The Difference

Foreign policy: We agree. We love American military power and will extol it every chance we get to score points with patriotic voters. America should continue to police the world, bully other nations, and fight undeclared wars.

Unemployment: We agree. It is government's role to manage the economy and create jobs. What kind of nut case doesn't know that?

Medicare and Social Security: We agree. We love them. Taxing young people to pay for old people's retirement checks and government-rationed medical care is the American way. We should continue it forever.

Taxes: We agree. We love them. We will always claim that we'll give the middle class a break because that's where the votes are. People are too stupid to understand that "loophole" is just another name for "deduction," so it's a slam dunk that they will cheer when we promise to get rid of them. Then--surprise!--their taxes go up even though the rate went down! Such a deal! We will fiddle with the tax code to get votes and to manipulate people's economic behavior, but the one thing we will never do is question the morality or efficacy of taxing the pants off of productive people in the first place.

Afghanistan: We agree. Our troops are wonderful. Voters feel good when we say that. Did we mention how brave they are? With just a little more training, the people whose country the US government invaded and is now occupying will be able to provide their own security so we can leave--sort of. Foreigners love it when we help them like this. Fragging is but one way they show their appreciation.

Syria and Libya: We agree. Khadafy had to go. Assad has to go. Voters think we're cool when we say somebody "has to go." Phrases like "slaughtered his own people" help too. Supporting killers in other countries at the expense of productive Americans is a splendid idea, especially when we aren't sure who the killers are, who they might kill, or what they aim to accomplish. If we assure voters that we won't put "boots on the ground," they'll think we are soooo reasonable and restrained. A nice bonus is that these adventures always create more instability that we will have to fix later. Hey defense contractor campaign contributors, can we hear a big "cha-ching" from ya?

Abortion: We agree. We love this issue because we know that questions about the role of government in this will never be resolved, since they boil down to a fundamental disagreement over what constitutes an individual life. Thank goodness this tool will always be there when we need it to demonize opponents and whip up our base.

The tone of the campaign: We agree. God bless the hero who asked the question. Hero, hero, hero! We never get tired of saying that word. Voters get tears in their eyes when they hear it, and voters with tears in their eyes tend not to notice that our policies are exactly the same. Only the other guy engages in negative campaigning. Our side simply cites the record and tells the truth.

What I could give to this country that no one else could: That would be my unique ability to manage the biggest government in the history of the planet so it can fix all problems. Unemployment, poverty, the shrinking wealth of the middle class--government can fix those things and more if you'll just put my team in charge. Hey, how about that, we agree!

In conclusion: We agree! Things are bad. But cheer up: government can fix it! More debt! More deficits! More deceit! More drones! More dead foreigners! God bless America! Oh, and remember: There is a huge difference between Republicans and Democrats. Never in the history of Our Sacred Democracy have there been differences that are more differenter, so everybody vote!

[Hat tip to Lew Rockwell and Roland Walkenhorst]

I'm so glad that people will have a real choice...

Things I've Found August 7, 2012

End of the Global Warming Debate as We Know It?

Note: The referenced Senate testimony is here.

John Christy may just have ended the climate change/global warming argument as we know it.

Christy recently provided devastating testimony (see article excerpt above) to a Senate Environment & Public Works Committee hearing entitled "Update on the Latest Climate Change Science and Adaptation."

Who is Christy? According to Wikipedia, he's a climate scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) "whose chief interests are satellite remote sensing of global climate and global climate change." He is best known, jointly with Roy Spencer, for the first successful development of a satellite temperature record, Wikipedia tells us. And what he's done is compile a list of US temperatures going back decades. He's listed the highest recorded highs and lowest lows and then plotted these as data points to establish a trend.

This is a very simple way to establish whether temperatures are on their way up generally or on their way down. It is much simpler and more direct than trying to monitor ocean currents, sun spots or even whether certain glaciers are melting on the North or South Poles.

It is such a simple idea we wonder why it hasn't been thought of before. Of course, actually, we think we know. Global warming is a most questionable occurrence, but the powers-that-be have actively promoted it whenever possible. They have no interest in debunking it.

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Revenge Of The Zeros: The Battle Between Ayn Rand And Collectivism Reaches A Climax

Note: Rand is becoming more palatable to me every day.

With President Obama's line "You didn't build that," the battle between individualism and collectivism has reached a climax. Obama has openly denied individual achievement, spitting in the face of every individual who ever had a creative thought. Obama has ventured to say straight out what only the theoreticians of collectivism have scribbled before: there is no individual achievement. What appears to be your achievement is somehow the achievement of that mystical entity,the collective–especially its earthly embodiment: the government.

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Message To Obama: You Owe Us!

Note: W.A.R always struck me as a bit of neo-con in libertarian clothing, but he hits this one out of the park and into the next county.

President Obama has it completely backward. Business owners don't owe credit to government for their success. Government owes us credit for its existence. Government doesn't enable or empower business owners. We empower government.

Business owners would do just fine without government. But government, government employees and the "takers" of society (those who take checks from government) could not survive without us: the creators, producers and taxpayers. Simply put, we pay all the bills for government. We're the ones you ought to be thanking.

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Completely Surrounded By Psychopaths And Sociopaths As We Approach The Edge Of Societal Collapse

Note: This is a bit disturbing.

Do you remember when America was a place where you could attend a public gathering without having to worry if a sociopath was going to set off a bomb or start wildly shooting people? Do you remember when America was a place where you could walk down the street without having to worry that a vicious pack of teens might attack you for no reason whatsoever? Do you remember when America was a place where you could leave your car unlocked, your house unlocked and your garage open without having to worry about thieves? Well, only old timers are likely to remember a time when you could leave your front door unlocked, but it was once like that in America. Over the past 50 years America has fundamentally changed. Once upon a time you could trust just about everybody, but these days it is difficult to find anyone that you can truly trust. We are literally surrounded by psychopaths and sociopaths as we approach the edge of societal collapse. The truly frightening thing is that we are watching society break down rapidly even though economic conditions are still relatively good. If this is how bad things are right now, what are they going to look like after the economy collapses and people become really desperate?

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So why is the US still in Afghanistan?

Pepe Escobar, the go to guy for all things AF-PAK:

What about the new great game?

So why is the US still in Afghanistan? Facing the camera, as if addressing "the Afghan people", the president said, "we have no interest in occupying your country". But he could not possibly tell it like it really is to American prime-time TV viewers.

For corporate America, Afghanistan means nothing; it's the fifth-poorest country in the world, tribal and definitely not a consumer society. But for US Big Oil and the Pentagon, Afghanistan has a lot of mojo.

For Big Oil, the holy grail is access to Turkmenistan natural gas from the Caspian Sea - Pipelineistan at the heart of the new great game in Eurasia, avoiding both Russia and Iran. But there's no way to build the hugely strategic TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) pipeline - crossing Helmand province, and then Pakistan's Balochistan province - with Afghanistan mired in chaos, thanks to the pitiful performance of the US/NATO occupation.

There's a hand in surveying/controlling the $4 billion-a-year drug trade, directly and indirectly. Since the beginning of the US/NATO occupation, Afghanistan became a de facto narco-state, producing 92% of the world's heroin under a bunch of transnational narco-terrorist cartels.

And there's the full spectrum dominance Pentagon agenda - Afghanistan as part of the worldwide US empire of bases, monitoring strategic competitors China and Russia at their doorstep.

Obama simply ignored that there is an ultra-high-stakes new great game in Eurasia going on. So because of all that Obama did not say at West Point, Americans are being sold a "war of necessity" draining a trillion dollars that could be used to reduce unemployment and really help the US economy.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KL03Df04.html

Pro Libertate: Behold a Palin Horse

Pro Libertate: Behold a Palin Horse

I love it when someone gets it just right.

Yes, the prospect of an Obama presidency is terrifying — not necessarily because of the candidate himself, but because of the success the conservative movement has enjoyed in endowing the presidency with autocratic powers.

For entirely self-serving reasons, the Republican Party’s base, which until recently treated Bush the Lesser with the same slack-jawed, glassy-eyed adoration rendered to Obama by his more devoted supporters, is just now awakening to the dangers of executive aggrandizement.

But such concerns will evaporate among the GOP faithful if McCain is victorious in November. Indeed, tumultuous applause greeted every derogatory allusion to the Bill of Rights offered by Palin and her warm-up act, the Polystyrene Panderer from Massachusetts. The salient fear displayed by the Republicans is that Obama will inherit a distended office and destroy what remains of our liberty before the Republicans have a chance to finish that job themselves.

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