Monthly Archives: July 2012

Establishment Enraged At Its Candidate, Romney

Conservatism, Economy, Elections, Media, Republicans, Taxation

“…for the sake of not abandoning his faulty health-care legacy in Massachusetts, Mr. Romney is jeopardizing his chance at becoming President,” the WSJ editorializes.

The editors have objected to Mitt Romney’s lack of objection to Obama and the gang’s framing of The un-Afforable Care Act as a tax. Capiche?

Romney is not remotely as coherent as the WSJ thinks he is in his most confused moments.

Mr. Romney should use the Supreme Court opinion as an opening to say that now that the mandate is defined as a tax for the purposes of the law, he will work to repeal it. This would let Mr. Romney show voters that Mr. Obama’s spending ambitions are so vast that they can’t be financed solely by the wealthy but will inevitably hit the middle class.

On the other hand, it is just possible that the WSJ is upset with the Romeny campaign for failing to hire as campaign adviser the ubiquitous Stephen Moore, popular commentator on Fox New and beyond, and author of “Bullish on Bush: How the Ownership Society Is Making America Richer.”

“We’re on its email list,” they whine, “and the main daily message from the campaign …[simply won’t cut it].”

Hint, hint.

UPDATE II: A July 4th Toast To TJ, Author of The Declaration

America, Founding Fathers, History, Pseudo-history

THOMAS JEFFERSON, that is. For most, Independence Day means firecrackers and cookouts. “The Declaration of Independence—whose proclamation, on July 4, 1776, we celebrate—doesn’t feature. To be fair to the liberal establishment, ordinary Americans are not entirely blameless. In fact, contemporary Americans are less likely to read it now that it is easily available on the Internet, than when it relied on horseback riders for its distribution.”

Back in 1776, gallopers carried the Declaration through the country. Printer John Dunlap had worked ‘through the night’ to set the full text on ‘a handsome folio sheet,’ recounts historian David Hackett Fischer in Liberty And Freedom. And President (of the Continental Congress) John Hancock urged that the “people be universally informed.”

Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration, called it ‘an expression of the American Mind.’ An examination of Jefferson’s constitutional thought makes plain that he would no longer consider the mind of a Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, or the collective mentality of the liberal establishment, ‘American’ in any meaningful way. For the Jeffersonian mind was that of an avowed Whig—an American Whig whose roots were in the English Whig political philosophy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. …

… Jefferson’s muse for the ‘American Mind’ is even older.

The Whig tradition is undeniably Anglo-Saxon. Our founding fathers’ political philosophy originated with their Saxon forefathers, and the ancient rights guaranteed by the Saxon constitution. With the Declaration, Jefferson told Henry Lee in 1825, he was also protesting England’s violation of her own ancient tradition of natural rights. As Jefferson saw it, the Colonies were upholding a tradition the Crown had abrogated. …

Naturally, Jefferson never entertained the folly that he was of immigrant stock. He considered the English settlers of America courageous conquerors, much like his Saxon forebears, to whom he compared them. To Jefferson, early Americans were the contemporary carriers of the Anglo-Saxon project.”

The original Independence-Day column in its entirety is “A July 4th Toast To Thomas Jefferson And The Anglo-Saxon Tradition.”

UPDATED AND CONFIRMED I (July 5): Certain Americans will never own the founding history of this country, and one of perhaps three just wars Americans have fought.

The foul-mouthed Chris Rock: “Happy white peoples independence day.”

UPDATE II: In response to a Facebook comment: The issue here is not slavery, Myron. No need to crumble in white guilt at the mere mention of the American Revolution.

Let’s Break-Up And Break Free, Says BAB Contributor

America, BAB's A List, Federalism, Founding Fathers, History, Liberty, Nationhood

Barely a Blog (BAB) contributor Myron Pauli has an Independence-Day message of freedom: Let’s break-up and break free. If you haven’t gotten his drift, on this Independence Day—Dr. Pauli recommends doing away with the supersize version of the United States of America, as this will do wonders for liberty. Hear hear! (Myron’s bio is below. It’s packed with his usual flare. Perhaps Myron’s highest achievement, however, is his teenage daughter. Dr. Pauli is the most devoted single dad I know.)

DO WE NEED TO HAVE A “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA”? Of course, our Founders asked questions like that – but nowadays, to ask is even borderline treason making one a racist, terrorist, or psychotic. So much for the Land of the Free. But I will ask it anyway!

Other Empires have devolved – USSR being the best recent example. I don’t want to get caught up in detailed nuances but it can be done – so we can have 20 to 50 “countries” instead of one. OK – the 2 Dakotas and Montana can be the Republic of Northland. It will not be a superpower – but not everyone has to be #1. The Danes, Swiss, and Costa Ricans sleep soundly even if China, France, and Israel have more powerful armies. Is China about to invade Northland, anyway?

In fact, the “Federal” Government of the 1787 Constitution was not created (dismissing the Articles of Confederation as more of a Congressional coffee klatsch) to ward off imminent attack from Frederick the Great. Much of the impetus came from the corruption and ineptitude of the 13 states which quickly slid into “banana republic” governments. The soldiers of the Continental Army were stiffed and would have staged a coup if not for General Washington. Fiat paper money was shoved into circulation (sounds like today!). Debts, foreclosures, and contracts were negated by demagogic mobs that controlled the local legislatures. If someone in Rhode Island owed money to a creditor in Virginia, forgetaboutit!

If, when debts were not repudiated, gangs like Shays Rebellion put pressure to do so. Goods flowing from Maryland to New Jersey risked getting the “TSA treatment” from goons in Pennsylvania or Delaware. It was with that mess in mind that people like Franklin joined up with quasi-monarchists like Hamilton and supported a national government with LIMITED powers to restrain the states from the hanky-panky they were sliding into. An indirectly elected national government with limited powers could serve as a check-and-balance on the two-bit state demagogues. Franklin recognized this in his famous 17 September 1787 speech – that it would serve the cause of liberty for some time until the people will have grown corrupted.

Even 100 years after, advocates of limited government had a champion in Grover Cleveland, but by 1896, there was an electoral choice between the Plutocratic Imperialists of McKinley and the Currency Debasers of Bryan.

The country has grown but government has grown more and liberty has shrunk. The price of keeping Wyoming safe from an invasion from India currently includes SWAT teams raiding chemo patients for pot plants and bureaucrats from 3000 miles away scanning algebra test scores.

If we did break up, we run the risk of DC turning into Zimbabwe and Mississippi becoming Klan land, but there might be some restraint on the states due to economic competition. If Texas and North Carolina wanted racial, second-class status for Asians, their universities and engineering companies would become a laughing stock. The higher Massachusetts raises taxes, the more people would emigrate to New Hampshire.

But it might not go all that smoothly. What would prevent a combination of Mexico and California from invading an Arizona that attempted to enforce immigration restrictions? Would a power-hungry New York megalomaniac (Bloomberg) attempt to coerce Connecticut as well?

The danger is not as likely to come from China or India or Russia or some bucktoothed Afghan Pushtuns, but from North American Huey “Kingfish” Longs.

Franklin supported the Constitution, but warned that it “can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other.” One can also add Jefferson’s quote: “experience hath shown, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”

The TSA, the SWAT Teams, the endless undeclared wars, the out-of-control deficits, the drones and constant surveillance – this was not forced on us by Germans or Martians but what WE HAVE DONE TO OURSELVES. Local corruption might be preferred to national or international corruption, but it is still evil.

So my preference is summed in one word – small may not always be beautiful, but it’s better for liberty.

**
MYRON PAULI, Ph.D., grew up in Sunnyside Queens, went off to college in Cleveland and then spent time in a mental institution in Cambridge MA (MIT) with Benjamin Netanyahu (did not know him), and others until he was released with the “hostages” and Jimmy Carter on January 20, 1981, having defended his dissertation in nuclear physics. Most of the time since, he has worked on infrared sensors, mainly at Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC. He was NOT named after Ron Paul but is distantly related to physicist Wolftgang Pauli; unfortunately, only the “good looks” were handed down and not the brains. He writes assorted song lyrics and essays reflecting his cynicism and classical liberalism.

Monkeying With The Money

Britain, Business, Fascism, Federal Reserve Bank

CNN Business News reports that British bankers and regulators have been caught red-handed, monkeying with interest rates.

And I thought that was the job description of the banking cartel.

Barclays Chief Executive Officer Bob Diamond conducted an “exhaustive internal investigation,” only to find that “other banks were involved [too] in setting and manipulating interest rates.”

In addition to the resignation of Diamond, del Missier and the chairman of the board, Barclays said many traders involved in the Libor manipulation are “no longer with the bank.” But Barclays plans to keep these individuals’ names confidential, since civil and criminal investigations are ongoing.
Meanwhile, Diamond had been consistently vocal about the need for bank to act responsibly. Speaking at the Fortune Most Powerful Women conference on June 18, Diamond said: “Being a better citizen is critically important to us in financial services today for all kinds of reasons. In order to be effective we need to regain trust in our industry.”

Buried in the news item is this nugget: “[T]op British banking regulators could be implicated in this wide-ranging investigation.”

USA, USA, We Are Always AAA: Expect the world’s top monopoly money counterfeiter to be right in the middle, stirring the money pot.

Two thoughts:

• When the ostensibly private arm of the baking cartel cops to mischief, its bankers take the heat and the hate. The public has been brainwashed into believing that Big Ben (Bernanke) and his counterparts in European and British governments are in the right to debase their countries’ coin. Therefore, the populations on our Ape Planet (where humans are becoming the dumber species) don’t blink over central banker shenanigans. (Except for Ron Paul, who gives Big Ben a hard time.)

• THE Cost. Barclays (BCS) spent “nearly £100 million” ($157 million) and three years conducting an ‘exhaustive internal investigation’ into its traders and executives’ role in manipulating … a key global benchmark interest rate.”

The populations affected (mentioned in the point above) disregard the price of central planning and the attendant regulation, even though these costs are passed on to the dumb public.

A free market in money would dispense with the waste.