1. Boortz makes a remarkable assertion:
Much of this mortgage crisis came along when the loony left started demanding that mortgage lenders do more to bring minorities and people with marginal credit into the wonderful world of home ownership. As a result of threats from leftists in government the subprime mortgage business was born. Now we see the results.
Is this true? Are subprime loans a PC welfare scheme that would not exist in a laissez-faire capitalist economy?
It makes me wonder how many hidden economic distortions there are because of our mixed economy. How radically would life be different if we had a separation of state and economy?
2. Mike Huckabee has begun running for President -- in the 2012 election. And if you don't think he's a serious candidate, remember this recent news about Paul Weyrich, Mr. Conservative:
The room—which had been taken over by argument and side-conversations—became suddenly quiet. Weyrich, a Romney supporter and one of those Farris had chastised for not supporting Huckabee, steered his wheelchair to the front of the room and slowly turned to face his compatriots. In a voice barely above a whisper, he said, “Friends, before all of you and before almighty God, I want to say I was wrong.”
In a quiet, brief, but passionate speech, Weyrich essentially confessed that he and the other leaders should have backed Huckabee, a candidate who shared their values more fully than any other candidate in a generation. He agreed with Farris that many conservative leaders had blown it. By chasing other candidates with greater visibility, they failed to see what many of their supporters in the trenches saw clearly: Huckabee was their guy.
Indeed, Huckabee is the conservatives' guy. He might bring socialism to America, but by golly, he believes in God!
3. The Return of Big Government.
The return of Big Government? The smart-aleck response here would be something like "Really? I didn't know it ever left."
I confess, that was my first reaction to that headline.
Here's a little straight talk: Whether you pull the lever (or fill in the oval or touch the screen) for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or even John McCain in November, you're probably still going to end up in 2009 with a push for Big Government of the sort not seen in a generation. More taxes. More regulation. More spending. "It's going to be like watching That '70s Show," says Daniel Clifton, political analyst at Strategas Research Partners, which provides research to institutional investors.
Great. Our taxes will go up to pay for the second mortgages of Washington bureaucrats who stand around the water cooler all day doing Jim Carrey impressions.
4. At first I thought this SKYY Vodka response to the Absolut ad was a parody because of this:
“Don’t get me started on the Gadsden Purchase,” continues Karraker. “I think the folks in Tucson and Yuma would be rubbed the wrong way if they hear this landmark deal was somehow nullified as suggested by Absolut, a Swedish-owned brand.”
Nobody seriously says "Don't get me started on the Gadsden Purchase." Looks like Karraker is trying to be funny and cash in on Absolut's controversy at the same time.
6. Just one more reason why Obama would be a disastrous president:
If elected President, Senator Barack Obama plans to delay Project Constellation for at least five years, putting the saved money into a new $18-billion-a-year education program that would, in essence, nationalize early-education for children under five years old to prepare them for the rigors of kindergarten and beyond.
Nationalized early education?
That erroneous assumption is to the effect that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence, and so make them fit to discharge the duties of citizenship in an enlightened and independent manner. Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all, it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues and other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else.
Continued adherence to a policy of compulsory education is utterly incompatible with efforts to establish lasting peace.
Ludwig Von Mises, Liberalism, p. 114
The boy must be transformed into the man; in this school he must not only learn to obey, but must thereby acquire a basis for commanding later. He must learn to be silent not only when he is justly blamed, but must also learn, when necessary, to bear injustice in silence.
Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.
It is the State which educates its citizens in civic virtue, gives them a consciousness of their mission and welds them into unity.
Benito Mussolini, from "The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism," 1932.
He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.
What good fortune for governments that the people do not think.
8 comments:
As for the Boortz assertion, it is true: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act
The Boortz assertion is something I mentioned about a month ago, on Around The World Wide Web 54, when I saw it on Wikipedia. Told ’ya so.
Of course, now the Left is saying that the “real” cause of the recession is the War in Iraq. Ugh.
Interesting. Thanks both for the links.
Boortz ignores that the gasoline for that fire came from the Fed's easy money policy. When that's going on, the excess dollars find a market and push it into a "bubble". This is because any banker will tell you that dollars just sitting there are devaluing as we speak -- they need to be doing something productive, like earning interest from a mortgage.
In other words, inflation causes bubbles (well, duh!)
Regarding socialized education:
"What better way to habituate kids to abandoning trust in their peers (and themselves) than to create an atmosphere of constant low-level stress and danger, relief from which is only available by appeal to authority?"
-- John Taylor Gatto
(http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/historytour/history1.htm)
(Warning: he conflates business with government -- but not entirely without reason, when you consider the context of the era when the State schools took on their modern Prussian form: the "Progressive" era.)
1. It is nice to see Bush's failed policy come back to haunt him during his own administration. Too often presidential failures tend to linger into successive administrations.
2. By 2012, we're going to need divine intervention to save this country. :P
6. At what point do we just hand our babies over to the state and call it a day?
Thanks for the link, Jim.
Ed, I think the idea of handing babies over to the government goes back to Plato. I doubt the government wants to change all those diapers. Far easier to let parents keep the kids and dictate to the parents what they must do.
The idea of a 'creche' is older than Plato; he adopted it. He made considerable refinements to the concept, just as the Nazis refined folk anti-semitism into their pseudo-scientific racism, and the parallel is more than just.
Rothbard aptly characterized Plato as a 'right-wing communist utopian' (paraphrasing his discussion on Plato a bit) and the label certainly does seem to stick well.
Via HBL, I found this article substantiating Boortz's original assertion. It is definitely worth reading and passing around wherever you see some idiot repeating the errors of the 1930's.
http://www2.nysun.com/article/74903
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