Political Predator

Santorum for the Defense

2012-02-08T10:24:00.000-08:00

Imagine being charged with multiple offenses... raping the environment, causing disease and famine, taking wealth from the poor in order to enrich a few (mostly the strong and well connected,) starting wars for profit, keeping the masses uneducated, and general disregard for anyone or anything that does not provide you with personal benefits. But unlike a trial where the accused is innocent until proven guilty, these charges carry the assumption of guilt, and guilty until proved innocent not once, but repeatedly, and not proved in one way, but in multiple ways. At the trial the facts become secondary, because the prosecutor has no ethical boundaries, is willing to lie and distort whenever he deems it beneficial, and he has a huge microphone. Worse, if your defense team is able to overcome all of these hurdles, the jurors will be offered bribes to rule the opposite of what their charge dictates (aka wealth redistribution.) These are the challenges that the defense of capitalism, freedom and democracy face ever single day.

There are lots of people defending capitalism, but they are small in comparison to the number prosecuting it. Given the defenders conviction that the ends do not justify the means, and the truth will win the day, they limit themselves to facts, even ones that weaken their argument. Add to that the media, the armed forces of the left, who give the prosecutors the largest possible forum and routinely swear to the fidelity of their lies.

The prosecutors of capitalism are given phony awards for imaginary accomplishments in order to make the nonsense they spew seem credible. Undeserved academic degrees, Nobel prizes and other such garbage are commonplace. See Paul Krugman, Al Gore and Barack Obama for details. And then the refrains like "Everyone agrees," "Almost all authorities agree," etc. are repeated ad naseum until a totally false premise becomes "common knowledge."

For these reasons this onslaught is never easy to defend. The question is, which Republican candidate is best qualified to do so? Is it Mitt Romney, who recently said he wants to link the minimum wage to inflation? FYI The minimum wage is a naked political ploy to garner votes for Democrats, who know themselves that it is job destroying, socially repressive, keeps the poor from training and bettering themselves, and is generally wealth destroying. Or maybe it is the Mitt who recently said that he would fix the safety net for the poor. Does he not know that the safety net is an economic prison from which few escape, and many caught in its' web become infected with a range of social pathologies? Does he know that the antidote for these social diseases is family, work and productivity instead of dependency and entitlement? Mitt might do a credible job defending collectivism, but he is the wrong man to defend capitalism.

What about Newt? He has been on the wrong side of capitalism too often to be comfortable, but still he is far better than Mitt. If he chooses to defend it, he would articulate the message better than most. The thing is we don't know when some whim will change his mind, or change the subject, leaving capitalism to be defined by the left.

Ron Paul is actually the best by far to defend capitalism. He understands it and is unapologetic about his passion for it. His problem is that he doesn't understand the national defense challanges of the 21st century, and that is the first job of government. This failure makes him almost unelectable (We can never say 100% unelectable after a community organizer with a 20 year mentoring relationship with an American hating, racist pastor, a terrorist friendship, and lifelong support for every radical cause, particularly the destruction of Israel, got elected President.)

So we are left with Rick Santorum. His economic plan betrays a lack of understanding for the proper role of government generally, and particularly when it comes to the economy. However, he has many of the right ideas as well, and he makes no apology for them. He does at least understand capitalism will save mankind from some of his own failings, he is honest about his beliefs and has been consistent in articulating them. He understands that traditional American values, Judeo Christian values, are what allows capitalism to flourish and defends our freedom. His compassion transcends political opportunism, and he knows that the President must help everyone, including political opponents, and even if help means denying them the laundry list of narcotics the welfare state has addicted them to.

I guess former Mayor Koch of New York was right. He said, ""If you agree with 80% of what I say, vote for me. If you agree with 100%, see a psychiatrist." Rick is my 80% candidate, and that's good enough...it will have to be.

Some Common Sense Please

2012-01-30T08:52:00.000-08:00

There should be a central talking points unit for conservatives that puts out concise rationals for our positions, answers the lies or misleading statements by liberals, and answer questions by the public.

How often have you heard centrists or liberals (often disguised as independents or middle of the road voters) say they only wish congress would compromise. The President uses this "failure" by congress to justify his extra legal appointments and executive orders, as well as a basis for reelection. Someone should infuse some common sense to this.

When two ideas are diametrically opposite, when both suggest that the other will not only not gain the objective, but will rather drive us farther from it, then how is any imaginary compromise possible? It's as if we reach a crossroads, knowing our destination is either to the right or left, but because we can't agree on which way to go we proceed straight ahead, insuring that we will fail. If higher spending and taxes, a.k.a. a welfare state, is the best thing for the voters, then lower taxes and less redistribution would not only not help, but would be harmful. Of course we know that the tax and spend agenda is destructive, the collectivist mentality is worse, and if conservatives don't have the power to lower taxes and spending, preventing increases is the next best thing. This is not rocket science, but one might think it is given the conservative failure to clearly respond.

When Newt attacked Romney because of his wealth, Romney was given the perfect tool to amplify the message that wealth creation benefits everyone. It provides jobs, as well as lowering prices. Wealth for everyone expands when created (as he has done), and contracts when destroyed as the government routinely does. Instead he cowered in the corner, making up a list of excuses, until the public pressure to release his tax returns grew too great. I assume he had a poll number saying people would resent it. His advisers should take note. Most of the resentment of success comes from people whose votes he could never win. Others like those of us on the right not only have no problem with it, but celebrate it. The voters who could be affected are in that theoretical middle. Doesn't he see that if those voters really want to understand, he can win their votes with a common sense explanation about the nature of economic activity. His attempt to hide however, leaves the collectivist argument unchallenged, and a voter who doesn't understand the issue but could be swayed, will gravitate to the argument by the left, however idiotic.

I will repeat myself. Ronald Reagan taught us the principled is also the political. Newt....Mitt..try the truth. It works.

Newt and Mitt

2012-01-23T07:59:00.000-08:00

Ann Coulter eviscerated Newt Gingrich on the Mark Simone radio show Saturday morning, and everything she said was right. She even defended John King and his opening question in the debate about Newt's second wife's claims (talk about strange bedfellows.) There is an endless horizon above the territory where Newt can be criticized. With that being said, he has also done great things for the country and conservative causes.

Now there is no bigger fan of Ann than I. She has repeatedly pointed to liberal hypocrisy, failures, lies, distortions, and about everything else despicable that liberals do. And she does it with humor, facts and logic, presenting common sense and irrefutable evidence.

However, when she criticizes Newt while advocating for Romney, she leaves half the relevant facts in the file. Mitt is not conservative, or if he is we have no evidence pointing to it. The problem is knowing, really knowing Mitt. He has been on both sides of every issue, past and present. If you watch him closely you will see he is willing to go either way on the most trivial of issues. Politics drives him even more than Obama. Did you see the news clip of the CNN debate when he was asked if he would release his tax returns. He said, "I will check with advisers and"....then there were boos from the audience, and instead of finishing as he intended, that he would make the determination after checking, he switched gears and said "and I will release them." My point is the boos made him change. He has no core convictions, and since everything he says is tailored to what he thinks will garner the most votes, we can't determine what he believes or for that matter how much he really knows.

His claim to "understanding how an economy works" rings hollow in the light of his economic plan. The sign of a genius is to make a complicated thing simple. Unfortunately, his plan has 59 points. But the single most frightening part is that he raises taxes on the rich. His explanation is that the middle class have been hurt in recent years and the rich can afford more taxes. The rich create most of the wealth in the economy, and that creates most of the jobs. His plan is Democratic light, and would undermine wealth creation and job creation. Does he not understand this, or is he "only" pandering? His defense of his totally failed (by every metric) health care plan in Mass. seems to indicate he just doesn't get it. It is as if he is saying, "Government is the answer if we just do it differently than the Democrats."

The question voters must ask themselves, is who is most likely to pursue conservative principles. Santorum actually meets that qualification more than Newt or Mitt. However, he too has a few economic blind spots. He relies too much on the government, and thinks government sponsored rewards and penalties will promote prosperity. He believes that manufacturing, the primary beneficiary of his reward/ tax system, is key to economic success.He is wrong, but that's for another day.

Mitt and Newt could both learn a lot from the Gipper. Anyone who watched Ronald Reagan should know that the principled is also the political. Reagan was eviscerated by the pundits, press and even moderate Republicans every time he made his point in "bold colors, not pastels," but within days the positive public response silenced the critics and made him even more loved and respected than he had been before.

History and Knowing

2012-01-06T07:32:00.000-08:00

A poll was released recently showing that 60% of Americans believe socialism is either acceptable or preferable to capitalism. Of course we know this is absurd, but it is what is being taught in our schools, many churches and synagogues, and most of the media. Then again, there is nothing new there.

I recently asked one of my money managers with a law degree from Yale and an MBA from University of Chicago what he knew about American economic history. I was shocked to find out he knew almost nothing apart from a few isolated theories on the depression, mostly liberal mythology. He drew a complete blank when I mentioned the Harding/ Coolidge administration, arguably a better example of the greatness of supply side success and the magic of the free market than even the Reagan years. More shocking is the fact that economic history is not a required course at University of Chicago (it is available as an elective) or any other school I could find. I know of no subject one can truly "master" without knowing it's history. Is it any wonder we have so many liberal, political ignoramuses on Wall Street?

Economic freedom is an absolute necessity for political freedom. Compassion with real help for the poor, and the environment are served infinitely better through capitalism than anything else. At at time when collectivist theories were new there was a basis for reasonable debate about these things. But history in the US and throughout the world has made clear so over and over again that collectivist ideas are antithetical to freedom and prosperity. Any well meaning rational person, informed about US and world economic history, could not help but embrace capitalism.

Many years ago Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand and Bill Buckley argued that economic interference by the government (aka socialism/ collectivism) retarded economic and individual lifestyle growth. It destroyed freedoms guaranteed in the US constitution, and that collectivism would be left "on the trash heap of history." They had mounds of historical evidence to support their arguments. Today we have another 60 years of the exact same patterns of the success of capitalism and the failure of socialism repeating itself. Nothing has changed. Attempts to hide and distort the record seem to have made historical and socialist falsehoods into accepted truths for some, but the record points to the folly of every single Keynes, Krugman and Obama idea. That is why it is so important that history, particularly economic history, be taught, not just to MBA candidates, but to everyone.

Newt is Right: Throw the Bums Out

2011-12-16T09:23:00.000-08:00

Newt has brought up an issue inviting the expected attacks from the left, but surprisingly these attacks have been supported by several prominent conservatives. Newt has given voice to the idea that the legislative branch of government should fight back against activist judges. Whether his recommended procedures to do this are the right ones might be questioned, but the idea of fighting is refreshing and much needed if we are to reset the direction of this ship of state.

Michael Mukasey and Alberto Gonzales, each a former Republican Attorney General of the United States, and former Judge Andrew Napolitano, a strict constitutionalist and contributor to Fox News, have called Newts ideas unprecedented, crazy, radical, and warned that his plan would violate the separation of powers in the government. They couldn't be more wrong. First they should read some history. There is nothing new about complaints of overreach and attempts to remedy it by other branches of government. In recent decades the separation of powers have been breached in a broad organized way by the very judges these men want to protect, and Newt's ideas would only help reestablish proper boundaries.

The legislative, executive and judicial branches are theoretically coequal branches of government. Although equality in the real world is an impossibility (Jefferson thought the judicial branch would be the weakest of the three) it is important that to the extent possible, they be kept separate branches of government. The legislative branch creates and passes laws, the executive branch executes them, and the judicial branch mediates disputes and insures that the laws passed and the methods of executing them do not run afoul of the constitution.

That last part, the job of the judiciary, is the key to understanding this. Starting with Woodrow Wilson, and expanded by Franklin Roosevelt (both repeatedly expressed disdain for the constitution because it got in the way of their "enlightened" agenda), a theory developed reasoning that since the framers of the constitution could never have anticipated changes that have occurred in today's society, it is the duty of judges to interpret the constitution in a manner different than the original intent, and more in a manner consistent with modernity. At first blush this seems reasonable. But on closer examination its fails any test of reasonableness. I would argue that this very idea, this philosophy, is a violation of the constitution itself, and therefore disqualifies anyone adopting it from holding judicial office.

The fallacy in the living constitution theory is that although society has changed in ways the framers could never have anticipated, it is irrelevant. The inherent assumption that the framers were thinking about society is incorrect. They were dealing with human nature, and as much as society has changed, I would argue human nature has not, not in 200 years, not in 2000 years.

Think about the effect of a living constitution as liberals advocate. Without fixed laws and fixed principles a court could interpret anything in any way. No one would know in advance whether what he was doing was lawful or not. There is always going to be problems with cases that fall on the line of a law or legal principle, ones that can be reasonably argued from both sides. These things are uncomfortable, but they occur. We can only deal with them in as fair a way as possible.

But under the banner of a living constitution, there are no limits to what a judge might rule. See Roe vs Wade for details. No matter what you beliefs on abortion are, the legal reasoning, and I use reasoning advisedly, is totally arbitrary and irrational. The majority ruled the federal government had the right to make a judgment on an issue not enumerated among the powers of the federal government. The court then used a non existent right to privacy (arguably implied in the constitution but not stated), and contorted that into a woman's right to abort a fetus. Even legal scholars who are pro choice admit this was an incoherent ruling.

When rulings like that are made, what has happened? The judiciary has usurped the responsibility and power of the legislature. State legislatures have the right to decide whether abortion is legal (most people agree the state has a legitimate interest in murder, so the abortion debate revolves around if abortion is murder.) A judge has no such right, and to the extent he believes he does (as it appears most living constitution advocates do), then he is acting beyond his charge. The other branches should fight back. If the president declared that taxes would go up by 20%, something only congress has the authority to do, shouldn't congress fight him with everything they have? If a president were permitted to do this we would have a dictatorship. Allowing judges to interpret the constitution without regard to intent is equally dangerous, except this results in an oligarchy instead of a dictatorship.

Our success as a nation, our very freedom, is because we are a nation of laws, not men. The framers of the constitution realized their work might contain mistakes. Democracy was a new, noble experiment. Men ruled democratically might not behave in the way they anticipated. So they provided for changes, or amendments. If living constitution supporters thinks change is needed, they are free to try to bring enough people into agreement with them, and if they succeed, then, and only then, can they change the constitution. Letting a judge wander away from the original intent into wherever his ideology might lead him, making wholesale, random changes, is illegal and should be challenged and struck down by any and all supporters of the rule of law, whatever else their ideology.

Why Newt? Life is a Series of Percentage Bets

2011-12-12T07:19:00.000-08:00

Newt is ethically challenged for sure, temperamental and given to self grandiose flights of fancy, absolutely. But if you think about it, most presidents have had many similar failings. Kennedy was a philanderer. Johnson and Nixon were given to intense bouts of anger and bullying. Carter's was the most radical president in history before the present occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. His lies were pretty much the same as most presidents, but they stood out given his holier than thou attitude. Clinton may have been well liked, but his personal failings are well documented. Obama sat in Reverend Wright's pews listening to anti American, anti semitic racist garbage and tacitly supported it by virtue of his continuing presence and deafening silence. The terrorist Bill Ayers, radical Islamist sympathizers, Communists and socialists were all counted among his mentors and friends. Certainly he is a deeply flawed human being.

Whatever a presidents personal failures were, they all had one thing in common. They hid them. Democrats are routinely assisted in this effort by the press, while Republicans have to deal with exaggerations of their failings. Hiding them is more difficult.

Yes, both are flawed. Isn't that part of the human condition? Nobody should defend Newt on personal issues. His supporters should acknowledge them, and express hope that he has changed. Neither should they try to dismiss his shortcomings with the liberal whitewash of, everybody does it. Everyone does do it to some degree or another, but that doesn't make it right, or even more forgivable. What supporters should do is hope he does not defend them, but rather asks the public to search their soul and see if they can forgive him.

I have written about his changing positions and his scary ideas. But as Donald Rumsfeld said, we go to war with the weapons we have, not the ones we wish we had. A year ago I said this nomination was Jim DeMint's for the asking. Unfortunately, he either didn't hear or didn't care.

He would have been a better weapon, but that is irrelevant. The best weapon we have now is Newt. He has a track record. His auditory record leaves much to be desired, but the things he actually did are as good and as important as any politician since Ronald Reagan. He had a major role in taking the majority for the first time in over 40 years, in welfare reform, NAFTA, lowering of the capital gains tax, highlighting several issues like the unfairness of the inheritance tax, and many more. As a legislator he was faithful to both social and fiscal conservatives.

The non Newt, Romney, has a failed auditory record and although a few things he did as governor of Massachusetts were good, they were trivial when compared with Newt's accomplishments. Add to that his signature effort as governor, health care, something he continues to defend even though it is a total abomination, and the choice becomes clear. Even his tax plan shows an ignorance of the economy (raising taxes on anyone earning over $200,000), or else he is pandering in spite of the fact that such a plan would be highly destructive.

Romney is a big government Republican. Newt may be one too, and many things he said in the past indicate he is, but the legislation he navigated through congress says otherwise. I can't be sure. I doubt anyone can. As the article title says, life is a series of percentage bets. We can only vote for the candidate most likely to put this great country back on course. That would be Newt.

Euro Crisis

2011-12-07T07:53:00.000-08:00

When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing; when you see that money is flowing to those who deal not in goods, but in favors; when you see that men get rich more easily by graft than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them, but protect them against you...you may know that your society is doomed. - Ayn Rand

Two and a half years ago I told you that contrary to the Democrats exculpatory fantasy that predatory lending ((laughable) and greedy investment bankers were responsible for the financial crisis (they amounted to little more than a footnote so far as the real cause goes), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and their political overlords were the real culprits. Now we have a European sovereign debt problem, and the same forces that destroyed our banking are responsible here. For those of you who don't understand what the crisis in Europe is about and why it occurred I will give you a brief explanation.

The first reason is that countries simply spent and borrowed so much money that their debt grew to the point where it exceeded their ability to repay. Still, the first question is even if they defaulted on this debt, what would it be so catastrophic? Other countries defaulted (Argentina) and within a few years bounced back to become vibrant again. Why is Europe different?

Secondly, who is owed the money, and how did they allow these nations to go this far. Japan has a debt problem, and in their case they promoted lending to the government in such a way that most of the money came from domestic savings. That means the people were duped. The United States has a serious problem, but the dollar is a reserve currency (used in many international transactions) which allows a certain flexibility, and the economy is so large that countries doing business with the US (China) have a vested interest in keeping the dollar strong and keeping us solvent, which they have done by lending massive amounts of money to us. We too are on an unsustainable course, but the imminent economic tsunami is farther down the road than Europe.

Europe is in real trouble, and now. If they default on their debt they will bankrupt most of their banks. It is those banks who loaned the governments staggering amounts of the money (Ireland being the exception where the government foolishly kept insolvent banks afloat by borrowing money to "invest" in them.) Why? Didn't anyone recognize the risk the borrowers/ governments presented? Well, here is how one part of the scam worked. The governments passed laws dictating how much in reserves a bank must hold requiring different reserve amounts on different types of loans. Business loans needed a 6% reserve, mortgages needed 4%, and sovereign debt, well that required zero reserves. So for each dollar of depositor money a bank loaned to a business, it needed 6 cents of its own in equity, but a dollar loaned to Portugal, Greece or any European sovereign required nothing. Guess what happened. The banks loaned as much as they could to the various countries. Now, if the governments default, the banks will fail and the institutions and people who funded them will lose massive amounts of money, not to mention the failure of the banking infrastructure needed to conduct normal business transactions. It will be a colossal mess.

Imagine a world where the government simply adjudicated disputes, monitored businesses for truthfulness, made sure they had the reserves they claimed, earned the amount of money they reported, and generally conducted business in a forthright manner. Depositors would be able to make their own choices. A bank with large reserves would be able to borrow cheaper than a less well endowed institution. If the public were allowed to make informed choices, it wouldn't eliminate bubbles and collapses, but there would be fewer and less severe ones. Instead we have a system controlled by bureaucrats and politicians, and it should come as no surprise that they manipulate things for their own personal gain without regard to the rest of us.

Dangerous Fools

2011-11-15T08:46:00.000-08:00

A couple of recent statements show how out of touch our political class is. Tom Friedman (author, NYTs columnist, socialist) said that if Mayor Michael Bloomberg (socialist, mayor of NY, aka the trans-fat mayor) ran for president on a third party ticket he would start out with 40% of the vote. He couldn't win NY, much less get 40%. A more accurate estimate might be 2%.

Speaking of Bloomberg, he recently said he didn't want to run for president, he only wanted to be remembered as the best mayor New York ever had. First let me recognize his heartwarming humility. I just wonder what he can do in the short time remaining in his shamefully acquired third term that will lift his signature accomplishments, the smoking and transfat bans, above historical giants like DeWitt Clinton (read some NY history and learn about this amazing political figure), Fiorello LaGuardia who broke the back of the entrenched corrupt Tammany Hall, and Rudy Giuliani, who changed NY from a sanctuary for organized crime, white collar crime, drug crime and youth crime (not to mention criminal levels of political overspending) back to the greatest city in the world. .

Barack Obama (US President, Democrat/ socialist) recently said that Americans have gotten lazy. Really? I suppose our having the longest work week in the industrial world and the highest productivity gives proof positive we are lazy. Luckily, we have the intelligentsia like him to point these well disguised trends out. After all, the bulk of his career was spent as a community organizer. For those of you who don't understand what exactly that is, think Zucotti Park demonstrator/ hustler/ freeloader. Of course this is the president who said that when times get tough people cling to their guns and religion. Foolishly, I thought religion was practiced every day every year, and second amendment rights were the just as important in good times as bad. More stupidity to follow.

Retire Romney

2011-10-27T09:19:00.000-07:00

Romney may win the nomination, but make no mistake, he is not the best general election candidate. Like the last election where any Democrat would have beaten McCain, (Hillary by much more than Obama,) any Republican would beat Obama in a landslide if the election were held today. Of course things can change a lot in this year before the election, so nothing is certain.

The question is, what candidate will garner the largest number of votes. The answer; not Romney. He has no core values, and that is clear to anyone who looks. His change in position on abortion and gay marriage along with his incoherent explanation why Romneycare is different than Obamacare are well known. Less known is his endorsement of the climate frauding crowd, and his slanderous ah hominid attacks on those who disagree. His 59 point economic plan (the sheer number of points should make you suspicious,) in which he demonstrates a profound ignorance of basic economics by lowering tax rates only on those earning less than $200,000. This betrays the same fundamentally flawed gene most liberals have, that being the idea that government's consistent failure is the result of poor design (as opposed to simply being incapable,) and if we just implement the "right" program, government will become the solution, not the problem. Once someone thinks that way, they are hopelessly lost.

If you think about it, Romney has found an enormous amount of common ground with Obama. They agree on healthcare, taxes, climate change and the roll of government.In an earlier blog I said that evangelicals would not vote for him in the same numbers they would vote for another candidate. But the dirty little secret is that neither will independents. Even if I were wrong and he did have the best chance of winning the general, would you rather be certain of his victory and unsure how he would govern, or be certain of how someone would govern at the risk of being uncertain of victory. There are already enough John McCains and Lindsey Grahams in positions of power. Don't allow this election to be a Pyrrhic victory.

The Hope For War With Iran

2011-10-19T08:11:00.000-07:00

It is very possible that Obama will attack Iran's nuclear development facility in the next year. I agree it should be done, but it might seem unlikely given this is the President who had an opportunity to side with the Green Revolution in 2009 chose instead to sit things out (tacitly supporting the regime), the President who pulled defensive missiles out of Poland and Czechoslovakia rather than confront Putin, and the President who sided in Honduras with the Communist leader Zaleya (a Castro and Chavez disciple) rather than the democratic government. In short this President has no stomach to fight a battle today even if it will prevent a catastrophe tomorrow.

But if that battle will help preserve his personal power, well that's another story. As it becomes clearer that the 2012 election is slipping from his grasp, he might realize something radical is needed, and an attack on Iran could shake things up enough to get him re elected. Let us hope he does. He will lose the election anyway, but the public will interpert the decision to attack as prudent and bipartisan.

On Being Governed By Scientific Frauds

2011-09-05T08:39:00.000-07:00

There are certain papers which capture the essence of long debated issues. The following does just that, and also exposes the pathologies that allow may fictions to be debated and even gain credibility. It is an insightful and excellent American Thinker submission.

September 5, 2011

On Being Governed By Scientific Frauds

By James Lewis

The news leaked out a while ago that Al Gore scored a D in natural science at Harvard. That would be the science introduction for Other Majors, not difficult chemistry or calculus. So Nobel Laureate Al Gore got a D in Science for Dummies.

But don't worry. Anybody can blow a college course and still bounce back. A lot of us get it wrong the first time. Unfortunately, Al Gore didn't fix his failure. He made it much worse by peddling monstrous pseudo-science and getting even richer from it. As well as repulsively fat -- a walking metaphor for his politics.
The more I think about it, the more it looks like global warming is a deliberate attack by the postmodern (anti-science) left on science. Global Frauding attacks all the core scientific values -- of truth-telling, empirical discipline, and skepticism. Our bulging Goracle gets a lifetime grade of F for setting real science back by decades.
My guess is that during the Clinton years, Al Gore planted his ideological allies in NASA and NOAA. It could have been done through his campaign to Make Government More Efficient. After all, he was saving the planet. Gore deserved his Nobel Prize just as much as Obama did for winning while black.
Phony science has a long and terrifying history on the left. Barack Obama was also officially credited by his Harvard Law professor Larry Tribe for inventing the Einstein Theory of the U.S. Constitution. Really. You can look it up. This is so bizarre it isn't even funny.
Nothing is as toxic as a really bad idea. Hundreds of millions of dollars are still being spent in "scientific" pursuit of disaster scenarios about the earth, fiddling with infinitely variable computer models. This isn't science; the burden of proof has flipped to the skeptics, which does not happen in real science. Albert Einstein had to predict observable outcomes before his ideas were accepted. Watson and Crick had to prove the helical structure of DNA before anybody took them seriously. But in Global Frauding it's the skeptics who are supposed to prove that the latest computer model is not true. If they manage that, the crooks just make up a new computer model. It's a sort of card sharper trick. A con artist can always move faster than the suckers.
No real scientist makes a deal with Al Gore and the New York Times to get rich by peddling end-of-the-world stories. No scientist is then allowed to call those planted lies "scientific truths" until somebody can prove they're wrong. If science worked like that, Galileo would still be a pariah and the Vatican would be telling us about Ptolemaic astronomy. In real science the burden of proof is on the proposer. There are good reasons for that standard.
Three decades ago, MIT Professor Edward Lorenz became famous for his discovery of "chaotic dynamics" in weather data. Scientific theorists are still building on that breakthrough. Complex systems like the earth's atmosphere have inherent unpredictability. They are not like Newton's theory of the solar system, which allows for precise predictions. The solar system is simple because everything rotates around the biggest center of gravity, the sun. Strip out the sun, and all the planets would dance around each other like a chaotic system.
As aeronautics engineer Burt Rutan has pointed out, so-called "climate modeling" is a computer game with too many unknowns. Real scientists keep discovering unexpected climate factors; but if you don't even know your biggest variables, how can you build a model at all? It's playing Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.
Global warming racketeers end up doing science by press release. Their models are rigged, and any time they turn out wrong, they change the model. Then they send out more press releases to equally corrupt jourNOlists, who phone in more scary headlines to the New York Times. Millions of suckered voters end up believing that the sky is falling, and they vote for socialist politicians like Obama to Save the Planet. Obama's election would "stop the rising of the seas."
The super-corrupt left keeps funneling billions in taxpayer dollars to the modeling racketeers who crank out more press releases for even scarier headlines. Human gullibility is the only known perpetual motion machine in existence. It's what liberals are always looking for: an infinitely renewable source of energy.
Global Frauding works like a huge criminal racket, and it should be subject to criminal prosecution, like Bernie Madoff. No wonder George Soros keeps funding the left out of the goodness of his heart. For him it has to be a big profit center. According to Center for Media Research, Soros has spent 48 million dollars funding media. Similar amounts of Soros money are funding all the usual fronts for the radical left, from Moveon.org to The Nation. This is going on while the major media like the New York Times are staggering toward bankruptcy. Soros and friends are buying influence on a huge scale.
For a hedge fund manipulator, that means immense clout to make and break news stories. It's a dirt-cheap investment for huge potential returns. Is Soros using his tame regiments of lefties to make more money? Do bunny rabbits make babies in the woods?
Bad ideas are toxic. It took decades for 19^th-century doctors to start washing their hands, because they couldn't believe that microscopic germs might be passing on disease. It was normal for women to die in childbirth. It had been that way for centuries. Washing your hands with soap and boiled water was so laughable it wasn't worth trying. Those doctors might have had humane intentions, but they were fixated on false ideas. Any half-decent scientist knows dozens of cases like that.
Arthur C. Clarke pointed out that major scientific advances are often disputed by world-famous scientists just a few years before they are proven to be right. Wrong ideas are common among honest scientists, but it takes a very nasty mind to peddle science fraud on purpose.
Global Frauding is an assault by the postmodern left on modern science, one of the crown jewels of Western civilization. The po-mo left attacks all Western values -- which is why our museums are proud to feature works of "art" like Piss Christ.
Most of all, the postmodern left has assaulted the very concept of truth, the foremost value in science. Without honest science we would not have useful technology, and without 200 years of accumulated technology our lives would still be nasty, brutish, and short.
Global Frauding isn't science; it belongs in the long history of human folly and delusion. The Great South Sea Bubble, Florida swampland, Bernie Madoff, animal magnetism, global warming. They're all popular delusions stoked by greedy demagogues.
Scientists are not immune to greed and corruption.
The prequel to Global Frauding was yet another gift from the delusional left: Jozef Stalin's phony genetics. Led by science fraud Trofim Lysenko, Uncle Joe ordered millions of peasants to force potatoes to get bigger. Once a generation of potatoes was forced to be bigger, the mad notion was that the next generation of potatoes would inherit the genes for bigness. It was forcible labor for plants, a green version of the Siberian labor camps.
The Soviet Union lost the Cold War because it became an ant heap of lies. Everybody had to lie to survive, and the ruling class never knew who was telling the truth. Ever try to run a lemonade stand that way? How about an auto factory?
Lenin and Stalin (and Mao and all the rest) tried the same "Great Leap Forward" fantasy on human beings. Early on, the "New Soviet Man" program tried Pavlovian conditioning to transform millions of ordinary people into Heroes of Soviet Labor. And to their everlasting shame, the Western left celebrated those miraculous achievements.
The left is still delusional. Satellite photos just revealed the size of North Korean concentration camps, estimated at 200,000 prisoners. Even NPR says they are set up to work prisoners to death. So how long does it take NPR to figure out that they've been on the wrong side for all these years?
Obama's greatest intellectual flaw is his failure to understand that the radical left always leads to the abuse of force. In the process of ratcheting up statist control, human beings will start to rebel. The left keeps grasping for more and more power, and the whole story of 100 million innocent victims of Marxism has nothing to do with them.
And yet, the evidence is there, right in front of their eyes. This is not irrelevant to science, because all good science begins and ends with the truth. That's the whole point. Those who cannot face the plain truth of their own historic criminality also want to torpedo honest science. Facing the truth is the last thing the left wants to do. It would crumble of its own inner contradictions, like the Soviet Union.
Marxism itself was supposed to be "scientific." But all of its predictions turned out wrong. Normal people might learn from that experience, but the left never learns. Today, Marxism is again a slyly celebrated subject on college campuses. It makes kids and professors feel grandiose and historic.
Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and Benjamin Rush were world-class scientific minds. Franklin made important strides in the study of electricity. Benjamin Rush was a pioneer in scientific medicine. Jefferson was an all-round innovator and inventor. Can any politician today stand up in that company? The United States has become the world superpower, but the quality of our leaders hasn't kept up.
Obama's attempt to revive Keynesian economics is another case of the same intellectual blind spots. Keynes himself concluded that massive deficit spending failed to cure the Great Depression. It made the hunger and poverty last longer.
On the best evidence we have, socialism failed in the post-colonial world, which is why Russia, China, and India are now following some version of capitalism. Obama's Dreams from My Father is therefore a cruel charade. Obama Sr. got things seriously wrong in Kenya, and denying that plain fact can lead only to more failures.
In ordinary science any remaining debates would be based on those facts. It's only in pseudo-science that you keep repeating a terrible idea over and over, in the face of the evidence.
The goal of science is to discover truth and to get rid of bad ideas. From that point of view, global warming is on par with the bloody tyranny of North Korea, because they are both based on well-known falsehoods. They are different degrees of corruption and malignancy, but they are both driven by socially accepted lies.
Sigmund Freud taught that reality testing was the greatest sign of sanity; all neuroses distort reality. So yes, the left is scientific in one respect -- if your science studies human delusions.
Harvard University fired President Larry Summers for daring to say that boys might have a genetic edge in pure math. Historically more than 90 percent of math geniuses have been young males. They often seem to be mildly autistic; maybe those are the lonely kids who spend their waking hours thinking about pure mathematics instead of playing baseball.
The National Science Foundation is now investing millions of dollars in large-scale experiments on little girls, to make them better at higher math. Nobody seems to be wondering if their normal sociability might be harmed as a result. Whom are those little girls going to talk to? Math whizzes devote thousands of hours to numbers and topology. Does it occur to anybody how lonely those math whizzes often are?
A century ago, left-handed kids were forced to switch to their right hands for writing. It never worked, and that nutty craze ended up with thousands of self-hating adults, who felt there was something terribly wrong with them. Just a decade ago Latino kids were forced to learn in bilingual classes in California -- when parents know that it's hard enough to learn the three Rs in only one language. Today Hispanic kids are running statistically behind the others, maybe because millions of them had to start with a handicap. It's always "idealistic" adults who inflict their nutty fixations on helpless children.
Two centuries after Jefferson, Franklin, and Benjamin Rush, we are now governed by science frauds. Just let that little fact bubble in your mind -- and then do something about it, please. If we don't do anything, nobody will. There's far too much money in scientific fraud for it to go away by itself.

Another Case For Perry

2011-09-02T08:55:00.000-07:00

The pundits should get another job. A survey of Democratic and Republican "insiders" concluded that Romney has a better chance than Perry to win the general election. Forgetting the fact that Perry would govern as a conservative, whereas Romney is at best an unknown (given his mixed record,) the conclusion is ridiculous. I gave several reasons why it is wrong in my last post, but let me add to them.

This election as most Presidential elections will be a referendum on the incumbent. That's good news no matter who runs. It doesn't mean a good candidate won't do better than a poor one, but the overwhelming tide will be driven by the view people have of Obama.

The premise most of the Romney people start with is that the Tea Party "extremists" that ran in Nevada, Colorado and Delaware lost because of their "extreme" conservative views. Nonsense! They were poor candidates, poor spokesmen, and some had past baggage to contend with. Does anyone seriously think Christine O'Donnell or Sharon Angle would have won if they were "moderate?" If this were true, how did so many other Tea Party candidates win?

A voters passion about an issue drives their votes, not casual likes and dislikes. For decades the Left couldn't figure out why they always lost ground on the abortion issue. Until recently the pro choice voters outnumbered the pro life by as high as 70% to 30% (today that number is about even.) Passion is the difference. Only 1% of choice voters would completely rule out a candidate who supported life, whereas 10% of life voters would never vote for a choice candidate. That means the right lost 7/10 of 1% of all voters (1% times 70%,) and the Left lost 3% of all voters (10% times 30%.) Judge Jeanine Pirro once asked me how I liked her campaign (during that short period when she opposed Hillary for the New York Senate seat.) She had been running an ad saying Hillary would not complete her term because she would run for President. I said to Pirro she was wasting her money. She answered that they had polled it and 80% of voters wanted Hillary to finish if she won. I suppose that was correct, but NONE of that 80% would change their vote on the issue, and winning or changing votes is what wins elections.

This is a long winded way of saying that moderation (Romney) might show better numerical support on certain trivial issues, but on the things that people really care about and vote on Perry wins hands down. A winning candidate supports issues that people care passionately about, and Perry has done that for 25 years. Romney is maybe, maybe just now finding his way.

I question the argument that Romney's business success will resonate with voters more than Perry's record. Romney and his record at Bain Capital is impressive, as is the job he did running the Winter Olympics. But when compared with Perry's record on jobs, taxes, tort reform, and his fantastic campaign skills (see Kay Bailey for details,) Romney runs a distant second. Worse for Romney is Romney care. Do you think anyone cares about his ridiculous defense of it (claiming it is different from Obama care in that the state has a right to impose it and the federal government doesn't?) Will Perry get more votes trashing it, or Romney by defending his plan (which is contrary to all free enterprise principles) while saying he would repeal Obama care?

Perry is better on the issues that count, on articulating them, and has a record to prove it. Anyone who thinks Romney's chances are better than Perry's better brush up on political history and political science.

Perry vs Romney

2011-08-29T08:35:00.000-07:00

It is amazing how many "experts," who make their living prognosticating on political events, are clueless. A year ago they said it is near impossible to beat a sitting President. Well, simply put, that is nonsense. In my lifetime 5 sitting Presidents were re elected, Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton and Bush II, three lost, Ford, Carter and Bush I, and two didn't run because they knew they would lose, Truman and Johnson.

Now the accepted wisdom is that Mitt Romney would do better against Obama than Rick Perry. Rich Lowry and Pat Buchanan both expressed this on Sunday and with certainty. The logic they apply is that since Romney is closer to the center politically, he will garner more support from independents. I believe they are wrong on this point alone, and very wrong on the conclusion they draw even if they are right here.

The "independent" voters are made up of Republican and Democratic independents, and independent independents. I choose to ignore the former group because they consistently vote 80% to 90% with the party they identify with. Given that independents average around 28% of the electorate, a swing of 10% one way or another among that subgroup becomes inconsequential. However, the independent independents can all go either way and therefore do count. I believe they will be attracted to a consistent, principled politician over one who has been on both sides of far too many issues.

But suppose I am wrong. Suppose Romney does attract more of them. Before concluding he is the more viable candidate, we also must look at a much larger voting bloc, evangelical and born again Christians (about 26% of the electorate.) How will they vote? I doubt there is a lot of negativity about Romney's being a Mormon, but there will be some. More important is the fact that evangelicals love, absolutely love Perry, and this will bring him far more votes than he could ever lose among independents.

Evangelicals vote primarily for Republicans, but enough vote Democratic that they can hardly be taken for granted. To illustrate how important their vote is think about this. In 1992 when Bush the elder lost the election, he was up against Bill Clinton, arguably the best politician in our lifetimes. He was coming out of an economic downturn that was being felt by most of the electorate. Ross Perot ran as a third party candidate taking 19% of the popular vote, most of it consisting of Republicans. With all this going against him, if Bush had gotten the same percentage of evangelical voters he got in 1988, he would have won the election. Breaking his "No new taxes" pledge so offended them, many either switched parties or sat home on election day.

Ronald Reagan taught a lesson to politicians that most today seem to have missed. The principled is also the political. Every time Reagan did something significant the press went apoplectic. When he fired the Air Traffic Controllers, when he called the Soviet Union the evil empire, when he said "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall," and when he walked out of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty talks the press was aghast, calling him stupid, a cowboy, and the worst President in American history. Of course after the hysteria died down the public loved him for it, and proved so with their votes. I don't want to suggest Romney is unprincipled, but if being consistent is the measure of integrity we apply, Perry beats him hands down.

Perry: A Palin Who Can Win

2011-08-22T13:03:00.000-07:00

The chattering classes are at it again wringing their hands over the possibility of Rick Perry getting the nomination. All the usual suspects are working against him. Karl Rove, Peggy Noonan, Dana Perino and others suffering from delusional myopia suggest we need a more centrist candidate. Sure we do....perhaps like McCain or Romney, or maybe Bob Dole. Guys like these are less likely to win than a real conservative, and if they do win they would govern like Obama lite. Romney has been on both sides of abortion, both sides of gay marriage, defends his disastrous Romney care, and has supported carbon controls. McCain voted against the Bush tax cuts 3 times, opposed Guantanamo and enhanced interrogation, and championed Campaign Finance Reform. Newt Gingrich once called Bob Dole the "tax collector for the welfare state." The only reason George W Bush won was he presented himself as a true conservative. Of course, steel tariffs, No Child Left Behind, Campaign Finance Reform, the Prescription Drug Benefit and unbridled spending and regulation put that notion to rest. In fairness he did appoint two excellent Supreme Court justices, defended the homeland with distinction, and lowered taxes getting at least one boot heel off the neck of the economy. But anyone who believes in conservative ideas and values can not possibly support a political/ policy dyslexic like Romney.

Bill Kristol, who was one of the first pundits to suggest Sarah Palin as McCain's vice presidential running mate, has echoed the same dissatisfaction with Perry by suggesting that Paul Ryan run. Ryan is a great young man. He has acquitted himself well in the budget debate and with entitlement reform. But that is it. He is an unproven campaigner, fundraiser, with a very small list of legislative accomplishments. He may someday be ready, but now is certainly not the time. The strange thing is that Perry is philosophically like Sarah Palin (she has all the right ideas too) but one that can win. Why are Kristol and the others so distressed?

Rick Perry has a list of conservative accomplishments a mile long. He believes what he says. He believes in America, free enterprise (he has a copy of Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom" on his desk), individual rights and responsibilities, small government and God. We are known by our friends and our enemies (too bad no one looked at Obama's radical friends before they voted for him.) Rick Perry has a list of enemies any conservative would be proud of. The Trial Lawyers because he passed tort reform in Texas, and it is working like a charm. Texas is a right to work state so the unions are in high gear. His other enemies are in a dither and confused trying to decide just how to attack him. They say his spectacular jobs record is meaningless because most are low paying jobs. Others say credit for his success belongs to Obama's stimulus and an increase in government jobs. Are there low paying government jobs? Still others say it is because of energy sector growth. Obama has been a real help with energy jobs. He pretends to create green jobs, and kills real oil and gas jobs. Of course much of the criticism is mutually exclusive, but if I know the left they will see which charge resonates and then all get in line repeating it. There will be the most massive attacks on him since Reagan, and for good reason. He is cut from the same cloth as Reagan. Certainly this guy must be doing something right if he so offends so many liberals.

This is for all the fallen Democrats who realize that liberalism really is a mental disorder, but can't quite get behind some of the conservative ideas and policies because they have been successfully demonized by the Left. For example the charge that Perry is some kind of Bible pounding born again lunatic. First, I find it commendable that he is a man of faith (would you rather live next door to or vote for an atheist?) Politically, the support of evangelicals is an absolute necessity for any Republican to win. They represent 26% of the voting public, and they love Rick Perry. For those independents and Jews who might see evangelicals from the perspective of the Main Stream Media, suggesting they are something to be feared, I can only say that they support the same values you do. A very few might work to convert you (the doctrine of most faiths proscribe the same thing), but unlike the Muslim faith, using force (including the force of law) is not even a consideration. Jews in particular should remember; there are no greater supporters of religious freedom and no greater supporters of the state of Israel on this earth than evangelicals.

Please...get with it. We are lucky enough to have someone running who represents in whole or in part all the things we have dreamed of since Reagan left office, and even better, he has an excellent chance of winning. In fact, I believe he will win. I promise. No conservative, no one believing in freedom or in American exceptionalism, will be disappointed.

Rick Perry's Answer

2011-08-20T08:08:00.000-07:00

Rick Perry was asked to explain his skeptical position on global warming by a new Hampshire Democrat yesterday. The political requirement that all answers be brief created an obstacle he navigated poorly, even though his skepticism is well founded. Here is my suggestion on what he should say if asked again.

The test of any scientific theory is how accurately it predicts future events. Global warming theorists have been off by large margins with every prediction they ever made. They predicted rise in temperatures, sea levels and other "catastrophic" events, all of which have been dramatically scaled back (by 90%) as each one failed to materialize. This alone is enough to discard the theory. But add to that the continuing deception by its advocates, and one wonders why we discuss this any more than we do the Lost City of Atlantis.. For years the "hockey stick" was offered as proof of temperature increases, until it was peer reviewed and it was learned the analysis and data werer simply incorrect. East Anglican University, the source of the data used in modeling climate change, had emails revealed where they were sharing information on how to fudge data, and how to avoid giving out the data on which their work was based. This hardly serves the scientific peer review process. Now we find the highly publicized report predicting the death of the polar bear population was a fiction (its authors are being investigated by their peers). Most recently data was aquired showing heat loss from the atmosphere into space is so much higher than the assumption used in climate change modeling that it renders every prediction they ever made useless. GIGO... garbage in garbage out.

OK. So it wasn't short. But maybe Perry can figure a way to distill this into a couple of soundbites.

Buffett Is At It Again

2011-08-16T10:09:00.000-07:00

Warren Buffett, legendary stock investor, penned an op-ed in the New Your Times in August once again illustrating how brilliance in one field not only does not translate into another, but may actually be an obstacle to understanding anything else. Maybe the bubble created by the yes men surrounding wealthy individuals contributes to it, or possibly it is because of the blinding ego success often creates. Whatever it is, this guy is way out there.

Buffett's first notable "contribution" to tax reform ideas was during his short tenure as the top financial adviser to Arnold Schwarzenegger's first gubernatorial campaign. Buffet advocated raising property taxes in California, reasoning that his house in Malibu (worth 20 million dollars) had a much lower tax rate (as a percentage of the home's value) than his $500,000 home in Nebraska. Think about what he said. The disparity in tax rates should automatically be adjusted in favor of the higher one, not the lower. Why? I don't know. Secondly, if anyone cared to look at the overall tax burden in California versus Nebraska they would find California tremendously higher, even though this one particular tax was lower. Apparently he thinks the disparity should be greater. Of course that exchange with the press ended Buffets career as a political financial adviser. Let's hope his role with Obama ends just as abruptly.

Here he is weighing in on federal tax rates. He objects to the 15% capital gains and dividend tax rate, proposing high income people pay a higher rate. He has made silly arguments in the past about this (claiming his secretary pays a higher rate than he does.) To address this and his foolishness in the NYT I will give you some simple facts and common sense. Most of the revenue paid to the government is redistributive, not productive, whereas most money invested by wealthy individuals is very productive (wealth creation and jobs.) A zero capital gains rate would produce more wealth for every level of society than even the present 15% rate. Taxes generated from more jobs and increased economic activity would more than make up for the revenue "loss" from zeroing out cap gains, although that gives rise to the question of if more government revenue/ power is a good thing. These increases occurred every time capital gains taxes were lowered, even under Democratic presidents like Kennedy and Clinton. Capital formation and risk taking is an absolute necessity for wealth creation, and a zero cap gains tax rate would encourage more of it.

In the article Buffett says his blended average tax rate (total taxes paid divided by total income) was 17%, and that his employees paid tax rates of up to 33%. But he is comparing their top rate (much higher than their blended average) with his blended average. His 17% rate is because so much of his income comes from capital gains (15% rate,) but he ignores the fact that his gains had already paid a 35% corporate tax rate, so in effect he paid 50%. He also fails to point out that half of Americans pay no taxes, that the top 5% of American earners pay 38% of the taxes, the top 20% pay over 80% of the taxes, and far more important, every time taxes were lowered on the rich (and everyone), revenue to the government went up, and the rich paid a higher percentage of total revenue.

Successful investing promotes social benefits even more than charity. Capitalism is a purely democratic process. If a business does not provide you with what you want at a better value than it's competitors it ceases to exist. It can only survive by meeting your needs, and you get to vote daily with your dollars. We need a legal framework for business to operate freely, but we should not have government in the business of business. The social good that Buffett's business's have done is being undermined by his donations to the Gates Foundation, a leftist charity with all the wrong ideas. I am not suggesting that everything they do is bad, in fact most of it is very good. But if history is any guide, a charity like this, founded on failed ideas, eventually does tremendous harm to the social fabric (see Pew and Ford Foundations for details.)

There is one school of thought that says Buffet advocates only for Buffet. The cry for higher cap gain and dividend taxes would hardly affect him at all. He has about $500 million in a portfolio from which he draws money to live. Higher taxes would affect this, but this represents just two percent of his wealth. The other 98 percent, about $50 billion, is in Berkshire stock and he never sells a share of that. So with all his grandiose proclamations, he is volunteering yo increase his taxes by an infinitesimal amount.

Is it possible that people like Buffet, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, General Electrics Jeffery Immelt, and other limousine liberals know that since conservatives respect private property, none of their property is at risk from the right, but since liberals seem to thrive on confiscating other peoples wealth, these wealthy liberals are intimidated into supporting failed policy ideas? I can't believe they are so foolish as to believe what they advocate is good for anyone, and neither do I believe they are a party to some grand evil conspiracy. Perhaps I will just have to accept the mystery.

Question for Mitt

2011-08-12T11:35:00.000-07:00

The test we should apply to any politician is whether philosophically, problems are better solved by the private sector or government. I believe Mitt Romney is a closet big government supporter. Here is one reason why.

Romney refuses to say Romney care was a mistake. He says that although there were things he wishes were different, for the most part it has been a success. Last night he said the individual mandate is consistent with the Massachusetts constitution, but not the federal constitution. The federal government has no right to impose its version of Romney care on the states, and as President he would do away with Obama care. If I were a moderator last night, I would have said, "The Massachusetts healthcare bill promised to insure the uninsured, yet after more than 5 years there are thousands of uninsured. It promised to reduce the lines and use at emergency rooms, yet there has been a dramatic increase in ER use with longer waiting periods for that and other medical services. It promised to bring costs down, but costs have skyrocketed far faster than the national average, requiring federal dollars to bail the state out. Mr. Romney, if this is success, what does failure look like?"

They Just Don't get It

2011-08-09T07:37:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure why. Perhaps the liberal press has successfully infected the minds of conservatives, or perhaps those fallen Democrat conservatives can't quite give up some fictional liberal assumptions. Two days in a row on "The Five," a Fox News opinion program at 5 o'clock, 4 conservatives and one liberal agreed on the desirability of government programs which are in direct contradiction to conservative philosophy.

The first was a bill introduced in congress which would pay employers $2,400 to hire veterans. This was to "remedy" the fact that unemployment among returning veterans is 13%, versus 9% among all workers. The next day a "remedy" to the nations employment problems, proposed by one of the hosts and endorsed by all 5 of them, was to allow companies with money overseas (money they earned overseas and paid jurisdictional taxes there) to repatriate the money tax free, provided they spent 25% of it on job creation. Current tax law requires they pay a corporate tax (35% max) if they bring the money back.

So let me get it straight. Veteran employment can be controlled by government intervention. Ummm... I think we tried that and the results were not so good. Obviously everyone wants to find jobs for vets. Obviously all Americans owe them a huge debt of gratitude. But if they have not been rewarded enough (count me among those that think they have been vastly underpaid and under appreciated), then take that $2,400 and use it to pay them more. Don't interfere in the free market. Government should never be in that business. The results of such interference (aka targeted results) always has unintended consequences, most of which are bad. If it is OK to interfere with the market place when it benefits one of my causes, then it is OK when it promotes liberal ones.

The same applies with the corporate tax holiday. Let the companies bring the money back tax free, period. That is a tax reduction consistent with conservative philosophy. But to attach a requirement that the government mandate certain uses is right from the liberal playbook. The hubris that central planners can allocate resources better than the market is shocking, especially when advocated by conservatives. No battleground success will win the war until the troops understand what they are fighting for.

A Question on Debt and The Press

2011-08-05T08:52:00.000-07:00

Why haven't the pundits and press ascribed the market losses to congress's failure to cut spending? They said the five day losing streak the week before was because congress didn't raise the debt ceiling. They said the market would crash if it were not raised. So it was raised, and the market crashed anyway, leading to the conclusion that the failure to raise the debt ceiling had nothing to do with the earlier decline. Ahh, but what about our insane spending and the failure to address it? That continues. In spite of the lefts portrayal of the cuts as draconian, it appears the market is saying too little, and maybe too late. Another question; Is the press too stupid to understand this, or do they understand but have an agenda, as in re electing Obama?

Newt the Liberal?

2011-06-01T07:59:00.000-07:00

Newt Gingrich did a spectacular job engineering the 1994 Republican takeover of the House of Representatives. He can articulate conservative ideas and the failure of liberalism better than anyone in the Republican party. His track record as Speaker was great, from welfare reform to NAFTA to a capital gains tax cut.

But who is he? What does he really believe? Is he, as Bob Kerry said about Bill Clinton, simply "an unusually good liar"? Personally, I have had real problems with him even before his marital history became public. We all are human. We all fall short of the ideal. But shouldn't we try to reach higher, and how many times can voters turn their back on such vulgar behavior as his treatment of two spouses?

But my earlier problem was with his continuous references to the greatness of FDR. FDR was a lot of things, and mostly a socialist. No president did more to change the course of the US, from his New Deal (resulting in an unprecedented expansion of taxes, spending and government,) to his willful blind eye to the plight of the Jews in Europe, to an administration that employed and defended vigorously large numbers of communist spies. Roosevelt destroyed much of what makes America great, and should not be an idol of any conservative.

About 5 years ago Newt showed his failings once again. He is an absolute opportunist. Who knows what he really believes? Remember, David Brock, Arianna Huffington and Davis Souter all claimed for years to be conservative, at least until opportunity presented itself on the other side of the aisle. A few years ago Newt Made a commercial with Nancy Pelosi, certainly an arch villain by any standards, supporting the need for climate change legislation. I will assume you know man made climate change is a complete fraud. The theory would not stand for one second under any measure of scientific scrutiny, and Newt knows it. It is a Trojan Horse seeking to form a world socialist government. Watching him sit there with Pelosi advocating for this was jaw dropping. It extinguished any shred of hope I had for the man. .

His recent reference to the Ryan budget and Medicare reform as radical just confirms for me I had drawn the right conclusion earlier. I won't yield to the temptation to try to explain why he would do this. Besides, I'm not licensed to practice armchair psychology. It is enough to know he is not the right spokesman for conservative ideals.

Weakness Has Consequences

2011-05-04T06:50:00.000-07:00

Once again we are catering to the dictates of terrorists while undermining our core values. Defense Secretary Gates and Secretary of State Clinton oppose releasing photographs of Bin Laden because it might inflame the Muslim world. First of all the terrorists are doing everything the possibly can to hurt us as it is. They can't top 100%. Secondly, the failure to release the photos, something that would be a given if any group but Muslims were involved, shows weakness, and weakness is provocative. The terrorists rightly believe that they are calling the shots, they are dictating our policy.

In my last blog I pointed out that the absence of moderate Muslim voices speaking out against terrorism should be considered in the light of our own failure to confront the terrorists, particularly when the danger to Muslims speaking out is far greater than to us. When our leadership cowers under threats by the enemy, they embolden them, and discourage allies from stepping forward.

Muslim Critics

2011-04-24T09:43:00.000-07:00

Conservatives ask where are the spokesmen for Islam condemning the wanton violence conducted in Islam's name. The fact that there are so few seems to support the idea that Islam itself constructively encourages violence. Of course there is evidence apart from this failure. Examples are the joyous reactions in Arab section of western nations and Arab states alike after 9/11, polling among Muslims, and the text of the Koran itself. But before we add the failure to speak out to this list we should examine the possibility that our own cowardice towards Islam is part of the reason.

Islamic threats of violence have caused complete capitulation by one western institution after another. Sharia is in direct conflict with bedrock western principles, yet many countries and institutions keep yielding in every debate about it. Yale University Press removed cartoons from a book about to be published depicting Mohammad wearing a turban in the shape of a bomb for fear of inciting violence. We constantly hear proposals to institute at least part of Sharia law into western law, and such nonsense has even succeeded in Great Britain. Do you think prisoners at the maximum security facility at Marion Illinois are in control of what they are fed, when they pray, or how guards treat anything related to their faith? They are at Guantanamo. Newspapers throughout Europe and the US often refuse to publish cartoons, books or anything deemed to be offensive to Islam. Yet Robert Mapplethorpe, and "sculptures" using Christian symbols joined with vulgarities like the "piss Christ" are celebrated by the same crowd as examples of artistic freedom (freedom of expression/ speech.)

Freedom of expression is a core western value, and so it should also be extended to the critics of Islam, whether what is said is accurate, bigoted, right, wrong or offensive. Recently Terry Moore burned a Koran and was criticized by the right and left alike. Should not freedom of expression exist for Terry Moore? The reason no such freedom is championed for him is we are afraid.

If fear of reprisals makes Christians and Jews afraid to speak out in support of our most fundamental values, how can we expect Muslims to? They live in a community that makes threats an order of magnitude greater than to non Muslims. Until we stand up and treat Islam like every other institution and stop deferring to it's extreme demands, ones that would be summarily dismissed absent the threat of violence, we will never know how many Muslims agree with us. We are asking of them exponentially more courage than we can muster ourselves. It is about time we lead by example. When we do we can pull back the veil and see who really does share our values.

Banana Ben Bernanke

2010-11-07T07:02:00.000-08:00

The headlines should read, "United States Defaults on Sovereign Debt." That's what has happened under the euphemism of "quantitative easing," a.k.a. printing money. The money being used to buy back government debt has been created out of thin air. It has absolutely no value. Government bonds are being purchased with pieces of paper worth about what Bernie Madoff's IOU's were worth.

Ben Bernanke (Federal Reserve head) says that "quantitative easing" has been done by past Federal Reserve heads, and it is true. The Fed should print money as the economy expands, but only in proportion to that expansion, not at this insane rate he is doing. Proper increases in the money supply create price stability, confidence and therefore a stage for continued growth. The hope is that enough currency will be added to the economy so as to allow it to operate without radical price changes.

Imagine an economy the size of the United States with a money supply the size of France. Nominal prices would be a fraction of what they are because the currency would be worth so much more. In theory exchange rates for other currencies would be much higher than today, and that would be fine. If things were stagnant we could operate our economy this way without any serious consequences. The problem is that the economy expands and shrinks, and it does so in fits and starts. Without changes in the money supply, prices would jump up and down according to how much currency was needed to conduct business. This would reduce confidence of everyone holding that currency and would reduce their willingness to invest for the long term, thereby reducing growth.

The Fed should raise and lower money supply according to our economic growth. However, it must be done carefully. Everything I am saying is theoretical, and economics has a way of fooling us consistently. So no matter what theory one subscribes to, any action should be moderate so that we will adhere to the physician's admonition, "First do no harm." What the Fed has chosen to do today is anything but moderate. It is radical by any standard.

The inherent assumption in the "Bernanke Theory" is that we are at risk of deflation, and deflation would worsen unemployment. The theory says deflation would cause an increase in the value of our currency, making imports cheaper and exports more expensive, resulting in fewer jobs to create exports. Also, it would put foreign competition at an advantage exporting products which we also make, again resulting in fewer jobs.

Of course the opposite of deflation, inflation, which will be the result of this policy, does its own damage. Fewer people will invest in the country due to a declining value of the currency, and only interest rate increases would attract some level of investment. The problem there is that with higher rates the business cycle slows, thus fewer jobs are created. Also, whatever assets one holds are reduced in value. At the end of the day inflation is a tax, imposed on all savers, earners, and anyone holding assets of any type. Of course that tax accrues to the government in the form of reduced debt or more accurately, reduced purchasing power owed.

I would argue that deflation is not likely to occur, but even if it does, it is probably a symptom of a rapid contraction of prices in one sector or another, not the cause of an economic slowdown. Japan has had deflation for over 20 years because of a stagnant economy and the crash of their stock market in 1987. The US may experience it now because of the housing crash, but it doesn't follow that fewer jobs will be created because of it. We have had periods of mild deflation in the 1920s and they were boom times. In theory shouldn't declining prices induce economic activity, not curtail it? I certainly don't know exactly what all the causes are, but neither does Bernanke. His "cure," for his new demon deflation is inflation. His prescription is like infecting a patient with cancer in an attempt to treat his diabetes.

This type of effort to reduce government liabilities with a printing press has been tried by every banana republic on the planet, and the only question unanswered by looking at their history is how severely the investment community will punish us because we have become a deadbeat nation. Make no mistake. We will be punished. In nominal terms there has been no reduction in the value of the debt, but in purchasing power terms, which is the only real measure of worth, we have already experienced severe reductions, and that applies to every dollar based asset we own.

Just look at the value of our currency. Every western nation can now buy US assets for an amount of purchasing power far below what they had to pay before this scheme was hatched. The only thing that has kept the dollar decline from becoming far more severe is that the markets anticipate that other countries might crank up the presses as well. So the result is, we know we will be hurt, but we are not sure yet how much.

It can be argued that in aggregate the United States citizens owe the government debt, so the dilution of their worth is constructively a repayment of their own indebtedness. The questions that arise are, what about foreigners who hold US debt and were promised repayment with equal purchasing power? They don't owe our nations debt. Answer: they are screwed. Also, who gave the Federal Reserve the authority to do this? They are charged with maintaining price stability and maintaining employment. This latest fiasco does the opposite of their charge to maintain price stability, and it is highly questionable if it will help employment.

This policy is the idiot dream of an academic, but worse, it is a dream when all available evidence (and common sense) shows that even in the unlikely event it helps in the short term, it is certain to be destructive in the long term. It is even worse. We know so little about the unintended consequences of this action, we risk unimaginable damages to ourselves and to the world financial system. King Canute had a better chance of commanding the sea than Banana Ben has of making this work.

More Lowry Silliness

2010-10-12T10:00:00.000-07:00

Rich Lowry should read some history before he comments on it. In his column today he tries to make the self evident point that Obama's politics are gutter politics (there's a real shocker.) He says "...when he (Obama) reflects on his closing arguments during this campaign he'll tell himself, "I'm McCarthy baby. I can play in the gutter."

Lowry's appraisal of the stench of Obama's methods is of course correct, but why must he use liberal mythology, provably false, to compare it to? Is Lowry, or for that matter the whole Sarah Palin bashing, John McCain endorsing National Review staff so ignorant of our history that they believe these myths about McCarthy, or do they know the truth but prefer to adopt the RINO creed of "go along to get along?" I suppose this shouldn't be surprising from a "conservative" writer or magazine that trashed a clear thinking conservative like Sarah Palin and endorsed John McCain, who arguably has done more harm to the conservative movement than any living politician.

In the event the former is the case and Lowry only suffers from extreme ignorance, let me suggest he read the well footnoted book "Blacklisted by History," by Stanton Evans. This book stands alone in giving an unbiased account of the McCarthy period, as can be attested to by anyone who has read it or watched the author debate other historians who have made contradictory claims.

Joe McCarthy was a patriot, his charges were 99% accurate (verified by the Venona papers and the Soviet archives), and the innocent who were tarred by his hearings have only the Democrats to blame. Over McCarthy's objections they prevented the hearings from being closed. The repetition of liberal propaganda says otherwise, and Rich Lowry may buy into it, but if accuracy is considered a virtue among journalists, perhaps he will take my advice and find out what really happened.

More "Peace"

2010-09-01T06:29:00.000-07:00

The Arabs in Gaza were wildly cheering with joy at the terrorist killing of an Israeli family of 4 including a pregnant woman. Should we read anything into these outbursts of joy? One third of French Muslims think suicide bombing is acceptable. Does that mean anything? Am I nuts when I say that too many Muslims have missed the "peace" part of the "religion of peace." Maybe it is a peaceful religion as they claim, but wouldn't it be nice if that message were delivered to the faithful rather than us? On 9/11 I saw explosions of joy, not just in Arab capitals around the world, but in the Arab sections of western capitals. What should a reasonable person take away from this? Should I believe the liberal press and the practitioners of Islam, or my lying eyes?

The mayor of NY is either on a different planet or dangerously misinformed. He continues to make bogus and nonsensical arguments about the mosque. After telling us that supporting freedom of religion and opposing the mosque are mutually exclusive (nonsense) and that opposing the mosque is either politically motivated or simple bigotry (slanderous nonsense), he now is warning us against giving the government the right to look into where the mosque funding is coming from. He says we don't want a precedent of this sort. Wow! Is he kidding? Does he have any idea how many charities and mosques are proved to have served as fundraisers and planning centers for a variety of terrorist groups, from al Qaeda to Hamas to Hezbollah and lesser known radicals? That doesn't even include all the organizations suspected of doing so, albeit with insufficient evidence to act.

Earth to liberals: You very lives are at stake. Your nonsense can be an amusing indulgence some of the time, but here you are planting the seeds of your own destruction, and far worse, mine.

A Religion of Peace

2010-08-31T16:40:00.000-07:00

Several years ago an Israeli garage mechanic who had fought in the 67 war there, told me the Americans will never get it right when dealing with Arabs. The problem is, he said, that Americans assume that the Arabs think like them, want the same things as them, and will respond in the same way as them. He continued, nothing can be farther from the truth. Over these past 35 years I have observed Arab Israeli relations in this light, and he had it absolutely right. They don't think like us, although we keep dealing with them as if they do, and consequently nothing positive ever happens. Substitute Muslim for Arab, and you will make similar observations.

Below is Geerd Wilders speech given in NY. The left brands him a bigot, just as they brand anyone against illegal immigration a racist, or someone in support of heterosexual marriage as homophobic. Of course when the left debates him, they can not contradict one fact he represents, and ultimately make themselves look very foolish.

Read this. Your blood will run cold.

Geert Wilders is a Dutch Member of Parliament.

In a generation or two, the US will ask itself: Who lost Europe ?'
Here is the speech of Geert Wilders, Chairman, Party for Freedom, the Netherlands , at the Four Seasons, New York , introducing an Alliance of Patriots and announcing the Facing Jihad Conference in Jerusalem .
Dear friends,
Thank you very much for inviting me.
I come to America with a mission. All is not well in the old world. There is a tremendous danger looming, and it is very difficult to be optimistic. We might be in the final stages of the Islamization of Europe. This not only is a clear and present danger to the future of Europe itself, it is a threat to America and the sheer survival of the West. The United States as the last bastion of Western civilization, facing an Islamic Europe.
First I will describe the situation on the ground in Europe . Then, I will say a few things about Islam. To close I will tell you about a meeting in Jerusalem .
The Europe you know is changing.
You have probably seen the landmarks. But in all of these cities, sometimes a few blocks away from your tourist destination, there is another world. It is the world of the parallel society created by Muslim mass-migration.
All throughout Europe a new reality is rising: entire Muslim neighborhoods where very few indigenous people reside or are even seen. And if they are, they might regret it. This goes for the police as well. It's the world of head scarves, where women walk around in figureless tents, with baby strollers and a group of children. Their husbands, or slaveholders if you prefer, walk three steps ahead. With mosques on many street corners. The shops have signs you and I cannot read. You will be hard-pressed to find any economic activity. These are Muslim ghettos controlled by religious fanatics. These are Muslim neighborhoods, and they are mushrooming in every city across Europe . These are the building-blocks for territorial control of increasingly larger portions of Europe , street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood, city by city.
There are now thousands of mosques throughout Europe . With larger congregations than there are in churches. And in every European city there are plans to build super-mosques that will dwarf every church in the region. Clearly, the signal is: we rule.
Many European cities are already one-quarter Muslim: just take Amsterdam , Marseille and Malmo in Sweden . In many cities the majority of the under-18 population is Muslim. Paris is now surrounded by a ring of Muslim neighborhoods. Mohammed is the most popular name among boys in many cities.
In some elementary schools in Amsterdam the farm can no longer be mentioned, because that would also mean mentioning the pig, and that would be an insult to Muslims.
Many state schools in Belgium and Denmark only serve halal food to all pupils. In once-tolerant Amsterdam gays are beaten up almost exclusively by Muslims. Non-Muslim women routinely hear 'whore, whore'. Satellite dishes are not pointed to local TV stations, but to stations in the country of origin.
In France school teachers are advised to avoid authors deemed offensive to Muslims, including Voltaire and Diderot; the same is increasingly true of Darwin . The history of the Holocaust can no longer be taught because of Muslim sensitivity.
In England sharia courts are now officially part of the British legal system. Many neighborhoods in France are no-go areas for women without head scarves. Last week a man almost died after being beaten up by Muslims in Brussels , because he was drinking during the Ramadan.
Jews are fleeing France in record numbers, on the run for the worst wave of anti-Semitism since World War II. French is now commonly spoken on the streets of Tel Aviv and Netanya, Israel . I could go on forever with stories like this. Stories about Islamization.
A total of fifty-four million Muslims now live in Europe. San Diego University recently calculated that a staggering 25 percent of the population in Europe will be Muslim just 12 years from now. Bernhard Lewis has predicted a Muslim majority by the end of this century.
Now these are just numbers. And the numbers would not be threatening if the Muslim-immigrants had a strong desire to assimilate. But there are few signs of that. The Pew Research Center reported that half of French Muslims see their loyalty to Islam as greater than their loyalty to France . One-third of French Muslims do not object to suicide attacks. The British Centre for Social Cohesion reported that one-third of British Muslim students are in favor of a worldwide caliphate. Muslims demand what they call 'respect'. And this is how we give them respect. We have Muslim official state holidays.
The Christian-Democratic attorney general is willing to accept sharia in the Netherlands if there is a Muslim majority. We have cabinet members with passports from Morocco and Turkey ..
Muslim demands are supported by unlawful behavior, ranging from petty crimes and random violence, for example against ambulance workers and bus drivers, to small-scale riots. Paris has seen its uprising in the low-income suburbs, the banlieus. I call the perpetrators 'settlers'. Because that is what they are. They do not come to integrate into our societies; they come to integrate our society into their Dar-al-Islam. Therefore, they are settlers.
Much of this street violence I mentioned is directed exclusively against non-Muslims, forcing many native people to leave their neighborhoods, their cities, their countries. Moreover, Muslims are now a swing vote not to be ignored.
The second thing you need to know is the importance of Mohammed the prophet. His behavior is an example to all Muslims and cannot be criticized.. Now, if Mohammed had been a man of peace, let us say like Ghandi and Mother Theresa wrapped in one, there would be no problem. But Mohammed was a warlord, a mass murderer, a pedophile, and had several marriages - at the same time. Islamic tradition tells us how he fought in battles, how he had his enemies murdered and even had prisoners of war executed. Mohammed himself slaughtered the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza. If it is good for Islam, it is good. If it is bad for Islam, it is bad
Let no one fool you about Islam being a religion. Sure, it has a god, and a here-after, and 72 virgins. But in its essence Islam is a political ideology. It is a system that lays down detailed rules for society and the life of every person. Islam wants to dictate every aspect of life.. Islam means 'submission'. Islam is not compatible with freedom and democracy, because what it strives for is sharia. If you want to compare Islam to anything, compare it to communism or national-socialism, these are all totalitarian ideologies.
Now you know why Winston Churchill called Islam 'the most retrograde force in the world', and why he compared Mein Kampf to the Quran.The public has wholeheartedly accepted the Palestinian narrative, and sees Israel as the aggressor. I have lived in this country and visited it dozens of times. I support Israel . First, because it is the Jewish homeland after two thousand years of exile up to and including Auschwitz, second because it is a democracy, and third because Israel is our first line of defense.
This tiny country is situated on the fault line of jihad, frustrating Islam's territorial advance. Israel is facing the front lines of jihad, like Kashmir, Kosovo, the Philippines , Southern Thailand, Darfur in Sudan , Lebanon , and Aceh in Indonesia . Israel is simply in the way. The same way West-Berlin was during the Cold War.
The war against Israel is not a war against Israel . It is a war against the West. It is jihad. Israel is simply receiving the blows that are meant for all of us. If there would have been no Israel , Islamic imperialism would have found other venues to release its energy and its desire for conquest. Thanks to Israeli parents who send their children to the army and lay awake at night, parents in Europe and America can sleep well and dream, unaware of the dangers looming.
Many in Europe argue in favor of abandoning Israel in order to address the grievances of our Muslim minorities. But if Israel were, God forbid, to go down, it would not bring any solace to the West. It would not mean our Muslim minorities would all of a sudden change their behavior, and accept our values. On the contrary, the end of Israel would give enormous encouragement to the forces of Islam. They would, and rightly so, see the demise of Israel as proof that the West is weak, and doomed. The end of Israel would not mean the end of our problems with Islam, but only the beginning. It would mean the start of the final battle for world domination. If they can get Israel , they can get everything. So-called journalists volunteer to label any and all critics of Islamization as a 'right-wing extremists' or 'racists'. In my country, the Netherlands , 60 percent of the population now sees the mass immigration of Muslims as the number one policy mistake since World War II. And another 60 percent sees Islam as the biggest threat. Yet there is a greater danger than terrorist attacks, the scenario of America as the last man standing. The lights may go out in Europe faster than you can imagine. An Islamic Europe means a Europe without freedom and democracy, an economic wasteland, an intellectual nightmare, and a loss of military might for America - as its allies will turn into enemies, enemies with atomic bombs. With an Islamic Europe, it would be up to America alone to preserve the heritage of Rome , Athens and Jerusalem .
Dear friends, liberty is the most precious of gifts. My generation never had to fight for this freedom, it was offered to us on a silver platter, by people who fought for it with their lives. All throughout Europe , American cemeteries remind us of the young boys who never made it home, and whose memory we cherish. My generation does not own this freedom; we are merely its custodians. We can only hand over this hard won liberty to Europe 's children in the same state in which it was offered to us. We cannot strike a deal with mullahs and imams. Future generations would never forgive us. We cannot squander our liberties. We simply do not have the right to do so.
We have to take the necessary action now to stop this Islamic stupidity from destroying the free world that we know.
Please take the time to read and understand what is written here, it is time to wake up America. Please send it to every person that you know, it is important.

Islam..Phobia or Simple Understanding

2010-08-21T10:35:00.000-07:00

The very politically incorrect joke goes, "The Easter Bunny, Santa Clause, George Bush, and a moderate Muslim are standing on four corners of a road with a ten dollar bill in the middle. Who got the ten dollar bill? George Bush of course. The other three are fairy tale characters."

The problem we face at the Mosque and elsewhere is not one of moderate Islam versus an extreme or perverted version. The problem is with the fundamental nature of Islam itself. Read the Koran, listen to the Imams. One need not be selective in the passages he chooses, just try to understand what the Koran is commanding the faithful to do. For anyone who still has doubts after that, play back the tape of millions of wildly cheering Muslims from Cairo to London after the 9/11 attacks.

The US is a Christian nation. No, you don't have to be Christian to be a citizen, but we are a nation of laws, and our laws are derived from natural law and are consistent with Christian teachings. Simply put, laws are born of values, and in the US that means Christian values. Most faiths share these values, and thus practicing them presents no problem. However, Islam and Sharia law are different. They are inconsistent with those values, inconsistent with our laws, and therefore Islam should be treated like any outlaw organization that sets itself above our law.

Why are we obliged to accept the presence of Sharia and Islamic laws or values anywhere in our society if adherence to them demands the violation of our laws? Must we accept this simply because they arrive under the banner of religion? Is not freedom of speech a basic right for all Americans, even Muslim women? Sharia says no. Are those women chattel? Should all religions be subordinated to Islam (if tolerated at all) in civil society? Should we not prosecute honor killings? Do we want legal sanctions, as Sharia has, for violating dietary laws (Michael Bloomberg, the trans fat Mayor of NY not withstanding). You get the point.

Foreign law has no standing in the US (exception of Ruth Bader Ginsberg noted), and neither does religious law. We should use every means possible to eradicate illegal and often treasonous teachings from all sources which require the breach of our law. There is nothing inconsistent with following Christianity (or Judaism, or Buddhism, or Scientology), and following American law. But there is a huge conflict between following Islam and following US law. If we are to remain a nation where the law, our law, continues to reign supreme, it is not only our right but our obligation to fight against any person or organization that would undermine them.

The Mosque Must Go

2010-08-16T05:22:00.000-07:00

The argument that the proposed mosque near Ground Zero is an issue of religious freedom misses the point. We all agree that worship is constitutionally protected. The real question is, does anyone have the right to build a monument where ever they want to what they believe was a great military victory over the United States? Would the United States have the right, under private property laws in Japan, to build a monument to the bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki on those sites? I think not.

The argument that this proposal will be a monument to a battle victory of radical Islam at Ground Zero has a lot of evidence supporting it. Certainly throughout history Islam has built monuments in the form of Mosques on the sites of many battle victories. Imam Rauf, the promoter, has said many things (you have heard them all) that supports that contention here. If this would simply be a place of worship with the added purpose to reach out to Islam's neighbors, why would the Imam fight for this particular sight? He would create a mountain of goodwill before even breaking ground if he went elsewhere. But if this is a victory monument, fighting for that location makes good sense. I think his refusal to change locations betrays his real motive.

To those who would argue we can not know what is in his mind, rather we can only guess at his innermost motives, I would agree. We can not know with absolute certainty, in fact we can not even know beyond a reasonable doubt. But knowing with that degree of certainty is not necessary for the state to exercise its authority. This is not a criminal case. Different standards of proof are intentionally set in different areas of the law. A civil case need not meet the standard of proof that a criminal case does. If the smell test were applied, this proposal would fail miserably. I believe that whatever standard is ultimately applied, the Imams own statements leave only one reasonable conclusion. The mosque should not be built.

Wolfowitz's Mistake

2010-08-05T07:33:00.000-07:00

Paul Wolfowitz has a distinguished public and private career. Most recently he was head of the IMF and before that assistant secretary of defense under Donald Rumsfeld. He has always subscribed to the highest standards of integrity, confirmed by everyone who knows him. Recently he was driven out of the IMF with trumped up charges, (provably false), because the other career people, almost to a man, wished to keep the cushy, corrupt status quo of the organization that he fought but failed to reform. The result was one for the bad guys.

In yesterdays WSJ Wolfowitz co authored an article with Al Gore titled "Malaysia's Opposition on Trial" where they challenge the world to speak up on behalf of Anwar Ibrahim, who has had politically motivated, false charges filed against him. Their cause is virtuous. I just wonder why Wolfowitz would allow his name to be tarnished by associating it with someone like Al Gore.

I can appreciate the idea that an article like this might have broader appeal when presented by representatives from the left and right. And I believe that in this world, there are at least a few well intentioned liberals, albeit misguided. However, I also know Al Gore is not one of them. He lacks any sort of ethical standards in his personal or public/ professional life. The examples of this are too numerous to recount. I will simply say he is an unethical intellectual mutant (American Thinker term), but a powerful and therefore dangerous one. He should be avoided like an ebola virus.

We are judged by the company we keep. Obama's behavior as President was entirely predictable based on the extremists he kept company with his whole life. Doesn't Wolfowitz understand that the credibility of a news article is in part a function of the credibility of the author? This is reminiscent of Newt Gingrich's advertisement he made with Nancy Pelosi touting cooperation on climate change. Of course what Newt did was even more egregious because the policy he was supporting is simply another liberal scam. At least here the cause has merit.

I hope all conservative spokesmen take note. Only speak to a liberal if you must. But never share a stage or an idea with one, lest your good ideas get thrown into the trash heap of garbage liberalism generally produces.

The Enemy of my Enemy ....

2010-07-17T10:26:00.000-07:00

"There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune,
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries."

William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

This may be Obama's time, if only he seizes it.

The thought of a nuclear armed Iran is bone chilling for anyone who understands the consequences. It is an existential threat for not just Israel, as many would like to pretend, but for the entire western world. We have dallied far too long, wishing somehow it would just go away.

During the "Green Revolution" protesters in Iran rose up in force demonstrating against the regimes theft of the election. Obama chose to side with the Mullahs. I can only guess he calculated that his support for their totalitarian regime would cause them to negotiate away their nuclear ambitions. If so, he was very wrong.

Had he backed the demonstrators there would only have been a small chance of success, but that chance was squandered. If somehow the regime had toppled (would the Revolutionary Guard have fired on their own people, probably, but we can't be sure), the present nuclear problem would likely have been arrested. Funding for Iran's proxies like Hezbollah and other regime backed terrorist groups would have dried up, or at least being curtailed. It would have been a safer world. But that was then, and now is now.

An editorial in The NY Post, Facing a Common Foe by Alexander Smoltczyk and Bernhard Zand, says that at a forum at The Aspen Institute Ideas Festival last week the United Arab Emirates' ambassador to the US was asked whether the UAE would support a possible air strike against the regime in Tehran. He said, "A military attack on Iran by whomever would be a disaster, but Iran with a nuclear weapon would be a bigger disaster. " A Middle East expert. Jeffery Goldberg said the Ambassador was expressing "the standard position of many Arab countries." Goldberg believes the Jewish Arab problem is bad, very bad, but the Persian Arab problem is far worse. The deep seeded hatred and mutual distrust has been simmering for centuries, and it is far worse now with Iran threatening to develop a nuclear bomb.

Saudi Arabia suspects Iran of stirring up the Shite minority in its eastern provinces. In fact the Saudis have had military exercises where they have stood down their air defenses in a manner that would allow Israeli jets to fly through their airspace. If Israel does attack Iran, the Saudis will be ready to help- not Iran but Israel. The Arab emirates, Egypt, Jordan and Kuwait have in one way or another expressed grave concerns over the growing Iranian threat. They all have been helpful seizing illicit cargo aimed at countering Iranian mischief. There is no love lost here.

Because of this Obama has an even better opportunity to end Iran's nuclear threat than before, but this time he might simultaneously create a lasting peace in the Middle East. Our State Department should meet secretly with those Arab nations that are fearful of a nuclear armed Iran and propose that they make peace with Israel, and quickly, within a year. They would further be tasked with forcing the PLO and Hamas to accept Israel's right to exist, and complete an agreement for a two state solution, insuring Israel's security, even if the implementation of such an agreement took a while longer to complete. If all parties agreed, and if they completed their tasks, the US would guarantee to use any force necessary to de fang Iran. The biggest risk for the Arabs would be the failure of the US to honor it's word, and so their answer would in no small part depend on how much they trusted the President. It is therefore vital that Obama give every possible assurance that he will not back away.

It is certainly in the Arabs long term interests to agree. Remember, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Israel does not threaten their existence, Iran does. The Arabs can save face while reversing course with Israel by directing their populations anger towards a bigger enemy, a bigger threat, Iran. Deadlines with catastrophic consequences help focus the mind, and the deadline of needing action before Iran develops the bomb could well be the catalyst necessary for the Arabs and Israelis to truly achieve a lasting peace.

If Syria watched this unfold, they would likely abandon Iran. It would be clear which the winning side would be, and they would have to act quickly in order to extract some concessions from Israel before the dust settled and they risked becoming a rogue outlier.

For the US the benefits are tremendous. If agreements were finalized, it would put severe and unprecedented pressure on Iran to give up their ambitions. Unlike past vacuous statement about all options being on the table, the message here would be unambiguous. "The US, Israel, Europe and the Arab states stand together and are prepared to do whatever it takes to end the Iranian threat." It is anything but certain that Iran would turn their swords into plowshares, but they would have internal pressure from a young, well educated, cosmopolitan, western leaning majority, and external pressure from a large, powerful international coalition. Combined, the pressure would be an order of magnitude greater than anything they have felt thus far.

If they didn't capitulate, there would be enough support worldwide that the Chinese and the Russians, looking at this huge coalition with an irrevocable commitment to act, would at worst steer clear of the situation, and at best join in.

The key to success is that our commitment be absolute. The behavior of all the players, the Arab states, China, Russia, Syria, not to mention Iran, will be very different depending on how they interpret our resolve.

There are three possible roads to success. Iran could capitulate. If not, strategic attacks could both seriously damage their nuclear facilities and at the same time undermine the government, perhaps allowing the Green Party to take over. The third and last alternative is war.

The first phase of a war would not likely be terribly difficult. With a joint US Israel attack (assuming a Desert Storm strategy was not adopted where Israeli hands were tied) the Iranians would have a hard time resisting. Certainly with ground troops we could easily set the nuclear program back many years. And unlike Iraq and Afghanistan where the "peace" became the real problem, there is a popular government in Iran waiting to take over.

Of course with any war, things could go wrong, terribly wrong. But the consequences of even the worst turn of events pales in comparison to a nuclear armed Iran, not to mention the dangers of an irreconcilable situation in the Middle East.

The world would hardly be a safe place even if success here were achieved. A not very stable Pakistan has nuclear weapons and a terrorist takeover would not be shocking. Sudan is a failed state that harbors terrorists and could easily become a safe haven for them. Russia and China have ambitions that are yet to be understood, and Al Qaeda continues to actively plot our destruction. None the less, an achievement of this magnitude would be a huge step towards peace and stability.

The likelihood of getting the Arabs on board is very small. The likelihood of succeeding even if we do get them on board is small, but the reward is huge. We must do something.

McCain Letter

2010-02-27T12:23:00.001-08:00

This is a letter to the editor I sent to National Review during the Republican presidential primary fight. Ramesh Ponnuru was singing the praises of John McCain. I am posting it here because it is a good example of why in many areas so called moderation should not be tolerated. At the end of the letter I say that if McCain is nominated it will be time for some creative destruction. Here we are over 18 months later and that process has begun. We shall all be the beneficiaries.

It was shocking to read Ramesh Ponnuru's NR cover story, The Coming McCain Moment. In order to properly understand John McCain, a few modifications and additions to the article are needed.

McCain was a member of The Keating Five, where he traded influence for campaign contributions. It was long ago, but it plants a seed of doubt as to his willingness to sell influence.

Ponnuru says "He supported a scheme of taxes and regulations to fight smoking"...It was a scheme all right, hatched in the back rooms of liberal politicians and trial lawyers. McCain was the point man for legislation and the trial lawyers to punish American Corporations that had not only been operating legally, but had been given a hold harmless by the congress and the Surgeon General by virtue of warning labels on cigarette packages. This was a blatant attack on private property and a classic abuse of government power. It created a government backed feeding frenzy among trial lawyers costing (mostly the poor) billions of dollars, and provided a wealth of talking points for Democratic operatives.

Ponnuru says campaign finance reform is not the issue it once was. Perhaps he is right. But should conservatives support McCain who sponsored this restriction on free speech, enhancing the unelected Democratic media's power? By lending his name and support, the media misleadingly represented the bill as bipartisan. Bush's abandonment of principle by signing the bill in no way excuses McCain's part.

McCain fought Bush on interrogation methods for suspected terrorists. The author charitably explains this as a principled act resulting in part from his being a POW in Vietnam. I am not so charitable. I see this and many other positions he adopts as attempts to ingratiate himself to the mainstream media by joining in their Bush bashing flavor of the month.

McCain's support of "free market solutions" (lol) to global warming is somehow seen by the author as "more prescient than most conservatives." This presupposes global warming needs a "solution". Many disagree, and even under the highly questionable assumption that global warming is man made, and under the further questionable assumption that it will be harmful, nothing proposed by any group, McCain and Kyoto included, would make any meaningful change in the warming trend. McCain's position does however, once again, give ammunition to the enemy.

"McCain has never voted for a general tax increase" says Ponnuru. He surely advocated one. In the 2000 presidential campaign he took a page from the basic Democratic playbook and argued that we should raise taxes on the rich. I don't know if his understanding of economics is so poor that he believed it would be a good thing, or if he was trying to score cheap political points, but either one is roundly unattractive. It may not be a vote to increase taxes, but when he voted against the Bush tax cuts he got in bed with increases first cousin.

In 2000 McCain trashed Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. These men are/ were not perfect, but they represent a wide constituency and have done tremendous good for their followers and all Americans. Recently he went after Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, two highly ethical, highly accomplished, great Americans. If he believes what he said, he is out of step with the people in his own party. If he driven by political calculations, one must question his rationality.

How many of these misconceived initiatives can be excused as the behavior of a maverick, or a principled maverick as the press would say? Irrespective of Ponnuru's assertions to the contrary, he disagrees with far too many basic conservative principles. Should Republicans look the other way in order to get this RINO elected? Is he a political opportunist, or simply out of touch, and does it matter? If McCain is the best Republican hope, it is certainly time for some creative destruction.

John McCain's record indicates he is better qualified to be president of Moveon.org than President of the United States.

Michael Sall, Villanova PA

Ideologues...A Breath of Fresh Air

2010-02-17T17:11:00.000-08:00

A friend asked me to contribute to a candidate for the House's campaign and said "He is not an ideologue." I said "Too bad...is there anything good you can say about him?" Who ever got the idea that compromising or abandoning one's values, or worse, not having any values to begin with, is a virtue. Arlen Spector is not an ideologue, and neither is John McCain. What they are is chameleons. Their ship flies no flag, but they are not ideologues.

This idea reminds me of those who take it as a priori that moderation is a virtue. Many years ago Barry Goldwater (One of the founders of the modern conservative movement) said "I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!"

Goldwater was an absolute ideologue, and one with all the right ideas. Would you trust your possessions, or more importantly your freedom, to an ideologue like him, or McCain and Spector?

McCain and Spector claim to be moderates. Antony Scalia, one of the most thoughtful jurists ever to sit on the bench of the Supreme Court, answered a question posed to him about moderation in interpreting the law. He asked the questioner, "What exactly is moderation...halfway between what the law says and what you wish it would say?"

Of course there are things where moderation is appropriate. They are mostly where the effect of a policy are uncertain but worth trying. But there are others where "extremism" is clearly called for. Perhaps the devotees of moderation would like Lincoln to have freed half the slaves, or maybe he could have freed them from 12:00 until 5:00?

No..moderation is no virtue. I would prefer to let all the ideologues, right and left, fight it out. Let the differences be clearly understood...and the better ideas will survive. If people understand liberalism and its history, its boot heel might be removed from our country's neck and the proverbial stake will be driven through its heart.

For those of you who don't know much about Goldwater, he and Reagan are credited with founding modern conservatism. He was the Senator from Arizona and the Republican Presidential nominee in the 1964 election. Like Reagan and all influential Republicans he was labeled stupid, evil and extreme. Of course the Left never addressed his policies or philosophy. He moved to the right of the "Country Club Republicans," or the "Rockefeller Republicans," and their low tax anti communist platform. He extended this to include smaller government, individual responsibility, and constitutional mandates. In doing so the party developed a politically viable coalition by bringing rural Americans and evangelical Christians along with all people of faith into the Republican tent.

To get a sense of who he was, here is one more of his quotes. "I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is "needed" before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents "interests," I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can." pg 15. The Conscience of A Conservative (1960)

Lies

2010-01-31T16:10:00.000-08:00

Lies come in many forms. Progressives justify most lies based on a misbegotten "greater good" theory- or the ends justify the means. Their techniques vary from repeating the lie so many times that people begin to believe it (A propaganda technique of Trotsky), or enlisting media types and supposed experts to confirm the lie (in logic this is referred to as a fallacious appeal to authority), their hope being that the lie will become "common knowledge" after some time period. Time would never allow anyone to deal with even a small percentage of these, but below I will list a few put out over the last couple of years that on their face are obviously false, yet achieved the status of a "given," "accepted science," or something "we all know."

Torture doesn't work. Remember the debate about water boarding. Whether or not it is torture may be debatable, but the lefts suggestion that torture doesn't work is preposterous on its face. American soldiers are instructed if captured to give the enemy only their name rank and serial number. However, during Vietnam many were told in advance to give up information well beyond that because they would be tortured and talk then anyway. Stories came back about captured enemy soldiers riding in a helicopter where one was asked a question and when he refused to answer was summarily thrown out of the helicopter from a thousand feet in the air. The next was asked the same question. Guess what happened? I don't know if these stories are entirely true, but I do know that almost anyone will give up information to stop torture. Yet everyone on the left repeated this myth and acted as if we are idiots for laughing at them.

Al Qaeda uses Gitmo as a recruiting tool. Would Al Qaeda say anything different or act differently if the prisoners were housed in Marion Ill? Think about the absurdity here.

Obama failed to communicate enough on his health care bill. Really his problem was he communicated too much, even though he did abandon the truth when explaining the bill. His problem was if he communicated better or more (if he told the truth) it would have been rejected faster and more completely than it was (if that is possible). He explained it his fictional way ad naseum, he gave 27 speeches about it, and still it was roundly rejected. No... he spoke enough. His problem was he was the tenth medicine man to pass through town.

Global warming is settled science. I admit that one could be illiterate and still know the last two were lies, whereas understanding the silliness of this statement might require reading a newspaper...say about once a month. The various attempts to hide information, fudge results, and destroy climate data are well documented in the Climate-gate emails. NASA and other US government organizations have admitted to participating in fraud in climate analysis. A paper was cited at the climate conference in Copenhagen last month claiming the glaciers in the Himalayas will melt within the next 35 years. When the author of the paper on which the conclusion was based stated that the conclusion was nonsense and not his, and that it would take hundreds of years if it happened at all, we discovered that the presenter was willing to lie. But what came out later was more egregious. The head of the UN Committee on climate change knew the presentation was fraudulent two months before it was presented, yet remained silent before during and after the presentation. Why are so many lies told if it is "settled science?" Could it be because if it is scrutinized in the same way any other scientific theory is, it becomes apparent it is baseless nonsense?

Gay Marriage is Not a Right

2010-01-16T07:26:00.000-08:00

Ted Olsen, a great man and a great conservative, has teamed up with the liberal attorney Davis Bois to argue in the California State Supreme Court against Proposition 8 in which the people of California banned gay marriage. This week he wrote in Newsweek magazine an article defending his position. You can find it at http://www.newsweek.com/id/229957 I believe he misses at least one fundamental and game changing point, and here is why.

Dear Mr. Olsen,

As a a lifelong conservative, I take exception to the case you make for gay marriage in as much you fail to address the most conservative of all objections, that being support for the rule of law.

The arguments you present are quite moving, although you might want to trash that "settled science" bit as to the nature/nurture debate about homosexuality. I am not suggesting you are wrong, only that there is nothing at all settled on the issue. But I digress. The problem is that the proper forum for your most thoughtful and compassionate arguments is a legislative body, not a court of law. Were your arguments presented to the people's representatives, I for one might support them. But you seem to have chosen the liberal elitist approach. They know it is easier to win an unelected judge's support than a majority of the voters or their representatives.

For 200 years federal, state and local legislatures have passed laws giving privileges and responsibilities to married couples. In every case the "couple" was defined as a union between a man and a woman. This limitation may be unfair. It may be undesirable. But it is legal, and claiming that it is illegal based on an imaginary extension of a basic constitutional right is a gross misreading and misuse of the constitution. And, if it is not a constitutional violation, it is no business of the courts.

As a conservative I can support the right of people to do as they please so long as it doesn't affect others, but to enjoy privileges simply because another group has them, is offensive to me and many others. Do I have a constitutional right to park in a handicapped spot under some bizarre extension of the equal protection clause? Was the court right when it presented an incoherent argument in order to create the "right" to an abortion. As repulsive as legislatures often are, they are a lot better than unelected or unaccountable judges ruling on constitutional issues from which there is little recourse. That authority should only be used in the clearest and most egregious of violations. Certainly allowing some judge to make these public policy decisions is to undermine the greatest document in support of freedom ever written.

The length of your argument betrays its' failings. If the case you are making truly does relate to constitutional issues, you would have been able to make it in short order, much like the constitution itself.

I trust you will rethink this. Your sense of right and wrong and your compassion should not only include gays, but should extend to the very system which insures that our basic rights are inviolate. Your approach will create an uneven, chaotic application of the law, having the practical effect of denying us the freedom and the protection the law affords us when it is evenly applied.

Do Not Blame Barack

2009-10-10T14:28:00.000-07:00

I haven't written in a while, but am prepared to return. Meantime, this is one of the most thoughtful and well written articles I have seen in a long time. It is from http://www.americanthinker.com/ which is a GREAT site. There is hope, but it is a long, long road back.

October 04, 2009

Do Not Blame Barack

By Selwyn Duke

Contrary to what my title indicates, I probably judge Barack Obama more harshly than most reading this page. I don't think he is just a misguided ideologue or merely a creature of expediency. I believe, practically speaking, he is an evil man. That is to say, while he is largely ignorant like so many others, he has developed an affinity for evil. He mistakes it for good.

Yet, to be blunt, Obama doesn't alarm me as much as the average American. To explain why, I'll present something Roman philosopher and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero said 2000 years ago when lamenting Julius Caesar's rise to dictator:

Do not blame Caesar, blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and gave him triumphal processions . . . . Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of the 'new, wonderful good society' which shall now be Rome's, interpreted to mean 'more money, more ease, more security, more living fatly at the expense of the industrious.' Julius was always an ambitious villain, but he is only one man.

Barack Obama is only one man. A bad man, yes, but he is a symptom more than a cause. Without millions of fawning Americans, he would just be a community agitator, vainly preaching Alinsky principles from a soapbox. Of course, he is a symptom that exacerbates the underlying problem, and symptomatic treatment -- to ease immediate pain and hardship -- is certainly in order. But it is only the worst of physicians who focuses only on symptoms while ignoring the cancer eating away at the patient's midst.

Some of us lament the presence of self-professed communists such as Van Jones -- and other assorted intellectual mutants, such as Cass Sunstein and John Holdren -- in government, and how we elected a man who broke bread with self-professed communists such as Bill Ayers. But why complain now? We've had self-professed communists such as Bill Ayers -- and other assorted intellectual mutants, such as Ward Churchill, Cass Sunstein and John Holdren -- in academia for many decades. And good Americans still donated money to universities and still sent their most precious possessions, their children, to them. So, should it be any surprise that millions of these children would, knowing nothing and feeling all the wrongs things, flock to the polls and cast votes for people just like their teachers and professors? You may say that their parents knew nothing of these universities' true nature. But it was their place to find out. And Obama did not create the modern academy. He is more a creation of it.

We also criticize Obama for saying "We no longer are [just] a Christian nation" and while speaking in Turkey that "We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation." But can we really say he's wrong? Has Christmas not become completely commercialized? How many of us say grace with our families before meals? How many of us pray every day? How many Americans subscribe to the modern perversion of the "separation of church and state" idea? How many of us say "God Bless" upon parting? Have the majority of American "Christians" not descended into moral relativism? It is here that some will call me a religious nut. All right, but I simply note that a Christian nation would actually practice Christianity and that if we are satisfied to be only nominally Christian, it lends weight to the argument that we're not actually Christian. Of course, we certainly can condemn Obama for attending a pseudo-Christian church and being part of the problem, but he didn't create our secular age. He is more a creation of it.

One thing Obama certainly did help create is the tea-party phenomenon. It is the largest, most impressive grassroots movement I can remember and I truly hope it grows beyond what even the most zealous reader would prefer. Yet, when I hear the protesters complain about the violation of the Constitution, I have to wonder we they've been. Did they miss the activist 1947 "separation of church and state ruling"? Have they learned about FDR's New Deal and LBJ's Great Society? Don't they realize that the federal government long ago exceeded its constitutional bounds? Where is the constitutional mandate for Uncle Scam to involve itself in and/or fund housing, food stamps, farm subsidies, Medicaid, global-warming research, mass transit, and school sports programs? The fact is that most things the federal government has its claws into are none of its affair. Thus, to only now complain about constitutional trespasses is like having finally noted the invasion of Poland when the Nazis started bombing Great Britain.

We also have to ask how serious most Americans really are about respecting the Constitution. Here's a little test for them: Are you willing to give up your Social Security in the name of constitutional adherence?

I thought so.

The average American has his version of acceptable constitutional violation, Ruth Bader-Ginsburg has hers, and Obama has his. And Obama didn't create the "living document" mentality. He is more a creation of it.

Then there is our putrid popular culture. Effete Hollywood types -- such as the Obama sycophants in this bizarre Harpo Productions video -- thuggish rappers, MTV stoner types and the rest of our decadence czars helped galvanize the youth and propel the empty vessel to victory. Yet, while entertainment is a bastion of the left, it's not entirely a creation of it. The reality is that we, the people, empowered them. We watched their movies; laughed at their salacious jokes; were titillated by their prurience; and tolerated their mainstreaming obscenity, homosexuality and gratuitous violence. We allowed our children to dress in their ghetto styles and imbibe pure and utter filth. Like with so many other things, we helped create our entertainment -- a major symptom of spiritual malaise -- and then it helped induce many secondary symptoms. And one of them is Obama.

Of course, nothing is more associated with that symptom than the Shill Media, but I think you know what's coming. Who bought the mainstream papers for all those decades, watched the nightly news and bought all the lies? "How could people know?" you ask? Well, some certainly knew -- and some of those knew better than others.

Like Cicero, I'm sure I sound quite condemnatory, but I'm not here to lay a curse or consign anyone to Hell. I don't want to be found guilty of the George Bernard Shaw mistake G.K. Chesterton criticized most colorfully when he wrote:

It is not seeing things as they are to think first of a Briareus with a hundred hands, and then call every man a cripple for only having two. It is not seeing things as they are to start with a vision of Argus with his hundred eyes, and then jeer at every man with two eyes as if he had only one. And it is not seeing things as they are to imagine a demigod of infinite mental clarity, who may or may not appear in the latter days of the earth, and then to see all men as idiots.

In reality, for us to have avoided that ever-repeated pattern of civilizational decline, the common man would have to be a very uncommon man, something, in the least, like a sublime moral philosopher. And, certainly, no person will have, metaphorically speaking, a hundred industrious hands, a hundred all-seeing eyes or even come close to enjoying demigod-like mental clarity. Yet a nation doesn't have to resign itself to being blind and crippled, either. We can usually manage one more hand and eye.

Truth be known, when we elected Obama, the nation said "Look, ma, no hands!" with its eyes closed. It required corrupted judgment to be blind to what Obama was. Note that "corrupted" is different than "corrupt." When saying a computer file is corrupted, there is no implication that it's evil; rather, it simply means it no longer functions as it should.

This partially explains why facts often don't matter today. Just as correct input may not yield correct output if fed into a malfunctioning computer, all the necessary facts may not yield a correct conclusion when processed by a corrupted mind. And anyone with a properly functioning virtue file would have sensed the lack of same in Obama. After all, there were so many indications, from his radical associations to his tolerance for infanticide (that's what you call a clue) to the fact that he once allowed his then two-year-old daughter to listen to rap to his empty sloganeering. Yes, we could've . . . known.

Yet my point here is not about the average person, who isn't reading substantive commentary anyway. It's that even most of us who oppose Obama and are political are just political, content to fight the battle with one hand and one eye. So many of us -- this includes readers and commentators -- are satisfied with boilerplate; it's Alinsky this and Alinsky that, San Fran Nan, Afghanistan and the Taliban, this bill and that political shill. This isn't to say there's not a place for such things, as many do need a course in politics 101. But if we want to have any chance of winning the war, we must move on to graduate work and fight it on the deepest levels, the spiritual and cultural. We must scrutinize ourselves and evaluate how we have been complicit in empowering the culture that spawns Barack Obamas. We must remember that those of us who are engaged are a minority weighed against an apathetic majority. A few stones however, can be substantial enough to tip the scales against a million pebbles. But this can only happen if we so greatly increase the weight of our virtue that it outweighs the vice that is everywhere.

I once heard a man of the cloth put it perfectly, saying "Everyone is in a different stage of conversion." Every thought we contemplate, word we utter and action we take move us closer to or further away from perfection. And it's always time for another hand and another eye.

Some Health Care Data

2009-08-04T11:02:00.000-07:00

The income tax was passed in 1913. There were two rates, one percent and 7 percent. The politicians said that the tax would never go above 10 percent. In 1917, four years later, the top rate was 77 percent. Throughout American history broken political promises have been the norm. Obama denies that he intends to nationalize the entire health care system. He keeps saying that you can keep your private insurance if you like it. Of course he told the SEIU (Service Employees International Union) a while back that a plan of this sort is the first step towards a single payer system, and during the campaign he said that in 10 or more years out he hoped the government option would lead to single payer. Barney Frank admitted that if the Democrats passed health care with a public option it would lead to a single payer plan. So much for keeping your private insurance.

Also this week Larry Sommers repeated the fiction that economic recovery is dependent on health care reform. For anyone who believes him I have some oceanfront property in Arizona to sell. The new taxes required or the debt incurred would put tremendous pressure on the economy and do serious damage. There is nothing new with any of this. However, what is new is my discovery of some Heritage Foundation work that gives several interesting facts about the British national health care system and what we can look forward to if the health care bill passes.

Obama supporters like to point out that life expectancy in the US is below (slightly) 6 or 7 western nations that have national health care. They are factually correct, but the conclusion that this indicates that national health care programs are better than ours could not be more wrong. Life span is determined by many more things than the quality of health care. In fact overall health care is a relatively small item among those things determining lifespan. Diet, genetic predisposition, infant mortality etc. all are more important. For example if the statistics are normalized for murder (use a single murder rate in the calculation of all countries, rather that the differing ones where the US rate is sky high), the US lifespan moves much higher on the list. Do you think that the fish and rice dietary staples in Japan add to life expectancy when compared to a Quarter-Pounder and cheese fries or whatever it is that the 35 percent of our population who are obese are in the habit of eating?

But more enlightening is an examination of the life span of people who reach the age of 65. Certainly with this group the quality of health care becomes a far more important factor when determining longevity. Americans over 65 suffering from cancer, heart disease and most leading causes of death live longer, and overall Americans live far longer than the elderly from any other country in the world. Not surprisingly, America also has the shortest waiting time for treatment of any nation. Our system is far better than any other system anywhere, and it shows in the numbers.

When Medicare was passed in the 60s, congress projected the cost for several decades into the future. In 1990 the real costs had reached 20 times original projections. Estimates for the future are now up to a cool 100 times what the original projected numbers were. Admittedly it is difficult to project a year into the future, much less 50 years. Misses of this magnitude are not uncommon, and particularly when the government is involved. Yet everyone throws around numbers about what health care will cost 10 years from now as it they were predicting tomorrows sunrise. The fact is no one knows what an untested government run program will cost, but if history is any guide, it will be exponentially higher than the supporters say now.

Obama and the libs like to point to the rapid price increases of private insurance and claim it is out of control. In the last 7 years that rate has slowed from 15 percent to 7 percent annually. Maybe they are right, but in the government run program, Medicare, costs have increased 35 percent faster than private insurance. Also, during this period private insurance has progressively absorbed more and more of Medicare costs, thereby inflating its true cost and reducing Medicare's. Estimates range from 20 to 28 percent of Medicare costs are absorbed by private payers. No matter how you view the sustainability of the price increases, Medicare has increased dramatically faster. The question is why a government takeover of private insurance would be any different?

Another major administration fiction is that insuring the uninsured will save money. Wait a minute. How do we take 47,000,000 people (their number) onto the health care roles and save money. Do you buy it?

How many Americans are really uninsured anyway? In an earlier blog I pointed out that of the 47 million figure, 10 million are illegal immigrants, 10 million can afford health insurance (earn over $75,000 per year) but choose not to buy it, and 10 million already qualify for government health insurance but are too dysfunctional to get it. That leaves about 17 million. The CBO says that the house plan will knock 83 million people off the insured roles, and only 68 million will get back on, creating 15 million newly uninsured.

Uninsured does not mean untreated. No one in America is denied health care. By law the uninsured can not be denied treatment at any hospital emergency room. This is certainly not an ideal delivery system, but politics prevents many of the changes needed for improvments from becoming law.

All of the normal distortions resulting from central planning and political control (think nationalized health care) that occur in every government program, are happening in all of the countries with a national system. In Great Britain with a population of 55 million, 800,000 people are waiting for treatment. This is occurring while almost 20 percent of the hospital beds go unoccupied. It reminds me of the old Soviet Union. The people were starving while millions of tons of food rotted in the fields because the distribution system had failed, and there was no mechanism to make the needed adjustments.

Great Britain does have plenty of ambulances, and citizens can use them for such things as going to the doctor (not emergency), or going to the pharmacy. Of course these ambulances don't have a fraction of the life saving equipment that is standard in the US. What they do provide is votes from the people who use them like taxicabs for the politicians providing them. The young think the system is great. Why? Because they rarely use it. The people who understand the systemic failures are the ones who do use it, the elderly and the sick.

In Britain rationing occurs primarily in the areas with the smallest constituency because cuts and shortages are damaging politically. Renal failure is a relatively small group of people in Great Britain. Therefore there is a shortage of dialysis equipment. Who gets to use it and who doesn't is left up to the hospitals, leaving the impression the shortage is their fault. On average dialysis is denied in 25 percent of the cases for people over 55, 40 percent for people over 65, and 100 percent for people over 75. Renal failure over a certain age means death. Can you imagine the outcry if such rationing occurred here? And don't think this is an isolated example. Severe rationing (at least by our standards) occurs throughout the system.

Of course there are still many rules/ limits handed down from above. In Great Britain there is a dollar amount ($20,000 in 1990- I am sure it is higher now) which is the most hospitals are allowed to spend to extend a life 6 months. If someones dollar allotment runs out too soon, so does his life. The Obama plans know this problem will occur with us too if the bill passes, so what they did was budget a generous amount of money for end of life counseling. Now that is what Mom and Dad need; some bureaucrat helping them decide if they want an assisted suicide. On the other hand, it will save money.

I could go on but this whole debate is a joke. What we have is far from perfect. Still, it is the best the world has ever known. We could make vast improvements with a relatively small changes, but politics make those changes difficult, and are unlikely to occur soon. Therefore I beg the sane politicians..please.. first do no harm. Defeat this idiocy.

Take Two Aspirin And Call Me When Your Cancer is Stage 4

2009-07-28T11:33:00.000-07:00

Ann is reviled by the left as well as some moderate types whose entire exposure to her is out of context quotes. In Washington the most dangerous (and hateful) thing one can do is tell the truth. This is a typical column of hers; truthful, clear, succinct, and funny. I tried to make many of the same points, but she does it so so much better.

Take Two Aspirin And Call Me When Your Cancer is Stage 4
by Ann Coulter
07/22/2009

All the problems with the American health care system come from government intervention, so naturally the Democrats' idea for fixing it is more government intervention. This is like trying to sober up by having another drink.

The reason seeing a doctor is already more like going to the DMV, and less like going to the Apple "Genius Bar," is that the government decided health care was too important to be left to the free market. Yes -- the same free market that has produced such a cornucopia of inexpensive goods and services that, today, even poor people have cell phones and flat-screen TVs.

As a result, it's easier to get your computer fixed than your health. Thanks, government!

We already have near-universal health coverage in the form of Medicare, Medicaid, veterans' hospitals, emergency rooms and tax-deductible employer-provided health care -- all government creations.

So now, everyone expects doctors to be free. People who pay $200 for a haircut are indignant if it costs more than a $20 co-pay to see a doctor.

The government also "helped" us by mandating that insurance companies cover all sorts of medical services, both ordinary -- which you ought to pay for yourself -- and exotic, such as shrinks, in vitro fertilization and child-development assessments -- which no normal person would voluntarily pay to insure against.This would be like requiring all car insurance to cover the cost of gasoline, oil and tire changes -- as well as professional car detailing, iPod docks, and leather seats and those neon chaser lights I have all along the underbody of my chopped, lowrider '57 Chevy.

But politicians are more interested in pleasing lobbyists for acupuncturists, midwives and marriage counselors than they are in pleasing recent college graduates who only want to insure against the possibility that they'll be hit by a truck. So politicians at both the state and federal level keep passing boatloads of insurance mandates requiring that all insurance plans cover a raft of non-emergency conditions that are expensive to treat -- but whose practitioners have high-priced lobbyists.

As a result, a young, healthy person has a choice of buying artificially expensive health insurance that, by law, covers a smorgasbord of medical services of no interest to him ... or going uninsured. People who aren't planning on giving birth to a slew of children with restless leg syndrome in the near future forgo insurance -- and then politicians tell us we have a national emergency because some people don't have health insurance.

The whole idea of insurance is to insure against catastrophes: You buy insurance in case your house burns down -- not so you can force other people in your plan to pay for your maid. You buy car insurance in case you're in a major accident, not so everyone in the plan shares the cost of gas.

Just as people use vastly different amounts of gasoline, they also use vastly different amounts of medical care -- especially when an appointment with a highly trained physician costs less than a manicure.

Insurance plans that force everyone in the plan to pay for everyone else's Viagra and anti-anxiety pills are already completely unfair to people who rarely go to the doctor. It's like being forced to share gas bills with a long-haul trucker or a restaurant bill with Michael Moore. On the other hand, it's a great deal for any lonely hypochondriacs in the plan.

Now the Democrats want to force us all into one gigantic national health insurance plan that will cover every real and mythical ailment that has a powerful lobby. But if you have a rare medical condition without a lobbying arm, you'll be out of luck.

Even two decades after the collapse of liberals' beloved Soviet Union, they can't grasp that it's easier and cheaper to obtain any service provided by capitalism than any service provided under socialism.

You don't have to conjure up fantastic visions of how health care would be delivered in this country if we bought it ourselves. Just go to a grocery store or get a manicure. Or think back to when you bought your last muffler, personal trainer, computer and every other product and service available in inexpensive abundance in this capitalist paradise.

Third-party payer schemes are always a disaster -- less service for twice the price! If you want good service at a good price, be sure to be the one holding the credit card. Under "universal health care," no one but government bureaucrats will be allowed to hold the credit card.

Isn't food important? Why not "universal food coverage"? If politicians and employers had guaranteed us "free" food 50 years ago, today Democrats would be wailing about the "food crisis" in America, and you'd be on the phone with your food care provider arguing about whether or not a Reuben sandwich with fries was covered under your plan.

Instead of making health care more like the DMV, how about we make it more like grocery stores? Give the poor and tough cases health stamps and let the rest of us buy health care -- and health insurance -- on the free market.

Russia Policy....Dershowitz and Obama

2009-07-15T07:28:00.000-07:00

Obama was off to Russia last week, and once again proved the new American foreign policy supports you only if you are some form of totalitarian government. There is little difference between our Russian policy and our Iranian policy, just as there are policy similarities between Honduras and Israel. The Obama State Department supports the anti democratic governments of Russia and Iran and opposes the democratic ones of Israel and Honduras. The new United States policy now at least tacitly comes down on the side of tyranny and terrorism.

Putin is successfully developing a dictatorship with a similar strategy as Chavez. By twisting the constitution he replaced himself with a surrogate, became the prime minister, and will likely retake the presidency in the next election. Instead of siding with the voices of freedom echoing from within and without Russia, Obama chose to sit through a 50 minute lesson by Putin on Russian history and then lauded him as a great leader (much the same as he sat through the communist President of Nicaragua Daniel Ortega's diatribe a couple of months ago at an OAS meeting). Later Obama reinvented the Soviet Union and United States cold war history when speaking to some Russian school children. Somehow he asserted that these two great powers were acting with the same degree of moral justification, and that they jointly saw the dangers of and need to end the cold war. The reality is the Soviet Union had aggressively pursued their vision of world dominance (unlike the United States), and we won the war through our unmatched military build up (even though their predatory behavior has reemerged.)

Obama has this habit of elevating totalitarian states. He did it when drawing a moral equivalence between the Israelis and the Palestinians, between the CIA's help installing the Shah in Iran in the 1950s and the Mullahs today, and he has stated that criminals like Zaleya from Honduras is the legitimate president and owns the moral high ground.

Bush's famous look into Putin's eyes and his read on the character of the man was a terrible mistake. Obama has the read right on Putin. The frightening thing is that Putin and his shredding of whatever democratic reforms Russia has achieved are all OK with him.

Meanwhile... in the Wall Street Journal Alan Dershowitz defended his support for Obama and made excuses for Obama's anti Israel policy. Dershowitz is a Harvard law professor who several years ago gained national attention by successfully appealing the conviction of Claus von Bulow, who had been convicted of murdering his society wife. With this Dershowitz promoted the idea of his own brilliance (a repeating theme), and began to get a stream of high profile cases. Unfortunately for his clients, his only success was von Bulow, and that was because the man almost certainly had been framed. At least the maid and others admitted lying in the first trial, and without their testimony he never would have been convicted. Those who subscribed to and became victims of the Dershowitz myth included Leona Helmsley who went to jail, Mike Tyson who went to jail, Lee Beloff (Phila. City Council member convicted of extortion) who went to jail, and many more.

Jonathan Tobin writes for Commentary Magazine and in one article contested much of Dershowitz's WSJ defense. Although Tobin was correct, I sent him a letter expressing a more simplistic view. It is below.

Your response to Dershowitz dignifies his bogus arguments. Anyone who has watched the left's attitude towards Israel knows that it has always been anti Semitic and anti Israel in much the same was it has always been anti American. To advocate for Obama and argue that he would be anything but anti Israel is suggestive of that now famous "willing suspension of disbelief." Extremists like Wright, Ayers and Alinsky were not accidents, but formative. I realize Dershowitz's expertise is in self promotion, but even he can not be so blind as to believe what he said while selling Obama to American Jews. No, during the campaign he lied so as to shine a spotlight on himself, and now he has crafted idiotic arguments in order to keep it there. The answer is simple. The left always has been and always will be an enemy of Israel, and therefore anyone promoting the left is equally an enemy, including Alan Dershowitz.

A Preview to Freedom Lost

2009-07-01T03:19:00.000-07:00

Last week I blogged that "This radical left crowd has a history of anti semitism, anti Israel, anti United States, and they support every totalitarian regime that lines up against us."
Well, here they go again. After Hillary agreed with the Chinese that human rights aren't that important after all, Obama told Israel that the US will side with anyone but Israel. Obama also told Iranian demonstrators pleading for freedom and democracy that they that must fend for themselves. Now the administration has decided that democracy and the rule of law should be ignored in Honduras. Instead, we should back a failed attempt by the extreme leftist, anti American, communist President to trash their democracy rather than abide by Honduran constitutional dictates.

For those of you who haven't heard, President Zelaya of Honduras was term limited out, so he elected to have a "constitutional convention" to change things. His problem was that the constitution says that only congress can call for such a convention, and the congress refused to do so. However, being a true blue lefty, he ignored the law and continued the process. When the Supreme Court said he had no legal authority and must stop, he ordered his top general to ignore them and proceed ahead. The general refused and was fired (the court ordered he be rehired.) The President's own appointed Attorney General opposed him, as did his entire cabinet (the defense secretary resigned.) When Zelaya continued to ignore all of the legally arrived at court orders, the Supreme Court directed that he be arrested. He was, but a deal was struck where he would leave the country and avoid prosecution. There are provisions in the Honduran constitution for Presidential appointments and elections due to such events as these, and they were followed to the letter.

To Obama and his minions, to the New York Times and other left leaning organs, this constituted a coup d'état, defined as a sudden appropriation of leadership or power; a takeover. But it was not at all a takeover, and such propaganda distorts the legitimate democratic action taken. It falsely portrays it as anti democratic, justifying Obama's position supporting Zelaya. Instead of applauding the country's enforcement of rule of law and its preservation of democratic and capitalist institutions, the administration is siding with totalitarianism and the attempted destruction of those same institutions.

The other cast of characters supporting Zelaya are 'President for life" Hugo Chavez (who successfully did in Venezuela what Zelaya failed to do in Honduras), those lovable Castro brothers, the toast of New York journalists (notable for their having successfully kept 30 million people in an island prison for over 40 years), and every other communist, totalitarian government in South America. The United Nations weighed in condemning Honduras. That is the same UN that issued 70 percent of its resolutions condemning a member state against Israel, the only democracy in the middle east (save Iraq). That is the same UN that populates its so called Human Rights Commission with the most repressive states in the world, ones in the middle east where women hardly have higher legal standing than camels.

Do not be misled: Bad company corrupts good character (1 Corinthians 15:33). We really are known by the company we keep. The United States is now traveling with Communist China, the Mullahs in Iran, Hugo Chavez and the Castro brothers, and we talk about deferring sovereign decisions to a totally corrupt United Nations. Are you surprised? That is not a whole lot different than Obama's friendship with Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers and Sol Alinsky, all three of whom would strongly approve of our new foreign friends.

A government that refuses to support freedom and democracy abroad will certainly have no qualms about taking it away at home. Obama won't do it in the same way Chavez did or Zelaya tried, but rather through a takeover of industry and health care, new taxes, endless regulations passed in the name of saving the environment, enlarging the bureaucracy and financial support for criminal organizations like ACORN. If even a fraction of the administration proposals become law, our great country will transform into something Orwellian. Those of you who are not frightened, must be blind.

Obama's Foreign Policy Disaster

2009-06-20T10:01:00.000-07:00

All the departments of government (State, Commerce, Defense etc.) review major Presidential speeches beforehand and make comments. When Ronald Reagan prepared to call the Soviet Union the "Evil Empire," every single department objected and said he must delete it. He overruled them and delivered a historic speech which helped win the cold war. Every media outlet, every pundit and most government officials were apoplectic. The nuclear clock was moved forward (indicating a greater chance of nuclear war), relations would never be the same they cried, it was an unprecedented provocation etc. In the real world however, the Soviets had to defend themselves, and since they really were an evil empire, they failed miserably. This hastened the fall of the Berlin Wall, and as is always the case when freedom triumphs, the world moved closer to peace and stability.

If the United States stands for anything, it stands for human rights and freedom. These values have guided us and served us throughout history. Because of this the most talented, brightest people in the world have always wanted to come here. We are a shining city on the hill. Yes, there has been bitterness and anger directed towards us. But with the exception of the Arab countries, the anger primarily comes from the intellectual elite and governments. Even the intellectual elite here at home, huge beneficiaries of the country's goodness, are as hateful towards us as their counterparts in Europe. Still, only a portion of the citizenry in most of the world have been convinced that we are the evil Satan. A large number admire and respect us. Iran is a perfect example. With all the hateful rhetoric coming from their leadership, the population overwhelmingly supports us and our ideals. Why then has President Obama completely abandoned them?

First he gave his speech in Egypt where he made absurd claims about the state of relations between the US and Islam, followed by his deafening silence on the issue of terrorism. His failure to visit Israel sent out a clear message that the new US policy has shifted towards the anti-semitic European position, drawing a moral equivalence between the Israelis and the terrorists. This has been the radical lefts position for years. Our State Department has always lent a sympathetic ear to this crowd, but whereas former Presidents overruled State and maintained a pro Israeli, pro democracy, pro freedom, pro human rights, anti terrorism policy, this President has not just adopted State's position, he has become more extreme.

Not only does Israel hold the moral high ground in their dispute, but their existence is a vital part of our defense, particularly in the war on terror. In the middle east Israeli intelligence is far superior to ours, and they share it with us. Their military would take the first hit if war broke out in the region, allowing our interests to be protected quickly and without the entire military burden falling on us. They are a strong reliable American outpost. So whether we choose to be idealists, or practice realpolitik, Israel is our natural ally.

Obama's response to the Iranian election is frightening. Once again he voted present. He tip toed around condemning the regime or saying that the election was stolen, in stark contrast to most every western nation that clearly went on the record condemning the regime. His apologists argue that he is preserving a semblance of normalcy with the Iranian government. So let's see. After throwing Israel under the bus he throws the Iranian demonstrators (the group that support the United States) under the same bus, and hopes that the Supreme Council (Iran's ruling body which really does believe we are the Great Satan) decides to modify its attitude and moderate its behavior. It is a fantasy to believe they will change their attitude towards us, whom they believe are inherently evil. Of course in spite of the President's gestures, The Supreme Council spewed as much vitriol towards us as they could muster, laying waste to the apologists theory.

What Obama is doing here is possibly the worst foreign policy decision in decades. He is squandering a rare opportunity to take a giant step towards peace and security. The situation in Iran gets more volatile daily. The opposition leader and election winner, Mir Hossein Mousavi, has said he will accept martyrdom. He is all in, and hopefully the demonstrators will soon be. Imagine what would happen if the regime topples. The world would become a far safer place. Iran's funding of terrorism, from Hezbollah to Hamas would decline and possibly stop. Their commitment to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, which is the single most likely spark for a nuclear war and even a world war, would be defused. Obama's middle of the road comments comes down in a de facto way on the side of the government. He is backing the wrong horse. God help us get past whatever is causing this insanity.

I will not speculate on why Obama is doing this, but I will say that radicals like Bill Ayres, Jeremiah Wright, Sol Alinsky and all his other extreme leftist mentors were not incidental acquaintances as his supporters would like you to believe, but rather formative in and consistent with his ideas. This radical left crowd has a history of anti semitism, anti Israel, anti United States, and they support every totalitarian regime that lines up against us. Does this help bring the new US foreign policy into focus? And we knew all of this before the election. We have become the frog in the children's fable. When the snake turns to eat him, he says, "You knew I was a snake when you got onto my back."

A New Disaster- "Fixing" Health Care

2009-06-14T08:32:00.000-07:00

It is amazing. The administration piles lie on top of lie when trying to sell single payer health care and no one challenges them. Where are our spokesmen?

The government says it is not single payer. They say you will not have to give up your insurance if you are happy with it. Yet, Obama and most of the advocates are on the record saying a plan like this is the first step in creating a single payer system. You will not keep your insurance because your insurer will be bankrupt. The government insurance "option," which the advocates argue will "create competition," will undoubtedly put the 1,300 health insurance companies out of business. With that many companies already competing, we don't need the government.

The left says skyrocketing costs make this necessary. Unlike electricity where the product we get is the same every year, the health care product we get each year is different and better than the year before. Another reason for increasing costs is government involvement through Medicare and Medicaid. Included in your health care bill is a non itemized cost of about 20 percent which you pay to make up for the shortage in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements to doctors and hospitals. These programs pay about 80 percent of what it costs the provider to deliver the services. You are picking up the other 20 percent in your insurance premium. If the "government insurance option" passes, they will shift more and more costs onto the private insurers until the necessary premium increases make them noncompetitive. Their business would be forced (as they are to a lesser degree now) to pay for their "competition's" expenses (the government's), and they will go out of business. The government is the problem, not the solution.

These socialists also say this whole thing is necessary because of the "large" population of uninsured. I have unmasked this fiction in other blogs. The most commonly used number of uninsured is 46 million. 10 million are illegal aliens, and I for one would rather not insure them so as to weaken the magnet drawing them here illegally. 10 million uninsured earn over $75,000 per year. They can afford it but choose not to buy it. Another 10 million already qualify for government provided health care but are too dysfunctional to simply sign up for it. A more realistic number is 16 million.

Recently the Congressional Budget Office put a cost on Obama's proposal of 1.6 trillion dollars over 10 years. They said the proposal would cover 39 million uninsured, but that it would create 23 million new uninsured. This is idiocy on steroids. Divide 16,000,000 net newly insured people into 1.6 trillion dollars. That works out to a smooth 1 million dollars per person over 10 years, or 100,000 dollars per year.

Another reason for cost increases is the Democrats/ socialists support of trial lawyers. The left is now claiming (they are probably correct) that one third of all medical tests and studies conducted are unnecessary. Of course this is almost entirely because trial lawyers have parasitically attacked the doctors and hospitals. Consequently they take many tests they know are unnecessary simply to inoculate themselves against lawsuits. But the Dems point to the waste without noting this reason, and falsely claim that bureaucratic inefficiency is the reason. Their next phony claim is that they can eliminate it. It can be eliminated, but they never will. This unholy Troika of Democrats, the press which is perfectly happy to support their lies, and those stalwarts of American values, the trial lawyers, who are savaging the hospitals and doctors without regard to anything but the money, will continue to lie and dissemble in support of one another's criminal malfeasance.

Chris "friend of Angelo" Dodd was on Fox and regurgitated these lies, but he took it a step farther and said we could save 30 percent of health care costs by correcting the waste in testing. Tests and studies are only a small percentage of overall costs. If the Dems really did eliminate all the waste (nonsense), it wouldn't save nearly a third of total costs. My guess is it would be closer to 1 or 2 percent.

If a fair evaluation of any government run system were done this proposal would be a non starter. Health care rationing is a part of every current government system. Don't get cancer in Canada, because none of the costly newly developed drugs are available (resulting in a significantly shorter life expectancy). And don't get old with kidney problems or cataracts or a lot of other things in Great Britain. You will be refused many services, including life saving dialysis (over a certain age), second cataract procedure (considered elective surgery), and a much more. It takes about 4 months to get a birth control pill prescription in Canada. And don't get sick in Canada in December. The provinces always run out of money by the end of the year, so not surprisingly that is when the doctors choose to vacation. If you need an MRI or a CT scan in the US you can usually get one within 24 hours and with a choice of facilities. In Canada the same thing is usually 3 months or more. The US has 10 times as much major medical equipment per capita as Canada and I'm sure every other government run program. The halls of British hospitals are filthy and smell like urine. Americans would never tolerate the unsanitary conditions, the waits, or the rationing. I could go on, but this idea is so idiotic it dwarfs the imagination it is even being considered.

Think of this. What does the government do better than the private sector? Is the post office more efficient than UPS or Federal Express? The distribution of welfare money costs 3 dollars for every one dollar that gets to a recipient. Is there any private company that could exist with that kind of overhead? Throughout history everything every government in the world has done has cost vastly more than a similar job in the private sector. If this gets passed, health care will suffer the same fate. It will just be more painful.

Don't let the liberals point to the boils and warts in the system and then claim they can do better. Certainly our system can be improved, but it is still by far the best system in the world. If we want to improve it we might start by having the government pay its fair share. We might get rid of the trial lawyers and replace them with a workman's comp like system. And we might stop states from mandating services which prevent the marketplace from designing policies that best serve the customer at the lowest price.

The History of Israel

2009-06-05T08:53:00.000-07:00

I often speak with people who express their disappointment with the conservatives and United States foreign policy support for Israel. The objection generally seems to be their belief that the creation of the state of Israel was in itself an immoral act, subsequently compounded by Israel's immoral treatment of the Palestinians.

Having had this discussion many times, I think I know the problem. Most of these people have virtually no idea what the history of the region is. I would suggest that most Palestinian supporters are ignorant of what led up to the present dilemma, and what really is going on now. There is no fair minded person who could possibly condemn Israel, much less draw a moral equivalency between the parties (as most leftists do), if he knew the history of the region and the reality of the current events. Unfortunately most of what anyone hears is what the liberal press elects to convey, which is generally radical left propaganda.

The commonly held belief by these anti Israel Americans is that The United Nations created the State of Israel in what was there to fore Palestinian territory. The fictional narrative is that with the creation of Israel the Jews threw the Arabs off the land, forcing the them into camps outside of its borders. Many even believe that the "occupied territories" came into being because of Israel's aggression. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Here is the Cliff Notes version of the history. The Zionist movement began in the early 20th century with Jews from all over the world immigrating to what is now Israel. It was then part of the Ottoman Empire, but with Turkey's defeat in WWI, the Allied Powers forced Turkey to relinquish the territory, giving Great Britain the job of protectorate.

Partly due to the horror of the Holocaust, and partly due to the fact Jews had been settling in the region for decades, the United Nations created the state of Israel. The UN mandate was for two states. It was envisioned that the Palestinian state would be created when the proper political structure was in place. To this day that has not happened.

The Palestinians were basically nomadic, although many had settled throughout the area, and most had lived in the region for centuries (Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and the Ottoman Empire, or what is now the Palestinian territories). At one point King Hussein threw them out of Jordan (then Transjordan) because they were a destabilizing force on his monarchy. They emigrated to Lebanon, the Paris of the middle east, and effectively destroyed the state politically and its culture. But the important point is that they never had any claim to the territory other than that granted to them by the UN, exactly the same claim Israel has.

The UN created the country of Israel, it did not give them territory that was owned by Palestinians. Public lands were transferred to the new state, but private property remained private. Much of the land comprising Israel was already owned by the Jews, having been purchased from Turks and Arabs alike before and after statehood. There is property that belonged to Arabs who stayed in Israel after independence, and they either own it today or voluntarily sold it. Currently almost 20 percent of Israeli citizens are Arabs.

With independence coming, the surrounding Arab states told the Arabs living in the proposed state of Israel that that after independence they would drive the Jews into the sea. They advised the Arabs living there to leave, saying their property (if they owned any) would be restored after the upcoming victory. When independence was declared in 1948, the Iraqis, Saudis, Jordanians, Syrians, Egyptians, Lebanese, and some troops from Sudan attacked the newborn state. They were defeated. Bloodied but unbowed the defeated states promised to return, and urged those Arabs that had left to not return until after the Jews had been removed. Refugee camps were established along the border, and have remained there ever since.

There is a legal concept subscribed to by most societies called constructive abandonment. If a property owner abandons his property, after a period of years he loses all rights and title to that property. This is what happened to the land that belonged to those Arabs who left and never returned.

Many Arabs argue that they have a claim to some of the public lands because they owned it and lived there prior to independence. The history of the region contradicts this. In 1858, 90 years before the creation of Israel, the Turks ordered the Arabs living in these areas to register their land, or lose any claim of ownership. Little if any ever got registered, even though the Turks tried many more times before losing it themselves in WWI. The Arabs now claim it was not registered because the Turks would have taxed them, or drafted them into the army if they complied. That may or may not be true, but it is a weak claim at best, and even if has some basis, the Turks were the offending party, not the Israelis.

The other claim is that the Israelis arbitrarily took towns and land they falsely deemed to be necessary for the state's defense. Certainly defense is a reasonable government action and a proper use of eminent domain. I don't know what really happened, but if land was taken under a false pretext, or not fully paid for, there are many venues for redress (unlike any Arab country).

Claims of current Israeli improprieties are as bogus as the historical claims. Israel is far from perfect, and many tragic decisions have been made, but to suggest that they remotely approach the cruelty and indifference their neighbors show to them is delusional. I will deal with this in a future blog.

2009-05-29T13:31:00.000-07:00

This is one of the best articles about "climate change" I have read in a long time. I will read the book, but the article is very impressive itself. Please read it all. It gets better and better. Also, anyone interested in this can look at "The Great Global Warming Swindle" at video.google.com/videoplay?docid=288952680655100870
and see what was being said by very credible people a couple of years ago. The evidence contradicting this myth of global warming is far greater today. Yet Obama proposes a cap and trade tax that it is estimated will cost every American over $1,300..and I fear this is a low estimate..

I have taken a wonderfully phrased last paragraph and put it before the article to whet your appetite.

Green politics have taken the place of failed socialism and Western Christianity and impose fear, guilt, penance and indulgences on to a society with little scientific literacy. We are now reaping the rewards of politicising science and dumbing down the education system. If book sales, public meetings, book launches, email and phone messages are any indication, there is a large body of disenfranchised folk out there who feel helpless. I have shown that the emperor has no clothes. This is why the attacks are so vitriolic.

Ian Plimer May 29, 2009
Article from: The Australian
IT is well known that many university staff list to port and try to engineer a brave new world. The cash cow climate institutes now seem to be drowning in their own self-importance.
In a wonderful gesture of public spiritedness, seven academics who include three lead authors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and a former director of the World Climate Research Program wrote to Australian power generating companies on April 29 instructing them to cease and desist creating electricity from coal.
In their final paragraph, they state with breathtaking arrogance: "The unfortunate reality is that genuine action on climate change will require the existing coal-fired power stations to cease operating in the near future.
"We feel it is vital that you understand this and we are happy to work with you and with governments to begin planning for this transition immediately.
"The warming of the atmosphere, driven by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases, is already causing unacceptable damage and suffering around the world."
No evidence is provided for this statement and no signatory to this letter has published anything to support this claim.
These university staff are unctuously understanding about the plight of those who face employment extinction in the smokestack towns of Australia.
They write: "We understand that this will require significant social and economic transition that will need to be managed carefully to care for coal sector workers and coal-dependent communities.". This love for fellow workers brings tears to the eyes.
The electricity generating companies should reply by cutting off the power to academics' homes and host institutions, forcing our ideologues to lead by example.
Some 80 per cent of Australia's electricity derives from coal, large volumes of cheap electricity underpin employment and our self-appointed concerned citizens offer no suggestion for alternative unsubsidised base-load power sources to employ Australians.
The Emissions Trading Scheme legislation poises Australia to make the biggest economic decision in its history, yet there has been no scientific due diligence.
There has never been a climate change debate in Australia. Only dogma. To demonise element number six in the periodic table is amusing. Why not promethium? Carbon dioxide is an odourless, colourless, harmless natural gas. It is plant food. Without carbon, there would be no life on Earth.
The original source of atmospheric CO2 is volcanoes. The Earth's early atmosphere had a thousand times the CO2 of today's atmosphere. This CO2 was recycled through rocks, life and the oceans.
Through time, this CO2 has been sequestered into plants, coal, petroleum, minerals and carbonate rocks, resulting in a decrease in atmosphericCO2.
The atmosphere now contains 800billion tonnes of carbon as CO2. Soils and plants contain 2000 billion tonnes, oceans 39,000 billion tonnes and limestone 65,000,000 billion tonnes. The atmosphere contains only 0.001 per cent of the total carbon in the top few kilometres of the Earth.
Deeper in Earth, there are huge volumes of CO2 yet to be leaked into the atmosphere. So depleted is the atmosphere in CO2, that horticulturalists pump warm CO2 into glasshouses to accelerate plant growth.
The first 50 parts per million of CO2 operates as a powerful greenhouse gas. After that, CO2 has done its job, which is why there has been no runaway greenhouse in the past when CO2 was far higher.
During previous times of high CO2, there were climate cycles driven by galactic forces, the sun, Earth's orbit, tides and random events such as volcanoes. These forces still operate. Why should such forces disappear just because we humans live on Earth?
The fundamental questions remain unanswered. A change of 1 per cent in cloudiness can account for all changes measured during the past 150 years, yet cloud measurements are highly inaccurate. Why is the role of clouds ignored? Why is the main greenhouse gas (water vapour) ignored? The limitation of temperature in hot climates is evaporation yet this ignored in catastrophist models.
Why are balloon and satellite measurements showing cooling ignored yet unreliable thermometer measurements used? Is the increase in atmospheric CO2 really due to human activities?
Ice cores show CO2 increases some 800 years after temperature increase so why can't an increase in CO2 today be due to the medieval warming (900-1300)?
If increased concentrations of CO2 increase temperature, why have there been coolings during the past 150 years?
Some 85 per cent of volcanoes are unseen and unmeasured yet these heat the oceans and add monstrous amounts of CO2 to the oceans. Why have these been ignored? Why have there been five significant ice ages when CO2 was higher than now? Why were warmings in Minoan, Roman and medieval times natural, yet a smaller warming at the end of the 20th century was due to human activities? If climate changed at the end of the Little Ice Age (c.1850), is it unusual for warming to follow?
Computer models using the past 150 years of measurements have been used to predict climate for the next few centuries. Why have these models not been run backwards to validate known climate changes?
I would bet the farm that by running these models backwards, El Nino events and volcanoes such as Krakatoa (1883, 535), Rabaul (536) and Tambora (1815) could not be validated.
In my book, I correctly predicted the response. The science would not be discussed, there would be academic nit-picking and there would be vitriolic ad hominem attacks by pompous academics out of contact with the community.
Comments by critics suggest that few have actually read the book and every time there was a savage public personal attack, book sales rose. A political blog site could not believe that such a book was selling so well and suggested that my publisher, Connor Court, was a front for the mining or pastoral industry.
This book has struck a nerve. Although accidentally timely, there are a large number of punters who object to being treated dismissively as stupid, who do not like being told what to think, who value independence, who resile from personal attacks and have life experiences very different from the urban environmental atheists attempting to impose a new fundamentalist religion.
Green politics have taken the place of failed socialism and Western Christianity and impose fear, guilt, penance and indulgences on to a society with little scientific literacy. We are now reaping the rewards of politicising science and dumbing down the education system. If book sales, public meetings, book launches, email and phone messages are any indication, there is a large body of disenfranchised folk out there who feel helpless. I have shown that the emperor has no clothes. This is why the attacks are so vitriolic.
Ian Plimer is emeritus professor of earth sciences at the University of Melbourne. His book Heaven and Earth is published by Connor Court.

The Myth of the Multiplier Effect

2009-05-22T03:45:00.000-07:00

Our busy lives prohibit us from thinking about much less understand various claims and proclamations about a variety of things. Consquently, if something is repeated enough we often mindlessly buy into it, even though we don't really understand. The so called "multiplier effect" is an idea that has gained currency in just this way. It is a myth. It is part of a discredited economic theory (Keynesian economics), but unlike the general theory that does get some things right now and then, this has the distinction of having no merit at all.

The economist John Manyard Keynes idea is that during a recession, heightened government spending will put more money in consumers hands (through public works, cash distributions etc.) and will stimulate the economy faster and greater than if left to its own devices. He said that if money were spent to move dirt from one hole to another, it would help activate the economy. Each dollar spent will result in a series of purchases as it passes through various hands, creating several additional dollars in economic activity. He named this the "multiplier effect." The conclusion is that the downstream effect of government spending is more jobs and more wealth. It is of course sheer and utter nonsense.

Think about where the government got the money to begin with. It either taxed someone or borrowed it. If something like the multiplier effect were real, would it not follow that taking this money out of the economy would reduce economic activity? The dollar coming from the private sector which was used in stimulating the economy didn't get spent by the private sector, and so that multiplier effect was lost. Does this effect exist only in government but not in the private sector? I won't even argue here that the greater efficiency found in the private sector's deployment of capital would suggest that if this effect could be quantified, it would be greater when executed in the private sector than by politicians. Let's just call it a draw, and with a draw the theory fails.

If the government could create a lasting increase in economic activity by taxing, borrowing and spending, we could just tax and spend our way to prosperity- a sort of never ending Ponzi scheme. Winston Churchill said that a country that tries to tax it's way to prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to pull himself off the ground by the handles.

The reason this idea gets promoted along with Keynesian economic theory is that it serves as cover for politicians to spend money. Democrats have lavished vast amounts of money on their constituents in the recent stimulus bill, all in the name of enriching you and me. I don't think so.

2009-05-19T09:00:00.000-07:00

This is a blog I was sent that I think hits the mark exquisitely..

‘Diversity Through Homogenization’ and the Cowardice of the Elite Hot Air ^ May 18, 2009 The Other McCain
Posted on Monday, May 18, 2009 6:36:20 PM by Delacon
At Right of Course (FMJRA Site O’ Th’ Day at The Other McCain), Chance makes an important observation about Obama at Notre Dame:
The other problem with this whole ‘open discussion’ argument is the very people making it. These are the same people who see no problem at all with the near monopoly the left holds on the public and secondary education system. There is no open discussion on evolution or global warming, it is taught as absolute fact. I took several Sociology courses at two separate state universities (my college career was long and meandering). There were no opposing arguments offered regarding Karl Marx. I didn’t even hear about Friedrich Hayek (The Road to Serfdom) until after college. These are the same people who invite a man like Mahmoud Ahmadenijad to speak but protest Ann Coulter. These are the same people who attack Carrie Prejean for being against same sex marriage but for breast implants. Open discussion my ass.
Read the whole thing. Way back when, a friend of mine coined the term “diversity through homogenization” to describe the Left’s philosophy of multiculturalism. Rather than democratic pluralism — where different ideas and different people voluntarily cooperate through free institutions — the progressive fanatic insists that all institutions must be equally diverse.
The problem, of course, is that this approach destroys genuine diversity at its very source. The Boy Scouts must be forced to accept gay scoutmasters, Georgia Tech must pander to the Muslim Students Association, Larry Summers cannot be allowed to question feminist dogma at Harvard, and a Catholic university must have “open discussion” on abortion.
Such mindless multiculturalism advances like a conquering army because anyone who questions it is automatically accused of mala fides (bad faith). This is the psychological terror that Perez Hilton sought to wield against Carrie Prejean or Steve Benen wishes to wield against Rush Limbaugh. And it succeeds because most people are either too mentally lazy to analyze the bogus argument or too cowardly to speak the truth:
Mental laziness — Most people are smart enough to get the visceral sense that there is something fundamentally wrong and dishonest about progressive dogma. But the Ordinary American has a real life to deal with and isn’t accustomed to deconstructing abstract concepts like “homophobia” and “social justice.” And it is easier for intellectuals (“second-hand dealers in ideas,” as Hayek called them) to speak in widely-accepted categorical generalities than to examine the truth-claims hidden within those generalities. Without intellectual leadership, the opposition to fanatical multiculturalism suffers from a lack of prestige. When all the admirably articulate people haphazardly sling around terms like “income disparity” as if they were describing a manifest threat to civil society, why should Joe the Plumber question these categories?
Moral cowardice — The experience of Larry Summers at Harvard is the quintessential example of how the Left wins through intimidation. Summers was a liberal in good standing when he made the mistake of mildly questioning feminist dogma. Feminists believe with religious fervor that “underrepresentation” of women in any field can only be the product of sexist discrimination. This is merely the gynocentric variation of the basic argument of the Left that inequality always equals injustice, a transparent myth of the sort that inspired George Orwell to remark, “One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.” Summers’ error was to challenge dogma half-heartedly, then to cower defensively when the fanatics howled in rage, rather than speaking with the bold determination of a man convinced of truth. Final score: Feminists 1, Summers 0.
Elitists like Summers are naturally cowards because they are motivated by personal ambition and a desire for prestige. This is why you’re never going to get heroic truth from the likes of David Brooks:
In your meteoric ascent through the ranks of the punditocracy, be sure to choose as your friends only those who are important enough to be helpful in your career. Take care never to stake yourself too clearly to any policy position that might be unfashionable with the producers of “Nightline,” and avoid directly denouncing any Democrat named Kennedy.This way, no matter which party is in power, you’ll never be out of work and you’ll always be invited to the White House Correspondents Dinner because, after all, you’re so gosh-darn influential. In short, you will be one of The Republicans Who Really Matter.
What the influential elite count on is that none of their members will ever break ranks and call them out as the dishonest cowards they really are. They further assume that no Ordinary American is smart enough to analyze the elite’s output and expose the fraudulence of their “smelly little orthodoxies” (Orwell again).
These assumptions were safe, so long as (a) the only people dealing in second-hand ideas were those who shared the elite’s obsession with prestige; and (b) the elite exercised exclusive control over the means of intellectual production. But then the Fairness Doctrine was repealed, Al Gore invented the Internet, and there gradually emerged an Army of Davids — a hitherto unimagined mass of intelligent people who had “no skin in the game” of elitist ambitions and thus spoke truth fearlessly. Really, why should Matt Drudge, Rush Limbaugh, or Michelle Malkin care what the editors of the New York Times think of them?
“Truth is great and will prevail if left to herself. She is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless, by human interposition, disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.”– Thomas Jefferson
Well, there I go again, quoting another right-wing extremist. The editors of Newsweek would never hire somebody who does something like that, so I guess I’m never going to be one of The Republicans Who Really Matter. Diversity through homogenization can never succeed, so long as Ordinary Americans do not discard the weapons of “free argument and debate” by succumbing to the cowardice of elite ambition.
Honest people love truth like they love liberty. Better to freeze in the snow of Valley Forge than to be a lickspittle fawning at the feet of tyrants. Better to die for the truth than live for a lie.
“You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin — just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard ’round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn’t die in vain.”– Ronald Reagan, Oct. 27, 1964
Men with less hope of success have stood courageously in defiance of more powerful foes than we face today. One might hope that more Americans, desiring heroic reknown, would emulate the patriots at Concord Bridge.
Why, then, has ambition become the enemy of courage? Of the great many wise things Ronald Reagan said, he seldom spoke truer words than when he said, “You can accomplish much if you don’t care who gets the credit.”
It is the selfish craving for credit, the second-rater’s lust for awards and honors and praise, that characterizes the cowardice of the elite. David Brooks couldn’t stand to be left out of the Atlantic Monthly’s weekly salmon-and-risotto affairs, because these are the rewards of elite membership, the validation of his prestige.
Such is the nature of this elite that only cowards ever apply for membership. No one expects honesty from the New York Times, because no honest man (or woman) would seek employment there. Yet this craven, selfish, dishonest path of ambition beckons the “best and brightest,” who desire the elite’s admiration so much that they learn to prefer smooth lies to rude truth.
So it is that Notre Dame embraces the lie of “open discussion” — as if the Culture of Death actually believes in “open discussion” — giving Obama a prestigious forum to proclaim the lie of “common ground,” and anyone who dares to disagree will be denounced and ridiculed by the elite.
Question the authority of liberalism, and you will be adjudged guilty of “intolerance,” “divisiveness,” “incivility” and whatever other accusation of mala fides the elite finds convenient to hurl at you. And you will forever be excluded from the ranks of The Republicans Who Really Matter.
(Cross-posted at The Other McCain.)

Fiddling While Rome Burns

2009-05-05T08:14:00.000-07:00

How long will we sit by while literally millions of children's education is trashed in the wake of the teachers unions, where if they are taught at all, it's politically correct garbage, a fantasy of some radical liberal having nothing to do with the real world, leaving those children with third world education levels, and preparing them for nothing productive?

How long will we sit by while our State Department engages in imaginary fixes for the threats that face us and our allies? While Obama says the actions of North Korea have consequences, they continue to arm themselves and other rogue nations. While Rahm Emanuel says disarming Iran can be accomplished only if Israel moves forward with the "peace" process, the Palestinians continue to plot to drive the Jews into the sea, and Iran rockets forward with their nuclear program threatening the entire world, hiding behind propaganda that ridiculously claims Palestinian grievances as their cause.

How long will we sit by while Obama destroys the rule of law, the latest example being the threats to the senior debt holders in Chrysler who refused to allow the administration to force them to take less money than their contracts call for? Before that the congress tried to pass a law that would allow judges to abrogate mortgage obligations. It is as if the administration is saying, "We don't care what your contract says, we don't care what the law says, we will do what we want" (all for the 'greater good' of course). Activist judges unconstitutionally continue to write law with tortured logic, while Obama applauds. They even have the temerity to try to undo many purely democratic and constitutionally passed ballot initiatives with nonsense disguised as legal reasoning.

How long will we allow the liberals to undermine our security, our life and limb? On the home-front they restrict guns, thereby creating the perverse situation where criminals are armed and law abiding citizens are not. They expose secret and successful programs that have made us more safe from terror, yet these traitors go unpunished. They treat terrorists sworn to our destruction like shoplifters, inventing "rights" and privileges for them that never existed and don't exist now.

How long will we allow fictions like global warming to go unchallenged? The supposed universal agreement on its very existence is no more than a myth promoted by a group of political extremists, the media, and a few scientists, many of whom were bought and paid for through grants and tenure. Imagine a theory dealing with something as vast and complex as the planet's weather, which within a years time revised down its forecast of rising sea levels over the next hundred years from twenty feet to three feet, and then later revised that forecast from taking one hundred years to one thousand years. No prediction ever made by global warming advocates has ever proved correct. This theory is as much proved science as its' predecessors, nuclear winter, the population bomb, and the imminent exhaustion of the worlds commodities, all of which are safely discredited and resting on the trash heap of history.

How long will we allow the nonsense of universal health care to be taken seriously, even as we move closer and closer to that goal? There are 46 million uninsured. 10 million are illegal aliens. 10 million can afford it but choose not to buy, and 10 million already qualify for government paid programs but are too dysfunctional to enroll. The health care quality here is so far superior to what it is anywhere in the world or what it would become that any thinking person should dismiss the idea of nationalizing it as an idiots rant. Anyone who doubts this can just look around the world where government health care has been mandated (to a country it is a disaster), rather than listen to the continuing stream of lies from the left.

How long will we sit by and allow the government to take over the economy? In varying degrees the government currently controls Citi Bank, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, GM, Chrysler, AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Obama proposes nationalizing health care (one sixth of the economy), and imposing a cap and trade energy tax that will effectively give the bureaucrats control over the energy sector. This has all been tried before and failed, but some people never learn. See the old Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea etc. for details.

When are we going to stop the growth of laws and regulations governing and smothering everything we do, thereby snatching away the very freedoms guaranteed to us under the constitution? Don't people understand that laws by definition are direct restraints on our freedom, and although we need laws to take us out of "a state of nature" as Hobbs said, extending legal controls as broadly as we are doing today can only result in a Soviet style society.

When are we going to give God the same status in the public square that we give the other religion, atheism? Those unfortunate enough not to know God should be given a voice, but those of us who embrace Him are entitled to speak out as well.

Our friends at the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan and others remind us that we must accept some of this garbage on the theory that 51 votes in a Senate comprised of 20 John McCains and Olympia Snows is better than 30 votes made up of all Jim DeMints and John Kyls. I disagree. If we run only genuinely conservative candidates, we will get our chance to govern, and then we have at least a chance of doing it right. Bush senior and junior slowed the pace of the race towards socialism, but allowed it to continue. W was great on taxes and the War on Terror, but he also yielded to the global warming enviro maniacs, signed a clearly unconstitutional campaign finance law, signed a new drug benefit, signed "No child left behind" (a euphemism for more money for the unions), and generally expanded government, although at a slower rate than Obama. Reagan was the only President since Eisenhower to even attempt to stop the growth of government. The 30/20 mix of Republicans will only delay our decline, not arrest it.

For those who doubt that an all conservative coalition will get a chance to govern, I would suggest that governments are almost always voted out, not voted in. During the depression every ruling party in every democracy, liberal and conservative alike, was voted out. Obama didn't win nearly so much as Republicans lost. I predict that this fantastic surge towards socialism, this vast overreaching, will usher in a new government in a very few years. The question is will it be the party of Reagan, or Obama lite?

Memos and the Media

2009-04-29T04:05:00.001-07:00

The left exists on a mountain of lies, and by the left I mean the main stream media, academia, and the Democratic party. Any reference to the truth is coincidental. The latest example is the "torture memos."

Obama released the memos describing the CIA interrogation techniques. Every CIA director alive has said this disclosure should never have been made. It is of course great for our enemies. They know what to expect and can prepare. Obama first said we must move past this, and no interrogators or advisers to President Bush that gave opinions as to the legality would be investigated. Rahm Emanuel, the president's chief of staff, confirmed it over a week ago, but George Soros and move-on.org wanted blood, so the president reversed himself two days later. Now he appears to have gone back to the first position, but I can't be sure. It really doesn't matter anyway. He is a moving target, too weak to stand up to any constituents, and his position will continue to "evolve".

In either case, the whole thing is a farce. How can an opinion be illegal? Even if the Presidents advisers were wrong (they weren't), should anyone be put in jail for a mistaken opinion? Imus asked Jeffry Toobin of CNN and The New Yorker (I wonder where he comes down on this..jkjk : ) what laws might have been broken. This is not an exact quote, but close. Toobin said..err..ahh..that's a tough one..there...(long pause) might be..ummm..something..err..ahh..to do with..err..ahh..a conspiracy..to umm..deny someone their civil rights. That should be an easy case for the justice department to make. I don't believe this was torture, but no matter what one believes there was no law broken.

The Bush administration did not want any of this information released, arguing it would help our enemies and demoralize our CIA operatives. However, Obama decided to prostrate himself and the country before the world by releasing them, much as he did before King Abdullah. Dick Cheney said that as long as the memos were already out there, we should also release the ones showing the intel we gathered as a result, and the effect of that intel (lives saved and al Qaida leaders captured). The damage had been done by releasing the memos, so now in fairness we should let the public know if the policy worked. Almost in unison the left began to mock him, saying he didn't want them released while in office, but does now, implying inconsistency/ hypocrisy or anything else negative they could imagine. This is nonsense of course, having no relation to the truth, but that is standard for the left.

The fact is that Cheney and 4 out of 5 of the last CIA and FBI directors that weighed in on this said we were successful gathering important information as a result of torture, or enhanced interrogation (take your pick). The problem the left has is that during the presidential campaign when this came up, they claimed "torture" doesn't work anyway. They acted as if it was "proved" (like global warming is "proved"- part of the "everyone knows" big lie technique). But like may of their fictions, no such thing has been "proved," and in this case the preponderance of evidence tends to prove the opposite.

The Republican and Democratic leadership, and the entire intelligence committees in both houses, Nancy Pelosi included, were informed of the opinions supporting the legality of water-boarding etc., and were regularly briefed over a couple of year span (the leadership in greater detail than the committee members). The Democrats now laughably admit they were told, but never thought it would be used. Most likely they were told it was being used (Republicans in the meetings claim the Democrats were 100% on board), but even if they did not know, could they possibly have believed that the executive branch briefed them with no intention of using it? This is the same as those Democrats who voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq claiming later they never thought Bush would use it. Of course they never made that silly argument when we first invaded Iraq and the war was polling well, but disclosed this well kept secret only after the war became unpopular.

A couple of days ago on the Imus show John Kerry was asked if he knew about the water boarding at the time it occurred (he was neither in leadership nor on the intel committee). Listen to the answer of a scoundrel. I was not on the intelligence committee. I was shocked..I mean they did it 180 times. He wants you to believe he did not know, and at the same time condemn Bush for authorizing it. Based on those carefully chosen words I suspect he is lying but wants an escape hatch if it later comes out that he did know. He could then claim he never said he didn't know, but that he was shocked when he found out how many times it was used.

Have you hear the "we are better than that" argument against torture? Those making it are either deluding themselves, or lying. If your family could be saved, or better yet, if you could increase the likelihood of saving your family 10% by water boarding some fanatic, would you authorize it? So would everyone else on the planet.

The army general in charge of Abu Ghraib prison who was demoted and told to retire because the torture there happened on her watch, said these memos somehow vindicated her claim that what happened was authorized by the CIA. A bipartisan commission concluded otherwise, and I believe properly determined that what went on was the sadistic acts of a few guards acting alone. Nothing in these memos contradicts it.

The ACLU is now trying to get the photographs of the water boarding released under the Freedom of Information Act. Obama can withhold them based on a national security exception (as these memos under Bush were withheld), but I fear he will not (although he will make the claim it was court ordered, not mentioning his right to argue for the exception). He and the ACLU somehow are intent on embarrassing the US, and fanning the fires of hatred towards us (at least among terrorists and those that hate us already).

All the while our own citizenry is being told by the MSM how Bush administration people acted illegally, and your safety after 9/11 would have been the same without water boarding, wiretaps, or wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our great democracy would improve immeasurably if only we got a little more honest news, and opinions/ conclusions were left to the citizenry.

Homeland Insecurity

2009-04-26T07:38:00.000-07:00

I have seen political figures given jobs they were totally unqualified for (it is commonplace), but never has anyone been appointed to a position of such importance who is so out of her element, so clueless, so dangerous, and with virtually no idea what she is doing, as Janet Napolitino, the head of Homeland Security. She is as radical as she is inept.

Instead of focusing on the country's defenses, she renamed the war on terror with (I have no idea what it is supposed to mean) overseas contingency operations. Her new name for a terrorist act is, man made catastrophe. Now those should really help stop these animals.

She informed us that all the terrorists, including the September 11 terrorists, entered the United States through the Canadian border. The September 11 Commission said that the only terrorist coming into the US by way of Canada was the millennium bomber, Ahmed Ressam. This is like your cardiologist not knowing where your heart is.

A lawyer and former governor of a border state (Arizona), Napalitano said that crossing the border without proper documentation is not criminal, but only a civil offense. She really believes sneaking into the US is not a crime? Is this for real? I guess that our cardiologist learned his medicine hanging around a drugstore.

Then the Department of Homeland Security, under her direction and with her express approval, sent out a memo warning the public and law enforcement that because we have a black president and the economy is bad, returning veterans and right wing extremists may be planning terrorist acts. Think about it. Those of us who disagree politically with radical left extremists like her, and those men and women who put their lives on the line (giving the country more than we have a right to ask), are potential terrorists.

For Secretary Napolatino her department is a political organization, and anything related to its supposed purpose, like..ahh.. protecting the homeland, is only a tool to further Obama and her radical political agenda. It is as if Homeland Security has officially down graded the al Qaida threat and upgraded the patriotic American citizen threat.

The US Mafia

2009-03-23T17:29:00.000-07:00

The US Congress is a bunch of overachievers. Just when you think they have done something so base, so despicable, that no future behavior could be worse, they meet the challenge and reset all standards of decency, finding new lows that were seemingly unimaginable. They are a dishonest Mafia. The Mafia at least admits to their criminality, suffering no illusions as to their good intentions. Congress however, acts like thugs, but maintains that they are cloaked in virtue.

The last time congress acted like the unruly mob they are was when they had the oil CEOs up to the hill for hearings. Remember $150 oil? Our exalted represenatives insulted and demeaned some of the finest, brightest, most accomplished men America has to offer. The reason? The oil companies were making money. Socialists don't understand that corporate profits are simply votes endorsing the products and services a company provides. Congress accused them of greed, price fixing, and speculative excess. Corporations make money because they give us what we want better than anyone else. They are not evil. They may be greedy, but capitalism channels that greed (albeit in an imperfect way) to the benefit of us all.

If there is one group to blame for the high price of oil, it is the congress itself. Their ban on offshore drilling, ban on drilling in Anwar and other federal lands, and the obstacles they put up preventing nuclear power plants from being built, all push the price of oil up. On the other hand, the oil companies efficient and cost effective exploration, joint ventures with foreign countries, and prudent long term planning, none of which can occur without profits, all push the price of oil down.

The faux outrage over the AIG bonuses is the latest example of congressional malfeasance. Bonuses were an integral part of the pay plan at AIG. The company agreed to pay bonuses to several employees in order to keep them there during a year when everyone knew that would be no profits, and thus no opportunity to earn more than a salary. They needed these people to unwind the disastrous positions in credit insurance which were on the books. Done properly, the losses could be minimized, but absent these promises of bonuses, many key employees would have left. Subsequently, when the company was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, and the government decided to save it by injecting TARP funds (they said it was too big to fail, a debatable conclusion), the bonus issue was examined and found to be reasonable by some, but more important, legally binding by all.

Fast forward a couple of months and the public hears that bonuses were paid out of TARP money (taxpayer money) to the people who caused the mess to begin with. There may be some truth to that, but only some. The vast majority of money was paid to people who had no role in the decision to write credit insurance, the decision that sunk the company.

Credit insurance was a guarantee that many banks bought from AIG (Goldman, Merrill, Morgan Stanley etc.) so that they could be sure that the counter parties those banks were doing business with would not default on monies owed to them. The problem arose because AIG was able to classify the guarantee they issued as something other than insurance. If it were deemed insurance, they would have been overseen by insurance commissions, and forced to post reserves to guarantee they could and would pay their losses. This requirement would have limited the amount of insurance they could write. However, having circumvented the insurance classification, they could write unlimited amounts..and they did exactly that, exposing the company to catastrophic losses. Many banks that bought this insurance would likely have gone bankrupt if AIG were unable to pay, which certainly they couldn't have paid, absent the bailout. Were they too big to fail as Paulson and Bernake contended? Perhaps..but maybe not.

It is noteworthy that congress has not yet examined the internal failure at AIG that caused their collapse. The reason is that their Democratic ally Elliot Spitzer, and by implication the party itself, is complicit in it. Hank Greenberg is an exceptional man and a great American, who took a small insurance company 30 years ago and built it into the premier insurance company in the world. Greenberg was involved with all facets of the company. His reputation in both the insurance industry and business in general was that of an honest, no nonsense, hands on, rational, hard working, hard driving manager. He met every month with each division CFO and examined their investments, what they were underwriting, and most importantly the risks they incurred. For 30 years, his oversight kept the company growing and healthy.

About 4 years ago Elliot Spitzer was the ambitious Attorney General of New York. He thought nothing of abusing his power in order to help pave the road for himself to the Governor's mansion. His modus operandi was to find a petty crime in one division of a large company, and threaten the entire company with criminal charges (which would be a death knell even if the company were innocent), and thereby extort an admission of guilt and large financial settlement, getting even larger headlines for himself. He found a transaction between AIG and one of Berkshire Hathaway's insurance companies that he deemed to have no economic motive, claiming it was a sham, designed to give the appearance of enhanced creditworthiness for AIG, and thus allowing them to borrow at a cheaper rate. Spitzer went after the company with a vengeance. Warren Buffet was on the other side of the transaction (which was trivial in size anyway) but he was given a clean bill of health. Warren knows it pays to support Democrats, and as a result they support him. Greenberg however was forced out, banished from the company. Spitzer said he was going to pursue civil and criminal charges against Greenberg personally. Of course no criminal charges were ever filed, and the civil action was dismissed. The question is, would AIG have gone down the road to ruin if Greenberg hadn't been forced out? His replacement said he never knew what the division that caused the catastrophe was doing. It is hard to believe Greenberg wouldn't have know, and impossible to believe if he did know he wouldn't have stopped it. But Congress will never tell you that.

Now we have congress demonizing every employee who took a bonus, threatening to publicly disclose the names of anyone not giving the money back (if this isn't extortion what is?), passing new punitive taxes on all of them and in the process dragging under every other employee of a bank that took TARP money with the same tax (a clear constitutional violation), just so they can appeal to what they believe are the most base of voter sentiments.

Listening to the discussions by academics and business people about these bonuses is almost as frightening as congress. They say, "we need a better way of compensating employees. There is a disconnect between compensation and performance." No kidding. These talking heads just discovered 2 plus 2 is 4. For all time there has been a problem incentivising employees in a manner where their interests are aligned with the company/ shareholders interest. Managers have wrestled with this problem forever. A variety of ideas have been tried with varying degrees of success...none perfect, all with faults and often yielding undesired results, but managers do the best they can.

The US government is the largest employer in the US, and the least efficient. There are advantages to size, but efficiency is not one of them. Let's look at a sole proprietorship. The owner acts in his self interest of course. Does the person below him? Well, maybe. He certainly does more often than the person third down on the chain. He gets paid more, and is more under the direct eye of the owner. What happens is that as you get lower on the chain, and farther from the top, people are less caring, thoughtful, and skilled. Time does not allow me to go into the various theories here of how to get the best performance from people, but the problem is age old, and not likely to be solved any time soon. More to the point, congress is the last group in the world we want determining how to deal with this, or how to compensate people, but that seems exactly what they are hell bent on doing. God help us all.

A Rose by Any Other Name

2009-03-13T12:22:00.000-07:00

Most debates on broad topics are unprovable. General assertions provide both sides with enough anecdotal evidence to make a case. That doesn't mean that one position is not correct, only that it can't be proved, and even if it can be, counterarguments can be forceful enough that a listener who does not make a career out of investigating the topic will never know for sure which side is right. Therefore the methods used to sway opinion rely on other techniques such as repetition (get your argument and conclusion presented more often than the oppositions) and demonization (attack your opponents motives).

The lefts attempt to mislead and to stifle debate routinely employ these and more. Today I will deal with one of their favorites, the "Everyone knows" fallacy, or the "Settled science" fallacy. What it attempts to do is convince you that anyone with a brain knows whatever the speaker is advocating is self evident, and anyone doubting it is an idiot. They claim their conclusions are based on incontrovertible facts, every thoughtful person agrees, and only a moron, an ideologue (ideologues are OK with me, but that is for another time), or a liar would claim otherwise. In reality their "facts" range from opinions to fictions, and their "consensus" lives only in their imagination.

Global warming is the best known of these fictions. The claim that the entire scientific community is in complete agreement that climate change is man made is simply a bald faced lie. They have even developed a term for "hard right ideologues" like myself who disagree. We are "deniers," invoking the flavor of a Holocaust denier, few in number, absurd in their assertions, and evil in intent. Of course the fact that vast numbers in the scientific community disagree is something they choose to either ignore, or marginalize by falsely claiming they are few in number and on the fringe.

They also would rather not mention that the same crowd advocating global warming, warned us of imminent disaster from nuclear winter (the earth cooling) just a couple of decades ago. Before that the "population bomb" (overpopulation) was the tragedy du jour, and before that we were going to run out of all commodities and carbon fuels by the year 2000. Between the time of that forecast and the year 2000 proven reserves of commodities went up and prices went down.

"The Great Global Warming Swindle," is a film that examines the history of climate change theory, the theory itself, its record making predictions (the best measure of any theory), and alternative theories. The producers (deniers) offered to show it to the audiences (particularly school children) who were seeing "An Inconvenient Truth." Doing so would let viewers decide which argument was more honest and more scientific. The left knows if they agreed their scam would be exposed. So instead they choose to deny any thoughtful opposition exists, invoking the "Everyone knows" fallacy.

Many people and myself have called Obama a socialist. The left and their front line troops, the media, respond by saying that no one believes he is a socialist, it is divisive, and such talk only comes from right wing ideologues. They are helped when Obama refers to the magic of capitalism or the importance of the free market. This is becoming his trademark. He calls something that is unpopular, like socialism, by a name that is that is well supported, like free markets. This makes it appear he is moderate, sharing support for something his actual proposals indicate he abhors. His tax cuts for 95 percent of Americans would be more accurately described as welfare payments. His stimulus package is really a socialist wish list. His "Employee Free Choice Act" does the opposite of what the name implies. It takes away employee choice.. It should should be called the "Abolition of the Secret Ballot Act."

In reality he simply is a socialist. The evidence is compelling. His personal and professional history are perfectly consistent with this. As President, every proposal he has made has the socialist imprint. He has repeatedly said that the free market system has failed. What should we take away from that? Is the redistribution of wealth via the tax system capitalist or socialist? Is the government taking over the health care system capitalist? Is the proposed cap and trade (aka energy tax) and the consequent government control of the energy sector a free market reform? Is submitting our foreign policy to the will of a corrupt United Nation capitalist? His card check proposal, aka "Employee Free Choice Act," a law that will take away the secret ballot for union voting and allow union goons to intimidate workers into supporting the formation of a union, is socialism in its purest form.

Religion and charities are under attack with the Obama plan. This creates a greater dependence on government- aka- socialism. Charitable deductions are reduced, and education money appropriated in the so called stimulus bill. have disqualifiers that will eliminate faith based organizations from sharing any of it. The only appropriate term for all this is socialism. David Brooks, George Will, David Gergan, David Frum and other RINO's can criticize the language all they want. It is no less true.

Putin is warning the United States against travelling down the road of socialism, and even the European Union, France and Germany in particular, are warning us of the same thing. If they understand what we are doing, why can't the MSM understand? Why be embarrassed to clearly state it? Conservatives must speak out about this. Call him a socialist, and when his supporters scoff say it again.

When Ronald Reagan referred to the Soviet Union as the evil empire, the left was outraged, but they were also forced to defend themselves. The public became better educated to the horrors of socialism/ communism. Every time a liberal snickers at someone calling Obama and his programs socialistic, ask what better term there is to describe it. Ask if these type programs are the things that made America the greatest nation in the history of mankind, or if capitalist principles did. Ask if our spectacular economic well being, the freedoms we enjoy, our unqualified support of human rights, or our unparalleled generosity, ever existed in any nation on earth prior to this great nation.

After writing this, a saw a report in the Patriot Post.

Climate change this week: No debate

Al Gore was scheduled to appear at The Wall Street Journal's ECO:nomics conference in California this week along with Czech President Vaclav Klaus, a global warming skeptic. But Gore chickened out, changing his scheduled appearance to the previous day so as to avoid debate. Apparently, Gore knows when he's outmatched. During a question and answer session, Gore also evaded debate on the subject, telling Danish eco-critic Bjorn Lomborg, who asked for a debate, "The scientific community has gone through this chapter and verse," he lectured. "We have long since passed the time when we should pretend this is a 'on the one hand, on the other hand' issue. It's not a matter of theory or conjecture, for goodness sake." Indeed, it's a matter of Gore making a whole lot of money roaming the globe and stoking fear about climate change. He wouldn't want a debate to interrupt the cash flow. Or perhaps he knows he would blow off more than his allotment of hot air in a cap-and-trade steam.

Obama's Healthcare Proposal- A Disaster

2009-03-10T07:42:00.000-07:00

This article was published in the NY Post a couple of weeks ago. It only scraches the surface of why government healthcare is a disasterous idea, but for those people who don't know a great deal about it, it serves as a cogent, informative argument.

PRESIDENT Obama's new budget dedicates $634 bil lion> over the next 10 years to what he calls health reform. He> promises - or perhaps threatens - that this vast sum will be> a down payment for universal coverage, which could require> more than $1 trillion. > Unfortunately, the president intends to spend all this> money on the basis of several pernicious myths common in the> health-care debate. As a result, his reforms would> ultimately hand the health-care system over to the> government and lead to rationing. > The president's budget repeats the popular claim that> 45.7 million Americans are uninsured. The figure is taken as> proof positive that the current system is failing - and that> the government must step in to provide a remedy. > But that misleading number includes millions we can hardly> call uninsured. About 18 million of the uninsured make more> $50,000 a year - and almost 10 million have yearly incomes> over $75,000. More than 10 million aren't US citizens.> And as many as 14 million are already eligible for> government programs like Medicare, Medicaid and SCHIP - but> haven't signed up. > For most folks, health insurance is simply too expensive.> And ramping up funding for government health programs, as> Obama proposes, won't make insurance cheaper. In fact,> it could cause private insurance to become more expensive. > After all, the feds reimburse hospitals and doctors at> below-market rates for Medicare and Medicaid patients. So> those of us with private health plans have to pay more to> fill the gap - and that hidden tax is about 10 percent. In> California, for example, private payers paid an extra $45> billion to compensate for unpaid Medicare costs in 2004. > Obama's budget also takes aim at prescription-drug> costs by forcing manufacturers to give Medicaid a bigger> discount, probably 20 percent, on brand-name drug purchases> (it already gets a 15 percent break). That might help curb> Medi caid's expenses, but it will raise drug prices for> everyone else, who will have to make up the difference. > Taken as a whole, Obama's health plan is predicated> upon the misguided notion that government can deliver care> more efficiently than the private sector. There's ample> evidence to the contrary> CONTINUED> Just look at the failure of existing government health> programs - both here and abroad. Many Medicaid patients have> a difficult time finding a doctor. According to a 2003 study> by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, doctors are> five times more likely to turn away Medicaid patients than> those with private insurance. > The situation is even worse in countries like Canada and> Great Britain - whose government-run systems Obama's> health braintrust has cited approvingly. > More than 725,000 Canadians languish on months-long waiting> lists for surgery and other necessary treatments. Doctors> are in short supply - thanks largely to the government> takeover of the health sector. In the early 1970s, when> Canada launched its "universal coverage" system,> the country ranked second among 28 developed countries in> doctors per thousand people. Today, it's 24th. > Further, Canadians often lack access to the advanced> medical technology that Americans take for granted. Canada> ranks 19th among 26 reporting OECD nations in access to CT> scanners and 14th out of 25 reporting OECD countries in> access to MRI machines. > In the UK, the government-run health system explicitly> rations medical treatments through the publicly chartered> National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. NICE> evaluates data from clinical drug trials to decide if newer> medical treatments are more effective than older, cheaper> alternatives. It then makes recommendations to Britain's> state-run National Health Service about which treatments are> worth paying for. > Last summer, British patients with kidney cancer were> denied access to four lifesaving drugs. NICE's clinical> and public health director said of the drugs at the time,> "Although these treatments are clinically effective,> regrettably the cost to the NHS is such that they are not a> cost-effective use of NHS resources." > In other words, the British government admitted that> patients would likely die without these treatments - but> refused to pay for them anyway. > This could happen here. Obama's stimulus package> includes $1.1 billion for NICE-style> comparative-effectiveness studies. > As the costs for his health reforms mount, Obama will be> forced to employ the same strategies that Canada and Britain> have to cut spending. That means the rationing of care (and> significantly higher taxes). > Obama's budget represents a major effort to transform> the US health-care system. Patients should ask themselves> whether they're ready for his medicine. > Sally Pipes is president & CEO of the Pacific Research> Institute. Her latest book is "The Top Ten Myths of> American Health Care."

A Frightening Beginning

2009-03-05T13:43:00.000-08:00

People are just now learning the details of the stimilus bill (aka socialist wish list). Actually, no one had had time to read any of the details when the bill was passed, but then again, it was only 800 billion dollars (unless the Heritage Foundation is correct that the 10 year cost is over 3 trillion). Details have emerged, and as expected, the closer you look the scarier it gets.

Keynesian economics says that massive government spending on infrastructure etc. can prime the pump of an economy. Never mind the fact that it has been tried all over the world and never worked. In reality, this disproved theory has become an excuse for politicians to do what they do best, spend money. Keynes claimed that for every dollar the government spent, there was a "multiplier effect," meaning that each dollar spent produces an increase in national income. If this were true, all we would need is continually increase government spending and thereby create wealth like the world has never known. Actually, a few communist countries did try it. You be the judge of their success.

Even if it did work, only 10% of the stimulus money is being spent on projects Keynes would call stimulative. The other 90% is being spent on social programs and other projects (aka earmarks- but not called that for proganda purposes) which would do nothing for the economy even if the theory they subscribe to were sound. Obama claims it has tax cuts. The biggest reciepients of these imaginary "tax cuts" (aka welfare payments) are people who pay no taxes.

Obama says he will save trillions in government spending. First he plans the largest downsizing of the military since Jimmy- Israel is a terrorist state- Carter. Then he gets creative. He says that his "honest" budget will include the cost of the war, unlike Bush's which did not. He starts off assuming we will spend 180 billion per year for 10 years in Iraq. He further assumes we will leave Iraq in 18 months..Voila..He just saved 1.53 trillion dollars (180 billion per year X 8 1/2 years), and he faced up to the "tough choices." The balance of Obama's "savings," are tax increases. You heard me. In the same way welfare payments are "tax cuts," a social spending bill is a "stimulus" bill," tax increases are now "savings."

Obama says we will halve the defecit by 2013. Of course to do this, he also assumes that the economy will grow 1% this year, 3% next year, and 4% the following 3 years. This is not optimism, it is delusional. It would be hard to achieve in good times, but with the world banking and financial systems in a free fall, anyone believing that type of growth will occur should be instutionalized. We are facing the greatest financial crisis in 70 years, possible including the Depression. The President said we had to pass the stimulus package in a matter of days or make the "crisis into a catastrophe." Yet somehow, miraculously, we will come out of it in a few months and transform into an economy on steroids.

Much of the stimulus money going to the states comes with strings attached. Unemployment extension money is one example. Any state accepting the money is required to make the extension permanent, meaning in a couple of years when the federal money runs out, they will have to fund the program themselves. A few Republican governors said they would consider turning down this part of the money for that reason. Why should they take two years of money when they will be obligated to pay forever? The first liberal reaction was to accuse them of racism, under the theory that many blacks will be affected. That is until some Democratic governers started coming out and saying they would probably do the same thing.

Obama set aside over 600 billion dollars to begin nationalizing healthcare. I can't even imagine how he will try to sell it to us. After all, his creativity with words thus far is beyond my imagination. The insanity of nationalization will be discussed in a future blog, but for now, just remember that he is selling a program that has never worked in any western nation in the world. Every one where the government took over health care had costs go up and quality and service go down.

Another "project" Obama is working is cap and trade. It is a system of taxes on industries that produce carbon dioxide, the major one being energy. In reality it is a simple energy tax, and it will clearly bankrupt the coal industry (he said he intended to do exactly that during the campaign.) The President claims thousands of new green jobs will be created (aka new government workers and academic research grants producing nothing of value but plenty of Democratic voters), energy costs will go down, and all will be at peace in the world. Such a fantasy would make Walt Disney proud. Early estimates indicate it will cost an average family of four about $1,400 per year, but of course we know the total costs will go way beyond that.

Do any of you out there who voted for Obama have buyers remorse yet? You shouldn't be surprised at what he has done. Our President is the child of two communists (his mother being a registered member of the communist party, and his father promoting communist ideology in his home country of Keyna), his most important mentor (Sol Olinsky) was head of the Communist Party in America, his spiritual mentor (Reverend Jeramiah Wright) is a radical, America hating racist, and his political mentor (William Ayers) is an America hating terrorist.

Ayn Rand

2009-03-02T14:41:00.000-08:00

"One of the methods used by statists to destroy capitalism consists in establishing controls that tie a given industry hand and foot, making it unable to solve its problems, then declaring that freedom has failed and stronger controls are necessary." --Ayn Rand

Umm..Ring any bells?

Can Our Nation Survive?

2009-02-21T01:58:00.000-08:00

Skeptics have predicted that a democracy can only survive until a majority of the voters realize they can vote themselves someone elses money. Margret Thatcher said the problem with socialism is that eventually they run out of other people's money. We in the United States are doing both. In the long run such behavior is self destructive, but few people think about the long run. Will our nation as we know it survive? Many political systems lasted much longer than our 200 plus year history and then failed. Will the skeptics prove right?

The Democratic Party strategy has always had a stealth socialist agenda. They recoil at the word socialist, just as they do at the suggestion that the media is biased in their favor, but so does everyone who employs the big lie when trying to deny a self-evident truth. The tag line for their approach to political success is tax and tax, spend and spend (creating a loyal voter base), elect and elect.

The US has moved more slowly towards socialism than Europe, and has had more prosperity as a result. The Senate is the key difference. For example giving Wyoming the same two Senate votes as California (with two percent of the population) has allowed rural voices to be disproportionately loud, and rural people are less dependent on government. In Europe there is no such retardant to this socialistic creep. But beware.. this Senate "equalizer" will not last long. The Democrats have successfully expanded government and infected more and more rural people with their unholy drug of government largess. We are moving smartly.... in the wrong direction.

With the new socialist wish list (aka the stimulus bill) Democrats have once again expanded government, but this time at an unprecedented rate. The number of people with an increased dependency on government is alarming. Bailouts for businesses, longer and bigger benefits for the unemployed, benefits for homeowners, re-instituting welfare (as we used to know it- undermining the success of Clinton's welfare reform), larger subsidies for colleges, more businesses depending on government contracts to survive, political groups supporting a radical Democratic left wing agenda (ACORN for example), etc. have all been funded with staggering amounts of money. Will we ever recover? Once someone has been given something for nothing, it is unlikely that he will ever give it up or vote for meaningful change.

Many big businesses are as guilty as anyone for sucking at the teat of government and gaming the system. GM and the banks are guilty, but at least their actions are the last gasp of dying corporations. They are already the walking dead. But what about a seemingly healthy company like General Electric (GE)?

A book was written separating the Robber Baron's of the 19th and early 20th century into two groups- those that made fortunes by providing a better product at a cheaper price, and those that used government influence to help create and protect their monopolies (Rockefeller and Standard Oil being one). GE clearly falls into the latter group.

CNBC was granted the first interview with the new President, and the on air commentators were joking about how the station had arrived as a prominent force in media. They pondered why the Presidency bestowed such an honor on them. Let's see. NBC, MSNBC and CNBC are all owned by GE. NBC political coverage was so slanted it could only be described as an unpaid Obama advertisement. MSNBC was worse. It was a continuous 24 hour Democratic infomercial. CNBC's political corespondent, John Harwood, is a devoted Democratic supporter. Do you wonder why Obama gave that interview to CNBC?

Any large corporation has to kiss the butt of the political class. Politicians hold vast power, and prudence dictates they had best be catered to. But why does GE have such a vested interest in the Democrats? After all, isn't it the Democrats who tax corporations so onerously, regulate them, impose nonsensical environmental restrictions, labor restrictions, and generally try to control them wherever possible?

One reason might be GE's interest in alternative energy and climate change. GE sees opportunity in alternative energy, and produces equipment to reduce greenhouse gases. The historian Paul Johnson pointed out that climate change is one of the three great frauds of the 20th century (the other two are Marxism and Freudian psychology). All three claim to be based on science, but they are no more scientific than taro card reading. GE understands climate change is a fraud, but they see profits in the scam, and so they are on board. They employ the PR power of their networks, as well as massive lobbying dollars to promote this silliness.

Jeff Immelt (Chairman of GE) was just named as one of Obama's economic advisers. GE also has received TARP money, controls several of the larger medial outlets, and does billions of dollars business with the federal government. Am I the only one who see a conflict here?

I won't speculate exactly why countries drift to the left (contrary to their own interests), but they do. Colonel Augusto Pinochet took over the Communist government of Chile by force in the early 1970s. He threw out the collectivist economic model of his predecessor and implemented a free market model developed by University of Chicago economists called the Chicago Boys. At first a bad economy under the communists became even worse, but within a few years things changed and Chile became the economic miracle of South America. Their GDP skyrocketed, currency stabilized, unemployment went way down, wages went way up, and they even developed a successful system of private retirement accounts, something the rest of the world should be imitating. Economic prosperity usually is accompanied by greater life expectancy, a cleaner environment, and many other improved measures of society. I point this out because in spite of their amazingly successful transition to capitalism, and given the stark contrast with their past economic failure, it makes one wonder why politically they are moving to the left. The false promise of something for nothing (aka government assistance) must be irresistible to too many.

Is this all really hopeless? I can't say. But the battle against socialist Democrats and the GE's of the world is uphill at best. Our republic, our American tradition of rugged individualism, and our uniquely American optimism have served us well. Will they continue to?

The Religion of Peace

2009-02-17T09:38:00.000-08:00

The founder of a New York State TV company, designed to show moderate Muslims in a positive light, was arrested last week for beheading his wife.. Ummm.. I wonder what a violent Muslim is like?

And if you think I am a racist for pointing out the differences, answer me this.. What is a racist? Is it a bad thing? It seems to me that comparing one race with another, or assigning certain characteristics to a race is hardly bad or unethical.. If I compare neighborhoods, am I a neighborhoodist? If I compare ice creams, am I an icecreamist..This is an idea I took from, (and expressed humorously by) David Stove. So by saying blacks are better dancers than whites, or better athletes, am I a racist. What if I say Muslims are more likely to commit acts of terror than Christians, am I a racist then..or religionist? And if I am, is that a bad thing? You decide.

A Dutch film maker named Geert Wilders produced the documentary Fitna (I urge everyone to see it), a movie which asserts that the Koran is the source of Muslim violence. It condemns Muslim religious teachings for inciting violence, rather than condemning just the individuals committing the terror.

Wilders was invited to speak to Parliament about terror, but Great Britain's Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, refused him entry into the country. She said his presence would induce violence by the Muslim community. Ironically, her action underscores the very premise of Wilders film, that the Koran teaches and permits violence, and that Muslims are much more likely to be violent than members of any other religion..

Known terrorists and terrorist fund raisers, people who unlike Wilders really do advocate violence, are routinely allowed into the country under the free speech banner. Yet here, someone who never in any way advocated any sort of violence, was not allow to speak.

Once again we see where on the left freedom of speech is limited to speech with which liberals agree (college campuses being a prime example). But that is a subject for another day.

Wrong Politically..Wrong for America

2009-02-09T08:36:00.000-08:00

Everyone must see Milton Friedman in this two minute clip. http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/69117/

You have to feel sorry for Tom Daschle. He paid $134,000 in back taxes he never would have paid were it not for his job application, and he still wasn't hired. Oh well..he already made 5 million dollars since getting voted out of congress by using all that acute business expertise he developed while championing socialism.

The so called stimulus package is sailing through congress with the support of two imbecilic senators from Maine and Senator Specter from Pennsylvania (a RINO-Republican In Name Only). Senator Specter's ship never had a flag flying, but what he's doing here is almost as bad as when he helped stop the Robert Bork nomination to the supreme court. I predict that a conservative challenger for the nomination will unseat him in the 2010 primary.

It was interesting to hear John McCain complain about the defections in that he did exactly the same thing, repeatedly, on a whole series of issues- global warming, campaign finance reform, tax cuts, drilling offshore, drilling at Anwar etc. Those defections, often with his being the only Republican, allowed the congressional Democrats (and the press Democrats) to claim bipartisan support.

The Republicans have ceded an astounding amount of territory on this so called stimulus package, and it will come back to haunt them. They talk as if the "correct" stimulus would help the economic crisis, and that all we really need to do is change the bill. Instead they should argue against any stimulus other than tax cuts. Spending of any kind won't help us with the economic crisis, but what the Democrats are passing doesn't even qualify as spending under their definition. The bill is no more than a socialist wish list, brought to us under the false banner of a stimulus to save an economic meltdown. Infrastructure etc. is about 10%, whereas pork and entitlement expansion is 90%. Nothing the Republicans can do will deter them, but they should still go on the record opposing all of the spending. Sure, some infrastructure spending might be OK, but expanding government in a permanent way, which this bill is guaranteed to do, will certainly do permanent damage.

Instead of arguing for changes in the bill, the Republicans should be challenging the Democrats to point to one instance where, anywhere in the world, such a policy has worked. It certainly has been tried. Roosevelt tried and failed. We came out of the depression well after he unleashed his massive spending, and that was because of saner monetary policies and the second world war. Even his Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau, said that we tried stimulus and it didn't work. In the 1990s Japan used massive spending trying to stimulate their economy and failed. Their government debt ballooned from 45% of GDP (gross domestic product) to 170% of GDP. In doing so they created an unmanageable bureaucracy and their economy has stagnated ever since.

Tax cuts would help, and Obama is claming the Democratic bill includes tax cuts. He even has the nerve to claim 42% of the bill is tax cuts. No no! Calling a pig a beauty queen will not win any blue ribbons. Here, Obama is renaming welfare payments as tax cuts. He did the same thing during the campaign and the press ignored it. 45% of Americans pay no taxes, even though he promised to cut taxes on "95%" of Americans. What the stimulus bill does is give more money to that 45% who don't pay taxes. They may call it tax cuts, but it sure sounds like welfare to me. The press has concealed this and I expect it, they will lie cheat and steal to support Obama. But why the Republicans are not pointing it out, letting him get away with it, boggles the mind.

Two's Company

2009-02-03T16:10:00.000-08:00

Tom Daschle became the third on a match. Supposedly, during World War Two, the third soldier to light his cigarette on the same match could be shot because the enemy had sufficient time to see the flame, aim and fire. It seems that today that Daschle, not a soldier but the third tax cheat, got shot.

Charlie Rangel (congressman from Harlem) was shown to have cheated on his taxes for years, yet nothing was done to him. Tim Geitner cheated as well, but was approved as the Treasury Secretary. Tom Daschle didn't fare so well. I suppose his compatriots thought the public might see a pattern there. He withdrew his name today as the HHS nominee. I guess three cheats and you really are out. btw.. None of the three paid a penny in penalty when the taxes finally did get paid.

The press (aka the right arm of the Democratic Party) has allowed all three to claim without contradiction, inadvertent oversights. While it is true that with the complexity of the tax code many oversights are legitimate, in these cases that dog don't hunt. They didn't simply take an aggressive stance in classifying their income or deductions..that is perfectly reasonable. They just didn't pay taxes when money was clearly due. But the fourth estate could care less. Right now they are lionizing Daschle. I listen to the main stream media and all I hear is how this "simple mistake" sank a respected, much loved, public servant.. Respected by whom, loved by whom? I always found him to be an extreme partisan who had difficulty with the truth, constantly hammering away with a velvet glove..Oh well..it's just another day in the socialist/ MSM / Democratic complex.

The Economic Crisis and Government

2009-01-27T03:21:00.000-08:00

The dictionary defines a recession as "An extended decline in general business activity, typically two consecutive quarters of falling real gross national product." It defines a depression as "a period during which business, employment, and stock-market values decline severely or remain at a very low level of activity." Ronald Reagan said a recession is when your neighbor loses his job, and a depression is when you lose your job. Michael Sall defines a recession as the down trajectory of the business cycle, and a depression as a recession combined with government help.

We are in never never land. What are they doing? We learned from the depression that government intervention, raising taxes, make work programs (aka economic stimulus) and protectionism only make the economy worse, and a recession much worse. Yet that is exactly what we are doing today.

In the early 1950s the US State Department decided to send our excess food supply to African as a gesture of American largess. We sent vast quantities of food that we were buying from farmers and warehousing in order to keep domestic prices higher (or seen another way, in order to get the farm state votes). It cost us nothing to give it away, and in theory the Africans would be helped..Sure..right..African farmers couldn't compete with free food, prices there declined, and many gave up and moved to the cities. Whatever farm system they had completely broke down. Only a fraction of the domestic crops were grown, and famines ensued. Our "largess" destroyed their imperfect, but viable farming system.

How does this relate to the cause of our current economic crisis? Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were created to make home ownership more broad based in America...certainly a laudable goal. But like every political attempt (aka folly) to do business in a rational way, it led to the current bank failures and breakdown of our financial system.

Here at home the creation of Freddie and Fannie (F&F) carried an implied credit guarantee by the US government. The government would make good on any money F&F borrowed. That meant F&F could borrow more cheaply than their competition, and as a result the competition all but stopped making loans. Competitors decided instead to originate loans, earning fees for doing so, and then sold them to F&F. The originators had no concern if the loans were paid, only that they could be sold off. Does that sound dangerous to you?

Later congress mandated that credit be eased (Community Reinvestment Act), and the mortgages were placed at an even faster pace, often to unworthy borrowers. The CRA mandated that F&F loan to sub prime (aka unqualified) borrowers. It also said that banks not doing business in poor neighborhoods and making these loans would not get federal approvals needed if they wanted to merge or buy another bank. Still, the originators were making money, Fannie and Freddie were complying with the law, the system was causing home prices to rise, and so long as that happened everything seemed fine.

The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and many others warned that this was a dangerous game and could result in a catastrophe. The Republican congress tried to reign in F&F but capitulated to the Democrats when they were painted as having contempt for the poor. So, for several years all seemed well in in this fantasy land where money descends on people with just the passage of laws dictating it.

One might ask where F&F were getting the money to lend. They borrowed it. But who you ask, would lend to someone taking such imprudent risks. Everyone did, and the reason was that the US government was guaranteeing repayment. F&F couldn't have gotten into nearly the mess they did if they had to go out and borrow the money on their own credit. Not a fraction of the losses could have occurred.

But the plot thickens. The investment banks and others saw what was going on and wanted to expand the party. Voila! The use of credit insurance for mortgage backed securities was expanded. The players would accumulate a large number of mortgages, say $200,000,000 worth, and sell bonds backed by the entire pool of mortgages. The bonds were broken into small dollar increments, and could now could be bought and sold in the after market. In order to entice bond buyers, insurance was purchased (supposedly guaranteeing repayment of the bonds) which was underwritten by several large AAA companies. This way the bonds were able to get a AAA rating themselves, paying lower interest, and creating larger profits for those bundling the mortgages.

The bonds became an attractive place for life and other insurance companies to park money they needed to hold for their reserves. The problems here were first, the originator could care less if the loan was repaid so long as he was able to sell it off in these packages, and thus gave far less scrutiny to the loan than he would if it were his money, and secondly, the underwriter (mortgage insurance provider) wrote more policies than he could ever hope to pay if the system broke down.

I must admit not realizing this while it was happening, but the insurance purchases were a total waste of money. Individual pools of mortgages were not going to default. They were diverse enough that without a systemic breakdown, they would pay. If however there was a systemic breakdown, most of the pools would default, in which case the insurance companies didn't have nearly enough reserves to pay. Witness the bankruptcies of many of them and stock prices of the others.

The underwriters and buyers of these mortgage backed instruments looked only at the history of borrower repayment. Based on the worst of economic times in the past, excepting the depression, the insurance companies could cover any losses. The problem is that economic history is different every go round, and the past only shows a very small part of what might happen. In this case the cheap money from F&F (aka our government), produced higher and higher home prices, then the new instruments and credit insurance provided even more money, and once again home prices rose etc. and the bubble expanded.

But like any bubble or Ponzi scheme, at some point people begin to understand the system is walking on a tight rope with a hurricane kicking up and there is no net. People began to sell the bonds, and as the prices of the securities fell a bright light was shined on the problem. People there to fore unaware of the risk began to sell, and in this case the whole house of cards collapsed.

The exact reverse of what happened creating the crisis now occurred. Credit dried up, so even quality borrowers couldn't borrow. That drove home prices down. Declining prices cause defaults. Why pay a mortgage of $300,000 on a house worth $250,000? It is cheaper to walk away. Foreclosures occurred with the weak borrowers as well, and each house the banks foreclosed on and put on the market made every other house worth a little less, and as the avalanche of declining prices picked up speed, the would be buyers stepped aside and decided to wait and find how low prices would go. So here we are and no one knows where the bottom is. What I have described doesn't even take into account the effect these declines have on every other business. That's for another day.

The business cycle often carries things to excess and destroys wealth in the process. Business can be corrupt, and sometimes downright stupid or blind. That is the nature of capitalism. People take chances and sometimes things work out well and sometimes not. But left to it's own devices, the business cycle will take two steps forward and one step back. No one denies that these steps back are painful, but left alone business recovers in short order. Government involvement however (other than it's proper role as a referee and enforcer), either initiates problems or exacerbates them.

The first myth the government spread was that "predatory lenders" caused the problem. Sure..I con you into taking a loan you can't repay, and I make a profit..umm..sounds like a perpetual motion machine to me. The new myth that the government is promoting is that deregulation caused the problem. Regulation may have prevented a small part of the problem, but on balance the growth that regulation prevents from happening is far more costly than any accidents it prevents. The government should insure transparency, prevent theft, and enforce the law. It should not however, make what are basically business decisions.

For those of you who wonder why government is so bad at this, just ask yourself what ingredient is the most important in a financial success. How about desire..the desire to make money? In a capitalist system, one only makes money when he meets the public needs better and cheaper than anyone else. Is the government motivated by the same thing? Absolutely not. Politicians want to get reelected, and for them public perception is everything. If they can fool people into thinking they are helping, they get votes. The reality of what they are doing, or the damage, means nothing. Most politicians don't understand economics, and worse, don't care to. Their "expertise" is in getting votes. Certainly most people have lives far too busy to understand what supply side economics is, or most any other economic theory. So they are reduced to voting on sound bites and emotional appeal. And here we are.

Our current financial problems are primarily the result of government "help." The insanity I referred to in the first paragraph is that the government now plans to give more "help," to solve the problem created by the original "help" (for homeowners in forming F&F). It is as if a patient had an allergic reaction to a medication and the doctor decided that he would give him more of it to stop the reaction.

Tax Policy

2009-01-21T15:10:00.000-08:00

It has been a while..but I am back. Read and learn. I'll be more attentive hereafter, or at least until I run out of wisdom to share.

The debate on taxes between liberals and conservatives is insane. Lowering taxes serves everyone's objectives. The government realizes more revenue, and individuals keep more of what they make. Lower taxes create more incentive for investors, thus more economic activity, and it keeps capital in private hands versus under inefficient government control. Consequently more wealth is generated. Why are we arguing?

Over the last 50 years the jury (history) watched and heard both sides of the tax debate. They returned a unanimous verdict. Cuts help everyone. John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and George W Bush lowered taxes and the economy skyrocketed every time. Herbert Hoover and FDR raised taxes and we had a depression. People say Bill Clinton raised taxes and the economy was great. That's true. But the marginal rate increases were modest, whereas his capital gains tax cut was substantial. Also the tech boom and his passage of NAFTA helped a lot.

There is a concern on the left that tax reduction dis-proportionately helps the wealthy, and it does. We can all agree that wealth creation in a capitalist system is top heavy. But capitalism still creates the greatest amount of wealth in every individual quintile of the income scale. If you are in the bottom 20% of earners, would you rather your income stagnate but remain proportional to someone in the top quintile, or would you rather earn more yourself and have the top earners gain disproportionally? I would care less about what was happening at the top so long as I was moving forward.

20 years ago Ireland's economy was one of the worst in Europe. They passed a law allowing artists to settle there and pay no taxes. Needless to say many people extended the meaning of artist (isn't a plumber creative?), and all of a sudden immigrants were coming from throughout Europe. The Parliament noticed that the economy was growing in a way they had never seen before, so they passed a general tax cut. Voila! There was more economic activity, more jobs, more net personal income, and more tax revenue. Since then they cut taxes 13 times. 13 times the economy grew, and 13 times the government realized more tax revenue. Ireland has gone from one of the worst economies in the EU to the second best, behind Luxembourg. Before the reductions they had 50,000 people a year leaving the country looking for work. Today they have 200,000 coming into the country looking for work.

Over the last 50 years Hong Kong has been the fastest growing of all western economies. They also have the lowest tax rate. In fact it even "favors the rich," in that it is a 16 percent flat tax. Still, the lowest rate among western economies not only produces the highest growth rate among them, but also produces the highest tax revenue per capita.

In about 1970 Communists won elections in Chile and nationalized industries and of course raised taxes. Needless to say the economy ground to a halt, there was high inflation, and despair ruled the country. Colonel Augusto Pinochet (head of the army) took control of the government, and his advisers (a group of free market economists from University of Chicago known as The Chicago Boys) had him privatize industry and lower taxes and regulations. There were huge job losses and more economic contraction at first, but within a couple of years the economy began to grow, and like Ireland, Chile became the economic miracle of their continent.

In 1945 Argentina had a standard of living higher than France. In the succeeding years the communists/ socialists took over, raised taxed and did all the things socialists do (including severely curbing personal freedoms). As a result the country went from vibrant growth to a stagnant second rate economy. Even France, with all its oppressive taxes, has grown faster and larger than Argentina.

The Heritage Foundation (a conservative think tank) and the Wall Street Journal compile statistics annually called the Economic Freedom Index. They quantify with a point value each area they think is important to the growth of an economy. The total point score gives an overall rating to each country gauging their economic freedom and growth potential. Taxes are the most important, but things like regulation, the judicial system, respect for private property, infrastructure etc are included. If you graph the ratings of each country, and placed it next to a graph of each countries economic growth, or per capita income, or living standard, or government revenue, or most anything we hope to get from our economy, you will see a mirror image. The higher the rating in the Economic Freedom Index, the higher the economic growth rate and overall prosperity.

Government is the problem, not the solution. Obviously we need government. We need a protector and an enforcer (police and armed forces). We also need a referee (settle disputes, insure transparency etc.). But mostly we need government to stay out of the way. Ironically, one might think lower taxes would starve the beast (government), but counter intuitively, lowering taxes actually produces more money. Eventually we will reach a point where the rate goes so low that revenue does begin to decline. Then we can argue. But please, not now..

A Deal With the Devil

2008-12-13T11:20:00.000-08:00

Congress set up criteria to bail out the auto industry and the unions said no. They were unwilling to agree to a date certain where they would reduce their pay to what foreign companies operating in the US are paying their workers. The union seemed to be gambling that Bush would once again ignore capitalist principles and use TARP funds to keep the companies alive, and unfortunately, I think they are right.

In the press release the union president said those evil right wing Senate Republicans wanted the workers to shoulder the entire burden. This would be a reasonable complaint if only it were true. Actually the Republican plan required that all unsecured creditors reduce the amount of their debt by two thirds, costing several billions of dollars and replacing it with equity. If they didn't agree by March 15, the companies would declare bankruptcy (in which case the creditors would get far less, if anything). It sounds like they were shouldering part of the burden to me. The equity holders would get diluted beyond recognition, all but wiped out, because of the plan to replace debt with equity. That sounds like they would have done their share.

OK..So the UAW president lied. Still I have a problem with congress financing any bailout, but the argument may be correct that a chapter 11 bankrupcy is not practical. The argument is with the complexities involved at GM Chrysler and Ford, bankruptcy as a viable option that could create healthy companies (the normal procedure) is all but impossible. It would result in chapter 7 liquidation. Plan B (aka the Republican plan) has congress acting like a bankruptcy judge, and therefore it could work.

But Bush's weakness will undermine that plan getting passed. Unions are betting he will fund the autos with TARP, and the money will flow from the government through the companies to the union. Of course in two or three years and 40 or so billion later everyone will return to the scene of the crime..and they will go bankrupt.

This brings up an interesting question. Do the workers in Detroit live better than those in Mississippi (Mercedes plant) even though Detroit earns 50% more money? The answer is no. Because the cost of living is so much higher in Michigan, their workers probably don't live as well.
The sales tax, state income tax, state corporate taxes that pass through to consumers, school taxes, fees etc. are all higher in the north. People pay more taxes, pay more for consumer goods (because of taxes and regulations foisted upon them), pay more for services (because the service providers pay more taxes), and pay more for health insurance (because of mandates, regulations and their support for trial lawyers).

The point is, if government were more responsible and spent less, a 50% reduction in wages might be acceptable. But under present conditions, given the same amount of money, the lifestyle in Michigan is far inferior to that in Mississippi. This is because long ago the unions chose to throw in with the socialists/ Democrats, and like any deal with the devil, it looked great, had momentary benefits, but now the devil is calling in his note.

Marx and Lenin said the workers should revolt, they have nothing to lose but their chains, and I agree. But the revolt should be against a government that uses its power to tax unconscionably, pick and choose winners and losers, use massive amounts of money attempting to stop the creative destruction of capitalism, thereby inflicting far more pain than would otherwise occur, and in the process squanders the fruit from the labor of millions.

An addendum..Ben Stein weighed in on TV today and said those of us opposed to a bailout are un-American..This from a would be conservative who gave Al Franken money for his senate campaign (now that's really un-American), whose father was an economist but he can not even understand supply side economics. I kid you not. With every financial crisis, or crisis of any sort, he advocates raising taxes, buying into the Democratic insanity that money can be extracted from the economy without any effect. Earth to Ben: The life blood of an economy is capital...raising taxes is no different than bleeding a sick patient. Every economy in every part of the world proved this. It is not only that he is wrong, but he is arrogant and has now slandered those of us who disagree.

Capitalism 101

2008-12-12T14:40:00.001-08:00

A few weeks ago Treasury secretary Paulson told the congress that if he didn't have 750 billion dollars that weekend catastrophes would occur. The implication was if he got it, the economic ship could be righted. He got it, and then a couple of weeks later completely trashed the plan he was going to implement, and decided on an entirely new one. Think about it. We were "on the precipice," but had a plan to save the world. Congress appropriated an astronomical amount of money for it, and then Treasury rethought things and decided the first plan wouldn't work, but a new one they dreamed of would....sure..

The economic insanity has reached record levels. Nearly every state, municipality, industry and home owner is looking for a bailout, and every politician, pundit and economist has an idea how to save us from the pain of the recession. None of them have a clue.

There is a history of government action, and it isn't pretty. See Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae for details. They were arguably the start of the cancer that grew into the present crisis.

Do you remember the stimulus package a couple of months ago? I do. I just can't see where it helped.

Although Roosevelt is given credit for bringing us out of the depression, the fact is he and his predecessor, Hoover, caused the severity and length of the depression. Obama's public works initiative is modeled on Roosevelt public works policies, and although suggesting that such policies brought us out of the depression makes for romantic liberal storytelling, the reality is that a stock market crash partly due to a bubble created by 10 to 1 leverage began a recession, but failed monetary policy, trade barriers, and increased taxed got us into the depression. The reversal of at least some of these got us out, not Roosevelt's huge public spending.

No one today knows the effect of the policies they are proposing. The forces in the economy are so complex that we can only make educated guesses. History fails us as a guide for the future because new forces constantly enter the equation, and since we don't understand things very well to begin with, we certainly can't understand things with a constant flow of new variables. If we could get it right, we would all be rich. The attempts to influence the economy through government action can never be proved to have failed either. There is no control group to measure it against, so no matter how bad things go, it can be argued it would have been worse without the action.

In Washington perception is reality. If the auto bailout fantasy is to be believed, it will save millions of jobs, it will create a viable healthy industry that will wean the country off fossil fuels, repay bondholders in full, and possible even profit shareholders. I'd laugh out loud except it is so tragic.

This bailout shows that once congress is involved, political considerations trump everything else. The auto executives told congress what they wanted to hear, not what the industry needed to be profitable. The auto companies were going to concentrate on green cars. Right.. they will sell a lot of them with $1.50 or $2.00 gas.

The congressmen said the unions (their consistent supporters and contributors) have already given up a lot, and shouldn't bear the entire burden. This is code meaning the industry must keep the union wages at twice what foreign manufactures pay for their US labor. That will sure help a lot..Not only can't this approach work...it actually will make a bad business model worse.

Fannie and Freddie are a recent example of government involvement in business. Congress created these monsters under the guise of expanding home ownership. They gave them implicit government guarantees on the money they borrowed. This created a squeeze on other lenders because without a similar guarantee they couldn't borrow as cheaply. Congress then used Fannie and Freddie as a depository for their political cronies. In order to beef up bonuses for the cronies (among others), the companies borrowed far too much, were too leveraged, (it couldn't have happened without that government guarantee.. no one would have loaned them the money), and committed accounting fraud. Franklin Raines, a Democratic political operative (Carter and Clinton administrations), was appointed the CEO of Fannie Mae. During his term earnings were overstated by 2.7 billion dollars, and he earned over 90 million dollars for himself. He settled the civil suit filed against him for a couple of million dollars and gave up his then worthless options. It pays to have friends in high places. But I digress. Congress later passed the Community Reinvestment Act. It said that Fannie and Freddie should make every effort to lend to non creditworthy borrowers, with insufficient equity (down payment). They also said that other banks would have to lend in poor neighborhoods (spell that non creditworthy borrowers with insufficient equity) or they would be prohibited from getting federal approval for mergers. As to profits..well really, what does congress care.

It is laughable that now that the entire thing has blown up, congress accepts no responsibility, and instead invents "predatory lending" as the culprit. This fantasy says that lenders who lost huge sums of money, were guilty of conning poor unassuming honest middle class families into borrowing more than they could afford to repay. The lenders may have been stupid, but predatory? No no..The borrowers may have foolish as well.. but victims? I don't think so.

We don't know where our attempts to solve this will lead, but we do know government action always enlarges the problems and creates new ones rather than solving anything. Let us first do no harm. Get the government out. Nationalizing industries has consistently been disastrous. We may not know what allowing these failures to occur would do, but we do know that although the market place is often painful, it corrects bad behavior as quickly and painlessly as possible. I don't know on what course the market will take us, or how bad it will be. I just know that it is the best choice from an obviously bad menu.

Racism 101

2008-12-01T10:07:00.000-08:00

Many people are making the mistake of thinking an Obama presidency will put the race issue to rest, or at least soften the intensity of feelings. They are wrong..

The race hustlers have already staked out their turf, and lest anyone believe that Obama's election reflects racial progress, every black leader from the left is on the record trivializing the election's racial importance. According to them this shows only modest progress, but a lot more is needed. I disagree.

Black race problems are vastly overstated. What racial problems there are, are not much different than normal problems between any two different racial, ethnic or geographic groups. There are real bigots, but far fewer than the left and most black leaders would have you believe, and those bigots have lots of targets, not just blacks.

My children are more important to me than my brother's children. His children are more important to me than my next door neighbors children. American children are more important to me than European children. Does this make me bigoted towards my brother or my next door neighbor or European children? My point is that the more removed someone is from my life, the less concerned I am about him. This is human nature. There is nothing to be ashamed of, and nothing can change it. When we hear about ten Iraqis killed in a terrorist attack, we are less upset than hearing that one American soldier was killed. If a terrorist explodes a bomb in town near where we live and a dozen people are injured, we will be more distraught than if a tsunami kills 500 people in some far away country. These are examples of the human condition, not bigotry.

Lots of jokes are made about blacks. Lots are made about Jews, Irish and Italians. No group is spared. Snide comments are made which stereotype blacks, but Jews do the same to gentiles, and wasps make them about Jews. Every group makes them about every other group. It isn't nice and it isn't pretty, regardless of who is speaking. But it happens to everyone. We should never accept it, but neither should we act as if the only group that it happens to are black. Are blacks more abused than most? Perhaps, but that is no justification for the growth of the cottage industry of black victimization.

The industry leaders include Reverend Al Sharpton, Reverend Jesse Jackson, Reverend Louis Farrakahan and Reverend Jeremiah Wright. In reality they are themselves hate mongers. Listen to their message. The white enemy/ oppressor (Jews are especially guilty) caused blacks all manner of problems, has prevented their social and economic advancement, and continues to do so.

The hustlers claim to find bigotry everywhere. Harold Ford is a black Tennessee politician from a very successful political family. He ran for an open Senate seat in 2006 and lost by three percent. Every pundit and publication in America decided that he would have won were it not for his being black. It was the accepted wisdom. Of course it is patently silly. None of the facts support the conclusion. The last Democrat elected to the Senate from Tennessee was Al Gore. The state even went Republican when their home boy Gore ran for president. Ford is a very likable, skilled politician, ran in a year when Democrats did very well, and so he did better than any Democrat since 1988. He came closer to winning than any other Democrat since Republicans took over congress. So to suggest he lost because he is black flies in the face of common sense, and all of the evidence.

Obama won 97 percent of the black vote, and large percentages of the white vote. Certainly there is more evidence there that blacks voted just because of race (aka racism). I have no problem with why they voted as they did. Still, I have yet to hear any outcry of bigotry coming from this group of leaders.

In our everyday lives we can only make judgments on the evidence available to us, and sometimes there is very little of evidence to go on. If you were walking down a dark empty street late at night and a man appeared carrying a gun, you would be scared to death and try to get off the street. If you were in the middle of a street and on one side was a man in a coat and tie, and on the other was a man who looked drunk, dirty and threatening, you would cross over to the side with the well dressed man. Are you bigoted towards gun toting or shabbily dressed men? I don't think so. I'd say you have common sense. If a black and a white man are on this street and you have nothing to go on but the color of their skin, for the same reason you reacted as you did to in the prior two examples, you would cross over to the white man's side. The black man might be a high class gentleman, and the white man a rapist, but you don't have enough information to understand that or the luxury of time to find out. You can only act on the information you have.

Black men commit crimes at a higher rate than white men. That alone justifies your decision. Obama recounts a story about his grandmother where she says she was gripped by fear when a black man came near her when her surroundings made her feel vulnerable. He offers this up as racism. I would suggest it is another example of common sense.

Instead of the race hustlers making the absurd argument that this is bigotry, perhaps they should tell the black community that they may have been dealt a bad hand, but how they are viewed by others can only change when their behavior changes. Jews are stereotyped as being money hungry and cheap, Irish as drunks, Italians as mafia members etc. Looking at people as groups, the charges may or may not be true. Individually however they are not. As individuals people have to deal with their group's stereotypes. Such is life for everyone, not just blacks. In the meantime those who suffer most from the high crime rate by blacks are blacks themselves. If instead of blaming whitey for some real or imaginary transgression, the leadership pushed the community to improve itself, everyone would be better off.

Preaching blacks are victims has multiple effects, none good. Shelby Steele discusses one. He describes hypothetical black and white youngsters who go into business (individually). They both fail. The white boy picks himself up and thinks, what did I do wrong and how can I do it better. He then jumps back into the fray. The black boy says, I failed because I'm black. I failed because of whitey. He then decides trying again is hopeless. He thinks this way because that is this deadly message the race hustlers have given him all of his life.

The last thing anyone needs is an excuse for failure. If we provide enough such excuses to anyone, rest assured, he will fail. If however he receives the message that there is opportunity, he has the talent to succeed, and that it is up to him to capitalize on it, he has a chance. Perhaps one group has to try harder than another. So what? There are only two choices. Try to get over that higher bar, or don't try and be assured of failure?

One of the hustler's approaches is to argue that slavery is the cause of slower black social and economic development, the government was complicit in slavery, and therefore the government must do something to correct it. Our constitution protects individuals, not groups, and individuals, not groups, have rights, one being redress. There are no individuals alive who were slaves. Therefore no one is entitled to redress for slavery. Being born with less opportunity than someone else does not create an entitlement. If it did, anyone could find a reason to justify a petition for help. What every citizen is entitled to is equal treatment under the law, and we must be diligent to insure that.

Obama thinks differently. He says he does not support reparations (payment by the government to descendants of slaves) but he does say that special programs need to be set up for blacks because of slavery. What he means is that cash payments to blacks should not be made, but special services and programs for blacks should. It sounds like "in kind" reparations to me. But the scary thing is he doesn't understand the harm such a policy does to the very group it intends to help. It reinforces the fictional and hurtful idea that blacks are less qualified, they need and are entitled to help. Does anyone think affirmative action has helped anyone other than a very few individuals. I can't get into that here, but affirmative action is not only unconstitutional, but like reparations, like blaming whitey for black individual failures, like anything where the government treats people differently based on race, it hurts everyone, and especially the people it is trying to help.

The race hustlers make their living fanning the fire of racial discord. For those who think Obama's election will ease the problem, just remember, these professional agitators are at the core of his constituency.

McCarthy by Kathryn Sall

2008-11-27T12:35:00.000-08:00

Below Is a speech my daughter Kathryn gave to her high school. As you will note it contradicts conventional liberal wisdom. None the less it is accurate. The sources used are unimpeachable. Interestingly, a few teachers approached her privately after the speech and expressed how wonderful it was to hear what she said. However, those feelings could never be expressed publicly in an academic environment, lest the speaker risk a career catastrophe. So much for the assembly of differing ideas. That is what academics say..not what they do..

"Like Hitler, [Joseph] McCarthy was a screamer, a political thug, a master of the mob, an exploiter of popular fears… He was a master of the scabrous and scatological; his talk was laced with obscenity. He was a vulgarian by method as well as by instinct. He made little pretense to religiosity or to any species of moral rectitude. He sought to manipulate only the most barbaric symbols of America—the slippery elm club, the knee in the groin, and the brass knuckles. He was a prince of hate".

This statement by Richard Rovere is typical of most descriptions of former Senator Joseph McCarthy, Republican from Wisconsin. Almost everyone you will meet would agree with him. There is only one small problem. Every word is a lie. Statements like these were commonplace and still are. Half of the Congressional leaders and every mainstream media outlet, today and in the past, on front and editorial pages, have made similar statements. Our generation's ideas have been shaped by these falsehoods, and therefore most of you probably share a similar opinion. In telling various people about my assembly topic I was met with raised eyebrows, followed by an incredulous, "you're defending Joe McCarthy?!" My advice for them and everyone is believe none of what you hear and half of what you see.

For some reason most people assume that the printed word is accurate, as if the mere fact that something is published authenticates it. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Nothing can be assumed to be impartial or factual simply because it is in print. Historical inaccuracies and lies are as common as the lies we listen to every day. While I could give you a long list of examples, time constraints allow me to focus on only one.

Good morning. My name is Kathryn Sall and I am here to set the story straight about this heroic Senator, Joseph McCarthy, whose very name has become a malediction.

The United States allied itself with the Soviet Union to defeat the fascists in World War II. During that time the communist threat both abroad and domestically grew exponentially, but was largely ignored because of the war. Communists had infiltrated all branches of our government. Imagine if today, Al Qaeda operatives were advising president Bush while taking orders from Bin Laden (Coulter). Communist ambitions were to take over the world, and we, the capitalists, were their main target.

As one example of the level of infiltration, President Franklin Roosevelt had a member of the Communist party and a Communist spy, Alger Hiss, advising him at the peace conference at Yalta. Is it any wonder that the Allies gave away most of Eastern Europe and left the people imprisoned by the Soviet Union for the next fifty years? Throughout the forties a few Senators and Congressmen addressed the growing threat, but little action was taken. At best this was benign neglect by the Roosevelt and Truman administrations.

Joe McCarthy took up the cause of getting the Communists out of the government. For this he was attacked relentlessly by both the media and the opposing party. As historian M. Stanton Evans points out, the oft repeated charge by his opponents that these were "stale, warmed over charges" (he was making) did not make them "false, irrelevant, obsolete, and unimportant," as McCarthy's critics claimed. To the contrary, the communist threat remained very menacing. In fact we now know that most of the charges were true, and most of the suspected spies and sympathizers were exactly what they were thought to be. They were throughout government, working to undermine this great democracy. (Evans)

In the United States it has always been legal to be a communist. But it has always been illegal to be a communist spy. Today it would be legal to philosophically support Al Qaeda, but quite illegal to spy for Al Qaeda. Legal or not, I doubt anyone would want active al Qaeda members working in our government. But many communists in the post war government of the 40s and 50s were working in government, literally hundreds of them.

It is commonly believed that Senator McCarthy was a member of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, then charged with investigating the Communist threat. In fact he was never even in the House of Representatives, his only national elected office was to the US Senate. McCarthy's detractors claim he made reckless charges, ruining innocent people's lives with unsubstantiated evidence or no evidence at all. To the contrary, the congressional record shows that during the investigation he fought to not release any names, pointing out these people were not yet guilty of anything and could be unfairly hurt if the were innocent. He chose to speak on the Senate floor using code names like case #1 and case #2 (Coulter). But his opponents seem to have thought it in their best political interests to demand that the names be made public. During one exchange, Democratic senator Scott W. Lucas of Illinois interrupted him 60 times stating, "I want him [McCarthy] to name those communists" (Evans). McCarthy offered instead to go into a closed committee hearing so only the senators would know the names, but his offer was denied, and some innocent people were unfairly tarred. But who used that "knee in the groin?" Who was barbaric, McCarthy or his opponents, those same people for whom history has now been rewritten?

When McCarthy was elected America was in complete denial of this threat. Supposed cold war expert David Caute said, "There is no documentation in the public record of a direct connection between the American Communist Party and espionage during the entire postwar period" (Coulter). Like many of the supposed certainties on this subject, he couldn't have been more wrong.

Whittaker Chambers was a disillusioned former Soviet Spy who admitted his guilt, and named Alger Hiss, an assistant Secretary of State under FDR, as a co-conspirator, a spy with whom he had worked. This caused a heated debate, and as you might expect, the complete trashing of Chambers and his reputation. Although there was a wealth of evidence pointing to Hiss's guilt, the government only convicted him of perjury for lying about his relationship with Chambers. Little did anyone know at the time, incontrovertible proof of his treason did exist. and would come to light in the form of the Venona papers.

Venona was a project undertaken in the 1940s to try to decipher a code used in secret transmissions by the Soviet Union. The code was cracked, but for fear of leaks the FBI did not share the information with other branches of government. The transcripts were finally released after the fall of the Soviet Union. They showed that the White House, the State Department, the War Department (today's Department of Defense), the Office of Strategic Services (the forerunner of the CIA), and the Treasury Department, were completely infiltrated by communists taking direct orders from the Kremlin (Coulter). We know for certain there were over 300 soviet spies that were in government. If anything, the Venona Papers prove that McCarthy underestimated the communist problem, rather than the common belief today that he had vastly overstated it.

It has become fashionable in certain circles to argue the innocence of the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, spies executed for transferring nuclear secrets to the Soviets. Two cohorts from their inner circle fled the country when they were arrested. Ethel Rosenberg's brother in law testified to their guilt, there were other eyewitness accounts, and there was the jury's verdict, but nothing is enough to convince some people. As Ann Coulter, leading political writer puts it, they had "spied on their own country and turned over atomic secrets to a grisly totalitarian regime that would threaten American citizens for the next 50 years." Nikita Khrushchev wrote in his memoirs that the Rosenbergs gave "very significant help in accelerating the production of [The USSR's] atomic bomb." The Venona papers combined with several Soviet archives that were also released after the fall of the Soviet Union, proved that not only were Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs spies, but Harry Dexter White, assistant secretary of the treasury under FDR, Lauchlin Currie, administrative assistant to FDR, Duncan Lee, the equivalent today's CIA chief of staff under FDR, Harry Hopkins, FDR adviser, Owen Lattimore, senior State Department official, and Joseph Davies, US ambassador to the USSR were also Soviet spies. (Evans) Davies once declared that "Russia… [had] every moral right to seek atomic bomb information through military espionage" (Evans). Think about that. That came from a man with vast powers as a representative of the United States government. He was saying that our sworn enemy had the right to steal our plans and develop weapons meant for our destruction.

Everything uncovered in the last 50 years is consistent with most of what McCarthy said. In addition to Chambers, ex-communist spies Elizabeth Bentley and Louis Budenz came forward to confirm what the Venona papers recorded.. One Soviet spy, Judith Coplon, a Foreign Agents Registration government worker with regular access to counter-intelligence information, was apprehended in the act of handing a US counter-intelligence file over to a KGB officer (Coulter). The list goes on and on.

One of the most famous quotes from McCarthy's hearings was that of the army special counsel Joseph Welch, who ended a heated exchange with McCarthy by saying, "Have you left no sense of decency?" (Schulz). He was attacking McCarthy for exposing communist front organization member Frederick Fisher, with Welch claiming Fisher was simply a young family man and lawyer trying build a career. However, what is conveniently left out of textbooks today, is that Welch himself fired Fisher from his law firm six weeks earlier because Fisher was a member of the very Communist front organization McCarthy had referred to. (Schulz). Obviously, his attack on McCarthy was pure theatrics. Unfortunately, this same play is oft repeated today as if it were factual.

There was a real threat facing America, and Joe McCarthy came forth to fight it, at the expense of his good name and career. Although he proved right in almost every instance, if you listen to any account given today, you would understandably believe that he was some depraved individual trying to advance his career by attacking innocent, law abiding citizens. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Most books about McCarthy repeat the same story of his villainous, rabid rampages. But in all these books the sources are key. Look at them. The footnotes all cite academics, who cite other academics, which all trace back to anti-McCarthy press who positively loathed him (Coulter). Few actually cite primary sources like the congressional record, eyewitness testimony, or even contemporaneous notes. That is until now. For the past 8 years historian M. Stanton Evans has been rifling through "hundreds of thousands of pages of records, reports, transcripts, and other documents" (Schulz) and has finally released the first accurate account of this period, Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and his Fight Against America's Enemies. I have not even scratched the surface of the falsehoods accepted as fact in this matter. For the whole truth I encourage you to read this book and see for yourselves. Evans cites primary sources and footnotes everything. You be the judge. He concludes with, "In the end, [McCarthy] perished, politically and otherwise, in the rubble he pulled down around him. Yet when the final chapter in the conflict with Moscow was written, amid yet another pile of rubble, he was not without his triumph" (Evans).

It is important to give McCarthy the credit he deserves in his defense of America and the treason he exposed. But the most important point I have tried to make is that history can be and is re-written with relative ease. McCarthy had a great deal of support at the time, certainly within his own party, but also a majority of the public. Still, after his generation passed and the witnesses had died, people were free to rewrite history as they chose. If someone were not born at the time, and was told one version, any version repeatedly, it would become their truth.. The next time you hear the word McCarthyism, or are told of this dark period of persecution and denial of individual rights by our government, think about what I told you today…We will all be better for it..
Thank you.

The Legacy

2008-11-21T15:53:00.000-08:00

I have heard several times that George W Bush will go down in history as one of our worst presidents. This comes mostly from the Bush is stupid crowd, Cheney is evil, and the only ethical thing anyone could do in the last election cycle was vote for Obama. Still, there is a growing consensus that he will be treated harshly by history, and although it may be right, it may be colossally wrong.

All presidents presiding during wars have a difficult time politically. Lyndon Johnson didn't run in 1968 for a second term because of the Vietnam War. Harry Truman declined to run in 1952 because of the Korean War, and during his tenure Abraham Lincoln had serious political problems. Franklin D Roosevelt had few political difficulties, but the news reporting was almost entirely supportive, and fictional. Lincoln, Roosevelt and Truman were all treated kindly by history, and although Johnson was not elevated to their status, he was rehabilitated.

There are three things Bush did during his tenure that I agree with. In my opinion everything else was a disaster. Early on our "free trading" president imposed steel quotas. The attempted explanations for it were laughable. He looked into Putin's eyes and must have been blinded. He couldn't have read the man more wrong. He signed campaign finance reform, seriously curtailing free speech in America. He passed No Child Left Behind, a feeble attempt to improve education. The problem is it was guaranteed to fail once the Teachers Union learned how to game it..and they would..and they did. He supported an immigration bill that only an anarchist could love (in spite of the lofty rhetoric about compassion), and even worse, he signed a series of budget bills that would make a socialist blush. These were not his proudest moments.

On the plus side, he lowered taxes to the betterment of everyone, rich and poor. They created jobs, created wealth, and continued a long tradition of economic expansion. The current economic disaster has roots that are independent of the tax cuts, although tying the two together will probably become a political hammer for the left. He appointed two excellent Supreme Court justices (even if he had to be coerced into withdrawing Harriet Meirs and naming Sam Alito). However, neither of these things, nor the negative ones listed above, will affect his legacy.

What will determine history's judgment is Bush's prosecution of the Iraq War and the broader war on terror. This and only this is what will be noted by history. The reason I am so perplexed by those who "know" his legacy will be a disaster is because the jury is still out on these issues, and will remain undecided for some time. The middle east or Iraq may blow up and Bush will be blamed. But not until we know where the war takes the middle east and radical Islam will we know his legacy.

It is very possible things will play out in a way that could put the President on Mt. Rushmore (figuratively, of course). What if democracy really does take hold in Iraq and throughout the region? Is that impossible? Might not other Arab countries follow the Iraqi lead? What if moderate Muslims gain power and support the west in fighting the terrorists, much the way the Iraqis did during the Sunni awakening (the point at which the Sunnis joined the Shiites and American forces to get rid of the terrorists)? History has a way of fooling us all, and I make no claim to having any better insight than anyone else. But such positive developments wouldn't be shocking. The current success in Iraq might become a springboard from which great things could happen.

The left told us that Arabs could never live in a democratic state (they said the same thing about the Japanese after world war two). Iraq is proving them wrong. They said Iraq was a distraction from the war on terror. But Al Qaeda terrorists raced to get there and, to our surprise, gave us a target we could shoot at. It is true that this was never part of the plan when the war started, but surprises are the norm in a war. It is estimated that 12,000 Al Quaeda were in Iraq at one point. All but about 1000 have been killed or driven out, and those remaining are in hiding. Two years ago the liberals said the war was lost. When the surge reversed the tide of the war, they said the there was no political progress. Now that the political progress is moving along, they just don't talk about it. And the battalion on their left flank (aka the main stream media), has chosen not to mention it either. How much do you read in your news sources about what is going on in Iraq? If the accuracy of the past predictions from the left are any guide, our President has a good chance of making a big mark in history.

Don't misunderstand. Things could reverse themselves. But for now, at least the possibility exists that the bold action taken by Bush will change the world. If the middle east becomes a liberal society, it could be a greater transformation than all other societal changes in the twentieth century combined.

Let us pray...

A Better Democracy

2008-11-18T19:38:00.000-08:00

From the beginning of our great country there has been an ongoing debate. How should judges (the Supreme Court in particular) interpret the constitution? Should it be as a living constitution (the liberal view), or should it be according to the the framer's original intent (conservative view).

The Cliff Notes version of the supporting arguments are as follows. The living constitution theory says that it was created in accordance with the society norms of that time, but society has changed. Therefore judges must make commensurate changes, ones which will address modern society. The original intent group argue that the constitution has an amendment procedure already available, and it is adequate for needed updates and changes. They also argue that interpreting the constitution as a living document makes the law into a moving target, located wherever the individual whims of justices take it. If true justice for all is to be achieved, the law must be fixed.

There is one important point I think the debate completely misses. The assumption that the the constitution is based on the norms of society is not correct. The constitution is based on human nature. Society changes, but human nature does not, making that great document as valid today as it was the day it was written. The original intent of the framers is the only thing we can look to for guidance.

Liberals often cite the constitution's original voting requirements as an example of their argument that what was written then no longer is applicable. Only male land owners were permitted to vote. Women were entirely prohibited. They say that although that may have been acceptable in society when it was written, it would be unacceptable today.

First, the process proscribed within it allowed the document to be amended, and without the help of any judicial interpretation. The founding fathers believed as I do, that the long term welfare of our nation is best served by an informed, invested electorate. Thus, I question the assumption that the original intent fails at all. Women didn't qualify because they were not regarded as well educated or well informed. Only property owners were thought to have enough of a an investment in the long term welfare of the state to qualify. Is that unreasonable? Would we not be better off today if that principle were applied? It might have been better if the constitution were more clear, saying that only informed citizens with a vested interest can vote, but the idea is a sound one. If women today are regarded as well informed, and non land owners as vested, let them vote. But preserve the integrity of the system and put up some bar over which people must climb before voting. We will all be better off.

Instead it has been determined that anyone should be able to vote. But too many voters have no idea what policy or party serves them best. Far more people know who Paula Abdul is than know the three branches of government. This extension of voting rights to anyone and everyone has led to a huge bloc of people voting only for their immediate gratification, as opposed to what serves the country and themselves in the long run. These voters remind me of farmers who eat the seed corn, and are therefore unable to plant in the Spring.

The popular idea today is that the more people who vote the stronger our democracy will become, helping everyone feel he has a role in decision making. But more important for political stability is the economic welfare of the country. Hitler got just two percent of the vote in the election before the depression, but with economic hard times as a catalyst he won outright. Can you think of any similar situation? Long term economic welfare would be much better served in a system that filtered who can vote.

Under our current system, one group can vote themselves another groups private property, something unlikely to occur if only property owners were voting. In the short run expropriating private property may benefit a few, but in the long run it is ruinous for everyone. The constitutional restrictions on voting (as they were written) should have been replaced, not eliminated. I won't speculate on what criteria should be applied, but real standards need to be set.

Our founding fathers were brilliant. They took the selfishness in human nature and through capitalism and private property harnessed it so as to do the greatest public good for the greatest number of people. We should listen closely to everything they said. After all, this experiment we call the United States of America produced the greatest country in the history of mankind.

Gay Marriage and Activist Judges

2008-11-15T08:29:00.000-08:00

There are many arguments for and against gay marriage. I have not heard compelling arguments either way, and I am not sure where I come down. However, given the approach supporters have used, count me among the opposition. The method being used by the pro gay marriage camp should be universally condemned, and because of it there is no resolution in sight.

Marriage is a legal construct. For over two hundred years, local, state and federal legislatures have passed thousands of laws granting married couples certain rights, privileges and responsibilities. In every case marriage was either explicitly defined as a union between a man and a women, or it was assumed that everyone understood it that way. There are absolutely no exceptions-not one.

Today we have groups that would like to be included under the umbrella of those laws (one comic agreed they should on the basis that gays deserve to be just as miserable as the rest of us). There is a process by which this might be done. They have the right to petition our law making bodies, federal state and local legislatures. In the event they garner adequate support, and those bodies agree (through the votes of the elected representatives), their hopes will be realized.

Instead the supporters have elected to try to change the law in the courts. They have been successful in getting some unelected judges to rule in their favor by redefining the word marriage to include them. There are plenty of arguments in favor of gay marriage, but defining marriage as anything other than a union between a man and a woman is not one of them.

The entire debate upsets conservatives, not just because many believe on religious grounds and others that it is wrong, but because it is another example of activist courts usurping the power and role of the legislature. Those courts supporting gay marriage have rewritten the laws, and the intent of the lawmakers, under the dubious claim that the current gender requirement is unconstitutional. In reality the "rights" the courts invented in order to justify their action is the only thing unconstitutional. As a democracy, our lawmaking must remain the exclusive domain of our elected representatives. Judges are charged with adjudicating the law, fairly interpreting it, but not undermining lawmakers authority by applying their social philosophy under the banner of dubious/invented constitutional claims.

As a result of all this we have proposition 8 in California (and similar ballot measures in other states), amending the state constitutions and banning gay marriage. These measures are partly due to these activist judges, but also to a federal law requiring all states to recognize all marriages in other states. The federal Defense of Marriage Act tried to remedy this (and protect against activist judges), but various local judges intervened and ruled it was unconstitutional. For them the game is to rule anything they don't like as unconstitutional. The only response available to the opposition is to try to amend the constitution.

The practical effect of the advocates course is to confuse the issue and prolong the debate. If a conventional approach to the legislature had been used, the country would be much closer to a solution. Think of Roe vs Wade. The Supreme Court used tortured logic and convoluted reasoning (logic and reasoning loosely defined here) to arrive at some sort of quasi right to abortion. They took an implied right, not written into the constitution (the right to privacy), as the basis for a new right (sort of an implied right mothering a new right), that being a woman's right to (their euphemism) choose. Had the court properly ruled what is obvious, that abortion is not the purview of the federal government, it would be legal in at least 48 states, and I believe one way or another legally available to everyone. At the time of Roe three quarters of the states had already legalized abortion, and laws legalizing it were in the legislatures of all but a few of those remaining. My point is that this judicial activism didn't accelerate a solution, it delayed one. But worse, because of its extra legal birth, Roe gained no acceptance by the opposition. The country is still torn apart. Had the matter been returned to the states as it should have, there would still be groups trying to change whatever policy they adopted, and with great passion, but it would be without much of the animus and anger existing now.

If those advocating gay marriage proceeded in a conventional way, prevailing legally in even a few state legislatures, the federal government would have to deal with the difficulty created by the law requiring recognition by other states. Every state they won over would create more pressure for recognition by all the states. I can't say for sure what would result, but I know that whatever got done would be fairer and more acceptable to everyone than anything coming out of judicial activism.

Bail Us Out of Governments Help

2008-11-13T06:57:00.000-08:00

Hank Paulson looks like a quarterback calling audibles. He determined the "old" 750 billion bailout plan won't work, so he decided to spend the money on an entirely different program than the one authorized by congress. Neither he nor anyone else knows what these programs will do. Doesn't anyone in government understand central planning doesn't work? See the former Soviet Union, Mao's China, and Castro's Cuba for details. I make no claim to knowing how things would play out if congress butted out, but I am sure no one else does either. One thing is for sure. History has taught us that whenever the government tries to do things outside of its basic and necessary functions, it does massive damage to us all.

Allowing the banks and other business to fail would undoubtedly be very painful. The question is not that, but will the "solution" be worse than doing nothing. When a business fails in a capitalist system, either the debt holders replace the equity holders, or the business is liquidated and the money recovered is divided among the creditors. If that happens, there is less competition in that industry, making it more likely that others will survive. This is a painful process, but it works. All you Darwinians out there should buy into that.

First the government decided it would save the banks, and later extended the rescue to all manner of businesses- the auto industry, credit card industry, business finance etc. Of course in its infinite wisdom (and Democratic majority-although Bush is guilty too) congress decided that the consumer needs help, so a second stimulus package is planned, including mortgage assistance and an increase in unemployment benefits etc.

Who wouldn't love to help every struggling person in America? But under the banner of help what we are really doing is shooting morphine into a gangrenous leg rather than amputate it. The pain will go away for a while, but soon after the patient will die.

Harvard and Myths

2008-11-12T05:10:00.000-08:00

John Kenneth Galbraith was the chair of the economics department at Harvard for 30 years. He carried himself with an arrogance that would put Joe Biden to shame. The measure of any theory, or theoretician, is how successfully predictive he is. Galbraith got every prediction he ever made wrong. In one colossal blunder in 1983 he predicted that it was only a matter of time until the Soviet economy overtook ours. Of course 6 years later the Soviet economy and the nation itself collapsed. Only at Harvard can someone be wrong repeatedly, and at the same time be a celebrated department head. Cambridge really is in a fantasy world. Those fantasies continue today.

Last night I watched Marvin Kalb ( Emeritus Senior Fellow, Harvard University) interview Bill O'Reilly. I was once again reminded why Bill Buckley said “I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University." He was right. An ounce of common sense (the 400 phone book names) will outweigh a ton of intelligence (Harvard faculty) every time.

Kalb asked O'Reilly why he had supported the invasion in Iraq. The answer given was because he thought there were weapons of mass destruction that could be used against us, particularly if they were given to terrorists. When asked what made him so sure the weapons were there, O'Reilly said because of our intelligence reports. Kalb then asked how he knew the reports were genuine, and had he ever considered that he may have been lied to. Between the question itself and the visceral anger on Kalb's face, it was obvious what he thought.

Think about this. Kalb is an supposed to be an intelligent man, teaching at one of the worlds most prestigious universities. Yet he is buying into a myth that any half thoughtful cockatoo would understand was a fiction. Why am I not surprised? The most interesting part was the anger on Kalb's face. I hate to assign motives, but I wonder if it was a dramatic touch intended to add authenticity to a false charge, or if he really is that ignorant.

Every intelligence agency in the world, many through independent investigations and independent evidence, drew the same conclusion- Saddam had the weapons. We know he had them at one point. After the Gulf War the inspectors found them. He used them in the Iraq Iran War and on his own people. Were all the intelligence agencies lying? Were they all in a conspiracy? Almost every member of congress, at least those with the requisite security clearance, examined the intelligence reports and drew the same conclusion. The point is there is virtually no evidence the administration lied, save some conspiracy theorists nonsense, but there are mounds of evidence that a reasonable conclusion was drawn, albeit a wrong one.

Common sense itself, something sorely lacking in the hallowed halls of our universities, made any other conclusion hard to imagine. Why would Saddam throw the inspectors out? What was he protecting if he had nothing to hide? His pride may have been an obstacle, but he was a realist, and injuring his pride versus losing his kingdom and his life doesn't seem like a hard call. That and other questions remain unanswered today.

Let me bore you for a second with my personal theory as to why Saddam acted as he did. Why would he not yield to the demands that the inspectors be let back in? Certainly Bush made the consequences very clear. Did he think it was an idle threat? I doubt it. Did he think he could win a war? I doubt that even more. Probably the most corrupt organization in the world is the United Nations (the organization Obama will cede decision making to over US foreign policy). Prior to the invasion the UN was engaged in its typical day to day bribery and corruption, partnering with Saddam in what became know as the oil for food scandal. There were business people, and British, French and Russian political figures and journalists, "dipping their beak" into Saddam's well. Take note of where the favorable press and political support he received during the lead up to the war came from. I believe he may have received assurances from those political people involved in his web of bribery that they could control the United States. If so, it was a tragic error. I realize this could be miles off the mark, but it does rationalize an otherwise very strange set of facts.

But I digress. "Bush lied, kids died" (not exactly Shelly or Keats) was the mantra of many anti-war activists at our elite universities. The myth of having been lied to has gained currency among most liberals, even though it defies logic. Constant repetition will never change the facts, but it might change the historical record. In a generation or two the history books could easily state this myth as fact. Those of you who know the real history of FDR, Augusto Pinochet, Alger Hiss and Joe McCarthy understand what I mean.

It's the Philosophy Stupid!

2008-11-11T04:20:00.000-08:00

Before I begin let me apologize. My rhetoric yesterday towards the President elect may have been a bit harsh. Certainly I wish him well, as I do for us all. His past associations are frightening, but every sinner has a future, and I hope his future and ours will be bright.

Sarah Palin has been criticized by the left, and although I think it was over the top, slanderous in some cases and bogus in others, I expected it from the opposition. However critics like Peggy Noonan, George Will, and David Brooks (and others) are different. They are supposed to be on our team. If they were correct in what they said, it would be forgivable. In fact it might even have been constructive. However the attacks (criticism is far too mild a word) were unfounded, wrong and showed a complete blindness as to what makes a great leader.

The correct experience and preparation for any politician seeking the presidency does not exist. Most of our greatest leaders had little experience and even less knowledge of the job. What the great ones did have was sound character, a solid philosophical grounding, and the willingness to make decisions based on the those principles, doing it boldly without fear of contradiction.

No matter what choices a president makes, there will be critics. Ultimately, he must depend on himself. He need not know who the president of Kazakhstan is, or for that matter France. He must however know that capitalism, although imperfect, works. It permits maximum freedoms, and produces the maximum goods and services. It provides the best health care, the best lifestyle, and the best of everything to whomever faithfully follows its dictates. Leaders must not be tempted by the siren song of socialism, no matter how loudly the media and academia preach its virtues. They make it sound like nirvana, but a great leader must know a priori, socialism corrupts. It is a cancer on our freedoms and our productive capabilities. That leader must not worship at the alter of public opinion, but have the convictions to stand strong when enemies mass at his front, and they will. He must resist the temptation to yield ground because capitalism, like democracy, like any system, is less than perfect. In politics the imperfect becomes the enemy of the good, because it gives pretenders a weapon. They point to singular failures (not systemic ones), taking the spotlight away from the overall good the system they are attacking does, and they can ignore the far worse system they advocate.

Which of the four presidential and vice presidential candidates has these characteristics? Obama is saddled with no experience and all the wrong ideas. Biden has decades of experience, all of which taught him self aggrandizement, bloviating, and to never say anything of substance. Add to that he comes down on the wrong side of every issue, and it is clear there are few people on the planet less qualified. McCain has fine character, decades of experience, he lacks Biden's pompousness, but he is not a very thoughtful man. He is all over the map philosophically, giving support to several tragically wrong ideas.

Then there is Sarah. She has very little experience, but during her time in office she demonstrated she is on the right side of every issue, and equally important she held her ground in some very tough turf battles. She is principled in a way that many people wouldn't even understand. The thing that allowed her to make so many right decisions was her application of common sense free market principles. Academics are so often blind because they focus on a few trees, never seeing the size and shape of the forest. It really is the sign of a genius to make a complicated thing simple. When Lincoln decided to keep our country in tact and free the slaves, he didn't use linear equations. What he did use was his common sense, character and fortitude, sticking with it no matter how tough things became. It may be inconclusive, but everything Sarah has done in her short career indicates she has the requisite philosophy, common sense, character and toughness to lead.

Reagan said Republicans need bold colors, not pastels. He demonstrated that the principled is also the political. Act in a principled way and political benefits accrue. The press attacked him relentlessly, calling him stupid (as they do all conservatives), dangerous (all conservatives), and disengaged (all conservatives). Yet he won elections in landslides and today is much loved, even by many who opposed him. Who is more like Reagan than Sarah Palin? She understands and advocates for the goodness and the absolute need for capitalism, individual responsibility, less government, free trade, a strong defense, the sanctity of life, and free enterprise in schools, public utilities, energy and health care. Can anyone out there imagine Sarah Palin supporting a nonsensical unscientific theory like man made global warming? She is clear in her thinking, and willing to articulate it without apology.

Nothing listed above relates to experience. It all relates to an individuals philosophy and character, and that is all that is important. Although I only know Sarah Palin from what I read in the newspapers, all the evidence I have is that her character and philosophy could not be better grounded. As to her three conservative critics listed above (along with many others), they owe this emerging leader of our movement a very humble apology.

President Elect Obama

2008-11-10T04:41:00.000-08:00

Leave it to a Brit to phrase things so eloquently...and perceptively:

"You have to pinch yourself - a Marxist radical who all his life has been mentored by, sat at the feet of, worshiped with, befriended, endorsed the philosophy of, funded and been in turn funded, politically promoted and supported by a nexus comprising black power anti-white racists, Jew-haters, revolutionary Marxists, unrepentant former terrorists and Chicago mobsters, is on the verge of becoming President of the United States. And apparently it's considered impolite to say so." - Melanie Philips, The Spectator (UK) 10/24/08

She is right of course. Ever word of the charges there can be easily defended. It is all so frightening. I am still in denial. Looking at the news and hearing "President elect Obama" makes my blood run cold.

There is a certain irony that such a far left politician as Obama should be elected in the same week that marks the 70th anniversary of Krystallnacht (night of broken glass- one of the beginning dates for the Holocaust where 90 Jews were killed by Germans rampaging through the ghettos). The far left throughout the world have been constant supporters of the Palestinians, either charging the Israelis with Nazi like crimes, or at best drawing a moral equivalence between the Jews and their Arab neighbors. It is as if they are saying that the rapist and his resisting victim are the same because they both use violence. The Left has convinced Great Britain to eliminate all references to the Holocaust from all of their public school text books. It seems to offend their Muslim population. If the world keeps supporting this racist bigotry, "Never again" (the Jews pledge to never forget the Holocaust and never let it happen again) will go the way of "Just say no" (Nancy Reagan's all but forgotten slogan for fighting drugs).

The left argues that there is a difference between anti Israel and anti Jew. If so, it is lost on me. The Germans didn't need help rounding up Jews in France after the invasion, the locals did it for them. Don't misunderstand. There are countless stories of heroism where Europeans from every country, France included, helped Jews during the war. But there was also a virulent strain of anti-semitism throughout Europe that has grown even stronger today, particularly among the political left. Hitler wanted Europe "Judenfrei" (free of Jews), and he nearly succeeded. Today, in "polite" far left society in all the capitals of Europe, anti- semitism is perfectly acceptable. Anyone who supports the Arabs against the Jews in the Mideast, is either completely ignorant of the history of the region, including current events, or simply a Jew hater. No fair minded person could possibly draw any moral equivalence between the Jews and Arabs, much less condemn the Jews, unless they were one or the other.

Of course "fair minded" is a relative term. For example: A British journalist was kidnapped a while back by Arabs while in the Palestinian territories. After a few months in captivity the British journalists association condemned Israel. That's right- Israel, on the theory that if Israel weren't "occupying" (very loose useage of the verb to occupy) the Arab land, the terrorists wouldn't have kidnapped him. Of course there is no bias, racism there.

This is the philosophical camp that Obama belongs to, as demonstrated by his attendance at a farewell party for a PLO fundraiser, where the speeches understandably spewed vitriol towards Israel. Was he surprised by that? Would you be? The LA Times has a tape of the evening but won't release it claiming the person who gave it to them asked it not be released. Think about this. Someone gave them the tape, and without violating any agreement they were able to write a story about it in April. But if they are to be believed, that same person who wanted a story written, doesn't want the proof released. Sure. I get it. And this from a press core that routinely releases information (as in the foreign wire tap program) that compromises all Americans lives.

I will deal with the 75-80 percent support Jews give to Democrats and the far left another day. Let it suffice to say that they are similar to those Jews who wouldn't leave Germany because they couldn't believe Hitler meant what he said.

Obama has made himself perfectly clear, through his word and deed, and although what he intends to do is not as draconian as Hitler, he could wreak havoc that will take generations to repair. I say could, because we can pray I am misreading his intent, and like Bill Clinton, everything he has said and done is only for his political advancement, and he is sort of a ship that flies no flag. If so, the damage his administration will do is limited to extremists like Pelosi and Reid (still moderate by comparison to Obama). It is saddening that that is the best we can hope for, but I fear it is true.

What Went Wrong?

2008-11-09T11:01:00.000-08:00

The post-mortums on the election are endless. There are countless strategic blunders McCain made, but in this cycle even a perfectly run campaign would have lost. When things are bad, no matter what the cause of the trouble, or what the policies of the incumbent party, they get voted out. In 2006 the Republicans lost their majorities in congress because of an unpopular war. By 2008 we had won the war, although you would never know if your information comes from the main stream media. Politically it was off the table. But with polls showing McCain ahead and climbing, the year long brewing financial meltdown got ugly and went public. With that the election was over.

During the depression every western government, conservative and liberal, with radically different philosophies and policies, got voted out of office. The point is that policies don't matter when things reach an extreme. This does have some logic to it. Conservative economic ideas are not perfect, but will do much better for the economy than liberal ideas. I have studied these things in detail for a long time (too much time perhaps), and the general concept is absolute. But an average voter doesn't know if big government is good or bad for his wallet or his freedom for that matter. One thing he does know however, is if things go sour, he wants to try something new, anything new.

Of course this risks disaster. It is as if you knew nothing about how a car runs, so when you had engine trouble you decided to replace the gasoline with water. After all, you know it is not working properly with gas, so you are trying something different. Needless to say, any chance your car did have for a recovery becomes nil.

And so we have 4 years coming of Obama. I wish him well. I pray for his success. I also know that anyone who thinks raising taxes, big government, and protectionism will help is in a dream world.