When was the Death of Capitalism?

Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning last November’s Presidential election:
Number of States won by: Democrats: 19 Republicans: 29
Square miles of land won by: Democrats: 580,000 Republicans: 2,427,000
Population of counties won by: Democrats: 127 million Republicans: 143 million
Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Democrats: 13.2 Republicans: 2.1
Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Republicans won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of the country. Democrat territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in low income tenements and living off various forms of government welfare..."
Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.
If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegals and they vote, then we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years. If you are in favor of this, then by all means, ignore this post. If you are not, then pass this post, and website along to help everyone realize just how much is at stake, knowing that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom.

Newt and Nugent? - Has a Nice Ring to It!

Reading a posting from our favorite Libertarian madman, Ted Nugent in Human Events, August 4, who laments over Michigan's demise (while the democratic Governor Granholm plays the violin):

"My beloved home state of Michigan is snagged in an ugly and self-imposed economic and social snare.
Michigan is on economic life support. With unemployment already hovering at fifteen percent and with the automotive industry going the way of the Dodo bird, the bad times for Michigan may have just begun. Michiganiacs beware: things could get much uglier for the Wolverine state before it gets better.
The automotive industry, the foundation of Michigan, and dare I say America, is bankrupt and dying. Taxpayer bailouts, loans to the poorly managed and union controlled car companies, and even a $4,500.00 taxpayer subsidy for people who trade in their older cars for fuel efficient cars may only be postponing the inevitable. Death may be on the doorstep of my old hunting grounds in Dearborn.
According to a July 6 University of Michigan economic article, Michigan will lose over 300,000 jobs from end of 2008 to the end of 2009. The Detroit Free Press reported on July 21 the average sale price for a home in Detroit is a paltry $6,500.00.
If that news isn’t bad enough, I read an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that Detroit’s poorly run and union-controlled public schools are expected to file for bankruptcy protection any day now. According to that op-ed, only one out of four children who enter the ninth grade graduate on time, the proficiency scores of kids in the Detroit public school system are dismal compared to other Michigan school systems while the Detroit school system spends $1,700 more per student than other Michigan school systems. The Detroit public school system is not just the worst in Michigan, but the worst in the nation. Nice going NEA. " - Ted Nugent

Say what you want about Ted, but he always stands up for what he believes with such a common sense approach, a true rarity these days. It truly is a shame that a once and vital state like Michigan will soon be reduced to (even more) federal government handouts, with the possibility of IOUs a la California coming down the pike - but soon we'll have the terrorists that nobody wants - and Obama will fulfill another questionable promise technically - I can see it now "Well, they're out of Gitmo, aren't they?" - maybe they could stay at his home in Illinois that he was able to purchase in that sweetheart real estate deal that you and I would never have been able to do (we're too honest - not community organizers with connections - work too hard to try to work all the angles - your choice) - though Obama does have experience working close up with terrorists (you have to belive Bill Ayres will be appointed to something here - he's getting enough money from the government as it is)

Terrible Ted then mentions Newt Gingrich's plan from the American Solutions site:

"Newt Gingrich and his America Solutions organization have it right if we truly want to jump start the economy and set forth the conditions to create good, permanent jobs.
1. Cut taxes 50% for individuals and businesses. Putting this extra cash in the hands of people and small businesses would ignite the American economy like pouring gas on a fire. Barry O and crew are doing everything they can to pour gallons of water on already dwindling embers of capitalism.
2. Eliminate the Capital Gains tax. Newt argues this will provide the capital to build new factories, enable entrepreneurs to start new businesses, create new technologies, etc. History shows that his arguments are bullet proof.
3. Drastically slim down the corporate tax rate, which is among the highest in the world. Reducing our corporate tax rate to that of Ireland (12.5%) would make America a magnet for new companies which would hire American workers.
4. Kill the Death Tax. Taxing the after tax savings of Americans is immoral, mob-like behavior. Killing the death tax would unleash hundreds of billions of dollars that Americans could use to start new businesses and hire Americans.
Newt and his American Solutions ideas to get Michigan and America moving again are spot-on. Barry O and his hyperliberal school boy crew are dead wrong. Americans are paying the price for Barry O’s anti-freedom, anti-capitalist, and very anti-American economic policies. " - Ted Nugent, c/o Newt Gingrich

All sound economic ideas (and you can say what you want about Newt - but he gets the job done, look at Contract with America - what was impressive was not just the proposal in a very simple format for all to understand, but to actually complete the contract as well - so very rare in politics), which means they haven't got a chance as long as the current group is in office - but we have to believe that the American people will rise, released from their chains, if they haven't already been placed around the neck of the free market system - we have to believe there's time, but it's running out. Get involved, and look carefully at the Libertarian ideas, which each of these points made, will get us out of this mess (would have kept us from this mess in the first place) - it's so simple, and perhaps that's where people have trouble understanding the premise, as they have been ingrained to believe that programs are not what they say they are (especially when delivered by politicians in Washington DC, or each of the state houses) and they are starting to look to see who's behind the curtain pulling the strings - read "1984" - George Orwell, "Atlas Shrugged" - Ayn Rand, "It can't Happen Here" - Sinclair Lewis, and "Revolution" - Ron Paul and stand up - and speak up (articulate and loud - the other side seems to hate that).

An excellent video with Ted discussing Freedom(and actually having to defend his rights - amazing that he has to do that in this country, still???):

The Death of Obama Care?

Is it possible? Obama Care in it's current form, is truly faltering? Yes, I know something will have to be passed for Obama to save face - though "talking out of both sides of his...." could make that challenging. Three basic pieces of evidence, as possible microcosms of a much bigger picture that will not be completed in Obama's image (just had a flashback to the great book and movie "The Picture of Dorian Gray" but in this case, Obama will still be idolized and still represent that "ideal" to his loyal subjects, while the overall picture is becoming something rather ugly indeed):

1. The liberal columnists and bloggers are starting to look at this plan, and ignoring the Whitehouse's suggestion, to look "at the big picture," they are finding much fault with the plan, even to the point of, "gasp," believing that the critics "may be right."

Examples such as some of the dirt being dug up by those "conservative - re: just kidding, really leftest websites" such as the Daily Kos and Huffington Post - excellent examples of how some species do eat their young. Case in point, from the Daily Beast, an interesting post by Lee Siegel, titled "Obama's Euthanasia Mistake," which takes to task Obama's nearly non-emotional tenor of bill and tack of campaigning over areas that could be quite emotional to the participants who actually have to make the decisions over life-and-death, particularly that all life is precious and cannot be rationalized... a couple key sections in the piece to consider - the "life-sustaining committees," though the term "death panels," seems to be getting more mileage in the press:

"...One of the key ideas under consideration—which can be read as expressing sympathy for limitations on end-of-life care—is morally revolting. And it’s helping to kill the plan itself.

Make no mistake about it. Determining which treatments are “cost effective” at the end of a person’s life and which are not is one of Obama’s priorities. It’s one of the principal ways he counts on saving money and making universal healthcare affordable.

This is the Big Brother nightmare of oppressive government that the shrewd propagandists on the right are always blathering on about. Except that this time, they could not be more right.

Obama told Diane Sawyer in June that government should “study and figure out what works and what doesn’t. And let’s encourage doctors and patients to get what works. Let’s discourage what doesn’t.”

Sawyer then asked him: “Will it just be encouragement? Or will there be a board making Solomonic decisions?”

Obama replied, “What I’ve suggested is—is that we have a—a commission that helps—made up of doctors, made up of experts, that helps set best—best practices.”

When Sawyer pressed him to say whether those practices would be enforced by law, he evaded the question.

This reeks of the Big Brother nightmare of oppressive government that the shrewd propagandists on the right are always blathering on about. Except that this time, they could not be more right.

Leave aside the argument for ending life when its prospects for continuing seem too painful or too hopeless. Leave it aside because this is one case where Kant’s beautiful categorical imperative—act as though your particular deeds should be a universal law—will never apply. We know that theft and murder are wrong because if they were universally committed, the world would explode in chaos. But the decision to end your life before nature wrenches it away is as rational and humane as the decision to prolong your life by whatever means necessary. Life is too specifically precious to turn its final phase into any type of universal practice, whether it’s enforced by custom or by law.

As for the argument that fruitless tests and “senseless” procedures are bankrupting the health-care system, that is an insult to the intelligence. No one knows which tests and procedures will be effective beforehand. No amount of “study” and research is going to address the particular case and the particular condition, let alone the particular, desperate, irrational will to live—which, in animal terms, is pragmatic and rational...."

Unfortunately, Obama is not getting it, though I believe while he considers himself pragmatic and rational, with such an emotional issue of life-and-death (and many others listed in the plan), that just doesn't cut it.

2. The polls are in the tank

Is it possible that the reason Obama and the Democratic leadership wanted to push this program through, without even reading it, while attacking anyone who had any questions on it at all, is that they knew once people started reading the bill, they wouldn't like what they see??? (Health Care? sounds good, wait a minute, this isn't health care, it's....screams fill the air, the screen turns black, film credits roll - left to your imagination, like a dream, though it's a nightmare, that you will not soon wake up from)... and so the numbers continue to drop, particularly independents...

"The Marist Poll found 45% of registered voters nationwide disapprove of how Obama is handling health care, while 43% approve and 12% are unsure.

A full 52% of independent voters, the critical voting bloc that propelled Obama to the White House last fall, gave the President’s handling of health care the thumbs down, while just 34% approve." (From the New York Daily News, August 14th)

3. Ah, and finally, cable news, what would we do without you?

Though sometimes, I'll admit it, I like to turn the TV and computer off to find out. Amazing how shrill some of these liberal experts are - by shouting down the opponent, seems to give them the impression that they've won [i.e., Chris Matthews, Keith Olberman, Rachel Maddow, and the entire MSNBC crew - it must be like NASCAR (though they wouldn't lower themselves to watch), where all the participants are constantly turning to the left] - such as the following exchange on MSNBC (again, from Daily Beast) - it's pure poetry: