It looks obvious

I understand why auctioning political office is considered corruption; but why bribing voters by forcing banks to grant loans that will never pay back isn’t?

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ideology of many Democrats, holds that inconvenient rights, such as secret ballots in unionization elections, should be repealed; that existing failures, such as GM, should be preserved; and, with special perversity, that repealed mistakes, such as the “fairness doctrine,” should be repeated.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)

I did not have a lot of expectations from Obama as a president. For the most part I hoped that he will disappoint most of his social coalition by being less radical than his campaign rhetoric; A more moderate Obama presidency, that would disappointment those who hoped for radical change, would be something I will embrace.

But even I get my share of disappointments.

The only area where I hoped that Obama’s administration would make serious change was in the way the US conduct its foreign policy. It was, at least early in the campaign, a corner stone in the Obama rhetoric - a saner, less imposing foreign policy. Obviously I did not hoped for the extreme non-interventionism of Ron Paul, not even the less active - yet brilliant - strategy of Eisenhower. But I hoped for foreign policy that will reduce the US commitments around the world, will end the fiasco in Iraq and Afghanistan and will stop attempting spreading democracy with the point of a gun. However Obama’s new cabinet appointment - mainly keeping Gates as Secretary of defense and the appointment of Clinton - indicates a continuation of hawkish, interventions strategy. So if I hoped that reduction of US forces, maintaining an unneeded superpower position, will mitigate some of the economical crisis it seems like the opposite might be our only hope - the economy will force some reality into our foreign policy.

And one small remark about Hillary Clinton: One would expect from a person who made the central point of her campaign to “solve” social issues such as health insurance and the inequality to devote herself to such issue and not to run into the glory of department of state. I can understand taking cabinet role, but why not one that can actually effect one of the issues you campaigned for?

Well if we are bailing out bankers and car manufactures why not bail out another company? for example this one, his arguments are not much worse than those who got the money…

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.

This is so extremely familiar:

And as surprising as it may sound - there are things that I simply have no opinion about, nor do I care to have one.

While the Canadian do not consider Freedom of speech as protected right they ruled that obese have a right to two airline seats for the price of one:

Obese people have the right to two seats for the price of one on flights within Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on Thursday.

The high court declined to hear an appeal by Canadian airlines of a decision by the Canadian Transportation Agency that people who are “functionally disabled by obesity” deserve to have two seats for one fare.

I always preferred to identify right as something that one has naturally and can be artificially abused: life, thinking (and as a results speech) or the fruits of one labor. Restrictions on one’s rights are sometimes justified but this does not change the nature of that right. While the canadian approach establish one’s rights on the expense of someone else - the “right” for two seats for the price of one would cost other passenger to pay more for no real reason.

(h/t Free Advice)