Saturday, October 20, 2012

Somebody's gotta go back and get a s#!t load of dimes!

"As Chicago struggles to quell gang violence that has contributed to a jump in homicides, a top elected official wants to tax the sale of every bullet and firearm... "

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle wants to add a $0.05 tax for each bullet and $25 for each firearm.

Does anyone actually believe the tax will reduce violence?  The absurdity of the proposed tax could have come straight out of a Mel Brooks movie ... 

Friday, June 29, 2012

"... wait until you see what it costs when it's free"

"If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free."

-PJ O'Rourke
The Liberty Manifesto (1993)

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Ask not what you can do for yourself ...

Obama to the fictional 'Julia':

"Ask not what you can do for yourself, ask what your country can do for you."

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Spiking the Football

This video is powerful.  It highlights one key point of Obama's 'unseemly' bin Laden campaign ad which I haven't seen made elsewhere.  Clinton says during the ad ...
"Suppose the Navy Seals had gone in there and it hadn't been bin Laden ... Suppose they'd been captured or killed.  The downside would have been horrible for him."

Really?  Horrible for Obama?  What about the downside for the aforementioned, hypothetically dead or captured Navy Seals?   This isn't a quote taken out of context.  It's the quote Obama chose to put into his own ad, supposedly demonstrating his 'courage'.  

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Obama on Romney

“I assume that people meant what they said when they said it. That’s been at least my practice.”

Apparently then, Obama meant it when he said these things ...

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Best News I've Heard All Day

"... a train wreck for the Obama administration"

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

From Santelli to Santorum, the Rise and Fall of the Tea Party

Three years ago, almost to the day, Rick Santelli, on the floor of the Chicago Stock Exchange, called for a "Chicago Tea Party", in response to continued government bailouts.  His rant captured the mood of the nation, and within weeks, Tea Party protests were occurring nationwide.

In the months that followed, the Tea Party grew in strength, culminating in the 2010 midterm elections.  Tea Party-endorsed candidates defeated dozens of congressional opponents, including democrats as well as establishment republicans who were not friendly to the small-government agenda of the Tea Party.  At the time of those 2010 midterms, conservatives were salivating at the thought of nominating a presidential candidate who would be aligned with the ideals of the Tea Party.

The focus of the movement, at the time, was one of fiscal responsibility, through the promotion of free enterprise, federal deficit reduction, national debt reduction, and a general reduction in the size and scope of the federal government through grounding of the government's role in the U.S. Constitution.

Today, 3 years after Rick Santelli's rant, a poll is released that claims that 42% of Tea Party Republican voters favor Rick Santorum, compared with just 23% who back Romney. 

How did we get here from there?  The Tea Party stands stood for fiscal conservatism.  Social issues are were simply not part of the party platform.   The Tea Party is was opposed to earmarks.  The Tea Party is was for reducing the size of the federal government.

Rick Santorum?  Rick Santorum is exactly the kind of candidate that the Tea Party of 2010 would have fought against.  Hard.  In fact, Santorum said, during the early days of the Tea Party, that he would "vocally and publicly oppose" the Tea Party movement.

Time remains, but if Rick Santorum is the Republican nominee for president in 2012, the Tea Party will have officially died.

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Who Can Make the Moral Case for Capitalism?

When challenged by Gingrich and others about his business success, Romney always comes across as apologetic and evasive.  Conservatives today lose this argument over and over, by accepting the anti-free enterprise premise that the capitalism is equivalent to greed and that socialism, by way of government-provided welfare, is somehow a more moral alternative. 

Where's Milton Friedman when you need him?  Milton Friedman's provides an articulate advocacy in favor of capitalism, here:


and here:


What conservative, on today's political stage, can and will make the moral case for capitalism?  Romney doesn't have the backbone to make the argument. Gingrich has disqualified himself from making that argument, based on his criticisms of Romney.  

The answer may be Marco Rubio.  Rubio makes the case for free enterprise that none of the current GOP candidates have the ability and credibility to make.  From his speech at the Reagan Library:
"People are poor and people are left behind because they do not have access to the free enterprise system because something in their lives or in their community has denied them access to the free enterprise system. All over the world this truism is expressing itself every single day. Every nation on the Earth that embraces market economics and the free enterprise system is pulling millions of its people out of poverty. The free enterprise system creates prosperity, not denies it."

In the same speech Rubio makes the case that the growth of government-subidized welfare forced out private and community charity. 
"... For those who met misfortune, that wasn’t our obligation to take care of them, that was the government’s job. And as government crowded out the institutions in our society that did these things traditionally, it weakened our people in a way that undermined our ability to maintain our prosperity."

Friedman makes the same argument here, and elsewhere.
"[The welfare system] has destroyed private charitable arrangements that are far more effective, far more compassionate, far more person-to-person in helping people who are really, for no fault of their own, in a disadvantaged situation.”
 
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