Morning Joe 6/29/2011 -- Failure of Statism

On Morning Joe today the crew and guests like Tina Brown, Ezra Klein and Al Sharpton talked about the breakdown in Washington DC -- they can't get anything done on the debt ceiling, spending cuts or raising taxes -- they're frozen in a partisan divide -- Obama can't make bold decisions and lead the way -- politicians are too worried about the next election -- so on and so forth. Tina Brown either lamented the fact, or simply stated the fact, that people are beginning to take matters into their own hands to solve problems. Imagine that.

I will say this -- if the inadvertent result of Obama's presidency is that Americans take responsibility for their problems and creatively find solutions, then I will declare Obama's presidency as the most important in our history. Seriously, what Morning Joe was discussing this morning is the failure of statism. Many of us know that statism always fails -- it has to -- it can't end any other way. In the history of mankind there has never been success from central planning and social engineering. Domination has always led to decline -- freedom rises for a minute, then domination returns.

The challenge of the 21st century is not to fix statism/domination short-term so that interventionist governments can prop up a coercive State machine and stretch out it survival for another decade or two -- the challenge of the 21st century is to finish and do right what our Founders attempted in the beginning -- truly limit government and establish an authentically free market. Unless we apply fundamental solutions at this point in time, we will continue our decline, and collapse won't be far away. Statism has been pushed to the breaking point -- we have even surpassed the USSR's long run, but mainly because we had a measure of freedom. Now, we need to do the hard thing -- oppose statism, defeat statism and place real limits on government power. The State machine is powerful, but if the American people want change, we can make it happen -- even if we have to vote every current politician out of office and start over.

Joe Scarborough and Mika said they were tired of Sarah Palin news then spent ten minutes talking about how the media should quit talking about Sarah Palin. I have an idea -- Joe and Mika can use their influence and get the producers to establish a Sarah Palin black-out on Morning Joe -- no discussion at all about Sarah Palin, to show how Sarah Palin is not news-worthy -- yes, make a statement about Sarah Palin, that she's not a player, not important, not worthy of further discussion -- no more Sarah Palin news, seriously, no more, because even though Sarah Palin went to Iowa, it's not...

Morning Joe 5/4/2011 -- bin Laden hyperbole

On Morning Joe, the hyperbole regarding the killing of bin Laden was sickening. I mean, really, Joe Scarborough and his guests like Nora and Kelly O'Donnell and Ezra Klein and Margaret Carlson and Dee Dee Myers, all statists on the Left who love to praise government successes, were talking about this operation as if Obama killed bin Laden with his own bare hands like a deadly assassin in the night.

Joe S. was criticizing all the nitpicking regarding the details and conflicting accounts of the story, and then restated the administration's account which, of course, dramatized Obama's role. This obession with interventionist Presidents among political hacks like Scarborough is unbecoming. Mika told Scarborough that he would get flack for praising the President, and they both dismissed any criticism of Joe's fawning as ideological partisanship.

The administration is using the bin Laden operation as an opportunity to establish Obama as a strong leader and improve his poll numbers as if American citizens are so fickle that one successful operation will wipe away all the problems which Obama's interventions have caused or complicated.

Ezra Klein said that nothing succeeds like success, and that the American people like policies and operations that work, moreso than they like principled consistency. Joe S. agreed with Klein, saying "yes, yes", that pragmatic success trumps standing on principles. You know, our real enemy isn't terrorists -- bin Laden was a has-been who'd become irrelevant, and al Qaeda hasn't done much in years -- no, our real enemies are the political ideas that more and more pundits and politicians and intellectuals push in the political sphere. Our country is being operated by political means rather than social means, as Franz Oppenheimer critiqued decades ago. Politics is everything, and pundits like Klein are fine with myopic pragmatism if it helps their team stay in power, while criticising the other team for ideological manipulation. Myopic pragmatism is an ideology, just a dishonest ideology.

The flaws of pragmatism

http://reason.com/blog/2011/02/04/individual-liberty-and-the-hea

Ezra Klein represents the worst of statist pragmatism and partisanship. Statist pragmatism in the service of partisan policy lacks vision and wisdom. While any given over-reach of government might in itself not create the imminent demise of liberty, each pragmatic constitutional violation weakens limitations and sets the stage for future violations which could not only threaten liberty, but eradicate liberty. 

Joe Scarborough on the cutting edge of nice

I don't know why I bother, but there's something strangely pleasurable about watching a microcosm of the political class on Morning Joe, whether it's blowhard politicians, blowhard pundits, blowhard journalists, blowhard entertainers with brilliant political insights, a blowhard Washington Post blogger or Mr. Blowhard himself, Scarborough, it confirms for me what is empty, hypocritical, hilarious and patronizing about those in politics who think they know better and practice 24/7 pushing an agenda. Perhaps it makes me feel superior -- no matter how bad a mistake I make, I can always point to them and say at least I'm not that bad.

Mika pointed out this morning, several times, how Joe was on the cutting edge of championing being "nice" to one another even if we have political differences. Joe was not embarrassed by this sincere praise, but rather pumped up by it, so much so that he had to show how Obama is on an image roll and how he is conveying niceness to the nation, and Palin in now a miserable failure who can only talk about herself -- not nice. If you are a simpleton, let me put it this way -- Obama = nice    Palin = not nice.

Kirsten Gillibrand gave an emotional account of Gabby Giffords opening her eyes, and then it was established that even though the killer was not influenced by rhetoric, the tone in politics must become nice -- then they nicely reiterated that Palin's political career is over -- over -- kaput, and that Obama is on the rise. I guess the Morning Joe crew were being nice and repeating how un-nice Palin is for the benefit of people who tuned in late, or simpletons who didn't get the first time.

Ezra Klein, in a nice tone, said that Obama channelled the nation's feelings and comforted them, although approximately 270,000,000 did not watch the speech -- Ezra didn't include that last bit about who didn't watch the speech, I nicely added that based on the ratings report I saw. Ezra also said that he has been talking to people and that the American people (he must have talked to a lot of people) aren't upset about policy differences -- they don't actually read or understand the bills, Klein says -- but they are upset over the process of how the policies are made, which is not nice. Klein actually said that the people are "upset over how we make policy". Get that? How "we" make policy. I didn't know Klein made policy, but I suppose this is how this nice kid with a nice blog views what he does -- he's making policy. Does Klein see this as the job of the Washington Post -- to make policy? Nice. Sweet.

Eliza Cummings said that the lawmakers now have more security, and there was talk about beefing up the protection of lawmakers. There was no talk, however, of beefing up security in ghettoes across the country where innocent people are killed everyday, and there was no talk of helping Pakistan beef up security for children and innocent bystanders being killed by drones -- but we must certainly spend a billion or so more to make a show of protecting lawmakers from domestic extremists -- although it's clear that the shooter was a mentally disturbed individual. We must be nice -- for some reason, the lesson is we must be nice.

And Joe called all the bloggers "simpletons" (in a nice way) who say that being nice means being squishy -- hell no, these "simpletons" don't understand you can have ideological differences and still be nice -- like the ideological difference Joe has with "simpleton" bloggers. Let's just be nice. Joe has been saying this for years, and he was in congress in 1994 -- now, they knew how to do it nicely. Did you know that Joe would go over to the other side of the aisle and talk to Democrats? He did -- when he was in congress in 1994. He was nice -- it was nice -- so nice.

I think the main lesson is that although the Arizona shooting didn't have anything to do with whether we are nice or not nice, it's nice to be nice and to talk to people in a nice tone even if there are big political differences, and that Palin's career in the dump -- over -- kaput -- she's history. Palin is not nice.

Preferable over the detestable

I disagree with many honest liberals. I call them honest because I really believe they think Republicans are worse for America than Democrats, although they will admit that both parties have serious flaws. I have to say, historically speaking, it's a close call. But, presently, I have to honestly disagree. Looking at the big picture, I think both parties are statist, and the flaws I see in both are somewhat different flaws from what the liberals see. I agree that Republicans have been too protective of wasteful miltary spending and too supportive of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- they have been silent on the problem of corporate welfare and they have not honestly critiqued the war on drugs -- plus, they have been too interventionistly unfair to those in society who are gay. The main flaw, however, is that they have compromised with Democrat statism, in fact developed their own form of statism, and as a result have allowed statism to advance beyond what many thought possible. Having said all that, I believe that our last chance and hope before serious financal collapse, which renders our other problems moot, is an enlightened Republican Party which begins to roll back statist gains and implements protections against statism in the future. The Democrats show no signs of changing, although at one time they were the party upholding liberty, and libertarians have no chance of gaining power anytime soon.

Raymond Aron, to paraphrase, once said "It's never about the struggle between good and evil, it's between the preferable and the detestable." At this point, the Democrats are detestable. The current healthcare defense from the likes of Ezra Klein and Nancy Pelosi is that repealing the healthcare law will increase the deficit. The phony criteria given to the CBO to estimate the savings from the healthcare law is a shameless scam to sell the nation an entitlement program which will break the bank and further cripple companies in a weak economy, yet Democrats continue lying about the reality. Democrats have created a narrative that is pure fiction, and the worst part about it is that if it's believed and acted upon it will destroy the nation. We are beyond simple political games and strategic spin -- we're in the territory great deceit which will cause economic collapse. This is why I choose the Republicans if I'm forced, because the Democrats, for the most part, are detestable.