Category Archives: Politics

UPDATE IV: Tim Pawlenty is a Weasel (Bravo LA Times)

Democracy, Democrats, Elections, Government, IMMIGRATION, Politics, Republicans, Ron Paul

Do I really have to debate The Debate? What can I add about the Republican spat in Des Moines, Iowa, that has not been rehashed already?

I’ll set aside my ideological loyalties (which are with Ron Paul), and comment some on style and character. (Readers already know that I’m fuming because, given the status of the written word in news reports, there are no online transcripts. Just YouTube.)

Tim Pawlenty revealed himself to be a weasel. But no one in the media is making a call on character. Pawlenty is terrified of Michele Bachmann, and for good reason. She’s the man he is not. However, his tactics are underhanded.

Via FoxNews:

Pawlenty responded “to Bachmann’s relentless repetition of her claim to leadership in Washington, pointing out that Democrats had rolled up legislative victories for most of her time in Congress and passed multiple bills over her objections, sometimes using her as a foil.”

This Pawlenty argument is plain wrong, maybe even devious; it’s the argument a consummate politico will make. What do I mean? Take Ron Paul. He celebrates victories in the arena of ideas. As he has pointed out, more and more of his rivals are moving in his direction, and adopting the truth where they once dubbed this truth kooky. On the Federal Reserve banking system, for example.

So the fact that Bachmann has not gotten her way with a cowardly Congress says nothing much at all about her “leadership.” After all, most of her Tea Party colleagues in the House voted to raise the debt ceiling for a mess of pottage, a meager cut in the rate of government metastasization.

“If that’s your view of effective leadership with results, please stop, because you’re killing us,” Pawlenty snarled Bachmann.

In other words, what Pawlenty has implied is this: if cleaving to the right ideas doesn’t penetrate the wrong heads, a real leader should “stop” agitating for the truth as he or she sees it. By the Pawlenty logic, Paul ought to have given up ages ago on talking sound money and foreign policy.

Pawlenty stuck out as particularly statist.

More later.

UPDATE I: MY Straw Poll Prediction. The 2011 Iowa Straw Poll: My sense is that R. Paul and M. Bachmann will win out. This win will highlight even more my long-standing contention that, to take the country back, these two have to collaborate.

UPDATE II: VALIDATED. I called the straw poll (above) 36 minutes ago, as the Talkers pontificated on the TV. Isn’t it time to stop reading and listening to television’s political whores, who never call anything as it is? I describe these Big Mouths’ shtick in the post, “Talkers fear Losing Top-Dog Status.”

Not one (as far as I can tell) of the paid pundits on TV predicted that Bachmann and Paul would win. Yet I’ve been saying the same since “September of 2009, when this column had already picked the GOP’s winning ticket: Ron Paul for commander-in-chief; Michele Bachmann as second-in-command.”

But I’m afraid that the voting public is probably right. For a winning ticket, the order of the ticket needs to be reversed. Bachmann is just that talented. It’s not my choice, but it’s reality.

The Ames Straw Poll results:

Bachmann secured 4,823 votes, narrowly besting Texas Rep. Ron Paul who had 4,671 votes. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty was chosen on 2,293 ballots, placing him third. … Part country fair and entirely political, the Ames Straw Poll has helped take the pulse of a campaign’s strength since 1979. It’s also the first opportunity for the tens of thousands of voters who weighed in Saturday on which GOP president candidate they support.

UPDATE (Aug 14): Clearly the candidates know very little about immigration policy and the labyrinth of visas the bureaucracy peddles. Most American know nothing about the topic. Herman Cain had a good line about there being a path to American citizenship: legal immigration. Back to Mitt, who complained that here in the US, we qualify PhDs in physics and then send them back “home.” Nonsense. The US has “unlimited access to individuals with unique abilities through the open-ended O-1 visa program … that is if the US really wanted it.”

Read about the O-1 visa (awarded to my spouse).

Gary Johnson on immigration? He’s just insane.

UPDATE IV: BRAVO LA TIMES. A transcript of the Iowa debate at last. I was looking for the Newt Gingrich segments, because the man did make a few vital points, but of course, reporting being what it is, I could not locate his words verbatim.

“… repeal Dodd-Frank, repeal Sarbanes-Oxley, repeal Obamacare.”

Very good practical points. “The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, courtesy of the Republican Party, cost American companies upwards of $1.2 trillion. The capital flight it initiated caused the London Stock Exchange to become the new hub for capital markets. Given America’s habit of forcing its habits on others, SOX struck fear into quite a few Liberal Democratic hearts in the House of Lords. Lord Teverson worried about the ‘increasing danger of regulatory creep from American regulators that threatens [Britain’s] own light-touch approach to financial regulation.’”

UPDATE III: Unflapable, But No ‘Flake’ (‘Winning’)

Elections, Etiquette, Human Accomplishment, Intelligence, John McCain, Media, Politics, Ron Paul, Sarah Palin

At last, presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann (R-Minn) is deploying a tactic touted by this column in hammering home her own intellectual heft (relative to a politician, that is). She has to. Fox News’ Chris Wallace apparently thinks that asking Bachmann (as opposed to John McCain and progeny) whether she is a flake amounts to hard-hitting journalism.

Then and there, the “seldom fazed” representative replied (paraphrased):

Well, I think that would be insulting, to say something like that, because I’m a serious person. I’m a 55-year-old woman. I’ve been married for 33 years, and I have a post-doctorate [I think she meant post-graduate] degree in federal tax law. I have five children, and have raised 23 foster children and opened a charter school for at-risk youth.

[Note how the Fox News article is written in the passive voice, so as to avoid implicating its hired hand, Wallace.]

As I’ve written repeatedly, Bachmann is nothing like Sarah Palin. Palin is Bush in a bra (with all the implications about brain power that implies).

Rep. Bachmann, on the other hand, as was contended back in September of 2009, is very clever.

Back then , this column had already picked the GOP’s winning ticket: Ron Paul for commander-in-chief; Michele Bachmann as second-in-command.

Bachmann is eloquent and is seldom fazed. As attractive as Sarah, she is also cerebral, a quality poor Palin is without. Bachmann is not yet a libertarian, but neither is she wedded to the warfare state, and is wise enough to recognize the political value of denouncing America’s forays abroad in order to bring moderates and independents into the fold. Given guidance (and a good kick), she is not beyond apologizing for her unforgivable vote for the Patriot Act.
Conversely … Paul has gone from immigration hawk to toying with amnesty (with an asterisk or two). Bachmann will bring Paul back from the brink. Americans inhabit a world of reality TV and other frivolity. To win the GOP nomination in this parallel universe, Ron Paul needs political bling—he will want the punch, pizazz and money bombs a Bachmann can provide.

“Bundle Rand (Paul) and Bachmann—and the opposition, both Republican and Democratic, will be vanquished. But that’s for another day.”

UPDATE I: A Facebook friend wants an analysis of Sarah palin’s unraveling. Okay, here.

UPDATE II: Bill, as I wrote in “Bachmann: Bling For Ron Paul?”, Paul would not take MB on unless it was under his tutelage, after she was, “Given guidance (and a good kick),” and made to “apologize for her unforgivable vote for the Patriot Act.”

Alone, how is Paul to win? We’re in this to win, right?

UPDATE III: (June 29): WINNING. Myron, what is wrong with wanting Paul to win? He can win the nomination if he and MB combine forces. Alone he is unlikely to get anywhere. Defeatism is a luxury only well-funded, spoilt brats (like these) can afford.

Bachmann “has jumped into second place in the New Hampshire Republican primary. … While Bachmann remains well behind former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who has 36 percent support, the other sixteen Republicans included in the survey all had levels of support in the single digits.”

The results of the Gallup poll released on Tuesday showed that Bachmann’s name recognition is up to 69 percent from 52 percent in a poll conducted in late February/early March. With the increase, Bachmann is behind only Romney, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and Congressman Ron Paul, R-Texas, in terms of name recognition, Gallup also noted that Bachmann has a positive intensity score of 24, which ties with pizza magnate Herman Cain’s as the highest such score of any candidate

UPDATE IV: Not Cueing The Mariachi Band For Perry (Female Self-Ownership)

Abortion, Conservatism, Crime, Elections, Individual Rights, Political Philosophy, Politics, Private Property, Republicans, States' Rights, Welfare

I “Cued The Mariachi Band” when Rick Perry, the (dashing) governor of Texas, defied Mexico City, The Hague, and their enablers in Washington, and ended José Medellin’s miserable life. Bush, on the other hand, was willing to wrestle a crocodile for Medellin, the man who raped Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Peña in every which way possible and then proceeded to strangle, slash, and stomp the young Texan girls to death.

And it is a happy occasion when any American politician whoops it up for the Tenth Amendment, and speaks about property rights, as Gov. Perry did at the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, La. Have you noticed that almost none does? It’s usually, “The right of Boeing to open a business,” rather than the title an owner has in his property, as an extension of the individual’s self-ownership (and they always preclude a woman’s right of self ownership, for some reason). (“The right of ownership is an extension of the right to life. In order to survive, man must— and it is in his nature to — transform the resources around him by mixing his labor with them and making them his own. Man’s labor and property are extensions of himself.”

Fair enough: Seventy percent of all jobs created in the US last year were in Texas. Alas, the governor’s record is at best spotty. And at a time when no one but a minority cares to sweat the “social issues,” these, unfortunately, formed a good part of his address in New Orleans.

UPDATE I: I’d like to clarify (but not discuss abortion, because the abortion issue is one hill upon which I refuse to die): When, last night, I praised Gov. Perry for “whooping it up for property rights,” I added in parenthesis that “this precludes a woman’s self-ownership.” What I meant is this: I always wonder why it is that, when speaking of the right of ownership (property), which is an extension of each individual’s dominion over his body and the things he homesteads—conservatives sidetrack the problem of a woman’s dominion over her body. I don’t wish to discuss abortion. However, conservatives never flesh out this inconsistency. Perhaps they believe human beings, women in particular, don’t have a property right in their own bodies. How does ownership arise, in the conservative mind? Does property not include one’s own body?

UPDATE II (June 20): Cross-posted @ facebook: Kevin (Williamson), I have worked out a formulation about abortion that appeases (as opposed to pleases) me as a paleolibertarian and an absolute propertarian. But is it safe to share it? I worry, because I die on enough hills. It seems prudent not to come out on this issue. Libertarians can agree that no state funding, local or federal, should be allocated to such a procedure. Liberals should be exposed, but never are (certainly not by conservatives), for conflating this position (no public funding) with a denial of what they term “abortion rights.” However, it’s highly problematic to say that by virtue of her fertility, a woman loses a property title in her body. She doesn’t.

UPDATE III (June 20): Kevin, Myron, Don, Joseph, Guy, etc: The tone on this Facebook thread/Wall is pleasingly rational and civil. It’s not surprising among these respondents/writers/thinkers, here. I wonder how many friends I’d lose if I shared my solution, which is still unsatisfactory. Look, abortion is a horrid procedure; especially now that what was promoted as a “blob,” can be viewed by available technology. At 6 weeks in utero, my daughter’s heartbeat was loud—it melted me. Walter Block, a dear friend, has developed “the evictionism theory of abortion.” I don’t subscribe to it, needless to say. But any traditionalist/libertarian solution to the abortion vexation has to be rational, and consider a person’s dominion over his body.

UPDATE IV: From the Facebook thread/Wall: It’s, however, incontrovertible to say that “late-term” termination is a euphemism for cold-blooded murder. Not to evoke the Argument from Nazi-ism (one of the laziest and lowest forms of argument); but it’s the stuff of Josef Mengele, or his female counterpart (his right-hand “service provider,” the proverbial Brunhilda).

UPDATE IV: Bachmann: Bling For Ron Paul? (Paul Wins Straw Poll )

Conservatism, Elections, Federal Reserve Bank, Foreign Policy, Glenn Beck, IMMIGRATION, libertarianism, Politics, Private Property, Republicans, Sarah Palin

The following is from my “Bachmann: Bling For Ron Paul?,” now on WND.COM:

“A day after the GOP debate in New Hampshire, mainstream media awoke to Rep. Michele Bachmann’s undeniable abilities and magnetism. Before June 13, this mummified lot had turned to Meghan McCain and Chris Matthews for information about the congresswoman from Minnesota. …

Rep. Bachmann catapulted to fame late in 2008. Yet not a thing was said in the muck-raking media—Republican included—about her background. Just imagine what publicity Debbie Wasserman Schultz (or Sarah Palin) would receive had she provided foster care to 23 children in addition to raising five of her own!

Bachmann, moreover, earned a Master of Laws in tax law from the William & Mary Law School. (Women lawyers tend to flock to the less-taxing field of family law.) Not that you’d know it from the way she has been portrayed, but Bachmann is very clever. …

With a perfectly straight face, Lawrence O’Donnell, also of MSNBC (a fertile seedbed for mind-sapping stupidity), lapped up the sub-intelligent message issued by the “Snooki” of the commentariat: Michele Bachmann is “no better than a poor man’s Sarah Palin,” Meghan McCain announced. …

Americans inhabit a world of reality TV and other frivolity. To win the GOP nomination in this parallel universe, Ron Paul needs political bling—he will want the punch, pizazz and money bombs a Bachmann can provide. …

The complete column is “Bachmann: Bling For Ron Paul?,” now on WND.COM.

UPDATE I (June 17): Just posted to Facebook:

My complete comment at WND: 1) Bachmann as tax attorney: people do what they need to so as to make a living: How many facebook, libertarian-leaning friends have I, a self-employed person, approved who work for the state? The state is, as Prof. Walter Block once put it, acting as a hostage-taker. The Sixteenth, as I put it, is “The Number of the Beast,” and Bachmann is forever tainted for having enforced the law.

2) However, I inhabit reality. Unlike many libertarians, I do believe in winning. We need to win if we want a future in this country. This is no time for robotic, tinny, go-by-the-book formulations and politics. 3) Bachmann under the tutelage of Paul would be a power-horse. You gotta be nuts not to reach for the closest thing to libertarian power we are likely to get. Having lived in “other” societies (check out my book to get a feel for that), I think I’m more passionate about getting to liberty than are people who were born to it, and are losing it bit-by-bit.

4) I’ve studies this woman since her appearance on the scene: Bachmann has the equanimity and force of a male. Her “manly” mind comes packaged in the frame of a well-bred, charming lady. This is America. Reality dictates that Paul needs “Bling.” He should form what will be a winning alliance.

UPDATE II: THIS IS NOT A BACKING OF THE BACHMANN BID. From Facebook, again, in reply to a friend who simply uses inaccurate language, in describing me as a backer of Bachmann’s presidential bid: I have never ever backed Bachmann’s presidential candidacy in my column or in my writing. The column is clear: I have backed a Paul-Bachmann ticket: “the GOP’s winning ticket: Ron Paul for commander in chief; Michele Bachmann as second-in-command.”

UPDATE III: JUDGE NAP. Via Austin Petersen on Facebook:

If Ron Paul were to win the GOP presidential nomination, there’s a chance he wouldn’t have to worry about geographical balance on his ticket. Paul, a Texas congressman and critic of the Federal Reserve, mentioned a former New Jersey judge and current Fox News talk show host — Andrew Napolitano — as a potential running mate, in an interview with TheStreet’s Alix Steel in Washington this week. Paul, though, did say he hadn’t “thought it through.”

You do know that this presidential pairing would advocate open borders. Or simply make laissez-faire immigration official.

UPDATE IV (June 18): The reader in the Comments section wrote this, with respect to my Update above (Judge Nap):

[Paul and Napolitano] would not be doing in the executive branch would be as important (or more so) as what they would be doing, specifically allowing the states to deal with these problems and not providing intrusive, tyrannical top cover for those who profit from these abominations.

Wrong—at least as far as the Judge goes. He has repeatedly claimed that immigration is within the constitutional purview of the federal government. This has been his constitutional argument against just about anything the states are doing to defend their beleaguered citizens. Yet the Judge has also advanced the anarchist’s more-congruent argument: any person in the world has the absolute right to venture wherever, whenever. You can’t have it both ways, or is this an effective intellectual strategy to rule out the legitimacy of any response to the ongoing invasion of considerable swaths of private property along the border?

This libertarian and leftist protest over any impediment to the free flow of people across borders is predicated not on the negative, leave-me-alone rights of the individual, but on the positive, manufactured right of humanity to venture wherever, whenever. In a world where absolute private property rights were upheld, this might be a proposition, but not as the statist status quo stands now.

UPDATE V (June 19): Paul Wins Straw Poll.

Writes the campaign for liberty on behalf of Ron Paul:

“And the winner of the 2011 Republican Leadership Conference Straw Poll is . . . RON PAUL!

Those are the words – uttered just minutes ago here at the RLC in New Orleans – that are sending shockwaves throughout the entire GOP establishment.

And it was YOU that made it happen! I can’t tell you how much that means to me.

You see, at last year’s straw poll, establishment darling Mitt Romney defeated me by only one vote.

But this year I defeated my nearest rival by more than 200 votes!

That means the establishment can no longer deny the fact that there is widespread grassroots support within the GOP for a return to constitutional government.”

If you’re in it for winning, Rep. Paul, it’s time to get some of that Bachmann bling, with which to broaden the base.

You can read my new book, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa,” on Kindle now. The print copy is available both from Amazon and from the Publisher. Hurry: Publisher is currently offering free shipping, including to our readers in South Africa. To purchase, click on the “Buy From StairwayPress” Button.