She gave her usual common sense arguments against the follies of the Obama administration and championed limited government and so on. Unfortunately she grounded many of her arguments in religion. I don’t want to discuss those arguments here. Suffice it to say they were standard religious right positions.

As I watched I began to suspect that this was an event intended to align the Republican Party with the Tea Party movement. My suspicions were confirmed by later events. After the speech Geraldo interviewed a panel of commentators one of which was Juan Williams who flatley declared Mrs. Palin as the new leader of the Tea Party movement. “No she’s not” I nearly shouted at the screen.

A few days later I received an email from the Tea Party Express announcing that they had nothing to do with the organization of that convention but added that they were having Ms. Palin speak at one of their parties in March and at another in April.

Then on Sunday the 7th I got an email from the other national group Tea Party Patriots. They had this to say in part:

“Dear Fellow Tea Party Patriots,

Tea Party Patriots, an organization with a reach of millions of members and over 1,000 voluntarily affiliated tea party and 912 local groups asks: WHY WOULD 600 PEOPLE AT A RALLY CREATE A MEDIA FREENZY?”

Good question since the media have routinely ignored much larger events. And

“Why did the media choose to show up at a tea party rally in Nashville that marketed itself as a “national convention” with only 600 participants who claimed to speak on behalf of the movement?

Why would the media show up just because a national figure was asked to speak? National figures spoke all over the country in local tea party rallies all year and in DC on September 12th.

We believe the answer to “Why?” is this:

There are heavy efforts underway to align us to a political party.
There is great concern that the Tea Party Movement will become a third party.
The media did not do their homework on this “national convention” and is now creating misinformation on the movement.”

I’m convinced that this event was covered to designate the Tea Party movement as a right wing Republican movement. I doubt it will work because the parties I attended last year were mostly independent voters with some Repubs and Dems as well. But they may get some mileage out of it. Stay tuned.

Demonic practices include short selling, making a profit, acting on inside information, making ‘too much’ profit and defending one’s right to do so. I’m sure there are some I’ve missed.

The gods we’ve been urged to worship by the press are government politicians and regulators who know what’s best for us. Noble and virtuous practices are complying with our regulatory masters and having a willingness to find our happiness by sacrificing all those things that make us happy, like our money and freedom and rights, for a non-existent public good.

Obama will give his first SOTU address tonight. It will be interesting to see what demons we will be urged to destroy and what gods to worship. Some have speculated that because of recent setbacks to the Democratic Party’s agenda, Obama will move to the center of the political spectrum. If he uses those kinds of words tonight it will be only appearance. In substance I see Obama following FDR’s lead. He will continue to meddle in the market, causing a prolonged depression, yet blaming all of it on the greed and selfishness of evil businessmen. The people, like they did for FDR, will believe it hook line and sinker and will call for more of the same poison that’s making them sick now.

But there are these differences: Objectivism wasn’t around back then and the middle class today has a lot more to lose by buying into the government-knows-best nonsense being peddled today. We’ll see.

It starts out letting us know that the inquisition commission is ‘bipartisan.’

“The bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Congress appointed last spring opens public hearings today with a charge to explore what its chairman, Phil Angelides, describes with considerable understatement as the central irony of the 2008 Wall Street meltdown.”

And what he’s going to explore is how to make the bankers explain not their innocence but why did they do it. The Freep even suggests the attitude and framework the commission should adopt.

“The commission’s mandate has been likened to the similarly ambitious inquiry into the 9/11 attacks. This time, though, investigators have been able to subpoena many of the principals whose actions and decisions precipitated the crisis. Among those scheduled to testify this week are the CEOs of Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley. None of these bank executives, presumably, set out to destroy the international financial system. Even so, the opportunity to question them is the investigative equivalent of being able to interrogate the perished hijackers of 9/11.”

Notice the snarky word ‘presumably’ used in regard to a possible desire not to destroy the economy.

The financial center is the heart of any economy. It finances all the transactions that take place in a free economy making a growing prosperity possible. When government interferes it creates economic dislocations and hardship. These are then held up as failures of a free unregulated market and the haters of capitalism then call for more controls as the Freep has done and is now doing again. But to place 911 terrorists in the same context as bankers and lenders is an insult to all Americans especially the bankers.

There is also no mention in this editorial of the government’s role in the meltdown. It’s as if there was no role at all. The editorial decries the bonuses of bankers but there is no mention of the bonuses paid to the CEOs of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–government enforced creations.

The editorial then lets us know which way the government should go.

“It would be unforgivable if the inadequate legal and regulatory system that allowed credit markets to spin out of control more than a year ago were left in place until a bigger and even more catastrophic crisis unfolds. So the grillings on tap for today and tomorrow should be only the opening salvos in a determined effort to hold banks and other lenders accountable.”

In other words we are being told that bankers and financial people will run around willy nilly in an orgy of irrationality if not controlled by all knowing bureaucrats. My own Senator Carl Levin, D-MI once said that the crisis was caused by Wall Street “running wild.” The demon we are told to fear again is economic freedom and the god to worship is government force.

I can only hope that some of these bankers will defend themselves and their right to use their own judgement. Perhaps they will be able to show how the government regulations encouraged risky behavior. But I doubt they will get a chance to defend themselves at all. They will undoubtedly be questioned only on why they knowingly lent money to people who could not pay it back and will be charged with the trumped up crime of ‘predatory lending.’

(If the hearings are not on TV they can be viewed on c-span.org.)

“Cash-strapped communities have a message for corporations that promised jobs in return for tax breaks: A deal’s a deal.”

And:

“As the economy sputters along, municipalities struggling to fix roads, fund schools and pay bills increasingly are rescinding tax abatements to companies that don’t hire enough workers, that lay them off or that close shop. At the same time, governments are sharpening new deals, leaving no doubt what is expected.”

That’s right. It’s like taking money from a Mafia Don, you better know what’s expected. Leaving aside the wisdom of government controlled roads and schools I want to point out that in any “deal” between a man with a gun (communities) and a man with money but without a gun (corporations), it is the man with the gun who will set and control the terms of all such “deals.” Once a corporation understands this it can then know its proper course of action: find a less hostile state and move there. Mr Babwin gives an example of one such deal:

“”We will roll out the red carpet as much as we can,” but “they are going to honor the contract,” said Brendon Gallagher, an alderman in DeKalb, Ill., where Target Corp. got abatements from the city, county, school district and other taxing bodies after promising at least 500 jobs at a local distribution center.
“

Please notice that when these gangs of gangs (taxing bodies) give back some of the loot or promise not to rob them for a few years, they are rolling “out the red carpet.” So what did Target do with its red carpet treatment?

“So when the company came up 66 workers short in 2009, Target found its next tax bill would jump almost $600,000 — more than half of which goes to the local school district.”

So we see that Target came through with 434 jobs but because they fell short by 66 jobs the spoiled brats in this gang stamped their feet and slammed target with a $600,000 club. Obviously these thugs couldn’t care less about the rights of businessmen. But the truth is they really don’t care about jobs either. In the mind of a pragmatist there is no connection between a $600,000 loss and Target’s ability to hire a few more workers. Notice the statement at the end of that quote; the fact that half the loot will go to schools I suppose is justification for the looting. In their mind Target will always be able to create jobs. How? Blank out. And when they don’t they must be punished. After all, they won’t get any sympathy from the public either.

“”The public is a lot more aware of tax abatements and there’s a climate of skepticism about what can be perceived as corporate handouts,” said Geoff McKimm, a member of the Monroe County Council in Indiana.”

So we see that the government, aided by a cheer leading media, has the public believing that tax breaks and abatements are “red carpet” treatments as well as “corporate handouts”. This means that the joint has been cased, lookouts are all in place (the press) and now it’s time for the thieving gangs to move in for more control.

“With that in mind, county officials drew up an agreement with Printpack, a packaging company, which includes a provision requiring the company to refund either $197,000 or that year’s abatement, whichever is more, if the number of employees at a new factory falls below 140.

Another provision requires Printpack to refund the entire abatement if it employs fewer than 75 people — a guarantee meant to prevent companies from leaving a skeleton crew at a location to avoid paying up”

Yep, we can’t let the producers have any way to protect themselves from our government enforced good intentions. Our good intentions are so noble that we are willing to fight each other over who has dibs on any given producer at any given time.

“In Detroit, while the state was approving expanded tax credits in exchange for General Motors Co.’s promise not to move, the Detroit City Council was talking about cracking down on tax breaks for GM and other major employers.”

But some of these gangs (taxing bodies) seem to be getting a bit uneasy in that maybe they ought to tread more lightly.

Some communities crack down on companies quietly, out of concern that they could scare off other potential employers, said Greg LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs First.
He said that fear persists even though there is no evidence that having or enforcing clawbacks poisons the business climate.

The fact that they see a need to act quietly means that they know they are acting against the producers interests and that they see no other way to achieve their idea of the good except by the forced suffering of others. And if the people are unwilling to sacrifice voluntarily, then the government must step in and forcefully collect those sacrifices.

Now I don’t know anything about Good Jobs First but judging by their name they don’t know that good jobs come third. After a scientist or inventor comes up with a new product first then a businessman decides to market it second, then hires workers to make it third. But I digress.

To stop the sacrifice of the greatest nation on earth, the government must be reduced to its proper function of protecting every individual’s unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Just calling for limited government won’t do it. Only a full commitment to individual rights can turn this country around. A good place to start is the rights of businessmen.

But today I want to take a lighter approach and look forward to headlines I would like to see in 2010. There is no particular order to these. Of course readers are free to add their own preferences in the comments. First, in the 2010 election I would like to see these headlines:

1>”Democrats lose 60 seat majority in Senate.”

2>”Senator Harry Reid out.”

3>”Democrat congressman Sander Levin (my congressman) ousted by fellow Democrat and fiscal conservative Mickey Switalski. Party still hopping mad at Mickey.”

4>”Liberal Dems take beating in election along with a few liberal Republicans.”

5>”Democrats promising to abandon needs based legislation in favor of rights protecting legislation win by landslides.”

6>”Conservative Rupublicans promising mega-compassion lose in record landslides.”

And in non-election news:

7>”In test case Supreme Court rules Obamacare unconstitutional.”

8>”Cap and trade bill dies in congress. Obama threatens to give EPA executive powers. New congress vows to cut off EPA funding. Obama livid.”

9>”Congress opens hearings on Climategate. Mann, Bradley, Hughes et al on hot seat regarding connections to Hadley email scandal. Value of IPCC Assessment Reports questioned.”

10>”Copies of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead flying off shelves faster than in 2009.”

11>”More CEOs defending themselves and capitalism.”

12>”NYT and WAPO circulation and stock price hit new lows, more layoffs loom.”

13>”Another Al Gore lecture on GW cancelled due to extreme cold.”

14>”George Soros and/or Michael Moore file for bankruptcy.” ( this is a perennial for me.)

15>”New student rebellion protesting campus censorship and lack of diverse ideas is gaining momentum.”

Well that’s it for the wishful thinking for now but if just 4 of these 15 actually happen, it will bode well for the future.

Before I started posting here at TNC I posted several articles on my personal blog penned by Mr. Borenstein that were obvious cases of cheer leading for the AGW crowd.

In April of 06 he did an article about the picture of the locomotive bearing down on the little girl supposedly showing we still have a little time to stop GW. He did point out that the ad was by Environmental Defense. But he didn’t tell his readers that ED is an extreme left wing advocacy group with a profound bias against free markets and for governmental initiatory force.

Or this post where he champions IPCC leaders who tell Americans “Get used to heat waves” caused by GW, experts say.

Then there is this excellent article in the March 2007 American Thinker by Marc Sheppard in which he reports that after the doomsday scenarios offered by Borenstein, Sheppard says:

“Then, specifically addressing the bogus claims made in the February 1st AP article, the scientist rebuked:

“We concluded that the question of whether there was a greenhouse-cyclone link was pretty much a toss of a coin at the present state of the science, with just a slight leaning towards the likelihood of such a link. But the premature reports suggested that we were asserting the existence of much stronger evidence.”"

So we see Mr. Borenstein likes to champion scary doomsday scenarios put out by AGW alarmists, but who precisely gave him his marching orders? Well in 1990 warming alarmist Stephen Schneider said:

“”[We] have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.” -Quoted by Dixy Lee Ray in Trashing the Planet (1990)” (source http://www.nationalcenter.org/dos7123.htm)

I would like to see Mr. Borenstein out of the AP for sure but the whole news media is infested with biased reporters that need cleansing. Yes there are some good reporters out there and they need recognition. So I salute people like Anthony Watts and Marc Sheppard for identifying the biased ones.

Its first edition came out Monday 11/22 so I bought a copy out of curiosity (and because it’s only 50 cents). I wanted to see what the editorial page would be like and I found a hint in their first editorial titled “A voice of clarity” written by managing editor Bruce McLaughlan. That title looks promising.

About the editorial page Mr. McLaughlan writes “It won’t push a liberal agenda. Nor will it don a conservative cloak.” He goes on to add that “Instead, like the Metro Detroiters it serves, this page will consider issues on their merits. That means examining the facts, of course, as well as critiquing the way they are framed by various political viewpoints.” Now I had mixed feelings. This could be a call for moderation, exactly what I don’t want, and yet “critiquing the way they are framed” is a depth of thinking glaringly absent from the two major daily’s editorial pages.

Because I had doubts, I didn’t buy a paper until Friday 11/27. Mr. McLaughlan again penned an editorial that really surprised me. It was titled “It’s not your fault” and its theme was ‘don’t accept an unearned guilt.’ The paper was not online yet so I can’t link to anything but here are a few excerpts.

First paragraph: “You’re going to read a lot about guilt in the coming months. It won’t be labeled as such, but that’s the subliminal message.” How true! He points out how consumers are often blamed for not spending enough and other times for foolishly spending too much. The last three paragraphs say:

“You can’t do much about being blamed for everything, but you are in charge of whether you accept the feeling of guilt on behalf of the economy.

“Here in cash-strapped Metro Detroit, it’s time to reject the guilt and do what’s right for you and your family. If savings is the most prudent approach, save. The kids will be just as happy with smaller gifts that are wrapped with the same amount of love – or perhaps even more love, undiluted by worry.

“Just don’t bring home a big box of guilt this holiday season. You can’t afford it.”

Wow! I look forward to more of these. I’ll be sending an LTE lauding that editorial. Unfortunately, I just heard that the paper is suspending operations until after Jan 1st due to a lack of advertising. A good article by Bill Shea at Crain’s Detroit Business about the new paper is here. I wish the paper well and for all the reasons Mr. Shea mentions. But even if it fails, and with the current administration in Washington and its bought and paid for press selling guilt on a massive scale, it was still a little breath of fresh air.

The article focuses on a WSJ article about an old truck that was pushed off the fourth floor of the long abandoned Packard building by people referred to as “urban explorers.” It even has a video of the event and a link the the WSJ article.

Reading this story is like watching insects crawling through the skeletal remains of what was once a living, thriving organism, the City of Detroit. According to the WSJ article:

“Detroit has 80,000 abandoned lots and buildings, according to the city’s planning department. Old housing projects, homes, strip malls and even high-rise buildings sit empty across much of the city. Motown has more vacant office, retail and industrial space than nearly every other big city in the country.”

But the Packard plant is just the latest example of Detroit’s political leaders not understanding the nature and purpose of property rights.

The purpose of property rights is to transform the ideal of individual rights, the ‘right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ into practical reality. To survive, a man must have the right to use and dispose of the fruits of his labor as he judges best while respecting the same rights of others. The fruits of his labor are his property. Without property rights there can be no other rights.

Where there are no humans there is no property, only nature. Where there are humans, property rights identify, define and protect the fruits of each man’s labor. The basic, fundamental purpose of property rights then is to serve human survival in some objective way. That is why there should be a time limit on how long an owner can let a property sit completely idle not serving any purpose whatsoever.

The details of what kind of limits should be placed on what kind of property are not important here and can be worked out by those schooled in property rights law. What’s important here, and needs to be recognized by our laws, is the principle that property must serve some human purpose and cannot be held idle in perpetuity.

The future of Detroit can be either the nation’s biggest ghost town or a thriving metropolis again. But Detroit’s rebirth will not happen until Detroit and Lansing discover the real nature of property rights and enact policy accordingly. Right now all governments view property as a source of income instead of a source of human survival. That is what really has to change.

“The bill requires employers, except for small businesses, to offer health coverage to their workers and pay a substantial share of the premiums or face a big penalty. That would be a useful prod to make insurance more available and affordable to employees.” (bold mine)

No Senator, Congressman, judge or member of the executive branch is going to insure anyone. All they can do is point a gun at the insurance companies, doctors and other health care professionals and decree ’sacrifice or else.’ Then point another gun at the heads of citizens and decree ‘accept these sacrificial offerings or else.’

It is really sad to see an establishment of professional intellectuals like the Times advocating the government initiate force against citizens. It’s even sadder that professional organizations like the AMA and the ANA (American Nurses Assoc.) are willing to go along with the sacrifice of its members. But as long as people think sacrifice itself, for any reason, is virtuous, the destruction of medicine and our society will continue. It is trade not sacrifice that is virtuous. Trade represents voluntary relationships. Sacrifice requires force because it is contrary to human nature. Sacrifice is not the giving up of a value for some desired result. The loss of the value is the desired result.

(Could be to the tune of Rick Nelson’s Garden Party)

>I went to another tea party,
>to protest the health care bill,
>to mix with people of like mind and to,
>share in a little good will.

>There were signs saying no to coercion,
>and leave my doctor alone,
>There’s no reason for government to be,
>barging into my home.

>Well it’s, all wrong now.
>But it’s, going to be OK,
>people are beginning to realize that,
>freedom is the way.

>There’s Waxman, Reid and Pelosi,
>Obama and Emanuel too,
>they tell us they’re going to save the world but they,
>haven’t got a clue.

>There are people in academia,
>in the House and Senate of course,
>for us they say they know what’s best and will
>get it with physical force.

>Well it’s, all wrong now,
>but it’s, going to be OK,
>people are beginning to realize that,
>freedom needs to stay.

>We’ve gone to the polls in November,
>to vote for a different man,
>he promised to bring us changes and he’s,
>got a four year plan.

>It’s taking money from Peter,
>handing it over to Paul,
>redistribution of our wealth buys,
>health care for all.

>Well it’s, all wrong now,
>but it’s, going to be OK,
>people are beginning to realize that,
>freedom is the way.

As the Obama administration evolves, I may add more lyrics to this.

“I’m working my way through college, could you help me by purchasing…” is one I’ve heard a couple of times. I wanted to tell him that he can make more money at Burger King than soliciting D2D but I was so sure it was a scam that I just said “NO thanks” and closed the door. Others like “My class is trying to raise money for such and such so would you buy some of this (candy or whatever)? are getting more common. I want to step outside and say “Listen, if you want to make money then sell your product not your needs. You have to present your product as a value to the customer that will improve his life in some way. Never ever try to sell your product on the grounds that it will make the customer feel noble and virtuous.” Then again, I don’t think some of these kids would understand my words.

Who is telling these youngsters to sell like this? Their parents? School teachers? Does the promotional material for the product advocate this? Or are they just given a product and told ‘Here, go sell this’ without any guidance? Have they been so badly indoctrinated with altruism that they cannot comprehend the idea of appealing to some one’s self interest but must appeal to their guilt feelings? I’m not talking about elementary school kids on charitable fund raisers who really don’t understand the concepts of selling. I’m referring to teenagers who should know something about offering a value.

Anyway I recommend reading both posts at both sites.

“Null findings enable true scientists to know they’re looking in the wrong direction and that it’s time to go back to the drawing board and develop a different hypothesis. They also enable us to stop needlessly worrying about something that doesn’t matter.”

Also, many if not most studies that purport to show a health problem actually turn out to be false and these revelations are often not published as well. Just as knowing that something is a threat to health and life is important, so is knowing when something is not a significant threat, especially when alleged professionals are telling us it is a threat. However, we also know that the media often prefers hype and sensationalism vs boring news about non-threats. So the media has a built in bias that is heavily weighted in favor of fear-hype while a study showing that last month’s health scare is actually false will tend not to get printed. This will mislead thousands if not millions of people. As the saying goes ‘you can’t unring an alarm bell.’

But this situation has other consequences. It creates a fearful citizenry eager to donate their money to NGOs (Non Governmental Organizations, mostly non-profit foundations) who promise to do research (more statistical studies) to find ways to protect them from all the alleged hazards of a modern, technological society.

It sometimes works like this: NGOs fund studies that try to determine what is bad for us. When a study is completed a press release is announced. The media picks up the release and reports the findings which are usually that X (say, fast foods) is bad for us. Politicians then stand on the floor of their chambers, news reports and studies in hand, announcing that congress must address this threat to public health by passing legislation more heavily regulating the use of X. They then stand before us proclaiming how good they are at protecting us from all the harmful Xs out there and therefore we should reelect them. That is what we see.

What we don’t readily see is that the funding NGO has been getting large donations from companies that produce products Y and Z (say, treadmills and diet books). Also mostly out of view is the donations by companies Y and Z to the politicians’ reelection campaigns. And even further out of sight is the fact that no one looked at the study, not the reporter, the editor nor the politician, to see if the study had any statistical significance or was a null finding being passed off as having significance. This last happens often.

We have to educate ourselves to what is valid science and what is pseudo science because the press isn’t doing it. Pseudo science isn’t just coming from NGOs either. Government agencies fund lots of it. I recommend reading the entire article and visiting JunkfoodScience often. Her blogroll is a good source for others who actually read these so called scientific studies and then examines them for our benefit.

“1.This section amends the Internal Revenue Code 2.The bill opens up income tax return information to federal officials.
3.Any stated “limits” to such information are circumvented by item (v), which allows federal officials to decide what information is needed.
4.Employers are required to report whatever information the government says it needs to enforce the plan.”

Basically, your right to privacy is gone.

Stella at Reason Pharm has another tidbit of info on this health care bill HR 3200. Evidently this bill won’t go into effect untill 2013, after the next election. Obviously, the plan is to get re-elected then bring the hammer down on the American public’s head.

The article gives a fascinating history of the managed death movement which details I didn’t know before. But the fact that epistemology is of critical importance, that ideas rule the world, is given in these two paragraphs, among others:

“During the six decades after this first legislative attempt, “euthanasia proponents have learned a lot about public relations,” they wrote. “One lesson is that all social engineering is preceded by verbal engineering. If words or their meaning can be changed, the quest to change hearts and minds will be achieved.”

This important article, traces how the meanings of words have shifted, forming new patterns of thinking — words like ‘terminal’ (which laypeople wrongly think means that death is unavoidable and very close); ‘treatment’ (which has morphed from care given in efforts to cure or ameliorate a medical condition to come to mean prescribing fatal overdoses and lethal injections); and ‘comfort care’ (where a prescription for a “drug overdose, legally prescribed” is now called “comfort care” and, according to Oregon’s Medicaid director, is covered under Oregon’s Health Plan).”

(This is what happens when a society has no objective theory of concepts and why it is important to study philosophy, especially Objectivism which provides one.)

This article reads like a nightmare.I will only say though that I would support assisted suicide if the patient freely consents and no one is compelled to administer it. The dying process is part of life. If quality of life is important, I would think that quality of dying would be important also.

I posted on how some witch doctor wannabes are planning who gets to live and die in a pandemic as part one of a two part post here.I noted in part:

“If you’re wondering why would anyone want such a policy? Power. The lust for control over others. There is no mistake about it. The desire by some to regulate the lives of others is the desire to control all of it including the end points, birth and death.”

This proves the point that there is no such thing as partially accepting a principle (like government regulating your life). Once accepted it must be accepted in its entirety (total dictatorship) or totally repudiated. It is time to totally repudiate government control of medicine and proclaim man’s right to live for his own sake with a free market in medicine.

The story is about a writer who goes on a journey to find the man who started World War 1. He meets a man named Mered who takes him around the world of the past and present with a glimpse of the future of 1950 showing how civilizations keep destroying themselves and giving his reasons why. It’s scary how many ideas that were popular then are again so now.

I won’t mention any spoilers here and I recommend this site for a good in-depth review of the book.

Mered’s thought processes are sometimes loaded with juicy mental somersaults as in this paragraph where he explains to the writer about a union meeting of miners deciding whether to go on strike for more money and benefits:

“Again,” said Mered, “listen rather to what they mean than what they say. The question here is whether the state has still the strength to say on what terms half a million shall continue to perform the drudgery of digging coal. Their dilemma is that the coal diggers are politically free. Therefore they cannot be chained to their work. But on no account can they be allowed to stop; nor can they be permitted to name their own terms. Thus you approach involuntary servitude under conditions of political freedom.”

Wow! Sounds like political science professors of today instead of 1921.

I recommend this book.

I know this is a few days old but I think it’s noteworthy anyway. The newest burden you will be asked to carry is provided by the Sec. of Commerce Gary Locke who says that Americans must be made to pay for some of the carbon emissions of–the Chinese! Read the WSJ blog article here. You see, the Chinese factories are making lots of inexpensive products that make our lives better, so we are the cause of their CO2 emissions.
*******************************************

An alert relative sent to me a link to this story. Evidently, Nashville Tenn. is experiencing new record lows for July. They didn’t mention his name but Al Gore lives in the Nashville area. Love it.

There can be no doubt about it. Our Senate is dominated be thugs who can see physical force as the only way to solve social problems. These people are too dumb to understand simple concepts like individual rights and the fact that rights can only be violated by means of force; that the reasons for the force are irrelevant; that if a man robs you of a thousand dollars to load up on DVDs, or to give that money to his favorite charity, it simply does not matter. His reasons for the robbery are totally meaningless. This is what it means to be a nation of laws and not of men. But not to our Senate.

The bill was passed by voice vote so I don’t think there is going to be a record of who voted for and against it. The Times reports that all the no votes were Republican so we know all the Dems voted for it. But so did 5 Republicans according to the article. The bill now has to go to a joint committee to be reconciled with a house version. Obviously my own Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabinow voted for it.

At his website Levin proudly admits indending to for it but tries to assuage fears that this could lead to something more ominous by saying that: (my comments in brackets)

“There have been some statements made about restraints on speech. The language is very clear it only applies to violent acts, and it emphasizes explicitly in this amendment that it puts no limits or restraints on constitutionally protected speech, expressive conduct, or activities, including but not limited to the exercise of religion, which is protected by the first amendment,['protected' speech is shrinking every year. Its already been taken away from businessmen] or peaceful activities such as picketing or demonstrations. The law we are proposing will continue to punish violent acts only, not beliefs. It is crucial that we understand this legislation only applies to violent, bias-motivated crimes and does not infringe on any conduct protected by the first amendment.

The First Amendment right to organize, to preach against, or speak against any way of life, or any person, is left intact with this legislation.”

If a ‘bias-motivation’ can be included as part of a crime then it is only a matter of time before someone decides that government should be punishing the cause of the crime-bias-itself even in the absence of violent acts. Remember, the title of the bill is “Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009″ The concept ‘prevention’ here is key. The table is being set for further expansion of hate crime legislation with that word. The next step will be a bill that “only outlaws hateful speech” and all other peaceful speech will still be legal. But what constitutes hate speech? Well, our Senate or some czar will decide that. The push is already on.

According to this article in the Charleston City Paper reporter Jack Hunter reports:

“According to a recent Department of Homeland Security report released to law enforcement officials titled “Right Wing Extremism in the United States,” virtually everyone at the Charleston Tea Party, and at other tea parties across the country, may have fit the profile of a “right-wing extremist.” The DHS report notes that members of extremist groups include those who oppose illegal immigration, fear the loss of gun rights, criticize free-trade agreements, harbor general anti-government sentiment, or — my favorite — belong to “groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority.”"

It will be attempted to classify all tea parties as right wing terrorism. You know, terrorizing motorists with protest signs. That sort of biased behavior. It’s coming, unless Americans wake up soon.

This just proves once again the principle that once a principle is adopted even in part, it will grow by virtue of its own merit to the point where it will have to be adopted in its entirety or be repudiated completely. But, unable to think in terms of principles, Americans are preparing their descendants to willingly walk into the ovens of their own destruction.

Now would be a good time to pummel the House with letters, calls and emails against this hate crime legislation, before it’s too late.

When applied to medicine, the collectivist mentality doesn’t see real individual human beings. They only see groups and try to formulate one size fits all treatments for these groups. In my essay on mass preventive medicine I wrote:

“It is important here to understand how these collectivists think. By way of an analogy, collectivists see a barrel of 300 apples, (or 300 million people) and notice that 1 in 50 are bad. They see doctors treat each bad apple individually and return them to health. They see that the entire population has been improved. They wish to be as beneficial to mankind as those doctors are. But they seek a shortcut. Instead of treating individual apples to make them better, they look only at the whole population and dream of what it would be like to prevent those 6 apples from going bad. This would certainly be better for all of applekind wouldn’t it?

Studies are done and a ’socially acceptable’ range of sizes and colors for healthy apples is politically established. All apples must conform to these new standards for their own good. There is only one problem with this behavior on the part of apple authorities. It ignores the nature of apples. According to this web site, there are about 7500 varieties of apples each having its own nature. It’s obvious that if any one-size-fits-all program of preventive medicine won’t work with apples, it sure as hell won’t work with humans. But this kind of thinking is what collectivists want to force or see forced on the public. Only this time the ‘public’ does mean every individual.

But the truth is they don’t care about those 6 apples, or the 294 others whose forced sacrifices are now required. The real ideal of the collectivists is sacrifice, the sacrifice of everyone to everyone all the time. And the tool that will help them achieve this goal is mass preventive medicine as permanent government policy.”

As Dr. Hsieh and Ms. Szwarc have shown, the Massachusetts experiment proves without a doubt that universal health care does not work and cannot work because it is based on false premises mainly, that someone’s good can be achieved by the forced sacrifices of others.

So if the Massachusetts failure is so obvious, why is Obama ignoring it and still insisting on implementing it nationally? Because whether it works or not is irrelevant. It does not matter to collectivists that people will not be helped in fact. It does not matter that people will be hurt. All that matters to a collectivist is that the ritual of sacrifice be performed. In his mind, good can only be achieved through sacrifice. There is no other way and no other way will be considered.

I heard that after the rule of FDR and Truman, Republicans regained power and one of their slogans was “Had enough?” We are about to get another dose of ‘enough’.

(For more info on the subject of universal health care I highly recommend the blog of FIRM, Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine.)

“Since January, corporate America has been a pariah in Washington. Business executives are saddled with the blame for the nation’s collapse, and no one in charge is much interested in hearing their ideas for fixing things. Corporate chiefs are the new disenfranchised class.

“They’ve been steamrolled by the popular express,” says Lou Anna Simon, president of Michigan State University.

And that’s a tragedy. Because there were some solid, common-sense solutions for reviving America put on the table this week in Detroit. The brain power gathered in the RenCen’s silos could have moved a mountain, if anyone had been listening.
“

Well, all true. But why hasn’t Mr. Finley’s editorial pages been championing those ideas and fixes? If the auto execs have been ’steamrolled’ by the popular press, well, isn’t his Detroit News part of that press? And if nobody is listening, well, why aren’t they? Could it be all those past editorials claiming that some taxes, some emission regulations, some fuel economy regulations, some labor regulations and other government mandates were noble and virtuous goals, but we mustn’t over do it by trying to be too noble and virtuous. Could it be that people no longer believe that it’s virtuous to take poison with their food? He laments further:

“Business doesn’t matter in the upside-down world in which we live. Government has all the answers, all the money and all the muscle. Critical decisions are being made about the future of industry without the input of industrialists.

In a heartbeat we’ve moved from a nation that worships entrepreneurship, innovation and the freedom to succeed to one that craves the false security of an economy carefully contained by the government.”

Mr. Finley is wrong. The government doesn’t have all the answers. It doesn’t have any except the one that is available to all savages-physical force. Mr. Finley has never learned that once you give the government ‘all the muscle’, it doesn’t need answers and can counterfeit as much money as it wants (and is now doing). But what about the false security of a planned society? Who advocated that? Could it be all those editorials proclaiming Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Welfare State to be noble and well-intentioned-but we mustn’t allow ourselves to be extremely noble? Is it any wonder nobody is listening to such arguments?

I don’t know about other industries but I don’t think there are any auto CEOs who even know how to defend their industries or their rights. These guys are very submissive and ineffective now:

“The CEOs acknowledged their diminished status and the danger of making the word “corporate” as pejorative as communist was 60 years ago, particularly for a nation that must encourage its youth to become engineers, entrepreneurs and executives if it hopes to avoid becoming the servant of more enlightened economies.

“We’re (sic) got to make it cool again to be in business,” Ford CEO Alan Mulally said. “Industry is the source of all wealth creation for everybody.”

While that last sentence is profoundly true, look what Mr. Mulally is appealing to, feelings ! Never mind appealing to anyone’s mind, their reason, or their own moral and constitutional right to make the cars they want to make with the kind of fuel efficiency and emissions people are willing to pay for.
No. We must figure out a way to make life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and the prosperity it brings, ‘cool’. In a culture where sacrificial emotions take precedence over reason, the more consistent emotionalists will prevail. That’s why Obama, Pelosi and Reid are now in charge.

Mr. Finley also has a blog where he informs that Michigan Sen Debbie Stabenow got a lesson in free markets at the summit:

“In the most polite way possible, Thomas d’Aquino, the chief executive of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, schooled U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan on how free markets work.

In their panel at the National Summit on economics in Detroit, d’Aquino warned against allowing “Buy American” sentiments to morph into protectionist policies.

Stabenow followed by saying she supports free trade as long as the playing field is level — the anti-traders’ favorite defense. Then she ticked off the list of protectionist ideas she advocates, along with a call for massive government spending on research and development.”

Again, Mr Finley doesn’t grasp that our political leaders aren’t interested in free trade but only hanging on to power over us. Auto workers have a lot more votes than businessmen so businessmen must be sacrificed for the workers. A non-sacrificial way of life–laissez faire capitalism–is alien to all our political leaders and evidently, most editors.

None have learned that “In any conflict between two men (or two groups) who hold the same basic principles, it is the more consistent one who wins.”–Ayn Rand in ‘The Anatomy of Compromise’ in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.

“Human motivation is too complex to be controlled by policymakers.”

Well, it’s true that humans are complex beings. But it is not true that this is a good reason for humans to avoid authoritarian government. It makes no sense to say that some complex beings shouldn’t dictate to other complex beings because of their complexity. Presumably, if humans were more simple, dictatorship would be practical. Mr. Juurikkala continues:

“In a recent seminar on the financial crisis in Finland, a capital markets partner argued that the tightening regulation of financial markets has fostered a mentality in which market participants only comply with rules when necessary and think that anything is acceptable as long as it is not expressly forbidden.”

This is partly true. Regulations do create a mindset to meet regulatory requirements, not a good reputation’s requirements, and no more. But it isn’t the “tightening” of regulations that does it. It’s the existence of the regulations themselves that is the cause. Here we see that the author believes regulations are ok as long as we don’t ‘tighten’ them. This is like saying that you can get better motivation from your slaves if you don’t put too many chains on them, though chains are necessary. A chainless society is evidently alien to the author. Also missing is any recognition that regulations represent initiatory force while objective laws, intended by the founders, represent retaliatory force. The theme of the article is how best to manage reward and punishment in order to keep the producers producing? The next sentence:

“In “Not Just for the Money,” economist Bruno Frey explains why. The use of monetary incentives and threats of punishment crowds out other motivations, he writes.”

What other motivations?

“For example, giving monetary compensation to a child for doing household chores is likely to result in decreasing contributions made without compensation. Similarly, given that some university professors work harder than others, imposing strict working hour regulations often will provoke better workers to reduce their efforts.

This is what Frey calls the hidden cost of reward or regulation: When people feel they are being forced to act in a certain way, they have less motivation to do the right thing by themselves.”

Notice that it’s not a matter of people actually being forced to act in a certain way, but a matter of people feeling like their being forced. So while we can force people to do what is right, we don’t want them to feel forced. We need to convince them they still have some freedom to choose to do the right thing.

The evasions and contradictions in this op-ed are many. Consider this sentence: “Human motivation is too complex to be controlled by policymakers.” with this one:

“Is lighter regulation the solution to economic crises? It depends. Some over-the-counter financial derivatives are practically unregulated, so there is nowhere to cut regulation. It might be more appropriate to cover such clear gaps in existing rules in a principled manner so as not to lead people to the temptation of recklessness.”

The author has endorsed every argument used by the statists to destroy free markets but wants a kinder, gentler destruction.