The Platform

Capital Games: Buffet BS.

The new proposal to "close loopholes" that allow "rich people" like Warren Buffet to pay a lower (capital gains) tax rate than his secretary pays (on current earned income) offers an enlightened Republican response that is not only reasonable, but ought to be supported by a broad base of the electorate.

The problem with comparing long-term capital gains apples to other income oranges is that the former treats purely paper "gains" as if they were real. Let's try a hypothetical example to flesh this out:

Suppose that ten years ago, I bought shares in a European company at €100/share. On the exact same day, a German citizen also bought shares at that same price. (Over the intervening years, we may or may not have gotten dividends from the company, in which case we'd have paid taxes on those dividends. Whether we did or not has no real bearing on the rest of this.) Today, we each sell our shares, at exactly €100/share. We didn't make any long-term capital gain on our shares, but we didn't lose any either.

But wait. In the intervening decade, the US Dollar lost value against the Euro. My broker puts $150 into my account for every share I sold. (A "low" inflation rate of just over 4% is all it takes to erode 50% of the purchasing power of a unit of currency in just ten years.) And now the IRS tells me I have to pay tax on that $50/share "profit". Never mind that $150 today isn't worth any more than $100 ten years ago.

Why should I be taxed for my $50/share "profit" when I have not really profited at all. My German counterpart pays no tax for two reasons: First, the Bundeszentralamt für Steuern (Federal Central Tax Office) would not consider him to have made a profit by selling for precisely what he'd originally paid for the asset. Secondly, Germany taxes capital gains at the rate of ZERO.

Now, my proposal is not to calculate capital gains in Euros or any other currency that gains and loses value. Instead, I propose that real capital gains on assets held over a year be taxed at the same rate as any other income, but that the calculation of what actually constitutes a "gain" in the first place.

A slight increase in complexity of calculating the profit/loss for an asset held over a year is required: The taxpayer should be allowed to refer to a published table of an appropriate inflation index (such as CPI) to calculate what tax codes call a "stepped-up basis" in the asset: The taxpayer would be allowed to subtract the value in current dollars of their original investment.

What would the effect be of this proposal? For assets held just a few years that appreciate very quickly, the effective tax rate could actually go up a bit from what people are currently paying, but for assets held for a longer time, it will go down or even be eliminated in the case of assets that do not gain any real value. I don't know whether it would be revenue-neutral, but it would be a fairer way to tax capital gains, and it would encourage people to make long-term investments, which should be good for the economy.

I do know this: it would deprive the Left of one of their big class-warfare weapons. They could no longer point to "special loopholes for rich people" to gain votes. It would also deprive the government of the perverse incentive to print too much money, debase the currency, and get to collect tax on inflationary "gains".

And because Warren Buffet makes a lot of money on capital gains, he ought to get his wish, and pay a higher rate.
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Lunching with Leftists

The Bride of Monster suggested we eat at a Vietnamese restaurant for lunch today. We settled into our booth, perused the menu, and each ordered chicken phở. Directly behind me were a couple of leftists reassuring each other how smart they are and how stupid the TEA Party types are. TBoM could see I wasn't taking this well, and via various gestures and code words dissuaded me from responding to them directly. She wisely suggested that I could "blog about it" (she knows I have one of these blog thingies but probably doesn't even know the URL).

I was a good boy while listening to one of them talking about how bad standardized testing for school teachers is. I just smiled and thought about how standardized testing for drivers, florists, hair braiders, and countless other occupations is exactly the sort of regulation they elect people to impose on the market to protect consumers against shady operators. Why should school teachers be exempt from the apparatchiks?

They dismissed the fact that "the words 'separation of church and state' do not appear in the First Amendment" by also saying "neither do 'assault weapons' appear in the Second". Well, that's a fascinating observation there, but the language is hardly similar:

1. In the First Amendment, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" is very specific, and the Supreme Court first used the '' wording in 1947's Everson v. Board of Education. Somehow, the First Amendment was on the books a century and a half before this phrase was found written in invisible ink between its lines.
2. By contrast "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" is very broadly worded. It doesn't have to say "assault weapons", because they are a subset of "Arms". The Supreme Court has ruled that certain arms are not protected by the Second Amendment because they are not "ordinary military equipment" (United States v. Miller). So-called "assault weapons" are demonized precisely because they are (or at least appear to be) "military".

They continued by discussing how the Constitution provided for slavery (although the word itself didn't appear in the text until the 13th Amendment abolishing it) and that it counted slaves as "40%" (corrected by the other one to 3/5ths) of a person as evidence of how racist the Framers must have been. I bit my tongue and didn't say anything to them about how the 3/5 compromise was cleverly designed by the anti-slavery side to reduce the power of the slave states in the House and Presidential elections, and to keep them inside the union rather than split into two, three, or even more separate confederations of states that would have easily been reconquered by Great Britain. The abolitionists were playing the long game; they knew that slavery was an economic dead end, and the free North would build a powerful industrial base with free men while the South stagnated. Time was on their side.

After a while, their conversation turned to non-political matters, and my blood pressure settled down. Then the one closest to me stated as if it were an established fact that the TEA Party is motivated by racism. I turned around and said "I consider myself part of the TEA Party movement, and I am not motivated by racism." He tried to play it off like I was the @$$#013 by pointing out that he was talking to his friend, not to me, but I wasn't having any of it. Imagine Mel Gibson "talking to a friend" spouting negative stereotypes about Jews, with a Jew sitting back to back with him. Would anyone excuse such speech simply because Gibson wasn't talking to the Jew directly? I sure hope not.

Then he played the canard about how we didn't complain when Bush was POTUS, and since we were complaining now with a black POTUS... Raaacism! I told him that the people I know in the TEA Party movement did indeed complain when we felt Bush was betraying the principles he campaigned on. We opposed national health care when Hillary Clinton was pushing it.

That set off his friend, who said that ObamaCare isn't national health care, but a corporatist's dream. I tried to explain that the TP'ers I know don't really care that much for the big corporations buying favors from the government to shut down their competitors, and that ObamaCare would eventually lead to the nationalized health care he wants as it destroys the private health care industry, but he was too busy spitting out his hatred for me and anyone else who wants him or his sick relatives to die Die DIE! because we oppose national health care. And then he stormed out.

I didn't get to ask the guy who called us racists what he thought of the fact that most of us have spent the last few days defending a black liberal, that we're looking forward to seeing several new black faces in Congress next year.

At least TBoM didn't get upset that I reacted to that provocation. It's one thing to disagree on issues, but the charge of racism is so powerful that it must be confronted whenever it is raised. I won't sit idly by and let that charge be casually tossed out as if it were a proven fact. To let the charge go unanswered is to assent to its truth.[Click on the title above, or date stamp below, to see the full article.]

Threely for this post http://3.ly/LunchWLeft

Border Security is not a Laughing Matter

"Racism"

A combination of events over the last few years has led me to think about "racism". Barack Obama's permanent campaign, to which virtually every criticism is labeled as "racist" is the most obvious. Janeane Garofalo asserts that the "tea-baggers" are "straight-up racist" because we oppose the radical agenda of a man who happens to have darker than average skin. (We don't know what she thinks about Ken Gladney, beaten by white union members who hurled the n-word at him in the process.) Even more bizarrely, Contessa Brewer and her posse use video of a black man armed with a semiautomatic rifle, carefully cropped to hide any of his exposed skin, while tut-tutting about the people who hate having a black POTUS, seeming downright giddy with the prospect that one of them will attempt a violent act.

But there were others.

• Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant have been subjected to the ministrations of the Canadian Political Correctness Police.
• A lifetime achievement award recognizing Bob Grant's trailblazing career in talk radio has been revoked, because of comments some have interpreted as racist.
• Don Imus returned to radio after his proverbial 40 years in the wilderness for his racially-charged remarks.
• People have been suspended from, and in some cases lost, jobs covering golf, because of a metaphor that evokes anger from the Black Community.
• An elderly member of the Kansas City, Missouri Park Board was hounded out of office because of her membership in the Minuteman anti-illegal-immigration organization, described as "racist" by Hispanic activists.
• Glenn Beck is the target of a boycott because he turned the "opposition to Obama is racist" charge on its head, and said that he thinks Obama himself is racist.

That last one cleverly exposed the double standard of what is defined "racism", and will be of great help in analyzing how the word is used. So, let's touch the Ultimate Third Rail: Racism.

First, we need to define our terms. The word "racist" has been operationally redefined to the point where it means "disagreeing with a leftist". It's tiresome. The danger is that by pretending that too many things are "racist", the word will lose its meaning, and we won't have a name by which to distinguish the real deal. I'm going to describe (if not precisely define) it briefly thus:

Racism is the belief that membership in an ethnic group determines individual behavioral characteristics, often to the point of deeming the entire group "superior" or "inferior" to others.

Even that is open to some misinterpretation, so I'll give a series of statements, and show where I think The Line is crossed:

1. Ashkenazi Jews have an average IQ significantly higher than that of humans as a whole.
2. People with higher IQ tend to be more successful in intellectually-demanding professions, leading to substantial financial reward.
3. The average annual income of Ashkenazim is higher than the average of the population in general.
4. Rita has to decide whether to hire Moshe or Malik for a job in which intelligence will be important.

   ---

5. Since Moshe is Jewish, Rita assumes he's smarter, and chooses him.

The Line is literally drawn in above. I think it's time to make clear something with which I'm afraid many people will disagree: Factual statements about statistics cannot be "racist". That they are true trumps all -isms. I am certain that many people will say that any statement about ethnic groups is inherently racist, at least when made by a member of The Oppressor Class. (Since I am a White Heterosexual Anglophone Male [WHAM], I am consigned to that class, although economically I don't feel like I belong with The Boss Man. I personally find that characterization to be racist, but Leftists cleverly define it such that it can only be applied to The Oppressor Class!)

Those who say it's racist to even go to Step 1 may have noble intentions: Perhaps they're concerned that merely acknowledging these facts will cause people to think like Rita the Racist. But those facts won't stop being facts just because we pretend they aren't true, and not dealing with them won't help us deal with racism. Rita has committed a horrible logical error, which needs to be addressed head-on. Trying to sidestep it, by pretending that the statistical differences in various groups don't exist, is dishonest, and empowers the true racists by letting them attack that dishonesty. It cedes to the racist the moral high ground of having the truth on his side! If we lie (even to spare some people's feelings) in arguing against actual racism, it taints everything else we may say on the subject.

Others are concerned that these statistics will breed resentment among ethnic groups that aren't as blessed as the Ashkenazim. Perhaps that's true, but only to the extent that people insist on thinking of themselves first as members of tribal groups, instead of as individuals. The variation within each group is larger than it is between groups. Those with higher IQs in any group will tend to do better economically than those on the lower end. Statistical differences in ethnic/gender group economic or educational status are the basis of the "de facto" argument behind quotas, which have perverse effects that can actually worsen the economic position of those it overtly "helps". As we've seen in Ricci, the fact that an insufficient number of applicants from protected groups pass a test is often deemed sufficient to prove that the test is somehow biased.

Furthermore, the mere possession of an ability doesn't automatically translate into performance. Everyone can learn to improve performance; hard work and sheer determination can compensate for a lack of native talent. But we have to be honest with people, and let them know that they may very well have an uphill battle to fight, rather than pretending that things will come equally easy to all. We also should admit that the task will prove too difficult for many. No amount of hard work has broken the dominance in the Men's 100m sprint by people of West African descent, and in the 10K by Kenyans and Ethiopians.

On the other hand, that can't be an excuse for giving up. It's up to each of us to be the best we can at whatever it is we do, no matter what handicaps we may have. For instance, I am near-sighted to the point that the tests optometrists normally perform to measure near vision are affected by my problems with far vision. So I wear contact lenses. But I don't complain that it isn't fair and demand that it is my right to have LASIK provided at government expense. I don't insist that the speed limit on streets and highways be reduced to the point where it would be safe for me to operate an automobile without my contacts. I don't consider it discriminatory that Major League Baseball won't hire someone with my lack of visual acuity to work as an umpire.

Rita isn't just a racist; she's also intellectually lazy, and stupid. The difference in group statistics doesn't mean that all members of one group have higher IQs than all members of the other. Rita's greatest crime is that she hasn't examined Moshe and Malik as individuals. Malik may be brilliant, and Moshe functionally illiterate, but in her prejudice she will never bother to find out.

Not only has she hurt Malik's opportunity to earn a living; she's also hurt her company's chance to hire the best person for the job. If Malik gets a job with an intelligent competitor, turns out to be better at the job, and they gain market share at the expense of Rita's company, the owners/stockholders will lose money due to her stupidity. Rita and her co-workers may not get the raises they may have gotten with Malik on the team, and some may lose their jobs. As competitive as some fields are, the whole company could ultimately go out of business, all because of one bad managerial decision.

---

I've deliberately chosen Ashkenazim for these examples so as to deconstruct some ideas that are easily conflated: "Jewish" refers to religion, ethnicity, and culture. Comedian and actor Rowan Atkinson discusses this quite seriously in his speech to the UK House of Lords opposing new "Hate Crime" legislation:

. . . Jews and Sikhs are protected from religious hatred on the basis of their race and that this Bill seeks merely to extend that protection to others. The problem that that ignores is that race and religion are fundamentally different concepts – you cannot choose your race, you can choose your religion – and even if for many the line dividing their race from their religion is blurred in the eyes of the law. A sharp line can and should be drawn.

If Jews and Sikhs are protected from criticism of their religious beliefs or religious activities, then that is a wrong and the idea of extending that to other religions is also a wrong. To criticise people for their race is manifestly irrational but to criticise their religion, that is a right.

Disagreeing with or criticizing Judaism (or related ideas such as Zionism) isn't anti-semitism, but hatred of people of Jewish ethnicity (which may be based on envy of their economic success) simply because of that ethnicity is. So it isn't fair for Malik to invoke "Islamophobia" as a parallel to anti-semitism. There is no such thing as the "Muslim race".

It also isn't reasonable for for those who complain that other ethnic groups don't do as well economically to conclude that "de facto discrimination" or some vague Zionist Conspiracy must be the cause. As much as we may like ethnicity and intelligence to be statistically-independent variables, the fact is that they are not. If we want to help Malik's ethnic group, we have to start with an honest assessment of the facts as they are, not how we'd like them to be. What part does the culture to which Malik belongs play in these statistical differences? Are there elements of Jewish culture that could help them to do better, were Malik's community to adopt them? We know that Jewish culture places a high value on education; scholars have traditionally had high status in Jewish communities, allowing them a better chance to attract mates, and pass their genes along to the next generation. Even if there is a genetic component to this phenomenon, it can be shaped by culture. (But we must tread lightly here; we are perilously close to talking about eugenic effects, which fact if noticed tends to cause brains to short-circuit due to some sort of Godwin Governor.) By contrast, Malik may have been accused of "acting white" if he did well in school, and been physically menaced for it.

People have seriously described Bill Clinton as the "first black president", and questioned the "blackness" of Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Michael Steele, and even President Obama! In the last case, it's not his white mother that is of concern; most people identified as "black" in the US have some European ancestry. He's actually excluded from being "black" based on his African father! According to this definition, "black" isn't about ethnic origin, but about family experience; someone without ancestors enslaved in the United States doesn't qualify.

"Black," in our political and social reality, means those descended from West African slaves. Voluntary immigrants of African descent (even those descended from West Indian slaves) are just that, voluntary immigrants of African descent with markedly different outlooks on the role of race in their lives and in politics.

I made similar points about the difference between voluntary and involuntary immigrants myself. That definition of "Black" excludes not only Obama, but also Powell, whose Jamaican parents came to the US long after their forebears were freed from slavery there.

While Rice and Steele don't share Obama's and Powell's pedigree problems, like Powell they belong to the "wrong" political party (although Powell's endorsement of Obama may have helped him to gain some cred). Perhaps the best-known epithet applied to such people is "Oreo" (black on the outside; white in the middle). Again, they "act white". "Black" and "white" in this context clearly refer to culture, as well as (instead of?) ethnicity. Dr. King's Dream of a day when his grandchildren would be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character, has become a nightmare, in which people who have a certain color of skin are told that they must behave in a certain way as a result thereof, lest they lose their "authenticity".

---

We expect Political Correctness from the entertainment, political, and educational elites. But there is also a civil war between Anti-Idiotarian factions involving charges of racism. As part of his effort to distance himself from "right-wing extremists" such as "Nirthers" and advocates of Intelligent Design, Charles Johnson has gone after various people as racist-by-association, for the sin of appearing at anti-jihadist conferences attended by representatives of organizations he has decided are "racist". In my opinion, many of those groups do indeed have racist members, (virtually every large group will have one sort or another) but also have many others who would more accurately be called "culturalist". But the "mainstream" is afraid of being labeled "racist" by the Johnsons, Garafolos, and Brewers of the world, so people must either choose to work with "racists" or with those who walk on eggshells lest they have that tag applied to them.

It doesn't help that some of the "racists" involved have used racially-loaded terminology. Some of them explicitly decry the assaults on "white culture" by immigrants that refuse to assimilate into it, or a President who hates it. But before we declare these people to be actual racists, we ought to try to understand what they mean. Then we might even helpfully suggest better ways of expressing themselves on the subject.

If "Jewish" and "Black" can refer to culture as well as ethnicity, isn't it possible that some of the "racists" who wish to defend "white culture" aren't racist after all? When we paint them with the same broad brush as the actual racists, we aren't helping out. We're abandoning the people who want to defend what they believe are positive cultural values, to be lumped in with the true racists. This may come back to haunt us. When the populace of a country finally tires of politically-correct multi-culturalism, perhaps due to widespread economic troubles that a politician can blame on the outsiders, they may react as the Germans did in the 1930s, by installing an actual fascist, racist, and ultimately murderous regime. That would be a huge step backward for us all.

Let us take care that when we identify specific individuals, who have made specific statements that are demonstrably racist, that we limit the criticism to those items. Let us be clear that we don't support judging people by their ethnicity, but we may find ourselves on the same side of some issues with those who do, when it comes to defending ourselves from another threat. That doesn't mean we endorse their entire platform.

If Hitler invaded Hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons. -Winston Churchill

To attack an entire political faction by association is the same sort of intellectual laziness that Rita the Racist committed by ascribing to the individuals attributes of others in their groups. We can do better than that.
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What If Government Ran Health Care?

Reason TV has a nice parody of the Sprint "what if ____ ran things?" commercials:

McCotter: Her Name Was Neda

Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) speaks out on Neda's behalf:

In other Neda news, an effort to provide anonymous communications for Iranian protesters is named "NedaNet"

Arlen Specter admits to what we've long known...

Specter To Switch Parties

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter will switch his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat and announced today that he will run in 2010 as a Democrat, according to a statement he released this morning.

Switch? Oh, right – he still *technically* has an “R” following his name

Specter's decision would give Democrats a 60 seat filibuster proof majority in the Senate assuming Democrat Al Franken is eventually sworn in as the next Senator from Minnesota. (Former Sen. Norm Coleman is appealing Franken's victory in the state Supreme Court.)

Obviously he sees that, having betrayed the trust of his base and (perhaps permanently) damaged the Conservative movement in Government to the fullest extend he would be allowed from his current position – this is the only he would be able to continue pounding nails into America’s coffin – Well played, Sir.

"I have decided to run for re-election in 2010 in the Democratic primary," said Specter in a statement. "I am ready, willing and anxious to take on all comers and have my candidacy for re-election determined in a general election."

Nope...Leaving the low-hanging-fruit for Anderson Cooper…
(aw dang, there’s a phrase and a name we’ll never be able to use together again..eww)

He added: "Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right. Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania changed their registration to become Democrats. I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans."

“…the Republican Party has moved far to the right”?

Apparently, Obama’s not the only one who has been “unaware” of the over half-million citizens protesting at Tea Parties around the country.

NewsFlash, Sparky:
The reason you’d have the proverbial “snowball’s chance” if you ran as a Republican in 2010 is because (following your stellar example) your party has become almost indistinguishable from the Opposition.

If you think that constitutes a shift to ‘the right’, then clearly it’s time for your handlers to up-the-voltage.

Specter as a Democrat would also fundamentally alter the 2010 calculus in Pennsylvania as he was expected to face a difficult primary challenge next year from former Rep. Pat Toomey. The only announced Democrat in the race is former National Constitution Center head Joe Torsella although several other candidates are looking at the race.

I can just envision how that conversation went…

“So, Arlen – here’s the thing: This Toomey-guy ain’t much, but he also didn’t tank his credibility by crossing-the-aisle to vote for the Great Generational Theft Act the way you did either.

“You an’ me been friends for a long time so I’m gonna tell you straight:
You’re Done. Screwed. Fini - Drop-the-curtain, stick-a-fork-in-you, It's Over."

I mean really, at this point you’d have a better chance running as a Demo… hheeeeyyyy….”

The precariousness of Specter's political position -- a Republican in a Democratic-leaning state -- was on display earlier this year when he was one of three GOP Senators to back President Barack Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus plan. That vote was strongly condemned by conservative Republicans and Toomey used that vote as the launching pad for his candidacy.

Nnnoooo… what was on display was his complete lack of spine, conservative-chops or ability to look ahead farther than 6 months into long-term repercussions.

Because of the shrinking Republican vote in the state, Specter was seen as a dead man walking politically in the primary with polling showing him trailing Toomey by ten or more points.

That statement is just nonsensical – “Fewer-Republicans-Voting” is the reason “More-Republicans-Would-Vote-For-Toomey”?

Someone needs to check his math… then work on that ability to find his own nose.

The bar for Specter to run as an independent was also extremely high due to the rules governing such a third party candidacy.

Because an independent candidacy would make all of the requisite palm-greasing much more difficult.

That left a Democratic candidacy as Specter's best option if he wanted to remain in the Senate beyond 2010.

Being the only way for a person without any firm personal positions to get elected – clearly, it’s the best way for him to go.

The "MD-Take" ?

ANYONE who changes their political affiliation while in office should be immediately recalled.

Period.

- MuscleDaddy

A Symbol...

I was listening to a Raleigh, NC talk radio show last Thursday (Bill LuMaye on WPTF) as Bill and a woman caller discussed the Raleigh Tea Party. The lady said that "we" needed some kind of "symbol" so that other like-minded folks could identify kindred spirits.

Friends and neighbors...we've got one:

Image courtesy of Chris Whitten

Dating back to 1775, the coiled rattlesnake on a yellow background has stood for resistance to tyranny. It is thought that Benjamin Franklin saw the emblem painted on drums carried by American Marines and, writing as "An American Guesser", observed that the rattlesnake is found in "no other quarter of the world besides America" and that the rattlesnake also has sharp eyes and "may therefore be esteemed an emblem of vigilance".

But Franklin's name isn't attached to the flag which bears the rattlesnake emblem. That is reserved for Christopher Gadsden, a leader of the Sons of Liberty in South Carolina who was later made a Colonel in the Continental Army. Being in Philadelphia in 1775 representing his home state in the Continental Congress, he could have read "American Guesser's" musings and might have seen the emblem on the drums of the Marines. In any event, the coiled rattlesnake on a yellow background is know as the "Gadsden Flag".

Now there are numerous places you can purchase Gadsden Flags on the web. Ruffin Flag Company in South Carolina is one that I've used before but there seems to be a problem with their web site. There is also Flagline.com, For stickers and magnets try Gadsden and Culpeper.

There are folks out there coming up with wonderful new emblems for this "take back America" movement, the upside down teapot being one of the best I've seen so far. But being the history nut that I am (along with being a "Right Wing Extremist"), I'm in favor of using something that has meant the same thing for better than 300 years: Leave me ALONE!

ZoNation:Affirmative Action and Socializing the Big Three

I wonder what fellow PJMer Charles Johnson will have to say about 'Zo comparing Obama to Hitler. He's none too happy with Glenn Beck for doing it.

Rush Limbaugh and Bricks on the Road to Hell

By now, I guess about 99.44% of the Dextrosphere has weighed in on the Obama Administration's attacks on Rush Limbaugh for the latter's statements that he wants the former to fail (to enact policies harmful to the nation). I figured I didn't have a lot to add to the discussion until just now. I can see this as just another example of an ongoing problem in arguing against leftists.

They always focus on intentions: The stated goal of one of their programs trumps any actual effect it may have. As a result, every debate is framed as virtuous crusaders for social justice against evil racist, sexist, homophobic despoilers of Gaia. How, for instance, could one vote against the "Employee Free Choice Act"? If you oppose it, you're against employee free choice! Well, we know the answer to that; the legislation isn't about free choice at all! It will deprive employees of the secret ballot in union organization elections.

When President Obama says we have to pass <Noble-sounding legislation title here> because it will create/save <Made-up number here> jobs, he is stating an intention, a hope, and/or a wish. Well, out here in Flyover Country, we have a saying about wishes: "You can wish in one hand, and s--t in the other; see which one fills up first."

His camp hopes that the voting public will give them credit for that good intention/hope/wish; that their noble end will serve as a blank check justifying whatever means the legislation actually employs. To a thoughtful student of history, the phrase "the end justifies the means" should trigger mental alarms. I suspect those alarms are what's stimulating the sector of the economy that manufactures ammunition.

Since the Left uses intentions, wishes, and hopes to sell their policies, they are particularly threatened when someone like Rush comes along and says "I hope he fails (to enact his damaging agenda)". The only response they are able to make focuses entirely on the hope, the wish, the intention, the end (ironically, not as Rush, uh, intended that wish, but their reframing of it); they can't talk about the means because if they do, they won't be able to push their legislation through.

I once had occasion to encounter this at the local level. I was managing a small retail business in a municipality considering an ordinance regulating signs. At a meeting with Planning Commission staff, I pointed out that the wording of the ordinance would require a permit for the sticker that says "PULL" on the front door of the business. The staff member answered by saying "that is not the intent of the proposed ordinance". I then asked "if that's the case, will you amend the wording to conform to the intent?". The response was one word: "No." At that point, it was crystal clear what the true intent of the ordinance was: to give the Planning Commision staff arbitrary power to cite any business as violating the ordinance, so that their subjective whims be supreme. That's not the "government of laws, not of men" that our Founding Fathers designed.

Time and time again, we see how the actual effect of an action is not included in the stated intentions of its advocates. I'm sure that the vast majority of people who support the President's plans do so because they honestly hold those intentions, and only a very few have ulterior motives. But it doesn't really matter what the intent is; the only standard by which a rational person can choose a course of action is to extrapolate the potential consequences of that action, evaluate them (intended or not) and decide if the costs are justfied by the benefits.

It is absolutely imperative that we break the political ascendancy of Good Intentions. We have to demonstrate how reality is impervious to our intentions, and responds only to our actions. My late father taught me that the road to Hell was paved with good intentions. We have to tear those bricks up. Rush has on his hard hat, and is in the driver's seat of Excellence in Bulldozing, doing just that.
[Click on the title above, or date stamp below, to see the full article.]

I call BS

Some 691,000 children went hungry in the U.S. sometime in 2007, while close to one in eight Americans struggled to feed themselves adequately even before this year's sharp economic downtown, the Agriculture Department reported Monday.

If by sometime you mean there were no Pop Tarts in the cupboard this morning. I'll cop to that.

If by struggling you mean, "What? I have to do something for food?" I'd believe that too.

With the plethora of government, private, and religious organizations in this country, if you or your kids go to bed hungry tonight...
It's your own damn fault.

Why They HAVE To Hate Palin...

The other day (right after seeing CNN do it) , I found myself in a brief discussion with some mouth-breathing network-news adherents who were busily parrotting the MSM talking points around the latest push to marginalize Sarah Palin into "non-threat-to-The-One-in-four-years" status.
I calmly destroyed point-after-point, using nothing but historical fact and logic, but was later bothered by what I saw as just one more salvo in a much larger battle. I spoke to my brother about this (some of you may remember Monopticus) - which helped me sort of codify the following ramble....

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The biggest problem Palin ever had was that she’s demonstrated herself to be the living, breathing embodiment of America’s Frontier Spirit ("Hey! Hold on, let me stomp off some of this snow - there - Now, what's the problem? Aw, Hell, we can fix that!") - and ran afoul of a media (and I mean nearly ALL media) that has labored slavishly for years to make any commitment/proclamation to the favor of that AFS not only Politically Incorrect (in the very country where it brought them to their own relevance) , but actually…Rude.

This is just another demonstration of the slow, insidious removal of “Hero” from the Meaningful-Word-Lexicon.

Spread that once-revered word around - with a well-meaning-appearance, of course - so that the Domino’s kid becomes a “Hero” for getting your pizza to you in 30-minutes-or-less, and suddenly, you don’t have to worry about any of those actually exceptional people mucking up your plans by saying:
“Hey! THAT’S not the way we’re supposed to be doing it.”

Because they’ll have no standing to go with that actually authentic appellation of “Exceptional”.

And this BU!!$#!T of the “New Dan Quayle” meme against Palin is just another way to get people on board with dismissing even the basis of Heroism, via a sneering rejoinder of “Standing up and saying ‘Do What’s Right Because It’s Right’ is just UN-NUANCED!!!”
- Why, the next thing you know, she’ll misspeell something!!

They have to hate Palin - not just for being who she is, but for what she both demonstrates and represents.

Because. They. Know.

They know that if we start moving the party (and, leading by example, our Country) back toward a real Conservatism - toward the real, bedrock virtues and ideals America was built on... they don’t stand a chance.

They know that the only way they get to run things is to convince people to ‘Go Along To Get Along’.

And they know that the only way to do that is to convince the mouth-breathing, lowest-common-denominator that anyone who suggests or displays actual exceptionalism is just “oversimplifying” or “being unrealistic” or “is out-of-touch with the real problems/issues” or "caught up in being a Cowboy/BoyScout/etc".

(Remember when the imagery of both the 'Cowboy' and the 'Boy Scout' was enfused with virtues and ideals considered to be universally Good? - what do you suppose ever happened to that?)

Convince them that to merely do-your-job makes you a “Hero”, then merely doing-your-job is not only the highest attainable goal, but anyone who does or suggests or expects more/better (or, God forbid, Greatness) must actually want to upset-the-system-that-keeps-us-all- (fill in the blank).

Arbeit macht frei…. Not.

So now what?

“Vote the bums out” seems to have largely been taken care of - seems like the same flesh-eating-zombies that voted in The One went for a straight Left-ticket wherever they were.

Nearly a clean-slate, as far as Conservatism is concerned, politically[Click on the title above, or date stamp below, to see the full article.]
The question becomes - how do we make it so that the ideals and principles that have gotten the country this far can be considered worthy - nay, Virtuous again.

And how do we keep from getting another crop of only-degrees-from-Left McCain-RINOs, out for the "Cash-Hos-and-Blow" that comes from acting like Democrats?

- MuscleDaddy

The Broken Window Theory, in Reverse

...disorder and crime are usually inextricably linked, in a kind of developmental sequence. Social psychologists and police officers tend to agree that if a window in a building is broken and is left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken. This is as true in nice neighborhoods as in rundown ones. Window-breaking does not necessarily occur on a large scale because some areas are inhabited by determined window-breakers whereas others are populated by window-lovers; rather, one unrepaired broken window is a signal that no one cares, and so breaking more windows costs nothing. (It has always been fun.)

The essence of The Broken Window Theory is that the little things matter. When disorder is allowed to gain a foothold it perpetuates and accelerates. Individuals living in a community of broken windows feel powerless. (There's no way they can fix all those windows themselves.) This leads to isolation and suspicion and the downward spiral continues.


This post on the Chicago Board of Alderman outlawing little plastic baggies got me thinking of the power of little things. When we see our elected government use their powers of ordinance to try to regulate something as mundane as the zip-lock, we rightly jeer. We know this ordinance will not be enforced. Can you imagine an officer going through the time and trouble of making an arrest and filling out the paperwork for a "plastic" bust? Since we know that this law will not be enforced (it just gives the elected official the illusion that he is "doing something" about crime) we loose another increment of respect for the law.

An anonymous comment to that post sneered, "It's nice to see the right focused on the big issues of our times. Pass me a "baggie" i'm gonna hurl little chunks of minutia." And that is precisely the point. When senseless and useless laws proliferate each new law weakens respect for all the existing laws. When everything is against the law, everyone is a criminal so why bother? Rather than fix the broken window, we'll just hang curtains.
[Click on the title above, or date stamp below, to see the full article.]

Too good to stay in comments

-Paules

I grew up spending my summers in the Polish ghetto of Chester, Pennsylvania. I use the word "ghetto" in the sense that neighborhoods were strictly segregated. The Poles held the area of Front St. throught 4th Street. Beyond that other immigrant groups had staked out their claims. It was never clear to me why I had to stay away from Irish and Italian neighborhoods. In my child's mind's eye my mental map said simply "there be monsters." My little enclave was a safe and secure place to grow up.

The Polish people of that generation, first and second, were known as the working poor. My grandfather quit school at age twelve when his father died. The custom was to keep a factory seat open for the next in line, that being the only social security on offer. My grandfather became the family bread-winner. Somehow the family survived the Great Depression if only barely. Then came the war. The neighborhood sent its young men off to fight. Some did not return, but the neighborhood survived.

My grandparents owned a modest rowhouse on the 100 block of Thurlow St. Some people called it the wrong side of the tracks. Actually, we were on the tracks. We used to shoot cans off the rails with a BB gun from the neighbor's porch. I guess to the older folks it seemed far safer than the old habit of sending young boys clambering up the side of moving coal cars to rob them of the precious fuel that would keep a family warm for the day. Despite our "poverty" the neighborhood was thriving.

The center of our lives was St. Hedwig's Church, a majestic structure with stain glass windows stretching to a vaulted ceiling. The congregation was large enough to require five masses on Sunday. Piety was our chief virtue, except for Joe Schpok and Handsome Harry. But those two were excused because Joe was a bum, and Harry was mad. Joe lived in an abandoned car and earned his livelihood doing odd jobs. Harry owned a rowhouse next to my aunt. I guess he was harmless, but his sudden appearance sent our mob scurrying for cover. The neighborhood monster was tall and oily with fingernails an inch long. When he got sick, the local women would bring him food and medicine. Same for Joe. The community looked after its own.

Life was simple and routine. There was work and church, kielbasa for dinner, and Phillies baseball on the AM radio. There was no crime in our neighborhood and the streets were clean. You painted your concrete porch and front steps every spring. They didn't really need it, of course, but no one wanted social stigma of being called a slacker. Kids graduated from St. Hedwig's Catholic School, and wonder of wonders, began to enroll in college. The next generation began moving into the middle class.

It all looked like a dream come true. Until the day something truly dreadful happened. The government arrived . . . to help. You see, the g-men had been studying the demographics. As the third generation moved out, more properties became rentals. The modest rowhouses were never worth much, about 30K in the late 1970's. So the government began to encourage real estate agencies to buy them up. The government would supply tenants and guarantee rents.

The new arrivals were nothing like us. By this I mean they didn't share our values. They didn't work or attend church. Their children were wild and undisciplined. They didn't even paint their steps and porch every year! It didn't take long for the neighborhood to become feral. We began to notice rats and stray animals. Broken windows went unrepaired. Garbage began to pile up in the alleys. The Polish people fought back with brooms and buckets of paint, but to no avail. You see, the neighborhood was now full of retirees. The muscle that the next generation might otherwise supply had moved to the suburbs.

The new class moving in had no vested interest in our neighborhood. The government would take care of everything. The government should take care of everything, at least that was their attitude. And worse, the new arrivals tolerated crime. They actually turned their backs on break-ins and assaults. Then the drug dealers and prostitutes arrived. But the police didn't care. The neighborhood was dying. When tenants moved out, the landlords simply boarded up the wreckage left behind. The remaining Poles secured their doors and windows with locks and bars and hunkered down to await the death knell. The Polish ghetto died without so much as a whimper.

There is nothing unique about this story. It has happened to thousands of neighborhoods across the country, is happening still to this day. It happens because government thinks it can substitute its influence for citizen virtue. But a republic can stand strong only so long as the citizenry retains values based on hard work and commensurate reward. Nothing is valued that is not earned. The citizenry must have a vested interest in community and nation. It can't be given; it must be earned. There is no other way. The government cannot cure poverty because government policy creates poverty. How many lessons do we need? Or should we sit back and wait till the entire nation is naught but a blight upon the land? [Click on the title above, or date stamp below, to see the full article.]

Chester Pennsylvania didn't die. It was murdered.

The Passion of the Plumber

The Columbus Dispatch now says that the Ohio computer database lookups of "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher were more extensive than previously disclosed:

Helen Jones-Kelley, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, disclosed today that computer inquiries on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher were not restricted to a child-support system.
. . .
"Given our understanding that Mr. Wurzelbacher had publicly indicated that he had the means to purchase a substantial business enterprise, ODJFS, consistent with past departmental practice, checked confidential databases ," she wrote.

Sharing the results of those searches with the Tanning Bed Media was just an extra service they provided. As bad as this invasion of privacy is, Jones-Kelley's explanation betrays a fundamental misconception. She seems to think that economic classes are static; that people are born into a class and stay there their entire lives. The reality is that there is a great deal of movement up and down the economic ladder.

I knew a man who grew up in poverty during the Depression, who went on to become a multi-millionaire through his construction and real-estate business. You'd never know it looking at him; he and his wife shopped at the same low-price stores as I did, wore off-the-rack clothes, and drove an old pickup truck. They kept reinvesting their profits into building more properties. And he is hardly unique.

Joe told Barack Obama that he had conversations with his employer about buying him out at some point. The way a deal like that often works is that the owner gets to retirement age without having groomed a family member to take over the business, so he sells it to an employee on a contract/loan. For years after Joe "took over", he would have been paying off his current employer out of the profits that the business earns, reinvesting his profits to improve his equity. That's why he was worried about Obama's plans to "tax the rich"; If those profits are taxed at a higher rate, countless Joes around the country will not be able to move up from employee to employer.

Perhaps Obama and his allies are unaware of this economic reality. On the other hand, they may full well know that raising tax rates decreases upward mobility, creating the very ills they pretend to oppose. I suspect that some of them do know it, and others don't. I'm not sure whether ignorance or malice is the greater indictment, but we need not concern ourselves with their motives. Their policies are destructive.
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Red State Voter

I told some friends over at the Lounge that this idea had been percolating around in my head. Now that we have Gretchen Wilson performing "Redneck Woman" at McCain/Palin rallies....

...it's time for me to share my lyrics.

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Well, I never been the sophist type.
I can't jump through those mental hoops,
I know what's wrong and right.
Some things are
so basic
you can't just legislate.
We got them from a whole lot higher power than the State.
Our Founding Fathers held that
they were Truths self-evident.
And I support our troops no matter who is President!

'Cause I'm a Red State Voter
I ain't no left-wing fraud
I don't think folks are stupid
just for having faith in God
I can surf the Internet and hear talk radio
so I learn things the New York Times wished that I didn't know!
Now here's to all my sisters out in Flyover Country
Can I get a big "Hell Yeah" from the Red State gals like me?
Hell Yeah!
Hell Yeah!


So-called "free" health care
Yeah, that sounds nice
But everything worth havin' costs; you always pay some price.
If not money, then time
service, or quality.
And if you are not free to choose, then it's not really free.

They tell me Global Warming
is caused by driving cars
I didn't think that there were any SUV's on Mars!

Hey, I'm a Red State Voter
I ain't no left-wing fraud
It doesn't make folks stupid
just for having faith in God
I can surf the Internet and hear talk radio
So I know things that See B. S. wished that I didn't know!
Now here's to all my brothers out in Flyover Country
Can I get a big "Hell Yeah" from the Red State guys like me?
Hell Yeah!
Hell Yeah!

In a Blue State, voter?
then don't be deterred
You can be a Maverick
Stop running with the herd
You can surf the Internet and hear talk radio
And you'll know things the MSM wished that you didn't know!
So here's to all the others who will fight for their country
Can I get a big "Hell Yeah" from US folks like me?
Hell Yeah!
Hell Yeah!
[Click on the title above, or date stamp below, to see the full post.]

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Gretchen, if you ever want to sing this version, you not only have my permission, but my undying gratitude.

Win one for the Gipper

Watching how the MainScream Media has gone completely in the tank to push their agenda has really beaten me down the last few days. I just heard ABC's Jake Tapper pin the failure to pass the bailout bill squarely on the Republican congressmen who voted "no", despite the fact that 95 Democrats voted against it, including many committee chairmen and vice-chairmen who owe their positions to Speaker Pelosi.

She spoke right before the vote, framing it as the fix for eight years of failed Republican policies. Maybe some of the Republicans who heard that decided that if the bill is a repudiation of their party, then the majority could damn well carry their own water. Maybe that was her plan all along. It really doesn't matter, because whatever happens, the Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) will tell us it's Republicans' fault. It really gets depressing knowing that most people only get to hear one side.

Then I listened to this. I feel better now. We won't win the war of ideas on the broadcast TV news programs. We'll win it around the kitchen tables. We can't do anything for the kool-aid drinkers; we'll have to show the fair-minded people how the news is being manipulated and get them motivated to make sure that it doesn't pay off any more.

Presidents Aren't Governors

I recently watched some talking heads discussing how Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has been able to do a better job of controlling wasteful spending at the state level than she and Senator John McCain can hope to accomplish if the latter is elected President. That's because she has (along with many other governors) a "Line Item Veto".

The Alaska Legislature has sent her spending bills, which she has returned with funding amounts scratched out, and reduced levels written in the margins. Her vetoes have then been sustained, making them law. Presidents don't have that power, and the conventional wisdom is that it would require a Constitutional amendment to allow a President to undo the log-rolling that routinely pollutes otherwise reasonable legislation.

I don't think it's necessary, or even advisable, to amend the Constitution in this particular respect. As distasteful as I may find some compromises made by Congress to get a bill passed, it could be dangerous to allow a deal to be forged, only to abrogate that deal by means of a selective veto of one part of the package. That would allow language to become law that wouldn't get a majority of each house without the balancing provision(s). Instead, I propose a mechanism, entirely within the current wording of the Constitution, that allows a President to exercise leadership in trimming the ornaments from "Christmas tree" bills.

Let's begin by examining how the Constitution describes the veto and override process (Art. I, Sec. 7, Par. 2):

Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law.

Without changing a word of this, each house of Congress can, on its own initiative, pass an amendment to its own internal rules providing the following:

Whenever a Bill shall have been vetoed by the President of the United States, with his statement of objections thereto including one or more suggested amendments, and the vote in this house to override that veto fails to receive the requisite two-thirds, the question before this house shall be whether to approve the bill as amended thereby. Such question shall be debatable but not amendable.

If there are technical objections to this wording, I'm sure that Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid (or their successors) can assign the appropriate resources to work out better wording. Whatever the final form may take, this proposal gives the President a better shot at throwing out the bathwater of pork, while preserving the baby of genuinely good legislation.

Can we get sponsors in each chamber of Congress to champion this cause? Will Senators Obama and McCain agree to co-sponsor the rules change in the Senate before the election determines which gets to take advantage of it?
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Maybe we can make Washington more like Juneau.

Obama and the Berlin Wall

Senator Obama has given his Berlin speech, and plenty of people will find things wrong with it. But something really stuck in my craw. Sadly, it's become a common device of leftists to equate the Berlin Wall with other walls with entirely different purposes; such as the Israeli security barrier and the proposed barriers along US land borders to protect against infiltration.


Here are excerpts of the speech that express the idea (emphasis mine):

When you, the German people, tore down that wall - a wall that divided East and West; freedom and tyranny; fear and hope - walls came tumbling down around the world. . . . Markets opened too, and the spread of information and technology reduced barriers to opportunity and prosperity. While the 20th century taught us that we share a common destiny, the 21st has revealed a world more intertwined than at any time in human history.

That is why the greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another.
The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.
We know they have fallen before. . . . Not only have walls come down in Berlin, but they have come down in Belfast, where Protestant and Catholic found a way to live together; . . .
So history reminds us that walls can be torn down.

Senator, you're probably too young to remember why the Berlin Wall was erected. I was only a few months old at the time, so I had to learn it from my elders:

The people of the Glorious Workers' Paradise of the Orwellian "Deutsche Demokratische Republik" (which was neither democratic, nor a republic) were "voting with their feet" by leaving in droves. The Communist leadership knew that they had to do something, so they built the Wall, not to "divide" the German people, but to turn the country into a giant prison camp, and keep the inmates incarcerated. They not only put up a wall, but also cleared out buildings to give "border guards" a clear shot at anyone who dared to scale it, as well as orders to do so.

This is the huge difference between the Berlin Wall and other walls: The Israeli and US walls are to keep out people who want to do harm; the Berlin Wall kept in people who just wanted to be free.
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