Archive
Moving Left Isn’t Right
Written in a time filled with the gasps and death of the Soviet Union, and its satellites’ declarations of their independence, I found Alvin Rabushka’s “The Failure of Socialism in China” capturing my attention. In it, the author mentions the method that Mao Zedong attempted to use to incite the communist Chinese economy to grow – namely central planning. The author also illustrates why the planning did little to anything at all on its own in the way of economy-building or growth.
As many economists critical of socialist governments point out, central planning heavily relies on a number of measures, so that it can claim to function better than alternative forms of economies.
Find the complete post here: Conservative Daily News
Those who ignore history…
Russell’s Rules vs. Today’s Government Rule
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
This week, on Openculture.com, I stumbled onto a reference of a Bertrand Russell column from 1951. In the New York Times Magazine article, Russell shared his “10 Commandments for a Healthy Democracy”. Now, dismissing for a moment whether he was a classical liberal, a neo-liberal, an English liberal, or American liberal, I would like to allow the commandments to stand on their own.
I propose to take Russell’s rules, and use them to give a simple zero to two grading scale for each of the majorities in the houses of Congress, and for the President and his administration. Along with the grades, I will also list the most significant reasons for assigning the grades that I have. At the end, I will tally the scores, and reveal who has been the most misguided, and most ignorant when it came to Russell’s advice. So, here is Russell’s commandments vs. the United States government’s behavior.
Read the entire piece here, on Conservative Daily News:
“Russell’s Rules vs. Today’s Government Rule“
“I Am Not A Dictator!”
“O Duck Luck, ” says Hen Pen, “the sky is falling!”
“Why, how do you know it?” says Duck Luck.
“ObamaChicken Little told me.”
And so goes the story of another famous alarmist, Chicken Little. President Obama has attempted for the past few weeks to raise alarm about the awful “cuts” that would affect everything. The economy will be hurt and crippled for years, other results include millions of furloughed federal employees, and a non-functioning military. All because those darned Republicans would not agree with him to further increase spending.
The rights so valued and inherent in each of us has slowly continued to erode away, and with a president such as Obama, it will be a long four years.
Read the whole article at Conservative Daily News, here: http://www.conservativedailynews.com/2013/03/i-am-not-a-dictator/
“I am not a dictator!”
Hold Your Horses, Hutton
They did WHAT!?
In his February 16, 2013 column in the Guardian, columnist Will Hutton lays out the numerous failings of the British Food Standards Agency (FSA), which led to horse meat entering the human food chain. The horse-meat scandal may actually turn out to be two parallel mislabeling scams. Whatever the case, and as strange as mislabeled horse-meat is – it is not my primary issue.
My issue is with Hutton’s disgusting use of the scandal. Mirroring the penchant for American “journalists” who turn their columns and shows into personal soap boxes, Hutton takes swipes at right wingers in the United States, and he espouses the supposed ability of large government to function better than a slim and efficient one. Hutton especially takes to task a British politician who supported cuts in the funding of the FSA.
Hutton would have us believe a fully funded FSA would not have allowed this fiasco to occur. Indeed, an FSA, or any other governmental agency that does not receive adequate funding, is the cause for any accidents and other unfortunate mistakes that then occur. Hutton thinks that because the politicians, often times responding to their voters’ concerns, reduce funding to a bloated agency, they should receive the anger and onus of the press and people too.
Hutton so seems to dislike politician Owen Patterson, he goes so far as to make a personal attack of the man, referring to him as “one of the less sharp knives in the political drawer”. Hutton’s anger seethes against anyone he deems “connected” to the scandal. He attacks the large supermarket chains who seek to price food where the consumer can afford it, he attacks the stock holders of the supermarkets, he attacks right-wing think tanks in the U.S., and he eventually goes so far as attacking capitalism itself, saying it does not deliver the best outcomes.
Within those barbs fed by misunderstanding and assumption, Hutton joins so many of the American left, who hear the word, “capitalism”, and either rage or cringe. The cause of so much damage to people, the cause of so much environmental damage – is the dreaded capitalism. Never mind that it is also the reason there are 90 different types of bread on the supermarket shelves or that it is the reason that clothing is still relatively inexpensive and easily replaced — we must see like Mr. Hutton, that capitalism is inherently evil. Everything it touches, businesses, politicians, and workers are worse off, Hutton would have us believe.
Oddly though – the tax revenue that the capitalism structure generates that allows the left’s dream of bloated and inefficient government programs – well, that is the only good thing that comes from capitalism. Somehow, running the funds through the filter of government who then divvy them out, changes the funds from merely evil capital, based on worker exploitation, to a wonderful means to a social end. Again, in a parallel with the left in the United States, Will Hutton seeks to use a crisis to further the false cause of enlarging the government’s reach and its strength.
I find it interesting that while the right, conservatives especially, often find themselves fitted with the mantle of being a backward-looking anachronism, the left on both sides of the pond, seem constantly to recycle their failed policies of Keynesian spending and bloated government structures. A strength of conservatives is to not only look to history for measures that work, but to look back, and abandon and prevent measures that have failed. Perhaps the left should finally abandon the continuous failure that is Keynesian economics – but with as rabidly as some support left-wing politics, you have a better chance of having lunch with a Kentucky Derby winner…
Interviewed on PrairieDogma!
I did a reaction post on Obama’s awful State of the Union Address from last evening, and was asked to be a guest on PrairieDogma, a new, weekly show on Spreecast. The interview and discussion of Obama policy lasted just over an hour. I’m grateful to @PrairieDogSD for giving me the time to snark, and for being a great interviewer. I’m also grateful for @NJLibertarian for his expert producer work.
You can find the interview here:
http://www.spreecast.com/events/prairie-dogma-2
Also, brought to you by, The Free Radical Network
Obama’s SOTU: We Must, We Might, I Want
“…and I want a fire truck, and a baseball glove, and a cowboy hat!”
So seemed to go President Obama’s State of the Union wish list. It sounded like Christmas with captive parents in the form of the Congress and a few Supreme Court Justices. Repeatedly, he went so far as to challenge Congress to pass bills, that he would immediately sign.
Interestingly, but hardly surprising to me, was the president’s line that the government should work for the many, not the few.
Why else was this State of the Union such a collassal waste of time for anyone who bothered watching it? Read more here for my thoughts and a few jabs…
http://www.conservativedailynews.com/2013/02/obamas-sotu-we-must-we-might-i-want/
Who’s got a bad case of the “gimmes”?
The Proposal: "Will You Move In With Me?"
Having read Steven Crowder's (@scrowder on twitter) latest controversial column on the benefits of getting married, I feel compelled to voice my opinion as a single, unmarried conservative woman.
The non-marital cohabiting trend seems to have grown more popular in the past decade than wearing tights as pants, and, similarly, leaves bystanders trying not to ask the obvious, awkward questions:
But He’s OUR Criminal!
For the entirety of his two terms in office, belittling and lampooning by the media and left in general, was the typical reaction of progressives to George W. Bush. He was a buffoon, a cowboy, and an idiot, they would have us believe. Bush was a maverick, willing to start wars and carry out the missions from previous administrations (invading Iraq was to finish his father’s war, many on the left claimed).
It seemed like Bush’s mere existence was enough to make some progressives apoplectic, or send them into an angry, profanity-laden, rant.
Read the full post, here: Conservative Daily News
2012 in review
Thank you to everyone who stopped by to read a post, and shared them with their friends!
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 2,700 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 5 years to get that many views.
Obamabots Shocked, Outraged Over New Tax Increases
Poor babies. Irony at its best. Poetic justice. Just punishment? Whatever the case, this is the best feel-good story of the day. Yep, it appears that the cold hard reality of "change we can believe in" has hit the Obamabots like a ton of bricks: their taxes have just gone up and they're mad as hell about it. Couldn't happen to a more deliciously-deserving bunch.
The Left, and Throw-Away Humanity
While the left is content to spew their opinions and opine on subjects that they are dangerously under educated about, the chasm between what they claim and what they do continues to grow wider. The left claims to care so very much about the people, and whatever shortcomings that they face. The reality between the left’s over-reaching legislation and their over-spending, is that they will happily use whatever they must in order to further their own flawed claims and defective logic.
Read the rest at Conservative Daily News
Tools for useful idiots
The “Accomplishments” of Central Planners
As America continues to stumble headlong toward more government-directed “solutions”, it struck me how awfully people have fared under such actions with the guise of help. While having fewer destructive and deathly effects, the current United States leader’s uncritical neglect of many people’s concerns, and unwavering sense of superiority, certainly mirrors the mindsets and machinations of those leaders who created much larger disasters. Throughout the 20th century, there were leaders who were so convinced of their own brilliance, that they did not need any critical thought or feel any need to change their perfect plans.
(Read more here: http://is.gd/tAskNF)
Do as we tell you to do…
Why The Left Doesn’t Want Safe Schools
Who would have a problem with police in schools?
The recent rampage in Newport, Connecticut has the entire country talking about gun rights, safety, and the protection of young, innocent schoolchildren. Fixing the woeful measures of school protection, is a commonly held belief, across politics of all stripes. How best to protect those schoolchildren, however, has any number of suggestions, and just as many critics.
Many centrists and most Republicans support the placing of armed police, either active or retired, in schools. The reasoning goes, as police, they have received plenty of training, both with firearms, and with person-to-person interactions. Met with a threat, police’s first instinct is surely not carelessly to open fire – that is the last option, when talking and negotiating have proven ineffective. Trained to use words first, and lethal force last, is how the police operate.
While thinking about that, and attempting to find problems and flaws with police in schools, I may have inadvertently found a reason why some progressives do not want cops in schools. Much progressive rhetoric relies on the belief that authority is inherently bad, and it should always be questioned, and sometimes engaged physically.
I think here lies the crux of their problem with police in schools. How on earth could police officers who provide safe learning environments be a bad thing? While there are some progressives who actually fear the inanimate object that is a firearm, seeing a mature, responsible authority figure at school with that firearm, would tear down tenets of the progressive orthodoxy.
Students would see and interact with a policeman everyday, learning that police are not the overbearing monsters that many on the left would have the public believe. Add to that the effect of a sidearm tucked safely away in a holster, and the child learns that the gun is not the randomly-firing, crazy-tool-with-a-mind of its own, either. Opposing police in schools also creates a problem with many progressives’ claim that only highly-trained, responsible, licensed people should be allowed to have firearms at all.
If you allow children to see this same responsibility daily, and the children also grow to respect the policemen as more than just an authority (as someone who has sworn to place his own life in between the children’s’ lives and any threat) and you would cause all sorts of short-circuiting with liberal narratives. The schoolchildren will experience cognitive dissonance between the media who love to show the most atrocious police stories possible, and the friendly school protector. The children will also be able to ask the policeman questions and learn from him.
Once that sort of erosion of progressive dogma starts – where would it end? The progressives, already outnumbered, might be forced to defend more of their often illogical and baseless claims, in futile attempt to remain relevant. Why it could be the end of the entire progressive false reality. To me, the positives far outweigh the imagined negatives, and the course is clear – show the children we care enough to protect them from both evil threats, and the misguided progressive claim that guns are inherently evil, and that people should not be able to protect themselves.
Danger – Cliff Ahead!
Reid/Pelosi, Boehner/McConnell
Another day, another fiscal-cliff deal gone down the drain. John Boehner, already taking heat from the right for his softening stance on raising taxes, has come out with another offer to the president and the left. Called “Plan B”, the plan formerly had the support of Nancy Pelosi. Plan B would set the lower limit for raising taxes at the $1 million level. Plan B is very similar to the same bill that had Senate Democrats’ support in 2010.
For her part, in an interview with Andrea Mitchell, Pelosi now says she only supported the plan to “smoke out the Republicans”, and see at what level they would consider raising taxes. Pelosi was negotiating purely in bad faith, it seems. She did not have anything serious to bring to the discussion, and she was merely wasting time. That, or she is negotiating from the standpoint of “getting an inch, and taking a foot”. Whatever her motive was, it is plain to see how destructive and pointless it was.
Mitch McConnell says he would support the Plan B design, but he would do so with reservations. McConnell would rather have a bill that did not raise taxes on anybody. With Boehner’s support of this newest plan, numerous other House members raised objections to the new tax considerations, but they seem to recognize that without any plan, taxes would greatly rise. The gambit now is to “shield” as many people from the massive tax increases as possible. Sean Duffy, Jim Jordan, and Raul Labrador all seemed lukewarm at best to the prospect of voting for any tax increases, with Labrador refusing to even share his criticisms.
Called out for his part (or non-part) in the fiscal-cliff talks was Harry Reid. One Republican adviser said Reid has been on the sidelines for the cliff negotiations. Reid has also claimed that, despite numerous revisions to their positions, and despite the most recent offer, Republicans “…have threatened to abandon serious negotiations”. Perhaps more proof that he is merely running interference for the White House, Reid also claimed that President Obama has not heard from Boehner since Boehner’s new offer on Monday.
President Obama has balked at every offer the Republicans have proposed so far. Threatening a veto of everything has him in the position of a win-win situation. On one hand, if nothing happens, and taxes explode, he can continue to spend, thanks to the new revenues. On the other hand, if the Republicans cave in, he can both claim he negotiated the excellent deal, and privately, he can tell his sycophants he made Boehner and the Republicans submit. White House officials are also now claiming that the President will refuse to negotiate with Republicans out of principle. That of course, will allow President Obama (and Reid) to claim they attempted to negotiate, but were simply prevented from passing any legislation by the blocking Republicans (yet again).
To the left, the worst thing to come of failed fiscal-cliff talks is that President Obama has to postpone leaving for his Christmas vacation. They face: finally getting huge tax increases, yet again, furthering the narrative of a blocking, do-nothing, Republican party, and they get huge military cuts. Merry Christmas, America.
Boehner’s Bogus Bravado
John Boehner, Speaker of the House
In what will surely leave a sour taste in many conservatives’ mouths for some time, Speaker John Boehner has removed several conservative Republicans from leadership positions in the House of Representatives. The story, revealed on December 4th, made mention of a secret list of guidelines and criteria for reappointing Republicans to their chairs. Kansas Republican Tim Huelskamp acknowledged the revelation and existence of this secret list on Tuesday.
So far, the House leadership (Boehner, Cantor, and McCarthy) have been mum about the list, its origins, and why it was necessarily to determine which Republicans are no longer welcomed as leaders of committees. Those leaders attempted to explain the removals were merely normal, procedural, actions. Other angered Republicans expressed their disillusionment with the ridiculous nature of the secrecy and privileged nature of knowledge of the chair removals: Representative Jim Jordan (OH) said this kind of behavior was not good for the party; and Senator Jim DeMint (SC) went so far as to say conservatives “Lost the battle in Washington for now”. The conservative, Club for Growth is calling for the release of the list of criteria used by Boehner to replace the chairs.
Jeb Hensarling, who is the incoming chair of the House Financial Services Committee, claimed ignorance of the entire mess. He just happens to move into a newly opened spot, and knows nothing about the vacated position? Even if Hensarling did have an inkling of a political payback, he is now wise to the game, and he is keeping his mouth tightly closed.
It is interesting that a number of blogs and news sources actually refer to the fiasco, as a purging of conservatives from leadership positions in Washington. I find parallels to 20th century leaders. Feeling threatened, those same leaders - even though their supporters were successful, and showed themselves as loyal adherents of the party orthodoxy – were eliminated as chairmen from leadership positions. Minimizing or eliminating any threats to any top dog (in this case, top-dog Boehner) will occur.
The rise of the Tea Party, and the re-ascendancy of conservative values, have worried the progressives in the United States, and now we see how much the Republican establishment is uneasy too. While a nameless Congressional aide confirms that the removals from the chairs were payback, what does it say about a Republican leadership who would rather snipe and in-fight, than take on progressives in the White House and Senate? It seems like familiarity really does breed contempt. Apparently Boehner would rather stock committees with his sycophants and yes-men, than appoint responsibly spending conservatives, voted into the House by their constituents, to chairs of fiscal committees.
The years of conservative criticism that Boehner was nothing more than an ineffective, establishment shill, seem to finally have the evidence anyone would ever require to confirm their belief. Boehner’s frequent crying episodes, and his tough-guy-only-to-cave-to-Democrat-demands acts have grown very thin. Boehner has done little, if anything, to curb Obama’s runaway debts and deficits, or to counter progressives’ deceitful claims about Republicans, or even hold the Senate responsible for tabling so much that the House has passed and sent to the body. Boehner’s media presence is lacking, his laid back nature is contrary to what is needed right now, and his frequent bouts of one-sided “compromise” are antithetical to conservatives’ belief that there is one way to conduct politics: competently, fiscally responsibly, and at the direction of their constituents, not special interests.
How do you deal with a politician like John Boehner? Do you call his Congressional office, and leave a strongly-worded message? Do you scowl and swear whenever you see Boehner’s mug on the television screen? Do you buy an overly-tanned voodoo doll and some stick pins? Of course not. You hit him where he has shown he has soft spots. You make him worry about the people that he has shown he fears. Conservatives must take every opportunity to hold his feet not only to the fire, but in the fire. It is clear that Boehner may need to be primaried to send a message to him. If so, do it, and get him to debate, to explain his frequent collapses to the Democrats and his wishy-washy support of fiscal responsibility. Whatever it takes, Boehner ought to be run out of town on a rail.
