From the Maenianum Secundum

Irving Kristol

2009-09-19T10:19:00.001-05:00

From Myron Magnet (City Journal, The Godfather, R.I.P., September 18, 2009).

Irving Kristol, who died today at 89, was famously the godfather of neoconservatism, and he was the godfather of City Journal, too, having urged the Manhattan Institute’s then-president Bill Hammett 20 years ago to start a magazine.

R.I.P indeed. My condolences to his friends and family.

It would be a wonderful thing to face your last breaths knowing that you did everything you could to make the world a better place. In that sense only, Mr. Kristol's death was a wonderful thing.

His was a truly magnificent life and the world will be poorer for his passing.

Cross posted at From the Maenianum Secundum (comments are open there).

The Usual

2009-09-14T10:23:00.001-05:00

Ah, yes, the usual "when the Republicans had a majority" canard (Steve Chapman, Reason Magazine, The Republican Health Care Failure: Why the GOP should save a share of blame for itself), September 14, 2009):

But for four years under President Bush, we had not only a Republican president but also a Republican Congress.

And what happened? Nothing. Republicans left health care reform to wait until the Democrats regained power, and now the Democrats have.

Gee, a libertarian organization knocking both Republicans and Democrats. And they do that, why, possibly?

All that a simple majority allows is for the Party with the simple majority to set the agenda. It has nothing to do with getting anything passed. The Democrats successfully blocked victory of anything conservative by using the Filibuster rules, which require a super-majority of 60 seats.

When the Republicans did compromise to get a Bill passed, without leaving it to the Democrats to tackle, we ended up with the Prescription Drug program, a cash cow if there ever was one. That prevented a greater disaster, by leaving it in the hands of Democrats to craft a similar-subject and worse Bill, but it was still horrible. That's the political reality, but I wouldn't expect anyone from Reason to allow reality to enter into the mix.

There are/were liberal Republicans in the mix, just as there are conservative Democrats in the majority the Democrats have now, which is what is stopping the reform the liberal Democrats are trying to push through. The Democrats have a super-majority, but they can't get HR3200 passed because they don't have a liberal super-majority in Congress today, anymore than there was a conservative super-majority during Bush's first term.

You'd think that a group of people who proclaim to be about how unique individuals are would avoid fallacious arguments like this, but in politics, everything is relative, such as in this case, when the leaving out of facts that invalidates your argument. (Hey, Reason, "reason" requires relying on facts, not ignoring them.)

The argument should be that we don't need any reform of the health care industry. The fact that people are crying out for reform is an example of the public being duped by propaganda. The Congress has no authority to "reform" the health care industry... but never allow a political crisis to go to waste, and in this case, use it as an opportunity to assert that libertarians should be in charge, rather than Republicans or Democrats.

H/t Instapundit.

Cross posted at From the Maenianum Secundum (comments are open there).

Throwing the 'Bums' Out

2009-09-14T07:47:00.000-05:00

One of the common political refrains these days is to throw out all of Congress. It was a recurring theme that ended up on home-painted signs at the March on Washington, D.C. on Sunday. People do not see a difference between Republicans and Democrats, so the response to that inability to see a difference is to throw blame at all members of Congress for the mess we're in today.

While I'm admit that the light that shines between some Republicans and Democrats is as thin as star dust, not all Republicans and Democrats were created equal. What's important to note, however, is that the lack of differences meme works both ways.

If we were to trying to measure how conservative or liberal someone was we might begin to understand that the ideological differences are regional, not Party.

Compare, for example, the voting records of the Blue Dogs versus the Republican contingent from the northeast. The differences are marginal. The Blue Dogs refer to themselves as conservative- or moderate-Democrats and bark when there are programs designed to increase the size of the government's budget.

But that, unfortunately, is where the major differences end. The Blue Dogs might not want to increase the budget of the Federal government, but they have no problem with increasing the power of government (Blue Dog Statement on President’s Address to Congress, September 9, 2009 [pdf]) or behaving like attack dogs in the yards of private industry:

“Blue Dogs believe we have a responsibility to pass health care reform legislation that is deficit neutral, increases the value and quality of care for all Americans, and that takes a responsible approach to controlling costs over the long term."

And:

“Blue Dogs agree with President Obama that the insurance market should be reformed. We must end the practice of denying coverage to individuals with pre-existing conditions, and we must eliminate the waste, fraud and abuse that is currently bankrupting the system."

It is not possible to reign-in health care costs and micromanage the way the Insurance market sets their rates or chooses their clients. If, for example, Congress was to pass legislation which prohibited the auto insurance industry from refusing to insure people with pre-existing auto accidents, it would be clear to everyone that auto insurance would rise for all, to cover the serial accident customer, especially good drivers, because they're the low hanging fruit with respect to raising rates. But somehow, magic would be applied to the health insurance industry to prevent that same outcome.

Congress has no authority to regulate the insurance industry, auto or health, other than applying universal rules to that industry, as they do any other, and that is the issue that few are willing to admit, or tackle. The only authority Congress has with respect to the health insurance industry is to reform Tort and put fraud criminals behind bars. The latter would require that government accept responsibility and actually do something, rather than pointing the finger at evil corporations. The former would target the professions of far too many Democrats in Congress.

A conservative Republican and a conservative Democrat are not the same thing.

Most of this is laziness. People want there to be a number, letter, or other symbol next to a person's name to identify them, to take the guess work out of voting. This is desired for the same reason that some students read Spark Notes rather than reading the text of the book assigned. It might not be forbidden, but it is unethical, and the only person the students are really cheating are themselves.

There are no shortcuts to vetting a candidate before voting for them. Even the ratings services, such as Vote Smart, require more than one search to determine a candidates' voting record or policy positions. Their policy statements often have no basis in fact and a comparison of their record to their policy statements is the only way to determine if they're being honest. But that requires work.

"Throwing the bums out" has been tried before. It never works. Often the new is worse than the old. There are always new bums, but more importantly, the good people get caught in the firestorm. It is simple-mindedness to believe that all of Congress are bad.

I happen to like my Congress folks, especially in my home district. They vote exactly the way I want them to. Why would I desire to throw them out?

"Throwing the bums out" is a punitive act, targeting a group, rather than the guilty. It is borne out of a desire to punish the many for the deeds of the few, and has nothing to do with reforming government. There are no shortcuts here, and the fault is not with Congress, but with us, the voters.

Cross posted at From the Maenianum Secundum (comments are open there).

Oh, Lady Lay, Get Over Yourself

2009-09-09T07:33:00.002-05:00

For someone so smart, she sure gets it wrong. I will admit that I read Camille Paglia as the last sound voice among Democrats, hoping upon hope that someone who identifies with that Party will show themselves to be something other than a ~~tool~~ fool. At least she writes with an HL Mencken style panache. She is my only guilty pleasure and is the only Democrat to whom I give the time of day, but really it is to remind myself of how morally vacuous they truly are. Reading her is like believing that a cheating husband really means it this time when he says he'll straighten out.

Paglia disappoints again with her latest screed (Salon, Too late for Obama to turn it around?, September 9, 2009):

Democrats have managed to destroy the national coalition that elected Obama and that is unlikely to be repaired. If Obama fails to win reelection, let the blame be first laid at the door of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who at a pivotal point threw gasoline on the flames by comparing angry American citizens to Nazis.

The only national coalition that existed was a fantasy in the mind of Democrats. While they constantly state Obama's election in terms of "landslide," the reality is that the margin of victory was incredibly narrow and was due to the masses of religious-conservatives (formerly Yellow-Dogs) staying home out of protest that McCain, of McCain-Feingold, was their Party's standard-bearer. The conservatives stayed home to teach Republicans a lesson, but the only one getting the punishment good and hard is, well, all of us.

Paglia may have believed that magic coalition was going to put an end to politics as usual, as Obama said he would do, but only fools believed him. What politician hasn't promised that? It was a classic case of wink-wink, nudge-nudge, as everyone to the Left of McGovern ssh'd their actual plans, and said whatever was necessary to fool the masses into temporarily allowing the Democrats a flash of majority. But like a child who has been caught with the neighbor's stolen toy, it will be ripped from their crying hands and returned to the rightful owner.

It seems that Paglia believed it, and more sadly, still believes the 1960s hype that Democrats have ever been about liberty rather than libertinism, and insipid emotionalism of the Baby Boomers pouting-ascendancy to Peter Pan-like adulthood, regardless of Lucy and her Diamonds:

I always thought that the Democratic Party is the freedom party -- but I must be living in the nostalgic past. Remember Bob Dylan's 1964 song "Chimes of Freedom," made famous by the Byrds? And here's Richie Havens electrifying the audience at Woodstock with "Freedom! Freedom!" Even Linda Ronstadt, in the 1967 song "A Different Drum," with the Stone Ponys, provided a soaring motto for that decade: "All I'm saying is I'm not ready/ For any person, place or thing/ To try and pull the reins in on me."

It isn't a nostalgic past. It is a fantasy past. Bob Dylan and Linda Ronstadt were always pandering commies, of the Guthrie school of serial wife-abandonment and alcohol abuse. Paglia is stuck in the 1960s vision of a world without bad stuff and the dazzling marketing of it being about peace, rather than getting a piece. Somehow, she manages to forget that the peace her comrades delivered came with the death of millions in the Killing Fields, and mass executions in South Vietnam. But what's a few million brown people dying have to do with that cool dream of a world without war, eh?

You'd think that after all this time, with the bodies piled up for all to see, she'd have figured it out.

Why has the Democratic Party become so arrogantly detached from ordinary Americans? Though they claim to speak for the poor and dispossessed, Democrats have increasingly become the party of an upper-middle-class professional elite, top-heavy with journalists, academics and lawyers (one reason for the hypocritical absence of tort reform in the healthcare bills).

I can't tell if she actually believes that nonsense or if she's repeating it like a mantra in hopes of convincing herself of a past that never was, and a Party that never has been.

The Democrats since Truman have been about one thing, and one thing only: Power. They actually admire the world's thugocracies and authoritarian societies as models of what is possible, rather than something to avoid. She sees it in the current crop of Democratic powerful, but refuses to look into the crystal-ball of history to notice that it was ever thus:

Weirdly, given their worship of highly individualistic, secularized self-actualization, such professionals are as a whole amazingly credulous these days about big-government solutions to every social problem. They see no danger in expanding government authority and intrusive, wasteful bureaucracy. This is, I submit, a stunning turn away from the anti-authority and anti-establishment principles of authentic 1960s leftism.

Because, Camille, self-actualization as practiced by the Baby Boomers has never been anything other than elevating the self above every other self., i.e, I matter and I have power and that comes by taking yours, rather than recognizing that there is abudance enough for everyone, if they just work for it. That's always been what the Me-generation believed, and there's no evidence to suggest that the most spoiled and coddled generation will ever be about anything else except blatant selfishness and materialistic gain. The expanding government authority will be their authority, so it won't be the same authority of their parents, so it will be different, this time! They still don't get that self-actualized, applied to everyone, means that no one is special, and no one gets to elevate their lusts above everybody else's lusts. Self-actualization is about overcoming and controlling lusts, not elevating them as some sort of laudable achievement. I have a really difficult time accepting that she doesn't see this.

The 1960s Democrats don't care about the poor and starving masses yearning to be free and they never did. That was just an excuse for a party and a reason to get high. They just want to have moon-lit parties at the base of the statue as a great backdrop as a party theme. They care about getting laid, getting high, and getting and doing everything else they want, without one shred of recognition that those things have consequences. In fact, it is the consequences of bad decisions that they've been battling with their entire lives. If they wish it really, really hard, perhaps they can continue to escape the banal reality that living life without a net means you really don't have a net, and it will hurt like Hell when the high wears off. They still want someone else to bear the burden of the consequences and feel their pain. The goal has been to figure out a way to make the high permanent.

But dreaming in the 1960s and '70s had a spiritual dimension that is long gone in our crassly materialistic and status-driven time.

No, it didn't. It was always about crass materialistic selfishness, but Paglia didn't see that through the pot fog and the marketing by music companies who released the peacenik-millionaires' pathetic music...

And sadly, she still doesn't.

Cross posted at From the Maenianum Secundum (comments are open there).

Reality Land

2009-09-08T06:36:00.003-05:00

From Peter Wallsten (latimes.com, Obama is fast losing white voters' support, September 7, 2009):

Still unclear is whether Obama's slide in the polls is due solely to his policies, or questions about his personal background or allegiances.

It is not unclear. It's "all of the above."

The article is swimming in left-wing bias. Take this, for example:

...in which some conservatives accused him of socialism

We've been accusing him of socialism since he entered the race. It's now obvious to anyone with an above 4th-grade reading-level that the accusations (at the time considered smear-tactics) are true.

And then there's:

But the drop in support among whites also comes as some conservatives have stoked controversies...

By stoking controversies, he means, "reporting on the facts," but let's not quibble on the details, eh?

One such episode came to a head Sunday when Van Jones, Obama’s green jobs czar, resigned after a week of criticism over past inflammatory statements and for signing onto conspiracy theories questioning whether the U.S. government played a role in the Sept. 11 attacks. A White House official acknowledged Sunday that Jones had been vetted less rigorously than other officials.

Jones was vetted "less rigorously" than, say, the other dozen people who resigned or couldn't pass Congressional scrutiny. That's rich. The "past inflammatory statements" was a nice touch, too, and lets on to how the Democrats are going to spin that one in the future: It was in the past they'll say, and don't we all have skeletons in our past? It wasn't representative of how he is now. Silly conservatives, always predicting future behavior by actual evidence of the past behavior, rather than those hope-and-changey emotions!

There are a few more examples given how those mean-old conservatives have stoked fires, ending in:

These controversies have followed conspiracy theories that the president was born overseas and is ineligible to hold office, and that his true religion is Islam -- false rumors that some Democrats worry could be affecting the public's view of the president and his party.

Nice one, but the public is no longer buying it. Trying to lump legitimate criticisms in with the small segment of extremists worked until Democrats started accusing Tea Party attendees of being nutters. Those are people's friends and neighbors they've been slandering. The complicit media have to cover the President and hiding Obama's faults and disasters is getting more and more difficult. Blaming someone else for your troubles works for a while, but Americans really do believe that "the buck stops with the President."

What's important to remember is that Americans are willing to give a new President some slack, and expect a few stumbles as they get their Administration staffed. It becomes difficult to continue to blame Obama's mistakes on newness or staff ineptitude. Eventually, the only reasonable conclusion is that the flattering opinion of Obama was a mistake. The flattery was based on Obama being an unknown quantity, with people reading into the blank slate what they wanted to see. That's no longer the case.

During the campaign it was possible for Team Obama to distance the candidate from his socialist sympathies (few actually researched Obama's voting record or took seriously his association with former-criminals, his friendliness for left-wing dictators, or read his American-apologist/ progressive agenda spelled out in his books). But this (despite the White House staff confusion on the matter) is no longer Candidate Obama. He is now President Obama and the people ready to give him a pass for his history can't dismiss the reality appearing on the news every night.

I'll go so far as to make a prediction: While Obama will have a bit of a roller-coaster ride in the polls over the coming years, the general trend will be lead balloon. He won't get renominated by his own Party.

I don't know of a precedent for a President becoming a lame duck in their first year in office, but Obama has always been about beating odds. If Obama is half as smart as his supporters thought he was, he'll feign some sort of illness to allow him to step aside. I'm not certain that a narcissist of Obama's league can handle being loathed by so many.

When a politician can make Joe Biden seem like a brilliant statesman, you have to know how bad things really are in reality land.

H/t Instapundit.

Cross posted at From the Maenianum Secundum (comments are open there).

Succint

2009-09-03T17:40:00.001-05:00

From Paul Howard (City Journal, It’s the System, September 3, 2009):

The real health-care problem isn’t moral, as the president claims, but structural.

What he said.

Cross posted at From the Maenianum Secundum (comments are open there).

Neo-Federalists and Competition

2009-09-02T09:54:00.001-05:00

Wendell Cox provides us with proof that New York's current government policies are driving people from the state (City Journal, Escape from New York, September 1, 2009):

Not only is New York losing talented people to the rest of the country, then; it is also losing enormous financial resources at a time when it can least afford to.

Mr. Cox also details where the people in New York are migrating to, which includes:

Florida
New Jersey
Pennsylvania
North Carolina
Georgia
Connecticut
Virginia
South Carolina
Maryland
Texas

It would be reasonable to conclude that some of the people who are leaving New York to go to Florida are doing so as part of their retirement strategy (Florida, humorously referred to as "God's Waiting Room"). Some of the outmigration is for retirement, but not all of it. This means that people are discovering that there are greater freedoms and prosperity in other states in the nation.

California has similar outmigration statistics (with more productive citizens leaving the state than going to it).

That's all fine. If people want to move to other states in the nation, they have every right to do so. When looking at the unemployment statistics, it is easy to understand why people are leaving some states (New York, California, Michigan, etc.) in greater numbers than those going to them.

That's what competition is all about. States, like Texas, have become "business friendly" to encourage more people to come to the state to work and to create new businesses. This, of course, irritates the Democratic-majority states, because it means that there will come a point where their onerous taxes and regulations cause a person to run to a state without those burdens. It also means that these states will be left with the whey and not curds of society.

States have the right (and some would include duty) to make their state attractive to their current residents and to future residents. They can do this in many ways, but the significant methods include low taxation, recognition of rights, and greater job opportunities in traditional employment and in starting new businesses. When a state puts in place onerous restrictions on starting a new business, or penalizes the self-employed/small business owner over the employed-by-others citizens, it is not surprising that entrepreneurs are going to respond to the carrots being offered in other states.

This is why the Left has been doing its darndest to level the playing field. Neo-Federalists attempt this by inventing Federal authority to regulate more and more areas at the Federal level.

The recent attempts to Federalize health insurance and health care is just one example. As more and more of the entitlement dollars are fed through the Federal coffers (rather than through State coffers as the Constitution clearly stipulates), the competition between the states for productive and entrepreneurial citizens is diminished.

The goal of Neo-Federalists is to make the states indistinguishable so that their ideas of entitlements and socialism are imposed on all states, making escape from these types of tax burdens moot. In other words, the Neo-Federalist goal is to homogenize America by intruding on the legislative authority of the individual states.

Some states have or have attempted to make laws to weigh outmigrants with the tax burdens of the state, long after they have left the state. New York, for example, wanted to make it a requirement that businesses who move out of the state have to continue to pay New York taxes for 10 years. The idea that a one state can impose taxation on a business or individual who establishes residency in another state is a kind of indentured servitude (and it is unconstitutional).

Unfortunately, the Federal government has done just that, by rejecting residency as the single condition of tax liability. For example, if a U.S. citizen leaves the country and establishes a business in another country, they are liable for U.S. taxes. They are liable for those taxes, regardless of country of residency. All other countries rely on residency rules for taxation, not citizenship. Further, if that citizen renounces their citizenship, taking citizenship of another country, they are still liable for U.S. taxes for a period of ten years. We are the only country to do that.

That type of tax liability discourages people from starting businesses in a particular state, or in the U.S. in general. We also have one of the highest corporate taxes in the world, discouraging foreigners (and citizens) from creating new businesses in the U.S.

We must compete with other states and with other countries for tax dollars based on incentives, not punitive measures, if we want to stop the John Galt effect and the exodus of productive and creative entrepreneurs from our nation. Each state has the right to legislate their tax code in any manner they choose. They also have the right to regulate commerce in their state, imposing onerous rule and requirements or to be "business friendly."

Today, U.S. citizens have the right to vote with their feet, as many in New York are doing in response to the onerous regulations and taxes in New York. We must do everything possible to keep it this way. Reversing the trend and schemes of Neo-Federalists would be even better, restoring the legislative and taxation authority to the states, but that will require a Republican-party super-majority in the Congress.

Cross posted at From the Maenianum Secundum (comments are open there).

Power

2009-09-01T11:02:00.001-05:00

From Heather B. Armstrong comes a post about the power of Twitter (Number 26, Containing a capital letter or two, August 28, 2009). I won't quote it, but ask that you read the whole thing.

The post is about a mother with a newborn who went through two months of Hell trying to get her brand new washing machine fixed. But that isn't really what the post is about. The details of her purchase and repair history is background for the result.

The result is that after an exhausting battle to get her new and expensive washing machine repaired, she resorted to complaining about the company on Twitter. That Twitter lashing worked.

For decades, most people were helpless. They had no recourse and no power to spread the word about bad customer service or a company failing to live up to its obligations. Social networking sites, like Twitter, have given the ordinary person the ability to get the attention they shouldn't need to get, just to get a company to do what they should do, without sounding an alarm that can be heard by nearly everyone in the world.

When Thomas Jefferson looked to the future of America, he hoped that a Free Press would enable citizens to call attention to failure, to Charlatans, and to a time when everyone had a voice. It took us over 200 years to develop the mechanisms whereby every citizen had the ability to publish truthful reports of their experiences, but it was worth the wait. Thomas Jefferson was focused on the people having the power to shed light government actions, but I think he'd be just as thrilled with these powers being used to further the experiment of an empowered people:

"No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues to truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions."
- Thomas Jefferson, 1804

"The selfish spirit of commerce... knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain."
-Thomas Jefferson, 1809

Everyone now has a voice and access to a Free Press, and if that's what it takes to reform American industry, to make them accountable for what they do and what they sell, great.

It shouldn't require the Herculean efforts Mrs. Armstrong went through. Companies should have a moral code that prevents them from putting their customers through Hell. But they don't. But we'll make them restore that moral code and we'll use whatever lawful means necessary to do so.

It may seem like a trivial thing, making a stand about a faulty washing machine, but these things matter. They matter in big ways, because for too long companies could get away with this sort of thing... but they can't get away with it anymore.

We have the mechanisms to shed light on their failures. The Iranian government attempted to shut down communications through Twitter. The dissenters in Iran used Twitter and demonstrated that it is possible to use these tools as a communications organ to coordinate an organized, justified revolution against a tyrannical government. It is also possible to use these tools for evil. Using them to shed light on injustices, however grand or bland, is a power for the good, and we'll take the bad, because the power to do good is so much more valuable.

We have power unlike any we've ever had before.

Cross posted at From the Maenianum Secundum (comments are open there).

H/t Instapundit.

Living Alone

2009-08-31T10:05:00.001-05:00

I recently had a casual, personal, business dealing with a seemingly wonderful middle-aged woman. She lives alone. She didn't blurt out her living status, but the nature of our business transaction, and the conversation surrounding it, made it obvious. In lieu of a roommate or significant other, she had several pets.

The truth be told, I'd never really thought about this subject before (in this context). The idea that a middle-aged woman, who wasn't crazy and who was reasonably attractive and stable, should be living alone seemed tragic to me. Because I have children and a husband at home, the idea that I could be alone, totally alone (as this woman was), was something that began to fester in my mind.

So much of my socializing is focused on my family. There are constant, small interchanges: what's for dinner, is there coffee, the announcements of comings and goings, do we need milk or bread, and the usual assortment of good night/good morning greetings. Every night I share my bed with my husband and all the happiness and security that provides enables a kind of reset on the day's trials and tribulations.

The woman I met had none of that, although I'm certain she mimicks those family niceties and interchanges with her pets.

Man is a social animal and it has always been my belief that a madness of solitude can develop when people do not have an intimate social group (i.e., family). It keeps us humble, sane, and provides a minimum standard of happiness that everyone should enjoy. Research on couples has been interesting in this regard. Many of the studies I've read conclude that couples have the ability to keep each other on the straight and narrow.

Our culture has changed so radically in the last 50 years that I fear we're tinkering with disaster. When we look at programs (such as Social Security), the idea that people live alone and bear the entire burden of their housing and living costs, is something that is unsustainable. Living alone is not a state that will be able to continue once Social Security is modified, reduced, or means-tested. From that perspective, we need to be prepared for our social reeingineering to correct itself when these economic realities are forced on our culture.

Looking at it purely from an economic perspective, it is very wrong-headed, but looking at it in dollars and cents seems a bit callous. That said, living alone is an indulgence—a living arrangement that for economic reasons never existed before (in any great numbers).

There is no reason for that woman to be living alone, except that our culture has changed so dramatically that having a stable mate, or living with extended family, are no longer the norm. This is primarily a result of us having smaller families. At one time, this woman would have moved in with her sister, brother, or her parents if she found herself without a mate. She would have helped raise the children of her siblings or cousins. She might also have moved in with a long time friend (the stereotype of the two spinsters comes to mind), but the decision to live alone would not have been acceptable (because people from previous generations, although not as cool and progressively-minded as we are today, somehow knew that people were better off living among a stable family). That is not to suggest that women have never lived alone, only that it wasn't the norm.

Now it is difficult to explain why the various studies on couples show the data that they do (that couples are more mentally and emotionally stable than their single peers, as well as more financially stable and successful). Is the relationship itself casual to the outcome, or are the people casual to a successful relationship? It is possible that the reason couples remain couples is because of their generally good emotional health. It could be that the people who are prone to abuse their children, or prone to abuse themselves, find themselves as single parents (or single without children) because of those tendencies and issues. That said, it seems to be a reasonable conjecture that the everyday burdens of life are less of a burden with the cradle of stability of a relationship, even if the people themselves are more vulnerable to psychological instability, and it is that stability of the relationship itself that prevents those daily-life-burdens from diminishing our psychological health, when they are shared with another person. Couples tend to prop each other up.

I just can't get the woman's predicament out of my mind. What happened to our culture that enabled a sweet and nice lady to be so alone?

Cross posted at From the Maenianum Secundum (comments are open there).

Dark Humor/Play on Words

2009-08-28T08:27:00.000-05:00

Yesterday my husband read a post about Ted Kennedy's death (I do not know where he saw it) that included the Latin phrase:

"De mortuis nil nisi bonum"

It literally translates to:

"Of the dead say nothing but good"

It is the source of the the English phrase, "Never speak ill of the dead."

But, applying the Latin literally to Ted Kennedy's death, the poster responded:

Ted Kennedy is dead?

-Good.

I was chuckling about it all day.
Cross posted at From the Maenianum Secundum (comments are open there).

Ted Kennedy Dead

2009-08-26T12:24:00.000-05:00

Ted Kennedy is dead (Senator Edward Kennedy dies at age 77 - Yahoo! News).

I have nothing good to say about the man and this news comes as no surprise. I have sympathy for his family, but I cannot help but think that his passing is good for America. There is a small chance that his replacement in the Senate will be less liberal than he, but at least there is hope that this illiberal legacy could end.

Cross posted at From the Maenianum Secundum (comments are open there).

Great Communicator

2009-08-26T08:51:00.000-05:00

No, I'm not referring to Ronald Reagan with this title. I'm referring to Bill Whittle (of EjectEjectEject.com and Afterburner on PJTV). Bill's latest Afterburner episode (August 24, 2009) is brilliant!

PJTV: Afterburner, MSNBC and The Great Liberal Narrative: The Truth About The Tyranny of Political Correctness

Bill has a gift. He has the ability to distill history (and make it interesting) to validate his opinions. His optimistic view of America is very similar to Ronald Reagan's... which brings me to another great communicator, Faoud Ajami* who wrote a smashing essay about Obama's Humpty-Dumpty fall from the wall. In the essay (WSJ, Obama's Summer of Discontent, August 25, 2009), Mr. Ajami writes a bit about Ronald Reagan:

At the core of the Reagan mission was the recovery of the nation's esteem and self-regard. Reagan was an optimist. He was Hollywood glamour to be sure, but he was also Peoria, Ill. His faith in the country was boundless, and when he said it was "morning in America" he meant it; he believed in America's miracle and had seen it in his own life, in his rise from a child of the Depression to the summit of political power.

And:

At no time had Ronald Reagan believed that the American covenant had failed, that America should apologize for itself in the world beyond its shores. There was no narcissism in Reagan. It was stirring that the man who headed into the sunset of his life would bid his country farewell by reminding it that its best days were yet to come.

While Mr. Whittle doesn't yet have the wisdom and experience of Ronald Reagan, he certainly shares his optimism and exuberance about America, even if it is occasionally unfounded or rose-colored-glasses idealistic.

(*I had never heard of Faoud Ajami before, but if the WSJ article is an example of his typical writing performance, I can't wait to read more of him. WSJ states that he teaches at the School of Advanced International Studies, The Johns Hopkins University. He is also an adjunct fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.)

But back to Bill Whittle...

I will admit to being a fan, while still maintaining my objectivity (I believe). Mr. Whittle manages to complain about leftist-intellectualism, while still maintaining a connection to average Joe, but he is clearly an intellectual himself (although not of the leftist persuasion).

This contrast sometimes causes a contradiction for Mr. Whittle, such as in his Afterburner episode about Sarah Palin's ill-treatment by the press (The Media, The Left and GOP Elitists vs. Sarah Palin: A Lesson on How to Destroy a Leader, July 27, 2009). Mr. Whittle makes a jab at intellectualism in that episode (transcript from EjectEjectEject.com):

She needs to be destroyed because the one thing that can never be allowed to happen is this: you cannot have a voice in this political debate. You know who I mean. You rubes, you hicks out there in flyover country. Your job is pay taxes, vote for who they have decided over cocktails makes them feel better about themselves, and occasionally provide your inbred idiot sons and daughters for the army or police force or whatever you people without Ivy League educations do with your tawdry little lives.

Meanwhile, the Harvard-educated elitist geniuses will run the country according to their infinitely brighter intellectual and moral lights.

[Emphasis mine.]

I think it unwise to tango with an anti-intellectualism/education message. It is also possible for conservatives to have Ivy League educations and be Harvard-educated elitist geniuses. It is possible to do all of that and not come out of school as a socialist-sympathizing drone. There are some who manage to get into Harvard or other Ivy League schools who don't have the necessary backbone and intellect to become something other than Useful Idiots. The concept of Garbage-In, Garbage-Out applies to their outcome.

While these degrees no longer confer the integrity and value they once had, the degree itself is not a disqualifer. We still have to do our own due diligence, regardless of the letters after a person's name or the letters on their parchment. Let me restate that in a different way: the degrees are neither a qualifier nor a disqualifier, in the sense of conferring superiority over the average Joe, but intellectual superiority exists (it just shouldn't be assumed if a person has a specific name on their college degree).

That intellectual superiority doesn't mean the average Joe has any less right to vote, any less command of his faculties or liberties, or is any less of a good person. It just means that the average Joe doesn't rise to the intellectual capacity of others, and those others include Mr. Whittle himself. That is why we qualify Joe with average when we speak of the majority of people in the country.

The moral sense, or conscience, is as much a part of man as his leg or arm. It is given to all human beings in a stronger or weaker degree, as force of members is given them in a greater or less degree. It may be strengthened by exercise, as may any particular limb of the body. This sense is submitted indeed in some degree to the guidance of reason; but it is a small stock which is required for this: even a less one than what we call Common sense. State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor. The former will decide it as well, and often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules."
- Thomas Jefferson, 1787

That's the contradiction of both Ronald Reagan and Bill Whittle. They manage to cloak their intellectualism in a way that makes it possible for them to communicate with Peoria, Ill. They relate to Peoria and Average Joe without a dumbed-down charade. I do not recall, however, that Ronald Reagan ever dismissed the value of education, in the way that Mr. Whittle did in the his Sarah Palin piece.

What Ronald Reagan never did, that Sarah Palin does (and Bill Whittle slightly stepped over the line in his episode on Sarah Palin) is pandering to the common man. Speaking plainly and directly doesn't mean speaking down to any one, nor does it include speaking in a colloquial manner, almost a stereotypical gum-chewing/smacking manner, as Sarah Palin does. Average Joe deserves more respect than that. The Office she held and the office she sought deserves more respect than that.

It is import to remember that President Bush has a Harvard degree. President Bush's accent and slight speech-impediment prevented him from earning the title of great orator. President Bush was a decent president who nobly rose to the occasion to handle the terrorist attacks of 9/11. He was the minimum standard of the intellectual capacity of a president. We don't have to raise the level to the Winston Churchill standard, but we should go no lower in our expectations with the bar set by George Bush.

If Sarah Palin has a superior intellect, she's done a fairly good job of hiding it. If she rises to the level of President Bush's, it remains to be seen. Reagan didn't hide it, he just didn't wear his intellectual superiority on his sleeve or rub anyone's nose in it.

This is better explained by Rudyard Kipling in his If letter to his son:

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

[Emphasis mine.]

Sarah Palin, by Mr. Kipling's standard is not a man. Of course we know that she is a woman, but the poem's message can apply equally to a woman. It is a poem about duty and responsibility, about both honor and integrity, and dealing with success and failure, and winning and losing with grace and dignity. Man is merely a shortcut for all that is admirable and needed in an individual to live up to his/her human potential.

I accept the basic premise that Sarah Palin got a raw deal with the press and continued to be plagued by nuisance lawsuits while Governor of Alaska. In my opinion, however, she whines too much and allowed what happened yesterday to demonstrate that she fails in the "neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you" Kipling requirement.

It is similar to the way that Obama continues to blame President Bush for all the troubles he faces today, rather than taking ownership for his policies. Harry Truman's famous "the buck stops here" remark sums up the quality so necessary in the President of the United States. Sarah Palin's raw deal is no excuse for her showing weakness to her current and future enemies.

Showing weakness was the quality most dangerous in John F. Kennedy, so much so that it created a dangerous situation for the United States (and resulted in the Russians acting upon the placement of missiles in Cuba). The Russians didn't consider putting missiles in Cuba on Eisenhower's watch (nor would they have considered such a thing under Ronald Reagan's watch). Weakness has proven to create an unncessary danger, encouraging bold actions from our enemies.

The Iranians knew to release the hostages captured during Jimmy Carter's term when Ronald Reagan was sworn in.

Superior strength is not a quality unique to men, in the strength of character and convictions sense, not the physical sense. No one would have found either Margaret Thatcher or Golda Meir lacking strength. Those women had balls!

Strength matters and so does intellect in leadership. It matters not only in our Executive, but in our citizens, but for the latter, not as much.

Sarah Palin may have left the governorship of Alaska for Alaska's sake and benefit, but it did a disserve to the entire country in the longer term. It is akin to the policy of not negotiating with terrorists. It may benefit the 20 or so current hostages to negotiate for their release, but the success of that negotiation, of getting something out of the act, sends a signal that kidnapping and terrorism is a worthwhile venture. So, too, with Sarah Palin's resignation as governor of Alaska, by sending the message that a form of legal terrorism can be successful. We all lose when swarms of nuisance lawsuits cause officials to leave their elected posts. Expect to see much more of it as a result of Sarah Palin surrendering to it.

Sarah Palin should have recognized that long term risk, and the fact that she didn't demonstrates that she didn't have the backbone, nor the foresight of the bigger, long term picture. It is those bigger, long-term pictures that education provides, once unique to the Ivy League schools, but possible to be gleaned from lesser known institutions, or by those driven to achieve greatness in intellectual development by self study and perseverance.

"That every man shall be made virtuous by any process whatever is, indeed, no more to be expected than that every tree shall be made to bear fruit, and every plant nourishment. The brier and bramble can never become the vine and olive; but their asperities may be softened by culture, and their properties improved to usefulness in the order and economy of the world."
- Thomas Jefferson, 1822

Not everyone is capable of rising to the same level. That is not a handicap for being a good person or a good citizen, but it should be a handicap for higher office.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
- George Santayana

Obama fails the test on every count, but that is no excuse for conservatives to lower the bar, or dismiss the value of intellect, strength, and education. Let the Democrats pander to the common man, but require that our own, we conservatives, respect and speak directly (and honestly) to the average Joe, while simultaneously recognizing his intellectual limits.

"Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to, convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty."
- Thomas Jefferson, 1787

As Ronald Reagan commanded that politicians "never speak ill of another Republican," the additional commandment I would add is: "Conservatives should never speak ill of education."

The glorification of ignorance and pandering will be our undoing.

"The mass of our citizens may be divided into two classes -- the laboring and the learned. The laboring will need the first grade of education to qualify them for their pursuits and duties; the learned will need it as a foundation for further acquirements."
- Thomas Jefferson , 1814

Bill Whittle, I believe, made a few mistakes in his Sarah Palin episode, but he demonstrates that he has the ability to deliver to a praiseworthy performance in his piece on MSNBC/Political Correctness—the latter is a five star package. Sarah Palin, on the other hand, has yet to demonstrate greatness, stamina, strength of conviction, or an understanding of the value of education and the intellectual grounding it provides to see the big picture, and to avoid history's mistakes. She may do so at some point, as Mr. Whittle has done in his episode of yesterday, but Sarah hasn't done it yet... and I refuse, absolutely refuse, to lower the bar for conservatives, simply because the Democrats have done so.

H/t Instapundit.

Cross posted at From the Maenianum Secundum (comments are open there).

Keep Yours

2009-08-23T12:56:00.000-05:00

I cannot claim to military service and officially taking the oath to protect and defend the Constitution from enemies both foreign and domestic, but I agree with the sentiment. I think the gentleman in this YouTube video is one example of where Americans have found their voice.

If more Americans speak up and speak out as this gentleman has, perhaps documenting the decline and fall of this website's mission will be unnecessary.

The most important thing is to vote—and vote for candidates who understand the strict limits of the Constitution. The Federal government has no authority to regulate health care or to create a universal health care plan, but if we do not elect representatives who comply with those limits, it doesn't matter what the Constitution says.

Here is the beginning and the end of what the Constitution authorizes Congress to do:

Article I: Section 8:
To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;
To establish Post Offices and post Roads;
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;
To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;--And
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

There is nothing in there that allows Congress to take over the health care industry or to provide health insurance to anyone. The Congress has the authority to regulate commerce between states, but not to regulate all commerce. It is merely the authority to resolve inter-state issues and conflicts, as they occur, but nothing in-state.

If the people in a given state wish to entertain such an idea, it is within their authority to do so, but not at the Federal level.

Amendment X:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Cross posted at From the Maenianum Secundum (comments are open there).

Opting Out

2009-08-20T15:01:00.000-05:00

I didn't intend for this site to become all Obamacare, all the time, but with 17% of the economy at stake, and the pending doomsday scenario of Obamacare, it seems like a worthwhile dalliance. On Instapundit today (They Can't Handle This, But They'll Handle Health Care?, August 20, 2009), Prof. Reynolds remarks:

They promised FedEx, but they’re delivering the Post Office. . . .

It is wise that Prof. Reynolds reminds us how inefficient the government can be, but it isn't necessary to predict that the handling of Obamacare would be akin to the Cash for Clunkers program--no crystal-ball gazing is required. It is appropriate to look at how the government currently handles Medicare reimbursements (apples to apples comparison).

Exhibits:

Low Medicare Reimbursement Rates Hurt Hospitals in Iowa And California (Kaiser Health News, June 3, 2009):

Television Station KHQA 7 reports on how Iowa hospitals are losing millions of dollars a year because of low payments from the state and federal government. "For years Medicare pays 14 percent less than what it actually costs for hospitals to provide the care to patients. Medicaid payments are even lower and many times are late in coming..."

Medicaid Payment Delays Deter Physician Participation (Health System Change, November 18, 2009):

"Medicaid payment rates matter, but the hassle factor also matters, and this study strongly suggests that higher Medicaid fees won't have the desired effect of increasing access if physicians have to wait months to get paid," said HSC Senior Fellow Peter J. Cunningham, Ph.D., coauthor of the study with HSC Senior Researcher Ann S. O'Malley, M.D., M.P.H.

Doctors Are Opting Out of Medicare (Julie Connelly, New York Times, April 1, 2009):

Early this year, Barbara Plumb, a freelance editor and writer in New York who is on Medicare, received a disturbing letter. Her gynecologist informed her that she was opting out of Medicare. When Ms. Plumb asked her primary-care doctor to recommend another gynecologist who took Medicare, the doctor responded that she didn’t know any — and that if Ms. Plumb found one she liked, could she call and tell her the name?

Medicare and Its Impact on Patient Care (Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, February 4, 2000):

Almost 25% of doctors refuse to treat new Medicare patients;
20% of those who refuse to accept new Medicare patients, do so because of hassles and/or threats from Medicare carriers;
More than one-third of doctors have trouble finding referral doctors for Medicare patients;
More than one-third of doctors surveyed are restricting services to Medicare patients;
Almost one-fifth of doctors give Medicare patients a lower priority for appointments;
More than 80% of doctors have an increased fear of investigation or prosecution;
More than one-fourth of doctors are restricting services to Medicare patients because of hassles/threats from Medicare.

The Federal government does a pitiful job with Medicare. There is no reason to think that Obamacare would make things better. In fact, it is reasonable to conclude that the lack of competition would make the problems even worse. Beyond their pathetic handling of payments and the low rates of reimbursement, the Federal government has one additional feather in its cap to make things even worse: The threat of imprisonment. While we could all point to a story about some notorious doctor-fraud ring, the reality is that the vast majority of physicians are not committing fraud; yet, the slightest error in Medicare forms can generate the full force of the government. Why would any physician want to engage in activities where they can easily misstep, resulting in imprisonment? If Medicare was fast to pay and paid the equivalent of the insurance company's negotiated rates, then the higher risk of fraud charges would be irrelevant, but with a trifecta of risk (late pay, low pay, fraud charges), doctors are simply saying "no" to Medicare.

With Obamacare, the "no" option would be taken off the table. Most people realize that lack of competition makes a business sector lazy and unresponsive to customer demands, but this is even worse than that. A business sector is always vulnerable to a new player who does respond to customer demand with a better product, but the government doesn't have a competitor, nor a threat of one.

"Government as well as religion has furnished its schisms, its persecutions, and its devices for fattening idleness on the earnings of the people."
- Thomas Jefferson, 1815

Cross posted at From the Maenianum Secundum (comments are open there).

In a Nutshell

2009-08-19T04:07:00.000-05:00

From an article by Nat Hentoff (JWR, I am finally scared of a White House administration, August 19, 2009):

"Remember that legislation itself is only half the problem with Obamacare. Whatever bill passes, hundreds of bureaucrats in the federal agencies will have years to promulgate scores of regulations to govern the details of the law.

The above is the beginning and the end of the debate on "Obamacare."

The establishment of a Health Commissioner (and the creation of the department he/she runs), means there is no limit to the regulations and requirements imposed on insurance companies and doctors.

It doesn't matter if "end of life" discussions are in today and out tomorrow, they can be added by the Health Commissioner at a future date.

The various Democratic Bills are not "reform." That's the wrong word. Reform would reexamine Tort law, remake how Medicare works (making it more efficient), and would address issues such as the enormous cost of bringing new medicines to market. Reducing costs would be refusing to pay for the medical expenses of illegal aliens, in concert with border closing measures. Those would be reforms. What these Bills are attempting to do is regulate and nationalize the health insurance and medical industries.

Creating a new government department and a Commissioner is not what America should be doing, regardless of the details in the Bill today. They are, as Mr. Hentof suggests, the health issue slippery slope.

This is not a new thing. The Democrats have always used incrementalism ("baby steps") to get to their ultimate goal. Putting a dozen things in the Bills today, that Americans can point at and fuss about, that are taken out "in the spirit of compromise" are red herrings (see Co-ops: A ‘Public Option’ By Another Name, Michael D. Tanner, CATO @ Liberty August 17, 2009).

What needs to be taken out is the entire concept of a Health Care Bill, and any talk of a Commissioner and government department to oversee and regulate medical insurance. Taking that out would be the same as voting "No" on whatever the Democrats put forward.

The only way to prevent a slippery slope is not to play.

H/t Instapundit.

Not Stupid This Time

2009-08-15T03:07:00.000-05:00

"The materials now bearing on the public mind will infallibly restore it to its republican soundness... if the knowledge of facts can only be disseminated among the people."
- Thomas Jefferson, 1799

The Republicans have been justifiably called the Stupid Party for many reasons, mainly because they've failed to demonstrate they have any balls. But not Jessey Kelly, as this report of a townhall demonstrates:

Rep. Giffords canceled her town hall in Sahuarita/Green Valley and Jesse Kelly scheduled an appearance in the same venue at the same time and place. From the looks of the video below it was very successful. Both sides were allowed to speak for two hours and with no problems. You would think that a 2 term congresswoman could manage to put on a town hall during the one month August recess.

Read/watch the whole thing at Gila Courier and AZ 8th ( Jesse Kelly town hall a great success, August 14, 2009).

My favorite part is when the Democrat steps right into it and says show me where it says that in the Bill and Mr. Kelly proceeds to show her hand-out after hand-out documenting where each of the false accusations are contained in the Democrat's Bill. I don't often use 21st century jargon, but that's a pOwned if there ever was one. (Or, as Prof. Reynolds would say, "heh"!)

Republicans are often falsely accused of being The Party of "No," but as the video above demonstrates, that is mainly because their counter-proposals don't get media time.

To find out what the Republicans have offered with respect to health care reform, see Health Reform GOP-Style (Jo Ciavaglia, phillyBurbs.com, August 13, 2009). As mentioned in the link, Kaiser Family Foundation has an interactive tool to allow you to research the various proposals in a side by side format. A PDF of the various Bills may be viewed here.

The Democrats got away with this sort of thing for decades. They would get their unchallenged 15-second sound byte on the news (with a complicit media), but the Internet/Blogosphere has changed all that. The mainstream media still manages to control the major networks and nearly-bankrupt newspapers, but there are now other methods of getting the truth to the American people.

Maybe Republicans are learning. They may have to own-up to and address being the Stupid Party, but that's far better than being the Evil Party.

"The most effectual engines for [pacifying a nation] are the public papers... [A despotic] government always [keeps] a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, [invent] and put into the papers whatever might serve the ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper."
- Thomas Jefferson, 1785

H/t Instapundit.

Half Right

2009-08-14T08:16:00.000-05:00

Bill Whittle's latest PJTV Afterburner segment (Beyond the Angry Mobs: Only You Can Bring Congress Back From the Abyss of Corruption, August 10, 2009) focuses on the idea that people should participate in government, by considering a run for office. It is half right.

I agree with the concept of more "regular" citizens responding to a call to serve. Where I disagree is with Mr. Whittle's assertion that it was never the Founding Fathers' intention for public service to be a life long career. In fact, just the reverse is true.

It is necessary to differentiate between the Founders' understanding that an educated populace was necessary for the concept of self government (i.e., a government of and by the people) to work and preparedness for public office. Both require education, but one is not the other and we should never conflate the two.

Regarding the first concept, of educating the people so that they could maintain vigilance on their elected leaders:

"I do most anxiously wish to see the highest degrees of education given to the higher degrees of genius and to all degrees of it, so much as may enable them to read and understand what is going on in the world and to keep their part of it going on right; for nothing can keep it right but their own vigilant and distrustful superintendence."
- Thomas Jefferson, 1795

"A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy; or, perhaps, both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."
- James Madison, 1822

"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories. And to render even them safe, their minds must be improved to a certain degree."
- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
- Thomas Jefferson, 1816

"[The] provision [in the new constitution of Spain] which, after a certain epoch, disfranchises every citizen who cannot read and write... is the fruitful germ of the improvement of everything good and the correction of everything imperfect in the present constitution. This will give you an enlightened people and an energetic public opinion which will control and enchain the aristocratic spirit of the government."
- Thomas Jefferson, 1814

"And say, finally, whether peace is best preserved by giving energy to the government or information to the people. This last is the most certain and the most legitimate engine of government. Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. Enable them to see that it is their interest to preserve peace and order, and they will preserve them. And it requires no very high degree of education to convince them of this. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty."
- Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787

2. Regarding the second concept, of creating long-serving public servants through education:

"Nor must we omit to mention among the benefits of education the incalculable advantage of training up able counselors to administer the affairs of our country in all its departments, legislative, executive and judiciary, and to bear their proper share in the councils of our national government: nothing more than education advancing the prosperity, the power, and the happiness of a nation."
- Thomas Jefferson, Report for University of Virginia, 1818

"The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust."
- James Madison, Federalist No. 57

"The tendency of a longer period of service would be to render the body more stable in its policy, and more capable of stemming popular currents taking a wrong direction, till reason and justice could regain their ascendancy.
- James Madison, Notes on Suffrage, 1810

"Laws will be wisely formed and honestly administered in proportion as those who form and administer them are wise and honest; whence it becomes expedient for promoting the public happiness that those persons whom nature has endowed with genius and virtue should be rendered by liberal education worthy to receive and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens; and that they should be called to that charge without regard to wealth, birth or other accidental condition or circumstance. But the indigence of the greater number disabling them from so educating at their own expense those of their children whom nature has fitly formed and disposed to become useful instruments for the public, it is better that such should be sought for and educated at the common expense of all, than that the happiness of all should be confined to the weak or wicked."
- Thomas Jefferson, Diffusion of Knowledge Bill, 1779

"I will not say that public life is the line for making a fortune. But it furnishes a decent and honorable support, and places one's children on good grounds for public favor. The family of a beloved father will stand with the public on the most favorable ground of competition. Had General Washington left children, what would have been denied them?"
- Thomas Jefferson, 1808

As I stated at the beginning, the idea of people responding to a call of public service is a noble one. I quibble only with the idea that the Founders were against the idea of a career of public service and, by extension, that everyone is capable (having the "genius" Jefferson spoke of) to do it wisely, and the character necessary to perform the duties with restraint.

We should never discount the importance of an educated populace entering the voting booth. If we believe that our elected leaders are not properly performing their duties, the problem is with the mass of voters, not the system (or the concept of a perpetual public servant). We have far too many ignorant citizens exercising the vote. The solution is not to limit how long our representatives may serve, but to educate the citizens so they exercise their vote in such a way as to replace their elected representatives with people better qualified to serve.

If we are capable and called, it is our duty to serve, for as long as that service is needed and useful. There is no time limit or fixed amount of time that one may serve, or a magic number that suggests that one has served too long.

"The man who loves his country on its own account, and not merely for its trappings of interest or power, can never be divorced from it, can never refuse to come forward when he finds that she is engaged in dangers which he has the means of warding off."
- Thomas Jefferson, 1797

The Founders were examples of career politicians themselves, and became a permanent class of elected officials.

"Though I... am myself duly impressed with a sense of the arduousness of government and the obligation those are under who are able to conduct it, yet I am also satisfied there is an order of geniuses above that obligation and therefore exempted from it. Nobody can conceive that nature ever intended to throw away a Newton upon the occupations of a crown. It would have been a prodigality for which even the conduct of Providence might have been arraigned, had he been by birth annexed to what was so far below him. Cooperating with nature in her ordinary economy, we should dispose of and employ the geniuses of men according to their several orders and degrees."
- Thomas Jefferson, 1778

The critical part is that the Founders were not at all concerned with a permanent ruling class, as they were the first generation to do so. They required a permanent ruling class of geniuses of good character. That is not every citizen, by any stretch. Those not endowed with genius or the ability to be restrained in their behavior to good character may vote, and that is enough, and more charitable than the Founders' intended by discussing limits to the franchise, such as to those only able to read and write.

Finally, there are many ways to serve one's country. Service is not exclusive to public office. Mr. Whittle himself provides public service, by educating the populace through his website and Afterburner broadcasts.

The End Is Near

2009-08-14T06:57:00.000-05:00

Here's a comment I left at Fabius Maximus (Beginning Of The End Of The Republic’s Solvency. Soon Come The First Steps To A Reformed Regime – Or A New Regime, August 14, 2009) regarding health care and entitlement reform. I was responding to responding to Maximus's comment:

"Fabius Maximus replies: You are ignoring the specfic example I gave of rationing — spending $36,000 on care in the last year of life. Much of it neither increasing lifespan or quality of life. First, I doubt that people will spend that money themselves — or that most Americans could afford it. Second, experience at other nations disproves your theory."

My response:

Means-testing is coming, but I do not think you’ve thought through rationing or the basis of “few can afford it” with respect to the last year of life expenses.

Many seniors, especially the aging Boomers, have property. It is reasonable to require that people use their own assets before dipping into the public troth. The Boomers have not done a good job of managing their wealth for retirement, in the abstract, but many/most have property to sell. I expect to see some sort of reverse mortgage products appearing for the sole purpose of paying medical expenses (or government liens against property for this purpose, payable when the property is sold).

The idea that one retires and is able to maintain the same lifestyle when working is over. In addition, the idea that people “retire” was a temporary glitch of the last 50 years (not a concept that existed before). Boomers might not stay in the workforce in traditional jobs, but they might have to live with their children (say, providing daycare for their grandchildren). The Greatest Generation will be the last to have golfing/vacation style retirements.

It is immoral to think that you can check out of life and live off your children and grandchildren. It may not be what the Boomers want, but it is what they are going to get. It may require that we bankrupt the nation before the reality of the situation sinks in, but the reality is that Boomers will not have the same retirement as their parents. Bankrupt nation or before, the coffers are empty (and always were, by original design of Social Security) and there is no amount of taxation that will produce the amounts required to pay to the Boomers what they think they’re entitled to receive. The unfunded liability for the Boomer’s retirement years is projected to be 120% of GDP. 100% taxation on working people wouldn’t be enough. The Boomers might whine, but it is their fault. They were the stewards of the government for the last 40 years and they didn’t make sure the government was managing the budgets as they should. The Boomers have already spent their retirements by being the most coddled and spoilt generation in history.

Spilt Milk

2009-08-13T06:54:00.000-05:00

From Mort Zuckerman (NY Daily News, Drowning in debt: Obama's spending and borrowing leaves U.S. gasping for air, August 9, 2009):

The Government Accountability Office estimates that by 2040, interest payments will absorb 30% of all revenues and entitlements will consume the rest, leaving nothing for defense, education or veterans' pensions.

I know that many economic folks are predicting that we'll recover from this recession on X date or Y quarter, but I think they're wrong.

There is no recovery from this amount of debt. The only recovery is to stop spending and no special interest group is going to give up their entitlements. More from Mr. Zuckerman:

Everybody is dazed and confused by all this talk of additional indebtedness in the trillions of dollars. Our soaring national debt will require cataclysmic adjustments to accomplish the restoration of a balance in our fiscal position.

Otherwise, we face a dramatic erosion of U.S. economic and financial standing, raising the risk of skyrocketing interest rates and a crash in the value of the dollar. Americans can no longer rely on their stocks and the soaring value of their homes to put their kids through college and support early retirement. For the first time since the Depression, U.S. companies are not only cutting jobs; they are cutting wages. We are undersaved and underpensioned, and we will have to adjust to a more frugal life.

The Social Security nightmare has hit home and until we address that issue, the recession will remain.

From Shannon Love (Chicago Boy, The Dangers of Decompartmentalized Health Care Spending, August 12, 2009):

The elderly consume 70% of all health-care spending.[updated here and here] That means that when it comes to cost control they will bear the brunt of the burden. If we don’t cut spending on the elderly we can’t reduce costs without simply denying care for everyone else. When it comes down to a choice between spending on old people and children, the elderly know full well who we are going to pick. The elderly themselves will choose to spend money on their grandchildren rather than themselves.

It doesn't appear that this Congress or this Administration is serious. Sane people knew that giving the debt keys to a Democratic Congress was a stupid mistake, but this isn't a mistake that can be solved simply by voting in Republicans next term. The money will be spent and the debt will be there to be paid off. The debt remains, even if the legislators are no longer home.

And speaking of no longer home (Alan Zibel, AP/Yahoo News, Foreclosures rise 7 percent in July from June, August 13, 2009):

WASHINGTON – The number of U.S. households on the verge of losing their homes rose 7 percent from June to July, as the escalating foreclosure crisis continued to outpace government efforts to limit the damage.

Foreclosure filings were up 32 percent from the same month last year, RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday. More than 360,000 households, or one in every 355 homes, received a foreclosure-related notice, such as a notice of default or trustee's sale. That's the highest monthly level since the foreclosure-listing firm began publishing the data more than four years ago.

Ugly things are likely to happen before this is truly solved. I'm not advocating it, only forecasting the truth.

H/t Instapundit (here, here, and here.)

Feeding Frenzy

2009-08-10T08:01:00.000-05:00

As this article from Freep.com (Detroit Free Press, Tempers flare over health care plan, August 7, 2009), there is a kind of feeding frenzy occurring over the socialized medicine Bill. Regardless of how this is decided, people are angry. But the type of bitterness we're seeing over the health care issue is irreconcilable, as there are factions on both sides of the issue who are unwilling to compromise.

One camp believes that health care is a right, and a prosperous nation (like ourselves) has some sort of duty to provide health insurance to every citizen.

The other camp believes that extending health insurance to everyone is a bad idea, while at the same time, crying foul when there are solutions presented to address the insolvency of social security or medicare.

The reality is somewhere in the middle, but "middle" is seldom how these issues are decided, which means that the divide and conquer approach (i.e., the building of waring factions) is how the political class will decide the matter. Social security and medicare ARE insolvent and some sort of rationing or means testing will have to be decided at some point. If we'd never created Social Security or Medicare, we wouldn't be having this discussion, nor would we have the problems they create (both economically and politically). Once we have a government entitlement program, the press (and the politicians) always have a crying mother being stripped of her child or an old granny living on cat food to create photo-ops for the opposing side. It is damned near impossible to get rid of a government revenue stream once it is in place.

This is not a new method of handling a matter among the political classes. Creating issues to create a tug-o-war is not unique to the health care debate.

The abortion issue is exactly the same.

We have the not ever camp.

We have the only if camp.

We have the what's wrong with it, abortion shouldn't have moral considerations camp.

We can change the words, ever so slightly, for issues like school prayer. Education has become political, where the political classes war over the hearts and minds, just as the health care issue is becoming politicized. Regardless of how the health care issue is eventually decided, there will be winners and losers, if we allow the government to realize the objective of making it something the government involves itself.

Imagine, for just a moment, that there were no public schools. There might be a chattering class arguing for the creation of something like it, but we'd have developed other methods of addressing it. Most parents, the vast middle class, would pay for cheap schools (probably chain type corporations offering mediocre, but not awful programs at an affordable price). There would be a larger market for more expensive private schools, with the private sector donating to charities to allow poor children with prowess to attend them. The most the government might do is to allow everyone (rich and poor) to deduct the cost of education from their taxes. We wouldn't get to the point where we'd discuss the pros and cons of vouchers, because the government wouldn't have inserted itself in the process to make it a compromise solution to a terrible problem.

The larger point is that education would not be a political issue. There would be no arguments about prayer in school, the teaching of sex education, or if evolution or creationism should be taught. Each parent would make those decisions and it wouldn't create caverns between political camps. Sure, people would have their opinions on the various subjects, but each wouldn't be able to remake the Jack Booted Thug the enforcer of their opinion.

Abortion is still a huge issue today. If Roe v Wade had not been decided the way it had, each state would still be making the decision about its legality. Planned Parenthood and NARAL would be running cheap abortion flights or shuttle buses from Mississippi to California, with protestors standing on the runways to try to prevent women from boarding the planes. But, it wouldn't be a divisive issue at the national level, creating a situation where one party supports X and the other party supports -X.

I want Y, not the binary choice of X or -X.

If, for no other reason than the above, the health care issue should not become any more political than it is. When the government controls the issue or delivers the service, the people will always be arguing about who should get what, as sharks fight over prey when they smell blood. They'll stop considering the option of the government not being involved at all, and allowing the private sector to handle the matter. The private sector will no longer be a viable solution in its entirety, because the government's intrusion in the matter will have broken down parts of the infrastructure which allow it.

We already have enough issues to divide us. Government-run health care, especially given the enormity of the costs and the life/death aspect adding fuel to emotions, is the last thing we need. In other words, the last thing we need is for the government to get involved at all. The government will, inevitably, screw it up and where a politician stands on that issue will become a party platform, forcing people to choose one extreme position or the other, with suggestions and schemes on how to fix the mess. If the government doesn't get involved at all, then there will be nothing to fix. It will still be a mess, because few things are ever perfect, but the government just makes enemies of us all.

In 20 years, do we really want a politician's worthiness to be determined by how they'd decide on a particular health care rationing decision? We're protesting for or against inclusion of heart transplants or cesareans at the national level? That's what will happen if we create any additional government health care entitlements.

Chamber Music

2009-08-10T04:25:00.000-05:00

In this little symphony by Andrew Klavan (City Journal, Romanticon by Andrew Klavan, August 10, 2009), he manages to merge the old and the new in a way that leaves the soul yearning for more:

It was, for Wordsworth, what the failure of Communism was for the radicals of a later day. He could no longer deny the error inherent in “speculative schemes— / That promised to abstract the hopes of Man.” He saw the Revolution as a dream that “flattered the young, pleased with extremes” and made “Reason’s naked self / The object of its fervour.” Confused by pure reason’s failure as a moral guide, he “lost / All feeling of conviction” and “yielded up moral questions in despair.” Slowly, he began to do the brave and difficult thing: to admit he had been wrong and change his mind.

RTWT.

We can only hope that the revolutionaries of our day will find the courage to "change his mind."

When conservatives fret about having to rebuild their party, they should take heart. None of this is new. If, however, they attempt to recreate the sensationalism of the Democrat's success and continue to fall victim to the cult of personality and populism, rather than an earnest rebuilding effort of our intellectual principles based on Western Civilization's values, we will fail.

Now, just as American reaction to the blatant political failures of sixties radicalism led to the Reagan revolution and the long dominance of political conservatism here, so, too, British reaction to the French Revolution led to 20 years of Tory rule. But neither Reaganism nor Toryism could ultimately disguise the fact that a profound and fundamental change in human outlook and attitude had taken place—a change that the sixties and the French Revolution represented rather than caused. When the smoke cleared, those who still believed in Western history, traditions, and institutions had to reestablish their relevance and rebuild their foundations in what was essentially a new world.

They're Still Campaigning

2009-08-07T05:11:00.000-05:00

(More on the First Amendment violations of the "fishy" email requests by the White House.)

During the run up to the election, the Obama campaign effectively used electronic media. Most of us know how successful that was in getting out Obama's talking points as well as fund raising. Later revelations of the JournoList and the use of paid ACORN protesters were seen as despicable, but they fell within the typical dirty tricks camp of national elections.

What you can do when you're running for office and running a national campaign is entirely different from what you can do once you're in office. The then Senator Obama could not have solicited input on Americans who were exercising their free speech in declaring their concerns about Candidate Obama, but the Democratic Party hacks could have done that.

Seven months into President Obama's Administration, the staff at the White House are still behaving as if they're on the campaign trail. That was obvious to many, as the constant press conferences and stump speeches are signs that President Obama is still behaving as Candidate Obama.

But the White House Blog request for notification of "fishy" communications is unconstitutional for a member of government. I, as a private citizen, could ask for that information because the limitations on Free Speech don't apply to private citizens. I could set up a mechanism for collecting that information (and even pay people who send me the information). The restriction on limiting speech applies only to the government.

The Supreme Court has decided the matter in the past. Federal law prevents keeping a database on private citizens.

I would love to believe that the staffers at the White House Blog were intentionally engaging in a conspiracy to supress the free speech of citizens by setting up the "fishy" reporting mechanism, but that gives this Administration too much credit. They're not that clever. Rather, they're still in campaign mode, and are too stupid to know that they have violated one of American citizens' most precious liberties.

Sen. John Cornyn wrote a letter to the Obama Administration regarding the matter:

Dear President Obama,

I write to express my concern about a new White House program to monitor American citizens' speech opposing your health care policies, and to seek your assurances that this program is being carried out in a manner consistent with the First Amendment and America's tradition of free speech and public discourse.

Yesterday, in an official White House release entitled "Facts are Stubborn Things," the White House Director of New Media, Macon Phillips, asserted that there was "a lot of disinformation out there," and encouraged citizens to report "fishy" speech opposing your health care policies to the White House. Phillips specifically targeted private, unpublished, even casual speech, writing that "rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation." Phillips wrote "If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov."
I am not aware of any precedent for a President asking American citizens to report their fellow citizens to the White House for pure political speech that is deemed "fishy" or otherwise inimical to the White House's political interests.

By requesting that citizens send "fishy" emails to the White House, it is inevitable that the names, email addresses, IP addresses, and private speech of U.S. citizens will be reported to the White House. You should not be surprised that these actions taken by your White House staff raise the specter of a data collection program. As Congress debates health care reform and other critical policy matters, citizen engagement must not be chilled by fear of government monitoring the exercise of free speech rights.

I can only imagine the level of justifiable outrage had your predecessor asked Americans to forward emails critical of his policies to the White House. I suspect that you would have been leading the charge in condemning such a program-and I would have been at your side denouncing such heavy-handed government action.

So I urge you to cease this program immediately. At the very least, I request that you detail to Congress and the public the protocols that your White House is following to purge the names, email addresses, IP addresses, and identities of citizens who are reported to have engaged in "fishy" speech. And I respectfully request an answer to the following:

How do you intend to use the names, email addresses, IP addresses, and identities of citizens who are reported to have engaged in "fishy" speech?

How do you intend to notify citizens who have been reported for "fishy" speech?

What action do you intend to take against citizens who have been reported for engaging in "fishy" speech?

Do your own past statements qualify as "disinformation"? For example, is it "disinformation" to note that in 2003 you said:"I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care plan"?

I look forward to your prompt response.

Sincerely,
JOHN CORNYN
United States Senator

I suspect that no criminal charges will be filed, but ignorance of the law is not an excuse (especially by members of the government, and more especially the Office of the President as one of the primary duties of the President is to enforce the laws, not violate them), and the Obama Administration has committed a crime simply by creating this fishing hole (what they do with the information received is adding to the existing crime).

Sen. Cornyn got it exactly right and I hope that his cease and desist letter will be enough to get the program stopped. It won't stop the other crimes, misdemeanors, and constitutional violations being perpetrated by this Administration, but it is a good start.

During the campaign we were told that Obama had sufficient experience to hit the bricks running. The problem, of course, is that he didn't. He's running, but it is a still a campaign not an Administration.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
-- Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence

All Your Emails Belong to Us

2009-08-06T05:11:00.000-05:00

The recent news that the White House wants to be sent emails that spread "misinformation" about the socialized medicine bill is too crazy to parody (Macon Phillips, White House Blog, August 4, 2009):

Facts Are Stubborn Things

Opponents of health insurance reform may find the truth a little inconvenient, but as our second president famously said, "facts are stubborn things."

Scary chain emails and videos are starting to percolate on the internet [sic], breathlessly claiming, for example, to "uncover" the truth about the President’s health insurance reform positions.

In this video, Linda Douglass, the communications director for the White House’s Health Reform Office, addresses one example that makes it look like the President intends to "eliminate" private coverage, when the reality couldn’t be further from the truth.

For the record, the President has consistently said that if you like your insurance plan, your doctor, or both, you will be able to keep them. He has even proposed eight consumer protections relating specifically to the health insurance industry.

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

[Emphasis mine.]

There are so many ways that the White House could have worded the above to make it appear less Orwellian and Hitlerian. Just about everything this Administration (and Congress) are doing is like something from The Onion.

The White House Blog includes videos of people saying that the Health Care Bill won't become a single-payer program.

So what does the Bill actually say?

SEC. 102. PROTECTING THE CHOICE TO KEEP CURRENT COVERAGE (pg 16):

(a) GRANDFATHERED HEALTH INSURANCE COVERAGE DEFINED.—Subject to the succeeding provisions of this section, for purposes of establishing acceptable coverage under this division, the term ‘‘grandfathered health insurance coverage’’ means individual health insurance coverage that is offered and in force and effect before the first day of Y1 if the following conditions are met:
(1) LIMITATION ON NEW ENROLLMENT.—

(A) IN GENERAL.—Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day of Y1.

[Emphasis mine.]

So it is "misinformation" to suggest that the Bill doesn't gradually eliminate private insurance policies, yet the Bill itself requires that no new members are added to the rolls of private insurance after "Y1" date.

Pg 19:

(1) IN GENERAL.—Individual health insurance coverage that is not grandfathered health insurance coverage under subsection (a) may only be offered on or after the first day of Y1 as an Exchange-participating health benefits plan.

To decipher what the above means, we have to go to pg. 10:

(13) HEALTH INSURANCE EXCHANGE.—The term ‘‘Health Insurance Exchange’’ means the Health Insurance Exchange established under section 201.

Alright, I'll play. What does section 201 include?

Section 201 says (pg. 74):

(c) TRANSITION.—Individuals and employers shall only be eligible to enroll or participate in the Health Insurance Exchange in accordance with the following transition schedule:
(1) FIRST YEAR.—In Y1 (as defined in section 100(c))

(A) individuals described in subsection (d)(1), including individuals described in paragraphs (3) and (4) of subsection (d); and (B) smallest employers described in subsection (e)(1).

(2) SECOND YEAR.—In Y2—

(A) individuals and employers described in
paragraph (1); and (B) smaller employers described in subsection (e)(2).
(3) THIRD AND SUBSEQUENT YEARS.—

In Y3 and subsequent years—

(A) individuals and employers described in
paragraph (2); and

(B) larger employers as permitted by the
Commissioner under subsection (e)(3).

Good Lord! What in the Hell does that mean? It becomes circular, to the point of distraction. If single-payer is not the ultimate goal, why do the programs (for which an individual is eligible to enroll) change in Years 1, 2, and 3? It makes no sense. It appears to read that if you're in a private plan now, you can keep it (unless the government later determines it doesn't meet a standard--and it is up to the Commissar to determine what that standard is), but is it is blurry regarding a job/insurance change after the Bill goes into effect.

Beginning on pg 82, there is a description of a survey that must be conducted by the Health ~~Czar~~ Commissioner. Later we discover what the survey "report" will enable the Commissioner to do:

(3) REPORT.—Not later than January 1 of Y3, in Y6, and thereafter, the Commissioner shall submit to Congress on the study conducted under this subsection and shall include in such report recommendations regarding changes in standards for Exchange eligibility for individuals and employers.

So, basically, the Commissioner will conduct a study to determine what employers are providing in their health care plans and then the Commissioner will recommend whether or not those programs are adequate to remain eligible.

Based on what criteria?

There are "BASIC, ENHANCED, AND PREMIUM PLANS" described, but not the costs/benefits which must be included as each is up to the Commissioner (not the employer or individual consumer) to determine (pg 85):

IN GENERAL.—The Commissioner shall establish the following standards consistent with this subsection and title I.

At this point, you'd think that the various categories of Small, Medium and Large would be defined, but they're not. They're just descriptive categories that the Commissioner can codify anyway he/she damn well pleases, as long as the benefits/cost sharing get bigger in Medium and Large.

This Bill is long, but its substance is lacking.

In order for an insurance carrier to be included as an "Exchange" provider (and that means any private insurance program, not the one offered by the Federal government or various other public programs), there is a long list of requirements, including (pg 91):

(7) CULTURALLY AND LINGUISTICALLY APPROPRIATE SERVICES AND COMMUNICATIONS.—The entity shall provide for culturally and linguistically appropriate communication and health services.

Orwell is laughing his ass off.

I'm sorry this post is discombobulated, but that's because the Bill is incomprehensible. You can argue just about anything in this Bill, because anything is how it is written (pg. 92).

(4) OVERSIGHT AND ENFORCEMENT RESPONSIBILITIES.
—The Commissioner shall establish processes, in coordination with State insurance regulators, to oversee, monitor, and enforce applicable requirements of this title with respect to QHBP offering entities offering Exchange-participating health benefits plans and such plans, including the marketing of such plans.

And (pg. 88):

(a) CONTRACTING DUTIES.—In carrying out section 201(b)(1) and consistent with this subtitle:
(1) OFFERING ENTITY AND PLAN STANDARDS.—The Commissioner shall—

(A) establish standards necessary to implement the requirements of this title and title I for—

(i) QHBP offering entities for the offering of an Exchange-participating health benefits plan; and (ii) for Exchange-participating health benefits plans; and (B) certify QHBP offering entities and qualified health benefits plans as meeting such standards and requirements of this title and title I for purposes of this subtitle.

They might as well have written "to be determined by the Health Czar at some future date, based on any criteria he/she pleases" on every page after the introduction.

The requirements put on private insurance companies is simply mind-boggling as they're written, with wriggle room for the Health Czar to add any additional requirements they want, at their sole discretion. The Commissioner can deny a carrier based on dozens of defined and yet-to-be-defined criteria, and require Herculean levels of reporting and red tape. Anyone suggesting that this government bureaucracy will reduce medical costs is a liar. The paperwork alone will triple the costs.

There are many doctors who are refusing to take Medicare patients now, because the paperwork is too cumbersome to manage and the payments can take a 120+ days to process. This Bill burdens the insurance carriers and doctors, by providing greater reporting and "accountability," but "accountability" is to be determined.

It is not unreasonable to speculate that the solution to the red tape created in this Bill would later be "fixed" by creating government-run hospitals (similar to the Veteran's Administration hospitals) with no paperwork requirements--just open the doors and let everyone in. The result would be something like the Post Office or DMV, with the "quality" of service those institutions are famous for not delivering, or the Dickensian-like monstrosities of the VA. This is speculation of course, but it is impossible to see how creating this regulatory bureaucracy could be seen as a benefit or cost saver by anyone. If we don't pass this Bill there would be no regulatory bureaucracy to fix, so let's just skip to the end and not do it at all.

It is just common sense. If you add more bureaucracy, an additional layer between the consumer and the supplier, of course your costs are going to increase. In addition, the Bill requires the establishment of a Health Commissioner and staff to handle all the paperwork, conduct studies, review insurance carriers offerings and employer insurance plans and mandate their compliance. For what benefit? If the goal is to cover the uninsured then create a Bill that does just that.

If the goal is to also provide bridge insurance (when someone is between jobs), there is already legislation (COBRA) that requires an insurance company to allow a person to pay their own premiums (for two years, I believe) during their unemployment period (until they have a new job with insurance). At the point a person is uninsured (either becuase they never had insurance, they couldn't afford their COBRA, etc.), there would be a plan they could get through the Feds. If that's the goal, then write a Bill that does just that, and/or the above. This Bill goes far beyond any of that, requiring that everyone have health insurance (and a person will be taxed for it, if they don't pay for one on their own, or are provided a government-approved plan by their employer).

I'm not recommending any of the above, only suggesting that the sound bytes about what this Bill is supposed to provide does not jive with what the Bill would create. This Bill mandates health insurance in some form and creates a regulatory bureaucracy of all insurance carriers and employers' health care offerings. That's not "cost savings." That's growing the size/cost of government.

Someone, please, report me to the White House for spreading "misinformation." Anyone who quotes the Bill could be accused of that.

Not So Fast, Einstein

2009-08-03T06:39:00.000-05:00

In an article by Yuri Kageyama (AP Business/Yahoo! News, Nissan rolls out electric car at new headquarters, August 2, 2009):

"This car represents a real breakthrough," Ghosn told reporters and guests at a showroom in the new headquarters.

He said the new car and new office building in Yokohama, southwest of Tokyo, marked two fresh starts for Nissan, which hopes to take the lead in zero-emission vehicles.

Has the world gone completely nuts? The car may be zero-emissions, but producing the electricity needed for it to run produces all sorts of emissions, depending on how the electricity is produced.

We have emissions from creating energy (in a gas-powered car the emissions are created when the car is driven, in electric-powered cars the emissions are created when the energy is produced). The fact that the energy needed for this car to run is emitted before it is used in the car, doesn't mean that the car has the net result of being "zero-emission."

This is propaganda at its finest. The debate will continue about how to produce electricity (and how to produce more electricity as the need for it rises, especially if we are producing and buying cars that need electricity to run). In general, however, distributive processing is a better idea. All the combustion engine cars on the road are producing the energy they need, and are not reliant on the strained power grid. Increasing the demand on the power grid will require considerable investment, as well as produce emissions in its overhaul, and the fuel source that runs it.

If an electrical plant runs on gasoline (or fossil fuels) or coal, and a car uses the power it produces to run, is the car really zero-emission?

Of course not! It seems that the concept of "net effect" is lost on most people.

H/t Drudge.

Dangerous?

2009-08-03T06:16:00.000-05:00

Glenn Reynolds linked to the article below (Kathianne Boniello, New York Post, Jobless Grad Sues College for 70G Tuition, August 2, 2009) with the succinct question: Dangerous Precedent?

The Monroe College grad wants the $70,000 she spent on tuition because she hasn't found gainful employment since earning her bachelor's degree in April, according to a suit filed in Bronx Supreme Court on July 24.

If I'm reading the article correctly (and the journalist got the facts correct), Trina Thompson is suing Monroe College because they did not provide employment assistance as advertised.

Two issues make this troublesome:

Suing is generally a bad idea. We've become all too quick to go to the courts to settle our differences. It is not clear if Miss Thompson attempted to reconcile the problem on her own. Miss Thompson may be labeled "sue happy" and if she is, she's doomed her future success (justifiably).

The article's title (and the comments) make it appear that Miss Thompson is suing because she didn't feel her education was up to snuff, but that doesn't appear to be the issue on which she is basing her lawsuit. Her issue seems to be that Monroe College made promises regarding employment assistance:

The information-technology student blames Monroe's Office of Career Advancement for not providing her with the leads and career advice it promised.

At the conclusion of the article we find the basis of Miss Thompson's claim:

The college's Office of Career Advancement advertises lifetime free service for graduates, and boasts on the school's Web site: "We have many resources available for students at any stage of their college career, and even after graduation."

This is an interesting situation. If a company enters into a contract to deliver services and those services are not delivered, then a person has a right to get their money back (or sue, if the company refuses to refund the money). What makes this different, but I don't think it should, is that it is a college. Miss Thompson received an education and was awarded a degree, but it doesn't appear that Miss Thompson attended college (specifically Monroe College) with that goal in mind. She seems to believe that the education and degree were superfluous. What she was after was a guarantee of job placement and believed that Monroe College made that commitment as part of her enrollment.

It will be up to the courts to decide if Monroe College made false claims or failed to deliver a service. Further, it will be determined if the claims of providing job placement services were part of the contract Monroe College committed to as part of their enrollment agreement with Miss Thompson.

This case doesn't appear to be about the quality of education Miss Thompson received, nor does it appear to be about how qualified Miss Thompson might be as a job applicant (or how well she interviews). What is interesting is that Monroe College granted Miss Thompson a degree and it would be reasonable to conclude that the degree meant something (especially given that Miss Thompson received a technical degree in Information Technology).

If students attend college in a major that is job-training specific (as opposed to more lofty pursuits) then it seems reasonable that the degree should mean something. If it doesn't, if having the degree is not transferable to getting a job (keeping the job is another matter and up to Miss Thompson), then what value does the degree have? If it means nothing, if it doesn't translate to job offers, then the degree isn't worth the paper on which it is printed, nor should Miss Thompson have to have paid for it.

That seems reasonable to me. Colleges (and universities) have chosen to become job training centers, as opposed to educational institutions, and engage in a type of collusion with employers to require degrees for employment. Schools could have remained bastions of knowledge of Western Civilization, providing students with an education, rather than job training. But they didn't choose that. They chose to be placement centers, with large fees for their services. They should be held accountable for what they claim and what they promise, as any other business would.

As to Prof. Reynolds question: I do not think it is a dangerous precedent. It think it is an about damned time precedent. Schools have been charging ridiculous fees for sub-standard educations (often for sub par students). It's time they're put on notice.

Miss Thompson appears to have learned something of value (whether she learned it at Monroe College or not): that when you pay for something advertised, the company must deliver those services or refund your money. I applaud Miss Thompson's actions. Perhaps this will put the fear of God in these mostly useless institutions, and be the basis of true educational reform in this country.

What We Can Do

2009-07-30T06:27:00.000-05:00

Subtitle: The Hope and Change the rest of us desire.

The purpose of this site is to document the events of the day. Few read it and fewer still take what is written here to heart. Mostly, it is cynical. It is the view of the world as one might view a train wreck before it happens, reporting on the screeching wheels and metal before the train hits the wall.

For just a moment I'm going to step out of the role as cynic and reporter of our demise and propose a few ideas that could turn this impending tragedy around, avoiding the train wreck. It isn't inevitable, but it is likely, given the direction we're heading. That direction needs to change.

The United States Constitution is an amazing document, both for its forward-thinking and its clarity. The few aberrations, including slavery and limited suffrage, were corrected by the sweat and blood of patriots, others were corrected peacefully. What we have left is a miracle -- a kind of road-map to preserving our treasured liberties. It is only as useful as it is used and respected.

In some cases (the minutia I'll leave to another day) we screwed things up. For all the good intentions and lofty goals, prohibition was a bad idea, and it was later reversed. The Sixteenth Amendment was enacted to give Congress the ability to collect taxes on income (not wages), for the purposes of paying war debt. The balance of power between the States and the Federal government was severely harmed by the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment, changing the election of Senators from state selection by the respective state legislature, to popular vote. It, too, was invented with the goal of correcting a perceived wrong, but it created far more trouble than it benefited us.

I fully expect that those Amendments will be eventually overturned, viewed through the lens of history as mistakes as great and obvious as prohibition proved to be. In some cases the Constitution is fine as it is today, but it has been interpreted to mean something other than it was intended to mean. The Fourteenth Amendment, for example, was enacted to gaurantee that the Bill of Rights, the respect of individual rights, and the status of U.S. citizen were uniform throughout the states, not that all other laws between the states had to be uniform.

Whether those Amendments will be overturned (or the interpretations of others limited to their original intent) will happen in my lifetime or later is the question. The larger question is if we'll exist long enough to reverse them.

Those are important, but trivial compared to what remains intact, based on the Founders exquisite understanding of the purpose of government and how government can be prevented from becoming the tyrannical state.

The Founders made it quite clear that the Federal government had limited powers -- that it derived its powers from The People -- and that all the powers not specifically granted to the Federal government remained with The People (individually) or collectively, by the States. On the whole, the Constitution doesn't limit what the people or the Several States may do; on the contrary, the Constitution limits and articulates what the Federal government may do. In all cases, however, the Founders made it quite clear that we retained the rights we temporarily delegated to the Federal government. At any time we could rescind their authority, or grant it additional powers, but only through Constitutional Amendment (not, as far too many believe, by doing whatever they damn well please).

There was fear that the Federal government would attempt to trump State powers, but more concern that larger states would attempt to trample the smaller ones. There were "checks and balances" as well, dividing the Federal government into three branches: Legislature, Executive, and Justice.

Each branch had their specific role and authority. The legislature was empowered to make laws and to lay taxes for the express purpose of carrying out those laws and their duties, but what laws they could create was strictly limited to those articulated. The Executive, beyond its primary directive of foreign affairs and domestic security, was empowered to make sure that the laws enacted by Congress were carried out. Justice was the arbiter between the states, and was the last hope when justice could not be found elsewhere.

All of the above was carefully worded in the various Articles. Article I addresses the Congress. Article II describes the Executive role. Article III describes the role of the judiciary. The remaining Articles (IV through VIII) address specific matters, such as how the Constitution may be altered, how new states may be admitted into the union, etc.

After the initial draft was presented to the people for their review, individually and by their respective state governments, a great debate ensued. (Actually, many debates ensued.) The most important one were the debates between the "Federalists" and the "Anti-Federalists." These are known as The Federalist Papers and The Anti-Federalist Papers. There can be no doubt of the Founders original intent when understood through those debates.

In Federalist 37, Madison framed the argument by describing the difficulties, goals, and the outcome of the Constitutional Convention:

The genius of republican liberty seems to demand on one side, not only that all power should be derived from the people, but that those intrusted with it should be kept in dependence on the people, by a short duration of their appointments; and that even during this short period the trust should be placed not in a few, but a number of hands. Stability, on the contrary, requires that the hands in which power is lodged should continue for a length of time the same. A frequent change of men will result from a frequent return of elections; and a frequent change of measures from a frequent change of men: whilst energy in government requires not only a certain duration of power, but the execution of it by a single hand.

Heretofore I have described the authority granted by the people to the Federal government. More importantly, however, is the balance of power between the Federal government and the States. Madison also describes the difficulties of this in Federalist 37:

To the difficulties already mentioned may be added the interfering pretensions of the larger and smaller States. We cannot err in supposing that the former would contend for a participation in the government, fully proportioned to their superior wealth and importance; and that the latter would not be less tenacious of the equality at present enjoyed by them. We may well suppose that neither side would entirely yield to the other, and consequently that the struggle could be terminated only by compromise. It is extremely probable, also, that after the ratio of representation had been adjusted, this very compromise must have produced a fresh struggle between the same parties, to give such a turn to the organization of the government, and to the distribution of its powers, as would increase the importance of the branches, in forming which they had respectively obtained the greatest share of influence. There are features in the Constitution which warrant each of these suppositions; and as far as either of them is well founded, it shows that the convention must have been compelled to sacrifice theoretical propriety to the force of extraneous considerations.

In Federalist 44, Madison addresses some of the ant-Federalist criticisms. In the passage below, he addresses the powers granted to Congress and the concerns that Congress would, at some future date, enlarge or expand on their limited powers (as they have done today):

If it be asked what is to be the consequence, in case the Congress shall misconstrue this part of the Constitution, and exercise powers not warranted by its true meaning, I answer, the same as if they should misconstrue or enlarge any other power vested in them; as if the general power had been reduced to particulars, and any one of these were to be violated; the same, in short, as if the State legislatures should violate the irrespective constitutional authorities. In the first instance, the success of the usurpation will depend on the executive and judiciary departments, which are to expound and give effect to the legislative acts; and in the last resort a remedy must be obtained from the people who can, by the election of more faithful representatives, annul the acts of the usurpers.

In Federalist 45, Madison details the concerns of too much state power, but what was concerning them at the time was an attempt by a powerful state to invade/control another state, not the Federal government encroaching on all the states. For this reason, state powers were not specifically articulated, but some state sovereignty was limited. Reading it today, however, is almost laughable. The checks and balances against encroachment of state authority has happened so pervasively and extensively, that remarks about how the numbers of people employed at the state level providing a buttress against the "few" at the Federal level, makes it absolutely clear that we have allowed all power-balancing strategies to be entirely eliminated. Madison was certain that the people would raise the alarm, and go to the guns, to address encroaching Federal powers long before they got to the point where we are today.

In Federalist 46, Madison addresses the concerns that the usurpation of state autonomy (or individual autonomy) would get so bad as to destroy the spirit and the literal powers of the States:

The only refuge left for those who prophesy the downfall of the State governments is the visionary supposition that the federal government may previously accumulate a military force for the projects of ambition. The reasonings contained in these papers must have been employed to little purpose indeed, if it could be necessary now to disprove the reality of this danger. That the people and the States should, for a sufficient period of time, elect an uninterupted succession of men ready to betray both; that the traitors should, throughout this period, uniformly and systematically pursue some fixed plan for the extension of the military establishment; that the governments and the people of the States should silently and patiently behold the gathering storm, and continue to supply the materials, until it should be prepared to burst on their own heads, must appear to every one more like the incoherent dreams of a delirious jealousy, or the misjudged exaggerations of a counterfeit zeal, than like the sober apprehensions of genuine patriotism.

Madison scoffed at the concerns, believing that the people would never stand for it, but all those fears have become our reality. We allowed all the worst-case scenarios to occur and that was something that Madison could never have fathomed.

So what do we do and what powers remain?

Before I address the best option, I'd like to address a concern: In many states the Second Amendment is in full force. For many of us, however, we wish to use that as a last resort, and attempt to restore the powers of the people and the respective States without resorting to war (or even some sort of agreed-upon, peaceful secession). The war option is far from being the only option, and surely the least desirable, when other options are still open to us.

There are a variety of suggestions to address the encroachment of Federal powers. Some have gone so far as to suggest we need to restate the limitions again, perhaps in new words, to make the point that the Constitution limits what the Federal government may do. This is the equivalent of applying bolds, asterisks, and underlines to what is already written. While I would not be opposed to these options, as I would support any and all peaceful attempts to address the problem, I do not think it is our best option.

The Constitution, in Amendments Ninth and Tenth, already state that the powers not specifically listed as granted to the Federal government remain with the states and/or the people. Saying it again is not going to change the status quo. The Federal government is already ignoring what was written, so writing something else to be ignored is a futile gesture. We're past words. It is time for action.

The option that is open to us is state disobedience, but I use disobedience to better explain the idea rather than the word as a value judgement. It is the state-collective equivalent of civil disobedience. In truth, it is the Federal government that has been disobedient, by exercising powers they have not been granted. The only effective way to put meat into the limitations imposed on the Federal government is for the states to ignore actions, measures, and laws that are extra-constitutional. Only those actions, measures, initiatives, and laws that are specifically articulated in the Constitution as belonging to the Federal government will be respected by the several States, and by The People.

To this end, some state legislatures are passing "State Sovereignty" measures to restate their authority and limit Federal authority. These involve restatements of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, which are:

Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

While we shouldn't ignore Congressional elections, it is more important now to pay attention to state elections, including the legislatures and the governor. It is time for governors (with agreement by the state legislatures) to refuse to abide by unconstitutional Federal encroachment. This includes:

Refusing all TARP funds/invasions of Federal officers in local businesses.

Refusing all Stimulus funding.

Refusing all education funding and federal legislation regarding education (and all other unconstitutional government departments).

Exercise the option to call out the National Guards to protect our borders if our Federal government continues to refuse to exercise their primary directive.

It is time for states to refuse to comply and also refuse the bribe money that comes with it, while protecting state citizens from unconstitutional taxes and penalties.

It is the responsibility of our state legislatures and our governors to exercise the authority we have granted to them. It is time we work locally to elect representatives who will restore the balance of power between the Federal and State governments and reject all invasions and encroachments of Federal authorities.

The following is the kind of speech that every governor of every state should deliver on the day he or she is sworn into office:

The People of this state have graciously elected me as their Governor, and I understand fully the responsibilities and authorities they have entrusted to me, as well as the limitations of that power within our state, and those entrusted to the Federal government. There are strict lines of delineation, between the counties and cities within our state; the powers granted to the local mayors and city/town councils; the unique relationships we have with neighboring states, and the authority we recognize as belonging to the Federal government.

The authority we have granted to the Federal government is strictly limited to those items articulated in the U.S. Constitution. The Federal government has the responsibility and authority to declare war, to provide for the common defense, to coin money, to regulate the seas, oceans and post roads, and to protect the products and arts by providing copyright and patent laws, and the judiciary may intervene on matters between us and other states. The Federal government has no other powers or authority. As part of my oath today I swore to uphold and protect not only our State Constitution, but the Federal Constitution. I take that oath seriously. Beginning today, I will issue an order which returns all funds received from the Federal government that goes beyond their authority. I reject all laws enacted by Congress that goes beyond their specifically limited authority. I will refuse, with force if necessary, the invasion of Federal officers, in whatever department or uniform, to exercise authority not specifically granted to them.

For too long states have remained passive, gradually morphing from free and sovereign states to lowly beggars, looking to the Federal government for hand-outs and to do the job that governors were intended to perform. That transition into a lowly beggar class ends now.

If the Federal government does not perform its duty with respect to protecting our borders, I will call out our National Guard to do so.

If the Federal government attempts to send agents to interfere with our peaceful commerce within our state, I will stop them at the border, with force, if necessary.

If the Federal government attempts to arrest or in any way interfere with our citizens' refusal to pay taxes on anything other than their incomes (not wages) or taxes imposed equally among the states, but only for the percentage of Federal government budget that is Constitutional, I will issue orders to stop them. Our state officers, police, and National Guard will be called upon to intervene to protect our citizens from arrest or property seizure, if necessary.

I will call upon neighboring and friendly states to assist us if necessary, and I will respond to calls for assistance from other states, if they should need our assitance.

It is time, finally, for the State governors to exercise the powers they have been granted, to protect thier citizens in their respective states from invasions of their liberty by the extra-Constutional acts of the Federal government, and for the Several States to refuse to abide by unjust and unconstitutional laws.

Today, the liberty and values established by the Founders will be restored in this state, and I hope many others.

That is what is necessary. That is the change of direction I introduced in my opening paragraphs to alter the course of the train to prevent the wreck. Although patience is required, anything else or short of that is a guarantee that our republican government will cease to exist.

Chances it will happen? Zero. But Americans love the underdog and this post is supposed to be my non-cynical view of the future. Despite the fact that I clearly and carefully stated that "going to the guns" was not an option, I suppose that my suggestions would classify me as a terrorist to some. Oh, well. So much for being optimistic.

Some of Us

2009-07-30T03:12:00.000-05:00

In an interview with AG Eric Holder by Pierre Thomas, Jason Ryan, and Theresa Cook (ABC News, Attorney General Eric Holder Speaks Exclusively to ABC News, July 29, 2009), Holder is quoted:

"The American people would be surprised by the depth of the threat, but also reassured to see the assets that have been deployed around the world," Holder said, adding that the United States interacts closely with its foreign partners.

Some Americans may be surprised at the amount of threats posed by terrorist groups, but not all of us. Some people chose to respond to the 9/11 attacks by burying their head in the sand, believing it was an isolated incident -- like some sort of fluke of nature. They also viewed the lack of additional attacks as meaning that there weren't any attempts.

Nothing could be further from reality.

The reality is that there are groups within the larger banner of al Qaeda and outside of its central planning approach who want nothing more than to carry out another 9/11 attack (or something much, much worse).

"Guantanamo is a place that has served as a recruiting tool for those who want to do us harm," he said.

Holder declined to say how many detainees could face trial in the United States, but said U.S. attorney offices around the country have been reviewing the cases for possible prosecution in those districts.

The Democrats continue to treat terrorism as a criminal action rather than as an act of war. "Facing trial" is for criminal actions. Detaining unlawful combatants is not a criminal justice action. Holding these people (or deciding to put them before a firing squad) is a military matter.

Suggesting that Guantanamo serves as a recruitment vehicle for terrorists is both a strawman and a distraction. Everything we do, from being prosperous to checking passports on inbound passengers could be viewed as a "recruiting tool." Easter egg rolls on the White House lawn could be seen as a recruiting tool as it demonstrates an association with Christianity. The point being, that everything we do as a people, including everything we do to combat terrorism can be used by propagandists to encourage the weak minded to become radicalized.

"The possibility exists that there could be people who are held in a preventative way under the laws of war," he said. "If that happens, we'd only do so by creating a system that had due process.

"I think that by closing Guantanamo, by prosecuting people, be it in Article III courts, or in military commissions, we will make the American people safer than they are now," Holder continued.

In the above, Holder is talking out of both sides of his mouth. If the military commissions are successful at prosecuting illegal combatants, the result will be the firing squad. How, exactly, would that event appease terrorists? Appeasing the terrorists would require that the men in detention are found not to be illegal combatants and released. That would prove that our military are bumbling idiots for picking up the wrong people (a characterization much favored by many on the Left) or they're dangerous terrorists who will be released on some sort of technicality. Neither scenario is good for our side.

The fate of an unlawful combatant is death. There is no other outcome. They aren't given life sentences, as one might receive for murder, or put in some sort of work/release program. Illegal combatants are shot or hanged. Delaying that outcome with detention, as long as the detainees are useful to us, is the best way to protect us.

We're at war, even if the Left continues to try to treat this as a criminal problem, doing anything necessary to avoid a military entanglement. Criminals don't fly suicide missions with the purpose of terrorizing their enemies into submission. Military enemies do that, and it appears that terrorism is working on those on the Left. Submission is their middle name.

None of this is surprising to some of us. The Left has been spewing the criminal justice angle of this matter since the beginning. The Left knows they can't win elections because of their track record on handling military matters. Republicans are perceived (rightly) as being the best people to have in charge in war time, so the Left worked really hard to distract the public from acknowledging that there is a war on! The media presented the battles as a lost cause and a political battle, not a literal one. They've campaigned that the Bush response was overreach... and now they're trying to tell us that terrorists really are something serious, and something to worry about... and how hard they work everyday to keep us safe.

He noted, however, that the Bush administration "left us an infrastructure that I think is very good," and that national security officials are constantly striving to put the country in a safer position.

Some of us know that, too.

The Bush Administration kept us safe, but they didn't find it necessary to whine about it or constantly toot their own horn for performing their primary directive, doing their job. Perhaps that was Bush's failing -- he gave the American people too much credit -- perhaps the American people do need to be constantly reminded that there is a war going on, and there really are people out to get us.

Americans are asking: How will we fight and win this war? We will direct every resource at our command -- every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence, and every necessary weapon of war -- to the disruption and to the defeat of the global terror network.

This war will not be like the war against Iraq a decade ago, with a decisive liberation of territory and a swift conclusion. It will not look like the air war above Kosovo two years ago, where no ground troops were used and not a single American was lost in combat.

Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success.
- George W. Bush, Address to the Nation, Washington, DC, September 20, 2001

Some people are surprised that terrorism continues to be a threat. Some aren't. Some people forget what was said and promised. Some of us remember.

We will not waiver, we will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail.

H/t Drudge.

What Matters

2009-07-29T08:13:00.000-05:00

Michael Barone (Washington Examiner, Obama has aura but doesn't know how to legislate, July 29, 2009) states the obvious:

In other words, he's [Obama] never done much work putting legislation together -- especially legislation that channels vast flows of money and affects the workings of parts of the economy that deeply affect people's lives. This lack of experience is starting to show. On the major legislation considered this year -- the stimulus, cap and trade, health care -- the Obama White House has done little or nothing to set down markers, to provide guidance, to establish boundaries and no-go areas.

None of this should come as a surprise to anyone. The country elected a neophyte to POTUS (which is why the Republicans shouldn't try to do the same--people will be crying for a Eisenhower/Reagan type Grandpa come 2016, and avoiding game-show-host-charisma style candidates--the party that puts Grandpa out there will win). If this POTUS has taught us anything, it is that there is no room for learning on the job. Experience matters, in all things, even if it is the illusion of experience.

Petreus / Perry 2016.

Other contenders include (sorry to say that there are no other Governors besides Rick Perry with sufficient experience and wisdom):

Kit Bond (Senator, SC)

Tom Coburn (Senator, OK)

Thad Cochran (Senator, MS)

Mike Enzi, (Senator, WY)

Roger Wicker (Senator, MS)

Ralph Edward "Ed" Eberhart (4 Star General)

Richard Myers (4 Star General)

Over

2009-07-29T06:37:00.000-05:00

From Byron York (Washington Examiner, Obama, playing defense on the stimulus, July 29, 2009):

The speech seems a pretty clear indication that Republicans (and the polls) have put Obama on the defensive.

The polls have him running scared, as it should be. Americans may have been temporarily fooled by his moderate campaign speak, but nakedness of this Emperor and his true tyrannical stripes are beginning to show.

'We' have Obama on the run and this is only the beginning of his demise. The honeymoon is officially over. The divorce proceedings are going to be ugly.

On Their Watch

2009-07-29T03:43:00.000-05:00

Social Security and Medicare are underfunded by $40 trillion. Saying that they are underfunded is a bit of a bait and switch, as these programs have never been funded. FICA deductions go into the General Fund, with all the other taxes collected by the Feds.

When Bush was campaigning for his second term he focused on Social Security reform, but Congress (now an obvious, not statistical Democrat majority) would have no part of it. Aggravating blue collar workers and the AARP is political suicide, so Congress did nothing to reform Social Security.

Whether that was cowardice or strategic (to further weaken the economy to bolster a win in 2008) doesn't matter. The reality is that the Boomers are gradually shifting from the contributing to the receiving line of the FICA deduction, and their mass will shift the FICA budget line from positive to negative as early as 2012. No more will Democrats have the FICA excess to play around with, which is why they're advocating "health care reform" and infusing it with methods to ration existing entitlement programs, while shoring up the gravy train for other programs.

In the socialized medicine Bills there are plans to begin rationing Medicare (as health care "reform" has little or nothing to do with Medicare). Someone is going to have to do it eventually. I'm just glad that the Democrats will have to own it, but I'm certain that they'll figure out a way to blame the Republicans for it.

In in decade it won't matter and AARP and Social Security recipients will be thrown under a bus. They have to be, as there won't be enough money to pay even a fraction of their total federal entitlement payments. And rightly, as it is their fault: their generation did nothing to guarantee that the money would be there when they got to retirement age. It won't matter if it was ignorance or malice. Reality is immune to cause. It just is. And "empty" is what the coffers will be.

Soylent Green is People!

2009-07-24T04:39:00.000-05:00

Reading through the Twitter posts from Peter Fleckstein, posted by Savage (Little Green Footballs, Inside the Health Care Bill, aka HR3200, July 22, 2009), that's the thought that kept popping into my head:

PG 425: SEC. 1233. ADVANCE CARE PLANNING CONSULTATION Lines 4-12 Government mandates Advance Care Planning Consult. Think Senior Citizens end of life

Pg 425: SEC. 1233. ADVANCE CARE PLANNING CONSULTATION Lines 17-19 Government will instruct and consult regarding living wills, durable powers of attorney. Mandatory!

PG 425: SEC. 1233. ADVANCE CARE PLANNING CONSULTATION Lines 22-25, 426 Lines 1-3 Government provides approved list of end of life resources, guiding you in death!

PG 427: SEC. 1233. ADVANCE CARE PLANNING CONSULTATION Lines 15-24 Government mandates program for orders for end of life. The Government has a say in how your life ends!

Pg 429: SEC. 1233. ADVANCE CARE PLANNING CONSULTATION Lines 1-9 An “advance care planning consultant” will be used frequently as patients health deteriorates.

PG 429: SEC. 1233. ADVANCE CARE PLANNING CONSULTATION Lines 10-12 “advance care consultation” may include an ORDER 4 end of life plans. AN ORDER from GOV

Pg 429: SEC. 1233. ADVANCE CARE PLANNING CONSULTATION Lines 13-25 – The Government will specify which Doctors can write an end of life order.

PG 430: SEC. 1233. ADVANCE CARE PLANNING CONSULTATION Lines 11-15 The Government will decide what level of treatment you will have at end of life.

(For people who don't understand the reference, Soylent Green was a film based on a dystopic novel [Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison] where government mandated that people submit themselves to be killed on their 65th birthday. Set in a future where pollution prevented crop growth, there were food shortages. It was determined that the government-issued green wafers given to the people as nourishment was made from the bodies of the elderly.)

There is a point, however, where arguing the details is counterproductive. The bottom line is that government, especially the Federal government, has no authority to "reform" health care. It should be rejected on principle, regardless of the details.

H/t comment by katablog.com (James Pethokoukis, Reuters Blogs, Why Obama might have just killed Obamacare, July 23, 2009)

Title Not Found

2009-07-23T05:33:00.000-05:00

With regard to the Amazon/1984 stories: The ignorance of how databases work and what data-syncing is continues. This article and comments at Network World illustrate the ignorance.

Background: Kindle users were able to buy an ebook that was distributed without copyright authorization. As soon as Amazon was made aware of the problem, they removed the title (Orwell's 1984, to make the story interesting) from their catalog.

That's the back-story. What happened next should be a surprise only to people who don't understand how these things work, and I'm not referring to how ebooks are created or sold (or anything having to do with copyrights or license agreements).

A database is a collection of tables. Tables are a collection of records. Records are a collection of fields. Fields are made up of bits/characters.

(A record may be synonymous with a "transaction" but it isn't always.)

I'll start with a single table.

A database like Amazon's contains customers. Customers have certain characteristics, such as names, shipping and billing addresses, join dates, last purchase date, phone numbers, etc. Some of those characteristics will be stored in a "customer" table, some will be stored in subordinate tables, but they're only subordinate because we think of them that way. They're just tables. The relationships the tables have to each other (if any) is because of our understanding of how the data relates, not because computers/databases have any inherent understanding of these relationships.

The Amazon database also contains a "products" table. Those products make up their catalog. Products have characteristics of their own, such as supplier, unit of sale, weight, description, name, etc.

The "supplier" of an item will also be a record in a "supplier" table. That table will have the contact information for the supplier, their main contact address, as well as any other data elements Amazon might wish to maintain at that level.

Amazon will also have a price file (or a "price table") because all retailers do. They'll also have some sort of inventory tracking table (either maintained locally for the items they stock in their own warehouse or combined with a hook into the supplier's inventory system, if inventory is maintained by the supplier). In an operation like Amazon, inventory is all over the place, so a combination of methods is used.

Customer and supplier records are reasonably static. That doesn't mean that they don't ever change. They do change, because suppliers and new customers are always added, in addition to keeping them updated when suppliers and customers move. Transaction tables are constantly changing... that's why they're called "transactions."

When you log on to Amazon you sign in with your email address, but because email addresses can change, that isn't your customer number. (Some database designers are stupid enough to use an email address as a customer record number, but as I said, they're stupid.) It is a given that every customer has a customer record number and every supplier has a supplier record number. Each product in the Amazon catalog has a product number, too, which can be a single item, or a combination of items sold as part of a bundle. (Think of a computer that may be sold in a bundle that includes a laptop computer, a power cord, and instruction manuals--each having unique part numbers, but when combined create a unique product number.)

Let's say that my customer record number is C001. I'll keep it simple and we'll assume that I only have one billing and one shipping address (we know that Amazon customers can store dozens of each, but we'll ignore that).

I initiate an order for product P001.

A transaction table exists to create a relationship record of that order. That record says that customer C001 bought P001. Nothing in the transaction table knows what a P001 is, nor does the transaction table know that C001 is me. It is just linking the two together with other information to keep the transaction unique (such as assigning it a transaction number, the date the purchase was made, the date the transaction was created, etc.).

On the front end, Amazon displays a report of this transaction to me and sends it in the form of an order confirmation in email. That order confirmation will include the name of item I purchased because reports can be programmed to "look up" data from other tables and other databases. Since we have a product number (P001), we have the descriptive information for that item from the products table. Since we have a hook from products to suppliers, the report can also display details about the supplier, such as:

On 7/23/2009 you purchased Qty: 1, Item #: P001-Databases for Morons from "Technical Publishers."

If I purchased more than one item, it would list the additional items purchased.

The above might give the appearance that the transaction order contains the descriptive information, but it doesn't. It only contains record numbers and dates. A table that contains redundant data, such as a transaction table that contains anything but the record number of a product or customer is referred to as "denormalized." That redundancy is bad, not only because it uses more space in the database than it needs to, but because it can quickly create "out of balance" or "out of sync" situations (depending on the transaction type). When a customer changes their name, for example, their customer record is updated, and only that record. If the order table copied the customer name to the table when an order was created, it won't get notified/changed when the name change occurs (without redundant/unnecessary programming). So this stuff is kept simple, i.e., normalized.

On the backend, a bunch of things happen when a customer clicks "submit" on their order. Something equivalent to a packing slip or pull order is created for the items in Amazon's warehouse. For items not in Amazon's warehouse, the equivalent of a pull order is sent to the drop shipper/supplier. Once the item(s) are pulled from inventory, a transaction is created to reduce inventory for the quantity of items purchased. A shipper order number is created (with a vendor such as UPS or Fedex) once the package is boxed. Debits are processed against my credit card. At each stage of the order fulfillment process a status change is noted in the transaction record that triggers an update in an email sent to me:
1. Order acknowledgement
2. Order processing
3. Order filled/shipping order assigned

If there are any glitches, such as a delay in processing, a discovery that an out of stock conditions exists, etc., an exception will be generated.

When a system is first designed the developers try to trap as many exceptions as they can. When programming changes are required later, it usually has nothing to do with bugs in programming code, as those are caught and corrected early. It is generally because there are new exceptions (where human beings get involved in the process and make mistakes). It is also because there are new types of product offerings that didn't exist when the system was initially created.

Reprogramming is always more problematic than initial programming. This is because there are hundreds (sometimes thousands) of hooks into different tables, databases, and systems that need to be adjusted when changes are made in one place that have to be cascaded to other parts of the process. The programmer responsible for making the changes doesn't know what all those hooks are, and exceptions/mistakes occur when the system encounters a condition that wasn't adjusted.

One of the processes that retailers have to account for is removals from catalog. There are dozens of reasons why a retailer may wish to "de-list" a product. It could have been a limited run, special pricing, a supplier goes out of business, the supplier wasn't reliable, a new supplier had the item available at a better profit margin, etc. A one-size-fits-all method of handling this won't work, because there isn't a one-size-fits-all reason. That makes things even more complicated for a programmer, but that's why they make the big $$$.

If a supplier is determined to be unreliable, the supplier won't be used and that includes delisting all the products they sold. If an item is no longer made, the supplier is still used for other items, just not that item.

The point being that (regardless of why or how it is done) retailers are constantly changing their catalog offerings.

You can't delete records. Well, you can, technically, but you don't because that creates a "title not found" condition. If, for example, a supplier record is deleted from the supplier table, when I look through my order history at Amazon, the spot that was originally filled in with "Technical Publishers" will be blank (or filled in with the error message "title not found"). If a customer record is deleted, when Amazon attempts to reconcile their credits from the credit card companies, they won't be able to tie back to a specific customer. Because of this, records are not deleted. They're "closed." This can be as simple a step as changing a status flag from "O" ("Open") to "C" ("Closed").

If I asked Amazon to delete my account, they wouldn't actually delete it. They'd "close" it, because deleting it would create havoc throughout their system (as well as create havoc from an accounting standpoint, because all the history associated with my account would be lost, and that's a no-no from a bookkeeping/accounting standpoint).

Now some folks might get upset that their data isn't deleted, but that's just tough. Before computers came into the picture to track these things, companies kept ledgers of all this stuff. No one would have suggested that a company go through 15 years of ledgers and take scissors to their books of record. The fact that people don't make the logical leap from ledger to computer record is their stupid fault, not the fault of the retailer. Not only would a company not want to delete your record, in many cases (where book of record requirements exist) it could be unlawful to do so.

So Amazon got into the ebook business. Their systems were initially designed for the sale of tangible items. There was certainly a lot of reprogramming required to offer this new service. One of the main changes is that Amazon had to create a storage account, where all the items a customer has purchased can be stored. And this is where this (obviously) gets confusing for some people.

They didn't literally create a storage box for each customer, as we might buy a new physical hard-drive to store additional data. A literal storage device would mean that Amazon would store the same item over and over again, hundreds of times, in each customer's unique storage box. That would be redundant and unnecessary, and the physical storage requirements would be mind-boggling. What they created was a virtual (meaning, "not real") storage box, similar to an order transaction record. Amazon has one pointer to a copy of each electronic media they sell, each with a unique part number. When customer A001 buys one, they create a transaction which is equivalent to an e-book storage table so it shows up in my storage box list. It is a virtual library of "my" stuff. The physical copy is stored in one location. The list of books in my storage box is an index (akin to a "link") to the file name and location of the item.

What I do not know for certain, but I would guess, is that Amazon doesn't have all the e-book files on their own servers. I would guess that they point to files on servers Amazon doesn't maintain themselves, as they have distributors who stock items for them (and I have some inside knowledge to validate my suspicion that they do this). What the record of each item would include would be the file name and the server location where it was stored. Whether the item was stored on Amazon's servers or on a supplier's server would be invisible to a customer, as customers are also unaware that their storage box is virtual, not literal.

A customer's Kindle is linked to their virtual storage box. When a customer buys a new item, a transaction is created that displays the item in the virtual storage box that, in turn, allows the item to be downloaded to the Kindle device. The customer can choose which items they want to have on their Kindle, up to the maximum storage of the device itself. This allows a customer to buy more items than the Kindle device can literally store, and can control which items are physically stored at any given time.

When a Kindle customer has their device radio on, the system will sync the list of items in their virtual storage with the list of items currently on the device. This is similar to doing a manual, physical inventory check every now and again.

To put this in perspective, let's say that you went to the library. You go to the card catalog. You find the book you want in the catalog and the Dewey Decimal system locator. You go to that section of the library but the book isn't there.

If you immediately assert that Ninjas broke into the library, knowing that you wanted to read that book, and took that book to a fire pit and burned it so you couldn't read it, might others think your conspiracy theory a bit daft (and you a bit scary), given that it could simply be that someone else had already checked the booked out of the library? The librarian could have put the book in the wrong place. The card for the book could have had the wrong identifier number typed on it. The library may have delisted the book, but forgot to take the card index out of the card file. Where human beings are involved mistakes will be made, most often, innocently. Yes, it could be that Ninjas did all that, but until we have evidence of that, Occam's Razor requires we go with the simplest and most common explanation first.

What happens when Amazon delists an e-book item because the supplier is found to have been in violation of copyright law, with respect to some or all of the titles they sell? Did Amazon Ninjas break into your house and purposely destroy an ebook or is some other, more reasonable explanation plausible?

Was the supplier record deleted or closed? Was the product number deleted, or closed, and what happens to the titles listed in the virtual storage on Amazon when that happens? Was the file deleted from Amazon's servers? Was the link to the supplier's server deleted from the e-book's record?

Regardless of the dozens of innocent technical glitches that could have caused this, the title was no longer available on Amazon's catalog; therefore, the item was no longer available in the Kindle virtual storage box. When a customer synced their device to their virtual storage, the item was no longer there. Amazon didn't, despite the protests of idiots everywhere, send Ninjas out to reach into each customer's Kindle and run some sort of delete/destroy routine. The item itself, or the link to the item or the item's server no longer existed, so it was no longer in the index of the Kindle device.

Amazon will have to reprogram their system so this doesn't happen again. They said that, and apologized for the glitch. They refunded the money for the items purchased.

Folks who think that Amazon virtually broke into their Kindle to delete files have no clue how databases work, what virtual storage boxes are, or what syncing means.

Amazon discovered what happens when you de-list an item, in a way that worked for tangible items, in a process that had not been programmed to handle it, and they're fixing it. Maybe Oswald did it, but until we have evidence of that, let's assume a programming glitch because those happen thousands and thousands of times every day: no conspiracy or grand-theft illusions required.

Please, if you do not understand the above, shut up. You're embarrassing yourself.

Peter Pan Syndrome

2009-07-21T03:45:00.000-05:00

From Michael Goldfarb (The Weekly Standard Blogs, Obama Against the Odds, June 20, 2009):

According to Rozen, a very plugged-in lefty, says "the meeting did not go well," and she quotes one source saying that "It was the first time that President Obama as a senator, candidate, or president was not able to get almost anything or any movement using his personal power of persuasion." Obama asked the Saudis to make concessions to match the concessions he had demanded from the Israelis. But the Saudi King balked -- and "launched a tirade" that his underlings later apologized for. The New York Times has also reported that Obama was "frustrated" by his trip to Saudi Arabia and that he "failed to extract any meaningful gestures toward Israel to revive the peace process."

Mr. Goldfarb continues later with:

So Obama gets nowhere with the Saudis and squeezes the Israelis instead, hoping that in doing so he will, at some point, earn enough cred with the Arab street to allow Arab governments the "political space" to make real concessions to the peace process. But in the event, the Israelis are also thumbing their nose at the White House, publicly rejecting White House demands for a freeze on new construction in East Jerusalem. The White House has put both the Israelis and the Palestinians in an impossible position -- and even George Mitchell is "reported to want to leave his negotiator position at the end of 2009." It turns out that the Arab-Israeli conflict is not Northern Ireland.

It is not unusual for young people to think they can change the world. Their heads are full of ideas. Most of their ideas have been tried (and failed) in the past, but they do not know that. Their inexperience leads them to believe that the idea is all their own, and is something new.

There is nothing to do be done about it, really. Beating them into submission is not the solution either, as they also have not learned the humility and grace that comes with age. It is something that is learned gradually, if someone is capable of learning.

One of the many ways that this was dealt with in the past was for younger people to have very little say in important matters. Family fortunes were not passed to the next generation until the elders died, allowing their young and inexperienced heads to catch up and override their young and foolish hearts. Young adults who demonstrated that they were irresponsible could be disinherited (except the French and the Dutch, which explains a lot about their psychotic history), which served as a check of last resort.

Culturally speaking, Western society also ingrained in the young a requirement to respect one's elders/betters (often expressed in requirements to respect mother and father). This was not, despite 1960s era propaganda, a blind and unearned respect, but a deference to people who had more experience than you. Deference is too often thought of as subserviance today, when it is no such thing. Rather, it is patience.

One of the most common characteristics of the modern Left is this 1960s-holdover of lack of respect. If someone old says something, it must be wrong, they believe, just as an adolescent is sure that their parents are idiots. Even if it doesn't go to that extreme, it goes to another: that there are no failed ideas, just good ideas that weren't implemented properly.

It's the only way to explain the Left's incessant desire to babble on about the miracles of communism/socialism and implement it differently, despite all evidence that it is the dumbest idea a society can try (well, besides allowing wooden horses presented by enemies to be wheeled into the center of town).

I'm sure that many are aware of the common definition of insanity, where one repeats the same thing over and over, expecting a different outcome. In that sense, the modern Left is insane, but what temporarily excuses them from the definition (at least in their own minds) is that they are incapable of recognizing that they're repeating the same mistakes again and again because they keep insisting that there is no difference between a failed idea and a badly implemented good idea. They believe that if the outcome isn't as desired, it must be that the implementation was bad. What their swollen heads fail to grasp is that a good idea would have yielded some positive results, somewhere, if even by accident. Only a failed idea, a truly dreadful one, can be implemented repeatedly without any measurable good, but they can't see that.

You would think that the deaths of a hundred million people would be enough evidence that socialism and communism are bad things, but the Left is blinded to those realities. The not-as-disastrous-as-death consequences, such as defeatism and misery, are everywhere that socialism and communism has been tried, too.

The truth has to be that they just don't see it, or refuse to see it, still stuck with the puffed heads of their youthful ignorance and vigor to fix the world.

The world cannot be fixed, because, it isn't broken. Individual lives may be lifted. New medicines may be invented to cure some of the sick, clean water can be brought to villages to quench the thirsty, and better agriculture and transportation can sate the hungry, but the big things, war, pestilence, etc., are just as much a part of the human condition as are love and charity. They exist because we humans are a 3-dimensional lot, because we are not all the same and because perfection/peace is boring, when compared to the vane idea that we can make things better, have more, do more, and make a difference in the world. If we truly believed that the world was a wonderful place, then there wouldn't be anything for the youth to do. There would be nothing to fix, nothing to improve upon, no mountains left unclimbed or frontiers to open. Youth with no lofty ambition turn to war, and make it lofty (as the terrorists have done) if for no other reason than to relieve their boredom and their irrelevance. Admitting one's irrelevance is part of the definition of wisdom, and they don't have any.

None of this is terribly remarkable or unusual. Men have been doing all of it for all of recorded history--again and again, ad infinitum.

Most people grow up. They soon set aside childish things and childish thoughts and childishness is left to the youth, of which they are no longer among the membership. They get on with humble and productive lives, caring for their families, and living a decent life so their grandchildren will have a model by which to direct their own lives.

Some people, however, never grow up. They never recognize their own limitations, the limitations of others, or turn inward for peace and satisfaction; rather, they are stuck in a kind of purgatory of youth, akin to a Peter Pan Syndrome, refusing to grow up.

There are certainly other explanations for why Obama would believe that he would be able to make peace in the Middle East, where no one, in 10,000 years of history, was able to do so before.

So Obama requires more of the Jews than he does of anyone else, blames them when things do not go as he wants, or uses them as a scapegoat/pawn for his own failed ideas.... nope, nosiree, that's never happened before.

Obama must have some ideologue-equivalent of a Peter Pan syndrome... or he's just an idiot that another bunch of idiots decided to elect as the leader of the free world. The youth are mainly responsible, as they are for most stupid things society tries and fails to achieve. The only difference throughout history is the degree of stupid and deadly mistakes... and this one is a doozy.

And another thing (while I'm on the subject of repeated mistakes)... will someone (please) put a plaque at the entrance of every Jewish temple that reads:

The Left is Not Your Friend.
They will lie to you,
as they always have and always will.

License

2009-07-20T05:15:00.000-05:00

The blogosphere is full of commentary on the Amazon deletion of books on the Kindle. I do not remember where I saw it, but someone had some excellent advice: Download all purchases to your computer, copy them to the Kindle via USB (managing the storage yourself), and leave the radio on the Kindle turned off. That prevents syncing and all downloads stored on a computer are protected (and can be backed up).

That seems like a low tech, simple solution to a not-so-complex situation.

I really don't understand why there's been so much brouhaha over the deletion. The word "sync" is clearly misunderstood by many people.

There is also much confusion over the difference between buying a license to use versus the purchase of a tangible item. Most of the grumbling about this seems to come from people who don't see any reason to own a book reading device, preferring the tactile experience of printed book. These are people who must not travel much (especially overseas), where it is difficult to carry a dozen or more books to enjoy on vacation. These non-travelers and technical-phobic are not the target market for a Kindle (or related device) so their commentary is superfluous.

Poor?

2009-07-15T05:25:00.000-05:00

From The Associated Press (My Way News, My Way News - A look at the House Democrats' health bill, July 15, 2009):

SUBSIDIES: Individuals and families with annual income up to 400 percent of poverty level ($88,000 for a family of four) would get sliding-scale subsidies to help them buy coverage. The subsidies would begin in 2013.

I assume that the $88,000 is adjusted gross income, not gross income. If so, I'm poor and would get a subsidy.

I knew times were tough for us, but I had no idea we needed government handouts. As the post below indicates, refusing these handouts would come with a penalty.

Socialized Medicine Mandate

2009-07-15T05:17:00.000-05:00

From Erica Werner (My Way News, House bill would make health care a right, July 15, 2009)

The legislation calls for a 5.4 percent tax increase on individuals making more than $1 million a year, with a gradual tax beginning at $280,000 for individuals. Employers who don't provide coverage would be hit with a penalty equal to 8 percent of workers' wages, with an exemption for small businesses. Individuals who decline an offer of affordable coverage would pay 2.5 percent of their incomes as a penalty, up to the average cost of a health insurance plan.

[Emphasis mine.]

An offer with a penalty is not an offer. It is a mandate and a tax increase.

No one has a right to health care anymore than they have a right to food or clothing. They have to pay for it.

Imagine if the government decided that all rights were obligatory, as they are designing the socialized medicine plan. That would mean that anyone who didn't buy a reasonably-priced gun would pay a penalty or anyone who didn't carry a gun would be fined.

Inherent in the definition of rights is the choice not to exercise it. You have a right to speak truth and petition your government, but no obligation to do so. No one in their right mind would apply a penalty if you didn't write your representatives X number of times per month.

This isn't a right at all and framing it that way is pure propaganda.

Legacies that Matter

2009-07-14T05:45:00.000-05:00

In a column by John McCormack (Weekly Standard, Thank You, America, July 13, 2009), we find an article by Jabr Al Jabouri, Al-Bayyna Al-Jadida [Baghdad], translated into English.

I'm not usually prone to spoilers, but Mr. Al Jabourbi's article ends with:

After six years of liberation, we now know who our friend is and who our foe is. We should not give a chance to those idiots who claim that Iraq is part of the Arab Nation. These idiots should understand that Iraq is part the federal, free and democratic world.

It would be daft to suggest that I agreed with everything President Bush did during his eight years in office, but I never doubted his incredible wisdom, nor wavered in my support, with respect to the "Bush Doctrine," especially when it applied to Iraq.

What happens in Iraq now will be up to the Iraqis themselves, but no one, and certainly not historians, will ever doubt that Iraqis were part of the free and democratic world.

In keeping with this blog's theme that there is nothing new under the sun, the situation in Iraq today reminds me of the interchange between Benjamin Franklin and Mrs. Powel at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention in 1787:

Mrs. Powel:
"Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?"

Benjamin Franklin:
"A republic, if you can keep it."

What the future holds for Iraq is uncertain, but what they have today is a freedom. The future doesn't diminish the significance of the past, nor the noble and courageous actions of President Bush and the military who gave Iraqis a chance to keep it.

Hmmm

2009-07-14T05:22:00.000-05:00

Bill Kristol is generally right, so his recent article leaves me in a state of hmmm (Washington Post, PostPartisan - Does Sotomayor Matter Politically?, July 13, 2009):

Even the sturm und drang of the Bork hearings in 1987 and Thomas in 1991 had no clear effect on the politics of the day or the subsequent year’s elections. And there doesn’t look to be much prospect of much drama over Sotomayor. It’s possible, of course, that the Hispanic angle will be politically salient on behalf of Democrats -- though Republicans will be polite in their opposition, so I’m doubtful. It’s also possible, on the other hand, that the appearance of identity politics could hurt the Democrats -- though that seems to me to be unlikely too.

I can't help but think that Mr. Kristol and I differ on what "matters" means.

Republicans have long memories and democrats are not short on distortion, so I disagree with Mr. Kristol's analysis. If Mr. Kristol thinks that these things don't matter because they don't cause people to run into the streets with torches and pitchforks, then he's correct. If, however, Mr. Kristol thinks that people don't remember the importance of Supreme Court and the slender majority conservatives have with respect to important cases such as Heller, he'd be wrong.

The Court has been the battleground for decades and those of us who pay attention to politics know this. It is fear that Republicans will stack the court to overturn Roe v Wade that keeps organizations like NOW and Planned Parenthood flush with donations, and Democratic candidates don't hesitate to pull out the "protect abortion" canard when they're trailing in the polls. On the Right side, we remember Heller and we will remember how Sotomayor decided the case for the fireman denied advancement.

It may be other hot issues that pervade the nightly news during election season, and interest the talking heads, but the rest of us remember these things, and they influence our behavior greatly.

The Right Kind of Elitism

2009-07-12T03:39:00.000-05:00

From Heather Mac Donald (Secular Right, Right-wing identity politics, July 10, 2009):

Hanson is absolutely right that liberals and the left should expose themselves to the perils of entrepreneurship. But their own blindness to the economic and social values that undergird American prosperity and stability is no excuse for conservative indifference to the values of achievement, learning, and eloquence that we should expect from our leaders.

This blog's purpose is to document the decline of America's contribution as the last stand of Western Civilization. In centuries future (if a civilized people emerge from the ashes), people will wonder what happened. The above is what happened.

It didn't happen over night. It took decades for the educational establishment to be taken over by socialists, fascists, and communists to indoctrinate the youth into believing a completely contrary definition of the word and principles of liberal. But it wasn't just the word that was redefined. It was the protection of the baton of Western Civilization:

The moral duties and responsibilities of individuals and the importance of character, dignity and personal honor.

The lessons of over 10,000 years of history.

The difference between the role of society and the role of government.

The importance of education to improve one's ability to use reason and to immediately recognize propaganda and failed ideas.

It is the last bullet that Dr. Mac Donald addressed most specifically in her post.

We hear a great deal about elitism, having to do with our elected representatives' desires to lord over us, to use their power to treat us all like children, ignoring the fact that they exist to serve us, not to control us. This definition of elitism (from Dictionary.com) is the first definition:

1. practice of or belief in rule by an elite.

There is nothing inherently wrong with being ruled by an elite. It depends on how you define and what you include as "an elite."

Lumped into the elitist bath are the few remaining intellectuals who were educated in such a way as to provide society with wise advice and counsel. This is more akin to the second definition of elitism:

2. consciousness of or pride in belonging to a select or favored group.

The second definition involves belonging to a select group, but in America it isn't selection by birth; rather, it is selection based on merit, most commonly one of education, where there is a requirement to study and achieve in order to be invited into the club. It is a merit based club, not a birthright based club.

"The reward of esteem, respect and gratitude [is] due to those who devote their time and efforts to render the youths of every successive age fit governors for the next."
- Thomas Jefferson, 1810

All Americans are not required to do the heavy lifting with regard to understanding all of history's lessons (nor are all Americans capable of doing so), but because there has always existed a small, select group of intellectuals (synonymous with "Men of Letters") who would warn us if we were walking too closely to the edge of the slippery slope, we were protected. Our culture used to recognize and respect them for the benefits they provided to all of us. But all intellectuals, even those of the right kind, are being tarnished by those of the wrong kind, and are being relegated to the American equivalent of Siberia: irrelevance.

"The most effectual means of preventing [the perversion of power into tyranny are] to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts which history exhibits, that possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and countries, they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes."
- Thomas Jefferson, 1779

Far too many on the right side of politics have decided to paint all intellectuals with the broad brush of manipulators and indoctrinators, and impugning not just the purpose and character of all, but their importance. Education has always been the key to conservative success and the foundation of America's success.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
- Thomas Jefferson, 1816

Educationally-based (i.e., learned) elitism has gotten a bad wrap. There is a good kind and bad kind. But there exists today an idea that one can be educated too much. We know that one can be indoctrinated instead of educated, but if we destroy the latter to reform the former, we will have accomplished what the Left has been desiring to do for decades: keep our people ignorant, and therefore unprotected, without the ability to recognize the signs of tyranny and what to do to address it.

It's wrong to suggest that a people who have learned only memes and bumper sticker slogans of liberty can defend it. An ignorant populist revolt ends up with a French style revolution where they decapitate everyone who they take a dislike to. If people are incapable of understanding all that liberty requires, the respect of order and law primarily, then they must have the ability to take advice and learn from others, in the old fashioned sense of respecting one's elders or betters. But, we have a movement in this country, a large movement, who believes that all educated people are power hungry and disrespectful of the common, ordinary man.

This type of movement has appeared many times and rather than educating their youth, they eat them. Without a firm commitment to understanding what has come before, we are doomed to repeat history's mistakes.

One of the mistakes that is woven throughout history is the concept of populism, but it is not the populism that appeals to the common man's moral nature or recognizes the rights of every person. When populism is perverted it appeals to man's selfish nature, where one man is pitted against another in a kind of class warfare. Rather than relying on principles or ideas that have been tested, populism offers what feels good rather than what is good, and what temporarily satisfies rather that what works long term. Populism placates. It delivers what people want to hear rather than the truth.

In many cases, populism relies on a scapegoat. With Germany it was the Jews and intellectuals. In Bolshevik Russia it was the aristocracy pitted against the poor or working class. In the Middle East (and elsewhere throughout the world today) it is the ignorant, radical Muslim pitted against moderates (or Western societies).

In nearly all of these scenarios, the "oppressed" are told how noble, special, important or brilliant they are and how they are "due" what others have, simply by existing. The "oppressed" are told they are entitled to the tangible and intangible property of others by birthright (not by hard work or fortitude). It is a kind of populist style of monarchy, i.e., the Divine Right of Everyone In Their Group, regardless of effort or achievement.

In American populism, the enemy of the oppressed common man is the educated, often demonstrated by how well one speaks; therefore, how well one doesn't speak is seen as a badge of honor.

Eloquence is only one demonstrative of a disciplined and educated mind, but the lack of it is often a clear indicator that both are missing. Some people, far too many, don't care about that, to the extreme of loathing it. It is a learned skill and the skill itself should have some recognized value, but it isn't everything.

Eloquence is something we should care about, but what is more important is erudition, for it will be our undoing if we devalue its importance.

Now many people confuse eloquence and erudition, and while sometimes these skills exist in the same person, they don't always. No one, for example, would doubt the erudition of Stephen Hawking, but his eloquence is demonstrated in his writing. Hawking's handicap prevents him from delivering a passionate speech. Similarly, George Bush was incapable of pronouncing the word nuclear, and was wanting with regard to his public speaking, but he was an educated man.

Thomas Jefferson, a man whose erudition is beyond dispute (and was also an eloquent writer), was a terrible speech maker. He had a high-pitched voice and was thought to have a small speech impediment. In Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan we had both erudition and eloquence.

Far too many have come to associate eloquence with the bad kind of elitism, acquiring the horrid trait of Britons in believing that anyone who speaks properly, and wasn't born into it, is putting on airs.

Americans have swallowed the populist appeals of nefarious politicians and are being bribed, as Romans were with bread and circuses, as Germans were with appeals of vanity, and Islamic fundamentalists are with 70 virgins or the promise of an Islamic Caliphate.

Americans who have come to believe that education isn't important, and that politicians who speak in simplistic tones to demonstrate that they are "one of us" are being duped, and will soon discover that they have chosen badly. Principles matter and one of the enduring principles is that an educated and disciplined mind is more valuable than a snake oil salesman's ability to con a crowd into buying their nonsense.

The trick is in recognizing the difference between eloquence and a con artist, but it requires education to recognize the difference, and if that is missing, it requires respect and trust of an educated elite.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.
- H. L. Mencken

Preproduction of Blackhawk Down Sequel

2009-07-12T03:25:00.000-05:00

From Mackenzie Eaglen (Heritage Foundation, Fixing the Fighter Gap Facing the U.S. Navy, Air Force, and Air National Guard, July 10, 2009):

The President's budget request continues the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program but would end production of the F-22A Raptor at 186 fighters while retiring 250 legacy fighters. These changes will result in what is essentially a deficit between the services' fighter aircraft inventories and their operational requirements based on emerging and possible air threats to U.S. security.

The Constitution is quite specific with regard to the President's responsibilities. The primary (and some would say only) responsibility is the defense of the nation. Democrats have always raided the defense budget to pay for social entitlement programs. Let's hope that a Republican gets into the White House in 2012, if for no other reason than to close this air defense gap before it becomes a hole so cavernous it will take decades to fill.

During the initial years of the war in Iraq, it was the Democrats who screamed about our military not having sufficient equipment to fight the war. Yet it was Clinton who decided not to have old-fashioned equiment like armored tanks. We see again that the Democrats have no hesitation to put the lives of our soldiers (and our battlefield success and defense of our nation) at risk.

Questions for Sonia Sotomayor

2009-07-11T03:17:00.000-05:00

Deborah O'Malley and Robert Alt provide Key Questions for Sonia Sotomayor (Heritage Foundation, July 10, 2009).

We can hope they're asked, but more importantly that Americans listen to and react appropriately to the answers.

The Cap and Trade Experience

2009-07-11T03:12:00.000-05:00

Ben Lieberman (Heritage Foundation, The European Experience with Cap and Trade, July 10, 2009) gave testimony before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate. In his testimony we find all the data necessary to accurately describe any Cap and Trade proposal in the U.S. an unproductive waste of our time and money, with disastrous effect on our economy:

To the limited extent European nations have reduced emissions below business-as-usual levels, it has hurt their economies. Almost every Western European nation has had higher unemployment and energy costs than America, and a weaker overall economy, even as emissions were still rising. Far from seeing evidence of the bright new green economy some are now promising, we are seeing that cap and trade has contributed to the harm. For example, Spain has been cited repeatedly as the example of a successful clean energy economy and source of green jobs, but it is rarely mentioned that Spain currently has 18 percent unemployment.

RTWT.

Funny but Not

2009-07-10T05:47:00.000-05:00

From Charles Krauthammer (Townhall.com, Plumage - But At a Price, July 10, 2009):

Obama says that his START will be a great boon, setting an example to enable us to better pressure North Korea and Iran to give up their nuclear programs. That a man of Obama's intelligence can believe such nonsense is beyond comprehension. There is not a shred of evidence that cuts by the great powers -- the INF treaty, START I, the Treaty of Moscow (2002) -- induced the curtailment of anyone's programs. Moammar Gaddafi gave up his nukes the week we pulled Saddam Hussein out of his spider hole. No treaty involved. The very notion that Kim Jong Il or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will suddenly abjure nukes because of yet another U.S.-Russian treaty is comical.

Just about everything Obama does is comical, and we'd be laughing about it, if the stakes (and costs) weren't so high. Either Obama really is as dumb as he appears to be, or he thinks we are.

Giggle of the Day

2009-07-08T06:51:00.000-05:00

The Giggle of the Day comes from the usually astute, but sometimes blinded Kevin Baker (The Smallest Minority, Quote of the Day, July 8, 2009) from a quote from John Taylor Gatto:

America struggled down the libertarian road of Locke...

Locke was a Libertarian as Obama is a Constitutional Constructionist.

Locke may have said a few things that were later picked up by libertarians (out of context), but to assert that Locke is in anyway "libertarian" requires that you disregard just about everything else he wrote, such as (from Second Treatise of Government):

Sect. 5. This equality of men by nature, the judicious Hooker looks upon as so evident in itself, and beyond all question, that he makes it the foundation of that obligation to mutual love amongst men, on which he builds the duties they owe one another, and from whence he derives the great maxims of justice and charity.

Sect. 6. But though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of licence: though man in that state have an uncontroulable liberty to dispose of his person or possessions, yet he has not liberty to destroy himself, or so much as any creature in his possession, but where some nobler use than its bare preservation calls for it.

Sec. 89. Where-ever therefore any number of men are so united into one society, as to quit every one his executive power of the law of nature, and to resign it to the public, there and there only is a political, or civil society. And this is done, where-ever any number of men, in the state of nature, enter into society to make one people, one body politic, under one supreme government; or else when any one joins himself to, and incorporates with any government already made: for hereby he authorizes the society, or which is all one, the legislative thereof, to make laws for him, as the public good of the society shall require; to the execution whereof, his own assistance (as to his own decrees) is due. And this puts men out of a state of nature into that of a common-wealth, by setting up a judge on earth, with authority to determine all the controversies, and redress the injuries that may happen to any member of the commonwealth; which judge is the legislative, or magistrates appointed by it. And where-ever there are any number of men, however associated, that have no such decisive power to appeal to, there they are still in the state of nature.

Sec. 95. MEN being, as has been said, by nature, all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent. The only way whereby any one divests himself of his natural liberty, and puts on the bonds of civil society, is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security against any, that are not of it. This any number of men may do, because it injures not the freedom of the rest; they are left as they were in the liberty of the state of nature. When any number of men have so consented to make one community or government, they are thereby presently incorporated, and make one body politic, wherein the majority have a right to act and conclude the rest.

Sec. 97. And thus every man, by consenting with others to make one body politic under one government, puts himself under an obligation, to every one of that society, to submit to the determination of the majority, and to be concluded by it; or else this original compact, whereby he with others incorporates into one society, would signify nothing, and be no compact, if he be left free, and under no other ties than he was in before in the state of nature. For what appearance would there be of any compact? what new engagement if he were no farther tied by any decrees of the society, than he himself thought fit, and did actually consent to? This would be still as great a liberty, as he himself had before his compact, or any one else in the state of nature hath, who may submit himself, and consent to any acts of it if he thinks fit.

[Emphasis mine.]

John Taylor Gatto is performing a wonderful role (and doing a bang-up job) as a layman's documenter of the communist conspiracy and the Useful Idiots' participation in the destruction of American education, but when it comes to understanding and labeling the philosophy of men like John Locke, he ought not give up his day job.

Moethy Laynthon

2009-07-08T05:36:00.000-05:00

Moe Lane reminds that no one ~~expects the Spanish Inquisition~~ minds an excuse for a Monty Python reference (Moe Lane, And now the President is reminding Russians about Alaska, July 8, 2009):

And I actively dread thinking about what the current President[Obama] is going to say, the next time that he visits Japan.

The above reminded me of:

Whatever you do, don't mention the war. I did it once, but I think I got away with it.
- Basil Faulty (John Cleese), Faulty Towers

(Yes, I know that it wasn't Monty Python. It was John Cleese in Faulty Towers, but all former members of Monty Phython shall be cermoniously referred to by the original group name, regardless of what they did or do later.)

The Weekly Standard

2009-07-08T05:20:00.000-05:00

A nice news roundup from Mary Katharine Ham from The Weekly Standard: The Daily Grind.

Trolls on the Flip Side

2009-07-08T03:45:00.000-05:00

Dan Riehl (Riehl World View) has a few excellent posts on why Sarah Palin's decision to step down as Governor of Alaska is a sign of weakness including Why It's Time To Move Beyond Sarah Palin and Fund On Palin, July 7, 2009. But you would think that Mr. Riehl had brutally murdered kittens by the ferocity of some of the comments on his posts.

During the election last year, bloggers who criticized Obama often found themselves being harassed by one or more from a legion of trolls, attacking the messenger of such posts. In few instances the commenters weren't trolls, and had substantive arguments (the definition of someone who isn't a troll), all in all, however, these things got nasty.

I think Mr. Riehl, despite a near-decade long establishment of conservative creds and substantive writing, has found himself the recipient of the Right side's equivalent... by being critical of Sarah Palin.

Mr. Riehl has not attacked Palin's family. He's posted his thoughtful and fact-based opinions about Palin's inferiority as a presidential candidate for 2012 (while still leaving open election wins in the longer term).

I had a troll-like comment on one of my posts criticizing Palin.

While I do not think that the trolls on the Right are an organized band of paid commenters (as they often were when they attacked people who criticized Obama), it is just as inappropriate.

Most of us who watched the blogosphere last year became familiar with "Paul-bots", who, like the paid Obama-supporting trolls, seemed to spend their days scouring the Internet, looking for anyone who had the audacity to question Ron Paul's fitness for office or doubt his sure victory. The comments became all too familiar, as the substance of their comments seemed to come from some sort of "Comment Response Playbook." These commenters seldom provided original refutations (with counter evidence). They just regurgitated their candidate's talking points and used pejoratives to attack the messengers.

I don't think the Paul-bots knew they sounded so ridiculous, as most were merely simpletons who had swallowed the Paul Kool-Aid (or more accurately Kook-Aid). Most appeared to be young (in their 20s) and had no previous election-participation experience (and, therefore, no historical mindedness when it came to elections). In that sense, they were cute (and I don't mean that to be disparaging). They were innocent and invigorated, and if it was in Ron Paul where they found the need and desire to participate politically, that isn't a bad thing (if it means that their participation will be a life-long one, and not a flash in the pan). They found the "community" they were a part of giving them a sense of belonging and purpose, something they seemed to be longing for.

That said, that sense of belonging and "higher purpose" is a dangerous thing. It is cult-like behavior, as they clustered like seals against a common enemy (the enemy being anyone who didn't share their collective views about Ron Paul). An individual supporting Ron Paul was not a bad thing at all, but an individual who sets aside reason and a willingness to hear thoughtful opinions and criticism, is no longer thinking like an individual. They've become a cult member.

While I wouldn't put the Paul-bots in the same camp as those who, in the 1930s, found themselves similarly carried away by the charismatic Adolf Hitler, the behavior was the same, even if the candidates weren't comparable from an evil-quotient perspective.

Paul-bots were certain that their hero was going to defy Washington pundit projections, and sweep the election. Anyone who said otherwise "would soon find out" just how wrong they were.

With the above, my purpose is to provide examples and to illustrate just how passionate people can be, while still being wrong. The Internet can exacerbate these things, giving someone a sense of a large numbers of supporters (but they forget that the Internet is a dipstick measurement and the electorate is vast). Finding "thousands" of people with similar views on the Internet does not translate into "millions" of voters for your side. Passion can be a good thing, but it can quickly dissolve into fanaticism, justifying (to themselves) a kind of moral conviction to behave badly.

This should be a lesson for all who wish to go on the attack when anyone on the Right shares an negative opinion on Mrs. Palin's credibility as a candidate in 2012. More accurately, a reminder to bloggers who find themselves on the receiving end of swarm-like personal attacks.

Cultism and fervor for one's political Messiah will morph into attack of anyone who doesn't join in the Kool-Aid drinking, regardless of the ideological aisle.

Attacks of the messenger are always bad form and they become counterproductive. If a candidate, regardless of how substantive and qualified they may be, has cult-like followers who behave badly and loudly, their bad behavior reflects negatively on the candidate.

As I said above, comments, in order not to be considered troll-like, must be substantive and not contain personal attacks. The argument can be fierce, but the focus must be on the argument itself, not personal attacks on the individual who expressed an opinion.

This is going to get ugly, as Mr. Riehl has discovered. Sarah Palin is the standard-bearer for a group of Americans who believe they have been marginalized (and victimized). Not all Americans support Sarah Palin for those reasons, but many do, and the decent folks are going to be out-shouted by the Sarah cult members. Criticizing their hero will result in all kinds of improper and rude behavior.

Notzofast

2009-07-06T08:39:00.000-05:00

From Doug Bandow (Cato @ Liberty, Uwe Reinhardt on Health Care Rationing, July 6, 2009):

Health care analyst Uwe Reinhardt takes on critics of the Obama administration effort to “reform” health care, pointing out that the free market is a form of rationing. He adds:
As I read it, the main thrust of the health care reforms espoused by President Obama and his allies in Congress is first of all to reduce rationing on the basis of price and ability to pay in our health system.
An important allied goal is to seek greater value for the dollar in health care, through comparative effectiveness analysis and payment reform. As I reported in an earlier post on this blog, even the Business Roundtable, once a staunch defender of the American health system, now laments that relative to citizens in other developed countries, Americans receive an estimated 23 percent less value than they should, given our high health care spending.

To suggest that the main goal of the health reform efforts is to cram rationing down the throat of hapless, nonelite Americans reflects either woeful ignorance or of utter cynicism. Take your pick.

Fair ’nuff. In a world of infinite wants but finite resources, some form of “rationing” is inevitable.

I understand Mr. Dandow's decision to concede the point, so he can get on to his purpose of framing the argument to one of liberty rather than cost. The problem is that the economic/cost point remains out there, and it should be thoroughly refuted, because it is a bunch of bunk.

It is easy to claim that another country's socialized medicine programs have saved their country money (or that they "spend less" than we do), when the U.S. has done all the heavy lifting with respect to R&D. What happens to their costs when we stop doing that? It is also possible to reduce your costs when the governments of those countries buy our medicines (from our drug companies) at bulk pricing, they ignore our patents, or refuse to allow newer, life saving medicines to be used.

But that's not the main problem with the study.

The fact remains that other countries in the world don't provide the same services we do. They're perfectly happy to allow people to wait 6 months for an MRI, or to allow patients to die while they wait for needed surgeries.

Of course their medical costs are going to be less. If you perform fewer surgeries and have more sick patients die, it is going to be a lot cheaper to deliver health care. Actually treating patients is expensive. Ignoring them is cheap!

From Scott Atlas (National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), 10 Surprising Facts about American Health Care, March 2009):

Medical care in the United States is derided as miserable compared to health care systems in the rest of the developed world. Economists, government officials, insurers and academics alike are beating the drum for a far larger government rôle in health care. Much of the public assumes their arguments are sound because the calls for change are so ubiquitous and the topic so complex. However, before turning to government as the solution, some unheralded facts about America's health care system should be considered.

Fact No. 1: Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers.[1] Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States, and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the U.K. and 457 percent higher in Norway. The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40 percent higher.

Fact No. 2: Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians.[2] Breast cancer mortality is 9 percent higher, prostate cancer is 184 percent higher and colon cancer mortality among men is about 10 percent higher than in the United States.

Fact No. 3: Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries.[3] Some 56 percent of Americans who could benefit are taking statins, which reduce cholesterol and protect against heart disease. By comparison, of those patients who could benefit from these drugs, only 36 percent of the Dutch, 29 percent of the Swiss, 26 percent of Germans, 23 percent of Britons and 17 percent of Italians receive them.

Fact No. 4: Americans have better access to preventive cancer screening than Canadians.[4] Take the proportion of the appropriate-age population groups who have received recommended tests for breast, cervical, prostate and colon cancer:

Nine of 10 middle-aged American women (89 percent) have had a mammogram, compared to less than three-fourths of Canadians (72 percent).

Nearly all American women (96 percent) have had a pap smear, compared to less than 90 percent of Canadians.

More than half of American men (54 percent) have had a PSA test, compared to less than 1 in 6 Canadians (16 percent).

Nearly one-third of Americans (30 percent) have had a colonoscopy, compared with less than 1 in 20 Canadians (5 percent).

Fact No. 5: Lower income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians. Twice as many American seniors with below-median incomes self-report "excellent" health compared to Canadian seniors (11.7 percent versus 5.8 percent). Conversely, white Canadian young adults with below-median incomes are 20 percent more likely than lower income Americans to describe their health as "fair or poor."[5]Fact No. 6: Americans spend less time waiting for care than patients in Canada and the U.K. Canadian and British patients wait about twice as long - sometimes more than a year - to see a specialist, to have elective surgery like hip replacements or to get radiation treatment for cancer.[6] All told, 827,429 people are waiting for some type of procedure in Canada.[7] In England, nearly 1.8 million people are waiting for a hospital admission or outpatient treatment.[8]

Fact No. 7: People in countries with more government control of health care are highly dissatisfied and believe reform is needed. More than 70 percent of German, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and British adults say their health system needs either "fundamental change" or "complete rebuilding."[9]

Fact No. 8: Americans are more satisfied with the care they receive than Canadians. When asked about their own health care instead of the "health care system," more than half of Americans (51.3 percent) are very satisfied with their health care services, compared to only 41.5 percent of Canadians; a lower proportion of Americans are dissatisfied (6.8 percent) than Canadians (8.5 percent).[10]

Fact No. 9: Americans have much better access to important new technologies like medical imaging than patients in Canada or the U.K. Maligned as a waste by economists and policymakers naïve to actual medical practice, an overwhelming majority of leading American physicians identified computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as the most important medical innovations for improving patient care during the previous decade.[11] [See the table.] The United States has 34 CT scanners per million Americans, compared to 12 in Canada and eight in Britain. The United States has nearly 27 MRI machines per million compared to about 6 per million in Canada and Britain.[12]

Fact No. 10: Americans are responsible for the vast majority of all health care innovations.[13] The top five U.S. hospitals conduct more clinical trials than all the hospitals in any other single developed country.[14] Since the mid-1970s, the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology has gone to American residents more often than recipients from all other countries combined.[15] In only five of the past 34 years did a scientist living in America not win or share in the prize. Most important recent medical innovations were developed in the United States.[16] [See the table.]

By all means, exercise the right to focus on the liberty argument if you want to, but do not be so fast to allow bogus data to remain unchallenged.

Pet Peeve

2009-07-06T08:34:00.000-05:00

Sean Trende (Real Clear Politics–TIME.com, What Emerging Progressive Majority?, July 6, 2009) addresses one of my pet peeves.

The only problem with this theory is that, to claim the country is shifting to the left, you first need to establish a baseline. Teixeira's study doesn't have any baseline off of which to operate. It merely asks its questions, then concludes that America is now center-left. Of course, without such a baseline (i.e., a study of American attitudes in, say, the 1980s, at conservatism's height), it is impossible to say with any certainty whether America has moved right, left, or stayed the same.

Unfortunately, Mr. Trende goes on to cite numerous polls that show that the country is trending Right, not Left, but the data is still not conclusive.

Let me be clear: Mr. Trende is correct to impugn the results of the Americans For Progress study, because their study was also attitudinal (as are the Pew and Rasmussen studies referenced to refute the claim). It is an appropriate apples to apples refutation.

Mr. Trende is also correct to require a baseline for comparison, but that is still not enough.

It's all garbage.

Why? Because asking a person to rate themselves on a scale, or to choose from a list of political descriptions doesn't tell us anything other than what the person thinks or hopes they are.

If you asked people to rate themselves according to honesty, the study is going to show that the majority of people think themselves reasonably honest (or greater). The majority could think that cheating on their taxes doesn't make them dishonest, or bringing home a few pens or pencils from work is "OK" because "everyone else does it." Have they or do they routinely download pirated software, copyrighted materials, or ever participated in sending along an email chain letter? Have they or do they routinely cheat on their spouse or "lusted for another in their heart"? Do they tell small lies to avoid embarassment or save face? Have they or do they routinely call in "sick" for work, when they're not? If the answer to any of those conjoint questions is "yes," their honesty quotient is wanting, and doesn't jive with their response.

Anyone who works with this kind of data knows that people are going to pick the rating or the item that they most want to be, but has no actual reality.

What is needed, that isn't out there, is quantitative/conjoint analysis of the results.

The reason I know that all the studies are bunk is because it doesn't jive with other studies and facts.

If, for example, a majority of Americans consider themselves conservative or conservative-leaning, then how did Obama get elected, why does Congress have a Democratic majority, how did Obama's initial approval rating get so high, why do a majority of Americans support some form of socialized medicine (even if titled "reform"), a desire to keep the status quo with respect to Social Security, like the Prescription Drug Program, like farm subsidies, approve of limited forms of trade protections, support regulation of "evil" businesses and corporations, or can't/couldn't understand the Bush Doctrine to save their lives?

There is no fixed definition in the public square to define what "conservative" means, especially defined for them when people respond to attitudinal polls.

Their responses to what they think they are needs to be validated based on how they feel about specific issues. Until that is done, and we have a baseline to establish the error rate of these types of polls, it's all feel-good nonsense.

If the country really is "majority conservative" then why hasn't the majority donned pitchforks and dragged Congress into the streets for a little tar and feathering?

The only data we can rely on with any certainty is that the majority of Americans are getting dumber/apathetic (see above studies/facts) and poorer (see everything Obama and this Democratic Congress has done so far).

Jobs Go South

2009-07-06T07:17:00.000-05:00

Correction: Jobs Go ~~South~~ North

From Chris Edwards (Cato @ Liberty, Moving to Canada for Lower Taxes, July 6, 2009):

Marginal tax rates affect economic behavior. Thus I was not surprised when I read in a Mark Steyn column that retailer Tim Hortons (essentially Canada’s Starbucks) is packing up its U.S. headquarters and moving to Ontario. The company operates 3,457 retail outlets on both sides of the border.

We do have the highest corporate tax rates in the world, so it is not surprising that companies are bailing. But, Canada? I hadn't realized things were that bad.

As an aside, in a fit of fanciful dreaming, my husband and I spent the better part of the day yesterday looking at how to escape U.S. taxation, should we ever have any sort of windfall (such as a lottery win). Of course we have no need to escape it today, so it was entirely speculative.

What we found is that all the tax havens have closed. Most previous tax havens, such as Monaco, no longer maintain secret banking laws (if someone did want to be underhanded about escaping U.S. taxes). More to the point, for those who wish to do so in an above-board manner, it takes at least 10 years to become a citizen of Monaco (and other tax havens, if you can get into them, can take the same or longer). The reset clock for paying U.S. taxes begins once you have renounced your U.S. citizenship, and continues for 10 years. That means that it is a minimum of 20 years before U.S. taxes end.

The U.S., unlike every other country in the world, determines taxation requirements by citizenship, not by domicile. Even if you live in another country for 10 years, you still have to pay taxes, unless you are a citizen of another country for 10 years. No collecting $200 by passing Go, just by living somewhere else. Of course, once you leave the U.S. and become a citizen of another country, you can stop paying U.S. taxes, but you can never return to the U.S. to visit (unless you want to be arrested for tax avoidance).

None of the above applies to Obama appointees, of course.

The only place that we found that grants citizenship immediately (with a one-time "donation" of about $350,000, or specific type of property purchase) is St. Kitts in the West Indies.

There are worse places to live... like, say, Canada.

The Double Standards Continue

2009-07-06T07:00:00.000-05:00

Excellent point:

Such aggrandizement of governmental office is unbecoming a conservative. A slew of people have given up their positions in mid-term to take offices offered by President Obama. Nobody batted an eye. Yet the same USA Today in which Sen. Grassley was quoted above also quotes Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski as saying that Palin’s actions mean she has "decided to abandon the state and her constituents"--a critique Senator Murkowski never expressed toward Hillary Clinton when she resigned mid-term as a senator from New York to serve as Secretary of State.

Via Jim Prevor (The Weekly Standard, Republicans Should Reexamine the Public Good of Private Citizens, July 6, 2009).

Farce

2009-07-06T06:54:00.000-05:00

While I find no fault with the principles outlined in Anthony B. Kim's article (Heritage.org, G-8 Can Stimulate Economic Recovery by Restoring Freedom, July 6, 2009), I did find it hysterically funny to presume (or that "assume"?) that the G-8 can do anything other than go on fancy trips at taxpayer expense, and pose for endless pictures to give the folks back home the idea that they're doing something.

G-8 summits, and the like, are like show trials: Nothing good can ever come of them.

Hypocrisy?

2009-07-06T06:47:00.000-05:00

Anne Applebaum has a valid point regarding Sarah Palin's selective use of her family (and children) when it suits her (Washington Post, Sarah Palin, the Mainstream Media, Patriotism and Hypocrisy, July 6, 2009):

But perhaps the explanation for this lies in the final part of one of Palin's statements: that "Washington and the media" cannot understand her decision because "it's about country." In other words, for the past nine months, Palin has avoided difficult questions, preferring Runner's World to another Katie Couric interview; she has dragged her family into the spotlight when it suited her (baby Trig was in Runner's World, too) and grown angry when the spotlight became too strong; she has eschewed reason and logic (not to mention spelling and grammar), yet reacted in horror when her critics were unreasonable and illogical in response. Then, after all that, she smugly asserts the right to decide who is a patriot and who is not. It's not about "country," in other words, it's about hypocrisy. And Sarah Palin is full of it.

I agree that it is hypocritical to drag out husband and family and to present the "I am family" image, and then not want the family challenged.

Jackie Kennedy was the only one who got it exactly right. She kept the kids out of the press as much as possible, keeping their lives private to avoid public scrutiny. Jackie knew that you couldn't have it both ways.

There is still enough hypocrisy to go around, however, that goes way beyond Sarah Palin's desire for privacy when it suits her.

Michelle Obama and the Obama girls are treated gently and kindly. We were treated to endless family events of the girls picking out a dog, Michelle's wardrobe praises by the fashionistas, and an endless parade of pictures of the family moving into the White House.

Where were the snide remarks and jokes about the Obama girls or Michelle's fad-fashion choices that are nothing less than embarassing? Nothing rises to the level of statutory rape jokes in the Obama circle. The Obama family is "off limits" to scrutiny, but Palin's family is not.

We constantly hear that "family should be off limits." But there's another edge to that sword that all should be required to comply with to get that wish: Keep them away from the cameras and using them whenever it suits your purposes. Further, if it is deemed appropriate for Palin's family to be attacked and ridiculed, then the same rule should apply to Obama's family.

I've always felt that the "family is off limits policy" is a foolish one. Public figures are open for scrutiny when they become public. It is the fault of the public figure parents if they parade their families before the cameras.

Regarding Miss Applebaum's other complaints:

Player Queen:
Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,
If once I be a widow, ever I be a wife!

Player King:
'Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here a while,
My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
The tedious day with sleep.

Player Queen:
Sleep rock thy brain,
And never come mischance between us twain!

Hamlet:
Madam, how like you this play?

Queen:
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
- William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 3, Scene II

H/t Clive Davis, Spectator.

Calamity

2009-07-06T06:14:00.000-05:00

Calamity:

ca⋅lam⋅i⋅ty [kuh-lam-i-tee]
–noun, plural -ties.
1. a great misfortune or disaster, as a flood or serious injury.
2. grievous affliction; adversity; misery: the calamity of war.

We tend to think of calamities as being limited to force majeure events, but they can be people-caused, or having no particular cause, or anyone to blame. They just are calamities.

Events can conspire to cause a response that will be to one group's liking, but tragic to another. This is the case in New Zealand.

From Richard Shears (Mail Online, Expats' paradise lost in New Zealand's jobs crisis - just weeks after it was named best place to make a fresh start, July 6, 2009):

Only a few weeks ago, New Zealand was identified as the best place for British expats to make a fresh start.

It didn't take long for the accolade to wear thin.

The dreams of hundreds who left for a better life on the other side of the world are now turning into nightmares.

The expats face losing their jobs and being kicked out of the country because of the credit crunch and what is said to be a major shift in policy by the New Zealand government.

As Mr. Shears goes on to explain, New Zealand found itself in a Tragedy of the Commons like situation. During better times, it encouraged immigration to fill contract positions, when New Zealand did not have sufficient workforce to fill them. Now that the economies of the world, including New Zealand, have found themselves in a downturn, with too many workers and not enough jobs, New Zealand made a tough decision. They decided to implement a "Kiwis First" job program.

Further, New Zealand refused to place the ex-pat Britons on the dole, making the only option available to the Britons to return home. When they find themselves back on the Little Isle, they're last on the list for everything, making their untenable situation a tragedy.

It is easy to be sympathetic to both sides of this issue.

New Zealand's government, as with all governments, has a responsibility to put the interest of its citizens first. It also has the fiscal duty not to incur additional expense when it is not necessary to do so, when they cannot afford it. Putting the out-out-work contract laborers on welfare would have been irresponsible, as the length of the economic downturn is unknowable. Crystal-ball gazing and predicting that the economy would improve in X months would be wrong headed.

Leaving one's country to seek one's fortune has always been risky, some more risky than others. When the first colonists came to America, they all died. It wasn't until the late 17th century that colonists were able to make a go of it. We tend to forget about the risk and the failures, choosing to remember only those who found their fortunes when they embarked on such lofty and idealistic endeavors.

The Britons who made their way to New Zealand should be grateful that death was not their fate, but that would be a small consolation for their economic plight.

These would be interesting debate subjects if we weren't talking about it happening to real people, people who risked everything and lost.

Many governments are going to have to make similar choices in the near future, as unemployment continues to rise, and they face the potential for riots and violence against those thought to be taking their jobs. Those who find themselves like the poor Britons, are not welcomed with open arms when they return to their homelands. They're often thought to be traitors or unpatriotic upon their return. This is further complicated by Britain's risk aversion character, and their historical tendency to shun people who attempt to rise above their appointed station.

Britons are not the only ones facing deportation, expatriation, or "Citizens First" decisions. Riots in South Africa have been occurring for these same reasons.

Civil and world wars have begun for less.

Haunting Projections

2009-07-06T04:27:00.000-05:00

I read this piece at City Journal (Daniel J. Flynn, The Fire Last Time , June 24, 2009) a few days ago. As with many articles at City Journal, I needed to mull on it before commenting. Here is the first paragraph:

The bloody scenes in Tehran, with at least 19 protestors killed so far in clashes with government forces, may seem like a repeat in miniature of the violence there more than 30 years ago. The glaring difference is that the protestors who toppled a corrupt, oppressive regime in 1979 have become the corrupt, oppressive regime in 2009.

RTWT.

Mr. Flynn makes the argument that we should be careful what we wish for, especially regarding the revolution in Iran, due to the fraudulent reelection of Ahmadinejad.

In essence, Mr. Flynn makes the case (very well) that we have a tendency to project our hopes on these types of events. We see what we want to see, and believe that the agents involved, if successful, will produce the outcome we desire. The 1979 revolution brought us who we have today. Conservatives, like myself, are projecting on this revolution what we want to see: hope that Iran will achieve something close to a responsible government, respecting individual liberty, and no longer be an enemy of the Western world.

We're projecting and the reminder was like a swift kick in the pants.

We do this all the time.

Many pinned their desire for hope and change on Obama and have been disappointed. On the other side of the aisle, many are now pinning their hopes on Sarah Palin, believing that she will bring about the conservative revolution they so desire. They, too, will be disappointed (if she loses or if she wins) because it is impossible for a single person to share completely in another's opinions.

People are projecting what they want to see on Palin, as they did with Obama, and are making the same excuses for her as the Left did with Obama. An unknown quantity is seductive in that way, but like last night's lover, the morning light shows all their faults.

It could be anyone else, not just Palin. Anyone who doesn't have a track record with which to judge their future actions will disappoint.

Many were sure that President Bush would veto the horrible, unconstitutional McCain-Feingold legislation, but he didn't. We were equally sure that the Supreme Court would overturn it, but they didn't do it either.

Sarah Palin has a track record with regard to state matters, but we have no idea how she'd actually perform at the Federal level. Would she use Executive Order (or similar) to ban abortion? How would she staff the State Department? We don't know if it would be staffed with competent and experienced foreign affairs experts, or if she would choose staff with opinions and policies closer to those of the John Birch Society persuasion.

If you pin down conservatives on how they think Palin would perform you'll get an amazing variety of responses, each person projecting on Palin their own desires, but Palin, as with any other person who doesn't have a Federal-level track record, has her own ideas and agenda that may not jive with what others want.

No, no, no, no! Come, let's away to prison:
We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down,
And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too,
Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out;
And take upon's the mystery of things,
As if we were God's spies: and we'll wear out,
In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones,
That ebb and flow by the moon.
- William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act V, Scene III

What She Said

2009-07-05T04:45:00.000-05:00

From Austin Hill (Townhall.com Did You Get Obama's Email?, July 5, 2009):

And then there’s paragraph five, where the President wrote, “as long as some Americans still must struggle, none of us can be fully content. And as America comes ever closer to achieving the perfect Union our founders dreamed, that triumph -- that pride -- belongs to all of us.”

At the end of the message, the President made a pitch for American volunteerism, and in this paragraph he seems to be building-up to that pitch. But he also seems to be downplaying the significance of “struggle,” and assuming that it’s a bad thing if a person ever has to “struggle.”

I’m not suggesting that poverty is a good thing, or that I should allow myself to ignore my neighbor’s sufferings. But I know “struggle.” And “struggle” - the quest to better one’s self, to face risks, to become upwardly mobile, and so forth - is at the very essence of the American way of life.

Unfortunately, President Obama seems committed to ensuring that we all have a risk-free, struggle-free life. I suppose that’s why we’ve seen some people show up at Obama townhall events and, when given the rare opportunity to speak to the President, they ask Obama for a better job, or a new home, or a better kitchen, and so forth. Obama promises to “give things” to us, and some Americans, quite eager to avoid “struggle,” are ready to receive from him.

In ObamaWorld, "struggle" is for other people, like the ones who make all the wealth of the nation who are being forced to give it away.

Regarding the "King of Pop"

2009-07-05T04:36:00.000-05:00

I don't care. Whatever the report, I couldn't care less.

Shinies

2009-07-05T04:34:00.000-05:00

From AFP (Breitbart, Taliban cash in on Pakistan's untapped gem wealth, July 5, 2009):

Most of the country's [Paktisan] gems, including emeralds, garnet, pink topaz, spinel and tourmaline are located underground in North West Frontier Province (NWFP), the heartland of the Taliban insurgency.

But the Taliban exists to enforce Islam, not to hoard gems and line their own pockets with money, right?

These are not the droids you are looking for.

Never on Sunday

2009-07-05T04:31:00.000-05:00

From AFP (Breitbart, Sarkozy pries open France's door to Sunday shopping, July 5, 2009):

In France, no shopping on Sundays has been a rule since a 1906 law consecrated the day of rest although bakeries, butchers and other small shops are allowed to open until noontime.

Keeping retail businesses closed has helped cement the tradition of the Sunday family meal that many in France still hold dear.

But there has been a clamour for change over the past two decades, with recent polls showing a majority of the French believe shops should have the freedom to open on Sundays.

So what does the French government do?

Starting on Tuesday, the National Assembly will open debate on a new bill, the latest in a string of texts that have been steadfastly opposed by the church, unions, conservatives in Sarkozy's right-wing party and the left.

This latest version will allow shops in designated tourist areas and special commercial zones to open on Sunday and states that employees can work on that day on a voluntary basis -- a provision brought in to address union concerns.

They're not even considering what the French people want, which is to allow businesses to decide for themselves. So much for liberty, fraternity, equality. Some French shops are obviously more equal than others.

Premature Ejaculation

2009-07-05T04:08:00.000-05:00

From AP (Breitbart, Biden: `We misread how bad the economy was', July 5, 2009):

Biden said it's premature to say whether the country will need a second stimulus package.

It isn't premature to say we don't need one. We need another stimulus package like we need a nuclear attack on the country. Both are destructive. We didn't need the first one so it is a given that a second one would be just as counterproductive.

And this is called?

2009-07-05T03:59:00.000-05:00

From Jim Kuhnhenn AP Writer (Breitbart, Obama plan could trim back financial powerhouses, July 5, 2009):

Under the administration's proposal, companies such as Citi, Goldman Sachs and others in a broad top tier engaged in complex transactions would face stricter scrutiny and have to hold more assets and more cash as cushions against a downturn.

They also would have to anticipate their own demise, drafting detailed descriptions of how they could be dismantled quickly without causing damaging repercussions. Think of it as planning their own funerals—and burials.

Obama's plan, in short, aims to make it far less appealing to be so big. That was the middle ground the administration sought, a step short of an outright ban on systemically risky companies.

"Without banning them we're providing some pretty heavy penalties for entering" the top group of institutions that could pose a risk to the entire financial system, said Diana Farrell, deputy director of the White House's National Economic Council.

It's called Fascism.

Without banning them? Under what authority? The Congress may regulate commerce, but it cannot ban commerce.

One of Us?

2009-07-04T05:58:00.000-05:00

There are a number of links on Instapundit today about a political run by Sarah Palin. Daily Pundit has a list of suggestions to get her campaign ready. Mark Steyn laments the inability of ordinary people from ordinary states to be accepted rather than scorned among the DC elite. Cynthia Yockey offers advice on how to get David Letterman fired.

Sarah Palin got a raw deal, both from the McCain campaign and the press who savagely attacked her for her ordinariness. Despite that, and Palin's national stage newbie foibles, she continues to click with a large number of conservative voters. Palin, to many, feels like one of us. Many people could relate to her simply because she was more like one of us than more like one of them. She had that tough-broad freshness that many of us know among our circle of friends.

Palin is the real deal. She is the dedicated mother and wife who responded to the call to do something in Alaska. And do something she has done, having considerable support among the Alaskans she represents.

Palin is the every man we know from Frank Capra films. She tugged at our emotions in the same way that Mr. Smith did when he went to Washington.

Americans have always been sympathetic to the every man and the romantic idea that it is one of us who will slay the dragons and demons in Washington to set things to rights.

Not to put too narrow a slant on it, but all of that is a fantasy, but more importantly, it is wrong headed. Conservatives are supposed to be the ones that set idle fantasies aside, dealing with the real world, with logical heads and tested facts. We're not the ones who think that the windmills of our minds, or in our gardens, will end the Left's fabricated-fantasy of global warming. Fantasy and utopia are supposed to be the realm of the Left, not the Right, but with Sarah, we forget ourselves.

One of us is not fit to be the President of the United States, and, I believe, in our heads and not not our hearts, we know the truth of that. What we may want idealistically, and what we know to be what's best, are not always in sync.

This has only been made worse by the egregious attacks against Palin, the unwarranted attacks against her family and her way of life. She wasn't given a fair deal and there is something about the American psyche that wants justice for Sarah and all the Ordinary Joes who were symbolically attacked when Sarah was. That justice, for many, is to back her unquestionably for a run at the White House.

The Washington Elite haven't done too well on Main Street. The Left and the Right have coddled us, taxed us, and are oozing with corruptible ideologies and behavior. It is not surprising then that many believe, in addition to the above, that it's time to throw the bastards out, and replace them with someone just like us. Qualifications, background, political resume, fitness for office are to be dumped along with the bath water. A Madame LaForge political philosophy does not bode well for anyone, especially in an America faced with enemies on all sides, and while we are engaged in a war against terrorism.

Sarah Palin isn't Ronald Reagan. She isn't Harry Truman either. She does share the every man qualities of those men, but this is another time, and time has changed things.

Ronald Reagan and Harry Truman seemed to appear out of nowhere, just like overnight success celebrities. Except, like overnight celebrities, we then notice that they had small parts in small and big films, and worked for a decade or more, paying their dues and working their craft to get to that success point. They weren't overnight successes. It was overnight that we recognized them, but they were always there.

Ronald Reagan was head of a large union (the Screen Actors Guide) before he ran for Governor in California. He'd always been political and for more than two decades bored his actor celebrity friends and acquaintances with talk of little else. He then went on to run one of the largest states in union, with an economy equal to the 5th largest country in the world. When he entered the governor's mansion (if you could call it that) he inherited a huge debt, a state in near financial collapse, and with a corrupt and embittered political machine. When he left office, two terms later, California had a budget surplus, all the politically corrupt had been chased away, and trust in the government had been restored.

Harry Truman was no flash in the pan either. From his offical biography:

From 1905 to 1911, Truman served in the Missouri National Guard. When the United States entered World War I in 1917, he helped organize the 2nd Regiment of Missouri Field Artillery, which was quickly called into Federal service as the 129th Field Artillery and sent to France. Truman was promoted to Captain and given command of the regiment's Battery D. He and his unit saw action in the Vosges, Saint Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne campaigns. Truman joined the reserves after the war, rising eventually to the rank of colonel. He sought to return to active duty at the outbreak of World War II, but Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall declined his offer to serve.

Truman was elected in 1922, to be one of three judges of the Jackson County Court. Judge Truman whose duties were in fact administrative rather than judicial, built a reputation for honesty and efficiency in the management of county affairs. He was defeated for reelection in 1924, but won election as presiding judge in the Jackson County Court in 1926. He won reelection in 1930.

In 1934, Truman was elected to the United States Senate. He had significant roles in the passage into law of the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938 and the Transportation Act of 1940. After being reelected in 1940, Truman gained national prominence as chairman of the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program. This committee, which came to be called the Truman Committee, sought with considerable success to ensure that defense contractors delivered to the nation quality goods at fair prices.

In July 1944, Truman was nominated to run for Vice President with President Franklin D. Roosevelt. On January 20, 1945, he took the vice-presidential oath, and after President Roosevelt's unexpected death only eighty-two days later on April 12, 1945, he was sworn in as the nations' thirty-third President.

In summary, he spent 9 years in the military rising to the rank of Colonel. He spent 2 years in Jackson county court. He spent 10 years in the Senate before being tapped to run for Vice President in 1944. All in all, a 21 year career of military and public service before he served for 82 days as Vice President, before becoming the President of the United States, as a war president.

Truman didn't have a college degree (he spent two years in law school), but he did have a battlefield education:

Captain Harry S. Truman was 34 years old when he was put in charge of Battery D, 129th Field Infantry, a rowdy band of undisciplined young soldiers. Truman's mission was to transform the group into a combat-ready unit capable of taking on the German army. The odds were not in Harry's favor. Battery D had a reputation for being tough on commanders, and up to that point Truman had experienced considerable failure in his life.

In 1917, when Truman joined the Second Missouri Field Artillery Regiment to fight in World War I, his luck began to change. Truman adapted well to the discipline of military life. He trained at Camp Doniphan in Oklahoma, where he organized a profitable camp commissary with a fellow soldier named Eddie Jacobson. In 1918, Truman received a captain's commission and shipped out to France.

On July 5, Truman took command of Battery D. The rowdy Kansas City Irishmen of the battery specialized in wearing out commanding officers. Many predicted the bespectacled captain would crumble quickly.

On August 29, 1918, Battery D fired 500 rounds of artillery at a German position. When the Germans returned fire, some of Truman's men panicked and ran. "My greatest satisfaction is that my legs didn't succeed in carrying me away, although they were very anxious to do it," Harry wrote Bess later. Cursing and yelling, Truman drove his men back to their positions, and successfully repositioned two of his four guns. For the remainder of the war, Truman led Battery D across the French countryside, hammering German positions and never losing a man. On the battlefields of Europe, he experienced the success that had long eluded him.

Truman returned from the war as a hero.

While we could apply the label "hero" generically to all men who serve their country, Harry Truman was a real war hero. He wasn't one of us. He was forged on the field of battle to be the great, yet humble, man that he was.

These men spent at least 20 years in dedicated public service, on the battlefield and on the national stage, long before they ever considered a run for the presidency, or any public office. When the time came, there was no doubt about their fitness for office.

Now compare the above with Sarah Palin. Can she lead men? It has nothing to do with her being a woman. Maybe she can, but we don't know that, and we must know that. She certainly hasn't made us proud in her public interviews. We might blame the press for trickery, but a tested and experienced individual wouldn't have made those same mistakes.

Great statesmen aren't born. They are developed through education and experience. They're very different from one of us, exactly because they're able to differentiate themselves from us by their superior leadership abilities, their fortitude, their educations, and their gifts. Both Truman and Reagan were gifted men, with superior intellects, and also gifted with the common touch. We should not confuse that ability to relate to us with that common touch with them being common.

"Laws will be wisely formed and honestly administered in proportion as those who form and administer them are wise and honest; whence it becomes expedient for promoting the public happiness that those persons whom nature has endowed with genius and virtue should be rendered by liberal education worthy to receive and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens; and that they should be called to that charge without regard to wealth, birth or other accidental condition or circumstance. But the indigence of the greater number disabling them from so educating at their own expense those of their children whom nature has fitly formed and disposed to become useful instruments for the public, it is better that such should be sought for and educated at the common expense of all, than that the happiness of all should be confined to the weak or wicked."

- Thomas Jefferson, 1779

Great Statesmen appear from a culled herd, and we need to get over the fantasy that one of us is just like one of them, capable of being seated as President of the United States. The simple fact is that we are not qualified, and we need to face that, quickly, if we are to allow a real hero, a forged statesmen, to appear from the crowd and lead us to victory in 2012.

Independence

2009-07-04T03:00:00.000-05:00

Value and respect it today. It was earned with the blood of patriots. Their sacrifice and their gift is what we celebrate today.

Ignorance is not a virtue, nor a get out of jail free card

2009-07-03T06:26:00.000-05:00

While I agree that the Lori Drew case has troubling and difficult aspects, the article by Kim Zetter (Wired.com, Judge Acquits Lori Drew in Cyberbullying Case, Overrules Jury, July 2, 2009) contained an even more troubling issue than the charge of "cyber-bullying":

Wu also doubted that MySpace provided sufficient notice to members to hold them responsible. If a user didn’t read the terms of service, the judge asked prosecutor Krause, could they still be charged with violating them?

Krause struggled to respond to Wu’s questions, emphasizing that not every terms-of-service violation would be prosecuted as a crime. In Drew’s case, he said, there was sufficient evidence to suggest that she knew what she was doing was wrong.

But Wu disputed this, pointing out that the government’s star witness — Ashley Grills — had testified that she never read the terms of service before clicking on a button agreeing to them.

(Emphasis mine.)

Since when is ignorance of the rules or law a get out of jail free card? It isn't (and shouldn't be) in any aspect of law. While some are lauding the case because of the concerns that "Terms of Service" should not constitute a crime if violated, dimissing that one is compelled (at least as a civil matter) to comply with contracts signed, even if unread, is a long established principle.

Ashley Grills admitted that she clicked the button, which is the virtual equivalent of signing a contract. It is Ashley Grills's bad luck if she chose not to read the contract she was executing.

It is absurd that MySpace should have to provide any additional "sufficient notice to members to hold them responsible" besides an "I agree" button below the contract (or a link to it). These are the types of nanny-style protections of the stupid and immoral that those of us on the conservative side of the aisle loathe so much. They coddle people and attempt to excuse them of responsibility for their actions and never attempt to deny liberties to those who demonstrate they can't handle them responsibly.

There is a huge difference between being unable to understand a law (or the language in a contract) and that violations of it are wrong (the legal definition of insanity or mental deficiency) and ignorance of the law, especially when the executor refuses to read the rules when it is passed under their nose.

The only defense for Ashley Grill is that she is mentally deficient or insane. In either case, she should be denied access to computers (and perhaps her freedom) if she is so mentally daft that she cannot understand that she is agreeing to a Terms of Service, read or not.

Regarding the morally vacuous parent, Lori Drew, who participated in this ghastly deceit, I can only blame the prosecutors for their failure to recognize a fraud case when they see one. Falsity with malicious intent is a crime, and always has been. The criminality of the action is not limited to money. The defendant in this case admitted that they were intent on getting private and personal information from Megan Meier, and that is just as much a theft as any other type.

Cautions

2009-07-03T03:08:00.000-05:00

I stumbled on a virtual reprint of Whittaker Chambers's 1957 review of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (National Review 50th Anniversary, Big Sister Is Watching You). Being incapable of tolerating Ayn Rand myself and amazed that others are not so immediately inclined, I found the review exhilarating and fascinating. Mr. Chambers so accurately details the dangerous dogma of Rand (and one can delight in the compact, quality writing style of a bygone era).

Some people are easily duped into believing Rand's nonsense, to the point of cultish adherence, leaving aside all reason and logic of what comes next (despite often considering themselves among the Right's intellectual elite):

Of course, Miss Rand nowhere calls for a dictatorship. I take her to be calling for an aristocracy of talents. We cannot labor here why, in the modern world, the pre-conditions for aristocracy, an organic growth, no longer exist, so that the impulse toward aristocracy always emerges now in the form of dictatorship.

Nor has the author, apparently, brooded on the degree to which, in a wicked world, a materialism of the Right and a materialism of the Left first surprisingly resemble, then, in action, tend to blend each with each, because, while differing at the top in avowed purpose, and possibly in conflict there, at bottom they are much the same thing. The embarrassing similarities between Hitler's National Socialism and Stalin's brand of Communism are familiar. For the world, as seen in materialist view from the Right, scarcely differs from the same world seen in materialist view from the Left. The question becomes chiefly: who is to run that world in whose interests, or perhaps, at best, who can run it more efficiently?

I read a lot, but I've never seen a better description of the yin and yang of socialism and Ayn Rand's style of materialism/collectivism. When our focus and ideals shift from the intangibles of virtue to materialism and we become a nation who lauds banal work for work's sake, we are in a precarious position.

I found the above in an article by Gerry Wills on William F. Buckley (The Atlantic, Daredevil).

The contrasts between William F. Buckley and Ayn Rand's heroes in Atlas Shrugged could not be greater. In the contrasts of the two we also find the source (perhaps) of the anti-intellectualism (almost to the point of being anti-education) among Republicans. It is why we miss Buckley so much and why we loathe Rand.

William F. Buckley was a man of principle, religious and secular, and was quite capable of differentiating his religious beliefs from his political ones, i.e., maintaining the difference between a person who is religious, still understanding that our government is secular. Ayn Rand (besides being, or because she was, a lunatic), somehow came to believe that the goal of an individual life was to make money in a "Captains of Industry" mode. Mr. Buckley, on the other hand, was a man who believed in altruism and morality. From Mr. Wills:

He [Buckley] spent a lot of time thinking of what he could do for friends. When he heard that I needed a passport in a hurry, he pulled strings at the State Department to get it for me. On another occasion, when my new bride and I could not find a cheap sea liner to England for our honeymoon, he found a ship for us leaving from Canada. Bill ingeniously invented a way to institutionalize his love for giving special gifts. Because his family was so prolific, he had 49 of what he called “N and Ns” (nieces and nephews). He took care of the education of many of them. But supplying necessities was not enough for him. He set up a fund he called the Dear Uncle Bill Trust (DUBT, soon pronounced “Doubt”), whose administrators gave surprise treats to N and Ns—a valuable guitar to an aspiring musician, a vacation in a favorite spot—on a rotating basis.

"The love of money is the root of all evil" is an oft misunderstood tenant of Judeo/Christianity, and can make Capitalism an anathema if the "love of" is left off (which is how it is often misunderstood). Loving money and hating it have the same result.

Philosophers (religious or otherwise) from inception have warned against an aristocracy of wealth, rather than of character and virtue, and championed lofty pursuits over those of the flesh/ego.

Certainly we all need money, and the more of it we are able to make to find a balance between work and pleasure an important one to pursue. But one's life shouldn't be about making money, and certainly not loving money for money's sake. That leads to all sorts of unsavory traits: greed and selfishness are just two among many.

The idea that someone, like Ayn Rand, would champion a materialistic society, putting merchants, industrialists, and technocrats as some sort of ideal is wrong, so wrong as to defy belief. What do they offer society and what value do they have when they're not at work? Are they loving fathers and husbands, do they volunteer to help others, do they enjoy music or literature? In simpler terms, would they make an interesting dinner guest? If all they wanted to talk about was their businesses and work, they would not make the list.

Left off are the arts or art patronage, and a pursuit of a passion with little material reward.

In Ayn Rand's ideal world, a measure of a man is the size of his bank account, or his empire, so long as he doesn't desire power. But Rand is confused, because she simultaneously admonishes a desire for power, while creating a fiction in which the Captains of Industry become the new, lauded aristocracy:

That Dollar Sign is not merely provocative, though we sense a sophomoric intent to raise the pious hair on susceptible heads. More importantly, it is meant to seal the fact that mankind is ready to submit abjectly to an elite of technocrats, and their accessories, in a New Order, enlightened and instructed by Miss Rand's ideas that the good life is one which "has resolved personal worth into exchange value," "has left no other nexus between man and man than naked selfinterest, than callous "cash-payment."' The author is explicit, in fact deafening, about these prerequisites. Lest you should be in any doubt after 1,168 pages, she assures you with a final stamp of the foot in a postscript:

And I mean it." But the words quoted above are those of Karl Marx. He, too, admired "naked self-interest" (in its time and place), and for much the same reasons as Miss Rand: because, he believed, it cleared away the cobwebs of religion and led to prodigies of industrial and cognate accomplishment. The overlap is not as incongruous as it looks. Atlas Shrugged can be called a novel only by devaluing the term. It is a massive tract for the times. Its story merely serves Miss Rand to get the customers inside the tent, and as a soapbox for delivering her Message. The Message is the thing. It is, in sum, a forthright philosophic materialism. Upperclassmen might incline to sniff and say that the author has, with vast effort, contrived a simple materialist system, one, intellectually, at about the stage of the oxcart, though without mastering the principle of the wheel. Like any consistent materialism, this one begins by rejecting God, religion, original sin, etc., etc. (This book's aggressive atheism and rather unbuttoned "higher morality," which chiefly outrage some readers, are, in fact, secondary ripples, and result inevitably from its underpinning premises.) Thus, Randian Man, like Marxian Man, is made the center of a godless world.

I am not religious, but I understand Mr. Chambers reference to a "godless world" and can commiserate and relate with those who feel that moral values are important, and seriously lacking in today's society.

However, when I hear the "godless" phrase used as a political agitating point, I am just as exasperated as I am when Rand argues from the other side of the coin.

I received an email from Newt Gingrich (not to me personally, but a generic beg letter). In it, Mr. Gingrich writes:

The effort to change America has been systematically executed by a secularist left-wing machine for the last five decades. That effort has eroded our culture, our Godly heritage, and our very history.

The continued success of our nation depends upon a common understanding of our unique culture, our Godly heritage and our American history.

I understand the audience that Mr. Gingrich is appealing to, but it is cheap shot. I got to that point in the email and I clicked off of it, disgusted. If this is the message that Mr. Gingrich thinks will unite conservatives and moderates and yield victory in 2012/2014, he could not be more off the rails.

There is an element of truth to what Mr. Gingrich says. Religious people (specifically Christians) have had their religion and their way of life challenged by mean-spirited secularists, but it is too broad a brush, and confuses the issue.

We have a Christian heritage in this country, and the majority of Americans may consider themselves Christian (to some degree or another), but we have a secular government. People may be religious and their religion (or lack thereof) is protected from government meddle or support. Confusing the two spells disaster for Republicans.

"No provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprises of the civil authority."
- Thomas Jefferson, 1809

"The error seems not sufficiently eradicated that the operations of the mind as well as the acts of the body are subject to the coercion of the laws. But our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." -
Thomas Jefferson, 1782

Mr. Gingrich should heed Jefferson's advice. Similarly, those on the Left should be put in their place when they attempt to encroach on religious freedom by trying to eradicate it. It may not be supported in the public square, but it cannot be denied either.

"I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their Legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State."
- Thomas Jefferson, 1802

Now if people like Ayn Rand want to go around declaring that religion is evil, she has every right to do so. Similarly, many of the contributors to SecularRight seem to feel that religion really is the opiate of the (stupid) masses.

If so, so be it. We all get to choose our opiates. Being anti-religion has the same result as believing that religion belongs in the government's purview to enforce. Enforcing or denying are the same thing! Religious people aren't broken, needing some sort of fix to make them more desirable citizens.

This all gets terribly confusing and can make one feel as if they're watching a ping pong ball match, with each side banging the religious ball back and forth.

Where it gets even more difficult is when we discuss morality and principles, as opposed to a specific religion's dogma.

"To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people is a chimerical idea."
- James Madison

There was a time in this country when we quibbled over the list of moral laws. Today we seem to be arguing that there are no moral laws, and believing that there are/were as some sort of quaint, outdated concept. This is not a healthy sign and will surely result in misery... and our eventual demise.

"Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass. They are inherently independent of all but moral law."
- Thomas Jefferson, 1819

Battling the Left and the Right on this issue is fatiguing, as it is where their political ideologies intersect and become the same. Virtue and morality are requirements, but a specific religious test is not. The former exists for our government officials as well as ourselves. We can ignore it, and choose not to be moral nor virtuous, but we cannot eradicate them as requirements. Rand desires to eradicate these requirements, Buckley only to rememer them, and Gingrich, lastly, to require a religious test, albeit in another name.

I do not know why that is so difficult for people to understand.

Ping. Pong. Ad infinitum.

As Designed

2009-07-02T15:52:00.000-05:00

From William A. Jacobson (Legal Insurrection, Hands Off Honduras, July 1, 2009):

The Obama administration's actions towards Honduras continues to defy logic. On the one hand, Obama states that he is for the rule of law. Yet Obama meddles in the worst possible way in Hondurans' attempt to protect their country from a Chavez-style tyranny. Read Fausta's Blog for a full round-up of what Honduras was facing from this deposed dictator-in-the-making.

(Emphasis mine.)

It doesn't defy logic. It might defy morality, but Obama is a fascist with the intention of supporting anyone who shares his philosophy. His actions are perfectly consistent with that. The only people surprised by his actions regarding Honduras (and Iran) might be those who were duped by his slick presentation.

While Obama improves relations with Venezuela, Obama has cut military ties to Honduras, is considering a cut-off of all aid, is doing nothing to stop loan suspensions by international organizations over which the U.S. has substantial influence, and is supporting international efforts to isolate Honduras.

The above is what Obama (and the world) should have done to Iran, but no surprises there either.

If people continue to believe that Obama is interested in anything other than a revision of history to make the bad guys good and doing anything and everything to undermine our country as it was Founded, they'll continue to be shocked at his actions. Obama articulated his world view (and his voting record confirmed it). The people who voted for him were either in support of his fascist plans, or they were too busy/lazy to do any work to vet him.

H/t Instapundit.

Not Following the Money

2009-07-02T14:37:00.000-05:00

Liam Julian reviews (City Journal, The Private Schools No One Sees, June 19, 2009) The Beautiful Tree: A Personal Journey Into How the World’s Poorest People Are Educating Themselves, by James Tooley. Mr. Julian provides a summary of Mr. Tooley's incredible findings:

“Development experts,” as Tooley calls them, have long believed that if citizens of developing countries are to be educated, their governments, helped by heaps of money from rich nations, must invest in free and universal public schooling. If the resultant public education is lousy—as it is in India, for instance—then it must simply be reformed through more money and more regulation. Meanwhile, the poor must be patient.

But the poor have run short of patience, Tooley found, and so they have rejected the development experts’ failed syllogism and created one of their own: You open a school, and we’ll pay you to teach our children. If they don’t learn, we’ll stop paying. Therefore, you will ensure that our children receive a solid education.

Americans have done something similar by homeschooling, but Americans have difficulty opening underground schools like these because of the culture of regulation that would shut them down. Like American home-schools, however, these underground schools post results far above their public establishments. They also share something else in common with home-schools: they have critics who will say and do anything to try to discount them.

The Beautiful Tree is a refreshing aberration in the stolid ranks of development literature. Tooley writes engagingly and obviously finds the story he tells exciting. His enthusiasm is contagious. One cannot help but think that Tooley has provided the rudimentary outline of how education can be brought to many more millions of the world’s poorest.

Government schools were Jefferson's greatest failure, not because he didn't get it right, but because educating the youth (rather, indoctrinating them) is too enticing for tyrants to ignore, and all the safeguards that Jefferson established were bulldozed.

"We are now trusting to those who are against us in position and principle, to fashion to their own form the minds and affections of our youth... This canker is eating on the vitals of our existence, and if not arrested at once, will be beyond remedy."
- Thomas Jefferson to James Breckinridge, 1821

The Beautiful Tree is definitely on my wish list.

Welcome

2009-07-02T09:02:00.000-05:00

The links above display my most recent posts on my Wordpress blog: 2ndbalcony.wordpress.com.

Speak the Speech I Pray You

2009-07-01T16:13:00.000-05:00

Mickey Kaus (Kausfiles, Wellstone's Curse: Undoing the Right Thing, June 30, 2009):

Hasen predicts a near nuclear disaster for the goo-goo campaign finance lobby: SCOTUS will nix the whole decades-long attempt to keep corporate and union money out of campaign ads--in effect declaring that it's OK if for-profit corporations and unions use their unlimited funds to run spots attacking specific candidates.

I can't quite figure out how Mr. Kaus thinks that the Supreme Court would be "undoing the right thing" when they finally get around to protecting the First Amendment. Any limitations, regulations, or restrictions on political contributions is unconstitutional. Period. End of discussion. The lawyers can debate this ad infinitum, but the First Amendment says what it says, and we don't need lawyers to explain to us what it means.

The only asterisk in the First Amendment is false/slanderous/treasonous speech. There is no asterisk for the following:

It doesn't say that only individuals can petition their government.

It doesn't say that groups, profitable or otherwise, should be restrained from exercising their right to speak, with the funds to make their voices louder.

It doesn't say that individuals or groups have to declare themselves. Anonymity is a right we all maintain.

If it is difficult to track who is giving money to whom, too bad. If it makes it more difficult for some people to win against the large contributions from corporations, tough. If there are "deep pockets" that will sway elections, so be it.

Rights and the protection of our Constitution do get inconvenient and troublesome at times.

If these things were easy, if they weren't sometimes inconvenient, there would have been no reason for the Founding Fathers to write it down.

H/t Instapundit.

EPA Suppressing Global Warming Research

2009-06-29T19:08:00.000-05:00

This Fox News video report (Hot Air) [with commercials] describes an email from Al McGartland at EPA that proves that the Administration is suppressing a study (and other studies) that confirm that global warming is a hoax:

"The administrator and the (Obama) Administration have decided to move forward... and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision."
- Al McGartland, EPA official (CBS News)

This references an EPA study by Alan Carlin, stifling his opinion:

"My view is... there is not currently any reason to regulate carbon dioxide. Global temperatures are roughly where they were in the mid-20th century.

"They're not going up. If anything, they're going down."
Alan Carlin, author of an EPA study on global warming.

More is available on WattsUpWithThat.

A Lefty Complains

2009-06-29T15:32:00.000-05:00

Instapundit links to an article by Clive Crook (FT.com, Obama is choosing to be weak, June 28, 2009). The title being what it is, I was expecting something about Iran or Obama's other goofs with respect to foreign relations. Oh, no. This article is about the cap and trade and healthcare reform. Mr. Crook's complaints are not that Congress is considering these intrusive and unconstitutional measures. His complaints are that they're not horrible enough.

On cap and trade:

The cap-and-trade bill is a travesty. Its net effect on short- to medium-term carbon emissions will be small to none. This is by design: a law that really made a difference would make energy dearer, hurt consumers and force an economic restructuring that would be painful for many industries and their workers. Congress cannot contemplate those effects. So the Waxman-Markey bill, while going through the complex motions of creating a carbon abatement regime, takes care to neutralise itself.

"Hurt consumers." Spoken like a true Jack Booted Thug.

On socialized medicine:

If you regard universal access to health insurance as an urgent priority, as I do, the draft healthcare bills are easier to defend as at least a step in the right direction. Nonetheless, the same evasive mindset – the appetite for change without change – has guided their design. If you are happy with your present insurance, the bills’ designers keep telling voters, you will see no difference.

Mr. Crock seems to believe that cap and trade was ever anything besides a tax. He also speaks of climate change as if it is a fact. Either he's been duped by the propaganda or he's furthering it. On healthcare, he seems to think that universal health insurance is a good idea, as if insurance is what is needed.

Every American has access to medical care. No one is denied access to emergency care. A hospital denying emergency treatment would get fined out of existence. If it isn't an emergency, there are many other options from paying for the treatment (if the patient is flush enough to do so) to medicaid (if the patient is poor), with much wiggle room in the middle.

As Regulation magazine recently reported, 95% of American are satisfied with the medical care they receive. Americans are considering some sort of safety net coverage, not because they want it for themselves, but because they've been duped into believing that 46,000,000 others want it/need it:

If you take the Kaiser/ABC News/USA Today survey's estimate of 13.4 percent of Americans being uninsured and that 17.5 percent of the uninsured are "very dissatisfied" with the care that they are receiving, just 2.3 percent of Americans are both uninsured and "very dissatisfied" with the care they receive. That amounts to 5 million people. Including all uninsured raises the total to 8.4 million. This is a far cry from the 46 million number that is frequently bandied about by politicians and media to count the uninsured.

Unlike Mr. Crock, I happen to believe that government is there to serve the people's interests and desires, not to use government as a means of punishment by fleecing everyone. Government's purpose is not be a change agent and parent.

Americans do not need universal health insurance, nor did we need cap and trade. Unlike Mr. Crock, I'm pleased that Congress/Obama didn't go far enough. I just wish they hadn't gone there at all.

Two Steps Backward

2009-06-26T16:17:00.000-05:00

More on the horrid Energy Bill: From Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (POLITICO.com, Bill will shift billions overseas, June 26, 2009):

But there are always winners and losers and, under the proposed policy, no one would win quite so much as China.

By adding a new energy tax, the bill will increase China’s manufacturing advantage, but worse, provisions of the act will actually subsidize Chinese energy by allowing for the direct transfer of hundreds of billions of dollars to China and other developing nations.

And:

Add it up, and the American Clean Energy and Security Act would result in nearly $1 trillion in wealth transfer by 2050 to China and the developing nations.

Unfortunately, the U.S. would get nothing in return for its money, not even a promise of similar emissions cuts. I recently traveled to China with a delegation led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). There, I got lip service from Chinese officials, but it was clear that China would not commit to emission cuts, let alone to cuts similar to those being sought by congressional Democrats and President Obama. In fact, China is making the ridiculous demand that the U.S. cut emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

I was wondering how the Obama Adminstration convinced China to buy our bonds.

H/t Breitbart.

No Leading the Witness Here, Boss

2009-06-26T15:58:00.000-05:00

From Ed Markey (Blogs from CNN.com, House Democrats unsure of global warming bill’s passage, June 24, 2009):

A vote on the Clean Energy and Security Act, which would restrict emissions of green house gases and require use of alternative energy in an effort to slow the effects of global warming, is scheduled for Friday.

(Emphasis mine.)

There is no evidence that global warming is occuring.

There is no evidence that if global warming is occuring that it is caused by green house gases.

There is no evidence that if global warming is occuring that it is caused by green house gases from man-made sources, instead of, say, trees.

The mainstream press has been presenting global warming as an unquestionable fact for a long time, in a Goebels style "repeat a lie often enough and it becomes truth."

This isn't a "clean energy and security" measure. This is "bait and switch." This will stifle business and create a legion of government officers to police compliance. It is about growing government (in size and power).

H/t Drudge.

Two Roads Divided

2009-06-25T15:42:00.000-05:00

It is difficult to know how to support the Iranian protesters.

I wouldn't know where to send them money, nor is money what they need. I am not of soldier age (nor was I trained as one), so I can't abandon my family and head there as some sort of mercenary, nor is that wanted. I don't have access to a stockpile of weapons, nor any means of shipping them to Iran if I did.

What the Iranian protesters need is for all free people to stand united with them--to promise to boycott all Iranian goods, to blockade their shipments, for all governments to censure the illegitimate government, and to speak in one voice that all people have a right to free and honest elections.

The very least I could do was write this post and to put a silly little blurb on this blog to offer my support. I'm just one voice, just one person, and as Robert Frost once said, "...that has made all the difference."

We all have a voice and a choice. Will we stand united with the Iranian people?

Real Principles

2009-06-24T17:53:00.000-05:00

Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) links to a post by Eric Dondero (Libertarian Republican, When Conservatives are more Libertarian, than the Libertarians, June 23, 2009) focusing on the lack of support from the libertarian camps for the protesters in Iran. The post itself is very good, but the comment by "Junyo" sums it up perfectly:

Short version of Libertarian philosophy: I got mine, fuck you.

If the French had "minded their own business" we'd all be living in South Canada. And of course there's the love of the Confederacy among freedom loving Libertarians, because damn that Lincoln and his interfering with the right of people to own other people.

If Libertarians were saying 'it's a great idea to support these people, but I'm not sure that [insert specific mechanism of helping] would be effective' that would be one thing. But the blanket hostility to the basic idea betrays it for what it is, xenophobia and narrow minded selflessness masquerading as principle.

I do quite a bit of libertarian bashing here, but there's a reason for that, and the above is exactly why. Far too many libertarians ascribe quite a bit of meaning to the idea of non-interventionism. That's a wonderful principle to have when the issue is whether to conquer a free people, commit genocide to rid the land mass of the indigenous, and to make the new territory your own. That's a far cry from responding to someone shouting "FIRE!" Not responding to a cry for help is wrong and shows a lack of principle.

"Non-intervention" is a subject that has been discussed since our nation was founded. Washington (and others) were quite adamant about avoiding "foreign entanglements," but like all things from the Founding Fathers, it is important to keep them in the context of the time, based on the the world at the time.

At the time, Europe was a series of nations under feudal control. The Royals were a small band of uncles, aunts, and cousins. They were continually feuding with one another and had no qualms about raising armies to fight with one another over a slight, or to make their empires larger out of greed. There are regions of Europe that have been fought over for centuries, for exactly these reasons. The outcome of these battles were for King X to steal the land from his cousin Queen Y. It had nothing to do with an oppressed people throwing off the shackles of tyranny. The people themselves were not at war with their government. Their tyrannical leaders were at war with other tyrannical leaders.

It was those petty squabbles that the Founding Fathers wanted to avoid, and was the context of the "foreign entanglement" principle of Washington (from his Farewell Address):

"Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?"

And:

"I am for free commerce with all nations, political connection with none, and little or no diplomatic establishment. And I am not for linking ourselves by new treaties with the quarrels of Europe, entering that field of slaughter to preserve their balance, or joining in the confederacy of Kings to war against the principles of liberty."

- Thomas Jefferson, 1799

(Emphasis mine.)

When it came to supporting a people in doing what we had done (separating ourselves from King George), the Founders were quite united in showing support. If (as the French had done in our case) the people who were in a state of revolution were doing so with the purpose (and the ability) to form a new government, founded on the principle of liberty for all, and had a chance of success (i.e., were large enough and united in their desire), we were duty-bound to support it. How we might support it was the subject of debate, not if we were obliged to help them.

"Countries... have a right to be free, and we a right to aid them, as a strong man has a right to assist a weak one assailed by a robber or murderer."
- Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1816

Not all libertarians operate with the same set of principles, or interpret the dogma in the same way, but far too many (as Mr. Dondero accurately describes) take the non-intervention philosophy too far and in the wrong direction, not understanding the specific context of the "no foreign entanglements" idea.

Moral relevancy is a problem, in general, and it rears its ugly head among the Left, Right, and Middle, but libertarians have taken it to a high art. Equating the rescue of the oppressed and desperate with imperialism (or "foreign entanglement") is quite a leap, and defies the basic tenets of the responsibility of free people to act to protect and support each other.

Libertarians, in general (not universally) have a problem with obligations and duties, and that is why they will be forever marginalized as a group interested not in liberty for all, but a group focused on liberty for me, but none for thee.

I realize that libertarians are not conservatives, but the basic principles of liberty, of a psychically-moral human being, cannot be better stated than from the well known quote from Edmund Burke:

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Libertarians can choose to incorporate that principle into their ideology, or they can identify themselves as being nothing more than mooches, living off the goodness and courage of others.

Must be a Rhetorical Question

2009-06-23T20:58:00.000-05:00

From Townhall.com, a question is asked in the title of an AP News column Will Sotomayor uphold Constitution?, (June 23, 2009).

Simple.

No.

In multiple floor speeches Tuesday and later in a closed lunch of GOP senators, Republicans said they want to hear more about whether she would uphold constitutional amendments guaranteeing equal protection under the law and the right to keep and bear arms, as well as whether the government can freely take land from one person and give it to another.

However you phrase the question, the answer will be "no."

And speaking of no, "The Party of No" should vote "no," even though they don't have enough members to make a difference in the outcome.

The single factor in determining which way to vote for any Supreme Court nominee is if they will uphold the Original Intent of the Constitution, not some sloppy "evolving" meaning garbage. They're sworn to uphold the Constitution, not to make it up, to have the Contitution mean whatever they want it to mean.

The citizens of the United States can support an Amendment if we want to evolve/expand on original meaning. A judge's job is to make sure that the law and Constitution are being strictly applied, not to make law or establish policy.

Doesn't Fit the Narrative

2009-06-22T19:08:00.000-05:00

From Khalid al-Ansary (Reuters, Suicide truck bomb kills 34 in northern Iraq, June 22, 2009):

"Don't lose heart if a breach of security occurs here or there," Maliki told leaders from the ethnic Turkmen community, reiterating a warning that insurgents were likely to try to take advantage of the U.S. pullback to launch more attacks.

And:

Hours after Maliki spoke, a suicide bomber detonated a truck filled with explosives as worshippers left a Shi'ite Muslim mosque near the northern city of Kirkuk, a city contested by Arabs, Turkmen and Kurds and which sits over vast oil reserves.

But that wasn't supposed to happen! We've been hearing for years that all the terrorism in Iraq was because of U.S. troops on the ground, and if we left, the terrorism would end.

Guess the Left was wrong (again). Islamic terrorism is the enemy of all democracies, regardless of religious majority. Money and fighting for resources are the causes of almost all wars. They were right about one thing: It's all about the oillll. Guess that's true in Iraq!

H/t Drudge.

New Site

2009-06-22T17:41:00.000-05:00

Thank you for finding me. I will be blogging on this domain from now on.

Better

2009-06-22T04:21:00.000-05:00

Also from Rasmussen Reports™ (Americans Evenly Divided Over Urgency of Health Care Reform, June 19, 2009):

Despite the president's stepped-up efforts to promote his health care reform agenda with the public, these numbers have changed little from the beginning of the month when 46% favored moving ahead while 45% said wait until the economy improves. In early March, 49% said health care reform should wait for a better economy, but 42% wanted to go ahead.

Rasmussen goes on to report on the differences by political ideology, age, and gender (with women, once again, supporting something asinine out of selfish desires or stupidity).

Health care "reform" (code phrase for socialized medicine) is the greatest threat to our economic freedom.

Unfortunately, it is highly possible, that despite public sentiments, this Congress/Administration will do whatever they damn well please. They've ignored the Constitution and the rule of law so this would be business as usual.

Just say "no." And as Bill Whittle recently said in a PJTV video, say "no" loudly and often.

Good Sign

2009-06-22T04:09:00.000-05:00

From Rasmussen Reports™ (Daily Presidential Tracking Poll, June 22, 2009):

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 33% of the nation's voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-four percent (34%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -1. Today is the second straight day the President’s rating has been below zero (see trends).

[caption id="attachment_771" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Rasmussen Reports: President Approval Index"][/caption]

This is a good sign (for the country) and is change we can believe in.

H/t Instapundit.

Hello, Captain Obvious

2009-06-19T05:35:00.000-05:00

From Daniel Indiviglio (The Atlantic Business Channel, Two Ways To Lower Healthcare Costs, June 18, 2009):

Data like this leads those who want heavier government involvement in healthcare to tremble with certainty. It inspired Leonhardt to argue for healthcare rationing. I have two different suggestions to reduce healthcare costs that I have not heard discussed very much: get more doctors and malpractice tort reform.

[Emphasis mine.]

Not that this shouldn't be constantly repeated and shouted from the rooftops, but it isn't that people haven't been suggesting it (even though Mr. Indiviglio hasn't "heard it discussed very much"). In fact, the conservative side of the media has been stressing it for decades. It is the mainstream media (once again) that doesn't let this bit of argument make it into the headlines.

But it's the same problem we see with just about every issue. When government is the problem that creates higher costs, we never hear it.

We didn't hear about it when "Enterprise Zones" proved to be a failure. Not a peep (and in fact lies and dereliction of duty) when Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac were causing our entire housing market to become destabilized by socialized lending practices and old fashioned cronyism.

The truth is, there are dozens of ways that government itself makes our medical costs higher, without increasing the quality of medical care, including:

FDA puts far too many roadblocks and delays in bringing new medicines and medical equipment to market.

Tort (as Mr. Indiviglio mentions). Tort directly impacts every aspect of medical costs (the kind that makes shysters like John Edwards millionaires).

The courts themselves for not properly throwing out predatory law suits.

Little (or no) enforcement of fraud laws in medical insurance claims. Fraud, like tort, is theft with one degree of separation. We all pay for it. Similarly, the amount of fraud in the system forces insurance companies to police their policyholders themselves, limiting the monies that could be available to pay the claims of honest people. Tort risk has required that we all receive a battery of mostly unnecessary tests, just so doctors and hospitals can cover their asses, rather than deliver the tests they think a patient really needs.

Medicare is too slow to pay (with negotiated rates far below a reasonable rate for delivery of services). Medicare itself is an example of how socialized medicine, regardless of label, will look in a few years. Rather than having a government-run heath insurance system for the nation's truly poor, the government should outsource these programs to insurance companies, and allow them to compete for government dollars. There isn't anything that the government does that the private sector can't do better and/or cheaper.

The government, just like it showed itself to be derelict in properly watching the henhouse at Fanny Mae/Freddie Mac, isn't our friend. In fact, it is often the fox that is guarding that henhouse.

Congress is now debating more ways to steal our money to deliver to us a greatly reduced standard of care, under the guise of getting it to us cheaper and more "equitably."

Government has never delivered on that promise, regardless of the isssue, and it would be insane of us to think otherwise... this time. The outcome is always the same. The only thing that works, the only thing that ever works, is getting the government out of it and unraveling and revising the laws that strangle all of us.

H/t Instpundit.

Letterman's Not Funny Joke

2009-06-17T08:16:00.000-05:00

Regarding Letterman's terribly inappropriate joke about Sarah Palin's 14 year old daughter: He should be ashamed of himself.

This has nothing to do with political correctness. Candidates' children are off limits and "knocked up" jokes about kids aren't funny.

That aside, what really gets my goat about some of the commentary on the Internet is the constant insertion of the meme of Letterman's supports: "Don't you value Free Speech?"

Of course Republicans value Free Speech. People can say whatever they want, except false speech.

What they cannot expect to exclude, which goes hand in hand with exercising rights, are public consequences. The government cannot put him in jail for telling a bad joke or insulting someone, but the public is certainly within their right to respond with Free Speech and Free Action of their own, to call for Letterman's head on a proverbial platter.

If that means he's stripped of his job because people boycott Letterman's advertisers, or they tune-out of his show, putting his rankings in the tank, that, too is Free Speech. The public is free to respond with their remote control, to write and complain to the network, and to boycott CBS's advertisers.

Freedom of expression cuts both ways.

Dog in This Fight

2009-06-17T04:47:00.000-05:00

From Frances Gibb (Times Online, Ruling on NightJack author Richard Horton kills blogger anonymity, June 17, 2009):

But Mr Justice Eady said that the mere fact that the blogger wanted to remain anonymous did not mean that he had a “reasonable expectation” of doing so or that The Times was under an enforceable obligation to him to maintain that anonymity.

There are aspects of this case (and this ruling) that are difficult. I can understand the argument about a reasonable expectation of privacy not being met when someone blogs. However:

In the first case dealing with the privacy of internet bloggers, the judge ruled that Mr Horton had no “reasonable expectation” to anonymity because “blogging is essentially a public rather than a private activity”.

Does this mean that someone who gives information to a newspaper, that is also "a public rather than a private activity" should expect the same? Newspapers are public, too. If we extend this decision to its logical conclusion, that would mean that "unnamed sources" have no reasonable expectation of privacy either. The court seems to be saying that--using the argument that having someone in the press makes moot any desire for privacy. That's seems to be the end justifies the mean argument.

I'm surprised the Times UK would want the courts to come to that conclusion.

If someone wants to spend time trying to figure out who I am, more power to them. I haven't said anything controversial or named any names, so I doubt someone would bother. As a thought experiment though, I would make no attempts to sue or use the courts to prevent them from disclosing that information, but it follows then that no one should have a reasonable expectation of privacy when they say or tell anything to a reporter or any press outlet. Everyone is now fair game.

I doubt the Times UK would find that a desirable outcome. They appear to have won the battle, but lost the war.

Edit

2009-06-17T04:15:00.000-05:00

From Jake Topper (ABCNews-Political Punch, Key Obama Ally Says President Obama Did Not Follow the Law in IG Firing, June 16, 2009) quoting Sen. Claire McCaskin:

“The White House has failed to follow the proper procedure in notifying Congress as to the removal of the Inspector General for the Corporation for National and Community Service,” McCaskill said. “The legislation which was passed last year requires that the president give a reason for the removal.”

Mr. Topper could have just shortened the article's title to "Obama did not follow the law." He could have a daily post with that title.

H/t Instapundit.

We CAN Handle the Truth

2009-06-16T11:34:00.000-05:00

From Peter Wehner (Commentary Magazine, Let Us Not Comfort Cruel Men), June 16, 2009):

G.K. Chesterton once referred to “easy speeches to comfort cruel men.” Leaders like Reagan (and his contemporary, Margaret Thatcher) were not terribly interested in providing comfort to cruel men. They instinctively identified with the victims of oppression rather than the oppressors — and they were, more often than not, willing to give those views public voice. What we are dealing with is a cast of mind, a disposition toward words, their power and meaning, and their capacity to shape events.

Mr. Wehner links to an article by Bret Stephens (WSJ, Wanted: 'Hope' for Iran, June 16, 2009):

Here's a recent comment from one Iranian demonstrator posted on the Web site of the National Iranian American Council. "WE NEED HELP, WE NEED SUPPORT," this demonstrator wrote. "Time is not on our side... The most essential need of young Iranians is to be recognized by US government. They need them not to accept the results and do not talk to government as an official, approved one."

Someday a future president may have to apologize to Iranians for Mr. Obama's nonfeasance, just as Mr. Obama apologized for the Eisenhower administration's meddling. But the better Eisenhower parallel is with Hungary in 1956. Then as now a popular uprising coalesced around a figure (Imre Nagy in Hungary; Mir Hossein Mousavi in Iran), who had once been a creature of the system. Then as now it was buoyed by inspiring American rhetoric about freedom and democracy coming over Voice of America airwaves.

This is the real test of Obama: Will he ignore the pleas for help and recognition from Iran's desperate citizens yearning to be free in their own nation, or will he remain silent and impotent?

H/t Instapundit.

Cyberwar Guide for Iran elections

2009-06-16T10:17:00.000-05:00

Instapundit links to a post by Omri (Mere Rhetoric, Cyberwar Guide To Helping The Iranian Protesters, June 16, 2009):

The purpose of this guide is to help you participate constructively in the Iranian election protests through Twitter.

Do NOT publicise proxy IP's over twitter, and especially not using the #iranelection hashtag. Security forces are monitoring this hashtag, and the moment they identify a proxy IP they will block it in Iran. If you are creating new proxies for the Iranian bloggers, DM them to @stopAhmadi or @iran09 and they will distributed them discretely to bloggers in Iran.

Hashtags, the only two legitimate hashtags being used by bloggers in Iran are #iranelection and #gr88, other hashtag ideas run the risk of diluting the conversation.

Keep you bull$hit filter up! Security forces are now setting up twitter accounts to spread disinformation by posing as Iranian protesters. Please don't retweet impetuosly, try to confirm information with reliable sources before retweeting. The legitimate sources are not hard to find and follow.

Help cover the bloggers: change your twitter settings so that your location is TEHRAN and your time zone is GMT +3.30. Security forces are hunting for bloggers using location and timezone searches. If we all become 'Iranians' it becomes much harder to find them.

Don't blow their cover! If you discover a genuine source, please don't publicise their name or location on a website. These bloggers are in REAL danger. Spread the word discretely through your own networks but don't signpost them to the security forces. People are dying there, for real, please keep that in mind...

Via @allahpundit, the State Department apparently asked Twitter to delay their scheduled downtime to help out the protesters. A very nice move, especially considering the lukewarm support the Obama administration has voiced elsewhere (via @jswtx).

I don't know what all of the above means, but changing Twitter settings to Tehran seems like a small action to help a great cause.

Et tu, Brute

2009-06-16T07:06:00.000-05:00

From Byron York, (Washington Examiner, Will Democrats cover up the AmeriCorps mess?, June 16, 2009):

Can Republicans in Congress get to the bottom of President Obama's sudden -- and suspicious -- decision to fire AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin? The answer is no -- unless some. [sic] Democrats show interest in what could possibly be the first scandal, or at least mini-scandal, of the Obama administration.

Short answer is, of course, "No." We were doomed from the start:

"The bank mania... is raising up a moneyed aristocracy in our country which has already set the government at defiance, and although forced at length to yield a little on this first essay of their strength, their principles are unyielded and unyielding. These have taken deep root in the hearts of that class from which our legislators are drawn, and the sop to Cerberus from fable has become history. Their principles lay hold of the good, their pelf of the bad, and thus those whom the Constitution had placed as guards to its portals, are sophisticated or suborned from their duties."
- Thomas Jefferson, 1817

[Emphasis mine.]

There are few pursuits more potentially damaging to the character of an individual than to pursue a finance or business degree, and to then work in those sectors, rather than actually producing or creating products with inherently tangible value. With the former, corruption is not only likely, it is to be assumed.

I suspect the only worse thing would be a career in law. (Pardons to Prof. Reynolds as the hat tip.)

Redundancy Warning

2009-06-16T06:31:00.000-05:00

From Instapundit (June 16, 2009), we have a Redundancy Warning:

"LIBERTARIAN FANTASY"

Oh, Man!

2009-06-16T05:33:00.000-05:00

"A coalition of sentiments is not for the interest of printers. They, like the clergy, live by the zeal they can kindle and the schisms they can create. It is contest of opinion in politics as well as religion which makes us take great interest in them and bestow our money liberally on those who furnish aliment to our appetite... So the printers can never leave us in a state of perfect rest and union of opinion. They would be no longer useful and would have to go to the plough."
- Thomas Jefferson, 1801

From Drudge Reports (flash):

ABC TURNS PROGRAMMING OVER TO OBAMA; NEWS TO BE ANCHORED FROM INSIDE WHITE HOUSE

Tue Jun 16 2009 08:45:10 ET

On the night of June 24, the media and government become one, when ABC turns its programming over to President Obama and White House officials to push government run health care -- a move that has ignited an ethical firestorm!

Highlights on the agenda:

ABCNEWS anchor Charlie Gibson will deliver WORLD NEWS from the Blue Room of the White House.

The network plans a primetime special -- 'Prescription for America' -- originating from the East Room, exclude opposing voices on the debate.

When conservatives warned that Obama was a dangerous socialist, people scoffed at us, and called us rubes. Who is the rube now?

Again from Drudge Reports:

ABCNEWS Senior Vice President Kerry Smith on Tuesday responded to the RNC complaint, saying it contained 'false premises':

"ABCNEWS prides itself on covering all sides of important issues and asking direct questions of all newsmakers -- of all political persuasions -- even when others have taken a more partisan approach and even in the face of criticism from extremes on both ends of the political spectrum. ABCNEWS is looking for the most thoughtful and diverse voices on this issue.

"ABCNEWS alone will select those who will be in the audience asking questions of the president. Like any programs we broadcast, ABC News will have complete editorial control. To suggest otherwise is quite unfair to both our journalists and our audience."

We shall see. ABC hasn't had a great track record with impartiality.

If the Stupid Party weren't, they'd be demanding airtime on ABC to present the contrary view. If they cannot get it through the use of "equal time" rules, then they must buy the time. It will be almost impossible to overturn socialized medicine once in place. It is far easier (and cheaper) to do everything in our power to defeat it now.

"Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day."
- Thomas Jefferson, 1807

"I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time, whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed be collected from them... but no details can be relied on."

- Thomas Jefferson, 1807

There is nothing new under the sun. The free press has never performed its Constitutionally defined duty. It is up to us, individually and collectively, to spread facts and truth.

Priorities

2009-06-16T05:15:00.000-05:00

It becomes increasing difficult (with so much government incompetence, coercion, and corruption going on) to stay focused on our main priorities. We can't ignore the corruption and intrusions on our freedoms and the design of our government, but we can't allow these matters to distract us from issues that could lead to our complete destruction.

Our main focus should always be on national security, of keeping the people safe and the nation whole. Our secondary concerns of sound economic policies, staying vigilant with regard to the protections of our rights and the compliance with constitutional limits, etc., are meaningless if we're all dead.

With those caveats, the most important affairs and issues have to do with international concerns, including (all first priorities, the order is random):

The War on Terror (or the war against Islamic extremism used as the guise for world domination), wherever it appears in the world.

Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, and more recently, the Iranian people in the adolescence of a revolutionary movement that could make their pursuit of nuclear weapons a non-issue/reversal of policy. We must do whatever we can to support Iran's revolution and independence from the Mullahs. If the Iranian people attempt to achieve the goals we hope to achieve in Afghanistan and Iraq (through war and the insertion of our military to protect these young democracies), through the spontaneous, people-spurred actions to do the same thing, we must not ignore it. It is a moral imperative that we encourage and support people who wish to overthrow the shackles of tyranny. Our goals in the Middle East are to replace tyranny with freedom, whether through our actions, or by the people themselves.

North Korea's pursuit and development of nuclear weapons.

Everything else, not having to do with our determination to survive, is a distraction. Important, but a distraction. It makes no sense to survive, only to find our rights and freedoms lost, but we live to fight for them another day; in the same vein, it makes no sense to focus exclusively on our secondary concerns, only to be wiped off the planet, and by extension, not able to live to fight for our freedoms another day.

It makes for lots of running around in circles, screaming.

Tough Love

2009-06-15T05:39:00.000-05:00

Reminded by this link from Instapundit, there was a news report last night (I think it was FoxNews), about park and recreation budget cutbacks.

What is astonishing, in the realm of amazingly stupid, is that California (and most of the rest of the states and the nation as a whole) still doesn't get it.

It is the welfare and entitlement spending that is killing us. There is enough money to fund the police and fire departments, the parks and recreation services, the roads, prisons, and jails if the states would reduce their welfare spending.

But they don't want to be seen as being meanies as the worthless are draining our public bank accounts.

The rhetorical question (and how the argument will be framed in the media) is: Do you want to allow a destitute family to starve or keep funneling money to the parks so people can swim this summer?

The answer is Door Number 2. The media (and the Left) will always use emotion as a distraction to the truth. The people who pay taxes should see a benefit from it, and have use of facilities and public places that they have paid to build and maintain. They have a right to those facilities and parks and the states, counties, and cities have a duty to keep them open.

There is something motivating about the threat of starvation or risk of homelessness. The great welfare reform experiment showed that if you tell people that their welfare benefits will end on X date, they will pull themselves up by their proverbial boot straps and get on the productive end of society, rather than being a drain. Their lives (and the lives of their children) will be better. Their happiness quotient will rise as well.

Welfare, other than for the completely disabled (and by that I mean quadriplegics who cannot perform any work or the mentally ill or retarded) should be a safety net that ends after so many days (for example, six months). After that, people must work.

The funds going to support illegal aliens must end, regardless of their impoverished status. They must be denied medical treatment, because continuing to provide it sends the signal that it is a good idea to come here and feed off the welfare teat. Our emotionally-motivated kindness is used against us as a weapon. Those who come here illegally, who abuse the welfare system, do not share our values, nor have any claim to the rights maintained by citizens.

Welfare must, once again, tarnish the reputations of people who receive it. People should be ashamed that they are taking from others, and they must feel compelled to get off welfare as quickly as possible to restore their honor, dignity, and reputation. If they don't, then we must have the strength and conviction to withdraw our support from them, as a way of discouraging the behavior in others. It is tough love, on a national scale.