Comments on Belmont Club "The Eve of Destruction"

Six hundred years ago the merchant bankers of Venice sent their representatives around Europe and they duly reported back conditions, both financial and political, to their employers and to the State. Other banking networks, such as the Medici of Florence, quickly followed. The Pope had a built in intelligence network at his disposal. Jewish banking families, such as the later Rothschilds, worked with governments and had representatives across political borders, so the idea that political risk management is something new to consider or that it hasn't always been seen as tied to financial risk seems forced. Conspiracy theorists may well consume trees or electrons speculating on whether the Bank of England ran the government or vice a versa. If we keep this thread open long enough an Illuminati enthusiast is sure to come in. So what changed in the period just before the First World War that might have been repeated recently that would impair the abilities of financiers and governments to dispassionately collect and act on available information? Perhaps in both cases a certain level of moral enthusiasm was allowed to infect the judgements of a critical segment of people in a position of influence. In the period leading up to WW-I a second episode of Romanticism aroused people of all classes, but especially the upper middle classes. It expressed itself in a reinvigorated drive for Socialism, Nationalism and Pacifism. These movements not only caused the conditions that lead to the explosions of the 20th century but they might have deformed the ability of corporate Directors and government Ministers to act at critical junctures. After all it was their own children who were often entangled in these movements. These forces were not dispersed by the two world wars, in fact they were empowered and now have added to them an ancient resurrected movement in Islam and a newer offspring in Environmentalism. However for a period the apocalyptic threat of the Cold War focused government activity and permitted rational financial considerations to proceed largely uninterrupted. That restraint is now lifted and the energies of both finance and government have been blocked or dissipated in numerous directions that prevented a timely dissemination of the available information or delayed those who should have known better from acting in a more timely manner.

@bogie wheel,
The secret is to convince the Democrats to do what FDR did, that worked. That does not mean vast armies of Obamajugend in rural CCC work camps, a new WPA, and a new National Recovery Act. Those, despite how nice the Appalachian Trial is, did not work. What did work was quadrupling the armed forces and cutting lots of steel to build hundreds of ships and thousands of tanks and planes. Cutting the domestic agencies down to FDR size and rebuilding the military would stimulate the economy.

wretchard,
The American political system as become more centralized, less flexible and more fragile over time. What was intended in the 18th century would have been far safer under the circumstances. The idea was that people would be organized into communities of up to 50,000 citizens each, that would be about the size of the ideal Aristotelian polis, with maybe 5,000 qualified tax paying or property owning voters. In that community each voter would know and select the following office holders:
1) Mayor or Selectman, in a Council type government
2) Sheriff or Marshal
3) Prosecutor, who was the communities intermediary to the State administrative authority
4) Judge, one for matters criminal, civil and probate.
5) Coroner, essential for determining inheritance claims and other legal issues
6) State Representative
Those offices were all selected annually and represent the span of control for effective local Democracy.

In addition there were biennial elections for Congress and Governor and some provision for an Upper House in the State Legislature. The State Legislatures selected the United States Senators and the Presidential Electors. Everybody was supposed to know who they were voting for. A failure at one location, even at the Federal level, would not bring down the system.

The problems are global and interconnectedness is a good thing on many levels. We need to both trade and bring in immigrants and collect intelligence on a global scale. The vulnerability comes not from the links but from the concentration of wealth and power at a few critical nodes. Our antique 18th century heritage could provide some robustness to respond to failures by a 0 in the Oval Office. The modern technology of the internet should make a more broadly and local based polity more feasible now than it was one hundred to seventy-five years ago when this centralization of authority accelerated.

Comment on Belmont Club "An disaster waiting to happen"

The first iteration of economic implosion is being felt by those elements of Civil Society that compete with government to ensure the variety of expressions and network of interactions essential for a democratic polity. As this disaster unfolds the impact will differ in urban and rural settings. The cultural and social institutions that put the gloss on civilization in the civitas are failing, the zoos, gardens, museums, charities and private schools are going to the wall. At the same time the infrastructure needed to maintain an urban community is failing. Hospitals are closing and the ideological war on religious institutions, especially Catholic hospitals, will accelerate the loss. We could face seriously reduced life expectancies in the urban centers, possible epidemics and large scale fire events as well as reduced trash removal and increased violence. In New York City just 40,000 people out of over 8,000,000 pay for half the municipal budget. If they pull out, and nothing but nostalgia keeps them, then the city may become ungovernable. Look at this collection of maps colored red and blue to show the vote in 2008 by county and then altered to show electoral impact.. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/ If the urban centers that elected Obama collapse then what will protect the surrounding rural and mixed collar counties from the desperate mobs? What I would like to see is a variation on those maps that displays wealth creation by locality and electoral voice.

Comments on Belmont Club "Are the Troubles returning?"

The Brits should respond by rebranding the PSNI back to the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

Most people with Irish ancestry in America are protestants. The IRA was sustained for years by money raised among the Irish Catholics in America through NORAID, and against the wishes of the Irish government.

The IRA are not in any way shape or form a Catholic organization.
They are bloody racists seeking to subjugate and expel descendants of the Scots primarily who migrated to Ireland over 500 years ago. This is analogous to the Arab war against the Jews. That is why there is such a close ideological and operational connection between the IRA and Islamic terrorism. Insofar as the IRA has any larger ideology it is Marxism.

@Walt,
will the rider on that white horse by Jean D’Arc or Adolph Hitler
Just to be difficult for the fun of it, your question relies on an assumption. The lady in question died very young. She may have been an inspiring liberating character who would have made the world an even better place if she had lived but we don’t know. Maybe the Burgundians sold her to the English because they feared she would turn out to be option B. Your basic point is correct. By demonizing and rejecting opposition voices that desired to operate within the Liberal pattern of western democracy, voices like Pym Fortuyn and Geert Wilders, the European governing elites have opened a door for violent mystics and true outsiders.

@Walt,
The argument against your proposition or Professor Hansen’s is that the post war settlement and the European Project may have succeeded all to well. The purpose of European multiculturalism was not to increase brie sales in Mendocino or PBS memberships in Manhattan or even to encourage moslem migrations to the First World. Those are all by products. The purpose was to stop Europeans from killing each other and everybody else. The performance of the obese and alcohol dependent Bundeswehr in Afghanistan indicates that they may well have succeeded beyond our wildest expectations. Even the French, while ill equipped and suffering from a terrible political leadership have fought, but the German example is what will be remembered in Tehran and Moscow and Beijing. The French may act like Lawrence’s Emir Feisel, not for gold or for weapons but because it pleases them, but it will probably be to late. The persistence and revival of tribal movements, as indicated on this thread, are another result of the deconstruction of the Westphalian settlement.

@Doug,
If the money had gone into tax relief, that is to say stayed in people's pockets rather than getting cycled through Washington's sticky fingers in the first place, it would have been better for Wall Street. Now there is no confidence in normal business processes to entice borrowing or investment. Everyone is just waiting to see how the pork will flow and who has to be bribed to get at the trough. If the government had spent less and left the people their own money then they would have either spent it or saved it. Realistically now everyone wants to save. The Democrats and the Press are bleating that saving is suddenly bad and Bush's rebates didn't work because people saved. At the same time they are screaming that the government has to print money and use it to buy equity in the banks because there is a shortage of capital. The ability to hold these two incompatible concepts at the same time (savings bad but banks need cash infusion) is the best evidence that the Democrats are human, idiots but human. If people had saved their money instead of sending it to Washington then most of it would have guess where? Into the banks! Some would probably get into mattresses but Congress patronizes enough prostitutes so that part of the economy probably is a wash either way. What would the banks do with all this money? Some of it would undoubtedly go to management retreats in Aruba, with Congressmen in tow, some to shiny new office furniture, and some to divorce lawyers but most of it would have to be loaned out by the banks. That after all is what banks do, it is their business. Since a cut in taxes would result in more money for the banks to lend the rate of interest would go down. That would lead to more borrowing, more investment, more economic activity, more jobs and more house sales. All without increasing the size of government. Sixty years ago Milton Frieidman proved that the big problem at the start of the Great Depression was that the government allowed the money supply to decrease. Some action by the Fed to maintain liquidity is important. Everything else the government is doing is causing more damage.

@buckets,
There is no disputing that England treated Ireland badly, brutally in fact. The fact is that the grievances of the Irish against the English fall historically between those of Jews against the Egyptians and those of the Jews against the Germans. What happened at the Boyne is important and interesting but should be determinative of nothing in regard to current events. The Irish independence movement was not originally a Catholic activity. The Nationalists of 1792 were Protestants. So for that matter were many of the leaders of the Home Rule movement such as Parnell. In fact the failure of the Church of Ireland to sink roots into the population and the subsequent revival of Catholicism among the peasantry was not a certainty until well into the 18th century. The problem on the religious side was the general enfeeblement of the Established Church after the Glorious Revolution. The present inability of the C of E to compete with Islam is a consequence of the same political settlement. Given that the Irish were benefiting from the same process of enfranchisement and economic liberalization as the Home Counties, and within the same parliament, during the 19th century the failure of British to establish a greater sense of common purpose is tragic. If only the men in Westminister had considered how the Americans had approached Federalism then a union might have been preserved. The explicitly religious nature of the divide is largely a consequence of partition and is more an expression of a conflict between the Irish and the Scots.

@buckets,
Has anyone investigated to see if there were any contacts between the ruling Irish of 1944-49 (who were the surviving IRA of 1916-21) and the Haganah who fought a similar fight in what is now Israel? The Dublin government was neutral but sympathetic to Germany. Still I would think that there were parallels that could have been drawn.

Someone, it might have been John Hume or David Trimble but I won't swear to it, said to me after a campus talk to pump up support for the Good Friday Agreement that crime was low in Ulster because all the usual psychopaths who would be robbing banks and killing old people were organized into the IRA or the UDF. They still kill but in a more controlled manner so it is paradoxically safer.

Comments on Belmont Club "Heads I Win, Tails I Win"

The filp side of “To big to fail” is now “To incompetent to fire.”

OT two stories: 1) Mugabe apparently tries to kill his new PM and does get the man’s wife. 2) The Minnesota Supreme Court rejects Al Franken’s effort to dispense with pesky lawsuits and allows Norm Coleman to drag this exercise in ballot box stuffing into daylight.

@Mongoose,
The argument that it was someone else's job to vet them so they can't be stopped now is a reflex from Union negotiations. When you want to fire someone for being incompetent or lazy they will say that if they didn't build a case against them in the first two years then they are vested and it needs an act of god to remove someone. Of course in the first two years everyone is in training and can't be evaluated fully so they get a pass, besides the new hire covers for the seniors when it comes time to divide up vacations. Finally the union will point out that they got through training so they must be OK. Of course it is very hard to remove anyone in training. Trainers are there to train and not to evaluate. Round and round.

I figured it out, this series of prat falls by Obama with Brown and Hillary with the EU shows a diabolically clever plan at work. After 65 years of the US carrying the load for our dead beat allies Obama is going to make them take a deep breath, pull up their big boy pants, and stop expecting Uncle Sugar to swoop in and solve their problems, while he traditionally thanked them for giving him a heaping serving of abuse in the process. The 2400 word explanation proving this in The Atlantic, to be titled "The New Americanism," is being cooked as we speak.

Comments on Belmont Club "As time goes by"

@61 Mark,
Judaism gets it also as far as scapegoating goes. God rejected two sacrifices Cain's (insincere) and Abraham's offer to kill Isaac. For the first case Cain was repudiated because his brother's blood cried out from the ground. Cain could not offset his sin by the sacrifice of his pride. If God used the logic that Islam ascribes to Allah then Cain could have elided his guilt. The substitution for Isaac was essential because it revolutionized the relationship of Man and God. The ram was not a scapegoat to carry Sin away, the Islamic perversion, but a proof of sincerity and reminder, similar to the Eucharist, of the totality of Abraham's offering and the totality of God's love in declining it.

@bogie wheel,
You are correct, my apologies if I was unclear or strained in my argument. Cain's offering was insincere and God rejected it, Cain then slew Abel, who could be viewed as a Scapegoat and God rejected the human sacrifice when he charged Cain that the blood called out to him (but he was not pleased.) Also God did not allow a post facto justification of the crime to absolve Cain, as Muhammad claimed Allah would do for his crimes.

To stir the pot more I have always preferred the Jewish formulation on the expiation of Sin. The Catholic cycle is an eternal cycle of Sin, repentance and Grace, mediated by Clergy, leading to absolution until Sin recurs. In Judaism there is a distinction between Sins against God and Sins against Man. God makes all laws but some are his personal concern, such as not using his name or following a dietary rule. It is made very clear to every Jew during High Holy Day service that the ancient Kol Nidre prayer only states that God forgives and absolves for injuries done to God, the false oath or the lapse of faith, but that God does not forgive and absolve for an injury done to another human being. If a Jew injures you then they can not go to God, or a Priest, and by assuring that they are really sorry, or by making a payment, obtain grace. If the Jew hurts you then they have to go to you to make amends.

Comment on Ian Martin's Telegraph Blog"President Barack Obama just plain rude to Britain."

The most useful thing that Britain could do, for both our nations, is to have MI6 release all the information that American media has been concealing about Barack Obama. Could you get a copy of the anti-Semitic rant that the Los Angelas Times is sitting on or such things as his birth certificate, transcripts, passport records and documentation on who paid for his education?

The Tea Party Rallies Come to NYC

Comments on Belmont Club "The secret letter"

There are three possibilities (always).
1) The Administration knows what it is doing and this will prove to be a brilliant beginning of a realignment in which Iran is defanged, the Europeans and the Russians focus on cooperative development and the Chinese meekly accept their role as labor to underwrite the development of the planet. Please stop laughing as it is necessary to list the option. Given that in the 15 weeks since the election Obama and company have proven to be to incompetent to hit the floor with a fork we can safely discount this answer.

2) This represents the random musings that substitute for professional policy by a bunch of 3rd graders who are in so deep over their head that they have no clue about what to do. We could be entertained by the coming food fights if it were not for the fact that millions of people might be killed and everything civilized that humanity spent 3,000 years building could be destroyed. While the risks are great it is always possible that the God who watches over fools, drunks and the United States will once again bring our ship safe into harbor as the world round us explodes.

3) The third option is that Obama is consciously seeking to destroy Western Civilization and is acting at the behest of domestic traitors and foreign interests.

We must pray that door number 2 is the correct choice.

Rather than post on the old thread I will try to tie the two themes together. Why is there so much tolerance for incompetent fantasists that Option two people can take charge or provide a cover for Option three to expose us to an enemy? The answer is in the empowerment of the "Giant Leeches" described in the last thread.

Safeguarding the Republic from these people would take a few simple steps. The 17th Amendment should be repealed. Constitutional safeguards to ensure that the eligibility and record of candidates for the Presidency, or Vice-Presidency, are verified and certified. The Electoral College should be established on a more regular basis with members elected by the state legislatures for extended terms at least 6 months before a Presidential Election, and some such as the State's heads of the executive, legislative and judicial branches, holding the office of Elector ex officio. The franchise to vote should be withdrawn from persons convicted of a felony or adjudged incompetent in a formal hearing or who derives the majority of their sustenance from the government. By that last I would mean that employees of the Federal government should not be given the vote for US Representatives or State Assemblymen and State employees should not vote at the State level. My only exception for this would be for all enlisted members of the Armed Forces and in addition for officers called to active duty for up to 3 years or during a declared war.

This would lead to the rapid defunding of most of the jobs that support the Giant Leech class. Perhaps a couple of million functionally unemployable people would have to dealt with. My suggestion is that they be used as agricultural labor, placed on power generating treadmills and health club bicycles or be offered subsidized egress to less demanding places. Obviously my expectation is that the vast majority would be able to channel their efforts into more productive activity. Strong efforts should be made to reach out to their children and see to it that the values that support independence and productivity are inculcated. Part of this will be doable with programs like Junior Achievement in an educational system that has been freed from the national teacher's union and part could be fostered by a limited 6 months program of universal military training after the 17th birthday and for every potential immigrant.

@blert,
Regarding his plan for "A treaty corridor through Baluchistan towards Kandahar... and Indian mountain troops romping the Kush…
For your plan, or Holbrooke's if you portray him faithfully, to work it would mean that the Pakistani urban elites, the old aristocracy and the military Officer Corps would all have to accept that their coreligionists in the hills are a greater threat than the Indians. That would result in two Pakistans, one an occupied hinterland of Pashtuns subject to all the rigors of 19th century missionary pacification of aborigines and a mixed ethnic rump along the Indus valley and sea coast that would be a protectorate of the Indians and Americans. Would that prove to be a more productive, democratic and peaceful long term settlement? Probably but given that the moslems currently in India are not reconciled to their loss of domination over the majority hindus the acceptance of such a role by the Pakistanis is unlikely.

Comments on Belmont Club "A little further yet"

@Wretchard,
The Leeches clip is a brilliant find, well done. BTW, what are the criteria for closing a thread or leaving it open indefinitely?

@whiskey,
Obama is different than a garden variety crook like Blago or young Burris. Because he sees himself as outside of the system that he is manipulating. Most people cannot see the forest they are in and tread a path before them. Minorities often prosper because they can dispassionately observe the majority and meet needs that were not perceived. Think of how the Koreans revolutionized the grocery business in New York or how Cole Porter transformed the language of heterosexual love. Obama was groomed from an early age by everyone, his Grandmother, his Mother, the Madrassa and Uncle Frank to see himself as a critical alien to American society. He is truly a game changer because the body politic found itself lacking the basic defense mechanisms that would have derailed any other candidate as unqualified and emotionally untested as he was. He resembles The Mule in Isaac Asimov's Foundation series.

@Mongoose,
The distinction between Capitalism and "Resource Management Systems" seems forced. Every economic system favors certain political and social structures and vice a versa. Marx was not completely wrong on this. Feudalism was a resource management system linked to particular patterns of agriculture and land tenure as well as a hierarchical social structure that ossified over time. Capitalism fits well with a form of meritocratic Republicanism. Socialism supports and is supported by a patronal Oligarchism.

Two items come to mind. First on topic sort of I recently attended a meeting of the New York Young Republicans, I am the world’s oldest Young Republican, where we had a talk by a Columbia Prof. named Andrew Gelman whose book “Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State” points out that while rich people do vote Republican, rich states do vote Democratic. The current policies are making states poorer, which should favor Republicans and despite the “progressive” nature of the expanded tax burden I predict that income distributions will become more not less sharp, also favoring Republicans. On the other hand the numbers of poor people will increase which favors democrats.

The other issue and Off Topic is the administrations apparent willingness to toss Poland under the bus along with the missile shield for help dealing with Iran. In conjunction with the tussle between SecDef Gates and Admiral Mullen over how fast Iran can screw the parts of a bomb together we have a potential apocalypse in the making.

Comment on Theo Spark: "A whole stack of 10th Amendment Stuff......'"

There are multiple competing forces at work in the sovereignty movement.
1) Many of those raising the issue are cranks, bigots, anti-semites.
2) The Union won the Civil War and 600,000 died to settle the issue.
3) The States Rights advocates are probably right on the Constitutional
      issues.
4) State and local governments are viewed as corrupt and often inefficient.
5) The Federal government is viewed as more professional and less corrupt,
      if also inefficient.

Unless the majority fear the Federal government more than they do corrupt local government the efforts to enforce the Constitution will fail.

On a historical note, Lincoln fought the war under the legal fiction that the Southern States had been overthrown by a series of coups d’etat and the Union was invading them to restore constitutional government. The seceding states claimed the Constitution had been broken by the refusal of Northern states to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act. The crisis was precipitated by the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Dred Scott case that no African American could ever become a free citizen. That over-reaching ruling that effectively turned every state into a slave state was badly reasoned, probably unconstitutional and therefor proved a justification for the subsequent acts of the Northerners that the South improperly relied upon to justify secession.

Comments on LGF "Admiral Mullen: 'A Very Very Bad Outcome'"

Thirty Million Dead

Kaddish
Yit'gadal v'yit'kadash sh'mei raba (Cong: Amein).
May His great Name grow exalted and sanctified (`Cong: Amen.)

b'al'ma di v'ra khir'utei
in the world that He created as He willed.

v'yam'likh mal'khutei b'chayeikhon uv'yomeikhon
May He give reign to His kingship in your lifetimes and in your days,

uv'chayei d'khol beit yis'ra'eil
and in the lifetimes of the entire Family of Israel,

ba'agala uviz'man kariv v'im'ru:
swiftly and soon. Now say:
(Mourners and Congregation:)

Amein. Y'hei sh'mei raba m'varakh l'alam ul'al'mei al'maya
(Amen. May His great Name be blessed forever and ever.)

Yit'barakh v'yish'tabach v'yit'pa'ar v'yit'romam v'yit'nasei
Blessed, praised, glorified, exalted, extolled,

v'yit'hadar v'yit'aleh v'yit'halal sh'mei d'kud'sha
mighty, upraised, and lauded be the Name of the Holy One
(Mourners and Congregation:)

B'rikh hu.
Blessed is He.

l'eila min kol bir'khata v'shirara
beyond any blessing and song,

toosh'b'chatah v'nechematah, da'ameeran b'al'mah, v'eemru:
praise and consolation that are uttered in the world. Now say:
(Mourners and Congregation:)

Amein
Amen

Y'hei sh'lama raba min sh'maya
May there be abundant peace from Heaven

v'chayim aleinu v'al kol yis'ra'eil v'im'ru
and life upon us and upon all Israel. Now say:
(Mourners and Congregation:)

Amein
Amen

Oseh shalom bim'romav hu ya'aseh shalom
He Who makes peace in His heights, may He make peace,

aleinu v'al kol Yis'ra'eil v'im'ru
upon us and upon all Israel. Now say:
(Mourners and Congregation:)

Amein
Amen

The bland assumption of the Realists behind Obama (The International Liberals are a different group who simply refuse to believe in icky things like bombs) is that Iran can have the bomb and it will be no big deal because they will be as subject to deterrence as the Russians or Chinese were. John Mearshiemer sat down with me and assured me of this in a one on one conversation. Now Mao was pretty scary but he did not in fact start WW-III. The multi Trillion dollar question (darn inflation) is, are the Iranians looking forward to Armageddon in order to coax the Imam out of his well or is that all a bluff and propaganda for the rubes?

Comment on Belmont Club "The Iron Curtain"

We had a Tea Party rally in NYC yesterday, on short notice it drew about 200 people. There is a risk that the urge to self indulgent behavior bleeds over into protests against self indulgent behavior. Most of the rally was excellent but in any voluntary group activity there is the problem that people bring their personal enthusiasms and sometimes the most motivated are the least stable. In other words someone is sure to start ranting about something like religion and conspiracies. This is bad for two reasons. First because it is a distraction from what should be a focused message that unites people in a movement and second because even if they are correct in their perspective, it could be true, the enthusiast is so off putting as to discredit any cause they associate with. Voltaire described the religious enthusiast 250 years ago and his perspective that they are fit objects for derision has guided us since. That is why Sarah Palin aroused such reflexive contempt without regard to the issues intended by the Republicans.

The Obama administration is trying a complicated trick. They want to make the Americans accept a European social compact even as the European model is failing in front of us. This is like Saruman's error in The Two Towers, when he tried to deal with his enemies piece-meal as the others watched.

Comments on Belmont Club "Cronies"

The failures of wiki remain the failures of Socialism writ small. They enshrine objectivity and endlessly proclaim their affinity to it but time after time their prejudices are revealed. Cronyism is used as a straw man substitute for Capitalism itself, no real distinction is made, and condemned because it "corrupts public-serving economic and political ideals." That is an inversion. It is the accumulation of arbitrary government power that corrupts the market and distorts Capitalism. The offense is all the greater in China where the government is itself an illegitimate product of a "revolutionary vanguard." A more prosaic way of describing a RV is a conspiracy that uses manipulation, deceit and violence to seize power. The writers of the Times (both in England and America) share this perspective with the wiki writers that shifts the burden for corruption from the bureaucrat to the businessman. The susceptibility to conspiratorial fraud in pursuit of political goals that renders Leninist parties illegitimate also taints the current American regime. Even if the worst case rumors spun on the web about Obama are untrue his reliance on organs with a built in conspiratorial paranoia about America's economic, social and political principles makes all of his actions at best manipulations.

Regarding a comment by @NahnCee,
Obama's racism serves the Democratic party well. There was a risk that the efforts of the Republicans in 2004 were finally starting to break the 3 generation iron grasp that the Democrats held on Blacks, Jews and non-Cuban Hispanics. Without those three groups and whiskey's single women and homosexuals all at 90% and government employees sewn up at least at 80% the Democrats would be unable to hold onto Hyannis Port or San Francisco, let along America. By driving a wedge between Blacks and everyone else Obama is ensuring that they will be so demonized, he is setting racial relations back at least 40 years, that the Democrats will "own" them for another half century. The problem for the Democrats is that the concurrent demonization of white males may not be sufficient to hold this new coalition together and cover for the special treatment some are getting. In particular the natural rivalries or incompatibilities between Hispanics and Blacks or between Gays and others make this contraption very unstable over time.

Regarding a comment by @Kingston53,
The plans to reject domestic oil, shale and nuclear power along with card check unionization resonates with my view of his racial policy. By closing off the domestic energy productivity that America has available Obama seeks to preclude our rejecting a path of European style decline in favor of economic revitalization and strengthened Capitalism.

Comments on NYT Tierney Blog "Will A Car-Free Broadway Work?"

Another step in reducing New York to a Europeanized Disney City. Once Patterson and Bloomberg's taxes and regulations have killed the small businesses that New Yorker's depend on then the industries that employ the educated professionals that they view as cash cows will relocate leaving only a few jobs for those catering to whatever tourists still have the money and interest to visit. This will result in a decrease in congestion suitable for a pedestrian mall. The arrogance and elitism of Obama, Patterson and Bloomberg will make streets safer for the Critical Mass bicycle nazis. Soon they will recreate the conditions of Hanoi of 30 years ago in NY.

Comments on Belmont Club "A crisis of globalization"

Those who cheered on for the “humbling” of America are now shocked to discover that America was the ship on which all sailed across the stormy seas of Globalism.

As Ferguson did point out the US is most likely to have the institutional and cultural capital to weather this crisis without entering a revolutionary episode and therefore the flow of capital remains favorable to the US even while we are in crisis. If China can not find markets for her exports then she will need to find something to keep 20 million or more young men busy. What direction will they march if the worst happens? Russia, Japan and India could all start pointing at each other:


The impressive accomplishment of the Democrats is making us dependent victims of coercion by energy bullies like Putin. That is a neat trick considering that we have domestic energy resources that dwarf our import needs and that our conventional military forces, untapped growth potential, and superior demographics make us a 600 lb gorilla compared to Russia's paper tiger. America is being weakened as an act of will.

Comments on LGF Overnight Thread On The 2nd Amendment and Right to Vote

The background checks to purchase a firearm should be exactly the same as the background checks to register to vote. No more and no less. The ID check to complete the purchase and take possession of the weapon should be the same as the ID check needed to cast your vote. No more and no less.

re: #1253 Iron Fist

No, voting is a privilege. People under a certain age can't vote. Neither can people with a felony record (in some states). The Supreme Court has taken a very expansive view of the privilege for the last hundred and fifty years or so, so that people think of voting as a right.

But it is not, nor has it ever been a right. Just because Democrats want to allow illegal aliens to vote doesn't mean that they have any right to do so. The first requirement to being allowed to vote is that you are supposed to be an American citizen.

just because they don't enforce the rules on the books doesn't mean that there are no rules on the books.

This is semantics and solipsism. I'm not sticking around to deconstruct the grammar but just remember this. The community creates the legislature. Saying that the voters are defined as being competent citizens, competency being defined as being of an age to be accountable for one's choices and able to exercise reasonable judgement including being sane, does not mean that the state grants you membership in the enfranchised group as a privilege. The group defines its membership and uses the legislature, an organ of the state, to codify the rules and procedures it desires. Who the community defines as eligible to exercise the right to vote may change by definition, for example there may be a property qualification or a bar to public employees or beneficiaries voting, but that does not mean that they are losing a privilege. It merely means that they would not be members of the group able to exercise the right.

Privileges are granted by the State, Rights are inherent in a community and expressed by that community through the organs of a state, the legislature, that the community creates.

Comment on LGF Link "Eddie Makes A Fast Exit"

I met Fast Eddie over a third of a century ago. He's a very bright guy, a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School who met with about a dozen mostly undergraduate students one day in a lounge in Ida Noyes Hall. Mr Vrdolyak told us he was raised in an apartment over a mexican brothel in Chicago's far South Side. He talked about Thukydides and how a one party Democracy could work. He explained how the introduction of modern wage expectations and unionism had broken the link between the voting taxpayers and the local political party that had made the old machine work efficiently.

Comments on Belmont Club "Nazis!"

Carter dreadful as he was, and he really was, did fund programs for strategic modernization that bore fruit under Reagan. BHO is emptying the pipeline. He is ensuring our long term strategic decline. A reduction in end strength personnel numbers hurts because it can make us unable to respond to a crisis and it reduces the institutional pool of knowledge needed to train future warriors but that can be overcome. Given the lead times needed to develop major weapons systems and new technologies Obama's evisceration of the Pentagon's procurement plans will leave us crippled for decades to come. Whoever becomes President in 2016 will likely face a world at war and will not have the tools to meet his responsibilities.

Even in the 1940s some weapons that magically appeared when the Arsenal of Democracy ramped up had been designed and planned for 5 years or more. Now for ships, aircraft and major ground combat systems it takes 15 years or more to get a response to a need into production. Attempting to speed that up with systems that are vastly more complicated than the equivalents of 70 years ago will only increase the probability of fraud waste and failure.

The lazy game of attacking the Pentagon budget is always done this way. First Congress mandates a series of expensive and conflicting operational demands. Second Congress makes clear to the Pentagon that they will have to meet their future needs with fewer active programs since building more single issue platforms would mean running more programs. Also more less capable platforms would mean that each would face a greater risk of sustaining loss in combat. The financial cost would go down but the human risk would increase. So Congress at that stage orders the Pentagon to design fewer more expensive platforms, to "save money" and "protect the troops." Then Congress cuts the number of end units to be purchased in order to "save money." This increases the cost per unit that is then planned for. Remember the cost of much of the design work is allocated to the units eventually purchased. The reduction in numbers planned for usually happens more than once. The redesign and rebidding of the program delays it by at least 5 years. Along the way various design changes are earmarked or otherwise inserted into the program. Guaranteed that Senator Byrd and Congressman Murtha have a go at it along the way. Congress then explodes in fury at the unexpected surging cost of the program. Thumb sucking articles are written pointing out that the proposed system is now to expensive to ever risk in combat. The NY Times or Bill Moyers report that a manager once had a sexual harassment complaint. The program is delayed for an extra 5 years in response to requirements arising from a Quadrennial review. More outside studies are produced arguing that the program is now an expensive dinosaur that does not meet anticipated future strategic needs. After billions have been spent building one or two prototypes the program is canceled. Various officials and politicians announce that vast sums have been saved.

To Michael J Totten (after he responded to criticism of Christopher Hitchens),
Thank you Sir for providing us with the vicarious satisfaction of seeing the complacently snarky publicly slapped. Woody Allen’s best moment (leaving aside “I practice a lot on my own” and setting aside issues like pederasty and incest, but I digress) was when he pulled Marshall McCluhan from behind the signboard to deflate the windbag in Annie Hall. We all dream of witnessing such moments.

To be clear I also questioned Mr Hitchens judgement and expressed concern about his putting his companions in danger but when people applaud Hitchens willingness to challenge the nazis without his dissolving in self pity after being beaten I think it is poor form to criticize them for doing so. If Mr Hitchens companions, who were there and were placed in harm’s way, choose to fault him then that is a different matter.

To my mind after someone you know gets a beating under such circumstances a gentleman responds by offering a clean towel, a dry martini, and a subdued inquiry “Was that wise?”

Upon further consideration I think that the above mentioned expression of concern could elicit one of two proper responses.
1) "No, and I apologize." The apology being for causing his friends any worry or grief.
2) "No, but it was worth it." In that case a friend accepts that and does not feel the same need to have expressed worry, even though it is assumed, or expect an apology for having been made to do so.

In both cases the issue of the risk that companions were exposed to by not being warned in advance is a separate topic.

Comments on Belmont Club "Hamra Street"

Someone once told me, meaning the story is to good to check out, that back in 1958 when the US landed troops in Lebanon NBC news ran a video of the Palisades across the Hudson river from New York and claimed it was a shot of the Americans invading.

I do wish that we had landed 200,000 in Lebanon in 2002 and marched East. France still needs to be paid for her treacherous collaboration with Saddam that kept the 4th ID from coming in from the North. If that had happened then we would be less likely to be losing Turkey and it would have been easier to pressure, or ideally ensure regime change, in Damascus.

Regarding the conduct of Christopher Hitchens in Beirut. Let's give Hitchens credit for this one. What 3rd World Hell holes need is viral freedom. On the stuffy Republican level that is what Bush intended by invading Iraq. He defaced the Cosmic Ego of Ba'ath arab national socialism's maximum leader. Hitchens showed disrespect to the the Syrian Nazi street gang. We should flood these countries with disrespectful progressive deconstructionists. Tell the self pitying egomaniac cursing the Americans, the Israelis, the English, the French, the Turks, and the Byzantines for "humiliating" him that life is tough and that God is telling him he is wrong. Encourage drag queens to parade down their streets and dance in their faces and tell their daughters that they can go anywhere and dress as they please. Also have lots of real men with guns around to blow away these insecure bullies if they try to stop the ongoing circus like expression of freedom. Basically Ann Coulter was right. What the fascists in the world need to experience is defeat. They have earned disrespect. The Arizona Sheriff Maricopa County Joe Arpaio, who puts prisoners in stripes, understands this.

Granted though that when traveling with others it s a good idea not to surprise them by inciting an assault.

I would love it if the 82nd Airborne dragged Syria's chinless Ophthalmologist out of his palace and pelted him with old shoes on camera.

The audience tells us what theater reaches them so we should use it. I would have leveled Fallujah and then publicly and on camera hitched up a pair of mules and sown the ground with salt. The British would be fools to give up the wigs in their court rooms. There is low culture and high culture, low ceremony and high ceremony. All convey important lessons about power and respect and tolerance and freedom.

My best day teaching was when I conjugated Respect in front of my class in The Bronx. You want to be Respected? First you must act Respectful. When you are are full of respect then you will be seen as a fit vessel able to hold respect. That will make you Respectable. Only then will you be Respected.

Comment on Reason: Hit & Run "George Soros Predicts Apocalypse, ..."

The legal definition of Chutzpah is killing your parents and demanding mercy from the Court because you're an orphan.

Soros stands there with buckets of gasoline next to him and a burnt out match in his hand as the house goes up in flames behind him and he expresses shock at the suffering the Fire Department couldn't prevent.