May 23 2009

What Price Victory? #3

Category: election 2008,politics — amuzikman @ 9:25 am

The Minnesota senate election results are still being contested and a final winner has not yet been declared.  At this point democratic challenger, Al Franken (of Saturday Night Live fame), leads incumbent Republican, Norm Coleman by a margin of just over 200 votes.  And to absolutely no one’s surprise Mr. Franken now wants the recount process halted.  Could it be because he has somehow miraculously overcome a 700+ vote deficit to take this slim lead?  Or does he feel that all recount efforts have been concluded fairly and completely?  What do you think?  Is there ANYONE who thinks the outcome of this election still lies in the process of simply counting votes?  I know I don’t.

As soon as the initial results showed a close finish this race became the domain of lawyers and judges.  And anyone following the recount soap opera knows there is a statistical impossibility in the way additional votes were picked up by Franken, virtually all from heavily democratic precincts!  Go figure.

Now I am no fan of Al Franken. Someday maybe someone can tell me how in the world this nouveau-burlesque comedy writer ever got even one vote.  Oh, wait…. I live in a state that elected a body builder turned movie star, whose most famous utterance is, “I’ll be back”.  Never mind about the comedy writer…

But aside from the individuals involved there is a greater issue at stake-the electoral process.  Once again we see the relative ease with which our process of electing leaders can be usurped.  All it really takes is a couple of politically motivated people in key positions with a win-at-any-cost mentality.  An elections director here, a Secretary of State there…. (see Ann Coulter’s article on this for more details).

The complex legal challenges in this case may go on for many months, maybe even longer.  But it seems to me that no matter who is ultimately declared as winner, the loser is the Minnesota voter who will be left to ponder once again…why bother to vote?

May 23 2009

Seeing with one eye — the LEFT one

Category: media — harmonicminer @ 9:13 am

Cheney’s speech contained omissions, misstatements

And Obama’s didn’t? This is just the very model of selective reporting.

In any case, when was the last time you saw ANY report in the major media that simply went down a list of Obama’s statements in a speech, and then quoted someone else contradicting each one with contrary information and perspectives, without then giving Obama’s side a chance to rebut THOSE positions?  What, you say you can’t remember that EVER happening?

I can’t either.

The media could start with fair reporting on what he’s doing to the economy, and plans to do to health care.

But that would be in some alternate universe where the major media wasn’t made up of Obama groupies.

In any case, note that most of the “contradictory evidence” reported by the article comes from people now in Obama’s pay or sphere of influence.

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May 22 2009

Gingrich on his conversion to Catholicism

Category: Uncategorized — harmonicminer @ 2:40 pm

Gingrich Opens Up on Catholic Conversion

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has opened up about his March 2009 conversion to Catholicism, revealing: “The whole effort to create a ruthless, amoral, situational ethics culture has probably driven me toward a more overt Christianity,” according to a report in U.S. News & World Report.

All very interesting and worth the read.

May 22 2009

What’s wrong with the electorate? Nothing, this time.

Category: Congress,economy,freedom,government — harmonicminer @ 9:35 am

In the 2008 elections, a bit over 13 million people voted in California.  Obama won about 8 million votes, while McCain won about 5 million.

On May 19, 2009, California held a special election to decide if taxes were to be raised to the tune of about $15 billion dollars (to try to close an enormous financial deficit for the state government), or if the state politicians would have to do the hard work of cutting spending.  About 4 million people voted, with 2 to 1 margins _against_ the tax increases.

Therein lies a tale.  Given that Obama was well known to have favored enormous government spending programs, and tax increases that would be needed to support them, how is it that so many people voted for him, but against the same policies for the state?  It’s actually pretty simple.  A very large number of people who voted for Obama didn’t know much about his policies or stances on important issues, nor about his history as a politician and activist.  The media put forward an attractive image, acting as his unpaid campaign staff, and the public bought it, but professional polling has demonstrated that Obama voters were disproportionately ignorant of fundamental facts about Democrats, Republicans, Obama, McCain, Palin and Biden.

So why didn’t it work this time, too?  Why was the turnout in California less than a third of the presidential election’s turnout?  Why did those who did turn out vote 2 to 1 not to raise taxes in California?

Simply, the only people who voted this time were people who were reasonably aware of the issues, enough to have an opinion about them.  Given that public employees in California, whose jobs and pay are imperiled by cuts in the state budget, probably voted 4 to 1 FOR the tax increases, and given that there was probably a higher percentage turnout OF those employees than the general electorate, the result is even more decisive.  If you aren’t a public employee (including teachers, bureaucrats and staffers, etc.), the odds are overwhelming that you voted NO on the tax increases, if you voted at all.

There are a number of reasonable observations:

1)  People who are aware of what’s actually happening in government, who care enough to vote their opinion about it, and who don’t have a personal agenda (i.e., they work for the government), are overwhelmingly likely to vote more conservatively in fiscal matters.

2)  It is likely that the large majority who voted NO on tax increases also voted for McCain.  Of course, there will be a few examples to the contrary….  but not many.

3)  California’s fiscal future is being shaped, at least to some degree, by McCain voters, not Obama voters.

4)  It is likely, given the size of this sample, and the generally leftward tilt of California as a state, that if a national election were held today to raise taxes in order to “balance the budget,” but no other issue was on the ballot, the result would be similar.  With no _face_ on the ballot, many of those new, Obama-smitten voters would be hard pressed to make an appearance at the polls.  And the generally better informed conservative electorate would be more likely to vote.

5)  The media, and Democrats, will do their very best to keep anyone from noticing the implications of the California rejection of higher taxes.

6)  The job of the Republicans is to continue to tie the Democrat party, justly, to high taxes and high spending, in the public mind.  This will require some courage and resolve, and a refusal to succumb to the minor guilt that remains over excesses of spending by Republicans during the Bush years.  At this point, they are like someone who merely stole a car being afraid to point out the people who are robbing Fort Knox.  Obama and the Democrats are preparing to spend us into deficits FOUR TIMES the size of anything Bush every dreamed about, and that will have to be paid for, sooner or later, with higher taxes.

7)  Expect the media to have very little to say about California’s rejection of higher taxes, with national Democrats saying even less.  (On the other hand, if the high tax initiatives had passed, you can imagine the result being trumpeted far and wide as representing “the public will,” can’t you?)

The simplest way to explain all this:  the people who have jobs in the private sector (and who know something about what’s going on in state government) voted overwhelmingly against higher taxes.  Public employees voted for them, mostly.  People who fit in neither category couldn’t be troubled to turn off Oprah and get to the polls….  which is likely why they were watching Oprah in the first place.

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May 21 2009

Doing the same thing while pretending to do something different

Category: Uncategorized — harmonicminer @ 4:46 pm

The Buck Stops Elsewhere (well worth reading in its entirety)

The president insisted in his speech that the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and enhanced interrogation techniques (which he characteristically referred to as “torture,” a term both legally inaccurate and morally obtuse) increased terrorist recruitment. In fact the leading driver of terrorist recruitment is successful terrorist attacks. That is what convinces the fence-sitters that radical Islam can win, and that Osama bin Laden is correct when he argues that the United States is a weak horse that will retreat when things get tough enough. The counterterrorism policies of the Bush administration prevented new terrorist attacks and assured the world’s bin Ladens that the United States was committed to their defeat. We hope that assurance still holds; if it does, it is only because President Obama, for all his unseemly disparagement of his predecessor, has picked up the tools George W. Bush left him and made them his own.

Read it all.

There’s an old saying:  “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”

I’m thinking a revision is in order:  “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over while pretending to be doing something different, but hoping for the same results.”

Or maybe that’s just lying.

UPDATE:  The media continues to give a free podium to Obama-boosters, while giving little exposure to equally prestigious opinions in support of Cheney’s positions.

For example: Gates defends decision to close Guantanamo prison

Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the Obama administration had no choice but to order the shutdown of the prison at Guantanamo because “the name itself is a condemnation” of U.S. anti-terrorism strategy.

These people who are now being held in Guantanamo have VERY high visibility in the Islamic extremist world. It is not the fact that they’re being held in Guantanamo, but the fact that they’re being held at all that is the focus of Islamo-fascist extremists…. not to mention European elites. Will either of these groups think that it’s all better now if the same people are still being held, but just in a different prison?

I would be nervous, if I was a guard, with a family, working at the Supermax prison in Colorado, if the Guantanamo prisoners are moved there.  We know there are many Al Qaeda sleeper cells in the USA.  Exactly what level of security is maintained about who works at the prison, in what capacity?  If you were a prison guard at Supermax, would you want those sleeper cells to know who you were guarding?

The funny thing is this:  those prisoners at Guantanamo have it MUCH nicer now than they will in any US prison.  I wonder if they’ll thank all the lefty activists for doing them the favor of moving them out of the tropics into a concrete block?

May 21 2009

Use your imagination

Category: Congress,freedom,government — harmonicminer @ 9:51 am

We do have a Constitution in the USA, sort of. We ignore it sometimes. Well, to be more accurate, the Left ignores it sometimes, and gets away with it whenever possible.  There is, for example, a 2nd Amendment, that guarantees the right of citizens to keep and bear (that means CARRY) arms.  Except, of course, that it doesn’t, because legislators and the courts have decided the words don’t mean what they mean. 

Here’s a headline:

Steny Hoyer says Democrats beaten on guns

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer admits that Democrats are conceding the gun issue to Republicans for now.

Republicans have been increasingly using pro-gun amendments to throw a wrench into Democratic legislation, attaching amendments to seemingly unrelated bills allowing for expanded gun carrying privileges in national parks.

The tactic seems to be working, with Democrats acknowledging that pro-gun members rule in both chambers.

“There clearly is a majority in both houses that the Second Amendment rights … that relate to the national parks are too restricted,” Hoyer told reporters Tuesday. “The reality is that a majority in both houses agree with that position.”

Imagine:  a majority of both houses (which has to include a decent share of democrats in the current congress) seems to be willing to uphold the 2nd Amendment as meaning what it means. 

So, now to use your imagination.  What if the headline read this way?

       “Steny Hoyer Says Democrats Beaten on Freedom of Speech”

And, what if, as we read the article, it said that Democrats had been trying to restrict Freedom of Speech, but unsuccessfully so far.

That’s where we are these days.  We have, to our shame, a government of men, not one of laws.  And it will probably get worse.

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May 20 2009

Whither the “unrestrained free market”?

Category: Uncategorized — harmonicminer @ 9:13 am

After recounting the sad history of “trust busting” and “anti-monopoly” laws, the following very excellent question is asked by dominick T. Armentano of the Christian Science Monitor:

Based on this history, why should we think the Obama antitrust regulators will get it right this time? In her recent speech, Ms. Varney, the antitrust chief, said that “there is no adequate substitute for a competitive market.” Absolutely correct.

But competitive markets are legally open markets where all firms, including dominant firms, are rivalrous on their merits and where consumers, and not government or judges, decide winners and losers. Free markets may need protection from fraud (think Bernard Madoff), but they don’t need antitrust intervention.

If you think Mr. Armentano’s remembrance of anti-trust history is flawed, read this. Be prepared for a revised understanding of so-called “robber barons” and “capitalist monopolists,” and, indeed, of whether the USA has *ever* had a truly capitalist free market.

It has been 120 years or more since the USA reached its zenith of free-market capitalism, and even that was flawed with government interference.  Since then, there has been a steady erosion of free markets, with constant attempts by government to pick winners and losers.  In addition, we have continually had the sorry spectacle of government blaming on the free market the very problems that were created by government interference in the market.

Doubt this?  I have three other book to suggest:

“Basic Economics” by Thomas Sowell, and “Economic Facts and Fallacies” by the same author.

For a reasonably entertaining introduction to the thought of Adam Smith, try this.

May 18 2009

More signs of a failing Mexico

Category: Mexico — harmonicminer @ 9:51 am

Suspected drug gang frees 53 from Mexico prison

Suspected members of a Mexican drug cartel disguised as federal police swept into a prison in the northern state of Zacatecas on Saturday and freed 53 inmates, police and army officials said.

The early-morning jailbreak, which took less than five minutes and involved no violence, was carried out by 20 heavily armed men who arrived in 10 vehicles and a helicopter, they said.

All of the escaped prisoners are believed to be members of the armed wing of Mexico’s Gulf Cartel, one of the country’s most powerful criminal organizations.

The men were allowed into the state prison after saying they were there for a prisoner transfer, officials said.

Some 40 guards and administrators who were on duty at the time are in custody, Zacatecas Governor Amalia Garcia told a news conference.

“There is evidence that the guards and prison authorities were accomplices,” he said.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has staked his presidency on crushing drug gangs that killed 6,300 people last year across the nation. The United States is increasingly alarmed by the violence, fearing it could spill across the border.

Zacatecas has so far seen little of the drug-related violence that has rocked other northern states.

Garcia said state and federal police along with the army were searching for the prisoners. Earlier reports had said 59 inmates escaped.

This is simply unimaginable in any semi-intact nation. An ENTIRE prison staff appears to have been bribed to lay down for a jail break, warden, guards, the whole nine yards. And the bad guys arrived in 10 vehicles and a helicopter? This is a level of security that a head of state might get.

It’s getting harder and harder to pretend that Mexico is just another nation that happens to be on our border. Its government is failing in the most basic ways and at its most basic functions. What will the USA do as it becomes more and more obvious that Mexico is on the verge of becoming a North American Somalia, or Sudan? Oh, the local issues are different… and yet, they’re the same, with warlords, a vulnerable civilian populace, and a weak government with a corrupt military. Forget Somalia and Sudan; this is starting to sound like Pakistan. Fortunately, Mexico doesn’t have nukes that can fall into the hands of the warlords….

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May 17 2009

The Spiritual Poverty of Socialism? Part 2

Category: capitalism,economy,freedom,government,liberty,religion,socialism,Uncategorized — harmonicminer @ 10:02 pm

The previous post in this series is here.

First, in order to be able to talk about this, let’s agree that no purely socialist society has ever existed.  Nevertheless, it’s reasonable to observe that some government policies and programs are more socialist than others.  So it’s the morality of socialist policies and programs in general that is in question, without regard to whether they exist in a purely socialist system.  In any case, experience suggests that it’s a smokescreen to argue that particular politicians or governments “aren’t socialist” in some absolutist sense.  What’s very clear is that some policies are socialist.  Governments and politicians who primarily pursue those policies can reasonably be called “socialist” in normal speech.

So what ARE socialist policies?  Basically, socialist policies attempt to disconnect outcomes for individuals from the efforts made BY those individuals, and to do so with money and other resources taken from other individuals in the form of taxes, fees, restrictions, regulations, and sometimes outright confiscation.   This isn’t a theoretical economic definition, but is rather an observation of what animates socialist policies (the disconnection of outcomes from individual efforts) and the means by which socialist policies are carried out (taxes, fees, restrictions, regulations, and confiscation).  Call it an operational definition that allows the correct identification of “socialists in the wild” without first capturing them, checking their DNA and doing a complete morphological exam of their complete economic policy.  If it walks like socialist, talks like a socialist, and generally acts like a socialist….

You can look up socialism in several online references and get various definitions, some requiring “state ownership of the means of production” and “central planning of economic activity” and other things.  The problem:  the definition of “state ownership” is vague.  If I theoretically own something, but the state can tell me IF I can use it, how to use it, when to use it, who I have to pay to use it, how much I have to pay them to use it, who I have to hire to use it, where I can sell it, IF I can sell it, perhaps price limitations on what I can sell it for, what kinds of conditions I am required to provide for those I hire, etc., and after all that the state confiscates a large percentage of whatever money I can make using it, even with all those restrictions, regulations and requirements, at what point does my putative “ownership” cease to mean “ownership” in the normally accepted sense?   Particularly if the next “owner” to whom I sell it has the same relationship with the state that I did when I owned it? And now, what if all the people who (theoretically) don’t own my property are still allowed to vote for regulations and policies and taxes that impose all the restrictions I just listed, for their own benefit as they see it?  Who, exactly, owns my property?  Well, quite a few of us, apparently.

This is why those textbook definitions are of little benefit in really identifying “socialism on the ground.”  When someone tells you that European nations “aren’t really socialist,” it means they are looking at the textbooks, instead of the realities on the ground.  It’s like saying that the Soviet Union wasn’t really a dictatorship because they had elections.

So, while textbook definitions of “socialism” often obscure more than they reveal, it’s easy to see that socialist policies attempt to disconnect outcomes for individuals from the efforts made BY those individuals, and to do so with money and other resources taken in the form of taxes, fees, restrictions, regulations, and sometimes outright confiscation.

Statism and socialism have much in common.  It’s pretty safe to say that socialism requires statism to function; if there isn’t much statism going on, there won’t be much socialism, either.  On the other hand, some forms of statism (the purely kleptocractic dictatorship, for example) aren’t particularly socialist, because they have no intent to secure ANY particular outcome for individuals other than those in power.  So:  all socialists are statists, but not all statists are socialists, although in the modern world most are.

In what follows, therefore, everytime I use the word “socialist” it would be good to remember that it means “socialist and statist.”  I just don’t want to say it that way everytime.

Most people who reject socialism are really rejecting statism, its unavoidable symbiote.  I am one of those.  If there was some way of having an entire culture participate in “voluntary socialism,” where everyone worked as hard as if they were working only for themselves, and behaving as responsibly with public resources as if they were personally owned, I might be willing to consider it (though I would have several reservations…  and since we don’t live in Heaven yet, and the Fall happened, this is a ludicrous conjecture anyway).  For me, the deal breaker is the degree of statism that must accompany socialism.

In the next post in this series, I’ll discuss the continuum of socialism/statism, i.e., starting with those “socialist” policies that most of us agree about, and moving to those that are more controversial.   Then, we can get to the spiritual implications of all this, the moral questions, the really interesting stuff.  Stay tuned.  I know this has been a bit dull, but it’s about to get much more interesting.

The next post in this series is here.

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May 16 2009

The REAL story of Samson and Delilah?

Category: arab,Islam,Israel,multi-cultural,music,politics,racism — harmonicminer @ 8:52 am

It seems that there is no story where the demands of art cannot be impressed into the service of politically correct “creativity,” and this “SAMSON” AND OPERATIC INSANITY appears to be on the same general plain as a crucifix in urine, or maybe a star of David in pig blood.

In Belgium, a government-funded opera company is presenting a bizarre reworking of the Biblical story of Samson and Delilah. This “updated” version of a nineteenth century Saint-Saens melodrama depicts Samson as a Palestinian “freedom fighter”, not an Israelite, and portrays Delilah as a despicable Israeli agent, not a Philistine temptress.

In the climax of the production, Samson straps on a suicide vest and blows-up the Israeli “oppressors.” This politically-correct operatic indulgence follows announced plans by La Scala—on of the world’s most prestigious opera-houses—to produce a full-scale musical version of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and by the Shanghai opera to offer a lavish, five hour singing-and-dancing adaptation of Marx’s “Das Kapital.” As the composer Franz Liszt once aptly observed: “All music is an insane asylum, but opera is the wing for incurables.”

Just a couple of observations, and a plug:

It WOULD be a government-funded opera company producing this trash. What private company would do it with the intent of making a profit? Of course, the Saudis will fund nearly anything that puts Israel and Jews in a bad light, and I’m just guessing that, much like Washington D.C., the Belgian government and lobbying apparatus is full of people on the Saudi payroll, who seem to own 1 out of 3 former congress critters and state department drudges.

As far as a Jewish Delilah goes, it would make more sense to cast Tokyo Rose as General MacArthur’s secret lover.

And the plug. The REAL story of Samson and Delilah, a story about sex and violence, and yet rated G.    “God Brings Down The House” is a particular show stopper.  At the link, just click the cover of Samson and Delilah, and then at the linked site you can play excerpts of the tunes.  Eat your heart out, Belgium.

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