Category Archives: Political Commentary

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

Resisting

16 Comments

…by refusing to spend:

Most in media do not understand the reality of this deliberately reduced and postponed spending as a political resistance movement. But that’s what it is. I’ve talked to many affluent entrepreneurs and professionals who have worked hard for years to finally reach their present income levels. They are intentionally refusing to spend money as a means of protest.

I was recently thinking about replacing my Ford Explorer with a new SUV, at minimum a new Explorer, but perhaps a Lincoln Navigator or Cadillac Escalade. The day Obama first trumpeted the proposed 5.4 percent tax surcharge on gross income of us high-productivity, high-responsibility, high income earners I changed my mind. Instead I spent $514.00 getting a little fender ding months old fixed, paint scratches touched up and the car detailed. The $30,000.00 or $40,000.00 I would have spent on the new car – and I’m a cash buyer – can sleep idly in the bank until the man who has chosen me as his target is gone. And I view it as deliberately depriving him of spending he desperately needs to help his economy. He needs me and others like me buying a new car a whole lot more than I need one.

There are lots of ways to go Galt. Socialists underestimate the ability of the producers to thwart their theft. Of course, we know what Stalin’s solution was for that with respect to the kulaks. Fortunately, they haven’t gotten the guns yet.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The Good Old Days

24 Comments

Remembering when dissent was patriotic:

On March 16, USA Today reported that Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum “was among dozens of members of Congress who ran gantlets of demonstrators and shouted over hecklers at Social Security events last month. Many who showed up to protest were alerted by e-mails and bused in by anti-Bush organizations such as MoveOn.org and USAction, a liberal advocacy group. They came with prepared questions and instructions on how to confront lawmakers.”

This was just good, boisterous politics: “Robust, wide-open debate.” But when it happens to Democrats, it’s something different: A threat to democracy, a sign of incipient fascism, and an opportunity to set up a (possibly illegal) White House “snitch line” where people are encouraged to report “fishy” statements to the authorities.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls the “Tea Party” protesters Nazis, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman –forgetting the events above — claims that left-leaning groups never engaged in disruptive tactics against Social Security reform, and various other administration-supporting pundits are trying to spin the whole thing as a deadly move toward “mob rule” and – somewhat contradictorily — as a phony “astroturf” movement.

Remember: When lefties do it, it’s called “community organizing.” When conservatives and libertarians do it, it’s “astroturf.”

But some people are noticing the truth. As Mickey Kaus notes, “If an ‘astroturfing’ campaign gets real people to show up at events stating their real views, isn’t it … community organizing?” Why yes, yes it is.

As someone who’s been following the Tea Party campaign since the beginning, it seems to me to be the most genuine outbreak of grassroots popular involvement in my lifetime. People have been turning out, in the tens of thousands at times, because they feel that Obama pulled a bait-and-switch and is moving the country much farther to the left than he promised during the campaign.

I don’t know whether Paul Krugman (and some of my commenters) suffers from amnesia and false memories, or is simply lying for his political cause. And I’m not sure which is worse.

[Update a couple minutes later]

The community grows restless.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

Why To Oppose Government Spending

7 Comments

A good point:

…even if unemployment does start to decline steadily this year, the larger point is that the growth of government means a lessening of individual liberty. You have less control of your life, and bureaucrats have more. Would it be desirable to live in a country with only 1 percent unemployment — as Germany and the USSR sometimes had in the 1930s — but have almost no ability to earn and accumulate property and wealth?

The current efforts to centralize power in Washington must be resisted because they substitute the authority of the state for our individual autonomy over the direction of our lives. Only secondarily should we oppose massive spending because it does not work.

But we should also oppose it because it doesn’t work. There is no up side to it for us — only for those who would rule us.

Humor, Political Commentary, Satire

A Crisis Of Confidence

10 Comments

American’s government is losing faith in its out-of-touch constituents. A heart-rending editorial by Arlen Sphinecter and Secretary Sebelius:

Like hundreds of our fellow legislators and government officials, we recently traveled to a town hall meeting to distribute a grassroots press release explaining why this critical legislation is a done deal. Our advance staffs said that should anticipate a respectful, positive hearing from local media and bused-in union members. Instead we were greeted by a rude howling mob of idiot “voters” who refused to listen to reason, and ruined what should have been a killer photo op for our re-election ad campaign.

Have these arrogant ivory tower armchair quarterbacks ever had to live with the pressures of being a working stiff Senator or Cabinet Secretary in Washington DC? Have they ever had to juggle markup language on a supplemental appropriations bill, or deal with an incompetent Chief of Staff who constantly double-books fund raising dinners? Apparently not, if their whiny obnoxious chants are any indication. “Read the Bill! Read the Bill!” blah, blah, blah, as if we weren’t already exhausted from writing and voting for the damned thing.

The nerve of these people.

[Update a few minutes later]

More from the Hawk of Iowa: “Know Your Town-Hall Mob Agitators“:

Pay them no heed, for these outside agitators in no way represent any threat to our great patriotic push forward for increased citizen heathfulness! These well-dressed prep school gangsters of reaction seek only to frighten and demoralize and intimidate you, with their confusing “facts” and hob-nailed Sperry Topsiders. Unfortunately they are joined in conspiracy by a well-financed network of unlicensed blogs and talk radio traitors, who exaggerate their numbers and percolate disinformation — even cleverly staged YouTube videos of an impostor President Obama saying “quotes”!

Remain strong, citizen, for the day of their comeuppance is near! Patriotic spontaneous volunteers from MoveOn.org, Organizing For America, HCAN, SEIU, AFSCME, ACORN, NPR, and MSNBC have all pledged independent grassroots efforts to spread the word about the health-hating tricksters and their transparent astroturf agitation campaign!

You too can help by remaining ever-vigilant for health traitors in your local sectors. But beware: though small in number the state health reform enemy is clever, and well trained in subterfuge and disguise by his monopolist paymasters. Your job is to recognize his signs, and report any fishy-seeming protest or blog activities to me or other official authorities within the Health Care Truth Ministry. Here is a visual training course to help you in the execution of this important patriotic duty.

Read all, and be alert. As we all know, the world can always use more lerts.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

True Health-Care Reform

22 Comments

(Dr.) Charles Krauthammer has a rational plan — tort reform and severing the connection between employment and health insurance. Sounds good to me. Unfortunately for the fascists, it doesn’t provide an opening for the government to take over a major portion of the economy, and your health and well being. And of course, this is what, in their lies, they call “proposing to do nothing.”

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

They Told Me That If I Voted Republican…

18 Comments

…that black people would get beaten up by racist thugs in the streets. And they were right:

Last night in St. Louis, Missouri, a local conservative found out firsthand about the “Chicago way.” Kenneth Gladney, a black conservative from the city, was handing out “Don’t Tread On Me” flags after a Russ Carnahan town hall meeting on health care in Mehlville. This didn’t go over well with the Obama supporters and union thugs who attended the meeting. They punched him in the face, kicked him in the head, and stomped on him on the pavement. So much for hope and change.

Well, the change is that they probably won’t be prosecuted for it, as they probably would have been under a Bush Justice Department.

[Update a while later]

This is a pretty incredible story. I mean, violence from union members? Who’s ever heard of such a thing? Anyway, I expect that at his next news conference, the president will point out that the man handing out the signs was behaving stupidly.

[Update late afternoon (Pacific)]

Mary Katherine Ham has an interview. I heard one with him on Cavuto in the car at lunchtime as well. It will be interesting to hear if the ACLU or NAACP has anything to say about it. Or if the latter lives down to its name of the association of “liberal” colored people.

[Update a few minutes later]

And as usual, what does a Democrat do when confronted with wrongdoing by his supporters? Blame it on Republicans.

[Another update]

I’m on the left coast, so I missed this episode with my own (worthless, or actually of negative worth) Florida Congressman (soon to be be my ex-Congressman, since we’re almost certainly moving somewhere, and probably back here to LA):

Though only a handful of constituents typically show up at the Lighthouse Point public library once a month with questions for U.S. Rep. Ron Klein’s staffers — often questions about Social Security checks or passport applications — this time about 100 people packed the room for two hours.

The group was rowdy, rude and fired up about healthcare.

“Where the hell is Klein?” demanded Republican activist Ana Gomez-Mallada, even though the congressman was not scheduled to be there. Others branded him a “coward” and a “communist.”

The natives are definitely (and justifiably) growing restless.

Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Restoring NIAC?

4 Comments

One of the stupidest and most criminal results of Constellation’s crowding out the rest of the NASA budget was the dismantling of the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts two years ago. It was only costing a few million dollars a year, and that trivial amount of money, which was providing tremendous bang for the NASA buck, was taken to be poured down the multi-billion-dollar Ares rat hole. Now, apparently, there’s talk of resurrecting it. That would be a small, but vital step in getting the agency back on the right track, if the new administrator follows the advice.