Pasadena Politics

Obama, such an interesting individual to attempt to take on a Commander of Men.    He seems in over his head when he ’summons’ the General he put in charge of wrapping up the Afghan war for simply expressing his impression of the President:

Even though he had voted for Obama, McChrystal and his new commander in chief failed from the outset to connect. The general first encountered Obama a week after he took office, when the president met with a dozen senior military officials in a room at the Pentagon known as the Tank. According to sources familiar with the meeting, McChrystal thought Obama looked “uncomfortable and intimidated” by the roomful of military brass. Their first one-on-one meeting took place in the Oval Office four months later, after McChrystal got the Afghanistan job, and it didn’t go much better. “It was a 10-minute photo op,” says an adviser to McChrystal. “Obama clearly didn’t know anything about him, who he was. Here’s the guy who’s going to run his f—ing war, but he didn’t seem very engaged. The Boss was pretty disappointed.”

This is a man tasked with winning a war while keeping casualties of our own men and women serving this great nation down as much as possible.  This is a man who must, by our President’s policies, fight with one or both hands tied behind his back.  If he was really as unprofessional as everyone is saying he is, then he could certainly have said worse.

At least he apologized for his lack of professionalism, but the man leading this nation is not moral enough to accept such an apology.  An example must be made.  Will the President fire McChrystal or will he blame the failure of his own policies in Afghanistan and the unrealistic ‘time table’ for withdraw being blown on the offending General?

The President is not a man anywhere near the same caliber as McChrystal.   He cannot lead for he blames all failures on others while taking all praise for any success.  He fancies himself a monarch, not the servant-leader of the people of this nation and protector of our Constitution.

Imagine two rival Football teams that have to vote for their Quarterbacks.  One team, A, puts up only one choice for Quarterback while the other team, B,has two contenders: one who has trained and put on the weight and another who read about it in books but lacks practical training and weight.    However, it is somehow agreed to that the members of one team can vote for the contender of the other team if they want instead of their own.

Now, who do you think the members of A will vote for?   Obviously, they could vote for their own Quarterback, but they already know he will win.  So naturally, members of team A will cast votes for the Quarterback of team B.  After all, they want to participate in the process, right?  So, which Quarterback will they vote for?  The one with training or the one who merely thinks he can do it?    If the choice is not obvious: which one would you vote for if you knew it would give your team a better chance to win?

Open primaries are very similar.  They are not the game itself, they are not where two teams battle it out for the victory.  They are meant as a means for each team to vote for who it thinks is the best contender; candidate, within the team.   While an Open Primary sounds great (”increases voter participation”) it misses the point: it is not for those outside the team to decide who the team members are they compete against but the team itself.   Certainly more people will come out to vote if they would otherwise have not due to a lack of competition within their own party.

The primary merely decides who will be representing the team, not the victorious team itself.  So if you are going to allow open primaries, you may as well eliminate the primary completely and save tax payers money.

The last effect this would have is simple: you could disenfranchise members of a political party by creating a situation where two candidates from the same party which, I imagine, is the ultimate goal: by professing to increase voter choices, they in truth limit voter choices.

Vote No on Proposition 14.

Anyone who places trust in government misplaces that trust.  The best job any government can do is protecting their nation from external enemies.   Those who are concerned that given power government would misuse it to abuse the rights of the governed do not have that concern without reason.

In Logic, the “Slippery Slope” Argument is considered a fallacy.   In Politics, it is to be expected that given an inch, miles will be taken.

So, with Health-care, I cannot help but think of movies such as Logan’s Run and Brazil.

What the Nation needed was reform and what it has received instead compounds the problem greatly.  Government running Health-care is antithetical to reform itself.   Bureaucracy breeds inefficiency and higher cost.  Certainly one can claim that leaving ones health care in the hands of a business full of bureaucracy is not a great thing, but at least the business has something Government cannot claim to improve service: it cannot survive without making a profit.   In order to make a profit, it has to provide services customers want.   The fewer competitors a business has, the less pressure it has to provide goods and services desired by customers at a competitive price.   Government, as I have mentioned before, is a monopoly.    Monopolies do not have competitors or, if there are a few, they are so weak that they cannot reasonably compete.   Combine bureaucracy with monopolies and you have a wasteful system that lacks any real accountability.

Regulation of industry hampers competition by creating barriers of entry.  If government runs health-care, you can be assured that private insurers will be unable to compete.   While a government’s resources are not unlimited it is able to forcibly take money in the form of taxes, fines, fees, and penalties to generate money, subsidizing their programs.   Barring a very productive population or the conquest of other nations, government eventually dries it’s resources up when sponging off of the population.

“I think they’ve made the biggest financial mess that any government’s ever made in this country for a very long time, and Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money. It’s quite a characteristic of them. They then start to nationalise everything, and people just do not like more and more nationalisation, and they’re now trying to control everything by other means. They’re progressively reducing the choice available to ordinary people. Look at the trouble now we’re having with choice of schools. Of course parents want a say in the kind of education their children have.” – Margaret Thatcher 1976 TV interview

It is a fundamental truth.  The more you take to give to others; the more you “spread the wealth”, the less money you eventually have.   You end up with less money because the taking of it disincentivizes people and leads to less production.     After all, why should someone work hard to earn money of which most is taken away and given to someone who works less or in a commonly doable job?   If as a college graduate your net paycheck is only a few hundred dollars more a month than the non-graduate flipping burgers as MickeyDees, what point was there in putting forward the effort to excel?

Americans cannot trust government to look out for their interests.   Americans cannot be free and sucklings of Government at the same time.   Freedom and Large Government are antithetical to each other.

While driving home, I heard an interesting advertisement proposing to raise money to fight against Meg Whitman for California Governor.  It made me think of several things, one of them the recent Supreme Court Decision finally allowing US Corporations to enjoy their Second Amendment Rights and the Revelations that Anthropomorphic Climate Change is Junk Science at best and blatant fraud at worst.  Now, I don’t really know which Republican candidate is best at this point as I have been busy with other issues.  But any advertisement that claims you should oppose a candidate because they are a threat to State legislation built on the Junk Science of Anthropomorphic Climate Change catches my attention and rings warning bells in my mind.

So what is this Level the Playing Field dot com?  Good question.  WhoIs was unable to tell me as they chose to be anonymous.  Not a big issue there.   Following links through the site, it seems painfully obvious that the site avoids giving you contact information for a live person as well as mentioning sponsors.   Well, thankfully SFGate gives some information about the new site: Averell “Ace” Smith who handled the California campaign for Hillary Clinton and Chris Lehane, a former Clinton spokesman are mentioned as Senior Strategists.

“Level the Playing Field is one of three independent expenditure entities created to bolster 2010 Democratic campaign efforts in California. Such efforts, by law, are not associated with or directed by the Brown campaign. But they allow organizers to sidestep campaign fundraising limits with advertising that will assist Democrats.” – SFGate point.

This leads first to warning bell number two: Campaign Finance Laws.   This website is devoted to defeating a candidate.   Campaign Laws against corporations would have had no effect on this despite the Supreme Court Ruling, yet, how do you know who is donating money and even from what country they are from?  Where is the accountability on this site?   Oh, there is a check box to indicate you are a citizen, but it does nothing to verify that you are one.   Additionally, you see that the site the Donate link goes to is for www.actblue.com, or as their banner reads: ActBlue – The online clearinghouse for Democratic action.    The Fund-raising pages show John Edwards at the Top of the Fundraising Pages.   At the bottom of the section is a “Do it for Ted! Support Martha Coakley” link.   Poor link, it must be embarrassed.

So, we know this: leveltheplayingfield.com is supported by Clinton supporters who both happen to be Democrats.  We also know that ActBlue is a Democrat fundraising clearinghouse.    We also know that the site is geared towards asking Meg hard questions, questions such as: how do you plan to cut the budget, aside from cutting state worker jobs.  Of course this is actually a critical step towards cutting the budget – but as the SacBee reporter says this would be impossible and that: “Whitman has almost no contact with reporters who know something about the budget and could ask knowledgeable questions“   The irony about this is simple: Meg has enough intelligence to know these reporters only report based on agenda.  You can’t talk to them without having what you said and did not say, mean something grossly different and convenient to their world view.

I find it rather convenient that the SacBee article came out a day before the leveltheplayingfield.com radio blurb with both making the same accusation: she won’t talk to reporters and let the public know her.   Please note that the leveltheplayingfield.com site was registered Jan 20th 2010, which suggests the site was being planned before Feb 15th and that such radio spots take some time to put together and air.

Also along the theme is the: Don’t vote for her, she has money!  To which I should say: good for her.  She obviously got it from doing a better job than any Sacramento Politician.  Certainly e-Bay is more profitable than the State of California so her experience as an executive means a heck of a lot more than Jerry Brown’s experience.   If you follow the logic they apply, you should grab the homeless guy off the street and make him Governor.    But that is idiotic, you don’t vote for someone to pull you out of a fiscal crisis who has proven to be incapable or unwise in the handling of money, you vote for someone who has demonstrated wisdom and the capability to make money.   In the particular crisis we face in California, you should vote for the person who has the best record for making a profit and if the choice is between Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman (and believe me, the whole point of leveltheplayingfield dot com is promoting Jerry Brown surreptitiously and in a most circuitous manner) you want the one with the best results.

Next is warning bell number one: “…special interests who want to roll back California’s bi-partisan law fighting Global Warming…“.   Now, I am all for that.    Actually, I am all for just about anything that contradicts the idiocy of Global Warming legislation and action.  That the press in the USA is pretty quiet about the whole collapse of Anthropomorphic Global Warming gives greater credence to claims that the Media is just a propaganda arm of Liberals in America.

Anyways my fellow Californians, watch out for the advertising.  It is already clear that the Media is against Meg simply because she was a successful business woman who does not view government as savior of the people.  It is now clear that the Democrat Party is starting to hurt in the Golden State and looking for ways to bolster their candidate any way they can – well, as long as it is not corporate money I suppose it is ok?

Edit: A short article pointing out the obvious: money buys advertising which does not automatically translates into votes.   This simple logic should have been obvious in the 2008 Presidential Election: McCain did not lose for a lack of money, but because he didn’t put enough effort into the campaign and getting the message out as to why he was the better candidate.   Plus he lacked something money could not buy: an ideologically sympathetic mass media.

Any claim that the first year of Obama’s Presidency and agenda was stalled by the Republican’s being Partisan or the “Party of No” is simply an untruth.    The reason is quite simple: even if the Republican’s wanted to obstruct, the Democrats in both the House and Senate held enough of a majority to blast any Filibuster attempt to dust.   Of course, the last month has changed a lot, but any excuse that blames the failure of Health Care reform or the failure of Cap and Trade on the Republicans is a blatant untruth.

It also reveals a very convenient short term memory or cynicism: The Republican Party being obstructionist between Jan 2009 and Jan 2010 is nothing compared to the Democrats obstructionism during the Bush years: Social Security Reform or Judicial Nominees anyone?

Most everyone will be aware that this week, the Supreme Court recognized that Corporations are covered by the 1st Amendment.   There are some very good discussions here and here.   But I will add this: “As long as I’m your President, I’ll never stop fighting to make sure that the most powerful voice in Washington belongs to you,” President Obama.  Somehow, this statement ranks up there with: “Hope and Change”, “Back to our Founding Documents”, “Bi-partisanship”, “Open Process”, and others.    The man is already proved to be disingenuous and speaking from both sides of his mouth as seems fitting.

This is important.  McCain-Feingold censored corporations – with the exception of Media Corporations.  I cannot help but think of “all animals are equal but some animals are more equal” quote from Animal Farm.   I am also reminded of Proverbs 20:10 “Diverse weights and diverse measures, They are both alike, an abomination to the LORD.”  And what DOES the First Amendment say: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”   There was a lot of talk about Precedent being overturned with this decision.  So what?  Precedent is, at best, an informal guide as to what others think about a particular law.    Precedent is not the law itself and cannot be treated as such.   Otherwise, as others have noted, Segregation would still be legal or judgments such as Dred Scott.

Can Corporations have excessive influence?   Certainly, but then so can individuals as well.    To argue that a corporation has undue influence on the political process is to also argue that individuals have undue influence on the political process.  And what is a corporation except an organization run by people?   What is the real corrupting factor?   People?  Corporations?  No, it is Money and Power.    If one is to censor, it should not be based on whether one filed as an C-Corp. or formed a PAC, but on whether or not there is money and power?   Who decides how to quantify that?

The problem with government limiting anything is that it creates political power.    The problem with limiting corporations is that, if you are anti-corporation, you now have undue influence over them.   How is the censored supposed to protect itself from those who would ruin it?   Large corporations, wealthy corporations and wealthy individuals can have excessive influence over government and, via legislation crafted by those they sponsor, create artificial obstacles to prevent competition and protect their own gains.   But how to combat this influence?

Free markets and, more critically: the free flow of information.    If all political campaigns are required to disclose their funding sources and all advertisements required to disclose their creators and funders, the voters can see for themselves who is influencing what and make decisions from there.    The Internet is an amazing mixed bag of information.   But, and this is what is great about the Internet: you can cheaply have your voice heard.    It is one very good reason why government should be kept out and away from regulating Internet content.    It is a good reason to oppose the Legislation which allows the President to “turn off” the Internet in the event of a “National Emergency”.

Quite frankly, what should be turned off is the assumption that anything digital can be made hacker proof.   Nuclear power plants should not be remotely accessible via the Internet (whoever thought they should be and made them so should have been fired).   Then there are some freakish elected officials in Washington who think that Blogs and the Internet should be regulated for speech.  Worse, however, is the amorphous Hate Speech laws.   Certainly Hate Speech should be shunned, but it is protected by the First Amendment none-the-less.   Additionally, it is always good to know who the quality of a person you are dealing with and that is more difficult to know when Freedom of Speech is impaired.

Censoring Corporations, or large donors, or the Internet does nothing to purify the political process.   If anything, it makes the water murkier.

In true scientific inquiry data is collected from observation and experimentation resulting in the formulation and reformulation of hypothesis.  All data obtained from experimentation and observation is collected and taken into account.  None of it is tossed aside merely for the fact that it disproves or causes difficulty for the theory or preconceived belief.  In fact, those data elements are critical, for they allow accurate tuning of the theory and the methodology itself; not in order to obtain pre-ordained results, but accurately understand the questions that drive true science: what and why.  All science starts with out to solve a question and, in order to stamp out preconceived ideas; beliefs, it relies on repeated tests and observations as well as peer review.

The current problem with much of today’s scientific community appears to be that genuine scientific inquiry has been sacrificed on an alter of ideology.  But the worst part is the complicity of most of the major news organizations and politicians.  This is unfortunate in that genuine scientists will feel even greater pressure to not dissent against the teachings of the Roman Cath… no sorry: the likes of Al Gore and East Anglia.   This is unfortunate because science has been cheapened to “cooking the books” to please whomever will give you a grant.   I wonder if Enron should sue the press for not covering for them the way they are covering for “Climate-Gate” which will cost more money and more livelihoods than any failing of Enron could ever dream.

The issue is not a little ‘opps’.  The issue is not merely bad science but fraudulent science.  Nor is it like the genuine scientific debate that revolved around Geo-centricity vs. Helios-centricity until the Roman Catholic Church got involved.  It is much like the fraudulent effort of Ernst Haeckel to support his theory about Recapitulation in the embryonic stages.  Only this time, instead of being tossed out the theory has been embraced and any who dissent with real scientific evidence are silenced (ie: no publication of dissenting research).

Al Gore, a one-time Presidential candidate, after weeks of silence could only state “I haven’t read all the e-mails, but the most recent one is more than 10 years old.  These private exchanges between these scientists do not in any way cause any question about the scientific consensus.”   Naturally, this is important to Al Gore since his livelihood depends on the notion of Man Made Global Warming.

Report here, here, and here.  Oh… and if you deny Anthropogenic Global Warming, you may want to see a shrink.

They really need to take it back.  A Third Party will be useless.  Moderates will not save the Republican Party but Conservatives will.  The principles of Limited Government are what this Nation needs, not an expansive Government as the larger a Government is, the fewer rights and freedoms you have.

This last week with the Owens-Hoffman-Scozzafava race in New York’s 23rd we see a prime example of why Obama is in the White House.   Hoffman did not lose because he was a conservative.   He lost because the Republican leadership chose a Liberal (who then dropped from the race a few days before the election and endorsed the Democrat opponent).   One has to ask the only logical question possible: Why does the Republican Leadership insist on shooting itself in the foot with people like Scozzafava?   Did they learn nothing from the McCain campaign?

Perhaps instead of blaming Palin they should have done some soul searching and really looked at why McCain lost to Obama.    It is quite simple actually: why vote for the wannabe Democrat when you can vote for the real one?   The past 10 years Republicans have been morphing into Liberals and giving it the quaint name: Moderate.    I honestly cannot blame people for voting for Obama when the choice is rewarding Republican leadership for choosing a path of Liberalism.   Sure, if they really thought about it, they would have seen Obama as an extreme Liberal and either voted for McCain or sat it out.  But it never hurts to have the majority of the Media sharing your same ideology of anti-Americanism, liberalism, and a disdain for limited government to obscure the details of a Candidate so that all people really know about you is “Hope and Change”.

Yeah… What’s the hope?  What kind of change?

So what the Republican Party needs is a Conservative leadership and a very clear platform that extols limited government and why it promotes freedom over liberalism.

I recently read an article from the Economist that mentioned Homeschooling.   As a Home-schooling parent, I obviously found the article of interest.   It assumed that conservatives will pull their kids from school to teach them at home because of Obama’s liberalism.   While it is certainly true that some will, to say that it is simply conservatives and people who are religious who home-school does not represent the actuality: many people don’t think public schools do the job their tax dollars are put towards.

Most people who have looked at home-schooling have already started.   For others, the financial aspect will be prohibitive.   Either they are single parents who have little choice but to have their children in a school apart from home, or they are so financially bound to working that they cannot (or think they cannot) afford to home-school.  Secondly, it asserts that active parents would have as equal impact on their children in home or non-home-schooled environments.   There is certainly much to be said for being involved at one’s child’s school,  but it is not equal to the direct one on one attention a Home-schooler  receives.   Think about the Education establishment’s and Teacher’s Unions complaints (legitimate ones at that) that bigger class sizes deprive students of a teacher’s attention.   Certainly what is good for the Gander is good for the Goose?
Many parents no longer trust the Public School system because many see a great encroachment on their rights as parents when a school can medicate a child without parental permission or decide to take or teach them to special  lessons without prior notification.   Many parents also would prefer to have their children among like minded individuals (such as themselves) than those would influence them to behave contrary to their morals and beliefs.

Anyways, I thought the article was interesting, but not on target.  Well, after today’s news, I rethink that thought.   People are more likely to consider home schooling, and it won’t just be religious or conservatives parents.   See it here.

How about this song:

Mm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said that all must lend a hand
To make this country strong again
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said we must be fair today
Equal work means equal pay
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said that we must take a stand
To make sure everyone gets a chance
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said red, yellow, black or white
All are equal in his sight
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

Yes!
Mmm, mmm, mm
Barack Hussein Obama

And then this song:

Hello, Mr. President we honor you today!
For all your great accomplishments, we all doth say “hooray!”

Hooray, Mr. President! You’re number one!
The first black American to lead this great nation!

Hooray, Mr. President we honor your great plans
To make this country’s economy number one again!

Hooray Mr. President, we’re really proud of you!
And we stand for all Americans under the great Red, White, and Blue!

So continue —- Mr. President we know you’ll do the trick
So here’s a hearty hip-hooray —-

Hip, hip hooray!
Hip, hip hooray!
Hip, hip hooray!

Well, at least they are being taught about the Bill of Rights and the Constitution which sets our Nation apart from so many others?  I hope?

Jimmy Carter,  born in the early part of 1900,  has a peculiar perspective.   He lived during the Jim Crow era.  He lived through the the Civil Rights era.  He lived to be President for one term and he continues to make interesting comments following that term.   So he comes on national TV and in essence states that the Tea Parties and protest to Health Care Reform were rooted in racism.   Basically: protest to Obama contains racism.
Forget the arguments for or against Health Care Reform, Fairness Doctrine revival, Internet Control Emergency Powers, Bail Outs, Buy Outs, and further expansion of Government.   No, there is no pro-argument to support these expansions than saying your opponents are racist.

How nice.  How deep.  How truly knowledgeable that statement is.  Not really.

Carter is projecting himself on all of America.

A good portion of the American Populace today were raised in integrated communities.  Their parents may not have liked it, but in the end, they grew up with people not of their own ethnic background (sorry, there is only human race as far as I am concerned).  They did not grow up being told that the color of ones skin made them of more or less value.   Actually, they were, they were told white people were bad and everyone else was oppressed by the white people and that the color of your skin entitled you to privileges if you were not white because of what some white people you never knew or were related to did to non-white people.   Ok… there is a lot of the racism of White guilt.

Of course, one has to ask: what is racism?   Is racism the observation of one’s skin tone?  One’s nose, hair, or other physical features?  If so, is it possible for a blind and deaf person to be racist?  Or is racism an observation about someone and deciding that because of that observation they are inferior?

Don’t hire him, he is black.
Don’t hire her, she is female.
Don’t fire him, he is latino.
Don’t give him a raise, he has red hair.

That, plainly, is racism.   Is it?   If a black man said: don’t hire him, he is black, is it in the same caliber as if a white man said it? Can a person be racist against their own “race”?

How about this:

Don’t hire him, he didn’t go to Yale.
Don’t hire her, her family is poor.
Don’t fire him, he’s in the same club.
Don’t give him a raise, he is Catholic.

That is not racism.  But it stems from the same source as racism: elitism.    Racism is simply a sub-category of elitism.   I can’t think of many people who are happy about Elitism, let alone racism.   People don’t like being told they were not hired because they went to one school and not another.   The elitism of Education.  People don’t like being told that they were fired because of the color of their skin.    The elitism of ethnicity.

So why Carter?  Why bring up the elitism of ethnicity?

Well, if you have been paying attention to the pro-health care arguments they are often prefaced by ad homonym attacks such as stating the protesters are using Nazi symbols, or are white, or have threatening signs.    Forget the context.  Forget the argument.   It is all about slandering people with the most divisive slur possible: the elitism of ethnicity.    For months the pro-change-your-relationship-with-government supporters have been trying to shift the argument to one about elitism (racism).   Joe Wilson makes his true statement that Obama is Lying and so another man of the South is brought out of the dusty cupboard to comment on it with authority.   Well, regardless of what anyone says, if the argument is not about the actual substance of the Bills or Legislation, then the argument is merely a distraction.

So… why the Thought Police comment in the title?

Hate Speech.   Hate Crimes.  All revolve around assuming an act was committed because of an emotional thought.   A whole new way to try someone with criminal charges and not need to offer any other proof than the difference in their appearance or thinking.   That is un-American.   The very fact someone committed a crime against another is not because they love that person.    So adding an extra layer of Hate is redundant and a path to more lessening of Constitutional rights if left unchecked and a less scrupulous administration comes into power.

Forget what you say, that is protected speech.  It’s what you think they will come after.