Town Hall Hooligans Swaying Independents?

Seems that they are:

Either indies have suddenly developed a taste for Nazi mobs of political terrorists or the Democrats’ message war on ObamaCare opponents is a rather epic fail.

Given the left’s monopoly on wisdom and virtue, I must reluctantly conclude it’s the former. When did independents start hating America?

In a survey of 1,000 adults taken Tuesday, 34% say the sometimes heated protests at sessions held by members of Congress have made them more sympathetic to the protesters’ views; 21% say they are less sympathetic.

Independents by 2-1, 35%-16%, say they are more sympathetic to the protesters now…

I’ll bet that a survey of “likely voters” would show an even more marked favorability for the mobs of hate filled morons who don’t know what’s good for ‘em. To put it in terms even a liberal can understand: insulting the people you’re trying to convince is a poor debating tactic. Perhaps instead of all that “shut up, you idiots” if you had tried, “we respect your views and will use as many of your ideas as we can”, you might have got a little further towards your ultimate goal. You know, there’s an old phrase about half a loaf being better than none?

Be that as it may, this Obamacare debate has been an excellent way of clarifying the outstanding differences between right and left in this nation – the left exposes itself, day by day, as being arrogant, hate-filled, spiteful and authortarian while the right is more and more shown to be the party of the people, and of freedom.

Phrase of the Day

As people fill the vials of wrath, it is opportune to take to heart these words:

At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide. – Abraham Lincoln

Countdown to Catastrophe

Just keep thinking about “Green shoots” and hoping that the Chinese economy will pull us out of our slump…please ignore things like this:

The federal deficit climbed higher into record territory in July, hitting $1.27 trillion with two months remaining in the budget year.

The Treasury Department said Wednesday that the July deficit totaled $180.7 billion, slightly more than the $177.5 billion economists had expected.

Its all bottomed out. Everything will be fine. No need to worry.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, there is opinion that we’re already in a deflationary economic depression and just haven’t admitted it, yet.

Obama's Ignorance Amputates Support

Nothing like saying something stupid and false to get your day start,huh, Barry?

The American College of Surgeons is deeply disturbed over the uninformed public comments President Obama continues to make about the high-quality care provided by surgeons in the United States. When the President makes statements that are incorrect or not based in fact, we think he does a disservice to the American people at a time when they want clear, understandable facts about health care reform. We want to set the record straight.

— Yesterday during a town hall meeting, President Obama got his

facts completely wrong. He stated that a surgeon gets paid

$50,000 for a leg amputation when, in fact, Medicare pays a

surgeon between $740 and $1,140 for a leg amputation. This

payment also includes the evaluation of the patient on the day

of the operation plus patient follow-up care that is provided

for 90 days after the operation. Private insurers pay some

variation of the Medicare reimbursement for this service.

— Three weeks ago, the President suggested that a surgeon’s

decision to remove a child’s tonsils is based on the desire to

make a lot of money. That remark was ill-informed and

dangerous, and we were dismayed by this characterization of the

work surgeons do. Surgeons make decisions about recommending

operations based on what’s right for the patient.

We agree with the President that the best thing for patients with diabetes is to manage the disease proactively to avoid the bad consequences that can occur, including blindness, stroke, and amputation. But as is the case for a person who has been treated for cancer and still needs to have a tumor removed, or a person who is in a terrible car crash and needs access to a trauma surgeon, there are times when even a perfectly managed diabetic patient needs a surgeon. The President’s remarks are truly alarming and run the risk of damaging the all-important trust between surgeons and their patients.

The man is just making stuff up as he goes along – we thought this was just a Biden thing but it seems that Obama, too, will just make up “facts” to fit the statement of the moment. More and more, its getting impossible to trust anything the President says because we don’t know right off the bat whether he’s (a) lying or (b) directly contravening a previous statement. Dishonest Presidents are the worst sort – better an idiot than a liar. You can eventually work out ways to keep an idiot up on the rails, but a liar will continually undercut everything you do.

This long four years gets longer by the day.

What Media Bias? Part 157

Gee, ya think?

Analysis: Press Largely Ignored Incendiary Rhetoric at Bush Protest

…When Bush visited Portland, Ore., for a fundraiser, protesters stalked his motorcade, assailed his limousine and stoned a car containing his advisers. Chanting “Bush is a terrorist!”, the demonstrators bullied passers-by, including gay softball players and a wheelchair-bound grandfather with multiple sclerosis.

One protester even brandished a sign that seemed to advocate Bush’s assassination. The man held a large photo of Bush that had been doctored to show a gun barrel pressed against his temple.

“BUSH: WANTED, DEAD OR ALIVE,” read the placard, which had an X over the word “ALIVE.”

Another poster showed Bush’s face with the words: “F— YOU, MOTHERF—ER!”

A third sign urged motorists to “HONK IF YOU HATE BUSH.” A fourth declared: “CHRISTIAN FASCISM,” with a swastika in place of the letter S in each word…

And, of course, thugs tried to beat up Matt and I’ve received wishes that I be strung up from a lamp post. We have really just felt the love from the left over the past few years.

But now that Obama is President, all of a sudden to speak even the most mildly critical word against the President is un-patriotic. Well, whatever you say, liberals – but pardon us if we don’t buy the horse dung you’re selling.

Fear and Loathing in Obama's America

Or, let the demonization begin:

Militia groups with gripes against the government are regrouping across the country and could grow rapidly, according to an organization that tracks such trends.

The stress of a poor economy and a liberal administration led by a black president are among the causes for the recent rise, the report from the Southern Poverty Law Center says.

I’d refer to the Southern Poverty Law Center as a bunch of blackguards, but our liberals would think I’m saying something about black people – and we don’t want to confuse them any more than necessary.

What we have here is part of a clearly orchestrated plan on the left to make all opposition to Obama odious. The left wants it to be “Opposition to Obama = racism/hate/violence”. This way, they won’t have to debate us – we’ll be beneath contempt and only those who are willing to debate within the Obama party line will be allow at the table. There is nothing we can do to stop the left from making this attempt but I will advise that attempts to slander patriotic, armed Americans who are exercising their God-given rights will not get you very far, in the long run.

The "Broken Window Fallacy"

Mish’s links to the best illustration of what is wrong with tax and spend liberalism I’ve seen:

…“Cash for clunkers” was touted as a huge success, with cars tearing out of auto showrooms, the program running through its $1 billion appropriation in one week…

…With success like that, why limit the rebates to $4,500? Why not give everyone a $10,000 or $20,000 rebate to turn in an old clunker? And why stop at the cars in the garage when you could get rid of a garage full of accumulated junk, with the government providing rebates to households for unloading what they’ve been meaning to get rid of for years?

A reductio ad absurdum, to be sure. Sometimes reducing a proposition to absurdity is the easiest way to expose its flaws…

…Transferring money from taxpayers to car buyers is exactly that: a transfer. The money taken from taxpayers can’t be used for something else.

This is the lesson of Frederic Bastiat’s essay, “That Which is Seen, and That Which is Unseen.” Bastiat, a 19th century French political economist, tells the story of a shopkeeper who has to hire a glazier to repair a broken window, providing work and income for him in the process. That’s what is seen.

What is unseen is what the shopkeeper would have done if he didn’t have to pay the glazier. He might have bought shoes for his children, providing income for the shoemaker, who in turn could buy leather to produce more shoes. The glazier’s gain is the shoemaker’s loss. There is no net gain, no job or income creation, from this transaction…

The “broken window fallacy,” as it is known, can be applied to all government spending. The $787 billion fiscal stimulus enacted in February transfers money from taxpayers to the government to allocate as it sees fit. The effect of the government’s expenditures shows up as growth in gross domestic product. Auto manufacturers produce more cars to meet the juiced demand, adding to GDP. This is what’s seen.

What is unseen is what would have been produced by the private sector had the government not confiscated future revenue via taxation.

We can only get out of this economic mess by creating wealth – moving the wealth around won’t do the trick. Think of it like this:

The United States is the largest importer and exporter in the world. We have vast amounts of goods coming in and out of our country every day. A very large percentage of this trade arrives and departs by sea. And yet the US flagged merchant fleet totals a mere 465 ships. The Chinese merchant fleet is more than triple that size. What this means is that while we have this insatiable maw for imported goods, we don’t bother building the ships we need to fetch them from foreign lands. Real economic stimulus would be to make ship-building tax free for the next ten years and cut port fees and taxes by 50% for US built merchant ships. This would encourage people to build ships in the US, including foreign people who want to export to the US and don’t want to pay the premium for coming in to our harbors. We do need “stimulus” – but it has to be stimulus in the service of creating wealth, or its not stimulus at all. Its wealth redistribution – a zero-sum game.

On and on we can go with this – various incentives to build new transportation means, rather than just refurbishing what we’ve already got. Incentives for people to start manufacturing at least some of the things we import. Incentives to start and expand farms. Incentives to start and expand mines. Providing a spur for people to invest their time, money and sweat in making new wealth.

If all we’re to do is have government take money from one hand and place it in another, then we’re not doing anything – at best, we might provide a temporary boost for those areas favored with government money. But in the long run, everything has to be paid for – and we’ll pay for the Spendulus by not having money to do what we’d prefer. Obama might be happy. The GM employees might be kicking up their heels. The people who got the 4,500 in swag are pleased…but for the rest of us, it will hurt more and more as time goes on.

The sooner we get at making, mining and growing things the faster our wealth will start growing – and the faster we’ll be able to pay off these insane debts we wracked up (and note, liberals, I say “we” – because we all did it…its not Bush’s fault, its not Obama’s fault…its all our fault). The longer we keep to this dimwitted tax and spend liberalism, the longer and deeper will be this economic depression.

Phrase of the Day

Thinking about the Culture of Death and where it came from:

Eugenics and abortion is about the tyranny of the elite deciding who shall live and who shall die. And if it’s about the elite, it’s about money. It was the Rockefellers and the Carnegies and other capitalist lords who funded eugenics research in the early 20th century. They went on to be major supporters of Planned Parenthood. Chesterton says that wealth, and the social science supported by wealth tries inhuman experiments, and when they fail, they try even more inhuman experiments. They are inhuman because they are godless. But they are godless because they don’t want to face how inhuman they are. The wealthy industrialist became agnostic, says Chesterton, “not so much because he did not know where he was, as because he wanted to forget. Many of the rich took to scepticism exactly as the poor took to drink; because it was a way out.” – Dale Ahlquist

Death is the way out – and now we have “death with dignity”. As if death was ever actually undignified. Well, to the Culture of Death, natural death is undignified or, at least, unscientific. Much better to abort at one end and present the hemlock at the other. Thus we can be, as the Liar promised, as gods – pretending that we are ruling ourselves when we are actually abdicating our authority and surrendering ourselves to slavery.

Beware the man who has done wrong and refuses to admit it, especially those men who have piled up wealth and feel guilty about how they did it (George Soros, call your office) – confession is good for the soul, not least in that it prevents a person from merely going from bad to worse sins.

A Little Dirt Never Hurt Anyone

Which was actually a sort of joke I had with some friends as a teenager as we shared the potato chips out of the bag. But, I guess we were just advanced for our age:

Only Two Things Scare Me:

And one of them is antibiotic resistance. Along with my regular co-author, Bill Sage, I’ve just sent off a new article to the law reviews, titled Combating Antimicrobial Resistance: Regulatory Strategies and Institutional Capacity.

Antibiotic resistance is a major public health problem. Every year, two million Americans acquire bacterial infections in the hospital, and 70% of those infections are resistant to at least one antibiotic. MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staph aureus) has attracted the most media attention: the CDC estimated that MRSA caused 94,000 life-threatening infections, and 18,650 deaths in 2005.

Congress and many states are currently debating legislation to reduce antibiotic resistance. The article blends regulatory theory and comparative institutional analysis to explain how we can use regulation to lower the risk of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection, rationalize the use of existing antibiotics, and encourage innovation. We canvass the full range of regulatory options that are available, and explain the compatibility or incompatibility of particular regulatory strategies with existing legal and regulatory systems.

Or, alternately we can stop being afraid of dirt. Stop using anti-bacterial soaps. Stop fretting that if our kitchen counter isn’t surgically sterile that we’ll catch salmonella. This is not an argument in favor of wallowing in filth and, truth be told, I’m a bit obsessive-compulsive about having clean hands…but methinks we go too far in our worries about dirt.

The first I heard of this sort of thing was back as a child when the word came out – from official sources, as far as I could tell – that we shouldn’t stuff the turkey at Thanksgiving. Seems that there was this one in a zillion chance that you’d get food poisoning….of course, you also had to be an idiot and not clean the turkey properly and not cook it thoroughly, but that was besides the point. From that point on, no stuffing in the turkey…people who wished to each out and have stuffing with their turkey were forced to consume dry, tasteless bread-gunk cooked outside the bird. Its only gotten worse since then.

Live a little, people – keep clean, but remember that we have bacteria in our own intestines and couldn’t live without them. We’re not meant to be perfectly clean in the physical sense…and if we tolerate a little dirt, we’ll find that when we’ve actually got a real infection, we’re not infected with resistant bugs.

EEOC Goes After Catholic College for Being Catholic

Imagine, the nerve of these Catholics; thinking they have a right to believe as they wish and live their lives uninstructed by the State:

…Belmont Abbey College is nestled in the plush green rolling hills of Belmont, North Carolina. The campus could provide the backdrop for a film depicting the idyllic Catholic College. Founded by and still served by Benedictine Monks, it provides a visual witness to the beauty of the Benedictine mission of “work and prayer” and the Order’s significant role in helping to birth the great European Universities out of the Monasteries of the Middle Ages. The Monastery on campus is a symbol of the dynamic Catholic faith, life and culture which characterizes this Catholic College.

What is more appealing than even its beauty is Belmont Abbey’s dedication to handing on the fullness of Catholic faith, thought and culture to their student body. It has an overt commitment to teaching the fullness of the Catholic Christian faith and infusing in its graduates a Catholic worldview….

…In 2007, a faculty member discovered that under the College’s existing Health Insurance Plan, anti-life and anti-family products and procedures were potentially covered, including abortion, contraception and sterilization. The College, a Catholic institution committed to the infallible teaching of the Catholic Church concerning the sanctity of life, removed the provisions…

…a complaint was filed by eight faculty members with the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) alleging that the exclusion of these “services” constituted discrimination against women in violation of both North Carolina and Federal law. An investigation ensued.

In March of 2009 the College Administration received a “Dismissal and Notice of Rights” determination letter from the EEOC indicating that they were closing the file. As a constitutional lawyer of almost thirty years, I know that such letters usually indicate the Commission’s intention to dismiss the claim. The College understandably interpreted it as an indication that the Commission found that the College’s decision to amend the plan did not violate the law.

So, imagine the shock as summer was winding to an end and the Administration received a “determination letter” from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission accusing them of discriminating based upon gender. Reuben Daniels Jr., of the EEOC Charlotte District Office Director wrote that the Commission had determined that Belmont Abbey College discriminated against women: “By denying prescription contraception drugs, Respondent (the college) is discriminating based on gender because only females take oral prescription contraceptives… By denying coverage, men are not affected, only women.”

So, we can be Catholic all we want – but unless we make provision for supporting hateful, anti-Catholic actions, we’re in violation of the law. This is just a foretaste of what the left wants to bring against all believers and all religious institutions. It won’t be illegal to believe in God, but it will be illegal to act upon one’s faith.

Note the way this attack is made – while the Catholic Church is opposed to all artificial birth control, the EEOC is saying that since a particular type of birth control is used only by women, it is discriminatory against women – deliberate and with malice, or the EEOC would have no basis for complaint – to deny that particular type of birth control. This is Alice in Wonderland nonsense – the sort of thing only insane people can think of. In this case, people who are insanely opposed to the Catholic Church and will use any club which comes to hand against it.

We must pray for the good people at Belmont Abbey – and also pray for the misguided fools who brought this case.