Obama still doesn't understand regulation

It’s a relief President Obama, in an Op-Ed in today's Wall Street Journal, acknowledges that the free market is “the greatest force for prosperity the world has ever known.” It certainly is.

The President now says there are some rules “that are just plain dumb” and he’s going to “remove outdated regulations that stifle job creation.” I hope he means it. But even if a president does want cutback, it won’t be easy. Managing regulatory bureaucracy is like pushing string. Regulators want to regulate. Just last year, federal bureaucrats alone added 80,000 pages of brand new rules.

It’s intuitive to believe regulation protects us and makes commerce fairer. I once believed that. But then I became a consumer reporter and I watched regulation fail. Now I know it almost always does more harm than good.

In his Op-Ed, the President praises “common sense rules” like child labor laws and “our most recent strictures against hidden fees and penalties by credit card companies.” But what he calls “common sense” has unintended consequences. Stopping credit card companies from imposing penalties on customers who pay late didn’t make those costs disappear.

Since the politicians “protected” us, credit card interest rates rose nearly 2% ... while other interest rates dropped. JPMorgan Chase simply cut off 15% of its customers. Those who want credit will now have to go to pawn shops or payday lenders that charge annual interest of more than 200%. How does that help poor people?

Child labor laws passed to protect children from dangerous factories now keep strapping teenagers out of air-conditioned offices. Labor Department rules are so onerous that businesses that could legally employ teens often don’t. Wendy's won’t even consider hiring anyone younger than 16 because the regulations require time-consuming record keeping, and carry the risk of a big fine. It's “safer” just not to hire young people. How does that help kids?

My friend Sheldon Richman, editor of The Freeman, helped convince me that almost all regulations are unnecessary. In this article, he points out that politicians always say:

“We need more regulation. When free-market advocates point out that the problems were caused by government’s systematic and deliberate weakening of market discipline in order to promote corporate profits through home ownership regardless of income or creditworthiness, the other side seems to want to say, “If we have proper regulation, we don’t need market discipline."

But chanting “regulation” and “oversight” is not a solution to anything... Even if we assume the regulatory body would be populated by honest, disinterested people (a wild assumption, we should realize by now), how would they know what to do? As noted, markets are complex beyond imagination... Sitting in an ivory tower and writing regulations for a complex market is a recipe for stagnation…

SOURCE

**************************

129 Million Lies About ObamaCare

“129 Million People Could Be Denied Affordable Coverage Without Health Reform” blares the title of the piece of propaganda thinly disguised as a “study” released this morning by the Department of Health and Human Services.

The purpose of the propaganda was, of course, to generate scary headlines on the eve of the House GOP’s vote to repeal ObamaCare, likely scheduled for tomorrow. The Washington Post and other media promptly granted HHS its wish.

The purpose sure wasn’t sober, high-quality research. While the title shouts that 129 million people could be denied coverage, the so-called study defines preexisting conditions to include those “that would result in an automatic denial of coverage, exclusion of the condition, or higher premiums.” But paying higher premiums is not the same as being denied coverage.

Furthermore, the preexisting conditions are taken from a list of conditions that either qualify a person for a state high-risk pool or could result in a denial of private insurance. But neither of those are the same as saying that someone will be denied private coverage. For example, Crohn’s disease is on the list for high-risk pools, but some private insurers cover it.

Ed Haislmaier, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, is even harsher: “This is appalling,” he said. “This is the most mendacious piece of work I’ve seen out of there is twenty years. The most charitable thing you can say is (the Obama administration) takes credit for things this law doesn’t do. The less charitable thing is they are simply lying.”

Haislmaier points out that many of the things the study claims that ObamaCare ends were already illegal under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. For example, the study claims that prior “to the Affordable Care Act, in the vast majority of States, insurance companies in the individual and small group markets could deny coverage, charge higher premiums, and/or limit benefits to individuals based on preexisting conditions.”

Haislmaier points out that this was true only in the individual market. In the group market, HIPAA limits the denial of coverage to those with preexisting conditions to 12 to 18 months. Those who have been previously insured can get that amount reduced even further. Says Haislmaier, “They either don’t know the law or they deliberately portrayed it as something it isn’t.”

Indeed, the authors make these “unaware-of-HIPAA” errors throughout the study:

—Between 50 and 129 million non-elderly Americans have at least one preexisting condition that would threaten their access to health care and health insurance without the protections of the Affordable Care Act.

Wrong. Haislmaier reiterates that many of those people are in the group market and thus covered by HIPAA.

—In addition, workers with a preexisting condition may be less able to change jobs for fear of losing that coverage.

Wrong. Under HIPAA, if you previously had “creditable coverage,” you can switch to the plan of another employer.

—Individuals with these conditions would at least get charged a higher premium but could also have benefits carved out or be denied coverage altogether.

Wrong. Under HIPAA, an employer group can be charged higher premiums than other groups, but an employee within that group cannot be charged higher premiums than the other employees.

“It’s not like this is rocket science,” said Haislmaier. “They have people at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services who deal with implementing HIPAA!”

He also notes this gem in the “study”: “The new health reform law has already banned lifetime limits in private insurance and has restricted annual limits for group and new individual market plans before banning such limits in 2014.”

Haislmaier notes, “Except when they didn’t by giving waivers to everybody who had a plan with limits,” referring to the more than 100 businesses and unions that had received administration waivers from ObamaCare at the end of last year.

“Might you want to check with the front office before issuing this? So now they are claiming credit for something that, administratively, their own department has undone.”

Ultimately, this study is useless save as an indication of how desperate the Obama administration is to salvage its highly unpopular health care overhaul.

SOURCE

************************

Leftist activism as machismo

One of the under-reported stories from the 1960's is a fundamental change that took place at that time in the male rite of passage. Ever since the first humans began the arduous trek from primitive tribal societies to civilized society, the male adolescent's progression to adulthood included some rite which demarcated childhood from manhood. Most of the time this rite of passage was explicitly designed to evince the young prospective man's physical prowess and courage. There is a clear line of communication from the young tribesman who was expected to kill a lion or bring down a buffalo by himself and the British aristocrat training at Sandhurst. There were always those who did not take part in such rites, but for the culture's elites, evidence of courage were considered a sine qua non to entry into adulthood.

The mass mobilizations of the last centuries allowed everyman to take part in this rite of passage. The Bands of Brothers of WWII, in the retrospective popular imagination, were the apotheosis of courage under fire, solidarity, and steadfastness.

During the Vietnam War the children of the elites, to a much greater extent than in previous wars, avoided serving. This was especially prominent in the children of the liberal elites. As with any complicated and conflictual behavior, all sorts of psychological reactions ensured.

Via the beauty of the reaction formation, the covert anxiety felt by many was transmuted into its opposite. The moral of the Vietnam War struggle, for the counter-culture,l was that the truly brave fought against the unjust, imperialistic war. However, beneath the defensive bravado, the anxiety persisted. Mark Rudd documents this in his Washington Post op-ed over the weekend:

In 1970, when I was 22 years old - the same age as Jared Loughner - I was a founder of the Weather Underground, an offshoot of the antiwar group Students for a Democratic Society. That spring, a small contingent of the Weathermen, as we were known, planned to plant three pipe bombs at a noncommissioned officers' dance at Fort Dix, N.J. Our intention was to remind our fellow Americans that our country was dropping napalm and other explosives on Vietnam, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. I wasn't among the bombmakers, but I knew what was in the offing, and to my eternal shame, I didn't try to stop it.

I considered myself an agent of necessity in a political revolution. I'm not sure if Loughner, who seems to suffer from mental illness, can be considered an agent of anything. But I'm sure that if, as alleged, he pulled the trigger, he had convinced himself that he was doing what needed to be done.

At his age, I had thought myself into a similar corner. My willingness to endorse and engage in violence had something to do with an exaggerated sense of my own importance. I wanted to prove myself as a man - a motive exploited by all armies and terrorist groups. I wanted to be a true revolutionary like my guerrilla hero, Ernesto "Che" Guevara. I wanted the chant we used at demonstrations defending the Black Panthers to be more than just words: "The revolution has come/Time to pick up the gun!"

Mark Rudd's use of his own experience to somehow illuminate any aspect of the Tuscon shootings is curious at best. What is more interesting is that he cannot yet question his own politics:

On March 6, 1970, the Weather Underground's bombs, assembled in a New York townhouse, exploded prematurely. Ted Gold, Diana Oughton and Terry Robbins - three brilliant and passionate young people who had decided that they must become terrorists - were killed. Only by their deaths was the greater tragedy we were plotting avoided. Emotionally shattered, I dropped out of the Weather Underground but remained a fugitive until 1977.

After I turned myself in, I spent the next 25 years trying to figure out why I had made so many disastrous decisions as a young man. One of my conclusions was to pursue only nonviolent action - righteous action still, but without anger or brutality.

It was never Mark Rudd's goals that were problematic, only his means, yet once the Left determines that its goals no longer justifies its means, it is no longer a revolutionary force, but an emasculated one. If you are fighting oppressors who are tormenting the innocent and helpless, every means must be used; after all, true heroes will risk all to protect the innocent. The young Leftist must either question his assumptions or condemn himself as a coward.

Some in the modern Left believe they can attain their goals by stealth; the election of 2010 has made that problematic. At this point the Left is being repudiated throughout the Civilized world. As Walter Russell Meade has pointed out, the Social Welfare model of the last half of the 20th century has failed and we have not yet found a new model.

The great problem for the Left is that they have failed spectacularly. The Soviet Union is now a kleptocracy surviving off oil; China is a State run Corporation; Cuba can barely feed itself and its much vaunted healthcare system is a shambles for all but the well connected who can obtain western (Capitalist) medical care; Venezuela is going off a cliff despite its oil; everywhere Socialism has been tried it has failed to do anything but terrorize and consign its people to perdition.

For the new generation of Mark Rudds, who have not yet surrendered their Utopian ideology, there are few options for exhibiting their courage. They can engage in mindless violence with the anarchists; they can support the oppressed by joining the murderers fashioned in the image of those most lovely of sociopathic killers, "Che" or Yasser; or they can attempt through subterfuge to achieve an impossible dream which has already been repudiated.

The true heroes, men and women of courage, are those few willing to stand up against barbarism in defense of our way of life. This is an intolerable state of affairs.

SOURCE

***********************

ELSEWHERE

Iran bans production of Valentine’s Day gifts: "Iran has banned the production of Valentine's Day gifts and any promotion of the day celebrating romantic love to combat what it sees as a spread of Western culture, Iranian media reported. The February 14 celebration named after a Christian saint is not officially banned but hardliners have repeatedly warned about the corruptive spread of Western values. Under Iran's Islamic law, unmarried couples are not allowed to mingle."

CA: Is Berkeley ready to pay for sex change operations?: "While the country’s cities and states are cutting employment benefits, Berkeley City Council members will decide Tuesday whether to set aside taxpayer dollars for city workers to get sex-change operations. The vote, expected this evening, would permit the city to dole out $20,000 in cash stipends from its general budget to pay for the surgeries -- even as a city auditor warns of ballooning employee benefits costs. A new City Manager's report states that the city has unfunded liabilities totaling as much as $252 million."

Do you have a “right” to a job, home or healthcare?: "Americans have always been passionate about their rights. Whether conservative or liberal, we vigorously assert and defend them when we debate national policies like health-care reform or extending unemployment benefits. Unfortunately, the concept of 'rights' is often poorly understood across the ideological spectrum. Some conflate rights with responsibilities. Others label any benefit they think people should have as a right. ... In the Founders' vision, government's sole legitimate purpose is to protect our rights."

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone 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)

****************************

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)

****************************

Why Leftists Are Far Likelier to Use Political Violence Than Conservatives

The background of this topic is the belief systems of Conservatives versus Modern Liberals. Consider the following demarcations.

A. Modern Liberalism, aka Socialism

What is fashionably called “liberalism‚” today is not what the term originally meant 150 years ago, when it was used to describe the philosophy of freedom. The Renaissance, Reformation and Enlightenment all influenced the creation of original liberal theory. For example, the Founding Fathers were all political liberals and the writing of the Declaration and Constitution were the high points of the ideas of political liberalism. But at the turn of last century, socialists began referring to themselves as “liberals‚” and they poisoned the term from its original meaning, allowing leftists to exclusively adopt the term.

B. Conservatism, aka Classical Liberalism

Early writers of Classical Liberalism and the Enlightenment were fixated upon expanding freedoms in every conceivable arena. This was during the ending of the Renaissance, when the Reformation suddenly burst open doors closed by the Church for a thousand years.

The tenets of Classical Liberalism are listed by Amy Sturgis:

"An ethical emphasis on the individual as a rights-bearer prior to the existence of any state, community, or society;

The support of the right of property carried to its economic conclusion, a free-market system;

The desire for a limited constitutional government to protect individuals’ rights from others and from its own expansion; and
The universal (global and ahistorical) applicability of these above convictions."

Real Conservatism is not a violent movement, even though it does espouse a strong military for defensive purposes. But it does so for defensive purposes. Further, while Conservatism supports the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms, this is also done for self-defense. To say that a person who supports gun rights is therefore violent would be like saying a surgeon’s goal is to hurt people because he uses knives on them.

Overall, American Conservatism is fixated on our democratic constitutional republic, believing only by following a well-established Rule of Law can we all be safe. Further, freedoms also results from keeping government small and its powers trimmed so that citizens might maximize their own rights. Property is considered sacrosanct, which is the foundation of our capitalist system. So, needless to say, murdering politicians is not a Conservative value.

Moving Beyond Defamation

It is intellectual apostasy to claim Conservative means the same as violent extremism without bothering to study the history. In fact, the opposite is true when one considers that all of last century’s Marxist revolutions were achieved by a minority in a bloody ascension. Also, remember 200 million innocents were killed by leftists like Mao and Stalin making liberalism the most violent and murderous belief system in history. The entire Inquisition killed 30,000 people, while Chairman Mao by himself murdered 77 million!

The reason leftists are willing to murder in the name of politics is because they normally do not believe in God, a hereafter, or even any classic definition of morality. So whatever is done, as long as it serves Marxism, it is good.

According to P.H. Vigor’s A Guide To Marxism, since religion cannot deliver any sense of morality, it is up to humanism to create standards. But, as Virgor notes,

"Moreover, in any discussion involving ethics or morality, the fundamental point for a Marxist is that there is no such thing as an absolute Right and Wrong. Right and Wrong are relative for a Marxist: a thing which is wrong at one time, and in one set of circumstances, will be right in another…It is therefore simply not possible to settle an argument with them by reference to ethical principles—by saying, for instance, that the consequence of a particular policy would be murder, and you cannot commit murder. From a Marxist standpoint, you can—in certain circumstances"

The point here cannot be made too vigorously. There is no moral center found in socialism, Marxism, anarchism, or communism, as we discover in the Bible’s Ten Commandments. There is therefore no such thing as absolute wrong or right action to a true leftist. So,where resistance to Marxism is encountered, a sincere leftist always has the option of picking up a weapon to further his “liberalism.” In fact, virtually every Marxist revolution has involved murderous attacks to gain power.. And this is why leftists will always be infinitely more dangerous than Conservatives.

More HERE

*************************

the G.O.P. Can Cut and Survive

The "Realpolitik" article by Ramesh Ponunu below is controversial but his recommendations are probably right as a short-term strategy. In the long term, vision and principles are also important however

THE new Congress is less than two weeks old, but pundits from across the political spectrum are already urging the newly empowered Republicans to take on Medicare and Social Security.

Conservatives argue it’s the only way to make good on the party’s limited-government rhetoric. Centrists say it’s the only plausible way to bring the budget into sustainable balance. Even some liberals are telling the Republicans to demonstrate the courage of their anti-spending convictions.

Reforming these programs is vital to our nation’s long-term fiscal health — which is why Republicans should resist this advice and leave the issue alone. Reform is impossible this year or next unless President Obama takes the lead on it. What’s more, Republicans have no mandate for reform, and a failed attempt will only set back the cause.

Some Republicans are understandably eager to take on these entitlements. “The third rail is not the third rail anymore,” Representative Paul Ryan, a Republican from Wisconsin, said in December.

Maybe he’s right. But Republicans have gotten a painful shock every time they have decided it’s finally safe to take on entitlements. Ronald Reagan suffered a defeat in his first year when he tried cutting Social Security’s early retirement benefits. Newt Gingrich’s 1995 Republican revolution fizzled when President Bill Clinton fought him over Medicare cuts. President George W. Bush’s effort to reform Social Security in 2005 ended any political momentum he brought to his second term.

Would-be reformers should draw two lessons from this history. The first is that reform can’t be sprung on the electorate. Reagan hadn’t campaigned on cutting Social Security in 1980, nor did the Gingrich Republicans promise to reduce the growth of Medicare.

Today is no different: while some Republican candidates in the last election spoke forthrightly about the need to rein in these programs — notably Representative Ryan himself, but also new Senators Marco Rubio of Florida and Rand Paul of Kentucky — most of them didn’t.

As a result, if Republicans spend much of the next two years fighting over these programs, voters who depend on them are going to be unpleasantly surprised. Keep in mind that most voters oppose cuts to Social Security and Medicare, so they are likely to be very nervous about any proposals to restrain their growth, especially if opponents portray such cuts as excessive. Even worse, most members of Congress are not well informed about these programs, so they’ll have a hard time soothing public anxieties.

The second lesson is that presidential support for reform is a necessary, though not a sufficient, condition for success. As John Boehner, the new speaker of the House, said himself on election night, governing from Capitol Hill doesn’t work — the president has to set the agenda.

If Mr. Obama delivers a good-faith proposal for Social Security, for example in this month’s State of the Union address, then by all means Republicans should offer a serious counterproposal and, depending on their differences, negotiate. If he doesn’t, then Republicans should wait on a new president in 2013.

But they should do more than wait: in the event of presidential inaction, reformers should blame Mr. Obama for the lack of progress and work to make entitlements a litmus-test issue in the Republican presidential primaries. The goal should be to nominate someone willing to make a strong case for reducing entitlement growth as part of a larger strategy to restore American prosperity.

True, reform won’t generate the near-term budget savings the federal government needs to avoid a fiscal crisis this decade. Even the boldest plans phase their cuts in gradually, and they exempt people who are at or near retirement.

But that doesn’t mean that all action on entitlements can be deferred. Medicaid is wrecking state budgets and is set to expand thanks to the Democrats’ new health care law. It is also more politically vulnerable than Social Security or Medicare, which offer benefits to everyone who reaches old age. As they try to undo the health care law, Republicans might also consider capping Medicaid’s growth and sending the savings back to the states. It would be a mistake, however, for Republicans to take the same approach to Social Security or Medicare.

Instead, they should show their budget-hawk bona fides by making spending cuts elsewhere.

They should begin by freezing or cutting government payrolls, including in the legislative branch — something Republicans have already started doing. Message: the federal government is not just imposing sacrifices but sharing them. Then they should get control of the discretionary, or non-entitlement, portions of the budget, which are small only in comparison with entitlements. Only after winning those fights, and probably electing a new president, should the old-age entitlements be up for reform.

There are times when it is admirable for a politician to support legislation for the public good even if it will cost him his own re-election. Some of the Democrats who voted for the new health care law and then lost in November probably feel that way. But that tradeoff made sense only because they knew they could actually pass the law.

There is no point to Republicans’ endangering their seats for legislation, however worthy, unless they have a good shot at getting a presidential signature on it. They will get their answer in the next State of the Union address.

SOURCE

*************************

ELSEWHERE

Zogby Interactive: 45% of Voters Say Race Relations Have Worsened Since Obama Took Office: "More than two-fifths (45%) of likely voters say race relations have worsened over the two years that Barack Obama has been president, while 13% see an improvement and 37% see no difference. There was no statistically significant difference in responses between white, African-American and Hispanic voters. Most likely to say race relations have worsened are: voters who are more likely to vote for Tea party endorsements (78%), conservatives (75%), Republicans (68%), NASCAR fans (58%), weekly Wal-Mart shoppers (57%), those who attend religious services weekly or more often (54%) and military veterans (54%). Most likely to say race relations have improved are: liberals (28%), Democrats (24%)"

Mark Levin Threatens to Sue Chris Matthews, Others: "Conservative talk radio host Mark Levin said he would file a lawsuit against anyone in the media who tries to link him to the shootings in Arizona, as Chris Matthews did earlier in the week. On MSNBC’s “Hardball” Tuesday night, Matthews essentially blamed Levin and talk radio host Michael Savage for creating a climate of hate that led to the Tucson shootings that killed six and injured 13, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. On Wednesday, Levin — an attorney — told his listeners: “I’m waiting for an allegation that is very specific against me because I’m going to sue. I don’t care if they’re bloggers, I don’t care if they’re television hosts, I don’t care if they’re radio hosts. I’m going to drag your a** into federal court."

Governors: We are all conservatives now: "The dismal fiscal situation in many states is forcing governors, despite their party affiliation, toward a consensus on what medicine is needed going forward. The prescription? Slash spending. Avoid tax increases. Tear up regulations that might drive away business and jobs. Shrink government, even if that means tackling the thorny issues of public employees and their pensions.... “The rhetoric has grown very similar,” said Scott D. Pattison, executive director of the nonpartisan National Association of State Budget Officers. “A lot of times, you can’t tell if it’s a Republican or Democrat, a conservative or a liberal.”

Group targeting Glenn Beck funded by Soros: "An organization leading a crusade demanding Fox News fire host Glenn Beck is backed by philanthropist George Soros and is tied to many of the liberal activists that Beck routinely excoriates on his highly rated program, WND has learned. Jewish Funds for Justice, or JFSJ, a charity that campaigns for social change, delivered a petition with 10,000 signatures to Fox News this past week in protest of a program in which Beck specifically targeted Soros, calling the businessman the "puppet master." JFSJ deemed the show anti-Semitic. JFSJ is funded by Soros' Open Society Institute. In 2009, the Open Society provided a $150,000 grant to the JFSJ and its associated group, the Funder's Collaborative on Youth Organizing. In 2010, the Open Society provided a $200,000 grant to last a period of two years."

Krugman’s incoherent moral stance: "The idea that we belong to government is obscene and harks back to an age when Caesars, monarchs, tsars, Pharaohs and such were believed to have been given their realm by God and everything within that realm, including all the human beings, therefore belonged to them. Later these slaves and serfs began to be called subjects, implying that they were all subject to the will of the government. This is were serfdom and even taxation have their origin. Now we have, in 21st century America, one of the most prominent commentators and educators reiterate this horrendous outlook. Incredible. But it gets even worse."

Government restrictions versus free market regulation: "Only monopolies or those involved in limited and restricted markets can afford to provide poor products or services at high prices. If they try that in a market where true competition exists, they will drive business to their competitor. If they don’t listen to the complaints and concerns of their customers, they will drive business to their competitors. Of course, the biggest monopoly is government. Perhaps that explains why so many seem to have a problem with government."

No to state bailouts!: "Many states can't pay their bills. Their unfunded obligations total trillions of dollars. Some of these states will want a bailout from Congress. Do you want to pay for this, or should the politicians and the unions who created these messes feel the pain instead of you?"

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone 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)

****************************

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)

****************************

Are racists cuddly?

That question would seem to be answered in the affirmative by the research below. As I have had a great deal published in the academic literature on "ethnocentrism", I feel I should point out an important flaw in the research: It studies something that does not exist!

"Ethnocentrism" is a theory, not a concept. It postulates that people who like their own group look down on other groups. But all the evidence over many years of research shows that not to be true. Liking for your own group does NOT mean that you look down on other groups. Patriots are not necessarily racist and some people are generally benevolent, for instance -- i.e. some people who greatly appreciate their own group greatly appreciate at least some other groups too.

A further problem is that the research below used experimental tasks as its measures of "ethnocentrism". But experimental tasks have a very poor record of generalizing and so are a poor index of stable personality or attitude syndromes. A carefully validated questionnaire would have been a better (though still far from perfect) measure.

So the research is a very poor answer to the question it poses and the last sentence in the abstract below would seem to be totally unfounded. In short, the research is largely vitiated by its psychometric naivety -- a very common problem in experimental psychology.

Nonetheless, from all the things we know about oxytocin, it is probably true that oxytocin facilitates within-group trust, cooperation, and coordination.

Oxytocin promotes human ethnocentrism

By Carsten K. W. De Dreu1 et al.

Abstract

Human ethnocentrism—the tendency to view one's group as centrally important and superior to other groups—creates intergroup bias that fuels prejudice, xenophobia, and intergroup violence. Grounded in the idea that ethnocentrism also facilitates within-group trust, cooperation, and coordination, we conjecture that ethnocentrism may be modulated by brain oxytocin, a peptide shown to promote cooperation among in-group members. In double-blind, placebo-controlled designs, males self-administered oxytocin or placebo and privately performed computer-guided tasks to gauge different manifestations of ethnocentric in-group favoritism as well as out-group derogation. Experiments 1 and 2 used the Implicit Association Test to assess in-group favoritism and out-group derogation. Experiment 3 used the infrahumanization task to assess the extent to which humans ascribe secondary, uniquely human emotions to their in-group and to an out-group. Experiments 4 and 5 confronted participants with the option to save the life of a larger collective by sacrificing one individual, nominated as in-group or as out-group. Results show that oxytocin creates intergroup bias because oxytocin motivates in-group favoritism and, to a lesser extent, out-group derogation. These findings call into question the view of oxytocin as an indiscriminate “love drug” or “cuddle chemical” and suggest that oxytocin has a role in the emergence of intergroup conflict and violence.

SOURCE

*********************

The evil consequences of the Left's hate-filled class war

I put the article below up late last year. It was written before the Tucson shootings. I am re-posting it here because I think it shows very clearly that the accusations coming from the Left about the Tucson shootings are just projection. They are seeing in conservatives what they do themselves

We often take the class warfare rhetoric of the Left for granted these days, inured to its wickedness by its ubiquity in the media and academia. For most on the Right the class and race warfare rhetoric espoused by leftists is simply another point to debate and an easy explanation for leftist political stances and social mores. But this ideology of hatred does more than affect tax policy, it costs lives. America’s streets run red with the blood of the innocent cut down by the foot soldiers of the secret war America’s Left has initiated.

Clay Duke, the man who opened fire on a Florida school board, was one such foot soldier. But he was also a victim. That the mentally ill Duke took his cues from leftist groups like Media Matters is verified by Duke’s own words. What shocked people more was the reaction of his supposedly sane wife who, having just heard that her husband committed suicide after attempting to murder several innocent men and women, told news crews that her mentally disturbed husband should be an example to all Americans. She called for a violent class war.

I may be unkind to point out the obvious here but it’s clear that this deranged man not only adopted the class warfare rhetoric of the Left, but was enabled by his radical wife. Fortunately for his would-be victims Duke only ended up killing himself, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t a victim here. Duke needed help and those closest to him were so mired in their Marxist fantasy world that he ended up dead and his friends and supporters (yes, there are supporters of Clay Duke) continue their radical passion play.

But this has distracted attention from an even more disturbing story. In Cape Cod a series of fires are being blamed on an arsonist who leaves a very telling calling card. From the Cape Cod Times:

Police and fire officials are investigating an arson fire in Sandwich that has a disturbing similarity with a suspicious incident in Barnstable.

In both cases, the arsonist left a calling card, the message, “(expletive) the rich” at the scene.

At 3:30 a.m. on Nov. 24, flames engulfed an unoccupied home still under construction at 16 Boulder Brook Road in Sandwich. Only the exterior of the house had been completed. The home, which was valued at $500,000, had a three-car garage and three bedrooms, but no plumbing or electric service, Sandwich Fire Chief George Russell said.

The heavy damage burned much of the evidence. But the state Fire Marshal’s Office was recently able to rule that an arsonist had set the fire, Russell said.

The following week, on Dec. 2, incendiary devices were found at 43 Trotters Lane in Marstons Mills, law enforcement officials said.

At Trotters Lane, the message “(expletive) the rich,” was clearly spray painted on a fence on the property, Barnstable police Det. John York said.

York said a similar message had been found at the Sandwich property. Sandwich officials have declined to provide details about that case.

“F*@k the rich” is a common battle cry for radicals, including Libertarian Communists and Anarchists of all stripes, even ones who are admittedly well off themselves. But class warfare in America has little to do with actual class, it is simply a call for violence against those who oppose neo-Marxist policies. That is why these mighty “class warriors” tend to be the children of well-off families.

On May Day of this year there was a riot in Asheville, North Carolina organized by a Black Bloc cell. The very left-leaning city’s residents expressed surprise that their stores were attacked, going so far as to claim they were “on the same side” politically. Several people contacted me to tell me that the riot was organized by the local anarchists and socialists using radical bookstores for planning meetings and the dozen or so rioters arrested turned out to be local college kids.

A few months later an anarchist named Casey Brezik slit the throat of a Missouri community college dean in a blitz attack launched during a special event featuring Governor Jay Nixon. Brezik, like Duke, was mentally unstable and his family had declared him an endangered missing adult. While they worried about their missing loved one, local anarchists were providing Breznik with shelter and drugs and setting him loose on the public. It turned out that he had been arrested at the G-20 for assaulting a police officer, but Canada only held him for two days before deporting him back to us.

Like Duke, this “class warrior” was little more than a mentally disturbed weapon used by leftists to inflict as much destruction as possible on innocent Americans.

Racial division is a key strategy of class warfare, and the Left is adept at stirring up racial animosity. The recent riots in Oakland were organized by the Revolutionary Communist Party, who also played a hand in organizing violent clashes between police and illegal immigrants in Westlake, California. In both cases the RCP used racially charged incidents to stir up “revolution” and class war.

But protests turning into riots are the least consequence of the Left’s racially divisive class war.

Over the summer Des Moines was plagued with a series of racially motivated attacks at the Iowa State Fairgrounds where whites were attacked at random by black teens who police reported said it was “beat Whitey night.” Several police officers were attacked and in at least one incident a teen girl brazenly assaulted a woman in front of police for no reason other than her race.

A 4th of July “flash mob” in Philadelphia also included racially motivated assaults on random people.

In the once “up and coming” upper Manhattan neighborhood of Inwood, a 200 member strong Latino motorcycle gang has been terrorizing the well-to-do residents and the police have been powerless to stop them.

More disturbing were the 2007 murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsome. The young white couple was kidnapped, raped, and tortured in a racially charged murder many dubbed the Knoxville Horror. Christopher Newsome was sodomized then dragged to some nearby railroad tracks where he was shot and set on fire. Channon Christian then endured several hours of “horrific” sexual torture before being hog-tied and left with a plastic bag tied over her head in a dumpster where she slowly suffocated.

And while that case became the focus for racial debate the crime had more to do with class envy and the racial divisions promoted by the Left producing criminals with a sense of entitlement to their criminality if the victim is easily perceived as an “oppressor.” The Left stoked the fires of animosity by portraying calls for the five murderers to face hate crimes as racist themselves.

Too many on the Right have been lulled into complacency by the dreary pronouncements of the Left. We think that because there isn’t massive, sustained civil unrest that the Left’s class war is just an idea, a theory that drives the push to reinstate the death tax. But the class war dreamed of by the Left is here and its casualties are the thousands of mugging victims, rape victims and murder victims that we read a few lines about in the local crime blotters. Houses burned, Americans dead and whole sections of our cities given over to the near lawlessness and we still won’t accept that a “class war” has begun?

What will it take for America to wake up and see that the poison the Left has spewed into our culture is killing us?

SOURCE

************************


The widening fight against public-sector unions

by Jeff Jacoby

In New Jersey, freshman Governor Chris Christie has been locked a battle royal with his state's powerful teachers unions. In California, Oakland's new mayor began her first full day in office by demanding that unionized police officers, who pay nothing toward their pensions, be required to contribute 9 percent of their salaries.

In New York, federal prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into whether Sanitation Department workers purposely paralyzed the city with a work slowdown during last month's blizzard. In Massachusetts, Governor Deval Patrick infuriated public-safety unions by replacing costly police details with civilian flaggers at many construction and repair sites.

Now the Midwest is poised to become a major theater in the war against insatiable government unions.

Within days of taking office in 2005, two Republican governors -- Mitch Daniels in Indiana and Matt Blunt in Missouri -- issued executive orders rolling back collective-bargaining rights for state workers. Because public-sector unions in those states had been granted the right to bargain collectively through executive orders in the first place, Daniels and Blunt had only to rescind their predecessors' actions.

Even before he was sworn in last week, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker had fired a shot across the bow of his state's public-sector unions. Speaking to the Milwaukee Press Club, he said he would consider using "every legal means" to weaken those unions -- from decertifying their exclusive right to bargain on behalf of state employees to modifying state law.

"You are not going to hear me degrade state and local employees in the public sector," Walker said. "But we can no longer live in a society where the public employees are the haves and the taxpayers who foot the bills are the have-nots." More than 50 years ago, Wisconsin was the first state to enact a public-sector collective-bargaining law, and killing it outright might be too tall an order even for a governor whose party controls both houses of the legislature. But Walker and like-minded lawmakers may well succeed in excluding from collective bargaining the most highly-abused benefit categories, such as pensions and health insurance.

In Ohio, meanwhile, incoming Governor John Kasich has long made ending public-sector collective bargaining a priority. In 2009 he said he wanted to "break the back of organized labor in the schools," and last month he underscored his conviction that government workers who go on strike should be fired.

More here

**************************

ELSEWHERE

House panel wants Homeland Security documents: "A House committee has asked the Homeland Security Department to provide documents about an agency policy that required political appointees to review many Freedom of Information Act requests, according to a letter obtained Sunday by The Associated Press. The letter to Homeland Security was sent late Friday by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee."

An extremist and proud of it: "I knew I was an extremist from the time Barry Goldwater announced that 'Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.' That’s because an extremist is just someone who holds a set of positions that is internally consistent, uncompromising, and demands full integrity"

The evils of the drug war: "Most everyone is familiar with the disastrous consequences of the war on drugs: drug gangs, drug lords, drug suppliers, gang wars, muggings, robberies, thefts, corruption of judges, prosecutors, and law-enforcement officials, murders, assassinations, overcrowded jails, asset forfeiture, and on and on. The fact is that nothing good is produced by the war on drugs. All the results are bad."

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

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone 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)

****************************

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)

****************************

Royal snub for the Obamas

It was announced several weeks ago that Mr. and Mrs. Obama had not been invited to the forthcoming Royal wedding in Britain. I reproduce below a commentary of unknown authorship on the matter. I have tidied up a few infelicities in it.

Despite official denials, the non-invitation is obviously a slight to the Obamas personally -- principally motivated, one imagines, by the airs that the bumptious Mrs Obama customarily gives herself. What a contrast Mrs. Obama is to the ladylike and discreet Laura Bush! The observation below that Mrs. Obama has "no class" is obviously subjective but in this case richly deserved, I think. That she apparently once called the mother of the groom an "over-sexed clothes-horse" would by itself be fatal. Prince William is devoted to the memory of his late mother, Princess Diana.

I am not sure that all the allegations below are well-sourced -- some would have to be speculation -- but they seem plausible. That Mrs. Obama is burnt up about the non-invitation has to be true, I think

Michelle is livid over the snub and Obama can’t believe it… "What is happening and what can I do about it?" seems to be the thoughts in Obama’s head. Meanwhile, William and Kate have it together.

Prince William and Kate Middleton are planning a royal wedding in April, 2011. It appears that Prince William personally told the wedding planners to strike the Obamas from the guest list. He apparently stated, "He did not want Michelle Obama trying to pull her center of attention ploy trying to upstage Kate on Kate’s wedding day".

Sources reveal that William states, "She may run Obama, but she doesn’t run him or England". The Democrats and Obama would like to play the race card as they have done so many times in America, but it is difficult when other black heads of states are invited to the wedding and will be warmly received.

Now, what are the future King of England’s reasons for snubbing the Obamas to the world and making them a laughing stock? It has nothing to do with America beyond our being so stupid as to elect such a low class imperfection to the office of President and First Lady. The decisions that they make can and will affect the world.

Secondly, Michelle called the Prince's mother Diana an over-sexed clothes horse and further stated that she, Michelle, was more popular than Diana ever was.

Thirdly, Michelle Obama showed her butt at every major social function endeavoring to be the Queen in the limelight. In other words, just a lack of class.

Fourthly, the Queen, William’s grandmother also has her reasons. Obama refused to bow to her, but a few days later bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia . Michelle manhandled her by becoming too familiar by putting her arm around her. The Queen only shakes hands with gloves on… That is the tradition and it is still honored by the Royals. The Queen said to her staff, "Never allow that woman to be in the same room with me again" and she meant every word of it.

The gifts from Obama and Michelle were both tacky and in poor taste… It is all a matter of class. In addition the Queen supported Prince William in his decision, due to the fact the word is out about the lavish booze parties at the White House, the expensive vacations and state visits that cost the American tax payers billions of dollars unnecessarily when the American people need the resources… We here can’t decide if it is just low class, no class, big a_s or all that has just been mentioned.

The Obamas are desperately trying to make it a slight against America. Every past Head of State has always been invited… This is not a state function and William is not yet a Sovereign. It is just a multi-million dollar private wedding and the Obamas have been royally snubbed by the British Royals; not America , just the present classless leaders…

****************

Tone down the rhetoric?

Sarah Palin Effigy Hangs in West Hollywood



SOURCE

***********************

Leftist hate speech leads to death threats against Tea Party leader

And the only insanity the threatening guy suffers from is his extreme Leftism

Tucson tea party leader Trent Humphries was threatened today during an interview with ABC. While Trent was speaking at the event, an audience member screamed, “Trent Humphries, you’re dead!”

ABC News held a town hall event today in Tucson, Arizona. Local officials, friends and heroes were at the event. News anchor Christiane Amanpour was the host. The segment will air tomorrow. ABC gathered members from the Tucson community to discuss the tragic shooting last Saturday that wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and left 6 people dead.

State Representative Terri Proud was at the event sitting between Trent and the violent audience member. Terri was there to speak about the local gun laws. She described the scene to me just minutes ago:

Trent Humphries, the Pima County tea party leader, stood up to speak during the event. He was being very respectful. Trent told the audience that before we start placing blame on individuals we need to get all the facts.

Trent then told everyone that one of those killed during the shooting was his neighbor and that he was affected like everyone else by the tragedy…

While Trent was speaking- And it was planned that he would speak- one member in the audience and reportedly one of the victims of the tragedy started screaming, “Trent Humphries you’re dead!” The police immediately escorted him out. On his way out he screamed, “You’re all whores.”

The ABC producer said he was not sure if they will show incident tomorrow, or not.

Trent was finished with his statement and sat down. Terri said she was concerned since she was sitting right between Trent and this violent leftist. Trent sat down and ABC continued with the taping. Two police officers jumped in immediately to remove the violent leftist.

Trent Humphries has been receiving death threats all week since the national media and their leftist cohorts began blaming the tea party for the shooting by the leftwing pothead. Currently, government officials are checking his mail for him due to the threats.

Please keep Trent and his young family and all the Tucson tea party members in your thoughts and prayers.



UPDATE….. The unhinged leftist J. Eric Fuller (above) was charged with with threats and intimidation and he also will be charged with disorderly conduct.

SOURCE

*********************

Voices of patience and wisdom

by Jeff Jacoby

IN THE EIGHT DAYS since the deadly shootings in Arizona, the nation has been engulfed by a tidal wave of rhetoric and reaction, much of it unnecessary, ungracious, or unfortunate. But amid the flood of words, two voices have spoken with an uplifting decency and grace that should make them memorable long after the hue and cry of the past week has ended.

One of those voices was that of President Obama, whose remarks at the memorial service in Tucson Wednesday night were humane and eloquent, unmarred by the acrimony that has ricocheted back and forth in the political echo chamber. The president spoke movingly about each of the victims whose lives were cut short. He gratefully hailed by name those whose heroism and quick thinking prevented even more lives from being lost. And with no hint of self-interest or rationalization, he urged all Americans not to "use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on each other."

Obama is the leader of his party and an agile partisan combatant, and there are those who would have him make political hay out of the atrocity in Arizona. Within hours of the killings, Politico was quoting "one veteran Democratic operative" whose advice to the White House was to "deftly pin" the bloodshed in Tucson on the "overheated rhetoric" of conservative activists in the Tea Party.

But the president rose above such sentiments. "Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let us use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy, and remind ourselves of all the ways our hopes and dreams are bound together."

Obama has been fairly criticized for many things, and many Americans will doubtless have more reasons to fault him as he gears up for re-election over the next two years. But unlike Bill Clinton after Oklahoma City, no one will be able to charge Obama with exploiting the massacre in Tucson for political gain. "More than at any other point in his presidency," wrote one of his fiercest critics, former George W. Bush aide Pete Wehner, following the memorial service, "Mr. Obama was president of all the people and spoke beautifully for them."


Dallas Green wipes away a tear while seated next to his father John Green and mother Roxanna Green during the funeral service for their daughter, 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green, in Tucson, Ariz.

Not even the president, however, could match the goodness, dignity, and large-heartedness of John Green, whose 9-year-old daughter, Christina, was the youngest victim of suspect Jared Loughner's rampage.

Speaking through tears as he was interviewed on NBC's "Today" show and on the Fox News Channel, Christina's father refused to pin his daughter's murder on the "climate of hate" and "vitriolic rhetoric" so many others were eager to indict. Unlike the local sheriff who seized the moment to smear Arizona as "a Mecca for prejudice and bigotry," John Green said the killings were "such a random act, such a rare thing to happen in Tucson, Arizona, which is a wonderful city -- and the northwest side is a wonderful community."

The chattering class spent much of the past week calling for new laws and tighter regulations. There were proposals for -- among other things -- a ban on carrying guns within 1,000 feet of a member of Congress; resurrecting the long-discredited broadcast Fairness Doctrine; funding more outpatient clinics to treat the mentally ill; and prohibiting ammunition clips that hold more than 10 rounds. John Green endorsed none of them. "We don't need any more restrictions on our society," he said. New laws and limitations cannot prevent every horror, and if we want to live "in a country like the United States, where we are more free than anywhere else, we are subject to things like this happening."

No one would have faulted Green if, in his heartbreak, he had raged against the monster who shot Christina. Instead he expressed gratitude for "the friends and family we have surrounded ourselves with in this tragedy," and added, with almost incomprehensible generosity: "If maybe that fellow who was shooting everybody -- if he had had some friends and family around him, maybe this wouldn't have happened."

Like most people, Americans talk too much and think too little, especially when it comes to the sins and sorrows of others. There is "a time to keep silence and a time to speak," Ecclesiastes teaches. When a tragedy like the one in Tucson strikes, most of us would do well to keep silence, and to leave the speaking for those with the humanity and wisdom to say something meaningful.

SOURCE

************************

Political Pundits Surprisingly Good At Getting Inside Mentally Unbalanced Shooter's Head

According to media analysts, the nation's TV commentators and political pundits have proved uncannily accurate when describing the deeply disturbed inner thoughts of accused Arizona gunman Jared Loughner. "It's strange, but when it comes to getting inside the mind of this human being who seems to possess no empathy, sense of morality, or hold on reality, and who is motivated only by personal animus and self-glorification, the nation's major political pundits have been amazingly adept," said Horizon Media analyst Bob Cullen, who has studied extensive tape of commentators on all major TV news programs and found their remarks on "what the killer is thinking" to be consistently thorough and detailed across the board.

"It's almost as though they have some way of knowing, firsthand, exactly what this demented and highly dangerous individual with the eyes of millions upon him is going through." Researchers at Horizon Media also reported that a number of prominent TV pundits appeared to be mimicking the exact same chilling gleam in Loughner's eye for what they could only speculate was "dramatic effect."

The Onion

*********************

Intellectual diversity and dissent essential to keep organisations healthy

Comment from Australia. Kevin Rudd is the recently deposed Prime Minister of Australia

On his journey to the Lodge, Kevin Rudd argued that Friedrich Hayek, a favourite political philosopher of his opponents, held the twin beliefs that people are naturally selfish and that this was a good thing. In fact, Hayek believed the converse - that our evolution in small bands on the African savannah had produced a species that was naturally given to group solidarity. And Hayek thought that was a bad thing - an obstacle to building a free, modern society.

A brief glance at our world, both today and through history, confirms our natural tendency to solidarity. With brief interludes in ancient Athens and Rome, it took until the 16th century before the penny dropped that society might function without unanimous agreement about the nature of God and the universe - as Elizabeth I put it, providing Englishmen were loyal and law abiding, she need not look into their souls.

It took more centuries for the idea of factions within government to be accepted and ultimately institutionalised. But still the revolution seems only half won.

Among the carnival of dissent and struggle in the marketplace for money and ideas, which has brought humans as close as we have yet come towards a free, meritocratic society, most organisations are run as Good Queen Bess's tyrannical dad, Henry VIII, would have run them - by fiat, with dissent hushed up if it is tolerated at all.

Of course, to get things done, organisations can't be riven with faction and indecision. But just as a Catholic could be a loyal subject of Queen Bess, so dissent within a company can respect its authority and need for decision. It should be possible for an employee to say something like this: "I opposed the dividend policy the company agreed on. I may do so again. But more a majority supported it and I support our firm's need to make and stick by clear decisions."

As James Surowiecki observes in The Wisdom of Crowds, to be wise, a crowd must embody diversity of opinion, some preferably open means of capturing those insights over as wide a range as possible, and independence of individuals within the crowd.

The more such qualities are lacking, the more tenaciously organisations gravitate towards what George Orwell called groupthink, reminding us that Surowiecki's book was offered as a foil to the mid 19th-century book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. That book's topics included markets' endlessly recurring cycles of euphoria and gloom, alchemy, the crusades and other human high points.

Groupthink and complacency feed on each other, and often prevent organisations learning except in a crisis.

SOURCE

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone 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)

****************************

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)

****************************

Blame Righty: A Condensed History

Michelle Malkin

I agree with President Obama. When it comes to politicizing random violence, he and his supporters have been "far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than" they do. Recognition is the first step toward reconciliation. It's time to recognize the poisonous pervasiveness of the Blame Righty meme.

For the past two years, Democratic officials, liberal activists and journalists have jumped to libelous conclusions about individual shooting sprees committed by mentally unstable loners with incoherent delusions all over the ideological map. The White House now pledges to swear off "pointing fingers or assigning blame." Alas, the Obama administration's political and media foot soldiers have proved themselves incapable of such restraint.

In April 2009, a disgruntled, unemployed loser shot and killed three Pittsburgh police officers in a horrifying bloodbath. The gunman, Richard Poplawski, was a dropout from the Marines who threw a food tray at a drill sergeant and had beaten his girlfriend. Was this deranged shooter who pulled the trigger to blame? Nope. Despite evidence that Poplawski's homicidal, racist tendencies manifested themselves years before Obama took office, lefty publications asserted that the real culprit of the spree was the "heated, apocalyptic rhetoric of the anti-Obama forces" (according to mainstream liberal Atlantic Monthly pundit Andrew Sullivan), along with Fox News and Glenn Beck (according to mainstream liberal journalist Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly online).

That same month, a sick, evil man named Jiverly Voong ambushed an immigration center in Binghamton, N.Y. Recently fired from his job, Voong murdered 13 people, critically wounded four others and then committed suicide. The instant psychologists of the left knew nothing about the disgruntled man of Vietnamese descent and undetermined political affiliation. But within hours of the shooting, liberal mega-website Huffington Post commenters had overwhelmingly convicted GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, the National Rifle Association, Fox News, Lou Dobbs and yours truly. Liberal radio host Alan Colmes pointed his finger at the "huge anti-immigrant backlash in this country" -- never mind that tens of millions of legal immigrants and naturalized citizens have coped with hardship, overcome racism and embraced assimilation without going bloody bonkers.

In June 2009, a depraved, elderly anti-Semite named James von Brunn gunned down a security guard at the Holocaust Museum in D.C. Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent and lefty Center for American Progress think-tank fellow Matthew Yglesias immediately invoked the Obama administration's report on right-wing extremism, leading to a wider chorus of condemnations against the tea party, talk radio and the entire GOP. The truth? Von Brunn was an unstable, equal-opportunity hater and 9/11 Truther conspiracy loon who bashed Jews and Christians, George W. Bush and Fox News, and had also threatened the conservative Weekly Standard magazine.

In late August 2009, as lawmakers faced citizen revolts at health care town halls nationwide, the Colorado Democratic Party decried a window-smashing vandalism attack at its Denver headquarters. State Democratic Party Chair Pat Waak singled out tea party activists and blamed "people opposed to health care" for the attack. The perpetrator, Maurice Schwenkler, turned out to be a far-left transgender activist/single-payer anarchist who had worked for a labor union-tied political committee and canvassed for a Democratic candidate.

In September 2009, Bill Sparkman, a federal U.S. Census worker, was found dead in a secluded rural Kentucky cemetery with the word "Fed" scrawled on his chest with a rope around his neck. The Atlantic Monthly's Andrew Sullivan rushed to indict "Southern populist terrorism, whipped up by the GOP and its Fox and talk radio cohorts" in an online magazine post titled "No Suicide," which decried the "Kentucky lynching." Liberal author Richard Benjamin blamed "anti-government" bile. New York magazine fingered conservative talk radio giant Rush Limbaugh, "conservative media personalities, websites and even members of Congress." So, who killed Bill Sparkman? Bill Sparkman. He killed himself and deliberately manufactured a hate crime hoax as part of an insurance scam to benefit his surviving son.

In February 2010, ticking time-bomb professor Amy Bishop gunned down three of her colleagues at University of Alabama-Huntsville, and suicide pilot Joseph Andrew Stack flew a stolen small plane into an Austin, Texas, office complex that contained an Internal Revenue Service office. Mainstream journalists from Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart to Time magazine reporter Hilary Hylton leaped forward to tie the crimes to tea party rhetoric. Never mind that Bishop was an Obama-worshiping academic with a lifelong history of violence or that Stack was another Bush-hater outraged about everything from George W. Bush to the American medical system to the evils of capitalism to the city of Austin, the Catholic Church and airlines.

In May 2010, liberal New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg tried to preemptively pin the Times Square bombing attempt on "someone with a political agenda that doesn't like the health care bill or something." The culprit was unrepentant Muslim jihadist Faisal Shahzad.

In August 2010, Democratic supporters of Missouri Rep. Russ Carnahan blamed a "firebombing" at the congressman's St. Louis office on tea party suspects. The real perpetrator? Disgruntled progressive activist Chris Powers, who was enraged over a paycheck dispute.

President Obama wisely counseled the nation this week at the Tucson massacre memorial that "bad things happen, and we must guard against simple explanations in the aftermath." But as the progressive left's smear-stained recent history shows, criminalizing conservatism is a hard habit to break.

SOURCE

**************************

Blood Libel? Oy Vey

David Harsanyi

Wasn't it moving to see progressive tweetdom and punditry unite in the defense of Jewry -- in the Middle Ages? As a member of this most oppressed minority, I personally want to thank you.

After all, how dare she? The media are so sick and tired of Sarah Palin's shtick (that's one of the words we use in private) that they created a stampede to Wikipedia to quickly figure out just how divisive this "blood libel" thing, whatever it means, could be to American discourse.

Now, just for the record, we Jews haven't been using the blood of gentile kids for our baking needs in at least a couple of decades, but in historical terms, blood libel refers to false accusations that Jews were murdering children to use their blood in religious rituals -- and an excuse for anti-Semitism. It was heavily utilized in the Middle Ages by some Christians and, with a few modifications, is a regular smear in the Muslim world today.

Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of Israel antagonists at J Street (an outfit that USA Today accidentally referred to as "a political organization for Jews and supporters of Israel"), spoke for hundreds when he claimed that "the term 'blood libel' brings back painful echoes of a very dark time in our communal history when Jews were falsely accused of committing heinous deeds" and demanded that Palin "retract her comment, apologize and make a less inflammatory choice of words."

Really? Memory? Inflammatory? Painful echoes? Jews, well, we can be offended like it's 1257. If blood libel is really a distasteful parallel, it is only because we have intimately familiarized ourselves with the idea through a History channel documentary about the crusades.

And if our institutional memories make us so thin-skinned, there are far more tangible reminders of genocide when we hop into our fancy German cars (which we do a lot, because we're in charge of everything). Or it is certainly as offensive as the heinous deeds of Sarah Palin, which include, among many other transgressions, talking.

And as Jim Geraghty of National Review helpfully noted, the term "blood libel" has been used many times by pundits and journalists from both sides of the ideological divide, including the esteemed Frank Rich of The New York Times, over the years.

Liberal Alan Dershowitz, as sensitive as they come to anti-Semitism (both real and imagined), said in a statement that "there is nothing improper and certainly nothing anti-Semitic in Sarah Palin using the term to characterize what she reasonably believes are false accusations that her words or images may have caused a mentally disturbed individual to kill and maim. The fact that two of the victims are Jewish is utterly irrelevant to the propriety of using this widely used term."

Now, feel free to be annoyed or enraged by Palin or her views. Feel free to question whether she had any idea what a blood libel was before this week. But this kind of indignation over an analogy is infantilizing what were once serious sensitivities.

Perhaps if self-proclaimed spokespeople for Jews everywhere like J Street focused on genuine anti-Semitism around the world, their little partisan cabaret would be more plausible.

Blood libel is the fiction-laden, anti-Israel Goldstone Report. Blood libel is the flotilla incident near Gaza. Blood libel is the Egyptian state media's peddling the idea that shark attacks were the handiwork of Jews and other state-run Arab media's blaming AIDS on Zionists. There are plenty of genuine things to get offended about in the world if you're Jewish.

SOURCE

**********************

Elected Officials Flunk Constitution Quiz

When the Republican House leadership decided to start the 112th Congress with a reading of the U.S. Constitution, the decision raised complaints in some quarters that it was little more than a political stunt. The New York Times even called it a "presumptuous and self-righteous act."

That might be true, if you could be sure that elected officials actually know something about the Constitution. But it turns out that many don't. In fact, elected officials tend to know even less about key provisions of the Constitution than the general public.

For five years now, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute has been conducting a national survey to gauge the quality of civic education in the country. We've surveyed more than 30,000 Americans, most of them college students, but also a random sample of adults from all educational and demographic backgrounds.

Included in the adult sample was a small subset of Americans (165 in all) who, when asked, identified themselves as having been "successfully elected to government office at least once in their life" -- which can include federal, state or local offices.

The survey asks 33 basic civics questions, many taken from other nationally recognized instruments like the U.S. Citizenship Exam. It also asks 10 questions related to the U.S. Constitution. So what did we find? Well, to put it simply, the results are not pretty.

Elected officials at many levels of government, not just the federal government, swear an oath to "uphold and protect" the U.S. Constitution. But those elected officials who took the test scored an average 5 percentage points lower than the national average (49 percent vs. 54 percent), with ordinary citizens outscoring these elected officials on each constitutional question. Examples:

* Only 49 percent of elected officials could name all three branches of government, compared with 50 percent of the general public.

* Only 46 percent knew that Congress, not the president, has the power to declare war -- 54 percent of the general public knows that.

* Just 15 percent answered correctly that the phrase "wall of separation" appears in Thomas Jefferson's letters -- not in the U.S. Constitution -- compared with 19 percent of the general public.

* And only 57 percent of those who've held elective office know what the Electoral College does, while 66 percent of the public got that answer right. (Of elected officials, 20 percent thought the Electoral College was a school for "training those aspiring for higher political office.")

Overall, our sample of elected officials averaged a failing 44 percent on the entire 33-question test, 5 percentage points lower than the national average of 49 percent.

The fact that our elected representatives know even less about America's history and institutions than the typical citizen (who doesn't know much either) is troubling indeed, but perhaps helps explain the lack of constitutional discipline often displayed by our political class at every level of our system.

When elected officials take an oath "to protect and defend the Constitution," shouldn't they know what they are swearing to?

SOURCE

**********************

History spot



Above is one of the most famous campaign posters from the Democratic party. It is from the 1866 Pennsylvania gubernatorial race. Hiester Clymer (D) versus James White Geary (R) suggests that a vote for Clymer is for the white man while a vote for Geary is for the ‘negro’

************************

ELSEWHERE

An interesting comparison with the Tucson shootings: "On this week's Townhall.com Weekend Journal, Dennis Prager takes listeners back to August 2010, when a black man in Manchester, Connecticut murdered 8 whites and told the 911 operator that he wished he could have killed more. Of course, the media was silent, few in America heard about this massacre, and there were no fingers pointed at liberals, Democrats or the MSM for their consistent race-baiting "vitriol" of blame whitey rhetoric. No doubt that if there were any dots to connect between an assassin and the daily media/political drum beat it would have been from this horrible event."



MSNBC Marches Ahead With Its Own Set of Facts: "Here’s a graphic MSNBC was using yesterday in its coverage of the Tucson shootings [above]. It’s a powerful image. I saw it at the gym on a number of muted televisions, and it stuck with me. It’s also complete bullshit. There is zero evidence that political rhetoric had any influence on Jared Loughner. In fact, there’s increasing evidence that he had no interest in politics at all. So does the truth simply not matter at MSNBC? This is just an egregious assault on reality."

The Decline of Courtesy: "The Wall Street Journal's Eric Felten writes about "Courtesy's Sad Substitute" -- specifically, "hypercorrectitude," as illustrated by the silence vigilantes on Amtrak's "Quiet Cars." The phenomenon Felten diagnoses is the same one that has come to govern sexual contact between young people at politically correct places like universities. In part because of the erosion of universally-understood standards for proper behavior between the sexes, the whole concept of "sexual harassment" came into being. And once that happened, "hypercorrectitude" took over, to such an absurd extent that, at some universities, specific verbal consent is required before each distinct act of a sexual nature that transpires between two people."

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone 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)

****************************

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)

****************************

How the Left lost it: They need the lies

The accusation that the tea parties were linked to the Tucson murders is the product of calculation and genuine belief -- a belief that the Left need to prop up their self esteem and self-righteousness

There has been a great effort this week to come to grips with the American left's reaction to the Tucson shooting. Paul Krugman of the New York Times and its editorial page, George Packer of the New Yorker, E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post, Jonathan Alter of Newsweek and others, in varying degrees, have linked the murders to the intensity of opposition to the policies and presidency of Barack Obama. As Mr. Krugman asked in his Monday commentary: "Were you, at some level, expecting something like this atrocity to happen?"

The "you" would be his audience, and the answer is yes, they thought that in these times "something like this" could happen in the United States. Other media commentators, without a microbe of conservatism in their bloodstreams, have rejected this suggestion.

So what was the point? Why attempt the gymnastic logic of asserting that the act of a deranged personality was linked to the tea parties and the American right? Two reasons: Political calculation and personal belief.

The calculation flows from the shock of the midterm elections of November 2010. That was no ordinary election. What voters did has the potential to change the content and direction of the U.S. political system, possibly for a generation.

Only 24 months after Barack Obama's own historic election and a rising Democratic tide, the country flipped. Not just control of the U.S. House, but deep in the body politic. Republicans now control more state legislative seats than any time since 1928.

What elevated this transfer of power to historic status is that it came atop the birth of a genuine reform movement, the tea parties. Most of the time, election results are the product of complex and changeable sentiments or the candidates' personalities. What both sides fear most is a genuine movement with focused goals.

The tea party itself got help from history —the arrival of a clarifying event, the sovereign debt crisis of 2010. Simultaneously in the capitals of Europe, California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois and elsewhere it was revealed that fiscal commitments made across decades, often for liberally inspired social goals, had put all these states into a condition of effective bankruptcy.

This stark reality unnerved many Americans. The tea partiers' fiscal concerns were real. Despite that, a progressive Democratic president and congressional leadership spent 2009 and 2010 passing the biggest economic entitlement since 1965 and driving U.S. spending to 25%, or $3.5 trillion, of the nation's $14 trillion GDP. A public claim of that size hasn't been seen since World War II.

They expected to take losses in November. What they got instead was Armageddon. Suddenly an authentic reform movement, linked to the Republican Party, whose goal simply is to stop the public spending curve, had come to life. This poses a mortal threat to the financial oxygen in the economic ecosystem that the public wing of the Democratic Party has inhabited all these years.

The stakes for the American left in 2012 couldn't possibly be higher. If then, and again in 2014, progressives can't pull toward their candidates some percentage of the independent voters who in November abandoned the Democratic Party, they could be looking in from the outside for as many years as some of them have left to write about politics. A wilderness is a terrible place to be.

Against that grim result, every sentence Messrs. Krugman, Packer, Alter, the Times and the rest have written about Tucson is logical and understandable. What happened in November has to be stopped, by whatever means become available. Available this week was a chance to make some independents wonder if the tea parties, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Jared Loughner are all part of the same dark force.

Who believes this? They do. The divide between this strain of the American left and its conservative opponents is about more than politics and policy. It goes back a long way, it is deep, and it will never be bridged. It is cultural, and it explains more than anything the "intensity" that exists now between these two competing camps. (The independent laments: "Can't we all just get along?" Answer: No.)

The Rosetta Stone that explains this tribal divide is Columbia historian Richard Hofstadter's classic 1964 essay, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics." Hofstadter's piece for Harper's may be unfamiliar to many now, but each writer at the opening of this column knows by rote what Hofstadter's essay taught generations of young, left-wing intellectuals about conservatism and the right.

After Hofstadter, the American right wasn't just wrong on policy. Its people were psychologically dangerous and undeserving of holding authority for any public purpose. By this mental geography, the John Birch Society and the tea party are cut from the same backwoods cloth.

"American politics has often been an arena for angry minds," Hofstadter wrote. "In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority."

Frank Rich, Oct 17: "Don't expect the extremism and violence in our politics to subside magically after Election Day —no matter what the results. If Tea Party candidates triumph, they'll be emboldened. If they lose, the anger and bitterness will grow."

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tuesday in the Huffington Post: "Jack's death forced a national bout of self-examination. In 1964, Americans repudiated the forces of right-wing hatred and violence with an historic landslide in the presidential election between LBJ and Goldwater. For a while, the advocates of right-wing extremism receded from the public forum. Now they have returned with a vengeance—to the broadcast media and to prominent positions in the political landscape."

This isn't just political calculation. It is foundational belief. So, yes, Tucson has indeed been revealing. On to 2012.

SOURCE

**********************

The dishonest NPR

Not that that's any surprise

The movement to defund public broadcasting has done very well over the past several months. In the wake of the firing of Juan Williams from National Public Radio (NPR), it seems as if the effort to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, including NPR, is finally within reach.

Inside of Congress, Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) has been fighting to get legislation that would completely stop public broadcasting from receiving any taxpayer funding. Rep. Lamborn attempted to pass legislation last year, but in the Democrat-controlled Congress it fell flat on its face. With the new GOP-controlled Congress though, Lamborn’s legislation H.R. 68 and H.R. 69 have a solid chance of success.

This increased chance of success has now led NPR to fabricate and release bogus information to the public that is solely aimed at discrediting the legislation that Rep. Lamborn has brought forth. NPR, realizing that the days of living off the taxpayer dime could well be coming to an end by 2013, released a bizarre response to The Hill indicating that Rep. Lamborn was attempting to regulate the news desks at NPR and public broadcasting radio stations nationwide.

According to NPR, "Congressman Lamborn’s legislation is an intrusion into the programming decision-making of America’s public radio stations. His legislation will disrupt and weaken the free and universal public media system that serves 170 million Americans each month… This legislation would ultimately dictate the daily editorial schedules and news programs of nearly one thousand public radio stations across America.”

Apparently they have not read the 7 pages of legislation, which you can read here H.R. 68 and H.R. 69 for yourself. You will notice there is no such language that NPR reports to have read.

Nowhere inside of H.R. 68 or H.R. 69 is authority granted to Rep. Lamborn or any other government official to regulate the program decision-making at NPR. The legislation strictly calls for a complete “prohibition” of taxpayer dollars to the Corporation of Public Broadcasting including NPR.

To be more specific H.R. 69 more explicitly bans any funneling of federal money through non-Federal entities back to NPR.

SOURCE

***********************

The money to fund Obamacare is just not there

Lost amid the partisan posturing over the proposed repeal of ObamaCare is a stark, unavoidable fiscal reality. Put simply: Our leaders have no choice but to scrap this socialized medicine monstrosity and start from scratch with a free-market approach.

Not only are ObamaCare’s unprecedented infringements on our civil liberties clearly unconstitutional, but American taxpayers cannot afford the new law’s expanded entitlements — particularly not in light of our current debt crisis and the impending Baby Boomer crush.

The federal budget is caught in a pincer — leaving no room for ObamaCare or any other new spending. In fact the only way to escape the trap is to dramatically reduce the size and scope of government — immediately.

Also our economy is clearly in no position to absorb hundreds of billions of dollars in tax increases — something President Obama seemed to understand last month when his lame duck Congress extended Bush-era tax relief to all income brackets.

The question Obama and his diminished D.C. legions now must answer is this: If it was wrong to raise taxes during the lame duck session in December, what makes it wise to do so now?

With even the most optimistic Keynesians (such as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke) now predicting that the U.S. economy could take as long as five years to achieve “sustained declines in the unemployment rate,” ObamaCare’s tax hikes loom even larger as job killers. This is particularly true of the tax increase on upper income earners — many of whom invest their money in partnerships and LLCs that in turn fuel small business growth.

Astoundingly, the same fiscal liberals who added more than $4 trillion to the national debt over the last two years are now not only raising taxes through ObamaCare — but feigning outrage over the “deficit spending” that would result if the program were repealed.

In support of this twisted logic, the Keynesian number-crunchers over at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) announced last week that repealing ObamaCare would add $230 billion to the national debt over the coming decade.

Think about that statistic for a moment — what the CBO is saying is that the largest expansion of government in decades is not only free, but will actually save taxpayers $230 billion. Talk about “something for nothing.” Obviously these assumptions are pure fantasy — like the numbers the CBO released in March 2010 on the eve of ObamaCare’s initial passage. But how were they computed?

First, the CBO is assuming that the $770 billion worth of “revenue enhancements” included in ObamaCare will have no adverse impact whatsoever on the nation’s economy — which is betting against history. Second, the CBO presumes that Congress will actually follow through on its promise to cut $540 billion from Medicare — which is betting against common sense.

Additionally, the CBO estimates double-count Medicare savings, CLASS Act revenue, Social Security revenue and fail to incorporate the impact of so-called “doc fixes,” which erase billions of dollars in additional “savings.” “Garbage in, garbage out,” Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) said of the CBO report.

He’s not the only one voicing skepticism. “The CBO, CMS, and even the IMF have all discredited the idea that ObamaCare would reduce the deficit, because they all question the sustainability of ObamaCare’s spending ‘cuts,’” writes Michael F. Cannon, Director of Health Policy Studies at the Cato Institute. “The spending cuts (actually, reductions in future spending growth) in the law were never going to take effect anyway,” Cannon adds.

Finally, when did our leaders decide that blocking a tax hike was somehow a net cost to government? Have they deluded themselves to the point that they think new programs and new taxes cannot be eliminated because doing so would be “too expensive?”

Obviously so — or else we wouldn’t be where we are today, staring down a fiscal Armageddon the likes of which human civilization has never seen.

If our Republic is to survive this fiscal storm, then our leaders need to stop fabricating numbers and start confronting them. For example, they could recognize that the elimination of entitlement spending produces savings — not costs. And more importantly, they could recognize that in light of government’s mounting debt and the millions of new Medicare and Social Security enrollees projected over the coming decade – there is simply no room for any additional spending.

SOURCE

***********************

ELSEWHERE

Make the system work for you rather than against you: "I think I won’t be looking for a white-market job whereby I work half of the year to pay taxes. Rather, I’ll continue to work in the black and grey markets, and shop there when I can. If I am unable to make ends meet, then I say bring on the food stamps. If I go to the emergency room again, I’ll have the County pay for it. And then I’m going to rub it in the noses of those who work half the year paying taxes by reminding them that this is their system. If they don’t like it, they can always pull a John Galt and let the whole system come crashing down."

Your 401k is a sitting duck: "[Kirchner's Argentinian] government expropriated ('nationalized') the $24 billion private pension funds industry in order to save the public system, forcing citizens to trade their savings for Argentinean Treasury bills of dubious creditworthiness. I suggested then that such a thing might happen in the US, where Americans have many billions put aside in various retirement vehicles — a tempting target for any cash-starved government. I think that dark day is growing closer."

Corporations and the federal government’s bass ackwards priorities: "Many people have come to believe that to be pro business, pro free market is tantamount to being pro corporation. This is not so. In fact, I believe just the opposite. I think that being pro corporation is being anti business. I think that being pro corporation is being anti free market, in fact it’s tantamount to being anti freedom in general."

Honor for a man with no honor: Jack Murtha: "Mabus' decision has unleashed a continuing torrent of opposition from many former sailors and Marines. They say that naming a vessel for Murtha rewards a lawmaker who called for pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq in late 2005 during the war's toughest days, and one who was implicated in bribery and pork-barrel politics. And that isn't the worst of it, according to sailors and Marines: putting Murtha's name on an amphibious warship designed to carry 700 Marines is outrageous, they maintain, given Murtha's 2006 charge that Marines in the Iraqi city of Haditha "killed innocent civilians in cold blood."

Blame for the tragic Arizona shooting was premature, misplaced: "As soon as the tragic news broke, and before any clear details or evidence of the gunman's possible motivation had emerged, progressives swiftly and reflexively moved to hold Sarah Palin and the Tea Party responsible. Conspicuously absent, was the level-headed, fact-based, critical thinking, unmarred by prejudice, that so many progressives insist they exemplify."

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone 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)

****************************

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)

****************************