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Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.- Ronald Wilson Reagan.

For all of you who tire of reading my comments about current events, I apologize. Maybe I should just stick to fluff.

But I can’t do that. Why? Because these are transformative times we live in folks. While Americans are tuning into “American Idol” and reading about the first family in People Magazine, our government is nationalizing banks, insurance companies, and auto companies. The President of the United States is suddenly granting himself the power to limit executive salaries, and even fire the head of a large corporation. Forget about the unintended consequences of these actions, and the harm they will inevitably cause. Government intervention in the private sector has never worked in the past. Any intellectually honest reading of history should tell you that this time will be no different.

But the President, the elites, and the media realize this. These people are not interested in economic growth. No this is a power grab, a massive transformation of sovereignty from the individual to the federal government. When government gives something, anything, the recipient is signing away his liberty. Get that through your heads folks. As far as that giving, or loaning is concerned, where does all of that money come from? Well obviously it is borrowed (inflation), printed (inflation), or confiscated from those who produce it (unemployment).

These are trying times we live in. Never before has the federal government made these types of moves. Never before has there been such a mob mentality in this country, a national demand for demagoguery. America as we have known it is over. It is finished. Yet the masses do not even seem to notice or care. Think about it. THE UNITES STATES GOVERNMENT IS NATIONALIZING BUSINESSES! This is Banana Republic territory. In fact, the United States might as well be Venezuela, and the President might as well be Hugo Chavez.

So please forgive me for using this platform to argue and fight on behalf of individual liberty and capitalism, the economic system that made the United States the power that it is today. Yes forgive me for giving a rat’s ass about my country being taken over by radicals. Yes turn off the news and go back to “Dancing with the Stars”. I can’t do that though. I have to fight for liberty, and while I don’t have a sword, I do have a pen keyboard.

Also posted in Facebook. Btw, if you have a Facebook account, send me an invite.

Challenge? Of what challenge do you speak?

An editorial column in yesterday’s LA Times by Andrew Klavan puts the Limbaugh Challenge right on the front stoop of one of the most liberal newspapers in the nation. That challenge..

Take the Limbaugh Challenge

Liberals who hate Rush Limbaugh — why don’t you actually listen to his show before bashing him?

If you are reading this newspaper, the likelihood is that you agree with the Obama administration’s recent attacks on conservative radio talker Rush Limbaugh. That’s the likelihood; here’s the certainty: You’ve never listened to Rush Limbaugh.

Oh no, you haven’t. Whenever I interrupt a liberal’s anti-Limbaugh rant to point out that the ranter has never actually listened to the man, he always says the same thing: “I’ve heard him!”

Most likely what they’ve heard is the snarling spittle-flecked responses from Rush’s detractors (including White House Obama cabinet members, and similar left-wingers who’ve taken their talking points from media voices. Oh, and perhaps from some so-called ‘moderate’ Republicans (David Frum, Kathleen Parker and others infected with the Republirhinovirus) come to mind. Oh, and the latest lefty darling, that bimbo Meghan McCain (for whom I had this advice: “If you really love this country, then join the service, like your father did. Earn some honor; garner some respect. Because now you have neither.” Harrumph).

Back to that LAT column (getting close to the best part ):

By lifting some typically Rushian piece of outrageous hilarity completely out of context, the distortion gang knows full well it can get you to widen your eyes and open your mouth in the universal sign of Liberal Outrage. Your scrawny chest swelling with a warm sense of completely unearned righteousness, you will turn to your second spouse and say, “I’m not a liberal, I’m a moderate, and I’m tolerant of a wide range of differing views — but this goes too far!”

There is more untruthfulness in that statement than in a speech by President Obama. Even the commas are self-deceiving. You’re not a moderate or you wouldn’t be reading this newspaper. You’re not tolerant of a wide range of views; you are tolerant of a narrow spectrum of variations on your views. And, whatever you claim, you still haven’t listened to Rush Limbaugh.

Which leads to a question: Why not? I mean, come on, the guy’s one of the figures of the age. Aren’t you even curious? I listen to all your guys: NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, The Times, the New York Times, the New Yorker — I check out the whole left-wing hallelujah chorus. Why are you afraid to spend a couple of hours listening to Limbaugh’s show and seriously considering if and why you disagree with him?

That’s a question every liberal will have to answer for herself. But this, now, this answer from Andrew Klavan is worth bolding and offsetting and, really, putting on it’s own pedestal. Ready to have your lefty head asplode? Now, again, why do liberals not listen to Rush Limbaugh?

Now let me tell you the real answer: You’re a lowdown, yellow-bellied, lily-livered intellectual coward. You’re terrified of finding out he makes more sense than you do.

(Yes, emboldenings are mine. To make sure you see it.)

This, printed in yesterday’s LA Times.

I wonder how many lib’ruls are picketing the joint this morning? Calling and canceling their subscriptions? Let’s hope quite a few.

Occasionally, the MSM gets something right. Rarely so, now, but when they do, I’ll be the first (well, second: you didn’t think I’d read the LA Times, now did you? ) to acknowledge it.

How in the world, you ask, did the Times Online dis Michelle Obama? Well, it’s nuanced but unmistakable. See that little pic, there, to the left? You’ll find it on this page (I can’t link directly, because it’s a Java slide show pop-up.)

Go through the listings of the Wives - Husbands of the G20 summit leaders. Scroll to #17, Michelle Obama. Compare that to the other pics of wives, girlfriends, displayed with tact and decorum.

You’ll see.

The moral of this story is: DON’T TRIFLE WITH THE BRITS, O! It’ll be a …bust.

BWHAHAHAHAHAHA!!11!!!11!!

Obama’s Shattered Dreams. To have lied, or to be clueless; either way, not very Presidential.

No, he probably knew he couldn’t cut taxes, but he was lied anyway, that’s my take. How could he possibly have been so clueless, especially being a well-educated, hyper-articulated Harvard type who studied for years to become qualified for the U.S. Presidency, the most important job in the world? How could he have missed this?

Via HotAir..

Poll: Despite Obama’s stumping, support for budget drops five points

Well, it’s about time. The Beltway is waking up to the realities of President Obama’s budget plan, which taxes, spends, and borrows as far as the eye can see. The president’s vast new commitments in the areas of health care, energy, and education have already spooked small-government Republicans and the foreign investors who help finance America’s public debt. Now even some Democrats are beginning to realize that the president’s fiscal policies are unsustainable in the long–and maybe medium–run. What took them so long?

The realities of the modern global economy require government to play a substantial role in ensuring the national and economic security of the people. Americans aren’t going to dismantle the welfare state. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are–like the Pentagon–here to stay. The task, then, is to ensure that those programs are sensibly structured and financed, and compatible with robust economic growth. And on this score, Obama’s budget is a big, fat failure.

Hmmm..Obama’s policies are failing. That’s good for the nation’s long-term survival. I wanted his policies to fail, given they were dangerously far-lefty and doomed our U.S. to socialism.

This last line is a puzzle..

If not, conservatives have a real opportunity to introduce a truly responsible vision of a welfare state that maximizes efficiency and growth. The budget outline that House Republicans released last week is a start, but it sure could use some work. And if the president persists in giving America a big and slothful government rather than a limited and energetic one, then it will be incumbent on Republicans and sensible Democrats in Congress to stop him.

What, pray tell, is a responsible version of a welfare state? A welfare state is a failed state. A responsible party platform would seek to employ every able-bodied person, and diminish the need for dole.

And ‘persists’? Persists? Obama has a challenge, now; to fail in a new and exciting way: to not FAIL as did Jimmy Carter.

It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.

Obama just can’t stand to be compared to Carter, so he’ll want to redefine FAIL in his own high-drama fashion.

No, a garden variety Hostage Crisis, some pre-teen double-digit inflation and vapid ‘energy conservation’ failures are just not going to be good enough for our ambitious Prezzydent. Look for a major international crisis where we, the U.S., will wind up soundly routed; up in the high-teens (or near-drinking age) hyperinflation numbers (and the corresponding Misery Index of Champions), and Cap and Trade (the Al Gore misanthropic dream!) energy legislation to pass; all of which will propel Obama up to the level of epic FAIL. We know he’s capable of that. He’s trained for it, after all.

All in four years! The ‘Carter Challenge’!

Robert Stacey McCain gets quote of the day:

A cowardly punk never admires or strives to emulate success, but always envies and resents it. The punk’s habitual modus operandi is to encourage others to join his efforts to undermine the prestige and authority of successful leadership. The punk assembles a coalition of losers, an army of naysayers who sit around griping and grumbling about everything, telling each other how unfairly they’ve been treated, and blaming all their woes on the successful people.

Does this not sound exactly like angry Democrats act and sound? Especially when they sit around bashing their betters.

Also: The left and anti-Semitism

Old Media’s deteriorating before our very eyes.

It’s Pipe Layin’ Dan’s birthday. Before our very ides. Happy b-day, Dan~!

Earth Hour is tomorrow night. Earth Hour is for those of you who are stupid enough to think that humans are destroying the planet, and that turning off your lights for an hour on Saturday night will “make a difference”.

What better way to celebrate this anti-capitalist religion than by living an hour without electricity, the engine of prosperity. After all, economic prosperity is bad for the environment, at least according to this amazingly honest wackjob.

So how I am I planning to participate in this nonsense? Well of course I am going to run the washer, dryer, and dishwasher. I plan on turning on all lamps, overhead lights, flood lights, porch lights, and I’ll probably even run the ole box fan, in spite of the fact that my AC will also be on. I’ll even crank up both vehicles and probably sit and rev up the one that smokes. Hell I might even eat some butter-beans and leave my own little personal carbon footprint.

Why you might ask? Because I am grateful for all of the blessings that make our lives easier, much easier than at any time in the history of this world, and I don’t like being lectured by a bunch of smug limousine liberals pushing a socialist hoax.

What better way to end this glorious rant, than with a little wisdom from the late George Carlin.

This new secular religion of man made global warming may be the greatest threat the human race has ever faced. In a mad dash to supposedly save the planet from the human race we may doom ourselves to the greatest human catastrophe in history.

You may remember this old saying, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.”

We face our greatest challenges in this time of our human history. This emotional madness of “save the planet, to hell with the people” may be our final undoing. The human race still has yet to comprehend the law of unintended consequences.

For example, an unproven theory of man made global warming may be the cause of a future human global apocalypse. President Obama wants to spend over $2 trillion dollars to go green and replace coal and nuclear power plants with solar and windmills. To do this Obama says we need a “smart grid”.

Before you say great idea, learn what the unintended consequences of this so called smart grid may be. Consequences that could be equal to or greater than a full out nuclear war.

Man made global warming is a theory yet to be proved. The solar event called the Carrington Event is scientific fact. It happened. It will happen again. What was the Carrington Event?

Read the rest of this entry »

West Virginia and other states are considering legislation to mandate random drug testing for recipients of both federal and state social ‘rescue’ programs: Food Assistance (AKA food stamps), unemployment benefits and other social welfare programs.

Finally. Finally. Finally. No more sitting at home stoned and getting a free ride at taxpayer’s expense. No more harming your children while on government assistance.

From Yahoo, this AP story…

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Want government assistance? Just say no to drugs.

Lawmakers in at least eight states want recipients of food stamps, unemployment benefits or welfare to submit to random drug testing.

The effort comes as more Americans turn to these safety nets to ride out the recession. Poverty and civil liberties advocates fear the strategy could backfire, discouraging some people from seeking financial aid and making already desperate situations worse.

Those in favor of the drug tests say they are motivated out of a concern for their constituents’ health and ability to put themselves on more solid financial footing once the economy rebounds. But proponents concede they also want to send a message: you don’t get something for nothing.

West Virginia State Rep. Craig Blair has a web page “Not With My Tax Dollars!!!” that’s following West Virginia HB 3007’s progress through the legislative process.

This is a well-written proposal; it’s enactment would do much to restore taxpayer’s faith to a, well, necessary social stopgap. Personally, I don’t mind giving up my hard-earned tax dollars to needy people; but I resent - no, hate - the thought that these dollars are going to drug users. While I’m working my ass off to provide for these criminals, they are sitting at home, stoned, watching cartoons. Enough.

Even some Democrats in West Virginia’s State House are attached to this bill. Wow.

This, from sponsor Rep. Craig Blair’s website..

Attention Illicit Drug Users:  Do You Want to Get your Life Back and Quit Now but You Need Help? 

Dial this Number on Any Phone: 211 [works only in West Virginia - .ed]

Nowhere in our state or U.S. constitutions is it mandated that financial assistance is a right.  Make no mistake, it is a privilege afforded to those in need by the taxpayers via our federal and state governments.  Also, unemployment compensation premiums are currently paid by the employer, not the employee; however that may change very soon.  We should also remember that illicit drug use is illegal.  It is a crime that has criminal penalties.

I think it’s time that we get serious about the problem of illegal drug users abusing our public assistance system in West Virginia. We should require random drug testing for every individual receiving welfare, food assistance or unemployment benefits.  After all, more and more employers are requiring drug testing. Why not make sure that people who are supposed to be looking for work are already prequalified by being drug free?

What about the children? Won’t denying welfare to druggie parents hurt the children? Read the rest of this entry »

“This is truly the age of mindless mob rule.”

How true. He ends his article with the following statement.

“We need such a Socrates in Washington right now, who would dare tell the American mob the truth of how we are descending into financial serfdom.

But in this present mood, the aroused mob would first make him drink the hemlock.”

This is the saddest thing ever to watch. It’s the end of America as we have known it. Never before has the Federal government led such an assault on our currency, and never before has the electorate been so blind and so numbingly stupid.

Iowahawk has posted

The Gradulation Proclamation

“because, we know “The Gators” are superb to any other schools with the conferences that we play in.”

I’ll quit while I’m ahead.

h/t Dan Collins, for the ideaafiction, and the sourcery image.

clicky to embiggen.

Finally somebody is proposing a stimulus plan that makes sense cents. To hell with personal responsibility and all that, not when it comes to me.

You know I have never understood the concept of giving grants to some and forcing others to get loans. When you both graduate, you both have the same degree, but the one who was supposed to have been disadvantaged at the starting line, ends up with the advantage at the finish, because he doesn’t have all of that debt to pay back. It doesn’t make sense. My family was far from rich and I never qualified for any grants.

• Do you like the Gadsden flag?
• Are you a white Christian?
• Do you oppose abortion?
• Did you vote for Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, or Bob Barr?
• Are you opposed to illegal immigration?
• Do you believe in the Second Amendment, and gun rights?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, then the government considers you a possible domestic terrorist. Notice how people that voted for batshit crazy Cynthia McKinney are not on this list. Neither are any other left wing types, you know, people like William Ayers that actually engaged in domestic terrorism. Guess who else isn’t on this list. Radical Muslims wouldn’t be considered a threat, would they? Of course not. We wouldn’t want to offend Islam.

So now the federal government is going to be targeting people based on their politics. If you are a rightist, then the government will now have the authority to come after you as a possible domestic terrorist. Yeah, it’s a good thing we got rid of Bush and all of those civil liberties violations. After all, Democrats never brought us anything like Ruby Ridge or Waco. If only Orwell were here to say “I told you so.”

Here it comes. The first salvo fired against the Dollar standard…

China calls for new reserve currency

By Jamil Anderlini in Beijing

Published: March 23 2009 12:16 | Last updated: March 24 2009 00:06

China’s central bank on Monday proposed replacing the US dollar as the international reserve currency with a new global system controlled by the International Monetary Fund.

In an essay posted on the People’s Bank of China’s website, Zhou Xiaochuan, the central bank’s governor, said the goal would be to create a reserve currency “that is disconnected from individual nations and is able to remain stable in the long run, thus removing the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national currencies”

(normally I would snip this here, but FT made me get a subscription. I’ll have twenty spam e-mails a day for months because of this; so screw ‘em..here’s more..

Analysts said the proposal was an indication of Beijing’s fears that actions being taken to save the domestic US economy would have a negative impact on China.

“This is a clear sign that China, as the largest holder of US dollar financial assets, is concerned about the potential inflationary risk of the US Federal Reserve printing money,” said Qu Hongbin, chief China economist for HSBC.

Would I be correct in saying that we are so far in debt to China that saying ‘bugger off’ is out of the question? That the multiple trillions of dollars we’ve printed out of thin air is largely backed by foreign capital? That we are, in fact, so ‘owned’ by the Chinese to such an extent that, with a word, they could push us over the edge to insolvency and collapse? The rest..

To replace the current system, Mr Zhou suggested expanding the role of special drawing rights, which were introduced by the IMF in 1969 to support the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate regime but became less relevant once that collapsed in the 1970s.

Today, the value of SDRs is based on a basket of four currencies – the US dollar, yen, euro and sterling – and they are used largely as a unit of account by the IMF and some other international organisations.

China’s proposal would expand the basket of currencies forming the basis of SDR valuation to all major economies and set up a settlement system between SDRs and other currencies so they could be used in international trade and financial transactions.

Countries would entrust a portion of their SDR reserves to the IMF to manage collectively on their behalf and SDRs would gradually replace existing reserve currencies.

Mr Zhou said the proposal would require “extraordinary political vision and courage” and acknowledged a debt to John Maynard Keynes, who made a similar suggestion in the 1940s.

Keynesian economic. Figures, that totalitarian China would embrace Keynes. Bring on Centralized Planning while you’re at it.

In addition to Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, it’s helpful to read Fredrich Hayek’s The Road to Serdom. From a review at Amazon..

Hayek’s thesis was that central economic planning will inevitably lead to governmental control of every facet of its citizen’s life, and hence toward a totalitarian state. Hayek’s other insightful observations: Nazism, Fascism and communism all have the same roots. In a totalitarian state, it is always the ruthless and the unsophisticated who ascend to the top. Extensive governmental control harms the society not just in delivering dismal economic results, but, more seriously, it produces a psychological change, an alteration in the character of the people.

China’s desire to ‘push us’ over the edge is counterbalanced by their (relatively) new prosperity, their ‘touch of capitalism’. Is that enough to prevent them from joining a mutually assured economic meltdown, if they do seek to topple the dollar, causing our collapse?

Remember, they were Communist long before they became..WalMartitized. Now, they are, what, exactly? Not like us, that’s for sure.

If they do (inadvertently or otherwise) bring down the U.S. economy, then it’s not so far they have to fall to return to their ‘roots’. We’ve much farther, and would enjoy that slide much less.

We’ll see. April 2, the G-20 Summit convenes; these opening salvos by China will certainly be under discussion.

This didn’t get much response over here, so I thought I’d try it out on a hostile crowd:

What’s on your mind? Here’s what’s on mine:

• Are there any prominent liberal bloggers defending Geithner? Is anyone defending Geithner? I’m trying to reserve judgment, but so far he strikes me as Paulson Lite.
• By the end of the month, I’ll know if I’m still employed!
• What’s everyone’s take on the “bonus tax is an unconstitutional bill off attainder” meme that’s infected Right Blogistan?
• Go Badgers!
• I’ve been wondering whether there’s any upside to short and long trading, or if those just exacerbate the trading-as-a-game mentality. Reinstating the uptick rule is a start, but wouldn’t it be better for our 401(k)s and IRAs and the market in general if we simply banned those practices altogether? Allowing such gambling seems to have no broader upside. Either buy the stock, right now, today, at today’s market value, or don’t.
• I’m also thinking that if we don’t ban credit default swaps altogether, we at least need to (a) regulate how much capitalization the seller needs to have to cover those vehicles, and (b) require that the buyer actually own the bond/security against which s/he’s taking out the CDS.
• I’ve been getting a lot of e-mails from environmental groups about the imminent removal of wolves from the endangered species list, but there’s a lot of demagoguery on both sides, and I don’t feel like I can make an informed decision on what to support there. Anyone have a decent, reasonably non-biased source of information about the pros and cons?

Those are my biggies. Otherwise, open thread. Knock yourselves out.

UPDATE, via ObWi:

Via LGM, who got it from Kung Fu Monkey:

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

Ha!

..it’s best to put it in it’s Place.

**

This, from an earlier thought.

OH, and the famous four words.

Can you dig it????

Remember, if Bush was a failure and all of this is his fault, you need to find out what he did, and if you truly look, wearing the lens of reality, you will see that Bush did exactly the same things you all are saying we need to do now, except now you all want to do even more. How unbelievable though, that you all get away with painting this false narrative of Bush the free market-deregulator.

From a Reason Interview with John Stossel:

reason: Let’s take a quick look back at the Bush years. Spending has exploded to historic proportions. Regulations exploded too. Yet people look back on the Bush years and say it’s a failure of free market policies. What do you say to that?

Stossel: I say bullshit. There was no deregulation under Bush. People don’t know that, yet everybody says, “See, your libertarian ideas, they’re wrong and this proves it.” First of all, there was no real deregulation. [The repeal of the Depression-era banking regulation] Glass-Steagall was done under Clinton, and he rightly defends that. Banks that had more options after Glass-Steagall were not the ones that got into trouble. Under Bush, the regulators have added more pages of rules than any administration ever. The cost of regulation has gone up more under Bush than any president before. And yet, because of the bad media coverage and assumptions about Republicans, people think it as
laissez-faire.

I’m sure there are some people at regulatory agencies—at least I hope there were—who said, “You know, a lot of these rules are bad and we’re going to be less aggressive about them under Bush.” But that’s not what caused this bubble. The bubble was the government saying: “Lend more, lend more. You’re discriminating against poor people; you’re racist. Lend to more people.” That’s not deregulation.

…, here is your guy. He’s just the type of grownup with executive experience we need to rescue us from the irresponsible teenagers in charge now.

Joe Niocera has said almost everything that needs to be said, in an article published today in the New York Times. We have spent the last week raising Holy Hell over 1/1000 of the money that the federal government loaned to AIG. Talk radio host Ralph Bristol put it best when he said, “Imagine the government took ten dollars out of your pocket to give to someone else, and you became upset over how that ’someone else’ spent a penny”. Think about that. The public, the media, and our idiotic populist politicians, have spent a whole week raising hell over the penny, not the $9.99.

Not only should that $9.99 be the subject of conversation, but so should every other cent our government has printed, borrowed, and flushed down the toilet in the last six months. As Charles Krauthammer put it “A $14 trillion economy hangs by a thread composed of (a) a comically cynical, pitchfork-wielding Congress, (b) a hopelessly understaffed, stumbling Obama administration, and (c) $165 million”. I am thirty nine years old, and have followed politics from the time I was old enough to mutter “Carter sucks”, and I have never seen a time as dark and incredibly stupid as this one. We have become a nation of morons, stupid idiotic morons.

Niocera very eloquently points out in his article, how bankruptcy would have prevented these executives from getting these full bonuses, and how bankruptcy would have prevented the banks AIG funneled money to, banks like Goldman Sachs, where former Treasury Secretary Paulson came from, from getting 100 cents on the dollar. Good grief people, wake the hell up. Get your heads out of your emotional asses. WE GOT SNOOKERED!

AIG did not need to be bailed out folks. The 700 billion did not need to be spent. Rather than stand outside and call for the heads of those who split up the penny, why don’t we send the one’s responsible for robbing the $9.99 to the political guillotine? I am talking about Paulson, Bernanke, Geithner and all of the politicians, including Bush, McCain, Obama, and every Congressman, who went along with this nonsense.

But no, our government, which is nothing but a collection of thieves, has succeeded once again at diverting your anger from them to private enterprise. Lenin must be looking up from hell right now, with a big ole smile on his face.

One more thing people, stop referring to these millions as “taxpayer money”. It isn’t taxpayer money. It might have been taxpayer money at one time, but once it leaves the hand of the taxpayer and makes it’s way to the Treasury, it becomes government money. So don’t let them get away with calling it taxpayer money. Call it something else. Hell, call it Chinese money. That might be more accurate actually. But it ain’t my money. My money, what little I have left, is in my pocket. Of course, before long they’ll probably be coming for that too.