The Prolix Patriot

The Great Firewall of China and Internet Piracy

2012-01-18T11:43:00.000-05:00

A weapon of war

Almost from the beginning, the Chinese Communist Party recognized the power—and the threat—of the Internet and has invested huge resources to limit access to its own people while simultaneously using the internet to undermine the intellectual and economic output of the United States. Whether we admit it or not, we are in a state of digital war with China. How we fight this war today will have lasting consequences not only for freedom on the Internet but also for freedom generally.

The Internet has matured to the point that actions in the digital world can now cause real changes in the physical world. Last year, we witnessed revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and elsewhere that were started online. We also witnessed a hacking attack which disrupted an Iranian nuclear research laboratory. The Iranians responded by hacking into an American stealth reconnaissance drone and hijacking it—digitally. The Internet is no longer a mere novelty. Digital actions affect real-world events.

One front of this digital war is the rampant and aggressive intellectual property theft which is likely sponsored directly by the Chinese government. State-sponsored and well-funded hackers are constantly attacking American companies to steal intellectual property and the piracy of movies, music, and software is only one element of this attack. Nevertheless, Congress has crafted misguided legislation in SOPA and PIPA to target this small fraction of the onslaught while mostly ignoring the larger conflict.

We must be wary about ever limiting access to the Internet. The amazing power of the Internet to bring freedom to the world is precisely because of its openness. China recognizes this and along with North Korea and Iran is one of the most restrictive countries in the world. There is a legitimate need to combat piracy, but the language of SOPA and PIPA is so broad that the Chinese and other bad actors could actually use it against us by causing self-inflicted restriction of the Internet. This will only benefit the Chinese government’s efforts to restrict access and limit the free exchange of ideas.

The Internet has the power to bring freedom to China, Iran, North Korea, and all the other tyrannical regimes on the face of the earth. As Napoleon once said, "I fear three newspapers more than a hundred thousand bayonets." Just as Gutenberg’s printing press brought about the Enlightenment in Europe, so too can the Internet bring about a global digital renaissance. America invented the Internet and is arguably the most creative nation in the world. We can use this power to be a force for good in the world—or not. The choice is ours to make.

Iowa Caucus Ends the Myth of Romney’s Inevitability

2012-01-04T12:07:00.001-05:00

Mitt Romney received more votes than any other candidate in last night’s Iowa Caucus, but for the establishment and media favorite to win the nomination, that’s not good enough. Romney is not an inspiring candidate, so he needed to win convincingly to prove he can appeal to more than just the moderate wing of the Republican Party. However, instead of emerging as the clear winner, he emerges bruised and weak. Romney’s win last night was so narrow that he will continue to face strong opposition in the weeks and months ahead.

The biggest story is of course Santorum’s stunning rise from relative obscurity to come within eight votes of Romney. One after another, other challengers have surged as the anti-Romney candidate, but they peaked too soon to see any benefit in the caucuses and primaries. Santorum, on the other hand, was right to praise God in his speech last night for his very providential surge on the eve of the first-in-the-nation contest in Iowa. 75% of votes last night were cast against Romney and the winner of that group was unquestionably Santorum.

Romney’s biggest problem is his lack of message. In his “victory” speech last night, Romney merely reiterated his standard nebulous bromides about American greatness and there was even a moment prior to the speech when his staff began setting up a teleprompter in front of his lectern before being hurried away when someone realized this might make for an unfavorable comparison to President Obama. By contrast, Santorum gave an emotional speech which was well calibrated with an appeal to social conservatives, working-class “Reagan Democrats,” and even a nod to the Tea Party.

The lack of a compelling message is a severe handicap for Romney. In the coverage last night on Fox News, Brett Baier stated that the Romney Campaign spent roughly $110 per vote while Santorum only spent about $1.50 per vote. Although the numbers are slightly different, data from BuzzFeed corroborates the vast difference between Romney and Santorum’s spending levels. Looking at it another way, Romney spent about 29% of the total money to win about 25% of the vote, while Santorum spent less than 1% of the total money to get almost exactly the same number of votes.

As a result, Romney’s performance in Iowa in 2012 was no better than his performance in 2008. Despite being the establishment favorite, outspending every other candidate except Rick Perry, higher overall turnout, his many advantages as a campaign veteran, and with better organization on the ground in Iowa than any candidate except possibly Ron Paul, Romney’s share of the vote remained virtually unchanged from where it was four years ago.

In the end, Romney won a costly and hollow victory in Iowa. Although he leads the polling in New Hampshire, the same was true in 2008 before John McCain’s upset there. Because of his perceived weakness, Romney will be the subject of withering all-out attacks from Newt Gingrich, Santorum, and Jon Huntsman in New Hampshire and South Carolina in the next few weeks. If Romney does somehow manage to win his party’s nomination, it will be a long and painful contest.

National Popular Vote: An Alternate History

2011-12-07T16:30:00.003-05:00

The Prolix Patriot has written in the past on the virtues of the Electoral College system, but the liberal campaign to institute a popular vote for presidential elections is in the news again. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is a proposal whereby participating states agree to give their electors to the winner of the popular vote, regardless of the votes cast for either candidate within the state. The compact will automatically go into effect if enough states join it to give the NPV states control of at least 270 electoral votes.

The election of 1960 was razor thin. Thanks to shenanigans in Chicago and other major Democratic strongholds in the Northeast, Kennedy won the popular vote by a margin of about 100,000 votes, but because of the Electoral College system enshrined in the Constitution by our founding fathers, Kennedy had a clear mandate of 303 electoral votes to Nixon's 219. Now, let's pretend the NPV had been in effect.

Polls in Nixon's home state of California close a full two to three hours after those in Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. As reports come in that Nixon is only down by a small margin (less than 0.25%), the Nixon campaign pushes organizers and supporters in California to get a few more voters out to the polls in Republican-leaning precincts to swing the national popular vote over to Nixon's favor.

When California finally begins tallying votes, voila, the final count comes in with Nixon ahead by 500 votes. Even though Kennedy should have a clear victory in the Electoral College, the NPV rules require Kennedy strongholds of Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Maryland (all current NPV compact members) to give all their votes to Nixon. Given the slim margin, both the Kennedy and Nixon campaigns start requesting recounts and filing legal challenges, counter-suits, and injunctions in almost every state in the Union.

California, Texas, Illinois, and New York are simultaneously adjusting their vote tallies when it becomes clear that Kennedy may still win the popular vote. Nixon supporters in California react by launching a signature drive for a ballot initiative to leave the NPV interstate compact. Meanwhile, disgusted with the possibility that a Republican may take the election, Mississippi's unpledged electors announce they will give their votes to Kennedy.

Lawsuits galore are now headed to the Supreme Court, and then, as an added twist, Kennedy supporters and the press start a campaign to pressure Eisenhower's Supreme Court nominees to recuse themselves from any election-related cases, because Nixon served as an advisor to the Eisenhower administration's nomination and vetting process. By the time the dust has settled the decision on how to resolve the crisis is left in the hands of only four justices with a real possibility of deadlock.

As popular outrage builds with the escalating crisis, Eisenhower convenes all 50 governors at an emergency meeting in Dallas to consider the possibility of deploying the National Guard to maintain order. While traveling from the airport to his hotel, he is assassinated by a disgruntled Communist sympathizer named Lee Harvey Oswald. Nixon is sworn in as acting president while the results of his own election are still being litigated and tabulated. Massive riots and violence break out across the nation and Nixon declares "temporary emergency measures" in an attempt to bring the situation under control.

We are used to thinking of such a constitutional crisis as a preposterous and impossible scenario, but if the NPV ever goes into effect, this is exactly the sort of crisis that could happen in the very near future. In fact, the Heritage Foundation and the State Leadership Foundation hosted an event this morning with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell which examined just these sorts of problems. As former Federal Election Commission Chairman Bradley Smith once observed, “We are so accustomed to stable, generally good government that we sometimes forget that failure of government structures is historically much more common than success.…[W]e tinker with our success at our peril.”

The Power of Inequality

2011-12-06T12:37:00.001-05:00

In Soviet Union, Winter Occupies YOU!

As the Occupy Wall Street movement fizzles out with the approach of colder weather, it is worth revisiting the Occupiers’ central argument. Namely, that income inequality between the top 1% and the rest is somehow relevant to the present economic crisis. However, this is a dangerous diversion from the heart of the problem. Instead of focusing on income inequality, we as a society should be focused on improving economic growth.

Income inequality is an inescapable reality. Even in famously egalitarian countries like Sweden or Norway, there is no such thing as perfect equality. Whenever people engage in economic activity together, there is some element of wealth creation over what could be achieved if each person had to fend for himself. Although on a small scale it is possible to apportion wealth creation evenly to all participants, history has shown time and time again that it is more efficient to apportion the rewards of economic activity in proportion to individual contributions.

Furthermore, according to recent economic data from the CIA Factbook, there is no real correlation between income inequality and economic growth. As an example, both South Korea with a low Gini coefficient of 31.4 and Mexico with a very high Gini of 51.7 have similar growth rates. Conversely, Japan and India have similar Gini coefficients, but the annual GDP growth for India is more than double that of Japan. Indeed, an academic paper on the subject concludes that, “Evidence from a broad panel of countries shows little overall relation between income inequality and rates of growth and investment.”

Worst of all, policies which are intended to promote income equality are not always successful and almost never contribute to greater prosperity. When pursued on a large scale, such policies can result in economic disaster as was the case during Stalin’s infamous five-year plans and Chairman Mao’s “Great Leap Forward,” both of which lead to crop failures and the deaths of tens of millions of people from starvation.

Income inequality is a distraction from policies which contribute more directly to promoting prosperity. Numerous studies have demonstrated the relationship between strong property rights and economic growth. As the evidence shows, Americans do not need the government to tell them how to live their lives. If the government fulfills it central purpose of protecting our long-cherished rights of personal liberty and private property, Americans will be free to pursue their own aspirations of happiness and prosperity in whatever way they see fit.

To Your Health

2011-11-14T13:50:00.005-05:00

The Doctor Will See You Now

The Supreme Court has granted certiorari to one of the challenges to ObamaCare which means that a decision one way or the other on the constitutionality of the individual mandate will be issued by the Court in June of next year. Conveniently, the Republican presidential primaries will be wrapping up at the same time and President Obama will begin debating the presumptive Republican nominee. While Obama is wishing he could talk about something else, next year's debate will be centered on Obama's obsession with heath care reform amidst a failing economy and rising unemployment.

All of this is bad news for President Obama. While he may have the bully pulpit, the President has no authority in the deliberations of the Supreme Court or in the process of amending the Constitution. The only influence the President has in the former is the appointment of justices. In this, his nomination of former Solicitor General Elena Kagan may come back to haunt him during the general election as her position on ObamaCare prior to its enactment is re-examined by the public after the Court's decision in June.

We cannot know how the Court will decide the case, but in some respects, it doesn't even matter which way the Court rules. The magnitude of public opinion against the ObamaCare individual mandate is overwhelming. In addition to the 28 states that have sought to challenge the law in the courts, 18 states--including, most recently, the key presidential battleground of Ohio--have enacted laws which oppose some element of ObamaCare, and no less than 45 states have proposed similar legislation.

The only states which have not mounted any challenge whatsoever to ObamaCare are the coastal liberal strongholds of California, Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Predictably, the District of Columbia also has no objections to the individual mandate. With numbers like these, the states are in a position to amend the Constitution regardless of how the Supreme Court rules. History has shown that even the threat of an Article V convention has usually been sufficient to pressure Congress to respond to the will of the people.

President Obama entered office with no real leadership experience and an ideological obsession with reshaping the very essence of American life. Ironically, Obama's allies in Congress and the media who proclaimed the "historic" achievement of health care reform will be proven correct, although not in the way they had hoped. The combination of incompetence and hubris that came together in the failed ObamaCare legislation will be remembered forever as the centerpiece of Obama's failed presidency.

Render unto Caesar

2011-10-17T17:53:00.000-04:00

As Americans, we hold religious freedom and the freedom of conscience as the most essential of all rights. The First Amendment protects the freedoms of speech, assembly, press, and protest all in their own right, but at their heart these rights all depend on the basic right of belief. At Mass this past Sunday, the Gospel reading centered on Jesus' command to the Pharisees and the Herodians to, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." Almost two thousand years later, this is an important insight into the debate over separation of church and state in our country.

Whether by requiring taxpayer funded abortions in the healthcare law and by executive order, allowing military chaplains to perform same-sex marriages, or by providing taxpayer funding to openly political groups like Planned Parenthood, the Obama Administration has waged an all-out assault on traditional Christian--and especially Catholic--belief. Indeed, while many of President Obama's initiatives have met with failure, his attack on religious freedom has been devastatingly successful.

Meanwhile, the persecution of Christians by liberals has reached a new low as the Occupy Wall Street protests have spread to Europe with a new decidedly anti-Christian twist. Whether in the Soviet Union, Castro's Cuba, or the anarchist protests of our day, left-wing politicians have always been hostile to religion. Obama appears to be no different. Although nominally a Christian, he has nevertheless provided encouragement, if not an outright endorsement, to the Occupiers' reign of terror.

Even for non-Christians and non-believers, the lesson of history is clear. When a democracy is intolerant of different views, disaster and tragedy soon follows. In one especially vivid example, Ken Burns' recent documentary demonstrates that the deadly consequences of prohibition were in large part fueled by religious persecution. When a minority is persecuted, it is never long before the majority begins to suffer as well. As our laws encroach more and more into the private sphere of our daily lives, the danger only increases.

In all this, we can look to the example of Thomas More who was forced to choose between allegiance to his king and to his faith. When King Henry VIII made it a crime to deny his supremacy as the head of the Church of England, Thomas More stood fast to his faith as a Catholic. Throughout his life, More was obsessed with the meaning of virtue. In his study of theology, philosophy, and the law, he came to believe that above all, virtue cannot exist without integrity. In the end, he chose to die rather than sacrifice his integrity.

Whether Christian or not, pro-life or pro-choice, pro-gay marriage or not, we have a duty as Americans to be tolerant of the views of others, but it does not mean we should accept the views of those with whom we disagree. Although it is inevitable that the government will do things that are objectionable--even to a majority of the people--it is also imperative that the government does not violate the essential freedom of belief. It is one thing to pay taxes for dubious government projects, but it is quite another when the government uses tax dollars to persecute those who pay the bill.

In Defense of Christopher Columbus

2011-10-11T11:56:00.001-04:00

Landing of Columbus by John Vanderlyn from the U.S. Capitol Rotunda

With each passing year, a vocal minority uses Columbus Day as an occasion to clamor for the rebranding of the holiday as “Native American Day,” if not its outright abolition. Aside from cute slogans about colonialism and Columbus’ accidental discovery of the New World, there is little substance to these objections. It is true that Columbus did not prove the earth was round and he was not the first person to set foot in America. However, for good or for ill, Columbus’ voyages changed the course of history.

The principal objection is that Columbus symbolizes a legacy of genocide and brutality that we should not celebrate. However, the Europeans were no worse than the native peoples. In particular, the early Spanish explorers documented with horror the practices of human sacrifice and cannibalism by the Aztecs and other indigenous cultures. If roles were reversed and the Aztecs had discovered Europe instead of the other way around, the clash of civilizations would have been just as brutal and bloody.

Alternatively, the tired cliché of our time is that Christopher Columbus did not discover America because there were people already here. However, just because a thing is seen does not mean it is understood. Before Benjamin Franklin’s famous kite experiment, people knew that lightning existed, but they did not understand its significance. In the same way, the native peoples of the Americas did not realize that they inhabited a continent in a larger world until Columbus made contact in 1492.

That said, one could reasonably argue that the credit should go to Leif Ericson, who set foot on Newfoundland around the year 1000. However, Ericson was illiterate, and the only accounts of his voyage that survive were passed down by oral tradition for several centuries before being written down, by which time the only Norse settlement in North America had long since been abandoned. In contrast, Columbus was an expert navigator who kept detailed accounts of his voyages so that others could follow his route.

As a result, Columbus is just as important to the history of America as the first Thanksgiving. There are hundreds of towns, cities, mountains, rivers, roads, parks, museums, schools, monuments, statues, and sports teams—and even the ill-fated Space Shuttle Columbia—all dedicated to the memory of the man who truly discovered the American continent. We can lament that the early European explorers did not share our modern cultural sensibilities and candidly admit to Columbus’ personal failings, but as Americans, we cannot condemn Columbus’ achievement without condemning our entire existence.

Newton's Apple

2011-10-06T10:23:00.000-04:00

A visionary is someone who has foresight beyond the horizon that limits the vision of those around him. This word is often thrown around carelessly, but in the case of Steve Jobs, who passed away last night, this description is truly appropriate. As Issac Newton once wrote in a letter to a friend, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” The same can be said of Steve Jobs, who was in some ways the Issac Newton of the personal computer.

Issac Newton realized the impact of Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler while his contemporaries were still trapped in a geocentric Aristotelian universe. Similarly, Steve Jobs realized the true impact of the graphical user interface, the internet, and wireless communications. Ironically, the two inventions for which Jobs will be most remembered were invented by other people, but it was Steve Jobs who would bring these ideas to their fullest potential.

The graphical user interface was developed by Xerox. In 1979, Jobs was given a glimpse of the Xerox Alto which Xerox had stored away in a back room. Xerox failed to grasp the potential of the personal computer and by the time Xerox began to take interest, Jobs had already created the enormously successful Apple Macintosh. For the first time, the power of the computer was available to ordinary non-technical people at an affordable price.

Similarly, before there were smart phones, there was the aptly named Apple Newton, which was created in the 1990’s while Jobs was running Pixar. The CEO of Apple at the time, John Sculley, even coined the phrase, “personal digital assistant.” Unfortunately, the Newton tried to accomplish too much, too quickly, and was limited by the high cost of miniaturized components at the time. Also, the Newton was created before cell phone networks had the capability to provide wireless internet connectivity. As a result, it was an enormous flop.

After his return to Apple in 1996, Jobs aggressively restructured the company to focus on its core strengths. As always, the hallmark of Jobs genius was the simplicity and intuitive nature of his products. The iPod and iPhone can trace their beginnings back to the Xerox Alto and the Apple Newton, but it was Jobs who built on the work of others to make these ideas attractive, profitable, easy to use, and ubiquitous. In short, Steve Jobs put the internet in your pocket.

Due Process, John Wilkes Booth, and Anwar al-Awlaki

2011-10-04T13:09:00.004-04:00

Judge, Jury, and Executioner?

Last week, a drone operated by the Central Intelligence Agency and U.S. military Special Forces dispatched Anwar al-Awlaki to meet his maker. Awlaki was a radical imam who recruited and encouraged terrorists to attack the United States, but he was also an American citizen. Leading Libertarian figures claim this incident represents a dangerous threat to the right of due process, but a look at history shows us that it is not without precedent. According to Wikipedia:

Before dawn on April 26[, 1865], the soldiers caught up with the fugitives, who were hiding in Garrett's tobacco barn. David Herold surrendered, but [John Wilkes] Booth refused [Colonel Everton] Conger's demand to surrender, saying "I prefer to come out and fight"; the soldiers then set the barn on fire. As Booth moved about inside the blazing barn, Sergeant Boston Corbett shot him.

Colonel Conger, a Union intelligence officer, immediately arrested Corbett for violating his orders to take Booth alive. During the investigation, Corbett claimed that he saw Booth moving toward his weapons, but the other witnesses disputed this account, stating only that Booth was moving around inside the barn, likely searching for some means of escape from his desperate and hopeless position.

Despite the evidence that Corbett shot Booth in cold blood, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton dismissed the charges against Corbett stating, "The rebel is dead. The patriot lives." Corbett was later given an honorable discharge from the Army but later descended into madness, likely caused by the use of mercury which was then common in his civilian profession as a hatter.

Although the 14th Amendment did not exist at the time of Booth's death, due process rights were guaranteed to all American citizens at the federal level by the 5th Amendment. However, civil rights were sharply curtailed in the occupied confederate states following the end of the war. In particular, thousands of Virginians were arrested and their property seized without due process for providing support and aid to the Confederacy.

The fate of Anwar al-Awlaki is remarkably similar. Although an American citizen, like Booth, he joined forces with al Qaeda in order to commit acts of terror against the country of his birth. On the other hand Booth was given a chance to surrender, whereas Awlaki was blasted away by a robotic drone. In both cases, due process was likely violated.

After the death of John Wilkes Booth, the country did not descend into totalitarianism. Quite to the contrary, passage of landmark legislation with the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution greatly expanded the protection of civil liberties which was finally consummated in the civil rights struggles of the 1960's.

Despite the horrors of slavery, civil war, Jim Crow, and segregation, America has emerged from the struggle stronger and freer than before. However, Booth was killed after the war was over, whereas Awlaki was killed at a time when there is no clear end in sight.

Today, al Qaeda is trying to radicalize American citizens so they can use our laws against us. The longer the Global War on Terror drags on, the more our rights will slowly be eroded in the name of "security." As the war goes on, terrorist masterminds like Osama bin Laden, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and Anwar al-Awlaki will devise ever more insidious and diabolical means to attack at the very heart of what it means to be an American.

Rather than the legal implications, the greater concern should be that the use of targeted killings could encourage new recruits to follow in Awlaki's misguided path to "martyrdom." Over the past several years, President Obama has relied heavily on Special Forces to carry out assassinations of Somalian pirates and al Qaeda kingpins instead of engaging our enemies with conventional military resources.

If the death of Awlaki hastens the end of this war, a return to peace, and a higher standard of justice in the future, it is not all bad--and perhaps the deaths of bin Laden and Awlaki will be the fatal blow to al Qaeda that will allow a return to domestic tranquility. But if not, we must reassess and rethink our strategy before the killing of Awlaki ceases to be the exception that proves the rule.

Dvořák in America

2011-09-08T11:50:00.001-04:00

Today is the 170th anniversary of the birth of composer Antonin Dvořák. Celebrations are planned across his native Czech Republic and at the Czech Embassy here in Washington, D.C. throughout this month, but the composer should also be celebrated by all Americans as a personification of America’s greatest ideals and a celebration of American exceptionalism.

For three years, the great composer lived in New York as the directory of the National Conservatory of Music. During that time, he composed a prolific body of works that borrow significantly from American folk-musical traditions. Inspired by Longfellow’s epic Song of Hiawatha, Negro spirituals, and Native American culture, Dvořák created one of the most beloved symphonies of all time—his Symphony Number 9: “From the New World,” as well as several other of his most famous works.

In his brief time in America, Dvořák was immersed in the melting-pot of turn-of-the-century New York. During the 1890’s, almost 10 million people immigrated to the United States from every corner of the globe. In that decade, more than 5,000 people were born during the crossing itself. Different cultures were colliding and mixing in unprecedented ways that have come to define America today.

More than just the good food and music that we most often think of today, the millions of people that arrived on our shores brought different languages, different religions, and different histories. Since then, the multitude of different cultures and beliefs, hopes and fears, villains and heroes have all merged into the great story of America itself. We often take it for granted that so many things that we consider “American” today were actually brought here from other shores.

Baseball is as American as apple pie, but baseball is derived from a British game and apples came eastern Turkey. Jazz and Rock ‘n’ Roll are American art forms, but both are derived from the musical traditions of Africans who were transported here against their will. In our language, our history, our culture, and everything that makes us American, we are truly a nation of immigrants.

As we approach another anniversary—the 10th anniversary of September 11th—it is worth considering that in the World Trade Center, the terrorists indiscriminately attacked people from more than 90 countries and from every continent. It was not just an attack on America, but rather it was an attack on what it means to be an American.

Just as in Dvořák’s time, people came together in New York in search of the American ideals of liberty, equality, and justice. We owe it to the memory of the victims of that dark day and to all who risked everything to start a new life here in the "New World" to continue to strive for those ideals, and pray that all people in the world will someday come to know the particular blessings and prosperity we enjoy as Americans.

The Dream and the Nightmare

2011-08-29T11:14:00.000-04:00

The Prolix Patriot and the Missus took advantage of the beautiful weather yesterday in the wake of Hurricane Irene to visit the new Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial. We knew that there was some controversy surrounding the project, but we were completely unprepared for how truly underwhelming the final product really is. Sadly, the memorial fails to capture the awesome scope of what this Baptist preacher from Atlanta accomplished in his tragically short life.

As we approached the site along the edge of the tidal basin, the Missus offered her initial impression that the large mountain of stone at the center of the memorial might represent America, and the gap in the middle might represent the racial divide, while the large statue of Dr. King himself might represent his message of unity and racial harmony. Sadly, as we approached, the inscription on the half-finished monolith of Dr. King informed us that the monumental stones represented the “mountain of despair.”

Nowhere in the memorial is there any inscription of King’s most famous and uplifting words from the “I Have a Dream” speech. The “mountain of despair” quote is drawn from the speech, but completely misses the transcendent nature of what Dr. King was trying to accomplish. Indeed, in that speech, King himself implored his listeners not to “wallow in the valley of despair.” By memorializing despair, the memorial runs counter to everything that King stood for.

Worse still, although Dr. King was a Baptist minister, there is no mention of God anywhere in the memorial at all. In the Jefferson Memorial, we have the core ideals of America encapsulated in the preamble to the Declaration of Independence. In the Lincoln Memorial, we have the brilliant and haunting eulogy of the Gettysburg Address. Both refer to God as the source of liberty. Why doesn’t the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial include the recurring motif of “all God’s children” that epitomizes King’s achievement as the consummation of Jefferson’s and Lincoln’s ideals?

Instead of celebrating the triumph of the thoroughly Christian values of love, compassion, and charity over hatred and violence, the memorial has an unpleasant similarity to the eerily smiling pharaohs of Abu Simbel. Instead of celebrating the great advances in racial equality, the memorial is a puzzle with half the pieces missing, but Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was not a cryptic figure or an obscure mystic. He spoke plainly and honestly about the need for racial equality. It’s a shame the monument does not live up to that legacy.

Account Overdrawn

2011-07-27T10:22:00.005-04:00

As the debt limit negotiations drag on, the Prolix Patriot was reminded this morning by a cousin-in-law of this passage from Atlas Shrugged:

Then you will see the rise of the double standard – the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money – the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law – men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims – then money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.

"Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion – when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing – when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors – when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you – when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice – you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.

"Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it becomes, marked: 'Account overdrawn.'

The Prolix Patriot does not advocate for a return to the gold standard, as this would be disastrously impractical even in the best case. At the same time, it is fast becoming obvious that our trust in the "full faith and credit" of the U.S. government as the basic measure of value is sorely misplaced. Even if default is avoided this time around, what's to stop future politicians from further corrupting of our entire economic system?

More importantly, insurance companies, mortgage lenders, and retirement funds should not be punished because of the profligacy of our government. The last case is especially wicked. In exchange for a lifetime of honest work, millions of retirees and those nearing retirement are left with nothing except faith in the word of a politician.

It is written in scripture that, "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Alas, our elected officials thirst only for power and don't even serve mammon, and the motto "In God We Trust" stamped on our currency has become a twisted joke.

Presidential On-The-Job Training

2011-07-26T13:49:00.000-04:00

After last night’s speech, one gets a sense that President Obama is desperate to prove to a skeptical public that he is in charge. However, the President fails to understand is that leadership is about more than just giving commands. Leadership requires respect, wisdom, patience, and above all, humility, but Obama never had to learn these hard-earned virtues prior to his inauguration. As Benjamin Franklin once said, "Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other."

Indeed, there are only six other presidents who, like Obama, were elected without any prior executive experience--defined here as either a former governor, military officer, or both:

John Adams
John Quincy Adams
James Buchanan
William Howard Taft
Warren G. Harding
Herbert Hoover

All either lost re-election, or in the case of Harding, died in office. When given a choice, the people clearly decided that they didn't like the results of the first term enough to give these presidents a second chance. Given Obama’s falling poll numbers and unpopular policies, he will have a long and difficult re-election campaign ahead if he is to avoid a similar fate.

Many presidents failed to win re-election despite their experience in the military or the governor’s mansion. Recent one-term presidents like Ford, Carter, and George H.W. Bush all served with distinction in the military. Other one-termers like John Tyler, Andrew Johnson, and Rutherford B. Hayes were all governors. And then of course there is the oddity of Grover Cleveland, who was the only president to lose re-election, but then later come back to win a second non-consecutive term.

It is clear that previous executive experience--even in the presidency itself--does not guarantee re-election. Sometimes events are too powerful for even otherwise great and accomplished men to overcome. Patience and humility are essential virtues when confronted with the unexpected and the uncontrollable. Wise presidents know the limits of the office--and the limits of human nature.

Obama doesn’t have any of these advantages. History shows that lack of experience almost guarantees an unsuccessful presidency. This is even worse for Obama, who is powerless in the face of continuing economic uncertainty. As Vice President Biden once said--as he so often does--in an unguarded moment of unintentional honesty, "The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training."

More Hoover-Carterism

2011-07-20T11:29:00.000-04:00

Almost a year ago in these pages, the Prolix Patriot dubbed the President’s flawed economic policies a new era of “Hoover-Carterism.” Little has changed since then. In the debate over increasing taxes vs. cutting spending, Obama has led the liberal chorus of Cassandras who warn that cuts to spending will harm the economy far worse than increasing taxes, but there is scant evidence to support their claims. Rather, the only real support for Obama’s dubious policies is his own hubris.

Prior to 20th century, government spending was an infinitesimal fraction of anything comparable to today. Even when the government was not the behemoth that it is now, the economy grew far more quickly than it has in recent years. Then, on February 3, 1913, the state of Delaware--which ironically has no income tax of its own--provided the 36th vote for ratification of the 16th Amendment to the Constitution which created the federal income tax. With increased taxation, the federal government also began spending more money. The effects are striking.

Using data from economists at Saint John’s University and Miami University summarized in the chart above, we see that prior to 1913, real growth rates (after accounting for inflation) averaged roughly 4.2% per year. Meanwhile, the economy only contracted in nine out of more than 100 years. At the same time, there were 43 out of 100 years with better than 5% real growth.

After 1913, real growth rates have only averaged 3.4% per year—almost a full percent less each year than pre-income tax levels. At the same time, the number of years with contractions increased from 9 to 22 out of slightly less than a hundred, while the number of years with better than 5% real growth shrank from 43 to only 29. Worse still, after the creation of the modern welfare state in response to the Great Depression, each passing decade has seen declining growth rates. The last year with real GDP growth above 5% was 1984.

Some will argue that it’s not fair to compare growth rates during the 19th and 20th centuries due to technological and societal changes. However, the agricultural innovations and the invention of the microchip of the late 20th century are no less revolutionary--and probably more so--than the invention of the steam engine which launched the 19th century industrial revolution. If anything, growth today from the agricultural and information revolutions should exceed that of the 1800’s. Instead, we live in a time of economic atrophy.

It’s clear from this exercise that as government taxation and spending have increased as a proportion of economic output, the growth of the economy over time has slowed until today, where it is at a virtual standstill. Despite living in an era of unprecedented technological advancement, the economy is so overburdened with taxation, government spending, and debt, that a year with 5% real GDP growth is now rare.

Obama and his liberal allies claim that more taxation and spending will save us from our current plight, but even a cursory look at history shows just how absurd this Keynesian prescription really is. The hard truth is that the government really has no power to help the economy. Despite the best efforts of tinkering technocrats, the economic growth of the last 60 years has been pathetic compared to historical averages. Rather, the lesson of history shows that the government can do very little help the economy, but is quite capable of doing harm.

How Big Is $1.5 Trillion?

2011-07-18T11:43:00.001-04:00

Marinus van Reymerswaele, "Two Tax Collectors"

With talks on raising the debt limit grinding along in Washington, D.C., it's worth considering just how big the problem really is. President Obama and the Democrats have been pushing tax increases as a solution to the nation's budget woes, but don't think for a moment that such increases will only affect the super rich. When the tax man comes around, we're all going to pay the price for the government's profligacy.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the estimated 2011 U.S. federal budget deficit is $1,480 billion dollars. But what does that really mean? Comparing this number to data from the International Monetary Fund, the U.S. federal deficit is roughly the same as the Gross Domestic Product of the following countries and regions:

Canada - $1,574 billion

India - $1,537 billion

Russia - $1,465 billion

Spanish-speaking South America (i.e., except Brazil) - $1,443 billion

Spain - $1,409 billion

Australia and New Zealand combined - $1,375 billion

All of Africa, minus South Africa - $1,357 billion

Consider this when evaluating President Obama's claim that we can solve the nation's fiscal problems if we simply close some tax loopholes for "millionaires." Unless we make major cuts to spending--including entitlements--the scale of the problem is so immense that we are all going to have to bear some of the burden.

A Real Bridge to Nowhere

2011-07-11T11:26:00.002-04:00

During the 2008 election, vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin was pilloried by the media for her initial support of the $400 million “bridge to nowhere” that would have been funded with federal taxpayer dollars. However, this is nothing compared to the vastness of the mounting debt crisis. A few hundred million dollars is laughable compared to a national debt that is measured in tens or even hundreds of trillions.

While discussing the national debt limit with a friend, he compared the looming debt limit to a car that is low on gas. He argued that just as you would not slam on the brakes when you realize that you need to stop for gas in 20 miles, politicians should not treat the debt limit as a crisis. This is a useful metaphor, and perhaps it has some validity, but even if the debt limit is raised, our nation will still be in dire straits.

Yes, the car of state, as it were, is low on gas. However, this is a better analogy for the problems of the private sector economy. Businesses in this country are burdened by a combination of too much uncertainty in all the wrong places plus plenty of bad certainty about over-regulation and excessive taxation. As a result, the economy is sputtering and we are on the verge of an even deeper double-dip recession.

However, the car of state is also being pushed by the government towards a bridge that has not yet been fully built. As in the climactic scene from “Back to the Future III,” we have already passed the point of no return, but unlike the movie, there is no such thing as time travel. The debt problem is not going to go away by itself. Instead of gliding gracefully across a bridge to the future, we are racing towards a bridge to nowhere.

As of today, the official national debt is hovering around $14.3 trillion, or about 98% of gross domestic product. Meanwhile, the balance sheet for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid contains about $115 trillion in red ink, or roughly eight times the current gross domestic product. Even if the government confiscated 100% of all income, assets, and property from every man, woman, and child in the nation, we still wouldn’t have enough to cover our current obligations.

As the deadline for a deal to raise the debt limit nears, the Obama Administration is asking Republicans to balance cuts in spending with tax increases, but increasing the debt limit and cutting spending will accomplish nothing unless politicians have the courage to reform the choking burden of entitlement spending.

Unlike the movie, it doesn’t make any difference if we go over the economic cliff at the magic Hollywood time-travel speed of 88 miles per hour or 5 miles per hour--the end result will be the same. If we are to avoid national bankruptcy, we don’t just need to slam on the brakes; we need to throw the engine into reverse. Current proposals call for cutting between $2 and $4 trillion from spending over the next decade, but unless politicians can add a few zeroes to those figures, we are only delaying the inevitable catastrophe.

Ordinary American Heroes

2011-07-05T13:26:00.001-04:00

Photo Credit: Tracy A Woodward

In honor of Independence Day, the Prolix Patriot and the Missus watched two movies over the weekend listed under the “patriotic” section on the DVR: “Flags of Our Fathers” and “1776.” At first glance, the dark and ugly cynical realism of the former and the lighthearted Technicolor ebullience of the latter would seem to have little in common, but on a deeper level, the two films both explore the very essence of what it means to be an American.

A repeated theme in “Flags” is that the world-famous picture wasn’t actually the first flag-raising. The six men immortalized in bronze on a hill overlooking Washington, D.C. were actually the second group of U.S. Marines to raise a flag at the summit of Suribachi. Similarly, in “1776,” we learn that the vote for independence we celebrate on the fourth was actually achieved on the second. The fourth was simply the day that the Declaration of Independence was made public.

In addition to the temporal confusion surrounding both events that persists to this day, both movies are at pains to remind us that the men who took part in these famous events were ordinary people. A common motif in “Flags” is the facelessness of the Marines fighting at Iwo Jima. The photo of the second flag-raising was especially poignant--and popular--because those men could have been anybody’s son, anybody’s father, or anybody’s brother.

Similarly, men like Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Judge James Wilson of Pennsylvania, Dr. Lyman Hall of Georgia, and Governor Stephen Hopkins of Rhode Island are largely forgotten today despite their impressive accomplishments. Aside from the mostly erroneous dramatizations of these lesser-known figures in “1776,” even the more famous founding fathers were ordinary men with ordinary desires. Thomas Jefferson had an obsession with macaroni and George Washington had a sweet tooth for ice cream--he probably even got brain-freeze from time to time.

Finally, we must remember that the events depicted in both films were only the beginning of the fighting. Just as the flag-raising on Suribachi took place on the fourth day of a battle that would continue for another full month before the island was finally secured on March 26, 1945, so too the Declaration of Independence would not be recognized by Britain until the victory at Yorktown in 1781 and the eventual Treaty of Paris in 1783 which in turn was not ratified until January 14, 1784.

In a larger sense, this is the story of America. The movie “1776” has Benjamin Franklin counseling John Adams at the climactic moment of the plot:

Besides, what would posterity think we were? Demi-gods? We're men, no more no less, trying to get a nation started against greater odds than a more generous God would have allowed. First things first, John. Independence; America. If we don't secure that, what difference will the rest make?

Even though Franklin probably never uttered those exact words, the movie correctly summarize the founders belief that the future of this new thing called the “United States of America” would depend on the care and judgment of future generations. The founders gave us independence and the Constitution, but they left the rest to us.

The sacrifices of those who fought and died on Iwo Jima and in every battle before and since make clear that the fight for freedom is one that never ends. All of us have a duty to never stop fighting for those self-evident rights of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom from persecution and tyranny which were endowed to us by our creator. It is easy to feel patriotic on the Fourth of July. What matters though is what we do on the other 364 days of the year.

Great Expectations

2011-06-24T12:57:00.004-04:00

With this week's announcement of "worse than expected" unemployment numbers, it is worth investigating how often the experts have gotten their predictions wrong. While admittedly an unscientific approach, a comparison of Google search results is a quick and easy way to compare news coverage of the economy. Below are screen captures of the Google results for the phrases "better than expected" and "worse than expected" plus unemployment.

While both searches show an increasing trend over time, this is probably attributable to better access to recent data with the growth of the Internet. On the other hand, there is a clear bias in favor of "worse than expected" economic reports by a margin of about 28,300 to 18,100, or roughly three "bad" stories for every two "good" ones.

In is impossible to predict the future with any certainty, so it's hardly newsworthy when reality fails to meet projected targets. However, we should be concerned when journalists distort uncertain economic predictions in order to manipulate public opinion. If journalists were honest in their reporting, we would expect an even number of articles for better than expected and worse than expected economic performance.

By consistently favoring bad news which undermines consumer confidence, journalists create a self-fulfilling prophecy of negative feedback that makes it all the more difficult for the economy to recover. Worse still, this unsophisticated approach to economics also undermines the vital role of the press in maintaining the educated public which is at the core of republican self-government.

The Hydra's Keeper

2011-06-15T13:24:00.001-04:00

Like the many-headed Hydra of Greek legend, the federal government is a massive and poisonous beast that defies all efforts to control it. Despite Herculean efforts at reforming government over the past several decades, the deep cuts, layoffs, and efficiency gains that were promised have never materialized. Worse still, despite many attempts at reform, the growth of government waste and abuse has only accelerated.

In 1978, President Jimmy Carter fulfilled a campaign promise to make it easier to fire incompetent federal employees with the Civil Service Reform Act. Nevertheless, anybody who has worked for or interacted with the federal government knows that incompetence is still rife. Even under the improved regulations, it still takes months of repeated offenses and endless piles of red tape to get rid of problem employees.

Because of the difficulty of eliminating incompetent civil servants, President Bill Clinton sought to reform the procurement process so that the federal government could more easily hire (and fire) contractors while at the same time eliminating the burden of lavish government benefits and pensions. Despite these changes, it is harder than ever for businesses to win government contracts and the government is spending more than ever on litigation due to conflicts of interest and non-performance.

Then, in 2001, President George W. Bush articulated his President’s Management Agenda, which sought to eliminate underperforming government programs and duplication of effort. Despite ten years under the new guidelines, Congress has created countless new commissions, agencies, and panels of bureaucrats with new powers while President Obama has filled his administration with “czars” for every conceivable pet issue.

Earlier this week, the Obama’s Director of Digital Strategy observed in a blog post that, “an overall online landscape of literally thousands of websites – each focusing on a specific topic or organization – can create confusion and inefficiency” and sets a goal of eliminating half of them. If only the Obama Administration had figured this out sooner we might have been spared the onslaught of new government websites that began with the dubious change.gov, continued with recovery.gov, healthcare.gov, and goes on and on.

While it is refreshing to hear somebody in the Obama Administration talk about making government smaller in some way, the lessons of history are clear: every attempt at reform that originated with the President has met with failure. Congress has overruled attempts at reform by creating new offices, new regulations, and increasing spending.

If we are to bring the vast federal bureaucracy under control, a new mindset is needed in Congress. Instead of creating new laws to tackle problems, Congress needs to revisit the laws that are already on the books and eliminate provisions that aren’t working or are no longer needed. Instead of hiding pet projects in massive 2,000 page omnibus spending bills, every dollar the government spends should be held up to scrutiny and every program should be forced to defend its existence.

Otherwise, the leviathan of government, like the Hydra of myth, will only continue to grow with a plethora of new and even uglier faces.

An International Game of Dreidel

2011-05-20T11:24:00.001-04:00

President Obama announced with great fanfare yesterday his solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict: just rewind the clock to 1967 and everybody will be happy!

There's one big problem with this solution though. Prior to the 1967 six-day war, the territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip that now constitute the Palestinian Authority were controlled by Jordan and Egypt respectively. Thus, prior to 1967, the sum total of Palestinian lands was exactly zilch, zero, nothing, nada, etc.

In essence, Obama is telling one of our closest allies to give up more land to an entity that was created from Israeli territory under the 1993 Oslo Accords. In return, Israel will get...nothing. Even after previous Israeli concessions in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, terrorist attacks have continued unabated. Obama's rhetoric may win points with his UN admirers, but it is not a serious path to peace.

This is reminscent of the old Jewish folktale about Herschel of Ostropol who was fond of playing practical jokes. In one popular re-telling for children, Herschel uses a dreidel and the false logic of "heads I win, tails you lose" to outsmart one of the Hannukah goblins that has been terrorizing a small town. It's a safe bet that the Israelis will not fall for the same trick.

Metro Keeps Opening Doors

2011-05-16T17:07:00.003-04:00

Earlier in these pages, we compared DC's proposed streetcar network and existing Metro system to the original DC Transit, circa 1958 when the system was at its zenith.

Today, prompted by a conversation with the author of the Blog of the Courtier, we endeavor to show how mass transit is a critical ingredient for population density. Using the same streetcar map and comparing it to the 2010 census population data for each of the 180-odd census tracts within the District, we can see an almost uncanny conincidence betweena areas of high density and the original streetcar network.

Prior to the 1960's, there were few bridges across the Anacostia river, so large parts of far Southeast were never served by streetcars. However, at the same time, large areas of Northeast D.C. which are not served by Metro had extensive streetcar service.

Intuitively, it makes sense that density conincides with streetcars. Proponents of bus service argue that routes can be changed easily to accomodate changing trends and population shifts--indeed, Metro has a page dedicated to bus route changes, but this is exactly why bus lines do not promote density. Metro can decide on a whim to reroute the bus line that used to take you straight to your office.

On the other hand, a streetcar or subway line cannot be moved very easily, so developers and residents have confidence that they will continue to have regular transit service. Even after more than 50 years, the only areas of higher density that have emerged in the district are the pockets in far Southeast that are now served by Metro.

How To Lie With Statistics

2011-04-20T15:48:00.001-04:00

Let us ignore some of the more glaring inaccuracies with the new "Tax Receipt" calculator that was created by the White House on Monday and instead focus on the more subtle manipulation of the data to accomplish President Obama's political goal of shifting attention away from entitlement reform.

Using the White House's default setting for a family of four making $80,000/year, the application helpfully breaks down how much of this hypothetical family's taxes go to different categories. However, what immediately jumps out is that the (large) portion of taxes that go to Social Security and Medicare are not included in the percentages even though they are counted towards the total spending at the bottom.

By omitting entitlements, the percentage for defense spending is inflated drastically so that it appears as the largest share of spending, just narrowly edging out the next largest category--health care. However, if we include entitlements, the picture changes dramatically. According to the White House numbers, defense spending is really only 12% of overall spending, not 26%.

Also, if we look at the broad categories of welfare spending vs. government spending on constitutionally enumerated powers like defense, law enforcement, and foreign relations, we can easily see that spending on the welfare state in this country accounts for more than 80% of the hypothetical family's tax payments for that year.

Worse still, if we conjecture that the parents of this family are under the age of 40, it is almost guaranteed that neither parent will ever see a dime of the money that they are currently paying into the system, because Social Security and Medicare will be completely bankrupt and interest on the national debt will have overtaken non-defense discretionary spending by the time they retire. Meanwhile, their children will be left with a debt they will never be able to pay down.

The hard truth that Obama doesn't want you to know is that the 20th century welfare state is at its breaking point. The welfare programs currently in place benefit some, but unless Congress is able to implement drastic reforms, these programs will cease to function within our lifetimes. The choice now is clear: we can follow President Obama in ignoring and obfuscating the problem, or we can have the courage to make serious reforms.

Your Government In Action, Part 7

2011-04-08T10:13:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since we last had one of these. In today's installment, you have to read the fine print to discover it's not actually a mistake. Tax Day will be postponed this year due to a District of Columbia holiday. If you've ever seen one of those D.C. license plates that says "Taxation Without Representation," now you know that it's a lie.

What the Government Shutdown Means For You

2011-04-06T14:09:00.001-04:00

With the threat of a federal government shutdown growing with each passing day, it’s important to understand what functions would and would not continue operating after this Friday if Democrats and Republicans can’t reach a last-minute compromise. The list below is by no means complete, but provides at least a partial accounting of some of the far-reaching effects of a shutdown:

WON’T SHUTDOWN: the US Postal Service is considered self-funding, so mail will continue to be delivered. However, paychecks for millions of government employees and contractors will not be sent out, so postal workers will have slightly less mail to sort through.

WILL SHUTDOWN: all national museums, parks, memorials, cemeteries, and historical sites will be closed to the public. The Park Police will still patrol the monuments to ensure that nobody takes any pictures or listens to music on their headphones though.

WON’T SHUTDOWN: the IRS will continue to collect taxes, so don’t feel like you can slack off as tax day approaches next Friday, but if the government owes you money, don’t hold your breath waiting for your tax return. Meanwhile, The Federal Reserve will still continue to print worthless currency to fund the existing debts of the United States.

WILL SHUTDOWN: all non-essential government offices will be closed and it will be a fire-able offence for government employees to attempt to do any work during a shutdown. Some agencies are even exploring ways to remotely shut down the ubiquitous blackberry phones wielded by government employees.

WON’T SHUTDOWN: Metro will continue to run at full capacity even if all the trains are empty. Plush Union contracts will also guarantee that even though nobody is riding metro, senior employees will continue to accrue overtime hours while not fixing the broken escalators at Farragut West.

WILL SHUTDOWN: all personnel aboard the International Space Station will be requested to enter deep hibernation until the budget situation is resolved. Operation of the space station will be transitioned over to control by a new computer system called “HAL 9000.”

WON’T SHUTDOWN: the Sun will continue to shine. US Department of Agriculture farm subsidies will continue to be funded under the “provision of payments” clause which defines essential government functions. However, all federally-subsidized solar power plants will have to be pointed away from the Sun, unless the weather is cloudy.

WILL SHUTDOWN: the Moon will go dark and the tides of the ocean will cease. Functions of the commerce department relating to measurement of oceanographic phenomena will be suspended and as mentioned previously, NASA will be closed. During the shutdown, only the dark side of the Moon will be visible. The Earth will also stop spinning and fire and death will rain down from the heavens.

The Last Day of Winter

2011-03-08T15:45:00.003-05:00

For Catholics and many Protestants, today is the last day before the fasting and penance of Lent. Known variously as Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras, or Shrove Tuesday, this is a day that started as a celebration and anticipation for the joy of Easter but has lately become another commercialized excuse for bad behavior. However, what many people have forgotten is that today is also the last day of winter--or at least it should be.

A popular urban legend has it that spring does not begin until March 20 this year. In recent years, calendar makers and the mainstream media have popularized the misguided idea that the equinox is the precise moment that winter ends and spring begins even though the changing of the seasons is a natural and gradual process that cannot be exactly predicted from one year to the next.

As the name implies, March is a month of changes, so instead of an abrupt switch at March 20, evidence that the process of spring has already begun is everywhere. That process is reminiscent of the adage that March “comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.” The high winds and freezing cold of February are already giving way to the verdure of spring.

We now live in an age where, for the first time in the history of the world, a majority of people live in cities and are detached from nature, so it is easy to understand why this urban legend has become so popular. Worse still, we are now subjected to faux-intellectual clichés such as the perennial, “it’s snowing in December but it’s not even winter yet.”

Such oxymoronic statements are evidence that the choice of any particular date for the beginning of each season is at best arbitrary. However, if we must choose a date, Ash Wednesday seems as good a choice as any, especially if we consider that the word “Lent” is derived from the old Germanic word for "spring." In the Mid-Atlantic region, this is a particularly good fit for the reasons below.

From a meteorological standpoint, the coldest and snowiest days of the year run from the first week in December to the first week in March:

1) In the Mid-Atlantic region, the average daily temperature drops to its lowest level almost exactly at the midpoint between December 1 and March 1, not at the midpoint between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox. Although temperatures are different, the midpoint of the temperature curve is similar in other regions.

2) Comparing daily temperatures for December and March, almost every Day in December is colder than the same day in March.

3) Average daily snowfall is highest in the throughout the months of December to February, not from December 20 to March 20.

From a botanical standpoint, deciduous plants start growing in late February and go into dormancy around early December:

4) The first blooms of spring--especially crocuses and daffodils--can be found in early to mid-March, or sometimes even late February, well before the vernal equinox.

5) Depending on location, the changing leaves achieve their peak color in late September through early November and start to fall very soon thereafter.

6) The average date of the last overnight frost of spring, and thus the time for planting crops ranges from mid-February in the South to mid-May in the Mountain West. Thus, the equinox is actually closer to the midpoint of spring from an agricultural standpoint.

From a cultural and historical standpoint, the season of spring has always included most or all of the month of March and possibly even February, whereas Summer is understood to begin in June, May, or even late April depending on who you ask:

7) Groundhog Day (or Candlemas) which is celebrated on February 2 is a tradition which sometimes results in a proclamation of “early spring.” Although the predictions of Punxatawney Phil and his cousins are wildly inaccurate when compared to actual weather data, the tradition is nevertheless a recognition that mild weather sometimes comes before March 1 and certainly long before the vernal equinox.

8) As mentioned above, Lent, which is derived from the Germanic root for "spring," begins between February 4 and March 10, but the average date of Ash Wednesday is on February 21.

9) Especially in the South, Easter is the first day it is considered acceptable to wear white pants, shoes, etc. which are traditionally associated with summer. The average date of Easter is on April 8.

10) Similarly, the feast of the Nativity of St. John is a popular holiday celebrated across Europe in late June which is known as midsummer, implying that spring has already ended and summer has begun long before the summer solstice.

11) The name of March comes from ancient Rome, when March was the first month of the year and named Martius after Mars, the Roman god of war. In Rome, where the climate is Mediterranean, March was the first month of spring, a logical point for the beginning of the year as well as the start of the military campaign season.

12) Data going back to 1974 indicate that retail prices for gasoline are higher on average for the months of May through September because the summer months are traditionally associated with car trips and vacations.

Finally, from a bureaucratic standpoint, no agency or body of the United States government has ever declared the solstices and the equinoxes as the “official” start and end of the seasons:

13) According to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration which falls under the U.S. Department of Commerce, Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to November 30 and thus coincides exactly with the traditional dates for summer and fall.

14) According to the Energy Information Administration which falls under the U.S. Department of Energy, the “winter heating season” runs from October 1 through March 31 and thus corresponds to the traditional dates for winter, with some extra padding on either end. The midpoint of the winter heating season is December 31.

15)The U.S. Naval Observatory which falls under the U.S. Department of Defense, provides a listing of the exact times for the equinoxes, solstices, perihelion, and aphelion which is titled “Earth’s Seasons” but does not state that these astronomical phenomena are in any way the “official” start or end of the seasons.

16) By law, Daylight Saving Time (DST) now starts on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November. Prior to 2007, when the new law went into effect, DST started on the last Sunday in April and ended on the last Sunday in October. Just as the government definition of “winter heating season” includes padding on both ends of the traditional season, so too does DST includes padding on either end of the traditional summer season. The midpoint of DST is in mid-July.

In summary, the folklore of the equinox as the first day of spring is a modern idea which did not become fashionable until very recently. The idea has been popularized in the last few decades, because the exact times of certain phenomena are variable and can only be noted after they have occurred. At the same time the dates of many phenomena such as the last frost or peak fall leaves vary across the vastness of our continent.

However, instead of relying on the false precision of the astronomical equinox, we should base our understanding of the seasons on natural phenomena that we observe around us. Indeed, at this moment here in Virginia, the first tender green leaves and pink buds are coming out on the trees and shrubberies, the grass is starting to turn green again, and chirping birds are once again heralding the arrival of sunrise. Regardless of what the calendar makers would have you believe, spring is here.

The Man with Two Faces

2011-03-02T12:32:00.000-05:00

With an announcement today of a “federal property board” to evaluate and propose the sale of federal assets, President Obama demonstrated again his impeccable gift for exceptionally poor timing.

"For too long red tape and politics have prevented the government from moving forward on these fronts," the official said, adding that the board was expected to return $15 billion over the first three years in operation.

The White House estimates there are around 14,000 federal properties designated as excess, plus thousands of others which are either no longer needed, or are underutilized.

Democrat Obama, under intense pressure from his Republican opponents to cut government spending and narrow a budget deficit estimated at $1.645 trillion this fiscal year, is trying to squeeze savings by making the government more efficient.

This announcement comes just as members of Congress from Montana and Idaho are bringing legislation to the floor that would require Congressional approval before permanently closing federal lands to mineral and energy exploration.

Rehberg said his bill is needed because it was revealed last year that the Department of the Interior was planning to declare millions of acres in Montana as a national monument. "This 'Treasured Landscapes' plan relied heavily on input from a few special interest groups and seeks to abuse the Antiquities Act for the presidential designation of National Monuments across the west, including Montana," Rehberg said.

Thus, the Obama Administration is proposing the sale of federal property—although presumably only in urban areas—to generate a mere $15 billion over the next three years while at the same time closing off millions of acres of federal land to lucrative uses such as lumber, mining, cattle grazing, and energy drilling. According to the Bureau of Land Management’s own website:

The public lands provide significant economic benefits to the Nation and to states and counties where these lands are located. Revenues generated from public lands make BLM one of the top revenue-generating agencies in the Federal government. In 2007, for instance, BLM’s onshore mineral leasing activities will generate an estimated $4.5 billion in receipts from royalties, bonuses, and rentals that are collected by the Minerals Management Service. Approximately half of these revenues will be returned to the States where the mineral leasing occurred.

A savings of $15 billion is trivial compared to the overall deficit and is made even more laughable when compared to the loss of federal revenue for the use of public lands. The duplicity of this maneuver is enough to shock even the most cynical observer of national politics.

Updated: Bonfires of Liberty are Spreading

2011-02-17T16:38:00.000-05:00

Ignited by the successful "Jasmine Revolution" in Tunisia and then fueled by the successful ouster of Mubarak in Egypt, the bonfires of liberty are spreading and bringing light to every corner of the Arab world. After long suffering, the people of the region know that their time has come, and they are choosing freedom. Even Iran and Libya are seeing a reignition of protests after past suppression.

The policy choices for the Obama Administration will be difficult in the short term, but overall, these democratic revolutions are in the best interests of American foreign policy. By supporting the fight for freedom everywhere, we can regain our reputation as a force for good in the world and also remind ourselves of what is at stake on our own shores.

Mubarak's Lie

2011-02-03T11:32:00.002-05:00

Bloody clashes in Cairo yesterday and today suggest that President Hosni Mubarak is gambling that he can convince his people and his erstwhile Western allies that his regime is the only thing standing between relative calm and stability and the catastrophe of a full-blown Islamic revolution similar to Iran under the Ayatollah or Afghanistan under the Taliban. However, this is a false choice both for Egypt, and for Muslim nations around the world.

After September 11, America embarked on a war against the Taliban which under the so-called "Bush Doctrine" expanded into a commitment of the United States to fight Islamic extremism anywhere it is found. Opponents of this strategy argue that America should not and cannot force Western values on Muslim nations and they are correct, but only just. Liberals in America have either forgotten or rejected the notion that religion can coexist and thrive with a secular democratic government.

In truth, there are not two choices for Egypt and for the Muslim world, but three. Rather than making the false choice between theocratic and secular forms of totalitarianism, the Egyptian people can learn from the example of new democracies in Indonesia, Afghanistan, and Iraq, where the rule of law and basic human rights are upheld in parallel with a religious understanding of morality. In fact, until recently, this was the basis of democracy right here in America.

The global war on terror is more than just a fight between the West and Islamic extremism. There is another front of this war which is being waged here at home. We are not only fighting for freedom in the face of theocratic tyrants who would return the world to a mediaeval understanding of Islamic law, but we are also fighting for the core principles of classical liberal governance here at home in the face of an overwhelming and unprecedented expansion of government power.

Whether in the debates over TSA’s enhanced screening procedures or the ill-conceived "kill switch" that is again being considered in the back halls of the Capitol, the technocratic forces of modern liberalism (or progressivism if you prefer) are just as much of a threat to our freedoms as the fanatical hijackers and bombers who would slaughter the innocent. If basic rights are not protected by the force of law, it does not matter whether the government is secular or religious.

Freedom is a powerful thing, but it also demands that we have the dedication to our principles to allow people to make the wrong choices. Rather than attempting to control peoples’ lives through the endless bureaucracy of Bloomberg’s nanny state in New York or the death squads of the Islamic morality police in Iran and Saudi Arabia, the fundamental principle of Western liberal democracy is that given a healthy religious sense of morality, the people will make the right choice between good and evil.

Instead of the false choice between Hosni Mubarak and Osama bin Ladin, the Egyptian people know that there is a third way where freedom and religion can coexist peacefully. Why do we in the West doubt them? Indeed, on our money and in the pledge to our flag, we have a constant reminder that ours is "One nation, under God." Perhaps we need that reminder now more than ever.

Bonfires of Liberty

2011-01-31T15:41:00.000-05:00

The map above depicts countries that have successfully--or in the case of Iran, unsuccessfully--rejected dictators and instead adopted democratic forms of government. To borrow from Samuel Adams, the protests we are witnessing today are bonfires of liberty in the midst of a desert; not of sand, but of human dignity and freedom.

In his Second Inaugural, George W. Bush spoke about the need for America to promote freedom and democracy in the world as the most powerful antidote to the extremist ideology of hatred responsible for the atrocity of September 11. Ten years on, we are witnessing a wave of protests throughout the Muslim world in opposition to the forces of tyranny.

Perhaps the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the success of democracy there has been an inspiration for others in the region who seek freedom. Certainly, nobody can deny the power of American inventions like Facebook and Twitter which have allowed people to circumvent the censorship and oppression of their governments and to rise up together.

The question now is, "What will Obama do?" Will he rise to this moment and stand with those who seek their freedom, or will he remain silent as he did when protests erupted in Iran? It will be the greatest failure of his presidency if these nascent revolutions are allowed to be crushed--or worse, give rise to fundamentalist regimes like the Taliban--because of his indifference.

All The News That’s Fit To Print

2011-01-11T13:07:00.001-05:00

An example of overheated political rhetoric.

While Congresswoman Giffords struggles for her life at a Tucson hospital, the New York Times carries on the timeless tradition of yellow journalism which was famously summarized by the quote, “You supply the pictures, and I’ll supply the war.” In what purports to be a straight news story, the writer flogs the partisan storyline that the deranged assassin, Jared Loughner, was driven to murder by the tone of political rhetoric—particularly that of the Tea Party (emphasis added):

…Over the past year, Ms. Giffords struggled in a brutal re-election campaign during which her opponent appeared in a Web advertisement holding an assault weapon. The district has become a caldron [sic] of divisions over government spending, immigration, health care and Barack Obama.

Today, the Eighth District stands apart as one of the most emotionally and politically polarized in the nation.

The rampage on Saturday that left six dead and Ms. Giffords gravely wounded may prove to be an isolated act of violence by a mentally disturbed man. The suspect attended at least one of Ms. Giffords’s town meetings before the event Saturday.

Still, the shootings came after a disconcerting run of episodes in this district of mountains and desert, raising temperatures here in a way that some of Ms. Giffords’s friends argue fed an atmosphere that might encourage violence.

According to the New York Times, Jesse Kelly—a former Marine—appeared at a campaign event with an M-16. Although this did not seem to provoke any media comment at the time, liberal pundits are now grasping on the event as proof that the gunman was inspired to kill because of it. Worse still, the use of the weasel-word “may” in the paragraph above suggests that there is some doubt that Loughner is anything but a psychopath who acted alone.

That being said, Jesse Kelly was not the only candidate in Arizona’s eighth district who appeared with a gun during the campaign. As the Washington Times reported last April, Giffords herself was photographed with an assault rifle, which the local media used to tout Giffords' bona fides on border security during the 2010 campaign.

Mr. Kelly challenged the Democrat incumbent [i.e., Giffords] for posing with an AK-47 assault rifle in an Arizona Daily Star article, with a caption that read "Today's been just another day on the border for hard line U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords." The lawmaker wears a dark jacket and brandishes the weapon, with a half dozen fatigues-clad soldiers in the background.

"It turns out the picture has nothing to do with border security and was taken during a trip to South Asia in 2009…"

The Washington Times adds that The Arizona Star removed the photo in question after the reporter who wrote the misleading caption admitted his error.

Of course, the New York Times does not mention this in their coverage of the supposed “climate of hate.” This omission can only be part of a deliberate strategy to promote the storyline that Republicans—and Republicans alone—are the party of extreme rhetoric. This ranks with the standard of “fake but accurate” that the Times employed after the Dan Rather memo scandal. In the end, that sad episode showed the world that the facts are always the Times’ undoing.

The repeated abuse of journalistic integrity suggests that the New York Times’ motto “all the news that’s fit to print” should be amended to include “and much that isn’t.” By using the tragic death of six people and the attempted assassination of a member of Congress to advance a shamelessly partisan agenda, the New York Times proves that they have no quibbles about whether or not their news reporting is fit for publication.

The Irrationality of Evil

2011-01-10T14:00:00.001-05:00

Even as the fate of Congresswoman Giffords was still clouded in rumor and uncertainty, with erroneous reports of her death circulating on NPR and CNN, liberal pundits and lawmakers quickly grasped on remarks from the Pima County Sheriff, Clarence Dupnik, suggesting the assassin was somehow driven to kill by overheated political discourse. As the Washington Post reported yesterday:

"There's reason to believe that this individual may have a mental issue. And I think people who are unbalanced are especially susceptible to vitriol," he said during his televised remarks. "People tend to pooh-pooh this business about all the vitriol we hear inflaming the American public by people who make a living off of doing that. That may be free speech, but it's not without consequences."

Calmer voices have noted that the assassin, Jared Lee Loughner, was a deranged sociopath and that his ramblings on MySpace and YouTube have little, if anything, to do with politics. Loughner cited The Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf as some of his favorite books, but unlike other historical assassins such as Lee Harvey Oswald and John Wilkes Booth, there is little to suggest that Loughner was acting out in support of any particular ideology.

The rush by liberals to pin the blame for Loughner’s actions on our political system is not new. Pundits always seem to feel qualified to take on the role of amateur psychologist whenever our nation is struck by a tragedy of this magnitude. For example, in his biography of John F. Kennedy, Arthur Schlesinger pinned the blame for the Kennedy Assassination squarely on the shoulders of the American public, and particularly conservatives:

The tension and anonymity of urban life had further sharpened the impulse to violence. Every day the television industry instructed the children of the nation how easily problems could be solved by revolver shots. Fortifying the “Gunsmoke” ethic was a mood of national self-righteousness—the happy conviction of American uniqueness, which smoothed out and washed away the cruelties and sins of the past…

For liberals like Dupnik and Schlesinger, it is impossible to accept that despite our best efforts, good and evil will always exist in the world. One of the tenets of the liberal agenda is that all problems of society and the human condition can be solved by government. Each person is nothing more than a machine, responding to the external stimuli of the world around us. Thus, a deranged killer like Oswald or Loughner is not merely evil, but must be the product of our "culture of violence."

However, the sad truth is that there will never be a rational explanation for what happened this past Saturday. Although many people who interacted with Loughner suspected he had serious mental problems, they could never have known where the unraveling of his troubled mind would lead. Rather than trying to pin the blame on larger forces, we must accept that this tragedy is so supremely evil precisely because of its irrationality.

An Error of Amendment

2011-01-07T15:52:00.000-05:00

In today's Washington Post, columnist Dana Milbank proves just how obtuse he can be when he applies himself:

The idea of reading the Constitution aloud was generated by the Tea Party as a way to re-affirm lawmakers' fealty to the framers, but in practice it did the opposite. In deciding to omit objectionable passages that were later altered by amendment, the new majority jettisoned "originalist" and "constructionist" beliefs and created - dare it be said? - a "living Constitution" pruned of the founders' missteps. Nobody's proud of the three-fifths compromise, but how can we learn from our founding if we aren't honest about it?

It has probably been said that politics is the greatest sport in America, but if we were to follow Milbank's logic in another great American pastime, referees at football games would have to first call plays according to obsolete rules and then reverse their calls at some random point later in the game. Imagine the unsettling nature of the ref coming on the field during the third quarter to reverse a pass interference call that happened half an hour earlier?

Just as refs keep both teams honest in sports, Republicans chose to read the Constitution aloud in order to remind delinquent Democrats and squishy Republicans that there is actually a set of rules that limit what Congress can do. Instead of reading straight through the Constitution with "track changes mode" enabled, the Republicans chose to present the document in its current form, thus highlighting their commitment to consistent application of the rules.

All of this presents a stark contrast to the anything goes mentality of the last Congress. During the fight over ObamaCare, then-Speaker Pelosi was asked by a reporter if the Democrats' health reform proposal was constitutional. Her response was, "Are you serious?!"

Yes Nancy. We're serious.

Tax Reform and the "Hidden" Marriage Penalty

2010-12-10T11:58:00.001-05:00

Stop the presses!!! Longtime readers know that the Prolix Patriot is not usually a fan of President Obama. However, today's New York Times suggests that massive losses for his party in 2010 are bringing the President around to more reasonable policies with genuine bipartisan appeal:

While administration officials cautioned on Thursday that no decisions have been made and that any debate in Congress could take years, Mr. Obama has directed his economic team and Treasury Department analysts to review options for closing loopholes and simplifying income taxes for corporations and individuals, though the study of the corporate tax system is farther along, officials said.

The objective is to rid the code of its complex buildup of deductions, credits and exemptions, thereby broadening the base of taxes collected and allowing for lower rates — much like a bipartisan majority on Mr. Obama’s debt-reduction commission recommended last week in its final blueprint for reducing the debt through 2020.

Republicans have made much hay over provisions such as the "marriage penalty" which was supposedly abolished as part of the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. However, the graphic above shows that even after doubling the standard deduction for married couples, the tax code is still extremely unfair for married couples, especially for people with modest incomes.

In the graphic, the green and purple bands represent tax savings for married couples vs. the amount they would have owed Uncle Sam if they each filed as singles. Conversely, the red and blue bands represent an increased tax burden for the couple after celebrating their nuptials. From this, we can see that the current tax code punishes couples with similar incomes--even without the massive increases that will go into effect for 2011 if Congress fails to extend the current rates.

For hardworking parents who each bring home $25,000 a year in taxable income, the net tax savings from getting married is exactly zero. Then, for two people who each bring home a taxable income of $40,000 a year before marriage, their taxes will actually increase by 10 dollars a year after saying, "I do." Meanwhile, if a millionaire is betrothed to a pauper, his or her taxes will actually decrease by thousands of dollars each year.

Of course, liberals can take consolation that if couples both make six-figure salaries, they will really get taken for a ride at tax time. If two people each make $110,000 a year and are thinking of getting married, they are actually better off staying single to the tune of $1,300 a year. If you think the wedding reception is going to be expensive, just multiply the increased tax burden by 20, 30, or even 50 years of wedded bliss!

Bottom line: whether a couple is earning a modest income or is at the top of the income ladder, the tax code punishes hard working families with dual incomes and rewards single-income families--especially the super rich--with higher tax savings. Given that the majority of American families have two incomes, meaningful tax reform that rewards hard work is long overdue. If Obama wants to make good on his promise to lower taxes for the middle class, abolishing the hidden marriage penalty would be a good place to start.

Belated Thanksgiving Trivia

2010-12-09T13:34:00.001-05:00

The next time you're on an eight-hour flight from Amsterdam to Boston, and you hear the pilot come on the intercom to announce that there is some turbulence ahead, consider this: it took the pilgrims 66 days and they didn't have free wi-fi.

One State, Two State, Red State, Blue State

2010-12-03T16:33:00.003-05:00

As armchair quarterbacks anaylze the aftermath of the 2010 election, potential presidential challengers are quietly gearing up for the 2012 cycle. With sweeping Republican gains in statehouses across the country, the 2010 census apportionment is likely to give a slight edge to the GOP in congressional races, but more interesting are the demographic shifts which will benefit the Republican presidential nominee.

The map above shows the states which went to Obama and McCain in the 2008 presidential election, but with a twist. Instead of varying the shading by the depth of partisan support, the darkness of each state instead corresponds to the predicted changes in the electoral college. Meanwhile, several states are also shaded to indicate a potential weakness for the opposing party to pick up electoral votes in the 2012 cycle.

Dozens of states shifted perceptibly to the right in 2010, especially in the midwest. Even President Obama's home state of Illinois, while still solid blue, is less so. Mark Kirk won the Senate race there and the state legislature is slightly less lopsided in favor of Democrats than it was. Also, like many liberal bastions, Illinois will be losing an electoral vote after the 2010 census reapportionment.

Republicans completely swept the 2010 election by winning races for governor, both houses of the state legislature, and a majority of the congressional delegation in seven states that went to Obama in 2008: Florida, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Meanwhile, Republicans also now control at least one house of the state legislatures in Colorado, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and North Carolina.

Democrats can take some consolation that during redistricting they will at least have some leverage in Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, and West Virginia. However, with the exception of West Virginia, none of these states are seriously in play for 2012--unless Hillary Clinton mounts a successful renegade primary challenge to her current boss.

Numerous factors, such as gerrymandered minority districts, weak turnout in an off-year, and the potential for improvement in the economy make it hard to draw strong conclusions from 2010 about the upcoming presidential race. 2012 will still be a very difficult year for Republicans, especially because there is no clear favorite with the widespread appeal that will be necessary to convince independents who voted for Obama to change their vote this time around.

However, Obama's political team should have reason to worry that no less than 117 electoral votes will be at stake in the seven states that slipped away from the Democrats in a complete rout this past cycle. Adding other traditional battlegrounds like Colorado, Iowa, and New Hampshire into the mix presents a daunting race to the 270 electoral votes that will be needed to keep President Obama from joining the 15 million Americans currently on the unemployment rolls.

V-A Day: Victory in America Day

2010-10-19T10:12:00.001-04:00

A contemporary account of the Surrender at Yorktown, by Dr. James Thatcher, a surgeon in the Continental Army:

October 19th.-

This is to us a most glorious day; but to the English, one of bitter chagrin and disappointment. Preparations are now making to receive as captives that vindictive, haughty commander, and that victorious army, who, by their robberies and murders, have so long been a scourge to our brethren of the Southern states. Being on horseback, I anticipate a full share of satisfaction in viewing the various movements in the interesting scene...

At about twelve o'clock, the combined army was arranged and drawn up in two lines extending more than a mile in length. The Americans were drawn up in a line on the right side of the road, and the French occupied the left. At the head of the former, the great American commander, mounted on his noble courser, took his station; attended by his aids. At the head of the latter was posted the excellent Count Rochambeau and his suite.

The French troops, in complete uniform, displayed a martial and noble appearance, their band of music, of which the timbrel formed a part, is a delightful novelty, and produced while marching to the ground a most enchanting effect. The Americans, though not all in uniform, nor their dress so neat, yet exhibited an erect, soldierly air, and every countenance beamed with satisfaction and joy. The concourse of spectators from the country was prodigious, in point of numbers was probably equal to the military, but universal silence and order prevailed.

It was about two o'clock when the captive army advanced through the line formed for their reception. Every eye was prepared to gaze on Lord Cornwallis, the object of peculiar interest and solicitude; but he disappointed our anxious expectations; pretending indisposition, he made General O'Hara his substitute as the leader of his army. This officer was followed by the conquered troops in a slow and solemn step, with shouldered arms, colors cased, and drums beating a British march.

Having arrived at the head of the line, General O'Hara, elegantly mounted, advanced to his excellency the commander-in-chief, taking off his hat, and apologized for the non-appearance of Earl Cornwallis. With his usual dignity and politeness, his excellency pointed to Major-General Lincoln for directions, by whom the British army was conducted into a spacious field, where it was intended they should ground their arms.

The royal troops, while marching through the line formed by the allied army, exhibited a decent and neat appearance, as respects arms and clothing, for their commander opened his store, and directed every soldier to be furnished with a new suit complete, prior to the capitulation. But in their line of march we remarked a disorderly and unsoldierly conduct, their step was irregular, and their ranks frequently broken.

But it was in the field, when they came to the last act of the drama, that the spirit and pride of the British soldier was put to the severest test: here their mortification could not be concealed. Some of the platoon officers appeared to be exceedingly chagrined when giving the word "ground arms," and I am a witness that they performed this duty in a very unofficer-like manner; and that many of the soldiers manifested a sullen temper, throwing their arms on the pile with violence, as if determined to render them useless. This irregularity, however, was checked by the authority of General Lincoln.

After having grounded their arms and divested themselves of their accoutrements, the captive troops were conducted back to Yorktown, and guarded by our troops till they could be removed to the place of their destination.

The British troops that were stationed at Gloucester, surrendered at the same time and in the same manner, to the command of the Duke de Luzerne.

This must be a very interesting and gratifying transaction to General Lincoln, who, having himself been obliged to surrender an army to a haughty foe the last year, has now assigned him the pleasing duty of giving laws to a conquered army in return, and of reflecting that the terms which were imposed on him are adopted as a basis of the surrender in the present instance.

It is a very gratifying circumstance that every degree of harmony, confidence and friendly intercourse subsisted between the American and French troops during the campaign - no contest, except an emulous spirit to excel in exploits and enterprise against the common enemy, and a desire to be celebrated in the annals of history for an ardent love of great and heroic actions.

We are not to be surprised that the pride of the British officers is humbled on this occasion, as they have always entertained an exalted opinion of their own military prowess, and affected to view the Americans as a contemptible, undisciplined rabble. But there is no display of magnanimity when a great commander shrinks from the inevitable misfortunes of war; and when it is considered that Lord Cornwallis has frequently appeared in splendid triumph at the head of his army, by which he is almost adored, we conceive it incumbent on him cheerfully to participate in their misfortunes and degradations, however humiliating; but it is said he gives himself up entirely to vexation and despair.

"Prolong the Recovery"

2010-10-12T16:30:00.000-04:00

The Washington Post reported on Saturday that, faced with a pre-election foreclosure crisis, the Obama Administration is considering a nationwide moratorium on foreclosures. You have to admire their chutzpah: rather than facing up to economic realities, the President and his advisors believe they can simply command the economy to improve. If only it were so easy! Even the Washington Post admits that the plan will likely backfire, in a roundabout way:

With foreclosed properties comprising one in every four homes sold in the United States, the spreading moratorium could disrupt real estate deals in progress, slow down the process of clearing the backlog of troubled home loans and prolong the economic recovery, analysts said.

Prolong the economic recovery indeed! When did the recovery begin? The unemployment rate has remained nearly constant over the past year at between 9-10% despite constant gaming of the system with over-reporting of census and election workers. The real unemployment rate is much higher if you consider that the private sector has continued to shed jobs for more than two years straight. Worse still, just when it seems things couldn’t get any worse, the suggestion of a foreclosure moratorium comes as yet another assault on the markets.

Part of the reason why there has not been a robust and broad-based recovery is that investors are terrified of just this sort of government involvement. The administration’s proposal would force banks to write off massive losses with no recourse to obtain payment from borrowers who bought homes without ever realistically having the ability to pay. The plan is somewhat reminiscent of a scene from Atlas Shrugged, summarized below by SparkNotes:

The Fair Share Law dictates that Rearden must supply metal to all who ask, but there is no way to meet all the orders. Men with influence manage to acquire much more than their “fair share,” while legitimate orders go unfilled...Rearden chooses to ignore an order from the State Science Institute for something called Project X. A week later, a man from the Institute comes to see Rearden...Rearden tells the representative to bring in trucks and steal as much metal as the Institute needs, but he will not help Washington pretend that he is a willing seller...

Meanwhile, in another article published today, the Washington Post profiles Barney Frank, the man at the controls when Fannie and Freddie melted down, which in turn lead to the largest destruction of wealth in the history of the world. Just as with the proposed foreclosure freeze, Democrats gambled on unsustainable short-term economic manipulation to appease their constituents, but ultimately brought about the global financial crisis. The Post is slightly more charitable though:

For all his efforts, Frank readily acknowledges that there are more people needing decent housing than there were when he started in Congress. And with millions of others losing their homes to foreclosure, Frank asks to be judged by how much worse things would have been without him.

It’s hard to expect very much of the Washington Post these days, but this is beyond incredible. Not only has Frank failed entirely in his mission to give more people a roof over their heads, but we’re supposed to believe that had he and fellow Democrats not rigged the system to create trillions of dollars in bad loans that the economy would be even worse today?

Instead of trying to force economic growth through government control, Democrats need to accept that the only way to create long-term sustainable economic growth is by vigorously protecting personal property rights and by preserving the rule of law. By thumbing the scales in favor of special interests, the Democrats have tipped the markets into chaos and upheaval. The last thing we need is for President Obama and Barney Frank to create more regulations that will “prolong” (i.e., delay) a lasting economic recovery.

Make Like a Car and Leaf

2010-10-08T13:08:00.001-04:00

We've been down this road before.

The New York Times published an ecstatic review of the new Nissan Leaf today which claims the new zero-emissions production car is the "first all-electric car from a major auto company." Apparently the Times didn't bother to check their facts. The cute little coupe pictured above is the 1947 Tama which was built by Prince Motor Company in Japan. In 1966, Prince Motor Company merged with...Nissan Motors. So not only is the Leaf not the first all-electric car. It's not even the first all-electric car made by Nissan.

Of course, the New York Times never lets the facts get in the way of a good story, but in this case, the facts are even more unbelievable:

“It just keeps getting better and better,” said Justin McNaughton, among the 20,000 people who have reserved a Leaf. “My wife thinks it’s funny because at the end of the day, we’re just buying a car.”

Since Mr. McNaughton, a lawyer in Nashville, paid his $99 deposit, he has been bombarded with government incentives — promises of a $7,500 federal tax credit, a $2,500 cash rebate from the state of Tennessee, and a $3,000 home-charging unit courtesy of the Energy Department.

That's right, the federal government and the state of Tennessee have promised Mr. McNaughton a combined $13,000 in government handouts to buy a car that only costs $32,000. Best of all, the Times reports that the Nissan factory which will make new Leafs (Leaves?) hasn't even been built yet. Thus, your taxpayer dollars are being given away to promote a car made in Japan. When President Obama spoke of creating 5 million new "green" jobs making fluorescent lightbulbs and electric cars, who knew that his vision was to create those jobs overseas?

More importantly, how green is an electric car really? According to the Department of Energy, fossil fuels accounted for more than 70% of electricity generation in 2008. Coal alone accounts for roughly 50%. Thus, Obama's pledge to create "green" electricity with windmill farms seems particularly quixotic when we consider that hydroelectric, wind, solar, and biomass (i.e., doo-doo) account for barely 8.5% of the total national output. The Nissan Leaf might as well come with a bumper sticker already applied at the factory that says, "This Car Runs on COAL."

Aside from the outsourcing of American jobs and the negligible environmental benefits, the Leaf also has a major practical problem. According to the Nissan website, the car only has a maximum range of 100 miles. So if you want to drive the 99 miles from Baltimore to Philadelphia, you better hope there aren't any detours! According to the manufacturer, a full charge takes 8 hours, so if you want to take a short road trip of a few hundred miles, you're going to need to make a lot of stops.

Bottom line, without massive investments in nuclear and renewable energy and major advances in battery technology, an electric car is neither environmentally sound or very practical. Ironically, even Mr. Electricity himself, Thomas Edison, couldn't make an electric car that was commercially viable and despite more than 100 years of progress, the internal combustion engine still reigns supreme.

Another Slice of Pie?

2010-09-12T12:26:00.000-04:00

Slate has been running a series about the widening income gap in America. Refreshingly, after almost a century of government policies designed to decrease income inequality, liberals are admitting that these policies do not work. Still, Timothy Noah, the series’ author, cannot resist using the language of class warfare to decry the evils of American capitalism. White-collar office jobs are bad, but unionized blue-collar jobs are good. One quote is particularly telling:

The top was occupied by a group that Clinton's first labor secretary, Robert Reich, labeled "symbolic analyst." These were people who "simplify reality into abstract images that can be rearranged, juggled, or experimented with" using "mathematical algorithms, legal arguments, financial gimmicks, scientific principles, psychological insights," and other tools seldom acquired without a college or graduate degree. At the bottom were providers of "in-person services" like waitressing, home health care, and security. The middle, once occupied by factory workers, stenographers, and other moderately skilled laborers, was disappearing fast.

What about plumbers, electricians, auto mechanics, steamfitters, carpenters, train conductors, and all of the other blue-collar trades? These are respectable jobs with good pay and strong growth potential. As long as there are people, these moderately skilled jobs will always be in demand. These jobs are manually intensive so they cannot be automated, and they cannot be outsourced because they depend on a local workforce. The theory advocated by Mr. Noah seems to ignore this segment of the economy.

For insight into how Noah manipulates the data to feed his storyline of the downtrodden proletariat, notice that his analysis relies entirely on the share of aggregate income statistics from the Census. According to these figures, the share of aggregate income for all but the top 20% has decreased. However, at the same time, the economy has also grown. It's not as if millionaires are fighting with the homeless for a slice of a never-changing pie.

If we look at the actual household income figures, we see that all quintiles, even the lowest, saw an increase in income in inflation-adjusted terms. The reason the top quintile has grown more than the others is because the rich are the ones who generate growth in the economy. You don't see very many bums opening factories, shopping malls, or office parks. Contrary to Mr. Noah's polemic about the inherent evils of capitalism, if you take away money from the rich in the pursuit of “equality,” you will only slow economic growth for all.

Colonization: An Alternative History

2010-09-10T15:32:00.000-04:00

What if we lived in an alternate universe in which the United States colonized Britain? The map below shows real place names in England and Wales, but labeled as if they were named after their American counterparts, instead of vice-versa.

If you have any other suggestions, add them in the comments!

The Rise of Hoover-Carterism

2010-08-27T21:45:00.001-04:00

Remember when President Obama was popular? Last year, when the media was spreading stimulus propaganda, the meme was "worst downturn since the great depression." As an incredible testament to the power of groupthink, that exact phrase returns more than 700,000 results on google.

Of course, when Obama enjoyed high approval numbers, the "worst downturn" trope was a good thing! By trumping up the scale of the disaster, liberal media types thought they were giving support to the argument at the time that Obama, in his exalted greatness, was going to rescue us all like F.D.R. supposedly did back in the '30's.

But now Obama is not popular. Instead of being "somebody else's mess" that Obama was going to clean up, the "worst downturn" is becoming a real political liability for the current administration. Even more tellingly, comparisons of Obama to Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter are becoming more frequent. As Niles Gardinier put it in the Telegraph the other day:

In contrast to the soaring rhetoric of his 2004 Convention speech in Boston which succeeded in impressing millions of television viewers at the time, America is no longer inspired by Barack Obama’s flat, monotonous and often dull presidential speeches and statements delivered via teleprompter. From his extraordinarily uninspiring Afghanistan speech at West Point to his flat State of the Union address, President Obama has failed to touch the heart of America. Even Jimmy Carter was more moving.

Like a motorcycle daredevil, Obama promised us he could jump the moon only to crash and burn. Unlike the fickle opinions of media elites, the immutable laws of gravity--and of economics--are not swayed by flashy self-promotion and arrogant bravado. As a symptom of this, the New York Times includes this hilarious quote in an article about the dismal condition of the economy:

Mr. Herzon said that he was not expecting a double-dip back into recession, however. “It’s difficult to point to a shock that would be bad enough to put the economy back into a recession,” he said. “I just think it means that this recovery is going to be slower and more painful than we originally expected.”

In the words of Tanto, "Who do you mean 'we,' kemo sabe?" How could anyone have honestly expected to go from the "worst downturn since the great depression" to the "summer of recovery" within a year or even two years? The media's unaccountable optimism that massive Keynesian spending, increased regulation, higher taxes, and crippling uncertainty in the marketplace would somehow produce different results this time around is only matched by Obama's own audacity and self-regard. As Adam Smith wrote:

The uniform, constant, and uninterrupted effort of every man to better his condition, the principle from which public and national, as well as private opulence is originally derived, is frequently powerful enough to maintain the natural progress of things towards improvement, in spite both of the extravagance of government, and of the greatest errors of administration. Like the unknown principle of animal life, it frequently restores health and vigour to the constitution, in spite not only of the disease, but of the absurd prescriptions of the doctor.

Ironically, Adam Smith's medical metaphor is especially apt when we consider that Obama's blind and irrational obsession with health care reform has done more harm to the economy than his inaction with regard to tax cuts. Like Adam Smith's quack doctor, Obama has given our economy a medical treatment far worse and more damaging than the disease it was meant to cure. We can only hope that Dr. Obama's euthusiasm for snake oil and liver pills does not kill the patient entirely before it has a chance to recover on its own.

Guest Posts

2010-08-10T13:20:00.000-04:00

The Prolix Patriot is featured today at the Washington Examiner and at the American Principles Project. Check them out and show your support!

"Drain the Swamp"

2010-08-03T11:28:00.001-04:00

A view of the House chamber during recess.

A month before Democrats took control of Congress in 2006, then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi famously declared that it was time to "drain the swamp." The Democrats' November victory that year was widely seen as a public repudiation of Republican abuses, especially Abramoff's web of corruption.

As a result of widespread scandals, four Republicans--Tom DeLay, Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney, and Mark Foley--were forced out of office and two spent time in jail. Meanwhile, Harry Reid and Patrick Kennedy are still in office despite being caught in their own scandals in 2006.

Today, Democrats Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters are in big trouble over ethics violations, John Kerry is in the news for evading Massachusetts sales and property taxes, and Al Gore is seeking a divorce amid accusations of sexual misconduct. Plus ça change! At least in 2006, none of the public figures embroiled in scandal were former Presidential candidates.

Nevertheless, today's New York Times explains this all away as nothing more than "a heightened sensitivity in Washington to indiscretions by members of Congress." The Times goes on to explain Rangel’s particular "indiscretions:"

...there was an unusually close overlap, the committee contended, between appeals for donations and his intervention on legislative matters, citing in particular a meeting Mr. Rangel held in 2007 at a New York hotel with an executive from an oil drilling company at which he made a bid for a donation and also discussed a tax break the company was seeking.

The executive, Eugene Isenberg, and his company ended up making a $1 million contribution to the educational center, and Mr. Rangel helped the company secure a tax break worth an estimated $500 million.

In addition to soliciting contributions for an educational institution bearing his name, Rangel also failed to report hundreds of thousands of dollars of income in Congressional disclosure forms and did not pay any taxes on rental income from his Dominican villa until 2008, after his misconduct had already been made public. Rangel's former Republican colleagues went to jail for similar "indiscretions."

In light of these scandals, Speaker Pelosi seems to have failed on her promise to create the "most ethical Congress in history." It's enough to make one wonder whether Democrats and the liberal press used ethics as a prop for temporary political advantage back in 2006. But lest we jump to any conclusions, Pelosi explained last week that she only meant to drain the Republican side of the swamp. We'll see if voters buy it in November.

Moratorium on Brains

2010-07-20T17:45:00.003-04:00

President Obama waving goodbye to American jobs

The Washington Post reports today that Obama’s deep-water drilling moratorium is creating plenty of new jobs--in Egypt, and elsewhere abroad:

This month, Diamond Offshore Drilling announced that it is sending one of its deep-water drilling rigs from the Gulf of Mexico to Egypt. The rig, which can work in water up to 10,000 feet deep, has a new contract running at least through June 2011. On Monday, Diamond said another Gulf of Mexico rig called the Ocean Confidence would depart for Congo.

Diamond said it might move more of its three remaining Gulf of Mexico rigs to foreign countries. While apologizing for the loss of jobs in the United States, Diamond chief executive Larry Dickerson said, "We are actively seeking international opportunities to keep our rigs fully employed."

That should help jump-start the ailing economy!

The Irish Grasshopper

2010-06-29T10:50:00.000-04:00

Today's New York Times reports on a new kind of "troubles" in Ireland. After more than a decade of capitalizing on cheap labor and goods in the expensive Euro-zone, Ireland has fallen harder than most in the global downturn. The same forces that propelled Ireland's economy forward before the crash have now driven unemployment above 13%. Trapped by the Euro, Ireland cannot now devalue their currency to boost economic growth.

Despite this, the Times portrays Ireland's economic troubles as the tragic consequence of so-called austerity measures that were enacted in 2008 to prevent Ireland's government from defaulting. Sticking with the liberal playbook, the Times trumpets Keynesian stimuli enacted by other countries while lamenting that Ireland couldn't afford to save jobs with a stimulus of their own. This is preposterous: raising taxes while Ireland's economy was going down the toilet is the source of their trouble, not a lack of stimulus.

To wit, we have seen that the Democrats' massive $800 billion Keynesian "stimulus" package has done nothing to slow the loss of jobs here in America. After passage of the bill in February of 2009, the US unemployment rate continued to rise, spiking at 10.6% in January of this year. At 9.3%, it is still higher than it was then. Worse still, jobs "created or saved" by the stimulus—if not outright fabrications—are at best only temporary. Unless the private sector starts creating new jobs—which it has not—unemployment will spike again.

The real problem with Ireland's austerity is that, like all of Europe, they waited until after the crisis to address outrageous deficits and runaway spending. Like the grasshopper of fable, Ireland and the rest of Europe danced in the summertime, blithely spending money they didn't have to fund an ever-increasing entitlement state. Now, Europe's welfare bomb has exploded, and it can't be put together again. America still has hope of avoiding the same fate, but we must learn to save when times are good.

The Obama Administration has created vast new spending programs that will not take full effect for several years, and while repealing ObamaCare is a good start, it will take much more to put America back in the black. Politicians hate cutting spending; more so when revenues are high, but when the economy eventually recovers, we must remember this moment. If we do not reduce spending when times are good, we too will end up like the grasshopper, dying in the cold.

"BP Will Pay"

2010-06-16T17:54:00.000-04:00

The New York Times reports on President Obama's speech last night with the type of puffery we would expect from the mainstream media. Apparently, the American people--especially the people on the Gulf Coast most directly affected by the spill--are supposed to take solace that the President has appointed a commission.

Until now he has employed most of the tools of his office, imposing a deepwater drilling moratorium, traveling repeatedly to the region, firing an agency director and appointing a commission. He used a few more Tuesday night, summoning the cameras to the Oval Office, appointing a long-term recovery coordinator and demanding that the company responsible, BP, set up a multibillion-dollar escrow account to compensate the victims.

Meanwhile, oil continues to leak from the seafloor despite BP's efforts to bring the well under control. While Obama is busy appointing new oil spill czars, the Associated Press reports that government scientists have increased their estimates of the oil being leaked by a factor of 10, up to as much as 2.5 million gallons per day. Even if BP succeeds in shutting off the flow, there will still be 50-100 million gallons of oil loose out in the Gulf of Mexico, waiting to be washed ashore by the first hurricane that comes through, or worse, to be spread along the entire eastern seaboard by the Gulf Stream current.

In the White House transcript of Obama's speech, one line jumps out as an indicator of how the President is still underestimating the vastness of the spill. While outlining his plan for recovery, Obama took pains to assure the American people that, "BP will pay for the impact this spill has had on the region," but Obama's $20 billion escrow fund is nothing compared to the mind boggling scale of this disaster.

Even if BP is deemed by the new oil spill czar to be liable for unlimited damage claims, Obama's plan has one major problem: what happens when BP runs out of money? The Washington Post reports that as members of Congress scathe BP's leaders with a withering crossfire of recriminations, they are also selling all stocks related to BP. At the same time, BP's shares have declined by almost 50% since the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon on April 20.

Obama is talking tough and is even taking tough actions, but the real measure of his leadership skills is whether his actions actually bring the spill under control and repair the damage. In both cases, he continues to push all responsibility to BP. This may be a good political tactic, but it also comes with a big risk. If BP ultimately fails, the responsibility he now evades will come back to him--with interest.

The Party Is Over

2010-06-10T17:15:00.000-04:00

The New York Times reports today on the passage by plebiscite of Proposition 14 in California, which outlaws party primary elections for all offices except the Presidency and party leadership positions. As is often the case with public referenda, an initiative which was put directly to the people will in the end take power away from the same people who supported it.

Supporters for the initiative claimed that the "top two" primary system would promote more moderate candidates, but this flies in the face of all logic. Quite to the contrary, California’s new system will promote more extreme candidates in some areas, while at the same time diminishing voters’ choices and influence in the rest of the state.

In districts which lean heavily one way or the other, the dominant party can run multiple candidates with the hopes of blocking the other party from the general election. But this can backfire as we saw in the electoral oddity of Republican Charles Djou’s special election victory in Hawaii last month with only 39% of the vote. Under Hawaii’s normal election rules this fall, he won’t stand a chance against a unified Democratic party backing a single opponent in a strongly liberal district.

Conversely, in districts which are evenly balanced, the "top two" system will encourage each party to choose one candidate to support before the voice of the people can be heard. As we saw in the public and acrimonious internal struggle of the NY-23 special election, Republican leaders chose Dede Scozzafava, whom they perceived as the strongest candidate despite voters’ opposition. This led to disaster and embarrassment for conservatives when Democrat Bill Owens won with only 49% of the vote.

California has always been weird, but it now joins Washington and Louisiana as the only three states that allow voters to pick candidates from multiple parties during a primary. Although the Supreme Court heard a challenge to the system in 2008, it ruled that the Washington’s version was too new to draw any conclusions about its fairness.

Examples like the ones above show how the "top two" system will result in anomalous results which run contrary to the will of the people--results which are bound to be repeated in the coming years as Washington and California continue with their experiments in hyperpluralism. Although it is entertaining to see the underdog do well in sports, this is a dangerous trend for our system of representative government.

Sound as a Pound

2010-06-08T15:05:00.000-04:00

The BBC reported today that the British pound took a massive hit as a major ratings agency issued a warning about the scale of the United Kingdom’s debt crisis. Fitch’s warning echoes Britain’s new Prime Minister, David Cameron, by drawing attention to one of the highest debt ratios in the world. At the same time, the loss of confidence in the pound is a warning that no country is safe from the emerging worldwide debt crisis, not even the United States.

Of course, not all debts are bad. The United States is forced maintain a large amount of government debt as a consequence of our position as the world’s dominant reserve currency and the same is true for Britain, although to less of a degree. In order to hold dollars in reserve, a large portion of our debt will be continuously renewed by the same countries that are holding it now. Far more important than the amount of a nation’s debt is whether or not a nation is able to meet its obligations.

In this regard, a much more important measure than the size of the debt is the ratio of interest payments on the debt to GDP. For 2009, the interest on the U.S. debt totaled more than $383 billion, or about 2.7% of GDP, thanks to extremely low interest rates. Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that the interest on the debt for the United Kingdom is currently about £42 billion, which is about the same in terms of GDP.

That 2.7% may not sound like a lot, but when interest rates start to increase, the ballooning debts here and in the United Kingdom will take an ever larger proportion out of tax revenue. With no end to trillion-dollar deficits in sight, our national debt is well on its way to doubling as a percentage of GDP within a few years compared to the 69% debt-to-GDP ratio of 2008.

It is worth considering that defense spending and government health care each account for about 5-6% of GDP right now, but as the baby-boomer generation ages, government health care expenditures are going to skyrocket. If the ratio of interest on the debt to GDP approaches 5%, the United States will face massive societal upheaval and economic collapse. Britain is making painful choices now in order to avoid this bleak forecast. We postpone the same difficult choices at our peril.

The Real Enemy is Cynicism

2010-06-03T11:10:00.003-04:00

President Obama famously said while still a candidate that, "...our rivals won't be one another, and I would assert it won't even be the other party. It's going to be cynicism that we're fighting against." Apparently he is waging an epic internal struggle against himself. The Washington Post reports today that Obama has realized that the crude oil bubbling up in the Gulf of Mexico is destroying more than federally protected wetlands. In response, he is now going to press for climate change legislation in a cynical move to deflect public anger away from himself.

President Obama tried Wednesday to channel public outrage about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill into support for a climate-change bill, seeking to redefine an issue that threatens to tarnish his presidency.

...Allies of the president have argued for weeks that the administration should stop talking about BP, the oil company responsible for the spill, and instead tap into the public attention to the catastrophe in hopes of giving it at least some redemptive value in the long term.

Obama fears that this crisis could destroy what little credibility he has left with an angry American public. President Obama made a big point during his press conference to tell the nation that he's "in charge," but after spending so much time trying to convince the American people that he can do anything, Obama now must grapple with the limits of the government's power. Congress can pass as many laws as they would like and the Justice Department can sue everything in sight, but the oil keeps bubbling up.

When a disaster strikes, people often look to the government for help. Floods and earthquakes are acts of God and only a few fringe crackpots would think of blaming the government in their aftermath. This disaster is different. Although Obama claims that BP bears full responsibility, it is clear that government regulations meant to avert this type of spill were not being enforced. Few people will be fooled by a cynical ploy to divert attention away from the spill and the government failures which contributed to it. Obama can talk himself blue in the face about punishing BP, but what about reforming government?

Presumably, Democrats in the House of Representatives did not anticipate a massive oil spill when they passed their version of the climate change legislation almost a year ago. Jamming the same legislation through the Senate would be a naked power grab, and would do nothing to reduce the dangers of another spill. Furthermore, as long as the sludgy crude oil is washing ashore, it is ludicrous for Obama to ask people to entrust the government with even more power when his administration is so obviously unable to wield the power it already has.

[Editor's Note: if you would like to help the cleanup efforts in the Gulf, please support one of the charities listed in an earlier post here on the Prolix Patriot.]

Come Sail Away

2010-06-01T18:03:00.001-04:00

The loss of life in the Gaza blockade incident is tragic. However, the Times of London has published first-hand accounts which reveal that the organizers of the so-called "Freedom Flotilla" were prepared for violence. The flotilla entered the blockaded area despite repeated warnings and refused to turn away when confronted by the Israeli navy.  Downplaying the dangers, the organizers of this mission used willing civilians as human shields for a cynical political stunt.

One woman was quoted as saying, "We were aware of the possible danger; in joining the trip, but there are thousands of babies in Gaza. If we had reached Gaza we would have played with them and taken them food."  Feeding babies is a fine thing, but this same woman also brought her own baby with her to a war zone in an attempt to run a blockade. One has to question the motives of a mother who would knowingly place her own child in such extreme danger.

The Times also reports that one of the men aboard the flotilla, "told his wife that the journey could be potentially fatal and asked for her blessing." The people aboard these vessels knew they were going into danger. They were not going to Gaza in peace, but openly vowing to provoke confrontation with the Israeli Defense Forces. Whether by running the blockade itself, or otherwise stirring up trouble, the so-called "activists" were not headed to Gaza for a pleasure cruise.

Media accounts which portray the Israeli navy as acting unlawfully are nothing more than political posturing. Throughout history, navies have always enforced blockades against unlawful civilians with deadly force.  The archives of the New York Times include a contemporary first-hand account from the Civil War of a British blockade runner.  In those days, the U.S. Navy was not afraid of using force--even against a neutral British ship in foreign waters:

The [U.S.S.] Tuscarora fired a plank gun as soon as she left her anchorage to arouse the watch, I suppose, partly, and to call us to stop and as a warning of what was coming. We kept on as hard as we could but the wretched funnel showed the cruiser our course by a great flame. Bang, bang, ping, went the shot and shell from the Tuscarora as she overhauled us hand over fist. She is uncommonly fast, and beat our craft all to nothing. We thought the game was all up. One shot passed right under our stern, and the last, a shell from his 11-inch Dahlgren, went in a straight line over us, and luckily fell in the water without bursting, just ahead.

In the account above, the British ship ended up escaping from its American pursuer in a storm, but not every blockade runner was always so lucky. Although the death of some of the Gaza blockade runners is regrettable to modern sensibilities, those who died were not under any illusion about the risk of their mission. Worse still, by seeking confrontation, this "humanitarian" mission will only prolong the plight of the Palestinians whom they claim to help.

Friends in High Places

2010-05-28T12:39:00.000-04:00

The New York Times reports today on a strange story about the Pennsylvania Senate race. Political horse-trading is a fact of life inside the Beltway, but Republicans have seized on efforts by the Obama Administration to convince Congressman and retired Admiral Joe Sestak to drop out of the Democratic primary and to clear the way for Arlen Specter as a possible scandal. According to the White House, there was no wrongdoing:

The office of Robert F. Bauer, the White House counsel, has concluded that Mr. Emanuel’s proposal did not violate laws prohibiting government employees from promising employment as a reward for political activity because the position being offered was unpaid. The office also found other examples of presidents offering positions to political allies to achieve political aims.

In a tough election, a candidate will often make special deals with his or her primary opponents in order to consolidate support for their party earlier in the election cycle, especially at the national level. If then-candidate Obama had not offered Hillary Clinton a high-level post in his administration in return for her support, the 2008 Democratic National Convention would have been a disaster. Although Obama had a slight advantage in the delegate counts, Hillary could have easily caused a split in the party.

Now that Obama is President, we have seen other examples of special deals that are probably not illegal, but are also pretty sleazy. The attempt to eliminate the ability of Republicans to filibuster in the Senate by appointing Senator Judd Gregg as a cabinet secretary was particularly egregious. However, the Hatch Act specifically prohibits the use of influence to influence an election. Whereas Gregg was already a sitting Senator who was asked to resign, Sestak had not yet been elected.

By now it is an old joke that Obama has brought the "Chicago Way" of politics to Washington. Despite the largest Democratic majority in Congress in a generation, the Obama Administration, lead by Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has taken an aggressive and risky approach to further consolidate political power. Even if the allegations of scandal prove to be unfounded in this case, it is only a matter of time before the Chicago way of doing business catches up with this administration.

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

2010-05-27T16:42:00.000-04:00

In regard to the oil spewing from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, an exasperated President Obama is reported to have said, "Plug the damn hole." Clearly, when public opinion demands it of him, Obama can be decisive. Nevertheless, Obama's approach to Iran has been painstakingly slow and will do nothing to stop the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. While Obama plays diplomatic games, Iran is running thousands of centrifuges day and night and could have enough enriched uranium for a bomb within one or two years.

The New York Times reports today that President Obama has released his new National Security Strategy. Of course, the Times also cannot resist adding a little editorializing about the Bush administration:

That line is just one of many subtle slaps at President George W. Bush. Much of the National Security Strategy, which is required by Congress, reads as an argument for a restoration of an older order of reliance on international institutions, updated to confront modern threats. While Mr. Bush’s 2002 document explicitly said the United States would never allow the rise of a rival superpower, Mr. Obama argues that America faces no real military competitor, but that global power is increasingly diffuse.

This analysis provides a stark contrast with the reality of the two presidents' foreign policy--particularly regarding the issue of nuclear weapons proliferation.

Despite the liberal trope that the United States acted alone when we invaded Iraq, the truth is that Bush navigated the same UN Security Council process that now bedevils his successor and obtained a unanimous vote that Saddam's defiance must come to an end. Furthermore, he built a coalition which involved more than 30 other nations at one time or another. Most importantly, Saddam Hussein is now dead and the Iraqi people no longer live in fear of his tyrannical regime.

Meanwhile, on the issue of Iran, Obama has sought to convince our "friends" in the UN to support tough sanctions, but only after making painful concessions such as the removal of the so-called "missile shield" from Eastern Europe. Now, Russia has finally agreed to support sanctions against Iran, but only after getting a last-minute loophole to allow weapons sales between the two countries to continue. Brazil and Turkey are in an uproar and it remains to be seen what other sacrifices the United States will have to make before the sanctions can actually go into effect.

Even then, what happens when Iran defies international pressure and sanctions and continues enriching enough uranium for a bomb? Iraq's pursuit of nuclear weapons turned out to be illusory, but in the case of Iran, we face a growing and imminent threat which is very real. At some point, Obama will have to take decisive and possibly unilateral action. Let us hope that he is up to the task.

The Liberal Paradox

2010-05-26T13:30:00.000-04:00

Today's New York Times asks the question, why are American politics stuck in the mindset of the 1960's? To answer this question, perhaps the old grey lady should recall the fable of the crab and its mother:

A CRAB said to her son, "Why do you walk so one-sided, my child? It is far more becoming to go straight forward." The young Crab replied: "Quite true, dear Mother; and if you will show me the straight way, I will promise to walk in it." The Mother tried in vain, and submitted without remonstrance to the reproof of her child.

As with the crab, the liberal-leaning New York Times is trapped in the 1960's by its own nature. Bai observes, "The choices of our moment are not nearly so neat or so satisfying as they were a generation ago, which makes them less useful as a basis for one’s political identity." The language there is telling. Only a liberal would describe the moral choices of the '60's as "neat" and "satisfying." For the rest of us, the '60's were a dark time of assassinations, riots, and social upheaval that nearly tore the nation apart.

In his analysis, Bai cites two recent examples of this continuing trend. In both cases, the scandal was created and then whipped up by liberals. In the first, Blumenthal himself opened the door by "misstating" (i.e., lying about) his service. Then the liberal-leaning Times obligingly announced the scandal, tearing open the wounds of the Vietnam era once again for the nation to reconsider for the umpteenth time. Meanwhile, Rand's difficulties with the Civil Rights Act were prompted by an absurd hypothetical posed by a correspondent on MSNBC whose political views are well known.

Similarly, during the Bush Administration, liberals could not resist drawing comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam, even though the reality has turned out to be very different. Hurricane Katrina raised the ghosts of the civil rights movement and the destruction of New Orleans was viewed by many as an example of deep-seated racism, even though the death toll was color-blind. These perverse comparisons with the liberal myth of the 1960's as a glorious triumph were simply too much for liberals to resist, no matter how crass and misguided.

For liberals, it is much more politically expedient to stoke the last faint embers of those divisive times, possibly to win a few more votes in the next election by reminding aging baby boomers of their guilt and shame. However, it is worth remembering that after the liberal triumph of Carter in the 1970's, the nation overwhelmingly elected Reagan by a landslide and moved strongly to the right. If Bush was a repeat of Nixon, a repeat of the subsequent decades would not favor Democrats.

The President Obama Comedy Hour

2010-05-25T14:28:00.001-04:00

The Associated Press reported today, apparently without any sense of irony, that President Obama, "sent legislation to Congress on Monday that would allow him to force lawmakers to vote on cutting earmarks and wasteful programs from spending bills." Back in 2008, candidate Obama spoke of using a scalpel to eliminate waste. Of course, that was before the $787 billion "stimulus" bill, which was nothing more than the mother of all earmarks.

The AP itself criticized the underwhelming results of the stimulus bill last year:

The AP reviewed a sample of federal contracts, not all 9,000 reported to date, and discovered errors in one in six jobs credited to the $787 billion stimulus program — or 5,000 of the 30,000 jobs claimed so far.

Even in its limited review, the AP found job counts that were more than 10 times as high as the actual number of paid positions; jobs credited to the stimulus program that were counted two and sometimes more than four times; and other jobs that were credited to stimulus spending when none was produced.

With the so-called stimulus bill, GM and Chrysler bailouts, and continuing subsidies for Fannie and Freddie, the Obama Administration created a 2009 federal budget deficit of more than $1.4 trillion, or almost 10% of GDP. At the beginning of this year, the Congressional Budget Office predicted the 2010 deficit would decrease slightly to $1.3 trillion, but that was before the trillion-dollar health care bill and the European debt crisis, which threatens to reverse the modest economic gains of the past few months.

For Obama to demand tighter controls on spending after the presiding over the largest increases in federal spending since the Second World War is reminiscent of the old joke about locking the stable door after the horse has bolted. Thus, it turns out that Al Franken isn't the first comedian to serve in the Senate. If this trend continues, C-SPAN might start competing with Comedy Central for ratings.

Don't They Know It's Rude To Point?

2010-05-24T14:00:00.000-04:00

The Associated Press ran a story yesterday analyzing the financial "reform" bill which recently passed in the Senate with the absurd headline, "New financial rules might not prevent next crisis." Stop the presses! Messrs. Wagner and Jacobs might really be on to something here! As reported on these pages earlier, the final version of the bill does not include the tough measures proposed by Senators McCain, Shelby, and Gregg to force Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac out of government conservatorship.

Instead, the government will continue to own and run the two institutions at the very heart of the financial collapse. Bad mortgages will continue to be issued or underwritten by Fannie and Freddie, backed by the unlimited credit of the federal government. Big Wall Street banks will still find loopholes in the laws and regulations in order to make a profit, emboldened by new rules which only further strengthen the policy of "too big to fail." Loose monetary policy and speculation will continue to drive up prices and lead to another asset bubble.

Democrats have used this crisis as nothing more than a cynical ploy to claim that they're "getting tough on Wall Street" and to shift public rage away from the health care fiasco leading up to the elections. However, the longer-term implications of this self-serving blame game are troubling for the nation. By claiming that they have fixed the problem, Democrats reinforce the dubious notion that the government can predict and control the future even though the events which led up to the crisis argue precisely the opposite.

In a profile of Sheila Bair, the head of the FDIC, Time magazine notes that she saw warning signs that mortgage markets were headed for trouble almost immediately after her appointment:

Bair had hardly been named to the FDIC post by George W. Bush in 2006 when aides alerted her to a dangerous disintegration of lending standards across the banking industry — loans with hidden fees, poor documentation and explosive adjustable rates. Even though the regulation of these standards was the primary responsibility of the Federal Reserve, Bair authorized her staff to purchase a large industry database to confirm their suspicions. "It was just amazing to us what we saw," she says.

Despite these and many other warnings in 2006 and 2007, the Democrat-controlled Congress failed to act. It takes a stunning credulity to think that next time will somehow be any different. The problem was not a lack of regulations or oversight, but a lack of will on the part of politicians to respond. Instead of pointing fingers at the private sector, Democrats could have implemented real reform, but that would have required them to admit that government is the problem, not the solution.

Takin' Care of Business

2010-05-20T16:16:00.000-04:00

While walking along a street in San Francisco, the Prolix Patriot saw a strange sign in the window of a shop advising passersby that a public hearing must be held before the store could be sold to new owners. Apparently, shopkeepers in the city by the bay are required to submit detailed proposals for public debate for even the most modest changes.

In this case, a frozen yogurt store had to obtain a fourteen-page document which grants government approval to change the restaurant to a take-out counter. The document also specifies what hours the cafe may be open and also certifies that the change will not cause environmental damage or alter traffic patterns. Moreover, the new owner could not even apply for building permits, let alone begin work, until the approval was granted.

As a more extreme example of the problems caused by a hyper-bureaucratic state, a mob of angry hipsters converged on City Hall last year to protest the proposed construction of a new American Apparel--ironically, a purveyor of hipster-style clothing--in their midst in the gentrifying Mission District. A check of the company's Northern California store locations reveals that the proposed store was never built.

For a vocal minority of neighborhood busybodies, this is undoubtedly a great victory which sends a message to much larger national brands that they had better stay out. However, such draconian policies also carry a high cost for the same "quirky" local businesses that these ordinances are meant to protect. By creating a Gordian knot of bureaucracy, the city discourages potential entrepreneurs from even beginning the process without a sufficient bankroll.

Worse still, a struggling business owner might have to wait months to get through all the approvals necessary to save his or her store from financial ruin. For many businesses, that wait was too long. The San Francisco examiner reported last year that the retail vacancy rate was somewhere near 13 percent and it appears to be holding steady. Neighborhood activists may be winning their battle against big box stores, but at what cost?

Water, Water, Everywhere

2010-05-19T12:57:00.000-04:00

Alcatraz Island, like any National Park, is sprinkled with information panels detailing the history of the place, the local flora and fauna, and so forth. However, in this particular park, there is one panel that does not depict a historical event, but rather, makes a prediction about the future. Perhaps inspired by the new brand of post-apocalyptic science fiction that is regularly broadcast on the so-called "History Channel," the Park Service helpfully shows what the coastline of San Francisco would look like during a 100-year flood.

As you might expect, these dire predictions are accompanied by the usual environmentalist alarmism about how everyone needs to do their part. If we all work together and change a few light bulbs, we can turn back the forces of nature! Sadly, such alarmism ignores the plain facts of history. Like most cities, large parts of San Francisco's waterfront were built on landfill. For purposes of comparison, a map published in 1855 shows the original coastline and the man-made areas of the city.

The map above is a composite which shows the original shoreline in red. From it, one can see that the areas most in danger of flooding are precisely those areas that were under water before the massive building boom of the California gold rush. When faced with the threat of natural disasters, the environmentalist response is always that we should make sacrifices and change our lives in order to accommodate the vagaries of nature's wrath. A man-made problem cannot possibly have a man-made solution.

The areas presumed to be in danger of flooding were originally built with vastly inferior 19th century technology. It stands to reason that the citizens of San Francisco will figure out some way to avoid inundation in the next 90 years, but you will never hear an environmentalist admit that, in the relentless march of human progress, we will find new ways of dealing with nature. Science is only useful when it supports the environmentalist cult of sacrifice.

Westward, Ho!

2010-05-12T08:11:00.001-04:00

The Prolix Patriot is currently re-enacting the westward journey of Lewis and Clark. They took an airplane, right? He will return on Wednesday, May 19.

Money to Burn

2010-05-11T18:06:00.000-04:00

Last week, Senators McCain, Shelby, and Gregg introduced an amendment to the Democrats' phony financial "reform" bill which would have actually reformed the culprits at the very heart of the financial meltdown--namely, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. However, the Washington Post reports that while the Senate should hold a vote on the amendment any day now, it is unlikely to pass.

Meanwhile, ABC news reports that Fannie and Freddie continue to hemorrhage taxpayer dollars from their unlimited government credit line.

Fannie Mae, the largest U.S. residential mortgage funds provider, on Monday asked the government for an additional $8.4 billion after the company lost $13.1 billion in the first quarter.

Including the latest request, Fannie Mae will have received more than $84.6 billion from the government, and the firm said it saw no end in sight to federal assistance.

The announcement comes less than a week after smaller mortgage finance company Freddie Mac, said it would need $10.6 billion in government funds after losing $8 billion in the first quarter.

If the McCain-Shelby-Gregg amendment does indeed fail, it will be impossible to take Democrats seriously when they claim they are fighting the big banks to fix a broken financial system. In July of 2008, the New York Times reported Fannie and Freddie were the biggest players of them all. Before the big crash, Fannie and Freddie owned or guaranteed more than half of all mortgages issued in the United States.

Moreover, it is worth remembering that the author of this legislation, Senator Dodd, was consistently the top recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie and Freddie during the past two decades. And who was number two on the list? A young and charismatic senator from Illinois named Barack Obama.

Don't Judge Me!

2010-05-10T16:10:00.001-04:00

The Washington Post is always a source of entertainment. Their coverage this morning of last night's leaked announcement that Press Secretary Robert Gibbs would announce that President Obama would announce Elena Kagan as his nominee to replace Justice Stevens is typical in its fawning nature, but achieves spectacular new heights in the abuse of our language (emphasis added):

And she's never been a judge, which gives her a quality that Obama is known to have been seeking: someone to bring a different sensibility to a court that's currently dominated by judges.

That particular lack of experience also means she does not have a long record of controversial rulings that could provide fodder for the presidents [sic] political opponents.

Imagine that, judges in our courts! Who would have thought? In all seriousness though, the next paragraph is more telling. Obama faces a much more hostile Senate than last year and his party has sunk to the lowest advantage in voter identification it has had against the GOP in five years. Going into elections this fall, he could not afford to nominate a doctrinaire liberal with an extensive history that would lead to a polarizing debate on social issues.

Strangely, the President has come under attack from many liberals for not making an ideologically "safer" choice. Commentators such as Greenwald at Salon.com suggest that, if confirmed, Kagan would actually move the court to the right. Conservatives may hope that she becomes the Democrats' Souter--a blank slate who soon diverges from the liberal cause--but an academic study by Lee Epstein, Andrew D. Martin, Kevin M. Quinn and Jeffrey A. Segal shows that these hopes are likely in vain.

Of the twenty-six Justices who served on the Court for ten or more terms since 1937, all but four exhibit ideological drift over the course of their tenures. Twelve moved to the left, seven to the right, and three in more exotic ways.

The study concludes that Supreme Court Justices are likely to change ideologically--mostly to the left--and that presidents and the Senate should focus more on the qualifications of the nominee than his or her ideology. On this point, Kagan is an eminently qualified legal scholar, but it remains to be seen whether her lack of judicial experience will be a serious handicap if, as seems likely, she is confirmed.

Parliamentary Split Personality

2010-05-07T11:47:00.001-04:00

After considerable delay by American standards, the BBC and other major news outlets have finally called the parliamentary election in the United Kingdom. The result: nobody won, which has resulted in what our cousins across the pond call a "hung parliament." The most likely scenario is that David Cameron and Nick Clegg will agree to form a schizophrenic Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, but as the major parties in Britain try to assemble a governing majority, we can learn something about our own political system--and its advantages.

Third parties are not an anomaly in the United States. Rather, we have seen a credible third party presidential challenger every 20-30 years, with astonishingly futile regularity. Third parties do occasionally win Congressional elections, and recently, the trend seems to be increasing, but no third party candidate has ever won the presidency. Thus, even if a situation arose where no party had a majority in Congress, there would at least still be a clear leader. As Hamilton writes in The Federalist number 70 on the composition of the executive branch:

But no favorable circumstances palliate or atone for the disadvantages of dissension in the executive department. Here, they are pure and unmixed. There is no point at which they cease to operate. They serve to embarrass and weaken the execution of the plan or measure to which they relate, from the first step to the final conclusion of it. They constantly counteract those qualities in the Executive which are the most necessary ingredients in its composition, vigor and expedition, and this without any counterbalancing good.

In short, the current situation in Britain is an example of the paralysis that arises when the legislative and executive functions are combined. Moreover, with the escalating debt crisis in Europe, the instability and uncertainty of a hung parliament has already caused the pound the fall in relation to the dollar and could cause a total collapse of the British economy if no party is able to form a government for a prolonged time.

Fortunately for America, we almost always have a clear winner for the highest office even when there is no majority in the popular vote. Ironically, while reporting on the instability the election has caused, CNN seems to side with the Liberal Democrats on the issue of proportional representation. Never mind that a proportional system would only exacerbate the problems of forming a ruling majority with three or more parties.

Under the [British election] system, the candidate who receives the most votes in a constituency wins. The system, known as "first past the post," is praised for its simplicity and the strong ties it forms between voters and representatives, but critics dislike its failure to provide proportional representation.

Some factions--perhaps including the journalists at CNN--would see us abolish the Electoral College system and instead rely on a nationwide popular vote. However, in a year with a strong third party challenger, this would be disastrous for the nation. In all but a few cases, the Electoral College gives a decisive victory to the candidate with the broadest support across the whole nation, sparing us from a prolonged and painful leadership vacuum.

A Victory for Whom?

2010-05-06T10:50:00.001-04:00

When news reports first came out this past weekend that an attempted attack on Times Square failed because of the would-be bomber's incompetence, the nation breathed a collective sigh of relief. The Washington Post however, sees things a little differently:

When Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. stepped up to the lectern at 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday, it was more than an unusual middle-of-the-night appearance trumpeting the swift arrest of an alleged terrorist. It also marked a rare moment of glory for the attorney general....

A good week doesn't necessarily make for a turnaround. But with the arrest of Faisal Shahzad in connection with Saturday's attempted bombing in Times Square, Holder and the law enforcement agencies he oversees were able to claim a victory for the administration.

Even though the government failed to prevent the attack and almost bungled the arrest of the prime suspect, only just catching him in nick-of-time before his flight took off for Pakistan, the Post describes the arrest of Faisal Shahzad as a "glorious victory." This is reminiscent of the Chris Rock comedy sketch about the person who expects you to be proud of them because they didn't go to jail. "What do you want, a cookie? You're not supposed to go to jail," he retorts.

Similarly, the American people reasonably expect the Justice Department to swiftly arrest the suspects in major crimes. This begs the question, does the Washington Post believe that our government is really so dysfunctional that when the government succeeds at something it is supposed to do, it is a "glorious victory?" Moreover, the Post describes this not as a victory in the war on terror, but for the Obama Administration--that is to say, a political victory. More to the point, does the Post believe that it is a "glorious victory" when the Obama Administration is only just barely less incompetent than would-be terrorists?

All joking aside, there is something more ominous in this episode. In both this case and in the failed Christmas Day underpants bombing, the al-Qaeda network clearly did not deploy their A-team. In both cases, horrific loss of life was only averted by the would-be bomber's own incompetence. One has to wonder if these attacks were even meant to succeed, or if instead, the terrorist masterminds who still survive in some cave in Afghanistan are using these attempts to probe for weaknesses in our defenses. If this is true, these failed attempts are victories not for us, but for al-Qaeda.

Unintended Consequences

2010-05-04T14:18:00.001-04:00

Amid all the destruction and terror of this past weekend, it is reassuring to finally hear some good news.

The Washington Post reports that the D.C. City Council is reassessing earlier plans to enact a soda tax similar to the one which has prompted outrage in New York after being proposed last year. However, the fact that this tax was even contemplated should be cause for concern. In both cases, the cities would levy a tax of one cent per ounce. For the 12-packs of Coca-Cola pictured above, the tax of $1.44 per case would amount to 43 percent!

The proponents of the crippling soda tax have forgotten that the rise of soda fountains and of soft drinks in the first place was largely a reaction to prohibition. As the New York Times reported in 1916 when the temperance movement was at its height, "The wave of prohibition that is slowly sweeping over the country has done more than any other one influence to develop the soda water trade." Ginger ale and root beer were once billed as the healthy alternative to their alcoholic namesakes.

Meanwhile, the District of Columbia has some of the lowest alcohol taxes in the nation. The tax for wine is only 30 cents per gallon, or roughly one-quarter of a cent per ounce while the tax for beer is an embarrassingly low nine cents per gallon, or less than one-tenth of a cent per ounce. By raising taxes on soda to several times that of beer and wine, the D.C City Council will effectively encourage the citizens of our nation's capital to drink more alcohol instead of soft drinks.

Ironically, what started as the cure for the supposed evils of alcohol may ultimately cause more alcohol consumption.

It's Not Easy Being Green

2010-04-30T11:44:00.003-04:00

The New York Times and most major news outlets are providing fresh reports that the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is moving toward land and that the oil is leaking much faster than initial estimates. What started as the tragic loss of eleven lives is threatening to become a much larger disaster. In addition to maps showing the endangered bayous and marshes, the New York Times and others are reproducing pictures of the encroaching oil slick from Greenpeace, such as the one above.

According to their mission statement, "Greenpeace is the leading independent campaigning organization that uses peaceful direct action and creative communication to expose global environmental problems and to promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future." In this unfolding environmental catastrophe, they are certainly holding up the first part of that mission, but what about promoting solutions?

After 9/11 and Katrina, people across the country eagerly rushed to lend a hand. On blogs, people posted links to charities that were on site helping people and suggested other ways to get involved. Companies held blood drives, food drives, and assembled care packages. In the face of adversity, private citizens and organizations came together and demonstrated the real strength of America in the bonds of community and free association.

Looking at Greenpeace's news releases, blog pages, and action center, there don't appear to be any suggestions of things that people can actually do to help. According to Wikipedia, Greenpeace has more than 2.8 million members around the world. Aside from sending emails to politicians demanding an end to offshore drilling, what is the world's premier environmental activism organization doing to actually help the environment when it is needed most? The answer, sadly, is nothing.

However, there are ways you can help! CNN reports that there are conservation organizations that are seeking volunteers and donations to begin the cleanup efforts. The Audubon Society, Alabama Coastal Foundation, Mobile Bay National Estuary Program, Mobile Baykeeper, Save Our Seabirds, Oiled Wildlife Care Network, and the International Bird Rescue Research Center are all gearing up on the Gulf Coast to help birds and other animals that become fouled by the floating oil. Unlike Greenpeace, these organizations can actually make a difference.

Don't Get Cross With Me

2010-04-28T12:51:00.003-04:00

The Washington Post reports today that the Supreme Court has reversed an earlier decision by the Ninth Circuit which banned the display of a cross on federal lands in the Mohave Desert. As the Post reported at the time of the earlier ruling, the Ninth Circuit had held that any effort to remedy the situation by the government would effectively constitute an endorsement of religion.

Congress declared the site a national memorial, and proposed to cure any constitutional problems by transferring one acre on which the cross stands to the VFW in exchange for five acres owned elsewhere in the preserve by the Sandozes.

But Buono and the ACLU went to court again, and the courts agreed that such a plan would not resolve the constitutionality question. The deal "would leave a little donut hole of land with a cross in the midst of a vast federal preserve," the appeals court said.

The picture above shows the state funeral of Ronald Reagan which was held at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul in Washington, D.C., which is also known as the National Cathedral. By the logic of the Ninth Circuit and the liberal dissenters led by Justice Stevens, this funeral should have never taken place. As the Washingtonian Magazine reported on the cathedral's 100th anniversary:

...In 1893, largely as a result of efforts by civic leaders such as Riggs Bank president Charles Glover, Congress granted a charter to the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation to establish a cathedral "for the promotion of religion and education and charity." President Benjamin Harrison signed the charter into law.

...The first activity on the new land was the raising of a Peace Cross to mark the end of the Spanish-American War. The cross stands south-southwest of the cathedral, across from St. Alban’s parish church.

Fortunately for us, the ACLU was not around when the National Cathedral was being planned. The cathedral is visible for miles around in the D.C. area and, to quote Steven's dissent, stands as a "continued endorsement of a starkly sectarian message." After all, it is clearly a Christian church right in the middle of our nation's capital!

However, if you look closely at the picture, you can see that several Muslim heads of state were in attendance at the funeral, wearing their distinctive kūfiyyāt. Ironically, the Muslims pictured are more tolerant of a Christian funeral ceremony held in an Episcopal church than the only Protestant on the Supreme Court.

Cornhusker Kickback, Part II?

2010-04-27T11:30:00.001-04:00

The Associated Press reports today that Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska is making Majority Leader Harry Reid pay a steep price every time the Senate holds a big vote. This time, it's the financial reform bill.

Nelson voted with Republicans on Monday to deny Democrats the 60 votes they needed to advance the legislation to a floor debate. Democrats were expected to try again Tuesday, and yet again the day after if necessary.

In a statement, Nelson, a conservative Nebraska Democrat, said his vote reflected concerns about the bill raised by Nebraska businessmen. Before the vote, Nelson huddled with Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd to discuss a regulatory item of interest to one Nebraska businessman in particular--billionaire investor Warren Buffett.

We all remember the so-called "Cornhusker Kickback" from the health care reform bill. In return for his vote, Nelson extracted a promise that Nebraska would not have to pay for any increases in Medicare payments, but the promise was worthless as soon as the deal was made public. That provision was eliminated in the bill of "fixes" which was passed by the Senate in response to popular outrage.

This time, Nelson is seeking an exemption from new financial derivatives rules that, among other things, would sharply limit the amount of "leverage" that firms can apply to derivatives trades by requiring that all derivatives be guaranteed with real assets. This would be especially disastrous for Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway corporation, which owns a $5 billion stake in troubled investment bank Goldman Sachs. The exemption would soften the blow by "grandfathering" existing derviatives.

Senator Nelson isn't up for re-election until 2012, but one has to wonder whether Nebraskans will support him. On one hand, he can argue that he fought to get a good deal for Nebraska. Other Senators are surely jealous of Nelson's ability to extract such huge benefits for his home state. On the other hand, he has shown himself to be not only a dupe, but a craven and corrupt one.

Looney Tunes

2010-04-26T11:52:00.003-04:00

Crazy Islamic radicals are in the news again. Last Thursday's New York Times reports that the Comedy Central television network heavily censored a recent episode of the satirical cartoon show, "South Park" in response to death threats issued by a radical Muslim group in New York. Worst of all, as Parker and Stone wrote:

In the 14 years we've been doing South Park we have never done a show that we couldn't stand behind. We delivered our version of the show to Comedy Central and they made a determination to alter the episode. It wasn't some meta-joke on our part. Comedy Central added the bleeps. In fact, Kyle's customary final speech was about intimidation and fear. It didn't mention Muhammad at all but it got bleeped too.

Parker and Stone have never been afraid to make lewd jokes and poke fun at historical figures in the past, but as the Times reports, they nevertheless took special care not to actually depict Muhammad, while at the same time making light of the Muslim prohibition of his depiction.

Cognizant that Islam forbids the depiction of its holiest prophet, Mr. Stone and Mr. Parker showed their “South Park” characters agonizing over how to bring Muhammad to their fictional Colorado town. At first the character said to be Muhammad is confined to a U-Haul trailer, and is heard speaking but is not shown. Later in the episode the character is let out of the trailer, dressed in a bear costume.

Apparently, Comedy Central doesn't get the joke. As the Associated Press reported in 2007, Gillian Gibbons, a British teacher, was almost sentenced to death by the Sudanese government for similar reasons. "Thousands of Sudanese, many armed with clubs and knives, rallied Friday in a central square and demanded the execution of a British teacher convicted of insulting Islam for allowing her students to name a teddy bear Muhammad." Fortunately, Gibbons was later released.

As a private entity, Comedy Central is free to air or not air whatever it wishes. The First Amendment does not compel anyone to give a platform to speech but rather only prevents the government from restricting the right of individuals to speak or not speak as they see fit. However, in this case it seems disingenuous for Comedy Central to censor the non-depiction of Muhammad while at the same time allowing Parker and Stone a free hand in all manner of lewdness and vulgarity.

Friday Guest Post

2010-04-23T09:38:00.000-04:00

Today's special Friday guest post for the good folks over at the American Principles Project is about the Supreme Court nomination process, and whether or not Republicans can influence President Obama's choice. Check it out!

Hug a Planet

2010-04-22T12:39:00.004-04:00

Happy Earth Day! In all seriousness though, environmentalism has moved far beyond reasonable scientific arguments and has become something of a religion. In order to maintain an energized base of activists, the movement now seeks radical changes to the way we live our lives, but unfortunately, environment-worship is no longer as far out on the fringe as the druids pictured above. As the Washington Post reports, today will be marked with festivals and gatherings, complete with corporate sponsorships.

The [original] organizers wanted it to be one-time event, but it has become an annual, global celebration. The first one cost about $122,000 to put on; today, the Earth Day Network, which oversees Earth Day worldwide, boasts an $8.5 million budget and a long roster of corporate sponsors, including Underwriters Laboratories, Siemens, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, AT&T Mobile and Procter & Gamble.

As the Post observes, the environmentalist movement was initially a response to the very real problem of uncontrolled pollution which led to urban smog, acid rain, and poisoned rivers. Nobody can deny that by placing strict limits on pollution we have made the world better for ourselves. Compare old photos of the dingy and blackened skies of a 19th century cityscape to the clear blue skies of today and the difference is remarkable.

However, the environmental movement has moved beyond logical arguments for the protection of nature to a post-modern rejection of all human activity whatsoever. Once venerable groups such as the Sierra Club now advocate for reduction of the human population. The Earth Day Network provides a helpful list of personal sacrifices you can make to help the planet: "turn off unneeded lights," "drive less," "avoid using air conditioners," and so on, finally leading up to the ultimate summation of the eco-nihilist worldview, "be a minimalist."

Nature should be admired, enjoyed, and protected, and there are many real problems that demand action. However, the environmental movement has become counterproductive by embracing a quasi-religious and pseudo-scientific belief system. As we have seen with the climate email scandal, adherents of this belief system have gravely injured the credibility of science as a whole so that even sound arguments will now face tougher scrutiny and fiercer opposition. In short, the environmentalist culture of self-sacrifice has also become one of self-destruction.

Health Care Hangover

2010-04-21T14:58:00.003-04:00

Democrats are eager to "pivot" away from the political hangover of health care reform and instead sieze on public anger about the economy. The Washington Post reports that Democrats in the Senate have passed a major milestone, winning committee approval of language that would implement a massive new regulatory scheme for the derivatives market.

However, the article doesn't mention which kind of derivative is actually related to the financial upheaval of the past several years--namely, credit default swaps. The credit default swap is a type of derivative which was created by the large investment banks as a hedge on the supposedly "riskless" collateralized debt obligations--especially those consisting of mortgage-backed securities.

Meanwhile, a little-noticed Congressional Budget Office report was released back in January revealed that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are predicted to cost taxpayers nearly $400 billion over the next decade.

In its August 2009 baseline, CBO projected that the operations of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would have a total budgetary cost of $389 billion between 2009 and 2019. (That cost includes subsidies for assistance to homeowners under the Administration’s Making Home Affordable plan.) The bulk of the outlays ($291 billion) were estimated to occur in 2009. That figure reflects the recognition of substantial losses on the entire outstanding stock of mortgages held or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at that time.

The American people are angry and Democrats are more than happy to direct that anger at Wall Street. Creating new regulations for the derivatives market will certainly punish Wall Street, but as their name implies, the derivatives were not at the root of the crisis. Rather, the shocking loss in value of the underlying real assets--in this case, risky mortgages underwritten by Fannie and Freddie--caused the upheaval.

Instead of pandering to populist outrage, the Washington Post should educate its readers about the real source of the problem and at the same time hold the politicians accountable for the policies which encouraged Fannie and Freddie to flood the market with so-called "toxic assets" in the first place. Punishing Wall Street will only hurt the long-term growth potential of the American economy, and by failing to punish Fannie and Freddie, Democrats will only hurt the American taxpayer.

Salt in the Wound

2010-04-20T10:59:00.001-04:00

The Washington Post reports today on the latest example of the Obama Adminstration using a faceless and unaccountable bureaucracy to implement drastic changes that will affect the daily lives of all Americans. In this newest instance of government mischief, unelected regulators will be deciding how much salt is allowed in the food we eat--all in the name of public health.

Officials have not determined the salt limits. In a complicated undertaking, the FDA would analyze the salt in spaghetti sauces, breads and thousands of other products that make up the $600 billion food and beverage market, sources said. Working with food manufacturers, the government would set limits for salt in these categories, designed to gradually ratchet down sodium consumption. The changes would be calibrated so that consumers barely notice the modification.

The Post goes on to report that President Obama's minions at the FDA "do not think they need additional authority from Congress" to implement this technocratic scheme. This is a frightening assertion. If bureaucrats believe they have the authority to decree limits on salt without any direction from Congress, what is to stop them from banning unhealthy foods outright?

Salt has been used as a preservative since ancient times to prevent meat from rotting. Even today, common foods such as ham, bacon, salami, pepperoni, prosciutto, chorizo, sauerkraut, pickles, and beef jerky all require massive quantities of salt during the curing process. Salt is also a key ingredient in cheese making, also as a preservative. Presumably the FDA will allow an exemption in such cases, but why should we have to rely on the benevolence of a nameless committee to set limits on its own unchecked and unlimited power?

Moreover, because salt is a preservative, setting limits on the amount of salt in canned vegetables, sauces, and other processed foods, will either increase the likelihood of food contamination and spoilage or will force food manufacturers to rely more and more on a chemical soup of artificial preservatives. The FDA claims that these regulations are in the public interest, but the unintended consequences of limiting salt in food could be far more disastrous than the supposed health problems associated with high salt intake.

A Wasted Vote

2010-04-19T13:38:00.000-04:00

The Washington Post reports that angry Democrats are collecting signatures in a petition drive to form a far-left party in opposition to centrist "Blue Dogs" who voted against ObamaCare.

Now, some of Obama's supporters are mounting a defiant strike against the president's party. The nascent third party, North Carolina First, could endanger the Democratic congressional majority by siphoning votes from incumbent Democrats in November's midterm election, potentially enabling Republican challengers to pick up the seats. Organizers say they are so fed up with Democrats who did not support health-care reform that they simply do not care.

Yesterday, the Post ran another article comparing the conservative and libertarian Tea Party movement to the independents and Republicans who supported Ross Perot in the disastrous election of 1992.

The Perot movement is an obvious starting point to try to understand the tea party movement. Both movements began during times of economic distress and were built on growing distrust of, and even anger with, Washington and the federal government. Each shook up the established political order, forcing the two major parties to adapt. Many of the tea party activists are new to politics, as were many of those who supported Perot.

While third party candidates do occasionally win statewide office, such as Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, no third party candidate has ever won the Presidency. Left-wing radicals, conservatives, libertarians, and even moderates all have good reasons to resent the current policies of the national parties, but forming breakaway third parties will not benefit their cause.

As the elder Bush famously said of Ross Perot, "A vote for him is a wasted vote." Despite the pundits who cling to the intellectual conceit that a vote of conscience sends a message, the reverse is actually true. By supporting a third party, voters inevitably aid the candidate who stands in opposition to their ideals. Tea partiers and socialists alike would do well to remember this.

No Taxation Without Representation

2010-04-16T15:37:00.000-04:00

The Washington Post reports today that D.C. voting rights are once again being considered in Congress. Unfortunately, Democrats are trying to make this change the wrong way--that is, by enacting a law which can just as easily be repealed at any time instead of amending the Constitution.

A year ago, the Senate passed a D.C. voting rights bill for the first time since 1978, but lawmakers attached language that would wipe out most local gun laws and restrict the D.C. Council's power to enact new ones. House leaders shelved the legislation when it became clear that it would be difficult to block the gun amendment.

Under the measure, the House would add two members: one to the overwhelmingly Democratic District and the other, temporarily, to Republican-leaning Utah. That seat would then go to the state next in line for a representative based on the 2010 Census.

The Washington Post cites a poll showing overwhelming public support for this measure across the nation, so it is a mystery why Democrats cannot simply take the time to submit a constitutional amendment for the approval of the states.

Nathaniel Ward of the Heritage institute, and also a lifelong D.C. resident, has a much more in-depth analysis of why the Democrats' current approach is a bad idea, but the bottom line is that if Congress can give D.C. voting rights through a simple act of law, it can also take them away--something which the founders clearly would have opposed.

Lawmakers need to reconsider their proposal to grant the District of Columbia representation in Congress by legislation. The plan runs afoul of a commonsense understanding of the Constitution, the intentions of the Founders, and more than two centuries of interpretation by legislators and the courts. If they seek to allow congressional representation for District residents, they should instead examine proposals that do justice to principles of republican governance and the Constitution.

Who Pays Taxes?

2010-04-15T17:42:00.000-04:00

Today is tax day, so it begs the questions, what does the average American owe the Federal Government? Based on Census figures, the median household income is $52,029. If the parents are married, both work, and they send two children to preschool or day-care, they would owe a grand total of...drumroll...nothing at all! That's right! With child and child-care tax credits, the total tax owed is exactly zero dollars and zero cents!

Your Government in Action, Part 6

2010-04-15T09:51:00.002-04:00

As reported earlier this week, the Postal Service is in dire financial straits. In order to save money, USPS has been selling prime real estate and moving to new locations which are smaller and less expensive to operate. Unfortunately, the transition doesn't appear to be going very smoothly. While driving around one day, I happened to notice this:

However, a quick check on USPS.com shows that this post office has become a phantom. It's a sad state of affairs when the Postal Service doesn't even know where it's own offices are. Note the address:

Your tax dollars at work!

Making the World Safe from Democracy

2010-04-13T13:40:00.003-04:00

The BBC reports today that President Obama has secured a major agreement with diplomats from Iran and North Korea to halt all production of nuclear materials and surrender their existing stockpiles to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Well, no. Actually, Obama has secured agreements to save the world from the evil scourge of the Ukraine and Mexico.

Mexico will work with the US, Canada and the International Atomic Energy Agency to convert highly enriched uranium into lower-grade fuel, it said. On Monday, the US welcomed a similar commitment by Ukraine. President Barack Obama has warned world leaders of a growing risk of nuclear attack by terrorists. He urged those attending the Washington summit not merely to talk, but to act to prevent nuclear material falling into the wrong hands.

Thus, Obama has succeeded not only in weakening the position of the United States against our enemies, but also in extracting painful concessions from our allies. This ranks right up there with Obama's other top foreign policy achievements, although it is much more serious than the iPod which he sent to the Queen and certainly more damaging to our international standing than his fondness for bowing to kings and hugging dictators.

Despite Obama's preening, Iran and North Korea have been unmoved by this latest round of diplomatic theater and have only issued predictable statements condemning any effort by the United States to curtail their nuclear ambitions. Only a fool would think we can intimidate the world's most opressive tyrants by demonstrating our own meekness, but Obama will stop at nothing to keep himself in the media spotlight.

Your Government in Action, Part 5

2010-04-12T13:57:00.003-04:00

The Washington Post reports that the U.S. Postal Service is "not viable," and that massive cuts are needed if it is to continue functioning:

The Postal Service should provide more lucrative incentive packages to potential retirees to try to accelerate attrition, auditors said. They also recommended USPS consider outsourcing more delivery routes and mail services to contractors and seek concessions on wage and benefits from its labor unions during negotiations later this year.

On a related note, if you mail in your taxes, remember that you may have to pay extra postage. Although the USPS increasingly relies on taxpayer subsidies for its very existence, the IRS provides a helpful tip as the government's way of saying thank you for your support:

Envelopes without enough postage will be returned to you by the post office. Your envelope may need additional postage if it contains more than five pages or is oversized (for example, it is over 1⁄4" thick).

Your tax dollars at work!

The Media's Credibility Gap

2010-04-09T11:57:00.001-04:00

Today, the New York Times asks the question, "Why is good news being received with such doubt?" Like the boy who cried wolf, the Times and other mainstream media outlets have been gushing praises of President Obama's economic policies and looking for the silver lining in every new unemployment report. Hilariously, in the very same article, Mr. Norris unintentionally gives us an example of this phenomenon.

The employment report for March, released a week ago, was a milestone that has been little noted. The household survey, from which the unemployment rate is calculated, showed a gain during the first quarter of this year of 1.1 million jobs, the best performance since the spring of 2005.

True, the more widely reported numbers from the survey of employers are not as good. But those numbers are subject to heavy revision as better data becomes available. At the turning points for employment after the last two downturns, those numbers turned out to be far better than was reported at the time.

To hear the Times tell it, we should be optimistic because even though the unemployment numbers are still really bad, they will ultimately be revised by a few tenths of a point. This must be very reassuring to the millions of unemployed Americans. By repeating dubious assurances that recovery is just around the corner over the past year, the New York Times has earned a reputation as nothing more than a fatuous tool of the Obama Administration. It is little wonder that the public remains skeptical.

In Case of Emergency: Blame Bush

2010-04-07T12:49:00.000-04:00

The Washington Post reports today that the tragic mine disaster in West Virginia earlier this week could have been avoided. Management repeatedly ignored government inspections which revealed major safety problems with the mine's ventilation systems. This is a deplorable revelation which only increases the horror of the terrible loss of life. However, near the end of the article, the Washington Post tries to place blame elsewhere.

Former federal officials and others who know mining said that [Bush administration mine safety administrator, David] Lauriski initially scaled back mine-safety regulation and that, under the Bush administration, 17 of 26 regulations proposed by the Clinton administration were dropped or withdrawn.

"Lax is not nearly a strong enough word to describe how mine safety was handled in the first part of the Bush administration," said Phil Smith, a spokesman for the United Mine Workers of America. "It became a lot less about enforcing rules and regulations and more of a touchy-feely thing: It's bad what you are doing, and you need to do better."

Had it not already become a cliché long ago, we might be horrified that the Washington Post is using the suffering of others to score cheap political points. Still, in this case it is rather surprising given that the government inspectors had done their jobs by issuing citations for the safety violations. Only the most bitterly partisan liberal could hold the government responsible, and still more so George W. Bush as a private citizen.

You Can't Hug With Nuclear Arms

2010-04-06T17:19:00.001-04:00

The Associated Press reports that President Obama has announced a grand new strategy which would, "lessen the role nuclear weapons play in America's defense planning." This should not be terribly surprising, because Obama campaigned on an anti-nuclear platform, but upon closer inspection, his new policy is truly shocking.

Under the new plan, the U.S. promises not to use nuclear weapons against countries that don't have them. The policy would not apply to states like North Korea and Iran, however, because of their refusal to cooperate with the international community on nonproliferation standards.

President Obama's idealism is nothing less than breathtaking. The world has enjoyed more than 50 years of relative peace because we have the deterrent power of nuclear weapons. The article observes that Obama is departing from the policies of his predecessor, but America's nuclear policy has been unchanged going back to Truman. We have always held out the option to use nukes.

Consequently, only a few despots have been crazy enough to invade their neighbors, and although the United States has always responded to such incidents with conventional force, the threat of nuclear annihilation makes most world leaders think twice. Moreover, many of our allies rely on the protection of the American "nuclear umbrella." If Japan and Germany can no longer rely on our nuclear arsenal for protection, how long will it be before they start to build their own weapons?

America already has a credibility problem on the world stage. After the fiasco of backing the wrong side in Honduras, encouraging Argentina to re-invade the Falklands, and publicly snubbing Israel's Prime Minister, one could be forgiven for thinking that it couldn't possibly get any worse. President Obama thrives on making headlines, but he does so at the expense of American influence in world affairs. More and more, the headlines are becoming a terrible joke.

A Sticky Situation

2010-04-05T18:11:00.001-04:00

Today's Washington Post reports that the United States Government, majority stakeholder in Chrysler and General Motors (or should we say Government Motors), will be seeking the maximum civil penalty against Toyota Motor Company for failing to inform regulators of the so-called "sticky pedal" defect.

"We now have proof that Toyota failed to live up to its legal obligations," LaHood said. "Worse yet, they knowingly hid a dangerous defect for months from U.S. officials and did not take action to protect millions of drivers and their families. For those reasons, we are seeking the maximum penalty possible under current laws."

As of six o'clock today, a quick Google search for the phrases "federal government" and "maximum civil penalty" and the word "Toyota" turned up more than 3,750 results. Running the same search with "Chrysler" instead of "Toyota" returned only 52 unique results. Running the same search with "General Motors" instead of "Toyota" returned only 33 unique results. In the latter two cases, the results do not actually mention any time when the government has sought such penalties against the American automakers.

One has to wonder whether the government is playing favorites.

Don't You Feel Safer Now?

2010-04-02T11:03:00.001-04:00

The Washington Post reports that the Transportation Security Agency will be implementing new airport security measures, not to strengthen what is already in place, but apparently as a response to criticism of the blanket screening of all passengers originating from the 14 countries which have known or suspected government ties to terrorism.

After the attempted bombing of an Amsterdam-to-Detroit flight on Christmas Day, U.S. officials hastily decided that passengers from or traveling through 14 specified countries would be subjected to secondary searches. Critics have since called the measures discriminatory and overly burdensome, and the administration has faced pressure to refine its approach.

Under the new system, screeners will stop passengers for additional security if they match certain pieces of known intelligence. The system will be "much more intel-based," a senior administration official said, "as opposed to blunt force."

This seems a little dubious. Our intelligence services had been warned by no less than his own father that the Christmas Day underpants bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, had developed ties to a terrorist organization. He had also recently traveled to Yemen. Are we really supposed to believe that he would have been stopped if these new measures were in place in December?

The real problem here is not airport security. If denied at airports, terrorists will attack elsewhere. The battle against terrorism will be won or lost long before a terrorist reaches the security checkpoint. Rather, everything depends on the quality of intelligence and our ability to act upon it. In his rush to vilify the CIA for harsh interrogation tactics, President Obama has blunted our greatest weapon against terror.

Your Government in Action, Part 4

2010-04-01T14:58:00.000-04:00

While searching for something else entirely, I came across this article from The Wall Street Journal about a $500,000 junket by several members of Congress to "study global warming" back in 2008:

It's tough to calculate the travel bills racked up by members of Congress, but one thing's for sure: They use a lot of airplanes. In recent days, House of Representatives members allocated $550 million to upgrade the fleet of luxury Air Force jets used for trips like these -- even though the Defense Department says it doesn't need all the planes.

Your tax dollars at work!

Your Government in Action, Part 3

2010-04-01T11:40:00.002-04:00

The Washington Post reports that millions of doses of swine flu vaccine will go unused:

Despite months of dire warnings and millions in taxpayer dollars, less than half of the 229 million doses of H1N1 vaccine the government bought to fight the pandemic have been administered -- leaving an estimated 71.5 million doses that must be discarded if they are not used before they expire.

Your tax dollars at work!