"A Crisis is a Terrible Thing To Waste" (Rahm Emanuel)

Thomas Sowell has a great piece at Capitalism Magazine which explains to a tee the political mind - a crisis is an opportunity for a power grab.

If the Beltway politicians aren't really trying to solve this crisis as quickly as they could, what are they trying to do?

One important clue may be a recent statement… Rahm Emmanuel, that "A crisis is a terrible thing to waste."

This is the kind of cynical revelation that sometimes slips out, despite all the political pieties and spin. Crises have long been seen as great opportunities to expand the federal government's power while the people are too scared to object and before any opposition can get organized.
That is why there is such haste to do things that will take effect slowly.

What are the Beltway politicians buying with all the hundreds of billions of dollars they are spending? They are buying what politicians are most interested in-- power.

In the name of protecting the taxpayers' investment, they are buying the power to tell General Motors how to make cars, banks how to bank …

This administration and Congress are now in a position to do what Franklin D. Roosevelt did during the Great Depression of the 1930s-- use a crisis of the times to create new institutions that will last for generations.

…we are still subsidizing millionaires in agriculture because farmers were having a tough time in the 1930s. We have the Federal National Mortgage Association ("Fannie Mae") taking reckless chances in the housing market that have blown up in our faces today, because FDR decided to create a new federal housing agency in 1938.

Who knows what bright ideas this administration will turn into permanent institutions for our children and grandchildren to try to cope with? (Read the whole article by Thomas Sowell at www.CapMag.com)

America is Galloping Toward Socialism

A Fox News/Opinion Dynamic poll posed the question:

• Does the news about stimulus packages and the federal government giving financial aid to several major corporations make you feel like the country is drifting away from capitalism and more toward socialism? Americans responded: 50% YES and 37% NO (Read).

Socialism as defined by Ayn Rand "is the doctrine that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that his life and his work do not belong to him, but belong to society, that the only justification of his existence is his service to society, and that society may dispose of him in any way it pleases for the sake of whatever it deems to be its own tribal, collective good." (For the New Intellectual).

Goebbels, (a German politician and Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. He was one of German dictator Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers) said this about socialism:

"To be a socialist is to submit the I to the thou; socialism is sacrificing the individual to the whole."

As Ayn Rand once wrote about Goebbels: "By this definition, the Nazis practiced what they preached. They practiced it at home and then abroad. No one can claim that they did not sacrifice enough individuals".

Americans are not socialists because we do not believe in the ownership by the government of the means of production and we don't believe in sacrificing our self-interest for the good of the whole. We are by nature a people that believe in individual freedom both in the moral AND economic realm. The sooner Obama realizes this the quicker we'll get out of this mess. He called for change during his campaign but can he change his socialist views and become a freedom-loving American? The jury is out and who knows what the verdict will be.

Spending Our Way to Oblivion

Today I heard Glenn Beck using a phrase I found very apt: "spending our way to oblivion". Remember the Wiemar Republic of Germany where to buy a loaf of bread you needed a wheelbarrow full of bills? This picture was taken in 1923 and shows a man using German banknotes as wallpaper - they were that worthless.

That is called inflation and it occurs when the government pumps paper money into the economy without anything to back that paper up. Wikipedia has a decent definition of hyperinflation which is where we're headed if the government doesn't stop printing money!

The main cause of hyperinflation is a massive and rapid increase in the amount of money, which is not supported by growth in the output of goods and services. This results in an imbalance between the supply and demand for the money (including currency and bank deposits), accompanied by a complete loss of confidence in the money, similar to a bank run. Enactment of legal tender laws and price controls to prevent discounting the value of paper money relative to gold, silver, hard currency, or commodities, fails to force acceptance of a paper money which lacks intrinsic value. If the entity responsible for printing a currency promotes excessive money printing, with other factors contributing a reinforcing effect, hyperinflation usually continues. Often the body responsible for printing the currency cannot physically print paper currency faster than the rate at which it is devaluing, thus neutralizing their attempts to stimulate the economy. Wikipedia


It is not the job of government to stimulate us or the economy. Their job is to protect the American homeland and Americans against aggression. The only aggression I see right now is this "stimulus" boondoggle which is an attack on the freedoms of American citizens.

In order to preserve our country we need FREEDOM more specifically economic freedom - not government putting us in manacles with their endless regulations and spending money we don't have.

John Adams' Opinion of Congress

In my many years,
I have come to a conclusion
that one useless man is a shame,
two is a law firm, and
three or more is a congress."
- John Adams

Ayn Rand's Ideas on Government - Crucial For Today

In light of the fact that we have a new President, one that has definite socialist leanings even though he has proudly proclaimed he has no ideology it is time to revisit Ayn Rand and what she had to say about government and its proper role. But first let's read what Obama said in his inaugural address (read):

• "What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. Those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account — to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day — because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government. "


• "Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control — and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart — not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good. "

Point #1 - Our government IS too large, bloated and meddling in things that are none of their business, like the market place.

Point #2 - The market spins out of control precisely because of government meddling! What was the banking crisis caused by but the government demanding that banks give out loans to the needy - remember subprime loans!

Point #3 - What does he mean when he says a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous? Does he mean by "favors" powerful government officials using their menacing power to intimidate big business to play by the rules and only then they'll get favors?

Ayn Rand defined a proper government thus: "The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man's self-defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force. The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, ..."(Galts Speech in Atlas Shrugged and For The New Intellectual).

"The fundamental difference between private action and government action - a difference thoroughly ignored and evaded today - lies in the fact that a government holds a monopoly on the legal use of physical force. It has to hold such a monopoly, since it is the agent of restraining and combating the use of force; and for that very same reason, its actions have to be rigidly defined, delimited and circumscribed; no tough of whim or caprice should be permitted in its performance; it should be an impersonal robot, with the laws as its only motive power. If a society is to be free, its government has to be controlled."

"Under a proper social system, a private individual is legally free to take any action he pleases (so long as he does not violate the rights of others), while a government official is bound by law in his every official act. A private individual may do anything except that which is legally forbidden; a government official may do nothing except that which is legally permitted."("The Nature of Government" in the Virtue of Selfishness, 148; p 109)

The Menace of Our Federal Deficit

We as individuals are not the only ones spending like there's no tomorrow. In case you didn't know it our government is in the hole for trillions of dollars and it's growing. When the baby boomers start retiring the deficit could get to 53 trillion dollars which is a $175,000 debt for every person alive in the US today. As Americans who love our country, we have to understand what is going on in order to fix this massive behemoth confronting us.

As of 2008 our Federal Budget Deficit consists of the following debts:
610 billion in Social Security
330 billion in medicare
204 billion in medicaid
607 billion in military
936 billion everything else
TOTAL: 2.9 trillion dollars in the hole and growing...

Federal revenue (what is coming into the government)
1,220 billion in Personal Income Taxes
910 billion in payroll taxes (FICA)
345 billion in corporate income taxes
46 billion in other revenue

If you add the numbers and subtract revenue - deficit you come up with a 410 billion dollar deficit. That's today but it's growing like a monster. In the last 40 years 35 of those years have been budget deficits and only 5 years have been budget surpluses. Our government is living beyond its means just like the American people in general. We cannot sustain this before we go down the tubes as a nation. A must watch video below or go to www.pgpf.org.

The Need to be Inspired

It gets sickening to read, watch and listen to craven, self-serving, irrational politicians 24/7. Sometimes you need fuel to give you courage to face the day. This video in the Real American Stories website did that for me this morning. I hope it does the same for you.

His name is Oleg Haskel - He's a Russian immigrant who came to the US to achieve his dreams. The question is with all this government intervention coming will Americans be able to continue to do so? www.realamericanstories.com/oleg-haskel/?curpage=6

Government Created Zombie Debtors - Another Menace

The term zombie debtors apparently was first used by Glenn Beck, but Businessweek picked up the term and wrote an article describing the menace they pose to the economy. When will we learn that government does not solve economic problems - THEY CREATE THEM. Is it our poor education system that does not prepare us to think things through logically? What the government is doing by propping up bad businesses is creating debtors that use up resources like tax money, capital and labor that could better be used by growing companies. Why prop up the unsuccessful? Government wants power and you get power by being all things to all people and making them dependent on you.

...by slashing prices to generate sales, zombie companies can drag healthier rivals into insolvency.

Sometime in the past few months, zombies went from being a latent risk to a genuine threat—one that is likely to increase in the months ahead. The Bush Administration has already ladled out billions of dollars in assistance to weak banks and automakers. As the economy goes into what may become the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, the Obama Administration will come under even more pressure to prop up sick financial and nonfinancial companies to save jobs. The debate will center on wounded giants such as Citigroup (C), General Motors (GM), and insurer American International Group (AIG). Other sectors with their hands out include steel, airlines, retail—and homeowners, who may be the scariest zombies of all.

Japan was plagued by zombies during its lost decade of slow growth in the 1990s. Weak Japanese borrowers used the proceeds from new loans to pay interest on old ones—a process called "evergreening" that kept banks from having to acknowledge losses. In the '80s, the U.S. airline industry was pulled down by Eastern Airlines, which was allowed to keep flying (and charging low fares) while in bankruptcy court. That doesn't help anyone. "At some point, you need to wake up and accept the fact that, 'Oops, that's not going to work,' " says Stéphane Téral, an analyst with Infonetics Research who tracked the demise of scads of telecom carriers in the early 2000s.

Protecting zombies can stunt long-term growth by blocking what economist Joseph Schumpeter called "creative destruction"—the painful but necessary reallocation of resources from declining companies and sectors to rising ones. That turns out to be crucial. In the U.S. manufacturing and retail sectors, a huge share of productivity gains have come from such reallocation, says economist Steven J. Davis of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Case in point: the growth of hyperefficient Wal-Mart (WMT) at the expense of mom-and-pop shops, which were allowed to die. The absence of such reallocation could slow productivity growth. (READ)

Inching Our Way to a Government Controlled Economy

Alex Epstein has a piece he wrote at Telegraph.co.uk called "Shunning Capitalism Created the Market Tumult". (Read). Ayn Rand was an unflinching defender of free markets and below is Mr. Epstein's analysis of where the blame lies - and it's not with capitalism which is truly the "unknown ideal". Americans must defend the free markets and get government OUT of our lives.

"One of the methods used by statists to destroy capitalism," she wrote in The Voice of Reason, "consists in establishing controls that tie a given industry hand and foot, making it unable to solve its problems, then declaring that freedom has failed and stronger controls are necessary."...

Culprit number one is the Federal Reserve, charged with what Mason calls "running the real economy" - the illegitimate job of centrally determining how much money exists and how high interest rates are. It was the Fed that flooded the market with cheap money that went begging for a bubble to invest in.

Then there are the policies of government deposit insurance and "too big to fail," which encourage large banks to take short-term risks that taxpayers will be forced to bail them out of. And that's not even to mention the Community Reinvestment Act, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac.

Time after time, the American government gave special handouts to some Americans in the name of "promoting homeownership" or "financial stability," while forcing others to foot the bill.
This was manifestly the opposite of Miss Rand's view that men should deal with one another to mutual benefit via trade.

What was needed in the past and is still needed today is a political system solely dedicated to protecting the individual rights to life, liberty, and property against force and fraud...

"The Stimulus Scam"

Peter Schiff at the Wall Street Journal says that we don't need subsidized work - we need work for what it produces. This means we DON'T need government make work with bridge building right now. We need work created by the market place. So workers who are in the finance industry which according to Schiff is top heavy should move to other industries where the market needs them. This means Obama and congress stay out of the economy or else you will prolong our pain.

The Union of American Socialist States circa 2009

I found this old front page news story of the conviction of Al Capone but notice below in small letters is a story about the death of Thomas A. Edison. The passing of a giant of an inventor got smaller headlines than the conviction of a crook. But our government's crimes against America are of such proportions that these modern day crooks deserve similar headlines to Capone's. Today's major headline should read:
"The US Government Makes a Sharp Turn to the Left".

We should call our country: Union of American Socialist States

Or the UASS - Classy abbreviation - huh? It's closer to the truth after all. Walter Williams writes about this turn to communism/socialism: weep for our beloved land of the free and brave.

...The government is not saving Main Street--it is confiscating it and nationalizing it. Is it not true that, with the takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the federal government now holds paper on tens of millions of American mortgages? What does granting American citizens "equity positions" and "profits" in companies seized by the government mean, except communism? Who is to run this new communist state--"Hank" Paulson and his Legions of Morale Conditioners? My congressman thinks that this serves "the public interest," but that private enterprise does not.
Why then do we condemn Hugo Chavez for nationalizing oil companies? Why should those companies "resist" his regulations? Is he not simply following the Paulson plan for the "public interest"?

History demonstrates the consequences of such coercions. The Great Depression that followed the stock market crash of 1929 was caused by a string of obnoxious legislation, and was then cruelly extended by massive government interference. Contrary to prevailing, but long-discredited, opinion, the government did not save us from that mess. It created, and prolonged, it. Twenty years earlier, JP Morgan had ended the panic of 1908 in a few weeks--but bankers in 1929 could not so act. Today, Morgan would have been jailed for the private pooling of assets he arranged.

Is it not true that AIG was told by the Attorney General of New York that it would not be allowed to sell sound assets in order to save the holding company? Who is to blame for the collapse of a huge, and largely sound company, excpet those who forbid its executives from acting? And if this crisis spreads, who will be to blame--those executives who were not allowed to act on their best judgments, or those politicians who wrote the regulations?... (Read Capitalism Magazine)

A Tipping Point for Capitalism" via Government Healthcare

Are we, the American people being "bored into submission and indifference" regarding our relentless march to socialism by the constant prattle that government knows best how to cure what ails our economy? (Forget that it was Freddie Mac and Fannie May, birthed by the government, that started our descent into financial hell).

We have been "gliding" slowly but surely toward socialism over the past several decades but Obama and Washington are accelerating the pace. Contrary to what your politicians will say it is not Capitalism that has caused these problems it is your US of A government meddling in the market that has us all spiraling toward the abyss. If government takes over control of our health then we can kiss free America goodbye...we will be another socialist state like the Europeans.

For most of our nation's history, our approach to economics has favored enterprise, self-reliance and the free market. While the American economy has never been entirely laissez-faire, we have historically cared more about equality of opportunity than equality of results. And while Americans have embraced elements of the New Deal, the Great Society and progressive taxation, we have traditionally viewed welfare as a way to help those in dire need, not as a way of life for the middle class. We have grasped, perhaps more than any other nation, that there is a long-run cost to dependency on the state, including an aversion to risk that eventually enervates the entrepreneurial spirit necessary for innovation and prosperity.

This outlook, once assumed, is now under attack due to a recent series of political and economic events.

The first is the unprecedented intervention by the federal government, in the form of a $700 billion relief package...

Nonetheless, the consequences of this undertaking are enormous. Not only has the size of the expenditures been staggering -- there is talk of another stimulus package worth an estimated $825 billion -- but we are witnessing a fundamental transformation of government's relationship with the polity and the economy (READ MORE at WSJ - Beware of Government Big Tipping Point).

Theodore Dalrymple has a great passage in one of his articles describing an "educationist'" who declared at a meeting about the harmful effects of forcing disadvantaged ethnic children to read and write.

• Why do I spend so much time arguing against such obvious rubbish, which should be both self-refuting and auto-satirizing the moment someone utters it? Why not just go and read a good book?
  
  The problem is that nonsense can and does go by default. It wins the argument by sheer persistence, by inexhaustible re-iteration, by staying at the meeting when everyone else has gone home, by monomania, by boring people into submission and indifference. And the reward of monomania? Power. (READ here).

YES INDEED, REMEMBER THAT WHAT MOST OF THESE POLITICIANS WANT MOST IS POWER - how better to get it than to turn us toward socialism, where all are dependent on the government for every need and every want. Yea! Power to the government!

Regulations and High Taxes are Killing 37 States

David Nunes, a Republican congressman from California, writes at WSJ of the dire 40 billion dollar deficit facing California (highest in the nation) all due to 10 years of a free for all spending spree. So it's not only the Federal government spending beyond its means, thanks to Bush. But with Obama's desire to inject liquidity into our markets (money which our government does not have) it will be getting worse under his regime. However, because there are 50 states in the union, it is a must for states to live within their means or suffer the consequences: Migration to states with low regulations and low taxes. Beautiful as the state of California is people and businesses vote with their pocketbook. (READ)

...With this history at their back, state leaders might have understood that people have a propensity to get up and move when a better life is to be had elsewhere. But no. After more than 150 years of being a destination, California is becoming a place entrepreneurs, investment capital and the hardy workers who made it a global leader in agriculture, technological innovation and scientific research are fleeing. This exodus is the marker of something deeper than a national recession. It's a sign that the attempts by state leaders to spend their way back to prosperity are killing California.

While it has the sixth highest tax burden in the nation, according to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation, California is facing a breathtaking $40 billion budget deficit this year. This comes on the heels of a decade-long spending spree. Last year the state budget was $131 billion, up from $56 billion in 1998.

Citizens are burdened by all manner of state regulations. To mention just one example, this year a new law enacted by ballot initiative bans cages chicken farmers use on the grounds that it is inhuman to put birds in cages that prevent them from spreading their wings. Complying with the new law will cost farmers hundreds of millions of dollars, which will force many to leave the state. And that will force us to buy our eggs from other states and, possibly, others nations, such as Mexico.

And just as a fallen tree can divert the flow of water in a creek, bad economic policies divert the flow of investment. Entrepreneurs and investors, seeking the path of least resistance, leave when it becomes easier to make a living in more business-friendly states. In 2000, according to the state's Department of Finance, about 150,000 people moved into California. But in the years that followed the in-migration slowed, and in 2005 it reversed, when a net 52,000 people moved out. In 2008, the outflow topped 135,000 people... (READ and READ)

Incompetence Gets you Government Subsidies ala Atlas Shrugged

Stephen Moore over at WSJ does a good job of showing the remarkable parallels between today's economic fiasco and Ayn Rand's immensely popular novel ATLAS SHRUGGED. It is uncanny how she put each of the pathetic government actions taken so far today in her novel written over 50 years ago. Read this column and then read ATLAS SHRUGGED and see for yourself. She knew and understood where we were headed - we are living her novel now.

...Many of us who know Rand's work have noticed that with each passing week, and with each successive bailout plan and economic-stimulus scheme out of Washington, our current politicians are committing the very acts of economic lunacy that "Atlas Shrugged" parodied in 1957, when this 1,000-page novel was first published and became an instant hit.

...For the uninitiated, the moral of the story is simply this: Politicians invariably respond to crises -- that in most cases they themselves created -- by spawning new government programs, laws and regulations. These, in turn, generate more havoc and poverty, which inspires the politicians to create more programs . . . and the downward spiral repeats itself until the productive sectors of the economy collapse under the collective weight of taxes and other burdens imposed in the name of fairness, equality and do-goodism.

In the book, these relentless wealth redistributionists and their programs are disparaged as "the looters and their laws." Every new act of government futility and stupidity carries with it a benevolent-sounding title. These include the "Anti-Greed Act" to redistribute income (sounds like Charlie Rangel's promises soak-the-rich tax bill) and the "Equalization of Opportunity Act" to prevent people from starting more than one business (to give other people a chance). My personal favorite, the "Anti Dog-Eat-Dog Act," aims to restrict cut-throat competition between firms and thus slow the wave of business bankruptcies. Why didn't Hank Paulson think of that?

These acts and edicts sound farcical, yes, but no more so than the actual events in Washington, circa 2008. We already have been served up the $700 billion "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act" and the "Auto Industry Financing and Restructuring Act." Now that Barack Obama is in town, he will soon sign into law with great urgency the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan." This latest Hail Mary pass will increase the federal budget (which has already expanded by $1.5 trillion in eight years under George Bush) by an additional $1 trillion -- in roughly his first 100 days in office.

The current economic strategy is right out of "Atlas Shrugged": The more incompetent you are in business, the more handouts the politicians will bestow on you. Read Stephen Moore's column at WSJ.

The "Broken Window Effect" in War

Mr Bisharat has written an unbelievable column based on half truths. The fact is that the nations surrounding Israel have the declared goal of the complete annihilation of Israel. This tiny nation is in a death struggle against Muslims who though weak are dedicated to death.

Why doesn't Israel have the right to fight a declared war the way wars have been fought in the past: the goal in any war is TO WIN. You don't win by fighting tit for tat - you destroy your enemy. Why do Israelis have to live with the constant lobbing of bombs on their cities? I say NO MORE. If this was happening to America we would go all out to kill and destroy the enemy. The fact is that Bisharat's hatred of the Jews comes shining through and WSJ should be ashamed for having printed such a diatribe.

Israel has the right to live in peace and harmony among the nations of the world. If the enemy refuses to live like civilized human beings then the Israeli government has the right and the DUTY to protect its citizens. The fact that Israel has a superior army is not an argument for not fighting to the finish. Wars are never won with half hearted attempts. This just emboldens the enemy. Unfortunately Israel not only has this military struggle to win but the court of public opinion is always against them - why is that? Any country under attack has the right to fight to end and win decisively once and for all.

The "broken window effect" which was used to describe the detioration of a neighborhood if nothing was done to fight the small acts of crime can be applied to armed conflicts. If you allow one bomb to explode you give the enemy a kind of sanction by not defending yourself with total moral certainty. Half hearted attempts at armed struggle have never resulted in won wars. Our efforts in WWII was an all out fight to the death. And we were brave to do the ultimate act of dropping the atom bombs. It makes no difference to the dead whether they died by a bullet or by a bomb. But by this action it showed the Japanese that the we would not tolerate anymore killing and invasion - and the war ended. Note that the Japanese proceeded to become one of the great industrial nations among nations! They learned their lesson.

An important overlooked aspect of this conflict is the fact that it is incumbent upon the civilians to demand from their political leaders civilized behavior by ending war and putting in place institutions that promote freedom of thought, speech and action that is critically missing in the Muslim world. Israel as well must no longer tolerate anymore hostilities by their neighbors once and for all. (WSJ).

A Letter To My Congressman Regarding Our Defense

Everyone should be writing their representative. This is an outrage to have a naive head of the CIA as the wall separating us from terrorists. Here is our letter which was sent today.

Honorable Mr. Upton:

We are writing about our concern with Mr. Obama's choice for head of the CIA. It is beyond comprehension how Leon Panetta could have been chosen for this MOST important job. According to my reading he has no experience - NONE and does not even apparently know how the CIA works. How can he learn on the job as some defenders are saying, when we need protection 24/7 against all the terrorists planning their deeds out there?

This smacks of irresponsibility on the part of Mr. Obama and the fact is that his primary and, really only job is to protect America and its citizens from attacks! Where is it in the constitution that a President's job is to bail out businesses? But that seems to be Obama's priority and NOT the defense of this country. We are stunned.

Respectfully,
The Kalamazoo Objectivist

Obama Gives Aid and Comfort to Terroritsts

The CIA stands for Central Intelligence Agency whose job it is TO PROTECT US!!!!!!!! and for the head of this most important agency one would think you'd want a guy with some kind of experience or at least knowledge about this agency. Well folks we have the spectacle of a President of the United States sending a message to all the rotten terrorists around the world. Obama might as well shout it on the BBC:

"Hey, terrorists - come on over and do what you will the door is wide open cause I, Obama, just chose Leon Pannetta to be head of the CIA - no really - he has no experience. It'll be a cake walk!" Ralph Peters a former career intelligence office in the US army writes:

The director's job at the CIA isn't a party favor. This is potentially a matter of life and death for thousands of Americans. But the choice of Panetta tells us all that Barack Obama doesn't take intelligence seriously.

Mark my words: It'll bite him in the butt.

After the military, the intel community is the most complex arm of government. You can't do on-the-job training at the top. While a CIA boss needn't be a career intelligence professional, he or she does need a deep familiarity with the purposes, capabilities, limitations and intricacies of intelligence.

Oh, and you'd better understand the intelligence bureaucracy.
Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.), who was blindsided - and appalled - by the Obama mafia's choice, has the essential knowledge of how the system works. She, or a similar expert, should have gotten this nod. But the president-elect wanted a clean-slate yes-man, not a person of knowledge and integrity.

We're witnessing the initial costs of Obama's career-long lack of interest in foreign policy, the military and intelligence. He doesn't think the top job at the CIA's important and just wants political cover on that flank.

...Panetta's appointment is a sop to the hard left, a signal that intelligence will be emasculated for the next four - or eight - years.

Think morale's been bad at the CIA? Just wait. (READ at New York Post)

Israel's Split Personality

At MSNBC the Associated Press reported today's news of the ongoing war between Israel and the initiator of this war - Gaza.

"Israel launched the offensive on Dec. 27 in response to intensifying rocket fire by Hamas militants in Gaza. The operation has killed more than 430 Palestinians, including dozens of civilians, according to Palestinian and U.N. counts. Four Israelis have also been killed, and rocket attacks on southern Israel persist."

"Israel denies there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza and has increased its shipments of goods into Gaza. It says it has confined its attacks to militants while trying to prevent civilian casualties."

At MSNBC world blog Martin Fletcher summarizes this war.

"Essentially, Israel wants to destroy as much as possible of Hamas military infrastructure, teach Hamas the same lesson, and reach a cease-fire that will last."

"But Hamas still has an arsenal of weapons, including thousands of rockets, suicide bombers ready to attack, and the support of its people in Gaza. Israel will overwhelm Hamas, but could yet suffer some nasty surprises.

"The only other way the fighting could end soon is the way it has in the past: An Israeli rocket hits a school or an apartment building, killing a hundred people. Then Israel will not be able to withstand international pressure to call off the attack." (Read)

This writer implies in this last paragraph that Israel better not hit a school or an apartment building! But it's OK for Hamas to launch rockets at an Israeli city killing civilians for months on end with no outcry by the rest of the world? No one will support Israel at least morally except the United States and that is very tepid support indeed. Why doesn't Israel have a right to vanquish it's enemies once and for all. Why is it hostage to world opinion when most countries have nothing but hatred for Israel. There's only one way to completely route the enemy and that is by discovering selfishness and rejecting the "sanction of the victim" mentality (see previous post). Rational selfishness advocates the values required for man's survival qua man:

"...not values produced by the desires, the emotions, the "aspirations," the feelings, the whims or the needs of irrational brutes, who have never outgrown the primordial practice of human sacrifices, have never discovered an industrial society and can conceive of no self-interest but that of grabbing the loot of the moment." (The Objectivist Ethics).

There is a fundamental moral difference between a man who sees his self-interest in production and a man who sees it in robbery. The evil of a robber does not lie in the fact that he pursues his own interests, but in what he regards as to his own interest; not in the fact that he pursues his values, but in what he chose to value; not in the fact that he wants to live, but in the fact that he wants to live on a subhuman level. (The Virtue of Selfishness).

The title of Mr. Martin's article is What is Israel's End Game in Gaza? Indeed! It should be nothing more or less than winning and destroying the enemy and those who give them comfort and support. If Israeli's lob a bomb at a hospital or a school any deaths are on Hamas, a most vile group of killers and religious thugs and the people of Gaza for allowing these creeps to live among them and to wage this most unnecessary of wars. Israel lives surrounded by nations whose hostility cannot be understood or rationalized. In the Middle East, on the one hand you have a tiny country that produces and invents all sort of goods and services on the other hand you have several countries who produce for the most part nothing but live to kill Jews.

But to win, Jews must cure themselves of their split personality: They cannot fight Hamas and save "civilians". They cannot win against their enemies without incurring collateral damage. They will understand this when they eschew the philosophy of sacrifice and become like the ancient biblical warriors, sure of their righteousness NOT because of God but because they deserve to live free from terror and the threat of death. Their enemies are very small but they cannot be beaten in the long run without Israel's total and guiltless commitment to their right to live on this earth.

Israel Must Fight to Win

What is it with the Israeli government that they never seem to want to win any war they are forced to engage in? The latest war is with Hamas in Gaza and while Israel has the obvious ability to win outright they always stop way short of crushing their enemy. In fact, Hamas is an illegal terrorist organization and an "Iranian proxy" so why doesn't Israel go all the way and destroy this evil? Right now the Israeli government is negotiating with Hamas under the auspices of the EU. But what does Israel have to negotiate about with Hamas? Hamas wants to see Israel wiped off the map.

When it comes to fighting for your life do you try to negotiate with your enemy? No you kill him first - it's called self-defense. Israel's history is filled with these half hearted attempts at self-defense and it will continue because they do not have the moral certitude that they are in the right. Not God-given certitude but moral certitude because they are the good represented in their productivity and life giving manner of living. Hamas is a terrorist organization that cares not a wit for their people or progress or living in peace with their neighbors. Their goal is power and ramming their religion down people's throat. Caroline Glick explains the irrationality of having the EU stand in as a mediator.

"Since Tuesday it has become clear that the Olmert-Livni-Barak government has decided to end the war with Iran's Hamas proxy army in Gaza as quickly as possible. That is, the government has decided to lose the war."

"The first problem with the EU proposal is that it takes for granted that all of Hamas's demands must be met in full. That is, Israel is beginning these negotiations from a point of weakness whereby it has already effectively accepted Hamas's demands and conceded its own.

"The second problem with the decision to accept EU mediation is that by doing so, the government is compelled to ignore and indeed justify the EU's underlying and deep-seated hostility toward Israel. The very fact that the EU accepted Hamas's demands from the outset demonstrates clearly that the EU cannot be an honest broker between the warring factions.

"...The third strategic failure inherent in Israel's decision to negotiate a truce is Israel's demand for an international monitoring force to verify compliance with the cease-fire agreement. This demand is self-defeating because such a force will only harm Israel's national interests. This is the clear lesson of both the EU's past monitoring mission at the Rafah terminal and of UNIFIL forces in southern Lebanon."

It's time that Israel show its many enemies that they are through negotiating. That they will stand up and defend themselves and the end game will be winning a clear and decisive victory that will leave the enemy totally vanquished. A person or a nation has a right to exist if that person or nation does not negate another person or nation's right to live. Sacrificing your young men and the interests of one's country to evil is an inverted morality which Ayn rand called the "Sanction of the Victim".

• Then I saw what was wrong with the world, I saw what destroyed men and nations, and where the battle for life had to be fought. I saw that the enemy was an inverted morality - and that my sanction was its only power. I saw that evil was impotent - and that evil was the irrational, the blind, the anti-real - and that the only weapon of its triumph was the willingness of the good to serve it. Just as the parasites around me were proclaiming their helpless dependence on my mind and were expecting me voluntarily to accept a slavery they had no power to enforce, just as they were counting on my self-immolation to provide them with the means of their plan - so throughout the world and throughout men's history, in very version and form, from the extortions of loafing relatives to the atrocities of collectivized countries, it is the good, the able, the men of reason, who act as their own destroyers, who transfuse to evil the blood of their virtue and let evil transmit to them the poison of destruction, thus gaining for evil the power of survival, and for their own values - the impotence of death. I saw that there comes a point, in the defeat of any man of virtue, when his own consent is needed for evil to win - and that no manner of injury done to him by others can succeed if he chooses to withhold his consent. I saw that I could put an end to your outrages by pronouncing a single word in my mind, I pronounced it. The word was "No". (For the New Intellectual, Ayn Rand).

Israel needs to have leaders that believe in their right to exist without constant threats from their neighbors. They do not need the EU as mediator because 1. EU is anti-Israel and 2. what is there to mediate? This is not a quarrel about water rights. This is an existential threat. Israel needs leaders who have a correct philosophy - one that upholds the certitude of their right to live as a nation among nations free from terrorism and attacks by backward, bullying non-rational groups or countries. You can only do that one way and that is by winning your wars completely and that is done not with altruism but with a philosophy of selfishness. The good in this world is drowning in a sea of altruism. Let's turn the other cheek toward selfishness. I'll explain in the next post.

America and Americans Need to Get Back to Honoring Our Constitution

A Russian Professor (former KGB) has predicted the demise of the United States by the year 2010. He predicted this as early as 1998 (Wall Street Journal).

He predicts that economic, financial and demographic trends will provoke a political and social crisis in the U.S. When the going gets tough, he says, wealthier states will withhold funds from the federal government and effectively secede from the union. Social unrest up to and including a civil war will follow. The U.S. will then split along ethnic lines, and foreign powers will move in.

California will form the nucleus of what he calls "The Californian Republic," and will be part of China or under Chinese influence. Texas will be the heart of "The Texas Republic," a cluster of states that will go to Mexico or fall under Mexican influence. Washington, D.C., and New York will be part of an "Atlantic America" that may join the European Union. Canada will grab a group of Northern states Prof. Panarin calls "The Central North American Republic." Hawaii, he suggests, will be a protectorate of Japan or China, and Alaska will be subsumed into Russia.

...Americans hope President-elect Barack Obama "can work miracles," he wrote. "But when spring comes, it will be clear that there are no miracles."

But think about this. While America does not need miracles what we do need is to get America back on the right track - We need to return to the values of our founding Fathers: respect for Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

We need our Washington politicians to uphold and follow the United States Constitution.

We need the dollar to be backed by gold and the prohibition to the Federal Reserve to print fiat money. In fact the Federal Reserve should not even exist! This one institution alone has caused so much damage to our economy.

We need politicians to stop taxing Americans and their businesses out of existance and we need them to stop regulating businesses. In other words "LEAVE US ALONE".