Occupy Oakland – Where are all the free doctors?

Is there a definition of ‘insurrection” handy?

An example of where the Occupy Wall Street crowd is taking ‘political dissent” in this video:

(From Huffington Post – Occupy Oakland)

Question:  When they scream ‘medic’ who is supposed to show up?  A volunteer doctor?  But, if he is volunteering to dispense his medical expertise, how is he ever going to repay his student loans?

This ‘peaceful’ demonstration is only peaceful in the sense that they aren’t carrying guns, clubs or knives.  The disturbances they are causing are just as much a physical inconvenience to the citizens of that town as would be a few broken bones or stab wounds.  Just because their form of protest does not draw blood does not mean they are non-violent.  The damage they’re doing is irreparable – give those people back the hours they’re spending in traffic jams?  Give them back the money they’re paying the policemen to maintain order?  No, of course not.

This is not properly described as protected free speech or petitioning the government.  Laws against disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace, vagrancy, (or even insurrection?) and similar laws that are on the books are not suddenly deemed unconstitutional or unenforceable because more than one or a few people are breaking them, or because they purport to be making a political statement with the violent non-violent actions.

This should be stopped soon, even with the use of force if necessary, or it will devolve into something akin to the demonstrations in Egypt.

Or, is that what they’re after?

Who will benefit from YOUR life?

A couple standard-issue policy statements – things 95% of people who opposed, say, Ronald Reagan would support – could be summarized as follows.

1.  Abortion is a choice.

2.  We should save our natural resources and preserve the bounty and beauty of our planet for the benefit of future generations by reducing or eliminating our ‘carbon footprint’ by making use of alternative forms of energy.

Rephrasing #1: A woman should have the right to ‘terminate her pregnancy’ at any time, including and up until the point the ‘fetus’ is far enough out of the birth canal that its head is within reach of a surgeon’s scalpel or drill bit.  (They don’t like that last part – a.k.a., a partial-birth abortion* – being said out loud, but they want the law to allow for that procedure.)

Regarding #2, it follows that 100s of millions of living people in southeast Asia, China and sub-Saharan Africa must starve and do without, say, indoor plumbing for the indefinite future.  You see, they have to wait for Al Gore and the scientists of the world to invent a [fill-in-the-blank-renewable-fuel]-burning machine that is as powerful as carbon-emitting, internal combustion, fossil-fuel burning engines of modern-day earth-movers, cranes and trucks.  Those bad machines are the only ones we know of today that can build those starving Indonesians or Afghans any schools, roads, abortion clinics, voting booths, internet cafes or water-filtration systems.

If I’m to search for a philosophical basis, a rationale that underpins and supports both of those policy statements, I have to address this riddle along the way:

Why is it that:

(a) after conception and until birth, a human life is dispensable, like the waste product of a pregnant woman’s body;

(b) after birth, one’s life and comforts are subordinate to some future being’s life and comfort;

AND

(c) pre-conception beings comprising future generations are important enough to be the beneficiaries of the sacrifices of a starving Afghan and will enjoy all things that liberals think are noble and worthy, but only after we invent that new, all-powerful alternative fuel engine in Al Gore’s basement?

That philosophy, that idea that life is dispensable and/or a means to others’ comfort, enervates the human spirit and demeans our essence and our purpose.  It places no value on the here and now, no value on the life of every man as an end unto itself.  To endorse this inhumane philosophy of the liberals and progressives, one must posit that men’s lives are but a means to some ill-defined end, a route to some nether land, the ‘way forward’ to some unknowable yet somehow better, more ‘fair’ version of society.

I immediately and emphatically reject that philosophy, as it is, as a moral and practical matter, due no consideration beyond hearing it.   If a philosophical line of thinking requires me to conclude that my life is of no value except as another person’s means to achieve still another person’s future comfort, I vow to never pursue that line of thinking again.  I pledge to do all that I can to steer all men away from such a dismal, dark dead-end.

_______________________

* From Wikipedia, a description of the partial birth abortion procedure:

“Under the Intact Dilation and Extraction (ID&X) method, the largest part of the fetus (the head) is reduced in diameter to allow vaginal passage. According to the American Medical Association, this procedure has four main elements.  First, the cervix is dilated. Second, the fetus is positioned for a footling breech. Third, the fetus is partially pulled out, starting with the feet, as far as the neck. Fourth, the brain and material inside the skull is evacuated, so that a dead but otherwise intact fetus can be delivered via the vagina.

Usually, preliminary procedures are performed over a period of two to three days, to gradually dilate the cervix using laminaria tents (sticks of seaweed which absorb fluid and swell). Sometimes drugs such as pitocin, a synthetic form of oxycotin, are used to induce labor. Once the cervix is sufficiently dilated, the doctor uses an ultrasound and forceps to grasp the fetus’s leg. The fetus is turned to a breech position, if necessary, and the doctor pulls one or both legs out of the cervix, which some refer to as ‘partial birth’ of the fetus.  [perhaps it’s referred to that way because that’s a perfectly accurate description.] The doctor subsequently extracts the rest of the fetus, leaving only the head still inside the uterus. An incision is made at the base of the [fetus’s, not the doctor’s or the nurse’s] skull, a blunt dissector (such as a Kelly clamp) is inserted into the incision and opened to widen the opening, and then a suction catheter is inserted into the opening. The brain is suctioned out, which causes the skull to collapse and allows the fetus to pass more easily through the cervix. [thus, easing the pain for the “mom,” we surmise] The placenta is removed and the uterine wall is vacuum aspirated using a cannula.”

That new little baby: Mouth or Mind?

 

 

And Baby Makes Seven Billion – WSJ.com.

Is a newborn an asset or a liability to his fellow man?  Your answer will reveal all we need to know about your world view.  Mr. McGurn of the Wall Street Journal says the newborn is a mind that will feed itself and others, not a mouth to be fed.

I say he’s correct and add that it depends on whether you let him be free.

Humans, free to use their minds, produce more than they consume.  Modern life is proof.

Humans, dependent on others, merely consume and learn to feel entitled – they’re not born that way.

A free man produces until he can produce no more.  He accumulates knowledge and wealth for himself and his posterity.  He and his billions of co-workers do things for YOU that you’d never accomplish on your own.  Think of the thousands of men who made the pencil you used to take your SAT or the one man, Steve Jobs, who created things you never imagined but seemingly can’t live without.

A slave produces just enough to subsist and escape punishment.  He makes it through today so he might breathe tomorrow.

Free newborns are assets.  Let’s hope there are more of those born today.

Let freedom ring anew with every birth.  The more the merrier!

Watching Dominoes Fall or Leading From Behind

Our president is being praised for [watching the] toppling of the erstwhile dictator of Libya.  Much of the praise seems to be based on a mistaken comparison between the cost of our ‘mission’ in Libya and the cost of our 9-year involvement in Iraq.

So, although he hasn’t landed a fighter jet on the deck of a Navy carrier, President Obama is right to announce “Mission Accomplished” in Libya.  Really?

I must have missed it: since Libya’s mad man was slaughtered by a mob in the streets, there have been elections of a legislating body and a president, the adoption of a constitution, a dismantling of the dictator’s security apparatus, establishment of a new police force, the rebuilding of a substantial portion of Libya’s infrastructure, and the formation, equipping and training of a new police force?  WOW!  That’s a busy few days.  I’m sure we’ve confirmed there will never be any kind of insurgency or other unrest in Libya.

Two points:

First, whatever mission the United States had, has or should have had in Libya is in its infancy.  That desert region is comprised of tribes and multiple power-seeking factions and barely meets the definition of a ‘country’ and is years away from being in a state where its citizens could be said to be living in a nation based on the universal principles of freedom of the individual.

Second, as we celebrate the continuing progress in what has been dubbed the “Arab Spring” we  should reflect on how unimaginable any of these events would have seemed before George W. Bush said “you’re either with us, or you’re against us.”  Those simple but critical words (like a similarly mundane phrase – “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall”) marked the beginning of what has been called the Bush Doctrine and should be as well-known as Mr. Reagan’s words.  They encapsulate the idea that America’s interests and America’s principles can be pursued simultaneously by spreading freedom across the globe and, thereby, minimizing potential threats from the likes of Usama bin Laden which 9/11 taught us were not prevented by geography.

It is to America’s detriment that the current occupant of the White House and so many of our policy-makers are so unaware of and/or ungrateful for the accomplishments of those who preceded them.  This premature celebration of Qadaffi’s murder as a “foreign policy victory” for the current administration is sign of immaturity and self-serving partisanship.  The dominoes would not be falling had the first one not been forcibly tipped over.  It’s much easier to watch dominoes fall than to have the nerve to push the first, biggest one over.

Finally, the 411 on 9-9-9

Arthur B. Laffer: Cain’s Stimulating ‘9-9-9’ Tax Reform – WSJ.com.

Over and over, Republicans and Democrats alike are saying “it just doesn’t add up” and “ALL economic studies and analyses show that it doesn’t raise enough revenue” and so forth, but we’ve yet to have a specific analysis cited or published.

Now we have one, summarized in a few hundred words, that exposes the falsehood of all of those lies, er, assertions.

In short, Mr. Cain’s plan works.  (I am not endorsing Mr. Cain or the 9-9-9 plan – For purposes of this writing, I’m neutral.)

I AM saying that it’s interesting to hear the political class, which eats and breathes because of the power they wield via the tax code, sing in unison, regardless of party, the chorus of condemnation of anything that threatens to take that cudgel away from them.  Absent that tool, they could not (surreptitiously) steal freedom from us at every turn.

Especially, note the ones who confess their own complicity by saying, “We can’t trust ourselves, er, politicians with another form of taxation to siphon more money from Americans.”

Exactly!

Money, Politics & Corruption . . . or Chickens & Eggs

A Note to “Occupy Wall Street” crowds

It appears that one thing motivating and energizing your ‘movement’ is the seldom questioned belief that money corrupts politics.  I suggest you have it inside-out and upside down.

Money is the way we accumulate, store and then trade the value of our having lived and worked, first, for things that sustain life and, then, for other luxuries – iPads, thongs, tattoos, bottled water, private jets, Jack Daniels, and deodorant, just to name a few.  Voluntary trading and bargaining between and among men with money precludes force from being the coin of the realm.

Un-touched by political favoritism and other forms of fraud, money never lies and is never corrupt.  Only in the hands of the corrupted man can money do harm.

Money corrupts politics?  NOPE!  That is exactly backwards.  Politics corrupts money.

You will never eliminate avarice or greed from human endeavors, but if you limit the power of the state, you will eliminate the power of avarice and thereby elevate, indeed make paramount, the powers of merit and accomplishment.  And that results in freedom for everyone – no exceptions.

The View’s Behar identifies new role models for Obama

Only Jews Are in Danger

You may be familiar with the facts surrounding Hank Williams, Jr.’s appearance on Fox and Friends last week.  In brief, he said that President Obama and Speaker Boehner’s playing golf together was like Hitler and Netanyahu playing golf.  (See clip here).  I will take no position about whether he is guilty of “comparing Obama to Hitler” – you decide for yourself.

Either way, I find it interesting that Joy Behar of The View has declared that it’s ok to compare the sitting POTUS with “Stalin, Pol Pot, Ginghis Kahn or Atilla the Hun” but NEVER Hitler (gasp!)  (See clip here – @ 3:00 mark).  Honestly, she said that.

As a statement of historical opinion or context, it can be argued that America is experiencing a phase in its history that is more like that of Germany in the 1930s than the history of the countries ruled by the 4 dictators/murderers Ms. Behar cites.  Furthermore, it is not untrue that the Obama White House’s and the Democratic Party’s solutions bear some resemblance to Hitler’s solutions to Germany’s economic woes of that period.  (For the record, I’m sure that was not the point Ms. Behar was making, but my purpose here is to preempt any suggestion that she was making a rational or historic point about Stalin, et. al. and their roles in world affairs or their respective country’s history.)

The more interesting point, I think is made as follows.  May we, for the sake of discussion, set aside Hitler’s anti-Semitic vileness and mass killing spree?*  If so, I stipulate that even without the Holocaust factored into the analysis, Hitler nonetheless belongs in the top 10 list of “Bad Men in History” and, it follows that his name should not be cited rhetorically, metaphorically or otherwise in a manner that might seem to trivialize his crimes against humanity.  However, to suggest that it is preferable to use any of those other 4 criminals as role models for the POTUS is a new low point, even for Obama’s most disappointed and dispirited [former?] cheerleaders.

Who knew, Joy?

Hitler, national-socialism and anti-Semitic massacres > BAD.

Stalin, socialism and indiscriminate massacres > GOOD.

Thanks, for the clarification.  I guess Jimmy Carter was right after all; my fear of socialism is “inordinate” because, well, I’m not Jewish and the only kind of bad socialist-led massacre is the kind that kills Jews.

* However, that evil was a calculated part of an economic plan that consisted, in part, of a fear campaign he knew would lead middle-class Germans to want, at any cost, relief from the upheaval caused by evil ‘fat cats and banksters’ – oh, many of whom were Jews, an identifiable enemy.

Dear GOP Presidential Candidates:

It seems to me that not one of you grasps the importance of the 2012 election or, more accurately, the depth of the problems our country is facing.  If you can make me believe that you do understand, I will support and aid your effort to make the point that we face the extinction of freedom.

In that vein, I’ll share some thoughts triggered by events of the last few days.

1.  One of you (Newt Gingrich) said one of the only intelligent things I’ve heard about the Occupy Wall Street protests – that they are a clear indictment against the leadership of the Obama presidency and, I’ll add, the entire DC ruling class.  That comment was dismissed as part of GOP’s anti-Obama agenda.

I think that Newt’s point can be made differently and more effectively by looking more sympathetically at the protests.  Doing that, I think, could result in that elusive thing that everyone claims they desire – that the two sides come together and move the country forward.  That must happen not by compromising principles; true compromise can occur only between two parties with a common objective.  That is not the case between Dems and Reps as those political parties stand today.  Moving forward will occur only if someone leads peoples to support the American, capitalist system.  We have to win the argument, not prolong the battle.

2.  In this Youtube piece (Civil rights hero belittled by OWS) Congressman John Lewis is treated with total disregard as the Atlanta off-shoot of Occupy Wall Street considers whether he is worthy of their attention, worthy of taking their stage for a few minutes.  My point?  I wonder what Mr. Lewis would choose if given the options of (a) repeating that experience in Atlanta, and (b) walking the ‘gauntlet’ of the Tea Party again, as he did last summer when he was purportedly spat upon and called a bad word.  I’m not suggesting that the Tea Party is better, kinder or gentler, just that the OWS group is not a group anyone, especially the party in power, ought to try to co-opt.  They will not be patronized or pacified.

Properly understood, OWS’ers are rebelling against power, per se, not the GOP or John Boehner or Goldman Sachs.  I sympathize with their dissatisfaction even while I despise their choice of answers and means of communicating.  An aspiring leader should attempt to get some of this group’s attention, so he can direct their energy to productive use.  Can you?  Will you?

3.  OWS’ers are against Wall Street fat cats, corporate CEOs and bankers.  Let’s help them focus by asking this:  How many Wall Street CEOs voted on the House/Senate floor for any of these government actions:

• increasing the lending limits of Freddie/Fannie while weakening the underwriting standards for “qualified” mortgages,
• ObamaCare,
• Dodd-Frank,
• prescription drug benefits for Medicare patients,
• TARP,
• the “Stimulus” package, or
• any other act of the government that has strangled our economy, little by little, for the last 50 years?

Senators and Congressmen voted and two different presidents signed those laws.  That ruling class, not Wall Street, is the culprit.  That point unites the Tea Party and OWS’ers.

4.  One of the protestors’ slogans goes something like “we’re the 99%; down with the 1%.”  Granted, a group of 99 beats 1 man every time.  Let’s ask this:  When will they realize that 98 also beats 1, as does 97, 96 and so on.  Remind them that, in their majoritarian world, 100% of them are one day or another going to be part of some out-of-favor minority of ONE, and will have their freedom diminished by some moneyed interest.  We must refrain from taking freedom from any group or person, no matter how small or unlikable.  Any campaign or agenda that is based solely or primarily on the size of the majority that can rant and rave in its favor ought to be feared.  I think that the OWS group will realize the flaw in their approach if that simple point is made.

To ignore or belittle these people because they don’t shave, bathe daily or wear ties is not an act of leadership, Mr. Cantor, et. al.  The OWS discontent is no different, really, from the discontent expressed by the Tea Party.  Their forms of protest are different – the Tea Party simply wants more freedom for everyone, whereas these OWS people want to be more free only in relative terms, so to speak, by using the government and mob power to make some other people LESS free.  I think that they can be made to see the error of their ways if a leader points out that they’ve misidentified the villain.  That leader need only speak plainly about the anti-American nature of the OWS views and solutions.  Either OWS will discard its anti-corporate, anti-America venom, or they will be marginalized.  Very few Americans will cotton to the socialist objective of equalizing outcomes, no matter how often its proponents scream “We’re not socialists, damnit!”

Why are we debating whether Social Security is or isn’t a “Ponzi Scheme”?  Who cares if Mormonism is called a cult, or whether Rick Perry carries a paint brush with him when he visits the family hunting lodge?  Why are Boehner, Cantor, Cain, Beck and Limbaugh fanning the flames rather than addressing the problems that produce this level of discontent and disgust.

We’ve had enough of politicians taking various Americans’ side, pitting us one against the others.  Who’s taking America‘s side in this election?

Will you say these things and ask these questions? Will you begin a discussion that doesn’t make us all want to move to the middle of Idaho with a few books, a pen and paper?

Will you?  Soon?  Please.

Pleadingly,

One American

Do we live in a free country?

Many Republicans believe that Mitt Romney is ‘good enough’ and that at least he’s not Obama and he’ll steer us clear of more of his disastrous policies.  The GOP and we conservatives had similar thoughts about George W Bush in 2000.  His conservative convictions were deeper than are Mr. Romney’s, yet even Dubya could not defeat the monster that is devouring our nation.  That monster can’t be tamed, it must be caged – that was, as I see it, the primary objective of our founders in drafting the Constitution – to restrain the powers granted to a federal government, to keep it subordinate to the sovereignty of the individual.

No serious surveyor of what is now referred to as the ‘US government’ can conclude that it is the product of the US Constitution, properly administered.  Rather, it is clearly the product of its occupants.  For starters, if a government is to be the subject of its people, for it to govern and not rule, it must be chosen by a process that is independent of itself, no?  For evidence that is not the case, one need only peruse the Federal Election Commission’s rules and regulations that dictate how a person can mount a campaign for federal office.

The entire FEC rule book is, essentially, a non-compete agreement that, by severely restricting the financing activities of any nascent political ‘party,’ grants the Democratic and Republican parties a monopoly on political activity.  The parties’ sole purpose is to elect government officials from among their inside-crowd membership.  From such an anti-constitutional starting point, there is no hope that the resulting ‘government’ will find itself bound by the Constitution.  Consequently, we are stuck with an over-weening, omni-present, omnipotent monster that is controlled by the political class and that feeds and empowers itself by dispensing favors to powerful interests – when a people gives a government more power, it will use it to perpetuate itself and it’s enablers; there can be and has never been any other outcome.  It follows that moneyed interests will buy protection from that power, and the two (power and money) are increasingly concentrated in a smaller and smaller cadre – exactly the outcome our founding fathers meant to prevent.

The “Romney-wing” of the GOP is no different from the McCain- or Dole- or Ford- or Rockefeller- wings were.  They all exist for the perpetuation of government power.  Most of its inhabitants are men/women who would last not one week outside of the cocoon they have created for themselves in Washington, DC.  Just look at Rep. Paul Ryan – his supposedly “radical” reform budget proposed spending ONLY $3.5 Trillion, as opposed to that spendthrift Obama/Reid budget which would total $3.6 Trillion.  Really, $100 billion, a whopping 2.7% difference is the GOP’s attempt at radical reform?  That won’t help our country survive.  It will merely delay the inevitable a couple weeks or so.

I wish I could share the more sanguine point of view of the Romney supporters.  I’m in the prime of my life; I’m hungry for freedom – freedom for me and, as importantly, for every man who therewith will make his life better and, while he’s at it, make MY and my 2 sons’ world better.  I don’t think any grant-giving or loan-guaranteeing government bureaucrat (Dem or Rep) would have ‘found’ Steve Jobs in 1975 and had the foresight to tell him “here’s $538,000,000 [see Solyndra]; now go be creative and change the world.”  He had to be free to take risks, along with the millions of others who succeed and fail day after day.  Each step we take, every tax dollar confiscated along the government path makes someone less free.  ZERO government is, of course, not the answer, but there has to be a limit, and it seems clear to me that the political class stepped over that line some many years ago.

Is there a level of spending between $3.6 trillion and $0 that is acceptable?   Is our government too small or too big.  In the language that most people use the word big to describe the government they mean to describe a government that commandeers >25% of the economic output of the country pursuant to a 70,000 page tax-code, a legal code that exceeds 200,000 pages and rules and regulations that consume millions of pages.  Big is an entity that commandeers $3.6 trillions dollars from the private sector and spends it the way 536 men and women want it spent.

That’s not a free country.  We need radical change, and Mr. Romney will not deliver anything of the sort.

Is Occupy Wall Street just another Tea Party?

Money does not confer power on the man who has it.  No man can, with money, force another man to do something against his will or contrary to his self interest.  Yes, money may, if properly disposed, have the power to confer something akin to freedom on its owner, but money has no power.  Whatever transaction that might deliver some extra ‘freedom’ to the buyer is one that is conducted on a voluntary basis; you don’t like the bargain, don’t take the money.

However, in modern America money is being used to control the state, to buy its power, or, usually, to buy a reprieve from its power.  The state is the only entity modern societies have [correctly] given the license to compel certain behavior by use or threat of force.  As the American state has acted increasingly extra-Constitutionally, as the governing elite has arrogated more and more power to itself, money is understandably and inevitably being deployed to prevent that over-reaching federal government from taking freedom from anyone who possess enough money to buy protection or favors, to BUY, as it were, freedom.

What the OWS protests are about (if you think about them in this context) is that the protesters resent not having the money to buy protection (aka freedom) and they desperately want some of whatever it takes to get that freedom.

But they’re WRONG – they should not covet money, since what they really want is freedom.  And in America, freedom isn’t supposed to cost money.  Freedom only ‘costs’ an American what he volunteers to do for it.  He must merely wake up, breathe, and work enough to buy food/shelter, and he is free to do what he chooses with the balance his life.  Get rich, subsist, write songs, play the banjo, grow a long beard and a pony-tail, pierce his nose and tongue, invent the iPod, . . . whatever the hell he wants to do.

The problem is, government has started taking freedom from some people – regulating the acts of Group A and doing favors for Group B – repeatedly abusing its power by extra-Constitutional actions and laws.

The Tea Partiers experience this as over-taxation or as an infringement on their right to be left alone and live free – they don’t want to work so that bankers, car manufacturers, union members and unemployed people can eat.  (“You work so I can eat” is a form of slavery.)  They’re not for letting the less fortunate starve, they just don’t want the government doing the care-taking for them.

The OWS’ers experience this loss of freedom as the mistaken conclusion that money is what they’re missing, and they think they have to TAKE more of it so they can buy more freedom.  They haven’t been taught that money is earned, so they crash the mansion gates to pilfer the loot of the fat cat (he didn’t earn it, so I’ll take it, they figure).  What they’ll find is that the loot is worthless, unless or until they choose to be the ones who pay the government for favors and protection.  Is that their objective or plan?  I fear it might be, but I hope a leader steps forward to teach them that while their discontent is warranted, their response is criminal.

In The Godfather, the shop owners or vendors who pay the mafia bosses for protection aren’t the bad guys; the guys with the guns are the criminals.  In America, the government effectively possesses all the guns, since ONLY the government is licensed to use force to compel certain behavior – if you or I use force, we’ll be arrested.  The government – that’s where the bad guys are.

The Tea Party and the OWS’ers are BOTH right.  They realize, that no rational study of today’s US federal government would conclude that it is the product of the Constitution of the US as properly administered.  The Tea Party and OWS’ers resent that too much power has been accumulated in the federal government, and THAT is what both of those seemingly dissimilar groups have in common.  If they’ll both take aim at the government, make it abide by the rules of the Constitution, both groups will be content and go back to living the American lives of their choice, undisturbed by the nuisance of having to think about politics, and, once again, peace and prosperity will abound in the land of the free and the home of the brave.