Category Archives: Politics

Quote of the day—Roberta X

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Mitt’s probably the best practical hope — and a thin, thin reed indeed. Changing the slope isn’t the same as reversing the slope.

Roberta X
September 27, 2012
“Not Getting it” Less Is Not The Same As Having A Clue
[I agree. And as near as I can tell the slope is such that sliding off the “cliff” is pretty close to inevitable. No set of viable politicians will be, or can be, elected that have the political capital to reverse the slope. Approximately 47% of the population is dependent upon the slope remaining the same or increasing. Reaching them and getting them to vote against their own short term best interest is extremely unlikely.

I see the communists and socialists passing out flyers on the street corners and signs, speeches and chanting in the park across the street from where I work. I feel a chill up my back when I wonder if these are the same indicators that foretold the coming to power of the tyrannical governments of the USSR, China, Italy, and Germany and the deaths of 100+ million people in the last century.

I understand the psychology of postponing the chaos, hardships, and horrors of the “safety net” (it’s really more of a trampoline that bounces people up and then off into the dirt at a later time) and the “guarantees” of other “free” stuff people have come to depend on going away. But it’s going to happen. The only questions are when, how massive the disruption will be, and the form of society as we reboot. Is postponing it going to make it less painful or more? Without data and very little rational thought to support the belief I believe it will make it more painful.

I will vote in a few weeks but without passion or even “practical hope”, as Roberta put it, the elections can change much. I’m betting my best interest is in continuing to invest in copper, lead, brass, nitrogen based chemicals, food production, and smart capable friends as my hedge against inflation and the big “splat” at the bottom of the cliff.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Bubblehead Les

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If there’s any conflict between Hillary and the Chicoms, it’s kinda like the difference between a Maoist and a Trotskyite.

Bubblehead Les
September 26, 2012
Comment to She’s a libertarian all of a sudden.
[In political philosophy anyway. Hillary wouldn’t want to play second fiddle to Mao or Trotsky.

I’ve read a fair amount about Hillary. She is smart, extremely ambitious, craves power, and the ice water in her veins is pumped by a heart of steel.—Joe]

Random thought of the day

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If people “are crazy, can’t be trusted, and need to be regulated and controlled”, as one Socialist recently told me, then doesn’t that mean that government which are made up of people need the same type of supervision?

It would seem to me that, if you value consistency and hence truth, you must conclude that either both people and governments made up of people need to be controlled or governments/supervisors must be made up of greater beings.

Governments which rule by divine authority have an extremely poor record of generating peace, prosperity, and happiness. Hence I think we can dismiss them outright. That leaves us with governments which have some degree of control over their actions or no control.

Again it would seem the choice is clear. Governments with no controls upon them are historically hostile to peace, prosperity, and happiness. Hence the only question would seem to be how much control. What is the optimal amount of control for a government and it’s people such that some measure of “public good” is optimized?

I suspect we have all the data we really need to answer that question. We have 50 states with various amounts of controls upon the government and the people living in those environments. The question can thus be refined a bit more. How do you measure “public good” and how do the various states rate using that system of measurement? Do there exist states with too much or too little control of government and/or their people? Or can it be shown that all states have too much/little control over government and/or the people and we need to increase/decrease the scope of the regulation of government/people in our experiments to find the optimum?

I think I know the answer but I’m willing to look at the data to see if my hypothesis is correct.

Or course there is also the valid concern of natural rights and where government gets it’s authority to regulated and control people. That is my preferred domain to have a discussion about limits on governments. But it’s challenge enough to get people to think about facts and results. Getting them to think about fundamental principles is generally an advanced topic beyond the scope of ordinary discourse.

Who wants to move to Honduras with me?

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Via Say Uncle.

This is very appealing to me. It almost sounds like Galt’s Gulch:

Small government and free-market capitalism are about to get put to the test in Honduras, where the government has agreed to let an investment group build an experimental city with no taxes on income, capital gains or sales.

Proponents say the tiny, as-yet unnamed town will become a Central American beacon of job creation and investment, by combining secure property rights with minimal government interference.

“Once we provide a sound legal system within which to do business, the whole job creation machine – the miracle of capitalism – will get going,” Michael Strong, CEO of the MKG Group, which will build the city and set its laws, told FoxNews.com.

Strong said that the agreement with the Honduran government states that the only tax will be on property.

“Our goal is to be the most economically free entity on Earth,” Strong said.

…

The laws in the city will be separate from those in the rest of Honduras. Strong said that the default law that will be enforced in the city will actually be based on Texas state law, which has relatively few regulations.

“It will be Texas law with more freedom of contract. Texas scores well on state economic freedom rankings,” he explained.

Hmmm… I wonder what I could build and export using native labor and materials.

Quote of the day—Atlas Shrugged Part II Trailer

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If you think you have the right to use force against me bring guns.

Atlas Shrugged Part II Trailer
September 5, 2012

That really resonated with me. But then the entire book did.

There are a bunch of other good quotes in there too.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Thomas Glenchur

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2000 guns enter Mexico per day! ATF lost maybe 600 net over the entire operation period of Fast and Furious operation. While it is small consolation to the grieving of Mexico, a disproportionate 40% of the 2000 guns per day are arriving directly from the United States. Because the smugglers are shielded within the “gun rights” industrial complex, no one has had the courage to directly challenge them by regulation. Issa’s witch hunt has a perverse agenda to tie up law enforcement’s hands against weapons regulations that protect Mexicans and Americans.

Thomas Glenchur
September 20, 2012
Comment to Illegal guns from ‘Fast and Furious’ still on street
[2000 per day? Only 600? “‘gun rights’ industrial complex”? Wow! Glenchur is suffering from Peterson Syndrome, is living in an alternate universe and only visits here, or he is one of those “I know the truth in my heart of hearts” types.

Another commenter, Gary Villa, responded and provided a template to straighten him out but I can’t imagine Glenchur used it:

This is not even remotely true. There is only one official US Government assessment of the number of guns smuggled into Mexico from the US. It is the 2009 GAO report on the issue, compiled from the ATF’s own trace data – “FIREARMS TRAFFICKING:
U.S. Efforts to Combat Arms Trafficking to Mexico Face Planning and Coordination Challenges”. Google it. The report is still on the GAO website. Pay special attention to the Dept. of Homeland Security letter attached in the appendix, expressing concern that the data be accurately represented so as not to portray the number of guns being more than it actually was, exactly as the Obama administration did just before F&F was launched.

Over 5 years, the total number of guns found to have been smuggled into Mexico from the US was only 3450 out of over 30,000 total seized. That’s fewer than 700 guns/year, nowhere near your ridiculous figure of 2000/day. Also, the types of guns that were found to have been smuggled were almost all cheap handguns, not AK-47s, which is what the F&F idiots allowed to walk. In addition, according to US State Department documents released by Wikileaks, the vast majority of guns going to the cartels are those sold to the Mexican government through the US State Department itself, as part of US military aid, not guns purchased from US businesses and smuggled across the border. Why pay retail for small numbers of neutered civilian semi-autos and risk smuggling them across the border when the US State Department, led by Hilary Clinton, will have fully-automatic military assault rifles, grenades, and anti-tank weapons delivered to your doorstep in bulk and at wholesale prices?

The Obama administration knew about both the GAO report showing that gun smuggling was not a significant source, and their own State Department reports that the guns from their direct sales were, months before the beginning of Fast and Furious. So, the ATF claims that they launched F&F to combat a problem that their own best data said didn’t exist, and walked a type of gun their own data said was not preferred by smugglers, but which the administration has repeatedly said it would like to ban. Yeah, none of that is suspicious.

By the way, those same guns WERE regulated, under Clinton, and his own administration admitted that their regulations had no measurable effect on any form of crime.

It’s hard to believe someone can be so out of touch with reality but I’ve sat across the table and talked to people like that for hours. They apparently have happy productive lives as take out clerks at the grocery store and reluctantly vote for Obama because a more socialist candidate isn’t available.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Brandon Smith

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What is it that makes Keynesians so insanely self destructive? Is it their mindless blind faith in the power of government? Their unfortunate ignorance of the mechanics of monetary stimulus? Their pompous self-righteousness derived from years of intellectual idiocy? Actually, I suspect all of these factors play a role. Needless to say, many of them truly believe that the strategy of fiat injection is viable, even though years of application have proven absolutely fruitless. Anyone with any sense would begin to question what kind of madness it takes to pursue or champion the mindset of the private Federal Reserve bank…

Quantitative easing has shown itself to be impotent in the improvement of America’s economic situation. Despite four years of free reign in central banking, employment remains dismal in the U.S., the housing market continues its freefall, and, our national debt swirls like a vortex at the heart of the Bermuda Triangle. Despite this abject failure of Keynesian theory, the Federal Reserve is attempting once again to convince you, the happy-go-lucky American citizen, that somehow, this time around, everything will be “different”.

Brandon Smith
September 14, 2012
Get Ready For An Epic Fiat Currency Avalanche
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Sen. Chuck Grassley

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It’s clear that both the ATF and the Justice Department failed to provide meaningful oversight of Operation Fast and Furious. They ignored warnings from employees, and frankly, failed to do their jobs. It took the death of our own Border Patrol agent, action by a courageous whistleblower and intense scrutiny from Congress before they even took note of what was happening under their own eyes. Even then, they wouldn’t come clean with how bad it really was until after they had sent a false letter and retracted it eight months later.

Sen. Chuck Grassley
September 19, 2012
14 face discipline in Fast and Furious probe
[I have nothing to add but I’m doing some price checking on tar and feathers.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Lyle

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Special Interest; any interest with which communists disagree.

Lyle
September 11, 2012
Comment to Quote of the day—Suzanne Langland.
[This didn’t really catch my eye until Windy Wilson commented, “Lyle, ‘Liberty shouldn’t be a special interest’ does fit on a bumper sticker.”

I’m inclined to respectfully disagree with that being on a bumper sticker. I think the proper phrasing should be “Liberty is not a special interest.”—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jim Treacher

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This is an example of why comedians tend to leave Obama alone. It’s not that they’re afraid of being called racists. It’s because he’s beyond parody.

Jim Treacher
September 13, 2012
Middle East explodes, Obama’s palace guard digs in
[Well… I suspect there is a little bit of fear of being called racists. But still the raw facts are enough that parody is difficult.

H/T to Breda.—Joe]

Toast

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I realize that predictions can be hard. Well, predictions are easy, but making accurate ones is a bit more difficult.

This week, the Chicago teachers union went on strike, turning down a 16% pay increase (4% per year for four years), even though they are one of the most highly compensated districts in the nation, while simultaneously turning in bottom quintile performance. Teachers unions are one of the most rabid pro-Obama groups out there. On the the other side of the dispute is Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s former chief of staff, infamous for hard-nosed, in-your-face negotiation.

In Lybia, the US embassy was attacked and Ambassador Stevens was killed, and I’m now seeing reports that embassy security was being provided by Libyan nationals, who may have helped in his murder, NOT US Marines (the two that were killed there were last second additions when things got violent).

Obama has told Israel to take a flying leap in so many different ways recently it’s not easy to list them all, and it looks like they are getting itchy to pull the trigger on dealing with the Iranian nuke thing.

Prediction: If Obama doesn’t pull some serious magic out of his hat in the next week or so on at least two of these issues, he’s toast. Not just lightly toasted, but burned-to-a-crisp toast. Utterly humiliated. A defeat that will be compared to Carter for the rest of US history. Something that most American’s can’t stand is weakness in a leader, and pretty much all the options he might take on these three issues to appeal to his base will repel the undecided middle. On the other hand, any sort of strong action that might sway the persuadable middle his direction will infuriate much of his base, and do nothing to change minds among the conservative base. The optics are horrible for him no matter which way he goes, and the campaign spots nearly write themselves. Of course, he’s got the Mainstream Media flying air-cover for him, but even they can only do so much, and when it looks like he’s on a failing course they will turn on him to save the liberal ideology (by saying it was the messenger, not the message).

So, barring some actions he has so far shown absolutely no ability to perform, I think we are seeing a major turning point in the election.

Quote of the day—Friedrich Nietzsche

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Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.

Friedrich Nietzsche
[After dinner last night at the Gun Blogger Rendezvous several of us stayed up late talking. One of the topics was the inability of the anti-gun people to think logically. In many cases they claim to simple “know” the truth. Nietzsche was a pretty sharp guy.

See also this quote from Nietzsche.—Joe]

It’s time to move on

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Sometimes it takes a while for you to figure it out. Sometimes it’s easier to not “rock the boat” and just stay with what you have because of fear of the unknown. But there are times when it’s obvious you need to dump them, heal as best as you can and move on. As the woman in the video below point out after four years it’s now obvious what needs to be done.

Quote of the day—Evan Thomas

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I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above- above the world, he’s sort of God.

Evan Thomas
July 2009
From What Liberals Say.
[And how is that god working out for you now?—Joe]

Quote of the day—Mike Lillis

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The Democrats’ approach to gun control is far too timid and needs a boost of courage to be effective.

Mike Lillis
September 2, 2012
Dem platform calls for gun control, but advocates pan language as timid
[H/T Say Uncle.

Bring it on.

Apparently Lillis doesn’t realize it we have been engaged in a fifth generation war against anti-gun people for over 40 years and we won. We are in the middle of mopping up spots of resistance. It’s helpful when they self identify so we can target them for political extinction.—Joe]

Happy Commie Day

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Today is a national holiday celebrating the European, and very un-American, idea of the Balkanization of society into classes, and specifically celebrating the “labor class”.  I won’t bother trying to unpack all the layers upon layers, and the sub layers upon sub layers of false assumption behind it.  Instead I make the very American assertion that every one of us, regardless of circumstance, is an autonomous entrepreneur.


We aren’t born into classes or groups.  We are born, or immigrate, into the American Experiment.  We may decide to sell our “labor” (and in this case I use the word as a practical noun or a verb as opposed to a classification) to someone else as a part of our life plan, or we may decide to go more or less directly into our own businesses, but neither choice is one that is foisted on us by society.


Actually; whether you are selling your labor to someone else’s business, whether you’re selling products or services under your own personal business banner, or whether you serve on the board of directors for a large corporation, you are in fact your own business.  If your name is Billy Bob and you shovel manure for a dairy farmer, you should think of yourself as Billy Bob’s shoveling service.  You are your own boss (to the extent anyone is his own boss, which is small).  Anyone serving as his own boss needs customers (they’re the real bosses don’t you know – they control the money you’re looking to get) and in this case your customer is that farmer.  You serve your customer and in return you get paid.  That’s a business you’re in, whether you understand it or not.  You’re an entrepreneur.  Get your head straight and make the best of it.


“Labor” in the communist sense is something altogether different.  In that case, as a laborer you are in a group pitted against the other classes in a political struggle for resources and perks.  Your class or group is in direct competition with all others, for a piece of the confiscated booty.  It’s gang against gang.  Your gang is the only one that counts and all other gangs are your enemies.  The pinnacle of success for your gang is when you take over full control of the government.


In the American model on the other hand, you are an autonomous operator– a business consisting of one individual.  You compete for the favor of potential customers in a system of property rights protection.  Your only method of success then is to do a better job in serving your customers.  Lobbying, or the brute strength of gangs (or labor unions) then has little or no place, because there is no power in government to lend favor to your business at the expense of others.  Government has no rights to itself – only the responsibility to protect every individual’s property rights.  Cooperation in the form of combined resources (the corporation model) does have a place, because the economy of scale (usually but not always) allows a larger business to produce better goods or services at lower prices.  It is the height of a polite and just civilization.


Too bad the American system has been corrupted by the Progressive communist movement into something ugly.  They make it ugly by getting government’s coercive power involved in it, then use that ugliness to tell us that “capitalism” doesn’t work.  Lying scum.


I’ll call this Lying Scum Day then.  Have a happy one, suckers.

Quote of the day—H. L. Mencken

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The theory behind representative government is that superior men—or at all events, men not inferior to the average in ability and integrity—are chosen to manage the public business, and that they carry on this work with reasonable intelligence and honesty. There is little support for that theory in the known facts…

H. L. Mencken
From Minority Report, H. L. Mencken’s Notebooks, Knopf, 1956.
[And, sadly, representative government is better than all other forms attempted.—Joe]

The Clint Speech

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No one can honestly say Clint Eastwood isn’t a great actor.
Nor can they say he’s a bad director. He has acted in, directed, produced, produced
music for, or even three all four of those, in seven movies in just the last four
years. His most recent interviews have shown him to be sharp, eloquent, and
engaged. If you saw Gran Torino in
the theater, you could watch a movie he wrote, directed, produced, and made
music for, and watch a trailer for an upcoming movie he directed and produced. His
brain is fully functioning.

So, why and how did his speech at the RNC seem so… rambling, unfocused, edgy, and odd? If we KNOW he’s mentally all there, what
was he doing? If we assume he was doing exactly
what he intended to do, what was he intending?

I think that the republican base is going to vote for Mitt,
some enthusiastically, some holding their nose, but they’ll vote for him
none-the-less. The Dem base will likewise vote for O. No-one on a national
stage will convince that 90% of the electorate of anything different, only
personal experience or epiphany will change anything for them. I think he’s
smart enough to know that, so he wasn’t talking to any of them. He’s an actor and director – focusing on reaching the target audience is what he does.

But, if the R convention attendees and typical convention watchers and committed D or R voters are not his audience, then who was he speaking
to? Perhaps it was the very-low-information voter, the apolitical working-stiff,
the disengaged voter, who recognizes a movie star but has nary a clue who their rep
or senator is, who ANY of the SCOTUS are, and don’t normally watch conventions.
Perhaps he chose to speak in a way that makes all the well-scripted speakers and high-information voters cringe, but in a way that
was different, weird, and odd, but also put humor and the strange right next to the
hard-hitting stuff, so when it got played and replayed and discussed by various
folks in all sorts of outlets, both by those who agree AND those who disagree,
it will get those fundamental facts, like highlighting there are 23,000,000
unemployed, out to many of those low-info voters, and will sway them. It got
the movie-going-but-not-political voter to tune in, and stay and watch Rubio. It
created an instant icon for the politically-absent president, the empty chair. He used unexpected and oblique off-color humor that perfectly captured the essence of the trash-talking Chicago bully in the White House. It
is possible, when we look back on that moment three months from now, that it
will be seen as an absolutely brilliant piece of seeming scatter-brained-improve
that shifted that all-important indecisive, low-information, non-ideological
middle, the folks that vote with their hearts but not their brains. Either that, or it’s one of the fasted pieces of rapid-onset dementia
ever.

Atlas is shrugging

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Although it doesn’t show up on balance sheets I’m sure there is intellectual capital that is headed for Gault’s Gulch as well as the financial capital:

Spain saw close to a 40 percent rise in capital outflow in June, Bank of Spain data showed on Friday, as investor confidence in a country struggling to balance its public accounts eroded further.

The central bank reported that net capital outflow, not including central bank operations, was 56.6 billion euros ($71 billion) in June, after an outflow of 41.3 billion euros in May.

A total of 315.6 billion euros of capital has left the country in the year to end-June, equivalent to nearly one-third of the country’s economic output. In the first half of 2012 capital outflow was 220 billion euros.

Emphasis added.

This is one of the Achilles Heels of the “tax the rich” schemes. Those that demand “tax the rich, feed the poor, until there are rich no more” can succeed, but the success is achieved in an unintended manner. The rich, in essence, evaporate. They either leave the country and take both their intellectual and financial wealth with them or they say, “It’s not worth it” and just stop producing wealth. In either case the looters run out of places to loot. The end result is that everyone is worse off than if the looters had produced wealth on their own rather than demanded they be given the wealth of others.

Socialism is like a herd of hogs turned loose in a corn field. They feed extraordinarily well for a few days but destroy the crop that should have lasted through the winter and provided seed for the following year.

Quote of the day—Stu Ronaldson

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We are not your citizens. The actual relationship is that you are our elected official. You answer to us. Apparently, you’ve lost a little perspective. The reason the founders included the 2nd amendment was so that, if necessary, we could remove politicians that lost perspective. Regardless of your personal delusions, Mr. Pawlowski, Allentown is not your little kingdom where you can wave a scepter and institute what you want, when you want.

In America, Mr. Pawlowski, the people and the Constitution are in charge.

Stu Ronaldson
August 28, 2012
The Left’s New Gun-Control Strategy
[I’ve said essentially the same thing before but in a more general sense. It probably is beneficial to be a little more direct to an individual politician that is getting a little too uppity. Good job Stu.—Joe]