Jan 14
In the following editorial, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, a psychiatrist by training, delivers a succinct but thorough and trenchant analysis and refutation of the charges made by liberals against conservatives as to their influential role in the committing of the Tucson massacre. This is the coup de grace to wildly unfounded and politically motivated accusations made by liberal and Progressives against the Tea Parties and higher profile conservatives like Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.
He also brilliantly trivializes and emasculates the intellectually and morally corrupt and uncontrollably partisan Progressive Paul Krugman along with the NY Times in addition to highlighting their hypocrisy.
Massacre, followed by libel
Charles Krauthammer January 12, 2011;
The charge: The Tucson massacre is a consequence of the "climate of hate" created by Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, Glenn Beck, Obamacare The Tucson massacre is a consequence of the "climate of hate" created by Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, Glenn Beck, Obamacare.
The verdict: Rarely in American political discourse has there been a charge so reckless, so scurrilous and so unsupported by evidence.
As killers go, Jared Loughner is not reticent. Yet among all his writings, postings, videos and other ravings - and in all the testimony from all the people who knew him - there is not a single reference to any of these supposed accessories to murder.
Not only is there no evidence that Loughner was impelled to violence by any of those upon whom Paul Krugman, Keith Olbermann, the New York Times, the Tucson sheriff and other rabid partisans are fixated. There is no evidence that he was responding to anything, political or otherwise, outside of his own head.
A climate of hate? This man lived within his very own private climate. "His thoughts were unrelated to anything in our world," said the teacher of Loughner's philosophy class at Pima Community College. "He was very disconnected from reality," said classmate Lydian Ali. "You know how it is when you talk to someone who's mentally ill and they're just not there?" said neighbor Jason Johnson. "It was like he was in his own world."
His ravings, said one high school classmate, were interspersed with "unnerving, long stupors of silence" during which he would "stare fixedly at his buddies," reported the Wall Street Journal. His own writings are confused, incoherent, punctuated with private numerology and inscrutable taxonomy. He warns of government brainwashing and thought control through "grammar." He was obsessed with "conscious dreaming," a fairly good synonym for hallucinations.
This is not political behavior. These are the signs of a clinical thought disorder - ideas disconnected from each other, incoherent, delusional, detached from reality.
These are all the hallmarks of a paranoid schizophrenic. And a dangerous one. A classmate found him so terrifyingly mentally disturbed that, she e-mailed friends and family, she expected to find his picture on TV after his perpetrating a mass murder. This was no idle speculation: In class "I sit by the door with my purse handy" so that she could get out fast when the shooting began.
Furthermore, the available evidence dates Loughner's fixation on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords to at least 2007, when he attended a town hall of hers and felt slighted by her response. In 2007, no one had heard of Sarah Palin.
Glenn Beck was still toiling on Headline News. There was no Tea Party or health-care reform. The only climate of hate was the pervasive post-Iraq campaign of vilification of George W. Bush, nicely captured by a New Republic editor who had begun an article thus: "I hate President George W. Bush. There, I said it."
Finally, the charge that the metaphors used by Palin and others were inciting violence is ridiculous. Everyone uses warlike metaphors in describing politics. When Barack Obama said at a 2008 fundraiser in Philadelphia, "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun," he was hardly inciting violence.
Why? Because fighting and warfare are the most routine of political metaphors. And for obvious reasons. Historically speaking, all democratic politics is a sublimation of the ancient route to power - military conquest.
That's why the language persists. That's why we say without any self-consciousness such things as "battleground states" or "targeting" opponents. Indeed, the very word for an electoral contest - "campaign" - is an appropriation from warfare.
When profiles of Obama's first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, noted that he once sent a dead fish to a pollster who displeased him, a characteristically subtle statement carrying more than a whiff of malice and murder, it was considered a charming example of excessive - and creative - political enthusiasm. When Senate candidate Joe Manchin dispensed with metaphor and simply fired a bullet through the cap-and-trade bill - while intoning, "I'll take dead aim at [it]" - he was hardly assailed with complaints about violations of civil discourse or invitations to murder.
Did Manchin push Loughner over the top? Did Emanuel's little Mafia imitation create a climate for political violence? The very questions are absurd - unless you're the New York Times and you substitute the name Sarah Palin.
The origins of Loughner's delusions are clear: mental illness. What are the origins of Krugman's?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/11/AR2011011106068.html
Posted in Charles Krauthammer Conservative Democrat Liberal Media - Far Left Progressives Sarah Palin Tea Parties with 1 Comment
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Jan 12
Since the Tucson shooting, seemingly ubiquitous “pundits” are asserting that this tragedy was the direct result of the vitriol that we have in our contemporary political discourse. Virtually all of these self acclaimed experts are of the liberal and Progressive persuasion and ascribe such incendiary rhetoric solely to the other side of the ideological spectrum: conservatives and Republicans. Even more specifically, they overwhelmingly place the blame on 3 prominent individuals: Gov. Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.
This has been their pattern seemingly no matter what the problem is with Sarah Palin being the object of the majority of the criticism and disparagement. We are surprised that they haven’t blamed her for global warming or the high level of tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
Ironically, nearly all the truly violent speech and threats have arisen from the Liberal and Progressive news media and politicians and their level of shrillness continues to escalate. (Read the post from 2 days ago: Liberals Exploit Tucson Tragedy For Political Purposes ). In fact, among the worst abusers of “metaphorically violent speech” is their “leader”, “president” Obama. He has also been habitually divisive, taunting of those whose ideology is different from his, and verbally belligerent.
A poster boy for hate, intolerance and violence.
That Obama.
Barry's Angry Words
Jed Babbin 1.11.11
Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, overseeing the investigation the Tucson shootings that left Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in a coma and federal judge John Roll and five others dead, wasted little time in blaming heated political rhetoric for the crime.
Shortly after the first reports of the shootings, Dupnick said, "The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous, and unfortunately Arizona has become sort of the capital," adding "We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry." Giffords' father, asked if she had any enemies, reportedly said that the whole Tea Party was her enemy.
There is no evidence whatsoever that the attack on Giffords and the others is a result of political rhetoric. The political anger there is -- built over nearly two years of the Obama presidency -- resulted in a force that ejected of 63 House members last November. And the root cause of the anger is to be found in the man who resides in the White House.
Every president is responsible for the political climate while he is in office. Using the Bully Pulpit, controlling his agenda and in dealing with the Congress and the public, every president has at least great control -- if not sole control -- of the level of heat in American politics. When a president loses that control, like Obama did last fall, it presages a political disaster for him and his party.
President Obama is a tumultuary. He governs by inflating or inventing crises which he insists must be acted upon as he prescribes with an immediacy that tolerates no delay or debate. His signature remark -- repeated again and again -- is that "The time for talk is over. The time for action is now."
Obama derides debate, and refuses to answer critics, choosing instead to end the discussion. In January 2009, challenged by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Az) on the shape and size of the economic stimulus package he proposed, Obama cut off the discussion by saying, "I won."
And that is his style. Whether it's angry words spoken with a preternatural calm or calm words delivered in a visibly angry demeanor, he has cultivated the anger that propelled his legislative agenda through Congress in a tsunami of unread and undebated legislation.
The anger voiced at countless townhall meetings in 2009 was the first visible response to Obama's stampeding Congress to remake America. People who had never been active in politics went to tell their congressmen and senators that they felt that their government no longer represented them.
But instead of listening to the protests of those new townhall activists, Obama and his congressional allies rammed the healthcare "reform" bill through to his signing ceremony when Vice President Biden memorably called it a "big effing deal." It was, and it further distanced Americans from their government.
Too many Americans are alienated from their government because they don't trust it. And, given the record of the past decade, they shouldn't. Those who live in border states are virtually left to defend themselves against the encroachment of illegal aliens and violent crime. For all the spending that Obama has done, we still have nearly 10% unemployed (and many more in some states).
Alienation and frustration breed anger.
And so does Obama. His cultivation of anger is nearly a constant in his rhetoric.
His style uses two rhetorical tools: stating angry words calmly or stating calm words angrily. There are many examples of each. His talent for managing anger -- and his allusions to violence - first became evident in his presidential campaign.
At a June 2008 campaign fundraiser in Philadelphia, Obama calmly -- almost jokingly - said "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun."
On January 31, 2009, shortly after taking office, Obama used angry words calmly. Talking about Wall Street bankers in a video, he said "The American people will not excuse or tolerate such arrogance and greed."
In December 2009 at the Copenhagen global warming summit, Obama's dream of a new global warming treaty vanished when China and other nations balked at the economy-killing nature of the proposals. Then a visibly angry Obama hurled his calm signature line at the Chinese saying "the time has come not to talk but to act."
His best use of the "angry words spoken calmly" tactic was in his June 7, 2010 blunt defense of his administration's lackadaisical response to the BP oil spill. Obama had convened a panel of experts to advise him, bragging endlessly of his energy secretary's Nobel Prize. When his academic approach to the disaster was too much for even the liberal media, Obama explained that he brought in the experts to help him decide "whose ass to kick." (Later that year, on October 31, Obama was again visibly angry, lashing back at Connecticut rally hecklers yelling about AIDS.)
It's rare for Obama to appear angry and speak angrily at the same time. The best example was his December 7, 2010 press conference at the height of the congressional fight over extending the Bush-era tax rates. There, Obama apparently adopted the angle Sen. Bob Menendez took a week earlier. Menendez had said that negotiating with the Republicans was almost like negotiating with terrorists.
In his press conference an angry -- even petulant -- Obama lashed out at Republicans, saying "It's tempting not to negotiate with hostage takers, unless the hostage gets harmed...The hostage was the American people." He also kicked his liberal supporters, telling them to not be "sanctimonious" and reminding them that "this country was founded on compromise."
Anger is not malum in se: it's not an evil emotion. Anger is a strong passion or an emotion of displeasure. It is a natural response to all sorts of affronts, be they personal or political. In politics, anger stirs people to demonstrate, to speak out and to vote as they did last November. And among those who are not unhinged, it doesn't breed violence.
That is why it is perfectly understandable that Professor Obama would want to create and control anger in the electorate. And that is also why we are left to wonder why, in cultivating political anger so assiduously, he uses words of violence such as "hostage takers."
One clue can be found in Obama's first autobiography, Dreams from My Father.
Most of us remember being influenced by books in our childhood. Whether you studied the Bible or pored over the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, at least one book sticks in your mind as having influenced your view of the world and your way of thinking.
Obama mentions only one book in Dreams from My Father, the Autobiography of Malcolm X, and he mentions it twice.
In one part of the book, Obama wrote of how he sought to shake off a "nightmare vision" of racial repression, and of reading Baldwin, Ellison, Hughes, Wright and DuBois to try to understand. But "Only Malcolm X's autobiography seemed to offer something different. His repeated acts of self-creation spoke to me; the blunt poetry of his words, his unadorned insistence on respect, promised a new and uncompromising order, martial in its discipline, forged through sheer force of will…"
How did that influence the young Obama? We will never know, and it not of ultimate importance. What is important is how an American president manages the anger he creates.
Barack Obama is an accomplished rhetorician. His loss of control over the political climate last year has seemingly been recovered in the December lame duck session. It is up to him to heat or cool American politics. At this point, there is no reason to believe that the angry words, or the calm words stated angrily, will be fewer this year than last.
Jed Babbin served as a Deputy Undersecretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush. He is the author of several bestselling books including Inside the Asylum and In the Words of Our Enemies.
http://spectator.org/archives/2011/01/11/barrys-angry-words
Posted in Arrogance Glenn Beck Ideology Obama Republican Rush Limbaugh Sarah Palin with No Comments
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Jan 4
For more than 50 years, liberals have aggressively supported major government programs, legislation and ideologies that have unsurprisingly failed to produce the results they expected or wanted though they vehemently deny such outcomes. More accurately, they have been abject failures with far reaching and long lasting impacts.
Still they persist, staunchly supported by their media lapdogs, and attack those armed with data and better alternatives. They can’t seem to acknowledge the disaster their policies have caused.
In the following editorial, Larry Elder succinctly and lucidly reviews these domestic policies which have been unequivocally disastrous. These include taxes, welfare, education, affirmative action, minimum wage hikes and Obamacare.
What Do Liberals Have To Show For 50 Years Of Horrible Policies?
Larry Elder 12/23/2010
For the past 50 years, the Democrats — and many Republicans who should know better — have been wrong about virtually every major domestic policy issue. Let's review some of them:
• Taxes. The bipartisan extension of the Bush tax cuts represents the latest triumph over the "soak the rich because trickledown doesn't work" leftists.
President Ronald Reagan sharply reduced the top marginal tax rates from 70% to 28%, doubling the Treasury's tax revenue.
President George H.W. Bush raised the income tax rate, as did his successor. But President George W. Bush lowered them to the current 35%.
President Barack Obama repeatedly called the current rate unfair, harmful to the country and a reward to those who "didn't need" the cuts and "didn't ask for" them.
If true, he and his party ditched their moral obligation to oppose the extension. But they didn't, because none of it is true.
Democratic icon John F. Kennedy, who reduced the top marginal rate from more than 90% to 70%, said, "A rising tide lifts all the boats." He was right — and most of the Democratic Party knows it.
• Welfare for the "underclass." When President Lyndon Johnson launched his "War on Poverty," the poverty rate was trending down. When he offered money and benefits to unmarried women, the rate started flat-lining. Women married the government, allowing men to abandon their moral and financial responsibilities.
The percentage of children born outside of marriage — to young, disproportionately uneducated and disproportionately brown and black women — exploded. In 1996, over the objections of many on the left, welfare was reformed. Time limits were imposed, and women no longer received additional benefits if they had more children. The welfare rolls declined. Ten years later, the New York Times wrote: "When the 1996 law was passed ... liberal advocacy groups ... predicted that it would increase child poverty, hunger and homelessness. The predictions were not fulfilled."
• Education. The federal government's increasing involvement with education — what is properly a state and local function — has been costly and ineffective at best, and counterproductive at worst. Title I, a program begun 45 years ago to close the performance gap between urban and suburban schools, burns through more than $15 billion a year, and the performance gap has widened. The feds spend $80 billion a year on K-12 education, as if money is the answer. States like Utah and Iowa spend much less money per student compared with districts like those in New York City and Washington, D.C., with much better results.
Where parents have choices — where the money follows the student rather than the other way around — the students perform better, with higher parental satisfaction. But the teachers' unions and the Democratic Party continue to resist true competition among public, private and parochial schools.
• Gun control. Violent crime occurs disproportionately in urban areas — where Democrats in charge impose the most draconian gun control laws.
Over the objection of those who warn of a "return to the Wild West," 34 states passed laws allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons. Not one state has repealed its law. Professor John Lott, author of "More Guns, Less Crime," says: "There is a strong negative relationship between the number of law-abiding citizens with permits and the crime rate: As more people obtain permits, there is a greater decline in violent crime rates. For each additional year that a concealed handgun law is in effect, the murder rate declines by 3%, rape by 2% and robberies by over 2%."
• "Affirmative action." Race-based preferences have been a disaster for college admissions. Students admitted with lesser credentials are more likely to drop out. Had their credentials matched their schools, they would have been far more likely to graduate and thus enter the job market at a more productive level.
Preferences in government hiring and contracting have led to widespread, costly and morale-draining "reverse discrimination" lawsuits. Where preferences have been put to the ballot, voters — even in liberal states like California — have voted against them.
• Minimum wage hikes. Almost all economists agree that minimum wage laws contribute to unemployment among the low-skilled — the very group the "compassionate party" claims to care about.
Economist Walter Williams, 74, in his new autobiography, "Up From the Projects," describes the many low-skilled jobs he took as a teenager. "By today's standards," he wrote, "my youthful employment opportunities might be seen as extraordinary.
That was not the case in the 1940s and 1950s. In fact, as I've reported in some of my research, teenage unemployment among blacks was slightly lower than among whites, and black teens were more active in the labor force as well. All of my classmates, friends and acquaintances who wanted to work found jobs of one sort or another."
• ObamaCare. This ghastly government-directed scheme will inevitably lead to rationing and lower-quality care — all without "bending the cost curve" down as Obama promised.
Any party can have a bad half-century. Merry Christmas.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/557701/201012231806/What-Do-Liberals-Have-To-Show-For-50-Years-Of-Horrible-Policies-.aspx
Posted in Democrat Diversity policies Education Gun Control Ideology Larry Elder Liberal ObamaCare Progressives Taxes with No Comments
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Dec 27
We briefly covered the FCC’s “Net Neutrality” legislation, an unwarranted and ill advised and probably illegal maneuver that won’t stand up to Congressional scrutiny (or legal challenges).
Michelle Malkin, in her editorial below, discusses what would be a predictable and anticipated sequela if this legislation is allowed to remain in force.
A claim by the Left that internet access is an entitlement; that it is another civil right.
Wrong!
Internet Access Is Not a 'Civil Right'
Michelle Malkin 12/22/2010
When bureaucrats talk about increasing our "access" to x, y or z, what they're really talking about is increasing exponentially their control over our lives. As it is with the government health care takeover, so it is with the newly approved government plan to "increase" Internet "access." Call it Webcare.
By a vote of 3-2, the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday adopted a controversial scheme to ensure "net neutrality" by turning unaccountable Democratic appointees into meddling online traffic cops. The panel will devise convoluted rules governing Internet service providers, bandwidth use, content, prices and even disclosure details on Internet speeds. The "neutrality" is brazenly undermined by preferential treatment toward wireless broadband networks. Moreover, the FCC's scheme is widely opposed by Congress -- and has already been rejected once in the courts. Demonized industry critics have warned that the regulations will stifle innovation and result in less access, not more.
Sound familiar? The parallels with health care are striking. The architects of Obamacare promised to provide Americans more access to health insurance -- and cast their agenda as a fundamental universal entitlement.
In fact, it was a pretext for creating a gargantuan federal bureaucracy with the power to tax, redistribute and regulate the private health insurance market to death -- and replace it with a centrally planned government system overseen by politically driven code enforcers dictating everything from annual coverage limits to administrative expenditures to the makeup of the medical workforce. The costly, onerous and selectively applied law has resulted in less access, not more.
Undaunted promoters of Obama FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's "open Internet" plan to expand regulatory authority over the Internet have couched their online power grab in the rhetoric of civil rights. On Monday, FCC Commissioner Michael Copps proclaimed: "Universal access to broadband needs to be seen as a civil right ... (though) not many people have talked about it that way." Opposing the government Internet takeover blueprint, in other words, is tantamount to supporting segregation. Cunning propaganda, that.
"Broadband is becoming a basic necessity," civil rights activist Benjamin Hooks added. And earlier this month, fellow FCC panelist Mignon Clyburn, daughter of Congressional Black Caucus leader and Number Three House Democrat James Clyburn of South Carolina, declared that free (read: taxpayer-subsidized) access to the Internet is not only a civil right for every "nappy-headed child" in America, but is essential to their self-esteem. Every minority child, she said, "deserves to be not only connected, but to be proud of who he or she is."
Calling them "nappy-headed" is a rather questionable way of boosting their pride, but never mind that.
Face it: A high-speed connection is no more an essential civil right than 3G cell phone service or a Netflix account. Increasing competition and restoring academic excellence in abysmal public schools is far more of an imperative to minority children than handing them iPads. Once again, Democrats are using children as human shields to provide useful cover for not so noble political goals.
The "net neutrality" mob -- funded by billionaire George Soros and other left-wing think tanks and nonprofits -- has openly advertised its radical, speech-squelching agenda in its crusade for "media justice." Social justice is the redistribution of wealth and economic "rights." Media justice is the redistribution of free speech and other First Amendment rights.
The meetings of the universal broadband set are littered with Marxist-tinged rants about "disenfranchisement" and "empowerment."
They've targeted conservative opponents on talk radio, cable TV and the Internet as purveyors of "hate" who need to be managed or censored. Democratic FCC panelists have dutifully echoed their concerns about concentration of corporate media power.
As the Ford Foundation-funded Media Justice Fund, which lobbied for universal broadband, put it: This is a movement "grounded in the belief that social and economic justice will not be realized without the equitable redistribution and control of media and communication technologies."
For progressives who cloak their ambitions in the mantle of "fairness," it's all about control. It's always about control.
http://townhall.com/columnists/MichelleMalkin/2010/12/22/internet_access_is_not_a_civil_right/page/full/
Posted in FCC Ideology Legal rights Michelle Malkin with No Comments
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Dec 20
The Progressive redistribution ideology of Obama and many Congressional Democrats is a euphemism for what it truly represents: involuntary, government mandated involuntary servitude or slavery. This situation is where a productive individual is involuntary providing for another.
In the editorial below, Walter Williams categorizes this as government immorality which is a quite generous description. He views this vis-a-vis the question as to who really owns us: we ourselves or the Government (Congress)?
Obama’s resolute position on redistribution has us pondering:
Is this an indirect form of reparations as a disproportionate of those receiving this government “largesse” in the form of checks, subsidies, etc. are blacks?
Does Obama not see that what he is forcing upon the productive citizens (aka “plantation owners”) is a soft form of slavery?
How can Obama totally reconcile the inconsistencies of his position regarding slavery in America’s past and the enslaving of productive citizens today?
Who Owns Us? Congress? Or Ourselves?
Walter Williams 12/10/2010
Immorality in government lies at the heart of our nation's problems. Deficits, debt and runaway government are merely symptoms.
What's moral and immoral conduct can be complicated, but needlessly so. I keep things simple and you tell me where I go wrong.
My initial assumption is that we each own ourselves. I am my private property and you are yours. If we accept the notion that people own themselves, then it's easy to discover what forms of conduct are moral and immoral.
Immoral acts are those that violate self-ownership. Murder, rape, assault and slavery are immoral because those acts violate private property. So is theft, broadly defined as taking the rightful property of one person and giving it to another.
Who Owns You?
If it is your belief that people do not belong to themselves, they are in whole or in part the property of the U.S. Congress, or people are owned by God, who has placed the U.S. Congress in charge of managing them, then all of my observations are simply nonsense.
Let's look at some congressional actions in light of self-ownership. Do farmers and businessmen have a right to congressional handouts? Does a person have a right to congressional handouts for housing, food and medical care?
First, let's ask: Where does Congress get handout money? One thing for sure, it's not from the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus, nor is it congressmen reaching into their own pockets.
The only way for Congress to give one American one dollar is to first, through the tax code, take that dollar from some other American. It must forcibly use one American to serve another American.
Government Immorality
Forcibly using one person to serve another is one way to describe slavery. As such, it violates self-ownership.
Government immorality isn't restricted only to forcing one person to serve another. Some regulations such as forcing motorists to wear seat belts violate self-ownership. If one owns himself, he has the right to take chances with his own life.
Some people argue that if you're not wearing a seat belt, have an accident and become a vegetable, you'll become a burden on society. That's not a problem of liberty and self-ownership. It's a problem of socialism, where through the tax code one person is forcibly used to care for another.
These examples are among thousands of government actions that violate the principles of self-ownership. Some might argue that Congress forcing us to help one another and forcing us to take care of ourselves are good ideas.
But my question to you is: When congressmen and presidents take their oaths of office, is that oath to uphold and defend good ideas or the U.S. Constitution?
When the principles of self-ownership are taken into account, two-thirds to three-quarters of what Congress does violate those principles to one degree or another as well as the Constitution to which they've sworn to uphold and defend.
In 1794, when Congress appropriated $15,000 to assist some French refugees, James Madison, the father of our Constitution, stood on the floor of the House to object, saying, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."
Did James Madison miss something in the Constitution?
You might answer, "He forgot the general welfare clause." No, he had that covered, saying, "If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one."
If we accept the value of self-ownership, it is clear that most of what Congress does is clearly immoral. If this is bothersome, there are two ways around my argument.
The first is to deny the implications of self-ownership.
The second is to ask, as Speaker Nancy Pelosi did when asked about the constitutionality of ObamaCare, "Are you serious? Are you serious?"
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/556541/201012101909/Who-Owns-Us-Congress-Or-Ourselves-.aspx
Posted in Democrat Ideology Progressives Redistribution of wealth Taxes Walter Williams with No Comments
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Dec 7
Government spending is recklessly out of control and untenable with expenditures far exceeding revenues. Concomitantly, the size of the federal government increases unrelentingly.
The areas of consuming the largest fraction of the federal dollar and ever increasing – Medicare and Social Security – can’t be reduced drastically for those presently receiving benefits or approaching the age of eligibility. This further affects flexibility and spending cut options.
So, what might be some outside the box but effective options that should be considered to rein in government spending and eliminate the budget deficit? Conservative columnist Larry Elder has a list of constructive and realistic suggestions that just might fit the “bill” (of course, no pun intended!).
How To Treat Main Problem Of Gov't Bloat
Larry Elder 12/01/2010
President Obama's fiscal commission supposedly offers an "aggressive prescription" to reduce the federal deficit. It's not just the debt and deficit, stupid. It's the size, scope and bloat of the federal government. Here's my plan:
1. Accept the political reality that (a) taxes cannot be raised, and (b) entitlement spending (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid) cannot be cut for current or near-future beneficiaries. Voters will not vote to raise their taxes. Voters will not vote to cut off their money. And politicians want votes.
2. To solve this, we need to raise money. How? Fund current and near-term liabilities by selling federally owned land. The government owns more than one-fourth of the land in America. The land use could then be taxed, raising still more revenue.
3. Sell or contract out government enterprises, including but not limited to Amtrak, the Tennessee Valley Authority, Hoover and Bonneville dams, operation of the post office, and government-run nuclear and other power plants.
4. Shut several federal departments and agencies, including Energy, Education, Labor, HUD, HHS (including the Surgeon General), Interior (no need after government land is sold), Commerce and the EPA.
5. "Grandfather" workers 55 and older into existing Medicare and Social Security plans. Offer those under 55 the option of setting up private savings accounts in lieu of Social Security. To replace Medicare, offer those under 55 the option of putting tax-free money into health savings accounts.
One can buy, as with car insurance, a policy with a high deductible for catastrophic care. Other medical needs would be paid for out of the HSA. Such insurance would be cheap, and when people pay directly (not via a third party) for other medical needs, they're better shoppers, and providers would compete to provide quality affordable care.
6. Grandfather everyone now on Medicaid, and then admit no more people and end the program at the federal level. Charity is not allowed by the Constitution, and it should be left to the states or to the private and nonprofit sectors. Once voters — of whom many are on Social Security or will be within 10 years — realize that they will not be "hurt," they'll be more likely to support this plan and to vote in politicians who do.
7. Change the law giving businesses write-offs for offering health insurance to their employees. People don't get car insurance or homeowners insurance through their employers. Why health insurance? Give individuals that same deductible (assuming the IRS remains), thus encouraging individuals to purchase their own policies. This would end the "portability" problem that occurs when people lose or change jobs.
8. To ensure that the federal government does not re-bloat, pass a constitutional amendment that limits the federal government to a small fixed percentage of GDP.
9. Abolish the IRS. With a dramatically reduced government, the essential federal duties — set forth in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution — could be paid for, as envisioned by the Founders, by duties and tariffs on imports and exports.
10. Amend the Constitution to deny citizenship to children of illegal aliens. America — unlike most industrial nations — grants citizenship to children of illegal aliens simply because they were born on its soil. The 14th Amendment was meant only to confer citizenship on newly freed slaves, not on illegal aliens. But since the Supreme Court has ruled otherwise, the Constitution must be changed. Illegal immigration is unfair to those lawfully trying to gain entry, costs taxpayers money and affects the country's culture. Citizens ought to have a say about this.
11. Increase the number of, and ease the process for, legal immigrants — tailored to high-end, well-educated foreigners who would add to the industrial capital of the nation. Establish a truly temporary guest-worker program, the size and duration of which would be determined by the country's needs. Hold back a portion of the alien's salary in a government account, to be given back only when the alien leaves.
12. Close the borders. Put the appropriate mix of border guards, fencing and other methods of policing the border and stopping aliens from entering, whether from the south or the north. Establish a means of monitoring those here legally so they do not overstay. Check the immigration status of everyone arrested, and turn illegals over to ICE. Mandate E-Verify for all workers. Require all illegal aliens to register with the feds, and deport those convicted of serious crimes beyond illegal entry and using fraudulent documents to obtain work, granting legal status, but not citizenship, for the rest.
13. Amend the Constitution to overturn Supreme Court decisions that prohibit states from denying free public education and medical benefits, including emergency benefits, to illegal aliens.
14. Our military exists for our own national security. Europe and Japan can and should defend themselves. End all nondefense foreign aid, including contributions to the International Monetary Fund and to the World Bank.
Any questions?
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/555388/201012011830/How-To-Treat-Main-Problem-Of-Govt-Bloat.aspx
Posted in Balanced budget Government spending Larry Elder Obama with No Comments
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Sep 9
The following scathing editorial by Thomas Sowell examines Obama’s arrogance and unalloyed contempt for the American voter particularly as regards his legislation and approach to ramming them into law.
He doesn’t mince words when he states that:
Not since the Norman conquerors of England published their laws in French, for an English-speaking nation, centuries ago, has there been such contempt for the people's right to know what laws were being imposed on them.
Administration Is Taking All Of Us For Fools
Thomas Sowell 08/17/2010
'We the people" are the central concern of the Constitution, as well as its opening words, since it is a Constitution for a self-governing nation. But "we the people" are treated as an obstacle to circumvent by the current administration.
One way of circumventing the people is to rush legislation through Congress so fast that no one knows what is buried in it. Did you know that the so-called health care reform bill contained a provision creating a tax on people who buy and sell gold coins?
You might debate whether that tax is a good or a bad idea. But the whole point of burying it in legislation about medical insurance is to make sure "we the people" don't even know about it, much less have a chance to debate it, before it becomes law.
Did you know that the financial reform bill that's been similarly rushed through Congress, too fast for anyone to read, has a provision about "inclusion" of women and minorities? Pretty words like "inclusion" mean ugly realities like quotas. But that too isn't something "we the people" are to be allowed to debate, because it too was sneaked through.
Not since the Norman conquerors of England published their laws in French, for an English-speaking nation, centuries ago, has there been such contempt for the people's right to know what laws were being imposed on them.
Yet another ploy is to pass laws worded in vague generalities, leaving it up to the federal bureaucracies to issue specific regulations based on those laws. "We the people" can't vote on bureaucrats. And, since it takes time for all the bureaucratic rules to be formulated and then put into practice, we won't know what either the rules or their effects are prior to this fall's elections when we vote for (or against) those who passed these clever laws.
The biggest circumvention of "we the people" was of course the so-called "health care reform" bill. This bill was passed with the proviso that it would not really take effect until after the 2012 presidential elections. Between now and then, the Obama administration can tell us in glowing words how wonderful this bill is, what good things it will do for us, and how it has rescued us from the evil insurance companies, among its many other glories.
But we won't really know what the actual effects of this bill are until after the next presidential elections — which is to say, after it is too late. Quite simply, we are being played for fools.
Much has been made of the fact that families making less than $250,000 a year will not see their taxes raised. Of course they won't see it, because what they see could affect how they vote. But when huge tax increases are put on electric utility companies, the people will see electricity bills go up. When huge taxes are put on other businesses as well, they will see the prices of the things those businesses sell go up.
If you are not in that "rich" category, you will not see your own taxes go up. But you will be paying someone else's higher taxes, unless of course you can do without electricity and other products of heavily taxed businesses. If you don't see this, so much the better for the administration politically.
This country has been changed in a more profound way by corrupting its fundamental values. The Obama administration has begun bribing people with the promise of getting their medical care and other benefits paid for by other people, so long as those other people can be called "the rich." Incidentally, most of those who are called "the rich" are nowhere close to being rich.
A couple making $125,000 a year each are not rich, even though together they reach that magic $250,000 income level. In most cases, they haven't been making $125,000 a year all their working lives. Far more often, they have reached this level after decades of working their way up from lower incomes — and now the government steps in to grab the reward they have earned over the years.
There was a time when most Americans would have resented the suggestion that they wanted someone else to pay their bills. But now, envy and resentment have been cultivated to the point where even people who contribute nothing to society feel that they have a right to a "fair share" of what others have produced.
The most dangerous corruption is a corruption of a nation's soul. That is what this administration is doing.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/544029/201008171837/Administration-Is-Taking-All-Of-Us-For-Fools.aspx
Posted in Arrogance Corruption Obama Thomas Sowell with No Comments
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Aug 23
At the time of the writing of the US Constitution, there was nothing remotely like it at all. It was a radical departure from millennium of autocratic, tyrannical or monarchal rule. It was a framework for a government for the people, of the people and by the people.
Thus, the Founding Fathers sought to create a government that was to serve the best interests of the country as a whole and not that of an elite few.
Unfortunately, what we are witnessing today are myriad attempts to circumvent or ignore the Constitution in order to implement legislation that benefits or comports with the ideologies of certain “elites” – the Progressives. Thomas Sowell outlines this situation with incredible insight and cogency.
Constitution Is Big Barrier To Liberal Agenda
Thomas Sowell 08/16/2010
'We the people" are the familiar opening words of the Constitution of the United States — the framework for a self-governing people, free from the arbitrary edicts of rulers.
It was the blueprint for America, and the success of America made that blueprint something that other nations sought to follow.
At the time when it was written, however, the Constitution was a radical departure from the autocratic governments of the 18th century.
Since it was something so new and different, the reasons for the Constitution's provisions were spelled out in "The Federalist," a book written by three of the writers of the Constitution, as a sort of instruction guide to a new product.
The Constitution was not only a challenge to the despotic governments of its time, it has been a continuing challenge — to this day — to all those who think that ordinary people should be ruled by their betters, whether an elite of blood, or of books or of whatever else gives people a puffed-up sense of importance.
While the kings of old have faded into the mists of history, the principle of the divine rights of kings to impose whatever they wish on the masses lives on today in the rampaging presumptions of those who consider themselves anointed to impose their notions on others.
The Constitution of the United States is the biggest single obstacle to the carrying out of such rampaging presumptions, so it is not surprising that those with such presumptions have led the way in denigrating, undermining and evading the Constitution.
While various political leaders have, over the centuries, done things that violated either the spirit or the letter of the Constitution, few dared to openly say that the Constitution was wrong and that what they wanted was right.
Progressives' Role
It was the Progressives of a hundred years ago who began saying that the Constitution needed to be subordinated to whatever they chose to call "the needs of the times."
Nor were they content to say that the Constitution needed more Amendments, for that would have meant that the much disdained masses would have something to say about whether, or what kind, of Amendments were needed.
The agenda then, as now, has been for our betters to decide among themselves which Constitutional safeguards against arbitrary government power should be disregarded, in the name of meeting "the needs of the times" — as they choose to define those needs.
The first open attack on the Constitution by a President of the United States was made by our only president with a Ph.D., Woodrow Wilson.
Virtually all the arguments as to why judges should not take the Constitution as meaning what its words plainly say, but "interpret" it to mean whatever it ought to mean, in order to meet "the needs of the times," were made by Woodrow Wilson.
Wisdom Of 'Experts'
It is no coincidence that those who imagine themselves so much wiser and nobler than the rest of us should be in the forefront of those who seek to erode Constitutional restrictions on the arbitrary powers of government.
How can our betters impose their superior wisdom and virtue on us, when the Constitution gets in the way at every turn, with all its provisions to safeguard a system based on a self-governing people?
To get their way, the elites must erode or dismantle the Constitution, bit by bit, in one way or another. What that means is that they must dismantle America.
This has been going on piecemeal over the years, but now we have an administration in Washington that circumvents the Constitution wholesale, with its laws passed so fast that the public cannot know what is in them, its appointment of "czars" wielding greater power than Cabinet members, without having to be exposed to pubic scrutiny by going through the confirmation process prescribed by the Constitution for Cabinet members.
Now there is leaked news of plans to change the immigration laws by administrative fiat, rather than Congressional legislation, presumably because Congress might be unduly influenced by those pesky voters — with their Constitutional rights — who have shown clearly that they do not want amnesty and open borders, despite however much our betters do.
If the Obama administration gets away with this, and can add a few million illegals to the voting rolls in time for the 2012 elections, that can mean re-election, and with it a continuing and accelerating dismantling of America.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/543932/201008161854/Constitution-Is-Big-Barrier-To-Liberal-Agenda.aspx
Posted in Arrogance Constitution Government Control Ideology Liberal Obama Progressives Thomas Sowell with No Comments
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Aug 13
Liberals and demagogues steadfastly claim that under-representation of chosen minority groups in selected high profile, income or powerful positions or even the job de jour, can only be possible because of discrimination. There can be and is not any other rational or acceptable explanation so they claim. This is the ideology that Obama, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and their ilk subscribe to and which has become entrenched in our government’s policies.
Unfortunately, this specious explanation results in unwarranted quotas and reverse discrimination and engenders reactive racism, cynicism and frustration. Those who would have been most qualified, deserving and productive and contributed far greater to the welfare of society as a whole have been denied the opportunity because of bean counting. Thus, in the end, we all pay a price for this unfounded, pernicious demagoguery.
Juvenile Jabs Don't Deserve Standing O's
Thomas Sowell 08/09/2010
A graduating senior at Hunter College High School in New York gave a speech that brought a standing ovation from his teachers and got his picture in the New York Times. I hope it doesn't go to his head, because what he said was so illogical that it was an indictment of the mush that is being taught at even our elite educational institutions.
Young Justin Hudson, described as "black and Hispanic," opened by saying how much he appreciated reaching his graduation day at this very select public high school. Then he said, "I don't deserve any of this. And neither do you."
The reason? He and his classmates were there because of "luck and circumstances."
Since Hunter College High School selects its applicants from the whole city on the basis of their test scores, "luck" seems a strange way to characterize why some students are admitted and many others are not. If you can't tell the difference between luck and performance, what has your education given you, except the rhetoric to conceal your confusion from others and perhaps from yourself?
Young Mr. Hudson's concern, apparently, is about what he referred to as the "demographics" of the school — 41% white and 47% Asian, with blacks, Hispanics and others obviously far behind.
"I refuse to accept" that "the distribution of intelligence in this city" varies by neighborhood, he said.
Native intelligence may indeed not vary by neighborhood but actual performance — whether in schools, on the job or elsewhere — involves far more than native intelligence. Wasted intelligence does nothing for an individual or society.
The reason a surgeon can operate on your heart, while someone of equal intelligence who is not a surgeon cannot, is because of what different people actually did with their intelligence. That has always varied, not only from individual to individual but from group to group — and not only in this country, but in countries around the world and across the centuries of human history.
One of the biggest fallacies of our time is the notion that, if all groups are not proportionally represented in institutions, professions or income levels, that shows something wrong with society. The very possibility that people make their own choices, and that those choices have consequences — for themselves and for others — is ignored. Society is the universal scapegoat.
If "luck" is involved, it is the luck to be born into families and communities whose values and choices turn out to be productive for themselves and for others who benefit from the skills they acquire. Observers who blame tests or other criteria for the demographic imbalances which are the rule — not the exception — around the world, are blaming whatever conveys differences for creating those differences.
They blame the messenger who brings bad news.
If test scores are not the same for people from different backgrounds, that is no proof that there is something wrong with the tests. Tests do not exist to show what your potential was when you entered the world but to measure what you have actually accomplished since then, as a guide to what you are likely to continue to do in the future. Tests convey a difference that tests did not create.
But the messenger gets blamed for the bad news.
Similarly, if prices are higher in high-crime neighborhoods, that is often blamed on those who charge those prices, rather than on those who create the higher costs of higher rates of shoplifting, robbery, vandalism and riots, which are passed on to those who shop in those neighborhoods.
The prices convey a reality that the prices did not create. If these prices represent simply "greed" for higher profits, then why do most profit-seeking businesses avoid high-crime neighborhoods like the plague?
It is painful that people with lower incomes often have to pay higher prices, even though most people are not criminals, even in a high-crime neighborhood. But misconstruing the reasons is not going to help anybody, except race hustlers and politicians.
One of the many disservices done to young people by our schools and colleges is giving them the puffed-up notion that they are in a position to pass sweeping judgments on a world that they have barely begun to experience. A standing ovation for childish remarks may produce "self-esteem" but promoting presumptuousness is unlikely to benefit either this student or society.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/543075/201008091843/Juvenile-Jabs-Dont-Deserve-Standing-Os.aspx
Posted in Affirmative action Diversity policies Ideology Liberal Racism Reverse Racism Thomas Sowell with No Comments
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Aug 3
The Obama Administration has demonstrated a lethal combination of two pernicious characteristics: arrogance and ignorance of history. Obama and his acolytes comport themselves as arrogant elitist – they think they know what is best or at least what they want to impose on America and will do it even employing a scorched earth policy. They show little regard for what the citizens of this country want – only what Obama wants for them.
Most all of his major policies and ideologies have been tried numerous times before (as noted in the editorial below) and have failed. But Obama’s arrogance and narcissism tell him that he will be the one to succeed so he continues to pursue destructive policies.
As the maxim goes: “those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it”. Unfortunately, it will be us Americans who will pay an awful price.
Rule By Elites Has Been Tried — And Failed
Thomas Sowell 07/26/2010
Many of the wonderful-sounding ideas that have been tried as government policies have failed disastrously. Because so few people bother to study history, often the same ideas and policies have been tried again, either in another country or in the same country at a later time — and with the same disastrous results.
One of the ideas that has proved to be almost impervious to evidence is the idea that wise and far-sighted people need to take control and plan economic and social policies so there will be a rational and just order, rather than chaos resulting from things being allowed to take their own course.
It sounds so logical and plausible that demanding hard evidence would seem almost like nit-picking.
In one form or another, this idea goes back at least as far as the French Revolution in the 18th century. As J.A. Schumpeter later wrote of that era, "general well-being ought to have been the consequence," but "instead we find misery, shame and, at the end of it all, a stream of blood."
The same could be said of the Bolshevik Revolution and other revolutions of the 20th century.
The idea that the wise and knowledgeable few need to take control of the less wise and less knowledgeable many has taken milder forms — and repeatedly with bad results as well.
One of the most easily documented examples has been economic central planning, which was tried in countries around the world at various times during the 20th century, among people of differing races and cultures, and under government ranging from democracies to dictatorships.
The people who ran central planning agencies usually had more advanced education than the population at large, and probably higher IQs as well.
The central planners also had far more statistics and other facts at their disposal than the average person had. Moreover, there were usually specialized experts such as economists and statisticians on the staffs of the central planners, and outside consultants were available when needed. Finally, the central planners had the power of government behind them, to enforce the plans they created.
It is hardly surprising that conservatives, such as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Britain and President Ronald Reagan in the United States, opposed this approach.
What is remarkable is that, after a few decades of experience with central planning in some countries, or a few generations in others, even communists and socialists began to repudiate this approach.
As they replaced central planning with more reliance on markets, their countries' economic growth rate almost invariably increased, often dramatically.
In the largest and most recent examples — China and India — people by the millions have risen above these countries' official poverty rates, after they freed their economies from many of their suffocating government controls.
China, where famines have repeatedly ravaged the country, now has a problem of obesity — not a good thing in itself, but a big improvement over famines.
This has implications far beyond economics. Think about it: How was it even possible that transferring decisions from elites with more education, intellect, data and power to ordinary people could lead consistently to demonstrably better results?
One implication is that no one is smart enough to carry out social engineering, whether in the economy or in other areas where the results may not always be so easily quantifiable. We learn not from our initial brilliance, but from trial and error adjustments to events as they unfold.
Science tells us that the human brain reaches its maximum potential in early adulthood. Why then are young adults so seldom capable of doing what people with more years of experience can do? Because experience trumps brilliance. Elites may have more brilliance, but those who make decisions for society as a whole cannot possibly have as much experience as the millions of people whose decisions they pre-empt.
The education and intellects of the elites may lead them to have more sweeping presumptions, but that just makes them more dangerous to the freedom, as well as the well-being, of the people as a whole.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/541635/201007261911/Rule-By-Elites-Has-Been-Tried-And-Failed.aspx
Posted in Arrogance Narcissism Obama Thomas Sowell with 1 Comment
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