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I still have this blog?

Posted by Deadpan on Thursday, June 19, 2008 6:19:35 PM
I confess to having ADHD.  What can I say? 

While I was on vacation, it appears that SCOTUS went off the reservation again, indeed, declared the reservation illegal. 

When did we all adopt the belief that we can trust the courts when we can't trust anybody else in government?  This is supposed to be government by the people, and I would bet that the majority of the American people would not agree with a lot of the stupid decisions coming from the judicial branch, let alone the Congress and the post-New-Deal bureaucracy.  They certainly don't trust the news media, but too many of them still believe what they hear on comedy talk shows.
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Civil rights don't guarantee happiness.

Posted by Deadpan on Tuesday, April 01, 2008 7:19:06 PM
One of the best answers to Obama's call for yet more conversation on race is this one, by James Lewis.  The failure of the left in general and of African American leaders since Martin Luther King, in particularly, has been to assume that what equal rights means is that you get everything you want, i. e. that government has the duty to make everybody happy.  It's been shown over and over than happiness doesn't necessarily correlate with material prosperity, but to listen to black leaders and politicians you'd think so.  You might get a job, but it doesn't mean you'll enjoy it, or that it will pay you what you think you're worth. 

I've thought often that blacks seem to have a warped idea of what it's like to be white in America. 

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The Stealth Candidate spotted

Posted by Deadpan on Monday, March 31, 2008 10:38:56 PM
Barack Obama has kept his campaign vague and counted on voters filling in the blanks, but now that he's almost sewed up the nomination, his real opinions are beginning to trickle out, and I suspect that they will cost him some support, particularly among gun owners.  Then there's this:
In 1992 Obama took time off to direct Project Vote, the most successful grass-roots voter-registration campaign in recent city history. Credited with helping elect Carol Moseley-Braun to the U.S. Senate, the registration drive, aimed primarily at African-Americans, added an estimated 125,000 voters to the voter rolls--even more than were registered during Harold Washington's mayoral campaigns. "It's a power thing," said the brochures and radio commercials.

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The will to win?

Posted by Deadpan on Monday, March 31, 2008 6:13:03 PM
Star Parker maintains that the real "transcendent threat" of our time is not Islamist terrorism, but the moral decline in our own society.  She points to the bankruptcy of our entitlement programs and the huge numbers of births to unwed mothers, the spread of STDs, widespread abortions, etc.
Half our country today is ready to vote for a presidential candidate, be it a white woman or a black man, who favors promiscuous use of government power to pretend to solve every domestic challenge we have.

Both these candidates want to nationalize health care, raise taxes to deal with our Social Security and Medicare crises, and onerously regulate the mortgage industry. Both condemned the Supreme Court's decision banning partial birth abortion. Both reject the only hope we have for addressing our education problems: school choice.

I appreciate your concern for how we are treating the 600 or so detainees we are holding in Guantanamo.

But have you thought about the 2.3 million of our own citizens -- 1 percent of our adult population -- in prison? Ten percent of black men between 20 and 34 are in prison or jail.
Read the whole thing.

Meanwhile Barack Obama reinforces her point: <blockquote>“Look, I got two daughters — 9 years old and 6 years old,” Obama said. “I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby. I don’t want them punished with an STD at age 16, so it doesn’t make sense to not give them information.”</blockquote>Babies are a punishment?  Remember the outrage when some Evangelicals said they thought the AIDS epidemic was God's punishment for immorality?  Where's the outrage when Obama calls STDs and babies "punishment?"

Then read this on the decline of marriage in formerly Great Britain. Are we far behind?
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Right on the war -- not good enough

Posted by Deadpan on Sunday, March 30, 2008 11:15:33 PM
We're in a position this year to select the least of three evils.  John McCain is every bit as stubborn as George Bush on seeing the war through in Iraq, which is better than the Democrats, but his belief in global-warming is pretty dangerous too.  Capping and trading is both economically silly, and intellectually dishonest, when you think about it.  Consider how the left would react if we proposes that rich people be allowed to pay poor people to stay poor, in exchange for allowing them to continue to enjoy their riches. 

On second thought, the latter exchange may be just what's behind the phenomenon of liberal guilt.
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When will Hollywood order a stoploss on anti-war films?

Posted by Deadpan on Sunday, March 30, 2008 11:03:13 PM
One of the surest ways to minimize the return on investment in movies these days is to put money into an anti-Iraq-war film.  The latest disappointment is "Stoploss," about a soldier who is required to return after serving a tour in Iraq. Apparently screenwriters these days are unfamiliar with the quality of men and women who enlist in the military and honor their commitments.  They don't seem to think such heroes are believable. 
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Ouch!

Posted by Deadpan on Friday, March 28, 2008 3:49:20 PM
The mainstream media may have moved on from Obama's Jeremiah Wright problem, but Jim Geraghty hasn't.   Obama either lacks  substance or integrity or both.  It's become clearer all the time that he's not what he's pretending to be and may be nothing more than a poseur.'

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The Emerging Obama

Posted by Deadpan on Thursday, March 27, 2008 10:53:08 PM
Barack Obama has gotten incredibly far in his campaign by speaking in platitudes while offering little substance for voters or opponents to focus on.  That's beginning to change, as his radical history becomes clearer.  You can't attend a church with a preacher like Jeremiah Wright for 20 years and be as ignorant of his bitter resentment of America as Obama claims to be, and you can't claim to reject the virulent paranoid views expressed by Pastor Wright without being able to point to anything you've done to correct or moderate his angry fire and brimstone judgments of this nation. 

His speech calling for yet another "conversation on race," and his criticisms of other candidates or commentators for "divisiveness" suggest that he's either a simpleton or just being evasive.  I don't think he's a simpleton.   Today's speech on the economy was more of the same, although he made it clear that he would support more regulations of financial markets and probably expensive bailouts of people caught short by adjustable rate mortgages for which they should not have qualified in the first place.  

This analysis of his attacks on NAFTA demonstrates the shallowness and dishonesty of his positions. 

Although, I tuned away from Hugh Hewitt's playing of excerpts of Obama reading his books (really boring radio), he did make the point that Obama is not the clean cut naif his vague rhetoric might suggest.   His first book, at least, is full of vulgarities, obscenities and language that a church-going Christian would be embarrassed to read for the audio version.  This is not by itself a basis for dismissing him as a leader, but it is part of a pattern that is becoming clearer as his campaign has run into some turbulence.  That  pattern is one of a person who is deliberately running as a blank slate, avoiding any positions that might reveal him to be the big government liberal he is.  He poses as a mediator between the races, but it's very doubtful that he would maintain that pose after taking office. 

He seems to be unwilling to debate concrete specifics, preferring politically correct objections like "You're using divisive tactics," as if politics isn't inherently divisive.  The whole point is to let voters know where you differ from your opponents.  If you refuse to do so, I see no reason to trust you, especially with the Presidency of the most powerful nation on earth. 

The strangest thing about his campaign to me thus far is his reputation for great oratory.   His actual speaking style is well modulated, but hardly rousing or spirited.  It's more like that of a professor lecturing a class, and it's a long way from matching John F. Kennedy's speeches. 
'

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Obama's Oratory

Posted by Deadpan on Thursday, March 27, 2008 3:11:22 PM
I listened to his speech on the economy this morning until I couldn't stand any more.  He's very smart, but then so was Jayson Blair.  What they have in common is the ability to sound genuine when they're only poseurs.  Obama started out paying lip service to Alexander Hamilton and free markets, using a lot of economic terminology, then doing a neat 180 turn and talking about how the markets need government regulation to protect the weak and vulnerable.  His vocabulary and references sounded impressive, but he really didn't say anything except to make it clear that he would like us to steer straight down the middle of the road to serfdom.   He talked about the Invisible Hand, but asserted that it mustn't be allowed to operate freely.

Huh?  What does he think makes markets efficient?  Centralized planning?

``Our free market was never meant to be a free license to take whatever you can get, however you can get it,'' Obama said in an address at New York's Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. ``The American economy does not stand still, and neither should the rules that govern it.''
 His whole speech is an oxymoron and a pose.  You can't mention free markets and rules governing them in the same breath and know what you're talking about.  As a matter of fact, true free markets ARE "meant to be free licenses to  take whatever you can get, however you can get it."  That's what "free" means.  The whole point of the Invisible Hand is to allow competition to adjust goods and prices without intervention from government, except to enhance competition.  Of course, what drives the mechanism is self-interest which spurs producers to meet market demands and charge as much as you can, but subject to the countervailing pressure of competition, which limits the prices one can charge.  The result is more products, innovation, variety and styles and lower prices. 

When government tries to tinker with markets, it fouls up the functioning of the market mechanism.  When government regulates businesses, the businesses usually end up controlling the regulatory policies to their own advantage.  

All that is elementary economics, but Obama simply throws the terminology around while calling for more central planning, more subsidies and guarantees.  He reverts to the old classs warfare rhetoric of the populist demagogue, blaming Wall Street for the problems of Main Street and becomes a stern lecturer, despite not knowing what he's talking about.  It sounds good to those who pity themselves and want government power to intervene on their behalf, even though it has never worked.  Socialist entitlement programs and regulatory agencies which serve the interests of those enterprises with sufficient resources to hire lobbyists and lawyers aplenty are bleeding our nation white, but liberals like Obama and Clinton only see the problems created as new opportunities to raise taxes and spending in order to buy votes with the voters' own money. 

I had been wondering where Obama's glorious oratory I'd heard about was.  Now I'm convinced that it just isn't there.  Obama knows how to use phrases that liberals and minorities love, but he doesn't say  anything coherent.  As I said, he's Jayson Blair running for President. 

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We all hate war

Posted by Deadpan on Wednesday, March 26, 2008 3:31:59 PM
McCain's foreign policy speech will be scoffed at by the self-righteous pacifists who are in the drivers seat of the Democratic Party, but it only shows how deranged they are to seriously claim that Bush, Cheney, McCain or anybody who has seen a real war actually prefers one to peace.   Every time this subject comes up, I remember the lines quoted by Patrick Henry, "Gentlemen may cry 'Peace! Peace!' but there is no peace.  We tried to stay out of World Wars I and II and in the end they were greater tragedies. 

Those who only focus on body-counts and never count the harm done in the world by those whom we oppose are guilty of criminal indifference.  Sometimes we can't act where we would like to, but we should be engaged in a world wide offensive for freedom and self-determination through whatever means we can use. 

The first thing we need to do is put our own house in order, and quit spending our resources on socialist entitlement programs.  Self-reliance is necessary.  We need to pay our debts and balance our spending, so that we don't have nations like China holding our bonds.  We need to serve notice on Europe and South Korea and Japan whose economies are now rebuilt, that we will expect them to assume the responsibility for their own defense, and our troops will be reduced around the world.  We need to apply sound science and cost-benefit analysis to our environmental laws.  The reason we're sending untold billions of dollars to OPEC is that we have put most of our own resources off limits, often for the most ludicrous of reasons. 

We need to demand that our children be taught basic skills and knowledge of unhyphenated history of the world, of our European traditions and of this nation.  They need to know how government works, because it is theirs to choose.  They need to understand why America is special in the world for positive as well as negative reasons.  They need to be taught the meaning of our national creed, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, together with critical thinking skills to enable them to see through the fallacies that are beamed at them every minute of every day, through news media, advertising and politics.  We need to teach them self-reliance and the duties of citizenship.  We need to offer them the truly great art, music and literature of the past so that they can appreciate what is being produced in their own time.

Lastly, we need to understand that freedom is not a gift of history, but rather the exception.  Whenever there is weakness, tyrants and warlords will seek to exploit it.  Read Herodotus.  We need to know how to defend ourselves both at home and through military action.  I would love to see a renewal of the obligation to serve either in the active military or the National Guard.  War is not something to seek for, but it must never be something we fear so much that we allow our freedoms, our homes and our families to be endangered.

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Are we ready for a psychodrama?

Posted by Deadpan on Wednesday, March 26, 2008 3:03:13 PM
Walter Williams asks if Obama is up to being the first Af-Am president.
The much more important question is whether Obama is ready for America and even more important is whether black people can afford Obama.
He means that if Obama gets elected and does a poor job, will the nation be able to disregard race in candidates in the future, making the point that if Jackie Robinson hadn't been a great player, it might have been a long time before MLB gave another black player a chance. 

I think that Obama sincerely wants to bring the races together and do away with rancor on both sides, but being President is about much, much more than that.  I'm not sure he's really ever thought about much more than his identity as a biracial man, trying to live in both worlds.  It's a noble effort, but I don't really want to return to the rancor of the Civil Rights fights of the past, and watching Jeremiah Wright's diatribes, you know that AfAms will want what they think they're due.  Civil  rights laws, affirmative action and racial preferences
haven't changed the attitudes that America is still viciously racists--"mean" in the words of Michelle Obama, despite how well it's treated her and her family.  Did she really expect that everything would just flow to her without effort?  That's not how most people experience life.  Do all AfAms believe that it's so much easier for white people.  I doubt I would have gotten into an Ivy League school, although one of my sons did.  Being equal doesn't guarantee you anything but the right to compete on an even field, and even then you compete against your fellow minority members.  Sometimes I sense that Obama is trying to get that across to his fellow African Americans, but from listening to the clips from Jeremiah Wright, I get the feeling that their leaders are stirring them up to anger over fictitious offenses, feeding them racism against Jews and Latinos, and promoting a sense of entitlement that fails to acknowledge the great advances made in the past 60 years, sometimes even overshooting the mark.  

So I'm confused.  Does Obama believe his wife and Mr. Wright who see America as mean, even vicious and criminal, or does he think AfAms need to understand whites better and recognize that we, like them, need to be taken one at a time and judged for who we are and the content of our individual characters?

As far as the other jobs of the President, he has no appreciable experience.  Of course, he'll have advisers, but he has to know whom to appoint and how to administer the biggest bureaucracy, the biggest economy and the most powerful military on earth.  What has he done that demonstrates the experience or the skills necessary for that assignment. 

I'm not a fan of McCain, but he's been in Washington a lot longer than either Hillary or Obama, and I think, at least I hope, that he knows enough to know what he doesn't know and how to select smart and able people to help him. 
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The Showdown Ahead

Posted by Deadpan on Tuesday, March 25, 2008 8:15:15 PM
Robert Kagan thinks the hopes for the moderating influence of economic growth may not be working in China.
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How could Bill Richardson endorse Obama?

Posted by Deadpan on Monday, March 24, 2008 8:23:47 PM
Easily, writes Byron York:

I think Richardson believes that, whatever he owes the Clintons for his appointments as Energy Secretary and United Nations Ambassador, he fully repaid his debt during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Read the whole post.
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Obama pretentious? Don't be divisive!

Posted by Deadpan on Sunday, March 23, 2008 11:15:33 PM
You're a biracial kid growing up in the U.S.  Your name is Barry, but you decide to start using your formal name, Barack, although not necessarily your middle name, Hussein.  Why?  What are you trying to say?

According to Newsweek, "The choice is part of his almost lifelong quest for identity and belonging—to figure out who he is, and how he fits into the larger American tapestry."  Yeah, it's pop psychology, but as a reason for wanting to be President, it really sucks.
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Divisiveness! Oh, my!

Posted by Deadpan on Sunday, March 23, 2008 10:40:50 PM
It's "divisiveness" if Barack Obama is any guide:
Former President Clinton is using divisive tactics and unfairly trying to question Barack Obama's patriotism, a retired general who has a prominent role in the Democrat's campaign said Saturday. Merrill "Tony" McPeak said he was astonished and disappointed by recent comments Bill Clinton made while speculating about a general election between Obama's Democratic rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Republican John McCain. [My italics]
Sorry, Tony, but this is a political campaign, not a prayer service. The whole purpose is to drawn distinctions between candidates and persuade voters to support one over another. Criticizing an opponent for "divisive tactics" is a lot like the defenders of Bill Clinton in Congress during his impeachment hearings complaining that the proceedings weren't bipartisan. This is the kind of criticism that is really reflexive, i.e. it reflects on the motives of the person making it, more than on the one being criticized, since the first party is just as much in control of the divisiveness or partisanship of the situation as the second. In short, it's a phony rhetorical fallacy and means little or nothing. Nobody has an obligation to be unified with the other party or candidate during a campaign. Imagine, for example, the response in the media had President Bush faulted them and the Democrats for being "divisive" on the war. There is a tradition in this country that "politics stops at the water's edge," meaning that it harms the nation's ability to conduct foreign policy and particularly the morale of our armed forces during war for the home front to be disunited, acrimonious and undermining to the president's policies. I wonder if Obama has considered the "divisive" effect and the encouragement of our enemies from his criticism of the war and his vying with Hillary as to who will withdraw our troops faster from Iraq.

Candidates have to struggle to find differences between themselves in the primaries. This kind of accusation may work between Democrats, but it may make Obama's candidacy look pretty amateurish in the main campaign if/when he confronts John McCain, if McCain has any good media people.
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