If Going Rogue Means Going Third Party, Obama's a Shoe-In in 2012

The failure of any other Republican save for Sarah Palin to generate enthusiasm among traditional Republican voters is one of the stupid facts of political life which wise party leadership would know how to exploit. Instead we have Michael Steele.

But Sarah had better not let it go to her head. If "Going Rogue" means she's open to going third party like Ross Perot or George Wallace or Patrick J. Buchanan, she's already finished, and so is the Republican Party, not to mention the cherished hopes of thousands of tea party members everywhere.

Sarah has the ability to unite both partisan and independent elements of the American electorate because her instinctive conservatism is economic, cultural and patriotic all at the same time, much as was Ronald Reagan's. But one important difference between them is that the Gipper spent years and years honing his message and his beliefs. And he could defend them, often eloquently.

Sarah will be successful in part to the extent that she can do the same. Her track record to date is mixed in this regard. She's already proven that she can hold her own with a glib old pol like Joe Biden, but the Katie Couric episode was a disaster. External events, however, can make a difference. And if the last twelve months are any indication, the country will be ready for a plain spoken, straight shooting family woman after four years of lies, damned lies, and (negative) statistics. As long as she's a Republican.

Patrik Jonsson writes "Sarah Palin will headline first-ever Tea Party Convention" at The Christian Science Monitor:

Almost 1-1/2 years since she shook up American politics with her acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is set to headline another landmark political event: the first-ever Tea Party Convention next month in Nashville, Tenn.

On its face, the gig would seem a step down for Ms. Palin, one of conservative America’s most popular and polarizing figures (not to mention major thorn in the side of the Obama White House).

But with an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll ranking a generic “Tea Party” as more popular than either Democrats or Republicans, and Palin herself rivaling the charming Mr. Obama in poll popularity, many experts see the Tea Party event as a potential milestone for a mounting, even transformational, force in US politics. ...

[T]he Nashville event is not about chartering a new political party to represent conservative ideals like low taxes and states’ rights, but more about unifying to take on “Obama, Pelosi and Reid this year,” writes Judson Phillips, head of Tea Party Nation, one of many Tea Party groups and the lead sponsor of a convention that will feature conservative firebrands such as Rep. Michele Bachmann (R) of Minnesota.

Already, tea-colored races are appearing around the country, including the looming matchup between Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (seen as Republican Lite by many conservatives) and Cuban-American conservative Marco Rubio, who has gotten the stamp of approval by Tea Party folks.

To read the rest of the story, go here.

Health Bills Fail Five Constitutionality Tests

ObamaCare vs. the Constitution

By BETSY MCCAUGHEY January 6, 2010

The health bills in Congress rob you of your constitutional rights. Here are five provisions (of many) that fail the constitutionality test and reveal Congress's disrespect for the public:

* Section 3403 of the Senate health bill, establishing a commission to cut Medicare spending, says the law can't be changed or repealed in the future. This whopper shows that Congress thinks its work should be set in stone. Wrong. The people always have the right to elect a new Congress to change or repeal what a previous Congress has done.

* A Senate health-bill amendment mysteriously allocates $100 million to an unnamed facility that "shall be affiliated with an academic health center at a public research university in the United States that contains a state's sole public academic medical and dental school" (Sec. 10502, p. 328-329). Why not name the facility?

This pork deal was arranged by Sen. Chris Dodd for the University of Connecticut Health Center, although 11 hospitals in the nation technically meet these specifications. If Congress wrote the provision in Polish or Russian to keep the public in the dark, it would be unconstitutional. The language is a deception. The fact that legislators commonly do this makes it more damaging, not less so.

* The bills require you to enroll in a "qualified health plan," whether you want it or not. Forcing people to buy insurance obviously reduces the number of uninsured. But Congress doesn't have the authority to force people to buy a product.

Sen. Orin Hatch (R-Nev.) said on the Senate floor, "If Congress may require individuals to purchase a particular good or service . . . We could simply require that Americans buy certain cars . . . for that matter, we could attack the problem of obesity by requiring Americans to buy fruits and vegetables."

Some Congress members claim the "general welfare clause" of the Constitution empowers them to impose a mandate. But they're taking the phrase out of context. The Constitution gives Congress power to tax and spend for the general welfare, but not to make other kinds of laws for the general welfare.

The Senate bill (pages 320-324) claims the "interstate commerce" clause of the Constitution gives Congress this authority. But for half a century, states have regulated health insurance. In fact, individuals are barred from buying insurance in any state except where they live, the antithesis of interstate commerce.

Congressional majorities have frequently resorted to the commerce clause to justify their lawmaking. In FDR's first term, Congress cited it to pass the National Industrial Recovery Act, which gave the federal government power to micromanage local businesses, setting wages and hours and even barring customers from selecting their live chickens at the butcher. Two Brooklyn brothers, owners of Schechter Poultry Corp., a kosher chicken business, challenged that interference. In 1935, the US Supreme Court ruled the NIRA unconstitutional.

In 1995, the high court again admonished Congress against using the commerce clause as a basis for expanded lawmaking, even when the purpose is as worthy as keeping handguns out of a school zone (US v. Lopez). The court ruled that Congress must stick to its enumerated powers and leave states to police school zones (and, perhaps, mandate health insurance).

* Never before has the federal government intruded into decisions made by doctors for privately insured patients, except on narrow issues such as drug safety. Nothing in the Constitution permits it. But the Senate bill makes you enroll in a plan and then says that only doctors who do what the government dictates can be paid by your plan.

"Qualified plans" can contract only with a doctor who "implements such mechanisms to improve health-care quality as the [current or future] secretary [of Health and Human Services] may by regulation require" (Sec. 1311, p. 148-49). That covers all of medicine, from heart care to child birth, stents to mammograms.

* Finally, the "takings clause" of the Fifth Amendment bars government from taking your property without compensation. It should protect everyone, no matter how unpopular -- even insurance companies, but Congress ignored it in writing the health bill. The Senate version goes beyond reining in insurance-company abuses, a just cause, and actually caps insurance-company profit margins at well below current levels, robbing shareholders.

Next year, Congress could impose similar caps on profit margins of bodegas, pizzerias and grocers, by arguing that food -- also a necessity -- is too expensive. Your business could be next.

In 2010, ordinary citizens will have to stand up for their constitutional rights, just as the Schechter brothers did 75 years ago. Congress members swear to uphold the Constitution, but it appears many are ignorant of what it says. They should be mandated to take a course, as pilots and doctors are. Congress needs to be reminded that the Constitution defines and limits its powers.

Betsy McCaughey, a former New York lieutenant governor, is author of "Government by Choice: Inventing the United States Constitution."

Visit the source here.

My Favorite Blown Prediction of 2009

As reported at Bloomberg on July 16, 2009:

Crude oil will collapse to $20 a barrel this year as the recession takes a deeper toll on fuel demand, according to academic and former U.S. government adviser Philip Verleger.

A crude surplus of 100 million barrels will accumulate by the end of the year, straining global storage capacity and sending prices to a seven-year low, said Verleger, who correctly predicted in 2007 that prices were set to exceed $100. Supply is outpacing demand by about 1 million barrels a day, he said.

“The economic situation is not getting better,” Verleger, 64, a professor at the University of Calgary and head of consultant PKVerleger LLC, said in a telephone interview yesterday. “Global refinery runs are going to be much lower in the fall. If the recession continues and it’s a warm winter, it’s going to be devastating.”

Tonight's price is $83 and change per barrel.

Who knows? Maybe he was just early.

The Spirit of Tyranny

The healthcare legislation which has recently passed the U.S. Senate, unanimously opposed by Republicans, reveals that what inspires today's Democrat party is pure tyranny.

While Congress has power granted to it by the U.S. Constitution to tax and to spend, and to regulate commerce between the states, it does not have the power to require commerce. But this is what the healthcare legislation does: it requires you to engage in health care commerce by buying health insurance. If you wish to avoid buying automobile insurance, you may do so as long as you do not drive the car. Not so with the health care legislation. You will either buy the insurance, or be fined.

The legislation also violates the constitutional principle of the general welfare. Some states are relieved of their duty to contribute to Medicaid under the Senate version, which gives them an unfair advantage at the expense of all the other states who do. It's bad enough that special interest groups dominate our politics. This legislation makes states themselves a party to it, and erodes the very concept of the Union.

A third problem has to do with state sovereignty. It is one thing for states to comply with federal requirements in order to receive, for example, highway funds in exchange for passing speed limit regulations. It is entirely another to be required to pass legislation and regulations to comply with the health care bill, and to be threatened to have it done for them by the feds if they don't. This is already rankling a number of states, who are toying with the idea of health care nullification.

That it is the Democrats who are for all this stuff should frighten the American people. The Democrats may like to think of themselves as the party of new ideas, but those ideas are as despotic as they are unconstitutional. They should be run out of town on a rail, preferably in tar and feathers.

For a lengthier discussion of this topic, go here.

Arguments Against Libertarianism

1. Liberty is like fire. It is necessary, but not everywhere and at all times and in all circumstances.

2. The American Revolution was not successful because George Washington exercised his right to free speech with the British, but because he shot them.

3. Tolerance ends where fanaticism begins because fanatics with power will never reciprocate.

4. Opinions arrived at under the pressure of the moment are oblivious to the lessons of the past.

5. Individuality is but a step away from the odd, the strange, the weird, the freakish, the nutty, the screwy and the kooky.

6. Eccentricity flies at great speed at the outer edges of the great spiral of the galaxy, threatening to disintegrate at any moment.

7. Libertarians would set free from their cages parakeets in winter.

8. If a traditionalist conservative is like a Protestant Christian, a libertarian conservative is like a Buddhist Christian.

9. Conservatives graze in the pasture. Libertarians are the flies on their backs.

10. Libertarianism is another form of materialism, for which metaphysics is an utter impossibility.

11. Liberty is not primary but is dependent upon law and order for its existence.

12. The cement of society is gratitude, friendship and brotherly love, not self-interest.

13. Human institutions are imperfectible because human nature is an irresolvable mixture of good and evil.

14. Governments which recognize that the state is instituted by God and fear Him restrain human passions, making life richer, more civilized and long.

15. Conservatives recognize others as fellow-travelers to the grave. Libertarians are Ebenezer Scrooge.

'VENGEANCE IS MINE,' SAITH THE LORD (But He Sub-Contracts)

More Guns, Less Crime

FBI Reports Huge Decrease In Murders As Firearm, Ammunition And “Large” Magazine Sales Soar

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Last week, the FBI issued its preliminary 2009 crime report, showing that the number of murders in the first half of 2009 decreased 10 percent compared to the first half of 2008. If the trend holds for the remainder of 2009, it will be the single greatest one-year decrease in the number of murders since at least 1960, the earliest year for which national data are available through the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Also, the per capita murder rate for 2009 will be 51 percent lower than the all-time high recorded in 1991, and it will be the lowest rate since 1963—a 46-year low. Final figures for 2009 will be released by the FBI next year.

According to gun control supporter dogma—“more guns means more crime”—the number of privately owned firearms must have decreased 10 percent in 2009. To the contrary, however, the number rose between 1.5 and 2 percent, to an all-time high. For the better part of the last 15 months, firearms, ammunition, and “large” ammunition magazines have been sold in what appear to be record quantities. And, the firearms that were most commonly purchased in 2009 are those that gun control supporters most want to be banned—AR-15s, similar semi-automatic rifles, and handguns designed for defense. The National Shooting Sports Foundation already estimates record ammunition sales in 2009, dominated by .223 Remington, 7.62x39mm, 9mm and other calibers widely favored for defensive purposes.

Also indicative of the upward trend in firearm sales, the number of national instant check transactions rose 24.5 percent in the first six months of 2009 compared to the first six months in 2008, the greatest increase since NICS’ inception in 1998. Through the end of October, NICS transactions rose 18 percent, compared to the same period in 2008.

More Guns Means More Crime? Hardly. In 2009, more guns meant less crime, in a very, very big way.

Find this item here.

Still Dancin' With The One Who Brung Ya?

Sarah Palin is quoted from Maui as supporting the re-election of John McCain to the U.S. Senate, in the wake of the flap over blacking out last year's campaign message on her visor, in an effort, she demurred, to be "in cognito."

From the Honolulu Star Bulletin, December 18th:

"I adore John McCain, support him 100 percent and will do everything I can to support his reelection."

I'm not buying it.

The NY Daily News reports: Much clearer was the message on her T-shirt: "If you don't love America," it read on the front, "then why don't you get the hell out," it advised on the back.

Hardly what I'd wear if I were trying not to attract attention.

No, the episode simply highlights that Sarah's thinking is sometimes muddled, and when that is exposed, as on this occasion, she says just what you'd expect a habitually polite and loyal person to say, which is a good sign.

But Sarah needs to move on. The prom is ancient history. And get the wardrobe thingy under control already. In an age of superficiality, a person of substance can't let herself be derailed by image faux pas.

And McCain should also move on, into retirement.

You're Being Bribed, But With Your Own Money

Jay Ambrose says here that "Health Vote Moves Us Toward A Tipping Point":

Here's my vow: to vote for no one for the House or the Senate this next November who does not first pledge to do everything within their power to rescind any health care monstrosity that gets visited upon this nation by what currently seems a derelict Democratic party.

It's true that despite all the sound and fury, after all the hoopla and posturing, we still have only an outline of what we might get. The reason is a rush to do anything to please the great idol Obama, the extraordinary extent of change being sought, the mystery of how differences between the House and Senate versions might be resolved and the purposeful obfuscation of morality-challenged legislators who have plenty to hide.

But that outline tells us of extraordinary costs and an approach that could well represent a tipping point in this country's economic decline while it reduces freedoms, rations coldly, does nothing to improve health care and could worsen it over time. What is more, the march toward disaster has taken on the aspect of inevitability.


The rest is must reading at the link.

Steve Lee: "I Like Guns"

Ye Haw!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TC2xTCb_GU

Decline in Christmas Card Traffic Mirrors Unemployment Rate

How do you write the annual Christmas letter, anyway, when you have to write the following: "Gee, we've been out of work for a year now, we're six months behind on the mortgage, they're coming to get the car on Monday, and we're getting heating assistance and food stamps. But other than that, Merry Christmas to you and a Happy New Year!"?

Considering that the U-6 measure of unemployment is around 17%, a similar percentage drop off in Christmas card traffic just about fits.

“A lot of my friends aren’t sending real cards this year,’’ Willingham said. “I suspect every year it will decline, just like the rest of Western civilization.’’

Go here for more on the story from Boston.com.

Slavery in 2009: A Damning Indictment of Human Decadence

There are hundreds of thousands of slaves in the city-state of Dubai, a playground for ex-pats:

Sonapur is a rubble-strewn patchwork of miles and miles of identical concrete buildings. Some 300,000 men live piled up here, in a place whose name in Hindi means "City of Gold". In the first camp I stop at – riven with the smell of sewage and sweat – the men huddle around, eager to tell someone, anyone, what is happening to them.

For the rest of the story, go here.

Let Me Be Clear: I'm Projecting Again

Some nebulous "other" is treating our money like Monopoly money, but certainly not the Democrats, and certainly not Obama. Yeah, right.

From Dan Henninger:

This week brought a more troubling incident. Harry Reid's Senate had just secured its 60th vote for Mr. Obama's health-care reform. Whatever one's view, its trillion-dollar-plus cost is an agreed given. Days earlier the public saw Congress vote to raise the debt ceiling by almost $290 billion to make room for the needs of the $800 billion stimulus bill, the unprecedented $3.5 trillion budget, and the House's approval Dec. 16 of a new $154 billion jobs bill. Amid this President Obama said Monday: "We can't continue to spend . . . as if the hard-earned tax dollars of the American people can be treated like Monopoly money."

Sham Economy, Part Three

In late October the government reported that third quarter GDP came in at 3.5%, about half of which was attributed widely to stimulus schemes like the first time home buyer credit and the cash for clunkers program.

Then the first revision brought the "growth" down to 2.8%. Today the Associated Press is reporting that the final revision brings third quarter growth down to 2.2%, which means that the economy, minus the hundreds of $billions in other stimulus spending, may actually have contracted in the third quarter, meaning "the recession" hadn't ended yet:

The economy grew at a 2.2 percent pace in the third quarter, as the recovery got off to a weaker start than previously thought. ...

The Commerce Department's new reading on gross domestic product for the July-to-September quarter was slower than the 2.8 percent growth rate estimated just a month ago. Economists were predicting that figure wouldn't be revised in the government's final estimate on third-quarter GDP.

You mean the same economists who warned us so long in advance of last year's financial tsunami?

The stuff they ladle out in this soup line we're standing in comes out of a crock of you know what.

Up Yours, America

The Wall Street Journal offers a penetrating critique of ObamaCare, as the Senate prepares to vote.

Or as the Democrat Senator from Rhode Island would put it: Just another bunch of white male supremacist Aryan skinhead birther pistol fanatics going off the deep end:

Mr. Obama promised a new era of transparent good government, yet on Saturday morning Mr. Reid threw out the 2,100-page bill that the world's greatest deliberative body spent just 17 days debating and replaced it with a new "manager's amendment" that was stapled together in covert partisan negotiations. Democrats are barely even bothering to pretend to care what's in it, not that any Senator had the chance to digest it in the 38 hours before the first cloture vote at 1 a.m. this morning. After procedural motions that allow for no amendments, the final vote could come at 9 p.m. on December 24.

Even in World War I there was a Christmas truce.

To read the whole sorry tale, go here.

Marxist Professors Outnumber Conservatives Three to One

And the big joke's on you: your kid goes deep into debt to pay the salaries of the proponents of the god that failed.

Kevin Hassett in "Marxist Professors Are Gift to Climate Skeptics" here for Bloomberg explains the politics of climate science:  

A 2007 survey of more than 1,400 professors by sociologists Neil Gross of Harvard University and Solon Simmons of George Mason University is as damning an indictment of an organization as you are ever likely to see.

The authors compiled the political affiliation and beliefs of the professors, who were asked to identify themselves along a spectrum from very liberal to very conservative. Across all fields, 44 percent identified themselves as liberal or very liberal, while 9.2 percent identified themselves as conservative or very conservative.

Strikingly, the data were even more tilted in the physical and biological sciences. There, 45.2 percent of professors identified themselves as liberal, while only 8 percent said they were conservative.

The authors dug deeper than many previous studies and established some startling findings.

In the social sciences, 24 percent of professors identified themselves as liberal “radicals” and 18 percent as Marxists. Only 4.9 percent of social scientists identified themselves as “conservative.”

So there are almost five times as many self-identified liberal radicals on our faculties, and more than three times as many Marxists as there are conservatives. Last I checked, Marxism has been utterly discredited. Yet there are still Marxists everywhere, poisoning the minds of our children. Conservatives, on the other hand, are a rarity.

While there isn’t enough data to address the question, it is safe to assume that no other profession is so tilted. In a society about evenly split between liberals and conservatives, achieving such a bias requires serious effort. It doesn’t happen by accident.

If you want to run conservatives out, you need to discourage dissertations that might reach conservative conclusions. You need to shun young students if their work questions liberal orthodoxy. You need to control the academic journals, rejecting papers submitted by identifiable conservatives.

You need to celebrate work that supports the political bias of Democrats. If your research shows that higher minimum wages are terrific, an endowed chair is yours for the taking. Question whether a higher minimum wage might cause higher unemployment, and find your place on the bread line.

For years, I have watched the economic community act this way. The hacked East Anglia e-mails confirm that exactly this type of conspiracy is in place. They show climate experts plotting how to keep the lid on research that didn’t support the prevailing view on global warming. In one e-mail, Michael Mann of Penn State University proposed boycotting an academic journal because it had published an article that provided evidence contrary to global warming canon.


There's more at the link.

"We Have Nothing to Fear from a President Obama"

Dear Senator McCain,

Buck up or shut up.

As reported in Politico:

McCain: GOP can't stop health care

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) concedes that Republican senators won’t be able to stop Democratic health care reform legislation from passing the Senate before Christmas.

“We will fight until the last vote,” McCain told "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace. “We owe that to our constituents, because we must do everything – we must look back and say we did everything to prevent this terrible mistake from taking place.”

Democrats recently reached a deal with hold out members of their own caucus to cobble together the 60 votes necessary to pass the bill - and McCain, in response to a Wallace question, said there’s “probably not” anything the GOP can do to block the bill. “But what we can do is continue winning the battle of American public opinion.”

Well, whoopdeedoo, Mr. Screw the Pooch. In case you weren't paying attention, AGAIN, the battle of American public opinion is over. The battle is in the Senate, dumbass.

Health Care Reform by Legal Insurrection, Literally

By William A. Jacobson:

Saturday, December 19, 2009

This Is Why I Named This Blog "Legal Insurrection"

I was in the car most of the day, so I haven't had a chance to post on the Ben Nelson sellout. So here are some initial thoughts:

Yes, it is that bad. The Democrats are about to put in place the legislative, regulatory and bureaucratic infrastructure for a complete government takeover of health care. Just read the comments from the supporters and you will see a common theme -- this is just the beginning. They know it, we know it, and Ben Nelson knows it but doesn't care because he scored some pork for his home state, just like Mary Landrieu

This is the worst of Washington. Payoffs, lies, deceit, and deception. Oddly enough, I've come to have more respect for the left-wing advocates of single-payer than the so-called moderates who will sell their principles for money. At least the left-wing has principles, even if I disagree with those principles. The moderates like Nelson and Landrieu have no principles, at least none that cannot be sold.

Where is Evan Bayh? His silence has been deafening.

How amazing is the number of circumstances which caused this perfect storm, without any one of which we wouldn't be on Obama's precipice: Massachusetts changes its rules for a second time to allow appointment of a Democrat in Kennedy's place rather than having to wait for the special election; Al Franken outmaneuvers and out-litigates Norm Coleman to steal the Minnesota race; Rahm Emanuel recruits "blue dog" Democratic wolves in sheep's clothing and people fall for it; the media covers up the Obama agenda during the campaign, portraying Obama falsely as a moderate; [added] George Allen says "Macaca," and so on.

Democrats do not care about the 2010 election cycle, or 2012. Obama has said it. He'd rather get his restructuring of society in place and be a one-term president, than be a two-term president and not succeed in perfecting our imperfections.

There is a slight, slight chance this legislation can be stopped in the House, so don't give up until the last vote is taken.

This perfect storm likely never will be repeated. But it only takes one storm to wreak havoc and cause damage which will take years or decades to undo, if it can be undone.

The only ray of hope is that most of the provisions will not kick in until well after November 2010. I've said it before, this is the political fight of our lives for the future of the country.

Rescinding Obamacare needs to be the organizing theme of the 2010 election. And throwing out the bums who voted for it.

Now I remember why, as I saw the Obama wave rising last fall, I named this blog Legal Insurrection. That's what's needed, now more than ever.

Update: A couple of commenters correctly have pointed out that I should have included Ted Steven's defeat as another element in the perfect storm. Remember that Steven's conviction later was dismissed due to prosecutorial misconduct, but the Democrat who won the election remains in office, as I posted previously, Ted Stevens Conviction Reversed, But What About The Election? I noted the implications in that post: "Without the Begich vote, Obama would have a much more difficult time passing his agenda."

And, now we know why Evan Bayh was relatively silent in public. Behind the scenes, Bayh was a moving force in closed meetings to put the plan together:

Lawmakers who attended a private meeting between Mr. Obama and Senate Democrats at the White House on Tuesday pointed to remarks there by Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, as providing some new inspiration.

Mr. Bayh said that the health care measure was the kind of public policy he had come to Washington to work on, according to officials who attended the session, and that he did not want to see the satisfied looks on the faces of Republican leaders if they succeeded in blocking the measure.

A Baby Boomer Mistakes Declines For Advances, and is Suddenly Afraid for his Country

"The greatest danger comes from within," you write, as if it's some new insight. It is a warning heard for years now from the likes of Michael Savage, and others. Where have you been, Goodwin?

Obama was speaking out of both sides of his mouth during the entire primary season, long before he became the nominee. Think what you will of Fox News Channel. They reported on it dutifully, daily, but you were writing what, exactly?

The poverty was in your own soul already, so poor were you that you couldn't even pay attention. The story of your generation, of my generation.

Michael Goodwin in "Dreading our future" posted here has various epiphanies:

I am afraid -- actually, certain -- we are losing the heart and soul that made America unique in human history. Yes, we have enemies, but the greatest danger comes from within.

Watching the freak show in Copenhagen last week, I was alternately furious and filled with dread. The world has gone absolutely bonkers and lunatics are in charge. ...

Even more frightening, our own leaders joined the circus. ...

President Obama, for whom I voted because I believed he was the best choice available, is a profound disappointment. I now regard his campaign as a sly bait-and-switch operation, promising one thing and delivering another. Shame on me.

Equally surprising, he has become an insufferable bore. ... 

His assertion we will go bankrupt unless Congress immediately adopts the health monstrosity marks a new low. ...

In fact, it is a myth the fight is over health care at all. It is a vulgar power dispute between liberals and extreme liberals, with health care a convenient portal for command-and-control of 17 percent of the economy.

It's definitely not reform. ...

Meanwhile, Mother Nature delivered her verdict with yesterday's blizzard in Washington. I am cheered by the thought that finally, hell has frozen over.


Follow the link for the complete story.

Aristotle, On Tyranny

Now a tyranny is a monarchy where the good of one man only is the object of government, an oligarchy considers only the rich, and a democracy only the poor; but neither of them have a common good in view.

Tyranny, the worst excess imaginable, [is] a government the most contrary possible to a free state.

Tyranny arises from a headstrong democracy or an oligarchy, but very seldom when the members of the community are nearly on an equality with each other. When there is a want of a proper number of men of middling fortune, the poor extend their power too far, abuses arise, and the government is soon at an end.

A tyrant is chosen out of the meanest populace; an enemy to the better sort, that the common people may not be oppressed by them.

In former times, when the same person was both demagogue and general, the democracies were changed into tyrannies; and indeed most of the ancient tyrannies arose from those states: a reason for which then subsisted, but not now; for at that time the demagogues were of the soldiery; for they were not then powerful by their eloquence; but, now the art of oratory is cultivated, the able speakers are at present the demagogues; but, as they are unqualified to act in a military capacity, they cannot impose themselves on the people as tyrants, if we except in one or two trifling instances.

Formerly, too, tyrannies were more common than now, on account of the very extensive powers with which some magistrates were entrusted: for they were supreme in many things of the last consequence; and also because at that time the cities were not of that very great extent, the people in general living in the country, and being employed in husbandry, which gave them, who took the lead in public affairs, an opportunity, if they had a turn for war, to make themselves tyrants; which they all did when they had gained the confidence of the people; and this confidence was their hatred to the rich.

A government shall also alter from its ancient and approved democratic form into one entirely new, if there is no census to regulate the election of magistrates; for, as the election is with the people, the demagogues who are desirous of being in office, to flatter them, will endeavour with all their power to make the people superior even to the laws.

To prevent this entirely, or at least in a great measure, the magistrates should be elected by the tribes, and not by the people at large.

A tyrant, as has been often said, has no regard to the common good, except for his own advantage; his only object is pleasure, but a king's is virtue: what a tyrant therefore is ambitious of engrossing is wealth, but a king rather honour.

The guards too of a king are citizens, a tyrant's foreigners.

That a tyranny contains all that is bad both in a democracy and an oligarchy is evident; with an oligarchy it has for its end gain, as the only means of providing the tyrant with guards and the luxuries of life; like that it places no confidence in the people; and therefore deprives them of the use of arms: it is also common to them both to persecute the populace, to drive them out of the city and their own habitations.

With a democracy it quarrels with the nobles, and destroys them both publicly and privately, or drives them into banishment, as rivals and an impediment to the government; hence naturally arise conspiracies both amongst those who desire to govern and those who desire not to be slaves.

The extreme of a democracy is a tyranny.

If any one assumes the government, either by force or fraud, this is a tyranny. A king exists but while the people are willing to obey, as their submission to him is voluntary, but to a tyrant involuntary.

What has been already mentioned is as conducive as anything can be to preserve a tyranny; namely, to keep down those who are of an aspiring disposition, to take off those who will not submit, to allow no public meals, no clubs, no education, nothing at all, but to guard against everything that gives rise to high spirits or mutual confidence; nor to suffer the learned meetings of those who are at leisure to hold conversation with each other; and to endeavour by every means possible to keep all the people strangers to each other; for knowledge increases mutual confidence; and to oblige all strangers to appear in public, and to live near the city-gate, that all their actions may be sufficiently seen; for those who are kept like slaves seldom entertain any noble thoughts: in short, to imitate everything which the Persians and barbarians do, for they all contribute to support slavery; and to endeavour to know what every one who is under their power does and says; and for this purpose to employ spies: Hiero also used to send out listeners wherever there was any meeting or conversation; for the people dare not speak with freedom for fear of such persons; and if any one does, there is the less chance of its being concealed; and to endeavour that the whole community should mutually accuse and come to blows with each other, friend with friend, the commons with the nobles, and the rich with each other.

It is also advantageous for a tyranny that all those who are under it should be oppressed with poverty, that they may not be able to compose a guard; and that, being employed in procuring their daily bread, they may have no leisure to conspire against their tyrants. The Pyramids of Egypt are a proof of this, and the votive edifices of the Cyposelidse, and the temple of Jupiter Olympus, built by the Pisistratidae, and the works of Polycrates at Samos; for all these produced one end, the keeping the people poor.

It is necessary also to multiply taxes, as at Syracuse; where Dionysius in the space of five years collected all the private property of his subjects into his own coffers.

A tyrant also should endeavour to engage his subjects in a war, that they may have employment and continually depend upon their general.

A king is preserved by his friends, but a tyrant is of all persons the man who can place no confidence in friends, as every one has it in his desire and these chiefly in their power to destroy him.

All these things also which are done in an extreme democracy should be done in a tyranny, as permitting great licentiousness to the women in the house, that they may reveal their husbands' secrets; and showing great indulgence to slaves also for the same reason; for slaves and women conspire not against tyrants: but when they are treated with kindness, both of them are abettors of tyrants, and extreme democracies also; and the people too in such a state desire to be despotic.

For which reason flatterers are in repute in both these: the demagogue in the democracy, for he is the proper flatterer of the people; among tyrants, he who will servilely adapt himself to their humours; for this is the business of flatterers.

And for this reason tyrants always love the worst of wretches, for they rejoice in being flattered, which no man of a liberal spirit will submit to; for they love the virtuous, but flatter none.

Bad men too are fit for bad purposes; "like to like," as the proverb says.

A tyrant also should show no favour to a man of worth or a freeman; for he should think, that no one deserved to be thought these but himself; for he who supports his dignity, and is a friend to freedom, encroaches upon the superiority and the despotism of the tyrant: such men, therefore, they naturally hate, as destructive to their government.

A tyrant also should rather admit strangers to his table and familiarity than citizens, as these are his enemies, but the others have no design against him.

These and such-like are the supports of a tyranny, for it comprehends whatsoever is wicked.

But all these things may be comprehended in three divisions, for there are three objects which a tyranny has in view; one of which is, that the citizens should be of poor abject dispositions; for such men never propose to conspire against any one.

The second is, that they should have no confidence in each other; for while they have not this, the tyrant is safe enough from destruction. For which reason they are always at enmity with those of merit, as hurtful to their government; not only as they scorn to be governed despotically, but also because they can rely upon each other's fidelity, and others can rely upon theirs, and because they will not inform against their associates, nor any one else.

The third is, that they shall be totally without the means of doing anything; for no one undertakes what is impossible for him to perform: so that without power a tyranny can never be destroyed.

These, then, are the three objects which the inclinations of tyrants desire to see accomplished; for all their tyrannical plans tend to promote one of these three ends, that their people may neither have mutual confidence, power, nor spirit.

This, then, is one of the two methods of preserving tyrannies: the other proceeds in a way quite contrary to what has been already described, and which may be discerned from considering to what the destruction of a kingdom is owing; for as one cause of that is, making the government approach near to a tyranny, so the safety of a tyranny consists in making the government nearly kingly; preserving only one thing, namely power, that not only the willing, but the unwilling also, must be obliged to submit; for if this is once lost, the tyranny is at an end.

This, then, as the foundation, must be preserved: in other particulars carefully do and affect to seem like a king; first, appear to pay a great attention to what belongs to the public; nor make such profuse presents as will offend the people; while they are to supply the money out of the hard labour of their own hands, and see it given in profusion to mistresses, foreigners, and fiddlers; keeping an exact account both of what you receive and pay; which is a practice some tyrants do actually follow, by which means they seem rather fathers of families than tyrants: nor need you ever fear the want of money while you have the supreme power of the state in your own hands.

It is also much better for those tyrants who quit their kingdom to do this than to leave behind them money they have hoarded up; for their regents will be much less desirous of making innovations, and they are more to be dreaded by absent tyrants than the citizens; for such of them as he suspects he takes with him, but these regents must be left behind.

He should also endeavour to appear to collect such taxes and require such services as the exigencies of the state demand, that whenever they are wanted they may be ready in time of war; and particularly to take care that he appear to collect and keep them not as his own property, but the public's.

His appearance also should not be severe, but respectable, so that he should inspire those who approach him with veneration and not fear; but this will not be easily accomplished if he is despised.

If, therefore, he will not take the pains to acquire any other, he ought to endeavour to be a man of political abilities, and to fix that opinion of himself in the judgment of his subjects.

He should also take care not to appear to be guilty of the least offence against modesty, nor to suffer it in those under him: nor to permit the women of his family to treat others haughtily; for the haughtiness of women has been the ruin of many tyrants.

With respect to the pleasures of sense, he ought to do directly contrary to the practice of some tyrants at present; for they do not only continually indulge themselves in them for many days together, but they seem also to desire to have other witnesses of it, that they may wonder at their happiness; whereas he ought really to be moderate in these, and, if not, to appear to others to avoid them-for it is not the sober man who is exposed either to plots or contempt, but the drunkard; not the early riser, but the sluggard.

His conduct in general should also be contrary to what is reported of former tyrants; for he ought to improve and adorn his city, so as to seem a guardian and not a tyrant; and, moreover., always to seem particularly attentive to the worship of the gods; for from persons of such a character men entertain less fears of suffering anything illegal while they suppose that he who governs them is religious and reverences the gods; and they will be less inclined to raise insinuations against such a one, as being peculiarly under their protection: but this must be so done as to give no occasion for any suspicion of hypocrisy.

He should also take care to show such respect to men of merit in every particular, that they should not think they could be treated with greater distinction by their fellow-citizens in a free state.

He should also let all honours flow immediately from himself, but every censure from his subordinate officers and judges.

It is also a common protection of all monarchies not to make one person too great, or, certainly, not many; for they will support each other: but, if it is necessary to entrust any large powers to one person, to take care that it is not one of an ardent spirit; for this disposition is upon every opportunity most ready for a revolution: and, if it should seem necessary to deprive any one of his power, to do it by degrees, and not reduce him all at once.

It is also necessary to abstain from all kinds of insolence; more particularly from corporal punishment; which you must be most cautious never to exercise over those who have a delicate sense of honour; for, as those who love money are touched to the quick when anything affects their property, so are men of honour and principle when they receive any disgrace: therefore, either never employ personal punishment, or, if you do, let it be only in the manner in which a father would correct his son, and not with contempt; and, upon the whole, make amends for any seeming disgrace by bestowing greater honours.

But of all persons who are most likely to entertain designs against the person of a tyrant, those are chiefly to be feared and guarded against who regard as nothing the loss of their own lives, so that they can but accomplish their purpose: be very careful therefore of those who either think themselves affronted, or those who are dear to them; for those who are excited by anger to revenge regard as nothing their own persons: for, as Heraclitus says, it is dangerous to fight with an angry man who will purchase with his life the thing he aims at.

As all cities are composed of two sorts of persons, the rich and the poor, it is necessary that both these should find equal protection from him who governs them, and that the one party should not have it in their power to injure the other; but that the tyrant should attach to himself that party which is the most powerful; which, if he does, he will have no occasion either to make his slaves free, or to deprive citizens of their arms; for the strength of either of the parties added to his own forces will render him superior to any conspiracy.

It would be superfluous to go through all particulars; for the rule of conduct which the tyrant ought to pursue is evident enough, and that is, to affect to appear not the tyrant, but the king; the guardian of those he governs, not their plunderer, but their protector, and to affect the middle rank in life, not one superior to all others: he should, therefore, associate his nobles with him and soothe his people; for his government will not only be necessarily more honourable and worthy of imitation, as it will be over men of worth, and not abject wretches who perpetually both hate and fear him; but it will be also more durable.

Let him also frame his life so that his manners may be consentaneous to virtue, or at least let half of them be so, that he may not be altogether wicked, but only so in part.

-- from The Politics --