Free kibbles

WAR:

New taxes on the middle class to fund the war in Afghanistan. Obama loves making and breaking promises.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Iran refuses to stop enriching uranium. Duh. Who would have predicted that? Pretty much every person in the world except Obama and liberals. The Iranian government has spent 20 years developing the bomb. They aren't going to stop now that they're so close. Now they're just playing Obama and Democrats for fools to gain time and finish the process. And Obama is playing right along. It's too late for sanctions. Iran getting the bomb is a fait accompli unless we organize a group of allies who will credibly threaten to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities. But with Obama leading the free world, that's almost certainly not going to happen. Maybe Cameron will win in Britain, then he, Sarkozy and Merkel can drag Obama into making that threat.

ENERGY:

The NRC licensing nuclear power plants to operate beyond their lifetimes and limits. This is how government regulatory regimes lead to systematic and widespread failures and endanger the population. In a free market, with liability solely on the shoulders of the plant operators, this would be a problem of isolated cases at worse and possibly not a problem at all. But by issuing the licenses, the central planners greatly reduce the risk of liability from operators, enabling systematic and widespread unsafe operation. And of course when a failure occurs, it's blamed on too little regulation.

MISC:

Great quote from Ludwig von Mises:

"The dogma that the State or the Government is the embodiment of all that is good and beneficial and that the individuals are wretched underlings, exclusively intent upon inflicting harm upon one another and badly in need of a guardian, is almost unchallenged. It is taboo to question it in the slightest way. He who proclaims the godliness of the State and the infallibility of its priests, the bureaucrats, is considered as an impartial student of the social sciences. All those raising objections are branded as biased and narrow-minded. The supporters of the new religion of statolatry are no less fanatical and intolerant than were the Mohammedan conquerors of Africa and Spain. (Ludwig von Mises, Planned Chaos)"

Another example of how government usurps the role of religion in our lives. Communism as the religion of power:

"Communism is the religion of power. To be sure, it has a rationale and even an ethic; but so had pharaohism, caesarism, the Inquisition, and all the machines of coercion ever invented by man. It is necessary for those who compel subservience to clear their road with a moral code of some kind. In such a religion the self-restraints of "bourgeois morality" have no place, while heretical indeed is the doctrine of nonmaterialistic, superpersonal ideals. Being the only true religion it cannot permit competition from any other "opium." Power is god enough."

And the close-nit relationship between communism and fascism:

"Communism did not come, as Marx predicted, as the inevitable replacement of a collapsed capitalism. It came because of improvements in the techniques of grabbing power: the machine gun, the radio, the airplane, and, above all, the art of fiscal robbery. Lenin preached the glory of toughness; Stalin purged. Mussolini bettered Stalin's fanfare with castor oil. Hitler added the racial gadget of repression. The "public good" was invoked by all three."

Roosevelt the kindred spirit:

"It remained for the Great Man in America to improve on their techniques by destroying the meaning of words, by so confusing language that instead of being a means of communicating ideas it became an instrument for compelling subservience.

Meanwhile, he dug up and polished the old Roman device of "bread and circuses." Here was an apostle of power whom the least bloodthirsty socialist could accept. No bludgeon in his equipment, but the skillful use of seductive phrases, so dear to the "intellectual," gained for him the selfsame means of compelling conformity which his crude European models sought: control of the economy. And with that control he built a hierarchy — a church. He anointed the frustrated soapboxers and collegiate wordmongers with the scented oil of bureaucracy. He gave them jobs. He invested them with power. That began in 1933."

Religion has always been a tool for power hungry people, but the religion of the state, the idea that elected officials and bureaucrats are good, worthy people who must be obeyed by us untrustworthy lowlifes, has killed orders of magnitudes more humans than any other religion in history.

I believe this statement to be truth and the fundamental reason why, when people discuss politics, they so often fail to find common ground:

"There are those inclined to liberty — freedom of the individual to live his life or her life in any peaceful way. And there are those who are inclined to mastery — permitting others to live their lives only as another sees fit."

Professional politicians universally fall into the latter category. Here's a wonderful observation concisely presented:

"In a small setting, we view the use of force as a means to help others to be the antithesis of charity. However, in a political arena, we find ourselves condoning, even promoting, the use of physical force as the proper means to extract aid. And when such force is used, we paradoxically refer to it as an act of charity and compassion."

I still prefer my line - there's nothing compassionate about welfare.

"The democratic State simply provides an attractive means for some to acquire the resources produced by others at little or no cost to themselves, while preventing any real recourse for those from whom those resources are taken."

That's democracy in a nutshell. Democracy is inconsistent with freedom and the rule of law.

"Those who earn wealth by producing goods and services that others choose to purchase have freed multitudes from the miseries that nature would have otherwise bestowed.… Because the earning of wealth in free markets is dependent upon those who perceive value in the earner's goods and services, the greater the wealth earned by one necessitates the greater the perceived wealth (well-being) gained by another."

That's right. Bill Gates's wealth shows that he's created more wealth for others than anybody else in America. More on Gates:

"When free markets create wealth, regardless of how wealthy one individual becomes, someone else … is also better off.… Those of wealth have not taken anything from society, but, in fact, have given to society an amount of wealth that far exceeds the amount they have earned."

"Those wishing to close the gap between the rich and the poor (by restricting individual liberty and transferring wealth) will … only reduce real earnings for everyone, and in the process, harm the poorest the most."

Another truth.

"Liberty is an end unto itself, with prosperity as its positive externality."

Another.