Carter Redeux -- The Embassy

And now it's happening all over again. OK, so this time the Embassy in question is Britain's not America's. But the similarities are more significant than the differences. What is happening now is happening for a very particular reason: because the West has lost its authority in the Middle East. By attempting to appease it it has shown the weakness which the Islamic world despises and which it is now exploiting with vicious glee.

The rot set in, of course, with President Obama's infamous Cairo Surrender Monkey speech, in which, inter alia, he apologised for the crusades, pandered to the Islamist notion of the Ummah, referred to the 9/11 killers not as "terrorists" but "violent extremists", and gave the strong impression that it really wasn't any of America's business which crazed Islamist theocracies run by ravening lunatics hell bent on destroying the State of Israel had nuclear weapons and which ones didn't. Gee, thanks for that one, Barack

James Delingpole The Telegraph UK

More Of The Same -- Debates Update -- Now With More Proof

Above the fold update:

As if we need more proof of my point below we get this from CNN (via Real Clear Politics - Video at link):

CNN Reporter Asks Obama: Are GOP Candidates "Uninformed, Out Of Touch, Or Irresponsible?"

"Last night at the Republican debate, some of the hopefuls, they hope to get your job, they defended the practice of waterboarding which is a practice you banned in 2009. Herman Cain said, quote, 'I don't see that as torture.' Michele Bachmann said that it's, quote, 'very effective.' So I'm wondering if you think that they're uninformed, out of touch, or irresponsible?" CNN's White House correspondent Dan Lothian asked President Obama in Hawaii.



Once again this evening's CNBC debate demonstrated that the media simply do not get it.   They operate and the premise of most of their questions are completely at odds with the voters.
 

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden. 
Ronald Wilson Reagan

We don't need a new law, we don't need government to stop this or that.  We need government to get out of the way.
DKK 

Update 11/10/2011 16:07
American thinker puts it like this:

Weak Field" Spanks CNBC Liberals:

On the whole, it was a stunning display of free market and pro-liberty principles versus the nanny state mindset that government must be at the center of all problem solving.  Every one of the eight candidates had strong moments against CNBC's self-anointed experts.  Especially promising was how the field almost unanimously fingered federal regulations as the main problem with our economy and society -- and they did so as the faces of the questioners went into shock.  Moreover there was near unanimity on the idea that the only answer to housing is, well, the economy stupid. 
  

Targeting the Argument -- Is The Right Again Fighting The Wrong Fight? Updated - Now with even more regulation!

Updated and bumped:

Forbes noticed and points out in Flat Tax This: Regulations Are The Boot On Hiring's Neck

Everyone’s talking about spending and flat taxes; but for healthy recovery, the hidden tax of regulation needs flattening too.

The right has a very good point about taxes, but it really isn't the full argument.   The talking heads almost daily discuss the tax rates and compare them to rates of the past with lines like, "the Clinton rates were higher and the economy flourished."

What they fail to note is the sheer mountain of regulations that have been created since Obama took office continuing and expanding on a long history of over regulating.  

It isn't JUST the taxes, the taxes are a means and they are high.  No one should pay more then 1/3 of their total income to the government.  With the taxes comes more regulations and rules.

(I will probably edit this, it is late but I wanted to get this out there).

Update: July 10, 2011 15:34

This opinion piece on jobs costing Obama his job sums up what I meant very well:

The private sector has regained about 30 percent of the manufacturing jobs it lost in the recession -- jobs created despite regulatory policies detrimental to manufacturing's expansion.
Add the administration's health-care policies (which drive up the cost of employment by increasing medical insurance costs) and environmental policies (which drive up the price of energy, particularly in Western Pennsylvania, where coal is a major source), and you can see why the private sector is skittish about enlarging payrolls.
That means the president has not only a small-business problem, but a blue-collar-worker problem. Both are sources of independent voters so essential to winning elections.
Add, too, the Dodd-Frank bill, which Larry Lindsey, former Federal Reserve governor, says "has made it much more difficult for banks to make business loans, as more of their resources must be devoted to regulatory compliance and (the) building of capital than to granting loans."
Partnerships are the key to economic growth. The great 20th-century economist Joseph Schumpeter described entrepreneurs as "gap-fillers and input-completers," meaning they bring together everything needed to create output and jobs in one place -- basically by partnering with various groups.
It's better that entrepreneurs, not government or academia, be central to this process because they typically know how to get things done, risk their own money and face real consequences if they fail.
"While the president often talks about having 'created' jobs ... he didn't," explained Lindsey. "Such jobs that have been gained have been produced by risk-taking entrepreneurs."
All that "shovel-ready" stimulus money filled many state budgets, but not so many private-sector job openings.
The president's resume includes little that indicates he knows how to create jobs -- which may, in the end, contribute to him losing his job.
Salena Zito

Read more: Issue could cost Obama his job - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/zito/print_745912.html#ixzz1RjjdHezq

Updated August 16, 2011:

If the federal government's regulatory operation were a business, it would be one of the 50 biggest in the country in terms of revenues, and the third largest in terms of employees, with more people working for it than McDonald's, Ford, Disney and Boeing combined.
Under President Obama, while the economy is struggling to grow and create jobs, the federal regulatory business is booming.
Regulatory agencies have seen their combined budgets grow a healthy 16% since 2008, topping $54 billion, according to the annual "Regulator's Budget," compiled by George Washington University and Washington University in St. Louis.
That's at a time when the overall economy grew a paltry 5%.
Meanwhile, employment at these agencies has climbed 13% since Obama took office to more than 281,000, while private-sector jobs shrank by 5.6%.
...
The Obama administration imposed 75 new major rules in its first 26 months, costing the private sector more than $40 billion, according to a Heritage Foundation study. "No other president has imposed as high a number or cost in a comparable time period," noted the study's author, James Gattuso.
The number of pages in the Federal Register — where all new rules must be published and which serves as proxy of regulatory activity — jumped 18% in 2010.
This July, regulators imposed a total of 379 new rules that will cost more than $9.5 billion, according to an analysis by Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo.
And much more is on the way. The Federal Register notes that more than 4,200 regulations are in the pipeline. That doesn't count impending clean air rules from the EPA, new derivative rules, or the FCC's net neutrality rule. Nor does that include recently announced fuel economy mandates or eventual ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank regulations.

Regulation Business, Jobs Booming Under Obama

Fundamental Flaw In Logic Our Founders Well Understood

Here is an excellent video of Peter Schiff at the Occupy Wall Street Protests:

The fundamental flaw in the logic of these protesters is that Washington/government can ever be brought to heel!

Just one more regulation, one more law, or if we could only eliminate the money from Wall Street then we can control the system.

The assumption that government has to be big and in control is simply wrong and was well understood by our founders when they set up our system.  As Peter points out, if you take away the power to control you take away the ability to influence and thus to be controlled.

Obama History "Fail" Once More

At a fundraiser last night President Obama said:

"We've lost our ambition, our -- our imagination, and -- and -- our willingness to do the things that built the Golden Gate Bridge and Hoover Dam and unleashed all the potential in this country,"

Interesting fact about the Golden Gate (From California Historian):

"This bridge was the first of such magnitude and controversy to be completely financed by private citizens (Gronquist 128-129). All who did contribute money were promised restitution at four and three-fourths percent interest rate within a maximum of 40 years.

It is amazing how successful this way of financing was, considering the effects of the Great Depression."

More importantly the insurmountable level of regulations required to complete a project such as the Golden Gate Bridge or Hoover Dam would kill either of these projects before they even got to the drafting stage.

As Rush Limbaugh said today:

"The people in this country have their imagination. The people of this country still have their dreams and their willingness to do things. You stand in the way. The federal government stands in the way. Mountainous regulations. We did build the Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay Bridge, the Hoover Dam, and the Empire State Building in ten years -- and we did it in the middle of the Great Depression. You couldn't do it today. Regardless the ambition, imagination, willingness, or desire, you couldn't do it in ten years today. Look at Ground Zero in Manhattan. You couldn't do it. I mean, physically it could be done, but it couldn't be legally done."

Income Disparity a Failed Government Policy

Want to know why the income disparity has continued to grow, leading to much frustration?

As with most economic problems today you can tie the disparity directly to the policies of the government.

Our system had a built in solution to excesses of capitalism, including excessive CEO wages.  It was known as a recession and it regularly forced everyone from the single mother to the largest corporate board to reevaluate their priorities.  Companies fired underperformers!  Unfortunately the government's desire to lessen the effects of a recession and protect the too big to fail companies has not only extended the pain we all feel but has nearly eliminated the very important effects of that self correcting, excess eliminating mechanism.

Update with some thoughts brought to you by a leftie site via Ace

You've people got it backwards. Capitalism calls for insolvent banks to fail. Socialism calls for them to be bailed out. submitted 11 hours ago by r3compile
Edit: Some more complete thoughts:
The free market gets rid of risky, unstable businesses. Capitalism means if you don't have a viable product, you go away. People vote with their own money.
In Socialism, you vote with other people's money. You keep throwing good money after bad because you like the idea of a stable bank and you don't want to admit that it needs to go bankrupt.
All a businessman can do is try to sell you something that you think is worth the money.
But a government can take your wealth by force, and allocate it to an area that has no viable market, purely for the benefit of catering to voters and trying to get re-elected.
As long as we have a big government trying to run every aspect of the economy, it will be taken advantage of by some minority to the detriment of the majority.
I sympathize with the message of OWS thanks banks get special favors from government. But the answer isn't to give more special favors to labor unions and employees. The answer is to get the government out of the way and let the market flush out all these bad banks so a viable economy can rise.

Boom or Bomb -- Policies Matter

You can drop as many bombs and guided missiles on terrorists as you can afford, BUT, as long as the administrations policies and rhetoric capitulate to the goals of the terrorists you will never solve the terrorist problem.

That is the problem with the current administration.  That was the goal of the left from the beginning.  Don't bother changing the behavior and attitudes of the terrorists and their sponsoring governments, it is far easier for us to just learn to live with terrorism like Europe................hey I remember someone saying that right after 9/11.

So, on to the ill advised draw down in Iraq.

Comparison of Jobs Record

 

Via HotAir

Need a Reagan, Not a Nixon.

Okay, so why am I afraid that we will elect a Nixon when what we need is another Reagan?

Nixon believed in federal government solutions, hence his signing of the EPA and OSHA regulations to name a couple.

Unfortunately we need someone who believes government is the problem not the solution and I fear there isn't anyone running who really believes that today.   Do you?
DKK

Obama's Role Model -- Diplomacy That Nearly Destroyed The World: Prediction Realized

Update May 16, 2011 and reposted to front page:  German Paper: Iran is Building Rocket Launch Bases in Venezuela.  As I said at the bottom of this post, "If this is what Obama has in mind, getting the hell beat out of him by Kim and Mahmoud I don't want anything to do with it! I should just start digging the shelter now!"

I really believe it is as if Obama believes the past 2000 years were an anomaly rather then the human condition.


Original post dated May 8, 2008 follows:...............................................

I trust the American people to understand that it is not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but to our enemies, like Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did.

Obama's supporters are too young to know any of this, but Roosevelt led the United States in the war against Hitler; the Allied policy was unconditional surrender, so there was very little for Roosevelt and Hitler to discuss, and in fact, the two did not meet at all (but they did exchange correspondence before the war).
So my guess is that Obama is thinking of the Yalta Conference with Churchill and Stalin as talking to "our enemies", although of course we were still allied with the Soviet Union against Germany and Japan at that point. Beyond that, is the Yalta Conference something Obama and his advisers view as a success worthy of emulation?
(Just One Minute -- Don't Know Much About History...)

Yalta was considered a diplomatic disaster that enslaved millions in Eastern Europe. Roosevelt, who called Stalin, "Uncle Joe," failed to recognize the evil that would lead to the deaths of 15 to 20 million Soviet citizens -- Time Magazine (13 April 1998) (Some estimates as large as 52 million with 30 million being the median estimate).

I can't recall when Truman talked to our enemies, other then perhaps their surrender after he dropped the atomic bomb . Truman lead the UN into Korea and did so without talking to our enemies -- they were boycotting the UN -- rather then talk he gave ultimatums and took action to remove our enemies from South Korea.

As a matter of fact Truman has his own Doctrine (The Truman Doctrine) that supported our allies financially and militarily against Soviet (our enemies) influence. This lead to what was known as the Domino Theory and formed much of the Cold War doctrine that lasted for decades (a variation of which Bush uses to push democracy).

Along with The Marshall Plan The Truman Doctrine helped feed the Soviet reaction that led to the Berlin Blockade. It was only the show of determination and strength -- redeployment of B-29's to England, the same bombers that dropped atomic weapons on Japan -- that prevented escalation of the conflict during the 11 months of the airlift.

Kennedy escalated Vietnam as a part of Truman's doctrine and while he did speak to Kruschev during the Vienna Summit it was considered a failure that caused the players (Kennedy and Kruschev) to push the world toward the most dangerous nuclear stand off in history -- The Cuban missile Crisis.

(About Vienna, Kennedy later claimed of Khrushchev, "He beat the hell out of me.")

If this is what Obama has in mind, getting the hell beat out of him by Kim and Mahmoud I don't want anything to do with it! I should just start digging the shelter now!
DKK

Update: Great minds think alike - points made by Jack Kelly here at Real Clear Politics.

Kings of Non Sequiturs

Why doesn't any journalist ever call the Democrats and environmentalists on the non sequitur they continue to use by comparing total oil reserves to total usage?

"We can't drill our way out of this, we only have 2% of the known reserves yet we use 25% or the worlds oil!"

Ah, yes. Forget for a minute that you can't increase your known (proven) reserves without exploring for more oil (see Brazil 1995 vs Brazil 2011), the comparison is completely apples to oranges.

Untapped oil under ground /= (is not equal to) oil in the pipeline!

It is like saying that it won't do any good for the electric company to produce any more electricity because the factory down the road, where everyone in the town works (see how I did that), uses 25% of the electric company's power, despite the fact that the company has unused generating capacity equal to 2% of the world's generators AND they can always find more if the market were to call for it.

Patriots or Patriots

There is a group of millionaires who call themselves, "Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength" who are advocating raising taxes on the wealthy. They argue that they should be taxed for the good of society as a whole -- increase their taxes so we can reduce debt without impacting social spending.

Well, aside from the fact that no one is stopping them from making a donation to the government that can be applied directly to the debt (pay.gov), true patriots are those millionaires who are providing jobs and fuel for the nation's economic engine not sending money to the black whole of Washington.

Here is an idea, how about each one of these millionaires decide how much extra money they believe they should pay and then hire people to do whatever service they believe is worthy. For example if they want to support senior meal programs then they could take $200,000 in extra taxes and hire 8 people at $40,000 each and deploy them in the city they believe needs the assistance. They would not only be providing the seniors aid they would be creating jobs multiplied in the economy AND they would be providing additional tax revenue to all stages of government.

Killing two birds with one $200,000 stones. Each of those jobs helps to support another worker in the economy and according to Obama's stimulus they would create or save another job!

So, why are they so selfish and unpatriotic?

Bad day, btw, I'll come back and clean this up in a few days.

Dumb War Hypocrite........

May 28, 2008 I analyzed Barack Obama's Dumb War speech and concluded it did not make the grade of real world experience.

Well, here is an upgraded version with just a few changes:

That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

Now let me be clear. I suffer no illusions about Muammar Quaddafi . He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, sponsored terrorists , developed chemical and biological weapons, and enriched himself at the expense of his country.

He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Libyan people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Quaddafi poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Libyan economy is in shambles, that the Libyan military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Libya will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Libya without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.

Oh how things have Obama has changed

The Worst of Both Worlds -- Failure to Lead

President Obama's dithering and failure to lead on the Libya situation has lead to a no win situation for the US.

We won't receive any of the meager credit we could might have gotten if the rebellion succeeds and we will receive all of the blame if it fails.

Yes, this always happens anyway, but at least we had the opportunity to shape things somewhat and we would have gotten some credit from those objective few.

Root Cause.........

How Much Does The Government Know About You?

Atty. general: Ill. should release FOID card list

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. —
The Illinois attorney general says state police must release the name of everyone in the state who is authorized to own a gun.

Illinois state police determine who gets a Firearm Owners Identification card, which allows people to own guns. The police have always kept the list private.

But Attorney General Lisa Madigan's public access counselor released a letter Monday night saying the information should be public.

The Associated Press had requested the list of FOID cardholders but state police said that would violate the privacy of gun owners. The attorney general's office ruled that argument invalid.

State police officials have not said whether they will comply with the ruling.

There are Republican-sponsored bills in the Illinois House and Senate that would prohibit disclosure of the information.

Milton Friedman on Progressive Taxes

A further factor that has reduced the impact of the graduated tax structure on inequality of income and wealth is that these taxes are much less taxes on being wealthy than on becoming wealthy. While they limit the use of the income from existing wealth, they impede even more strikingly -- so far as they are effective -- the accumulation of wealth. The taxation of the income from the wealth does nothing to reduce the wealth itself, it simply reduces the level of consumption and additions to wealth that the owners can support. The tax measures give an incentive to avoid risk and to embody existing wealth in relatively stable forms, which reduces the likelihood that existing accumulations of wealth will be dissipated. On the other side, the major route to new accumulations is through large current incomes of which a large fraction is saved and invested in risky activities, some of which will yield high returns. If die income tax were effective, it would close this route. In consequence, its effect would be to protect existing holders of wealth from the competition of newcomers. In practice, this effect is largely dissipated by the avoidance devices already referred to.

Capitalism and Freedom

Economic Freedom Is Tied To Political Freedom

"The question becomes, are you going to have everyone play by the same rules, or are you going to try to rectify the shortcomings, errors and failures of the entire cosmos? Because those things are wholly incompatible. If you're going to have people play by the same rules, that can be enforced with a minimum amount of interference with people's freedom. But if you're going to try to make the entire cosmos right and just, somebody has got to have an awful lot of power to impose what they think is right on an awful lot of other people. What we've seen, particularly in the 20th century, is that putting that much power in anyone's hands is enormously dangerous."

Thomas Sowell via Glenn Beck; Broke

Ah The Unions!

In 1943, a New York Supreme Court judge held:

To tolerate or recognize any combination of civil service employees of the government as a labor organization or union is not only incompatible with the spirit of democracy, but inconsistent with every principle upon which our government is founded. Nothing is more dangerous to public welfare than to admit that hired servants of the State can dictate to the government the hours, the wages and conditions under which they will carry on essential services vital to the welfare, safety, and security of the citizen. To admit as true that government employees have power to halt or check the functions of government unless their demands are satisfied, is to transfer to them all legislative, executive and judicial power. Nothing would be more ridiculous.

National Affairs: The Trouble With Public Sector Unions

Rockford's Sock Monkey Makes Time's Top 100 Toys!

The Nelson Knitting Co. of Rockford, Ill., may not have invented the sock monkey, but it standardized its manufacturing process somewhat. In 1932, the company added a line of socks whose red heels assured their customers that they were indeed purchasing original "Rockfords." When worn out, the socks were then deployed as playthings by American mothers who made stuffed monkeys out of them, using the red heel as a mouth. Hearing about these enterprising homemakers and seeing great promotional opportunity, the Nelson Knitting Co. began including a sock-monkey pattern with every pair of socks.

Time Magazine All Time 100 Top Toys

The International Human Right -- Firearms!

A recent article in the Washington University Law Quarterly argues that the most important thing we can do to prevent genocide is to ensure that civilian populations are armed:

The question of genocide is one of manifest importance in the closing years of a century that has been extraordinary for the quality and quantity of its bloodshed. As Elie Wiesel has rightly pointed out, "This century is the most violent in recorded history. Never have so many people participated in the killing of so many people."

Recent events in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and many other parts of the world make it clear that the book has not yet been closed on the evil of official mass murder. Contemporary scholars have little explored the preconditions of genocide. Still less have they asked whether a society's weapons policy might be one of the institutional arrangements that contributes to the probability of its government engaging in some of the more extreme varieties of outrage.

Though it is a long step between being disarmed and being murdered--one does not usually lead to the other--but it is nevertheless an arresting reality that not one of the principal genocides of the twentieth century, and there have been dozens, has been inflicted on a population that was armed.

Fox News - Opinion -- The International Right

Why Small Government? Bureaucracies fail and damage many when they do!

Alexander Natta, former General Secretary of the Italian Communist party:

At the same time we, the communists, having either overestimated or underestimated the functions of the “welfare state,” kept defending situations which, as it became clear only now, we should not have defended. As a result, a bureaucratic apparatus, which serves itself, has swelled.
...
Any bureaucratization encourages the apparatus to protect its own interests and to forget about the citizens’

That is the the best explanation of government and from an unlikely source.

Source: Margaret Thatcher: a legacy of freedom via Glen Beck Broke

On the concept of A Living Constitution

“a formula for an end run around popular government” and is “genuinely corrosive
of the fundamental values of our democratic society”.
William H Rehnquist

Jefferson on Redistribution of Wealth

To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father’s has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association—the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.

Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, April 6, 1816

America's weakness affects its friends, but aren't we all getting along now? Nay, not so much.

Jimmy Carter will go down in American history as "the president who lost Iran," which during his term went from being a major strategic ally of the United States to being the revolutionary Islamic Republic. Barack Obama will be remembered as the president who "lost" Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt, and during whose tenure America's alliances in the Middle East crumbled.

The superficial circumstances are similar. In both cases, a United States in financial crisis and after failed wars loses global influence under a leftist president whose good intentions are interpreted abroad as expressions of weakness. The results are reflected in the fall of regimes that were dependent on their relationship with Washington for survival, or in a change in their orientation, as with Ankara.

America's general weakness clearly affects its friends.

Haaretz

Obama will go down in history as the president who lost Egypt

Best SOTU Response

Obama said, "We are the nation that put cars in driveways and computers in offices; the nation of Edison and the Wright brothers; of Google and Facebook."

And then the government outlawed Edison's great invention, made the Wright brothers' air travel insufferable, filed anti-trust charges against Microsoft and made cars too expensive to drive by prohibiting oil exploration, and right now -- at this very minute -- is desperately trying to regulate the Internet.

Ann Coulter

From the moon landing to solar shingles. Is there a better example of American decline?

Charles Krauthammer

China Keeping the Lights On

Of course President Obama is being nice to China. After all, now that the government has gotten involved in choosing your light bulbs for you we don't make any light bulbs here anymore. If we want to keep the lights on we need China to keep sending them to us.

God forbid we ever end up in a serious war with China it will be lights out literally.
DKK