Mitt Romney soundly stomped his rivals last night in New Hampshire. The closest competitor was Ron Paul and most of his voters aren’t even Republicans. In third was Jon Huntsman and then Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum rounded things out. It was a terrible night for Santorum, who didn’t get much bounce out of Iowa.
Remember when every AP picture of Obama in 2008 was fantastic. Mitt Romney will not be gettting the same coverage. Here's the AP's version of Robot Romney.
It was fun watching people spin the results last night. This race is over. It would take something huge to change this race. The field is scattered and no one is in Romney’s league when it comes to money and organization. The other candidates are struggling to get on the ballot in several states. Romney’s victory speech last night sounded like an acceptance speech.
To amuse myself I watched about 30 minutes of MSNBC. They had one Republican and five deranged liberals attacking the candidates. That’s what they consider “coverage.” Rachel Maddow was the voice of reason. It’s comical that Al Sharpton is on that network. The MSNBC panel was really disturbed that Romney compared Obama’s vision for America as European. Why you ask? They love Europe and don’t get it. Europe’s big goverment entitlements and unused mass transportation systems have bankrupted the state. Liberals haven’t been able to put two and two together.
The race moves to South Carolina and then on to Florida after that. Romney is the only candidate running ads in Florida right now because he really the only candidate left on the GOP side.
Federal bureaucracy is kind of like a wild animal. Both can kill you, but bureaucracy has the law on its side.
Europe is buckling under the weight of immense debt and bureaucracy. It’s an amazing turn of events. American liberals look fondly to Europe. This comes from Euro tourist trips to Paris, Rome, and London. They see all the beautiful places, they ride on the rail, and they believe everything is perfect in Europe. They don’t notice the highly segregated cities, the high unemployment, and the fact no one actually rides the rail.
Europe is failing despite the fact the United States subsidized their economic model for a half century. It’s infuriating. Now Europe is looking to the United States for a bailout. We’ve saved the continent in two world wars and given them free health care for over 50 years and now we’re supposed to bail them out?
If there was only one great example I could cite that encapsulates Europe’s bureaucracy run amok… Wait, there is! European Union officials spend time and resources dedicated to proving water doesn’t hydrate. Huh? No, I’m really telling the truth.
EU officials concluded that, following a three-year investigation, there was no evidence to prove the previously undisputed fact.
Producers of bottled water are now forbidden by law from making the claim and will face a two-year jail sentence if they defy the edict, which comes into force in the UK next month.
People spent three years on this? These are the same bureaucrats that are shoving climate change down our throats and we’re supposed to take them seriously because they’re doing “serious research.” Right! Before anyone thinks “this can’t happen in America” I should remind you it already is.
Anyone remember the Climate Change Program Manager? American taxpayers are paying between $103,000 to $155,000 per year for a fantasy position at the National Park Service. Massive bureaucracy is crippling the world. You never know when the bureaucracy is going to attack.
A man in New Bedford caught a 881 pound tuna fish. Carlos Rafael was excited, but he’s going to need a bigger boat. Not to protect him from sharks, but from the great federal bureaucracy.
However, when Rafael rolled down the dock in Provincetown there was an unexpected and unwelcome development. The authorities were waiting. Agents from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Law Enforcement informed him they were confiscating his fish — all 881 pounds of it.
Even though the catch had been declared and the boat had a tuna permit, the rules do not allow fishermen to catch bluefin tuna in a net.
Why in the hell is there someone enforcing this law? I can understand cracking down on poachers, but this wasn’t the case. The guy accidentally caught the fish. I have no idea how much the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is paying these people to ruin people’s lives. I don’t want to know. I’m sure it would be too depressing for words.
In Idaho, a man protecting his family shot a grizzly bear but he forgot to ask daddy government if it was okay first. Daddy government arrested the man for killing an endangered animal. I think if most Americans were faced with the choice of following a government regulation or letting their family get mauled by a vicious grizzly they would do the same thing Jeremy Hill did. Kill the bastard.
Americans are like frogs in a pot. The water keeps getting warmer but we’re too distracted to notice we’re getting boiled/screwed. The long arm of bureaucracy is slowly strangling the country. Too much government. Too many bureaucrats. Too many laws and not enough common sense.
Engadget has a great article (see video below) about the state of internet access in the United States. The nation that invented the internet is has fallen behind many European nations in overall internet speed and cost of access. This all comes back to Net Neutrality. Liberals believe we need to force providers not to limit access. That’s not the problem. We need to foster more competition.
Libya could very well be President Obama’s Bay of Pigs, or Desert of Camels, if you prefer. I blame the military-industrial complex, the anti-Gaddafi Libyans, the CIA, night club owners and Frank Sinatra, may he rest in peace.
Whatever the case may be, it’s time for Gaddafi (a.k.a., al-Qaddafi, al-Gadhafi, etc., etc.) to go, or not go. This is either a stroke of genius, a disaster unfolding or a pointless waste of military hardware and the oil needed to fuel said hardware.
It’s genius if the Gaddafi is toppled from power and the Libyans are able to cobble together some sort of functioning government that’s not mullah-oriented. It’s a pointless waste of military hardware if Gaddafi stays in power, keeps his head low and basically turns into Joan Rivers, albeit it a Joan Rivers sitting on tons of oil and more money than you could count in a lifetime.
It’s a disaster if Gaddafi is toppled and the Libyans cobble together an Al Qaeda outpost. And, it’s a disaster if Gaddafi remains in power and decides to cobble together a nuclear program to help ensure that he and his cronies are never in danger of being toppled again.
However it turns out, let’s hope this semi-war for oil ensures cheap energy for Europe for generations to come. It’s almost certain that Europe cannot get by with “green” sustainable alternative energy sources like wind and solar because they simply don’t work. Besides, who in their right mind would go to war for solar or wind anyway?
In some parts of America, such as this scene from a favorite spot of Club Soda’s in south Texas, keeping and bearing arms is a practical necessity. This illustrates one of the problems with a centralized federal government restricting and regulating firearms. The Federal government is not and should not be in the business of forcing people in the sticks or in a particularly crappy urban area to give up their arms because someone in Berkeley feels icky about guns.
In the last installment of The Bill or Rights Countdown I quoted Alexander Hamilton (he’s the guy on the $10 bill) from his argument against a Bill or Rights in Federalist No. 84. His argument basically boiled down to this: “For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?”
In the Constitution, there is no power given to the Federal government to either ban or regulate firearms. Because there is a Second Amendment, however, it opens up the subject for national debate, providing a means to restrict something which there is no power to restrict in the first place. Perhaps, as Hamilton wrote, “…it is evident that it [a Bill of Rights] would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power.”
Those in favor of restricting or banning firearms usually point to the wording of the Second Amendment:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Of course they tend to disregard the second part of the amendment, choosing instead to hone in on the first part about a “well regulated Militia.” It’s old fashioned, they say, and not pertinent to a modern society, and they have a point, to a point.
I read the amendment a bit differently. Admittedly, that may be due to a certain bias I have toward the right of a free people to freely bear arms, and arm bears, if they so choose. I read the amendment as saying that, first, each state has the right to maintain a militia (well regulated, I might add). Second, that the people, that is each individual American, has the right to “keep and bear arms.” Not only do they have that right, but it “shall not be infringed.” I don’t believe it could be any more clear than that.
In Federalist No. 46, James Madison wrote:
Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of.
There’s that pesky militia again, but once again a sign of their times. Even so, Madison claims that there is an advantage to an armed citizenry. You might think it foolish in a nuclear age where a modern military can run roughshod over its citizens, but it will be a sign of our times if the government takes away the right to bear arms. It will signal a citizenship stripped of its independence and freedom.
These days, the right to keep and bear arms may be only a symbol, but it’s a powerful symbol. Being an arms keeper and bearer myself, it gives me a certain confidence that, if worse comes to worse, I can defend hearth and home.
I’m not talking about holing up and reliving Ruby Ridge because Obama’s a Cinderellaian, or any other such nonsense. I’m talking about being secure and independent. Again, it may only be an illusion, but I’m ultimately more confident in my liberty than Joe Bloke in Europe who’s been effectively neutered into a quiet acquiescence to dependence and state control.
Once more, I hail liberty and freedom, and all the risks that come with it, over the boring and padded world progressives would have us live in to save us from ourselves. I will eat, smoke, drink, drive and shoot whatever the hell I want, thank you very much. And, if some psycho decides he’s going to go on a killing spree, maybe he’d think twice if most people were armed to the teeth.
I finally bought my own copy of Mark Steyn’s book, America Alone. I read a library copy shortly after it was published in 2006, but enjoyed it so much that I knew I would re-read it and refer to it often. It is, in a word, brilliant.
If you’re a “progressive,” you probably won’t agree with its premise, which is basically that there are two populations going in opposite directions: one is shrinking and getting older (post-Christian, postmodern Western civilization) while the other is growing and decidedly younger (Islam).
What happens when the first is coddled by the state from cradle to grave and believes in nothing while the other is animated by a violent ideology that takes no prisoners? Then add the fact that the former are elderly and addled by pop culture and politcally-correct multiculturalism while the latter are youthful and angry? The end of the world as we know it, at least according to Steyn.
The edition delivered to my front door includes a new introduction. While almost every sentence in the book is quotable, here’s a tasty one I found in the intro:
“Why do radical imams seek to convert young Canadian, British and even American men and women in their late teens and twenties? Because they understand that when you raise a generation in the great wobbling blancmange of cultural relativism, a certain percentage of its youth will have a great gaping hole where their sense of identity should be. And into that hole you can pour something primal and raging. Islam is an ideology. To claim it’s “race” is so breathtakingly stupid as to give the game away – and to confirm that “Racist!” is now no more than the cry of a western liberal who can’t stand his illusions being disturbed.”
It won’t be too long before vacations are a right that has to be subsidized by the state. If we look hard enough into the living, breathing constitution I’m sure it’s buried next to the right to privacy. Add this to the list of the ever growing welfare state.
An overseas holiday used to be thought of as a reward for a year’s hard work. Now Brussels has declared that tourism is a human right and pensioners, youths and those too poor to afford it should have their travel subsidized by the taxpayer.
Under the scheme, British pensioners could be given cut-price trips to Spain, while Greek teenagers could be taken around disused mills in Manchester to experience the cultural diversity of Europe.
Think this can’t happen in the United States? Think again.
This is what happens when the state finally goes bankrupt.
There’s a fundamental difference between conservatives and liberals. It was on full display this past week as the pillars of the liberal establishment rallied behind ObamaCare. Liberals who opposed the Senate bill for not being bigger decided something was better than nothing. The mainstream press (Washington Post, New York Times, etc.) endorsed the bill. It’s odd that anyone can be in favor of a bill that’s so bad. I won’t go into the details because I’ve written about it extensively over the past six months. Besides, I find myself looking at cardboard boxes wondering if I should start saving materials for when we’re living under a bridge if I think about it too much.
ObamaCare is bad from beginning to end. It’s the greatest gift ever given to the insurance companies in the short term, but signals the end of their business in the long term. Meanwhile, the President and his deranged followers act like everything is rosy. Liberals have fallen in love with the “idea” of heath care. I wrote about this a few days ago. Health care isn’t a logical issue to these robots; it’s a purely emotional issue.
The most common argument for universal health care is that Europe and Canada have it. This is a shallow and uninformed argument. When did the United States start looking at Europe for ideas? This is the continent we have bailed out of two horrendous world wars and who we defended during the Cold War. The only reason these States have been able to afford their massive entitlements is because the American taxpayer has paid for Europe’s defense. Furthermore, these European states are going bankrupt (see Greece, etc., etc.). They’ve reduced their defense budgets to shambles and they still can’t afford the entitlements, the pensions, the health care, and all the stuff the leftist crazies in our government would have us do.
If the left is committed to the idea of health care it will cripple the United States and the world will be a more dangerous place. The cancer of entitlements means the only place to carve out a temporary future is to cut defense. As the U.S. military weakens the world will become more unstable. Eventually, the economies of Europe and the rest of the West will cave under the weight of entitlements. It might be this generation, it might be the next, but unless there’s a change the inevitable outcome of the ignorance of the left is economic Armageddon.
There is an interesting experiment going on in select cities in Europe deregulating motor vehicle traffic. The idea of taking down traffic lights, stop signs, and speed limits may sound insane at first but so did Friedman’s ideas about the Free Market fifty years ago. In college I used to drive my girlfriend at time crazy complaining about the inefficiency of traffic lights. Imagine how much time is wasted each year waiting for lights that aren’t timed correctly. It’s not only traffic lights, according to psychologists 70 percent of traffic signs are ignored by drivers. There are so many regulations most drivers fail to pay attention.
The result is that drivers find themselves enclosed by a corset of prescriptions, so that they develop a kind of tunnel vision: They’re constantly in search of their own advantage, and their good manners go out the window.
The new traffic model’s advocates believe the only way out of this vicious circle is to give drivers more liberty and encourage them to take responsibility for themselves. They demand streets like those during the Middle Ages, when horse-drawn chariots, handcarts and people scurried about in a completely unregulated fashion. The new model’s proponents envision today’s drivers and pedestrians blending into a colorful and peaceful traffic stream.
It may sound like chaos, but it’s only the lesson drawn from one of the insights of traffic psychology: Drivers will force the accelerator down ruthlessly only in situations where everything has been fully regulated. Where the situation is unclear, they’re forced to drive more carefully and cautiously.
The article doesn’t really touch on the subject, but this is a great example of moral hazard. Automobiles have gotten considerably larger and safer in recent decades. This has led to drivers taking an increased risk behind the wheel. As drivers feel safer they become more reckless. One economist whose name escapes me argued that putting a spike on the stearing wheel of every car in America would reduce traffic fatalities dramatically. That is obviously a stretch, but it will be interesting to see how this works in some of the larger cities. It would seem some kind of regulation is necessary, but perhaps society is learning that too much regulation is not a good thing.
Recent Comments