Equal Distribution of ...

Once again the Obama people have said he would consider holding off on raising taxes on the "wealthy" while the economy is limping. This makes me wonder about something.

On the campaign trail, Sen. Obama said that raising taxes wasn't about punishing anyone but about "fairness." He's concerned about this "fairness" even if raising taxes lowers government revenues.

But if we're not raising taxes to bring more money into the government for necessary expenditures, and if raising taxes is bad for the economy, why raise taxes?

What is "fair" about taking money away from someone with no benefit to anyone?

It's often said that conservatives are concerned with equality of opportunity and liberals with equality of outcome. I guess if they don't know how to make everyone equally happy, they can make everyone equally unhappy.

So maybe Rush Limbaugh's right -- liberal economic policies are about equal distribution of misery.

Bailout on Auto

I doubt anyone’s surprised that half the country’s asking for bailout money. Once we let the genie out of the bottle, there was little hope of getting him back in quickly.

General Motors, among others, wants the federal government to ride in to their rescue. They say they simply do not have enough cash to keep going.

If we don’t stop this train now it will only get harder to stop. Every industry or company we bail out adds to the momentum of this whole situation; every bailout makes it harder to say no to the next guy.

GM is a great place to stop this, and here’s why:

My first car was a Chevrolet. So were my second, third, and fourth. Last year I bought a Toyota, and I’ve never looked back.

GM is a great place to stop because their problems are largely self-inflicted. Their sales are down because their product is not as good. Yes, credit is difficult to get, and yes, people seem to assume GM doesn’t make fuel efficient cars.

But GM’s cars simply aren’t as good as their competitors. They’ve also allowed themselves to get into a situation where their operating costs are much higher than the competition’s. In short, they’ve made their bed.

Now, I don’t want to see them shut down. Besides the fact that I have family that works for GM, I also don’t want to see their many, many employees out of work.

But would refusing to rescue them destroy the American economy? Probably not. I don’t think it would even destroy GM.

Michael Levine makes a good case in today’s WSJ that bankruptcy would actually help GM fix a lot of its problems. And it would tell US corporations that the feed trough is closing.

Now, there are things the government can do to help GM without writing them a check. Currently GM doesn’t get to play under the same CAFE rules as Toyota. The feds should fix that. As a matter of fact, this might be a good time for the feds to put the CAFÉ increases on pause – maybe even roll them back a tad.

If they just have to spend some money, maybe the feds can use tax credits like were offered for buying hybrids to help “domestic” manufacturers move their vehicles. Maybe they can even buy a few for the government fleet.

Helping them like this would send two important messages not only to corporate America but to all Americans – government charity can only go so far, and there are more ways to help someone than writing them a check.

McCarthy Anyone?

More tolerance and diversity from the left: AntiGayBlacklist was created to out people who supported the California Proposition 8 that undid the California Supreme Courts creation of same-sex marriage -- no doubt so they can be punished appriately.

For years conservatives told ourselves that the liberal hysteria over the 2000 election was due to their perception of wrongdoing in that election.

What we're seeing more and more, though, is that the left simply can't stand to lose.

Is it any wonder politics has gotten so nasty?

Cardinal George on Obama and Abortion

Roman Catholic Cardinal Francis George has some strong things to say about the election of the first black president relating to the abortion debate.

We have spent the last week celebrating that we have overcome our history of treating certain people as less than human, but we achieved this by electing someone who believes in treating other people as less than human.

This is a moral but also philosophical problem. Americans today look at things differently than they might have in the past or in other parts of the world. We want to know what will make me happier, what will be easier, what will be more pleasant, or what will help me get out of my hardship. Once people wondered what was best, what was right, what will honor my God/family or earn the respect of my community, and sought ways to get through hardship. This is a shift in thinking that would not be easy to correct, but it will probably be a necessary step in learning to treat unborn humans with the dignity and respect the born desire and believe they deserve.

It's a Deal

HT: Justin Taylor

Headlines 11/11/08

Planning under way for Obama holiday
They're already celebrating their Messiah.

Gingrich, Steele duel privately for RNC job
Hmm. Which one would look better on TV opposing President Obama?

(D.) for Vendetta
Dems -- the party of diversity and tolerance.

Headlines 11/7/08

Day One: Obama faces Cold War threat...
Is anyone surprised?

Reid looking to remove Lieberman as committee head
Is anyone surprised?

Russia president tells police to crush crisis unrest
Is anyone surprised?

SSM & Making a Bad Situation Worse

It's not going to surprise anyone that I was glad to see California's Proposition 8 pass. Besides my feelings about same-sex marriage (SSM), I wanted to see the voters thumb their nose at the activist and anti-democratic California Supreme Court.

Now that the people have spoken, opponents of Prop 8 are turning to ... the courts.

If Prop 8 is overturned, it will be further proof that what we have is not democracy but minority rule -- an oligarchy not unlike Sunni-controlled Iraq.

If California is forced to send this through the constitutional "revision" process, does anyone think the voters aren't going to respond negatively to having their decision violated? As bad as the last campaign got, the next campaign can be expected to be nastier still.

Hopefully this won't continue. If it does, maybe it will spur some badly needed judicial reforms.

Matthews' Job

Remember this in the next four years:



Is this fair warning not to expect journalistic excellence but an enabling of the Obama administration? It looks to me that the media's treatment of President Obama will be just like its treatment of Senator Obama.

It could be a long four years.

Headlines 11/5/08

U.S. Stocks Post Biggest Post-Election Drop on Economic Concern
Are we really surprised?

2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season Withers on the Vine
Darned global warming!

Post-Election Thoughts

To President-elect Barack Obama,
Congratulations. You fought hard, and you won. And you showed us that the American dream is still alive.

You also showed us a new kind of campaigning for the 21st Century. In many ways your campaign was masterfully run and will no doubt be carefully studied in the next few years.

Please take the next four years as an opportunity to prove your detractors wrong. Govern as a uniter, not an ideologue, and you will truly go down in history as a good president, not just a first.

To the American people,
We have showed the world that America is a spectacular country. Though our race issues are far from solved, we have come so far from the eras of slavery and Jim Crow that we have elected a black man president. We can be proud of our growth as long as we realize there is more room to grow.

To Republicans,
We lost. Move on. Barack Obama will not be the "president" or their president but the President. Let us be gracious in defeat and spend the next four years as the loyal opposition.

To conservatives,
Already people are talking about what needs to change in the Republican Party. It is not party leadership as much as it is operating philosophy. With every passing year the difference between the two major parties seems harder and harder to identify. Remember what you stood for and stand for it again. Don't take this election as a repudiation of conservatism but a reaction to the way it has been abandoned.

Thank God there is still a chance to maintain some influence in the Senate, and we still have a voice in the House. Use it wisely. When the Democrats start work under the new president, we cannot just oppose them, we must counter-propose. We must work very hard to get our ideas into the light, and we have to accept that the media is not our friend in that endeavour, but it can be done and must be if we want to win anything back in 2010 and 2012.

To Christians on both sides of the aisle,
Remember that we're all family. We disagree just as much as any biological family, but in the end we have "one body and one Spirit... one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all." Let us disagree in love and remember that what happens here on Earth is only really important as it relates to the mission of our Master.

Election Links

Here is some more food for thought for those considering voting for Sen. Obama:

The Comprehensive Case Against Barack Obama

Taxes
Taxing Times
Who's going to get tax cuts under Obama? Is it under $200k, $150k, or $120k?
You may remember that Bill Clinton's middle class tax cuts turned into a tax hike.
The classic Bar Stool Economics

Economy
How Not to Help the Poor
Deregulation: The Big Lie
Drilling for Dollars
A good solution for our energy problems: bankrupt the coal industry.

Abortion
Straw Everywhere
Obama’s Abortion Extremism
Pro-Life Politicians Have Made a Difference
Does Increased Welfare Spending or Pro-Life Legislation Reduce Abortion?
Ballot Box Blues
One-Issue Politics
Culture of Death
When is it Acceptable for a ''Pro-Life'' Voter to Vote for a ''Pro-Choice'' Candidate?

Healthcare
How to Fix Insurance
Not So NICE
Almost Everyone Would Be Better Under the McCain Plan
We Need a National Market for Health Insurance
The Obama Plan

Other
Fairness Doctrine & Blogs
Losing the Global Popularity Contest
Obama’s Magic
Joe Biden and other Democrats on Sen. Obama
Why a Woman Shouldn't Run for Vice President, but Wise People May Still Vote for Her

Do Polls Make the News?

A properly done poll reflects the attitudes of the population by drawing inferences from a sample of that population.

An improperly done poll reflects the biases of the people who operated the poll.

When we have polls with such a wide disparity in results, you can ask whether this is simply differences in method, but when you look at some of these polls closely, they seem to be intentionally skewed.

Polls that oversample one party, polls that ask leading questions, and polls that ignore known polling issues (e.g., Republicans are always under-represented in weekend polls), are published as if they were perfectly valid polls. Why?

Are the polsters -- or the people reporting these polls -- trying to shift opinion? In the current presidental election, are they hoping to depress turnout on one side by making the other's win seem assured? Or are they trying to excite them to action by reporting that they're behind -- or slipping? Perhaps they're trying to create a bandwagon -- get the undecideds to join the winning team?

I think most people these days know they need to take polls with a grain of salt. We also need to steel ourselves to not be swayed by the polls. Let's do our best to keep the polls from making the news.

The Other Case for McCain

Gridlock is good.

If Sen. Obama is elected, we're going to have a Democrat controlled House, Senate, and administration. Let's think about single-party rule.

Single-party rule under Bill Clinton brought us tax increases, big spending, and two controversial wars. Under GW Bush it brought us the Patriot Act, big spending, and a controversial war. 

Gridlock brought us the Clinton tax cuts, welfare reform, and a balanced budget. 

Single-party rule lets people get lazy and simply try to pacify the voters. Gridlock keeps the parties competing against each other; it keeps them honest and causes them to focus on their principles. It also keeps them from doing very much. 

A McCain administration wouldn't be able to pass anywhere near the tax cuts Sen. McCain has proposed, but you know he'd take quite a bit of pleasure in vetoing extravagant spending items. He'd have a hard time getting the far right judges he wants approved, but he'd never appoint the far left judges Sen. Obama would choose. In short, gridlock would keep us in a middle of the road, not too ideological state of being. And you know a Democratic Congress would never let him go to war without a darn good reason. 

So on November 4, vote for gridlock, and keep America sane.