Shots Across the Bow

The next time some liberal spouts the whole "Obama inherited these problems from the previous administration" garbage, remind the nitwit that:

1) Obama was part of the previous administration for four freaking years. Ask the mental midget to point to any Bush economic initiative or spending bill that Obama opposed. And by "opposed" I mean actually voted against, not just talked about.
2) The Democrats owned the House and the Senate for the final two years. You know the period when everything started collapsing?
3) When Republicans tried to draw attention to the coming real estate collapse, and the deadly instability of Freddie and Fannie policies, they were shouted down and called racists by the very people now trying to blame them for the collapse.
4) Then ask this simple question: "When driving through a minefield, should the driver be facing forward to find the safest path, or looking in the rearview mirror?"

The bottom line is that Obama and his pals didn't inherit this mess; they were right there in the thick of it, causing it.

If you're incapable of handling this particular set of facts, then maybe you ought to trade in your political analyst's hat for a game more suited to your level of intellect. How about "Chutes and Ladders?"

Every time I listen to Democrats talk about a "right" to health care, I think of the master swordsman Inigo Montoya who said,

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

It's apparent that Democrats have no understanding of the word, as they use it to mean whatever issue they happen to support.

Abortion? That's a right.
Forming a Union? That's a right.
Going to school? That's a right.
Silencing those who offend you? That's a right.

Yeah, Dems are real big on the inalienable nature of rights, well, until you get to some that they find a bit too icky.

Like the right to bear arms.
The right to disagree with them.
The right to worship God publicly. Unless your god is allah, in which case, they are ok with it.

Most importantly, in the world of a Democrat, their rights always trump yours.

Their right to feel "comfortable" in public trumps your right to defend yourself.
Their right to indoctrinate your children in their social paradigm trumps your right to raise your children according to your beliefs.
Their right to engineer society trumps your right to enjoy the fruits of your labor.
The rights of the group always trump the rights of the individual, unless that individual is part of a specially protected class.

Or a member of the elite. Right, Senator?

All of this leads to the inescapable conclusion that the left just doesn't know what a right really is. It's not too surprising really, since whether by design or incompetence, we aren't taught a much about what a right is in government schools. Oh, they're really good at telling us about what rights we're given by the government, a statement which instantly demonstrates a total lack of understanding about the nature of rights, but as for the definition or origin of those rights, well, they get a bit vague.

"A right is something that you are given by the government."
"A right is a contract between you and society; as long as you follow society's rules, you can expect society to honor those rights."
"A right is something that can't be taken away from you."
"A right is something you are born with, inherent in your very nature."

That last one is hitting close to the mark, but ultimately fails to really explain anything. I was born with two eyes; that doesn't mean I have a right to see 20/20.

So, how do you define a right? What is it?

Let's try this definition for starters:

A right is an expectation of freedom of action.

It's a bit clunky, but it captures the essence of what I'm talking about. When we talk about having a right to do something, we're saying that we expect that we have the freedom to take action. For example:

"I have a right to my opinion," means that I expect to form and hold an opinion without suffering a negative consequence.
"I have a right to walk in the park," means that I expect to be able to walk through the park without suffering a negative consequence.

So it works, but it doesn't really go far enough. Why do I have that expectation of no negative consequences? Why do I have the expectation of any freedom of action?

As an ethicist, I could claim that "rights" are a useful fiction, used to bolster the dubious proposition that human life has some special value that must be preserved. Similarly, as a political scientist, I could claim that "rights" represent a social contract between society (the group) and the individual and represent nothing more than the degrees of freedom of action the individual refuses to surrender in order to maintain his place in the group. In these two definitions, rights are not absolute, but vary based on cultural priorities. That's a little bit too murky for me; if human rights depend on cultural biases and social contracts, then they really aren't rights as we usually think of them. Instead they are privileges granted to the weak individual by the powerful group. The nature of a right is that it is founded in the individual, not the group. It is a recognition of the inherent autonomy and freedom of the individual. At its heart, a right is nothing more than the self-recognition that the individual ultimately has more worth than the social group it inhabits.

And now we're getting somewhere. A right is the expression of an individual's recognition of his ultimate worth through an expectation of freedom of action.

"I am a being with value to myself, therefore, I expect that I can hold an opinion without fear of negative consequences."

That works. Sure it's a cumbersome definition, but if you think about it, a right is a very complex thing to define. It requires some depth and detail to nail it down.

Now, we often speak about how one person's rights end when they infringe on another person's rights, a saying that indicates an intuitive grasp of the definition we've just derived. But let's look at it a little bit closer, in light of our definition and see just why that statement is true. If my actions restrict the actions of another, then I have violated his rights. Unless we choose to assume that some individuals have more value than others, I have no way to justify my actions. Put generally, if a right is an expression and recognition of the value of an individual, it follows that any action which impinges on the freedom of actions of another individual cannot be a right. So, it seems clear that I have no right to take an action which restricts or impedes another person's rights, unless we have an agreement in place to voluntarily accept restrictions on our rights to foster a group or community.

Do you see the difference between the earlier definitions and this one? In the political science definition, the group held the power to determine the restrictions of rights, in effect destroying the autonomy of the individuals comprising the group. Using the correct definition, the individuals retain their rights, voluntarily restricting the expression of those rights. This difference is crucial to understanding the difference between the progressive, authoritarian approach to government and the conservative libertarian approach.

Let's look at health care for example. Liberals love to claim that access to quality health care is a right, but is it really? In order for everyone to have access to health care, somebody has to provide it. That means that a "right" to health care is going to restrict another individual's rights by forcing them to provide the health care, either by doing the work, or paying for it. By our definition of right, this is an impossibility. Remember, nobody has the right to restrict another individual's rights, except through common agreement. The use of force or coercion to extract that agreement is in itself a violation of their rights.

Obviously, health care cannot be a right, since it imposes a burden upon others who may not be willing to accept that burden. Now this doesn't mean that the group cannot impose that duty as a cost of membership in the group, but that makes health care a privilege of membership, not a right. And that privilege comes with the responsibility to pay the cost associated with it. In a perfect world, it should also come with the ability to opt out of the group if you are not willing to bear the burden or accept the benefit of the privilege, but that is problematic in the real world.

Looked at in this light, we see that a lot of the "rights" claimed by folks on both sides of the aisle are not really rights at all. They are privileges afforded by living in a wealthy, technologically advanced society. Education, housing, food, health care, social security, all of these are privileges, not rights, as each imposes burdens on other individuals with or without their consent.

So the next time you hear somebody spouting off about the "right" to this or that, just ask one simple question. Does it place a burden or restriction on another individual? If the answer is "Yes" then it isn't a right.

It really is that simple.

In a market based system, you can buy as much healthcare as you can afford. In a government run model, you get what they give you.

Period.

Put another way, in a market system, your access to healthcare is dependent solely on your ability to earn money and the relative priority you set on it. In a government system, your healthcare is dependent solely on who you know in the bureau and your status in the Party. Ask any former resident of the Soviet Union. Better still, ask a Democrat congresscritter why he thinks Congress should be exempted from the plan.

If you support the Health care plan as proposed in the House, even knowing that Congress has made sure that they are exempt from it's requirements and restrictions, even knowing that the President himself has said that he would go outside the plan for care for his family, then you are stupid.

Yes, I mean stupid. Not ignorant, misinformed, or mistaken.

Stupid.

In effect, you are saying that you will allow your representative to bind you to a healthcare system that is inferior to the one he enjoys simply because of his status as an elected representative. You are saying that you are willing to cede control of a large portion of your life to an unelected Washington bureaucrat who faces no accountability for his decisions and is not subject to the same requirements and restrictions he can enforce on you.

There's no other word that fits but stupid.

Yeah, I know, this isn't the way to convince anyone, but let's be honest. If you know that Congress voted down an amendment to place them and their families under this plan, and you still support the plan, then there's really nothing that would convince you to change your mind, right? So why should I bother? You've renounced your status as a citizen and accepted status as a ward of the state, surrendering your autonomy for second tier care, and you're happy with it.

And don't bother trying to tell me how wonderful the care is in Europe and Canada and Cuba; if it was going to be so good, the President and Congress would not exempt themselves from it.

I'm sure government run health care will operate every bit as effectively and efficiently as the various stimulus packages: TARP 1, TARP 2, the auto company bailouts, Cash for Clunkers, etc. To be honest, that is setting the bar fairly low, isn't it?

You know things are looking bad for the reform package when even the President compares government health care to th Post Office.

I am not the man I pretend to be.

I am less than I want to be and more than I seem to be.

May God grant me the grace and strength to be the man she sees when she looks at me, instead of the man I see when I look into the mirror.

Amen.

While Nancy Pelosi complained that folks opposing President Obama's Health Care plan are bringing swastikas to town hall meetings to intimidate Democratic congressmen:

• Labor union thugs from the SEIUbeat up a conservative black man at a town hall meeting on Thursday


• More union thugs assault a woman at the same meeting.


• On Friday, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius told SEIU members to "keep doing what you're doing."


• A Miami businessman is assaulted while attending a town hall meeting and police threaten him with arrest.


• The White House encouraged supporters to inform on dissenters


• The President of the United States talked about silencing conservatives


• The President's adviser on Medical ethics says that people who don't contribute to society aren't worthy of health care.

I'm not surprised that Nancy is seeing swastikas; she's surrounded by them every day. My only surprise is that she's not snapping off a "Heil" every time she sees one.

The song was recorded in 1929 one month after Black Tuesday, when the stock market, overheated by excessive speculation, collapsed spectacularly. A few months after the collapse, the economy seemed to be righting itself. The stock market had recovered much of it's losses, and businesses were slowly expanding. Unfortunately, the American people were rattled and had no faith in the economy. Despite massive intervention by the federal government, or rather, because of it, consumers lost confidence in the economy, and held on to their money, or used it to pay down debt, rather than spend it on goods. The economy floated along for a few months, then tanked hard in 1931-32.

Does any of this sound familiar?

According to the AP, tax receipts in the US have fallen lower and faster than at any time other than during the Great Depression. To see such dramatic increases, you have to go back to, you guessed it, 1931-32. For this year, personal income tax receipts have fallen 21.9% over the same time period last year. Corporate income tax receipts have fallen 56.9%. Overall, total tax receipts have fallen 17.9%

There's a couple of very important things we need to look at here.

First of all, let's pretend that your boss has just told you that he's cutting your salary by 18%. he goes on to tell you that you'll probably take another pay cut next year, hopefully no more than 7 or 8% or so. You go home to your wife who tells you that she wants to redecorate the house and add on a new home theater to watch NASCAR. Is now really the best time to spend a lot of money you aren't going to have? President Obama does. He's expanding spending faster then the receipts are dropping. Economically, this is like leaning into a punch instead of ducking.

Second, did you notice that total tax collection track with personal income tax collections much more closely than they do with corporate? There's a reason for that. Individual and joint taxes far exceed corporate taxes. What this mean to you and me is that every time President Obama says that he's going to pay for a program by taxing businesses, he's lying through his teeth failing to calibrate his words properly. There's not enough money in corporate taxes to cover his spending plans and he knows it. He will have to come after you, the middle class American taxpayer, whether directly or indirectly, because you are the motherlode of taxable wealth. If all you need is a few billion dollars, tax the millionaires. But when you need trillions, tax the middle class. That's where the real money is.

So yes, the happy days of 1932 are here again indeed and they look to be about as happy as they were the first time around. Except this time, we've traded in Shirley Temple for Paris Hilton.

Proving that there is no detail of your life too small to escape the federal government, Chuck Shumer wants to create a federal ban on texting while driving by penalizing states 25% of their federal highway budgets if they do not pass a texting ban. Ironically, the money that Chucky plans on witholding from the states came from the states in the first place.

Obviously, texting while driving is stupid. Equally obviously, it is a state issue, not a federal one, which is why Sen. Shumer, bless his black corrupt heart, is pulling a little fiscal blackmail to make it happen.

By the way, remember the whole bit in Obama's cap and trade program, the part where he promised to give all of the excess money collected back to the people to try and offset the "skyrocketing" energy bills? How much do you want to bet that in order to qualify for that rebate, you'll have to meet certain criteria laid out by Democrat like Chuck Shumer?

When a thug comes to you and demands that you give him money or bad things will happen to you, it's called extortion. When the federal government does it, it's called Hope and Change.

Q: Iran has the materials and technical skill to build a nuclear weapon in less than a year. What will Obama do?

A: Apologize to Iran
B: Create a new federal program to prepare for nuclear holocaust
C: Continue to work on Cap and Trade and Healthcare. A man must keep his priorities in order
D: Invite Ayatollah Khamenei and Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House for a beer and a photo-op
E: Wait for his teleprompter to tell him what to do

This is what happens when you elect an unqualified candidate; you get an unqualified disaster.

I am sickened by the constant whining of some people who claim that they are poor. It's really getting grotesque hearing people living in the suburbs complain about their poverty.

Let me give you a little clue.
TOP TEN SIGNS YOU MIGHT NOT REALLY BE POOR.

10. If you have a roof over your head that you own, you aren't poor.
9. If you have a car to drive, and gas to put in it, you aren't poor.
8. If you have a TV, a DVD player, cable, and/or internet access, you aren't poor.
7. If there's food on the table and more in the fridge, you aren't poor.
6. If you can afford takeout dinner once a week, you aren't poor.
5. If your kids have clothes that belong to them only, you aren't poor.
4. If you have a family doctor, you aren't poor.
3. If you go out to dinner once a month, you aren't poor
2. If your children sleep through the night because their bellies are full of food, then you aren't poor.
1. If your household income is above the US median ($50,233 in 2007), you most certainly are not poor.

If the above conditions describe you, then you aren't poor. You just want more than you've got, a feeling that afflicts many of us regardless of our income.

So stop whining about it.

You want to talk about poverty? Let's talk about the folks living in Sevier County who know about real poverty. Let's talk about a little boy who had to wear his older sister's dresses because hand me downs were the only clothes the family could afford. Let's talk about the kids going to school without proper supplies because there was no money for books, or paper, or a freaking $1.00 ruler from Walmart. Let's talk about the kids in Cocke County and Union County and Greene County that go to bed hungry each night; who can't wait for school to start so they know they'll get at least one good meal a day. Let's talk about the illegal immigrants who brave the desert, the Border Patrol, and racist fools in order to perform backbreaking labor for money most of us would laugh at, just so they can send it home, so their kids can eat.

You want to cry about how poor you are because you can't afford a new purse? Tell it to the lady who can't afford to take her little girl to the doctor to correct a cleft palate.

Let's talk about real poverty. Let's talk about Africa, where kids grow up without parents, because they were taken by disease or violence. Let's talk about kids going to bed every night, hungry, helpless, and hopeless. Let's talk about these kids growing up trapped in an unbreakable cycle of poverty, doomed to miss out on an education because their family needs them to work. Doomed to miss out on job training because they are too busy hauling water to their homes.

Doomed.

And you want to cry because your car needs tires and you'll have to give up your dinner out this month to pay for them?

Grow up! All of you!

Let me clue you in to something. If you live in the United States, chances are you've never experienced true poverty. There are isolated pockets of true poverty in America, but most people never see them, much less live in them. I went from being single with no dependents to married with 4 small children and one on the way, and I made less than $24,000 a year as an E-5 in the Navy. By every US standard, I was poor. I qualified for food stamps, assisted housing, WIC, ADFC, and any other welfare program you care to name. I never took a single dime. Not out of pride; if I needed help, I took it, but I didn't need it. I had a car, a TV, a computer, a stereo, furniture, and all the other material things I needed. None of it was new; none of it was particularly nice, but it did the job. My wife was a smart shopper and we operated on a very tight budget. Since I got out of the Navy, I've had some good years and some very lean years. One year, I made almost $60,000 working on a small island in the Pacific ocean, cleaning up a plutonium site; three years later, I made less than $18,000, managing a fast food restaurant while trying to start my first business. I ran up a tremendous amount of debt, and worked for several years to pay it off. I'm not telling you all this to blow my own horn, only to point out the truth. There were many times when I didn't have all the money I wanted, and more than a few times when I didn't have all the money I needed.

I may have been broke, but I was never poor.

You see, while I was in the Navy, I saw real poverty. We pulled into port in Rio de Janeiro. We spent a lot of time on the beaches, partying with the local ladies, but one day, while on a bus ride to Ipanema, I looked out the window and saw a mountainside covered with cardboard shanties. A few of them had corrugated metal roofs, but most of them were just cardboard, held together by faith and duck tape. There was nothing green on the hillside; everything was mud and filth. No bathrooms, no running water, no sanitation whatsoever, no electricity, no food.

Nothing, except kids standing ankle deep in human waste.

I wish I could say I did something, asked some questions, or got involved somehow, but I didn't. It was just too big to deal with; there was no way for me, an upper middle class American, to comprehend poverty on such a large scale. Besides, I was a sailor, and I was there to have a good time. If I worried about the kids I saw in that cardboard hell, I wouldn't enjoy my liberty. So I turned my head, pretended I didn't see it, and rode the bus down to the beach.

I'm not really good at pretending sometimes.

I hesitate to talk about this, because I don't want to be accused of being prideful, but I recently committed to giving 10% of my gross income to God, and I usually choose to do this through charities that minister to the truly poor. I tell you this not to sing my own praises, or even to inspire you to do the same, although that would be wonderful, but to explain why my stomach churns whenever I hear somebody crying about how poor they are while blogging from a desktop computer in their air conditioned home. My anger is not directed solely at their whining, as much as I would like to believe that's the truth.

My anger springs from remembering a callous young man, who saw children struggling in true poverty, and spent his money on food and fun instead of immediately using it to help however he could.

Look, I know times are tough right now, and they're only going to get tougher, and I know some of us have it harder than others. But the honest truth is that nobody reading these words, unless you're homeless and in a library escaping the rain/heat/cold for a few hours, has experienced real poverty. None of us are poor.

We're just spoiled.

From Knoxviews commenter rikki:

Gunnies are the soggiest bedwetters on the planet... I have no problem with gun owners or permit holders. I do think the State of Tennessee should look into handing out free diapers with each carry permit.

Comments like this one help to explain why we are winning. I think rikki and this young lady should get together.


I'm sure they'd have a lot to talk about.

The singing naked cowboy from Times Square is running for mayor of New York City, proving that sooner or later, every clown runs for political office. The scary thing is that in Minnesota, they actually stand a good chance of winning!

I was profiled and pulled over.

My race wasn't at issue; the issue was that I was driving through New Jersey with Florida tags and pulling a trailer, following another car with Florida tags. The police officer who pulled us over said that he suspected we were carrying drugs, and when he found out we were all in the Navy and that the closest thing to drugs we were carrying was two aspirins and some pipe tobacco, warned us not to tell anybody or he would end our lives.

I was profiled and pulled over another time.

My race wasn't at issue; the issue was that I was driving through a small town in another state at 2AM on a Thursday night. The police officer who pulled me over said I had been "driving erratically," which was completely untrue; he pulled me over because I didn't belong in his town, particularly at 2AM.

Now a Harvard professor was arrested for demanding that an officer give him his name and badge number after that officer questioned him for supposedly breaking in to his own house.

Folks, this isn't a race issue; it's an abuse of power issue. The common factor in all three cases, and in so many others, is not race, but an abuse of police power. I was pulled over twice for the "crime" of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Pr. Gates was arrested for refusing to co-operate with an officer, and for demanding accountability from that officer. The interesting question is not "Would a white man have been arrested in the same circumstances?" Believe me, had I or any other white man gotten in the face of that officer, we too would have been arrested. The interesting question is "Would the charges have been dropped without the professors fame and credentials?"

Like I said, it's not about race; it's about power and its abuse. Did the officer abuse his power when he harassed and arrested Gates? It's a hard call to make. Gates deliberately provoked and antagonized the officer, but does that give the officer the right to detain or arrest Gates? Some would argue that the police must maintain an aura of inviolability in order to do their jobs safely. In order to work effectively, police must be able to send the message that if you mess with them, you will pay a price. There is some validity to this argument because without that aura of authority, the only power the officer has is his weapon, and we really don't want that to be the only way he has to enforce the law. Police are not arbiters of the law; they are enforcers. On the other hand, we are citizens, not subjects. Should we be required to surrender our rights at the whim of any police officer who feels like we don't belong? Should we be compelled to identify ourselves to any officer who asks? Obviously not.

On the other hand, did Gates provoke this confrontation and his eventual arrest? Consider the circumstances. The police were called because a neighbor saw two men breaking in to a house. They arrive at the house to find the front door forced open and two men inside the house. Wouldn't it be reasonable for them to ask for identification at this point, whether the two men were black or white? Should Gates have gotten angry for being asked to identify himself, or should he have been grateful that the police were working to protect his property? What if you were in the same situation. Suppose you just had to break in to your own house and a neighbor called the police because they saw two people trying to break in. When the police got there, would you be angry that they wanted to make sure that you belonged there, or would you be grateful that they were doing their job?

It boils down to a simple question: Did the officer ask for Gates identification to verify that he was the rightful occupant, or because he was black? Gates wasn't arrested for breaking and entering; he was arrested for disorderly conduct for arguing with and pursuing the officer when the officer was trying to end the incident. Given the circumstances, and the fact that the officer was trying to leave the property while Gates continued to engage with him, it seems that the former is more likely.

The real profiling here was done by Pr. Gates, who, in his fatigue and frustration, revealed his prejudice against the police. He instantly assumed that it was all about his race, and not the circumstances. He later admitted that the woman who called 911 in the first place did the right thing, which is curious because if she did the right thing, then how could the responding officer be faulted for doing his job by following up on the call? Obviously, he can't. The officer was doing his job, nothing more. I haven't read anything that said he treated Pr. Gates with anything less than full courtesy. There's no reports that he pulled a weapon on him, or physically confronted him. All we know is that he asked for ID. That's his job and in those circumstances if he hadn't done that, he would have been negligent.

To most folks, this negates the racial aspect of this incident completely. Gates wasn't arrested for breaking and entering, and he wasn't arrested for being a black man; he was arrested for getting belligerent with a police officer who was doing his duty. But if this were just a story about a man arrested for getting belligerent with a police officer, well, it wouldn't sell a whole lot of newspapers, would it?

It is simply this:

It wasn't until after Mr. Cronkite retired that we the viewing public learned anything about his politics. Sadly, today's news people see that as a bug, not a feature.

To date, 263 people have died from the swine flu since the first death two and a half months ago. In that same time period, over 40,000 people in the US have been diagnosed with the disease through doctor or hospital visits, 4800 had to be hospitalized, and it is estimated that over a million people have contracted swine flu, but only felt mild cold symptoms. So if you are exposed to the swine flu virus, you are looking at about a 0.48% chance of being hospitalized, and a 0.026% chance of dying from it.

Looking at it from the other side, you have a 96% chance of never even knowing you had the disease.