Oh, no. This won’t set off conservative and libertarian alarm bells at all.

“The State watches over you”

I mean, what’s so threatening about a biometric database of all adult Americans being in the immigration bill, citizen?

The immigration reform measure the Senate began debating yesterday would create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in the U.S., in what privacy groups fear could be the first step to a ubiquitous national identification system.

Buried in the more than 800 pages of the bipartisan legislation (.pdf)  is language mandating the creation of the innocuously-named “photo tool,” a massive federal database administered by the Department of Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license or other state-issued photo ID.

Employers would be obliged to look up every new hire in the database to verify that they match their photo.

This piece of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act is aimed at curbing employment of undocumented immigrants. But privacy advocates fear the inevitable mission creep, ending with the proof of self being required at polling places, to rent a house, buy a gun, open a bank account, acquire credit, board a plane or even attend a sporting event or log on the internet. Think of it as a government version of Foursquare, with Big Brother cataloging every check-in.

Emphasis added.

Nah, there are no 4th Amendment illegal search and privacy concerns here. Nothing to see, carry on. After all, wingnuts, you demanded greater security in the immigration bill and, well, here ya go! The government will make sure only bona fide Americans get jobs by keeping track of each and every one of us. And if they should find other uses for the information, well, that will be for the public good, too.

And you thought Person of Interest was just fiction.

If this Wired story is true, this provision is reason enough to kill the bill.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

The “Walker Effect”: Wisconsin PEU membership cratering?

Or maybe it’s the predictable result of restoring liberty to the people and not using the force of law to extort money from them for the benefit of union bosses (1). Regardless, the reforms Governor Walker instituted and then defended against thug tactics in Wisconsin have sent the membership numbers of at least one public employee union, AFSCME, into a tailspin:

According a Labor Department filing made last week, membership at Wisconsin’s American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 40 — one of AFSCME’s four branches in the state — has gone from the 31,730 it reported in 2011, to 29,777 in 2012, to just 20,488 now. That’s a drop of more than 11,000 — about a third — in just two years. The council represents city and county employees outside of Milwaukee County and child care workers across Wisconsin.

Labor Department filings also show that Wisconsin’s AFSCME Council 48, which represents city and county workers in Milwaukee County, went from 9,043 members in 2011, to 6,046 in 2012, to just 3,498 now.

(…)

They show why the state worker unions and their liberal allies fought such a protracted, bitter battle in 2011 over Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s changes to the state’s labor laws. Under the old laws, state employees were obligated to pay dues to a union even if that worker didn’t want to belong to a union. Walker changed that to allow state workers to opt out of paying those dues. He also required unions to submit to an annual re-certification vote. Without those requirements, the unions have found it much harder to retain members.

And I’d say this is a good thing for Wisconsin, as early results from the reforms have shown. As public employee unions have grown (Disclosure: I pay dues to one — against my will), they’ve come to treat the taxpayers as cash-cows, milking them for ever-higher salaries and benefits (often far better than for comparable positions in the private sector), whether justified or even healthy for the state. They’ve fought even the mildest reforms tooth-and-claw, as witnessed during the protests and occupation of the Wisconsin state capitol in 2011. In effect, they were acting as overlords demanding tribute from a subject people and becoming enraged when the people said “no more.”

If these membership numbers are any indication, a large and probably growing swath of Wisconsin public employees don’t like how their unions operate, either, and are making their feelings known loud and clear. And this has to have the union bosses frightened as the reform movement spreads from state to state.

via Power Line.

Footnote:
(1) The dues they take in are often spent on political activities and influence buying to pursue policy goals that many of their members would object to, or even consider irrelevant to their interests. This is often done through large contributions in money and campaign work to (largely Democratic) legislators, who then reward their employers — the unions, not necessarily the voters. It is, in effect, a corrupt kickback arrangement.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Ranking the States for Economic and Personal Freedom

Reblogged from International Liberty:

Sometimes I myopically focus on fiscal policy, implying that the key to prosperity is small government.

But I'll freely admit that growth is maximized when you have small government AND free markets.

That being said, our goal should be to expand freedom, not merely to have the largest possible GDP.

Which is why the Freedom Index is a good complement to…

Read more… 250 more words

This is a very interesting study. I'm sorry to say my beloved California comes in only at second place in "most un-free" states, behind New York. Come on, Sacramento! I'm sure you can do more to screw this place up! I have faith in you.

(Video) Is America Becoming Europe?

A philosophical question for you from Encounter Books and narrated by, I think, Bill Whittle:

My short answer is “No, and I’d  rather not live in Europe, thanks.” (Even though I live in one of the states closest to “might as well just join the EU and get it over with.”) If it means permanent 10% unemployment, economic stagnation, dependency on a cradle-to-grace welfare state, the high taxes meant to support it, and rule by a political class that thinks the people are to be controlled, not consulted… Well, I’ll pass.

Wait. I’ve  just described the modern (Social) Democratic Party, haven’t I?

Seriously, I’m old enough to remember the stagnation, declinism,  and national bad mood of the 70s, particularly under Jimmy Carter. Those times passed, and I’m sure these will too, but only if we work tirelessly to remind people there is a better way.

Complacency really will make us Europe.

PS: I can almost hear someone saying “Yeah, but we had Reagan, back then.” But few if any in the 70s knew that Reagan would become one of the most successful presidents in our history. Many didn’t take him seriously, calling him a fringe politician, a Goldwater throwback, even a nut and an amiable dunce. It wasn’t until several years into his presidency that we realized how right he was and how much good he was doing. We may or may not have a “Reagan” waiting in the wings, now, unnoticed or underestimated, but my point is that we can’t sit back, waiting for that person to save us. We have to work at it and stand against the spread of statism and dependency and for the promotion of liberty day after day, every day.

/soapbox

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Eurozone Chief: Cyprus was just the start

“EU bureaucrat at work.”

Hoo, boy. I just had a feeling that, once the the EUrocracy learned it could take depositors’ money at will without a total meltdown, the temptation to do it again (and again and again and again…) would be too great to  resist. Thus we read in the Telegraph:

Cyprus bail-out: savers will be raided to save euro in future crises, says eurozone chief

Savings accounts in Spain, Italy and other European countries will be raided if needed to preserve Europe’s single currency by propping up failing banks, a senior eurozone official has announced.

The new policy will alarm hundreds of thousands of British expatriates who live and have transferred their savings, proceeds from house sales and other assets to eurozone bank accounts in countries such as France, Spain and Italy.

The euro fell on global markets after Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch chairman of the eurozone, told the FT and Reuters that the heavy losses inflicted on depositors in Cyprus would be the template for future banking crises across Europe.

“If there is a risk in a bank, our first question should be ‘Okay, what are you in the bank going to do about that? What can you do to recapitalise yourself?’,” he said.

“If the bank can’t do it, then we’ll talk to the shareholders and the bondholders, we’ll ask them to contribute in recapitalising the bank, and if necessary the uninsured deposit holders.”

Ditching a three-year-old policy of protecting senior bondholders and large depositors, over €100,000, in banks, Mr Dijsselbloem argued that the lack of market contagion surrounding Cyprus showed that private investors could now be hit to pay for bad banking debts.

Don’t you just love how Dijsselbloem puts it? “We’ll ask them to contribute.” As if Manuel the Madrid taxi driver, who’s put his life’s savings into a bank he thought he could trust, will get any chance to say no. If he’s lucky, he’ll wake one morning to discover that his masters in Brussels have left him anything at all.

This is just immoral. Depositors in Cyprus are being robbed to cover for the bad borrowing decisions of governments and the equally stupid lending decisions of bankers, and now Dijsselbloom and his fellow mandarins are casting their gaze across Europe and seeing a smorgasbord filled with tasty accounts waiting to have a bite taken out of them.

Let’s review an old principle of (real) liberalism that’s more and more forgotten these days: your bank account is your property, as it represents the fruits of your labor. Security in your right to property is essential to your liberty; if you do not have the first, then you lack the second. If some bureaucrat can come and take your property via a diktat dressed in legal finery, then you are not a free human being.

Desperate to save their precious Euro at all costs, the Eurocrats and the national governments are all but guaranteeing a future bank run and financial panic as frightened people take their money and try to put it beyond the reach of grasping, blundering officials and quite possibly creating the very crash they’re trying to avoid.

With establishment politicians like these, is it any wonder people turn in frustration and anger to radical politics?

PS: And I wish the EU would stop giving Obama ideas…

via Bryan Preston

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Cruz vs. Feinstein, Texas vs. California, Liberty vs. …???

The following fascinating exchange occurred between Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing today on gun control, presumably including Feinstein’s pet legislation to outlaw scary weapons. First, Ted Cruz:

“The question that I would pose to the senior senator from California is,” said Cruz to Feinstein, “Would she deem it consistent with the Bill of Rights for Congress to engage in the same endeavor that we are contemplating doing with the Second Amendment in the context of the First or Fourth Amendment, namely, would she consider it constitutional for Congress to specify that the First Amendment shall apply only to the following books and shall not apply to the books that Congress has deemed outside the protection of the Bill of Rights? Likewise, would she think that the Fourth Amendment’s protection against searches and seizures could properly apply only to the following specified individuals and not to the individuals that Congress has deemed outside the protection of the Bill of Rights?

Notice how Cruz approaches the question of the legislation before them: as a Senator of the United States, whose oath binds him to protect and defend the Constitution. His first concern, therefore, is where it should be — on how the legislation jibes with the Constitution, the rights it enshrines and the limits it imposes on government. Hence the questions about the First and Fourth amendments and the attempt to draw a logical parallel in order to test whether gun control legislation meets constitutional muster.

Call me naive, but isn’t this how the Senate is supposed to operate?

Apparently the whole thing was just too much for Senator Feinstein to bear:

“I’m not a sixth grader,” said Feinstein. “Senator, I’ve been on this committee for 20 years. I was a mayor for nine years. I walked in, I saw people shot. I’ve looked at bodies that have been shot with these weapons. I’ve seen the bullets that implode. In Sandy Hook, youngsters were dismembered. Look, there are other weapons. I’ve been up — I’m not a lawyer, but after 20 years I’ve been up close and personal to the Constitution. I have great respect for it. This doesn’t mean that weapons of war and the Heller decision clearly points out three exceptions, two of which are pertinent here. And so I — you know, it’s fine you want to lecture me on the Constitution. I appreciate it. Just know I’ve been here for a long time. I’ve passed on a number of bills. I’ve studied the Constitution myself. I am reasonably well educated, and I thank you for the lecture.”

In other words, “Don’t you dare presume to question me, boy!”

Note how Feinstein replies: outrage at supposed disrespect (“I’ve been here for 20 years! I’ve passed bills!”); an emotional appeal (“I’ve seen dead people! Think of the children!”); and confusing the issue through ignorance (cosmetic features do not a “weapon of war” make, no matter how scary looking). But only once does she touch upon the Constitution, referring to Heller, and she never answers Cruz’s questions.

Memo to Senator Feinstein: You may have been in Washington for a lot of years (too many, if you ask me), you may have sat at one of the constitutional seats of power, maybe even read the Constitution, but you clearly don’t “get it,” and I doubt you’ve ever really thought about it. Your smokescreen reply to your colleague from Texas betrayed the emptiness of your position, its lack of any constitutional legitimacy. It was the bluster of an oligarch unaccustomed to being truly challenged. Senator Cruz was doing exactly what he should be doing, and what you should have been doing for those 20 years you’re so proud of.

I may be, like you, a child of the Golden State, but, right now?

I side with the Lone Star.

via The Weekly Standard, which has video

UPDATE/FLASHBACK: Don’t bother Senator Feinstein with facts, either.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

A Warning from Ronald Reagan

Reblogged from International Liberty:

If you want some inspiration from Ronald Reagan, these brief remarks reveal his understanding of both economics of history (especially with regards to the other great president of the 20th century).

And this short video excerpt also gets me fired up to fight big government.

But maybe it's also time to share a warning from the Gipper. Here's a quote (which…

Read more… 129 more words

Spot. On. And while I don't think the administration is Socialist (though I'm convinced Obama himself is), their nanny-state progressivism is different only by degree. And the same can be said for New York and California.

The #guncontrol crowd’s portrait of a mass killer is all wrong

That’s the gist of a report from the Department of Homeland Security, working with local New Jersey police. The gun-control legislation passed in New York and introduced by Senator Feinstein in Congress, and all the demands of the gun-grabbing crowd, have nothing to do with reality:

This is what a mass killer looks like, according to a Department of Homeland Security analysis. He works alone. He uses a semi-automatic handgun. He’s a he. And he probably didn’t serve in the U.S. military.

That’s the conclusion of a November 28 analysis by the New Jersey branch of the Department of Homeland Security’s partnership with state and local law enforcement. The so-called intelligence “Fusion Center” sifted through data on 29 major mass killings in the U.S. since 1999, starting with the Littleton, Colorado school shooting. Its practical advice is to be more concerned by your co-worker with the bad hygiene who mutters about putting his “things in order” than by the war veteran in the next cubicle.

The basic pattern found by the New Jersey DHS fusion center, and obtained by Public Intelligence (.PDF), is one of a killer who lashes out at his co-workers. Thirteen out of the 29 observed cases “occurred at the workplace and were conducted by either a former employee or relative of an employee,” the November report finds. His “weapon of choice” is a semiautomatic handgun, rather than the rifles that garnered so much attention after Newtown. The infamous Columbine school slaying of 1999 is the only case in which killers worked in teams: they’re almost always solo acts — and one-off affairs. In every single one of them, the killer was male, between the age of 17 and 49.

They also don’t have military training. Veterans are justifiably angered by the Hollywood-driven meme of the unhinged vet who takes out his battlefield stress on his fellow Americans. (Thanks, Rambo.) In only four of the 29 cases did the shooter have any affiliation with the U.S. military, either active or prior at the time of the slaying, and the fusion center doesn’t mention any wartime experience of the killers. Yet the Army still feels the need to email reporters after each shooting to explain that the killer never served.

In other words, “wrong person, wrong weapon.” But that’s immaterial to the gun-control posse, since their objective is really to make it incrementally harder for law-abiding people to obtain weapons, until it reaches the point where no one will bother trying — a de facto ban. That’s why facts and truth don’t matter to them: the strategy is to go for the scariest looking weapons first and play on people’s emotions, as well as tarring (again, law-abiding) people who buy such weapons as themselves objects of fear. The goal is not public safety, but abolition.

Thankfully, this latest federal effort looks to be going nowhere, but the fact-free assault on our natural right to keep and bear arms goes on in the state capitals. We need to carry the fight and the truth there, too.

As Mr. Jefferson said: “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.”

via Ace of Spades, which has a picture you must see.

RELATED: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is rapidly becoming my new hero. Check out this video of him taking the Senate hearing on gun violence to school with facts and truth, all while being polite and respectful to the opposition. This is how you get the message across.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Expect Civil Disobedience if Politicians Try to Undermine the Second Amendment

Reblogged from International Liberty:

• 

I periodically share public opinion data, either because I'm encouraged by the results or because I think that the research helps show how to frame issues.

Examples include polling data on personal retirement accounts, the dangers of big government, support for spending caps, and viability of class warfare tax policy.

But I've been very narrowly focused. Just about all the polls I've shared have been about some aspect of fiscal policy.

Read more… 295 more words

The right to defend one's property, one's liberty, and one's life is a right that pre-exists any government. It is a natural right of all human beings, something that is recognized by the Bill of Rights, rather than granted. Thus I'm not surprised to this survey show that a majority of Americans would engage in civil disobedience, should the government act against the Second Amendment. In fact, it's already happening in New York.

Michigan Teachers Union to members: “Pay up or we’ll sue!”

“Your MEA shop steward”

And if they don’t, is the next step leg-breaking? Faced with members oddly deciding to keep their money after Michigan passed a right-to-work law, the leadership of the Michigan Education Association sent a memo to locals telling them to monitor incoming dues and, if it declines, be prepared to take their own members to court:

Steven Cook, president of the Michigan Education Association, circulated an email to local unions officials and staff instructing them to monitor revenue streams in light of the right-to-work laws, which are set to go into effect on March 27, 2013. The law allows workers to opt out of union membership unless they have an existing contract with their employer.

“We will use any legal means at our disposal to collect the dues owed under signed membership forms from any members who withhold dues prior to terminating their membership in August,” Cook wrote.

The tone of the message shocked labor reform activists.

“The level to which the MEA appears to be willing to go after its own members—the same ones whose interest they claim to represent—is amazing,” said Mike Van Beek, director of education policy at the Mackinac Center. “When it comes to their revenue, we know where their priorities stand.”

Yeah, and I bet they play this old BTO song before hitting up reluctant members:

Except, unlike the guy in the alley, the union doesn’t say “please.”

Sadly, these suits seem to have a solid legal footing in Michigan; the MEA has sued before and won. But, given the recent report on declining union membership even in public unions, it looks like a short-lived victory, at best:

The union membership rate fell from 11.8 percent to 11.3 percent of all workers, the lowest level since the 1930s.

Total membership fell by about 400,000 workers to 14.4 million. More than half the loss – about 234,000 – came from government workers including teachers, firefighters and public administrators.

The losses add another blow to a labor movement already stretched thin by fighting efforts in states like Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan to curb bargaining rights and weaken union clout.

(…)

Losses in the public sector are hitting unions particularly hard since that has been one of the few areas where membership was growing over the past two decades. About 51 percent of union members work in government, where until recently, there had been little resistance to union organizing.

That began to change when Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed a law in 2011 eliminating most union rights for government workers. The state lost about 46,000 union members last year, mostly in the public sector.

Union officials blame losses on the lingering effects of the recession, as well as GOP governors and state lawmakers who have sought to weaken union rights.

Much to the benefit of their states overall, if the results in Wisconsin and Indiana are to be believed.

Meanwhile, like dinosaurs raging at the asteroid about to rock their world, the unions are denying the inevitable: they’re out of date, obsolete. The proof lies in their own “clients’” actions: when given a choice, they prefer to keep their money. They don’t want what the unions are offering. And the more unions resort (revert) to thuggery to keep members and their dues, the more people will make the same choice, when given the power to decide that they should have by right.

(clip art courtesy of Clipart Mojo)

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Egyptian Muslim cleric threatens Copts with genocide

It’s that Religion of Peace-thing, you know:

Islamic leaders continue to portray the popular protests against President Morsi and his recently passed Sharia-heavy constitution as products of Egypt’s Christians. Recently, Muslim Brotherhood leader Safwat Hegazy said in an open rally, as captured on video:

“A message to the church of Egypt, from an Egyptian Muslim: I tell the church — by Allah, and again, by Allah — if you conspire and unite with the remnants [opposition] to bring Morsi down, that will be another matter…. our red line is the legitimacy of Dr. Muhammad Morsi. Whoever splashes water on it, we will splash blood on him.”

More recently, Dr. Wagdi Ghoneim — who earlier praised Allah for the death of the late Coptic Pope Shenouda, cursing him to hell and damnation on video — made another video, entitled, “A Notice and Warning to the Crusaders in Egypt,” a reference to the nation’s Copts, which he began by saying, “You are playing with fire in Egypt, I swear, the first people to be burned by the fire are you [Copts].” The video was made in the context of the Tahrir protests against Morsi: Islamic leaders, such as Hegazy and Ghoneim, seek to portray the Copts as dominant elements in those protests; according to them, no real Muslim would participate. Ghoneim even went on to say that most of the people at the protests were Copts, “and we know you hid your [wrist] crosses by lowering your sleeves.”

The heart of Ghoneim’s message was genocidal: “The day Egyptians — and I don’t even mean the Muslim Brotherhood or Salafis, regular Egyptians — feel that you are against them, you will be wiped off the face of the earth. I’m warning you now: do not play with fire!”

And to make that genocide even easier to carry out, he dehumanized them by comparing them to animals:

“Respect yourselves and live with us and we will protect you… Why?… because Allah has forbidden me to be cruel to animals. I’m not trying to compare you to animals … but if I am not cruel to animals or plants, shall I be cruel to a soul created by Allah? You are an infidel in Allah’s sight — and it is for him to judge you. However, when you live in my country, it is forbidden for me to be unjust to you — but that doesn’t mean we are equal. No, oh no.”

Ghoneim can weasel all he wants, but the idea is clearly planted. Copts are inferior, maybe even animals, and if they don’t act like good little dhimmis… If you noticed a resemblance to Germany in the 1930s, your mind wasn’t playing tricks on you.

The Coptic Christmas falls on January 7th this year. You can imagine what a merry season it is for them.

And speaking of Christmas, Islam’s birthplace (maybe…) demonstrated its dedication to tolerance for all by arresting 44 people who were engaged in a hideous plot.

They were planning to celebrate Christmas:

In the latest kingdom-wide crackdown on those who would violate the national religious policy of Islam only, Saudi Vice and Virtue Police arrested 44 on charges of plotting to celebrate Christmas, as reported on Dec. 27, 2012 by the Beirut-based Al-Akhbar news portal.

The raid took place in the northwest province of al-Jawf, at the private residence of an individual identified only as “an Asian diplomat.”

The fiends… It’s a good thing the watchful officers of the Vice and Virtue police were on the job. Who knows what might have happened? They might have sung carols, exchanged good wishes and presents, said a prayer or two — someone might have had a good time!!

Is it any wonder, in the kind of society that develops under Sharia law, that people can speak of another of the world’s major religions, Christianity, as being the most persecuted on the planet and even in danger of extinction in the lands of its birth?

A merry Christmas season and a happy New Year, indeed.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Tolerant, open-minded gun-control fans wish for murder against NRA head and members

Because, of course, the NRA, which was founded to promote marksmanship and responsible firearms practice, is somehow to blame for the actions of a madman:

#GunControl will exist when some nutjob chooses to exercise their #2ndAmendment rights at #NRA headquarters instead of a school or theater

— The Angry Democrat (@AngryDemdotcom) December 14, 2012

And that’s not the only one, believe me.

Like Jonah Goldberg, I’d suggest “Angry Democrat” and anyone sharing his fantasy think twice about attacking NRA headquarters. Unlike the “gun-free zones” liberals think will magically keep people safe, I can guarantee there are no defenseless victims waiting for an avenging angel there.

PS: Just to clarify, before someone accuses me of being a gun-nut. I do not own a firearm, nor do I have the desire to own one. I do however, believe in a natural right to self-defense and I believe the authors of the 2nd amendment were wise in recognizing that right. (Note: “recognizing,” not “granting.”) I therefore have no problem with responsible adults owning firearms for self-defense, sport, or hunting. And I have no problem with responsible, law-abiding adults carrying weapons, whether concealed or open. Society might well be safer if more people did. I do, however, have a huge problem with people who encourage the denial of those rights to millions of responsible, law-abiding adults –a form of collective punishment– because of the horrific actions of a few individuals.

RELATED: Fellow Californian Kurt Schlichter says “Sure, let’s have that conversation about guns.” It is must-reading. Contrary to popular gun-control fantasies, research shows mass shootings are not on the rise. And there is some evidence that both violence and gun ownership are on the decline in the US. Dana Loesch looks at Sandy Hook and other recent mass-killings and argues why gun-control is not the answer. Australia’s Tim Blair argues that more guns means fewer deaths. Finally, Glenn Reynolds has a series of excellent questions for gun-control advocates. My two favorites:

If you’re a media member or politician, do you have armed security? Do you have a permit for a gun yourself? (I’m asking you Dianne Feinstein!) If so, what makes your life more valuable than other people’s?

…and…

Have you talked about “Fast and Furious?” Do you even know what it is? Do you care less when brown people die?

Can’t wait for the answers.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Majoritarianism Is Not Compatible with Individual Rights

Reblogged from International Liberty:

• 

Thomas Sowell, George Will, and Walter Williams have all explained that the Constitution imposes strict limits on the powers of the federal government. This means, for all intents and purposes, that it is a somewhat anti-democratic document.

And by anti-democratic, I mean the Constitution puts restrictions on democracy (not restrictions on the Democratic Party, though in this case...).

Read more… 251 more words

A lot of people forget the Constitution puts limits on majority rule, when it's convenient for them.

No more “Mr. Nice Mitt”

And it’s about time:

Standing before hundreds of roaring partisans in this sweltering Pittsburgh suburb Tuesday, Mitt Romney delivered a 30-minute speech that sounded, at times, like a greatest hits compilation of his favorite Obama-knocking stump speech lines. The president was, Romney said, “out of ideas,” and “looking for someone to blame,” and a “crony capitalist.”

One thing he was not: “A nice guy.”

In speeches from Des Moines to Dallas, Romney has always been careful to hedge his tough digs at Obama with a civil nod toward the president’s moral character: “He’s a nice guy,” the Republican has often said. “He just has no idea how the private economy works.” But Tuesday’s speech included no such hedge — and one campaign adviser said there’s a reason for that.

“[Romney] has said Obama’s a nice fellow, he’s just in over his head,” the adviser said. “But I think the governor himself believes this latest round of attacks that have impugned his integrity and accused him of being a felon go so far beyond that pale that he’s really disappointed. He believes it’s time to vet the president. He really hasn’t been vetted; McCain didn’t do it.”

Indeed, facing what the candidate and his aides believe to be a series of surprisingly ruthless, unfounded, and unfair attacks from the Obama campaign on Romney’s finances and business record, the Republican’s campaign is now prepared to go eye for an eye in an intense, no-holds-barred act of political reprisal, said two Romney advisers who spoke on condition of anonymity. In the next chapter of Boston’s pushback — which began last week when they began labeling Obama a “liar” — very little will be off-limits, from the president’s youthful drug habit, to his ties to disgraced Chicago politicians.

“I mean, this is a guy who admitted to cocaine use, had a sweetheart deal with his house in Chicago, and was associated and worked with Rod Blagojevich to get Valerie Jarrett appointed to the Senate,” the adviser said. “The bottom line is there’ll be counterattacks.”

The Obama campaign thugocracy has been trying to make hay with scurrilous class-warfare attacks on Romney’s record at Bain, his wealth, and even his integrity, flat-out saying he’s either a liar or a felon. They’ve desperately released another squirrel to distract people with by calling for Romney to release far more of his tax returns than required by law, implying there must be something shady in them, otherwise, why would Romney be so “secretive?” (Sadly, some conservatives are helping. (1)) Playing nice and trying to be a gentleman in response just won’t work. (See: McCain campaign, 2008)

The proper reply is to strike back, not with whiny anger, but to forcefully speak the truth about not only your own record, not only the other guy’s record, but the truth about his beliefs and character — why that makes him unfit and you fit for high office. Romney’s surrogates started this a bit on Sunday and Monday, but, yesterday, the candidate himself laid into Obama in a speech (no teleprompter) that had conservatives cheering as he attacked Obama for saying about successful business owners “you didn’t build that:“

The idea to say that Steve Jobs didn’t build Apple, that Henry Ford didn’t build Ford Motor, that Papa John didn’t build Papa John Pizza, that Ray Kroc didn’t build McDonald’s, that Bill Gates didn’t build Microsoft, you go on the list, that Joe and his colleagues didn’t build this enterprise, to say something like that is not just foolishness, it is insulting to every entrepreneur, every innovator in America and it’s wrong. [Applause]

And by the way, the President’s logic doesn’t just extend to the entrepreneurs that start a barber shop or a taxi operation or an oil field service business like this and a gas service business like this, it also extends to everybody in America that wants to lift themself up a little further, that goes back to school to get a degree and see if they can get a little better job, to somebody who wants to get some new skills and get a little higher income, to somebody who have, may have dropped out that decides to get back in school and go for it. People who reach to try and lift themself up. The President would say, well you didn’t do that. You couldn’t have gotten to school without the roads that government built for you. You couldn’t have gone to school without teachers. So you didn’t, you are not responsible for that success. President Obama attacks success and therefore under President Obama we have less success and I will change that. [Applause]

I’ve got to be honest, I don’t think anyone could have said what he said who had actually started a business or been in a business. And my own view is that what the President said was both startling and revealing. I find it extraordinary that a philosophy of that nature would be spoken by a President of the United States.  It goes to something that I have spoken about from the beginning of the campaign.  That this election is, to a great degree, about the soul of America. Do we believe in an America that is great because of government or do we believe in an America that is great because of free people allowed to pursue their dreams and build our future?

(Transcript courtesy of Ed Morrissey)

Emphasis added. That is the necessary ingredient when fighting back against Chicago-style gutter politics. The whole speech is at The Right Scoop. It’s well-worth the 30 minutes of your time it takes to watch; for once Romney is speaking with passion and conviction, seemingly off the cuff. Want to know how good it was? Even Michelle Malkin was near-ecstatic:

I believed in what he was selling: A vision for restoring American greatness and defending success.

Obama’s inability to hide his ideological contempt for entrepreneurs & individual success has helped Romney self-actualize.

If he gives this speech with the same zeal and optimism from now until November — offering a clear, unapologetic contrast to Barack Obama’s bitter politics of resentment, class warfare, and entitlement, Mitt Romney will win.

And there’s the key: this can’t just be a one-time or one-week strategy. Every speech he makes from now on, whether from a small-town bandstand before a dozen people or the podium of the Republican convention in front of the nation, has to strike these same themes. He can’t be afraid to call Obama out for what he is, nor to show proudly who he himself is. It’s what America wants to hear and wants to see in him — and not the defeatist, dependent, decline-is-our-choice crap Obama is pushing.

Do that, and I guarantee a Republican landslide in November.

Footnote:
(1) The whole tax return kerfuffle is just a lame distraction. Even if Romney turned over every single tax return he ever filed, Obama and the Democrats would demand more: Bain corporate minutes, Romney emails, his credit card records — anything they can use to fish for the least little thing they can spin as possibly suspicious, and just to plant the idea in the public’s mind that Romney is hiding something by simply making the demands. Instead, Romney should say he’ll release the returns — when Obama turns over his college transcripts, state senate papers, and the Fast and Furious documents. And then see how fast the Democrats drop this line of attack.

RELATED: The Tatler previews Romney’s next attack: Obama “has given up on job creation.” From Gateway Pundit, you know those infamous Bain layoffs? It seems the main in charge of Bain at the time was not Mitt Romney, but one of Obama’s most important donors. Ooops.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Because Nanny Bloomberg is too nice

The New York City Board of Health is considering whether to approve Mayor Nanny Michael Bloomberg’s ban on soda drinks larger than 16 ounces. Bloomberg’s proposal generated some controversy at a recent board meeting, because many members don’t think it goes far enough:

At the meeting, some of the members of board said they should be considering other limits on high-calorie foods.

One member, Bruce Vladeck, thinks limiting the sizes for movie theater popcorn should be considered.

“The popcorn isn’t a whole lot better than the soda,” Vladeck said.

Another board member thinks milk drinks should fall under the size limits.

“There are certainly milkshakes and milk-coffee beverages that have monstrous amounts of calories,” said board member Dr. Joel Forman.

Oh, why stop there? At steakhouses, waiters should pre-cut steaks and chops into Board-mandated bite sizes to reduce the danger of choking, and then watch to make sure you chew enough times and don’t eat too fast. Or maybe ban red meat altogether? Hot dogs should be strictly vegan, and cheese and meat banned from pizza. Stores should only sell non-fat milk, and deep-fryers should require a license to buy. (But don’t include Mikey in any of that.)

Aside from the raging nanny-ism, there’s something else disturbing here: the members of the Board of Health are appointed by Bloomberg, presumably because he likes the way they think. Other than a public comment period (and how much good do we really think that will do?), there is no check on their power to regulate the most basic behaviors of NYCers; the elected representatives of the residents of New York City, the city council, apparently have no say. It might take an act of the legislature to tell Mikey to “knock it off.”

(And you know it’s bad when the NY legislature denounces government overreach.)

Are the people of the Big Apple happy with this? Do they want government dictating the finest, most petty details of their lives? Because it won’t stop here. I guarantee it. Bureaucrats will always want to expand their tin-pot empires, and nannies will always find new areas in which we can’t be trusted to make our own choices.

This is how liberty is lost: not in sudden coups, but in little regulatory usurpations, each of which, on its own, might seem reasonable and “for our own good,” but, when added up, turn the freeborn citizen into an infantilized ward of the State.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Convicted domestic terrorist stalks conservative writers

I haven’t had time to write about this story, thanks to jury duty, but it’s one that needs to be passed along. Thankfully, my blog-buddy ST is on the case:

When you get into the business of writing about politics and current events, whether you do it for the love of it, the money, or both, you set yourself up for being a target of your political opposition.  It is the nature of the beast. Most of the time  if the opposition isn’t trying to counter your points respectfully,  they’ll just laugh at you and/or call you nasty names over a period of time and move on. Other times they won’t move on, but they won’t carry it any further than just online word wars. But there are also cases where it can escalate way beyond that into territory it never should – where people’s families, homes, and livelihoods are directly targeted, threatened, and negatively impacted by thugs who have absolutely no concept of what “freedom of speech” means, and who believe there are no boundaries/limits whatsoever that they shouldn’t be allowed to cross in trying to “shame” those who they oppose.  Such is the case with Brett Kimberlin, a despicable human being who has waged a disgusting campaign of legal terror and abuse against conservatives who write truthful articles about him and his domestic terrorism past.   The man is vile. Absolutely vile:

Be sure to read the rest, and also the first link to Aaron Worthing’s original report on this nightmare. It’s in situations such as these that free speech meets its test, and when writers Right, Left, Center, or apolitical have to stand together in support of this crucial principle — and of the people under attack.

Let the Brett Kimberlins of the world know they cannot get away with this crap.

Has Romney read Bastiat?

Frederic Bastiat

Republican nominee-in-waiting Mitt Romney spoke recently at a meeting of the National Rifle Association in St. Louis, where he gave a powerful speech attacking the Obama administration’s insults to our economic liberty. IBD’s Andrew Malcolm posted excerpts from the speech (and the whole thing), and I recommend reading it.

One part in particular jumped out at me, however, wherein Romney explains the hidden costs of Obama’s tax-and-regulate binge:

“The real cost isn’t just the taxes paid and money spent complying with the rules. It’s the businesses that are never started, the ideas that are never pursued, the dreams that are never realized.”

That could come straight from the thinking of Frederic Bastiat, a 19th century French (1) classical liberal and economist. In his essay “That which is seen, and that which is not seen,” Bastiat attacked the idea that government spending could create wealth, arguing instead that such spending, while it would pump money into the economy, came at the expense of the citizen’s ability to spend that same money on those things that would improve his life. To illustrate his point, he used the parable of the broken window:

Suppose it cost six francs to repair the damage, and you say that the accident brings six francs to the glazier’s trade – that it encourages that trade to the amount of six francs – I grant it; I have not a word to say against it; you reason justly. The glazier comes, performs his task, receives his six francs, rubs his hands, and, in his heart, blesses the careless child. All this is that which is seen.

But if, on the other hand, you come to the conclusion, as is too often the case, that it is a good thing to break windows, that it causes money to circulate, and that the encouragement of industry in general will be the result of it, you will oblige me to call out, “Stop there! your theory is confined to that which is seen; it takes no account of that which is not seen.”

It is not seen that as our shopkeeper has spent six francs upon one thing, he cannot spend them upon another. It is not seen that if he had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have employed his six francs in some way, which this accident has prevented.

Let us take a view of industry in general, as affected by this circumstance. The window being broken, the glazier’s trade is encouraged to the amount of six francs; this is that which is seen. If the window had not been broken, the shoemaker’s trade (or some other) would have been encouraged to the amount of six francs; this is that which is not seen.

And if that which is not seen is taken into consideration, because it is a negative fact, as well as that which is seen, because it is a positive fact, it will be understood that neither industry in general, nor the sum total of national labour, is affected, whether windows are broken or not.

Now let us consider James B. himself. In the former supposition, that of the window being broken, he spends six francs, and has neither more nor less than he had before, the enjoyment of a window.

In the second, where we suppose the window not to have been broken, he would have spent six francs on shoes, and would have had at the same time the enjoyment of a pair of shoes and of a window.

In other words, no wealth was created. The glazier may be a bit richer, but the shopkeeper is poorer. (He may have his window, but he’s out six francs.) Worse, his economic liberty to make his life better was infringed, since the breaking of the window forced him to spend money only to put things back the way they were.

The quote from Romney’s NRA speech indicates he understands (2) what Bastiat was talking about: that government spending only moves wealth from one pocket to another (via taxation); that regulations are a form of taxation (through compliance costs); and that both entail hidden opportunity costs (those things we would like to do but now cannot) by restricting economic liberty.

A president who takes Bastiat to heart is far preferable to one who embraces Alinsky.

Footnotes:
(1) A Frenchman advocating limited government? How times have changed.
(2) Yeah, I know: “Romneycare.” Let’s hope he learned from that.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Barbara Boxer, Exit Taxes, and the Totalitarian Temptation.

Reblogged from International Liberty:

Some of the world's most disgusting and evil regimes restricted the right to emigrate, including the imposition of exit taxes designed to fleece those who did want to escape.

Given the evils of communism, you won't be surprised to learn that the Soviet Union had such a policy. Here's an excerpt from a 1972 story in the Palm Beach Post…

Read more… 509 more words

I still can't believe we reelected this imbecile. Fiorina wouldn't have been great, but at least she has functioning brain cells.

Dear Rick Santorum: Get your hands off my slot machine

Sigh. There are just no limited-government conservatives left in this race, are there? We all know about Mitt Romney and the indefensible individual mandate in RomneyCare. So, fine, we’ll just vote for the true conservative in the race, the man who savagely and effectively attacked Romney’s legacy, Rick Santorum, right? Right?

Ehh… Not so fast.

From an interview with Nevada journalist Jon Ralston, per Jim Geraghty:

I’m someone who takes the opinion that gaming is not something that is beneficial, particularly having that access on the Internet. Just as we’ve seen from a lot of other things that are vices on the Internet, they end to grow exponentially as a result of that. It’s one thing to come to Las Vegas and do gaming and participate in the shows and that kind of thing as entertainment, it’s another thing to sit in your home and have access to that it. I think it would be dangerous to our country to have that type of access to gaming on the Internet.

Freedom’s not absolute. What rights in the Constitution are absolute? There is no right to absolute freedom. There are limitations. You might want to say the same thing about a whole variety of other things that are on the Internet — “let everybody have it, let everybody do it.” No. There are certain things that actually do cost people a lot of money, cost them their lives, cost them their fortunes that we shouldn’t have and make available, to make it that easy to do. That’s why we regulate gambling. You have a big commission here that regulates gambling, for a reason.

I opposed gaming in Pennsylvania . . . A lot of people obviously don’t responsibly gamble and lose a lot and end up in not so great economic straits as a result of that. I believe there should be limitations.

Now, in one sense, Nanny Senator Santorum is right: freedom isn’t absolute. We have freedom of speech, but we cannot yell “fire!” in a crowded theater. We have freedom of religious practice, but no one advocates allowing human sacrifice as part of the service. (I hope.) Individual liberty generally meets its bounds where it endangers public safety or impinges on the rights of another. (1)

There are indeed limits.

But that’s not what Santorum is talking about here. He’s speaking in terms of a more moderate social cost (e.g., the damage done to a family by a gambling addiction) or simply the harm it might do to the individual person. And there’s the problem. As Allahpundit puts it:

You could swap in “drinking” for “gambling” there and have a rough argument for banning alcohol consumption in homes. (If you’re free to indulge in private, who’ll stop you from going overboard?) If you nominate Santorum, you’re getting a guy who’s more willing to try to save people from themselves than the average “personal responsibility” conservative, which means you’d better prepare for occasional moral tutelage from the presidential podium and maybe some new morals regulations if he can cobble together a congressional majority for it.

And for gambling or drinking, one could substitute all sorts private activities. Like to smoke? Want to order pipe tobacco or cigars from that great shop across the country? Hey, that stuff’s bad for you, bud! Want to watch an “adult” movie on late-night cable? President Santorum doesn’t think that’s “beneficial,” so he’s going to push Congress to regulate it.

Or what about credit card debt? Yes, there’s a real problem with people who wreck their finances abusing credit, but is it the government’s responsibility to protect us from ourselves? Would a President Santorum seek to limit us all to certain debt-to-income ratios? Do we get a “conservative” version of Dodd-Frank?

I’ll confess, it’s getting harder and harder to see much of an effective difference between the progressive liberal, Obama, and Rick Santorum, the self-proclaimed progressive conservative. Nannying is nannying, and statism is statism.

So, what does this mean for the election and how I’ll vote? I’ve said before that I’ll vote for any of the three serious potential Republican nominees over Obama, because I think any of them would be better than a second Obama term. But Santorum is making it much harder for me to be comfortable voting for him. If it is none of government’s business what health insurance I carry, neither is it their business if I choose to play some online poker — or a lot of online poker.

I’ve said before that I’ve decided to concentrate more on electing as conservative a Congress as possible (2) to rein in the big-government urges of whichever person is elected president. But this latest from Santorum has me thinking Romney would be the best choice for limited government conservatives.

Wait! I can explain! Put down the baseball bat!

Look at it this way: I’m convinced Mitt Romney has few set-in-stone principles and is more of a pragmatic problem-solver,willing to do what it takes to get the job done. In electoral races, that means he… “adjusts” his positions to fit what his target audience wants. In office, it means he works with whatever faction dominates the legislature to produce an accomplishment. In the end, this is a guy whose overriding urge is to be seen as successful. He is a tree that bends whichever way the prevailing wind blows.

Thus I’ve come to think that a President Romney would be open to the goals of limited government conservatism if he were faced with a Congress dominated by strong limited government, Tea Party factions in both chambers pressuring him from the Right. And he would be open to this influence in a way that a strongly principled social nanny-stater like Rick Santorum would never be.

Yep. It’s a “lesser of two evils” choice. Fun, eh?

Footnotes:
(1) Another illustration of why I’ll never be a “Big L” libertarian; the ones I’ve met tend to take annoyingly absolutist positions.
(2) Want to help California “right” it’s ship of state? Check out Elizabeth Emken, who’s running for the nomination to face Senator Feinstein in November.

PS: When you think about it, Rick Santorum has something in common with Melinda Henneberger.

RELATED: More from Bruce McQuain at The Conservatory. A rebuttal at Protein Wisdom.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Liberals just don’t like what the Founders did, do they?

A little while back, I featured Justice Ginsburg opining that the US Constitution really wasn’t a suitable model for the modern age.

Now we have a Washington Post editor wondering if, perhaps, the first Congress got it wrong when it guaranteed the free exercise of religion in the First Amendment:

That‘s what Washington Post editor Melinda Henneberger told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews last night while defending Catholics. Here’s the full quote:

“Maybe the Founders were wrong to guarantee free exercise of religion in the First Amendment but that is what they did and I don’t think we have to choose here.”

And maybe they made a mistake guaranteeing free speech, too; otherwise we’d be able to punish dolts like Henneberger for saying such stupid things. And that whole trial by jury thing; it just gets in the way of government enforcing the law to protect us.

Head, meet wall.

Former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy spots several problems with Henneberger’s proposition, the foremost being the centrality of freedom of religious expression to the Colonial experience and the foundation of the United States, itself:

First, there is the sheer unreality of it. As someone of Ms. Henneberger’s sophistication must know, the Founders cannot have been wrong to guarantee free exercise of religion. Had they failed to do so, there would have been no nation to found. Free exercise was a deal-breaker for Americans, and the adoption of the Bill of Rights (in which free-exercise was among the core of individual liberties that had to be specified) was a deal breaker for skeptics in several states who believed the Constitution transferred too much power to the federal government.

(Emphasis added.)

In other words, the new HHS rule regarding insurance coverage for contraception and abortifacients at religious institutions is exactly and precisely the kind of tyrannical and oppressive act regarding the free exercise of religion those who argued for a Bill of Rights had in mind, even if it’s presented as a “public good.”

They weren’t wrong, Melinda, they were prescient.

RELATED: Getting back to Justice Ginsburg and the outdated Constitution, historian Steven Hayward figured out why she seemed so enamored of the South African constitution:

The South African constitution is equally watery.  Yes, it does include an independent judiciary and a long list of positive rights.  Then there’s this:

“When interpreting the Bill of Rights, a court, tribunal or forum must promote the values that underlie an open and democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom; must consider international law; and may consider foreign law.”

No wonder Ginsburg likes it so much: it more or less gives judges a blank check to look anywhere they want to reach any result they want.

So much more fun that sticking by our stodgy old rules, no?

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)