But what can be said about leaders who look right at the problem then turn their heads away evading the obvious? Who even correctly identify the problem in concrete terms as Editorial Page Editor Stephen Henderson did in his Sunday 3/24/13 editorial “Revenue and spending all out of balance” but fails to examine the premises underlying the malady. Mr Henderson correctly cites in a nutshell the obvious concretes: Detroit government can no longer afford to provide economic services that it used to provide.

But instead of calling for a discussion on the question “What is the proper role of a city government? What services are it Constitutionally required to provide? Which ones are not so required? Mr Henderson and most other leading intellectuals are calling for new ways to raise money in order to keep doing the same old thing. In fact, on the same editorial page professor George Galster calls for a regional solution. Translation, hit the suburbs up for more money. But no one is asking the question why does the City have to provide all these economic services? Most are not political services like police and courts which are constitutionally required. So why not let others provide them?

What do us ordinary folk do when the paper boy keeps throwing the paper in mud puddles or worse, or when the auto repair shop has fixed our car 4 times in the last two weeks, or the trash pick up guys keep destroying our cans, throwing them around like cardboard? Well, if complaining doesn’t work, most of us start looking for someone else to provide these services. This I submit is what Detroit must do to keep from sinking lower on the desirability scale: get someone else to provide these economic services. Let competition and a freer market provide them.

Look at the Information Technology industry like cell phones, I pods and such. The IT industry is one of the least regulated industries in what’s left of our semi-free market. Thus people are still free (relatively) to come up with new ideas, market them and enjoy the rewards. Almost daily the quality of smart phones, I pads and such goes up while the costs fall. Isn’t this what we all want for our schools, roads, EMS and other services? Quality rising and prices falling?

But Detroit can’t get there from here by following the same failed policies of the past or by evading the consequences of its adopted premises. If city economic services can be sold or auctioned off and deregulated to the level of IT, Detroit will once again explode with prosperity.

But what happens to a child taught to believe his self esteem–which is how humans experience their moral worth–doesn’t have to be earned, that it comes from the smiling faces and approval of others without any effort on his part? What happens if that sanction is not forthcoming? What is he to think of a reality that is supposed to make him happy but doesn’t? Will he withdraw from it or strike out at it?

A third and proper option would be to check his premises but Prog Ed makes sure no one develops that ability. Several generations of adults have gone through Prog Ed. Many have survived this aspect of today’s public schools having learned that true self esteem must be earned. Others will be affected in some way but few will be totally unscathed. Some of these will get together and decide to declare their schools to be gun free zones. This they think will show others how much they care about children and thus how morally good and noble they are. Some such people will find posting such attention getting signs to be nearly irresistible.

There is of course, nothing wrong with enjoying the approval of others between rational people as long as said approval is based on some earned values. But I want to urge that we purge from our schools the insane practice of instilling in children a false sense of self worth. It’s my understanding that a push in this direction has already started. Recently a teacher gave a commencement address to a graduating class telling them “No, you are not special.” This is a baby step in the right direction.

But the real solution is easy enough to see. All we have to do is look at the constantly rising quality and falling prices of Information Technology like cell phones and I-Pads and so on. We should all want this paradigm for our kids’ education. So, lets place education on the free market by taking it out of the hands of government, getting rid of regulations while retaining rights protecting laws and watch the ensuing explosion in quality and plummeting costs affordable to everyone.

Right! And that’s why we still have a few freedoms left.

There are lots of things wrong with Mr. Simon’s rant not the least of which is an outright falsehood. He claims for example:

“Four adults are killed in Benghazi, and the right wing politicizes it endlessly.”

Pardon me but it was president Obama who immediately lied to the American people by claiming Benghazi was caused by an anti-Muslim video which of course, turned out to be false. It was Mr. Simon’s left wing that sought to politicize Benghazi first. Obama kept it up for several weeks even making this false claim in a public speech. He even had Susan Rice push the video nonsense.

Mr Simon then claims the gun lobby and the social media cried “…too soon. Show respect for the dead. Do nothing now.” While there indeed was some of that (the Detroit News wrote an editorial urging Gov Snyder not to sign a gun bill that would allow concealed carry anywhere in the State), the social media I visit was calling for action now not do nothing. I responded to that editorial calling for arming some adults in every school on the grounds that leaving kids unprotected any longer was unconscionable. Unfortunately, the Governor did not sign the bill. He left the kids vulnerable.

Mr Simon goes on to attack some alleged reasons for the Sandy Hook shootings. Here is his list of things that didn’t cause the shootings and why:

It’s not: the NRA is too strong, because they’re not that strong.
It’s not: godless schools like Mike Huckabee claims, because we can’t wait for America to be as pious as Mr. Huckabee.
It’s not: mental illness, because other nations don’t have that problem.

So, even though he cites no evidence for his claims, it must be the guns. In truth though, there is more to gun control that a misplaced concern for safety.

If man has an unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, then he must be politically free to take the actions and acquire the tools that will sustain his life. Some of those tools will be tools of self defense. The right to life must include the right to defend that life. Without the right of self defense, man has no right to life.

Gun control advocates do not respect such rights. They believe that because some weapons make killing easier than others, they should be banned to citizens and placed only in the hands of benevolent, caring, “good guys” in government. The desire for such a society goes all the way back to Plato’s notion of “philosopher kings”. This is the idea that an elite of knowledgeable rulers is best for ruling over the ignorant masses. This is exactly the attitude of most of today’s politicians and intellectuals. They all imagine what a wonderful world this could be if only they had the power of force over you and me. They have it. Some in the Democratic Party may be reluctant to use it just yet. Obama is not.

I want to say that the need for some adults to be armed in our schools is more urgent than ever. I’m told they do this in Argentina, the Philippines and in Israel. We need to do it here also.

But there is something we could do right now and that is take down all the signs that declare “gun free zones.” Look at what those signs really say: “self defense free zones.” In essence they say “attention killers, here is a free killing zone just for you.” I can’t think of a sign more politically and morally wrong than that.

Mr. Simon ends his tantrum with a quote alleged to have been spoken by one of the teachers to her students: “Wait for the good guys; they’re coming.” Except she was referring to “good guys” as police in their role of protecting our rights while Mr Simon’s “good guys” were police in the role of taking away our right of self defense.

[UPDATE (12/24/2012) Bill Brown: Added link to creators.com version of the op-ed.]

Since it was so hot outside and since my only pair of shorts were in the laundry hamper, I conceived it to be in my selfish interest (properly understood) to buy another pair. So pleasing was that move, I bought two. It felt good to be selfish. Agreeing with me, the wife bought a top for herself. We also bought a few other goodies to make us happy just as our founders intended.

Later we joined the wife’s brother and his significant other for dinner in an air conditioned restaurant for some happiness causing food. After that we invited them to our selfishly air conditioned house for some strawberry shortcake. Can you imagine eating strawberry shortcake outside in 98 degree heat? Yuk! You’d need a straw for the ice cream. So there was an implied thank you to the scientists who selfishly (for profit) invented, and the businessmen who selfishly (for profit) marketed, air conditioning. Isn’t selfishness wonderful!

After our company left and thanks to a rain delay, I got to watch the Detroit Tigers pursue their happiness (and mine) by beating the Minnesota Twins in a baseball game. (This was a good thing because the Tigers haven’t been very good at achieving their happiness lately.)

All in all it was a truly American day. No sacrifices were offered or demanded. No suffering required. Just people following their own rationally understood self interest and enjoying life proper to humans as the founders intended.

Letter: Focus on nation’s founding values

“The Feb. 18 editorial brief “Appropriate driving law” is an example of a true statement that can be misleading in terms of the principle involved. The sentence: “This new legislation expands a smart law that rightly punishes drivers who have chosen to risk other people’s lives with their irresponsible decisions” can leave the impression that the purpose of law is to protect people from irresponsible decisions instead of violations of their rights. The question then becomes who decides what is responsible or irresponsible and according to what standards?

Is the mother whose child had her turkey sandwich, banana and apple juice confiscated by food police guilty of irresponsible decisions? Were all of us guilty of irresponsible decisions for wanting to use incandescent light bulbs or watch analog TV or put salt on our potatoes?

The tea parties exist to get our nation back to its fundamental, founding principles. They could really use the support of those on editorial staffs to identify those principles.

The above quote could ideally have read in part “… rightly punishes drivers who have chosen to risk violating other people’s rights.” Individual rights are a profound value. To consistently fail to mention primary values is to consider them unimportant.”

“We must return to basic principles

I applaud George Will’s Feb. 5 opinion column, pointing out the dictatorial desires of progressives from Woodrow Wilson to Franklyn Roosevelt and President Obama. Americans need to know that the Democratic Party is dominated by those who think brute force is the practical way to govern citizens.

But Will failed to take the next step: to ask why do progressives worship force instead of freedom, while our Constitution clearly calls for freedom? The answer is to be found in the Declaration of Independence with its principle of individual rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This principle is one of reasoned self-interest, that one can serve one’s own interests as long as one respects the same rights of others.

But progressives disdain these principles, believing that man is not capable of reasoned behavior and must be forcibly ruled by benevolent masters, a longing for something that has never been or will ever be. If America doesn’t return to the principles of the Declaration of Independence soon, the progressives will have the dictatorship they crave. Where reason and rights do not prevail, force does.”

Mr Will is a famous conservative pundit who is quite good at pointing out all the idiocies of progressive policies. But like so many of his colleagues, often fails to identify the principles underlying those policies thus leaving them unchallenged to continue birthing more such policies.

“In this, the congressman differs from other GOP contenders for the White House and, for that matter, from most politicians, period. Your average pol might rail against the intrusion of government into the private lives of its citizens, then turn right around and advocate a law regulating what a gay man does in his bedroom–and see no contradiction. [Very true] Paul is too intellectually honest for that.” [Mr. Pitts, you're starting to make Paul look really good]

“Intellectual honesty is a good thing, if only because it can lead you to reconsider a faulty premise.(If only? It has no other value?) But in Paul’s take on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he doubles down on the bad premise instead.” [Here Pitts confuses government enforced segregation with private prejudice and treats them as equal malfactors which of course they're not. Here the 'bad premise' is private prejudice.]

“In other words, forcing a restaurant to take down a Whites Only sign infringed the rights of the restaurant owner.[Yes, it did] A similar argument was made by segregationists in 1964–and by slave owners in the 1850s.” [Not actually. Slavery and the Jim Crow laws were enforced by local and state governments and should have been repealed. Had they been repealed sooner, market forces would have eroded the private prejudices even sooner than history shows.]

“Can government be overlarge, overbearing, overwhelming, overrestrictive, overintrusive? Of course. And where it is those things, it is the right–and duty–of the electorate to pare it back.” [Obviously Mr. Pitts doesn't think today's government is any of those things because the Tea Party which he opposes, exists to pare it back. Notice too that he doesn't object to the government being restrictive or intrusive, just overly so. He doesn't understand that he is actually saying don't overchain your slaves but chains are ok. But what would happen if the chains were removed completely?]

“On the other hand,unless you enjoy salmonella in your food and lead in your paint, unless you think it’s OK that your doctor has no medical degree and your lawyer no licence, unless you’re fine with breathing sooty air and drinking tainted water, and unless you really think a black woman in Mississippi, locked out of public places by threat of violence and force of law, should have been required to wait on market forces to rescue her, you must regard Paul’s moral imbecility with a certain awe.” [This is a partial rewrite of history. According to Pitts we were walking over bodies in the streets who died from salmonella, lead, tainted water and air and doctors and lawyers who didn't have government permissions to practice until the caring, loving government came along to save us all. Utter nonsense.]

[I have noticed that when statists mentalities are on the brink of achieving or losing their goals, they become more bold in the accuracy with which they identify their true goals and ideals.]

“Heaven help us if the intellectual rigidity he symbolizes is really the only alternative to the intellectual malleability of so many of his colleagues.” [Wow! An open admission that intellectual malleability is the ideal, the norm to be achieved and admired. I will only add that Mr. Pitts is to be admired for his cognitive precision in identifying the intellectual status of Paul's Republican colleagues.]

With pundits like Mr. Pitts bombarding the public with ideas like this it is no wonder that the public has no principled leaders. My hope is that there are principled leaders out there taking notes on the election campaigns and deciding whether the public is ready for principled leadership. I think a growing number are. I just don’t know how big that number needs to be to turn this country around. Perhaps 2012 will give us a clearer picture.

1. Obama loses election
2. Republicans take Senate and add to House
3. ObamaCare repealed
4. Dodd/Frank repealed
5. Sarbanes/Oxley repealed
6. Departments of Education and Energy to be phased out/privatized
7. Fannie Mae,  Freddie Mac and TSA to be privatized
8. Community Re-investment Act repealed
9. Federal Reserve mandate to provide full employment repealed
10. All bureaucracies to be examined for initiating force thus violating rights
11. Eric Holder under investigation for crime of aiding and abetting public enemies (drug cartels) by arming them against american citizens
12. George Soros under investigation for ties to election fraud activities. 
13. (Bonus headlines)

•  NYT and WAPO losing more readers
• MSNBC bought by conservative publisher and revamped or shut down due to lack of viewers
• Well that’s it for this year’s hopeful headlines. You can add yours in the comments of course.

But suppose you don’t have enough money or feel that he shouldn’t want a sacrifice in return and try to walk out with the shirt. “Wait” shouts the public sacrificer. “I sacrificed for you so you had better sacrifice for me.” “Not so” you retort. “St Ambrose said you don’t do the poor man a favor by giving him your property. You are giving him that which is rightfully his. I need this shirt so it is rightfully mine.” “Yes” the public sacrificer concedes. But I need your $19.95 so that makes it rightfully mine so fork it over or I’ll call the ethics police and have you arrested for selfishness and refusing to sacrifice to the needy.” Fearing jail, you hand over the funds.

I could go on with this imaginary reality but even this reality would be impossible since sacrificing means giving up values and receiving nothing in return for the sacrificer. It would mean that the clothing sacrificer would have to hope someone would come in and sacrifice money to service his need. Since few would, no more clothing would be produced. Everyone suffers.

Notice the nature of the transaction. You lose $19.95. He loses a shirt. A lose/lose event. The moral emphasis is on losing values i.e. suffering. Free trade however puts the moral emphasis on gaining values. You value the shirt more than the $19.95 and he values the $19.95 more than the shirt. Everyone wins because everyone gains a value for himself. It is the gaining of values that altruism, the morality of sacrifice, condemns and seeks to destroy.

I was reminded of this quote when I read this article at Digital Trends. (Hat tip to OActivists) The first paragraph:

“The Federal Communications Commission just handed down new regulation designed to protect small, independent networks, and cable providers are getting seriously riled up. The FCC’s “standstill order” states that cable providers can’t pull networks off the air during contract disputes.”

This demonstrates how government regulations create the need for more regulations, and what happens when the powers that be cannot properly adjudicate property rights which said regulations work to thwart. This incident should tell Republicans of the need to replace government regulations with market regulations. Sadly, I don’t think there are but a few Republicans who even know what market regulations are or how they work. That is why the 2012 election is so important. The events in Atlas Shrugged are materializing faster now than in previous decades.

If the Tea Party confines itself to fighting consequences instead of their causes, it will be fighting an enemy it cannot see. If it can’t see and clearly identify its enemy it cannot defeat it. The movement may win a few battles here and there but will be doomed to lose the war.

I agree that the recent agreement of the debt limit is probably the best we could hope for given the small number of constitutionally committed reps in the House. They need help in 2012. But the help needs to be principled help. The main principle they need to commit to is in the Declaration of Independence, “to protect these rights governments are instituted among men.” This means that if an action violates or threatens to violate a citizen’s right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness congress shall address it. Conversely, if an action does not violate or threaten to violate those same rights, CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW. I screamed those last four words to emphasize that this is what the founders intended. Any potential candidates need to intend it also. This is the particular flame to hold at their feet.

Capitalism is a social system based on individual rights including property rights where all property is privately owned. Not just some of it. The concept of inalienable rights is a moral principle as well as a practical political one. As the most moral system ever devised, it deserves nothing less than a morally principled defense.

The way for the Tea Party to win the public over is to appeal to their rational self interest. It’s what our founders did. The words ‘inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ are words of rational self interest. They are not words of self sacrifice or any kind of sacrifice. The candidates of 2012 and beyond need to understand the political principle of individual rights and the moral principle on which it is based, rational self interest.”

“Mr. Pitts is still peddling socialism despite the fact that it is unsustainable, that people, workers, are rioting in Europe precisely because they refuse to grow up like children throwing a tantrum and realize that it is unsustainable. But he is also peddling government enforced altruism something the government should not be doing. Altruism is not about helping others per se. It’s about getting people to practice sacrifice, the giving up of values, as the only way to help others when in fact the only way to really help mankind is to trade value for value on a free and open market.

The words “… unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” are not words of self sacrifice, but of rational self interest which Mr. Pitts obviously disdains. His claims that those of us in the Tea Party movement are anti government is a straw man. The Tea Party movement is against an unfettered, unrestrained government that no longer is concerned with people’s rights but rather runs around the nation–and sometimes the planet–collecting sacrifices to hand out to beneficiaries that were created by those same sacrifices.

I pay my taxes too. But I pay them because it is in my selfish interest to do so. Not because of some undefined duty to others. We gave up slavery a long time ago. Mr. Pitts wants us to be bound to others by law (taxes). That’s slavery even if only partially. (Forced taxation is a topic for another time)

Notice how Mr. Pitts lumps legitimate functions of government, police and military, with functions that are not essential for the government to provide like education and fixing potholes. Private markets would do an immensely better job of providing those things. It is time Americans discovered laissez-faire capitalism and the moral code on which it rests, rational self interest.”

I think it is important to attack sacrifice, the surrender of values, and promote production of values, free markets and rational self interest as often as possible in today’s cultural climate.

Was it abject fear of Muslim violence (hidden behind an alleged concern for innocents)? If so, was moral cowardice the cause of this fear? But what then could be the cause of the moral cowardice? I’m convinced that it’s the belief that one’s enemies have the moral high ground (because they are more consistent in the practice of self-sacrifice which they share) and that one’s own social system is flawed (because it relies on self interest in order to be prosperous). But why does the evil have to win?

“When men reduce their virtues to the approximate, then evil acquires the force of an absolute, when loyalty to an unyielding purpose is dropped by the virtuous , it’s picked up by scoundrels–and you get the indecent spectacle of a cringing, bargaining, traitorous good and a self-righteously uncompromising evil.” (Ayn Rand The Anatomy of Compromise)

Isn’t that exactly what we saw with the 19th court?

*************************************

I was working in the kitchen a few days ago while one of my grand kids watched Nickelodeon in the living room. I could hear most of the dialog but froze when I heard this statement, from memory now, “I am the superhero Iceman. My job is to travel the universe fighting evil thinkers and evildoers.” Evil thinkers? I listened to see if there perhaps was a context in which he would fight them with good ideas but heard nothing. I think this is a bad idea to plant in the minds of children. Obviously this is paving the way for children to accept the notion that hate speech should be outlawed along with other undesirable thoughts and speech.

We can’t put an end to self-sacrifice and collectivism soon enough.

His slogan “reinvent Michigan” is one telltale sign. Michigan doesn’t need to be ‘reinvented.’ It needs to be freed from the job killing regulations and taxes that have chased businesses out of the state.

Another telltale sign is his decision to go with a government owned second bridge–Detroit River International Crossing, DRIC–over the Detroit river connecting Detroit to Windsor Canada. I had hoped Snyder would have at least opened up the bidding to private enterprise, especially since Matty Marroun, the owner of the Ambassador Bridge from Detroit to Windsor has offered to build the second bridge and pay for it himself. (Yes, the Ambassador is the only privately owned international bridge in the nation)

Snyder, a businessman and former CEO of Gateway, knows that private enterprise is much more efficient than government sponsored enterprises yet he chose the public option anyway. Why? He was lured by the promise of federal Transportation Dept. loot. From a 1/21/11 Detroit News article by Tom Greenwood:

“Snyder, a businessman-turned politician, told The Detroit News that it was the “old accountant” in him that made him ask the federal government whether a $550 million loan from Canada to cover Michigan’s share of the roads for the bridge project could be used to leverage matching federal dollars for other roadwork in Michigan.
“That’s part of the value-added we brought to the table,” Snyder said.”

Unfortunately, for several years, the Michigan toll receipts will be handed over to Canada to repay the loan.

This is pure pragmatism on the part of Gov. Snyder. Pragmatism of course is a range of the moment expediency sans concern for long range consequences i.e. unprincipled. It is this kind of thinking that brought Michigan’s economy to ruin in the first place.

Now, Snyder want’s to replace the oppressive Michigan Business Tax–credited with chasing many small businesses out of the state–with a 6% tax on corporate profits. This despite the fact that he knows wealth creation and therefore a rising standard of living come from only one place–profits. So it seems then that he wants to sacrifice the profits of big business to small business. Neither this nor the public bridge option are free market principles. Then again, pragmatists disdain principles.

All is not lost yet though. Gov. Snyder does want to repeal the item pricing law that forces retailers to price mark every item they sell. In another News article by Jaclyn Trop we learn:

“The law mostly affects retailers that sell many different items, such as grocers and hardware stores, costing them more than $2 billion annually in labor and materials, according to a report by the Anderson Economic Group that Snyder cited”

It is on things like this that the new governor needs to be concentrating. Reduce crippling regulations and he wouldn’t need to replace the Michigan Business Tax. He could just repeal it.

But that is just one of the regulations Snyder considers ‘needless’ implying that others are needed. He does not understand that all government regulations are ‘needless.’ I know this was just Mr. Snyder’s first major speech and I shouldn’t be too pessimistic yet. But it’s hard to be optimistic when I see business groups applauding his speech. Back to the Greenwood article:

“Business leaders ‘thrilled’
Members of the Detroit Regional Chamber also applauded the governor’s endorsement.
“We were thrilled that the governor said he was all in for the DRIC,” Detroit Regional Chamber chief executive Sandy Baruah said. “I love the fact that he found a very inventive way to tie the interests of the DRIC to every legislator in the state of Michigan by tying those transportation dollars to the DRIC project. I thought that was brilliant. I think it will be the key that gets the DRIC done.”

The editor of the Detroit News also hailed the Governor’s pragmatism in a 1/23/11 editorial in which editor Nolan Finley says:

“Rick Snyder’s first substantive speech as governor left a lot of folks scratching their heads, trying to figure out which political slot he fits into.
The answer is, he doesn’t.
He’s not a politician. He’s a businessman. If that wasn’t clear during the gubernatorial campaign, it should be now that Snyder’s opening State of the State address is out of the way.
It will be pragmatism rather than partisan ideology that guides his administration.”

And:

“That was best demonstrated during the speech by his embrace of the Detroit River International Crossing. Conservatives chafe at government involvement in building a new bridge, since a private investor claims to be willing to build one with his own money.
But for Snyder, it was just a big real estate deal, and one he feels he got the best of by convincing the Obama administration to permit the leveraging of a $550 million loan from Canada to repair Michigan’s highways.
He wasn’t about to let a debate over the free market system get in the way of a windfall.”(MY emphasis)

To be fair the editorial did go on to extol Snyder’s pledge for accountability for all money spent and to get rid of growth inhibiting regulations. All nice sounding words until one reads this:

“Likewise, liberals will find unexpected opportunities to applaud the governor, as they did his view that the state must nurture education from the womb through adulthood, and that government has a stake in the waistlines of its citizens.”

AARRRG!! Michigan is joining California in committing economic and educational suicide with the blessings of media and business.

When I look at Michigan and the new governor I feel like that adult who has explained to an adolescent that doing X will result in failure and misery for him but who still insists on doing x anyway suffering the adult to a future of having to watch the calamity unfold. Sigh.

Maybe some of the newer State Republicans will guide him in a better direction. Not holding my breath though.

>”Obama care completely repealed”

>”George Soros files for bankruptcy.” (this is a perennial for me)

>”Newly elected House Republicans appointed to key committees.”

>”112th congress refuses to fund all of EPA efforts at regulating GH gases.”

>”Congress repeals all bans on offshore drilling. Gas prices drop.”

>”Establishment Republicans agree to study the new (to them) and exciting concept of individual rights.” (Another perennial)

>”Congress convenes to consider Constitutional Amendments 28 and 29.” #28,”Congress shall pass no law abridging free trade by interfering in the market place with initiatory force or threat of same, in the absence of any violations of individual rights.” #29, “Congress shall pass no law exempting itself from application.”

>”Congress repeals Humphrey-Hawkins Act which mandated the Fed to promote full employment by manipulating the money supply, returning it to its original mandate of stabilizing said supply, then orders a complete audit of the Fed.”

>”NY Times and Wapo lose more readers while MSNBC folds for lack of advertisers.”(Yes!)

>”Congress orders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to be privatized.” Puts on EBAY and Craig’s List.

>”Congress begins slashing all taxes while starting process of privatizing many services.”

>”Republican U.S. Congresswoman from Michigan Candice Miller announces she will run for Michigan U.S. Senate seat held by Democrat Senator Debbie Stabinow.” (This is pure wishful thinking for me but I would be jumping up and down excited were it to happen.)

That’s it for my wishful thinking for now. I could have added many more but if only 3 or 4 of these happen or begin to happen it will be a good year.
Happy New Year!!

“What does this mean? That chemicals in the environment, newly termed obesogens, may lend a helping hand in the obesity epidemic, especially in babies and children. Studies show that these chemicals are found in the water and food supply as well as in other man-made chemicals.

As far-fetched as these new studies sound, one particular agency of the federal government is taking it very seriously — the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

An article in the New York Times stated, “U.S. EPA regulators convened with scientists last month to discuss how to design regulations for chemicals based on emerging science that connects exposures during pregnancy with disease much later in life.” Diseases including obesity.”

Between the EPA and the FDA, expect everything that could, might, maybe make you fat to be severely regulated. The premise on which the EPA and FDA are based is the notion that some men have the right to initiate force against others to achieve some noble goal.

The newly elected congress, which can refuse to fund this nonsense, can’t take office fast enough for my liking.

“Environmental groups, which are as quick to fang each other as they are dirty polluters, are lining up in opposition to the lines and to wind farms in general. In fact, they’re lining up against most current sources of renewable power: the Audubon Society hates wind farms because the blades kill birds and bats; hydroelectric covers up large swaths of land and releases “greenhouse gasses” when decaying material is exposed to the air; the Sierra Club has opposed solar plants in the Mohave. Apparently, even geothermal creates toxic waste no one wants. So what’s the solution?”

Mr. Richardson goes on to say:

“There isn’t one. The power companies involved in the Kansas program are still trying to get the approval they need. Lawsuits have already been filed to stop the construction. The lesser prairie chicken is still doing its mating dance, and environmental groups still continue to oppose all types of power generation.”

We see the general attitude of the green movement here against human life; the lesser prairie chicken has a right to its habitat but humans–who must reshape nature for their survival–do not have a right to theirs.

For more on the green anti-human attitude, check out these quotes from the horses’ mouths.

I’m disappointed to see the Democrats continuing to cash in on the false notion that the people on Wall Street are the enemies of the people on main street. This ad represents all that is wrong with Michigan (and national) politics. Readers are presumably supposed to be relieved that these Democrats are anti-wall street. It is blatantly anti-business in tone. And yet it is only businesses that can create productive jobs. Government cannot create jobs. All government has to offer is force and the threat of it. And for decades government has used this power to chase businesses out of Michigan.

It’s time to get government out of the way and let business do what it does best: create prosperity. We’ll have to see if the new republicans are up to the task. The Democrats sure aren’t.

The next paragraph contains another mention of common good: “The American people are speaking out, demanding that we realign our country’s compass with its founding principles and apply those principles to solve our common problems for the common good.” Sigh. Actually, the people want the government to apply those principles to solve our individual problems for our individual good. One more.

“We pledge to uphold the purpose and promise of a better America, knowing that to whom much is given, much is expected and that the blessings of our liberty buoy the hopes of mankind.” Wow again! ‘Given’ by whom? This is the collective notion that one’s freedom and prosperity is given by society or the state or god or some such external source and must be paid back lest one be condemned as an evil taker. Completely missing from this introduction is any idea that freedom and prosperity are earned by creating values and trading them for individual mutual benefit on a free market.

This is only the first 3 pages and we see that such statist concepts as ‘common good’ ‘national purpose’, polarizing environment’ and required duty to society–longstanding tenets of the leftist Democratic Party–are shared by the Republican Party. It’s plain to see that the Republican party does not understand our founding principles. In fact, these three pages tell me that the entire document will be an epistemological disaster because they list many noble sounding ideals and generalizations which are treated as if they were concrete bound particulars unrelated to each other.

This short introduction is dissuading me from reading the rest but I shall take two aspirins and plod on perhaps posting on it later. I don’t see the Republican party changing its stripes anytime soon but I’m hopeful that this new crop of winners in Nov can filter into the leadership and bring a few rational thinkers with them. I’m not holding my breath though in the knowledge that this Introduction to Horror was written by some of these same newcomers. Yikes!