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Post by "Q" on Jun 23, 2011 21:11:37 GMT -5
This has been floating around the internet for a while. I must admit, it still makes me smile when I get it in my inbox again.
Something to ponder: "If you voted for Obama in 2008 to prove you're not a racist, you'll have to vote for someone else in 2012 to prove you're not an idiot."
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Post by philunderwood on Jun 27, 2011 11:35:34 GMT -5
www.qando.net/?p=10989Are businesses sitting on their money in the hope of a change in the regulatory regime (i.e. an Obama loss in 2012)? June 27th, 2011 | Author: Bruce McQuain Marylin Geewax brings us the following story about the overall economic picture. And it isn’t pretty: The latest surveys show that both business owners and consumers have been losing confidence in the U.S. economy. That pessimism is just the latest blow to hopes for a speedy recovery. Last week, even Federal Reserve officials said they have grown more pessimistic about the economic outlook this year. The policy makers cut their forecast for 2011 to a growth rate of just 2.7 to 2.9 percent — down from their April estimate of 3.1 to 3.3 percent. Economists say growing pessimism and a lack of confidence tends to depress spending. Chris Christopher, an economist with the forecasting firm IHS Global Insight, says the large cash reserves corporations are holding are evidence that our budding optimism is fading. I’d only ask, “what budding optimism”? Most who’ve been following the so-called “recovery” have seen little, in terms of economic indicators to elicit “budding optimism”. As we discussed in yesterday’s podcast, part of the problem, in fact a big part of the problem is the unsettled regulatory regime. Businesses have no idea where the administration is going with regulations, but what they’ve seen thus far provides them with no incentive to expand and hire and every incentive not to do so. Consequently: U.S. corporations have about $1.65 trillion in cash available to them, he noted. But managers are so wary about the near-term outlook that they are not spending that cash on hiring workers or expanding operations. And that brings us to another factor one can’t help think is at least beginning to have an effect as well. As we approach the second half of 2011, the 2012 presidential election looms. Are businesses now factoring in the possibility of change in the White House (real change we could live with) and holding back until that’s settled? It is certainly something that would make sense. With the administration’s war on business these past two plus years, there’s no reason to commit to expanding a business or hiring new employees if doing so is going to end up being a net negative. So why not wait and see? Sit on the cash and have it ready to use if and when the current administration is shown the door and a less draconian regulatory regime is on the horizon? That’s common sense business. Of course that’s not the only reason business is hanging back. There are other factors: Other concerns involve a spring slump in manufacturing activity and the ongoing problems in real estate. For example, last week, a report from the National Association of Realtors showed existing home sales fell again in May, down 3.8 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.81 million units, the lowest rate in six months. Even worse, the median price was down 4.6 percent from a year earlier. Consumers, whose spending accounts for roughly 70 percent of all U.S. economic activity, also lost confidence this spring as gasoline prices rose to nearly $4 a gallon in early May and unemployment ticked back up last month. The unemployment rate had gotten down to 8.8 percent in March, but was back up to 9.1 percent by May. All of that in combination have businesses reticent to do what is necessary to help the recovery. I just wanted to bring the other factor - unsettled regulatory regime – to the fore as it simply doesn’t get the coverage it deserves. Draconian regulations which cost businesses high compliance costs are a drag on economic expansion. The possibility of relief from such a regime is a legitimate reason to not expand or hire and incur those increased compliance costs. As I’ve said any number of times, the government can help the economy best by getting the hell out of the way. Instead it seems the inclination is to meddle and intrude even more and, as should come as no surprise, this sort of non-recovery “recovery” is the result. ~McQ
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Post by philunderwood on Jun 28, 2011 6:51:14 GMT -5
July 4th By Thomas Sowell www.JewishWorldReview.com | The Fourth of July may be just a holiday for fireworks to some people. But it was a momentous day for the history of this country and the history of the world. Not only did July 4, 1776 mark American independence from England, it marked a radically different kind of government from the governments that prevailed around the world at the time -- and the kinds of governments that had prevailed for thousands of years before. The American Revolution was not simply a rebellion against the King of England, it was a rebellion against being ruled by kings in general. That is why the opening salvo of the American Revolution was called "the shot heard round the world." Autocratic rulers and their subjects heard that shot -- and things that had not been questioned for millennia were now open to challenge. As the generations went by, more and more autocratic governments around the world proved unable to meet that challenge. Some clever people today ask whether the United States has really been "exceptional." You couldn't be more exceptional in the 18th century than to create your fundamental document -- the Constitution of the United States -- by opening with the momentous words, "We the people..." Those three words were a slap in the face to those who thought themselves entitled to rule, and who regarded the people as if they were simply human livestock, destined to be herded and shepherded by their betters. Indeed, to this very day, elites who think that way -- and that includes many among the intelligentsia, as well as political messiahs -- find the Constitution of the United States a real pain because it stands in the way of their imposing their will and their presumptions on the rest of us. More than a hundred years ago, so-called "Progressives" began a campaign to undermine the Constitution's strict limitations on government, which stood in the way of self-anointed political crusaders imposing their grand schemes on all the rest of us. That effort to discredit the Constitution continues to this day, and the arguments haven't really changed much in a hundred years. The cover story in the July 4th issue of Time magazine is a classic example of this arrogance. It asks of the Constitution: "Does it still matter?" A long and rambling essay by Time magazine's managing editor, Richard Stengel, manages to create a toxic blend of the irrelevant and the erroneous. The irrelevant comes first, pointing out in big letters that those who wrote the Constitution "did not know about" all sorts of things in the world today, including airplanes, television, computers and DNA. This may seem like a clever new gambit but, like many clever new gambits, it is a rehash of arguments made long ago. Back in 1908, Woodrow Wilson said, "When the Constitution was framed there were no railways, there was no telegraph, there was no telephone," In Mr. Stengel's rehash of this argument, he declares: "People on the right and left constantly ask what the framers would say about some event that is happening today." Maybe that kind of talk goes on where he hangs out. But most people have enough common sense to know that a constitution does not exist to micro-manage particular "events" or express opinions about the passing scene. A constitution exists to create a framework for government -- and the Constitution of the United States tries to keep the government inside that framework. From the irrelevant to the erroneous is a short step for Mr. Stengel. He says, "If the Constitution was intended to limit the federal government, it certainly doesn't say so." Apparently Mr. Stengel has not read the Tenth Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Perhaps Richard Stengel should follow the advice of another Stengel -- Casey Stengel, who said on a number of occasions, "You could look it up." Does the Constitution matter? If it doesn't, then your Freedom doesn't matter.
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Post by philunderwood on Jun 29, 2011 8:07:44 GMT -5
Is Democracy Viable? By Thomas Sowell www.JewishWorldReview.com | The media have recently been so preoccupied with a Congressman's photograph of himself in his underwear that there has been scant attention paid to the fact that Iran continues advancing toward creating a nuclear bomb, and nobody is doing anything that is likely to stop them. Nuclear weapons in the hands of the world's leading sponsor of international terrorism might seem to be something that would sober up even the most giddy members of the chattering class. But that chilling prospect cannot seem to compete for attention with cheap behavior by an immature Congressman, infatuated with himself. A society that cannot or will not focus on matters of life and death is a society whose survival as a free nation is at least questionable. Hard as it may be to conceive how the kind of world that one has been used to, and taken for granted, can come to an end, it can happen in the lifetime of today's generation. Those who founded the United States of America were keenly aware that they were making a radical departure in the kinds of governments under which human beings had lived over the centuries — and that its success was by no means guaranteed. Monarchies in Europe had lasted for centuries and the Chinese dynasties for thousands of years. But a democratic republic was something else. While the convention that was writing the Constitution of the United States was still in session, a lady asked Benjamin Franklin what the delegation was creating. "A republic, madam," he said, "if you can keep it." In the middle of the next century, Abraham Lincoln still posed it as a question whether "government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth." Years earlier, Lincoln had warned of the dangers to a free society from its own designing power-seekers — and how only the vigilance, wisdom and dedication of the public could preserve their freedom. But, today, few people seem to see such dangers, either internally or internationally. A recent poll showed that nearly half the American public believes that the government should redistribute wealth. That so many people are so willing to blithely put such an enormous and dangerous arbitrary power in the hands of politicians — risking their own freedom, in hopes of getting what someone else has — is a painful sign of how far many citizens and voters fall short of what is needed to preserve a democratic republic. The ease with which people with wealth can ship it overseas electronically, or put it in tax shelters at home, means that raising the tax rate on wealthy people is not going to bring in the kind of tax revenue that would enable wealth redistribution to provide the bonanza that some people are expecting. In other words, people who are willing to give government more arbitrary power can give up their birthright of freedom without even getting the mess of pottage. Worse yet, they can give up their children's and their grandchildren's birthright of freedom. Free and democratic societies have existed for a relatively short time, as history is measured — and their staying power has always been open to question. So much depends on the wisdom of the voters that the franchise was always limited, in one way or another, so that voting would be confined to those with a stake in the viability and progress of the country, and the knowledge to cast their vote intelligently. In our own times, however, voting has been seen as just one of the many "rights" to which everyone is supposed to be entitled. The emphasis has been on the voter, rather than on the momentous consequences of elections for the nation today and for generations yet unborn. To those who see voting as more or less just a matter of self-expression, almost a recreational activity, there is no need to inform themselves on both sides of the issues before voting, much less sit down and think beyond the rhetoric to the realities that the rhetoric conceals. Careless voters may be easily swayed by charisma and rhetoric, oblivious to the monumental disasters created around the world by 20th century leaders with charisma and rhetoric, such as Hitler. Voters like this represent a danger of terminal frivolity for freedom and democracy.
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Post by leisuresuitlarry on Jun 29, 2011 9:48:33 GMT -5
I'm not a racist and I did not vote for Obama. I don't have to prove myself to anyone - especially lunatics like Hilfirnuts and his oooohhh ahhhh crowd.
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Post by philunderwood on Jul 8, 2011 17:45:00 GMT -5
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." Winston Churchill
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Post by philunderwood on Jul 13, 2011 6:58:20 GMT -5
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Post by philunderwood on Jul 18, 2011 12:06:01 GMT -5
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Post by philunderwood on Oct 4, 2011 8:10:48 GMT -5
Can Obama Win Re-Election? By Bernard Goldberg www.JewishWorldReview.com | I was part of a panel a few days ago on politics, culture and the media. And the first question put to us was right to the point: "Can Barack Obama win re-election?" Political guru Dick Morris, Tea Party unofficial leader Dick Armey, a scholar from the Heritage Foundation all said no. It's tough to argue with that. President Obama's approval ratings are not good and most Americans think we're on the wrong track. He's lost support from his key constituents, including Jewish voters and African-Americans. Worst of all for the president, independents who supported him in 2008 have jumped ship in big numbers. Like the others, Dick Armey offered a smart analysis of why Obama is in big trouble. But unlike the others, he ended his analysis saying, quietly and almost as an afterthought, Obama won't win, "Unless the Republicans nominate the wrong candidate." That's like saying, "Besides that Mrs. Lincoln, how'd you enjoy the play?" "Unless the Republicans pick the wrong candidate" is hardly a throwaway line, despite the fact that that's how it was delivered. It just may be the single most important consideration in this whole discussion. I was the odd man out on the panel. I said, Yes, Barack Obama can be re-elected — but it won't be because the economy is in great shape on Election Day. And it won't be because the unemployment rate has dropped from nine percent to six percent, or seven percent or even eight percent. It won't be because a majority of Americans do an about face and suddenly believe the nation is on the right track, I said. And it won't be because al qaeda has raised the white flag and said Barack Obama was the reason they were putting an end to their evil ways. If Barack Obama wins, I said, it would be because Republicans have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. It will be because the Republicans picked the wrong candidate. How would this come about? Let's start with the fact that there's a split in the Republican Party. There are two separate and distinct factions. One that demands conservative purity in its candidate for president and one that is far more practical and will gladly accept any candidate who can beat President Obama, no matter how moderate. The purists want the most conservative Republican candidate to be nominated. They detest moderates. Compromise to them is tantamount to a crime against humanity. Rush Limbaugh and some members of the Tea Party are the loudest voices on the purity side. The other side consists of followers of the late William F. Buckley, who famously said that he would support the most viable conservative candidate in any race — meaning the most conservative candidate who can actually win. But wait, the purists say, the most conservative candidate can win. I'm not so sure. Look at it this way: Rush Limbaugh is the most famous conservative in America. He's smart, articulate and expresses conservative ideas better than just about anyone. But Rush couldn't win a national election. He's way too polarizing a figure. So if Rush couldn't win, why do the purists think that someone like him could? As for the Tea Party: Its members have done a lot of good. Without them we might not be having a national debate about the spending and deficits and debt that are crippling our economy. They deserve our thanks and a lot of credit. But the Tea Party also brought us Sharon Angle and Christine O'Donnell — two horrible candidates who lost in states that Republicans would almost certainly have won if the Tea Party had thrown its support behind more moderate — more electable — candidates. The Buckley faction would rather have a moderate Republican in the Senate, who will vote with his or her party only half the time, rather than a liberal Democrat who will never vote with the Republicans. And that's what Nevada and Delaware wound up with: two liberal Democrats who back President Obama on just about everything. That's the price Republicans pay for ideological purity. I'm with the Buckley faction. I want to win. I will accept any Republican who can beat Mr. Obama. I'd vote for Charlie Sheen if he ran on the GOP line. But if the purists have their way, if the most conservative candidate in the pack manages to win the nomination, I fear there will be a second term for President Obama. The good news for Republicans is that even if the purists don't get their way, they'll hold their nose and vote for a moderate, someone like Mitt Romney. They have no place else to go. And they won't stay home on Election Day, either. They dislike the president too much to sit home and pout. The bad news for Republicans is that independents — who have no roots in either party — might not be as generous. They may not support President Obama today as the polls tell us, but the election isn't being held today. If the Republicans pick the wrong candidate — someone who is too doctrinaire, too uncompromising, yes, too conservative, there's a good chance the independents will vote for Obama just as they did in 2008 — even with a bad economy. And if Republicans lose they won't be able to blame anybody but themselves; not Democratic scare tactics aimed at the elderly, not the president's penchant for class warfare, not even the so-called mainstream media that once again will jump on the Obama bandwagon. If Obama wins, it will be because Republicans opted for purity and handed Barack Obama the victory. That great American political philosopher Yogi Berra knew what he was talking about when he said, "It ain't over til it's over."
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Post by philunderwood on Oct 10, 2011 9:01:21 GMT -5
www.qando.net/?cat=35Drone wars–here’s something to think about Published October 10, 2011 | By Bruce McQuain As most know, we’ve been very successful using drones to kill our adversaries in many places to include Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen. But the way we employ them has thus far pretty much gone unopposed and, more importantly, has mostly been limited to use by us and our allies. What if we weren’t the only power with drones (in fact that’s already the case): At the Zhuhai air show in southeastern China last November, Chinese companies startled some Americans by unveiling 25 different models of remotely controlled aircraft and showing video animation of a missile-armed drone taking out an armored vehicle and attacking a United States aircraft carrier. Farfetched? Most would say “yes” right now, but in the future – well who knows? The point is clear. We’ve started something that perhaps we will regret at some point: “The problem is that we’re creating an international norm” — asserting the right to strike preemptively against those we suspect of planning attacks, argues Dennis M. Gormley, a senior research fellow at the University of Pittsburgh and author of “Missile Contagion,” who has called for tougher export controls on American drone technology. “The copycatting is what I worry about most.” In relative terms, drones are cheap and much less dangerous to use for the user. So if any of the following happen, how do we criticize or condemn? If China, for instance, sends killer drones into Kazakhstan to hunt minority Uighur Muslims it accuses of plotting terrorism, what will the United States say? What if India uses remotely controlled craft to hit terrorism suspects in Kashmir, or Russia sends drones after militants in the Caucasus? American officials who protest will likely find their own example thrown back at them. The author has a point. And it’s not just other countries we have to worry about. However, it would be rather hard to condemn their use given our actions and activities. While it might be argued that we had at least the tacit approval of the government’s involved, again, we’re making armed incursions into sovereign territory in the name of pursuing our enemies pretty much at will. And for the most part other countries have been silent about that. Doesn’t that give them the opportunity to a) ignore any protest we might launch if they do the same thing and b) pretty much dilutes any protest we might have if the same (unlikely) is done to us? I’m not really commenting here on the efficiency of the tactics involved or the even the morality of the strikes, but more the practical and expected backlash – others will expect to do the same thing we do for the same ostensible reason, and we won’t have a leg to stand on if we protest. Not that our protests yield much fruit when we do make them, but as Dennis Gormley hints, we’ve opened Pandora’s box here and we’re going to have a heck of a time, if not an impossible time, closing it again. ~McQ
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Post by philunderwood on Nov 2, 2011 6:58:37 GMT -5
Payday Loans By Thomas Sowell www.JewishWorldReview.com | California is a great place for studying the thinking — or lack of thinking — on the political left. The mindset of the left was recently displayed in a big, front-page story in the October 30th issue of the San Mateo County Times. It was an investigative reporter's exposé of the "payday loan" business and its lobbyists. According to the reporter: "In California lenders charge up to $45 in fees on a maximum $300 loan. This amounts to an interest rate of 460 percent, trapping some borrowers into a never-ending cycle of debt." Let's take this one step at a time. Whatever the merits or demerits of the rest of the argument, $45 is not going to trap anyone in a never-ending cycle of debt, even if they are making only the bare minimum wage. Personal irresponsibility in managing money can trap anyone, but that is regardless of whether or not they take out payday loans. Now to the 460 percent rate of interest. You don't need higher math to figure out that $45 is 15 percent of $300. How did we get to 460 percent? Very simple: By distorting the actual conditions of most payday loans. As the name might suggest, payday loans are short-term loans to tide people over until they get their next check, whether a salary check, a welfare check or whatever. Payday loans are relatively small sums of money borrowed for very short periods of time, often by low-income people who want some cash right now, for whatever reason. Is it worth paying the $45 to get the $300 right now, rather than wait a couple of weeks for your check to arrive? No third party can know that. But taking decisions out of the hands of those most directly affected is one of the central patterns of the political left that make them dangerous to the very people they think they are helping. This is not idealism. It is arrogance — and too often, it is ignorant arrogance, as in this case. The 460 percent figure comes from imagining that the borrower is not just going to borrow the money for a couple of weeks, but is going to keep on borrowing every couple of weeks all year long. Using this kind of reasoning — or lack of reasoning — you could quote the price of salmon as $15,000 a ton or say a hotel room rents for $36,000 a year, when no consumer buys a ton of salmon and few people stay in a hotel room all year. It is clever propaganda, but do people buy newspapers to be propagandized? What about the $45 that is at the heart of all this runaway rhetoric? Does that do more than cover the risk and the costs of processing the loan? Apparently our crusading investigative reporter did not find that worth investigating, even in a long article taking up another page and a half inside the newspaper. What is called "interest" by the media includes things that an economist would not call interest. The fees charged must also cover the cost of processing the loan, which is to say the pay of people doing the work, the rent of the premises and other overhead expenses, as well as the risk of default. But mundane facts like these would spoil the moral melodrama, starring the reporter on the side of the angels against the forces of evil. Instead, we get the story of how the payday loan industry, like most other industries, has lobbyists contributing money to politicians to try to get spared more regulations. This the investigative reporter calls "protecting" the payday loan industry. Protecting them from what? From the politicians. Some would call their campaign donations "protection money," in the same sense in which the Mafia collects protection money. None of this is peculiar to this industry, to California or to our times. When Al Gore was Vice-President of the United States, he phoned businesses from the White House to tell them how much money he expected them to contribute to political campaigns. Franklin D. Roosevelt's son extorted a $200,000 loan from a grocery chain that was under federal investigation — and he never repaid the loan. Moreover, FDR spoke directly to the head of the chain to seal the deal. There are not a lot of angels to be on the side of.
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Post by philunderwood on Nov 11, 2011 13:03:55 GMT -5
www.qando.net/?tag=social-democracyIt has come to this–China mocks West’s political system and economics Published November 11, 2011 | By Bruce McQuain And, at the moment, rightfully so. That’s not to say theirs is a superior system by any stretch. Theirs just happens to be thriving at this moment in history. But that doesn’t change the correctness of the basic kernel of their assessment: In extensive talks with a series of Chinese leaders, an oft-cited point of criticism is the gridlock and “dysfunction” they see in Washington. They say fawning by U.S. political leaders seeking re-election has created an “entitlement culture” where the public has grown dependent on government largesse. Now, with the United States facing monumental economic and debt problems, the political system has been unable to curb generous entitlement programs or counter the economic downturn. I really hate to say “I told you so”, because a) as Megan McArdle said yesterday it is “so … bleeding … obvious” and b) it really doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this was going to happen. No, not China mocking us – they have their own economic problems ahead of them so I’m not particularly impressed with their mocking attitude. The idea that running huge deficits, encouraging an entitlement culture, redistributing wealth and running up unpaid future welfare obligations was sustainable. Heck, people like me and other authors on this blog have been saying that for years – decades even – that it was just a matter of time before it all collapsed like a wet paper box. And we always get the hand wave from the so-called enlightened that we just don’t know what we’re talking about. To them I say, “welcome to reality”. Like gravity, the laws of economics will finally assert themselves. And they have. However, the performance of the Chinese economy in the global recession has had a beneficial effect for them among other nations. China is now at a pinnacle of global leadership and influence as a result of its emergence as an economic superpower, even as the U.S. and other major industrial powers fell into disrepair as a result of the 2008 financial crisis, said Guo Zhenyuan, an analyst at the institute. China gained the admiration of developing nations around the world with its ability to weather the crisis emanating from the U.S., even emerging from the downturn as the world’s main engine of growth, while its superior economic performance provoked jealousy in the U.S. and other developed nations, he said. With that said, here’s what they’re now selling: Mr. Chan said U.S. political leaders are so focused on short-term gains that they fail to make the painful long-term choices and changes in social programs needed to ensure the solvency of the government and vitality of the economy. Chinese leaders, by contrast, lay out plans for the long term and systematically achieve them, producing unprecedented gains in living standards and a remarkable two decades of uninterrupted growth at nearly double-digit annual rates. This proves that the Chinese system is better than the democratic system that the U.S. promotes around the world, Mr. Chan said. And the dictators and totalitarians around the world take heart. Only because Western leaders, decades ago, perverted the true meaning of Western democracy and did exactly what the critique above says – began trading goodies for votes and created the social welfare state which was destined for failure. Whether or not you agree that democracy is the problem is a rather moot point. That’s what China is pitching and apparently there are eager listeners. And we all know there are those out there who think they too can implement the Chinese model. As Dr. Kissinger said they call it, “Socialism with Chinese characteristics”. The rest of us call it totalitarianism, but like I said, in the face of the epic failure of Western Social Democracy and the rise of China, it’s a tough argument to fight at the moment. ~McQ
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Post by philunderwood on Nov 15, 2011 8:59:33 GMT -5
Will Republicans Blow It? By Thomas Sowell www.JewishWorldReview.com | Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said that a good catch phrase could stop thinking for 50 years. One of the often-repeated catch phrases of our time — "It's the economy, stupid!" — has already stopped thinking in some quarters for a couple of decades. There is no question that the state of the economy can affect elections. But there is also no iron law that all elections will be decided by the state of the economy. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was re-elected for an unprecedented third term after two terms in which unemployment was in double digits for eight consecutive years. We may lament the number of people who are unemployed or who are on food stamps today. But those who give the Obama administration credit for coming to their rescue when they didn't have a job are likely to greatly outnumber those who blame the administration for their not having a job in the first place. An expansion of the welfare state in hard times seems to have been the secret of FDR's great political success in the midst of economic disaster. An economic study published in a scholarly journal in 2004 concluded that the Roosevelt administration's policies prolonged the Great Depression by several years. But few people read economic studies. This economy has been sputtering along through most of the Obama administration, with the unemployment rate hovering around 9 percent. But none of that means that Barack Obama is going to lose the 2012 election. Even polls which show "any Republican" with more public support than Obama does not mean that Obama will lose. The president is not going to run against "any Republican." He is going to run against some specific Republican, and that Republican can expect to be attacked, denounced and denigrated for months on end before the November 2012 elections — not only by the Democrats, but also by the media that is heavily pro-Democrat. We have already seen how unsubstantiated allegations from women with questionable histories have dropped Herman Cain from front runner to third place in just a couple of weeks. In short, it takes a candidate to beat a candidate, and everything depends on what kind of candidate that is. The smart money inside the Beltway says that the Republicans need to pick a moderate candidate who can appeal to independent voters, not just to the conservative voters who turn out to vote in Republican primaries. Those who think this way say that you have to "reach out" to Hispanics, the elderly and other constituencies. What is remarkable is how seldom the smart money folks look at what has actually been happening in presidential elections. Ronald Reagan won two landslide elections when he ran as Ronald Reagan. Vice President George H.W. Bush then won when he ran as if he were another Ronald Reagan, with his famous statement, "Read my lips, no new taxes." But after Bush 41 was elected and turned "kinder and gentler" — to everyone except the taxpayers — he lost to an unknown governor from a small state. Other Republican presidential candidates who went the "moderate" route — Bob Dole and John McCain — also came across as neither fish nor fowl, and also went down to defeat. Now the smart money inside the Beltway is saying that Mitt Romney, who is nothing if not versatile in his positions, is the Republicans' best hope for replacing Obama. If conservative Republicans split their votes among a number of conservative candidates in the primaries, that can mean ending up with a presidential candidate in the Bob Dole-John McCain mold — and risking a Bob Dole-John McCain result in the next election. The question now is whether the conservative Republican candidates who have enjoyed their successive and short-lived boomlets — Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and Herman Cain — are prepared to stay in the primary race to the bitter end, or whether their conservative principles will move them to withdraw and throw their support to another conservative candidate. There has probably never been a time in the history of this country when we more urgently needed to get a president out of the White House, before he ruined the country. But will the conservative Republican candidates let that guide them?
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Post by philunderwood on Jan 2, 2012 9:43:17 GMT -5
Puncture the cocoon of denial By Mark Steyn www.JewishWorldReview.com | Ring out the new, ring in the old. No, hang on, that should be the other way around, shouldn't it? Not as far as 2011 was concerned. The year began with a tea-powered Republican caucus taking control of the House of Representatives and pledging to rein in spendaholic government. It ended with President Obama making a pro forma request for a mere $1.2 trillion increase in the debt ceiling. This will raise government debt to $16.4 trillion – a new world record! If only until he demands the next debt-ceiling increase in three months' time. At the end of 2011, America, like much of the rest of the Western world, has dug deeper into a cocoon of denial. Tens of millions of Americans remain unaware that this nation is broke – broker than any nation has ever been. A few days before Christmas, we sailed across the psychological Rubicon and joined the club of nations whose government debt now exceeds their total GDP. It barely raised a murmur – and those who took the trouble to address the issue noted complacently that our 100 percent debt-to-GDP ratio is a mere two-thirds of Greece's. That's true, but at a certain point per capita comparisons are less relevant than the sheer hard dollar sums: Greece owes a few rinky-dink billions; America owes more money than anyone has ever owed anybody ever. Public debt has increased by 67 percent over the past three years, and too many Americans refuse even to see it as a problem. For most of us, "$16.4 trillion" has no real meaning, any more than "$17.9 trillion" or "$28.3 trillion" or "$147.8 bazillion." It doesn't even have much meaning for the guys spending the dough: Look into the eyes of Barack Obama or Harry Reid or Barney Frank, and you realize that, even as they're borrowing all this money, they have no serious intention of paying any of it back. That's to say, there is no politically plausible scenario under which the 16.4 trillion is reduced to 13.7 trillion, and then 7.9 trillion and, eventually, 173 dollars and 48 cents. At the deepest levels within our governing structures, we are committed to living beyond our means on a scale no civilization has ever done. Our most enlightened citizens think it's rather vulgar and boorish to obsess about debt. The urbane, educated, Western progressive would rather "save the planet," a cause which offers the grandiose narcissism that, say, reforming Medicare lacks. So, for example, a pipeline delivering Canadian energy from Alberta to Texas is blocked by the president on no grounds whatsoever except that the very thought of it is an aesthetic affront to the moneyed Sierra Club types who infest his fundraisers. The offending energy, of course, does not simply get mothballed in the Canadian attic: The Dominion's Prime Minister has already pointed out that they'll sell it to the Chinese, whose Politburo lacks our exquisitely refined revulsion at economic dynamism and, indeed, seems increasingly amused by it. Pace the ecopalyptics, the planet will be just fine: Would it kill you to try saving your country, or state or municipality? Last January, the BBC's Brian Milligan inaugurated the New Year by driving an electric Mini from London to Edinburgh, taking advantage of the many government-subsidized charge posts en route. It took him four days, which works out to an average speed of 6 miles per hour – or longer than it would have taken on a stagecoach in the mid-19 century. This was hailed as a great triumph by the environmentalists. I mean, c'mon, what's the hurry? What indeed? In September, the 10th anniversary of a murderous strike at the heart of America's most glittering city was commemorated at a building site: the Empire State Building was finished in 18 months during a depression, but in the 21st century the global superpower cannot put up two replacement skyscrapers within a decade. The 9/11 memorial museum was supposed to open on the 11th anniversary, this coming September. On Thursday, Mayor Bloomberg announced that there is "no chance of it being open on time." No big deal. What's one more endlessly delayed, inefficient, over-bureaucratized construction project in a sclerotic republic? Barely had the 9/11 observances ended than America's gilded if somewhat long-in-the-tooth youth took to the streets of Lower Manhattan to launch "Occupy Wall Street." The young certainly should be mad about something: After all, it's their future that got looted to bribe the present. As things stand, they'll end their days in an impoverished, violent, disease-ridden swamp of dysfunction that would be all but unrecognizable to Americans of the mid-20th century – and, if that's not reason to take to the streets, what is? Alas, our somnolent youth are also laboring under the misapprehension that advanced Western societies still have somebody to stick it to. The total combined wealth of the Forbes 400 richest Americans is $1.5 trillion. So, if you confiscated the lot, it would barely cover one Obama debt-ceiling increase. Nevertheless, America's student princes' main demand was that someone else should pick up the six-figure tab for their leisurely half-decade varsity of Social Justice studies. Lest sticking it to the Man by demanding the Man write them a large check sound insufficiently idealistic, they also wanted a trillion dollars for "ecological restoration." Hey, why not? What difference is another lousy trill gonna make? Underneath the patchouli and pneumatic drumming, the starry-eyed young share the same cobwebbed parochial assumptions of permanence as their grandparents: we're gayer, greener, and groovier, but other than that it's still 1950, and we've got more money than anybody else on the planet, so why get hung up about a few trillion here and a few trillion there? In a mere half-century, the richest nation on Earth became the brokest nation in history, but the attitudes and assumptions of half the population and 90 percent of the ruling class remain unchanged. Auld acquaintance can be forgot, for awhile. But eventually even the most complacent and myopic societies get re-acquainted with reality. For anyone who cares about the future of America and the broader West, the most important task in 2012 is to puncture the cocoon of denial. Instead, the governing class obsesses on trivia: Just to pluck at random from recent California legislative proposals, a ban on nonfitted sheets in motels, mandatory gay history for first-graders, car seats for children up to the age of 8. Why not up to the age of 38? Just to be on the safe side. And all this in an ever more insolvent jurisdiction that every year drives ever more of its productive class to flee its borders. Tens of millions of Americans have yet to understand that the can no longer can be kicked down the road, because we're all out of road. The pavement ends, and there's just a long drop into the abyss. And, even in a state-compliant car seat, you'll land with a bump. At this stage in a critical election cycle, we ought to be arguing about how many government departments to close, how many government programs to end, how many millions of government regulations to do away with. Instead, one party remains committed to encrusting even more barnacles to America's rusting hulk, while the other is far too wary of harshing the electorate's mellow. The sooner we recognize the 20th century entitlement state is over, the sooner we can ring in something new. The longer we delay ringing out the old, the worse it will be. Happy New Year?
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Post by philunderwood on Jan 4, 2012 13:25:52 GMT -5
www.qando.net/?tag=shale-gasChina buys stake in US shale gas field Published January 4, 2012 | By Bruce McQuain While we dither and delay about fracking and permits and put a critical bit of energy infrastructure on hold (Keystone XL pipeline), China is aggressively pursuing energy assets … even in the US. The WSJ carries the story (subscription): China continued its push into the U.S. oil patch, with a state-owned energy company striking a deal to help develop several shale fields in Ohio, Michigan and elsewhere. China Petrochemical Corp.’s $2.5 billion deal with Devon Energy Corp., announced Tuesday morning, marks the third billion-dollar-plus joint venture that foreign energy firms have signed with U.S. explorers in as many weeks. Known as Sinopec, China Petrochemical is making its first foray into the U.S. by buying a one-third stake in Devon’s acreage in five emerging fields—four shale plays and one limestone field. Seems it will be up to the Chinese government to fund jobs in those areas while ours erects barriers in other areas. While we continue to suffer from high unemployment, there are jobs all over the Midwest and the Gulf coast that could be created (and, yes, saved) by aggressive investment in oil and gas development. Most of that investment would be private. But it would require the government to get out of the way. And that is something this very ideological administration can’t seem to make itself do. Instead we have the usual war against “Big Oil” going on (ideological fights usually are against some “Big” enemy) to the point that an industry which could be pulling us out of this recession and helping drop unemployment numbers is mostly reduced to sitting on the sidelines while ideologues argue, vent and frustrate any effort to do so. Of course the point is someone somewhere is going to try to develop and take those energy assets. China is going to make a relatively small investment to see what it can take out of here. And if we don’t want what the Keystone XL pipeline would bring – besides a whole bunch of jobs I mean – China is prepared to take that as well. Maybe its just me but for some reason I just find the worlds “myopic” and “stupid” poor descriptors for the policy this administration is following concerning oil and gas exploitation. They’re just too mild. We have an economy hurting for jobs. We have a nation that needs cheap energy. We have an industry ready, willing and able to provide both. And we have roadblock after roadblock placed in front of them by government. This, in my not so humble opinion, should be one of the major talking points for the GOP. We need energy. We need jobs. What we don’t need is an administration that places its ideology over the best interests of the nation and its people. ~McQ
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Post by philunderwood on Jan 18, 2012 9:44:56 GMT -5
Don't Trust Your Instincts By John Stossel www.JewishWorldReview.com | Simple answers are so satisfying: Green jobs will fix the economy. Stimulus will create jobs. Charity helps people more than commerce. Everyone should vote. Well, all those instinctive solutions are wrong. As Friedrich Hayek pointed out in "The Fatal Conceit," it's a problem that in our complex, extended economy, we rely on instincts developed during our ancestors' existence in small bands. In those old days, everyone knew everyone else, so affairs could be micromanaged. Today, we live in a global economy where strangers deal with each other. The rules need to be different. Hayek said: "The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design." You might think people have begun to understand this. Opinion polls show Americans are very dissatisfied with government. Congress has only a 12 percent approval rating. Good. People should be suspicious of what Congress would design. Central planners failed in the Soviet Union and Cuba and America's public schools and at the post office. Despite all that failure, however, whenever a crisis hits, the natural instinct is to say, "Government must do something." Look at this piece of instinctual wisdom: Everyone should vote. In the last big election, only 90 million people voted out of more than 200 million eligible voters. That's terrible, we're told. But it's not terrible because a lot of people are ignorant. When I asked people to identify pictures of Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, almost half couldn't. This is one reason I say those "get out the vote" drives are dumb. I take heat for saying that, but Bryan Caplan agrees. He's a professor of economics at George Mason University and author of "The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies." "A lot of bad policies ... pass by popular demand," Caplan told me. "In order to do the right thing, you have to know something." The "informed citizen" is the ideal of democratic societies, but Caplan points out that average citizens have no incentive to become informed, while special interests do. The rest of us have lives. We are busy with things other than politics. That's why our democratic government inflates the price of sugar through trade restrictions, even though American sugar consumers far outnumber American sugar producers. Caplan has a radical proposal for citizens: Be honest. If you know nothing about a subject, don't have an opinion about it. "And don't reward or penalize candidates for their position on an issue you don't understand." Political life differs from private life. If you vote for a candidate while ignorant about issues, you'll pay no more than a tiny fraction of the price of your ignorance. Not so in your private affairs. If you're dumb when you buy a car, you get stuck with a bad car. You get punished right away. "And you may look back and say, 'I'm not going to do that again.' ... It's not so much that voters are dumb. Even smart people act dumb when they vote. I know an engineer who is very clever. ... But his views on economics (are) ridiculous." It's not what people don't know that gets them into trouble. It's what they know that isn't so. "A very common view is that foreign aid is actually the largest item in the budget," Caplan said. "It's about 1 percent." Actually, even less. Medicare, Social Security, the military and interest on the debt make up over half the budget. But surveys show that people believe foreign aid and welfare are the biggest items. So, you ignorant people, please stay home on Election Day. And those of you who do vote, please resist the instinctive urge to give our tribal elders more power. If Americans keep voting for politicians who want to pass more laws and spend more money, the result will not be a country with fewer problems, but a country that's governed by piecemeal socialism. Or corporatism. We can debate the meaning of those words, but there's no doubt that such central planning leaves us less prosperous and less free.
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Post by philunderwood on Jan 26, 2012 11:15:17 GMT -5
RE-ELECT OBAMA: VOTE NEWT! By Ann Coulter www.JewishWorldReview.com | To talk with Gingrich supporters is to enter a world where words have no meaning. They denounce Mitt Romney as a candidate being pushed on them by "the Establishment" -- with "the Establishment" defined as anyone who supports Romney or doesn't support Newt. Gingrich may have spent his entire life in Washington and be so much of an insider that, as Jon Stewart says, "when Washington gets its prostate checked, it tickles [Newt]," but he is deemed the rebellious outsider challenging "the Establishment" -- because, again, "the Establishment" is anyone who opposes Newt. This is the sort of circular reasoning one normally associates with Democrats, people whom small-town pharmacists refer to as "drug seekers" and Ron Paul supporters. Newtons claim Romney is a "moderate," and Gingrich the true conservative -- a feat that can be accomplished only by refusing to believe anything Romney says ... and also refusing to believe anything Gingrich says. -- Romney's one great "flip-flop" is on abortion. (I thought the reason we argued with people about abortion was to try to get them to "flip-flop" on this issue. Sometimes it works!) Nearly two decades ago, when Romney was trying to defeat champion desecrator of life Sen. Teddy Kennedy, he sought to remove abortion as a campaign issue by declaring that he, too, supported Roe v. Wade. (Nonetheless, Kennedy ran a campaign commercial against him featuring a Mormon woman complaining that Romney, as a Mormon elder, had pressured her not to have an abortion, but to give the child up for adoption. Are you getting the idea that Massachusetts is different from the rest of America, readers?) Romney changed his mind on abortion -- not when it was politically advantageous, but when it mattered. As governor of liberal, pro-choice Massachusetts, he vetoed an embryonic stem cell bill and "worked closely" with Massachusetts Citizens for Life. The president of MCL recently issued a statement saying that, "since being elected governor, Mitt Romney has had a consistent commitment to the culture of life." He didn't defend his changed position by saying he was a "historian," or denounce people who raised the switch as "fundamentally" dishonest asking "absurd" questions, or go back and forth and back and forth. He just said he changed his mind. Meanwhile, Gingrich, who has run for office only in a small, majority Republican, undoubtedly pro-life congressional district, lobbied President Bush to support embryonic stem cell research. -- Romney is now the only remaining candidate for president who opposes amnesty for illegals. (Ever since President Bush's amnesty plan cratered on the shoals of public opposition, no Republican will ever use the word "amnesty," despite wanting to keep illegals here -- just as Democrats refuse to say "abortion," while supporting every manner of destroying human life.) Romney supports E-Verify and a fence on the border. As governor he promoted English immersion programs for immigrants, signed an agreement with the federal government allowing state troopers to enforce federal immigration laws, and opposed efforts to give illegal immigrants in-state tuition or driver's licenses. At the same time, Romney says he'd like to staple a green card to the diploma of every immigrant here on a student visa who gets a higher degree in math or science. Gingrich supports importing a slave labor force from Mexico under a "guest worker" program and wants to create government "citizen review boards" to grant amnesty on a case-by-case basis (i.e. all at once) to illegal aliens. -- Romney supports entitlement reform along the lines of the Paul Ryan plan, as he has said plainly, but without histrionics, in the debates. Just last year, Gingrich went on "Meet the Press" and called Ryan's plan -- supported by nearly every House Republican -- "right-wing social engineering." He apologized for those remarks, then took back his apology, still later doubled down, calling the Ryan plan "suicide," and now -- currently, but it could change any minute -- Gingrich supports Ryan's entitlement reform efforts. For the latest updates on Newt's position on the Ryan plan, go to http//twitter.com/#whatcheapshotgrandstandymovewillworknow? -- As for crony capitalism, Romney made all his money in the private sector by his own diligence and talent -- even giving away all the money he inherited from his parents. He's never lived in Washington or traded on access to government officials. Meanwhile, without the federal government, Gingrich would be penniless. He has been in Washington since the '70s, first as a congressman, then becoming a rich man on the basis of having been a congressman. Most egregiously, he took $1.6 million to shill for Freddie Mac, one of the two institutions directly responsible for the housing crash that caused the financial collapse. (Or one of three, if you consider Barney Frank an institution.) If the tea party stands for anything, it stands in absolute opposition to government insiders shoring up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at the very time those institutions were blowing up the economy. -- Romney could not be more forceful in saying he will issue a 50-state waiver to Obamacare his first day in office and then seek its formal repeal. Whether you like a state-wide insurance mandate or not, it's a world of difference when the federal government does it. Conservatives, having read the Constitution, ought to understand this. It was on account of the difference between state and federal powers that the Supreme Court overturned the federal Violence Against Women Act. The court was not endorsing rape, but reminding us that states make laws about rape, not Congress. To act as if Obamacare is the same thing as "Romneycare" is just a word game, on the order of acting like a "gun" has the same properties as a "gunny sack," or "fire" is the same thing as a "firefly." Romney supported the idea of other states doing something along the lines of his health care bill, but always opposed insurance mandates from the federal government (just as I oppose the federal government issuing general laws about rape, but support state laws against rape.) For those of you who still think Romneycare is the worst possible sin a Republican candidate could commit -- even worse than taking money from Freddie Mac as it destroyed the economy -- that doesn't help Gingrich: He supported Romneycare. (While we're on the subject, the nation's leading conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation, helped draft Romneycare. Indeed, Bob Moffit, Heritage's senior fellow on health care issues, can be seen in the picture of the bill-signing ceremony, standing proudly behind Romney.) But Gingrich did more than support Romneycare. As former senator Rick Santorum has pointed out, Gingrich supported a FEDERAL individual mandate to purchase health insurance from 1993 until five minutes ago -- i.e., at least until a "Meet the Press" appearance just last May. Asked by Maria Bartiromo in the CNBC debate last November to explain what he would do to fix health care, Newt attacked the question as "absurd" and said he would need a "several-hour period" to answer it. In a world where words have meaning, Mitt Romney is not the "moderate" in this race. He is the most conservative candidate still standing, with the possible exception of Rick Santorum, who is bad on illegal immigration. (Santorum voted in the Senate against even the voluntary use of E-Verify by employers, which means he doesn't want to do anything about illegal immigration at all.) Romney is "moderate" only in demeanor -- which is just another word game. His positions are more conservative than Gingrich's, but he doesn't scare people like Gingrich does. Ronald Reagan and Jesse Helms were moderate in demeanor, too. No one would call them political moderates. Romney is the most electable candidate not only because it will be nearly impossible for the media to demonize this self-made Mormon square, devoted to his wife and church, but precisely because he is the most conservative candidate. Conservatism is an electable quality. Hotheaded arrogance is neither conservative nor attractive to voters.
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Post by philunderwood on Mar 31, 2012 7:04:17 GMT -5
drsanity.blogspot.com/Dr. Sanity Shining a psychological spotlight on a few of the insanities of life Friday, March 30, 2012 ESSENTIAL SOCIOPATHY OF THE LEFT ON DISPLAY All around us today we are witness to the essential sociopathy of the "compassionate" and "loving" left. In the matter of Trayvon Martin, we have seen our own clueless President increase the hatred and fan the flames of racial divisiveness. Of course, he has not a word to say about his Justice Department's darling Black Panthers placing a monetary bounty on one of the characters in the ongoing national psychodrama. You would think that would be illegal (or, at the worse, uncivil; but you would be wrong--this is Obama's America we are now talking about; and in it, his political opponents are the ones who are always to blame.) Let's move on to a more subtle expression of the sociopathic narcissism; i.e., the veiled threats that are being uttered directed toward the SCOTUS, who in the last several days have been annoyingly uncooperative in following the accepted narrative of the postmodern political left on the issue of Obamacare. How dare they question it!! In a post, "Nice Court You Have There; It Would Be A Shame If Something Happened To It"; Wretchard writes: By saying Obamacare is so self-evidently wonderful and legitimate that only someone crazy would disagree with it, Blumenthal makes you wonder why this matter is even before the Court in the first place. For the answer to that question, see “begging the question”. What is less clear is whether Blumenthal, in reminding the court that the Executive Branch had the monopoly on physical power, was not engaged in a kind of subtle menace. After all, the Court’s power is not based on “credibility”. It is based on power vested in it by the Constitution. What would the administration say if someone argued that the president’s authority was based on “credibility” rather than his legal power as chief executive? The left will seek to de-legitimize the Supreme Court, possibly the same way that the President did in his 2010 SOTU speech when they had the audacity to disagree with his position. How dare they rule contrary to his position? Remember, as Obama has reminded us with regard to Obamacare--He cares doncha know? Any who oppose his benevolent policies for the good of all are uncaring, racist, sexist, wealthy jerks. And that's the essence of the argument. The left cares deeply about these things. We Republican and conservative and Libertarian troglodytes are throwbacks in human evolution, too stupid to appreciate the scientific workings of the minds of Progressives like of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid--let alone Barack Obama! (the solution is to re-engineer humans to conform to the progressive dream!) Isn't it interesting that the progressive postmodern left always seems to FEEL that their emotions are...scientific? That just because they FEEL something is good that it is "reality-based" and necesarily and undebatably true? Isn't it interesting that they always think they can re-engineer humans to adapt to their silly schemes--make them better somehow? If that's not an affront to reality, then I don't know what would be. It is also the hallmark of people in a psychological fantasy bubble, sometimes called psychological denial. I have written extensively on the pervasive psychological denial of the political left (see here, here , here, and here, for example). It is important to point out that denial is an "equal opportunity" defense mechanism engaged in by all human beings--progressive or conservative; Democrat or Republican. It is an involuntary, built-in psychic response designed to protect an individual from precipitously having to face unwanted, unacceptable or threatening feelings, thoughts or behavior. The mind simply blocks out reality and truth--and sees what it wants to see; and feels what it wants to feel. Psychological defenses can be a symptom of a much larger psychological problem; or they can be a temporary and even healthy adaptation to reality. Feelings can be useful pieces of data with which to understand reality, but they are certainly not the best tool for that purpose; and a reliance on them to the exclusion of using reason and critical thought is a strategy that cannot succeed for long-term survival. When assessing how appropriate one's feelings are in a given situation, it is often necessary for the contents of the unconscious to be explored and brought to the conscious level and considered. Unconscious internal conflicts--such as the desire to always please or displease your parents; or the need to feel superior and more compassionate than others, for example-- can easily mask the inappropriate aspects of the feelings, making them worthless as a means of understanding the external world. Taking this kind of action as a method of checking and understanding one's own feelings is a process called "insight" or "self-awareness". Some people do this quite naturally and honestly. Some learn in therapy or when they are in crisis. But if insight is absent then one's feelings have the potential to do great harm --both to one's self and to others. Some unconscious factors, or psychological defenses, that can make one's feelings untrustworthy are: 1) the person you are responding to has become symbolic of someone else in your life (displacement, fantasy, or perhaps distortion); 2) focusing on one particular aspect of a person, you ignore other, more objective data that are available to you about the person (denial); 3) you place your own unacceptable feelings onto the other person--e.g., I'm not an angry person, -- he's an angry person! (projection or full-blown paranoia). The truth is that there are countless ways that unconscious processes within ourselves can distort our responses to others and to reality itself. Growing up and attaining maturity requires that we take a moment to consider such factors playing a role in our emotions before we act on those emotions. If we come to know ourselves and understand our own weaknesses, vulnerabilities, limitations and secrets; then our emotional responses to people or to the world can be very valuable tools to help interpret the world. But they are only tools, and if not used wisely, they can do more harm than good. Feelings cannot be used in a court of law--for good reason. And they are not ultimate truth in the court of reality, either. All too often, mistakes are made; feelings can simply be wishes that have nothing whatsoever to do with the reality. If we are lucky, we discover this before too much damage is done. The key to gaining control over behavior that is motivated by unconscious defenses is to make them conscious. This requires that a person be able to reflect on his or her behavior or feelings and on the contents of one's mind; and with honesty and forthrightness develop some insight into why one feels, thinks, or acts a certain way. This is particularly important if the way one is thinking, feeling or acting is causing serious problems to one's self or to others. The inability to reflect on one's own behavior or the contents of one's mind and motivations is exactly why so many political debates boil down to acrimonious accusations. YOU'RE PROJECTING! NO! YOU ARE. YOU'RE IN DENIAL. NO, YOU ARE! How can you decide if someone is "projecting" versus accurately responding to and interpreting objective reality? How do you determine if someone is "in denial" or responding to reality? In other words, how do you tell if the use of a defense is a SYMPTOM of some underlying psychological problem versus whether it is ADAPTIVE AND HEALTHY and indicative of an acceptance of truth or reality? In order to be adaptive, a defense: • should regulate, rather than remove affect – that is, instead of totally anesthetizing a person, the defense would just reduce the pain (and therefore make it easier to cope; rather than to avoid coping altogether) • should channel feelings instead of blocking them (i.e., allow a healthy expression of those feelings in a way that can discharge them in socially acceptable ways rather than keep them hidden and motivating behavior) • should be oriented to the long-term; and not simply the short-term • should be oriented toward present and future pain relief; and not focused past distress • should be as specific as possible (i.e., be as a key is to a lock; not as a sledgehammer applied to a door) • the use of the defense should attract people and not repel them (Vaillant points out that the use of the mature defenses --i.e., humor, altruism, sublimation etc.-- is perceived by others as attractive and even virtuous; while the immature defenses are perceived as irritating, repellant, and even evil). Having laid out the tools, the reader can decide for him or herself if the current responses of the political left--either to the Trayvon Martin case; or to the "unexpected" questions of the Supreme Court Justices on Obama's Health Care Initiative--are symptomatic of a larger issue; or are a healthy adatation to reality. Now, what happens when psychological denial ceases to be unconscious and becomes deliberate, willful, and consciously evil behavior-- in spite of all the accumulated evidence of its malignant impact on real people in the real world? At that point we can safely assume that we are no longer dealing with a purely defensive structure in the psyche; we are dealing with aggressive, unadulterated sociopathy. Let me go back to the beginnings of Obamacare. Jay Nordlinger at National Review described a perfect example of this kind of deliberate, malevolent sociopathy: Several readers have asked me to respond to Diane Watson. I do so wearily. She is the Democratic congresswoman from L.A. who said last week that President Obama’s health-care critics were racist — and who heaped praise upon a) Fidel Castro, b) Che Guevara, and c) Cuban health care. She said, You need to go down there and see what Fidel Castro put in place. And I want you to know, now, you can think whatever you want to about Fidel Castro, but he was one of the brightest leaders I have ever met. And you know the Cuban revolution that kicked out the wealthy — Che Guevara did that. And after they took over, they went out among the population to find someone who could lead this new nation, and they found . . . an attorney by the name of Fidel Castro. It was clear, from her tone, that she regards Castro as a kind of Christ figure. (To listen to the congresswoman, go here.) I’m afraid I can’t say anything more about these subjects than I have already said. Let me offer a piece from 2000: “In Castro’s Corner: A story of black and red.” And a piece from 2007: “The Myth of Cuban Health Care: Michael Moore gives it a powerful boost.” And, in this FAQ column, you will find suggestions about what to read concerning Che Guevara.I’m afraid that mythologizing about Guevara, Castro, and the Communist dictatorship will never end. Indeed, it will get worse after the Castros and Cuban Communism pass. I used to think — I’ve had arguments with Armando Valladares about this (he is the heroic Cuban dissident who wrote Against All Hope) — I used to think that Castro-lovers in the United States were merely ignorant: They knew not what they said or did. How could all these “liberal Democrats” support a police state? A totalitarian dictatorship? But, some years ago, I stopped thinking that: I had to swallow that these people — certainly some dismaying percentage of them — actually like it: actually like the dictatorship and all the murderous oppression that goes with it. You can’t remain entirely ignorant or naïve after 50 years of this dictatorship. And that is a very, very bitter pill to swallow. One more point: Many of the leaders of the Cuban democracy movement are black — “Afro-Cuban.” President Bush gave the Medal of Freedom to one of them (the political prisoner Oscar Biscet). Many of Castro’s most ardent supporters in the United States are black: Charlie Rangel, Maxine Waters, Randall Robinson, and so on. What must the black Cuban democrats think of these Castro champions? Very, very little, I can tell you. (Emphasis mine) The traditional medical definition of sociopathy is a personality disorder characterized by a lack of social responsibility and failure to adapt to ethical and social standards of the community. If we think about that definition for a moment, we can perhaps begin to understand what is going on in our world today; and the reason that a huge number of people have embraced a fundamentally sociopathic--and "progressive" lifestyle, all the while convincing themselves that they are "compassionate", "post-racial" and just. Under the pervasive influence of postmodern philosophy and rhetoric, the ethical and social standards of the community have, unfortunately, been slowly evolving and eroding. In western culture, ethical and moral standards used to be anchored to the real world (i.e., to reality); but in the postmodern wilderness in which the political left and most of its most visible spokespeople--i.e., leaders in the Democratic Party-- wander aimlessly, ethics and morality are relative and "anchored" to feelings and whim; which inevitably unleashes the baser and more vile aspects of human nature. The 20th century became the playground (and litter box) for the narcissist; and by the time the 21st century rolled around, malignant narcissism was not even considered deviant, it had gone mainstream. Since psychopathology continually evolves and worsens if it is not confronted and dealt with, what we have now in our culture, particularly the political system, is the endstage of psychological evolution under postmodernism: the sociopath who disguises his or her sociopathy by selflessness (now marketed as "hope and change"). These selfless sociopaths are people who basically could not care less about an individual human being. They think in terms of movements and achieving some grand scheme of "social justice"--which is far from real justice and the search for truth. Individual human beings are expendable; it is the collective or State that matters; and, as long as they stand in the way of the implementation of the sociopath's great ideas and compassionate execution of those ideas they can be ignored, marginalized and even killed. To this type of mind, individuals are merely the fodder used to build "great" societies from the all the utopian fantasies and collectivist wet-dreams. It used to be that with the rise of civilization, political sociopaths--selfless and selfless-- were (thankfully) few and far between. Even so, when they appeared in history, they wreaked havoc and destroyed lives with great abandon for "the greater good". Needless to say, a central aspect of the 'greater good' was always the advancement of their own glorious self and their ideas. We can thank primarily the postmodern political left and its useful idiots for the persistent, unyielding, and willful celebration of--and ultimately mainstreaming of--malignant narcissism. We have entered the age of postmodern sociopathy and nihilism. What does it matter if the lives and freedoms of so many individuals are sacrificed to the murderous oppressors of the world; or, for that matter, even the compassionate oppressors of the Democratic Party--who, after all, want only the best for you of? If you "kick out the wealthy" then you have the wonderful socialist paradise of Cuba or the currently evolving one of California; or the magnificent utopia of North Korea with all their misery, poverty, oppression and progressive enlightenment! Under the uber-enlightened and progressive reality-based left, wealth will be redistributed and the human mind enslaved--but so what? As the eminent leftist and quintessential nihilist Joseph Stalin once remarked, "Death solves all problems - no man, no problem." In the long run we are all dead anyway, right? - Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity
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Post by philunderwood on Mar 31, 2012 8:54:11 GMT -5
March 30th, 2012 neoneocon.com/2012/03/30/legal-elites-and-the-obamacare-case/Posted by neo-neocon Legal elites and the Obamacare case Jonathan Adler asks the question: why did legal elites underestimate the case against the mandate? You might want to give quick and flippant answers—such as, for instance, “because they’re stupid and biased”—but that really doesn’t tell us much. Legal elites may be biased (as is just about everyone), but they’re most definitely not stupid, at least not in the academic sense. The answers Adler gives are much more interesting. His first point is that legal academics are often too far removed from the realities of actual practice; the ivory tower effect and all that. His second is that legal academics tend to on the left, which creates an unavoidable echo chamber effect that limits them. Related to this is the following, which I think is a brilliant insight: As I’ve heard Paul Clement (among others) explain, you can’t effectively advocate your own position until you truly understand the other side. This can be difficult to do, particularly when we have strong feelings about a subject. This not only applies to law but is equally true for almost everything, including how we conduct ourselves in our personal affairs. Since my “change” experience, I’ve been more and more convinced that many liberals do not try to understand conservatives, or to pay attention to the actual substance and weight of their arguments. Rather, they tend to dismiss them out of hand as biased and/or self-centered and/or cruel, without understanding the reasoning behind them. And although conservatives like to think they’re above doing the same in return, I think many conservatives fail to understand where liberals are coming from. I like to think (rightly or wrongly) that I understand both a bit better than most, because I’ve looked at liberals and conservatives from both sides now. The differences between the philosophical underpinnings of conservatism and liberalism are things I’ve explored before, many times, as have so many others. But right now it will suffice to say that those differences have to do with big questions like the nature (bad? good? neutral?) and perfectibility of humankind, how best to achieve goals (through government or individual action), and the importance of liberty and what is the price we are willing to pay for it.
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Post by philunderwood on Apr 11, 2012 16:51:36 GMT -5
Can Government Do Anything Well? By John Stossel www.JewishWorldReview.com | I'm suspicious of superstitions, like astrology or the belief that "green jobs will fix the environment and the economy." I understand the appeal of such beliefs. People crave simple answers and want to believe that some higher power determines our fates. The most socially destructive superstition of all is the intuitively appealing belief that problems are best solved by government. Opinion polls suggest that Americans are dissatisfied with government. Yet whenever another crisis hits, the natural human instinct is to say, "Why doesn't the government do something?" And politicians appear to be problem-solvers. We believe them when they say, "Yes, we can!" In 2008, when Barack Obama's supporters shouted, "Yes, we can!" they expressed faith in the power of government to solve problems. Some acted as if Obama were a magical politician whose election would end poverty and inequality and bring us to "the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." At least now people have come to understand that presidents — including this president — can't perform miracles. In other words: No, they can't! — which happens to be the title of my new book. Free people, however, do perform miracles, which is why "No's" subtitle is: "Why Government Fails — But Individuals Succeed." Those who believe an elite group of central planners can accomplish more than free people need some economics. I hope my book helps. People vastly overestimate the ability of central planners to improve on the independent action of diverse individuals. What I've learned watching regulators is that they almost always make things worse. If regulators did nothing, the self-correcting mechanisms of the market would mitigate most problems with more finesse. And less cost. But people don't get that. People instinctively say, "There ought to be a law." If Americans keep voting for politicians who want to spend more money and pass more laws, the result will not be a country with fewer problems but a country that is governed by piecemeal socialism. We can debate the meaning of the word "socialism," but there's no doubt that we'd be less prosperous and less free. Economists tend to focus on the "prosperous" part of that statement. But the "free" part, which sounds vague, is just as important. Individuals and their freedom matter. Objecting to restrictions on individual choice is not just an arbitrary cultural attitude, it's a moral objection. If control over our own lives is diminished — if we cannot tell the mob, or even just our neighbors, to leave us alone — something changes in our character. Every time we call for the government to fix some problem, we accelerate the growth of government. If we do not change the way we think, we will end up socialists by default, even if no one calls us that. Pity us poor humans. Our brains really weren't designed to do economic reasoning any more than they were designed to do particle physics. We evolved to hunt, seek mates, and keep track of our allies and enemies. Your ancestors must have been pretty good at those activities, or you would not be alive to read this. Those evolved skills still govern human activities (modernized versions include game-playing, dating, gossiping). We're hardwired to smash foes, turn on the charisma and form political coalitions. We're not wired to reason out how impersonal market forces solve problems. But it's mostly those impersonal forces — say, the pursuit of profit by some pharmaceutical company — that give us better lives. Learning to think in economic terms — and to resist the pro-central-planning impulse — is our only hope of rescuing America from a diminished future. No one can be trusted to manage the economy. I began by criticizing Obama, but Republicans may be little better. Both parties share the fatal conceit of believing that their grandiose plans will solve America's problems. They won't. But cheer up: Saying that government is not the way to solve problems is not saying that humanity cannot solve its problems. What I've finally learned is this: Despite the obstacles created by governments, voluntary networks of private individuals — through voluntary exchange — solve all sorts of challenges.
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