Category Archives: Elections

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.

Gingrich To Glenn: ‘I’m a Theodore Roosevelt Republican’

Elections, Fascism, Glenn Beck, Government, Republicans, Socialism, The State

I’m a Theodore Roosevelt Republican. In fact, if I were going to characterize my—on health where I come from, I’m a Theodore Roosevelt Republican and I believe government can lean in the regulatory leaning is okay.—Newt Gingrich (the gibberish too).

To some—perhaps many—Republicans, to be a Theodore Roosevelt Republican is quite respectable. Therein lies the rub. If you’re the type of (Robert) Taft Republican who values your life, liberty and property—then Teddy Roosevelt, “the guy who started the Progressive Party,” and was a proponent of “progressive ideals”—is bad news.

If you didn’t already know Newt was bad news; then Glenn Beck makes it abundantly clear. Especially politically poignant is Newt’s folksy retelling of Teddy’s food safety awakening.

About “‘TR’s drummed up a phony ‘food safety crisis,'” Thomas J. DiLorenzo observed the following:

… there were no epidemics related to commercial food processing” in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Roosevelt’s “pure food laws” were aimed “at protecting producers,” not the general public. For example, as Powell recounts, some of these early laws set exceptionally high regulatory standards on imported foods as a form of veiled protectionism. Food inspection laws during the Roosevelt era were invariably favored by larger corporations who understood that the laws would disproportionately harm their smaller competitors. “The 1906 Pure Food And Drugs Act empowered the Agriculture Department’s notorious quack, Harvey Washington Wiley, to conduct crazy crusades against foods competing with the interest groups he served” (mostly larger corporate interests).

In Into the Cannibal’s Pot, I mention the hundreds of thousands of Filipinos whom TR killed.

In all, TR was happiest when he was killing. Like many a mass murderer, TR began his career by killing animals, one biographer alleging that “after an argument with his girlfriend a young Teddy Roosevelt went home and shot his neighbor’s dog.”

Glenn mocks the self-important Speaker: “… So you’re a minimum regulation guy on making sure the people don’t fall into the vats of sausage?”

Yes, Newt Gingrich got mince-up well in the Glenn grinder.

UPDATED: Oy Vey Egypt (Evolution?)

America, Democracy, Elections, Gender, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Media, Middle East

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With few exceptions, the American media slobbered mightily over the revolution in Egypt. As a European relative put it: Americans from all political persuasions lack the smarts, the sophistication, and the familiarity with history to be … skeptical.

So, you had the Beltway libertarians joining Anderson Cooper (CNN), Neil Cavuto (Fox News), and Christiane Amanpour (ABC) in spirit at Cairo’s Tahrir Square to celebrate Egypt’s democratic spring; you had America’s female journos rushing to the mainly macho scene to show solidarity with the generic freedom fighters, who, it turned out, doubled up as common-or-garden gropers and rapists.

At the time, this writer wrote about the impossibility of a happy ending “in a country that has become progressively more Islamic since the 1950s.” I added that, “Mubarak’s dictatorial powers were directed, unjustly indubitably, against the Islamic fundamentalists of the Muslim brotherhood.” Unjustly, but probably quite usefully—for now, much to the surprise of the American Idiocracy, Islamic fundamentalists have won 61% of the vote in Egypt’s first democratic election.

“The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party won 36.6% of the 9.7m ballots cast last week, followed by the Salafist al-Nour Party with 24.4%.” [BBC]

The secular Egyptian Bloc came third in the first round with 13.4% of the vote, followed by the liberal Wafd Party with 7.1% and the moderate Islamist Wasat Party with 4.3%. The Revolution Continues, a group formed by youth activists behind the uprising that ousted Mr Mubarak in February, won 3.5%

“This is about freedom,” said the immensely silly Lara Logan before the freedom fighters piled up on top of her.

Indeed.

UPDATE (Dec. 6): I was waiting for a wise man to point out that the historical parallels between the Muslim world and the West are few. Islam and its people aren’t stuck in the 1950s; they’re stuck in the 7th century. Thanks to Huggs for stating the obvious. In touting the sea-change underway in Egypt and elsewhere in the Muslim world, our moron media interviewed 0.1% of the country’s population, the intelligentsia, to extrapolate to the majority. But there is also the deep stupidity so prevalent in the US whereby under the skin, all human beings are said to be the same.

UPDATED/Cain Campaign Suspended: Steamy Windows Or Steamed-Up Liberals? (& Does It Matter?)

Elections, Ethics, Media, Morality, Politics, Uncategorized

Dennis Miller, a very funny neoconservative (that is a liberal who really likes war), threw in the towel over the Cain fracas. Quoting a caller to his radio show, Miller said that when it comes to Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, there is too much steam on the windows and too little in the engine. Bloody funny, for sure.

Still, I tend to think that Ann Coulter makes a good case about the meritless evidence against Cain. Writes Coulter: “Most people say, ‘Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.’ I say, ‘Where there’s smoke around a conservative, there are journalists furiously rubbing two sticks together.'” Read her assessment of that evidence.

Yes, Cain’s alleged consorts are trashy. But it could be that Mr. Cain is drawn to trashy women. The fact that these women are trashy is no proof that he has not consorted with them. Either way, alleged moral or ethical indiscretions don’t disqualify Mr. Cain for the position of “the boss of all bosses at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue”; if anything, they make him eminently suited to be Capo di tutti capi of America.

“Saturday Is ‘Decision Day’ for GOP Presidential Contender Herman Cain.”

UPDATE (Dec. 3): Cain Campaign Suspended:

Herman Cain announced Saturday he was suspending his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, citing the “painful price” sexual harassment and extramarital affair allegations have had on his family.