Category Archives: Conservatism

Updated: Cash-For-Clunkers Cry Babies (& The Tragedy Of The Commons)

Conservatism, Constitution, Political Economy, Private Property, Republicans, Socialism

I don’t feel sorry for the many car dealers who opted to take taxpayer funds, via the government, and lure equally greedy and gormless customers into junking perfectly good rides, purchasing new ones instead, and taking on more debt. I’m not in the least sorry for them, now that Uncle Sam has stiffed them, no Sirree.

Ridiculous too is the incredulity the auto dealers are feigning at being stiffed (if you can call it that) by their paymaster. “We just expect the same sort of courtesy and treatment from the federal government,” they whimper. Boohoo.

“Dealers across the state are owed more than $3.6 million, according to a dealers’ group which says that so far Uncle Sam has only written three checks totaling about $14,000.”

And:

“You simply can’t ask businesses to front $200,000, $300,000 for any period of time,’ Rep. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., told KRQE News 13. ‘These applications are simply not being processed fast enough.'”

You don’t say!

Equally stupid is the only deduction conservatives can muster: If the government can’t manage the CFC scam, how will it run the unconstitutional, confiscatory, immoral healthcare undertaking.

Of course, they omit the key phrases I just used—“scam, unconstitutional, confiscatory, immoral”—these are nowhere apparent in the debate; although Hitler is. A pretty—and pretty dumb—townhaller, taking her cues from Rush, paired health care and Hitler. Good job.)

There’s a lot conservatives can’t find words for: private property, for one. Principles is another. Nothing works in government because there is no private property. If you were given something to manage that you don’t own, have no stake in, on behalf of millions of people you don’t know, and who have no recourse against your mismanagement, except to whine like wimps—how well would you perform? Why are privately owned homes cared for and public housing trashed? Why don’t Republican and conservative bimbos and beaus of the media ever open a book and learn a few concepts.

Okay make it one crucial concept: the “Tragedy of the Commons.”

Update: To the comment below: The “calculation problem” means nothing to the lay reader. Private property means everything—or ought to. It should be understood to those who bandy about the “calculation problem” that the reason there cannot be rational allocation of resources in a state bureaucracy is because there is no private property. In a free market, the institute of private property ensures that we have prices. Prices are like a compass: pegged to supply and demand they ensure the correct allocation of resources. Conversely, in a nationalized system there are no prices because there is no private property. Absent such knowledge, misallocation of capital is inevitable.

Property precedes all else.

‘Audit the Fed!’

Conservatism, Federal Reserve Bank, Founding Fathers, Inflation, Journalism, libertarianism, Republicans, Ron Paul

What I appreciate about Jack Hunter, also a Taki’s Magazine writer, is the way he marries solid principles and a pragmatic approach to politics. Unless a commentator achieves this feat in a consistent, principled manner, he is worthless. Yes, worthless! Some of our readers have been seduced by the habit so many libertarian scribblers have of vaporizing libertarian theory into the ether, while sitting on the fence and playing holier-than-thou when it comes to politics. Worthless as it is easy. Aside from the pleasant Southern lilt, Hunter has a natural knack for cleaving to reality while retaining principles. In ‘Audit the Fed!’ he narrates thus:

“While Bush and McCain were ‘abandoning free-market principles to save the free-market system’ by signing off on an $800 billion Wall Street Bailout, the Republican establishment still treated the truly free-market Ron Paul as some sort of crazy, irrelevant money crank.

It’s amazing the difference a year makes.

As of this writing, every single Republican in the House and over 60 Democrats have co-sponsored Paul’s H.R. 1207 Federal Reserve Transparency Act, which calls for an audit of the Federal Reserve. Given the current economic crisis, it turns out that many legislators are eager to see just how the Fed is able to print new money out of thin air. In the 1980’s, Paul introduced similar legislation with virtually no help from his fellow Republicans. In 2009, the entire party has lined up behind Ron Paul.”

Listen here.

'Audit the Fed!'

Conservatism, Federal Reserve Bank, Founding Fathers, Inflation, Journalism, libertarianism, Republicans, Ron Paul

What I appreciate about Jack Hunter, also a Taki’s Magazine writer, is the way he marries solid principles and a pragmatic approach to politics. Unless a commentator achieves this feat in a consistent, principled manner, he is worthless. Yes, worthless! Some of our readers have been seduced by the habit so many libertarian scribblers have of vaporizing libertarian theory into the ether, while sitting on the fence and playing holier-than-thou when it comes to politics. Worthless as it is easy. Aside from the pleasant Southern lilt, Hunter has a natural knack for cleaving to reality while retaining principles. In ‘Audit the Fed!’ he narrates thus:

“While Bush and McCain were ‘abandoning free-market principles to save the free-market system’ by signing off on an $800 billion Wall Street Bailout, the Republican establishment still treated the truly free-market Ron Paul as some sort of crazy, irrelevant money crank.

It’s amazing the difference a year makes.

As of this writing, every single Republican in the House and over 60 Democrats have co-sponsored Paul’s H.R. 1207 Federal Reserve Transparency Act, which calls for an audit of the Federal Reserve. Given the current economic crisis, it turns out that many legislators are eager to see just how the Fed is able to print new money out of thin air. In the 1980’s, Paul introduced similar legislation with virtually no help from his fellow Republicans. In 2009, the entire party has lined up behind Ron Paul.”

Listen here.

‘Palinomania & Sanford-Phobia’

Conservatism, John McCain, Neoconservatism, Propaganda, Republicans, Sarah Palin

Paul Gottfried, one of the best and most under-appreciated intellectuals in this country, provides a superb analysis on Taki’s Magazine of “the unstoppable glorification of the faux maverick and faux right-winger Sarah Palin and the equally nonstop attacks from the same sources against the floundering Mark Sanford.”

“The neocon media” is clearly pulling for a goofy “photogenic dullard,” says Paul, a “Wasilla version of Bill Kristol and John McCain,” over an “economic libertarian” like South Carolina’s Governor Mark Sanford, who “slashes budgets boldly and is a passionate enemy of every aspect of Obama’s stimulus programs.” Sarah, on the other hand, “sounds exactly like the man who chose her as his running mate in 2008,” “on foreign policy, immigration, and federal laws banning discrimination against women.”

“Neocon Central,” “FOXNews and its NY Post-affiliate,” does not wish Sanford to “hinder Sarah in her run for the presidential nomination,” concludes Paul.

Pay attention to this prescient warning: “For the American Right, Sarah may be the ultimate Trojan horse. She offers the Idaho State- or Wasilla version of Bill Kristol and John McCain,with a few alterations, namely, an inability to engage national issues in a specific manner and the endless recitation of GOP platitudes about ‘smaller government’ and ‘national defense.’ Of course the Doles and McCains pulled out the same tiresome ‘get government off our backs’ rhetoric, while advocating programs to expand federal control. But these candidates could manage to say concrete things in their addresses and interviews, even when they packaged substance in deceitful campaign slogans.”

The complete column is “Palinomania & Sanford-Phobia.”