Tag: politics

Republican fiscal frauds

Remember how the House Republicans voted to increase the debt limit “just one more time” a few months ago? Well, I’m sure you’re as surprised as I am that Congress managed to burn through the additional debt and needs more already:

The White House plans to ask Congress by the end of the week for an increase in the government’s debt ceiling to allow the United States to pay its bills on time, according to a senior Treasury Department official on Tuesday. The approval is expected to go through without a challenge, given that Congress is in recess until later in January and the request is in line with an agreement to keep the U.S. government funded into 2013.

I note that this request for additional debt was obvious simply by observing the federal sector’s return to 4+ percent quarterly growth in the third quarter Z1 outstanding credit report.

I have been beating this drum for more than 10 years now, so if you still can’t figure out that the Republican Party is a significant part of the fiscal problem, not the potential solution they present themselves as being, you really have a severe problem with accepting reality. This isn’t to say that Obama and the Senate Democrats are any better, as they are not. But then, they don’t pretend to be the financially responsible party either.

Either Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney would be an unmitigated disaster as president. Both of them signed a pledge not to increase the debt limit, and yet it’s clear they will do so using the “just one more time” gambit; Newt didn’t even oppose raising the debt last time so long as the deal didn’t include tax increases.

No Tax Increase in the Debt-Ceiling Deal by Newt Gingrich

“Mitt Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, has said he would agree to increasing the debt limit only if a deal was “accompanied by a major effort to restructure and reduce the size of government.”

A major effort such as, for example, the one that supposedly cut $100 billion ten years from now… that was in the last deal.

The “discredited” campaign

The New York Times unintentionally recognizes the legitimacy of Ron Paul’s presidential campaign:

Ron Paul long ago disqualified himself for the presidency by peddling claptrap proposals like abolishing the Federal Reserve, returning to the gold standard, cutting a third of the federal budget and all foreign aid and opposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Now, making things worse, he has failed to convincingly repudiate racist remarks that were published under his name for years — or the enthusiastic support he is getting from racist groups.

I find it extremely encouraging that both the Democratic and Republican establishments are training their biggest guns on Ron Paul while simultaneously attempting to play down the results of the Iowa caucuses. They never would have bothered to do so if Paul’s message was not resonating with Americans across the political and ideological divides. We are learning a lot here as a result of the various reactions to the Paul campaign, whether it is the willingness of Republicans to play the race card about which they so often complain, the remarkable extent to which Newt Gingrich is big government moderate rather than the conservative flamethrower he feigned to be in 1994, and the way in which many Republicans who pretend to revere the Constitution do not, in fact, harbor any real respect for it at all.

In short, Ron Paul has successfully opened the eyes of millions of Americans to the corruption and anti-conservate, anti-constitutional ideology of the Republican Party. This is the first step in helping them understand that the Republicans and Democrats are merely two barely distinguishable factions in the one party that has ruled America for over a century.

It is also interesting to note the Communist-style ideological lockstep demanded by Republicans. In the same way that some readers here cannot understand that I permit commenters here to post comments they find offensive without that permission indicating my position on the matter – even though they know I disgree with, but permit, their own comments – the demands that Paul denounce any of his supporters reveals a fundamentally totalitarian mindset of the sort that has pervaded the conservative media since William F. Buckley was seduced by the Wilsonian neocons.

One thing I found particularly informative in this regard was John Hinderaker’s endorsement of Mitt Romney. I’ve known that the former Hindrocket of the Northern Alliance Radio Show was an ideologically squishy political creature since appearing on that show, and his endorsement of Mitt Romney is the full flowering of what has historically been known as “growth”.

The “anybody but Romney” mentality that grips many Republicans is, in my view, illogical. It led them to embrace Rick Perry, who turned out to be unable to articulate a conservative thought; Newt Gingrich, whose record is far more checkered than Romney’s; Ron Paul, whose foreign policy views–indistinguishable from those of the far left–and forays into racial intolerance make him unfit to be president; and Michele Bachmann, whom I like very much, but who is more qualified to be a rabble-rouser than a chief executive.

It is deeply amusing indeed to see Hindrocket assert that Paul’s foreign policy views are “indistinguishable from those of the far left” on the very day that the New York Times is publishing an editorial that could easily bear his byline, given the remarkably similar language; for example, Hinderaker says Paul is “unfit” versus the NTY’s “discredited”. And Hinderaker’s statement about Paul’s foreign policy is astonishingly deceitful, as far left foreign policy is not the least bit isolationist, but is the exact same world revolution approach that is presently favored by Hinderaker and the Republican establishment, only its focus is world socialist revolution rather than world democratic revolution.

And Hinderaker is as wrong about Romney’s ability to beat Obama as all the usual suspects in the conservative media were wrong about McCain’s ability to win in 2008. John Hawkins list seven reasons why Romney’s supposed electability is a myth. I’ll add another reason: after the way he is being treated by the Republican Party establishment and the way the Tea Party-elected House Republicans have proven themselves to be the same fiscally irresponsible rollover Republicans their historical predecessors were, Ron Paul has absolutely no reason not to run in the general election as a third party candidate, ideally as the endorsed candidate of the Constitution and Libertarian Parties.

I very much hope he will do so. As the Bush family has taught us, better an openly declared enemy in power than a false and fraudulent “friend”.

Mailvox: catastrophe is clarifying

In which Ashley Miller and I exchange email on the matter. She responded to my email thusly:

Thank you for your very polite e-mail.

The point of my article was to say for that people like me — people for whom secular values, gay rights, and abortion are important issues – Ron Paul is a bad choice.

For people like you, who believe the country is going to implode economically and therefore, relatively reasonably, don’t care so much about the other issues, Ron Paul may well be an excellent choice. And I agree that it isn’t a Democrat or Republican thing, I have no respect for either party.

It’s just that I don’t think that the country is going to implode. And I don’t think a man who thinks it’s OK for states to take away my rights so long as the federal government doesn’t is libertarian or worth supporting.

Thank you,
Ashley

In response to which, I wrote the following:

Dear Miss Miller,

I completely agree with you. If you don’t think the country is in any significant economic peril, and most people admittedly don’t, then there is no reason you should support Ron Paul if you disagree strongly with his social positions. I would simply encourage you to keep an open mind about him if your perception of the economic situation changes.

Let’s face it, it doesn’t matter if you favor government support for the poor or for foreign invasions, if the government has no money, it can’t do anything at all.

Best regards,
Vox

Now, contrast with this the barrage of pointless venting she received in response to her original piece. While I don’t agree with her posting the contact information and IP addresses of those who attacked her, I don’t agree with the over-the-top vituperation either.* It’s neither necessary nor productive; if one recalls that the woman isn’t even aware that the US and global economies are in a frighteningly parlous state, then what are the chances that she has correctly analyzed other socio-political issues, or is even capable of doing so?

I treat the likes of Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and PZ Myers harshly because they claim to be intellectually and academically superior, when it is readily apparent and easily demonstrable that they are not. I treat the various anklebiters harshly because their aggressive behavior and incivility demand it. But someone who is a graduate student, who is doing no more than expressing her opinion, however ignorant, fallacious, and stupid it might be, on her own blog is not simply not acting in an offensive manner.

I know I’m not going to convince someone like Miss Miller that a libertarian like Ron Paul merits support from those who disagree with him on social grounds because she is not going to be able to recognize that her concerns about Paul enforcing his own social perspective in an authoritarian manner stems from her own psychological projection. Nor do I have any interest in repeating myself and attempting to convince her of the current economic state, not when I have already published a book on the subject. But it is quite possible to convince her that IF her perception of the economy is incorrect, THEN Paul merits not only another look, but outright support since in that case Paul would be correct and her position would clearly have been shown to be false. Catastrophe is clarifying, and some will never see clearly until forced to do so by events.

This isn’t about being patient, it is about being civil and understanding that even the strongest, most thoughtless brick wall has cracks that the reality of nature can eventually exploit and utilize to bring down.

As for those who think a few nasty emails prove anything at all about Ron Paul or his supporters, I have more than one hundred times that many that would suffice to “prove” the same thing about Obama supporters, Bush supporters, atheists, Muslims, scientists, feminists, and so forth.

*I would encourage Miss Miller to remove the contact information. I’ve received hundreds of threats like those and worse for more than 10 years of writing op/ed and have never seen any benefit to me or anyone else in publicizing the personal information of those attacking me. Once you start writing on controversial topics in public, you can expect to be targeted by those who disagree with you and there is nothing to be gained from exacerbating the situation.

Why smart people support Ron Paul

Ashley just can’t figure out why:

I’ve been trying to understand why smart people I know support Ron Paul and I just can’t get my head around it. I get the sense that maybe the Ron Paul People I know just don’t realize what Ron Paul’s all about. That or they just don’t care.

The Ron Paul People I know are almost all straight, single, relatively young, non-religious, white men. Available demographics suggest that this is an accurate picture; there are others in Ron Paul’s camp, but it’s basically youngish white men.

They do not consider themselves to be Democrats or Republicans. Some of them hate the idea of rules, many of them hate the idea of having their money taken away in taxes, but none of them are stupid or without the resources to learn more about their candidate. And none seem to care about any of Ron Paul’s policies outside of cutting spending, regulations, and taxes.

Every Ron Paul Person I know comes out of the woodwork any time anything negative is said about the guy, no matter how true the statement and no matter how much that individual disagrees with Ron Paul’s position or behavior. I get the sense that libertarians are so excited to have someone on the national stage that they don’t want to see anything problematic with the guy, but he’s transparently a bad deal.

So, why are these people supporting a crazy, racist Christian fundamentalist?

I sent her the following email:

Dear Ms Miller,

I’m not going to waste any time correcting your attempt to criticize Ron Paul. Instead, let us simply posit that you are absolutely correct concerning every single complaint you listed about the man. Here is why you, and everyone else, should not only vote for him, but pray to the God in whom you do not believe that he wins the 2012 election anyhow.

He is the only national politician who gives the United States any chance of surviving the collapse of the global economy.

You may not like him. You may think he is crazy and hypocritical and wrong on a panoply of issues. But the fact of the matter that he has been warning everyone about the eventual consequences of the credit boom that the Federal Reserve and the federal government created over the last fifty years, and the subsequent bust they have been desperately staving off since 2008. In doing so, they have made things worse, so much so that the USA may not survive as a nation when their efforts finally fail.

This is not a Democrat vs Republican thing. It is an economic sanity vs insanity thing. Obama has been disastrous, as he has increased federal debt 92% since 2008. McCain would have done the same or worse. Romney and Gingrich would actually be worse than Obama in this regard. The economic Fimbulwinter is coming and there is only one national politician who even understands the core issues involved.

You probably won’t believe anything I say here. That’s fine. But the central banks are presently dancing on the very edge of the precipice, as the recent actions of the Fed and the ECB serve to demonstrate. And if it all collapses before November, I hope you will remember that there was one man who understands why it happened, who tried to prevent it happening, and has been preparing to rebuild from the ashes for a very long time.

With regards,
Vox

The Obama administration is anti-science!

I rather look forward to seeing how completely the science blogs are going to attempt to ignore this aspect of what is actually a very legitimate philosophical question about the extent to which science should be suppressed:

The US government has asked the scientific journals Nature and Science to censor data on a laboratory-made version of bird flu that could spread more easily to humans, fearing it could be used as a potential weapon.

The US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity asked the two journals to publish redacted versions of studies by two research groups that created forms of the H5N1 avian flu that could easily jump between ferrets – typically considered a sign the virus could spread quickly among humans.

Of course, it should also be interesting to see the contortions that Sam Harris and other science fetishists will perform in an attempt to blame the dangers of science on religion. I not only don’t have a problem with the idea of suppressing science, I think it is entirely obvious that science is going to be increasingly suppressed by governments around the world and that suppression will prove politically popular.

The ironic thing is that scientific progressives have managed to place themselves completely on the wrong side of history while simultaneously believing they are history’s vanguard.

The anti-democratic party

It appears that the Republicans are not so much anti-Democrat as anti-democratic:

The alarms are sounding in Iowa.

Conservatives and Republican elites in the state are divided over who to support for the GOP nomination, but they almost uniformly express concern over the prospect that Ron Paul and his army of activist supporters may capture the state’s 2012 nominating contest — an outcome many fear would do irreparable harm to the future role of the first-in-the-nation caucuses.

Strange, how a Ron Paul victory in Iowa wouldn’t render him electable, but “would do irreparable harm” to the caucuses. As Nate and others have often said, if voting – or for that matter, nominating a candidate – could change anything, it would be outlawed.

At this point, if Ron Paul doesn’t win the Republican nomination, he MUST run as a third-party candidate. The disaster that is the Obama presidency would still be better than the evil corruption that is the bank-owned Republican establishment.

The Tea Party – Occupy Wall Street alliance

That would be a worthwhile third party:

Open Letter from a Marine Tea Partier to All Occupiers
Posted on 12/12/2011

First of all, I’m surprised you’re reading this. Thanks to the corrupt media, many of you might be clueless to the fact we share quite a bit of commonground.

Let me clarify: By “Tea Party,” I am in no way referring to the hijacked movement we know and love today. By “Tea Party,” I don’t mean Iran warmongers, bailout lovers, the “extreme right,” and people who think what happens in your bedroom affects them in any way. No, what I mean is the Tea Party as it started in 2007 as opposition to Bush policies.

The media loves to paint a picture of OWS vs. TP, “right” vs. “left,” etc. It’s an old tactic called divide and conquer. If we fight amongst ourselves, no one looks at the true criminals at work in society….

The system we live under is a corporatist model rapidly deteriorating into a fascist police state. The reason I added “Marine” to the heading of this letter was to (hopefully) attract active duty servicemembers, veterans, and law enforcement. We took an oath to the Constitution in order to join. The oath clearly gives us not only the option, but the responsibility to disobey ALL illegal orders. The police attacking peaceful protesters in the streets are in direct violation of that oath. If you are attacking peaceful people you are already on the wrong side of history.

Remember, focus on commonground. Just don’t look to government to be our saviors. Our politicians (yes, including our President) are bought and paid for by corporations and the mega banks. In fact, Obama’s biggest campaign donor is Goldman Sachs. His Treasury Secretary worked at Goldman Sachs himself. Why do you think some Europeans call us the United States of Goldman Sachs?

Semper Fi and Semper Occupare. Because nothing would terrify the establishment more than a united Occupy Tea Party movement.

– Cpl. Stephen Mark Allen, USMC

The drug war against the economy

Fred Reed chronicles one effective way for G to GDP:

When I arrived in Mexico going on ten years ago, it was a mildly sleepy upper-Third World country, whatever that means—corrupt but not dangerous, not rich but hardly poor, barely middle-class overall and climbing, the mañana thing seldom noticeable, and women pouring into the professions. I parodied the American conception of Mexico as perilous hell-hole because it wasn’t. Not even close.

Then in 2006 Felipe Calderón became president, and declared war on the drug cartels. Mexicans I talk to think he did it under pressure from Washington, but I don’t know. Certainly Washington has done everything in its power to encourage it.

The war failed, as anyone with even a vague understanding of the world would have predicted. A war on drugs—foolish phrase—may be said to succeed if the price of drugs rises on the American street. It didn’t. It won’t.

Things happened that were touted as successes against the traficantes. A fair number of bosses of important cartels were killed or caught. Since Americans confuse leaders with movements and countries, this sounded like progress. Of course if, for example, you kill a leader of the “Taliban,” his second takes over within hours and all goes on as before. And if you kill the leader of a cartel, his underlings fight among themselves for the pieces, thousainds die, and law breaks down. Mexicans know this. The State Department apparently doesn’t.

Meanwhile, as always, drugs remain everywhere available in America.

At first the killing remained largely in the northern states, Chihuahua, Sonora, Sinaloa, Tamaulipas, and such, with patches south in Jalisco and, especially, Michoacan. The gringos who lived around Lake Chapala, an hour south of Guadalajara, were not much affected.

Then the mayhem arrived here at Lakeside. In recent months the gringo havens along the lake have seen firefights with automatic weapons and grenades. Bodies are frequently found. Very frequently. Until recently no gringos were killed. The narcos were fighting among themselves and against the police. Expats didn’t, and so far don’t, interest them.

A few days ago an American was killed in Ajijic, the epicenter of gringolandia. It was just an armed robbery gone bad. The narcos had nothing to do with it. Thing is, when the country falls into chaos because ofthe war against drugs, every other kind of crime follows.

The expats have begun moving out. Realtors report large numbers of houses going on the block. If this continues, and I see no reason why it won’t, restaurants will continue to close, maids and gardeners will lose their jobs, and the doctors and dentists that serve the expatriates will leave. Today a local Spanish website reports a fall of fifty percent in trade at eateries. If this continues, tourism, a crucial business in Mexico, will disappear. Already, we hear, the cruise ships have stopped going to Puerto Vallarta.

Prohibition never works very well and often the costs significantly exceed the benefits. And creating crime ex nihilo only serves to turn law-abiding citizens into criminals, it seldom significantly modifies their behavior. Just as you won’t stop reading the Bible or playing chess if such activities were made illegal, most people won’t stop drinking or doing drugs. Perhaps if pro-drug war Americans are unconcerned about the loss of Constitutional rights, the immorality, or the foreign instability created by the drug war, they will be more responsive to the way in which it is obviously serving as a negative fiscal multiplier now that the global economy is in contraction.

The most importantest nomination ever!

Ross Douthat considers Ron Paul’s surge in Iowa and is inspired to accomplish the rarely seen double-sellout on principle:

Even as the national party prepares to choose between the former speaker and the former Massachusetts governor, Iowa Republicans may end up choosing between Gingrich and Representative Ron Paul. In every post-Thanksgiving poll but one, Paul has been neck and neck for second place in Iowa. In most of them, he has lagged well behind the soaring speaker, coming in just below 20 percent while Gingrich hovers around 30. But a new Iowa survey, from Public Policy Polling, shows Gingrich leading Paul by just a single point, 22 percent to 21….

Iowa Tea Partiers face a choice. If the town hall crashers and Washington Mall marchers of 2009 settle on a Medicare Part D-supporting, Freddie Mac-advising, Nancy Pelosi-snuggling Washington insider as their not-Romney standard bearer in 2012, then every liberal who ever sneered at the Tea Party will get to say “I told you so.” If Paul wins the caucuses, on the other hand, the movement will keep its honor – but also deliver the Republican nomination gift-wrapped to Mitt Romney.

It’s a stunning achievement. In order to prevent Barack Obama from winning a second term, Republicans must sacrifice principle to pragmatism and nominate the self-styled progressive Republican, Mitt Romney. But in order to prevent Mitt Romney from being nominated as the Republican candidate for president, Tea Party Republicans must sacrifice principle to pragmatism and vote for the Medicare Part D-supporting, Freddie Mac-advising, Nancy Pelosi-snuggling Washington insider, Newt Gingrich.

The problem is that too many Republicans listen to this sort of nonsensical analysis, all of which is intended to accomplish precisely one purpose: convince conservatives to vote against their own principles. Once they have done that, it doesn’t matter who wins; the Bank Party has already won.

There are actually only two distinct candidates in the 2012 election. There is Ron Paul, who represents the U.S. Constitution, and there is Newt Romney O’Bama, who represents the Bank Party. The unprincipled pragmatists always like to claim, in defiance of both mathematics and logic, that a vote for Not-X is a vote for X, and yet, whereas the more salient and material fact of the matter is that a vote for X, Y, or Z is a vote for the set of {X,Y,Z}. There is no substantive difference between Romney, Gingrich, and Obama on any of the major issues presently facing the nation.

I don’t believe Ron Paul can win the Republican nomination for president. But then, I didn’t believe Tim Tebow could lead the Broncos to the top of the AFC West either. Roll Ron roll!

A progressive standard-bearer

His views “are progressive”. That is straight from the man’s mouth. Seriously, even in the eye of the economic hurricane, this is the man that the Republican establishment genuinely prefers to Ron Paul… which should tell you everything you need to know about the Republican Party. If they nominate Newt Romney, there is absolutely no way that any self-respecting conservative or libertarian can belong to or support the party.