You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.
Oliver Goldsmith
Etta James: RIP
Political Potpourri
- Romney's Prevent Defense? There's an interesting Gray Lady post that suggests Romney is playing prevent defense and it's costing him just as Romney seemed to be pulling away from the pact. Any faithful reader knows I was attending UH as a graduate student during the days of Phi Slama Jama when the Cougars reached the NCAA Final Four in three consecutive years: 1982-1984. Unfortunately the Cougars never came away with the championship. They came closest in 1983 (my MBA class) when they won 26 games in a row--and lost on a unlikely defensive lapse at the very end of the game. The underdog NC State had fought to come from behind--but Houston, which thrived on an explosive fast-break offense, mysteriously went to a slow-down game late in the second half. This took them out of their style of play--and what's more, the Cougars were notoriously bad foul shot shooters. What you saw was NC State gradually nibble on the lead seemingly every time down the court, while Houston seemed unable to hit foul shots and came up empty on their side of the court. Before the first debate early this week, Gingrich, coming off fourth and fifth-place victories in the first 2 contests, seemed to be receding back to about a 15-point range while Romney seemed to be increasing a point or two everyday, now past 30. Perhaps Romney was playing it cautious, figuring he needs Gingrich and Santorum's favor this fall. I did not watch the 2 debates this week, although I've heard more than my fair share of Gingrich on Sunday talk soup. What was predictable since the day Romney went into politics were populist attacks on his wealth. Let's be clear: none of this has anything to do with transparency; what Gingrich and Obama are going to use the information is to point out while the folks are struggling to make ends meet, Romney has assets and a lifestyle (multiple homes, etc.) most can't dream of. Romney clearly doesn't want to release his tax returns or financial statements unless he is the nominee for obvious reasons. From a political standpoint, though, it's usually better to launch a preemptive strike in the sense that once the media picks up on the story, it takes on the appearance you're trying to hide something. Romney now has seen his paper-thin victory in Iowa reversed. His surge past 30 just a week ago has corrected back down to 30 and Gingrich is back to 20 or so after dropped back to the mid-teens. Romney is still in the driver's seat; there are a number of reasons. Florida and February should be big for Romney; Gingrich is less organized than Romney and he is running out of debates.
- A Bold Prediction: Romney Still Takes South Carolina. With the RCP's most recent SC polls averaging a 2-point lead for Gingrich and Internet betting showing Gingrich with an 80% chance of winning, I'm going to take a contrarian spin. Why? Not because I've endorsed Romney (and the fact Romney has fallen in the polls has nothing to do with this blog's endorsement) or am in a state of denial. The reasons are: (1) there are a lot of undecideds in South Carolina, and I expect them to prefer Romney to Gingrich; (2) South Carolina seems to be a bellwether for the nation, and the national advantage of Romney over Gingrich is still at least 10 points; (3) whereas Gingrich's ex-wife's recent assertion that Gingrich wanted an open marriage may not cause Gingrich's campaign to falter, it may have tempered Gingrich's momentum; (4) South Carolina likes to pick winners and generally prefers more establishment types like Romney. As I mentioned above, Florida looks good for Romney, and he's got friendly primary and caucus territory next month. Gingrich won't even be on the Virginia ballot (by the way, popular Virginia Governor McDonnell (R) endorsed Romney (which I expected)). A South Carolina victory for Gingrich more likely than not will be a one-off--and let us not forget, Gingrich once led with 41% of the polls.
- Oh, Gingrich, Will You Please Shut Up? As much as Obama is a narcissist, Gingrich seems to be the same. So help me if I have to hear him say one more time he is the "best" debater, if I hear him take credit one more time for "job creation" during the 1980's through 1990's, if I hear him personally attack the press or debate moderators, I'm going to have to be tougher on him. Before going any further, there was an interesting recent article about Gingrich's brief academic career at West Georgia in the Wall Street Journal by Elizabeth Williamson that tells volumes about Gingrich. Get this: as a first-year junior (untenured) professor, Gingrich had the audacity to apply for the university President position. In his second year he decided to try for the chairman position of the history department. Then a couple of years or so later he effectively decided to help launch an environmental studies discipline outside of the history department. During his time at West Georgia, he loses a race or two for Congress. He ends up not even winning tenure (in fact, the history department claims he's not even a history professor anymore). There's nothing wrong with being ambitious and having a healthy ego and confidence--but it's another thing to go around telling people how great a debater you are, claiming credit for the the growth of the 1980s-1990's, etc. The guy is audacious and intellectually pretentious; he also seems to have a variation of attention deficit disorder. He goes from topic to topic, more of a jack of all trades, master of none. But just take his ludicrous attempt to tie economic growth of the 1980's and 1990's to HIS efforts. First of all, until the election of 1994, Gingrich was part of the minority party--including Reagan's two terms in office. He didn't have a majority without Democrats to vote for the same policies. There's a great 1975 Reason (libertarian) article/interview with Reagan: "In addition, in recent months Reagan has taken to using the term "libertarian" (or "libertarian-conservative") to describe his political philosophy. Hmmm. What obscure blogger uses exactly the same description? "Government exists, of course, for the defense of the nation, and for the defense of the rights of the individual." Gingrich is hardly a Reagan; he has some gushing things to say about government/business symbiosis. And I hardly believe that Reagan would have ever let a PAC run an anti-capitalist rant against Romney or made fun of the fact that Mitt Romney speaks French (I mentioned in a recent post I am a Franco-American whose parents came from the Fall River area, just east of Providence, RI and in fact French was my first language--so I find nothing wrong with a New England politician knowing how to speak French.) Going back to Gingrich: maybe your bullying of the media plays well with the red meat crowd, but you lose moderates and independents: KNOCK IT OFF!
The Hill reports that House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) has put SOPA on the legislative shelf, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has done the same thing with Protect IP. I have written multiple commentaries opposing these poorly-conceived bill, basically in alliance with Big Entertainment content providers.
The Daily Bell, one of my favorite libertarian websites, does a good job explaining the crony capitalism nature of these operations. Let me quote relevant discussion in explaining the below referenced video of a DOJ bust of a New Zealand-based company (my edits):
Megaupload is a good example of why "public" state-generated justice is hopelessly unjust. It is not justice [when state governments take away your property and means to make a living without due process,] without even the beginnings of a trial. Legal counsel for the firm already pointed out that the case is probably civil rather than criminal. But nonetheless a criminal case has been brought – with all the resultant destruction.
Copyright laws [were developed as arbitrary methods in vain attempts to manipulate information flow.] When it comes to modern "justice," the Hegelian Dialectic is sweet and simple. Two lawyers make a case and then the judge decides. Over time, given the bias of the system, the punishments grow incrementally larger, the amount of activity necessary to commit a crime shrinks and the authority given to prosecutors (and judges) expands.An analogy immediately comes to mind in terms of a person developing a tolerance towards a particular drug; the drug loses its initial effect and so you need to resort to bigger doses or alternative substances to achieve the same effect. We can think the same way about state rules and regulations. Remember when Plato quoted Heraclitus? "Ever-newer waters flow on those who step into the same rivers ." In a political context, the ink of new regulations is barely dry when people find workarounds to these arbitrary restrictions on their liberty.
The states (nations) can't really control the flow of information in the long run (the genie is out of the bottle), so what to they do? They resort to intimidate the citizens from daring to defy them by making examples of certain people and companies.
It's clear why Big Entertainment is interested in having the government pick up the tab for cracking down on its competitive threats, but what's in it for Big Government?
State monopoly justice cannot be other than biased because those involved all work for the state and have a stake in expanding their jobs, salaries, pensions and perks. One only does this by expanding one's responsibilities.
While I was writing this commentary, my favorite Pink Floyd song kept playing in the back of my mind:
Political Humor
"A hiker who was lost in a blizzard said he stayed alive by digging a snow tunnel and burning dollar bills for warmth. Today he was offered a job as President Obama's economic adviser." - Jay Leno
[Well, President Obama just had to meet the man, because Obama burned $535M on Solyndra, without any snow, and it still didn't survive...]
"Yeah, the crew told passengers their plane was about to crash, but it turns out a flight attendant hit the wrong button. I don’t know what’s worse — getting lied to about crashing into the ocean, or knowing it happens so often there’s a button for it." - Jimmy Fallon
[Obama knows what disaster could happen if anyone hits the wrong button. That's why he always locks the doors of the Oval Office whenever he goes out of town and Joe Biden is left behind.]
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
The Doors, "People Are Strange"
