Thursday, February 28, 2008

Obama Way Too Eager to Cut Defense Spending

While I am not of the illusion that we spend all of our defense dollars wisely, I was rather taken aback by this Barack Obama video in which he outlines numerous cuts he plans to make in military development. The first specific thing he mentions is that he will "cut investments in unproven missile defense systems". Besides the fact that these are not things that should be publicly advertised it is surfacing during nuclear tensions with Iran and just a week after we successfully shot down a rogue satellite- in space nonetheless.

Considering that the military and the courts are the two specific undeniable areas of concern for our federal government (not to mention Obama's plan for $800 billion+ in foreign aid) this seems like a very strange area to suggest cutting funding and betrays a degree of liberalism that has been suspected, but rarely nailed down in him.


Monday, February 25, 2008

How Can You Argue?

Republican presidential candidates this cycle fought for the title of "most conservative". No similar "most liberal" debate occurred among Democrats. Is it possible that even though we don't always vote that way, deep down we still realize the wisdom of conservatism and distrust liberalism? Well if so, good for us.

"Progressive" nanny-types, unpopular after initiating Prohibition, then became "liberal" nanny-types who have since the 1960's slowly spoiled that label too. Now while trying to regulate everything from your health insurance down to your diet they want to be called "progressives" again. Still, I call them liberals (among worse things) so that folks don't forget their actual mischief.

The terms liberal and conservative are obviously generalizations, but still exist because they represent marked differences in policy, worldview, and as I'll show you, results.

Conveniently, today's statistics can tell us which way cities lean and to what degree. Of cities with 100,000 plus populations we know America's most conservative voting city is Provo, Utah. The most liberal voting city is Detroit, named last month by Forbes as America's most miserable city.

You haven't heard of half the top conservative cities, but the most liberal list includes three recent "U.S. Murder Capitals" with Gary and Washington D.C. behind Detroit in the top five. Hmmmmm.

Conservative policies, heavy on property rights, light on taxes, and tough on crime do tend to make for more inviting places to live. In the '04 presidential election Republicans won 97 of the 100 fastest growing counties in teh nation. That's hard to argue with.

Ah, but what about lovely Canada, our very liberal neighbors with "free" healthcare, speech codes and such? The fact you'll wait twelve weeks for an MRI aside, Canada apparently isn't so great. In 2006 a record 10,942 Americans moved to Canada, yet 23,913 Canadians moved here. So even though we have nearly ten times as many people as Canada they still send twice as many people here than visa versa. That's an absolutely staggering indictment of liberal governance. And you don't even want to hear about Europe.

So liberal policies are treacherous, but how do liberal institutions stack up? Let's agree that liberal influence wholly permeates at least three areas of American life: education, organized labor, and the entertainment industry. How are they looking today? Well our schools test behind most developed countries, union membership is at its lowest level in decades, and the products Hollywood and the music industry put out speak for themselves (This year's Grammy winning Album of the Year was called "Rehab").

On the personal level it's the same story. Since the General Social Survey began in 1972 Republicans have reported being happier than Democrats every single year (kinda gives a new meaning to the "Blue State" designation).

Really it's because they've got more money though right? Hardly. Republicans in the second lowest income quartile were happier than Democrats in the highest one. If Republicans were truly filled with hate and bigotry as is often charged, would they really be so happy?

Instead I think the tendency of many Democrats to see people, and hence themselves, as victims of "the rich", corporations, mortgage lenders, etc. can drag them down.

How can self-esteem develop if you don't think yourself capable of skipping foods with trans-fats, avoiding smoky bars or putiing on your seatbelt without first passing a law? "I don't think I can. No you probably can't either. But YES WE CAN!".

Experience be damned, many in both parties still think left is the way to go because it's both easy and fashionable. In the worst instance Democrats seem poised to nominate "rock star" Barack Obama, who last year had the most liberal voting record in the U.S. Senate. And with his campaign, as in most rock shows, the actual words (or meaning in this case) are more or less undicipherable, but people still hear the beat and bounce along with the crowd anyway. This is not the time for that.

Front and center is the issue of who will nominate the next one or two members of the evenly split Supreme Court, the Senate's most liberal member or the mildly conservative John McCain?

Consider for a moment that the last justice nominated by a Democrat (Ruth Bader Ginsburg) was previously head lawyer for the feminist organization NOW as well as the perennial anti-Christmas crusading ACLU. Is now really the time for more "change" like that?

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Yes YOU can.

Ronald Reagan was saying "Yes you can" before such pronouncements were cool. While he may say it smoothly, what Barack Obama is really saying when saying "Yes WE can" while also calling for more government "solutions" is "No you can't (at least not without us)".