53 Comments

1. Barry 0351:

Like a vengeful and greeedy ex-wife these democrats are. Sitting on their fat asses and demanding more money while they sit and clean their nails.

May 12, 2009 - 6:56 am 2. El Jefe Maximo:

The story about the Swordfish and Bismarck reminds me vaguely of the account (apparently correct) of Prince of Wales and Repulse vs. the Japanese torpedo bombers in the South China Sea. The British AA gunners had practiced on Swordfish, and some had real experience against Italians — in both cases, much slower. The AA gunners and their systems were not ready for the faster Japanese Bettys.

In the same way, the Republicans, and the small business lawyers used to dealing with Republicans in power, and Democrats of the pre-internet iteration, are not fast enough off the mark to deal with the new Democrats. So far, the right looks more like Prince of Wales and Repulse — sitting ducks — than like Bismarck (she was harder to kill).

May 12, 2009 - 6:57 am 3. Lifeofthemind:

The CNN anchor “Amwha?” staring down her nose and intoning Sue-Zahn is a bookend with the boy bimbo flack Orzag in this confederacy of dunces. They remind me of predatory cats but without the charm. Cats are perfectly designed machines for hunting a mouse. Their kitty fire control system is optimized to lock in on a crossing target moving at moderate speed at a range of two to three body lengths. To short circuit them all you have to do is slowly roll a ball directly at their feline face. You can almost see the warning message CBDR (Constant Bearing Decreasing Range) flash in their eyes as they panic.

May 12, 2009 - 7:51 am 4. Annoy Mouse:

So there is an existential crisis in the United States and the beneficiaries are labor unions and the worst labor unions of them all is the one running our country. The UAW can vote for higher wages in the context of the economy of the auto industry but only federal workers can vote themselves rich during an economic crisis because they have the guns aimed at the indentured tax payers.

Did the Republicans use all of their political capital or did they have any at all? Pathetic that the two party system has failed.

How well did the Kos Kids prepare the battle space by proclaiming GWB Hitler reincarnate?

I think so long as life goes along somewhat as usual the average person is complacent. If there is further economic melt down or another, bigger crisis, then I think that the pitch forks and torches are going to come out. The question that I have been asking myself is this, if the Left has declared war against the middle and Right in this country, at what point do the “non-radicals” respond and what does that response look like if it is to be, as I believe it must be, nonviolent?

May 12, 2009 - 7:59 am 5. Mark:

The Obama Ponzi scheme proceeds apace. But it’s good to see the CNN reporter in the expensive white coat ask, at least, where the money is going to come from. Fear of economic disaster is the beginning of wisdom. The talking heads and pundits will be out of work in a depression just like lots of average mortals.

Just as Christopher Buckley is now stuck with what he bought, and willing to suspend judgment for a while to see what Obama might conjure, the liberal establishment, including the media, is in the same position.

One writer comments that you can have a jobless recovery but not a profitless recovery. Just so. But on the other hand I wouldn’t underestimate the power of doublethink. In the philanthropic world, for example, there is endless hand-wringing about the best ways for foundations to manage their grant-making activities in a time of economic downturn. It’s all Titanic deck chair rearranging, of course, because the reality is that foundation income is down. Why is it down? Because the economy is down, and the foundations are invested in corporations that are not generating profits. Rational economic actors would at this point demand long-range government action to ensure economic growth and prosperity that will result in income to the foundations. But the mission of (many) foundations is to help the poor, promote social justice, etc., and Obama is doing that, and therefore . . . . At this point the wheels of thought grind to a halt and deck chair rearrangement continues.

A refresher on Doublethink, from “1984″: “The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them….To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary.”

May 12, 2009 - 8:10 am 6. Scott:

My company has frozen all cost of living raises for the year due to the tough times. Why is it that the people who are supposedly working for me aren’t laboring under the same conditions?

/naivete’

May 12, 2009 - 8:24 am 7. anton:

I think that an appropriate way to deal with the situation is to fire all of the bums in DC. Recalls would be a good place to start.

Replace them with Congresscritters that will do what the people want and then write an amendment that ties all Govt pay to the average income of citizens and offers comparable benfits packages, increases would be tied to increases in the GDP minus inflation.

The likelyhood of that happening is the square root of squat.

We are being driven off a cliff in a rented car, powered by gas bought on credit and listening to a siren-song of feel-good hope’n'change promises. The fall may be thrilling for a second or so but the crash at the bottom will be horrific.

May 12, 2009 - 8:49 am 8. SShiell:

Do you know how to catch feral pigs? Its Easy!

First, in the middle of a large open space you put out food (free health care) every day for about a week. When the pigs start gathering for the food you put up one wall. Here Piggee, piggee!

You keep putting out the food. When they start coming back you put up a second connecting wall. Keep putting out the food. When they come back, and they will, you put up the third wall. Sooooieeee! Here piggee, piggee!

Keep putting out the free food and when they come back put up the fourth wall with an open gate. Keep putting put out the food and this time when they come back – close the gate. Here piggee, piggee! Soooie! Here piggee, piggee!

They will run around squeaking and squawking – cause they have lost their freedom. Until you start throwing in the food again. So long as the food keeps arriving on time, they’re happy – as pigs can be. They will still be happy when it comes time for dinner – tax time, time to pay for all the free food – and by then it is too late!

May 12, 2009 - 10:25 am 9. Storm-Rider:

“But don’t worry, our public intellectuals are on the job.”

“They (intellecuals) prefer ideas, which give them jobs and income and which enhance their power and prestige. They, therefore, look for ideas with specific characteristics. They look for ideas, which enhance the role of the state because the state is usually their main employer, sponsor or donator. That is not all. According to Hayek “the power of ideas grows in proportion to their generality, abstractness, and even vagueness”. Hence it is not surprising that the intellectuals are mostly interested in abstract, not directly implementable ideas. This is also the way of thinking, in which they have comparative advantage. They are not good at details. They do not have ambitions to solve a problem. They are not interested in dealing with the everyday’s affairs of common citizens. Hayek put it clearly: “the intellectual, by his whole disposition, is uninterested in technical details or practical difficulties.” He is interested in visions and utopias and because “socialist thought owes its appeal largely to its visionary character” (and I would add lack of realism and utopian nature), the intellectual tends to become a socialist.…”the free market system does not typically reward those who are – in their own eyes – the most meritorious. Because the intellectuals value themselves very highly, they disdain the marketplace. Markets value them differently than their own eyes and, in addition to it, markets function nicely without their supervision. As a result, the intellectuals are suspicious of free markets and prefer being publicly funded. That is another reason, why they are in favour of socialism…It is based on big and patronizing government, on extensive regulating of human behavior, and on large-scale income redistribution. As we see both in Europe and in America, the intellectuals love such a system. It gives them money and an easy life. It gives them an opportunity to be influential and to be heard. President of the Czeck Republic, Václav Klaus

http://www.klaus.cz/klaus2/asp/clanek.asp?id=wFYl3mgsTzI6

May 12, 2009 - 10:28 am 10. Nomenklatura:

One can imagine speculative tales of doom about where all this is going, but they are never very convincing. More chilling though are real stories about where this sort of debacle has led others in the past. I grew up living through one.

The US is in many ways currently right where the UK was in 1945. A global war had just been won, and the leader who won it (Winston Churchill) was immediately tossed aside, defeated by the Labour Party while the terms of the post-war political settlement were still being negotiated. The country was financially bankrupt, able to pay its monthly bills solely because of capital from outside.

At this very moment of military victory and financial collapse, the electorate chose to simply turn its back on economic reality and focus on awarding itself a massive package of benefits from the state, including vast expansions in pensions (not, of course, funded in any way and so just borrowed from future generations), welfare payments, free health care, ever more government jobs, and ever more legally privileged and therefore politically powerful unions.

The results dragged on for thirty years of sluggish economic performance, government intervention everywhere and high taxes, disastrous official ‘investment’ fads that were going to change everything, but simply lost every penny put into them (remember the Concorde) until Margaret Thatcher came along to reorient resources away from benefits and back towards competitiveness, and tackle the question of whether the unions would be allowed to run the country, by repeatedly holding it to ransom, or not.

What was perhaps most disgusting was that, since public policy was not about addressing rational economic choices (it was about one empty ‘programme’ after another and the naked veto power of the unions), it was an environment of ‘all politics all the time’. The politicians actually loved it. They were rather like today’s journalists, forever giving each other awards as we all went down the tubes together.

This was not a culture of opportunity, it was a system controlled by older people for their own benefit, which is why like so many younger people I emigrated the first chance I got, in the 1970’s. Millions of other younger people stayed but felt shut out of public life (which they were), drifted into crime and drugs, and wasted their lives. Politics, with its ‘multicultural supervision’ at every stage, became so omnipresent that Britain’s civil society largely collapsed in terms of participation by the younger generation, and has never recovered. Instead, people cynically leave everything to be done by the government.

Think about it. Thirty years of ‘politics all the time’, from which the country emerged cut down to size and with a fraction of its former influence. The people got their benefits, but their children were poorer as a result. And that was what happened in a benign external environment, in which foreign trade was growing extremely rapidly and a bigger ally (the US) was subsidising heavily the UK’s investment and its defense, propping up the UK’s economic performance. Where is the likelihood that we will see rapid growth in foreign trade resume now? Where is the US’s big, helpful ally today? I’m not seeing them.

The impact was not a ‘lost decade’, it was an impulsively willed and enthusiastically leftist-enabled ‘lost generation’, loaded with ‘progressive’ experimentation which had to be unwound in the end. To someone who was there to see it in all its drab unimpressiveness, it looked exactly like the direction we are headed right now.

May 12, 2009 - 10:29 am 11. hdgreene:

First, I should say that I am not an economist but I sometimes play one on the Internet.

As a destination for Capital, the comparative advantage of the US economy was not the wisdom of our economic policies: sometimes these policies were good but they were more often so-so and at times downright bad. The real attraction was that Capital was safe from expropriation over the long term because the population was largely hostile to socialism. So investors would accept lower returns, higher taxes and bothersome regulations in return for that guarantee against expropriation. In the last three months the Democrats have done much to throw that advantage away: bossing banks around; firing CEO’s; expropriating the wealth of bond holders and bequeathing it to the Unions. It is hard to believe that accomplished Political Spinners, so aware of the power of symbols, miss the powerful symbolism contained in these acts.

By promoting poor economic policies while throwing away the advantages the US enjoys as a safe, long term destination for Capital, the Democrats are deepening the recession while making recovery more difficult.

The other day I began contemplating an awkward possibility for Democrat economic policy makers: that we can have growing unemployment and growing inflation at the same time. The expansion of the money supply and the stimulus plan are premised on the Trillion dollar slack in the economy that the spokesman in the CNN piece alluded to. Inflation, they assume, will not show up until the slack is taken out.

But what if there is little slack? As everyone hunkers down to see what the populist storms emanating from Washington will bring their way, they may well sacrifice some of their productive capacity the way settlers will give up their homes to raiders while seeking the safety of the fort. They will need more money to pay higher taxes. Their workforce may be unionized with the full force of the Federal Government backing up the ACORN like “organizers.” The regulation they face may multiply in complexity and expense. Leftist Vikings may plunder great swathes of the economy while blaming the victims for the resulting distress.

So what if everyone hunkers down at the same time? What if they size their workforce on the basis of much higher labor costs in the future? What if they seek a price point for their product based of much higher costs? What if what we are seeing is the emergence of the Porcupine economy? Then the increase in the money supply will result in an increase in prices, rather than increased production and lower unemployment. Imports may briefly soar, but only until the dollar collapses. Domestic saving will be sucked up by the government. Policies aimed at taxing money sheltered on foreign shores may only encourage capital flight. Calls for “fair trade” and protectionism will increase. We will experience the late 1970’s on fast forward. Except we have a President who might be substantively worse than Jimmy Carter but stylistically much better (and a lot more determined in his chosen coarse).

Inflation is the “small thing” that will threaten the Democrat’s hold on power. I remember 1979. The press began writing of inflation as if it were some mysterious aliment. No one seemed to know the cause or the cure. I had always heard that it was “too much money chasing too few goods.” But these Journalists even got me wondering: could it be more complicated than that? When they can no longer blame George Bush, look for the “many mysterious ailments” explanation to emerge (with the mysterious aliments blamed on George Bush).

But I don’t have an econometric model so I could be wrong.

May 12, 2009 - 11:00 am 12. Tcobb:

I have a modest proposal—

Deficits are bad–few would disagree. So–so long as we’re running deficits I propose that that we cut non-military federal workers’ salaries to whatever level it takes to balance the budget. And of course it should be on a “progressive” basis. Those federal workers who have high salaries should have a bigger percentage of their pay cut away than the entry level clerk-typist.

What is that saying that progressives are so fond of? “Those who have benefited most from society(by which they mean the government) should be willing to pay more than those who have not been so fortunate.” I can’t think of any class of people who have benefited more from society/government than someone whose paycheck comes from society/government. If you are a “goverment worker” its time to take a pay cut. Its the patriotic thing to do.

May 12, 2009 - 11:27 am 13. Langley:

@#3 Life

“To short circuit them all you have to do is slowly roll a ball directly at their feline face. You can almost see the warning message CBDR (Constant Bearing Decreasing Range) flash in their eyes as they panic.”

You mean tell the truth to them?

May 12, 2009 - 11:34 am 14. Habu:

I’m going to relate a story from my early years with the “Company” as we called ourselves in those days Of course it’s about taxpayer dollars.

Naturally travel expenses have to be accounted for, at least at my initial level, GS-10 so after each task we’d fill in the required docs. If we went to a place it was always coded as place Y or X or Z…you get the idea. We were also alotted per diem and other travel expenses such as taxi rides without receipts and sky caps, same thing.

A trip that legitimately cost say $200.00 could easily blossom to $400 with the overage going untaxed right in your pocket. Now figure I travelled about 300 days a year and yo can see where we’re talking serious 1971 dollars. Well when the bosses started seeing us all driving XK-E’s and Lotus’ and the like they wanted an audit to CYA.

Well everything is need to know so the auditors never knew where X,Y or Z was on the planet. They just rubber stamped stuff and life went on. It was the Big Rock Candy Mountain…nmow ACORN is getting the goodies..ugh..but thats where you tax dollars go..of course I was a consumer..heck I’d spend $300-$400 on a date, and brother you can date some nice girls in LA and SFO flashing that cash..life was great.

I’m completely confident that a huge number of Fed employees are doing the same thing today …George Washington Plunkett of Tammany Hall called it “honest graft” in a pamplett he had published back in that day…

word..get a government job where you travel

May 12, 2009 - 12:18 pm 15. Marie Claude:

“de l’audace…” was from Danton, in a discourse when he was calling for a patriot rally against the enemis of the new republic, the army of the monarchies alliance were preparing to attack France for giving back power to the nobleness

May 12, 2009 - 12:18 pm 16. Marie Claude:

“get a government job where you travel”

specially with a chinese woman, you may end with a shorter “tool”

May 12, 2009 - 12:22 pm 17. Shivermetimbers:

The scary thing about this is that we are all hoping that the electorate will wake up and ‘throw the bums out.’ But the dems will soon have complete control with 60 seats in the senate and will cause a lot of damage.

Obama is out to build a large coalition of people who don’t pay taxes; so, no grievances there. He has the MSM in his pocket, especially if he has them on life support and the folks who should be reporting the truth need his administration for their jobs. He will have the union thugs. He will have ACORN, fresh with $8.5 Billion digging up dead people to vote democrat. He will have 120K new bodies working at the census dept. with help from ACORN – Hmm… I’m a bit suspicious here. He will will push for immigrants to become citizens with the ability to vote.

One area we will see a lot of ‘cuts’ will be the military.

Unfortunately, I don’t see any Republican leaders who grasp this, or can articulate the danger we are in (with the exception of maybe Newt).

May 12, 2009 - 12:34 pm 18. noprisoners:

Marie Claude,

I like your style!

I might add that you could probably broaden that to “most Asian women”. IIRC.

May 12, 2009 - 12:36 pm 19. joe buzz:

Speaking of the Chinese and tools, It appears that our NIH will Pay $2.6 Million US tax $ to Train Chinese Prostitutes to Drink Responsibly on the Job

May 12, 2009 - 12:45 pm 20. joe buzz:

Sorry bad rinky try Here

May 12, 2009 - 12:54 pm 21. JMH:

So far, the right looks more like Prince of Wales and Repulse — sitting ducks — than like Bismarck

Not sure I agree. The swordfish that attacked the Bismark didn’t sink it – they jammed it’s rudder so all it could do was steam in circles. That let the rest of the British fleet catch it and sink it with gunnery. Rudderless and steaming in circles seems like a good description of the GOP leadership right now.

May 12, 2009 - 1:14 pm 22. Blaine:

I like to use the swimming pool analogy. We are all in this big swimming pool that is America. 95% of America is in the shallow end, business and high income people are in the deep end where all the money is. Orange dye is the taxes. The administration is going to dump a bunch of dye in the deep end and point out that it is only business and the high income people who are getting colored and leave smug. When they come back tomorrow and see everyone colored they will be completely baffled how it happened. Someone should explain osmosis to Obama.
Blaine

May 12, 2009 - 1:18 pm 23. K:

I doubt the Bismark’s fire control system was the reason it was hit by Swordfish torpedoes. The outcome wouldn’t have changed if the FC could dial in a very low speed.

Throughout WW2 ships, including battleships, normally lost against attacking aircraft. Successful defense mostly depended upon friendly fighter cover.

That is not to say that anti-aircraft guns were worthless. The trend though out the war was to add more and more of them.

Near the end the US fleets had truly formidable gunnery. And they were using the proximity fuze. And the ships still took hits.

Sorry JMH, I saw your comment as the last second.

May 12, 2009 - 1:20 pm 24. Marie Claude:

noprisoners

I bet you haven’t read that article

http://patdollard.com/2009/05/secretary-accidentally-bites-off-boss-penis/

May 12, 2009 - 1:33 pm 25. Stephen:

“a benign external environment, in which foreign trade was growing extremely rapidly and a bigger ally (the US) was subsidising heavily the UK’s investment and its defense, propping up the UK’s economic performance. Where is the likelihood that we will see rapid growth in foreign trade resume now? Where is the US’s big, helpful ally today? I’m not seeing them.”

Thank God for that. Not having a protector may prove to be America’s saving grace.

May 12, 2009 - 1:58 pm 26. Walt:

Wir fahren gegen Engeland!
The Bismarck’s crew did sing
Wir fahren gegen Everyman!
Obama’s cry doth ring
Everyone except of course
The unions large and small
As well as every other source
The Democrats can call
Their friends and allies who will give
Their votes and labor to
The rest of us will get the shiv
Thrust home by you know who
With fahren gegen Engeland
Still ringing in our ears
We follow O’s big taxing band
And swallow down our fears

May 12, 2009 - 2:20 pm 27. Pastor of Cow Pies:

You are all a flock of malcontent right wing losers who have seen your own besotted sun eclipsed by the light of the progressive ascent and you can’t reconcile yourself to your own irrelevance. I almost pity you. Almost. Console yourselves with the thought that Carrie Prejean will be the hostess seating you at the Reeducation Camp Cafe.

May 12, 2009 - 3:06 pm 28. mac:

“You are all a flock of malcontent right wing losers who have seen your own besotted sun eclipsed by the light of the progressive ascent and you can’t reconcile yourself to your own irrelevance. I almost pity you. Almost. Console yourselves with the thought that Carrie Prejean will be the hostess seating you at the Reeducation Camp Cafe.”

It’s comments like this, said in earnest, that will bring on the start of the second American Civil War.

May 12, 2009 - 3:19 pm 29. Storm-Rider:

We should stop refering to ourselves as “right,” that is what the left wants. In the end there are only two forms of enduring government: Elite Oligarchy (left or right) and a Constitutional Republic. Medieval European Monarchies were, on a functional level, really rightist oligarchies since the King needed a cadre of Judges, Clerics, Nobles and Soldiers to carry out his will. Oligarchy must be divided into right and left with the former in violation of our Constitution by rejecting fair elections; and the latter in violation by rejecting our tenth amendment – thereby creating a massive un-Constitutional, social-engineering federal bureaucracy. It gets more complicated though; the Rightist Oligarchy stays in power by taxing a homogeneous population for the straightforward benefit of the ruling class; whereas the Leftist Oligarchy stays in power through dividing a population into middle class and proletariat, and then robbing property (excessive taxation) from the former and redistributing property to the latter in return for votes – a property-related perversion of the electoral process – the “Marxist Shuffle.” And surprise, surprise; the Marxist Left will ensure their own wealth in the process. Add to this “Marxist Shuffle” the leftist tendency to pervert elections through outright voting fraud.

“It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.” Joseph Stalin

There simply is no more right in the Western World, only the Marxist Left and the American Constitutional Republic which is the Middle. The Western Right was destroyed during the American, French and Russian Revolutions; the only Right now-a-days is that of Totalitarian Islam. The “Marxist Shuffle” as described above is much more complex than the “In Your Face” Rightist power-grab, and so the Left has survived by confusing a gullible uninformed public into believing they are champions of “social justice,” but they are not. The Marxist Left violates our sacred individual right to human creativity; to own property creatively attained through individual labor – the creative pursuit of happiness. This right to individual human creativity is suppressed in the middle class (hard-working, tax-paying, state-supporting individuals) by wearing them down under the burdens of excessive taxation and/or inflation; and the creativity of the proletariat class (the non-disabled, non-productive, tax-receiving, state-supported poor) is suppressed since these people will not work if they don’t have to. In the end the entire society slides into serfdom as a nation becomes unproductive as a whole; and you end up with the Marxist dream of “equality”; the equality of serfs; except of course for the ruling Marxist elite. At this point the Marxist Left may become indistinguishable from the Classic Right and they would have no further need for elections. In time the Marxist Left, like the Classic Right, will suppress our other sacred human rights because as people speak out against the serf-producing theft of their property, they must be silenced; and if not silenced, then they must be ……

Karl Marx was an evil genius; he developed a system of government which can install a leftist oligarchy through a property-related perversion of elections, with an end result which is indistinguishable from rightist oligarchy. American Marxists can only pull this off, and they are well on their way starting with the “New Deal,” by breaching the firewalls of our Constitution. They are doing it; and it is tyranny.

“The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.” Thomas Jefferson
The American culture war is not Left vs. Right; it is Left vs. Middle. What is Middle? The American Middle is the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights. Who is in the American Middle? Ordinary hard-working, tax-paying middle class Americans are in the Middle. Who represents the American Middle? At present, no one. What is Left? The American Left is Karl Marx. Who is in the American Left? “Intellectuals” such as leaders of a certain political party, journalists, humanities professors are in the Left; and most of them are tax-supported. Non-disabled, non-tax-paying, tax-supported individuals of the proletariat make up the remaining bulk of the Left. What is the goal of the Middle? The goal is Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness (Including property creatively attained through labor). What is the goal of the Left? The goal is for government to take the property of the Middle and give it to the Left, and if necessary it will take the other two goals of the Middle in order to reach this primary goal of property.

“The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property” Karl Marx

“In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend.” Karl Marx

“You must, therefore, confess that by “individual” you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. This person must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible.” Karl Marx

“In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things. In all these movements, they bring to the front, as the leading question in each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time.” Karl Marx

“The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state… Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property” Karl Marx

http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html

“The personal right to acquire property, which is a natural right, gives to property, when acquired, a right to protection, as a social right.” James Madison

“The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.” James Madison

“Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.” James Madison

“Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty.” John Adams

“Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist.” John Adams

“Now what liberty can there be where property is taken without consent?” Samuel Adams

“Among the natural rights of the Colonists are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can.” Samuel Adams

“In the general course of human nature, a power over man’s substance amounts to a power over his will.” Alexander Hamilton

“In a free government almost all other rights would become worthless if the government possessed power over the private fortune of every citizen.” Chief Justice John Marshall

“To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father’s has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association–the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.” Thomas Jefferson

“Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have … The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.” Thomas Jefferson

“The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen in his person and property and in their management.” Thomas Jefferson

“Take not from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.” Thomas Jefferson

“The Constitution of most of our states, and of the United States, assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed and that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of press.” Thomas Jefferson

“Property is the fruit of labor…property is desirable…is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.” Abraham Lincoln

“We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name – liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names – liberty and tyranny.” Abraham Lincoln

May 12, 2009 - 3:29 pm 30. steeple:

Related to fiscal responsibility, the latest Rasmussen poll reveals that 81% of Americans oppose a large increase in gasoline taxes in order to drive fuel efficiency, reduce greenhouse gases, etc… (only 10% were for it!)

Its becoming more clear to me that conservatives need to push for more “user pays” taxes whereever possible. Carbon tax? Great! This is how much it will impact your personal utility bill. Nancy Pelosi wants the G5 for the weekend? Here’s the bill, San Fran.

As long as those who have a free option on government spending (the bottom half of US taxpayers account for just 3% of the personal income tax receipts), we’re going to get programs to assist Chinese prostitutes to behave themselves better.

Put a real price tag on the cost of as much govt spending as possible and then let’s see what happens. I recognize that has the same chance of success as Anton’s square root of squat.

May 12, 2009 - 3:40 pm 31. Habu:

24. Marie Claude:

Would you agree that a woman’s tongue is her sword and she should take care never to let it rust?

May 12, 2009 - 4:02 pm 32. whiskey:

This expansion of Obama’s Welfare State and his Government led economy is the subject of my latest blog post.

How many Straight White Men will be hired in the Government?

Answer, almost none (see my post for video of Robert Reich explaining to Rangel and Pelosi the need to exclude White Men from benefiting from spending).

Bottom line: women will do well in Obama’s Welfare State Economy. They’ve reached majority in the workforce and layoffs have been more than 80% male. Average weekly earnings for women are UP, while down for men.

Particularly mid-to-upper income men do poorly under Obama’s Economy, they get almost no government employment (Obama decimated the one area of spending that employs men: Defense) and pay sky-high taxes.

You don’t have a large group of men going from $200 bottle service to pick up women to unemployment and pick-up jobs, no women, and government taxing them to death on the little things, while offering a shut door, and not gain a whole lot of enemies.

Obama will exacerbate the Gender divide. Women LOVE impoverishment of most men, because by definition it filters out the “beta providers” from clogging up the mating market, and the only guys left are “Alpha.” No more constant ogling from beta guys at work, the only ones left are Gay or Alpha (who’s ogling is desired). Meanwhile women earn more and have more opportunities under the Obama Welfare Economy.

Kerry got 34% of the White Male vote. Obama about the same. The danger for him is his economic AND foreign policies (likely to get the US both defeated in Iraq and Afghanistan, and nuked at home) will create about only 4% White Male support. For him and Democrats. As much as Dems want to erase all non-Alpha White males (being the party of women after all), it’s not possible.

Obama didn’t follow Machiavelli’s advice and simply kill all Straight White men. Instead he’s making them poor, their targets in the mate market considerably richer (instantly pricing nearly all White men out of the mate market) and just leaving them there.

Rush Limbaugh is popular now. Imagine if most White males are unemployed, underemployed, or face threats to be fired?

Obama made the fundamental error of Chicago Politics: he failed to appreciate the size and scope of how many White men are in the US (most fled Chicago long ago). He’s making permanent enemies of them, along with the Democratic Party, while catering to women.

Problem: in a melted down economy, with no jobs, money, hope, and inflation, prices, taxes on everything out of control, and nuked cities, women are useless in street fights.

Just ask the Weimar Republic.

May 12, 2009 - 4:06 pm 33. oMan:

So many good commenters here. BC is the place to be. Nomenklatura, you nailed it. The UK experience was harbinger of our own. (Yes, every case is different: in the specifics. But in the fundamental human tendency to seek free lunch and self-justify, no, the dynamic is unfortunately unchanging.) Just a quick anedote to corroborate your point about UK in the 70’s. I was at school in UK in 1974 and at Xmas attended a “high table” dinner with all the pomp: black tie, many wines, la di da. Just when the cigars were being served, the power –. Went out. Of course, we chuckled and made do with candles, stiff upper lip, what? But in that instant, as an outsider, I saw the crash of a civilization. It was the time of the tyrannical unions, striking ad lib, shutting things down like babies in a tantrum. And the government too clueless, too gutless to solve the riddle. Now in this country we have the same, only more so. Because the unions own the government. And the government owns us.

Well, until we get our act together. One of the most heartening things about places like BC is that it is obvious there are many exceptional minds and wills already fully aware of what is going on, what will happen next, and beginning to self-organize. What is the Web equivalent of Paul Revere? The Minutemen?

May 12, 2009 - 4:07 pm 34. peterike:

Someone should explain osmosis to Obama.

Perhaps because much of the relevant scientific literature on the subject is written in Austrian, Obama has not been made sufficiently aware.

Apropos of nothing, any lingering doubts I may have had about BO being a totally twisted ego freak were dismissed when it occured to me that the new BO dog is named….. Bo.

May 12, 2009 - 4:07 pm 35. peterike:

Whiskey, I don’t doubt O is making enemies of white males, and they will grow angry.

But who will lead them? Whosoever will lead them?

May 12, 2009 - 4:10 pm 36. oMan:

Whiskey: good read of the problem. All those angry white guys. DId Obama forget about them? I doubt it. He’s an arrogant nincompoop but his corporate presence (BO writ large) includes many very astute and seasoned players whose “fingerspitzengefuhl” includes the pauperized male Caucasian demographic. So they have a plan. Probably includes a shortage of firearms at Bob’s Discount and everywhere else.

Wouldn’t want any trouble.

May 12, 2009 - 4:17 pm 37. Nemo:

Yeah, Habu. On our side it was because we had to account for a ten penny trolly ride the same as a substantial source payment. So. . . one padded a little so as to have a personal slush fund to pay for the trolly ride. Just to save time, and so forth. Time went on and the little lies added up, and got easier, more inventive. Source payments were shorted, easy to do because during the rare supervisor visits with a source, the source bloody well better tell the correct story. Next thing you know, the little fund was a lot of money, too much to keep in your pocket or even in your safe, so it understandably got tidied up.

Then JFK said “No bribes; we are better then that.” But German police chiefs expected gifts on appropriate occasions, occasional gifts produced rapport and timely information, it was the way things worked. So consultant fees became all the rage.

My favorite story has to do with JFK’s order to stem the “Gold Outflow,” what is now called some kind of deficit. Each office, unit, whatever, was asked to make a list of stuff members would not, repeat not buy during the coming fiscal year. My eleven man group reported savings of well over $50,000,000 for the coming year. I, personally, did not buy a MB SL300 (Gullwing), not did I buy my favorite chateau down on the Loire.

All this nonsense was collated and passed up the chain of command.

Ah, yes, government service.

May 12, 2009 - 4:33 pm 38. Habu:

27. Pastor of Cow Pies or are you PCP narced up?

Who pray tell will put me in a Reeducation camp?
They don’t make men any tougher than me, believe me.

I know you’re just a pass through troll but seriously, if you think you can get that job done..bring it on brother. I’m actually looking forward to the day when it’s tried.

May 12, 2009 - 4:39 pm 39. Habu:

37. Nemo:

It’s actually kinda of a comic tragedy the way my education came down. I went on what we called a “pig run” up to a contractor. From DC National to Conn and back..one day job.

I get back and am filling out the “Secret when filled in report” and I’m putting down exactly what I spent etc. One of my contempraries with more experience was watching me and simply said , “No”, make it look like this”, his report. Well he had about $150 extra dollars in his. Thats tax free money.

So, now right out of the Farm I’m confronted with..”do I do the right thing and end my career in one day, or do I do what’s been going on for years?” The years won. I was ashamed until I realized I was working for the CIA and if that was the worst thing I ever had to do I’d be lucky …I went on to bigger and better things ..taking down bad guys for awhile, working with the SR-71 and other national technical means…it was a gas. Several times, one particular time in Rhodesia I fully rationalized the extra money…tight spots pay more.

May 12, 2009 - 4:54 pm 40. Marie Claude:

Habu, you’re the experimented

May 12, 2009 - 5:39 pm 41. solovyev:

We should call this moment a rerun of Peronism. People forget that in the early 20th century Argentina was a very wealthy country, certainly richer than, say, Canada. But management is important. Decades of misrule, expropriation, and giving away goodies to favored clients permanently impoverished the country. Argentina has never really recovered from this.

I see no good end to this.

May 12, 2009 - 6:17 pm 42. Habu:

40. Marie Claude:
? ? ? ? You might as well have said Klaatu barada nikto

May 12, 2009 - 7:00 pm 43. Marie Claude:

Habu, it’s only working with a robot, might be that someone magnetic glance helps too
!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIaxSxEqKtA

May 12, 2009 - 7:27 pm 44. Shivermetimbers:

Whiskey,

How many white men voted for Obama? How many must wake up to make a difference?

It seems to me to be a race in how many people he alienates (white men) vs. how quickly he builds up a bigger coalition (dead people, felons, immigrants becoming citizens …)

This race is an uphill one for Republicans. The MSM, academia and Hollywood are against them and will do everything it can in clouding the truth.

And, there is no leader.

White males may finally catch on. But, will it be too late?

May 12, 2009 - 7:30 pm 45. Marie Claude:

The Western Right was destroyed during the American, French and Russian Revolutions; the only Right now-a-days is that of Totalitarian Islam. The “Marxist Shuffle” as described above is much more complex than the “In Your Face” Rightist power-grab, and so the Left has survived by confusing a gullible uninformed public into believing they are champions of “social justice,” but they are not. The Marxist Left violates our sacred individual right to human creativity; to own property creatively attained through individual labor – the creative pursuit of happiness. This right to individual human creativity is suppressed in the middle class (hard-working, tax-paying, state-supporting individuals) by wearing them down under the burdens of excessive taxation and/or inflation; and the creativity of the proletariat class (the non-disabled, non-productive, tax-receiving, state-supported poor) is suppressed since these people will not work if they don’t have to. In the end the entire society slides into serfdom as a nation becomes unproductive as a whole; and you end up with the Marxist dream of “equality”; the equality of serfs; except of course for the ruling Marxist elite. At this point the Marxist Left may become indistinguishable from the Classic Right and they would have no further need for elections. In time the Marxist Left, like the Classic Right, will suppress our other sacred human rights because as people speak out against the serf-producing theft of their property, they must be silenced; and if not silenced, then they must be ……

well, evething tend to mix, difficult to distinguish what is from a right or a left party, governments can’t govern anymore, they are just a façade that acts as it was governing, this is why te political elite had to create new empty words, that none can understand in the first place, but with reiteration they get into the brains. Globalisation is one of the fashionable big bin, where we can put all what we can control anymore.

A divin aeropage of initiateds in financial domains decides when the sun should shine or when it should be raining on economical fiels.

We lose our industry and jobs for the other surface of the globe.
So there isn’t marxism possible anymore but a beggar class, like we had when the Romans took over our continent, they expelled the individual celt land owner that made their living out of agriculture and sold their expedients.

they weren’t slaves but could seasonly let their manpower to one villa owner, some of them preferred to become their property, a bastad condition of slave and or servant ; it wasn’t yet serfdom for them, the Franks instaured the rules of this condition.

Seems we are going to revisit the roman millenarium history.

Human individual creativity still can be preserved, like we can make some bars stories, but they will not affect society, just for our unertainment and shows to the elites. The big prodjects will be decided by a commuauty.

Some unknown poets or marabouts can still come out of this big levelling, but they’ll have no easy life

May 12, 2009 - 8:07 pm 46. Marie Claude:

can’t control anymore

May 12, 2009 - 8:10 pm 47. Marie Claude:

economical fields, umm typo

May 12, 2009 - 8:49 pm 48. exdem13:

A friend of mine who works at the IRS center near here was informed today that he would be let go on Friday. (No irony here today! ^_^) Despite Dear Leader’s trillion-plus largesse-fest, the IRS didn’t get an expanded budget. All the new revenue agent & investigator positions came out of the existing budget at its 2008 level….so the Agency cut worker positions under the GS-7 level. Yeah, Hope and Change! More new jobs all around for everyone! Uh huh, yeah….

May 12, 2009 - 9:33 pm 49. Robohobo:

Marie Claude – Malveaux? = Bad view? What is the translation?

Pastor of Cow Pies @ 27: “…the hostess seating you at the Reeducation Camp Cafe.”

Ever heard this one, Pastor Simpleton? Molon labe. I am not going to any of your reeducation camps. I would rather die first. It took me over 40 years to shake my upbringing by progressives and I am not changing back.

Heh, I had an interview a couple of weeks ago. The mix was me, sales guy, a woman who would be a peer and the boss, a woman. I thought the interview went well as I am well qualified for the job. But, it has gone dark. I suppose it is the woman who I would work for will only hire other women. It only dawned on me slowly that this is where the whole thing was heading.

I am applying to government positions as fast as I can. Starvation and the loss of all makes for compromised principles.

May 12, 2009 - 10:32 pm 50. starling:

Art has a way of imitating life and, at times, predicting the future course of events. Six recent episodes of the NBC series “The Office” have dealt with the appeal and drawbacks of the Obama economy, albeit metaphorically. It is episodes 18-23 to which I speak, all of which can be viewed online at IMDB.com
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0386676/episodes#season-5

In short, the Scranton office of the Dunder Mifflin paper company gets a new boss–a tall, very dark and handsome change agent. The effect he has on the single female employees looks as if Whiskey was hired as a script consultant. So too do many of the internal, organizational, and political dynamics that are established within and outside of office place. I may be reading too much into the episodes but still I think there’s an object lesson in Michael Scott’s response to his predicament and how he eventually rights the wrongs.

May 13, 2009 - 2:51 am 51. Marie Claude:

“Marie Claude – Malveaux? = Bad view? What is the translation?”

what is your “X” factor ?

May 13, 2009 - 3:42 am 52. starling:

It is interesting that incidents pertaining to the sinking of the Bismarck are mentioned in a post about the Obama administration’s budget. I told a friend last year that Obama has air of Bismarck about him, that he is truly an intellectual heir of Bismarck. This I said even before he gave that speech in front of the Victory column in Berlin last summer. Obama is surely a man who believes, as Bismarck did concerning central role that a big government teet plays in keeping the populace in line. It was Bismarck who claimed that “anybody who has before him the prospect of a pension, be it ever so small, in old age and infirmity is much happier and more contented in his lot, much more tractable and easy to manage.”

Habu: I assume you’ve heard the old adage about to err is human…well your expense reporting from back in the day sounds a lot like state-sponsored errorism, something which one ordinarily would not condone. However, when done in the defense of freedom, I’m pretty sure the US taxpayer got a bargain

May 13, 2009 - 4:54 am 53. Jay:

Our leaders will emerge. Barak H O emerged from the Chicago swamp as a “leader” of the “creative class” and the blacks and Wall Street in a few years with no vetting. Each society has its culture and history. England and Germany lost its old culture in the blood bath of WW1. France and Italy somehow kept its elite culture.
But we may be pushed into chaotic violence the way France went after the revolution.

May 13, 2009 - 6:31 am

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