Anybody But Santorum

Oh, the perils of the times we live in.  We have Mitt Romney, a Big Government activist trying to lie to us about his conservative bona fides.  This forces the rest of us to pick the "Not-Romney" and it seems that by the process of elimination we are left with Rick Santorum.  Oh my God!!!  Santorum has been described as a Mike Huckabee without the humor.  You might remember Huckabee as the man who wanted to rewrite the Constitution to be more in line with the Bible.  Santorum is a man who says that he actively dislikes libertarianism because it allows too much freedom for individuals to do what they want instead of what he wants.  I cannot support anyone who seeks such control over other people's lives, and will not support him if he gets the nomination.
But in reading the above link, it referenced an interview that Ronald Reagan gave to Reason Magazine in 1975.  You should read it for the breathtaking insight from 37 years ago that is still so appropriate today.
Anyway, in the battle for who is the true conservative, neither Mitt nor Rick are anywhere close.  But I am beginning to think that I would rather have the malleable Mitt over the restrictive Rick.

The Gospel According to St. Barak

St. Barak (p.b.u.h), Slayer of the lesser Satan Osama bin Laden with his own bare hands, Halter of the Rise of the Oceans, Healer of the Planet and Defender of the Faith in Big Government, was sorely vexed.  For he had looked into the future and realized that the Rubes were not coming round to him after all of his Good Works.  After all, had He not used his Stimulus and takeover of the car companies to properly reward His acolytes in the Democrat Party?  Did He not orchestrate the passage of the Blessed ObamaCare for the benefit of AARP?  Did He not reward the money changers in the Temple of Goldman Sachs with his Dodd-Frank bill?  And after all of these Good Works, still, His poll numbers were in the tank.
"This is all the fault of the Greater Satan -those republicans" announced St. Barak.  They have stood in the way of My Will to perform Great Deeds and render a permanent Democrat Majority Ruling Party as it is Written.  So, St. Barak consulted with his Twin Brother, Jesus Christ (in the form of the blessed David Axelrod) and asked, "What more do these peasants want from Me?"  And Jesus Axelrod did reply "Lord, they are Bitter Clingers who clutch their guns and Bibles and ignore Your Blessed Will."  "You must therefore coopt their religion against them in order to fool, er, I mean show them the One True Way." "You must tell them that their beloved Jesus Christ (even though this is heresy in the religion of St. Barak) would have demanded higher tax rates, for while they should render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God, that which is God's. there is no Caesar any longer, and there is no God but You."
And St. Barak looked down on Axelrod and said "It is true, My will can be foisted off on the rubes because they are simple and ignorant and believe in silly Sky Gods."  "I shall announce that Jesus did not have the advantages of the Blessed Script of the Holy Tax Code, and that is why he did not call for higher taxes."  But if he had our Blessed Script, he would have realized that it is God's Will that Solyndra and other Green Energy programs are the best way to funnel money to My backers, as it is their right and due."  Further, sayeth St. Barak "And I shall declare as demons, all those who oppose me, whether they are the Greater Satans of republicans or Satans own spawn the Tea Partiers,"  "It shall be heresy to oppose the Holy Democrat Party from henceforth, punishable by excommunication and the seizure of their wealth for the good of the Party, er, I mean the People."  "Further sayeth St. Barak, "That treating the poor is not to be allowed to individuals, but shall only be done through the offices of the Blessed Federal Government, to whom all owe both fealty and their wealth, except for the Holy Democrat Party Believers, who shall be exempt from the wealth confiscation."  And St. Barak saw all that He had done, and He said that it was Good.

And the angels of Heaven opened up with some Al Green to celebrate the Immaculation of St. Barak.

Why D.C. Should Never Be Granted Statehood

Beside the whole Constitutional thing about you can't create a state out of another state (and the District is carved our of Maryland)there is another good reason that D.C. should never be given statehood. Take a look at the top states for Obama's approval where his is at 50% or more:



Thanks to Don Surber

81.1% approval?  Are you kidding me?  Even his own home state of Illinois only has him at 50.4% approval.  I have always suspected that there must be hallucinogens in the water there.  This seems to be proof.

Either They Think We Are Stupid, Or They Are

Let's face it, hypocrisy is the greatest strength of the Left. Undeterred by conscience they can say the stupidest things. Like Chris Matthews saying

he never saw hate-speech protest signs directed at former President George W. Bush — only at President Obama.

Really? Do you think he honestly believes that? If so, let me refresh his memory:

Thanks to Zomblog.

Next time someone like a Bob Beckel or anyone else on the Left complains about how Obama is being treated go ahead and call them a liar. Because they are.

ON RON PAUL’S LIBERTARIAN FOREIGN POLICY

I have to admire Cong. Ron Paul and his bid for the Republican nomination in that he is without a doubt among politicians of all stripes the most sincere in his core beliefs, many of which I share. Like him, I consider myself a libertarian who believes in minimal government in order to promote individual sovereignty and dignity. But I differ from him in how I understand libertarian philosophy deals with our international relations.
I became a libertarian after considering it to be the best economic, political and moral theory. Every day, libertarians are presented with examples of the failures of government both large and small, and still there are those who believe that a big problem requires a big government solution even absent of any evidence in support. Our collective “Wars” on poverty, drugs, obesity and cancer, etc. have not yielded much to be heralded, and yet still we persist. The evidence of the awareness of the failure of government is what I attribute Ron Paul’s continued and steady growth in popularity. But it is in the area of foreign policy that I think Cong. Paul is not so much libertarian as he is an older, much more insidious form of Americanism, and that is the Isolationist.
Many Republicans consider Cong. Paul to be unelectable because of his assertion that America is responsible for the 9-11 attacks by homicidal maniacs.

At a campaign stop on Saturday in Winterset, one man asked Paul how terrorist groups would react if the U.S. removed its military presence in Middle Eastern nations, a move the candidate advocates.

“Which enemy are you worried that will attack our national security?” Paul asked.

“If you’re looking for specifics, I’m talking about Islam. Radical Islam,” the man answered.

“I don’t see Islam as our enemy,” Paul said. “I see that motivation is occupation and those who hate us and would like to kill us, they are motivated by our invasion of their land, the support of their dictators that they hate.”

Regarding 9/11, Paul said that attacks against the U.S. from Middle Eastern groups at home and abroad can be traced to the foreign presence of U.S. troops, as well as America’s relationships with dictator regimes.

Paul referred to a military base in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, as a key motivator in the Sept. 11th attacks. Osama bin Laden viewed it as an American desecration of holy land.

“After 9/11, (people said) ‘Oh yeah, it’s those very bad people who hate us,’ but 15 of (the hijackers) came from Saudi Arabia,” said Paul. “One of the reasons they attacked us, is we propped up this Sharia government and the fundamentalists hated us for it.”

Maybe Paul is correct that without our presence in Saudi Arabia, there never would have been the attacks. But if you look more closely at it, this is still an assertion which is contra-factual. Countries, like neighbors, can freely enter into mutually beneficial agreements. In this case, after the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein the Saudi government invited the US in to help protect their kingdom. If we had said no, what would have been the ultimate result? More than likely a Middle East dominated by a murderous megalomaniacal dictator, raping and pillaging as he felt without any consequences. Osama bin Laden may have offered up his jihadist mujahadeen to defend the kingdom, but while good for the publicity (a new Defender of the Holy Sites) they would have not been successful in containing the Iraqi Army as it moved south. Their lightly armed fighters would have been swept away in much the same way that the Kuwaiti Army was in August 1990.
How is it not libertarian in principle to aid your neighbor? If anything, it is the basis for the moral philosophy which leads each of us to assist as we can without the demand from some other force that we "contribute" to our neighbor.
Even setting aside the First Gulf War, if that wasn't the reason for OBL to attack the US there would have been others: Defense of Israel, or at least provision of aid, and if we had no presence in the Middle East, it would have been our "decadent lifestyle" that allows women to be full participants in our society instead of submitting to the will of their male relatives or husbands. Or our tolerance of other religions, homosexuality, bacon, or whatever. I suppose that the only solution that would have prevented the attacks on 9-11 would have been for the US to adopt Sharia law and disregard the Constitution. I am not willing to concede that this would be considered to be libertarian foreign policy. Instead it is the politics of the pacifist which is simply surrender.
Another complaint is our involvement in the defense of countries like Germany and South Korea that have the ability to defend themselves means that we should not maintain a presence there. It certainly is attractive in the case of Germany. As a young officer, I arrived in Germany in 1980, just 35 years after the end of the Second World War and observed it to be one very large armed camp. I think at the time, we had more American troops stationed in Germany than France had under arms in total. We were facing, as we jokingly called it, the Third Soviet Mongol Horde across the border from us. In a country the size of Ohio, the Soviets had over 250 frontline divisions waiting for the order to roll west to the Channel. Further east, there were multiples of even more divisions/Guards Armies stretching from Poland all the way to the Urals. Luckily for us, the Soviets believed their own propaganda about the inevitability of the coming Socialist Revolution and never launched the invasion.
Now that the Soviets are gone, Germany no longer needs our troops to defend them and our interests in Europe. And we are in the process of drawing down, going from more than two corps to just two brigades, hardly any force necessary to protect our NATO ally from invasion. But the presence of the two brigades is a statement that the US has an interest and commitment to our treaty allies. It is also one third of the world closer to any trouble than having the brigades stationed in America. These two brigades reaffirm that the United States is not withdrawing behind our oceans and ignoring the world.
South Korea is different because it still is a hot spot and potential for conflict. The dirty little secret about our troops on the Korean peninsula is that they are really just hostages. At 20,000 strong, they are no match for the million man army of the North Koreans. Nor could our forces do anything about the thousands of artillery tubes that are dug into mountains but within range of Seoul that would bring terror and destruction on our ally. But our presence sends a message to the Norks that we will not tolerate them killing Americans in their homicidal attempt to “reunify” the peninsula. At a cost of one division, we have prevented an outbreak of the war that is only in a cease fire for the last 50 years. A pretty reasonable price considering the potential for human tragedy that would result from an invasion.
Other forces are arrayed around the world, but only in limited numbers, usually involved in training of local forces. This is a low cost way to protect our national interests in stability of those countries, while at the same time hoping to instill the professionalism and respect for human rights that we promote. Since we are not imposing our will, but instead acting on the invitation of the host countries, we have the ability to promote the dignity of the individual for very low cost. That certainly would be a libertarian principle.
How about Cong. Paul's assertion that we have been entering into wars without having Congress declare them? This would strike a pure Constitutionalist as a valid complaint. But what if it isn't? Did Thomas Jefferson, who was closer to the understanding of the Founders declare war on the Barbary Pirates? Did he act unconstitutionally, or did he act within his understanding of what "declaring war" actually means? To declare war is to put the full weight of the nation behind an effort to destroy another nation's military or domestic/foreign policy that we find to be in our national interests. We have declared war only a few times, the last being the Second World War when war was thrust upon us because of our desire to be left alone. However, we have engaged in the Korean War as a duty of our treaty obligations with the United Nations, the Viet Nam War as a result of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, the first Gulf War after consent of Congress as well as the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq which were also voted on and approved by Congress. While technically not a declaration of war, the fact that these wars were approved by Congress means that the complaint is a distinction without a difference.
Since WWII, we have attacked other countries without a congressional authorization, such as Grenada, Panama and most recently Libya. However, in each of these cases the Congress was consulted at the least, and the leadership of both houses would have had the ability to enter laws forbidding the expenditure of funds in support thereof. Instead Congress went along, whether complicit or abdicating their responsibility, they gave their approval.
Finally, I wonder if Cong. Paul understands what would happen if there is no US military and what the effect would be on the world? One example would be our Libyan misadventure where we "led from behind." Providing only intelligence and logistic support, we watched as an uprising became bloodier and longer than it probably would have if we had been more active in our assistance to the rebels. This is what I mean by isolationism being a detriment to libertarian principles. By our failure to act, more people died than would have if we had acted. For each of those deaths, what is the dollar amount that we can proudly point to and say that is a "libertarian" savings by not being involved?
Let's face it, we are the de facto policeman whether we want to be or not, because we are the only country capable of doing what we do and doing it in the interests of human rights. And human rights are what I understand libertarianism to be about. We should never be so selfish as to deny others that right to their inalienable rights because it costs too much should we?

What Really Happened in the Gingrich Ethics Case?

Romney has been bringing up the fact that Gingrich was expelled from his leadership position based on ethics complaints, and yesterday Nanny Pelosi was grinning from ear to ear about how she could prevent Newt from becoming President based on the investigation. Because I am old, I remembered that there were something like 67 allegations but only one or two that stuck, and considered doing the research to write about what actually did happen then.
Luckily, Byron York did it for me. Read the whole thing for a shameless political hit job to find out what it was that he was guilty of and had to pay a $300,000 fine.
And people wonder why he goes after the "news" moderators for their stupid questions.

Watching the SOTU

Having been distracted by the Republican race, I had almost forgotten about Obama but tonight reinforced my feelings about the man. I am beginning to loathe him.
Not to the level of Bush hatred that my friends on the Left have nurtured for the last 12 years, but just a general disgust with everything about him. But that's okay, I figure that this is his last SOTU.
My prediction is that Obama's approval ratings will continue to slide toward Jimmy Carter levels the more he campaigns. In fact, I think the only way that Obama can be re-elected is to have the DNC kidnap him and keep him sequestered until after the first Tuesday in November.
Whoever the Republicans nominate, I know that they will be a significant improvement (sure, it's a low standard) and will help to restore sanity to this country.

Herman Cain - Why did you leave??!!!!!

A Glossary for the SOTU

Winston Churchill once said that the American and British peoples were two great nations separated by a common language. In American Politics today, we don't even have a common language anymore. So, in that vein, I present a glossary for understanding the State of the Union Address set for tonight.

Bipartisanship – Do it the Democrat’s way. See Obstruction

Dangerous – Used in conjunction with the Tea Party, this means people who don’t want to spend more than we take in.

Dissent – The highest form of patriotism, so long as it is a Republican President. Otherwise see Racism.

Do Nothing Congress Those members of Congress who are Republicans.

Domestic Energy Program – Stopping the production of energy in this country.

Drastic Cuts – Trying to slow the rate of growth in federal spending to less than twice the rate of inflation.

Ending Medicare As We Know It – Trying to keep the program solvent, instead of just letting it die on its own in seven years when it goes broke.

Fair share – Tax increases. The notion that paying more than anyone else means you are not paying enough.

Green Economy – See Green Energy.

Green Energy – A system whereby tax dollars are funded to campaign donors. Also known as payback.

Jobs Program – Taking money from one group (tax payers) to give to another (unions) to be given to a still third party (Democrats).

Keystone Pipeline – A twofer, it gives oil to China while using Warren Buffet’s Burlington Northern, and at the same time raises the price of gas at home.

Millions of Jobs Saved or Created – A totally made up number that has no relationship to anyone who is out of a job.

Obstruction – Not doing it the Democrat’s way. See Bipartisanship.

Racism – Any complaint about this President’s policies.

Radical Right – Although it appears to be an adjective, in this case it is really an empty fill word.

Republicans Want to Pollute the Air and Poison the Water – A tool to stop all economic activity.

Smart Foreign Policy – Surrender.