Monthly Archives: May 2011

UPDATED: Deadend Debates (& State Death Squads)

Constitution, Education, Ilana Mercer, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Journalism, Justice, Law, Media, Military, Political Philosophy, Reason, The Zeitgeist

Be they pundits, politicians, government watchdogs, and other dogs (no offense to the canine community), most “critics” of our ever-accreting Nanny State don’t pose the right questions. This is because they appear to lack the requisite philosophical (constitutional or other) and logical frameworks. Unless these players begin directing the arrows in their quiver at the philosophical issues—what is the proper role of the state in this republic, RIP—we will be left with the silly, “To Spend of Not to Spend” debate. (Lackluster logic is harder to fix.)

One example is this Drudge headline (click “Go Back One Page” to view actual headline): “FEDS SPEND MILLIONS STUDYING SHRIMP ON TREADMILLS?? ‘GELATIN WRESTLING’ IN ANTARCTICA??” All the screeching CAPITAL LETTERS and question marks in the world will not fill in the blanks: Is the objection to this particular spending based on considerations of frugality? Or is Drudge’s outrage over the flouting of the Constitution by Feds? A better headline would begin to steer the Idiocracy in the right, critical direction.

The founders bequeathed a central government of delegated and enumerated powers. Intellectual property laws are the only constitutional means at Congress’s disposal with which to “promote the Progress of Science.” (About their merit Thomas Jefferson, himself an inventor, was unconvinced.) The Constitution gives Congress only 18 specific legislative powers. Research and development spending—even for crucial matters as “Jell-O wrestling at the South Pole” and the “shrimp’s exercise ability”—are nowhere among them.

Rights and the Constitution aside, once we we begin to focus on the right issues and questions, the right answers will be likelier to present themselves.

Take the fuzzy discussion facilitated by Neil Cavuto, today, with two mushy-headed women about the right of a school to fine parents for pupil tardiness.

Lis Wiehl, a lawyer no less, was of one (mushy) mind with the other guest, a mother. Both believe that it’s simply unfair, in these tough times, for schools to penalize busy parents when kids are late for school.

The question here is, of course, not only about pedagogic purview; it’s about individual responsibility. Kids of a certain age ought to be responsible for their actions. Teachers are supposed to be able to enforce minimal attendance standards. If a child in high-school is tardy, he or she ought to be punished, not his parents.

But pedagogues, parents, pundits and most politicians are all-over-the-map—incapable of articulating the simple issues at hand. If thinking is so disordered and illogical, solutions will be no better. (In the last example: teachers should wait for better economic times before they fine parents for the actions of their kids.)

UPDATE (May 27): STATE DEATH SQUADS. With grim determination William N. Grigg dogs the perps in Police State America. Here they are breaking and entering and, then, killing the occupant of the invaded private property. Look at the goons! Talk about “The Myth of Posse Comitatus.” What is this if not the deployment of the US military against the people?

A YouTube poster appended an excerpt from our dead-letter Constitution: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

The speedy execution of Jose Guerena (“it’s complex,” say officials) was mislabeled by our official cognoscenti. FoxNews bobbleheads debated whether this bloodbath amounted to the use of excess force, and entertained an apologist for the SWAT fucks who shed tears over the split-second decisions these, our great defenders, undertake in the course of defending us against alleged tokers.

The only relevant debate here is: whose property is it anyway? Does a man have the absolute right to defend his abode from invaders whomever, however? The only answer: “YES, YES, YES.” If you’re vaguely compos mentis, this is the only debate you should dignify.

[For those of you who await the weekly, WND.COM column: it will be back next week. I’ve been under the weather.]

UPDATED: The American People’s House? (Telling Juxtaposition)

America, Constitution, Elections, Foreign Policy, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, libertarianism, Middle East, Nationhood

It was an abomination when Mexican President Felipe Calderon was allowed to address the Congress in May of 2010, and it is an abomination for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to have been permitted to issue forth before a joint session of the American Congress. Calderon, you recall, was toiling tirelessly for the benefit of millions of Mexicans living in the US illegally. From the White House Rose Garden, and then again in an address to Congress, he chastised overrun Arizonans for “forcing our people to face discrimination.”

Netanyahu is not as bad as all that. And both these respective foreign leaders are patriots, looking out for their countrymen.

The American people’s representatives are the traitors here, for it is they who’ve permitted this reoccurring spectacle; it is they who’ve turned the American People’s House into a one-way exchange program for foreign dignitaries.

Whose House is it, anyway?

UPDATE (May 25): Bibi vs. “O’sissy,” via Pajama Media.

Bibi vs. "Osissy"

My Facebook comment in response to the predictable:

“Please quit the tinny robotic, liberal, moral equivalence about the mettle of men: Bibi vs. Obama; Bibi vs. socialist (alleged) rapist. The libertarian non-aggression axiom does not have to turn one into a sissy detached from reality. Or make one a moral relativist. The above image, via a facebook friend, says it all.”

UPDATED: The Triumph of Anarcho-Terrorism

Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Middle East, Nationhood, Palestinian Authority, Technology, Terrorism

On purely utilitarian grounds, it’s difficult to understand the “civilized” world’s almost universal drive to shrink the civilized sphere that is Israel and expand the anarcho-terrorist territory that is the Palestinian Authority. Why in the world would anyone who prizes productivity, industry, and trade push for the eviction of productive, industrious, traders from the “disputed territories,” only to replace them with destructive occupants? Even if you believe this folly serves the cause of justice, you have to admit that ceding territory to the Palestinians is a terrible waste of scarce resources.

In 2008, the US ran a “goods trade deficit with Israel of $7.8 billion.” We still do (link). Why? Because Israelis make and export things, a lot of high-tech things. Other than explosives, animate and inanimate, what have the Palestinians ever made and traded? Why, without Israel, Palestinians would be without electricity. The main market for Palestinian goods (labor) is Israel. Yet the Palestinians keep bombing their economic lifeline.

Since its independence, Israel has demonstrated its capacity for self-governance. Since they began demanding self-determination, Palestinians have proven incapable of the same. Any more territories Israel cedes will soon fall into disrepair, as did Gaza.

The Palestinians can’t feed themselves, although they manage to cannibalize their own and those around them. Still, the so-called civilized world wants to imperil the existence of the those who’ve turned a howling desert into a thriving country, and reward a warring, whining faction of self-styled victims.

Why? It’s a vexing question.

UPDATE (May 24): There is an interesting thread on Facebook. My response will give you an idea of the discussion’s direction:

“Euclid was a Greek mathematician [not an Arab]. I am not sure what Chris means. But so as not to advance something along the lines of the mythistory called Afrocentrism, let me say that “The origins of algebra can be traced to the ancient Babylonians.” And then the Indians, who were subsequently brutalized under some or other caliphate.

As Mises observed, no doubt, the Arabs were great preservers of culture by means of its translation. They were also great copiers too. No doubt there was an Arab civilizational heyday. But innovation was less in that DNA…

Cain Un-Able

Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Middle East, Political Economy, Republicans

What a great title from NPR: “Herman Cain Wasn’t Able On Palestinian Right Of Return Question.” (That is if you know the Hebrew Bible.) It captures this Republican presidential contender’s Palinesque lack of command of basic facts, in general, and in the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians, in particular. The man is not only clueless, but perfectly comfortable in holding court on an issue about which he knows nothing. The last quality is way worse than the first. Check Cain’s insertion of the “compassionate” adjective at the end, vis-a-vis Israel. You can win elections in America armed with a fatuous vocabulary that includes words like “hope, change, compassion, dreams.”

Fox News Sunday’s host Chris Wallace: Where do you stand on the right of return?

CAIN: The right of return? (Pause) The right of return? (Pause)

WALLACE: The Palestinian right of return.

CAIN: That is something that should be negotiated. That is something that should be negotiated.

WALLACE: Do you think the Palestinian refugees, the people who were kicked out of the land in 1948, should be able or should have any right to return to Israeli land?

CAIN: Yes. But under — but not under Palestinian conditions. Yes. They should have a right to come back if that is a decision that Israel wants to make.

Back to — it’s up to Israel to determine the things they will accept. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made it real clear in his statement following the statement that President Obama made. They are wiling to make some concessions. They are willing to give on a lot of things. They are willing to be compassionate.

[SNIP]

I “Liked” Vox Day’s evisceration of the Republicans’ token racial candidate’s economics:

“He is not even close to being a genuine conservative on the single most important issue presently facing the nation. Indeed, both his economic philosophy and his employment record are quite literally Communist. In the fifth of the “10 Planks” of the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx demanded “Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.” In the United States, credit has been centralized in an exclusive government monopoly granted to the Federal Reserve; Mr. Cain was the deputy chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City from 1992-1994 and the chairman from 1995-1996.

MORE.