This was discovered in 2008, but it is interesting to listen how smooth this man is. If you are taken in by people sounding not only learned but "good*," then he sounds fabulous.
What is to be redistributed?
Property.
Whose property?
Yours. I didn't hear him excepting you from having your property taken and redistributed, did you? (Listen again, carefully, if you just assumed that he couldn't possibly mean you.)
And what is property?
Anything that is yours - the body you were born with and anything that you have mixed your labor with to obtain or have been given by someone who properly owned it. It includes your savings, your precious things, the organs of your body. (Stolen property is not properly owned.)
They can take that?
Yes, any of it and all of it. The only criteria is that they can point to someone who, in their estimation, needs it.
How do I know they need it?
Do you think this question amounts to anything in the face of the State and it's wants? Why do they care what you and I think if they already appropriate the right to own us and everything that is ours?
__________________________________________________________
The Founders of this country knew that governments can and will take anything they want from their citizens unless they are stopped. The Constitution was set up to stop them. Here we have a man who is openly claiming that the constitution was not written as it should have been and is advocating that the Government take anything it wants in order to redistribute it.
Do you want to understand why people hate, are scared to death of, and want to get rid of Obama? Do you understand why they might go on strike? It's because he has set himself up as a direct threat to every man's liberty and property, properly gained - the two requirements for you to be able to live as a human being. He has proclaimed himself, in Ibsen's words, "An Enemy of the People," albeit smooooooth as silk.
Have you seen any evidence that he isn't working to carry out his vision?
I have not.
__________________________________________________________
*The good that Obama relies on is that you are willing to sacrifice for the group and the "greater good" as determined by the political elite. It is not really the good. It is the good that has come down to us via culture of at least 2000 year old.
One of the ways we know that it is not the good is because socialism and top-down government planning always, always, always fail. Why? Because these schemes separate results from motive power for the individual citizens which all their schemes depend on - and motive power only comes via the individual, not groups and collectives.
__________________________________________________________
Added post: 7-23-2011
Here is another video of oh-so-smooth Obama speaking on July 22, 2011. He says Americans will pitch in if asked. One problem: They are not asked. They do not contribute to this voluntarily. They are forced. Also notice that for Obama, there are no individuals and individual choices. He is thoroughly collectivist.
And what happens when people are forced? Their motive power evaporates because they have no control over their own fate. A person's ends are, by law, prevented from being gained by his motives and actions. They are forced to give up their resources to those who are not motivated to produce, but to rule. So, the resources go to support their further rule. This is the great evil of socialism and why America is in the death throes of its experiment of liberty. Capitalism is the economy of free men. It cannot work when a man's mind is in chains.
The real mantra for this era, the one that would make a difference is "Get out of the way!" Another one with a religious cast is "Let my people go."
Showing posts with label social justice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social justice. Show all posts
Friday, July 22, 2011
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
No, Shirley! Let's Try That One More Time!
The story this week is that of Shirley Sherrod talking about her judging people by race and transforming to a person who judges them by class.
Beep!
Both wrong Shirley! Both lead to the same consequences: No freedom and the theft of one man's life (I know it looks like a benefit at first) at the expense of another man's life - as public policy.
The Obama Administration immediately cast itself into a deeper HELL by falling all over itself to apologize for its quick judgment. Whoops! Another quick judgment! And just as bad!
Mr. Intelligence jumped from the racism of Sherrod to the thieving of Sherwood. So Robin Hood is the good?
Puh-leaze! If that's the case then it ought to be quite alright to relieve Obama of his millions. And Soros of his. And let me see how many there are that ought to cleanse their souls.
Not only is this pure hypocrisy as advocacy, it is simply wrong. To succeed, to excel, to achieve, and yes, to become wealthy is something that a person ought to want if he is actually seeking to better himself. Money is one measure. It's not the only one. Michael Jordan is an example of wealth - in basketball talent and works. Michelangelo is an example of wealth - in artistic talent and works. Others are example of wealth - in marketing talent and works, in entertainment talent and works, in manufacturing talent and works, etc.
No wealth, no future. So what Sherrod did by robbing the rich and giving to the poor was rob the poor man of his future. The underlying lesson was to be rich meant he would be robbed and probably no better off if he were to become rich. "Oh well, being rich was never my thing anyway."
None of this is America as conceived. None of it. It is as foreign to America as the Mandarin of China or Bantu of South Africa. Here, every man is protected in his life. He can work and earn property and live his life. It's his. He has a right to his life - ALL OF IT. Not a tiny piece of it. All of life and all that he sees is possible for life. This is America.
The thing that America used to do well but has literally been taxed out of doing is taking care of those that need a helping hand. Once the government started doing this, it has grown an industry of its own and it is no longer related to life. It's become the death industry - surviving on the blood of the poor for its existence. It survives on the sob stories of the poor. Their blood is the fertilizer that they must constantly give up so that the government can justify its need for the blood of the rich. What a horrible industry. Hideous to the hilt. I want to puke.
We are under a scourge. One that has been growing for a hundred years. It's the scourge of the little people - the people who hold individual human beings as small. The little people's biggest fear is that people can actually be great and large as a possibility that we can all aspire to. Rather than let man yearn and grow and fill these possibilities of his imagination and shape our government to allow this freedom (which is what it was designed to do), the little people strap down everything, regulate everything, tax everything, and in one way or another constrict everything and bend everything until is is some distorted, tortured, grotesque mis-shape of what it could be. This is the real pain of living in the United States right now.
When this passes, and only then, can we exhale.
And then...and then... we can inhale the sweet air of life once again.
Beep!
Both wrong Shirley! Both lead to the same consequences: No freedom and the theft of one man's life (I know it looks like a benefit at first) at the expense of another man's life - as public policy.
The Obama Administration immediately cast itself into a deeper HELL by falling all over itself to apologize for its quick judgment. Whoops! Another quick judgment! And just as bad!
Mr. Intelligence jumped from the racism of Sherrod to the thieving of Sherwood. So Robin Hood is the good?
Puh-leaze! If that's the case then it ought to be quite alright to relieve Obama of his millions. And Soros of his. And let me see how many there are that ought to cleanse their souls.
Not only is this pure hypocrisy as advocacy, it is simply wrong. To succeed, to excel, to achieve, and yes, to become wealthy is something that a person ought to want if he is actually seeking to better himself. Money is one measure. It's not the only one. Michael Jordan is an example of wealth - in basketball talent and works. Michelangelo is an example of wealth - in artistic talent and works. Others are example of wealth - in marketing talent and works, in entertainment talent and works, in manufacturing talent and works, etc.
No wealth, no future. So what Sherrod did by robbing the rich and giving to the poor was rob the poor man of his future. The underlying lesson was to be rich meant he would be robbed and probably no better off if he were to become rich. "Oh well, being rich was never my thing anyway."
None of this is America as conceived. None of it. It is as foreign to America as the Mandarin of China or Bantu of South Africa. Here, every man is protected in his life. He can work and earn property and live his life. It's his. He has a right to his life - ALL OF IT. Not a tiny piece of it. All of life and all that he sees is possible for life. This is America.
The thing that America used to do well but has literally been taxed out of doing is taking care of those that need a helping hand. Once the government started doing this, it has grown an industry of its own and it is no longer related to life. It's become the death industry - surviving on the blood of the poor for its existence. It survives on the sob stories of the poor. Their blood is the fertilizer that they must constantly give up so that the government can justify its need for the blood of the rich. What a horrible industry. Hideous to the hilt. I want to puke.
We are under a scourge. One that has been growing for a hundred years. It's the scourge of the little people - the people who hold individual human beings as small. The little people's biggest fear is that people can actually be great and large as a possibility that we can all aspire to. Rather than let man yearn and grow and fill these possibilities of his imagination and shape our government to allow this freedom (which is what it was designed to do), the little people strap down everything, regulate everything, tax everything, and in one way or another constrict everything and bend everything until is is some distorted, tortured, grotesque mis-shape of what it could be. This is the real pain of living in the United States right now.
When this passes, and only then, can we exhale.
And then...and then... we can inhale the sweet air of life once again.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Destroy the Economy to Save the Economy
Biden is explicit about it.
Where are the intelligent? Where are those that understand that the economy is an integrated whole? Where are those that understand that money stolen from those who have it and given to those who don't does not put money in the hands of the creators of businesses and jobs? Why is there so much emphasis put on the destruction of wealth and none on the principles to be be followed in order to create it?
Is this stupidity or intended? And who should pay rather than who will pay for this reversal of cause and effect?
Where are the intelligent? Where are those that understand that the economy is an integrated whole? Where are those that understand that money stolen from those who have it and given to those who don't does not put money in the hands of the creators of businesses and jobs? Why is there so much emphasis put on the destruction of wealth and none on the principles to be be followed in order to create it?
Is this stupidity or intended? And who should pay rather than who will pay for this reversal of cause and effect?
Will someone please tell me where this has ever worked?
S e a of D e b tWednesday, October 1, 2008
Bail Bill Upholds Unreality - Kill It
Here is an article by Robert Tracinski who writes the TIA Daily column. I'm copying it whole as it is great to get your feet on the ground in terms of free market principles. Also, I must say that I am shocked regarding Bernake's complete disregard for what has the free market work. After reading this and his attempt at Czardom, I'm persuaded the guy is a psychopath.
TIA Daily • October 1, 2008
Kill the Bailout
The Government Can't Rewrite Reality
The House of Representatives deserves praise for taking swift action to avert a growing economic crisis—by not approving the trillion-dollar financial bailout plan.
The bailout bill was blocked Monday by a rebellion among House Republicans, who voted two-to-one against a plan they consider a step down the "slippery slope to socialism," in the words of Texas Representative Jeb Hensarling.
They are absolutely correct, and the 133 Republicans who voted to stop this coup against the financial markets—not to mention some of the 95 Democrats who may have balked for similar reasons—need to find the courage to stand firm. That's especially true since the Senate is likely to vote today to approve the bailout.
The Senate is supposed to serve, in James Madison's analogy, as the "cooling saucer" for the hot tea served up by the House—but in this case, it is the House that has remained cool and refused to panic. That's because the hysterical demand for a bailout didn't come up from the people; it came down from the elites in Washington and Manhattan. The House is reflecting the sensible skepticism coming up from the folks on Main Street who don't want to pay the bills for bailing out Hank Paulson's former colleagues on Wall Street.
Some cold, realistic scrutiny of the bailout is desperately needed because this plan is not just an attack on the free market. It is an attack on reality. The financial crisis was caused by more than a decade of using government power to rewrite the facts of reality and override the judgment of the market, and the bailout just offers more of the same fantasy economics.
Congress wanted everyone to be able to get a mortgage to buy a home, regardless of income, credit history, or ability to save for a down payment. The name for this contradiction was "affordable housing," an initiative aimed at providing the benefits of home ownership to those who could not, in fact, afford it. So when the market concluded that low-income borrowers could not meet the credit requirements for mortgages, the Clinton administration invoked trumped-up charges of racism to expand enforcement of the Community Reinvestment Act, bullying banks into dropping as "arbitrary" such old-fashioned credit standards as proof of income. And when the market balked at the increased credit risk created by these loans, Congress backed the expansion of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, government-sponsored enterprises that used federally guaranteed money to buy up the increasingly risky mortgages.
At every point, when the market sent the message that reality would not support the higher level of risk being taken on by mortgage lenders, the government used its power to override this message.
The vigorous government-created market for riskier "sub-prime" loans masked the real dangers, creating the illusion that increased profits could be obtained without increased risk—an illusion that encouraged some private lenders to follow Fannie and Freddie's lead. To be sure, some of this private risk-taking was part of the normal process of failure in a capitalist economy. A large part of the current financial upheaval originated with high-risk investment banks and hedge funds that held large amounts of mortgage-backed securities. These securities were carefully balanced against one another according to mathematical formulas that were calculated to cancel out their risks. But the mathematical formulas were new and hadn't been tested in a bear market. When the downturn came, they failed.
This is a normal part of the rough and tumble of capitalism. All of the current talk about the "failure" of the free market ignores the fact that the process of failure is a crucial benefit of the free market. In a capitalist system, high-risk firms are always trying out new and untested ideas, and failure is the messenger that tells the market which strategies work and which strategies don't. It is also an indispensable corrective mechanism that moves capital from enterprises with failing strategies to those with successful strategies.
But the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve have repeatedly short-circuited this mechanism by trying to outlaw failure. When the market sent the message that too many bad loans had been made and that this needed to be corrected by a contraction in the amount of available credit, the government wanted to avoid the unpleasant consequences of such a contraction. So the Federal Reserve papered over the facts—with a flurry of paper money—by artificially reducing interest rates and loosening up credit just when it needed to be tightened.
But that didn't change the underlying facts, and the bad investments still went bad. Yet as the market has sent the message that some firms have become over-extended and are no longer solvent, the government has still tried to avoid letting the market face the facts. The Treasury and the Fed kept trying to rewrite reality by orchestrating a series of government-backed bailouts.
Over at RealClearMarkets, Joseph Calhoun points out a crucial part of this assault on facts:
There has always been a stigma attached to borrowing directly from the Fed and for good reason. If a bank can’t get other banks to lend it money, that tells the market something about the condition of the bank in question.
Last August, Bernanke convinced three large banks to borrow at the discount window in an effort to remove that stigma. When that didn’t work, he concocted a scheme to allow banks to borrow from the Fed in anonymity via a mechanism he called the Term Auction Facility. When Bear Stearns blew up, he added the Term Securities Lending Facility for investment banks. By removing the stigma of borrowing from the Fed and hiding the identity of the borrowers, Bernanke removed important information from the market.
So the Fed's approach to potential bank failures was to try to help failing banks pretend that they weren't failing.
Or consider the SEC's ban on short sales for a list of about 700 stocks—with more companies lobbying to get themselves put on the list. Again, the whole approach of the SEC is not to prevent companies from failing, but to help them pretend that they are not failing, by outlawing trades that would tend to drive their stock prices down.
In fact, all that this sort of policy has achieved is to expand business failures. When Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, for example, it had been in negotiations with several major financial institutions who were considering investing billions in a private buy-out of the firm. But they balked at making the deal because they were waiting for the Fed to offer incentives and guarantees. Thus, the Fed's yelping about how each bankruptcy of a Wall Street firm poses a risk of "systemic failure" turns out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, because the prospect of an open-ended series of bailouts is blocking all of the mechanisms by which a free market actually prevents widespread failure.
The bailout package would have the government buy out up to $700 billion worth of bad loans. But this is merely delaying the re-pricing of those loans to their proper value. Left to themselves, the holders of these loans would eventually find it necessary to sell them at pennies on the dollar; Merrill Lynch sold its bad loans at 22 cents on the dollar. Private companies could then recognize the magnitude of the loss and start to rebuild their businesses with the remaining assets they possess. But now no firm has an incentive to sell off its bad loans. Why dump them for 22 cents on the dollar when the government might buy them, a few weeks later, at 50 or 80 cents?
So instead what is going to happen is that the federal government is going to go into the financial markets and dictate which securities are worth how much. It is still unclear exactly which loans the government will buy or how much it will pay for them, so no private investor can say whether an investment will pay off or not. This is how the prospect of a government bailout blocks the private buyouts that would actually clean all of the bad debt out of the system.
Instead, this plan transforms the US Treasury into a trillion-dollar hedge fund, making investments in securities whose proper market value is unknown and promising its shareholders—us—that unlike the best Wall Street investment banks, Treasury bureaucrats really know how to make a profit on sub-prime mortgage loans. That's why probably the best comment on the bailout is an e-mail making the rounds on Capitol Hill presenting Paulson's pitch for the bailout deal—in the style of a Nigerian banking scam. "I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude," it begins. Time to hit the "delete" button.
The bailout represents more of the same problems that got us here because it is backed by all of the same people who created those problems. And I'm not just talking about Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, who organized the series of ad hoc bailouts that spread uncertainty through the financial industry. Much worse is the fact that a chief negotiator for the bailout is House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, the chief sponsor of the "affordable housing" scam. And as for Barack Obama, Stanley Kurtz exposes the role played by ACORN, Obama's former employer as a "community organizer." It turns out that a big part of ACORN's "community organizing" was to use thug tactics and the threat of government regulation to intimidate banks into making high-risk mortgage loans.
Fortunately, the public has the good sense to smell that something is rotten. I just got an e-mail recounting what Virginia Representative Jim Moran told Fox News: that calls from constituents commenting on the bailout were running 50-50—50% "no" and 50% "hell, no."
The House should not simply delay the bailout bill or mitigate its worst features; that will prolong the uncertainty in the financial markets. Instead, they need to make sure that the bailout meets with firm and repeated rejection over the next week, preferably by a growing margin of votes.
It is time for the House to kill the bailout and kill it decisively.
It is time for Congress to stop the government from rewriting reality, so that the market can be free to recognize the facts, pick up the pieces of failing firms, and begin rebuilding.
TIA Daily • October 1, 2008
Kill the Bailout
The Government Can't Rewrite Reality
The House of Representatives deserves praise for taking swift action to avert a growing economic crisis—by not approving the trillion-dollar financial bailout plan.
The bailout bill was blocked Monday by a rebellion among House Republicans, who voted two-to-one against a plan they consider a step down the "slippery slope to socialism," in the words of Texas Representative Jeb Hensarling.
They are absolutely correct, and the 133 Republicans who voted to stop this coup against the financial markets—not to mention some of the 95 Democrats who may have balked for similar reasons—need to find the courage to stand firm. That's especially true since the Senate is likely to vote today to approve the bailout.
The Senate is supposed to serve, in James Madison's analogy, as the "cooling saucer" for the hot tea served up by the House—but in this case, it is the House that has remained cool and refused to panic. That's because the hysterical demand for a bailout didn't come up from the people; it came down from the elites in Washington and Manhattan. The House is reflecting the sensible skepticism coming up from the folks on Main Street who don't want to pay the bills for bailing out Hank Paulson's former colleagues on Wall Street.
Some cold, realistic scrutiny of the bailout is desperately needed because this plan is not just an attack on the free market. It is an attack on reality. The financial crisis was caused by more than a decade of using government power to rewrite the facts of reality and override the judgment of the market, and the bailout just offers more of the same fantasy economics.
Congress wanted everyone to be able to get a mortgage to buy a home, regardless of income, credit history, or ability to save for a down payment. The name for this contradiction was "affordable housing," an initiative aimed at providing the benefits of home ownership to those who could not, in fact, afford it. So when the market concluded that low-income borrowers could not meet the credit requirements for mortgages, the Clinton administration invoked trumped-up charges of racism to expand enforcement of the Community Reinvestment Act, bullying banks into dropping as "arbitrary" such old-fashioned credit standards as proof of income. And when the market balked at the increased credit risk created by these loans, Congress backed the expansion of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, government-sponsored enterprises that used federally guaranteed money to buy up the increasingly risky mortgages.
At every point, when the market sent the message that reality would not support the higher level of risk being taken on by mortgage lenders, the government used its power to override this message.
The vigorous government-created market for riskier "sub-prime" loans masked the real dangers, creating the illusion that increased profits could be obtained without increased risk—an illusion that encouraged some private lenders to follow Fannie and Freddie's lead. To be sure, some of this private risk-taking was part of the normal process of failure in a capitalist economy. A large part of the current financial upheaval originated with high-risk investment banks and hedge funds that held large amounts of mortgage-backed securities. These securities were carefully balanced against one another according to mathematical formulas that were calculated to cancel out their risks. But the mathematical formulas were new and hadn't been tested in a bear market. When the downturn came, they failed.
This is a normal part of the rough and tumble of capitalism. All of the current talk about the "failure" of the free market ignores the fact that the process of failure is a crucial benefit of the free market. In a capitalist system, high-risk firms are always trying out new and untested ideas, and failure is the messenger that tells the market which strategies work and which strategies don't. It is also an indispensable corrective mechanism that moves capital from enterprises with failing strategies to those with successful strategies.
But the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve have repeatedly short-circuited this mechanism by trying to outlaw failure. When the market sent the message that too many bad loans had been made and that this needed to be corrected by a contraction in the amount of available credit, the government wanted to avoid the unpleasant consequences of such a contraction. So the Federal Reserve papered over the facts—with a flurry of paper money—by artificially reducing interest rates and loosening up credit just when it needed to be tightened.
But that didn't change the underlying facts, and the bad investments still went bad. Yet as the market has sent the message that some firms have become over-extended and are no longer solvent, the government has still tried to avoid letting the market face the facts. The Treasury and the Fed kept trying to rewrite reality by orchestrating a series of government-backed bailouts.
Over at RealClearMarkets, Joseph Calhoun points out a crucial part of this assault on facts:
There has always been a stigma attached to borrowing directly from the Fed and for good reason. If a bank can’t get other banks to lend it money, that tells the market something about the condition of the bank in question.
Last August, Bernanke convinced three large banks to borrow at the discount window in an effort to remove that stigma. When that didn’t work, he concocted a scheme to allow banks to borrow from the Fed in anonymity via a mechanism he called the Term Auction Facility. When Bear Stearns blew up, he added the Term Securities Lending Facility for investment banks. By removing the stigma of borrowing from the Fed and hiding the identity of the borrowers, Bernanke removed important information from the market.
So the Fed's approach to potential bank failures was to try to help failing banks pretend that they weren't failing.
Or consider the SEC's ban on short sales for a list of about 700 stocks—with more companies lobbying to get themselves put on the list. Again, the whole approach of the SEC is not to prevent companies from failing, but to help them pretend that they are not failing, by outlawing trades that would tend to drive their stock prices down.
In fact, all that this sort of policy has achieved is to expand business failures. When Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, for example, it had been in negotiations with several major financial institutions who were considering investing billions in a private buy-out of the firm. But they balked at making the deal because they were waiting for the Fed to offer incentives and guarantees. Thus, the Fed's yelping about how each bankruptcy of a Wall Street firm poses a risk of "systemic failure" turns out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, because the prospect of an open-ended series of bailouts is blocking all of the mechanisms by which a free market actually prevents widespread failure.
The bailout package would have the government buy out up to $700 billion worth of bad loans. But this is merely delaying the re-pricing of those loans to their proper value. Left to themselves, the holders of these loans would eventually find it necessary to sell them at pennies on the dollar; Merrill Lynch sold its bad loans at 22 cents on the dollar. Private companies could then recognize the magnitude of the loss and start to rebuild their businesses with the remaining assets they possess. But now no firm has an incentive to sell off its bad loans. Why dump them for 22 cents on the dollar when the government might buy them, a few weeks later, at 50 or 80 cents?
So instead what is going to happen is that the federal government is going to go into the financial markets and dictate which securities are worth how much. It is still unclear exactly which loans the government will buy or how much it will pay for them, so no private investor can say whether an investment will pay off or not. This is how the prospect of a government bailout blocks the private buyouts that would actually clean all of the bad debt out of the system.
Instead, this plan transforms the US Treasury into a trillion-dollar hedge fund, making investments in securities whose proper market value is unknown and promising its shareholders—us—that unlike the best Wall Street investment banks, Treasury bureaucrats really know how to make a profit on sub-prime mortgage loans. That's why probably the best comment on the bailout is an e-mail making the rounds on Capitol Hill presenting Paulson's pitch for the bailout deal—in the style of a Nigerian banking scam. "I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude," it begins. Time to hit the "delete" button.
The bailout represents more of the same problems that got us here because it is backed by all of the same people who created those problems. And I'm not just talking about Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, who organized the series of ad hoc bailouts that spread uncertainty through the financial industry. Much worse is the fact that a chief negotiator for the bailout is House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, the chief sponsor of the "affordable housing" scam. And as for Barack Obama, Stanley Kurtz exposes the role played by ACORN, Obama's former employer as a "community organizer." It turns out that a big part of ACORN's "community organizing" was to use thug tactics and the threat of government regulation to intimidate banks into making high-risk mortgage loans.
Fortunately, the public has the good sense to smell that something is rotten. I just got an e-mail recounting what Virginia Representative Jim Moran told Fox News: that calls from constituents commenting on the bailout were running 50-50—50% "no" and 50% "hell, no."
The House should not simply delay the bailout bill or mitigate its worst features; that will prolong the uncertainty in the financial markets. Instead, they need to make sure that the bailout meets with firm and repeated rejection over the next week, preferably by a growing margin of votes.
It is time for the House to kill the bailout and kill it decisively.
It is time for Congress to stop the government from rewriting reality, so that the market can be free to recognize the facts, pick up the pieces of failing firms, and begin rebuilding.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Democrat Rebuff of Fannie & Freddie Clean-up
This video speaks for itself. Caught red-handed!
And I'm supposed to think the Democrat Party is the best Party (maybe that should be a small "p") for the economy?
In the bailout bill being hammered out and festooned with earmarks right now, a huge grant of any profit (20%) is scheduled to go to ACORN, supposedly a low-end housing organization. What it really is a voter registration organization and its purpose it to register Democrats. It has been charged with illegal activities in a number of states. This is more corruption - pure and simple. Definitely it is an infringement of your right to free speech. Tax money extracted from you by force and given to an organization that may not express your views is a whopping injustice. By what Right? This is "Taxation without Representation!!"
!! N O P A S S !! N O P A S S !!
The CRISIS IN CONFIDENCE in the US Government worsens!
And I'm supposed to think the Democrat Party is the best Party (maybe that should be a small "p") for the economy?
In the bailout bill being hammered out and festooned with earmarks right now, a huge grant of any profit (20%) is scheduled to go to ACORN, supposedly a low-end housing organization. What it really is a voter registration organization and its purpose it to register Democrats. It has been charged with illegal activities in a number of states. This is more corruption - pure and simple. Definitely it is an infringement of your right to free speech. Tax money extracted from you by force and given to an organization that may not express your views is a whopping injustice. By what Right? This is "Taxation without Representation!!"
!! N O P A S S !! N O P A S S !!
The CRISIS IN CONFIDENCE in the US Government worsens!
Friday, August 15, 2008
The New Slavery
Obama Reveals What Change Means
The video was produced by http://www.nakedemperor.com/,
a media organization dedicated to unmasking the shibboleths
and platitudes of our culture.
The race is on and the task of critically thinking people is to learn about our candidates and what they hold as dear, in their character and in reality, that will affect our lives. It requires sorting through the information and identifying the fundamental values important to you for producing a political climate in which it is possible for any human being to surive and thrive to the extent that he is rational.
In my opinion, Obama is a divider when it comes to "all people." He advocates programs which take from one and give to another, not because of a justice based on the right of every individual human being to his life, but based on the facts of particular human beings which are not primary to human beings as a species. This error produces division and fighting among men.
Of what importance is one's economic status at the moment? For many being poor is the spur to make something of themselves and acquire wealth through honest trade with others. Of what importance is one's skin color? Many of all the skin colors of humanity have made something of themselves and reached the pinnacles of their chosen fields. Of what importance is one's gender, one's sexuality or one's handicap given that women, gays and the blind have become supremely successful at what they have chosen to do in life. None of these are essentials.
Politically, the law should be blind to all of these non-essential aspects of individual human beings otherwise it is not a just law. Law is not a primary based on any old ethics whether it be from a philospher, the Bible or some concensus of society. A just law is grounded in the metaphysically eternal nature of human being and cannot violate that nature.
McCain is also a divider (in the basic sense I refer to above and not in the sense that people are going to have differing and often opposite opinions on a particular issue) in some issues of his campaign. No national leader at this time is able to express the principles on which this nation was founded. Some on the Right try to say that we are Christian nation. Some on the Left say that freedom is about equal opportunity and circumstances. Baloney. That's NOT the essence of the Constitution, as it so ably clarified. It's about one's individual right to Life, Liberty, Property and the freedom to pursue that which has him Happy.
At best our political leaders have been able to express that underground sense of life that most of us share as American. I look forward to the day when these values find public expression and exist in full sunlight.
The culture of this nation is playing out the errors of the past. There is a philosophy which lays out the basis of a rational and just foundation for living a human life, a life possible for human being in his noblest sense. It is Objectivism.
The video was produced by http://www.nakedemperor.com/,
a media organization dedicated to unmasking the shibboleths
and platitudes of our culture.
The race is on and the task of critically thinking people is to learn about our candidates and what they hold as dear, in their character and in reality, that will affect our lives. It requires sorting through the information and identifying the fundamental values important to you for producing a political climate in which it is possible for any human being to surive and thrive to the extent that he is rational.
In my opinion, Obama is a divider when it comes to "all people." He advocates programs which take from one and give to another, not because of a justice based on the right of every individual human being to his life, but based on the facts of particular human beings which are not primary to human beings as a species. This error produces division and fighting among men.
Of what importance is one's economic status at the moment? For many being poor is the spur to make something of themselves and acquire wealth through honest trade with others. Of what importance is one's skin color? Many of all the skin colors of humanity have made something of themselves and reached the pinnacles of their chosen fields. Of what importance is one's gender, one's sexuality or one's handicap given that women, gays and the blind have become supremely successful at what they have chosen to do in life. None of these are essentials.
Politically, the law should be blind to all of these non-essential aspects of individual human beings otherwise it is not a just law. Law is not a primary based on any old ethics whether it be from a philospher, the Bible or some concensus of society. A just law is grounded in the metaphysically eternal nature of human being and cannot violate that nature.
McCain is also a divider (in the basic sense I refer to above and not in the sense that people are going to have differing and often opposite opinions on a particular issue) in some issues of his campaign. No national leader at this time is able to express the principles on which this nation was founded. Some on the Right try to say that we are Christian nation. Some on the Left say that freedom is about equal opportunity and circumstances. Baloney. That's NOT the essence of the Constitution, as it so ably clarified. It's about one's individual right to Life, Liberty, Property and the freedom to pursue that which has him Happy.
At best our political leaders have been able to express that underground sense of life that most of us share as American. I look forward to the day when these values find public expression and exist in full sunlight.
The culture of this nation is playing out the errors of the past. There is a philosophy which lays out the basis of a rational and just foundation for living a human life, a life possible for human being in his noblest sense. It is Objectivism.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Race
There are some very bad signs for the future of our polity in this election. The attempt to divide and conquer. to drive a wedge between the dependent-minded people and the creative, independent-minded people; the employee and the employer, black and white (remember Reverend Wright?) is coming strongly into the picture. As the Wall Street Journal editorialized here this morning, this needs to stop.
Yesterday the WSJ ran an article on the funding of Acorn, a "community organizing" organization which corrupts the ideals of social justice for poltical purposes to gain power and government grants. This amounts to voter registration for the Democrats, although by law they cannot specify a political party. Why President Bush stupidly signed this into law as part of the mortgage bailout I do not know. Here
To clarify, I do not agree with the ideals of social justice because it is a collectivist idea and attempts to redress what it sees as economic injustice, a reversal of the law of cause and effect. I do agree with them when their work is consistent with the application of individual rights.
ACORN although it justifies itself in terms of social justice it is not a legitimate expression of social justice. See the link above on the ideals of social justice to grasp what a person dedicated to these ideals got into when he worked with ACORN.
The gold standard for legitimate social justice looks like the movement Martin Luther King created to right the wrongs of Jim Crow. It wasn't funded by Washington. It was a man with a vision for all mankind who enrolled people to peacefully demonstrate such that the American people could see the racial injustice for themselves on their own TVs and be moved to purge racial injustice from the country's laws.
It is completely legal for a political party to register people to vote - on their own dime. It is obscene to steal people's money by law (if you don't think the gun is behind the law, try not paying your taxes) to fund this kind of campaign, a corruption of authentic principled justice based on every single person's right to HIS life.
If this isn't challenged in the Supreme Court, we've had it. When the "takers" outnumber the "makers" and vote your money into their pocket, dissolution is imminent. It violates the First Amendment which covers the freedom of political speech. And if the government expropriates your money, what resources do you have left to actively pursue this freedom? The Democratic Party is way over the top on this matter and those Congressmen, President Bush and all the agitators for this kind of action deserve to be publicly and vociferously sanctioned.
It cannot help the African-American who is going to be so crudely lumped by his skin color into a category that distinguishes nothing regarding his character or merit. See Racism. He will be used for greedy unscrupulous men's political power and he will end up paying a price that the honorable blacks do not deserve. So unjust. This breaks my heart - for them and for my country.
This appeared in National Review Online. Ward Connelly, an African-American, has been in the trenches fighting for the equality of all men under the law and has worked by any means he can find to get rid of quotas and preference based on race, ethnicity or any group privileges. He is hated by the victimologists of his race. Nevertheless, he's inspired by MLK's vision for mankind.
My Preferences
John McCain, Barack Obama, and civil rights today.
By Ward Connerly
One thing I have learned from more than 13 years of fighting for equal treatment for every American regardless of race, sex, color, or ethnicity is that politicians can triangulate more about this issue than almost any other — and get away with it. A few days ago, Sen. John McCain gave his support to our effort in Arizona to prohibit preferences through a constitutional amendment. In explaining his reason for doing so, McCain said, “I have always opposed quotas.” Instantly, Sen. Barack Obama pounced.
Speaking at a convention of “journalists of color” (the participants gave him standing ovations at the beginning and at the end of his appearance), Obama said, “I am disappointed that John McCain flipped and changed his position. I think in the past he had been opposed to these kinds of Ward Connerly referenda or initiatives as divisive. And I think he's right. You know, the truth of the matter is, these are not designed to solve a big problem, but they're all too often designed to drive a wedge between people.”
Having been thrust into a presidential campaign, it is appropriate for me to offer my thoughts.
Over the past ten years, no American president, Congress, legislature, or governor has acted to eliminate preferences — in other words, to enforce the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which commands the government to treat us all “without regard to race, color, national origin or sex.” In addition, the United States Supreme Court has handed down conflicting opinions about the matter.
In response, I have led the national effort to enforce the act through ballot initiatives in states that allow them. I find it interesting that the only people who consider such initiatives “divisive” are the ones who oppose them, such as Sen.Obama. Such people never seem to find preferences themselves “divisive.” Apparently, as long as those who are harmed by such policies — and those who believe preferences are fundamentally wrong — keep their mouths shut, sweet harmony will ring throughout the land.
Also, it seems that Obama is divided against himself on the issue. In his famed “race speech,” when he was trying to appeal to white Democrats to get the issue of Jeremiah Wright off his back, he acknowledged that affirmative action engenders resentment. Just a few days ago, Obama suggested he was ready to support class-based instead of race-based affirmative action: “I am a strong supporter of affirmative action when properly structured so that it is not just a quota, but it is acknowledging and taking into account some of the hardships and difficulties that communities of color may have experienced, continue to experience, and it also speaks to the value of diversity in all walks of American life. We are becoming a more diverse culture, and it's something that has to be acknowledged.”
I concur, but I might define “properly structured” differently than Obama does. What he fails to say is that it is not only “communities of color” that experience hardships and difficulties. Nor does he say how, as president, he can achieve his stated goal of uniting the American people while asking those not “of color” to look the other way when discriminated against.
If Obama is truly concerned about divisiveness, why didn’t he speak out when his foot soldiers at ACORN were taking pride in blocking our petition circulators from gathering signatures in Missouri? Their despicable tactics of harassment give new meaning to the term “divisive.”
It is true, by the way, that McCain has “flipped” about whether ballot initiatives are appropriate as a device for ending preferences. It is not true that he has “flipped” with regard to preferences themselves. He has consistently expressed disdain for preferential treatment based on race.
And even if he had changed his position substantively, he would be far from alone. Millions of Americans are at a different point in their thinking about race today than they were ten years ago, when McCain opposed legislation to place an initiative on the ballot to end preferences in Arizona. For this, Senator Obama should be thrilled. Without race “flippers,” he would not be the presumptive nominee of the Democratic party for president of the United States.
Until we reach the point that we are living out what Martin Luther King Jr. often called the “true meaning of our creed” that all men (and women) are created equal, how we deal with the issue of race will be a work in progress. Something tells me that, deep in his soul, Sen. Obama knows this. Certainly, he should.
— Ward Connerly is the author of Lessons from my Uncle James and a former regent of the University of California.
You can judge Barack Obama for yourself. I'm clear about my judgment of him.
Yesterday the WSJ ran an article on the funding of Acorn, a "community organizing" organization which corrupts the ideals of social justice for poltical purposes to gain power and government grants. This amounts to voter registration for the Democrats, although by law they cannot specify a political party. Why President Bush stupidly signed this into law as part of the mortgage bailout I do not know. Here
To clarify, I do not agree with the ideals of social justice because it is a collectivist idea and attempts to redress what it sees as economic injustice, a reversal of the law of cause and effect. I do agree with them when their work is consistent with the application of individual rights.
ACORN although it justifies itself in terms of social justice it is not a legitimate expression of social justice. See the link above on the ideals of social justice to grasp what a person dedicated to these ideals got into when he worked with ACORN.
The gold standard for legitimate social justice looks like the movement Martin Luther King created to right the wrongs of Jim Crow. It wasn't funded by Washington. It was a man with a vision for all mankind who enrolled people to peacefully demonstrate such that the American people could see the racial injustice for themselves on their own TVs and be moved to purge racial injustice from the country's laws.
It is completely legal for a political party to register people to vote - on their own dime. It is obscene to steal people's money by law (if you don't think the gun is behind the law, try not paying your taxes) to fund this kind of campaign, a corruption of authentic principled justice based on every single person's right to HIS life.
If this isn't challenged in the Supreme Court, we've had it. When the "takers" outnumber the "makers" and vote your money into their pocket, dissolution is imminent. It violates the First Amendment which covers the freedom of political speech. And if the government expropriates your money, what resources do you have left to actively pursue this freedom? The Democratic Party is way over the top on this matter and those Congressmen, President Bush and all the agitators for this kind of action deserve to be publicly and vociferously sanctioned.
It cannot help the African-American who is going to be so crudely lumped by his skin color into a category that distinguishes nothing regarding his character or merit. See Racism. He will be used for greedy unscrupulous men's political power and he will end up paying a price that the honorable blacks do not deserve. So unjust. This breaks my heart - for them and for my country.
This appeared in National Review Online. Ward Connelly, an African-American, has been in the trenches fighting for the equality of all men under the law and has worked by any means he can find to get rid of quotas and preference based on race, ethnicity or any group privileges. He is hated by the victimologists of his race. Nevertheless, he's inspired by MLK's vision for mankind.
My Preferences
John McCain, Barack Obama, and civil rights today.
By Ward Connerly
One thing I have learned from more than 13 years of fighting for equal treatment for every American regardless of race, sex, color, or ethnicity is that politicians can triangulate more about this issue than almost any other — and get away with it. A few days ago, Sen. John McCain gave his support to our effort in Arizona to prohibit preferences through a constitutional amendment. In explaining his reason for doing so, McCain said, “I have always opposed quotas.” Instantly, Sen. Barack Obama pounced.
Speaking at a convention of “journalists of color” (the participants gave him standing ovations at the beginning and at the end of his appearance), Obama said, “I am disappointed that John McCain flipped and changed his position. I think in the past he had been opposed to these kinds of Ward Connerly referenda or initiatives as divisive. And I think he's right. You know, the truth of the matter is, these are not designed to solve a big problem, but they're all too often designed to drive a wedge between people.”
Having been thrust into a presidential campaign, it is appropriate for me to offer my thoughts.
Over the past ten years, no American president, Congress, legislature, or governor has acted to eliminate preferences — in other words, to enforce the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which commands the government to treat us all “without regard to race, color, national origin or sex.” In addition, the United States Supreme Court has handed down conflicting opinions about the matter.
In response, I have led the national effort to enforce the act through ballot initiatives in states that allow them. I find it interesting that the only people who consider such initiatives “divisive” are the ones who oppose them, such as Sen.Obama. Such people never seem to find preferences themselves “divisive.” Apparently, as long as those who are harmed by such policies — and those who believe preferences are fundamentally wrong — keep their mouths shut, sweet harmony will ring throughout the land.
Also, it seems that Obama is divided against himself on the issue. In his famed “race speech,” when he was trying to appeal to white Democrats to get the issue of Jeremiah Wright off his back, he acknowledged that affirmative action engenders resentment. Just a few days ago, Obama suggested he was ready to support class-based instead of race-based affirmative action: “I am a strong supporter of affirmative action when properly structured so that it is not just a quota, but it is acknowledging and taking into account some of the hardships and difficulties that communities of color may have experienced, continue to experience, and it also speaks to the value of diversity in all walks of American life. We are becoming a more diverse culture, and it's something that has to be acknowledged.”
I concur, but I might define “properly structured” differently than Obama does. What he fails to say is that it is not only “communities of color” that experience hardships and difficulties. Nor does he say how, as president, he can achieve his stated goal of uniting the American people while asking those not “of color” to look the other way when discriminated against.
If Obama is truly concerned about divisiveness, why didn’t he speak out when his foot soldiers at ACORN were taking pride in blocking our petition circulators from gathering signatures in Missouri? Their despicable tactics of harassment give new meaning to the term “divisive.”
It is true, by the way, that McCain has “flipped” about whether ballot initiatives are appropriate as a device for ending preferences. It is not true that he has “flipped” with regard to preferences themselves. He has consistently expressed disdain for preferential treatment based on race.
And even if he had changed his position substantively, he would be far from alone. Millions of Americans are at a different point in their thinking about race today than they were ten years ago, when McCain opposed legislation to place an initiative on the ballot to end preferences in Arizona. For this, Senator Obama should be thrilled. Without race “flippers,” he would not be the presumptive nominee of the Democratic party for president of the United States.
Until we reach the point that we are living out what Martin Luther King Jr. often called the “true meaning of our creed” that all men (and women) are created equal, how we deal with the issue of race will be a work in progress. Something tells me that, deep in his soul, Sen. Obama knows this. Certainly, he should.
— Ward Connerly is the author of Lessons from my Uncle James and a former regent of the University of California.
You can judge Barack Obama for yourself. I'm clear about my judgment of him.
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