Tag: politics

The obvious solution

Disarm the military:

As a number of others have already pointed out, the mainstream media are doing their best to turn a mass murder committed by someone who worshipped at the same mosque as two of the 9/11 hijackers, made repeated attempts to contact al-Qaeda-supportive clergy, and shouted “Allahu Akbar” at the start of the attack into something other than an Islamic terrorist attack. If this wasn’t such a dreadfully serious matter, it would almost be funny watching Democrats insist that there’s no elephant in the bathtub. Perhaps the most bizarre of these claims is that of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who insists that the core problem behind Fort Hood is that “America loves guns.”

Clearly the solution is not to remove all Muslim jihadists from the U.S. military, but to take away all of the military’s guns. I am told that historically, soldiers are known to have been particularly prone to shooting people with them, so the time is long past to disarm the soldiery. While some might think this would make the military’s task in Afghanistan and Iraq more dangerous, that’s obviously not the case. Since the battle for hearts and minds concerns niceness and school-building, not breaking things and killing people, it is self-evident that an armed military is actually inhibiting the pursuit of victory in those countries.

After all, people are people everywhere you go, and if the military doesn’t require armaments in the USA, why should they require them anywhere else?

Paglia on health care

The last of the open-minded liberals can see what’s coming:

That there are serious deficiencies and injustices in the U.S. healthcare system has been obvious for decades. To bring the poor and vulnerable into the fold has been a high ideal and an urgent goal for most Democrats. But this rigid, intrusive and grotesquely expensive bill is a nightmare. Holy Hygeia, why can’t my fellow Democrats see that the creation of another huge, inefficient federal bureaucracy would slow and disrupt the delivery of basic healthcare and subject us all to a labyrinthine mass of incompetent, unaccountable petty dictators? Massively expanding the number of healthcare consumers without making due provision for the production of more healthcare providers means that we’re hurtling toward a staggering logjam of de facto rationing. Steel yourself for the deafening screams from the careerist professional class of limousine liberals when they get stranded for hours in the jammed, jostling anterooms of doctors’ offices….

It’s as if liberals are starry-eyed dreamers lacking the elementary ability to project or predict the chaotic and destabilizing practical consequences of their utopian fantasies.

Well, yeah, that last description sums it up accurately enough. I haven’t written much about Obamacare for much the same reason that I don’t write about driving into trees. There’s simply not much to say beyond the fact that it’s a really bad idea, it’s expensive, destructive, and runs high risk of getting people killed. As I told one radio interviewer today, the health care act and the cap-and-trade carbon emissions program are both likely to have a more negative effect on the U.S. economy than the infamous Smoot-Hawley tariff ever did.

And, of course, I can’t disagree with La Paglia’s characterization of Richard Dawkins as an overrated psychotic. One certainly does wonder “what drives obsessive denigrators of religion”, especially in light of the indisputable evidence that it is not and has never been a primary source of human conflict.

It could have been worse

Anyway, it’s not as if California voters can claim they didn’t know about Ahnold’s predilection for this sort of crassness:

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has made American political discourse a little cruder – which is saying something. As California journalists noted, he sneaked an obscene acrostic into a veto message. The first letters of the middle paragraphs lined up to spell “F*** you.” A spokesperson for the governor half-heartedly suggested that it was a coincidence. Yeah, right. The odds against those seven letters appearing in that specific order by chance are 8,031,810,176 to one.

At least it wasn’t something like “All hail Obama, Devourer of Worlds!”

Predictable progressives

The reason that they’re always paranoid about the right-wing wanting to oppress them is nothing more than classic psychological projection.  Jonah Goldberg highlights how it’s not only economics that has headed back to the 1930s, as progressive politics appear to be following suit:

No doubt the fact that neither climate models nor doomsday predictions have panned out (there has been no increase in global temperatures since 1998) is a big part of the story.  But my hunch is that the bigger reason for the shift is that Democrats are threatening to really do something about it, and the costs no longer seem hypothetical. Throw in a bad economy, and Americans simply balk. And that’s Americans — the notion that China, India, and Brazil are going to don carbon handcuffs is just silly. Those countries want to get rich, and they’ll gladly sell their carbon to do it.

But the anti-global-warming industry seems to be on autopilot, churning out books that only half-jokingly propose eating your pets. Others insist that Americans will have to restrict themselves to only one child, just like in authoritarian China. If those are the costs, free people will not pay them. In response to popular reluctance, the Jeremiahs are not only getting more shrill, they’re starting to resent democracy itself, sounding more and more like they want to make an end-run around the people.

I always found it totally absurd that anyone thought for five seconds that any society would voluntarily accept a lower standard of living in order to “save the planet”.  I mean, when you consider that Americans won’t accept the standard of living they can afford without debt even though it means future generations will be impoverished, it’s a little far-fetched to believe that they’re going to worry overmuch about how a few degrees of temperature over the next 100 years are going to affect the Western Spotted Frog.

And to be blunt, the world would be much better off without progressives than dogs.  If totalitarianism is on the table, I can think of a few better uses for it than the progressives appear to have in mind.

Late, but better than never

It’s was obvious that the strategists had no idea what to do about 10 minutes after they successfully kicked out the Taliban with the help of the Northern Alliance. In fairness, this was mostly because there was nothing of material benefit to the USA to be gained there. The invasion and campaign were brilliant, but the occupation was awesomely stupid. I thought the decision to allow the DEA to co-opt foreign policy was the particular highlight.

“I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan,” he wrote Sept. 10 in a four-page letter to the department’s head of personnel. “I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end.”

[M]any Afghans, he wrote in his resignation letter, are fighting the United States largely because its troops are there — a growing military presence in villages and valleys where outsiders, including other Afghans, are not welcome and where the corrupt, U.S.-backed national government is rejected. While the Taliban is a malign presence, and Pakistan-based al-Qaeda needs to be confronted, he said, the United States is asking its troops to die in Afghanistan for what is essentially a far-off civil war.

While I applaud Captain Hoh’s integrity as well as his belated recognition of the futility of U.S. efforts in Afghanistan, he really should have recognized this several years ago. It is not a surprise that an occupied nation would fight the occupying forces and there is no rational national interest in the USA continuing to keep its military forces stationed in either Iraq or Afghanistan. All they can reasonably expect to do is to further destabilize the region while providing a sitting target for the various sides jousting for advantage there.

As the Romans knew, if you’re not going to settle colonists in a conquered territory, you’re not going to stay. And if you’re not going to stay, there is absolutely no reason to occupy territory once the initial objectives have been realized.

The NYT attempts to butch up Obama

Yeah, not so much:

The suspicion flared in recent weeks — and not for the first time — after President Obama was criticized by women’s advocates and liberal bloggers for hosting a high-level basketball game with no female players. The president, after all, is an unabashed First Guy’s Guy. Since being elected, he has demonstrated an encyclopedic knowledge of college hoops on ESPN, indulged a craving for weekend golf, expressed a preference for adopting a “big rambunctious dog” over a “girlie dog” and hoisted beer in a peacemaking effort.

I can’t wait until they try to dress him in a leather motorcycle jacket and put him on a Harley. It will be Dukakis-in-a-tank times ten. Love him or loathe him, George W. Bush was a guy’s guy. I despised the man and his disastrous presidency, but I can’t honestly say that I’d object to him coming over to watch the game with the guys. Whereas you know Obama would prefer be in the kitchen drinking white zinfandel and exchanging arugula recipes with the women.

This piece tells you more about the alienation of the New York Times from all things masculine than it does about the Obama administration. It reminds me of the time that the Chilliette’s girlfriends from San Francisco were concerned that her Scandinavian computer programmer fiance was “too macho” If Obama was a real guy’s guy, he’d respond by inviting some of the women who have been critical of him to the next basketball game, then blowing them off the court. And then, in a month or two, hosting a game of tackle football in the snow.

The “conservatives” editing NRO

NRO’s Editors acted like panicked little girls who knew nothing about economics, history, or politics when they endorsed the banking bailouts last November. Now that the government has spent hundreds of billions on the financial institutions and assorted other corporations, and in some cases owns them outright, they want to suddenly rediscover their long-lost principles in order to argue that limiting executive pay is somehow a sin against capitalism and small government:

Three things about the Obama administration’s publicity-seeking move to curb executives’ pay at bailed-out companies: It is inevitable, it is stupid, and it is inevitably stupid…. TARP was an emergency measure. The emergency has subsided, and the first order of business is restoring at least some separation between Washington and Wall Street, between political power and the private economy. The love of power can prove at least as corrupting as the love of money, and the American political class does not seem likely to resist either temptation, much less both at once.

Given that the “emergency measure” cop-out has been a known scam since Marius was scaring the Romans into throwing out their law against repeat consulships with the threat of a German invasion, that little bit of attempted posterior-covering isn’t convincing. The sell-outs supported the bailouts, which tells you all you need to know about the depth of their commitment to capitalism, small government, the Constitution, and American liberty. Obama’s decision to slash executive pay at bailed-out companies falls far short of what he should do – shut the corporations down and prosecute those guilty of committing fraud – but interrupting the executive feeding frenzy is far more justifiable than the original bail-outs ever were.

This column is a disgusting display of true colors by false conservatives who sold out whatever conservative principles they once held in service to Wall Street. Where on Earth do they think these “talented” executives are going to go if they are legally prevented from shoveling millions in taxpayer dollars to themselves? Move to Swaziland and utilize their highly refined lobbying “skills” there?

Speaking of bailed-out, government-owned banks, Karl Denninger notes something very fishy is going on at Citi and suspects another financial meltdown is in the works:

* Standard “purchase” interest rate is going to 29.99%.

* The “default rate” is also now 29.99%.

I have since confirmed that this letter is not just going to people who have had credit “challenges”. Indeed, this appears to be a blanket change on the part of Citibank. I now have multiple copies from people who assert that they have 750+ FICOs and have never missed a payment on this or any other obligation – the “paragon” of so-called “responsible” credit use. All of the letters are identical…. Perhaps what we’re really seeing is a business reacting to hidden deterioration of asset bases that are not known by investors and the public due to the legitimation of bogus accounting that happened this last March, but which is known by company executives!

Why do I believe this is a plausible, even likely explanation for this behavior by Citibank? That’s simple: This sort of “terms change”, which is an effective declaration of default even against those who haven’t defaulted (see above; the same 30% rate is being applied to defaulted and non-defaulted accounts!), will drive two consumer behaviors that could ultimately destroy Citibank’s credit card business and perhaps the bank as a whole:

1. Those who can transfer balances out somewhere else and/or pay them off will immediately do so. Nobody is going to pay a 30% interest rate and an imposition of default rates on non-defaulted balances willingly and on purpose unless they have no other choice.

2. A significant number of people, on receipt of this notice and understanding what it means (a declaration that non-defaulted accounts are being charged the same penalty rate as a defaulted account!) will immediately go out and charge up the entire unused balance on their card and then intentionally default.

This whole “recovery” theme and corresponding market rally has stink, stank, stunk like putrifying fish from the start. I don’t know how much longer the Fed will be able to prop it up, but I very much doubt it’s going to last another six months.

A minor, but legitimate intervention

Actually, far more of this sort of thing is in order:

The Obama administration plans to order companies that received huge U.S. government bailouts last year to sharply cut the compensation of their highest paid executives, according to a person familiar with the decision. The seven companies that received the most assistance will have to cut the annual salaries of their 25 highest-paid executive by an average of about 90 percent from last year, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because it has not been announced. This person said Wednesday that the Treasury Department will announce the deep pay cuts within the next few days.

Look very closely at any commentator, so-called conservative or otherwise, who complains about this action by the White House being somehow “anti-capitalist”. If he was also a supporter of the bailouts last November, you should never, ever, consider taking him seriously again, because he’s either an untrustoworthy hypocrite or he’s too dumb to even realize his inconsistency. Once the government stepped in to socialize a corporation’s losses, that corporation lost the right to privatize its profits or even manage itself independently. From an economic perspective, the only thing more disastrous than a pure socialist system where both profits and losses are public is a fascist system where profits are private and losses are public.

No doubt this is merely a token act meant to discharge the growing public fury with Goldman and the other giant vampire squidsfinancial institutions. If Obama was serious, he’d announce a retroactive 95 percent tax on all bonuses paid in 2008 or later at institutions that received government assistance since August 2008 and accept Paul Volcker’s advice to beginning breaking up the big banks. Of course, what he should actually do is force the banks to mark the values of their assets to market, obey the law and have the FDIC initiate Prompt Corrective Actions as they are legally bound to do, and shut down every big bank that is insolvent. But he’s neither smart enough to understand the need to do this nor courageous enough to do so in the face of opposition from the influential vampire squidsfinancial institutions. And so the debt spiral continues….

A lefty contemplates his banishment

For the moral crime of questioning aspects of the AGW/CC charade:

For better or worse I have a much better sense of how the liberal slime machine works in practice, having been inside now a bit. This is all the more ironic because I consider myself to be cut from a similar political cloth to many of those who are engaged in all out war against me. Here are a few reflections.

Here is how it works. The really giant fish — public intellectuals like Tom Friedman and Paul Krugman — confer authority on the big fish of the liberal blogosphere. They do so by applauding the work of the big fish and saying that they trust them. This is a useful exchange because the big fish amplify the writings of the giant fish in the blogosphere and do the dirty work of taking down their political opponents by playing some gutter politics that the giant fish would rather not be seen playing. This has the effect of establishing the big fish as people to be listened to, not because they are necessarily right about things, but because the giant fish listen to them and the giant fish set political agendas…. The giant fish then get plausible deniability from engaging in what might seem to be less-than ethical behavior, the big fish get the ego-strokes of acknowledgment from the giant fish and the occasional top-line billing among favorable-leaning media. Similarly the minnows get to parlay inexpertise into a small role in the politics of personal destruction, and are cited by the big fish, but never by the media or the giants, which would be unbecoming.

On a tangential note, I always find it a little peculiar how often an item is published by WND, or occasionally, even posted on my blog, and then shows, completely unattributed, on one of the more nominally mainstream sites. I think Steve Sailer is probably the most surreptitiously cited but least-quoted writer on the right.

Anyhow, it shouldn’t surprise the professor that the left relies so heavily on personal attacks and appeals to authority. First, they’re authoritarians. Second, they certainly aren’t going to argue the science on the subject, because none of it supports their position. And third, if they were informed and capable of arguing logic, they wouldn’t be leftists in the first place.