My Beauty Best Teacher

Last year I wrote the following in a post called "Bombshell" Experiment: Global Climate Change Caused by Cloud Cover:

Times have to be getting rough on those who worship the Green God; science and reasoning are killing their religion in a way that it never could do with Christianity. For years people have been preaching that humans are the cause of global warming, that global warming is bad, and that the only way to reverse this climate change is to repent and tithe. Symbols of the evil of humans abound to these true believers- SUV's, air conditioning, electric power, comfort, happiness, etc- and these modern-day followers of Mandaeanism inevitably preach that humanity is responsible and needs to turn towards communism in order to stop the rise of the seas and the heating of the earth.

But it turns out this entire religion is built on a false premise- humans are largely not responsible for the changing of the climate and thus bear no obligation to give up any sort of symbols of progress to fix a problem that isn't theirs to fix. That doesn't mean that humans can pollute as much they want- there is still the tragedy of the commons, which can be solved by stronger rule of law and more property rights, which is the exact opposite of what environmentalists preach. But it does mean that government policies discouraging certain things and encouraging other things are built on a faulty foundation of unreality that will do more harm to society than good if continued.

Humans are not responsible for any sort of change in climate, and thus we should dash the dreams of Democrats and liberals and environmentalists and wake them out of their paradise world of railroads, bike paths, windmills, and other relics of the 1800's. CAFE standards, denying permits to mining and drilling companies, using the laws of the national government to stop developments everywhere, and cap-and-trade schemes are unreal, in the sense that they do not reflect the reality of the world. The only thing that these policies do in reality are empower elites in society to take and keep control of the means of production in order to put in place a more unjust world where life, liberty, and personal property is attacked- they do not do anything to the temperature of the globe or the environment or the climate.

The reason that these policies do not work is because humans are not responsible for any sort of changes in climate- the sun is. Shout it from the rooftops and yell it with passion at any environmentalist or liberal or Democrat whose party has been captured by these believers in the false Green God-

THE SUN IS RESPONSIBLE FOR TEMPERATURE OF THE EARTH!

Today on RealClearPolitics, I read a good article that touches on this subject again. Here is part of the article called The Galileo of Global Warming:

...Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark, who seems to have discovered the most important factor that actually regulates Earth's climate, and who is quietly in the process of proving it.

I linked last year to Svensmark's latest big breakthrough, but I didn't get a chance to discuss it much, so I want to give a little more detail now, then show one of the recent consequences of Svensmark's achievement.

Let me briefly sum up Svensmark's theory. The temperature of the Earth, he argues, is regulated by the intensity of solar radiation, but not in the obvious way. It is not that the increase is solar radiation heats the Earth directly. (It does, of course, but not to a sufficient degree to explain climate variations.) Rather, an increase in solar radiation extends the Sun's magnetic field, which shields Earth from cosmic rays (highly energetic, fast-moving charged particles that come from deep space). How does this affect the climate? Here is the crux of Svensmark's argument. When cosmic rays hit the atmosphere, he argues, their impact on air molecules creates nucleation sites for the condensation of water vapor, leading to an increase in cloud-formation. Since clouds tend to bounce solar radiation back into space, increased cloud cover cools the Earth, while decreased cloud cover makes the Earth warmer.

So if Svensmark is right, lower solar radiation means more cosmic rays, more clouds, and a cooler Earth, while higher solar radiation means fewer cosmic rays, fewer clouds, and a warmer Earth.

Those who have followed the global warming controversy over the years may recall that cloud-formation is one of the major gaps in the computerized climate "models" used by the consensus scientists to predict global warming. They have never had a theory to explain how and why clouds form or to account accurately for their effect on the climate. Svensmark has smashed through this glaring gap in their theory.

Like I said, Svensmark hasn't just put this theory out there. He has been working to prove it. He has done some studies that attempted to track measurements of cosmic ray flux against surface temperature and cloud cover, with some success. But his big breakthrough last year was a long-awaited experiment at Switzerland's CERN particle accelerator that demonstrated the most controversial part of Svensmark's theory.

It is widely accepted that the Sun's magnetic field helps shield Earth from cosmic rays, and it is also widely accepted that increased cloud cover cools the Earth (though expect this to suddenly come into question as Svensmarks' theory gains ground). What Svensmark needed to demonstrate was that cosmic rays form nucleation sites that seed clouds.

Hence the aptly named CLOUD experiment performed at CERN last year, with the results published last August. The experiment was actually more than a decade in the making, but as Lawrence Solomon explains, it was help back for years by the scientific bureaucracy because of its potentially unwelcome results.

The results are indeed unwelcome, at least for the advocates of the global warming consensus. Anthony Watts explained the experiment at his blog, Watts Up With That? The CLOUD experiment used CERN's particle accelerator to send a beam of artificially generated charged particles—simulated cosmic rays—into a gas-filled chamber and then measured the formation of aerosols, the kind of compounds that can serve as cloud nucleation sites. It found a direct and very significant relationship.

This is not a total demonstration of Svensmark's theory. The Nature paper on the CLOUD experiment notes that "the fraction of these freshly nucleated particles that grow to sufficient sizes to seed cloud droplets, as well as the role of organic vapors in the nucleation and growth processes, remain open questions experimentally." But last year's result is a clear demonstration of a crucial step in Svensmark's theory...

Full disclosure- I don't worship the Green God and don't hold true to the tenants of True Science, so emailing me to extol the virtues of your religion and way of life won't have any effect.

To loosely quote Mr. Universe, there is no official government news- the kind of puppet theatre that the government jesters push through their various institutions to the sleepwalking masses of morons- there is only the truth of the signal- what we see, what we know, and what is reality. And you can't stop the signal.

Henrik Svensmark is also the author of The Chilling Stars: A Cosmic View of Climate Change.

The President of the United States should be clerk, and nothing more. Conservatives and Tea Party people should not be looking for the President to be a 'king' who commands us to go forth and do his bidding, they should not be looking for the President to be the source of ideas about how government should run, and they should not be looking for the President to be an outsider who will shake up Washington.

The office, as designed by our Founding Fathers and illustrated in Article II of the Constitution, is an office that empowers the President of the United States to execute the laws passed by Congress in the most efficient manner, act as Commander-in-Chief of our military, act as the dignified ceremonial chief of state, handle foreign policy with other nations, and discharge effectively the various other duties of the office. A true conservative or someone who wants our nation to return to its Founding Principles should be pushing for the person who is best able to act as a clerk, a manager, and a CEO for America Inc.

You see, in reality the presidency is essentially a glorified clerk in our system, and is not actually a game-changing all-powerful King. The power of the President stems from his ability to use his office to trade favors or the promise of favors to accomplish the goal of efficiently managing the affairs of the state; his power does not (nor should it) from his ability to order others to do his bidding and his ability to issue executive orders and put in place policies. The legislative branch is better and more powerfully designed for those purposes, and so all decisions about the laws and policies of our nation should be generated from that branch, and then the President implements them in an efficient and able manner.

The President is able to implement these policies in an able and efficient manner because he has lots of little pieces of power spread through out nation's political system- he is able to send troops abroad, deliver the state of the union address, control various executive departments, play a vital role in the budgeting process, issues pardons and grant reprieves, etc, and he can also use his informal power and influence to invite policy leaders to the White House, go on national TV, lobby for legislation, etc. His power- both real and perceived- gets others to re-appraise what is in their best interest, and they are then persuaded that it is better to get along with the President and what he wants to do rather than fight against his able and methodical and efficient powers.

Look, I know this isn't exciting to you guys- you all want a President who will blow your socks off, light up the system, ride in on a horse of hope and change and remake the world. You want a king to rule you and control other people who you disagree with. You wish that someone who will go into the White House and then start just shutting down executive departments, slashing spending on programs, and ignoring the Judicial and Legislative Branches to bring you closer to our Founding Fathers. The problem is, that isn't how our Founding Fathers designed the office of the President and it is not how our Founding Fathers would have wanted the system to work, and once you go down the path to making our President a King, he can be a liberal King too in a short 4 to 8 years.

As I wrote in Calvin Coolidge, One of the Best Presidents?:

The best Presidents are those who did very little, ran the executive office smoothly and without problems or corruption, and conformed to the Constitution as closely as possible. Jefferson was President for two terms, and other then the Louisiana Purchase, his administration happily has little to note other than peace and prosperity. James Madison had to respond to the War of 1812, yes- but other than that, peace and prosperity. Calvin Coolidge was like this too- nothing to note during his time in office other than nothing to note- peoples lives were protected, the nation was prosperous, and property was well protected.

The President is a powerful person in our political system- but he has grown too powerful, and I don't want him to become even more powerful and active and arbitrary, even if for a while he would be doing so in a conservative or libertarian manner. Rather, our President should be good at working with the Congress to effect significant changes to our laws and policies, he should be good at closing doors and coming out of them with policy-leaders minds changed, he should know our political system inside and out and understand how to move various levers to get stuff done, and he should be able to judiciously use his public prestige to pressure leaders to voluntarily arrive at policy decisions that he supports. He should be a competent manager and efficient steward of taxpayer resources. At the end of his Presidency, we should not say that he brought hope and change to the American system, but rather we should say that when he left after eight quiet years as President, peoples lives had been protected from domestic and international threats, that the nation had remained prosperous and free of debts, and that private property had been well protected and preserved.

The description of a 'great' President that I have outlined above is most definitely not a description of our current President. President Barack Obama went into the White House without the skills needed to be an effective or even good President, and he has shown no desire to put in the hard work, the humility, and the intelligence to acquire these skills. Yes, I know that during his first two years much legislation was passed (which he now claims makes him the fourth best President ever)- but that was during a time period when one element of society- liberal Democrats- controlled almost all the national levers of policy-making (House, Senate, President, and bureaucracy)- and since that time, more elements of society are represented in our political system, and he has demonstrated that in these more pluralistic and typical circumstances that he is completely ineffective. You see, the earlier 'success' he had in driving the policy-agenda was really because it was being driven by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, who pushed their legislation and priorities in spite of what Obama desired or wanted- those who have been part of this legislation have written several times that the White House was remarkably passive during that time period and just went along with whatever Congress wanted (which in itself is not a bad thing, but in the context of demonstrating leadership it is). But once Obama's party lost control of the House, we were able to see truly just how bad a President he is and how bad he as at filling this office.

President Obama is poor at working with Congress, bad at working with others of different opinions than his own, too quick to attack in public those who he disagrees with (probably because he is so awful at convincing them to change policies behind closed doors), he does not know how to use all the various levers in policy-making that he has, and overuses the prestige of his office such that it the prestige has been watered down (I'm imaging him promoting Monday Night Football right now). He is an incompetent manager and a poor steward of taxpayer resources (his family is spending millions in taxpayer money on a vacation to Hawaii as I write this). At the end of his Presidency (hopefully next year), we'll look back at the last four years as being some of the most chaotic and partisan and rough years, and look at his record as our President- a nation that is less prosperous, less free, burdened with debts, with horribly destroyed foundations (crumbling roads, bridges, schools, and Social Security, Medicare, and other programs that have been bankrupted and unreformed), and with private property under attack (Occupy Wall Street, Dodd-Frank, the bankruptcy of GM, etc). President Obama is a bad President.

Could any of the Republican candidates for President be a 'great' President? I don't know- I'll let you make your own decisions on that for now. But much of what I wrote here I pulled from an earlier post I wrote called Ron Paul- Drop Out of the Race where I considered Congressman Paul's candidacy in light of these ideas. But do Romney, Perry, Gingrich, Bachmann, or Santorum meet the qualifications I laid out above better than Obama? They likely do- for example, look at Romney's experience as Governor of at blue-state or saving the Salt Lake City Olympics, or Perry's able Governorship of successful Texas, or Gingrich's record of balancing the budget with a Democratic President, but I surely must  revisit this concept and evaluate the GOP candidates accordingly in a later post- be sure to check back often on my blog for this post.

Oh, and in reply to the liberals and progressives and fascists who are emailing me trying to personally attack me- I do have several degrees from good universities in public policy, I teach government for a living, and my argument is based in part on professor Richard Neustadt's book Presidential Power (purchase the book today- Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership from Roosevelt to Reagan). My arguments are sound and hopefully well-reasoned, and as always, I'd love to defend them in print or on the radio, and I would love it if you would email this post or link to it on your blog so that our Presidential election in 2012 is that much more informed.

In July of 2010 in response to a Politico poll that showed how out of touch the elites in Washington DC were from the rest of the nation I wrote "while the countryside is being plundered, the Democratic lords and Emperor Obama are living in a different world based on luxury, hope, and change."

Turns out that I was right- while the rest of the nation has been battling unemployment, falling salaries, and a feeling that things are going in the wrong direction, Washington DC has become the wealthiest U.S. metropolitan area according to recent Census data. Whereas in years past wealthiest metropolitan areas were based on producing goods and services, Washington DC has become the nation's wealthiest area on the backs of booming salaries and employment for government workers and booming employment and a growing concentration of lawyers and lobbyists.

Unlike recently passed Silicon Valley which built its wealth on innovation and production of computers or historic wealthy areas like Oakland County Michigan which was built on money generated from automobile production, under President Barack Obama (Democrat, President since 2009) and the Democrats (control of House from 2006-2011 and Senate since 2006), Washington DC simply vacuums trillions of dollars from taxpayers and trillions more in debt in order to give high salaries to ever more inefficient government employees and to distribute gifts and favors and contracts to special interests.

With about 5.6 million residents, the Washington region has an aggregate household income of about $221.4 billion. The San Jose area (Silicon Valley) has about 1.8 million people and income of $67 billion, according to census figures gathered from the American Community Survey. Although there is considerable income disparity in Washington DC (in the District of Columbia almost 11 percent of the city’s population qualifies as “very poor"), total compensation for federal workers (including health care and other benefits) soared last year to an average of $126,369, compared with $122,697 in 2009 and even less than that in years before that. In addition to soaring federal pay, employment has been stable as well- the unemployment rate in the Washington metro area was 6.1 percent, compared with nationally joblessness at 9.1 percent (source).

In addition to booming salary and jobs for federal workers during this recession, there has also been a stunning rise in the number of lobbyists and lawyers working over the federal government- spending on lobbying efforts reached a new record of $3.51 billion last year and in 2010 there were a new record number of registered lobbyists (12,964), with most working in or around the nation’s capital. This is likely the result of the Democrats crony capitalism policies, which award contracts and business to those who are politically connected and make campaign donations to Democrats (see Solyndra or the bailout of General Motors for examples of this).

I personally saw this sort of corruption when I visited our nation's capitol last. After that visit, I was moved to write this:

Washington DC is booming. I think it is one of the few states in the nation to actually have increasingly employment, job growth, and GDP growth. There are signs everywhere of prosperity and building- roads are being repaired, monuments are being revamped, buildings are adding on, and fresh paint and plaster is in abundance. On a guidebook of DC I read that our capitol was designed to look like the capitols of the Emperors and despots of Europe, but it was okay because we lived in a free nation that celebrated liberty and property. Well, as our country becomes more despotic and tyrannical, it is going to look increasingly like those capitols of the old days, when the Emperor took money from the countryside to build himself new statues and bigger palaces.

There is no way to sugar-coat this sort of thing or make it appear to be some sort of sign of progress. President Obama campaigned on cleaning up Washington, and he has done the exact opposite, making Washington a rising cesspool of corruption and money while the rest of the nation struggles to make ends meet. There needs to be a house-cleaning in 2012 to get rid of the people who have been in charge there over the last couple years when the problem has gotten dramatically worse, and since Bush and the Republicans are not in charge any more, that means the Democrats (who control the bureaucracy, Presidency, and Senate) should be thrown out of their fancy palaces in DC so that they can find real jobs making goods and providing services in good old productive American cities.

Mark Levin probably agrees with me- check out his book Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America.

Today let's learn about our Science Czar, the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, John Holdren.

As the United States of America continues its descent under President Obama and his New Democrat Party into a third-world dictatorship, I still find myself unfamiliar with the overlords who now control my behavior and distribute to me gifts and favors. Oh, I know who is elected into office, and being a teacher of this sort of stuff I understand the bureaucracy and how it works. But who the heck is John Holdren, what role does he play in our political system, how did he get that role, and what sort of a person is he to be controlling me?

It's tough to keep all these czars straight, you know, since under Obamathe number of unelected, unconfirmed offices who go by the old imperial Russian title of Czar has gone up quite a bit (although to be fair, the number of people who have been considered czars under Obama is still just under the number of people who were considered czars under Bush, a two-term President roundly criticized by both the right and left as being undemocratic and statist). Still, I'm determined to get to know all of them- from Kenneth Feinberg, Head of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront and Pay Czar who although being a long-time Democratic operative and chief of staff for Democratic Senator Kennedy was put in charge of determining how much CEO's should be paid in once-free America, to Gary Samore, former US Communist party member and current WMD Policy Czar, to Ed Montgomery, auto-worker czar and distributor of gifts and favors.

It's going to be important for all of us to become more familiar with how things work in America now- after the change- we'll need to know how to curry favor with royal envoys, how to avoid being intimidated and bullied by bowing low and saying the right things, and how to bow get gifts from to our new overlords, who now tour around the land giving gifts to favored people.

So today let's get to know a little bit better our Science Czar, John Holdren. From Who Runs Gov:

Holdren is a powerhouse in the world of science and public policy. As director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology (PCAST), he is the top adviser to President Barack Obama on science and technology, issues that are increasingly relevant to homeland security, energy and the environment. Holdren casts all of the above as priorities.

He also leads interagency efforts to develop and implement sound science and technology policies and budgets, and works with the private sector, state and local governments, the science and higher education communities, and other nations to advance his policy initiatives.

Although a lot of conservatives may focus on other aspects of John Holdren- for example, in a book he published in 1977, he wrote about and appeared to be supportive of forced abortions, mass sterilization, a "Planetary Regime" with the power of life and death over American citizens, populations that would be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation's drinking water or in food, and other similarly frightening ideas. This research is important and should be realized, but I want to focus instead on another aspect of Holdren- his belief in a benevolent world dictatorship of the enlightened elite that will forcibly transfer wealth for some reason or another.

Holdren is a believer in the so-called Unified Theory of Left-Wing Causes. This theory is that all left wing causes- including global warming, global cooling, overpopulation, endangered species, poverty, diversity, and many others- can all be solved by a benevolent world dictatorship of the enlightened elite that will force others to live their lives differently and will redistribute their property as they see fit.

Basically, Holdren is a run-of-the-mill tyranny supporter, and was appointed to his position by tyrant-in-chief President Barack Obama, and he is to be opposed by all freedom and liberty loving patriots out there.

The worst part about Holdren, aside from the fact that he seizes on the left wing cause of the day to push his tyrannical beliefs, is that his ideas and theories about everything are wrong. From Forbes:

....In keeping with his dogmatic limits-to-growth convictions, Holdren joined his frequent co-author, eco-doomster Paul Ehrlich, in a famous bet against cornucopian economist Julian Simon. In 1980, Holdren, Ehrlich and Stanford colleague John Harte picked a basket of five commodities--chrome, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten--that they were sure were going to rise in price as they became increasingly scarce. They drew up a futures contract obligating Simon to sell Holdren, Ehrlich and Harte the same quantities of five metals that could be purchased for $1,000 10 years later at 1980 prices.

If the combined prices rose above $1,000, Simon would pay the difference. If they fell below $1,000, Ehrlich would pay Simon. Ehrlich mailed Simon a check for $576.07 in October 1990. Simply put, the combined real prices of the metals selected by Holdren and his colleagues fell by more than 50% during the 1980s, confirming cornucopian claims that the supply of resources over time becomes more abundant, not scarcer.....

...Holdren introduced in 1971--with his colleague and perennial population-alarmist, Ehrlich--the concept of the I=PAT identity. Human Impact on the environment is equal to Population x Affluence/consumption x Technology. All of which are supposed to intensify and worsen humanity's impact on the natural world.

History shows that the I=PAT identity largely gets it backward. Population is at worst neutral, while affluence and technology actually promote environmental flourishing. It is in the rich, developed countries that the air becomes clearer, the streams cleaner and the forests more expansive....

...Holdren doesn't appear to have an adequate understanding of the economic process through which these technological advances are achieved. He seems to think new technologies arise full-blown from government agencies and university laboratories....

This is the general flaw to the Unified Theory of Left-Wing Causes- that bureaucrats like Holdren know what they are doing and if they are given more power over others- power that those free people once exercised- and are given more resources- resources taken from the labor of once-free people- that these bureaucrats will make the world a better place for us all to live- a more prosperous, free, and happy place. It turns out though that he is wrong in almost all of his theories- from bets he placed to equations he invented to his general understanding of economics. He is a failed person- perhaps no more failed than the rest of us, but yet given more power and authority and wealth over the rest of us by a government not in any way empowered to do so.

People are not completely 'benelevent', and neither are the governments they create, and there are no 'enlightened' people in charge of our government today, either Democrat or Republican or liberal or conservative. Whatever the cause that you believe in or support, the answer is never the Unified Theory of Left-Wing Causes, and yet the Obama administration has appointed as Science Czar one of the greatest believers in this theory- a guy who is supposed to be a scientist actually at his heart a firm believer in a theory that is demonstratively wrong.

John Holdren is yet another example of a failed administration based on failed theories and ideas putting in placed failed administrators who implement failed policies- and we can see the results of this failure in America today.

Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) is a good Representative to the United States Congress and is a good advocate for libertarian views on public policy positions- but he should in no way be considered for the office of the President of the United States of America. This means that he should not be encouraged or supported in any effort to do so through support in straw polls, campaign donations, or nice comments online, and that he should not fan any sort of flames for a Paul Presidency by running. He should drop out of the race for the Presidential nomination of the Republican Party and not even hint or flirt about running for President again.

Ron Paul has no executive experience, and our next President of the United States should have executive experience. This does not mean that Paul doesn't have good ideas- he does have a lot of good ideas- but the proper place for a guy with lots of good ideas in our political system is in our legislative branch, not our executive branch. The President of the United States is essentially a clerk in our system, organizing and leading all the various agencies and departments and satisfying other important roles like chief of state and commander-in-chief. Even in his ability as commander-in-chief though the President is not really a man of ideas and new policies- he is the chief executive officer in charge of our military, providing direction and guidance and leadership but not really driving policies. The main job of the office is simply to oversee the whole process as something like a CEO of our government- and Ron Paul has never done this in any governmental unit, not as Director or Secretary of any agency, not as Governor, and hasn't even had any sort of leadership roles within his party that might prepare him to these tasks. He is simply unqualified to be an executive- much as our President today was, and we see the results of it now.

The President of the United States is expected to be a great communicator, decision maker, leader, and manager; all roles that Ron Paul may be good at, but are not the main reasons why his supporters like him. He can communicate- but is not renowned as a speaker or communicator, and this is something that a President must be able to do very well. President Reagan was a great communicator- President Obama, especially in the absence of his teleprompter and prepared speeches, is not (although he is a great speaker of prepared speeches), and that's why he makes a bad President and why Ron Paul would to.

The President of the United States must be a manager, presiding over the nation's day-to-day, month-to-month, and year-to-year operations. He has to be able to oversee the vast operations of the massive government bureaucracy so that there is no corruption and misuse of funds and missions; and yet he has to be detached enough from the process to be able to see the big picture and provide clear direction and leadership to the operations of the state. Even Ron Paul supporters would be hard pressed to argue that their guy would be great at this aspect of the job- the day-to-day management of the vast enterprise of USA Inc- and yet this is a major aspect of the job of President.

Ron Paul, drop out of the race. Your supporters need to begin to look elsewhere for the next person that will lead our nation, a person who has the skills and competence and demonstrated executive experience to run the vast operations that is America. Your supporters need to begin to evaluate whether the other candidates for the job have the right skills, vision, dedication, and background to successful be a clerk, a CEO, and a manager for our nation, and thereby fill the void that is in the executive branch right now. No longer can (or should) our nation accept incompetence and inexperience masquerading as passion and ideology in the White House- no, we demand a real grown-up in this august office, one who can move the machinery of state and slowly fade back into the background while people with ideas pass laws out of the legislative branch that direct our executive and tell him which way to move the levers of the state.

Ron Paul, be a legislator, and a great one at that; but drop out of the race to be the chief executive of our nation, because it is not the right office for you, and your supporters are needed in helping choose the right person for this job.

To see other posts regarding my thoughts on Ron Paul, check out Ron Paul is Not the Future of the GOP or Abandon the Libertarian Party and 'Tea Party' and other Third Parties- Vote GOP You Fools.

UPDATE: It is amusing to get emails from so-called 'conservatives' and 'libertarians' who want Ron Paul to rule our nation as a king and use his position as executive to jam down his legislative policy on the serfs of our nation. Read Hamilton and Madison and go back and look at the Presidencies of Washington and Jefferson and Madison- they were merely clerks in our system, good managers, and good executives. So you better examine your motives for wanting Ron Paul to be President before you start emailing me- some of you are no better than Obama supporters in that you want a king to rule over us, the only difference is that the king you want is from Texas and talks a good game about libertarian and conservative values.

UPDATE II: My argument is based in part on my reading and understanding of professor Richard Neustadt's book Presidential Power, in which he examined the decision-making process at the highest levels of government. He argued that the President is actually rather weak in the U.S. government, being unable to effect significant change without the approval of the Congress, and that in practice the President must rely on a combination of personal persuasion, professional reputation "inside the Beltway", and public prestige to get things done. These very skills are ones that Paul seems to be lacking in, and thus he would make a poor President. Oh, I know he promises hope and change and speaks a good game, but we've already got a Democratic version of that in the White House, and we can see how badly it is working out, so why would we want a Libertarian or GOP version of hope-and-change-and-rhetoric?


UPDATE III: Please be sure to read my more updated post on this topic called Elect a 'Clerk' For President in 2012 and Restore Founding Father's Vision of Executive Branch? where I argue that our Founding Fathers and modern-day libertarians and Tea Partiers should be supporting a clerk, a manager, and a CEO for America Inc, and not a right-wing version of hope-and-change (like Ron Paul). Be sure to read it here!

The good news about the budget for fiscal year of 2011 is that it did not set a record for the largest deficit ever. No, that record was set in 2009 at $1.412 trillion, when the Democrats who controlled Congress from 2006 passed a budget that lame-duck moderate Republican President Bush then signed into law- a budget that included the bank bailouts of a trillion dollars. 2011 was better than that awful year for governance- but only by a little bit, as the final deficit for fiscal year 2011 came in as the second highest deficit in the history of our nation, $1.299 trillion.

The Republicans are not blameless in this deficit- they have been in control of at least half of Congress since January of 2011, so they own most of this budget that resulted in the second highest single year deficit in the history of the United States- at a time when we're not fighting any new wars, not building any sort of major monuments, not engaged in any sort of national race for space or atomic bombs, and no longer passing massive stimulus bills and bank bailouts at the height of a major crisis. Nope, this 2011 deficit is just outright bad- just a lot of blown money and spending way beyond what is sustainable, and the GOP was party and parcel to this budget.

Oh, I know that they only control half of Congress and don't control the Presidency or the bureaucracy and walked into this mess- but if the GOP wants to blame Obama for the mess he has caused than it is only fair that they take a good share of the blame for the 2011 fiscal deficit. The 'budget deals' they signed into law were bad deals, and any GOP Congressman who stood to vote for those or who urged new spending programs should be held accountable.

Tea Party people, this doesn't mean that the GOP is just as bad as the Democrats or that there needs to be a third party- no, it means that the GOP must be held accountable in their primary elections by facing true conservative challenges and must be made to answer questions regarding their votes.

As must though as the GOP is not blameless for this utter disaster in governance, the Democrats are to be held in full blame for passing on these massive debts to our children and doing such a utter rotten job of managing money.

Democrats controlled the House of Representations from 2006 to 2010 (and apparently the fiscal year goes Oct-Oct, so they are to blame for the 2011 deficit from Oct-Jan), and controlled the Senate from 2006 to today so are to blame in full for the deficit of 2011. And US President Barack Obama is a Democrat and has been President since 2010, so shares blame for this as well.

The deficit in 2011 was $1.299 trillion.

The deficit in 2010 was $1.293 trillion.

The deficit in 2009 was $1.412 trillion.

The wrath of voters should fall on anyone part of this horrible mismanagement's in the ship of state, and since Bush and many of the Republicans from 2009 and prior are not on the ballot and it appears that their mistakes and bad policies have been continued and deepened and made normal by the Democrats, the wrath of voters should fall in full on the Democratic President, the Democrats in the Senate, and the big-spending GOPers and Democrats in the House who oversaw this travesty.

Juan Williams was on Sean Hannity today discussing President Obama's economic and domestic policies, and when push came to shove and facts and figures and data and evidence was cited, he fell back on the same argument that liberals and progressives always fall back on when the results of their policies prove to be harmful to poor people, minorities, and the groups in society that need the most help- he fell back on the argument that for all of the government's faults, at least it was taking wealth from rich people and redistributing it as charity to poor people.

Liberals and progressives, who have seized the old Democratic Party and are now running it as a communist organization, believe that one of the primary roles of the new United States of America is to use the power of the state to distribute charity to those who need it. But their actions and beliefs are in fact resulting in less money and wealth going to the people who need it in society because the government is THE SINGLE WORST charitable organization in the world, having considerable overhead, being motivated by politics and not need, and full of corruption and graft.

CATO, in a report that, although dated, still gets to the heart of the matter, said:

Private charities have been more successful than government welfare for several reasons. First, private charities are able to individualize their approach to the circumstances of poor people in ways that governments can never do. Government regulations must be designed to treat all similarly situated recipients alike. Glenn C. Loury of Boston University explains the difference between welfare and private charities on that point. "Because citizens have due process rights which cannot be fully abrogated . . . public judgments must be made in a manner that can be defended after the fact, sometimes even in court." The result is that most government programs rely on the simple provision of cash or other goods and services without any attempt to differentiate between the needs of recipients.

Take, for example, the case of a poor person who has a job offer. But she can't get to the job because her car battery is dead. A government welfare program can do nothing but tell her to wait two weeks until her welfare check arrives. Of course, by that time the job will be gone. A private charity can simply go out and buy a car battery (or even jump-start the dead battery).

The sheer size of government programs works against individualization. As one welfare case worker lamented, "With 125 cases it's hard to remember that they're all human beings. Sometimes they're just a number." Bureaucracy is a major factor in government welfare programs. For example, a report on welfare in Illinois found procedures requiring "nine forms to process an address change, at least six forms to add or delete a member of a household, and a minimum of six forms to report a change in earnings or employment." All that for just one program.

In her excellent book Tyranny of Kindness, Theresa Funiciello, a former welfare mother, describes the dehumanizing world of the government welfare system--a system in which regulations and bureaucracy rule all else. It is a system in which illiterate homeless people with mental illnesses are handed 17-page forms to fill out, women nine months pregnant are told to verify their pregnancies, a woman who was raped is told she is ineligible for benefits because she can't list the baby's father on the required form. It is a world totally unable to adjust to the slightest deviation from the bureaucratic norm.

In addition to being better able to target individual needs, private charities are much better able to target assistance to those who really need help. Because eligibility requirements for government welfare programs are arbitrary and cannot be changed to fit individual circumstances, many people in genuine need do not receive assistance, while benefits often go to people who do not really need them. More than 40 percent of all families living below the poverty level receive no government assistance. Yet more than half of the families receiving means-tested benefits are not poor. Thus, a student may receive food stamps, while a homeless man with no mailing address goes without. Private charities are not bound by such bureaucratic restrictions.

Private charity also has a better record of actually delivering aid to recipients. Surprisingly little of the money being spent on federal and state social welfare programs actually reaches recipients. In 1965, 70 cents of every dollar spent by the government to fight poverty went directly to poor people. Today, 70 cents of every dollar goes, not to poor people, but to government bureaucrats and others who serve the poor. Few private charities have the bureaucratic overhead and inefficiency of government programs.

Democratic policies are increasingly being defended on 'charitable' grounds, from healthcare policies to economic policies to environmental policies, but the truth of the matter is that government is a poor method of distributing charity. Instead of relying on government and its horrible charitable giving, all of these programs should be ended and the money spent on them should be returned to citizens. Even if a small percentage of this money was given in charity, then it would be more successful than government programs, and as long as there are a lot of conservative Republicans around, we can be sure that a good percentage of money will be donated and not a small percentage (according to studies, liberals don't donate to charity- they feel superior by taking money from you and giving that to charity).

Although I am no expert in this, I have always felt that the 1930's were an interesting time period in our nation. The Victorian age had come to a bloody conclusion with World War One, and a whole generation of people were now being raised in a society that saw their parents as failures- their attempts to repress their sexual urges, their attempts to stick to the old ways, their attempts to put in place world peace, their attempts to build multinational nations- all had led to one of the most bloody and brutal and worthless wars of all time. Technology was changing fast- cars and telephones and radio and motion picture- and the children of the 1910's and 1920's thought that they had everything figured out- they thought that where other generations had failed due to their reliance on religion, traditional values, free markets, republicanism, and limited government, they would succeed by figuring out a third way of doing things, a practical way of doing things, a way of doing things that used the power of government to make society a better place to live. This new generation, horrified by WWI and mocking their parents lack of technology skills, had it all figured out, and ushered in an era of fascism and communism and World War Two.

In my post 1930's Are Root of All That is Wrong I cataloged all of the laws that were passed in the 1930's in America that are with us today- such as the Unemployment Compensation Tax (MI, 1936), Oil and Gas Severance Tax (MI, 1929), Social Security Act (USA, 1935), Fair Labor Standards Act (USA, 1938), Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (USA, 1930), Hoover Tax Hike (USA, 1932), National Labor Relations Act (USA, 1935), Private Schools, Act 302 of 1921 (MI, 1921), Roosevelt moves traditional Thanksgiving Day (1939), Regulating Firearms, Act 373 (MI, 1927), US moves off gold standard (1933), Reapportionment Act (USA, 1929), etc. Looking through that list and thinking of how much America was changed by one generation, by one President, by one party, by one decade (mostly), I was always stunned, and wondered how people had let that come to pass.

As it turns out, the Republican Party of 1936 had put together a platform to oppose a lot of these fascist ideas, but people loved their hope and change and returned FDR to the White House instead, and so the Great Depression dragged on for another decade. Via Conservative Hideout, let's take a walk back in history and see just exactly what the GOP was offering as an alternative back then to the high taxes, high regulation, crony capitalism, fascist third way system that FDR was pushing our nation into. Here is a good chunk of the 1936 Republican Party Platform:

1936 Republican Party PlatformAmerica is in peril. The welfare of American men and women and the future of our youth are at stake. We dedicate ourselves to the preservation of their political liberty, their individual opportunity and their character as free citizens, which today for the first time are threatened by Government itself.

For three long years the New Deal Administration has dishonored American traditions and flagrantly betrayed the pledges upon which the Democratic Party sought and received public support. The powers of Congress have been usurped by the President... the rights and liberties of American citizens have been violated... regulated monopoly has displaced free enterprise.... it has intimidated witnesses and interfered with the right of petition... it has been guilty of frightful waste and extravagance, using public funds for partisan political purposes... it has promoted investigations to harass and intimidate American citizens, at the same time denying investigations into its own improper expenditures... it has created a vast multitude of new offices, filled them with its favorites, set up a centralized bureaucracy, and sent out swarms of inspectors to harass our people.... it has bred fear and hesitation in commerce and industry, thus discouraging new enterprises, preventing employment and prolonging the depression.... appeals to passion and class prejudice have replaced reason and tolerance.

To a free people, these actions are insufferable. This campaign cannot be waged on the traditional differences between the Republican and Democratic parties. The responsibility of this election transcends all previous political divisions. We invite all Americans, irrespective of party, to join us in defense of American institutions. We pledge ourselves:

...To preserve the American system of free enterprise, private competition, and equality of opportunity, and to seek its constant betterment in the interests of all.

The only permanent solution of the unemployment problem is the absorption of the unemployed by industry and agriculture. To that end, we advocate: Removal of restrictions on production. Abandonment of all New Deal policies that raise production costs, increase the cost of living, and thereby restrict buying, reduce volume and prevent reemployment. Encouragement instead of hindrance to legitimate business. Withdrawal of government from competition with private payrolls. Elimination of unnecessary and hampering regulations. Adoption of such other policies as will furnish a chance for individual enterprise, industrial expansion, and the restoration of jobs.

Society has an obligation to promote the security of the people, by affording some measure of protection against involuntary unemployment and dependency in old age. The New Deal policies, while purporting to provide social security, have, in fact, endangered it. We propose a system of old age security, based upon the following principles: 1. We approve a pay-as-you-go policy, which requires of each generation the support of the aged and the determination of what is just and adequate, 2. Every American citizen over sixty-five should receive the supplementary payment necessary to provide a minimum income sufficient to protect him or her from want. 3. Each state and territory, upon complying with simple and general minimum standards, should receive from the federal government a graduated contribution in proportion to its own, up to a fixed maximum....

...Nearly sixty percent of all imports into the United States are now free of duty. The other forty percent of imports compete directly with the product of our industry. We would keep on the free list all products not grown or produced in the United States in commercial quantities. As to all commodities that commercially compete with our farms, our forests, our mines, our fisheries, our oil wells, our labor and our industries, sufficient protection should be maintained at all times to defend the American farmer and the American wage earner from the destructive competition emanating from the subsidies of foreign governments and the imports from low-wage and depreciated-currency countries....

...We recognize the existence of a field within which governmental regulation is desirable and salutary. The authority to regulate should be vested in an independent tribunal acting under clear and specific laws establishing definite standards. Their determinations on law and facts should be subject to review by the Courts. We favor Federal regulation, within the Constitution, of the marketing of securities to protect investors. We favor also Federal regulation of the interstate activities of public utilities...

...We pledge ourselves to the merit system, virtually destroyed by New Deal spoilsmen. It should be restored, improved and extended. We will provide such conditions as offer an attractive permanent career in government service to young men and women of ability, irrespective of party affiliations.

The New Deal Administration has been characterized by shameful waste, and general financial irresponsibility. It has piled deficit upon deficit. It threatens national bankruptcy and the destruction through inflation of insurance policies and savings bank deposits. We pledge ourselves to: Stop the folly of uncontrolled spending. Balance the budget—not by increasing taxes but by cutting expenditures, drastically and immediately. Revise the federal tax system and coordinate it with state and local tax systems. Use the taxing power for raising revenue and not for punitive or political purposes.

We advocate a sound currency to be preserved at all hazards. The first requisite to a sound and stable currency is a balanced budget. We oppose further devaluation of the dollar. We will restore to the Congress the authority lodged with it by the Constitution to coin money and regulate the value thereof by repealing all the laws delegating this authority to the Executive....

...We assume the obligations and duties imposed upon Government by modern conditions. We affirm our unalterable conviction that, in the future as in the past, the fate of the nation will depend, not so much on the wisdom and power of government, as on the character and virtue, self-reliance, industry and thrift of the people and on their willingness to meet the responsibilities essential to the preservation of a free society.

Last month I wrote an important post called Global Climate Change is Caused by the Sun. That post has received a lot of comments and generated a lot of emails, most of them critical of the post because they didn't feel that I provided enough information to support my points or that I was not a reputable outlet to challenge their faith in climate change. But I want to hammer away at these people and continue to challenge their faith and make people feel more comfortable about the arguments that I made in that post, so I am going to all direct you to an article.

The article is published by the Financial Post and is called Science Getting Settled: New, convincing evidence indicates global warming is caused by cosmic rays and the sun — not humans:

The science is now all-but-settled on global warming, convincing new evidence demonstrates, but Al Gore, the IPCC and other global warming doomsayers won’t be celebrating. The new findings point to cosmic rays and the sun — not human activities — as the dominant controller of climate on Earth.

The research, published with little fanfare this week in the prestigious journal Nature, comes from über-prestigious CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, one of the world’s largest centres for scientific research involving 60 countries and 8,000 scientists at more than 600 universities and national laboratories. CERN is the organization that invented the World Wide Web, that built the multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider, and that has now built a pristinely clean stainless steel chamber that precisely recreated the Earth’s atmosphere.

In this chamber, 63 CERN scientists from 17 European and American institutes have done what global warming doomsayers said could never be done — demonstrate that cosmic rays promote the formation of molecules that in Earth’s atmosphere can grow and seed clouds, the cloudier and thus cooler it will be. Because the sun’s magnetic field controls how many cosmic rays reach Earth’s atmosphere (the stronger the sun’s magnetic field, the more it shields Earth from incoming cosmic rays from space), the sun determines the temperature on Earth.

The hypothesis that cosmic rays and the sun hold the key to the global warming debate has been Enemy No. 1 to the global warming establishment ever since it was first proposed by two scientists from the Danish Space Research Institute, at a 1996 scientific conference in the U.K. Within one day, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Bert Bolin, denounced the theory, saying, “I find the move from this pair scientifically extremely naive and irresponsible.” He then set about discrediting the theory, any journalist that gave the theory credence, and most of all the Danes presenting the theory — they soon found themselves vilified, marginalized and starved of funding, despite their impeccable scientific credentials.

The mobilization to rally the press against the Danes worked brilliantly, with one notable exception. Nigel Calder, a former editor of The New Scientist who attended that 1996 conference, would not be cowed. Himself a physicist, Mr. Calder became convinced of the merits of the argument and a year later, following a lecture he gave at a CERN conference, so too did Jasper Kirkby, a CERN scientist in attendance. Mr. Kirkby then convinced the CERN bureaucracy of the theory’s importance and developed a plan to create a cloud chamber — he called it CLOUD, for “Cosmics Leaving OUtdoor Droplets.”

But Mr. Kirkby made the same tactical error that the Danes had — not realizing how politicized the global warming issue was, he candidly shared his views with the scientific community.

“The theory will probably be able to account for somewhere between a half and the whole of the increase in the Earth’s temperature that we have seen in the last century,” Mr. Kirkby told the scientific press in 1998, explaining that global warming may be part of a natural cycle in the Earth’s temperature.

The global warming establishment sprang into action, pressured the Western governments that control CERN, and almost immediately succeeded in suspending CLOUD. It took Mr. Kirkby almost a decade of negotiation with his superiors, and who knows how many compromises and unspoken commitments, to convince the CERN bureaucracy to allow the project to proceed. And years more to create the cloud chamber and convincingly validate the Danes’ groundbreaking theory.

Yet this spectacular success will be largely unrecognized by the general public for years — this column will be the first that most readers have heard of it — because CERN remains too afraid of offending its government masters to admit its success. Weeks ago, CERN formerly decided to muzzle Mr. Kirby and other members of his team to avoid “the highly political arena of the climate change debate,” telling them “to present the results clearly but not interpret them” and to downplay the results by “mak[ing] clear that cosmic radiation is only one of many parameters.” The CERN study and press release is written in bureaucratese and the version of Mr. Kirkby’s study that appears in the print edition of Nature censored the most eye-popping graph — only those who know where to look in an online supplement will see the striking potency of cosmic rays in creating the conditions for seeding clouds.

CERN, and the Danes, have in all likelihood found the path to the Holy Grail of climate science. But the religion of climate science won’t yet permit a celebration of the find.

Hopefully this article has made you feel more comfortable about accepting the fact that I am right- global climate change is driven largely by the sun, not humans, and thus almost every attempt by the government to control our behaviors and energy and production in the name of 'climate change' is misguided and dangerous and wrong.

UPDATE:  Come on people- now I'm getting emails that 'the Financial Post' isn't reputable enough for you- well how about the Wall Street Journal, because it also came out with an article today talking about the role that cosmic rays play in affecting the climate. Read the article The Other Climate Theory for more.

Pivoting away from other issues like the environment ("Bombshell" Experiment: Global Climate Change Caused by Cloud Cover) or education (More Than 200 D.C. Teachers Fired! Progress?), let's return back to jobs and the role that the government plays in job creation.

In my post Coming To Grips With a Political Economy I wrote about a class that I took in college called 'Political Economy.' The class was an attempt to indoctrinate students with the idea that government could create jobs through its actions and could create wealth through proper regulation and control over free markets. I struggled through this class, mostly because I rejected entirely the idea that government can create wealth and jobs through its actions, and today I still believe that.

Government does not create jobs. It takes wealth from those who are productive and creating wealth, cycles it through many layers of bureaucracy and 'management', and then gives that wealth to those people who are favored by the government. Some of those who are favored by the government should be- the Constitution identified those who the government can give 'jobs' to and states further have identified those who the government should give 'jobs' to. But many others who the government gives 'jobs' today in America are simply those who benefit from the kind of crony capitalism and banana republic policies that are more common to two-bit dictatorships and tyrannies.

And the 'jobs' that are created by government are inefficiently created- much wealth and property is squandered and lost and burned by having government provide these jobs because of the many layers of 'management' and bureaucracy that mark the government. This is an acceptable price to pay for fire, police, and military jobs, but for most other 'jobs' the government creates the cost to create these jobs far exceeds the useful good that these jobs provide to society.

For example, many liberals claim that Obamacare will 'create jobs'- agencies and regulatory bodies that will hire overlords and masters who supervise a once-free and vibrant economic sector and regulate, tax, and control it. But the cost of these jobs was demonstrated graphically by the reaction that businesses had to it- after the passage of this law businesses dramatically dropped their hiring of workers. The Heritage report explained why this happened:

Businesses with fewer than 50 workers have a strong incentive to maintain this size, which allows them to avoid the mandate to provide government-approved health coverage or face a penalty; Businesses with more than 50 workers will see their costs for health coverage rise—they must purchase more expensive government-approved insurance or pay a penalty; and Employers face considerable uncertainty about what constitutes qualifying health coverage and what it will cost. They also do not know what the health care market or their health care costs will look like in four years. This makes planning for the future difficult.

Yet President Obama and the modern-day Democratic Party continues to think that regulations, spending, taxes, and control over free people can 'create jobs'. They take wealth from those who have it- either through taxes or fees or by simply sucking up savings by selling debt- and give it to those who they favor and try to pretend that they have made society better. But they haven't- they have killed legitimate jobs that millions of people through their free actions wanted and needed (the unseen hand of the market) and made society less because of their actions that took away freedom and property.

In Latest EPA Rules to Cost 1.4 Million Jobs and a 12% Increase in Utility Bills I wrote about how the Washington Post reported that the new EPA rules that were recently published will cause electric bills will jump 12 percent nationally by 2016 to comply with these new policies, with residents in areas such as Kentucky and Tennessee seeing a 24 percent increase in their utility bills. These policies are project to eliminate 1.4 million jobs- real jobs that will be destroyed by the actions of government, creating people who will no longer be paying taxes any more and will now be sucking down government benefits, all thanks to these policies pushed by Democratic bureaucrats employed by a Democratic President supervised by Democrats in the House and the Senate and supported by Democratic unions and a Democratic media.

And now Wyoming Republican Senator John Barrasso has put together a report that showed that the executive actions of the Democrat President have put in place in July alone an additional $9.5 billion in new regulatory costs by proposing 229 new rules and finalizing 379 rules. Among those rules that are going to add to the cost of doing business, kill jobs, and make our society less productive and wealthy are rules regarding the fake issues of global warming, healthcare reform, and financial regulatory reform rules.

IN JULY ALONE A DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT PUT IN PLACE $9.5 BILLION IN NEW COSTS! I don't care how many times Obama 'pivots' to talk about jobs, the heart of the matter is that he is wrong about the government being able to create jobs and wealth through its actions- government is best that governs least because when people are free and free to live their lives and free to make their own decisions and free to do with their wealth and labor as they see fit, then jobs are created and wealth is created.

Make the choice in 2012 to turn America away from tyranny and 'government-created jobs' and to freedom and 'people-created jobs'.

For more reading, try Productivity versus OSHA and EPA regulations (Research for business decisions).

Tina Korbe at HotAir explains the picture perfectly:

A new report out yesterday from The Heritage Foundation shows private sector job creation dropped dramatically almost immediately after President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) into law.

From the recession’s low point in January 2009 until April 2010, when Obamacare went into effect, the private sector created about 67,600 jobs a month. After the president signed PPACA into law, that number slowed to a meager 6,400 jobs a month — a more than 90 percent decrease or less than one-tenth the previous rate.

As the report states, correlation cannot prove causation — but the change in course is statistically measurable and testing reveals a structural break between April and May of 2010. Moreover, small-business owners have said Obamacare is a deterrent to hiring. Take Scott Womack, the owner of 12 IHOP restaurants in Indiana and Ohio, as just one example. Before Obamacare became law, he had development plans in Ohio. Now, he’s worried he won’t be able to carry out his original plans unless Obamacare is repealed. Those restaurants he planned to open would provide jobs not only for his future employees, but also for everyone involved in the construction of the restaurant buildings themselves.

As the Heritage report explains, Obamacare discourages hiring in three important ways:
Businesses with fewer than 50 workers have a strong incentive to maintain this size, which allows them to avoid the mandate to provide government-approved health coverage or face a penalty; Businesses with more than 50 workers will see their costs for health coverage rise—they must purchase more expensive government-approved insurance or pay a penalty; and Employers face considerable uncertainty about what constitutes qualifying health coverage and what it will cost. They also do not know what the health care market or their health care costs will look like in four years. This makes planning for the future difficult.

Democrats once touted that Obamacare would create jobs, but the data underscore the reality that that’s not true for the private sector. The only jobs Obamacare created were within the new agencies and layers of bureaucracy the law added to the federal government.

The Heritage report recommends repeal — and comes as a welcome reminder that the health care law can’t be ignored as the president and Congress attempt to address the debt and deficit or as the nation attempts to right the still-struggling economy. Nor can it be ignored in the upcoming presidential election. Likely U.S. voters have said jobs and the economy are their No. 1 issue. That means the repeal of Obamacare should be a top priority, too.

President Barack Obama raised $86 million last quarter in fundraising- and over 40% of that was from bundlers. Twenty-seven big-donor bundlers each collected more than $500,000 in contributions- the list of these donors demonstrates that Obama finds most of his support with celebrities and the well-connected. Another 200 people scooped up tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars each in contributions for the president, collectively amounting to at least $35 million, and these ranks are filled with lawyers and lobbyists.

You see, the Democrat Party has increasingly become a divided party- super rich politically connected elites who have already made their wealth, and those who they want to control. It is a party of elites who deliver goods to others and others who receive goods from elites- the modern day Democratic Party has become exactly the sort of thing that our nation rebelled against.

This probably explains why the 'Tea-Party' movement has exploded and is marked by symbols and discussions of our founding- the direction that the Democratic Party has lurched under Obama and Pelosi and the other liberal Democrats is a direction that goes directly against the traditional nature of our nation and attacks everything that our nation was born into.

The modern-day Democratic Party seeks to rule over us as lords and nobility- for our own good, we are told. But they are not lords and nobility- those don't exist in America- and so they need to take this following advice from Billy Hollis in his post Eat my peas? Screw you, Obama – I’m not a child for you to raise:

• We need to be responsible for our own retirement. We don’t need to be treated like children who don’t understand the value of money, can’t see the future, and don’t have the self-discipline to save.
• We need to be responsible for our own healthcare. We don’t need to be treated like children who must be told what to eat, when to exercise, and what treatment they are to get when they are sick, without any thought to how to pay for it.
• We need to be responsible for our own businesses. The vast majority of business owners are adult enough to know what safety precautions to take, and what accounting standards to use. The small minority that doesn't understand safety should have their butts sued off and lose their businesses when they are negligent. The tiny minority that commits accounting fraud should be put in prison.
• We need to be responsible for our property. That starts with allowing us to keep our own money, and spend it as we like. It also implies some stability that is not currently in evidence, so that we don’t lose huge sums in real estate and stock investments because of governmental incompetence and cronyism with the executives of large companies.
• We need to be more responsible for our own safety. Sure, there’s always a need for law enforcement, but it can’t be the first resort for personal safety. Any law enforcement that could do that would be indistinguishable from a police state. Therefore, we need the right to buy, possess, and use the weapons that provide that safety.
• We need to be responsible for raising our own children. We need to have more influence over their education, and we particularly need to stop wasting our time reversing the indoctrination they suffer at the hands of the educational bureaucracy.
• We need to be responsible for treating other people appropriately. If we are stupid or obnoxious in our treatment of others, we need to suffer social consequences, not legal ones.

For years, the United States has been a leader in the world in economic freedom. Economic freedom is defined as having property rights protected by impartial rule of law, free trade, a sound currency, and a small limited government relative to the size of the economy. My blog supports economic freedom, and the political party that I support also pushes for policies that make economic freedom a reality- no bailouts, no government take-overs, bond holder rights that are respected, low and fair taxes, consistent regulations and rules, a restrained bureaucracy, free trade agreements with Columbia or other nations, no inflating the currency through QE or other Fed schemes, a return to the gold standard, and a limited and small government that does take valuable resources away from the private sector.

Many people oppose these policies- they seek to make the United States less free. The problem with this is that those countries that are less free also are less prosperous. By pushing for stimulus bills, czars, subsidies for green energy, deficit spending, higher taxes, inflating of the currency, or other liberal Democrat policies, our nation becomes less economically free, and the result is higher unemployment, lower income, less happiness, lower life expectancy, less clean environment, and more corruption.

I know, I know- you care about the poor people, you see Bush as a bogeyman, you hate the war in Iraq, you are passionate about the environment- it does not matter why you vote Democrat and why you are a liberal, the result is that you support policies that make our nation less economically free, and thus a lesser nation in so many ways.

This video will help illustrate it for you and you'll see what nations are economically free and which ones aren't- and hopefully this will help you to understand what sort of policies to support in our society and which political party to vote for and which ones not to.

H/T to Orlin for passing this video on to me. Thanks!

In my class, I tolerate almost every sort of student- conservatives, liberals, libertarians, socialists, and even moderates. In our discussions, debates, and in simulations, it doesn't matter to me how a student thinks the best way to improve life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness- it isn't my place to make them conform with my views or my ideology. But even though I'm tolerate of those groups, I do not tolerate fascists, hypocrites, or those students who openly promote tyranny and seek power over others.

Public education receives a lot of money from the state, and that money comes with a responsibility and obligation that I make sure that there are not students in my classroom who think that it okay to openly support fascism, that it is not okay to serially lie about their beliefs and views on issues, or that it is not okay to promote control over other people and tyranny and oppression. I crack down on those beliefs and try to teach students that those are not acceptable in our free and open society- they can think and believe whatever they want, but as long as I'm getting money from a free state of laws and liberty and freedom, I'm not going to let students openly and with my support think or say anything that advocates its violent overthrow or a take over by any hateful groups out there.

That being said, I am plenty accepting of liberals and socialists- as long as that is what they really are. The problem is that there really are not that many true socialists that come through my classroom, because there honestly are not a lot of real socialists in general. Oh, there are plenty of people in society that pretend they are socialist- they preach equality, redistribution of wealth, no ownership of property, fairness, and a society of rainbows and puppy dog tails- but when it really comes down to it and I make them make decisions about their own lives, their own property, their own liberty, it turns out they believe something else entirely.

Many people in society claim to be socialist, but in reality they are just thugs- they want others who they don't like to redistribute their property, by force if necessary. They want other people, not them or their friends, to lose their liberties and freedoms- but not them. They want equality, as long as that equality drags others down to their levels- but once they have more than others and are more fortunate, they no longer believe in equality. They talk about the joys of a society that they can build, ignoring the horrors of it in reality.

Victor Davis Hanson wrote about this in a recent article called There Are No Socialists. Here are some of the key parts:

...The strangest things about the global statist crack-up are socialists’ unhappiness with their socialist utopia, and their subsequent efforts to avoid the consequences of the very redistributive state that they themselves once so gladly crafted...

...Here at home, Obama got his ObamaCare. Why, then, did he grant hundreds of exemptions — many to northern California liberals? Should they instead not have lined up to volunteer to implement such a wonderful, long-needed entitlement?

He said energy would rightly sky-rocket, given his determination to curb fossil fuel production (cf. “bankrupt” coal companies). Why then is Obama concerned that gas hit $4; is not such a high price a welcomed retardant to burning hot fuels? The higher the gas prices, the more that subsidized wind and solar power, and electric cars are attractive, and thus the more we enjoy “sustainable” power. Right? Am I missing something about this desire within our grasp of “living within our means”?

Obama enjoyed big majorities in both houses of Congress; and on the campaign trail he had promised a de facto amnesty under the euphemism of “comprehensive immigration reform.” So why did he not grant such exemptions, and absorb 11, 15, or 20 million new “citizens” from Oaxaca? Is not that the point of amnesty, to welcome in new constituencies who will remember a benefactor at the polls?...

....This discussion is, of course, a belabored example of why and how socialists do not like socialism. Indeed, statism is not a desired outcome, but rather more a strategy for obtaining power or winning acclaim as one of the caring, by offering the narcotic of promising millions something free at the expense of others who must be seen as culpable and obligated to fund it — entitlements fueled by someone else’s money that enfeebled the state, but in the process extended power, influence, and money to a technocratic class of overseers who are exempt from the very system that they have advocated.

So what is socialism? It is a sort of modern version of Louis XV’s “Après moi, le déluge” – an unsustainable Ponzi scheme in which elite overseers, for the duration of their own lives, enjoy power, influence, and gratuities by implementing a system that destroys the sort of wealth for others that they depend upon for themselves....

...History is not kind to such collective states of mind. Pay an Athenian in the fifth century BC a subsidy to go to the theater; and in the fourth century BC he is demanding such pay to vote in the assembly as well — and there is not to be a third century free democratic polis. Extend to a Roman in the first century BC a small grain dole, and by the late first century AD he cannot live without a big dole, free entertainment in a huge new Coliseum, and disbursements of free coined money. Let the emperor Justinian try cutting back the bloated bureaucracy in sixth century AD Constantinople and he wins the Nika riots that almost destroy a civilization from within even as it is beset by hosts of foreign enemies....

Victor Davis Hanson is the author of books such as The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern and How The Obama Administration Threatens Our National Security (Encounter Broadsides).

Yesterday I got a chance to sit down and talk for a bit with Michigan Governor Rick Synder and he told me a pretty funny story. I'm going to try my best to rely it to you...

So Synder moves into his new office in Lansing and goes to sit down at his desk, and he strikes up a conversation with the IT guys who are in his office installing his computer. He notices that his computer screen is a square computer screen, so he asks one of the IT guys about it- "How come I have a square computer screen?" From his time as CEO of Gateway Computers, Synder knew that square computer screens are more expensive and usually smaller than most modern rectangle shaped wide-screen computer screens.

"Because that's what They said that We should put in," the tech guys answered and kept on installing his new computer.

Synder said that he looked puzzled and then asked "Who are 'They'?"

"They are the ones that order that things get done," the guy guys said and kept installing the expensive and small square computer screen.

Synder looked more puzzled and then asked "Who are 'They'?"

"They order things, and we do them, and they say the specifications are that everyone gets a square computer screen," the tech guys said and continued working, "They are in charge of how things are done."

Synder said that he looked even more puzzled and once again asked "Who are They? Aren't I the Governor of the State of Michigan? Aren't I the one in charge of how things get done?"

Apparently this amused the tech guys, and they sort of chuckled and continued working. Synder never did figure out who 'They' are,and now it is a running gag in his office to figure out exactly who 'they' are, but he did say that he now knows a little bit more about just exactly what is wrong with Michigan's government- and what is likely wrong with national government- and it is the fact that bureaucracy is running our state. It is unelected paper-pushers with narrow job descriptions who service no customers and receive no job performance feedback and have great job security who are really running things, with vague chains of command and no accountability. 'They' are the problem- they do things that don't need to be done at great cost because 'they' have always done it that way and are always going to do it that way. 'They' run every department of our government, 'they' make up the majority of those who work in government, and 'they' play a big role in determining who are elected officials are. 'They' are the problem.

Synder learned a valuable lesson from this experience- if he is going to get anything done in Michigan, if he is going to put in place real change, he is going to need to figure out who 'they' are, and get them to be responsive to taxpayers and elected officials and not be a power unto themselves. I wish him good luck with that.

Keith Hart writing in Memory Bank:

When I graduated to the field of development studies, the picture of West Africa’s cities was just as distorted as one you might get from boorowing a Manchester school perspective. Here the emphasis of the economists was on the new states’ ability to pursue a neo-Keynesian development program. How could ‘we’ (the politicians, bureaucrats and their academic advisers) provide the jobs and other needs of the hordes flocking into the cities at the time? It was assumed that such provision had to come through the bureaucracy and conform to state-made laws. My paper on ‘informal income opportunities and urban employment’ pointed to the wide range of economic activities that were invisible to bureacracy. But even I saw them through a statist lens (“seeing like a state”), hence the term ‘informal’, not regulated by the bureaucracy. At that time I assumed that the bulk of economic progress must come though public and private sector enterprise of a corporate type.
The informal economy was never adequately described or defined, but these days it is commonplace to read assertions that African economies are 70-90% ‘informal’. Certainly the deregulation undertaken over the last three decades of neoliberal economic policies have led to a radical informalization of the world economy, not least in Africa. But to label these activities ‘informal’ is to avoid identifying what they are positively for or how they are organized, by which social principles.
I would say that the last half-century has seen a massive transfer of population to the cities, where most people have been left to generate their own forms of commerce. The informal economy in this sense has been a holding operation allowing many people to survive in the city and some to flourish. Whatever is coming up next will draw to some extent on this sprawling self-organized economic activity. Our task is to find out more about the promising sectors spawned by such a development.

More here

My earlier post was about Michelle Rhee the person- what she did and what the results were of her actions. But this post will focus more on her actions with regards to educational reform and my thoughts on these issues.

Via Newsweek I saw this article- "Why Michelle Rhee Isn't Done With School Reform." Here are some selected passages from it:

...When I started as chancellor in 2007, I never had any illusions about how tough it would be to turn around a failing system like D.C.’s; the city had gone through seven chancellors in the 10 years before me. While I had to make many structural changes—overhauling the system for evaluating teachers and principals, adopting new reading and math programs, making sure textbooks got delivered on time—I believed the hardest thing would be changing the culture. We had to raise the expectations that people had about what was possible for our kids.

I quickly announced a plan to close almost two dozen schools, which provoked community outrage. We cut the central office administration in half. And I also proposed a new contract for teachers that would increase their salaries dramatically if they abandoned the tenure system and agreed to be paid based on their effectiveness....

Rhee offers up several structural changes to the system, increased efficiency in both facilities and in human resources, and changed the culture of the biggest aspect of education, the teachers. All of these proposals are fascinating, but it is the teacher's pay one that I am the most interested in.

According to wikipedia, Rhee had two proposals:

In 2008, she also sought to renegotiate how the school system compensates teachers. Rhee offered teachers the choice of: being paid up to $140,000 based on what she termed "student achievement" -- but losing tenure; or, retaining tenure -- but earning much smaller pay raises. This controversial move to end teacher tenure and promote "merit" pay was strongly contested by the teachers unions.

In 2010, Rhee and the unions agreed on a new contract that offered 20% pay raises and bonuses of $20,000 to $30,000 for "strong student achievement," in exchange for weakened teachers' seniority protections and the end of teacher tenure for one year. Teachers were observed by administrators and outside professionals for five 30-minute sessions during the year, and the teachers' performance was rated during those sessions. Teachers who received fewer than 175 out of 400 points were deemed ineffective and were dismissed. Teachers who received between 175 and 249 points were deemed minimally effective and given a one-year warning to improve their performance. Under this new agreement, Rhee fired 241 teachers, the vast majority of whom received poor evaluations, and put 737 additional school employees on notice.

As a teacher whose students achieve superior results on AP tests (I've taught 3 different AP courses in recent years and steadily raised test scores and enrollment in these courses) and on common assessments (I've taught 4 other classes in recent years and had my students (including mainstreamed students) outperform other teachers on our common exams), I'm quite comfortable with being judged on student achievement. And my worth isn't just measured in the classroom- I run the most popular club in the school, volunteer on our teacher leadership team, run several charities, mentor students during my prep hour, and coach part-time. It would be nice if I was rewarded for this sort of effort rather than watching teachers who perform at a much lower level make the same amount as me.

To think that I could be being paid like the professional that I am- with several advanced degrees and extensive background experience- rather than as a factory drone that simply moves students through the system! It is an exciting thought, but I don't want to dwell on how it would benefit me personally- imagine how exciting it would be to my fellow teachers who also perform exceptionally in the classroom. Because I'm going to let you in on a little secret right now- there are a lot of exceptional teachers in education, who haven't been drained and wearied and discouraged by the system and who make my efforts pale in comparison. I'm driven by these other teachers, who I am in competition with for test scores and achievement, and we are driven in spite of the system and not by it. It makes me excited to think that these other teachers could be rewarded for their tremendous efforts in education!

And the downside? Bad teachers lose their jobs. Teachers who are unqualified, teachers who do a poor job of teaching their students, teachers who do not achieve measurable results, and teachers who everyone in the building knows are bad will lose their jobs. Oh, it's no big secret who these people are- ask anyone in my building who would be fired first, and they'd look knowingly at you, since they know who these people are. There are not a lot of them, but they are there, sucking up resources and sucking down students, bad apples ruining the bunch, souring students on learning, while giving teachers a bad name. They'd lose their jobs.The union shouldn't be protecting them.

So what's the next step? Continuing from the Newsweek article...

....When you think about how things happen in our country—how laws get passed or policies are made—they happen through the exertion of influence. From the National Rifle Association to the pharmaceutical industry to the tobacco lobby, powerful interests put pressure on our elected officials and government institutions to sway or stop change.

Education is no different. We have textbook manufacturers, teachers’ unions, and even food vendors that work hard to dictate and determine policy. The public-employee unions in D.C., including the teachers’ union, spent huge sums of money to defeat Fenty. In fact, the new chapter president has said his No. 1 priority is job security for teachers, but there is no big organized interest group that defends and promotes the interests of children.

You can see the impact of this dynamic playing out every day. Policymakers, school-district administrators, and school boards who are beholden to special interests have created a bureaucracy that is focused on the adults instead of the students. Go to any public-school-board meeting in the country and you’ll rarely hear the words “children,” “students,” or “kids” uttered. Instead, the focus remains on what jobs, contracts, and departments are getting which cuts, additions, or changes. The rationale for the decisions mostly rests on which grown-ups will be affected, instead of what will benefit or harm children.

The teachers’ unions get the blame for much of this. Elected officials, parents, and administrators implore them to “embrace change” and “accept reform.” But I don’t think the unions can or should change. The purpose of the teachers’ union is to protect the privileges, priorities, and pay of their members. And they’re doing a great job of that.

What that means is that the reform community has to exert influence as well....

We have to exert our influence. That is why I blog- to change the system so that students and good teachers both can win, and by winning will make our nation greater.

For more on Michelle Rhee, check out THE BEE EATER: Michelle Rhee Takes on the Nation's Worst School District.