You ain't seen nothing yet

With the House still in Republican control, there is not much damage Obama and his Democrats can do via legislation but Obama's regulatory powers are immense.  Just the EPA could destroy American business singlehandedly and they are going to try.  They will undoubtedly be held up in the courts but, with Obama appointments to SCOTUS, the EPA will prevail in the end.

The re-election of Obama after 4 years of great economic failure is immensely disturbing.  It suggests that no conservative can now be elected President.  With the media, most minorites and the 47% behind them, are the Democrats now unbeatable?  It seems likely.  It seems that America's decline is now well underway and is probably irreversible.  I am glad I am not an American who wants a job -- JR

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The Wilderness

At a low point in the fortunes of the Tory party, Disraeli said, “The pendulum swings.” It does indeed, but it is not going to swing back to limited-government republicanism any time soon; in fact such republicanism has for some time been effectively dead in California, New York, and the other arrantly blue states. Nor, to judge from yesterday’s election, is such republicanism especially vibrant in middle-of-the-road states like Florida, Virginia, Ohio, and Colorado. Put it another way: only once since the 1980s has a Republican candidate won a greater number of votes in a presidential election than the Democratic candidate (Bush in 2004).

Defeat offers clarity. If we had any doubts as to our position, yesterday’s election put an end to them. Those of us who continue to oppose the fiscal and constitutional overreach of the modern social state now find ourselves in the wilderness.

Insofar as politics are concerned, the best the center-right in America can do, in the foreseeable future, is to act as a check on folly in the political arena, and in doing so hope to prove Macaulay wrong when he said that the American Republic would fail because the poor would plunder the rich and increase the country’s distress by devouring the “seed-corn” of future growth.

 SOURCE

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Some examples of anti-business regulation at work

According to conventional progressive wisdom, regulation is the means by which a compassionate government protects the weak and innocent from the strong and malevolent.

Try telling that to Brad Jones.  Jones is one of the owners of Buckingham Slate, a Virginia business a little over an hour's drive west of Richmond. The company is distinguished by the quality of the highly valued Arvonia slate it produces. And by the fact that its roots trace back almost to the Civil War. And by the fact that federal regulators smacked it with a $4,000 fine.

Over a trash can.  The offending can — or "waste receptacle," in the words of the Mine Safety and Health Administration's official citation — was "not covered." What's more, "the receptacle was full." It "could be smelled." There were — brace yourself — "flies fl[y]ing in and around the receptacle." And to crown all, "management engaged in aggravated conduct constituting more than ordinary negligence" by allowing this "condition to exist." The horror.

Buckingham Slate has racked up other fines, too — such as a $70,000 fine imposed because one of its trucks had an inoperable horn. Perhaps regulators were following the approach advocated by Al Armendariz, the former EPA official who said enforcers should "crucify" offenders to "make an example" of them, which would then make others "easy to manage."

According to President Obama's campaign rhetoric, Republicans have nothing to offer but "the same prescription they've had for the last 30 years. . .: 'Feel a cold coming on? Take two tax cuts, roll back some regulations, and call us in the morning!' "

Funny stuff. But Martha Boneta isn't laughing.

Boneta, a Fauquier County farmer, hosted a birthday party for eight 10-year-old girls — an occasion for which she lacked the proper "events permit." For this, the county slammed her with a $5,000 fine. She also got in hot water for selling items, such as yarn and birdhouses, that she had not made herself.

Outraged over how the county was treating her, local farmers showed up at a zoning-board meeting a couple of months ago with pitchforks in hand. But the demonstration was only so useful. She ended up closing her shop anyway.

Americans should place more trust in "the guiding hand of government," according to the president and his supporters.

But try telling that to Nathan Hammock and his family. The Hammocks own a dairy farm in Museville. Because of drought, they wanted to put an irrigation pond on their property. They eventually managed to — after three years trying to get permission from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers. "I think we've spent close to $30,000" in the process, Hammock says.

Hammock made the comment in a video you can find on the website of Rep. Robert Hurt (go to http://hurt.house.gov/ and click on "Videos"). Hurt, who represents Virginia's Fifth District, has introduced legislation to let farmers farm without having to navigate a "tremendous bureaucratic maze." It is moving through Congress — slowly.

The plural of anecdote, of course, is not data. So here are some data: In its first three years the Obama administration imposed more than 100 economically significant regulations — those costing $100 million or more. That's roughly four times as many as the Bush administration did during a similar period, according to the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Liberal outfits insist Heritage is wrong. But even by their Obama-friendly accounting, the current president has been issuing major rules at a rate 24 percent faster than Bush. Despite the lip service he often pays to the free market, the president has overseen massive regulatory expansions. See, e.g., the banking industry; vehicle mileage standards; Obamacare's seemingly endless new rules; carbon emission limits on coal-fired power plants; energy-efficiency standards for home appliances; and dozens more.

According to a report by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, "The published regulatory burden for 2012 [alone] could exceed $105 billion. . . . Since January 1, the federal government has imposed $56.6 billion in compliance costs and more than 114 million annual paperwork burden hours."

Ask Jones about paperwork. Buckingham Slate is overseen by an alphabet soup of federal and state agencies, and "each one of them wants something from us all the time that is costing us money" — spill-prevention plans that require hiring an engineer; pre-shift inspections; dust monitoring; and more. Jones estimates that five of his 45 employees spend 20 percent of their time simply filling out paperwork.

Of course we need regulation. It helps keep our food safe to eat and our air safe to breathe. Companies shouldn't be able to shift the costs of production onto the public by dumping pollutants into the environment. Everybody agrees with that. The real question is: At what point does regulation go too far?

"If you're a small operator, they're just putting you out of business," says Jones. "It doesn't matter that we can compete globally. . . . Sooner or later, that kind of regulation is going to shut you down."

SOURCE

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Obama Supreme Court would attack free speech and right to equal protection

Hans Bader

The Obama Administration has avidly attacked certain constitutional rights. In one Supreme Court case, it argued that the government had the power to ban a non-profit corporation from publishing a book critical of a political candidate (the Supreme Court rejected this argument in a 5-to-4 vote, over a dissent by the liberal justices). In another, it took a position rejected by a unanimous Supreme Court, arguing that it could dictate who churches can hire as ministers or select to speak for them on matters of religious doctrine — a position so extreme that would have violated the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

It has sought to not only preserve racial preferences where they already exist (like in admissions to colleges and universities, and in government hiring and federal contracts), but also to extend them to new areas, like health care, and racial quotas in school discipline, which violates a federal appeals court ruling enforcing constitutional equal-protection guarantees). And it wants to ban speech that it views as constituting, or inciting, discrimination, which would reach a vast range of speech ranging from the politically-incorrect to the blandly economic.

Former Education Department lawyer Curt Levey discusses the implications of Obama replacing two Supreme Court justices who will reach the age of 80 in a few years. Here is his “Top Ten” list of potential Supreme Court rulings that might result from Justice Scalia or Justice Kennedy being replaced as they reach an advanced age and retire:

    #10 – A ban on voter ID laws, making it impossible to stop voter fraud.

    #9 – Carte blanche for hate-speech laws that ban videos and other expression deemed offensive to Muslims and other minorities.

    #8 – Abolition of the death penalty.

    #7 – A prohibition on tuition vouchers being used for religious schools, crippling the school choice movement.

    #6 – Elimination of all legal limits on racial preferences for minorities.

    #5 – A requirement for taxpayer-funding of abortions through the third trimester of pregnancy.

    #4 – Invention of a constitutional right to gay marriage that would trump all state laws and religious objections.

    #3 – Striking down, as unconstitutional discrimination, any serious attempt to curtail the flow of illegal immigrants into the country or to deny them government benefits.

    #2 – Elimination of an individual right to possess firearms.

    #1 – Enshrinement of welfare and government-provided healthcare as constitutional rights, thus fulfilling Barack Obama’s dream of a Supreme Court willing to bring about “redistribution of wealth” by “break[ing] free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution.” (quoting 2001 PBS interview with Obama).

Some of his predictions will likely come true under an Obama Supreme Court, in whole or in part (I don't view all of the things he predicts as being bad, although most of them are).

Levy argues that an Obama-picked Supreme Court will give the government “carte blanche for hate-speech laws.” This is both an overstatement and an understatement, but it contains more than a kernel of truth. I think that an Obama Supreme Court would interpret the Fourteenth Amendment as forcing colleges and universities — and conceivably cities and counties as well — to restrict hateful (and not-so-hateful) speech that creates a “hostile environment” (i.e., a "hostile educational environment" or “hostile municipal environment.”)

A liberal federal appeals court has already ruled this year in DiStiso v. Cook that school officials are liable under the Fourteenth Amendment for racially-hostile “educational environments” created by racial name-calling and racist speech among kindergartners, effectively requiring teachers to ban such speech under fear of personal liability, even though students are not state actors or agents of their schools (just as private citizens are not state actors, or agents of their city or county). This radical ruling, which ignores the state-action doctrine accepted by the current Supreme Court, was unnecessary to prevent true harassment, since Title VI of the Civil Rights Act already reaches racial harassment by peers that is “severe and pervasive” enough to interfere with an education.

(The plaintiff in the DiStiso case argued that the “harassment” was actionable under the Fourteenth Amendment even if it was not severe enough to violate Title VI or Title IX, effectively circumventing statutory limits on liability.) Another federal appeals court has held that the government is liable for harassment by state actors in society generally, outside the workplace and schools. See Johnson v. Martin, 195 F.3d 1208 (10th Cir. 1999). If you put these two rulings together, as a logical chain, you could argue that local governments are obligated to suppress racist or sexual speech in the larger society as well, to prevent a racially or sexually hostile “municipal environment.”

(All sorts of speech is forbidden in the workplace to prevent a “hostile work environment,” like when a liberal federal appeals court allowed a secretary to sue for sexual harassment over a professor’s looking at porn on his office computer. A federal appeals court relied on the First Amendment to dismiss a racial harassment lawsuit over a professor’s anti-immigration emails, but it didn’t deny that they fell within the broad concept of “hostile work environment,” and liberal lawyers argued the speech should be suppressed as equality-depriving “verbal conduct”).

On the other hand, if they wish to restrict hate speech, local governments will not have “carte blanche” even under an Obama Court, since they will have to frame any hate-speech ban as a ban on “verbal conduct” that creates a “hostile environment,” using “verbal conduct” as a euphemism for speech (an argument that worked in the California Supreme Court in the Aguilar v. Avis case), rather than coming right out and declaring their intention to ban all hate speech, irrespective of whether it contributes to a hostile municipal environment. Liberal judges like banning certain speech, but only when they can call it something other than speech. By contrast, four conservative and moderate Supreme Court justices once worried that banning speech that creates a “hostile educational environment” could lead to violations of academic freedom in the college setting, in their dissent in a K-12 harassment case where no First Amendment defense was raised or ruled on.

But for the reasons I have given elsewhere, I think #4 on Levy's list, dealing with gay marriage, is partly erroneous. I don’t think churches will ever be forced to perform gay marriages if they don’t want to. Conversely, given strong support for gay marriage in the legal profession, which is much more socially liberal than the general population, I believe that the days of gay marriage being banned are numbered, regardless of who is president. (A bipartisan panel of a federal appeals court struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act, based on reasoning that could also take down state gay marriage bans).

I do agree with him that Obama Supreme Court nominees are more likely to override the religious objections of non-churches, such as religious schools and hospitals, to various coercive government mandates favored by gay-rights lobbying groups, than are Justices appointed by more conservative presidents. Even Republican or libertarian lawyers who support gay marriage often believe that religious businesses and professionals should have a First Amendment right not to be forced to participate in publicizing or photographing gay unions, as this amicus brief in a New Mexico case illustrates. (Note that New Mexico does not even recognize gay marriage, so banning gay marriage doesn't make religious liberties problems go away.) This distinguishes conservative lawyers and judges from their liberal counterparts, who tend to like such government mandates, and believe that it is legitimate to use government power to try to extinguish religiously-motivated prejudices and change people’s thinking.)

Levey also argues that an Obama Court would lead to a “requirement for taxpayer-funding of abortions.” This is right, to at least a certain extent. The Supreme Court’s decision that state Medicaid programs don’t have to pay for abortion was decided by a 5-to-4 vote (see Harris v. McRae). Liberal law professors have denounced that ruling ever since. Moreover, if you accept Justice Ginsburg’s argument that abortion restrictions are automatically a form of sex-discrimination (a very controversial argument, to be sure), then the decision was wrongly decided.

So I think that even a single Obama appointee to the Supreme Court over the next few years could result in that ruling being overruled. Some abortion rulings seem unlikely to be overruled regardless of who is president. Ever since Nixon, who railed against “acid, amnesty, and abortion,” Republican presidents have denounced abortion, but the only effect this seems to have had on abortion is on the area of funding, not the legality of abortion (taxpayer funding for abortion, both at home and overseas, has been more limited under conservative Congresses and Administrations than under liberal ones, but even when the Supreme Court included seven GOP appointees and only two Democratic appointees in 1992, it reaffirmed Roe v. Wade in its Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision.) Another Obama appointment to the Court could also lead to an overruling of the Supreme Court’s 5-to-4 ruling upholding a restriction on a particular procedure used in so-called “partial birth abortion,” since that ruling was decided over a dissent by all of the Supreme Court’s liberal justices.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena .  GUN WATCH is now put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist.  It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day.  It was only to the Right of  Stalin's Communism.  The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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Hurricanes and Socialism

by Jacob G. Hornberger

Two articles in the New York Times last week exemplify perfectly why our nation is in such bad shape. Both articles concerned the devastation from Hurricane Sandy. The first was a Times editorial, entitled “A Big Storm Requires Big Government.” The other article was in the form of an op-ed entitled “Grover Cleveland’s Hurricane” by Matthew Algeo.

The thrust of both pieces was that Hurricane Sandy proved that the nation really needs big government in general and FEMA in particular. Without FEMA and big government, the argument goes, there is no way that people in a free society could cope with emergencies and crises.

Actually, however, in the process of praising FEMA, Algeo did Americans a great service. He criticized President Grover Cleveland for having denied federal disaster relief to hurricane victims in the latter part of the 19th century. He also pointed out that Cleveland vetoed a welfare bill for Texas farmers who were suffering a severe drought.

Why is that a service to Americans? Because it bursts the myth that is inculcated into every American schoolchild — that America’s system has always been the same. Americans are made to believe that myth because the last thing statists want them to do is to start wondering why our American ancestors chose a different system than the one that modern-day Americans chose. In fact, in their haste to publish an article criticizing Grover Cleveland and his selfishness, I can’t help but wonder if the Times failed to realize that the article it was publishing, at the same time, was bursting one of the government’s most prized myths.

As Algeo implicitly points out, Americans have lived under two different economic systems and social orders. Our American ancestors chose a way of life in which everyone kept everything he earned. There was no income tax. That wasn’t an accident. Our ancestors believed that a free society necessarily entailed the right of people to keep the fruits of their earnings.

There was also no requirement that people do the “right” thing with their money. They were free to do whatever they wanted with it. They could save, donate, invest, or spend it. The choice was theirs. Our ancestors believed that that’s part of what living in a free society is all about.

Cleveland’s position simply reflected what America was once all about — what a free society was once all about. As Algeo points out, Cleveland stated, “Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character.” That’s not only what Cleveland believed. It was the philosophy that undergirded American society through the 1800s.

Not so today. Having born and raised under a welfare state, many Americans believe they are entitled to be taken care of by the government, When things go wrong, the first response is, “I have a right to federal money,” which is really nothing more than saying, “I have a right to your money, thanks to the taxing power of the IRS and the welfare function of the federal bureaucracies.”

What happened before Americans adopted the income-tax, welfare-state way of life? When government was prohibited from taking care of people, people responded by figuring out ways to help others. But unlike the welfare state, which is founded on force, Americans relied on the voluntary actions of people. They believed that that was what genuine charity was all about.

In fact, Algeo himself alludes to this phenomenon. When Cleveland refused to provide federal money for the hurricane victims, Algeo tells us what happened: “Into the void stepped Clara Barton, the 72-year-old nurse who had founded the American Red Cross 12 years earlier. Almost single-handedly, Ms. Barton organized relief efforts — distributing food and clothing and supervising the construction of new homes (first for widows and the infirm). Her heroic work, especially in the South, saved countless thousands from disease and starvation.”

Imagine that! One person accomplishing so much! And think about this: If Americans had embraced statism from the start of the nation, there never would have been a Red Cross. After all, why would Clara Barton have started the Red Cross if the government was already serving a paternalistic role in American life?

So what happened? What caused the system to change?

American statists hated the principles of economic liberty on which America had been founded. They hated the idea that people should be free to keep the fruits of their earnings and decide what to do with them. They wanted a system in which the government confiscated people’s income and wealth and redistributed it to others. Although today they hate the label, back then many statists didn’t mind being called socialists. They knew that that’s what they were.

Over time, the statists prevailed. They were able to engraft their cancerous philosophy onto America’s constitutional order. They got their income tax amendment in 1913. They got their Federal Reserve Act in the same year. And then Franklin Roosevelt, seizing upon an economic crisis, one that had been caused by the Fed, ushered in the socialist, fascist, interventionist system under which we now live, all under the false pretense that he was “saving free enterprise.”

And then there is the out-of-control federal spending, which increasingly saddles the American people with ever-growing federal debt. But of course, every time someone suggests that federal spending be curtailed even by a tiny percentage, the statists rise up and scream in horror, “Oh, no, the nation couldn’t survive if that particular dole is reduced!”

It’s no different with FEMA. Algeo and the Times suggest that FEMA is one of those vitally important agencies whose budget could never be reduced, much less ended. But wouldn’t they say the same about Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, farm subsidies, education grants, auto bailouts, the FDIC, and every other socialistic program? Would they say that even a minute reduction in the budgets of the CIA, the military, and the rest of the warfare state would grievously threaten “national security”?

Except for libertarians, the welfare state has severely damaged the principles of self-reliance, can-do, and independence within the American people. Algeo and the Times’ editorial board provide irrefutable proof that Cleveland was right: Federal aid has encouraged the expectation of paternal care on the part of the government and has certainly weakened the sturdiness of our national character.”

SOURCE

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Obama and the politics of contempt

Caroline Glick

"Your first time shouldn't be with just anybody. You want to do it with a great guy."

So begins the now famous official Barack Obama for President campaign ad that was released last week. The ad depicts a young woman named Lena Dunham, who is apparently a celebrity among Americans in their teens and 20s.

After that opening line, Ms. Dunham continues on for another minute and a half discussing how having sex for the first time and voting for Barack Obama for president are really the same thing, and how young women don't want to be accused of either being virgins or of having passed up on their chance to cast their votes for Obama next Tuesday.

I've never been particularly interested in so-called "women's issues." It never seemed to me that any party or politician was particularly good or bad for me due to the way they thought of women. That all changed with the Dunham ad for Obama.

With this ad, Obama convinced me he is a misogynist.

The Obama campaign's use of a double entendre to compare sex - the most personal, intimate act we engage in as human beings, with voting - the most public act we engage in as human beings - is a scandal.

It is demeaning and contemptuous of women. It reduces us to sexual objects. When called on to vote, as far as Obama is concerned, as slaves to our passions, we make our decisions not based on our capacity for rational choice. Rather we choose our leaders solely on the basis of our sexual desires.

Beyond the ad's bald attempt to impersonalize, generalize and cheapen the most personal act human beings engage in, the ad is repulsive because it takes for granted that what happens in our private lives is the government's business.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is a totalitarian position.

THE WHOLE point of liberal democracy is to put a barrier between a person's personal life and his or her government. A liberal democracy is founded on the notion of limited government. It assumes there are a lot of places where government has no role to play. And first and foremost among those places is the bedroom.

The theory behind limited government is that if the government is permitted in our private space then we are no longer free. When - as in the case of the Dunham ad - a political campaign conveys the message that there is something personally wrong with not actively supporting its candidate, it communicates the message that it sees no distinction between personal and public life, and therefore rejects the basic notion of freedom from government. And this is repugnant, not just for women, but for everyone who values freedom.

One of the oddest aspects of the Obama sex ad is that to believe that this sort of message can be effective, the campaign had to ignore mountains of data about the demographic group the ad targets - young college-educated women.

According to just about every piece of survey data collected over the past 20 years, young women in America today are more accomplished, more professionally driven, and more intellectually successful than their male counterparts. That the Obama campaign believes the votes of this successful, smart group of women can be won by appealing to their basest urges rather than their capacity to reason is demeaning and perverse and, one would think, counterproductive.

But it isn't surprising.

The fact is that the Obama campaign - and indeed, the Obama presidency - has treated the American people with unprecedented arrogance and contempt. On issue after issue, Obama and his minions have eschewed intellectual argumentation.

On issue after issue they have preferred instead to attack Obama's detractors as stupid, backwards, bigoted, bellicose and evil.

For instance, however one feels about current events in the Middle East, there is a legitimate - indeed critical - argument to be had about the nature of the Islamist forces the Obama administration is supporting from Cairo, Egypt, to Alexandria, Virginia.

The Muslim Brotherhood is the most popular movement in the Islamic world. It is also a totalitarian, misogynist, anti-Jewish, anti-Christian and anti-American movement. It seeks Islamic global supremacy, the genocide of Jewry, the subjugation of Christianity and the destruction of the United States.

There is an intellectual case to be made for appeasing these popular, popularly elected forces.

There is a (stronger) intellectual case to be made for opposing them. But rather than make any of the hard arguments for appeasing the Muslim Brotherhood, the Obama administration has deflected the issue by castigating everyone who opposes its appeasement policies as racist, McCarthyite warmongers.

If women who don't support Obama are prudish geeks, Americans who oppose his appeasement policies are bloodthirsty bigots.

Then there was the attack in Benghazi on September 11 and the general Islamic assaults on US embassies throughout the Muslim world that day.

The acts of aggression that Muslims carried out against several US embassies on September 11 and since have all been acts of war against America.

The rioters who stormed the US embassies in Egypt, Tunis and Yemen and replaced the American flag with the flag of al-Qaida all violated sovereign US territory and carried out acts of war. The US had the right, under international law, to repel and respond with military force against the rioters as well as against their governments. Instead the White House blamed the acts of war on a US citizen who posted a video on YouTube.

Then there was Benghazi. In Benghazi, jihadists took this collective aggression a step further. They attacked the US Consulate and a US government safe house with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. Their goal was to murder all the US citizens inside the compounds. In the event, they successfully murdered four Americans, including the US ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens.

In the six weeks that have passed since the attack in Benghazi, despite administration attempts to stonewall, and despite the US's media's inexcusable lack of interest in the story, information has continuously dribbled out indicating that Obama and his senior advisers knew in real time what was happening on the ground. It has also come out that they rejected multiple requests from multiple sources to employ military power readily available to save the lives of the Americans on the ground.

There may be good reasons that Obama and his top aides denied those repeated requests for assistance and allowed the American citizens pinned down in Benghazi to die. But Obama and his aides have not provided any.

Rather than defend their actions, Obama and his advisers first sought to cover up what happened by blaming the acts of war on that YouTube video.

When that line of argument collapsed of its own absurdity, Obama shifted to blaming the messenger.

His campaign accused everyone asking for facts and truthful explanations about what happened in Benghazi of trying to politicize the attack.

Obama himself has twice struck the Captain Renault pose and declared himself "Shocked, shocked!" that anyone would dare to insinuate that he did not do everything in his power to save the lives of the Americans whose lives he failed to save.

More HERE

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Canada in trouble too. Overall unemployment level of 7.4% hides a lot

The Financial Post has an interesting story on the state of the Canadian jobs market. It seem over 100% of job growth is from government jobs.

Canada may have added 1,800 jobs in October, but that number hides the fact that almost all the gains came from government and that the private sector lost more than 20,000 jobs.

The 1,800 jobs added was already a disappointment compared with the 10,000 economists had forecast. According to Statistics Canada, that left the unemployment rate unchanged at 7.4%.

The six-month average for jobs gains is now 29,400, according to Reuters. But it’s a very different story when you look at the private sector and public sector separately.

More HERE

Note:  Australia's current unemployment rate is 5.4%, which is about average for the last 10 years.  It shows what is possible

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena .  GUN WATCH is now put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist.  It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day.  It was only to the Right of  Stalin's Communism.  The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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A special class of people

The men and women who volunteer to lay down their lives for the security of their fellow citizens cannot afford to make big decisions lightly.  I think their views should therefore be especially respected on the present momentous occasion  -- JR

In the United States, at least through the next election, we have the freedom to vote for the candidates of our choice. When considering presidential candidates, I give great consideration to the opinions of those who have sworn allegiance to "support and defend" our Constitution. No, I don't mean the beltway politicos who violate their oaths daily, but those in the ranks of our Armed Services, who have sworn to defend our Constitution with their lives, those who keep the Flame of Liberty burning bright.

You already know that a majority of active duty officers and enlisted personnel support conservative candidates, but as the father of an active duty Airman, I thought it might be instructive to list the senior retired military personnel who have endorsed the presidential candidates. (These are the official lists from each campaign.)

Senior officers endorsing Barack Hussein Obama:

Gen. Wesley Clark, USA, Gen. Colin Powell, USA, Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, USA, Adm. Donald Gutter, USN, Adm. John Nathman, USN.

Senior officers and decorated personnel endorsing Mitt Romney:

Adm. James B. Busey, USN, Gen. James T. Conway, USMC, Gen. Terrence R. Dake, USMC, Adm. James O. Ellis, USN, Adm. Mark Fitzgerald, USM, Gen. Ronald R. Fogleman, USAF, Gen. Tommy Franks, USA, Gen. Alfred Hansen, USAF, Adm. Ronald Jackson Hays, USN, Adm. Thomas Bibb Hayward, USN, Gen. Chuck Albert Horner, USAF, Adm. Jerome LaMarr Johnson, USN, Adm. Timothy J. Keating, USN, Gen. Paul X. Kelley, USMC, Gen. William Kernan, USA, Adm. George E.R. Kinnear II, USN, Gen. William L. Kirk, USAF, Gen. James J. Lindsay, USA, Gen. William R. Looney III, USAF, Adm. Hank Mauz, USN, Gen. Robert Magnus, USMC, Adm. Paul David Miller, USN, Gen. Henry Hugh Shelton, USA, Gen. Lance Smith, USAF, Adm. Leighton Smith, Jr., USN, Gen. Ronald W. Yates, USAF, Adm. Ronald J. Zlatoper, USN, Lt. Gen. James Abrahamson, USAF, Lt. Gen. Edgar Anderson, Jr., USAF, Lt. Gen. Marcus A. Anderson, USAF, Lt. Gen. Buck Bedard, USMC, Vice Adm. A. Bruce Beran, USCG, Vice Adm. Lyle Bien, USN, Lt. Gen. Harold Blot, USMC, Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, USA, Vice Adm. Mike Bowman III, USN, Vice Adm. Mike Bucchi, USN, Lt. Gen. Walter E. Buchanan III, USAF, Lt. Gen. Richard A. Burpee, USAF, Lt. Gen. William Campbell, USAF, Lt. Gen. James E. Chambers, USAF, Vice Adm. Edward W. Clexton, Jr., USN, Lt. Gen. John B. Conaway, USAF, Lt. Gen. Marvin Covault, USA, Vice Adm. Terry M. Cross, USCG, Vice Adm. William Adam Dougherty, USN, Lt. Gen. Brett Dula, USAF, Lt. Gen. Gordon E. Fornell, USAF, Vice Adm. David Frost, USN, Vice Adm. Henry C. Giffin III, USN, Vice Adm. Peter M. Hekman, USN, Vice Adm. Richard D. Herr, USCG, Lt. Gen. Thomas J Hickey, USAF, Lt. Gen. Walter S. Hogle, Jr., USAF, Lt. Gen. Ronald W. Iverson, USAF, Lt. Gen. Donald W. Jones, USA, Vice Adm. Douglas J. Katz, USN, Lt. Gen. Jay W. Kelley, USAF, Vice Adm. Tom Kilcline, USN, Lt. Gen. Timothy A. Kinnan, USAF, Vice Adm. Harold Koenig, M.D., USN, Vice Adm. Albert H. Konetzni, USN, Lt. Gen. Buford Derald Lary, USAF, Lt. Gen. Frank Libutti, USMC, Vice Adm. Stephen Loftus, USN, Vice Adm. Michael Malone, USN, Vice Adm. Edward H. Martin, USN, Vice Adm. John J. Mazach, USN, Vice Adm. Justin D. McCarthy, USN, Vice Adm. William McCauley, USN, Lt. Gen. Fred McCorkle, USMC, Lt. Gen. Thomas G. McInerney, USAF, Vice Adm. Joseph S. Mobley, USN, Lt. Gen. Carol Mutter, USMC, Lt. Gen. Dave R. Palmer, USA, Vice Adm. John Theodore "Ted" Parker, USN, Lt. Gen. Garry L. Parks, USMC, Lt. Gen. Charles Henry "Chuck" Pitman, USMC, Lt. Gen. Steven R. Polk, USAF, Vice Adm. William E. Ramsey, USN, Lt. Gen. Joseph J. Redden, USAF, Lt. Gen. Clifford H. "Ted" Rees, Jr., USAF, Lt. Gen. Edward Rowny, USA Vice Adm. Dutch Schultz, USN, Lt. Gen. Charles J. Searock, Jr., USAF, Lt. Gen. E. G. "Buck" Shuler, USAF, Lt. Gen. Alexander M. "Rusty" Sloan, USAF, Vice Adm. Edward M. Straw, USN, Lt. Gen. David J. Teal, USAF, Lt. Gen. Billy M. Thomas, USA, Vice Adm. Donald C. "Deese" Thompson, USCG, Vice Adm. Alan S. Thompson, USN, Lt. Gen. Herman O. "Tommy" Thomson, USAF, Vice Adm. Howard B. Thorsen, USCG, Lt. Gen. William Thurman, USAF, Lt. Gen. Robert Allen "R.A." Tiebout, USMC, Vice Adm. John B. Totushek, USNR, Lt. Gen. George J. Trautman, USMC, Lt. Gen. Garry R. Trexler, USAF, Vice Adm. Jerry O. Tuttle, USN, Lt. Gen. Claudius "Bud" Watts, USAF, Lt. Gen. William "Bill" Welser, USAF, Lt. Gen. Thad A. Wolfe, USAF, Lt. Gen. C. Norman Wood, USAF, Lt. Gen. Michael W. Wooley, USAF, Lt. Gen. Richard "Rick" Zilmer, USMC, Major Gen. Chris Adams, USAF, Rear Adm. Henry Amos, USN Major Gen. Nora Alice Astafan, USAF, Major Gen. Almon Bowen Ballard, USAF, Major Gen. James F. Barnette, USAF, Major Gen. Robert W. Barrow, USAF, Rear Adm. John R. Batlzer, USN, Rear Adm. Jon W. Bayless, USN, Major Gen. John E. Bianchi, USA, Major Gen. David F. Bice, USMC, Rear Adm. Linda J. Bird, USN, Rear Adm. James H. Black, USN, Rear Adm. Peter A. Bondi, USN, Major Gen. John L. Borling, USMC, Major Gen. Tom Braaten, USA, Major Gen. Robert J. Brandt, USA, Rear Adm. Jerry C. Breast, USN, Rear Adm. Bruce B. Bremner, USN, Rear Adm. Thomas F. Brown III, USN, Major Gen. David P. Burford, USA, Rear Adm. John F. Calvert, USN, Rear Adm. Jay A. Campbell, USN, Major Gen. Henry Canterbury, USAF, Rear Adm. James J. Carey, USN, Rear Adm. Nevin Carr, USN, Rear Adm. Stephen K. Chadwick, USN, Rear Adm. W. Lewis Chatham, USN, Major Gen. Jeffrey G. Cliver, USAF, Rear Adm. Casey Coane, USN, Rear Adm. Isaiah C. Cole, USN, Major Gen. Stephen Condon, USAF, Major Gen. Richard C. Cosgrave, USANG, Rear Adm. Robert Cowley, USN, Major Gen. J.T. Coyne, USMC, Rear Adm. Robert C. Crates, USN, Major Gen. Tommy F. Crawford, USAF, Rear Adm. James P. Davidson, USN, Rear Adm. Kevin F. Delaney, USN, Major Gen. James D. Delk, USA, Major Gen. Robert E. Dempsey, USAF, Rear Adm. Jay Ronald Denney, USNR, Major Gen. Robert S. Dickman, USAF, Rear Adm. James C. Doebler, USN, Major Gen. Douglas O. Dollar, USA, Major Gen. Hunt Downer, USA, Major Gen. Thomas A. Dyches, USAF, Major Gen. Jay T. Edwards, USAF, Major Gen. John R. Farrington, USAF, Rear Adm. Francis L. Filipiak, USN, Rear Adm. James H. Flatley III, USN, Major Gen. Charles Fletcher, USA, Major Gen. Bobby O. Floyd, USAF, Rear Adm. Veronica Froman, USN, Rear Adm. Vance H. Fry, USN, Rear Adm. R. Byron Fuller, USN, Rear Adm. George M. Furlong, USN, Rear Adm. Frank Gallo, USN, Rear Adm. Ben F. Gaumer, USN, Rear Adm. Harry E. Gerhard Jr., USN, Major Gen. Daniel J. Gibson, USAF, Rear Adm. Andrew A. Giordano, USN, Major Gen. Richard N. Goddard, USAF, Rear Adm. Fred Golove, USCGR, Rear Adm. Harold Eric Grant, USN, Major Gen. Jeff Grime, USAF, Major Gen. Robert Kent Guest, USA, Major Gen. Tim Haake, USAR, Major Gen. Otto K. Habedank, USAF, Rear Adm. Thomas F. Hall, USN, Rear Adm. Donald P. Harvey, USN, Major Gen. Leonard W. Hegland, USAF, Rear Adm. John Hekman, USN, Major Gen. John A. Hemphill, USA, Rear Adm. Larry Hereth, USCG, Major Gen. Wilfred Hessert, USAF, Rear Adm. Don Hickman, USN, Major Gen. Geoffrey Higginbotham, USMC, Major Gen. Jerry D. Holmes, USAF, Major Gen. Weldon F. Honeycutt, USA, Rear Adm. Steve Israel, USN, Major Gen. James T. Jackson, USA, Rear Adm. John S. Jenkins, USN, Rear Adm. Tim Jenkins, USN, Rear Adm. Ron Jesberg, USN, Rear Adm. Pierce J. Johnson, USN, Rear Adm. Steven B. Kantrowitz, USN, Rear Adm. John T. Kavanaugh, USN, Major Gen. Dennis M. Kenneally, USA, Major Gen. Michael Kerby, USAF, Rear Adm. David Kunkel, USCG, Major Gen. Geoffrey C. Lambert, USA, Rear Adm. Arthur Langston, USN, Rear Adm. Thomas G. Lilly, USN, Major Gen. James E. Livingston, USAF, Major Gen. Al Logan, USAF, Major Gen. John D. Logeman Jr., USAF, Rear Adm. Noah H. Long Jr, USNR, Rear Adm. Don Loren, USN, Major Gen. Andy Love, USAF, Rear Adm. Thomas C. Lynch, USN, Rear Adm. Steven Wells Maas, USN, Major Gen. Robert M. Marquette, USAF, Rear Adm. Larry Marsh, USN, Major Gen. Clark W. Martin, USAF, Major Gen. William M. Matz, USN, Rear Adm. Gerard Mauer, USN, Rear Adm. William J. McDaniel, MD, USN, Rear Adm. E.S. McGinley II, USN, Rear Adm. Henry C. McKinney, USN, Major Gen. Robert Messerli, USAF, Major Gen. Douglas S. Metcalf, USAF, Rear Adm. John W. Miller, USN, Rear Adm. Patrick David Moneymaker, USN, Major Gen. Mario Montero, USA, Rear Adm. Douglas M. Moore, USN, Major Gen. Walter Bruce Moore, USA, Major Gen. William Moore, USA, Major Gen. Burton R. Moore, USAF, Rear Adm. James A. Morgart, USN, Major Gen. Stanton R. Musser, USAF, Rear Adm. John T. Natter, USN, Major Gen. Robert George Nester, USAF, Major Gen. George W. Norwood, USAF, Rear Adm. Robert C. Olsen, USN, Major Gen. Raymund E. O'Mara, USAF, Rear Adm. Robert S. Owens, USN, Rear Adm. John F. Paddock, USN, Major Gen. Robert W. Paret, USAF, Rear Adm. Robert O. Passmore, USN, Major Gen. Earl G. Peck, USAF, Major Gen. Richard E. Perraut Jr., USAF, Major Gen. Gerald F. Perryman, USAF, Rear Adm. W.W. Pickavance, USN, Rear Adm. John J. Prendergast, USN, Rear Adm. Fenton F. Priest, USN, Major Gen. David C. Ralston, USA, Major Gen. Bentley B. Rayburn, USAF, Rear Adm. Harold Rich, USN, Rear Adm. Roland Rieve, USN, Rear Adm. Tommy F. Rinard, USN, Major Gen. Richard H. Roellig, USAF, Rear Adm. Michael S. Roesner, USN, Rear Adm. William J. Ryan, USN, Major Gen. Loran C. Schnaidt, USAF, Major Gen. Carl Schneider, USAF, Major Gen. John P. Schoeppner, Jr., USAF, Major Gen. Edison E. Scholes, USAF, Rear Adm. Robert H. Shumaker, USN, Rear Adm. William S. Schwob, USCG, Major Gen. David J. Scott, USAF, Rear Adm. Hugh P. Scott, USN, Major Gen. Richard Secord, USAF, Rear Adm. William H. Shawcross, USN, Major Gen. Joseph K. Simeone, USAF and ANG, Major Gen. Darwin Simpson, ANG, Rear Adm. Greg Slavonic, USN, Rear Adm. David Oliver "D.O." Smart, USNR, Major Gen. Richard D. Smith, USAF, Major Gen. Donald Bruce Smith, USAF, Rear Adm. Paul O. Soderberg, USN, Rear Adm. Robert H. "Bob" Spiro, USN, Major Gen. Henry B. Stelling, Jr., USAF, Rear Adm. Daniel H. Stone, USN, Major Gen. William A. Studer, USAF, Rear Adm. Hamlin Tallent, USN, Major Gen. Hugh Banks Tant III, USA, Major Gen. Larry S. Taylor, USMC, Major Gen. J.B. Taylor, USA, Major Gen. Thomas R. Tempel, USA, Major Gen. Richard L. Testa, USAF, Rear Adm. Jere Thompson, USN, Rear Adm. Byron E. Tobin, USN, Major Gen. Larry Twitchell, USAF, Major Gen. Russell L. Violett, USAF, Major Gen. David E.B. "DEB" Ward, USAF, Major Gen. Charles J. Wax, USAF, Rear Adm. Donald Weatherson, USN, Major Gen. John Welde, USAF, Major Gen. Gary Whipple, USA, Rear Adm. James B. Whittaker, USN, Rear Adm. Charles Williams, USN, Rear Adm. H. Denny Wisely, USN, Rear Adm. Theodore J. Wojnar, USCG, Rear Adm. George R. Worthington, USN, Brig. Gen. Arthur Abercrombie, USA, Brig. Gen. John R. Allen, USAF, Brig. Gen. Loring R. Astorino, USAF, Brig. Gen. Richard Averitt, USA, Brig. Gen. Garry S. Bahling, USANG, Brig. Gen. Donald E. Barnhart, USAF, Brig. Gen. Charles L. Bishop, USAF, Brig. Gen. Clayton Bridges, USAF, Brig. Gen. Jeremiah J. Brophy, USA, Brig. Gen. R. Thomas Browning, USAF, Brig. Gen. David A. Brubaker, USAF, Brig. Gen. Chalmers R. Carr, USAF, Brig. Gen. Fred F. Caste, USAFR, Brig. Gen. Robert V. Clements, USAF, Brig. Gen. Christopher T Cline, USA, Brig. Gen. George Peyton Cole, Jr., USAF, Brig. Gen. Richard A. Coleman, USAF, Brig. Gen. Mike Cushman, USAF, Brig. Gen. Peter Dawkins, USA, Brig. Gen. Sam. G. DeGeneres, USAF, Brig. Gen. George Demers, USAF, Brig. Gen. Howard G. DeWolf, USAF, Brig. Gen. Arthur F. Diehl, USAF, Brig. Gen. David Bob Edmonds, USAF, Brig. Gen. Anthony Farrington, USAF, Brig. Gen. Norm Gaddis, USAF, Brig. Gen. Robert H. Harkins, USAF, Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Honeywill, USAF, Brig. Gen. Stanley V. Hood, USAF, Brig. Gen. James J. Hourin, USAF, Brig. Gen. Jack C. Ihle, USAF, Brig. Gen. Thomas G. Jeter, USAF, Brig. Gen. William Herbert Johnson, USAF, Brig. Gen. Kenneth F. Keller, USAF, Brig. Gen. Wayne W. Lambert, USAF, Brig. Gen. Jerry L. Laws, USA, Brig. Gen. Thomas J. Lennon, USAF, Brig. Gen. John M. Lotz, USAF, Brig. Gen. Robert S. Mangum, USA, Brig. Gen. Frank Martin, USAF, Brig. Gen. Joe Mensching, USAF, Brig. Gen. Richard L. Meyer, USAF, Brig. Gen. Lawrence A. Mitchell, USAF, Brig. Gen. Michael P. Mulqueen, USMC, Brig. Gen. Ben Nelson, Jr., USAF, Brig. Gen. Jack W. Nicholson, USA, Brig. Gen. Maria C. Owens, USAF, Brig. Gen. Dave Papak, USMC, Brig. Gen. Gary A. Pappas, USANG, Brig. Gen. Robert V. Paschon, USAF, Brig. Gen. Allen K. Rachel, USAF, Brig. Gen. Jon Reynolds, USAF, Brig. Gen. Edward F. Rodriguez, Jr., USAFR, Brig. Gen. Roger Scearce, USA, Brig. Gen. Dennis Schulstad, USAFR, Brig. Gen. John Serur, USAF, Brig. Gen. Joseph L. Shaefer, USAF, Brig. Gen. Graham Shirley, USAF, Brig. Gen. Raymond Shulstad, USAF, Brig. Gen. Stan Smith, USAF, Brig. Gen. Ralph S. Smith, USAF, Brig. Gen. Donald Smith, USA, Brig. Gen. David M. Snyder, USAF, Brig. Gen. Michael Joseph Tashjian, USAF, Brig. Gen. Richard Louis Ursone, USA, Brig. Gen. Earl Van Inwegen, USAF, Brig. Gen. Terrence P. Woods, USAF, Brig. Gen. Mitchell Zais, USA, Brig. Gen. Allan Ralph Zenowitz, USA

I pray that for my son and millions of young people serving our nation in uniform the Office of President and Commander in Chief will soon be occupied by a man who will restore the honor and integrity due that office -- Mitt Romney.

SOURCE

Today is the day: A race that the whole nation will watch

And I will certainly be watching it on TV.  No.  Not the American Presidential election but the Melbourne Cup, Australia's richest horse race. It is known as "The race that stops a nation", as so many follow it, at work or at home. Both events are always held on the first Tuesday of November but I have no idea if that is anything more than a coincidence.

Australia is in a time zone that is nearly a day ahead of America, though, so it will be Wednesday in Australia before we hear anything of the election -- so I will be able to follow both races with ease.

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Ignoring the Unseen Consequences of the Dole

by Jacob G. Hornberger

Mocking Mitt Romney’s shifting positions on the auto bailout, the New York Times editorializes that the bailout turned out to be a huge success because “nearly 1.5 million people are working as a direct result of the bailout. G.M.’s American sales continue to increase, and Chrysler said this week that its third-quarter net income rose 80 percent.”

We begin with the proposition that thievery can sometimes be tremendously successful for the thief. Let’s assume that a penniless robber robs a bank of $10 million dollars and isn’t caught. Obviously he’s now able to do things he couldn’t do before. He buys two new cars, thereby increasing employment in the car industry. He does the same in the home-construction business by purchasing a new mansion. He opens a successful business, hiring dozens of people. He donates money to the poor.

Defenders of the theft can point to the robber and say, “Look at all the good that has come out of that robbery. Praise theft!”

Do you see anything wrong with this picture?

One thing involves moral principles. Theft is wrong in a moral sense, even if the thief benefits from the money and does nothing but good things with it. The money belongs to the owner. He’s entitled to it regardless of how he uses it. The thief has no moral right to take the money from the owner, even if the thief plans to do wonderful things with the money.

That’s a moral blind spot that afflicts statists, at least when government enters the picture. For them, if it’s the government doing the stealing and redistributing, then it’s not immoral at all. Instead, for the statists, it is the epitome of goodness.

Consider the auto bailout. Where did the money come from? Contrary to popular opinion, the federal government is not a fountain of wealth. It doesn’t produce anything. Instead, it is parasitic in nature. It gets its money by confiscating (taxing) wealth from the private sector.

Thus, in order to give money to the auto companies, the government must first take it from people who are working in the private sector. In doing so, it is taking money from people to whom it belongs in order to give it to big corporations to whom it does not belong.

For statists, that’s no problem. For them, the taking and redistribution reflect how good the politicians and bureaucrats are. If anyone objects, he’s labeled a bad, selfish, no-good type of person.

Moral principles are one of the major dividing lines between libertarians and statists. Libertarians adhere consistently to moral principles, not just with respect to private conduct but also governmental conduct. For statists, moral principles go out the window when government is doing the stealing (or murdering, kidnapping, torturing, assassinating, etc.).

But that’s not the only blind spot that statists have. They are also unable to recognize the unseen economic consequences of a government dole. Their mindsets are focused on what is seen rather than on what is unseen.

The Times’ position on the auto bailout is a classic example of this phenomenon. The Times’ editorial board points to the auto companies and exclaims: Look at how well they’re doing with the money that the government has given to them; this shows that taking money from people to whom it belongs and giving it to people who need it more really does work.

But what about the people from whom the bailout money was taken? What happened to them as a consequence of having that money taken from them? How many marginal firms went out of business because that much-needed money was taken from them? How many people were put out of work owing to the fact that people in the private sector weren’t allowed to spend and invest their money they way they wanted.

Let’s assume, for example, that thousands of people planned to buy new television sets. Before they made the purchases, the government took their money from them and gave it to the auto companies. What happened to the television industry? It didn’t make the sales. It didn’t expand production. It didn’t hire new people.

Since those things never happened, we don’t see them. Even the new people who were never hired in the television industry don’t know how the bailout affected their lives. But through reason, thought, and analysis, we can see that a government dole has unseen economic consequences by virtue of taking money from one group of people and transferring it to another group of people.

There is another factor to consider. Think of the hundreds of millions of dollars that the auto companies have paid in income taxes for the last several decades to fund the welfare-warfare state. If all that money had not been extracted from the auto companies, they would have a nest egg of billions of dollars to draw upon. With all that money, they wouldn’t have needed a government bailout. The fact that the government has taken all that money from them to fund its welfare-warfare operations for the past several decades has left the auto companies (and everyone else in the private sector) significantly poorer than they would be had there been no welfare-warfare state and income tax to fund it.

Finally, we mustn’t forget the mindset of dependency that the statists have inculcated in the American people with the welfare-state way of life. As soon as things go wrong, as they inevitably do from time to time, the first thing many Americans now do is call on the government to take someone else’s money and give it to them. Thus the welfare state not only violates moral principles, it also damages the traits of self-reliance and independence as well as spirit of benevolence that comes in a libertarian society.

The Times concludes, “What Mr. Romney cannot admit is that all this is a direct result of the government investment he would have rejected.”

Maybe that’s true. But what the New York Times cannot acknowledge are the horrible consequences that the welfare-state way of life has had on the American people, morally, economically, and spiritually.

SOURCE

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True the Vote: Keeping American Elections Free and Clean

The 2012 election will be the first in 30 years where the country will see a large organized presence dedicated to the integrity of votes cast, all thanks to voter integrity group True the Vote.

During the 2008 election cycle, Catherine Engelbrecht volunteered at the polls in Harris County, the second largest voting block in Texas. She noticed that although she was there with a small group of people to observe, Harris County had a poll watcher shortage of at least 50 percent. There weren’t enough people observing the election process to prevent fraud. Shortly after her experiences at the polls, Harris County authorities found 23,000 invalid voter registration forms that had been submitted by an ACORN operative. It was then that Engelbrecht founded True the Vote, where she now serves as president. The mission of True the Vote is simple: prevent voter fraud and uphold the law.

“We recognized there was a problem,” Engelbrecht tells Townhall. “There are raging debates about Cap and Trade and healthcare and you name it, but if the election process isn’t trustworthy, if it’s not reliable, then you know what does any of it really matter? It’s a scary thought to think about how tenuous, how fragile the process really is but it was so clear that something was not right and the quickest fix was to remind citizens that voting was not enough.”

Engelbrecht and True the Vote volunteers quickly started to identify how citizens could get further involved with the election process by looking at the process as a whole. Poll watching was an easy way to get a large amount of people involved in the election process.

“What got my attention is the simple fact that this where it all starts. If we cannot freely and fairly elect our representatives, nothing from there goes the way the citizens of the country want it to go, that’s the beginning,” True the Vote volunteer Joni Carlisle, who uses vacation time to help the organization 14 hours a day, tells Townhall. “We’re making a huge difference.”

By Election Day 2010, True the Vote had trained 1,000 poll watchers who could be used by election officials to observe polling stations in Harris County. Training of everyday citizens was then expanded across the country to further prevent voter fraud.

“We didn’t look for it to be a national thing, we just thought, ‘We see a problem and we need to fix it,’” Engelbrecht says. “We really decided we would become the boutique provider of in depth, real life training opportunities and it seemed to resonate across the country in ways that we could have never imagined.”

Bill Ouren started volunteering with True the Vote in January 2010 and is now the National Elections Director. His job is to connect citizens with their desire to ensure the freedom and fairness of elections.

“I was looking for something positive, something I thought would make a difference. There is nothing more fundamental to our democracy than our vote and the freedom and the integrity that surrounds that vote and it just appealed to me individually,” Ouren tells Townhall.

But what is a poll watcher or election observer? And is it effective? The fact is, poll watching is a time honored tradition dating back to the women’s suffrage movement and served as an important part of the Civil Rights movement. The NAACP used to support election observation because it keeps the process honest and ensures all voters are treated fairly. Poll watchers watch the election process to protect the rights of the voters. They do not watch the voters, they watch the process.

“They [poll watchers] are they eyes and ears of the Republic. They are not to talk to voters, they are to observe and report and they do that on behalf of the stakeholders they represent which is typically a party or a candidate or an issue on the ballot or in some cases like in Wisconsin, poll watchers can be self appointed citizens,” Engelbrecht says. “Observation changes things. Frankly, people want to do the right thing but it’s human nature to cut corners and you cut and you cut and you cut and before long you get to where we are and in many places across this country where the process isn’t even recognizable.”

Today, the NAACP, ACLU, SEIU, AFL-CIO, major media outlets and other far Left groups launch regular attacks on True the Vote and its volunteers, despite the organization's efforts to prevent voter fraud being non-partisan.

“They must be looking to protect some system of subversion that they’ve protected under the dark of night and they don’t want it to be exposed,” Engelbrecht says. “It’s stunning to hear these  groups just deny vote fraud even exists. There’s every evidence to the contrary. It’s a known fact that it exists but yet they refuse to speak the truth.”

The catalyst for expanding from being a local group in Texas to a national organization according to Engelbrecht, was attacks by the Left because they gave True the Vote a new platform.

“Because of that platform, people from across the country began to contact us and say, ‘Hey that’s what you guys are seeing? That’s what we’re seeing too. Can we work together?’” Engelbrecht says. “Although there are many groups that want to continue to paint us into a corner, the fact is our message is one for all Americans."

Heading into Election Day 2012, True the Vote has trained thousands of people in 50 states to legally poll watch. Christian Adams, a former Department of Justice Attorney, New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case whistleblower and author says this is exactly why the Left is going “berserk.”

“I know this, there will be less crime in the election this year than there was in 2008,” Adams said. “There will be less crime nationwide than there was in 2008 because True the Vote is on the ground and that is something they deserve a great deal of thanks for.”

The True the Vote program is set up so that on Election Day in addition to volunteers conducting observations at the polls, they submit incident reports. This gives True the Vote evidence that can later be looked at, studied and used to reform broken parts in the election system to prevent fraud in future elections.

“This is not a press to go through the 2012 election,” Ouren says. “We have come a long way in two years, we will go probably that much further in another two years. We’re going to continue what we’ve been doing.”

There’s no doubt True the Vote has had an impact.

“I think we’ve changed the national debate. I think we’ve brought focus to an issue that’s been a dirty little secret of both parties for an awfully long time that everybody worries about after the election for few days and then everybody gets on with their business and it never fixes itself. I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished,” Engelbrecht says. “We are doing the right thing.”

Sunday night, hundreds of volunteers gathered one last time at True the Vote headquarters before heading into Tuesday’s election. After four years of attacks and smears, they’re ready to use their training to keep our elections clean.

“We are responding as best as we know how as good stewards for our country. It’s been an amazing privilege to be part of a movement born of nothing, born of an inspiration that didn’t exist prior in this way and be part of what I think is historic,” Engelbrecht says.

SOURCE

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Racial Divide Worse Under Obama

The headline of a recent article by the Washington Post’s Peter Wallsten capsulizes, inadvertently, the supreme paradox of the Obama presidency.

“Obama struggles to balance African America’s hopes with country’s as a whole,” it says.

The story documents Obama’s struggles over the last four years, which continue today, to avoid overplaying his hand as the first black president, yet to also not ignore this fact.

But nowhere does Wallsten note the irony that four years ago many understood the meaning of Obama’s election as the beginning of the end of the perception of black America as a world apart from the rest of America.

There was exhilaration that the nightmare was over – finally. That wrongs have been righted, that we can get on with America’s business without the ongoing issue of race looming, and that we can stop looking at blacks politically as a special class of Americans.

Yet here we are now at the end of four years of the presidency of this first black president and attitudes about race seem to have hardly changed at all. There is still the sense that black America and the rest of America are not on the same page and that blacks and the country “as a whole” have different needs and different agendas.

Wasn’t Obama’s election supposed to have changed all of this?

More HERE

There is a  new  lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc.

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena .  GUN WATCH is now put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist.  It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day.  It was only to the Right of  Stalin's Communism.  The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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Conservatives have the gift of contentment

How happy you are seems to be mostly inborn  -- and the surveys repeatedly show that conservatives are happier than those on the Left.  It seems clear that this is no coincidence.  Leftism is ABOUT whining.  They are always dissatisfied with something and want to change or even "smash" something.

So it is no surprise that the evidence shows political polarity to be largely inborn too.  See the sidebar here.  You are largely born either conservative or Leftist, though aging has a conservatizing effect too.  Conservatives are just not upset by every little thing the way Leftists are. And that's a considerable gift.

So I thought that I might reproduce an excerpt from an email I have just received from a vocal Australian conservative.  He is not rich and life has not always been easy for him.  He sent me the following when I wrote to him and noted that I had not heard from him for a while:

One day, when I can, I'll tell you the crappy story of my life for the last five months which will explain why I so rudely disappeared from your view. With all that has happened though, I do consider myself a blessed and fortunate soul and I wouldn't be anywhere or anyone else.

I think that's rather wonderful.  He is a true conservative with a great gift for contentment.  I have it too.  With a severe iatrogenic illness that sees me under the surgeon's knife several times a year, I could conceivably be a moaner but I am content with my life too.  Always have been.

And I know another treasure of a man who is as poor as a churchmouse and always "skint" but he is very conservative, very active in politics and laughs his way though life.  He has a ball.

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Obama campaign struggles to explain ‘revenge’ remark

The hate is clear

A seemingly offhand utterance from President Obama has turned into a major point of contention between the two campaigns, as Team Obama tries to explain what the president meant when he told a crowd of supporters that “Voting is the best revenge.”

It happened in Springfield, Ohio Friday as Obama was discussing the economic policies of the 1990s.  When Obama referred to “a Senate candidate by the name of Mitt Romney,” the crowd booed his opponent’s name — certainly not unusual reaction at political rallies of both parties.  Then Obama said, “No, no, no — don’t boo, vote.  Vote.  Voting is the best revenge.”

It was an ugly and small-minded moment, especially for the end of a campaign when candidates usually try to stress larger, optimistic themes.  Romney incorporated the “revenge” line in his speech in Ohio Friday night, saying that while Obama advises revenge, he, Romney, wants people to vote “for love of country.”

As Obama traveled to northern Ohio Saturday morning, campaign official Jen Psaki was asked about the “revenge” remark.  According to a White House pool report, Psaki said Obama had been speaking in the context of Romney’s “scare tactics” in Ohio.  The Republican is “frightening workers in Ohio into thinking, falsely, that they’re not going to have a job,” Psaki said, according to the pool report.  “And the message [Obama] was sending is if you don’t like the policies, if you don’t like the plan that Gov. Romney is putting forward, if you think that’s a bad deal for the middle class, then you can go to the voting booth and cast your ballot. It’s nothing more complicated than that.”

The problem is, the president was actually not speaking in the context of Romney’s highly-controversial ads about bailed-out Chrysler adding production of Jeeps in China.  In fact, Obama had not said a word about the Jeep controversy when he said “revenge.”  His speech had touched on Hurricane Sandy, on the progress the American economy has made in the last few years, on his national security accomplishments, on the choice Americans will make on November 6, on Bill Clinton’s record — on a lot of things, but not on Jeep.

And even after the “revenge” remark, it took Obama six paragraphs to get to his discussion of Jeep.  The bottom line is, while it is impossible to know what was in the president’s mind, he simply was not talking about Jeep when he told voters that “Voting is the best revenge.”

SOURCE

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A Tale of Two Countries

Ben Shapiro

It has become an accepted truism in American politics that both Democrats and Republicans want the same things: a prosperous America, a strong America, an America true to principles of freedom and liberty.

Perhaps 50 years ago that was true.  Today, it no longer is.

The fact is that the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are no longer arguing over means; we are arguing over ends. Democrats know that economic prosperity for the broad swath of the United States cannot be bought with higher taxes; even Bill Clinton recognized as much in the 1990s, which is why he lowered capital gains taxes dramatically after raising personal income taxes just as dramatically. Instead, Democrats argue, as President Obama did in 2008, that taxes must be raised "for purposes of fairness."

Democrats also know that American influence in the world can't be attained purely with negotiations, timetables and unilateral pullouts. Kind words don't win hearts, and they don't defend our friends from aggression. Democrats simply hope to be left alone. After all, as President Obama has said, America has demonstrated "arrogance" and sought to "dictate our terms" to other countries. And that just isn't fair.

Fairness lies at the root of the Democratic agenda. It's a leveling agenda, not a growth agenda. What's more, it's a philosophy of constant revolution since ultimate fairness can never be achieved in a world where we are all blessed with different gifts. The philosophy that prizes fairness above all else -- at least in material and cultural terms -- can never achieve human happiness, since such fairness can never be attained. And even if it (SET ITAL) could (END ITAL) be attained, it would require unbelievable levels of suppression. The human spirit is not built to serve the god of fairness.

Prosperity and strength lie at the root of the Republican agenda. Conservatives don't support lower taxes because we hate the poor.

Conservatives support lower taxes because lower taxes create prosperity for everyone. Individuals always know more about their lives than any bureaucrat does. They know more about their needs and wants. They know which products they require, and they know how to find the best deal. No government can better distribute resources than individuals making individual decisions can. Competitive markets have done more to create wonderful products and raise the quality of living across the globe than any other institution. Central planning does not create wealth. It merely redistributes poverty.

When it comes to America's role in the world, conservatism does not rely on America to be one among many. We must be proud of our role as a global leader. Our values (SET ITAL) are (END ITAL) superior to those of other countries. Our system, prizing limited government and preserving individual liberties, is the greatest system of government ever devised. Why would we run from the honor of leading? Why would we shirk that responsibility? Most importantly, if we wish to see the world a happier place, why would we deny to others the opportunity to share in our lot, especially if it preserves our interests to do so?

Mitt Romney knows all this. Barack Obama does not. That's why Obama suggests on Jay Leno that banks have to be regulated because they're "in it to make money." And that's why Mitt Romney knows that businesses must be encouraged to profit-seek, rather than punished for doing so. That's why Obama leaves American ambassadors to die overseas rather than giving an intervention order. That's why Romney knows that backing down in the face of foreign fire is a recipe for disaster, not peace.

The Democratic road leads to an end: Europe. The Republican road leads to an end: a resurgent, dominant America on the world scene.

We can choose to fade into oblivion, suffering from high taxes and broken promises, telling ourselves that the government will take care of us even as we go broke. Or we can choose to rise again, believing in the values that made us great. In less than a week, that choice is in our hands.

SOURCE

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The Unintended Consequences of Cracking Down on Payday Lenders

Four years ago, Virginia lawmakers cracked down on payday lending. They limited borrowers to one payday loan at a time, and doubled the length of time they had to pay the money back. It worked. Payday loans plunged more than 80 percent. A few lenders left the state completely.

But it also didn’t work.  The reforms created a vacuum being filled by a new form of short-term lending: car-title loans.

In a payday loan, the borrower writes a post-dated check to cover the loan amount,   plus fees. In a car-title loan, the borrower puts up a vehicle as collateral. Since 2010 the number of car-title lending companies in Virginia has more than doubled. Last year, they made more than 128,000 loans, worth an aggregate $125 million. They also repossessed nearly 8,400 vehicles.

Legislation to cap interest rates on payday and car-title loans died last year. It likely will come up again. But some localities don’t want to wait. Officials in Chesterfield  want to ban such lenders from the county entirely. This is probably a fool’s errand; shutting down lenders won’t make demand disappear. Borrowers in need of quick cash may just cross jurisdictions – or turn to even more risky sources, such as the Internet.

It’s easy to understand Chesterfield’s position when you hear stories like that of Manassas resident Brenda Ann Covington. A while back she borrowed $1,500, and put up her 2005 Chevy Silverado as collateral. Somehow she ended up owing $4,100 – and could have lost a vehicle worth much more. On the other hand, there is no shortage of horror stories about commercial banks, either – as anyone burned in the recent housing bubble can attest.

What’s more, defaulting on a mortgage can destroy your credit rating. Defaulting on a payday or car-title loan won’t touch it. That’s one reason borrowers like storefront lenders: They “keep my payday borrowing separate from my other banking.”

There are other reasons: According to the financial-services journal American Banker, “borrowers may prefer to pay higher rates for small, short-term loans than to participate in credit union programs that have strings attached, such as a savings component. . . .  Borrowers also dislike that credit unions generally have shorter operating hours.” As a recent article in Regulation magazine – a publication of the libertarian Cato Institute – puts it: Storefront loans have “non-price benefits” that make up for the higher interest rates.

Yet those higher interest rates lead many to believe such “predatory” lenders are little better than leg-breaking loan sharks. Is that charge sustainable? Again, comparison is instructive. The banking industry’s profit margin is 5.2 percent. Payday lenders’ profits are only 2.4 percentage points higher. Both traditional banking and storefront lending are less profitable than pharmaceuticals, railroads, mining – or even regulated gas and electric utilities.

But wait: If, as critics allege, storefront lenders charge ridiculously high rates, then why aren’t they raking in money hand over fist? For one thing, they endure much higher rates of default than banks do. Just as hospitals must charge paying customers more to cover charity care, payday lenders must charge more to cover the welshers. (Banks avoid this problem by simply refusing to lend to bad credit risks. How does that help poor people?

Still, critics insist the interest rates charged by storefront lenders are so high they’re immoral. But it’s the critics, not the lenders, who are being dishonest. Here’s why:

Suppose Milton borrows $250 from a storefront lender and pays it back two weeks later. The lender charges a standard $15 fee to pay his employees, his utility bill, and so on. That is 6 percent of the loan amount. Yet critics want to express that as an annual rate – which, in this case, would be 156 percent.  This sounds outrageous. What it really tells us is not that the lender’s greed is huge – but that the loan amount is small. A $15 charge on a two-week, $10,000 loan has an APR of only 3.9 percent, even though the transaction charge is exactly the same.

Banks and credit unions don’t usually offer the sort of financial services storefront lenders offer. When they do, they end up charging similar sums. StretchPay, an Ohio-based credit-union alliance, charges an annual fee of $35 for loans up to $250. That’s an APR of 364 percent on a two-week loan.

Then there is microcredit – a Third-World financing revolution that began with the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. The idea is to lend very small amounts to poor people so they can start businesses. Microlenders have been criticized because, given the small loan amounts, the effective interest rates they charge also turn out to be pretty high – anywhere from 70 to 125 percent. But they don’t ask for collateral, either. That makes them look a lot like payday lenders.

There’s one big difference, though: While payday and similar lenders are reviled for preying on the poor, Grameen Bank and its founder Muhammad Yunus were awarded the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize.

SOURCE

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Sacramento Pastor Opposes Obama, gets threats

Can we expect black people will vote for a black president? In 2008, President Obama won more than 90% of the black vote.

But a Sacramento pastor and leader of the largest multi-racial congregation in the state says while he’s proud of Mr. Obama, the president won’t get his vote.

Dr. Phillip Goudeaux leads Calvary Christian Center’s 20,000 worshippers.  “I accepted Christ in my life. My relationship with Him means more to me the Democratic party, Independent, Republican, black or white,” Goudeaux told FOX40.

Goudeaux has pastored here for  three decades but it’s his more recent political stance that’s upset some in the black community.

His vote Tuesday won’t go America’s first black president.  “I’m going to support people who support life, marriage between man and woman, smaller government, who supports Israel,” he said.

Goudeaux feels so strongly, he’s traveled the nation to promote traditional marriage.

His outspoken views have not only drawn criticism but even death threats.

“Why don’t i have a right to speak my values without being hated on?” says Goudeaux.

Others in the black community like longtime friend and Pastor Sherwood Carthen have come to his defense.  “We’re diverse”, said Carthen. “We have thoughts of our own. And we don’t have the idea that you can put us in one box. One size does not fit all.”

Goudeaux’s views aren’t unique.  National polls show support for gay marriage among black people remains under 50 percent, indicating the community isn’t as homogenous as many think.

“They’re getting it all mixed up. I’m voting for values, my commitment to the kingdom of God,” said Goudeaux.

Experts say they expect similar voter turnout numbers from the black community this year.

SOURCE

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ELSEWHERE

Heh! Britain's major Leftist paper going broke:  "The publisher of the Guardian and Observer newspapers is close to axing the print editions of the newspapers, despite the hopes of its editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger to keep them running for several years.  The Guardian and Observer publisher has spent the last few years battling to stem losses of £44m a year. However, it has been slow to make savings and any money that it has clawed back has been spent on expanding its US and online operations.   However, trustees of the Scott Trust, GNM’s ultimate owner, fear it does not have enough cash on its books to sustain the newspaper"

Price gouging saves lives in a hurricane:  "In the evening before Hurricane Charley hit central Florida, news anchors Bob Opsahl and Martie Salt of Orlando's Channel 9 complained that we 'sure don't need' vendors to take advantage of the coming storm by raising their prices for urgently needed emergency supplies"

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist.  It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day.  It was only to the Right of  Stalin's Communism.  The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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What does "Amen" mean?

A word that at least a billion people have used but who knows what it means?

It's Hebrew and at the end of a prayer it means roughly "So be it" or "I agree"!  But that is not the end of it.  It has a broader meaning than that.  When Jesus said:  "Verily, verily, I say unto you ...." (e.g. in John 5:24), what word do you think he was using according to the original Greek text that was translated as "verily"?  That's right.  He was actually saying:  "Amen, amen, I say unto you".  So it's basically just a way of emphasizing the correctness of something.

I must admit that I was rather staggered myself when I wondered what the obsolete English word "verily" stood for in the original text and found myself staring at "Amen" when I looked up my authoritative Westcott & Hort text.  I couldn't believe my eyes for a minute.  I even checked it in the Griesbach recension as well.

On further checking in my Abbott-Smith lexicon I see that the word was also used in the Septuagint:  The translation into Greek of the OLD Testament that Christ and the Apostles usually quoted from.  So we see how a Hebrew word got into Greek.  It has no exact translation into Greek so the learned Jewish translators of the OT in olden times simply reproduced it.  Abbott-Smith offers "be firm" as the meaning of the Hebrew original.

Even my Liddell & Scott lexicon of CLASSICAL Greek gives the word  a brief mention, maybe because of its Septuagint usage. We learn every day.

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When an atheist argues passionately for the protection of Christians

The inimitable Pat Condell again



I'm guessing that it's only his atheism that protects Condell from Britain's vicious hate-speech laws.  The British establishment is basically atheist. Condell started out as a comedian but he has found Islam less and less amusing over the years.  His home page is here.  I rather like the opening greeting

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Rumors of General Ham Being Relieved Could be True

by GREGORY D. LEE

Rumors have been swirling about General Carter Ham, commander of Africa Command located in Stuttgart, Germany, ever since Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced that President Obama has nominated General David Rodriguez to replace him. Those rumors have been adamantly denied by the Pentagon.

While on active duty as an army reservist during 2011 at the Special Operations Command Europe, also headquartered in Stuttgart, I met newly arrived General Ham at the annual Army Ball. He had just arrived in country and took over Africom the day NATO initiated military air operations in Libya. Most command tours of duty are at least three years unless the commander elects to retire. I haven't read anything about Gen. Ham intending to do so. He has only been the commander of Africa Command less than 18 months.

I was forwarded an email from someone associated with the U.S. military in Stuttgart. The email claims that when Gen. Ham was notified of the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, he took immediate action to send operational forces there, only to be told by the Pentagon to "stand down." As commander of Africom, he would have been receiving the same information the CIA, Pentagon, White House and National Security Council did from the U.S. embassy in Tripoli. One of Africom's missions is to conduct NEO's (non-combatant evacuation operations) in its area of responsibility. He rightfully voiced his objections to the stand down and gave orders to deploy U.S. forces there anyway. When he did, his deputy commander "apprehended" him and then relieved him of his command. When I read the email description of this, I thought this was a scene from a bad war movie.

Apprehending someone in the military is the equivalent of a civilian arrest. Disobeying a lawful order is punishable by two-years of confinement and reduction of rank, according to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It would be highly, highly, extraordinary for anyone to relieve a four-star general, let alone "apprehend" him.

A week ago, Rear Admiral Charles M. Gaouette, Commander of an aircraft carrier strike group positioned in the Middle East, was sent home to Washington State pending the outcome of an undisclosed investigation. Coincidence? I hardly think so. The admiral was most probably reading the same message traffic and voiced his objections to "standing down." Why else send him home for a tune up by his superiors?

If the rumors are true, either Secretary Panetta gave the order to "stand down" or he was told by the president to have General Ham do so. Whoever it was obviously was above a four-star general's pay grade.

Regardless, what happened in Benghazi is exactly why the army has various military commands around the world. If this administration won't use the assets it has to protect U.S. personnel and one of its own ambassadors from harm's way, then why even have them?

If my sources of information are correct about the chain of events leading to Gen. Ham's departure, it further illustrates why liberals should never be allowed to be in charge of national security. They simply do not have the stomach for it.

The President and Secretary of State Clinton wanted to put a nice face on the country's relationship with the newly established fledgling Libyan government. They portrayed the attack on the consulate as a spontaneous outburst by protestors that got out of hand stemming from an obscure video defaming the Prophet Mohammad. In reality, it was a  preplanned terrorist attack on the anniversary of the September 11, 2001.

The word "terrorism" has essentially been erased from the vocabulary of this administration, especially after the killing of Osama Bin Laden. Having an attack by al-Qaeda factions on a consulate in a country the administration took credit for liberating does not fit the template of a foreign policy success. A cover up was launched, putting a lid on information until after next week's election.

Don't count on the media asking hard questions about why Gen. Ham left his command early and Rear Admiral Gaouette was sent home on "temporary duty." The answer to those questions would only amplify this administration's limp-wristed reaction to terrorist events and foreign policy failures. It would also further demonstrate that President Obama has managed to severely deteriorate relations in the Middle East.

SOURCE

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American Exceptionalism and Its Discontents

In May 2011, the Washington Post’s Richard Cohen, a columnist I admire, wrote an opinion piece titled “The Myth of American Exceptionalism.” In it, he opined that the “problem of the 21st century is the problem of culture,” in particular the “culture of smugness,” the emblem of which “is the term ‘American exceptionalism.’ It has been adopted by the right to mean that America, alone among the nations, is beloved of God.”

I wrote a rebuttal, contending that exceptionalism means nothing of the sort, and that no one on the right that I was aware of – and no one, evidently, that Cohen was aware of since he quoted no one to substantiate his thesis – would define exceptionalism as he had.

So I was particularly interested to see a recent “news analysis” by The New York Times’ Scott Shane, a reporter I admire, titled “The Opiate of Exceptionalism.” In it, Shane defines exceptionalism differently than Cohen had -- but equally incorrectly. He opines – excuse me, analyses -- that American voters “demand constant reassurance that their country, their achievements and their values are extraordinary.” He goes on to assert that Americans want their presidents to be “cheerleaders,” and that this is a “national characteristic, often labeled American exceptionalism.”

No, no, and no. American exceptionalism does not imply that -- nor is it an assertion of “American greatness,” as Shane also claims. It is something simpler and humbler: recognition that America is, as James Madison said, the “hope of liberty throughout the world,” and that America is different from other nations in ways that are consequential for the world. Let me briefly mention three.

Most nations are founded on blood. America, by contrast, was founded on ideas. This is why anyone from anywhere can move to America and become American. This is among the reasons so many people want to become American – and do. Couldn’t one just as easily move to Japan and become Japanese? Seriously? Nor can one simply become Ukrainian, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Portuguese or Egyptian.

For those who do become Americans -- and especially for their children -- anything is possible. Consider such all-Americans as Colin Powell, Jeremy Lin, Bobby Jindal, Tiger Woods, and of course the most obvious example: An African student marries an American girl, and their son goes on to become the President of the United States. When I was a student in Russia years ago, I had friends from Africa and some married Russian girls. Does anyone believe that the children of these couples can hope to succeed Vladimir Putin?

A second way America is exceptional: The ideas on which this nation is based were revolutionary in the 18th century – and still are today. All men are created equal? Governments derive their powers only from the consent of the governed? We are endowed by our Creator with rights and freedoms that no one can take away? China is nowhere close to embracing such principles. Nor is most of the Middle East, the “Arab Spring” notwithstanding. Latin America and Africa have a long way to go. And in Europe, I fear, the commitment to individual liberty has been weakening.

Finally, there is leadership. If America does not accept this responsibility – and that’s how it should be seen, not as a privilege or entitlement; not as a reason to shout “We’re No. 1!” – which nation will? Iran’s theocrats would be eager – but that means they impose their version of sharia, Islamic law, well beyond their borders. Putin will grab whatever power is within his reach but he would rule, not lead. There are those who see the UN as a transnational government. They don’t get why it would be disastrous to give additional authority to a Security Council on which Russia and China have vetoes, or a General Assembly dominated by a so-called Non-Aligned Movement constituted largely of despotic regimes that recently elevated Iran as their president.

Among the evidence Shane gathers in an attempt to prove that America is unexceptional: America’s high rates of incarceration and obesity, the fact that Americans own a lot of guns, consume a lot of energy, and have too few 4-year-olds in pre-school. He maintains that one consequence of American exceptionalism is that there is little discussion, not least during election campaigns, of America’s “serious problems” and “difficult challenges” all because, he says, “we, the people, would rather avert our eyes.”

His case in point is Jimmy Carter who “failed to project the optimism that Americans demand of their president,” and therefore “lost his re-election bid to sunny Ronald Reagan, who promised ‘morning in America’ and left an indelible lesson for candidates of both parties: that voters can be vindictive toward anyone who dares criticize the country and, implicitly, the people.”

Shane does not consider an alternative analysis: that Carter’s policies contributed to the enfeebling economic phenomenon known as stagflation, and that he presided over a string of foreign policy failures, among them America’s humiliation at the hands of Iran’s jihadist revolutionaries. He ignores this too: Reagan went on to restore the nation’s economic health and to pursue policies that led to the collapse of the Soviet empire. Shane has every right to believe that America would have fared better under Carter than Reagan, but there is no historical or evidentiary basis to suggest he’s right and a majority of American voters were wrong.

Shane writes that exceptionalism “has recently been championed by conservatives, who accuse President Obama of paying the notion insufficient respect.” The issue is not respect but comprehension. Curiously, Shane omits Obama’s most famous statement on exceptionalism. At a NATO summit in France in 2009, the President said:

I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.

This is really a way of saying that no nation is exceptional, that are all, as Garrison Keillor might put it, “above average.” But it was America that began the modern democratic experiment. And if America does not fight for the survival of that experiment, what other nation will?

A half century ago, Reagan -- not Carter -- said: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” Today, freedom is under sustained assault by totalitarians, terrorists and tyrants. It is America’s exceptional burden to defend those who live in liberty, and support those who aspire to be free. This should be obvious. But, as Shane wrote in another context, too many of us “would rather avert our eyes.”

SOURCE

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The Uncool President

Victor Davis Hanson

In 2008, Barack "No Drama" Obama was the coolest presidential candidate America had ever seen -- young, hip, Ivy League, mellifluous and black, with a melodic and exotic name. Rock stars vied to perform at his massive rallies, where Obama often began his hope-and-change sermons by reminding the teary-eyed audience what to do in case of mass fainting.

The giddy media declared Obama a "sort of god," and "the smartest man with the highest IQ" ever to assume the presidency. Somehow, even legs got into the hero worship, as pundits praised the sight of Obama's "perfectly creased pant," and one commentator felt "this thrill going up my leg" when Obama spoke.

Four years of governance later, the huge crowds have mostly melted away. Those still left do not faint. The columns are in storage. The Latinate "Vero Possumus" is not even voiced in English.

Instead of "no red states or blue states" healing rhetoric, Obama has sown all sorts of needless divisions in hopes of cobbling together a thin us-versus-them coalition, as independents flee. The 99 percent claim oppression by the 1 percent. Young single female professionals are supposedly at war with Republican Neanderthals. Beleaguered gays apparently must fight the bigotry of the homophobic right wing. Greens should go on the offensive against conservative polluters who are OK with dirty air and water. Latinos must "punish our enemies" at the polls, and Attorney General Eric Holder's "my people" are to be set against "a nation of cowards." With all the advantages of incumbency and an obsequious media, why is Barack Obama reduced to stooping to save his campaign?

A dismal economy, of course, explains voter discontent. So do the contradictory and illogical explanations about the recent killing of a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in Libya. Mitt Romney is also proving a far better campaigner than were prior so-so Obama opponents like Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Obama's first debate was a disaster.

A more worldly Obama no longer talks of cooling the planet or lowering the rising seas. Barely even with challenger Mitt Romney in the polls, he now alternates between the crude and the trivial in a campaign that in its shrillness on the stump evokes the last desperate days of failed incumbents like Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush.

Obama blasts Romney as a "bullsh--ter," and releases an ad in which a starlet compares voting for him to her first sexual experience. When Obama is not crude, he is adolescent -- as he references Big Bird, plays word games like "Romnesia" and ridicules Romney for his "binders" debate remark.

The greatest problem facing Obama, however, is not just his mediocre record of governance, but the growing public perception that he is as uncool in 2012 as he was cool in 2008. Voters no longer feel they're square for voting against Obama. Instead, it's becoming the "in" thing to shrug that enough is enough.

A common theme of classic American tales such as "The Rainmaker," "Elmer Gantry," "The Music Man" and "The Wizard of Oz" is popular anger unleashed at Pied Piper-like messiahs who once hypnotized the masses with promises of grandeur.

The bamboozled people rarely fault their own gullibility for swooning over hope-and-change banalities, but rather, once sober, turn with fury on the itinerant messiahs who made them look so foolish.

In other words, it is not just the economy, foreign policy, poor debating skills or a so-so campaign that now plagues Obama, but the growing public perception that voters were had in 2008, and that it now is OK -- even cool -- to no longer believe in him.

More HERE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist.  It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day.  It was only to the Right of  Stalin's Communism.  The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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