Publius

Corporations - To Do Big Things, you need Big Money

2011-10-05T20:28:00.000-06:00

To do big things, you need big money and a lot of people. There are fundamentally only two ways to accumulate big money and a lot of people: voluntarily, or involuntarily.

In the voluntary column, you have say Apple. It has accumulated some $80 Billion now through the efforts of its tens of thousands of employees, investors, and executives. It uses that money to invest in great new technology. Big innovations often require big money. Apple spends tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars, and the efforts of thousands of people to bring new products to market. It has earned all the money to do that, through voluntary, mutually beneficial relationships.

In the involuntary column, when the pharoahs built the pyramids, it was done by slaves, under the whip, worked to death with no choice in the matter.

Both "big" projects (the iPad, and the Pyramid) required lots of money and lots of people. But one was voluntary, the other involuntary. One was created through a nexus of the free choice of every participant; the other built from slave labor and coercion.

So, human beings want to do big things. It's part of our nature. Which type of society do you then want? Voluntary - or involuntary. Free, or slave? There really is no middle ground.

A corporation that unwisely invests its money, loses it. Through expenses - such as payroll, utilities, rent. While the people who receive these payments may benefit, they do so only for a limited time. It is not a self-sustaining social organization, it costs more to do this work (such as the debacle at Solyndra) than it generates, and it eats and consumes the human lives engaged in it. Continued against sanity, it would end in starvation.

A corporation that wisely invests its money generates ongoing returns. Those same beneficiaries will benefit for the long term. And the corporation generates profit, which can be used to invest in new ventures, generating even more economic growth, more employment, more value for everyone.

This is the difference between the government's recent "stimulus" efforts - which unthinkingly threw money at unsustainable businesses - and the work of (for example) Apple, which not only continues to grow, continues to employ more people, continues to produce more products, continues to produce more profits - not a dime of which was given to it coercively through taxation.

Since government handouts are often assigned on the basis of political favor and not true long-term economic benefit, ask yourself again: what kind of society do you want? Voluntary, or involuntary?

Government cronyism and wasted billions is the result of involuntary big things.

Corporations in a free market will produce voluntary big things.

Before you protest and attack corporations, be sure that you know what it is a corporation is, and how it works.

What is a Corporation, Anyway?

2011-10-05T20:27:00.000-06:00

With all of the little neo-hippies on Wall Street (and the President) bashing "greedy corporations", holding signs that say "A corporation is not a person", perhaps we should take a little detour from our political path to discuss what, precisely, is a corporation?

Indeed, a corporation is not "a person". That is obvious to even dullards such as the Occupy Wall Street crowd.

A corporation is a nexus of a number of people organized around a common goal. It is a type of social organization that provides incredible benefits to civilization.

Corporations align the interests of:

owners/shareholders/investors

workers

customers

Of course, the purpose of a corporation is to produce a profit for its owners. There, I said it. PROFIT. Profit is not evil, profit is not "exploitation". Profit is a goal of all rational, productive activity. Without profit, you are toiling in order to live hand to mouth, on a day to day basis. To profit is to produce more than your immediate needs - in a durable way that can be used in the future (this is one of the functions of money). Profitless civilizations are those that live in squalor, constantly on the edge of starvation. Every single person who works, does so to profit. You earn more than you spend, in order to save, so that you can buy a car, buy a house, send your children to school, to be able to continue to eat should you become injured; or just to retire. Profit is how we provide for uncertainties in the future. Profit is not evil; profit is one of the highest and noblest goods, it is one of the great achievements of our civilization. To accumulate wealth is to make your life easier, safer, more pleasurable.

But while that is the goal of the owners of the corporation, in order to profit, they must take reality into account. That reality is that in order to do big things, they need help. In addition to capital and vision, you need artisans, engineers, line workers, drivers, accountants, and marketing.

The beauty of capitalism - true capitalism, unfettered by government cronies, special favors or special restrictions - is that it is entirely voluntary. Noone forces you to buy an iPad - Steve Jobs isn't standing behind you with a gun. You voluntarily give Apple your cash because the iPad is worth more to you than the cash. You profit in every voluntary trade you make in such a society. In these trades, your profit is not measured in cash - it might be measured in productivity, in being able to do things you couldn't do before - but it is real nonetheless.

Similarly, the help the owners need - the corporation's employees - work through their voluntary agreement, which they decide on a daily basis. There are no slaves in corporate America, the socialist claptrap about "wage slaves" notwithstanding.

All these parties come together through this nexus, the corporation, trading cash, capital, labor and production, in order to achieve the things all these various parties want. It is a win-win-win scenario. There are no "exploited". Everyone who trades voluntarily through the nexus of a corporation profits, or by definition they wouldn't. Anyone who doesn't think they are getting a fair deal may trade with someone else. Think the iPad is too expensive? Buy any of dozens of Android tablets. Boss is a jerk? Get a different job - or start your own company. Or go whine on Wall Street if you think that will get you anywhere (it won't).

It's important to identify this essential nature of a corporation - as a voluntary assemblage of people. A corporation is not a person. It is, however, *people*. A group of people.

Just because some people choose to work together for a common goal, doesn't mean they magically lose their freedoms - their right to property, their right to speak their mind. Some would have it that corporations cannot put a political ad on TV discussing a topic that is important to them. But remember: a corporation is just a group of people. If you ban a corporation from political speech, you are saying that *this particular group of people is not entitled to its political speech*. That is no different than saying "We don't think blacks should be able to put political ads on TV".

It also doesn't mean that this group of people we call a corporation has special rights that individuals don't. They should not (though they sometimes do) get special tax breaks, special legislation, special treatment under the law. But in true capitalism, such would not occur. A corporation would have no more -- and no less -- rights than any individual. It would have exactly the same rights as its members - to speak, to trade, to profit, because a corporation is merely some people doing these things together.

In short - if I have a right to speak, I have a right to speak in partnership with someone else. The Constitution guarantees the right to peaceably assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. We have the right to do these things together.

Now of course, corporations do not vote. Voting is not a fundamental human right in the same way that my life, liberty and property are. It is ok to deny this "civil right" (which is to say, a privilege in the construction of a particular government) to the paper entities which are corporations. And I don't think anyone has suggested otherwise.

But allowing people to form corporations *specifically* for the purpose of raising money to spread their political ideas - this levels the playing field in the marketplace of ideas. Imagine a company formed to solicit $20 donations from millions of people, just in order to put ads on TV to support their political ideas. You might call such a corporation.. MoveOn.Org. Or the AFLCIO. Except that MoveOn.org and the AFLCIO oppose your right to do the same thing they're doing. They don't like the competition, and hope to use the government's power to *force you to be silent*. They are huge outfits that spend tens or hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Before the Citizens United court ruling, you had no chance to go up against them. Or even to go up against any bogeyman "big corporation" you don't like. But now, you can.

So, in a very narrow sense the Occupy Wall Street hippies are right. A corporation is not "a person". But it is people, who have the same rights together that they do apart. It is precisely collective exercise of individual rights that gave power to Ghandi, the US civil rights movement in the south, the anti-slavery movements in the 1800s. Keep that in mind the next time you think it's ok to muzzle "corporations".

The Moral Inversions of Barack Obama

2010-07-30T23:14:00.004-06:00

The purpose of government is to protect our rights, our individual liberty. Yet Barack Obama has turned our government into a tool to destroy the very concepts of individuals, rights, and morality.

Wall Street Bailout - companies that recklessly gambled with financial instruments they didn't understand, were rewarded with hundreds of billions of dollars of bailouts. Banks that were responsible and did not have problems, were forced to take government money and be subjected to government control anyway, and paid a price for bailout money that they didn't need.

States bailout - left-wing states such as California and Illinois which boast large welfare apparatus and progressive taxation, are the hardest-hit by the recession because their tax structures are set up to punish the wealthy, and in a recession the wealthiest are the ones who get hit the hardest. In California, the powerful public employees unions have engineered outrageous pensions and salary increases, while around them the economy crumbles. A large part of the Federal bailouts went to states like California, in effect, rewarding these unions and state legislatures for their economic irrationality. And of course the ones being forced to pay for the irrational state bailouts, are those states that have carefully managed their budgets.

GM - rewarded the UAW and GM management whose greed and poor product and marketing decisions led the company to bankruptcy. Punished Americans through higher taxes, who purchased cars from responsible companies. $50B taxpayer dollars later, they have produced all of 10,000 'Volt's, a $41,000 electric car that can go all of 40 miles. But they sure succeeded in buying the votes of a lot of UAW cronies for the Democrats.

Homeowner bailouts - The government planned on spending $75 Billion to reward people who irresponsibly bought homes they couldn't afford, and punished through taxation, those who lived within their means. Those who have scrupulously managed their personal budgets, and not squandered their money, in order to be sure they could always make their mortgage payments -- these people's children will now pick up the tab for all the people who did not act responsibly.

Gulf oil spill - The government's response to the BP Gulf oil spill, was to institute a moratorium on new drilling - to punish everyone who DIDN'T make a mistake, who DIDN'T spill a drop of oil, costing tens of thousands in the Gulf region their jobs.

Cap-and-Trade: companies which produce oil - which runs our cars and trucks, heats homes, is the source of plastics, clothing, life-saving pharmaseuticals - are evil. They are to be prevented from creating this incredible value (considered evil by Obama) by forcing them to buy the right to exist from Al Gore's "cap and trade exchange". This would net Al Gore and his cronies billions of dollars for doing nothing, while costing Americans a massive cost of living increase.

Health care bill - the key element of the health care bill is the new regulation that requires insurance companies to provide insurance coverage for pre-existing conditions. In other words, a person can fail to take care of their own health, wait until they are sick to get insurance, in effect forcing other people to pay for their lack of attention to their own body. Those who mind their health and take responsibility for their weight and nutrition, pay extra to cover emergency treatment for those who are fat, don't eat right, and smoke.

The whole shebang - all told, Obama is saddling future generations with many, many trillions of dollars in debt. This is the greatest moral inversion of all, saddling the unborn, oppressing future generations with the yoke of OUR irresponsibility and OUR immorality. They are the ones who will pay the price, in a seriously weakened economy, in a degenerate country which will make Greece look like a day in the park. Our children will work their whole lives to repay what Barack Obama is doing in these few short years, they will profit not from their own lives, and they will suffer from a significantly diminished standard of living.

The pattern of behavior exhibited by Obama's government is one of consistently rewarding the unjust, and punishing the just. Giving money to those proven to squander it, while taking it from those who have earned and saved it. From those according to their ability, to those according to their immorality.

Yes, I'm going to use the word again: immoral. A person who expects others to pay for his mistakes, is immoral. A person who expects others to fulfill her irrational wishes to live beyond her means, is immoral. There is no other word for it. And Barack Obama, the 21st century's biggest cheerleader for Socialism, is enabling this kind of twisted, topsy-turvy immoral thinking on a vast scale never before seen in America, when even the European Socialist states are beginning to fail and back away from the idea of the State as God and Provider of All Things.

But this is precisely the defining characteristic of Socialism. It is by design, and it is intended to utterly destroy the very concept of individuality. For what can be more individual than a human being acting according to standards of good or evil and to be judged accordingly? But people with a moral center are not people that are easily turned into cogs in the Socialist state's machinery. To create the mentally impotent robots that Socialism requires, morality must be redefined to be state-centered instead of based on the individual. The moral inversions of Barack Obama are precisely intended to destroy morality, to destroy an individual's incentive to rise or fall on their own effort, to turn everyone into a dependent of the state, to make everyone a slave of everyone else. That is the "equality" of Socialism.

To save ourselves and our children and grandchildren, to save our very souls, we must end this!

Liberals who proclaim the goodness of taxes continue to dodge them

2010-07-27T12:56:00.003-06:00

The illustrious John Kerry, loser in the 2004 Presidential election, is one of the leftists who constantly proclaim bromides such as "the rich are getting richer", "the rich should pay their fair share", etc. Kerry is among the most liberal of Senators, and any time a question of tax cuts versus tax increases comes up, Kerry has always voted for tax increases.

Yet, he is harboring his new $7M yacht (guardian of the proletariat that he is) in Rhode Island - in order to dodge massive taxes on such property in Taxachusetts, er, Massachusetts.

Kerry's dodge will save him nearly $500,000 plus $70,000 a year in taxes on the yacht.

http://wbztv.com/local/john.kerry.yacht.2.1825558.html

Kerry's comment: "I have nothing more to say."

It's a good thing that Kerry is fighting for the common man - by raising taxes on the most evil segment of our society, diabetics and disabled people, against whom he voted to sock an excise tax on medical devices. The disabled, diabetics, and people who need pacemakers will see the costs of these devices increase by over ***$4 Billion a year***.

Yet Kerry, who is married to a woman worth hundreds of millions of dollars, thinks it's ok for himself to dodge a $500,000 tax bill on his luxury item.

In the dictionary, the word hypocrite ought to have a picture of this guy next to it. Along with tax cheat Tim Geithner, tax cheat Charles Rangel, and tax cheat Tom Daschle.

1. Massive Excise tax on wheelchairs, pacemakers, insulin pumps part of ObamaCare:

http://article.nationalreview.com/412195/obamacares-medical-device-tax/deroy-murdock

The Real meaning of the JournoList Scandal

2010-07-26T12:56:00.003-06:00

If you have been following the JournoList scandal, you know that emails leaked from the list show that leftist journalists such as Ezra Klein of the Washington Post among others, collaborated among other things on how to tackle certain issues in articles and best attack their Republican opponents.

The response of these leftist wonks to these revelations have been more revelatory, perhaps, than the actual emails.

They are saying "Well what's more natural than a bunch of us 'progressives' hanging out on an internet forum?"

And from my side, of COURSE these people are all hardcore leftists. That's what we've been saying for 30 years, that the press is almost completely leftist.

The point is that journalism schools, and these people, have been defending themselves for decades by claiming that they are following all these standards for objective reporting.

And now we learn that in fact, they are working together to damage real debate by throwing around unfounded claims of racism against people they don't like - among other more subtle approaches.

Come on guys, it can only be one or the other. Either a journalist's job is - as you have been claiming for many years - to present the objective truth to the best of your ability; or it is to push a partisan viewpoint, have a healthy marketplace of ideas, and let the news consumer (i.e., you and me) sort out the truth.

Jay Cost of Real Clear Politics says this is just another step back to a partisan press. I agree to an extent - but I think it needs to be made clear that the press has never actually been non-partisan. They have merely *pretended* to be "objective", hiding behind "journalistic integrity", all the while pushing their leftist viewpoints.

Now that the man behind the curtain has been revealed, we will finally stop seeing attacks on Fox News as "biased", since they have now admitted that they are committed leftists and have been biased too, all along.

Well, maybe not. But can't I dream for a slight lessening of leftist hypocrisy?

Fraudulent KOS Polling Shows Leftist Head-in-Sand Syndrome

2010-07-09T16:53:00.000-06:00

Since Socialist ideology is in direct contradiction to many laws of realty, such as laws of human behavior, of economics, and of just plain common sense, you would expect that leftists must on a daily basis evade and actively disbelieve plain facts that are placed in front of them. This is why they will simply call you a racist or a liar if you challenge them on the facts - their beliefs are already arbitrary and not based on a chain of induction or deduction from observation. Everything they believe is based on a floating abstraction.

So when, occasionally, these types see a fact that seems to support their view of reality, they go positively hog wild over it.

Note then the responses in the blogosphere to the Daily Kos / Research 2000 polling over the past two years. The fact that the Kos polling consistently showed 10 to 15 points higher support for Democrats than all other polls caused no concern to these people - it only "proved" that polling firms such as Rasmussen were "lying Republican shills". (Never mind that Rasmussen has the highest prediction accuracy of any of the polling firms).

So for two years Kosheads have been going on and on about how Kos had the only valid polling. Anyone else who reviewed the poll results could clearly see that something was dramatically amiss with the Kos polling, even without the fancy mathematics that ultimately undid them.

While Markos Moulitsas did the right thing and fired Research 2000 and in fact sued them for fraud, what wasn't undone by this action was the innumerable stories repeated in the Drive-by media (sorry, mainstream media) based on these fraudulent polls, and all the conclusions drawn by people as a result of this fraudulent polling. Kos posters have actively ignored the fact that for years they allowed themselves to be misled because the lie was in line with their beliefs. Not one of them said "Oh, oops, maybe Rasmussen has been right". In fact they found creative new ways to call Rasmussen liars while placing a crown of righteousness on their own heads.

This of course ties in with many other socialist lies, such as

Doctors routinely perform unneeded amputations just to pad their bills (often repeated by Obama)
The poor got poorer under Reagan (proven false by IRS data)
Muslims only hate us because we've been mean to them

These and countless other socialist canards, which are easily proven to be false, are readily believed by these willing victims of untruth.

Now I'm not saying that socialists are the only people who make logical errors or are divorced from reality. But socialists do have a unique, near-universal ability to ignore any fact that contradicts their beliefs.

Reference:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/06/dailykos_poll_fraud.html

Comedy Central bows to Islamic Totalitarianism and Censors Themselves

2010-04-28T22:20:00.002-06:00

In an act of appeasement worthy of Chamberlain, Comedy Central has recently and repeatedly bowed to Islamic totalitarianism, by censoring themselves.

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2010/04/20/comedy-central-censors-south-park-episode-muslim-threats/

Comedy Central bleeped out all references to the Prophet Muhammad in Wednesday night's episode of the animated show "South Park."
...
In addition to bleeping the words "Prophet Muhammad," the show also covered the character with a large block labeled "Censored."

In response to this, Comedy Central keystone Jon Stewart, had this to say:

"The censorship was a decision Comedy Central made I think as a way to protect their employees from what they believe was any possible harmful repercussions to them," Stewart stated, adding, comically, that "after forcing many of these same employees to work on [Comedy Central shows] "Mind of Mencia" and "Crod Mandoon" … damage done. But again they sign the checks."

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/lachlan-markay/2010/04/23/jon-stewart-notes-blatant-double-standard-south-park-muhammed-censor#ixzz0mSaaC0OI

Jon, what an uncompromising defense of your right to free speech, to communicate ideas about things that matter. Jon, on a daily basis you belittle anyone you like, often in a hateful manner. But, the second your employer censors a real attempt to discuss Islamic totalitarianism, you roll over like a lap dog, "... they sign the checks."

We should all be glad that Jefferson, Washington, Madison and Adams had the balls of steel to stand behind their convictions. Apparently your balls are made of cash, and the approval of your bosses.

Some 'liberal' you are. 'Liberal' you may note, comes from a word that means 'freedom', but you have turned it into a word that means "Please don't beat me, master."

And to Comedy Central: now that you've opened the door, your content is now subject to the whims of any random Muslim whackjob that posts on the Internet. Way to go.

Blatant Hypocrisy in Obama's Health Care Circus

2010-03-15T21:49:00.003-06:00

At a campaign rally, I mean a health-care stump speech, in Ohio today, Obama trod out a poor victim of evil insurance companies.

"Obama planned to visit Strongsville, Ohio, home of cancer patient Natoma Canfield, who wrote the president she gave up her health insurance after it rose to $8,500 a year. Obama repeatedly has cited that letter from a self-employed cleaning worker who lives in the Cleveland suburb to illustrate the urgency of the massive overhaul."

And what would happen to this woman under Obamacare? $8,500 is where the 40% excise tax on "cadillac insurance plans" kicks in.

So Democrats in Congress are demonizing this woman for spending "too much". While the excise tax supposedly is to be levied against insurance companies, given their slim profits the only way insurance companies could afford the tax is to pass it on to their customers.

So this poor woman's insurance would not have been $8,500, but instead $11,900. That would sure help her out.

Note that none of the multi-millionaires to billionaires on the Democrat side of the aisle offered to write her a check. You'd think, since they are all about "compassion" that's what they'd do. But no.

Democrat Jared Polis (worth $160M) did not offer to help her.
Democrat John Kerry (worth $267M) did not offer to help her.
Democrat Hillary Clinton (worth $30M) did not offer to help her.
Democrat Jane Harman (worth $409M) did not offer to help her.
Democrat Barack Obama (worth $1.3M) did not offer to help her.

You see, it's more valuable to be able to use this woman for their political gains.

Instead, what all these people want to do is penalize her by slapping a 40% excise tax on her "cadillac" health plan. I'm sure Obama's poor stooge thinks of herself as a wealthy beneficiary of a "too generous" plan.

Obamacare has nothing to do with helping people get and keep medical care. It has everything to do with the Federal Government taking over 16% of the economy, and putting health decisions in the control of bureaucrats - more government union members who will vote Democrat. More American citizens beholden to the government and government power for their very lives.

Blaming Bush is all Obama has Left

2010-02-21T14:34:00.004-07:00

Over the past several months, the same independent voters who swept Barack Obama into office have been increasingly turning away from him. The tide of opposition has risen to the point that Massachusetts elected Republican Scott Brown to fill a seat held by liberal Kennedy's for over 50 years -- based on Brown's platform of stopping the Obama agenda.

Obama was elected because he told voters that he was a new kind of politician; that he would reach across the aisle and work with both Democrats and Republicans; that he would negotiate a health care bill in public on CSPAN; that he wouldn't raise taxes on the middle class "by one dime"; that lobbyists for special interests would be exposed and have no say in his administration. And, that he wasn't George Bush.

But Obama is exactly the same kind of politician; he has helped lock Republicans out of every step of the process in every one of his major initiatives, his lip service about a "health care summit" notwithstanding; the payoffs to labor unions and bribery to Ben Nelson of Nebraska were done behind closed doors far away from CSPAN cameras; his cap and trade and excise tax on health benefits plans will dramatically raise taxes on the middle class even though he thinks we won't notice so long as they don't have a big sticker on them labelled "taxes"; and his administration is staffed with lobbyists and insiders of the very Wall Street banking industry he is busy demonizing.

Obama has not simply broken campaign promises. He has actively worked against them with his left-wing allies Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.

The only thing he said during the campaign that is still true, is that he is not George Bush.

Even though that alone is simply not enough for independent voters, it's all Obama has left. And that's why all we're hearing from the White House, and from "progressive" apologists for Obama, is more lame blame at Bush.

The Hypocrisy of Liberals Knows No Bounds

2010-02-05T00:53:00.004-07:00

In 2005, MoveOn.org and many other leftists vigorously opposed the use of a procedural gimmick by Republicans then in control of the Senate, to approve one of Bush's judicial nominations.

As reported here in 2005:

MoveOn.org says of the "nuclear option":

Their plan is to throw out 200 years of checks and balances in the Senate, by silencing the minority party for the first time in American history. It's a maneuver so outrageous that even Republicans call it the "nuclear option." It will take 51 senators to defeat them, and the vote is probably less than a month away.

If Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist can twist enough arms to get 51 votes in support of Cheney's ruling, the minority party will be completely silenced for the first time ever.

Note the key claim: "the minority party will be completely silenced for the first time ever." In 2005, when they opposed what the Senate was acting on, MoveOn.org cherished the time-honored filibuster, as giving voice to the "minority party".

Yet now, in 2010, liberals/progressives/socialists are waging a campaign to convince the Senate to pass Obama's federal take-over of health care, by using a procedural gimmick called "reconciliation" to pass the bill with only 51 votes, bypassing a Republican filibuster.

So much for the rights of the minority party.

According to the progressives/socialists, it's important to respect the minority's voice when nominating judges, but if what you're after is nationalizing over 17% of the US economy, why, the minority should be ignored.

Shameless hypocrisy. Exactly what I expect from progressives.

Progressives' and Socialists' Hateful Invective

2010-01-23T10:34:00.003-07:00

You may have noticed Socialist Democrats, so-called "Progressives", using the term "tea-baggers" to refer to the grass-roots protests against the massive government intervention in our economy led by Obama, Pelosi and Reid.

The actual name these protesters have taken on is "Tea Party" - as in, the Boston Tea Party.

"Tea-bagger" is quite a different thing.

According to WikiPedia,

"Teabagging is a slang term for the act of a man placing his scrotum in the mouth[1] or on or around the face (including the top of the head) of another person, often in a repeated in-and-out motion as in irrumatio. The practice resembles dipping a tea bag into a cup of tea."

This kind of base insult is unprecedented in our nation's political discourse.

This is the hateful disdain progressives feel for people exercising their rights to petition, to assemble, and to speak. This is the bile that Democrats are spewing against anyone who opposes their Glorious Leader's attempts to steal 20% of the economy. Keith Olbermann, MSNBC's biggest cheerleader for socialism, recently said this, on the air, about Scott Brown:

"In short, in Scott Brown we have an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, teabagging supporter of violence against woman and against politicians with whom he disagrees.

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2010/01/18/olbermann-scott-browns-irresponsible-homophobic-racist-teabagging-sup#ixzz0dSVRF30V"

And this is the sad, sorry state of liberals, that their only argument against the Tea Party protesters is to make a snide, childish insult against them. The socialists have been reduced to foaming at the mouth. Of course, that's how they were taught to react, by a public school system that places political correctness and lockstep social obedience, above independent thinking.

The good news is that this is just yet another demonstration of the total intellectual impotency of socialists/progressives/Democrats. They really have nothing to say that is worth listening. The bad news is that a substantial piece of the population thinks the above counts as high-minded political discourse.

Some are more equal than others

2010-01-14T13:09:00.003-07:00

The out-of-control Congress on a runaway mission to implement so-called "health-care reform" at any cost has over the past few weeks demonstrated a complete disregard for the Constitution. In particular, the concepts of equal protection under the law and federalism are being completely run over by the Obama-Pelosi-Reid cabal.

First, everyone knows about the Cornhusker Kickback - special deals whereby Nebraska gets a free ride on Medicaid increased which will be paid by the Federal Government. Every other state in the nation, however, gets no such deal. The Cornhusker Kickback was a cynical payoff to get Ben Nelson's vote for the Senate bill. Yet many state Attorneys General have stood up to say this provision is unconstitutional.

Second, just announced today:

A senior Democratic official speaking on background told Fox News that the threshold for exemption would be raised from $23,000 to $24,000 per family but would remain the same at $8,500 for singles with high-value plans. Dental and vision plans would be removed from that calculation, however.
State and local workers and union members are exempted until 2017. A Democratic source with close union contacts said labor leaders are not particularly happy with the tentative deal, but are much less angry than they were at the previous plan.
-- http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/14/deal-reportedly-reached-taxing-cadillac-plans/

So union members are going to be treated one way under the law, while everyone else - you - gets to foot the cost of a 40% (forty percent) excise tax on your health insurance. And if you think Democrats in Congress won't simply vote to continually extend the special union exemption from this excise tax just before it expires, you don't understand how these people work.

This last is beyond deranged. By what right do the Democrats/Socialists in Congress pass a law saying you have to pay a 40% tax on your health insurance yet a union member with the same plan does not have to? This is a massive violation of the Constitution's "equal protection" clause. This is no different than saying whites have to pay 50% income tax and blacks 10%.

But Obama, Pelosi, and Reid don't care. They don't care that it's unconstitutional. They don't even care that it's a blatant violation of Obama's "not one dime of tax increase on people making less than $250,000" pledge, which he repeated over and over during the campaign. Yet another campaign promise shown to be a lie, just like Obama's lie about the health care bill being negotiated in public on CSPAN.

Apparently what Obama really meant was, "I will not increase taxes on people making less than $250,000 as long as you're in a labor union. If you're not, then you're screwed. Too bad."

They see nothing wrong with setting up specially privileged classes of people - because these labor union members vote for them. Obama, Pelosi and Reid will simply continue to buy the votes of the unions with hundreds of billions of dollars of your money.

Obama, Pelosi and Reid have dropped all pretenses. They are openly and blatantly looting the nation now and they don't care what anyone else thinks about it. Their goal is to get it rammed through before anyone has a chance to even read the bill. Once in law it will be very hard to repeal later.

We have to stop it before that happens.

Socialists hate Big Everything except Big Government

2010-01-01T03:00:00.004-07:00

Whenever socialists want to attack a business enterprise they don't like, all they have to do is Go Large. Make it Big.

Big Oil. Big Coal. Big Insurance. Big Pharma.

To a Democrat socialist, putting "Big" in front of anything is tantamount to declaring that object an evil of such magnitude that nobody would dare to disagree with them on it. (A variation of the argument from intimidation).

This is a Big Pile of ****, because they certainly don't seem to object to Big Government. Only Big business is evil, Big Government is ... well, something else.

This tells you everything you need to know about the Democrat/socialist philosophy:

Big companies get big and stay big by providing - through mutually beneficial, voluntary trade - what their customers want. To a socialist, this is evil.

Big Government gets big and stays big by mercilessly taxing its citizens, generally against their will, for the benefit of special interests, in order to buy votes. To a socialist, this is good.

This should demonstrate more clearly than anything else that the foundation of socialism is coercion.

I am Sick of Politicians Taking Credit for Your Hard Work

2009-12-31T08:32:00.006-07:00

It's happening already - politicians such as Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi are taking the credit for your hard work.

The past two years have been a very hard time for many.

We are now seeing some economic growth and growth of perhaps 4-5% is projected for next year (let's hope it's true). And guess who is taking credit for it? Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi.

Yet the government cannot create wealth. If the government taxes you to spend money to build a bridge and employ some people, it does so at the expense of the job creation that would have resulted had you been free to spend your own money. The difference is whether you get to act in freedom, or whether the central planner's in Washington's Politburo acts on your behalf - in a distinct lack of freedom.

Barry and Nancy are saying "Look at this bridge we built!" while encouraging you not to look at the hundreds of thousands of homes that were NOT built because of radically increased taxes and debt. For each billion dollars spent on bailing out the dinosaur GM, 10,000 kids could have gone through MIT or medical school. Are we now that short-sighted a nation that we are willing to trade in millions of human lives for a little short-term benefit? For every billion dollars in bank bailouts and prop-ups of bad mortgages, tens of thousands of small businesses will not be started.

If government "stimulus" spending creates net "new jobs" it is only because we are robbing trillions of dollars from our children to pay for them. It's not real, and it won't last. Obama's "stimulus" is simply more unabashed charges on the national credit card, nothing more than a delay of a much deserved hangover.

Yet in spite of the largest single unapologetic transfer of wealth in our nation's history, in spite of being robbed blind for political payoffs, we the working public are engineering an economic recovery.

To the extent we can (reduced by the amount being pilfered from our bank accounts) we are investing in our businesses, in reducing debts, in becoming more efficient. To the extent the economy is growing at all, it is because of your own hard work, the sweat of your brow, and the thinking and planning of your mind. For Barry and Nancy to take the credit for your hard work is completely shameless. Not only do they steal your wealth but they steal the credit for creating your wealth too.

But YOU put food in people's mouths, roofs over their heads, insure their health or nurse them back to health, heat their homes and power their cars, invent the technology of future. Through your hard work every day you make this country great. And through your work you are returning the United States to economic growth and prosperity.

YOU. Not Pelosi, and not Obama.

They owe you an apology. But you're not likely to get one. You will just have to grin and bear it while Barry and Nancy reassure you that they are the ones who know what's best for you.

Doing What Terrorists Want Us To

2009-12-30T09:38:00.001-07:00

From FoxNews:

The Obama administration is pushing back against calls to halt or delay closing the Guantanamo Bay prison in light of the failed Christmas Day terror attack, suggesting that shutting down the prison will undermine terrorist recruitment in the very network that claimed responsibility for last week's plot.

Obama is absolutely right about this. If we do exactly what the terrorists want us to do, they will all go home and we will be safe!

Complete and Total Insanity

2009-12-21T09:39:00.003-07:00

In a year when the Federal Government has already spent $1.4T more than it has - adding $20,000 in federal debt obligations to each American family -- Obama and his insane Congress want to double-down on the spending. Except it's not doubling, it's increasing far more than that.

Hillary Clinton promised to pay $100B to "developing countries to offset the costs of adapting to climate change":

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2351880

This is nothing less than a transfer payment to the 3rd-world, at a time when we can least afford it. When Federal deficits of $1T per year or more are projected through the next ten years, Obama and his cronies are throwing more and more fuel on the fire.

So the Democrats have now taken their philosophy of nakedly buying votes with taxpayer money, and are exporting it overseas. $100B is $1,500 per family. Since this wasn't included in any of Obama's budgets, this is on top of the $300,000 national debt per family we are looking at by 2019.

If this is not complete and total insanity, what is?

It's about American Ideas, Stupid

2009-10-03T14:36:00.002-06:00

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/03/obamas-olympic-failure-highlights-limits-international-appeal/

Aside from the question of why the President of the most powerful nation on earth, who should be focusing on winning two wars, removing obstacles to renewed economic growth, and a myriad of foreign policy problems spent time to go to Copenhagen to give a sales pitch for the Olympics, the result -- which has surprised leftist cheerleaders of Obama -- was that he failed.

The Fox article above says "perhaps his international star power has limits", but misses the point.

Well of course his star power has limits. And the limit is that many in the world hate America because of her ideas, because of what she represents. Hatred for America preceded George Bush and as Obama is perhaps now starting to realize, it exists after George Bush too.

The rest of the world cheers Obama when he denigrates and insults America, when he supplicates himself to the likes of Abbas, Ghadafi, Chavez, and Ahmadinejad. But they are not cheering Obama because he's not Bush. They are cheering the denigration of America. For the same reason, legions of leftists and socialist dictators alike prayed for the election of Obama. Throughout his campaign he insulted, assulted, and apologized for America and America-haters worldwide ate it up.

Obama doesn't understand that even though he keeps throwing Bush under the bus, that the animosity the world feels toward the US was not about one man. It is about us, our identity, our values and ideals, and the place in the world which we have earned through a dedicated, single-minded adherence to freedom.

Perhaps Bush reminded others more pointedly about why they hate us. But clearly we see that they hate us even with Obama in charge. Does Obama get that now? I pray he does, for if he continues to narcissistically think that international praise for him is about HIM as opposed to the fact that he badmouths and bashes America, his foreign policy will continue to be disastrous. And that puts us and hundreds of millions of other free peoples at great risk.

Where's the post-racial presidency?

2009-09-16T09:05:00.002-06:00

Many Democrats, and now Jimmy Carter, have claimed that opposition to Obama's government takeover of the US health care system are "racist" or "motivated by racism":

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/16/carter-racism-claim-draws-widespread-criticism/

This is complete and utter nonsense, Carter, and you know it. Yes there are some racists out there. Who cares? When hundreds of thousands of people descend on Washington DC to protest Obama's socialized medicine proposals, it's about socialism, stupid!

The real story here should be, why does anyone still pay attention to anything Jimmy Carter says, when he is widely held as the worst modern president? Why does the media continue to feature Carter prominently? Why do they seek his input and advice on economic issues when under Carter we had double-digit inflation, double-digit interest rates, and shrinkage of real income across the nation? Because he's a socialist and the media is biased, maybe?

The second real story here is that the supposed "post-racial president" is sitting back and letting his lackeys play the race card for him. He hasn't said a single word in opposition to these claims of racism. It seems clear that Obama is content to let others silence dissent through the argument from intimidation ("if you disagree with Obama you must be a racist"), while he himself pretends to be "post-racial" and above that sort of thing.

Did we expect anything other than the Big Lie from an administration that takes its cues and most of its key personnel from the Clinton administration? This is Bait and Switch in a big way, and the president's tanking approval numbers are starting to show it.

The Great Health-Care Debate Straw Man

2009-08-30T12:36:00.003-06:00

The socialist left has set up a massive straw man in the health care debate.

It is, in short:

"Opponents of Obama's health-care (wait, no, health-insurance) plan want to maintain the status-quo."

This of course is a straw man and a great lie. There are clearly problems with the health care system, or more precisely, with the way that costs are growing out of whack.

Nobody says the current setup is ideal. There is legitimate disagreement, however, about whether Yet Another Government Welfare Program is the way to go.

Obama says "we need a government insurance plan to keep the private insurers honest". Even assuming that insurance companies were being dishonest (which is clearly the intention of Obama's phrasing), why not open the insurance field to MORE competition by allowing insurers to operate across state lines? That is one solution to the issue of limited competition in insurance and one which does not require a massive new federal bureaucracy and entitlement program.

Obama switched from demonizing doctors and hospitals, which turned out not to be so popular; and has started demonizing insurance companies. These are the same companies that pay for millions of cancer treatments every year. Yes, those big, bad, evil money-grubbing insurance companies! We must "keep them honest".

The second aspect of this great straw man is, "the private sector has failed to deliver quality health care". Yet there is effectively no such thing as a free market for health care services.

The government controls who can be doctors, and arbitrarily restricts to MD's the right to provide simple treatments.
The government controls fully 20% of all medical spending, through Medicare/Medicaid.
Medicare/Medicaid result in massive cost-shifting by paying only dimes on the dollar of the real costs of those programs. That is the only reason these programs can be considered "successes". The burden is then shifted to private insurance companies, whom hospitals overbill in order to make up their losses from Medicare/Medicaid.
Government strictly regulate what insurance companies can do, who they can cover, how much they can charge. In many states, government forces people to buy coverage for things they don't need and can't use.
Insurance companies are forbidden from operating across state lines, further limiting competition
Virtually all health insurance is delivered through employers, which means individuals typically have no real choice of insurance plan

Yeah, that sure looks like a "free market". What has in fact failed, is the current methodology of layering government intrusion upon government intrusion with no foresight applied further than the next election.

So what the naysayers to the Obama plan want, is not the status quo.

What we want is the elimination government intrusion in health care, and more private-sector competition.

So all you socialists out there, put the straw man away and let's have a serious conversation about this, ok?

Paul Krugman: Cheerleader for Socialism or just plain ignorant?

2009-08-24T20:27:00.008-06:00

Paul Krugman always gets my blood boiling, because he is so self-righteous and yet so wrong. He writes in the pages of the New York Times, and talks about how he loves the proles and democracy - but unlike virtually every other media outlet, the New York Times has no reader comment feature. What Krugman really likes, is to pontificate to the masses from atop his ivory tower, and not have to listen to anyone tell him he's wrong.

And how wrong he is. In a recent New York Times op-ed (1), Krugman writes:

Washington, it seems, is still ruled by Reaganism — by an ideology that says government intervention is always bad, and leaving the private sector to its own devices is always good.

First off, Krugman like other Socialists just can't get over Ronald Reagan. They are still campaigning against him even though he's been dead for years. Earth to Krugman: Obama is the President now. Blaming Reagan for today's crises is even more daft than blaming Bush.

"Let’s talk for a moment about why the age of Reagan should be over.
First of all, even before the current crisis Reaganomics had failed to deliver what it promised. Remember how lower taxes on high incomes and deregulation that unleashed the “magic of the marketplace” were supposed to lead to dramatically better outcomes for everyone? Well, it didn’t happen."

(It's only "magic" to someone like Krugman who doesn't like the economic decisions you make and wants to replace them with his own).

Let's see. We went from the 70's, a decade of negative real GDP growth after inflation, to amazing real growth in the 80's and 90's.

Krugman refers to supply-side economics (the theory that reducing top marginal income tax rates stimulates economic growth) as "Reaganism", though it would be more accurate to refer to it as Coolidge-Kennedy-Reaganism, since all three of these Presidents enacted marginal tax rate cuts and with the same effect every time - turning stagnation or negative growth into large, positive economic growth. While supply-side is most firmly associated with Reagan, the negative impact of high marginal tax rates was known and commented on by Adam Smith in the 1600's.

Krugman may be good at math (though this is in some doubt), but he is clearly terrible at history.

To be sure, the wealthy benefited enormously: the real incomes of the top .01 percent of Americans rose sevenfold between 1980 and 2007. But the real income of the median family rose only 22 percent, less than a third its growth over the previous 27 years.

Yes, lower marginal tax rates were good for the wealthy. Duh! Krugman brings out the class warfare bludgeon early in his article. He mixes two units here, disingenuously: he compares the growth of real income of top earners with "median family income". These are very different metrics.

First off, I wish the socialists would decide which rich they want to demonize and stick with it. Is it the top 0.01%? Is it the top 10% Is it the top 1%? The top 0.01%, the targets of Krugman's current class attack, are 30,000 people. If 30,000 people increased their income by 7x I say good for them! We should not institute draconian, punitive economic policies just because Paul Krugman is pissed off at 30,000 productive people. So let's just forget about that, and go right to the middle class, who Krugman attempts to pander to in his tract.

So apparently according to Krugman, the 15% inflation and 20% interest rates under Carter were good for "median families". Krugman's history also fails in remembering that Reagan was not the President in 1980, and that Reagan's tax cuts were not signed until 1981 and that recession did not end until 1982. So why does Krugman include 1980 in Reagan's legacy? Paraphrasing, "never let a good recession go to waste". He includes it because it makes Reagan look bad, not because Reagan's policies actually had any blame for the poor performance in 1980 to 1982.

Krugman also compares rise in real income between two very different periods. The first period is apparently 1953 to 1980, the second 1980 to 2007. These periods are very different - the 50's and 60's were America's second industrial revolution - and economic growth is fueled by many things, but a large impact on economic growth is population growth. The US population growth rate has been steadily declining from its average 2% peak in 1947 and 1950, to less than 1% today.

But what is this "real income of the median family"? What the heck is that? Is he saying, median real income of families? Real income of average-sides families? He's pulling a fast one on us here.

First off, median household income data was not available before 1967. So what is Krugman using for periods prior to that?

Second, If we're comparing post-WWII to 1970, family income rose dramatically because women in the family went to work en masse for the first time in history. Income would almost double in any family where the woman went to work. By the 1970's that trend was largely completed, so clearly "family income" growth rates would decline accordingly.

Third, many people now choose to work part time. Many people have "enough" money and value free time more than additional marginal income - time to spend with family or other pursuits. While median family income growth has declined, median individual income has continued to rise unimpeded. Clearly then we are looking at information that says something other than "Reagan's policies don't work." We are seeing a shift away from both parents in a family working full-time.

Since we can (and Krugman does) play games with statistics and start and end points, we should look instead at the sustained slope (long-term growth rate) of family income. Note the "Real Median Household Income" chart about halfway down the WikiPedia "Median Household Income" entry (2) (2.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income

). Really, pull it up now, the chart is important for many reasons, but mainly because the data Krugman purports shows the failure of Reaganomics, actually shows its success.

Between 1970 and 1982, at the height of the Socialist/Keynesian government interventions Krugman so loves - price controls, rent controls, wage controls, massive regulation and intervention - carried through three administrations (Nixon, Ford, Carter), we had not one but four recessions. In 1982 the median household income was the same as it had been in 1970. By the way Krugman, it's this sort of data that casts doubt on your theory that "government intervention is always good".

But by the end of 1982, the economic miracle that Krugman claims never happened, began. The Reagan tax cuts kicked in, and by 1990 real median family income (adjusted for inflation) had increased 13% over 1982's low.

In 1990, Bush I raised the top marginal tax rates, breaking his campaign pledge of "No new taxes". By late 1990 we were in a recession again, and median family income dropped for the following two years. But 1993 the economy recovered and the miracle resumed: by 2000, median family income had risen another astonishing 17%. In total, from 1982 to 2000, real income after inflation rose 25%.

Is Krugman seriously comparing the period 1982 to 2000 to 1967 to 1980, and saying that Reagan's policies came up short? I mean, LOOK at it. You don't have to take my word or Kruman's word. The data is there for all to see - Reaganomics worked. Whatever Krugman is smoking, I'll take two.

Krugman ballyhoos the economic growth during Clinton while pretending that same growth under Reagan didn't exist:

"Moreover, most of whatever gains ordinary Americans achieved came during the Clinton years."

That's just dumb, Krugman. It's dumb because you ignore the same annual median income growth rate during the 1980's, it's dumb because you ignored the Bush I tax increase that led to a recession, and it's dumb because even though Clinton was in office, Reaganomics was still in power driven by a Republican Congress which kept government growth in check. Clinton did very little that wasn't in line with Newt's Congress (except sleep with every woman he could get his hands on).

Reaganomics did not suffer any serious setbacks until Bush II. While Krugman clumps Bush II in as a "Reaganite", he's dead wrong:

President George W. Bush, who had the distinction of being the first Reaganite president to also have a fully Republican Congress, also had the distinction of presiding over the first administration since Herbert Hoover in which the typical family failed to see any significant income gains.

George W was many things, but fiscal conservative he was not, and by 2002 the Republicans in Congress had gone astray and become just as bad as the Democrats had been before Reagan, spending like drunken sailors.

And here again, Krugman conveniently forgets that Islamic terrorists murdered 3,000 people and blew up tens of billions of dollars worth of New York City. The ensuing economic dislocation has nothing to do with overall poor economic results in the 2000's according to Krugman. No, it's all the fault of that Reaganomics!

See, Krugman wants you to confuse the specific policies of Reagan, with those of later Republicans. Bush made taxes the most "progressive" in 30 years by giving money away on the bottom side instead of taxing it at the top. But the effect on people's behavior is the same - people will not work for that which is given away for free. That was not Reagan's vision, Krugman, and you are disingenuous and dishonest for claiming that it was.

Finally, Krugman brings up the current recession, and blames Reagan again:

There’s a lot to be said about the financial disaster of the last two years, but the short version is simple: politicians in the thrall of Reaganite ideology dismantled the New Deal regulations that had prevented banking crises for half a century, believing that financial markets could take care of themselves. The effect was to make the financial system vulnerable to a 1930s-style crisis — and the crisis came.

The Socialists ought to decide whether it was Reagan, or Bush II, who caused the recession, and stick to the script. Their waffling on this issue is becoming confusing.

As a "nobel prize-winning economist" Krugman ought to know that the 1930's and the current crisis have something else in common - they were preceded by massive government intervention in the marketplace.

In particular, Barney Frank and his cadre of Capitol Hill do-gooders shoved requirement upon requirement on banks to give mortgage loans to people who in sane times no bank would have agreed could afford it. 0%-down lending programs have been forced by the government on lenders four times in the past century, with exactly the same results each time: skyrocketing default rates and a subsequent crash in the housing market. Congress is insane, by the common phrase "insanity is doing the same thing each time, and expecting a different result".

Washington, it seems, is still ruled by Reaganism — by an ideology that says government intervention is always bad, and leaving the private sector to its own devices is always good.

Krugman wants us to believe that Barney Frank leaning on banks and saying "Don't worry, the government will pick up the tab if anything goes wrong" is somehow a failure of the private sector.

But since we already know Krugman is bad at history, maybe we should forgive him this last of many lapses?

Not a chance.

Krugman isn't ignorant. He's a socialist, and the only way he can defend his ideas is by pretending that they haven't already failed multiple times in the past 100 years; by writing pieces which make claims about the results of Reagan's economic policies which are demonstrably false; and by blaming the private sector for economic dislocations caused by bad government policies.

Private enterprise isn't perfect. But it's free. Free people make mistakes. Government makes much more, much bigger mistakes, by shoving people around and replacing their judgement with that of some unaccountable bureaucrat's. What's good, is people being free to decide things for themselves. What's bad, is someone else forcing them to act against their will.

To the extent that "Reaganism still rules in Washington, DC", we should be grateful for it. As long as Reagan's ghost roams that perverse city, we will all be a little freer and a little richer.

1. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/opinion/24krugman.html?_r=1

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income

3. http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst?docId=5001685505

The Democrats' Health-Care Scapegoat -- and the truth

2009-08-16T09:10:00.006-06:00

Barack Obama just launched a sleazy attack on many of the companies that make it possible for most Americans to have and pay for life-saving medical care - insurance companies.

While this is the now well-defined scapegoat, they are still trotting out some tired straw man arguments too.

1. Health insurance companies are the problem!

After talking about "health care" reform for years, Barack has found his scapegoat - insurance companies. Now the pitch is "health insurance reform". Never mind the thousands of pages of government regulation of insurance companies, the idea of insurance companies as 1800's-style robber barons oppressing the medical proletariat may be fashionable, but it's total bunk. Few industries are regulated as heavily as medicine and insurance.

Barack's new solution, to make it illegal for insurance companies to cancel plans for any reason, will obviously cause a rise in premiums - just as the regulations forbidding companies from filtering out preexisting conditions caused a rise in premiums.

2. Opponents of my health care reform efforts are for the status quo.

Barack ole buddy, we are opposed to Socialism, not reform. Since every year brings more regulations and higher costs, perhaps you should take responsibility for your role as head of government, take a hard look in the mirror and ask yourself if there's a connection between ever-increasing government intrusion into medicine and insurance, and ever-increasing costs.

3. The free market has failed.

Actually, the free market has never even been tried in modern medicine. From the very beginning, government has controlled licensing of doctors, regulated insurance companies for "the public good", forced hospitals to give away free care to indigents, and shifted costs by dumping the Medicare/Medicaid burden on the system yet only paying for a fraction of Medicare/Medicaid bills.

If you want to see the free market at work, take a look at the explosion of walk-in clinics. I call these the "Wal-Mart of health care" but they are a clear identification of market need - walk in to a clinic any time, and pay cash for services. No waiting, and you can have basic stuff diagnosed and treated quickly.

We need more of that, not less.

The fundamental problem with the medical industry is twofold but comes down to the same thing: patients are disconnected from the costs of their medical care. This means they are disconnected from the pricing mechanism and as has been shown over and over through history, when the pricing mechanism is broken prices will spiral out of control.

1. Individuals don't pay for their medical care, their employers do.

2. Individuals don't pay for their medical care, insurance companies do.

This scheme has been going on since the 1940's. When it was a company doctor, it made some sense. But now there are two tiers protecting patients from reality.

I will give one example of this: America is now the fattest nation on earth. Obese people have 30% higher health care costs than non-obese *1. Currently due to regulations on insurance companies, these costs are eaten by the insurance company and passed on to everyone else. So fat people have no financial incentive to change their behavior, and the costs these people incur are passed on to others. That's certainly good Socialism, but it's bad public policy.

The other item that bears consideration, is that insurance by its nature protects against risk. But if the risk is 1:1, that is, if an event is guaranteed to happen, then insurance simply doesn't work.

Insurance can protect against cancer, or getting hit by a truck. But it is not a useful tool if you're going to the doctor every time you get the sniffles. It is not a useful tool even for routine medical checkups, because these costs are guaranteed and cannot be shared out in a risk pool.

A start to a true free-market solution to health care would be something like this:

1. Eliminate all regulations on health insurance. This will allow insurance companies to do what they do best - identify at-risk populations, and identify the costs of long-term care.

2. Create a national market for health insurance by eliminating state-line boundaries to health insurance companies.

3. Encourage individuals to purchase insurance directly so that it is not tied to an employer, and thus becomes portable.

4. Encourage individuals to take responsibility for their own routine care, by allowing insurance companies to charge less to people who demonstrate good practice. Want to lower your premium? Stop smoking, lose weight, and come in for your checkups every year.

5. To help ease the transition to a truly private market, change Medicare/Medicaid to a direct cash subsidy paid to low-income individuals, merging it into the Social Security system. Phase out over a 10-year period, including elimination of the Medicare payroll tax. Private and religious charity (including many hospitals) will take over responsibility for this. It can't be any worse than fraud-ridden Medicare, stands a good chance of being better, and it will be back to voluntary charity instead of 'charity at the point of a gun'.

This provides a system where even if you lose your job or move to another state you can keep your insurance, there is built-in feedback in insurance pricing to encourage good health practices on the part of individuals, and government bureaucrats have no say in anyone's health care.

See Mr Obama, I am not opposed to reform. I am opposed to Socialism.

Publius

* 1. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/158948.php

Cover your ears, Diana

2009-08-11T09:22:00.002-06:00

Congresswoman Diana DeGette of Colorado recently held an "online, interactive town hall". That's fancy talk for a "telephone conference call".

While I of course applaud the idea of elected representatives putting themselves in the middle of the crowd to hear their ideas, this particular one was fishy.

First, to participate, you had to fill out a form on DeGette's web site. Then, they would tell you five minutes before the event whether you were invited to the event. If invited, they would give you a call with the teleconference number. Then, they would offer certain participants the right to ask a question.

Some "town hall". This is more like an infomercial. Clearly DeGette's crew was screening participants in order to avoid tough questions. They then further screened questions. Nothing would be asked of DeGette that wasn't doubly screened and allowed.

This all amounts to Diana DeGette covering her ears and shouting "la la la la la la!" so that she doesn't have to hear anyone critical of her or her president's socialist policies. Nobody should be surprised, she's a big city socialist and this is how they behave.

Obama lied to us about a "new era in race relations"

2009-07-27T14:32:00.002-06:00

One should not be surprised, that President Obama has been shown to be a liar. This is because Democrats cannot be elected President in this country without lying.

Polls and surveys show that the country is consistently conservative, right-of-center, what have you. The majority of Americans do not want government run health care or any other form of liberal nanny-state.

Bill Clinton campaigned as a "New Democrat", and was elected overwhelmingly by voters who wanted to punish George Bush Sr for his own lie - raising taxes after promising not to. But the key part is, he campaigned as a centrist.

Of course, that was a lie. The moment he got into office, thinking he was secure with a Democrat-controlled Congress, Clinton began pushing a big-government liberal agenda, starting with the nationalization of health care. There was an immediate and violent rejection of this plan, ending in the election of the first Republican-controlled Congress in 50 years. Bbeing the kind of politician he was -- which is to say, pragmatic and having no integrity -- he immediately junked socialized medicine and pretended to be a centrist for the next 6 years, and took credit for the Republican reforms that rewrote the book on welfare, gun rights, a balanced budget and low taxes.

Obama is following in Clinton's footsteps, possibly because he brought a bunch of Clintonistas with him into the White House. So the Obama administration is doing the exact same thing the Clinton administration did, trying to ram through as many liberal/socialist policies as they can. This is the big lie, because Obama also ran in the election as a centrist.

The most recent example of the Big Lie, was Obama's response to the fracas surrounding the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. When asked about the incident, Obama immediately made the claim that the actions of the officers were "Stupid" and that this "proved we still had a long way to go in race relations". The answer, in short, was that of a race-baiter. Before he even knew the first fact about the case, Obama just assumed the police officer was racist and that the 911 call and arrest were racially motivated. He assumed the incident would not have happened, had Gates not been black.

But aside from putting his foot in his holy mouth by making such claims when he didn't know the first thing about what really happened, the facts are that the race of Gates was not mentioned in the 911 call at all:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/07/27/city-cambridge-announces-committee-lessons-gates-arrest/

So, Obama, this is your new era in race relations? A black man is the President and so now you can stand up there and put on the Presidential pedestal all your tired, dogmatic, racist claptrap about being oppressed.

You promised to be different. I guess that was all a part of the big lie, too.

Moveon.org Lies

2009-06-13T12:31:00.002-06:00

I know what you're thinking. You're saying to yourself, "Of course Moveon.org lies, Publius, everyone knows tihs."

Well, this is a particularly vicious lie. In a recent email sent out to Moveon.org members, Moveon.org elites including "Noah" had this to say about plans by the US Chamber of Commerce to oppose further acceleration of government intervention in the economy:

The right-wing lobbyists at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce will spend $100 million to defeat Obama's plans for health care and a clean energy economy. They call it their "most important project" in nearly 100 years.¹

Your local Chamber of Commerce represents small businesses, but the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is different—it represents the interests of mega-corporations, especially Big Oil and Coal.
-- "Biggest corporate attack on Obama yet", Sat Jun 13 2009

So Moveon.org is trying to paint the US Chamber of Commerce as a "right-wing arm of Big Oil and Coal". An organization that represents 3 million businesses is automatically "ring-wing" to these Socialist goons.

Of course since Moveon.org is the propaganda arm of the Socialist party, funded by mega-billionaire George Soros, one might say this is the pot calling the kettle black.

Aside from playing their usual Socialist card of divisive politics ("Big Oil is Big and therefore inherently evil even though the industry employs millions and fuels our entire economy!"), their claims are quite simply factually wrong.

The US Chamber of Commerce is a Chamber organization operating at a national level, with both direct members and local Chambers as members:

Representing your ideas—and interests—in Washington for nearly a century.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the world's largest business federation representing 3 million businesses of all sizes, sectors, and regions, as well as state and local chambers and industry associations. More than 96% of U.S. Chamber members are small businesses with 100 employees or fewer.
-- http://www.uschamber.com/about/default.htm

That's very different from Moveon.org's claim that the US Chamber is "run by big oil". The facts have never stopped these guys of course. Noah, etc., you are a liar.

Moveon.org and the Socialists they represent don't like small business. They hate all business, because business represents individual rights, individual initiative, and most importantly - people making their own decisions without their god Obama having a say in it.

History shows that they will start with the big fish like so-called "Big Oil and Coal" and once they're gone they will aim their sights at YOU.

Congratulations and Kudos to the US Chamber for their initiative, and best of luck to you! Businessmen are a persecuted minority in this country.

Democrat Hypocrisy Knows No Bounds at Guantanamo

2009-05-20T11:03:00.004-06:00

Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader, all of a sudden is concerned about what happens to the detainees currently housed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/Story?id=7633754&page=3

Virginia Sen. Jim Webb -- whose state would likely host detainees if they were to be tried in the American criminal justice system instead of on Cuba -- said Sunday on "This Week With George Stephanopoulos" that he would not support bringing detainees stateside. "I think Guantanamo has become the great Rorschach test of how we feel about international terrorism. We should at the right time close Guantanamo, but I don't think that it should be closed in terms of transferring people here," he said.

So, "we need to close Guantanamo but not if we, um, have to send these people anywhere else". Way to contradict yourself in the same sentence, Jim Webb. This is the single largest display of stupidity I've seen this year.

Thus after years of united Democrat harping against George Bush for setting up Guantanamo and housing captured terrorists there, complaining that prisoners of war aren't getting their "constitutional rights", etc ad naseum, all of the sudden, Democrats are united against having terrorists in their own backyard - and, um, maybe we should just keep them there for now.

The best solution they have come up with is, "Let's get Switzerland to take them!" Seriously. Talk about your international insults. "These people are so dangerous we cannot imprison them in the US, certainly not in my district.. so how about you take them, Switzerland? Please?" That is hypocrisy and astoundingly ridiculous.

This is similar to the environmentalist ranting that "we need alternative energy including wind power!" but then fight actual wind farm installations. I.e., "not in my backyard".

Of course, Democrats also want more and more and more government - as long as someone else pays for it. So you are beginning to see the trend here: Dems want other people to solve their problems for them.

George Bush knew full well that it was foolish and dangerous to house captured terrorists inside the United States. They set up a special prison in Guantanamo for exceptional physical security - Cuba is an island, sort of a super-Alcatraz. But Bush also recognized that these captured terrorists fell neither under US criminal law nor under the Geneva Convention - Al Qaeda never signed it and do not abide by it. Bush knew that if we housed these terrorists in a prison in the US that it wouldn't be long before some ACLU busybody who can't think consequences past the end of their nose, would be hooking up with leftist federal judges and having these people released on habeus corpus* in no time.

And in fact that is now clearly the concern expressed by Democrats - after years of hypocritical harping about how "Bush is ruining our image in the world", all the sudden they are concerned about the problems that Bush saw -- and solved with Guantanamo.

"If we can safely hold these individuals, I believe we can safely hold any Guantanamo detainees who need to be held," said [Dick] Durbin on the Senate floor.

Dick, you know full and bloody well that this isn't just about prison security. This is primarily about these terrorist murderers getting released by pansy liberal judges.

Let me be clear: this hypocrisy by Democrats is moral cowardice on a grand scale. Either you believe that they should be treated as mere criminals, in which case they need to be immediately transferred to US prisons, and take the consequences; or you believe that they are dangerous POWs that while technically are not protected under the Geneva Convention are being held according to those standards anyway and ought to stay put in the very sensible special prison George Bush set up for them.

* Note to bleeding-hearts: prisoners of war have no habeus corpus rights under any international law or treaty, including the Geneva Convention. Period. We are allowed to hold them until the war is over - i.e. until they are no longer considered a threat.

Who exactly are the "swine" in the swine flu?

2009-05-13T23:43:00.003-06:00

Having just returned from a week-long trip to Mexico (Baja), it was instructive to note the devastation caused by the recent reckless fearmongering by the media, the Mexican government, and -- not to be left out of any opportunities to mislead the American public -- the US Government.

Schools closed. Sporting events canceled. Restaurants and other public venues forced to shut down. Vacationers and business travelers by the hundreds of thousands cancel flights and hotels. You'd think it's the end of the world. By the way the media is still talking, it is the end of the world.

But aside from the sparse tourist density, it was largely business-as-usual in Mexico, if you don't count the corpses piled waist-high in the streets. Oh, sorry, that's "Shawn of the Dead". No, seriously, it was business as usual, as much as it could be.

Our flight, full with 140-150 people when we originally booked it, only had 40 souls aboard. The Mexican tourist industry, already hurting from the global economic slowdown, is in tatters. The US airline industry, also hurting from the slowdown, is being beaten black and blue. Over what? A sham, a lie, a baseless hysteria? It now seems likely.

From day 1 of this whole affair, the US Government immediately told people not to go to Mexico. In fact, weeks later, even though it is totally clear that there is nothing special at all about this flu, the US government still has a travel advisory active for all of Mexico. At no time has anyone, not the US government, not the Mexican government, and no-one in the media, provided definitive proof that the swine flu is either more deadly, or more contagious than any other flu. That being the case, where's the fire? The flames are being fanned to this day, weeks later. Why?

The level of abject unreason throughout this whole affair is staggering. I have never seen so many people fail to ask even basic questions -- by people whose job it's supposed to be to ask good questions. All news articles say is the same thing the CDC has posted for regular influenza. "Symptoms include headache, aches, fever." The CDC does not state, "symptoms are more severe". Because they're not. the CDC does not say "Much higher-than-normal fatality rate" - because there isn't.

Advising against travel to all Mexico is highly irrational, sensationalist, and utterly irresponsible. Most of the cases have been in Mexico City. To tell people not to go to Baja, is like telling them to avoid Seattle because some people in Kansas City have the flu.

There is still conflicting information about whether all 100ish of the fatalities in Mexico were actually caused by the flu, by opportunistic infections, or by something else entirely. Only 7 of the "suspected" 100+ deaths were definitively shown to have had the flu.

Seven. Worldwide hysteria and economic dislocation over seven deaths.

One possibility for why the US and US media whipped up swine flu hysteria, is a wag-the-dog hypothesis. In the heat of the swine flu "pandemic" reporting, the US House passed a $3.4 Trillion budget - with a staggering multi-Trillion dollar deficit. The White House certainly had good reason to want to distract attention away from its efforts to place the next several generations of Americans into indentured servitude.

While that is possible, there is another, simpler explanation. Bureaucrats the world over periodically need to justify their jobs.

So why does Richard Besser need to talk this way? To justify his job. His job is to keep Congress funding the CDC, and to increase that funding every year. "There's nothing to worry about" does not do that.

So why does the World Health Organization talk this way? They're hoping people will remember they exist.

So why does the media keep talking this way? The media needs to sell newspapers, and "There's nothing to worry about" does not sell newspapers. (This is, by the way, everything that's wrong with the modern media, but that's a different topic).

So why does Mexico keep thumping the drums of hysteria? Well actually, they've stopped. They would very much like things to return to normal, but are wondering why the rest of the world isn't paying attention, isn't noticing that there's nothing (particularly) wrong.

In the media, the intense hysteria was directly caused by writing such as this (highlights are mine, pointing out words that make this article a great example of sensationalist yellow journalism:)

"WASHINGTON — As the number of confirmed U.S. swine flu cases jumped from 45 to 64 on Tuesday, a federal health official said it's only a matter of time before the highly contagious disease claims its first American fatality.
"As we continue to investigate cases here, I expect that we will see deaths in this country," said Richard Besser , the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , during a press conference on Tuesday.

Besser's prediction reflects the growing threat posed by the mysterious swine flu virus and the inability of health officials both here and abroad to contain its spread."
--By Tony Pugh and William Douglas, McClatchy Newspapers

This is supposed to be a news article written by, you know, journalists. Yet the article is written as if it is a novel, chock full of words full of emotional content, but little fact.

"Highly contagious" is a matter of perspective. Ordinary, every-day influenza in general is highly contagious and almost always results in some fatalities - among the old, the very young, the immuno-compromised. The regular flu claims 36,000 lives a year -- in the United States alone.

"I expect that we will see deaths in this country". Yes, but in no higher proportion than regular influenza and in far less numbers than other maladies. There were 35000 car accident fatalities last year. You can expect people to die from lightning strikes too, and I bet if you say that without qualification or context, you can scare the crap out of people too. "Deaths by lightning strikes increase by 20%! Scientists have no explanation for mysterious increase." Something like that, isn't that scary? In 2006 there were 47 lightning fatalities, which makes this slightly more likely than being killed by a meteor strike, and significantly more likely than dying of swine flu in the United States.

As for "mysterious swine flu virus", do I even need to dignify this with a response? Do newspapers still employ editors? Or is that a dumb question since newspapers now quote blogs without fact-checking them?

I'm picking on this one article but they've all been more or less the same, with few exceptions.

I am here to tell you now, that this white man has traveled to Mexico and has returned alive. (There were 40 of us on the return flight, too, and none of them appeared to be corpses, either). I exhort you: take advantage of the extremely low airfare and hotel rates right now and enjoy our neighbor to the south. (Take sunblock. Ouch.)

It's possible, I suppose, that this flu outbreak will in fact be the next one to kill millions of people. But it seems so far at least, that this time everyone cried wolf. If we remember the fable, the next time we may all suffer for it.

The only real solution for this sort of thing, of course, is for people like you and me to 1) not automatically trust what the government or media tell us, 2) to be skillful in healthy skeptical reasoning, and 3) if someone tells you the world is about to end, whether they're a religious nut or the head of the CDC, they're probably trying to sell you something.

Many questions remain about why the media and US government are still crying wolf. What indeed is being sold and who's going to be stuck with the bill?

Publius

Additional References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_outbreak

Outlines serious faults with the data underlying much of the hysteria, e.g. only 7 100% confirmed deaths due to the flu in Mexico, the rest being "suspected". What does that mean? Also, no idea how many people in Mexico had the virus but "assumed high mortality rate". Probably many thousands of Mexicans have had it, got over it, didn't bother to go to the doctor in any case.

Photo from Cabo San Lucas: This measures pretty well the concern about the "swine flu" in general in Cabo.

Obama Administration's head firmly in sand.

2009-03-30T19:58:00.002-06:00

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/03/30/clinton-administration-stopped-using-war-terror-term/

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- The phrase "global war on terror" is finished, at least as far as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is concerned.

Obama and his cabinet now have their heads firmly in the sand and are ignoring the fact that we are at war across the globe with radical Islam. Pretending the war doesn't exist won't make it go away. A shift to political correctness by not using the term "war" doesn't mean bin Laden and his ilk want to kill us any less. There is a reason terrorist leaders around the world hoped for Obama's election - they now know the heat is off, and who knows what manner of appeasement is on the table.

Obama and Clinton hope to buy peace by "being nice". This is now a consistent policy, with absolutely zero response to the planned launch of a North Korean ICBM that can reach Hawaii, with no response to Iran's utter dismissal of the Obama "hey let's be friends" video, with no response or statement of policy on the Islamic nutjobs at war with us.

This appeasement will of course end as all appeasements of murderous thugs have ended in history, with more dead innocents and a much harder task ahead of us to defeat them in the future. Of course Obama has no intention of defeating them, he wants to be friends with them.

The Islamic dogs will surely now be hunting the US rabbit. Hold on, folks, it's going to get ugly.

Pelosi should be excommunicated

2009-02-18T11:57:00.002-07:00

Let me start by noting that I am neither a Catholic nor a Democrat. (A chuckle from my friends). I am a supporter of abortion rights.

But this comes down to what you believe in. Pelosi claims to be a god-fearing Catholic but supports abortion rights. The pope says, "God does not support abortion rights and neither do Catholics".

Interestingly, while the Pope could and should excommunicate Pelosi and others from the church, he does not.

Also interestingly, Pelosi (and others) should voluntarily leave the church since her beliefs differ from the church's on such a core issue.

Perhaps the Pope worries that kicking out Pelosi would cause others of his flock to leave. Perhaps Pelosi worries if she quits she will lose some of her flock who vote for her because she claims to be (however marginally) a "good Catholic".

Either way, there is a lot of pragmatism going around and not enough attention to principles - which is of course the Democrat disease.

Democrats are Tax Hypocrites

2009-02-01T12:41:00.003-07:00

So, the Democrats are always bandying about slogans such as "the rich get richer, the poor get poorer", "The rich ought to pay their fair share of taxes", and "We need to sacrifice (through higher taxes) in order to get our country on the right track."

So, two prominent Democrats that Obama wants to put in charge of Federal agencies have been caught red-handed not paying their taxes.

Tom Daschle owed $140,000 in back taxes and interest.

"Daschle reportedly waited nearly a month after being nominated to be secretary of health and human services before informing President Obama that he had not paid years of back taxes."

Timothy Geithner is now our treasury secretary, yet:

Timothy Geithner's nomination for treasury secretary, held up after it was revealed that he had failed to pay more than $34,000 in taxes, eventually was confirmed by a 60-34 vote.

Democrats love raising taxes on other people, then decide they themselves don't need to pay them. They talk about paying higher and ever-higher taxes as if they are a moral obligation, yet they themselves don't pay them.

So, let's assume that these were all honest mistakes. It's possible (even though these people routinely pound their fists on the table about how they have a right to take your money).

This shows that even for the Democrats, who love to tax and tax and tax, the tax code is so complex, and tax compliance is such an effort, that they can't even do it right.

In a sane universe, that would be a clear indication of a problem and a call to action to simplify the tax code.

But that's not likely to happen as Democrats now use the tax code to engineer redistribution of wealth. The tax code will only get more complex, and more unfair as people begin getting refunds and "credits" when they never paid taxes in the first place.

A most disgusting display of distraction

2009-01-11T11:55:00.003-07:00

Governor of Illinois Rod Blagoyevich gave a press conference after his impeachment by the Illinois House. It was a spectacle, involving using a bunch of poor schmucks as his political tools, crassly parading Illinois citizens as his own political shield.

He spoke about everything except the charges against him, basically attempting to distract attention away from his attempts to sell Obama's senate seat, by listing supposed accomplishments of his administration.

That most of those accomplishments involved him doing an end-run around the law and against the intent of the legislature seems not to be a big deal to him.

Blagoyevich is a clear example of the "imperial executive", that which people often claimed Bush was, but which Blagoyevich actually is. It is not surprising that it's a Democrat who acts the king, since Democrats believe that the power of government is supreme over the individual and that it is right and proper to use government power (coercion) to do what they believe is in people's best interests.

It is heartening that even the Democrat party in Illinois is willing to buck the power of the Chicago machine in the guise of Blagoyevich. Impeachment and a federal conviction seems certain. It is also certain that Blagoyevich's arrogance will not be swayed by either of these, but that won't be our problem any more.

At any rate, add a very large name and a very large checkmark to the Democrat Hall of Shame. Ethics Smethics.

Next in line: Bill Richardson.

Stink at the Capitol

2008-12-02T13:47:00.004-07:00

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2008/12/02/reid-capitol-visitor-center-minimie-smell-tourists/

"He referenced House Minority Leader John Boehner's comments about the long lines of tourists that stream into the Capitol complex, and said: "In the summertime, because (of) the high humidity and how hot it gets here, you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol."

Apparently, Harry Reid is confusing the smell of the sweat of tourists, with the stench of Congressional corruption.

Of course, Harry Reid is a socialist elitist. The Mel Brooks line, "Sir, the peasants are revolting!", "Yes, they certainly are!" applies here. Harry Reid thinks it's funny to accuse the people who elected him of smelling foul, when he sits in his Congressional office every day, taking those people's money and voting for laws that daily take more of their freedoms away.

Stench, indeed.

The young demographic will overwhelmingly elect Obama!

2008-09-12T01:19:00.002-06:00

This is an argument I keep hearing. I heard it in 2004 and 2006. While 2006 resulted in some gains for the Democrats it was not the anti-war landslide the pundits were predicting.

So, Democrats are getting people registered. Lots of young people. "We're going to win this election, see how many people we're registering!"

The capacity of young, wide-eyed energetic liberal types for self-delusion never ceases to amaze me.

Unfortunately for them, logic will prevail: Trouble is, young people generally don't show up to vote. They talk and talk and talk particularly about how much they hate Republicans (until they grow up to be one) and can't we just love each other. But when it comes time to actually vote, they are usually too busy talking to girlfriends about their boyfriends, getting high or playing video games to actually go vote.

When these young wide-eyed idealists actually get around to getting a job, buying a house, and trying to support a family, they notice that in exchange for the 50% of their lives that they give up to the government through taxes, they get exactly squat in return. Then they get some sense and start voting Republican.

The Republicans got smacked in 2006 largely because they grew fat at the public trough and forgot why we sent them there. Congresscritters, there is work to be done - the government hasn't shrunk at all since 1994, in fact it's grown faster than ever. If Republicans want to regain control of Congress, you must return to your roots.

Democrats having trouble forming complete sentences...

2008-09-12T01:14:00.003-06:00

Watching blog posts of late, with polls showing McCain taking the lead and Obama losing his electoral college advantage, as usual the Democrats have become reduced to incoherent raging as their form of political expression:

Democrats: Anyone who votes for a Republican is an idiot. Republicans are liars. Red states have lower IQs than Blue States! Red States are flyover states, people with any sense only live in big cities!!!!

Republicans: Then I suppose I am an idiot, a hick, and a retard living in the wilderness, but I am just not going to vote for socialists. Have a nice day.

Remember there is a clear historical trend that we are still in. Republicans have won 7 of the last 10 presidential elections, from 1968 through 2004.

Obama is a big-government, tax-and-spend, promise Peter's money to buy Paul's vote, socialist / liberal.The American public is clearly rejecting this philosophy, yet the Democrats keep trying to elect big-government socialists from big, corrupt cities. The only Democrat to win in recent years was Bill Clinton (from a small state) who got elected only by lying about being a moderate (and other things). When Clinton showed his true socialist colors by trying to socialize medicine and enslave America's doctors, America responded in 1994 by electing by a landslide the first Republican congress in 50 years.

Here's the list:

John Kerry: big city liberal/socialist, LOST!
Al Gore: liberal/socialist, LOST!
Michael Dukakis: big city liberal/socialist, LOST!
Jimmy Carter, sliberal / wimp, Lost reelection
Walter Mondale: Was VP on three separate LOSING Dem tickets over 12 years. Hint to dems: stop nominating losers.
George McGovern: liberal / ultra socialist, LOST!
Hubert Humphrey: liberal / socialist, LOST!
Barack Obama: liberal / ultra-socialist ... TBD.

Do you guys see a pattern here yet?

Seriously. When the Democrats stop promoting socialism and stop pandering to dangerous left-wing groups including known terrorist organizations such as Earth First, you might have a chance of winning the presidency.

Democrats talk the talk...

2008-08-27T09:30:00.003-06:00

but don't walk the walk.

Democrats just decided to tell the 18 million people who voted for Hillary Clinton in the primaries, "thanks, but we don't need you now."

Now I am no fan of Clinton (either one) and don't want her to be President. But there's an observation to be made here. The Democratic establishment doesn't want her to be President, either, preferring a man for the job, two men in fact, including one who almost noone voted for. For all the talk of "breaking the glass ceiling" Democrats like to do, they certainly made a 'conservative' choice.

While Democrats always talk about equality and fairness, where is it in practice? While Democrats always accuse Republicans of being backward, who is it that's being backward now?

Republicans appointed the first black Secretary of State, then another, and a woman to boot. The first woman ambassador to the UN was a woman Republican. The first woman head of state in an English-speaking country was Maggie Thatcher in the UK, a conservative.

Democrats like to thump their chest and take credit for blacks and women in high positions. Republicans just do it - do you know why? Merit.

Democrats say terrible things about blacks and women who are Republicans; they question their intelligence, they call them tools, uncle Toms, traitors, sellouts, just because these are women and blacks that don't toe the Democrat party line.

Democrats are the one using women and blacks as tools, for political power.

Republican women and blacks are in their positions on the basis of merit.

You figure it out.

The Democrat Hall of Shame

2008-08-08T16:47:00.003-06:00

William J Jefferson: took a $90,000 cash bribe (among numerous others). He claims innocence, but innocent people don't hide $90,000 cash in their freezer.
William Jefferson Clinton: lied under oath to a grand jury, disbarred.
Kwame Kilpatrick (Mayor of Detroit): improper affair with a subordinate, lied about it (why not? Clinton did!), assault.
John Edwards: cheated on his wife, there's a love-child to show for it, lied about it for months to the press.
Robert Wexler: Congressman from Florida who hasn't lived in Florida for 10 years, violating residency requirements.
Barack Obama: openly consorts with terrorists and America-hating radicals.

As always, you are trying to get us to turn our attention to short-term matters (for example, "it's the economy, stupid").

But America periodically remembers that it is, in fact, about character, stupid.

Dems hate Bush because he's a man of character, who sticks to his principles, and isn't a mask-wearing . Men of principle and character are usually disliked because they refuse to bend to someone else's will.

Men like the above, who bend every which way as the wind blows, who hold themselves above the law, who act immorally day in day out.. well, I will leave it up to America, whether we are better served by slippery, slimy devils, or by men you can trust (even if you disagree with them).

Democrats do not take Islamofascism threat seriously

2008-06-18T13:15:00.002-06:00

Democrats do not take the threat to our civilization by Islamo-fascists seriously. They think defending our country against them is a job for cops, not the military. They want to try terrorists in our civilian courts as if they were petty criminals. And now, a senior advisor to Obama says the following:

In arguing that the country should back off a policy that causes too much pain, Danzig said, “”Winnie the Pooh seems to me to be a fundamental text on national security.”

He read a section from the children’s book where Pooh Bear hurts himself going down the steps because he hasn’t stopped to think of another way.

During his address to the Center for New American Security, Danzig also said much can be learned about the motivations of terrorists by looking at, for instance, soccer fans who become absorbed by violence or even the Star Wars movies."
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/06/18/obama-adviser-pooh-bear-luke-skywalker-hold-lessons-for-foreign-policy/

No, Danzig, these people are violent fascists who would kill every man, woman, and child in America if it would further their goal of domination of the world by Islam. The fact that you don't take this threat seriously, the fact that you are talking about this in terms of a children's book and sci-fi movie, indicates that you really, truly don't get it. Democrats just don't get it.

Obama Quits his Church - update

2008-06-01T11:22:00.002-06:00

Obama and wife Michelle sent a letter Friday to Wright's successor, the Rev. Otis Moss III: "Our relations with Trinity have been strained by the divisive statements of Reverend Wright, which sharply conflict with our own views."

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/06/quitting_trinity_a_painful_epi.html

Apparently they only began to "sharply conflict with your own views" when you began to run for President, because you sat and listened to those "divisive statements" for 20 years and said nothing. You listened to those "divisise statements" for 20 years and did not quit, did not write any letters.

This is the same guy who wants to meet with enemy dictators with no preconditions; no, wait, of course we'll have preconditions; no, really, I meant no preconditions.

Like most Democrats, Obama will say anything to anyone at any time in order to get elected. It's only worked once in the past 30 years, let's hope we don't make it twice.

Obama Quits his Church

2008-05-31T21:13:00.002-06:00

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/05/31/obama-resigns-church-membership-in-chicago/

"Obama said Saturday that he made the decision with “some sadness,” but that he had been discussing it with his family for “quite some time” and that he did not want to be a continuing burden on the congregation."

A burden on the congregation? Let's be clear, this is the congregation that whoops it up in joy at the racism-filled rants of their pastor, at blatant politicking inside a supposedly politics-free and tax-free zone.

Obama isn't apologizing for this. Given the fact that he attended this church for 20 years, he clearly doesn't have a problem with the hatred and bigotry of Rev Wright, et al. Clearly, because if he did, he'd have quit a long time ago.

The Democratic party is about to nominate a racist America-hater for the presidential election, and there is no way he can now wash his hands of this, since he quit the church for the wrong reason.

Collectivism in Action

2008-05-27T12:33:00.002-06:00

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,358402,00.html

Actress Sharon Stone, known for her off-the-wall comments, is at it again — this time saying the devastating earthquake in China might have been "karma" for the Communist nation's treatment of Tibet and the Dalai Lama.
When the earthquake hit, Stone wondered if it was a case of what goes around, comes around.
"Then all this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and I thought, is that karma? When you’re not nice, that the bad things happen to you?" said the 50-year-old star.

This is an example of collectivism in action. Instead of judging the individual actions of individual people according to a moral code, Sharon Stone lumps all Chinese together, paints them all with one brush. Thus, the victims of the earthquake, most of whom are unlikely to have ever raised a finger against the Tibetans, become the targets of Stone's scorn.

You'd think that since she changed her mind in the end, that she is not a collectivist after all. But you'd be wrong - she changed her mind because a Tibetan group wanted to help the Chinese victims. So she damns all Chinese, and does exactly whatever some random group of Tibetans wants. (I am not criticizing this Tibetan group for wanting to help. That's their business. The issue is Stone's immediate, unreasoning following of their example, and her unprincipled treatment of the whole affair.

This is morality by popularity, this is right and wrong by majority, this is precisely the sort of collectivist, socialist non-thinking that stands opposed to Western civilization.

Let's hope that Sharon Stone is an exception.

Obama's Reverend Wright begins Race-Baiting

2008-04-28T12:37:00.002-06:00

From the New York Times, April 28 2008:

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/28/rev-wright-defends-church-blasts-media/

"Asked why he chose to speak out now, Mr. Wright said: “On November the 5th and on January 21st, I’ll still be a pastor. As I’ve said, this is not an attack on Jeremiah Wright. It has nothing to do with Senator Obama. This is an attack on the black church launched by people who know nothing about the African- American religious tradition.”

Is Wright telling us, that it's the "African-American religious tradition" to spread and bolster the dangerous lie that the US Government created the AIDS virus to kill blacks? To spread the dangerous lie that "Israel is responsible for 9/11"?

If so, that's a "tradition" that should be stopped in its tracks. Some 30% of American blacks believe the nonsense about AIDS being government-created. It's largely due to people like Wright - prominent blacks in the public eye, spreading this falsehood.. why? I can't say why. But Wright, Spike Lee, and many other prominent blacks are pushing this myth.

It's dangerous, because people who believe this evil idea will act on it. It's yet more self-destructive, victim mentality thinking by a black sub-culture that desperately needs to stand on its own two feet and stop blaming others for its ills: such as the high crime and murder rate between and among young black males, unwed teen mothers, and drug abuse. People who believe that the government is actively murdering them, are likely to feel there is no point in trying to change their destructive lifestyle.

And no matter how much Wright race-baits, no matter how much he wants to turn this into some white vs. black issue, it's not. Ignorance and lies are not the province of races. They are traits of individuals - individuals such as Wright. It is people like Wright who are at this point responsible for helping keep a significant percentage of blacks oppressed, by continuing to play his game of race-baiting.

Elton John is.. well, a twit

2008-04-11T09:05:00.002-06:00

http://www.reuters.com/article/peopleNews/idUSN0926923920080411

"NEW YORK (Reuters) - British pop star Elton John, playing a fund-raiser for Hillary Clinton in New York on Wednesday, said he was amazed at the misogyny of some in America and he hoped that wouldn't stop her being president.

At the fund-raiser which Clinton's campaign manager said raised $2.5 million, John said there was no one more qualified to lead the United States into the next era.

"Having said that, I never cease to be amazed at the misogynistic attitude of some people in this country. And I say to hell with them," he said, drawing cheers from the crowd at Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan."

First off, the last time America cared what the British thought of America's political process, was 1776.

Second, this is the same tired song of the race-baiters. You can't criticize a black socialist, because that makes you a racist. Now as Elton John shows, you can't criticize a woman without being called a "misogynist".

Let's get something straight, "Sir" Elton: some of us oppose Hillary because she is a socialist, not because she's a woman! How about that! Some of us oppose her because she was involved in scandals, is a carpetbagger, and shows siginificant lack of judgement in her continued support of her cheating husband who lied under oath to a grand jury.

None of that has anything to do with being a woman. So, if you don't mind, the British can go back to minding their own business when it comes to American politics - at least, if you are only going to go around spouting inane nonsense like this.

p.s. If there truly is "no one more qualified to lead America", we're in trouble.

Democrats and Racism (and Sexism, too)

2008-03-12T16:43:00.003-06:00

I make no bones about it - Democrats are racist.

If the reaction of Democrats to the success of Condoleeza Rice wasn't enough proof (Democrats routinely engage in hysterical, childish, sleazy and disgusting name-calling of her, the least offensive of which is to call her an "Uncle Tom"), you need only look at the Democratic primary race.

No, I'm not referring to the buzz over Geraldine Ferraro's comments:

Geraldine Ferraro has left Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s finance committee, saying that Senator Barack Obama’s campaign was twisting her words to make her appear racist and that this was hurting Mrs. Clinton, a campaign official confirmed after CNN reported the development.

In fact, Ferraro nailed it right on the head. The fact is that blacks are overwhelmingly voting for Obama, and women (in some states) are voting overwhelmingly for Clinton.

In short, they are making their electoral choices on the basis of skin color or sex - not on doctrine, not on experience, not on political views.

I am reminded of my step-mother who in 1992 said, "I'm voting for Bill Clinton because he is very good-looking!"

Lots of other women did, too, and many other women were more directly taken in by his charm, used up and discarded like so much smeg-ridden Kleenex.

In a democracy, everyone gets the government they deserve. Just remember that on January 22, 2009.

Berkeley and the Marine Corp

2008-02-12T14:16:00.001-07:00

The Berkeley city council (also known as the Stalin Youth Corp) recently passed a resolution condemning and opposing the US Marine Corp, for among other things:

"WHEREAS, the United States has a history of launching illegal, immoral and unprovoked wars of aggression and the Bush Administration launched the most recent of those wars in Iraq and is threatening the possibility of war in Iran; and

WHEREAS, the people of the City of Berkeley have long voiced their stand for peace and against unnecessary wars; and support people following their consciences to do what is morally and ethically right to resist illegitimate authority; and

WHEREAS, the United States Marine Corps is being used as one of the means of perpetrating and prolonging illegal, unconstitutional and unnecessary wars of the United States; and

WHEREAS, military recruiters are sales people known to lie to and seduce minors and young adults into contracting themselves into military service with false promises regarding jobs, job training, education and other benefits; and..."

Berkeley is asking the US Marine Corp recruiting office to leave Berkeley.

These claims are of course utter nonsense:

1) note that progressives/socialists are again calling people they disagree with, "liars". Apparently progressives are incapable of understanding that it's possible for rational, well-intentioned people to disagree without resorting to name-calling or for the other party to be a liar, scoundrel, or thief.

2) The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are constitutional and legal under both US law and international law - no international law or treaty requires the US (or any country) to subordinate its use of the military to any third party, including the UN. Under the US Constitution, the President has sole and exclusive command of the military, subject to funding by Congress - and in point of fact, Congress specifically authorized and continues to authorize both the Iraq and Afghanistan missions. Immoral and unnecessary are a matter of opinion, one in which Berkeleyites are in a small minority.

I have some advice for the Marines. When the big San Francisco earthquake hits, and Berkeley is beseiged by rioters, and the dead line the streets, I think the Marines should heed Berkeley's call and stay out. Berkeley neither needs nor wants you.

Rosie...

2007-12-16T00:03:00.000-07:00

Rosie, you're old, dumb, and white too. What's your point?

A new low in liberal/leftist/"progressive" discourse

2007-09-22T18:18:00.000-06:00

A college newspaper in Fort Collins, Colorado, recently had the following to say:

http://media.myfoxcolorado.com/special-projects/collegian.html

Aside from the fact that President Bush had as much to do with the Florida taser incident as he had to do with what I had for breakfast, this so-called "editorial" shows that the leftists of America have nothing to say. Literally. They have nothing to say but to emit an incoherent temper tantrum. They exist at this point merely to scream and stamp their feet like little children. They run around calling anyone that disagrees with their antiquated socialist anti-American politics a "liar". And I am not exaggerating. The leaders of the New Left, the Democrats running for President, all called General Petraeus a liar, they refused to denounce the ad from MoveOn calling him a "betrayer". It is clear where their loyalties lie.

The fact that Bush elicits this kind of outrage from leftist idiots is, frankly, to be considered a point in his favor.

Some people think the socialist ideology is dead, and no longer a threat. I disagree. These people are so low, the only place lower for them to go is violence.

Are we looking at a re-run of the 1960's "protests" where unbathed, stoned hippies routinely threw rocks at police and rioted for no reason?

I sure hope so. We have plenty of jail space for them now.

Civil War in Gaza

2007-06-13T08:21:00.001-06:00

So you see, the Left's favorite poster children, the so-called "Palestinians", are fighting amongst themselves.

The battle rages between the secular-socialist Fatah, and the Islamofascist Hamas. After a few very tenuous months of a power-sharing agreement, they are rapidly devolving into bloody conflict.

From this we learn several things. Firstly these Hamas Arabs (funded and trained by Iran) are content to kill each other, their so-called "brothers". There will be no peace with Israel with these fanatics in charge - indeed, with these fanatics alive anywhere.

Second, this is the same battle playing out throughout the Muslim world. The forces of socialist modernism versus religious fundamentalism. In Saudi Arabia, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Indonesia - the new is fighting the old for control over people's minds, and willing to murder innocents to achieve that goal.

Given the above, we come to the third point - in Iraq, US leftists (aka Socialists) claim that the US is to blame for the "civil war" in Iraq. Yet the Palestinians are engaged in outright warfare, not just hit and run attacks, and leftist media outlets are afraid to call it a "Civil war". They prefer not to, since they can't then blame the US for their favorite "oppressed people's" conflict.

I have nothing against being rich...

2007-06-09T13:26:00.000-06:00

but I do have a big issue with people who are so rich, and have been so sheltered from reality their whole lives, that they haven't the faintest clue of what reality is really like.

A "BFF" (Best Friends Forever) of Paris Hilton, recently pleaded on TMZ.com (http://www.tmz.com/2007/06/09/an-open-letter-from-a-paris-bff/):

"I was also in the courtroom [yesterday] and saw a judge hand down a sentence that NO ONE in an even remotely similar position would receive!"

and

"When she was released she was still very upset, to the point of being physically ill -- and partying was the furthest thing from her mind. She is a loving and sweet soul with a big heart whose character has been misjudged because she was born into a family of wealth and, yes privilege. Now, I ask you to please stop for a moment and try to analyze why it is that you are so troubled by her?"

Paris Hilton broke the law. She was caught driving recklessly and DRUNK, endangering other people's lives.

She was ALREADY given a break. Her sentence for the above violation - mere probation.

But then she flipped off the judge, and she flipped off society, by repeatedly violating that probation, and driving without a license. This, a girl worth tens of millions of dollars, who could trivially take a cab or hire a driver. She decided that the law doesn't apply to her and acted accordingly.

It's precisely her privilege the judge said doesn't matter. It's precisely her privilege that led her to believe that she doesn't have to follow the same laws as everyone else, that she is in effect better than the rest of us, because she is rich. The judge said "No way missy, this is a nation of laws, and not of men. You have flaunted this court's judgement, this court's lenient treatment of you, and now you are going to jail."

Well, Ms. "Best Friends Forever", any us lowly plebians would go to jail if we violated a court's order. Even though your (and her) attitude is that Paris is better than everyone else, fortunately this nation IS still one of equal treatment under the law. Paris goes to jail too.

It seems she is having a nervous breakdown in jail. Frankly this illustrates how far removed she is from the day-to-day reality the rest of the "unprivileged" human race lives in. As if 40 days in jail is the end of her life.

When millions of people every day in this world are starving, being blown to bits, are being raped, murdered, assaulted and enslaved, Paris' few weeks in the five-star celebujail hardly qualifies as nervous breakdown material.

Ultiimately, this will be good for her. The next 40 days will be a time in which she can reevaluate her place in the universe. We may hope that at the end of that time, she has put herself into a more reality-based perspective.

The Cigarette Witch-hunt Continues

2007-05-31T13:30:00.000-06:00

WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan says there is clear evidence that there is no safe level of exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke.

Interesting. Yet, Dr. Chan insists only that smoking in public places be banned, instead of the obvious answer: ban all smoking everywhere.

If there is "no safe level" of secondhand smoke, logic dictates that there is no safe level of first-hand smoke. Therefore, in the interests of everyone's health, we need to ban tobacco.

As well as automobiles, campfires, and paint, because fumes from these things are just as dangerous as second-hand smoke. In fact, the exposure to pollutants from car exhaust is substantially greater than from cigarette smoke.

But of course actual public health has nothing to do with it. Puritanical busybodies feel compelled to force you to act in accordance with what THEY think is good for you. If you make a decision different from their beliefs, it's important to their egos and self-worth to insist on a law to FORCE you to do what they want.

"Islamophobia" world's greatest threat

2007-05-17T13:45:00.000-06:00

From foxnews.com,

"Foreign ministers from the Organization of the Islamic Conference call 'Islamophobia' gravest threat in the world today"

Well, tell you what. When Islamofascists stop bombing women, children, and old men in restaurants, and stop flying aircraft into office buildings, we will stop being afraid of Islam.

Democrats Don't Care about Constitutionality

2007-05-03T08:41:00.000-06:00

Straight from the horse's mouth, folks: Democrats don't care about the Constitution. Constitution be damned, they're on a mission!!

(Bush) also called the original bill unconstitutional for directing war operations "in a way that infringes upon the powers vested in the presidency."

Outside the White House, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid bristled at that claim. "We are not going to be submitting our legislation to somebody at one of the law schools to look for its constitutionality. We have an obligation, under the terms of the Constitution, to legislate," he said. "That's our job."

(http://www.poststar.com/articles/2007/05/02/ap/headlines/d8oshggg6.txt)

Remember, they don't care about free speech, the right to defend one's self, or any of the other rights guaranteed by the Constitution. These rights are all subordinate to the goals of Socialism.

American Companies Aid in Torture of Chinese Dissidents - just to make a buck

2007-04-20T13:54:00.000-06:00

"Yahoo Sued over Data on Chinese Dissidents"

Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, and others are complicit in the arrest, torture, and unjustified detention of much more than just this one person.

By opening up local branches in China, these companies are directly aiding and abetting a brutal, tyrannical regime - all to make a buck.

Far from the original promise of the Internet, to be a platform for the free spread of ideas, these companies have helped dictatorships mold special "Edited" versions of the Internet for their dictator friends' propaganda machines.

By making special versions of their services that comply with the repressive laws of China and other dictatorships, they are directly helping the dictators lie to their own populations, directly helping them keep from their people the truth about freedom and free expression.

Were these companies aiding and abetting American mobsters in the same way they help out the Chinese government, the CEOs would all be up on criminal charges. But so long as the torture and repression is going on in some other country, every one of them just looks the other way.

Google's motto is supposedly "Do no evil." But apparently, their philosophy falls by the wayside when there is a buck to be made.

Insanity of the Catholic Church

2007-03-12T20:00:00.000-06:00

This morning I watched a debate between Sean Hannity of FoxNews and a Catholic priest. They were arguing over whether, as a Catholic, it's okay to approve of the use of birth control by non-catholics.

http://www.foxnews.com/video2/player06.html?030907/030907_hc_sean&Hannity_Colmes&Judgment%20Day&acc&US&-1&News&372&&&new

They both strenuously agreed that no Catholic can rightly use birth control themselves.

Last night, I was talking to a friend about one of the Oscar-nominated shorts, called 'Recycled Lives':

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0859631/

In Guatemala, over 4,000 people live in (now, next to) the nation's largest garbage dump.

Apparently the Catholics see absolutely no connection between their ridiculous adherence to the biblical commandment "Go forth and multiply", and the desperate situation in which these people live in Guatemala.

When of course, the impossibility of showing affection to your spouse without risking pregnancy every time has everything to do with it. Catholics are so fixated on the commandments of goatherds who lived 5,000 years ago, that they don't care about the drastic overpopulation it causes. These so-called "compassionate" religious figures, care more about the power of their own authority, than about letting individual human beings make the choices that are right for them. It's more important to continue breeding more and more subservient Catholic babies than to let potential parents make the choice of whether "now" is the right time to have a child.

Gore should eat his own wheaties

2007-02-27T08:40:00.000-07:00

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,254908,00.html

See, people like Al Gore go about all day long, preaching their superiority to everyone else, yet at the same time they live lives of gaudy excess. That Al Gore's choices burn up more than 12 times the energy of the average American home seems not to bother him. The idea of living more modestly seems not to have occurred to him.

I have seen many people who claim to be "environmentalists" yet drive around every day of the year in the biggest SUV they can find. Sure, they sometimes need one for outdoor activities, but the point is they buy a huge vehicle, and then can't afford to buy anything else for commuting.

Many of these same "environmentalists" live in the middle of nowhere and choose a 2-hour-a-day commute, guaranteeing maximum usage of gasoline (not to mention time) to get to and from work.
Al Gore claims he is not the height of hypocrisy because he buys carbon emission tokens. Whatever, he is still putting a drain on the grid that is ultimately causing the emission of carbon dioxide. Through his own effort he could do 12 times what the average person could do.

It's time to put up, or shut up, Al.

More Global Warming

2007-02-09T08:52:00.000-07:00

Two in one day.

And the Oregon state climatologist may lose his title because he does not accept the theory that humans are the main cause of global climate change. A Portland TV station is reporting that Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski wants the title taken away from George Taylor — who insists natural cycles explain most of the planet's climate changes. Taylor is a climatologist with Oregon State University — which gave him the title of state climatologist.
The governor is seeking the authority to appoint his own climatologist — and says it's important to have one that agrees with the state's goals of reducing greenhouse gasses."

This man is not alone. Being politically or religiously persecuted for scientific beliefs has a long tradition. He is also not alone, in that there are many people who believe as he do today.

Oregon's Governor, like most Democrats and Socialists, don't want the truth or free speech. They want adherence to their point of view, they want political correctness.

2007-02-09T08:49:00.000-07:00

From FoxNews:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,250059,00.html

"But the prince was criticized for reserving the entire 62-seat first class section of a jumbo jet for his 20-person entourage on that trip to the U.S. — thereby wasting fuel and causing needless carbon dioxide emissions.

Some in the royal household note that other family members travel with only one or two aides on their official trips."

Of course. It's okay to be a hypocrite as long as you're on a Mission For The Greater Good. Al Gore drove around his entire 8 years as Vice-President in large limousines. Those who make the argument that he needed that for his "protection" forget that the Pope drives around in a much smaller bullet-proof vehicle.

Nancy Pelosi apparently requires a much larger aircraft for her entourage, so why not the Prince of Wales?

Congressional Ethics

2007-01-13T18:41:00.000-07:00

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-ethics13jan13,1,2860870.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

How about preventing convicted felons from serving in the United States Government at all?

The Horn of Africa

2007-01-10T08:59:00.000-07:00

Lost in the news about the ongoing battles in Somalia, and the US re-entry into Somalia after Clinton's disastrous 1994 "peace mission" there, is the fact that the US is cooperating with many horn of Africa nations in combating Islamic terrorists there.

Forces from Ethiopia, Somalia, and Kenya are all cooperating in attacking the Islamofascists in Somalia. Al Qaeda and their homegrown Somali brethren are on the run

Of course, Europe is widely condeming the US airstrike which reportedly killed the man behind the 1998 embassy bombings. More to the point, they are widely condemning US military action at all. While Islamofascists in Somalia were oppressing a nation of millions, Europe would prefer to talk. Just talk, talk, talk is all they want and all the world ever gets from Europe.

Of course, military action alone does not build a nation. To do that you need ideas, and to get ideas you have to talk.

But no constructive dialog is possible when a nation is held on a short leash by oppressors.

Europe, we are well aware that you would rather be a slave to some dictator than fight for freedom.

But perhaps the rest of world - well, Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and the US anyway - believe differently.

This is the first time I have ever been cheered by any news out of Africa. Ever. Cheers to the nations of the African horn, for taking your destiny into your hands, and choosing freedom over the oppression which has long been your lot to endure!

The Hypocrites of Code Pink

2007-01-07T13:38:00.000-07:00

From the Code Pink web site (http://codepink4peace.org/)

"My heart aches when I think about tragedy in the lives of so many in Darfur, and how their cries for help go unheeded, especially by the leaders in this country. Genocide in our time is unacceptable. Our government should be doing everything in its power to stop the suffering, to stop the pain, to stop the violence." -- Medea Benjamin

Yet:

"January 11 is the International Day to Shut Down Guantanamo. Join protests that will be taking place all over the country."
and
"As Bush considers sending thousands of additional troops to Iraq to control the violence, our troop death toll has reached the 3,000 mark. It is crucial that we commemorate this grim milestone in Bush's disastrous war by pressuring Congress to bring the troops home NOW, and to stop this insanity NOW!"

Code Pink is a steaming pile of hypocrital offal.

First off, they demand "our government do everything in its power to stop the violence in Darfur" (right after blaming the US for it). Does that include military intervention? Because that's what it will take. Whether it be US troops, or "UN Peacekeepers" who are authorized to fight, as opposed to the typical variety who just stand around and do nothing.

Second, they call the Iraq war "disastrous" because 3,000 US soldiers have died. Indeed, that is tragic. But they seem to forget that we succeeded in removing Saddam Hussein from power - a murderous butcher who was engaged in substantial genocide himself, not to mention starting multiple regional wars. I guess when Code Pink says "Genocide in our time is unacceptable", what they really mean is, "Genocide in Darfur is unacceptable, but Genocide in Iraq under Saddam is just fine by us, we wish he had been left alone to continue his butchery."

Finally, they went to Cuba to protest the "torture" of inmates at Guantanamo. Despite the fact that there have never been any actual allegations of torture there (disrespect of the Koran is not torture), despite the fact that the inmates at Guantanamo are routinely visited by the International Red Cross, despite the fact that the inmates there were captured in battle against the United States. Guantanamo inmates are alive and well; those same inmates, were positions reversed, would surely by now have tortured and executed any Americans under their power.

The insane irony of the Code Pink Cuba trip, though, is the fact that the 11+ million residents of Cuba are living in daily slavery, faced starvation in the 90's, have no freedom of expression, and "disappear" if they criticize Castro.

Code Pink is in Cuba, to protect the "rights" of enemy combatants, but totally ignores the daily human rights violations committed upon 11 million Cubans!

The sad fact is, Code Pink's values are not peace and human rights. Code Pink simply opposes George Bush. They will say anything to attack him, and defend and support anyone who opposes him even if those allies are slavemasters or brutal butchers. They are silent on Castro's abuses of the Cuban people, because Castro opposes Bush. Therefore Castro is an ally in the war against Bush. Citizens of Cuba, Code Pink has sold you up the river over politics!

Shame on you, Code Pink, shame on you!

Compassion

2007-01-06T00:52:00.000-07:00

According to Webster's, compassion is:
sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it

When we keep alive a human body that has no human soul inside it, we are not acting in compassion. We are not acting out of a respect for "human rights". We are acting selfishly, in avoidance of the pain of loss.

Yet people in this situation replace the pain of loss, with a lifetime of suffering. Theirs, certainly. In many cases, that of the helpless patient as well.

Being human is more than having human DNA. It's more than having organs, heart lungs and liver. It's more, even, than being alive.

Our society has become fixated on the concept of life. We are obsessed with it. It is now assumed that in all cases, no matter what, to be alive is better than to be dead.

Yet many things in human behavior that are uniquely human, trade life for something more important. We trade life for love, or for freedom, or to save others. We are acting selfishly in these cases, because we are acting to further our values. OUR values. I would rather risk death than live as a slave. I would rather die than be comatose hooked up to a feeding tube for years. I would rather die quickly, than live months in pain dying slowly from terminal cancer. These are my choices. It's my life, and who the hell are you to tell me what to do with my life? I thought this country was about freedom?

And in the case of a person who is incapacitated, or even those who never developed a mind in the first place, the decisions of life and death must be made by others.

Compassion is not forcing the unlucky to bear a lifetime of agony keeping alive and caring for a soulless body. It does not alleviate the suffering of the victim, and it does nothing but create intense suffering in everyone else around. How is that "humanitarian"?

Those faced with the decision, take care of such a person or let them die, should be given the choice. And they should not be criticized, whatever the choice, by any of the rest of us -- those who do not step up and offer to take care of the victim in their place, have no goddamn right to say anything about it.

No person, whether parent, child, husband or wife, should be forced forever to endure the cost -- mental or financial -- of keeping alive an invalid who has no hope of ever gaining or regaining consciousness. To demand otherwise of them, is wholly uncompassionate.

The end of Saddam - the beginning of the end?

2006-12-30T13:02:00.000-07:00

It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

A man with the blood of hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, on his hands. Unrepentant to the end, defiant, assured of his right to torture, gas, and put into meat grinders anyone who disagrees with him, who vigorously exercised that right unparalleled in the history of the late 20th century.

Yet liberals the world over, particularly in Europe, decry the execution of Saddam Hussein.

These misguided souls see no difference between the heinous, unjustified acts of Saddam, and the societal self-defense that was his execution.

They see no difference between initiating an act of violence, and responding to that act.

A proper system of justice exists to ensure that a criminal cannot repeat his acts. The response by society increases in proportion to the potential future threat that criminal poses to society.

The people of Iraq know how dangerous Saddam is, by his history, even if the many Saddam apologists in Europe prefer to bury their heads in the sand. He ruthlessly slaughtered the people he claimed to lead. He never in his entire life expressed a single moment of remorse over these murders. And by this they knew that if it were ever in his power, he would do so again, gladly, and without pause.

For their own self-defense, now and in the future, the only proper response to a man like that, is to permanently end his ability to wreack havoc.

Good riddance, Saddam.

But I fear for Western civilization, whose moral decay has progressed to the point that the right to self-defense, to deal swiftly, harshly, and permanently with psychopaths and death-worshipping criminals, is but a memory. What portent is this, for our culture?

To all you liberals out there who would have kept Saddam alive. What do you say to all his victims, hundreds of thousands of them who had their mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters taken away from them? You ask them to keep him alive, in prison, keep him fed and warm, a roof over his head, entertained with television and books, clothed in the fine suits we always saw him wearing? For his victims to toil, pay taxes to the government, to keep him alive? Is that your justice?

The only valid objection to the death penalty is not that it is "unjust", it is not the moral relativist nonsense that "it lowers us to his level". The death penalty must be applied only sparingly, because we are capable of error. We cannot undo it.

However, if ever there was a case where the crimes and the guilt were perfectly clear, perfectly blatant - this was it. There is no doubt whatsoever that Saddam is a maniacal, murdering sociopath.

Therefore, there is no doubt whatsoever that his final theatrical performance - hanging from the neck until dead - is precisely, and incontrovertibly, the right thing.

Same-old Socialist Sing-Song

2006-12-01T21:59:00.000-07:00

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2032656.ece

Rarely is the true intent of Socialists lade bare so clearly as in Mexico in the past few days.

"After camping out in Congress for three days in an attempt to control the speaker's podium and prevent Calderon from taking office, Mr Obrador's supporters seized the chamber's entrances yesterday morning. They draped a giant banner across the chamber reading "Mexico doesn't deserve a traitor to democracy as president," and exchanged punches with ruling-party officials."

This election was widely monitored by third parties, was ruled by Mexico's highest election courts as valid, and was close. Even though his margin was only 1%, Calderon won the election.

The "traitor to democracy" then is clearly those who were using physical force - threats, physical possession of the stage, and violence - to try to prevent the winner of the election from taking office. These people are not Calderon and his supporters, but Obrador and his fellow Socialists.

Socialists are all for "democracy" as long as they win the election. If they don't win the election, it's always claimed there was fraud. Note the 2000 / 2004 presidential election in the US: the left / socialists and "progressives" toted out the same arguments and bromides. In fact, Bush's larger margin of victory in 2004 was "proof" to the Socialists that fraud must have taken place - how else, they wonder, could Bush have won again? Surely everyone has seen the progressive light!

The reason progressives challenge every election they lose is their sheer lust for power. Their entire reason for being is to gain power and tell other people how to live their lives down to fine, daily detail.

The Left and Free Speech

2006-10-12T09:01:00.000-06:00

http://euobserver.com/9/22630

The European Commission has condemned a French parliament vote in support of a law criminalising denial that Armenians suffered genocide by the Ottoman Turks, saying the move is likely to hinder open dialogue on Armenia in would-be EU member state Turkey.
...
The socialist-drafted law was passed by 106 votes to 19 in the lower house and found favour on both sides of the poltical divide with 49 centre-right MPs backing the bill although President Chirac's conservative government has spoken out against it.

Note carefully, socialists in France have outlawed a point of view. The Armenian Genocide is not something I am familiar with though it's been in the news a lot lately. Based on other first-hand reports of the behavior of the Ottomans in WWI I give the claims the benefit of the doubt.

But the point here is not that some people in Turkey or elsewhere want to deny it. It's that freedom of speech includes the ability to say and believe some pretty horrible things. Socialists -- leftists -- in the US, these people are known as "progressives" -- are banning a point of view. This is consistent with US progressives attack on privately-owned TV stations at the last election, when they tried to get the FCC to shut down some stations whose owner aired opinion editorial spots they didn't like.

It seems socialists/progressives all over the world are of the same stripe - put tape on the mouth of anyone they don't like.

Culture of Excuses

2006-10-11T13:30:00.000-06:00

Mel Gibson described his infamous anti-Semitic rant at a policeman as "the stupid ramblings of a drunkard," the UK-based Evening Standard’s entertainment guide This is London reported.
According to the report, the actor, who has a long history of fighting alcoholism, also said he has not had a drink for 65 days, but admitted staying sober is a struggle.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3313889,00.html

That's strange. I have been falling-down drunk on a number of occasions, yet I have never launched into an anti-Semitic tirade.

This is a classic example of an individual avoiding responsibility for their own beliefs and actions, by blaming a scapegoat.

Seattle Times distorts the Iraq War

2006-08-22T22:02:00.000-06:00

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003216299_bushiraq22.html

Now in its fourth year, the war has taken a heavy toll: More than 2,600 Americans have died and many more Iraqis have been killed. Last month alone, about 3,500 Iraqis died violently, the highest monthly civilian toll so far.

So let's be clear about "the war". There is no "the war". There are a multitude of conflicts currently playing out in Iraq. The current war that the US is directly engaged in, is among violent Islamofascists who want the US out of Iraq so they can take over and establish an Islamic dictatorship.

Aside from that, there is the "sectarian violence" which is Shiites slaughtering Sunnis in exchange for 30 years of Sunni slaughter of Shiites - and vice versa going back 1,400 years.

And, some number of these deaths were perpetrated by criminal gangs similar to our own mafia, who have been kidnapping and beheading for ransom for many decades in Iraq.

The Seattle Times uses the passive voice, and uses a word ("died") which blurs important facts. "Iraqis have been killed" they say, without specifying who killed them. "The war has taken a heavy toll" they say. Clearly the Times wants readers to conclude that "the war" killed everyone. Since there would be no war without US troops in Iraq, the Times wants us to think that nobody would be killed if we just left Iraq, and that nobody would ever have been killed had we not gone to Iraq in the first place. (Please don't say that this is an absurd conclusion. Because this is in fact the "progressive" stance - violence in Iraq would stop if we would just leave, that's all they want! And according to Sean Penn, Iraq was a peaceful land where children flew kites on the banks of a river of milk and honey.)

This is the importance of the passive voice in this article: it is to distract attention away from the fact that there are specific groups of Islamofascists of various stripes that are doing the slaughtering. In fact, all of the civilians and US troops murdered in Iraq each month are being murdered by Muslims - Muslims driven by power, by revenge, or by greed. They are not being murdered by the US, or "the war".

Why doesn't the Times state this? Because the Times agenda is for the US to get out of Iraq. The article's author therefore wrote the piece in a tone that specfically avoids placing blame for these murders where it belongs - on violent Islamofascists. And that's what these are, MURDERS, vicious slaughter of innocents. They are not "have died"s. By refusing to state simply where the blame for these murders lies, and by refusing to call them murders, the Seattle Times has abdicated morality lock, stock and barrel. They have handed the murdering hordes moral legitimacy.

By simply using the passive voice and lumping all the deaths together, the Times places blame for those deaths at the feet of the US - when in fact those murders, of US troops and Iraqi civilians alike, are being perpetrated by certain groups of Islamofascists. Groups who must not under any circumstances be allowed to take control of Iraq.

The Anfal Campaign

2006-08-21T16:56:00.000-06:00

From the Washington Post,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/21/AR2006082100959.html

Months later, the first of eight waves of the Anfal campaign was launched, lasting until the end of 1988 and moving systematically across northeastern Iraq. The military bombarded villages, sometimes with mustard gas and nerve agents, then sent in troops to raze the communities. Families were taken to camps by the truckload, while in some cases men were executed on the spot, the rights group's report said.
THE CAMPS: Tens of thousands were taken to prison camps in northern and central Iraq, where men and boys were separated from their families. Most of the males disappeared, executed by firing squad and buried in mass graves. Women, children and elderly were held for months in crowded, unsanitary conditions that caused further deaths, according to Human Rights Watch."

This was precisely Hitler's "final solution" to the "Jewish problem". Please bear in mind that Saddam Hussein is the man with whom the American leftists / progressives / socialists wanted us to "negotiate" with. This is the man who only 2 years later would invade Kuwait - and he would have invaded Saudi Arabia had the US not intervened.

Those who harp on that we should not have invaded Iraq because "there were no WMDs" are missing the point.

Saddam Hussein IS a weapon of mass destruction. Having someone so callously indifferent to human life at the head of a nation with massive oil wealth, who turned that wealth into genocide, is intolerable. His mere existence as a dictatorial head of state, in charge of those kinds of assets, was a constant threat to all free peoples.

There is also a broad misconception about the Iraq conflict:

There have actually been two wars in Iraq. We won the first war in one month, overturning the Hussein regime. The second war started some months after that, as Islamic fascists moved in and took advantage of the security vacuum to start slaughtering civilians and US troops for their own agenda - an agenda which has nothing to do with Saddam Hussein.

Some of the Islamofascists were homegrown in Iraq - for example, Muqtada al Sadr, head of one of the largest private militias and a thorn in the side of the US since we went to Iraq. Some of them were imported - from Iran (who is providing support to al Sadr), al Qaeda, and enterprising terrorist upstarts from all over. Some smaller number of fascists were Friends of Saddam, elements of the old regime, getting support, money and intelligence from the friendly also-Ba'athist regime in Syria.

Islamofascists started a new war, a second Iraq war, against the United States in mid-2003. At the time we failed to properly deal with this new threat. The borders with Syria and Iran flowed with money, weapons, and young Islamic sheep looking for their 72 virgins in heaven.

The Left keeps passing lies about this conflict. They want Americans to believe that the "resistance" is composed of simple, honest Iraqi men who only want the US to leave and then will live in peace. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, at this point many factions are vying for control of Iraq and its oil wealth - and all of them want to turn that wealth into weapons to use against infidels everywhere - just like papa Saddam was doing.

This war can be won - and this war MUST be won, for that reason. Losing in Iraq means that Islamic terrorists will have gained a fantastically dangerous weapon to use against us - a state.

How the media distorts the news

2006-07-20T16:54:00.000-06:00

Ok, so of course George Soros, Noam Chomsky and Vladimir Lenin think the US news media is controlled by "right-wing corporations".

The bias in the media is subtle, but it's there. I know it, you know it - but you just can't quite put your finger on it?

Here's an example.

July 20 (Bloomberg) -- The day before Tuesday's US Senate vote backing embryonic stem-cell research...

Bloomberg (a liberal rag run for the benefit of so-called "right-wing corporations") makes it sound as if George Bush is single-handed stopping stem-cell research.

This of course is not true. The bill would have spent federal government dollars on stem-cell research, which sometimes involves getting stem cells from aborted fetuses. This is controversial among some of the President's backers (ya think?) and so he vetoed the bill.

What Bloomberg does not bother to mention is that any private company can acquire fetuses and do whatever they want to with them - including harvest them for new stem-cell lines. All this can be done without increasing government largesse or increasing government intervention over and control of science.

Government is the one entity that should never ever be involved in scientific research (for anything other than weapons). If government funds something, it becomes politicized. Whether it happens becomes an issue for politicians to debate and vote against - depriving everyone of the potential benefits.

When private organizations do science, they do it in the hopes of eventually making a profit on it. They will do this by helping people, curing disease and preventing it. It doesn't matter if it is controversial, it doesn't matter if some people are opposed to its use. Without the power of the government, those people are free to act on their own conscience and not use such products or treatments - and have no power to stop the rest of us from benefitting from them.

George Bush, by refusing to use Federal money to fund stem cell research, is not only playing to the conservative base - he is ensuring that by keeping stem-cell research non-politicized, it will get done.

Liberal advocacy organizations will of course spend millions of dollars on lobbying and TV ads, saying how terrible Republicans are - when what they ought to be doing, if they feel so strongly about it, is put those resources directly into stem-cell research.

(Of course, liberals don't care about it, they prefer to demonize Republicans. They have to demonize Republicans, or nobody would listen to them at all).

Anti-Semitism of the Socialist Left

2006-07-13T21:47:00.000-06:00

In the history of the 20th Century, violent anti-semitism is most commonly associated with its most famous executive - Adolph Hitler.

However, anti-semitism has a long history in Europe, and in particular, it has a long association with Socialism.

Hitler's hatred of Jews was not a freak aberration on the Continent. In fact, part of the reason he rose to power so quickly is that many Europeans sympathized with his beliefs. For a thousand years, Jews in Europe have been vilified; accused of everything from secret control of governments, to hoarding gold, to actually eating babies. Scapegoating Jews is something pretty close to Europe's national pastime, right behind football.

The European socialist movements capitalized on this, as one of many weapons of class warfare. In fact, it is still common to this day to see the phrase "Jewish bourgeois nationalists" on socialist web sites. (Google it).

Socialists are still firing their "Jews are the cause of all our problems" weapons. Europe is socialist, anti-semitism (and in fact, other racisms such as nationalism, anti-black racism, etc) are prevalent throughout the Continent.

To see Europe continue to attack Israel for defending itself is to be expected. European socialists walk hand-in-hand with Islamic fascists, when it comes to killing Jews.

p.s. An oddity of history: Current socialists / left-wingers will tell you that Hitler was a "rightist". This is a fascinating reversal, because Hitler was a socialist (leftist) through and through. You cannot implement socialism without state control of property and of people's live's, and this is exactly what Hitler did. Socialists claiming that Hitler was on "the right" is an attempt to put their sins on the backs of others.

p.p.s. "Left and Right" don't mean much. Aside from being relative terms (e.g., Noam Chomsky claims the US media is controlled by the "right", yet Dan Rather considers himself a centrist and Pat Robertson believes Rather wants to be buried next to Lenin), they are easily misconstrued by whoever is doing the labelling. Whereas it's much harder to dodge responsibility for the results of executing socialism, if you call its most successful adherents (Hitler, Stalin) by their proper names.

World War III

2006-07-13T21:35:00.000-06:00

World War III is starting to flare up again. This conflict, which started in decades past and will continue for decades more, is the battle of Islamic Fascism versus the free world.

The immediate situation started three weeks ago in late June 2006, when Hamas operatives kidnapped an Israeli soldier, then demanded the release of thousands of Palestinian Arab prisoners held in Israel.

Of course, many of the Arabs we are talking about are in those prisons for acts of terrorism and violence. Hamas wants them freed for the obvious reason - to help fight their declared war of destruction against Israel.

Two days ago, on July 11, Hezbollah did the same, this time crossing the border into Israel, attacking Israeli troops, murdering some and kidnapping two. They fled into Lebanon with the Israeli kidnappees, and again demanded the release of Palestinian prisoners.

Hezbollah and Hamas are proxies for Iran and Syria. It is believed Iran funds these and other terrorist groups with $100M or more per year. Iran has pledged the destruction of Israel, as have Hamas and Hezbollah.

Given this background, Israel of course chose to retaliate, to apply pressure on several fronts:
1) on the legitimate government of Lebanon, who claims to have no power over Hezbollah, but who has always rejected demands that they disarm Hezbollah. Hezbollah is in defacto control of southern Lebanon and parts of Beiruit. Lebanon has an army - Israel rightly suggests that Lebanon should utilize that army to stop the actions of a gang of armed thugs - Hezbollah.
2) on Iran and Syria, who fund and help direct the actions of these terrorist groups.

The reactions of other parts of the world were to be expected. The United States rightly stated support for Israel's right to self-defense. Israel has every right to take whatever actions are necessary to free their citizens from the hands of kidnappers.

Europe condemned Israel's reaction far more strongly than they condemned the Arab kidnappings that created the situation we are in. This is typical, although the fact that Europe condemned the terrorists at all is somewhat surprising. Is Europe starting to "get it"? Perhaps.

This brings me to my next thought... Europe, anti-Semitism, and Socialism.

Double standard or consistent behavior?

2006-02-16T13:01:00.000-07:00

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0216/dailyUpdate.html

So, Arabs are outraged at the abuse at Abu Ghraib, and they are really really outraged, to the point of rioting, arson and murder about cartoons.

Where is the Arab outrage at the mass graves in Iraq?

Perhaps they have a double-standard. Perhaps a Muslim being mistreated by another Muslim is okay, but a Muslim being mistreated by an "infidel" is bad. It could be an aspect of the "anything we do is good, anything America does is evil" America-bashing that is prevalent throughout the world.

Or perhaps they are being perfectly consistent. Perhaps the issue is not that Muslims are dead - perhaps it is that Shiite Muslims are dead. After all, according to some counts, Sunni's make up the vast majority of Muslims, as much as 90%.

So perhaps the real answer is that most Muslims simply feel the same way their Brother Sunni Saddam did - Shiites are not real muslims and deserve to die like animals right alongside the infidels.

This view is consistent not only with the specific situation in Iraq where Sunnis persecuted and worked to exterminate Shiites. It is consistent with the constant examples of the Muslim nature of violent, animal savagery.

Hey, they've been brutally slaughtering people for thousands of years. Who are we to tell them any different?

Don't mistake my comments here for racism - they are not. I fully believe there is no reason Arabs and other people who are Muslims cannot act in a civilized manner. The issue is that their culture and religion are based in violence, and they don't care to change it.

You've proven the point already

2006-02-15T08:05:00.000-07:00

And almost two weeks later it's still going on. Regarding violent riots in Pakistan where businesses were burned down, and people were killed. From the New York Times:

Incensed protestors in Peshawar burnt the Danish flag and effigies of the Danish prime minister while chanting "Death to Denmark."

Local officials said one person was killed there due to electrocution, but news reports said the man was killed by a power cable that snapped from gunfire by protestors. Local media also reported that an 8-year-old child was killed by a bullet shot to the head.

Akram Khan Durrani, the chief minister of the Northwestern Frontier Province, which includes Peshawar, condemned the violent riots but sympathized with the spirit of the protests. "Protest is a democratic right', Mr. Durrani said in a televised interview, adding that "emotions of Muslims have been hurt because of the cartoons."

"The people behind the cartoons are the biggest terrorists. The government of Denmark should have taken them under arrest. They have incited the emotions of Muslims around the world," Mr. Durrani said.

So Mr. Durrani is all for Democracy unless you say something unpopular, in which case you should be put under arrest. Sounds about right for the backward, ignorant, barbaric Muslim world.

But indeed he is right about one thing. Beware a pissed-off Muslim. They have no anger management skills, and their violence is always justified by the Koran, a book which details Mohammed's rise to power through violent conquest, and the conversion of people to his "religion" at the point of a sword.

Proves the point..

2006-02-04T22:39:00.000-07:00

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-02-04T222025Z_01_L03605412_RTRUKOC_0_UK-RELIGION-CARTOONS.xml

"DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Furious Syrians set fire to the Danish and Norwegian embassies on Saturday as protests over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad showed no signs of abating despite calls for calm."

The violent response to a bunch of stupid cartoons clearly proves the point of the cartoons. The followers of Mohaemmed are just like Mohammed was - intolerant, brutal, and violent.

Facts never stopped the left..

2005-12-18T14:23:00.000-07:00

As soon as Katrina hit, the "Progressives" instantly politicized it, claiming that the Federal Government's response was "racist", trying to claim that in America the poor were at far higher risk for death by natural disaster because a Republican is President.

Well, the LA Times (a far left rag itself) did a study. And the results:

The well-to-do died along with the poor, an analysis of data shows. The findings counter common beliefs that disadvantaged blacks bore the brunt.

The bodies of New Orleans residents killed by Hurricane Katrina were almost as likely to be recovered from middle-class neighborhoods as from the city's poorer districts, such as the Lower 9th Ward, according to a Times analysis of data released by the state of Louisiana.

(Click here for text of full article)

Of course, these facts will not stop the left from saying that racist Republicans intentionally killed poor blacks in New Orleans. As always, to the left, facts are something that are generally inconvenient to your argument.

When in Rome

2005-11-28T07:58:00.000-07:00

Australia is in an uproar over the case of Nguyen Tuong Van, an Australian citizen who was arrested by Singapore authorities in 2002 for drug smuggling - 396 grams of heroin, to be exact. After being duly convicted, he was sentenced to death. Nguyen was on his way to Australia with the heroin, where it could have been split into as many as 26,000 hits, with street value of $500,000 to millions.

Australia eliminated the death penalty in 1973.

Nobody is claiming that Nguyen is innocent. They are merely arguing that the death penalty is barbaric.

Whenever this comes up, it is always discussed in terms of "we can't believe anyone in the 21st century still does this." But the question is really not is the death penalty ever justified (because it is). The questions that should be getting asked, but are not, are:

Is Singapore's criminal justice system competent and fair?
What is the likelihood that Nguyen is actually innocent?
Are there mitigating factors that should be considered?

I have seen no complaints about the quality of trial in Singapore. Nguyen seems resigned to his fate and isn't claiming that he is innocent. As far as mitigating factors, Nguyen did the trafficking in order to pay for his brother's legal bills - created by his two drug trafficking convictions.

The old adage is "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." If you're going to smuggle drugs, breaking the laws of virtually every country, you take your chances. The US State Department warns travelers that when they are in a foreign country they are subject to the laws and legal systems of those countries.

Nguyen rolled the dice, and came up craps.

If there is little doubt about Nguyen's guilt, why should Singapore pay to keep this man alive in jail for the entire rest of his natural life? Which is the worse punishment, life in prison with no hope of parole or execution?

Opiate overdose kills hundreds of people annually in Australia. But there has been no outpouring of sympathy for those who would have died from the heroin Nguyen was supplying. And with the large amount involved, people would certainly have died from that very heroin. I guess it's alright for hundreds a year to die, but not this one? If we are comparing barbarisms, heroin overdose is pretty high up the list.

I am in favor of the abolition of all drug laws, on the basis that what someone puts into their own body is their business. If they commit crimes to gain money for drugs, then punish them for those crimes, not for possession or use or sale of the drugs.

The tragedy here is that the act of drug use is still widely considered criminal, and thus the trafficking in drugs is a high-risk high-margin business, which can attract even otherwise good people to a life of crime.

Louisiana has the wrong priorities

2005-09-28T01:06:00.000-06:00

Perhaps, instead of subsidizing sports stadiums, Louisiana and New Orleans ought to spend money instead on protecting their citizens.

Oh, wait, sorry I forgot - they expect the rest of the country to do that for them. Silly me. It says right there in the Constitution that the Federal Government's purpose is to bail people out of their own irresponsibility:

"Just five months ago, Saints owner Tom Benson cut off negotiations with the state of Louisiana for a long-term Superdome lease that was predicated on an extensive building renovation. What's really sad in light of recent events is that Louisiana was paying Benson up to $15 million a season just so he would keep the Saints in New Orleans. What's worse, the state was forced to borrow $8 million last year just to make Benson's outrageous subsidy, mostly because a major New Orleans revenue source - tourism - had declined after 9-11."
- http://www.jsonline.com/sports/gen/sep05/353718.asp

and

"Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, a Democrat, sits on one side of the table aiming for a new contract with the Saints that would lessen the state’s financial obligations to the team. Blanco inherited the obligation from her Republican predecessor, Mike Foster, in the state’s current contract with the team, which guarantees the Saints $186.5 million in state subsidies through 2010.

The state had to borrow money last year for the team’s annual subsidies payment, and unless the contract is renegotiated before July 5, the state will have to borrow $8.25 million again to make this year’s payment."
- http://www.nytimes-institute.com/xdome.html

So how far, Governor Blano and Mayor Nagin, would $186.5M have gone to helping protect the citizens of New Orleans? Seems to me that would have paid for a fair bit of levee upgrades. Or perhaps a consultant to come up with a competent disaster plan, since Blanco and Nagin apparently need all the help they can get. Especially in setting fiscal priorities.

Of course Nagin - who is rich - doesn't really care one way or the other, since he bought a house in Dallas while the hurricane was still blowing.

Louisiana - where the purpose of government is to subsidize their sports teams buddies, and run away at the first sign of trouble.

George Soros

2005-09-21T22:03:00.000-06:00

George Soros is a billionaire activist. He considers himself "progressive" (aha, the code-word for "socialist"). Soros declared war on George Bush in 2002 and gave large amounts of money to activist organizations such as MoveOn.org in a (failed) attempt to defeat him in the 2004 elections.

In 2002, Soros stated:

"The supremacist ideology of the Bush Administration stands in opposition to the principles of an open society, which recognize that people have different views and that nobody is in possession of the ultimate truth. The supremacist ideology postulates that just because we are stronger than others, we know better and have right on our side. The very first sentence of the September 2002 National Security Strategy (the President's annual laying out to Congress of the country's security objectives) reads, 'The great struggles of the twentieth century between liberty and totalitarianism ended with a decisive victory for the forces of freedom and a single sustainable model for national success: freedom, democracy, and free enterprise.'"

I fully, totally agree with the National Security Strategy statement. Soros quotes it disparagingly - he indicates that to think the idea that freedom, democracy, and free enterprise (capitalism) are superior values is solely an expression of "might makes right".

I also fully agree that Bush stands in opposition to moral relatavism - the "open society" philosophy of Soros says that nobody can know truth, and thus we're all equally right (also, all equally wrong?) Bush is the diametric opposite of Bill Clinton, the relatavists poster child.

If Soros thinks that the National Security Strategy statement is false, let us examine the alternatives.

The opposite of freedom, is slavery. The opposite of democracy, is totalitarianism. The opposite of free enterprise, is fascism or socialism. If you wonder whether I am exaggerating, then note that freedom, democracy and capitalism go hand in hand in the US, UK, and most of Western Europe. Slavery, totalitarianism, and socialism were hand-in-hand in the 20th century - WW2 Japan and Germany, Soviet Russia, China, every other true socialist or communist regime.

Mr. Soros seems to believe that freedom, democracy and capitalism are not superior values, but simply arrogance that the "strong" US is trying to force upon the world. He further suggests that what the world needs in the 21st century is more slavery, totalitarianism and socialism (or perhaps in equal amounts with freedom?)

But Soros has it totally backwards.

These things are not right because we are strong. We are strong because they are right principles.

It is extremely ironic that someone like Soros, who has become one of the wealthiest and most influential men in the world, benefitted precisely from the freedom, democracy, and capitalism that Bush adheres to as guiding principles - but which Soros appears to be sneering at.

This "open society" philosophy is College 101 nonsense. It's one of those examples of a philosophy that is prima-facie self-contradictory. If nobody can know what the truth is, then neither can Soros - and his "open society' philosophy thus can have no claim to truth either.

What we should wonder about, is what - or who - can cause clearly intelligent people like Soros to shoot themselves in the head, and make them try to destroy the very values that allowed him to go from pauper to success - freedom, democracy, and capitalism?

Lions and tigers and bears...

2005-08-21T00:57:00.000-06:00

Okay, so we actually do have lions and bears in North America. As well as cougars, wolves, and a variety of other predators. Not to mention a large variety of food for those predators.

But apparently some guilt-ridden busybodies want to take African "megafauna" (i.e., very large animals, such as elephants, African lions, cheetahs, etc) and "re-wild" North America with them. You see, they feel bad that some species went extinct in North America at the end of the last Ice Age 13,000 years ago, and think that we ought to "fix" things.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4160560.stm

There are numerous, substantial problems and errors with this idea.

1. Large predators are dangerous to human beings. Just wait until these researcher's giant kitties start eating pets and children.
2. While ice age megafauna were clearly hunted by Homo Sapiens, we don't really know if it was Homo Sapiens that was responsible for their extinction. It could well be that the giant animals were ill-suited for warmer weather and could not adapt quickly enough.
3. Even if they were made extinct by ice-age American immigrants, why is it our responsibility to try to un-do that?
4. Will an African lion be able to handle a Kansas winter? What will that lion do in response to such an environment altered from what it evolved in? Try to hide in people's homes?
5. What will the thousands of bacteria, parasites, and other carry-ons that live on/inside these imported African megafauna do to native American species?
6. Do these researchers understand clearly the impact re-introducing these species will have to all other life forms currently here? (I doubt it).

Look, 13,000 years ago a number of species died out. In the intervening 13,000 years, other animals and plants have been adapting to fill empty niches. We have very large prey (elk, moose) and pretty large predators (a mountain lion is nothing to sneeze at). Maybe they're not Flintstone's-sized critters, but who says that's what "ought" to be here?

I don't trust these ecologists any more than I trust economists, to know what the hell they're talking about and to understand the substantial ripple effects of their monkeying about.

The main error here, though, is this:

7. Who says nature is a "steady state"? Who says that a certain collection of animals is the "right one"?

That's ridiculous! Nature is constant strife, birth, death, change, and evolution. We have no reason to believe that any ecosystem lasts longer than a couple thousand years. We certainly have no reason to think that the climate in a particular land area lasts that long; and if the climate changes clearly the living creatures in that area will die or change. Look at the Sahara; only a few thousand years ago it was lush tropical forest. Then the climate changes and *poof* animals and plants have to adapt.

That is the way of life. Life in nature is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". The world doesn't "nurture life". There is no goddess Gaia that cares about living things. These primitive anthopomorphic concepts are obviously false - the world is a dangerous place that life manages to survive in, in spite of constant random destruction, devastation and change. Homo Sapiens is the best species yet at survival - in our short few million years we now have the tools to shape the world into a place that is safe for life.

Every living thing strives to survive; all living things by definition change their environment. Very successful life will eventually change the equillibrium in an ecosystem and other living things that are not as adaptable will suffer and perish.

That is just the way it is! When a beaver builds a dam for the benefit of the beaver, and it floods out other animals, well that's okay, that's just nature. But when human beings build a dam for the benefit of human beings, well that's evil, that's against nature, and it must be stopped!

Clearly a double-standard applies. Man is inherently evil, and everything but man is inherently good.

Unfortunately, some humans feel guilty because we are very successful life forms, and we are changing the equillibrium. They would prefer a world with no people in it, as if that world would somehow be "better", more "idyllic". Of course that's a fantasy. It's as if they believe the world would be an unchanging paradise if not for the presence of man.

Well, maybe the world WOULD be better.. without the people that believe the life of snail is more important than the life of a human being.

Out of the mouths of religious kooks

2005-08-06T11:30:00.000-06:00

My friends know that I am generally supportive of George Bush.

But his recent comments suggesting that "intelligent design" should be taught in schools alongside evolution were just plain dumb.

"Intelligent Design" is nothing more than a pseudo-scientific whitewash of Christian creation myth.

The notion that "life is so complex it must have been created by an intelligence" is not only simplistic and primitive, it's just plain wrong. If life was created by an intelligence, it was an incompetent intelligence. E.g., why do I have an appendix? All it does is collect crap and get infected. Does the Creator belong to a union that protects this kind of incompetence?

There is an overwhelming mountain of evidence supporting evolution. To compare this to "intelligent design" and to teach kids that the two are somehow equivalent unproven "theories" is to show no understanding of how science works, and ignores that mountain of evolutionary evidence.

You know science is in trouble...

2005-05-22T19:50:00.000-06:00

When it takes a journalist to start doing some real science on "global warming":

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,157097,00.html

A Very Christian Metaphor

2005-05-22T18:59:00.000-06:00

"BALTIMORE -- A particle accelerator is being used to reveal the long-lost writings of the Greek mathematician Archimedes, work hidden for centuries after a Christian monk wrote over it in the Middle Ages."

http://www.newsday.com/

There is no better metaphor for what Christians want to do to all science - replace it with their nonsensical scribblings and primitive world-view.

MoveOn Watch: The Nuclear Option

2005-05-22T13:40:00.000-06:00

Resistance to the Nuclear Option, to the placing of Bush's judges on the bench, has nothing to do with preserving the "time honored rules of the Senate". It's about preventing a rollback of "laws from the bench" that socialist judges have foisted on the United States for the past 70 years.

MoveOn.org shows this in their latest missive. According to MoveOn.org:

If you care about the minimum wage — and you don't want judges ruling it unconstitutional — now's the time to act.

If you care about environmental laws — and you don't want judges striking them down — now's the time to act.

If you care about your right to privacy — and you don't want the government telling your family how to live, worship, or even how to die — now's the time to act.

In fact, I do want judges striking them down - because they are patently unconsitutional.

So-called "Progressives" (aka Socialists) have abused the power of the Federal judiciary for over 70 years. Starting with FDR's stacking of the Supreme Court, "progressive" federal judges have ignored the plain text and plain meaning of numerous parts of the US Constitution, and have read into other clauses ridiculous interpretations.

The relevant constitutional clause for the things MoveOn is concerned about here is:

Article I, Section 8:
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
Amendment 10:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

The FDR court re-interpreted Article I, Section 8 (the "Commerce Clause") to mean the Federal government had the authority to regulate any action that might however distantly be related to Interstate commerce.

However, that is a nonsensical interpretation because pretty much any action taken in business in some way eventually interacts with or influences interstate commerce. The Commerce Clause was intended to prevent the several States from engaging in trade wars with each other, making laws that gave advantage to their own citizens over the citizens of other states. The Founders would surely be horrified that it is being used to give carte blanche to any intrusive law Congress might devise.

The minimum wage affects a contract between an employer and employee that does not cross state lines. Environmental laws generally affect actions that do not cross state lines. By my plain reading of the Constitution, these laws at the Federal level are unconstitutional. The Founder's intent was for the States to have most of the power, but for the Federal government to set some ground rules.

But that didn't stop the progressives. They wanted their social agenda implemented, and damn the Constitution. So they took a short-cut. They put judges on the bench who invented ridiculous interpretations of the Constitution, and "legislated from the bench". Instead of doing it the right way - petitioning the people, changing minds and ideas at the grass-roots level - they simply implemented their social programs by government fiat. No wonder so many people to this day resent this - that is not democracy, it's dictatorship of the judiciary.

So, finally, jurisprudence is coming around to the fact that it's time to repair the damage done by the FDR court, and MoveOn is worried that 70 years of plainly unconstitutional law is going to be declared unconstitutional.

If MoveOn is so concerned about Federal minimum wage and all the other bunk the socialists have foisted on us through a stacked bench, then it's time to show us what "grass roots" really is. MoveOn, I challenge you to take your case straight to the people: explain why you think the minimum wage is important, and begin the process for a Constitutional amendment. If your idea is truly good, you will win the war of ideas and you will get your Amendment - and that is the correct way to change the Constitution and the power of the Federal government.

Democrats are champions at Court-Stacking

2005-03-19T18:05:00.000-07:00

MoveOn.org says of the "nuclear option":

Their plan is to throw out 200 years of checks and balances in the Senate, by silencing the minority party for the first time in American history. It's a maneuver so outrageous that even Republicans call it the "nuclear option." It will take 51 senators to defeat them, and the vote is probably less than a month away.

If Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist can twist enough arms to get 51 votes in support of Cheney's ruling, the minority party will be completely silenced for the first time ever.

No, indeed, it happened before. Does anyone remember Franklin Delano Roosevelt? And talk about stacking the court. FDR, a Democrat, was the champion at this.

What MoveOn.Org means by all this is that they don't want courts stacked with judges the people want, and who will interpret the Constitution based on the plain meaning of its plain words - they want the courts to be full of radical, activist, socialist judges.

http://www.crf-usa.org/bria/bria10_4.html

And I quote:

"Despite these developments, Roosevelt refused to withdraw his court-reform bill. While he did agree to compromise, FDR's chances of getting the bill through Congress began to look poor. The Senate Judiciary Committee, although dominated by Democrats, issued a report that recommended against the president's proposal. "This bill," the report declared, "is an invasion of judicial power such as has never before been attempted in this Country."

DEMOCRATS said that the actions of FDR were an "invasion of judicial power such as has never before been attempted in this Country." Which is funny because that's exactly the claim MoveOn.org is trying to make against the Republicans now.

So when MoveOn.org cries about the Republicans doing what their socialist hero FDR tried to do and largely succeeded in doing, you see, their cries seem foul and fake.

Perhaps it's the case that moveon.org is simply ignorant and unaware of history. But I doubt it. They seem like smart, well-spoken people. I am certain they are aware of the sleazy tricks by which the Democrats gained massive power and threw out the Constitution, using the Depression as an excuse to implement a socialist welfare state.

Republicans have taken millions of dollars from their corporate backers. Now as payback, they're trying to force through judges who will favor those same corporate interests by overturning laws protecting the environment, civil rights, and workers laws these companies have been trying to get rid of for years.

That's funny. DEMOCRAT Congresswoman Diana DeGette has taken more money from corporate giant Qwest than any Colorado Republican. This information is public record. Why does MoveOn try to claim that Republicans are the "tools of big business"?

Because MoveOn.Org promulgates the tired old class-warfare sing-song of the Socialist movement.

But guess what - in a free nation, everyone is a capitalist. Everyone has the right and freedom to work as hard as they want, to save their money, and to build a future that is under their own individual control.

MoveOn.Org wants a socialist vision, where government and its cronies tell you what to do, where to go, how much money you can make. And they want judges on the Federal bench that make law by fiat, and are scared to death of judges who will go back to interpreting and applying the law that Congress - beholden and accountable to the people - makes. Judges are accountable to noone - to have judges make law is no different than having a king or absolute dictator. Yet this was the "Progressive" vision in the 20th century.

Fortunately, the tide of history changes once again.

Leftist Conspiracies

2005-02-07T14:06:00.000-07:00

"A new survey shows that a majority of African-Americans believe a cure for AIDS (search) has been found but deliberately withheld from the poor. The survey, conducted by Oregon State University (search) and the Rand Corporation (search), also found that nearly half of the African-Americans believe the AIDS virus is man made.

In addition, 27 percent say AIDS was produced in a government lab. Sixteen percent say AIDS was created by the government to control the black population. Fifteen percent say AIDS is a form of genocide against blacks. And 12 percent say it was created and spread by the CIA."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,145460,00.html

and also:

In a Benneton advertisement (see November 12, 1992 edition of Rolling Stone for an example), movie director Spike Lee said, "AIDS is a government-engineered disease."

When someone like Spike Lee goes onto a national forum says exactly the same unsubstantiated, race-hate-mongering tripe (back in the 90's), and not a single person in the media challenges him on it - what the hell do you expect to happen?

And Bill Cosby chimed in too:

In the December 4, 1991 edition of The New York Post, comedian Bill Cosby said that AIDS was "started by human beings to get after certain people they don't like."

Evidence, gentlemen? (Of course not. The best conspiracy theories require a complete absence of evidence).

AIDS spreads almost entirely by sexual promiscuity coupled with an absence of the use of condoms, or sharing of IV drug needles.

Keep your gun in your holster, and you won't get AIDS. Don't use dirty needles to shoot smack and you won't get AIDS. It's pretty goddamn simple. And that applies to everyone, not just blacks. Go visit the homosexual community in San Francisco and see how "black" AIDS is.

Unfortunately, Spike "I'm a socialist wacko" Lee isn't the only nutjob who believes this: http://www.universalway.org/aidsmanmade.html

None of this is very far removed from the lefist conspiracy nuts who claim that jet airplane vapor trails are actually chemical sprays designed to keep people sick. Clearly, the mainstream has left the Left, and what's left of the Left is whack jobs.

Progressives love the Argument from Intimidation

2005-01-27T18:37:00.000-07:00

Again, the liberal elite attempt to intimidate the free discussion of views
that oppose them:

"FOX Like Hitler?

CNN founder Ted Turner is comparing FOX News Channel to Adolph Hitler, insisting that while FOX News may be popular, Adolph Hitler was also popular when he came to power 'was elected to power just before World War II'.

Speaking to the National Association of Television Program Executives earlier to day, Turner also accused FOX News of being the Bush administration's propaganda tool. Insisting, "it's certainly legal. But it does pose problems for our democracy. Particularly when the news is dumbed down."

A FOX News spokesperson says, "Ted Turner is understandably bitter having lost his ratings, his network and now his mind. We wish him well."

Amen, Fox.

In one quote Turner says that Fox and its viewers are Nazis. Way to go, Ted. That kind of high-brow thinking will get you a gold medal in Philosophy 101 - but only at Harvard. It will get you flunked out of any other institution of higher learning, including Thomas Jefferson Elementary school in Mt. Vernon, IL.

For the philosophically uninitiated: What Ted Turner did here is called "argument from intimidation" - asserting that believing or arguing for a certain idea indicates immorality, in an attempt to intimidate a person into renouncing the idea without discussion.

Nobody wants to be seen as supporting something horrible - such as Nazis - so if you associate your opponents' arguments with the Nazis.. well you get the point.

One of my favorite authors has this to say about Ted's argument from intimidation:

"The Argument from Intimidation is a confession of intellectual impotence.": Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness, 1964

That seems to fit Ted pretty well.

Well, we know that Ted is the propaganda tool of the liberate elite - including his traitor wife, Hanoi Jane. Ted went to Cuba to make friends with the murderous tyrant Fidel Castro. He's giving $1B to the UN, the organization whose sole functions are to bash the United States, and to provide a forum for bloody dictators to feel important. Ted, we know what side you're on - and it's not the side of freedom and liberty. Ted wants us to think he is a good guy and by comparison to Fox, surely you can see that his CNN is not biased! Har de har har.

In my experiencethe news outlets with the most balanced, fact-based reporting are:

#1: Christian Science Monitor
#2: Fox News

News outlets with obvious socialist bias in terms of stories chosen, and loaded
words used:

#1: NPR
#2: CNN
#3: CBS

Anyone who is serious about keeping up with the news simply must read the Christian Science Monitor. Their work is in-depth, not written to the level of morons, and presents balanced (i.e., inclusive of alternate viewpoints in contentious issues) reporting. (Of course, the Christian Scientists are somewhat kooky, but they make a great paper nonetheless).

The Left is Racist

2005-01-24T14:02:00.000-07:00

"California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer pursued a curious line of attack during Condoleezza Rice's confirmation hearing this week. Rice, one of the principal architects of the administration's Iraq policy, was clearly vulnerable to charges of helping produce a misguided, if not misleading, rationale for the Iraqi invasion, as well as poor postwar planning. Saddam Hussein clearly was not the threat Rice had proclaimed. Her paper trail of misstatements virtually invited a congressional attack on her record. But Boxer, rather than sticking to Rice's performance as national security adviser and her qualifications to direct U.S. foreign policy, chose instead to gratuitously characterize her as a Bush loyalist who was blindly parroting pro-Iraqi war lines without regard for whether they were true."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27818-2005Jan21.html

--

Mr. King, the Left viciously attacks and slanders any black person who does
not toe the "Progressive" party line - which is that all problems
suffered by black people are the result of oppression by whites.

Dems / Progs take the "black vote" so much for granted, that they respond
to differing views from "people of color" by treating that person with vicious
disrespect, as if they were an "uppity nigger". The amount of disrespect shown
to successful, famous, intelligent black people -- who happen to be conservative
or disagree with the Progressive party line in any way --
is demeaning to all humanity, and particularly, is a direct assault on the
values the "Progressives" claim they stand for.

As long as blacks do as they're told and vote for so-called "Progressives"
and continue to toe the party line and not voice dissent against the Left's
Socialist and racist policies, then everything's fine. But the moment
one of them steps forward and says, "Hey, wait a minute!", watch out.

Of course, the values that "Progressives" stand for are not freedom for all; but
government power. Power for "Progressives", they mean.

The Left does NOT Stand for Free Speech

2005-01-20T18:28:00.000-07:00

From www.moveon.org/front/ on January 20, 2005:

Keep Sinclair's Bias Off The Local News

Every night, Sinclair Broadcasting vice president Mark Hyman gives a conservative rant - called "The Point" - which most of Sinclair's 62 stations are required to air during their local news. "The Point" predictably attacks Democrats and progressives while praising George Bush. No counterpoint is offered. Our friends at Media Matters for America are spearheading a campaign to demand balance on Sinclair's evening news by telling Sinclair's advertisers about the partisanship they're supporting.

Contact Sinclair's local and national advertisers.

Of course, MoveOn.org says nothing about stopping the New York Times from continuing its massively slanted editorials. They don't want to stop THAT news outlet from editorializing, only because MoveOn.org happens to agree with the NYT socialist slant.

The fact that MoveOn uses the word "Rant" to discuss a conservative point of view is also telling. See, only "progressives" are enlightened, intelligent, and rational. Anyone who disagrees with them is a nutjob that is foaming at the mouth and must be stopped to protect Democracy!

Sinclair Broadcasting owns their stations, and they have the right, as does any other media outlet, to have an editorial agenda.

The truly frightening thing, though, is that Progressives and Democrats in the Senate attempted to use government power to stop Sinclair from airing a program critical of John Kerry.

The Founders put protection for free speech in the Constitution *specifically* to ensure that the government couldn't quash the fundamental right of a free people to hold, discuss, and promulgate ideas that might not be politically popular.

Yet the Progressives are trying to use the power of the government, through the FCC, through petitions to Congress, and other means, in an attempt to prevent the owners of Sinclair Broadcasting from having their say.

Remember, so-called Progressives are the inheritors of fascism and socialism, the political philosophies that said that the government should control the minute details of people's lives, and that elites in government should control what people see and hear in order to preserve the power of the state.

Sinclair Broadcasting's editorials are a vigorous exercise of free speech. moveon.org's attempt to silence Sinclair is an ominous attempt to resurrect fascism and socialism in America, to use the power of government force to silence opposing viewpoints.

Fortunately, at the FCC reason prevailed, and they rightly surmised that to act against Sinclair would be a gross violation of the First Amendment. It's strange that the Democrat Senators who were pushing for FCC action against Sinclair, were too blinded by ideology to be bothered to re-read the First Amendment.

"Conservative" is not a derogatory label, if what you are trying to conserve is individual freedom and liberty.