Comment on the Belmont Club: "The Gathering Storm"

More bad news from the Washington Times,
CBO report: Debt will rise to 90% of GDP.

If this is Greece I should go to Astoria for a meal or a cup of espresso.

Tcobb is correct about the impending citizenship amnesty drive.

Storm-Rider given the time we spent going back and forth over this I find it unpleasant that you simply did a cut and paste of your original statement on a prior thread. My disagreements with your timetable, your reliance on fiat by principles when dealing with those who are held to no principles, and your intent to return the government to the feeble condition of the Confederation when we face many enemies in a dangerous world, remain.

It is interesting that the Democrats are accusing the Republicans of selling fear. This is a shot of pure projection with a chaser of preemption. The entire Democratic program has been based on increasing the level of fear in order to provoke a sense of crisis. As Rahm Emanuel said, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste."


The legislation they have produced in this blind panic have some common features. The bills are large and ill constructed. They have not been actually read by the people voting on them. They mandate large expenditures far in the future, not in the near term as would be true if they were a response to a genuine crisis. They are produced in response to planned and orchestrated media campaigns and triggering events. Those events are caused by the same people who benefit from the legislation, by the elimination of competition, and who the legislation will ostensibly regulate. An example is the crisis in the housing market caused by the managers of Fannie Mae and the financiers of Goldman Sachs. They are still profiting while their competitors were destroyed.

Will everyone please be careful, any expression that crosses the line into advocating violence is not only unwarranted but endangers the credibility of this forum. My belief is that there are agents provacateurs going onto conservative blogs to incite people to advocate for violence.

Subotai Bahadur,
(Who reported a naval clash)
Thank you for the information about Korea.

Mark,
Jews know that the ultimate portable wealth, for when you have to get out of town quickly, is what is between your ears. Human Capital is everything, read Gary Becker.

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HsvToolFool,
While I disagree with your desire to repeal the XVI Amendment in full I agree with the general thrust of your suggestion. The history of my back and forth with Storm-Rider on this is on the last thread.

How to prevent prevent vast unread bills is a thorny problem. Some bills need large texts appended or the alternative is simply ceding the legislative authority to a regulatory agency. For example should the tariff schedule be created by bureaucrats or by elected Representatives? The line item veto is a possible improvement but that too could be used abusively to change the intent of Congress. Sunset provisions may be another approach that addresses the problem. By making the law, whether large or small, go away after 5 or ten years the incentive to craft vast unreadable bills that include complicated linked payoffs that generate corruption over time is reduced. There are undoubtedly drawbacks to that approach also.

The best system is one that has honest people staffing it, then we don't have to jury rig procedural barriers to venality. Unfortunately if everyone was honest then no government would be needed at all but that is not the case. The paradox is that we need government because people are not honest and we can't trust or control the government because people are not honest. Now that we have Health Care Reform we are placing new demands on this paradox.

So a Pair of Docs walk into a bar and one says ...

Storm-Rider,
(who noted he had amended his proposed Amendment)
I will reread more closely, I might be wrong. Thought I was wrong once but I was mistaken. Your general intent I always agreed with, our argument is more over timing, flexibility and the role of the Declaration, not the goal.

Papa Ray,
(who concurred with my warning)
Thank you.