A few months ago, Herman Cain was a strong advocate of the Fair Tax.
There is a strong case to move from an income tax to a consumption.
However, I dislike the Fair Tax (a national sales tax) because it would make America's small businesses the nation's tax collectors. Small businesses have enough to worry about without adding micromanagement by the IRS.
In recent interviews, Mr. Cain is a strong advocate of a new plan called the 999 Tax.
Personally, I am trilled to see Mr. Cain change his position.
The executive is the person who administers the decisions made by Congress. The Constitution makes the Legislature the the decider and the executive the doer.
The doer needs to become an advocate of the decisions of Congress.
A fault of the Community Organizer Barack Obama is that he does not support ideas that fall outside of his ideological spectrum. Having a mixed Congress with Barack Obama as president is painful.
In contrast Bill Clinton was much more successful in that he did a better job supporting the compromises that came from Congress.
I believe Ron Paul is correct in his view of politics the Constitution and all.
Dr Paul has been such a strong supporter of Constitutionally restricted government that I am left in doubt that he would support an Unconstitutional Laws passed by Congress ... which is problematic.
If Dr. Paul really understood the Constitution then he would recognize that that the Constitution makes the legislature the decider.
If the legislature passes a law that the Supreme Court holds as Constitutional, then the executive must support that law ... even despite the fact that Doctor Paul holds the correct view of the Constitution.
So much of the mess today is the result of emperor-like presidents imposing their interpretations of the Constitution.
Even when the president holds the correct view of the Constitution, the Constitution does not give the president the authority to act like an emperor.
That Mr. Cain was a strong supporter of the Fair Tax and is now making a strong case for the 999 Tax tells me that he would be an executive who would be a strong administer of any good new taxation structure.
(PS: I am blogging about the Utah Legal Tender Act on the site Utah Gold.)
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Monday, September 19, 2011
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Tying Our Hands
The world has changed dramatically since the original START treatise.
A generation was dominated by the prospect of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the new fear was of soviet nuclear material flowing into the hands of terrorists.
The possibility of a US/Soviet war stopped being the primary nuclear threat to the world when the Soviet Union stopped existing.
At this moment in time the Middle East, China and rogue nations are more likely to prove major nuclear threats than the former Soviet Union.
I am thrilled that President Obama is seeking ways to reduce the nuclear arsenals of the world. Yet I wonder why we rushed to sign a bi-lateral treatise based on a resolved conflict when the world is experiencing nuclear proliferation among rogue nations.
The smarter approach to nuclear disarmament would have the United States and Russia working together to stop worldwide nuclear disarmament.
A bilateral treaty that ties the hands of the United States effectively lessens the ability of the United States to engage rogue nations in disarmament talks.
I am left wondering why we just witnessed an unprecedented effort to rush a major treatise through a lame duck Congress.
The START Treatise of 2010 looks more like a desperate drive by a narcissist to earn peacenik stripes than a serious contemplative step to make the world a safer place.
A generation was dominated by the prospect of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the new fear was of soviet nuclear material flowing into the hands of terrorists.
The possibility of a US/Soviet war stopped being the primary nuclear threat to the world when the Soviet Union stopped existing.
At this moment in time the Middle East, China and rogue nations are more likely to prove major nuclear threats than the former Soviet Union.
I am thrilled that President Obama is seeking ways to reduce the nuclear arsenals of the world. Yet I wonder why we rushed to sign a bi-lateral treatise based on a resolved conflict when the world is experiencing nuclear proliferation among rogue nations.
The smarter approach to nuclear disarmament would have the United States and Russia working together to stop worldwide nuclear disarmament.
A bilateral treaty that ties the hands of the United States effectively lessens the ability of the United States to engage rogue nations in disarmament talks.
I am left wondering why we just witnessed an unprecedented effort to rush a major treatise through a lame duck Congress.
The START Treatise of 2010 looks more like a desperate drive by a narcissist to earn peacenik stripes than a serious contemplative step to make the world a safer place.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Tyranny of the Center
I read the tweetstream of a guy claiming to be a centrist (RiseOfTheCenter). The stream is page after page of labeling the groups the author dislikes as extremists.
The tweetstream is little more than a long string of posts that projects hatred on groups that hold a position ... each having the hastag #NOLABELS.
The tweetstream feeds a web site where the author claims his dictates are magically the center.
This tweetstream is the perfect example of Hegelian dialectics in action.
In dialectics, the intelligentsia creates dichotomies then plays the dictomoies to centralize power.
Centrism and centralized power go hand-in-hand.
The author of this tweetstream is dedicating himself to a NOLABELS movement.
The NOLABELS movement is something that magically appears whenever the left is descending. I fell for it when Reagan was president. I aspired to be a balanced, rational centrist standing against those horrible conservatives and naive liberals.
The NOLABELS movement labels the Tea Party as far right ... despite the fact that the movement was primarily attended by independents.
The reason for the appearance of a coordinated centrist campaign after a progressive leap toward socialism is to hinder any steps back to a free society.
Progressivism is, of course, is a dialectical movement closely linked to centrism. The goal of the progressive is to systematically redefine the center.
The game is working.
Remember how Reagan said he never left the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left him. Today, we see a president who was essentially a fifties style Democrat defined as the far right.
Reagan was on the left in the 50s. He was a centrist in the 60s and far right in the 80s ... without any fundamental changes in his views.
This trick was accomplished by people redefining the center.
Many people try the centrist game. For example, Bill O'Reilly presents people he calls left, then people he calls the right then claims to be the fair and balanced centrist.
Anyway, I wasted several hours reading posts from this hypocritical NOLABELS movement to simply discover that the NOLABLES movement (with its partisan version of centrism) is more dependent on labels than the groups it dismisses as ideologies.
Ideologies, after all, are attempts to find a working set of ideas on which to base society. The US Founders did a great job finding ideas on which to base society. True ideologies are interested in ideas, not labels.
The term "ideology" came from the French Revolution. Hatred of ideology was core to Napolean's drive to re-establish the empire. Napolean's game was to play left off right to cease totalitarian power. Napolean created a centrist empire! Whoopie!
Hatred of ideology was also core to Hegel. I contend it was also central to Marx. Note, Marx never defined Communism beyond vague terms. He defined a conflict between bourgeoisie and proletariat with the aim of inciting revolution. The revolution would resolve in a new center.
Progressivism seeks to redefine society by being to the left of a constantly changing center.
There is no center to the political universe and the self proclaimed centrists are usually among the biggest rogues on the politcal stage.
The tweetstream is little more than a long string of posts that projects hatred on groups that hold a position ... each having the hastag #NOLABELS.
The tweetstream feeds a web site where the author claims his dictates are magically the center.
This tweetstream is the perfect example of Hegelian dialectics in action.
In dialectics, the intelligentsia creates dichotomies then plays the dictomoies to centralize power.
Centrism and centralized power go hand-in-hand.
The author of this tweetstream is dedicating himself to a NOLABELS movement.
The NOLABELS movement is something that magically appears whenever the left is descending. I fell for it when Reagan was president. I aspired to be a balanced, rational centrist standing against those horrible conservatives and naive liberals.
The NOLABELS movement labels the Tea Party as far right ... despite the fact that the movement was primarily attended by independents.
The reason for the appearance of a coordinated centrist campaign after a progressive leap toward socialism is to hinder any steps back to a free society.
Progressivism is, of course, is a dialectical movement closely linked to centrism. The goal of the progressive is to systematically redefine the center.
The game is working.
Remember how Reagan said he never left the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left him. Today, we see a president who was essentially a fifties style Democrat defined as the far right.
Reagan was on the left in the 50s. He was a centrist in the 60s and far right in the 80s ... without any fundamental changes in his views.
This trick was accomplished by people redefining the center.
Many people try the centrist game. For example, Bill O'Reilly presents people he calls left, then people he calls the right then claims to be the fair and balanced centrist.
Anyway, I wasted several hours reading posts from this hypocritical NOLABELS movement to simply discover that the NOLABLES movement (with its partisan version of centrism) is more dependent on labels than the groups it dismisses as ideologies.
Ideologies, after all, are attempts to find a working set of ideas on which to base society. The US Founders did a great job finding ideas on which to base society. True ideologies are interested in ideas, not labels.
The term "ideology" came from the French Revolution. Hatred of ideology was core to Napolean's drive to re-establish the empire. Napolean's game was to play left off right to cease totalitarian power. Napolean created a centrist empire! Whoopie!
Hatred of ideology was also core to Hegel. I contend it was also central to Marx. Note, Marx never defined Communism beyond vague terms. He defined a conflict between bourgeoisie and proletariat with the aim of inciting revolution. The revolution would resolve in a new center.
Progressivism seeks to redefine society by being to the left of a constantly changing center.
There is no center to the political universe and the self proclaimed centrists are usually among the biggest rogues on the politcal stage.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Unanimous Consent
A talking point of the current election is that evil* Republicans have been staving off the recovery by placing secret holds on legislation. (*in school I was trained to always use purr words for Democrats and snarl words for Republicans).
In the video below, Evil Republican Jim DeMint describes the evil secret hold process.
According to DeMint, 94% of the legislation that pass the Senate goes through a process of unanimous consent. With unanimous consent, bills pass without going up for debate, amendments or a vote.
During the health-care and finance-reform nondebates, we learned that few representatives read the bills. One can only imagine how few of the unanimous consent bills get read.
On occasion, an uppity Senator will rock the boat and place a hold on a bill to read it. This is the evil secret hold process.
[gasp]
Of all Republican evilness, this reading of bills numbers among the evilest.
Republican evilness has its costs. The talking point is that since only 94% of bills were passed with unanimous consent, then six percent were held up.
Since the recovery didn't happen, it is obvious that delayed passing of bills is the cause.
Don't see the evilness? Because evil Republicans were secretly blocking bills, what should have been The Summer of Recovery turned into a prolonged recession.
I accept that Republicans are evil and Democrats are fluffy bundles of undistilled wonderfulness. So, I thought I would take this post in a different direction.
My first observation is that the flood of legislation flowing through unanimous consent shows that Democrats and Republicans are far more alike than different.
My second observation is that this issue highlights an important aspect of politics and dialectics. A bill will only make it to the floor for public scruntiny if the bill is controversial. This filter means that the public only sees bills when they contain conflicts.
This filtering process over emphasizes the conflicts and creates an illusions that misled the public.
The dialectics creates a system where we see great conflicts on the surface, while the underlying currents wash us to ruin.
The video is worth a view, but I need a conclusion.
So, in conclusion. Republicans are evil creatures who lock Barbie Dolls in boxes with GI Joe action figures to compromise the doll's virtue.
Experimental TweetButton: Tweet
In the video below, Evil Republican Jim DeMint describes the evil secret hold process.
According to DeMint, 94% of the legislation that pass the Senate goes through a process of unanimous consent. With unanimous consent, bills pass without going up for debate, amendments or a vote.
During the health-care and finance-reform nondebates, we learned that few representatives read the bills. One can only imagine how few of the unanimous consent bills get read.
On occasion, an uppity Senator will rock the boat and place a hold on a bill to read it. This is the evil secret hold process.
[gasp]
Of all Republican evilness, this reading of bills numbers among the evilest.
Republican evilness has its costs. The talking point is that since only 94% of bills were passed with unanimous consent, then six percent were held up.
Since the recovery didn't happen, it is obvious that delayed passing of bills is the cause.
Don't see the evilness? Because evil Republicans were secretly blocking bills, what should have been The Summer of Recovery turned into a prolonged recession.
I accept that Republicans are evil and Democrats are fluffy bundles of undistilled wonderfulness. So, I thought I would take this post in a different direction.
My first observation is that the flood of legislation flowing through unanimous consent shows that Democrats and Republicans are far more alike than different.
My second observation is that this issue highlights an important aspect of politics and dialectics. A bill will only make it to the floor for public scruntiny if the bill is controversial. This filter means that the public only sees bills when they contain conflicts.
This filtering process over emphasizes the conflicts and creates an illusions that misled the public.
The dialectics creates a system where we see great conflicts on the surface, while the underlying currents wash us to ruin.
The video is worth a view, but I need a conclusion.
So, in conclusion. Republicans are evil creatures who lock Barbie Dolls in boxes with GI Joe action figures to compromise the doll's virtue.
Experimental TweetButton: Tweet
Monday, June 21, 2010
Big Law and Big Insurance
Big law often sues big insurance for big bucks.
Apparently, these big lawsuits have many convinced that big law is there to protect the little people from the abuses of big insurance.
Such thoughts are a big mistake.
A better way to understand this system is to follow the big money.
When there is a big lawsuit with a big claim, a big money moves from big insurance to big law. Big insurance then runs back to the small business and exclaims: "Did you see that big lawsuit? We have to raise your premiums."
In this system, big law gets bigger. Big insurance gets bigger, and small business gets smaller.
There is a symbiotic relation between big insurance and big law.
From the perspective of big law, insurance is manna from heaven. It turns out that, since people are silly emotional creatures, it is really easy to win a big lawsuit.
The difficulties lie in collecting money. It is difficult to collect money from people who don't want to pay up.
Let's say a baby dies during a difficult birth. An empathetic judge and jury will want to award the grieving parents something. No parent should lose a child!
An expensive haired lawyer putting on a good show will jerk tears from the jury and win big bucks in the settlement.
The lawsuit is easy. The problem is that obstetricians don't like paying up. Even worse, people really like baby doctors and will side with the doctor when it comes time to pay.
Big insurance changes this equation. They have big pockets and are happy to pay the settlement as they are able to charge the settlement back through to all doctors.
So, by playing the submissive whipping boy, big insurance creates a mechanism that allows big law to collect the big money (keeping a percent for their efforts).
The final character in the big money show is big politics. Big politics takes money from big insurance and big law. In return, big law passes regulations designed to keep the pot stirring.
And so the symbiotic relation between big law, big insurance and big politics creates a mechanism that brings immense wealth to the few, while impoverishing the many.
Apparently, these big lawsuits have many convinced that big law is there to protect the little people from the abuses of big insurance.
Such thoughts are a big mistake.
A better way to understand this system is to follow the big money.
When there is a big lawsuit with a big claim, a big money moves from big insurance to big law. Big insurance then runs back to the small business and exclaims: "Did you see that big lawsuit? We have to raise your premiums."
In this system, big law gets bigger. Big insurance gets bigger, and small business gets smaller.
There is a symbiotic relation between big insurance and big law.
From the perspective of big law, insurance is manna from heaven. It turns out that, since people are silly emotional creatures, it is really easy to win a big lawsuit.
The difficulties lie in collecting money. It is difficult to collect money from people who don't want to pay up.
Let's say a baby dies during a difficult birth. An empathetic judge and jury will want to award the grieving parents something. No parent should lose a child!
An expensive haired lawyer putting on a good show will jerk tears from the jury and win big bucks in the settlement.
The lawsuit is easy. The problem is that obstetricians don't like paying up. Even worse, people really like baby doctors and will side with the doctor when it comes time to pay.
Big insurance changes this equation. They have big pockets and are happy to pay the settlement as they are able to charge the settlement back through to all doctors.
So, by playing the submissive whipping boy, big insurance creates a mechanism that allows big law to collect the big money (keeping a percent for their efforts).
The final character in the big money show is big politics. Big politics takes money from big insurance and big law. In return, big law passes regulations designed to keep the pot stirring.
And so the symbiotic relation between big law, big insurance and big politics creates a mechanism that brings immense wealth to the few, while impoverishing the many.
Thursday, May 06, 2010
The American Dream?
I listened to a stirring speech from a Democratic Candidate who told the audience about how the American Dream was to have a good paying job and have a home and that we need a large intrusive government to assure us this dream of a job and home.
A half witted Republican then bumbled an inane string of words about government v. private enterprise, but clearly had no pro-active way to help achieve this dream of a job and a home.
I wanted to jump into the TV screen and bang the Democrat's head against the podium and scream: "What type of half-assed crazy dream is that?"
This elitist notion that the little people will be content with a job and a secure place to live is the feudal dream. Feudalism is the ideology that ruled the West during the dark ages. It is a stagnant society where the elite rule while the masses are trapped toiling away in stagnant hole with vain hopes that the ruling elite will provide security.
The dreams of our Founders were better than that. Their dreams started with a free people who would spend their time pursuing the ends of their choice.
The key to this classical liberal vision, of course, is property rights. The classical liberal vision has people owning and improving things.
The vision is not simply the notion of people working jobs, but of people having a substantial stake in their creations.
Of course this idea of letting the little people have substantial participation in their lives irked the ruling class and the elite immediately began the process of finding ways to undermine the vision of liberty with a "modern liberalism" that masks feudal ideas in modern liberal rhetoric.
Modern liberalism uses simple paradoxes and fallacies to argue: "freedom is slavery and slavery freedom."
It produces a large number of completely senseless arguments such as the Democratic candidate's assertion that the highest aspiration of a free people is to have a job working for others and to have a mortgaged house secured by the government.
I wanted to bang the Democrat Candidate's head against the podium for making such a brain dead assertion. However, my real anger lays with Republicans who systematically fail to think issues through in the fundamental way that would catch these errors and put our nation back on the track to freedom and prosperity.
The American dream is one of freedom. It is a dream where people (even the little people that worldly professors disdain) have a property right to their labor and are actively engaged in the pursuit of dreams that they define.
Yes, in this dream, people often find satisfaction in their careers and in building their homes, but the American dream is one of freedom not simply one of a few materials goods associated with freedom.
A half witted Republican then bumbled an inane string of words about government v. private enterprise, but clearly had no pro-active way to help achieve this dream of a job and a home.
I wanted to jump into the TV screen and bang the Democrat's head against the podium and scream: "What type of half-assed crazy dream is that?"
This elitist notion that the little people will be content with a job and a secure place to live is the feudal dream. Feudalism is the ideology that ruled the West during the dark ages. It is a stagnant society where the elite rule while the masses are trapped toiling away in stagnant hole with vain hopes that the ruling elite will provide security.
The dreams of our Founders were better than that. Their dreams started with a free people who would spend their time pursuing the ends of their choice.
The key to this classical liberal vision, of course, is property rights. The classical liberal vision has people owning and improving things.
The vision is not simply the notion of people working jobs, but of people having a substantial stake in their creations.
Of course this idea of letting the little people have substantial participation in their lives irked the ruling class and the elite immediately began the process of finding ways to undermine the vision of liberty with a "modern liberalism" that masks feudal ideas in modern liberal rhetoric.
Modern liberalism uses simple paradoxes and fallacies to argue: "freedom is slavery and slavery freedom."
It produces a large number of completely senseless arguments such as the Democratic candidate's assertion that the highest aspiration of a free people is to have a job working for others and to have a mortgaged house secured by the government.
I wanted to bang the Democrat Candidate's head against the podium for making such a brain dead assertion. However, my real anger lays with Republicans who systematically fail to think issues through in the fundamental way that would catch these errors and put our nation back on the track to freedom and prosperity.
The American dream is one of freedom. It is a dream where people (even the little people that worldly professors disdain) have a property right to their labor and are actively engaged in the pursuit of dreams that they define.
Yes, in this dream, people often find satisfaction in their careers and in building their homes, but the American dream is one of freedom not simply one of a few materials goods associated with freedom.
Thursday, April 08, 2010
Sean Hannity is Wrong on National Defense
Sean Hannity is wrong in his assertions that the Republican Party needs to be the party of strong national defense. His naïve assertion on this matter is both harmful to the Republican Party and harmful to our nation at large.
What American needs is a new generation of political leaders dedicated to preserving freedom and restoring Constitutional balances.
I think it more likely that such leaders will emerge in the Republican Party than Democratic Party.
The Democratic Party works by taking whatever issue polls well then making this issue appear foundational to the nation giving little thought about how the issue fits in with the system at large. Notice how a Democratic controlled Controlled Congress just past a massive health care bill with little thought given to the fact that states currently regulate health care.
Our founders disliked the system where all power was held by a monarchy. So they created a Constitution that assigned different tasks to different groups in a multidimensional structure.
The hope of the founders was that authority on decisions that affect every day life (like health care) would lie with the states, local government, private business or the people.
To preserve this system of distributed power, we need people at all levels of government dedicated to preserving this balanced framework.
The Federal Government was intended to handle an enumerated set of duties that required national unity. These duties included the ability to negotiate treatise and fight wars.
As you see, our Constitutional structure has the vast majority of people focused on the important job of living life. Only a few statesmen would be involved in making decisions about national defense.
Sean Hannity's notion that strong national defense should be the driving platform of the Republican Party is wrong in three way: The first is that the vast majority of political seats in this country have absolutely nothing to do with national defense. For example, since a governmor can't negotiate international treatise or start wars, it is absurd for a candidate to run on a platform of national defense. The governor should run on the governor's job. The national defense platform detracts from these roles.
Secondly, Hannity's open effort to drive doves from Republican ranks weakens the intelleuctual make up of the Republican Party. Hannity's concerted effort to drive doves from Republican rank not only strengthens the opposition, it has the terrible effect of polarizing the nation on the topic of national defense.
Finally one must consider that the need for national security ebbs and flows with changes in international conditions. Hannity's naïve stab at making strong national defense a platform position of the Republican Party puts the party and the country out of sync with the rest of the world.
This dysfunctional system has our nation responding to international threats based on who is in power and not on the nature of the threats themselves. More Iraqis died when Clinton turned his back on the brutal oppression of Saddam Hussein, than during Bush's war.
Our leaders in Congress need to have a robust decision making process that allows them to match our national defense effort to security threats and not domestic politics.
Having a large political party with the platform of strong national security creates a systemic imbalance. We end up with a dysfunctional national defense effort that fluctuates between excessive and insufficient attentional to international threats.
A healthy Republican Party would be dedicated to the Constitutional order. This Constitutional order demands well balanced statesmen to negotiate treatise and provide for national defense. A balanced statesman understands both the hawk and dove positions.
It appears that this Sean Hannity character on Fox News has never learned the difference between a Republic and Democracy. A Democracy would have us go to war based on a direct vote of the people (influenced by partisan rabble rousers).
What is killing this nation is that people like Sean Hannity will take their pet issues and try to make the pet issue a platform of a partisan group.
While this type of politics is okay on domestic issues, on the international front it creates a dynamic where we will be divided and conquered.
Our nation is greatly harmed by Sean Hannity and the Code Pink types who aim to make national defense a deeply divisive partisan issue.
The Republican Party would be wise to rebuke Hannity and to welcome both doves and hawks with the real focus on cultivating statesmanship and restoring Constitutional order.
What American needs is a new generation of political leaders dedicated to preserving freedom and restoring Constitutional balances.
I think it more likely that such leaders will emerge in the Republican Party than Democratic Party.
The Democratic Party works by taking whatever issue polls well then making this issue appear foundational to the nation giving little thought about how the issue fits in with the system at large. Notice how a Democratic controlled Controlled Congress just past a massive health care bill with little thought given to the fact that states currently regulate health care.
Our founders disliked the system where all power was held by a monarchy. So they created a Constitution that assigned different tasks to different groups in a multidimensional structure.
The hope of the founders was that authority on decisions that affect every day life (like health care) would lie with the states, local government, private business or the people.
To preserve this system of distributed power, we need people at all levels of government dedicated to preserving this balanced framework.
The Federal Government was intended to handle an enumerated set of duties that required national unity. These duties included the ability to negotiate treatise and fight wars.
As you see, our Constitutional structure has the vast majority of people focused on the important job of living life. Only a few statesmen would be involved in making decisions about national defense.
Sean Hannity's notion that strong national defense should be the driving platform of the Republican Party is wrong in three way: The first is that the vast majority of political seats in this country have absolutely nothing to do with national defense. For example, since a governmor can't negotiate international treatise or start wars, it is absurd for a candidate to run on a platform of national defense. The governor should run on the governor's job. The national defense platform detracts from these roles.
Secondly, Hannity's open effort to drive doves from Republican ranks weakens the intelleuctual make up of the Republican Party. Hannity's concerted effort to drive doves from Republican rank not only strengthens the opposition, it has the terrible effect of polarizing the nation on the topic of national defense.
Finally one must consider that the need for national security ebbs and flows with changes in international conditions. Hannity's naïve stab at making strong national defense a platform position of the Republican Party puts the party and the country out of sync with the rest of the world.
This dysfunctional system has our nation responding to international threats based on who is in power and not on the nature of the threats themselves. More Iraqis died when Clinton turned his back on the brutal oppression of Saddam Hussein, than during Bush's war.
Our leaders in Congress need to have a robust decision making process that allows them to match our national defense effort to security threats and not domestic politics.
Having a large political party with the platform of strong national security creates a systemic imbalance. We end up with a dysfunctional national defense effort that fluctuates between excessive and insufficient attentional to international threats.
A healthy Republican Party would be dedicated to the Constitutional order. This Constitutional order demands well balanced statesmen to negotiate treatise and provide for national defense. A balanced statesman understands both the hawk and dove positions.
It appears that this Sean Hannity character on Fox News has never learned the difference between a Republic and Democracy. A Democracy would have us go to war based on a direct vote of the people (influenced by partisan rabble rousers).
What is killing this nation is that people like Sean Hannity will take their pet issues and try to make the pet issue a platform of a partisan group.
While this type of politics is okay on domestic issues, on the international front it creates a dynamic where we will be divided and conquered.
Our nation is greatly harmed by Sean Hannity and the Code Pink types who aim to make national defense a deeply divisive partisan issue.
The Republican Party would be wise to rebuke Hannity and to welcome both doves and hawks with the real focus on cultivating statesmanship and restoring Constitutional order.
Friday, March 26, 2010
A Network of Legislatures
I just dropped a comment on André Bauer's call for a Constitutional Convention.
The problem isn't simply ObamaCare, but the desire of political groups to steal power from other political groups.
Prior to ObamaCare, the 50 states regulated health care. ObamaCare simply grabbed this authority from the state's without even token acknowledgement of the state's existence. This type of power grab is not healthy. The unfunded mandates of Bush's No Child Left Behind Act was the same thing.
The problem is not with one party. It is with the current structure of things.
The Founders of the United States were not seeking to create legislatures that worked in isolation against each other.
They sought to create a network of legislatures that balanced and enhanced each other.
For this reason, the Founders of the United States had the Senate elected by the state legislature.
Yes, this structure created corruption. In seeking to reduce the corruption, the 17 Amendment broke the network, and eliminated the ability of atates to defend their rights and the rights of their citizens as written in the 10th Amendment.
The Founders did not have advanced communication technology.
Communication technology opens the opportunity of creating a direct network of legislatures.
Imagine a network of terminals in each state capitol allowing formalized communication between the state and federal government. This network would allow the states to influence Congress. As communication is two way, the Federal Government would be better equipped to coordinate legislation with the states.
A Constitutional Amendment aimed at creating a network of legislatures would profoundly improve the quality of legislation in our republic. (See An Unconventional Convention for my first post on this topic.)
The problem isn't simply ObamaCare, but the desire of political groups to steal power from other political groups.
Prior to ObamaCare, the 50 states regulated health care. ObamaCare simply grabbed this authority from the state's without even token acknowledgement of the state's existence. This type of power grab is not healthy. The unfunded mandates of Bush's No Child Left Behind Act was the same thing.
The problem is not with one party. It is with the current structure of things.
The Founders of the United States were not seeking to create legislatures that worked in isolation against each other.
They sought to create a network of legislatures that balanced and enhanced each other.
For this reason, the Founders of the United States had the Senate elected by the state legislature.
Yes, this structure created corruption. In seeking to reduce the corruption, the 17 Amendment broke the network, and eliminated the ability of atates to defend their rights and the rights of their citizens as written in the 10th Amendment.
The Founders did not have advanced communication technology.
Communication technology opens the opportunity of creating a direct network of legislatures.
Imagine a network of terminals in each state capitol allowing formalized communication between the state and federal government. This network would allow the states to influence Congress. As communication is two way, the Federal Government would be better equipped to coordinate legislation with the states.
A Constitutional Amendment aimed at creating a network of legislatures would profoundly improve the quality of legislation in our republic. (See An Unconventional Convention for my first post on this topic.)
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Caucuses on the Horizon
Caucuses are on the horizon. Caucuses do more to define the parties and political discourse than any other political event on the political calendar.
The Right Huff put up a short Republican calendar for the Republicans in Colorado.
I fear the situation where moderates flee the Democratic Party and we are left with the Democrats toeing the Marxist line and Republicans behaving as reactionaries.
The left controls the media and schools. An even deeper political divide in our nation could be devastating to our nation.
My response to Republican efforts to recruit independents is that independents should join whatever party they detest least and be heard in the caucuses. Both parties have an internal pendulum. In the Bush years, both parties swung violently to the left. This leftward swing is destroying our nation.
Independents attending the caucuses could help both parties swing back toward an appreciation of limited government and liberty. Here is the reply I posted on The Right Huff:
The Right Huff put up a short Republican calendar for the Republicans in Colorado.
I fear the situation where moderates flee the Democratic Party and we are left with the Democrats toeing the Marxist line and Republicans behaving as reactionaries.
The left controls the media and schools. An even deeper political divide in our nation could be devastating to our nation.
My response to Republican efforts to recruit independents is that independents should join whatever party they detest least and be heard in the caucuses. Both parties have an internal pendulum. In the Bush years, both parties swung violently to the left. This leftward swing is destroying our nation.
Independents attending the caucuses could help both parties swing back toward an appreciation of limited government and liberty. Here is the reply I posted on The Right Huff:
Pundits concentrate on the swing between Republican and Democrats. The truth is that both parties have an internal pendulum that swings from liberalism to progressivism.
In the Bush years, both parties swung hard left ... leaving us a choice between Neocon progressivism in the republican party and Marxian style progressivism in the Democrats.
This election, both parties are likely to swing back toward the Democratic and Republican version of limited government.
So, regardless of which party an independent joins, independent voices supporting limited government, states rights and freedom can and will be heard this year.
Independents should swallow the vile tasting bile. Join the party that they despise least and be heard in the caucus.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Constitutional Fog
The US Constitution is one of the most accessible legal documents ever written. In 17 pages, the document outlines the scope of a limited national government that proved much more effective than the convoluted governments of the fuedal and empiral ages.
The secret to the Founders's success was that they limited the government and empowered the people.
To punctuate the fact that the Constitution created a limited government, the founders of the country added 10 Amendments (the bill of rights) at the end of the document. The last amendment reserved to the States those rights not given to the Federal government.
The document is an easier read than my auto insurance policy.
An interesting development in our progressive age is that our Representative treat this document as if it were written in some type of obscure Egyptian hieroglyphics requiring a the interpretive skills of an advanced Constitutional scholar to decipher.
It is true that a scholar could spend a life time researching precedents and interpretations of the document and barely scratch the surface of all possible implications of the document. This does not mean the document is inaccessible.
Scholars could spend a life times on almost any subject. A scholar could spend a hundred life times studying Rock and Roll. For that matter, there's a large number number of decidated rock scholars in our schools. The fact that there's a large body of knowledge surrounding Rock and Roll does not make the music inaccessible.
The fact that someone could spend a great deal of time studying a subject is not the determining factor in accessibility. Accessibility references the ease with which one can get started or to understand the basic concepts behind an idea.
Disneyland is immensely complex, but little kids go there everyday.
Of course the fog built around the Constitution isn't the result of the Constitution itself. The fog is the result of the great pains progressives have taken to skirt the Constitution in their quest for unbridled centralized power.
Through our nation's history, our ruling class has gone through bone bending contortions to turn the Constitution to their ends. This effort has created a situation where they, like the chronic liar, must employ a legion scribes to keep their stories straight.
2009 has been one of the worst years in American legislation history. Our progressive Congress wasted over half a year writing health care legislation that they know is in violation of the spirit of the Constitution. When confronted with the unconstitutionality of their dense and bewildering constructions (the bills number in the thousands of pages), they point to one of the most accessible pieces of law ever written and project their convolutions onto the Constitution itself.
Hopefully enough people will seriously look at the convolutions coming from Congress and rejects these games being played by our ruling class.
The secret to the Founders's success was that they limited the government and empowered the people.
To punctuate the fact that the Constitution created a limited government, the founders of the country added 10 Amendments (the bill of rights) at the end of the document. The last amendment reserved to the States those rights not given to the Federal government.
The document is an easier read than my auto insurance policy.
An interesting development in our progressive age is that our Representative treat this document as if it were written in some type of obscure Egyptian hieroglyphics requiring a the interpretive skills of an advanced Constitutional scholar to decipher.
It is true that a scholar could spend a life time researching precedents and interpretations of the document and barely scratch the surface of all possible implications of the document. This does not mean the document is inaccessible.
Scholars could spend a life times on almost any subject. A scholar could spend a hundred life times studying Rock and Roll. For that matter, there's a large number number of decidated rock scholars in our schools. The fact that there's a large body of knowledge surrounding Rock and Roll does not make the music inaccessible.
The fact that someone could spend a great deal of time studying a subject is not the determining factor in accessibility. Accessibility references the ease with which one can get started or to understand the basic concepts behind an idea.
Disneyland is immensely complex, but little kids go there everyday.
Of course the fog built around the Constitution isn't the result of the Constitution itself. The fog is the result of the great pains progressives have taken to skirt the Constitution in their quest for unbridled centralized power.
Through our nation's history, our ruling class has gone through bone bending contortions to turn the Constitution to their ends. This effort has created a situation where they, like the chronic liar, must employ a legion scribes to keep their stories straight.
2009 has been one of the worst years in American legislation history. Our progressive Congress wasted over half a year writing health care legislation that they know is in violation of the spirit of the Constitution. When confronted with the unconstitutionality of their dense and bewildering constructions (the bills number in the thousands of pages), they point to one of the most accessible pieces of law ever written and project their convolutions onto the Constitution itself.
Hopefully enough people will seriously look at the convolutions coming from Congress and rejects these games being played by our ruling class.
Sunday, December 06, 2009
The Bottleneck of Congress
The best way to make a business fail is to push all decision making for the business through an over taxed bottleneck.
Nevada Senator Harry Reid just issued a charged partisan attack against the hated Republicans and secondary media for the claim that there is not enough transparency in the Health Care process.
Mr. Reid then enumerated all of the time that Congress diverted from its Consititutional duties to the Unconstitutional power grab of health care.
The Founders realized that one of the great problems of the monarchy was that monarchy pushed all decision making through a single point of failure that tended to be both overtaxed and corruptible.
The founders sought a balanced decision making system that distributed those decisions that had the most impact on individual lives to authorities close to the individual people.
They stated this idea in the tenth Amendment in an effort to punctuate their belief that the Constitution enumerated limited powers to the Federal government and reserved the other powers to the local authorities when individuals had a better shot at influencing the process.
So, in response to Harry Reid:
Yes, you and Nancy Pelosi diverted a great deal of legislation time from the jobs you were supposed to be doing. During this period you dropped the ball on a war which put our troops in danger. By dropping the ball, you created a situation where the Taliban had a resurgence in Afghanistan and came close to toppling the fragile new democracy in Pakistan.
The delay in sending additional troops meant that we had insufficient forces to protect the Afghan forces during their important election. Because our Congress took the eye off the ball, there was insufficient resources in Afghanistan to help assure the election was fair. As such, it appears that the election that so many of our troops died for was in fact manipulated and stolen from the people.
In Iran, we find that, while Senator Reid focused the attention of Congress on the power grab, Iran threw hundreds of political dissidents into prison and entered the final stage of its nuclear program.
On the environmental side of the fence we find that the Senate has an important Constitutional duty to provide advice and consent in international treatises.
Because of the Congressional power grab of health care, the President of the United States will attend one of the most important International Treatises negotiation in Copenhagen this month without adequate advice from our Senate leaders.
Dear Mr. Reid, while you dropped the ball on this extremely important Constitutional duty, there erupted claims that some of the data being used to justify the Copenhagen treaty was falsified.
Regardless of one's beliefs about global warming, the ClimateGate scandal is bad news. ClimateGate brings up the spectre that this treaty might be a flawed theory, in which case we will do irreparable harm to our economy for no positive return. The theory might be true, and the charges of fudged data might keep countries from ratifying a treastises that is necessary for preserving life on the planet earth.
All of the time that the Senate took from its Constitutional duties to perform an Unconstitutional power grab is time that should have been spent on the most important international treatises passed since the creation of the UN and NATO.
The really ironic thing is that, despite all of the time that Congress diverted from its Constitutional duties to grab regulation of insurance from the States, the time they gave to the important issue of health care still is not enough.
Don't you see?
Health care is the single most time consuming activity that we humans do. Health care is about the appliction of time, resources and decision making power to the needs of individuals. It is tough, time consuming work.
The founders of the US realized that such time consuming processes should be done through a distributed decision making process in the states or by the people themselves.
Health is an attribute of the individual. Both the financing and administration of health care needs to take place at a level close to the individual.
The desire for remform is not completely unfounded. The method for reform is.
Yes, it is true that big insurance has been failing the American people.
The reason that big insurance fails is that big insurance is too remote from the individual. (Self-financed care as in Medical Savings and Loan puts health care resources in the hands of the patient and the decision making process in the hands of the patient and doctor.)
The great Federal power grab of regulatory authority of health care makes the decision making process even more remote.
It places the decision making process in the hands of a group that is already over taxed with its Constitutional duties, and does not have the time to explore all of the nitty details necessary to deliver quality care to people thousands of miles away from Congress.
Even worse, this power grab is a one shot process. Congress is so overtaxed that people are not going to be able to use the Democratic process to rectify any mistakes made in the initial writing of the bill.
Mr. Reid, the fact that you personally failed in your Constitutional duty as a Senator in your power grab of health care shows the world that the power grab is wrong headed and will lead the American people to great harm.
Nevada Senator Harry Reid just issued a charged partisan attack against the hated Republicans and secondary media for the claim that there is not enough transparency in the Health Care process.
Mr. Reid then enumerated all of the time that Congress diverted from its Consititutional duties to the Unconstitutional power grab of health care.
The Founders realized that one of the great problems of the monarchy was that monarchy pushed all decision making through a single point of failure that tended to be both overtaxed and corruptible.
The founders sought a balanced decision making system that distributed those decisions that had the most impact on individual lives to authorities close to the individual people.
They stated this idea in the tenth Amendment in an effort to punctuate their belief that the Constitution enumerated limited powers to the Federal government and reserved the other powers to the local authorities when individuals had a better shot at influencing the process.
So, in response to Harry Reid:
Yes, you and Nancy Pelosi diverted a great deal of legislation time from the jobs you were supposed to be doing. During this period you dropped the ball on a war which put our troops in danger. By dropping the ball, you created a situation where the Taliban had a resurgence in Afghanistan and came close to toppling the fragile new democracy in Pakistan.
The delay in sending additional troops meant that we had insufficient forces to protect the Afghan forces during their important election. Because our Congress took the eye off the ball, there was insufficient resources in Afghanistan to help assure the election was fair. As such, it appears that the election that so many of our troops died for was in fact manipulated and stolen from the people.
In Iran, we find that, while Senator Reid focused the attention of Congress on the power grab, Iran threw hundreds of political dissidents into prison and entered the final stage of its nuclear program.
On the environmental side of the fence we find that the Senate has an important Constitutional duty to provide advice and consent in international treatises.
Because of the Congressional power grab of health care, the President of the United States will attend one of the most important International Treatises negotiation in Copenhagen this month without adequate advice from our Senate leaders.
Dear Mr. Reid, while you dropped the ball on this extremely important Constitutional duty, there erupted claims that some of the data being used to justify the Copenhagen treaty was falsified.
Regardless of one's beliefs about global warming, the ClimateGate scandal is bad news. ClimateGate brings up the spectre that this treaty might be a flawed theory, in which case we will do irreparable harm to our economy for no positive return. The theory might be true, and the charges of fudged data might keep countries from ratifying a treastises that is necessary for preserving life on the planet earth.
All of the time that the Senate took from its Constitutional duties to perform an Unconstitutional power grab is time that should have been spent on the most important international treatises passed since the creation of the UN and NATO.
The really ironic thing is that, despite all of the time that Congress diverted from its Constitutional duties to grab regulation of insurance from the States, the time they gave to the important issue of health care still is not enough.
Don't you see?
Health care is the single most time consuming activity that we humans do. Health care is about the appliction of time, resources and decision making power to the needs of individuals. It is tough, time consuming work.
The founders of the US realized that such time consuming processes should be done through a distributed decision making process in the states or by the people themselves.
Health is an attribute of the individual. Both the financing and administration of health care needs to take place at a level close to the individual.
The desire for remform is not completely unfounded. The method for reform is.
Yes, it is true that big insurance has been failing the American people.
The reason that big insurance fails is that big insurance is too remote from the individual. (Self-financed care as in Medical Savings and Loan puts health care resources in the hands of the patient and the decision making process in the hands of the patient and doctor.)
The great Federal power grab of regulatory authority of health care makes the decision making process even more remote.
It places the decision making process in the hands of a group that is already over taxed with its Constitutional duties, and does not have the time to explore all of the nitty details necessary to deliver quality care to people thousands of miles away from Congress.
Even worse, this power grab is a one shot process. Congress is so overtaxed that people are not going to be able to use the Democratic process to rectify any mistakes made in the initial writing of the bill.
Mr. Reid, the fact that you personally failed in your Constitutional duty as a Senator in your power grab of health care shows the world that the power grab is wrong headed and will lead the American people to great harm.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
The Reason for States' Rights
I fear that many people today have never been exposed to the reasoning behind state's rights. Our public education system encourages folks to follow the following line of reasoning: The Federal Government is the biggest government. As it is the biggest government, important things like health care and education should be regulated by the Feds.
The thinking for states' rights follows a different path. This thinking holds that those things most important to an individual should be administered in a realm that can be affected by the individual.
Since it is extremely difficult to influence the decision making process 3000 miles away in Washington DC, health care and education are better left to the states.
Even the states are too large these days, which is why people are usually better off with insurance companies. The best insurance companies are small local mutual funds.
Practical experience shows that education at private schools is more cost-effective and usually does a better job than state funded education. This is because the service takes place in a realm directly under control of the customers.
The founders were happy with the protection and kinship with England, but had horrible experiences when the King of England meddled in private affairs. They understood implicitly that things that are important to a person should be administered in a realm that could be influenced by that person.
Our education system pretends to have a universal perspective of things. When we come out of school, we think of the universal perspective as a higher perspective. However, as people experience life, they find the greatest frustrations are with the big monolithic structures of big business and big government that dominates the economic landscape.
The universal perspective claimed by Hegel and Marx is at best an abstraction, at worst it is an illusion (the big lie). Society simply functions better when we realize that each person has a unique perspective and the ideal society minimizes dependencies. Where dependencies occur, the governance of the dependency should take place in a realm where the dependents have some influence on decisions.
The founders realized this nature of man and structured a government with multiple branches and layers and reserved to the states those powers which most directly affected the people.
The thinking for states' rights follows a different path. This thinking holds that those things most important to an individual should be administered in a realm that can be affected by the individual.
Since it is extremely difficult to influence the decision making process 3000 miles away in Washington DC, health care and education are better left to the states.
Even the states are too large these days, which is why people are usually better off with insurance companies. The best insurance companies are small local mutual funds.
Practical experience shows that education at private schools is more cost-effective and usually does a better job than state funded education. This is because the service takes place in a realm directly under control of the customers.
The founders were happy with the protection and kinship with England, but had horrible experiences when the King of England meddled in private affairs. They understood implicitly that things that are important to a person should be administered in a realm that could be influenced by that person.
Our education system pretends to have a universal perspective of things. When we come out of school, we think of the universal perspective as a higher perspective. However, as people experience life, they find the greatest frustrations are with the big monolithic structures of big business and big government that dominates the economic landscape.
The universal perspective claimed by Hegel and Marx is at best an abstraction, at worst it is an illusion (the big lie). Society simply functions better when we realize that each person has a unique perspective and the ideal society minimizes dependencies. Where dependencies occur, the governance of the dependency should take place in a realm where the dependents have some influence on decisions.
The founders realized this nature of man and structured a government with multiple branches and layers and reserved to the states those powers which most directly affected the people.
Sunday, April 05, 2009
World Brinkmanship
I was sad to see Obama making domestic partisan jabs during his world rock tour.
The jabs didn't surprise me. He is simply communicating the way that we were taught to communicate in school. The modern professoriat is built around arcane ideas about paradigm shifting.
The process of paradigm shifter involves teaching people to repeat themes with the notion that the theme will become the accepted reality. Both Obama's international Bush bashing and Hillary Clintons reset button gafaw were efforts to use the international stage as a platform for repeating partisan themes.
This is what we are taught to do in school. Apparently, it is effective.
The speech of note during Obama's trip came in the form of a prepared reaction to North Korea's flaunting UN Resolutions to launch an intercontinental rocket. (an interesting next step in its nuclear weapons program).
The speech echoes Bush's complaints of Iraq's repeated flaunting of UN's resolutions about its WMD program.
Of course, the NK issue is not quite as substantial a threat as Hussein's WMD program. Hussein had used WMDs against his people and the Middle East was gripped with the mistaken belief that a big war would lead to a new glory age for Islam.
NK is simply practicing brinkmanship. The NK game is that the missile spectacle attacks attention and attention helps consolidate power while bringing in money.
Regardless of the context, Obama's speech on the crisis was well played. For society to work, the words we say have to mean something. In a technically advanced world, we have to have more than empty rhetoric; otherwise, we will fall into a negative pattern where dictators use brinkmanship for political and monetary gains.
The jabs didn't surprise me. He is simply communicating the way that we were taught to communicate in school. The modern professoriat is built around arcane ideas about paradigm shifting.
The process of paradigm shifter involves teaching people to repeat themes with the notion that the theme will become the accepted reality. Both Obama's international Bush bashing and Hillary Clintons reset button gafaw were efforts to use the international stage as a platform for repeating partisan themes.
This is what we are taught to do in school. Apparently, it is effective.
The speech of note during Obama's trip came in the form of a prepared reaction to North Korea's flaunting UN Resolutions to launch an intercontinental rocket. (an interesting next step in its nuclear weapons program).
The speech echoes Bush's complaints of Iraq's repeated flaunting of UN's resolutions about its WMD program.
Of course, the NK issue is not quite as substantial a threat as Hussein's WMD program. Hussein had used WMDs against his people and the Middle East was gripped with the mistaken belief that a big war would lead to a new glory age for Islam.
NK is simply practicing brinkmanship. The NK game is that the missile spectacle attacks attention and attention helps consolidate power while bringing in money.
Regardless of the context, Obama's speech on the crisis was well played. For society to work, the words we say have to mean something. In a technically advanced world, we have to have more than empty rhetoric; otherwise, we will fall into a negative pattern where dictators use brinkmanship for political and monetary gains.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Message v. Method
So much is made of the message of change. In the scheme of things, however, the method of change is far more important than the message.
Quality change rarely comes from the big institutions or authorities that dominate the world. The primary concern of big powerful moneyed interests is to stay big, cash heavy and powerful.
I am depressed today because our two "change candidates" are both talking about change being greater centralization of volunteer services.
Volunteer work is one of the few opportunities in life where people can really be creative in their lives. Greater centralization diminishes what individuals can do.
Interestingly, while service work is where individuals can be at their best. Volunteer work is also where people can be their most petty and cruel.
The great witch hunts of Salem, the East German Stasi, China's cultural revolution were largely volunteer efforts organized by political thugs.
In US Western history, we find volunteers massacring tribes of Native Americans. The Rwanda genocide was pretty much a voluntary thang.
Vigilantes are, by definition, volunteers. They voluntarily haul people to the hanging tree in response to a message for change. The KKK was a volunteer effort. Imagining poorly educated twangy voices: "I volunteer to get the matches, Duke volunteers to make a cross and Earl over there volunteers to sew up sheets into hoods." The bastards thought they were doing community service.
Many of the suicide bombers in the Mideast are volunteers who've been misled by community organizers into thinking that they are doing their civic duty.
The nattering nest of negativism called the blogosphere, of which I am a part, is a voluntary effort.
Simply because people volunteered to do something does not mean that something is necessarily good.
The message of change or the message of volunteerism doesn't necessarily make the world better. It is the method of change and the shape of the volunteer work that counts.
In the highly charged political atmosphere of 2008, I find the "bipartisan" message that we should bring volunteer and service efforts under control of a centralized authority quite troubling.
Quality change rarely comes from the big institutions or authorities that dominate the world. The primary concern of big powerful moneyed interests is to stay big, cash heavy and powerful.
I am depressed today because our two "change candidates" are both talking about change being greater centralization of volunteer services.
Volunteer work is one of the few opportunities in life where people can really be creative in their lives. Greater centralization diminishes what individuals can do.
Interestingly, while service work is where individuals can be at their best. Volunteer work is also where people can be their most petty and cruel.
The great witch hunts of Salem, the East German Stasi, China's cultural revolution were largely volunteer efforts organized by political thugs.
In US Western history, we find volunteers massacring tribes of Native Americans. The Rwanda genocide was pretty much a voluntary thang.
Vigilantes are, by definition, volunteers. They voluntarily haul people to the hanging tree in response to a message for change. The KKK was a volunteer effort. Imagining poorly educated twangy voices: "I volunteer to get the matches, Duke volunteers to make a cross and Earl over there volunteers to sew up sheets into hoods." The bastards thought they were doing community service.
Many of the suicide bombers in the Mideast are volunteers who've been misled by community organizers into thinking that they are doing their civic duty.
The nattering nest of negativism called the blogosphere, of which I am a part, is a voluntary effort.
Simply because people volunteered to do something does not mean that something is necessarily good.
The message of change or the message of volunteerism doesn't necessarily make the world better. It is the method of change and the shape of the volunteer work that counts.
In the highly charged political atmosphere of 2008, I find the "bipartisan" message that we should bring volunteer and service efforts under control of a centralized authority quite troubling.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Convention Insanity
I was reading local blog posts talking about how much they wish they were in Denver at the moment. I thought the posts funny because I had decided to put off
If I had been able to pull off my plans. I would be in Denver at the moment.
Much as I want to get to the other side of the Zion Curtain, I decided to put off going to Denver for six months.
I am interested in things that build local communities. Coronation ceremonies don't build community. If the convention was about people exchanging ideas with the leadership of the party, then I think I would be there. But conventions are orchestrated media events where the anointed work to deliver a message honed for the maximum effect.
This applies to both D and R conventions. Political conventions are, by definition, a partisan event. As a partisan event, they don't build community. There is a tiny change that I could have scored an inbound link or two this blog and elevated it from the lowest possible technorati score of 1. I think I would have just been miserable.
I did watch Michelle Obama's speech on the tube. The message of change is that we should give up on the American Experiment that created a government that was well suited for the way life is, and change to a shiny new government designed for the way life ought to be.
The message was interesting in that I have been trying to figure out how to say just the opposite.
The Ancients through the Dark Ages held the ideal that happiness would come through the perfection of the centralized government ... The Empire. People fell for the line that the king (and the ruling class) lived as servants to the people. Serfs did horrible things to one another in the belief that the centralized government would take care of them when the emperor was strong.
The Renaissance and Enlightenment were defined by new intellectual efforts to apply reasoning to define the way life is, and to find the best way of governing a world the way that it is.
This effort came to fruition with the development of a slightly freer market, the protection of human rights and a limited government with democratically elected leaders. The system works. It is a shame that the people meeting in Denver want to end it.
The other thing I noticed about Michelle's speech. She spent the lion-share of the speech talking about the struggles of the working class. She spoke about people working themselves ragged to pay for health care and consumer goods. She lamented the people working two shifts to make ends meet and spoke about how it is nigh impossible for a person who is in the habit of living from pay check to pay check to pay for health care expenses.
Nowhere in the speech did she mention small business or ownership.
The paycheck to paycheck trap is untenable. There are two ways out of it. The first is for people to accept the world as it is, and for individual people to save in times of health to prepare for times of hardship. The second is to return to imperial dream where we have a massive centralized feudal system, and people hold to the delusion that the king is a servant to the people, as it ought to be.
If I had been able to pull off my plans. I would be in Denver at the moment.
Much as I want to get to the other side of the Zion Curtain, I decided to put off going to Denver for six months.
I am interested in things that build local communities. Coronation ceremonies don't build community. If the convention was about people exchanging ideas with the leadership of the party, then I think I would be there. But conventions are orchestrated media events where the anointed work to deliver a message honed for the maximum effect.
This applies to both D and R conventions. Political conventions are, by definition, a partisan event. As a partisan event, they don't build community. There is a tiny change that I could have scored an inbound link or two this blog and elevated it from the lowest possible technorati score of 1. I think I would have just been miserable.
I did watch Michelle Obama's speech on the tube. The message of change is that we should give up on the American Experiment that created a government that was well suited for the way life is, and change to a shiny new government designed for the way life ought to be.
The message was interesting in that I have been trying to figure out how to say just the opposite.
The Ancients through the Dark Ages held the ideal that happiness would come through the perfection of the centralized government ... The Empire. People fell for the line that the king (and the ruling class) lived as servants to the people. Serfs did horrible things to one another in the belief that the centralized government would take care of them when the emperor was strong.
The Renaissance and Enlightenment were defined by new intellectual efforts to apply reasoning to define the way life is, and to find the best way of governing a world the way that it is.
This effort came to fruition with the development of a slightly freer market, the protection of human rights and a limited government with democratically elected leaders. The system works. It is a shame that the people meeting in Denver want to end it.
The other thing I noticed about Michelle's speech. She spent the lion-share of the speech talking about the struggles of the working class. She spoke about people working themselves ragged to pay for health care and consumer goods. She lamented the people working two shifts to make ends meet and spoke about how it is nigh impossible for a person who is in the habit of living from pay check to pay check to pay for health care expenses.
Nowhere in the speech did she mention small business or ownership.
The paycheck to paycheck trap is untenable. There are two ways out of it. The first is for people to accept the world as it is, and for individual people to save in times of health to prepare for times of hardship. The second is to return to imperial dream where we have a massive centralized feudal system, and people hold to the delusion that the king is a servant to the people, as it ought to be.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Stealing the Limelight
A guy named Ed Hale is getting a ray of limelight. He slammed up a site called Hillary Clinton Supporters for John McCain. The central gist of the site is a complaint about the super delegate system:
I voted for Obama during the Utah primary. I did so because I liked his 2004 Democratic Convention speech. I also liked that some of his supporters are arguing for improved political discourse. Obama's arguments against the 2003 invasion of Iraq fits closely with my beliefs at the time.
Obama and I differ on the troop surge, health care and education.
The problem is that I can't figure out if Obama is committed to quality discourse or if he is just making a pretense to intellectualism. If Obama was committed to quality discourse; there would be a large pile of ideas on the table, and we would be discussing those ideas. Instead we have all this propaganda on the table, a politically active contingent on the blogosphere trying to make people unhappy coupled with a nebulous call for an undefined change.
All we know at this point is that the nebulous change has socialized medicine, a serious reduction in the private ownership of cars, houses and a precipitous drop in our consumption of energy. People who the world consider rich will pay substantially more taxes (all Americans are considered rich). What we don't have on the table is an explanation of how all of this dramatic reduction in private property ownership will result in happiness.
Related to Ed Hale's allusion to Russia, I am also hesitant to support Obama because I've read too much Marxist literature. This nebulous call for change is far too reminiscent of Mao's Cultural Revolution.
The point I was trying to make in on the Crass Commercial site (which is still down) is that Marx never defined communism.
What Marx did was to create a system of discourse that made people discontent with their current state. He then held out Communism as a change that would make things better.
Marx gave a formula for inciting people to action, but did not provide a constructive form for their action. The action led to widespread misery.
Moa's cultural revolution was engineered affair where Moa incited youth militias to a cultural purging. The youth movement took to purging with a vengeance, and things got really bad.
There are some youthful elements of the blogosphere which are a bit gaga for Obama and a bit irrational in their exuberance.
Recent trends in American politics is that presidents have rushed to the center after their election. The Clintons supported free trade initiatives and did not expand government quite as much I expected. The Bush administration took a wide stance and supported every big government boondoggle and earmark thrown on the table. Bush and Company rushed leftward with a hope of buying a permanent Republican hegemony. Consequently, Bush expanded government more than any president since LBJ.
My guess is that Obama is just using Mao's political platform as a way to gain power, and will drop it after the election. While there are many professors who cling to Marxist Dialectics with the same fervor as the ingornant Pennsylvanians clings to their guns and religion, most people realize that Marxism failed worse than United States failed.
My hope is that the Obama campaign will move toward the center.
Of course, both Bill Clinton and GW Bush ran as centrists.
Obama is running as an agent of change. Obama will have a super majority along with complete control of the schools and mainstream media.
One would expect an agent of change with a super majority to become more partisan after the election.
America seems to work best with a split government. The thrashing from a Republican super majority to a democratic super majority could prove fatal.
In this regard, I applaud Ed Hale and Hillary Clinton Supporters for John McCain. I hate that there is too much power in the president's hands. Anything that diminishes the power of the glorious leader is welcome.
What I saw today was what went on in the USSR (Russia) 30 years ago. The Boss's called the shots, and I decide that I did not want any part of them.
I voted for Obama during the Utah primary. I did so because I liked his 2004 Democratic Convention speech. I also liked that some of his supporters are arguing for improved political discourse. Obama's arguments against the 2003 invasion of Iraq fits closely with my beliefs at the time.
Obama and I differ on the troop surge, health care and education.
The Republicans often get the short end of the stick when there is a mass exodus from the Democratic Party. For example, the Democratic Party was the source of the Jim Crow laws. To the detriment of the Republican party, many racists switched parties during the Civil Rights Movement.
One can argue that many of the excesses of the Bush presidency came from philosophical quirks of neocons (at least those neocons that switched parties for political expediency.
I think that the reform of the Democratic Party would do more for this country than another political win for the neocon infused Republican Party.One can argue that many of the excesses of the Bush presidency came from philosophical quirks of neocons (at least those neocons that switched parties for political expediency.
The problem is that I can't figure out if Obama is committed to quality discourse or if he is just making a pretense to intellectualism. If Obama was committed to quality discourse; there would be a large pile of ideas on the table, and we would be discussing those ideas. Instead we have all this propaganda on the table, a politically active contingent on the blogosphere trying to make people unhappy coupled with a nebulous call for an undefined change.
All we know at this point is that the nebulous change has socialized medicine, a serious reduction in the private ownership of cars, houses and a precipitous drop in our consumption of energy. People who the world consider rich will pay substantially more taxes (all Americans are considered rich). What we don't have on the table is an explanation of how all of this dramatic reduction in private property ownership will result in happiness.
Related to Ed Hale's allusion to Russia, I am also hesitant to support Obama because I've read too much Marxist literature. This nebulous call for change is far too reminiscent of Mao's Cultural Revolution.
The point I was trying to make in on the Crass Commercial site (which is still down) is that Marx never defined communism.
What Marx did was to create a system of discourse that made people discontent with their current state. He then held out Communism as a change that would make things better.
Marx gave a formula for inciting people to action, but did not provide a constructive form for their action. The action led to widespread misery.
Moa's cultural revolution was engineered affair where Moa incited youth militias to a cultural purging. The youth movement took to purging with a vengeance, and things got really bad.
There are some youthful elements of the blogosphere which are a bit gaga for Obama and a bit irrational in their exuberance.
Recent trends in American politics is that presidents have rushed to the center after their election. The Clintons supported free trade initiatives and did not expand government quite as much I expected. The Bush administration took a wide stance and supported every big government boondoggle and earmark thrown on the table. Bush and Company rushed leftward with a hope of buying a permanent Republican hegemony. Consequently, Bush expanded government more than any president since LBJ.
My guess is that Obama is just using Mao's political platform as a way to gain power, and will drop it after the election. While there are many professors who cling to Marxist Dialectics with the same fervor as the ingornant Pennsylvanians clings to their guns and religion, most people realize that Marxism failed worse than United States failed.
My hope is that the Obama campaign will move toward the center.
Of course, both Bill Clinton and GW Bush ran as centrists.
Obama is running as an agent of change. Obama will have a super majority along with complete control of the schools and mainstream media.
One would expect an agent of change with a super majority to become more partisan after the election.
America seems to work best with a split government. The thrashing from a Republican super majority to a democratic super majority could prove fatal.
In this regard, I applaud Ed Hale and Hillary Clinton Supporters for John McCain. I hate that there is too much power in the president's hands. Anything that diminishes the power of the glorious leader is welcome.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Paul Reverette
I was listening to Paul Reverette, aka Hillary Clinton, in one of her shrill calls for recession.
The funny thing is that the US economy was in a more precarious situation at the end of the dot com bust that occurred during the Clinton dynasty.
In the 2000 campaign, there was a great fear that the Republicans would start screaming recession, AS CLINTON AND BARACK ARE DOING AT THE MOMENT, and that Republicans screaming for recession AS CLINTON AND BARACK ARE DOING would actually lead to recession.
The Republicans could have gained political advantage in 2000 if they screamed recession.
Other than a few Conservative drones like Glen Beck, the Republicans did not scream recession in 2000, and there was not a major domestic and international effort to short American companies and our currency.
Anyway, my stomache is turning because Clinton is using the divisive techniques that her administration claimed to be unfair in Al Gore's presidential bid.
BTW, what is super surprising is that our economy is still doing well despite all of the shorting and top of the lung screaming of the word "Recession" done by Barack and Clinton and the legions of sheep that scream in unison with their master.
PS, A few posts ago, I criticized McCain's tax vacation as a bad idea. Clinton jumped on that band wagon. Obama did not. Barack seems a little bit more skilled at sniffing out bad ideas than the other presidential candidates.
I am not quite sure if he would be adept at coming up with good ideas though.
The funny thing is that the US economy was in a more precarious situation at the end of the dot com bust that occurred during the Clinton dynasty.
In the 2000 campaign, there was a great fear that the Republicans would start screaming recession, AS CLINTON AND BARACK ARE DOING AT THE MOMENT, and that Republicans screaming for recession AS CLINTON AND BARACK ARE DOING would actually lead to recession.
The Republicans could have gained political advantage in 2000 if they screamed recession.
Other than a few Conservative drones like Glen Beck, the Republicans did not scream recession in 2000, and there was not a major domestic and international effort to short American companies and our currency.
Anyway, my stomache is turning because Clinton is using the divisive techniques that her administration claimed to be unfair in Al Gore's presidential bid.
BTW, what is super surprising is that our economy is still doing well despite all of the shorting and top of the lung screaming of the word "Recession" done by Barack and Clinton and the legions of sheep that scream in unison with their master.
PS, A few posts ago, I criticized McCain's tax vacation as a bad idea. Clinton jumped on that band wagon. Obama did not. Barack seems a little bit more skilled at sniffing out bad ideas than the other presidential candidates.
I am not quite sure if he would be adept at coming up with good ideas though.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Guilt by Association
I was recently in a debate about whether or not the media should be reporting on associates of presidential candidates.
Most people seem to hold the gut feeling that the associations of presidential candidates is fair game for media scrutiny; However the idea of judging a candidate based on the company they keep seems to be a violation of the principle of Freedom of Association.
My take on the issues was as follows:
The term "Freedom of Association" is a place holder for a statement similar to "The State should not judge an individual for their association."
The statement "An individual should not judge a political candidate for their associations" is a logically independent statement.
The relation is a little bit like the logical converse. P → Q (P implies Q) is logically independent of its converse Q ← P (Q implies P). A triangle is a polygon does not mean that a polygon is a triangle.
One of the most fundamental mistakes of reason is to assume that the converse of a statement is true. The converse may be true. However, since it is logically independent, it must be analyzed independently.
My next observation was that, since political candidates often appoint their associates to positions of power, then it is critical for the media to examine the associates of a candidate.
I have noticed that whenever the press questions a candidate about their associations, their minions run around crying that their opponents are playing foul and trying their candidate by "guilt through association."
These cries ring hollow to me.
An election is something completely different from a criminal trial. A criminal trial has the goal of punishing criminals for their misdeeds. In a criminal trial, the court is considering a negative action against an individual.
An election is a decision about the direction a group wishes to follow. It is an inherently possitive thing. In an election, the people are weighing the good and bad things that might happen when the candidate is in power.
Trying to apply the standards of a criminal trial to a political campaign is absurd because they are logically different actions.
Anyway, after our discussion I helped pen a blog post on Freedom of Association.
Most people seem to hold the gut feeling that the associations of presidential candidates is fair game for media scrutiny; However the idea of judging a candidate based on the company they keep seems to be a violation of the principle of Freedom of Association.
My take on the issues was as follows:
The term "Freedom of Association" is a place holder for a statement similar to "The State should not judge an individual for their association."
The statement "An individual should not judge a political candidate for their associations" is a logically independent statement.
The relation is a little bit like the logical converse. P → Q (P implies Q) is logically independent of its converse Q ← P (Q implies P). A triangle is a polygon does not mean that a polygon is a triangle.
One of the most fundamental mistakes of reason is to assume that the converse of a statement is true. The converse may be true. However, since it is logically independent, it must be analyzed independently.
My next observation was that, since political candidates often appoint their associates to positions of power, then it is critical for the media to examine the associates of a candidate.
I have noticed that whenever the press questions a candidate about their associations, their minions run around crying that their opponents are playing foul and trying their candidate by "guilt through association."
These cries ring hollow to me.
An election is something completely different from a criminal trial. A criminal trial has the goal of punishing criminals for their misdeeds. In a criminal trial, the court is considering a negative action against an individual.
An election is a decision about the direction a group wishes to follow. It is an inherently possitive thing. In an election, the people are weighing the good and bad things that might happen when the candidate is in power.
Trying to apply the standards of a criminal trial to a political campaign is absurd because they are logically different actions.
Anyway, after our discussion I helped pen a blog post on Freedom of Association.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Remembering 2000
Can anyone remember the 2000 election when George W. Bush was chastised by the Democratic candidates for not being positive about the economy?
The economic outlook of the dotcom bust was far worse than the economic outlook today. Bush was chastised simply for not rah-rahing the economy.
In the 2008 election, the Democrats are actually telling people to panic. We've had a solid 5 months of the MSM telling us to prepare for and fear economic recession. the short interest and FTDs have shot through the ceiling. We are now being instructed to panic.
Does anyone out there understand why the Democrats make me sick to the stomache?
If the Democratic Party had even a half millimeter thick layer of integrity. They would be lauding the US (and possibily global) slowdown for the fact that this re-alignment in the economy is reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Greenhouse gasses that lead to global warming.
We have to have multiple parties for our system of government to work. The central core of the Democratic Party is so thoroughly disgusting that I am at a loss for words.
The economic outlook of the dotcom bust was far worse than the economic outlook today. Bush was chastised simply for not rah-rahing the economy.
In the 2008 election, the Democrats are actually telling people to panic. We've had a solid 5 months of the MSM telling us to prepare for and fear economic recession. the short interest and FTDs have shot through the ceiling. We are now being instructed to panic.
Does anyone out there understand why the Democrats make me sick to the stomache?
If the Democratic Party had even a half millimeter thick layer of integrity. They would be lauding the US (and possibily global) slowdown for the fact that this re-alignment in the economy is reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Greenhouse gasses that lead to global warming.
We have to have multiple parties for our system of government to work. The central core of the Democratic Party is so thoroughly disgusting that I am at a loss for words.
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Glass Booth
I took the Glass Booth survey. It says I am most like McCain.
Actually, during the survey, my primary thought was that the president shouldn't be the primary factor in a very large number of the questions.
For example, education should be our primary concern as a society. It is so important, that the Federal Government should not be involved in it.
The federal government is distant. It sould deal with distant concerns.
Education is near. Healthcare is even closer. The people should be the ones in charge of handling the issues that are near and dear to the heart.
Our minds are strange. We seem to want to solve the problems that are out of our reach with our local resources, then try to grab resources from afar to handle the issues close at hand.
Actually, during the survey, my primary thought was that the president shouldn't be the primary factor in a very large number of the questions.
For example, education should be our primary concern as a society. It is so important, that the Federal Government should not be involved in it.
The federal government is distant. It sould deal with distant concerns.
Education is near. Healthcare is even closer. The people should be the ones in charge of handling the issues that are near and dear to the heart.
Our minds are strange. We seem to want to solve the problems that are out of our reach with our local resources, then try to grab resources from afar to handle the issues close at hand.
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