Obama Understands Force

Does President Barack Obama understand that government equals force? Yes he does.

Direct evidence can be found in his February 24, 2009 speech before a joint session of Congress. Consider the following lines:

"We will act with the full force of the federal government to ensure that the major banks that Americans depend on have enough confidence and enough money to lend even in more difficult times. And when we learn that a major bank has serious problems, we will hold accountable those responsible, force the necessary adjustments, provide the support to clean up their balance sheets, and assure the continuity of a strong, viable institution that can serve our people and our economy."

To be sure, we need more people talking about it and objecting to it. Government force interfering in free market decisions is the problem, not the solution. Fraud, where it occurred should be prosecuted. Regulators who looked directly at such fraud and either failed to recognize it or failed to act when they did, should be fired. The agencies that hire these ineffective agents should quit pretending they can stop fraud and concentrate on prosecuting cases when they are found. This would open up the door to expanded rating services paid for voluntarily by consumers who expect results.

Brewster's Billions

After a long hiatus, I am back and posting... I published the bit below previously this month at a meetup group I head up. I decided I wanted to put it here too. Here's the funny part. Have you heard the term, GMTA? For those who haven't, it means Great Minds Think Alike. It usually is mentioned when someone you know expresses something you also said or were thinking. It also means to not so subtley infer that both the other person and you have great minds -- kind of a internet version of a pat on one's own back.

Today I feel it is appropriate that I GMTA the below bit. You see, I had forgotten where I posted it. I post to way too many blogs, and forums, mostly others peoples blogs (OPBs?) I did a search on three key terms from it and found I was not the only one to draw the analogy I did. Others obviously drew the parallel a little differently, but they did think the stimulus bill aka H.R. 1 (111th Congress) reminded them of the movie, Brewster's Millions. For the record, some of those who shared my inspiration were Michael Grunwald of time.com (Time/CNN,) The Economist (uncredited author), Dustin Block at racinepost.com, Justice Litle at financialsense.com, Mike Lilis at "The Washington Independent,"George White at thedeal.com, and David Sirota at thehuffingtonpost.com (actually Lilis' and Sirota's Brewster was Henry Paulson and they were referring to the TARP, not H.R. 1,) And without further adieu, here is my particular version...

I was thinking of the stimulus bill and a great parallel came to mind.

One of my favorite campy comedy movies from the eighties was Brewster's Millions where Richard Pryor's character, Monty Brewster is the recipient of a strange codicil in a will. Seems he is the only living ancestor of a multi-millionaire and his now dead relative has checked him out and knows he will spend every last dime if he leaves him the whole thing.

We watch as a tape of the old man plays and he explains that he will give Monty a million to walk away in which case a trust gets the money. He calls this the wimp option or something like that. OR, he can take the big challenge. If he can spend $50 million in one month and not have anything to show for it at the end of the month... no assets remaining from it, then he gets the entire $500 million fortune under the premise that if he spent that much money and had nothing to show for it, it would cure him of his drunk-sailor-on-leave spending habits. One of the conditions that makes it interesting is, Brewster can't tell anyone why he's spending all that money. Of course Brewster goes for the brass ring and hilarity ensues.

At one point early on, he hires a team of security guards with new uniforms to protect his money. Of course, in doing so, he helps make a good chunk of it do just that -- disappear via the huge salaries, rented uniforms, and limos to haul them around.

And that is exactly what is happening with H.R. 1 aka the stimulus bill. They're gonna spend so much money trying to avert national financial ruin, they're gonna ensure it.

(errata - It was actually $30 million and $300 million respectively in the movie. I was going from memory. The concept remains unchanged however.)

It dawns on me now, there was another great parallel between Brewster's Millions and what's going on in Washington lately. Brewster used a good chunk of his money on a joke political campaign called, "None of the Above." He urged the people of New York City to reject the two mainstream candidates and vote for none of the above. We will look back at this point in history, I think, and wish we had voted for Ron Paul who is nothing like Obama, Bush, or any of the big government Republicrats that are ruining this country. Ron Paul would have vetoed H.R. 1 without hesitation.

Not Proud to be an American

I am proud when something I do turns out good, but being American isn’t something I did. By chance, I was born here. It would take great effort to leave, assuming I wanted to, so I can’t be proud of staying here either.

That doesn’t mean I am not happy to be an American. It doesn’t mean I am not grateful for the efforts of those who secured the freedoms I enjoy. It doesn’t mean I take the resulting opportunities for granted. I was born in a country where freedom really means something and opportunity isn’t just a word in the dictionary and I thank those who made it so.

That said, our freedoms and opportunity are experiencing a down day in the market. These prized commodities haven’t been doing so well lately. The Bill of Rights could use a trip to the restoration shop so as to shine more brightly. Unlike antiques, the patina of corruption, authoritarianism, excessive taxation and judicial activism greatly decrease the value of the most prized asset of our republic. That trip to the restoration shop will take investment of time and effort. Citizens need to supplement their complaints and disgust with action. They need to demand better from our elected officials. When the people they elect vote to infringe our rights, they need to take action to remove them from office. When judges start to nullify the constitution, they need to be removed.

If we don’t make an effort to preserve our freedoms; to hold the government to its constitutional limits; to fight not only threats from abroad, but those from within, the type of country the Constitution demands will be a distant memory. For that we should be ashamed. But if we demand the whole country be deemed a free-speech zone, stand up for gun rights, and anything else that honors the memory of George Mason, without whom, we most certainly would not have a Bill of Rights, then we can be proud that we have left to our children a free country. We can be proud to have invested in the freedom and opportunity they will inherit - a country they will be happy to call home. If they can be grateful for our efforts to preserve and enhance the liberties we ourselves inherited, then we can be proud we made it possible.

Freedom to Desecrate

The Anti-Flag Desecration Constitutional Amendment (S.J. RES 12) failed by one vote in the U.S. Senate one week before Independence Day.

I remember after 9/11 people displayed U.S. flags everywhere. Flags were mounted in the beds of trucks in defiant response to the WTC/Pentagon attacks. I was heartened to see the nation rally together and express their patriotism.

Two weeks later, those same flags were badly tattered. The flags, which should have been disposed of and replaced, were making a mockery of their intended patriotic gesture.

Do the senators who voted for S.J. RES 12 want to punish this form of flag desecration? No, they don't. Nor do I. This is about the political speech behind the act; not the act itself. Those who disagree with desecrating the flag don't oppose to American Legion flag burnings meant to dispose of the flag in a dignified manner. They don't want to jail Johnny Redneck for displaying a tattered flag in the back of their truck. They do want to punish those who burn the flag as a political statement. This should make it obvious that the intention of such legislation is to squelch political expression.

In 1984 in the Supreme Court case, Texas v. Johnson, the majority opinion stated, "If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable."

I find support for a Constitutional Amendment that mocks the Bill of Rights offensive and disagreeable.