What’s Missing From The Budget Debate

The article What’s Missing From The Budget Debate by Yaron Brook and Don Watkins at Forbes.com provides indispensable, intellectual ammunition that advocates of limited government need to win the federal budget debate and to win the future of America.

The arguments this article presents are unanswerable. The question is: will Americans have the guts to use this ammunition to help change America's disastrous course toward economic suicide?

The American Way of Life

You do not owe to your neighbors their Social Security, their medical security, nor their employment security. You owe them only the security of knowing that you will respect their lives and freedom.

Beyond this, you may choose to help your neighbors out of good will, but that is your choice, not society's, nor the government's.

Favorite Quotes

"Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it." - Lou Holtz

Obama's altruistic foreign policy

Very astute of Caroline Glick to identify altruism as the essence of President Obama’s foreign policy. In fact, altruism is at the heart of nearly all of the Obama administration’s actions.

Given the evil means and ends (moral relativism, hypocrisy, socialism), which decent people recognize in Obama's policies, what does this say about altruism as a moral ideal?

I’ll give you a hint: Who is John Galt?

Syria is a dictatorship

Just in case you did not know, Syria is a typical Arab dictatorship.
It is a one party state, with little freedom of expression, assembly
or press. It harbors Islamic terrorist organizations, such as Hezbollah,
and enforces its dictates via secret police.

The New York Times concretizes this point in light of recent
popular protests that have rocked Middle East autocracies and
theocracies.

While President Obama has authorized U.S. military action against
a Libyan government that poses little threat to the U.S., he ignores
regimes, such as those in Syria and Iran, which are far more
dangerous to America's national interest.

8 Gadgets to Watch in 2011

Whether or not these hot gadgets shown at CES 2011 actually become widely used in 2011, I think most of them are way cool, especially the Motorola Xoom tablet computer, Qi Wireless Power and NFC-Enabled Phones. You gotta love new technology!

Oy Vay, UCLA

Egalitarianism, a True Soul Killer

In his January 1st Op-Ed column, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof promotes a new book, The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger by “distinguished British epidemiologists” Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett.

According to Kristof, “The heart of their argument is that humans are social animals and that in highly unequal societies those at the bottom suffer from a range of pathologies.”

If this argument were true, then all the social ills discussed in Mr. Kristof’s article would be easily solved: just make everyone equally poor by government redistribution of wealth. Since misery loves company, then we would all be happy souls in the equality of our poverty.

Of course, this is absurd. Crime, obesity, drug abuse, high teenage birthrates, and the other pathologies Mr. Kristoff mentions may certainly be due to ignorance, poverty, and most of all, poor moral character; but if there is anyone who attributes such problems to socio-economic inequality, they are simply making excuses - either for their own bad behavior or, as I suspect in Mr. Kristoff’s case, for their fear and hatred of the responsibilities entailed in America’s economic and political freedom.

One need not read any "scientific" study or book by “distinguished British epidemiologists” to know BS when it stinks as bad as the tired, old, debunked arguments for egalitarianism regurgitated by leftists under the guise of science.

Mark Williams Racist Blog Story Stinks to High Heaven

First of all, what did Williams really write? Some excerpts from Williams’ blog post are quoted at CNN and the NY Daily News websites; however, these websites report that Williams removed the particular post after growing criticism. Also, CNN reports Williams saying the post was intended as a satire. In any case, it seems that the blog post is nowhere to found on the web so that people can judge for themselves if it comes across as a satire on racism or if it actually appears to condone racist views.

Secondly, the The National Tea Party Federation, which CNN reports, “represents the Tea Party political movement around the country”, which claims to represent 85 Tea Party groups and more than a million activists, and which “expelled” Williams’ Tea Party Express group, seems to be not so prominent after all. If you Google on “Tea Party”, its website does not appear at least the first four pages (first 40 hits) excluding the news stories within the past week. It was formed only 4 months ago: April 2010. It has no meeting or conference information on its website. It’s guestbook page has a grand total of 19 posts. In other words, it is hardly some grand national Tea Party association with the authority to kick people or organizations out of the Tea Party movement.

Third, Williams has stated his views on racists in the Tea Party movement several times, indicating that neither he nor his group, Tea Party Express, support racism. He has further pointed out that Tea Party participants and speakers have repeatedly denounced racist kooks who show up at Tea Party events looking for publicity. Also, Williams has pointed out that it is not necessary to continuously defend himself or his group against accusations that are obviously false. To do so would be to raise an issue that where none exists.

A Surprising Look Gaza

Except for Hamas and anti-Semitism-spewing children, Gaza does not look like such a bad place. I thought from all the media propaganda that Gaza was a desolate, poverty-ridden slum. Yet this video from Pierre Rehov speaks otherwise.

We Con The World

In support of Truth, Justice, Israel, Caroline Glick and the American Way:



And shame on YouTube for blocking this video.

As Caroline wrote, "YouTube's decision to pull Latma's hit song We Con the World after 3 million viewers shows that Israel's enemies are afraid of us. Since they cannot refute our points, they are trying to silence us."

COMPLETE CLEAN UP OF THE GULF SPILL

The idea for cleaning up the Gulf oil spill shown in this video looks feasible to a non-expert like me. In fact, I had thought of something like this system myself (without the PetroLuxus).

If this system is truly feasible, I sincerely hope that someone in power has the courage and intelligence to get it implemented. Perhaps widespread distribution on the internet will help.

Obama's Anti-Israel Stategy & Israel's Lack of Strategy

Caroline Glick perceptively analyzes Barack Obama's anti-Israel strategy since coming into office, and shows Benjamin Netanyahu's lack of strategy in handling Israel's foreign policy.

If only Glick were Israel's prime minister.

Helen Thomas Does Not Recognize Israel's Right to Exist

The Grande Dame of the White House Press Corps, Helen Thomas of Hearst Newspapers, a supposedly mainstream journalist, thinks the Israelis should "go home" to Germany and Poland, where they were butchered by the Nazis. Anti-semitic bitch.

Hizbullah on the homefront

Excellent reporting by Caroline Glick on the frightening success of Iran/Hizbullah in infiltrating the upper-echelons of Israeli-Arab society. More frightening still is the acquiescence of many Jewish Israelis to this unsettling situation. Israel must strike back as soon as possible if it is to survive. I only hope that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has the courage.

Climate Science Settled?

Some evidence supports global warming theory. Some does not.
Many scientists believe that global warming is probable or certain. Many do not.

But what is definitely NOT settled is that governments should impose draconian, socialist controls on the most important sector of our economy: energy production, which makes possible every other part of our modern, technological civilization.

Unfortunately, many climate scientists jump from accepting global warming theory to calling for economically and socially destructive policy measures, such as dramatically curtailing fossil fuel consumption, dictating land use, and reducing agricultural development.

If the world is warming by a few degrees per century, which is possible, and if this is a by-product of human activity, the best way to deal with it is by allowing individuals and institutions the freedom to adjust and innovate via the free market. By allowing individuals to adapt to ever changing circumstances in the world, the free market has exponentially lifted mankind's standard of living in only a few hundred years beyond anything imaginable to pre-modern civilizations.

In contrast, the socialist command-and-control approach has lead to untold human death and suffering in the 20th Century. Such an approach would be the worst way to deal with global warming. It will be suicide to accept government control of the energy supply. Global warming alarmists would effectively shut down industrial civilization by pulling the plug on our energy supply. And make no mistake: this is exactly what they wish to achieve. They want it because they accept the anti-human philosophy of environmentalism, which holds that pristine nature, untouched by human hands, is a value in itself, regardless of its value to human beings. Yet every material value upon which human life depends must be extracted or produced from the natural resources found in the environment.

If environmentalists favored improving human life and civilization, they would favor the only feasible alternatives to fossil fuel combustion, such as nuclear and hydroelectric power. Yet, again and again, they reject such alternatives. This is because the view human beings as evil and human improvement of the natural world as an affront to their sacred Garden of Eden: the environment.

Health Care Reform: He Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune

Obama and the Democrats want us to believe that the only alternatives in paying for health care are the government or insurance companies, i.e., third parties. They don't want us to imagine that health care should be paid for by the individuals (you and me) who are the customers.

Since increasing government regulations over the past 50+ years have put insurance companies and HMO's in charge of paying for most people's health care, we have seen demand soaring and price increasing.

Worst of all, the political left has convinced most Americans that health care is a right. This idea is the root of the problem. Health care is not a right. Neither are food, clothing and shelter. Read the Constitution if you don't believe me. But since people have come to believe health care is a right, they have turned to government, the one institution in society whose only proper purpose is to protect our rights.

This is how the collectivists are taking away our liberties - by telling us we have the right to goods and services, such as health care, produced by our fellow citizens. And when we drive up the price by demanding our health care rights, Uncle Sam steps up to rescue us by offering to pay. And we forget that he who pays the piper calls the tune.

So, we had better be careful because Mr. Obama and his buddies are trying with all their might to pay for health care so that they can call the tune, while we dance to it like schmucks.

Does Having Health Insurance Decrease Mortality?

Megan McArdle questions whether having health insurance actually correlates with improved mortality rates - a question everyone seems to think is obvious. But apparently, it's not quite so simple.

The Fairy Tale of Fatah Moderation.

Caroline Glick shows why the U.S. and Israeli governments must recognize the intent of "moderate" Palestinian Fatah's commitment to destroy Israel.

A Summary of ClimateGate and its Offspring

Mark Landsbaum: What to say to a global warming alarmist from the OC Register.