Why Not to Vote for Hillary Clinton

(As if you needed a reason?)

Hillary Clinton has a problem. For years she has believed, as did her husband (correctly, I might add) that the only way to win the presidency is to be a moderate. Hillary has taken this advice quite literally, unwilling to make a specific unified stance on anything from the war in Iraq to abortion. This week she suddenly and fundamentally changed course within this tactic and gave a speech at MIT. Within this speech Hillary calmly takes credit for carrying the torch of progressive economic policy, and single-handedly blames all apparent (or imagined) economic inequality solely on George W. Bush (that's called BDS, if you were wondering).

So why should we not vote for Hillary? Because she's a socialist.

Not only does Hillary believe that it takes a village to raise a child, she believes it takes the government to run the economy. Yes, that is called socialism. And in every country in the history of mankind it has ever been implemented it has been a total and catastrophic failure.

Hillary outlines 9 points of socialist economic policy she plans to implement as president:

1. Redistribute wealth from big corporations and force them to invest in government-controlled operations

2. Eliminate the ability to global and American companies to do business overseas.

3. Allow the government to be in control of wages in the private sector, especially in big companies among CEO's.

4. Raise taxes on big corporations.

5. Make college more affordable (The hilarious and constant rattle of the liberal left. Have they priced any state schools lately? Not everyone goes to Yale or Harvard after all...)

6. Encourage schooling for low-skill low-paying jobs.

7. Encourage unions, make unemployment more "affordable;" i.e. increase government support of the unemployed.

8. Universal health care. Also known as "HillaryCare." It's back, and it's bound the make the best healthcare system in the world resemble the dismal systems in western Europe, Canada, and Cuba.

9. Allow the government the rights and monetary support to research "new job opportunities for the middle class."

Hillary has finally made her stand, and it is - as far as economic policy is concerned - on the extreme left.

It's time for a new beginning, for an end to government of the few, by the few and for the few, time to reject the idea of an "on your own" society and to replace it with shared responsibility for shared prosperity. I prefer a "we're all in it together" society.

I'm sure she does. I would rather prefer a "government stay the hell out of my wallet" society, but we won't have that with Bill and Hillary back in the White House.

Update:

Need another reason?
Not really, but seriously?

The Beauty of Socialism

Mark Steyn reports on the glories of living in a socialized Germany:

Desperate mothers are being urged to drop their unwanted babies through hatches at hospitals in an effort to halt a spate of infanticides that has shocked Germany.

At least 23 babies have been killed so far this year, many of them beaten to death or strangled by their mothers before being dumped on wasteland and in dustbins.

Mark says:

Germany has one of the lowest fertility rates in Europe, net population loss, and a rapidly depopulating east that’s economically unsustainable. Thirty per cent of German women are childless, 40 per cent of female university graduates are childless...

By the way, look at the first word of that report, from The Times of London: “Desperate” mothers. Why, in a land of socialized health care and lavish welfare, are mothers so “desperate”?

Why, indeed...

Got Ignorance?

Here is an excellent article by Iowa State University student newspaper editorial writer Aaron Gott in the The Iowa State Daily. ISU's campaign to highlight "Ignorance" is highlighted by a staff member claiming that:

If we just quit buying into the capitalistic, imperialistic, patriarchal, white male supremacist system, we could all be friends.

Aaron sums it up well:

Basically, straight white males are to blame. Capitalism is wrong. America is a corrupt, imperialist, and fascist society.

Yea, that's pretty much the claim made by modern academic leftists within America's colleges and Universities. Did you get that?

The Modern Leftist Teacher

How often does this happen? A Geography teacher "teaching" his class about the evils of America, capitalism, the Israelis, etc. His hysterical rants border on causing his voice to crack at times.

Highlights include comparing Bush to Hitler, calling the White House and the World Trade Center legitimate military targets, and explaining that capitalism fundamentally ignores human rights.

The student who recorded this tidbit tries to get a few words in edgewise. At one point he makes the statement that Al Qaeda attacked the US first on 9/11 and that we were at that time not attacking anyone. You can hear one of his classmates in the background say, "That's only what they tell you."

Listen to the clip here. It's amazing.

(You may want to save it to your computer - it takes a bit to load.)

Update: Another good roundup and transcript here.

Best of 2005

Now that we're in the second half of January, I think it's safe to judge the best articles, posts, quotes and blogs of 2005.

Best column: Karl's New Manifesto:

David Brooks of the NY Times used a Marxist analysis to show how leftists perpetuate oppression. His writing style is measured and courteous, but his attacks modern leftists are brilliant. I emailed the article to a normally long-winded philosophy professor, his only reply about the column in a three-paragraph response was, "I usually enjoy David Brooks' columns, but this one was particularly provocative."

Best quote: Senator Jim Inhofe

After the shame of our state, Senator Tom Harkin, proposed Congressional action to mandate liberal radio programming for armed forces, Jim Inhofe wet to the Senate floor to explain that radio programming was not, in fact, controlled by Congress. He explained to mentally-deficient democrats why the nonpartisan formula based on listenership ended up excluding AirAmerica filth; from his floor speech on November 8:
"The other day I was in the elevator coming up to cast a vote. I was with two of our democrat colleagues, two I respect very much, two very liberal democrat senators, and they were complaining about the fact that all the talk shows are all conservatives and they don't have successful liberal talk shows, and they said, these were their words in the elevator, they said, 'there ought to be a legislative fix to this.' I said, what you guys don't understand is this is market driven. There is just no market for your liberal trite."

I should point out that this quote played a role in in a snarky troll post. Some liberals were upset that a New Hampshire radio host was being let go for driving away advertisers like car dealerships for railing against SUV's. Liberals on the blog thought big business was driving her off the air and advocated government intervention to protect free speech. I posted (under the name 'laughter') an entry-level economics lesson, explaining that she had no fundamental right to a radio show, that she was being driven off not by business but by low popularity: if she was popular, there would be advertisers who want her "legions" of listeners to hear about her products. Alas, economics, constitutional law, logic, etc. is lost upon liberals (but they are good at finding ways to spend money).

Most egregious reporting: Last Letter Home

2005 wasn't a good year for media outlets, from the amazingly overstated Hurricane Katrina aftermath stories to executives spewing outright anti-American lies or reporters making stories of themselves (Judith Miller, James Risen, Mary Mapes).

In my view, James Dao of the New York Times loses for giving the clearest example of 2005 about reporting with an agenda. Michelle Malkin provides pages of documentation about the incident. Mr. Dao, wanting to paint troops in Iraq as fatalistic, took a sentence from the last letter of a Marine completely out of context for an article about the 2000th death from Operation Iraqi Freedom. In a letter containing phrases like, 'Others have died for my freedom. Now this is my mark' and 'I'm here helping these people, so that they can live the way we live', the reporter used the fallen soldier's introduction to get what he wanted for the article. The family of the Marine came forward to set the record straight.

Best news blog: NRO's The Corner

The National Review has by far the most up-to-the-minute information and some of the best columnists (Victor Davis Hansen, Jonah Goldberg, Larry Kudlow) of any free website. The Corner is one of the best resources for finding who said what, when.

Best general blog: I Hate Horses

Hat tip to Kelly Guiter, from 'Just a Bit Outside...' sports blog. On the lighter side, these posts are funny, but the reader comments are truly hilarious. Contractually guaranteed to brighten even the most depressing day.

Good Idea, Right Action

I'm glad that contributors to this site agree that Washington's recent spending binge is totally inappropriate. Reductions in spending are the *only* way to bring outlays in line with revenue and principled leader have to step up to the plate. Furthermore, it's not okay to use emergency spending as an excuse to not account for budget items. There will always be emergencies that Congress feels pressured to address; funding for these adventures should be clearly represented in public reports, not excluded from calculations about the deficit and the public debt. Republicans have been too afraid to stand up to Democrats on spending and they'll pay for it at midterm elections if things aren't reversed next year.

However, I want to make it clear that the bills that were passed, while not even coming close to making a differnece, started in the right direction. As the graphs off to the right exhibit, defense spending is not what we need to worry about at all.

Lyndon "BJ" Johnson certainly blew it when he came up with the Great Soceity programs. Federal spending for entitlement programs like Medicaid, Medicare, and welfare is automatic, increased by a formula that has been growing an order of magnitude faster than inflation and outpacing even our robust economic growth. Each year, more and more of federal government revenues are used to fund these massive programs; Social Security, Medicare and Mediciad accounted for *half* of all federal spending this year, to the tune of over $1 trillion. The scary thing is, the burden is growing and Democrats have blocked any and every attempt to deal with it.

I'm honestly not sure if liberals simply don't understand the basic concepts of economics and fiscal policy or if they deliberately want to make the country less competitive. Higher taxes are an option, but it is clear that the tax reductions of 2001 and 2003 set us on a path to receive higher tax revenue. Eastern European countries that have adopted a flat tax, reducing their highest marginal rates by over 50% in some cases, have ended up collecting *more* revenue. Republicans insistance on no new tax hikes is not a gift to poitical contributors, they simply listen to economists when there is such broad agreement that heavy (35% as proposed by Democrats) taxes on capital are destructive.

Spending does need to be brought into line with revenues, however. So what do economists say should be cut? Surprise, surprise...the items that cost the most money!

The puny deficit-reduction package passed by Congress will not putus into black ink. It will not cut any programs. It will simply limit the anticipated growth of entitlement programs. The cuts are one qaurter of 1% of the expected expenses form these prgrams over the next five years; democrats were unwilling to negotiate at all and this is the best package Republicans could come up with. The cuts to Medicare will extend the period that people have to shed assets, preventing rich beneficiaries from simply ceding their estates to family before they have th state pick up all their medical costs. Student loans are a joke: if you want to know why tuition is rising, it corresponds amazingly with increases in gov't aid. Just like most farm aid goes to inflate the price of farm real estate, more generous student loans simply drive up the price of college education.

There were plenty of chances to help choose which programs to cut, and the bill was revised in committees and conference several times. The democrats never issued a single suggestion because they fundamentally believe the federal gov't should always pay more, but it's ludicrous to say that Medicare is fine just the way it is when the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimates that 10-20% of funding is wasted on fraudulaent payments. Hmmm.....that kinda makes a quater-percent over five year cut look insignificant, doesn't it?

Defense spending isn't the problem, and Dod cuts won;t bring us into fiscal sanity. Republicans need to get serious about the budget in '06 and voters need to show that they care for Congress to take action on bringing spending in line with revenue. If this were a provate company, the leades would be in jail. But alas, Ted Kennedy and Harry Reid think they;re above the law.

Check it out yourself with the Congressional Budget Office.

Must Read

Here's a link to the original article, but I'm not chancing that you don't have a WSJ subscription. You need to read this great article and wonder why Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi are trying to put us in the position that France is in. Higher minimum wages and labor laws that restrict new jobs are horrible in the long run. Can liberals read? Airlines have to go into *bankruptcy* to remove the restrictions for companies to negotiate with labor unions.

Equality is equal opportunity to get a job and perform, equal opportunity to get the skills that put you ahead; equality *does not* mean everyone makes the same wage, everyone is tied by the same chains. The sooner Americans realize this, the sooner liberals are prevented from being positions where they invariably cause damage.


Article:

Behind the riots in France lies a surefire recipe for discontent: a rigid job market and widespread discrimination against young Muslim men.

The country's unwieldy labor-market policies, which protect job-holders but have created stubbornly high unemployment of around 10% for France's overall labor force, particularly hurt youths -- especially those of African descent.

When few jobs are being created, it makes those with weaker credentials more prone to being shut out entirely, says Raymond Torres, head of employment policy at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Discrimination adds to the barriers. "These problems would be less severe if the labor market were more dynamic," he says.

Rioting across France is entering its 14th day. Although the number of car burnings and arrests across the country on Monday night was down slightly from Sunday, some areas of France saw worsening unrest. More than 200 towns saw rioting, 12 schools were destroyed and citizen militias continued to form. Scattered reports of arson also were mounting in neighboring Belgium.


France has called up 1,500 police reservists, bringing to 9,500 the number of police deployed to quell the riots, and invoked a 1955 state-of-emergency law enabling local law-enforcement chiefs to impose curfews on riot-hit areas. Curfew violators, if caught, can face as long as two months in jail.

The riots have centered in the banlieues, the poor, immigrant suburbs of French cities where many struggle to find work. Leaders in France and elsewhere in Continental Europe have often argued that their "social model," based on tempering capitalism with worker protections, avoids the damaging social divisions of free-market capitalism as practiced in the U.S. or Britain.

But the past two weeks' riots in France have brought new attention to the fact that the Continental model can also create a persistent underclass. That is because labor rules aimed at protecting workers against low wages and layoffs also tend to deter companies from hiring -- especially workers with lower education or from minority backgrounds.

"The republic is at a moment of truth," said Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin in a special National Assembly session to address the unrest. "What is being questioned is the effectiveness of our integration model."

High minimum wages, high dropout rates from school, and costly labor rules have given France one of Europe's worst rates of youth unemployment, running at 21% for people aged under 25, according to the OECD. Among immigrant youths, the rate is even higher -- twice as high as among whites, according to one estimate.

A stagnant national labor market that needs few new workers leaves minority applicants prone to discrimination. A recent study by a scholar at the Sorbonne, Jean-François Amadieu, found that a job applicant with a French-sounding name was more than five times more likely to be invited to a job interview than an applicant with the same qualifications but with a North African-sounding name. Some antidiscrimination advocates are calling for employers to use only blind résumés that don't show a name, picture or home address.

"The culture of the banlieues is relatively inconsistent with corporate culture," said Jean-François Bernardin, the president of a French employers' association, in comments reported by Agence France-Presse yesterday.

As in most of Western Europe, jobs in France usually involve long-term work contracts that are difficult for companies to terminate. As a result, employers tend not to take risks with hires from immigrant families for fear of being stuck with them if they don't work out. Laying off a person on a long-term contract can involve costly court settlements.

"It's very difficult for young people" of North African descent to escape unemployment because hiring-and-firing legislation in France is "so much more rigid than in the U.K. or the U.S.," says Gino Raymond, professor of modern French studies at Bristol University in Britain.

About 13% of French youths, including many from minorities, didn't complete high school, further hurting their job prospects. Although the proportion is even higher in Italy and Spain, in France it is compounded by a relatively high minimum wage of more than €1,000 ($1,178) a month. "It's OK to have a minimum wage at 60% of the average wage, but then people must have the skills to match that," says Mr. Torres.

France prides itself on its hourly productivity, among the world's highest. But Philippe Manière, director of the think tank Institut Montaigne, says the high productivity rate is achieved only by shutting out of the job market the immigrants who might cause it to fall. "In France, you employ the most productive people and you leave the rest in the street," he says.

Rigid labor markets aren't the only cause of ethnic minorities' exclusion from a national economy, and certainly aren't a precondition for racial violence. Race riots have periodically shaken U.S. cities, and Britain suffered a wave of rioting involving youths of Pakistani descent in 2001. A report for the British government concluded that a deep sense of alienation from the white majority had fed the unrest.

In Italy and Spain, a relatively high degree of flexibility for companies hiring and shedding lower-wage workers -- combined with major industries that need low-skilled workers -- has helped many immigrants and their descendants to find work.

Bernanke a Great Pick for the Fed

The Washington Post had some humorous confusion about Ben Bernanke in a column earlier this week:

"
Tug-of-war begins on Bernanke's political voice

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A quiet tug-of-war has begun over the role presumptive future Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke will play in Washington budget debates, with both conservatives and liberals hoping he'll be one of their own. Conservatives express confidence that Bernanke, if confirmed by the Senate to succeed Alan Greenspan next year, will do nothing to upset the Bush administration's apple cart when its comes to its tax-cutting agenda.
"

Hmmm...rest assured libs, Bernanke will not be one of you. First, he has an understanding of economics. He supports trade with other nations. He does not support price controls. He knows that targeted tax cuts can bring in
*more* revenue. To the best of our knowledge, he's never killed any young, female staffers or been a Klan recruiter. Your best hope is that he turns out to be an Islamofascist sympathizer, but even that's highly improbable. Simply, Bernanke is also respected and even potty-trained. Rest assured, liberals, he won't be "one of you".

The Continuing Crisis in Higher Education

Today I experienced a particularly disturbing graduate class. There were a number of factors that influenced this episode, and I think that they are not uncommon in higher education across the board.

Socialism
Our class session was concerning organizational theory. The particular organizational metaphor that we were examining was organizations as instrument of domination. Although this is a useful metaphor for organizational analysis, the crux of the argument centers on the rejection of capitalism for a more socialist or marxist view. Our professor, who was bent on teaching us what we were to get out of the unit, was sure to use as examples large companies downsizing in metropolitan areas and therefore destroying communities. His enormously foolish example in particular referenced a GE plant in Ohio that produced jet engines during the Vietnam war. Organizational theory as an instrument of domination tells us that GE is an evil company that does not value its employees. However, reality tells us that when a company loses demand for its products and does not continue to make the same money that it once did, it must cut costs in some ways. It becomes "wrong" in my opinion when corporations' CEO's continue to make multi-millions when their employees go out on the street.

Revisionist History
While discussing gender bias in society our professor argued that women in politics encounter more opposition than do their male counterparts. He questioned whether Harriet Miers' criticism was rooted in her being a women. However, the next example exemplifies liberal revisionist history. He claimed that Teresa Heinz Kerry underwent criticism because she was a woman. He claimed, incredibly, that she was even considered a "liability" because of her outspoken and "un-ladylike" ways. I could tolerate this no longer.

I interrupted the professor and reminded him that Teresa Kerry was not ridiculed because she was an outspoken women, but rather because she said numerous amazingly stupid things. Does anyone remember these?

You said something I didn't say. Now shove it.

Or how about this favorite:

I don't know Laura Bush. But she seems to be calm, and she has a sparkle in her eye, which is good. But I don't know that she's ever had a real job - I mean, since she's been grown up.

But remember that academia wants you to remember Teresa Kerry as an oppressed yet outspoken woman. She, uh, wasn't...

Indoctrination
The sad fact that this episode shows is that those grad students in my class that have a weaker grasp on history or economics will undoubtedly begin to believe these socialist and liberal ideas. Herein lies the true crisis in higher education. Our professor has no real ability to apply his ideas outside of the classroom; therefore, inside the classroom is where he will forever stay - passing on his radical and debunked social agenda.

Greenspan Returns Raffled Porsche

Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve and revered economic leader, won a Porsche Boxster three months too early. As a dedicated public servant, he cannot accept gifts over $25, even thoguh the raffle tickets were bought for him by a wife and her friend (you can bet Senator Kennedy wouldn't return a bottle of Gentleman Jack if he "won" it off a homeless man on the street). Greesnpan will retire from the Federal Reserve in January after 18 years at the helm of American monetary policy.

As reported in the Washington Post, Mr. Greenspan hasn't driven a car since he became chairman. His wife, an NBSC correspondent, and her friend bought $500 of raffle tickets from a Spina Bifida Association fundraiser, which paid off handsomely with a $50,770 Boxster. Ultimately, they plan to donate the car to charity. Their luck myay still hold out, I think I would leave my job and buy a car to have the privilege of driving Mr. Greenspan around come January.

Gross National Happiness...Who's Against Science Now?

The NYTimes has a piece in yesterday's paper about Bhutan measuring their country in terms of Gross National Happiness, a quasi-economic measure of things that can't be measured. Today the infinitely-wise editorial board is suggesting the US take some of those factors into account.

These are the same New York liberals telling an elected school board in Pennsylvania that they cannot float intelligent design beside evolution in public schools?

WTF!!! My head is going to fucking explode! See the last post. Liberals have no reasonign capabilities at all. Absolutely scum of the earth.

UPDATE from Radar: Hmmmm... Maybe the Times has the right idea here. I think that others' happiness is quite essential to many facets of economics, including to the Times. Maybe they should be a bit more considerate of their readers feelings - it might get a few more people to read the Times, and they might not have put a $50 barrier up in order to read many of their foolish columnists on-line. Also, the Times might do well to evalute the happiness of the 500 employees that they laid off a few weeks ago. Maybe if they were more in tune with the happiness of their readers and start behaving like a real newspaper, they wouldn't have had to make 500 people so sad. Just a thought...

UPDATE AGAIN from Radar: Checking the News of the Weird site and the News of the Weird Blog, I see that there have been a number of articles about Bhutan, one of the world's smallest countries, who has a "Gross National Happiness" scale that the Times loves so much. Bhutan is also known for:

...the Bhutanese attachment to the cultural icon of the penis is fading a bit in the 21st century (NOTW 903, 5-29-05). Then, a MacArthur Foundation environmental preservation grant called to our attention that a particular wilderness park had been created by the kingdom specifically to comfort the country’s own version of sasquatch (the migoi) (NOTW 919, 9-18-05).

And this is who we're supposed to base a "national happiness" scale on?

Liberals unfathomably deficient in economic understanding

There's just too much wrong with the silly platforms of liberals to adequetly address, but one of the saddest has to be their irrational hatred of corporations and business. These institutions, certainyl a smuch as our government, made America great and bequeathed our high standard of living, yet many on the left never miss an opportunity to trash them.

One small example: I just read a liberal blog explaining that drugs were expensive because of executive pay and marketing.

I don't know what they teach in marketing classes at schools, but the economic basis of marketing is clear: to generate more returns on investment. For every dollar a company spends on marketing, it should bring in at least $1.01. Whether it's selling more quanity of a good or helping in more indirect ways, this department is a money maker. Following this to the logical conclusion, if pharmaeutical companies spent less on marketing, they would lose more revenue than their marketing efforts cost. Their products would be more expensive!

The central point which liberals are always wrong on is their assumption that markets are centrally planned. They must assume that a company decides the benefit package for its CEO and then devises products to sell in order to pay him/her the agreed upon wage. It's absolutely backwards and contrary to all research and reason.

To sum it all up, I think Republicans should revise their stance on embryonic stem cell research to allow feasibility studies of removing the 'liberal' gene from fetuses before birth, if parents so choose (and give tax credits to parents that do). A pure utilitarian would have to agree that societal benefits would far outweigh the costs.

Free trade insight, wow!

I just read a great example of the ridiculousness of protectionist arguments and can't wait to try it out on a real, live liberal (sadly there are too many in DC). It sounds silly at first, but illustrates the folly of thinking in zero-sum terms.

'So you oppose free trade. Do you think it would be bad or good if imports simply washed onto our shores? Would you send out the Coast Guard to prevent *free* barges of scrap metal and rafts full of sugar from reaching our coast?'

Make no mistake- enough of these barges would displace some American workers. It would sure suck for sugar farmers if boats full of refined cane sugar were just showing up without a price tag.

But in this example it's even easier than in the real world to see the benefits of free trade to society. Consumers pay less and therefore divert disposable income to other goods, raising their standard of living. Being able to collect these goods and sell them would certainly create other jobs (in fact, the economy would create more jobs than would be lost) and the wages in the secondary markets that used steel, sugar and reduced-priced inputs would rise.

Most of all, this example shows how protectionism ultimately boils down to xenophobia, ironically what ill-educated liberals are fond of calling Republicans.

I'm highly indebted to the WSJ's Econoblog for the best example of free trade economics I've seen yet.

***

Hey, you should check out a great four minute video of the tone of the debate during Clinton's nomination of Ginsburg to the Supreme Court. It really shows the depravity of the Kennedy-MoveOn-NARAL coalition.

When you think about it, though, it's probably in my best long-term career interest (not to mention the public interest!) to donate as much as I can afford to MoveOn or NARAL or whatever.....I'm certainly not opposed to giving them enough rope to hang themselves.

http://judgeroberts.com/epresskit/testify.shtml

Jury Mandates Wealth Redistribution in Vioxx Trial

Earlier today a jury in Texas found pharmaceutical company Merck must pay $253 million in damages to the family of a triathlete who died after taking the pain-killer drug Vioxx.

$253 million. That's $24.4 million in actual damages and $229 million in punitive damages. According to the WSJ, analyists predict Merck's total liability could be $18 billion.

It's easy to throw numbers around but here's a scale: the total annual operating budget for the state of Missouri in $20 billion.

Merck now admits it was not immediately forthcoming to physicians after the drug hit the market and they found out about the increased risk of heart attacks after. The FDA is makign changes to force greater post-market surveillance of approved drugs. But in many cases, Vioxx was prescribed after other pain killers failed. Even after the dangers had been disclosed, there was an outcry by some patients when the drug was pulled from the market.

I was not on the jury and cannot truly speculate about Merck's culpability in the death of Robert Ernst. But a clear agenda to simply redistribute hundreds of millions (eventually billions?) of dollars establishes exactly the wrong incentives. This is roulette for families and patients, not fairness.

Furthermore, this just set sthe stakes higher for the next pharmaceutical company to cover its tracks better. I don't think anyone asserts Merck knew of the dangers when initially marketing the drug. After troubles begin showing up in broader audiences than in the clinical tests, is a company more or less likely to disclose new information or cover up if it could be opened up to billions of dollars of damages?

I think it's ridiculous that these settlements are still allowed to take place. It's past time for caps on all non economic damages.

Cross-rant on Iraq from the Daily Kos

Background: a story on the Daily Kos, a misbranded "progressive" community blog, purported that even "Bush's own people" were coming out against his handling of Iraq. It's just too bad that the story couldn't name a single one.

Below is my challenge to dems to define, on the record, what might be considered progress in Iraq. Currently, it seems with every successful milestone, libs just redouble their efforts to define failure as 'anything the administration/military attempts.'

Here's the story. Here's my post:

These are the sources of quotes used to prove that "even [Bush's] own people are coming to terms with the multitudes of bad, shitty decisions:"

...according to U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad

...U.S. officials say

...said a senior official involved in policy since the 2003 invasion

...U.S. officials and Iraq analysts say

..said another U.S. official familiar with policymaking from the beginning

Five references, five dodges. If conservatives tried to pull b.s. like this, I hope you might be bright enough to figure out there isn't much behind their argument. Wake up and realize these petty accusations mean nothing when these cheap sources are the best a reporter could come up with.

What will it take for a liberal to be convinced any effort in Iraq is successful? The scenarios discussed by liberals before the war certainly haven't occured. Saddam was ousted in weeks, not years. No community within Iraq has attempted to secede from the state.

The elections that were supposed to be a joke according to liberals were amazingly successful. The terrorists causing problems are not Iraqis. Iraqis are not denouncing attackers like they could be, but as long as the country of Iraq is safer than the city of Baltimore, we aren't doing that bad.

I know you'd hate to admit America could be right about democracy, capitalism and freedom, but I cannot understand why you so passionately root for the tyranny over the Iraqi people.

I would like someone to respond: what events could happen in the next year that would convice you that things aren't going so poorly? Here's a standard I propose: if ethnic groups leave the bargaining table and demand separation, it would require drastic strategic changes on our end. On the other hand, if a constitution is hammered out that Kurds, Shi'ites and Sunnis can all agree to live by, we will have made some unquestionable long-term progress in the region.

But it seems as soon as we're successful, it's easy to invent a higher standard that berates our leadership and military.

UPDATE from Radar:

I think Slowpitch has hit the nail on the head with this one. Anyone who ever originally opposed the war in Iraq will never ever admit that any event in Iraq was "successful" to any degree. I must admit that if any politician who originally opposed the war ever admits its success I will scream about it on the front page of this blog. It'll never happen.

Why are liberals afraid to call their philospohy what it is?

I think the discussion of economic philosophy is one area where conservatives are victims of their own success. Throughout the Cold War, 'communism' was reviled as inherently evil. I don't think it is; we were at a war not to stomp out communism, but to extinguish totalitarianism (and I guess it's debateable whether communsim can ever exist outside totalitarianism). Totalitarianism and the deprivation of individual rights is certainyl barbaric, but we are the confusion of that with communism prevents us from being able to discuss labor movements on their actual merits.

Labor unions, plain and simple, advocate communist principles. Under free markets and capitalism, there is no such thing as a 'right to work' (unless of course you refer to the right to *not* have to join a union) or a 'right to a living wage' anymore than little girls have a 'right to a pony'.

The beauty of freedom, liberty, free enterprise is that there are no restrictions: business owners are free to hire whomever they want, workers are free to contract to give them their labor.

Furthermore, giving 'rights' to a job, healthcare ro whatever other schemes to left dreams up cheapens real property rights. By definition, there can only be one type of 'right' that can never be broken, recognizing more rights than that will mean that they will at some point come into conflict and authority will have to make a value judgement of what supercedes what. When the freedom of a small business owner to make economic decisions about his company comes in conflict with an employees supposed right to work, should we ever be able to say that the owners has more of an obligation to the employee than what has been agreed to in a contract?

Government certainly has a role to play in preventing discrimination, protecting the *real* rights of parties that were shortchanged. And there are many policies that are productive but certainly not rights: providing free secondary education and subsidizing higher education is an important part in letting individuals acheive whatever they can dream.

But discussing a job as a right has no place in capitalism. Which leads me back to the start of this post: if society finds it productive to give more protections to workers, lets at least call it what it is. Communism is not inherently evil, it just flies in the face of traditional American values. That's not areason itself to reject currently proposed labor laws, but let's call them by their real name.

Let's beat a dead horse (sorry for the long face, err, post)

I just wanted to get this out there, I'll trim it up and make it coherent this weekend. An email to my doubting roommates:

Okay so I don't have time right now to do more, but here is a pretty
clear breakdown of the benefits of how economic liberalization
produces results for the poorest. I know liberals in Congress may
think otherwise, but I hope that we can agree that a lower percent of
poulation below the poverty line is good. I hope we can agree that a
low ionfant mortality rate is good and a longer life exectancy is good
(there are hundreds of other measures on CIA World Factbook, but these
are commonly used indicators of quality of life, along with literacy,
education, etc.). Opponents of free trade in Congress are either
totally incapable of understanding science or opposed to prosperity
for the poorest of the poor; reduction in bad things and increases in
good things are caused by free markets and good governance much more
than any other factor (foreign aid, "labor standards", cultural
history, whatever). I have arranged these factors from a few South
American countries according to the Heritage Foundation's Index of
Economic Freedom 2005 (easiest source to find and use, ranks would be
very similar in other other measures). This ranking is ont he second
worksheet tab of the excel file if you are interested. I didn't have
time to include all S Amer countires, but I would bet money they
correspond to economic freedom.

Also note, improvement is fast but not immediate. Peru still lags in
many measures but is gainign fast, thnaks in large part to the
policies of Alejandro Toledo (born into poor, native American family,
Stanford PhD in Economics, elected presidnet in 2001). You can bet
Peru is making gain for the poorest citizens at a rate much faster
than any more repressive country (that claims to have "higher
standards"). There are many, many factors that play a part in how a
country develops, but nothing brings success like capitalism and
markets.

Let's be clear: nothing in CAFTA or free trade agreements prevents
governments from enacting labor and environmental laws. Nothing
encourages exploitation. But if a country has policies that allow
workers to employment if they want it and countries support policies
that are good for business and enterprise, it's not long before the
prosperity follows. And it helps the poorest the most.

In theory, we could spend a lot mor eon foreign aid. We could promote
a universal minimum wage for the globe. We could buy food for everyone
and gove everyone a puppy. But in reality, it simply doesn't work; the
best cure for economically depressed regions is more trade, economic
liberalization, and good governance.

Please do more research, look up more countries, see if the trend
holds true in Africa and Asia. Try to find a time where protectionism
has ever worked in the history of the world. It's just ludicrous to
see that almost half of elected representatives in Congress for some
reason "don't get it". And it's way, way past time to never elect
another one like them.

(Excel can be found at www.natehertel.com)

Farm Subsidy Caps You Bet

So this is my first blog, and I cheated for a topic from my dear father, but I hope he is wise enough to agree that the cap on subsidies is a great idea. :)
This issue will be interesting to watch because the interests at stake clearly do not fall along Republican-Democrat lines, but it won't be rural states versus the populous ones, either. In fact, Senator Grassley of Iowa has signed onto the movement to put a cap on subsidies.
The legislators that will fight the effort will probably be from the Southeast where farmers plant sugar cane, tobacco, and rice and harvest your tax dollars. Processing sugar cane is a very labor-intensive undertaking, there's really no reason why producers in the U.S. should be in the business at all. Our misguided government policies make food more expensive for us at home, use up our scarce tax dollars in mandatory federal spending programs and disadvantage the world's poor by artificially lowering the price of our exports; the W.T.O. is totally justified in taking the U.S. and E.U. to the mat over the junk.
Capping the amount that the wealthiest receivers get is good economic sense, and should actually help the family farmer by making corporate agriculture less profitable. The Bush administration certainly has more credibility with farmers and rural-folk than the one on the other ticket, so let's hope Bush can make good on his plans to start ag subsidy reform.

These articles may be slightly dated, but contain good info:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pubs/cashingin_sugar/sugarindex.html (from the people at the Center for Responsive Politics)