Back to Basics

Another day, another claim from a Democrat that opposition to someone is surely based on the fact that they are not white. Eric Holder, embattled Attorney General, gave an interview to the New York Times. I read the interview and was utterly shocked (sarcasm mode activated) to find that he believes the criticism of his actions while Attorney General are based on the fact that he is black. I don’t want to make this about Democrats and Republicans, but this has been, overwhelmingly, a tactic employed by the Obama administration and the Democrats over and over again throughout the last three years. And it isn’t going to stop until they face the backlash that they should face for it.

To be fair, Holder didn’t claim race was the factor for all his critics. He merely said that it was the motivating factor for the “extreme” ones. Of course, according to the Obama administration, nearly anyone opposed to their agenda is considered “extreme.” Veterans returning from combat, Tea Party protestors, GOP candidates and members of Congress, they have all been called extreme by the left. So I guess Holder only thinks GOP folks, returning veterans, and Tea Party members are racist. The rest of the country is fine, except the ones who are not smart enough to not be “tricked” into agreeing with those extremists.

I have news for you, Mr. Holder. The reason people have been so critical of you is because you are a liar, you use the office you hold as a political weapon, and you generally suck as the Attorney General.

Let’s start with Fast and Furious. We all know the deal here. Anyone who claims that the Attorney General didn’t know what was going on is either lying to themselves or has an IQ somewhere in the double digits coupled with a complete lack of understanding of how things work. That doesn’t mean that he knew every detail, but he was aware of the program. No program like that could exist without his approval. If it did, then he is incompetent and shouldn’t be in the office in the first place. And for him to go in front of the country and claim that he wasn’t aware is a blatant lie that most of us have the ability to see right through.

Then there are the plethora of lawsuits brought forth from his office standing in the way of states enforcing immigration laws on the premise that they are the federal government’s domain, while simultaneously refusing to enforce the federal laws that you claim trump the state’s action. Here’s the deal: If you don’t like the laws then go to Congress and have them changed. But you don’t get to just ignore them. That isn’t how the law works. This radical idea that as Attorney General, you get to pick and choose which laws you enforce and which ones you blatantly ignore is downright criminal. There are lots of laws I don’t like. If I was President, I would work to have them repealed.

The discussions the last few days around the “Occupy Wall Street” crowd has resulted in some interesting thoughts coming out on all sides. A few weeks ago (months ago?) Mr. Stella claimed that I must know that Capitalism is a failed enterprise because I refused to answer Noam Chomsky’s claim that capitalism would not survive for five minutes without government. A claim that tonight I call nonsense. And I will tell you why, Mr. Stella. It is because in the first place, what Chomsky refers to as capitalism in most of his “intelligent” discussions is actually nothing more than a convenient manipulation of the definition of capitalism in order to fit his argument.

Mr. Chomsky’s entire argument is based on you first accepting his definition of capitalism, his facts around what it is and how it works. Unfortunately, Mr. Chomsky is working from a false premise, probably caused by his hanging around liberal higher learning types for so long that he forgot that you have to start with the truth to end up at the truth. He starts from a false definition and has been getting patted on the back for so long by libtards that he now actually believes his definitions and premises to be true. They are not. But then again how could they be true? He has never stuck to any one definition or belief with any consistency.

There is this little nugget…

Capitalism is a system in which the central institutions of society are in principle under autocratic control. Thus, a corporation or an industry is, if we were to think of it in political terms, fascist; that is, it has tight control at the top and strict obedience has to be established at every level — there’s a little bargaining, a little give and take, but the line of authority is perfectly straightforward.

Business Today, May 1973

Or these thoughts on Capitalism…

Capitalism is basically a system where everything is for sale, and the more money you have, the more you can get. And, in particular, that’s true of freedom. Freedom is one of the commodities that is for sale, and if you are affluent, you can have a lot of it. It shows up in all sorts of ways. It shows up if you get in trouble with the law, let’s say, or in any aspect of life it shows up. And for that reason it makes a lot of sense, if you accept capitalist system, to try to accumulate property, not just because you want material welfare, but because that guarantees your freedom, it makes it possible for you to amass that commodity.

Interview by David Dobereiner, John Hess, Doug Richardson & Tom Woodhull, January 1974

Or is it that Capitalism doesn’t exist at all?

I should say that when people talk about capitalism it’s a bit of a joke. There’s no such thing. No country, no business class, has ever been willing to subject itself to the free market, free market discipline. Free markets are for others. Like, the Third World is the Third World because they had free markets rammed down their throat. Meanwhile, the enlightened states, England, the United States, others, resorted to massive state intervention to protect private power, and still do. That’s right up to the present.

With the news last week that President Obama intends to have all troops out of Iraq “by the holidays,” many of the major “news” outlets have begun a campaign to give the President an inordinate amount of credit for what many Americans feel have been foreign policy wins. This shouldn’t surprise anyone. Even here at SUFA we had folks give him more credit than he deserved for foreign policy actions in the past. But before we start just handing out “Obama 2012: Tough on Terror”campaign buttons, we really should take a look at how we got to where we are before we start pretending that the President is somehow a foreign policy savant. Because the reality is that the media’s plan to paint Obama as having victories in the foreign policy realm are really nothing more than an attempt to pretend that the economic ineptitude of his administration isn’t a reason to not re-elect him….

Allow me to first say that I am quite pleased to hear that the troops in Iraq are coming home. As many of you know I have embraced a defense only policy, which means that I don’t want our troops out there at all unless we are facing a direct threat from someone, which is pretty rare these days. So let me first give the President credit for following through and bringing those troops home, which is happening later than he initially promised as candidate Obama, but is still within his first term, so he deserves some credit.

However, let us not forget that the ability to make that happen can be directly attributed to George W. Bush, who despite all the naysayers, put forth the troop surge that turned the Iraq war around and moved it from a loss, which the Democrats were fervently pushing towards, into the win column. There is little debate around the success of the troop surge and there is no questioning the fact that the troop surge was the turning point in the war. Without it, we would have ended up bringing the troops home, but would have done so with their tails between their legs, and we certainly wouldn’t be giving Barack Obama any pats on the back for “ending the war.”

And one of the Senators that fervently opposed that troop surge was  then Senator Barack Obama. He actively opposed the troop surge and claimed that it would actually increase the sectarian violence in Iraq:

So I am not quite ready to give him all the credit for a foreign policy victory. Had we followed his advice, we wouldn’t be leaving Iraq with a win, we would be leaving with a loss. It is less a victory for Obama in the foreign policy realm than a victory for President Bush despite President Obama.

Meanwhile, the war that Obama said was “the important war, the right war,” Afghanistan, hasn’t really been moving along in the way that we would like. US soldier casualties are higher and the effect we are having as we attempt to turn that country around is coming in at a draw at this point. This was the war that Obama pledged to fight and win while on the campaign trail. However, he hasn’t really done much to make that happen.

I am baffled daily with the ridiculousness that masquerades as the United States Federal Government. I mean, really, is there a better example of elitist ass clowns who bleat on about fixing this and changing that all while completely ignoring all the obvious fixes and changes that need to happen? The debt debate has been a perfect example of the hopelessness that exists when one thinks that any of these fools are in the slightest bit interested in doing what needs to be done in Washington DC. The only thing that is more ridiculous than a DC politicians are the millions of Americans who play along with the charade, believing that this party or that party is really the one trying to fix things and the “other side” is a group of godless heathens intent on ruining the American way of life.

Think about what you have heard from those who appear to accept the status quo from Washington DC, both here at SUFA and among the peers you mingle with day to day. We hear things such as, “Deficit spending is necessary in order for country to whether the storms and recessions that are thrown at us.” Another of my personal favorites is, “It is ridiculous to expect a gigantic entity such as the federal government to actually operate within a budget. There are too many variables involved.” It is this type of acceptance of what politicians have created (and have created for the precise purpose of causing you to make the above statement) that is at the root of America’s problems. Think about what you are saying. Essentially: It is impossible for government to operate within a set of fiscally responsible parameters.

Yet, when those gigantic corporations operate in the exact same ways as the federal government, those same folks will be screaming to the hills about how we need more government to reign in the out of control world of big business. If the average citizen or a corporation operates with anywhere near the reckless fiscal abandon that the federal government operates, people have a fit. But when the federal government does it, it is “unavoidable” and “necessary”.

The reality is that the federal government, under every President, does nothing but continue to grow. Certainly some administrations grow at a much quicker pace than others (a certain “hopey changey” President comes to mind), but there have been ZERO administrations that actually attempted to scale back any of the nonsense that came before them. Government always grows, it never shrinks. THAT is what many people in the “uneducated masses” seem to be starting to understand (hence groups like the Tea Party).

As a means of operating the way they want without any particular way for the American public to stop them, the federal government has over 1300 federal departments, agencies, bureaus, and commissions. Let alone the ridiculous number of “President’s Committee on…” that we are forced to endure. The industry that I work in keeps a lot of “trackers” in excel. We sometimes joke (and sadly sometimes use) trackers to track the trackers. Hasn’t it become time that we appoint a Committee to begin eliminating committees?

I watched the Republican debate in Iowa this evening. To be honest, I had not intended to watch. Tonight was the first pre-season NFL games and my Baltimore Ravens were playing the Eagles. As it turns out, because of the BS “broadcasting rights”, here in North Carolina the game was blacked out. I despise blacking out professional sporting events. The idea that everyone has the ability to travel to the game is ridiculous. Same happens when the Red Sox play the crappy Orioles. They will black out the game for the national feed and the station that has the rights to broadcast the game will not be showing it. Drives me insane. But, since I couldn’t watch my football game, I decided I would watch the debate…

And boy was it interesting. I want so bad to write a lengthy article detailing the entire thing, but I simply don’t have time to do so this evening. The first time I may have the time to do so is this weekend, so I may do so. But I know some of you are going to want to discuss it now, so I figured I would offer my really quick thoughts on how each candidate performed:

Tim Pawlenty – Effectively ended his run this evening. He gave a poor performance, spent a lot of time attempting to make non-sensical points about Bachman, and didn’t appear in the least bit Presidential. Some of his answers weren’t so bad, but overall he just came across weak and unprepared.

Mitt Romney – Easily the most “presidential” candidate this evening. He stayed focused on what he wanted to discuss, the economy. He said a lot of the right things, but to be honest I wasn’t wanting someone to appear presidential, I wanted a clear vision for where we need to go. His “7 points” were the closest to a real plan offered this evening. I predict his lead will increase, but I am still not sold.

Newt Gingrich – You had to love Newt this evening. He was bold and his normal brash self. I thought he probably endeared a lot of people to him when he attacked the media effectively. He was looking to do so and leapt at the opportunity. He gained some fans this evening, but I don’t think he gave enough in the way of explanation to actually win people over to his side. For example, he several time called for repeal of the Frank-Dodd bill and Sarbanes-Oxley, but didn’t explain why that was important.

Michelle Bachman – I don’t think she hurt herself at all tonight. People were looking for her to appear crazy. On the contrary I didn’t think that she appeared crazy at all. She was pointed and quick to attack. She came across as someone who will stand on principle no matter what. And she handled what I thought was the most bullshit question of the night flawlessly:

Byron York from The Washington Examiner asked her about a quote she made in 2006, in which she said she’d become a tax attorney because her husband urged her to, and it was important for wives to be “submissive”.

Over the last couple of years, the debate here at SUFA, and realistically across the entire country, has been over federal government spending and the ways to pay for said madness. There are all kinds of statements that get thrown around in this arena. We have the folks on the left, who espouse raising the income tax rate on the top earners in America as a way to increase revenue and help us “get out of the hole we are in.” We have the folks on the right who espouse lowering the tax on top earners as they are the job creators and thus will be the ones to get us out of the hole. And that has been the basic framework of the debate in American politics today. But both sides are equally flawed. And true to the American political spectrum, both sides falsely vilify the other, while neither side wants to admit that it is the drunken Uncle Sam feeling up your cousin that is the real villain…

I didn’t vote for Barack Obama (I know that shocks so many of you), despite his saying exactly what I wanted to hear. “Change We Can Believe In,” was the mantra. He promised to fundamentally change the way that Washington operates. Is there anyone who could honestly say they don’t want a change in the way that Washington operates? Of course our versions of preferred change is drastically different from one person to the next. But I didn’t vote for him because I believed one of two things: He was either full of crap or his version of fundamental change was going to be VERY different from what I would desire. I had read his books after all, and I recognized far left when I saw it.

Turns out I was right on both counts. He is full of crap (as I said I think he is perhaps the most proficient liar of any President thus far, and that is quite an accomplishment given his predecessors). Further, his vision of fundamental change is a far cry from the fundamental change that I would want in Washington DC. His fundamental change was dramatic increases in spending and in the size and scope of government. I would posit that his version of fundamental change was not in line with a vast majority of average American’s hopes.

As a very quick side note, allow me to say that I have grown weary of the claims that his spending and government growth are a necessary result of the state that Bush left this country in. On the contrary, I believe that he hasn’t spent as much as he would have liked or grown government as much as he would have preferred. The reality is the opposite of those claims, in my opinion. He came in wanting to spend and grow, and the state of the USA after Bush was a perfect opportunity to do so while claiming he had no choice. It was all to “save” us. I say bull. He would have tried to spend and grow no matter what. He just wasn’t going to waste a crisis.

Back to my article…

I have made no bones about stating that I do not support increased taxes. I don’t support them on the upper income earners.