President Obama, four days into his job, facing a bad economy, terrorism, conflict in the Middle East, and domestic political strife in Washington wasted no time to take dramatic action.  Action that the American people had been demanding from day one and were, perhaps, upset that it had taken his administration three additional days to get around to.  Of course I am talking about his signing an executive order to allow tax payer money to be used to promote and fund abortions in other countries.  Yes, the U.S. Government is going to be running an estimated $1 trillion budget deficit, but I guess a little money can be spared as long as it is for something worthwhile.  Thank you President Obama for working so diligently on behalf of the American people and our pressing issues.

Please note:  this post may contain up to 98% sarcasm with a +/- 2 percent margin of error.

So all eyes of the media and liberal groups (isn’t that the same?) were on the inauguration of President Barack Obama.  The specific focus of the left’s ire was Rick Warren because of his support for California’s Proposition 8 which amended the state Constitution to recognize marriage as between a man and woman only.

However, another figure drew my attention.  Rev. Joseph Lowery gave the benediction for President Barack Obama’s inauguration.  During his speech (4:30 into it), Rev. Lowery appeals to God, stating he hopes that black would not be asked to get back and that white would embrace what is right.

I thought Barack Obama had talked about the election not being about black vs. white.  And now he embraces someone who openly chastises whites as not doing what is right.  However, he has a major problem with his thesis–the exit polling.  Whites did not look at the color of the skin of the candidates.  However, that seems to have played a role in the voting patterns of others (Exit polling data from CNN).

In the 2008 Presidential election, white voters represented 74% of the electorate and cast their ballots in favor of Senator John McCain only 55%-43% over Senator Barack Obama.  However, African-Americans, who representaed 13% of the electorate, voted in favor of Senator Obama 95%-4% over Senator McCain.  Looking at the facts, there appear to be some people who do care about race when voting.

Biggest Boondoggle in American History, from Powerlineblog.com.  Includes an email sent out from House Minority Leader John Boehner regarding House Democrat’s new Stimulus package bill.  For me, it falls under the category of “are you kidding me?”

The Bush Economy, from the Wall Street Journal.  A good, balanced (though newspaper length, naturally) look at what went right and wrong during the Bush administration.

History Will Show That George W. Bush Was Right, from the Telegraph.  Written by British historian Andrew Roberts.  Mostly goes from the foreign policy angle.

The Minnesota Recount Was Unconstitutional, from the Wall Street Journal, by constitutional law scholar/professor Michael Stokes Paulsen.  A must read for anyone trying to figure out the mess that is the Coleman-Franken situation.  For further commentary on the article please see this.

Professor Denies Global Warming Theory, from the Daily Princetonian.  Princeton Physics prof says “oh no you didn’t!” to Global Warming.

2008 Was The Year Man-Made Global Warming Was Disproved, from the Telegraph.

As an added bonus, I came up with a new drinking game for all of you college kids.  Watch this Youtube video and witness bastion of journalistic integrity Keith Olbermann sum up Bush’s 8 years in office.  Take a drink every time he exaggerates, lies, deceives, re-writes history, leaves essential facts out, bloviates, rants, etc.  Even the most hardy frat-boy will have alcohol poisoning after 2 minutes.  It would be hilarious if there weren’t so many normal people who actually think he’s reporting facts.  Just in case you aren’t able to stomach the entire thing, one of my personal favorite parts is where he informs us that Bush created the oil bubble right before he personally brought the housing crisis upon us.  The only crimes I could think of that Olbermann missed was that 9/11 was as inside job and that Hurricane Katrina was caused by Bush’s weather machine in a valiant effort to destroy rap music.

Apparently Obama is sending all of us who pay attention (and have a clue) a direct message, that says “hey all of you who didn’t vote for me: it’s going to be a long four years.”  Additionally, congressional Democrats are banking on the 90 second attention span of the electorate to tide them over the next few months, a bet which will undoubtedly go in their favor.  Just look at this article from the Politico, regarding Obama’s plea to Senate Democrats to free up the remaining $350 Billion in TARP funds, so that he’ll be able to get right to work healing the world next week.  I’ll pull out a few choice quotes/ideas.

Firstly, class A scumbag Chris Dodd informs us that “This is not a popular vote.  This is a tough issue.”  Unfortunately, we all know that popularity or difficulty are never deterrents for our elected officials.  It sure didn’t deter them from drafting the legislation in the first place, despite opposition from nearly everyone with common sense.

Secondly, the article points out that “lawmakers from both sides have criticized the Treasury Department for its administration and shifting rational for the fund, called the Troubled Asset Relief Program.”  This is especially curious given that the legislation was approved and written by the same lawmakers.  Maybe they should have thought about these things before they wrote it and then had it signed into law.  Can’t do much complaining about a problem they created in the first place.  Naturally this will all be blamed on Bush, as most everything has been and will continue to be for years to come.  Adding to the lunacy is Harry Reid, saying “The TARP legislation…we must approve that, for a number of reasons, the most important of which is the ability to do something about housing…  We can all look back and talk about how the first $350 billion was not spent, but it’s very clear that there’s going to be a lot of money spent to help the housing industry.”  Translation: we have no idea what happened to the first $350 Billion.  We know it didn’t work, despite our ranting and raving about the urgency of the problem.  But don’t worry- this time it will.”

And last but not least, Obama himself “told the senators that he shared their concerns about the lack of transparency and accountability for the first $350 billion portion of the funds, which largely went to banks and auto companies… But he also stressed the urgency of his request, saying that the funds are a necessary tool to boost the struggling economy.”  Which is basically the same thing Reid said, but with the style and flair we will all quickly grow accustomed to.  It all makes perfect sense.  So far, the dire, time sensitive problem has not been fixed by throwing huge amounts of money at it.  But maybe if we throw even more money against the wall, then maybe, just maybe, something will stick.  You can just hear them thinking: “It hasn’t worked yet, but why should that stop us from trying again?  It’s not like the electorate is going to remember or care anyway.  American Idol started back up again, so they’ll be busy until May.”

I sure hope they’re wrong.

I don’t really have anything awe inspiring to write about the conflict in Israel, other than it’s more of the same:

1.) Hamas and Co. fire rockets at Israel’s civilian centers.

2.) Israel puts up with it for months and then finally answers back.

3.) The world condemns Israel.

I do not believe this will ever change and thus, it does not surprise me or shock me when it occurs.  However, the conflict does touch on something that interests me and that was an issue during the Presidential campaign: negotiating with rogue regimes and their leaders.

During the Presidential campaign, Obama stated repeatedly that he didn’t see the big deal in sitting down and talking with our enemies.  His supporters often contend that this is one of the reasons the world no longer respects us, because of our “you’re either with us or against us” mentality.  This type of thinking is standard on the Left: if only our enemies really knew us, they’d like us more; if we could just sit down and talk with them, everything would be okay.  (This is in the same league of delusion as “you fear what you don’t understand.”  As Reagan said of Communism, we fear it because we understand it all too well.)

Don’t get me wrong, diplomacy is very important - vital in fact - but it is not the panacea for world peace that liberals often make it out to be.  Diplomacy is simply a means to an end.  It is not the end itself.  Meeting together and discussing peace or even signing a deal dedicated to peace means nothing unless both signatories have the intention of holding themselves (and each other) to that agreement.  Often, diplomacy is simply used as a stall tactic to buy time to gain the upper hand or as a way of blackmailing the world.  History is rife with examples of such tomfoolery.  Three off the top of my head:

1.)  The USSR repeatedly signed arms control treaties with the US only to violate them from day one of the treaty.  In the mind of the Soviets, arms control treaties were a good way to halt US arms production and therefore provide time to increase its own arms superiority.

2.)  North Korea on several occasions has agreed to give up its nuclear weapons program in exchange for tangible benefits.  Each time the US has agreed and some bright leader (often Jimmy Carter) comes home declaring “peace in our time,” only to be surprised a year later when the North Koreans renege on their commitment.

3.) During the Vietnam War, the North Vietnamese (and their communist sponsers in China and the Soviet Union) pushed for negotiations and conferences in order to end the violence.  When it was agreed to meet with them, the North Vietnamese simply used the time to lick their wounds and reconstitute the war effort, continuing the war once the negotiations were over.

In any of these instances, the question is always the same: why would the hostile party agree to a deal that is in exact opposition to its desired (and often stated) ends?  Why would Hamas actually commit to the Western definition of peace when the stated purpose of its organization is to eliminate the state of Israel?  Why would North Korea commit to give up its nuclear weapons program when it is the only thing that demands respect from the outside world and can be used every few years as a negotiating tool to receive things from the West that it otherwise could not hope to receive?  Why would Iran, a state whose leaders have stated their desire to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, not want the most destructive weapon on earth?

It is also important to consider what is meant by “peace.”  Peace is not simply the absence of armed conflict.  Whereas to communism peace was defined as living in a world without capitalist oppression of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat, to the Palestinians peace is defined as living in a world without Israel.  By these definitions, the West could not actually be “at peace” with the Soviet Union nor could Israel ever be “at peace” with the Palestinians.  Any deal suggesting otherwise is fools gold.  Unless there is a concrete reason to hope that the ends of a particular country will change, there is simply no point in discussing the matter with them and negotiating a peace settlement.  In fact, its actually dangerous to do so because it gives the appearance of peace where no peace actually exists.  Rather, the enemy is using your delusion to improve his ability to kill you or otherwise achieve his ends.  It is false peace, more dangerous than no peace at all.

The main issue to understand is that the world is not like the United States and most of its citizens do not think like Americans.  Americans value law and order, negotiating in good faith and the importance of a man’s word.  However, most societies around the globe do not value any of these ideals.  When Americans sign something, it means they agree to adhere to it; if they do not, the other party can take them to court and force them to adhere to it.  However, in most societies corruption is the norm and bribes are simply viewed as a necessary step in accomplishing something.  Contracts are as flexible as the relationship between the two parties and generally speaking, there is no legal system to enforce the letter of the law.  So to the non-Western world, why not sign a treaty with the United States or Israel if it means a few months or years of being able to pursue one’s goals without the economic and military pressure to cease?  History shows us that in such cases the burden of proof is on the accuser to provide evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that said nation is violating the treaty.  Even with today’s technology, this is not easy to do.

Those who subscribe to the peace delusion were defined by Lenin as “useful idiots,” blind to the real intentions of the Soviet Union, but useful in allowing the USSR to achieve its ends.  Sadly, the West is still populated with “useful idiots,” the majority of whom reside squarely on the Left of the political spectrum (see: Carter Jr., James Earl; Kennedy, Edward M.; Biden Jr., Josesph R.  The list is endless.)

Given the fairly large slowdown in the way of current events (domestically and politically anyway… Israel is a big deal but not exactly my personal intellectual forte), especially as the country gears up for Jan. 20th, I have spent most of my time reading (and buying) a selection of books that have been recommended to me by various reliable sources. Given our current economic issues, I’m especially looking to strengthen my knowledge of free markets, capitalism, socialism, and economics in general, so most are of that slant. Here’s my current list, in case you would like to do the same.

The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression by Amity Shlaes

The Constitution of Liberty and The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek.

Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman

Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt

The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism by Michael Novak

The Wealth and Poverty of Nations by David S. Landes

Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism by Ronald J. Pestritto

Crisis of the House Divided: An Interpretation of the Issues in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates by Harry Jaffa

Human Action by Ludwig von Mises

Liberty versus the Tyranny of Socialism: Controversial Essays by Walter E. Williams

Happy educating everyone!

Big apologies for the lack of content of the last week or two. Strangely enough, we all got hit with fairly large things at the same time: finals, illness, crushing workloads, etc. For now, here is some excellent reading to tide you over. Some of it is a bit older (from a few weeks ago) but all relevant/interesting.

“Jolting” the Economy by Thomas Sowell, from TownHall.com

Peter Wallison on how the government created the financial crisis, from Instapundint.com

Why Reporters — and Judges and Professors — Are Biased by Dennis Prager, from TownHall.com

Iraq’s New Dawn: Victory Across The Board by Michael Yon. From the New York Post.

Guy who predicted the financial meltdown: Obama’s only making it worse, from HotAir.com

Scientists urge caution on global warming, from Politico.com

Tracking ‘The Gore Effect’, from Politico.com

The Barack-Blagojevich Stand Off, from The Weekly Standard Blog.

The Employee Free Choice Act Is Unconstitutional, from The Wall Street Journal.

Channeling Jimmy Carter, by Stephen Moore. From The Wall Street Journal.

Quantum of Solis, from the Wall Street Journal.

Obama Administration: Too Many Cooks? from the Weekly Standard Blog.

Adding on to Walter’s point below, the myth of the government being able to “create jobs” is the “broken window fallacy” where the focus is on what is seen instead of what is unseen.

Paraphrasing, it goes as follows: if a store owner accidentally breaks his window, he must hire someone to fix it, thus providing that man with work. So it creates jobs right? Why not break more windows and thus, create more work for the populace? Because the store owner who is paying to have his window fixed cannot use that money for something else. As Stossel writes:

A broken shop window will create work for a glassmaker, but that work comes only at the expense of the cook or tailor the shopkeeper would have patronized if he didn’t have to replace the window.

In other words, if the store owner hadn’t broken his window he would’ve spent that money at lunch in a restaurant across the street or maybe bought his wife flowers on the way home or even put it in the bank to one day purchase a new home. As he spent his money on the window, he cannot spend it elsewhere.

Breaking proverbial windows to create jobs is the solution for failure. Only business owners can creates jobs that push the country forward. America did not become the world’s largest economy by having the government shuffle money around. Eventually, the electric car and alternative forms of energy will become realities because of human ingenuity improving technology to the point where it becomes profitable, not because the government raised taxes in order to subsidize the creation of the electric car or because the environmental lobby guilted the American people into taking public transportation. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the government setting goals for private industry or for the nation in general; however, to demand technological ingenuity with one hand while bailing out the auto industry with the other is utter foolishness. Would your teenager improve his grades if you bought him a car for getting a D on his report card?

On Saturday President-Elect Obama gave us for the first time some details from his forthcoming economic plan. While we all can appreciate his well meaning intentions, his rhetoric seemed to be displaying the same enormous deficiency that should have derailed his entire campaign: a complete disregard for historical precedent. Obama intends to “save or create at least two and a half million jobs, while rebuilding our infrastructure, improving our schools, reducing our dependence on oil, and saving billions of dollars.” And he’s going to do this by investing (taxpayer) dollars in infrastructure construction and repair- rebuilding roads, retrofitting government buildings and schools to be more energy efficient, and installing the internet in schools and hospitals. (The careful observer will notice that Obama’s promise of 5 million jobs made repeatedly in the campaign has now been scaled down to 2.5 million jobs.) Unfortunately, this proposal seems to be suggesting a warm and fuzzy sounding band-aid to a cancer patient in need of serious chemotherapy. What he is presenting is a re-packaged New Deal/Great Society government solution to a problem government created in the first place. It has never worked before, and it won’t work this time. Just ask FDR and LBJ. History shows that government intervention turned a recession into the Great Depression. As Reagan said in his first inaugural address, “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” In a great article entitled “Green Jobs“, John Stossel points out the fatal flaw in the “government created jobs” idea:

The fallacy is the same in every case: Even if the program creates jobs building bridges or windmills, it necessarily prevents other jobs from being created. This is because government spending merely diverts money from private projects to government projects…. Governments create no wealth. They only move it around while taking a cut for their trouble. So any jobs created over here come at the expense of jobs that would have been created over there.

Obama said in his address that one of the measuring sticks he will use to determine the success of these programs is “whether America is more competitive in the world.” It’s really much more simple to do than he thinks. Forget this “new” job investment idea. Cut business/corporate tax rates, of which America currently has the 2nd highest in the world. Why would business people want to invest in a financial environment like we have now? Make income tax cuts permanent. Cut capital gains taxes. Wealth cannot be created by the government, it can only happen in the private sector. So set the American entrepreneur free- let us keep our own money and invest it back into the market, or wherever we see fit. That is how jobs are created, and they will be created here, on our own soil. The stock market, which thrives on stability, would sky rocket knowing exactly where its money will remain. The only way to fix this economy is to allow the private sector- the American people- to fix it themselves. The government can only get in our way.

The Democratic hopes of having a filibuster proof super majority (60 seats/votes) in the United States Senate was dashed when Saxby Chambliss won re-election in his runoff election with Jim Martin.  This is good news for conservatives–thank you Georgia voters.  Before President Obama can sign legislation into law it must pass both the House and Senate.  This means that some ultra-liberal legislation can be blocked my a minority of conservative Republicans in the Senate.  I hope they use this power wisely–with Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid they will need it.