Monthly Archives: January 2009

Updated: Memo To Ditto Heads: Obama Didn’t Do It

Barack Obama, Bush, Conservatism, Economy, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Inflation, libertarianism

Just in case ditto heads are still blaming Obama for the economic depression we’re in, here’s a reality check, and an excerpt from the CNN documentary, “I.O.U.S.A.”:

January 1, 2000, Federal Debt: $5.6 Trillion Dollars.

George W. Bush is declared the winner of the 2000 election.

One of his first priorities is pushing a large tax cut.

September 11, the attacks put the U.S. on war footing.

Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq cost hundreds of billions.

May 1, 2003, Federal debt: $6.5 trillion.

Through Bush’s first term, the Fed cuts interest rates 12 times. [Creating the glut of malinvestment and spending]

The dollar begins a long, steep decline against other currencies.

Cheap credit floods the housing market.

Many home buyers grab risky, non-fixed mortgages. [Helped along by existing federal laws, to which Bush added,mandating loans to risky minorities]

The war drags on.

Bush signs into law Medicare-D, an expensive drug benefit program.

Bush wins re-election on November 3, 2004.

Federal debt: About $10.7 trillion and 75 percent of GDP.

Federal deficit: $455 billion … and now we’re talking trillions for several years going forward.

[Snip]

As we’ve pointed, the totality of US government liabilities exceeds the worth of its citizens.

Also pointed out in this space, years back, is that with an extremely high debt-to-GDP ratio, the US would not be admitted to the company of socialists: the EU. The US’s debt is about 75 percent of its GDP.

I’m often asked what is to be expected under these dire circumstances.

Assets will continue to devalue. Saving will be difficult; retirement near impossible, because, with the continuing devaluation of the dollar, savings depreciate. Hyperinflation is a very real threat, as the amount of goods in the economy decreases, and the supply of worthless paper increases.

Now Obama’s thinking is wrongheaded: he is as clueless as Republicans about the economy and will only prolong the agony. Nevertheless, “I didn’t do it” (Bart Simpson’s famous phrase) is an appropriate defense of Barack.

Update: In response to comments. I do hope the Addiction to that Rush is not on display.

So it’s Obama’s deficit as it is Bush’s??? ‘Cmon; don’t be a ditto head. As bad as he is, Obama is probably one of the least influential politicians to date, given his short tenure in office. (He is destined to change that, of course.) Didn’t ditto heads make that very point in arguing against his candidacy?

This is not about giving anyone a pass. However, spreading irresponsibility is just what ditto heads and democrats like. This allows their respective point men and women to continue to commit legalized crimes, because responsibility in government is always socialized. “Don’t play the blame game” is the political parasite’s favored term.

No, Obama was a relatively obscure politician until now. Bush and Cheney—they ought to have been impeached. Blame for the depression belongs to their administration and to its foreign, fiscal and monetary policy.

To collectivize responsibility and spread it around equally is to oblige the political operatives, and reward them for their crimes. That’s precisely what they want. You’ve fallen into their trap. I’m afraid responsibility must be assigned with laser-like precision.

While on the issue of history, not revisionism, one more thing: The only commentators deserving credit for warning of the financial crisis are my fractious political tribe—not all, but certain libertarians and assorted paleos. And Ron Paul always. Of course, because, other than Paul, we are relatively unknown, the likes of Stephen Moore, who wrote odes to Bush’s “ownership society,” can remake themselves into all-knowing gurus, without crediting their betters.

No one in the age of the idiot will be the wiser.

Update V: Paleos Must Defend the West, And That Means Israel Too

Conspiracy, IMMIGRATION, Iraq, Islam, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Multiculturalism, Neoconservatism, Old Right, Paleoconservatism, Palestinian Authority, South-Africa, The West, War

The excerpt is from my new VDARE.com column, Paleos Must Defend the West, And That Means Israel Too.”

“The fiery address this heroic European rightist [Geert Wilders] delivered in the Israeli capital got me thinking about the difference between the American and the European Old Right. Wilders is a hardcore man of the latter faction, for whom—in the derisive description of neoconservative Francis Fukuyama—”identity remains rooted in blood, soil and ancient shared memory”. It is this earthy instinct, I venture, that accounts for the understanding the European Right evinces for Israel’s life-and-death struggle.” …

“Frenchman Jean-Marie Le Pen of the National Front gives the American media a petit mal. Yet, despite all his idiosyncrasies, he identifies with Israel. Even the late Jörg Haider of the Alliance for the Future of Austria, who “exhibit[ed] every sign of anti-Semitism”—Hugh Fitzgerald’s estimation, not mine—was … “not quite so systematically vicious when it [came] to the state of Israel.” Vlaams Belang of Belgium is pro-Israel. Leader Filip Dewinter told a Jewish magazine: “One has to choose sides. Which side are you on in the ‘war on terror,’ “the side of western democracy and western civilization, with its Judeo-Christian roots, or the side of radical Islam?” …

“Most libertarian and conservative American traditionalists, also referred to as paleoconservatives and paleolibertarians, depart from their European counterparts. Like exotic political marsupials, local paleos have developed in geographic isolation and, hence, in a self-referential and self-reverential vacuum. While they have generally—and justly—supported western interests in conflicts such as in the former Yugoslavia, Chechnya, and Cyprus, paleos make an exception of Israel. In fact, some are more devoted to the Palestinian cause than most left-liberals.” …

Read the complete column, Paleos Must Defend the West…And That Means Israel Too,” on VDARE.com.

Update I (Jan 10): THE MCCRAE MEGILLAH. I’ve posted Gus Mccrae’s letter hereunder (write to him at mccraegus@gmail.com), as an example of everything that is rotten in the paleo faction. I can’t say for sure whether he is a paleoconservative, but neither can I vouch that paleos have denounced such creatures and their constructs.

Notwithstanding that Mccrae seems incapable of adhering to Barely a Blog’s posting policy (I guess he thinks the Jew woman’s property is his by birth right), there is nothing worth addressing in this venomous, irrational outpouring.

The Mccrae “thesis” in a nutshell is this: my Vdare.com article was disingenuous and deviant because I’m Jewish. Mccrae believes that as a Jew, I know only too well that Jews are responsible for the West’s woes, in general, and for its immolation by immigration. Qua Jew, I’m well aware that Jews practically control the world, because, being Jewish, I’m in on it. Therefore, my column was a cover and a foil for the shenanigans of my Tribe.

The Mccrae megillah is first, and worst of all, a non sequitur.

Update II (Jan 11): I thank those of you who’ve written well-reasoned and well-mannered comments. I’m still awaiting a comment by “prophet james.” It was deleted by mistake.

If you are going to indulge in conspiracy thinking vis-à-vis Jewish machinations, at the very least, mention the manifest subversion carried out by “moderate” Muslim organizations in this country, against this country. (“Exposing the Muslim Lobby”)

And remember, Jews are highly represented in all spheres. Jews have certainly been among the most individualistic, original, and entrepreneurial members of American society. Think of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, the eponymous mastermind of Dell Inc., casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, and many more.

As have Jews been among the best defenders of liberty: Think Ayn Rand, Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, and Milton Friedman. (Was Frank Chodorov not Jewish? So many significant Jewish rightist, I can’t keep up.)

If Jews shrugged, you’d be without a quarter of your Nobel-Prize winners–cancer curers, scientists, etc. So get a grip, will you?

Reluctantly I return to Barely a Blog’s posting policy, which some rude, self-styled paleos seem to have difficulty with.

Don’t barge onto my private property demanding I explain myself to you, toots (you know who you are). My thoughts have been developed over years, and are archived on the mother site, ilanamercer.com, for your convenience.

Our posting policy states:

“The companion site, BarelyABlog.com, was established to generate debate about the essays on IlanaMercer.com, ILANA MERCER’S work. Readers participating on BarelyABlog.com are cordially asked to familiarize themselves with their host’s arguments. If readers prefer to showcase their ‘argumentation,’ or that of the scribes they favor and patronize, we suggest they pay for their own domain. This site is, after all, paid for by the host and her generous donors.”

The lax, rude individual who demanded I reproduce on the blog, for her edification, my thinking on foreign aid is directed to the two nifty search tools on ilanamercer.com, here, and here. I am sure even she can navigate them.

Update III: Elsewhere on this blog, JP Strauss writes the following:

Heck, if the IDF were my army, I would have invaded weeks ago. Flog the mobs, execute the terrorists and blow up the weapons caches. Israel has shown great levels of restraint up until now.Unfortunately, restraint sometimes leads to losing battles.

Allow me to introduce JP to BAB contributors: JP is an Afrikaner paleoconservative or paleolibertarian. Afrikaners have generally been highly conservative and very pro-Israel. While they’ve rightly been upset at their local, liberal Jews, Afrikaners seem to have been able to resolve the contradiction left-liberal Jews present without turning to support the PA and oppose Israel.

Leave aside the historical deceit paloes and radical leftists attach to Israel’s founding–mostly bogus of course. As something of a Randian, suffice it for me to see what Israel proper is like—skyscrapers, high-tech, high-fashion, friendly, peace-loving people, low crime rate (4 murders per 100,000; and that includes military deaths)—to support the right of the civilized society to hold all the bloody land in that benighted spot.

Update IV (Jan 12): I am not clear why a reader took my last updated comment as an endorsement (by this anti-interventionism) to spread democracy. I really can’t see the logic, especially in the context of my positions, stated, in “Thank You, Nancy Pelosi,” as follows:

“Of course, American interests in the Middle East are not to be conflated with Israeli interests. … Those of us who want the U.S. to stay solvent—and out of the affairs of others—recognize that sovereign nation-states that resist, not enable, our imperial impulses, are the best hindrance to hegemonic overreach. Patriots for a sane American foreign policy ought to encourage all America’s friends, Israel included, to push back and do what is in their national interest, not ours.”

When I say that I identify with Ayn Rand’s strong stand for civilization and against savagery, I mean this:

What do Palestinians do with land they get in return for the elusive peace? Destroy it. What did they do with the Israeli constructed hothouses in Gaza? Blew them up, and took to hothousing Hamasniks.

On what basis does the West, and left-liberal Israel, wish to grant Palestinians more land? Oh, for certain loony paleocons–libertarian and conservative–the notion is that the land is the Palestinians’ to trash. How libertine and licentious. Besides which, the land is disputed.

If you cannot keep your promise and abide by the contracts you sign to respect the negative rights of your neighbors, why do you deserve more land?

I’ll tell you what the logic behind this lunacy is. It is this: Palestinians are driven by forces beyond their control and in the control of Israel alone. Deprivation has caused their depravity. You all know what I think of the post hoc root-causes rot; you know what I think of the “idea” that crime is the fault of everyone but the perp!

Update V (Jan 13): The position of the Afrikaner people, in general, on Israel deserves mention. Afrikaners, “The Puritans of Africa,” are generally conservative. They are attached to their Christian faith even more so than Americans (who’ve imbibed a lot of New Age Christianity).
While Israel opposed apartheid, it was a true friend to South Africa during the years of sanctions and boycotts. Back then, it was South Africa and Israel against the world–and against the forces of liberalism intent on snuffing out civilized outposts at the tip of African and in the Middle East. The US had joined the Suicide of the West, often on the side of the commies, in supporting assorted “national liberation” movements.

In any event, older Afrikaners (and older Israelis) have not forgotten this epoch of their history.

Italian, Frenchman, Chinese, Russian, Israeli, Palestinian JOKE

Israel, Palestinian Authority, Political Correctness, Pop-Culture, The West, The Zeitgeist

There is some truth to stereotypes. We used to be able to joke about them without shrieking, “racism, Anti-Semitism,” “Occidentalism,” “Orientalism,” “Eurocentrism.”

What happens when a fly falls into a coffee cup?

The Italian: throws the cup and walks away in a fit of rage.

The Frenchman: takes out the fly, and drinks the coffee.

The Chinese: eats the fly and throws away the coffee.

The Russian: drinks the coffee with the fly, since it was extra with no charge.

The Israeli: sells the coffee to the Frenchman, the fly to the Chinese, buys himself a new cup of coffee and uses the extra money to invent a device that prevents flies from falling into coffee.

The Palestinian: blames the Israeli for the fly falling in his coffee, protests the act of aggression to the UN, takes a loan from the European Union to buy a new cup of coffee, uses the money to purchase explosives, and then blows up the coffee house where the Italian, the Frenchman, the Chinese, and the Russian are all trying to explain to the Israeli that he should give away his cup of coffee to the Palestinian.

Palestinians: Eternal Troublemakers, To Arabs Too

Anti-Semitism, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Jihad, Palestinian Authority

The excerpt is from my new WND column, Palestinians: Eternal Troublemakers, To Arabs Too.”

“To liberals, a designation that encompasses most contemporary ‘conservatives,’ aggression signals oppression. The Palestinian plight is the fault of reckless leaders, Palestinian and Israeli.”

The liberal West honestly believes that bad leaders are what shackle backward peoples.

“Be it in Africa or Arabia, liberals labor under the romantic delusion that the effects of millennia of development-resistant, fatalistic, superstitious and cruel cultures can be cured by an infusion of foreign aid, and by the removal of the Mugabes and Haniyas of the respective regions.” …

The complete column is Palestinians: Eternal Troublemakers – To Arabs, Too.”