Articles in Folder “Enraged Rants”:
2556.\\ Obama's Health Care Illusions
If you think anything contained in Obamacare will reduce the cost of health care, you're delusional.
Blanket statements aside, there are a series of facts available to disprove anything Barry says about the monster socialist bill he's trying to ram down the throat of America. Robert Samuelson does the work the rest of the press ought to have been doing since last summer by neatly destroying any notion of Obama saving you money on health. The reality is that socialized medicine costs more, produces less and makes everyone unhappy.
Don't believe it? Think this reporter is a right-wing nutjob? Inclined to believe in ancient astronauts and 9/11 conspiracy theories instead? Well, read the piece and then argue the facts. And this article comes from the guy who hasn't voted in 30 years cause he thinks it interferes with journalistic integrity.
Best bit:
You probably think that insuring the uninsured will dramatically improve the nation's health. The uninsured don't get care or don't get it soon enough. With insurance, they won't be shortchanged; they'll be healthier. Simple.Think again. I've written before that expanding health insurance would result, at best, in modest health gains. Studies of insurance's effects on health are hard to perform. Some find benefits; others don't. Medicare's introduction in 1966 produced no reduction in mortality; some studies of extensions of Medicaid for children didn't find gains. In the Atlantic recently, economics writer Megan McArdle examined the literature and emerged skeptical. Claims that the uninsured suffer tens of thousands of premature deaths are "open to question." Conceivably, the "lack of health insurance has no more impact on your health than lack of flood insurance," she writes.
How could this be? No one knows, but possible explanations include: (a) many uninsured are fairly healthy -- about two-fifths are age 18 to 34; (b) some are too sick to be helped or have problems rooted in personal behaviors -- smoking, diet, drinking or drug abuse; and (c) the uninsured already receive 50 to 70 percent of the care of the insured from hospitals, clinics and doctors, estimates the Congressional Budget Office.
Though it seems compelling, covering the uninsured is not the health-care system's major problem. The big problem is uncontrolled spending, which prices people out of the market and burdens government budgets. Obama claims his proposal checks spending. Just the opposite. When people get insurance, they use more health services. Spending rises. By the government's latest forecast, health spending goes from 17 percent of the economy in 2009 to 19 percent in 2019. Health "reform" would probably increase that.
If you buy the Obama snake oil on health care reform, then you'd better pony up and get yourself some nice flood insurance too.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Failure, Fraud, Health Care Reform, ObamaCare, Obamanomics, Socialism
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PERMANENT LINK2549.\\ Confiscation of Freedom
Thomas Sowell takes a somber and sobering look at the state of freedom in the United States. It is frankly pretty depressing to read how we are incrementally being deprived of everything the nation was founded to protect.
I renew my prediction of armed insurrection if the trend continues.
Best bit:
Another dangerous power toward which we are moving, bit by bit, on the installment plan, is the power of politicians to tell people what their incomes can and cannot be. Here the resentment is being directed against "the rich."
The distracting phrases here include "obscene" wealth and "unconscionable" profits. But, if we stop and think about it-- which politicians don't expect us to-- what is obscene about wealth? Wouldn't we consider it great if every human being on earth had a billion dollars and lived in a place that could rival the Taj Mahal?
Poverty is obscene. It is poverty that needs to be reduced--and increasing a country's productivity has done that far more widely than redistributing income by targeting "the rich."
You can see the agenda behind the rhetoric when profits are called "unconscionable" but taxes never are, even when taxes take more than half of what someone has earned, or add much more to the prices we have to pay than profits do.
TAGGED AS: Congress, Constitution, Health Care, Liberals, Liberty, Taxes, Thomas Sowell, Totalitarianism
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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 LINK2525.\\ The Health Bill is a Massive Tax
"The so-called "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" in fact will make access to health insurance more expensive and less useful, and will also render the care provided by insurance less effective, more risky, and more expensive by taxing the production of new capital goods. The taxation approach taken by Senate Democrats is a purely foolish method of funding regulations that are themselves horrible."
Thanks Ludwig von Mises.
Left unsaid: It is a method for funding regulations that establish government control of your health. I've seen this movie before, it was called Logan's Run.
TAGGED AS: Autocracy, Dystopia, Economy, Government, Health Care, Insurance, Logan's Run, Tax
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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 LINK2515.\\ It's Called Afghanistan, Charlie Brown
Poor Charlie Brown. Even Barack Obama doesn't like him. Did anyone think that "Change" included moving the beloved airing of Peanuts? What an asshole. Luckily we have it on DVD and will be watching that tonight instead of listening to that muppet drone on about the military and Afghanistan (neither of which he knows anything about).
Thanks be to Youtube:
TAGGED AS: Afghanistan, Asshole, Barack Obama, Charlie Brown, Snoopy
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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 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 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 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 LINK2495.\\ Why Isn't The American President in Berlin Today?
Modern Germany exists because of the United States. Yet the one world leader that won't be present to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall is the American President. He's 'too busy' to attend, he claims. I'd use that excuse too if it took me an entire year to dither on strategy in just a single world hot spot.
Not too busy, I'm sure, to play basketball or make grandiose speeches as indoctrinated children chant his name in the background. Ich bin ein Kenyan.
JFK and Reagan are likely astonished, wherever they are. Barack Obama's absence is shameful.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Berlin, Berlin Wall, Europe, Germany, JFK, Ronald Reagan
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PERMANENT LINK2471.\\ One Author, Totally Deluded
I am slowly shaking off the rage that has prevented me from writing anything about this story so far this morning. I don't even know where to begin. First go read this morning's op-ed in the Boston Globe.
Where to start. First off, the entire premise of the article is that Americans are ignorant. Every single one of us is stupid and deluded with the exception of the few enlightened ones who know so much more than we do that they deserve to rule in a paternalistic style, taking care of us from womb to grave. They just don't want us to worry our pretty little heads about things we couldn't possibly understand (like the health care bill, for example, which Congress won't let us read before they ram it through the legislature). In reality they're much more cynical. They just don't want our petty natures and preferences for things like self-determination and liberty to get in the way of their well-thought out grand intellectual exercises in social re-engineering. You know, sort of like fascists believed.
From the beginning of this article I had my hackles up. I don't like people taking the piss out of this country. But I agree with the first paragraph of the text. There is pandering by politicians to the public about how great everything is all the time. But the part that turned me totally hostile and made me flew into a rage was the sentence "The fact of the matter is that whenever anything really significant has been accomplished by our government, it is precisely because it was better than the American people."
There is nothing about any government or any State that makes it better than the people by whose consent it governs and in whose interest it serves. Government is not a thing that grants nobility of action, purity of character or goodness of intention. It is a temporary social contract that exists to provide impartial equity in human interactions. It is a framework within which a society of people functions. It is not an end unto itself, it is simply an means to an end. It cannot be "better" than the public because it is made up of the public. It cannot be noble because it is nothing more than a framework of rules. It cannot be pure or good or evil for that matter because it is not a person or a sentient entity, it s a legal construct that can evaporate as soon as the will that brought it into being dissipates.
Government is not a person or a philosophy or a social experiment. It doesn't exist to advance any agenda other than that which the people have deigned to adopt. In short, therefore, it is not, has not and will never be better than the people who allow it to continue.
Offered up as some sort of proof to the contrary is FDR's goading America into WWII and wasn't the government so much more enlightened and noble than the moronic mob who opposed US entry into war.
This, of course, is ridiculous. Taking Roosevelt's leadership, principles and strategic thinking and transmuting it into some sort of beneficent action of an enlightened "Government" is nonsense. FDR was elected because people believed in his ability to lead. They trusted him when he laid the groundwork for support of the Allies. It wasn't an American Government, so much better than Americans, that got us into war. We entered the war because we were attacked by Japan and because we trusted our chosen leader to guide us in that war. The same goes for LBJ and his Great Society and for Obama's Nationalized Health Care. People elected these leaders because they believed in their principles, their agenda and their ability to lead (although in Obama's case it may simply have been Oprah's endorsement, who can say).
Now I may completely disagree with FDR, LBJ and Obama. That doesn't make them 'better' than me or somehow more enlightened than me because they have one vision and I have another. It simply means their vision is the one that counts because they were elected. Of course, their vision could be totally wrong. In that case, they are no more stupid than I nor more ignorant and I am no more better. I'm simply right and they are wrong. And since history is written or at least kindest to the victors, in 50 years I have no doubt that whatever happens over the course of Obama's (hopefully short) tenure will be viewed as 'right' and 'better' than whatever else would have happened but didn't.
In short, it is stupid to ascribe supernatural 'better' powers to events which happened over those which didn't. If Washington had been captured and hung and we were all British, we'd have a short lesson in our grade schools about the aborted rebellion that thank God was put down by the King. And this boob writing in the Boston Globe would be gushing at how much better the King was than the population which wanted to separate from Britain. Imagine if the King didn't have the courage to stand up to those who wanted a revolution! This is the same argument as the author seems to believe is a proper guiding principle.
I'm all for humility when dealing with people that cannot possibly compare in any metric of national greatness or who are our friends. But when it comes to despots, thugs, criminal and rogue regimes and belligerent potential enemies, then it is Go America time and we should be as pro-USA as possible. It is incumbent upon everyone in this nation to be as proud as possible and to lord it over any potential enemy. We know our faults, but just like a family we don't have to air dirty laundry and weaknesses for our enemies to pick apart and potentially exploit. We should be as boastful as possible. And so should our leaders. Because if neither we nor they believe that this is the greatest place on earth, the grandest experiment in history, the literal shining city on the hill, then we are totally at the mercy of our enemies' psychological manipulations. Just ask the USSR how things went when they actually began to believe they were the Evil Empire.
The author asks, by what standard is one nation greater than any other nation? He then proceeds to detail failings of our system in comparison to others. He's right. There isn't any one standard. It is a comprehensive standard that takes into account financial power, knowledge, scientific contribution, military capability, cultural impact, geography, morality, guiding principles of government, the legal system, technical prowess, businesses, literature, ecology, social mobility, national flexibility and capacity for change, material resources, historical impact, international esteem, immigration numbers, inventions and overall quality of life. By THAT standard there is no doubt who is number one. But if you still have a lingering question as to who is the best or by which standard we should judge such a superlative, then simply ask anyone in the world today: "What country is the most important in the world?" Nobody is going to say Sweden just because they have higher home ownership and greater wealth distribution. I defy you to find a person on the planet since Teddy Roosevelt sent the Fleet round the world who would claim the United States of America is something other than the most important single nation on the planet.
The author holds up healthcare as a reason why we are not the greatest country on earth. He claims we are the only industrialized nation without a national health care system. He clearly doesn't know his own government. Medicare and Medicaid are both national health care plans available to any and all Americans who need them.
But that point aside, the next argument is that immigration patterns demonstrate that every country in the world is just as good the next one. Yes Mexicans come to the US but Turks go to Germany and Indians go to Great Britain and Arabs go to France. So there you have it, every nation has people who want to go to it and therefore the USA cannot claim it is better because people are immigrating. Balls. Everyone from every nation comes to the United States. The Japanese don't immigrate to Germany. The Chinese don't immigrate to Italy. Tajiks don't flock in huge numbers to Brazil. The fact is that everybody in the world comes the United States. This is an immigrant nation and that regenerative power is the source of our great strength. We get the best, the most industrious, those with the greatest hunger and thirst for opportunity. They come to our shores in droves, by the shipload. They attend our schools and take that BETTER KNOWLEDGE back to whatever shithole they came from in an effort to improve their nations. And at the end of the day, anyone can become an American. A guy from Senegal can't move to Tokyo and become Japanese. A single mother from Mexico can't sneak across the border into Germany and become German. Anyone can come into this country and become part of it. They add their distinctive ability, experience and knowledge to the whole and THAT makes us the greatest nation on earth thank you very much.
The author continues his everyone-wins-a-prize train of thought. And I have to quote it here because it is just such rubbish:
"The point of all this isn't that America doesn't have a lot to be proud of. It does. The point is that just about every country has a lot to be proud of, and America has no more right to assume it is the greatest nation in the world than does France, Switzerland, China, or Russia."
Really? The United States isn't greater than Switzerland? That is ridiculous and ultimately beside the point. Any nation can say whatever it wants about its own national greatness. The proof is in the historical record and will be written by the greatest nation no matter what the others say or do. I'm claiming that this greatest nation is the US. If the Swiss want to believe they're the greatest then fine, let them do so. I would apply my comprehensive metric described above to blast that nonsense out of the water, but whatever. I would ask my future generations when they read the history of the 20th and 21st Centuries, which was the greatest of the great powers? They won't say Switzerland.
I had thought the most ludicrous argument was past at this point. But no. The author has more for me to tear to pieces. He claims:
"None of this would make much difference if the self-congratulation was just harmless bragging. But there are consequences. A country that believes it is the greatest in the world is also less likely to be constrained by that world. One could argue that the Iraq war was a direct result of a sense of national infallibility. So was our willingness to torture, our reluctance to admit our mistakes in Afghanistan, our culpability in the global recession, and our foot-dragging on global warming. Such a nation is also less likely to introspect or to strive for true greatness because it believes its greatness has already arrived."
Egad! It isn't harmless bragging for starters, it is legitimate belief. And a great nation has no obligation to be 'constrained by the world'. Can you imagine? We're suddenly in the business of constraining nations and subjecting them to the diktats of a bureaucracy someplace in Geneva. No nation should be constrained by the world. Nations constrain other nations. Nations coerce and force and lead and encourage other nations. Nations are the primary actors in global affairs. "The World" doesn't exist and even if it did, no entity has authority to constrain the United States. The United States is governed by one document that supersedes any and all laws. It is illegitimate the US Government that seeks to submit the United States to be constrained by the world. That is a US Government that has abrogated its duty, exceeded its authority and must be dismantled and replaced by one that adheres to the Constitution.
The Iraq war was a direct result of the strategic need to dispose of Saddam Hussein and ensure the Iraqi oil supply by creating the conditions for the long term stability and prosperity offered by a free form of government chosen by the people of that nation. That stability and prosperity will reduce the threat of Iraq becoming a reactionary power that disrupts an already unstable part of the world. And yes, our belief that we had the power to create that stable situation was a direct result of our belief in our national greatness and in our nation as a force for good. The author would imply that if we had only been smarter and more humble, we could have lived with total chaos in the middle east in perpetuity. He has a right to believe that, of course, until such chaos leads to the murder of anyone he loves. Then he might wonder why we didn't try to do something, given our great capabilities.
The final thoughts of the author require some analysis. He says that America can't take criticism and that Americans constantly need to be flattered and have their pride attended to. I completely disagree. One major part of our national greatness is our ability to change. Change isn't something that comes from the State or is organized by Presidents. Change is an unseen shift in attitude and beliefs that take place over time in the people that constitute the nation. Nobody forced Americans to recycle (as of yet). And who in the 1940s would have cared much for it? I'm not an environmentalist yet I recycle because I believe it is the right thing to do. Had someone tried to legislate that morality it would certainly have backfired in a person like myself. Lincoln freed the slaves in States not controlled by the Union, yes. But his actions, his enlightened wisdom, didn't create change in attitudes. That change had been brewing for decades and continued to brew for decades to follow. Change flowed UPWARD, not DOWNWARD from the enlightened ones.
Americans don't need flattery. We know our weaknesses and it is a sign of our greatness the degree to which we self-flagellate and wring our hands and agonize over flaws in our national character that a people such as, say, the French, would be aghast at. The Chinese don't sit around talking about how morally corrupt they are. The Russians don't agonize about being a nation of nationalists. The Germans don't sit around and wonder how on earth they got to be so racist. The Cubans don't have thousands of call-in talk radio shows where they debate the pros and cons of teaching evolution in schools. This is a nation in constant flux. Change is constantly flowing in various directions. It isn't all in a uniform march to a better society as progressives and end-of-historites would have you believe. There isn't a logical conclusion to the change ever flowing in a constant direction. But it is more ongoing and churning change than any people anywhere in time or place have ever seen. And that churn wasn't created by Barack Obama's executive order. Change is a feature, a characteristic of America and Americans.
In one final jibe at Americans, he despairs that American Government may be just as good as American people and therefore the end of times is near. I would argue that America's elected officials have always been, and are by design, the same or worse than the people they represent. It is precisely because the politician is a cynic or is a pretentious, self-righteous pretender, that they are elected in the first place. It is their ability to appear that they know what they're doing that encourages us to vote for them. The Constitution recognized this and the founders acknowledged the base morals of humanity and built into the system the ability for self-correction.
We should truly despair when the State becomes the ultimate achievement of mankind. The ultimate expression of our intellect. The basis for reorganizing society along the lines of those who are the 'best'. We should truly despair when the 'best' rule us. Their capabilities coupled with human nature and unchecked ego give rise to dictators and emperors.
TAGGED AS: America, Arrogant, Barack Obama, Boston Globe, Congress, Constitution, Democracy, Hubris, Leftist, Liberals, Liberty, Nation, Principle, State
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PERMANENT LINK2469.\\ The Universe is Laughing
I've spent the day swinging between incredulity and disbelief, outright uproarious guffawing and barely contained rage (albeit the rage was only after listening to Rush on my way to lunch and back).
I have nothing about the award to Mr. Obama, Peace Be Upon Him, that hasn't already been said a zillion times on Twitter and the other parts of the interwebs. And frankly I'm still angry and upset and tired after watching the Red Sox suck ass against the Angels last night.
So. I've read it all, absorbed it all, realized that I have nothing original to add and instead will let Benjamin Kertsein's gorgeously written article do all the speaking for me.
Aside from the fantastic use of the term "rhetorical flatulence" to describe the Nobel Prize Committee's announcement, the best and most salient bit is as follows:
"When powerful people make fools of themselves, it behooves us to remember that when the fools are powerful, there is a strong chance that we are all in serious trouble. Obama and Obamamania are a joke that, in the end, is also on us."
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Nobel Peace Prize, Nonsense
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PERMANENT LINK2468.\\ Baucus Bill Bull
Read this article and then defend the plan.
My favorite bit:
"Only in government accounting could an additional 29 million people receive new health coverage with a savings of $81 billion. By this congressional logic, America could insure all 6 billion people in the world at a savings of trillions of dollars."
UPDATE:
There's also this analysis which demonstrates the government socially engineering a dependent society where it makes more sense to do nothing than it does to actually work.
TAGGED AS: Congress, Health Care, Liar, Senate
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PERMANENT LINK2466.\\ There They Go Again...
The radicals and racists were out in force again, foaming at the mouth and wearing wife beaters. If only they'd listen to the enlightened ones who seek to govern us and do what is in our interest.
If only they'd do what's right for the greater good and surrender their entire paychecks to the Philosopher King so he can spread it around properly. If only they weren't so ignorant they'd see how much of a blight on the world they are with their SUVs and their rampant reproduction and their sugary drinks and their carbon footprints and their gluttony. Better that they get state mandated (and funded) vasectomies so that they don't add to the population burden. Also, to avoid being fined, they should embark on state mandated goodwill trips abroad to apologize profusely to America's friends and enemies for how terrible the nation has been since its founding. Don't forget mandated health insurance. Pay up. Don't forget the check for mandated Acorn funding. And don't think you're getting a raise this year since your salary is set according to rates established by Those Who Know Best in Washington. Did you buy your mandated GM automobile yet? Hurry up and submit the dues to the Union you were mandated to join.
Grrrr....
TAGGED AS: Congress, Constitution, Fascism, Freedom, Liberty, Socialism, Tea Party, Town Halls
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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 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 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 LINK2441.\\ Promise-Breaker-in-Chief
What the fuck is going on in Washington? Aside from human nature, unrestrained greed, rampant corruption and outright fraud, that is.
Funding that no one has asked for, for projects that the Pentagon does not want. And a President so weak he can't even live up to his own words by lifting a pen to strike down horrific wasteful spending at a time of unprecedented fiscal peril.
What a bunch of crooks we have running the place. Where's Patrick Henry when you need him?
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Congress, Finance, Liar, Military, Pentagon, Revolution, Spending
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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 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 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 LINK2394.\\ Paul Krugman and the Advance of Madness
Yes it is old. But I didn't do any web surfing on Friday to spot it. So here it is.
In a quick blog post to (his blog? the NY Times Editorial Page? some random website he maintains? I can't figure it out), the Great American Poobah professes disbelief and surprise at the hate mail his political rants have generated.
On the one hand he calmly expresses a desire to not have people react so vehemently, so filled with blind rage, at writings that they may not have even read. And he cleverly weaves into this thread a charge that anyone who disagrees with Obama and the Liberal agenda in general must be retarded.
So we pair a legitimate observation on the temperature of the political discourse in this country with school yard insults from the 6th grade. Nice. Worthy of a Nobel laureate with his prominence.
I commented. But in case my comment is 'moderated' out of existence as routinely happens at the NYTimes.com website (regardless of how polite I am in disagreeing), I've asked some rhetorical questions (and statements) below that I'd love to ask Paul if I ever met him:
Dear Paul,
Why is it "bizarre" to think that the Obama administration is full of socialists, ideologues, angry leftists and others with a penchant for militant elitism? The news is replete with examples on a weekly, if not daily basis. Need I point them out to you?
Why does the intensity of the discourse strike you as amazing and "bizarre"? It is pretty clear that the nation has been divided for quite some time. Or did you think that when Obama was elected that everyone would see the light, swoon, smoke the bong and go into a haze of total agreement?
You were not "questioning Bush's bona fides" during the previous administration, Mr. Krugman. You have called him a liar, a war profiteer, an idiot, an elitist, an ideologue. a fundamentalist, denigrated his religious bent, suggested he inherited the White House and myriad other distateful things
Your articles on innocuous subjects like health care, economics and macro modeling provoke such 'incoherent rage' because they are political and you mean them to be political. And when you invoke your Nobel Prize to make points about politics you appear, and indeed are, elitist. And when those points are decidedly leftist in nature, paint everything on the right as a product of mental deficiency, and fawn over anything on the left, then you will provoke the kind of rage you see in your inbox. Seems pretty straight forward to me and I imagine in reality you truly understand it. Which leads me to my next point
Why are you so mock sincere with your statements? Feigning ignorance on subjects you should clearly have mastery over is the lowest form of intellectual discourse.
Need I point out that if Obama had come in proposing an agenda identical to the last administration, then you would not be supporting him and indeed be writing articles mocking his intelligence? It is totally irrelevant to point out something with is impossible. Why the false, straw man argument? It is beneath you.
Why do you invoke mental acuity to explain why the right doesn't see the absolute, perfect correctness beaming forth from the light of knowledge you've hoisted high?
In fact, involvement in politics is beneath you. Put your brain to work and solve our problems. Stay off the editorial and opinion pages where you simply diminish yourself, your ideas and liberalism in general.
Here's what my comment said:
"Why must there be something 'wrong' with people's mental faculties out there Paul? Is it possible, just possible, that the unwashed masses are right and you are wrong? Why this disdain for the mob when it rejects the light of liberal enlightenment you've bestowed on it?
You're a smart guy. Drop the emotion. Reassess. Quit calling people retarded because they think you're full of crap."
Lastly, does a minor blog post from a week ago warrant this rant? In and of itself, no. But I get pretty worked up at these elitists spewing about how dumb everyone else is and not getting challenged.
TAGGED AS: Economy, Elitist, Leftist, New York Times, Nonsense, Paul Krugman, Politics
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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 LINK2353.\\ To My Congressman
Since your online comment submission application is generating error 500's and has an obvious database failure (perhaps it is full of angry comments?), I'm sending my comments to you via my blog.
Dear Mr. Inglis,
I am so enraged by your first vote on the bailout, Congressman, that you've managed to flip me from a supporter to someone who will actively speak out AGAINST you in the next election to prevent you from screwing me and my fellow constituents even further.
You've voted to destroy this country and every one of its founding principles. You've put your political self-interest ahead of the need of the people. You've managed to allow liberalism, dare I say socialism, to substitute its odious philosophy for market capitalism.
You should be ashamed.
You should be alarmed at the pork that this new bill is full of. You should be scrambling to prevent the outright embarrassment you will incur if you vote for this earmarked boondoggle that we cannot afford. It will saddle my children with debt to the Chinese for the rest of their lives and I won't ever let you or my fellow constituents forget it.
And tell the House to get new IT staff to fix that piece of shit website you have.
TAGGED AS: Bob Inglis, Congress, Economy, GOP, Politics
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PERMANENT LINK2350.\\ John McCain, Hypocrite
I'm seething with rage this morning. The guy I was hoping would come to town and throw out the spenders and ax the special interests has gone down without a fight, and he's not even in office yet!
How can a man spend his entire career fighting lobbyists, special interest groups and pork barrel spending and vote for this bailout bill? How can he rail against earmarks and express such passion about cutting wasteful spending only to go ahead and accept this Christmas tree festooned with waste, earmarks and special interest goodies to the tune of over a trillion dollars?
How can he accept this? How? I was thrilled last week when he suspended his campaign. I thought here is the man of action I'd like to see running the show. He flew to Washington and instead of standing up for what was right, he stood up and was counted for what was easiest. After he flew into town and got the read on the situation, he should have come out in front of the public and denounced this horrific attempt to manipulate the markets and extend bureaucratic control over capitalism as the pile of socialist shit it is. Furthermore, he should have said, there is nothing that could make me vote for this bill in its current form. No goodies, no trinkets, no added features, no extra earmarks, no nothing that would make me, John McCain, vote for something that is so at odds with my political philosophy, my record and my core beliefs.
What would Mr. Reagan think of you now John? You've become a big government stooge supporting a bill that gives away the future of my children and entrusts it to Chinese financiers and Islamic oil producers.
In the end, you've surrendered your principles when the time came to stand up for them. You've sold us down the river John. And what saddens me the most about it is that, while 73 of your colleagues (and it looks now like a majority of the House) also sold us down the river, you were the one guy that I thought could turn us around. So this black mark counts doubly, triply against you. You've ceded the moral high ground and condemned this country to 8 years of liberalism run amok. You've hastened the end of the American era by allowing the Democrats to ride their way to power in all branches of government. Their insidious policies will bring about the final death knell of this once great country.
This is on you, John. You and every other alleged fiscal conservative in the GOP. You and your buddy Lindsay have brought on catastrophe.
TAGGED AS: Congress, Conservative, Constitution, Economy, GOP, John McCain, Liberals, Lindsay Graham, Politics
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PERMANENT LINK2349.\\ Karl Marx: 1, Adam Smith: 0
The Senate has passed Bailout v2.0 (aka Crap Sandwich 2.0) by a vote of 74 to 25.
Are there really only 25 market believers in the US Senate? God help us all if this is true. I'd almost rather believe that the 74 voted Yay in order to devour the billions worth of pork crapola that they've stuffed in this donkey.
I'm sorry to say that my own state apparently has only 1 Senator who places his faith in Adam Smith and not in the greedy, grubby, grabby hand of the United States Government. Well, you say, it must be Mr. McCain's good friend and fellow pork buster Lindsay Graham. Well, says I, you'd be dead wrong. Senator Graham has voted in favor of this steaming pile of shit. It was the junior Senator of the great State of South Carolina, Jim DeMint, who courageously stood up and threw down the bullshit card. I know Jim DeMint. I don't think the man voted against this because his office was inundated with outraged constituents. I honestly think he voted his principles. What a strange, absent concept in today's Congress!
So as this vote represents a victory for Marx, so too it reveals those in our nation's government who firmly believe in the foundational principles of this country as laid down by the founders and will stand up to prove it. Crises have a funny way of bringing forth those principled few and sending the unscrupulous masses scurrying for cover. It's like turning a light on in a grimy kitchen and watching the bugs run.
Weasled out. Beware, Mr. McCain
Stood up and was counted
Nod to Michele for the craptastic references.
TAGGED AS: Congress, Constitution, Economy, Jim DeMint, Lindsay Graham, Politics, Senate
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PERMANENT LINK2346.\\ Outrageous!
From the AP:
"The Senate plan would rush rebates - $600 for individuals, $1,200 for couples - to most taxpayers and cut business taxes in hopes of reviving the economy. Individuals making up to $75,000 a year and couples earning up to $150,000 would get rebates."
The fucking audacity of Senate Democrats to decide that I don't need a rebate! It is unacceptable and infuriating. The sheer arrogance of the players and the inherent unfairness of the stimulus package reveals it to be the politically opportunistic scam that it is.
Who the hell are they to arbitrarily decide that I make enough money that I don't need any relief? I pay taxes just like everyone else. Oh wait, no I don't. I pay more taxes than most people. The Federal government appropriates 35% of my income and gives it away to other people who faceless bureaucrats feel 'deserve' it more than I do. I work hard for my money. To see this kind of marxist wealth redistribution on a normal day really burns my ass. To compound this with the knowledge that people who contribute nothing to the gross domestic product (or indeed to American society) are going to get rebate checks when my family will not simply ENRAGES me.
Who the fuck do they think they are? They have no sovereignty over my liberty. They have dubious Constitutional authority to forcibly take away my family's livelihood and GIVE IT AWAY to other people. I can only imagine Locke, Henry, and a pantheon of founders are turning in their graves as this Republic lurches to euro-style state socialism.
TAGGED AS: Constitution, Democrats, Liberty, Senate, Socialism, Taxes, The Founders
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