It looks obvious

This is more than just funny, it is - sadly for some - is accurate. Back in 2006 I linked to an article in the economist that argued that divided government is the key for fiscal restraint - and god do we need this now…

If it wasn’t sad it would be pretty funny.

The new campaign

And while we are on subject of wealth distribution from me to failing corporations I have short message to the Republicans congressmen from NY who voted today in favor of bailout - King, Knogllenberg, LaHood and LaTourette - you are never, ever, going to get any type of support from me - not a vote, not a donation, nothing! and I promise to donate and help any candidate that will run against you - from any party.

(via kids prefer cheese)

Living in the US meant for me, the immigrant, one simple thing - the promise of freedom to be whatever I can be. I admit it was a romantic view more than reality, but yet it was the place that represent individual freedom more than any other place in the world. As always reality never lived up to the dreams and the level of individual freedom was less than I was hoping for and yet, there was the hope that the trend of the collectivism will turn.

The new administration plans for National Service are a major shift in the concept of what the US is about. And like little drops more evidence are piling and demonstrating the new path - a tyranny of the collective over our live. I don’t know how do you fill, but for me the idea of the government forcing my children to work in the kolkhoz is very scary idea.

It is clearer than ever now that the Change promised during the election was more than real. It is a change for the core of what the US was all about - the protection of Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Here we go again: as part of the effort to promote as many and as comprehensive distractive policies as soon as possible the government is creating a new role, that will be a corner stone in nationalizing the car industry, of a Car Tzar. This decision is being justified by former horrible decision to protect failing corporations. And since these measure will not “save the economy”, and how could they?, they will not be the last.

In her excellent book, The forgotten Man, Amity Shales asks why it took the US so long to recover from the great depression. She answer and demonstrate how the policies of the New Deal worsen the depression and made it harder to recover. With the promises from another New Deal, and the signs of aggressive socialist policies, we are going to face a very long and dark winter.

I often rant about the fact that the American left hijacked the term Liberalism. Associating the left with ideas of Liberty and Human Rights was smart in terms of PR but has very little to do with reality. The fact is that the left commitment for Human Rights and Liberty is limited, although pretty vocal, to those issues were it is aligning with its real agenda and easily suspended when it is not.

My weekend reading provided me with two clear examples.

Forget the criticism about Bush suspending Human Rights and constituently protected rights in face of terrorism threat. Here is a suggestion to ignore the public opinion, or any real debate and enforce clean air legislation in non-democratic fashion:

Real disadvantage: public deliberation

One doesn’t want to be sentimental, but there is something to the argument that shift of this significance should be discussed in public and shaped by the public’s elected representatives. It would be nice, in an ideal world, if reasoned debate and discussion and interest-balancing yielded the perfect program.

But in this world, we’re perilously late getting underway and Obama must weigh America’s procedural ideals against what a wise man once called the “fierce urgency of now.” Whatever it’s other merits, the Clean Air Act is now.

One might argue that the above suggestion is not typical and somewhat extreme. However I tend to agree with George Will’s analysis, discussing the “fairness doctrine” (Which is, by the way, another use of newspeak.), about the underline suppression of opposing ideas:

Reactionary liberalism, the ideology of many Democrats, holds that inconvenient rights, such as secret ballots in unionization elections, should be repealed; that existing failures, such as GM, should be preserved; and, with special perversity, that repealed mistakes, such as the “fairness doctrine,” should be repeated. That Orwellian name was designed to disguise the doctrine’s use as the government’s instrument for preventing fair competition in the broadcasting of political commentary.

Because liberals have been even less successful in competing with conservatives on talk radio than Detroit has been in competing with its rivals, liberals are seeking intellectual protectionism in the form of regulations that suppress ideological rivals. If liberals advertise their illiberalism by reimposing the fairness doctrine, the Supreme Court might revisit its 1969 ruling that the fairness doctrine is constitutional. The court probably would dismay reactionary liberals by reversing that decision on the ground that the world has changed vastly, pertinently and for the better.

[...]

If reactionary liberals, unsatisfied with dominating the mainstream media, academia and Hollywood, were competitive on talk radio, they would be uninterested in reviving the fairness doctrine. Having so sullied liberalism’s name that they have taken to calling themselves progressives, liberals are now ruining the reputation of reactionaries, which really is unfair.

Today, 75 years ago, was the day the prohibition on Alcohol was repealed. This was a rear moment of realization that legislating moral values is wrong and counter productive. Unfortunately this did not stop the many busy-bodies and power hungry forcing other prohibitions - Smoking, Trans-fat, decency and many other issues. Yet, today I’ll toast for past prohibition repeal and for the hope that one day we will repeal them all.

This video is pretty famous by now. It is the great “We told you so” of those kind of Capitalists that always argued that money represent real value, creativity and productivity. Those who argued that when you create money out of thin air you create bubbles. But this is not the reason I link to this video today

Often when somebody want to criticize the out of control Consumerism culture they blame Capitalism. But listening carefully to this video, and to the Peter Schiff’s arguments will indicate the opposite - it is actually those who accept the Keynesian economics who advocate stimulus of the market by encouraging spending, and its the extreme use of this method that is in the base of the current crisis. The extreme capitalist in this debate argued for saving and slow down of the market not for irresponsible consumerism.

Despite his many shortcoming I really like old Fred:

(h/t QandO)

If I to choose one single thing from the new administration’s agenda that is the most dangerous to our civil liberties, and most harmful to the American dream, it will not be the fundamentally unchanged strategy in Iraq, nor his economic plans and not even the fact that I am pretty reluctant to believe that Obama will restore the balance in the government and enforce restriction on his own administration. For me the single, most dangerous, agenda item is the fact that this administration will act to institute slave labor.

Obviously nobody will call it that, that why we have newspeak! They will call it National Service and Mandatory Volunteerism (Despite the internal logic failure of such horrible term). But despite their best efforts the propaganda campaign cannot change the meaning of the plan to institute national slave labor.

This is radical change from the basic believe that the just government should protect human rights and in its core is the view that the individual is only free at the mercy of the ruler and is subject to service its master (The noble feudal, the virtual collective or what ever form the government is). It is ironic that the first African American President - a significant milestone in the process of establishing equal rights for everybody - will be the one that will act against the 13th amendment:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

I wonder what is the social justice of saving Mr. Ramirez from loosing “his” house:

Despite making only $14,000 a year, strawberry picker Alberto Ramirez managed to buy his own slice of the American Dream. But his Hollister home came with a hefty price tag - $720,000.

And I would really wonder why making me, that earn more than Mr. Ramirez but didn’t dare buying such an expensive house need to pay for the bailout? The fact is that with the burden on the middle class increasing to save irresponsible borrowing, and borrowers, we are increasing the circle of people that might loose their homes, that doesn’t seems social justice to me - not at all.