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No matter what your political bent is, there are some things which should be flat out beyond the political fray of the moment. Those brave members of our military deserve our respect and gratitude. They serve our nation without question. They have no say in the political considerations which are used to place them into harms way. Memorial day is the day we honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of what should be a grateful nation. In November, we honor those who are still among us. I decided to go in search of some of the memorials being played out today on our major media. The first offering is from MSNBC, a few words will follow.
Yes, he really said the following. (Clip and transcript from Breitbart.com)
Thinking today and observing Memorial Day, that’ll be happening tomorrow. Just talked with Lt. Col. Steve Burke [sic, actually Beck], who was a casualty officer with the Marines and had to tell people [inaudible]. Um, I, I, ah, back sorry, um, I think it’s interesting because I think it is very difficult to talk about the war dead and the fallen without invoking valor, without invoking the words “heroes.” Um, and, ah, ah, why do I feel so comfortable [sic] about the word “hero”? I feel comfortable, ah, uncomfortable, about the word because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war. Um, and, I don’t want to obviously desecrate or disrespect memory of anyone that’s fallen, and obviously there are individual circumstances in which there is genuine, tremendous heroism: hail of gunfire, rescuing fellow soldiers and things like that. But it seems to me that we marshal this word in a way that is problematic. But maybe I’m wrong about that.
I do not know where Chris Hayes was educated. Where ever it was, he learned nothing more than how to use big words which end up meaning nothing. The phrase, "rhetorically proximate to justifications," is exactly the point made in yesterday's post by Thomas Sowell about why society does not need intellectuals. Hayes put that big brain of his into action and came up with the most morally bankrupt piece of nonsense ever uttered on American Soil. This tolerant creature from the left is exactly the same type of individual which made Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Qaddafi, and Ahmadinejad, possible.
Now, let's leave the post on a good note. Here is one of the tributes made on Fox News during a long weekend. Actual gratitude for our sons and daughters who have been asked for and paid the ultimate price for our continued freedom.
Notice that there was not a single mention of anything even remotely political during the thanks. Just a personal tale of what Memorial day means to Jenna Lee. and all of it with a vocabulary that while it was easy to understand, it packed one hell of a meaning.
This is a follow up interview on Sowell's second book covering the topic of intellectuals and society. There is a mistaken belief that conservatives are anti intellectual in nature. The truth is opposite, what we conservatives are is something different. We are against the practice of clinging to intellectual theories decades after practical living conditions have proven them to be disastrously wrong. The perfect examples provided today are the brilliant theories of top down socialist organization, which has seen the collapse of the Soviet Block and the entire school of Keynesian economics, which has led to mass starvation and petulance in each and every society where it has been allowed to flourish. If we were truly anti intellectual, places like the Hoover Institution and the Heritage Foundation would not exist.
Peter Robinson of Uncommon Knowledge interviewing Richard Epstein and John Yoo, two constitutional scholars and lawyers associated with the Hoover Institution. They give their take on some of the cases pending in the Supreme Court. One of the many things that I found interesting with this was the lever of disagreement between two attorneys who are all together aligned on most of the major issues of the day. Some disclosure is in order. Epstein wrote several of the briefs presented to the Supreme Court for the plaintiff's in the Affordable Care Act Case now being considered.
Laying the monetary policies of the late 1970's completely at the feet of Jimmy Carter is not entirely fair. Those policies which some see as the result of removing the gold standard from our currency began in earnest with Lyndon Johnson, found no trouble in moving across the aisle when Richard Nixon became a President from the opposition party, saw a brief hiatus with the more fiscally disciplined Gerald Ford, who lost to Jimmy Carter. So while it is true that the concept of fiat money did not start with Carter, it is also true that he did nothing to stop it, and in fact took what at the time was a very manageable problem and turned it into a full blown disaster.
I know that I'm opening a can of worms with the, "Paulian Gold Hawks," and the, "Non Paulian Gold Hawks Are Conspiracy Theorists," with this one. The problem is that both sides of the currency debate see everything as an either or situation, unwilling to cede to any type of third way of doing things proposal. Constitutionally, our federal government has been granted authority to determine our currency and to regulate it as they see fit. Our check on that authority is called the ballot box. If we send irresponsible people to Washington to attend our business, that is our fault, and indeed we have and will pay a price for that. The problem with the either or thinking is that it ignores that both sides of the debate have solutions that are deeply flawed and have in fact led to their own disastrous results in the past.
The gold standard was a leading cause of the depression of 1929, and the faith based currency and the use of fiat money during the 1930's caused that depression to last a decade rather than 12 to 14 months. one places constraints upon an economy by not allowing precious capital to perform its function in the market place and the other allows the federal government to rob the citizens of their wealth with an unseen transfer of value by simply diluting the currency. The best answer lies along a different path entirely. Milton Friedman and Paul Volcker have told us the way already. Allow for a government created and controlled currency, but place some very specific constraints upon that creation by tying it to certain economic indexes, such as replacement, GDP, trade balances etc.
As for Jimmy Carter's role in the process, it was based completely on an economic fallacy, and one that was proven by Carter's experimentation that turned out to be disastrously wrong. He felt, as did all of the people who belonged to the bastardized Keynesian school, that employment and inflation were inversely related. With high unemployment numbers and a recession in full swing, Jimmy Carter believed that a purposeful economic inflation would spur economic activity and reduce unemployment. To put that into simpler terms, he believed as did all of those on the political left, that by increasing government spending, more money would end up in the hands of citizens, and that they would in turn take this money and spend it on goods and services and our economy would start to recover, by having our pump primed. This particular theory has always worked better in academia than in actual practice.
One of the reasons that the Keynesian theory, (calling the current Keynesian school Keynesian is somewhat misleading, as the current practice has gone well beyond any arguments Maynard Keynes actually made,) does not work, is that that it fails to accommodate itself to changes in human behavior. As rewards and penalties are earned or inflicted, behavior is adjusted to reap one and avoid the other. Another reason for the failure of Keynesian economics is the fact that a government has to get the money it spends from somewhere, be it from today's citizens or tomorrow's. Carter's method and that of his Fed Chairman was the take it from the latter group. This was achieved by printing more currency, which devalued the wealth already in place with the private citizens, and then to spend the newly created currency on those wonderful social programs which people had been told were free.
There is a propensity to view inflation as the increase in the prices of those things we spend our money on. This is not only a wrong interpretation of the facts, but dangerously so for those in charge. Rising prices are a symptom of inflation. Just because it may take a while for that symptom to manifest itself, sometimes as long as three years as we are today finding out, does not mean that we should take it any less seriously. On March 8, 1978, Jimmy Carter nominated G. William Miller to the Fed Chairmanship. He was the only person to serve in that capacity without a background in economics or finance. He served the President and followed his policies without fail. With the printing presses turned on, he inflated the economy with reckless abandon. Unemployment, being totally independent in fact from inflation, remained high. A new word and term had to be created to describe the economic climate for the the late 1970's. The word was stagflation, which described double digit inflation with zero or even less than zero economic growth. The term was of course misery index, which combined interest rates and inflation in some bizarre formula and was meant to predict how miserable Americans had become. By August of 1979, Jimmy Carter had received protests from business leaders, House members, Senators, many from his own party to force the resignation of Miller, who actually accepted another position as an enticement to leave. He was replaced by Paul Volcker, a man who publicly criticized Carter's fiscal policies. With Miller as Secretary of the Treasury and Carter as President, they felt as though they would be able to force Volcker into continuing their policies, which he did not.
In order to bring inflation under control, Volcker had to increase interest rates to an astounding 21.5% at the zenith in 1981. The reason of course that this was necessary was that the purposeful inflation had been in place since 1965. It took something that drastic to bring about the cure. It should be noted that at one time, there really was such a thing as a conservative Democrat, and Volcker was one of those, as were Rick Perry and Ronald Reagan.
By the time Jimmy Carter left office, inflation was considered the worst economic problem our nation had faced since the pre WWII era. At one time, before the Constitution was adopted, three states actually used tobacco as the legal tender. It did not take the good people of Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina long to learn that they could grow their own. To illustrate the effect of how people noticed their own wealth diminishing due to the increase in the volume of money, a law was passed in all three states which made the punishment for lighting fire to fields growing tobacco execution.
In the years since the Carter Administration we have lost somewhat the sting from those years. Fewer people are around who remember them, and time has seen fit to heal some of the wounds. Listening to John Kerry drone on about the Bush economy being the worst since the great depression was comical. Anyone who was alive during that time remembers miles long gas lines, prices rising so rapidly that people were rushing out to spend their paychecks before their value dropped, often times quicker than the trek to the bank in order to cash them, and above it all, a President who went on national television to claim that the problem was that we as Americans were wrong for trying to improve our own living standards, ("there's too much consuming going on out there.")
As a child, watching my favorite television program, (at the tender age of 8, the original Star Trek fit this bill,) I can remember the character portrayed by Walter Koenig, Chekhov, claiming every single invention of man kind that showed any value as being Russian. There is no secret that Gene Roddenberry saw his 3 year hundred something episode of science fiction high camp as a symbolic back drop for the tumultuous times during which it was written. The major powers and cultures that existed during this time were amply represented by the various planets and empires that the Enterprise crew found on their 5 year mission which aired during only 3 original seasons. Chekhov's musings of course were representative of the mirth all of America felt when the Soviets at the time laid claim to every single piece of technology ever created by man, including cars, radios, computers, transistors, iron lungs, paint, puppy dogs, and fast food.
Such is the truth of Marxist and Socialist societies. With the constraints of top down planning, and the freedoms of the people to create and be rewarded for their creation removed, societies stagnate. By the end of the cold war, the function of soviet scientists had become to buy or steal American technology and then reverse engineer it to make it work somehow in their own country. I had a good friend who worked as a member of the Secret Service and was assigned to James Baker's detail while he was Secretary of State. During that time Baker planned a trip to Moscow for one G something summit or another, and he began complaining months in advance about the trip. I told him I thought it would be kind of neat to go traveling to the Soviet Union, and he responded with this. "The first time it was, but it really sucks there. Every thing is broken and in disrepair, and even what works is technology so old that going to the bathroom at night involves a flashlight and tennis shoes." Part of the problem with central planning is that you don't know what inventions are out there and possible, anyone who would invent those things is too busy being forced to work a structured plan that has removed all but force as an incentive. Pretty soon after that, the Soviet Union collapsed under the weight of its own economy being unable to feed its own citizens. As a matter of fact, not a single Socialist Society anywhere has ever succeeded or managed to survive for longer than 80 years.
Economic malaise and a need to be held in high regard as a great leader have provided some bizarre results over the years. Kim Jong Un, the child ruler of North Korea has listed some accomplishments in his official biography, which is growing daily. One such accomplishment is his very first round of golf on a championship course, in which without a single lesson, he managed to hit 17 holes in one. At least he has some room for improvement. Such is the character one would expect from a tin pot dictator. I feel sorry for the people unfortunate enough to live in North Korea, where basking in the preposterous narcissism of the totalitarian in charge is a poor substitute for actually being able to enjoy such overrated luxuries like eating, refrigeration, running water, and heat or air conditioning.
During the sixth Star Trek movie, a must see for any fan of the franchise, our good friends the Klingons reminded us of the need for failed despots to rewrite history to lend gravitas to an other wise lack luster performance of societal contributors. General Klang gave us this little gem, "in order to fully appreciate Shakespeare, one has to enjoy it in the original Klingon." Even people as far to the left as the Hollywood crowd can understand the absurdity of political leaders who feel the need to rewrite history to put themselves in a positive light. Surely, that would never happen here in America, not with a society as enlightened as ours.
Think again. It seems as though our President has been busy, not doing his job mind you, but including himself in the histories of former Presidents and taking credit for their accomplishments. It matters not of course that as far back as Calvin Coolidge, he was not even a glimmer in a young hippy's mind or her Communist revolutionary boy friend's yet, he feels that it is important that we all know the real truth. That Barack Obama has so much free time on his hands that he was able to invent time travel and go back to help other Presidents in history get their collective acts together.
I suppose that I shouldn't be surprised though, this is after all the same man who is out there telling us that he has actually cut spending over the last 42 months, rather than maniacally increasing it beyond even the wildest nightmares of anyone noticing our beyond asinine national debt.
Here from the Hotair piece are some of the more bizarre intrusions into other people's accomplishments Barack Obama has placed himself. If you had told me a decade ago that any President would think to do something like this, I would have told you no way. There is no possible way that anyone this fouled up mentally could fool enough Americans into voting for him. I guess I lost that bet. The question is, now that the bloom is off of the Obama rose, are we as a nation dumb enough to do it again?
On Feb. 22, 1924 Calvin Coolidge became the first president to make a public radio address to the American people. President Coolidge later helped create the Federal Radio Commission, which has now evolved to become the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). President Obama became the first president to hold virtual gatherings and town halls using Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, etc.
President Herbert Hoover signed the bill founding the Department of Veterans Affairs July 21, 1930. President Obama is committed to making sure that the VA, the second-largest cabinet department, serves the needs of all veterans and provides a seamless transition from active duty to civilian life, and has directed his Administration to modernize the way health care is delivered and benefits are administered for our nation’s veterans. First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden launched Joining Forces to mobilize all sectors of society to give our service members and their families the opportunities and support they have earned.
On August 14, 1935, President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act. Today the Obama Administration continues to protect seniors and ensure Social Security will be there for future generations.
In a 1946 letter to the National Urban League, President Truman wrote that the government has “an obligation to see that the civil rights of every citizen are fully and equally protected.” He ended racial segregation in civil service and the armed forces in 1948. Today the Obama Administration continues to strive toward upholding the civil rights of its citizens,repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, allowing people of all sexual orientations to serve openly in our armed forces.
President Dwight Eisenhower established the President’s Council on Youth Fitness on July 16, 1956 (now known as The President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports) after learning from a study that American youth were less fit than European youth. Today the Council is still going strong—with Olympians and professional athletes on board—working in conjunction with the First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move initiativeto help promote healthier lifestyles.
President John F. Kennedy famously suggested the American people: “Ask what you can do for your country.” In 1961, the Peace Corps was created, facilitating service among citizens working toward peace in developing countries. In 2011, President Obama celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps with a Presidential Proclamation.
President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare signed into law in 1965—providing millions of elderly healthcare stability. President Obama’s historic health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, strengthens Medicare, offers eligible seniors a range of preventive services with no cost-sharing, and provides discounts on drugs when in the coverage gap known as the “donut hole.”
In 1973, Richard Nixon created The President’s Export Council, which was expanded and reconstituted under President Jimmy Carter in 1979. Today the PEC continues to work towards reaching President Obama’s goal of doubling the nation’s exports by 2014’s end.
In 1977, President Jimmy Carter created the Department of Energy; today the DOE works with the Obama Administration to drive towards innovation in energy and reducing reliance on foreign oil with an “all of the above” approach.
President Reagan designated Martin Luther King Jr. Day a national holiday; today the Obama Administration honors this tradition, with the First and Second Families participating in service projects on this day.
In a June 28, 1985 speech Reagan called for a fairer tax code, one where a multi-millionaire did not have a lower tax rate than his secretary. Today, President Obama is calling for the same with the Buffett Rule.
President Barack Obama awarded George H.W. Bush the 2010 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, for his commitment to service and ability to inspire volunteerism throughout the country, encouraging citizens to be “a thousand points of light.” The administration continues to promote service and civic engagement, honoring heroes of local communities as “Champions of Change” and fostering civic participation.
Continuing his work as a lifelong public service, Clinton created the Clinton Foundation in 2001 to improve global health, education, economies and environments. Affectionately calling him “Do-Gooder-in-Chief”, President Obama has worked with Clinton to make buildings in our country more efficient—announcing a $4 billion investment in energy efficiency upgrades for commercial buildings.
In 2002, President George W. Bush’s State of the Union was the first to be live broadcast on the Internet. In 2011 and 2012, President Obama’s State of the Union speeches were available in an enhanced live stream version that featured infographics, charts and data side-by-side in real time with the President’s speech.
Watch the video, it's a pretty funny take on the whole thing as well.
A few weeks ago, as a part of my Carter retrospective, I wrote about the creation of the Department of Education. Part of my assertion was the complete failure that this Department has turned out to be. Our national ranking for our students on the world stage has dropped steadily and substantially since this cabinet level bureaucracy was created. The costs per student spent in terms of real dollars have increased as the quality of the product supplied has declined. Our top spending school districts in this country are, not by any accidental coincidence, also our worst. How bad has the situation in our public schools gotten? Have a listen to the youtube clip below. Bear in mind, this teacher is the source for learning for a class that is covering Social Studies, a subject which should include our Constitution and the First Amendment among other topics.
There has been much hand wringing over the fact that this is a shameful example of indoctrination being substituted for actual learning, and those complaints are spot on. I don't wish to diminish that argument, although I feel that it is somewhat secondary, and if not secondary, then at least it shares importance with something else of equal concern. This teacher is incompetent. When I say incompetent, what I mean is that she is a complete disaster, and should have in no way, shape, or form, been permitted to be introduced to a room full of anyone learning anything, as a teacher. The parents of this school district should be outraged that their tax dollars, which they are undoubtedly asked during every single election through a new bond issue to increase, are used to pay this woman a salary to instruct their children on anything more basic that how to tie their shoes. If it were my child in this school, I would be angry if she were allowed to be monitoring the lunch room.
Take a good listen to the taped recording above if you can stand it again. This woman is stupid, and that does not begin to cover the situation. Her grasp on the English language can at best be described as tenuous. She somehow feels as though her teaching certificate has given her authority to affect an arrest for people who, "disrespect," the President. The entire concept of our political leaders being common folk who temporarily serve as our representatives seems so thoroughly lost, that she draws a clear distinction between our two contenders for this year's election. Not only in terms of the job that they currently hold, but in terms as to what we mere citizens are allowed to even think about them. Her student has to remind her, the supposed expert on the very subject discussed, that our Constitution contains something called the First Amendment, which follows here.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging
the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right
of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the
Government for a redress of grievances.
Listening to this teacher, I couldn't help but wonder, how did she escape her own school experience without being labeled as a special education student herself. As it is, I would be willing to bet that she not only has somehow managed to obtain the proper teaching credentials necessary to be certified a teacher in her state, but that she managed to be conferred with a Masters Degree. Which begs the question, where on Earth did she attend college, and why on Earth are there no standards there? That she seems to feel that teaching Social Studies is all about mass indoctrination of our youth to the Marxist point of view, fear not. She seems, at least from the complete lack of control of her class room that she is no more competent at that than she is with her grasp of the English language or her grasp of her subject matter.
How long has this woman been teaching? What is the NEA's role or her Union's role in keeping her in that position? How many other incompetent teachers are being forced upon the good people of North Carolina? This is the true legacy of the Department of Education. The sad fact is that this situation is not an isolated case of some illiterate moron slipping through the cracks to accidentally appear in front of a class room full of eager sponges ready to absorb the poison that springs forth from her Marxist view of the world. This woman is the rule and not the exception. Her suspension was with pay, and will undoubtedly be forgotten when the next school year begins.
Get ready also for new rules banning any type of recording devices at all public schools when classes reconvene in September. It's not that they are afraid that you'll find out that there is massive indoctrination going on. They are afraid that you'll figure out the quality of education your unionized public employees provide for the taxes you pay, and then vote to defeat every single bond issue the school boards ever ask for in the future.
As an afterthought, here is the response from the school board.
The Rowan-Salisbury School System expects all students and employees to be respectful in the school environment and for all teachers to maintain their professionalism in the classroom. This incident should serve as an education for all teachers to stop and reflect on their interaction with students. Due to personnel and student confidentiality, we cannot discuss the matter publicly.
Nothing about the fact that the teacher has not a single clue as to the material being taught, nor the language she is expected to teach that material in.
This is a brief description of the Obama Administration's war on the good people of Tombstone Arizona. We can add this to the ongoing war he is waging on all of the people of Arizona. It seems as though the Department of Agriculture is feeling left out of the general fun to be felt by bureaucrats when they get to intrude themselves upon the common folk. Those intrusions more often than not result in a severe loss of well being for those a fore mentioned common folk. Tombstone suffered a rain storm, which in the desert can be a traumatic event. Much of their infrastructure was damaged. They tried to repair the storm damage, completely on their own by the way, and the Department of Agriculture put a stop work order into place and shut down the repairs, leaving the city of Tombstone without water, permanently. The reason given? It seems as though there was a species of owl, toad, and butterfly, which had lived in the area, quite contentedly with the infrastructure prior to the storm damage by the way, that the Department of Agriculture feels as though should take precedence over human life.
Twenty years ago, even suggesting that something like this would be where we were headed if we continued to allow the political left to gain any traction with their ideas was considered a joke. Saying that something like this very circumstance was even possible was considered hyperbole. Yet, here we are. The people of Tombstone have been told by the Obama Administration that they are not allowed to have indoor plumbing anymore, and that the use of wheel barrows are considered to be too mechanized to allow in the delicate, and already destroyed by natural disaster, Eco-system that until very recently had been their home for centuries.
I had read a few times recently that Barack Obama has hopes of winning the Electoral Votes to be awarded by the state legislature of Arizona. So, to the people of Arizona I have this question. Are you tired of your existence as living people, or are you just terrified of what another four years of living in a state that voted against Obama would mean should he win reelection? I get that you are terrified of another four years of the Chicago Styled thug in chief saying in his not so subtle manner, "nice state you got there, it would be a shame if something happened to it." Fear not though, every indication that I have seen, most especially recently tells me that Americans are pretty gosh darned tired of Hopety Change.
