Obama Slashes Transportation Budget; In Other News, Obama Unveils New Transportation Plan

Obama Replaces Costly High-Speed Rail Plan With High-Speed Bus Plan

ONN: Media Having Trouble Finding Right Angle On Obama's Double-Homicide

WASHINGTON - "More than a week after President Barack Obama's cold-blooded killing of a local couple, members of the American news media admitted Tuesday that they were still trying to find the best angle for covering the gruesome crime.

"I know there's a story in there somewhere," said Newsweek editor Jon Meacham, referring to Obama's home invasion and execution-style slaying of Jeff and Sue Finowicz on Apr. 8. "Right now though, it's probably best to just sit back and wait for more information to come in. After all, the only thing we know for sure is that our president senselessly murdered two unsuspecting Americans without emotion or hesitation."

Added Meacham, "It's not so cut and dried."

http://www.theonion.com/articles/media-having-trouble-finding-right-angle-on-obamas%2C2703/

The Leviathan Express

We are hurtling headlong into the statist abyss forewarned by our founding fathers. As Thomas Jefferson recognized that "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground."

In this regard, the government can be likened to a speeding train possessing a kind of inertia. Its tendency is not to rest on a foundation of perpetual liberty, but to accelerate with increasing hubris into every aspect of human life.

It takes a great deal of effort for the train of government to be set into motion. Its engine of coercion animates the machinery of state: it drives the escalating taxation, the dependency of welfare state programs, the propaganda organs of public schools and colleges, the adventurism of endless wars.

As such, Barack Obama is not the engineer of our impending national demise, but the latest conductor on a long train of abuses. You see, if Obama left office tomorrow, not much would change in a government that has been systematically lying to us in earnest since the Wilson administration.

The lubrication of the state is the big lie. Debt itself is a kind of lie that people tell themselves that their way of life is somehow sustainable. The welfare state is the lie that nearly half the American public are incapable of providing for themselves. (This in an economy that see five percent unemployment in "normal" periods of free market capitalism. Try to design a system of human affairs that runs at ninety-five percent efficiency, better than the ordered liberty of true capitalism.) Public education is built on lies that exalt the state, and diminish liberty. Wars justified by self-defense become wars of expediency, and ends in themselves.

America has been on a crash course with reality ever since the Fed engineers started shoveling dollars into the Leviathan Express. That was long before we puffed pass the Potemkin villages of the progressive imagination. Behind the shoddy facades of the New Deal and the Great Society, we saw the human wreckage of welfare dependents with nowhere to go but sideways. Yet the smiling visage of the heroic FDR with throngs of supplicating citizens at his feet made such a pleasant backdrop in our periphery as we thumbed over our pages of Look magazine. The ups and downs, the starts and stops, no one dared question that we were all being taken for a ride.

The train accelerated and national exhilaration pumped our hearts with fresh blood. We felt alive again. We had a sense of mission as a people and all was full steam ahead. But as winter set in, an unfamiliar chill froze our breath in mid-air. The attendant stopped in from time to time to make sure that we were comfortable, to offer us some chamomile, and to engage in some idle conversation.

Then came the entertainers. A television was installed in every car to occupy our minds. The car attendants served fresh bread and jam. America was getting fat and happy.

Then the train psychologists and social workers stopped by to make sure all was well. In between the awkward laughs and specious socializing, inquisitive passengers faintly noticed through the window that the picturesque vistas of our nation's youth were fading. Some detected in the scenery haphazard signs that something was awry. Not enough to mention in polite conversation, but there it was.

It wasn't until the train approached the ghost town of Carterville when people sat up and began to pay attention. Keynesian bandits conducted a daring raid on the train, hitting up the passengers and carrying off heaping bags of gold. Beneath the clumsy disguises, one could see the impudent mustaches so characteristic of Europeans. As they rode off into the sunset, the Feds shot and shot until they ran out of bullets. In the luxury car where the whiskey-breathed elites consorted, a butler later discovered a pistol laying on a poker table. It was filled with blanks.

In the aftermath of the robbery, there was a time when all appeared right with the world. We had a president who spoke platitudes so familiar to the American people, and who even reflected some of their values, for the first time in a long time. It was a fleeting period that soon passed.

We are now on a speeding train and the increasingly disturbing scenery is flying by our windows so fast that we don't even have time to take it all in. The attendant now comes with a gun instead of chocolates, and empties our wallets and purses. The toothy grin once so charming has now worn thin.

We are also alarmed to find the train is not going in a direction of our choosing. Perhaps it was an illusion that we were in control all along. The Liberty line was switched some time ago, and we now see the signs of Tyranny and Terror adorning a wasteland of broken promises and shattered lives. Up ahead, we see a tunnel, a black void threatening to swallow us whole. If there is any way off of this train, we better jump now. There are no promises that it's not going to hurt.

Ron Paul Gives Statists An Earful

Ron Paul on Individual Rights and the TSA

John Taylor Gatto - On State-Run Education

John Taylor Gatto - State Controlled Consciousness


John Taylor Gatto - On Education


Classrooms of the Heart - John Gatto (1991)

Non-Profits and Communist Front Groups

The Forgotten Enemies

There is perhaps no greater evidence of the anti-American nature of the purported "mainstream media" than its deafening silence regarding the true nature of our enemies abroad. This Veterans' Day saw our brave men and women in uniform fighting overseas to vanquish some of the most atrocious and despicable foes imaginable, and yet our news channels neglect to inform Americans of just how evil our enemies are.

Our wars are invisible wars, waged against faceless enemies, overseas in distant lands. The daily body counts force-fed to the American public to undercut morale for "Bush's war," all but disappeared under the leftist media's appointed leader Barack Hussein Obama. These "body counts" did not do justice to the heroism of our military, but merely served a sick purpose in the left's worldview. But their spin cannot take away that these are men and women fighting in inhuman conditions against subhuman foes.

Prior to the wars, we heard the cries of injustice from the left and its tacit support for the status quo nightmare regimes of Iraq and Afghanistan. Now we hear it about Iran. The left does not want us to know what horrific atrocities are committed overseas because evil abroad is not the focus of the left's interests. The left is so sick, as a matter of fact, that many deny that evil even exists. Except in America's case, that is.

To the left, the United States is thought to be the perpetrator of all the world's problems, and as such the face of true evil abroad cannot be revealed. While such groups as the UN and Amnesty International may decry genocide and human rights violations in lands where "brown people" live, the second the United States or Israel move to act or to defend themselves against them, they are the ones who are condemned, even lambasted. That America builds up every nation it defeats in war, and that Israel bends over backwards to supplicate its enemies, only to be proven fools time and time again, provides no merits to these "capitalist" nations from the left's point of view.

The genius of the left's warped Marxist worldview holds that if America is rich, then it is at the expense of the world's poor. Since people are poor, they commit evil. If we give them all our wealth until we are equally poor, then all would be healed and right with the world.

The left's insipid and simplistic narrative glosses over that these are ancient civilizations we are at war with who are struggling mightily not to give way to modernity, which we might summarize succinctly as "freedom." These nations' existence preceded the founding of the United States and they had been notoriously barbaric for centuries prior. The romanticism of the "noble savages" of exotic far-off lands does not hold up to the historical record, despite the left's disingenuous and destructive insistence on cultural relativism.

America, the engine of the world's wealth, home for refugees who fled tyranny, liberator of nations, defender of the hopeless and oppressed, has been vilified by the leftists to the point that millions believe them. Our military is helping people abroad and it is time the left acknowledges it. The wars overseas are providing more good and hope to the world than any government-welfare program the left can dream up, which is paid for in other people's sweat and blood, of course.

The United States military is defending us from a barbaric scourge and meanwhile protecting millions overseas from some of the most brutal groups in world history. The reason we are free as a nation is not simply because we are protected by our military, any military, but because of we have a volunteer military of freemen who fight for liberty and human dignity. Whether it comes to fighting against enemies abroad or at home, we are proud to know that we have a force unlike the world has ever seen, who will fight to uphold our Constitution, defend our liberty, and preserve our way of life.

The 9/11 attacks



Tyrant Saddam's Reign in Terror



The Taliban: The Truth About The War In Afghanistan

Hitler Finds Out The GOP has retaken the House

Hat tip: The Dougout

The Soviet Story

The Soviet Story reveals the untold story of the collaboration between the Nazis and the Soviets prior to and during the early stages of World War II. It must be pretty powerful because the crypto-communists at the New York Times felt compelled to unleash a juvenile hit piece against it on their website.

Hat tip: Barking Moonbat

One of the PIIGS About to Be Slaughtered

Ireland's crisis flares as investors dump bonds

By Shawn Pogatchnik

DUBLIN (AP) - Ireland's financial troubles loomed large Wednesday as investors - betting that the country soon could join Greece in seeking an EU bailout - drove the interest rate on the country's 10-year borrowing to a new high.

The yield on 10-year bonds rose above 8 percent for the first time since the launch of the euro, the European Union's common currency, 11 years ago.

The cost of funding Irish debt has risen steadily since September, when the government admitted its bailout efforts of five banks would cost at least euro45 billion, equivalent to euro10,000 for every man, woman and child in Ireland. That gargantuan bill, in turn, has made the projected 2010 deficit rise to 32 percent of GDP, the highest in post-war Europe. [Continued]

Why Today's Democrat is a C-Word

There is a lot of snorting, chuckling, and guffawing on the left about hare-brained conservative types getting all bent out of shape about the "socialist" Democrats (cue laugh track). Never mind that many Democrats are springing out of the woodwork like the economic termites they are and announcing that they are "socialist and proud of it."

One such episode came from the election-night coverage of MSNBC, an obscure network whose "analysis" resembled in some ways that of the CPUSA's (guess who they favored?). During a testy exchange between Lawrence O'Donnell and an interchangeable Democrat Party hack about who could out-left whom, Larry boasted:

"Unlike you, I am not a progressive. I am not a liberal who is so afraid of the word that I have to change my name to progressive. Liberals amuse me. I am a socialist. I live to the extreme left, the extreme left of you mere liberals. However, I know this about my country. Liberals are 20% of the electorate, conservatives are 41% of the electorate [correction: 48%] . Okay? So I don't pretend that my views, which would ban all guns in America, make Medicare available to all in America, have any chance of happening in the federal government. You can sit there and pretend that liberals should run more liberal in conservative districts."

There are a few points here to consider about Mr. O'Donnell's coming out party. Though you cannot argue by anecdote about this one particular host, it is striking how he had to tell us he is a socialist, or else we wouldn't have known it. He acts and talks like a "liberal," "progressive," or "socialist." Next, he wears the word "socialist" like a badge of honor, one-upping his lefty co-conspirator. In addition, O'Donnell knows that the socialist must use subterfuge, and indeed, he effectively counsels leftist candidates not to run on a hard left platform. The most chilling part came when he blurted out that he would ban all guns in America, implying that the state be the only institution allowed to possess them! And "Medicare for all," well we know that is effectively giving the state life and death control over all citizens, while weighing the value of their lives in terms of benefit to the collective.

So while some people may squirm calling today's leftist the "C-word," I have no problem doing it. We conservatives play footsie with the political lexicon so much we act like "communism" is a dirty word. Is communism "dead," just because the USSR "collapsed" in 1989? No, it just went underground, picking up new disguises, such as radical environmentalism.

So I am going to put myself out there and just say it: Today's Democrat is functionally a communist. He may not know he is a communist. He may not subscribe to Marx or Engels. But his ideas derive in many aspects from communist thinking. Feel free to yell "McCarthyite!" at any time now.

To substantiate this claim, I need to show how political lexicon changes, and the relationship of "communist" to other descriptions of leftism, such as "liberal" and "socialist." We will basically just chalk up progressivism as slow-motion or Fabian socialism.

Let's start with conservatism, to illustrate how political terms have changed over time and to provide a backdrop to who today's "leftist" is. Now "conservatism" in the European context is much different than "conservatism" in the American context. In regards to European conservatism, meaning the Ancien Regime, then the Founders of this country are to be considered liberal radicals. To us, they are classical liberals.

Today, American conservatives tend to be classical liberals at their core, but they are still called "conservatives." Over time, the term "conservatism" in the American context acquired baggage. That is because overturning a decaying monarchical system and establishing a functional regime of government are two entirely different prerogatives. Sustaining government in a competitive world of clashing states is a further prerogative, implying the need to build national defense, preserve a culture conducive to freedom and resistant to subversion, and wisely and prudently weigh the benefits of isolationism versus entanglement.

In the Burkean mode, conservatism means incremental change, so as to minimize social and political disruption. But does conservatism mean preserving cultural and political institutions for their own sake, or those conducive to freedom, while jettisoning those opposed to freedom? This is no idle debate, but much turns on its answer in the opposition of libertarian and conservative philosophy. But are both conservative? A so-called "modern liberal" would say so.

Today's "modern liberal" opposes the country's Burkean conservatism, and our history of liberty. From the point of view of the Founders, the modern liberal is a reactionary, seeking to install a counter-revolution to reimpose statism over the citizenry. The means of performing this counter-revolution are democracy and communist ideology, both ancient in their impulses, and both condemned by Aristotle in 'Politics.'

The Marxian mode of communism gave doctrinal form to the primitive impulse to redistribute materials "evenly." It specifically distorts the meaning of 'equality' in the Enlightenment context to mean equality of outcomes rather than that of opportunity.

While it can be argued that such perverters of classical liberalism should be called (modern) "liberals," I find little "liberating" about their oppressive, state-heavy ideology. In terms of their animating ideal, the form given to their counter-reactionary drive to reimpose state domination over the people, it is very communistic.

The Democrats make a living on such communistic notions as: redistribution of wealth; class warfare; ethnic, racial, and sexual "liberation"; anti-capitalism writ large; state regulation of business and commerce; progressive taxation; intentional debasement of the currency; disdain for the rule of law; coordinated propaganda in education and media; ruthless demonization and scapegoating of "class enemies," such as corporations, the "reactionary" middle class, and conservatives in general. This is addition to sharing hallmarks incidental to most socialist regimes, such as fostering a cult of personality around a demagogue, nationalizing wide swathes of the private sector, and installing massive and unsustainable welfare programs.

The difference between socialism and communism is not in kind, but lay on a spectrum; and since it is in the nature of government to acquire more power when and where it can, the breakdown of economy and society under the socialist system tends towards dissipation of social and political opposition, strengthening the conditions for communist tyranny.

Socialist policies, which in the present context are commensurate with communist policies (with the left's strengthening of the police state, we can come down firmly on the communist side of the spectrum), are mainstream Democrat Party politics, which is perhaps why many are catching on and fleeing the party. But calling today's Democrats "liberals" is what requires a stretch of the imagination, not "communists." Just because the leftists haven't installed a communist regime, doesn't mean that that isn't their ultimate aim.

A Rebirth Of The American Revolution?

This is an article well worth reading to gain some context on where we are as a nation and where we are heading. It's theme is similar to one I have discussed elsewhere: Today's conservatives come from a heritage of radicals for liberty, and today's leftists are actually reactionary neo-statists.

The key passage from Forbes:

The declaration that "all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness," turned the known political world of monarchy, hierarchy and privilege in which subjects existed to serve the state upside down. As Gordon S. Wood makes clear in his book, The Radicalism of the American Revolution, the American Revolution "… destroyed aristocracy as it had been understood in the Western world for at least two millennia. Moreover, it brought respect to the dignity of the individual, and honored their work, no matter how menial."

In this context, the modern liberal and the progressive movements can be considered a counter-revolutionary force. The leaders of these movements have pursued the use of government power to protect individuals from poor decisions and to intermediate between them and businesses. In the process, they have necessarily empowered government bureaucrats to intrude in ever more ways into the day-to-day lives of the average American. [...]

The result has been to recreate the hierarchal order of old, but one in which the role of the ancient aristocrat is assumed by the modern intellectual. Driven by the power motive, these individuals seek elected or bureaucratic office or influence through their advisory roles. The ever expanding number of regulations and agencies reflects their position that individuals cannot be trusted to manage their own affairs or cope with the social challenges through voluntary organizations. The inevitable consequence is that individual liberties have to be subordinated to the collective good, as determined by whoever happens to be in power."

[More]

The Drop in the Sea Up by 400%

http://karmodi.com/ostap/?p=5404 \

According this article, the number of libertarian Republicans in Congress has risen by a whopping 400% - from one (Ron Paul) to five (senators Mike Lee and Rand Paul and representatives Ron Paul, Mick Mulveny and Justin Amash). 

What Happens When Broke Economies Owe Money to Other Broke Economies? Hilarity Ensues.

The Broken Window Fallacy

The Other American Communist Party Gives Their Take on the Midterm Elections

Why the Left Will Never Learn

When one surveys the American terrain, from sea to shining sea, across the fruited plain, one is struck by the contrast, not only in terms of geography, but in politics. We see the relative abundance of the red states, men and women rising each dawn to set forth on productive, family-centered lives (to the extent that they are allowed to by the government). We see the human wreckage of Democrat-controlled cities, the rampant drugs and violence, the poverty, the crushing debt. We see the unsustainable burden that blue states like California and New York place on their taxpaying citizens, a model of irresponsible policy that the Obama-led federal government has heartily adopted.

For most of us rooted in workaday life, such a view of the contemporary United State is the political and economic reality. This is because we adhere to the truth. We stand in the present. We are grounded in the experiences of the past. We acknowledge failure. We know what succeeds.

But what of our political opposition? What of Barack Obama, who stubbornly believes that his policies are working, and that we just aren't smart enough to understand them? Or his followers, who are in flat-out denial not only that Democrat policies are not succeeding, but that they literally cannot succeed? Not only world history, but indeed, the American experience confirms that the Democrat's socialistic policies fail everytime they are tried, everywhere they are tried.

Why are liberals unable to learn from that experience? Why do they refuse to acknowledge reality?

To liberals, all illustrations of the failure of their policies are attributed to their unfailing scapegoats: Capitalism, corporations, and conservatives. Whether or not any causal mechanism can be identified, these are the hidden, invisible, ubiquitous forces that rule everything. Capitalism is monolithic in its expanse, synonymous in some cases with economic reality itself, and conditions our very consciousness. Capitalism is the reliable attribution for all evil in the world, which is embodied in their conservative opponents. This worldview is not nuanced, despite all their pretended learning, it is manichaenistic.

The conservative man for them is the man of the past, clinging to an outdated view of the world, one filled with human misery. Thus the mere existence of conservatives is a defiance to their cultural marxist designs, and one that fills them with hatred and revulsion. They believe that if everyone shared their opinions, then their vision will come true in reality. Therefore, all problems in the world simply means that liberals haven't social-engineered their "new man" yet. This mission to remake human beings in their preferred image (not their own image) is part and parcel of their secular drive to solve all problems and to create a heaven on earth. But what kind of condescension for your fellow man and arrogance do you have to have to set out on such a project? And what facts, reason, evidence will persuade you of the lunacy of such an endeavor? None.

For the leftist, his existential angst leads him to survey the world and see it all as an abysmal mess. He sees all around him war, racism, sexism, inequality, poverty and misery, even in cases where they don't exist, and concludes that it all needs to be "changed." It is all a grand experiment for social scientists to tinker with until they get it right, human suffering be damned.

Since it is the leftist's self-appointed task to right each and every wrong, his program demands complete, totalitarian control over politics, economy, society, the private lives of individuals, and even man's inner thoughts. Being a pragmatist in intellectual disposition, he is unable and unwilling to take his thoughts to their logical conclusion.

Each case of continuing government encroachment on the individual's freedom of choice is thus not perceived as threatening by the leftist. He simply sees it as part and parcel of elites creating a better and more just world. He does not see the danger of accumulating such power over people, for two reasons: 1) He believes that this is and the country should be a "democracy," meaning it is composed of "the people" (whose minds the elites should fashion and control) and 2) that the elites are necessarily well-intentioned.

Not respecting history, he does not see how even the best of intentions lead to disastrous results. The leftist does not get that accumulating immense power in a central government, even to do "good," sets the preconditions for deceptive, power-hungry demagogues to rise to power and to utilize it to establish and sustain a power base for the sake of entrenching the elites in perpetual power.

Not understanding human nature, and believing it to be readily manipulable, he thinks the next socialist experiment can be different. He may understand that people tend to be fundamentally self-interested, but he loathes this aspect of the human condition. Thus he rejects it and purges it from his ideal political system.

Though most reasonable men can see the innovation of the U.S. Constitution, and how checks and balances and divided powers promote the common good of the Republic by pitting "ambition against ambition," the leftist does not see the innovation of such an unprecedented charter of limited and prudential governance. Modern liberals do not see the hope that is provided to the world by America adopting a creed and enshrining a guiding document that empowers people to rule their own lives.

Furthermore, the leftist does not see how capitalism has led much of the world out of poverty and misery, and just as importantly, out of necessary servitude to the political class. He concludes from his peremptory view of "modern" history, that capitalism is actually the root cause of the world's problems. The prime mover for all tragic events is uncritically chalked up to "greed." "Greed" and benign self-interest are indistinguishable to him; coercion and willing trade are the same; the necessity of having to work for a living and a de facto state of slavery are one and the same. All must be leveled, including one's faculty of discriminating between right and wrong, good and evil, and just and unjust, as Evan Sayet has pointed out.

Therefore, for the leftist, the worse things get, the better things are getting. Collapsing the (capitalist) economy is good. Demoralizing human beings (so that you can reprogram them) is good. Creating political chaos is good, because that lays the foundations for seizing control of the government.

It is not that liberals really know what it is good, it is that they know what they hate. This is the essence of the left's guiding idea of "critical theory."

It is not that equality will actually lead to what liberals say it will, it is just that it will level the whole world as we know it before an upper crust of philosopher-kings (as they view the world's future rulers to be, quite naively).

Liberals aren't really interested in reality, but in manipulating people's subjective interpretation of it. That is why you will never force them to admit failure, why they are forced to parrot each other's positions, why they must intellectually and socially conform, why they must display a false air of mental superiority; it is a false front, and underneath the facade, they have no idea what they are doing, but simply are creating crises for the sake of creating crises until the "geniuses" of the left can configure things as they see fit.

That the world is infinitely more complex than their imaginations, that reality is resistant to their utopian visions, and that human beings have agency is beyond the grasp of such narcissists. And Barack Obama is surely a narcissist. There is only one way to deal with such untethered elitists: to identify them not as hopeless, benevolent dreamers, but as power-worshiping, unrealistic malcontents who need to be expelled from power.

MSNBC Commentator Chides Colleague Because He is Not As "Socialist"!

Breaking Down the Democrat Breakdown

Many months ago, I compiled a list of vulnerable Democrats that people should target by giving time and money to their opponents. I called this plan "Adopt-a-Democrat." These were the top 101 Democrat incumbents likely to lose, but their opponents needed a little bit of help.

The idea was to: circumvent the gatekeepers at the RNC; to avoid wasting money on lost races against likely winners; to refrain from overly supporting very popular likely Republican winners; and to put the combined resources of conservatives and tea party activists into districts that will likely shape up to be extremely close and within reach of possible Democrat voter fraud.

My method was to use the Cook Report's district rating along with a conservative estimate of a Republican Generic Ballot margin of +5 (it actually shaped up to be more like 9.4%, well outside of reach of potential Democrat fraud in most cases) to determine those who made the list. Using a similar methodology, I came up with a likely Republican pick-up of 62 seats. Let us see how my strategy would have shaken out if adopted (from more likely win for Republican to least likely win):

MS4 - Palazzo (R) defeats Taylor (D)
TX17 - Flores (R) defeats Edwards (D)
ID1 - Labrador (R) defeats Minnick (D)
AL2 - Roby (R) defeats Bright (D)
UT2 - Matheson (D) defeats Philpot (R)
MS1 - Nunnelee (R) defeats Childers (D)
MO4 - Hartzler (R) defeats Skelton (D)
OK2 - Boren (D) defeats Thompson (R)
AZ1 - Gosar (R) defeats Kirkpatrick (D)
MD1 - Harris (R) defeats Kratovil (D)
TN4 - DesJarlais (R) defeats Davis (D)
VA9 - Griffith (R) defeats Boucher (D)
GA8 - Scott (R) defeats Marshall (D)
KY6 - Chandler (D) defeats Barr (R) (squeaker)
SD1 - Noem (R) defeats Sandlin (D)
WV1 - McKinley (R) defeats Oliverio (D)
PA10 - Marino (R) defeats Carney (D)
AR - Ross (D) defeats Rankin (R)
OH18 - Gibbs (R) defeats Space (D)
SC5 - Mulvaney (R) defeats Spratt (D)
CO4 - Gardner (R) defeats Markey (D)
FL2 - Southerland (R) defeats Boyd (D)
IN9 - Young (R) defeats Hill (D)
NM2 - Pearce (R) defeats Teague (D)
NC11 - Shuler (D) defeats Miller (R)
PA4 - Altmire (D) defeats Rothfus (R)
PA17 - Holden (D) defeats Argall (R)
WV3 - Rahall (D) defeats Maynard (R)
AZ5 - Schwiekert (R) defeats Mitchell (D)
CO3 - Tipton (R) defeats Salazar (D)
MN7 - Peterson (D) defeats Byberg (R)
NC7 - McIntyre (D) defeats Pantano (R)
VA2 - Rigell (R) defeats Nye (D)
VA5 - Hurt (R) defeats Perriello (D)
AZ8 - Giffords (D) ahead of Kelly (R) (undecided)
FL24 - Adams (R) defeats Kosmas (D)
NY13 - Grimm (R) defeats McMahon (D)
OH16 - Renacci (R) defeats Boccieri (D)
TX23 - Canseco (R) defeats Rodriguez (D)
MI1 - Benishek (R) defeats McDowell (D)
NY19 - Hayworth (R) defeats Hall (D)!
PA3 - Kelly (R) defeats Dahlkemper (D)
FL8 - Billrakis (R) defeats Grayson (D)
IN2 - Donnelly (D) defeats Walorski (R)
MI7 - Walberg (R) defeats Schauer (D)
NY24 - Hanna (R) defeats Arcuri (D)
NC2 - Ellmers (R) defeats Etheridge (D)
NC8 - Kissell (D) defeats Johnson (R)
OH6 - Johnson (R) defeats Wilson (D)
TX27 - Farenthold (R) ahead of Ortiz (D)
WI8 - Ribble (R) defeats Kagen (D)
CA11 - McNerney (D) ahead of Harmer (R)(undecided)
FL22 - West (R) defeats Klein (D)
IL8 - Walsh (R) ahead of Bean (D) (undecided)
IL11 - Kinzinger (R) defeats Halvorson (D)
IL14 - Hullgren (R) defeats Foster (D)
MN1 - Walz (D) defeats Demmer (R)
NJ3 - Runyan (R) defeats Adler (D)
NY23 - Owens (D) defeats Doheny (R)
NH1 - Guinta (R) defeats Shea Porter (D)
NY1 - Bishop (D) defeats Altschuler (R) (pathetic)
TX28 - Cuellar (D) defeats Underwood (R)
GA2 - Bishop (D) defeats Keown (R)
GA12 - Barrow (D) defeats McKinney (R)
IA3 - Boswell (D) defeats Zaun (R)
OH1 - Chabot (R) defeats Driehaus (D)
OH15 - Stivers (R) defeats Kilroy (D)
OR5 - Schrader (D) defeats Bruun (R)
CT5 - Murphy (D) defeats Caligiuri (R)
KY3 - Yarmuth (D) defeats Lally (R)
MI9 - Peters (D) defeats Raczkowski (R)
NV3 - Heck (R) defeats Titus (D)
OR4 - DeFazio (D) defeats Robinson (R)
PA8 - Fitzpatrick (R) defeats Murphy (D)
VA11 - Connolly (D) ahead of Fimian (R) (undecided)
IL12 - Costello (D) defeats Newman (R)
IL17 - Schilling (R) defeats Hare (D)
ME2 - Michaud (D) defeats Levesque (R)
MN8 - Cravaack (R) defeats Oberstar (R)
NY25 - Buerkle (R) ahead of Maffei (D) (undecided)
TN5 - Cooper (D) defeats Hall (R)
TX15 - Hinojosa (D) defeats Zamora (R)
WA2 - Larsen (D) defeats Koster (R) (squeaker)
WI7 - Duffy (R) defeats Lassa (D)
CA18 - Cardoza (D) defeats Berryhill (R)
CO7 - Perlmutter (D) defeats Frazier (R)
NY2 - Israel (D) defeats Gomez (R)
NY27 - Higgins (D) defeats Roberto (R)
PA11 - Barletta (R) defeats Kanjorski (D)
WI3 - Kind (D) defeats Kapanke (R)
CA20 - Vidak (R) ahead of Costa (D)
CT4 - Himes (D) defeats Debicella (R) (squeaker)
IA1 - Braley (D) defeats Lange (R)
MA10 - Keating (D) defeats Perry (R)
NJ12 - Holt (D) defeats Sipprelle (R)
NM1 - Heinrich (D) defeats Barela (R)
NY9 - Weiner (D) defeats Turner (R)
NC13 - Miller (D) defeats Randall (R)
OH13 - Sutton (D) defeats Ganley (R)
WA6 - Dicks (D) defeats Cloud (R)
WA9 - Smith (D) defeats Muri (R)

Incredibly only 44 Democrats won of the 101 incumbents selected in this list (and there are 3 races with Democrats leading yet to be decided). This list covers 44 of the 49 total seats of Democrat incumbents defeated in 2010 (after factoring in Democrats who dropped out or who did not run for re-election).

For a frame of reference, prior to 2010, the incumbent re-election rate in the House trended 94% and above since 1996. This year the total incumbent re-election rate was 86.9%. Lest we believe that the main driver of this election result was "anti-incumbent" sentiment, 49 of the 51 incumbents defeated were Democrats.

Of the above-selected races, five are yet to be decided, and two are absolute "squeakers," meaning within a few tenths of a percent. Let's breakdown these races very briefly in terms of funding:

CT4: Himes (D) - $3,325,527; Debicella (R) $1,666,749
WA2 - Larsen (D) - $1,757,186; Koster (R) $906,627
NY25 - Maffei (D) $2,741,888; Buerkle (R) $551,804
VA11 - Connolly (D) $2,215,272; Fimian (R) $2,351,201
IL8 - Bean (D) $1,995,576; Walsh (R) $465,661
CA11 - McNerney (D) $2,562,444; Harmer (R) $2,524,417
AZ8 - Giffords (D) $3,151,929; Kelly (R) $1,288,074
KY6 - Chandler (D) $1,469,871; Barr (R) $1,366,479

The Democrats outdrew the Republicans in terms of campaign funding in 6 of 7 races, and 4 of those, significantly. Although it is impossible to say if more funding would have led to better results for the Republican in each race, certainly it would have bettered the Republican's prospects. It should also be noted that the Democrats funded their Senators' races very generously and it bore them much better results than those of the House.

A few last observations. Although there was a general red tsunami crashing throughout the nation, including in the state legislatures', secretary of state, and governors' races, a few deep blue states had erected levees, repulsing the general trend. These states were Connecticut, New York, Maine, Massachusetts, and for the Senate and Governor races, California. There were a few spillover effects, such as in several California House races, and in NY19 (whose campaign I worked on), NY 20, and NY24. But overall, this was the best day for Republicans since 1938. The results were driven by a repudiation of not just incumbents, and not just the economy, but of the policies of incumbent Democrats.

Senatus Populusque Libertarianus

America's first libertarian senator has been elected, though the word "libertarian" is prone to ambiguous interpretations. Ironically, his name is a mix of Ron Paul (his father) and Ayn Rand (in this case it's just a coincidence). 

How Perfect is This?

As a metaphor for citizen-government relations, it is difficult to find a more perfect summation of contrasting ideals than the picture at right, which was re-posted by Drudge from Reuters.

Before the train of Our Pretended Lord and Master Barack Obama is a poor man begging for aid from his Royal Lie-ness.

Why is this image such a mirror of attitudes for the conservative pro-Constitution Right and the elitist faux-compassionate Left?

Prior to America's Declaration of Independence, the colonial settlers were effectively prostrate before the King of Great Britain. The Declaration was a shot across the bow to the mighty British, that we Americans would stand for liberty, as men, on our own two feet.

But it has been the objective of statists and elitists since time immemorial to humble men before them to bask in the glory of the crown's tender mercies. When free market capitalism arrived and allowed men to free themselves from groveling before the king and the nobility for table scraps, the courtesans were not amused. They plotted to capture the engine of free market capitalism and put in the service of the oligarchs, all the while blaming capitalism for whatever havoc and disruption the state caused in the process.

Free market capitalism is not an economy for the lazy, the timid, or the irresponsible. It is an economic system by, of, and for freemen.

And it works. It creates wealth, as can be seen in two hundred years of unprecedented economic growth and prosperity, despite all recessions and depressions. We came a long way from bended knee before kings, but the current administration, and the political class that carries out its decrees, would like to change all that.

Are we going to bow before King Obama, The Grand Dutchess Pelosi, and the The Prince Harry Reid like Obama does to Oriental Sultanates? Or are we going to stand up like men and tell our would-be rulers that WE DO NOT NEED YOU and WE DEMAND A FREE ECONOMY FOR FREE MEN!

"Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all."

-- Frederic Bastiat

Elections Have Consequences

Some Hard Questions for the Hard Left

A few hard questions for the pro-socialist 'dupes' out there:

If America were truly as imperialist and colonialist as most socialists claim, then why didn't it use the H-bomb prior to 1949 to conquer foreign nations? Or why hasn't the U.S. taken over Canada? Or why hasn't it taken over Mexico, instead of allowing Mexicans to immigrate unimpeded?

Or why does America liberate every people whose nation it goes to war with? In Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. is fighting brutal, ruthless enemies and trying to liberate and protect people, and the American military, and its leadership, are excoriated by the left for doing it! Does the left enjoy seeing people enslaved and terrorized?

Or why is it that every nation America defeats in war or liberates does better than it did prior to that war? Japan and South Korea are the obvious examples. Japan was demolished by the U.S., with firebombing and nuclear bombs, and then was rebuilt and protected by the U.S. military. Fifty years later, American manufacturers struggle to compete with innovative Japanese firms.

In South Korea, south of 38th parallel, we see from photos taken from outer space at night a brightly-lit peninsula. To the North, we see a dark, desolate gulag-state with a tiny pinpoint in the PyongYang palace of Kim Jong-Il.

We can also add to this short list America's participation in the Normandy invasion, its subsequent protection of West Germany (and France) from the Soviet army, and the obviously positive effects of the Marshall Plan in regenerating Europe after World War II.

Or how can liberals claim to be so smart, while most are unable or pathologically unwilling to see America in an accurate historical context? I will proffer an answer to the last question.

The answer is two-fold. "Progressives" have a deep-seated aversion to history, believing that each 'moment' can be reinvented regardless of prior history. It might even be conceived that they view cause and effect itself as a type of "prison." In addition, their Marxist worldview prevents them from admitting that America could ever do anything good.

To expand on the this, Marxist theory provides the doctrinaire prism through which leftists shoot all their ideas. Marxism, and its offspring, provides a kind of mental security blanket, presumably enhancing "elites'" claims to intellectual superiority. In a way, the sheer bizarreness of their worldview edifies their sense of exclusive insight and separates themselves from the 'unenlightened' masses in their esteem.

Marxism thus leads to the perception on the part its adherent that he is participating in a type of struggle through which he will gain meaning and importance. In this way, it is very much like a cult; a godless, utopian millenarian cult. This is very important in the "post-God" Nietzschean world of the New Left, whose spiritual anomie led disaffected intellectuals to found a new religion, one that they could develop from scratch and mold, one that would be "scientific" in scope and methods of conversion.

Marxian elites distinguish themselves from the masses. That is, they differentiate between those to be mind-manipulated, and themselves, the presumed masterminds (and one has to give the 'dupes' credit for their sheer destructiveness and capability of leading millions to death and enslavement). Thus the "theory" does not hold in all cases, disproving itself. If millionaire Democrats can be socialists, and those in all social "classes" can be pro-capitalist, the theory makes no sense. The material (meaning degree of wealth) explanation for the world's ills is debunked.

In sum, Marxism and its offshoots feed a sense of narcissism and increasing radicalism; as Marxists' demands can never be fulfilled in the real world, they push harder and harder to make reality conform to their ideology; this of course requires that they be given more power and more control.

Thus, in a sick kind of way, America, as the most successful and powerful country of the world becomes inherently the main problem in the mind of the Marxist. All of the backwards and despotic nations, whose failed economic and political models are evident to the student of history, are attributed to the United States by necessity. America must be colonialist, imperialist, and worse, even if its history proves otherwise (thus the neologisms "neo-colonialist" and "neo-imperialist").

Additionally, a capitalist America cannot be admitted by the left as capable of doing good because this would mean by implication that people have free will and agency to choose good over evil. In other words, economics or material reality could not determine behavior in the way that Marx describes. And if it is the case that a capitalist America can do good, then how could the Marxist worldview be true? Who would be to blame systemically for the world's problems, and how could we as a collective change the world?

The emotionally indigestible and even unfathomable answer for the leftist is that we are all individuals, and the battle between good and evil is a personal one. We must all wage that battle alone, with help from others, of course, and with direct accountability to our consciences or God. The full import of this truth fills the leftist with existential anguish; because of his atheist, collectivist worldview, he cannot emotionally accept such a reality.

U.K. Gets the Idea: 'Useless' Teacher Banned from Classroom for Life

From the DailyMail:

A teacher who is judged to be incapable of ever improving his work has become the first to be banned for life from the classroom due to incompetence. [Continued]

Oh God, can we start a movement here?  We can start with the lawyers, then move our way through the social workers, therapists, government bureaucrats, teachers, professors, unionized construction workers...can you think of how much dead weight on the shoulders of actual producers can be shrugged off?

HALL-EH-LU-JAH: THE UK TO SLASH 500,000 GOVERNMENT JOBS!

From BBC News:

Chancellor George Osborne has unveiled the biggest UK spending cuts since World War II, with welfare, councils and police budgets all hit.

The pension age will rise sooner than expected, some incapacity benefits will be time limited and other money clawed back through changes to tax credits and housing benefit. [...]

Mr Osborne ended his hour-long Commons statement by claiming the 19% average cuts to departmental budgets were less severe than expected. This is thanks to an extra £7bn in savings from the welfare budget and a £3.5bn increase in public sector employee pension contributions. [Continued]

Social democracy coming to a grinding halt across the pond - how will Europe-adoring Democrats cope with their cognitive dissonance?

Oh yes, it is sustainable! No, no, don't take the government jobs away! Not the welfare! Not the welfare!!!

Anti-State Themes in Heavy Metal

Megadeath's Symphony of Destruction.


Metallica's "And Justice for All."

Time to Stop Playing Around

Great Observation from Dr. Thomas Sowell

"One of the painful aspects of studying great catastrophes of the past is discovering how many times people were preoccupied with trivialities when they were teetering on the edge of doom."

Case Closed: Obama is a Socialist

Check out this Obama quote from a recent Rolling Stone interview:

"We wrestled away billions of dollars of profit that were going to the banks and middlemen through the student-loan program, and now we have tens of billions of dollars that are going directly to students to help them pay for college. We expanded national service more than we ever have before ..."

It doesn't get anymore blatantly socialist, hell, communist than that. So you lefties can shut the hell up about us "right-wingers" not knowing what we are talking about when we call Obama a socialist.

Tribute to My Fax/Printer

Tribute to my slow-ass feedbacking fax/printer. Die mo fo, die mo fo, die!

Ἀριστοτέλης

Aristotle is the last Greek philosopher who faces the world cheerfully; after him, all have, in one form or another, a philosophy of retreat. The world is bad; let us learn to be independent of it. External goods are precarious; they are the gift of fortune, not the reward of our own efforts.

Bertrand Russell

Not only is he the last Greek philosopher with such an attitude. He was the last philosopher who faces the world cheerfully (perhaps before Ayn Rand). 

How the Left Sees Us

When I look into the eyes of a child, I see a unique individual blessed with a special set of gifts. A little person adventuring out into the world, someone who is irreplacable and precious. I want him to do the most with his life that he can, well-provided with opportunities to learn and grow, with the maximum amount of personal challenge and support to develop into an intelligent and capable adult.

The leftists see a child as yet another dependent, someone to be molded and created in their own image, to be brought up to be yet another member of a group: the "community," the "tribe," even "the nation." All children equal, none individual, none struggling to be excellent and therefore none superior or inferior. Faceless, nameless people to be managed from a centralized government far away.

Each individual is his own person. Each is a universe of emotions, thoughts, biology, and experience unto himself. Each is a miracle who will not be replicated in the history of the universe. Joy, love, sadness, and even anger, all are legitimate emotions that each person possesses. Each person has a psyche, which is the Greek term for both a mind and a soul.

The more centralized and bureacratized the government, the more abstract the individual becomes. He becomes an instrument of the elites to perpetuate their own power and advance their political causes. His will, his self-interest, becomes pitted in a zero-sum game with the ruling class, with ever-creeping coercion stealing away more and more of the individual's right to self-rule.

Collectivism and individualism are the most fundamental dueling ideologies of our age. Whether it be nationalism, socialism, or any other form of collectivism on one side, and a Constitutional government sanctifying the individual's right to life, liberty, and property on the other, the dilemma is the same: Who decides the course of the individual's life?

Democracy, the great political watchword of the West, is a form of majority rule that suppresses the minority, especially whom Ayn Rand called the greatest "minority" - the individual. When combined with increasing social engineering in the public forum, through state-run education, proxy "non-profit" agencies, and influence over media dissemination of ideas, "democracy" becomes transformed over time not into an expression of collective will, but a slavish extension of the rulers' will, over individuals.

As the collectivist government seeks to impose its will on a people, it insists that all individuals are rigidly members of "groups," and attempts to isolate and alienate those who do not desire to conform. The individual who expresses himself and endeavors to live his life in pursuit of truth and excellence, regardless of group esteem, eventually becomes ostracized, if not socially, then legally. Those who challenge the group or the government are termed "radicals" or "extremists" for wanting to live their own lives without interference. Autonomy is something the group cannot tolerate. The individual belongs to the group and its enforcement arm - the state.

The country's turn to collectivism has profound consequences, as we see with the socialized healthcare bill recently passed. The individual becomes but a tool of society to advance the goals set by the leaders. Over time, his behavior can "justifiably" be micromanaged in any way the ruling class sees fit; whether or not he smokes, what he eats, what car he drives, and what kinds of lightbulbs he uses. For the individual in a collectivist society, there is no legitimate objection to manipulation by the government. Indeed, in the ultimate, inevitable totalitarian form of collectivism, the government controls whether you are allowed to live or die. Socialized healthcare is a step closer to that dreadful reality.

The absolutely crucial, indispensable point for the majority to remember is that ascending to majority status in a culture does not grant it the right to utilize accrued power to engage in its own form of social engineering. Freedom is the ideal America was founded on, and that means removing government controls over the individual. This is an extremely difficult sell to those looking for revenge against political opposition, or who desire resources to engage in their own brand of political warfare against the other side, or who simply enjoy power for its own sake. It is very difficult to find self-interested individuals to send to political office who are rational enough to realize that it is in the long-term interest of themselves and the country they live in to uphold individual rights and to defend freedom from the government itself.

As citizens of this nation, the most effective way to deflate the drive toward collectivism in an ongoing way is to remove all bases of its ideological support in the public arena. Altruism, nationalism (which is not the same as American patriotism), any form of racism put forth by any individual, socialism, and any other form of collectivism should be directly opposed and contrasted with individualism. Private property, free speech, freedom of religion, gun rights, and free market capitalism should be directly and forcefully articulated as the rightful antitheses of collectivism. Do not concede to the collectivist on any point, even in the so-called interest of being "reasonable" or "civil." The leftists prey on people's social weaknesses as an inherent means to their destructive ends.

Political war is intrinsically an ideological war. Do not ever waver. Make clear your ideas and ideals, including your political concepts. Persuade people in stark terms what the fundamental choices are for our Constitutional republic. The leftists make their case, in both implicit and explicit ways, by indoctrinating each American for decades. We must dash their ideas on the rocks of history and philosophy at every opportunity, as clearly and as indisuptably as possible.

The Tower of Babel

To be honest, I don’t quite share the hysteria over the Ground Zero Mosque. Unless something criminal is uncovered, the project is absolutely consistent with private property rights and why should anyone nose around someone else’s property? It’s none of their business. It is a ban on the project that would be a violation of rights.

To paraphrase Voltaire, I disapprove of Islam and believe it’s a violent religion but I will defend to the death every (non-criminal) Muslim’s right to build a mosque on his property. The fact that Muslims can build a mosque near Ground Zero, while non-Muslims can’t build much in Islamic countries, is exactly why America is America and Jihadland is Jihadland.

Freedom is first of all the freedom to offend other people’s feelings. 9/11 victims should not oppose the project. They should rejoice that, (at least to some extent) in America, no one - even a majority of the country - can violate your rights, including your right to build whatever you want on your property. Even if the majority doesn’t want you to build what you want. In America, the individual, not the majority, rules.

It is that freedom that made the World Trade Center possible. It is that freedom that the 9/11 hijackers attempted to destroy. It is that freedom that gave rise to the global capital of capitalism - the city where the human spirit, clad in concrete and steel, scrapes the sky, like the Tower of Babel - the city where anyone should be allowed to do anything, except harming others.

The Aesthetics of Hate: Design for Ground Zero Mosque Unveiled

The Ground Zero mosque's design has been unveiled and it has already elicited comparison to the Fortress of Solitude, Superman's subzero headquarters.  Most striking is the white exterior color overlaying a fractured, spindly facade.  This is an excellent representation of the Islamists' mission in the West, to fracture societies under a veneer of peace and innocence, while spreading Islam's tendrils in all directions.  It's sure to be a smash in New York.

Islam and Political Correctness Silence Upstart Dutch Politician

And let's not forget about one of the other most potent totalitarian ideologies of our day, Islam, being aided and abetted by the destructive qua destructive neomarxist creed of political correctness.

Dutch politician on trial on hate speech charges

By TOBY STERLING (AP) – 8 hours ago

AMSTERDAM — Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders went on trial Monday for alleged hate speech, even as his popularity and influence in the Netherlands are near all time highs.

Prosecutors say Wilders incited hatred against Muslims with remarks comparing Islam to Naziism and by calling for a ban on the Quran. Wilders argues he has a right to freedom of speech and his remarks were within the bounds of the law.

If convicted, he faces up to a year in prison. He could keep his seat in parliament.

On his Twitter account, Wilders said the start of his trial was a "terrible day."

"The freedom of expression of at least 1.5 million people is standing trial together with me," he wrote, referring to the voters that made his Freedom Party the third-largest in national elections in June. [Continued]

Socialist Radicals Show Themselves in Public

Environazism

Just like modern envirowackos, the Nazis were against slaughtering animals. They preferred slaughtering humans. I believe it’s not a mere coincidence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Germany#Environmentalism

The Nazis had elements which were supportive of animal rights, zoos and wildlife,[77] and took several measures to ensure their protection.[78] In 1933 the regime enacted a stringent animal-protection law.[79][80] Many NSDAP leaders including Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring were supporters of animal protection. Several Nazis were environmentalists (notably Rudolf Hess), and species protection and animal welfare were significant issues in the regime.[81] Heinrich Himmler made efforts to ban the hunting of animals.[82] Göring was an animal lover and conservationist.[83] The current animal welfare laws in Germany are more or less modification of the laws introduced by the National Socialist regime.[84]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_welfare_in_Nazi_Germany
In 1927, a Nazi representative to the Reichstag called for actions against cruelty to animals and kosher butchering. (…) Nazi Germany was the first nation to ban vivisection. (…)He announced to end the "unbearable torture and suffering in animal experiments" and told that those who "still think they can continue to treat animals as inanimate property" will be sent to concentration camps.(…) Goering also banned commercial animal trapping, imposed severe restrictions on hunting, and regulated the shoeing of horses. He imposed regulations even on the boiling of lobsters and crabs. In one incident, he sent a fisherman to concentration camp[12] for cutting up a bait frog.[

Envirocreeps' Creepy Video

I don't mean to go off on a rant here...

Anyway, this video is Exhibit A of just how creepy the creeps of Envirowackoville have become. Utterly predictable, because those who assume a given ideology (or a hybrid of ideologies) are driven to fulfill the demands of that ideology (or ideologies, leading often to tragi-comic consequences). For environmentalism, that end point is the reverence of "Nature" for its own sake at the expense of humanity.

We are already experiencing hidden genocides as a direct consequence of the mass hypnosis of yuppies under the environmentalist spell; the malaria outbreak in Africa that could have been dampened by the order of millions of lives if Rachel Carson wouldn't have come along with her crank ideology that exalted the thickness of baby bird shells over the question of whether or not little human babies live or die.

Then we have the subsidization of corn ethanol, which has government's typical unintended (or intended?) disastrous consequences, in this case, the starvation and malnourishment of millions of invisible people in faraway lands. And for what? So that we can cut a negligible amount of greenhouse gases from our already negligible contribution to the big blue atmosphere?

This is madness, but it is so regularized and mainstreamed that many don't recognize it as madness. It is like the majority of people live in a house of mirrors their whole lives and when they finally see the truth reflected in a plane mirror, it appears distorted.

The moral truth is that the end of human life is human life; how to best accomplish that end is the question of political economy. And in direct contradition to the beliefs of the many, it is not collectivism and altruism that edifies life for the greatest number of people, but respect for each individual. The individualist creed entails allowing each man to be who he is and to adapt to his environment in accordance with his nature, while civilizing him through education and the development of rationality.

The mental order of the many is the political order of the whole. The respect for political order, guided by the correct morality, is the foundation of civilization. The protection of property is the mental security needed for people to create and produce without fear. Acknowledgment of the sanctity of the family by society is in accordance with man's biological nature and emotional needs. War against these basic tenets as the leftist does, with his destructive anti-civilization mentality, giving rise to various ideological manifestations, and society and order, so necessary for individuals to pursue happiness, is undermined. How ideologies either undermine or edify civilization must be understood if people are to take threats more seriously, and tragedies on a massive scale are to be avoided.

Likewise, the avoidance of ideology, as a belief that it is extreme in and of itself, is disingenuous and naive. Pragmatism and nihilism, the former shrugging at ideology and the latter rejecting it, do not absolve man of moral problems. These ideologies themselves only set man adrift to writhe in existentialist fugue. It takes principled opposition to counter today's next permutation of collectivist "isms" - "radical pragmatism." Remain oblivious to ideology and you are but flotsam and jetsam in the human Ganges. Principled opposition is required to counter collectivism and its precursor nihilism. Embrace collectivism or allow it to arise through stubborn passivity, and bad things are liable to occur. Adopt the individualist and objectivist ethos in words and deeds and live.

An American Version of the Taliban?

This frequently renders it difficult, in studying the earliest historical and legislative records of New England, to detect the link that connected the emigrants with the land of their forefathers. They continually exercised the rights of sovereignty; they named their magistrates, concluded peace or declared war, made police regulations, and enacted laws, as if their allegiance was due only to God. Nothing can be more curious and at the same time more instructive than the legislation of that period; it is there that the solution of the great social problem which the United States now presents to the world is to be found.

Among these documents we shall notice as especially characteristic the code of laws promulgated by the little state of Connecticut in 1650.

The legislators of Connecticut begin with the penal laws, and, strange to say, they borrow their provisions from the text of Holy Writ.

'Whosoever shall worship any other God than the Lord," says the preamble of the Code, "shall surely be put to death." This is followed by ten or twelve enactments of the same kind, copied verbatim from the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy~ Blasphemy, sorcery, adultery, and rape were punished with death; an outrage offered by a son to his parents was to be expiated by the same penalty. The legislation of a rude and half-civilized people was thus applied to an enlightened and moral community. The consequence was, that the punishment of death was never more frequently prescribed by statute, and never more rarely enforced.

The chief care of the legislators in this body of penal laws was the maintenance of orderly conduct and good morals in the community; thus they constantly invaded the domain of conscience, and there was scarcely a sin which was not subject to magisterial censure. The reader is aware of the rigor with which these laws punished rape and adultery; intercourse between unmarried persons was likewise severely repressed. The judge was empowered to inflict either a pecuniary penalty, a whipping, or marriage on the misdemeanants, and if the records of the old courts of New Haven may be believed, prosecutions of this kind were not infrequent. We find a sentence, bearing the date of May 1, 1660, inflicting a fine and reprimand on a young woman who was accused of using improper language and of allowing herself to be kissed. The Code of 1650 abounds in preventive measures. It punishes idleness and drunkenness with severity. Innkeepers were forbidden to furnish more than a certain quantity of liquor to each consumer; and simple lying, whenever it may be injurious, is checked by a fine or a flogging. In other places the legislator, entirely forgetting the great principles of religious toleration that he had himself demanded in Europe, makes attendance on divine service compulsory, and goes so far as to visit with severe punishment, and even with death, Christians who chose to worship . God according to a ritual differing from his own. Sometimes, indeed, the zeal for regulation induces him to descend to the most frivolous particulars: thus a law is to be found in the same code which prohibits the use of tobacco. It must not be forgotten that these fantastic and oppressive laws were not imposed by authority, but that they were freely voted by all the persons interested in them, and that the customs of the community were even more austere and puritanical than the laws. In 1649 a solemn association was formed in Boston to check the worldly luxury of long hair.

These errors are no doubt discreditable to human reason; they attest the inferiority of our nature, which is incapable of laying firm hold upon what is true and just and is often reduced to the alternative of two excesses. In strict connection with this penal legislation, which bears such striking marks of a narrow, sectarian spirit and of those religious passions which had been warmed by persecution and were still fermenting among the people, a body of political laws is to be found which, though written two hundred years ago, is still in advance of the liberties of our age.

-- Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

The Tocquevillian Equivalent of the Owl of Minerva Flies at Dusk

The growth of nations presents something analogous to this; they all bear some marks of their origin. The circumstances that accompanied their birth and contributed to their development affected the whole term of their being.

If we were able to go back to the elements of states and to examine the oldest monuments of their history, I doubt not that we should discover in them the primal cause of the prejudices, the habits, the ruling passions, and, in short, all that constitutes what is called the national character. We should there find the explanation of certain customs which now seem at variance with the prevailing manners; of such laws as conflict with established principles; and of such incoherent opinions as are here and there to be met with in society, like those fragments of broken chains which we sometimes see hanging from the vaults of an old edifice, supporting nothing. This might explain the destinies of certain nations which seem borne on by an unknown force to ends of which they themselves are ignorant. But hitherto facts have been lacking for such a study: the spirit of analysis has come upon nations only as they matured; and when they at last conceived of contemplating their origin, time had already obscured it, or ignorance and pride had surrounded it with fables behind which the truth was hidden.

-- Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Tocqueville on America's Ruling Class

There are virtuous and peaceful individuals whose pure morality, quiet habits, opulence, and talents fit them to be the leaders of their fellow men. Their love of country is sincere, and they are ready to make the greatest sacrifices for its welfare. But civilization often finds them among its opponents; they confound its abuses with its benefits, and the idea of evil is inseparable in their minds from that of novelty.  Near these I find others whose object is to materialize mankind, to hit upon what is expedient without heeding what is just, to acquire knowledge without faith, and prosperity apart from virtue; claiming to be the champions of modern civilization, they place themselves arrogantly at its head, usurping a place which is abandoned to them, and of which they are wholly unworthy.

Where are we, then?

The religionists are the enemies of liberty, and the friends of liberty attack religion; the high-minded and the noble advocate bondage, and the meanest and most servile preach independence; honest and enlightened citizens are opposed to all progress, while men without patriotism and without principle put themselves forward as the apostles of civilization and intelligence. 

-- Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

I quibble with some of the language, such as all talk of "sacrifice" or "materializing men," not to mention Tocqueville's conceptualization of "democracy" in general, but it is still refreshing to read Democracy in America for its flashes of insight. This Tocqueville wrote in 1831?

The Final Battle

Jon Stewart on Obama, Ayers, Beer Pong, and Subverting the Constitution

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Indecision 2010 - Democratic Campaign Woes
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity

Why Environmentalism is Ideologically Worse Than Nazism: Exhibit A

Nan Hayworth's Bid for NY-19

This is Nan Hayworth, a candidate for Congress in New York's 19th District. I am helping to manage her elections HQ.

What Ohio Tells Us About Obama - Hotline On Call

What Ohio Tells Us About Obama - Hotline On Call

Democracy in America

In America, it is nearly a ubiquitous truism that ours is a democratic nation. In popular imagination, all virtues spring forth from the fountainhead of democracy, and all vices consist of democracy's aristocratic or reactionary opposition. Yet we were blessed with the founders' vision to anticipate the instability and capriciousness of mob-majority rule, and our Constitution was imbued with individual rights, sanctioned by no less than the Almighty itself.

The terms democracy, freedom, and liberty are retained in our popular vernacular without meaningful engagement of the historical circumstances that gave rise to them in the culture. The intellectual doctrines of the progenitors of these terms, Locke, Paine, Madison, and Jefferson, among others, are obliterated in the people's education, while their persons are held aloft as exemplary and heroic. Over time, even as their names are retained for the expediency of politicians, these great thinkers' innovations and exhortations have tended to become distant, inaccessible, and ultimately, obsolete.

Over time such conceptual errors as the conflation of majoritarian fiat and individual liberty, surely propagated by the enemies of freedom, prove fatal. We are at pains to point out that the American revolution, which was not simply a revolt against the tax-slavery of Britain, but rather an unprecedented revolution of philosophical bearings away from collectivist tyranny, turned out as it did almost precisely because it was not the French Revolution. In France, democratic fervor soaked the decrepit land in blood, providing fertile soil for the regrowth of an authoritarian form of governance. Sprung forth from the chaotic masses was the spirit of nationalism, which renounced the emancipatory powers of self-rule, and instead crowned an emperor.

Thus, in revolutionary France, unbridled passion led the unthinking mob to dethrone a monarchical despot, only to cede all power to a nationalistic dictator. At least the monarchy had the wisdom of studied self-preservation on its side; the new regime, self-confident and poised to sweep up the continent, embarked on a heady crusade to remake the ancien regimes of Europe in its own image.

The impending disaster of the Napoleonic Wars foreshadows the experience of twentieth century Germany, whose National Socialist movement was nearly as romantic and just as collectivist; but the latter departed from the French by implementing "scientific" methods of manipulating and controlling society. We are loathe to point out that the great dictator was democratically elected. The formula strikes the modern-day American as hauntingly familiar.

From the great upheavals of the modern era, we may trace a thin pencil line back to the Fourth Crusades, whose impulsive sacking of Constantinople removed a Christian bastion stemming the rising tide of the Musselman. Therefrom we may leap back to the doomed Sicilian expedition of the Athenians, a hasty gambit that was pitched to the war-weary citizens by demagogues in the language of greed and glory. The dispassionate historian Thucydides displays the Athenian ploy's divergence from reality as a retreat into sheer hubris.

The common theme of these historical events is that there is no "wisdom of the people," as a populist politician of late would have us believe. The desire to promote "the common good," as the current opposition party has enshrined in its latest pledge to the American people, is as vacuous and venal as the politicians themselves choose it to be, and is merely an homage to the democratic status quo.

With each passing generation, we depart from the exceptionalism that is the hallmark of the American tradition, the individual and his capability of transforming the world through humility, hard work, and rational self-interest. America's reverence for the individual is what made it a shining beacon to the world, driving millions to come to this nation's shores. Today, the individual is culturally and politically absent, brushed away from the history books, and disappearing into competing democratic mobs.

As Alexis de Tocqueville put it in his prescient introduction to Democracy in America:

The poor man retains the prejudices of his forefathers without their faith, and their ignorance without their virtues; he has adopted the doctrine of self-interest as the rule of his actions without understanding the science that puts it to use; and his selfishness is no less blind than was formerly his devotion to others.

Self-interest devoid of rationality is anathema to civil society; and it is no surprise that the deposed oligarchs of the ancien regime would eventually seek vengeance upon the wayward children of the European and American revolutions by retaining the politically useful aspects of their historical movements, while stripping them of their redeeming cores.

In Europe, the supposedly ineluctable drive for equality gave way to uncritical reception of the primitive ideology of socialism. The irony of socialism is that it does not lead to the promised utopia of perfect equality, but rather to a state of severe impoverishment of the preponderance of the people, led by the naturally self-interested oligarchs who impose a socially ossified system.

The genius of the American revolution is that its core tenet of liberty nurtures men who learn to rule themselves. A hardy, self-directed people, innocently propelled to meet their own needs, provides the general equality conducive to what Aristotle considered the best society, the one directed by a vibrant middle class.

America's impending reversal from individual rights and resultant self-reliance to a political system of paternalism and patronage will foist conditions on the nation that will appear in many respects like pre-revolutionary France. The hard left has deliberately fostered revolutionary conditions in this nation and has sought to implement social upheaval that will engulf the American people and lead to the return of the state. The imagined revolution will feature the reaction of the increasingly mislabeled "conservatives," who now find themselves in the awkward position of radicals, strangers in a strange land.

Should the dreaded hour arrive when we are forced to choose, when our nation reaches some unforeseen but steadily approaching breaking point, will we choose the "democratic" revolution of France or the individualist revolution of our forefathers? Our country's clamoring for "democracy" will presage socialism, the chosen model of the beneficiaries of the welfare state, as well as the preferred ideology of elites who seek to return man to a neofeudal order animated by the secularized religion of altruism. If we persist in our ignorance of the perils of democracy, we will undoubtedly choose in error, and become prey to the hubris that precedes all calamitous falls.

The Decivilizing Effects of Government - Jeffrey A. Tucker - Mises Daily

The Decivilizing Effects of Government - Jeffrey A. Tucker - Mises Daily

Greedier is Gooder

Milton Friedman Discusses Economics and Freedom

16:00-16:38 - PERFECT synopsis of the Obamacare debacle.

Time to Bring Back the Nuremburg Trials

From CNS News:

In a video interview this week, White House Office of Science and Technology Director John P. Holdren told CNSNews.com that he would use the “free market economy” to implement the “massive campaign” he advocated along with Population Bomb author Paul Ehrlich to “de-develop the United States.”

BreitbartTV comments:

In his role as President Barack Obama’s top science and technology adviser, Holdren deals with issues ranging from global warming to health care.

“A massive campaign must be launched to restore a high-quality environment in North America and to de-develop the United States,” Holdren wrote along with Paul and Anne H. Ehrlich in the “recommendations” concluding their 1973 book Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions.

Is anybody guffawing now at my comment that environmentalism is more dangerous than Nazism? That the Nazis were selective in their hatred and their goals to exterminate the Jews, Slavs, and Roma, and are thus pikers philosophically when compared to the environmentalists, who at their core despise the entire human race?

We are in a race against time against the nihilists and anti-humanists who are the brains behind the "green movement" (and the cultural marxists who embed "green values" in the culture). Environmentalists at their core believe, along with the Nazi Heidegger, that "the essence of humanity is existence." Sorry, I side with Ayn Rand, who posited that the essence of humanity is life.