America's Second Revolution - Individual Rights

Yaron Brook, President of the Ayn Rand Institute delivers a speech to the Tea Party Convention.

The Incredible Dumbness of Madison

Don't you find it incredible that the Wisconsin statehouse is packed with demonstrators all screaming their hatred for Governor Walker and the Republicans from the depth of their being, indignant that anyone could consider questioning their right to collectively bargain for their wage contracts?

And atop all of that protesting, their repre- sentatives in the government act like frightened, cowardly and thereby powerless children. In the Senate, they take off to hide in Illinois. In the lower house they scream at the top of their lungs when they don't win the vote. At no time did they have the idea that they could eloquently speak their case such that they make an impact. Since when does an elected leader get to act like a two-year old and have any respect as a leader? If you are not disgusted with this, you must be dead.

What is the problem here? Imagine for a moment each of those screamers took their screaming back home, then went to their neighbor's house and screamed at him. Their enemy, the one they are screaming at, are not those evil rich owners and their hired managers of a corporation. (I don't agree with characterizing owners and management as evil enemies in the zero sum game of a Marxist mentality, but that's another subject.) They are accessing all that class-warfare energy, but guess what? Their enemy is the taxpayer, themselves and their neighbors.

When unions fight management of a corporation, the company pays for the increased wages and benefits. But the taxpayers are the ones who pay for these increased wages and benefits. So all of these demonstrators are screaming at themselves and their neighbors. This is why we are witnessing incredible dumbness.

When people get this disconnected from reality, you know the lesson is going to be very costly for someone. At least that is my experience when I get really dumb.

I'm standing that those standing for people's enslavement lose this fight - big time. Public Sector Unions have got to go. No exceptions. No teachers union. No SEIU. No Postal Workers union. Nada.

How Did Scott Walker Get to be Governor of Wisconsin?

Check out these ads. They will give you the flavor.

Demand Atlas Shrugged Part 1 for your City

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The False Christmas of Progressivism/Socialism is Over!

This appeared on The Drudge Report, Saturday, February 19, 2011. I stand that this symbolizes the beginning of the end of the 100 year long Socialist/Progressive experiment in the United States. Viva la Liberty!
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High winds in DC snap national
Christmas tree...

On Wisconsin! What is Going On?

Below is an article by Michelle Malkin giving the background and some commentary on the Wisconsin situation. I put my commentary at the end of it.

Welcome to the reckoning. We have met the fiscal apocalypse, and it is smack dab in the middle of the heartland. As Wisconsin goes, so goes the nation. Let us pray it does not go the way of the decrepit welfare states of the European Union.

The lowdown: State government workers in the Badger State pay piddling amounts for generous taxpayer-subsidized health benefits. Faced with a $3.6 billion budget hole and a state constitutional ban on running a deficit, new GOP Gov. Scott Walker wants public unions to pony up a little more. He has proposed raising the public employee share of health insurance premiums from less than 5 percent to 12.4 percent. He is also pushing for state workers to cover half of their pension contributions. To spare taxpayers the soaring costs of Byzantine union-negotiated work rules, he would rein in Big Labor’s collective bargaining power to cover only wages unless approved at the ballot box.

As the free-market MacIver Institute in Wisconsin points out, the benefits concessions Walker is asking public union workers to make would still maintain their health insurance contribution rates at the second-lowest among Midwest states for family coverage. Moreover, a new analysis by benefits think tank HCTrends shows that the new rate “would also be less than the employee contributions required at 85 percent of large Milwaukee_area employers.”

This modest call for shared sacrifice has triggered the wrath of the White House-Big Labor-Michael Moore axis. On Thursday, President Obama lamented the “assault on unions.” AFL-CIO and Service Employees International Union bosses dubbed Walker the “Mubarak of the Midwest” while their minions toted posters of Walker’s face superimposed on Hitler’s. Moore goaded thousands of striking union protesters to “shut down” the “new Cairo” while the state’s Democratic legislators bailed on floor debate over the union reform package.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan spurned the opportunity to condemn thousands of Wisconsin public school teachers for lying about being “sick” and shutting down at least eight school districts across the state to attend capitol protests (many of whom dragged their students on a social justice field trip with them). Instead, Duncan defended teachers for “doing probably the most important work in society.” Only striking government teachers could win federal praise for NOT doing their jobs.

Yes, the so-called progressives truly believe that bringing American union workers into the 21st century in line with the rest of the workforce is tantamount to dictatorship.

Yes, the so-called progressives truly believe that by walking off their jobs and out of their classrooms, they are “putting children first.”

If ever there were proof that public unions no longer work in the public interest, this is it. Big Labor dragoons workers into exclusive representation agreements, forces them to pay compulsory dues that fatten Democratic political coffers and then has the chutzpah to cast itself as an Egyptian-style “freedom” and “human rights” movement.

Meanwhile, union leaders elsewhere are quietly forcing their low-wage members to share the sacrifice in order to preserve teetering health funds. In New York state, Skidmore College campus janitors, dining service workers and other maintenance employees received late notice from the SEIU that 4.15 percent of their gross earnings will now be deducted from their paychecks to cover the cost of the health plan provided through the behemoth 1199 SEIU Greater New York Benefit Fund. (If the name sounds familiar, it’s because this is one of several privileged SEIU affiliates that has received an Obamacare waiver.)

These workers are forced to join the union in order to preserve their jobs, and unlike non-union workers, they are locked into a single health plan. The SEIU has now decreed that they must pay new fees to include spouses on their plans and has hiked employee co-pays for doctor visits and prescription drugs.

What’s necessary for New York union workers is necessary for Wisconsin union workers — and for the rest of the protected union worker class in bankrupt and near-bankrupt states across America. The “persuasion of power” so ruthlessly and recklessly exercised by the SEIU and its thuggish allies must be broken by the moral courage of fiscal discipline. It’s now or never.

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This issue is coming to a head in other states as well: Ohio, Indiana, Florida (I think), and others. This fact is adding a lot of energy to the union side. They know that if they don’t pull off something extraordinary, their goose is cooked. Right now, people are standing overwhelmingly with the Wisconsin governor.

The masses on the governor's side are slow to mobilize but when they do, watch out. I’ve read of two such measures. Two of the Democrats that bussed themselves across the border to Rockford IL are now likely to face recall. The recall procedure has been started in their home districts.

The fact that the Democrat legislators would not stand and argue their case says mountains about who they are and how they feel about their case. I do not think they understand the power of reason – if you have a reason. On the other hand, maybe they, at least at some level, know the power of reason and that's why they ran.

Many a man has been persuaded to abandon his position via reason and go with the one that provides for his future. That is what is happening here. The teachers themselves, as evidenced by letters from some of them, are not in 100% solidarity with the unions and when they start peeling away, we will see only those who would gain from naked power, at the expense of reality, left in that group.

I think this may be the final blow to Obama’s power. He characterizes the will of Wisconsin as anti-union. The people of the state elected the governor by a hefty margin to clean it up. Since when has standing for a plan dealing with the reality of the circumstances been anti-union? It's no law of nature that they be idiots. They just hold a false premise or two.

He has put everything into his political base – the unions. He abrogated the right to contract in the case of GM when he took GM investors’ money and gave it to the unions in a naked redistribution of wealth. He exempted the SEIU from Obamacare. Over and over he has been openly partisan – i.e., practiced favoritism rather than its opposite, equality under the law which is justice.

Obama considers unions as manna from heaven. He cannot resist manipulating circumstances in their favor. He got into trouble with ACORN and now he is doing it again. He will (he is) pay for this and no one will be able to stop this. He messed with the laws of human nature (as do all socialists), and Mother Nature doesn’t abide that. Obama's only hope (and I must say that counter to his campaign, he is a man of shrunken hope) is that he has the power to fool all of us all of the time. Only a post-modernist could believe that tripe.

Another commentary On Wisconsin appears at Robert Villegas' blog here.

And while the politics ticks on, so does the clock.

Going After Israel? Why I Think this is a Bad Idea

I see this article this morning:

US going to reverse its policy toward Israel in the UN.

This sounds bad to me, primarily because of the people who are going after Israel: The Muslims, Carter, and now Obama and Hillary. Red flags are waving.

Obama, especially, and Hillary are Alinsky's intellectual descendants. One of their principles is to isolate their enemy, i.e., whoever they want to dominate. How they and all the knowledgeable Left does this is through language. They draw attention to some thing or activity by calling it something which ordinary people would not like. I think this may be happening in this case.

The word settlement – “Jewish settlements” – is used to refer to the homes that people are building in a particular part of Jerusalem. The word “settlement” suggest that it may be an extension into land that is somehow not theirs. I’m questioning this. I think this land has been purchased and is owned by those who bought it. Wherever land is purchased, be it here or in Mexico or Iran, e.g., it is governed by the laws of how property is treated in those places. In other words, there is no problem settling on purchased land unless a country is trying to extend its boundary. E.g., if Mexicans purchased land in Arizona next to Mexico and then they automatically made the boundary between Mexico and the US bend into the US along the northern boundary of their property, this would be an invasion of the sovereign territory of the US.

My point is that the Left would love the word “settlement” here and hate the word “property” because if they can get you to think “settlement,” then they can have you associating immoral action with those who are building and buying in that particular area. This is how the Alinsky principle works. It changes the terminology so that you don’t like the people who are accused of a particular action which then isolates them from the rest of society. And this is how evil must always work because it must mask itself as the good in order to gain something that it did not earn – i.e., via production and then trade.

And in our current cultural state, the terminology is so confused that people are no longer able to even think in terms that support life. We are rapidly reverting to a primitive state where no one is really safe from his neighbor. The great value of civilization is that it objectively identifies the facts of reality and institutes particular concepts which forward a man’s ability to live in society. The US system of rights and law is the apotheosis of this idea. A man can live in Nigeria and invest in America because he is protected by American laws that honor his objectively defined property as his. He cannot do the same thing in areas of Nigeria because this system doesn’t exist. There, he is limited to creating with family and friends – people he trusts – because the system is not available to protect and stand for his rights – his right to his life and his right to own property and use it as he wishes so long as he doesn’t violate another man’s equal right. In the absence of individual rights, a group of people that one trusts have survival value.

Nowadays, people wonder why they should stand for Israel. I say their religion and their right to practice it is not a sufficient answer. Israel is the only state in the Middle East where man has freedom and that is why its existence is important. Although there is tension between Muslim and Jew in the state of Israel, I understand that Muslims there are clear what is available for them in Israel that isn’t available in Gaza or Jordan or Syria and increasingly, Lebanon.

If we are to live in society and have a possibility, then the rule of objective law must be the law of the land. And, that law has to be grounded on individual rights which, when boiled down means that you have a right to your life and all the property you own. You then are free to do all the things that humans do when living (such as producing, speaking, convening, contracting and trading) grounded on the fact of private property. That the government must protect private property is the essential principle and one’s private property is one’s body and all the things that he legally owns. In other words, he owns all the stuff in his possession which is not stolen or illegally gotten from someone else. (When I say “illegally gotten,” I’m thinking of fraud. One commits fraud when he pretends he offers a value but the buyer is unable to value it as the seller represented it to provide. Think Madoff.)

One of the confusing elements regarding Israel is that it is tribal, based on its religion. The Israeli state is set up on the idea of living in a society ultimately grounded in Jewish law and which largely honors individuals to be free. America, on the other hand, is a melting pot. No tribe dominates America. We are all considered individuals first. Whatever you want to belong to is fine, it is that you are ultimately responsible as an individual human being.

Tribes often get into fights with other tribes for domination. Tribal mentalities are threatened by the existence of a Jewish state because it happens that the Jews value their minds and use them well to produce value and be strong in the world. It is the strength of Jews that they fear. A non-tribal mentality, on the other hand, doesn’t fear this because they see the creativity and production of the Jew as a resource that they can gain via trading with them. The tribal mentality and the Holocaust has made the Jew very wary of people too. Those that identify primarily as Jew are inclined to combat their threats by gathering together into a tighter ball which makes them even more identifiable. This then gives their enemies more reason to aim directly at their dreaded enemy. And so it goes.

The disgusting thing about the US and its representatives who speak about Israel – O, Hill, and Carter – is that they do not stand for individual rights. They do not distinguish the principle which could untie this Gordian knot – namely, all sides have got to lay down their recourse to the tribe and fight for people as the individual’s right to exist. And what is so hideous about our spokesmen is that they fight FOR collectivism. This is especially true of Obama who believes in collective redemption – an ideology so heinous that anyone with an ounce of sense would reject it. (If you want to read about this, look up black liberation theology, the theology of Reverend Wright and Obama. Also there are public video clips of Obama advocating this idea.)

I would like to hear a conversation by somebody offering a “civilized” solution to the Mideast problem.

Why The Conservatives Are Such Losers

The Conservatives are losers because they do not and cannot stand for America. Simple as that.

What is America? America is a country founded on the idea that everyone is an individual. The Conservatives/Republicans always appeal to us as if the group is primary, exactly the same thing that the liberals, communists, socialists, theocrats, Democrats and monarchs do. So what is really going on is that they pretend to be for America and what it is founded on, and yet we all know in our heart of hearts that they can't stand there - that they will cave when the going gets rough.

The Neocons and RINOs are blatantly country first, you second. You are expected to sacrifice for the greater good. But, in the final analysis so are a lot of Americans. How do I know this? Because they, like Beck as an example and who I admire for his integrity and his intelligence, appeal to God at some level as the ultimate authority. When a man wants to use God as the ultimate reason rather than either showing me the facts or heading me in a productive direction with a good question so I can determine a reason to act for myself, I don't trust him. When a man ought to be looking at reality to figure out what is going on and he runs to God, I think he's likely available for any faux-authority who claims to know.

Of course we as men get to the end of our knowledge. But then we need to start asking the questions that extend us into the areas we don't know so that eventually we can know. The God talk doesn't ring true to me. I hear it as a cop-out, a kind of laziness. If what is meant is that the factors that one identifies are sufficiently complex that I cannot know or predict an outcome, then say so.

But, and this is their fallacy, in America every individual is his own final authority whether he's willing to accept that or not. Until this gets clear, America is going to hang on by a thread and will ultimately lose to the bold, confident, clear-headed collectivists. They have no problem fighting for their view of how societies ought to be organized. They think they have every right to rule you, you idiot.

The only doctrine that will save America is that of Individual Rights. Every man is an end in himself, not the means to any other person's or group's ends. If the Conservatives and Republicans want to start winning, they will get this fundamental point straight. They need to develop a theory of governance based on this truth. Once they begin asserting themselves based on this truth, we will stop feeling lied to, betrayed, and essentially told to go piss up a rope!

The quality of life that is missing is moral vitality. It is a quality that only appears in individuals. America unleashed and nourished it for a while. Now it is killing it. Collectivists always kill it.

What Obama is Counting On

O'Reilly of Fox News interviewed President Obama before the Super Bowl game on Sunday. The take-away quote of the article here is this:

"But he [says O'Reilly] has a vision of himself that you’re not going to blow him out of that vision. You’re just not going to do it.”

I interpret this to mean that Obama is confident of his moral base and that enough people hold the same moral base to insure his carrying out his redistributionist/socialist agenda. He knows (in his heart of hearts) that even though businessmen will argue with him they do not have a moral leg to stand on. He is right. End of story.

"Atlas Shrugged" and the whole direction of human history (especially since the Enlightenment and the industrial revolution) embracing the value of the individual mind proves him wrong. There will come a day of rude awakening for Obama when he realizes he holds an empty bag with "ignorance" graffitied on it. He not only is ignorant of this fact of human life, he must cultivate the ignorance upon which his power depends.

In this blog, I point out how the Obama mind is pre-Enlightenment which translates to unrewarded rationality at best and destructive anti-rationality at worst. This alone is going to have him friendly with pre-Enlightenment mentalities. Who would those be? Hmmm.

The lie in Obama is that he cannot live true to his words. He lives by a double moral standard - asking us to sacrifice for the greater good and the undeserving man while he lives high on the hog. As a friend said, "Obama and Michelle say, 'Save money, stop being extravagant, eat healthy, don't get fat, be concerned about the little guy, etc.' Meanwhile they vacation in luxury, eat junk food, spend money like there's no tomorrow and hobnob with the rich and famous." We know "Do as I say, not as I do" to be the mantra of the hypocrite.

That Obama is a true believer tells us how removed from reality he really is. He truly is a "Don't bother me with the facts" kind of guy.

How Your Senators Voted on Obamacare's Repeal

FOR THE RECORD and THE FUTURE:

Alabama: Sessions (R-AL), Yea Shelby (R-AL), Yea
Alaska: Begich (D-AK), Nay Murkowski (R-AK), Yea
Arizona: Kyl (R-AZ), Yea McCain (R-AZ), Yea
Arkansas: Boozman (R-AR), Yea Pryor (D-AR), Nay
California: Boxer (D-CA), Nay Feinstein (D-CA), Nay

Colorado: Bennet (D-CO), Nay Udall (D-CO), Nay
Connecticut: Blumenthal (D-CT), Nay Lieberman (ID-CT), Not Voting
Delaware: Carper (D-DE), Nay Coons (D-DE), Nay
Florida: Nelson (D-FL), Nay Rubio (R-FL), Yea
Georgia: Chambliss (R-GA), Yea Isakson (R-GA), Yea

Hawaii: Akaka (D-HI), Nay Inouye (D-HI), Nay
Idaho: Crapo (R-ID), Yea Risch (R-ID), Yea
Illinois: Durbin (D-IL), Nay Kirk (R-IL), Yea
Indiana: Coats (R-IN), Yea Lugar (R-IN), Yea
Iowa: Grassley (R-IA), Yea Harkin (D-IA), Nay

Kansas: Moran (R-KS), Yea Roberts (R-KS), Yea
Kentucky: McConnell (R-KY), Yea Paul (R-KY), Yea
Louisiana: Landrieu (D-LA), Nay Vitter (R-LA), Yea
Maine: Collins (R-ME), Yea Snowe (R-ME), Yea
Maryland: Cardin (D-MD), Nay Mikulski (D-MD), Nay

Massachusetts: Brown (R-MA), Yea Kerry (D-MA), Nay
Michigan: Levin (D-MI), Nay Stabenow (D-MI), Nay
Minnesota: Franken (D-MN), Nay Klobuchar (D-MN), Nay
Mississippi: Cochran (R-MS), Yea Wicker (R-MS), Yea
Missouri: Blunt (R-MO), Yea McCaskill (D-MO), Nay

Montana: Baucus (D-MT), Nay Tester (D-MT), Nay
Nebraska: Johanns (R-NE), Yea Nelson (D-NE), Nay
Nevada: Ensign (R-NV), Yea Reid (D-NV), Nay
New Hampshire: Ayotte (R-NH), Yea Shaheen (D-NH), Nay
New Jersey: Lautenberg (D-NJ), Nay Menendez (D-NJ), Nay

New Mexico: Bingaman (D-NM), Nay Udall (D-NM), Nay
New York: Gillibrand (D-NY), Nay Schumer (D-NY), Nay
North Carolina: Burr (R-NC), Yea Hagan (D-NC), Nay
North Dakota: Conrad (D-ND), Nay Hoeven (R-ND), Yea
Ohio: Brown (D-OH), Nay Portman (R-OH), Yea

Oklahoma: Coburn (R-OK), Yea Inhofe (R-OK), Yea
Oregon: Merkley (D-OR), Nay Wyden (D-OR), Nay
Pennsylvania: Casey (D-PA), Nay Toomey (R-PA), Yea
Rhode Island: Reed (D-RI), Nay Whitehouse (D-RI), Nay
South Carolina: DeMint (R-SC), Yea Graham (R-SC), Yea

South Dakota: Johnson (D-SD), Nay Thune (R-SD), Yea
Tennessee: Alexander (R-TN), Yea Corker (R-TN), Yea
Texas: Cornyn (R-TX), Yea Hutchison (R-TX), Yea
Utah: Hatch (R-UT), Yea Lee (R-UT), Yea
Vermont: Leahy (D-VT), Nay Sanders (I-VT), Nay

Virginia: Warner (D-VA), Not Voting Webb (D-VA), Nay
Washington: Cantwell (D-WA), Nay Murray (D-WA), Nay
West Virginia: Manchin (D-WV), Nay Rockefeller (D-WV), Nay
Wisconsin: Johnson (R-WI), Yea Kohl (D-WI), Nay
Wyoming: Barrasso (R-WY), Yea Enzi (R-WY), Yea

Obama - Our Most Contemptible President?

The article below tells us the behavior that may have Obama become the most contemptible, even hated, President. No one can deal with people this way and get away with it. There will be a cost and now it is a matter of seeing how it will be exacted.

This is third-world despot behavior. The Americans I know don’t think in these petty terms. We think in terms of the rule of law applying to all people and when anything gets corrupt, the law is fixed and the corrupt persons thrown out. "How can anyone be so disrespectful of people generally, and of themselves specifically, by destroying the trust that people have in their stewardship of the office for which they were elected?" This is how the Americans I know, think.

Obama has closed the door on any calls he may want to make for the moral high road, a larger purpose, or an inspiring ideal. He won't be able to inspire the people he would need to carry out such a plan. Only fools, in high places and low, will follow him. If doesn't watch it, he's going to find it impossible to get heard.

With this behavior, Obama pisses all over himself – wrecking forever the possibility of his being a great President. Frankly, I don’t think he cares about that. If Radical-in-Chief is true, and given that it is thoroughly researched and logical, I see no reason that it could be anything other than true, his purpose is to destroy America’s system of self-government and replace it with an elitist dictatorship or oligarchy.

Apparently it is a dictatorship. He commented on Mubarak's cutting off the internet as the act of a dictator. Meanwhile, plans are afoot to have Homeland Security be the means for him to do the same thing.

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Tawdry details of Obamacare
White House quietly exempts pampered politicos

By Dr. Milton R. Wolf
The Washington Times
7:21 p.m., Friday, January 28, 2011

If you would like to know what the White House really thinks of Obamacare, there’s an easy way. Look past its press releases. Ignore its promises. Forget its talking points. Instead, simply witness for yourself the outrageous way the White House protects its best friends from Obamacare.

Last year, we learned that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had granted 111 waivers to protect a lucky few from the onerous regulations of the new national health care overhaul. That number quickly and quietly climbed to 222, and last week we learned that the number of Obamacare privileged escapes has skyrocketed to 733.

Among the fortunate is a who’s who list of unions, businesses and even several cities and four states (Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio and Tennessee) but none of the friends of Barack feature as prominently as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

How can you get your own free pass from Obamacare? Maybe you can just donate $27 million to President Obama‘s campaign efforts. That’s what Andy Stern did as president of SEIU in 2008. He has been the most frequent guest at Mr. Obama‘s White House.

Backroom deals have become par for the course for proponents of Obamacare. Senators were greased with special favors, like Nebraska Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson and his Cornhusker Kickback and Louisiana Democrat Sen. Mary L. Landrieu and her Louisiana Purchase. Even the American Medical Association was brought in line under threat of losing its exclusive and lucrative medical coding contracts with the government.

Not only are the payoffs an affront to our democracy and an outright assault on our taxpayers, the timing itself of the latest release makes a mockery of this administration’s transparency promises. More than 500 of the 733 waivers, we now know, were granted in December but kept conveniently under wraps until the day after the president’s State of the Union address. HHS is no stranger to covering up bad news; in fact, this is becoming a disturbing pattern. Last year, Secretary Kathleen Sebelius hid from Congress until after the Obamacare vote a damning report from the Medicare and Medicaid Office of the Actuary showing Obamacare would cost $311 billion more than promised and would displace 14 million Americans from their current insurance.

For this administration, transparency promises last only until the teleprompter is unplugged.

Backroom deals and cover-ups may be business as usual for Washington, but understanding why the Obama administration protects its friends from Obamacare offers special insight into what the purveyors of the mandate themselves think about their own law. This is key: The waivers aren’t meant to protect victims from unintended consequences of Obamacare; they are meant to exempt them from the very intentional increased costs of health insurance that the law causes. Under Section 2711 of the Public Health Service Act, Obamacare increases the annual cap of insurance benefits, which sounds great - as does everything else in big government - until the bill comes due, in this case, in the form of higher insurance premiums.

In short, the administration has decided that you will face increased health insurance premiums, but special friends in the unions will not. Look closely, and you’ll see not only the White House‘s duplicity but also what the Obama administration really thinks of its crown jewel, Obamacare. White House words say that the annual insurance benefit cap is a feature of the program, but its actions say that it’s a bug.

The question remains: If Obamacare is such a great law, why does the White House keep protecting its best friends from it?

Our democracy cannot allow a president to exercise the unholy power of picking and choosing winners and losers, of choosing who must follow his flawed laws and who gets a free pass. If any American deserves a waiver from Obamacare, then all Americans do.

It was Mr. Obama himself who infamously said, “We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends.” This president speaks anything but softly, and Obamacare is his big stick.

It’s time to give every American his own waiver: Repeal Obamacare.

Dr. Milton R. Wolf is a board-certified diagnostic radiologist, medical director and cousin of President Obama. He blogs daily at miltonwolf.com.

Abortion Rights and Why Obama is a Poor Leader

Here’s Obama’s statement on abortion rights.

“Today marks the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that protects women's health and reproductive freedom, and affirms a fundamental principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters.”

Obama does not mention individual rights which is based on property rights which is the fundamental principle governing the right of a woman to her own body and its fetus until it is metaphysically an independent being. (And, the fundamental principle upon which our country is set up.) Rather, he says the fundamental principle is that the government should not “intrude on private family matters.” But if this is a fundamental principle, then one should not intrude on the private family matters of the Muslim honor killers, right? Or one should not intrude into the private family matters of families where a child is locked up in the basement for weeks, right? Or one should not intrude into the private family matters where there a house full of cats, rats or dogs that have become a threat to human life beyond the confines of the person involved, right?

Notice that Obama’s principle is collectivist. The term family refers to a group, not an individual. So, in this seemingly benign statement, he complete overthrows the right of a woman or a man or any individual to his own body – to his life. He overthrows you and me and every person’s right to exist as an individual.

The reason Obama can’t lead is because Obama can’t think in a powerful modern way. His thinking is actually pre-modern. The Enlightenment, the beginning of the modern world, was based on the fact that reason, the method by which a human mind operates, was discovered to be man’s basic means of survival. Out of this came the United States, the only country on the face of the earth set up on the idea that every man has a mind and he should be free to use and depend on it as his basic tool of survival. The reason that Individual Rights is so important is because it frees the human mind. (And because the human mind has generally been free here, the US has prospered and become the richest nation in the world.)

Prior to the Enlightenment – which began in Scotland and then England – man was seen and dealt with as part of a group. Until then the aristocrat and the serf were the two forms human life took and one was in one group or the other. (There were other groups who were outside this axis of power/no power. Traders and Church people being two. But they accounted for a pretty small number of people.) Although trade happened, it wasn’t seen in the way it is now that the individual mind has been set free. Obama, a collectivist and in particular, a socialist - as compared to some earlier forms of group think such as tribes, family clans, etc. – is of a mind that ran the world prior to the Enlightenment. This is why he bows to kings and other leaders and such. It’s his “pre-individual” obeisance to the collectivist, “rulers-of-men” mindset.

The modern view of human being although of European origin is not “white” nor European per se, although I hear black historians portraying it as if the “white man” is its distinguishing characteristic. (When I hear this, I hear a man wanting to return to the pre-modern view of man – a basically ignorant being that can be controlled easily through fear and guilt and be riled up to become dominant over the white man.) The discovery of what is true of man applies to all human beings. What we are faced with with Obama is whether we are going to go back to a pre-reason view of man where he had no choice but to dominate or be dominated by other men, or are we going to deal with each other as individuals who offer us their view of the world and what they see is going on. The success of the US, which O does not like, is apologizing for at every opportunity, and is looting and redistributing its wealth, is a result of the individual being set free and protected in his right to use his own mind. That really is all it is.

So when I hear Obama speak as he does, if I want to be generous I can say that, at best, he is saying something he might say at the beginning of his search for a proper principle. Why this supposedly Constitutional scholar puts this kind of thing into the public discourse doesn’t make sense unless one grasps where Obama is coming from. Neither proper thinking nor the values which honor every individual human being call to him. Neither are his values. As a consequence, he has the whole country in an uproar. He, day in and day out is trying to lay on us that which we are not. He’s trying to force mankind back into a bygone paradigm. By his lack of values which honor the individual and clear principles, he sews the seeds of distrust and argument among the people. How can we trust each other if we, as individuals, have no existence in his mind? Who knows what he will unleash next (and he’s already done lots of damage to us) that will violate our rights?

A good leader could go a long way to quiet things down. However, that leader will not be Obama. I am persuaded he is not capable of such a task given that his orientation is that of a pre-reason collectivist, a community organizer, a troublemaker by another name. He does not care about the plight of any individual person.

Why he would want to make trouble is another topic. Read Radical-in-Chief by Stanley Kurtz and you will understand what has motivated Obama for the whole of his life. Community Organizer has been the means for what he is up to.

Understanding Derivatives --- A Primer

(I thank a friend, DK, who sent me this. I thought it so well done that it ought to be posted. Every bubble in history has a similar story although the particulars are just enough different to have people think it will be different this time. SCB)
___________________________________________

Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Detroit.

She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar. To solve this problem, she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later. Heidi keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers' loans).

Word gets around about Heidi's "drink now, pay later" marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Heidi's bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in Detroit. By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands, Heidi gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages. Consequently, Heidi's gross sales volume increases massively.

A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Heidi's borrowing limit. He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral!!!

At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINK BONDS. These "securities" then are bundled and traded on international securities markets. Naive investors don't really understand that the securities being sold to them as "AAA Secured Bonds" really are debts of unemployed alcoholics. Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb!!!, and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation's leading brokerage houses.

One day, even though the bond prices still are climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi's bar. He so informs Heidi.

Heidi then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons, but being unemployed alcoholics they cannot pay back their drinking debts.

Since Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and Heidi's 11 employees lose their jobs.

Overnight, DRINK BOND prices drop by 90%.

The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank's liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community. The suppliers of Heidi's bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms' pension funds in the BOND securities. They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds.

Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.

Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multibillion dollar no-strings attached cash infusion from the government. The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, nondrinkers who have never been in Heidi's bar.

Now does this make sense for you?

(There is a back-story to this tale. What prompted Heidi to came up with the idea of loaning her no-good customers drinks?)

The Con Man Ups the Ante

Obama is a power-lusting con man, a liar. That, more than any other quality describes his character. William Daley, his new Chief of Staff, is his new means of conning the American public so those who do not grasp who Obama is and what requires his conning are fooled into voting for him again. (If you want to understand what requires Obama to be a con man, read Radical-in-Chief by Stanley Kurtz. This well-researched, heavily-documented book makes clear that the con is part and parcel of getting people to believe in socialism.)

Here's another article on the reason FOR selecting Daley. Yes, you guessed it: Reelection in 2012.

The real test of America in 2012 is whether the voters will demand integrity of their leaders or are willing to settle for the superficial b.s. If the latter, we are done - at least until the superficial non-leaders have been proven, to the majority of people, unworthy of the leadership role given them.

(Reality is on our side, because a socialist cannot cause real and positive results to the extent he sticks to socialism. Socialism’s error is that it deals with individuals by the group they are deemed part of and individual needs cannot be glossed over in that way and people thrive. At the level of the individual, socialism separates motive from results. No one can do something with any desire to achieve the result unless he is motivated to do it. Orders from the top down by force destroy that motivation, which explains why socialist societies fail to the extent they are socialist. Since we each deal with each other via the economy – trading what we have for what we need that someone else has, the answer is to get the government SEPARATED from the economy so that these individual transactions have full and free reign, while the government only acts to protect property including the basic property of life and liberty. Then and only then will the government and the economy each be in their proper place.)

This is going to mean a complete revolution in the underlying thought (moral base) which produced America in the first place. Only the sanctity of the individual held as one's highest value (sacrificed for no reason) will reveal the con for what it is and point to the solution for our (and the world's) current problems.

What is a Right?

Walter Williams explains a Right.

Top 10 Violations of the Constitution by Obama and the 111th Congress

By Paul Skousen
Published Here: 6:14 PM 12/27/2010 | Updated: 6:41 PM 12/29/2010

At the close of the 111th Congress, America is deeply in the bog of Thomas Jefferson’s prophetic warning: “The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.” Unfortunately, the broken chains of the Constitution have failed to contain the federal government.

By way of review, let’s take a stroll through the junkyard of constitutional violations that have been painted fresh by President Obama and the 111th Congress. Here’s my top-ten list, highly abbreviated for length.

#10. — 9/11 Responders Relief Fund: We love and honor those who put themselves in harm’s way for our security. However, giving the 9/11 first responders money after the fact violates the Constitution. Article 1.8 gives Congress the right to expend funds for all the purposes itemized, provided it is done for the general welfare, NOT for individuals or preferred groups. The states may reward heroes if they so choose.

#9. — Checks and Balances Failure: The Chairmanship of the UN Security Council: Where was Congress when President Obama became the chairman of the powerful UN Security Council in 2009? The normal monthly rotation for that chair goes to the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. because Article 1.9 of the Constitution forbids the president (and all other office-holders) from accepting any present, foreign office or title from a foreign country or a foreign potentate unless it is specifically authorized by Congress. The Founders wanted to prevent deal-making, corruption, and foreign influence from affecting America’s internal affairs.

#8. — Net Neutrality: The government is trying to stop Internet providers from blocking or slowing some web traffic and prevent providers from showing favoritism. The FCC thinks it should be able to regulate the Internet like it regulates utility companies. This violates the property rights of Internet providers and interferes in the market’s free choice of which services receive funding. Article 1.8 makes it clear that the FCC is not constitutionally authorized to pass laws, especially those disguised as regulations.

#7. – Czars: The moniker for appointees who report to no one but the president has taken on a new and eerie resemblance to the dusty Russian tsars of old. Article 2.2 grants the president leeway to appoint managers, but those managers may not have any regulatory, legislative or law-making powers — such powers are reserved to the legislative branch. Today’s “czars” have the power of cabinet members without having to go through a vetting process or the confirmation process prescribed for cabinet members. Czars are unelected and untouchable political decision-makers — in violation of Article 1.1.

#6. — Cap and Trade: The Clean Energy and Security Act mandates greenhouse gas emissions be reduced to 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, 42 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, and 84 percent below 2005 levels by 2050. By 2020, this tax will extract an estimated $160 billion from the economy, or an average $1,870 per family. Once again, had the chains of Article 1.8 not been broken, America would be spared such tomfoolery. Cap and trade masked in any disguise whatsoever cannot be justified as a general welfare activity.

#5. — Cash for Clunkers: The government offered $4,500 rebates to people turning in their clunkers for more fuel-efficient vehicles. When the first program quickly ran out of the $4 billion allotted to it, another $2 billion was added. Follow-up analysis showed the program did nothing to stimulate the economy and put many people into additional debt by encouraging them to purchase cars that they otherwise would not have bought during these hard economic times. The government has zero authority to selectively give individuals tax
money for purchases of vehicles, according to Articles 1.2 and 1.8 — and common sense.

#4. — TARP Funding: The original 2008 act authorized $700 billion to bail out banks and other institutions. The government has no business rescuing private financial institutions from bad judgment and risky ventures. Article 1.8 excludes permission for Congress to grant financial aid or loans to private companies. Any use of Treasury funds must go toward the general welfare, not to specific groups.

#3. — Illegal Immigration: Arizona is being invaded. When that state passed SB 1070 to stem the flow of violent illegals into its sovereign territory, a derelict federal government turned around and sued. At issue was the Feds’ failure to control the border, so Arizona took it upon itself to do just that — to uphold existing federal immigration laws. It didn’t add new laws; it simply gave local authorities the power to enforce federal responsibilities. The federal government claims the right to manage immigration, but when it refuses to carry out that obligation, thereby jeopardizing the security of border states, it is derelict in its duties. Arizona should haul the federal government before the Supreme Court for malfeasance. Article 4.4 clearly states that the U.S. shall protect states from invasion — more than 400,000 illegal aliens (est.) in Arizona is, by definition, an invasion.

#2. — Economic Stimulus Bill: The $814 billion stimulus is the most backward-thinking proposition to come along since human sacrifice. Dumping borrowed money
into an over-fed, bloated and out-of-control ogre doesn’t solve anything, it simply temporarily props up with blocks of melting ice cream a failed and failing government of extravagance. Not only does it illegally take money out of the economy that could be used to provide jobs, but it’s using borrowed money — with interest due.

And the worst violation of the Constitution over the past two years is …

#1. — Health Care Reform: Health care reform was the last lever needed to lift the lid off the pot of American gold and empty it out for socialism. It required all Americans to have health insurance whether they wanted it or not. Earlier this month, Federal Judge Henry E. Hudson said that the government has no power “to compel an individual to involuntarily enter the stream of commerce by purchasing a commodity in the private market.”

The string of constitutional violations supporting the judge’s rejection is long and shocking:

For purposes of regulation, Congress invoked Article 1.8 and claimed insurance may be controlled because it falls under Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce. But insurance is not interstate commerce — you can’t buy insurance across state lines.

Language in the bill says the health care law may NOT be changed or amended by anyone once signed into law. This violates the role of Congress. Article 1.1 makes it clear that only Congress is authorized to make law, meaning it has every right to alter, amend and change the health care law. To restrict Congress is to change its constitutional duty. The 111th Congress must think it can change the Constitution without amending it — a violation of Article 5, which outlines the amendment process.

The health care bill also violates the 10th Amendment because it coerces states into complying with a new national program that reaches far into state jurisdiction.

So, what do you do when you’re navigating through a blizzard of political white-out where visibility is reduced to zero, the road is slick and slippery, and disaster is strewn about in all directions? You come to a complete stop — and put on the chains.

Paul B. Skousen is a former analyst for the CIA, an intelligence officer in the Reagan White House, and staffer for Senator Orrin Hatch. He has interviewed on Fox News and was featured by Paul Harvey’s The Rest of the Story about smuggling Oliver North’s shredded secrets from the White House. He is a journalist and published author, and the son of W. Cleon Skousen, author of The Five Thousand Year Leap. He is a national Constitution Coach and senior editor with PowerThink Publishing, LLC. Website: www.powerthink.com. Email: paul@powerthink.com.

The original publication of this article is here at The Daily Caller

A Short Trip to Economic Freedom

Or, I should say, "A short trip to the world of economic freedom and the intellectual understanding of how it works."


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The destination is the Ludwig von Mises Institute's campus in Auburn, Alabama, 110 miles from Atlanta, home of this blog. This would be (I haven't gone there yet myself) an interesting and worth-while pilgrimage. It is a journey into the world of civilization itself - an order that rests on man's individual nature rather than one that herds him as an animal, with no respect for what he is, let alone who he is.

Explore this website. They have a bookstore and offer their courses and lectures not only in Auburn but at various sites around the country.

Another resource for a free market viewpoint of economics is The Foundation for Economic Education. You can access them at www.fee.org.

I Remember America

The Moral Base for Political Liberty, i.e., Capitalism

Freedom and Capitalism are not dead. If anything, people are seeing more than anytime in my lifetime the threat that government can be to every aspect of what it is to be human. Freedom and capitalism (capitalism is the system that naturally results when people are free) have never had the proper moral base even though it, right before our eyes, provides the things that people need to live whereas the non-free, socialist, controlled societies fail dramatically or limp along in damaged condition compared to what they could be. And because this moral base has not been present, people still think that to be GOOD, one must sacrifice himself to the group and other people on all scales of social living from the widest to the private interactions with friends rather than pursue his own best life whereupon all benefit from this excellence.

Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute makes this case on this video. Judge Napolitano does not interview Yaron until 6:35 minutes into the video.

Two People Talking About Atlas Shrugged