Thursday, December 6, 2012

Forward!


As you probably know, come January 1st 2013, taxes are scheduled to go up on everyone and automatic spending cuts will kick in.  This is the law as proposed and signed by President Barack Obama.  He built this, and we voted for it.  Yet he does not want his fingerprints on a tax hike on the middle class.  Nor does he want his fingerprints on a prolonged recession.  He must go through the motions of negotiating so he can then blame higher taxes and a recession on Republicans.  There is absolutely no reason to believe he cannot do this.  He really has all the cards. 

Hence, Republicans have no cards.  They cannot win no matter what they do.  Yet they too have interests.  Republicans don’t want their fingerprints on anyone’s taxes going up.   Nor do they want automatic cuts that don’t address the real problem of entitlements.  Lastly, they do not want to allow the economic damage that will result from both tax hikes and continued runaway entitlement spending.  I don’t see how they alone can stop any of this.    
  
That’s not to say they won’t reach an agreement and pass something.  They usually do.  It will happen at the very last minute.  Then they will both declare victory and go home.  The press will write about how the Republicans blinked, and how once again Obama outmaneuvered his less capable opponents.  The truth is nothing will actually be solved, and best-case scenario, we will just kick the can down the road once again.  

As a student of economics, I say pass nothing!  Let current law prevail.  Let all the taxes go up.  Let the sequester spending cuts go forward.  What a great experiment in economics we would be conducting!  What a great lesson for future generations!  This is our civic duty as educators and parents.  No more kicking the can down the road.  We’ve done that too long.  All that does is muddy the waters and obscure the causal relationship between our actions and their consequences. 

While we're at it, why not stop borrowing?  Let's just print every dollar we need!  Borrowing is just another way of kicking the can down the road.  That makes sense when  fighting an existential war, but we are borrowing from our kids to pay ourselves entitlements!  How can we justify passing on this debt and inflation to our kids?  Why not take the hit ourselves, today, like men and women of character would?     

We voted for this, now we should be allowed to live in the country we deserve.  Forward, I say!  Forward off the cliff!   

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Why Romney Lost

Just what you need, another amateur coroner autopsying Mitt Romney’s rotting political corpse.  But really, could I do any worse than the genius experts on the right who thought he’d be President Elect Romney now?   At least I can back-up the things I’m about to say with things I was saying all along!

It seems most pundits are focusing on groups and identity politics to pinpoint where Romney failed.   Why did Hispanics reject him?  Why were women luke warm?  Why did evangelicals not get fired-up?  To me, that is like analyzing a football game using baseball terminology.   You can’t explain a Republican loss using Democrat terms.  Democrats are the ones who see the electorate as groups. Their strategy is to individually target each group, give them whatever they want, and then pass the costs on to another generation.  It works very well when done right.   Republicans win when they see the electorate as individuals, not groups:  individuals with whom the idea of limited government will resonate when properly presented and contrasted with the unlimited government of the left.   Both sides are very successful when they stick to their respective plans and have likable candidates.  Both sides lose if they try to employ the other’s strategy.

Mitt Romney lost because he did not try to explain to the American people how liberalism and Barack Obama were responsible for our recent tragedies.  He also did not try to explain how conservatism was responsible for our recent successes.  He surrendered unconditionally on these issues.  

The first and biggest surrender was about Bush and the Financial Crisis of 2008.  Mitt Romney’s line throughout the campaign was “Sure, Barack Obama inherited a mess, but he made it worse!”  In other words, the mess was Bush’s fault.  This was an insane surrender in a campaign that seemed to be about the economy.  Perhaps Mitt Romney believed it really was Bush’s fault.  Perhaps he didn’t want to fight the zeitgeist.  Either way it was bad strategy.  And it was wrong on the merits!  Barack Obama did not inherit the financial crisis; he, the Democrat Party, and liberalism created it! 

The fact is, the financial crisis of 2008 was the direct result of a re-distributionist scheme to provide mortgages to anyone regardless of ability to pay.  This began in earnest under Bill Clinton and was nearly reigned-in by responsible conservatives under George W Bush.  Who stopped them?  Among them, a junior Senator from Illinois named Barack Obama who had spent the last decade advocating for this very scheme, first as a Community Organizer, next as a State Senator, then as a US Senator, and finally as President.  

All the risk from this redistribution was supposed to be assumed by wealthy taxpayers via the Federal Government in the form of government agencies initialed FNMA (Fannie Mae) and FHLMC (Freddie Mac).  No government official took more money from these “toxic twins” and at a faster rate than the junior Senator from Illinois named Barack Obama.  His closest competitors in that money grab included Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and Hillary Clinton.  (We may soon hear about the third and fourth government mortgage agencies known as FHA and GNMA, but that’s for another day…)

Unfortunately, when the scheme went bad, the damage spread unintentionally to the private banking and investment sector bringing the entire global financial system to its knees.  Mitt Romney was supposed to be a business expert but he never brought any insight to any of this! 

The second surrender has to do with Osama bin Laden.  It may have been hard to argue that Barack Obama was not responsible for finding Osama bin Laden, after all he was the Commander-In-Chief at the time, but the fact is, Osama bin Laden was located DESPITE Barack Obama, not because of him.  Barack Obama was an impediment to this success!   

It took ten years of hard work to capture high-value terrorists, interrogate them, gather the intelligence, follow the leads, pinpoint bin Laden’s whereabouts, and finally pull off the successful Seal Team Six raid that killed him.  Barack Obama opposed every single aspect of that effort.  Moreover, every tactic, every technique, and every shred of key intelligence originated prior to Obama’s presidency.  Mitt Romney never challenged this hagiography and never explained it to the people!

Barack Obama opposed capturing terrorists at all, and still does.  That’s why anyone suspected of being a terrorist is executed via drone (along with their immediate family if any are near).  Virtually no non-domestic terrorists have been captured since Obama became President.  This has been a disaster from an intelligence standpoint.  Without captured terrorists we never would have gotten the leads that eventually led to Osama bin Laden.   

Obama opposed Guantanamo Bay and military tribunals for terrorists.  This has been a deadly disaster of a policy.  Obama, both as Senator and President, has advocated for the release of dangerous terrorists from Gitmo in order to eventually close the prison and avoid the messy trials.  That’s how the leader of the 9/11/12 Benghazi attack got released from Gitmo and sent back to Libya while Obama was advocating for these very policies from the Senate.  Gitmo prisoners were the ones who led us to Osama bin Laden.   
  
Obama opposed interrogating terrorists.  There has been no effective questioning of terrorists, harsh or otherwise, under President Obama.  Without interrogations, bin Laden would still be alive and free today. 

Obama opposed wiretapping terrorists.  As President, he has quietly allowed some wiretaps, but his rhetoric has always been at odd with this.  Without wiretaps, bin Laden’s courier would never have led us to the Abbottabad compound where bin Laden was holed-up.

Obama is no friend of the Military or the Intelligence branches.  In fact, up until a month ago, the Obama Administration was actively seeking legal action against the very interrogators who got the intelligence that led to bin Laden.  Let that sink in:  For almost four years, Barack Obama was legally harassing the very people who were responsible for getting bin Laden.  What’s more, these individuals were denied legal assistance and left to fend for themselves!  

Mitt Romney never called Obama on any of this.  Obama got a free ride with his radical base by opposing every single element of the effort to get bin Laden, and at the same time got to play to the rest of America by taking credit for the success and spiking the football!        

The third surrender has to do with Barack Obama’s character.  This surrender is best exemplified by Mitt Romney’s oft repeated line; “Barack Obama is a nice enough guy, he’s just in over his head!”   Again, this was probably Romney just playing to the polls, which showed Barack Obama as a likable fellow.  But challengers are supposed to challenge!  Challenge conventional wisdom, challenge the media, challenge the pop culture, and challenge the hagiography.  Mitt Romney did none of that. 

Barack Obama is arguably not a “nice guy” and he’s certainly not in over his head.  He has burdened our kids with unprecedented debt and financial obligations that they can never repay.  He has offered no credible plan to reverse any of this.  All he has offered is an all-out war on the reasonable suggestions of others.  How is that nice?  He has championed an explosion in dependency and poverty:  More people are on food stamps, welfare, unemployment, disability, and Medicaid than ever before and the all the money for that explosion is borrowed from our kids.  How is that nice?  Barack Obama is a self-described follower of Saul Alinsky, Karl Marx, and Cloward and Piven. Their strategy is to destroy the existing system of equal-opportunity and replace it with one of equal-outcomes after an economic collapse which they hope to foster.  This has never worked out well anywhere throughout history.  How is that nice?  He has promoted class warfare, race warfare, and union thuggery all in a cynical pursuit of political power.  How is that nice?  Barack Obama has lied about everything from economics to Benghazi and everything in between.  How is that nice?  Mitt Romney never explained!   

Finally, Mitt Romney surrendered his own character.  As Democrats and the Obama operation were slandering him and accusing him of the most egregious offenses including a woman's death, conducting a war on women, committing felonies, cruelty to animals, tax fraud, bankrupting companies, etc., he continued to act as a character witness for Barack Obama!  This was preposterous.  The Romney strategy seemed to be based on the belief that Americans would somehow see what was happening, recognize it as a blatant attempt at character assassination, and reject it out of some high moral principles that they supposedly had.  In what could qualify as the understatement of the year, that was a miscalculation.

It may be that this was not a winnable campaign from the outset.  It’s hard to run against the pop media, pop culture, pop academia, pop music, pop entertainment, and the entire world, which awarded Barack Obama a Nobel Peace Prize just for showing-up.  Moreover, in a country that has made everyone part of the entitled class and left it up to the unborn to pay for it all, sanity may come only when it must. 

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Why Obama Won



(Updated)
Why did Obama win?  Two words, Alinsky and Inception.    

I'm borrowing the term Inception from the 2010 movie by the same name.  In case you haven’t seen the movie, "Inception" refers to the implanting of ideas by entering the subconscious during an induced dream state and then manipulating the dream to get the implanted idea to take hold.    

In the movie, Leo DiCaprio plays the protagonist, Cobb, who explains the power of ideas:
  
Cobb: “What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm? An idea. Resilient... highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it's almost impossible to eradicate.”

The elements of Inception are these:
  • An idea to implant
  • An induced dream state
  • A compelling dreamscape
  • Active manipulation of the dream
  • A strong defense against competing ideas  

The left has either consciously or unconsciously understood this concept for decades and used it to make their ideas resilient, contagious, and impossible to eradicate.  Today, the right has nothing to counter this strategy.    

Here’s how the left has achieved inception success:
  •  An idea to implant:  The left's idea is that they will give you whatever you want, work is optional, you will suffer no negative consequences, you will not be held accountable, you will not be judged, and some faceless rich guy will pay for it all!      
  • An induced dream state:    With their near monopoly position in entertainment, academia, news media, and pop culture, liberals have unique access to the subconscious.  Whether sitting in a classroom,  in front of a TV, reading a newspaper, or in a theater, the captive subject is in a state of “suspended disbelief” where the critical mind is on standby and open to implanted ideas.   
  • A compelling dreamscape:  Free stuff is awesome!   Add in, social security, social justice, equality of outcomes, utopianism, lowered seas, and a healed planet and, voila!   A one-sided presentation of these benefits makes the dream irresistible.  Of course, the costs and the moral hazard are never mentioned in the dream.  Why spoil it?    
  • Active manipulation of the dream:  To advance these ideas,  every possible tactic is used, including disinformation, and outright deception.  There are no limits.  As Saul Alinsky, the father of Community Organizing and the left's tactical guru tought in "Rules for Radicals", the ends justify the means.  No tactic is off limits.       
  • Finally, a strong defense against competing ideas:  The left works very hard to destroy any competing ideas, regardless of merit.   Polarization, ridicule, and fear-mongering are just some of the tools utilized to make competing ideas toxic. Again from Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals":
    • “…Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” 
      • Thus Mitt Romney became a greedy villain who hates women, tortures animals, cheats on his taxes, and is responsible for a woman's death.  Paul Ryan is shown throwing granny off a cliff.     
    • “…Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”   
      • This is why Comedy Central, Broadway, and Saturday Night Live spent inordinate amounts of time ridiculing Mitt Romney, including even attacking his religion.   

Conservatives have a marked disadvantage when it comes to Inception:  

  • The right does not have access to the subconscious.  With the possible exception of a few media outlets, conservatives have almost no active voice in the pop culture, pop academia, or pop media.  Even religious communities, which were traditionally right leaning, are on the wane or have moved left.        
  • Even if conservatives had access to the subconscious, they still could not easily make their dream compelling!   Personal responsibility, accountability, and hard work are, well...hard.  Work sucks!  Who wants a job when you can get everything you need without working?  
  • Conservatives are programmed to tell the truth.  Of course, nobody’s perfect and conservatives wander plenty.  But high standards, accountability, and veracity are traditionally conservative values.       
  • Conservatives are pre-disposed to avoid gratuitously destroying their enemies.  Decorum, manners, honor, and tradition are all conservative concepts.  Liberals have no similar fealty to such antiquated notions of behavior. 
Until conservatives understand the tactics of Alinsky and Inception, they cannot compete.  Mitt Romney had no idea what hit him.  The left successfully destroyed his sterling character and resume.  What did Mitt Romney do in response to being smeared and destroyed?  He smiled, said nice things about Mr. Obama's character, and told Americans he'd find them a job!  

As you can see, this was never a fair fight.  With half the country now paying zero income taxes, and an equally large segment on some kind of government assistance, it is near impossible to see how economic conservatives ever regain power in the US until after the collapse: the very painful economic collapse which we are steadily moving "Forward" towards.  

In the movie "Inception", DiCaprio's character uses a spinning top to remind him whether or not he's dreaming.  If the top spins indefinitely, he's dreaming;  if it stops, he knows he's awake.  I'm gonna find me a top and start carrying it from now on, just to remind me.  

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Barack Obama – Master of Disinformation


Win or lose, Barack Obama has been a master of disinformation.  If you are incredulous at that assertion, you are by definition an accomplice.  Sorry to be so blunt.  

In the interest of time, mine and yours, I’m limiting this to just two issues, one for domestic affairs, and one for international affairs.  Herewith, my case:

Domestic – The crown jewel of Barack Obama’s disinformation campaign has been blaming the 2008 financial crisis on anyone but himself and his fellow redistributionists.  The fact is, the financial crisis was the direct result of a redistributionist scheme to provide mortgages to anyone regardless of ability to pay.  This began in earnest under Bill Clinton and was nearly reigned-in by responsible Republicans under George W Bush.  Who stopped them?  Among them a junior Senator from Illinois named Barack Obama, who had spent the last decade advocating for this very scheme, first as a Community Organizer, next as a State Senator, then as a US Senator, and finally as President.  

All the risk from this redistribution was supposed to be assumed by wealthy taxpayers via the Federal Government in the form of two government agencies initialed FNMA (Fannie Mae) and FHLMC (Freddie Mac).  No government official took more money from these two and at a faster rate than the junior Senator from Illinois named Barack Obama.  His closest competitors in that money grab included Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and Hillary Clinton.

Unfortunately, when the scheme went bad, the damage spread unintentionally to the private banking and investment sector, bringing the entire global financial system to its knees.

The disinformation on this has continued during the campaign in the form of compulsive references to Mitt Romney and Republicans wanting to “bring back the very policies which got us into this mess in the first place”.   The level of delusion required to say this and believe this is beyond comprehension.  Then again, that is the goal of any disinformation campaign.   This has been a classic case of the arsonist returning to the fire as a fireman and claiming he’s here to fix the mess started by that other guy, the arsonist. 
     
International – The disinformation campaign on international matters has been extraordinarily successful.  Until Benghazi, that is.  It’s hard to argue that Barack Obama is not responsible for Osama bin Laden’s death, but he’s demonstrably not.  Facts are facts and Obama was the President at the time, hence history will credit him with bin Laden’s death.  But history is full of disinformation. 

It took ten long years to capture high-value terrorists, interrogate them, gather the intelligence, follow the leads, pinpoint bin Laden’s whereabouts, and finally pull off the successful Seal Team Six raid.  Every single aspect of that effort was opposed by Barack Obama and every shred of intelligence which led to bin Laden’s demise originated prior to Obama’s presidency.

·    Obama opposed capturing terrorists at all, and still does.  That’s why anyone suspected of being a terrorist is executed via drone (along with their immediate family if they are nearby).  Virtually no non-domestic terrorists have been captured since Obama became President.  This is a disaster from an intelligence standpoint.  That’s part of the reason al-Qaeda can be openly flying flags in Benghazi, and every single government except ours does the math and gets out.  Not only did we stay, we failed to provide adequate security in the wake of that intelligence vacuum. 
·   Obama opposed Guantanamo Bay and military tribunals for terrorists.  This has been a deadly disaster of a policy.  Obama, both as Senator and President, has advocated for the release of dangerous terrorists from Gitmo in order to eventually close it and avoid the messy trials.  That’s how the leader of the Benghazi attack got released from Gitmo and sent back to Libya while Obama was advocating for these very policies from the Senate.  The pressure to do this came almost exclusively from Obama’s party.  
·   Obama opposed interrogating terrorists.  There has been no effective questioning of terrorists, harsh or otherwise, under Obama.  Again, no new intelligence. 
·   Obama opposed wiretapping terrorists.  (As President, he has quietly allowed some wiretaps, but his rhetoric has always been at odd with this.) 
·   Obama is no friend of the Military or the Intelligence branches.  The military and intelligence services got bin Laden with no support from Obama.  In fact, up until a month ago, the Obama Administration was actively seeking a lawsuit against the interrogators who got the intelligence which led to bin Laden.  Obama was actually suing the very CIA people who were responsible for getting bin Laden!  

These were all the elements that found and eventually got the al-Qaeda leader responsible for murdering thousands on 9/11.  Obama opposed every single element of that effort, yet he has taken credit for all of it.  Again, the arsonist takes credit for putting out the fire.    

I could go on and on citing cases of gross attempts to deceive the public through disinformation from the Obama Administration.  Books will be written.  Some already have.   But my point here is to address the voters before Tuesday Nov, 6th:  you either understand the above by now, or you don’t, and are a willing accomplice.    

Thursday, November 1, 2012

The Case Against Obama

Why blog when Bill Whittle so succinctly makes the case against Barack Obama?
http://www.pjtv.com/s/GEYTAMBQ

Along these lines, I made this cartoon 6/11 early in the primary season.  Holds up well:


More to come on this before election day...

Thursday, October 4, 2012

This Presidency has been Photoshopped


(Update:  Awoke this morning to the news that unemployment miraculously fell to 7.8%!     I rest my case.)
Every aspect of this Presidency has been Photoshopped.  It’s been air-brushed, edited, manipulated, faked, phonied, cropped, distorted, misrepresented, massaged, tweaked, falsified, misreported, and staged.  What you see is not real.  Almost nothing you have been told about Barack Obama is true.  Ditto for Mitt Romney.  Even when you think you are seeing them speak in their own words, you are being duped.  That’s why Mitt Romney’s debate victory last night was such an unexpected surprise to so many.     

The deceptions started from the moment Barack Obama walked onto the national stage.  Air-brushed was his work as a “Community Organizer”: a job title originated by revolutionary Saul Alinsky, who advocated for the destruction of our society in pursuit of an undefined utopia.  Unreported were Obama’s associations with terrorist Bill Ayers, Communist Frank Marshall Davis, anti-Zionist Rashid Khalidi,  racist Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and many others with similarly controversial ideologies.  Edited was his race baiting and divisive rhetoric aimed at previous administrations, white Americans, and the rich.  Cropped was his avowed affinity for “Marxist professors”, disdain for “typical white” people, and conflicting stories on everything from his religion, to his Mother’s death.  Unasked were any tough questions by the media or any follow-ups to his deceptive answers.

Once the campaign of 2008 got underway the Photoshopping went bipartisan.  John McCain was falsely accused of an extramarital affair in a huge front-page feature in the New York Times.  Misrepresented were his mostly moderate views.  Cropped was Senator Obama’s record as the most liberal member of the Senate.  Unmentioned was his nickname as the “Senator from Fannie and Freddie”.  Scrubbed was his distinction as the man who received campaign contributions from the “toxic twins” at a higher rate than any other public official.   Covered-up was his long-time advocacy for the very policies which were the immediate cause of the financial crisis:  subsidized mortgages for irresponsible borrowers.  Staged was Obama’s preferred meme for the cause of the crisis: greedy bankers, Bush, and The Republicans. 

The Photoshopping then continued throughout Obama’s Presidency.  Unreported was the fact that the recession officially ended in June 2009, before Obama policies largely took effect.  Falsified was the fact that Obama’s nearly Trillion Dollar stimulus, printed out of thin air, added not a thimbles worth of net value to the American economy.   Lied about was the notion that Obama’s unprecedented government-run GM bankruptcy was somehow better than a normal lawful court-run bankruptcy.   Air-brushed has been Obama’s featherweight work schedule, a calendar filled with none of the markers of diligence…except to politicking, golfing, and recreation.  Buried was the unprecedented partisan nature of the entire ObamaCare process.  Photoshopped was Obama’s opposition to all of the Bush policies which led to the killing of Osama bin Laden (Live captures, Gitmo, interrogation, and wiretapping).   Unreported is the fact that under Obama, US casualties have doubled in Afghanistan, the soldiers we are training are murdering us, and we are now in full retreat throughout the middle-east.  Even Government statistics like Unemployment, Inflation, and GDP Growth have been manipulated to always paint a rosy picture no matter how awful.  (Just the other day it was breathlessly reported that housing prices rose handsomely, while the volume of homes remained low.  This was celebrated as an indication of improved economic conditions, instead of being reported as dollar weakness and inflation, which it most likely was, given the unchanged volume!) 

Finally, lied about is the Presidents propensity to be on both sides of every single issue.   It is impossible to find an issue on which Barack Obama has not taken opposing positions.  These are not flip flops.  This is a deliberate smoke screen of cognitive dissonance designed to hide the revolution and maintain power.     

The Presidential Campaign continues to be Photoshopped.  Edited were Mitt Romney’s 47% comments (The hidden tape of his remarks runs for over an hour, yet the 47% comment is abruptly cut-off just as he is likely to elaborate!).  Faked is an MSNBC clip that falsely paints Romney as churlish and petty.   An edited Mitt Romney gets almost universally negative coverage from both the US and foreign press.  Photoshopped images of Mitt Romney unable to spell his own name are taken as real and become punchlines.  Made-up comments make repeated rounds on Facebook and elsewhere, until the lies become mainstream.   Falsified is the image of Mitt Romney as a murdering, misogynistic, tax cheating, greed-head, who is mean to puppies.  Meanwhile, an air brushed Barack Obama gets universally positive coverage.  Unreported go the reprehensible cover-ups of Fast and Furious and the Libya debacle, skipped security briefs, failed Afghanistan policy, Iraq failures,  jailed filmmakers, support for the violent Occupy movement, dismal economy, compulsive mendacity, and on and on.    

This could go on for pages, but the point is not to provide a history lesson.  The point is to say this:  if you were totally blindsided by Mitt Romney’s debate performance and equally surprised by Barack Obama’s, you need to think long and hard about your media sources.  You are being played like a Stradivarius. 


Can't this guy even spell his own name?  Photoshopped!

Media Summary of the 2012 campaign:

Friday, September 28, 2012

Basement Liberals


One of the most enduring images from the GOP convention in Tampa was when Paul Ryan said: “College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life.”

Then there was Mitt Romney’s hidden camera riff about the 47% who will vote for Obama no matter what because they want everything for free, pay no income tax, and see themselves as victims.   

These two images get to the essence of what really separates Liberals from Conservatives, not just in the US, but also around the globe.  It also gives me an opportunity to make a philosophical point, which ought to be a central theme in conservatism today and ought to be front and center in Mitt Romney’s campaign:  The Federal Government must never be the safety net! 

Liberals and Government:
Liberals view government as their parent.  Accordingly, they want a really cool parent.  One that lets them live in the basement indefinitely, buys and cooks the food, does the laundry, pays the bills, gives them a free cell phone, and takes care of them when they are sick.  A cool parent asks no questions and makes no demands.   A cool parent wouldn’t care if you smoked weed in the basement, slept until noon, played video games all night, had frequent wild parties, and blasted loud music.  Really cool parents wouldn’t mind your alternative lifestyle because it would just enhance their own coolness!  They might even remodel the basement for you, put on an addition, and add a private entrance to make you totally comfortable living there.  Really cool parents are awesome, no?  In fact they are so awesome, why would you ever leave the basement?

And there’s the rub; you wouldn’t.  You would happily live the decadent life of a dependent mooch in your parent’s basement where you would obtain none of the habits or skills to ever be independent or make a positive contribution to society.  Then one day your parents or the money would disappear, and you would be one angry helpless slacker living in a dark basement that the bank wants to repossess. 

This is why socialism eventually fails wherever and whenever it is tried.  Sure, it might take a few generations to breed all the success traits out of the population, but eventually that will happen and the society will crumble.  
  
Conservatives and Government:
Conservatives don’t view government as their parents, don’t want to be dependents living in anyone’s basement, don’t care if their government is cool, and are not afraid of being independent. That does not mean Conservatives reject all government.  On the contrary, Conservatives understand that for them to be free they need strong federal and state governments.  But conservatives want a federal government that only does the things no other entity can, like defense, lawmaking, judiciary, money, foreign relations, and taxing.  All the other things, like taking care of dependents, healthcare, education, retirement, and free cell phones, should be done by the states, individuals, families, non-government organizations, religious groups, and private companies.   These are the fibers which weave together to form a resilient society.  The States and the society must provide the safety net, not the federal government, and for good reason. 

The federal government is unique in that it alone can print money!  This sets up a classic conflict of interest.  This is why the federal government must never be the safety net.  Keeping these entitlements and safety net items out of the federal sphere is the only way to insure that the voters don’t ever have the power to vote themselves free money and “rights” which belong to other generations.  Thus, the states and non-government society are in a better position to honestly provide a sustainable safety net.  I wish this philosophy was front and center in Mitt Romney’s campaign.

Incidentally, this is the way the country was laid out in The Constitution.  Those founding parents may not have been “cool” but they sure were smart. 

Here’s what it looks like when the process is complete:  

The 2012 race in a nutshell:
  

Friday, September 14, 2012

Friday, August 31, 2012

Eastwood Made My Day

Clint Eastwood struck a nerve at the GOP convention.  The Left is apopleptic.  Many on the Right are confused too.  The apoplectic Left understands exactly what happened and their outrage is justified.   The confused Right have no excuse.

I have some experience with this phenomenon.  I inadvertently turned the tables on Obama and the Left by ridiculing them in this cartoon from 2011.  The response was amazing and ferocious.  Ridicule, especially in the electronic media, is the exclusive domain of the Left.  How dare I make fun of Obama and the Left on YouTube and have it go viral!

I doubt Clint Eastwood intentionally borrowed a page from the Left's tactical bible.  In "Rules for Radicals", Saul Alinsky states:
Rule 5: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It’s hard to counterattack ridicule, and it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.
I have no way of knowing if Mr. Eastwood ever read that rule.  That's not important.  The undeniable fact is that he somehow understands it.  That anyone on the Right does not get this after all these years is beyond disappointing.

The reality is, Clint Eastwood's bumbling razor-sharp improv will be watched by millions of independent voters over the next few weeks and that is pure genius.  He has gotten under the Left's skin like no politician ever could.  He made my day.
  
This is the video that went viral for me:


Here is the Eastwood improv in case you missed it:






Thursday, August 30, 2012

Dear Mr. Eastwood

Dear Mr. Eastwood,                                                   (originally posted  2/8/2012)

With all due respect, for Chrysler’s bond-holders it is not “Half-Time in America”.   No, for those unlucky victims of President Obama’s bailout, it is actually “game over”.
  
Let me tell you a story worthy of a Hollywood script:

One week before my father-in-law died at 88, he confided in me that a chunk of his life’s savings had been wiped-out when Chrysler’s secured bondholders were bypassed in Obama’s bailout.  Unlike you, Robert W. Scisco Sr. did not play a tough guy in the movies.  Instead, he actually fought real Nazis in North Africa, up through Italy, eventually earning a Purple Heart in France.  This was not a man prone to showing fear, yet at the time he told me about his Chrysler bonds, he seemed afraid - afraid of his own government!   

You see, President Obama did not follow the normal bankruptcy route when he imposed the Chrysler bailout on us.  Instead, he decided to bypass the secured bondholders, who were first in-line, wiping them out, and delivered the company unencumbered to Fiat, the US Government, and the UAW.  This was an unprecedented redistribution from secured creditors to the President's supporters.   Unlike you, Bob Scisco understood this, and was wise enough to envision the full implications for him, his heirs, and the future of economic liberty in the country he had fought to defend.
   
For Chrysler’s bondholders like my father-in-law, Obama’s bailout was a knife in the back.  Within a week of him telling me this, with fear in his eyes, he was gone.

Regards,  Ronald Reich


(This was in response to Clint Eastwood's Chrysler ad during the last Superbowl.  I am reprinting it on the eve of his appearance at the GOP convention with minor edits.  PS My father in law was relatively healthy and died unexpectedly during a routine medical test under anesthesia.)

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Brilliant



Copy and post to FB if you like!  

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

“The Issue”

Mitt Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan has changed the focus of the election and put “The Issue” front and center.

You may think The Issue is the economy.  Mitt Romney has been campaigning all along as though it is, but it is not.  The interesting conundrum of the economic argument is that wherever the economy is weakest, Obama is strongest.  The States with the weakest economies are all solid Obama wins according to the polls.  The groups with the worst economic performance are all solid Democrat supporters.  The cities with dying industries, dying downtowns, dismal economies and crumbling finances are largely Democrat run and Democrat leaning.  When Obama says “Our plan worked!” he may be referring to this apparent conundrum; the weakened economy has actually strengthened his support among his base.
  
You may think The Issue is jobs.  Republicans talk an awful lot about jobs, but here again, high unemployment does not appear to help them.  As with the economy, states and groups with the highest unemployment are all solid Obama territory.  More evidence his plan is working. 

To make a long story short, The Issue is not the deficit, nor healthcare, nor national security, nor is it energy, even though all those will play a role in the upcoming debate.  The reason Obama is strong in all those areas with high unemployment and dismal economic performance is because he has greatly increased federal hand-outs.  Jobs and economic growth are superfluous when the government gives you everything.   Not only did we have an existing mess in entitlements, Obama has made it much worse.  The Issue is entitlements.

We could shut down the entire federal government and still not be able to afford our entitlements.  Shut the military, the courts, all the government agencies, the FBI, CIA, NASA, EPA, DOT, the Senate, the House, and everything else except the existing entitlements and interest, and we’d still be insolvent in a matter of years.  In other words, we are living off our kid’s money.  Romney/Ryan believe that our thirst for entitlements constitutes an immoral claim on the labor of others.  They have a strong case.    

Now for the boring numbers part (skip to "Conclusion" if you are ADD/ADHD): 

·      Tax revenue has averaged almost exactly 18% of GDP for 60 years.  During that time, rates have been all over the place for every type of federal tax, but never has federal revenue sustained a long period above or below that 18% level.  Tax revenue is self regulating and fixed over time at 18% of GDP.  Taxing "The Rich" cannot solve this.  (top graph)        
·      Meanwhile, entitlements alone plus interest on the debt will bankrupt us. (bottom chart)
 

*Source: Heritage Foundation

Conclusion:
Every time a politician has tried to even start a conversation about entitlements they have been quickly shouted down, sometimes by their own party.  The reason this is so is that we’ve had a kind of immunity from having to deal with entitlements and deficits.  We alone can print the world’s reserve currency.  We alone can issue US Treasuries.  And we alone can lead the world on interest rates.   This unique position has allowed us to live beyond our means without repercussions.  Our trading partners and financiers keep writing us the equivalent of second, third, and fourth mortgages on our debt while allowing us to refinance at historically low rates.   If only this could go on forever. 

But it can’t, and it is irresponsible and immoral to pretend otherwise as Obama has.  This is where Romney/Ryan come in.

Romney/Ryan are the first modern ticket focusing on The Issue during a campaign.  They are both articulate, informed, accomplished, and serious.  We’ll see if the public is ready to hear their message.  I sincerely hope it goes better than last time around.  You see, once upon a time we had another Presidential ticket which spoke frankly about entitlements.  They too were concerned with an entitlement that amounted to an immoral claim on the labor of others.  Their names were Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin.  



The Campaign So Far


Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Obama's Logic


What is the logical outcome of Barack Obama's philosophy: "If you've got a business, you didn't build that!  Somebody else made that happen!"?

The good news is, we don't have to guess.  At the heart of Marxist-Lenninist theory is "egalitarianism":  the idea that free markets unfairly and unevenly distribute wealth in a society, thus requiring the state to seize the wealth and effect a more even distribution.

Seizing wealth is a tough sell in a society which believes that the people who earned it have a proprietary interest in it.  But if the society can be convinced that wealth really belongs to all members in equal measure, regardless of contribution, then the Marxist-Lenninists will have the critical mass for their revolution.  

The bad news is, the revolution has always been bloody and has never produced  anything except egalitarian misery.

In a totally unrelated thought:

 







Thursday, July 26, 2012

Obama Jumps The Shark

Obama campaign Jumps the Shark
scolding businessmen:
"You Didn't Build That!"

"Jumping the Shark", a term which has come to denote the beginning of a downhill slide in the quality of a TV series, originally referred to a Happy Days episode in which the character Fonzie jumped over a shark while waterskiing.  Critics claim that from that point on, the show descended into campy mediocrity.   

The Right asserts: 
  • Obama's campaign has "jumped the shark" by scolding business people, "You didn't build that!"
The Left asserts:
  • Obama was not actually waterskiing at the time
  • The Right is taking his being pulled by a boat "out of context"
  • If Obama was being pulled by a boat, it's only because Republicans have let the roads and bridges fall apart 
  • Further, if Obama had seen a shark while being pulled by a boat and jumped over it, it's only because he is so kind to animals
  • In any case, that was an underrated Happy Days episode
  • Mitt Romney waterskis too and has a really expensive boat
  • Look, the Koch Brothers! 
(Cautionary tale:  Although the aforementioned Happy Days episode is recognized as the turning point in the series, it dragged-on another six painful years...)  



Monday, July 23, 2012

Ignite!


  • How many know that Denver, Colorado has an active anarchist movement?  
  • How many know that Denver has an active Occupy movement?
  • How many realize Occupy and anarchists are one?*  
  • How many know that there is actually an anarchist newspaper in Denver?  (called "Ignite!")  
  • How many know that anarchist movements have particular animus towards Police?  
  • How many know that Police were the intended target of the booby trapped apartment?  
  • How many realize that this mass murder had no other motive other than anarchy and killing Police? 
  • How many realize that Batman has always had an anti-anarchist theme?*
  • How many realize Barack Obama got his start as a Community Organizer Occupying banks? (Sorry, this is "Obama's Mob" )*
  • How many realize Barack Obama supports the Occupy movement?*      
  • How many realize we are now several days into this, and no Pop Media outlet is pointing any of this out?

* UPDATED From The Original

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Mitt Romney Is Batman

There's a new Batman movie coming out and I hear Rush Limbaugh has compared Mitt Romney to Bruce Wayne/Batman.  Ergo, it is time to revisit one of my favorite mash-ups.  (Apologies to Herman Cain fans, but he had already dropped out when I made this.)




Monday, July 2, 2012

Grand Ayatollah Roberts

When Obamacare, arguably the most invasive legislation in the history of our nation,  passed the Senate with not a single Republican vote, I likened it to being raped and posted the "Stages of Adjustment" a rape victim goes through.  Here are a few examples:
SHOCK—Numbness - Offering information to the survivor during this stage is not helpful, as s/he will likely remember very little, if anything, about what occurs during this time period
DENIAL—“Not me, I’m fine.” “This can’t have happened!” “It’s not that bad.”  Not yet able to face the severity of the crisis, the survivor spends time gathering strength. The denial phase serves as a cushion for the more difficult stages of adjustment that follow.
ANGER—Rage, Resentment… “What did I do?” “Why me?”
A survivor’s anger may be the result of having experienced a loss of strength or loss of control over her/his life. The anger may be directed toward the offenders, a doctor, the police, or anyone else, including her/himself.
The list goes on to include the later stages: PLEA-BARGAINING, DEPRESSION, ACCEPTANCE, and ASSIMILATION.  Here's the full list. 

If you felt abused by the original passing of the bill, it might feel like you've had to deal with a second assault, as if the judge made you re-enact the rape in the courtroom. 

Moreover, this SCUTUS ruling is akin to trying a rape case in a Sharia court.  According to Islamic Sharia law there must be four male eye-witnesses in order to convict a rapist.  Lacking those four eye witnesses or a confession, the rape victim is found guilty of fornicating or adultery and given 100 lashes or stoned to death.  Yes, that's right, the victim is guilty despite eye witness testimony.  John Roberts would fit right in there.  Maybe we should just call him Grand Ayatollah Roberts? 

(Note that this case even had its four male eye-witnesses! Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy, and Alito.  Nevertheless, the Grand Ayatollah prevailed.) 




Thursday, June 28, 2012

The Tragedy of ObamaCare

Forget the politics. What matters to me, and should matter to everyone, is that ObamaCare has always been a shit-sandwich and it remains so today.  The only two things we learned from today's Supreme Court ruling, we already knew: ObamaCare was deceptively sold, and anyone looking for salvation from the Supreme Court is looking in the wrong place.

The debate all along on healthcare was flawed. The debate focused on the visible: your costs, your choices, your doctor, your insurance, and the constitutionality of the mandate. That’s understandable. Voters relate to what they can see. But what makes modern healthcare so dynamic is not the visible, and that is what will atrophy under a federal top-down system.

Virtually all the advances in healthcare we have come to take for granted: X-Rays, MRIs, arthroscopic surgery, pharmaceuticals, surgical devices, implanted defibrillators, and all the high-tech gadgets and substances one sees in a hospital, are produced by private industry. The more involved the federal government gets, the harder it becomes to make and improve these things. We won’t notice the slowing pace of advances right away. It will happen slowly and inexorably. Years from now, we won’t even realize we are dying from routine diseases which a private health system could have cured.

None of this was necessary. Every problem we have with health insurance today is already caused by government: It comes through your employer because of tax laws that allow deductibility only for employers. You can’t buy insurance across state lines due to a law called McCarran Ferguson. Medicare rate controls guarantee high inflation for non-Medicare patients. There are no limits on malpractice awards. State monopolies force residents into high-cost plans. You can’t even be charged with theft if you drive up to a hospital in a Ferrari, demand to be treated, and then refuse to pay!

ObamaCare was never about fixing those problems. ObamaCare has always been about control and power for the Democrat Party. Democrats know that once the government controls your healthcare, they control you.

This has been and still is the tragedy of ObamaCare.

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Why Exercise?


We keep hearing about the shrinking workforce, or what the Bureau of Labor Statistics calls, “The Labor Force Participation Rate”.  Since Barack Obama was elected, the size of the workforce, that is the number of Americans working or seeking work, has dropped precipitously from 66% to 63.6% (source: BLS*).  This is the first time since such measurements were made (1948) that the rate has gone down like that.  Why?

Here’s a thought experiment:  Suppose a law was passed that guaranteed everyone an average lifespan, but no more.  Medical professionals would annually predict the overall average life expectancy, and that would be it.  The sick would have their lives extended up to that average age by every means available.  Everyone, sick or healthy, would be terminated when they hit the average life expectancy age.   In other words, you would would be guaranteed the exact same lifespan as your drug addicted, cigarette smoking neighbor, regardless of your health condition. 

What do you suppose would happen to the fitness craze?  Would Americans spend hours running, weight lifting, cycling, and eating healthy foods knowing the longest they could possibly live would be…average?  What would be the marginal advantage of staying healthy?  What would happen to cheesecake consumption rates for those over, say, 60?  In other words, what would happen to the “Fitness Force Participation Rate”? 
  
Also, what would happen to the average lifespan over time, would it go up or down?

Friday, May 25, 2012

Brett Kimberlin - A Limerick Poem



In honor of "Blog about Brett Kimberlin Day"

Here's a brief summary:  Brett Kimberlin is a convicted violent criminal, most likely a murderer, and now a free man who has become a violent and dangerous leftist activist who gets funding from leftist sugar-daddies like George Soros and Barbara Streisand.  His latest terrorism is focused on bloggers bent on exposing his past, his current activities,  and his leftist ties.  He is a menace to society, a menace to the 1st amendment, and must be stopped.

Some links:
The original expose' by LC (important)
Who is Brett Kimberlin? (a short video)
More Here... (good)
What is Brett Kimberlin up to now? (scary)