Weekend Music Chill

Getting an early start on the 4th of July weekend, wore my constitution tie to work yesterday, just because. Glen Beck was on the tube last night talking about the lack of American flags in the classrooms of Massachusetts, and the difficulty with saying the pledge of allegiance, just one more reason to abolish the public schools.

On a more uplifting note, here is Ray Charles singing a classic.

Floatopia and the Local Nanny State

Look, I don't like public drunkenness any more than the next person, but the booze ban at the beach isn't just stupid, it is a violation of my rights. There, I've said it. So when the Floatopia protest/booze fests started I was of two minds. First, I was encouraged that students and other protesters were making a mockery of the stupid law. However, I didn't like the fact that many of them would inevitably get drunk and reinforce the negative stereotype that led to the ban. (Full disclosure, Waynok participated in a floatopia, with my blessing, though he did not necessarily drink.)

Now the San Diego City Council is considering banning future such events as follows:

The report proposes to extend the language in the original ban to define “bathers” as “a person floating, swimming, wading, or bodysurfing, with or without the use of a floatation device, including, but not limited to,… a surfboard, …innertube, life preserver…” Lastly, the amendment proposed to extend the ban of alcohol consumption of bathers to the city’s legal limits- three nautical miles from the coast (3.45 miles).

Well, this is certainly a crisis that needs to be addressed by our city fathers.

Thinking about the root cause of how we came to be in this situation, I think it is alack of shame. There was a time when a young man or woman would have been ashamed to be drunk in public, at least after the fact. There was a stronger sense of propriety among the public that didn't require the police to arrest that many people for such a crime to make enforcement and effective deterrent. What has been lost is a shared sense of public propriety. I don't think we drink any more today, see Wes Clark's Avocado Memories discussion of patio culture in the 60s. (One of the best blog posts of all time.)

Today we are less mindful of our behavior overall and are filled with resentment at all manner of constraint. The result is that each new constraint is met with more resentment and attempts to break out of stultifying straitjackets on behavior. It is as if most adults have entered a never-ending adolescence and the only authority remaining is the policing power of government. It is a recipe for disaster. It makes me a criminal when I drink my one or two beers at the beach. It displaces the responsibility for maintaining societal norms from individuals to the government and that is untenable. Contrary to popular belief, a strong sense of shared morality does not subvert freedom, but makes freedom more possible, because we need fewer laws to maintain order in society. (And don't get me started on what those shared values are; Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Atheists agree on all manner of morality, including the impropriety of indecent exposure and public drunkenness.)

What is to be done? We should recognize that more and more laws to regulate behavior are actually counter-productive. Too many laws, and ridiculous ones at that, and people lose respect for the law. Look at how often the speed limit is violated. But fewer laws are insufficient of themselves. People who do stupid things need to rap the consequences of their actions. So, if someone is drowning due to excess alcohol consumption, they should pay for their rescue, as a modest example. Finally, we all need to just pitch in and let those who behave badly know, that their behavior is not welcome, nor will it be tolerated. A little shame isn't such a bad thing.

Now I think I'll have a martini.

Debt Without End?

The most recent report on the federal debt outlook from the Congressional Budget Office doesn't paint a pretty picture. From the CBO's blog (who knew?):

Recently, the federal government has been recording the largest budget deficits, as a share of the economy, since the end of World War II. As a result of those deficits, the amount of federal debt held by the public has surged. At the end of 2008, that debt equaled 40 percent of the nation’s annual economic output (as measured by gross domestic product, or GDP), a little above the 40-year average of 36 percent. Since then, large budget deficits have caused debt held by the public to shoot upward; CBO projects that federal debt will reach 62 percent of GDP by the end of this year—the highest percentage since shortly after World War II.

But that's only the start. The Economist has some analysis on likely scenarios and publishes this chart:


The CBO blog has an explanation for the shape of these curves:

The budget outlook is much bleaker under the alternative fiscal scenario, which incorporates several changes to current law that are widely expected to occur or that would modify some provisions of law that might be difficult to sustain for a long period. In this scenario, CBO assumed that Medicare’s payment rates for physicians would gradually increase (which would not happen under current law) and that several policies enacted in the recent health care legislation that would restrain growth in health care spending would not continue in effect after 2020.

Note how the increase in spending in the long term is due to medical spending by the federal government. This is the reason that Obamacare is so pernicious. For all the reasons that we have detailed previously (straitjacket on free enterprise, reduced competition, increased demand due to subsidies) spending on health care by the federal government will inevitably increase.

Further, there are other reasons to be believe that tax revenues will be flat in the long run, as shown in the chart above, regardless of tax law changes. I have previously commented on Hauser's law, which is an empirical observation that federal tax receipts will never rise above 20%. Recently found the graph that shows this:



The math of our situation is unavoidable. Under the current tax system, we will not raise significantly more revenue, but the cost of government will inevitably rise. To answer the title question, of course this debt will end, because it is unsustainable. If the Greeks can figure this out, so can we, the sooner, the better.

Eat Your Vegetables? Don't Expect Relief From Kagan

Who says that Supreme Court Justice confirmation hearings are vapid and hollow charades? Tom Coburn, apparently reading George Will, asks the Supreme Court nominee if Congress has the constitutional authority to tell us to eat our vegetables, obfuscation follows.



Kagan's non-response is a clear indicator to me that she doesn't believe that the constitution limits the Congress in any meaningful way when it comes to economic rights. For those on the left who proclaim the need for constitutional government, and bitterly complained about Bush, I ask, how can you support a nominee who disdains any notion of limits on the federal government?

And for those on the left who believe that you can somehow separate personal from economic freedom, I commend some study of Hayek. From Ilya Somin of The Volokh Conspiracy:

Third, as Hayek contended in “The Road to Serfdom,” political freedom and economic freedom are inextricably intertwined. In a centrally planned economy, the state inevitably infringes on what we do, what we enjoy, and where we live. When the state has the final say on the economy, the political opposition needs the permission of the state to act, speak and write. Economic control becomes political control....

This is why I oppose the left in all of its guises. Maybe they aren't socialists, but they certainly put us on a path to less freedom.

Round Up of Stuff I Liked Today

KT has a nice post on the insanity of G20 protests. Regardless of location, the story seems the same; lazy leftist ne'er do wells trash another city because their poli-sci degrees that they "earned" with little to no effort, but plenty of political correctness didn't land them 6 figure jobs, or any job at all.

Mutnodjmet vacations in Italy and finds Tea Party goodness. Talk about a two-fer.

Dean reminds me of one of the first blogs that he linked to, and one that captures so many thoughts about my own youth that I could never put into words. Avocado Memories reminds me of the days when men were men, women were women and the martinis were strong. Interestingly Camille Paglia seems to be riffing on the same theme, but from her own unique perspective, of course.

Senate Democrats can't seem to do enough to make themselves unpopular, so they are still trying to come up with some crappy enviro legislation that they can pass, presumably to paint Republicans as fiends (no typo) of big oil, but the public is smarter. What is wrong with these guys? They have vulnerable members are in swing states, like say West Virginia, where there would be an election if they keep to the law to fill the seat of the late Robert Byrd. I doubt that they will follow their own law, however, since only Republicans are pilloried for extra legal conduct.

In a victory for gun rights, the Supremes ruled that indeed the Second Amendment applies to the states in McDonald vs. City of Chicago. Although not a total victory, it establishes the principle that the second amendment is equal to all of the other amendments and no amount of spin can remove that basic fact. There will still be regulation of gun ownership, but even speech is not totally free, the government can demonstrate compelling state interest, so this Supreme Court ruling is as much as we could have expected. Plus, I love that Chicago took the smack down.

Finally, Al Gore visited our home town today, but who knew? No press, no video, no cameras allowed. Schadenfreude isn't a pretty emotion, so I won't comment further.

Why Do Enviros Hate Personal Transportation?

Noel Spaid's editorial in today's Union-Tribune trots out the same misinformation and half-truths used by so called environmentalists to argue against any road building.

The sky over L. A. is yellow-gray many days and you can’t see the sun in sunny California. That’s the result of building too many freeways in L.A. Is this what we want for San Diego County – more cars, more gas, more dependence on oil and foreign governments that are our sworn enemies? Exactly what is good about this plan? We are going to spend $3.3 to $4.5 billion to do this to ourselves?

P.L.A.G.U.E. has spoken.

He argues that expanding an existing route, I-5, in North County, would damage the environment and cause us to be more dependent on foreign oil. But, compared to what? Doing nothing just increases the current gridlock, cars idling get very poor mileage and pollute the environment even more.

What are the alternatives to meeting the known demand for transportation? The rail efforts mentioned are years off. It has been widely reported that building freeway is the most cost effective way to increase transport capacity and rail is much less effective than highway building in reducing congestion. Further, additional lanes can be used to provide incentives for low emission solutions of carpools, hybrid vehicles and buses. Merely expanding a freeway does not lead to the outcomes the author suggests. Further, misleading statistics are used to bolster the argument, it is 34,000, not 47,000 annual deaths on our highways, 40% of which are estimated to be alcohol related.

I admit to being concerned over the need to remove homes along the route. In California, we don't have a good track record of adequately compensating under the takings clause.

Ultimately, I suspect that the real objection to more freeway is a hatred for the freedom that individual vehicles give us. Those vehicles are getting more and more fuel efficient and as gasoline prices have risen our behavior is resulting in less pollution and less fossil fuel consumption, I favor a carbon tax (with an offset against the income tax) to reduce pollution, but don't take away the freedom that comes from making our own choices.

Weekend Music Chill

Sorry for the short hiatus from blogging, the demands of a recent trip were a little tougher than I anticipated and I didn't line up any guest bloggers. I was in Charleston SC, when Nikki Haley won the Republican nomination. It wasn't a big deal locally, since she had such a big lead in the polls, but it was still good to see her win. She was certainly not the favorite of the Republican establishment, but had significant Tea Party backing, so I think this is a good victory. To honor the fine folks in Charleston who hosted me, here is the Marshall Tucker Band, originally hailing from Spartanburg, SC, with perhaps their most popular hit.

The President Gets It Right UPDATE

Light blogging while I am away on business travel. From my perspective as a retired officer in the Navy, I believe that the President was right to relieve General McChrystal of his duties. There are many reasons already provided in other articles, but I offer one that was used many times during the relief of commanding officers when no one specific thing was egregiously wrong but too many things weren't right in the command; the superior officer had lost faith and confidence in the ability of the officer to command. Given the command climate that prevailed under McChrystal, the President could not really have faith that his policies on the conduct of the war were being implemented as intended. I give the President high marks for the manner in which he handled the issue, this statement gets it exactly right:

"The conduct represented in the recently published article does not meet the standard that should be set by a commanding general," the president said. "It undermines the civilian control of the military that is at the core of our democratic system."

Make no mistake, General McChrystal is a great American, whose efforts have made the United States Army a much more capable organization at fighting insurgencies, but that does not relieve him of responsibilities as Commanding General.

We can now return to our normal bashing of Obamacare and other examples of failed economic policies of justicialism. But I just want to say that I am proud to be an American for this reason as much as any other; the immediate reaction to this whole incident shows how ingrained is our belief in civilian control of the military, that even McChrystal knew he had made a mistake and immediately apologized and indeed, offered to resign.

UPDATE

Link provided to excellent, as always, in-depth analyses of the situation from Information Dissemination. Their blog is a must read for analysis of military, primarily naval issues. Gahlran does not give as much credit to Obama as I did, but concurs about the need for the firing itself. The money paragraph:

I find it very disturbing how little depth our nation has in the bullpen when the President has to demote our most decorated military leader of this generation - General Petraeus - in order to find someone willing and able to execute the existing administration policy for Afghanistan and simultaneously save political face for the Commander in Chief in the midst of a civil - military relations crisis. How effective is the policy itself when the President must borrow the prestige and respect of the nations finest General in order to reclaim civilian control? Color me concerned.

Exactly, the President's Afghanistan policy is not getting the job done. Secretary Gates may be the architect, but it is still the President's. Hopefully, an unexpected benefit of this brouhaha will be a reevaluation of the path ahead.

Justicialism?

We're not dictators, we're justicialists.

I've got to admit that I never even knew that Peron thing in Argentina had a name other than Peronism, kind of catchy, but not so much so as Justicialism. KT is on a crusade to get us to stop calling Obama a socialist and instead label him a justicialist. Although I believe that Obama is secretly a socialist and justicialism is a way station on that Road To Serfdom, I lack the evidence to know what is in his heart, and have limited proof of this right now. However, I think we can all agree that the economic results of justicialism are about the same as for socialism. From the Wikipedia article on Argentina's debt restructuring:

Argentina went through an economic crisis beginning in the mid-1990s, with full recession between 1999 and 2002; though it is debatable whether this crisis has ended, the situation has been more stable, and improving, since 2003. (See Economy of Argentina for an overview.)

Argentina defaulted on part of its external debt at the beginning of 2002. Foreign investment fled the country, and capital flow towards Argentina ceased almost completely. Argentina was "left out of the world." The currency exchange rate (formerly a fixed 1-to-1 parity between the Argentine peso and the U.S. dollar) was floated, and the peso devalued quickly, producing massive inflation.

Socialism, justicialism, leftism and statisms of all ilk have the same end result, economic ruin. This because freedom works best. In America, we still have a problem, even if we are not remotely socialist, which I will continue to repeat for effect:

The size of government has become a threat to our prosperity and our freedom.

Running the Clock out on the Welfare State

Ross Douthat peers into the soul of the left and finds vice and fear in his New York Times column. (Are they allowed to write stuff like that at the Gray Lady?) He echoes KT in saying that the welfare state's days may be numbered because they are unsustainable.

But it’s here, with the looming fiscal crisis, that the more legitimate liberal fear comes in. Liberals had hoped that Obama’s election marked the beginning of a long progressive era — a new New Deal, a greater Great Society. Instead, from the West Coast to Western Europe, the welfare state is in crisis everywhere they look. The future suddenly seems to belong to austerity and retrenchment — and even, perhaps, to conservatism.

[Ed. note: This blog does not use the term liberal to denote the left, unlike Douthat above, preferring the terms leftist or progressive.]

Exit question, as the deficits become unsustainable, can that be leveraged to repeal Obamacare? We are already seeing the first push back, with the "doc fix" for medicare put on life support for just six months. What new financial calamity will it take for the people to rise up in wrath against the ballooning debt?

Blog Roll Addition

I have added Left Coast Rebel to my favorite blogs list at right. He consistently provides a great San Diego Tea Party perspective to both local and national news. My apologies for not linking sooner. Also, I love his tag line.

As If We Needed More Proof

80,000 tons of rotting food are in state run warehouses in Venezuela, more proof of the awesomeness of Marxist social theory. From CNBC:

Much of the wasted food, including powdered milk and meat, was found last month in the buildup to legislative elections in September. The scandal is humiliating for Chavez, who accuses wealthy elites of fueling inflation and causing shortages of products such as meat, sugar and milk by hoarding food.
....
A string of expropriations and buyouts of companies during the last couple of years means the government now controls between 20 percent and 30 percent of the distribution of staple foods.

Hugo Chavez of course, blames elites and hoarders. Go figure. The government seizes the food industry, and seeks to buy votes by supplying its supporters with cheap food. Enterprising individuals in the government see an opportunity and start holding back the supply with the hopes of making some money. Who could have foreseen such a set of circumstances? Certainly not the Marxist stooge running Venezuela. And to think that Charlie Rangle warned George W. Bush in 2002 not to mess with the would-be dictator.

Peggy Noonan Nails It - Obama is Snakebit

Peggy Noonan's article about how unlucky Obama seems to be is a must read. She nails the reasons for the sense of malaise that prompted this weekend's music. Her article reminded me of what my first submarine skipper told me when I was a youngster just out of seminary, "If you're not lucky, we can't use you." (Rumor has it that Gene Hackman modeled his character in Crimson Tide off of him; if you knew the skipper, you would believe it.)

Some gems:

Normally presidents have had a printed copy of the speech in their hands or on the desk, in case the teleprompter freezes or fails. Mr. Obama's desk was shiny and empty.
...
There is still a sense about Mr. Obama that he needs George W. Bush in order to give his presidency full shape and meaning. In this he is like Jimmy Carter, who needed Richard Nixon...
...
There is a growing meme that Mr. Obama is too impressed by credentialism, by the meritocracy, by those who hold forth in the faculty lounge, and too strongly identifies with them. He should be more impressed by those with real-world experience.

Weekend Music Chill

This week's music was written for the 2000 movie Wonder Boys, but it seems to oddly capture the mood of the current administration. Ironically, the title "Things Have Changed" doesn't mean for the better, much like the change Obama has wrought. Enough with stretching analogies, just enjoy a great musician; Ladies and Gentleman here is Bob Dylan:

Sharron Angle

I listened to a little Roger Hedgecock on the way home. He was in Las Vegas interviewing Sharron Angle. A previous HotAir article had given me to low expectations for her. I was very surprised at how well she articulated the overall Tea Party agenda. Harry Reid is going to spend a wad of cash trying to defeat her and make the election about her supposed wackiness. But she seems ready, pointing out what a failure Obama and by extension, Reid has been for Nevadans. She got off a great line, calling Harry Reid the "Obama whisperer," tagging him with empowering Obama's agenda.

She took on the issue of Social Security privatization, which looks like a political loser right now after the 2008 stock market crash, to say that she is for individual accounts that would protect seniors, not necessarily for privatization. She also took the seemingly poorly timed issue of eliminating the EPA, but she said that the states, who are closer to the problem, would do a better job.

Like Rand Paul, I think she is going to have to modify some positions that make her sound like a kook. What makes it unfortunate, is that programs like social security and medicare are in fact unsustainable. How do you say that in a campaign without being demagogued?

Lakers

Light blogging tonight on TLT. My interests were off politics tonight, mosey on over to B-Daddy's other blog for some highlights of tonight's events.

"Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics" and Obamacare

So the lies used to sell Obamacare are coming back to haunt it. Yet Obama thinks that more salesmanship is needed to make the bill popular. The latest lie to be exposed was the exclusion of the so called "doc fix" that caused the CBO scoring of Obamacare to come in at under a $1 trillion price tag and be labeled as reducing the deficit. The use of this statistic to score health care was clearly a lie, as Obama is now calling on the House and Senate to pass a bill that will restore the cuts in physician medicare pay that were passed under the Obamacare bill. Clearly, the Democrats never had any intention of allowing a 21% cut in payments to doctors treating medicare patients.

Apparently, the Senate is now going to pass a bill that extends unemployment and avoids the medicare payment cut until November, after the elections I presume. Great, that puts the issue in the hands of a lame duck Congress. There's some leadership for you. I believe that the doc fix shouldn't get passed, because it was a part of Obamacare. Are the Democrats going to hail the fact that they've already repealed part of their own health care legislation? Except for the fact that so many seniors would be hurt by a sudden change in the rules, I would say that Obama deserved the crap sandwich he was getting over this issue.

A little more depth on the doc fix issue from HotAir.

And how about this whopper




Here is how we are getting started on the transition process discussed.

Under the annual dollar limit provisions of PPACA governing group plans (taking effect for plan years beginning Sept. 23, 2010), "Limited Benefit Medical" health plans will not meet the new standards established by the law. (Beginning in 2014, annual dollar limits are fully prohibited under the new health care law.) Except for action by the HHS secretary to make exception for these plans or clarify the law, 1.4 million workers may be without their "mini-med" plans.

Thanks for nothing.

I Almost Forgot Flag Day

My favorite flag is the first Navy Jack . I have hung it in every place of work, with short minor exceptions, for twenty-five years. When I first entered the Navy in 1976, this jack was being flown from the stern of all U.S. Navy vessels, as it is today during the war on terror. (Note to Obama, the Navy is still flying this flag under a SecNav order regarding the GWOT.) For a brief history of the flag see navyjack.info web site.

In the fall of 1775, as the first ships of the Continental Navy readied in the Delaware River, Commodore Esek Hopkins issued a set of fleet signals. Among these signals was an instruction directing his vessels to fly a striped Jack and Ensign at their proper places. The custom of the jack-type flag had originated with the Royal Navy in the 15th century or earlier; such was the likely source of Hopkins' inspiration. This first U.S. Navy Jack has traditionally been shown as consisting of 13 horizontal alternating red and white stripes with a superimposed rattlesnake and the motto "Don't Tread on Me." The rattlesnake had long been a symbol of resistance to British repressive acts in Colonial America; its display on the new jack of the fledging Continental Navy fit naturally with the fervor of the times.

For you Tea Party types check the embedded link above for a history of rattlesnake flags.

Carl DeMaio - Local Hero

Carl DeMaio took on the unions today and delivered 138,000 signatures to put a managed competition measure on the ballot today. He did so after taking a bus ride highlighting the city services that have been cut back due to the ongoing budget issues, precipitated by the pensions imbroglio. He was, of course, opposed by the city's unions along the way. As I have said before, reducing the city payroll is only way out of our budget mess in the long run. Of course, what would a little Tea Party style activity be without some union thuggery, mild though it might be in this case:

There was a brief scuffle as a man dressed as Pinocchio thrust his long nose in DeMaio's face. Police had to break up the crowd.

I note that Carl DeMaio endorsed Lorie Zapf, despite the mortgage issues.

Programming Note - Interview With Lorie Zapf

In all the hubbub running up to last week's primaries, I lost an email from Lorie Zapf agreeing to be interviewed. I will attempt to make contact for a weekend interview. Other than her mortgage issues, which I promise to cover, any other suggestions for questions are welcome.

I have a pretty full plate with work, school and home obligations this week, so blogging might be light.