Category Archives: Conservatism

The Blond Squad & The Economcis of Contraband

Conservatism, Crime, Drug War, Free Markets, Gender, Intelligence, Regulation

Brains are a hindrance to advancement in the age of the idiot; being a lightweight blond is helpful. Heredity is handy too.

Margaret Hoover “is an American political commentator, political strategist, and blogger. She is the great-granddaughter of former President Herbert Hoover,” a factor which probably explains her popularity on Fox News, for it is certainly not humor, originality or cerebral agility that explain the ubiquity of the Blond Squad (BS) on Fox News. O’Reilly especially prefers his women guests to be his inferiors.

In any case, the Blond Squad brainiacs–also called Culture Warriors (comprising MH and another compromised blond)—were bitching in unison about one of Obama’s praise-worthy initiatives. (The first of which was not doing squat about the Iranians’ revolt. I’ve documented the others in successive posts.)

This particular rare good news story the BS was condemning was the decision by the Obama administration to cease “criminalizing cancer and AIDS patients for using a substance that is (a) prescribed by their doctors and (b) legal under the laws of their state. …”

When I told Sean the reason Hoover gave for her objection to decriminalization, he rolled his eyes. I’m sure you will too. According to this woman’s calculus, once you decriminalize a drug, criminal enterprise corners the market.

Babe, it’s exactly the opposite. I know, it’s a hard concept, but the section “THE COSTS OF ILLEGAL MARKETS” in “Addicted To The Drug War” may help (on the other hand…):

“Prohibition—not drug use—is responsible for the current crime and chaos. Prohibition makes the price of drugs far in excess of their cost of production. The production costs of common drugs are low. These chemicals are derived from hardy plants. A poppy is not an orchid. Neither is cannabis a particularly fragile plant. As with other illegal commodities, the price is pushed up by the high costs of circumventing the law as well as by the reduced supply brought on by prohibition. The price of pure heroin for medicinal purposes is a fraction of its street price. The difference amounts to a state subsidy for organized crime. … When supply is reduced … prices shoot up. And what happens when prices go up? The potential profit causes a renewed influx of dealers into the trade, resulting in more crime. In the war on drugs, success is failure. A free market in drugs, however, will bring prices down drastically, inclining fewer pushers to enter the trade.”

Blonds would be more fun if idiots were not so scary.

Clean Bill Of Racial Health For ‘Mocked Minority’

Barack Obama, Conservatism, Old Right, Propaganda, Race, Racism, Reason, Republicans

Although the progressive research group Greenberg Quinlan Rosner (James Carville is among its stars) has done its darnedest to disparage the conservative base of the Republican Party, its racism spotters have exempted this “mocked minority” from the media’s ubiquitously leveled charges of racism. (Much to the surprise of Chris Matthews, who has made this ad hominem a part of his “journalistic” bag of tricks.)

The Group’s Key Findings:

“Instead of focusing on these intense ideological divisions, the press and elites continue to look for a racial element that drives these voters’ beliefs – but they need to get over it. Conducted on the heels of Joe Wilson’s incendiary comments at the president’s joint session address, we gave these groups of older, white Republican base voters in Georgia full opportunity to bring race into their discussion – but it did not ever become a central element, and indeed, was almost beside the point.”

Greenberg-Quinlan-Rosner’s still-gleeful “conclusion”: “conservative Republicans who make up the base of the Republican Party stand a world apart from the rest of America.”

Had members of the mainstream mindless contingent read this space, they might have saved some energy, although they’d have to cite an adversary. We’ve dealt many a deductive death knell to the racism libel:

Throughout the presidential campaign—and to emphasize the country’s racial backwardness—the popular press kept at it: “Is the country ready for a black president?” “Will Americans ever elect a black man as president?” These were the campaign’s most repeated refrains. To which my response has been consistent: America is not remotely racist. If anything; Americans are remarkably naïve about human differences—cultural or racial.

Alas, as one wag said, “Any idea, plan, or purpose may be placed in the mind through repetition of thought.” Non-stop, relentless propaganda, enforced by the tyranny of political correctness, helps explain why most Americans, who harbor no racial animus, believe racism saturates their society. As they see it, in electing Barack Obama, they’ve begun to atone for their original sin.

Updated: Bachmann: Banks Gave Money To ACORN For Government Rating

Affirmative Action, Ann Coulter, Bush, Conservatism, Debt, Ethics, Private Property, Regulation, Republicans, Socialism, Welfare

Representative Michele Bachmann, Republican Congresswoman from Minnesota, inadvertently traces the “Minority Housing Meltdown”: The community reinvestment Act” (CRA), a creation of the federal Frankenstein, compelled private banks to make home loans to individuals with poor credit. Since no bank wants to make bad loans, this legislation in effect threatens banks to so do. Unless the bank lends to those unworthy of credit, it will not be allowed to do interstate business or expand its operations.

But, the benevolent government also offers the errant banks redemption. In order to get a positive Community Reinvestment Act rating, a bank may give over cash or in-kind donations to ACORN. A bank can also partner with ACORN to make loans to the pool of poor they represent.

By the way, where are the media stories about Super Mom Bachman who has raised five kids and 23 foster children? Maybe when the morons are through belaboring Michele Obama’s biceps, they can tell us more about Bachmann. (Here you are welcome to improvise with your own clichés of improbability.)

Fast forward toward the end of the YouTube clip for the Bachmann interview.

Update (Oct. 16): No ACORN essay is complete without mention of Bush’s crucial role in the mortgage meltdown. I have not studied the NRO Kurtz piece, but somehow I doubt it gives Bush the “credit” he is due in the diversity depression.

In 2003, Norman Singleton wrote this:

“Today the House passed, by voice vote, the American Dream Downpayment Act (HR 1276). This new welfare program forces taxpayers to subsidize the downpayments of ‘low income’ Americans. This new welfare program is a Bush Administration priority and was sponsored by Katherine Harris. The GOP is already touting how this will help with their outreach to minorities.”

Read Ron Paul’s rapid-fire response to the Bush affirmative action mortgage program.

Unless our token conservatives pay their “respects” to Bush, author of the “ownership society,” reborn conservatives—NRO, Weekly Standard—should not be lauded.

And by the by, the many poisonous pundits should atone again and again for being wrong at the time, and misleading the masses for Benito Bush. On second thought, why don’t they just go away?!

Take “snake-oil merchants like Stephen Moore of the Wall Street Journal,” who is Fox’s new Philosopher King. Moore obfuscated about the bailout (while making the obligatory noises about the merits of the free market he flouts). And Moore’s previous book was entitled Bullish on Bush: How the Ownership Society Is Making America Richer. If that’s not an indictment, nothing is. ‘Bush’s bailout society’ is an instantiation of the principles upon which ‘Bush’s ownership society’ was founded: credit for those who are not creditworthy.”

The only pundit who was vocal about the Bush economics was Michele Malkin. Not party hack Ann Coulter.

[Thanks, Stephen; I have been rather ill, but I hope to be back at my WND perch next week with renewed verve.]

The Value Of Lying

Christian Right, Conservatism, Debt, Politics, Religion, Republicans, Ron Paul, Sarah Palin

While we’re on the subject of liars and the lies they tell, a Values Voter Summit took place in Washington earlier today.

Read about John Boehner’s deceptions in this WSJ report.

Contra Boehner, the Democrats did not bankrupt the country; Bush did the dues before them; Barack is finishing what Bush began. The Republicans can’t “take our country back”; and Democrats have no more undermined national security than the Republicans did under Bush.

At the valueless summit, a straw poll was held and some straw men selected as favorites for president in 2012. Some learning curve, Middle America!

Huckabee grabbed nearly 29 percent of the vote. “Romney, Pawlenty, Palin and Pence each won roughly 12 percent of the 597 votes cast.”

Does anyone know if this hapless lot even invited Ron Paul?