My Beauty Best Teacher

Every day I hear more and more stories about how, in the name of doing good and in the name of doing nice things, we lose more liberties and freedoms. Again, I refer to you Jonah Goldberg's book "Liberal Fascism." Here is a good review/interview of it here.

Basically, the idea I am getting at is that the United States is not going to adopt a dictatorship in the manner that liberals describe- it isn't going to be King George using the military to take control of our nation and take away our freedoms and liberties. It will be The One, one by one taking away our liberties and freedoms, all in the name of fairness, niceness, and happiness.

No one is going to show up at your door and demand you turn over your firearms- they'll make laws registering it, locking it up, holding it in 'secure' locations for happy use when the government says you can 'safely' have it. No one is going to tell you you aren't allowed to speak out agains the war- but they will say you have to be fair, and if you speak out in favor of the war, you have to also pay to have someone speak out against it (fairness doctrine). No one will say you don't have the right to a lawyer- they'll instead say that you have to have a state mandated one to be fair, and they'll give you the sucky state-mandated one to be really fair to you. No one will say you have the right to a fair trail- but they will say that you have to be nicer to the person who just beat you and took your money, and that they have a right to a fair trail. In the name of niceness and fairness, you will become less free and live under a dictatorship.

From the movie Serenity: "Y'all got on this boat for different reasons, but y'all come to the same place. Sure as I know anything, I know this - they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten? They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people... better. And I do not hold to that. So no more runnin'. I aim to misbehave. "

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.

Alemayehu G. Mariam writes in Pambazuka:

The inconvenient truth about Africa today is that dictatorship presents a far more perilous threat to the survival of Africans than climate change. The devastation African dictators have wreaked upon the social fabric and ecosystem of African societies is incalculable.

More here

Okay, so over at Hot Air they posted a link to an article that disputs the idea that Obama is a Marxist. I'm willing to agree with that- he isn't a commited socialist, in spite of his membership in the New Party. But, there are other similar ideologies out there, and I think that one that best describes Obama is fascist.

I read the description of fascism on wikipedia. You can quibble with wikipedia, but the overall description of fascism is curiously close to Obama policies. I loosely quote "Fascism is primarily concerned with perceived problems associated with cultural, economic, political, and social decline or decadence, and seeks to solve such problems by achieving a historic national rebirth, many times by promoting cultish ideas of unity and purity."

Huh. Is there anyone out there talking about how America has fallen? How after 8 years of decadence and decline, America needs change? Historic change? A rebirth in many ways? And the best way to do it is through unity, togetherness, bipartisanship- in fact, the way to do it is through the election of one who is above politics, above race, above us. Sound like Obama to you?

Still quoting from wikipedia- Other elements of fascism include national socialism, national syndicalism, or economic nationalism (check), class collaboration, economic planning, mixed economy, and third position (check), dictatorship, holism, major social interventionism, and statism (check again), and militarism (Obama is awfully warlike towards everything but Iraq).

Wow. Apparently fascism also promotes political violence against opponents (check), welfare (check), is fiercly anti-religion (check), and promotes cults of personality (check). This started as just a crackpot theory of mine, but even I am surprised at how closely it fits. Now, I'd start getting scared if Obama was pushing a policy of having our government rise up a psudo-military arm of community organizers loyal to him- wait, he is pushing that? At least he is pro-gun ownership- wait, that's wrong too? Well, at least he doesn't have resentment due to a mixed parentage- he's 100% black, right, just like Hitler was 100% non-Jew- opps, wrong again... darn, are we in for some trouble or what?

UPDATE: I'm not that far off base with this line of thought- others agree with me. Read this story about how a Republican congressman from Georgia said Monday he fears that President-elect Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist or fascist dictatorship.

The Roman Republic was the period of time when Rome was governed by a complex constitution, which centred on the principles of a separation of powers and checks and balances and established a republican form of government. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy in 509 BC and lasted 482 years until its subversion in 27 BC into an Imperial form of government. A very interesting phase though is the last two generations of the Roman Republic, when it was falling apart and collapsing, and it is to this phase that I direct my comments today.

Towards the end of the Roman Republic, there were several Roman civil wars. Part of the reason for these civil wars was the increasing disregard of the Roman constitution and the breakdowns in separation of powers and checks and balances, combined with increasing militarism, rising debt, rising welfare policies, and increasing centralization of control in the executive offices in the capital of Rome.

This civil war period began with the Social War (91–88 BC), continued with wars between various top politicians and generals who pretended to want to restore the republic (Sulla's first civil war (88–87 BC), Sertorius' revolt in Hispania (83–72 BC), and Sulla's second civil war (82–81 BC)), then had a phase where people stopped pretending it was a republic anymore (Lepidus' rebellion (77 BC) and the Catiline Conspiracy (63–62 BC)), and ended with a series of wars over who would be the new dictator (Caesar's civil war (49–45 BC), Post-Caesarian civil war (44 BC), Liberators' civil war (44–42 BC), Sicilian revolt (44–36 BC), Fulvia's civil war (41–40 BC), and the Final war of the Roman Republic (32–30 BC)). I'm most fascinated by the Catiline Conspiracy, because it was at that point that I think people knew that the Republic was dead.

Catailine was a Roman politician and general who attempted to overthrow the Republic in 63-62 BC. His desire to do so lay mostly in ambition for power, but he and his followers appear to have been driven by a sense that they were being denied power that was due to them (their comments have a vague sense of entitlement to them) and it also appears that he and his followers had accrued massive amounts of debt that they wanted to cancel or wipe away in the fall of the government. He had multiple plots and schemes going, involving slave revolts, raising of various armies, and a plot to assassinate Senators in Rome, but before those schemes could come to fruition, he was exposed, fought valiantly, killed, and the plot collapsed. But the damage had been done- people had seen that the republic was dead, that the rule of law didn't exist any more, and that the age of rule of men had started. Even though he was unsuccessful, he demonstrated the template that one could follow to dictatorship, and soon the Republic was dead.

Jonah Goldberg began a recent article When Did the Rules Change? with the line "When Rome was “falling,” did it feel like it?". His article is about how the rules of the game are changing, how liberalism is dying and how are nation will once again be a conservative nation of rule of law, separation of powers, checks and balances, etc. I'm not as hopeful though.

Increasingly, I feel like the damage has been done by the Obama and the Democrats, damage that is too great and too traumatic for America to overcome. I'm still hopeful that it can be done, but the damage that they have inflicted in so many ways both big and small will take a generation to repair, if that generation has the intelligence and willpower to do so.

Although Obama might only be a one-term President and although the Democrats might lose power, they'll be back, sooner rather than later. They have seen how easy it is to get anyone elected President, even someone with no intelligence and terrorist friends who may not even like America. They have seen how easily it is to fool people into giving them large majorities, where they then jam through massive complicated bills changing the very fabric of our nation without even reading them. They'll fight a ferocious and tough rear-guard action to keep these in place, and eventually voters will get stupid again and put them back in power. Although we may have dodged a dictatorship this time, it is my great fear that the damage is done, and that after a couple Republican Presidents (Romney's two terms and Palin's one) we'll put a Caesar in power and that will be the end of great American experiment in republic.

Under Article II, section 2, clause 2 of the Constitution, the President has the power to fill any vacancies that may happen during when Senate is in recess. Over the past 100 years, a legal and official Senate recess has been interpreted by scores of Attorneys Generals and the Department of Justice (DOJ) from both Republican and Democratic Party's as the Senate being out of town and not conducting any business at all for at least 10–25 days of duration. No one, not even crazy right or left wing professors or lawyers, has ever before even suggested anything of six to seven days might be enough to count as a recess (source).

Right now the Senate is not in a recess. Every three days it opens up a brief session for a half hour or so and then adjourns for three days before it then has another brief 'pro forma' session. This means that officially, technically, and according to the rules and procedures of the United States Senate, it is still in session. This tactic was invented and used first by the Democrats to block President Bush recess appointments, and it was successful, because legally the President can not make appointments while the Senate is in session.

And so it was quite a surprise to me today that President Barack Obama (one-term Democrat), made several recess appointments, illegally and against the laws of our nation. Check out the many stories on this issue on memeorandum found here or here.

President Obama argued that under his and Democrats leadership America has fallen into such a crisis that he no longer has to follow the laws of our nation. He can simply deem that the Senate is effectively in a recess, and thus appoint whomever he wants to whatever he wants, even without Senate confirmation.

Many bloggers and professors and lawyers have jumped to his defense, arguing that the Senate is indeed in a recess, but that's contrary to what the White House memo says- it does not say 'the Senate is in a recess and the President is making several appointments'- nope, the memo says "Senate has effectively been in recess"- in other words, not technically, not officially, not legally, but "effectively", and so Obama was going to technically, officially, and legally make appointments that would be effective immediately.

Many other bloggers and professors are arguing that the President had the right to break the law here because the Senate wasn't advising and consenting and was simply blocking the one appointment of Richard Cordray to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, but their arguments were again made into useless junk by the President later making further 'recess' appointments to the NLRB, and some of these appointments had been opposed because the Senate opposed the people involved and did not want to give their assent.

Look, there is no defense for breaking the laws of our nation. None. The ends do not justify the means. I don't care if its a conservative, Tea Party Republican, or a socialist, communist Democrat- the President only has the power to make appointments when the Senate is officially in a recess of longer than 10 days. Period. Anything other than that is breaking the law, and is unconstitutional, and deserving of impeachment.

That won't happen though- bit by bit, crisis by crisis, American citizens are learning to tolerate law breaking. Ignoring established bankruptcy laws to 'save the automobile industry' was okay. Pressuring immigration officials to ignore fraudulently filled out forms and security threats in order to increase the number of immigrants in America is okay. Passing a law ordering people to buy a product or face fines is okay. And making recess appointments while the Senate is officially/legally/technically in session and not in recess is okay. Bit by bit, little tyranny by big, we are learning to accept that one man is greater than the system and can destroy it if he thinks by doing so he can save us.

This incident once more reminds me of a post I wrote last year called America is a Republic- It Shouldn't Matter if Most Want to Tax Millionaires More. In it, I wrote:

Our nation is approaching a key election in 2012, much as Rome faced a key turning point in its history when Lucius Sergius Catilina attempted to overthrow the Roman Republic by playing to the lures of democracy and populism. Catiline rallied the poor to his banner by arguing for debt relief for the poor people of Rome, and many supported him because there are always more people who are poor than there are people who are truly wealthy. Because of the destructive policies of the government, which had collapsed the housing market and had taxed and regulated the small farms and small businesses to the brink of destruction, there were many people out of work who listened to the siren song of 'support me, I'll claim majority rule, and take from those who have wealth and give to those who do not.' Thankfully, Rome had an ardent defender of the Republic in a man like Cicero, and the conspiracy was foiled, but I believe that it had come close enough to succeeding to inspire men like Julius Caesar and Pompey to try again soon after, and they were successful in harassing the forces of democracy to institute a dictatorship over the masses.

Obama is following in the footsteps of Catiline, and bit by bit breaking the laws and traditions and precedents of our Republic. He might be stopped, but the damage he is doing is surely going to inspire a Caesar to put an imperial dictatorship on my children and grandchildren.

UPDATE: Let's make this issue even clearer. On Tuesday, January 3rd, the Senate was in session. You can view their schedule here, and see from it that they were called to order at 11:01 AM. They engaged in legislative and executive business. They adjourned over an hour later after completing the session's business. Several hours later, Barack Obama appointed several people to several different positions, arguing that the Senate was 'effectively in a recess' and that he therefore had the authority to make recess appointments.

Liberal bloggers and news pundits and radio hosts are arguing that since the Senate was in a recess for 3 days it was okay- but in reality, the Senate had adjourned for only several hours, and there is no way, no way at all, that an adjournment of several hours can be considered a 'recess'.

The only argument is that the Senate session held on Tuesday for over an hour that accomplished several items of note wasn't a real session, and that argument is utterly laughable beyond question.

The Senate was not in a recess, and thus the recess appointments were unconstitutional and illegal. President Barack Obama acted in a criminal and illegal fashion yesterday, and the only real question I have is whether he did it on accident (believing that the Senate was in fact in a recess) or on purpose (knowing they were not and not caring and breaking the law).

Thank you Powerlineblog for bringing this point to me attention.

UPDATE II: Several days after his power grab, President Barack Obama went further, telling a group of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau bureaucrats that "Now that Richard [Cordray] is your director, you can finally exercise the full power that this agency has been given to protect consumers under the law." The only problem with this statement is that the legislation that created the CFPB includes a section that says many of the bureau’s new powers are to be held by the secretary of the Treasury “until the Director of the Bureau is confirmed by the Senate.” Cordray was not confirmed by the Senate- he was appointed to the position while the Senate was in session in violation to the Constitution.

So how does President Obama's pronouncement square with the law? I have two theories- one, that President Obama is ignorant of the law and incompetent in his understanding of it; or two, that President Obama is competent and knowledgeable and just doesn't care one bit about the law and what's legal.

Source- The Daily Caller, via Doug Ross.

My sense of humor is a bit off, just to warn you, but here are some of what I think are my funniest posts of 2011, filled with a sense of wit and sarcasm and fun. Enjoy.

BREAKING: Barack Obama Time Travels from January to Scold Barack Obama of February of his Lack of Civility in Wisconsin Budget Battle

BREAKING FAKE NEWS: In an unusual move for a sitting President of the United States, Democratic President Barack Obama time traveled from January of 2011 to February 2011 in order to to scold Democratic President Barack Obama for his political finger-pointing and lack of civility and honesty regarding the public discourse over the budget situation in Wisconsin.

January Obama reportedly said to February Obama "(We should all) strive to be better in our private lives – to be better friends and neighbors, co-workers and parents... more civility in our public discourse... only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to our challenges as a nation."

In reply, February Obama said to January Obama "Some of what I’ve heard coming out of Wisconsin, where you’re just making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain generally, seems like more of an assault on unions..." and then DNC's Organizing for America arm -- the organization and people who were behind Obama's 2008 campaign -- began playing an active role in organizing protests...

(the rest of the post is a long hypothetical conversation between time-traveling Obama's which quotes from him at different times to reveal his shameless hypocrisy in an amusing way)

EXCLUSIVE: Obama Prepared to Demand France Return to 1917 Borders

Following up on his recent calls for Israel to return to its 1967 border, Obama is now calling on France to return to its 1917 border and return the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine back to Germany. For the first time ever, here is President Barack Obama's upcoming speech on Peace in the Middle Europe:...

(the fake speech is quite long- I took the speech that Obama gave at the AIPAC policy conference in May of 2011 and simply edited it a bit- but here is my favorite part of it)

...I said that the United States believes that negotiations should result in two states, with permanent borders for Germany and France based on the 1917 lines with mutually agreed swaps. In doing so, I give to Germany things which they do not own, and then demand that France trade for those things, as if I have the authority or ability to do any of this. (applause)...

(for similar fun, see John Lillpop's post "Obama to Call for Return of U.S. –Mexico Borders to 1843?")

Obama's Belief in 'Bad Luck' Part of What Religion Exactly?

"We had reversed the recession, avoided a depression, gotten the economy moving again," Obama told a crowd in Decorah, Iowa. "But over the last six months we've had a run of bad luck."

If bad luck is the reason that our nation has struggled lately, I wondered to myself just what exactly our President and Commander-in-Chief was doing to combat this recent run of bad luck.

Never in my knowledge has any other President had to battle 'bad luck' before- a google search of past Presidents' speeches did not turn up any results of past Presidents, whether they were Republican like George W Bush or Ronald Reagan or Democrats like Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter, ever blaming 'bad luck' for the problems that the United States faced. Perhaps it was because these past Presidents were religious people, who did not believe in paganism and 'luck' so much as the divine will of God and his plan...

(the rest of the post is a serious attempt by me to investigate the role that karma and luck play in the President of the United States worldview and understand what sorts of policies he will put in place to battle bad karma and bad luck- it's a joke because he's a joke)

Scientists Filling Roles Priests Once Filled?

(I'll be honest, this post was simply an excuse to bring up an earlier funny post I wrote called Is Al Gore the Re-incarnation of the Xhosa Prophetess Nongqawuse?, but it remains relevant still)

...increasingly, scientists are filling a role in our society once reserved from priests- they tell fortunes based on reading omens in the weather, they tell the future (inaccurately) based on models they create, they punish unbelievers and reward those agree with them without questioning, they build themselves great temples on universities designed to add prestige to their profession, they advise people regarding the proper sacrifices to make in order to appease the angered science gods, they peddle myths and run secret societies, and they hold to a worldview that does not allow any other challengers.

It should be no surprise that scientists are filling this role- for thousands of years, humans have turned to priests, shamans, fortune-tellers, soothsayers, magicians, witch-doctors, and religious types of all sorts. These sorts prey on those who are looking for hope, looking for direction, looking for someone to tell them the right way to live their own lives, and these scientists fill that role- many have, after all, devoted their lives to killing the Christian God and subverting his people, and now they rush into that vacuum with their own creation myths, sacred beliefs, sacrifices, and class of keepers of the eternal flame of truth....

Hello John Holdren, Science Czar, believer in the Unified Theory of Left-Wing Causes, and Tyrant

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... So today let's get to know a little bit better our Science Czar, John Holdren...

...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...

(Here I am simply amused by the phrase Unified Theory of Left-Wing Causes, as if this is some sort of pseudo-scientific system out there- check out Powerline's post on this for more)

Chimpanzee Hunting Driving Monkeys to Extinction? Those Damned Dirty Apes!

Scientific American reports that that red colobus monkeys in Uganda's Kibale National Park are being hunted to extinction—by chimpanzees. According to a study published May 9 in the American Journal of Primatology, this is the first documented case of a nonhuman primate significantly overhunting another primate species...

...Scientific American is wrong- this is not the first time that those damned dirty apes have tried to kill other primates. Several years ago I got my hands on an account of apes hunting man- I know it is sketchy at best and is not a complete account, but I am going to pass it on to you now to think about.... here is the other account that I have read of ape hunting man...

(you'll have to read the post to get the joke- you'll chuckle, I am positive)

Funny Rick Synder Story about Bureaucrats

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...

(it's a good story- I can't improve it in any way by summarizing it for you, so just read the post)

Hopefully these all brought you a chuckle to start off the year, and you all will be sure to regularly read A Conservative Teacher for insight, humor, and a dose of reality.

Commenting on the dictatorship of Gambia et al. Binneh S Minteh asks in African Path:

-How do military governments legitimize themselves within the international community of nations?
-Do some international players value human dignity before bonding and bridging with such cruel and inhumane leaders of modern times?
-Do the forces of globalization nurture the legitimization of such dictators?

Time travel back to 5 short years ago. The Democratic Party was frantically doing everything possible to pull our troops out of Iraq. Leaders in the party demanded an immediate withdrawal from the unwinnable war. Political lines in the sand were drawn, reputations were staked, bitter battles were fought, all by Democrats who were all against the War in Iraq. Our President, supported by angry demonstrators, regularly shouted about how bad the War in Iraq was. So what happened?

This question has importance, and is not asked simply to dwell on the past. It speaks to the credibility, the experience, the ability to accurately judge and predict events, of our current leadership. Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Peters- they all had the same position on Iraq, and time has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that on that very very important issue, they were very very wrong.

Victor Davis Hanson recently wrote a great article called So What Happened to Iraq? that analyzed this very question:

Six years ago, the conventional wisdom was that Ayad Allawi, then prime minister of the appointed Iraqi Interim Government, was a puppet of the United States. Last month, though, the Allawi-led Iraqiya alliance won, by a narrow margin, more parliamentary seats than any other coalition in national elections -- and he may become the country's next prime minister.

The secular Allawi successfully campaigned on the message of curbing religious interference in government -- countering the often-argued charge that the U.S. has created a radical Islamic republic in Iraq.

Indeed, as we look back at our years in Iraq, almost all of what once passed for conventional wisdom has been proven wrong.

Yes, there is still terrorist violence in Iraq -- especially recently as the leadership of the country's next government remains in doubt. And, yes, there are still around 130,000 American soldiers in Iraq. But in the first three months of 2010, the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq was about equal to those murdered in Fresno, Calif.

Meanwhile, Iraq's democracy has for some time now proven itself independent from the U.S. -- and that old anti-war accusations that we entered the war to control Iraqi oil were false. Last June, the representative Iraqi government held its first oil auction -- featuring transparent negotiations in which no American oil company was awarded an oil concession.

Instead, Chinese, Russian, British, French and other national oil consortia were given the awards. These were legitimate contracts, too -- not the sweetheart deals Saddam Hussein used to make with other governments in exchange for international political cover.

After the U.S. removed the monstrous Saddam, many argued that we were only empowering neighboring Iran -- and thus that the U.S. and the region were better off when he was in power. Putting aside the morality of playing one dictatorship off against another, has theocratic Iran really benefited from the emergence of a constitutional democracy in Iraq?

Currently, the Iranian theocracy is far more unpopular among Iranians than the Iraqi democracy is among Iraqis. Ending Saddam Hussein's reign in the short-term might have been welcome to the ruling Iranian mullahs, but a nearby functioning secular constitutional state -- with a Shiite majority -- is becoming its worst nightmare. Millions of restless Iranians must now wonder, "If Iraqi Shiites can talk freely on television, why can't we?"

Given Iraq's progress these last years, it's hard to find anyone who still argues -- as the current troika now directing U.S. foreign policy, President Barack Obama, Vice President Joseph Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, once did -- that President Bush's 2007 troop surge was a mistake.

To a then-Sen. Clinton, the surge's purported success required a "suspension of disbelief." But, as we now know, the surge saved Iraq and provided a blueprint of sorts for operations in Afghanistan.

Finally, there was the assertion that anti-war protests were all genuinely based on opposition to the American presence in Iraq rather than fueled, in large part, by partisan politics. But since January 2009, when Obama was sworn into office, there have been almost no anti-war demonstrations against the still-sizable American presence there. Popular demonstrations in the U.S. now oppose excessive government, not the war.

And Hollywood has ceased making its usual, unpopular anti-war movies like "In the Valley of Elah," "Redacted," "The Kingdom," "Rendition," "Lions for Lambs" and "Home of the Brave."

Many on the left no longer oppose the Bush-Petraeus plan of slow, graduated withdrawal from Iraq, as this strategy is now sanctioned by President Obama. In the words of Vice President Biden, Iraq may well become one of the Obama administration's "greatest achievements."

It's true that many original supporters of the three-week removal of Saddam Hussein underestimated the ordeal of establishing a constitutional state in his absence. But it's also evident that many who damned the war did so mainly to embarrass then-President George Bush.

We see all of this mostly in hindsight. Dire assertions about Iraq did not come to pass. Anti-war passion cooled once war-critic Barack Obama was no longer a presidential candidate but became president -- and commander-in-chief. And, most importantly, a successful democracy finally did arise after the fall of Saddam.

From the Freedom to Create website:

A controversial playwright from Zimbabwe who has risked his life challenging the Mugabe dictatorship for over 25 years has been awarded the inaugural Orient Global Freedom to Create Prize.
Cont Mhlanga, whose political satire has been banned by the state, took out the award created to highlight a forgotten frontline of artists defending their freedom of expression at great personal sacrifice.

After a careful tallying of votes and considerable consideration of all bribe offers, I have ruled that The Best Posts of A Conservative Teacher 2008 are:

• Liberal Teachers: about liberal teachers and their agenda
• Working on the Standards: remembering my attempts to fight liberal bias on state tests
• Obama Calls for More Public Service: comments on Obama's call for more public service
• Happy-nicing Ourselves into a Dictatorship: Obama brings us into a brave new world
• Comparing Michelle Obama's Speech to Condoleezza Rice's Speech: this gem gives amazing insight into two women who have a lot of influence over Presidents
• Obama's Energy Plan Vision: see the pictures
• Global Warming Melted my Ice Cream Cone: shockingly, hot magma is causing ice to melt under Greenland, not my SUV
• Shays' Rebellion and the Financial Bailout- A Surprising Connection: title of post says it all
• Former Student Reports Voter Fraud on College Campus: I become more cynical about elections after hearing many of these personal stories
• Obama, Granholm, Kwame, Michigan, and Lions: The results of hope and change: written months before the disaster seasons of UM and Lions and the prison term for Kwame and the continuing destruction of Michigan's economy... only prediction not correct yet is on Obama
• Green Jobs, Jeff Daniels, the MEDC, and the myth of FDR: random connections
• Liberal Judge rules homeless voters may list air as addresses to get ballots: ah, liberal judges, making up laws as they go
• Parent protests assigned book: my call to action causes school district to pull liberal book from curriculum
• Buying the American Presidency One Criminal Act at a Time: on Obama's fundraising
• America Has Strayed from Its Founding Children's Books Ideals: what are you reading your child?
• Joe the Plumber Must Be Destroyed: also Palin
• Barack Obama was a member of the New Party: on Obama's membership in radical left organization
• My Experience Meeting Bill Ayers: my protests may have contributed to my eventual separation from that school district
• Warren Schools Blows Budget on Green Boondoggle: a sign of things to come
• Recent Evaluation of Michigan's Business Tax: sometimes I feel like a journalist, then I realize I'm doing real investigative work
• May You Live in Interesting Times: it's a curse
• Obama's Draft Registration Raises Serious Questions: anyone in MSM get this one?
• Libertarians Screwed Themselves By Not Voting or Voting Libertarian: to my libertarian readers
• Our Long Conservative Nightmare is Over: satire
• Bizarro World and the Israeli-Hamas Conflict: explore the concept
• Rezko's Lawyer Owns Obama's House?: does anything about Obama surprise
• Can you Smell what Barack is Cooking?: shady book stew
• Orwell's Children: is future 1984 or Brave New World?
• Beware of the Church of Climate Alarm: they have wooden stakes and will shove one through your heart if it will make you stop polluting the air with your stinking conservative breath

Go back and spend a minute enjoying some of these classic posts from 2008, and get ready for a new year! My blog is growing (thousands of hits), and with your continued readership, and telling your friends, and linking to it on your blog, and emailing me- we will grow it further. My battle continues- be part of it by linking to A Conservative Teacher often!

President Barack Obama's remarked today after the passage through the House of his new health control law that "after nearly 100 years of talk and frustration, after decades of trying, and a year of sustained effort and debate, the United States Congress finally declared that America's workers..." have health care reform.

Obama is right- the battle between communism and liberty has been raging for over a hundred years, and last week, communism won a great battle. The headlines are shouting how after years and years of fighting, finally healthcare reform is here. The way they say it makes you think that the reform is the good guy and the bad guys were the people fighting it- but in reality, the good guys were fighting the reform, and in yet another case of bizzaro world striking, the newspapers are cheering on the bad guy, health care reform.

That is not to say that health care reform is a bad thing- don't get me wrong, I think it is nice that millions of people are now going to get healthcare, that people with pre-existing conditions get covered, etc. It's just sad that to do that, the government is going to hold a gun to my head and make me work harder and longer so that others can benefit from the fruits of my labor. In a way it's like forced charity, but not really, because it is a very inefficient charity and it is a charity that makes me not want to give and the recipient not feel thankful for the gift that is being given to him. This healthcare reform, like much of communism, degrades the human condition, by forcing one person to give to another what they did not earn, demeaning the transactions that make our society civilized and humane.

People are claiming this health care reform is historic- it isn't really. Most communist nations long ago jammed through healthcare, overcoming opposition by those who fought for rule of law, liberty, freedom, and private property protection. Stalin greatly expanded health care for poor people in the Soviet Union in the 1930's, and so whatever victory Obama achieved he did so much later than other great communist leaders of the past. I guess what the newspapers are cheering is that Obama is right- after 100 years of determined efforts to keep the government out of private transactions between a medical professional and a person, the government finally managed to do what Mao, Stalin, and Hitler did long ago and inject itself between those groups and gain power and control over the transaction.

The sadness and anger I have is that after 100 years of talk, debate, and deliberation, our nation went stupid for two elections (2006 and 2008) and that was all that Democrats needed to end talk, debate, and deliberation and ram through the society-changing initiatives to move our nation away from a Republic of laws to a Dictatorship of men. Obama is right to gloat- he did what other dictatorships only dream about, and took a society of liberty, life, and property and reformed into into one of tyranny, death, and poverty.

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act, amended in 1987, designated Yucca Mountain as the national repository for high level nuclear waste in the United States. After passage of that act, the United States spent $9 billion building the Yucca Mountain facility and putting in place every possible safeguard. Congress voted on this issue many times, and for over 20 years has voted to continue funding this project and developing it. This year, after considerable time and debate, Congress voted not to change or amend the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and to continue to legislate that Yucca Mountain will be the national repository for nuclear waste, and appropriated money for this effort.

But this is not a nation built on laws from our legislative branch any more- our nation is turning into a dictatorship of tyranny under Obama. Obama declared that the policy will change, that the Yucca Mountain facility will no longer be considered as a site to store our waste, and that from now on, he is calling the shots in our nation, not Congress. He openly defied Congress and his energy secretary, Steven Chu, has mocked efforts by Congress to have him follow the laws of our nation with regards to this issue.

There is no real backup plan advanced either- Obama in all his brilliance is putting together a 'blue-ribbon' panel to produce a report on what to do with the nuclear waste that is piling up in our nuclear facilities, but nothing will come of this effort and 4 years from now, we'll just have more nuclear waste building up in temporary on-site storage's that were never designed or meant to house spent nuclear material for long periods safely. Obama's policies will hurt the security and environment of our nation, and he is putting these policies in place in clear violation to the laws and policies that Congress has legislated this very year.

The shutting down of the Yucca Mountain project will cost jobs (already thousands are being laid off in Nevada because of this policy decision), will cost energy companies money (they paid billions of their own money for this project and now will have to pay billions more for unsafe temporary storage of spent nuclear waste), and will lead to lower investment in clean and safe nuclear energy (because there is no place to store the waste).

Under George W Bush, thousands of studies were conducted on this issue and extensive research was produced, and after analyzing that data, Congress continued to vote to fund the Yucca Mountain facility and advance its mission of storing waste. But Obama radically altered this policy only two months into office (in March 2009), with no new data, no new studies, and no real reasons presented for the change. It is suspected that the move came as payback to soon-to-be ex-Senator Harry Reid, of Nevada, and as payback to extreme environmental groups that do not support any energy creation, even if it is clean and safe nuclear energy.

You Senators and Congressmen should be contacted about this issue and made aware that the Obama administration has ignored Congress and changed policies and abandoned $9 billion in spending for no good reasons. And if they don't act on this issue and others like it, they should be thrown out of office in 2010.

Earlier last week I was critical of Obama's response to Tunisia's revolution, where it appeared that rather than take an active role in events, Obama's administration simply sat on the sidelines and tried to figure out where Tunisia was (I'm kidding- I heard that he had a 40 minute briefing on Tunisia after the revolution broke out- I'm sure he learned about it then). He is dangerously incompetent, especially on important world events that our President is supposed to be the primary actor on in our political system. The revolution in Tunisia though was just the start of something bigger, something that the Iranian Revolution of 1979 has taught us will have repercussions lasting decades, and that is the revolution that is taking place right now in Egypt.

For the past couple days I have been trying to get a handle on events there, much like our President, and like usual, my reactions have mirrored Obama's. First I first supported the young revolutionaries against the bad dictator, while Obama supported the bad dictator. But now I support the bad dictator over the evil militant terrorist groups who want to take power in Egypt, while Obama now supports the evil militant terrorist groups (he supports them by not saying anything bad about them while saying bad stuff about Mubarak- that's an upgrade over his usual 'voting present' by showing support for the bad guys). Obama is dangerously incompetent again and once again, anyone who voted for him or his party made our nation and world a worse place by doing so.

The best article that I have found to help me get a handle on what is going on in Egypt appeared today in the Jerusalum Post by Caroline Glick called Our World: Clueless in Washington. I am going to pass on some of the better parts of it to you to help you too understand a little bit better what is going on in Egypt...

The Egyptian multitudes on the streets of Cairo are a stunning sight. With their banners calling for freedom and an end to the reign of President Hosni Mubarak the story these images tell is a simple one as old as time.


On the one hand we have the young, dispossessed and weak protesters. And on the other we have the old, corrupt and tyrannical Mubarak. Hans Christian Andersen taught us who to support when we were wee tots.

But does his wisdom apply in this case?

Certainly it is true that the regime is populated by old men. Mubarak is 82 years old. It is also true that his regime is corrupt and tyrannical. Since the Muslim Brotherhood spinoff Islamic Jihad terror group murdered Mubarak’s predecessor president Anwar Sadat in 1981, Egypt has been governed by emergency laws that ban democratic freedoms. Mubarak has consistently rejected US pressure to ease regime repression and enact liberal reforms in governance.

This reality has led many American commentators across the political spectrum to side enthusiastically with the rioters. A prestigious working group on Egypt formed in recent months by Middle East experts from Left and Right issued a statement over the weekend calling for the Obama administration to dump Mubarak and withdraw its support for the Egyptian regime. It recommended further that the administration force Mubarak to abdicate and his regime to fall by suspending all economic and military assistance to Egypt for the duration.

The blue ribbon panel’s recommendations were applauded by its members’ many friends across the political spectrum. For instance, the conservative Weekly Standard’s editor William Kristol praised the panel on Sunday and wrote, “It’s time for the US government to take an active role… to bring about a South Korea/Philippines/Chile-like transition in Egypt, from an American-supported dictatorship to an American-supported and popularly legitimate liberal democracy.”

The problem with this recommendation is that it is based entirely on the nature of Mubarak’s regime. If the regime was the biggest problem, then certainly removing US support for it would make sense. However, the character of the protesters is not liberal.

Indeed, their character is a bigger problem than the character of the regime they seek to overthrow.

According to a Pew opinion survey of Egyptians from June 2010, 59 percent said they back Islamists. Only 27% said they back modernizers. Half of Egyptians support Hamas. Thirty percent support Hizbullah and 20% support al Qaida. Moreover, 95% of them would welcome Islamic influence over their politics. When this preference is translated into actual government policy, it is clear that the Islam they support is the al Qaida Salafist version.

Eighty two percent of Egyptians support executing adulterers by stoning, 77% support whipping and cutting the hands off thieves. 84% support executing any Muslim who changes his religion.

When given the opportunity, the crowds on the street are not shy about showing what motivates them. They attack Mubarak and his new Vice President Omar Suleiman as American puppets and Zionist agents. The US, protesters told CNN’s Nick Robertson, is controlled by Israel. They hate and want to destroy Israel. That is why they hate Mubarak and Suleiman.

WHAT ALL of this makes clear is that if the regime falls, the successor regime will not be a liberal democracy. Mubarak’s military authoritarianism will be replaced by Islamic totalitarianism. The US’s greatest Arab ally will become its greatest enemy. Israel’s peace partner will again become its gravest foe.

What has most confounded Israeli officials and commentators alike has not been the strength of the anti-regime protests, but the American response to them. Outside the far Left, commentators from all major newspapers, radio and television stations have variously characterized the US response to events in Egypt as irrational, irresponsible, catastrophic, stupid, blind, treacherous, and terrifying.

They have pointed out that the Obama administration’s behavior – as well as that of many of its prominent conservative critics – is liable to have disastrous consequences for the US’s other authoritarian Arab allies, for Israel and for the US itself.

The question most Israelis are asking is why are the Americans behaving so destructively? Why are President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton charting a course that will necessarily lead to the transformation of Egypt into the first Salafist Islamic theocracy? And why are conservative commentators and Republican politicians urging them to be even more outspoken in their support for the rioters in the streets?

Does the US not understand what will happen in the region as a result of its actions? Does the US really fail to understand what will happen to its strategic interests in the Middle East if the Muslim Brotherhood either forms the next regime or is the power behind the throne of the next regime in Cairo?...

...As Prof. Barry Rubin wrote this week, “There is no good policy for the United States regarding the uprising in Egypt but the Obama administration may be adopting something close to the worst option.”
 
Unfortunately, given the cluelessness of the US foreign policy debate, this situation is only likely to grow worse.

Two more years remain in President Obama's term of office. Hopefully voters in America will wake up and realize how dangerously incompetent his administration has been and how destructive the impulse to take a flier on this unknown was.

Jason Hickel writes in Pambazuka:

The correlation between environment and development is indeterminate; there are many regions in the world with hostile geological and climactic characteristics that have nonetheless managed to keep from descending into inveterate poverty. Second, the theory focuses on what Africa lacks rather than what Africa has, being – among other things – vast natural resource wealth in the form of unprecedented petroleum reserves and mineral deposits. The question should not be what to do in the absence of resources, but how existing resources get used, how they are distributed, and who pockets the profits.

More here

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• Africa Rising (loomnie.com)
• Dictatorship more dangerous than climate change (my-beauty-best-teacher.blogspot.com)

This is how the Democrats tell the story.

After George W Bush won election in 2000, the Democrats pointed over and over again to his low polling numbers, claiming that this was evidence that the country was divided. Byron York, writing in the National Review, characterized his approval rating as "wandering listlessly in the low 50 percent range." Democrats viewed these low approval ratings as a weakness, a sign that the President was unpopular and did not have a mandate to lead. Indeed, throughout his whole Presidency and in elections after they were able to point to those approval ratings numbers as evidence that Bush was never a legitimate President.

Bush's approval rating sunk from a high of 62% soon after he was elected to a meager 53% only months after he was elected. It was a sign of how unpopular he was.

Obama's approval rating has sunk from a high of 63% soon after he was elected to a meager 53% only months after he was elected. It is a sign of how unpopular he is.

Will Democrats tell this story? Or will they continue to portray Obama as a God in the media? I suspect that they will continue to insist that Obama is popular, even if his approval numbers drop to Jimmy Carter or Nancy Pelosi levels. When you have a minority group (extreme liberal Democrats are a minority group) ruling a nation, it usually is unpopular, and yet these groups typically prop up their regime with shows and displays. It is only a matter of time until Obama's popularity hits 43% and a statue of him is put up. As his popularity drifts lower, displays of power and worship will become more prominent.

Democrats need to be defeated in 2010 and 2012. Bush might not have been the smartest President, and you may disagree with some of his policy decisions, but at least he did not try to change America into a thug-ruled dictatorship.