The Democrats Rejoice

I don’t always agree with David Brooks,  and coming from a man with a viewpoint more liberal than mine,  this piece on the current health-care legislation is very insightful.

Op-Ed Columnist – The Democrats Rejoice – NYTimes.com.

Just Another Step on the Road to Perdition

It’s over…  Obamacare is here.

I give the man credit.  His clinkers are definitely more substantial than I had imagined… I truly believed that he would not risk his presidency on such monumental legislation.  Nor did I believe he had the political will nor power to succeed.   Well I was very, very, very wrong.

When A policeman confronts an armed criminal, when a fireman steps into a burning building, when a president is instrumental in enacting such legislation, there are risks involved.  I do not believe that the American citizenry wanted this bill.  Mid-term elections will tell the tale.  If republicans win big in November, Obama might be served up as a lame duck… just in time for thanksgiving.

News Analysis – Obama’s Health Care Victory Carries a Cost – NYTimes.com.

The Misesian Vision

Do you believe in FREEDOM?  You won’t find it with the Republicrats in Washington, DC.  You might catch a glimmer of it in this article by Lew Rockwell.

The Misesian Vision by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr..

Is America Moving Right? by Patrick J. Buchanan

Pat Buchanan believes that Ron Paul’s ideas are what Americans are looking for.  I hope he’s right

Is America Moving Right? by Patrick J. Buchanan.

Treasury Resisting TARP Transparency, Oversight

700 Billion dollars… Real money, folks, and the banks can’t tell us what they did with it?  They seem to understand my mortgage pretty well.  Accountancy on gifted funds from the Fed must not be as important as the loans they make to the small fish like me.

Big business, big government, big problem, I’m thinkin’.

Read this article.  If you can come away without the understanding that BIG GOVERNMENT IS NOT OUR FRIEND, well… good luck comrade.

Treasury Resisting TARP Transparency, Oversight | Mother Jones.

RealClearPolitics – Election 2010 – Massachusetts Senate – Special Election

Who’d’a thunk it?  In one of the most liberal states in the nation,  Republican Scott Brown may be successor to one of the most liberal Democrats to ever sit in the Senate.  Ted Kennedy held his seat for 46 years, and certainly must be turning over in his grave at the possibility of this, what some might call, inconceivable notion.

RealClearPolitics – Election 2010 – Massachusetts Senate – Special Election.

Bubble Warning

It’s not just the “wackos” Peter Schiff and Gerard Celente that are talking about the current asset bubble and its implications for our economy… It’s  major magazines like The Economist that are forecasting a continuation of our economic problems.

2007 was a bad year with 2008 and 2009 only a little better, but that does not mean that our economy is on the road to recovery.  The worst may be yet to come folks.  2010 looks bad for America as well.

Japan’s market has languished for nearly twenty years.  Are we in for the same?

Markets: Bubble warning | The Economist.

It was the easy money policies of the Fed that created the market ambiguities that caused the current economic mess we are in, and more easy money policies and economic stimulus will not repair it.  That is like giving more poison to the already poisoned man in the hopes that it will cure him.

The Federal government and its central bank are this very day driving us deeper and deeper into an economic hole.  The Federal Reserve Bank is the primary reason that we are in this mess.  Its power over the money supply has given politicians the wherewithal to grow the authoritan government immensely, to finance its wars and social programs, and serve the needs of the banker/market/oligarchs on Wall Street.

Andrew Jackson killed the Bank of the United States, and we need to kill the Federal Reserve Bank. Jackson believed that the Bank of the United States was a threat to the liberty of the people.   The  threat of the central bank has not changed.  There is no greater threat to our liberty than the FRB.

Obama’s Security ‘Breach’ – WSJ.com

How can the current administration believe that it is our nation’s best interest to return Gitmo detainees to Yemen?  Is there anyone in Washington with a brain?

Obama’s Security ‘Breach’ – WSJ.com.

Tea Parties, Third Parties and the Republican Party

I have read that over 50 percent of the people in this country today are registered as independents.  The reasons for this are many.  The Tea Party crowd, made up primarily of conservative Americans will be an important part of the electoral equation come 2012.  Will the Republicans be able to garner their support?  This article suggests that they may not.

Big Government » Blog Archive » Tea Parties, Third Parties and the Republican Party.

2010

The holidays are upon us, and a new year approaches.  There are wars and rumors of wars and revolutions.   Politics in America are fractious and factioned.  The United States of America, and indeed the world entire is threatened with potential economic collapse, and yet I see room for hope.

America is unique in the history of the world.  We are a nation founded on a fundamental ideology of economic and personal liberty, and limited government as described in our Declaration of Independence  and put into practice by our Constitution.    Some might ask “Why limited government.”   The answer to this question is simple.  Economic and personal liberty can only be achieved and maintained by means of a limited central government.  Justice Louis Brandeis understood this and remarked on this understanding when he wrote:

“Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purposes are beneficial.  Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers.  The greater dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”

Justice Lous Brandeis

And this is how government grows and becomes more intrusive of our liberties.  That is through the  “insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.” That is men and women who would do good for others, and use the government to that end.

Wanting to do good for others is both commendable and laudable, but this is not natural or necessary, or in my view an acceptable role for the federal government.  This is a role for the states and the  communities within those states.  No government in Washington D.C. understands the  problems of the myriad of communities across this nation better than do the communities themselves.

Top down systems of government and economics simply do not work well.  Capitalism, as viewed by Adam Smith in his seminal work  Wealth of Nations, shows that an individual’s decisions based on his personal economic well being was led by “an invisible hand” to promote the well being of the greater community.  Well intentioned and intrusive governmental regulation often have consequences that are unintended by the lawamakers.  These consequences then require more regulation and intrusion and so on ad infinitum.

I smell a sea change, however.  America is disgruntled.  With near 20% of Americans un or under-employed, the realities of our government’s fiscal irresponsibility are beginning to be noticed and understood by a larger number of our citizenry.

Bills in congress and the senate to audit the federal reserve bank are but the first rumblings to bring under control a spending addicted government.  As our economic condition worsens, and  there are many  reasons to believe that it will, more and more of the people will begin to see that the statist road towards empire , along which both Republicans and Democrats  have been leading us for the last century, should be a road less traveled.

So, yes, there is hope for a brighter future, a new America, an America of principles,  freedom and liberty;  A nation where a free people can keep the fruits of their labor and involve themselves in community:  a country that serves as a beacon of liberty to the world while avoiding the hollow greatness of empire.

So, I wish you the best for the coming new year.  It promises to be a tumultuous one.  Guard your finances, your friends and family well, and above all, remain hopeful for the future.  We are a great people, a great nation, and we will, in the end, survive and I believe prosper.