugman is always the apologist.
Not anymore. As he says in the best bit:
"I have to say, I'm pretty close to giving up on Mr. Obama, who seems determined to confirm every doubt I and others ever had"
Ouch.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Leftist, Paul Krugman
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PERMANENT LINK2528.\\ The Fed and Why it is Awful for America (indeed, the world)
I can't pretend to fully comprehend economic theory. I simply understand enough to have a gut feel of the rest of it. That sounds pretty provincial now that I read it back. But hey, I can't be an expert in everything.
At any rate, The Mises Institute, of which I am a fan, has a great deconstruction of why manipulating the marketplace is a bad idea and simply another form of interventionist social engineering. You may come away agreeing with Ron Paul that the whole damn thing should be dismantled. As it turns out, he mostly quotes von Mises. Which brings me back to the fact that you simply have to read the article.
As a sidenote, I have zero faith that a return to the gold standard is even feasible. Check this out for a very balanced take.
TAGGED AS: Economy, Gold Standard, Libertarian, Mises, Ron Paul
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PERMANENT LINK2527.\\ Nanny State Journalists
Wow. I knew the news media was evil, but I didn't realize it was so pervasively evil. Read the anonymous author's account of the past 30 years of the demise of journalism.
TAGGED AS: Anchorman, Journalism, Media, News
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PERMANENT LINK2526.\\ It's not about style; it's about substance
Brilliant article today from the prolific Charles Krauthammer.
He does an excellent job nailing down the exact reasons for why Obama's at where he's at (in the shit, in case you weren't paying attention).
Best part in my opinion, and the part that succinctly explains my opposition to the health 'reform' plans in general:
"Then, the keystone: a health care revolution in which the federal government will regulate in crushing detail one-sixth of the U.S. economy. By essentially abolishing medical underwriting (actuarially based risk assessment) and replacing it with government fiat, Obamacare turns the health insurance companies into utilities, their every significant move dictated by government regulators. The public option was a sideshow. As many on the right have long been arguing, and as the more astute on the left (such as The New Yorker's James Surowiecki) understand, Obamacare is government health care by proxy, single-payer through a facade of nominally "private" insurers."
TAGGED AS: Charles Krauthammer, Health Care, Obama, Socialism
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PERMANENT LINK2521.\\ Health Care Nullification and Interposition
"That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the federal government, as resulting from the compact, to which the states are parties; as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting the compact; as no further valid that they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact; and that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them."
We should all think a little more like Madison. Full article here
TAGGED AS: Autocracy, Constitution, Federal Government, James Madison, Nullification, Tenth Amendment
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PERMANENT LINK2519.\\ Effective Containment of China
This is the most important article I've read this year. That's a whole 5 days of reading for you math whizzes out there.
Sadly, until we dispose of the neophytes in the West Wing and the Socialist autocrat wannabes in Congress, we'll make no headway in strategic planning vis a vis the rising threat of China.
Oh, happy new year.
TAGGED AS: America, China, Geopolitics, Military
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PERMANENT LINK2518.\\ Hiding Data From the People
Why are our taxpayer-funded institutions deliberately hiding information from inquiring minds? More to the point, why has science become so dogmatic and overtly ideological? Scientists are supposed to be skeptics by nature, using a reliable and repeatable process to prove hypotheses. It isn't science if you simply leap from hypothesis to conclusion and then fiddle with some numbers to justify your logic. They've revealed themselves to be no better than the medieval church that kept literacy from the masses in order to preserve their all-knowing advantage. It amounts to power and control, not science.
At the very least the revelations behind climategate demand a ground up, independent reassessment of the data by all concerned parties. Eco-Crusaders are asking us to return to the stone age and submit to abject poverty for the remainder of our time on this planet. The least they can do is release the data they used.
I wonder why they won't? Doesn't the scientific method require it? Or has the climate science community decided to revel in mysticism and myths, guarding their supposed knowledge like some phony group of oracles? It seriously reminds me of the ancient priestly classes that took unto themselves the sole power to speak to the Gods. How different are modern scientists that wrap themselves in the same cloak of secrecy?
TAGGED AS: Climate Change, Enlightenment, Government, Religion, Science, Taxes
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PERMANENT LINK2514.\\ The Once and Future British
Go read this story here at the Independent. Also be sure to read the comments. They are stunning. I wanted to comment but can't be bothered to register for their site. Luckily I have my own commenting system:
My Comment:
On this side of the Atlantic, many of us reading this article cannot fathom why Britain would surrender itself to be consumed by 'Europe' and relegate itself to the position of minor, mediocre province of an apathetic, indolent fiction called the EU. If it is the will of the people there to accept this role, then Britain is no longer British. It is instead populated by Proles who exist on State welfare from cradle to grave, take no risk, achieve nothing great and coexist in drab, monotone, groupthink sameness. They are rather like human batteries, with no independent thought or action, that power the State which succors them. If those are indeed the values, then yes the special relationship is gone for those are not our values. It is puzzling, however, because the fact is that Britain was never this way. It was afloat in a sea of euro-homogenization, but it kept the light of western civilization burning on its side of the Atlantic. That is why Britain was special and that is what made our relationship special. The split over Iraq was a mere symptom of the apathy evident in the anti-semitic and stunningly small minded comments posted here. The British were a great people who shaped the world. It is sad that they no longer seem to exist.
TAGGED AS: America, Britain, Europe, Orwellian
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PERMANENT LINK2513.\\ Obama the Catastrophic
Is Obama transformational or not? I'd argue that he is certainly transformational. Being the first Black President is certainly no small feat. But transformational from a policy perspective? Only if that transformation is from greatness to mediocrity, as QandO blog concisely highlights.
I remember reading Weisberg's article the other day. I couldn't figure out if he was being sarcastic or not when he said: "If, as seems increasingly likely, Obama wins passage of a health care reform a bill by that date, he will deliver his first State of the Union address having accomplished more than any other postwar American president at a comparable point in his presidency."
Really? Is that like asserting that climate change is real and then deleting all the data so that no one can verify it? Is merely asserting something is true sufficient to make you an editor-in-chief of an online magazine? Damn I wish I had known that when I started this website over a decade ago.
It reminds me of how I'd ask my father for change for a dollar as a child. He'd say sure, I can change that dollar into nothing. Seems apropos.
TAGGED AS: Nonsense, Obama, QandO, Slate
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PERMANENT LINK2512.\\ a-HA!
So it turns out that Anthropogenic Global Warming Theory is in fact a total farce. And a hacker recently furnished us with the evidence to prove it. A very inconvenient truth.
Of course, this won't stop the leftists from trying to extort money from everyone to pay for their social engineering schemes.
TAGGED AS: Climate Change, Lies
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PERMANENT LINK2511.\\ Non Decisions and Leaks Aplenty
Gerson's article today is alarming and yet somehow pretty obvious.
Best bit:
"As an analogy," says David Kilcullen, an expert on counterinsurgency strategy, "you have a building on fire, and it's got a bunch of firemen inside. There are not enough firemen to put it out. You have to send in more or you have to leave. It is not appropriate to stand outside pontificating about not taking lightly the responsibility of sending firemen into harm's way. Either put in enough firemen to put the fire out or get out of the house."
TAGGED AS: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, General McChrystal, Liberals, Military, National Security, Pentagon
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PERMANENT LINK2510.\\ Legislating Diet
It is a short hop from 'suggesting' in a government report to requiring by law. Look for mandated vegetarianism laws coming soon to a health care bill near you.
2509.\\ Economics of Failure
Excellent article in the Journal today. I encourage you to read it. Leave out all the pro-Reagan stuff and take the article on the merit of its central argument: that you do not promote long term, broad based growth by spending so far into debt that you can't get out.
Read it. And think about it when you hear about the tens of trillions of dollars that 'reform' is going to cost us.
TAGGED AS: Congress, Economy, Finance, GDP, Health Care, Ronald Reagan, Spending
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PERMANENT LINK2508.\\ Miranda Rights For Bin Laden
I may have my issues with Senator Graham (some of which I have told him in person on various flights home to Greenville), but in this clip he simply destroys the AG by using his own logic against him. One thing I would ask, however, is how many phone books is Lindsey Graham sitting on?
TAGGED AS: Congress, Eric Holder, KSM, Lindsay Graham, Osama Bin Laden, Rights, Terrorists
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PERMANENT LINK2507.\\ State Suicide
I don't have to say anything at all about this article...but I will anyway. This is exactly what will happen to the entire nation if we continue down the socialist path we seem hell bent on taking. Actually, what's happening on the Federal level is far worse than anything that happened in California. So I suspect the results will be much, much worse. Possibly catastrophic. Maybe apocalyptic.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, California, Disaster, Disgust, Economy, Finance, Socialism
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PERMANENT LINK2506.\\ Easy Fix For Economic Collapse
It is simple. More Obamanomics. More Government. More socialism. More spreading the wealth around a bit. All you have to do, silly Mayors, is raise taxes to cover the budget deficit.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Economy, Finance, Socialism, Taxes
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PERMANENT LINK2505.\\ Global...er...Not Warming
Apparently predicting climate change isn't an exact science after all. After warming by 0.7 degrees Fahrenheit between 1970 and the mid 1990s, "global warming" has stopped, stumping climatologists and enivronazis. In fact, there hasn't been any increase in global temperatures for the past 10 years.
How can that be? If carbon emissions are the cause of warming, and carbon emissions have continued to rise (indeed accelerate) over the past 20 years, how can warming have stopped? How can it be threatening to go negative on us and give us global cooling?
Something doesn't add up. If there isn't a linear relationship between carbon emissions and global temperatures as it now appears there isn't, then the warming must have been caused by other....gasp...natural phenomena.
Of course, if you knew anything about the history of the Earth, you'd already know that back in the days when carbon was a thousand times more concentrated in the atmosphere than today, the temperature wasn't all that greater. Additionally, you'd know that since man has been around pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere temperatures have not increased in a linear fashion. In fact in the middle ages we saw a 500 year Medieval Warm Period that had nothing at all to do with carbon emissions. During the Industrial Revolution we had a Little Ice Age that doesn't adhere to the linear relationship theory.
In fact, there appears to be very little correlation between how much carbon is in the atmosphere and what the global temperature is. If you need further proof of this:
Now just to be clear, I don't doubt that climate change exists. I don't for a second doubt that the Earth undergoes shifts in temperature. I suspect that mankind has had an impact on the climate of the planet. But I also believe that natural effects probably have a vastly greater impact on the climate than man does.
TAGGED AS: Climate Change, Environazis, Science
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PERMANENT LINK2503.\\ California Writ Large
The meltdown of the world's 7th largest economy has long roots and was long coming. California's model of socialism is the path America as a whole has decided to take. For the nation it will end the same way it is ending for California, total disaster and risk of complete dissolution. Like so many social engineering experiments before it, when human nature is written out of the equation any utopian scheme will collapse.
TAGGED AS: California, Capitalism, Socialism, Taxes, Utopia
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PERMANENT LINK2502.\\ Worse Than Taxes: The Spending
John Stossel has it right again. In an opinion piece today, he fingers the real culprit of creeping Statism in America.
The rallying bit:
"The politicians' spending schemes represent presumptuous interference in our lives. They are an assault on our autonomy."
Yes sir. Hoist the flag of protest
Many of these things have a amplifying effect. The spending, together with the taxing, together with the Orwellian paternalism of our new government, together with the systematic remaking of America into some minor European socialist utopia, will all add up to outright rejection by the people of this entire philosophy. Attempts to control the population like Obamacare, the nationalization of the transportation system, the ongoing disaster that is Government Motors, the transformation of terrorist enemy combatants into the equivalent of US Citizens, Climatofacism, thought crime laws, gun bans, religion bans, bans on free speech, the soda tax, the fat tax, the marriage tax, the death tax, the success tax, the tax tax; all of these will add up to an actual rebellion, I predict. States will simply refuse to implement these totalitarian diktats under the 10th Amendment. That is, if the citizens don't get there first.
TAGGED AS: Al Qaeda, Barack Obama, Climate Change, Congress, Constitution, Fascism, Freedom, Health Care, Liberty, Orwellian, Socialism, Taxes, Totalitarianism
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PERMANENT LINK2500.\\ Holding Holder Accountable
My Alma Mater finally joins the ranks of the right thinking. The Dean Emeritus of the BU School of Law penned an article in which he points out the inherent danger of allowing KSM to be tried as if he were a common criminal.
Put one more up on the board under 'Lesson Not Learned' for the Obama Administration.
The most chilling part of the discussion, which I hadn't even considered (stressed and obsessed as I was with the granting of US Constitutional Rights to an unlawful combatant and a terrorist while I, a legal immigrant, sit without the same Rights), is the notion that 9/11 was in part successful because of the intelligence al-Qaeda obtained from the trial of the 1993 WTC Bomber in regular court. Doesn't this just seem to set up the obvious question of whether or not we're helping some other group plan another attack against us by lifting our kimono?
****UPDATE
And Thomas Sowell weighs in with his usual thoughtful take on the situation.
TAGGED AS: Al Qaeda, Barack Obama, Boston University, Eric Holder, KSM, Law, New York, Terrorists, Thomas Sowell
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PERMANENT LINK2497.\\ EJ Dionne Supports State's Rights
In what I'm sure he thought was a provocative piece of literary genius, leftist EJ Dionne ends up making a textbook case for limited Federal government.
See if you can spot it amongst the communal doublespeak.
TAGGED AS: EJ Dionne, Federal Government, Leftist, Socialism, State's Rights
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PERMANENT LINK2496.\\ Making the Constitution Support a Power Grab
There hasn't been too much talk of whether or not the Congress has any power at all to require individuals to purchase goods or services. I mean, I know I've talked about it but nobody else seems to care.
Except a few Senators like Orrin Hatch. Now sometimes he's a bit flaky, sometimes way to right wing, sometimes not. On this topic, I totally agree with his view on the limits of Federal power.
Unfortunately nobody will care about this issue until someone brings a lawsuit to the Supreme Court about the topic.
Best bit:
"If buying fuel-efficient cars is so important for the economy, Congress could just require people to buy them. Why does Congress need complicated bailouts when it could simply order people to deposit their paychecks in certain banks, invest in certain companies or purchase certain products?"
TAGGED AS: Congress, Constitution, Health Care, Orrin Hatch, Senate, Supreme Court
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PERMANENT LINK2493.\\ Losing Turkey
This should send shudders down the spine of anyone remotely concerned about islamic extremism and theocracies run amok.
TAGGED AS: America, Islamism, NATO, Turkey
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PERMANENT LINK2481.\\ The Conservative Thinker
You might be tempted to think the title is an oxymoron. Sometimes it is. But I've become ever more enamored with Thomas Sowell's thinking and writing and I believe he's the new voice of the reasonable intellectual who happens to be right of center.
Go read these two articles on the dismantling of America (Part One and Part Two). Taken together they are alarming yet offer a reasonable critique (free of foaming at the mouth) and a high level prescription for appropriate change.
I wonder what it is like for him to be who he is and have his opinions at Stanford?
TAGGED AS: America, Conservative, Constitution, Freedom, Liberals, Liberty, Thomas Sowell, Weakness
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PERMANENT LINK2479.\\ I Don't Know Whether to Applaud Her or Not
Peggy Noonan is typically spot on with her analysis. And normally I cheer and applaud out loud when I read her material. She was one of the genius minds behind Reagan's optimistic message. Her latest column, however, is so pessimistic that I have a hard time believing she's right. Or rather, I suppose I don't want to believe that she is.
Is it possible that American decline could be the result of loss of faith in her institutions to such an extent that effective government becomes untenable? What happens then? Do we become a Confederation of States loosely aligned? Does politics become local again? Were the Athenians actually correct and Republics on a continental scale are impossible to sustain?
TAGGED AS: Democracy, Peggy Noonan, Pessimism, Politics, Republic
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PERMANENT LINK2474.\\ The Byzantine Doctrine
This is the read of the day. I've always thought Gibbons simplified the decline of the Romans. This simplistic view is similar to the oft repeated claims of American decline. I think this view is much more nuanced and offers a glimpse of one possible future for the Republic.
TAGGED AS: America, Byzantine, Decline and Fall, Empire, Rome, Strategy, Weekly Standard
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PERMANENT LINK2473.\\ Gipper, Where Are Your Heirs?
The video speaks for itself. I'll leave it to you to draw comparisons between 1964 and today.
TAGGED AS: Barry Goldwater, Conservative, Constitution, Democracy, Finance, Freedom, Liberals, Liberty, Ronald Reagan, Socialism
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PERMANENT LINK2465.\\ Mr. Hume vs. Mr. Bentham
David Brooks puts on his latest subpar literary performance in the Opinion column of the New York Times. Honestly, why do they hire these guys? I know 100 better writers on the Internet they should be recruiting to prop up their laughable business plan.
At any rate, the stunningly obvious parable makes me shudder. It literally made me physically shudder when I read the best bit:
"The people on Mr. Bentham's side believe that government can get actively involved in organizing innovation....The people on Mr. Hume's side believe government should actively tilt the playing field to promote social goods and set off decentralized networks of reform, but they don't think government knows enough to intimately organize dynamic innovation."
Those are the two sides? One side thinks government should actively organize the people, society and the economy while the other merely wants the government to tilt the playing field to promote social good?
Holy shit. It sounds like both sides believe government is the ultimate expression of human evolution and by right and by nature should organize us all and promote some sort of utopian social welfare. God almighty.
Where's the side that believes the government should provide defense, deliver mail, ensure law and order, maintain a system of laws that enables fair play and DO NOTHING ELSE? Mr. Brooks makes no room in his model for any non-socialist. In his view, the entire world agrees with his progressive views and the mob that follows Fox News is illiterate, unwashed and cannot possibly conceive of the rightness and virtue of promoting social order and goodness.
It makes total sense that Mr. Brooks chose as his protagonist Jeremy Bentham. Here's a man whose first published work was an attack on the Declaration of Independence and America's freedom movement. If you believe that government exists to promote the greatest good for the greatest amount of people at the direction of the enlightened few, then Obama is your guy and Brooks is your muse. If you believe that government is created by the people in order to provide a loose structure for individual liberty, self-reliance and entrepreneurship to prosper, then... well there is no room for that in Brooks' model. The only acceptable mode in this post-modern era is the social progressive route that EVERYBODY agrees with and believes in.
The whole article makes me want to vomit. Not the least which because he sullies David Hume's name (and by proxy the entire Scottish Enlightenment, its philosophy and the guiding principles of our Founders).
David Harsanyi rebuts the entire notion with his opinion piece today at RCP. And thank God he does.
When will David Brooks realize he lives in a different, fantasy, world? I have no doubt that he and Jeremy Bentham have much more in common with each other than either has in common with the average American.
I strongly believe the average American would rather take the risk of going it on his own, work hard, suffer through and reap potential rewards for doing so than sit back idly, take no risk at all and have the 'greatest good' come his way by blessing of some remote government philosopher-bureaucrat charged with ensuring his welfare on the backs of others.
All one has to do to see the eventual effects of Brooks' favored approach is to cast your eye at some of the European countries today. Italy springs to mind. Nobody works. Everybody gets by through vast social welfare programs. The economy is crap. And nobody gives a damn.
Social engineering does not, has not, will not work outside of the university (or the newsroom).
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, David Brooks, David Hume, Elitist, Jeremy Bentham, Philosophy, Socialism
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PERMANENT LINK2463.\\ Bomb Iran. Now.
Fresh today with this article on quiet Pentagon preparations for massive ground penetrators, there is absurdly obvious evidence of Iran's ongoing march to the atom bomb.
TAGGED AS: Iran, Military, Nuclear Weapons, United Nations
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PERMANENT LINK2460.\\ Internet Danger
I think that the recent decision to let lapse the ICANN governing agreement is quite possibly the most dangerous thing our nation could possibly do. This is like the British giving up the Royal Navy in the 1920s. The fact is that the Internet is a product of American ingenuity and is our nation's intellectual capital. It is a strategic asset of the Republic. We've given it up to the thugs and dictators (including our future enemy China) and they will not hesitate to use it against us in every conceivable way. They will attack our industries, our infrastructure, our technologies, our universities and use the Internet, as only authoritarian states can, to undermine the existence of the Republic itself.
The world is falling apart, we're encouraging it to do so and remain more interested in Dancing With the Stars and the 2016 Olympics than the 20% effective unemployment and the dramatic fall in the relative power of our nation, our culture and our civilization.
The Visigoths are at the gate and we've just given them the key.
TAGGED AS: America, China, Decline and Fall, Disaster, ICANN, Internet, Weakness
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PERMANENT LINK2459.\\ China Warning
I've harped on this for years. Ever since studying China in college, I've harbored the notion that there will be war with them. Read this article and think deep about it. It isn't the rambling of an idiot or a warmonger or a neocon. This is hard evidence and solid analysis that we are indeed revisiting history. I would argue it is 1932 all over again.
My children will have to fight the Chinese because of 20 years of weakness and inept leadership when it comes to the China question.
2456.\\ The Morality of Health Care
Far be it from me to dispute morality with a professor of ethics, but I would offer up the basic notion that humans don't form governments in order to legislate morality. It does not, can not, has not ever worked when the State takes on the role of father/mother/nanny.
Perhaps his argument that collectivization in support of the weakest among us is indeed the Christian and moral thing to do. And I encourage his efforts to rally the public to voluntarily support that. But don't ever make the mistake of attempting to FORCE morality on the mob and COERCE them into following your ethos by way of legislation.
It will fail and it will fail spectacularly like every other social engineering attempt before it.
TAGGED AS: Christianity, Health Care, Morality, San Francisco Chronicle
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PERMANENT LINK2453.\\ My Alma-Mater, Intensely Biased
And they want me to give more money. There is a zero percent chance of my supporting my alma-mater so long as they employ ragingly biased staff who are ostensibly educating our children in how to critically think in the world. Critically think, yes, but only from a leftist viewpoint apparently.
Why is there no room for independent, balanced thought in our universities? They've turned into factories for clones, so rigid in their thinking that those that get churned out must be in shock when they enter the real world.
TAGGED AS: Bias, Boston University, Education, Leftist
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PERMANENT LINK2452.\\ Harry Reid, Evil-Doer
The massive, swaggering, greasy hypocrisy of Harry Reid knows no bounds. His ego is matched only by his corruption. For his latest shenanigans, which includes exempting Nevada from the costly parts of ObamaCare and shifting that burden elsewhere, this article on Politico.
TAGGED AS: Democrats, Harry Reid, Medicaid, Nevada, ObamaCare
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PERMANENT LINK2451.\\ Go Patriot Act!
Sweet justice for more than just Zazi. If anything validated the last guy's efforts in the office, this does.
I wonder how many other events were or will be thwarted thanks to the Patriot Act and the efforts of the Bush team?
I wonder if Barry will have the balls to renew the Act's key provisions. I know he could never bring himself to admit that George was right. He thanked Ray Kelly for stopping the attacks. He should have called Crawford and thanked George too.
In the meantime, don't expect to see or hear any of this in the rest of the Media.
TAGGED AS: Al Qaeda, Barack Obama, George Bush, Media, New York, Ray Kelly, Terrorists
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PERMANENT LINK2450.\\ Holding Out the Hand of Friendship
"...to everyone except your friends" should be the tagline. Daniel Henninger has a great analysis on Obama's peculiar outreach to thugs and dictators and his total neglect of legitimate friends, infant democracies looking for help and struggling democracy movements in critical parts of the world.
The critical bit:
"In trying to plumb why the U.S. won't promote or protect its own best idea, one starts with Mr. Obama's remarks at the "reset" visit in Moscow: "America cannot and should not seek to impose any system of government on any other country, nor would we presume to choose which party or individual should run a country."
Setting aside that no one is talking about the U.S. literally "imposing" a government in this day and age, what is one to make of a left-of-center American political leader taking such a diffident stance toward democratic movements? The people who live under the sway of the top dog in all the nations that have earned high-level Obama envoys are the world's poor, and one would expect the social-justice left to support them. That may no longer be true on the American or European left."
Good question. Why aren't we out there promoting the best thing about this nation? It is our greatest, original idea and we've thrown it in the dustbin. The world's poor and oppressed, the natural constituency of the liberal left, are thrown to the wolves and left to twist in the wind.
At least George Bush followed rhetoric with action by carpet bombing the African continent with billions in practical assistance to prevent the spread of AIDS and malaria and fund drug cocktails for those who already were living with HIV. Actions. Not just words.
When will America stand up for those that seek to attain our freedoms? When will we follow words of hope and change with action? We gin up these movements with rhetoric and grandiose speeches and then when the people actually rise against their overlords, we sit back and watch as they're mercilessly crushed.
At some point, the stock in Democracy and Freedom will fall so low that no one will bother listening to the words anymore.
TAGGED AS: Africa, Barack Obama, Democracy, Dictatorship, Freedom, Liberty, Rhetoric
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PERMANENT LINK2449.\\ While America Burns to the Ground
I've agreed with Margaret Carlson before. And this time she has it exactly right. In an article for Bloomberg, she points out how frivolous Barry's jetsetting off to Denmark is while everything is burning to the ground here at home.
Most damning is her revelation that she agrees with Republican Senator Kit Bond. His main point is that while Obama doesn't have a spare minute to meet with his own Generals to work out the situation in Afghanistan, he has plenty of spare time to be on every tv program, do spots for George Lopez's new show, fly around the world apologizing for America existing and hob nobbing with the G20.
As Bond put it:
"it's baffling that the president has time to travel to Copenhagen, to be on 'Letterman' and every channel except the Food Network, and, yet, he doesn't have time to talk with and listen to his top general."
So here's to Margaret for putting journalistic integrity first and calling a spade a spade.
On another note, I don't give a damn if the Olympics never happen again and I care much less about whether or not Chicago gets the games. I DO care, however, if we are defeated in the middle east since that will have impact decades beyond the memory of any games anywhere.
TAGGED AS: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Margaret Carlson, Media, Olympics, Politics
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PERMANENT LINK2445.\\ Is Ron Paul Insane?
Watch this. I happen to think he IS insane, but that doesn't negate the fact that he is totally correct on this topic.
As much as it pains me to say so, he is right, so is Rick Perry, so is the Tenth Amendment and so are the 7 States that have reaffirmed state sovereignty and so is Arizona which will soon vote to nullify Federal mandates such as nationalized healthcare.
And as much as it angers me and pains me to admit, there is an increasing likelihood that it will come to a breach in the not too distant future.
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
TAGGED AS: 10th Amendment, Freedom, Government, Liberty, Politics, Revolution, Ron Paul
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PERMANENT LINK2444.\\ Depends on What Your Definition of 'We' Is
Thomas Friedman's latest column in the New York Times is bang on in one key area and it is a notion previously put to paper by Pat Buchanan on his blog. That notion is the dissolution of the nation. There is no 'we' anymore and with interest diverging so dramatically there is a real danger of the entire project coming apart.
I normally don't agree with Friedman's pontifications as they are routinely patronizing, naive, ultra elitist and smack of big brother. But in this opinion piece, he is absolutely right (for the wrong reasons). He believes that a result of all this ill will and rot at the center of American politics will be the assassination of Obama. Unfortunately he falls into the trap he himself is describing when he attributes all these problems to the right wing extremists who are out to hurt his President. The President and his party are as much to blame, if not more so, for the current state of politics as the opposition. Their left-wing policies are outside the mainstream of centrist America and that is causing an absolute fury that they cannot see or comprehend (Friedman himself is in this category. He cannot fathom that the rage in America might be justified and directed at radically left leaning policies of establishing a nanny state).
I personally agree with Gore Vidal in this stunning interview from the London Times; Obama is a danger to Republic. Whether that danger is more from Barry being inept and inexperienced and naive or from an electorate that is hugely ignorant yet massively influential via technology (blogging, twitter, netroots, et al). Either way, American politics have gone off the rail and the future of the Republic is at great risk. There is a real danger of this becoming yet another point in World history where the closet dictators among us may rise to seize the reigns. Vidal's point: it may require dictatorship to simply hold the thing together.
I don't want a President assassinated. No matter how awful he may be. No matter that he may be destroying the very nation he promised to defend. But there is something powerful in Jefferson's exhortation to take up arms against tyranny. Even more to the point, there is an absolute civic requirement to throw off the shackles of an imposed system. We are less free today than we were under King George III. If the Stamp Act required us to take up arms then what on Earth would our historical revolutionaries say about taxing people for drinking soda, forcibly vaccinating the population and forcing citizens to pay for health care or go to jail? What would any person who valued individual liberty, any patriot, say about faceless bureaucrats thousands of miles away deciding what your employer should pay you because it is in the "interest" of the "nation" to keep you below a certain income level?
I increasingly suspect that the entire thing is coming off its wheels. The ancient Maya may have had the end of the world pegged correctly.
TAGGED AS: Assassination, Barack Obama, Dictatorship, Gore Vidal, New York Times, Pat Buchanan, Politics, Revolution, Thomas Friedman, Times of London
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PERMANENT LINK2442.\\ Eisenfrau Merkel
The world has a new Iron Lady. I've always found it interesting how Europe, America and Canada seem to be politically out of step with each other since the 1980s. When we've got a center-right government they have center-left and vice versa.
The Canadians, British, Germans and French are all leaning away from their socialist parties. We just elected ours.
I wonder who's ahead of whom on the curve?
Best bit:
"If the trend continues, we may even get a pro-American president in Washington."
TAGGED AS: Angela Merkel, Barack Obama, Germany, Politics, US
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PERMANENT LINK2440.\\ Vivre Sarkozy!
Sarkozy takes it to Barry. When the President of France is tougher than you are, you might be a bit of a wuss.
Seriously though. In the dark days of the early 2000's, the French were weak and sniveling annoyances. Now they're leading the freaking charge while we read teleprompters and dream of futures where Americans are controlled from the District of Columbia to live and breathe and think in a manner consistent with the ideology of the ivory tower theorists.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, France, Iran, Nicolas Sarkozy, United Nations, US
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PERMANENT LINK2439.\\ He Ain't No Martin Sheen
Sad but true. Sad in that 48% of the electorate saw clearly what the other 52% didn't. I wonder what the world would be like without the liberal myopia of youth?
Best bit:
"This is the fine mess Barack Obama told us would never happen if Americans would elect him to soothe the fears of the frightened and bank the ambitions of evildoers of the world. Suddenly, the president has to deal with headaches, a thousand town halls, with hundreds of thousands of angry bigots, racists and Nazis of hysterical liberal imagination jeering his scheme to take over the health care of the nation, never prepared him for. He's got headaches no speechwriter can cure. "
He's got headaches no speechwriter can cure. I love that line.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, China, Europe, Iran, Russia, US, Washington Times, Weakness
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PERMANENT LINK2438.\\ Stimula-tastic!
Nice. So let me understand this, 4 million have LOST their jobs since March but the Federal government has GROWN by 25,000?. And you want them to choose and administer your health care? Fuck me.
TAGGED AS: Economy, Government, USA Today
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PERMANENT LINK2436.\\ Speak Softly and Tip Toe Around Your Enemies
What bothers me the most about this article is that it makes plain our weakness and a deliberate choice to remain weak. The proposal to shrink the Navy's carrier force in the face of current and emerging competitors who may resort to asymmetrical warfare may make sense in light of budget constraints. However, our current force projection doctrine centered as it is around carrier strike groups, must be REPLACED with something else. You don't simply pick up the ball and say, well I guess I can't compete anymore so I'm going home. The doctrine could change to smaller, stealthier, carriers, better defended carriers, space-based carriers, rock-solid missile defense systems, or a move away from carrier doctrine entirely.
Canceling the F22, canceling the Army's future combat systems program, canceling the space program, canceling missile defense; these make us look weak and vulnerable. The surest way to invite a rising competitor to do battle is give them every indication that you're old and tired and weak. This was a central theme in Germany's bid to compete with Britain in the late 1800's and early 1900s. That ended in disaster for both.
TAGGED AS: Aircraft Carriers, China, F22, Military, Missile Defense, Weakness
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PERMANENT LINK2435.\\ Why the World Loves Barry
The British have a bead on the man.
I just don't quite understand why he's so virulently anti-Israeli.
Best bit:
"The president scores highly at the UN for refusing to project American values and military might on the world stage, with rare exceptions like the war against the Taliban. His appeasement of Iran, his bullying of Israel, his surrender to Moscow, his call for a nuclear free world, his siding with Marxists in Honduras, his talk of a climate change deal, have all won him plaudits in the large number of UN member states where US foreign policy has traditionally been viewed with contempt. "
TAGGED AS: America, Appeasement, Barack Obama, Daily Telegraph, United Nations, War on Terror
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PERMANENT LINK2434.\\ Big Brother Chu to the Rescue
Aside from the sheer self-righteous assertion that everybody except for a few lunatics in the sticks agree totally with climato-nazis, does it bother no one but me that this story is a page directly out of Orwell's novel?
I mean, the government has to teach us because we clearly don't know what is good for us?
I don't trust government, I don't admire government, I don't need government to run my life for me. I don't need regulations on everything including the appropriate way to piss in the morning. Pave the roads, field the army and keep the Islamic fanatics away from my children. Anything else you do is something I don't need and frankly don't very much care for.
TAGGED AS: Environazis, EPA, Government, Liberty, Steven Chu
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PERMANENT LINK2433.\\ Disarming the Responsible
In a Wall Street Journal Opinion piece, Bret Stephens lays out why America is doomed. Not just America but all western peace loving nations.
I would differ in my long term predictions, however. Appeasement and weakness in the West historically invites war and turmoil. And so it will again. A nation or group of nations will attempt to exploit our perceived or actual weakness. The war will be long and brutal and ultimately we will prevail. We'll undergo decades of self-flagellation for ever having been so gullible and naive. I'm a historian. Mark my words that it will happen.
The best bit:
"In 1943, Walter Lippmann observed that the disarmament movement had been 'tragically successful in disarming the nations that believed in disarmament.' That ought to have been the final word on the subject."
TAGGED AS: America, Appeasement, Barack Obama, Economy, Wall Street Journal
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PERMANENT LINK2432.\\ RealClearPolitics - The Underdogs
Holy crap. What a fantastic piece by Thomas Sowell. Direct, relevant, poignant. Best read of the week.
TAGGED AS: Personal Responsibility, Thomas Sowell, US
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PERMANENT LINK2431.\\ Obama Forgets His Own Child's Name
As retarded as GWB was made out to be, at least he never forgot how to pronounce Jenna or Barbara's name.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama
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PERMANENT LINK2430.\\ Throughout this campaign...er...effort
I love this exchange. Since most people probably didn't see it (cause no one watches George's show), I invite you now. My favorite part is where Obama forgets he's President and thinks he's still on the campaign trail.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Health Care, Liar
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PERMANENT LINK2429.\\ Andrew Breitbart is my new best friend
...and he's a superhero to boot.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Liberals, NEA
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PERMANENT LINK2428.\\ ACORN on the Offense
Thank you Publius.
Read the CEO's bio at Politico after watching this video.
TAGGED AS: ACORN, Democrats
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PERMANENT LINK2427.\\ Barone Beat
Totally agree. The elite is in a bubble and cannot tolerate the notion that people disagree with them.
It isn't the lack of communication folks, it's the message.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Media, Michael Barone
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PERMANENT LINK2426.\\ Chinese Chicken
The real financial crisis we're facing is the only one no one is talking about.
TAGGED AS: China, Economy, US
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PERMANENT LINK2425.\\ The Brits: "Obama is out of his depth"
I could have told them that a year ago. Aside from minor quibbles (missile defense is not an 'untried scheme' as it has been tested for 10 years and has a 80% kill ratio), the rest of the article makes a very good case.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, The Telegraph, UK, US
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PERMANENT LINK2424.\\ Pelosi Spouts Off (Again)
Apparently, opposing the left-wing agenda in this nation is now tantamount to assassination! According to Nancy Pelosi, if you dare speak out, that is the same thing as killing people.
I wonder if the Parliament had a similar view in 1775? Certainly the acts of opposition at that time were more severe than Joe Wilson verbally pointing out the obvious. I mean, they tarred and feathered government agents, boiling them in tar until they died.
Although she is totally ignorant of it, she is the modern day Lord North to many, many people in this country. There are parts of this country literally on the verge of armed rebellion and invoking Harvey Milk is like a three day waiting period for a serial killer. Totally irrelevant, misses the point and only further enrages.
TAGGED AS: Nancy Pelosi, Revolution
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PERMANENT LINK2423.\\ 72% of Nation's Doctors Are Racists
Because, you know, they oppose the President's policies and since he's black then that means they hate black people.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Health Care, Liar
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PERMANENT LINK2422.\\ I Told You So...
Facts are stubborn things. So is historical, empirical data.
Take that Paul "Poobah" Krugman!
TAGGED AS: Economy, Keynes, Wall Street Journal
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PERMANENT LINK2421.\\ Homeland Schmomeland
I'm increasingly of the opinion that these jokers don't have a fucking clue what they're doing.
Am I wrong?
TAGGED AS: Congress, Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano
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PERMANENT LINK2419.\\ So the Gitmo Closure is Going Well
Now the Dems are blocking the closure of Gitmo
That whole 'change agenda' thing doesn't seem to be going so well. Except, you know, where placing Americans in danger is the goal (i.e. canceling Missile Defense, F22 Raptor).
Oh the irony.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Guantanemo, Terrorists
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PERMANENT LINK2418.\\ Racists Under the Bed
My favorite sarcasm-soaked bit:
"Most Americans - even ones that don't pay income taxes now - would be more than willing to give 70% of everything they earn to the federal government when asked ... so long as they are asked by a white president."
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Racist
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PERMANENT LINK2417.\\ China on the March
The news is full of stories today on how the Chinese are eating our lunch while we sit around and fiddle with out entitlement programs.
Don't expect the current bunch of neophytes and weaklings to do a damn thing about it so long as they believe health care, wealth redistribution and government guarantees are all inherent human rights.
This is alarming and has been warned of for at least 15 years.
2416.\\ Obama the Weak
In a bold act of appeasement and surrender to our enemies, Obama has scrapped the missile defense shield.
Quite apart from being reckless and feckless and exposing us to nuclear threats, it also hangs our allies out to dry. Poland the Czechs will put this backstab on par with the last time they were bent over and fucked in the ass by the West, 1938 and 39.
We've just lost Eastern Europe to the orbit of the Russian Empire. Nicely done Barry. Anything else you'd liked to surrender? Let's do it now and get it over with.
Lot's of news on this here, here, here and here.
What is most distressing is the apparent assumption by the boobs in DC that by sacrificing the security of the American and European peoples, they'll get Russia to cooperate on a range of issues (Iran). A first year undergrad in European History knows better than this and is clearly more fit to run our foreign policy.
TAGGED AS: Appeasement, Barack Obama, Missile Defense, NATO, Poland, Russia
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PERMANENT LINK2415.\\ Geroge Will and the Brilliant Distill
This guy has a knack for his ability to boil a complex, thorny circumstance down to its basic elements. He's done so again in Newsweek. This time he devestatingly lays out the fundamental contradictions in Barry's proposals and explains why Americans don't believe anything he says.
My favorite part:
"On the 233rd day of his presidency, Barack Obama grabbed the country's lapels for the 263rd time--that was, as of last Wednesday, the count of his speeches, press conferences, town halls, interviews, and other public remarks. His speech to Congress was the 122nd time he had publicly discussed health care. Just 14 hours would pass before the 123rd, on Thursday morning. His incessant talking cannot combat what it has caused: An increasing number of Americans do not believe that he believes what he says."
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Congress, George Will, Health Care, Liar, Mitch McConnell, Newsweek
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PERMANENT LINK2414.\\ Seems Like It's Going Well...
If you needed further proof that the current class of clowns has no idea what it is doing, read this story.
Obama's economic philosophy, borne of ivory tower theories and with a heavy dose of idealistic communal flower power, will end up God-Damning America just as his supporters desire.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Economy, The Telegraph
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PERMANENT LINK2413.\\ Old News
I got most of these in my real time twittering during the speech. Nice to know I wasn't the only one.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Health Care, Liar, Nonsense
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PERMANENT LINK2412.\\ Most Important Read of The Week (And it's only Monday)
Read this and argue with it. You can't! You can't!
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Economy, Health Care, Nonsense
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PERMANENT LINK2411.\\ Three Cheers For The Three Amigos!
I have always liked all three of them. My own Senator the least if I'm honest. But this article is a seminal piece.
The bit that seals the deal for me? "The U.S. walked away from Afghanistan once before, following the Soviet collapse. The result was 9/11. We must not make that mistake again."
Hear hear.
TAGGED AS: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, George W Bush, Joe Lieberman, John McCain, Lindsay Graham, Taliban, Terrorists
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PERMANENT LINK2410.\\ So Basically He Did Lie
Facts are terrible things when they contradict the illusion you are trying to construct.
To wit, the President's assertions in his health care speech last week were false.
I believe that makes him a non-truth teller. Or, as some may say, a LIAR.
Best part (talking about Barry's claims that Alabama was an egregious example of how the evil insurance companies are killing Americans):
"In fact, the Birmingham News reported immediately following the speech that the state's largest health insurer, the nonprofit Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama, has about a 75% market share. A representative of the company indicated that its "profit" averaged only 0.6% of premiums the past decade, and that its administrative expense ratio is 7% of premiums, the fourth lowest among 39 Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans nationwide.
Similarly, a Dec. 31, 2007, report by the Alabama Department of Insurance indicates that the insurer's ratio of medical-claim costs to premiums for the year was 92%, with an administrative expense ratio (including claims settlement expenses) of 7.5%. Its net income, including investment income, was equivalent to 2% of premiums in that year.
In addition to these consumer friendly numbers, a survey in Consumer Reports this month reported that Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama ranked second nationally in customer satisfaction among 41 preferred provider organization health plans. The insurer's apparent efficiency may explain its dominance, as opposed to a lack of competition--especially since there are no obvious barriers to entry or expansion in Alabama faced by large national health insurers such as United Healthcare and Aetna. "
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Health Care, Liar, Wall Street Journal
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PERMANENT LINK2409.\\ Poor Canada
And indirectly, poor America. Since our national educational, economic and technological cultures are so closely linked, this spells major trouble.
Even without overt militarism, a nation can defend itself in at least SOME aspect. Not in Canada where they're basically giving it all away for free.
TAGGED AS: Canada, China, Espionage, US
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PERMANENT LINK2408.\\ Another Reason I Love Michael Barone
...he agrees with me (albeit a week later).
Best bit:
"In a democracy, citizens don't always take the advice of their betters, even that of Friedman and the three experts he quotes -- a climateprogress.org blogger, a former Clinton budget official and a 'global trade consultant who teaches at Baruch College.'
TAGGED AS: China, Michael Barone, New York Times, Thomas Friedman
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PERMANENT LINK2407.\\ Where Are You James Monroe?
He never would have let this happen.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Economy, Hugo Chavez, Monroe Doctrine, Russia, Venezuala
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PERMANENT LINK2406.\\ Peter Ferrara: The Keynesians Were Wrong Again - WSJ.com
A ha! In a giant fuck you to the enlightened thought leaders (including Poobah Krugman himself) The Wall Street Journal presents a view opposite to that of the Keynesians and the other Ivory Tower elitists.
Good read.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Economy, Keynes
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PERMANENT LINK2405.\\ Breitbart.tv » 'Go Home!': DC Crowd Drowns Out CNN Reporter During Live Report
They Don't Like CNN, I Would Guess.
My favorite part is when they start chanting "Glenn Beck! Glenn Beck!" LOL
TAGGED AS: CNN, Glenn Beck, Joe Wilson, Protest, Rally, Washington
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PERMANENT LINK2404.\\ Liberal Agenda Struggling
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Congress, Economy, Health Care, Liberals
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PERMANENT LINK2403.\\ 'Public Option' Unlimited But Paid For, Leaving Number-Crunchers Perplexed - Political News - FOXNews.com
As if there were any doubt, now even his own CBO says the math is impossible.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Health Care, Nonsense
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PERMANENT LINK2402.\\ Union Hell
Holy crap. Turns out that one of the bills under consideration to reform health care will force health workers in hospitals and doctor's offices around the country into labor unions.
Sorry, this is the 21st century isn't it? For a moment I thought we were back in the late 1800s.
Forced unionization did wonders for the auto industry in this country. And mining. And manufacturing. And the airlines. In fact, I can't think of a time or place (within living memory) where labor unions actually helped anything at all (besides helping themselves of course, enriching their members).
Not only is it unfair, it is un-American and anti-capitalistic. In the age of instant communication and universal distribution of knowledge, labor unions have long outlived any usefulness they once had. They are now no more than parasites, sucking the soul out of our economic bloodstream.
TAGGED AS: Health Care, Unions, Wall Street Journal
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PERMANENT LINK2401.\\
In a piece penned from Bizarro America, Thomas 'the world is flat' Friedman waxes poetic over the totalitarian state of China and wishes could please have some more wasteful spending in Congress if it means that we can finally impose all that is good and enlightened on the dumb rubes here in America.
Fuck freedom and liberty if it means the electorate (mob) can overrule those intellectuals who are fit to govern them. The unwashed masses shouldn't have a say in their own lives if it means that lifestyle conflicts with the philosophy of the ivory tower.
An American Liberal Democrat advocating totalitarian dictatorship of the enlightened elite. I never thought I'd ever live to see the day.
TAGGED AS: China, Dictatorship, Economy, Leninism, Politics, Thomas Friedman
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PERMANENT LINK2400.\\ Barone Gets it Right (Again)
With his usual direct style, Michael Barone points out the increasing absurdity of the plan(s) to change how health care works in this country.
My favorite part:
"There is an element of convenient fantasy as well in Obama's health care statements to date. We are going to save money by spending money. We are going to solve our fiscal problems with a program that will increase the national debt by $1,000,000,000,000 over a decade. We are going to guarantee you can keep your current insurance with a bill that encourages your employer to stop offering it.
The list goes on. We are going to improve health care for seniors by cutting $500,000,000,000 from Medicare. We aren't going to insure illegal aliens, except that we won't have any verification provisions to see that they can't apply and get benefits."
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Economy, Health Care, Michael Barone, Washington Examiner
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PERMANENT LINK2399.\\ Sarah Palin: Obama and the Bureaucratization of Health Care - WSJ.com
She grates on my nerves, but her article is well thought out and hits most of the key points I care about. I wish she hadn't defended her use of the death panel term. That's all the MSM will seize on as proof that she's a nutjob.
But her point is smack on. Reform does not mean nationalize.
TAGGED AS: Health Care, Sarah Palin, Wall Street Journal
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PERMANENT LINK2398.\\ When Bush spoke to students, Democrats investigated, held hearings | Washington Examiner
Well, this was to be expected.
Hypocrites, amuse thy selves.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Bias, George HW Bush, Media, Washington Examiner, Washington Post
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PERMANENT LINK2397.\\ The Public Option
Seems to be going well in the UK as well as in France.
Yeah. I can't imagine why we don't want our system to emulate theirs.
Let me reiterate. Anything run by the Federal Government is wasteful, inefficient and costly. Oh and typically results in a piss poor product.
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Sorry, I'm missing the part that says "Congress shall have the power to create, administer, fund and control Health Care" and I'm also missing the part of the Bill of Rights that lists health care as one of the enumerated rights...
TAGGED AS: Congress, Constitution, France, Health Care, Socialism, UK
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PERMANENT LINK2396.\\ Make Me World of Warcraft Czar
Oh great. We have a new, extra-constitutional government appointee this morning. Apparently Barry saw fit to put a union man in as manufacturing czar. Well. No one better than a union guy to oversee State control of the means of production in this dictatorship of the proletariat.
Marx would be proud.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Communism, Dictatorship, Marxism, Unions
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PERMANENT LINK2392.\\ Van Jones is a Lunatic
Just watch the video...
This guy is our leader's pick for high office? Questioning his judgment at this point. What's next, Reverend Wright for Racial Reconciliation Czar?
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Democrats, Racist
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PERMANENT LINK2391.\\ Joe Biden, Super Pseudo President
I love the sardonic tone of this summary of Joe Biden's activities over the past couple weeks while Barry is MIA.
Be sure to read the second page for the best bit:
"Declaring that 95 percent of all 'working families' have received tax relief (check your mailbox), the vice president also noted that more than 54 million seniors and veterans 'received a one-time check of $250.' Mr. Biden also asserted that the program 'saved or created 150,000 jobs in the first 100 days,' and reiterated the administration's pledge to save or create another 600,000 in the second hundred days."
I'm a veteran and I didn't get a check. I have a working family of 5 and didn't receive a dime from Barry. I do, however, fondly recall the 3 separate times I got checks from the Treasury during the Bush Administration...
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Nonsense
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PERMANENT LINK2390.\\ Things Could Be Worse...
You could be one of these people.
Yeah I'm sure going 100 grand into debt for a college degree is totally worth it. Or not.
Shouldn't a degree be free for everyone? Paid for by the rich? Guaranteed even to terrorists in Gitmo?
Or should it be something that you earn and value and leverage and pay for with your own sweat?
Frankly I think a degree and 4 years of college was a complete waste of time and money for me. But hey. I'm not Noble Prize winning economist. Sorry, wrong post.
2389.\\ Rebuttal of Krugman
Turns out, I don't have to write one. Cause it's already been practiced in reality in the State of Michigan where it has failed dramatically.
Bravo Keynes! Hurrah Krugman!
TAGGED AS: Economy, Keynes, Michigan, Paul Krugman
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PERMANENT LINK2388.\\ How Did Krugman Get It So Wrong?
In a must read article of the day, Paul Krugman, self-anointed Economic Grand Pubah of the Republic, exhaustively analyzes the current fiscal crisis and what happened at a macro level of economic theory and philosophy to get us here.
It is a great article that lays out the opposing camps of economic theorists and their general belief systems. He then proceeds to draw the total opposite conclusion from his data than I did. Now granted, I'm not a 2008 Nobel Prize winner in Economic Science, but it seems to me that a simple return to pure Keynesian theory would simply lead us down the path of rehashing the past 60 years of US economic development. My argument is that the 21st Century is a different time and place with totally different challenges than the 20th Century. Keynesian economics failed during the latter half of the 20th, so why on Earth should it work at all in the 21st? It would make sense in a manufacturing economy based on exports with Unions and farmers and goods being exchanged. It seems hopelessly antiquated when dealing with a service based economy where knowledge is bought and sold.
But hey, what do I know. Read the article anyway, cause it is very very interesting.
TAGGED AS: Economy, Keynes, Paul Krugman, Politics, Taxes
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PERMANENT LINK2386.\\ Sentenced to death on the NHS - Telegraph
Yeah. I wonder how this is working out for the Brits? Clearly we need the same thing here. You know, to ensure 'competition' (as if State control somehow miraculously provides MORE competition than the free market containing hundreds of competing companies).
TAGGED AS: Daily Telegraph, Health Care, NHS, UK, US
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PERMANENT LINK2385.\\ Holder Versus American Patriots
Ralph Peters does his usual job of verbally stripping his opponents of any philosophical legitimacy.
I like that he's framed the attack on American security not as a policy decision but as an ideological purge of the third world type. It is an interesting, but very subtle twist on this argument that resonates with me because I firmly believe that he's absolutely correct.
Dangerous times, my friends. Stay thirsty.
**** UPDATE:
Reading some of the comments. Didn't realize Eric Holder worked for Janet Reno and was involved in Ruby Ridge and Waco. Makes total sense that he'd seek to undermine our Liberty.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, CIA, Eric Holder, George Bush, New York Post, Ralph Peters, Terrorists
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PERMANENT LINK2383.\\ Brown and Quadafi and Sex and Oil
Okay, no sex. But in the NY Daily News today, an Editorial basically lays out the absolute criminality of what's gone on with the release of the Lockerbie terrorist in exchange for Libyan oil.
Phrase of the day:
"Theirs has been a discreet relationship, conducted in private and lubricated by oil, an affair of convenience between a madman with blood on his hands, and a craven hypocrite with a price tag."
A craven hypocrite. God I love the English language.
TAGGED AS: Craven Hypocrite, Gordon Brown, Lockerbie, Moamar Quadafi, Oil, Terrorists
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PERMANENT LINK2382.\\ David Brooks and the Silent Majority
In an Opinion piece, (usually) conservative columnist David Brooks surveys the political situation we're in and does his best to say nothing of interest on the matter.
With a discernible sourness, for reasons I can't quite fathom, he rambles on about how much of a mistake Obama's left tilt has been (shocker) and the disaster of health care reform for the Democrats (another shocker).
Despite writing an obvious filler piece (probably Sunday afternoon or something), he can't avoid some gems such as this:
"Amazingly, some liberals are now lashing out at Obama because the entire country doesn't agree with The Huffington Post. Some now argue that the administration should just ignore the ignorant masses and ram health care through..."
Love it.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Congress, David Brooks, Deficit, Economy, Harry Reid, Health Care, New York Times
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PERMANENT LINK2380.\\ Poor Panetta
After reading this article, I'm more convinced than ever that Barry & Co have no clue what they're doing.
I should temper that somewhat. I prefer to say instead that I am wavering between believing they're totally clueless and believing that they're utterly un-American and have a deliberate plan to destroy this country for some bizarre reason. For me, only either extreme can sufficiently explain the ongoing assault on the defense and intelligence capabilities of this nation.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, CIA, Eric Holder, Intelligence, Leon Panetta
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PERMANENT LINK2378.\\ Holy Friggin Crap.
Drudge is screaming this headline.
Obama wants to control the Internet now and decide which machines should and should not be connected. Furthermore, it allows the President, not a Congressional panel or a group within NSA or some other agency, but the President to direct the seizure of private networks (corporate or otherwise) at will. Perfect way to squash dissent. Just ask the Chinese and the Iranians.
This should raise the hackles of every single person in the country. I don't care what political stripes you have. This is censorship pure and simple using the need for "cybersecurity" as a cover to eliminate opposition to state takeover of our personal lives.
I've said it before. This is what produces revolutions.
TAGGED AS: Censorship, Congress, Freedom, Internet, Liberty, Obama, Privacy, Revolution
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PERMANENT LINK2375.\\ ABC Joins NBC As Official White House News Organ
As if having the head of General Electric/NBC appointed to the board of the Federal Reserve wasn't sufficient conflict of interest, now ABC is declaring officially that it is in the tank for Barry.
ABC has refused to air any ads critical of Obama's effort to nationalize healthcare. This is the channel that broadcast its 'news' from within the White House. As Dick Morris puts it:
"It's the ultimate act of chutzpah because ABC is the network that turned itself over completely to Obama for a daylong propaganda fest about health care reform. For them to be pious and say they will not accept advertising on health care shuts their viewers out from any possible understanding of both sides of this issue."
Read the full story here.
Sad. But totally believable. And it explains why shows like Lou Dobbs and O'Reilly are increasing their viewership so dramatically. In fact, O'Reilly has beat CBS broadcast news several times. That's gotta be a record to have a non-emergency cable news hour beat out the same hour of news on a national broadcast channel. The message seems to be loud and clear to me (apparently not to ABC, NBC or CBS): people aren't buying the distorted leftist bullshit you're serving. They see you as groveling sycophants willing to dispense with principles, morals and integrity in order to service the Liberal Messiah you believe is the second coming of JFK.
Fewer pay attention to you with each passing day....
TAGGED AS: ABC, CBS, Health Care, Media, NBC, White House
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PERMANENT LINK2374.\\ How's That Boycott Going?
Looks like everything's going as planned!
Or not, as the case may be. Is it possible, just possible, that people LIKE his show and AGREE with some or all of his commentary? Is it possible, just possible, that competitors like Olbermann, Deutsch & Co are fatuous liars for whom nobody gives a rat's ass? Is it possible that, shudder, jealousy and not self-righteous indignation is driving their boycott drive?
I wonder what Olbermann would do with 3 million viewers. Actually, are there 3 million people who know who Keith Olbermann is? I bet Deutsch would be happy to have 3 people know who he is.
And just for fun, and to expel the Olbermann demons, check THIS out. God bless you, Glenn Beck.
TAGGED AS: Cable Ratings, Donny Deutsch, FoxNews, Glenn Beck, Keith Olbermann, Leftist, Liberals, Media, MSNBC, Nonsense
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PERMANENT LINK2373.\\ Calling Jack Bauer
Marc Thiessen's piece in the Journal is right on in my opinion. There's got to be a more balanced dialogue about this topic. And the dialogue should be entirely out of the public (hence bitterly political) domain. Jack Bauer wouldn't have to put up with this shit.
TAGGED AS: CIA, Marc Thiessen, Torture, Wall Street Journal
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PERMANENT LINK2372.\\ Madeline,You Ignorant Slut
If nothing demonstrates the Left's approach to terrorism more than this video, then I don't know what will.
Here on that bastion of objectivity, MSNBC, Ms. Albright refers to the worst case of terrorism in British history as an 'accident'. Let's hope and pray that she meant to say 'incident'. No surprise that the apologist Andrea Mitchell didn't bother asking for clarification, she probably agrees with it being an accident.
WTF
TAGGED AS: Leftist, Libya, Lockerbie, Madeline Albright, MSNBC, WTF
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PERMANENT LINK2369.\\ Scary As Hell
and even more lethal to your identity if you let this thing on your system. I'm more intrigued by the notion (most plausible I think) that this is the work of some agency someplace. I'd be looking directly at the ex-Soviet republics as well as China. Someone's trying to undermine Western Civilization (aside from the Democratic Party of course).
TAGGED AS: China, Computers, Conficker, New York Times, Viruses
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PERMANENT LINK2368.\\ Arrogant Egalitarians
Have always felt that those in power who decided that they were smarter than everyone else sought to impose their view of the world on those of us who were too dumb to take care of ourselves. And, as Thomas Sowell points out, there is significant egalitarian arrogance in power today.
My favorite part:
(Obama) may think of (limiting our freedom) in terms of promoting "social justice" or making better decisions than ordinary people are capable of making for themselves, whether about medical care or housing or many other things. Throughout history, egalitarians have been among the most arrogant people.
And imagine there was a time when Liberals promoted Liberty.
TAGGED AS: Arrogant, Barack Obama, Elitist, Liberals, Liberty, Media
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PERMANENT LINK2367.\\ Whatever Happened to the Work Ethic?
Reposted from a Tweet I made a few days ago. Can't emphasize how important I think the article's point is. In fact, it may be my new manifesto. But, lacking conviction, I haven't decided yet.
Apolitical and possibly the most important thing you read all week: http://city-journal.org/2009/19_3_work-ethic.html
TAGGED AS: America, Finance, Future, Work Ethic
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PERMANENT LINK2365.\\ Rule Britannia...
I've never thought that our healthcare system is perfect here, or even particularly stellar. But by God anything produced by the private sector in terms of healthcare has got to be better than letting Joe Bureaucrat run things. The people that bring you the IRS want to dictate your medical treatment? No thanks.
Pundits frequently make hash of the fact that socialized medicine in countries with national health systems is crap. I'd hasten to point out that we have a national health system in the United States and it is called Medicare/Medicaid. I know people who use Medicare. My entire family works in the health sector. Nobody who uses Medicare would prefer Medicare over a comprehensive plan like many of us enjoy. In fact, I can't think of many services that the Federal Government manages and offers to its citizens that is superior to an equivalent private sector offering. Not even NASA seems to work that well anymore when compared to private companies like Bigelow, SpaceX or Rotary. Hell even the CIA has to bring in Blackwater in order to get some quality work done.
If you were ever a believer in the ability of the Federal Government to manage itself wisely, a few Google searches on the deficit and pork-stuffed appropriations bills ought to cure you of that. But in the event that you believe a Federal Government, which cannot even manage EXISTING national health programs well and provide quality care, ought to be granted executive authority over your well being, then allow me to disabuse you of that notion by providing this excellent overview of the effectiveness of the NHS in the motherland. Where I come from we call it crimes against humanity and while not on the order of Hitler's 20 million, Stalin's 60 million or Mao's 70 million, providing "cruel" healthcare for 1/60th of your citizens in an enlightened Liberal Democracy is criminal in my book. I wonder if the International Criminal Court should bring charges? Nah they're probably too busy trying to prosecute US government officials for doing their jobs.
TAGGED AS: Big Government, Bureaucracy, Crimes Against Humanity, Government, Health Care, Telegraph, UK, US
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PERMANENT LINK2364.\\ Oh My...
What's he DOING to that guy? Seems perverted to me.
TAGGED AS: Unintended Porn
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PERMANENT LINK2363.\\ "One of the Most Accomplished Americans Ever to Serve our Democracy"
Really Barry? I mean, REALLY? Like as good as Lincoln? Really? Or maybe only as accomplished as, say, Franklin, Hamilton, Calhoun or Clay? Really?
Or maybe on par with his brothers.
TAGGED AS: Congress, Kennedy, The Media
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PERMANENT LINK2362.\\ Step 1: Read Your Constitution
I laughed and laughed. I'm glad she doesn't represent me.
Congresswoman Shea-Porter is an Idiot
TAGGED AS: Congress, Constitution
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PERMANENT LINK2361.\\ On Death Panels
For any that missed my meme on Facebook that apparently led to a number of 'friends' deleting me.
"The chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out there. It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels. That is why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance." - Barack Obama, April 14, 2009.
No thanks. I don't want a bureau giving me guidance on making decisions about death and dying. I don't care if they are super educated doctors and government advisers acting in the best interest of the rest of society. No. The only "independent group" I need in order to make those kinds of decisions are in my family.
Political channels, panels and "the country" have no right to make medical decisions on my behalf. Nor should they advise, propose, guide or even have any knowledge whatsoever of my medical conditions, treatments, complaints or visits. They do not need to know what meds I'm taking or what my diet consists of or how much I weigh or if my ass itches. My information does not need to go into a gigantic database with cool analytics that allows a group of politicos to decide that I'm in the 80% Obama mentioned above and categorize me or anyone I care about as an end-of-lifer.
He can take his independent groups, his death panels, and go to hell. This is the material from which revolutions spring.
TAGGED AS: Congress, Death Panels, Health Care, Liberals
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PERMANENT LINK2352.\\ Maxine Waters is a Liar
She's on America's Newsroom right this minute claiming that people were 'tricked' into signing mortgages. She's also asserting that nobody understands what is in a contract such as a mortgage and so you can't blame people for the housing crisis. Somehow it is because of deregulation, she claims, not Barney Frank and ACORN pushing subprime loans and encouraging people to put zero down that we've had a housing bubble. Deregulation caused a bubble? I think she means that manipulating the housing markets from a Congressional committee caused the bubble. The principle of the market has been working just fine for several hundred years, thank you very much.
She's a liar, a fraud and she has terrible hair. She clearly fits in with her district. But more importantly, this is just one more piece of evidence that she's off her rocker. See this gem from over the summer.
TAGGED AS: Capitalism, Congress, Economy, Liar, Liberals, Maxine Waters, Politics
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PERMANENT LINK2347.\\ Another Year, Another Kid, Another Anniversary
Yes, #3 is due in little over a month. Exciting to have another child; my first daughter. Born in the year of the first female Vice President? Who knows. What I do know is that I have the urge again to write on a regular basis. My children and the urge to write both seem to come at the same time of the year, the months around the 11th of September.
1777 wasn't a good year for America. Washington was in full-blown retreat, lurching his way across New Jersey and Pennsylvania desperately trying to find food for his army. Things were so bad that the soldiers, mostly naked (literally naked), were roasting their dead comrades' boots and eating the leather soles. Inflation at that time makes today's Zimbabwe look like a model of economic success. Yet the country pulled through. Things weren't terribly good, but perseverance and an indomitable spirit got those hardy people through some very dark times.
1861 was another year that wasn't great for America. My own state of South Carolina had rebelled, declared independence, bombarded Fort Sumter and the rest of the south followed it into war. Let me, for a moment, attest to the character of the southerners (of which I will likely never truly be a part). They are a tough bunch full of stubbornness, determination and grit. If anyone could defeat Lincoln's North, it was the people who gave birth to Lee, Bragg, Polk, Johnston, Hood, Beauregard and Forrest. But by cleaving a great people in two over an issue that should have (and could have) been resolved in 1783, the conflict that would ensue was an ordeal that America recovered from only after a century, appropriate legislation and anyone alive at the time had passed. It was the bravery and determination of people like Andrew Johnson, Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Lyndon Johnson that put to rest the schism and finally healed the nation.
1941 was a year that came to be infamous. It was not a good year for America. The Japanese had destroyed US Naval power in the Pacific and the British alone held the line against a terrible darkness. Western Civilization itself, and all of its 2500 year history, was at risk of slipping into a deep abyss. Let there be no mistake about how bleak things looked in 1941. There was a resignation in these States to Germany ruling Europe. There was a real, powerful (magnitudes more powerful than today) anti-war lobby that sought to keep America isolated and insulated from the world. The Japanese changed that on December 7th at 7:48 am. The result was a rallied America that had never been as unified and an awakened giant the likes of which the world had never before seen in the history of mankind. In a improbable turnabout, just 4 years later the United States was more engaged and involved in the world and more relatively powerful than any nation in history.
2001 was not a good year for America. Politics had torn the people asunder the previous year. Charges of a poisonous and ridiculous nature were hurled about between countrymen. There was nothing short of internal war. Had the politicians and ideologies been represented by individual States as they had been in the 19th Century, civil war might have resulted. The economy had had a bubble burst in the first months of 2000 and had yet to bottom out. Jobs were being lost left and right and GDP was threatening to enter negative territory for the first time in a generation. And yet things only got worse. In a short, brutish and nasty flash, an act of terrorism took more American lives in a single day than at any point in the nation's history save for the 1900 Galveston Hurricane and the Battle of Antietam. It was a stunning attack on the world's only indispensable nation, the only MegaPower, a nation that had never been attacked on its own soil in such a brutal and cowardly manner. Yet the nation and its people circled the wagons and pulled together. The people's leader, a man who came to power promising to keep America out of foreign adventures, summoned an improbable inner strength and vowed to focus on nothing but her defense. And to that end, he succeeded for the duration of his tenure.
I know I'll never forget that day. I doubt anyone alive in this country at that time will forget. It is etched in our collective memory in a way that few events are. It is a sad anniversary when it comes around. It reminds me of our mortality and the vulnerability of our people and our nation. I can only hope that my soon-to-be three children will never have to face a day like that. My oldest was 5 at the time and I doubt he recalls it. I envy him. If there was ever a harbinger of the new world order, it was al Qaeda. George Bush the Father spoke in 1991 of a new world order with a thousand points of light coming into being following the defeat of communism. It was not to be, sadly. The real indication that we lived in a new era was when cowards murdered 3000 Americans on a clear, crisp fall day in September 2001.
It makes me tear up to this very moment.
However, I have every faith in the spirit of my adopted country that we will pull through. And as we pull through, we bring with us the beacon of light that represents the sum history of the Greeks, Romans, Franks and Britons. If Western Civilization is doomed to fall prey to the darkness of radical ideologies (be it tyranny, racism, sexism, totalitarianism or religious extremism), it won't be on America's watch.
Tomorrow morning at 9am, I will board a plane with my eldest son and travel to New York. Ostensibly the trip is about experiencing Yankee Stadium before it is torn down. But it is also, and more importantly, about experiencing Ground Zero and the 9/11 Tributes at the Yankees game that I hope will leave an indelible mark on him. The greatest gift I feel I can give my children is knowledge and experience of the history I have witnessed.
And so I celebrate another year of writing and another child while I also remember the events of 7 years ago today.
Never Forget.
2345.\\ God Save the Republic
She makes me want to VOMIT with every fraudulent moment of her existence.
"Watch your future's end..."
TAGGED AS: Democrats, Hillary Clinton, Phony, Politics, Socialism
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PERMANENT LINK2340.\\ German Insight
West Wing: The Comeback of a War President - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News
Never thought about things quite like it is spelled out in this article. I mean, nothing in it is a surprise. But the analysis is something I haven't seen before. I have some quibbles, but overall I think he's got it right. It sorta seems obvious if you stand back and look at it. A generational war. Not a season of 24.
Technorati: ChrisCam, webcam, Weblog, Blog, politics, George Bush
TAGGED AS: Der Spiegel, George Bush, Politics, The Media, War on Terror
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PERMANENT LINK2339.\\ Um, Okay....
The Washington Times, America's Newspaper
So which is more lame; 1) the fact that they can't get a few drunk rednecks in Iowa to come out to celebrate Al Gore; 2) they can't get more than 15k signatures in California to get Gore on the ballot; 3) there is a FOLK SONG about Gore.
Hmm. All equally lame in my book.
Technorati: ChrisCam, webcam, Weblog, Blog, Al Gore, lame, Iowa, Politics
2338.\\ A Little Gem
I like this. Granted it sort of sounds like it was written by someone in high school, but hey. The sentiment is what I identified with:
Common Sense and Wonder: Bush Resignation Speech
Technorati: ChrisCam, webcam, Weblog, Blog, economy, productivity, GDP, The+Media, George Bush
TAGGED AS: Economy, George Bush, Politics, The Media
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PERMANENT LINK2337.\\ Things Just Keep Getting Worse...
Why are there so few optimists in the world today? I think I'm one. Not a hopeless romantic optimist. But a positive-thinking realist. I guess I just don't go searching for negative news. As a result, I tend to think things in the world are better than does, say, the media.
Chronic Homelessness Down 12%
Productivity Surges by 4.9%
3Q GDP grows at 3.9%
You'll notice that good news about the US economy almost invariably avoids crediting the person who's been the chief executive of the Federal Government for the past 7 years. Not even a minuscule amount of attribution. Not one drop of imputation. Bad things in the world are naturally the result of something George Bush has done. Good things happen mysteriously and without causality.
Technorati: ChrisCam, webcam, Weblog, Blog, economy, productivity, GDP, The+Media, George Bush
TAGGED AS: Economy, George Bush, Optimism, Politics, The Media
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