Massachusetts lets retards vote?

Several influential U.S. House Democrats have filed a bill that would require the government to tap the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve to counter rising oil prices.

Reps. Ed Markey, D-Mass., Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. and Peter Welch, D-Vt., said their legislation would direct the Department of Energy to sell 70 million barrels of more expensive light, sweet crude and replace it with cheaper heavy crude.

These men have just exposed themselves as economic morons. If I lived in Markey's district, I'd be ashamed and worried that everyone in America (excepting the districts of these two other disgraces) thinks I too am a retard for electing such a total idiot. Obviously, there's some amount of brain damage or well below normal IQ that results in the election of these idiots to Congress. Perhaps it is a gerrymandered district for special people.

If you think that's harsh, just read the common sense, obvious answers for why these men are absolute morons. This fails on multiple levels.

McArdle, Obama Voter and Supposed Libertarian

Paragraphs such as this one, written in a post about California's fiscal crisis, shows how someone of her thinking could vote for Obama, rather than no one or a third party:

I am not under the illusion that this will be fun. For starters, the rest of you sitting smugly out there in your snug homes, preparing to enjoy the spectacle, should prepare to enjoy the higher taxes you're going to pay as a result. Your states and municipalities will pay higher interest on their bonds if California is allowed to default. Also, the default is going to result in a great deal of personal misery, more than a little of which is going to end up on the books of Federal unemployment insurance and other such programs.

Let me break this down in the simplest of terms. Government is inefficient. There are many Democrats and not a few Republicans who want big government and don't care about inefficiency. However, a lot of taxpayers in both parties, some moderate to Blue Dog Democrats, plus the more economically inclined conservatives, understand the cost of government.

The current financial and political system, as it exists up until recently, was one in which interest rates were artificially low and governments were protected from bankruptcy. Low interest for government debt hid the inefficiency of government spending. If the interest rate on municipal and state debt increases, it will reduce (since this is government, economically stupid but politically sound decisions won't go away) the most inefficient spending.

Higher interest rates on government debt aren't a bug, they're a feature.

Democraphobia in China

And not from the communists, but the Confucians.
The Confucian Party

They point out that China’s most fertile intellectual period was the Warring States era (476 to 221 B.C.) , when scholars like Mencius could openly criticize rulers for their immoral deeds and put forward political alternatives. My Confucian friends have criticized the government’s clumsy attempts to shut down debate about Charter 08, a manifesto published in 2008 which urged the Communist Party to abandon monopoly rule and establish a multiparty system of government.

But the same scholars were severely critical of the content of the charter, saying that it echoes 20th century efforts by Chinese liberals to seek complete Westernization as the solution to China’s problems. In fact, even liberal scholars like Qin Hui, China’s most influential social critic, openly criticized the charter’s substance. Had the government not interfered with the charter, it might have died a natural death.

For the Confucians, any long-lasting and stable political reform must be rooted in China’s own traditions. So should we view them as narrow nationalists? Quite the opposite. Jiang Qing, a leading exponent of the new Confucianism, explicitly criticizes the idea of state sovereignty, saying that sovereignty lies with “heaven” rather than the state. He argues for a democratic institution that would offer more opportunities for political participation, while criticizing democracy for being too narrowly focused on the interests of the current generation of voters.

Jiang proposes another political institution designed to represent non-voters whose interests are typically neglected in democratic states, such as foreigners, future generations and ancestors. Is democracy really the best way to protect future victims of global warming, he asks?

Confucian intellectuals have also put forward ideas for educational reform. Communism is dead as a unifying myth that can sustain the Chinese people, they argue, so what does China stand for now? Here’s where Confucian values become relevant. There are currently thousands of educational experiments to promote such Confucian values as harmony and compassion.
Tsinghua University, the university that trains much of China’s elite (and where I teach), may be leading the way. It has recently made the “four Confucian classics” compulsory reading for a group of undergraduate students in the humanities. Written over 2,000 years ago, the books will effectively replace some of the compulsory courses in Marxist-Leninism. In the traditional mode, students will memorize the texts before engaging in critical interpretation.

Today, such efforts to revive tradition really grab intellectuals . According to a recent survey of Chinese political attitudes by Duke University’s Tianjian Shi, China has become more traditional in its political orientation as it has developed economically. Reacting to the materialism that has accompanied rapid modernization, many intellectuals are turning to traditions like Confucianism that emphasize social responsibility.

Those looking for another explosion of political demonstrations like Tiananmen are likely to be disappointed. At the conference in Qufu, the Confucian critics were careful to tell government officials that they favor change on a stable basis.

If the Confucians get their way, political change will come slowly and peacefully. Since Deng Xiaoping opened the doors to economic reform over 30 years ago, various economic experiments have been carried out at different levels of government, with the central government taking what works and implementing the reforms in the whole country. That’s also likely to be the model for educational and political reform over the next 30 years. It may be starting right now in towns like Qufu.

Down With Democracy

Peter Thiel responds to a Patri Friedman essay:

Indeed, even more pessimistically, the trend has been going the wrong way for a long time. To return to finance, the last economic depression in the United States that did not result in massive government intervention was the collapse of 1920–21. It was sharp but short, and entailed the sort of Schumpeterian “creative destruction” that could lead to a real boom. The decade that followed — the roaring 1920s — was so strong that historians have forgotten the depression that started it. The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.

In the face of these realities, one would despair if one limited one’s horizon to the world of politics. I do not despair because I no longer believe that politics encompasses all possible futures of our world. In our time, the great task for libertarians is to find an escape from politics in all its forms — from the totalitarian and fundamentalist catastrophes to the unthinking demos that guides so-called “social democracy.”

The critical question then becomes one of means, of how to escape not via politics but beyond it. Because there are no truly free places left in our world, I suspect that the mode for escape must involve some sort of new and hitherto untried process that leads us to some undiscovered country; and for this reason I have focused my efforts on new technologies that may create a new space for freedom

Politics is not the answer, but I might allow a solution. Once freedom loving people understand that we need to move beyond politics and into action, the possibility opens up that the political system will be forced to compromise. Politics may still be a dead end, but by abandoning politics, one makes it possible for politics to solve the problem.

Hat tip to Scarecrow 2012.

You Represent Power and Greed

Senator Specter

When I supported the stimulus package, I knew that it would not be popular with the Republican Party. But I saw the stimulus as necessary to lessen the risk of a far more serious recession than we are now experiencing.

Since then, I have traveled the state, talked to Republican leaders and office-holders and my supporters and I have carefully examined public opinion. It has become clear to me that the stimulus vote caused a schism which makes our differences irreconcilable. On this state of the record, I am unwilling to have my twenty-nine year Senate record judged by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate. I have not represented the Republican Party. I have represented the people of Pennsylvania.

Obama is a little bit Special Olympics

Shortage of Doctors Proves Obstacle to Obama Goals

Technically, reality is an obstacle to Obama's goals. But hey, it's the NYTimes. Why attack them when they could be bankrupt in a month?

Scarecrow For President

Stewart Browne, who wrote the article on national collapse at Strike the Root, has a blog that exposes the failure of reform from within and proposes to run an actual Scarecrow in 2012. Check out this recent post:

As crises often do, the current maelstrom is creating some political realignment.

Here's 50 years of history condensed into into 15 steps.

1. FDR creates The New Deal coalition, the most powerful political coalition in American history.
2. Those who believe in smaller government are funneled into the Republican party in response to FDR's coalition.
3. The Republican party gives small government types their chance with the Goldwater campaign. Goldwater suffers a monumental, epic loss, giving us an early lesson of how democracy responds to attempts to reform it from within.
4. The Republican party tinkers with the formula and moderates the message to appeal to a broader group, including those in the south who are displeased with the Civil Rights Act. Nixon wins.
5. Nixon wants to dismantle much of what Kennedy and Johnson did, but ends up just continuing and expanding on their legacies.
6. In the aftermath of Watergate, a former movie star with superb political charisma rises to prominence in the Republican party.
7. Reagan wins, and a failed assassination attempt gives him enough political clout to get a tax cut passed.
8. Even though government and total taxation greatly expanded under Reagan, his one legislative success deludes a generation of Republicans into thinking they can shrink Washington.
9. The 1994 elections bring about a strong Republican majority in both houses of Congress, and Republicans crush in state and local races. Republicans ran that year on a small government message.
10. Republicans fail miserably to shrink the government at any level. Clinton and Congressional Democrats politically outfox them on every initiative. If ever there was evidence of how difficult it is to try and shrink government from within, the '94 class is it.
11. Republicans moderate the message. Under Karl Rove's tutelage, Republicans adopt a strategy of speaking to the center, thinking that once elected they can then govern from the right.
12. Republicans win the Presidency, both houses of Congress, and a majority of state and local governments.
13. Under Republican watch, the US government undergoes its greatest expansion in history. The national debt skyrockets. Future obligations under Medicare explode in a new entitlement program. The economy tanks.
14. Republicans suffer a crushing defeat at all levels in 2008, and hand over to Obama and a Democratic Congress a system perfectly staged for a giant government power grab.

Votes reflect where the society and culture are, they do not shape society and culture——unless you are in favor of expanding government. It is possible to use the vote to expand government and change the culture to accept larger government, but it is impossible to vote for less government. It is a one-way street.

I'm a believer in living reform. Reform will come from outside the system. Until conservatives and libertarians are willing to make personal sacrifices for freedom, nothing will change. If you want to change things, the thing to do right now is not to think of how to elect more Republicans, it's how to stop supporting the system.

A few possibilities:
1. Reduce your tax burden. This can range from moving overseas, reducing your work load, consuming less, etc.

2. Homeschool. Private schools are fine, but many are just better run versions of the public schools. Children use the same textbooks and get the same left-wing indoctrination.

3. Sell your dollars. The U.S. government prints dollars to fund it's deficit spending. If you have little faith in the government, why do you have faith in its money?

Decline and Fall of the American Republic?

American's were concerned about nuclear annihilation and Soviet world domination and then the USSR up and disappeared. Could the American Republic face a similar path?
Please check out this post at Strike the Root: It Can Happen Here. It Might Be Happening Now.

Between the communists parachuting onto the high school in Red Dawn and the neighborhood getting vaporized in The Day After, my elementary school classmates and I were convinced the Soviets would invade and kill us all before we made it to our next summer vacation. Before we got out of middle school, Gorbachev had resigned and the Soviet flag was lowered for the last time over the Kremlin.

It can happen that fast.

Americans have become so accustomed to stability that, even as the future shouts at us with crystal clarity, we refuse to listen. Our government has assumed more debt in the past seven months than can possibly be repaid, and that is before accounting for its existing Social Security and Medicare obligations. Hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans can't fathom how we might be unearthed from this massive debt, and they are taking their concerns to the street. Thirty-two states have passed "sovereignty statements" in their legislatures. The governor of Texas is speaking openly of secession.

How has the media responded? Mockery, ridicule, an adolescent meme about "tea bagging."

And Washington ?

"The White House says the president is unaware of the tea parties and will hold his own event today," said Dan Harris of ABC News on April 15.

One senses that the existing power structure knows something is up, but intends to go on with life in confidence that this will all sort itself out.

A piece missing from this article is the destruction of the dollar. I've heard Ron Paul mention it recently, and it's worth considering. The Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury are literally destroying the U.S. dollar right now. There is still deflation because this money cannot escape the banking system, but as John Mauldin discussed in this week's newsletter, the Fed will keep printing and printing until it gets inflation. It's going to print money and give it to Obama to spend on massive deficits. Essentially, the U.S. government is printing money to pay its bills. Your wealth will be stolen through the silent inflation tax. On top of the 35-40% average tax rate Americans now pay (federal, state & local taxes), there will be an inflation tax of between 5 and 10%, if we're lucky, but possibly much higher.

The federal government will be directing more than 50% of the economy and the results will be total disaster. People will begin to lose confidence in America itself, and hyperinflation is a real concern. This is why DHS put out the report on right-wing "radicals". Right-wingers are a threat because they have an answer to the problem—-cut the size of government. Anyone who works at DHS or any other federal agency, or wants to use government to further their personal agenda or bank account, is threatened by people who have an answer for the disaster they may be about to unleash.

I don't think the above is likely. I don't think we will have hyperinflation. I think things will be worse than the 1970s, but the country will pull out of it. Nonetheless, if things do go badly, then the above scenario is not unrealistic.

RIP UK

Govt hikes top income tax rate to 50%

The government will increase its top rate of income tax to a higher than expected 50 percent from next year, Chancellor Alistair Darling said on Wednesday as he delivered the government's annual budget.
The tax band had originally been due to rise to 45 percent from 40 percent in April 2011 as Britain seeks to claw back lost tax revenue caused by a deep recession.

The 50-percent rate will apply to any income above 150,000 pounds.

China wants to make Shanghai the financial capital of the world and they're offering tax breaks galore to entice businesses. Meanwhile, the vampires of London and New York seek to drain their blood.

Advantage: Shanghai.

Stupid is as stupid does...

If this is true, then there's simply no hope for the Republican Party. The Congressional Oversight Committee headed by Elizabeth Warren found that the government rescue programs are a recipe for disaster and they even drew parallels with Depression era policies enacted under Hoover and FDR! Amazing!

For conservatives to attack her commission because she personally is a liberal and her preferred solutions to the problem are left-wing is beyond stupid. She would inevitably be replaced by some 'yes woman' who has no problem signing off on government insanity programs.

Everyday we have more evidence that politicians are mostly a single group of filthy scum whose chief concern is to maintain power, and they do a wonderful job of it with the proles of America. At least we may see McCain go down in flames. What a delightful turn of events if the GOP standard bearer is kicked out of office.