Category Archives: The State

Our Sovereigns

Ancient History, Government, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, The State, The Zeitgeist

The following is a good description of our OVERLORDS WHO ART ON MOUNT OLYMPUS:

“Like those of imperial Rome, America’s elites are an urban and international group, perhaps on their way to forming a distinct transnational class. They are cosmopolitan-citizens who often have more in common with members of that same class around the world than with other members of their own society. The elites of Washington, Mew York, Los Angeles, and Boston may be American by birth, but their wall hangings are from Peru, their sculptures from Nunavut, their literary fiction from Sri Lanka, their CDs from Brazil, their basmati from India, their wine from New Zealand. Their religious values, if they have any, may be drawn impressionistically from Eastern and Western traditions—an eclectic pantheon.” [Excerpted from Are We Rome?The Fall of An Empire And The State of America by Cullen Murphy, 2007, p. 147.]

The Price Of The Parasitical Class

Business, Debt, Government, Labor, Politics, Regulation, Socialism, Taxation, The State

Maybe the following sobering statistics will penetrate the thick skulls of those who crave the creation of new government departments filled with workers who are free to pay themselves very generous packages, out of tax dollars, while looking forward to retiring a decade sooner than the stiffs who support them; and providing, in return, that stellar service for which the US Postal Service has become famous. Ah, for a government job!

The obscene numbers come courtesy of the “The Free Enterprise Nation”:

• When wages and benefits are combined, federal civilian workers averaged $119,982 in 2008, twice the average compensation of $59,909 for private sector workers.
• A State of California retiree gets an annual pension of $500,000
• A driver’s education teacher in Illinois gets a $170,000 annual salary and $120,000 annual pension.
• In New York, some city workers amass more than $100,000 in overtime during their last year before retirement to create a monthly pension higher than their salary.
• 420 of Illinois’s physical education teachers, 332 English teachers and 94 driver’s education teachers make more than $100,000 a year, with salaries for each position topping out at more than $160,000 a year.
• A senior citizen in Houston, Texas would find their number of police officers has remained the same for six years running, despite a 40 percent budget increase to cover higher salaries, pension and healthcare benefits.
• A small business receiving an IOU in California might be surprised to learn that in 2008, 40 percent of Vallejo’s 613 employees had salaries greater than $100,000 a year, the same year the city filed for bankruptcy.
• In Fort Worth, Texas, one police chief recently retired at age 55 with a guaranteed annual pension of $188,692. His successor retired at age 52 with an annual pension of $113,614. In the Northeast, two University of Connecticut professors are currently collecting six-figure pensions while simultaneously collecting a six-figure salary.

There are 115 million workers in the private sector, a portion of whom carry 20 million of these pampered parasites on their backs. (Yes, Republicans: Your beloved police and military are numbered among them!)

ANY PUNDIT WHO preaches, as MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow does nightly, more bureaucracies, should have to hear from YOU. Flood their miserable cable station with indignant letters.

“The Free Enterprise Nation” “is beginning a national effort to unite more than 5 million businesses with 115 million employees and everyday citizens to fight excessive government spending on a bureaucracy too big to sustain.”

The Free Enterprise Nation represents the economic interests of the businesses and employees who are taxed to provide government and public education employees higher wages and pension benefits, 10 to 25 years sooner, than can be provided in the private sector. The effort launched today with a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal to be followed by full-page ads in Inc., FORTUNE Small Business, Forbes, and Fast Co.

Update III: Middle America Or Meathead’s America?

America, BAB's A List, Christian Right, Human Accomplishment, Iraq, Israel, Just War, Paleoconservatism, Palestinian Authority, Political Philosophy, Republicans, The State, Welfare

THE EXCERPT is from “Is heartland America Ignorant And Gullible?”, my new WND.COM column, now (Sept. 12) on Taki’s:

“Given the perpetual parade of ‘intellectuals’ who are not intelligent in our media — Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, PBS and the ‘parrot press’ — I don’t expect you to be familiar with political philosopher Paul E. Gottfried. Nevertheless, Paul (he’s a friend) is one of the most important intellectuals in America.”

“Historian Eugene Genovese calls Paul incorruptible, ‘an American intellectual of superior talent.’ Author and historian John Lukacs praises Professor Gottfried as ‘a very profound thinker.’ And L. Brent Bozell III salutes his ‘amazing intellectual courage’ — courage in the face of the malign, philistine forces of the liberal and neoconservative mainstream.”

Over the years, I’ve interviewed Professor Gottfried pursuant to the publication of his many books. I do so again on the occasion of the publication of “Encounters: My Life with Nixon, Marcuse, and Other Friends and Teachers.”

READ THE interview, “Is heartland America Ignorant And Gullible?”, now on WND.COM. And on Taki’s Magazine on the weekend.

Update I (Sept. 11): Please note that the always-genial and brutally candid Paul Gottfried has replied to his detractors in the Comments Section. Some of the critics have been quite harsh (and this forum is moderated).

Update II: Randy, the war on Iraq is not going to be adjudicated again here, not ever. I chronicled the invasion of Iraq at great length, applying fact and every ounce of reason in my possession to repudiate and denounce that war crime. The case is closed! Neoconservative ideologues stand in the dock for aiding and abetting a war crime. Any reader is welcome to read my article archive on the topic (search the blog archives too). I can well imagine that many ideologues who supported the war urgently need to make peace with their maker, or consciences, for their role in a crime of such moral and material magnitude.

Update III (Sept. 12): Hayim, one doesn’t have to endorse everything Paul Gottfried writes or espouses to appreciate his contribution and steadfast principles. As someone who is ostracized by even more factions than Paul, I recognize the strength of character it takes to resist group pressure to conform and compromise one’s notion of right and wrong.

As to the article you cited, and which I skimmed: I have quoted Dershowitz on Israel and find his commentary worthwhile. I do not appreciate the dichotomy—or hypocrisy—the likes of Dershowitz evince in that they are hard-core rightists when it comes to Israel’s right to preserve its ethnic identity. But anyone arguing that the preservation of the historical America is essential to the preservation of freedom itself is a racist in Dershowitz’ books. That aspect of the Jewish Diaspora sickens me. Israelis are nothing like these American Jews.

In “Harvard Hucksters Hype Israeli Pseudo-Historians,” I expressed exactly what I thought of Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, authors of “The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.”

Norman Finkelstein I include among “dwarfs standing on the shoulders of Jewish giants. Noam Chomsky (‘The Godfather’), Steven and Hillary Rose … Joel Kovel, Tanya Reinhart in Tel Aviv, and Michael Cohen in Swansea—these are but a few of the new anti-Semitism’s leading Jewish lights.”

Where I agree with Paul is in his assertion that there is among the anointed Jewish leadership a crass abuse of “the Holocaust for propagandistic purposes.” No doubt about it. And it’s repulsive. To the extend Finkelstein exposes this, to that extent he makes a valid point. The Holocaust industry makes even me turn away from a catastrophe that has truncated my own family tree.

I also find the premise of the Daniel Goldhagen book, Hitler’s Willing Executioners, appalling.

I think that on the whole Joan Peterson’s book is pretty good. If there are a few factual problems—and I don’t know that there are—they serve in this context as a fig leaf for those who would deny the central truth about the Jewish settlement of Israel:

“The territory within which the State of Israel was established did not form part of any larger state that opposed its creation. The territory was, moreover, one where Jews formed a majority on land they had purchased legitimately.”

Unanimously, this Jewish majority issued a declaration of independence promising that ‘the State of Israel will … foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants,’ not for the benefit of mankind. They promised that the country would ‘be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisioned by the prophets of Israel”; that it would ‘ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex,’ and ‘safeguard the Holy Places of all religions.”

It is a joke to claim, as the anti-Israel right does, that Israel doesn’t respect the rights of all its inhabitants, Arabs included. Let the Raimondos of this world—hopefully there is only one of his kind—go live/or vacation in the Palestinian Authority.

Above all, it is undeniable that Arabs had trashed the Holy Land throughout their occupation of the place. It took Jews to dry the swamps—they died in droves of malaria doing so—to plant orchards, start industries, and generally build from a howling wilderness a prosperous country.

You won’t find me lamenting that wonderful achievement.

Unhealthy Propaganda

Barack Obama, Communism, Democrats, Economy, Free Markets, Government, Healthcare, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, The State

BELOW ARE SOME HIGHLIGHTS, interspersed with comments, from BO’s much-anticipated address to the two chambers—an address that was, overall, thin gruel. For those who’ve switch off to preserve their health, the text to the president’s speech on “the need to overhaul health care in the United States” is here. I provided a rights-based primer in a previous post, “Preparing For Unhealthy Propaganda.”

“I am not the first President to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last.” [The historical president’s quest to continue to make history …]

“There are now more than thirty million American citizens who cannot get coverage.” [Not so. See “Destroying Healthcare For The Few Uninsured.”]

“Those who do have insurance have never had less security and stability than they do today. More and more Americans worry that if you move, lose your job, or change your job, you’ll lose your health insurance too.” [The answer is to create the conditions for jobs in the private economy, not to kneecap job creators, Chicago style.]

“Then there’s the problem of rising costs.” [The solution is A Free Market in Medical Care, which we lack.]

“There are those on the left who believe that the only way to fix the system is through a single-payer system like Canada’s, where we would severely restrict the private insurance market and have the government provide coverage for everyone. On the right, there are those who argue that we should end the employer-based system and leave individuals to buy health insurance on their own.”

“I have to say that there are arguments to be made for both approaches. But either one would represent a radical shift that would disrupt the health care most people currently have. Since health care represents one-sixth of our economy, I believe it makes more sense to build on what works and fix what doesn’t, rather than try to build an entirely new system from scratch. And that is precisely what those of you in Congress have tried to do over the past several months”

“The plan I’m announcing tonight would meet three basic goals:

It will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance. It will provide insurance to those who don’t. And it will slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government.” [Only in defiance of the laws of economics.]

“First, if you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through your job, Medicare, Medicaid, or the VA, nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have. Let me repeat this: nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have.

What this plan will do is to make the insurance you have work better for you.

“Now, if you’re one of the tens of millions of Americans who don’t currently have health insurance, the second part of this plan will finally offer you quality, affordable choices. If you lose your job or change your job, you will be able to get coverage. If you strike out on your own and start a small business, you will be able to get coverage. We will do this by creating a new insurance exchange – a marketplace where individuals and small businesses will be able to shop for health insurance at competitive prices.” [About this “exchange” BO wants to breathe life into: what he’s describing is a phony “market place” brought about by flesh-and-blood central planners. If that were possible the Soviet Union would not have collapsed. Pray tell, where in the world—and in history—have command economists “designed” functioning, efficient, fair markets?]

“For those individuals and small businesses who still cannot afford the lower-priced insurance available in the exchange, we will provide tax credits, the size of which will be based on your need. And all insurance companies that want access to this new marketplace will have to abide by the consumer protections I already mentioned.”

COERCION KICKER: “individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance – just as most states require you to carry auto insurance. Likewise, businesses will be required to either offer their workers health care, or chip in to help cover the cost of their workers.” [BO forgot to mention that so-called Cadillac coverage amounting to $800,000 per annum will be taxed to the tune of 35 percent. Just saying.]

BO is nothing if not benevolent: “Now, I have no interest in putting insurance companies out of business.”

Can BO count?: “I have insisted that like any private insurance company, the public insurance option would have to be self-sufficient and rely on the premiums it collects. … based on Congressional Budget Office estimates, we believe that less than 5% of Americans would sign up.” [And this 5 percent will pay through premiums alone for a $900 billion plan over a decade? How on earth?]

“I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits – either now or in the future. Period. And to prove that I’m serious, there will be a provision in this plan that requires us to come forward with more spending cuts if the savings we promised don’t materialize.” [What do they know, but the CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE disagrees, writing, on June 15, 2009, that “enacting the proposal would result in a net increase in federal budget deficits of about $1.0 trillion over the 2010–2019 period.” Where did these professional number crunchers go wrong?]

I’m getting tired of following this fanciful fairytale. So let me end my service to BAB readers with one more fabulous assertion by BO: “Most of these costs will be paid for with money already being spent – but spent badly – in the existing health care system. The plan will not add to our deficit.”

THE PREMISE OF THE ABOVE being that the government, which is responsible for the waste and fraud in Medicare, Medicaid and the VA system, will also be in charge of eliminating the same features of these state-run systems.