Assaulting Civility

Obama joins Wisconsin's budget battle, opposing Republican anti-union bill:

BO calls the WI governors budget bill an "assault" on unions. Can we re-name "assault" rifles to "civility rifles"? No reason to ban those I guess. Let's see, little over a month ago, it was "The Tea Party and Sarah Palin" that were the cause of violence in AZ because of their "harsh rhetoric". Now we have screaming, chanting union workers, teachers calling in sick ad showing up to protest (some bringing clueless students with them), all sorts of signs of Walker as Hitler, Walker with a crosshairs on him, Walker as "Madison Mussolini" ... etc, etc.

Somehow the MSM seems suddenly and oddly muted on the whole "civility thing". Wassup wid dat??? Certainly can't be bias!!

Unlike the tea partiers, the union folks are blocking halls and screaming about their "rights". I'm thinking that "collective bargaining" is another one of those "rights" that is in the same general area of the Constitution as "abortion"?

Funny isn't it? "Liberals" (regressives) find a number of "rights" that they hold dear, but things like the right to bear arms, or the right of ALL to speak (as in even spend MONEY as speech), the right to private property (Kelo, Income tax, etc) even though clearly written are "questionable" and need to be "carefully controlled" -- and only thought to be "simply understood" by the supposed simple minded conservatives.

Not so abortion on demand (ideally government funded), health care, a "living wage" and yes, collective bargaining. Those rights, even though they are nowhere to be found in the actual document are somehow "unalienable".

Watch the union protesters and think about what the attitude of the MSM would be if those were Tea Party folks!

Anti Union, Anti Wealth? Take a Powder?

Thousands protest anti-union bill in Wisconsin | Minnesota Public Radio News

MADISON, Wis. (AP) - Thousands of teachers, prison guards and students descended on the Wisconsin Capitol for a second day Wednesday to fight a move to take union rights away from government workers in the state that first granted them more than a half-century ago.

Gee, the first guy that started hammering JD in the AM in college may have been one of the first that "quit" as well -- either because he was dead, or his liver was. It is a SURPRISE that the state that first got the stupid idea of having public employee unions might be the first to quit them? Duh.

Let's see, we need unions to counteract the "greed" of business owners and large corporations? But wait, isn't this government "of, by, and for THE PEOPLE???" -- if THE PEOPLE can't be trusted to treat their employees reasonably, then who can we trust? Isn't it just a TINY bit disengeuous to take sick days AND drag the students you are supposed to be teaching along so you can protest the potential end to your yearly shakedown of the rest of your neighbors? I guess we need one more lesson entitlement and corruption are without limit, while resources ALWAYS have limits!

Oh, BTW, here in MN we have Gov Mark Dayton wanting to raise taxes on the "wealthy" to the highest levels in the nation. If the measure in WI attempting to gain control of the budget is "anti-union", why would the MSM not cover the Dayton proposal as "anti-wealth"? It certainly IS anti-wealth, and it is much more likely to harm everyone in the the state of MN than hiring, firing and paying teachers on the basis of credentials, capability and results rather than the universal union techniques of payola for those who support you (Democrats), fleecing your marks (the public) and getting your salary and job security on "time and grade".

Now we discover that the Democrats in the Senate have fled the state to avoid a vote on the issue! Holed up somewhere in N IL, Land of BO and Bears that still suck! This wasn't supposed to be Greece, Italy or France YET -- but it appears that we may be much farther down the road to serfdom than most were aware!

Purity and Martyrdom

RealClearPolitics - Mitch Daniels' Moment, and Dilemmas

"Purity and martyrdom is for suicide bombers," Daniels told his audience. "Change of the dimension we need requires a coalition of a dimension no one has recently assembled." But the thrust of his speech, at the aptly named "Ronald Reagan Banquet," was a comparison between today's debt crisis and the "red menace" of Reagan's day.

Great quote, great guy.  He would be such an improvement over BO that there is a chance that we could avoid decades of decline and despair! Not MUCH of a chance mind you, but this is probably the only guy that really gives us any chance at all given the massive hole that Nancy, Harry and BO have managed to plow us into!

4-star general, 5-star grace - CNN.com

4-star general, 5-star grace - CNN.com: Good news, even about a 4-star general, on CNN no less!!

Very much the kind of servant attitude that is worth risking the deadly sin of envy over!

I REALLY enjoy being able to report something positive on our MSM!

MEOW, WTF?

Obama wants to 'Win the future.' (That slogan may not help.)

You know, "Moral Equivalent of War" -- Jimmuh Carter, 1977.

At least ONE MSM outlet seems willing to mention that the great BO might not be quite up to super genius standards on deep thought relative to sloganeering, and so sadly (for the left), the assumed brain damaged from birth Sarah Palin pointed it out. Even the "Wisconsin Tourism Federation" was finally forced to realize that in these days of the WWW, Twitter and youth evolved with quad thumbs, the acronym rules.

The article didn't cover them all, or provide the appropriate derision for the Republican attempts. "WIN" was treated with unimaginable disdain in the '70s. Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" was hammered without mercy. Remember "A Thousand Points of Light"? or how about "A Kinder Gentler" conservatism / Republican party? As if the party of the Constitution vs the party of Cronies and ACORN Crime was somehow going to be helpful through unilateral surrender.

One more example of how sadly we miss at least half the humor in the world by the knee jerk reaction of the MSM and especially the entertainment industry to somehow take Democrats more seriously.

The universe is just too good though -- it is HARD to beat "WTF" for BO and "MEOW" for Jimmuh!

Why Everything Starts with Repeal - Charles Krauthammer - National Review Online

Why Everything Starts with Repeal - Charles Krauthammer - National Review Online

This is as clear as it gets. Why oh why can't we have a national discussion that makes this clear to all!

Hatred on Planet Krugman

Climate of Hate - NYTimes.com

One really need not go any farther than this column to see that rhetoric and reason are all too often easy to separate. A rational person really doesn't have to look at much Krugman to get a "sick feeling in the pit of their stomach". He as left reason and moderation behind long ago and exchanged them for some form of rage that makes one wonder if he can hear himself at all.

In the nadir of Republican power in the spring of 2009, KRUGMAN was all for elimination of Republicans!!

Remember BO saying that Democrats ought to "punish their enemies"?

Nutcases will ALWAYS shoot up the place ... be they John Hinkley, or wackos in Finland, England, Australia ... or you name it.

Regressive Hate

http://michellemalkin.com/2011/01/10/the-progressive-climate-of-hate-an-illustrated-primer-2000-2010/

Nice little history of some of the highlights of  Regressive Hate, in case one feels snowed under by the current AZ snow job.

Ft Hood vs AZ

Journalists urged caution after Ft. Hood, now race to blame Palin after Arizona shootings | Washington Examiner

Well done column on the the obvious. WHY is it somehow important to give a guy who clearly WAS an Islamic extremist every possible benefit of the doubt and beyond, but to jump precisely the other way and go to rather stupid lengths to try to link a guy that is obviously mentally ill with US politicians and political rhetoric?

Shameless Prejudice and Bigotry

Lawmakers: Time to cool the political fury - CNN.com

Certainly "prejudice and bigotry" are bad, but to equate them with 'political rhetoric" and somehow attempt to link a guy that believes in some form of mind control from the government as somehow being related to the Tea Party or any other sort of political movement that might want a smaller government is just one more sign of how common prejudice and bigotry are.

I remember well when Ronald Reagan was shot. I personally knew multiple people that were convinced that Reagan was going to "get us all nuked", and all sorts of crazy articles about his "Dangerous Cowboy attitude" and "Nobody builds a bunch of nuclear weapons unless they plan to use them" sorts of gibberish were being spewed. Even by 1985, the left was at least claiming to STILL be extremely afraid of nuclear war, and not at all above heated rhetoric and dramatizations that claimed that the policies being followed were going to get us all killed. Last I checked, we are still here and the USSR isn't exactly in the ascendancy. Apparently Hinkley was actually in love with a movie actress and trying to impress her when he shot Reagan, but I didn't hear much concern for movies contributing to insanity at that point either.

During the Bush Administration, we had "Fahrenheit 9-11" and "The Assassination of George Bush", along with regular marches and protests about the two wars still going on and Gitmo. The two wars are still in progress and Gitmo is still open, so I think it is pretty safe to say that all the heated rhetoric on those subjects was very much about politics and a prejudice much more against Bush than the supposed targets.

Were one actually anxious to "cool the political fury" rather than to shamelessly use a tragic action by an obviously mentally unstable individual to further expose your prejudice and bigotry against political views that might disagree with yours, this would be a GREAT time to leave politics out of it and just mourn the victims and maybe say a little prayer for the mentally ill young man and his family as well.

Mascots

Mascot Politics - Thomas Sowell - Townhall Conservative

I need to go over and read the longer article, but this one is well worth the couple minutes it takes. Right now the MSM could care less about the homeless or the poor in any sort of situation -- that only comes out when there is a Republican president. Welcome to France -- how long before people start torching cars for a good time on weekends?

Bias In Action

The Northeast Snowstorms: One More Sign of Climate Change - TIME

But while piles of snow blocking your driveway hardly conjure images of a dangerously warming world, it doesn't mean that climate change is a myth. The World Meteorological Organization recently reported that 2010 is almost certainly going to be one of the three warmest years on record, while 2001 to 2010 is already the hottest decade in recorded history. Indeed, according to some scientists, all of these events may actually be connected.

Read that again a bit more closely and think a little harder. The article is pointing out that "weather isn't climate". OK, but then why would it be remotely interesting that 2010 is or isn't one of the hottest years on record? or that even a decade was very hot? A SCIENTIFIC view would be to "define climate", and in EITHER case, warming or cooling, point out that "it isn't weather".

"Climate" must be longer than hundreds of years, because the Medieval Warming Period, from like 800-1300 when GREENland got it's name as being a nice place for Vikings to farm and live, nor the "Little Ice Age" from 1300-1850, when there were "years with no summers" in major parts of Europe and the US, don't count as "climate". We will need to get warm enough so crops can successfully grown on Greenland in order to even get back to the Medieval Warming Period -- but even if we do, THAT will not be proof of "climate change", because not even those swings in the past count as "Climate Change" according to current definitions.

A purely politically biased view says that it is foolish to look at current cool conditions as having anything to say about warming, but it is perfectly reasonable to look at current warm conditions as being proof of warming. It seems absolutely clear that the political biased view is largely all we hear from the MSM -- "proof" of a change of "Climate" will involve warming going on for 100's of years ... like half a millennium or more as it it did in the Medieval Warming Period, and followed by a less long and cool cooling period than the Little Ice Age following it.

Sometime about 3000 AD, our climate science ought to be getting close to being more scientific and less political.

BO Regressivism

Obama and the State of Progressivism, 2011 | Hoover Institution

A rather long but worthy discussion on the past and current thinking in "progressivism" -- or as I like to refer to it, "regressivism". If allowed to proceed, the "progressive" agenda will make us Serfs as before the enlightenment, only this time it will be to a set of Harvard elites and their Union Boss cronies. It is definitely worth breaking out the firearms before kneeling to the modern would-be "rulers"!

This little quote from an older progressive (Croly) pretty much sums up the folks who Thomas Sowell calls "The Annointed":

“the average American individual is morally and intellectually inadequate to a serious and consistent conception of his responsibilities as a democrat”

Got that? Democracy would be great, but the people are too stupid! Therefore, we have to use the courts and subterfuge to FORCE them to do what they really would do if they could just be as smart as the elite! We poor gun clinging religious red state country bumpkins need the likes of his most brilliant eminece, the ever pungent BO to light our way!!

Empire

"The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power" by Nial Ferguson.

Dr Ferguson remains one of my current favorite living historians and this book does not disappoint -- me at least. I suspect that many would find it "a bit dry".

I was very interested in the question of "why Britain"? relative to the creation of the huge empire. The key answers seem to be:

• A flexible rule of law -- The big picture principles of freedom and civil society were followed and bequeathed in the main, but significant detours, up to effectively condoning piracy early on, were important to success. "Do the right thing as quickly as you can" might be a reasonable motto for the Empire. 
• The willingness to colonize -- which meant that a reasonable number of English pulled up roots and left home, often forever, in order to be the backbone of a world wide civil service.
• Timing -- Spain had pretty much sewed up the "plums", England got stuck with some "poorer colonies", North America at that point being particularly bad. Therefore, rather than just move in and plunder, the English needed to make something out of what they found -- which involved colonization, application of technology, management, global finance, trade, etc. They got rather good at it -- the Spanish just got good at walking in and taking anything that looked like gold. 

The devastating effects of the Maxim automatic weapons on African tribesman and Mideast Dervishes was something that I was not aware of. I think Ferguson does an excellent job of telling the truth, but is very careful to put things in context -- sudden and younger death from many causes including violent ones was a much more common situation then. Does this "excuse the slaughter"? No, but it didn't happen in a vacum either. It is quite interesting to me how the name "Rhodes" as in "Rhodes Scholar" is still considered positively, yet Cecil Rhodes was about as ruthless as anyone could be in the killing of native peoples and the taking of land, diamond and gold mines, and anything else that suited his fancy. He was "an imperialists imperialist", but there is little attempt to besmirch his name AFAIK unlike say "The Robber Barons" on the US, which did MUCH less damage (and far more good)  at about the same time in history.

In talking about the good effects on world GDP, advancement of countries and rule of law, this little list of positive elements for growth and development could bear reading by many folks in our own government:

1. Secure rights of private property (encourage saving and investment)
2. Secure rights of personal liberty (against tyranny, crime and corruption)
3. Enforce contract rights.
4. Stable Government (publicly known in advance rules --- HELLOOOOO ???)
5. Responsive Government
6. Honest Government (no rents for favor or position ... again??? BO???) 
7. Moderate, efficient, non-greedy government (hold taxes down, reduce governments claim on surplus)

Many interesting personalities and events are discussed during the course of the book, but one of the things I like about Nial is his capacity to link the elements together into a unified whole that is more understandable having read the book.

Basically, Britain created the first case of "globalization" through Empire. While it had problems, it was a civilizing factor on the globe and made the world better for many many people, not just the British. WWI and WWII destroyed that version of globalization and Britain essentially traded her Empire in order to fight the tyrannical Empire building attempts of Germany and Japan.

Today the US is the sole remaining superpower, but we don't really do "Empire" -- what this means is that without colonization or some other form that replaces it in securing investment in the undeveloped world, the gap between the haves and have nots gets bigger and the risks of conflict between the "integrated" and "non-integrated" gets larger, as in 9-11.

A very worthy, but somewhat difficult read.

The Conservative Scrooge Myth

Liberals Give 'Til It Hurts (You) - Ann Coulter - Townhall Conservative

Liberals hate Ann Coulter, but she is kinder and gentler than Al Franken (she never called anyone a "butt boy"), and she has the good grace to not be a US Senator.

Anyone with a sense of humor is really going to like this column -- but since a sense of humor involves being able to not take yourself too seriously, I've never met a liberal that had one. The column points out the obvious that has been covered in study after study and would be very easy for the MSM to cover if they wished, since many candidates have to make their tax records public. The MSM loves any hint of hypocrisy from any Christian, but if your religion is liberalism? Go ahead and just transfer OTHER peoples money to your favorite voting blocks and call that "caring" while personally making Scrooge seem like a philanthropist!

My favorite teaser quote ... but there are a number of good ones:

In 2005, Vice President Cheney gave 77 percent of his income to charity. He also shot a lawyer in the face, which I think should count for something.