Will 1/27/09

Grand, Yes. Bargain, No.

My take on George Will's latest. His column was published in the Washington Post.

Summary: Obama's "Fiscal Responsibility Summit" is starting to look like a giant spending spree. Will's example of "mission creep" is the recent House passage of the SCHIP program. In 2007 Bush called for a $5 billion increase. Democrats in the House passed $50 billion increase. The Senate compromised at $35 billion. This year the House just doubled that.

Fiscal Responsibility now appears to mean massive new spending.

Quote:

. . . this SCHIP expansion is sensible -- if your goal is quickly to get as many people on public coverage as possible and to have children grow up thinking that it is normal for them to get their health insurance from the government. That is the goal.

My Views: With the bailout reaching $1 trillion, the mental block of spending large amounts of money seems to be breaking down. Commentators of all stripes seem to be accepting new, large spending as inevitable.

This mirrors the thinking in the business sector. There was the dot-com bubble a decade ago. Then there was the lending bubble of a year ago. During the times of both of these bubbles, conventional wisdom held that these kinds of practices were the new normal. People talked of changing conditions and changing times justifing the changing business practices.

The trouble with that thinking was that while times change, the laws of mathematics and of finance do not. The practices of the businesses that operated within these bubbles failed to stop the bubbles from bursting. The one idea that the nation should have learned was that this was inevitable. The laws of mathematics and hence, the laws of finance cannot be changed.

This is also true of the governmental sector. However the conventional wisdom may support massive new spending, the government must still pay its bills. - Else, bad things will happen.

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George Will almost didn't make it as a syndicated columnist. His style was considered too erudite for a general audience.

Whatever one thinks of his views, read his work for use of language and for how he marshals facts and uses logic.

Here's his Wiki bio.

His latest book is at the right.

Coulter 1/22/09

Obama Treated Equally?

My take on Ann Coulter's latest. Her column was published on Townhall.com.

Summary: Compare how Obama has been treated versus how past Presidents were treated. Don't go back too far. Just look at the chorus of boos that assaulted George W. Bush upon entering the inaugural stage yesterday.

Quote:

Liberals always have to play the victim, acting as if they merely want to bring the nation together in hope and unity in the face of petulant, stick-in-the-mud conservatives. Meanwhile, they are the ones booing, heckling and publicly fantasizing about the assassination of those who disagree with them on policy matters.

My Views: Right on! I like the list of things that they said of Reagan's Inauguration versus the things being said of Obama's. Why are the left so mean to people who disagree with them?

As for Mrs. O's fashion sense, I just have to wonder why no one is pricing those gowns the way they priced Sarah Palin's?

I just want everyone to be treated equally. But that means that everyone has to BEHAVE equally. Carter wasn't booed at Reagan's Inaugural. Why boo Bush at Obama's Inaugural?

Some of Coulter's recent essays have struck me as petty but when she gets something right, she hits a bullseye. This one really struck a chord with me.

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Anybody who is as hated as Ann Coulter is must be doing something right. She is very right-wing but every left-wing blogger would love to write like her. I hate rants; opinion pieces must argue from the facts. Pay attention to how she uses facts and draws politically incorrect connections among them. People would do well to think and not just be outraged.

Here's her Wiki bio. Her latest book is at the right.

Obama Inaugurated

We wish them well. Of the five living Presidents, 3 are Democrats and 2 are Republicans - both Bush's. If Reagan had still been alive, it would have been 3 and 3.

Here is the text of O's big speech.

By the way, we had TR, FDR, JFK, LBJ. For Obama, he doesn't like Barack much and he definetly discourages the use of Hussein. O should do just fine.

Coulter and Limbaugh

The two conservatives people (non-conservatives) just love to hate:

Together on 1 Program.


The video is part 1 of four. The rest are Parts Two , Three, and Four .

Here's a written transcript. The book they discuss is "Guilty". In it she argues that some groups that are described as victims are not and some folks that really are victims are not recognized as such.

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Anybody who is as hated as Ann Coulter is must be doing something right. She is very right-wing but every left-wing blogger would love to write like her. I hate rants; opinion pieces must argue from the facts. Pay attention to how she uses facts and draws politically incorrect connections among them. People would do well to think and not just be outraged.

Here's her Wiki bio. Her latest book is at the right.

Krauthammer 1/16/09

Who Will Vindicate Bush?

My take on Charles Krauthammer's latest. His column was published in the Washington Post.

Summary: Obama. He will vindicate Bush by his deeds rather than by his words. Bush's most controversial policies are already being tacitly accepted by the new President. Items:

• Withdrawal from Iraq


• Bush's Anti-terrorism infrastructure


• The Economic Bailout

Quote:

He leaves behind the sinews of war, for the creation of which he has been so vilified but which will serve his successor -- and his country -- well over the coming years. The very continuation by Democrats of Bush's policies will be grudging, if silent, acknowledgment of how much he got right.

My Views: Well, Iraq did draw the most animus from the left but they vilified him even before any of that. The thing is that in the end the vilification of Bush was based more upon political prejudice than upon policy differences. When people rise above that then his policies and his presidency will receive a more favorable view.

Still, he got a lot wrong. The Bailout is still bad. Immigration is likely to grow as a national problem, particularly if the Mexican Drug War spills over the border. The victims of political persecution (Libby, the two border guards) ought to have been pardoned - and long before now. These things may be why Bush is unpopular in the country; they are not why he is unpopular with the Democrats.

When people can compare the Bush years to the Obama years, then we'll see.

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Charles Krauthammer is a more establishment columnist. He came to punditry by way of psychiatry (at Massachusetts General Hospital) via the New Republic Magazine. He appears on TV where you never see his wheelchair. Here's his Wiki bio.

He wrote a book which is pictured at the right. I am drawn by the substance and the thinking than any particular writing flair.

Steyn 1/15/09

Another Routine Emergency
My take on Mark Steyn's latest. His column was published on the Orange County Register.

Summary: For the inauguration of Barrack Obama, George W. Bush declared Washington, D.C. a Federal Disaster Area. Obama and the Democrats are fine with this because now they can tap into FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) funds to help pay for costs associated with the inauguration. This is the first time in history that the inaguration of a President has been officially declared a national disaster.

Quote:

The proposition that a new federal administration is itself a federal emergency is almost too perfect an emblem of American government in the 21st century. FEMA was created in the 1970s initially to coordinate the emergency response to catastrophic events such as a nuclear attack. But there weren't a lot of those even in the Carter years, so, as is the way with bureaucracies, FEMA just growed like Topsy. In his first year in office, Bill Clinton declared a then-record-setting 58 federal emergencies. By the end of the Nineties, Mother Nature was finding it hard to come up with a meteorological phenomenon that didn't qualify as a federal emergency: Heavy rain in the Midwest? Call FEMA! Light snow in Vermont? FEMA! Fifty-seven under cloudy skies in California? Let those FEMA trailers roll!

My Views: What more is there to say? This shows more than anything the state of how government budgets and spends money in our day in age.

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Mark Steyn is a syndicated columnist from Canada. Here's his Wiki bio.

His latest book is on the right. This is the book that got several Human Rights Commissions in Canada hot and bothered. With free speech under unprecidented attack, Mark Steyn managed to pull out a badly needed victory. This was the first time a Canadian Human Rights Commission found a defendent innocent.

Will 1/14/09

Judges May Downgrade Constitution

My take on George Will's latest. His column was published in the Washington Post.

Summary: Last year the California Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage was a fundamental Constitutional right. Proposition 8 amended the State Constitution to reverse the Court's ruling. Now the CSC will rule whether or not an amendment to the Constitution is constitutional.

Quote:

Now comes California's attorney general, Jerry Brown -- always a fountain of novel arguments -- with a 111-page brief asking the state Supreme Court to declare the constitutional amendment unconstitutional. He favors same-sex marriages and says the amendment violates Article 1, Section 1, of California's Constitution, which enumerates "inalienable rights" to, among other things, liberty, happiness and privacy.

My Views: Forget the issue of Gay Rights for just a moment. Forget that this is just California. Who's in charge of Constitutional law in the USA?

The Federal Constitution starts with the words, "We the people". Not we the lawyers. Not we the judges. The people. This idea that those Articles of the Constitution that tell how the Constitution may be changed are now nullified and that only Courts may change the Constitution, is a matter of the widest and of the gravest concern.

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George Will almost didn't make it as a syndicated columnist. His style was considered too erudite for a general audience.

Whatever one thinks of his views, read his work for use of language and for how he marshals facts and uses logic.

Here's his Wiki bio.

His latest book is at the right.

Will 1/11/09

Litigation Nation

My take on George Will's latest. His column was published in the Washington Post.

Summary: The proportion of lawyers in the workforce has doubled since the 1970's but the courts have gotten worse. It is not only the proliferation of lawsuits but what the fear of lawsuits have done to society that we should be concerned about.

Quote:

Time was, rights were defensive. They were to prevent government from doing things to you. Today, rights increasingly are offensive weapons wielded to inflict demands on other people, using state power for private aggrandizement.

My Views: An enthusiastic "Amen" to this. Everywhere we go we have to pay more and endure stupid rules and warnings just because people fear lawsuits. How come I can't get hot coffee, anymore? How come the doctors do all that "defensive medicine"? We're less free than before and we pay more than we should because of the overly litigious society we've wrought.

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George Will almost didn't make it as a syndicated columnist. His style was considered too erudite for a general audience.

Whatever one thinks of his views, read his work for use of language and for how he marshals facts and uses logic.

Here's his Wiki bio.

His latest book is at the right.

Steyn 1/9/09

On Hating Jews

My take on Mark Steyn's latest. His column was published in the Orange County Register.

Summary: Hating Jews goes back centuries. Like all prejudice, racial/ethnic hatred is not only wrong; it hurts the hater, too.

Quote:

As I always say, the "oldest hatred" didn't get that way without an ability to adapt: Once upon a time on the Continent, Jews were hated as rootless cosmopolitan figures who owed no national allegiance. So they became a conventional nation state, and now they're hated for that. And, if Hamas get their way and destroy the Jewish state, the few who survive will be hated for something else. So it goes.

My Views: The anti-Israeli sentiment in Europe, America, and across the world has metastasized into a generalized hatred of the Jews. Steyn's article catalogues recent events in the news. Do non-Muslims hate Israel because it is Jewish, or because it is perceived as being pro-American? One thing that the article does not address is the mixed feelings among left-wing Jews towards Israel.

Something awful is at work here. It is not just the anti-Jewish acts and words that deserve our concern and condemnation, it is the failure of the world leaders to meaningfully condemn them. - And here's a big raspberry to you Britain's PM Gordon Brown!

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Mark Steyn is a syndicated columnist from Canada. Here's his Wiki bio.

His latest book is on the right. This is the book that got several Human Rights Commissions in Canada hot and bothered. With free speech under unprecedented attack, Mark Steyn managed to pull out a badly needed victory. This was the first time a Canadian Human Rights Commission found a defendant innocent.

Krauthammer 1/2/09

In the Gaza Conflict One Side Is Right and the Other Is Wrong

My take on Charles Krauthammer's latest. His column was published in the Washington Post.

Summary: Score: Israeli's right; Palestinians wrong. Because the Hamas* government DELIBERATELY targets civilians; the Israeli government does not.

Quote:

Did the Palestinians begin building the state that is supposedly their great national aim? No. No roads, no industry, no courts, no civil society at all. The flourishing greenhouses that Israel left behind for the Palestinians were destroyed and abandoned. Instead, Gaza's Iranian-sponsored rulers have devoted all their resources to turning it into a terror base -- importing weapons, training terrorists, building tunnels with which to kidnap Israelis on the other side. And of course firing rockets unceasingly.

My Views: Last month, Hamas announced that the end of the truce with Israel. In response to unceasing rocket attacks, Israel invaded the Gaza Strip. It's announced intentions was to destroy Hamas' offensive capability.

I don't understand why the outrage is directed against Israel. The reasons normally given are that Israel uses disporportionate force and does disporportionate violance. This reason is just wierd.

I think Colin Powell summarized war best. Wars aren't supposed to be cliffhangers that drag on into tiebreaks. Wars, if they must be fought at all, ought to be short. You win it quickly and get out. Terrorists and terrorist governments need to understand that if they do bad things, they will get hurt. A lot. If morality does not stop them from doing bad things, then at least that will. That point has done more for peace than anything else.

* Hamas is the ruling party in the Gaza portion of Palestine.

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Charles Krauthammer is a more establishment columnist. He came to punditry by way of psychiatry (at Massachusetts General Hospital) via the New Republic Magazine. He appears on TV where you never see his wheelchair. Here's his Wiki bio.

He wrote a book which is pictured at the right. I am drawn by the substance and the thinking than any particular writing flair.