Egypt's Real Problem

I recently found myself rethinking my Egypt post while reading this American Thinker piece here:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/02/egypts_real_problem_decades_of.html

The fact of the matter is this: Mubarak is a socialist dictator, and his ruling party espouses socialist ideology. The revolution in Egypt is a direct result of the failure of authoritarian socialist ideology and policy. For over fifty years, the ruling political clique in Egypt has espoused a home-grown form of Arab nationalist socialism.

Arab nationalism. And a socialist dictator. Combine ethnic nationalism with socialism and you get the predictable.

It's still unwise to support anti-Mubarak forces when the predictable replacement is going to be the proto-terrorist Muslim Brotherhood, but once there's some degree of stability, well, stability really is the only reason to support Mubarak anymore.

This reminded me that I have a copy of President Saddam Hussein's Address on Iraq's National Day 1983, and President Saddam Hussein's Speech on the 6th Anniversary of the Day of the Days The Great Victory Day 8 August 1994, and his roughly 50 page treatise "One Trench or Two". All are drier reads than the country they hail from, but they are about pan-Arab nationalism and the idea of central control/rulership. Basically, arab national socialism.

Sometimes you can judge a dictator book by its cover.

Richard Little at American Thinker points out the specifics with regards to Egypt and how it applies there. Broadly, national socialism and centralized control don't work anywhere. Even with cultural differences (including the basic lack of a future tense in Arabic), education level differences, and economic developmental differences, it doesn't work. It doesn't work in Europe - where the wise nations are pulling away from their road to socialism before they implode like Greece; it doesn't work in the US, where individual states like California are imploding from their own policies. It doesn't work anywhere it's tried.

Whether the central control be with a dictator or a committee of bureaucrats, it's all coercive force that works against the will of the individual - the individual who knows their own needs better than any self-appointed super-genius, tyrant or king.

Kudos to the Egyptian people for trying to shrug it off. Hopefully they don't end up replacing it with the Muslim Brotherhood - who will do the same, but with the added dictates of sharia law.

The Jobs Are Out There - says ...

Hilda "Documented or Not" Solis.

via HotAir

Labor Secretary Solis did a piece for USA Today a couple days back that's worth reading for it's absurdity. Ed Morrissey over at HotAir does a good job breaking down one part of her opinion piece. I'm going to cut up some of the rest.

Maybe it's because I when went to college I had professors and instructors who lived under the USSR and who had plenty of first-hand knowledge of the "there is work and the fields are ripe with glorious wheat, comrade" that my surplus Soviet BS detector goes off pretty quick.

Mine says: детектор дерьма

She starts of with some anecdotal equivalent of "glorious worker of the revolution" BS, and degenerates into more BS.

The big question: Are things getting better? To answer that, we need to look back more than a year ago, when the economy was losing a staggering 800,000 jobs a month. Our actions, most notably the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, stopped those losses.

The ARRA is a gigantic payback of favors to democratic districts and non-existent districts. It didn't work and cannot work, but a lie told often enough becomes truth.

The Recovery Act saved millions of American jobs — keeping health care providers in hospitals, teachers in classrooms, and police and firefighters on the beat. But the benefits weren't just in the public sector. During the past eight months, the economy has averaged 95,000 new private sector jobs.

Check this: from the Bureau of Labor & Statistics. See that unemployment going up, see the job loss? That "new private sector jobs" number is BS. There's a net loss, but Solis is selling the "we created some". If the factory goes out of business due to new EPA regulations and 1000 jobs are lost, but the pawn shop hires another few employees, an ACORN office hires a few employees to distribute other people's money, and a check cashing place open up, creating 50 jobs total - Solis reports "50 new jobs created". The net number of jobs in the community is -950, but the "new private sector jobs" is 50.

Sure sounds better than "unemployment keeps going up because Keynesian economics are bullshit and we're driving you down the road to serfdom".

Still, at 9.6%, the unemployment rate remains unacceptably high. So as we stem jobs losses, we must also accelerate growth in every sector of the economy — from health care and renewable energy to advanced technology and manufacturing.

"This is the glorious way of the future, comrade! Green jobs and health care for all and advanced technology!" Except they're not stemming job losses if they made 95,000 new private sector jobs and unemployment still went up. Why? See above.

The government does not and cannot create real jobs. If the Department of Labor wanted to make unemployment go away tomorrow, it could hire every unemployed person at $1/day to dig a hole today and refill it tomorrow. Unemployment would be zero. The Department of Labor could have the Treasury Dept. print enough money to make every one of those jobs pay $100/hour if they wanted. It would collapse the economy overnight.

These health care/green jobs/high tech jobs that are "made" by government aren't natural. They're created by government subsidy.

Well what does that mean? It means that government is taking YOUR tax money and applying it to something that some bureaucrat likes. If Govt. Flunky 1 decides he likes govt. running health care, he takes your tax money and applies it to hiring a (govt.) health care worker. Would that job have naturally existed? Maybe if the market would support it, but probably not.

Govt. Flunky 2 then takes your tax money and applies it to a green job he likes. Would that job have naturally existed? Maybe - but its wage rate would be set by the free market - not artificially manipulated by government. The green job itself would only exist if the technology is marketable and a net gain.

When Flunky 1 and Flunky 2 take your money, they first pay themselves for their department. And their department is always indispensable. Read Hilda Solis' statement here:

One of the ways this administration is accomplishing that goal is through smart investments in the American workforce. We are ensuring industries that we know are growing have workers prepared through high-quality training programs that we know are working.

Translation: "We are important. Without us, the American workforce would not be able to compete. Our smart investments in the work force drive it and we prepare workers for work. Government is important."

The private sector cannot survive without government. Consume. Watch TV.

Solis proves my point right here with her next anecdotal success story:

For instance, during a recent trip to Nevada, I met a plumber who spent half of his life mastering his craft at a company from which he hoped to retire. Then, the recession hit — hard. Despite having a job that people of my father's generation thought was recession-proof, he found himself unemployed.

Anecdotal story of glorious worker? Check.

Socialist Realism. It's popular with leftists who've never read Kolyma Tales or Ivan Denisovich.

He didn't want to tell me his problems. Instead, he talked to me about how he was leveraging opportunity — specifically a training program made available by my department — into a new career. Although it had been years since he was in a classroom, this seasoned tradesman was learning a new trade. Soon, the classes had opened the door for him to the high-growth renewable energy industry. Today, he is a solar panel installer. He loves his job, and his family's finances are back on track.

He didn't want to tell his problems - because he's a glorious, noble worker!

Now, leveraging opportunity through the DoL's program is what, exactly? It's you, the taxpayer, paying for his training. Why are you paying for his retraining? So he can become a solar panel installer. Why that? Because it's a subsidized green job.

Hey Comrade! We have green jobs!
MS Paint is not the ideal vehicle to use to write in Cyrillic, especially at an angle. And when your Russian's rusty.

The government is taking your money and training someone to take a job that the government is funding. Even if you don't pay taxes directly, every business that pays taxes has to make up for the taxes imposed on them - which results in prices of the goods you buy every day going up. You don't escape the taxes.

Is that green job economically feasible? Is it a net gain to a business? If yes, then a business would train him and hire him. If no, then he wouldn't be hired.

If Govt. Flunky 1 or 2 decides that it's a "good job" and it makes him feel good, then Govt. Flunky Committee will take your money and put it into making a job that's a net loss. If the training, job, and program are all a net loss, they don't care - because the Govt. Flunkies aren't accountable to anyone - not even the laws of economics (until govt. collapse). They get paid until they retire, and they can give away your money until then. Driving you out of business with regulations and taxes just means that Govt. Flunkies are still needed to "save" your job... that they just destroyed.

Remember from above: Bureau of Labor & Statistics says we had a net loss of jobs, but Solis congratulates herself on the 95,000 new jobs she "created". She keeps her job, and you need her to get you a new one. The expansion of the state is the cause of the problems the individual has, yet the state portrays itself as the solution to all the problems... that it just created, and exacerbates with its "solution".

This story is not unique. I have heard them from countless people across the country — the former auto worker turned medical assistant and the recently single mother who went back to school to become a heating and air conditioning technician. They remind me that America's spirit of "can do" is unstoppable, and that our nation's workers are the best in the world.

The auto worker turned med assistant is going from private sector job to govt. funded job. The govt. took over health care, remember? The single mother who went to school to become a heating & AC technician is part of this govt program. Another green job subsidy.

Cue some more asskissing at the end. The "can do" spirit doesn't mean scam into a government subsidized job. "Can do" spirit is stoppable by government. And it can be quashed when the plumber decides it's easier to take care of his family by scamming a govt. program than it is to relocate and work as a plumber somewhere else. When the auto worker's company is destroyed by government meddling, he goes off to use your taxpayer money to find a new taxpayer subsidized job.

They're all being paid $1 to dig a hole and refill it, and Commissar Solis is busy telling you what a wonderful thing it is.

Two Ducks in a Pond - Dolores Huerta and Hilda Solis

Delores Huerta and Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis are literally two ducks in a pond.

The speakers of the "We Can Help" campaign that allows workers "documented or not" to petition the federal government for help. Here is a video taken from the new news site: The Blaze



So how do you feel about that America? Is it alright for these women in a government advertisement to give support to workers, "documented or not?" Undocumented workers is now the liberal code word for illegal aliens who do not rate support from our government.. Is it really the law to for the government to ensure "safe housing and transportation? I know I'd like to know which law that happens to be.

To go a step further, the excerpts of Huerta's speech to a Tuscon highschool assembly openly flag her as a radical socialist. These two women are clearly another example of which our president has told us before, to judge him by who he surrounds himself with. For almost 2 years now we citizens of the United States have been judging you and your form of government and soon you will see our respons.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, Part II

Take the ten minutes to listen to words that sound like they were spoken yesterday, not in 1961:


Change the names of the Congressmen to Pelosi, Reid, Slaughter, Waxman, Obama, and it's the same push for socialism then as is today.

Except today, the Congressmen don't bother writing back. They'll just do what they want, because they've decided they're the ruling class.

And the media lapdogs play along.

Health Care - The Big Picture Is Bureaucracy For Life

Mark Steyn lays out the case here.

So there was President Obama giving his bazillionth speech on health care, droning yet again that "now is the hour when we must seize the moment," the same moment he's been seizing every day of the week for the past year, only this time his genius photo-op guys thought it would look good to have him surrounded by men in white coats.

Why is he doing this? Why let "health" "care" "reform" stagger on like the rotting husk in a low-grade creature feature who refuses to stay dead no matter how many stakes you pound through his chest?

Because it's worth it. Big time. I've been saying in this space for two years that the governmentalization of health care is the fastest way to a permanent left-of-center political culture.

It redefines the relationship between the citizen and the state in fundamental ways that make limited government all but impossible.

...

Compassionate statism: "We shut down the business that employed you, but now we'll give you bread. We feel your pain. Don't you love what we for you do on your behalf? We put your doctor out of business, but we'll take care of you. Now get to the back of the line."

Steyn continues:

Once the state swells to a certain size, the people available to fill the ever expanding number of government jobs will be statists — sometimes hard-core Marxist statists, sometimes social-engineering multiculti statists, sometimes fluffily "compassionate" statists, but always statists.

The short history of the postwar welfare state is that you don't need a president-for-life if you've got a bureaucracy-for-life: The people can elect "conservatives," as the Germans have done and the British are about to do, and the left is mostly relaxed about it because, in all but exceptional cases (Thatcher), they fulfill the same function in the system as the first-year boys at wintry English boarding schools who for tuppence-ha'penny or some such would agree to go and warm the seat in the unheated lavatories until the prefects strolled in and took their rightful place.

Republicans are good at keeping the seat warm. A big-time GOP consultant was on TV crowing that Republicans wanted the Dems to pass ObamaCare because it's so unpopular it will guarantee a GOP sweep in November.

Okay, then what? You'll roll it back — like you've rolled back all those other unsustainable entitlements premised on cobwebbed actuarial tables from 80 years ago?

Like you've undone the Department of Education and of Energy and all the other nickel 'n' dime novelties of even a universally reviled one-term loser like Jimmy Carter?

Andrew McCarthy concluded a shrewd analysis of the political realities thus:

"Health care is a loser for the Left only if the Right has the steel to undo it. The Left is banking on an absence of steel. Why is that a bad bet?"

Read it all here:
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=525661

Yuri Bezmenov points out that it only takes 15 years to fundamentally change a society by subverting education, which results in a generation of children who think according to how they're taught. If you make a generation beholden to government, they won't think any different.

Thomas Sowell talks about how he and his wife paid for their first child's birth in installments, how they lived without health care, and how before employers were nigh mandated to provide health insurance, people paid for doctors' visits with their own money. Thomas Sowell is of a considerably older generation.

Like social security, like unemployment, like any of these other progressive social programs that redistribute wealth and are viewed as "good" by the newer generations, all it takes is one generation raised on the handout to accept it and make it that much more difficult to discard.

The imposition of the chains will be such that people will forget what it's like to live without them. They'll wonder how they'll take care of themselves without government to tell them how to live. Progressives/leftists/statists seek it because it makes themselves valuable, and gives them power over the people.

Works on the personal scale, the local scale, and the national scale.

"Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character. . . . " - Grover Cleveland

Czar Wars Episode 3: Cass Sunstein: Regulatory Czar

Image via Wikipedia

Our most daunting task to date is going to be giving you all the information when it comes to Mr. Cass Sunstein, one of the few "Czars" who has been confirmed by the senate. From proposing a 2nd bill of rights to advocating that our pets are entitled to representation, Mr. Sunstein offers us a look of what it means to truly be out of touch with reality.

Mr. Sunstein is a "constitutional" (I use the term loosely) lawyer. He is on record for the following statements made either in print or in the media:

On terminal patients: "the state owns the rights to body parts of people who are dead or in certain hopeless conditions, and it can remove their organs without asking anyone's permission.... Though it may sound grotesque, routine removal is not impossible to defend.... In theory, it would save lives, and it would do so without intruding on anyone who has any prospect for life."

My question is since when does anything having to do with my body belong to the state? If I want to be a donor that is all fine and good, after I am dead take what you need. If I am still breathing hands off the scalpel and keep trying to save my life.

Sunstein is also on record for saying things like:

"(the) socialist movement (never took hold because of the)...."smaller and weaker political left or lack of enthusiasm for redistributive programs."

No kidding this is America.

"If the United States agrees to participate in a climate change agreement on terms that are not in the nation's interest, but that help the world as a whole, there would be no reason for complaint, certainly if such participation is more helpful to poor nations than conventional foreign-aid alternatives."

Again this is America we don't believe in this type of thinking. Any charity we give comes from donations to non-profits or volunteering our time.

Sunstein also believes:

"The absence of a European-style social welfare state is certainly connected with the widespread perception among the white majority that the relevant programs would disproportionately benefit African Americans (and more recently Hispanics)...."

So every white man or woman out there is a racist and that is why we do not want socialism? Are you serious? He also lends support to communism by stating:

"During the Cold War, the debate about [social welfare] guarantees took the form of pervasive disagreement between the United States and its communist adversaries. Americans emphasized the importance of civil and political liberties, above all free speech and freedom of religion, while communist nations stressed the right to a job, health care, and a social minimum.... I think this debate was unhelpful; it is most plausible to see the two sets of rights as mutually reinforcing, not antagonistic."

Really, so how do we pay enough taxes to ensure everyone has a home, a job, health care, a decent wage? Also the Soviets weren't big on free speech nor religion because they wanted to replace religion that involves the soul with a religion that involves the state, and to accomplish that they could not afford to have people professing their beliefs freely so they also heavily suppressed freedom of speech.

Sunstein has also proposed a 2nd Bill of rights which entitles the following:

"The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation" -- Ok. What if I don't have the proper skill set or intelligence to be of use?

"The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation." -- Define adequate are we talking Latrell Sprewell ( the Minnesota Timberwolves offered Sprewell a 3-year, $21 million contract extension, substantially less than what his then-current contract paid him. Insulted, he publicly vented his outrage, declaring, "I have a family to feed.") adequate? Or are we talking Jed Clampett before he discovered oil?

"The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living." -- Again please define "decent living" are we talking barely surviving or living in style? Who do we fund it?

"The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad." -- In the free market business rise and fall based on the decisions of that leadership. We have no business leveling the playing field. If a person can corner the market by supplying a better product at a cheaper price, more power to him.

"The right of every family to a decent home." -- Aren't we in trouble from this right now? Isn't the federal government in charge of making loans through Freddie and Fannie? --Wasn't that part of Barney Frank's progressive agenda?

"The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health." -- Heath care is a service, it is not a right. If you can't afford it, consider changing your life style or by getting a better job.

"The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment." -- What does this entail? Don't we already have Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security? Does it mean that I have the right to protection from defecating on myself when I am 100 years old?

"The right to a good education." -- This one is a tough one to argue but in this day and age there are already several programs that help people go to university and get a degree. Does it really need to be legislated?

So after taking all of that in it is fairly clear that government is supposed to control and decide all the issues of your life. Do you trust them to do a good job if the 2nd Bill of Rights gets implemented? I don't.

Cass also has interesting views on abortion like:

"I have argued that the Constitution ... forbids government from refusing to pay the expenses of abortion in cases of rape or incest, at least if government pays for childbirth in such cases.... There would be no tension with the establishment clause if people with religious or other objections were forced to pay for that procedure (abortion). Indeed, taxpayers are often forced to pay for things – national defense, welfare, certain forms of art, and others – to which they have powerful moral and even religious objections."

So, not only does he espouse federal funding of murdering unborn children but he expects the average citizen to be forced to help pay for it.

He is also a fan of dismantling free speech:

"purely commercial (television) stations (should) provide financial subsidies to public television or to commercial stations that agree to provide less profitable but high-quality programming.... worthwhile to consider more dramatic approaches as well."

Like:

"compulsory public-affairs programming, right of reply, content review by nonpartisan experts or guidelines to encourage attention to public issues and diversity of view.... It seems quite possible that a law that contained regulatory remedies would promote rather than undermine the 'freedom of speech,'

Really, so Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and other would be forced to present "both" sides of the issue or be forced off the air. If they chose to comply and couldn't find an "opposing" viewpoint then they would be unable to air the story or segment. How do you like that for freedom of speech?

Last and possibly the most interesting is his views on animals and their "interest:"

"If we focus on suffering, as I believe that we should, it is not necessarily impermissible to kill animals and use them for food; but it is entirely impermissible to be indifferent to their interests while they are alive. So too for other animals in farms, even or perhaps especially if they are being used for the benefit of human beings."

While I have never advocated the mistreatment of animals do they deserve legal representation? Sunstein thinks so:

“We could even grant animals a right to bring suit without insisting that animals are
persons, or that they are not property. A state could certainly confer rights on a pristine area, or a painting, and allow people to bring suit on its behalf, without therefore saying that that area and that painting may not be owned. It might, in these circumstances, seem puzzling that so many people are focusing on the question of whether animals are property. We could retain the idea of property but also give animals far more protection against injury or neglect of their interests.”

Wow, I mean wow, really? So how would my dog, if she became distraught because I only give her a cup of dry dog food instead of a can of "wet" dog food retain that lawyer?

If your interested in finding out more on Cass Sunstein here is a PDF file full of quotes.

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Prez's Allies Take A Page From... The Joker?

Giving away money

Back to school spree: Billionaire, feds give out $175M to aid neediest students around the state

A $200 back-to-school giveaway for needy kids sparked a mad rush for money on the streets of New York on Tuesday.

"It's free money!" said Alecia Rumph, 26, who waited in a Morris Park, Bronx, line 300 people deep for the cash to buy uniforms and book bags for her two kids.

"Thank God for Obama. He's looking out for us."

Thousands of people lined up at banks and check-cashing shops to withdraw the cash that magically appeared on their electronic benefit cards.

Some rushed out because of rumors the money would vanish by the end of the day.

"Rumors, there's always rumors," said Teresa Medina, who waited four hours at a Pay-O-Matic in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, to get $600 for her three teenagers - just in case they were true.

The no-strings-attached money went to families receiving food stamps or welfare.

Every child between 3 and 17 was eligible for $200, which worked out to 813,845 kids across the state - including 498,866 in the city.

"Times are really tough right now. The situation is bad with money. So it's easy to want to use the money for other things," said Ana Barcos, 31, of Corona, Queens, where 200 people waited outside a check-cashing business.

"But if the money's supposed to be for my kids, then I will use it for my kids."
--
Sure she will.
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Billionaire philanthropist George Soros gave $35 million toward the program, with $140 million in federal stimulus funds routed through state government making up the rest.
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Translated: taxpayer money used as payoffs.
--
Paterson's Republican critics blasted the giveaway, saying he should spend the money to reduce property taxes.

"It is a plan that is ripe for fraud and abuse," said Senate Republican leader Dean Skelos. "This is a totally irresponsible use of federal stimulus money."
--
Stop being a jerk. I'm sure that no-strings attached money given to people who won't get off welfare and get a job will be put to good use. They're unemployed because of the bias inherent in the system, not because they're shiftless and lazy and get rewarded for not working. /s





And now it's time for who do you trust? Hubba hubba hubba! Money money money! Who do you trust?
Me? I've giving away free money!
...
And now comes the part where I relieve you, the little people, of the burden of your failed and useless lives.

But, as my plastic surgeon always said - if you gotta go, go with a smile!