The New Clarion

1. Democrats are all shook up. For a year the Democrats have acted in the most partisan manner possible, passing without Republican input huge bills in the middle of the night that no one reads, and that the people do not want. It’s been the greatest display of arrogance and contempt for the governed that anyone has seen in America. The election of a Republican to the Senate seat once held by Ted Kennedy was a much needed act of justice. A slap in the face, a wake-up call, a canary in a coal mine — choose your metaphor.

[Read more →]

There’s so much bad news coming out of Washington, D.C. that it’s hard to keep up. Now they’re coming for your 401k account:

Jan. 8 (Bloomberg) — The Obama administration is weighing how the government can encourage workers to turn their savings into guaranteed income streams following a collapse in retiree accounts when the stock market plunged.

The U.S. Treasury and Labor Departments will ask for public comment as soon as next week on ways to promote the conversion of 401(k) savings and Individual Retirement Accounts into annuities or other steady payment streams, according to Assistant Labor Secretary Phyllis C. Borzi and Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Mark Iwry, who are spearheading the effort.

It sounds innocent, doesn’t it? They care so much about us that they want to make sure our 401k accounts don’t lose money. How nice that we have the state to protect our retirement.

[Read more →]

The astonishing election in Massachusetts of a Republican to the Senate seat long held by Edward Kennedy is the fruit of the ideological clarity that John Lewis wrote about. After one year of Obama-Reid-Pelosi attempting to ram socialism down America’s throat in the middle of the night, voters are frightened and angry. Even voters in liberal land.

I’m happy to see Americans rebel against big government, and I want more. Let 1,000 tea parties bloom, and make Keith Olbermann’s head explode. (Can a vacuum explode?) Aside from the excitement of a growing movement of people centered around the idea of less government, I’m still wary. Judging from some of their comments, it looks like the political leaders in Washington, D.C. have not changed.

[Read more →]

In my darker moments, when my view of the future dims at the latest “hell in a hand basket” news story, I worry about the sort of a world my children will grow up into. We strive to foster in them an abiding sense of curiosity and wonder about the world. We raise them as independent, ambitious little girls and boy. But all around us we see parents who coddle their children, turning them into wilting violets or, alternatively, domineering masters of their households. By all accounts, my kids should have an incredible advantage in whatever they choose to do with their lives. Knowing themselves and letting reality be their guide, the world should be open to whatever they dare to dream.

Then I read something like this story out of San Diego and I feel like I am setting them up for a life of strife, struggle, and obstacles. There will always be some petty bureaucrat or administrator who will try to stub out their spirit when they show some spark or initiative. This little boy, who committed a “crime” but without “criminal intent,” had to surrender his innocent science project to a bomb squad while he and his fellow students were first put in lockdown and then evacuated. I’m sure he won’t make that “mistake” again.

[Read more →]

If a nation loses the integrity of its elections, then it loses its freedom. Without clean elections, voters have no voice. Those who count the votes can put who they want in power, regardless of what the voters want. We see what a joke elections are in dictatorships, where those in power win landslides. Everyone knows those elections are rigged.

Given the importance of clean elections, you’d think Americans of all parties would be zealous in protecting the integrity of the process. Well, not the totalitarian left.

Listen to this brief audio clip of Ed Schultz.

[Read more →]

A clear example of the mainstream media’s hatred for capitalism, free markets, bankers and lenders in general is found in the Jan 13th Detroit Free Press’s editorial titled “It’s Bankers’ turn for the 3rd degree.” [Read more →]

In a free country reporters ask politicians tough questions, to which the politicians either answer or ignore. Preferably, they give an honest answer, as that is what the people deserve from their representatives. Disagreements of opinion are answered with more opinion; reason is answered with reason, and peace reigns throughout the land.

Well, not anymore — at least not on the totalitarian left. When a reporter asks a tough question, the left thinks he deserves this:

[Read more →]

Tucker Carlson’s new internet publication The Daily Caller is worth a click. It has a good piece on Brandon Darby, a man who stopped radical leftists who were planning to use force at the Republican National Convention in 2008. He is now reviled on the left:

Darby has learned that if you disrupt a terrorist attack on Americans by Islamic fundamentalists as Dutch tourist Jasper Schuringa did on Christmas Day, you’re a hero, but disrupt a terrorist attack on Americans by left-wing fundamentalists and you might as well be a terrorist yourself.

This is because among many on the left — even some moderate liberals — there is a presumption of good intentions by terrorists who claim to pursue social justice ideals. “My left-wing crazies are better than your right-wing crazies,” progressive talk radio host Thom Hartmann said in an interview last year. “Our left-wing crazies are incited to violence because they’re trying to create a better world.”

These “left-wing crazies” had firebombs that could have killed people or inflicted terribly painful injuries, but it’s okay “because they’re trying to create a better world.” The better world they’re fighting for is a collectivist dictatorship. Force is fine to the totalitarian left because the end justifies the means.

We should thank Brandon Darby for his courage in standing up to the militant left. Hollywood won’t make a movie about him as they are for the radicals who were arrested. Mr. Darby is an American hero.

Walter Williams gives us some remarkable facts in his latest column, “Global Warming Is A Religion.”

Over long periods of time, there is absolutely no close relationship between C02 levels and temperature. Humans contribute approximately 3.4 percent of annual C02 levels compared to 96.6 percent by nature. There was an explosion of life forms 550 million years ago (Cambrian Period) when CO2 levels were 18 times higher than today. During the Jurassic Period, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, CO2 levels were as much as nine times higher than today. Contrary to what educators are brainwashing our children with, polar bear numbers increased dramatically from around 5,000 in 1950 to as many as 25,000 today, higher than any time in the 20th century.

Are his facts right? If so, then the whole push to pass wide-sweeping laws restricting CO2 production is based on bad science, to put it kindly.

John Bolton has written a good piece looking at Obama’s next three years in foreign policy. As Bolton explains, Obama has been concerned so far with issues left over from the Bush years, such as Afghanistan. He hasn’t even got to the policies he wants to enact.

And what does he want to do? It’s an all-out leftist agenda: disarmament, global warming treaty and binding America to international law. What makes this particularly worrisome is that a president has more power in foreign affairs than he does domestically. There are ways for a president to enact his will without worrying about Senate filibusters and angry town hall protests.

Whatever damage Obama does in the next three years, it is imperative we make him a one-term president in 2012. I don’t know if America’s security would survive two terms of this man.

ARC has put up audio files of a speech by Ayn Rand from 1972 called “A Nation’s Unity,” with the Q&A session. If you have two hours this weekend, give it a listen. The speech is a brilliant analysis of how pressure group politics destroy a nation’s unity and freedom.

The speech is especially relevant today because the Democrats’ health care bill that no one wants is being passed by buying off various pressure groups. AARP gets this, Nebraska gets that, insurance companies get the other thing… at whose expense? As Bastiat put it, “The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.”

[Read more →]

The Sunday, 1/3/10, Detroit Free Press has an article by Associated Press writer Don Babwin titled “Firms skimping on jobs are losing their tax breaks”. It could just as easily read “Extortion victims trying to hold on to their money are making thieves angry.” It starts with: [Read more →]

As I watched the Lakers beat the Houston Rockets, a commercial caught my eye. It features a man walking, starting in the 1970’s, with his clothes and hair changing through years as walks. Across the decades he always wears t-shirts that say “Save the Planet” or “Save the Earth.” At the end of the spot he gets into a Honda Civic.

How does driving a Honda Civic save the planet? Does driving a car with good gas mileage make that much of a difference in any respect? Does it pollute that much less than a gas guzzler? Does it emit that much less CO2? Does it put off the day we will supposedly run out of gas that much? And if the driver drives more because of the money he saves on gas, doesn’t that offset any small benefits that might come with better mileage?

[Read more →]

The two most remarkable stories of 2009 were Obama-Reid-Pelosi’s attempt to ram America into European-style socialism and the reaction to it among the people — the tea party movement. John Lewis argues that Obama’s ideological consistency has brought clarity to American politics, which is why the President’s policies created so strong a reaction in his first year of governance.

[Read more →]

Usually at year’s end it is customary to look back and take inventory of all the events that impacted us for good or ill. I sometimes cut out an article or two of special interest to me and file it.

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.

And we are worse off than we were a year ago.  Obama is exactly the disaster we expected him to be.  Perhaps more shameless than expected, given the Chairman Mao ornament on the White House Christmas tree.  But one man’s mass murdering totalitarian dictator is another man’s hero, right?

 The endless war against the barbarians continues, as we sit like prisoners on our airplanes, unwilling to defeat those who continue to attack us.  Perfectly able to defeat them, of course, but completely unwilling to assert our right to self-defense.  So we cast suspicious glances at airline passengers, instead, and hope for the best.

In Iran, a revolution may be brewing.  But suppose the mullahs are overthrown, and a new, presumably non-theocratic, regime takes power.  Can we trust Obama to do the right thing?  After all, Ahmedinejad was elected.  Won’t Obama call for his reinstatement, as he did with the Chavez-imitator down in Honduras?  After all, revolutions are not legal.

“We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the democratically elected president there,” Obama said.

Just insert the name Ahmedinejad, and you have a good idea what Obama might say. 

On the environmentalist front, the global warming gravy-train continues chugging along, distributing government largesse at every stop.  Not just for scientists on the government dole, now, but for every country that can think of a reason to make the West feel guilty for being the beacon of civilization for the last 500 years or so.  That is an unforgivable sin, when one’s goal is an Earth rid of the disease, Man.

The spectacle of Senators selling their votes for cash would embarrass men of integrity.  Since there aren’t any such men in the Senate, the Senators are merely puzzled at the reaction to their venality.  It’s a time honored tradition there.  So what if it involves the incipient nationalization of the health care industry?  What makes them special?  Truly, nothing makes them special.  If car makers can be taken over by the government, so can medical practitioners.  Some of us don’t think it’s right for car makers to be taken over by the government either, if individual rights have any meaning.  Obviously, to our current governors, they do not.

On the positive side of the ledger, Obama’s popularity with the public is plummeting.  On the negative side, that means we might get a Republican in office again.  Heads they win, tails we lose.

We all know there is only one long term solution to our problems: a rational philosophy.  With a rational philosophy comes a rational morality, egoism.  To that end, the best news this year is the continued high sales of Atlas Shrugged, and especially the continued success of the books for teachers program of the Ayn Rand Institute.  If we can reach enough of them before their spirit is killed by the comprachicos, we might still right the ship before it sinks.

I’ve read that 6th century a.d. Italy was devastated by General Belisarius’s war to conquer the country for Byzantium. He didn’t bomb Italy back to the stone age, he did it with sword, fire and horse. One result was that land that had been cultivated for centuries returned to the wild. This has always struck me as an eloquent symbol of the beginning of the Dark Ages.

Now the US government is pursuing the same results as Belisarius — not by waging war against its own citizens (or is it?) — but by paying farmers to plant trees instead of crops.

[Read more →]

1. Janet Napolitano first says “the system worked.” Then  she says the system “did not work.”

[Read more →]

In response to the Al Qaida terrorist attack on Christmas day, the Obama administration has responded forcefully, punishing and restricting the freedom of… innocent airline passengers.

According to a new TSA security directive distributed to airlines on Saturday, airlines are to “disable aircraft-integrated passenger communications systems and services (phone, internet access services, live television programming, global positioning systems) prior to boarding and during all phases of flight.” Also: all passenger access to carry-on luggage, getting up from seats and having anything on laps is banned one hour before all landings.

But lest you think Obama cares nothing about freedom and rights, rest assured that Abdulmutallab will not be sent to Guantanamo Bay and treated as a prisoner of war. We wouldn’t want to interrogate him to find out who armed and trained him (however incompetently), so that future attacks might be thwarted. No, the security of Americans is not as important as Abdulmutallab’s constitutional rights. The enemy combatant has been given lawyers.

[Read more →]

One of Obama’s strategies for “fundamentally transforming the United States of America” is to subordinate US sovereignty to international law. Instead of an independent America that pursues its national self-interest, the left wants an America restricted by international law. You could say their goal is the opposite of Washington’s famous advice against entangling alliances — the left very much wants an America entangled, bound and subservient to foreign countries.

So I’m suspicious of an Obama executive order that rescinds parts of a Reagon EO. As I understand it, Interpol is now no longer subject to search and seizure in America. This doesn’t mean that Interpol can search and seize American citizens, but that it cannot be searched and seized by American law enforcement. If any reader with an understanding of international law can tell us the significance of this, please do so in the comments.

UPDATE: Captain Ed looks at this EO revision. He makes an interesting point: American citizens have fewer rights before Interpol than captured foreign terrorists have in America.