The New Clarion

Chrysler has filed for bankruptcy.

The only good thing about the prospect of automakers going into bankruptcy was that it was a chance for the government to un-do the damage it did by coercing them to meet the unsustainable terms of the auto unions. They could have removed the debts to the unions and called it a day.

Instead, they pretty much did the opposite, which neatly sums up what this administration is all about. Everyone but the unions was left holding the ball, and the government took over with their fascist “car czars.”

As you can see, with Chrylser it is going down in exactly the same way. (more…)

Congress and the media’s continual criticism of the domestic auto industry is that they lost out because they weren’t being enough like Toyota. (No, I don’t mean using non-union labor. Of course they didn’t mean that.) The repeated cry is that Detroit failed because they were “living in the past” by building large and powerful vehicles rather than making smaller, “more-efficient” cars and – especially – hybrids.

But was Toyota’s success because they produced small cars and hybrids like the Prius, or was it in spite of that fact?

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President Barack Obama delivered a speech before both houses of Congress last Tuesday and Lousiana governor Bobby Jindal gave the Republican response shortly afterwards.

Given the gravity of the moment, we at TNC decided to collect our thoughts on the speeches as a panel discussion.

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I don’t normally watch The Daily Show, but I caught part of an episode by accident today. In it, Jon Stewart was grilling a former Republican congressman about his opposition to Obama’s massive “bailout.”

Stewart had this Republican on the ropes because he was able to control the language of their discussion and this hapless Republican didn’t recognize what was going on. Stewart criticized him for being “pro-free market” while at the same time being in favor of “regulation” of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Showing how much we can trust Republicans, the man’s only response was that he was in fact in favor of “regulation.”

Peeling back this dishonest language, the plain fact is that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are government entities. (The former congressman even said as much earlier in the discussion!) They are most emphatically NOT representative of “the free market,” and a desire to reign in the government’s entities – Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae – is absolutely not in any way a “regulation of the free market.” It is entirely the opposite.

But this utterly despicable Orwellian switcheroo of terms went completely unopposed. Therefore, “regulation of the free market” was allowed to be framed as the agreed solution to the crisis, and concurrently, the problem was implicitly allowed to be blamed on an “unregulated free market.” This is, again, a complete and utter lie, as both men knew that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were the government and not the free market.

Jon Stewart is far from alone in his use of this deception. I’ve heard it used by congressmen, newsmen, and even ordinary people since the beginning of this latest mortgage brouhaha. But it is incorrect, backwards, and, for those who know better, dishonest.

The truth is the exact opposite of what the “regulation” cheerleaders would have us believe: the crisis was caused by overbearing government entities such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which distorted the markets and went wild dumping billions into foolishness. The failure was of these government entities and not in any way a “free market.” What the government failed to “regulate” was not “free markets,” but rather, itself. But because the term “regulate” is traditionally used to refer to government controls, these shysters are playing a shell game of words in which they “solve” a failure of government entities by calling for more government controls on private business.

So if you ever hear anyone use the term “regulation” in this way, be sure to set them straight. Because with it, they can control – and completely reverse – the entire meaning of recent events.

-Inspector

It struck me, the other day, just how much time I have to spend making a case that so-called “moderate” wings of the dreadful movements that America faces are effectively indistinguishable from the so-called “radical” or “extreme” wings. That it is not just, to give a few (by no means exhaustive) examples, “radical” Environmentalism, “radical” Marxism, or “radical” Islam which require steadfast opposition, but Environmentalism as such, Marxism as such, and Islam as such which must be opposed.

This shouldn’t be as hard as it is. The central ideas of all these movements are essentially disastrous and in complete opposition to the individual rights that formed the basis of what America was founded on. It isn’t just that respect for individual rights is fading from our culture in the face of the onslaught of the aforementioned movements and their kin. Granted, this is a factor, but it doesn’t account for the systematic dismissal I’ve observed of any attempt at opposition. People have been disarmed against judgment of any movement by its fundamental meaning. The unspoken yet widely pernicious cultural view I’ve seen is that differences of simple degree and consistency should be allowed to excuse things which are fundamentally alike.

I’ve come to understand that this failure represents a form of systematic denial – one that has far-reaching consequences to any effort to save our country from the disintegration of individual rights that these movements are foisting upon us.

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