Myrhaf

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog Depressed by recent political events, I took Ludwig von Mises' Human Action off the shelf and cracked it open. I read chapter 36, "The Crisis of Interventionism." If you follow either link, you can read the chapter free online. You'll become smarter if you do. Mises is one of the few authors that always leaves you smarter after reading him. By interventionism, Mises means government interference in the economy. It goes by many other names: mixed economy, welfare state, the third way, liberalism, progressivism, compassionate conservatism, Rockefeller Republicanism, moderation and the middle of the road. This chapter could have been written yesterday, but it was written 60 years ago and published in 1949. For instance: The idea underlying all interventionist policies is that the higher income and wealth of the more affluent part of the population is a fund which can be freely used for the improvement of the conditions of the less prosperous. The essence of the interventionist policy is to take from one group to give to another. It is confiscation and distribution. Every measure is ultimately justified by declaring that it is fair to curb the rich for the benefit of the poor. And this sounds familiar: The interventionist in advocating additional public expenditure is not aware of the fact that the funds available are limited. He does not realize that increasing expenditure in one department enjoins restricting [ p. 857] it in other departments. In his opinion there is plenty of money available. The income and wealth of the rich can be freely tapped. In recommending a greater allowance for the schools he simply stresses the point that it would be a good thing to spend more for education. He does not venture to prove that to raise the budgetary allowance for schools is more expedient than to raise that of another department, e.g., that of health. It never occurs to him that grave arguments could be advanced in favor of restricting public spending and lowering the burden of taxation. The champions of cuts in the budget are in his eyes merely the defenders of the manifestly unfair class interests of the rich. Mises explains how government interference in the economy always makes things worse. The subsequent economic crisis is then blamed on the elements of freedom left in the economy, prompting the state to intensify intervention until finally there is full socialism. All varieties of interference with the market phenomena not only fail to achieve the ends aimed at by their authors and supporters, but bring about a state of affairs which -- from the point of view of their authors' and advocates' valuations -- is less desirable than the previous state of affairs which they were designed to alter. If one wants to correct their manifest unsuitableness and preposterousness by supplementing the first acts of intervention with more and more of such acts, one must go farther and farther until the market economy has been entirely destroyed and socialism has been substituted for it. Mises explains that we are heading for the German style of socialism (also known as fascism). Elsewhere he calls it "socialism on the German plan." Marching ever further along the path of interventionism, all those countries that have not adopted full socialism of the Russian pattern [ p. 859] are more and more approaching what is called a planned economy, i.e., socialism of the German or Hindenburg pattern. In regard to economic policies, there is nowadays little difference among the various nations and, within each nation, among the various political parties and pressure groups. The historical party names have lost their significance. There are, as far as economic policy is concerned, practically only two factions left: the advocates of the Lenin method of all-round nationalization and the interventionists. And yet, part of Mises's argument doesn't seem right: Yet the age of interventionism is reaching its end. Interventionism has exhausted all its potentialities and must disappear. This was written 60 years ago, but we're still muddling along in the interventionist middle of the road. We have not crossed the Rubicon of "all-round nationalization" or dictatorship; we still have economic calculation. Obviously, interventionism was not "reaching its end" in 1949. What happened? I think the problem is that Mises was basing his ideas on the German model that he lived through. Germany went from Bismarck's welfare state to Hitler's fascist dictatorship in around 50 years, or two and a half generations. America, with its Enlightenment heritage of individualism, was more receptive to better ideas. And better ideas were being written and publicized just as Mises wrote Human Action. The free market movement was led by Ayn Rand, who created the first moral defense of capitalism. In addition, Leonard Read founded the Foundation for Economic Education. These good ideas had an impact on the Republican Party, and on one man in particular, Barry Goldwater. He understood that interventionism was bad. In his Presidential campaign of 1964 he stood for small government. Although Goldwater lost in a landslide to LBJ, he changed the Republican Party and America. For awhile the Republican Party stood for smaller government and rolling back the welfare state. (The pragmatist Richard Nixon expanded government egregiously, but never as a moral crusade because he knew he was betraying Goldwater's principles.) Ronald Reagan, who entered politics as a follower of Goldwater, brought free market, small government ideas into his Presidency starting in 1981 -- albeit in a frustratingly mixed bag that was in many ways a triumph of symbolism over substance. His supply side economics helped stimulate the economy. But his legacy is terribly compromised by his bringing the religious right to prominence in the party, planting the seeds of its own demise. The Republican Party as a small government party lasted about two generations, 40 years; it is now over. Senator John McCain, who will be the 2008 Republican Presidential nominee, repudiates the Goldwater paradigm. He admits his ignorance of economics. He pits profits against patriotism. He is a "national greatness" or big government Republican. Unlike any Republican since Teddy Roosevelt, he speaks of big government with the zeal of a moral crusader. He dreams of founding national service programs. He is an explicit statist, collectivist and altruist who believes that morality lies in sacrificing for something greater than self-interest. If I am right, then the free market or "libertarian" movement in Republican Party forestalled the crises Mises thought were imminent. The forestalling has ended. The next President will be Obama, Clinton or McCain. All three are, to use Mises' terms, "interventionist dilettantes and demagogues." They all speak as if Human Action had never been written; they labor in dangerous ignorance, planning all the ways the state will spend the money it takes from rich capitalists. In their stupidity they will make the same errors interventionists have made throughout history. They will destroy wealth and freedom. We are about to see a new wave of interventions in the economy, and a new round of crises brought on by those interventions. Will America respond with confusion or clarity? There are good ideas and solutions out there -- but will they find an audience? Will they prosper? UPDATE: Slight revision. View the full article

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog Republican delegate count as of this writing: McCain 597 Romney 240 Huckabee 178 What does it mean? The Republican coalition is cracking up. The party has always been a coalition of disparate factions united only in that they are not Democrats. (I think that is why many Republicans hope Hillary Clinton gets the nomination; they need Republican hatred of Clintons to unite the party. This is a sad state for the party to be in.) I suspect there are many Republicans who look at the three leading contenders left and see no one that remotely represents them. I'm waiting for the nominees in both parties to be chosen before I make up my mind for November -- but I'm leaning toward the Democrat now. I really believe neither of the Democrats left would do as much harm to America as any of the Republicans. In the end, I believe most Republicans will vote for the Republican. They will be angered in October when the Democrats, with the help of their propaganda wing in the MSM, bring out their October surprises and fling mud at the Republican. They did it to Bruce Hershenson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bob Dole and George W. Bush, that I can think of. The left's love of character assassination began with Borking in the 1980's. I know that I have been most motivated in the past to vote Republican by my outrage at the injustice and dishonesty of Democrat smear tactics. Wanting to punish the Democrats and the liberal MSM has been a powerful motivating force for the GOP. People like Hugh Hewitt and Rush Limbaugh know this all too well, and they whip up Republican outrage to get angry voters to the ballot box. The attempt to anger voters will be especially intense this year, because, as I noted above, there is nothing to unite Republicans for our candidate; the only chance is to unite the party in fear and loathing of the Democrat. (I intend to ignore the outrage this year.) Whoever is elected President, I expect things to get worse before they get better. Incidentally, hatred of the enemy is also the best thing the Democrats have going for them, as shown by the stupidest line uttered last night, by Hillary Clinton: I won't let anyone swift-boat this country's future. Maybe it was her way of assuring her moonbat base that she is still as loony as they are. View the full article

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog Once upon a time D. Party was an idealistic young girl married to her Shining Knight. They ruled Americatown with a benevolent dictatorship that was so good their regime was compared to Camelot. D. Party's Shining Knight was assassinated and she fell on hard times. She lost the rule of Americatown to the evil Mr. Gop and his Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. Many years passed and D. Party began to think that she would never have a Shining Knight again, and would never rule Americatown again. Then a tall, dark, rakish man called Clinton Machine appeared. He was a gambler, a hustler and not the most honest man around. He proposed to D. Party, promising her that if she married him, they would regain their lost power in Americatown. "All I need you to do is turn a few tricks for me," Clinton Machine promised. "But then I would be a whore," D. Party responded. "Better to be a whore in power than an honest woman scraping by here in the slums on the dark edge of town." Clinton Machine whispered words of love and told D. Party he felt her pain and her heart melted. She could not resist this charming rogue. D. Party agreed to betray her youthful idealism and married Clinton Machine and they defeated the evil Mr. Gop and his VRWC and ruled for many years. One day the Shining Knight showed up at D. Party's door and asked her to marry him again. "But -- you were killed so many years ago!" D. Party exclaimed. "It's not possible that you have returned." Shining Knight explained that he had been shot and mistaken for dead. He spent decades with amnesia, but now his mind was back and he longed to return to the glory days of their benevolent dictatorship of Americatown. Clinton Machine burst into the room. "What the f**k you think you're doin', bitch?" Clinton Machine screamed as he slapped D. Party with the back of his hand to send her sprawling on the floor. Blood trickled down her cheek where Clinton Machine's diamond ring cut her. "I say," Shining Knight objected, "that's no way to treat a lady." "Lady!" Clinton Machine laughed, "She's a whore, moron! And she's my whore now and she always will be!" "But you hit her." "It depends on what the meaning of hit is. Let's call it a love tap." Clinton Machine kicked Shining Knight out the door and began to work on regaining D. Party's favor. He whispered the words of love he knew she could never resist. His eyes filled with tears and he talked about how much she meant to him. "Besides," Clinton Machine purred, "Can't you see that Shining Knight is a... negro?" "That's racist," D. Party replied. "It depends on what the meaning of racist is. I'm just pointing out that evil Mr. Gop will use racism against Shining Knight, so you might as well stay with me." Before Clinton Machine left the room he turned back and said with compassion, "You should put some ice on that." D. Party lay on her bed sobbing at the predicament she was in. She had always accepted Clinton Machine's brutal tactics against Mr. Gop and his VRWC. Mr. Gop was a bad man who deserved whatever smears and lies Clinton Machine told about him. But now Clinton Machine was smearing her Shining Knight, the great love of her youth. Now she felt dirtied and used. Now she just felt like a two-bit whore. That night D. Party heard a noise on her balcony. She went out the french doors to discover Shining Knight. He had climbed the balcony to take her away with him. "I know you're still good," Shining Knight assured her. "You still hold the ideals of your youth. Come with me and let us be pure again." "I... I don't know," D. Party said, wavering between two options. "You don't have to stay with Clinton Machine," Shining Knight said. "I offer you change you can believe in." "What does that mean?" "I don't know, but it sounds like the old magic, doesn't it?" D. Party thought about it. Then she raised her head and announced, "I will decide on Super Tuesday." To Be Continued... View the full article

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog What timing! At precisely the moment Republican voters need to be reminded of why John McCain is not an acceptable Presidential candidate, the reminding comes from McCain himself. John McCain, sounding more like John Edwards than even Hillary or Obama have, attacked Mitt Romney -- for being a businessman! The highlights from the debate: I think that we’ve got to return to the principle that you don’t lend money that can’t pay it back. I think that there’s some greedy people on Wall Street that perhaps need to be punished. **** HOOK: I want to start with Senator McCain. There’s been a lot of discussion lately about the importance of leadership and management experience. What makes you more qualified than Mitt Romney, a successful CEO and businessman, to manage our economy? MCCAIN: Because I know how to lead. I know how to lead. I led the largest squadron in the United States Navy. And I did it out of patriotism, not for profit. **** COOPER: I’m going to ask you all for follow-ups on this, but, Senator McCain, I just want to give you an opportunity to follow up on that. Is Governor Romney ready to be a military commander? MCCAIN: Oh, I’m sure that, as I say, he’s a fine man. And I think he managed companies, and he bought, and he sold, and sometimes people lost their jobs. That’s the nature of that business. Thank you, Senator. Neither Lenin nor Marx could have put their hatred of capitalists so succinctly. This is one of those moments when I have to pause and count to 10. My loathing for John McCain has never been greater. In pitting patriotism against profit, McCain manages to insult both businessmen and patriots. He insults businessmen by implying the pursuit of profit is not noble. He insults patriots by implying they agree with him and are fighting and dying for socialism or something of the sort. (The irony is that John McCain was part of the Keating Five, an exploit motivated by neither patriotism nor profit, but sheer corruption. Money gained by force or fraud is not profit, but stolen goods. Unlike Mitt Romney, John McCain has been on the receiving end of stolen goods.) We have to remember that McCain is a "national greatness" conservative, like the people at the Weekly Standard. He believes in big, intrusive government, not to protect rights, but to guide the people in virtue. And virtue, in McCain's twisted mind, is bound up with collectivism and statism, with the individual sacrificing for the state. So we have a man who, with Russ Feingold, used the First Amendment to the Constitution to wipe his ass. Rights, you see, are meaningless next to our noble government overseeing our virtue. The freedom of speech must give way to government control of speech in the name of virtue. So we have a man who has opposed tax cuts and leads the way for enchaining our economy to fight global warming. So we have a man who has advocated national service for young people and the need to "sacrifice for something greater than self-interest." (And because McCain is such a caring sort of chap, he'll make sure that every American has the opportunity to sacrifice to the state again and again and again.) Really, once you throw out the concept of individual rights for state intervention -- for our own good, of course, always for our own good -- then anything goes. There is no sphere of life, no aspect of the economy, that McCain could not find justification to seize and control by the government. John McCain would do more harm to America than either Clinton or Obama. Republicans in Congress would stifle the Democrat President every step of the way, but would stifle themselves under a McCain presidency. And Democrats in Congress would only complain about a President McCain that he has not gone far enough in destroying our freedoms. It's up to Republican primary voters to stop this monster. If they fail, he will be the next President of the United States, because no Democrat can stop him in November. View the full article

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog Captain Ed asked Mitt Romney how he would fight the global Jihad. Romney's answer: Well, we face a wide array of nations that are under the threat of global Jihadist, and some like the Philippines or Indonesia the threat is of a very different nature of that, which is being experienced in a place like Iraq and so our involvement and the nature of our involvement is going to be different. So let me describe the kind of options we have. First, I would bring together other nations along with ourselves to make sure collectively that we are fighting global Jihad and that we are fighting it with our military as well as our non-military resources. In terms of our military force, in some cases it will require the kind of actions that you see in a place like Afghanistan, a full military attack. In others, a different kind of military effort would be called for. As an example, in the Philippines, an Army Special Forces team was able to help those people reject an offshoot of Al Qaeda. This was not, you know, men with rifles and tanks but instead a Special Forces unit that helped build bridges, build water projects, move the civilian population to support the Filipino government and democracy and ultimately that has virtually eliminated the threat of global Jihad there. And I have called for what I have described as a special partnership force; meaning the creation of small units of intelligence plus army special forces personnel which are able to drawn into a nation which ask for help, to support that nation in its effort to reject the violent and the extreme. In many cases, the Muslim nation itself will be able to do the best job in eliminating the threat of radical Jihad and we can support that effort through a special partnership force of the type I have described. This answer is weak. First, he talks about working with other nations. Building coalitions has only sapped our strength for the last 20 years and convinced the enemy we're more worried about world opinion than self-defense. In order to show the enemy we are serious about war, we need to forget building a pretense of international cooperation and set about defeating the enemy alone. The most devastating message the enemy could get at this moment is that America does not give a damn what France thinks, we are going to destroy our enemy. Second, Romney is talking about more altruistic nation-building instead of waging war. Notice what he envisions Special Forces doing: This was not, you know, men with rifles and tanks but instead a Special Forces unit that helped build bridges, build water projects, move the civilian population to support the Filipino government and democracy... Romney has no vision of waging serious war. There is no mention here of eradicating states that sponsor terrorism and no mention of going after Iran. His presidency will be an extension of Bush's neoconservative "Long War." We'll be pouring American tax dollars into every jungle on the globe, but the enemy will live on. UPDATE: Romney stinks of pragmatism. It's common among Republicans. Toward the end of his life, Richard Nixon, the ultimate pragmatist, was asked how he would advise Bush 41 to defend himself against charges of flip-flopping. Nixon's reply, as I remember it, was, "Easy! Just say 'That was then, this is now.'" It makes sense to a pragmatist. I mean, yesterday was a whole different day, with different circumstances to deal with. How can anyone keep principles when responding to the crisis of the hour? Romney, with his long history of flip-flops, his emphasis on managerial expertise (don't they teach pragmatism at Harvard Business School?) and his seeming lack of any principled center other than religion, strikes me as very much a pragmatist. This is another thing to watch as we get to know him better. If he ever gets into the White House, he could make Bush look like Goldwater. View the full article

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog After Florida, it looks like John McCain will be the next President of the USA. I suspect Giuliani will be his Vice President pick because Rudy could bring New York, New Jersey and Connecticut with him. If the Democrat has to expend resources protecting that turf, it will be tough for the Dem to win. Plus, Rudy's quitting and endorsing McCain is a huge help going into Super Tuesday. I think McCain will beat Romney, whose pragmatism makes him seem like "Mr. Plastic," a phony man who says whatever is needed, depending on who he's talking to. (Didn't we get enough of that from Clinton and Bush 41?) McCain, whatever you think of him, comes across as an honest, plainspoken man. At least by politicians' standards. Of all the candidates in both parties, Romney is the one I'd least want to have a beer with. Still, Romney could win if Conservatives rally around him to stop McCain. Romney will have to spend his money -- lots of it. McCain, if he is the Republican nominee, will beat either Obama or Clinton. McCain loves to flout conservatives, and that maverick streak appeals to independents. This is a shallow criterion by which to measure a candidate, but a great many people give voting little thought. I know an independent who admires McCain, because, in his words, "He seems like a nice guy." And that, apparently, is enough to win an independent's vote. McCain is the Democrats' worst nightmare. In the end, Republicans will hold their nose and vote for him simply because he doesn't have a D after his name. The Republicans will be energized sometime in October when the Democrats begin playing dirty tricks and attempting to assassinate McCain's character. The Democrat Party is the best thing the Republican Party has going for it! Add legions of independents voting for a candidate who is more their guy than anyone since Perot in 1992, and you have the making of a rout. (Imagine Perot's 19% added to whatever Bush got in '92.) I believe Republicans are voting for McCain because of his electability. The purpose of political parties, after all, is winning elections. Robert Tracinski observes in his latest TIA Daily that Ted Kennedy's endorsement of Obama represents a public rebuke of Clinton's cynicism. This means that the Democrats are now beginning to see their party's primary as a test of their own moral self-image: jaded pragmatists for the Clintons, youthful idealists for Obama. On those terms, how many Democrats—hoping to recapture their party's youthful glory days—will be able to resist Obama? So the Democrats, a party of collectivists that would happily enslave us all to the welfare state, are voting from idealism. Meanwhile, Republicans, who until recently were know to mumble from time to time in favor of real ideals such as liberty and small government, are voting from a cynical, unprincipled yearning for power. Cue the Yeats line: The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. But that's not exactly apt, as the Republicans are far from the best we have in America. A McCain nomination might be good for America for two reasons. First, people will better see that the Republican Party is a party of big government and welfare state. Classical liberals and other supporters of free markets and individual liberty will better see that neither party is for them. Second, if an economic crisis hits the next president, be he Democrat or Republican, it will be a little harder to blame it on capitalism. UPDATE: Slight revision. View the full article

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog I just listened to Barack Obama give his victory speech in South Carolina. And lo, it was a mighty blast of wind. What a voice! What inspiring rhetoric! Full of sound and fury signifying nothing! What does "Change we can believe in" mean? As near as I can guess, it means that we have been promised change in the past, but things have always stayed the same; now, however, you can believe in Obama's promises because he will actually change things in Washington, D.C. Or something like that. If I'm wrong, tell me in the comments. I could easily be wrong, as the motto is one of those vague political slogans that are calculated to offend no one. I mean, who will think, "But I want change I CAN'T believe in"? In his speech Obama said (putting it all in my words) he wants to socialize medicine, to withdraw our troops from Iraq and to throw more money at public education. The Iraq stand does represent legitimate change. The rest is just more welfare state, and there ain't nothin' new about that. I take all his talk about rising above race as a coded slap at the Clintons, who have done their best to remind white voters that Obama has melanin in his skin. Anything that humiliates a Clinton is always welcome. This is the most gratifying aspect of Obama's electoral success. Can Obama win on November 4th? Yes, if he keeps his angry leftist wife hidden until November 5th. Yes, if the Republicans nominate Mitt Romney, a pandering, insincere man who makes Obama look like Martin Luther King, Jr. First, though, Obama has to get past the Clinton machine, which I don't see happening. As of today both the Republican and Democrat nomination is yet to be decided. Super Tuesday will be the political junky's Superbowl. UPDATE: On second thought, my interpretation of Obama's slogan, "Change we can believe in," is wrong. My meaning would be better phrased, "Promises we can believe." Perhaps Obama's slogan is attempting to combine the word change with idealism. So the slogan is saying, "Obama's change will bring about our ideals." If your ideals are altruism-collectivism-statism, that makes sense. (One might reword the slogan as "Change that will enslave us.") Ultimately, the slogan doesn't have to make sense as long as it makes Obama's voters feel good. View the full article

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog Gina Cobb makes an interesting observation: But the left is still missing the most important part of what conservatism has to offer. They've missed out on the optimism, the realistic hope, and the belief in the competency of individuals that is at the heart of conservatism. (In the next paragraph, she destroys her argument by equating individualism with anti-abortion. More on this below.) Hillary Clinton does try for optimism, but she thinks it comes from state intervention in the economy. During the debate on climate change, that we finally got onto the floor thanks to Senators McCain and Lieberman, although we were only given three hours to debate climate change, I was struck by the pessimism and the fatalism from the other side. This was a problem that they either didn't believe existed, or if it existed, would somehow fix itself at the appropriate time, somewhere in the future. That has never been America's attitude. And when I was speaking on the floor that day, I said, you know, I can't believe what I'm hearing. There are, I suppose, still a few people left somewhere who believe that climate change is not a problem, but the vast scientific established opinion is that it is, and we should go about dealing with it now. And guess what? We can make money and create jobs if we do. That's the kind of can-do spirit that I was raised with, that I believe in. And it's that loss of spirit, as much as the loss of jobs, that deeply troubles me. As I wrote about Clinton's equating the can-do spirit with collectivism: She is equating the positive American sense of life that is a heritage of Enlightenment individualism with big government. She uses America's can-do spirit, which developed when America was a free country and when Americans were expected to be self-reliant, to defend the one thing that is destroying that spirit -- the welfare state! How's that for an example of the parasitic nature of evil? It seems to be one of the most striking differences between liberalism and conservatism: liberals believe that individuals are metaphysically helpless and need to be controlled by the state for their own good, whereas conservatives believe individuals should be left free to pursue and achieve their own happiness. Liberals are collectivist; conservatives are individualist. But are conservatives really individualist? Certainly, when Rush Limbaugh is at his best he extols individualism and talks about how everyone can better himself with initiative and hard work. Unlike Senator Clinton, Limbaugh understands that individual freedom, not the wretched welfare state, made America great. So why is it that the nanny state has grown under every conservative president? Why did government double in size under Reagan? Why didn't Reagan at least dismantle the Departments of Energy and Education, which our country lived just fine without for 200 years until Jimmy Carter and saw a need for state meddling in these areas? Why did George H.W. Bush sign the Americans for Disabilities Act, one of the costliest nanny state measures of the last 30 years? If conservatives believe individuals should be left to run their own lives, why did George W. Bush outlaw the incandescent light bulb? Shouldn't the individual be left to decide for himself what kind of light he wants in his home? Conservatives talk individualist but govern collectivist. They're all hat and no cattle when it comes to individualism. Conservatives think their religion supports individualism, because God creates every human with a unique soul. But that same religion undercuts individualism with its morality of altruism. God says the strong must sacrifice for the weak. When religious conservatives such as Bush or Huckabee get into power, they feel a duty to use that power to serve God. Morality trumps everything else; individualism is a hazy, abstract idea next to the moral imperative that people have a duty to help their fellow sinners. Individualism comes from pride; the humble Christian equates pride with the Devil. To add to the confusion, conservatives betray individualism throughout the mixed economy, then appease their conscience by equating individualism with anti-abortionism (or what they call in an Orwellian twist of language, "pro-life"). They sacrifice an actual woman to a potential human and call that individualism because they believe their supernatural being has injected a soul into the fetus at conception. This metaphysical fantasy keeps them from seeing the contradiction between their morality and individualism. So what is worse, the Democrat who believes collectivism is good and governs in accordance with his belief? Or the Republican who says individualism is good, but does not fully understand the word and betrays his belief the moment he acquires power? Well, it's a hell of a choice, isn't it? Welcome to the 21st century. View the full article

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog What can we make of the South Carolina primary? As of this writing, McCain came in first with 33%, Huckabee second with 30%, Thompson squeaked into third with 16% and Romney got 15%. The Republican nomination is still up in the air. It's a strange situation for the GOP, one that we have not seen before. After Florida we'll have a better idea of who will win, especially with regard to Giuliani. Super Tuesday looks to be moment we'll find out the leader -- unless, of course various candidates win states and the delegate counts are close. Thompson looks dead. Why? Quick, tell me what he stands for. Unlike the other candidates, Thompson has never defined himself clearly so that one or two issues stand out in the voters' mind when they think of him. Maybe it's the old problem of having been a Senator instead of an executive. Maybe he is lost in the crowd of candidates. Democrats have to be loving the Republican confusion. The CW seems to be that the longer it takes for a party to select a candidate, the weaker that nominee is. I think the most significant result of the South Carolina vote is that 30% voted for Mike Huckabee, a welfare state theocrat. 30% of South Carolina's voters are already what Leonard Peikoff fears the Republican Party is becoming. Huckabee wants to rewrite the Constitution so that it conforms to "God's standards." That 30% of South Carolina Republicans -- voters who value religion above economic freedom (or any kind of freedom), or who might even want bigger government with Huckabee -- those voters are a dangerous faction, if not the most dangerous. It is ominous. View the full article

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog We all know what evil looks like in totalitarian states. The Soviet KGB or the Nazi SS knocking on the door and taking an innocent person away in the night for expressing an opinion the state does not like. But how does evil come in western welfare states? Take at look at these videos of Ezra Levant defending himself before the Canadian Human Rights Commission for publishing anti-Muslim cartoons. His defense is brilliant and inspiring. These videos are must-viewing. Look at how normal and nice it all is: the bland bureaucrat and the average conference room. No dungeons, no torture apparatus, no goose-stepping guards. But behind the polite bureaucracy lie the guns of the state, the same force used by the KGB and the SS. This is how we lose our freedom. I want to shake people awake, to make them see that the way things are -- the welfare state bureaucracy -- is a violation of individual rights. It is incremental tyranny. It is immoral. I hope these videos showing the obscenity of an individual having to justify to the state his ideas will open some eyes. UPDATE: More at Ezra Levant's blog. View the full article

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog A lot of conservatives such as Mike Gallagher think that Hillary Clinton's tears were fake. Neal Boortz writes, Throughout the entire Clinton presidency Hillary's husband waved a succession of his girlfriends in front of her face. Did she ever cry in public? Not that I can remember. But let someone ask her how a campaign is affecting her and here come the tears. Don't you ladies realize how phony she is? I think the tears were real and unplanned. As an actor, I know that tears do not always come when you want them onstage. I don't think Clinton is that good an actor. Hillary Clinton was expressing self-pity because she might lose an election. Why is it hard to believe she would shed a tear over that? Power is a high value to her, if not the highest. If she doesn't win the presidency, she'll cry a river. You bet she will. Boortz is completely wrong, unless by "phony" he means the Clinton marriage. Hillary Clinton would not cry over Bill's philandering. Obviously, they have made some arrangement in their marriage that allows Bill to screw around. At most she would get pissed off because his idiotic recklessness threatens the couple's pursuit of power. I know it's hard to believe anything happens by coincidence to a Clinton. Hillary has been caught planting questions in this campaign. And then there was that moment on the beach at Normandy during the Clinton Presidency when Bill was walking along and happened to see a pile of stones that he rearranged into a cross (gag me). Of course, it turned out that the stones had been preset on the beach by aides; the whole thing was staged. Furthermore, Hillary's tears apparently turned the New Hampshire election for her. Some Democrat women that would have voted for Obama came back to Hillary after she cried. The tears were precisely what Clinton needed to gain some sympathy. They worked. How then, could they not have been purposeful? As with all conspiracy theories, people attribute too much intelligence to the players involved. Democrats do this when they credit every coincidence that helps Bush to Karl Rove's brilliant foresight. If some genius in Hillary's campaign had said to her, "You need to shed a few tears," some other genius would have argued, "Are you nuts? Do you remember Muskie in New Hampshire?" After all the arguments and phone calls with consultants the last thing Hillary Clinton would have been able to do is cry spontaneously at the right moment as she did. Sometimes people just get lucky. She cried because she might have been thwarted in her fight for power and that made some women vote for her. It's a lesson Hillary won't forget: the path to power is to show you really care about getting it. View the full article

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog Iowa gave us the shiny, happy people: Obama and Huckabee. New Hampshire gave us the grumpy old creeps: Clinton and McCain. Both Clinton and McCain had been pronounced dead, but the dead have come to life. Perhaps New Hampshire's Democrats thought twice about Obama and decided they didn't want an empty suit -- or should I write an empty skin? Because in our multiculturalist culture his skin color is about the only concrete thing Obama has going for him. He'll be the first black president! The rest is a rhetoric of floating concepts meant to inspire, empty words such as hope, change and uniting America. Republicans throughout the land breathe a sigh of relief and praise their supernatural deity. Thank you, Lord, for not taking Hillary from us; in thy name we will burn this witch in November. They had a bad few days as they watched Hillary Clinton's meltdown come 10 months too early. She cried in New Hampshire, but her fate is not to be Muskie's; she's still around and she will be the Democrat nominee. I don't think John McCain has a chance of winning, but if he does win, it will be a disaster for America. This is a man who believes Americans should sacrifice for something greater than self-interest. If he is elected, I believe we will have mandatory national service -- two years of slavery to the state for every young person -- by 2012. John McCain will assault liberty more than Hillary Clinton could ever dream of doing with her high "negatives" and Republicans in Congress who only oppose the big government Democrats propose. John McCain has suffered much in service to his country. Now he wants to make the rest of us suffer. Tonight the ghouls clawed their way out of the grave. Now they trudge toward us moaning, "Brains... brains!" View the full article

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog Politico has several striking items about the Clinton campaign. First, Ben Smith reports Clinton was on the edge of tears at an appearance. And with audible frustration and disbelief, she drew the contrast between her experience and Sen. Barack Obama's that suggests that her campaign's current message -- the question of who is ready -- matches her profound sense that she alone is ready for the job. Second, Roger Simon reports that Obama is mesmerizing his crowds while Clinton is boring them. Obama delivered a compelling, almost mesmerizing, speech, did not talk about any issue in detail and took no questions. His event lasted just over half an hour. Clinton talked about issue after issue in almost mind-numbing detail and answered question after question in an event that lasted more than an hour and a half. Both drew large crowds. But Clinton’s crowd was much smaller at the end of her speech than at the beginning. I agree with Alexander Marriott's assessment of Clinton's campaign: What a lame candidacy. Her only claim to fame, that which led directly to her senate seat and all of this vaunted experience she now claims is so vital, is that she was a former President's wife. Big deal. Under that logic, Laura Bush should become President, she has the most relevant reservoir of recent experience to impart to the job. Seven years in the Senate however, actually constitutes legitimate experience that should not be entirely discounted, but her opponents also have Senate experience (Obama nearly three years, Edwards six) not to mention prior local political experience in the case of Obama. This is mostly irrelevant anyway, "experience" in holding prior offices has never been an accurate judge of competency in the presidency. The more I think about it, the more "experience" looks like a foolish thing to put front and center in a campaign, even by statist standards. What are some of the things people look for in presidential candidate? What do you believe in? What are your ideals? What are your values? What is your vision for America? What are the two or three big things you want to do? The answers to these questions excite and motivate people. Obama excites his crowds because, though his rhetoric is vague and without meaning, he speaks of ideals. He thrills young people especially. Experience speaks to none of this; it is merely a job qualification. Clinton seems to be making the same mistake Dukakis made in '88 by focusing on competence and boring people with wonkish policy details. Clinton's problem is the Democrat Party's main problem since the McGovern debacle of 1972: they cannot honestly campaign for their ideals because American voters, when they understand the left's ideals clearly, do not want them. Americans do not want more government spending, higher taxes and a foreign policy of appeasement. The Democratic Leadership Council was created to help Democrats find ways to moderate their ideals and trick Americans into voting Democrat. (By coincidence McGovern published an editorial today urging the impeachment of George W. Bush. Is it a secret plot by Karl Rove to keep McGovern in the news, reminding voters of everything that is wrong with the Democrats since the rise of the New Left?) From what I understand, political campaigns spend a great deal of money having ideas "focus grouped." I would guess some highly paid expert came back from the focus groups and advised Clinton to run on experience. Little did she know she would be up against a rival Democrat who thrills crowds with idealistic, floating rhetoric sans meaning. Apparently, Clinton didn't realize that the trick is to talk about ideals without actually saying what they are. She did not understand that Democrats are now dumb enough, after decades of government education, to hoot and holler over empty platitudes. There is an ethical-epistemological principle we can draw from this: Dishonesty makes you stupid. There is no disconnect between reality and what an honest man says. An honest candidate would quickly see what needs to be done -- without spending a dime on consultants -- and just speak "from the heart." An honest candidate would talk about his ideals and how they will make America free and prosperous and strong. Instead, Hillary Clinton is reduced to repeating in "frustration and disbelief" and on the verge of tears her focus-grouped mantra of "experience." View the full article

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog Hillary was booed in New Hampshire -- by Democrats. With apologies to the late Phil Rizzuto, holy cow! Meanwhile President Bush is contemplating an economic stimulus package. Holy shit. When Clinton tried this sort of Keynesian spending, the Republicans thwarted him. As of now there is one Senator on record against Bush's idea. One. I'm getting tired of people like Rush saying that big spending Republicans are betraying conservatism. No, they're not. They're being conservative. Conservatism=big government; maybe not as big as what Hillary Clinton wants, but pretty damned big. Conservatives are for less government only when it means stopping Democrats from succeeding with their plans. If you want to advocate less government on principle, you must come out here on the fringe with us radicals. View the full article

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog Barack Obama's high flying rhetoric about hope is as meaningless as flatulence. The electric response from his crowd comes from Democrats filling his rhetoric with one meaning: soon we will have a Democrat President. That's what hope means to them. Obama is a socialist. There is no hope in socialism. There is no hope in turning America into a vast slave pen in which the state dictates every aspect of the individual's life. If you substitute the word death every time Obama says hope, then his flatulence has meaning. I might end up voting for the Democrat, whoever it is. If the Republican is Huckabee, Romney or McCain, I'll vote Democrat for the first time in my life. "Choose your poison," as they say. Which one will kill me slower? This is what American politics has come to. If I understood Laura Ingraham (looking damn fine) on TV last night, she said Republicans are missing the boat because Huckabee feels voters pain and that's what the other Republicans need to do. People are worried about their financial security and Republicans need to speak to this fear. I guess Miss Ingraham wants to turn the Republicans into a nursemaid party that coos and shows empathy for voters' boo-boos. A party of right-wing Clintons getting all teary-eyed and sobbing, "I feel your pain!" If this is what it take to get elected today, then America -- a nation of immigrants and pioneers, rugged individualists who endured ghastly hardships just to make a little life they could call their own -- this America is dead. Now we are a nation of piglets sucking at the federal teat. A nation of people that need to be coddled like infants cannot remain free. View the full article

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog The Hawkeye Caucii are done and the winners are Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee. Both results are bad for the Republicans. Iowa's Democrats showed the world they are sane. Yes, Obama is a far left socialist, but I really think he has a better chance at beating a Republican than Hillary Clinton. Given the choice between Clinton and a head of cabbage, who would not vote for the vegetable? I suspect that part of Clinton's problem was that in running as the "inevitable" candidate, she looked like she thought she was entitled to everyone's vote, like she expected a coronation. Americans want their politicians to pretend they're not arrogant. Iowa's Republicans showed the world they have their head up their ass. I would write more, but I might insult Iowa's Republicans. View the full article

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog I've noticed a trend. First, Rush Limbaugh says Huckabee is not a conservative. "Ladies and gentlemen, Gov. Huckabee, mighty fine man and is a great Christian, is not a conservative, he’s just not," Limbaugh said. "If you look at his record as governor, he’s got some conservative tendencies on things but he’s certainly not the most conservative of the candidates running on the Republican side." (Question for Rush: Is President Bush, who recently outlawed the incandescent light bulb, a conservative?) Second, the New York Times hires a conservative columnist, William Kristol, giving the newspaper of record two conservative columnists, the other being David Brooks. Both Kristol and Brooks are "national greatness" or big government conservatives. Both men support the welfare state. Third, Hugh Hewitt, considered a conservative, places himself on the center-right and decries "extremism" as much as the Rockefeller Republicans used to do in the 1960's. Fourth, Robert Tracinski in his TIA Daily notes that the Republican race in Iowa is close because of "ideological confusion." The Republican Party has been famously sustained by an ideological coalition of free-marketers, national-defense "hawks," and the religious right. A Giuliani-Huckabee contest forced Republicans to make a clear choice, putting a priority on the war and the free market (the issues on which Giuliani is campaigning) while downgrading religion (Huckabee's issue). The message Republicans have been sending in the past week is that they don't want to make such a stark choice—so they've been desperately looking for another candidate who will give them the illusion (and it is an illusion) of putting the old coalition back together again. Fifth, Lawrence Auster notes that Richard Mellon Scaife, the billionaire who financed the VRWC against Clinton in the '90s, is now a Clinton ally. By giving up their previous correct condemnation of Clinton, the conservatives have in effect said that the condemnation was never anything but raw partisanship. Having given up principle, what do they have left? (Auster is right about the lack of principles on the right, but being a mystic, his principles are not grounded in reality.) I hope I have not overloaded the reader's mind with examples. Now, what does it all mean? Conservatism is an ideology in crisis. There is a lot confusion out there about what conservatism stands for, what it means. Various factions are working to redefine conservatism. One thing all factions agree on if they are honest is that conservatism no longer means smaller government. Every Republican President has presided over an expanding government. Many of the worst offenders of individual rights, such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Americans with Disabilities Act, have come about during Republican Presidencies. Fighting for slightly less growth than what the Democrats want is not enough to make a party for small government. The honest conservatives have made their peace with the welfare state. All the possible ways conservatism and the Republican Party might redefine themselves are bad. The greatest threat is that they will become the party of religion (even more than they are now). Throughout history religion has been a force of spiritual tyranny. Religionists want to put chains on man's mind and force individuals to accept their values. It always comes down to force because their epistemology is based on faith, not reason. You can't rationally persuade someone, "I've had a mystic revelation from a supernatural being that says X is good." In the end, all you can do is use government force to make people accept X or else. Another threat is the rise of nationalism. Tancredo and Hunter of the Republican candidates are protectionists who advocate "Buy American." Fewer and fewer voices support free trade. The anti-immigration movement is huge on the right. Protectionism leads to strife among nations. As Bastiat put it, "When trade does not cross borders, troops do." Closely tied with nationalism is the rise of racism. It infuriates the anti-immigrationists to be called racist, but let's be serious. If blue-eyed scandinavians were flooding into America, would anyone be horrified? White racism is the inevitable result of multiculturalism; as race become the defining factor for minorities, so it goes for the majority. When you see minorities become pressure groups with their hands out to the government, the majority begins to ask, "Wait a minute -- where's my cut?" Finally, the Republicans are becoming the party of permanent warfare. I support the war against militant Islam, but I want it to be fought seriously and fought to win. If we fought that way, the war would have been over years ago. WWII only took four years. Our current war is now in its sixth year. Our policy is not serious war, but "long war." The paleo-conservatives and libertarians, as much as I disagree with them, make some good points about a state of permanent warfare. Warfare is the foreign equivalent of welfare at home -- it is what big government does. As Randolph Bourne famously put it, "War is the health of the state." Ayn Rand wrote in her essay, "The Roots of War," Statism needs war; a free country does not. Statism survives by looting; a free country survives by production. ... Laissez-faire capitalism is the only social system based on the recognition of individual rights and, therefore, the only system that bans force from social relationships. By the nature of its basic principles and interests, it is the only system fundamentally opposed to war. As America is a welfare state, not a laissez-faire capitalist state, one must wonder if its permanent warfare is as unjust as its welfare. Our current warfare is a mixture of legitimate self-defense against a totalitarian force and altruistic "nation building." Those who do the sacrificing to both welfare and warfare are not those in power, but the American citizens. (As Rand notes, the left is not really for peace. Leftists want even more statism, precisely that which causes war.) All the fissures and confusion come down to the contradiction on the right that only Ayn Rand understood 50 years ago: capitalism and the morality of altruism are incompatible. You cannot integrate and defend a social system based on the self-interest of the individual with a morality that upholds self-sacrifice as an ideal. When conservatives are forced to choose between capitalism and their morality, they go with their morality every time. And so the state continues to get bigger and bigger and freedom becomes a distant memory. As an Objectivist, and politically a radical for capitalism, I'm delighted to see conservatism give up its pretense of being for the free market and individual rights. The more clarity Americans have about the nature of conservatism, the more they are likely to look for an alternative. I would suggest they start looking here. View the full article

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog It's down to the last few days before Iowans vote in their odd caucuses. In the latest Iowa poll, Obama leads Clinton by seven points, 32-25. Clinton needs to pulls out the stops, put the campaigning into overdrive and move Iowans in her direction with the power of her message. Now is the time for her to take that extra step, to open herself up to every Iowan, to engage with them. This is a time for authenticity. Yes, Clinton is well aware of authenticity; she was there in the '60s when it was a buzzword. So what does Hillary Clinton do? She stops taking questions from Iowan audiences. Remarkable. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote, ...a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. Jefferson's respect for reason reflects the Enlightenment's values of individualism and liberty. Hillary Clinton's refusal to take questions implies the opposite. She is saying, because I have no respect for your opinions and don't believe you should be dealt with by reason, but only by force, I will not explain myself to you. Clinton's disrespect for reason reflects her values of statism and collectivism. Her use of planted questions and her avoidance of the media are also expressions of her contempt for reason. As a philosopher-queen who thinks it is her duty to run everyone's life for his own good, she has no patience for answering questions. Such questions are only used by her enemies, the dark forces of the right, to cloud men's minds and stop her from controlling America for its own good. Hillary Clinton, more than any other American politician in my lifetime, despises the media. She is even worse than Nixon's Vice-President Spiro Agnew, who famously called the media "nattering nabobs of negativism" (a line written by William Safire). But Agnew had some cause to distrust the media, as the liberal bias, though as bad then as it is now, was entirely unchecked then. The liberal media had such power then that they could inflate a third-rate political dirty trick such as Watergate into a Constitutional crisis. Clinton, however, despises a media that is for the most part on her side. What she resents is when the MSM is forced by the internet, talk radio and whatever tattered shreds of integrity they have left to actually do their job and dare to ask hard questions of Clinton. This is why I call her an American Stalinist. Readers who are "of an age" will remember those Doonesbury cartoons during the Nixon years in which Trudeau drew the White House behind a vast stone wall. When Nixon resigned, the wall came down. Whether or not that image was deserved, a Clinton White House would certainly have wall upon wall between we the people and the philosopher-queen who controls every aspect our life. View the full article

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog What's the difference between the Tommy John surgery and steroids? One is the use of science to improve performance and the other is... the use of science to improve performance. All right, there are differences. The surgery is the use of medicine to repair a damaged arm, whereas steroids are injected into a healthy body to make it "unnaturally" stronger. The surgery is not available on the street to teenagers who are desperate to compete in sports. Sports science has for decades improved athletic performance in countless ways. I myself have paid an instructor who used a computer to analyze my golf swing (in my case, no improvement). People in general, not just athletes, are bigger and taller than they were 100 years ago because of improvements in medicine and nutrition. We're heading for the day when computer chips are integrated with natural brain activity. People will be hooked up to computers and the internet 24/7 through satellite connections that go directly into their head. They will be able to see print in front of their eyes. (Teachers will play hell trying to stop students from cheating on tests!) We will be a civilization of cyborgs. It will be impossible to stop athletes from exploiting these internal computers in their sport. People will accept it: why shouldn't an athlete use computer help to analyze the arc of a thrown football when everyone in the stands is doing it? We accept all these developments of science and technology, but we draw the line at drug use. Drugs are too easy; inject the needle and a month later you have muscles the average halfback 80 years ago would have envied. I wonder if our objection to drug performance enhancers is a remnant of puritanism. What if someone discovers a drug that helps the brain function more efficiently and turns an average IQ into a genius? Do we allow students to take this drug? What about when they take their SAT or GRE? Would chess players be tested for this drug? Olympic athletes from around the world train in the USA because it has the most resources and best training. Often every runner in a 100-meter dash will be an American or will have trained in America. Those athletes are taking advantage of technological and economic progress that much of the rest of the world lacks. Is this a level playing field? Absolutely not. What would happen if steroids were legal in all sports? Very likely, the science would improve and the dangerous side effects would be cured. Athletes would follow the ideal of the Olympic motto and go faster, stronger and higher. New standards would be set in all sports and athletes would go about attempting to meet and exceed the standards -- as they did before steroids. We would see our favorite athletes have longer careers. Athletes would no longer be forced into retirement at 35, but 40 or 45 might become the norm. We might see some remarkable specimens last into their 50's. Instead of dictating from the top down, I think we should try giving freedom and individual choice a chance in the realm of performance enhancing drugs. Let each adult choose for himself how he wants to train for his sport. Freedom often has unintended consequences that make life better in utterly unexpected ways. View the full article

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog I've already done two posts on Christmas Eve. For any other blog, that would be enough, but is the 'Haf done? Not yet! I watched two movies today over at my sister's place. First, I must remark that she no longer buys DVD's. She just orders movies through her cable company and they play. What is this new system doing to Blockbuster Video's business? We watched one good movie and one great movie. The good movie was Rescue Dawn, which was reviewed by Joe Kane. It is suspenseful and interesting throughout, but the plot, based on a real story, is one dimensional. The great movie was The Lives of Others, a German movie about the Stasi in 1984. It is one of the best movies I have seen. I won't go into the plot. The movie deals with issues of freedom and power. I would say the theme is morality vs. totalitarianism. The story brilliantly concretizes the value-conflict every step of the way. This movie is great for the reason Rescue Dawn is not: the story of The Lives of Others is entirely made up and is more satisfying than real life, whereas the story of Rescue Dawn is limited to what really happened. Do not miss The Lives of Others. UPDATE: I would like to add, upon reflection, that the last line of The Lives of Others is the best last line in movie history. It is even better than the last line of Some Like It Hot, which is the funniest last line ever. I should also add that the acting is excellent across the cast -- but then, I have always been impressed by German actors. Two of my favorite movies are M and The Blue Angel. Emil Jannings and Gustaf Gründgens are brilliant in those movies. View the full article

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog Glenn Greenwald has attacked Romney, claiming the candidate wants a dictatorial presidency. I must admit, one attack from Greenwald raises my estimation of Romney more than 100 lickspittle encomiums from the Republican propagandist Hugh Hewitt ever could. Romney answered questions about the limits of presidential power. Greenwald interprets Romney's answers to mean he wants to be a tyrant. But Greenwald's argumentation is more tortured than the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. See if you can follow what he is saying here: In every area, Romney explicitly says that neither laws nor treaties can limit the President's conduct. Instead, displaying the fear-mongering cowardice that lies at the heart of Bush/Cheney Republican power, Romney described the root of his view of the world this way: " Our most basic civil liberty is the right to be kept alive." Romney recited that cowardly platitude -- what has now become the shameful flagship of the Republican Party -- in response to being asked whether the President has the power to eavesdrop on Americans without warrants even in the face of a law that makes it a crime to do so. At its core, the defining principle of the Republican Party continues to be a fear-driven repudiation of the American ethos as most famously expressed by Patrick Henry, all in service of keeping the citizenry in fear so the President can rule without limits. Here is my interpretation of this passage: Patrick Henry said "Give me liberty or give me death." Therefore we should be more willing to accept death by Islamic terrorists than to allow the President to eavesdrop on Americans without warrants. It is cowardly to allow ourselves to lose our liberties just because we might be killed by a foreign enemy waging war against us. The Republican Party uses fear to justify its power-lust. Greenwald takes a slogan that was used to rouse a people to war and twists it to justify not fighting a war. Let the enemy kill us, because fighting back violates civil liberties! Greenwald continues: These are just some of the powers which Romney -- and, among the respondents, Romney alone -- claimed the President possesses, either by explicitly claiming them or refusing to repudiate them when asked directly: * to eavesdrop on Americans with no warrants, even if doing so is in violation of Congressional law (Question 1); * to attack Iran without Congressional authorization, even in the absence of an imminent threat (Question 2); * to disregard a congressional statute limiting the deployment of troops (Question 3); * to issue a signing statement reserving a constitutional right to bypass laws enacted by Congress (Question 4); * to disregard international human rights treaties that the US Senate has ratified where said treaties, in his view, "impinge upon the President's constitutional authority" (Question 8) I'll let the legal experts set each specific point straight. Suffice it to say, I don't take the antiwar left's interpretation at face value. I believe their purpose in raising these legal issues is not to support civil liberties (as if they gave a damn about any liberties), but to stop America from fighting the war. I will concede that emergency war measures would be clearer if Congress declared war as is their responsibility. Furthermore, none of this would be an issue if the American government had fought the war seriously and destroyed all regimes that sponsor terrorism in 2001. The war could have been over in 2002 if we had actually fought it; instead we have settled for a state of "permanent war" that is disturbing, as the paleocons and libertarians argue. (But the reason is not warmongering or greed or Halliburton; it is altruism and appeasement, the fear of America asserting its national self-interest.) At the heart of the liberals' and libertarians' elevation of legal side issues to the essence of foreign policy is their inability to take the war seriously. They don't see our war against militant Islam as anything near WWII or even Vietnam, but as more of a criminal justice matter. Let the FBI pursue these criminals who fly airplanes into buildings. I don't support Romney, but he is absolutely right that we can't be free if we aren't alive. One of the few legitimate tasks of government is to defend its citizens from foreign aggression. And at the moment there is a totalitarian movement, Islamic fundamentalism or whatever the hell you want to call it, that strives to destroy America and the West and rule the world with Sharia law. It's out there. It's at war with us. Sooner or later it will strike again. This is not fear-mongering; these are the facts of reality. View the full article

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog Probably the greatest guitarists that many young people have never heard of are Alvin Lee and Johnny Winter. Lee's group Ten Years After has one hit that still gets a lot airplay, "I'd Love to Change the World." I don't think Johnny Winter gets much airplay at all. is good because, instead of using that annoying MTV style of constant fast cuts, the camera lovingly stays on Lee's guitar. You get a really good look at how a master Rock'n'Roll guitarist moves his fingers across the fretboard. Here is a from the same concert. Here is a video from 1969 of one of Ten Years After's most famous hits, Good Morning Little Schoolgirl, which has always struck me as a sinister song. The '60s psychedelia is silly. Here is a live performance of Slow Blues In C. It is unbelievable how fluid his playing is. Who is the best guitarist to come out of the great state of Texas? Stevie Ray Vaughan? Billy Gibbons? I'll go with Johnny Winter. Here he plays Johnny B. Goode. Dude can pick. Here is http://youtube.com/watch?v=xGZTikKCJvg. And here is Johnny smoking through Bob Dylan's Highway 61. In this clip of he looks old, but he can still play. San Francisco Blues. Here is a rare recording of Johnny jamming with Jimi Hendrix on Things I Used to Do. Finally, here is a killer version of Johnny playing Red House in 1991. There's a bass solo in the middle of this song, which reminds me of a joke. An explorer was making his way in a canoe up the Congo with a native guide when drums began playing in the distance. "What does this mean?" the explorer asked. "Drums good," the guide assured him, "but when drums stop -- very bad." For two weeks they paddled up the Congo with the drums playing. Then the drums stopped. "What now?" the explorer asked. "Very bad," the guide said. "Now bass solo." Both Alvin Lee and Johnny Winter, like a lot of classic rock, are essentially Rockabilly with distortion. Both guitarists were big until the deluge, the New Wave/Punk/Heavy Metal change that hit music in the late '70s. After that I guess both guitarists sounded a little old fashioned. That was the end of the blues-rock era. As fast as both men play, they never lose the emotion; they never sound like soulless guitar machines. That is because they both have their feet firmly planted in the blues. View the full article

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog Monna Vanna closed in Los Angeles. I was fortunate to have a small part in the play. I'm grateful to the Executive Producer Quent Cordair Fine Art, the Producer LizBeth Lucca, the Director Joel Marquez and everyone involved with the show. Without the initiative of the producers and director, I surely would not have had a chance to act in Maurice Maeterlinck's masterpiece. I was asked by an audience member why this play is Ayn Rand's favorite. It is because the play dramatizes value-conflict in a good plot that leads to a climax. Like Aristotle, Rand held that plot is the soul of drama. My only reservation about the play is the translation. On a line by line level, the play is difficult. The syntax is complicated and the sentences are long with subordinate clauses and whatnot. The dialogue is hard for the audience to understand, and several people told me they had a hard time following it. (And I know from the inside that it's hard to act.) Here is one example from my lines. This is just the beginning of a long speech: You know, Prinzivalle, the esteem in which I hold you. I have given you more than one example of it that you cannot have forgotten -- but there are others of which you are ignorant: for the policy of Florence that men call perfidious when it is but prudent, requires many things to remain hidden for a time, even from those who are most in her counsels. We all obey her deep-laid plans, and each man must bear with courage the mysteries that make the strength of his country. Remember, an audience member sitting in the theater does not have the luxury of rereading a line or pausing to contemplate its meaning. A playwright must write with that in mind to help the audience understand clearly and vividly what is being said. Monna Vanna has line after line like the passage quoted above that I fear create a kind of haze in the audience's mind. They have a vague, general idea of what is being said, but not a clear one. Part of the comprehension problem lies with modern audiences that are not used to listening to classical drama. Movies and television are more visual, with brief dialogue that is often epigrammatic. But part of the problem is with the translation -- or maybe even with Maeterlinck's writing. I would like to see a modern translation done by someone who understands 1) contemporary idiom; and 2) that the human mind can only deal with so much at a time before it loses understanding (the crow epistemology). If I were translating, I would find places to break up some of the monologues into dialogue (perhaps my translation would be an adaptation). Being monologue heavy, the play reminds me of the French neo-classicism of Corneille and Racine, which I believe is the hardest type of drama to act -- harder even than Shakespeare or Greek drama. I'm glad I got the opportunity to act such a difficult style, but I think the play could be more powerful in a better translation. Now I'm happy to have some time off. In January I'll be auditioning for an interesting project: a local group is doing Hamlet and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in repertory, with the same cast in both shows. I'll let you know whether or not I get cast. View the full article

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog Penelope Trunk, writing in the Huffington Post blog, argues that "Christmas Does Not Belong in the Workplace." Christmas does not belong in the workplace because it undermines diversity at work. And businesses that promote diversity have more profits in the long run than companies that do not have a diverse workforce. A big problem with Christmas is that those of us who have no reason to celebrate it have to spend a month between Thanksgiving and New Year's dealing with Christmas at work. Christmas is the only religious holiday that everyone has to stop working for. It's the only religious event that offices have parties to celebrate. These practices alienate non-Christians. This is classic multiculturalist thinking. The holiday celebrated by the majority excludes the minority -- it's inegalitarian! It has to go! With this sententious, victim-centric nagging coming from the left, is it any wonder people are turning to religion to get away from it? She refutes arguments she hears in favor of Christmas, the first one being: "Christmas is not a religious holiday." The only people who think Christmas is not religious are the Christians. Everyone else thinks, "This is not my holiday." In fact, only a Christian would feel enough authority over the holiday to declare that it is not Christian. Objectivists would agree with those Christians who say Christmas is not a religious holiday. In essence, Christmas is antithetical to the religious spirit. Christmas is a celebration of values and joy on earth. People equate Christmas with happiness, not misery. People say "Merry Christmas," not "Deny thyself and suffer as Christ did." Christmas originated when the early Christians cleverly co-opted the Roman Saturnalia, a popular holiday at the winter equinox. In a brilliant marketing move, the Christians decided December 25 was when their God was born. For most of history Christmas was not the most important Christian holiday, Easter was. Christ's death and resurrection is more important to the Christian myth than his birth. All the stuff of Christmas -- the tree, the lights, Santa Claus -- are either of pagan origin or come from capitalist merchants trying to make a buck. As Leonard Peikoff writes, Even after the Christians stole Christmas, they were ambivalent about it. The holiday was inherently a pro-life festival of earthly renewal, but the Christians preached renunciation, sacrifice, and concern for the next world, not this one. As Cotton Mather, an 18th-century clergyman, put it: "Can you in your consciences think that our Holy Savior is honored by mirth? . . . Shall it be said that at the birth of our Savior . . . we take time . . . to do actions that have much more of hell than of heaven in them?" Then came the major developments of 19th-century capitalism... For the first time, the giving of gifts became a major feature of Christmas. Early Christians denounced gift-giving as a Roman practice, and Puritans called it diabolical. But Americans were not to be deterred. Thanks to capitalism, there was enough wealth to make gifts possible, a great productive apparatus to advertise them and make them available cheaply, and a country so content that men wanted to reach out to their friends and express their enjoyment of life. The whole country took with glee to giving gifts on an unprecedented scale. Liberals worried about "diversity" should not get hung up on the religious connection to Christmas. The connection is vestigial and non-essential, like the mentions of God in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. If it helps, let them think of Christmas as Pretty Lightbulb Day. The gay lights we perceive through our senses are at least reality, unlike the mythical birth of a man who was supposed to be the son of a God for whom there is no evidence. View the full article

By Myrhaf from Myrhaf,cross-posted by MetaBlog I have maintained that Hillary Clinton cannot win election as President. The Democrat base supports her; the Republicans and independents do not. It's impossible to win without independent votes. I think the Democrats are blinded to Clinton's weakness as a candidate by their hope for a return that ol' Clinton glory. They have had the idea of a Hillary Clinton presidency in their minds since she ran for the Senate. They want it so bad they can taste it. Two elections on Tuesday provide evidence of Hillary Clinton's weakness. In Ohio, Republican Bob Latta clobbered Democrat Robin Weirauch, 57-43. In Virginia, the score was 61-37 as Republican Rob Wittman stomped Democrat Phil Forgit, an Iraqi war veteran. In both races, the Republican ran an ad linking the Democrat with Hillary Clinton. Ohio is a state the Democrats need to win a Presidential election. I don't want to make too much out of two races, as the Clinton factor might have been negligible; on the other hand these elections might be a demonstration of Hillary Clinton's unpopularity. We'll see. I suspect we're heading toward the biggest landslide since 1984 when Reagan demolished Mondale. I don't take any satisfaction in this. I fear the beneficiary will be Romney or McCain -- meaning more big government. Either man might push Congress to send him a bill mandating that young people serve the government for two years of their life in some "volunteer" program. (And another thought. Given how unhinged the Democrats have been during the Bush Presidency, what will they be like if they lose again in 2008?) View the full article