We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Mitt Romney’s speech today (text) on foreign policy stands in stark contrast to President Obama’s muddling, kowtowing to despots, undermining allies, and hollowing of our military readiness, and in contrast to the isolationism of Ron Paul and the sentiments but lack of meat from Perry and Bachmann.A reaction:
Romney’s unapologetic statement of American exceptionalism and devotion to the promotion of freedom as well as his understanding of the threats facing the country from Islamism, Iran, as well as China and Russia, provides encouragement for conservatives who have been waiting to hear whether he is up to the task of being commander-in-chief…. some of the most interesting points concerned Romney’s commitment to reversing Obama’s cuts in defense spending….Romney’s speech, like the roster of foreign policy advisers his campaign released yesterday, should quiet worries he isn’t prepared to meet the dangers a feckless Obama will leave for his successor.
As he did on his jobs plan, Romney’s foreign policy rollout is detailed, organized, professional and aided by very smart people. The logistics of assembling a big team of top advisors, crafting a short but bold speech and coming up with a detailed written document are daunting and impressive. The level of detail is unlike anything any other candidate has attempted, and far exceeds what we usually get in campaigns. This is Romney the executive, Romney the smart guy and Romney the polished professional. His message is clear: I’m prepared and I know what I am doing.
But what is surprising about his foreign policy effort is that unlike his economic plans and what has come top be seen as a character defect (e.g. lack of strong convictions) his foreign policy statements are bold, unqualified, and not couched for political advantage.
A skeptic can say it’s just campaign talk. A cynic can say that we can’t afford to be leader of the free world and the free world of the world. An opponent can say it’s rewarmed George Bush or neoconservative.
This Republican must say this is real leadership. There are many reasons for many Republicans to be shy of Romney as less conservative than they would like. True. And, if this is the best that can be gotten, it exceeds any realistic alternative, by a long shot.
If there is one political theme here at Maggie's, it is distrust of the power and of the wisdom of the state. Especially, the remote governmental powers. We have faith in the ability of the individual citizen to make his own choices and decisions according to his own lights. We do believe in collectivism, of the voluntary sort.
Regarding close-up government, in my town, you can walk into our First Selectman's office (if you bring a Starbucks for her with you) or Second Selectman's office, and chat about anything for a bit. They only work 9-3, so you have to bear that in mind. If somebody else is there too, you all chat together. That works for me. We're a small town.
What if your kid is too skinny? What if she's an early anorectically-minded girl who nibbles on lettuce and is driving you to exasperation? Should that 14 year-old be taken from you while you are charged with felony child-neglect?
I hear all of these stories. Life is full of all sorts of stories. I tend to fall on the freedom side of things. It's messy and things go wrong, but that's the way life is. Freedom to screw up is the closest to utopia we're gonna get.
And, if we are to see government control of medical care, what if I am too fat for their cost statistics? Can they take me away from me?
The extremism of R2P’s leading proponent is exhibited in Anne-Marie Slaughter’s op-ed in today’s New York Times. Slaughter likens the Wall Street protesters to those demonstrating against oppressive regimes in the Middle East and recommends removal of the US system of checks and balances that protect minority views and avoid poorly developed political stampedes. (Slaughter doesn’t mention or give credence to the more numerous, mature citizenry participating in or supporting the Tea Parties more peaceful protests for more limited government intrusions into Americans’ private lives and earnings.)
R2P’s leading proponent, Anne-Marie Slaughter of Harvard, believes that US foreign policies and military interventions should prioritize the Right To Protect severely repressed peoples through US obeisance to liberal internationalist elites’ sentiments in favor of some they like regardless of the US Constitution or laws or national or security interests.
In today’s New York Times, Slaughter takes her R2P home to the US, advocating that majorities rule regardless of the formal and informal checks and balances of our political system and overriding the rights of political minorities. Again, it is the majorities that liberals like who should be given more powers.
Without any sense of proportionality or of core differences between the US and Middle East satrapies, Slaughter says, “Indeed, the twin drivers of America’s nascent protest movement against the financial sector are injustice and invisibility, the very grievances that drove the Arab Spring.” Slaughter then concludes, “The only effective response is a political response, of a nature and magnitude that convinces protesters on the streets that they can in fact secure the change they seek within, rather than outside, the system.”
Slaughter’s system, however, would reduce the ability of permanent or transitory political minorities to protect their interests. They would, also, further factionalize the US and make compromises more difficult as the power of centrists is reduced.
Slaughter would eliminate the filibuster that ensures that a temporary electoral minority in the US Senate cannot be ridden over roughshod by the majority of the day (which, in the latest 1-vote US Senate Democrat majority vote has – as Politico headlines – put the “Senate in chaos”). Slaughter would install proportional representation, which often result in more unstable governance and unsavory alliances that revolve around access to the public purse and less accountability to any but each faction's die-hards. Slaughter would bar private funding in elections, by which the smaller number of wealthy can counterbalance the votes of the poorer who blithely may support expropriatory programs. (Note: The US Supreme Court has ruled such laws unconstitutional.) In effect, Slaughter supports transitory mob rule, politely of course.
Slaughter ends by commenting, “I am beginning to suspect that people abroad with long experience of disenfranchisement and trampling of their dignity may in fact understand the fissures in our society better than we do ourselves.”
Instead, Slaughter exhibits her liberal elitist view of the US, and demonstrates that she is as extremist in domestic policy as in foreign policy.
What makes me suspect Slaughter and her ilk would be more hesitant to endorse simple majority rule after the 2012 elections?
I was drifting around the TV one weekend back in '94. I blundered across the U.S. Amateur Golf Championship, but, only being interested in the pros, I reached to click the remote.
But, well, the kid was about ready to hit his putt, and it's pretty rude to make any abrupt movements at that point, so I held off on the remote for a sec.
The ball rolled toward the hole a long 30 feet away. It rolled up a slight slope and veered to the left. It rolled up another slope and veered to the right. Then it veered to the left again. It crept right up to the hole...
and dropped in.
That was my introduction to Tiger Woods. I've rarely missed an event he's been in since.
I am not going to sit it out - Brown has been nudging his constituency as far to the center as they can tolerate in MA. Maybe further. I give him credit for that.
“Barack Obama is a bigger disaster to this country than 9-11. If you took the phrase ‘fair share’ ‘millionaires and billionaires’ and ‘pass this bill’ out of his vocabulary he would be unable to deliver a speech… The American people developed a fighting spirit after 9-11 and we responded back after them. And if allowed to defeat would be total. But, Barack Obama, what he has done to our economy, what he has done to the American spirit of individual responsibility and self-reliance… Killing three thousand people is a tragedy, Sean. It is a real tragedy. But, killing the individualism, the self-reliance, and the self respect of the American people like Barack Obama has done is much more of a tragedy.”
It’s all very odd. Obama is acting as if his approval ratings are in the mid-60s instead of the low 40s. He’s acting as if Republicans fear him instead of Democrats like Senator Claire McCaskill, who no longer want to be seen with him. The president is acting like his agenda is popular rather than radioactive. He’s acting as if the public still cares what he thinks rather than having tuned him out long ago. And he’s acting as if Republicans will feel compelled to justify their opposition to this singularly inept chief executive and his failing presidency.
Obama is once again trying to weave a narrative that is utterly detached from the real world. From time to time my son does the same thing.
If you look at methods alone, there isn't a huge difference between the Wall Street protests and the Tea Party protests. They have very different values, different demands, and different bases of support. But both utilize the First Amendment as a means of making their point.
The Wall Streeters are more rowdy, and as a result have seen quite a bit of police involvement. There have been far fewer arrests at individual Tea Party events. Some of the Wall Street arrests and the overly physical nature of the police are unnecessary. But there is little doubt the Wall Streeters are far more provocative and looking to antagonize the police, given the nature of the agitators involved. We've seen them before. They know the best way to get on TV is to create a scene, and they are good at doing it. Is it a surprise so much of the 'police violence' is being caught on video? They are planning to get this on video by initiating events which will lead to the use of violence, even at moments when the police probably should show more restraint.
So why does Obama view one set of protestors an "expression of frustration", while the other is "misidentifying sort of who the culprits are"? Both are viable protests, seeking to make points and be heard. From that standpoint, both are worthy of having Obama's full attention. But no, one has been formally rejected by the "vast majority" of Americans.
To be clear, there is no reason to prevent either group from gathering, protesting, or speaking. It's unfair to say one is more legitimate than the other. But for our country's leader to recognize one as more valid than the other is absurd. Particularly when the group which he considers more valid has not made its agenda clear, is only advocating a never ending list of grievances without valid solutions, and is provoking violent activity (some of it, but not all, unwarranted) on the part of the police. Tea Partiers, whether you support or oppose them, have tended to gather peacefully and have made their agenda clear. They support smaller government, lower taxes and they oppose crony capitalism. What's interesting is the two groups share that final point. Where they differ is on solutions.
The Tea Party solves crony capitalism by shrinking government and getting it out of the way. The Wall Street protestors don't have a clear solution, but it's clear increasing the role of government is part of their solution. Increasing that role with politicians 'who care'. In other words, people like them.
The Wall Streeters' world is like Orwell's "Animal Farm", where some people are more equal than others. Their solution, unfortunately, is to keep it that way, but change the people who are more equal.
Few economists, and even fewer politicians, have dared utter the word 'Depression'. It's making a comeback, though. Are we in one? My guess is, no not yet. We've been close, and the economy isn't exactly moving in a direction that makes one think there's tremendous upside.
But we haven't been in anything more than a prolonged, deep recession.
Given the state of affairs surrounding debt, political inertia, crony capitalism, manufacturing, foreign exchange and unstable currency, it won't take much to force the U.S. into a much deeper downturn which would be labeled a Depression.
"They may have stopped another 'Great' depression but not a depression and what for many was the most profound lesson of economic history may turn out to be wrong," he said, adding the fact that government debts and obligations were already so high before the crisis pump priming meant they now risked backfiring.
I think that most sane people have spent the past three years of the Obama administration exerting their tolerance because, after all, he is the President. That tolerance has been extended as it would to a toddler trying to figure out how to use a screwdriver, or a teenager who thinks Liquid Wrench is a joke. But President Obama is an adult. He just can't be such a screw-up as he appears. He just can't be such a leftist extremist. By now, believing their eyes, most (as polls attest) are through with shredded tolerance. He's an ossified 60s radical who never grew up or learned anything.
For a time I thought all such talk was cynical politics, offered up to bond with the “rubes” in America who might be convinced that only the liberal pols have their interests at heart. Now I think that in moments of high stress (imagine how one feels as the presidency and historic legacy melt away), the president’s unvarnished beliefs come through. It’s a crude sort of populism fueled by conspiracy theories, the kind you expect on college campuses — or on the streets of lower Manhattan of late.
This is a pol who tells us we should increase the public sector, dictate to the private sector and then excoriate business for trying to maximize profits. (It’s almost like they think that’s their primary obligation, or something.) At one level it is embarrassing that the president of the United States has economic views that approximate those of a dim college freshman. But actually it’s petrifying. For nearly three years this has been the mentality behind an economic vision that has failed miserably. It’s remarkable the economy isn’t in worse shape.
And he wants four more years. One can hardly imagine what he’d do if he got them.
I commented to Mrs. BD last night that one of the things I hate to hear people talk about is the usefulness of religion to society. I think O'Reilly was saying something like that on the tee vee in an interview with the atheism proselytizer Dawkins.
Warren’s emphatic assertion of the unremarkable — that the individual depends on cooperative behaviors by others — misses this point: It is conservatism, not liberalism, that takes society seriously. Liberalism preaches confident social engineering by the regulatory state. Conservatism urges government humility in the face of society’s creative complexity.
Society — hundreds of millions of people making billions of decisions daily — is a marvel of spontaneous order among individuals in voluntary cooperation. Government facilitates this cooperation with roads, schools, police, etc. — and by getting out of its way. This is a sensible, dynamic, prosperous society’s “underlying social contract.”
Elites like Warren believe that we benighted masses cannot really handle freedom. What we really cannot handle is excessive government meddling in our lives.
In praising the source of ancient Athens’s greatness, Pericles most of all lauded Athenians’ “sense of duty”. The weakness of this sense of duty is what characterizes the contemporary American political debate. The left sees a duty to care for the sick and needy, but fails to temper that with attention to the affordability of that care. The right praises those who take up the duty of national defense, but rejects the notion that paying for soldiers’ salaries and weapons through taxes is also a patriotic duty. Instead, the “me generation” rules, demanding that the conservatives give “me” a tax cut, that the liberals give “me” government benefits, and if something must be sacrificed, let it be duty to future generations.
This climate will leave the U.S. with two grand strategic options. The first is to attempt to maintain existing commitments with declining resources at increasingly higher risk against rising challengers. This approach would be an exact parallel to recent fiscal policy, but when it was tried in the Pacific in the early 1940s, its costs were measured in blood and destruction as well as money. The alternative is to retrench from some overseas commitments, following blueprints like the Cato Institute’s plan for a strategy of “military restraint” that would be sustainable at 3 percent of GDP. Such a grand strategic retrenchment may seem attractive, and it is certainly better than overextension. While it may lead to political instability and even increased wars abroad, it saves money and does not cost American lives if the U.S. does not to intervene. On the other hand, retrenchment is foolhardy if the result is likely to be increased terrorism and piracy, wars in which the U.S. must intervene, or lost diplomatic leverage that yields closing commercial opportunities and defeat for American ideals.
It would be useful to have the debate on the tradeoffs before the retrenchment becomes reality, but if the consensus of left and right is on the absence of a national will to pay for primacy, the decision may already have been made.
When government pays the health care bills, they can then use that as an excuse to micro-regulate our every behavior. Because it's no longer an individual choice, it effects public costs.
Buddy wanted y'all to hear this sociopathic one about blaming others: Crisis Site 13 (wait for the metal intro to end). "I can kill you and never go to jail, cuz I'm 13 and I'm cute and I hope you die."
That's interesting, but this is Terry Allen Country:
Apparently, most of the protesters are white, middle class kids who somehow got the idea that the world owes them something because they had the remarkable privilege of attending college.
Quite the opposite: they owe us something in return for all they have been indulged. Surber says Occupy Wall Street? Grow up. He lived in a trailer when a young adult. What's wrong with that? Everybody should have to.
I lived in one room over a grocery shop, on beans, macaroni and cheese, cheap beer, and no-brand cigarettes when I got out of college, and I felt independent and happy despite having a go-fer job at a slowly-dying country newspaper, for minimum wage. Boo hoo. It took me 6 years of farting around while broke to make a good plan for my life.
And here's a good idea, children: Go march on Washington - It’s the real author of our woes. Protest Obama! Oh, almost forgot - MoveOn is providing financial support to these losers so they can't protest the government. So why not Evil Big Corporations instead? Yeah, they're the bad guys this time.
As best I can tell, these kids want fun jobs with no heavy lifting - and they also want money - my money. I guess they didn't get the memo that their Obama's economy is not generating jobs and investment. If they had any sense, they'd be out there trying to figure out how to start a business or to make themselves useful to somebody.
I am half-disgusted with myself for giving these spoiled brats any of our precious bandwidth since it's really a media-ginned-up story, but I had to get it off my chest. As a New Yorker, I can report that these people are having essentially zero impact on our vibrant life in Manhattan except when they walk on a bridge and mess up the traffic from Brooklyn. It might get a little more amusing and colorful when the union thugs join the stoners and losers. Perfect together!
Almost forgot one item: the cops are getting good OT for the babysitting. It's good for their incomes, so there is some benefit for the good guys.
Sow Bugs, Woodlice - they have lots of names, and there are over 3000 species of these little guys. I think I sacrifice a few of them to the gods every time I toss a log on the fire.
They are arthropods, in the subgroup of the usually-aquatic Crustaceans. They look like tiny Trilobites.
I am always happy to see these little bugs under logs and rocks. Arthropods own the world, even though we don't give them a vote.
The Wall Street protesters want to be biggees benefiting from being above the law of the US and the laws of economics.
The Wall Street protesters and the Tea Party protesters have something in common, a revolt against the biggees each see as taking unfair advantages. The primary difference is that the Tea Party is opposed to the extra-constitutionality of liberal politicians in league with crony capitalists profiting each other at the expense of taxpayers, while the Wall Street protesters base is for more extra-constitutionality to expropriate for themselves the advantages garnered by all those profiting from free enterprise.
Tea Partiers want to keep the products of their labor and earnings, while the Wall Street protesters want government to redirect the products of others’ labor and earnings to themselves and causes of their allies.
Demographically, the Tea Partiers come from the middle-class who have more practical experience of the world, while the Wall Street protesters come almost entirely from the privileged white young people with relatively little real world experience.
Musically, the Tea Partiers have popular anthems of patriotism to enliven the reach of their cultural message, while the Wall Street protesters lack popular music with political themes. (This is a distinct and telling difference from the 1960s.)
Politically, the Tea Partiers have protested peacefully and within the law, while the Wall Street protests break laws and inconveniencethe public. This alienates rather than enlists support.
PRwise, the Tea Partiers had to overcome major media’s reluctance to provide them coverage and its trumpeting of false charges from the left, while the mostly liberal major media have almost instantly favorablyor neutrally headlined the Wall Street protesters.
The question is whether the tilt of the major media facing the alternative media will succeed in hiding these differences from most Americans. I doubt it. The liberal-tilting major media is itself seen as an out-of-touch and fading biggee. The support from public-employee unions with privileges above those in private business, the usual few extreme-leftist members of Congress, and from the usual rich far-left Hollywood celebrities just reinforces the perception of the usual leftist biggees wanting to lord it over taxpaying Americans. The Wall Street protesters and their leftist allies in media like to call themselves the 99%, kiddee columnist Ezra Klein sophistically asserting they want to see “the fundamental bargain of our economy – work hard, play by the rules, get ahead -- … restored.” Instead, they are the small minority who are or who want to be the 1%, exhibit little respect for the “rules” or virtues and rewards of free enterprise, demanding to “get ahead” with government-provided privileges.
We are blessed with all of our thoughtful, brainy, and often amusing commenters, but new commenter "Ten" (near the bottom of the comments) took the time to give our Maggie's Farmer fishing pro Capt. Tom a good whuppin' on the topic of space exploration.
Happily, Capt. Tom took it with good humor. Like most us here, he is a just plain happy fellow.
But can you give some to your cat? And can you drink your goat's milk? Or do you need government permission for that too? And what about home-made cheese from your cow's milk? Is this what our founding father farmers risked their lives for?
Why Are Women More Promiscuous Than Ever? And why are men taking advantage of it by withholding commitment? Is it time to take the power back? (h/t Insty)
The ladies are becoming as horny and predatory as the men. From what I hear, they are like animals, dragging innocent lads off the street for their selfish sensual pleasure.
"...the liberals in Washington will not back off, even when they see that they are crippling the economy. FDR’s policies were similarly destructive, but the more economic havoc he created, the more he was able to expand his power."
All those people who thought they were going to walk away from those houses and give them back to the banks? The banks are going to figure out the difference between the mortgage and what the house is sold for, which will be huge, sell those debts to lawyers --who'll make the mafia or a first wife look reasonable -- and they'll use the court system as their own private strong-arm collectors, and hound those people to kingdom come.
Even death is not an escape from a debt because they go after your estate. Bankruptcy is an escape, but it isn't pretty.
Is Maggie's Farm a "Conservative Website"? I guess not, because, if we were, we'd be ranked 122 on that Alexa list, going by Alexa stats. Anyway, we're a Centrist, eclectic website, with only an interest in politics insofar as the gummint gets in our way. We only want a very few things from gummint. Does that make us Conservative, or Libertarian, or just cranky Yankee-minded people who want to be left alone to construct our own lives as we think best? We all came here (well, our ancestors did) to get away from gummit oppression.
Maurice Sendak 
the nature of the agitators involved. We've seen them before. They know the best way to get on TV is to create a scene, and they are good at doing it. Is it a surprise so much of the 'police violence' is being caught on video? They are planning to get this on video by initiating events which will lead to the use of violence, even at moments when the police probably should show more restraint.
I commented to Mrs. BD last night that one of the things I hate to hear people talk about is the usefulness of religion to society. I think O'Reilly was saying something like that on the tee vee in an interview with the atheism proselytizer Dawkins. 
OK, we all agree that Sargent Pepper was a stunning George Martin production but, that aside, what is your favorite? 
Depressed brains may 
Apparently, most of the protesters are white, middle class kids who somehow got the idea that the world owes them something because they had the remarkable privilege of attending college.
Sow Bugs, Woodlice -