The Blair Third-Way Blur

Britain, Conservatism, Economy, Europe, Republicans, Socialism, The State

How serious are Republican boosters about liberty? Tony Blair serious. Sean Hannity interviews Mr. Blair, and tries to get this consummate Third-Way politician to repeat the Hannity inanities, among which are the following catch phrases: We want a small government (translation: you call the state behemoth small when a Republican is at the helm), and a strong national defense (translated: defend the indefensible invasions so long as they are started by Republicans).

Republican economics: condemn the Keynesian voodoo, as you grope obscenely for the “stimulus packages,” and while rudely wanking your business buddies in full view of disgusted onlookers.

Blair is way cleverer. He re-branded “the Keynesian model” as a Third Way sort of kosher statism about which your host (support her, please!) wrote way back in … 2000, in the Calgary Herald column, “Third Way is Socialism’s New Bandwagon.”

To the request that he make a token grumble against Sean Hannity’s ostensible peeve, Blair replied:

“I happen to think in this case there’s a third way, which is a state that is strategic and empowering, where your welfare and public service policies are reformed and modernized from the 1940s.”

What a sweet molester is our Uncle Sam and his cousin across the pond.

Barletta Battles For Sweet Home, Hazleton

Constitution, Federalism, IMMIGRATION, Law, Private Property

Before Governor Janet Brewer of Arizona there was Mayor Lou Barletta of Hazleton, Pennsylvania. Born and bred. In 2007, I wrote about this much-loved local leader, who has legitimately and faithfully represented his constituents—Republican and Democratic—in attempting to salvage a community ravaged by unchecked immigration.

Unwilling to wait for Washington, Mayor Louis Barletta of Hazleton attempted to reclaim his town by passing local ordinances to crack down on those who employ or rent to illegals. Barletta’s Illegal Immigration Relief Act was found to conflict with the unenforced Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986, and, therefore, to be in violation of the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. This, even though the Supreme Court itself has conceded that not every ‘state enactment …which deals with aliens is a regulation of immigration.’

Now, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals has adopted the same decision issued in July 2007 by a U.S. District Judge, ruling that “the ordinance violates the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution, which precludes states from enacting laws that are at odds with federal law.”

As I said at the time, I am not thrilled that to defend his town a mayor has been forced to circumscribe renting and hiring. Still less am I enamored of the ACLU and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund usurping a beloved Hazleton home boy—in the past, Barletta has won both Republican and Democratic nominations overwhelmingly.

Having become aliens in their hometown, Hazleton residents imagined that the Constitution allowed them a measure of autonomy over how they lived their lives. How wrong they were.

Meet Mr. O. Moocher

Barack Obama, Political Economy, Private Property, Republicans, Socialism, Taxation

Thief-in-chief “insists the nation can no longer afford tax breaks for the wealthy, while Republicans say any tax increase is a grave mistake.”

The “nation” can no longer afford YOU, Mr. O. Moocher.

With a tax cut, the plundering class simply agrees to pilfer less. The notion that you must ‘pay for tax cuts,’ … is akin to a burglar promising to return the television he stole just as soon as he is in a better financial position.”

People who earn well are less equal under the “law”; their income is considered forfeit, up for grabs. For their part, Republicans are just repulsive power grabbers. What would happen if they actually stood up for Americans who earn more than average?

Is a man with earning power worth less than a man without? Apparently so, politically speaking, becasue he is a much maligned minority with no representation.

UPDATED: 40,000 Protest Ground-Zero Mosque ("Wilders Was Not Wilders")

Islam, Journalism, Media, Propaganda

Geert Wilders included. So says anti-mosque activist, Pamella Geller. Yet the media is silent. Did you hear anything? I did not. Who are the bums working for?

UPDATE (Sept. 13): I did not read Geert’s speech. Larry Auster contends that in it, “Wilders Was Not Wilders.” Auster postulates that the dictates of the Geller-Spencer duo account for Wilders’ weak, soft message. Some time ago, I delineated clearly how America’s incoherent anti-Islamization contingent differs from the fierce and focused Wilders.

In “Dhimmis At Ground Zero?”, I pointed out that by requesting kindness and consideration from those they regard as conquistadors, these anti-mosque activists run the risk of sounding like dhimmis.

“Such pleas,” I pointed out, “remind me of the victim impact statement so popular in our Courts. How humiliating and futile is it to plead for contrition from sadists who’ve amply proved they are incapable of such sentiment, and derive sadistic pleasure from watching their victims squirm.”

Nor am I convinced that the Washington Post was wrong when it implied that, by prancing around with Pamella, Spencer, a serious scholar of Islam, was undermining his well-established bona fides.

Writes Auster:

Moreover, this is the first time to my knowledge that Wilders has ever done this. In his career as an internationally known Islam opponent over the last six years, he has adopted consecutively harder-line positions on Islam, never reverting to an earlier, weaker position once he had taken a stronger position. Among Wilders’s many admirable traits is his remarkable consistency. So I found his speech on Saturday not only disappointing, but unsettling.

Pamela Geller, a passionate activist, deserves credit for having driven the mosque issue. But the way she has driven the mosque issue may well have had the effect of weakening the anti-Islamization cause, by reducing the meaning of anti-Islamization to “no mosque at Ground Zero.”