Monthly Archives: January 2011

By Judge Vinson, the federal judge in Florida who hoisted Obamacare by its own petard. Via Volokh:

[T]here are lots of markets — especially if defined broadly enough — that people cannot “opt out” of. For example, everyone must participate in the food market. Instead of attempting to control wheat supply by regulating the acreage and amount of wheat a farmer could grow as in Wickard, under this logic, Congress could more directly raise too low wheat prices merely by increasing demand through mandating that every adult purchase and consume wheat bread daily, rationalized on the grounds that because everyone must participate in the market for food, non-consumers of wheat bread adversely affect prices in the wheat market. Or, as was discussed during oral argument, Congress could require that people buy and consume broccoli at regular intervals, not only because the required purchases will positively impact interstate commerce, but also because people who eat healthier tend to be healthier, and are thus more productive and put less of a strain on the health care system. Similarly, because virtually no one can be divorced from the transportation market, Congress could require that everyone above a certain income threshold buy a General Motors automobile — now partially government-owned — because those who do not buy GM cars (or those who buy foreign cars) are adversely impacting commerce and a taxpayer-subsidized business….

By Sen. Schumer (D), who accurately believes there are three branches of federal government, and wrongly believes they are the Senate, House, and President. In fact they are the Legislative (comprised of the House and the Senate), the Executive, and the Judicial (that’s the federal courts, Chuck) branches.

Here:

If a Democrat complains about a bad day at the DMV, nobody claims he deserves it because he wants the regulations that make the DMV inevitable. But let a libertarian send a letter through the U.S. Postal Service and he’s fricking Tartuffe. It’s a goofy game, but you can see why it’s so tempting to play, given that libertarians have such a stranglehold on foreign policy, drug prohibition, financial regulation, health care, and so many areas of public policy.

Good read (and blog – potentially Magna Cum Blogroll worthy) here:

The skepticism beyond the Beltway about whether Washington is just one big Love-In certainly gets fed by the sight – as conveyed by the press pool report – of reporters like ABC’s Jake Tapper, NBC’s Chuck Todd, National Journal’s Major Garrett, and John Harwood of CNBC and the New York Times emerging from a bash with the president that was held to toast his chief political fixer and leading spinmeister.

I understand why reporters would do this – other than the admittedly pathetic notion that, gosh, it’s fun to party with the president of the United States! It is pretty good for building sources and getting inside dope. But man, it ain’t easy smacking the White House with tough stories all the time if you’re getting invited to their exclusive parties, now is it?

Also on hand were Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and Energy Secretary Steven Chu. The party was at the Washington residence of Linda Douglass, the former hard-hitting ABC reporter who dropped out of journalism to spin the health care bill out of the White House. She’s now a VP at Atlantic Media.

So we have an official with a journalism outfit – Atlantic Media – HOSTING a party for the president and his consigliere.

Mrs. Obama stayed home. Good for her. Maybe she was monitoring the situation in Egypt.

Excellent interview below with a dynamic father-daughter duo actively working to advance individual freedom worldwide. You’ve read about (father) Ken and (daughter) (Kenli) Schoolland at DuelingBarstools before. Now hear them again, this time discussing, among other things, the inspiration for The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible: a Free Market Odyssey, which you should read and share.

Via twitter I came across this link with excellent, though gruesome, images of the protests in Egypt. For what it’s worth, I sincerely hope the protesters succeed in establishing a democratic republic that represents a dramatic increase in the amount of individual liberty for every Egyptian.

I skimmed through the comments on the blog, which included comments left in Arabic, Mandarin (I think), Spanish, and English. One comment caught my eye because of it’s mind numbing douchyness:

“Down the US imperialist tyranny!!!”

You know many of us support you. Most of us. We the people of the US are not our government or its policies.

We happen to live here, and don’t agree with how out government runs.

Don’t hate us all. It does no good.

I hope nothing but positive outcome for your people.

I have nothing else to say.

Such generic rhetoric was par for the much of the progressive course during the Bush administration. I didn’t see so much of it, however, during the first two years of the Obama administration. Indeed, others have noted that the anti-war movement has greatly subsided since Obama took office, notwithstanding 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan (no end in sight there, either), Gitmo still being open for business (and resuming military tribunals for detainees), Obama expanding the use of Bagram for the same reason Bush used Gitmo, over 50,000 combat troops in harms way in Iraq (regardless of whether the administration refers to them as such), doubt surrounding President Obama’s promise to be out of Iraq by 2012, and, representing perhaps the biggest stunner of all, Glenn Greenwald observing that Obama has for all intents and purposes “vindicated” Dick Cheney.

So the dimwitted commenter – an apparent dupe of “critical” theory, which essentially recommends you “look at a subject, determine the conclusion you want to reach, and manipulate the data accordingly” – who would have not been worth mentioning during the Bush administration is noteworthy during the Obama administration because it’s been a lot less common on the left since Obama was elected. If there was any doubt left as to whether Obama’s honeymoon with useful idiots such as the aforementioned commenter was over, I think it is.

File this in “Things that, in November 2008, I never thought I’d write. Ever.”

Judge Napolitano is being kind enough to let Huckabee on his show tonight to discuss “God, Children, and the freedom of a nation.” My kneejerk reaction?

I’m pretty sure Huckabee is perfectly fine with state indoctrination so long as it reflects his partisan, ideological, and religious, points of view. In true Party fashion he mistakes freedom for the exercise of state power over others. Tear him a new asshole, Judge.

Mickey Kaus consistently applies his own philosophy to his party’s ideological beliefs. I’ve been a loyal reader of his for a while now. Here’s Kaus taking Megan McArdle (aka voice of reason at the Atlantic) to task for giving far too much deference to Obama’s blathering about problems for which he has no solutions. Indeed, government is at the root of those problems, and you don’t have to sharpen Occam’s fucking razor to figure out that more government isn’t going to solve them.

1) The dude just sold us an expensive universal health care program on the grounds that it was really a program of deficit-cutting entitlement reform (because it would “bend” the health care cost curve)! Now that it’s time for real deficit-cutting entitlement reform instead of fake reform, he throws up his hands and says “Sorry, can’t be done. I’ll just tread water for a while.”

2) Why can’t it be done? Largely because of opposition in his own party. Even if Obama ultimately failed at, say, promoting a gradual increase in the Social Security retirement age, or means-testing benefits—or simply explaining that actually we really will need to get more revenue from somewhere to pay for universal health care—he could help educate Democrats and soften them up for what will probably be a necessity coming down the road. That would be a patriotic service even if he’s not the person down the road who cuts the deal. But it might cost him some 2012 votes—especially since, by explaining the need to fund health care, he’d embarrassingly undercut the bogus sales pitch Democrats just made when they pretended passing the health care bill was a painless long-term “curve-bender.”

3) Is there nothing Obama could actually achieve that would at least diminish the deficit problem, even if it didn’t solve the problem? Tinker with the cost-of-living increases of the rich? Raise the ceiling on the payroll tax by another $100,000?

4) What is the duty of a CEO anyway? McArdle acts as if GM’s Rick Wagoner did nothing wrong by talking up his company even if he knew it was sliding toward bankruptcy. After all, the “stakeholders” (e.g., the UAW) weren’t “quite ready” for the solutions! But if that is the situation, isn’t it the duty of the CEO to sound the alarm and resign or threaten to resign? (Some of Wagoner’s “stakeholders” —his shareholders— got creamed as the result of his inaction, don’t forget.) In parliamentary systems there is a tradition of leaders resigning if their own party refuses to reform. I remember Felipe Gonzalez of Spain doing this when his Socialist Workers Party wouldn’t abandon Marxism. The party caved and Gonzalez was subsequently returned to power and elected prime minister for four terms. Obama’s foremost duty isn’t to do nothing that might jeapordize his own election.

Nor would sounding the alarm itself seem likely to ”trigger” a credit crisis. Are the credit markets that dumb? I would think they’d welcome a sign that an American leader was facing reality and at least preparing his electorate for action.

P.S.: And if Obama were to lose … well, he’s a relatively young man. He could run again. In the meantime a Republican President might actually fix the budget problem and make the country’s finances safe for the Democrats. …

Mr. Kaus has a LOT more faith in the GOP than yours truly. For Kaus’ theory to hold up it would require a principled fiscal conservatives such as … Gary Johnson, who unfortunately are in short supply.

P.P.S.: Maybe Obama is just picking and choosing his battles. Having just run for office as a Democrat on a platform of opposing union power and opposing immigrant amnesty, I’m acutely aware of the need for politicians to limit the number of issues on which they will cross their base. Obama may be thinking “I’m going to annoy a lot of my labor people with my education initiatives, which the teachers’ unions hate. It would be too much to also pick a fight over Social Security.” Clinton may have made a similar calculation when he conspicuously chose not to challenge affirmative action while he was also reforming welfare.

But Obama’s situation isn’t the same as Clinton’s. Clinton had handed his party a huge bitter pill on welfare (after softening it up in advance, during the 1992 campaign). Obama’s just given his base a huge victory on health care. He doesn’t owe them. They owe him. And is his education initiative such a big deal that it justifies letting the nation drift into financial crisis? Maybe if it were bolder. But it isn’t. If a few billion in anti-union ”race to the top” grants is the full extent to which Obama thinks he can challenge his base, then he’s too captive of his base … (Hmm. Where else might he need to cross his base big-time? Afghanistan. Maybe he knows something about the lack of progress in the war that we don’t.) … 6:57 p.m.

In which Taliban “fighters” attempt to stone to death a woman who fled from an arranged marriage as well as the man she fled to be with.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid defended the stoning.

He told the BBC: ‘Anyone who knows about Islam knows that stoning is in the Koran, and that it is Islamic law.

‘There are people who call it inhuman – but in doing so they insult the Prophet. They want to bring foreign thinking to this country.’

Add DuelingBarstools to the list of people who call it inhuman.

by Alex Fidel

Obama has smoked pot (and inhaled) in his life, yet in his position of power does not support legalization. Do I need to say anything more than that to demonstrate his hypocrisy? No. He’s a progressive. Progressives like big government, even in liberal issues like drugs, war, and marriage.

You should read this article by Mark Steyn. Ending below:

Thus, in the Netherlands, Islam’s critics are also “extreme right-wing” racists” – if by “extreme”, “right-wing” and “racist” you mean gay hedonists (Pim Fortuyn), anti-monarchist coke-snorting nihilists (Theo van Gogh) and liberal black feminists (Ayaan Hirsi Ali). Whichever of these novel permutations of “right-wing” you fall into, you wind up either on trial (Nekschot, Wilders), forced into exile (Miss Ali) or pushing up tulips (Fortuyn, van Gogh). By comparison, my comrades in Copenhagen had suffered mildly, yet were on the same grim trajectory: for failing to understand the de facto and increasingly de jure protections afforded Islam, they had been variously arrested, subjected to death threats, had homes firebombed and a family restaurant shot up. And in the final indignity they’d wound up sharing a stage with me because their leftie pals weren’t there for them. All your liberal friends who went to the Amnesty and PEN fundraisers and bored the pants off you with that bit of apocryphal Voltaire – “I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it” - stayed utterly silent. As Molly Norris discovered in Seattle. C’mon, nobody’s asking you to defend anyone to the death. A mildly principled fax would do.

That is why the Lars Hedegaard trial matters. The zombie husks who lead the western world in twilight pass off their groveling prostration as a defense of “multicultural tolerance”. It’s not. It’s the Pansy Left (in Orwell’s phrase) auditioning to be Islam’s lead prison bitch (that’s mine, not Orwell’s). In the same way that the left embarked on its long march through the institutions, so too has Islam. Its Gramscian subversion of transnational bodies, international finance, human rights institutions, the academy and the justice system is well advanced.

You can read Lars Hedegaard’s full statement in court below, including the words he quoted from John Milton:

“Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.”

Milton would understand: This trial shames Denmark. If Lars Hedegaard is convicted, another light in Europe will have been extinguished, and the remainder will follow, very fast. In their folly, the multiculti enforcers are setting the stage for great violence, and a descent into barbarism.

Regrettably I don’t know enough about the current level of instability in Egypt to understand what’s being rioted about. Someone on twitter called it Egypt’s “Tianamen” moment. I dunno about that, but let’s hope.

In case you’re not aware, for the last three years the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) has put on a live fight dedicated to raising money and awareness for the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund. Marinate on that for a second – the UFC puts on a live fight card – this year, from Fort Hood, Texas – to raise money and awareness for PTSD and other maladies affecting America’s volunteer military, which in spite of trillions in annual spending Congress fails to adequately provide for.

Needless to say, the “major sports” leagues could take a fucking lesson, as UFC President Dana White might say. El DuelingBarstools made a donation in memory of a friend of mine and Navy Seal who is no longer with us. Rest in Peace, KP. Donate HERE. Give what you can.

Via the Dialectical Playa I find this excellent three minute action film named 3 Minutes. Several sequels are rumored. I don’t know how these guys got paid, but I’d pay for this kind of content on the Internet.

It would be foolish not to read the entirety of this article. Click the link. Enjoy the devastating commentary of Charles Krauthammer.

by Alex Fidel

So the US Department of Agriculture is responsible for the massive/mysterious bird deaths. For real, this isn’t some wacko Alex Jones thing. They left out poison bait to protect some farmer’s animal feed:

Inhabitants in Yankton were surprised when they found hundreds of starlings lying frozen on the streets and in the city’s Riverside Park, MSNBC reported. Some people thought the birds had simply left it too late to fly south for the winter.

Now, the USDA says it set out poisoned bait for the birds after a local farmer complained that they were defecating in his animal feed.

Well, all the more reason to abolish the USDA and save taxpayers lots of money. Oh and protect birds too, I guess…

I’ve written a lot about taxi cabs as well as cab owners and drivers because I have tremendous respect for them. Cab drivers are among the hardest of working entrepreneurs. Moreover, they’re willing to risk relatively large amounts of capital for relatively little profit. For instance, in San Diego it costs $100k for a cab medallion – if you can get one – and an extra $70k for the privilege of picking people up at the airport. As of 2009 there were 993 licenses cabs. Additional costs include annual licensing fees, cost of a car, insurance, cell phone, gas, and maintenance. On top of that, many cabs pay to be included on a dispatch service. It’s a tough business, and we should all be thankful that there’s people industrious enough to take on the risks and challenges it presents so we can basically get anywhere we want to go on command. You’re looking at an up front cost of $200k just for the license to be able to transport people for profit. Oh, and you can’t set your own prices. Cab drivers, DuelingBarstools salutes you.

Duelingbarstools contributor Occimatic, who is a close friend of mine, lives in Honolulu. He took a cab home from work the other night and recorded his conversation with the cab driver, Ben Do. The video is embedded below. Listen to the audio. No further introduction is necessary. Take it away, Ben:

by Alex Fidel

Pension bubbles are about to burst. CA Gov. Jerry Brown declares a fiscal emergency, saying that he will need to raise taxes (bad) and cut spending (good). Unfortunately, the cuts do not touch pensions since they are obligated by law. The state will soon need to jump through hoops in order to meet these obligations, since the pensions are very underfunded (because they were overpromised).

One way they could help fund these unfunded liabilities is to lease or sell off wildlife preservation lands owned by the state government. That would mean putting those poor endangered species/habitats in danger, since it could be used for productive purposes. Best case scenario, it could become a fee-based public park, but still littering and ignorance of preservation/conservation by people who would attend these parks might do damage to an endangered species. Worse, these lands could become retail environments.

The unintended consequences of liberals’ advocating massive state spending will to lead the state selling these lands to fill their contractual obligations. State spending leads to many new programs, new programs leads to new agencies, new agencies leads to new state employees. Unfortunately, agencies are not run like businesses, so they overpay their workers beyond what is worth the value of their labor, and also beyond what is sustainable. Not to mention that they hire more than what is needed. Thus, you have this pension crisis.

So, if you are a liberal (I would also ask how you found out about this blog ), the next time you consider spending increases, consider this- public sector unions don’t care about their workers. They just care about power and leverage. They promised their workers pensions that aren’t even 100% funded- when they protest, they’re protesting for money that isn’t even there, and never will be. They are putting the state into a fiscal hole, which will require state legislators to take drastic measures. They can either a) grow a pair, and cut government where it needs to be in a common-sense business way, ala Gary Johnson, which would actually improve services by reducing inefficient agencies, programs, and the bloated defined benefits that go along with their employees, etc, or b) cut out of education without touching teachers and other edu-employees defined benefit plans, raise taxes, and yes, sell off lands, including environmental preserves, which liberals care oh-so-much about.

Oh, and before you throw an ad hominem/strawman my way saying I want state workers to work for ’slave wages,’ I’m not against employees having benefits. They just have to be affordable and sustainable (100% funded from the getgo if it is defined rather than a pay-in). As per public sector wages/benefits, let’s tie it to average private sector wages/benefits. That way, they’ll lobby state legislators to pursue policies that grow the private sector, rather than diminish it. It’s a pipe dream, but hey, it’ll certainly make CA more business friendly.

The point I’m driving at is that the state can still offer basic services like police, fire, etc. at all the same efficacy but at a much, much lower price tag. Gary Johnson did it in New Mexico, and I hope he gets the chance to do it for the whole country.

*This post inspired by Damon Root on yesterday’s episode of Judge Nap’s Freedom Watch when he talked about state governments having to sell of these wildlife preserves.

A commenter on a facebook discussion page I’m part of linked to this daily Kos article and asked for thoughts on this comment:

Keith’s Countdown has been one of the last bastions of informed opinion & passionately progressive voices on American TV. Rachel has given the cable punditocracy a well-needed intelligence injection, teaching us once again what solid journalism & unrelentingly-tough, substance-based interviews look like.

My thoughts:

Without Sarah Palin to kick around Olberman probably would have been off of the air in 2009. With regard to the commenter, he/she abuses hyphens and it’s annoying. “Informed opinion” is a subjective standard, and use of it in regard to Olberman simply says that the commenter agrees with Olberman’s opinion. Olberman is vitriolic, not passionate. The commenter’s professed faith in previously failed, inherently coercive principles espoused by people who fail to explain why this time will be different or how they’ll overcome the principle of scarcity, also known as progressives, is evidenced by the commenter’s belief that Maddow supplies “intelligence injections.” In short, he/she is a loyal member of the Party, and only time will tell how long he/she’ll believe that the pain of the boot, which he faithfully supports and which is stamping on his face, is joy.

The host of the Gary Johnson interview I linked to earlier today asked an interesting question (@4:28): “As President Johnson, how are you going to know who’s ass to kick?”

Johnson initially declined to answer the hypothetical. He’s not inclined to bullshit, and though the question was funny and seemingly important, it wasn’t well thought out. The answer is obvious and common to us all. Gary Johnson will know who’s ass to kick the same way he’s ever known who’s ass to kick. The better question is what knowledge, experience, and skill does Gary Johnson possess that enables him to “know who’s ass to kick?” That’s what we want to know about him.

To be fair, most politicians would love the interviewer’s first question. It’s the ultimate softball. Pick the hypothetical straw man argument of your choice and burn it down from the ultimate bully pulpit – the hypothetical presidency. (If only I could get off this barstool and into the Oval Office, asses I would be kicking! Kicking I say!)

In other words, it’s the perfect question for mental masturbators, such as most politicians, pundits, and some drinkers. A lot of people would begin by reciting their occupation and laurels, which suggests, but is not conclusive, that they possess whatever minimum level of competency their listener subjectively expects of such a person. That’s not a great answer, though, because we all know there’s a lot of highly educated dummies and shitty lawyers.

But the interviewer pressed Gary Johnson, good-naturedly, and rephrased his question: “As commander in chief, how would you know who’s ass to kick?”

That’s the right question. Johnson replied (and you should watch it to hear his tone):

“Well, it gets back to resume. What have any of us done with our lives? I’ve been fortunate to have employed a lot of people in my life. I’ve been fortunate enough to have a good sense of hiring good people, and good sense to determine which people aren’t doing their jobs, and perhaps for whatever reason someone else needs to be doing that job.”

That’s the plain speak of self-made entrepreneurs. Gary Johnson’s answer was basically that he knows how to identify talent and when to fire it, which is the extent of the personal ass kicking Presidents should perform. Though he said he’s been “fortunate” to have good sense about people, the truth is that he built a 1,000 employee construction and mechanical services company from the ground up. Never forget, Gary Johnson is from the private sector, where they expect results. He has the qualities common to successful entrepreneurs and executives. Among them, critical thinking ability, a knack for talent, a penchant for efficient risk taking, and above all common sense.

It shouldn’t surprise you, then, that Gary Johnson advocates for a common sense, business approach to Constitutionally limited, fiscally accountable government, and can point to his record as governor of New Mexico to prove it. His political compass points to individual freedom, and he doesn’t shy from what he believes for fear criticism. In fact, he’ll gladly accept an invitation to address a known hostile crowd, such as he did here, where a portion of a major Tea Party rally had obviously not yet applied Johnson’s message of limited government and freedom, for which they had previously cheered, to their partisan or ideological beliefs about drugs, and thus booed when he said legalize marijuana and end the war on drugs, Gadsden flags surrounding them.

Do your politicians do that? The OUR America Initiative is driving the GaryJohnson 2012 WAR wagon and DuelingBarstools is riding shotgun. Please donate to the Initiative so Gary’s wagon can afford fresh ponies.

“People aren’t making their own bathtub gin because they can buy Tanqueray.” – Gary Johnson.

Regarding the ‘freedom movement’ that’s been picking up steam in the USA, “It’s what this country’s always been about, liberty, freedom, and the personal responsibility that goes along with that.” – Gary Johnson

by Alex Fidel

Check out this video from Glenn Reynolds interviewing the author of A Politically Incorrect Guide to Socialism.

Lysander Spooner (bio here) was a 19th century entreprenuer, scholar, radical abolitionist, and principled believer in natural law and liberty. He is the personification of DuelingBarstools’ tagline “brains, heart, and balls, for individual freedom.” But frankly, DuelingBarstools couldn’t carry Spooner’s fountain pen – I could hardly climb atop his shoulders.

The following excerpt is from a 1860 letter from Spooner to Senator William H. Seward. This is how a Titan of freedom, which Spooner most definitely was (and remains), speaks truth to power. I marvel at his writing, which – to use among his most famous of phrases – articulates freedom “with irresistible clearness.” See also, Spooner’s work No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority (available here), Vices are Not Crimes (available here), and Natural Law (available here). Take it away, Lysander, which by the way is the name of the Spartan admiral who destroyed the Athenian fleet, ending the Peloponnesian War.

Sir,
Your note of the 11th inst, was not recd until the 21st. It was read with some surprise, and with more regret, to say nothing of other sentiments.
The note is marked “private” – I decline the confidence. Both your notes came into my hands fairly, without my having authorized any implication of privacy. And although I may not think it proper, or any longer feel disposed, to use the one to Mrs. South in the particular manner I had desired to do, I shall nevertheless, since you are a public man, feel at perfect liberty to use both of them in any other manner, however public, as evidence of your unfaithfulness to freedom, and to your own convictions of the true character of the constitution, which you have sworn to support.
And if, in so doing, I shall chance to “embarrass” the plans of the Chases, and Summers, and Wilsons, and Hales, and the other jesuitical leaders of the Republican party, who profess that they can aid liberty, without injuring slavery; who imagine that they can even be champions of freedom at the north, and at the same time avowedly protect slavery at the south, “where it is”; and that they can thus ride into power on the two horses, Liberty and Slavery – if I should happen to “embarrass” these plans, I shall not feel that that consequence is one which I need care to “avoid.” I had had some hope that you would put your foot on these double-faced demagogues, and either extinguish them, or compel them to conduct, for the time being, as if they were honest men. But it seems that you have decided rather to throw yourself into their arms, commit your fortunes to their keeping, and do nothing, in behalf of liberty, that may “embarrass” their operations…
I shall very likely make the whole of this correspondence public; and if it shall serve any purpose towards defeating yourself and the Republicans, I shall be gratified; for I would much rather the government be in the hands of declared enemies of liberty, than in those of treacherous friends.

Emphasis added.

Via:

I wasn’t old enough to notice or care when Bill Clinton was “repositioning” to the center. But since Clinton is an alpha and Obama is largely beta, I have to believe that Clinton’s shift to the center was a lot more convincing than Obama’s has been:

When Obama was in a place of political comfort, the free market was a place of unhinged self-interest, unfairness, and misery. Nearly all of our troubles were portrayed as a case of regulatory neglect—and nearly every dilemma was met accordingly.

Nothing’s changed but the political conditions.

By contrast, Bill Clinton principally understands that markets, not government, create wealth, but also understands that only government regulation can provide the opportunities for political grafting that his controlling interests and supporters require. Clinton is a political alpha who has game. Rule one of said (political) game is not killing the golden goose (the economy, stupid). By contrast, Obama is an economic ideologue – the sort that believes enough hope and government action can overcome the principle of scarcity. I’ve believed this about Obama since the democratic primary against Hillary in 2008 where Obama – a lawyer and adjunct law professor presumably adept at hypotheticals – posited that even if everything moderator Charlie Gibson said about the positive correlation between lower capital gains taxes and capital gains tax revenues was true (good analysis here on the subject), he would still increase capital gains taxes by nearly a 100% (15% to 28%) notwithstanding that doing so would decrease tax receipts.

Why endorse such a stupid tax policy? Or, why cut the golden goose’s beak to spite it’s stomach? According to Obama, he would do so “for purposes of fairness.” The implication is that it’s unfair for industrious people to keep a higher percentage of their money even while paying a larger sum of money in taxes. This suggests religious faith in the efficacy of government, hostility to wealth (aside from his own – I’m unaware of the Obamas making a donation to the US Treasury on top of their tax burden), and a deeply rooted belief that the unwealthy are inherently oppressed, and that higher taxation institutes a just compensatory burden on the wealthy.

In sum, I don’t buy Obama’s shift to the center (neither does The American Thinker). Obama’s ego and desire to be reelected is dragging him to the center, kicking and screaming.

This (thoughts in brackets are mine):

Market failures [almost always from markets so regulated and insulated from competition so as to hardly be "markets" at all] are taken as evidence that we need a regulatory state, but regulatory failures are used as a pretext for even more government. We need government to restrain human nature, because human beings are ignorant and corrupt, and tend to feather their own nests [So believes Cass Sunstein, from his own well-feathered nest]. But government, apparently, is constructed from a less crooked timber — perhaps the angels that Madison wrote about in The Federalist.  People ask, “How would voluntary institutions in a stateless society prevent something like the BP oil spill?”  I don’t know — how did government prevent it?

I know many people who are not anarchists, as such, who are open to reasoning and evidence on why this or that government policy is counterproductive, and government is the cause of the problem. But when it becomes clear that you’re arguing with a religious believer rather than someone open to rational argument, you might as well stop wasting your time.

Case in point – I had a long chat with a self described progressive the other night who repeatedly stated that he “doesn’t believe the principle of scarcity exists in 2011.” This was in spite of me demonstrating the principle of scarcity by pointing out that there is only so much coastline, and that it typically costs more than not living on a coast. Evidence and logic be damned, he has decided to be a lefty.

Here’s Gary Johnson applying his common sense, business approach to Constitutionally limited, fiscally accountable government. Step one? Cut the bullshit unnecessary federal spending:

[L]et there be no confusion about the task. While any and all spending reductions are good, we must also face some truths that have been conveniently dismissed in past attempts to balance the government’s books. First, it is fundamentally impossible to really reduce the cost of government without reducing what government does. “Rolling back” spending to 2008 levels, imposing salary and hiring freezes, cutting “discretionary spending” by 5, 10 or even 20% — all those things are good efforts and prudent immediate steps. However, if you do all those things without actually eliminating or reducing the countless things government does that we cannot afford, the result is that spending is simply deferred or juggled to get through the near-term crisis…

Come on, folks. $100 billion? We can get to that number without breaking a sweat – if we just decide to do it. The government spends $25 billion a year maintaining vacant federal property. If it’s vacant, sell it, tear it down, or give it away, but stop spending the $25 billion. We are spending $10 billion a year on government travel. Mr. President, send a memo tomorrow directing everyone to cut their trips in half. I suspect few of us taxpayers would notice the difference, and there is $5 billion in savings right there. Tomorrow.

Remember all that stimulus money Congress appropriated? Guess what: $50 or $60 billion of it hasn’t been spent yet. What Congress has done, Congress can undo. So, perhaps Congress should simply repeal that unspent stimulus money. Now, before it’s gone.

There is another $10-$20 billion sitting around in government accounts that was appropriated two or three years ago, but has not yet been obligated. With a simple vote and a stroke of the president’s pen, those dollars could be rescinded. Today…

The point, of course, is that if Washington gets queasy about cutting $100 billion, we have a problem. We are today borrowing more than 40 cents of every dollar we spend, and we are spending trillions. Cutting back on plane tickets, vacant buildings and yes, even earmarks, isn’t going to do it. If anyone believes we can bring the budget back to reality without dealing with Medicare, Social Security, and defense, they are not facing the truths that Congress and the White House must face.

This Could Be You

Now: A message from Giles Dawnay – global adventurer, doctor of medicine to be, all around good chap, and trusted friend of El DuelingBarstool:

Good news for all you trekking and climbing enthusiasts! After all the fun, adventure and achievement of the last 2 years, we will be back in Huaraz again next August.

Choose from a 2 week option of horse riding, rock climbing, hiking and trek in the area or add an additional 3rd week to come and put your ice axes and crampons and come above the snow for a double summit climb of the stunning Mts Ishinca and Urus.

Set high up in the magnificent Cordillera Blanca in Northern Peru, we will be offering you the chance to discover this incredible region through a range of differing activities and challenges

If you have the occasion to adventure in 2011 I strongly recommend Giles’ Andina program. Here’s the backstory:

Back in 2001 Ben Keene (Tribewanted) and his family went trekking in this incredible area and met Damian Aurelio Vargas as their guide. After spending quality time together and swapping life stories it emerged that there was an opportunity to help in the surrounding area in Damian’s maternal village of Llupa. Ben was working for Madventurer at the time and saw it as a great fit. So in 2003 Giles Dawnay went out and ran Mad’s first ever Peruvian project in the village of Llupa helping renovate the village’s junior school and teach basic English with a group of Madventurers. He subsequently went back to Llupa in 2004 and 2005 to help run and coordinate more projects there.

During his time there Giles developed his passion for the mountains and used his spare time to develop his ice climbing skills and make various attempts on some of the 6000m+ mountains that dwarfed the valleys surrounding the base town of Huaraz.

Having just finished his stint as Project Director on Vorovoro and while up in mountains in New Zealand with Ben, the two got chatting about the possibility of bringing the mountain experience to the Tribe, and the idea of Tribewanted: Andina was conceived.

While Tribewanted on Vorovoro has been developed as a total community and cultural experience, Andina has been designed for those who really want to see what they are capable of while discovering a far-flung and culturally rich location.

Now into its third year having enojyed 2 successful summers in 2009 and 2010, we look forward to you joining us in 2011!

Brains, Heart, and Balls, for Individual Freedom.

THIS

by Alex Fidel

As I completely expected, an element of the failure of Prop 19 was due to the impact of vicious rumors and propaganda spread by growers and dealers who want to protect their monopoly.

…most of the growers from Northern California’s fertile Humboldt and Mendocino counties were against Prop. 19. … “People will want something faceless and easy,” one grower told me. “They want their fucking Big Mac. In order to make something of quality, you have to deal with a lot more labor and a lot more time. Just use machines, turn out crap, sell it cheap.”

Now the article also points out that the whole growing community amounted 65,000 ballots cast in the 2010 election, but the rumors they spread about how it will jeopardize medical marijuana patients’ legal status may have added to a lot more No votes than just the 65,000. That coupled with people who still believe the tired, old D.A.R.E. mantras lead to the death of Prop 19. A large number of conservatives and Tea Partiers supported Prop 19. Radio talk show host Roger Hedgecock, as well as one of his fill-ins, supported Prop 19. So it’s really a fault of party-line Republicans who don’t really want to open their mind to Tea Party, limited-government, and libertarian ideals and virtually people of all political ideologies who still see pot as the devil’s lettuce. Combine that with grower propaganda and you have the death of Prop 19 (though I’m no statistician, just an observer).

But whether it is a grower wanting to protect their monopoly or a family who is not willing to look outside the box on this issue, they fail to see the unintended consequence of their beliefs, which is that they are subjecting millions of otherwise law-abiding Americans to the criminal justice system. I don’t care what argument growers and social-conservatives throw at us. ‘It’ll shrink our market share,’ they will say, but they can always innovate out. If they refuse to meet the needs of their customers, then they shouldn’t be in the business in the first place. Americans don’t have a choice when a cop fines or jails them for smoking pot. They can’t innovate out of that. Non-violent behavior among consenting adults should not be subject to the will of the government or the votes of the majority, that’s why we are a republic and not a democracy, because we have certain liberties which are to be left untouched, even if the will of the majority says otherwise.

So let’s not just let Tim Lincecum smoke, or Willie Nelson, Miley Cyrus, Gary Johnson, or Michael Phelps. Let’s let America smoke.

If you’d told me in Nov. 2008 that Glenn Greenwald would write an article in early 2011 titled The Vindication of Dick Cheney, I wouldn’t have believed you. And yet here it is. Generous excerpt below, because it’s awesome, but please read the whole thing. It’s a fine piece. Take it away, Glenn (great twitter feed too, btw):

As early as May, 2009, former Bush OLC lawyer Jack Goldsmith wrote in The New Republic that Obama was not only continuing Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies, but was strengthening them — both because he was causing them to be codified in law and, more important, converting those policies from right-wing dogma into harmonious bipartisan consensus.  Obama’s decision “to continue core Bush terrorism policies is like Nixon going to China,” Goldsmith wrote.  Last October, former Bush NSA and CIA Director Michael Hayden — one of the most ideological Bush officials, whose confirmation as CIA chief was opposed by then-Sen. Obama on the ground he had overseen the illegal NSA spying program — gushed with praise for Obama: “there’s been a powerful continuity between the 43rd and the 44th president.”  James Jay Carafano, a homeland-security expert at the Heritage Foundation, told The New York Times‘ Peter Baker last January: “I don’t think it’s even fair to call it Bush Lite.  It’s Bush.  It’s really, really hard to find a difference that’s meaningful and not atmospheric.”

Those are the nation’s most extreme conservatives praising Obama’s Terrorism policies.  And now Dick Cheney himself — who once led the “soft on Terror” attacks — is sounding the same theme.  In an interview last night with NBC News, Cheney praised Obama for continuing his and Bush’s core approach to Terrorism:

He obviously has been through the fires of becoming President and having to make decisions and live with the consequences. And it’s different than being a candidate. When he was candidate he was all for closing Gitmo. He was very critical of what we’d done on the counterterrorism area to protect America from further attack and so forth. . . .

I think he’s — in terms of a lot of the terrorism policies — the early talk, for example, about prosecuting people in the CIA who’ve been carrying out our policies — all of that’s fallen by the wayside. I think he’s learned that what we did was far more appropriate than he ever gave us credit for while he was a candidate. So I think he’s learned from experience.

But the crux of Bush/Cheney radicalism — the mindset and policies that caused much of the controversy — continues and has even been strengthened.  Gen. Hayden put it best, as quoted by The Washington Times:

“You’ve got state secrets, targeted killings, indefinite detention, renditions, the opposition to extending the right of habeas corpus to prisoners at Bagram [in Afghanistan],” Mr. Hayden said, listing the continuities. “And although it is slightly different, Obama has been as aggressive as President Bush in defending prerogatives about who he has to inform in Congress for executive covert action.”

And that list, impressive though it is, doesn’t even include the due-process-free assassination hit lists of American citizens, the sweeping executive power and secrecy theories used to justify it, the multi-tiered, “state-always-wins” justice system the Obama DOJ concocted for detainees, the vastly more aggressive war on whistleblowers and press freedoms, or the new presidential immunity doctrines his DOJ has invented.  Critically, this continuity extends beyond specific policies into the underlying sloganeering mentality in which they’re based:  we’re in a Global War; the whole Earth is the Battlefield; the Terrorists want to kill us because they’re intrinsically Evil (not in reaction to anything we do); we’re justified in doing anything and everything to eradicate Them; the President’s overarching obligation (contrary to his Constitutional oath) is to keep us Safe; this should all be kept secret from us; we can’t be bothered with obsolete dogma like Due Process and Warrants, etc. etc….

If Obama has indeed changed his mind over the last two years as a result of all the Secret Scary Things he’s seen as President, then I genuinely believe that he and the Democratic Party owe a heartfelt, public apology to Bush, Cheney and the GOP for all the harsh insults they spewed about them for years based on policies that they are now themselves aggressively continuing.

THIS – Protesters of China’s diverse array of human rights abuses are gearing up to protest every second of Chinese President Hu’s official state visit. Protesters, I salute you. The article notes that Hu’s state visit marks the “first time a president hosts a head of state who is currently holding a Nobel Peace Prize laureate in prison.” I’m going to add that bit of trivia to my memory bank for use while dueling on barstools. It’s also worth noting that Obama’s much maligned predecessor – that’s Bush – “was unwilling to host a state dinner in part because he was conscious of US public concern over China’s human rights record.”

Jut a few links.

Thoughts from the son of the recently assassinated Governor of Punjab, Pakistan:

My father, Salmaan Taseer, governor of the Pakistani province of Punjab, was murdered on Jan. 4, shot dead in broad daylight by the policeman tasked to protect him. Acting out of a twisted piety, the man—Malik Mumtaz Qadri—shot my father because of my father’s belief that Pakistan’s blasphemy laws have been misused to persecute religious minorities.*

Five days later the hardline Sunni Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party organized a rally in support of those blasphemy laws in Pakistan’s commercial hub, Karachi. This coming-out party put on display the ugly face of the tens of thousands of religious fanatics who wish to destroy Pakistan’s secular, liberal, progressive, and democratic forces. …

The biggest danger faced by Islam comes from those who claim to serve it. Its first victims are its own adherents. But our fight against these forces of darkness—forces that seek to snuff out the voices they disagree with—must begin with the strengthening of basic law and order. The extremists are a small minority, but they’re raucously vocal, well armed, and well funded. They operate by instilling fear in those they oppose. This intimidation works all too well.

Read the whole thing. It’s moving.

Left wing Creationism:

PJ O’Rourke: Old Gray Mare Loses It:

by Alex Fidel

This great video was shown on the John Stossel show recently, and it was very inspiring. I hope it inspires you:

“To provide for us in our necessities is not in the power of government. It would be a vain presumption in statesmen to think they can do it. The people maintain them, and not they the people. It is in the power of government to prevent much evil; it can do very little positive good in this, or perhaps in anything else.” — Edmund Burke (Via Dave Nalle of the Republican Liberty Caucus, which is the portion of the GOP dedicated to expanding individual liberty and constraining government to its Constitutional bounds – at minimum.)

I’ve been reading Roissy (aka Citizen Renegade) for a few months, and am pretty damn sure it’s my new favorite blog. He writes about game (e.g., Fooling Golddiggers, Sixteen Commandments of Poon) and occasionally the political game. Excerpts below. Here’s some advice to the Right on how to win the political game:

The right also needs to learn to deal with a media industrial complex that is almost wholly a propaganda arm of the left wing and Democrat party. Limbaugh and Fox have their followers, but in the scheme of things they are kazoos against the buzzsaw din that echoes from Hollywood, TV, the music biz, academia, the education racket, news organs, government, NGOs and workplace reeducation camps, all run to a great extent by leftist ruling class elites. This saturation megaphone may not conspire in the traditional sense of the word, but they coordinate by instinct, like fire ants converging on an El Paso picnicker.

Once the right grasps the fact of this stacked deck and what it means for them, they will understand that, despite Obama’s calculated call for unity, the left never intends to play cricket with them. Not as long as that bullhorn stays glued to their lips. The right can get its own bullhorn, but that doesn’t solve the problem; they need to learn to ignore, mock, satirize and NEG, in equal measure, the bleatings of the enemy’s bullhorn. And before that they need to pin their foes against the wall with their own brand of accusatory self-serving righteousness. In other words, set the frame.

There’s some gems in the comments.

Most, if not all, are missing the point.

Well, first, to the couple of leftard a-holes who posted here, like this chump:

“Yes, yes, it’s not surprising that all these calls for unity, cooperation, and toning down of raging bs rhetoric is driving conservatives crazy. Seriously, if conservatives were pressured into having to speak calmly and rationally, what would they even say? When in the last 20 years has a republican even attempted it? That’s the only trick they know.

I love how it’s the democrats’ fault somehow that a democrat got shot in the head.”

Fuck you, but, thank you.

Thank you for helping to illustrate the post’s point about framing.

See, what Joe Left here is doing is what they constantly do. They are establishing a meme, framing the situation; evidence, logic be damned, because it is the only way they can win. Having to actually argue the point, having to prove the right is unhinged as compared to the left is impossible, based on the evidence, so one simply plows through and asserts their own reality. Logic can go fuck itself as far as they are concerned, because it does not serve The Party.

Let’s take this sentence by sentence, shall we? It’s really clever when you look at it.

“Yes, yes, it’s not surprising that all these calls for unity, cooperation, and toning down of raging bs rhetoric is driving conservatives crazy.”

FRAME: Conservatives are the ones who have been displaying a foaming, insane rage this week, not the Left. The right are the ones who can’t stand calls for toning down rhetoric. The Left has been comporting itself with complete rationality and fairness.

“Seriously, if conservatives were pressured into having to speak calmly and rationally, what would they even say?”

FRAME: Look, we ALL KNOW conservatives are NEVER able to speak calmly and rationally, like say Paul Krugman, Andrew Sullivan and the fine writers at Daily Kos, so let’s not even bother to listen or read anything the Right might have to say, because, really, its a waste of time.

“When in the last 20 years has a republican even attempted it?”

FRAME : Let’s look at their record, not at ours, because they are obviously the one needing to defend their record, right? And 20 years is a good time frame, because if we look TOO far back, like say to the 60′s and 70′s, we were into some particularly crazy shit that might undermine our point…ALOT.

“That’s the only trick they know.”

FRAME : The right only uses tricks, and they are so stupid, they have only one. The Left? We NEVER use tricks of any kind. Please ignore that Alinksy text tatooed on my schmeckle.

Let’s take the last line:

“I love how it’s the democrats’ fault somehow that a democrat got shot in the head.”

This is, in its own way, BRILLIANT!

First, check the firm assertion that because it was a Democrat that was shot, it CANNOT be that a democrat could in ANY way be involved.

Why is that exactly?

What universal law makes it a complete impossibility that someone registered as a democrat might actually shoot another democrat in the head? (Apparently the poster leaves open the possibility for Dem on Dem violence targeting other parts of the body.)

Fucked if I know, but the poster doesn’t bother explaining it either. He just claims it, and moves on. He’s right because he’s Left, dammit!

But, the really clever thing about it is how it pivots on the Left-wing rhetoric we’ve had to endure for the last goddamn week that it was Republican/Right Wing rhetoric that caused the massacre.

See, its ridiculous to even THINK that maybe something a democrat might have done could have in ANYWAY contributed to the massacre. Why, this sentence says, that is completely INSANE to even ponder. IT IS NOT EVEN UP FOR DISCUSSION. Got it? Good.

But, it also, says, it has been Democrats who have had to suffer the outrageous slings and arrows of accusations this past week. Oh, how unfair all this condemnation the Democrats have had to endure!

This shit is pure Ju-Jitsu, baby!

THIS is the kind of shit the Left is pulling on EVERYONE else, not just the Right, all the goddamn time. They are fucking Jedi Masters at it.

Now, if you don’t really give a shot about politics, then I assumed you’ve already moved on.

If you are pissed because Citizen Renegade is talking politics, then at the risk of repeating myself, YOU ARE MISSING THE POINT OF THE GODDAMN BLOG. Re-read the past entries, from the beginning, then come back here. It ain’t all about you dipping your wick.

If you are interested in politics, and are not among the living brain dead of the Left, then this is why this is important.

The Left is out to fuck you over, be ye’ social conservative, fiscal conservative, Libertarian, Moderate, or even somewhat conservative democrat. NONE of you ultimately are down with their program, and as such, you are IN THE WAY. If you are IN THE WAY, they consider you THE ENEMY, and will fucking crush you with whatever means neccessary.

Circular firing squads over Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter, Glenn Beck, Palin, gives them wood. They WANT you to be focusing on them, fighting about them. They DON’T want you looking them over because they know you won’t like what you see.

WhatEVER their individual faults or failings, all of those people stand up to the Left wing and take a shitload of incoming fire for doing so. If this week has demonstrated ANYTHING, it is that the Left is completely without scruples, morality or shame when it comes to slugging shit out.

Don’t let them frame things that it’s all about us, which is collectively everyone but them. Make them justify their mountain of bullshit and mouth-foamers, because their shtick tends to end in gulags and liquidations.

Don’t let yourselves be played, dammit!

This is leading with your chin:

“[I]f [Libertarian] doesn’t think that liberals have steadily incorporated Hayekian concerns into their proposals for universal health insurance, what exactly does he think ObamaCare is…”

Here’s a portion of the response, but read the whole thing (not long):

Actuarially-sound insurance policies are by and large illegal in America. That is to say, the price of a health plan is not allowed to communicate information to consumers about their individual risk. The ACA has doubled-down on the prohibition of risk-sensitive insurance by reducing in various ways the discretion of health-plan providers to take into account pre-existing conditions or changes in health.

The health plans individuals or empoyers are allowed to purchase (and, under the ACA will be forced to purchase) have functioned to insulate individuals from the cost of care, depriving the system of the efficiency and innovation enabled by price-responsive consumer behaviour. For the most part, in our system there is no such thing as the “price” of a health service or medical procedure. Reimbursement rates are generally unknown to consumers and often unknown to doctors. They are a far cry from the dynamically-adjusting posted prices Hayek proved so necessary for the efficient allocation of resources. And the ACA does less than nothing to restore to the system market pricing or price-responsiveness. Under the ACA there will be fewer co-payments and less payment of deductibles. The contribution limit on tax-exempt flexible spending accounts has been cut in half. New restrictions on FSAs and HSAs require consumers to visit a doctor and get a prescription before using these accounts to purchase non-prescription drugs.

Milton Friedman’s 2001 summary of the pragmatic libertarian approach to health reform has a Hayekian appreciation for the indispensible informational role of prices in its DNA. See if it reminds you of Obamacare.

The high cost and inequitable character of our medical care system are the direct result of our steady movement toward reliance on third-party payment. A cure requires reversing course, reprivatizing medical care by eliminating most third-party payment, and restoring the role of insurance to providing protection against major medical catastrophes.

The ideal way to do that would be to reverse past actions: repeal the tax exemption of employer-provided medical care; terminate Medicare and Medicaid; deregulate most insurance; and restrict the role of the government, preferably state and local rather than federal, to financing care for the hard cases. However, the vested interests that have grown up around the existing system, and the tyranny of the status quo, clearly make that solution not feasible politically. Yet it is worth stating the ideal as a guide to judging whether proposed incremental changes are in the right direction.

You may not be intimately familiar with the details of how National Socialist and Soviet Communist state directives that ordered the killing of 13 million human beings between 1933 and 1945. Note, that figure does not take into account any of the tens of millions of civilians and soldiers killed by and through warfare. Go here to read the first chapter of Bloodlands, courtesy of Kindle / Amazon, which documents the mass killings ordered by the two most significant attempts at “Utopia” seen yet by mankind on earth.

It’s a good time for this:

Heil