The soldiers fight
and the kings are heroes.
Hebrew proverb
Chart of the Day (courtesy Carpe Diem)
Whipsawed
In context I liked the idea of contrasting mainstream conservatives against a pro-liberty politician like Ron Paul. I probably would have chosen Newt Gingrich versus Ann Coulter and questioned him about the things like the growth of the military industrial complex, the erosion of individual rights and a deterioration of federalism (i.e., state rights). I think Kucinich was a good choice--but does anyone else notice how oxymoronic a title like 'a [social] liberal's case against liberty'. I think Stossel let Kucinich lapse into familiar talking points; I would have pressed on morally hazardous, Big Government Knows Best policies, the historic failures of progressive programs, all but insolvent entitlement programs, guaranties, government costs and regulations smothering entrepreneurship, etc. Letting Kucinich get away with saying I hate GOP spending priorities, too, is inexcusable: I would have pointed out Defense spending has gone up under Obama and a Democratic-controlled Senate, and Obama failed to back his own bipartisan debt reduction committee's findings, which won a majority vote. Hearing Kucinich demonizing profits without Stossel challenging him was disheartening.
I do feel for Coulter in the first clip when the topics are about drugs and "gay marriage"; I didn't like how Stossel framed the latter issue (marriage is not a widget with interchangeable parts). I am somewhat sympathetic to the concept of marriage privatization raised in the clip, although I think even with marriage as a legal versus social construct, there are unintended, bad consequences to socially experimental policies. Ann makes a good point you can't define away the problem, although I think there's a lot to be said about churches and communities resolving marital issues versus the state. I probably would have stressed the deterioration of marriage and the family since the sexual revolution (although Coulter hints at that by discussing making divorce harder to get). She has a more nuanced view on military intervention; I thought Stossel could have pursued the fact that many conservatives (e.g., the Old Right, Pat Buchanan), have been skeptical of interventionist policies. As to the discussion of drugs, I am more interested in talking about failed public policy, overcrowded prisons and expensive law enforcement trying to control an unenforceable market, not unlike alcohol.
The second clip is less successful. There was a pregnant pause when the student stumbles on inflation as hurting lower-income people--I probably would have focused more directly, say, by how ethanol mandates and other subsidies raise food costs, how rent control limits options for most potential tenants, how the crony Fed punishes small savers and limited-income seniors with manipulating interest rates, collapsing purchasing power of the dollar, etc.
DiLorenzo on Goodwin, Spielberg and the REAL Lincoln
"Every other country in the world got rid of slavery without a civil war . . . . How much would that cost compared to killing 600,000 Americans when the hatred lingered for 100 years." ~ Ron Paul to Tim Russert on "Meet the Press" in 2007Why bring up a movie a month after the Academy Awards? (The biggest award the movie snagged was lead actor.) In part, FNC prime time anchor Bill O'Reilly, a former high school history teacher, has a new biography on Lincoln out. (Don't expect DiLorenzo on the Factor as a guest after this appraisal:
All it is is a narrative of the events leading up to the assassination. Over 100 books are already in print on the subject. There is nothing at all in O'Reilly's book about Lincoln's policies and behavior in office. There is nothing about his statist economic policies, his trashing of the Constitution by illegally suspending Habeas Corpus and mass arresting thousands of Northern political dissenters, his intentionally waging war on Southern civilians in violation of all moral and legal codes regarding warfare, his lifelong obsession with deporting all black people, free or slave, from America, etc. )Let's start this segment with a rehash from high school civics class:
The Constitution provides that an amendment may be proposed either by the Congress with a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate or by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures. None of the 27 amendments to the Constitution have been proposed by constitutional convention. The Congress proposes an amendment in the form of a joint resolution. Since the President does not have a constitutional role in the amendment process, the joint resolution does not go to the White House for signature or approval.I am well aware of Doris Kearns Goodwin from her numerous appearances on Meet the Press, and my recurring Sunday Talk Soup segments have found her "contributions" little more than pedestrian progressivism as usual. DiLorenzo, who has written a competing, superior Lincoln biography, makes it a little personal in the first video; this is academia as usual. DiLorenzo started off his education as most of us, with this image of the martyred liberator of slaves My Mom once told me about seeing a famous actress/beauty--and was disappointed to discover the beauty was illusory--the actress' complexion was flawed. As DiLorenzo studied the "real" Lincoln, the hero worship began to fade. Let me quote one sample tidbit from Gordon's review of DiLorenzo's 2006 book on Lincoln:
Lincoln turned aside all opposition to his ruthless conduct of the war, and he did not hesitate to act against judges who insisted on the rule of law. But what is a lowly circuit court judge, compared with the Chief Justice of the United States? Lincoln ordered an arrest warrant prepared for the aged Roger Taney, who had ruled that Lincoln had no authority to suspend the writ of habeas corpus. The warrant was fortunately never served, and Taney escaped imprisonment. Some have doubted the story, but DiLorenzo finds confirmation in several sources, including the memoirs of Benjamin Curtis, no friend of Taney's. When he served on the Supreme Court, Curtis wrote a strongly worded dissent from Taney's opinion in the Dred Scott case. "Nevertheless, in his memoirs he praises the propriety of Justice Taney in upholding the Constitution by opposing Lincoln's unilateral suspension of habeas corpus. He refers to the arrest warrant for the chief justice, accusing him of treason, as a 'great crime'"I will let the historians battle out how much credit Lincoln deserves over the amendment to end slavery. (Most libertarians I know believe the collapse of slavery was inevitable; it was very bad economic policy ) Speaking of fictional accounts of Lincoln, wasn't there one about Lincoln being a vampire hunter? I want to know: was that also based on the Goodwin biography?
Political Humor
Some people traveled to Washington and paid as much as $6,000 to watch the Supreme Court's deliberations on gay marriage. Yeah, $6,000. Maybe that's why the Supreme Court launched its 41-city Monsters of Gay Marriage Deliberation Tour. - Conan O'Brien
[And they demanded their money back when Diana Ross didn't front the group...]
A father of five has come forward to claim Saturday’s winning Powerball ticket worth $338 million. Or as he told his five kids, “Great news. Three of you can go to college.” - Jimmy Fallon
[ The IRS got its cut... Obama told the other 2 kids. "Great news. You can go. too."]
Political Cartoon
Just imagine their offspring--a pig-headed brat whom doesn't forget a slight....
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| Courtesy of Jerry Holbert and Townhall |
Earth, Wind and Fire, "That's the Way of the World"
Your Tax Dollars At Government
From CBS (no doubt they are working on Obama's Jedi mind melds):
According to a statement from the IRS, the "Star Trek" video (see below) was created to open a 2010 IRS training and leadership conference.
"Back in Russia, I dreamed someday I'd be rich and famous," says one crew member in the parody. "Me too," agrees another. "That's why I became a public servant." And the two fist bump. A separate skit based on the television show "Gilligan's Island" was also recorded. The IRS told Congress the cost of producing the two videos was thought to be about $60,000 dollars.
