Updated: Obama’s Shocked: More Jobs ‘Lost’

Barack Obama, Conspiracy, Debt, Economy, Regulation, Taxation

STATISM AND STUPIDITY ARE INTERCHANGEABLE. “Employers chopped 85,000 jobs last month, and difficulty finding work helped chase more than half a million people out of the job market,” reports the Hartford Courant.

To Obama, this is genuinely surprising. Didn’t he do everything possible to avert such a scenario? Didn’t he do everything right?

Sure, if you consider stupendous spending, the creation of faux industries—“the average cost of alleged new green jobs will be $135,000 per job”—and the taking over of failed ones.

With “the $780 billion stimulus plan,” the prez purports to have saved 1 million jobs, but by Kudlow’s calculations, each cost “roughly $200,000 per job.”

Mr. Midas touch has closed “down federal lands for oil and gas drilling,” opened up more EPA departments for capping-and-trading, is leading a government takeover of health care, and this is barely the beginning of BO’s transformation of “the government’s relation to the private economy.”

Because he is a dyed-in-the-wool statist, BO cannot conceive that by dolling out unemployment benefits, and state aid; launching government jobs programs—all of which necessitate the seizure of private wealth through taxing, borrowing, and printing paper—he is taking a wrecking ball to the job market, and the private economy.

Update (Jan. 9): I think BO is genuinely surprised. Contra Glenn Beck, I am not a conspiracy theorist. I believe in the banality of evil. BO believes in the Keynesian “remedied.” I think he’s scratching his head.

Here’s the mundane truth conspiracies obscure (from the post “On Conspiracy Theories”):

The premise for imputing conspiracies to garden variety government evils is this: government generally does what is good for us (NOT), so when it strays, we must look beyond the facts—for something far more sinister, as if government’s natural venality and quest for power were not enough to explain events. For example, why would one need to search for the “real reason” for an unjust, unscrupulous war, unless one believed government would never prosecute an unjust war. History belies that delusion.
Conspiracy is not congruent with a view of government as fundamentally antagonistic to the individual and to civil society, a position I hold.

Update III: Palin Pooh-Poohs CPAC (& A Third-Party Plan)

John McCain, libertarianism, Political Philosophy, Republicans, Ron Paul, Sarah Palin

BRAVO. Is this divorce? I hope so.

Politico: “Palin is declining an invitation to address the Conservative Political Action Conference next month because, a source said, she does not want to be affiliated with the longtime organizer of the traditional movement confab.”

This is Palin’s first significant act of political separation from the “GOP RIP”—and from “politics as usual,” that hackneyed term she and “McMussolini” kept using on the campaign trail. Palin embodied unusual politics on a local level.

Stay tuned. There’s more, and it involves Sarah and Farah, WND’s CEO and chief. Developing.

Update: Palin will be headlining the First National Tea Party Convention, scheduled for February 4-6, 2010 at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville, TN. The formidable Michele Bachmann will join her. And, as David Shyster of MSNBC advertised (negatively), WND’s founder will speak too. (WND announced it as well.) As you all know, I write for WND.COM; have done so going on a decade.

The mainstream swamp of a media is framing Palin’s decision, as is their wont, as one that is based on some womanly whim—the fungus press is feminist only when it comes to ladies of the left. I hope, for Sarah’s sake, that this “break” with the GOP corpse is philosophical. In light of the fact that late last year Palin endorsed the Conservative Party’s Doug Hoffman for the 23rd Congressional District of New York, I do believe she is breaking with the GOP.

(I’ll have surprisingly good things to say about her book, which I grabbed at an airport, and have almost finished.)

Losers are those who’re pointing toward the need to revive the rotting, rigor-ridden corpse that is the GOP. Not possible. Not desirable.

A third party is the solution. However, for this to happen in earnest, the (Ron) Paul and Palin factions must commence serious ideological cross fertilization (my diplomatic way of urging Palin to heed Paul), gather the best people around and launch.

To be frank, as someone who considers herself a Paulite—and who has been called “the most persuasive Paul booster” by one of the most perceptive paleos—I see the libertarian Campaign for Liberty falling into the methodology of the GOP. By this I mean the penchant to close ranks and invite into the inner sanctum only strict and obedient adherents, as well as non-entity groupies with zero gravitas (often blond).

How like the GOP.

Good people need to elevate themselves above tribal and ego-bound instincts and gather around the best and the brightest, lots of us—not only five bright sparks, 50 mediocrities, and 500 sparkly, dim bimbos.

I was asked by the Paul Campaign to endorse Ron Paul. He’s my president of choice, so I did. Here is the blurb that was used during the campaign. I was asked to pen a position editorial for said campaign explaining why Ron Paul was VERY GOOD for Israel. I did that too.

Still, when the Campaign roles into town—my town—I am not even invited to the occasion.

I am no seeker of publicity or inclusivity. I’m independent. What matters to me is the integrity and longevity of my writing. Nevertheless, I do believe that by ignoring people with gravitas (just becasue they are independent-minded, but not always like-minded); choosing instead to embrace groupies, lightweights and other anon riffraff—good people with a good cause contribute to the dumbing down of the liberty movement.

Let’s hope Palin can avert this echo-chamber instinct and gather around her a coalition of Buchananites, Bachmannites, Paulites, Beckians, etc.

Update II: Also to be mindful of is the danger of gentrifying a grassroots movement. What you have in the tea party swell is an inchoate, energetic thing with great promise. Politicos, always eager to turn a protest into a constituency, could seize the movement, as a stepping stone to power, and corrupt it. The movement has to be given solid philosophical contours, but how do you keep the Republicans away. Especially when they’re packaged as appealingly as Sean Duffy is. Duffy’s a Hamiltonian (not a good thing) GOPier.

Update III (Jan. 9): The Democratic and the Republican Parties are one and the same thing. Each is a necessary counterweight in a partnership designed to keep the pendulum of power swinging forever from one putrid entity to the other.

The balance is kept by bamboozling (successfully, as it would appear from posts on this blog) respective supporters. The mesmerizing momentum will endure forever; will keep the colluding quislings in power in perpetuity, and continue to sell books for their respective fascistic philosophers.

The philosophical foot soldiers for the duopoly have their own game going. Whether they are shouting “liberal this; liberals that” all the way to the bank, or suddenly discovering the Constitution when the rival faction is in power—they help maintain status quo.

I think it was my WND colleague Vox Day who pointed out how the Republican reptiles move to the left when in power, and the Democratic dogs shuffle to the right when they get their turn.

Ultimately the creeps converge.

If what I am saying is true—and it is—then the assertion that the Republican Party can be reformed is a lie, a pie-in-the-sky; not pragmatism but falsehood. People who help elevate the characters involved in this cruel farce; who promulgate The Lie are, thus, either stupid or venal.

There is a scene in “Dangerous Liaisons” where the protagonist, a lying schemer, is “booed and disgraced by the audience at the opera,” and retreats to her boudoir never to emerge again.

This is the appropriate metaphor for the characters involved in American politics.

If our society had an ounce of moral fiber, this would be the fate of the Ann Couters, Rush Limbaughs, Levines—the blood-lusting vampires of the Republican War Machine, whose bitch-hot talk helped send gullible young men to their death.

This would be the fate of the grand designers behind the Democratic welfare apparatus.

A Third Party option is not for the quick-fix quacks among us. It will be slow and laborious. But it is the only way.

The Third-Party road involves a planned strategy whereby support is withdrawn from all candidates running for the duopoly. It involves the meeting of the smartest minds, with the most integrity. That the “Campaign for Liberty” has not called on myself, Vox, and other marginalized voices with sizable (WND) platforms, despite our tireless work for liberty, demonstrates that its movers and shakers are moving and shaking like a cult; not like a force of nature.

What I like about Palin is that she is a force of nature. And she has lived the quintessential American life. She is everything that is good in America. Can she bury the Republican corpse and do what I suggest? I honestly don’t know.

About her book at a later date.

Update III: Palin Pooh-Poohs CPAC (& A Third-Party Plan)

John McCain, libertarianism, Political Philosophy, Republicans, Ron Paul, Sarah Palin

BRAVO. Is this divorce? I hope so.

Politico: “Palin is declining an invitation to address the Conservative Political Action Conference next month because, a source said, she does not want to be affiliated with the longtime organizer of the traditional movement confab.”

This is Palin’s first significant act of political separation from the “GOP RIP”—and from “politics as usual,” that hackneyed term she and “McMussolini” kept using on the campaign trail. Palin embodied unusual politics on a local level.

Stay tuned. There’s more, and it involves Sarah and Farah, WND’s CEO and chief. Developing.

Update: Palin will be headlining the First National Tea Party Convention, scheduled for February 4-6, 2010 at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville, TN. The formidable Michele Bachmann will join her. And, as David Shyster of MSNBC advertised (negatively), WND’s founder will speak too. (WND announced it as well.) As you all know, I write for WND.COM; have done so going on a decade.

The mainstream swamp of a media is framing Palin’s decision, as is their wont, as one that is based on some womanly whim—the fungus press is feminist only when it comes to ladies of the left. I hope, for Sarah’s sake, that this “break” with the GOP corpse is philosophical. In light of the fact that late last year Palin endorsed the Conservative Party’s Doug Hoffman for the 23rd Congressional District of New York, I do believe she is breaking with the GOP.

(I’ll have surprisingly good things to say about her book, which I grabbed at an airport, and have almost finished.)

Losers are those who’re pointing toward the need to revive the rotting, rigor-ridden corpse that is the GOP. Not possible. Not desirable.

A third party is the solution. However, for this to happen in earnest, the (Ron) Paul and Palin factions must commence serious ideological cross fertilization (my diplomatic way of urging Palin to heed Paul), gather the best people around and launch.

To be frank, as someone who considers herself a Paulite—and who has been called “the most persuasive Paul booster” by one of the most perceptive paleos—I see the libertarian Campaign for Liberty falling into the methodology of the GOP. By this I mean the penchant to close ranks and invite into the inner sanctum only strict and obedient adherents, as well as non-entity groupies with zero gravitas (often blond).

How like the GOP.

Good people need to elevate themselves above tribal and ego-bound instincts and gather around the best and the brightest, lots of us—not only five bright sparks, 50 mediocrities, and 500 sparkly, dim bimbos.

I was asked by the Paul Campaign to endorse Ron Paul. He’s my president of choice, so I did. Here is the blurb that was used during the campaign. I was asked to pen a position editorial for said campaign explaining why Ron Paul was VERY GOOD for Israel. I did that too.

Still, when the Campaign roles into town—my town—I am not even invited to the occasion.

I am no seeker of publicity or inclusivity. I’m independent. What matters to me is the integrity and longevity of my writing. Nevertheless, I do believe that by ignoring people with gravitas (just becasue they are independent-minded, but not always like-minded); choosing instead to embrace groupies, lightweights and other anon riffraff—good people with a good cause contribute to the dumbing down of the liberty movement.

Let’s hope Palin can avert this echo-chamber instinct and gather around her a coalition of Buchananites, Bachmannites, Paulites, Beckians, etc.

Update II: Also to be mindful of is the danger of gentrifying a grassroots movement. What you have in the tea party swell is an inchoate, energetic thing with great promise. Politicos, always eager to turn a protest into a constituency, could seize the movement, as a stepping stone to power, and corrupt it. The movement has to be given solid philosophical contours, but how do you keep the Republicans away. Especially when they’re packaged as appealingly as Sean Duffy is. Duffy’s a Hamiltonian (not a good thing) GOPier.

Update III (Jan. 9): The Democratic and the Republican Parties are one and the same thing. Each is a necessary counterweight in a partnership designed to keep the pendulum of power swinging forever from one putrid entity to the other.

The balance is kept by bamboozling (successfully, as it would appear from posts on this blog) respective supporters. The mesmerizing momentum will endure forever; will keep the colluding quislings in power in perpetuity, and continue to sell books for their respective fascistic philosophers.

The philosophical foot soldiers for the duopoly have their own game going. Whether they are shouting “liberal this; liberals that” all the way to the bank, or suddenly discovering the Constitution when the rival faction is in power—they help maintain status quo.

I think it was my WND colleague Vox Day who pointed out how the Republican reptiles move to the left when in power, and the Democratic dogs shuffle to the right when they get their turn.

Ultimately the creeps converge.

If what I am saying is true—and it is—then the assertion that the Republican Party can be reformed is a lie, a pie-in-the-sky; not pragmatism but falsehood. People who help elevate the characters involved in this cruel farce; who promulgate The Lie are, thus, either stupid or venal.

There is a scene in “Dangerous Liaisons” where the protagonist, a lying schemer, is “booed and disgraced by the audience at the opera,” and retreats to her boudoir never to emerge again.

This is the appropriate metaphor for the characters involved in American politics.

If our society had an ounce of moral fiber, this would be the fate of the Ann Couters, Rush Limbaughs, Levines—the blood-lusting vampires of the Republican War Machine, whose bitch-hot talk helped send gullible young men to their death.

This would be the fate of the grand designers behind the Democratic welfare apparatus.

A Third Party option is not for the quick-fix quacks among us. It will be slow and laborious. But it is the only way.

The Third-Party road involves a planned strategy whereby support is withdrawn from all candidates running for the duopoly. It involves the meeting of the smartest minds, with the most integrity. That the “Campaign for Liberty” has not called on myself, Vox, and other marginalized voices with sizable (WND) platforms, despite our tireless work for liberty, demonstrates that its movers and shakers are moving and shaking like a cult; not like a force of nature.

What I like about Palin is that she is a force of nature. And she has lived the quintessential American life. She is everything that is good in America. Can she bury the Republican corpse and do what I suggest? I honestly don’t know.

About her book at a later date.

Updated: The Golem* Goldstone Goes To Gaza

Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Judaism & Jews, Just War, Law, Palestinian Authority, South-Africa, UN

From my new WND column, “The Golem Goldstone Goes To Gaza”:

“When introducing Judge Goldstone, Fareed Zakaria described the judge as having made his name, among other acts of greatness, in pursuing an end to the political violence that came with apartheid in his home country of South Africa.

Ostracized for his convictions, this writer’s father – Rabbi Ben Isaacson – was a leading anti-apartheid activist. Goldstone had no such history of protest, father assures me. The roaming judge attached himself like a limpet mine to the anti-apartheid cause only once it became fashionable, safe and professionally expedient.

Goldstone’s Wiki biography corroborates father’s recollection. The judge joined the cause du jour in ‘the latter years of apartheid in South Africa.’ Goldstone’s “courageous” judicial decisions in the cause of freedom, moreover, comported with what South Africa’s Western system of Dutch-Roman law provided – a system currently being replaced, by the African National Congress, with a blend of tribal and totalitarian laws.

To this expatriate South African, the most anodyne assertion Goldstone made to zombie Zakaria was this one…”

Read the complete column, “The Golem Goldstone Goes To Gaza.”

And do read my libertarian manifesto, Broad Sides: One Woman’s Clash With A Corrupt Society.

The Second Edition features bonus material. Get your copy (or copies) now!

Update (Jan. 9): A few readers, some via my WND mail box, have told me I’ve erred as far as the meaning of Golem goes. I’m relatively confident that my commonplace use of the term is accurate (if perhaps not true to the original meaning), so I’ve left it. Usually, I hurry to correct blatant errors.

So why am I comfortable with the column’s usage?

I’m an ex-Israeli. My first language is Hebrew. Although I once spoke and wrote a sharp Hebrew (much like my English), slang has since (as in the US and the UK) changed older, popular usage. As old-timers like myself are in the habit of saying, no one speaks Yerushalmic Hebrew on the news any longer as the wonderful Haim Yavin used to. Yavin was the most elegant anchorman in looks and language.

Back to the topic. “Golem” in popular, modern usage is a derogatory term. Call an Israeli of my age group (still way younger than Yavin, of course) a Golem, and, while you’ve not wounded him mortally, you have, in good humor, berated him.