Category Archives: Political Commentary

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Major Category Error

32 Comments

This comment just showed up in my post on media double standards on the DHS thing, and it makes a very common error among the left.

Amazing – Republicans are outraged when the DHS, a monster of their own creation, turns against them.

Two points. First, I am not now, and have never been, a Republican. The people who are outraged are not “Republicans” but rather, small-government types and veterans, the two groups that were slandered. It may be that many of them happen to be Republicans (and certainly many more than are Democrats), but this is not about Republicans.

The second point is that I was never in favor of a Department of Homeland Security, so the notion that I’m somehow hoist on my own petard here is hilariously ignorant.

Moreover, I was opposed to many things that the Bush administration did, and continue to be. That doesn’t mean, though, that I was going to vote for the Democrats, because on most of the issues on which I disagreed with the Bush administration, the Dems would have been even worse. And that’s what the tea parties are about. They’re not Republican rallies, because many of those attending them are as angry at Republicans as they are at Democrats. They are an expression of anger at the political class as a whole.

And for those who whine about the lack of tea parties over the Bush deficits, sometimes quantity has a quality all its own. There’s a concept called a tipping point. There was anger over the Bush spending (anger that I expressed myself, often), but it only became incandescent when it became so outrageous, with a projected budget that generates more deficit and debt in a few months than the Bush administration had generated in almost eight years. This anger didn’t start when President Obama took office, though he has certainly increased it. It started last fall, when the Bush administration started handing out taxpayer money by the hundreds of billions with no oversight or accountability.

No, I’m not a Republican. But the Republicans have a chance to finally make me one, if they can listen to the tea partiers today, and recognize the error of their ways. I won’t hold my breath, though, based on a lifetime of experience.

Philosophy, Political Commentary

Classical Versus Modern Liberals

3 Comments

Alan Wolfe says there’s no distinction between them. Jonah Goldberg says that this is palpable nonsense:

Classical liberalism believed in objective rules constraining and delineating the role of government. Modern liberalism, born at the beginning of the twentieth century, holds that there are no rules rooted outside the prevailing sentiments of liberals themselves. It’s all up to what liberals decide is necessary. Stuart Chase — who reportedly coined the phrase “the New Deal” — argued that it was vital that liberals be put in charge of an “economic dictatorship.” “Why,” he asked, “should the Russians have all the fun remaking the world?” Thurmond Arnold, one of the intellectual titans of the New Deal, defined liberalism as “deuces wild.” Dewey believed there was no such thing as natural rights and argued for things like “social control.” Wilson believed that the U.S. Constitution — a classically liberal document, I think it’s fair to say — needed to be scrapped for a new, living constitution. Call me crazy, but I find these to be contrary, not merely “evolutionary” perspectives.

And he has some interesting thoughts from Albert Jay Nock:

…one never knew what Liberals would do, and their power of self-persuasion is such that only God knows what they would not do. As casuists, they make Gury and St. Alfonso dei Liguori look like bush-leaguers. On every point of conventional morality, all the Liberals I have personally known were very trustworthy. They were great fellows for the Larger Good, but it would have to be pretty large before they would alienate your wife’s affections or steal your watch. But on any point of intellectual integrity, there is not one of them whom I would trust for ten minutes alone in a room with a red-hot stove, unless the stove were comparatively valueless.

Liberals generally,—there may have been exceptions, but I do not know who they were,—joined in the agitation for an income-tax, in utter disregard of the fact that it meant writing the principle of absolutism into the Constitution. Nor did they give a moment’s thought to the appalling social effects of an income-tax; I never once heard this aspect of the matter discussed. Liberals were also active in promoting the “democratic” movement for the popular election of senators. It certainly took no great perspicacity to see that these two measures would straightway ease our political system into collectivism as soon as some Eubulus, some mass-man overgifted with sagacity, should manoeuvre himself into popular leadership; and in the nature of things, this would not be long.

All too prophetic.

[Early evening update]

Another nice find on Nock and liberalism:

The facts are clearly apparent. We now see on all sides the extraordinary spectacle of Liberals doing their best to destroy the cardinal freedoms and immunities which Liberals formerly defended, while all the forces which are historically and traditionally known as Tory or Conservative are arrayed in defense of those freedoms. Furthermore we see Liberals vehemently vilifying those who hold to the original basic principles of Liberalism, denouncing them as enemies of society, and doing all they can to discredit and disable them. These two are probably the strangest anomalies that recent history presents.

Of course, it’s become an old story by now.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The Injustice Of The Death Tax

35 Comments

I hadn’t realized this.

It explains why Warren Buffet likes it.

Far from merely preventing people from buying “second yachts,” the death tax routinely forces small to medium-sized private businesses with a few million dollars in assets to be liquidated, simply in order to pay the tax. Such businesses usually have to be sold to large corporations at distressed prices. Two famous examples are the once-family-owned Buffalo News and Dairy Queen — both snapped up by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.

Moreover, the death tax is an effective $12 billion annual subsidy to the life insurance industry, according to Dick Patten of the American Family Business Institute. As the purveyors of the financial product of choice for avoiding the tax, the industry has lobbied heavily to keep it in place. (It should come as little surprise that Buffett, who also made a fortune in life insurance, is a big supporter of the tax.)

Leeches.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Double Standard

81 Comments

Can you imagine the howls of outrage from all of the nation’s editorial pages, and the heads exploding on MSNBC, if the Bush administration DHS had put out a document that said things like this?

(U) Leftwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular economic classes, and religious groups, particularly Christianity), and those that are mainly pro-government, preferring federal authority and particularly federal judicial rulings over state or local authority. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to restrictions on abortion, immigration, or gay marriage.

(U//LES) Leftwing extremists are harnessing this historical election as a recruitment tool. Many leftwing extremists are antagonistic toward the Bush administration and its perceived stance on a range of issues, including treatment of prisoners in Guantamo and its Iraq policy, restricting affirmative action to minorities, and funding restrictions on abortions overseas and embryonic stem-cell research. Leftwing extremists are increasingly galvanized by these concerns and leverage them as drivers for recruitment. From the 2004 election timeframe to the present, leftwing extremists have capitalized on related racial and political prejudices in expanded propaganda campaigns, thereby reaching out to a wider audience of potential sympathizers.

(U) Exploiting Unhappiness With Iraq

(U//FOUO) Leftwing extremist chatter on the Internet continues to focus on the Iraqi death toll, the perceived loss of civil rights and restrictions on abortion rights. Anti-Semitic extremists attribute these losses to a deliberate conspiracy conducted by a cabal of Jewish “financial elites” favoring Israel. These “accusatory” tactics are employed to draw new recruits into leftwing extremist groups and further radicalize those already subscribing to extremist beliefs. DHS/I&A assesses this trend is likely to accelerate if the war situation is perceived to worsen.

(U//FOUO) Over the past several years, various leftwing extremists, including socialist groups such as International A.N.S.W.E.R and Hispanic supremacists such as La Raza, have adopted the immigration issue as a call to action, rallying point, and recruiting tool. Debates over appropriate immigration levels and enforcement policy generally fall within the realm of protected political speech under the First Amendment, but in some cases, pro-immigration or strident anti-enforcement fervor has been directed against specific groups and has the potential to turn violent.

(U) Disgruntled Military Veterans

(U//FOUO) DHS/I&A assesses that leftwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to exploit their skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat. These skills and knowledge have the potential to boost the capabilities of extremists—including lone wolves or small terrorist cells—to carry out violence. The willingness of a small percentage of military personnel to join extremist groups during the 1990s because they were disgruntled, disillusioned, or suffering from the psychological effects of war is being replicated today.

(U//FOUO) DHS/I&A will be working with its state and local partners over the next several months to ascertain with greater regional specificity the rise in leftwing extremist activity in the United States, with a particular emphasis on the political, economic, and social factors that drive leftwing extremist radicalization.

It makes just as much sense as the nonsense that the Obama DHS just released.

[Update a few minutes later]

Ed Morrissey has more:

The first question we should ask is whether the DHS is reacting to any specific threats at all? Er … no (emphasis mine):

The DHS/Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) has no specific information that domestic rightwing* terrorists are currently planning acts of violence, but rightwing extremists may be gaining new recruits by playing on their fears about several emergent issues.

This gets repeated over and over again during the report. They have no threat information. In fact, the report can’t even say definitively whether “extremists” are gaining “new recruits”. In order to find that, they’d have to identify the actual groups, note the recruiting patterns, and determine whether in fact they’re gaining recruits or losing members. Bottom line: DHS has no actual data. They’re pulling threats out of their collective arse and publishing them without any supporting research whatsoever.

DHS acts as though white-supremacist groups and militias believing in Zionist world conspiracies stopped existing between 2000 and 2008. Of course they didn’t; George Bush’s strong support for Israel fed those nutcase groups for eight years. Are those groups growing in the last five months, after what DHS assumes is the trigger for all this hate — the election of Barack Obama? They provide absolutely no evidence at all for it, and in fact repeat over and over again that they don’t have that data in a hail of May Bes.

This is shameful. And he makes the same point as this post:

Imagine, if you will, what the Left would say if we took this entire document and replaced all references to “military veterans” with “Muslims”, and all references to “abortion” with “universal health care”, and then predated this DHS report to 2008, during the Bush administration. They’d be screaming about being smeared as traitors for their political beliefs, and they’d be right to do so. That’s exactly what the Obama administration and Janet Napolitano has done here.

But it’s OK, because they’re just “rightwingers.”

[Update early evening]

Powerline has a fisking:

It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that this Homeland Security report is politically motivated, and reflects the authors’ political prejudices more than an objective evaluation of a significant terrorist threat. In that context, the report’s conclusion seems a bit ominous:

DHS/I&A will be working with its state and local partners over the next several months to ascertain with greater regional specificity the rise in rightwing extremist activity in the United States, with a particular emphasis on the political, economic, and social factors that drive rightwing extremist radicalization.

Indeed.

[Tax Day update]

The people who put together this little political hit piece couldn’t even get their facts straight.

Political Commentary, War Commentary

Revealing

2 Comments

“Talk about blame America first. When discussing the prospect of foreign Jihadi murderers blowing up Americans, the Administration prefers the term ‘man caused disasters.’ But when talking about the alleged threat posed from “disgruntled” American vets, terrorism trips off the tongue.”

Michelle Malkin has :

There’s no hackneyed left-wing stereotype of conservatives left behind in this DHS intelligence and analysis assessment. I asked both DHS spokespeople to tell me who, specifically, the report was accusing of “rightwing extremist chatter” and which “antigovernment” groups are being monitored as “extremists.” They say they’ll get back to me.

Don’t hold your breath.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Apples And Oranges

5 Comments

One of my chronically unintelligent commenters posted his fantasies that government health care is much more “efficient” than private health service provision. Here’s an explanation of why that’s nonsensical.

…the comparison between public and private plans is a false comparison. Private insurance and public benefits are not the same business. For all its warts, private insurance tries to manage care. Medicare is mostly about paying the bills presented to it.

Many who favor a public plan as part of comprehensive health-care reform dismiss the administrative “overhead” of private plans as having little or no value. Ways and Means Health Subcommittee Chairman Pete Stark (D., Calif.), for example, insists that “most private plans are poorly managed.” Contrasting them with the supposedly sleek and efficient Medicare program, he labels commercial insurance “the General Motors of medical care.”

In fact, the administrative expenses of private insurance plans represent money well spent for their members. Here are four reasons…

Whenever you find yourself agreeing the Pete Stark on anything, it’s a pretty good sign that you should rethink your position.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Party Like It’s 1773

3 Comments

Here’s a site that is tracking all of the spending protests tomorrow. And I have to agree with the hilarious irony and stupidity of leftists complaining that these are astroturfed top-down fraud, including at least one in my own comments section. Apparently dissent is only the highest form of patriotism when it’s against George Bush and funded by George Soros.

[Mid-morning update]

Tea Party movement picking up steam. With the usual amusing whine about astroturfing in comments. You’d almost think that these people went to a seminar.

[Update a few minutes later]

The Examiner explains why leftists are upset and (as usual, with accusations of “racism,” “hate,” “lies,” etc.) engaging in projection about top-down protests:

Part of the reason for the mean-spiritedness in some of the attacks from the pro-Obama groups is likely the failure of efforts to turn out large crowds in support of the chief executive’s $787 billion economic stimulus package and $3.6 trillion 2010 federal budget, with its $1 trillion deficit and comparable floods of red ink for a decade thereafter. The recent “New Way Forward” gathering here in D.C., for example, was heralded by organizers as the first of a wave of counter-Tea Party Protests, but barely a dozen people turned out. Similarly, much-publicized efforts to use the 13-million email addresses compiled by the Obama campaign to generate pressure on Congress barely caused a ripple, much less a wave of support for the Obama budget.

It’s easy to understand why they’d be both frightened, and angry. And apparently part of that mind set consists of having one’s sense of irony excised at birth.

[Late morning update]

Speaking of which, Iowahawk has dug up an old script from that old favorite, the Mary Hamsher Moore Show:

MARY: I … I’m sorry Mr. Soros.

LOU: Whatever. Say Mary… you’re all over that internet thing. What do you know about these Tea Party protests?

MARY: I don’t know. I guess it’s just a bunch of retarded wingnuts whining or something. I don’t think they’re anything worth worrying about.

LOU: Nothing worth worrying about? There are 300 of those stupid protests scheduled for Tuesday! If they end up screwing up the next stimulus bill, I’m never going to short the currency markets. I need you to get to the bottom of this.

MARY: Bottom of it?

LOU: Come on Mary, don’t be naive. We both know the money and professional staff and layers of front organizations it takes to build an authentic grassroots movement. Geez, just look at the good cash I’ve wasted on this dump. There’s just gotta be some sort of conspiracy going on behind that Tea Party crap… like…

MARY: … like Fox News?

LOU: Now you’re thinking! I need you to get out there and spread that meme, and start up some counter protests…

…Mary is leading a massive national anti-anti-tax rally of six protesters

MARY (into bullhorn): One two three four, America needs a New Way For. Ward.

PROTESTERS: One two three four, America needs a New Way For. Ward.

MARY(into bullhorn): Nine ten six five, Tea Baggers are just a bunch of phony populist Faux News wingnuts who are pissed off because they’re not the ones stealing.

PROTESTERS: Nine, seven… thirteen….

MARY (clapping): Come on everybody, that’s the spirit! Take one of these preprinted picket signs and official chant sheet. I printed off 20,000 so there should be enough for everyone. Hey, where are you going?

KID PROTESTER: This protest blows. You said there would be free XBox 360s, not these lame Gameboys. Come on mom, I want to go home.

MOTHER PROTESTER: I’m sorry Mary, I know I said we’d stay until the cameras showed up, but it’s cold and you know how fidgety kids get.

KID PROTESTER 2: Mommy, the funny-tooth loud lady is scary.

RHODA MADOW (holding bullhorn battery): Do something Mary! You’re losing them!

MARY: Wait! Wait! Please, don’t leave! This is real grassroots activism in action! Come on, we can’t let the Tea Baggers out-organize us!

PROTESTER 1: Tea Baggers? Lady, we’re getting drowned out by the friggin’ UFO protesters.

Just demonstrating the will of the people. And don’t miss the commercial.

[Bumped]

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Capitulation

5 Comments

I have to agree:

Those in Europe or the Obama administration who advocate suspension say waving ‘preconditions’ shows our flexibility and incentives can bring Iran to the table. But, this process literally has been going on since Klaus Kinkel’s critical dialogue in 1992. During this time, Iran has not made a single concession. The European have made several. So too has Washington. Iran looks at the long-term; we can’t simply restart the clock every time a new administration takes office in Washington, Berlin, Paris, or London.

Obama’s aides are smart. They know the consequence of their actions. It’s hard not to conclude that they have made a policy decision to allow the Islamic Republic of Iran to become a nuclear weapons-capable state.

It is indeed. I guess the plan is to leave it up to Israel (who of course they will condemn after they solve the problem).