GREAT article from American Thinker.

Seth

This not according to me but moderate-liberal editorialist for the WaPo David Broder.

LINK

Seth

LINK

The referenced article is the most powerful and passionate piece I have read on the website to date. It is a long article but it is worth the read. I may write a response post that highlights my favorites points. But here is a taste…

Soon, however, those who come to power, even with good intentions, discover that for all men to be made equal, some men must be made poor, and most men will not agree to be made poor in the absence of force. So force must be applied, assets must be seized, censorship must be imposed, dissidents must be jailed, enemies must be destroyed. Men must be made equal by any means necessary, and soon enough those means include intimidation, imprisonment, and execution.

Again and again, the handsome smile of the reformer is twisted into the callous sneer of the tyrant. Those who present themselves as saviors are always the most dangerous, for unlike the one true savior, who rendered unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, they must work their will on the things of this world, and one cannot remake the world without the application of force.

At the heart of the ideal of fairness, in the peculiar ideological sense in which the term has come to be used, is the fundamental mistake that all workers — not just all workers, but all human beings, including those who simply choose not to work — should be equally rewarded, regardless of effort and ability. It is a problem that was noted as early as the mid-18th century, even before the French Revolution transformed that unfortunate nation into a bloody shrine to godless egalitarianism. As Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot wrote: “To permit a large number of men to live free of charge is to encourage laziness and all the disorders that follow; it is to render the condition of the idler preferable to that of the man who works….” (qtd. by G. Himmelfarb, Roads to Modernity 179).

Under socialism, those who are lazy and unproductive, or not productive at all, or even blatantly destructive, get a free ride; those who are skillful and enterprising are punished. When ambitious workers attempt to get ahead on the basis of their abilities, as inevitably they do, they are harassed, beaten, imprisoned, and executed. The longer that ambition is repressed, the less productive the overall economy becomes. At that point, the wrath of the state is unleashed on all workers, not just on the more able.

Seth

Here is a related article on what Geithner is facing and why it is a political/financially difficult thing to overcome.

Seth

LINK.

The article is laced with some sarcasm but makes good points.

I am particularly agreeing with the idea that what we will have is perpetual campaigning.  So here is the pattern.  For every problem Obama will blame Bush.  For every piece of good news, Obama will take credit.  And to fix this in the public’s mind and to influence the outcomes he wants, Obama will be in perpetual campaign mode.

This is the opposite from Bush.  Agree or disagree, he operated on principle.  And he hardly ever defended himself.

I hope that Lincoln’s Law is true.  You can fool some of the people some of the time…but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

Seth

It is sort of ridiculous…but I first blogged about this over three years ago.  And since then there have been a lot of mis-steps and mis-starts etc.  And, ironically, the products is STILL not ready.

Back then I didn’t reveal the nature of this enterprise.  Today, I reveal it.  If anyone would be interested in learning about this dream of mine visit http://www.meeting-minutes.org.

The production version of the software probably won’t be ready for 1 - 2 more months.  Although if you want to download a working prototype that has a few limitations one is available.  Just register on the site HERE and click on the Download Meeting Manager page.  (You must register with the sight before this page becomes visible.  If you want to check it out but you just don’t want to register on the site let me know and I will get you a copy.)

I would love to hear from you and get feedback on what you think of the IDEA if you are not interested in trying it out.  To read about it just click http://www.meeting-minutes.org.  And please leave a comment here (fattriplets) or there (meeting-minutes.org) to give me some feedback.  What do you think?

Seth

LINK

I wonder if Obama will veto it for that reason alone.  I might start to believe in change we can believe in.

What are the chances…null, nada, nyet, non, zero, zilch, zip.

Seth

LINK

Seth

HT to huffpost

LINK

Seth

It is well known that Warren Buffett has been an outspoken supporter of the president. But in a recent CNBC call-in show he had a few things to say to him. The entire transcripts are here and here.  For the record, he is not dissing Obama and he does have some valid things to say to Republicans in this conversation.  But I am now detecting a pattern of the emerging disaffection with what Obama has done so far.  These moderates are saying, “we agree with what you want to do but you can’t do all of it right now…there are more urgent matters than doing your entire domestic agenda in the first 100 days.”  Buffett is particularly bothered by the common idea among the left and this administration that a crisis is something that you have to exploit for the sake of your agenda.

Here are some money quotes:

…I think that the Republicans have an obligation to regard this as an economic war and to realize you need one leader and, in general, support of that. But I think that the–I think that the Democrats–and I voted for Obama and I strongly support him, and I think he’s the right guy–but I think they should not use this–when they’re calling for unity on a question this important, they should not use it to roll the Republicans all.

AND

…job one is to win … the economic war, job two is to win the economic war, and job three. And you can’t expect people to unite behind you if you’re trying to jam a whole bunch of things down their throat. So I would absolutely say for the–for the interim, till we get this one solved, I would not be pushing a lot of things that are–… are contentious, and I also–I also would do no finger-pointing whatsoever. I … `George’–`the previous administration got us into this.’ Forget it. I mean, you know, the Navy made a mistake at Pearl Harbor and had too many ships there. But the idea that we’d spend our time after that, … pointing fingers at the Navy, we needed the Navy. So I would … no finger-pointing, no vengeance, none of that stuff. Just look forward.

AND

Well, I was going to mention to Joe that you’ve heard this comment recently from some Democrats recently that a `crisis is a terrible thing to waste.’…it’s an economic war, and–I don’t think anybody on December 7th would have said a `war is a terrible thing to waste, and therefore we’re going to try and ram through a whole bunch of things and–but we expect to–expect the other party to unite behind us on the–on the big problem.’ It’s just a mistake, I think, when you’ve got one overriding objective, to try and muddle it up with a bunch of other things.

I have expunged words  from the text to make it more readable.  Wherever I did that I replaced with three dots.

Seth

HT to AmericanThinker

END NOTE - Obama doesn’t get it…MSNBC said…”But he argued that a far-reaching overhaul of the nation’s education system is an economic imperative that can’t wait, despite the urgency of the financial crisis and other pressing issues.”

LINK

And this was not hidden in the bowels of the some conservative website.  I opened this from msn.com’s front page.

Seth

I have linked to John Mauldin before. In this week’s Outside the Box column he has a guest column with some very trenchant analysis.

LINK

Seth

PS If you are already depressed you may want to avoid reading.

Great interview with John Stossel. He makes mention of an ABC.

and

John Stossell has a special this weekend (Friday on ABC at 10:00 PM) that should be highly watchable. I think it is on 20/20.

Seth

LINK

The Roman Catholic church is so messed up.

Scott

Once upon a time… from Capucha on Vimeo.

Seth