Sequestration Madness -- Catch It!

Watching Morning Joe today, the panel, Richard Haas, Chris Matthews, Mika, Joe Scarborough, and a few others, discussed sequestration. The talk in media now is that both sides deserve blame for setting up this stupid automatic spending cut trigger if they failed to make a deal on raising the debt and developing smart cuts and reforms in government spending to offset the growing costs of entitlement spending. The reason media sources like Morning Joe, and pundits like Chris Matthews, switched from blaming the GOP solely to blaming both sides for the sequestration stand off is that Bob Woodward came forward and revealed conversations he had with WH personnel during the writing of his new book in which the WH admitted to coming up with the sequestration idea, and that the deal was only planned -- negotiated spending cuts would be considered to avoid across the board cuts. Woodward destroyed the Democrats' narrative of GOP obstructionism, and Woodward accused President Obama of moving the goal posts, as Obama reportedly did when dealing with John Boehner on the original Grand Bargain.

It appears that Obama doesn't want a deal in which both sides look good. Obama wants to make the Republicans look like obstructionists protecting the super-rich, or Obama wants Republicans to capitulate on more taxes and divide the Republican Party even deeper and wider. The guests on Morning Joe have talked some about the political games played, but it's usually in terms of Republican obstructionism because they're captured by an extreme Tea Party base. The guests will sometimes admit that Obama is playing hardball, but they excuse it by saying Obama won the presidential election and, therefore, has the political clout to mostly get his way. The pundits usually fail to mention that GOP lawmakers won in the House, and we have a balance of power in US government, not a monarchy.

I've written recently about the danger in giving our Presidents the power we now give them. If there's any hope of avoiding bankruptcy, complete loss of freedom and eventual collapse, it's with representatives in the House and Governors in states. We can't allow a few pockets of power in federal government to control the nation and our economy. Obama has declared war on all obstacles to his pursuit of power. Obama is not pursuing power alone -- he's pushed by Progressive forces who see this opportunity as their time to shine, to make policy that will transform America into a post-capitalist era of democratic socialism which frees us from economic tyranny and establishes a real path to social justice and equality. Obama has taken every chance to rail against the rich and demand that they pay their fair share. Of course, some of the rich are necessary partners in the Progressive agenda, so they get preferential treatment, but they are only tools, not real partners. If Progressives succeed, the winners in a transformed world State planned of production and services will be determeined by political, ad hoc expediency, and those who are favored today might be disfavored tomorrow. When our nation and economy are control by political means, it will be a totally different world. They will achive equality in that the standard of living for the great majority will be low. The few in power will not be accused of inequality because they are protecting the people from the tyrannical rich who will rise again if not for the courageous efforts of the few in control.

So, this sequestration silliness is only a diversion. There are some in the political realm who understand the stakes, but they haven't decided where they stand and what they're willing to risk. Fighting against a gigantic State machine is intimidating, not for the weak of heart, and we have a lot of weak hearts in Congress. There are many in the political realm who will call what I've written extremist rhetoric, and they will make jokes about the Kenyan Marxist President, and they will go along, like they go along with drone strikes and a war that's killing men and women and children for purely political reasons. These people are lost in the obscurantism and rationalizations of political power.

Pro-strength and anti-war

Mitt Romney has effectively presented himself as an anti-war candidate while being strong on defense. This is what America should project as we move further into the 21st century. War has to be the last resort, and only in cases of national-defense. Romney doesn't have time, and Americans aren't focused on it, but going forward America has to develope a new doctrinal approach to intervention in cases of a dictator gone mad who's murdering his/her people who don't have an effective defense. This philisophical problem is simple on one hand -- surely a strong and capable nation like America should help defenseless people from mass murder -- but on the other hand America has to remove itself from the role of Global Police. The UN is useless, so a different solution must be found. Romney would do good to begin thinking about this.

The world certainly needs a country to begin leading the way to peace and prosperity -- this is such a cliched term, but it's totally pertinent to global needs. The world is in financial trouble, and the principles of economic freedom are needed now more than ever. To open up the global economyto innovation and creativity has mind-blowing potential. If we, the world, could stop the wars, the killing and destruction, the religious extremism, the war on business, the waste of socialism, the tendency for the few to dominate the many, and allow free people to produce and create to best of their abilities -- it would be astounding. Yes, we need strength and a superior defense at home, but the world is in dire need of widespread, peaceful production and trade -- America can lead the way. Political means have led the world astray -- economic means will save us all. It's a lot easier to be peaceful and spiritual when bellies are full and shelter is secure. This utopian outlook is laughed at by realists, but shouldn't we start in that direction?

From politics and war to economics and peace

Forget the Left/Right divide. It's a useful distinction when voting if the voter believes that one or the other party actually believes their rhetoric, but for the most part, the political class is made up of statists from the Right and Left, and the status quo concerns itself with power maintenance -- given this reality, it hardly matters which party is in power. The entire political realm is now in reactionary mode against a small but growing movement to limit government power and end the primacy of politics in America so that Americans can return to productive economic activity and peaceful trade with other countries rather than one ballistic intervention/entanglement after another.

The movement to limit government is coming from a libertarian strain on the Right, represented by Ron and Rand Paul and newly elected GOP candidates who pledged to limit government power and work for the implementation of free market principles. It remains to be seen if the movement can gain enough power to limit State power, but so far they've gotten the attention of establishment elements in both parties and media. Anyone associated with this limited government movement has been severely and constantly attacked and smeared. The goal of the status quo protectors is to marginalize those who are friendly with the limited government movement and to destroy anyone who's dedicated and important to the movement.

The primacy of political means in America has placed the nation at risk as our economy has basically shut-down in uncertainty while government intervenes over and over leaving investors even more uncertain what will come next. Investors, entrepreneurs and business people of all stripes have no way to calculate their costs, and consumers are also uncertain regarding their employment future, so investors don't hire and expand and consumers wait on the big purchases.

The concerned Leftist or Centrist or Left-Libertarian will tell you that economics and taxes are not primary concerns, that we should be concerned with social issues, privacy issues, minority rights issues, environmental issues, and so on. I agree that all the above are important issues, but only a comfortable and prosperous society can afford to address these issues, and when government uses political means to address these issues there's societal division calculated by statists to obtain and maintain power. Most Americans have the same societal goals even though methods might differ, but when government has trashed the economy and basic needs become a concern once again, then higher concerns are put on the back burner. Government has finally intervened to the point that the economy has siezed up. Americans will fight one another over scarce resources through the feeding trough of government -- this is the way statists have set it up, and it leads to conflict. For diversion and a sense of national unity when things get too bad, another war usually works wonders.

Limited government and free marketism lead to free choices and more productive economic activity, an end to central planning, thus less conflict and more charity and  compassion to tackle the larger societal concerns. We can deal with our problems without government interventions -- this is the idea statists have to squash, because it's an idea which threatens the political elite. The elite are threatened, and their flailings will only become more extreme. Yes, elections can still work, but they must be significant and revolutionary. We must have revolutionary change, no different from the beginning revolution.

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.

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.