Liberty Vs Democracy

Here are variations on a hypothetical question I've been asking myself for the last few months.... 

Would you rather live under a benevolent dictatorship that respected property rights, human rights, and economic liberty?  Or would you prefer to live and work in a democracy, where the avid readers of People, Vogue, Duck Dynasty Monthly and The New York Times can vote themselves a chunk of your income and effort? 

Here's Richard Rahn at The Washington Times:

Would you prefer to live in a country that has:
  
(1) The rule of law with an honest civil service, strong protection of private property and minority rights, free trade, free markets, very low taxes, and full freedom of the speech, press and religion, but not a democracy?

(2) Democracy and a corrupt court and civil service, many restrictions on economic freedom, including very high taxes, with limited rights for minority religions, peoples and speech?

The first example describes Hong Kong under the British, which had full civil liberties, little corruption and the world’s freest economy. The Chinese took over Hong Kong in 1997 and have allowed it to continue as the freest economy in the world. As a result of the British being benevolent dictators and the Chinese largely continuing economic noninterference, with a number of restrictions on freedom of speech and the press, Hong Kong has achieved a per capita income close to that of the United States and higher than almost all democracies.

Many mistakenly believe democracy means liberty, but a quick review of world democracies show that is not true. Almost all democracies restrict economic liberties more than necessary. Many have corrupt court and civil service systems, inhibit women’s rights, constrain press freedom and do not protect minority rights and views. Iran, though a very restrictive theocracy, calls itself a democracy and holds elections.

That second example is a good description of what Bush and Obama killed and maimed several thousand U.S. troops to achieve in Iraq, BTW....

Liberty and Freedom are worth a significant sacrifice.  Democracy ain't worth a bucket of warm spit.  Hell, Hitler came into power through a democracy.  (A democracy with loopholes that made him Chancellor with just 37% of the vote, but a democracy nonetheless.) 

Here's Steve Hanke at Cato:

Most people, including most Americans, would be surprised to learn that the word “democracy” does not appear in the Declaration of Independence (1776) or the Constitution of the United States of America (1789). They would also be shocked to learn the reason for the absence of the word democracy in the founding documents of the U.S.A. Contrary to what propaganda has led the public to believe, America’s Founding Fathers were skeptical and anxious about democracy. They were aware of the evils that accompany a tyranny of the majority. The Framers of the Constitution went to great lengths to ensure that the federal government was not based on the will of the majority and was not, therefore, democratic.

The Constitution divided the federal government into legislative, executive and judicial branches. Each branch was designed to check the power of the other branches. The Founders did not want to rely only on the voters to check government power. As a result, citizens were given very little power to select federal officials.

Neither the President, members of the judiciary nor the Senate were elected by direct popular vote. Only the members of the House of Representatives were directly elected by popular vote. Even in this case, the franchise was quite restricted.

If the Framers of the Constitution did not embrace democracy, what did they adhere to? To a man, the Framers agreed that the purpose of government was to secure citizens in John Locke’s trilogy of the rights to life, liberty and property. The Framers wrote extensively and eloquently. On property, for example, John Adams wrote that “the moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.”

Perfesser Hanke goes on to describe the disaster that was Woodrow Wilson, who took a federal government that consumed around 1% of GDP and turned it into the ravenous beast we know and despise today.   I hope you'll hit the link up top and read the whole thing.  Here's his closer:

Almost 80 years later, the farmers are still sucking money from the rest of society and agricultural policy has been enlarged to satisfy a variety of other interest groups, including conservationists, nutritionists and friends of the Third World. Then, during World War II, when government accounted for nearly half the U.S. GDP, virtually every interest group tried to tap into the vastly enlarged government budget. Even bureaus seemingly remote from the war effort, such as the Department of the Interior (which is in charge of government lands and natural resources), claimed to be performing “essential war work” and to be entitled to bigger budgets and more personnel.

Within the U.S. government, the war on terrorism has given cover to a multitude of parochial opportunists, whose proposals range from bailing out the airlines to nationalizing vaccine production. As a result, former President George W. Bush — a so-called conservative — ushered in a record-setting expansion of government. This trend continues with the interventionist President Barack Obama.

What lessons can we learn? First, “democracy” and “freedom” are not interchangeable words. Second, only the first century of the American experience represents a standard for freedom. Expanding democracy is a slogan which requires great caution. It can easily result in elected tyranny. Freedom is the concept. Our challenge is to persuade every citizen that benefits flow from freedom’s practical applications. Freedom might then flourish in very diverse and unexpected forms in different parts of the world.

There are millions of Tea Partiers, Right-Wingers, and Gung-Ho Militaristic extremists who are willing to have our troops killed and maimed in the name of "Democracy".  Millions of these same people are equally opposed to letting immigrants into the USA. 

Why? 

Because they fear (justifiably, perhaps) how these immigrants would vote.  They no more trust Democracy than they trust a used car salesman. 

I've got no solution to suggest for this.  If somebody has to intervene in disputes, protect the borders, and provide a courts system, Democracy does ok.  But wouldn't it be nice if someone invented a religion, a mythology, or at least some really good propaganda, all based on freedom and liberty? 

If you've got time to read more on the subject, go here and here. 

Also, I bet Ben Franklin never said this or anything like it, but it's a cool quote:

 

We have a clear, stark choice ahead of us

To all delegates to the Libertarian Party of Texas State Convention:

We have a clear, stark choice ahead of us. 

We've had these words, or similar verbiage, in our national and state platforms since the mid-1970's. 

The Tarrant County (Fort Worth/Arlington) Libertarian Party recently participated in the Fort Worth Gay Pride parade, after taking part in the larger Dallas equivalent for almost a decade. 

We were very well-received.  You can't imagine the looks of undiluted joy in the faces of the crowd when we pulled this rig through Downtown Cowtown !

We actually won the trophy for Best Non-Profit Entry. 

Contrast that greatness with this, from the new Vice-Chair of the Harris County (Houston) Libertarian Party.  Yes, this is coming from an official rep of the LP.....

The stats in this thing have been discredited more times than "The Hitler Diaries". 

Pick a side folks.  Pick a side. 

On the places where Warren Buffett chooses to invest his money

Zillionaire Warren Buffett has been in the news a lot. 

First, he made worldwide headlines by complaining in a New York Holy Times editorial that he isn't forced to give enough money to our government. 

This is strange.  Anyone wanting to give more money to the government can do so by hitting this link, which gives you some helpful information, plus this address:

Gifts to the United States

U.S. Department of the Treasury

Credit Accounting Branch

3700 East-West Highway, Room 622D

Hyattsville, MD 20782

No New York Times editorials are necessary.  No complaining is necessary.  No righteous posturing is required.  All Mr. Buffett has to do is write a check for the amount he thinks he should be paying, mail it to that address, and his money will be wasted just as quickly as the money that Washington is borrowing from China.  (And if Mr. Buffett wants some publicity and increased stature amongst The Statists, that would do it.  The more rational half of the nation, however, would know that he'd gone stark, raving mad.) 

Or perhaps Buffett just wants other people to pay more money, but not himself.  We'll never know.  You can go here to read an analysis of why Buffett's claims about his tax rate are somewhat misleading.

Here's something else about how Warren Buffett chooses to spend his money, this time from The Wall Street Journal:

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. will invest $5 billion in Bank of America Corp., giving the nation's biggest bank a much-needed vote of confidence amid questions about the credibility of its management.What do you think? Will that figure shore Bank of America up adequately for a return to profitability? Is Buffett seizing a golden opportunity, or taking too risky a gamble?

Hmmmm..... This is a strange one.  You can go elsewhere on the internet and read that it isn't just the 5 billion investment that has caused Bank Of America's stock to increase.  It's that Warren Buffett, The Sage of Ohama, has taken a look at Bank Of America, thought about it, and declared BofA to be worthy of his money and his shareholders' money.  If Warren Buffett says it's a good investment, it's a good investment. 

Why would Warren Buffett voluntarily throw money at a risky proposition like a failing bank, but complain about not being forced at gunpoint to give more money to a failing government? 

I think it is because Bank Of America is probably a good investment, and a good use of Buffett's money, and a good use of the money of the investors who trust Warren Buffett. 

The United States Government, under present leadership, is not. 

Money talks, bullshit walks.  Especially if it is Warren Buffett's money. 

How to stop Global Warming

Global Warming Skeptics (and even some foot-washing snake-handling True Believers) have noted that there hasn't been any increase in earth's temperature for about 10 years. 
It's been incredibly frustrating for those who are trying to make money off of fluctuations in the weather. 
The planet just won't cooperate with the computer models. 


And now we know why....


Here's Gerard Wynn, writing for the Reuters news service:

Reuters) - Smoke belching from Asia's rapidly growing economies is largely responsible for a halt in global warming in the decade after 1998 because of sulphur's cooling effect, even though greenhouse gas emissions soared, a U.S. study said on Monday.

The paper raised the prospect of more rapid, pent-up climate change when emerging economies eventually crack down on pollution.

Where to begin, where to begin....
First of all, we have the National Academy of Sciences acknowledging that Climate has stopped Changing, and that the Globe has stopped Warming. 
Next, we have a theory that pollution is helping to solve the problem. 
Let's complicate matters further by acknowledging that emerging economies take care of their own pollution problems once individual income hits the $6-$7,000 per year level. 

World temperatures did not rise from 1998 to 2008, while manmade emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuel grew by nearly a third, various data show.

Wait a minute....What? 

World temperatures did not rise from 1998 to 2008, while manmade emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuel grew by nearly a third, various data show.


Wait a minute....What?

World temperatures did not rise from 1998 to 2008, while manmade emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuel grew by nearly a third, various data show.


I thought that's what they said.  Just wanted to be sure. 
The researchers from Boston and Harvard Universities and Finland's University of Turku said pollution, and specifically sulphur emissions, from coal-fueled growth in Asia was responsible for the cooling effect.

Sulphur allows water drops or aerosols to form, creating hazy clouds which reflect sunlight back into space.

"Anthropogenic activities that warm and cool the planet largely cancel after 1998, which allows natural variables to play a more significant role," the paper said.

Natural cooling effects included a declining solar cycle after 2002, meaning the sun's output fell.

So should we encourage 3rd world countries to continue pumping sulfur?  It seems cheaper than giving Al Gore tax money for perpetual motion machines, cheaper than giving tax breaks for painting machinery green, and cheaper than godawful carbon rationing schemes. 

The study said that the halt in warming had fueled doubts about anthropogenic climate change, where scientists say manmade greenhouse gas emissions are heating the Earth.

"It has been unclear why global surface temperatures did not rise between 1998 and 2008," said the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States.

It's also unclear why Jesus didn't return to earth on May 21st, despite Harold Camping doing bulletproof interpretations of ancient prophecy.  Harold Camping took another long look at his failed prophecies and kicked the can down the road to October 21st.  He's still in business, and he's still respected by his followers.  His revenue stream survived the May 21st disappointment.
 
Whether or not the Climate Change Cult can last remains to be seen.  I hope so, because as long as they don't get too much power, they increase my website traffic without doing too much harm to anyone else. 

You can't always get what you want, but you get what you need

This ultra-wholesome missive from Jim Messina, campaign manager of Obama For America, showed up in my inbox the other day:

Whited --

June 30th at 11:59 p.m. is the first big deadline of this campaign. At that moment, we'll close the books on this financial quarter and begin preparing our fundraising report to the Federal Election Commission, the press, and the public.
Our opponents are chasing Washington lobbyists and special-interest PACs for big checks ahead of the deadline. To them, and to most of the pundits, campaigns are all about how many millions of dollars each candidate can raise.
We disagree. Of course we have a budget and financial goals. But we believe that the true strength of our campaign is the number of everyday people owning a piece of it.
So we refuse money from Washington lobbyists and special-interest PACs. And rather than setting a goal of millions of dollars, we're setting a goal of 450,000 people owning a piece of this campaign by the June 30th deadline.
This report will serve as the definitive record of who was there to build this campaign from the very start, and you should be part of it. Please donate $5 or whatever you can afford and help us hit our goal.

Ok, all you retirees getting by on $8.00 per day, stop sending your money to Jimmy Swaggart.  Obama is trying to restrict his donations to only the most grassroots, non-connected, Washington outsiders possible.  Any widows with mites (Google it), please send them to Barack. 

A lot of people out there are wondering whether this campaign can inspire the kind of grassroots support that has been the foundation of our success. A lot of people out there are already saying we can't.

So we've got something to prove.
What happens between now and Thursday will shape the story of how the 2012 race began.
Help write that story with a donation of $5 or more here. 

Who the hell are these people who keep saying that Barack can't raise money?  Do they not read the newspapers or have access to the internet? 
And you gotta love the "we're only wanting $5.00 business.  It makes him sound like he's selling Girl Scout Cookies. 

And now for something completely different.  Remember, the Democrats are the party of the people, the party of the working class, the party that is protecting you from the fat cats and the lobbyists.  This is from The New York Holy Times:

President Obama’s $35,800-a-plate fund-raising dinner was the talk of Wall Street last week.


Held at Daniel, the Michelin three-star restaurant of Daniel Boulud on the Upper East Side, the event was seen as a test of the president’s popularity among the deep-pocketed financiers he has often vilified but has long relied on to finance his campaign. The tables were filled with moneymen like Marc Lasry, the billionaire founder of the hedge fund Avenue Capital; Robert Wolf, the chief executive of UBS Group Americas; and Mark T. Gallogly, a co-founder of Centerbridge Partners.

I'm sure those guys are flukes.  Hey, if flying fish are jumping into Obama's boat, it's hard to blame the guy.  But wait....

Mr. Obama’s dinner last week raised $2.3 million, outpacing an original projection of $1.5 million. And the Democratic National Committee raised $10.5 million in May, surpassing the Republican National Committee, which raised $6.2 million. The second quarter, which ends on Thursday, will give another glimpse of how the early fund-raising is shaping up.

Wow.  A whole lot of people have given the Dems five dollars (or more in some cases).

Here's Mick and Keef and The Stones.

Ayn Rand and Jesus and wanting to have your cake and eat it too

From Rational Public Radio comes an interesting essay about the two factions within the Republican Party - the Ayn Rand faction and the Jesus faction:

This may surprise you but I'm about to agree, in very large part, with the left wing Christian group American Values Network. They recently wrote an essay claiming that Jesus and Ayn Rand were incompatible. That you couldn't hold the values of both simultaneously.


On the surface, that shouldn't be a very controversial position. After all Rand was a notoriously militant atheist philosopher. With the rise of the Tea Parties, Rand's influence has been growing. Rand Paul R-KY assigns some of her work as required reading for his staffers. The Solicitor General, arguing before the eleventh circuit court that Obamacare violated the "constitution of Ayn Rand", but not the constitution of the United States.

After long decades of violent rejection of Rand, the GOP is starting to accept some of her ideas. Slowly, and incompletely no doubt. However, Just as the Republicans of old despised Rand for her atheism (see National Review's slanderous review of Atlas Shrugged) the left hates her for her unflinching support of Capitalism and Free markets.

Rand has risen high enough on the collective radar of the collectivists that they feel the need to counter her influence. American Values Network has released a startlingly honest and accurate attack on her.

"GOP leaders and conservative pundits have brought upon themselves a crisis of values. Many who for years have been the loudest voices invoking the language of faith and moral values are now praising the atheist philosopher Ayn Rand whose teachings stand in direct contradiction to the Bible."



Don't get me wrong, they couldn't be more mistaken in their evaluation of the moral status of Rand and Jesus. However, they couldn't be more right about the conflict between the two. On one hand, there is the mystical altruism commanded by the Bible. The purest political implementation of Altruism is Communism.

Hit the link to read the rest. 

An explanation of the lyrics of "The Star-Spangled Banner"

Have you ever had the experience of growing up with a song, having it become part of your sub-conscious, and not understanding or even thinking about what the lyrics mean until you are much older? 
I think that's how a lot of people experience "The Star-Spangled Banner".  How many people still know what a "rampart" is? 
There's been a lot of buzz about the song ever since Christina Aguilera butchered it during Super Bowl Disaster Week in Arlington. 
As a public service, I would like to offer an explanation of the lyrics to our national anthem. 

The song was written by amateur poet Francis Scott Key.  He was held captive on a British warship during the War of 1812, and had a front row seat for the bombardment of Baltimore's Fort McHenry.  As humorist Richard Armour once explained:

In an attempt to take Baltimore, the British attacked Fort McHenry, which protected the harbor. Bombs were soon bursting in air, rockets were glaring, and all in all it was a moment of great historical interest. During the bombardment, a young lawyer named Francis Scott Key wrote "The Star-Spangled Banner", and when, by the dawn's early light, the British heard it sung, they fled in terror. 

The thing requires a vocal reach of an octave and a half.  As many a vocalist will tell you, if you start off in too high of a first note, you're going to be in big, big trouble when you get to The Land Of The Free. 


That's all the preliminaries you need.  Here are they lyrics. 

O! say can you see by the dawn's early light,

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming,

It's morning.  The only light you have to see by is the dawn's, and the dawn's light is early.  Pointing out that the dawn's light is early seems redundant, but it was necessary for the meter and the rhyme scheme. 
We're looking for something that we saw last night, something that we were so proud of that we hailed it, even though it was dark (twilight). 
So an evening has passed.  Something was there last night, and we're wondering if it is still there the next morning. 

Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?

The thing we're looking for had stars and stripes, and it was capable of "streaming gallantly".  Do you know what the thing was?  Do you?  Give up?  Ok, the thing with stars and stripes, capable of streaming gallantly, the thing that was there the night before but could not be seen clearly the next morning, it was our flag !!

All through the perilous (dangerous) fight (for Fort McHenry), Francis Scott Key watched the flag from the other side of the ramparts (a type of defensive wall).  Got it?  The flag is flying on one side of the rampart, and you're on the other side in a boat with Francis Scott Key every time you sing this song.  You're taking part in an 1812 battle reenactment. 

Fans of the Dallas Stars hockey team put particular emphasis on the word "Stars" when singing the anthem. 

And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;

Remember, it is still nighttime but the bloody British are still bombing the daylights out of Fort McHenry.  What are they using?  Rockets.  Bombs. 
What do the rockets and bombs produce?  Glare.  Bursts. 
Why are the glare and the bursts important?  The rocket's red glare and the bombs bursting in air do nothing but provide enough light to prove to everyone on the ship that the U.S. flag is still flying over Fort McHenry. 
This couplet is a little jab at the declining effectiveness of British Sea Power, proven true later at Dunkirk and the overkill in the Falkland Islands. 

Fans of the Houston Rockets basketball team put particular emphasis on the word "Rockets" when singing these lines.  Fans of the Cincinatti Reds baseball team put particular emphasis on the word "Red" when singing these lines.  The remaining fans of the Dallas Cowboys football team put particular emphasis on the word "Bombs" when singing these lines, because that's what their team has done ever since coach Jimmy Johnson abandoned Jerry Jones. 

O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

The last two lines are less complicated.  The poet is simply asking if our flag with stars all over it is still waving over his country. 
And every time we sing the song, that's where we end it.  We never answer the question.  Francis Scott Key is stuck on the boat in Baltimore harbor, with nothing to eat but truly godawful British food, wondering if the flag is still flying. 
UNLESS YOU SING THE REMAINING VERSES, OUR NATIONAL ANTHEM MAKES NO FREAKIN' SENSE !!!! 

Look at the first verse of Martin Luther's "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God".  If you just sing the first verse, and nothing else, it's like you're singing a song about the power of Satan. 
Singing the first verse of The Star-Spangled Banner without singing the rest is like singing the Beverly Hillbillies song, but stopping before you get to the part where Ol' Jed's a millionaire. 

So why don't we ever sing the other verses? 
Give me time.  I'll get there. 
Here's the second verse, the one that ends the suspense. 

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,

Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,

I'm not sure if this verse is referring to the American army reposing or the British army reposing (haughtily).  I don't think it matters.  The important thing is that it's still misty and things are only "dimly seen". 

What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?

Now we're getting somewhere.  Something is blowing fitfully in the breeze on the "towering steep" hill.  Half concealed, half revealed....

Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:

we're getting ready for the big reveal here....what is it....what is it....???


'Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

I think I'm as patriotic as the next person, but I'm glad I got that over with.

So why don't we ever sing the rest? 
Because the third verse is kind of embarrassing, especially in light of the "land of the free" business. 

In the War of 1812, the British augmented their army with divisions of mercenaries and freed slaves.  These slaves were promised an opportunity to shoot their former owners if they would help out the redcoats. 
Heck, that's a bargain I would have probably taken. 
Now, look at the third verse in that light: 

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore

That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.

The British army stunk up the place with their foul footsteps, but we used their blood to wash the place out. Kinda militaristic and barbaric, but we've all felt that way before, haven't we? 
Now for the money quote:

No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:

Yeah, if you try to create an army with hirelings (mercenaries) and slaves (ours), then you're going to get what you paid for.  But by contemporary standards, bragging about a military victory over an army of freed slaves makes the closing couplet into a freakin' joke:

And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Oh...The...Irony.

Let's move on again.  The fourth verse has created all sorts of mischief.  The sentiments have been inappropriately placed in the mouths of our Founding Fathers, created lawsuits about The Ten Commandments in our courtrooms, and have even shown up on our currency.  As far as I can tell, this is where one of our American slogans makes its first appearance:

O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand

Between their loved home and the war's desolation.

As long as the freemen are (ahem) white. 

Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!

That would be a strong Constitution, giving power to the people and acknowledging that we are governed by our own consent.  Our government works for us, not vice-versa.  If higher Powers were involved, it was in pounding that basic concept into some of our heads. 


Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

I don't have time to deconstruct that one.  Gotta be at work in thirty minutes.  Let's just say that we've had a long, long run of Presidents who could find a "just cause" for war by looking into a kindergarten dispute about nappy time.   

And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."

It wasn't our motto until Francis Scott Key said that it was.  End of story.  Why couldn't the boys at Fort McHenry just sink his damn boat? 



And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave
Done.  Complete.  Explained.  Hope this has helped. 

Unintended consequences of the war on warming

The following post makes no sense.  I'm trying to make some kind of point about all the contradictions in various government ripoffs.  The task is so huge that I can't quite get my arms around it.  Oh well. 

They have finally backed themselves into a corner. 
The New York Holy Times, apologists for The Teleprompter Jesus and all his works, came up with a great excuse for last month's anemic job growth.

The snowstorms in January probably had some effect on the anemic job growth, given that the transportation and warehousing sector and the construction sector both shed jobs.

Here's a CNBC video on the same topic.  The cold weather is killing us. 

So....here's a shout-out to all my guys driving trucks and working in warehouses.  Don't even THINK about shutting your rigs off at lunch or break time.  Let those bad boys idle.  Forklift drivers, let your machines run all night. We have a planet to warm.  Heck, that's what they're paying us to do, right?  Hit this link to see that, yes, they really are paying us to run the forklifts all night.  Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to prove that we needed the forklifts through a Cash For Clunkers-type boondoggle.  But we're doing it to fight Warming.  We supposedly want Cooling.   

It all gets really confusing when the government gets involved in anything but Defense, Enforcing Contracts, and Intervening In Disputes. 
Doesn't it? 
Think about how freakin' great it would be if the government just sat back and stopped trying to save us by fighting warming, cooling, unemployment, wealth, poverty, weather, Arabs, enemies of favored dictators, The Non-Existent Soviet Union, imports, exports and unclean African genitals?
Think of all the money we could save if they just....stayed.....home. 

A call for civility in regards to Barack Obama

Because I still believe in a loving God, and because that stance assumes God wants the best for all of us.... maybe sometime in the next couple of weeks people will have mercy and stop discovering new contradictions in Barack Obama's truly godawful State Of The Union speech from last week. 

That poor little man. 

Go here for the latest one. 

Yes, it was a very, very bad speech, with horrific contradictions and mistakes at its core.  He didn't mean any of it, and no one in Congress took it seriously. 

So please, people, just leave it alone.  It was a horrible speech.  Leave him alone.  We only have two more years of this man.  Just two more years until he'll be replaced by a Republican who will use similar methods to do things that will probably be even worse.   

To continue picking at this foolish little goober when he opens his mouth is like pointing out the narrative impossibilities between the plots of Psycho (1960)  Psycho II (1983), Psycho III (1986), and Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990). 
No, they don't all hang together very well. 
They're not supposed to.  Norman Bates' mother and aunt and doctor couldn't all be the villain.  Norman couldn't possibly have a semi-hot girlfriend in the sequels. Not if he had really killed and taxidermied Mom in Psycho I. 
These movies were designed to take your money, get you into the theatre, and tell you an escapist story about a familiar group of characters.  Give you a couple of hours of fantasy and thrills.  That's all. 

No matter how entertaining and thrilling some of us might find Obama's speaking style to be, we can't shrink the government by expanding it.  We can't end pork by "investing" in more of it.  We can't change education by making sure it stays the same.  We can't decrease the regulatory burden on businesses by making more rules. 

Consistency and logic are not the point of Obama's teleprompter readings. 

Everyone knows this by now, so please stop pointing it out.  At this point, Barack Obama is like the guy who walks around with his pants unzipped and who does nothing about it, no matter how many people tell him to XYZ (eXamine Your Zipper). 
After a while, you have to assume that he likes it that way.

From now one, let's at least be civil about it. 

The picture of Obama as Pinocchio, which contradicts everything I just finished typing, came from The Militant Libertarian. 

My favorite contradiction in the State Of The Union speech

Here's my favorite contradiction from last night's State Of The Union speech. 
I woke up this morning laughing about it.
I gave it a passing smirk during the Michelob Ultra Marthon post last night, but I didn't have his exact text in front of me. 
Here goes: 

None of us can predict with certainty what the next big industry will be, or where the new jobs will come from. Thirty years ago, we couldn't know that something called the Internet would lead to an economic revolution.

Well said, sir.  Well said. 
But then he gave us this little gem:

With more research and incentives, we can break our dependence on oil with biofuels, and become the first country to have 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.

We need to get behind this innovation. And to help pay for it, I'm asking Congress to eliminate the billions in taxpayer dollars we currently give to oil companies. I don't know if you've noticed, but they're doing just fine on their own. So instead of subsidizing yesterday's energy, let's invest in tomorrow's.

Damn, I wish I had a crystal ball that worked as well as his. 

One other thing....it's becoming more and more popular to invent drinking games based on words and clutch-phrases that the Teleprompter Programmer has Obama say.  Reason magazine came up with a list that would've had the nation rolling on the floor with delirium tremens as soon as the speech ended.  Here's their list:

Here at Reason, we’ll be drinking to the following:

• Any mention of “competition” or “competitiveness.”
• Any time Obama says “investment” when he means “more spending.”
• Any time the president talks up American jobs, American workers, American innovation, and American infrastructure. (Double shot if he refers to “investing” in any of these.)
• False references to "false choices."
• Warnings about the dangers of “corporate money” or “corporate speech.”
• Complaints about “Washington lobbyists” that don't mention all the former lobbyists Obama has hired.
• All mentions of civility, partisanship, and the tone in Washington.
• Cutaways to shots of Congress-critters sitting with members of the opposite party.
• Declarations that the stimulus is responsible for economic recovery.
• Claims that the health care overhaul is fiscally responsible.

Reason went off the rails by the end of their list, but "competition" and "investment" alone would've been enough to send most of us into a coma. 

Hope everyone has a great, great day.  I'm going to go "invest" in two more espresso shots and get to work.

Glenn Reynolds on "The Knowledge Problem"

If no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?" -- President Reagan, Jan. 20, 1981.

Economist Friedrich Hayek explained in 1945 why centrally controlled "command economies" were doomed to waste, inefficiency, and collapse: Insufficient knowledge. He won a Nobel Prize. But it turns out he was righter than he knew.

In his "The Use of Knowledge In Society," Hayek explained that information about supply and demand, scarcity and abundance, wants and needs exists in no single place in any economy. The economy is simply too large and complicated for such information to be gathered together.

Any economic planner who attempts to do so will wind up hopelessly uninformed and behind the times, reacting to economic changes in a clumsy, too-late fashion and then being forced to react again to fix the problems that the previous mistakes created, leading to new problems, and so on.

Market mechanisms, like pricing, do a better job than planners because they incorporate what everyone knows indirectly through signals like price, without central planning.

Thus, no matter how deceptively simple and appealing command economy programs are, they are sure to trip up their operators, because the operators can't possibly be smart enough to make them work.

Later on in the essay:

Hayek's insight into economics and regulation is often called "The Knowledge Problem," and it is a very powerful notion. But recent events suggest that it's not just the economy that regulators don't understand well enough -- it's also their own regulations.

This became apparent when various large businesses responded to the enactment of Obamacare by taking accounting steps to reflect tax changes brought about by the new health care legislation. The additional costs created by Obamacare, conveniently enough, weren't going to strike until later, after the November elections.

But both Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and Securities and Exchange Commission regulations require companies to account for these changes as soon as they learn about them. As the Atlantic's Megan McArdle wrote:

"What AT&T, Caterpillar, et al did was appropriate. It's earnings season, and they offered guidance about , um, their earnings."So once Obamacare passed, massive corporate write-downs were inevitable

And there's more:

Obamacare was supposed to provide unicorns and rainbows: How can it possibly be hurting companies and killing jobs? Surely there's some sort of Republican conspiracy going on here!

More like a confederacy of dunces. Waxman and his colleagues in Congress can't possibly understand the health care market well enough to fix it. But what's more striking is that Waxman's outraged reaction revealed that they don't even understand their own area of responsibility - regulation -- well enough to predict the effect of changes in legislation.

In drafting the Obamacare bill they tried to time things for maximum political advantage, only to be tripped up by the complexities of the regulatory environment they had already created. It's like a second-order Knowledge Problem.

Possibly this is simply because Waxman and his colleagues are dumb, and God knows there's plenty of evidence that Congress isn't a repository of rocket scientists. But it's just as likely that adding 30 or 40 IQ points to the average congressman wouldn't make much difference.

The United States Code -- containing federal statutory law -- is more than 50,000 pages long and comprises 40 volumes. The Code of Federal Regulations, which indexes administrative rules, is 161,117 pages long and composes 226volumes.

No one on Earth understands them all, and the potential interaction among all the different rules would choke a supercomputer. This means, of course, that when Congress changes the law, it not only can't be aware of all the real-world complications it's producing, it can't even understand the legal and regulatory implications of what it's doing

He continues:


The bad news is obvious: We're governed not just by people who do screw up constantly, but by people who can't help but screw up constantly. So long as the government is this large and overweening, no amount of effort at securing smarter people or "better" rules will do any good:  Incompetence is built into the system.

The good news is less obvious, but just as important: While we rightly fear a too-powerful government, this regulatory knowledge problem will ensure plenty of public stumbles and embarrassments, helping to remind people that those who seek to rule us really don't know what they're doing.

If that doesn't encourage skepticism toward big government, it's hard to imagine what will.

I loved everything about this essay except the last sentence.  As long as politicians are promising free healthcare, money, salvation, chickens in every pot, etc., there will be those who believe every word of it. 

Go here to read the whole thing. 

The contradiction pics came from here and here and here and here. 

The New Republican Litmus Test

Here's The Washington Post:

Conservative Indiana Republican James Bopp Jr. on Monday began circulating a draft resolution calling on the Republican National Committee to end funding and endorsements for any candidate who deviates from three or more of its ten planks.

Bopp, an attorney, is vice chairman of the RNC; ten other committee members signed onto his call to arms.

There follows a lot of blah blah blah and "Whereas Ronald Reagan", and "Whereas the Republican party", and "Whereas we're trying to avoid another electoral meltdown", blah blah blah.....

I'll cut to the chase. Bopp wants RNC cash limited to candidates who can affirm their beliefs in at least 8 of these 10 agenda items. It really isn't a system of beliefs, it's just a list of things that irritate Republicans.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Republican National Committee identifies ten (10) key public policy positions for the 2010 election cycle, which the Republican National Committee expects its public officials and candidates to support:

(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama's "stimulus" bill;
That's a good start. Less government.

(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;
We're doing great. Once again, less government.

(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;
I can't believe it. The Republicans are for letting the market find less expensive solutions to the energy non-crisis. They're for less government !

(4) We support workers' right to secret ballot by opposing card check;
The secret ballot is the best way to ensure that there is no intimidation on the part of union thugs. And, as a general rule, less unions = less government. Go Republicans !

(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;
Hang on a second....a lot of those illegal immigrants are paying money into the Social Insecurity fund, money that they'll never be able to collect. Who or what is going to replace their contribution to the tax base and to the workforce? I don't see unemployed Wall Streeters applying to pour all that concrete or hang all that sheetrock. Oh well....the immigrants aren't worth taking a stand over.

(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;
Wait a minute, wait a minute....let's go back to #1. How are we going to have smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes if we're going to go surging into The Sandbox, especially when each additional thousand troops costs us a billion dollars?
I think we have a contradiction here. #1 and #6 might be mutually exclusive.

(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;
I support containment of Iran and North Korea too. Especially when the containment is being done by France, Switzerland, South Korea, and China. See #1. I think we have another contradiction in the Republican Litmus Test.

(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;
Once again, #1 rears its head. How can you advocate a "smaller government" everywhere but in bedrooms?

(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing, denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and....
Well, dammit, did they totally forget #1 ? Is the government going to eliminate ANY denial of healthcare? Are our county "charity" hospitals going to be required to do kidney transplants on indigent 90-year-olds? The market currently acts as a rationing device, BTW.

Was this list generated by dividing up into small groups, and then each group appointing a spokesperson, and each group got to contribute two items, no matter what?

(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership; and be further

RESOLVED, that a candidate who disagrees with three or more of the above stated public policy positions of the Republican National Committee, as identified by the voting record, public statements and/or signed questionnaire of the candidate, shall not be eligible for financial support and endorsement by the Republican National Committee.....

Wouldn't it be fun to question Republican candidates about their commitment to these ten resolutions?

************

The picture of people taking the loyalty oath came from here.