Category Archives: Democrats

UPDATED: Ron Paul Rising (Stand Up for Middle America!)

Democrats, Ilana On Radio & TV, libertarianism, Liberty, Media, Political Correctness, Political Philosophy, Propaganda, Race, Racism, Republicans, Ron Paul, Russia

As of this writing, Rep. Ron Paul—the ultimate outsider and quintessential anti-establishment presidential candidate—is the favorite to win the Iowa caucuses, scheduled to take place on January 3, 2012.

Polls such as Insider Advantage and Public Policy Polling place Paul in the lead, at 23 and 24 percent respectively, to Mitt Romney’s 20 percent and Newt Gingrich’s 14 percent. From ignoring Congressman Paul, the Republican Party establishment and mainstream media have moved to strategizing on how to discount his lead, and likely win, in Iowa.

Especially exercised is the Republican Party of Iowa. Its functionaries seem willing to delegitimize Iowa poll results—and the importance of the Iowa caucuses as harbingers of things to come in the national convention—if these don’t fall in line with the Party line. Apparently, caucus-goers who dare to “reward” candidates “who are unrepresentative of the broader party” deserve to be discredited.

What Grand Old Party apparatchiks cannot accept is that voters are coming around to reality dictated truths. And when “[t]hings fall apart; the center cannot hold.”

Against this backdrop, I was interviewed, on December 15, by the Russia Today (RT) television network, a broadcaster that does not abide herd behavior. Topics covered: The rise of Ron Paul, his rivals, and the Representative’s chances of parlaying his accomplishments in Iowa (to be repeated, we hope, in the Granite State and South Carolina) into a national win.

WATCH THE RT CLIP ON WND.COM.

My book, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa,” is available from Amazon. (Don’t forget those reviews; they help this cause.)

A Kindle copy is also on sale.

Still better, shipping is free and prompt if you purchase Into the Cannibal’s Pot from The Publisher. Inquire about Xmas and New Year specials.

UPDATE ((Dec. 23): STAND UP FOR MIDDLE AMERICA. In reply to Jeff’s comment, here: You are right about Pat Buchanan’s mind. The man is brilliant. However, as for your recommendation to Ron Paul; it is mainstream and wrong. Utterly wrong. Paul should do the exact opposite of what you advocate. He should stand up for middle America. White America is not racist. That is pure propaganda. If anything, America is dangerously stupid about the reality of demographic differences on the ground.

You need to read my book, especially the section about the “Pathos of the Puritan.” (Look Inside the book.) Your argument is of the Left but has been adopted by the so-called Right. This waffle about low expectations is also the in-vogue leftist argument, conjured by the “Right” so as to both come across as politically palatable, and make excuses for 1) the militant anti-white sentiments blacks have adopted voluntarily, albeit with the encouragement of race huckster Democratic leaders. 2) Give credence to the leftist explanation for underachievement in this racial cohort: racism. All you have to do is expect more, and racial differences on the achievement variable will disappear. Hardly. Enough of this dangerous utopian day-dreaming.

Should Paul quit the obsequious apologetics and stand up for Americans—he would succeed mightily in galvanizing mainstream Republicans, heartland America. They are still a majority, if a waning one. The idiot Republicans will never win over the Left in this country with which most minorities identify. The GOP’s libertarian faction needs to veer Right and stand up for its base.

Granted, it is fashionable among the feminist Republican media bimbos and their beaus to castigate the GOP for being the party of Anglo-American males. Where’s the shame in that? That’s an acquired Mark of Cain; acquired through PC brainwashing. Who founded this country? The ancestors of this much-maligned majority. Were they so bad? Be a man. Stand up for America.

If Ron Paul proves unable to reject the racism accusations and stand up for an America that is defended as good and non-racist—he will be political toast.

UPDATE IV: Payroll Pickpockets: ‘Please, Sir, I Want Some More’ (Pocket Money for the Peons)

Barack Obama, Democrats, Government, Private Property, Republicans, Taxation

It’s intended as a temporary, two-month tax cut. Nothing permanent. Our munificent masters in DC are wrangling over whether to throw their galley slaves (taxpayers) some pennies in time for the Holidays. In and out of our pockets they reach, only to decide, on Tuesday, that “a Senate plan for a two-month extension” of the payroll tax was “irresponsible and unworkable,” and that “it would create uncertainty by failing to resolve the issue past February.”

Swept up in the manufactured drama, CNN observes: “However, the Senate agreement was negotiated by Democratic and Republican leaders and received strong GOP support in passing on an 89-10 vote. … President Barack Obama joined the Democratic chorus, noting that Senate leaders from both parties had agreed to the short-term extension in order to guarantee that taxes don’t increase for working Americans while negotiations continue early next year on the one-year extension that House Republicans say they support.”

Said the agitator from Chicago of House Republicans: “What they’re really holding out for is to wring concessions from Democrats on issues that have nothing to do with the payroll tax cut.”

Why does the thief-in-chief not advocate for permanent tax cuts? Why not cut taxes meaningfully?

The whole routine reminds me of Oliver Twist, the little orphan protagonist in the eponymous Charles Dickens novel. And in particular, the scene where he rattles his breakfast bowel for some more gruel.

UPDATE I: PRIVATE PROPERTY. We’ve been over this before, Pauli, in another post. You are wrong about tax cuts being “hooey.” Not unless private property is “hooey.” Let me put it plainly: I don’t care what DC spends, so long as it’s mitts off my property. A pay check is private property. Your formulations are predicated on communal ownership; mine on private ownership. Throttle the revenue stream, restore private-property rights, and the bastards can do what they like.

UPDATE II: The War Street Journal is furious at House Republicans:

Republicans have also achieved the small miracle of letting Mr. Obama position himself as an election-year tax cutter, although he’s spent most of his Presidency promoting tax increases and he would hit the economy with one of the largest tax increases ever in 2013. This should be impossible.

UPDATE III (Dec. 22): To the defenders below of taxation in all its permutation: I am sure I speak for your sovereigns in DC: They are, no doubt, grateful for your faith in their ability to mange your money. From this scribe’s perspective, however, money stuffed down the maw of the Federal Frankenstein will seldom end up where it’s supposed to (as if that “destination” is so laudable to begin with). Congress, the president and the bureaucracy: These are embezzlers par excellence—so good are they at what they peddle that they have BAB’s fearless bloggers on their side.

Wake up: Money extracted from us by the Feds is fungible. Any additional revenues the Feds receive via taxes they will use to plunge private property owners deeper into debt. The solution to the debt is not to be found in seizing private property (through taxes) and placing it in communal ownership (state bureaucracies), where resources are never allocated efficiently and are always squandered.

But, this is the season of good will, and the oink sector that serves the tax-and-spend police state that Uncle Sam has become is, I am sure, thankful for your confidence

UPDATE IV: The peons get pocket money for two more months. ObamaMedia celebrate a tactical victory for the Prince of Darkness. Details of the deal here. Puke fest all around. CNN correspondents Jessica Yellin is almost yelling, “Political touchdown.” Almost.

Theatre of the Absurd

Barack Obama, Democrats, Elections, History, Ilana Mercer, libertarianism, Political Philosophy, Private Property, Republicans, The State

A couple of hours ago I filed this week’s WND column with my editor (I file on Wednesdays). I have just heard Judge Napolitano deliver his editorial on Freedom Watch. Uncanny. The theme of my new column tracks with the Judge’s editorial. I had titled my column “Who’s It To Be? Teddy # 1 Or Teddy # 2?” (My good editor will often find better, more pithy titles.) In any event, I wrote this:

“What are the odds that a Democratic commander-in-chief and his chief Republican rival declare their philosophical fidelity to the Progressive Theodore Roosevelt on the same day? And I replied, “The dice were loaded in Teddy’s favor. The sitting Democratic president (Obama) and the Republican odds-on favorite for president (Gingrich) are in TR’s corner…”

Our heroic Judge, in his December 7 segment (not yet posted), asks and answers similar questions.

Hopefully, many more people beyond the libertarian orbit will come to experience the same gut reaction at this theatre of the absurd.

Mr. Omega to Alpha Male Obama: ‘Quit Your Cr-p!’

Barack Obama, Business, Democrats, Education, Elections, Political Economy, Politics

“If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? … And if not now, when?” said Rabbi Hillel the Elder.

At last a fabulously rich, self-made man has awoken to the fact that it’s time to fight for his life’s work; stand up for his achievements, take pride in his intelligence and graft. Quit pretending an agitator from Chicago, who has lived off the public teat for his entire life, is better than a billionaire who has built a business from scratch. Billionaire investor Leon Cooperman has “made public his letter to the President.” Read it on Gerri Willis’ Fox Business blog.

I like the part where he shows president ponce what real work means, although I am sick of the give-back fallacy or the pleas about divisiveness. That the president is divisive is secondary to the fact that he’s an ass with ears, ignorant of economics and oblivious to rights.

To the letter (I think Cooperman is far more eloquent than Peggy Noonan, Court Courtesan to Bush, whom Cooperman praises):

Just to be clear, while I have been richly rewarded by a life of hard work (and a great deal of luck), I was not to-the-manor-born. My father was a plumber who practiced his trade in the South Bronx after he and my mother emigrated from Poland. I was the first member of my family to earn a college degree. I benefited from both a good public education system (P.S. 75, Morris High School and Hunter College, all in the Bronx) and my parents’ constant prodding. When I joined Goldman Sachs following graduation from Columbia University’s business school, I had no money in the bank, a negative net worth, a National Defense Education Act student loan to repay, and a six-month-old child (not to mention his mother, my wife of now 47 years) to support. I had a successful, near-25-year run at Goldman, which I left 20 years ago to start a private investment firm. As a result of my good fortune, I have been able to give away to those less blessed far more than I have spent on myself and my family over a lifetime, and last year I subscribed to Warren Buffet’s Giving Pledge to ensure that my money, properly stewarded, continues to do some good after I’m gone.

My story is anything but unique. I know many people who are similarly situated, by both humble family history and hard-won accomplishment, whose greatest joy in life is to use their resources to sustain their communities. Some have achieved a level of wealth where philanthropy is no longer a by-product of their work but its primary impetus. This is as it should be. We feel privileged to be in a position to give back, and we do. My parents would have expected nothing less of me.

I am not, by training or disposition, a policy wonk, polemicist or pamphleteer. I confess admiration for those who, with greater clarity of expression and command of the relevant statistical details, make these same points with more eloquence and authoritativeness than I can hope to muster. For recent examples, I would point you to “Hunting the Rich” (Leaders, The Economist, September 24, 2011), “The Divider vs. the Thinker” (Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal, October 29, 2011), “Wall Street Occupiers Misdirect Anger” (Christine Todd Whitman, Bloomberg, October 31, 2011), and “Beyond Occupy” (Bill Keller, The New York Times, October 31, 2011) – all, if you haven’t read them, making estimable work of the subject. …

Read more.