Time Magazine is stupid. There, I said it. This year’s Person of the Year is The Protester. Huh? Last year the Tea Party movement reshaped the political landscape and Mark Zuckerburg was the the Person of the Year. This year a few thousand hipster dufuses take the street to protest repaying their student loans and suddenly The Protester is the Person of the Year. The best part is that Time was too cowardly to give it to Occupy Wall Street even though that’s obviously what they really wanted to do. Time’s website even has a picture and a quote from the world’s stupidest police captain, Ray Lewis.
The protests in the Middle East started last year, but I guess Mark Zuckerberg was more important than the lowly Iranian protesters. Oh well, what should I expect? The U.S. Navy Seals are the story of the year. If you don’t believe just wait until next year when President Obama boasts about killing Osama Bin Laden.
“But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary… The great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”
-James Madison, Federalist No. 51
Occupy Wall Street and its spinoffs are 99 percent hipster dufus; naive, economically illiterate babies who believe that storks bring them their iPhones, clothing, transportation and coffee beans.
I continue to puzzle over the notion that people turn into angels when they’re elected to public office or become part of the machinery of government. It’s not my notion, but it seems to be a dearly held belief by those who are politically left of center. Why else would one vote for a Democrat, particularly now?
There are those on the left who claim to be skeptical of government. They’ll say things like, “Well, they’re all corrupt,” or, “We should throw them all out of office,” and so forth. But then they’ll turn around and vote Democrat, the party dedicated to making government larger and more intrusive.
I sometimes agree with the sentiment that it would be nice to throw all the bums out of office, but barring that I vote Republican simply because a Republican will at least grow government more slowly. Even Republicans, supposedly dedicated to limiting government, can’t help themselves and the relentless march away from limited government and toward limitless government continues.
I suppose a limitless government would be fine, “if men were angels,” but they’re not, regardless of whether they work in the private or public sector. Again, “if men were angels,” there would be no need for government in the first place.
Every human being has a self-centered profit motive. There are exceptions to this rule, but those exceptions do not reside in Washington, D.C., Madison, Sacramento, Denver, Austin, or any other seat of power. Self interest is a powerful motivating factor and the consistently aberrant behavior of our representatives is a constant reminder of this fact.
Duke Cunningham, the former Republican California congressman, used his office to enrich himself as much as possible. He resigned after pleading guilty to accepting bribes in the neighborhood of $2 million. Cunningham was also the Navy’s only flying ace in the Vietnam War. He served his country well and honorably, but once given the power that comes with public office he succumbed to the temptations.
I use Cunningham as an example because there’s no need to get into a tug-of-war debate about which party is more corrupt. Corruption crosses party lines and can grasp those who were once honorable and ethical. That’s because the seed of corruption is in each of us.
Therefore, it seems quite logical to me that, as Madison warned, government is under an obligation to control itself. Government is not controlling itself when it spends a gazillion dollars on “jobs” bills and whatnot. Who in their right mind believes that money is being well spent? These bills are thinly disguised as legislation, but are designed to launder tax dollars through connected political interests in order to find their way back into campaign coffers.
Meanwhile, economically illiterate hipster dufuses protest because corporations have a profit motive. People who run corporations and those who work for them have the same propensity toward corruption as anyone in government. The difference is that I’m not forced to buy a corporation’s product. I am forced to buy the government’s product, whatever it may be and however much it may inconvenience me.
I’ll admit it. I’m in the tank for corporations because they serve my interests. The irony of free market capitalism is that in serving its own interests, a corporation must serve mine. Just a quick glance around the room tells me they’re doing a damn fine job of it, too.
Let’s see, computer equipment from Dell, HP and Cisco, landline courtesy of AT&T, cell phone courtesy of Verizon, semi-electric guitar and amplifier by Fender (thanks Henshaw!), re-writable DVDs from Memorex, stapler from Swingline, furniture by some corporation somewhere, camera from Canon, and on and on and on it goes.
You can’t get away from the evil corporations! That’s how evil they are! They made me buy all this stuff to make my life more convenient! Wait a minute… I chose to buy that stuff, and I hope each and every corporation I mentioned is making a huge profit.
Where do these hipster dufus protesters think all of their modern conveniences come from? Do they think that if government planned and ran our economy that products would be self innovating and appear magically at our doorsteps? It’s religious to believe all will be well when government takes over and the evil corporations are punished for making things easy for us. Big government is suddenly Jesus feeding the multitudes from five loaves and two fishes.
Let’s say one of the corporations from which I buy products makes a really bad investment in a solar energy company. In order to recoup the half billion they wasted they then raise the prices of their products. Chances are I’ll find a competitive corporation from which to buy those products. I love what they make, but I don’t love it that much.
Then let’s say the federal government makes a really bad investment in the same solar energy company. They raise my taxes, so I move to Honduras? That’s my only choice, because government makes me pay dearly for its mistakes and throws me in jail if I don’t pay for its mistakes.
Let’s further postulate that the product I love is actually manufactured in China. I think it’s supposed to bother me that it’s made elsewhere, but I get a great price and have more disposable income. Our government’s product, which I suppose is the growing number of overpaid bureaucrats, are made and paid in the USA. Yeah! Only… they’re overpaid because their union negotiated with the government to ensure not only a fantastic paycheck, but one helluva benefits and pension package.
The same people who negotiated with the union and come up with new bureaucracies to employ even more public employees get kickbacks in the form of campaign contributions to help ensure the cycle continues. Oh well, at least my money stays in the USA, except for the foreign aid that’s likely remodeling some penny ante dictator’s personal castle.
I leave you with Milton Friedman and Phil Donahue discussing greed and capitalism back in the day, a day that was apparently more civil than ours…
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A
I haven’t written much about Occupy Wall Street because it’s a non-movement that’s already over-covered. Liberal mainstream journalism is well on its way to not covering all the crazy hipster doofuses who are involved in the media stunt. The progressive movement, after all, is way more important that covering the details.
Instead of defending President Obama’s record over the last three years liberals have spent the last three years smearing everyone who disagrees with the false prophet in the White House. The smears aren’t working anymore. The progressive movement is over. They’re out of ideas and they’re hypocrites.
In The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, the White Witch put a spell over Narnia that made it always winter and never Christmas. Sound familiar?
Sometimes called the “War on Christmas,” the campaign to take the word “Christmas” out of the Christmas holiday is actually a battle in the larger War on Reality. The War on Reality includes battles in seemingly disparate areas of American life, such as what we choose to eat, drive, think and say.
The common thread between these battles, and thus their connection to each other in the larger War on Reality, is their totalitarian end. The Hipster Dufus ninny nanny busybodies who have somehow bullied the American people into adopting “Happy Holidays!” as the non-offensive greeting of the season – as opposed to the time-honored tradition of “Merry Christmas!” – are typically the same killjoys who want to monitor our fat intake, how much gas we guzzle, how much water we use and so on and so forth.
It’s the Utopian vision of the “Imagine” crowd… Imagine all the people, living like we want them to, not how they would actually prefer to live. What we actually end up with is a world of boring sameness where free thought is replaced by group think. Welcome to the collective!
Meanwhile, the battle for the word “Christmas” is practically over. I see countless examples of corporations, organizations and individuals who have simply given in. Christmas parties have turned into Holiday parties, Christmas trees into Holiday trees, Christmas gifts into Holiday gifts, and every conceivable tortured permutation of Holiday as a substitute for Christmas.
Can the word “Holiday” be far behind? After all, the word literally means “holy day,” an offensive religious reference. Five years from now we’ll all be saying something like, “Happy time off from work time! When are you going to decorate your time-off-from-work-time tree?” I can’t wait.
Welcome to the New New Deal, which means that economic bad times last at least five times longer than they should.
“The effect of the people’s agreeing that there must be central planning, without agreeing on the ends, will be rather as if a group of people were to commit themselves to take a journey together without agreeing where they want to go; with the result that they may all have to make a journey which most of them do not want at all.”
-Friedrich Hayek, The Road to Serfdom
That’s right, I said it, and I don’t care if you think I’m a racist, homophobic child-hater. Obama is at least part Keynesian, and I don’t need a birth certificate to prove it. Simply witness the unending Stimuluspalooza.
Mr. Obama’s spending spree is based on a Keynesian/Field of Dreams model… Spend it, and they will come. Unfortunately, there’s not one example in the history of the world where this works. If FDR’s New Deal popped into your mind as a good example of spending your way out of a bad economy, congratulations, you likely received a government education.
The simple economic fact is that central planning and artificial economic inputs in the form of government spending actually have an adverse effect. It skews supply and demand, making booms and the subsequent busts much more severe, while causing the bust to last far longer than it would if the markets are left to heal on their own.
As an example, witness the Internet boom and bust of the late ‘90s. Though there was some economic hardship because of the bust, it was mainly relegated to the Hipster Dufuses who traded reality for imaginary stock options. And, though it caused some short-term pain, the government didn’t interfere and bail out companies that made bad decisions. Without government interference, and despite a crippling attack on 911, the economy rebounded nicely. By the way, tax cuts do not count as artificial economic inputs.
You may argue that the entire financial system was at risk this time around, and thus any comparison is apples to acorns at best. I would argue, however, that the short-term economic problems would have been more severe, but that the market would have corrected itself. There’s always some enterprising soul ready to pick up the pieces and make it even better. You don’t find those enterprising souls in centrally-planned economies.
The problem with central planning of any stripe, even minor tinkering in the market, is that it’s inherently unfair, rewards bad behavior and cannot possibly adjust for the complexities of the economy. In the example of stimulus and bailout spending, companies that made poor decisions were rewarded. Other companies that suffered because of those poor decisions and weren’t politically connected were left to die. Is it government’s job to hand pick which companies survive and which don’t? I don’t think it’s a good idea. There’s too much potential for corruption and cronyism. If you voted Democrat this election, congratulations, you’ll help ensure that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Thanks a lot!
In case you received a government education, here’s a quick economics lesson… It’s based on supply and demand. When the government, which has no clue what consumers want, starts monkeying with the supply side of the equation, it throws the whole thing off-kilter. The free market is organic and reacts to foreign bodies (central planning) like any other organic system; it either gets sick or it dies.
These basic concepts appear to be lost on the “progressive” left. Perhaps they’re really not lost on those with enough money and political connections to not only be shielded from the effects of their policies, but are rewarded handsomely in the process.
So, while Mr. Obama pursues a Keynesian economic course, I would suggest opening your mind a bit and reading up on the Austrian School of economics, starting with Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom.
Many liberal hipsters who hate corporations have no idea their party of choice spends more than the GOP and gets most of its money from trial lawyers and corporations. In Hipster Dufus World, ignorance is bliss, baby.
Maybe I’m jaded. Maybe it’s because I’m exhausted by the stress of my wife’s brain surgery, but I’m just tired of all the news hyperbole. For example, the Daily Show rally this weekend in D.C. Or should I say, the hipster dufus reaction to the Tea Party. There’s nothing wrong with the rally; it’s just not that big of a deal. Neither was Glenn Beck’s rally. Gauging by the size of the crowds at both events I’m absolutely correct.
The past three months two segments of American culture have been at odds with each other. In one corner is the middle class American voter. They feel betrayed by their government. This group is for low taxes and immigration enforcement. They believe in smaller goverment although no one ever says what programs have to go. I guess the devil is in the details. They’re also leaderless.
The other crowd is the faux educated hipster dufus crowd. For those having a difficult time picturing the typical liberal Daily Show viewer think of Stuff White People Like. These people have been educated to believe white people are the source of every problem known to mankind. When I say “white person” I mean white republican voters because being liberal means never having to say you’re sorry. If there’s one thing that unites both groups it’s the fact they’re both white. You’re not going to find a lot of African Americans at a Glenn Beck or Jon Stewart event or in their studio audiences.
Obviously, the caricature that I’ve painted of both groups is stereotypical. There are things on the list of Stuff White People Like I love like IKEA and the World Cup. Anyway, my main point is that both of these groups have recently held rallies at the National Mall. The size of the rallies by most accounts is the same. The crowd size at both events was roughly 200,000. At first glance that’s a lot of people, but is it really?
The United States is a big place. It’s home to more than 300 million people who are also wealthier than most of the world. 200,000 people is a NASCAR race. 100,000 people is a home game at Michigan. In other words, it’s not that extraordinary. Just last week 200,000 people attended a barbecue festival in North Carolina. The festival has been going for 27 years and I’d never heard about it until this past week.
Someone let me know when there are two million people attending an event and then I’ll be impressed. When FOX News and Comedy Central push an event for weeks and only get 200,000 people, that’s not that big of a deal. So can we move on, please?
Soccer is to sports as boycotting Arizona is to politics. All of the sudden, lots of people are ignorantly jumping on those respective bandwagons simply because they’ve been told it’s hip and cosmopolitan to do so.
What is soccer, really, but Barbie foosball on grass?
The nation is inexplicably caught up in both World Cup and Boycott Arizona fever. Even citizens in our extreme northern regions, who are normally high on hockey, are packing bars and making official statements about Arizona’s immigration law. They may not know exactly where Arizona is or what a yellow card represents, they just know it’s cool to watch the World Cup and call Arizona a racist, fascist state.
Just today I picked up a six-pack of delicious Sunshine Wheat beer and the proprietor asked me if my purchase was made in preparation for today’s World Cup games. I mumbled something about foosball and got the hell out of there. Sometimes I feel like Will Smith in I Am Legend.
This is simply another sign of the coming Apocalypse, but it also shows how the nation’s education system has betrayed entire generations. Busily teaching multi-cultural sensitivity and relativism, rather than logic and the three Rs, our schools are churning out hyper-ecumenical adults who don’t even know what ecumenical means, much less that soccer sucks or how to read words printed on a piece of legislation.
There really are true soccer fans in the U.S., but most are of the faux-fan persuasion. With all due respect, the true fans are certainly misguided, but it must be frustrating to have been infected with this disorder for years and years only to find their abnormal world suddenly populated with legions of USA/gooooooaaaaal-chanting know-nothings.
This is about as "intelligent" as it gets at the Facebook group Intelligent Women and Men Against Sarah Palin. I'll never forget the most important lesson I learned about intelligent debate: If you disagree with someone, just tell them to shut up, or call them names. Works every time!
They say ignorance is bliss, but apparently it becomes more “blissful” the more “intelligent” you are, or say you are. The ever-tolerant left wing is alive and well in its efforts to destroy one human being, in this case Sarah Palin, simply because that person doesn’t buy into their Utopian objectives.
For whatever reason, Sarah Palin is a lightning rod for the self-proclaimed “intelligent” among us, consisting primarily of the hipster dufus crowd that sees every political issue through the prism of the propaganda they were taught in college.
A typical post on the Sarah Palin-hating Facebook group, Intelligent Women and Men Against Sarah Palin, says, “Someone should overturn a rig on her and her damn family and let them see how ‘easy’ it is to ‘recover’ and ‘go on’…….F’ING IDIOT!….get OFF THE STAGE…..YOUR SCENE IS OVER!!!!!!!”
I guess this is what passes for “intelligent” commentary at Intelligent Women and Men Against Sarah Palin. The rest of the writings and rantings are no more illuminating than that one. In fact, that’s about as “intelligent” as it gets.
These are people who never see the other side of an issue and simply spout hateful missives about people and policies they care not to delve into themselves. I believe “shallow” would be the more pertinent word, as in Shallow Women and Men Against Sarah Palin.
Me? I’m neutral about Sarah Palin. I agree with her on most issues, but she hasn’t shown much depth in her ideological reasoning. Ironically, just like the groups aligned against her, her positions don’t appear to be very well thought out, other than “it sounds right.”
Like me, she has taken a stand against increasing government growth and interference. But at the same time I haven’t heard a rational defense of this position other than the fact that she’s against it.
When asked to name her favorite founding father, she said, “All of them.” While that might be true, it shows that maybe she hasn’t really thought all that much about the founders or the founding principles of the nation.
In the same way, the leftists at Intelligent Blah Blah Blah on Facebook provide no reasonable defense of their positions, other than calling anyone who disagrees with them Teabaggers, Baggers, anti-choice, Nazis, F’ing idiots and other vulgar word combinations, as well as original stuff like, “How’s that drill-baby-drill thing working out for you?” It’s like reading Bizarro Palin.
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