Free kibbles

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Democrats are struggling to find the votes to reconfirm Bernanke. This is wonderful news. This means that many Senators understand that irresponsibly loose monetary policy created the financial crisis we're in now and threatens us with hyper-inflation. It's also another hit on Obama. Bernanke was instrumental in creating this crisis, and he's instrumental in the government's ongoing attempts to drag us into the greatest depression in history. Blocking his nomination would be a huge success. Barbara Boxer, in trouble in California, pulls support from Bernanke in wake of Massachusetts election. There's nothing principled about this. It's all about power and the careers of the professional politician. Bernanke is one of the faces of the highly unpopular bailouts, so Boxer turned against him. Russ Feingold pulls a switcherroo also. These power-hungry weirdos are so transparent. Government attracts the worst, most power-hungry people.

Mises.org is tracking the True Money Supply, and as you can see, it's highly inflationary right now.

I never ceased to be amazed how the Ivy League schools so thoroughly brainwash smart people into dangerous delusion. In the case of Ben Bernanke, he can't acknowledge his and Greenspan's role in creating this crisis, and while he points fingers at poor regulation, he doesn't acknowledge that he was the guy who had the regulatory power, and he failed to see the bust (that he helped create) coming. But he thinks that if he counterfeits enough money and the government points a gun at every Americans' head and threatens if they don't use that counterfeit money like real money, government thugs will wrestle them to the ground, beat them up, handcuff them and kidnap them away into a tiny cell, our economic problems will be solved. All sane people understand that can't help our economy, but Ivy League trained economists believe it will all their heart. They think it's not only acceptable, but they think it's the right thing to do for our own good.

HEALTH CARE:

I just received this in an email from my representative:

"President Obama pledged to lead "the most open, transparent, and accountable government in history" and he promised to open healthcare negotiations to public scrutiny by broadcasting the proceedings on live television."

There's nothing in this email about resisting health care oppression. It's all about the process of implementing health care oppression. Aristocrats are going to force bipartisan health care oppression down out throats, and we have nobody to blame but ourselves for electing these 525 power-hungry fruitcakes to rule us with their iron fist.

WAR:

War as politics by other means. Not really, though they are related. Governmental politics is the art of convincing others to submit to violence. War is violence against those who don't submit.

POLITICS:

If Republicans continue the appearance of principled opposition to health care oppression and all government oppression, they'll sweep Congress in 2010 and the White House in 2012, but I think they're going to blow it.

The reason they're riding high right now is they starkly differentiated themselves by resisting health care oppression. But they didn't resist it in principle. They only resisted the process. Several Republicans worked hard to compromise on Obamacare. The Republicans were fortunate that the Democrats refused to compromise, giving them an issue they could rebound on. But Brown is one of the compromisers. I expect some Republicans to join Democrats and pass Son of Obamacare, and by doing so, they'll remind the American people they're just as oppressive as Democrats.

If they do so and give Obama the bipartisan success he craves, they'll be playing into Democrats' hands. They won't retake Congress in 2010. They won't retake the White House in 2012. They'll be handing victory to Democrats.

Conservatives are up in arms because in 2007 Ron Paul described the tremendous increase in power of the CIA under the Bush administration as a coup. That's a silly choice of words. It doesn't pay to be sloppy with words when you're in the public eye. But the substance of what Paul is saying is accurate. The CIA is a rogue agency. It has been given the power to carry out military strikes. It makes policy instead of following policy. It takes out political opponents. It's a Cold War dinosaur that has taken on a life of its own while failing to provide the intelligence we need to defeat the terrorists. Our entire intelligence apparatus should be redesigned from scratch to meet today's security threats based on the principle that the people in the form of a well-regulated militia are the primary force for security in America. The CIA and the rest of the Cold War era dinosaurs should be abolished in favor of small, accountable organizations that augment the militia and private security firms. Attacking Paul for this poor choice of words is as silly as the poor choice of words.

While this essay isn't one of her recent incoherent ramblings, Peggy Noonan gets it wrong again. Because she's a member of the accomplice press, she can't help but look at things through the prism of partisan politics, so she's missing the bigger picture. The American people haven't voted for anybody since at least 2006. In 2006 they voted against big-government Republicans, not for Democrats. In 2008 they voted against big-government Republicans, not for Obama who ran 20 points behind the generic Democrat. In 2009 and 2010 they voted against big-government Democrats. The American people aren't changing at all. We're against big-government every election. I'd argue this has been true every presidential election since 1968. 1964 was an aberration because of JFK's assassination, and it's too bad that Goldwater was the losing candidate. He would have won in a landslide in 1968 and American history might have been significantly better afterwards. In 1960 JFK ran on a limited government platform, and despite his natural advantages, he still had to steal the election from smaller government candidate Nixon. The two parties and their accomplice press refuse to see (or refuse to admit) the obvious, and they refuse to run or support candidates who support freedom because this freedom movement undermines their positions of power.

Noonan's writing style has become such a parody of her old style, it's almost unreadable. She used to be so good.

Our political system works poorly for the people. (It works great for the aristocrats because they designed it to work great for them.) During the primaries, the insiders nominate the biggest government candidate of the bunch who they think can get elected so that big-government candidate can boost the power of all the insiders. That's why we're always stuck with big-government candidates. Reagan was the incredibly rare exception, and that's why his candidacy is called the Reagan revolution. But when these candidates get to the general election, voters vote for the small government candidate or against the big government party, but not enough to vote third party. That's why Reagan won so big. He's the only candidate in my lifetime who ran in the general election on a small government domestic agenda, and the people voted for him in droves. It's a shame he failed to actually reduce the size of government, or we wouldn't be in the predicament we are right now. But he had a Democrat Congress. There's no way to know if he would have been successful at reducing the size of government or if he would have expanded it even more like a typical politician with a Republican Congress. I like to think the former, but I was young and naive back then.

MISC:

I'm not buying this stuff about the US military screwing up at the Haiti airport. I have no doubt that the US military is doing a decent job under difficult circumstances. Only so many planes can take off and land in a given period of time. Sure, I would prefer that private organizations were doing this work, but we don't live in a free world where that kind of private service is readily available. Private organizations are far superior than government at just about everything, but the US military is no slouch at running airports. Just ask Navy pilots. I doubt this is the military's A team, but given our government-dominated world and the chaos on the ground and in the air over government-dominated and earthquake ravaged Haiti, I doubt anybody could do a much better job.

The US government should not seize control of Haiti. Free people should rebuild Haiti.

Walter Williams explains how government and the corruption inherent in government trapped Haitians in poverty leading to astronomical casualties in this earthquake.

"As tragic as the Haitian calamity is, it is merely symptomatic of a far deeper tragedy that's completely ignored, namely self-inflicted poverty. The reason why natural disasters take fewer lives in our country is because we have greater wealth. It's our wealth that permits us to build stronger homes and office buildings. When a natural disaster hits us, our wealth provides the emergency personnel, heavy machinery and medical services to reduce the death toll and suffering. Haitians cannot afford the life-saving tools that we Americans take for granted. President Barack Obama called the quake "especially cruel and incomprehensible." He would be closer to the truth if he had said that the Haitian political and economic climate that make Haitians helpless in the face of natural disasters are "especially cruel and incomprehensible."

...

The way out of Haiti's grinding poverty is not rocket science. Ranking countries according to: (1) whether they are more or less free market, (2) per capita income, and (3) ranking in International Amnesty's human rights protection index, we would find that those nations with a larger free market sector tend also to be those with the higher income and greater human rights protections. Haitian President Rene Preval is not enthusiastic about free markets; his heroes are none other than the hemisphere's two brutal communist tyrants: Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Cuba's Fidel Castro.

Haiti's disaster demands immediate Western assistance but it's only the Haitian people who can relieve themselves of the deeper tragedy of self-inflicted poverty."

Amen.

Good description of the decline of the US and western civilization.

"Constitutional principles do not govern the American state any more than the Soviet Constitution – based on the American model – restrained the Stalinist regime. Free-market concepts and practices have been supplanted by government largesse as the source of economic success and discipline. Government schools are in shambles, while America leads the rest of the world in the number of people held in prisons.

A rational, intelligent response to all of this might have been for the political establishment to reduce its coercive impulses and allow the creative life-forces to reassert themselves. Instead, the state has intensified its efforts to control the hundreds of millions of persons subject to its authority. New "threats" (e.g., obesity, nitrogen, under-inflated tires) are concocted with which to rationalize increased police and regulatory powers; definitions of "terrorism" are expanded to include criticism of government, opposition to abortion, and the exercise of Second Amendment rights to own guns. Warfare continues to destroy life, even as military schemers plot to extend their butchery to new targets (Iran? Yemen?). Those who oppose Obama’s policies are labeled by some media babblers and a former president as "racists." Numerous "czars" – defined as "absolute rulers" and "despots" – have been appointed by presidential dictate to rule over various sectors of American life; while auto manufacturers, banks, and insurance companies have been effectively nationalized by fiat.

American civilization is collapsing for the same reason the Soviet Union did: the inability to sustain itself under the burden of its inner contradictions and conflicts. The system is no longer capable of being a catalyst for the production of the values upon which life depends."

It's popular for pundits to say America's best days are ahead. That gets ratings. And while I hope it's true, it can only be true if we dramatically reduce the size and scope of government in our lives, and the American people have shown no inclination to reject the two parties that continue to expand government power. Republicans attack Obama for his czars, but they didn't make a peep about Bush's czars. The double-standard of conservatives and liberals, like identical twins except one is right-handed and one is left-handed, just makes government more oppressive. Until Americans start rejecting Republicans and Democrats in favor of third party candidates, I remain pessimistic.

Another great point about why our civilization is on the precipice.

"As happened with the collapse of prior civilizations, significant social change took place, and change is incompatible with the institutional needs for stability. Indeed, the "status quo" can be regarded as a synonym for the "institutional order." Civilizations always manage to become infected by the virus of institutionalism, a symptom of which is that we become attached to, and thus learn to value, the organizational forms that once served as tools of cooperation, but were later transformed into ends in themselves."

It goes back to my point regarding our intelligence agencies. We've come to regard the agencies as institutions instead of valuing them for their service. As a result, they've taken on a life of their own independent of the service they're supposed to provide.