Jim Crum sent the following emergency message posted on rallycongress.com:
A lawsuit has been filed with the Pennsylvania Eastern District Court requiring Mr. Obama to produce documents to prove he is constitutionally qualified to run for President. So far Mr. Obama has refused to produce the documents and is trying to fight the court order to produce the documents. Any American should be able to prove citizenship in less than a day. Why can't Mr. Obama?
Here is a link to the actual court documents - http://news.justia.com/cases/featured/Pennsylvania/paedce/2:2008cv04083/281573/
A constitutional crisis will rip our country apart. If this is not cleared up now we will have a crisis. If you care at all about America you must call for Mr. Obama to produce the documents and prove that he is eligible to be President.
Please call on Mr. Obama to produce the documents to prove his constitutional qualifications.
Thank you
To sign go to:
http://www.rallycongress.com/constitutional-qualification/1244/stop-obama-constitutional-crisis/
Friday, October 17, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Christopher Buckley's Transition: a 3 Degree Turn
Several people have blogged, e-mailed and posted about Christopher Buckley's transition from conservative to liberal. Apparently, William F. Buckley's son has decided to ditch the National Review (which his father founded) and conservatism because conservatism has brought nothing but deficits and economic malaise.
This transition is unsurprising and has been made many times in both directions. The reason is that the distinction between left and right, conservative and liberal, in today's political discourse is illusory.
America is a unique country not because of "conservatives" or "liberals", but because of libertarians, who are neither. The notion of "centrist" is also illusory, because it depends on the faux liberal-conservative dichotomy. George W. Bush is as "liberal" as Barack Obama, perhaps more so, and to say that he represents "conservatives" is to admit that there is no difference.
What made America different from Europe is the belief in freedom. Freedom is neither liberal nor conservative. The proponents of conservatism are often diametrically opposed to traditional American ideals. Moreover, their fascination with Edmund Burke is outside the mainstream. At best, Burke represents the Federalist tradition of Alexander Hamilton that was discarded in favor of Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicanism. Jacksonian Democracy is inconsistent with Burke's respect for tradition. Jackson believed in the spoils system, flexibility, elimination of the central bank and change due to laissez-faire. It is from these principles that America developed rapidly in the nineteenth century to become an economic powerhouse, and today we live off the embers of the Jacksonian revolution.
Burke's conservatism is consistent with the left-right split that is characteristic of Europe and which the Progressives brought here from Europe. America's detour into European political ideas began with a mass migration of American students into German graduate schools in the late nineteenth century. This was compounded in the 1930s by European scholars, hoisted by their own petard, fleeing to America. By 1900 Progressivism, a European model that originates in Bismarck's Germany, had come to dominate American political discussion.
The distinctions that Progressivism emphasizes, social democracy versus business interests, had always existed in America, but with a different tenor. First, business interests could equally be represented by more statist (Whig and Republican) views or by Jacksonian laissez-faire. As some firms became bigger in the late 19th century they began to align more closely with the statist Republican tradition. Moreover, the situation is confused by the presence of a laissez-faire intellectual tradition that the Republicans briefly adopted in the post Civil War period and carried forward as a minority view after the New Deal. However, through the Pendleton Act and their fixation on rationalization of government and furthering their professional interests, the late nineteenth century Republicans morphed easily into advocates of Progressivism and government intervention in the 1890s. Throughout the nineteenth century, moreover, in practice the Republicans tended to be the more statist of the two parties because they favored high tariffs and public works.
The Progressives were able to completely staunch the Jacksonian Democrats intellectually. Woodrow Wilson's adoption of Progressive ideas in 1908 and his election to the presidency in 1912 meant that both political parties had dropped the Jacksonian, laissez-faire tradition. However, the American people never really bought into Progressivism.
Thus, American politics became a debate between ideological fraternal twins and a giant, uneducated cousin. Fraternal twins, recall, are not identical but are close. The first twin is a "conservative" who is a pro-business Progressive along the lines of William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt. The second is a "liberal" along the lines of Franklin D. Roosevelt. However, the two twins are very close, about 97%. Theodore Roosevelt had advocated most of the social democratic ideas that Franklin Roosevelt later adopted. George W. Bush has turned out to be as much an interventionist as the socialist Theodore Roosevelt. Both parties favor massive, ill-advised boondoggles. Bush's bailout and nationalization of the banking system is more expensive and more socialistic than Hillary Clinton's proposed nationalization of the health care system.
The uneducated cousin is the mass of Americans who have retained remnants of the Jacksonian Democracy.
The idea that America is a "centrist" country is incorrect. "Centrist" would imply that there is a mean between the pro-business Progressives of Theodore Roosevelt and the social democratic Progressives of Franklin Roosevelt. In fact, there is no such mean. There is no continuum, because the uneducated cousin is off the continuum. He is a hayseed who says unpredictable things, a Sarah Palin-like Babbitt who irritates liberals and conservatives alike, driving William F. Buckley's son to liberalism, which someone like Sarah Palin cannot possibly "understand" because she did not go to Harvard and learn the crackpot theories of John Maynard Keynes.
Progressivism is an extreme, feudalist value system that argues that government should enforce the concentration of business and that an elite should manage and control the economy and the media. The "conservative" Progressives argue that the elite should say that they are an elite openly, while the "liberal" Progressives argue that they favor the poor, but of course are also an elitist movement that favors business and professional interests and decimates the poor.
Thus, Christopher Buckley's transition from National Review "conservative" to "liberal" is a minor move, a three degree turn, for only three degrees separate the fraternal twins. The difference between right wing feudalists who emphasize the power of the rouge (military and secular power) and left wing feudalists who emphasize the power of the noir (religious, benevolent power) is small. Americans emphasize neither, and neither view is rightfully American.
This transition is unsurprising and has been made many times in both directions. The reason is that the distinction between left and right, conservative and liberal, in today's political discourse is illusory.
America is a unique country not because of "conservatives" or "liberals", but because of libertarians, who are neither. The notion of "centrist" is also illusory, because it depends on the faux liberal-conservative dichotomy. George W. Bush is as "liberal" as Barack Obama, perhaps more so, and to say that he represents "conservatives" is to admit that there is no difference.
What made America different from Europe is the belief in freedom. Freedom is neither liberal nor conservative. The proponents of conservatism are often diametrically opposed to traditional American ideals. Moreover, their fascination with Edmund Burke is outside the mainstream. At best, Burke represents the Federalist tradition of Alexander Hamilton that was discarded in favor of Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicanism. Jacksonian Democracy is inconsistent with Burke's respect for tradition. Jackson believed in the spoils system, flexibility, elimination of the central bank and change due to laissez-faire. It is from these principles that America developed rapidly in the nineteenth century to become an economic powerhouse, and today we live off the embers of the Jacksonian revolution.
Burke's conservatism is consistent with the left-right split that is characteristic of Europe and which the Progressives brought here from Europe. America's detour into European political ideas began with a mass migration of American students into German graduate schools in the late nineteenth century. This was compounded in the 1930s by European scholars, hoisted by their own petard, fleeing to America. By 1900 Progressivism, a European model that originates in Bismarck's Germany, had come to dominate American political discussion.
The distinctions that Progressivism emphasizes, social democracy versus business interests, had always existed in America, but with a different tenor. First, business interests could equally be represented by more statist (Whig and Republican) views or by Jacksonian laissez-faire. As some firms became bigger in the late 19th century they began to align more closely with the statist Republican tradition. Moreover, the situation is confused by the presence of a laissez-faire intellectual tradition that the Republicans briefly adopted in the post Civil War period and carried forward as a minority view after the New Deal. However, through the Pendleton Act and their fixation on rationalization of government and furthering their professional interests, the late nineteenth century Republicans morphed easily into advocates of Progressivism and government intervention in the 1890s. Throughout the nineteenth century, moreover, in practice the Republicans tended to be the more statist of the two parties because they favored high tariffs and public works.
The Progressives were able to completely staunch the Jacksonian Democrats intellectually. Woodrow Wilson's adoption of Progressive ideas in 1908 and his election to the presidency in 1912 meant that both political parties had dropped the Jacksonian, laissez-faire tradition. However, the American people never really bought into Progressivism.
Thus, American politics became a debate between ideological fraternal twins and a giant, uneducated cousin. Fraternal twins, recall, are not identical but are close. The first twin is a "conservative" who is a pro-business Progressive along the lines of William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt. The second is a "liberal" along the lines of Franklin D. Roosevelt. However, the two twins are very close, about 97%. Theodore Roosevelt had advocated most of the social democratic ideas that Franklin Roosevelt later adopted. George W. Bush has turned out to be as much an interventionist as the socialist Theodore Roosevelt. Both parties favor massive, ill-advised boondoggles. Bush's bailout and nationalization of the banking system is more expensive and more socialistic than Hillary Clinton's proposed nationalization of the health care system.
The uneducated cousin is the mass of Americans who have retained remnants of the Jacksonian Democracy.
The idea that America is a "centrist" country is incorrect. "Centrist" would imply that there is a mean between the pro-business Progressives of Theodore Roosevelt and the social democratic Progressives of Franklin Roosevelt. In fact, there is no such mean. There is no continuum, because the uneducated cousin is off the continuum. He is a hayseed who says unpredictable things, a Sarah Palin-like Babbitt who irritates liberals and conservatives alike, driving William F. Buckley's son to liberalism, which someone like Sarah Palin cannot possibly "understand" because she did not go to Harvard and learn the crackpot theories of John Maynard Keynes.
Progressivism is an extreme, feudalist value system that argues that government should enforce the concentration of business and that an elite should manage and control the economy and the media. The "conservative" Progressives argue that the elite should say that they are an elite openly, while the "liberal" Progressives argue that they favor the poor, but of course are also an elitist movement that favors business and professional interests and decimates the poor.
Thus, Christopher Buckley's transition from National Review "conservative" to "liberal" is a minor move, a three degree turn, for only three degrees separate the fraternal twins. The difference between right wing feudalists who emphasize the power of the rouge (military and secular power) and left wing feudalists who emphasize the power of the noir (religious, benevolent power) is small. Americans emphasize neither, and neither view is rightfully American.
Sherman Anti-Trust Act May Cause Innovation to Decline
The Sherman Anti-Trust Act (SATA) was passed in 1890. It was initially interpreted as a statement of common law concerning reasonable versus unreasonable restraints of trade. In 1896 in United States v. Trans-Missouri Freight Association the Supreme Court held that only competition amounted to reasonable price setting. In 1904, in the Northern Securities Trust case (involving a railroad trust) the Supreme Court held that even trusts or corporations that combined several companies amounted to unreasonable restraints of trade. Hence, corporate mergers were illegal in this period. In 1911, the Supreme Court revised that view, holding that the Standard Oil Company ought to be broken up because it involved unreasonable restraints of trade and was a "bad" trust. However, there are "per se" violations of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act that don't require a test of reason. These include "any...conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce".
Thus, the Sherman Anti-trust Act after 1896 illegalized any cartel. But capital investment in manufacturing and capital intensive services may require a degree of price predictability. By making conspiracies in restraint of trade illegal, even where they do not result in excessive prices, the Supreme Court forced many businesses to consider two risks: (1) overproduction, which was characteristic of late 19th century industry as described in David Ames Wells's Recent Economic Changes and (2)prosecution under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act if they attempted to collude to limit the risk of over-production.
The remedy to the per se problem was merger that permitted "reasonable" outcomes. Thus, the automobile industry coalesced into three large firms that did not collude but in effect followed a price leader. But this policy may have had side effects that the Supreme Court did not consider.
In encouraging mergers rather than collusion the court limited the number of managements. Creativity often requires a diversity of ideas. By creating small numbers of top heavy firms with a small number of highly compensated executives with much at risk if their firms failed, innovation may have been curtailed. Part of the reason for the post-Progressive slow down in innovation may be the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
Exactly why the Supreme Court and Congress preferred a few large firms over many smaller ones that might rig prices for a few years in order to avoid excess production is unclear. A few large firms can rig prices without speaking. So the difference, speaking or not speaking, seems to be of minor economic or moral significance. On the other hand, crushing many mid-sized firms into a few really big ones may have killed the most creative managers, who often may have been surpassed in the pyramid due to gamesmanship and corporate politics. Moreover, a few large firms face much greater risk with respect to experimentation than many small ones. This emphasis on large size coincided with the socialist perspective of Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressives. The Progressives loved large size because it seemed efficient to them, but they failed to grasp the underlying dynamic of creativity.
Thus, the Sherman Anti-trust Act after 1896 illegalized any cartel. But capital investment in manufacturing and capital intensive services may require a degree of price predictability. By making conspiracies in restraint of trade illegal, even where they do not result in excessive prices, the Supreme Court forced many businesses to consider two risks: (1) overproduction, which was characteristic of late 19th century industry as described in David Ames Wells's Recent Economic Changes and (2)prosecution under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act if they attempted to collude to limit the risk of over-production.
The remedy to the per se problem was merger that permitted "reasonable" outcomes. Thus, the automobile industry coalesced into three large firms that did not collude but in effect followed a price leader. But this policy may have had side effects that the Supreme Court did not consider.
In encouraging mergers rather than collusion the court limited the number of managements. Creativity often requires a diversity of ideas. By creating small numbers of top heavy firms with a small number of highly compensated executives with much at risk if their firms failed, innovation may have been curtailed. Part of the reason for the post-Progressive slow down in innovation may be the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
Exactly why the Supreme Court and Congress preferred a few large firms over many smaller ones that might rig prices for a few years in order to avoid excess production is unclear. A few large firms can rig prices without speaking. So the difference, speaking or not speaking, seems to be of minor economic or moral significance. On the other hand, crushing many mid-sized firms into a few really big ones may have killed the most creative managers, who often may have been surpassed in the pyramid due to gamesmanship and corporate politics. Moreover, a few large firms face much greater risk with respect to experimentation than many small ones. This emphasis on large size coincided with the socialist perspective of Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressives. The Progressives loved large size because it seemed efficient to them, but they failed to grasp the underlying dynamic of creativity.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
McCain Hands Election to Obama
Dick Morris has an article in Newsmax concerning the threat that ACORN poses to the Obama campaign. Well, I mean, if any other candidate had been involved in a corrupt organization engaging in election fraud in 11 states there would be alot of questions, but not so with Obama, and not so with this election. But much of the media's indifference to Obama's various corruption scandals, to include the Tony Rezko house purchase and his lying about his Indonesian upbringing, is due to John McCain's indifference to these character issues.
Matters are worse than that, though. McCain had three ways to beat Obama. First, he needed to distance himself from the Bush administration, especially on the economy. Second, he needed to come up with an alternative strategy to the bailout. Third, he needed to focus attention on Obama's sociopathic character.
Instead, of dumping Bush, McCain took the traditional party course and backed the bailout. Thus, he has allowed the Democrats to paint him as a second Bush administration. The falling stock market (which may turn around beginning next week but remains volatile around three weeks before the election, and may still be declining in early November) is a poison pill, and he has allowed himself to be associated with it. McCain was a fool to participate in the bailout negotiation and he was a fool to back the Bush administration.
McCain's criticism of President Bush would have been warranted, because Bush exercised dinosaur stupidity, stupidity beyond human comprehension, in allowing Paulson and his coterie of quacks to force discussion of the bailout now. Any decision of this kind can wait six weeks. Bush chose to destroy McCain's chances. He deserves a place in Republican hell.
Second, McCain had to devise an alternative solution to the banks' problems that was fair. Increasing the money supply by one third and providing a trillion dollar subsidy to Wall Street and commercial banks is not fair. The public doesn't like it, and McCain simply went along with the absurdly socialist bank-coddling by President Bush. Rather than come down on this folly, which is anathema to any real believer in free markets, McCain chose the uncreative course of supporting Bush in one of the most socialist policies since 1935. What happened to the Republicans as the "party of ideas"? Most of the ideas I've heard from Newt Gingrich and John McCain have sounded like re-baked Keynesian economics from the 1930s.
Third, McCain had to make Obama's character into an issue. As Morris points out in his article, ACORN is being raided by the FBI in 11 states; Obama, as general counsel, was intimately linked to ACORN; and Obama "has lately spent $800,000 of his campaign money to subsidize the group's activities" which have been literally criminal. This opens the door to calls for investigation of Obama's involvement and character issues. Moreover, "as Election Day approaches and early balloting proceeds in many states, ACORN's tactics will get more and more media attention."
Thus, despite a sociopathic character, which we have heard McCain praise, "Obama has lower negatives than McCain, and his unfavorable rating has not risen despite the avalanche of attack advertising to which he has been subjected...Possibly, voters are just inured to the attacks and disregard them. But more likely they are just distracted by the financial meltdown all around them."
The Republicans have decided to lose big. What happened to all those pundits back in August who were saying that their grandmother could beat Obama?
John McCain and the Republicans are giving this election away.
Matters are worse than that, though. McCain had three ways to beat Obama. First, he needed to distance himself from the Bush administration, especially on the economy. Second, he needed to come up with an alternative strategy to the bailout. Third, he needed to focus attention on Obama's sociopathic character.
Instead, of dumping Bush, McCain took the traditional party course and backed the bailout. Thus, he has allowed the Democrats to paint him as a second Bush administration. The falling stock market (which may turn around beginning next week but remains volatile around three weeks before the election, and may still be declining in early November) is a poison pill, and he has allowed himself to be associated with it. McCain was a fool to participate in the bailout negotiation and he was a fool to back the Bush administration.
McCain's criticism of President Bush would have been warranted, because Bush exercised dinosaur stupidity, stupidity beyond human comprehension, in allowing Paulson and his coterie of quacks to force discussion of the bailout now. Any decision of this kind can wait six weeks. Bush chose to destroy McCain's chances. He deserves a place in Republican hell.
Second, McCain had to devise an alternative solution to the banks' problems that was fair. Increasing the money supply by one third and providing a trillion dollar subsidy to Wall Street and commercial banks is not fair. The public doesn't like it, and McCain simply went along with the absurdly socialist bank-coddling by President Bush. Rather than come down on this folly, which is anathema to any real believer in free markets, McCain chose the uncreative course of supporting Bush in one of the most socialist policies since 1935. What happened to the Republicans as the "party of ideas"? Most of the ideas I've heard from Newt Gingrich and John McCain have sounded like re-baked Keynesian economics from the 1930s.
Third, McCain had to make Obama's character into an issue. As Morris points out in his article, ACORN is being raided by the FBI in 11 states; Obama, as general counsel, was intimately linked to ACORN; and Obama "has lately spent $800,000 of his campaign money to subsidize the group's activities" which have been literally criminal. This opens the door to calls for investigation of Obama's involvement and character issues. Moreover, "as Election Day approaches and early balloting proceeds in many states, ACORN's tactics will get more and more media attention."
Thus, despite a sociopathic character, which we have heard McCain praise, "Obama has lower negatives than McCain, and his unfavorable rating has not risen despite the avalanche of attack advertising to which he has been subjected...Possibly, voters are just inured to the attacks and disregard them. But more likely they are just distracted by the financial meltdown all around them."
The Republicans have decided to lose big. What happened to all those pundits back in August who were saying that their grandmother could beat Obama?
John McCain and the Republicans are giving this election away.
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