How Many Times Over Do We Need to Be ...

How Many Times Over Do We Need to Be Able to Destroy the World?

by Mark Luedtke

If China had had nuclear weapons in 1931, Japan would not have invaded Manchuria. The rape of Nanking would never have happened. If France, Britain and the Soviet Union had had nuclear weapons, Germany would not have attacked them. If the US had had nuclear weapons, Japan would not have bombed Pearl Harbor. WWII would never have happened. Nearly all of the 72 million casualties of WWII would have lived full, happy lives. The destruction of the European continent would never have happened, civilization would be more advanced, and all the people of the world would be wealthier. As illustrated by the name Cold War, nuclear arsenals are the most effective deterrent against invasion known to man and save lives by deterring aggression between the major powers in the modern world. That's why every nation covets them.

But how many times over do we need to be able to destroy the world to have an effective nuclear deterrent?

President Obama and Russian President Medvedev recently signed a treaty reducing the strategic nuclear arms of both countries. Unfortunately the text of the treaty has yet to be published so we only have the word of government officials, professional liars all, to go on, but reports consistently claim that both the US and Russia will reduce deployed strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550 and the number of deployed delivery platforms - ICBMs, submarines and heavy bombers - to 700. Both countries have additional tactical nuclear warheads that aren't addressed by the treaty. If the 1,550 number is accurate, and that seems likely since we'll soon see the text, that's a 30 percent reduction from the levels President Bush negotiated with Russian President Putin in 2002. That means we'll only be able to destroy the 100 biggest cities in Russia 15 times over instead of 20 times over.

It's hard to criticize this, and watching Republicans try is entertaining. Ralph Peters is unhappy because the Russians only had that many useful weapons anyway. We will give up working weapons, but Russia won't. But Peters doesn't explain why that matters. He doesn't claim it makes us vulnerable. As a veteran Cold Warrior, he just wants to make Russia weaker. Other Republicans have claimed the treaty makes us look weak. I'd like to know how.

Another criticism of the treaty is based on the status of US missile defense. Medvedev announced that the treaty is based on the status quo including missile defense, and if that changes, he reserves the right to unilaterally withdraw from the treaty. The Obama administration claims the text of the treaty in no way limits missile defense development or deployment. Assuming the Obama administration is telling the truth because we'll see the text of the treaty soon, Medvedev must be working public opinion to stop the US from deploying missile defense in Eastern Europe ostensibly to protect Europe from an Iranian missile.

Republicans seem to be gravitating to this criticism, but it's unfounded too. Every country has the power to unilaterally pull out of a treaty that is no longer in its interest. A withdrawal clause was built into the first START treaty. Besides which, we shouldn't provide missile defense welfare to Europe. Europe is wealthier and more populous than the US and just as technologically advanced. If Europeans want missile defense, they can develop it on their own. If they want to buy American technology to develop it faster, we should sell it. But American taxpayers shouldn't subsidize Europe's welfare states by providing missile defense.

A more reasonable criticism of the treaty is that it restricts the US from developing new nuclear warheads. Our warheads are modern enough today, but they should be updated over time for safety and to respond to changing security concerns. But we don't have any money to develop new warheads right now anyway. This shouldn't stop anybody from voting to ratify this treaty. We have to fix our economic and fiscal problems before we worry about developing new warheads.

Republicans have also criticized Obama's updated policy for using nuclear weapons, but that's a separate issue and should have no bearing on the ratification of the treaty. In one major change, Obama ruled out a nuclear first strike in response to a chemical or biological attack against the US. Critics claim this unilateral disarmament might invite a lunatic leader to use WMD against us when they wouldn't have before. That's ridiculous for two reasons. First, the US has an overwhelming conventional deterrent. A small part of the US military rolled over Saddam Hussein and the fourth largest military in the world in less than three weeks. Second, if the American people demanded a nuclear response in the wake of a massive biological or chemical attack, Obama's policy would be ripped to shreds, and everybody knows it.

Critics claim Obama's policy weakens our nuclear umbrella over allies, but the effectiveness of that umbrella is grossly exaggerated. Except for fanatics, economic self-interest is the real deterrent. Governments don't start nuclear wars because there's nothing to gain. Starting a nuclear war would dramatically depress the world economy, including the economy of the attacker, for years. The attacker would suffer isolation and poverty that would make North Korea look cosmopolitan. And you can't conquer territory glowing with radiation. In the case of a nuclear armed country invading an ally supposedly under our umbrella, only a lunatic would start a nuclear war in response. Our nuclear umbrella didn't deter the Soviets from invading Europe. The costs of conventional war against combined European and US forces made it unprofitable. Assumptions that our nuclear umbrella has deterred others from attacking our allies cannot be proved, and I doubt they're correct. In the example from the forum center, it's far more likely Baker's specific threat to topple Saddam if he used WMD kept him from doing so.

I congratulate President Obama on finally doing something good for America.

--

References:

Obama and Medvedev's nuclear arms reduction. Ralph Peters on the deal.

In 1991, Secretary of State Baker threatened to topple Saddam if he used WMD against US forces.

New START treaty.

There's been much praise and criticism for Obama's nuclear arms treaty with Russia, which seems kind of silly since nobody has read the agreement.

This criticism of Obama's nuclear treaty seems spurious. I find this criticism from the Heritage Foundation misguided as well.

Nice fact-box on nuclear powers.

Free kibbles

LIBERTY:

Pretty good explanation of rights.

STATES RIGHTS:

Imperial Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius says states cannot nullify Obamacare.

ECONOMY:

Joe Biden predicts that the economy will be adding up to (what's that mean?) 500,000 jobs a month in the next few months. I wonder if Biden will bet everything he own against everything I own that he's wrong. He'll probably try to claim that losing jobs is "up to" 500,000 jobs.

Despite the oversupply of houses, developers are building new homes.

"By all indications the U.S. has more than the required number of houses in stock. According to data from the National Association of Realtors, at the end of March there were 3.6 million homes for sale. The average inventory of “for sale” homes is 2.7 million, so the excess supply is 900,000 units based on historical averages. NewObservations.net estimates the current supply to be 8.6 months worth, while the 10-year average has been 5.8 months.

Plus, anywhere from 11 million (First American’s estimate) to 25 million (Deutche Bank’s estimate) homeowners owe more on their homes than the homes are worth, keeping many homeowners where they are unless they decide to strategically default."

But...

"“Lot prices in Phoenix and Southern California’s Inland Empire have soared more than 60%. Sacramento, Orlando and Los Angeles are up between 30% and 40%.”

Builders have cash and tax-funds, so they’re spending the money the only way they know how–buying land. Builders are even picking up lots in hard-hit Las Vegas, where reportedly over 80% of homeowners are burdened with negative equity."

Cash printed by the Fed and tax funds provided by debt-funded stimulus boondoggles. Notice the locations? Las Vegas, southern California, Phoenix and Orlando were ground zero for the housing bust. Government is re-inflating the housing bubble. Are you ready for housing bust II?

TAX AND SPEND:

While the federal government is racing to increase the burden of government like Europe, the Europeans are reducing the burden government.

"The grand irony here is that the very continent we’re scrambling to emulate has been moving aggressively in the opposite direction on taxes and economic policy.

While the US keeps corporate taxes frozen near 40%, EU countries have slashed them down to an average of around 25%. Top marginal income tax rates, which in the US are 35%, are under 25% all across the former East Bloc.

As the share of government spending in health care has been steadily increasing in the US, it has been inching downward in Europe. While first Bush and then Obama pushed through massive new public entitlements, governments from Stockholm to Rome have been grappling with real private reform.

Though conservatives especially like to sneer at the democratic socialism of Old Europe, it is precisely those cheese-eaters in France and Vikings up north who have been leading the world in privatization these last two decades, selling off everything from airports to sewage companies."

This is why jobs are fleeing America for greener economic pastures. There didn't used to be any greener pastures. That's why we were so wealthy relative to the rest of the world. Now greener pastures are everywhere. That's why the US is in rapid decline.

Government's lust for our money once again overrules its puritanical nature as House considers legalizing and taxing online gambling. Funny how prohibition goes out the window when government wants more revenue.

As bad as Obamacare is on health care, it's also bad in other areas. In this case it will force businesses to send out hundreds of millions of 1099 forms they didn't have to send out previously.

"Basically, businesses will have to issue 1099s whenever they do more than $600 of business with another entity in a year. For the $14 trillion U.S. economy, that’s a hell of a lot of 1099s. When a business buys a $1,000 used car, it will have to gather information on the seller and mail 1099s to the seller and the IRS. When a small shop owner pays her rent, she will have to send a 1099 to the landlord and IRS. Recipients of the vast flood of these forms will have to match them with existing accounting records. There will be huge numbers of errors and mismatches, which will probably generate many costly battles with the IRS."

It'll impose significant costs on businesses and will require hiring more IRS workers away from the private sector. As always, smaller businesses will be forced out of business because of the increased cost while the biggest businesses will fair well and pick up marketshare from reduced competition leading to higher prices and lower quality products and services for consumers. It's all part of Obama's plan to collapse our economy and spark a Marxist revolution.

"I’m stunned that there wasn’t a broader debate before such a costly mandate was enacted. If it goes into effect, it will waste vast quantities of human effort in filling out forms, reworking computer systems, collecting and organizing data, and fighting the IRS. The struggling American economy can’t afford anymore suffocating tax regulations. This mandate is a giant deadweight loss. It should be repealed."

He must not have paid attention to the health care oppression debacle? The last thing Democrats wanted  was debate, and they had all the power. They hid what was in the bill on purpose. To paraphrase Nancy Pelosi, they wanted to pass it so we could find out what's in it. And we are. I doubt it will be repealed as long as Obama is on office. He wants to collapse our economy and spark a Marxist revolution. Why would he repeal it?

It's one thing for talking heads to explain the peril of out-of-control spending on union government employees, but it's way more effective when SNL lampoons them.

The IMF is urging all government to impose higher taxes on banks. Our taxes fund these bureaucrats, and they turn around and lobby for more taxes on us. At least in this case, citizens of other countries are in the same boat. We're all the stupidest people in the world.

"Price fixing is illegal in the private sector, but unfortunately there are no rules against schemes by politicians to create oligopolies in order to prop up bad government policy. The latest example comes from the bureaucrats at the International Monetary Fund, who are conspiring with national governments to impose higher taxes and regulations on the banking sector. The pampered bureaucrats at the IMF (who get tax-free salaries while advocating higher taxes on the rest of us) say these policies are needed because of bailouts, yet such an approach would institutionalize moral hazard by exacerbating the government-created problem of “too big to fail.”

But what is particularly disturbing about the latest IMF scheme is that the international bureaucracy wants to coerce all nations into imposing high taxes and excessive regulation. The bureaucrats realize that if some nations are allowed to have free markets, jobs and investment would flow to those countries and expose the foolishness of the bad policy being advocated elsewhere by the IMF."

This is an attempt to promote world-wide socialism by removing tax competition between nations and creating a world-wide banking cartel. I guess the nation-wide banking cartel hasn't caused enough damage.

REGULATION:

Pushing for financial regulation, Obama said:

"A free market was never meant to be a free license to take whatever you can get, however you can get it."

That's what government is. Talk about projection. A free market is a system voluntary exchange that we've never tried because government is always interfering with and corrupting the marketplace.

Article shows how the unholy alliance between government regulators, the government protected Wall Street firms and the government created oligopoly of ratings agencies worked together to destroy our financial system and profit from that collapse at our expense. This isn't about Stockholm Syndrome. It's about not biting the hand that feeds you.

"Instead, the e-mails paint a picture of employees struggling to keep up with the massive amount of derivatives the big Wall Street houses were whipping up before the whole housing market came crumbling down. "Tensions are high, just too much work, not enough people, pressure from the company, quite a lot of turnover. . .""

That wouldn't happen in a free market. Either the existing companies would adjust to meet demand or other companies would enter the market to compete. But because government only allows three ratings companies -Fitch, Moodys and Standards and Poors - to operate in its oligopoly, they provide sub-par services at an artificially inflated price - enabling government's favorite donors - Wall Street - to run wild. As wikipedia puts it:

"Ratings agencies, in particular Fitch, Moody's and Standard and Poors have been implicitly allowed by the government to fill a quasi-regulatory role..."

From the original article:

"And that's exactly how Wall Street and corporate America wanted it -- the dimmest guys in the room signing off on their crummy IOUs."

That's exactly how government, Wall Street and corporate America wanted it so they could all profit from our loss. It's ridiculous how this article ignores the elephant in the room that controls everything at the point of a gun - government.

Along with Obama, Chuck Schumer is up to his eyeballs in this Goldman corruption.

Like all government actions, because they're all politically motivated to buy votes through looting the people, this Goldman witch-hunt is calculated for its emotional appeal, not rational policy. Rational policy would be to abolish the SEC and empower free competition in our financial markets like the Constitution demands.

It would be really stupid of Democrats not to compromise to get a single Republican vote on financial oppression, but it looks like they won't. Obama will not compromise. He is not willing to share the looting with anybody. He must think he can out-demogogue Republicans on this and win some support with voters.

GLOBAL WARMING:

This Lindsay Graham thing is just ridiculous. He supports tax and trade. He supports amnesty. Withdrawing his support for tax and trade because the Democrats want to do amnesty first makes no sense. I'm hoping this is just his excuse for finally seeing the light. Or else he's a flake in addition to everything else.

POLICE STATE:

Police seize computers, laptops and cameras from man because he was filming his motorcycle ride which included being pulled over at gunpoint by a Maryland plain-clothes police officer.

The importance of recording police brutality and making sure that stays legal. In the case of cops beating a student for no reason in Massachusetts:

"After the iPhone video of McKenna's beating emerged, investigators subpoenaed 60 hours of surveillance video from the College Park campus police. The only video police couldn't manage to locate was the one from the camera aimed squarely at the area where McKenna was beaten. Funny how that works. Campus police claimed that a "technical error" with that particular camera caused it to record over the footage of the beating. As public pressure mounted, police later found what they claimed was a recording of the lost video. But two minutes of that video were missing. Coincidentally, those two minutes happened to depict key portions of McKenna's beating. The kicker? The head of the campus video surveillance system, Lt. Joanne Ardovini, is married to one of the cops named in McKenna's complaint. (Washington D.C.'s ABC News affiliate, WJLA, a station with a history of deferring to police spokesmen without bothering to verify the accuracy of their statements, quaintly referred to this as "a bizarre coincidence.")"

Funny how that works pretty much every time, but police officers are waging war on video-takers:

"At about the same time McKenna's case was making the rounds on the cable news networks, another Marylander was illegally raided, arrested, and jailed. This time for videotaping a cop. On April 13th, Maryland State Trooper Joseph David Ulher pulled over Anthony Graber for driving his motorcycle 80 mph in a 65 mph speed zone. Graber happens to have a video camera mounted to his helmet. As depicted in the video that Graber later posted to the Internet, Uhler, in street clothes, cuts Graber off and emerges from his car with his gun drawn. It takes Uhler several seconds to identify himself as a police officer. You can decide for yourself if Uhler's actions were justified (Graber was apparently popping wheelies, and, according to Uhler, was driving in excess of 100 mph). But what happened next ought to get Uhler and a number of other police officers fired.

According to an interview Graber gave to photography activist Carlos Miller days after posting the video of his encounter with Trooper Uhler to the web, six officers from the Maryland State Police raided Graber's parents' home at 6:45 in the morning on April 14. Graber and his family were held for 90 minutes while the cops rummaged through their belongings. Graber was then charged with felony eavesdropping and spent 26 hours in jail. As an "official" told WJLA of Graber, "He had been recording this trooper audibly without his consent." The report from WJLA added, "That kind of recording is against the law in Maryland."

In fact, under Maryland law what Graber did isn't actually a crime. For a recording to be illegal, one of the parties being recorded must have a reasonable expectation of privacy. A cop, acting as a cop, with his gun drawn, while standing alongside a public roadway, has no such expectation. On April 15th, Graber was released and the charges against him were dropped. As he told Miller, "The judge who released me looked at the paperwork and said she didn’t see where I violated the wiretapping law.""

He's lucky he got that judge. Most judges side with the cops as a matter of policy. Notice how the prosecutor aids this violence by bringing an obviously false charge fully expecting the judge will support it like judges almost always do.

"Graber was harassed, intimidated, illegally arrested, and jailed for an act that clearly wasn't illegal. According to Graber, the name of the judge who signed off on the raid of his parents' home doesn't appear on the warrant. As Graber told Miller, "They told me they don’t want you to know who the judge is because of privacy." If true, that statement is so absurd it's mind numbing. A judge issued an illegal warrant for police to invade the private residence and rummage through the private belongings of a man who broke no laws, and we aren't permitted to know the judge's name in order to protect the judge's privacy?"

Judges are in on this violence. The whole system from cops, to prosecutors to judges is geared to promote and protect the police state. They're all in it together.

"That judge needs to be held accountable, as do the cops who violated Graber's civil rights. In a just world all of them would be fired, and Graber and his parents would be compensated. It isn't enough that the charges against Graber were dropped. He was still punished for a crime he didn't commit, and his punishment serves as a deterrent for future would-be documentarians of government abuse. If the authorities are allowed to intimidate people who legally videotape public officials while those officials are on the job—and that would certainly include government agents illegally raiding, arresting, and jailing citizens—then the right to videotape public officials doesn't really exist."

They should all be prosecuted for abrogation of rights under color of law, but government doesn't police itself other than a few token cases to make it appear it does.

POLITICS:

This statistic scares me too:

"The latest Rasmussen poll shows that 29% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of Barack Obama's handling of the presidency."

29 percent of Americans either hate America or are irreparably ignorant.

Blagojavich documents show Obama's corruption. This is politics as usual.

Established Democrats facing tough competition. About time.

People are beginning to grasp the extent of Obama's corruption. What took them so long? Were they unaware he was a product of the most corrupt political machine in America? Did they miss his daily lies in the campaign? Did they fail to notice he's trying to destroy America and spark a Marxist revolution while presenting himself as a moderate? Did they miss the lawlessness of his actions as president? Did they ignore his love of using violence against the American people? I guess so.

Obama unabashedly calls for blacks, women and young people to vote for Democrats in 2010. He wants them to all gang up against white men. He doesn't even try to hide his desire to divide our country by playing to race and gender biases. He celebrates it. He also says that Wall Street banks want to put their allies back in power - meaning Republicans - but you can see from this chart from opensecrets.org that financial firms gave more money to Democrats in 2008 and are giving more in 2010 to Democrats. This video is pure Obama evil.

MEDIA:

Cartoonist launches "Everybody Draw Mohammad Day" in response to Comedy Central censoring South Park. I hope cartoonists flood papers and the internet with drawings of Mohammad so we can end this nonsense once and for all. Apparently the creator has backed out after he cartoon went viral. What's up with that? She started this thing to get people involved, and now she says she didn't want it go viral?

"When asked about her change of heart, Norris told The Ticket that she didn't intend for the cartoon "to go viral."

Then why did she send the cartoon to the media in the first place?  "Because I'm an idiot," Norris replied.

"This particular cartoon of a 'poster' seems to have struck a gigantic nerve, something I was totally unprepared for," she said.

She doesn't appear to be alone.  The creator of a Facebook page dedicated to the day has bowed out as well.  Jon Wellington told the Washington Post (before abandoning ship) that he created the page because he "loved [Norris's] creative approach to the whole thing -- whimsical and nonjudgmental." 

While he was still associated with his own event he said: "To me, this is all about freedom of expression and tolerance of other viewpoints, so I hope you'll help make this a sandbox that anyone can play in, if they want. I don't think it'd be right under the circumstances for me (or anyone) to censor inflammatory posts *ahem*, but let's be welcoming and inclusive, mmkay"

Apparently the posts weren't "welcoming" enough, as on Sunday morning he announced his departure from the cause. "I am aghast that so many people are posting deeply offensive pictures of the Prophet," he writes. "Y'all go ahead if that's your bag, but count me out."

Did he think people were going to post flattering images?"

So they're backing out because it spun out of control? I don't buy it. I think it's more likely they're scared.

MISC:

Oh my gosh, these Hitler parodies are hysterical. There's no better way to lampoon stupidity than to use Hitler. That's why they're so popular. I bet these parodies have done more to make it hard for another Hitler to rise to power than anything else in history.  When the next Hitler tries to rise to power, the people will just point and laugh. Bad language.

I publish my essays here in original form, and now I'm republishing updated versions of them on hubpages.com.

Obamacare and Liberal Fascism
Tea Partiers Fight Back
How Many Times Over Do We Need to Be Able to Destroy the World?

Tax cheat Lord Geithner tells CNN that he never held a real job. Neither has Barack Obama. Neither has most of Congress. Neither have most of the bureaucrats in Washington. Why would we be surprised that they want to expand government at the expense of us in the private sector?

Free kibbles

STATES RIGHTS:

Nullifying Obamacare.

SOCIALISM:

The GM ads saying they've paid back their bailout loan in full with interest is misleading. The feds spend $49.5 billion on GM total, not just $6.7 billion on a loan. The company is still owned by the government, and it's asking for more money.

"But when Mr. Whitacre says GM has paid back the bailout money in full, he means not the entire $49.5 billion--the loan and the equity. In fact, he avoids all mention of that figure in his column. He means only the$6.7 billion loan amount.

But wait! Even that's not the full story given that GM, which has not yet broken even, much less turned a profit, can't pay even this puny amount from its own earnings.

So how is it paying it?

As it turns out, the Obama administration put $13.4 billion of the aid money as "working capital" in an escrow account when the company was in bankruptcy. The company is using this escrow money--government money--to pay back the government loan.

...

Sean McAlinden, chief economist at the Ann Arbor-based Center for Automotive Research, points out that the company has applied to the Department of Energy for $10 billion in low (5%) interest loan to retool its plants to meet the government's tougher new CAFÉ (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards. However, giving GM more taxpayer money on top of the existing bailout would have been a political disaster for the Obama administration and a PR debacle for the company. Paying back the small bailout loan makes the new--and bigger--DOE loan much more feasible.

In short, GM is using government money to pay back government money to get more government money. And at a 2% lower interest rate at that. This is a nifty scheme to refinance GM's government debt--not pay it back!"

It's a scam. Socialism always a scam.

REGULATION:

How the minimum wage causes unemployment for the benefit of politicians and labor unions.

Republicans holding out for compromise on financial regulation. Republicans won't stand on principle - they want to share in the looting. Democrats will compromise, and we'll get a bad financial bill, but not one as bad as this one.

Massachusetts requires that personal information about a Massachusetts resident be encrypted on the web. That should be between customers and businesses.

Yet another theory on the political motive for the SEC sueing Goldman-Sachs - to push stories of SEC incompetence out of the news including agents making over $200,000 a year spending all day looking at porn.

HEALTH CARE:

In praise of Mexican health care.

Ron Paul introduces bill to repeal the Obamacare mandate.

GLOBAL WARMING:

The global warming scandal just keeps growing.

"[A] new study put [the claim that all the studies cited by the IPCC were peer reviewed] to the test. A team of 40 researchers from 12 countries, led by a Canadian analyst Donna Laframboise, checked out every one of the 18,531 scientific sources cited in the mammoth 2007 report. Astonishingly, they found that nearly a third of them – 5,587 – were not peer-reviewed at all, but came from newspaper articles, student theses, even propaganda leaflets and press releases put out by green activists and lobby groups."

The IPCC lied? The UN lied? The climate frauds lied? I'm shocked. The inquiry done by the climate frauds into the CRU climategate scandal was a whitewash? I'm stunned.

"Anyone who has followed the meticulous analysis of this curious story by Steve McIntyre on his Climate Audit website might well conclude that we are looking here at a complete travesty of proper scientific procedure, matched only by the bizarre methods used by Mann himself to construct his original hockey stick. Yet these are the men, Mann, Jones and Briffa, who acted as the “lead authors” of the key chapters of the IPCC’s 2001 and 2007 reports."

This fraud just keeps growing and getting more exposure, but that won't stop Al Gore, President Obama, John Kerry and Lindsay Graham from trying to force tax and trade on us.


Or maybe I'm wrong. Lindsay Graham has removed support the legislation he helped write for purely political reasons - he doesn't like Democrats pushing a new immigration bill first. None of these people have any principles, so Graham could change his mind again tomorrow.


Russian scientists warns that the Arctic may be in a cold snap that started in 1998 and will last for years, and we've all been misled by cherry-picked temperature data.

WAR:

This sounds more like one way to prepare a well-regulated militia than corrupting kids to me. This should augment real training with real weapons like hunting and target shooting.

POLITICS:

This might belong under police state, but I'm putting it here for now. Tom Tancredo exposes the Southern Poverty Law Center for smearing limited government supporters as dangerous extremists.

The political establishment hates real populism - real grass roots movements - because they can't control them.

"A similar reaction is taking place, to a lesser extent, on the establishment (i.e. neoconservative) right. David Frum, the Bush speechwriter and co-author of the "axis of evil" catchphrase, has become the liberal establishment’s favorite interview subject because he now spends all his time attacking "right-wing extremism," most especially the explicitly libertarian elements of the tea party movement. He has set up his own movement, which might be called the "Scoop Jackson Republicans," and a Web site where one can go for regular denunciations of the tea partiers and pleas for Republicans to moderate their message – except when it comes to foreign policy, naturally enough. In that realm, it’s the same old Republican invade-the- world globaloney: Iraq was a "victory," Afghanistan is a necessity, and Israel must be defended and succored no matter the damage to demonstrable American interests."

I wish I knew where this fantasy that Republicans always like to invade other countries more than Democrats came from. That's only been the case since Bush the Elder. Reagan didn't invade anybody - he pulled troops out of Lebanon. Nixon didn't invade anybody - he just tried to win the war Johnson started. Eisenhower didn't invade anybody - he ended Truman's war in Korea. Hoover, Coolidge, Harding and Taft didn't invade anybody. If you want to look at invaders of the 20th century, Democrats dominate. Wilson, FDR, Truman, Johnson (or JFK, take your pick). Teddy Roosevelt and George Bush are the only Republicans to invade anybody in the 20th century.

"The genesis of the tea-partiers was the bank bailout, not the election of Barack Obama, and one would have thought that the takeover of the government by a few corporate giants might have provoked a hostile reaction on the left – but not in Obama’s America."

Why would anybody think that leftists would be hostile to socialism? That makes no sense. And fascism - socialism-lite - is a leftist ideology too. Leftists always support more government control of everything as long as leftists are in power.

"The message coming from our liberal elites, and their neoconservative allies, couldn’t be clearer: if you’re an "antigovernment" extremist – a phrase that, in their view, is a bit redundant, since any and all "antigovernment" ideology is inherently extremist and violent – you represent a physical threat to the social order."

But this is very true - the neocons and leftists are allies. That's why Bush governed like a Democrat and the country was so divided and angry. Both parties are dominated by big-government, imperialistic people. That's because anybody who supports using violence to force their will on their own people also supports using violence to force their will on the people of other countries and vice-versa. That's an issue of character. The only reason leftists didn't want to defeat the Soviet Union is the Soviet Union was run by kindred souls - communists - and they wanted communism to take over the world. They still want that.

POLITICS:

How the federal government trashed the Constitution and our duty to resist its power.

"[T]reason is defined by the U.S. Constitution in Article 3, Section 3, as follows: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in waging War against them, or adhering to their Enemies, and giving them Aid and Comfort . . ." As in all the founding documents, "United States" is in the plural, signifying that the free and independent states were united in delegating certain enumerated powers for their own mutual benefit. Thus, "waging War against them" means the states. Waging war against the free and independent states is what constitutes treason under the U.S. Constitution. That’s why Lincoln’s invasion of the Southern states was the very definition of Treason.

...

The income tax effectively declares that all earned income is the property of the state, and that the state will inform us from time to time how much of our own income we may keep to live on by setting the income tax rates.

...

The income tax and the Fed finally centralized all political power in Washington, as it became trivially easy for the central state to conscript millions of men for its wars, spend mind-boggling sums on things like a welfare state and the nationalization of education that have no constitutional authority whatsoever, and to easily bribe any state government that voices the least bit of dissent by threatening to withdraw federal grants to the state. More than half of the American population is bribed and manipulated in a similar manner today as recipients of myriad federal subsidies."

...

FDR condemned the Constitution as the irrelevant scribblings of a lost generation, and advocated massive socialistic government intervention whereby the government would magically "guarantee" everyone a high-paying job, high food prices for farmers, a "decent home," all the medical care you could want, freedom from fear of old age, sickness, and accidents, and of course, state-funded education. This was the essence of FDR’s childish wish list of an "economic bill of rights. Of course, government cannot promise anyone anything without also confiscating the income of someone else to pay for it. Nor can it "guarantee" any of FDR’s pie-in-the-sky wish list unless the laws of economics are repealed, which of course they can never be.

...

According to Andrew Napolitano, author of The Constitution in Exile, not a single federal law was ruled unconstitutional between 1937 and 1995.

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[T]here can be nothing more patriotic and "American" than opposing everything the central state proposes doing that would expand its scope and powers in any way.

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"TEA Party" activists claim that they are Taxed Enough Already. That’s not good enough. If they took their own rhetoric about constitutional government seriously, they would recognize that what is needed is at least a 90 percent reduction in federal taxes, not merely being satisfied with being taxed "enough already.""

Great essay, but I prefer zero taxes.


MISC:


The Russians come clean on massacre of Poles in WWII but not on others.


Super-long Gore Vidal essay on the meaning of Timothy McVeigh.


Liberals generally don't understand economics. That should be a fixable problem. Unfortunately, liberals control the education system and write most histories, misinforming the people about economics.

"As bad as things were in 1880 America, it was a golden era compared to the pre-industrial age. This point was made as long ago as 1954 in a book entitledCapitalism and the Historians, which was edited by libertarian Nobel Prize-winning economist Friedrich Hayek. As Austrian economist Murray Rothbard stated, “Hayek contributed to and edited a series of essays that showed conclusively that the Industrial Revolution in England, spurred by a roughly free-market economy, enormously improved rather than crippled the standard of living of the average consumer and worker in England. In this way, Hayek led the way in shattering one of the most widespread socialist myths about the Industrial Revolution.”"

Of course it was, and common sense tells us so. If the industrial revolution had made people poorer, they wouldn't have done it. They would have stayed in their previous economic circumstances.

"To explain why I consider 1880 to be a golden era, especially for the poor, let’s consider a modern-day example, one that a good liberal like John Sumner would consider to be a model society: the socialist paradise of North Korea. In that country, everyone is equal in terms of economic condition. The state owns everything, and everyone works for the state. There are no profits, speculators, or entrepreneurs. Greed and selfishness have been stamped out of society. Total government ownership and total government control. Everyone works for the benefit of the collective.

In other words, a liberal dream!

Oh, did I mention that there is also horrific poverty, famine, and starvation in North Korea? Let’s assume, just for the sake of argumentation, that each year some 10 percent of the North Korean population is dying from malnutrition or illness.

Now, suppose we asked Sumner to give us his recommendation for ending poverty in North Korea. What would he say? He would say: “Adopt a welfare state and a controlled economy! Create bureaucratic departments, modeled on the IRS and U.S. welfare agencies, whose job it is to confiscate wealth from the rich and give it to the poor!”

Do you see the problem though? Sumner would be doing what liberals always do: they assume that there is a pie of wealth to confiscate and redistribute. That’s their solution to ending poverty. But he would be missing the obvious point: They already have total socialism in North Korea, which is precisely why there is no pie for Sumner to confiscate and redistribute. Everyone has nothing."

Why can't liberals grasp the consequences of their policies when they have North Korea to look at? They had the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia to look at, yet they continue to advocate the same policies that led to the destruction of those countries. I will never understand that.

"Did I mention that 19th-century America was not only the most prosperous nation in history but also the most charitable nation in history? In a land with no income tax and no welfare state, it was voluntary contributions that built the churches, opera houses, museums, and so much more."

Naturally. People take care of each other unless government comes in and takes money from them by force and subsumes that role.


Amazing story of Japanese-Americans fighting in Europe while their families were imprisoned in concentration camps by FDR.

Free kibbles

STATES RIGHTS:

The nullification movement by the states is too weak and deferential to federal power.

ECONOMY:

Bank failures continue.

TAX AND SPEND:

As if ripped from today's headlines, Murray Rothbard shoots down the Value Added Tax in 1972. Notice how Nixon was the proponent of the VAT back then. If you're wondering why government would prefer a VAT to a regular sales tax, it's because the VAT is hidden at each level of production, so consumers see only a small portion of it. That's one of the reasons government hides the income tax in withholdings. It hides half of payroll taxes in employer "contributions". Hiding taxes is key to being able to raise them. That's the FairTax requires an explicit accounting on every receipt. Here's one of many problems:

"The costs of record keeping and payment pose another grave problem for the market economy. Obviously, small firms are less able to bear these costs than big ones, and so the VAT will be a powerful burden on small business, and hamper it gravely in the competitive struggle. It is no wonder that some big businesses look with favor on the VAT!"

That's always how it works. Big business as we know it couldn't exist without big government protecting it from competition. Another problem.

"A further crucial flaw exists in the VAT, a flaw which will bring much grief to our economic system. Most people assume that such a tax will simply be passed on in higher prices to the consumer. But the process is not that simple. While, in the long run, prices to consumers will undoubtedly rise, there will be two other important effects: a large short-run reduction in business profits, and a long-run fall in wage incomes [resulting in higher unemployment]."

Obama would love that because he'd blame it on the market.

The Greek debt problem won't go away. Portugal, Spain and Italy are next up. California too. Then our federal government. Here's the problem:

""The way to solve this debt problem is not with more debt. The idea that you would solve a problem with too much debt and too much consumption with more debt and more consumption, that defies comprehension," Rogers said."

Aristocrats don't care. Rogers says sovereign debt is our biggest risk, not already heavily regulated financial institutions.

Tax revolt at the polls in New Jersey as voters turn down tax hikes for schools.

President Obama celebrates California, the state suffering the most fiscally irresponsible state government in the union which is on a par with Greece for financial problems, as a model for America.

REGULATION:

Our government is so stupid it leads to headlines like this:

"Goldman Sachs e-mails show bank sought to profit from housing downturn"

What else should it have done? Sought to lose money? Of course it sought to profit, but government wants us to think that's a bad thing.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

I'm always amused by the concerns over China's currency. Politicians in both the Bush and Obama administration complain when China devalues its currency, but China pins its currency to the US dollar, so China only devalues its currency when the US devalues the dollar first. If the Fed would stop devaluing the dollar, China would stop devaluing the yuan. Furthermore, because China holds its currency artificially low, it allows Americans to buy things at artificially low prices. It's as if the Chinese government is taking money from the Chinese people by force and sending it to Americans who buy Chinese products.

"For the individual Chinese entrepreneur, the undervalued yuan has brought disaster. China's central bank is not subsidizing the Chinese exporter but the American importer. Furthermore, ongoing inflation will only hurt both the Chinese consumer and the Chinese saver, as prices go up and savings are confiscated by depreciating their value."

That's a  great deal for Americans, and a bad deal for the Chinese. The Chinese government is looting the Chinese people and sending the money to Americans, and our government wants it to stop. That's just stupid. Here's how it works:

"Think of it this way. The Chinese producer fabricates Widget X, which before inflation is on the market for eight yuan. Let us assume that at this point the natural, market dollar–yuan exchange rate is one to four, which means that Widget X effectively costs two dollars (one dollar buys four yuan, and the widget costs eight yuan).

However, China's central bank steps in and inflates the yuan, causing the exchange rate to change to one to eight (one dollar to eight yuan). Now Widget X will cost the American consumer only one dollar. The winner is clearly the American, who purchased the good for half of the original price. The loser is the Chinese producer, despite now having eight yuan; each yuan is really worth half as much as before inflation. In effect, inflation cheated the Chinese producer out of half of the value of the good being sold. Although this example does not represent real-world changes in the exchange rate, the point stands. Over the long run, it becomes clear just how injurious currency devaluation is to the Chinese economy."

Good for Americans. Bad for the Chinese. Here's another good point:

"But dollars being sold to the Chinese for their goods aren't just sitting in a tall pile in the center of Beijing, or stashed under Chinese mattresses. The Chinese aren't purchasing American goods, because American public debt has shown itself to be a much more lucrative buy. Dollars not spent on American goods are being used to purchase Washington's growing debt: $889 billion worth. The dollars "accumulated" by the Chinese through their trade surplus are being spentby the US government! If there is anything deserving of blame for wasting dollars, it is the American government."

When Americans buy Chinese goods, dollar go to China. The Chinese have to spend those dollars on something valued in US dollars, i.e. something made in America. In a sane world, that would be American made products like cars or medical equipment, and it would boost our economy and our exports. But because we're being crushed by the weight of government, the Chinese are spending those dollars buying government debt. If we immediately cut spending to balance the budget and therefore stopped issuing federal debt, the Chinese would switch to buying American products, boosting our economy and our exports. But Democrats and Republicans run our government, so there's no way that's going to happen.

Banks are buying federal bonds which is a sure path to inflation. It also helps hold interest rates artificially low, prompting speculation the Fed is pressuring banks to do this. Interest rates had been rising because interest rates on bonds were going up since buyers were becoming more worried about default.

HEALTH CARE:

The New York Times explains that health care oppression in New York, similar provisions to Obamacare, overburden the healthy, drive up costs and put insurance companies out of business.

"Healthy people, in effect, began to subsidize people who needed more health care. The healthier customers soon discovered that the high premiums were not worth it and dropped out of the plans. The pool of insured people shrank to the point where many of them had high health care needs. Without healthier people to spread the risk, their premiums skyrocketed, a phenomenon known in the trade as the “adverse selection death spiral.”"

Of course, they print this 15 years after New York's health care oppression is enacted and after Obamacare is enacted. Obamacare is designed to do the exact same thing to usher in socialized medicine.

WAR:

Author claims our navy ships aren't survivable against modern weapons.

This story of TSA abuse will make you angry, but will it make you angry enough to demand the privatization of the TSA? If this happened in a competitive marketplace, the agents would be fired and the family compensated.

Iraq really did have low enriched uranium.

Ralph Peters on stupid politicians:

"Our military knows how to plan. The problem -- a bipartisan one -- is that Washington elites don't want the military to plan for realistic scenarios. Because serious planning makes the costs and dangers of policies all too clear."

The military should plan so politicians can understand the cost of their policies.

"We first saw this see-no-evil pattern under President Bush, when Pentagon neo-cons (with no military experience) forbade planning for an occupation of Iraq. They didn't just refuse to acknowledge any possible need for an occupation, they feared that detailed planning would reveal the potential costs of taking down Saddam -- numbers that might've been a red flag to Congress.

The consequences of failing to plan? The price we paid after reaching Baghdad without a "what now?" plan was vastly higher in lives and dollars than it should have been."

Or maybe they were right, and the war would never have happened - an even better outcome.

"Now we face a similar threat from the other side of the aisle."

Since we didn't face any threat from Saddam, that's not much of an endorsement for attacking Iran.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Ron Paul compares the rhetoric against Iran to the rhetoric used to convince the people to support war on Iraq. He doesn't support sanctions on Iran because he thinks they are part of a plan to start a war. But what he doesn't say is just because the WMD claims doesn't mean the claims about Iran are false. Trusting the CIA in this instance makes no more sense than trusting it in any other. I also never heard anybody make a serious claim that Iraq had drones that could attack the US. Iran really does have long-range missiles, though I'm not aware of any that can reach the US. The argument that we shouldn't punish the Iranian people for the actions of its regime is a strong one, nobody wants to see the Iranian people suffer, but the people are ultimately responsible for their government. If they leave it in power, they have to be considered culpable for its actions. I think Paul makes a mistake by not suggesting an alternative plan to stop the mullahs from obtaining nuclear weapons - a goal we know they've had for 20 years. I have no way of knowing if the sanctions Obama wants will harm the people or not or whether they will harm the movement to topple the mullahs or not, and that's what I'd like to hear.

This article claims that Israel needs US support to attack Iran. I find it hard to believe that Israel doesn't already have all the equipment it needs, including refueling planes, to attack Iran. That would be really stupid if it doesn't already have it since it considers Iran its biggest threat.

"Even nuclear experts scoff at the notion that a nuclear Iran would initiate an attack on Israel, the only nuclear power in the Middle East, with an estimated 200 high-grade nuclear weapons (more than China has), and a first-rate delivery system of missiles and supersonic bombers. For Iran to launch a crude nuke at Israel would be an act of national suicide, and while individual terrorists may kill themselves, nations don’t commit suicide. They may miscalculate, with devastating consequences, but they don’t deliberately self-immolate."

Are these the same experts who think the economy is recovering or who failed to notice that India, Pakistan and North Korea were developing nuclear weapons? Is it the same experts mentioned later in the article for being incorrect? No expert has a crystal ball, and they're wrong more often than they're right. Experts don't understand fanatics. The mullahs happily send others to blow themselves up as suicide-bombers. They stone women to death for adultery. They execute gays. There's no way in the world I want to trust fanatics like that with nuclear weapons. They might very well attack Israel with one looking forward to sending themselves and their entire population to enjoy 72 virgins. If Ahmadinejad had the opportunity, fanatic that he is, I'm sure he'd take it. This is why our policy should be to empower the people to overthrow the mullahs. I just don't know what the best policy to do that is. It's probably doing nothing. It might be opening up trade further. I wish Ron Paul would have made that case.

"Reading and watching American reporting on Iran reminds me of nothing so much as reading the Chinese state media about Taiwan when I was living in China back in the 1990s. It’s all pathetic nonsense, manufactured paranoia, and bluster."

I agree with that 100 percent.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION:

Another downside of Arizona's oppressive new illegal immigration law is it puts pressure on Obama and Democrats to pass what some call immigration reform and what I bet is really amnesty. I still think enforcing existing law and allowing more immigrants to come here legally is all that's necessary.

Contrary to what alarmists would have us believe, the crime rate in Arizona is falling more rapidly than the rest of the country on average. We are not suffering a surge in violence from illegal immigrants. Illegal immigration is a problem, mainly stemming from our welfare services, but our immigration policy should be based on reason, not alarmism.

"That's not to say Arizonans don't have a right to be upset when Mexicans trespass across private land on a regular basis. But you could solve that problem by making it easier for them to immigrate legally."

I'm all for increasing legal immigration, but ending the welfare state is the key to solving this problem. We should also allow illegals to go home without interference.

POLITICS:

Lew Rockwell comments how the bizarre acceptance by the public of politicians who lie, pointing out we never accept liars in the private sector, which is why Ron Paul stands out so starkly from the rest of the politicians. This gets back to my question about fraud. Why is it illegal to profit from lies in the private economy but not in the political economy?

Mark Steyn lampoons Democrat attempts to paint the tea partiers as a terrorist threat.

"Meanwhile, Comedy Central – you know, the "hip" "edgy" network with Jon Stewart from whom "young" Americans under 53 supposedly get most of their news – just caved in to death threats. From a hateful 83-year-old widow who doesn't like Obamacare? Why, no! It was a chap called Abu Talhah al Amrikee, who put up a video on the Internet explaining why a "South Park" episode with a rather tame Mohammed joke was likely to lead to the deaths of the show's creators. Just to underline the point, he showed some pictures of Theo van Gogh, the Dutch film director brutally murdered by (oh, my, talk about unfortunate coincidences) a fellow called Mohammed. Mr. al Amrikee helpfully explained that his video incitement of the murder of Matt Stone and Trey Parker wasn't really "a threat but just the likely outcome." All he was doing, he added, was "raising awareness" – you know, like folks do on Earth Day. On Earth Day, lame politicians dig a hole and stick a tree in it. But aggrieved Muslims dig a hole and stick a couple of comedy writers in it. Celebrate diversity!"

He's in top form this week.

I can't help but be impressed with how badly Democrats have screwed up and in just over a year pushed people back to the Republicans they loathed so badly after eight years.

In a powerful reminder that our aristocrats are nothing but self-serving political hacks (I know, that's redundant), they invited Sigourney Weaver to testify about acidification of oceans. It's all about the photo-op.

Funny article on the funeral for John McCain's integrity from a liberal point of view. McCain the straight-talker just cracks me up.

"McCain lied to voters about his opinion of the Confederate battle flag, fearing that calling it what it is — a flag of treason, racism and slavery — would cost him votes in flag-worshipping South Carolina."

So now anybody who has a confederate flag celebrates treason, racism and slavery? I don't think so (though maybe some do). I think it generally represents states rights and freedom from oppressive central government.

Mickey Kaus is running against Barbara Boxer in the California senate primary. Go Mickey.

I am still convinced that a Republican who bursts on the national scene in time for 2012 and promises to nullify 230 years of unconstitutional laws like Obamacare, Dept. of Education, the FCC, the SEC, the FAA, the TSA, the EPA, the FTC, the war on drugs, the DEA, the ATF, the power of the Fed to counterfeit, legal tender laws, welfare in all its forms, removing all federal barriers to energy exploration and exploitation, etc. and who promises to bring home all our troops overseas would win the nomination then win the election in a landslide. Nullification of those laws and bringing our troops home would cut well over a trillion dollars from our budget, and he or she could make money by privatizing many of those services like the FAA, TSA, NASA and selling them to the highest bidder, privatizing highways, selling off federal land, etc. He'd have to explain that while Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional, he'd continue to support them because government had robbed seniors at the point of a gun and made them dependent on those programs while stealing the money from them to buy votes, but he would also have to make the case to seniors that they're paychecks will stop coming if they don't help reform those programs and free younger people from having government steal their money from them for the same programs. I also think supporting the FairTax and running on a campaign of empowering Americans to keep 100 percent of their paychecks would help increase the margin of victory and the mandate to dramatically reduce the size and scope of government. He should also promise to run the most aggressive corruption investigation of Congress, the federal government and Wall Street in history.

MEDIA:

South Park creators on how the media hung the Danish Mohammad cartoonist out to dry. Comedy Central censors second South Park Mohammad episode after threat.

I get that the media has a double-standard, but the double-standard on golf is the least of my concerns.

Victor Davis Hansen on the double-standard of civility in politics.

MISC:

Substitute "US" for "Argentina" in this essay, and it sounds frighteningly familiar.

"A century ago, if you had told typical citizens of Argentina (which at that time was enjoying the fourth-highest per capita income in the world) that it would decline to become just the 76th richest nation on a per capita basis in 2010, they probably would not have found it believable. They might have responded, "This could not happen; we are a nation rich in natural resources, with a great climate for agriculture. Our people are well educated and largely descended from European stock. We have property rights, the rule of law and an open free-market economy.""

Argentina is slightly ahead of the US in committing suicide by government.


This dummy says Obama should appoint a politician to the Supreme Court. No. He should appoint a person who will subordinate his opinions to the law.