J.S.Mill - Comments On Liberty Today

Ok, Let's Assume that Major Hasan Is Mentally Ill

The liberal, politically correct advocates are clearly trying to avoid the bigotry of unfair generalizations about Islam. Hence, the pathetic and horrendous act of murder that Major Hasan clearly perpetrated at Fort Hood, is being discussed as the result of a "troubled person" who needs to be understood to have all manner of real and newly created mental illness.

Although I consider this nonsense as another clear example of political correctness gone crazy; I think that those who are convinced that it was an act of a Islamic terrorist should give in. and accept the reality that the left must be correct. Major Hasan is mentally ill! 

Yes, let's just agree that he is a mentally ill person and let's put him away in a high security mental hospital for life. Yes, for life, because I suspect we all know that with the military trial, he will not be sentenced to the death penalty, so, let's put him away for life because of his obvious mental illness...Islamic extremist who believes in Sharia law. Then we can put him through therapy to cure his mental illness, including taking away from him all the trappings of the religion that has twisted his mind.

Then, we will have a precedent to round up all other Sharia Law advocates in the US, and put them away for mental illness as well. Yes, if he is mentally ill., then so are they, because they are extremists who want us to give up all our liberty.

How is that for logic, you idiotic, politically correct liberals who want to whitewash the threat to our way of life. If that does not work for you, then maybe we can go back and call this act what it was: The act of a Islamic terrorist who wants to destroy us. This is a war, even if our left wing, politically correct administration want to pretend it is not.

Administration is on the Run

It is now very clear to me, and I am convinced eventually will be clear to other observers, that the Obama administration has pushed the "agenda envelope" too far and too fast, and may be seeing that the polls are moving against them much faster than they had expected. The agenda may not yet appear in trouble, but the Cap and Trade and Health Care initiatives are now being "negotiated" even though the theoretical "filibuster proof votes" are there to pass the legislation. In my view, this is the first sign of a weakened President. I know that I may sound like a Pollyanna, but I am convinced that they are now, more on defense than offense.  

I am certain that the Obama team decided that most Presidential goals get accomplished in the first year of the Presidency, hence they decided to be very aggressive. They probably concluded the only strategy that would get the social re-engineering accomplished would be to capitalize on the President's popularity quickly and to then use the economic downturn as the rationale for implementing the radical change. They fully, and in my view naively, expected that the "stimulus plans" would kick in faster and therefore they would have the "air-cover" to then be able to pass the Health and energy legislation. The Trillions building in the deficit have caused the voters to start to recoil from "mortgaging our future." As an economist, I certainly believe that the rampant spending will bring about rampant inflation (and potentially serious stagnation) which I then believe is going to even further weaken the dollar. Talk by the Chinese, and now others, about a potential replacement of the dollar as the world standard, should give everybody a serious concern. 

The further concern that I have is that the Republicans will see this weakening as an opportunity to capitalize on, but will not see just how strong their position can be. They will see the weakness as an opportunity to negotiate a "weaker health bill" rather than to defeat the one on the table and push for the reforms that they believe in, or at least, claim to believe in. As an example, anything that open the door to a single payer plan will eventually become a wide open door to full socialized medicine. They must not give an inch. Instead, they must work on creating reforms in the existing health insurance care plans that are already bankrupt: Medicare and Medicaid. To create a new health initiative that moves in that direction will simply amplify the already impossible problem with those plans. 

Further, I fully believe that the "stimulus" spending plans can be changed. So much of that pork will have no impact on growth in the economy, and certainly will not generate jobs. The private sector must be encouraged and that can not be done by having the public sector spend money which then gets funded through substantially higher taxes on the wealth creators. The worn out Keynesian solutions, are the wrong tactics. Stimulating aggregate demand is the buzz word, but the solution of using further deficit spending by government is a disaster, not unlike the years of the New Deal. W can not let Barack Obama become Franklin; we can not afford the financial markets to fall apart over a badly weakened dollar, and that is what Trillions of added deficit will do. 

This administration and the democrats in Congress are planning to fund all these initiatives with added taxes, and they will impact the broad middle class as well. These tax increases must be the primary focus of the minority concerns. Taxes are the one issue that can rally conservatives and moderates alike. Cap and Trade is an enormous tax on energy and will hit every consumer's pocket. There must be a full court press to stop that legislation, and I am convinced that making certain that it is seen as "a tax," is a crucial component of that fight. 

It is my strong conviction that the Republicans are now in the best position they have been in some time to actually brandish their fiscal conservative principles and to hold the Administration and the Congress to fiscal restraint. That is not easy for the traditional Beltway gang, but if they want to ever have a chance to have control again, they need to stand up and be counted. In my view, the Congress and the administration are "running scared." They are afraid that the economy will not turn around fast enough and that the pressure for "doing more" will increase. Even they know, that doing more may be completely irrational, but is they do more, they will not be able to avoid doing some of the programs that the Republicans wanted...like tax cuts. That would be a devastating blow to their previous rhetoric. 

In short, Republicans...stand up and be counted! Make this your fiscal policy stand, and do it now!

The Czars - A Thought from the Leadership Czar

Ha, I really have made nothing of this until now, but I think it is time for the Obama admministration to appoint an official leadership Czar, and since I am am already The leadership Czar, it seems to me that I am the one and only candidate qualified to hold that title.

But then, I started to think about the idea and realized that I would probably be the only one so appointed who actually was qualified to hold the title. Obama, like his last two predecessors, seems convinced that the best way to execute their policies is to have Czars appointed by them, who are accountable to nobody but the President. The beauty of the Czar strategy is that no Czar is approved (through advice and consent) by the Senate as the Cabinet officers are. Indeed, these czars work out of the ever expanding White House staff, and have no responsibility to either manage or be accountable to anybody but the President. The poor Cabinet Officers are the "political front men" for the President, but are increasingly without "Policy portfolio." This is not just an Obama illness, it has been developing for some time. The "thinking" is being done by people who have nothing else to do, but think, and have absolute open access to the Oval office. On the other hand, the Cabinet officers have the spralling beurocracies to manage, and all the public "fly the flag" responsibilities, with essentially no time to think. Further, they are weighed down by the government employees who are "lifers" and have nothing more to do but wait until the administration changes so they can start all over again, doing nothing.

I am actually sympathetic to the Presdidential tendency to have these White House staff people available so that they can actually have some control over policy formulation, but the tragedy is, it is an other example of how the huge government just gets bigger, and more complex. The tragedy is further compounded by the fact that these inner circle people have no responsibility to defend their policy positions against alternative opinion, because the White House staff is picked inevitably to mirror the political bias of the Commander in Chief. Hence, the Congress, the second leg of the governmental balancing act, gets no input into the process and thinking. Even the members of the President's party are unable to provide input into the policy process. That is tragic, because it means the the White House is inevitably even more isolated from the core values and positions of the broad constituents they are expected to serve.

Now that I have thought about this, I am not likely to be appointed the Leadership Czar for the White House, but you all know that I am the Leadership Czar, and that it would be a great deal of fun to see how the insular Obama White House would deal with somebody who actually respectedthe word leadership, as opposed to the transformational and essentially revolutionary concepts of Rules for Radicals.

State Bailout

Well, the next stage of the Obama White House conversion of the Republic to a centralized, national government, may be on its way. I know that the states in financial trouble are also some of the most populated, but they are also the most "progressive," hence, most out of control on spending. The best examples of California, New Jersey, New York and Michigan are all places where the Obama administration will be worried about the loss of government jobs in those states as they try to balance their budgets.that It is very possible that the administration  will try to find a way to "bail them out" in order to avoid the further job loss. 

Yesterday that talk started and it should concern every citizen. The only political entity today that can make decisions that cause the money supply to be increased, by simply printing money, is the US Federal government The states do not have currency, but if the Obama administration moves to "provide bailout money" to the states, the net result is that the spending patterns of the states will now drive the money supply. So, now the out of control, welfare state, spending patterns of California, will become the debt obligation of all US citizens. In a strange way, the out of control government in California will be a taxing authority over all the states. This will create the modern day version of "Taxation without representation." 

The arguments against a state bailout are compelling, but will have a serious consequence for the Obama administration. State employee job loss will be hard for him to ignore, but that is exactly what must happen. These states must cut back on all those social welfare and excess spending programs. In California, the people are always highly resistant to tax increases (as well they should since they are very highly taxed) but they never seem to be able to send legislators to Sacramento who will control spending, so the deficit has continued to grow as the economy has slowed. There are only two actions they can take that will balance the California budget, spending cuts or tax increases. The bitter pill must be swallowed. If it is not, the "IOUs" will be simply paper with no value. 

But, if the Obama administration steps in and "bails out the state" then the IOUs will be "monetized debt" and will add to the money supply again. Hence, more inflationary pressure, more US deficit, and more centralized control of entities, now state sovereignty is dramatically eroded. In short, the Federalist model is destroyed. That is clearly "Change you can believe in." I just abhor the belief. 

The Fallacy of the Middle

The Editorial and Op Ed pages of the newspapers, and the weekly magazine are full of advice for Republicans as to how they can save themselves from extinction. That advice is almost universally: Move to the Middle of the political spectrum, or perhaps, get closer to the Democrats. This advice is becoming conventional wisdom, even from many within the Republican party.

I will admit that as a, "real, old fashioned, John Stuart Mill type liberal" I have found that the Republican party has been the only place where I could find most of my beliefs sufficiently present and capable of being executed. That said, I have a set of core values and beliefs that transcend the political process, but just being a philosopher does not have much of a chance to shape society. 

Hence, as a "modern day conservative," I care about the future of the Republican party, because I believe that it must remain the voice of the core values and principles that I profess to believe in. In my view, the problem with the Republican party is not that it has become too far right, but that it has attempted to move in a leftward direction that embraces so many of the misguided principles and policies of the Democrats, that it is at risk of being marginalized, yes even extinct, not because it is too conservative; but rather that it becomes an impotent "clone" of the Democrats.

The issue is that once a conservative embraces the current day liberal policies and proposals, it moves away from its principles and beliefs. A real conservative believes in the primacy of individual liberty; in the need for the individual to take ownership of her life; in the superiority of the free market economic system vs. socialist collectivism; in the need to staunchly defend the country from ideological and physical attack from its "enemies" ;in short, to prevent the state from control the factors of production and the free will and exercise liberty, equality and justice, Except in those cases where individual action, actually does overt harm to the rest of society as a whole.

Adam Smith, John Stuart and Milton Friedman all recognized that it is possible for individuals to take actions that can, individually or collectively, do damage to the society. Smith talked about the collusion that is possible in a society, and they, and other writers, have always acknowledged that government and society at large, must protect itself from these actions. Hence, real modern day conservatives, are not advocates of unbridled capitalism or free markets.

The key in all this is, if Republicans abandon these principles and move toward policies that violate these core values, they will no longer be true to a set of values; all they will be doing is agreeing to support things that they believe will get them elected.

Modern day Liberals call themselves "progressives" because they are trying to push an agenda for change that they pawn off as progressive improvement. That sounds great, but all too often, these are not improvement, they represent a state solution to an individual challenge or issue. Once the state decides to "solve a problem" it must have the resources to act. Those resources must come from somewhere, and the somewhere is from taxes. Once a tax, takes money from those who have the resource, to provide a support to those who do not; that is a society that is redistributing wealth. The more problems are solved in this way, the more two things happen: 1) those with accumulated assets or income increasingly support those without, and 2) those without resources become increasingly dependent on government and hence, government and the politicians who run government become increasingly more powerful and entrenched because the dependent will always vote for those who control the purse strings.

Again, I believe that is an undesirable state of affairs, and hence, the more that the Republicans conclude that they must follow the same path, the more this guarantees that individual liberty and wealth redistribution will become the common state of political process. What "average, resource poor" citizen would vote oust a politician who promises to either continue or increase the amount of public subsidy of their lifestyle?

Hence, my proposal to the Republicans is, do not move to the left; move back to your principles, and propose policies and processes that preserve our life, liberty and the PURSUIT of Happiness. Not guarantee Happiness, but guarantee the right to pursue happiness. FIGHT FOR THE REALITY BASED LIGHT OF INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY, NOT COLLECTIVIST UTOPIA.

Jack Kemp - A Huge loss

A true human and political loss. Jack Kemp was in very large measure the legislative version of  Ronald Reagan. Like Reagan, he has an nontraditional start for a politician. As an AFL quarterback, he exhibited competitiveness and leadership and later proved that he was also a sound political thnker. He was a very early advocate of tax cuts to stimulate the economy, and was in many ways a legitimate "Economist like thinker." I am certain many of you knew him as I did, and candidly, we have lost a person who was a legitimate conservative, but who knew that people mattered. Idealogy is not what makes a leader: love for humans is.