Thursday, October 25, 2007

It’s On

I predicted last year I though Rudy would win the nomination (even though I’m still leaning toward Fred). It’s still early, but I suspect this trend will only strengthen unless Fred or Huckabee manage to surprise people. Hillary, I think, should get used to being behind in the polls.

The latest Quinnipiac University poll puts Republican Rudy Giuliani ahead of Democratic rival Hillary Clinton among Florida voters. Giuliani leads Clinton 46-43 percent in the poll of 1,025 Florida voters. The margin of error is 3 percent.

The former New York mayor is still dominating the GOP electorate in the state, with 30 percent, while former Sen. Fred Thompson and current Sen. John McCain were now tied at 14 percent – suggesting Thompson isn’t wooing conservatives as much as his campaign had hoped and McCain is still hanging around.

Creeping Fascism Watch

Whatever you may think of Ron Paul, he raises plenty of good points in this essay. When governments are given more power they are loathe to give it back later. Income tax was supposed to be a temporary thing. So were a lot of other taxes that are still with us. The restrictions we have on our travel are probably not going away without a fight. If anything, they will probably get worse the next time we have a terrorist incident.

Politicians always claim they are looking out for us when they take away our freedoms. But we should never be suckered by that idea. Anny time a politicians uses the term for the children that should be grounds to vote them out of office. It’s never for the children.

If you’re a Bush hater who thinks the administration is making America a fascist state, you should be paying attention to what Democrats and nanny-staters are doing to stop smoking, fast food and anything else that annoys them. The so called “fight against global warming” is another tool of the political elite to get more power. Its based on bogus assumptions and logical fallacies.

The bottom line is, control freaks of any political stripe are never satisfied with the power they have. They will always want more. And in getting it, they will still be hungry. This is why limited government is a good thing. The people should have the right to say no. They should always have that right.

Perry de Havilland over at Samizdata breaks it down even further.

I have argued in the past that violent repression, gulags and mass murder are not in fact the defining characteristics for a state to be ‘totalitarian’. The defining characteristic is, as the word itself suggests, that control over people be pervasive and total… mass murderousness, goose-stepping troops, waving red (or whatever) flags are merely an incidental consequence and which can be better described in other ways (such as ‘tyrannical, murderous, dictatorial, brutal, national socialist, communist, islamo-fascist etc.).

As a result my view is that we in the west are already well on the way to a new form of post-modern totalitarian state (what Guy Herbert calls ‘soft fascism’) in which behaviour and opinions which are disapproved of by the political class are pathologised and then regulated by violence backed laws “for your own good’’ or “for the children” or “for the environment”.

The way smokers are being ostracized may make sense if you hate smoke. I’m not a smoker and don’t like it, either. But I know when people’s liberties are being trampled on. If they can do it to smokers, they can do it to others. And they are already started on that path with things like junk food and global warming skeptics. Organized hate campaigns are active in both the media and the internet, targeting those who don’t have the “correct” viewpoint.

It’s important that we don’t get tricked into going along with the hype machine. This is why I may sound like a broken record sometimes. But I think we have to stand up against this never ending wave of restrictions coming down the pike.

If we all speak out, we can scare some of the politicians into backing down. Provided we do it before they get more powerful.

UPDATE: Speak of the devil.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Poundcake

Bill Cosby speaks some sense to his community. This is a real leader. he is willing to say things that might be unpopular to some. The people it would be unpopular with are the people who need to listen the most.

It’s too bad some will think he’s just an angry old man. Because here is a guy who lived in segregated times and worked his way up from nothing to become a very rich man. He knows what he’s talking about.

And frankly, a lot of communities could use this speech.

What a View

Nice!

Go Red Sox!

I’m not a big sports fan, but my sister Susan is, and she works as a consultant to the Red Sox. She does statistical analysis for them and ever since she started working for them a few years back, they have been doing well. They won the last world series when she was there. I remember when she started, her goal was to help them break the curse of the Bambino. And now they’re in their second world series. She just emailed me from the game on her blackberry.

So I’m rooting for them. So far they’re ahead by 2. Make that 3. 

Why the Dems Bug Me

They were blaming Katrina on Bush and Global Warming when neither were the source of the problem. The federal government isn’t a first responder to tragedies. The local government has that responsibility. Katrina hit more places that New Orleans, but obviously, the first responders on those other areas, like Mississippi had their act together and New Orleans and the Governor of Louisiana did not. Notice, the people of Louisiana elected a Republican recently. That Democrat experiment didn’t work so well for them.

Now, the Dems are trying to blame the California fires on Republicans and Iraq. They are trying to turn it into a new Katrina. They have no shame.

California has big fires about every five years. They have had them for as long as people have lived there. If anything, Governor Schwarzenegger has done and exemplary job handling this crisis. But the blame gamers are doing their damnedest to throw hysteria around because that’s all they know how to do. They lack any real leadership skills. They only know how to cast stones and point fingers.

And of course, Senator Poindexter has to throw out the usual crank comment.

“One reason why we have the fires in California is global warming,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters Tuesday, stressing the need to pass the Democrats’ comprehensive energy package.

You really see the quality of a person when they are put under pressure. Many of the Democrats are showing us how worthless they are.

The Surge is Working

Back when I was a teenager, parts of San Diego, California were pretty scummy. It was a navy town, so there were a lot of sleaze merchants catering to sailors. And it was the 70s, so a lot of things were run down. This was a common problem all over in those days. New York City was bankrupt and crime was out of control. There were problems all over.

Many people thought that was the way it was going to be from now on. The nation was in a funk. The economy was bad. There was a kind of depression hanging over things, which some blamed on our capitulation in the Vietnam war.

But then, police in San Diego started doing something called “sweeps”, They would double and triple the police presence in troubled areas. They would roust anyone who looked like a drug dealer or troublemaker and lo and behold, things started changing for the better. Downtown used to be like something out of the Taxi Driver. The Gaslamp Quarter was like 42 street in New York. Nothing there but pimps, pushers and prostitutes (and their customers). Now the area is a fantastic tourist attraction with great restaurants, clubs and shops.

The same thing happened later in New York when Rudy Giuliani became mayor. He used a similar technique to the sweeps and things got radically better. Residents in trouble areas wanted a change. But individually they didn’t see how it would ever get better. Now, New York is one of the safest large cities in America.

I’ve said from the beginning we can win in Iraq if we don’t get too PC about it. After WWII they had the same kind of problems with an insurgency in Germany as Nazi hold overs committed acts of terror and sabotage against the coalition. In four years we shut them down by executing any one who was caught. The people of Germany were war weary, so they started to help the coalition find the terrorists. And the pece began to reign.

After a lot of false starts, it looks like the same tactics are helping end the conflicts in Iraq.

October is on course to record the second consecutive decline in U.S. military and Iraqi civilian deaths and American commanders say they know why: the U.S. troop increase and an Iraqi groundswell against al Qaeda and Shiite militia extremists. Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch points to what the military calls ‘’Concerned Citizens’’ - both Shiites and Sunnis who have joined the American fight. He says he’s signed up 20,000 of them in the past four months.

One of the things that encouraged the enemy there was the mixed signals they got from the US media. If you read our press you’d think the US would be giving up any day because it sounded like our politicians and the people wanted us out of Iraq. But once they realized we weren’t giving up an even the Democrats admitted we would be there for years, Iraqis felt they could trust us to stay and the enemy realized they couldn’t sustain the fight.

Pulling out of Vietnam when we did was a major mistake. It could have been won. Hopefully, we will be vindicated in Iraq by staying to finish the job. It is a winnable situation. It will just take the right approach and an even hand.

There was definitely a lot of things that went wrong and a lot of waste and abuse. Wars tend to be messy. That’s why they should be a last resort. People needlessly die. Money gets stolen or wasted and cities get razed. But sometimes it has to happen. To secure the region and end the grip of Islamic extremists, it would take intervention. There are now few places they Islamists have national support. Basically Syria and Iran. Syria is a weak state propped up by Iran. If Iran falls, so does Syria. And then the radicals will be underground everywhere they are. The only question mark is Pakistan which looks unstable. We’ll have to watch that one.

It’s not a time to relax but where much closer to our goals than we were a couple years ago. It is possible to feel some optimism, but its too early to be sure.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, another anti-war fraud gets exposed. We had the same kind of BS happening during Vietnam. The same liars and fake GIs claiming atrocities by US troops. There should be serious consequences for people like that. They deserve a public flogging at the very least. 

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Reads of the Day

I hate to sound like a broken record but Global Warming hysteria is a threat to liberty and our livelihoods. If you haven’t done so, check out Pat Buchanan’s article today. I never thought I would ever utter those words, but he hits it out of the park.

And check out this John Stossel piece as well. 

The Scariest Candidate

While many Dems talk about how scary they think Bush/Cheny is, they really don’t know from scary. The Administration they angrily defended in the 90s is the other that threatens to come back around in the next election. One of the creepiest things the Clinton’s did was they way they handled the press. All administrations try to manipulate the press, and send out false stories to confuse enemies or bury bad news on weekends when no one is watching. But the way the Clintons did it was like something out of a totalitarian state. You could almost imagine them dreaming of having Peron status in the US.

Politicians don’t call it dissembling, deceiving, or lying. They call it media management, and no administration has practiced this black art better in recent times than that of President Bill Clinton. In his 1998 book, Spin Cycle: Inside the Clinton Propaganda Machine, Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post describes how, after the disastrous first half of the first term, the Clintonites learned how to stage and contain the news by “alternately seducing, misleading, and sometimes intimidating the press.”

And this is from Slate! In fact, there are many critics of the Clintons in the press, and many Dems who distrust them. 50% of likely voters polled says they’ll refuse to vote for Hillary. But Bill Clinton won by less that 50% of the popuylar vote both times. So it’s going to take some work to ensure they don’t get another stay in the White House. 

Disturbing Picture Dujour

Is that some kind of fun house?