Is it Too Late to Hide the Zippers?

From the Prologue of Charles Murray’s new book, Coming Apart.

[T]he American Project [is] not about maximizing national wealth nor international dominance. The American Project (I love that phrase) consists of the continuing effort, begun with the founding, to demonstrate that human beings can be left free as individuals and families to live their lives as they see fit, coming together voluntarily to solve their joint problems. The polity based on that idea led to a civic culture that was seen as exceptional by all the world. That culture was so widely shared among Americans that it amounted to a civil religion. To be an American was to be different from other nationalities, in ways that Americans treasured. That culture is unraveling.

I don’t think The American Project, our civil religion, is unraveling.  It’s being unraveled.

Churches, book clubs, little league baseball teams, small businesses, and neighborhoods are held together by powerful bonds, and you can’t pull them apart.  No matter how hard you tug, they’re clung to each other like two fabrics held together by a zipper.  Ever try to undo a zipper by pulling on the fabric from either side of the zipper?  Sometimes, the zipper is even stronger than the fabric.  But, beware.  We know that can you divide those fabrics from one another with a gentle, light pull on the zipper, one easy zip, zip, zip at a time.  Take away community, take away fellowship, and it’s every man for himself.

After I [re]posted my video comments on Barack Obama’s 2010 State of the Union, a friend asked if I had noticed how similar that speech was to the one the President made in 2012.

I replied that all of Obama’s speeches sound alike, since that’s how megalomaniacs talk.  That’s also how one talks when he’s trying to unzip the fabric of America, trying with every move to undo The American Project.  There is nothing new to state control of everything, so we should stop waiting for Mr. Obamaa to advocate for it with original words and formulas.  He and his cronies know they are doing nothing new, and they know it has never worked before, so those criticisms are made in vain.  See, they are convinced, they are positive – just like their predecessors Stalin, Lenin, Castro, Pol Pot and Chavez – that state control has failed in the past simply because it has never been done right.

Remember, in a 2008 election speech, when Obama said “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

It’s never been done by them.  That’s what he meant.  Head leftie talking to the lefties.  WE will get it right this time.

And they know where the zippers are.

10,000 Hungry Immigrants per day. Are they free? Who will feed them?

Two years ago, after President Obama’s State of the Union, I had these thoughts about America.  I don’t think anyone in Washinton, DC was listening.  We have more freedom taken from us by the day.  When will it stop?

Eeny, Meeny, Miny, MoBama

Mitt, Rick, or Newt – Who beats Obama?  Today, a friend posed that question.  My (expanded/sanitized) reply below:

None of Santorum, Romney or Gingrich can beat Obama on his turf.  Can’t come close.  None of them have a better answer than Obama to “how big should government be?”  ’Bigger’ implies free candy for everyone [without having to acknowledge that someone has to pay the bill].  ’Smaller’ entails (1) fighting over who will have something taken away from him,  and (2) having to explain that the money that has been paying for it was taken [from the rich].  Sounds mean and gets complicated.

I suggest that the GOP’s only chance is to change the question to “How free should Americans be; how much freedom should there be for every single American?”  Then, any one of the three lead candidates (plus Ron Paul) wins in a 58.8-41.2% (approximately) landslide.  See, the left can’t answer that question without a reference to what the government will LET people do.  When they stumble around that answer, any half-decent Republican can enthusiastically say that free men are good men who do good things, without being compelled to do so by government orders, regulations, taxes and programs.  That message wins.  That message lets Americans know that we’re trusted by the messenger.  We vote for that guy.

How do we know?  Take Ronald Reagan, for example.  He knew that a smaller government is the result of freedom, not the other way around.  Free men grant their government only the absolute minimum level of power, only enough to protect their inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and not one iota more.  The government can’t give us more freedoms, it can only take or infringe on those with which our Creator endowed us.  So, when RWR spoke of the greatness of this nation, we know the subject was the people and the form of limited-powers government we [supposedly] enjoy, thanks to our Constitution.  On the other hand, when Barack Obama mentions the greatness of this country, we know he’s thinking about the benevolent things that can be done by the gargantuan government monstrosity he controls from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Wherein lies the difference between the Republican who can beat Obama and the next John McCain?  In the answer to this question:  Do you love our form of government or do you love our government?

8.3% Unemployment – A New Online Game – Playing Numbers with Friends

The Bureau of Labor Statistics makes people disappear.  Let me explain.

First, a question:  Is an 8.3% unemployment rate good news for Barack Obama and the American economy?

Depends on who you count?

Below I’ve shown figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for December 2010 & 2011 and January 2012.

The politicians and the press report (most with celebratory glee) that the “Unemployment Rate” has gone down from 9.4% in December 2010 to 8.3% in January 2012, and we’re told how good that is for the economy and, in turn, President Obama’s re-election prospects.  Let’s look more closely.

That metric – The Unemployment Rate – is calculated as the number of “Unemployed” people divided by the “Civilian Labor Force.”  The problem is that “Unemployed” does not include people who are “Not in the Labor Force*” a figure that was 2,598,000* larger in January 2012 than in December 2010.  If we include those people, the “Actual” unemployment rate works out to be 9.9%, not 8.3%.  See, as the population grows – even if 75% of Catholics use contraception! – so grows the Labor Force.  Unless those people show up to be counted (by either applying for unemployment benefits or being on someone’s payroll) in the “Participation Rate” they get deleted from the math and, voila, the Unemployment Rate goes down!

Fast forward to November 2012 – election month.  Let’s assume population growth equal to that from Dec ’10 to Dec ’12 and let’s assume a Participation Rate equal to the average over the same period – 63.85%.  If we also assume an additional 3,500,000 people are employed by then (i.e. the number of jobs created is double the population growth) the Unemployment Rate will be reported as 6.8% – calculated as (Labor Force – Employed)/Labor Force or (155,765-145,137)/155,765 – while the Actual rate will be 8.7% because an additional 1,507,000 people are “Not in the Labor Force” (88,204,000 less 86,697,000).  The bottom table shows the same projected statistics under more likely job growth scenarios.  In every case, the way the Bureau of Labor Statistics counts “People” the unemployment rate is understated by about 2 percentage points, or about 25%.

Do you want to venture a guess how many people the Obama Administration will make disappear between now and November?

* Not in Labor Force – Total Population less Civilian Labor Force.  They stop being counted, they just disappear.

A friend puts it in his words HERE

WHO COUNTS?

Unemployed - They Count

Hungry - They Don't Count

Tyranny and Rubbers

How does anyone but a tyrant equate liberty with one’s ‘right’ to make someone else pay for his contraception?

The ObamaCare law requires ALL insurance policies to cover (‘for free’) the insured’s costs of contraception.  Or, put another way, all Americans now have a right to subsidized, meaningless, inconsequential casual sex.  (Why wasn’t this guy president when I was 16?)  And, if you’re Catholic, you will pay for your fellow parishioners’ promiscuity because, well, it’s the law, damn it!

See, the Catholic Church has asked for a special dispensation (no, not from the Pope – they’re going over his head, straight to Barack Obama) from the Secretary of Human Services’ commandment that says “Thou shalt provide ‘free’ birth control to your employees.”  I think it has something to do with the arcane, ancient religious beliefs to which they cling (along with their guns) in desperation and protest over current economic difficulties.  Turns out that those self-righteous and preachy Catholic priests have been telling their flock that sex and procreation have something to do with each other, and those same extremist, uh, clerics believe that having one without regard to the other is sinful.  How quaint.

Here’s something else that’s almost as quaint.  “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .”  Those pesky Catholics have the nerve to think that forcing them to pay for other people’s ‘right’ to fornicate without fear of pregnancy impedes their right to freely exercise their religion.  (I think it impedes their right to be free PERIOD – an appeal to freedom of religion is their belt to my suspenders, but . . . another day.)  What a nutty interpretation of liberty they’ve developed!  Don’t those Catholics know that liberty really means conformity and obedience to any law that 50.000001% of the people might support?

In addressing this topic, the editors of The New York Times (Editorial HERE) reveal the tyrannical tendencies of their political ilk.

He [Mitt Romney] was promising to defend the Roman Catholic Church’s “religious liberty” to deprive its tens of thousands of employees and university students of their own liberty

In the view of the New York Times, a person is denied his liberty if he is denied the power to force someone else to pay for his rubbers.

How do you define liberty?

Afterthought – The left’s definition of ‘liberty’ has been re-affirmed.  The Susan Komen Foundation, a charitable entity which gets its money from voluntary contributions, has the liberty to (1) only succumb to political pressure that comes from the left and (2) give grants to anyone they wish as long as the recipient is Planned Parenthood.  Isn’t it interesting how the left sprung to the defense of the number 1 abortion provider in the country but has mostly ignored, even supported, the Obama administration’s smack down of the Catholic Church.

Jack and Jill Fight a War; Both Lose

Paul Gigot of The Wall Street Journal tells us that Mitt Romney has some work to do before he will garner a majority of the votes of people who drive red Volvos and wear Ray Bans on Thursdays – well, sort of.

See Political Diary – February 1

Mr. Gigot and every campaign strategist in America is looking at Florida primary exit polls to see who voted for whom and why.  That kind of slicing, dicing and analyzing the electorate is the genesis of every political and economic problem we face.  Mitt Romney, armed with this information, will buy votes from various constituencies with campaign promises and then, if elected, proceed to spend his time in office paying off promises with government largess, i.e. running for re-election.

“Divide and conquer” originated as a war-time strategy to be deployed by an army against its mortal enemy.  Now it’s a campaign plan that pits power-seekers against their mortal enemy, namely free men and women.  Yes, the voters are the enemies whom politicians work over-time to divide and conquer.  We, the people, gave exclusively to the government the power to use force to compel certain behavior, and now the people find themselves enslaved, having sold their lives and freedoms to the welfare distributors and the tax loop-hole writers, who retain their power largely because they have on their side the tax man, wielding a whip.

When the government attempts to choose a loser to pay for a politician’s promises of food, education and health care, the founders meant for it to meet an immovable object, that loser’s unalienable rights.  The government is supposed to be immobilized.  Instead, it runs around that road-block by either (a) allocating the pain of loss to a certain demographic group that votes ‘the wrong way’ so their objection can be ignored or, more often, (b) hiding behind a government-invented ‘right’ thereby arrogating to politicians the unConstitutional power to decide which ‘right’ is more sacred – Dr. Jack’s freedom from servitude or Jill’s ‘free’ visit to his office.  And the winner is invariably the bigger voting block.

The government constitutionally cannot arbitrate between the rights of Jack and Jill.  Remember that important word, unalienable, and note that there are no caveats.  If it appears that a conflict between a respective constitutional right of Jack and Jill is at issue, two things are true – (1) at least one of them is claiming something that is not a “right” that is protected by government powers granted by WE in the Constitution and (2) the government cannot, or constitutionally speaking, shall not, intervene.  The government, according to the Constitution can neither take any of Mitt Romney’s money to pay Jill’s doctor bill nor ask Dr. Jack to waive his fee.

Until and unless that lesson is made clear to our politicians and is used to repeal most of the federal laws adopted over the last 100 years or so, we are not living in the republic our founders intended to have given us.