Republicans headed in wrong direction

If Republicans fight only for political power for power's sake, they'll lose. Democrats are the party of Big Government, interventionism, welfare statism, progressivism, redistribution and central planning based on a vague concept of social justice which serves as a justification for command and control, and Republicans cannot win by moving closer to the Democratic, Big Government model.

Already Democrats are already warning Republicans: they appreciate the bipartisan help, but they know it's a move to save relevancy, not a change of heart, and the sheep's clothing is not fooling anyone. Media will give Rubio, Flake and the rest no credit for immigration reform -- they'll recall Rubio's Tea Party immigration positions that contradict his newfound openness regarding undocumented immigrants. Republicans will be accused of pandering to win elections with the help of Hispanic voters. Democrats and media will use Republican support for immigration reform against the Republicans.

One angle of attack Democrats might use is that Republicans are capitulating to the Progressive worldview, but they're admitting defeat, so there's no compelling reason to vote for a party that's been wrong all along and caused all this damage to the economy which Democrats are slowly cleaning up and healing. When Republicans feel themselves sucked into the loser's position which admits the Democrats were right all along about interventionist, statist policies, they'll react to gain respect, but then they'll look desperately confused, and Democrats will then say the GOP true colors are showing.

The immigration reform proposals are political moves to gain votes, but Democrats will get the votes -- all Republicans will get is more division in their party. GOP moderates believe they have the strong hand and that the public wants to see Republicans working with Democrats to get things done. Republican centrists believe they can gain public support by cooperating with Progressives, adding their common sense touches on comprises that will curb Leftist excesses, slowing down the Progressive agenda so that the appearance of prudence and smart conservatism gives them political gravitas. GOP Centrists beleive in the basic statist model -- they just want to slow down the pace of change. We'll collapse a little slower maybe.

Democrats and media will continue to focus on a few radical Republicans who say crazy things, ignoring Democrats who say crazy things, and Media will lament the fact that Centrist Republicans are hamstrung by their radical base. Media won't highlight Republican compromises or give them credit for any legislative "victories". Besides this, though, is the folly of accepting the premise that Democrats have won because they've captured something important among the electorate.

Democrats and a large part of the voting public are pushing the nation off a cliff. We're one crisis away from economic collapse, and, once the world loses faith in America, interest rates and debt payments will destroy what's left of our economy. Just because there are demographic changes doesn't mean that Republicans have to follow the Democratic path to greater State power and control. Republicans should convince the voting public that economic freedom is the path to prosperity and escape from poverty. Democrats are setting up Hispanics for suffering -- Democrats are taking advantage of people who've been abused by their country, making promises that can't be kept, and Republicans shouldn't be part of this con game to get more votes and secure power. Government power is no good if it's not used to limit government power and protect private sector freedom.

We need adults in government who fight to limit government power so that the private sector can create jobs and immigrants can find good work and good pay to build good lives. It's an insult to Hispanics to say we'll help them be our servants and do the farm work Americans won't do at low wages. Republicans should offer a way to integrate immigrants into a free market that they understand and embrace. This political posturing by Republicans to say  - Me too, I want your votes, too - won't work and it shouldn't be tried by representatives who claim to understand limited government and economic freedom.

Morning Joe 9/10/2012 -- Entitlements are only promises, but debt must be paid

On Morning Joe today, the crew talked about the lack of specifics offered by the Presidential candidates regarding what they will do to create jobs and reform taxes. A clip was shown in which Paul Ryan was asked by an interviewer which tax loopholes and subsidies Romney will remove. Ryan said he wants to have the debate with Congress so that all representatives are involved in the reform and so that it has a chance of being passed. This sounds reasonable, but Scarborough and others believe it's a cop-out.

The main point made on Morning Joe is that Americans want leadership -- they welcome honest plans that show them the tough choices which have to be made in order to turn around this failing economy. The problem is that neither candidate knows how to turn around the economy, and standing against special interest groups in order to remove loopholes and subsidies can't be accomplished unless you first make systemic changes.

The fact that systemic changes have to be made is something that politicians won't accept -- it's also something that the political class in general, including Scarborough and the Leftists and moderates who parade through his show, won't accept. The political class believes that there are statist solutions to problems created by statism, but government has to be limited and a free market has to be implemented before the economy will start growing sufficiently to deal with the debt and deficit problems. Statists say that a true free market and a truly limited government can't serve a complex society, so debt rises and the few power-elite gain control -- this is how complexity is handled appropriately.

The problem is that as our interventionist government deals with complexity a very simple problem has arisen -- businesses don't know what will happen next or how much it will cost them. Politicians are rattling their sabers, anxious to tax the rich, as statists say that government must "invest" in needed infrastructure that only government can provide, that this is how jobs will be created until the private sector is confident again. If Obama and the Democratic Party get their way, and it looks like Republican moderates are on their side regarding government "investment", there will be thousands of interventions as hundreds of billions of dollars flow to this crony and that, to this government pet project and that, and it will only cause further lack of confidence in the private sector business world and a misdirection of capital.

David Walker came on the show and presented the true debt, which is around 70 trillion dollars, when the promises related to entitlements are taken into account. Steve Rattner said that entitlement promises can be changed, but that debt is a promise that must be paid. Listen up all of you who are dependent on government -- if you've been told that if you pay into government, you will get a return when you retire and your healthcare problems will be covered, according to Rattner, this is not a real promise, and it can be changed when politicians decide they want to change the arrangement. There's probably fine print somewhere. Entitlements are not really entitlements, just a temporary arrangement that might change when government spends the money you've sent in and can't make good on what it said it would do, which wasn't really a promise. Got it? Don't worry, you'll get it alright.

G-20 and the big-ass elephant in the Euro-US economies

No one wants to talk about the big-ass elephant. They all pretend the elephant doesn't exist. The metaphor is cliched by now, but it's appropriate to the European/US economic situation. Decades ago Europe, for the most part, decided that orthodox Marxism and liberalism were untenable, so they developed a Third Way, and soon the US followed in our own "American" way. The common premise has been that orthodox Marxism/socialism failed and capitalism is unjust and has to be controlled through political means -- the ability to take the political path is accomplished through democracy. If a big enough political alliance is created then the anti-capitalists can control capitalism through political means and put its wealth creation to political use. Economic means are put aside.

What Europe and the US failed to accept is what the Austrians knew, capitalism can't operate by political means, at least not for long. Both Europe and America have intervened in the economies of the different States until the unintended consequences have eventually created widespread stagnation and crippling debt. The rest of the world will not allow the US and Europe to continue borrowing and spending without replacing what is consumed with what is produceed. Reality will not allow this either -- reality, like the elephant in the economies that no one wants to talk about.

I watched Obama give his G-20 speech and the pundits analyzed it, and the European functionaries blamed America, and Obama blames Bush, but the fact is that European and the US governments will not allow capitalism to work, and the consequences are dire because there's no more wealth to redistribute. The schemes are failing -- no one knows what to do, and if they do know, they will not allow the solution to develope because it would destroy their worldview built around social democracy.

States going bust

http://economywatch.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/18/12285504-funding-gap-for-state-retirement-benefits-rises-to-14-trillion?lite

According to some estimates the states have an almost 4 and half trillion shortfall between what they have to pay out and what's promised in pensions and healthcare committments. This is a crisis, and I don't hear the urgency in mainstream media there ought to be with a crisis of this magnitude.

The only way out of this mess is to cut spending, remove government obstacles to economic growth, limit government power, and totally overhaul the tax code -- then, starting with younger Americans turn their retirement and healthcare needs back to private sector solutions. This crisis will require the innovation and creativity that can come only from the myriad minds in the private sector, not from government agencies.

Democrats are asking the federal government to spend more on states so that states don't have to face their problems -- well, they say we should spend to support the states until the economy recovers, then worry about debt. The problem though is that no states put anything aside during good times, and they won't as long as state officials think government has to solve all problems. This is exactly the wrong way to go -- creating more debt will not solve a debt problem. We have to solve the fundamental problems, because they will only get worse if left unaddressed. 

The Desperate Left

It's not that the Right doesn't have a lot to fix. The political involvement of the Religious Right back in the 70s, and the militaristic rise of neo-cons in the 80s and 90s, really hurt the Rightwing in the eyes of ordinary, non-political Americans who couldn't understand the need to politicize social issues, and they certainly grew tired of the war-mongering, World Policing, and empty moralizing.

Although ordinary, non-political Americans aren't libertarians (many aren't sure what the label means)they have a libertarian streak that's characteristic of most Americans. So, although the Right still has its problems, the Left is a frigging hot mess, and ordinary, nonpolitical Americans are looking at Obama and the Democratic Party, the Left's support of Occupiers, and the Left's support of the Arab Spring which many predicted would fall to radical Islamists, and Americans are asking just what the hell is going on. They don't like Obamacare, and they are stunned at the amount of debt amassed over the last 4 years. I'm not talking about Tea Partiers reacting to the Left, but American citizens in general.

What's really getting to these Americans is high unemployment with no relief in sight -- they watch Obama do things like block the Keystone pipeline and help block Boeing's expansion in South Carolina. Americans are asking what the hell is going on in DC? George Bush blew it, and now Obama's doubling down, but he's blaming Bush. What the hell is going on in DC?

The Left doesn't know how to fix this reaction against the Democratic Party. Obama's pandering to every special interest group possible, but his election situation is awful at this stage -- tied with Romney? Plus, there's Fast and Furious, the kill list, the charges of giving away vital foreign policy secrets to make Obama look good. It hasn't been good for Obama and the Democrats.

The Left is blaming Obama for not going big, for not giving the finger to the Right and charging forward with a social democracy agenda beyond Obamacare and Dodd-Frank -- they want real socialist change, but Obama is playing the pragmatist, telling the Left to hold on until after the elections. Obama is losing some on the Left and many in the middle. The Left is in disarray, when only 3 and half years ago they were on top of the world. The problem is that the Left has used political means over economic means for decades now, and it's failing miserably. The 21st century is screaming for liberty, private sector empowerment, especially economic liberty, although liberty can't be sectioned off without killing liberty, per se -- but the Left is entrenched in the political realm hoping to use democracy and majority rule to dominate America. Americans aren't having this -- they are rebelling. That's a good thing. Wake up liberals, don't follow the progressives over the political cliff.