I love to go to Washington - if only to be near my money.

Thoughts on the Jake Peavy Trade

2009-07-31T19:05:00.001-07:00

I posted the following on the blog of Paul Depodesta, the current Assistant GM to Kevin Towers.

His blog is always enjoyable to read, and he's gracious enough to accept and respond to fan feedback.

http://itmightbedangerous.blogspot.com/

Paul,

I give the organization credit for having the courage to make this trade, and you personally for being willing to write about it, and address fan feedback.

I understand the rationale behind the trade, and when the hurt subsides and we see these guys in action, I will likely understand it even more.

That said, like Khalil Greene, this hurts, even more so with Jake's incredible accomplishments, and his place in franchise lore.

Being a younger fan, relatively speaking, it seems that the time has come for me to accept the fact that this franchise, more often than not, is just not going to be able to keep its big stars around for the entirety of their career. They'll get noticed here, become stars here, and then go somewhere else. This is just another chapter in that overall pattern.

Franchises like Oakland have shown that you can win that way (if not World Championships, mind you, in the case of the Beane teams) by constantly reinventing the roster. And to be sure, this is not the first time a team let its star go. The Red Sox let Pedro go, and they turned out to be right. He never produced for the Mets.

Peavy has not been healthy 100% of the time, and with his inclination towards power pitching and the strikeout, may yet prove to be more of a risk to the White Sox than they are bargaining for. One point ESPN made was how unusual it was for teams to be willing to trade for a player on the DL. You guys deserve credit for being able to pull this off at all, factoring that in.

But, the logic behind the trade aside, this is another let down for a fan base that hasn't had much to hang its hat on lately. This may be the lowest time for the Padres since the Tom Werner days. That early 90s crudfest beats today's malaise out only because we didn't even know if the franchise was still viable, particularly after the strike. (John Moores, history should note, saved baseball in San Diego, all ups and downs notwithstanding.)

I really hope that tangible good will come of today's action, sooner rather than later. I hope too that if the likes of Bell or A-Go are to be traded, the primary motivation will not be money. (I've no doubt that you like the players you are getting back, but I don't think I'm wrong in figuring that the primary motivation was Peavy's $15 million.)

I hope, for pete's sake, that something is going to be done about this lineup with the money we just saved. I think many fans expected that a Peavy trade would accomplish something towards improving that. (Your point about pitching is well taken, though.)

I hope that, as a fan, I will have a reason to start watching this team again, sooner rather than later.

Right now, I just feel let down, and "same old, same old."

My continued best wishes, and gratitude for your insights.

-Michael

I know I'm behind on this one......

2009-06-05T22:36:00.000-07:00

.....but I just found out.

R.I.P. David Carradine

Whoa....

2009-06-04T16:04:00.000-07:00

.....Haven't really kept up on the vast majority of E3 news.

.........Just came across the trailer on Wii's Nintendo Channel.

.................................................

Team Ninja partnering with Nintendo on a new Metroid game........

.............Team friggin' Ninja............

..........................................................

...............................................

.......................................................

..................If you'll excuse me.

Project Na-what?

2009-06-03T00:34:00.000-07:00

Color me a mean curmudgeony skeptic on this Natal business.

Saw a commenter make a pretty good point, that went something like this: "So, I bought a 360 camera which is hardly used or supported anymore, and now they show me this new gaming technology that works...with a camera. Why should I buy THIS now?"

I'm skeptical on its potential for accurate detection, as well as the desirability of playing games without any controller. If I'm going to be shooting something, I'd like a realistic gun in my hands, like I can have with the Madkatz Perfect Shot for the Wii. If I want a realistic driving sim, I'd like an actual wheel to grip on to.

And do we really want to encourage people to be doing kung fu in their living rooms? Or "scanning" in their own skateboards to use as controllers? Looks like a lot of potential domestic mishaps....

And do Microsoft and Sony have to keep trying to out Wii the Wii? What's next, a dual screened PSP or Microsoft handheld?

......

Now watch me get proven wrong, and this thing work well and fly off the store shelves.

Thoughts on the UCSD CR Situation

2009-04-09T00:32:00.000-07:00

For background, see these pages:

http://tinyurl.com/c9jsu7

http://tinyurl.com/cdscog

http://tinyurl.com/d2nudo

My name is Michael Knudsen. I'm a recent UCSD College Republican alumni.

Here's what I see, as an alumni.

The CCR Executive Board has given me, and every single solitary UCSD CR alumni, the finger.

You have told us that a 23 year old organization...does not matter.

Nor does anyone now or previously involved in that organization.

http://tinyurl.com/cdscog

For the record, that again is the (now former) UCSD College Republican official response to the board vote.

Of course, in politics, one can't always be certain what the meaning of the word "is" is.

So, apparently, one side's de-chartering is another side's misunderstanding from "disenfranchised opportunists."

(Just as an aside, I thought, as Republicans, disenfranchising people wasn't our thing?)

http://tinyurl.com/d2nudo

"No chapters were un-chartered, and no one removed from the organization. The vote was simply to determine which club was the rightful owner of the original UCSD charter based on the facts presented and the actions of those involved."

Ok...So, if one club is deemed to be the rightful owner of the original UCSD Charter, which the Exec Board said now belongs to the Triton College Republicans (with their proud 50 day old history)...just where, pray tell, does that leave the original UCSD CRs?

The original UCSD Charter, which once belonged to them, now, does not.

“Oh, you weren't un-chartered, guys. You just don't have your charter anymore. Get it?”

And how, pray tell, are alumni supposed to feel about this?

Taking a step back from the entire sorry affair that got us here, what has happened?

Based on the events with ONE class, the Executive Board has summarily dismissed ALL twenty plus years that came before.

By all means, explain to me why this should not be a big deal to alumni. You know, the people who built and made UCSD CRs into an active and successful chapter for two decades.

Explain to me why one of my best friends, Mark Mendoza, who had a fantastic year as UCSD CR Chair, should not care about the Executive Board's vote. Explain to me how this in no way negates his work, and the work of all the other UCSD CR Chairs. Explain to me why Inez shouldn't care about this.

For that matter, tell me what you have to say to those 500+ individuals who are on the UCSD CR mailing list.

Explain to me how your statement to them does NOT go something like this: "Hey, thanks for your involvement and interest in the College Republicans.

Now piss off. You don't matter."

Two plus two is easy math.

In that same vein, it sure looks like there just might have been just a teeny tiny conflict of interest with this board vote.

I mean, what do I know, right? I'm just a dumb UCSD alumni who doesn't matter, and I just don't know what I'm talking about, right?

This decision couldn't possibly have had anything to do with eliminating opposition votes, and anyone who disagrees is obviously listening to that "sniveling weasel" Alec Weisman.

As an alumni, and more importantly, as a friend of Alec's, how the hell am I supposed to take that?

How do you, Mr. Wolf, think that comes across not just to alumni, but to outside observers of this matter?

How are they supposed to take this: "Yes Matt Schenk it is a threat."

You know, when you say that something IS a THREAT, you might not want to act surprised when it is taken as such. Even if you follow with saying that you will "only" embarrass someone, it's pretty hard not to fixate on the acknowledgment that what you just said was INTENDED to be threatening.

And I'm just wondering, is all this honestly your idea of a mature, reasonable way to resolve this matter?

So you're pissed that Alec and the UCSD CRs aired out dirty laundry in front of visitors.

Issuing publicly viewable slurs, harassment, and threats is OBVIOUSLY the best way to show that you know how to resolve a crisis. Way to be a better man. Way to show the world how CCR solves its problems. Threats, insults, and intimidation. Truly, that's an inspiration to the Republican Party.

But I digress.

Back to what I see.

I see a good friend of mine threatened and degraded. Friends of mine, really, including all the current UCSD CRs.

I see an Executive Board flipping off anyone who has ever been involved in UCSD CRs. I see them deciding that an upstart "club" that doesn't even meet matters more than a 23 year old organization.

I see them siding with individuals who, it seems pretty damned clear, tried to manipulate matters within UCSD CRs to get their way. Worse, they lied to UCSD CR members to try and force the issue on Dejah's impeachment.

Last I checked, there was a word for that. Starts with "C", rhymes with "eruption."

I see my friends and former CR mates trying to exist as a club and move past the strife of this past year, only to be greeted with more threats, intimidation (they'll never work in politics again), and now, disbarment, because these "Triton Republicans" who didn't get what they wanted before, through outright lies and deceit, have some friends in high places.

The "Triton Republicans" didn't get Dejah Stanley kicked out as Chair before, so now, they're taking the ball home, making their own club...and you just gave them our charter. MY charter.

So really, aside from reminding us that we're all stupid friends of the sniveling weasel Alex "Wiseman,” do you have anything else to tell CR Alumni? Care to explain how proud CCR is of its actions? I sure as hell hope you are.

I know this much.

If this action is not reversed, and the original charter is not returned to the UCSD CRs, I will make sure to tell my children not to ever bother becoming California College Republicans.

I will tell them that the organization is a waste of their time. I will tell them that it not only tolerates infighting, it picks sides when it suits those in power.

I will tell my children that there is no point in them devoting their passion and their energy to such an outfit. It will only bring them disillusionment and despair. They won't spend their time actually fighting for what they believe in.

They'll spend time fighting amongst themselves, and the Executive Board will pick who wins. They won't actually be mature adults and solve the problem. Oh, and if my kids are on the wrong side, they'll all be a bunch of sniveling weasels.

My kids deserve better.

In Defense of Blackwater

2009-04-03T13:37:00.000-07:00

By Michael Knudsen

On Jan. 29th, 2009, the Iraqi government officially barred the company formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide from providing security protection for U.S. diplomats. The reasoning behind this decision was that the company had used “excessive force” in carrying out its missions. (1)

Blackwater Worldwide, now renamed Xe (pronounced “Zee”), has become a favorite target of the American Left. (2)

Since an incident in September of 2007 in which 17 Iraqis were killed in Baghdad's Nisoor square, allegedly by Blackwater guards providing security, the company has been maligned as an outfit of mercenary, trigger happy maniacs. (3) (All five former Blackwater employees have pled not guilty to federal charges brought against them stemming from that incident.) (4)

Go to any online news piece regarding Blackwater, and watch the trolls come out in the comments. Take these samples from a Washington Post Article (5):

Commenter Jhiggins: “Blackwater is a criminal enterprise and its evangelical fundamentalist founder, Erik Prince, is a war profiteer. Blackwater is really a danger to our democracy—fifth column, if you will.” *

Commenter BlueTwo1: “We have experienced what it is like to live under evangelical, ultra-right-wing plutocrats. They do what they please. They do it in secret. They flout the laws. They gum up the works so they won't be questioned let alone prosecuted.” *

And in 2004, Democratic strategist Markos Moulitsos Zuniga of the Daily Kos had two choice words for four Blackwater members who were killed, and their bodies mutilated and dragged in Fallujah:

“Screw them.” (6)

This kind of slander is not limited to internet comments.

Trial lawyer Mike Papantonio, Air America (non)radio host and founder of GoLeft.tv, sums up all the leftist Blackwater smears rather neatly in his recent piece for the Pensacola News Journal. (7)

The “mercenary organization” was started by “phenomenally rich multimillionare inheritance baby Erik Prince.”(7)

It has “independent, unchecked power,” and is “creepy” and “unregulated.” (7)

America's military has won “two world wars without the help of American mercenaries.” (7)

And the coup de grace: “Soldiers enlisted in the U.S. military get paid about $70 a day to put themselves in harm's way, while Mr. Prince's private soldier gets about $1,500 a day for facing the same risks.” (7)

Where, oh where, to begin?

A blogger by the handle of Standish has a one-stop shop for rebutting this tripe. (The excellent blog, Blackwater Facts, is well worth your time.)

First and foremost, Blackwater is not a mercenary company. (8)

The international legal definition of the term comes from the 1977 Protocol 1 Amendment to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949. There are six elements required for individuals or organizations to be considered mercenary. (8)

Among these are that the individuals must not be “either a national of a Party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a Party to the conflict.” They must “be recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict.” And they must be motivated “essentially by the desire for private gain” and promised “compensation substantially in excess of [that paid] to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the armed forces of that Party.” (9)

Blackwater's employees are nationals of the United States. Many of them are ex-military.

They are contracted by the U.S. State Department not to fight, but to “do security guard, logistics work, training and related jobs abroad.” (8)

In the words of Erik Prince (a former Navy Seal) himself, “We perform no offensive missions.” (10)

(The man was a Navy Seal, the elitist of the elite amongst our brave men and women in uniform. But obviously, to the Left, he's living from the silver spoon because he created an international security company. The notion is so ludicrous it would be laughable...were it not so detestable.)

Furthermore, consider these words of a Blackwater official (emphasis mine):

[Blackwater] is a company that was founded and exists to save lives. Everything is done in the interest of safety: training troops to defend themselves; building armored personnel carriers to keep troops alive in battle; building airships for surveillance to detect the bad guys; teaching cops how to effectively and safely rescue a hostage; helping people in executive-protection roles avoid an ambush in a vehicle; building an aviation division capable of performing rescue missions in war zones and natural disasters...In Katrina alone, 128 people were pulled to safety before a contract was ever awarded. In more than 20,000 diplomatic missions, no one protected by Blackwater has ever been seriously injured. (10)

Sure. Screw them. Right, Daily Kos?

(Remind me again, aren't we still stuck on the terrible response to Katrina, and by the way, how it was ALL Bush's fault?

Guess we all know the rules here. We can't give any credit to heroes who saved lives, or anything that went right in the hurricane's aftermath. Especially when, you know, the life savers are crazy right wing trigger happy monsters....)

And with regards to the motivations of Blackwater employees, and their supposedly outlandish pay?

Here's Standish on the former:

...Papantonio is slandering American veterans who return from their private lives to serve their country again in wartime. The story of helicopter pilot Art Laguna, who gave his life in defense of a trapped diplomat US diplomat in Iraq two years ago, shows the caliber of the military vets who join Blackwater: Unusually dedicated people. (8)

And concerning the money these “mercenaries” are supposedly rolling in?

This is nonsense, an allegation that was debunked during a congressional hearing nearly a year-and-a-half ago, and by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in August 2008. Blackwater guards make only a fraction [of $1,500 a day], and they have to pay their own expenses, from food, housing and healthcare to self-employment taxes and other items that soldiers receive as part of their non-taxable benefits. (8)

Mr. Papantonio's knowledge of American history is lacking as well.

The use of private contractors by the U.S. in wartime is hardly unique to Iraq.

The American Volunteer Group (AVG), i.e. the “Flying Tigers,” led by Claire Chennault, were “a private air force of American aviators who fought the Japanese in Burma, China, and Australia” in World War II. (8)

Washington and Jefferson both dabbled in private military companies, the former for the Revolutionary War, the latter to assist the Marines and Navy in engaging the Barbury Coast Pirates. (8)

“Privateering is one of the few businesses specifically authorized in the US Constitution, under the 'letters of marque and reprisal' clause in Article I, Section 8. Papantonio is a trial lawyer who doesn't even know the Constitution.” (8)

Oh, and since Mr. Papantonio has already changed the meaning of the word “mercenary,” perhaps he will be kind enough to provide us with a new definition of the word “unchecked.” As in “unchecked power.” Seeing as the State Department, the Justice Department, the Commerce Department and the Defense Department all have authority over Blackwater, I would be interested to know what “checked power” is. (8)

Now as to the tragic Sept. 2007 incident in which 17 Iraqis were killed. (“Screw them” when Blackwater employees die, string 'em up without a trial when they stand accused. Lovely standard we have for them, isn't it?)

First of all, Blackwater was accused of firing first without motive or provocation by the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior. (11)

As Chris Taylor wrote in 2007:

The MoI is the same organization the Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq only two weeks ago called a 'ministry in name only' because it is ineffectual, inefficient, and sectarian. It is common knowledge that the MoI, infested with corruption and extortion, is now fully infiltrated by Jaysh al-Mahdi militia. (11)

So, we should trust that fine, upstanding civic organization instead of our own men who were fired upon, according to your Justice Department.

There's more.

Radio recordings and transcripts from the incident clearly indicate a prevalent use of the word “Contact!” just prior to the exchange of fire. “Contact” is a term for coming under enemy attack. The gunfire from said enemy was audible on the radio as well. (12, 13)

There are those bullet holes that magically found their way into all four vehicles of the convoy. (12)

There is the lead vehicle that somehow managed to be disabled by this “nonexistent” enemy fire. (13)

And there is the fact that the prosecution's star witness, an ex-Blackwater employee who admitted to killing civilians, did so in exchange for a lighter sentence. (14) As Standish writes, the prosecutors don't even know who shot whom, and yet all five men in this case are each charged with fourteen counts of manslaughter. (4)

Finally, about Blackwater's “excessive force"?

As of October 2007, through over 16,000 diplomatic movements, Blackwater employees had discharged their firearms a mere 195 times. (11)

And their rules of engagement were given to them by the State Department. It's all in the contract.

As R.J. Hillhouse wrote for the Christian Science Monitor:

“The State Department Diplomatic Security Service set up aggressive rules for the use of force for its contractors in what's called the Mission Firearms Policy. These rules are more aggressive than those used by the military for its contracted forces.” (15)

Those aggressive rules were put in place in order to make it easier to protect important diplomats and government officials, Iraqi and American alike. And as Chris Taylor notes, Blackwater for years has appealed to Congress to make nebulous elements of these combat protocols more specific, to improve accountability and lessen the chances of collateral damage. (11)

What happened at Nisoor Square was a tragedy, no question, and the loss of life must not be trivialized.

But what must also not be trivialized is the sacrifice, bravery, heroism, and valor of the men and women of Blackwater and many other private security companies.

They saved people in Katrina, and the Left spits on them.

Former soldiers volunteer to go back and place themselves directly in danger's path to protect people, and the Left calls them murderers and mercenaries.

They are our fellow American brothers and sisters, but to some, they don't deserve even a day in court.

Marybeth Laguna, widow of helicopter pilot Art Laguna, summed it up thus:

Just like soldiers, security contractors based in Iraq face daily threats to their lives. Rather than demonizing these men and women, we should be thanking them for the essential service they provide. Whether they are working for Blackwater or directly for the U.S. military, they are all risking their lives to work for the United States. And they deserve our respect. (16)

Truer words were never written.

Least we could do.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ARTICLES AND WEBPAGES CITED

1. Associated Press, A look at Blackwater in Iraq during the war, http://townhall.com/news/world/2009/01/29/a_look_at_blackwater_in_iraq_during_the_war (Jan. 29, 2009).

2. Standish, Blackwater Facts, Blackwater Retires Brand, Re-Names Its Units, http://blackblawg.blogspot.com/2009/02/blackwater-retires-brand-re-names-its.html (Feb. 17, 2009).

3. CBS News, Blackwater Guards Indicted for Shooting, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/05/national/main4649532.shtml?tag=topHome;topStories (Dec. 5, 2008).

4. Standish, Blackwater Facts, “NOT GUILTY”, http://blackblawg.blogspot.com/2009/01/not-guilty.html (Jan. 6, 2009).

5. Robert O'Harrow Jr., State Department Cancels Iraq Contract With Blackwater,
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/government-inc/2009/01/state_department_to_blackwater.html?wprss=government-inc (Jan. 30, 2009).

* These comments were placed on the above cited web article.

6. Michelle Malkin, MichelleMalkin.com, “SCREW THEM:” NOT A JOKE, http://michellemalkin.com/2005/04/01/screw-them-not-a-joke/ (Apr. 1, 2005).

7. Mike Papantonio, Blackwater quietly expanding its reach, http://www.pnj.com/article/20090121/OPINION/901210303/1161/NEWS01 (Jan. 21, 2009).

8. Standish, Blackwater Facts, Out of Control Buffoonery- Trial Lawyer Embarrasses Himself with Ill-Informed Hit Piece, http://blackblawg.blogspot.com/2009/01/out-of-control-buffoonery-trial-lawyer.html (Jan. 23, 3009).

9. Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts Art. 47.2 (June 8, 1977), http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/470?OpenDocument.

10. John McCaslin, Into Blackwater, http://townhall.com/columnists/JohnMcCaslin/2008/11/11/into_blackwater?page=1 (Nov. 11, 2008).

11. Chris Taylor, The Blackwater Bandwagon, http://townhall.com/columnists/ChrisTaylor/2007/10/04/the_blackwater_bandwagon (Oct. 7, 2007).

12. Standish, Blackwater Facts, Independent Source Verifies Blackwater Team Was Under Fire at Nisoor Square, http://blackblawg.blogspot.com/2008/12/independent-source-verifies-blackwater.html (Dec. 22, 2008).

13. Standish, Blackwater Facts, Radio Logs Prove Blackwater Convoy Was Under Fire at Nisoor Square, http://blackblawg.blogspot.com/2008/12/radio-logs-prove-blackwater-convoy-was.html (Dec. 21, 2008).

14. Standish. Blackwater Facts, AP Says New Evidence Discredits Federal Case Against Ex-Blackwater Guards, http://blackblawg.blogspot.com/2008/12/ap-says-new-evidence-discredits-federal.html (Dec. 21, 2008).

15. R.J. Hillhouse, Don't Blame Blackwater, http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1102/p09s01-coop.html (Nov. 2, 2007).

16. Marybeth Laguna, My Husband Was a Blackwater Hero, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/28/AR2008112802283.html (Nov. 30, 2008).

Survey of Shortfall

2009-04-03T12:44:00.000-07:00

By Michael Knudsen

* Author's note: This piece was originally written in January of 2009. Some of the contents is out of date as a result. For example, California's budget has now passed (although it still has a shortfall.) The $40 billion deficit figure was from prior to its passing.

Our states' budgets are in trouble.

Big trouble.

According to CNN Money, no less than 43 of these United States are facing budget shortfalls. (1)

And we're not talking chump change here on dollar amounts.

“At the end of the last fiscal year, 29 states had shortfalls topping $48 billion.” (1)

That's a big number, but apparently, we ain't seen nothin' yet.

“The report suggests that because the current recession is worse than the previous recession, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities projected that nearly all states will face shortfalls, and the deficits should end up totaling over $100 billion [emphasis mine] in fiscal year 2010.” (1)

The billions and trillions that the Federal Government has been throwing around in economic stimuli packages have made us a bit numb to these big numbers. Our minds are incapable of processing them.

Here's my favorite means of putting this into perspective: A trillion seconds is 33,000 years.

So, if the Center's report is to be believed, the aggregate state budget deficit will be the number of seconds in 3,300 years by 2010.

Yikes.

In Ohio, their budget scenario is described as “the outline for a near-meltdown of state government services.” It amounts to “six prisons and several other corrections facilities shut down, the state parks system closed, a likely $2,000 tuition hike at state universities, all state agencies cut by 25 percent, and much more.” Governor Ted Strickland projects a cumulative $7.3 billion budget deficit by the end of 2011. (This number assumes that Ohio continues spending at its current level, receives no federal aid, and that the U.S. economy suffers a “severe manufacturing and financial contraction.” Absent these three factors, the Cincinnati Enquirer points out that the number should be closer to $4 billion.

I'm sure Ohioans feel much better now.) (2)

In Wisconsin, Governor Doyle in October described the budget hurdles as “very severe” for his state, a possible $3 billion shortfall in the next two-year budget. (3)

In Arizona, the red ink began even before Wall Street tanked in September. As of January last year, this amounted to $900 million in deficit funds for the 2008 fiscal year. (4)

Then, there's....California.

Oh, is there ever.

My fair state has a two year gap in revenue to the tune of $41.6 billion (that's billion with a “b”), according to Governor Schwarzenegger. (5)

Our budget deficit is bigger than the entire government doles of most other states combined.

It's gotten so bad here that the state will have to issue “I owe you”s on tax refunds, welfare checks, and student grants. (Hey, this would be fun. How 'bout taxpayers try doing the same to the collector?)
(6)

Naturally, when the government takes in less money than it wants to spend, the debate about where to make cuts, and whether or not to raise taxes, begins.

So what's the incoming California legislature's big idea for getting us out of this mess?

“[Assemblyman John A. Perez (D-Los Angeles)] said his priorities include an end to the two-thirds vote requirement for passing budgets and raising taxes, and changing the way that taxes are divided between the state and local governments to provide more stability to municipalities.” (7)

Translation: The Republican minority always just gets in the way. Let's make sure they don't get any say at all in blocking tax increases.

(And to be fair, CA voters recalled Gray Davis, a Democrat, and installed Schwarzenegger, a Republican, and here we are.

Smile. You're on Disillusioned Voter Camera.)

Three things are now commonplace in California: bad budgets, higher taxes, and native Californians leaving.

Regarding bad budgets, the San Diego Union Tribune's Chris Reed summed it up. “This is what it's come to for journos who cover Sacramento: surveying all the horrible budgets of the past and trying to figure out which was the worst of all.” (8)

Regarding higher taxes, consider that we've the six highest tax burden per capita among states. (9)

And regarding people leaving, 144,000 people found the exit last year, more than any other state. (And this was the fourth year in a row.) (10) Can't really blame them. Third highest unemployment in the nation, to top it all off. (9)

I don't think this was the “California Dreamin'” that The Mamas & The Papas had in mind.

In South Carolina, where its budget had to be pared by over $621 million, the exemption on grocery sales taxes took the blame for the shortfall from state economists.

“'There's a lot of states that don't tax groceries,' said Rep. James Smith, D-Richland. 'I don't think we can blame it entirely on the sales tax.'” (11)

(Defending tax cuts...from a Democrat? Don't hear that too often, at least not in California. But then again, South Carolina's 2009-10 budget is actually balanced, which NEVER happens here either.) (12)

In Wisconsin?

“But [Gov. Jim Doyle] made it clear he would seek other more targeted tax increases, including a tax on hospitals defeated by Republicans last year...”

Over to you, Republican Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch.

“'We need to make sure that families' budgets are strong and that they are sound,' Huebsch said in an interview. 'If we have a budget shortfall, it's not because we're taxing too little, it's because we're spending too much.'” (3)

(His second sentence is from the classic Reagan play book. But I do have to wonder what the citizens' budgets have to do with balancing the state budget. Nice sound byte, but the government has only the power to fix the latter. )

In Arizona, the two parties, as is typical, disagreed on a budget solution. Once again, the clever sound bytes came in.

“Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano and two key Republicans in the Legislature are far apart in their proposals to balance the budget. They don't even agree on the amount to cut. The governor proposes $870 million and the Republican chairmen of the House and Senate appropriations committees put the number at $970 million.”

What say you, Governor's aide?

“'You don't have to take a meat ax to the budget to balance it,' said George Cunningham, Napolitano's budget chief.”(4)

Apparently, going from $870 to $970 million turns the cuts into a “meat ax.” (I guess the Democrat proposal was just a hair trimmer.)

Smelling funding cuts in the air, the University of Arizona had something to say.

“'If we continue to lose top faculty, the return on investment the state expects of us will not be realized,' [University of Arizona President Robert] Shelton said.” (4)

(Insert cheap shot about those poor old lifetime tenured professors who surely will go hungry with reductions of their six figure salaries here.)

Much harder to roll one's eyes at, or justify politically, are cuts in programs aimed at “the needy,” “the children,” or any combination thereof.

“'We want to make sure that [Arizona] doesn't balance its budget on the backs of children,' said Dana Wolfe Naimark, executive director of the Children's Action Alliance.” (4)

Back to Ohio: “[Gov. Strickland] also is making a persuasive case for specific, targeted aid- for Medicaid, unemployment assistance, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and other programs. That would help greatly, and we can be sure President-elect Barack Obama is listening to Strickland.” (2)

Back to Wisconsin: That $3 billion shortfall could lead to “job cuts, delays of approved expansions in health programs for the needy [emphasis mine] and scaling back new state money for public schools and universities. (3)

Even here in California, where the state already can't pay its bills, voters just approved Prop 3, a $980 million bond issue for Children's Hospital. (13, 14)

(We also approved Prop 1A, a “just shy of $10 billion” obligation for a high speed rail between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

I am reminded of the classic episode of The Simpsons where Springfield gets conned, “Music Man” style, into giving money for a non-existent monorail.) (15, 16)

Beyond the taxation and spending debates, the more fundamental issue here is this age-old battle between liberals and conservatives.

The former argue that the government can and should take care of the people, and can always tax more if need be to do so.

Mean ole' conservative curmudgeons like me argue that these programs, while well intentioned, usually can't be funded, are awash in wasteful spending, and often don't work as well as the private sector. (I would add also that we get so used to good economies, that we forget to plan for the inevitable bad ones.)

It's far easier to note what's wrong in government than to fix it. Far easier to play armchair governor, than to actually run things.

But that said, consider the following:

We have been here before.

“Squeezed by the worst budget crunch in almost a decade, states are scrambling to cut spending, avoid raising taxes and spare education.” (17)

Guess when that was written.

2008?

Nope. 2001.

Here's more from that same article: “According to a survey being released today, 35 states face a total budget shortfall or more than $25 billion for this fiscal year- the worst since 1992.” (17)

Sound familiar?

Economies go up, and economies go down. The same is true of government revenues.

It seems of late, however, that the solution is the same whenever both are on the wane.

“The [Center on Budget and Policy Priorities] report... suggest[s] that the federal government provide states with stimulus money soon, instead of waiting for states to get further in trouble, and that the aid should be larger than the amount of money given to states in 2003, following the previous recession.” [Emphasis mine.] (1)

Why worry about balancing the budget and making a state government work when Uncle Sam can bail you out?

As one Maryland State Senator put it recently: “It doesn't matter if Maryland's broke, as long as Obama's President.” (18)

Why worry, indeed.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ARTICLES AND WEBPAGES CITED

1. Catherine Clifford, 43 states in financial trouble, http://money.cnn.com/2008/12/10/news/economy/state_budgets/index.htm?postversion=2008121016, (last updated Dec. 10, 2008).

2. Cinncinati.com, Strickland's bleak picture of Ohio, http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20081214/EDIT01/812140365/1019/EDIT, (last updated Dec. 14, 2008).

3. Jason Stein, Doyle Predicts $3 billion shortfall, http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local/30967, (Oct. 16, 2008).

4. Blake Murlock, State budget crunch: UA, social agencies, schools brace for worst, http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/local/73346.php,
(Jan. 6, 2008).

5. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Budget Summary: Governor's Message, http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/pdf/BudgetSummary/GovernorsMessage.pdf, (Jan. 9, 2009).

6. Allahpundit, HotAir.com, California goes bust: Tax refunds to be delayed, http://hotair.com/archives/2009/01/16/california-goes-bust-tax-refunds-to-be-delayed/, (Jan. 16th, 2009).

7. Patrick McGreevy, Welcome to Sacramento, and good luck, http://www.latimes.com/news/local/politics/cal/la-me-legis1-2008dec01,0,5967301.story, (Dec. 1, 2008).

8. Chris Reed, U-T Opinion Online: America's Finest Blog, Tiny consolation: It's not the worst state budget ever, http://weblog.signonsandiego.com/weblogs/afb/archives/027502.html, (Sept. 16, 2008).

9. Ed Morissey, HotAir.com, California Joblessness Now Third in the Nation, http://hotair.com/archives/2008/11/22/california-joblessness-now-third-in-nation/, (Nov. 22, 2008).

10. Michael R. Blood, Go East, young man? Californians look for the exit, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090112/ap_on_re_us/fleeing_california_3, (Jan. 12, 2009).

11. John O'Connor, S.C. tax cuts get blame for budget woes, http://www.thestate.com/local/story/609108.html, (Dec. 3, 2008).

12. South Carolina Office of the Governor, Gov. Sanford Unveils 2009-10 Executive Budget, http://www.scgovernor.com/news/releases/01-09-09.htm, (Jan. 9, 2009).

13. Office of CA Secretary of State Debra Bowen, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2008- Election Night Results- Proposition 3- Children's Hospital Bond Act. Grant Program, http://vote.sos.ca.gov/Returns/props/map190000000003.htm (last Updated Nov. 26, 2008).

14. Office of CA Secretary of State Debra Bowen, Voter Information Guide- Prop 3 Children's Hospital Bond Act. Grant Program Initiative Statute, http://www.voterguide.sos.ca.gov/title-sum/prop3-title-sum.htm (accessed Jan. 19, 2009).

15. Office of CA Secretary of State Debra Bowen, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2008- Election Night Results- Proposition 1A- Safe, Reliable High-Speed Train Bond Act, http://vote.sos.ca.gov/Returns/props/map19000000001A.htm, (last updated Nov. 26, 2008).

16. Office of CA Secretary of State Debra Bowen, Voter Information Guide- Prop 1 High Speed Rail Bonds Legislative Initiative Amendment, http://www.voterguide.sos.ca.gov/title-sum/prop1-title-sum.htm, (accessed Jan. 19, 2009).

17. Haya El Nasser, Red ink overtakes state budgets, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2001/12/10/statebudgets-usat.htm, (last updated Dec. 9, 2001).

18. Allahpundit, Hotair.com, State senator: It doesn't matter if Maryland is broke as long as Obama's President, http://hotair.com/archives/2009/01/17/state-senator-it-doesnt-matter-if-marylands-broke-as-long-as-obamas-president/, (Jan. 17, 2009).

Double those standards....

2009-03-25T18:31:00.000-07:00

You know how the liberals in Congress (looking at you, Hillary) just love to trash the oil companies?

You know, because they get "windfall profits," which must be taxed into oblivion because it's just so unfair?

The profits from the companies that don't do much really, just, ya know, collect and refine oil into gasoline for us to use?

I mean, the geniuses on Capitol Hill are just such experts on energy production. I'm sure they could take over if all the oil companies decided to stop refining.

A government program could take the place of these evil private oil execs and their greedy little henchmen, I'm sure. What's another trillion bucks, after all? (And, of course, George Bush is making us spend this money. Obama doesn't bear any responsibility at all.)

So, what then, do these same self-righteous arbiters of fairness and righteousness have to say about one George Soros banking a cool $1.1 billion off the global recession?

You know, Soros, the guy who hates capitalism, except that he should be allowed to make billions in market speculation. The liberal, open border, secularist God (if I may) of the Obama nation? The backer of Media Matters, Air America...you name the leftist smear outlet, he backs it?

.....George Soros never helped put a tank of gas in my car.

.......

......But HIS profits are okay though. Because he gives left wing gutter snipes money.

....Those standards just keep on evolving, don't they?

Top Ten Reasons For ObamaCare Are Based On False Information

2009-03-11T21:34:00.001-07:00

By Bruce Kesler

http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/10836-Top-Ten-Reasons-For-ObamaCare-Are-Based-On-False-Information.html

George Bernard Shaw warned “Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.” The major overhaul of American health care pursued by President Obama and his supporters is based on many false premises and is excessive and likely to do more harm than good. Tuning up and improvements already always dynamically occurs. Instead, ObamaCare is aimed at dramatically changing one-sixth of the US economy in ways that are untested or tested and found wanting, primarily involving huge increases in government direction of health care.

The details of ObamaCare are largely being left to Congress, the same body that stuffs the federal budget with earmarks, waste, and other programs that are not requested. ObamaCare is premised on claims for drastic changes in health care and major increases in government programs being necessary. Those claims are largely specious.

Below, the top ten specious premises for ObamaCare are discussed:

1. Comparing US Health Care To Other Developed Countries
2. US Health Care Spending Is More Than We Can Afford
3. Reform Overhaul Will Yield Major Savings
4. Increased Evidence-Based Medicine And Health Information Technology Will Significantly Improve Care and Reduce Costs
5. Present Administrative Costs And Insurer Profits Are Too High
6. US Consumer Dissatisfaction Requires Drastic Health Care Changes
7. Health Care Costs Are So High They Are A Major Cause Of Personal Bankruptcy
8. The Number Of Uninsured Is So Large That Drastic Health Care Changes Are Necessary
9. More Preventive Care Will Better Serve Consumers And Save Costs
10. Health Care Consumers Are Being Served By Drastic Health Care Changes

(More could be added, such as that government restraints on prescription drug prices will not impede incentives for innovations, but they are so transparently false that the list below dwells on other ObamaCare premises more misleading.)

1. Comparing US Health Care To Other Developed Countries: Those pushing for government-run health care are fond of comparing the US unfavorably to other developed countries with heavier government-run or directed systems. Actually, the US is more successful on comparative costs, efficiency of resource use, and outcome.

Typical of misleading statistics, a US advocate of government-run health care touts a report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), comprised of the 30 most developed economies, favoring universal coverage as exists in most of the other OECD countries. The OECD report is actually titled a “working paper” by the three researchers. The encyclopedia defines a “working paper” as “a document created as a basis for discussion rather than as an authoritative text.” This OECD “working paper’s” statistics are misleading.

More accurately, a January 2009 analysis of the data gathered from the OECD points at life expectancy as the single best measure of outcomes. Excluding deaths by injury, to focus on health related outcome, “the US does the best of all the OECD countries” having the longest life expectancy.

Even the OECD “working paper” has to admit that the US’ higher infant mortality rate is misleading: “Even if there were uniform reporting standards of infant mortality across countries, a second limitation to using it as an indicator for health outcomes is the potential effect of certain interventions on the likelihood of a live birth. It is conceivable that additional health care provided in the second or third trimester causes a pregnancy that would almost assuredly be a stillborn to become a pregnancy with an improved chance of a live birth but also an above-average likelihood of dying within the first year. These interventions increase health care expenditures and result in the birth of more low-weight- and very low-weight babies, with significantly greater health problems.” The “working paper” does not address the moral issues or that most such babies go on to productive lives: “43% of children had survived without any impairment. Minor impairment was diagnosed in 39% and major impairment in 18% of assessed children.”

This OECD analysis also corrects per capita health spending to use price parity (comparative purchasing power) instead of oscillating currency exchange rates. The decline of the dollar compared to the Euro in the past decade did not increase the US’ comparative costs per person by 55%. In fact, other OECD countries’ health spending is understated by 56%, and “the US is no longer the highest [spending] country. France and Norway exceed the US in real health care consumption.” Still, other OECD countries’ spending on health care is lower than in the US.

The OECD analysis accounts for this, “because many health care systems use price controls to some extent….that systematically understate the economic cost of the health care system. The first is the hidden cost of nonprice rationing, while the second is the hidden cost of informal, black market co-payments.” Long waits, reduced access to advanced drugs and treatments, shifting development costs on to US consumers, traveling abroad for care, untracked side payments to providers are among the hidden costs.

The “working paper” admits that high US tort rewards drive up US health care costs via defensive medicine. “[P]rofessional liability reforms do indeed reduce the practice of defensive medicine.” Defensive medicine increases US health care costs by about 10%. Lawyers lead all groups in political contributions. In 2000, 86% of contributions from tort lawyers went to Democrats, one periodical calling them the “Cash Bar” for Democrats.”

In 2008 the percentage was 95%. ObamaCare proposals do not include tort reforms. Another health care result: malpractice premiums are two to three times higher for gynecologists delivering babies, leading many to cease, and the resulting medical care is lessened.

Finally, the OECD analysis measures the personnel inputs to health care, finding “it is clear that the US health care system is not a particularly high user of health care resources….the US resource use is 6th of 12, slightly below the mean.” The higher pay for doctors and nurses in the US “creates a large bias towards inaccurately portraying the US system as inefficient in producing health with health care resources,” and further ignores the US attracting its own and the best providers from other countries to benefit US health care.

2. US Health Care Spending Is More Than We Can Afford: As it has become more evidenced that the US does not compare unfavorably, the push for heavier government involvement has shifted toward saying we can’t afford the current and future costs. The affordability claim is exaggerated. We can afford more than previously, have chosen to, and benefited.

Our ability has greatly increased to pay for and enjoy a higher standard of living, allowing a shift in priorities. From 1901 to 2003, the percentage of personal expenditures on the necessities of food, clothing and housing declined by half from 79.8% to 50.1%, while the quality and amount has increased. Home ownership increased from 19.1% to 67%. Other personal discretionary spending was able to increase from 20.2% to 49.9%, including all the modern conveniences and pleasures. Voluntary sharing of the bounty has also increased as the percent given to charities has doubled. Personal spending for health care increased from about 2% to almost 5%. Although some may be pressed to spend on health care, the overwhelming majority can and do.

The US’s per person Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is 5.4 times larger in 2008 than 1929 and disposable personal income 6.7 times larger, in inflation adjusted dollars, according to the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis. The share of GDP spent on personal consumption has decreased from 74.7% to 70.5% during that time. Defense spending went from 9/10ths of a percent of GDP in 1929 to over 40% during World War II, in the teens during the 1950”s declining to about 6.6% by the end of the Cold War, further dropping to 3.8% prior to 9/11/2001 and rising to 5.2% in 2008. Nondefense federal and state and local spending has near doubled from 8.2% in 1929 to 12.7% of GDP in 1966’ Great Society expansion to an even larger 15.1% in 2008 and climbing rapidly under the Obama administration.

The Share of GDP spent on health care, per the US Department of Health and Human Services, has nearly tripled from 5.2% in 1960 to 16.2% of GDP in 2007. The primary cost driver is new technologies. The government share of that has almost doubled to 46.2% from 24.7%. By 2018, it is projected to rise to 20.3%.

This primarily reflects the increased spending by government on added coverage for more, and the vast improvements enjoyed by all from new drugs, technologies and treatments delivering significantly better prevention, relief and cures. The main competitor for this spending is the further large expansion of other social programs favored by liberals. Inflation-adjusted government spending has increased by a multiple of 58 times since 1929, by over 5-fold since 1946, and is sharply escalating now.

3. Reform Overhaul Will Yield Major Savings: Price Waterhouse analyzed the primary cost drivers in health care. Leading the pack are new technologies, public demand for broader coverage and access, and defensive medicine. ObamaCare is not proposing restraints on lawsuits, tort lawyers being a major constituency. Health care consumers’ demands for fast access to the latest and best is not contradicted.

The Lewin Group is the leading consultants to government and private groups on health plan costs. Lewin says the two closest Congressional proposals to Obama’s stated design, from Senator Baucus and from Senators Wyden and Bennett, would increase National Health Expenditures, while dramatically increasing employer costs. It is reported that Senator Baucus is expected to be the “architect” of the emerging detailed plan, and the Wyden-Bennett proposal enjoys major support, the Obama administration saying it will hand off detailing to Congress.

Senator Baucus, reported to be the main “architect” of the emerging detailed ObamaCare, is already pressuring the Congressional Budget Office to be “creative,” otherwise known as cooking the books.

4. Increased Evidence-Based Medicine And Health Information Technology Will Significantly Improve Care and Reduce Costs: ObamaCare proposes major increases in the use of evidence-based medicine. There is a strong case for increased analyses of the effectiveness of alternative treatments to have more evidence-based (also called performance-based or comparative-effectiveness)medicine. The above Price Waterhouse report cites a study that estimates as much as 30% of health care spending is excessive due to overuse, misuse and waste. It cites another study that defensive medicine increases health care spending by 10%. However, if major benefits are to emerge, they will be very expensive to find, seriously troubling and possibly dangerous to administer, and a long time coming. We should move very carefully and not faddishly rush pell-mell into this sphere.

At the American Legislative Exchange Council of about 2000 legislative members in all 50 states and 80 in Congress, a lengthy analysis raises many caveats about evidence-based medicine. Not only will it not guard against frivolous lawsuits, laudable sounding evidence-based medicine is scientifically and statistically ill-defined and ill-definable when it comes to actual clinical practice and individual variations in needs and efficacies. Also, the “integrity of medical decisionmaking” is not protected, leading to “cookbook” medicine. Further, for a variety of largely irremovable reasons, “[i]n fact, ‘evidence-based’ research results can strongly contradict each other.” Lastly, there is very little such “gold standard” analyses available due their huge cost and time consumption.

In a February 2009 New York Times article by a leading specialist, who supports increased evidence-based medicine, she “began searching for clinical trials on pay-for-performance plans” finding “most disturbingly, very few high quality studies on efficacy. Looking for a few good studies, it turned out, was like searching for a needle in a massive haystack of social experimentation.”

Further, with good reason, there is considerable expectation that such evidence-based medicine, with all its weaknesses, is intended or will inevitably lead to rationing that may be as harmful to many’s health as it is beneficial to costs.

President Obama chose his Chief of Staff’s brother, Dr. Zeke Emanuel, to be counselor on health care costs and coverage to Obama’s budget director. In his former position at the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Emanuel told the Bloomberg interviewer he “focused on the ethics of conducting research and clinical trials as well as allocating medical resources – de facto rationing, he said.”

Dr. Robert Wachter, professor and Associate Chair of the UCSF’s Department of Medicine, Chief of Hospital Medicine at UCSF Medical Center, widely published peer reviewed author on quality, safety and health policy, wonders if “we are mature enough to make use of comparative effectiveness research?” He says, “I worry that we’re not.” He is critical of our excessive spending. But, his wide experience tells him, there’s “cautionary tales” from Britain’s efforts (typically in governmentese, acronymed NICE -- National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence).

To me, NICE’s experience shows that rationing based on cost-effectiveness can be done, but we can count on it being about ten times harder in the United States (with our fragmented healthcare system, our sensationalist media, our hypertrophied legal system, and our tradition of individual benefit trumping the Good of the Commons) than it has been in the UK.

Dr. Wachter concludes with sheer hope, “But let’s not be naïve about it – one person’s ‘cost-ineffective’ procedure may be a provider’s mortgage payment, a manufacturer’s stock-levitator, and a patient’s last hope for survival.”

Without repeating the litanies of individual stories of critical health care denied in Britain, or elsewhere, by rationing, one need only recall Americans’ retreat from the far more lenient restrictions in our HMOs to be skeptical of the prospects for or outcomes from increased restrictions.

A close companion of evidence-based medicine is health information technology (HIT) to collect and carry individual’s records and tell providers the practices recommended or imposed. The promise is to reduce medical errors and costs. That promise seems remote.

The Obama ‘stimulus” bill included $20 billion to develop a national HIT system, with tens of billions more to be invested. In Britain, with a small fraction of our health care providers and facilities in a far less diverse health care system than ours, they’ve already spent over $18 billion, and it doesn’t work. It would not be unrealistic to expect US costs to well exceed $100 billion to reach a possible prototype.

There are advantages to a fully developed, interactive HIT. However, most medical providers will not reap rewards anywhere commensurate with the very high costs, requiring either far more government spending or imposed costs on providers driving up their expenses and charges. A few tightly controlled institutions, like Mayo and Kaiser, have expended great resources in developing highly customized HIT for themselves, but their utility or applicability to others is very limited. One of the key disadvantages of a national HIT is the increased ease with which rationing practice regimens can be imposed upon individual health care.

5. Present Administrative Costs And Insurer Profits Are Too High: The above Price Waterhouse analysis finds 86% of premiums being paid out for claims and an additional 5% for consumer services like prevention, wellness, care coordination, education, and information systems. Government compliance and reporting requirements cost another 6%. That leaves 3% for profits and reserves needed to generate added investments. Indeed, in 2008, Fortune Magazine’s compilation of industry profitability had health care insurance and managed care well behind some commonly assumed to have low profits such as railroads (12.4%). Discretionary entertainment (12.4%) is more profitable than necessary health insurance.

6. US Consumer Dissatisfaction Requires Drastic Health Care Changes: There are numerous polls with many Americans expressing dissatisfaction with the US health care system, usually asking general questions like “would you like to see major improvements.” However, more careful polling reveals quite the opposite in reality. For example, Gallup’s annual polls are summarized by Gallup thusly:

Gallup's annual Healthcare survey, conducted Nov. 11-14, [2007] finds 57% of Americans saying they are satisfied with the total cost they pay for their healthcare, while 39% are dissatisfied. These percentages have been quite stable in recent years…Americans are quite happy with their health plans. Eighty-three percent of Americans rate the quality of healthcare they receive as excellent or good, while only 15% say theirs is poor. Slightly less, 70%, say their healthcare coverage is excellent or good.

These ratings have been fairly stable in the seven years in which Gallup's Healthcare survey has been conducted. Similarly, votes on drastic overhauls have consistently lost. There is no public mandate for drastic health care changes.

7. Health Care Costs Are So High They Are A Major Cause Of Personal Bankruptcy: President Obama publicly claimed last week that “The cost of health care now causes a bankruptcy in America every thirty seconds." ABC News Director of Polling examined that claim and found it “simply unsupportable.” Examination of the basis for Obama’s claim and of other studies found the numbers vastly overstated.

The suspect Harvard research professor from whom Obama drew his claim cofounded an advocacy group to push for government-run, single-payer health care. Another professor with concerns for the impact of high medical costs on the uninsured says, “It stinks to be uninsured. I don’t want to be quoted saying anything else. But there are correct studies, and incorrect studies. For academics, the validity of the research methods matters.” It should for Presidents as well.

8. The Number Of Uninsured Is So Large That Drastic Health Care Changes Are Necessary: That about 16% in the US are uninsured is repeated as cause for universal coverage schemes to cover them that at the same time grossly changes the health care system and costs affecting the other 84%. Even if the other 84% were not negatively affected, the uninsured count is actually an overblown statistic.

The definition of uninsured includes all those lacking coverage any time in a year. Those lacking coverage for more than a year is 11%. The long term uninsured is primarily among working-age adults with low education.

The Kaiser Foundation offers a recent analysis of the uninsured. 19% can afford coverage but don’t purchase it. 25% are eligible for current programs but don’t enroll. That leaves 56% for whom affordability is considered too difficult, needing assistance. About 5 million, over 10%, of the uninsured are illegal immigrants, who tend to have low educations. About 19% of those needing assistance are illegal immigrants.

In short, less than half of those bemoaned as uninsured are legal residents in need of additional financial help. 16% becomes less than 8%. The negative impact of low-skilled illegal immigrants is most directly felt among low-skilled Americans, as a National Bureau of Economic Research analysis shows, low-wage competitors illegally in the US adding to low-wage/low-educated citizens’ difficulty in affording insurance.

Two related issues need addressing in updating the uninsured statistic. The large expansion of the federal SCHIP program just enacted will expand government coverage to more people and at higher incomes. Analysis shows that while reducing the number of uninsured, as many as 50% of those newly enrolled will be substituting previously affordable private insurance for low to no cost government coverage. Their taxpayer cost is larger than the entire present SCHIP program’s.

Another related issue is that some of the uninsured can afford coverage but are rejected for coverage or are priced out due to health conditions. The National Conference of State Legislatures offers useful information about these high risk, high care cost uninsureds. Over 200,000 are enrolled in state high risk pools, but there aren’t good numbers on how many more there are, which is surely much higher. The association of health insurers reports that about 11% of those applying for individual private insurance – by which there are about 25 million covered -- are rejected. About 11% of those offered policies is at above-standard premium rates. The insurers propose to cap surcharges at 50%. That may help some. For others, the 35 state high risk pools are frequently underfunded and have limited benefits. Some will be helped by the SCHIP expansion, but much more funding for high risk pools is needed. I guesstimate the annual cost at $12 billion (Double the average individual premium/cost of health care to $500/month and multiply by 2 million people.) Imposing this cost on private health plans through guaranteed enrollment will price others out of affordable coverage. It will also attract those who delay coverage until needing it, which imposes their costs on others and prices more out of coverage. Properly funding high risk pools will limit this coverage to those who more genuinely need it and not have the extra costs created by guaranteed enrollment for private plans.

9. More Preventive Care Will Better Serve Consumers And Save Costs: The February 2008 New England Journal of Medicine contains a review of 599 peer-reviewed articles between 2000-2005. The conclusion: “Studies have concluded that preventing illness can in some cases save money [and health] but in other cases can add to health care costs….[and] also sidesteps the question of whether such measures are generally more promising and efficient than the treatment of existing conditions.” The effectiveness of wellness programs is difficult to measure but are less costly than extensive additional testing of the population for rarely occurring illnesses. More early diagnosis uncovers some treatable illnesses but leads to more avoidable interventions, side effects, discomfort, and overuse of resources. Further, extended life health care costs are estimated to cost more, particularly for the aged.

Ironically, but consistent with a one-size-fits-all approach to health care, the Obama administration is eliminating subsidies to Medicare Advantage plans from private providers. Medicare Advantage plans offer additional benefits, care management and coordination. About 20% of Medicare enrollees have chosen Medicare Advantage plans, 57% of whom have incomes between $10-$30 thousand, 35% more of whom are minorities, and poorly provided rural area residents enrollment has increased over four-fold. A third as many Medicare Advantage members report delaying care due to costs as among traditional Medicare members. Aside from added benefits, Medicare Advantage members have lower out-of-pocket costs. The Congressional Budget Office estimates a savings of $157 billion over the next 10 years by eliminating this subsidy. Given the imminent financial collapse of Medicare, this economizing may be necessary, but given some of the other spending in Obama’s budget that may be seen as lower priority this subsidy may not be seen as high a priority to save from. Interestingly, AARP generally supports ObamaCare but its members benefit from and AARP profits from selling Medicare Advantage plans, so AARP is not in favor of this trimming.

10. Health Care Consumers Are Being Served By Drastic Health Care Changes: News reports of Obama administration health care parleys say that consumers are at the table. In fact, there are various interest groups each protecting the interests and costs of their members, usually at odds with each other. The interest groups’ before and behind curtain maneuvering is intense and complex, and much of what they’re telling the public misleading of intent or outcomes. Not nefarious in a free country, but each is angling to profit and enlarge from a bigger pie of spending. The only reliable measure of consumer preference is in general polling which, as shown above (point 6), has consumers not dissatisfied with their present arrangements.

Frankly, My Dear, Obama Doesn't Give a Damn

2009-03-08T15:32:00.000-07:00

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZGY4MDk4YjVhZTc4YWEyZWJlODYyY2U2M2VhNjM0Mjc=

The Great Destabilization

Can America, the engine of the global economy, pull the rest of the world out of the quicksand?

By Mark Steyn

British prime minister Gordon Brown thought long and hard about what gift to bring on his visit to the White House last week. Barack Obama is the first African-American president, so the prime minister gave him an ornamental desk-pen holder hewn from the timbers of one of the Royal Navy’s anti-slaving ships of the 19th century, HMS Gannet. Even more appropriate, in 1909 the Gannet was renamed HMS President.

The president’s guest also presented him with the framed commission for HMS Resolute, the lost British ship retrieved from the Arctic and returned by America to London, and whose timbers were used for a thank-you gift Queen Victoria sent to Rutherford Hayes: the handsome desk that now sits in the Oval Office.

And, just to round things out, as a little stocking stuffer, Gordon Brown gave President Obama a first edition of Sir Martin Gilbert’s seven-volume biography of Winston Churchill.

In return, America’s head of state gave the prime minister 25 DVDs of “classic American movies.”

Evidently, the White House gift shop was all out of “MY GOVERNMENT DELEGATION WENT TO WASHINGTON AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT” T-shirts. Still, the “classic American movies” set is a pretty good substitute, and it can set you back as much as $38.99 at Wal-Mart: Lot of classics in there, I’m sure — Casablanca, Citizen Kane, The Sound of Music — though this sort of collection always slips in a couple of Dude, Where’s My Car? 3 and Police Academy 12 just to make up the numbers. I’ll be interested to know if Mr. Brown has anything to play the films on back home, since U.S.-format DVDs don’t work in United Kingdom DVD players.

It could be worse. The president might have given him the DVD of He’s Just Not That Into You. Gordon Brown landed back in London a sadder but wiser man. The Fleet Street correspondents reported sneeringly that he (and they) had been denied the usual twin-podia alternating-flags press conference. The Obama administration had supposedly penciled one in for the Rose Garden, but then there was that catastrophic snowfall (a light dusting). This must be the first world leaders’ press conference to be devastated by climate change. No doubt President Obama could have relocated it to a prestigious indoor venue, like the windowless room round the back of the White House furnace in Sub-Basement Level 5. But why bother? Some freak flood would have swept through and washed the prime minister and his DVD set into the Potomac and out to the Atlantic. And by the time the Coast Guard fished him out, the sodden classic movies wouldn’t work in any American DVD player any better than in the Brit one.

He did, however, get to give an almost entirely unreported address to Congress. U.S. legislators greeted his calls to resist protectionism with a round of applause, and then went back to adding up how much pork in the “Buy American” section of the stimulus bill would be heading their way.

I would make a modest prediction that in 2012, after four years of the man who was supposed to heal America’s relations with a world sick of all that swaggering cowboy unilateralism, those relations will be much worse. From Canada to India, the implications of the Obama ascendancy are becoming painfully clear. The other week Der Spiegel ran a piece called “Why Obamania Isn’t the Answer,” which might more usefully have been published before the Obamessiah held his big Berlin rally. Written by some bigshot with the German Council on Foreign Relations and illustrated by the old four-color hopey-changey posters all scratched up and worn out, the essay conceded that Europe had embraced Obama as a “European American.” Very true. The president is the most European American ever to sit in the Oval Office. And, because of that, he doesn’t need any actual European Europeans getting in the way — just as, at his big victory-night rally in Chicago, the first megastar president didn’t need any megastar megastars from Hollywood clogging up the joint: Movie stars who wanted to fly in were told by his minders that he didn’t want any other celebrities deflecting attention from him. Same with world leaders. If it’s any consolation to Gordon Brown, he’s just not that into any of you.

What Mr. Brown and the rest of the world want is for America, the engine of the global economy, to pull the rest of them out of the quicksand — which isn’t unreasonable. Even though a big chunk of the subprime/securitization/credit-bubble axis originated in the United States and got exported round the planet, the reality is that almost every one of America’s trading partners will wind up getting far harder hit.

And that was before Obama made clear that for him the economy takes a very distant back seat to the massive expansion of government for which it provides cover. That’s why he’s indifferent to the plummeting Dow. The president has made a strategic calculation that, to advance his plans for socialized health care, “green energy,” and a big-government state, it’s to his advantage for things to get worse. And, if things go from bad to worse in America, overseas they’ll go from worse to total societal collapse. We’ve already seen changes of government in Iceland and Latvia, rioting in Greece and Bulgaria. The great destabilization is starting on the fringes of Europe and working its way to the Continent’s center.

We’re seeing not just the first contraction in the global economy since 1945, but also the first crisis of globalization. This was the system America and the other leading economies encouraged everybody else to grab a piece of. But whatever piece you grabbed — exports in Taiwan, services in Ireland, construction in Spain, oligarchic industrial-scale kleptomania in Russia — it’s all crumbling. Ireland and Italy are nation-state versions of Bank of America and General Motors. In Eastern Europe, the countries way out on the end of the globalization chain can’t take a lot of heat without widespread unrest. And the fellows who’ll be picking up the tab are the Western European banks who loaned them all the money. Gordon Brown was hoping for a little more than: “I feel your pain. And have you ever seen The Wizard of Oz? It’s about this sweet little nobody who gets to pay a brief visit to the glittering Emerald City before being swept back to the reassuring familiarity of the poor thing’s broken-down windswept economically devastated monochrome dustbowl. You’ll love it!”

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn”? Oh, perish the thought. The prime minister flew 8,000 miles for dinner and a movie. But the president says he’ll call. Next week. Next month. Whatever.

— Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is author of America Alone. © 2009 Mark Steyn

Obama's Radicalism Is Killing the Dow

2009-03-08T00:56:00.001-08:00

One does wonder when the plunge in the Dow stops being all Bush's fault.

And hey, if Bush had said that he doesn't care about what the market is doing, and that it ALWAYS rises and falls when...um.....it clearly is in a freefall...how would the public react? Might, perchance, the words "out of touch" come into play???

When the Messiah says it though, well now...

I mean, honestly, what do those dumb greedy investors know about sound economic policy?....

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123629969453946717.html

A financial crisis is the worst time to change the foundations of American capitalism.

By MICHAEL J. BOSKIN

It's hard not to see the continued sell-off on Wall Street and the growing fear on Main Street as a product, at least in part, of the realization that our new president's policies are designed to radically re-engineer the market-based U.S. economy, not just mitigate the recession and financial crisis.

The illusion that Barack Obama will lead from the economic center has quickly come to an end. Instead of combining the best policies of past Democratic presidents -- John Kennedy on taxes, Bill Clinton on welfare reform and a balanced budget, for instance -- President Obama is returning to Jimmy Carter's higher taxes and Mr. Clinton's draconian defense drawdown.

Mr. Obama's $3.6 trillion budget blueprint, by his own admission, redefines the role of government in our economy and society. The budget more than doubles the national debt held by the public, adding more to the debt than all previous presidents -- from George Washington to George W. Bush -- combined. It reduces defense spending to a level not sustained since the dangerous days before World War II, while increasing nondefense spending (relative to GDP) to the highest level in U.S. history. And it would raise taxes to historically high levels (again, relative to GDP). And all of this before addressing the impending explosion in Social Security and Medicare costs.

To be fair, specific parts of the president's budget are admirable and deserve support: increased means-testing in agriculture and medical payments; permanent indexing of the alternative minimum tax and other tax reductions; recognizing the need for further financial rescue and likely losses thereon; and bringing spending into the budget that was previously in supplemental appropriations, such as funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The specific problems, however, far outweigh the positives. First are the quite optimistic forecasts, despite the higher taxes and government micromanagement that will harm the economy. The budget projects a much shallower recession and stronger recovery than private forecasters or the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office are projecting. It implies a vast amount of additional spending and higher taxes, above and beyond even these record levels. For example, it calls for a down payment on universal health care, with the additional "resources" needed "TBD" (to be determined).

Mr. Obama has bravely said he will deal with the projected deficits in Medicare and Social Security. While reform of these programs is vital, the president has shown little interest in reining in the growth of real spending per beneficiary, and he has rejected increasing the retirement age. Instead, he's proposed additional taxes on earnings above the current payroll tax cap of $106,800 -- a bad policy that would raise marginal tax rates still further and barely dent the long-run deficit.

Increasing the top tax rates on earnings to 39.6% and on capital gains and dividends to 20% will reduce incentives for our most productive citizens and small businesses to work, save and invest -- with effective rates higher still because of restrictions on itemized deductions and raising the Social Security cap. As every economics student learns, high marginal rates distort economic decisions, the damage from which rises with the square of the rates (doubling the rates quadruples the harm). The president claims he is only hitting 2% of the population, but many more will at some point be in these brackets.

As for energy policy, the president's cap-and-trade plan for CO2 would ensnare a vast network of covered sources, opening up countless opportunities for political manipulation, bureaucracy, or worse. It would likely exacerbate volatility in energy prices, as permit prices soar in booms and collapse in busts. The European emissions trading system has been a dismal failure. A direct, transparent carbon tax would be far better.

Moreover, the president's energy proposals radically underestimate the time frame for bringing alternatives plausibly to scale. His own Energy Department estimates we will need a lot more oil and gas in the meantime, necessitating $11 trillion in capital investment to avoid permanently higher prices.

The president proposes a large defense drawdown to pay for exploding nondefense outlays -- similar to those of Presidents Carter and Clinton -- which were widely perceived by both Republicans and Democrats as having gone too far, leaving large holes in our military. We paid a high price for those mistakes and should not repeat them.

The president's proposed limitations on the value of itemized deductions for those in the top tax brackets would clobber itemized charitable contributions, half of which are by those at the top. This change effectively increases the cost to the donor by roughly 20% (to just over 72 cents from 60 cents per dollar donated). Estimates of the responsiveness of giving to after-tax prices range from a bit above to a little below proportionate, so reductions in giving will be large and permanent, even after the recession ends and the financial markets rebound.

A similar effect will exacerbate tax flight from states like California and New York, which rely on steeply progressive income taxes collecting a large fraction of revenue from a small fraction of their residents. This attack on decentralization permeates the budget -- e.g., killing the private fee-for-service Medicare option -- and will curtail the experimentation, innovation and competition that provide a road map to greater effectiveness.

The pervasive government subsidies and mandates -- in health, pharmaceuticals, energy and the like -- will do a poor job of picking winners and losers (ask the Japanese or Europeans) and will be difficult to unwind as recipients lobby for continuation and expansion. Expanding the scale and scope of government largess means that more and more of our best entrepreneurs, managers and workers will spend their time and talent chasing handouts subject to bureaucratic diktats, not the marketplace needs and wants of consumers.

Our competitors have lower corporate tax rates and tax only domestic earnings, yet the budget seeks to restrict deferral of taxes on overseas earnings, arguing it drives jobs overseas. But the academic research (most notably by Mihir Desai, C. Fritz Foley and James Hines Jr.) reveals the opposite: American firms' overseas investments strengthen their domestic operations and employee compensation.

New and expanded refundable tax credits would raise the fraction of taxpayers paying no income taxes to almost 50% from 38%. This is potentially the most pernicious feature of the president's budget, because it would cement a permanent voting majority with no stake in controlling the cost of general government.

From the poorly designed stimulus bill and vague new financial rescue plan, to the enormous expansion of government spending, taxes and debt somehow permanently strengthening economic growth, the assumptions underlying the president's economic program seem bereft of rigorous analysis and a careful reading of history.

Unfortunately, our history suggests new government programs, however noble the intent, more often wind up delivering less, more slowly, at far higher cost than projected, with potentially damaging unintended consequences. The most recent case, of course, was the government's meddling in the housing market to bring home ownership to low-income families, which became a prime cause of the current economic and financial disaster.

On the growth effects of a large expansion of government, the European social welfare states present a window on our potential future: standards of living permanently 30% lower than ours. Rounding off perceived rough edges of our economic system may well be called for, but a major, perhaps irreversible, step toward a European-style social welfare state with its concomitant long-run economic stagnation is not.

Mr. Boskin is a professor of economics at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He chaired the Council of Economic Advisers under President George H.W. Bush.

Mr. President, Keep the Airwaves Free

2009-02-20T23:48:00.000-08:00

We keep saying it.

Maybe when it's all shut down, and people lose their radio jobs, someone will listen.

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123508978035028163.html

As a former law professor, surely you understand the Bill of Rights.

By RUSH LIMBAUGH

Dear President Obama:

I have a straightforward question, which I hope you will answer in a straightforward way: Is it your intention to censor talk radio through a variety of contrivances, such as "local content," "diversity of ownership," and "public interest" rules -- all of which are designed to appeal to populist sentiments but, as you know, are the death knell of talk radio and the AM band?

You have singled me out directly, admonishing members of Congress not to listen to my show. Bill Clinton has since chimed in, complaining about the lack of balance on radio. And a number of members of your party, in and out of Congress, are forming a chorus of advocates for government control over radio content. This is both chilling and ominous.

As a former president of the Harvard Law Review and a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, you are more familiar than most with the purpose of the Bill of Rights: to protect the citizen from the possible excesses of the federal government. The First Amendment says, in part, that "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." The government is explicitly prohibited from playing a role in refereeing among those who speak or seek to speak. We are, after all, dealing with political speech -- which, as the Framers understood, cannot be left to the government to police.

When I began my national talk show in 1988, no one, including radio industry professionals, thought my syndication would work. There were only about 125 radio stations programming talk. And there were numerous news articles and opinion pieces predicting the fast death of the AM band, which was hemorrhaging audience and revenue to the FM band. Some blamed the lower-fidelity AM signals. But the big issue was broadcast content. It is no accident that the AM band was dying under the so-called Fairness Doctrine, which choked robust debate about important issues because of its onerous attempts at rationing the content of speech.

After the Federal Communications Commission abandoned the Fairness Doctrine in the mid-1980s, Congress passed legislation to reinstitute it. When President Reagan vetoed it, he declared that "This doctrine . . . requires Federal officials to supervise the editorial practices of broadcasters in an effort to ensure that they provide coverage of controversial issues and a reasonable opportunity for the airing of contrasting viewpoints of those issues. This type of content-based regulation by the Federal Government is . . . antagonistic to the freedom of expression guaranteed by the First Amendment. . . . History has shown that the dangers of an overly timid or biased press cannot be averted through bureaucratic regulation, but only through the freedom and competition that the First Amendment sought to guarantee."

Today the number of radio stations programming talk is well over 2,000. In fact, there are thousands of stations that air tens of thousands of programs covering virtually every conceivable topic and in various languages. The explosion of talk radio has created legions of jobs and billions in economic value. Not bad for an industry that only 20 years ago was moribund. Content, content, content, Mr. President, is the reason for the huge turnaround of the past 20 years, not "funding" or "big money," as Mr. Clinton stated. And not only has the AM band been revitalized, but there is competition from other venues, such as Internet and satellite broadcasting. It is not an exaggeration to say that today, more than ever, anyone with a microphone and a computer can broadcast their views. And thousands do.

Mr. President, we both know that this new effort at regulating speech is not about diversity but conformity. It should be rejected. You've said you're against reinstating the Fairness Doctrine, but you've not made it clear where you stand on possible regulatory efforts to impose so-called local content, diversity-of-ownership, and public-interest rules that your FCC could issue.

I do not favor content-based regulation of National Public Radio, newspapers, or broadcast or cable TV networks. I would encourage you not to allow your office to be misused to advance a political vendetta against certain broadcasters whose opinions are not shared by many in your party and ideologically liberal groups such as Acorn, the Center for American Progress, and MoveOn.org. There is no groundswell of support behind this movement. Indeed, there is a groundswell against it.

The fact that the federal government issues broadcast licenses, the original purpose of which was to regulate radio signals, ought not become an excuse to destroy one of the most accessible and popular marketplaces of expression. The AM broadcast spectrum cannot honestly be considered a "scarce" resource. So as the temporary custodian of your office, you should agree that the Constitution is more important than scoring transient political victories, even when couched in the language of public interest.

We in talk radio await your answer. What will it be? Government-imposed censorship disguised as "fairness" and "balance"? Or will the arena of ideas remain a free market?

Mr. Limbaugh is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host.

Lincoln's Legacy at 200

2009-02-16T14:52:00.000-08:00

Good read on Lincoln, and the scarcely mentioned negative aspects of his presidency.

I think it's assuming a bit too much to say that slavery would have eventually ended in the South and/or that those states would have rejoined the Union, but the overall point is well made.

The Civil War was not fought to end slavery, and its legacy is a Federal Government that runs roughshod over the rights of individual states. (And, as the author notes, racial tension is far worse in modern day Northern states than it now is in the South.)

The Politically Incorrect Guide to U.S. History is a good read on this subject as well.
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http://64.203.107.114/alexander/edition.asp?id=633

Lincoln's legacy at 200

Mark Alexander
From Patriot Post Vol. 09 No. 06se; Published 13 February 2009 | Print Email PDF

"If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it." --Thomas Jefferson

February 12 marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln.

During his inauguration, Barack Hussein Obama insisted on using Lincoln's Bible as he took his oath of office. Those who know their history might understand why Obama then proceeded to choke on that oath.

Obama, the nation's first half-African American president, was playing on Lincoln's status as "The Great Emancipator," though Obama himself is certainly not the descendant of slaves. His ancestors may well have been slaveholders, though -- and I am not talking about his maternal line. Tens of millions of Africans have been enslaved by other Africans in centuries past. Even though Chattel (house and field) and Pawnship (debt and ransom) slavery was legally abolished in most African nations by the 1930s, millions of African men, women and children remain enslaved today, at least those who escape the slaughter of tribal rivalry.

Not to be outdone by the Obama inaugural, Republican organizations are issuing accolades in honor of their party's patriarch, on this template: "The (name of state) Republican Party salutes and honors Abraham Lincoln on the celebration of his 200th birthday. An extraordinary leader in extraordinary times, Abraham Lincoln's greatness was rooted in his principled leadership and defense of the Constitution."

Really?

If the Republican Party would spend more energy linking its birthright to our Constitution rather than Lincoln, it might still enjoy the popular support it had under Ronald Reagan. Though Lincoln has already been canonized by those who settle for partial histories, in the words of John Adams, "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."

In our steadfast adherence to The Patriot Post's motto, Veritas Vos Liberabit ("the truth shall set you free"), and our mission to advocate for the restoration of constitutional limits on government, I am compelled to challenge our 16th president's iconic standing.

Lincoln is credited with being the greatest constitutional leader in history, having "preserved the Union," but his popular persona does not reconcile with the historical record. The constitutional federalism envisioned by our Founders and outlined by our Constitution's Bill of Rights was grossly violated by Abraham Lincoln. Arguably, he is responsible for the most grievous constitutional contravention in American history.

Needless to say, when one dares tread upon the record of such a divine figure as Lincoln, one risks all manner of ridicule, even hostility. That notwithstanding, we as Patriots should be willing to look at Lincoln's whole record, even though it may not please our sentiments or comport with the common folklore of most history books. Of course, challenging Lincoln's record is NOT tantamount to suggesting that he believed slavery was anything but an evil, abominable practice. Nor does this challenge suggest that Lincoln himself was not in possession of admirable qualities. It merely suggests, contrary to the popular record, that Lincoln was far from perfect.

It is fitting, then, in this week when the nation recognizes the anniversary of his birth, that we consider the real Lincoln -- albeit at great peril to the sensibilities of some of our friends and colleagues.

### Liberator of the oppressed...

The first of Lincoln's two most oft-noted achievements was ending the abomination of slavery. There is little doubt that Lincoln abhorred slavery, but likewise little doubt that he held racist views toward blacks. His own words undermine his hallowed status as the Great Emancipator.

For example, in his fourth debate with Stephen Douglas, Lincoln argued: "I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races -- that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."

Lincoln declared, "What I would most desire would be the separation of the white and black races..."

In 1860, Lincoln's racial views were explicit in these words: "I think I would go for enslaving the black man, in preference to being enslaved myself. ... They say that between the nigger and the crocodile they go for the nigger. The proportion, therefore, is, that as the crocodile to the nigger so is the nigger to the white man."

As for delivering slaves from bondage, it was two years after the commencement of hostilities that Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation -- to protests from free laborers in the North, who didn't want emancipated slaves migrating north and competing for their jobs. He did so only as a means to an end, victory in the bloody War Between the States -- "to do more to help the cause."

"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery," said Lincoln in regard to the Proclamation. "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union."

In truth, not a single slave was emancipated by the stroke of Lincoln's pen. The Proclamation freed only "slaves within any State ... the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States." In other words, Lincoln declared slaves were "free" in Confederate states, where his proclamation had no power, but excluded slaves in states that were not in rebellion, or areas controlled by the Union army. Slaves in Kentucky, Missouri, Delaware and Maryland were left in bondage.

His own secretary of state, William Seward, lamented, "We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free."

The great abolitionist Frederick Douglass was so angry with Lincoln for delaying the liberation of some slaves that he scarcely contacted him before 1863, noting that Lincoln was loyal only "to the welfare of the white race..." Ten years after Lincoln's death, Douglass wrote that Lincoln was "preeminently the white man's President" and American blacks were "at best only his step-children."

With his Proclamation, Lincoln succeeded in politicizing the issue and short-circuiting the moral solution to slavery, thus leaving the scourge of racial inequality to fester to this day -- in every state of the Union.

Many historians argue that Southern states would likely have reunited with Northern states before the end of the 19th century had Lincoln allowed for a peaceful and constitutionally accorded secession. Slavery would have been supplanted by moral imperative and technological advances in cotton production. Furthermore, under this reunification model, the constitutional order of the republic would have remained largely intact.

In fact, while the so-called "Civil War" (which by definition, the Union attack on the South was not) eradicated slavery, it also short-circuited the moral imperative regarding racism, leaving the nation with racial tensions that persist today. Ironically, there is now more evidence of ethnic tension in Boston than in Birmingham, in Los Angeles than in Atlanta, and in Chicago than in Charleston.

### Preserve the Union...

Of course, the second of Lincoln's most famous achievements was the preservation of the Union.

Despite common folklore, northern aggression was not predicated upon freeing slaves, but, according to Lincoln, "preserving the Union." In his First Inaugural Address Lincoln declared, "I hold that in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments."

"Implied, if not expressed"?

This is the first colossal example of errant constitutional interpretation, the advent of the so-called "Living Constitution."

Lincoln also threatened the use of force to maintain the Union when he said, "In [preserving the Union] there needs to be no bloodshed or violence ... unless it be forced upon the national authority."

On the other hand, according to the Confederacy, the War Between the States had as its sole objective the preservation of the constitutional sovereignty of the several states.

The Founding Fathers established the constitutional Union as a voluntary agreement among the several states, subordinate to the Declaration of Independence, which never mentions the nation as a singular entity, but instead repeatedly references the states as sovereign bodies, unanimously asserting their independence. To that end, our Constitution's author, James Madison, in an 1825 letter to our Declaration of Independence's author, Thomas Jefferson, asserted, "On the distinctive principles of the Government ... of the U. States, the best guides are to be found in ... The Declaration of Independence, as the fundamental Act of Union of these States."

The states, in ratifying the Constitution, established the federal government as their agent -- not the other way around. At Virginia's ratification convention, for example, the delegates affirmed "that the powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the People of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to injury or oppression." Were this not true, the federal government would not have been established as federal, but instead a national, unitary and unlimited authority. In large measure as a consequence of the War Between the States, the "federal" government has grown to become an all-but unitary and unlimited authority.

Our Founders upheld the individual sovereignty of the states, even though the wisdom of secessionist movements was a source of debate from the day the Constitution was ratified. Tellingly, Alexander Hamilton, the utmost proponent of centralization among the Founders, noted in Federalist No. 81 that waging war against the states "would be altogether forced and unwarrantable." At the Constitutional Convention, Hamilton argued, "Can any reasonable man be well disposed toward a government which makes war and carnage the only means of supporting itself?"

To provide some context, three decades before the occupation of Fort Sumter, former secretary of war and then South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun argued, "Stripped of all its covering, the naked question is, whether ours is a federal or consolidated government; a constitutional or absolute one; a government resting solidly on the basis of the sovereignty of the states, or on the unrestrained will of a majority; a form of government, as in all other unlimited ones, in which injustice, violence, and force must ultimately prevail."

Two decades before the commencement of hostilities between the states, John Quincy Adams wrote, "If the day should ever come (may Heaven avert it!) when the affections of the people of these States shall be alienated from each other ... far better will it be for the people of the disunited States to part in friendship with each other than to be held together by constraint. Then will be the time for reverting to the precedents which occurred at the formation and adoption of the Constitution, to form again a more perfect Union. ... I hold that it is no perjury, that it is no high-treason, but the exercise of a sacred right to offer such a petition."

But the causal case for states' rights is most aptly demonstrated by the words and actions of Gen. Robert E. Lee, who detested slavery and opposed secession. In 1860, however, Gen. Lee declined Lincoln's request that he take command of the Army of the Potomac, saying that his first allegiance was to his home state of Virginia: "I have, therefore, resigned my commission in the army, and save in defense of my native state ... I hope I may never be called on to draw my sword." He would, soon thereafter, take command of the Army of Northern Virginia, rallying his officers with these words: "Let each man resolve to be victorious, and that the right of self-government, liberty and peace shall find him a defender."

In his Gettysburg Address, Lincoln employed lofty rhetoric to conceal the truth of our nation's most costly war -- a war that resulted in the deaths of some 600,000 Americans and the severe disabling of more than 400,000 others. He claimed to be fighting so that "this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth." In fact, Lincoln was ensuring just the opposite by waging an appallingly bloody war while ignoring calls for negotiated peace. It was the "rebels" who were intent on self-government, and it was Lincoln who rejected their right to that end, despite our Founders' clear admonition to the contrary in the Declaration.

Moreover, had Lincoln's actions been subjected to the terms of the Fourth Geneva Convention (the first being codified in 1864), he and his principal military commanders, with Gen. William T. Sherman heading the list, would have been tried for war crimes. This included waging "total war" against not just combatants, but the entire civilian population. It is estimated that Sherman's march to the sea was responsible for the rape and murder of tens of thousands of civilians.

Further solidifying their wartime legacy, Sherman, Gen. Philip Sheridan, and young Brigadier General George Armstrong Custer (whose division blocked Gen. Lee's retreat from Appomattox), spent the next ten years waging unprecedented racial genocide against the Plains Indians.

Lincoln's war may have preserved the Union geographically (at great cost to the Constitution), but politically and philosophically, the constitutional foundation for a voluntary union was shredded by sword, rifle and cannon.

"Reconstruction" followed the war, and with it an additional period of Southern probation, plunder and misery, leading Robert E. Lee to conclude, "If I had foreseen the use those people designed to make of their victory, there would have been no surrender at Appomattox Courthouse; no sir, not by me. Had I foreseen these results of subjugation, I would have preferred to die at Appomattox with my brave men, my sword in my right hand."

Little reported and lightly regarded in our history books is the way Lincoln abused and discarded the individual rights of Northern citizens. Tens of thousands of citizens were imprisoned (most without trial) for political opposition, or "treason," and their property confiscated. Habeas corpus and, in effect, the entire Bill of Rights was suspended. Newspapers were shut down and legislators detained so they could not offer any vote unfavorable to Lincoln's conquest.

In fact, the Declaration of Independence details remarkably similar abuses by King George to those committed by Lincoln: the "Military [became] independent of and superior to the Civil power"; he imposed taxes without consent; citizens were deprived "in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury"; state legislatures were suspended in order to prevent more secessions; he "plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people ... scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation."

### The final analysis...

Chief among the spoils of victory is the privilege of writing the history.

Lincoln said, "Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing."

Lincoln's enduring reputation is the result of his martyrdom. He was murdered on Good Friday and the metaphorical comparisons between Lincoln and Jesus were numerous.

Typical is this observation three days after his death by Parke Godwin, editor of the New York Evening Post: "No loss has been comparable to his. Never in human history has there been so universal, so spontaneous, so profound an expression of a nation's bereavement. [He was] our supremest leader -- our safest counselor -- our wisest friend -- our dear father."

A more thorough and dispassionate reading of history, however, reveals a substantial expanse between his reputation and his character.

"America will never be destroyed from the outside," Lincoln declared. "If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." Never were truer words spoken.

While the War Between the States concluded in 1865, the battle for states' rights -- the struggle to restore constitutional federalism -- remains spirited, particularly among the ranks of our Patriot readers.

In his inaugural speech, Barack Obama quoted Lincoln: "We are not enemies, but friends.... Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection."

Let us hope that he pays more heed to those words than did Lincoln.

Wisdom and poise beyond her years.....

2009-02-11T21:04:00.001-08:00

Post-Partisan and Post-Racial?

2009-01-20T17:23:00.001-08:00

So, Obama's presidency was supposedly going to be post-partisan and post-racial.

Here's the magical Obama post-partisanship in action.

The brand new whitehouse.gov website for the Obama administration had this to say about Bush and Katrina:

President Obama will keep the broken promises made by President Bush to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. He and Vice President Biden will take steps to ensure that the federal government will never again allow such catastrophic failures in emergency planning and response to occur.

President Obama swiftly responded to Hurricane Katrina. Citing the Bush Administration’s “unconscionable ineptitude” in responding to Hurricane Katrina, then-Senator Obama introduced legislation requiring disaster planners to take into account the specific needs of low-income hurricane victims.

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/01/20/white-house-website-dumps-on-bush-over-katrina/

Just for fun, below is a flashback of ABC interviewing displaced Katrina victims, who, to ABC's surprise, didn't blame Bush.

They blamed Mayor Ray Nagin.

And go figure, they were actually GRATEFUL for the care shown by the Feds and Texas.

You can just cut the surprise of the ABC Newsman with knife. He doesn't know what to think. Doesn't fit his narrative.

And remind me again, didn't we have another hurricane this past summer, one that (to the joy of Democrats caught on video) shut down the first day of the Republican National Convention?

Notice how people were evacuated in an orderly manner, and there were no repeats of the Superdome debacle?

Amazing how nobody gives credit to the Bush administration, nor, say, Republican governors like Bobby Jindal.

Kinda like how everything that went wrong with Katrina was ALL Bush's fault, not the then Democrat Louisiana Governor, nor "chocolate town" Mayor Ray Nagin.

I'll admit, I'm surprised Obama swiped at Bush. Silly me, I actually expected him to try to make the "post-partisan" thing stick, for at least a week or two.

(Although, as Jim Treacher noted in September, I probably shouldn't be. This kind of side swiping isn't at all out of character for him.)

And with regards to the "post-racial" thing?

I guess what they REALLY meant is that we need to remind the white people to "embrace what is right".....during the inauguration.

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/01/20/inaugural-benediction-pray-that-white-will-embrace-what-is-right/

Yep. Way to not bring race into it here.

But hey, we know the rules for the Right here.

After eight years of letting Bush have it in every way possible, NOW it's time for us to be united as a country.

So sayeth our moral betters on the Left who couldn't resist jeering at Bush as he left the White House.

As Red Eye's Andy Levy puts it, in his "to don't" list for the Right:

"DON’T say or do everything in your power to drive this country apart and then claim you want unity when it’s your guy in power. This is like the convicted felon who conveniently finds God when he’s up for parole."

Gotta hand it to the Obama legion.

They can make standards that they instantly fail to uphold like nobody's business.

Welcome to the new post-racial and post-partisan age.

Oh, and if you're white, make sure to embrace what is right. (But only if you're white.)

Universal healthcare and the waistline police

2009-01-19T20:10:00.000-08:00

I'll take my right to be a fat slob over my "right" to health care, thank you very much.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0107/p09s01-coop.html

By Paul Hsieh

Sedalia, Colo. - Imagine a country where the government regularly checks the waistlines of citizens over age 40. Anyone deemed too fat would be required to undergo diet counseling. Those who fail to lose sufficient weight could face further "reeducation" and their communities subject to stiff fines.

Is this some nightmarish dystopia?

No, this is contemporary Japan.

The Japanese government argues that it must regulate citizens' lifestyles because it is paying their health costs. This highlights one of the greatly underappreciated dangers of "universal healthcare." Any government that attempts to guarantee healthcare must also control its costs. The inevitable next step will be to seek to control citizens' health and their behavior. Hence, Americans should beware that if we adopt universal healthcare, we also risk creating a "nanny state on steroids" antithetical to core American principles.

Other countries with universal healthcare are already restricting individual freedoms in the name of controlling health costs. For example, the British government has banned some television ads for eggs on the grounds that they were promoting an unhealthy lifestyle. This is a blatant infringement of egg sellers' rights to advertise their products.

In 2007, New Zealand banned Richie Trezise, a Welsh submarine cable specialist, from entering the country on the grounds that his obesity would "impose significant costs ... on New Zealand's health or special education services." Richie later lost weight and was allowed to immigrate, but his wife had trouble slimming and was kept home. Germany has mounted an aggressive anti-obesity campaign in workplaces and schools to promote dieting and exercise. Citizens who fail to cooperate are branded as "antisocial" for costing the government billions of euros in medical expenses.

Of course healthy diet and exercise are good. But these are issues of personal – not government – responsibility. So long as they don't harm others, adults should have the right to eat and drink what they wish – and the corresponding responsibility to enjoy (or suffer) the consequences of their choices. Anyone who makes poor lifestyle choices should pay the price himself or rely on voluntary charity, not demand that the government pay for his choices.

Government attempts to regulate individual lifestyles are based on the claim that they must limit medical costs that would otherwise be a burden on "society." But this issue can arise only in "universal healthcare" systems where taxpayers must pay for everyone's medical expenses.

Although American healthcare is only under partial government control in the form of programs such as Medicaid and Medicare, American nanny state regulations have exploded in recent years.

Many American cities ban restaurants from selling foods with trans fats. Los Angeles has imposed a moratorium on new fast food restaurants in South L.A. Other California cities ban smoking in some private residences. California has outlawed after-school bake sales as part of a "zero tolerance" ban on selling sugar products on campus. New York Gov. David Paterson has proposed an 18 percent tax on sugary sodas and juice drinks, and state officials have not ruled out additional taxes on cheeseburgers and other foods deemed unhealthy.

These ominous trends will only accelerate if the US adopts universal healthcare.

Just as universal healthcare will further fuel the nanny state, the nanny state mind-set helps fuel the drive toward universal healthcare. Individuals aren't regarded as competent to decide how to manage their lives and their health. So the government provides "cradle to grave" coverage of their healthcare.

Nanny state regulations and universal healthcare thus feed a vicious cycle of increasing government control over individuals. Both undermine individual responsibility and habituate citizens to ever-worsening erosions of their individual rights. Both promote dependence on government. Both undermine the virtues of independence and rationality. Both jeopardize the very foundations of a free society.

The American Founding Fathers who fought and died for our freedoms would be appalled to know their descendants were allowing the government to dictate what they could eat and drink. The Founders correctly understood that the proper role of government is to protect individual rights and otherwise leave men free to live – not tell us how many eggs we should eat.

If we still value our freedoms, we must reject both the nanny state and universal healthcare. Otherwise, it won't be long before the "Waistline Police" come knocking on our doors.

• Paul Hsieh practices medicine in the south Denver metro area and is a cofounder of Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine (FIRM).

A really, really, really long post about gay marriage....

2009-01-16T01:08:00.000-08:00

The following is a brilliant post on this subject (and several others), in my humble opinion.

The "no big deal, just a small change" argument has been used before to enact "progressive" changes in society (changes which were supposed to be minor ones).

This is an excellent summation of the actual results of these "minor" changes.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.janegalt.net/blog/archives/005244.html

April 02, 2005

From the desk of Jane Galt:

A really, really, really long post about gay marriage that does not, in the end, support one side or the other

Unlike most libertarians, I don't have an opinion on gay marriage, and I'm not going to have an opinion no matter how much you bait me. However, I had an interesting discussion last night with another libertarian about it, which devolved into an argument about a certain kind of liberal/libertarian argument about gay marriage that I find really unconvincing.

Social conservatives of a more moderate stripe are essentially saying that marriage is an ancient institution, which has been carefully selected for throughout human history. It is a bedrock of our society; if it is destroyed, we will all be much worse off. (See what happened to the inner cities between 1960 and 1990 if you do not believe this.) For some reason, marriage always and everywhere, in every culture we know about, is between a man and a woman; this seems to be an important feature of the institution. We should not go mucking around and changing this extremely important institution, because if we make a bad change, the institution will fall apart.

A very common response to this is essentially to mock this as ridiculous. "Why on earth would it make any difference to me whether gay people are getting married? Why would that change my behavior as a heterosexual"

To which social conservatives reply that institutions have a number of complex ways in which they fulfill their roles, and one of the very important ways in which the institution of marriage perpetuates itself is by creating a romantic vision of oneself in marriage that is intrinsically tied into expressing one's masculinity or femininity in relation to a person of the opposite sex; stepping into an explicitly gendered role. This may not be true of every single marriage, and indeed undoubtedly it is untrue in some cases. But it is true of the culture-wide institution. By changing the explicitly gendered nature of marriage we might be accidentally cutting away something that turns out to be a crucial underpinning.

To which, again, the other side replies "That's ridiculous! I would never change my willingness to get married based on whether or not gay people were getting married!"

Now, economists hear this sort of argument all the time. "That's ridiculous! I would never start working fewer hours because my taxes went up!" This ignores the fact that you may not be the marginal case. The marginal case may be some consultant who just can't justify sacrificing valuable leisure for a new project when he's only making 60 cents on the dollar. The result will nonetheless be the same: less economic activity. Similarly, you--highly educated, firmly socialised, upper middle class you--may not be the marginal marriage candidate; it may be some high school dropout in Tuscaloosa. That doesn't mean that the institution of marriage won't be weakened in America just the same.

This should not be taken as an endorsement of the idea that gay marriage will weaken the current institution. I can tell a plausible story where it does; I can tell a plausible story where it doesn't. I have no idea which one is true. That is why I have no opinion on gay marriage, and am not planning to develop one. Marriage is a big institution; too big for me to feel I have a successful handle on it.

However, I am bothered by this specific argument, which I have heard over and over from the people I know who favor gay marriage laws. I mean, literally over and over; when they get into arguments, they just repeat it, again and again. "I will get married even if marriage is expanded to include gay people; I cannot imagine anyone up and deciding not to get married because gay people are getting married; therefore, the whole idea is ridiculous and bigoted."

They may well be right. Nonetheless, libertarians should know better. The limits of your imagination are not the limits of reality. Every government programme that libertarians have argued against has been defended at its inception with exactly this argument.
Let me take three major legal innovations, one of them general, two specific to marriage.

The first, the general one, is well known to most hard-core libertarians, but let me reprise it anyway. When the income tax was initially being debated, there was a suggestion to put in a mandatory cap; I believe the level was 10 percent.

Don't be ridiculous, the Senator's colleagues told him. Americans would never allow an income tax rate as high as ten percent. They would revolt! It is an outrage to even suggest it!

Many actually fought the cap on the grounds that it would encourage taxes to grow too high, towards the cap. The American people, they asserted, could be well counted on to keep income taxes in the range of a few percentage points.

Oops.

Now, I'm not a tax-crazy libertarian; I don't expect you to be horrified that we have income taxes higher than ten percent, as I'm not. But the point is that the Senators were completely right--at that time. However, the existance of the income tax allowed for a slow creep that eroded the American resistance to income taxation. External changes--from the Great Depression, to the technical ability to manage withholding rather than lump payments, also facilitated the rise, but they could not have without a cultural sea change in feelings about taxation. That "ridiculous" cap would have done a much, much better job holding down tax rates than the culture these Senators erroneously relied upon. Changing the law can, and does, change the culture of the thing regulated.

Another example is welfare. To sketch a brief history of welfare, it emerged in the nineteenth century as "Widows and orphans pensions", which were paid by the state to destitute families whose breadwinner had passed away. They were often not available to blacks; they were never available to unwed mothers. Though public services expanded in the first half of the twentieth century, that mentality was very much the same: public services were about supporting unfortunate families, not unwed mothers. Unwed mothers could not, in most cases, obtain welfare; they were not allowed in public housing (which was supposed to be--and was--a way station for young, struggling families on the way to homeownership, not a permanent abode); they were otherwise discriminated against by social services. The help you could expect from society was a home for wayward girls, in which you would give birth and then put the baby up for adoption.

The description of public housing in the fifties is shocking to anyone who's spent any time in modern public housing. Big item on the agenda at the tenant's meeting: housewives, don't shake your dustcloths out of the windows--other wives don't want your dirt in their apartment! Men, if you wear heavy work boots, please don't walk on the lawns until you can change into lighter shoes, as it damages the grass! (Descriptions taken from the invaluable book, The Inheritance, about the transition of the white working class from Democrat to Republican.) Needless to say, if those same housing projects could today find a majority of tenants who reliably dusted, or worked, they would be thrilled.

Public housing was, in short, a place full of functioning families.

Now, in the late fifties, a debate began over whether to extend benefits to the unmarried. It was unfair to stigmatise unwed mothers. Why shouldn't they be able to avail themselves of the benefits available to other citizens? The brutal societal prejudice against illegitimacy was old fashioned, bigoted, irrational.

But if you give unmarried mothers money, said the critics, you will get more unmarried mothers.

Ridiculous, said the proponents of the change. Being an unmarried mother is a brutal, thankless task. What kind of idiot would have a baby out of wedlock just because the state was willing to give her paltry welfare benefits?

People do all sorts of idiotic things, said the critics. If you pay for something, you usually get more of it.

C'mon said the activists. That's just silly. I just can't imagine anyone deciding to get pregnant out of wedlock simply because there are welfare benefits available.

Oooops.

Of course, change didn't happen overnight. But the marginal cases did have children out of wedlock, which made it more acceptable for the next marginal case to do so. Meanwhile, women who wanted to get married essentially found themselves in competition for young men with women who were willing to have sex, and bear children, without forcing the men to take any responsibility. This is a pretty attractive proposition for most young men. So despite the fact that the sixties brought us the biggest advance in birth control ever, illegitimacy exploded. In the early 1960s, a black illegitimacy rate of roughly 25 percent caused Daniel Patrick Moynihan to write a tract warning of a crisis in "the negro family" (a tract for which he was eviscerated by many of those selfsame activists.)

By 1990, that rate was over 70 percent. This, despite the fact that the inner city, where the illegitimacy problem was biggest, only accounts for a fraction of the black population.

But in that inner city, marriage had been destroyed. It had literally ceased to exist in any meaningful way. Possibly one of the most moving moments in Jason de Parle's absolutely wonderful book,American Dream, which follows three welfare mothers through welfare reform, is when he reveals that none of these three women, all in their late thirties, had ever been to a wedding.

Marriage Matters. It is better for the kids; it is better for the adults raising those kids; and it is better for the childless people in the communities where those kids and adults live. Marriage reduces poverty, improves kids outcomes in all measurable ways, makes men live longer and both spouses happier. Marriage, it turns out, is an incredibly important institution. It also turns out to be a lot more fragile than we thought back then. It looked, to those extremely smart and well-meaning welfare reformers, practically unshakeable; the idea that it could be undone by something as simple as enabling women to have children without husbands, seemed ludicrous. Its cultural underpinnings were far too firm. Why would a woman choose such a hard road? It seemed self-evident that the only unwed mothers claiming benefits would be the ones pushed there by terrible circumstance.

This argument is compelling and logical. I would never become an unwed welfare mother, even if benefits were a great deal higher than they are now. It seems crazy to even suggest that one would bear a child out of wedlock for $567 a month. Indeed, to this day, I find the reformist side much more persuasive than the conservative side, except for one thing, which is that the conservatives turned out to be right. In fact, they turned out to be even more right than they suspected; they were predicting upticks in illegitimacy that were much more modest than what actually occurred--they expected marriage rates to suffer, not collapse.

How did people go so badly wrong? Well, to start with, they fell into the basic fallacy that economists are so well acquainted with: they thought about themselves instead of the marginal case. For another, they completely failed to realise that each additional illegitimate birth would, in effect, slightly destigmatise the next one. They assigned men very little agency, failing to predict that women willing to forgo marriage would essentially become unwelcome competition for women who weren't, and that as the numbers changed, that competition might push the marriage market towards unwelcome outcomes. They failed to forsee the confounding effect that the birth control pill would have on sexual mores.

But I think the core problems are two. The first is that they looked only at individuals, and took instititutions as a given. That is, they looked at all the cultural pressure to marry, and assumed that that would be a countervailing force powerful enough to overcome the new financial incentives for out-of-wedlock births. They failed to see the institution as dynamic. It wasn't a simple matter of two forces: cultural pressure to marry, financial freedom not to, arrayed against each other; those forces had a complex interplay, and when you changed one, you changed the other.

The second is that they didn't assign any cultural reason for, or value to, the stigma on illegitimacy. They saw it as an outmoded vestige of a repressive Victorial values system, based on an unnatural fear of sexuality. But the stigma attached to unwed motherhood has quite logical, and important, foundations: having a child without a husband is bad for children, and bad for mothers, and thus bad for the rest of us. So our culture made it very costly for the mother to do. Lower the cost, and you raise the incidence. As an economist would say, incentives matter.

(Now, I am not arguing in favor of stigmatising unwed mothers the way the Victorians did. I'm just pointing out that the stigma did not exist merely, as many mid-century reformers seem to have believed, because of some dark Freudian excesses on the part of our ancestors.)

But all the reformers saw was the terrible pain--and it was terrible--inflicted on unwed mothers. They saw the terrible unfairness--and it was terribly unfair--of punishing the mother, and not the father. They saw the inherent injustice--and need I add, it was indeed unjust--of treating American citizens differently because of their marital status.

But as G.K. Chesterton points out, people who don't see the use of a social institution are the last people who should be allowed to reform it:

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."

This paradox rests on the most elementary common sense. The gate or fence did not grow there. It was not set up by somnambulists who built it in their sleep. It is highly improbable that it was put there by escaped lunatics who were for some reason loose in the street. Some person had some reason for thinking it would be a good thing for somebody. And until we know what the reason was, we really cannot judge whether the reason was reasonable. It is extremely probable that we have overlooked some whole aspect of the question, if something set up by human beings like ourselves seems to be entirely meaningless and mysterious. There are reformers who get over this difficulty by assuming that all their fathers were fools; but if that be so, we can only say that folly appears to be a hereditary disease. But the truth is that nobody has any business to destroy a social institution until he has really seen it as an historical institution. If he knows how it arose, and what purposes it was supposed to serve, he may really be able to say that they were bad purposes, that they have since become bad purposes, or that they are purposes which are no longer served. But if he simply stares at the thing as a senseless monstrosity that has somehow sprung up in his path, it is he and not the traditionalist who is suffering from an illusion.

Now, of course, this can turn into a sort of precautionary principle that prevents reform from ever happening. That would be bad; all sorts of things need changing all the time, because society and our environment change. But as a matter of principle, it is probably a bad idea to let someone go mucking around with social arrangements, such as the way we treat unwed parenthood, if their idea about that institution is that "it just growed". You don't have to be a rock-ribbed conservative to recognise that there is something of an evolutionary process in society: institutional features are not necessarily the best possible arrangement, but they have been selected for a certain amount of fitness.

It might also be, of course, that the feature is what evolutionary biologists call a spandrel. It's a term taken from architecture; spandrels are the pretty little spaces between vaulted arches. They are not designed for; they are a useless, but pretty, side effect of the physical properties of arches. In evolutionary biology, spandrel is some feature which is not selected for, but appears as a byproduct of other traits that are selected for. Belly buttons are a neat place to put piercings, but they're not there because of that; they're a byproduct of mammalian reproduction.

However, and [sic: any] architect will be happy to tell you that if you try to rip out the spandrel, you might easily bring down the building.

The third example I'll give is of changes to the marriage laws, specifically the radical relaxation of divorce statutes during the twentieth century.

Divorce, in the nineteenth century, was unbelievably hard to get. It took years, was expensive, and required proving that your spouse had abandonned you for an extended period with no financial support; was (if male) not merely discreetly dallying but flagrantly carrying on; or was not just belting you one now and again when you got mouthy, but routinely pummeling you within an inch of your life. After you got divorced, you were a pariah in all but the largest cities. If you were a desperately wronged woman you might change your name, taking your maiden name as your first name and continuing to use your husband's last name to indicate that you expected to continue living as if you were married (i.e. chastely) and expect to have some limited intercourse with your neighbours, though of course you would not be invited to events held in a church, or evening affairs. Financially secure women generally (I am not making this up) moved to Europe; Edith Wharton, who moved to Paris when she got divorced, wrote moving stories about the way divorced women were shunned at home. Men, meanwhile (who were usually the respondants) could expect to see more than half their assets and income settled on their spouse and children.

There were, critics observed, a number of unhappy marriages in which people stuck together. Young people, who shouldn't have gotten married; older people, whose spouses were not physically abusive nor absent, nor flagrantly adulterous, but whose spouse was, for reasons of financial irresponsibility, mental viciousness, or some other major flaw, destroying their life. Why not make divorce easier to get? Rather than requiring people to show that there was an unforgiveable, physically visible, cause that the marriage should be dissolved, why not let people who wanted to get divorced agree to do so?

Because if you make divorce easier, said the critics, you will get much more of it, and divorce is bad for society.

That's ridiculous! said the reformers. (Can we sing it all together now?) People stay married because marriage is a bedrock institution of our society, not because of some law! The only people who get divorced will be people who have terrible problems! A few percentage points at most!

Oops. When the law changed, the institution changed. The marginal divorce made the next one easier. Again, the magnitude of the change swamped the dire predictions of the anti-reformist wing; no one could have imagined, in their wildest dreams, a day when half of all marriages ended in divorce.

There were actually two big changes; the first, when divorce laws were amended in most states to make it easier to get a divorce; and the second, when "no fault" divorce allowed one spouse to unilaterally end the marriage. The second change produced another huge surge in the divorce rate, and a nice decline in the incomes of divorced women; it seems advocates had failed to anticipate that removing the leverage of the financially weaker party to hold out for a good settlement would result in men keeping more of their earnings to themselves.

What's more, easy divorce didn't only change the divorce rate; it made drastic changes to the institution of marriage itself. David Brooks makes an argument I find convincing: that the proliferation of the kind of extravagent weddings that used to only be the province of high society (rented venue, extravagent flowers and food, hundreds of guests, a band with dancing, dresses that cost the same as a good used car) is because the event itself doesn't mean nearly as much as it used to, so we have to turn it into a three-ring circus to feel like we're really doing something.

A couple in 1940 (and even more so in 1910) could go to a minister's parlor, or a justice of the peace, and in five minutes totally change their lives. Unless you are a member of certain highly religious subcultures, this is simply no longer true. That is, of course, partly because of the sexual revolution and the emancipation of women; but it is also because you aren't really making a lifetime committment; you're making a lifetime committment unless you find something better to do. There is no way, psychologically, to make the latter as big an event as the former, and when you lost that committment, you lose, on the margin, some willingness to make the marriage work. Again, this doesn't mean I think divorce law should be toughened up; only that changes in law that affect marriage affect the cultural institution, not just the legal practice.

Three laws. Three well-meaning reformers who were genuinely, sincerely incapable of imagining that their changes would wreak such institutional havoc. Three sets of utterly logical and convincing, and wrong arguments about how people would behave after a major change.

So what does this mean? That we shouldn't enact gay marriage because of some sort of social Precautionary Principle[?]

No. I have no such grand advice.

My only request is that people try to be a leeetle more humble about their ability to imagine the subtle results of big policy changes. The argument that gay marriage will not change the institution of marriage because you can't imagine it changing your personal reaction is pretty arrogant. It imagines, first of all, that your behavior is a guide for the behavior of everyone else in society, when in fact, as you may have noticed, all sorts of different people react to all sorts of different things in all sorts of different ways, which is why we have to have elections and stuff. And second, the unwavering belief that the only reason that marriage, always and everywhere, is a male-female institution (I exclude rare ritual behaviors), is just some sort of bizarre historical coincidence, and that you know better, needs examining. If you think you know why marriage is male-female, and why that's either outdated because of all the ways in which reproduction has lately changed, or was a bad reason to start with, then you are in a good place to advocate reform. If you think that marriage is just that way because our ancestors were all a bunch of repressed bastards with dark Freudian complexes that made them homophobic bigots, I'm a little leery of letting you muck around with it.

Is this post going to convince anyone? I doubt it; everyone but me seems to already know all the answers, so why listen to such a hedging, doubting bore? I myself am trying to draw a very fine line between being humble about making big changes to big social institutions, and telling people (which I am not trying to do) that they can't make those changes because other people have been wrong in the past. In the end, our judgement is all we have; everyone will have to rely on their judgement of whether gay marriage is, on net, a good or a bad idea. All I'm asking for is for people to think more deeply than a quick consultation of their imaginations to make that decision. I realise that this probably falls on the side of supporting the anti-gay-marriage forces, and I'm sorry, but I can't help that. This humility is what I want from liberals when approaching market changes; now I'm asking it from my side too, in approaching social ones. I think the approach is consistent, if not exactly popular.

Update A number of libertarians are, as I predicted, making the "Why don't we just privatise marriage?" argument. I don't find that useful in the context of the debate about gay marriage in America, where marriage is simply not going to be privatised in any foreseeable near-term future. I wrote an immediate follow up saying just that, but of course, I got a lot of readers from an Instalanche, which I didn't expect (no one expects an Instalanche!), and they just read the one post. So the second post is here; if you are thinking of making the argument that we should just get the state out of the marriage business, please read it.

Also, a lot of readers are saying that I'm wrong about marriage always being between a man and a woman, citing polygamy. I have been told this is a "basic factual error."

No, it's not. Polygamous societies do not (at least in any society I have ever heard about) have group marriages. Men with more than one wife have multiple marriages with multiple women, not a single marriage with several wives. In fact, they generally take pains to separate the women, preferably in different houses. Whether or not you allow men to contract for more than one marriage (and for all sorts of reasons, this seems to me to be a bad idea unless you're in an era of permanent war), each marriage remains the union of a man and a woman.

Posted by Jane Galt at April 2, 2005 06:24 AM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links

Obama's campaign was about me? P.S. Sarah Palin still must be destroyed. And are Obama's pillows fluffed properly?

2009-01-10T02:42:00.000-08:00

http://frum.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTRhNzQzMDg3MWE4Y2Y3NzQ2YTI2MzBmNzhiNWM2MTM=

So, David Frum, while eviscerating Sarah Palin for daring to *gasp* hit back against a media that believes her son Trig isn't really hers (and that she probably caused the Holocaust, global warming, and Hurricane Katrina along with Bush)....

And while joining the rest of the CINOs (Conservatives in Name Only) and libs in reminding Palin that she's still a dumb hick who ought to find a good toilet to shove her head in...

While Frum was at that whole game, he had this to say about Obama's campaign.

"Through the 2008 election, Barack Obama repeatedly said ‘It’s not about me. It’s about you.’ Exactly so."

Really, David?

Obama's campaign was about me?

The man had his own Presidential seal, before he had even won.

The man has his own Presidential seal, before he has even taken office.

The man has his own hand symbol.

The man has two of his own memoirs. At the ripe old age of 47.

The man had his own infomercial, which Major League Baseball graciously agreed to move a World Series game for.

I can’t go to a single solitary store without seeing the man’s face plastered all over memorabilia.

The man has his own “Super Obama” commemorative t-shirt.

The man has his own special edition Spiderman comic.

The man had his own presidential coin, again, before he had won.

The man declared that HIS election would, by itself, cause the ocean levels to recede. (Man can and is destroying the world with global warming, you see. But it'll all magically stop once Obama parts ALL the seas.)

The man encouraged his supporters to be sure to tell their jobs to screw off for an entire day, so that they could bask in his glory.

The man CHARGED REPORTERS for the right to partake in said glory on election night.

And yet, somehow, Obama’s campaign is about me?

And not about him?

To be sure, not all of these items are Obama's direct doing.

Some are those of his cult, who take the "oceans receding" thing literally.

But he's not exactly discouraging them, is he?

I can't even get away from the man on frickin' Facebook.

He's everywhere.

Oh, but it's ok, because it was really all about me.

Not about him.
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Oh, and Frummy?

"It's pretty bad when even your supporters call you ignorant."

I'm still waiting to have it explained to me just what the "stupid dumb hick Palin who should go find a toilet to shove her face in" did to deserve said label.

(I mean, aside from being a successful conservative woman who doesn't destroy the parasite growing within her just because it might inconvenience her career. Oh, and to think, the "encumbrance" had the audacity to be born with Down syndrome. Talk to Alan Colmes about preventing that one. He's the expert on pre-natal vitamins, after all.

We all know that liberal women are the only ones who get to have it all, the choice to kill the baby, or have the baby AND the career plus lifetime welfare payments, or even to be considered qualified for the Senate just because your last name is Kennedy.**

Conservative idiots like Palin? Get in the kitchen, you dumb bitch. Oh, and why didn't you murder your babies? You can't be in public office and raise a family too. Only liberal women can do that.)

Is it the "you knows" and the "I'll betchas"?

Cuz, call me crazy, but I hear a lot of pauses, and "uhhs" and crickets and "ohhhs" and "UUMMMMMSSSSS" coming from the Messiah when he isn't on script. (I thought George Bush was the horrendous speaker whose strings were being pulled...)

Is it the "do you agree with the Bush Doctrine" thing?

Because she had the audacity to ask "in what respect", to a concept which was never explicitly defined by George W. himself?

Oh sure, he said "you're either with us or against us."

But HE didn't call ANYTHING "the Bush doctrine." The media came up with that. And by all means, look it up anywhere and find an explicit, four lines or less definition for me. I'll still be here when you get back.

I mean, how DARE Palin ask for clarification. Oh the nerve.

(http://hotair.com/archives/2008/09/13/the-real-bush-doctrine/

I echo Charles Krauthammer's words.

"The New York Times got it wrong. And Charlie Gibson got it wrong.

There is no single meaning of the Bush doctrine. In fact, there have been four distinct meanings, each one succeeding another over the eight years of this administration — and the one Charlie Gibson cited is not the one in common usage today. It is utterly different.")

And hey, how was Obama's answer on that question?

OH WAIT......("Senator Obama, this is the most important question of the day. What's on your Ipod?")

Is it the blanking on the "name two Supreme Court cases you disagree with" question?

A gaffe, to be sure.

How was Obama's answer to that question?

............("Mr. Obama, the American people really really need to know this. Boxers or briefs?")

Is it the "I can see Russia from my house" thing?

Oh, it's not like they edited the airing to take away part of that answer from Palin. OH HEAVENS NO.....

(And as EVERYONE knows, a community organizer, naturally, has foreign policy credentials. Those Chicago neighborhoods really ARE that bad.)

The Obama cultists know a thing or two about blind unreasonable fanatical hero worship, so I suppose I ought to take them seriously when they tell me that I'M the insane one supporting the empty suit.

(Or, in Palin's case, the dumb hick and hey, whaddayaknow, there's a toilet. She's got insults on her from A to Z. "Cunt" t-shirts are just the beginning. Take your pick: From A-Z, the things people say about Sarah Palin. [Kudos to the column's author, Tunku Varadarajan.]

"Airhead", "turncoat bitch", "Caribou Barbie", "disgrace to women", "dangerous", "ditz", "disabled", "dysfunctional", "extremist", "fatal cancer", "[should be] gang-rape[d]", "her greatest hypocrisy is her pretense that she is a woman", "idiot", "ignorant", "Jesus Freak", "kook", "liar", "librarian in a porn film", "man with a vagina", "merciless predator", "McCain's mean girl", "national joke", "opportunist", "pretty little gaffe machine", "[makes one] queasy", "Republican blowup doll", "reactionary", "rube", "sputtering, ramshackle, motorbike repaired in the backyard that is the Sarah Palin candidacy", "scary", "stewardess", "female Sancho Panza", "time bomb", "terrible woman from Alaska", "trailer trash", "Uncle Woman", "VILF", "whore", "xenophobic", "yokel", "zealot."

Truly a remarkable showing from the architects of "compassion" and "tolerance."

We're the "bitter gun clingers."

I've got a catchy phrase for the Left.

"'Compassionate' baby brain scramblers."

P.S. Especially if it's a black baby. We can rationalize ANYTHING. We're the rational ones, you see, not those awful Bible thumpin' righties.

Oh, I know, I know. You're outraged. I'm the outrage.

Murdering babies? Killing black babies at many times the rate of their white counterparts? THAT'S "CHOICE."

The decision to eat trans fats, or what school your kids get to attend.

That's NOT YOUR CHOICE.

But "encumbrance" removal is.)

No, I don't think Palin is perfect, and should she try for national office again, I hope to see her learn from the missteps on this campaign. (She's already money ahead by shedding the biggest misstep of them all, John McCain. How nice of his guys to give her the finger on their way out. Yeah, it's her fault you lost. You ran a BRILLIANT campaign, after all. And those excited crowds TOTALLY would have showed up for Romney, Huckabee, Cantor, Guiliani, Thompson, or, WHAT THE HELL, Lieberman.

Since the way to win is apparently to be exactly like Democrats, Liebs would have lead to a landslide for sure.)

I don't think Palin is God, the Messiah, or The One. (That's Barack Obama. DUH.)

But it sure would be nice if we held Barack Obama, the Most Merciful Lord Messiah, to any semblance of the same standard we hold Sarah Palin.

Because, you know, I'm still waiting to know the names of the eight states that recently joined the Union.

Barack visited all 58 states after all, so he outta know.

I'm still waiting for someone to ask Barack why deficit spending to stimulate the economy is now magically a good thing, when Hitler, er, Bush was chastised by the same Democrats for "the highest spending since Gerald Ford."

(Thank you, Madam Speaker.***

Oh, and way to show true class during Dick Cheney's certification of the election results. I'll be sure to tell my kids when they're two years old to bolt out of their chairs to give themselves a hand. It'll be the perfectly mature thing for them to do at that age.)

I'm still waiting for someone to ask Barack Obama why his incoming administration now plans on meeting with Hamas, when he said this in April:

" We must not negotiate with a terrorist group intent on Israel’s destruction. We should only sit down with Hamas if they renounce terrorism, recognize Israel’s right to exist and abide by past agreements.”

“Hamas is not a state. Hamas is a terrorist organization."

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/01/08/oh-my-three-sources-tell-guardian-obama-plans-to-talk-to-hamas/

Your friendly neighborhood Jihadis who use women and children as human shields and dead propaganda pieces will get RIGHT ON that whole "recognizing Israel's right to exist" thing.

I'm still waiting for someone to ask Obama what he knew, and when did he know it ,about Governor Blagojevich and the Senate seat.

Because, I'm SURE, if Bush, McCain, or Palin's own report cleared THEM, that would TOTALLY BE ENOUGH. (For the record, I doubt Obama had anything to do with it. It'd be pretty damned sloppy if he did. But hey, why bother grilling him about it at all? He didn't know anything about it, OK??? Ask him if his pillows are fluffed properly.)

I'm still waiting for someone to explain to Biden that J-O-B-S has four letters, not three.

Because, you know, Keith Olbermann would NEVER have bothered Palin about that little detail.

I'm still waiting for someone to ask Biden to retell the story of how FDR went on television after the stock market crash in 1929 to reassure the American people. Honestly, Hoover must have been pretty damned annoyed with him. (But OH SO impressed at that magic "not yet invented" gizmo FDR was broadcasting with.)

I'm sure SNL would have let that one slide if the dumb hick from Alaska had showed, (what's that phrase Frummy?) such a lack of a "well-informed worldview."

I'm still waiting for someone to ask Biden to regale the nation with the tale of how we "kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon", as the Vice President Elect intoned during the debate.

I'll defer to the incomparable Jonah Goldberg on this one.

Biden, the Master Gasbag

According to the master senator, the U.S. and France “kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon.” Afterward, according to Biden, “I said and Barack said, ‘Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don’t ... Hezbollah will control it.’” Perhaps Biden meant to say the U.S. and France kicked Syria out of Lebanon. But even this is woefully glib. Syria never fully abandoned Lebanon. And there was no “vacuum” for Hezbollah to fill. The terrorist group was already firmly in control of southern Lebanon and part of the government. No one remembers Biden and Obama fighting for the stupidly impossible NATO move either.

And hey, while I'm at it, it'd be right "doing their job" for any reporter to have followed up with Biden on these.

Biden insisted it’s “just simply not true” that Obama has said he’d “sit down with (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad,” even though in the primaries Biden criticized Obama for exactly that.

Biden bragged about how he and Obama have focused on Pakistan, insisting that “Pakistan’s weapons can already hit Israel and the Mediterranean.” Um, no. Their missiles couldn’t get halfway there.

Biden suggested he spearheaded the effort to save “tens of thousands of lives in Bosnia.” He was actually more of a bit player.

The constitutional law professor mocked Dick Cheney because the vice president “doesn’t realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president. That’s the executive branch.” Wrong. Article I defines the Legislature, Article II the executive branch. Both define the role of the VP.

He flatly said that McCain voted with Obama on a tax hike. He didn’t. He said McCain’s health-care plan amounted to a tax hike. It doesn’t. Biden said we “must” drill for oil, but that ain’t how he’s voted. He said he’s for clean coal, but just this month he passionately told a voter, “We’re not supporting clean coal,” and vowed “no coal plants here in America.” The scrapper from Scranton boasted about bonding with the common folks at a restaurant that’s been closed for two decades.

But hey, only dumb conservative women from Alaska who need to find a toilet to stick their heads into need receive any tough questions.

Members of Michelle Obama's "smart people" club, like Joe Biden?

Such "master senators" (thank you Associated Press) will be happy to tell you what brand of dog food they prefer.

(By the way AP, do I owe you for those two words?)

Two months after the election, this much is clear to me.

Palin still is a threat to the Left, and like Clarence Thomas, they will stop at nothing to destroy her. (And, apparently, those who think they're on the Right, who believe the Democrat way is the way for Republicans to win. We reach out to the Center by co-opting Democrat ideas and talking points.

Hey, it worked SO WELL for Reagan, right?* GO FOR IT, guys.)

And journalism, which has been on its last legs for some time now, has now slipped into a terminal coma.

And it will die on January 20th, 2009.

............

Happy Friggin' New Year.

*Yes, for God's sake, that was sarcasm.

**Oh, and before anyone starts the "HOW ABOUT THIS??!!!!!"

I know all about Palin herself saying that Caroline Kennedy is "qualified" for the Senate seat.

See, lefties? While you gleefully celebrate an attempted physical assault on George W. Bush, Palin knows how to practice a little thing called "class." This is, after all, the woman who reached out to Hillary Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro in her VP nomination acceptance.

I'd encourage you childish sycophants to learn a thing or two about it, but that would be pointless.

Study Sarah Palin, your stupid hick from Alaska, while you're doing everything in your power to tear her down.

Little tip from me to you?

She's a far better human being than you'll ever be.

*** Oh, and if you're wondering where I heard this, I heard Nancy Pelosi say this herself on the radio. One of the hourly news updates.

It's up to you whether or not to believe me.

But my name's not Joe Biden, so I try to avoid making everything up as I go along.

One Pissed-Off Dude

2009-01-06T21:24:00.000-08:00

Well, with this one, I've got my red meat quota covered for the foreseeable future. :-)

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a href="http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ggraham/2009/01/06/one-pissed-off-dude-5/#more-7417

One Pissed-Off Dude

by Gary Graham

I’m an American. This has always been my favorite label, but of late even that has seemed to mean less and less. Being called an American used to carry with it a certain pride and esprit de corps that now apparently is dated and passe. How else can one explain the rash of America-haters in our midst who only claim pride in America if a Leftist resides in the White House, and can only back a war effort if the decision to go to war was that of a Democrat.

I’m a Conservative. And I am also an actor who lives and works in Hollywood. Many of my friends advise me to keep that on the down-low, advise me to not speak up lest I scuttle any future employment prospects, so predominantly liberal is the entertainment biz. And yet I persist.

You see, I’m one pissed-off dude.

I’m told I’ll hurt my career if I continually spout off about Liberalism — which I see as a growing cancer in our society. Worldwide, I’ve seen Liberalism metastasize into virulent incarnations of Socialism, and, left unchecked, even into its malignant cousin, Communism. Only the arrogant or the somnambulist would think such a thing could never happen here. It’s a matter of increment. Once a group organizes into a coalition, it’s a short step to claiming the right to the property of another group. All that is necessary is for an individual’s right to personal property to become a secondary concern. The ‘needs’ of the group must supercede, dontcha know. It’s a vicious cycle – wants become needs become rights. The fact that the thievery is done at the behest of a ‘civilized’ government does not sanitize the crime.

“At least the highwayman has the decency to wear a mask.” – Author unknown.

So I’m told I should shut up. I make my living in the Hollywood community, and Hollywood is by and large run by Liberals. I’m told I need to stay quiet when the Left has their way over issues that affect my daily life. I’m told I need to learn how to get along with the Left, learn how to compromise. I need to be more open-minded. I need to be more tolerant.

I say F T S. Ask your 9-yr-old if you have trouble deciphering that. (No, wait, don’t.)

I don’t want to get along with the Left. I want to take them down. I want to expose their idiocy for what it is and reveal it as a harmful, dangerous succession of lies and deceptions. My friends say that that effort, aside from being fruitless, will cost me work. It will cost me my career. And I say Wait-a-minute, Bucko. Those folks who founded this country were willing to risk not only their careers, but their property, their families, their very lives…the least I can do in standing up for our precious freedoms is risk a silly television career. Not to compare myself with the brilliant thinkers who declared themselves independent of England and framed our Constitution…but those were some pretty pissed off dudes too. Compared to that, loss of a little TV or movie work seems pretty inconsequential. So in honor of Pissed Off Americans past and present, I rant.

I’m pissed off that everyone seems okay on having to press one for English. We’re supposed to be tolerant and understanding that maybe some folks who now live here (legally or not) might have trouble understanding what I’m saying to them if I speak in my native tongue, regardless of the extra cost to the rest of us. FTS.

I’m pissed that my sweet well-wishing friends and acquaintances now say “Happy Holidays” instead of Merry Christmas. Oh, we don’t want to offend the non-Christians, they’ll say. Again – FTS. ‘Happy Holidays’…nice and non-specific, soothingly generic. In keeping with the spirit of the season, I try not to show it – but I roll my eyes. Jeez, could you be any more spineless? Everybody walk on eggshells for the rest of your lives, living in perptual fear someone who holds a different religion, or sexual preference, or nationality is going to suffer some little offense if you actually wish them a lovely Christmas. “Oh we don’t celebrate Christmas.” “Oh, I’m so terribly sorry, I don’t mean to offend you. Please enjoy the Holiday of Winter Solstice and Earth Renewal Day or whatever your heart leads to celebrate, if indeed you are even feeling like celebrating anything.” Shut up! Smile and say thanks. Happy Hanukkah, Merry Ramadan, Soulful Kwanzaa…whatever. Smile and say Thanks.

Can we all stop taking ourselves so damn seriously for half a minute? Hey – life ain’t a popularity contest. So grow a pair. Speak your mind and if someone can’t handle it, request that they take a hike. How the hell did we ever survive life before the all-knowing, all-caring ACLU began to run interference for all our tender sensibilities? It’s a wonder any of us grew up without some crippling psychosis that drove us to chop up our grandmother. I’m old enough to remember when Common Sense ruled the day. (*cue the Cranky Old Man music)

It irks me that Democrats are always looking to raise my taxes. I’m patriotic if I take it up the bum and don’t squeal. What’s worse, they don’t even have the integrity to call them taxes. They call them ‘fees’, or even, ‘contributions’. As I learned the word, a contribution is a volitional act. Left to free choice, I say I choose to not contribute more than I already do. Let all those who say we are overtaxed stand up with me. Those who think different can form a line to the left…and we on the right will leave you completely free to contribute more. Raising taxes takes food off my family’s table. I regard people who advocate doing so in the same vein as I would the burglar I confront in the dead of night – an enemy.

I’m pissed that I study the political issues of the day, educate myself, stay informed daily by a multitude of news sources from all slants…and yet, come election day, my informed vote is cancelled by some numbskull who votes for the nicest smile, who doesn’t know who the current vice-president is, or which party controls Congress, and what’s more, doesn’t care. Am I the only one who thinks a basic intelligence and general knowledge test should be a prerequisite for voting for our leaders? No? Too radical a notion? Well, then, why not just make the winner of American Idol president and save all the drama? Everyone can text in their vote. And Paula, Randy, and Simon… the new cabinet. “Tonight the State of the Union speech will be sung by the President, backed up by Rascal Flatts…and special guest duet with Secretary of State David Archuleta…”

I’m pissed off by how soft many in our nation have become. How whimpy the tone, how spineless the resolve. What happened to that brutally real notion that people should be held responsible for his or her actions? Nowadays, it always seems to be someone else’s fault, whatever it is. Got a life of poverty, it’s rich folks doing it to you.

Alcohol addiction, substance abuse, your mother never said she loves you. Having trouble finding work, it’s the white, black, purple guys keeping you down. Your car company is going under, it’s the unfair business practices abroad and an economic downturn. Hey, nimrods – newsflash. LIFE IS HARD. The End. Get used to it, suck it up, get some spine, invent some if you have none, and GET ON WITH IT!!!! I’d like to offer, in utter compassion, and speaking on behalf of at least several like-minded bretheren out there, a class-action BITCH-SLAP to every mamby-pamby, limp-wristed douche-bag of a complainer who has the audacity to hope that we hard-working, God-fearing, America-loving taxpayers should be forced to give you one penny of our income to enable you further in your responsibility-shirking, self-destructive habits. Get your collective shiite together, friends. I am not, nor are my friends, my brother’s keeper. Though my heart is open enough to come to someone’s need should an honest and sincere calamity befall a brother or sister… when did destitution become a virtue? Did my snooze button malfunction causing me to oversleep a couple decades? When did begging become a noble venture? You see them standing there bravely, “God bless”and something about ‘can’t find work’ scrawled on their cardboard. Victims of society, of Bush/Cheney, of Ronald Reagan, of any heartless Republican administration. And worse – hey, I’ve seen the sign people on the offramps, I’ve seen the green flow as we assuage our prosperity guilt – these guys are cleaning up! Am I in the wrong business? When, dear friends, did panhandling become a lucrative industry? FTS!

(Side note: I’ve personally offered several of these beggars who had written “Will work for food” to buy them lunch if they’ll do some yard work and fence painting for me, and the reaction was always the same. Hell no! They just want cash, right now! Hmmm…and yet the sign said… Forget about the begging, whatever happened to truth in advertising?)

Who can identify virtue, when there is no shame?

And speaking of shame…have you on the Left no shame when it comes to calling evil EVIL? What’s in a name — a terrorist by any other name is a ‘Jihadist’. A freedom fighter. A rebel. But when are we going to admit that there is an evil movement out there dedicated to our destruction. And it ain’t Sarah Palin and George Bush. It’s radical Islam and they want to cut your personal head off simply because you’re not throwing in with them.

You’re not on your knees worshiping their boy Allah, so for this you and everyone like you all over the world must die and die now. But wait, it’s a ‘religion of peace’, we’re told. Wow, not the last time I looked. If Islam is a religion of peace, where are all the peace-loving Muslim leaders decrying the radicals’ murderous actions? The beheadings, the suicide bombings, the IED’s, the blowing up innocents on buses? Where are the peaceful Islamists’ protests against Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Queda, et al? You are a frog in a pot, Lefty – being boiled slowly, apparently too slowly for you to notice. Too much Climate Change on your mind to notice that the barbarians are at the gate. When the Nazis stormed into Jewish homes in 1939 I’m sure there were more than a few head-in-the sand myopic residents screaming about the troopers tracking mud on the carpet. If only they had had the ACLU to save the day… Human rights and clean carpets surely would have abound.

Speaking of climate change, while we’re at it…if the argument is over…and the facts are clear…how is it we can predict the climate twenty years hence, when we can’t even predict with much accuracy if my ass is going to get wet attending my friend’s kid’s Bar Mitzvah next weekend. When did we give the title to anyone with a PhD in front of their name the added moniker of ‘Soothsayer’? I read Paul Erhlich’s book, THE POPULATION BOMB in the early ‘70’s and it scared the begeebers out of me. By his prediction, each human being in 2008 would have less than a square meter of space to live in. (William F. Buckley voice: “Ahh…Mr. Erhlich was unavailable for comment, ahhh… but stressed the importance of keeping his line clear, lest the Nobel Prize committee call.”) And Mr. Gore – I do believe in Climate Change. It’s called summer, spring, winter and fall. Happens each year whether I drive my SUV or not. FTS!

Before I came up with the inspired notion of tossing my life away and becoming an actor…I was fully ensconsed in the science department at the University of California, Irvine. I know the way it works. The professors confided in me. You need a problem to study, better yet a crisis, or you don’t get funding for your research. It’s that simple. One professor of botany told me that these very high-tech ultra-violet cameras we were frolicking through the fields looking at flowers through cost the University $200 thousand dollars. Off my open-mouthed gape, he shrugged, “Gotta spend the money, or next year they cut us back.” So yeah, you’re going to find a ton of scientists who swear we’re killing the planet…and we desperately need another three million dollars to study the problem.

I’m confident I could find two hundred accredited scientists to join me in an exhaustive study to find out why belly button lint is demagnetizing the moon leading to global flooding…if only Bill Gates will step up with some coin. FTS!

Lastly…can we finally be done with all the hatred? George Bush is very soon to be out of a job. Time to let up on him a bit, don’t you think? Erase the hate, Lefties. You can stop proclaiming him to be the anti-christ, evil incarnate, the boogeyman, Darth Vader, or the Heartbreak of Psoriasis. The guy did his best. Like him, don’t like him, he kept us from attack for seven-and-a-half years so let it go. Your guy is in now, so relax. Have fun again. Laugh without derision. Smile without the snide. You remember how? Take off your flak jackets, it’s going to be okay. Our brave warriors did some serious ass-kicking in the Middle East, and though there’s no shortage of crazy Islamo-fascist bad guys yet to come, at least they know who they’re f*cking with.

Somehow along the way, so many of you forgot one simple, undeniable tenet: We’re the good guys. We’re not imperialists, or else we would’ve nuked the oil countries into radioactive dust, then moved in and taken the oil. We don’t ‘torture’ prisoners, or lawyers for the Gitmo ‘detainees’ would have CNN photographing the horrid scars and missing limbs. We don’t bully smaller, less developed nations. On the contrary, we expend our more precious asset: the blood of our brave, bright and courageous young men and women – all in committed effort to free them from despotic, brutal dictators. We are not brash. In 1991 we amassed a coalition of 34 nations before we acted to oust Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, and this after months and months of negotiations and U.N. resolutions. Twelve years later after waiting six months and seeing fourteen U.N. resolutions ignored by Hussein, George W. Bush had accrued a multi-national coalition and a majority vote in Congress before sending troops into Iraq. We are the big dog on the block. And yet we ask no penance from lesser countries. Instead we offer aid in the form of cash, medicine, and humanitarian help. When we go after bad guys in war, we don’t carpet bomb, or blow up civilian-filled buses. We have smart bombs that pinpoint targets to limit collateral civilian casualites. We’re the good guys. Only an entrenched self-loathing hatred of America will prevent you from seeing that. If that’s the case, you have my sympathy. But don’t let the door hit you on the way out. And yes, this is our country, whether a Democrat of a Republican occupies the White House.

Yeah, a lot of things piss me off. But I’m a ridiculously happy guy. I’m blessed with a wonderful family, terrific friends (many, many of them Liberals, oh yes), a strong Faith in God and a sweet certainty that this nation is on the side of good in the world…and that that good will overcome the bad.

I was asked by the founder of this site to write an article… an ‘opening salvo’. Considering who might read it, and who in Hollywood might be incensed, the temptation to parse words and couch my opinions was strong. But the guy in the mirror counsels me the loudest. I was always impressed with John Hancock, when, reminded that signing one’s name to that Declaration in Pennsylvania could very well lead to their deaths…solemnly stepped forward and with grand flourish signed his name in huge, legible script. In that grand spirit…

I hereby declare my independence…from the small-minded, America-hating, race-bating [sic], Christian-bashing, class-warfare-waging, politically-correct, collectivist, Liberal Hollywood establishment.

Anybody got a problem with that, I’ll mapquest you directions to my front door, we’ll settle it like men.

Signed,

GARY GRAHAM

FDR's policies prolonged Depression by 7 years

2009-01-06T00:52:00.000-08:00

Published in 2004.

In light of today's economic climate, and the corresponding rhetoric, I am reminded of the old saying of what happens to those who do not study history....

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http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonged-Depression-5409.aspx

FDR's policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate

By Meg Sullivan

| 8/10/2004 12:23:12 PM

Two UCLA economists say they have figured out why the Great Depression dragged on for almost 15 years, and they blame a suspect previously thought to be beyond reproach: President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

After scrutinizing Roosevelt's record for four years, Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian conclude in a new study that New Deal policies signed into law 71 years ago thwarted economic recovery for seven long years.

"Why the Great Depression lasted so long has always been a great mystery, and because we never really knew the reason, we have always worried whether we would have another 10- to 15-year economic slump," said Ohanian, vice chair of UCLA's Department of Economics. "We found that a relapse isn't likely unless lawmakers gum up a recovery with ill-conceived stimulus policies."

In an article in the August issue of the Journal of Political Economy, Ohanian and Cole blame specific anti-competition and pro-labor measures that Roosevelt promoted and signed into law June 16, 1933.

"President Roosevelt believed that excessive competition was responsible for the Depression by reducing prices and wages, and by extension reducing employment and demand for goods and services," said Cole, also a UCLA professor of economics. "So he came up with a recovery package that would be unimaginable today, allowing businesses in every industry to collude without the threat of antitrust prosecution and workers to demand salaries about 25 percent above where they ought to have been, given market forces. The economy was poised for a beautiful recovery, but that recovery was stalled by these misguided policies."

Using data collected in 1929 by the Conference Board and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Cole and Ohanian were able to establish average wages and prices across a range of industries just prior to the Depression. By adjusting for annual increases in productivity, they were able to use the 1929 benchmark to figure out what prices and wages would have been during every year of the Depression had Roosevelt's policies not gone into effect. They then compared those figures with actual prices and wages as reflected in the Conference Board data.

In the three years following the implementation of Roosevelt's policies, wages in 11 key industries averaged 25 percent higher than they otherwise would have done, the economists calculate. But unemployment was also 25 percent higher than it should have been, given gains in productivity.

Meanwhile, prices across 19 industries averaged 23 percent above where they should have been, given the state of the economy. With goods and services that much harder for consumers to afford, demand stalled and the gross national product floundered at 27 percent below where it otherwise might have been.

"High wages and high prices in an economic slump run contrary to everything we know about market forces in economic downturns," Ohanian said. "As we've seen in the past several years, salaries and prices fall when unemployment is high. By artificially inflating both, the New Deal policies short-circuited the market's self-correcting forces."

The policies were contained in the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), which exempted industries from antitrust prosecution if they agreed to enter into collective bargaining agreements that significantly raised wages. Because protection from antitrust prosecution all but ensured higher prices for goods and services, a wide range of industries took the bait, Cole and Ohanian found. By 1934 more than 500 industries, which accounted for nearly 80 percent of private, non-agricultural employment, had entered into the collective bargaining agreements called for under NIRA.

Cole and Ohanian calculate that NIRA and its aftermath account for 60 percent of the weak recovery. Without the policies, they contend that the Depression would have ended in 1936 instead of the year when they believe the slump actually ended: 1943.

Roosevelt's role in lifting the nation out of the Great Depression has been so revered that Time magazine readers cited it in 1999 when naming him the 20th century's second-most influential figure.

"This is exciting and valuable research," said Robert E. Lucas Jr., the 1995 Nobel Laureate in economics, and the John Dewey Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago. "The prevention and cure of depressions is a central mission of macroeconomics, and if we can't understand what happened in the 1930s, how can we be sure it won't happen again?"

NIRA's role in prolonging the Depression has not been more closely scrutinized because the Supreme Court declared the act unconstitutional within two years of its passage.

"Historians have assumed that the policies didn't have an impact because they were too short-lived, but the proof is in the pudding," Ohanian said. "We show that they really did artificially inflate wages and prices."

Even after being deemed unconstitutional, Roosevelt's anti-competition policies persisted — albeit under a different guise, the scholars found. Ohanian and Cole painstakingly documented the extent to which the Roosevelt administration looked the other way as industries once protected by NIRA continued to engage in price-fixing practices for four more years.

The number of antitrust cases brought by the Department of Justice fell from an average of 12.5 cases per year during the 1920s to an average of 6.5 cases per year from 1935 to 1938, the scholars found. Collusion had become so widespread that one Department of Interior official complained of receiving identical bids from a protected industry (steel) on 257 different occasions between mid-1935 and mid-1936. The bids were not only identical but also 50 percent higher than foreign steel prices. Without competition, wholesale prices remained inflated, averaging 14 percent higher than they would have been without the troublesome practices, the UCLA economists calculate.

NIRA's labor provisions, meanwhile, were strengthened in the National Relations Act, signed into law in 1935. As union membership doubled, so did labor's bargaining power, rising from 14 million strike days in 1936 to about 28 million in 1937. By 1939 wages in protected industries remained 24 percent to 33 percent above where they should have been, based on 1929 figures, Cole and Ohanian calculate. Unemployment persisted. By 1939 the U.S. unemployment rate was 17.2 percent, down somewhat from its 1933 peak of 24.9 percent but still remarkably high. By comparison, in May 2003, the unemployment rate of 6.1 percent was the highest in nine years.

Recovery came only after the Department of Justice dramatically stepped enforcement of antitrust cases nearly four-fold and organized labor suffered a string of setbacks, the economists found.

"The fact that the Depression dragged on for years convinced generations of economists and policy-makers that capitalism could not be trusted to recover from depressions and that significant government intervention was required to achieve good outcomes," Cole said. "Ironically, our work shows that the recovery would have been very rapid had the government not intervened."

-UCLA-

LSMS368

PC Campus: Academia’s Top 10 Abuses of 2008

2008-12-26T15:17:00.000-08:00

"Brave" new world.

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Banned conservative speakers, stolen votes, assaults on religious liberty, gay English classes, and forbidden Thanksgiving & Christmas celebrations

By Jason Mattera

Young America’s Foundation Spokesman

December 2008

Political correctness ran amuck in our nation’s school system this past year, and Young America’s Foundation has once again compiled our “best of the worst” academic abuses for 2008. From “free speech zones” to transgendered speakers at military academies, the following list may make you both laugh and cry in the same breath. That probably isn’t too surprising, however, since we are talking about academia after all…

1. The free speech “zone.” A student at Yuba College in California was sent an ultimatum by the school’s president: discontinue handing out gospel booklets or face disciplinary action and possibly expulsion. That’s right—gospel booklets. Ryan Dozier, the 20-year-old student, had the audacity to distribute Christian literature without a school permit, which restricts free speech to an hour each Tuesday and Thursday. Yuba College even directs students to where on campus they are allowed to exhibit free speech. In this case, it’s the school theater. Campus police threatened to arrest Ryan if he didn’t comply with the “free speech zone,” oblivious to the fact that students don’t need permission to exercise the First Amendment’s free speech and religious clauses.

2. Transgendered activists in, pro-life speakers out. Liberal administrators at the University of St. Thomas, a Catholic institution in Minnesota, censored the appearance of prominent pro-life speaker Star Parker because campus officials felt “uncomfortable” and “disturbed” by previous conservative speakers at the school. The University’s mission statement claims it values “the pursuit of truth,” “diversity,” and “meaningful dialogue.” Except, not really—or better yet, as long as the said “pursuit” doesn’t offend leftist predilections. Meanwhile, within the past year, the same school hosted Al Franken, the bombastic liberal comedian, and Debra Davis, a transgendered activist who believes God is a black lesbian. Realizing they had a public relations disaster on their hands, the head honchos at St. Thomas eventually reversed the ban on Star Parker.

3. A new meaning of Duty, Honor, Country. Cadets at West Point, the nation’s foremost military academy, must maintain disciplined, selfless behavior—a precursor to the standards graduates are expected to uphold and reinforce once commissioned as military officers. So how does leftist instructor Judy Rosenstein of the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership encourage cadets to appreciate the military’s code of conduct? By hosting a transgendered speaker in class, of course! “Allyson” Robinson, a West Point grad him-, er, herself, switched genders after leaving the Army. Upon returning to West Point as a guest speaker, “Mrs.” Robinson found it “worrisome” that the student composition seemed more socially conservative than when “she” was a student. Perhaps West Point’s leadership should confine speaker invitations to those whose behavior, if emulated, would not get cadets booted from the academy, much less the Army.

4. 2008’s stolen election? Columbia University recently polled students on whether or not they would support the return of the Navy’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) to campus after a 40-year absence. Columbia claimed the referendum lost by 39 votes. However, the University inexplicably closed the online poll at different times for different students and discarded more than 1,900 votes out of the 4,905 cast. To boot, the university showcased its “anti-fraud” measures, revealing they caught one person who purportedly voted 276 times! So much for secure, front-end identification control. In the end, 1,502 “valid” NAYs trumped the 1,463 AYEs. Does anyone else smell some anti-military electioneering rats?

5. When English class turns gay. Heads turned when Deerfield High School in Deerfield, Illinois required this book as part of an Advanced Placement English literature course: Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. The book is laced with graphic sexual content, much of it too inflammatory to print here—although there are “milder” exchanges fit to report, such as one character pleading with his sexual partner to “infect” and “make [him] bleed.” Supporters of Angels in America say the book is useful because it depicts “forgiveness, kindness, and compassion,” as if HIV-positive sodomy is the best way to promote empathy to minors.

6. You can’t pray here! The First Amendment, is it a bestowed right given from above and protected by our government or a meaningless, antiquated concept to be disposed of? If you’re the folks at the College of Alameda in California, you’d pick the latter. How else do you explain their threatening to expel a student who prayed on campus? It all started when a student, Kandy Kyriacou, visited her professor to give her a Christmas gift. But when Kandy saw that her teacher was ill, she offered to pray for her. The professor agreed. That’s when Derek Piazza, another professor, walked in and freaked out that a prayer—gasp, a prayer—was occurring on college premises. “You can’t be doing that in here,” Piazza purportedly barked. Kandy received a retroactive “intent to suspend” letter from the administration, claiming that she was guilty of “disruptive or insulting behavior” and “persistent abuse of” college employees. Further infractions would result in expulsion, the letter read.

7. Hey, that feather cap is racist. For decades, kindergarten classes in the Claremont district of California have celebrated Thanksgiving by dressing up as Pilgrims and Indians and sharing a feast. Harmless, eh? Apparently not. In a letter to her daughter’s elementary school teacher, Michelle Raheja, an English professor at University of California-Riverside, fumed that such activities are “dehumanizing” and serve as a “racist stereotype.” In fact, Ms. Raheja whined that the Thanksgiving costume party is comparable to parading children around as “slaves” and “Jews.” The school district capitulated, and now the toddlers are prohibited from wearing “their hand-made bonnets, headdresses and fringed vests.”

8. Ho, ho, forgetaboutit! Who’s offended by Christmas decorations? All the white liberals who celebrate Kwanza? Must be. Florida Gulf Coast University’s president, Wilson Bradshaw, sent holiday festivities packing because he didn’t know “how best to observe the season in ways that honor and respect all traditions.” Holiday décor wasn’t the only thing to go, under Mr. Bradshaw. The school’s greeting card contest got tossed as well. Cheer up, says, the President—Christmas merriment was replaced with an “ugly sweater competition.” Mr. Bradshaw ultimately had a change of heart, after his embarrassing attempt at censorship became public.

9. Leftist factions compete on who is more multicultural. When eco-fanatics at UC-Berkeley illegally saddled themselves in trees on campus and hurled urine and feces to block the construction of a multi-million dollar athletic facility, probably the last thing they expected was to be called racists. Yet the school’s chancellor, Robert Birgeneau, labeled them just that, saying the environmental radicals were impeding the completion of a new athletic facility designed to attract “minority student athletes.” Puzzled that the chancellor played the race card on them, the tree dwellers argued that “three of the final four” protestors were “Latinos” and the very first hijacker was a “Native American.” One of the Berkeley zealots, who goes by the name “Running Wolf,” said that Mr. Birgenaeau attempted “to pit colored against colored.”

10. Who knew? Universal health care is actually a non partisan issue. Administrators at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minnesota—the nation’s largest Catholic women’s college—unexpectedly blocked young conservatives on campus from hosting Bay Buchanan, a popular conservative commentator and U.S. Treasurer under President Reagan. College officials deemed Ms. Buchanan’s remarks on “Feminism and the 2008 Election” too politically charged, citing concerns about the school’s tax status. Those same “concerns,” mind you, didn’t prohibit the school from sponsoring programs that push for universal healthcare and minimum wage increases or hosting Frank Kroncke, an anti-war radical who is reliving the Vietnam days. But Bay Buchanan? Well, she’s partisan, according to St. Catherine’s administration.

For more information or to schedule an interview, contact Jason Mattera at 800-USA-1776

Editor’s note: Point # 6 occurred in late 2007, but wasn’t reported until 2008, which is why we included it on the list.

Scientists scoff at AP global-warming story

2008-12-17T20:45:00.000-08:00

Great post from Ed Morissey on this subject.

Trying to yell "Stop!" in the face of the religion of global warming is like trying to pray in public: it begats scoffing, ridicule, and condemnation.

Oh, and of course, it's demanded that we set public policy based on global warming, which has not been proven, but if us evil Christians ever tried to do the same thing based on our beliefs, the Nazi comparisons would be front and center. (And of course, our public policy ideas don't involve the eventual destruction, one carbon producing business at a time, of our industrial way of life.)

What an insane idea, that we might want to actually PROVE man-made global warming before taking Western civilization back to the Stone Age. Us bitter gun-clinging right-wingers are just crazy, I tell ya.

And just as a reminder, at the very first Earth Day, they warned of the coming ICE age.

Amazing times we live in.

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http://hotair.com/archives/2008/12/17/scientists-scoff-at-ap-global-warming-story/

Scientists scoff at AP global-warming story

posted at 11:55 am on December 17, 2008 by Ed Morrissey

Remember that global-warming wet kiss from the AP to climate-change activists and Barack Obama earlier this week? Even scientists who believe in global warming couldn’t quite believe their eyes. They called the report by the Seth Borenstein a “polemic” and wondered when research stopped being a requirement for science reporters (via Q&O):

James O’Brien, an emeritus professor at Florida State University who studies climate variability and the oceans, said that global climate change is very important for the country and that Americans need to make sure they have the right answers for policy decisions. But he said he worries that scientists and policymakers are rushing to make changes based on bad science.

“Global climate change is occurring in many places in the world,” O’Brien said. “But everything that’s attributed to global warming, almost none of it is global warming.”

He took issue with the AP article’s assertion that melting Arctic ice will cause global sea levels to rise.

“When the Arctic Ocean ice melts, it never raises sea level because floating ice is floating ice, because it’s displacing water,” O’Brien said. “When the ice melts, sea level actually goes down. I call it a fourth grade science experiment. Take a glass, put some ice in it. Put water in it. Mark level where water is. Let it [melt]. After the ice melts, the sea level didn’t go up in your glass of water. It’s called the Archimedes Principle.”

And that comes from Borenstein’s ally on global warming. O’Brien calls hysteria on sea levels “major scare tactic,” the kind one would expect a science reporter to debunk rather than to perpetuate. He wants public policy on climate change to be informed rather than hysterical. The fact that water is less dense as a solid than as a liquid — which is why ice cubes float in your drink — never seems to occur to the AP’s “science” writer, who probably never heard of the Archimedes Principle before now. The only way melting ice would raise sea levels would be if water was more dense as a solid than a liquid, which if true would mean ice would get submerged below water than float on top of it.

Other scientists blasted the entire basis of Borenstein’s reporting as well as his ignorance of research:

“If the issues weren’t so serious and the ramifications so profound, I would have to laugh at it,” said David Deming, a geology professor at the University of Oklahoma who has been critical of media reporting on the climate change issue. …

“The mean global temperature, at least as measured by satellite, is now the same as it was in the year 1980. In the last couple of years sea level has stopped rising. Hurricane and cyclone activity in the northern hemisphere is at a 24-year low and sea ice globally is also the same as it was in 1980.” …

Michael R. Fox, a retired nuclear scientist and chemistry professor from the University of Idaho, is another academic who found serious flaws with the AP story’s approach to the issue.

“There’s very little that’s right about it,” Fox said. “And it’s really harmful to the United States because people like this Borenstein working for AP have an enormous impact on everyone, because AP sells their news service to a thousand news outlets.

Fox understands the problem, but undersells the scale. When the AP produces propaganda rather than reporting, it gets distributed to thousands of publications around the world. Unfortunately, the rebuttals don’t get that kind of distribution, and the lies and propaganda get accepted as truth.

Unfortunately, that’s been the history of the global-warming cult over the last decade. They accept no challenges, demonize those who question their science, scoff at contradictory data (such as the fact that temperatures have stopped rising), and insist on politicizing their science rather than work from facts. The AP has become the cult’s propaganda arm.

On the Khalil Greene Trade

2008-12-06T13:56:00.000-08:00

Here's what I wrote on the blog of Padres Assistant GM (and former Dodger GM) Paul Depodesta:
( http://itmightbedangerous.blogspot.com/ )

"I don't blame you for being upset at what happened in 2008 and the decrease in payroll scheduled for 2009, but let's not be loose with our accusations."

God bless you, Paul, for trying to talk some sense into the fans who want to believe the worst about the Padres brass.

Facts, logic, and the success prior to this year is a hard sell sometimes with those who believe what they want to. Pitchforks are the "in" thing in SD right now.

That's not to say that I haven't been frustrated myself, or that I haven't entertained ideas that it's time for Moores to consider selling. (He really DOES need to address the community about all this. His silence has been deafening.)

But, I have never once believed that Moores, K.T., and Alderson do not want to win.

This year was horrible, and the organization is taking its lumps for it.

But people seem to forget what a disaster the Dbacks had not too long ago. Hate to break it to people, but 100 loss seasons (near so in the Pads case) can happen with any ballpark, and any revenue stream.

They didn't lose 100 games of course, but ask the Yankees how much $200 million got them this year. For that matter, ask them how many world championships Steinbrenner's money got them this decade.

The Yanks got smoked by a team playing with one-fifth of those dollars. A team that stuck to its plan even as it was constantly a national punchline. (And what a good thing for baseball, if not playoff ratings, the Rays finally breaking the New York-Boston never ending back and forth in the AL East was.)

All this said, regarding Khalil, as a fan reacting on pure emotion, this hurts. Big time.

Seeing yet another homegrown San Diego product depart this town for one of the storied franchises (a la Winfield and Smith) feels like deja vu. (Full disclosure, wasn't alive to see Winfield and Smith, but it's always good to know your history.)

But, the rational side of me knows that Khalil was fragile, not once completing an entire season without some injury.

And, for all his acrobatics in the field, figuring out the breaking ball consistently eluded him. As did any semblance of on base percentage, taking a walk, or approaching a .300 average.

And, it tempers the disappointment a bit to know that this makes Peavy easier to retain.

I've no guilt whatsoever in thinking that we need to get a LOT more for Peavy than has been floated in all the reports. And it seems this trade will make that a reality if Jake indeed goes.

In a choice between Khalil and Peavy, there is no choice.

It's going to be tough to see Greene in a Cards uni.

It's going to be tough watching him potentially reach 30 home runs in Busch stadium (although I read in the Padres fan forum that it's actually 22nd in "hitter friendly" parks, so its bandbox nature is overrated).

But, the Padres tried to keep him, gave him a pretty good offer, and at least now they're making it easier to keep Peavy (if not getting something in return that I think is worth it for Greene).

I do agree with other comments that this was a salary dump, and I shall call that spade a spade.

But, as a salary dump, the Pads could have done worse, and I can appreciate the upside.

My heart goes out to the Padre marketing department.

Selling next season to the fan base right now is Mount Everest.

I do not envy the work you have ahead of you at all.

My Paralegal School Research Project

2008-12-04T01:06:00.000-08:00

The following are two of the three elements to a research project I completed as a part of the University of San Diego Paralegal Program in 2008.

The first is a Case Application Analysis. It is a look at a specific case, and how it relates to the hypothetical legal scenario I was given to solve.

The second is the Memorandum of Law.

It is a broader discussion of all cases that relate to my dilemma, and how our legal "team" could go about defending our "client" in court.

The third element was the research itself, which spans well over 20 pages, and is, of course, not representative of my own writing. (Merely my citations of other writing.) Thus, I'll spare you the reproduction of that.

The legal subject is "fair use", specifically as it applies to the use of copyrighted music in new creations.

I will contain the "tooting of my own horn" to this: I am very proud of them, and I received the highest grade possible. (And should I go to law school, I will look back on them fondly as I get the academic beat down semester after semester. :-) )

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Case Application Analysis
Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music

General Rule

The appropriation and use of copyrighted material is not automatically presumed to be unfair when such use is for commercial purposes. The fair use doctrine, 17 U.S.C. § 107, creates four factors that courts must consider in deciding if the taking of copyrighted material is fair. The creation of parody is a strong fair use defense. The nature of parody is to conjure up the previous work by using material from it. The parodists then create a new, transformative work that comments on (and typically mocks) the original. Since parodies are recognizably different, courts have argued that they do not usurp market demand for the original, and are protected under fair use.

Facts

Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. sued Luke Records (then operating as Skyywalker Records) for copyright infringement in June of 1990. The latter is the record company for a rap group called 2 Live Crew.

In June or July of 1989 (an exact date has not been determined), 2 Live Crew released an album entitled “As Clean As They Wanna Be.” This album included a song called “Pretty Woman.”

Luther Campbell, lead vocalist and song writer for 2 Live Crew, stated via affidavit that this was intended to parody the Ray Orbison and William Dees song “Oh, Pretty Woman.” “Pretty Woman” made obvious use of the melody and bass patterns from “Oh, Pretty Woman.” The credits of the album listed the original song, and gave credit to Orbison, Dees, and their publisher (Acuff-Rose).

Luke Records asked via letter for Acuff-Rose's consent to create this parody. (The parties dispute whether this happened before or after the album's release.) Acuff Rose Music,. Inc. denied this permission . This did not dissuade Luke Records from continuing to sell “As Clean As They Wanna Be.”

In response, Acuff Rose Music, Inc. brought the aforementioned federal lawsuit against Luke Records, in Tennessee District Court.

Issue

Is the song “Pretty Woman”, which uses the melody and bass rhythm from “Oh, Pretty Woman”, protected under the fair use doctrine (17 U.S.C. 107) from copyright infringement prosecution?

Holding

The United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee granted summary judgment in favor of Luke Records. The court recognized “Pretty Woman” as a parody, and held that the defendants had taken only what was necessary to connect the parody to the original. They also determined that “Pretty Woman” criticized the original work. Criticism is explicitly mentioned in the fair use statute [17 U.S.C. 107] as acceptable.

The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court decision. They held that the commercial nature of the “Pretty Woman” parody created a presumption against fair use. And 2 Live Crew, by the appellate court's measure, had taken the “heart” of “Oh, Pretty Woman”, which was too much.

The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari. In a unanimous decision, they reversed the Tennessee Appellate Court, siding once more with Luther Campbell and Luke Records. The case was remanded back to the trial court for further action.
Rationale

The Supreme Court held that the appellate court erred in its reading of Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. They gave too much weight to the following line from Sony: “...every use of copyrighted material is presumptively...unfair...” [Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417, 451 (1984).] But, the Sony opinion did not say that this presumption automatically rules every commercial use as unfair. The appellate court ignored this, deciding that 2 Live Crew's sampling of “Oh, Pretty Woman” was not fair use, because it was for commercial ends. It would be impossible to reconcile this ruling with any other instance of parody. The entire careers of parodists like Weird Al Yankovic would, presumably, be ruled unfair with this precedent. “The statute makes clear that a work's commercial nature is only one element of the first factor enquiry into its purpose and character, and Sony itself called for no hard evidentiary presumption. The Court of Appeals's rule runs counter to Sony and to the long common-law tradition of fair use adjudication.” [Cambpell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569 (1994).] This was the first appellate court claim the Supreme Court overruled.

The second element the Supreme Court overruled was the idea that, by taking the “heart” of “Oh, Pretty Woman”, 2 Live Crew had taken too much, and the use was unfair. The very nature of parody requires that enough of the original be sampled in order to connect the two works. “Even if 2 Live Crew's copying of the original's first line of lyrics and characteristic opening bass riff may be said to go to the original's 'heart,' that heart is what most readily conjures up the song for parody, and it is the heart at which parody takes aim. Moreover, 2 Live Crew thereafter departed markedly from the Orbison lyrics and produced otherwise distinctive music.” [Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569 (1994).] The court stopped short of deciding whether 2 Live Crew's repeating of the bass line was excessive copying. They remanded that element to the trial court for further consideration.

The Supreme Court also rejected Acuff Rose's argument that 2 Live Crew's request for permission to use “Oh, Pretty Woman” should be weighed against a finding of fair use. “Even if good faith were central to fair use, 2 Live Crew's actions do not necessarily suggest that they believed their version was not fair use; the offer may simply have been made in a good-faith effort to avoid this litigation. If the use is otherwise fair, then no permission need be sought or granted. Thus, being denied permission to use a work does not weigh against a finding of fair use.” [Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569, 585 (1994).] The Supreme Court referenced Fisher v. Dees, a case establishing that the law should discount permission in considering fair use. “The parody defense to copyright infringement exists precisely to make possible a use that generally cannot be bought.”[Fisher v. Dees, 794 F.2d 432, 437 (9th Cir. 1986).] The rationale is that courts ought not to punish people who, in good faith, ask for permission, by holding denial of that permission against them. “Even though such gestures are predictably futile, we refuse to discourage them.” [Fisher v. Dees, 794 F.2d 432, 437 (9th Cir. 1986).] And since fair use can legally stand with or without the copyright holder's consent, the courts discard it entirely.

There was one aspect of the case by which the Supreme Court ruled against 2 Live Crew. They ruled that the rap group had not been entitled to the trial court's summary judgment in their favor. 2 Live Crew had offered no affidavit to support their assertion that “Pretty Woman”, as a rap song, would have no detrimental effect on the market demand for “Oh, Pretty Woman”. We can surmise that this is likely, as the two songs are entirely different genres of music. But the Supreme Court held that this question needed to be examined in greater detail than summary judgment had allowed. “If the later work has cognizable substitution effects in protectible markets for derivative works, the law will look beyond the criticism to the work's other elements. 2 Live Crew's song comprises not only parody but also rap music. The absence of evidence or affidavits addressing the effect of 2 Live Crew's song on the derivative market for a nonparody, rap version of 'Oh, Pretty Woman' disentitled 2 Live Crew, as the proponent of the affirmative defense of fair use, to summary judgment.” [Cambpell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569 (1994).]

That excerpt is doubly significant because it raises a critical legal question in determining fair use: Does the new work substitute itself in place of the original in the marketplace? Copyright law does not find infringement with a work that discourages demand for another. For example, a negative newspaper review can do that. Rather, copyright law protects against substituting a creative work in a competing one's place. “We do not, of course, suggest that a parody may not harm the market at all, but when a lethal parody, like a scathing theater review, kills demand for the original, it does not produce a harm cognizable under the Copyright Act.” [Cambpell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569, 591-92 (1994).] The Supreme Court cited to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which made the distinction in Fisher v. Dees: “Biting criticism suppresses demand; copyright infringement usurps it.” [Fisher v. Dees, 794 F.2d 432, 438 (9th Cir. 1986).]

The litigation saga of Acuff Rose Music, Inc. and the 2 Live Crew illustrates the difficulty in resolving fair use disputes. Three different courts, with the same laws and facts before them, came up with three different legal opinions. And, the dispute still had not been fully settled with the Supreme Court ruling, as it was remanded back to the trial court. The parties eventually settled out of court, according to Wikipedia.

[Wikipedia, Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell_v._Acuff-Rose_Music%2C_Inc., (last accessed July 22, 2008).]

Application

Certainly, the facts of Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. are quite similar to our case with Bart Simpson. 2 Live Crew, like our client, sampled an existing song, and used that sample to create a new musical work. As this case went all the way to the Supreme Court, there is no higher legal authority for us to look for Bart Simpson's defense.

The basic issue of Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. applies here. Is it fair use to appropriate a portion of a copyright protected song, and use it in your own musical work?

Courts arrive at the answer by applying the four factors to be considered from the fair use statute (17 U.S.C. 107). The first factor, the purpose and character of the use, was examined extensively in the Acuff-Rose cases. We can find our first affirmative defense in what the Supreme Court decided. They ruled that the use of copyrighted material for commercial purposes does not always mean that the use is unfair. Judges must still fully analyze the case, based on all the factors from the statute. This helps us with Bart Simpson because it reinforces the point that there can be the no hasty decision here. A court cannot rule against our client without considering all the factors from the fair use statute. This is true, regardless of whether Bart Simpson intends to sell his created song or not.

Our second affirmative defense can be found in the Supreme Court's opinion on permission, and its irrelevance in fair use cases. Their opinion makes clear that denial of permission from the copyright holder should not carry any weight against a finding of fair use. 2 Live Crew did ask for Acuff Rose's consent to use “Oh, Pretty Woman”, and such consent was denied. Bart Simpson did not ask Stevie Wonder if he could use “Golden Girl”. Since Stevie Wonder has sued to prevent this use, we can obviously assume that he does not approve. But, we can point to this case to demonstrate that Stevie Wonder's approval, or lack thereof, for Bart Simpson to use “Golden Girl”, is irrelevant in determining fair use.

Our last affirmative defense can be found in the Supreme Court's holding on the third fair use factor (the amount and substantiality of the portion taken). They ruled that 2 Live Crew's sampling of the entire melody from “Oh, Pretty Woman” was not too much taking to preclude fair use. The obvious correlation is that if it is okay for 2 Live Crew to take that much, then surely Bart Simpson's three second sample is harmless. But, we then run into a qualifier that eliminates this broad claim. Taking the “heart” of “Oh, Pretty Woman” was permissible because it was done in the context of a parody. The Supreme Court's view is that 2 Live Crew took no more than was necessary to conjure up the original song. The nature of parody requires that a connection be made between the parody and the original. As such, what 2 Live Crew did was permissible. If Bart Simpson can demonstrate that his creation is a parody of Stevie Wonder's “Golden Girl”, then this case provides solid legal precedent for his defense. If he has not created a parody, then it is much less helpful.

Counter Arguments

This question of the nature of Bart Simpson's song brings us to potential arguments from the plaintiff. The best basis for a counter argument is stated in Campbell as follows: “It is uncontested here that 2 Live Crew's song would be an infringement of Acuff-Rose's rights in 'Oh, Pretty Woman,' under the Copyright Act of 1976, but for a finding of fair use through parody.” [Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569, 574 (1994).] If Bart Simpson's work is not a parody of “Golden Girl”, then plaintiff can argue that it usurps the market for the original work, and thus violates copyright protection.

The plaintiff may inquire as to how Bart Simpson came in possession of “Golden Girl” in the first place. If, for example, Bart Simpson downloaded the song from the Internet, or acquired it by some other means besides a purchase, then the plaintiff may object to that. That issue is outside the scope of fair use, and certainly not addressed by this particular case. Certainly, it will help our client if he acquired a copy of “Golden Girl” through a purchase or as a gift. But, alleged damages from any piracy of the music on our client's part is an entirely different legal question than fair use.

The plaintiff will almost certainly object to our client using his work without permission. We, fortunately, have already demonstrated that issue to be irrelevant in fair use cases. Stevie Wonder certainly is entitled to take exception to it, but it has no bearing on whether our client's use of “Golden Girl” is fair use.

Rebuttal

We have rendered the third objection moot. The second objection, if our client indeed pirated the music, can best be addressed by asking for a separate trial on the matter. If piracy can be alleged against our client, there will likely be factual disputes at hand. Such disputes can only be resolved by a jury. Fair use is a matter of law, and can be resolved by a judge alone.

That brings us back to arguing the nature of Bart Simpson's creative work. This is undoubtedly the most complicated aspect of the case, and by extension, any fair use analysis. The judge must answer the critical question of whether Bart Simpson's song appropriates “Golden Girl”'s place in the music market.

As previously discussed, if the work is a parody, then Campbell grants Bart Simpson a strong legal defense against copyright infringement. Referencing the fair use statute, parody falls under the categories of “criticism” and “comment”. Both are explicitly protected from copyright infringement damages. If Simpson's song is not a parody, we then enter into a substantive analysis of its musical qualities. The judge must determine if it renders itself sufficiently different from “Golden Girl” to be construed as criticizing or commenting on the original. If Bart Simpson has created a song with very similar musical qualities as “Golden Girl”, then it is likely our client will be found guilty of usurping the original's demand. If Simpson's song exists in a different musical genre than the original, that is not much help to us. Without the parody aspect of 2 Live Crew's “Pretty Woman”, the Supreme Court would not have upheld fair use protection (despite the song's differing musical genre from “Oh, Pretty Woman”). Absent the parody defense, we are left to somehow convince a judge that Simpson's work comments or critiques the original, in a manner that renders it noticeably different. We are then relying not on legal precedent, but on our ability to persuade the judge.

The best thing for our client in that circumstance would be to dissuade him from having any designs on selling his “Golden Girl” creation. If we eliminate the intent to sell, we can then raise the defense that Simpson's song is merely for private, personal use. We can look elsewhere for legal precedent on that. But based on the rationale of Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, I do not believe that our client, with the intent to sell, can avoid liability for copyright infringement if his song is not a parody.

Conclusion

If Bart Simpson has created a parody of “Golden Girl”, it is likely that he will not be liable for copyright infringement. If his song is not a parody, it is likely a judge will not consider it to be protected under fair use. In that event, he can possibly avoid liability by keeping the song solely for his personal use.

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Memorandum

To: Partner
From: Associate: Michael C. Knudsen
Re: Our client: Bart Simpson's liability for copyright infringement.

Our client, Bart Simpson, has been sued by Stevie Wonder for copyright infringement. This memo propounds the legal precedent and rationale for our defense of this lawsuit.

Statement of Facts

Bart Simpson takes snippets of songs (approximately three seconds) and uses them as part of larger song creations. He did this with the Stevie Wonder song “Golden Girl”.

This came to Mr. Wonder's attention, and he has sued Bart Simpson for copyright infringement.

Issue Presented

Under federal law, can Stevie Wonder bring an action against Bart Simpson for copyright infringement? Does the short duration of Bart's “Golden Girl” sample (approximately three seconds) allow him to claim that the use of the work is trivial, or de minimis? Can Mr. Wonder allege damages against Mr. Simpson, when Bart has not profited from the sampled song creation? Can Bart successfully defend the creation of his song through the fair use doctrine?

Brief Answer

Stevie Wonder can bring legal action against Bart Simpson for copyright infringement. Nothing in law prevents him from doing so. The de minimis principle applies only when the average audience would not recognize the appropriation. [Fisher v. Dees, 794 F.2d 432 (9th Cir. 1986).] Given that Stevie Wonder himself recognized it, de minimis would not likely hold up to judicial scrutiny. There is strong precedent that defends Bart Simpson's right to create this work for his own private use. An example is Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., which held that private home recordings of television shows did not violate copyright law. [Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417 (1984).] The Copyright Act of 1976 created four factors for courts to consider in deciding if the fair use doctrine applies to a particular case. If Bart Simpson has created a parody of “Golden Girl”, Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music sets a strong precedent for protecting his work as fair use. But if it is not a parody, Campbell sets an equally strong precedent to find him liable for copyright infringement, if he intends to sell his creation. [Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569 (1994).]

Discussion

Let's begin with a discussion of “de minimis”. Black's Law Dictionary defines it as something “so insignificant that a court may overlook it in deciding an issue or case.” [Black's Law Dictionary 361(Bryan A. Garner ed., 8th ed., West 2004).] On the face of it, Bart's taking of a mere three seconds of Stevie Wonder's “Golden Girl” seems trivial. But, we find a clear definition of de minimis as applied to musical works in Fisher v. Dees. “As a rule, a taking is considered de minimis only if it is so meager and fragmentary that the average audience would not recognize the appropriation.” [Fisher v. Dees, 794 F.2d 432 (9th Cir. 1986).] Since Stevie Wonder himself has already recognized the taking of his music, we know that at least one person sees the reference. We could, in theory, play the song for an actual audience, and see if they recognize it. This is an unlikely and risky avenue of defense. It leads us into ambiguous areas. What constitutes an “average” audience? How many of them need to successfully identify “Golden Girl” to eliminate de minimis as a defense? Furthermore, if one audience does not perceive the sample, it is not out of the question that another crowd will. There are far better legal arguments at our disposal than de minimis.

The Copyright Act of 1976 took the principle of” fair use” (which up until then existed in common law) and codified it in federal statute. The statute, 17 U.S.C. 107, creates four factors that courts must consider in determining if a creative work qualifies as fair use.

These are as follows:

1) the purpose and character of the use, 2) the nature of the copyrighted work, 3) the amount and substantiality of the portion taken in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole, and 4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the original.

In considering “purpose and character”, what does the first factor of the statute mean? First, it asks courts to consider “whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes.” The Supreme Court in Sony Corp. of America v. Universal Studios, Inc. held that “...every commercial use of copyrighted material is presumptively an unfair exploitation of the monopoly privilege that belongs to the owner of the copyright...” [Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417, 451 (1984).] But, this presumption can be overcome. The statute explicitly lists the following uses of creative material as fair use: criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research. For our purposes, let's focus on the first two.

A parody of a musical work restates the original melody, and then alters the song in some fashion (usually to humorous or mocking effect). Courts have ruled that parodies fall under these protected categories of “criticism” and “comment”, because they make themselves distinctly different from the songs they reference. The Supreme Court in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Musicruled that the use of copyrighted material for commercial purposes, in the creation of a parody, is not unfair. “Parody, like other comment and criticism, may claim fair use.” [Cambpell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569 (1994).] Thus, the first factor creates a legal basis for Bart Simpson's defense, if he has indeed created a parody of “Golden Girl”. It establishes Bart Simpson's right, under fair use, to sell and market the song as a parody.

The second factor, “the nature of the copyrighted work”, means little to us in this case. The language literally tells courts to consider what the creative work in the dispute is. As the Supreme Court wrote in Campbell: “This factor calls for recognition that some works are closer to the core of intended copyright protection than others, with the consequence that fair use is more difficult to establish when the former works are copied.” [Cambpell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569, 586 (1994).] They went on to state that the factor was “not much help in this case, or ever likely to help much in separating the fair use sheep from the infringing goats in a parody case, since parodies almost invariably copy publicly known, expressive works.” [Cambpell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569, 586 (1994).] Whether or not Bart Simpson has created a parody, he has certainly copied a publicly known, expressive work. Having determined this, the second factor is no help in determining if our client is protected under fair use.

The third factor, “the amount and substantiality of the portion used”, gives us another element to a parody defense for Bart Simpson. The Supreme Court in Campbell ruled that 2 Live Crew's sampling and re-use of the melody from “Oh, Pretty Woman”was not unfair, again in the context of parody. “Even if 2 Live Crew's copying of the original's first line of lyrics and characteristic opening bass riff may be said to go to the original's 'heart,' that heart is what most readily conjures up the song for parody, and it is the heart at which parody takes aim.” [Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569 (1994).] With this precedent, if Bart Simpson has parodied “Golden Girl”, then there can be little doubt that his three second sample is fair use

The fourth and final factor, “the effect on the market demand for the original”, can also be strongly defended in parody cases. Turning once again to Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, the Supreme Court wrote as follows: “But when, ...the second use is transformative, market substitution is at least less certain, and market harm may not be so readily inferred. Indeed, as to parody pure and simple, it is more likely that the new work will not affect the market for the original in a way cognizable under this factor, that is, by acting as a substitute for it...” [Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569, 588 (1994).] The question is not whether the new work discourages demand for the original, but whether it substitutes itself in place of its predecessor. This critical distinction was established by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Fisher v. Dees. “Biting criticism suppresses demand; copyright infringement usurps it.” [Fisher v. Dees, 794 F.2d 432, 438 (9th Cir. 1986).] So, if Bart Simpson's song is a parody, it is not substituting itself in place of “Golden Girl”, and thus is protected under fair use.

One more defense worth mentioning is that the issue of permission from the copyright holder is irrelevant in fair use cases. The fact that Stevie Wonder did not consent to Bart Simpson's use of his music does not weigh against a finding of fair use. This was established in Fisher v. Dees, and affirmed again in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music. “If the use is otherwise fair, then no permission need be sought or granted. Thus, being denied permission to use a work does not weigh against a finding of fair use.” [Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569, 585 (1994).] Stevie Wonder will likely raise the issue, but it does not hurt our client's defense.

Now, if Bart Simpson's song that samples “Golden Girl” is not a parody, where does that leave us? We will then have a far more difficult task in defending his right to produce and sell the creation. Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music explicitly stated that, absent the parody defense, 2 Live Crew would have been guilty of infringing copyright protection. “It is uncontested here that 2 Live Crew's song would be an infringement of Acuff-Rose's rights in 'Oh, Pretty Woman,' under the Copyright Act of 1976, but for a finding of fair use through parody.” [Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569, 574 (1994).] This would become, of course, a powerful tool of persuasion at our opponent's disposal. We have ruled out the de minimis defense. Thus, we are left to argue that Bart's three-second sample is so less significant than the taking of an entire melody as to render it incomparable to the facts of Campbell. Furthermore, we would enter into a complex analysis of Bart Simpson's song. We would need to convince a judge that it is so different from “Golden Girl” as to render it harmless from a market standpoint. We would be relying not on a legal basis for Bart Simpson's defense, but on the judge's subjective opinion. This is, obviously, a precarious defense.

If Bart Simpson has not created a parody, then it would vastly improve his legal defense if he abandons any desire to sell his created work. In that event, we can look to Sony Corp. of America v. Universal Studios, Inc. to defend his right to create music for personal use. “A challenge to a noncommercial use of a copyrighted work requires proof either that the particular use is harmful, or that if it should become widespread, it would adversely affect the potential market for the copyrighted work.” [Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417, 451 (1984).] This requires us to demonstrate that Bart's song for his personal use will not harm “Golden Girl"'s market. While it would seem to be an easy task, the wording of Sony creates some challenge for us. “What is necessary is a showing by a preponderance of the evidence that some meaningful likelihood of future harm exists.” [Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417, 451 (1984).] This is the lowest “burden of proof” standard in law for our opponent to overcome. Given the fact that the likelihood must be “meaningful”, I am confident that our side can prevail in such an argument. Our opponent might speculate that Bart intends to surreptitiously spread his song about, perhaps through the Internet. But I, for one, do not regard speculation as meaningful.

Conclusion

We have a strong defense for our client if he has created a parody of Stevie Wonder's “Golden Girl”. The court will likely absolve him from copyright infringement liability, via fair use. If he has not created a parody, then our best action is to counsel him against selling his created song. We can defend him on the basis that his song is purely for personal use.

1st Post

2008-12-03T02:32:00.001-08:00

Well, blogs are the "in" thing amongst all the kiddos these days.

So, here I am.