Saturday, April 11, 2009
The United States of Goldman Sachs
The recent spectacle of an American President bowing to a Saudi King is a reminder that the United States of America is in serious trouble. The fact is, there is no longer a United States of America in the sense of the nation's being a free republic. Rather, the United States is now an aristocracy under the guidance of the Goldman Sachs investment firm. Barack Obama is merely an employee of Goldman Sachs, as is the US Congress. The American people are simply too stupid to care.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Petition: Reject Obama's Attack on American Sovereignty
Recently, the President of the United States, Barack Obama, bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia. This is a national disgrace because it suggests that Mr. Obama has rejected republicanism. In turn, this would suggest that he is a traitor.
The American Center for Law and Justice, located here (h/t Nancy Razik), has a petition protesting Obama's rejection of American sovereignty, a necessary component to republicanism. It reads:
President Obama:
Don’t Surrender our National Sovereignty!
President Obama is embarking on a new and troubling direction for our nation. Some are calling it the “Selling of America” — surrendering our national sovereignty in the interest of international cooperation. This is contrary to our very founding. We must hold America’s leaders accountable! Stand with the ACLJ and send a powerful message to President Obama — America is NOT for sale. The U.S. is a sovereign, independent world leader — and must not surrender its autonomy. Please read the form below carefully and declare your membership with the ACLJ by adding your name to our Letter of Protest.
LETTER OF PROTEST
TO:
President of the United States, Barack Obama
As a concerned member of the American Center for Law and Justice and a proud citizen of the United States of America, I join with Chief Counsel Jay Alan Sekulow in protesting your Administration’s push for “transnationalism.” America’s sovereignty is not for sale. It should be protected at all costs, esteemed as our Founding Fathers envisioned, and governed under the authority given by our United States Constitution.
Ceding America’s independence in the interest of international cooperation is unacceptable. It is subservient to our national interests and stands as a threat to American democracy and the future protection of our citizens.
The United States is a powerful, sovereign, independent world leader and must not surrender its autonomy. I respectfully raise my voice in protest: America is not for sale.
Please consider signing it here.
The American Center for Law and Justice, located here (h/t Nancy Razik), has a petition protesting Obama's rejection of American sovereignty, a necessary component to republicanism. It reads:
President Obama:
Don’t Surrender our National Sovereignty!
President Obama is embarking on a new and troubling direction for our nation. Some are calling it the “Selling of America” — surrendering our national sovereignty in the interest of international cooperation. This is contrary to our very founding. We must hold America’s leaders accountable! Stand with the ACLJ and send a powerful message to President Obama — America is NOT for sale. The U.S. is a sovereign, independent world leader — and must not surrender its autonomy. Please read the form below carefully and declare your membership with the ACLJ by adding your name to our Letter of Protest.
LETTER OF PROTEST
TO:
President of the United States, Barack Obama
As a concerned member of the American Center for Law and Justice and a proud citizen of the United States of America, I join with Chief Counsel Jay Alan Sekulow in protesting your Administration’s push for “transnationalism.” America’s sovereignty is not for sale. It should be protected at all costs, esteemed as our Founding Fathers envisioned, and governed under the authority given by our United States Constitution.
Ceding America’s independence in the interest of international cooperation is unacceptable. It is subservient to our national interests and stands as a threat to American democracy and the future protection of our citizens.
The United States is a powerful, sovereign, independent world leader and must not surrender its autonomy. I respectfully raise my voice in protest: America is not for sale.
Please consider signing it here.
The Unity Philosophy Failed Because Laissez Faire Succeeded
In the US, the notion that there needs to be a strong central state began with the Federalist Papers. The Federalists left a considerable degree of decentralized authority with the states, but from the beginning there was ambiguity as to how decentralized decision making ought to be. Centalization was re enforced with the Civil War, which further strengthened the federal government and opened the door to Progressivism. The Progressives were not necessarily centralizers. However, the key federal legislation that came from Progressivism, the Hepburn Act, the Federal Trade Commission, the federal income tax and the Federal Reserve Bank as well as imperialist ventures like the Spanish American War were all centralizing. On the other hand, much of the Progressive legislation, such as Workers' Compensation, housing codes and wage and hours laws respecting women and children proceeded at the state level. The New Deal served as a centralizing force on Progressivism, and may be viewed as the culmination of 160 years of Hamiltonian federalism.
The centralizing trend came about because of conflicts about morals and economic opportunism. As Charles Beard and other Progressives argued, much of the motive for the federal Constitution was economic gain to domestic manufacturers, which Hamilton wholeheartedly supported as did Madison and Jefferson to a lesser degree. But abolitionism and then concern about trusts led to moralizing about the economy. Until the post-bellum era Protestantism had been associated with local community as in John Winthrop's City on a Hill. The states were separate religious communities and did not aim to impose their religious-based moralities on other states. But slavery posed a national moral problem, as did the central bank. Thus Calvinist morality took on a national scope. The notion that the nation was a moral community took hold. Among the advocates of this notion were the late nineteenth century Mugwumps, who were among the first media-based national moral movements. The Mugwumps were mostly Protestant, although there were a few Catholics and Jews among their ranks as well (there were few Jews in America in the 1870s but there was a handful of notable Jewish Mugwumps, such as Simon Sterne). The Mugwumps were not necessarily religious, but they had been religiously trained and applied the morality of their education to the economic problems facing America, for instance, the corruption associated with the railroads, the Greenback inflation and most of all the need for a civil service to counteract the urban corruption of the political boss system. Although the Mugwumps were laissez faire in ideology they were very much the precursor to the Progressives in that they focused on national issues and saw national solutions in terms of the need to rationalize government.
The trend toward centralization thus came out of the Civil War and was re enforced by one outcome of Progressivism: the intensification of Jim Crow laws, especially in the South. As the results of Jim Crow became evident in the early twentieth century, the need to counteract it took hold in a reincarnation of the Civil War in terms of the Civil Rights movement. As well, the Roosevelt administration saw economic problems as resolvable at the federal level. Thus, Social Security, labor law, wage and hour laws, securities regulation, agricultural regulation and public works took hold in the public mind.
This was occurring precisely as it became evident to managers in America's large industrial firms that centralization does not work. This was noted by Alfred Chandler in his book "Strategy and Structure", especially with respect to Alfred Sloan. Sloan modeled General Motors after the federal government, downloading responsibility to the automotive and other manufacturing divisions just before Roosevelt saw fit to centralize decision making in Washington.
As it turned out, Sloan was right, although subsequent generations of General Motors executives dropped the ball. As General Motors re-centralized it failed to be able to compete with innovations of the much smaller Toyota Automotive in the 1950s. These innovations were known as lean manufacturing. As well, Toyota was able to adopt the ideas of Edward I. Deming.
As American industry found that decentralization was necessary to competent management, the federal government became more insistent on centralization. Part of this was due to intensification of the Civil Rights struggle in the 1960s, but part was due to the egos and greed of politicians and academics who oversaw federal policy. Thus, plans like Medicaid and Medicare which could have been experimentally adopted at the state levels, with the best results revealed, were thrown into existence in a slipshod manner at the federal level without the pragmatic advantage of state-based experimentation. Policies concerning health care, social security, pension regulation, health and safety regulation, auto safety, pollution and most of all monetary policy were adopted at the federal level, typically with poor to mediocre results.
The failure of the Great Society Programs; the mismanagement of social security; the crippling effects on inner city blacks of urban renewal and labor laws; the instability due to monetary policy under Richard M. Nixon and the early years of the Carter administration might have given the centralizers pause. But it did not.
Unwilling or unable to grasp the reasons why centralization does not work, they continue to push for dramatic, centralized solutions to America's problems. The result: the sub-prime crisis; the series of bubbles that occurred in the 1990s and 2000's; declining real hourly wages; a failing social security system (or a social security that fails to provide an adequate retirement benefit despite 14% annual contributions by workers and their employers); and declining career opportunities for young people.
Despite these and other failures, the "progressives" continue to agitate for the same failed, centralized approach. This should be called the "pathology of centralization".
The centralizing trend came about because of conflicts about morals and economic opportunism. As Charles Beard and other Progressives argued, much of the motive for the federal Constitution was economic gain to domestic manufacturers, which Hamilton wholeheartedly supported as did Madison and Jefferson to a lesser degree. But abolitionism and then concern about trusts led to moralizing about the economy. Until the post-bellum era Protestantism had been associated with local community as in John Winthrop's City on a Hill. The states were separate religious communities and did not aim to impose their religious-based moralities on other states. But slavery posed a national moral problem, as did the central bank. Thus Calvinist morality took on a national scope. The notion that the nation was a moral community took hold. Among the advocates of this notion were the late nineteenth century Mugwumps, who were among the first media-based national moral movements. The Mugwumps were mostly Protestant, although there were a few Catholics and Jews among their ranks as well (there were few Jews in America in the 1870s but there was a handful of notable Jewish Mugwumps, such as Simon Sterne). The Mugwumps were not necessarily religious, but they had been religiously trained and applied the morality of their education to the economic problems facing America, for instance, the corruption associated with the railroads, the Greenback inflation and most of all the need for a civil service to counteract the urban corruption of the political boss system. Although the Mugwumps were laissez faire in ideology they were very much the precursor to the Progressives in that they focused on national issues and saw national solutions in terms of the need to rationalize government.
The trend toward centralization thus came out of the Civil War and was re enforced by one outcome of Progressivism: the intensification of Jim Crow laws, especially in the South. As the results of Jim Crow became evident in the early twentieth century, the need to counteract it took hold in a reincarnation of the Civil War in terms of the Civil Rights movement. As well, the Roosevelt administration saw economic problems as resolvable at the federal level. Thus, Social Security, labor law, wage and hour laws, securities regulation, agricultural regulation and public works took hold in the public mind.
This was occurring precisely as it became evident to managers in America's large industrial firms that centralization does not work. This was noted by Alfred Chandler in his book "Strategy and Structure", especially with respect to Alfred Sloan. Sloan modeled General Motors after the federal government, downloading responsibility to the automotive and other manufacturing divisions just before Roosevelt saw fit to centralize decision making in Washington.
As it turned out, Sloan was right, although subsequent generations of General Motors executives dropped the ball. As General Motors re-centralized it failed to be able to compete with innovations of the much smaller Toyota Automotive in the 1950s. These innovations were known as lean manufacturing. As well, Toyota was able to adopt the ideas of Edward I. Deming.
As American industry found that decentralization was necessary to competent management, the federal government became more insistent on centralization. Part of this was due to intensification of the Civil Rights struggle in the 1960s, but part was due to the egos and greed of politicians and academics who oversaw federal policy. Thus, plans like Medicaid and Medicare which could have been experimentally adopted at the state levels, with the best results revealed, were thrown into existence in a slipshod manner at the federal level without the pragmatic advantage of state-based experimentation. Policies concerning health care, social security, pension regulation, health and safety regulation, auto safety, pollution and most of all monetary policy were adopted at the federal level, typically with poor to mediocre results.
The failure of the Great Society Programs; the mismanagement of social security; the crippling effects on inner city blacks of urban renewal and labor laws; the instability due to monetary policy under Richard M. Nixon and the early years of the Carter administration might have given the centralizers pause. But it did not.
Unwilling or unable to grasp the reasons why centralization does not work, they continue to push for dramatic, centralized solutions to America's problems. The result: the sub-prime crisis; the series of bubbles that occurred in the 1990s and 2000's; declining real hourly wages; a failing social security system (or a social security that fails to provide an adequate retirement benefit despite 14% annual contributions by workers and their employers); and declining career opportunities for young people.
Despite these and other failures, the "progressives" continue to agitate for the same failed, centralized approach. This should be called the "pathology of centralization".
"Obama Reaches Out to Moderate Pirate Community"
H/t Larwyn. The Exurban League blog carries the following:
"After maintaining his silence for two days, President Obama will soon make his first public statement about the pirate attack upon an U.S.-flagged vessel off the Horn of Africa. After several inquiries and a few well-placed bribes, Exurban League has received an early transcript of the President's remarks:
"...Since the pirates are still holding the captain, I have sent FBI negotiators to facilitate his safe and speedy release. I assure his friends and family that I will not stop until this man-made disaster is resolved in a peaceful, tolerant and ecologically-sound manner."
Read the whole thing here.
"After maintaining his silence for two days, President Obama will soon make his first public statement about the pirate attack upon an U.S.-flagged vessel off the Horn of Africa. After several inquiries and a few well-placed bribes, Exurban League has received an early transcript of the President's remarks:
"...Since the pirates are still holding the captain, I have sent FBI negotiators to facilitate his safe and speedy release. I assure his friends and family that I will not stop until this man-made disaster is resolved in a peaceful, tolerant and ecologically-sound manner."
Read the whole thing here.
Christianity and the Coming Dissolution of the United States
Conservative Chloe's Eagle Eye blog takes activist judicial interpretation of the Constitution to court.
Chloe argues that Jefferson and other of the Founding Fathers believed in a literalist interpretation of the Constitution. Quoting Jefferson:
"On every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."
As well, Chloe points out that the Founding Fathers saw this as a Christian nation. Quoting the Northwest Ordinance, signed by President George Washington:
"Religion, morality, and knowledge, necessary to good government and happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."
Chloe argues that America is a Christian nation. Supreme Court and other rulings that have overturned the Founders' original intent are illegitimate.
Recently, I received an e-mail from Baruch College, a campus of the City University of New York, as is my employer, Brooklyn College. The e-mail said that Baruch College was holding a colloquium on whether the Constitution should be abolished. The academics involved were indifferent to republicanism, limited government or restrictions on government to steal, murder, loot, mismanage and oppress. These academics are ignorant of history. In short, they are quacks.
Conservative Chloe makes a good point. However, the resolution of these differences is hard. I do not believe that the Supreme Court of today functions as a legitimate institution. It is not authorized by the Constitution to write law, but it has repeatedly done that. It has done so in the name of changing social values. Yet, the Supreme Court does not represent Americans' values and has no mechanism to be aware of them.
The justices on the Supreme Court are taken from the ranks of elite universities. Elite universities are overtly antagonistic to traditional American values. I would add that quack social theories; medieval belief systems concerning socialism and how economies ought to work; and primitive attitudes toward the legitimacy of state violence and murder, especially as concerns left-wing or communist dictatorships and murderers are common. A murderer like Che Guevara is eulogized in these circles, as are failed, stupidly conceived medieval economic systems such as those of the Soviet Union and Cuba.
Trained in the primitive ignorance characteristic of American universities, the Supreme Court of the United States reflects neither prevalent social attitudes and mores nor any kind of evolution. They are a medievalist, reactionary body whose aim is to assist the far left in imposing aristocratic and monarchical systems on the American people through a total state similar to what existed in Russia in the 14th century.
The question is how to resolve this dilemma. On the one hand, the quackademics agitate ceaselessly for medieval government through what they pathetically call "progressivism". At the same time, real Americans favor progress through economic evolution, free markets, innovation and the free circulation of ideas, free of the unlimited authoritarian state that left-wing academics and their pupils on the Supreme Court advocate.
The conflict is one of an unstoppable force and an immovable object. The end result will be dissolution of the United States.
There is no reason why Conservative Chloe should be forced to share this nation with the thuggish, left wing knuckleheads who dominate Congress. Nor should people schooled in American history like Conservative Chloe be forced to share this country with ignoramuses who do not know that the Founders saw a militia and the ownership of guns as necessary to protect against the tyrannical state--the very kind of state academics and the US Supreme Court advocate.
The country ought to be broke up into several regions. The regions ought to reflect widespread values of large groups of Americans. Each region ought to be free to form its own constitution as far as economic and social values. The Supreme Court ought to be decentralized into the several regions. The chief remaining duty of the federal government ought to be national defense. The federal government ought to be elected by the state governments and by the people. The regions should be free to decide on their own monetary, economic, social and religious policies.
America is simply too large to manage. The attitudes of the left, namely, the activist state, are incompatible with the ideals of the Founders. The failure of the activist state has, unbelievably, been met in left-wing and Democratic Party circles for calls for an ever more activist state.
The current federal government lacks legitimacy. It exists by force of violence. It is a tyranny.
Chloe argues that Jefferson and other of the Founding Fathers believed in a literalist interpretation of the Constitution. Quoting Jefferson:
"On every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."
As well, Chloe points out that the Founding Fathers saw this as a Christian nation. Quoting the Northwest Ordinance, signed by President George Washington:
"Religion, morality, and knowledge, necessary to good government and happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."
Chloe argues that America is a Christian nation. Supreme Court and other rulings that have overturned the Founders' original intent are illegitimate.
Recently, I received an e-mail from Baruch College, a campus of the City University of New York, as is my employer, Brooklyn College. The e-mail said that Baruch College was holding a colloquium on whether the Constitution should be abolished. The academics involved were indifferent to republicanism, limited government or restrictions on government to steal, murder, loot, mismanage and oppress. These academics are ignorant of history. In short, they are quacks.
Conservative Chloe makes a good point. However, the resolution of these differences is hard. I do not believe that the Supreme Court of today functions as a legitimate institution. It is not authorized by the Constitution to write law, but it has repeatedly done that. It has done so in the name of changing social values. Yet, the Supreme Court does not represent Americans' values and has no mechanism to be aware of them.
The justices on the Supreme Court are taken from the ranks of elite universities. Elite universities are overtly antagonistic to traditional American values. I would add that quack social theories; medieval belief systems concerning socialism and how economies ought to work; and primitive attitudes toward the legitimacy of state violence and murder, especially as concerns left-wing or communist dictatorships and murderers are common. A murderer like Che Guevara is eulogized in these circles, as are failed, stupidly conceived medieval economic systems such as those of the Soviet Union and Cuba.
Trained in the primitive ignorance characteristic of American universities, the Supreme Court of the United States reflects neither prevalent social attitudes and mores nor any kind of evolution. They are a medievalist, reactionary body whose aim is to assist the far left in imposing aristocratic and monarchical systems on the American people through a total state similar to what existed in Russia in the 14th century.
The question is how to resolve this dilemma. On the one hand, the quackademics agitate ceaselessly for medieval government through what they pathetically call "progressivism". At the same time, real Americans favor progress through economic evolution, free markets, innovation and the free circulation of ideas, free of the unlimited authoritarian state that left-wing academics and their pupils on the Supreme Court advocate.
The conflict is one of an unstoppable force and an immovable object. The end result will be dissolution of the United States.
There is no reason why Conservative Chloe should be forced to share this nation with the thuggish, left wing knuckleheads who dominate Congress. Nor should people schooled in American history like Conservative Chloe be forced to share this country with ignoramuses who do not know that the Founders saw a militia and the ownership of guns as necessary to protect against the tyrannical state--the very kind of state academics and the US Supreme Court advocate.
The country ought to be broke up into several regions. The regions ought to reflect widespread values of large groups of Americans. Each region ought to be free to form its own constitution as far as economic and social values. The Supreme Court ought to be decentralized into the several regions. The chief remaining duty of the federal government ought to be national defense. The federal government ought to be elected by the state governments and by the people. The regions should be free to decide on their own monetary, economic, social and religious policies.
America is simply too large to manage. The attitudes of the left, namely, the activist state, are incompatible with the ideals of the Founders. The failure of the activist state has, unbelievably, been met in left-wing and Democratic Party circles for calls for an ever more activist state.
The current federal government lacks legitimacy. It exists by force of violence. It is a tyranny.
Lt. Michael Behenna
I just received the following e-mail from Jim Crum concerning Lt. Michael Behenna:
>I attempted to let all of you and others know about the terrible injustice in regards to 1st LT Michael Behenna who is now serving a 25 year sentence because the prosecution did not provide the defense team with very important evidence. This information by a pathologist who examined the terrorist’s body shows clearly that Michael was only acting in self-defense when the terrorist tried to take Michael’s 9mm pistol.
Please make calls to the Glenn Beck show today. He will have an open forum where callers can voice the issues bothering them today.
So please, call in support of Michael Behenna especially since none of the news services has made any effort to h elp this brave soldier who was serving with the 101st Airborne Division.
Honor and Duty,
Charles R. Gant
Governor 502nd Regiment
101st Airborne Division Association
Glenn Beck Live today at 6pm ET! Get online and let's tell Michael's story!
FOX News: What's bothering you -- really bothering you -- these days? Is there a story or issue that you think we're missing and it's driving you nuts because we're not covering it?
This was the question Glenn Beck asked viewers to answer in his last Live Chat.
On Thursdays from 6 - 6:15 p.m. ET, Glenn Beck hosts a live, Web exclusive show only on FOXNews.com. Don't miss out: It's your chance to ask Glenn questions on the day's hottest topics!
Let's all share the story they aren't covering, Michael's story! Let's be his voice.
Brittany Behenna came up with this great idea! If you all are insterested, I will be chatting away today! Hope to see you all there!
Chat Directly
http://interactive.foxnews.com/glennbecklive
If you have trouble go to main website link below & then enter chat
http://www.foxnews.com/glennbeck/index.html
Thanks,
Shannon
--
Defend 1LT Michael Behenna
More information about story or how to get involved please check out these websites.
www.DEFENDMICHAEL.COM
http://twitter.com/DefendMichael
http://defendmichael.blogspot.com/
>I attempted to let all of you and others know about the terrible injustice in regards to 1st LT Michael Behenna who is now serving a 25 year sentence because the prosecution did not provide the defense team with very important evidence. This information by a pathologist who examined the terrorist’s body shows clearly that Michael was only acting in self-defense when the terrorist tried to take Michael’s 9mm pistol.
Please make calls to the Glenn Beck show today. He will have an open forum where callers can voice the issues bothering them today.
So please, call in support of Michael Behenna especially since none of the news services has made any effort to h elp this brave soldier who was serving with the 101st Airborne Division.
Honor and Duty,
Charles R. Gant
Governor 502nd Regiment
101st Airborne Division Association
Glenn Beck Live today at 6pm ET! Get online and let's tell Michael's story!
This was the question Glenn Beck asked viewers to answer in his last Live Chat.
On Thursdays from 6 - 6:15 p.m. ET, Glenn Beck hosts a live, Web exclusive show only on FOXNews.com. Don't miss out: It's your chance to ask Glenn questions on the day's hottest topics!
Let's all share the story they aren't covering, Michael's story! Let's be his voice.
Brittany Behenna came up with this great idea! If you all are insterested, I will be chatting away today! Hope to see you all there!
Chat Directly
http://interactive.foxnews.com/glennbecklive
If you have trouble go to main website link below & then enter chat
http://www.foxnews.com/glennbeck/index.html
Thanks,
Shannon
--
Defend 1LT Michael Behenna
More information about story or how to get involved please check out these websites.
www.DEFENDMICHAEL.COM
http://twitter.com/DefendMichael
http://defendmichael.blogspot.com/
Government: The Oldest Confidence Scheme
For a number of years I worked at starting a business and investing in real estate. One of the chief challenges with which business men have to deal is the deception and manipulation of confidence men and women. Elderly people fall prey to confidence men who offer prizes for cash and Internet sweepstakes, but seasoned, high level executives fall for them as well. The Madoff scandal is but the most glaring of history's confidence schemes. In 2001, Sam Waksal convinced Peter Dolan, then recently appointed CEO of Bristol Myers Squibb and Waksal's friend (as was the also ill-fated Martha Stewart) to invest $2 billion in Imclone. According to the Wharton School of Business:
"But in December, the Food and Drug Administration rejected ImClone's application for Erbitux's market approval. ImClone's stock is now trading under $10 a share and its former chief executive, Samuel Waksal, was arrested in June on charges of conspiracy, perjury and insider trading. Authorities are investigating whether Waksal tipped off his friend, Martha Stewart, also an investor in the company, to sell shares just prior to the FDA's December ruling."
The annals of business are replete with stories of confidence schemes.
But government offers confidence schemes that are even bigger and of more malicious scope than does business. For example:
-Chinese, Soviet and Cuban governments came to power on the promise that communism would make their comrades' lives better. After decades, tens of millions of victims murdered by these governments, and one mismanaged enterprise after the other, the comrades were as poor as ever. The communist countries could not develop.
-In America, the Great Society programs of Lyndon B. Johnson claimed to be an important tool to help the poor and minorities. Today, 21% of inner city black teenagers are unemployed. Poverty has not been eradicated, rather income inequality has grown.
-Social security claimed to help the economic security of the elderly. Yet today, the economic value of social security contributions is far lower than the economic value that taxpayers contribute. Politicians transferred benefits to politically vocal constituencies in the 1970s and earlier. The result is that today's taxpayers pay for the retirement of previous generations, while seeing their own recede into the ever more distant horizon.
-Military strategy. Government claims expertise with respect to military strategy. Defense is the one area where no one denies that government ought to play a role, although the left believes it should be a smaller role than the right. But in Vietnam and Iraq, the military refused to heed the advice of William S. Lind and Thomas X. Hammes as to the importance of Fourth Generation Warfare. The result was botched strategy, thousands of Americans killed unnecessarily and at least hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and Iraqis killed unnecessarily.
-Central banking. The biggest scam. I have blogged about this elsewhere. The idea that economists are better equipped to judge how much money the crooks at the Federal Reserve Bank ought to print is a funny idea. Add to it the laughable claim that the money ought to be given to bankers, and the bankers ought to have the power to expand the counterfeit money five fold in order to "help the poor" is unquestionably the biggest financial scam in the history of mankind.
-Government operations. In the 1970s I had the privilege to work as an office temp in New York City's Department of Social Services. I was still in college. My job was to type forms for medicaid claims. The office as a large, 20,000 square foot room with at least 100 employees, maybe more. I was typing the forms, but when I looked up, not a single other person was working. Everyone else in the office was standing around talking. Not a single employee at a typewriter. Then, a group of them came to my desk and stood around me. One started saying that it was ungodly to work because Jesus said to give unto God what is God's and Ceasar what is Ceasar's.
This occurred just before the mayoralty of Edward I. Koch, the Democrat who advocates lots of additional government programs. The DSS continued unaffected during Koch's 12-year mayoralty.
It is difficult to get to the bottom of all the thieving, stupidity and incompetence in government operations. One example was FEMA's handling of the New Orleans Hurricane Katrina a few years back. The Democrats, with their usual incompetent finger pointing and refusal to look for real causes, blamed the hurricane on Bush. But there is hardly a competently run agency in state and federal government. They are all mismanaged scams.
But, of course, the confidence men cum politicians do not discuss the mismanagement, waste, misallocation of resources and failed regulation. They do not tell you that they are helping the rich through their regulatory and monetary scams.
Rather, they tell the American people that they are helping the poor and the general population.
The American people are suckers. They are suckers to allow 50% of their income to go to federal and state taxes to be squandered on the garbage that politicians oversee.
"But in December, the Food and Drug Administration rejected ImClone's application for Erbitux's market approval. ImClone's stock is now trading under $10 a share and its former chief executive, Samuel Waksal, was arrested in June on charges of conspiracy, perjury and insider trading. Authorities are investigating whether Waksal tipped off his friend, Martha Stewart, also an investor in the company, to sell shares just prior to the FDA's December ruling."
The annals of business are replete with stories of confidence schemes.
But government offers confidence schemes that are even bigger and of more malicious scope than does business. For example:
-Chinese, Soviet and Cuban governments came to power on the promise that communism would make their comrades' lives better. After decades, tens of millions of victims murdered by these governments, and one mismanaged enterprise after the other, the comrades were as poor as ever. The communist countries could not develop.
-In America, the Great Society programs of Lyndon B. Johnson claimed to be an important tool to help the poor and minorities. Today, 21% of inner city black teenagers are unemployed. Poverty has not been eradicated, rather income inequality has grown.
-Social security claimed to help the economic security of the elderly. Yet today, the economic value of social security contributions is far lower than the economic value that taxpayers contribute. Politicians transferred benefits to politically vocal constituencies in the 1970s and earlier. The result is that today's taxpayers pay for the retirement of previous generations, while seeing their own recede into the ever more distant horizon.
-Military strategy. Government claims expertise with respect to military strategy. Defense is the one area where no one denies that government ought to play a role, although the left believes it should be a smaller role than the right. But in Vietnam and Iraq, the military refused to heed the advice of William S. Lind and Thomas X. Hammes as to the importance of Fourth Generation Warfare. The result was botched strategy, thousands of Americans killed unnecessarily and at least hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and Iraqis killed unnecessarily.
-Central banking. The biggest scam. I have blogged about this elsewhere. The idea that economists are better equipped to judge how much money the crooks at the Federal Reserve Bank ought to print is a funny idea. Add to it the laughable claim that the money ought to be given to bankers, and the bankers ought to have the power to expand the counterfeit money five fold in order to "help the poor" is unquestionably the biggest financial scam in the history of mankind.
-Government operations. In the 1970s I had the privilege to work as an office temp in New York City's Department of Social Services. I was still in college. My job was to type forms for medicaid claims. The office as a large, 20,000 square foot room with at least 100 employees, maybe more. I was typing the forms, but when I looked up, not a single other person was working. Everyone else in the office was standing around talking. Not a single employee at a typewriter. Then, a group of them came to my desk and stood around me. One started saying that it was ungodly to work because Jesus said to give unto God what is God's and Ceasar what is Ceasar's.
This occurred just before the mayoralty of Edward I. Koch, the Democrat who advocates lots of additional government programs. The DSS continued unaffected during Koch's 12-year mayoralty.
It is difficult to get to the bottom of all the thieving, stupidity and incompetence in government operations. One example was FEMA's handling of the New Orleans Hurricane Katrina a few years back. The Democrats, with their usual incompetent finger pointing and refusal to look for real causes, blamed the hurricane on Bush. But there is hardly a competently run agency in state and federal government. They are all mismanaged scams.
But, of course, the confidence men cum politicians do not discuss the mismanagement, waste, misallocation of resources and failed regulation. They do not tell you that they are helping the rich through their regulatory and monetary scams.
Rather, they tell the American people that they are helping the poor and the general population.
The American people are suckers. They are suckers to allow 50% of their income to go to federal and state taxes to be squandered on the garbage that politicians oversee.
America's Batty President
Legendary conservative blogger Doug Ross (h/t Phil Aver)notes that Barack Obama has proposed to shoot pollution particles into the stratosphere to reduce the sun's rays and reduce global warming. It seems that not all the mental cases are in Creedmore. One is in the Whitehouse:
"No, this isn't a hungover April Fool's joke. The Obama administration means business on climate change, even if its plans will destroy businesses large and small. Fox News reports that 'Obama May Block Sun's Rays to End Global Warming'."
"No, this isn't a hungover April Fool's joke. The Obama administration means business on climate change, even if its plans will destroy businesses large and small. Fox News reports that 'Obama May Block Sun's Rays to End Global Warming'."
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Conservative Blogosphere Lampoons Obama's Subservient Bow
Larwyn just forwarded some grand remarks about Obama's subservient bow. The blogosphere is where the action is at. The pissant media has been sprayed with pesticide. It's dead.
Don Suber: "Presidential aide to Politico: 'It wasn’t a bow. He grasped his hand with two hands, and he’s taller than King Abdullah.'...It fooled the Saudis. Politico cited a newspaper columnist in Saudi Arabia, who wrote: 'Obama wished to demonstrate his respect and appreciation of the personality of King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz...'”
Gateway Pundit: "Bummer. It looks like the MSM will be forced to report on this now."
Atlas Shrugs: "Please see his left hand hanging in front of his thing."
Just One Minute: "The White House explains that Obama didn't bow to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. In fact, Obama noticed on the floor a plan to revive the global economy and cure AIDS and bent over to pick it up..."
Ace of Spades: "BTW- The whole Obama is taller thing? No sale. I'm 6"5' (real world, not fakey Internet height). I'm taller than a good 90% or so of people and I've never bowed low enough to check out a guys package while shaking his hand"
Jules Crittenden: "It Wasn’t A Bow...It was a posture malfunction."
Riehl World View: "This has to rank as the dumbest PR move this WH has made. Do they really believe they can control the media narrative so completely that they can say whatever they want and it'll become the ultimate record?"
Don Suber: "Presidential aide to Politico: 'It wasn’t a bow. He grasped his hand with two hands, and he’s taller than King Abdullah.'...It fooled the Saudis. Politico cited a newspaper columnist in Saudi Arabia, who wrote: 'Obama wished to demonstrate his respect and appreciation of the personality of King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz...'”
Gateway Pundit: "Bummer. It looks like the MSM will be forced to report on this now."
Atlas Shrugs: "Please see his left hand hanging in front of his thing."
Just One Minute: "The White House explains that Obama didn't bow to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. In fact, Obama noticed on the floor a plan to revive the global economy and cure AIDS and bent over to pick it up..."
Ace of Spades: "BTW- The whole Obama is taller thing? No sale. I'm 6"5' (real world, not fakey Internet height). I'm taller than a good 90% or so of people and I've never bowed low enough to check out a guys package while shaking his hand"
Jules Crittenden: "It Wasn’t A Bow...It was a posture malfunction."
Riehl World View: "This has to rank as the dumbest PR move this WH has made. Do they really believe they can control the media narrative so completely that they can say whatever they want and it'll become the ultimate record?"
Obama's Subservient Bow
In recent months I have been blogging about the American republic's failure. Republicanism requires an informed citizenry and a committed culture. America's citizenry is ill-educated and bamboozled by "progressive"-dominated cultural institutions. American schools graduate illiterates who cannot grasp basic political issues, such as the central bank, that 19th century Americans with elementary educations had no trouble grasping. American education emphasizes Marx and Keynes, but ignores Locke and Jefferson.
As a result, medieval patterns appropriate to the Renaissance and before have recrudesced, and Americans have become comfortable with increasingly socialist values. Aristocrats like the Kennedys, the Bushes and the Clintons increasingly dominate politics. The two political parties represent charity and privilege, the two medieval political forces (church or charity and king or privilege). There is no individualist, freedom-based alternative. Thus, the philosophy that guided once-free America is dead and gone. In the view of today's neo-medieval politicians and social theorists, regulaton is preferable to freedom. Group authority and suppression are desirable, freedom is not.
The latest demonstration of America's increasingly medieval mindset and its betrayal of American republicanism is seen in Barack Obama's willingness to literally kowtow and bow to a foreign king. Not surprisingly, the media, which kowtows to Obama just as Obama kowtows to a king, has not covered this story. Obama does not display the spirit of a free American. He does not know what an American is. And the American news media does not know what a free press is.
Take a look at the repugnant video below, courtesy of Newsmax.
As a result, medieval patterns appropriate to the Renaissance and before have recrudesced, and Americans have become comfortable with increasingly socialist values. Aristocrats like the Kennedys, the Bushes and the Clintons increasingly dominate politics. The two political parties represent charity and privilege, the two medieval political forces (church or charity and king or privilege). There is no individualist, freedom-based alternative. Thus, the philosophy that guided once-free America is dead and gone. In the view of today's neo-medieval politicians and social theorists, regulaton is preferable to freedom. Group authority and suppression are desirable, freedom is not.
The latest demonstration of America's increasingly medieval mindset and its betrayal of American republicanism is seen in Barack Obama's willingness to literally kowtow and bow to a foreign king. Not surprisingly, the media, which kowtows to Obama just as Obama kowtows to a king, has not covered this story. Obama does not display the spirit of a free American. He does not know what an American is. And the American news media does not know what a free press is.
Take a look at the repugnant video below, courtesy of Newsmax.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Letter to Congressman Hinchey: The US Government Needs to Down Size
Dear Congressman Hinchey:
Why don't you and your fellow Congressmen deflate your puffed egos and reduce the federal budget by 50% or 60%? The recent bailouts are proof that you don't know what you're doing.
According to the Census Bureau, in 2007 the US government's direct expenditures or obligations were in excess of $2.5 trillion and other federal assistance, including direct loans, guaranteed loans and insurance, was almost $1.2 trillion. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Gross Domestic Product in 2008 was $14.3 trillion. Thus, US government spending is roughly (2.5 + 1.2) / 14.3 = 25.8% of GNP. This suggests that the federal government believes that 1/4 of the time it can make decisions that are better for society than private consumers can.
This past year has seen an escalation of federal government spending. It is hard to keep track of all the bailouts, subsidies, and handouts that the Bush-Obama administration and the US Congress have concocted, but it seems that these amounts substantially increase the percentage of Gross Domestic Product over which the federal government mistakenly imagines itself best fit to manage.
Rather, the 25% in 2007 was way too high. The federal government has proven that it is incompetent. The 25% should be slashed to the 10% it was in 1950.
If Congress has trouble deciding which government agencies to close, I have a suggestion. Since all government programs are useless, just cut randomly. After cutting the size of government to 10% of gdp, the next step would be to reduce taxation to 10% of gdp. Then people who are a lot smarter than you are, the American public, can begin to repair the damage that Congress has wrought. It will take many years because of your incredible stupidity and incompetence.
A 10% federal budget would still be 10% too high, but it would be a step in the right direction.
Sincerely,
Mitchell Langbert
Why don't you and your fellow Congressmen deflate your puffed egos and reduce the federal budget by 50% or 60%? The recent bailouts are proof that you don't know what you're doing.
According to the Census Bureau, in 2007 the US government's direct expenditures or obligations were in excess of $2.5 trillion and other federal assistance, including direct loans, guaranteed loans and insurance, was almost $1.2 trillion. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Gross Domestic Product in 2008 was $14.3 trillion. Thus, US government spending is roughly (2.5 + 1.2) / 14.3 = 25.8% of GNP. This suggests that the federal government believes that 1/4 of the time it can make decisions that are better for society than private consumers can.
This past year has seen an escalation of federal government spending. It is hard to keep track of all the bailouts, subsidies, and handouts that the Bush-Obama administration and the US Congress have concocted, but it seems that these amounts substantially increase the percentage of Gross Domestic Product over which the federal government mistakenly imagines itself best fit to manage.
Rather, the 25% in 2007 was way too high. The federal government has proven that it is incompetent. The 25% should be slashed to the 10% it was in 1950.
If Congress has trouble deciding which government agencies to close, I have a suggestion. Since all government programs are useless, just cut randomly. After cutting the size of government to 10% of gdp, the next step would be to reduce taxation to 10% of gdp. Then people who are a lot smarter than you are, the American public, can begin to repair the damage that Congress has wrought. It will take many years because of your incredible stupidity and incompetence.
A 10% federal budget would still be 10% too high, but it would be a step in the right direction.
Sincerely,
Mitchell Langbert
America Is No Longer A Moral Nation
Americans remember that their nation was "conceived in liberty" but tend to forget that liberty was based on morality. Morality is not the same thing as charity. A thief can donate his booty to charity, but he is not moral. Aristotle argued that there are moral as well as intellectual virtues. The moral virtues in Aristotle's view were justice, temperance, prudence and courage. Morality, then, depends on justice. Justice means that each producer receives a fair return, and that no producer receives an unearned return.
The Founding Fathers' morality was linked to the Aristotelian philosophy. Liberty in the sense that it once existed in America depended on justice. This was the underlying assumption of John Locke's Second Treatise on Government on which the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were based. Governments are formed for the just reason of protecting life, liberty and property from violence.
The morality of justice is in turn dependent upon truth. For without a willingness to examine the truth justice is not possible. One cannot receive a fair reward if one is not willing to truthfully examine the contribution one has made.
Ever since the beginning of the Republic a sizable contingent of Americans fought the idea of justice. These Americans wanted the public to subsidize them. The way that they were to be subsidized was through the power to create paper money.
Because of the inherent morality of the 19th century American public, the public rejected this attack on moral values. In 1836 President Andrew Jackson abolished the Second Bank of the United States, the precursor of today's Federal Reserve Bank. The American people of 1836 were too moral to tolerate the fraud associated with the central bank.
In the 1930s John Maynard Keynes proposed an economic system whose foundation is the commission of fraud. Employees would be fooled into accepting lower wages through inflation. The nation's universities would be called into service to perpetuate the fraud by claiming non-existent economic expertise that justified the fraud. The media, already controlled by banking and Wall Street interests, were also called into service of the fraud.
The American people could no longer call themselves moral. For the people did not oppose the fraudulent issuance of bank notes. They did not oppose the transfer of wealth from productive labor to speculator and banker because they were afraid. They were afraid of deprivation because the mass media told them to be afraid. They feared for their security. They trusted experts whose motives were corrupt and whose ideas were merely warmed over and elaborated versions of the same claims that banks had made previously.
America stopped being a moral nation. It could no longer claim justice as the foundation of its ideology. And where justice dies, freedom is sure to follow.
A little dishonesty and a small decline in morality are likely to be followed by ever greater lapses. A little cheating is observed, and then someone does a little more. America has become a nation governed by immoral people. Its economy no longer encourages productivity. Its ethical base has deteriorated. Instead of justice, its ideology is theft. Wal-Mart is excoriated for reducing costs. Goldman Sachs is subsidized for stealing and reducing Americans' standards of living.
A nation that has rejected morality and has rejected justice is sure to deteriorate into the kind of nation that favors charity and stealing. Such a society existed in Europe in the Middle Ages. The socialist economy will see decline to the primitive backwardness of the Soviet Union and pre-Tudor England.
The Founding Fathers' morality was linked to the Aristotelian philosophy. Liberty in the sense that it once existed in America depended on justice. This was the underlying assumption of John Locke's Second Treatise on Government on which the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were based. Governments are formed for the just reason of protecting life, liberty and property from violence.
The morality of justice is in turn dependent upon truth. For without a willingness to examine the truth justice is not possible. One cannot receive a fair reward if one is not willing to truthfully examine the contribution one has made.
Ever since the beginning of the Republic a sizable contingent of Americans fought the idea of justice. These Americans wanted the public to subsidize them. The way that they were to be subsidized was through the power to create paper money.
Because of the inherent morality of the 19th century American public, the public rejected this attack on moral values. In 1836 President Andrew Jackson abolished the Second Bank of the United States, the precursor of today's Federal Reserve Bank. The American people of 1836 were too moral to tolerate the fraud associated with the central bank.
In the 1930s John Maynard Keynes proposed an economic system whose foundation is the commission of fraud. Employees would be fooled into accepting lower wages through inflation. The nation's universities would be called into service to perpetuate the fraud by claiming non-existent economic expertise that justified the fraud. The media, already controlled by banking and Wall Street interests, were also called into service of the fraud.
The American people could no longer call themselves moral. For the people did not oppose the fraudulent issuance of bank notes. They did not oppose the transfer of wealth from productive labor to speculator and banker because they were afraid. They were afraid of deprivation because the mass media told them to be afraid. They feared for their security. They trusted experts whose motives were corrupt and whose ideas were merely warmed over and elaborated versions of the same claims that banks had made previously.
America stopped being a moral nation. It could no longer claim justice as the foundation of its ideology. And where justice dies, freedom is sure to follow.
A little dishonesty and a small decline in morality are likely to be followed by ever greater lapses. A little cheating is observed, and then someone does a little more. America has become a nation governed by immoral people. Its economy no longer encourages productivity. Its ethical base has deteriorated. Instead of justice, its ideology is theft. Wal-Mart is excoriated for reducing costs. Goldman Sachs is subsidized for stealing and reducing Americans' standards of living.
A nation that has rejected morality and has rejected justice is sure to deteriorate into the kind of nation that favors charity and stealing. Such a society existed in Europe in the Middle Ages. The socialist economy will see decline to the primitive backwardness of the Soviet Union and pre-Tudor England.
The Panic of 1819
CJ Maloney has written an excellent article on the panic of 1819 for the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Maloney points out that the panic of 1819 resulted from the same kind of central bank and banking incompetence as today's sub-prime crisis but that the policy decisions of 1819 were much smarter, more effective and more moral than Americans are capable of today. Maloney writes:
"It is the unusual that grabs the attention, and the ideas and beliefs of the majority of our ancestors on how best to clean up the mess of 1819 are vastly different from almost everything I see and hear today. From CNBC's cute little money honeys to newspaper op-eds to my coworkers on the trade desk, all cry that the government must do something. Many of the elite from 1819 believed the exact opposite — that government must do nothing.
"...In 1819 America, nobody blamed the effects for the Panic of 1819, they rightly blamed the cause; they blamed (in Caroline Baum's words) the 'friendly central bank.' As Professor John Dobson points out, 'the [central] bank's policies fueled inflation, and it was popularly viewed as a major contributor to the Panic of 1819.' After this encounter with central banks, 'hard money leadership was abundant and influential'.
"The urge to bail out debtors was fought against not only from a practical but from a moral level as well. Besides Tennessee state representative Robert Allen warning his colleagues that 'if people learn that debts can be paid with petitions and fair stories, you will soon have your table crowded' the pages of the influential Pennsylvania Aurora argued that any such bailouts would not only be economically unsound, but unjust, being a special privilege to the debtor.
"While the federal government was a heavy player in the housing speculation — having offered over $23 million in "affordable" but now mostly delinquent loans by 1819 — for the most part it was the state capitals, where much of political power still resided in America's pre-Lincoln days, that were the scenes of battle.
"And not all the states were clamoring for intervention. The Massachusetts legislature in 1820, referring to hastily passed monetary laws that forced people to accept worthless paper bank notes as if they weren't, stated 'the exchange value of notes must be regulated by the community itself, according to public wants and needs'...plus many thought that such monetary measures were pure hubris. Virginia state politician William Selden warned, 'Money itself is an article of transfer. Human legislation on the subject is worse than vain'..."
Read the whole thing here.
"It is the unusual that grabs the attention, and the ideas and beliefs of the majority of our ancestors on how best to clean up the mess of 1819 are vastly different from almost everything I see and hear today. From CNBC's cute little money honeys to newspaper op-eds to my coworkers on the trade desk, all cry that the government must do something. Many of the elite from 1819 believed the exact opposite — that government must do nothing.
"...In 1819 America, nobody blamed the effects for the Panic of 1819, they rightly blamed the cause; they blamed (in Caroline Baum's words) the 'friendly central bank.' As Professor John Dobson points out, 'the [central] bank's policies fueled inflation, and it was popularly viewed as a major contributor to the Panic of 1819.' After this encounter with central banks, 'hard money leadership was abundant and influential'.
"The urge to bail out debtors was fought against not only from a practical but from a moral level as well. Besides Tennessee state representative Robert Allen warning his colleagues that 'if people learn that debts can be paid with petitions and fair stories, you will soon have your table crowded' the pages of the influential Pennsylvania Aurora argued that any such bailouts would not only be economically unsound, but unjust, being a special privilege to the debtor.
"While the federal government was a heavy player in the housing speculation — having offered over $23 million in "affordable" but now mostly delinquent loans by 1819 — for the most part it was the state capitals, where much of political power still resided in America's pre-Lincoln days, that were the scenes of battle.
"And not all the states were clamoring for intervention. The Massachusetts legislature in 1820, referring to hastily passed monetary laws that forced people to accept worthless paper bank notes as if they weren't, stated 'the exchange value of notes must be regulated by the community itself, according to public wants and needs'...plus many thought that such monetary measures were pure hubris. Virginia state politician William Selden warned, 'Money itself is an article of transfer. Human legislation on the subject is worse than vain'..."
Read the whole thing here.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Letter to Congressman Maurice Hinchey Re Congressional Dress Code
Dear Congressman Hinchey:
I urge you to propose a bill that would require all members of Congress to wear the clown nose pictured above. This will fit Congress's competence and intellectual level of development.
Please consider proposing this dress code. It would be the most intelligent legislation you ever proposed.
Sincerely,
Mitchell Langbert, Ph.D.
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