Updated: Statist/Stupid Summit On Mount Olympus

Barack Obama, Business, Debt, Economy, Military, Regulation, Republicans

If you are a private-sector sucker plumping for a panoply of new government programs, consider the following: The more of them there are, the fewer of you there will be. Think zero-sum, or parasite vs. host. The first is sucking the lifeblood of the second. The larger the parasite gets, the weaker the host will grow.

[From “Life In The Oink Sector”]

Alas, STATISM AND STUPIDITY ARE INTERCHANGEABLE. Obama can “summit” (forgive this horrid “verbing” of a noun) about jobs all he likes, nothing will come of it. Because he is a dyed-in-the-wool statist, BO cannot conceive—not even with the aid of Lego or some sort of pop-up children’s model—that dolling out unemployment benefits, state aid, and government jobs programs, which all necessitate the seizure of private wealth through taxing, borrowing, and printing paper—cannot create wealth.

Here’s my simple, crude model for Obama the statist. Play with it with the First Girls. Recommend it to your friends:

Put 10 blocks in box A. Take 5 blocks out of box A and place them in box B. The owner of box A is 5 blocks poorer, the owner of box B is 5 blocks richer. Total number of blocks: still 10. Total wealth created: 0.

Come on BO, you can do it.

There is no big secret about “creating” jobs. Government can’t do it. Unless it sucks more capital and credit out of the private economy, it has only the capacity to consume wealth, not create it.

The best BO can do is take a hike; go on a 4-year vacation; walk the plank; just GET OUT OF THE WAY!

Update: Mitt Romney’s 10-point “to lift our economy” gives you an idea of the limits of Republican economic “thinking,” such that it is.

Repair and re-diretc the stimulus is one of Mitt’s recommendations. In other words, keep businesses that should go under or find a new equilibrium artificially inflated.

Individualists, proponents of the Constitution, who understand that individual liberty cannot coincide with the growth of government both at home and abroad cannot categorically accept the Republicans’ perverse notion of limited government.

Mitt also advises the president (who is beyond hope) to limit only non-military discretionary spending, and limit “new spending … to items that are critically needed and that we would have acquired in the future, such as new military equipment to support our troops abroad.”

To Republicans, the warfare state is viable; commensurate with liberty, and without the pitfalls that plague the welfare apparatus:

When Republicans and conservatives cavil about the gargantuan growth of government, they target the state’s welfare apparatus and spare its war machine. Unbeknown to these factions, the military is government. The military works like government; is financed like government, and sports many of the same inherent malignancies of government. Like government, it must be kept small.
Conservative can’t coherently preach against the evils of big government, while excluding the military mammoth.

[From “Your Government’s Jihadi Protection Program.”]

It's Cool To Caricature Climagedon

Democrats, Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Propaganda, Pseudoscience, Science

Jon-Stewart cool! Manipulating research to hide that Goddess Gaia has been cooling for the past decade has its humorous aspects—to a point. “Does it refute global warming?”, asks Stewart rhetorically. And he replies, “Of course not.” Stewart then takes aim at “denier” Sen. James Inhofe, and frames the errant global-warming activists who cooked the books as scientist who simply cut corners.

There are limits to the laughter ClimateGate will elicit on the Left. One doesn’t abandon a religion in one day, no matter the evidence.

It’s Cool To Caricature Climagedon

Democrats, Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Propaganda, Pseudoscience, Science

Jon-Stewart cool! Manipulating research to hide that Goddess Gaia has been cooling for the past decade has its humorous aspects—to a point. “Does it refute global warming?”, asks Stewart rhetorically. And he replies, “Of course not.” Stewart then takes aim at “denier” Sen. James Inhofe, and frames the errant global-warming activists who cooked the books as scientist who simply cut corners.

There are limits to the laughter ClimateGate will elicit on the Left. One doesn’t abandon a religion in one day, no matter the evidence.

Open-Ended Stay In Afghanistan

Foreign Aid, Foreign Policy, Military, Terrorism, War

Withdrawal from Afghanistan “would be based on conditions on the ground.” That’s the latest about-face from the Obama administration. The date of departure is apparently “aspirational.”

Defense Secretary Robert Gates: “If it appears that the strategy’s not working and that we are not going to be able to transition in 2011 then we will take a hard look at the strategy itself,” he said, adding that the president reserves the right to adjust his decision. “We’re not going to just throw these guys into the swimming pool and then walk away.”

“McMussolini” has been pushing for this.

On the phone today to South Africa, I was reminded by my father of what’s at stake: the lives of some of the finest men this country has to offer; the prospect of being killed and crippled for naught.