Articles in Folder “Political Punditry”:
2559.\\ The Greenroom » The Sweetness of Doing Nothing
This, folks, is what it looks like when government is doing too much. Government is too big. Some of us have been pointing this out for decades, but I think more and more of the Americans who don't pay much attention, as long as their lives don't have to change too much, are now waking up and realizing that government has gotten big enough to actually fulfill Michelle Obama's promise: to actually change our lives.The truth is, Americans don't want government to change our lives. Government that does less is what more and more people are realizing we need. We don't want government that's big enough to force us to buy health insurance - or to make lesser and cheaper medical treatments the "norm" in order to save "society's" resources. We don't want government that thinks it has some reason to care how many rooms there are in our homes, and how they are heated and cooled. We don't want government that's big enough to force talk radio, TV, or internet content into a state-approved homeostasis between "left" and "right." We don't want government that can kill our jobs by making it too expensive to employ us. We certainly don't want government that employs members of a thuggish service employees' union and caters to their demands - demands that can only be satisfied by confiscating more and more from the private sector's producers: those to whom the same union employees display a surly and unhelpful demeanor when the taxpayers have the misfortune to need to do business with the government.
The ugly face of big government is plastered across every facet and every communication medium of modern life, here in 2010. What we need to realize is that it isn't possible to have big government that looks and acts any other way. This is it: this is what activist government - government that won't let us go back to our lives as usual - looks like. The time has come for government to stop "fixing" things.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Big Government, Congress, HotAir, Liberty, Michelle Obama, Socialism
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PERMANENT LINK2555.\\ Sino-American Showdown
I don't have time to write much about this since I'm dealing with an irritable little girl who just got her ear tubes this morning.
Suffice it to say, this article in the Telegraph today paints the picture of the clash many have been predicting for years (hand raised).
What's interesting is that the showdown is likely to be triggered by economics instead of traditional great-power politics, as Ambrose Evans-Pritchard points out.
Best bit:
As America's creditor - owner of some $1.4 trillion of US Treasuries, agency bonds, and US instruments - China can exert leverage. But this is not what it seems. If the Politburo deploys its illusiory power, Washington can pull the plug on China's export economy instantly by shutting markets. Who holds whom to ransom?Any attempt to retaliate by triggering a US bond crisis would rebound against China, and could be stopped - in extremis - by capital controls. Roosevelt changed the rules in 1933. Such things happen. The China-US relationship is no doubt symbiotic, but a clash would not be "mutual assured destruction", as often claimed. Washington would win.
TAGGED AS: America, China, Economy, Military, Politics, The Telegraph
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PERMANENT LINK2554.\\ 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 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 LINK2545.\\ The Case For Deficits and Against Spending
Just go read it. It makes sense.
Best bit:
"Unseen is how much higher our wages would be if our federal minders weren't spending over $3 trillion per year, and how very different and varied our collective employment outlook would be if our productive gains stayed in the private sector as opposed to the bloated government sector. It's said that government spending is compassionate, but what is compassionate about politicians spending money not their own?
If it's agreed that governments have no resources of their own, would readers prefer a balanced budget of $3 trillion plus, or a trillion-dollar deficit amid $1.5 trillion of spending? The answer here seems pretty simple. Since dollars are dollars, and investors don't seem concerned with the deficit, the most economically stimulative path would be to continue running deficits while greatly reducing the level of federal taxation and spending."
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 LINK2543.\\ The Next Man on the Moon Will Be Chinese
I don't like profligate spending. I'm against all sorts of government expenditure. I would like to see the space industry dominated by American private enterprise.
However, in eviscerating NASA and providing little to no incentive for the market to fill the void, Mr. Obama has permanently relegated America to second or even third-tier status as a space power. We will have no advanced launch capability. No refueling capability. No mechanism for protecting our dwindling space assets. Our national security absolutely relies on America dominating the near Earth orbital zone. Instead we will now be forced to rely on China, India and Russia for access to space.
Forget about the moon or Mars. Those are now the property of China Inc.
TAGGED AS: China, NASA, Space
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PERMANENT LINK2542.\\ Value Proposition
Mr. Sowell has entered the building. And with him comes an overall elevation of the intellectual discourse of the day.
Best bit:
"Since the only resources that the government has are the resources it takes from the private sector, using those resources to create jobs means reducing the resources available to create jobs in the private sector."
Which is why government is almost never the answer to any problem involving the market.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Economy, Health Care, Insurance, Thomas Sowell
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PERMANENT LINK2540.\\ The Obama Contradiction
One of my favorites slices and dices the State of the Union address. Peggy always has a way of going beyond what other pundits have to say and putting the subject within a broader, more meaningful context.
Best bit:
"The central fact of the speech was the contradiction at its heart. It repeatedly asserted that Washington is the answer to everything. At the same time it painted a picture of Washington as a sick and broken place. It was a speech that argued against itself: You need us to heal you. Don't trust us, we think of no one but ourselves."
Exactly.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Peggy Noonan, 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 LINK2529.\\ Henry Liu Makes Krugman His Bitch
Read Krugman's article here first, then read Henry Liu's total smackdown, raw.
The article also happens to be a great historical recounting of monetary policy. Fantastic read for the day. And frankly, any time Paul Krugman is revealed as the fraud that he is it is a good day for me.
TAGGED AS: America, China, Economy, Henry Liu, Paul Krugman, Smackdown
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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 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 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 LINK2504.\\ House of Meddling
Stossel is right again. Unfortunately, no one in the Congress is listening anymore, not to him, not to the people. I suppose it is within their right to do what they think they should do, regardless of the mob. And thankfully it is the right of the mob to throw their asses out for any reason whatsoever.
Here comes 2010...
TAGGED AS: Congress, Health Care, John Stossel, 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 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 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 LINK2491.\\ Three Reasons to Reject Obamacare
As a rule, I don't believe insurance is the right model to pay for health care. I don't use auto insurance to pay for my gas each week, why should I expect to have health insurance pay for drugs I decide to take? Insurance implies a financial hedge against catastrophic events for which the expense is so high that I cannot pay it and therefore I need to spread that expense amongst other policy holders. It isn't a thing I use for routine events.
That being said, I don't believe in the direction the entire health care debate is taking. It should be about reducing the cost of procedures and making those costs transparent to me, the consumer, so that I can decide where to allocate my funds. I'm purchasing a good and/or a service. I deserve to know why it costs $25k for my wife to have a baby. Instead the true cost is hidden in premiums and deductibles and bureaucracy and regulation. If consumers knew the costs to them of various services provided by doctors, competition and Adam Smith's invisible hand would come to the fore and the system would self-regulate.
There's a shitload more to say on that topic and more explanation as to why treating the entire industry the same as any other goods/services industry makes sense. But I digress. While I may have dozens of reasons for rejecting Obamacare, the National Review gives you just three. Frankly they are the only three you need. What are the reasons? The reason you should reject Obamacare is that it doesn't meet any of Obama's own stated requirements. Pretty simple.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Congress, Health Care, Nancy Pelosi, Socialism
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PERMANENT LINK2489.\\ Shatner Performs Poetic Reading of Levi's Tweets
I'm not sure if mocking Levi Johnston hurts him or helps him. I'm sure the verdict will come in after he poses for Playgirl.
In the meantime, enjoy my favorite actor as he uses a Shatnerian style to recite Levi's Tweets:
TAGGED AS: Politics, Sarah Palin, Shatner
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PERMANENT LINK2486.\\ As If There Were Any Doubt...
David Harsanyi deconstructs the 2000 page omnibus health bill in an article from the Denver Post last week.
I just don't understand how something with a $1.2 Trillion price tag will reduce our deficit. I also fail to see how half a million words outlining new regulations, taxes, fees, mandates, penalties and bureaucracy could possibly make health care faster, cheaper and better (hell I'd settle for any one of those three).
Best bit:
As you flip through the pages of the House bill, you will notice the word "regulation" appears 181 times. "Tax" is there 214 times. "Fees," 103 times. As we all know, nothing says "affordability" like higher taxes and fees. The word "shall" - as in "must" or "required to" - appears over 3,000 times.
God help us. Although I suppose in the near future I'll be required to say "Government help us".
TAGGED AS: David Harsanyi, Health Care, Nancy Pelosi, Orwellian, Taxes
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PERMANENT LINK2485.\\ Made Up Metric
I'd love to know how you calculate a 'saved' job. We've known of course that the 'created or saved' metric is total bunk made up of phony estimates and outright lies (as the Wall Street Journal recalls for us today). But I'd like to ask a new question. If the wizardry behind the stimulus created or saved 650k jobs so far this year, what do we call the 4 million jobs lost in the first 9 months of the year? Were those jobs just 'unsavable' ?
They were probably all dissenters and therefore it was determined by the jobs czar that they didn't need jobs.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Economy, Jobs, Lies, Unemployment, Wall Street Journal
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PERMANENT LINK2483.\\ Even Orwell Would Be Horrified
The march to a gaggle of unelected bureaucrats in Brussels micromanaging the daily lives of citizens in Britain took another step forward this week. Unfortunately for the people of the various European states, their freedom and liberty has been exchanged for a Pan European superstate ruled by an oligarchic elite of unelected intellectuals who use doubletalk and newspeak to put the people under the thumb of social engineering.
It is the end of France, the end of Germany, the end of Britain. The nations that took their inheritance from the great Mesopotamian civilizations, the Greeks and then the Romans, have abdicated their responsibility in carrying Western Civilization forward. They've decided that democracy and individual freedoms are not the ultimate expression of human liberty. It has become the State itself that is the Alpha and Omega.
It is truly a depressing day for any lover of history and Western Civilization.
2482.\\ $160,000 Per Stimulus Job?
Well that certainly seems worth it. Who could begrudge low-paying blue collar jobs created for $160k a pop on the taxpayer's dime? Surely there was no better way to generate (or save!) all those jobs. Of course, the one example given in the article suggests you should take the number of new jobs with a grain of salt (or perhaps just divide the 'official' number by 4).
Amazing that state-run ABC would dare to publish such a story in the first place. Their dissent is un-American and I'm afraid I'll have to report them so that the White House can reeducate the reporter.
Taken together with this week's fictitious GDP number, we are surely almost par with full-blown propaganda machines like Pravda or the former Iraqi Information Ministry.
Don't worry, your economy is fine! We create jobs all over! There is no recession!
TAGGED AS: Economy, Finance, GDP, Jobs, Lies, Propaganda, State Run Media
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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 LINK2477.\\ Mandated Shopping
Congress cannot legislate the purchase of goods or services. It cannot force the people to buy a particular product. It cannot force the people to buy anything. This includes health insurance. In fact, the very notion of Congress forcing everyone in the nation to purchase a service is unconstitutional and therefore illegal.
"But aren't we already forced to purchase auto insurance policies?" you ask. Well of course, but that is different on two levels. First off, it is a State government, the first sovereign power under our form of government that is legislating this requirement. The Constitution specifically allocates the necessary powers to States to make and enforce such laws. Secondly, and obviously, the law only applies to people who choose to purchase a vehicle. Since owning a car is not a right (as of this writing at least - who knows, that could change any day now), there is minimal infringement upon individual liberty. It is also a key role of State government to protect our individual freedoms (including our property) from the unlawful or harmful activities of others.
If Congress is allowed to force every one of us to buy health policy, why stop there? Why not legislate that everyone must purchase an automobile from a US automaker? Or why not simply legislate directly which goods and services we are required to purchase each week and from whom we are to purchase it? Naturally to ensure 'competition' the Government itself will soon be producing goods and services and subsidizing them. And why stop there? Why not simply legislate the private sector away completely? Surely it is unfair to someone someplace that I can buy something that they cannot. We should all be forced to buy exactly the same things in the approved quantities from the approved vendors...
It is absurd, of course. Yet this is the logical extension of the argument being used to foist subpar services on us at higher prices. It is un-American, unconstitutional and represents the worst of social engineering.
TAGGED AS: Congress, Constitution, Health Care, Liberty, Socialism
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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 LINK2472.\\ The Smartest Man in America
Every time I read Thomas Sowell I have an increasing admiration and appreciation for his intellect. He's a philosopher in an era of sophists. He's an excellent writer and his knowledge of how the economy really works makes Friedman look like Herbert Hoover.
His latest column, entitled Magic Numbers in Politics, is a devastating critique of the current vogue of political theory that markets are evil and the root cause of the financial crisis was insufficient Statism.
Aside from being a Capitalism 101 lesson that every politician should read, it is a repudiation of the notion that the market caused the financial crisis and that the solution is Barny Frank running your life.
The best bit:
If everything is connected to everything else in a market economy, then it makes no sense to have laws and policies that declare some given goal to be a "good thing," without regard to the repercussions, which spread out in all directions, like waves that spread across a pond when you drop a rock in the water.
Amen. Now, how do we fix it?
TAGGED AS: Capitalism, Communism, Economy, Philosophy, Thomas Friedman, Thomas Sowell
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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 LINK2470.\\ Margaret Carlson, You Are SOOO Right
I increasingly like you, Margaret Carlson. With your mousy looks and sarcastic jibes you make me hot for mostly politically honest copy from the center left.
Your latest call to dump Dominican Chucky Rangel is intellectually honest, accurate and necessary for the Democrats to even pretend they're not raging hypocrites on the ethics topic.
I gladly link to your column on the topic and give it two hurrahs. One for being true to your journalistic integrity and one cause I like women in glasses.
TAGGED AS: Charlie Rangel, Congress, Ethics, Hypocrites, Margaret Carlson, Nancy Pelosi
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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 LINK2462.\\ Glenn Beck Doesn't Need Defending
I like Glenn Beck a lot. I noticed him first last year when our government stole the next 50 years from us and our children by nationalizing the financial and auto industries and condemning America to decline.
Jonah Goldberg has a good article in today's USA Today that points out how popular he really is and why the right should adopt him and not push him away.
He can be a bit out there, to be honest. I don't agree with many of his arguments. But I like his style. I like his approach to discussing the issues of the day. Other programs take it at face value the a State should be in the business of wealth redistribution. He questions the very foundations of the modern American State and wonders aloud what the founders would think if they were alive today.
His detractors on the left, I just don't understand their hatred for him. He's bombastic, yes. But he isn't unlikable like Keith Olbermann. He isn't haughty and arrogant like Bill Maher. He isn't enamored with his own sense of humor like Jon Stewart. He's to the point, direct, and casual. I also find myself agreeing with him more often than just about any other politico.
TAGGED AS: America, Economy, Glenn Beck, Leftist, Media, Politics, USA Today
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PERMANENT LINK2461.\\ Finance Committee Democrat: Health Bill is gibberish
Well hell. If one of the guys who WROTE the damn thing won't even bother to support it, why should anyone?
More evidence that this blunderbuss is a solution in search of a problem.
TAGGED AS: Health Care, Nonsense, Senate
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PERMANENT LINK2458.\\ The Canadians Seem to Have Got It Right
Check out how awesome the Conservatives are doing in Canada. Under Stephen Harper's leadership, they are on the verge of a majority government. Stunning for a country normally labeled as hopelessly socialist. The reality of course is that they've been quietly leaning right over the past 5 years or so. At this point, it would not be a stretch to argue that Canada is a more conservative country than America. Imagine that. Canada to the RIGHT of America! Truly the apocalypse has arrived.
The GOP would be wise to watch and learn how to rule conservatively from the center and do it effectively.
TAGGED AS: Canada, Centrist, Conservatives, GOP, Politics, Stephen Harper
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PERMANENT LINK2456.\\ 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 LINK2454.\\ He Lies After All
Look no further than this bit by Jake Tapper of ABC News.
While fact checking the Obama administration, surely a first for ABC News, Jake discovered that holy shit! The President made up a bunch of crap to push his health care agenda. Who's using scare tactics now Barry?
A representative bit:
"But President Obama's description that Beaton's "insurance company canceled her policy because she forgot to declare a case of acne" is not accurate."
i.e. the President lied.
TAGGED AS: ABC News, Barack Obama, Congress, Health Care, Jake Tapper, Liar, Media
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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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 LINK2395.\\ The Curious Case of the Missing Van Jones
In today's Washington Examiner, Byron York asks what I assume to be a rhetorical question. Why did the media, in particular the New York Times, totally ignore the Van Jones scandal. And what's more, why does the New York Times only print news that is favorable to Barack Obama? And why have they consistently not printed any news, ever, that was not favorable to him?
Again, I assume it is rhetorical and that Byron knows how corrupted, elitist and ideological the 'news' room is at the New York Times. That they don't report news at all. They are the modern day Hearsts who see their role as educating the dumb folk out there who can't see the truth. Their truth. That kind of ego maniacal, systematic lying is nothing short of yellow journalism without any positive side effects.
My favorite bit from the article:
"Times readers didn't know it, but the causes for Jones' departure included the fact that he signed a 2004 petition supporting the so-called '9/11 truther' movement; that he was a self-professed communist during much of the 1990s; that he supported the cop-killer Mumia abu-Jamal; that in 2008 he accused 'white polluters' of 'steering poison into the people of color communities'; and that earlier this year, speaking to a friendly crowd in Berkeley, Calif., he called Republicans 'a--holes.'"
So he's not only a first class dick, he's also a communist, a racist and prone to conspiracy theories. Bet you won't find any of that in the New York Times.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Byron York, Elitist, Leftist, New York Times, Van Jones, Washington Examiner
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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 LINK2393.\\ LA Times and Editorializing the Absurd
If you can get through today's editorial in the LA Times without laughing then you've bested me. The naivete of the entire position is stunning and even more so from an alleged news organization.
The notion that any regime in Iran just wants to sit down and talk with us is absurd. The Iranian interest is not in making things smoother with the United States. If they do that and thaw the relations, the regime will topple under a groundswell of public pressure. The only way they cling to power is to paint the 'other' as an evil, interfering hegemon bent on the destruction of the Iranian people, culture and Islamic religion. If relations were to thaw, the nuclear program would come under international scrutiny which is not in the mullahs' interest.
Heeding Iran's call for talks at this juncture is no different than acquiescing to HItler's request for conference in 1938 in Munich. That went so well that surely we should give it another go. After all, talking to thugs and dictators has always worked out.
TAGGED AS: Iran, LA Times, Nonsense, Nuclear Weapons
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PERMANENT LINK2387.\\ Candidate in Chief
Excellent analysis. My favorite bit:
"President Obama seemingly has no clue about what he is doing, and, increasingly, it shows. What will happen when things start to go sour in Afghanistan? Our Commander-in-Chief simply will not be able to blame President Bush. After Obama has effectively destroyed the CIA, what will he do when terrorists strike? War is a nasty business in which lawyers should have little role. Has Obama noticed that Islamic terrorists are now threatening him? Does he understand that these vicious men are still threatening America?"
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, George Bush, Politics, US
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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 LINK2371.\\ You're the Imposter!
LOL. And here I thought that the Democratic Party was opposed to forcing people to show their ID's for any reason (i.e. for voting).
TAGGED AS: Congress, Democrats, Health Care, Town Halls
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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 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 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 LINK2360.\\ Talk of Death Panels
The reason talk of it won't go away is because it is in the damn language of the bills in Congress. Since it is IN THE BILL it can't creditably be called a "myth" can it?
TAGGED AS: Congress, Death Panels, Health Care, Liberals
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PERMANENT LINK2359.\\ Reaganism is Dead... Says The Great Poobah
He also refers to himself as the great "unabashed defender of the welfare state". I don't even know how to comment on that. Krugman The Great speaks
I will say that in no way can the economic success of the 1980s and 1990s be delinked from Reaganomics and I happen to believe that an unregulated market was not the primary reason for our current problems. But whatever. I don't have a Nobel prize in economics.
TAGGED AS: Economy, Liberals, New York Times, Paul Krugman, Reagan
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PERMANENT LINK2355.\\ Calling Leni Riefenstahl
Are you freaking kidding me? I feel like the lone Wiemar Democrat in January 1933 screaming "WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE THINKING!?!" Where is the media criticism? Where are the intellectuals on this blatant group-think mindlessness?
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Children, Communism, Creepy, Liberals, Politics, Self-Righteousness, Socialism
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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 LINK2345.\\ 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 LINK2344.\\ Stunned and Disgusted
It is a dark day for America. I'm not a liberal democrat by any definition. But I have to confess that I find Obama's candidacy exciting and different. I'm disgusted that the clinton machine has steamrolled him in New Hampshire. Everything about the clintons oozes phoniness and greasy self-absorbed self-righteousness. There is nothing at all about their character that balances the complete lack of moral guidance and complete lack of personal integrity. I find them to be the embodiment of everything that is wrong with American politics.
In stark contrast is Barack Obama. He is inspiring. He is someone I like watching. I don't agree with a thing he says, but I find him to be such a phenom and harbinger of difference that I cannot for the life of me understand why ANYONE would wish to travel back in time to 1992 and relive the depressing self-absorption and obsessive me-generation of the clintonian years.
The crying fit did it, I'm told. And yet no matter how many times I watch that performance, I can't figure out how any self-respecting American can observe clinton in all her fakeness complain that life for her is hard and actually believe she is genuine. Nothing about the clintons is genuine. Any of the advisers that have spoken candidly about the clintons note as a primary character trait their complete lack of honesty and that every single word and action is political in nature. Everything she does is engineered to play on emotion or place a doubt or raise a hope. She is the definition of fake. I hate her with such a passion that I would become a citizen and vote for Obama if I thought it would mean that no one named clinton would ever occupy the White House again.
Shock. Disgust.
How can machine politics so decisively overcome and defeat such a wave of hope and optimism? I don't think I'll ever understand people who support the clintons. People who think of the 1990s as the halcyon days. I just don't understand people who think of the clinton years with nostalgia. It doesn't make any sense at all to me.
They just won't go away.
I fear for the Republic when a hillary clinton can defeat a Barack Obama.
Now we have to suffer through her irrepressible 'comeback kid' nonsense where she talks about how she's a real person who has a heart and deeply wants to make a difference and how she has 35 years of experience and blah blah blah. God help us all.
Technorati: ChrisCam, webcam, Weblog, Blog, hillary, Obama, New Hampshire
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Clintonian, Democrats, Disgust, Hillary Clinton, Phony, Politics, Self-Righteousness
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PERMANENT LINK2341.\\ The Can-Do Attitude
Nicolas Sarkozy woos America - Telegraph
I've not said anything about the alleged thaw in our relations with france. I don't think I need to, to be honest. The proof of said warming will be if she follows through.
That being said, important note is made of this by The Telegraph. What will Britain's reaction be to the thawing? Historically, America doesn't move closer to both England and France simultaneously. There is an unwritten mutual exclusivity in relations with those countries. If Uncle Sam's policy is to unabashedly allow france to kiss his ass, expect Britannia's reaction to be one of distancing. My opinion. Informed by history.
Technorati: ChrisCam, webcam, Weblog, Blog, France, Britain, Sarkozy, Lafayette, George Bush
TAGGED AS: Axis of Weasels, Britain, France, George Bush, History, Lafayette, Nicolas Sarkozy
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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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