When Leftists Abuse Notions of Jesus

A favorite rhetorical trick of the left is to say to accuse (the word for Satan in Hebrew) Christians of not following Jesus' teachings regarding some policy issue.  The latest concerns immigration and accepting Muslim refugees.  Here is my tl;dr response if you don't want to read further: Piss off.

Jesus and the New Testament has lots of stuff that the left doesn't accept; so until they do, I don't accept their interpretation of anything Jesus said. Here is a short list of examples.

Divorce (Matthew 19):

3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’[a] 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’[b]? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
7 “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”
8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

The left accepts divorce as acceptable for many reasons, I don't.

Adultery (John 4): Jesus also is clearly condemning adultery in that passage, which the left always excuses.

Homosexual relations (Romans 1:18-27):

18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
24Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Note that homosexual attraction per se is not condemned, but rather homosexual acts are equated with idolatry.  The greatest sin against God.

Open borders.  (Acts 17:25-27) which is explaining some of the meaning of the Tower of Babel:

26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.

and Deuteronomy 32:

7Remember the days of old;
consider the years of many generations;
ask your father, and he will show you,
your elders, and they will tell you.
8When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance,
when he divided mankind,
he fixed the borders of the peoples
according to the number of the sons of God.
9But the LORD’s portion is his people,
Jacob his allotted heritage.

If you are a Christian being chastised by some lunatic leftist, challenge them on THEIR belief in all the Bible says before you answer.  Don't grant them the moral premise of a response.

One Market to Rule Them All - The Death of Industrial Society

Note: This post is still a work in progress. Your comments are welcome to help improve concepts being worked.

More brilliant minds than mine have noticed the intersection and codependency of leftist society and technological society.  Only more recently, and less noticed is that leftist belief is correlated with low fertility rates and leftism is correlated with feminism.  Further, leftism (of the cultural variety) and technological progress seem to be uniquely products of European societies, by which I include Canada, Australia and the United States. How did this evolutionary dead end come to exist; what are its root causes in terms of evolutionary biology? Is technological society is an evolutionary dead-end or is there a way out?

First what do I mean by leftist?

The leftist is oriented toward large scale collectivism. He emphasizes the duty of the individual to serve society and the duly of society to take care of the individual. He has a negative attitude toward individualism. He often takes a moralistic tone. Me tends to be for gun control, for sex education and other psychologically "enlightened" educational methods, for planning, for affirmative action, for multiculturalism. He tends to identify with victims. He tends to be against competition and against violence, but he often finds excuses for those leftists who do commit violence. He is fond of using the common catch-phrases of the left like "racism, ""sexism, " "homophobia, " "capitalism," "imperialism," "neocolonialism " "genocide," "social change," "social justice," "social responsibility." Maybe the best diagnostic trait of the leftist is his tendency to sympathize with the following movements: feminism, gay rights, ethnic rights, disability rights, animal rights, and political correctness. Anyone who strongly sympathizes with all of these movements is almost certainly a leftist.'

From the same author:

Among the abnormal conditions present in modern industrial society are excessive density of population, isolation of man from nature, excessive rapidity of social change and the breakdown of natural small-scale communities such as the extended family, the village or the tribe.

Modern society is cut off from the roots of man's recent evolution.  However, in modern industrial and technological society, in addition to the jarring discontinuity with the natural order, man also experiences significant loss of freedom over the activities of life that are meaningful. The lack of autonomy inherent in modern technological life is oppressive to the human spirit, but technological society cannot function without it.  We need lanes for cars and speed limits to limit wrecks.  We need workers to follow instructions because large scale disasters like widespread power outages can result from human failure.  But the result is a loss of autonomy that is irreconcilable with human nature.

As a result, we oversocialize our youth to get them to adapt to industrial society.  We do this because to date, industrial society has overwhelmed all other forms of social organization through possession of superior technology.  The most efficiently ordered industrial societies have defeated the others and serve as the model, but at a heavy price in human freedom.  This oversocialization produces a large number of people who feel helpless and weak and lacking in autonomy.  They are unable to experience themselves as powerful individuals.  They become leftists:

But the leftist is too far gone for that. His feelings of inferiority are so ingrained that he cannot conceive of himself as individually strong and valuable. Hence the collectivism of the leftist. He can feel strong only as a member of a large organization or a mass movement with which he identifies himself.

The industrial system has a need for ever expanding economic output.  Until recently, that output has been increased in part by bringing women and minorities into the work force, increasing the overall labor participation rate.  (Productivity forms the other portion of rising output, but is not of interest here.) Leftism has contributed by clearing political and cultural hurdles that might have slowed this trend. Since the conditions that produce the leftist mindset have the seemingly good intentions of adapting children to industrial society and the leftist mindset in turn produced more workers, it is no wonder that the culture has lurched leftward rapidly.  Simultaneously, with more women in the workforce, with work itself being less physically demanding, current evolutionary pressure has produce more feminine men and more masculine women.  The traditional bonds of marriage, religion, and nationalism that were impediments to these outcomes have become the targets of leftism because these cultural institutions are barriers to increasing the work force.

Feminism is a subset of leftism with special emphasis on denying the truth that women are generally physically and emotionally weaker than men and have a genetic predisposition to play a different role in society than men.  Feminism seeks to not only destroy any sane legal protections for the weaker sex, but to destroy marriage (through divorce and the promotion of gay marriage) and to expand government so that women need not depend on any husband for financial support for her offspring.  This result is feeds the industrial system initially by supplying  more women to the labor force.

But human beings cannot evolve fast enough to keep pace with these changes.  As a result, women actually long for the very virility in men even as they decry it.  However, the vicious circle of industrialization and leftism has delivered a population of men unable to rise to this challenge.  Further, because traditional European monogamy has been destroyed, a large portion of the male population has little hope of establishing a permanent family.  Woman in society are like petulant children who have not been given any limits, they continue to push past supposed boundaries while secretly hoping for their imposition.  But alas, society is no longer capable of imposing any social order.

Modern social change is characterized by:

• Breakdown of traditional sexual morality
• Unrootedness, that is lack of identification with a locale and its people
• Universalism, a belief in the actual equalism of all people, genders, etc.
• Low fertility 
• Androgyny 
• Pathological altruism or empathobesity

Feminism is a evolutionary maladaptation to industrial society that is sowing the seeds of the destruction of western civilization.  The low fertility will ultimately result in a the death of a culture overwhelmed by sheer numbers by more procreating races.

Borrowing from concepts popularized and refined on the blog Chateau Heartiste, I make the following assertions regarding the current feminized political environment.

• The invitation by feminized political systems to bring in young, virile men from other cultures as a "shit test" to the androgynous beta male western culture.  A "shit test" is simply a test of reproductive fitness to see if the male under test has the emotional wherewithal to counter body blows to the ego by a woman.  Males who pass demonstrate their fitness for reproduction.
• Low fertility is the unintended consequence of feminism, and is just now beginning to threaten technological society.  However, universalist belief that low birth rate can be compensated by importing Arabs, Africans or Mestizos workers has not fully collided with the reality of those cultures failure to produce reliable and intelligent workers.
• The exact biological mechanism causing increasing androgyny is unknown.  Reversing its trend will prove difficult lacking knowledge of its pathology.
• High African fertility rates will result in pressures to allow African emigration to conquer European societies (including Canada, U.S. and Australia.)  A sort of world-wide "Camp of the Saints" with African refugees substituting for Indian refugees will result.

Other Explanations

I want to consider that technology might not be the direct cause of leftism, but that both technology and leftism arise out of a common root cause.  We might consider why advanced technology has arisen in advanced civilization at all and how leftism is related.  In Biohistory, Jim Penman argues that the rise of technological civilization come from the ability of cultural artifacts like religion to mimic natural conditions that influence human behavior.  The cultural beliefs that conservatives and/or traditionalists embrace that led to the rise of civilization are undermined by its own success.  To some extent this parallels the argument in "Industrial Society and Its Future."

A weak point about these cultural systems is that they are vulnerable to the effects of abundance and population density. Wealthy urban societies with plentiful food tend to abandon ascetic behaviors, such as restrictions on sexual activity, which mimic the effects of food shortage. This in turn leads to society-wide change in temperament and behavior which undermine success. In effect, the greater the wealth and density of a society’s population, the harder it is to maintain the cultural strategies responsible for the society’s rise. In the chapters to come we propose that the collapse of civilizations, along with their replacement by people from less-developed societies, can be understood in this way.

Any way out?

In general, religious whites have higher fertility rates than the non-religious whites.  Given that religious belief is heritable, will religious belief make a demographic come back?  If so, how will the evolutionary pressures of industrial society be overcome.  Possession of superior technology has proven throughout history to be an important part of Darwinian societal success.  

The Confederate Conundrum

Over at the Alternative Right blog, Matthew Heimbach makes the case for flying the Confederate battle flag.  He is unapologetic about the inherent racism in the symbol and I applaud his honesty.  He also deplores the greed and lack of humanity that led to the importation of slaves from Africa, to be fair. The crux of his argument follows:

This flag has become a symbol of the Confederate soldier, but also White resistance to federal tyranny and forced multiculturalism. The men who fought under it rejected the idea of multiculturalism and an empire to rule over them, instead supporting a movement that would allow them self determination. States Rights is a part of this ideology, but it must be understood within the context of the people at the time knowing that their racial extended family was part of an organic State, not just lines on a map. 

While not consciously, this seem to be in rebuttal to Lincoln's second inaugural, which makes reference to the causes of the Civil War as well.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it.

So which was it? Resistance to cultural annihilation or merely limiting slavery?  Even though a lifelong admirer of Lincoln, like most Americans, I am struck that Lincoln is a bit disingenuous here.  Restricting the expansion of slavery was only the first step that the abolitionist Republican party desired, and, through the course of the Civil War, abolition succeeded.  But Heimbach is also a little off the mark because the Southern leadership knew they were fighting for the preservation of slavery in perpetuity.  The South rightly saw the election of Lincoln as the beginning of the end for slavery and struck at the North while they thought the odds favored them.  That they fought to perpetuate the evil of slavery cannot be glossed over in the defense of the flying of the Confederate flag; which Heimbach does not do.

But what of the dilemma of self determination within one's own group?  African-Americans are still only partially integrated into the whole of American society.  In San Francisco's Chinatown, the displacement of ethnic Chinese due to economic forces wrought by Airbnb has brought protest and angst, as the Chinese desire their own community.  The success of Spanish language television is evidence of slowing integration of Hispanics into mainstream American society.  When lower class whites self segregate it's called racism and when upper class whites do it, it is politely ignored or glossed over.  We encourage every ethnic group except Europeans descendants to self-segregate in the name of multiculturalism.  The balkanization of America seems inevitable as long as cultural marxists hold sway in leading the direction of America.

Further, there is scientific evidence that our brains are hardwired to be more accepting of people like ourselves.  Tribalism is deeply embedded in our make up. So America has a natural barrier to overcome, and seems to have done so right up until the 1960s.  At this point in history, it seems that our success is coming apart.  Why?  I feel as though we are not asking the right questions.

The right question to ask is, why were we successful in being absorbing other cultures into our society in the first place?  The answer has to do with unspoken agreement about the nature of the culture and the relative numbers of people who were not part of it.

American culture and political theory derives from England. The American revolution was essentially an English one, in which the colonists objected to the impositions of the crown, because they violated their rights as Englishmen.  The nation was founded with a language and culture inherited from England, perhaps Great Britain.  Its institutions and the logic of its judiciary were inherited from English experience with separation of powers.  Over time, new immigrants were expected to accept this regime, learn English and assimilate.  Rather than from a set of universalist beliefs, our nation is founded on a particular set of beliefs about our rights that derive from our English cultural antecedents. I discussed the difference between universal and national rights in a prior post.

Additionally, like it or not, there seems to be a genetic component to political belief and one's view of rights.  This leads me to conclude that the current antipathy to the Anglo-centric European view of limited government can be traced in part to the increased immigration from nationalities unfriendly towards that view of government.  This has been exacerbated by an increased leftism among white people who some feel guilty over the dominance that European peoples have had over the rest of the world.  The left has turned against the culture of their forefathers and sought alliance with immigrants from lands hostile to American and European hegemony.  This explains in part the left's support for open borders.  (Libertarians in favor of open borders are deluded into thinking that all cultures are amenable to concepts of limited government, when this desire is in fact limited to a very few nationalities.)

It is in this context that I have to re-examine my long time dislike of the Confederate battle flag.  While it has the taint of slavery, it is also the most recognizable expression of a desire to preserve and Anglo-centric European culture in America.  In my view, it is a culture worth preserving because it gave us the founding fathers, and somewhat paradoxically, Lincoln; and the most free and prosperous nation the world has ever seen.  As I quote very often, Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image of being strong, good and successful.  American traditional culture is all of that, which makes it worth preserving.

As to why were we successful for a while and no longer seem to be?  I lay the failure at the doorstep of feminism and leftism, really the same things.  We started telling ethnic groups that they no longer needed to assimilate and rewarded them for not doing so.  We started bringing in massive numbers of immigrants from cultures whose values were inimical to our own. We started undermining traditional societal roles, undermining social cohesion.  We started undermining the white middle class through globalism and mass immigration.  We undermined white middle class by undermining marriage through feminist doctrine.  We started undermining social cohesion by an assault on our society's traditional belief in Christianity.  As a result of these assaults, many people in American society no longer see themselves as Americans, but as some "other" such as Black, Hispanic, or Muslim.  Given that a larger number of Americans self-identify this way, and given the power of identity, is it any wonder that the idea of America is being overthrown?

But ultimately, the rights of people as individuals and their rights as members of groups are on a collision course.  Given the large numbers of whites in the country, I can only see conflict ahead if a sense of national identity is not restored.  So whites have a reasonable right to fly the confederate flag in protest against an organized attempt to marginalize their culture.  But isn't the answer.

What is needed is a counter-synthesis to the prevailing synthesis of leftism and traditionalism that governs our culture.  This is why there is an alt-right that looks at these issues not through the prism of policy or law, but through the perspective of cultural heritage that is biologically inherited.  The problem still to be solved is how to assimilate those who lack the genetic propensity to accept the cultural and political norms that founded the nation; and how to ostracize and defeat the traitorous left that seeks to destroy the most successful culture the world has ever seen.

How Your Support for Gay Marriage is a Threat to Craft Beer

Alternate title:
The Left and Government Sanctioned Destruction of the Culture

The key insight that brings conservatives and libertarians together in an alliance against the left is that liberty in a constitutional republic can only be predicated on a conservative culture. A conservative culture constrains the bounds of behavior so that government can exercise a light touch over a society that will still function properly. This is why the left is seeking to destroy the pillars of conservative culture in America; marriage and family, the Christian church, and the language. This is being accomplished through government aided destruction of those institutions; while simultaneously "solving" the problems so created and simultaneously growing government.  I am not making an accusation of conspiracy; merely stating that there is a shared realization on the part of the leaders of the left, whether intuitive or explicit, that traditional American culture is a bulwark against their desire for a socialist society.  Hence the movements to delegitimize the keepers of this cultural flame.

The Christian religion, and in particular, the Northern European interpretation of it, has led to a culture of individualism. In this interpretation, one's salvation is determined by an individual decision to follow Jesus. This relationship with God, an intensely personal one, without the benefit of an earthly mediator, leads directly to the conclusion that each man and woman is responsible for the ordering of his or her own life within the constraint of belief. This gives the individual the mental freedom to be entrepreneurial which is usually disruptive to the established order.  Further, within this theological understanding, the grace granted by God should lead to good works in this life as evidenced by one's hard work and frugality.  This idea of this Protestant work ethic being related to the rise and success of capitalism is not new, having been proposed by Max Weber in 1905.  There is a natural cultural pairing of Christianity and capitalism, especially in America. The left, which is nothing if not anti-capitalist, naturally views traditional Christian belief as embodied in the conservative church as an enemy.

This Christian culture is not going to survive without actual Christian belief, so the left seeks to attack both Christian belief and institutions at every opportunity.  Gay marriage is only the latest example.  The move to legalize gay marriage was followed without pause by a public campaign of persecution against those who have religious and moral objections to that outcome.  In some cases, the persecution has taken the form of state sanction against bakeries.  The seamless transition to persecution gave the lie to the notion that this was about equal rights. The gay marriage movement was clearly a ploy to delegitimize traditional Christian belief.  In the meantime, there is no parallel movements against Muslim belief, even though Islam is much more harsh in its treatment of gays than Christians. Why? Because the Left sees Muslims as potential allies to attack the traditional Christian culture.

Destroying traditional pillars of culture and morality results in the need for more government control to make up for the lack of self-control in the population. This is a feature, not a bug, of the process of destroying the culture and is embraced by the left. For example, rampant sex between undergraduates on college campuses is the norm today, or so we are led to believe. While perhaps that has always happened to some extent; it was far less in degree and done with far greater discretion in times past.  But since this behavior gives rise to sex under questionable circumstances, we have the California have the California State Legislature considering how to regulate sex on campus. Here is KTCat's take:

Of course, as we all know, freedom isn't free. No, there's a price to be paid for freedom. We must maintain eternal vigilance lest the dark powers of Christian morality and its wretched partner, chivalry, attempt to come back.
Well, vigilance and affirmative consent rules, ruthlessly enforced by the State, that is. After all, we need something to do the job of a national culture based on Judeo-Christian objective morality.

The same groups who demand that government, to include colleges acting in loco parentis, stop prohibiting sex are now those who demand that government become involved in sex at college.  Why the shift?  This has to do primarily with feminism, which seeks the destruction of traditional gender roles in society and is almost always allied with leftism for that reason.  The initial calls to deregulate sex allowed women more sexual freedom.  Coupled with the wide-spread introduction of no-fault divorce, and state support for single mothers; this shifted economic power away from bread-winning males to the state.  (Time precludes a full exposition of this theory, see Dalrock for more detail.) I note that the government has taken to jailing fathers who don't pay child support in fairly large numbers, further shifting power away from men to the government.  This is necessary because it is men who are likely to be the revolutionaries that rise up against state power.  Now, the new change in attitudes with regards to sex on college campuses is to make it easier for women to accuse men of rape and for consequences to be meted out, without the benefit of trial.  Again there is power shifting towards women, who can claim rape without having to go to trial. The shift of power to single women suits the left just fine, because they tend to be reliable supporters of left-wing candidates.  Married women are much more conservative, because the power of government robs their family of provisioning resources, since intact families are much more likely to be paying more in taxes than they receive in benefits from the state.

So how does the left act in power?  They seek to regulate all facets of society to shift ever more power to the government, in the name of protecting the ordinary worker and consumer, often harming those same groups in the process.  It is not a coincidence that the same political groups that set themselves against traditional culture are the ones who also argue for larger government.  I may add examples later, but the fight over uncontrolled illegal immigration has to do with how fast our society can today assimilate immigrants without damaging our current culture.  Those who favor amnesty and open borders that would inevitably bring in more immigrants call their opponents racist; claiming that is the only reason that traditionalists would wish to control immigration. But society can only assimilate immigrates so fast.  So the call for amnesty and open borders is a cal to subvert traditional American culture by overwhelming it with immigrants who have not had the time to assimilate.  For the most part, those supporting amnesty also support increased government spending and regulating, such as the Affordable Care Act. In turn, government spending and regulating is destructive of free markets.  The left consists of an alliance of groups such as union leaders, environmentalists, and feminists seeking to both increase the scope of government and undermine traditional society.  These goals are complimentary not separate.

Which brings me to craft beer.  My observation is that craft beer is largely a pursuit of white males who are just starting to disrupt the current market for beer dominated by large corporations like AB-InBev.  Budweiser's Super Bowl commercial was evidence that the big companies are taking notice.  AB InBev has a large contract with the Teamsters in North America.  If craft beer threatens union jobs, how long before craft brewers come under pressure?  There will be calls to raise wages, to increase regulatory scrutiny and to change alcohol distribution laws to protect the big boys and the union jobs.  (Look at what Walmart endures.)  Further, the whiteness and maleness of the industry will come under attack by the cultural marxists. (Don't believe me, perform a search on "San Diego Craft Brewers Guild" under images and look at the faces in the various pictures.) The guardians of political correctness will seek to make sure that craft beer will be seen as somehow racist or anti-feminist or some other pejorative.  When craft beer is seen as a threat, and that is just starting, then the persecution will begin.

So this is why your support for gay marriage threatens craft beer.  By supporting gay marriage you are joining an alliance that views entrepreneurs, such as craft brewers, as a threat and who wish to destroy the culture that allows free markets to thrive.  You are voting for socialism, whether you like it or not.

Yes, that's a picture of Jesus watching over my craft beer drinking.

Leftism, corruption, and its causes

You can always count on the left to favor solutions that both increase government size and lead to cronyism and corruption. Holman Jenkins makes this connection in the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal.

But Europe, Japan and the U.S. have been desperate to stir private-sector growth and yet refuse to consider how they treat their private sector. Europe gave itself austerity in which the private sector shrank and the government didn’t. Big-name economists keep insisting monetary policy can conjure growth without anyone having to question any ideological, political or policy embraces of the past three decades. 

Nobody asks: How can we make our societies ones in which people find opportunity? They worry about the distribution of income but not the absence of income-creating opportunities for individuals.

When the left's solutions never actually solve the problems they report to solve, then it is fair to question their motives. Indeed I have come to believe that the motives of the leaders of the left are merely to aggrandize their own power. They have no interest in solutions, just as Al Sharpton has no interest in better race relations in the United States, because continued trouble gives him the continuation of his platform.

Another area of leftist hypocrisy, but I repeat myself, is in the area of global warming. It seems clear to me that man is having some effect on the climate, even if not catastrophic. But you might argue that it would still be good for the environment to impose a tax on carbon since the burning of carbon is associated with other forms of pollution.  Such a tax would need to be offset by other tax reductions to not distort the economy further. Of course, the left does not propose this. Instead, they opt for cap and trade, which does very little to reduce carbon omissions, is prone to fraud, and lines the pockets of politicians seeking donations from groups to get exemptions from the caps for their favored industries.  It becomes nothing but a graft machine wall destroying the wealth that we need to come up with a real solutions to the problem.

Rather than argue policy with the left, it is much easier and more effective to point out their massive hypocrisy. When they propose cap and trade, for instance, just ask them why they intend to increase corruption.  When they propose raising the minimum wage, ask them why they hate the unemployed. When they propose even more regulation of Wall Street, ask them why their legislation includes bailouts for Wall Street's biggest firms.  Ask them why they always favor the solution that increases corruption.

What You Should Be Reading

• Left Coast Rebel provides an excellent review of American Sniper, without plot spoilers.
• Dalrock continues to expose the ugliness of feminism through the subject of hot farts. (It is really worth the read.  Also, defeating feminism is necessary to maintaining liberty in this country.)  Fortunately, feminists have made themselves so darn easy to ridicule.
• Duck Enlightenment (@jokeocracy on Twitter) guest blogs at Heartiste and puts the shiv to SJW feminism by asking "Who Bitch This Is?" Reasonable debate has failed and the feminist establishment refuses to listen to rational concerns about where they are leading our civilization. Direct words need to be spoken, and this man Shinblade has gifted us with these four powerful direct words to show us the way forward.  (Backstory, the woman pictured in the video had plotted ahead of time to provoke a reaction that would prove her SJWs theories.  When she is caught on video, the result is epic fail.)

Tweet of the Day - Defund Universities

@Runsonmagic tweeted this today:

If conservatives were serious about winning, they would defund universities - social justice training centers - and reinforce marriage.
— runsonmagic (@runsonmagic) November 14, 2014

I couldn't agree more, but since it is hard to make a nuanced argument on twitter, I would add the following.  The specific manner in which I would defund universities is to end the taxpayer subsidies and forgiveness polices for student loans.  Veronque de Rugy explains the connection:

". . . by keeping student loan rates artificially low, the federal government is contributing to the rapid increase in college tuition. As it did in the housing market, free or reduced-priced money has artificially inflated the price of a college education."

This inflated pricing is what keeps professors of comparative dance employed, indoctrinating America's youth in actual and social Marxism.  Further, under Obama, forgiveness of loans, especially for "public service" has greatly expanded.  Essentially, the student loan program has become a direct funding line to the leftist professoriat.  End these programs and let banks make loans to students based on the earning potential of their degree; drive the mewling manlets and manjawed feminist fatties of the left back to the brackish backwater that is their birthright.

She wants to indoctrinate your kids and maybe flirt with your daughter.

Meanwhile, why stop with the uni's?  All of the institutions of the left need defunding; Scott Walker and Rick Snyder have led the way in Wisconsin and Michigan by making union dues for state government workers non-compulsory.  For this reason, Scott Walker has been subjected to vilest vitriol.  Next, we should go after so called environmental advocacy groups, who receive a surprising amount of funding from the federal government.

And let's be clear, this defunding is legitimate, because those our your tax dollars being spent subverting the moral and rational basis for the republic.

What You Should Be Reading

• Dean, because he hasn't blogged in a while and he completely takes down a leftist tool on Veteran's Day.
• KTCat explains the bankster-industrial complex in one easy lesson from Japan.  Warning: Get any of your assets out of Japanese companies and currency.  The inflection point is nigh.
• Dalrock cracks me up with a tale of a Criminal Lack of Game.
• Cell phone attacks? It's not just for the NSA anymore.

Democrats and School Choice

Democrats are reflexively against anything that gives parents more freedom to rescue their school children from the maw of the failed public education system.  RedState ponders how this may have influenced the elections in Georgia and Illinois this week.

My friend Roland Martin put one of these on my radar. In Illinois, prominent black ministers around the state cast their lot with the GOP. They encouraged congregants to abandon Governor Quinn in Illinois and support the Republican. That made a real difference in the metropolitan Chicago area, where the Republican this time outperformed prior Republicans.
Another one that is a real surprise to me is Georgia. But it is abundantly apparent from the turn out data and the anecdotal evidence. Black voters were turning out for Democrats in early voting. In fact, I’m told that privately the GOP saw Democrats outpacing them in early voting around the state. But on Election Day, black voters stayed home. 

One might wonder why Democrats are so adamantly opposed to school choice when it seems so popular with urban blacks, a big part of their base.  My answer: #unionism and #feminism.

At the end of the day, the teacher's unions donate far more money, "the mother's milk of politics" than the already locked up votes of blacks appear to be worth to Democrats.  The public school system is a way to recycle tax dollars into campaign cash.  Charters and their ilk are often non-union and upset this apple cart.

The more overlooked issue is feminism.  Charter schools are seen as a threat to the public school systems in the white suburbs.  In order to be free to "lean in" and "have it all" suburban moms and especially the core constituency of single moms need the free baby-sitting of the public schools.  Never mind that charters can also provide that function, the mere threat to the established order of government provisioning to their offspring is viewed as a threat by many such Moms. (Married women are far more likely to view the government as competitor for the family resources because married men are outperforming economically, so it makes sense for married women to reduce the competition for resources from the government.)  And don't forget that the public schools are a jobs program for women, much more so than men.  Not to say that there aren't great teachers, but reform of the schools is always attacked as a threat to the "middle class" as if the government creates the middle class.

Finally, the public schools serve as a great propaganda outlet for the left.  The left always is seeking to influence the culture, especially through the schools and universities.  Charter schools threaten the leftist union control of the message.  If you haven't noticed public schools getting more authoritarian with zero tolerance policies and the suppression of free speech, you're not paying attention.

So poor black moms hoping to "win the lottery" and get their kids out of poverty?  Sorry, we Democrats already haver your vote. Or do we?

Persuading the Left

I have been thinking about how to persuade those on the left to see my point of view on at least some individual issues.  Because I don't "speak their language," it takes some research to understand their outlook.  For example, in doing research on the minimum wage, I tripped across some great examples of the left's thinking.  A scholarly paper from the left (by economist Bruce Kaufman) arguing for increasing the minimum wage argues that there is an imbalance (and implies a large one) in the bargaining power of businesses and workers.  Kaufman argues explicitly that for the unskilled, the purpose of a minimum wage is to protect the underdog and to level the playing field.  Arguments over the value of contract between two parties are given short-shrift because the unskilled workers are deemed incapable of entering into meaningful contracts because of their lack bargaining power (see p. 437).  I admit to a certain sympathy to the argument, except that the solution is not force employers to give workers more pay; but to examine and correct the causes of workers having no differentiating skills.

Even when I find an issue where common cause with the left might be possible, conservative or libertarian participation is rejected. The reasoning is revealing.  Writing in Salon in an article persuading those on the left to not ally with libertarians on the issue of NSA surveillance, Tom Watson had this to say:

That’s because libertarianism is a form of authoritarianism disguised in a narrow slice of civil liberties. In trumpeting the all-knowing, ever wise wonders of the totally free and unencumbered market, it bestows all the power on those with access to capital.

This was the purest exposition I have found of why the left thinks that libertarians and limited government conservatives are some sort of crypto-fascists.  The whole article is worth a read because of the insight it gives into the left wing mind set.  Now, my strongly held belief is that mere access to capital in a free market economy is made dangerous only because of the influence that money can wield over government.  The worst abuses of Wall Street getting rich, monopolies ripping off Americans (like my cable provider) are facilitated by government power, through the Federal Reserve and monopoly granting powers, respectively.  Reducing the size of government would certainly reduce the scope for abuse.  The left will not countenance such an outcome, because the government exists to do Good.

The left is invested in the idea of government as a countervailing force to undo the ill-effects of free enterprise.  In general, the leftist identifies with victims and the powerless.  My evidence in this area is Israel.  In the aftermath of World War II, the Jews and Israel were seen as victims.  Israel was surrounded by enemies and in danger of a second holocaust.  In general, the left supported their cause.  Over time, as Israel prevailed over the Arabs and become more and more successful militarily the left gradually shifted to outright hatred and its sympathies to the Arab losers.

I have speculated in the past on the psychological roots of such reasoning, but knowing the cause is insufficient to deal with the problem.

His [the leftist's] feelings of inferiority are so ingrained that he cannot conceive of himself as individually strong and valuable. Hence the collectivism of the leftist. He can feel strong only as a member of a large organization or a mass movement with which he identifies himself.

I think that quote is an over-generalization, but points to a way to talk to the left.  What little success I have had in communicating with the left has been to show them how government becomes the oppressor regardless of structures put in place to make it the liberator, if you will.  Understanding that the leftist argument comes from an assumption of victimhood and powerlessness is the best way to proceed in persuading.  Ordinary Americans do not feel this way, so exposing the left's assumptions are a good way to dissuade the average non-political person not to buy the left's solutions.

Crumbling Institutions of the Left - Government Run Healthcare

Government run and funded healthcare is having a bad year.  The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has not delivered on its promise to insure all Americans, with 75% of those previously lacking insurance still lacking.  I also think that the situation might actually be worse, since I don't trust surveys in the social sciences.  Meanwhile, VA healthcare is no longer touted as a model of care for all.

In Virginia, Republicans have shown how principled opposition to Medicaid expansion can be popular and helpful to the state's finances.  

In January a poll by the Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University found that 38% of Virginians opposed the Medicaid expansion. By late April, 53% were against it.

Meanhwile, Medicare is being slowly changed by the semi-free market of Medicare Advantage plans.

Austin Frakt, writing in the NYT, says that Newt Gingrich's 1995 prediction that medicare would wither on the vine if people were allowed to choose subsidized private insurance is turning out to be correct.  From the article. 

No matter the reason, what’s clear is that Medicare Advantage is a strong and growing program, despite recent moderation in government subsidies. As Medicare Advantage grows, traditional Medicare necessarily shrinks and its influence on the American health care system weakens. If the trend continues, policies, including those in the Affordable Care Act, designed to use traditional Medicare as a tool to reshape health care delivery for all Americans may become less potent. Is there a tipping point at which traditional Medicare ceases to matter?

Meanwhile, the GOP is eventually going to have to provide some positive alternatives to the ACA.  There are no shortage of good ideas, see my proposals here.  Reason's Nick Gillespie steals some of these ideas (which I stole from John Mackey).

Compassion and Leftist Lies About the Children's Immigration Crusade

WSJ headline: Few Children Are Deported.  Yeah, we knew that, but good to see some investigation into the truth.  The reason I knew, those to whom that information was most valuable; parents who also want to enter the U.S. were already acting on that information, sending their kids by the hundreds of thousands to the border.  Leftists are invoking "rule of law" to say that we can't just deport them.  How about preventing their entry in the first place?  We have a right, well recognized in international law, to prevent persons from walking across our border.

The other leftist plaint is that we should be compassionate.  How is it compassionate to send kids to wander through Mexico unescorted to our border?  The dangers, both man-caused and natural, are too obvious to enumerate here.

I saw a tweet from a leftish sort of dude that said that we should accept these kids because of . . . Darwin.  Somehow these kids represent the survival of the fittest.  News flash, these are not the skills you are looking for.  The fact that their parents risk their lives and the fact that they lack useful economic skills means that they are unlikely to become productive to our society.

Obama keeps talking about immigration reform as the only way to fix this problem.  Another lie, of course, because the root of the problem is the perception that the children will be allowed to stay.  Ramp up deportation, don't let them cross in the first place.  Maybe even fund Mexico to secure their border.

What You Should Be Reading

• CDR Salamander, if you care at all about what is happening to our military and the Navy in particular.  He is particularly adept at deconstructing the ludicrousity of the diversity bullies.  But their latest antics leave him speechless, the comments are very funny to this Navy vet.  My favorite: A collection of the most intelligent non-PC minds in the universe COULD. NOT. POSSIBLY. MAKE. THIS. SHIT. UP.--even if they tried for a thousand years--yet it all comes naturally, automatically, reflexively to the PC crowd.
• Dalrock shows that divorce continues to plague America, despite what some people are asserting. I applaud his close look at the actual census numbers.
• In much better news, Carpe Diem reports that there are over 3000 breweries in America today.   The majority of Americans live within 10 miles of a local brewery, and with almost 2,000 planning breweries in the BA database, that percentage is only going to climb in the coming years.

Crumbling Arguments of the Left - Unemployment

Democrats like to argue that extending unemployment benefits somehow benefits the economy because, well I can't even remember an argument they presented that was coherent enough to merit repeating.  The actual facts on the ground have proved difficult.  First, hooray for Federalism, North Carolina went its own way on the issue of unemployment benefits.

A year ago, North Carolina became the first state in the nation to exit the federal government's extended-benefits program for the unemployed. 

The left and the media, but I repeat myself, were of course outraged, and outrageous protests of outrage ensued.  Then, reality.

North Carolina didn't descend into the Dickensian nightmare critics predicted. For the last six months of 2013, it was the only state where jobless recipients weren't eligible for extended benefits. Yet during that period North Carolina had one of the nation's largest improvements in labor-market performance and overall economic growth. 

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of payroll jobs in North Carolina rose by 1.5% in the second half of 2013, compared with a 0.8% rise for the nation as a whole. Total unemployment in the state dropped by 17%, compared with the national average drop of 12%. The state's official unemployment rate fell to 6.9% in December 2013 from 8.3% in June, while the nationwide rate fell by eight-tenths of a point to 6.7%.

Meanwhile on the national level we see the same scenario playing out.

Krauthammer noted that the sharp drop in unemployment has coincided with the end of emergency unemployment benefits. Obama and the Democrats, who insisted that the benefits be extended, wrongly predicted that their expiration would come as a calamity to the poor. Instead, their end has demonstrably had “precisely the opposite effect.” 

“These six months coincide with a decrease in the medium length of unemployment from 17 weeks to 13 weeks — the largest six-month decline in the length of unemployment ever measured,” he said. “Which means the real problem of long-term unemployment was a function of this anomaly of emergency-extended unemployment, which should never have happened, and whose end has contributed to this excellent result. The debate on that extension is over, and the conservatives were right.”

Thomas Sowell pretty much sums up the left's inability to see reason (although speaking about central planning):

But, by the end of the 20th century, even socialist and communist governments began abandoning central planning and allowing more market competition. Yet this quiet capitulation to inescapable realities did not end the noisy claims of the Left.

By the way, under disparate impact theory, leftism is racism.  Here's how: Unemployment disproportionately hurts minorities. Leftist policies exacerbate unemployment, therefore disparate impact, therefore racism.  See how easy that was.

What You Should Be Reading.

• The WSJ editorial pages detail even more Democrat inspired race-baiting rhetoric.  Just part of a scheme to have HUD replace your local zoning board, because, you know, racism.
• The bizarre U.S. corporate tax code is ensuring that may big, formerly U.S. firms become foreign owned.  I note that Coors, Miller and Anheuser-Busch are all foreign owned.
• KTCat sums up the so-called compassion for illegal immigrants in clear concise prose.
• Unfortunately, not Dean at Beers with Demo, who seems to have taken an unannounced hiatus from blogging.

When Are Those Poor People Going To Give Up?

An old joke about the war on poverty is that we won't win it until those poor people give up.  Given that this war is 50 years old, the joke is getting old.  So are government programs that never achieve their goals but are never abandoned.  Occasionally, it's good to reflect on the decades of fail.

• War on Poverty - 50 years, no end in sight.
• War on Drugs - 42 years, no end in sight.
• War on Terror - 12 years, no end in sight.  (The enabling legislation is still on the books.)

I didn't object to waging war to dislodge the Taliban from Afghanistan, but waging war on something as nebulous as terrorism was always going to be an excuse for never ending appropriations, not to mention a rapacious approach to violating our civil rights.  When politicians want to launch a "war," we should be very afraid.

So how do we think the battle to ensure every American has health insurance is going to turn out?  How much is our government really going to effect global warming?  Will federal action do anything to reduce income inequality? (In fact, it will increase the inequality by lining the pockets of already wealthy K street lobbyists.)

Epic fail after epic fail and the left continues to cling bitterly to the belief that more government will solve more problems.  How leftism can be seen as hip escapes me, is it hip to be a moron? 

What You Should Be Reading

• Professor Perry helpfully points out that all low wage jobs added in the last year were for less than 30 hours a week.  
• Ilya Somin, blogging at Volokh Conspiracy, has a good take on the situation in the Crimea.  I think that some of the hysteria is overblown, but that some retaliation is in order.
• KTCat has an even more succinct summation of the Ukraine's position.

New Year's Revolutions

I like the AT&T commercials with the little kids being questioned by the moderator.  One of the more recent offerings involves the concept of a New Year's Revolution:



That kid to the left looks like he might want to pick a different revolution, but it got me thinking that sometimes the accumulation of small change is sufficient to defeat the forces of tyranny.  Just like eating too many jelly beans over time will pack on the pounds.

The purpose of this blog is to educate and advocate for freedom.  The forces of tyranny have been very busy during the Obama administration, so I am convinced of the need to make the case for freedom.  Many of my friends and fellow SLOBs paint a grim picture of lawless tyranny out of control, with .  While I don't deny the myriad and putrid ways in which this administration and the previous one have undermined the rule of law in this country, the march of technology and the impulse to freedom keep eroding the seeming victories of would-be oppressors.  Some examples:

• Freedom of speech continues to come under assault, especially on college campuses, as our good friends at Legal Insurrection keep pointing out.  But we have never had such a great opportunity to actually make the voices of ordinary citizens and students heard as in this era.  Blogs, Twitter, Facebook and other social media allow the citizenry to curb the impulse to suppress speech that is in the hearts of the leftists.  Yes, attempts at suppressing speech continue unabated, see Handle's Haus for an impressive compendium of recent efforts. However, the very fact that he can publish the list and link to so many rebuttals is proof that technology is keeping freedom of speech alive.
• While Bernanke and now Yellen have debased the currency and taken money out of your pockets and into the hands of bankers, alternatives to protect your hard earned cash exist.  Bitcoin is an example of smart people realizing that the stated inflationary policy of all government issued currency czars erodes the value of your wealth.  For a useful explanation of Bitcoin and some of its limitations, see The Economist. While Bitcoin may have fatal flaws, eventually some cryptographic based currency will give fiat a "run for its money."  In the meantime, gold has held its value like it has for millennia, see Matthew 2:1-9.  A free market in reputable gold coins exists to offset the dangers of paper money.
• The more the oppressors succeed, the more they fail.  The ACA is a prime example of course.  I have read of doctors who don't take insurance any more and wondered if this is a trend?  By accident, I met a pediatrician on a bus trip who doesn't take insurance and said that her practice isn't suffering one bit, as she has lower overhead.  As the ACA destroys health insurance, the number of doctors who opt out of the system will cause it to collapse.  We have to be ready with our free market alternatives when that happens.

Be of good cheer, the forces of tyranny are being outwitted world-wide and will not prevail.  Sometimes the revolution comes in the form of small jelly beans that have the accumulated affect of weighing down the system.

What You Should Be Reading

• KT continues to show the myriad ways that the culture contributes to poverty, through single mommy families, in yesterday's post.
• Dean gives out the Walter Duranty Putridity in Journalism Award. Cato agrees with him on the winner, who is?  Read the link to find out.  Hint: He claims to be "conservative." 

A Specter is Haunting San Diego

A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism.

The Communist Manifesto, 1848.

Consider this tale.  You and your spouse buy an older (circa 1920s) home you wish to remodel as your dream home. You hire a lawyer, you go before the historical review board. You go before the community planning commission and the city planning commission.  This is a lot of work and a lot of money.  Maybe you don't like it, but we are a society with rules of law, so you follow the law.  Citizens, through their city council voted that we would protect historical landmarks and ensure proper land use.  So we expect a predictable outcome based on the rule of law with decisions made with due process.  But the mayor gets some emails and his chief of staff intervenes and sends the case back.  Who knows why?  But the mayor is under investigation for a pay to play scheme.

This is the product of leftism and the mayor of San Diego is undeniably a man of the left.  This is the end result of putting politics over process.  This is the road to serfdom.

The leftist playbook seeks to seize upon all the levers of government for the sole purpose of expanding the power of government and the left.  Getting corporations into line by threatening them with regulation, not enforcing the law when politically inconvenient, getting your pet projects delivered on the backs of developers needing your approval, buying votes by intervening against unpopular but lawful projects are all means to the end of unchecked power.  This is no different than leftism's predecessor of socialism and communism.  The reason that such isms result in tyranny is that they seek to so expand the role of the state that abuse and corruption are too powerful of temptations to resist.  The leftists seeks the power and riches that they can not obtain, because they lack the skills and entrepreneurial spirit to compete in a capitalist society.  They denounce society as evil, when their intent is to appropriate riches for themselves.

The U-T has done a public service by chronicling the multiple interventions by the mayor's office in land use decisions since he was sworn in last December.  Just like the Obama administration, which thinks it must enforce the Affordable Care Act only when convenient to its political interests, the mayor has used land use for his own political convenience.  The left has become more open about their goals and more blatant in the grab for power.  Liberals, as opposed to leftists, should be appalled and fight back if they value democracy.

Here is the 10 News video of the lead story.

The Politics of Resentment

Scratch the surface of leftist complaint and you always seem to find resentment, whether about the general unfairness of society or the indifference to the harm done to the powerless. While unfairness and harm exist, the almost exclusive focus by the left on these perspectives stems from a psychology of resentment and learned powerlessness. Because most Americans are self-reliant and optimistic, the left does not usually win elections. 2008 was an anomaly, because the blatant unfairness of the bailouts and Republican duplicity made it logical for Americans to turn to the Democrats.

Look at a few issues as illustration.

Illegal immigration.
Left: These poor immigrants are lured here almost against their will by the vile conditions in Mexico and are enticed by employment that only becomes exploitation. Compassion demands that we allow them to stay and become citizens to protect them from predations that are not their fault. Only a racist would think otherwise.
Tea Party: Amnesty undermines the rule of law, which is necessary for the smooth functioning of society. If we have a second amnesty, where does it end? How do we maintain national sovereignty which is necessary to protect everyone in the nation?
Bridging the gap: Securing the border is actually more compassionate to the would-be immigrants, because they won't die making the trek. Then we can have an expanded policy that allows immigrants who can get jobs to come to America. Bringing in those who don't have jobs and will be on welfare isn't compassionate, because it condemns them and their offspring to a life in poverty.

Income Inequality.
Left. The rich are undeserving of their wealth, they mostly stole it by exploiting the workers and the resources of the third world (notice the resentment). Those who studied comparative dance deserve as much income as those who studied electronic engineering or finance. Taxes should be used to reverse income inequalities or socialism imposed to make sure we are all equal. The poor haven't shared in the country's success.
Tea Party. Punishing success is itself unfair. Further, efforts to redistribute wealth attack the foundations of liberty, which include economic liberty. We are all better off when those who work hard or are clever and innovative succeed and are rewarded. The purpose of the tax code is to collect revenue for the legitimate functions of government, not to redistribute income. Redistribution also undermines the social order necessary for a successful society.
Bridging the gap. When we look at the actual income of the poor and middle class to include the effects of taxation and benefits of health insurance, the gap in income growth is not very wide. Further, by any measure the rich pay their fair share of taxes. Providing the opportunity for everyone in society to advance is the fairest way to help the poor.

Racism.
Left. Minorities and women have always suffered in America since the founding. Prejudice is baked into the DNA of the nation. As long as one person harbors racist thoughts, no minority person can feel safe in Amerika. Only a regime that consistently and perpetually tilts the playing field in the favor of the aggrieved groups is acceptable if we are to care for those who will be forever harmed by our racist history. (Note the call for perpetual resentment.)
Tea Party. Fairness is served by actual color-blind policies that do not take race into account. Further, moving our society away from racism is best served by color blind policies. Finally, we should consider ourselves Americans first and foremost. It offends our sense of justice to not apply all government policies even handedly.
Bridging the Gap. President Barack Obama himself asked Americans to come together and not think of themselves as black or white first, but as Americans first. A concept that condemns whites because of their race is just as harmful and unfair as the racism that it is supposedly responding to.

Those are just a few examples of ways I have been thinking to persuade those on the left to look at our point of view differently. I admit that my characterization of leftist thinking is broad and over-generalized, and of Tea Party thinking as well, just trying to show some examples. I would like to thank my youngest son, who is taking his required general courses at SDSU for providing insight as to the thinking of his leftist professors. I also am drawing on the writing of Jonathan Haidt for inspiration in how to bridge the gap of discussion.

Ultimately, I think that Obama has chosen the politics of resentment as the key to electoral success. I may be wrong, but since he has launched attacks on Paul Ryan and on the rich with the Buffett rule, his poll numbers already seem to be slipping. I believe that it is important to defeat him, but more important to educate Americans on the virtues of our positions.

Why Liberals Should Hate Obamacare

Imagine, if you will, that you are a liberal, that your conscience tells you that no one should be denied medical treatment because they lack the ability to pay. Imagine that you examined the facts of the U.S. health care system in 2009, before the passage of the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act." Would you support its passage? Of course not.

I got thinking about this subject after discussing it with my niece's husband, who holds such beliefs. I decided that even liberals (as opposed to leftists) were sold a bill of goods regarding this execrable measure. The pressing social issue that Obamacare was supposed to solve was the problem of the uninsured. This problem set included subgroups of those who supposedly couldn't afford insurance and those who couldn't get coverage because of pre-existing conditions. But what were the facts? In 2009, it was widely quoted that 46 million Americans lacked health insurance. But this fact requires some explanation. First, almost 1o million of those were not actually American citizens. One might argue that we have a duty to also cover the non-citizens, but it doesn't change the fact that this part of the problem wasn't created in our country. Second, many of the uninsured have annual household incomes above $50,000 to the tune of close to 18 million (admittedly using 2007 data.) Many other of these people were actually eligible for government insurance programs such as Medicaid, almost 14 million. (See American Spectator for source material.) I'll let the reader do the math, but that means that the number of Americans who cannot afford health care is rather small compared to the total population. One could also remember that medicaid provides health care to the very poorest Americans and no emergency room may turn away a patient with an a life threatening condition.

So what could have been about the problem that remained. The U.S. population in 2009 was 305 million. That meant the vast majority of Americans had health care through their jobs, private funding or eligibility as a family member. If one were to attack the alleged problem of the uninsured then a program to subsidize those who were poor but not in poverty and a law to allow portability of health care when changing jobs to prevent pre-existing conditions from being a cause to deny care would have achieved those ends.

What did we get instead? So much more than we knew was in the bill. But consider this gem, despite Obama's promise that you would be able to keep your health care, we get this admission from Dr. Howard Dean.

Dean told Morning Joe, “The fact is it is very good for small business. There was a McKinsey study, which the Democrats don’t like, but I do, and I think its true. Most small businesses are not going to be in the health insurance business anymore after this thing goes into effect.”

This admission gives the lie to the promise that we could keep our current insurance. Further, it will blow a hole in the deficit reduction efforts. Why should liberals care? Because the increased burden on the federal budget will cause people to be denied care through queuing or other methods designed to limit access and therefore cost. The deficit math is compelling and no amount of increased taxation will totally close the federal deficit, so it is inevitable that increased participation in government funded health care will result in cost containment. If your goal was to increase health care insurance, your result was less of it.

Liberals have been sold a lie by the left. Obamacare is a Peronist take over of an industry disguised as compassion. The endless rules that only the Secretary of HHS can waive have led to a waive of cronyism regarding those waivers tied to campaign contributions and other forms of support for the administration (see Darden restaurants.) Further, why would liberals love a program in which the end result is an explicit transfer of the cost of doing business from corporations to the tax payer? How is that liberal? Or conservative, for that matter? I would ask my liberal friends to re-think their support of Obama and leftism. It does their cause no good and undermines their desire to provide a social safety net for all Americans.

Best Explanation for The Ongoing Recession

. . . Comes from Victor Davis Hanson, of course. Please indulge an extended quote, because it crystallizes what we have been saying about the poisonous growth of the federal government.

In the last 30 months, the Obama administration has created a psychological landscape that finally just seemed, whether fairly or not, too hostile to most employers to risk new hiring and buying. Each act, in and of itself, was irrelevant. Together they are proving catastrophic and doing the near impossible of turning a brief recovery into another recession.

Here is the lament I heard: the near $5 trillion in borrowing in just three years, the radical growth in the size of the federal government and its regulatory zeal, ObamaCare, the Boeing plant closure threat, the green jobs sweet-heart deals and Van Jones-like “Millions of Green Jobs” nonsense, the vast expansion in food stamps and unemployment pay-outs, the reversal of the Chrysler creditors, politically driven interference in the car industry, the failed efforts to get card check and cap and trade, the moratoria on new drilling in the Gulf, the general antipathy to new fossil fuel exploitation coupled with new finds of vast new reserves, the new financial regulations, an aggressive EPA oblivious to the effects of its advocacy on jobs, the threatened close-down of energy plants, the support for idling thousands of acres of irrigated farmland due to environmental regulations, the constant talk of higher taxes, the needlessly provocative rhetoric of “fat cat”, “millionaires and billionaires,” “corporate jet owners,” etc. juxtaposed, in hypocritical fashion, to Martha’s Vineyard, Costa del Sol, and Vail First Family getaways — all of these isolated strains finally are becoming a harrowing opera to business people.

While big businesses are as capable as leftists of using government to their own personal advantage, the flood of regulation and the promise of more to come is crushing entrepreneurial spirit. No wonder businesses are sitting on piles of cash and not investing and hiring. Of course, this very sensible policy is coming under attack by the left. Here is Lorena Gonzales, secretary-treasurer of the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council, in today's U-T, complaining that businesses won't hire because the policies she supported have been enacted into law; another "blame the victim" moment from the left.

The irony, of course, is that these corporations need consumers to spend our money. And, to do that, we need these corporations to spend their money hiring people. If they won’t spend on us, we can’t spend on them. It’s the classic chicken and egg. And right now, they are chickening out on the economy.

Irony? You criticize people and threaten them long enough, and they start to believe you. Then you complain that they are paranoid? It's not paranoia when they really are out to get you.

I think KT would call this a John Galt moment. Hard not to agree.

Meanwhile, the President's chances for re-election continue to fall, dropping below 50% for the first time this August, and sitting at 48.9% as of this writing. My only concern is that the odds of defeating the President will peak too soon.

Article of the Week - The Failure of the Statist Elite

Walter Russell Mead expands on Stanley B. Greenberg's article Why Voters Tune Out the Democrats with some brilliant follow up. His understanding of the anger against an unelected ruling elite that has seized power for itself to rule our lives is brilliant. Please indulge of few extended quotes.

On the "promise" of the left.

The progressive, administrative regulatory state and more broadly the technocratic and professional intelligentsia who operate it sold themselves to the public as an honest umpire in charge of American life. . . . Instead, we would have government by philosopher kings, or at least by incorruptible credentialed bureaucrats. Alabaster towers of objectivity such as the FCC, the FDA, the EPA, the FEC and so many more would take politics out of government and replace it with disinterested administration. Honest professionals would administer fair laws without fear or favor, putting the general interest first, and keeping the special interests at arm’s length. The government would serve the middle class, and the middle class would thrive.

The reality.

For large numbers of voters the professional classes who staff the bureaucracies, foundations and policy institutes in and around government are themselves a special interest. It is not that evil plutocrats control innocent bureaucrats; many voters believe that the progressive administrative class is a social order that has its own special interests. Bureaucrats, think these voters, are like oil companies and Enron executives: they act only to protect their turf and fatten their purses. . . . The professionals and administrators who make up the progressive state are seen as a hostile power with an agenda of their own that they seek to impose on the nation.

The source of resentment.

The progressive state has never seen its job as simply to check the excesses of the rich. It has also sought to correct the vices of the poor and to uplift the masses. . . . But it’s impossible to grasp the crisis of the progressive enterprise unless one grasps the degree to which voters resent the condescension and arrogance of know-it-all progressive intellectuals and administrators. They don’t just distrust and fear the bureaucratic state because of its failure to live up to progressive ideals (thanks to the power of corporate special interests); they fear and resent upper middle class ideology.

The whole article is worth a read. When Obama tells us to "eat our peas," it is more of the same elitist crap of the left condescending to us and presuming to be our betters and know better than us what we should do.

It is a fight to break the power of a credentialed elite that believe themselves entitled by talent and hard work to a greater say in the nation’s affairs than people who scored lower on standardized tests and studied business administration in cheap colleges rather than political science in expensive ones. I think part of the anger the left feels towards Sarah Palin is that she is a living affront to their belief in the rightful ordering of society. How dare the former female jock take a position of leadership against our the shiboleths the statists hold dear? She graduated from the University of Idaho and participated in beauty pageants for crying out loud.

So take heart, tea partyers, the progressives have painted themselves into a corner. Their policies may be popular in theory, but Americans hate being ruled. We just need to keep up the pressure to restore an America of freedom.

Economics Literacy Link - Effects of Minimum Wage Law in Samoa

Prof. Mark J. Perry's blog Carpe Diem is a great source of wisdom on economic policy. Day after day, he explains examples of failed interventionist policies by government that have led to calamity. Undeterred the left continues to argue for more intervention. On Saturday, he blogged about American Samoa, which is under a Congressional mandate to gradually increase its minimum wage to that of the United States over the next few years. This has eroded its competitive advantage and caused huge economic impact. In studying the situation, the Government Accountability Office, not known for being a secret shelter of libertarians and conservatives had this to say.

1. In American Samoa, employment fell 19 percent from 2008 to 2009 and 14 percent from 2006 to 2009. Data for 2010 total employment are not available.

2. GAO questionnaire responses show that tuna canning employment fell 55 percent from 2009 to 2010, reflecting the closure of one cannery and layoffs in the remaining cannery. Private sector officials said the minimum wage was one of a number of factors making business difficult.

The money quote comes from the Governor of American Samoa:

4. Application of the U.S. minimum wage to American Samoa, pursuant to the scheduled increases mandated by Congress, continues to have devastating effects on American Samoa's economy. It is causing severe distortions in American Samoa's labor market. It has driven up labor costs such that businesses are being forced to cut employment, close or relocate.

Leftists in Congress, attempting to mandate prosperity through legislative action only cause increased poverty. This is all you need to know about government's attempts to run the economy.