Conservatives are happier people!

Who would argue against freedom? We’re Americans, and freedom is our birthright, isn’t it? Surprisingly, a lot of people argue against freedom. Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein have a new book out in which they suggest the term “libertarian paternalism” as an alternative to “socialism”. They don’t quite say that, but it clearly is what they have in mind. The book is Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness which Roger Kimball describes thoughtfully at Pajamas Media.

Professors Thaler and Sunstein want to increase the likelihood that people will make the correct decisions that are in their own self interest by giving them little “nudges” here and there. The “correct decisions” are, of course, those that the professors choose. Oddly enough, Liberals seldom grasp the idea that they are infringing upon your freedom. They are only doing it for your own good!

Freedom is, to be sure, frightening. There is no telling what values someone will choose to hold. Decent and well-meaning guardians of values were horrified by the monstrous principles of the Declaration of Independence. It is, of course, out of fear that the guardians preach the inculcation of values, fear of knowledge and thought.

Richard Mitchell

The current crop of Democrats have been telling us, over and over, for months, how completely miserable we are. We have no hope, we are losing jobs, losing income, we cannot get ahead for they keep moving the bar, and we are in the worst depression since the Great Depression. This comes just at the time that economists are declaring the housing crisis over, employment rebounding, growth returning, and the “recession” probably at an end. What a sour bunch.

In the current issue of City Journal, Arthur C. Brooks has an essay “Free People Are Happy People“, which is based on his new book Gross National Happiness, ” In fact,” he says, “evidence shows that freedom and happiness are strongly linked. But what kind of freedom makes Americans happiest? And what can government best do to promote freedom and help us pursue happiness, as is our inalienable right?”

Freedom and happiness are highly correlated, then; even more significant, several studies have shown that freedom causes happiness….

The data and evidence don’t prove that all kinds of freedom bring equal happiness, or that more freedom is always better than less. For example, what about economic freedom? Pundits and politicians on the left often tell us that a free economy makes for an unhappy population; the disruptions of capitalism make us insecure, and we would prefer the security of generous welfare programs and national health care. But for most people, it turns out, that isn’t true.

Liberals are not happy with this book. (Why am I not surprised) Both book and essay suggest that the Conservative emphasis on liberty makes for happier people. Rejecting the welfare state and rejecting big government pay off. Religious freedom and faith produce happier people. Property rights, freedom to operate a business, trade with other nations (are you paying attention Speaker Pelosi?) ease of investment — all are elements that add to national happiness.

But down inside, you knew that, didn’t you? Freedom is our inalienable right, and free people look to the future with optimism. It’s the people who insist that we are miserable, that the current government is the worst ever, that the country is headed in the wrong direction — and once we feel bad enough, promise that they will make us feel better. They will do all sorts of wonderful things for us, as soon as they raise our taxes, diminish our freedom and take away our liberty — well, then they’ll help us, give us hope and change things. It’s just that the change they have in mind isn’t quite what freedom-loving people had in their minds.

It all makes sense now!

No wonder Democrats want to spend billions on homes in foreclosure!

Um…Can we talk?

Is there something wrong with a good argument? How do you progress if your ideas never have to stand up to a challenge? Our country was founded on the idea of vigorous debate.

Those who wrote the new Constitution of 1787 and those who supported it could foresee that a clear vote against it in the State ratifying conventions could doom the experiment in democratic government in its infancy. As constitutions go, it is a short document, encouraging debate in every clause. “Each House may determine the Rules of the Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour; and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.” What greater invitation to debate could you have?

Alexander Hamilton, in an effort to win over his home State of New York, began a series of essays explaining and defending the Constitution. These were published in New York City newspapers under the pseudonym Publius. Two other advocates of this new form of government, James Madison and John Jay, added their contributions. The efforts of these three men resulted in The Federalist Papers, an analysis of the Constitution and an enduring classic of political philosophy. And, perhaps most of all, it was an invitation to discussion and debate.

Discussion and debate were different in a time when books were somewhat rare and there was no radio, no television, and communication with other towns depended on a fast horse. Today we are deluged with printed material, and constant commentary from instant messaging to town hall meetings. We are in communication with the entire world. There is no shortage of ability to debate, and now that we are in a campaign for the Presidency of the United States, there are formal debates — Obama was just complaining about 21 debates — and yet…

The debates are curiously lacking in substance. There are serious matters that need discussion. The foolish effort to put the world’s food into our gas tanks, the curious reluctance to drill for the oil that we know is there. The notion that to increase gas mileage we only have to make a law. There is the strange, gullible belief that there must be some other viable form of energy out there that will solve all our problems, and the closest we can get to real substance is threatening the oil companies and offering to temporarily remove the gas tax for the summer. Could we talk sensibly about nuclear power? Could we discuss the portion of ANWR that was set aside for drilling? Instead we are talking about re-negotiating Free Trade pacts, an insult to our allies. We are pretending that manufacturing jobs have been lost, not to technology, but to NAFTA, which has been a benefit to the three countries involved, and nobody really wants to re-negotiate.

Two candidates are advocating socialized medicine, which has never worked anywhere. Could we debate? Not a chance. Can we talk about the value of cutting the capital gains tax, or reducing corporate taxes to the level of other countries? Can we talk about whether highway funds should be used for other projects? How about importing medicine from other countries? How about a discussion about terrorism, or don’t we believe in that any more. Could we discuss the belief that climate change is a natural phenomenon? Don’t make me laugh.

You could come up with your own list of subjects that need to be discussed, and probably few of them are matters that are part of the current campaign.

Those who disagree with the opinions held by the Left are to be silenced. They will be attacked, smeared, accused, repudiated, denounced. What they will not be — is debated. Yet every advance made by humanity is made through trial and error. We learn by discussing and arguing. We learn from mistakes.

Because we are so reluctant to argue and debate, the public often does not understand what is involved in an issue. When the press departs from objectivity and becomes an advocate, they deprive the public of needed information. When arguments become emotional struggles to win at all costs, liberty is the victim. When someone is smeared instead of debated, it becomes harder to get citizens to stand up for what they believe.

Oh, shame on you, Howard!

Howard Dean, Chairman of the Democrat National Committee, was on FOX News Sunday, yesterday, doing the sort of thing that Democrat National Committee Chairmen usually do — accusing Republicans of “race baiting” because people have been shocked by the sermons of the pastor that Obama extolled as his “spiritual advisor”.

CHRIS WALLACE: Governor, are you suggesting that bringing up Jeremiah Wright is race baiting, and
hate and divisive?

HOWARD DEAN: Yeah, I am suggesting that kind of stuff. I think when you start bringing up candidates that have nothing to do with the issue — when you start bringing up things that have nothing to do with the candidate and nothing to do with the issues, that’s race baiting, and that’s exactly what it is, just like Willie Horton was race baiting so many years ago.

I think we’re going to take a — we’re going to turn the page on this stuff. I tell you, you know, there’s a lot of difference between the Republicans and the Democrats on issues, but the biggest issue of all is we don’t use this kind of stuff. We never have used this kind of stuff, and we’re not going to start now.

My reaction to Pastor Jeremiah Wright was shock. When he said “God Damn America” and blamed America for the attacks of 9/11, I would have arisen in the middle of the sermon and walked out, never to return. I don’t look favorably on anti-Americanism. I recognize the free speech rights of anyone, but I don’t have to stick around and listen. And I’m surprised when others do stick around. And I’m sorry, Dr. Dean, but it’s a character thing, not a race thing.

Supreme Court Rejects Democrats Attempts to Protect Vote Fraud

The Supreme Court has rejected Democrats ridiculous claims that requiring voters to show identification, proving they are actually entitled to vote, is somehow unfair to minorities, the elderly or the poor. The 6-3 decision upholds an Indiana law intended to prevent vote fraud.

The Indiana law was passed in 2005. Democrats and civil rights groups opposed it as unconstitutional and called it a thinly veiled effort to discourage groups of voters who tend to prefer Democrats.

Yes, a thinly veiled effort to discourage illegal aliens, dead people, pets, comic book characters, convicted felons aka “groups who prefer Democrats.”

The Wrong Direction?

It’s true — America is heading in the wrong direction.

They say the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and Democrats have by far squeaked the loudest the past several years. While undermining the war effort with all their might, they have screamed, more than squeaked, that the war is lost, the surge can’t work, won’t work, isn’t working.

While leaking national security secrets and trying to create scandal out of the lawful defense of the nation, they have screamed that General Petraeus is a liar and a traitor.

While blocking health care reforms that would make Americans better able to afford healthcare, they have screamed that we must make even more people dependant on the government for their healthcare — precisely the formula that has resulted in the skyrocketing price of medicine we now seek to address.

While blocking each and every attempt to increase domestic energy production and update infrastructure, and then increasing punative taxes and regulation on energy producers, they have wailed about the price of energy and our dependence on foreign sources of oil. And on, and on, and on…

And while I congratulate President Bush for not sinking to their level, and for keeping his campaign pledge to “bring a new tone” to Washington, the result has been that Democrats ceaseless barrage of demagoguery, lies, false accusations and histrionics has gone largely unanswered. But a lie oft repeated becomes truth as they say. And in the absence of self defense, people are left with only the lies to believe. If you don’t defend yourself against your accusers, people can only assume the accusers are right.

This has been the biggest failure of the Bush Presidency.

And the result has been a Democrat congress, the strong possibility of a Democrat presidency, and all that entails. The promised biggest tax hikes in history, over $900 billion or $1 trillion in promised new spending (depending on which candidate becomes the Democrat nominee), the governmental take-over of the health care industry, protectionism, price controls, massive amounts of promised new regulation, the dishonestly named “fairness” doctrine, real economic hard times, and outsourcing at unprecedented levels.

So yes, America is absolutely heading in the wrong direction: a liberal one.

The important question is, what are we going to do to change that?

The food police strike again!

When the socialist state orders school children to eat the foods that the state considers healthy, guess what happens? Little capitalist kids erupt all over British schools.

After a tip from a head teacher at a Dorset secondary who broke up a “seriously big smuggling operation” run by a schoolboy, the Times has uncovered several similar contraband schemes. The head, who did not want to identify his school, was convinced that the switch to a healthy menu and the policy of keeping pupils on the premises at lunchtime had created an opening for entrepreneurs.
He became suspicious when he noticed two 14 year-old boys approaching the school weighed down with Lidl carrier bags. “The thin wiry creatures, in full uniform but with shortened ties, shirts hanging out , were walking a heavily laden bicycle. The bags were dripping off the bike’s handlebars, crossbars and saddle like a scene from some desperate endeavour on foot and mule to reach a lost city in the Peruvian mountains,” he said.

I don’t know why anyone is surprised. Any mother who has tried desperately to get her kids to eat their vegetables knows a thing or two about kids that oblivious administrators apparently miss. Read the whole thing, it’s pretty funny.

Campaign Chaos

Democrats are panicking.

The Crypt at Politico is reporting that Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean are threatening (are you sitting down?) to write a joint letter to superdelegates, trying to force them to declare their endorsements by June. Now, don’t laugh. This is serious business. Writing a letter is bad enough, writing a joint-letter is pulling out the big guns in the liberal arsenal.

They want desperately for this contest to be over. They know the damage it is doing to their chances to win the presidency come fall. This election was to be a cakewalk for Democrats, now McCain is tied or leading in the polls.

Hillary and Obama supporters are growing increasingly bitter and angry with each other. The more truth comes out about each candidate, the more bitter their followers get, and the less Americans like them. Obama did a remarkable job of getting to the top of the heap divulging virtually nothing about himself, his views or his policy proposals. As the facts are coming out, his sheen is fading, and many who have already voted for him are having buyer’s remorse.

But now that Hillary has given Obama a spanking in Pennsylvania, things are bound to get more chaotic, not less. He still has more delegates, but she can factually claim that more people have voted for her.

It’s Florida 2000 all over again! Except this time around, it’s Democrats arguing that we should ignore the popular vote and stick with the electoral college! (superdelegates) and arguing that Florida and Michigan’s votes should not be included because they didn’t follow the rules. How quickly they abandon their principles!

What happened to counting every vote?

And so, as Reid, Pelosi and Dean’s threats are making clear, the possibility of an ugly, contentious, and bitter Democrat convention is becoming more real every day. They have undoubtedly realized you don’t get a “convention bump” when the delegates are brawling and the building is on fire.

But whoever wins this joyous affair, the other side will feel the nomination was stolen from them. And truth be known, they would be justified. After all, the Democrats designed their entire “superdelegate” system following McGovern’s ‘72 win precisely so the party elite could steal the election from the ignorant masses should they ever nominate another McGovern again.

Whatever the outcome, the longer Hillary and Obama duke it out, the more Americans get to know them. And that can only be good for Republicans.

Campaign Courtesy

A minor kerfuffle developed over a campaign ad the North Carolina Republican Party had planned to air criticizing Barack Obama over Reverend Wright (and in turn criticizing two local politicians over their support for Obama.)

Well, of course, Democrats went berserk and demanded McCain denounce the ad. Howard Dean attempted to make additional political hay by claiming that if if McCain didn’t force the NC GOP to pull the ad, that it shows he isn’t qualified to be president:

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean today issued the following statement calling on McCain to exercise real leadership and pull the plug on this ad:

“This is a test of leadership for John McCain. If he can’t pick up the phone and make members of his own party stop airing a television ad he claims to oppose, how can he lead our country through an economic crisis or the war in Iraq?

Which, of course, is a ridiculous assertion — McCain is campaigning to be President of the United States where speech is still free. Perhaps Dean is confused because his party has such dictatorial tendencies. Nonetheless, both McCain and the RNC have denounced the ad and the NC GOP has since agreed to pull the ad.

Conservatives are understandably upset, because there’s nothing wrong with the ad. Obama should be criticized for his relationship with the deeply offensive Reverend. His relationships, and then his refusal to dissociate himself from Wright and Ayers show profoundly bad judgment and raise legitimate concerns about his own views. Democrats claims that the ad is racist are ridiculous and show just how much damage the Wright issue has done their candidate.

But what McCain seems to understand, and my fellow partisans on the right do not, is that voters are sick to death of the poisonous political atmosphere that not only pervades Washington DC, but has spilled over into their everyday lives, and it will be a major issue in the November elections.

Perceptions matter. It is irrelevant that the ad raises legitimate criticisms of Obama, all that matters is what voters think. And since most Americans haven’t seen the ad (and won’t), with the media carrying their water, Democrats will most likely be able to successfully, albeit dishonestly, smear the ad as “racist” or, at the very least, “dirty”. In that respect, McCain and the GOP are right to distance themselves from it.

The problem will be making sure Obama continues to be held accountable for his very close and personal association with the racist and anti-American Wright. He still to this day has not sufficiently answered the question of why he remained in that pew for 20 years when it was so obvious what Wright was teaching, quite frankly, because there’s no good answer. He did it and refuses to say he was wrong. Americans are rightly disturbed by Wright’s vitriol, and rightly unpersuaded by Obama’s refusal to condemn or divorce himself from a purveyor of such radical hatred.

But because Republicans seem unwilling to defend the legitimacy of the issue, and Democrats are certain to try to paint anyone criticizing Obama as racist, it looks as though it will be up to independent groups and alternative media to keep Obama’s long and close association with Wright front and center.

We are more than happy to perform that service.

It Used to be Bigger than that! I swear!

Witch Doctors in Africa stealing/shrinking men’s penises:

“It’s real. Just yesterday here, there was a man who was a victim. We saw. What was left was tiny,” said 29-year-old Alain Kalala,

The Jokes write themselves, but the story really isn’t funny:

Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men’s penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.

…Police arrested the accused sorcerers and their victims in an effort to avoid the sort of bloodshed seen in Ghana a decade ago, when 12 suspected penis snatchers were beaten to death by angry mobs.

It’s a glimpse into the distant past for the West — when belief in witchcraft and superstition were widespread — but a dangerous reality in present-day Africa. The same sort of pervasive, ignorance and superstition remains one of the biggest challenges to slowing the spread of AIDS on that troubled continent.

Educating Obama

Barack Obama has entranced Americans with his ability to inspire an audience. He is the finest orator in recent memory. It’s when he doesn’t have a teleprompter that things get a little dicey. Which may be the reason for his refusal to debate in South Carolina in favor of town hall style meetings.

“Yes, We Can”, and “We are the change that we seek”, in that resonant voice, are magical phrases that promise, well, something swell anyway.

But the primary responsibility of a president is not oratory, although that can help, it is the foreign policy and security of America. Obama has, perhaps with appreciation for his own speech-making ability, promised to talk to almost everybody. He wants to speak to a summit of Muslim nations, to find out what is bothering them. The thing is, he seems a little confused about what we are doing and what we have done.

Michael Ledeen points out that “Senator Barack Obama wants to talk to our Middle Eastern enemies, notably Iran. He can’t imagine a happy resolution of the war without such talks. And he seems to think this desire is something new, maybe even revolutionary.”

He apparently does not know that it is not at all new, and certainly not revolutionary. It is instead the fully tested “policy” of the United States for the past thirty years, ever since the seizure of power by the mullahs in 1979. We have had high-level and low-level talks, public and private talks, talks conducted by diplomats, by spooks, and by a colorful array of intermediaries ranging from former Spanish President Felipe Gonzales to nephews of Rafsanjani, Iranian-American businessmen, former NSC and CIA members, and others with more dubious qualifications.

All failed. [Read the whole thing]

Obama has said that “foreign policy is the area where I am probably most confident that I know more and understand the world better than Senator Clinton or Senator McCain”. That experience, apparently, comes from living in Indonesia for four years when he was in the early years of grade school. Knowing the leaders, he asserted, is not important. I’m not clear on this. Because you negotiate with…?

He also believes that al Qaeda was not in Iraq until we invaded, that we shouldn’t be in Iraq because al Qaeda is only in Afghanistan. Never mind that al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is called that because they are in Mesopotamia — Iraq. He’s said he would invade Pakistan in pursuit of Osama bin Laden, although we cannot cross the border into Pakistan, particularly now when there is such unrest in Pakistan. He believes that the Sunni Anbar Awakening occurred only because of the “Surge”, though it was well advanced before the surge began. And that there was no military solution to the conflict between Sunni and Shi’ia factions.

In South America, Columbia is a solid ally that has made great progress, yet is facing terrorism from Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela and Ecuadorian Marxist leader Evo Morales. Obama opposes a free trade agreement with Columbia to please U.S. unions who are big donors. He also wants to “re-negotiate” the NAFTA treaties with our closest allies and neighbors — also a union demand.

It is encouraging that Obama is confident about his foreign policy abilities. I wish I were.

Happy Earth Day… Now, Get a Grip!

This interview with Professor Carter was shown on New Zealand TV on Friday, April 18, 2008. He makes a lot more sense than Al Gore.