Happy Halloween!

Don't party too hard...

Don't let wicked witches scare you, Vote!

Democratic Mudslide

The Democratic Party forecast calls for mud and more mud, all the better to smear their opponents with.

As you watch this year's ads -- and I've been watching all too many lately -- you'll notice a striking difference between Democratic and Republican attack ads: Democrats are attacking over personal issues, Republicans are attacking over policy.(ABC News)

Tired of liberals giving you the finger, America?  Vote Republican!

It's an ideological battle

That voters are even considering giving Jerry Brown a chance to finish the wrecking job on California that he started, and the almost certain victory of a lying fake Vietnam war veteran in Connecticut shows that there are still stubborn pockets of ignorance out there.  Not only do we have to reeducate our politicians, we also have to spread the message among fellow citizens indoctrinated by a progressive educational system.





What is our task as Conservatives?

It is always the task for conservatives to insist that money does not grow on trees, that government programs must be paid for, and that promising unaffordable benefits is reckless, unjust and a long-term threat to maintaining free institutions.

Voting Democrat kills Virtue

But conservatives also combat government expansion and centralization because it can undermine the virtues upon which a free society depends. Big government tends to crowd out self-government—producing sluggish, selfish and small-minded citizens, depriving individuals of opportunities to manage their private lives and discouraging them from cooperating with fellow citizens to govern their neighborhoods, towns, cities and states. (Peter Berkowitz - WSJ)

Spending more than we have makes us financially bankrupt.  Legislating every last aspect of our lives leaves us morally and intellectually bankrupt.  Do everything for someone and they lose the ability to do for themselves.

Those of us who can think for ourselves will be voting for the conservative candidate this Tuesday.

Dems Complain Vote Fraud is Getting Harder to Pull Off

Democratic Party of Texico

"Voter Intimidation" is a bogus issue

Election Day is nearing, and we know what that means.  Time for the Dems to harvest them votes!

They will drive buses down to the inner-city gulags where they keep their constituency enslaved by poverty-inducing liberal policies.  They'll bribe the ignorant, the disconnected and the drug-addled with smokes and hooch and promises of "Hope" and "Change."  Sadly, a large number will allow themselves to be herded to the polling place and do the overlords' bidding. 








Simple Question:  Why would a legally-registered citizen be "intimidated?"

Voting rights advocates say they are worried.

“Private efforts to police the polls create a real risk of vote suppression, regardless of their intent,” said Wendy R. Weiser, director of the Voting Rights and Elections Project at the BrennanCenter for Justice at New York University.

“People need to know that any form of discrimination,intimidation or challenge to voters without adequate basis is illegal or improper.”  (NY Times)

This is pure BS. ALL AMERICANS have the the full force of the law behind them. This is not the pre-civil rights 1950's, no matter how liberal agitators long for those bad old days.  An American citizen can proudly march up to the polling place and dare someone to try to take her vote away.
 
If there really were cases of people being denied the vote because of skin color or a funny accent, legal organizations of all political stripes would be all over it.  You just can't get away with such overt bigotry in this country.  It is illegal, and activists and news organizations are on a hair trigger just waiting for a hint of it.

Professional Democrat agitators are upset because the increased scrutiny makes voter fraud more difficult.  Non-citizen voting, citizens voting multiple times, and dead people voting are now harder to carry out thanks to new laws and increased vigilance.

Advocates lament that since criminal enterprises like ACORN have been rolled up, voter registration is down.

Many states have also enacted laws in recent years that make registration drives more difficult, with stricter reporting and filing deadlines for voter registration groups.

“It has been an uphill fight in a lot of states to register people this year,” said Elisabeth MacNamara, national president of the League of Women Voters.

Ms. MacNamara said the group’s Georgia chapter faced an additional burden because of a new state law requiring voters to prove citizenship.

Awww...  Ya gotta prove citizenship to vote?  What a burden.  Only an America-hating leftist would find a problem with that.

So the Democrats are reduced to shouting through their New York Times bullhorn that it's unfair they can't bribe people, including illegal aliens, to vote for them. They also cry about how hard it is to get their constituency off their asses without government assistance, and increased vigilance is keeping people from voting multiple times.

This is what we mean by "take our country back."  Not from minorities or legal immigrants, but from the Alinskyite left who treat poor people as chattel and keep them mired in poverty so as to create a socialist political movement to split the country and undermine our constitutional republic.

Time to take it back from those people, so we can all be free.

A Marketplace of Ideas

 

Free Speech Means Free Speech for All
Advocates for marijuana and condoms enter the public square and argue their cause, why not those arguing for abstinence and self-control?  The gay rights agenda marches on, carried by the media and popular culture outlets.  But Christians defending traditional marriage is out of bounds?

Islam good, Christianity Bad:  This is your brain on Liberalism
First NBC told Veggie Tales to tone down their Christian message, now we get a Muslim superhero show aimed at our kids.

We are continually told how wonderful Islam is, despite evidence world-wide to the contrary.  Stonings, floggings, beheadings, bombings.  Rapists go unpunished because the woman's testimony is worth less than the man's.  "Men" perform "honor killings" because their fragile manhood is destroyed when a daughter or sister looks at a boy.

People are called bigoted and hateful by apologist dhmimmis on the left when they point out the historical fact that Islam has a poor track record of coexistence with infidels.

Where's the rightwing theocracy?
Meanwhile, this same progressive crowd continues screaming about the religious right imposing a theocracy, despite a paucity of evidence.  Since the advent of the Moral Majority in the early 80's, every moral ill they stand against has increased, not decreased.  But the bigoted lefties stubbornly goose-step on, dutifully ignoring all evidence that contradicts their world view. 

This is the problem with modern-day "liberalism." It isn't very liberal when dealing with issues that don't fit the dogma.  And for a crowd that loves shouting "science!" at all who disagree with them, they sure do a right studious job of ignoring the facts that don't fit.

America is a free marketplace of ideas
We are all free to speak, and others are free to listen or to ignore, but this doesn't satisfy the statist progressives. No. They want to use the power of the state to shut up those they disagree with, or at least demonize and marginalize their ideological opponents to avoid debating them.

Modern-day liberalism is an incoherent mess and resembles not at all the classical liberalism they stole the name from.

Americans: The New Jews

I originally posted this in June of 2008, and I reprint it now because yesterday some adherents of The Religion of Peace found it and vomited out their incoherent and vulgar rantings upon it.

Normally I reprint misspelled, poorly stated idiocy, or just let it stand as a testament to stupidity, but their comments were so vulgar and poisonous I had to delete them.  And as anyone who visits knows, I hate censorship.  





Anyway, here is the original post from the Summer of 2008...

Well, the PEW Research Center just completed its latest "Who Hates America Most" survey, and the results are predictable, according to the International Herald Tribune.

We are the New Jews; the group upon which bitter, resentful people worldwide pour out their fear and loathing. We are the people everybody loves to hate.

Your stinking, corrupt country can't get its collective stuff together? Blame the US! (While receiving millions of dollars in aid from the nasty Neo-Zionists)

Your ruling oligarchy steals bread from the mouths of the poor? Blame America! (while sneaking across the border, of course)

You reside in a cauldron of misogyny, hatred and despair, ruled by various poobahs and potentates, exporting human bombs and venomous hatred?  Blame the Great Satan, the New Jooos! (While receiving millions in economic and disaster relief assistance from the same infidels).

Sniff disdainfully at the New Jews while looking down your nose at them from your European paradise, ignoring the fact that you are resting in the shade of the Neo-Zionist security umbrella. Better check the foundation, though. You may have some erosion going on.

The survey mentions, "publics worldwide have greater confidence in Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, than in his Republican rival, John McCain, "to do the right thing regarding world affairs.""

Of course! "Do the right thing" means to cave in to every crackpot scheme dreamed up by self-important UN kleptocrats and "we are the world" socialists. It means paying lip-service to ineffectual feel-good policies that actually keep people mired in poverty and servitude, while forsaking all bold actions as "provocative" and "unilateral".

Do the right thing?
I would love to see some other countries step up and do the right thing on their own.

Message to the whiners of the world: Do the right thing on your own and you won't have to worry about Uncle Shmuel doing the "wrong thing"!

Take responsibility for your slothful, degraded state and do something about it! Want to make the world a better place? Start with your own little piece of hell on earth and go from there! Haven't you noticed that blaming the US gets you nothing?


We Americans are the New Jews that everyone loves to hate. The Jewish People brought us knowledge of the One True God of Jews, Muslims and Christians. They've given us Holy Scriptures, poetry, philosophy, and ground-breaking contributions in every field of science. They carved out a home for themselves and made it a success by their own sweat and blood. And they've earned nothing but hatred and resentment for it.

President Obama has been on a two-year apology jag, but we are still the New Jews.

Leering Liberals, Dirty Democrats

What is it about over-the-hill liberals and their crouching, creepy interest in sex, especially when it involves teens?

Another Tyra Banks talk show episode, another disturbing lurk-fest into the sex life of teens, this time a 15 year old female sex addict.  Beverly McClendon, the adolescent's mom, is suing...

The 15-year-old girl in question reportedly answered an online casting call looking for teen sex addicts to talk about their problems on the air. Tyra producers later flew her from Georgia to New York and provided hotel lodgings -- all without McClendon's necessary consent -- the lawsuit claims. (US Magazine)

This latest slimy episode from another leering lefty reminded me of a post I did awhile back on this topic.  It is still relevant today, since liberals are even more degenerate now than they were two years ago.   

*-The HuffPo editorial politburo banned this Silverfiddle comment

First Sarah Bernhard jokes about Sarah Palin getting gang-raped in Manhattan (it's performance art. You hicks in the sticks are too unsophisticated to understand how rape can be funny.) Perhaps Bernhard has unresolved anger issues stemming from Madonna dumping her for that skinny guy.

Then it was peeping pedo-bear Larry King asking teen daddy Levi Johnston where he and the Palin daughter "did it." "Did you do it in their house?" was how he phrased one of his creepy questions.

Next, Tyra Banks turned up the heat with Levi, trying to coax intimate details about their contraceptive use, with her sex-crazed crowd hooting like baboons in the background.

To top it off, an aging, bitter David Letterman, not satisfied with completely trashing Sarah Palin (how original!), goes after her daughter.

 


We are a monkey-see, monkey do culture.  With adults bombarding our kids with sex 24/7, is it any wonder we're producing 15-year-old sex addicts?  Every society since creation has identified and promoted positive virtues.  We are doing the opposite.  

Sex is wonderful, but it's not for kids.  And even for us adults, the creepy, pedo-tinged liberals just make it feel all icky...

Can we pass some kind of law barring old liberals from discussing sex in public? Can we drive these degenerate perverts back to their dens of iniquity where they belong, so decent society is not besmutted by their sleazy presence?

For good commentary on the subject, click the following links:
American Thinker - Rosslyn Smith
NY Post - Lileks

Ideological Idiocy

"Diversity" means whatever the left says it means, and minorities are only celebrated so long as they stay on the reservation

The whole Juan Williams controversy, and the illogical and hate-filled response from the left shows them to be in complete intellectual collapse.  There is no reasoning left on the left, just rage, outrage and raw emotion.  A dogmatic MSNBC mindset that anathematizes the impure who stray from the liberal orthodoxy.

It's an "us versus them" mentality.  Juan's cardinal sin was to treat conservatives as worthy of debate instead of just smearing them from a safe distance.  And he had the temerity to do it on the hated "Faux Nooz!"  For this same reason, liberal atheist Christopher Hitchens has more fans on the right than on the left, all because he cogently critiques militant Islam.

A Diversity of Thought
We enjoy a diversity of thought on the right; the left chokes with rage on it.  We may not agree with Juan Williams, Bob Beckel, Kirsten Powers or the other liberals who routinely appear on FOX news, but we enjoy the debate.  They add clarity to our thought, as fire hardens steel.  And we even learn something every now and then.  For this we will only grow stronger as our friends on the left suffer a rigor mortis of rationality.

We on the right are now much more about thought, debate and exploring new ideas.  We've dropped our knee-jerk support for big business and big wars.  We don't foam at the mouth in rabid anger like the left does, but we now criticize crony capitalism and Wall Street gamblers flush with our tax dollars.  We're also tiring of military adventures and we have awoken to the the dangers of our burgeoning domestic security apparatus. 

Ideology Kills
Blind allegiance to ideology kills rational thought, and that is what we're seeing on the left.  Daniel J. Flynn, in his most excellent book Intellectual Morons , explains:  

"ideology acts as a mental straitjacket. It blinds adherents to reality, breeds fanaticism, and rationalizes dishonesty. It makes smart people stupid."

Ideology can be a mental framework to make sense of what's going on around you, but Flynn sees it more as a crutch for those too lazy to think for themselves. Reading the opening chapter slowly and thoughtfully can provide a good intellectual self-examination.

The main idea behind Intellectual Morons is that ideology acts as a mental straitjacket. It blinds adherents to reality, breeds fanaticism, and rationalizes dishonesty. It makes smart people stupid.

It doesn’t matter how intelligent you are if you don’t use your brain. Intelligent people aren’t necessarily rigorous thinkers. In fact, many of them are mentally lazy. Ideology provides a way for lazy people to respond to issues, ideas, people, and events without thinking.

For the ideologue, ideology is the Rosetta Stone of everything. Why think when the system provides all the answers? Ideology is attractive to smart people because it flatters them by suggesting that a single idea from the mind of an intellectual has the power of explaining all of history or ordering the affairs of whole nations. No person is that smart; no idea that good. (Front Page - Interview)

"Intellectual Morons" is a storehouse of of ammo for those who enjoy arguing with liberals.  More importantly, it is a useful springboard to an intellectual self-examination.    It also explains why modern-day American liberalism is a rotting carcass.  They cling to their dogma and purge their ranks; we on the right invite thinking liberals to the debate.

Links:
Western Hero - Read These Books Now!
Western Hero - Intellectual Morons
Western Hero - Great Books

Random Political Notes from Out West

Well, I bubbled in my ballot last night while chugging some red wine and listening to 70's music.  The Quiet Magpie's post on Suzi Quatro singing Stumblin' In got my nostalgia going.  Seems I wasn't the only one in love with her as a kid.  She's all mine, Magpie!  Back off!

I didn't vote straight Republican this time, thanks to GOP failure for Governor Dan Maes. The failed tea party candidate is sinking below 10% in the polls but refuses to get out, hurting Tom Tancredo's chances to beat Van Jones fanboy John Chickenlooper, who is mayor of the sanctuary city of Denver.

Got a Spanish language flyer in the mail today asking if we were voting and wanting us to fill the card out and send it back.  Another Hispanic family on the block was the only other house that got one, so the libs are targeting Latinos who have strayed from the liberal plantation...

The Department of Health and Human Services notified us someone will be coming around to question us about who-the-hell-knows-what.  They bribed us with $30 of taxpayer money for each person in the house who responds.  They'll be getting a big faceful of front door when they come knockin' at Casa de Silverfiddle.

We actually have a man named Doc Holiday running for county sheriff.  Some cat named Bob Bux is running for coroner unopposed.  He should be running for treasurer...

Tom Tancredo Can Win This Thing! 

Tancredo is now tied with Obama of the Rockes, John cHickenlooper in the race of Governor of Colorado!

Tom Tancredo, Great American and a Great Coloradan, is leading in polling among the state's Hispanics, who are tired of illegal immigrants who get drunk and kill people giving all Hispanics a bad name. Tom is a Facebook friend of mine.  Stop by and post some words of encouragement on his wall!

Vote Democrat or Vote Liberty--You Can't Do Both

Hayek famously dedicated his book, "The Road to Serfdom" to "Socialists of all parties," and Republicans have earned every bit of criticism they get.  They have eagerly participated in the horrible progressive experiment of the last 100 years.  They say they've changed, and I'm willing to give them one more chance.  With the Democrats, we are guaranteed to continue our death spiral.

100 Years of Progressive Statism is Enough!

Let’s consider, say, the year 1880. Here was a society in whichpeople were free to keep everything they earned, because there wasno income tax. They were also free to decide what to do with theirown money—spend it, save it, invest it, donate it, or whatever. 

People were generally free to engage in occupations and professionswithout a license or permit. There were few federal economicregulations and regulatory agencies. 

No Social Security, Medicare,Medicaid, welfare, bailouts, or so-called stimulus plans. No IRS.No Departments of Education, Energy, Agriculture, Commerce, andLabor. No EPA and OSHA. No Federal Reserve. No drug laws. 

Fewsystems of public schooling. No immigration controls. No federalminimum-wage laws or price controls. A monetary system based ongold and silver coins rather than paper money. No slavery. No CIA.No FBI. No torture or cruel or unusual punishments. No renditions.No overseas military empire. No military-industrial complex.  (Reason - Up from Serfdom)

We have made great strides since the 1880's, but government has grown into a leviathan, trampling the First, Second, Fourth, Ninth and Tenth Amendment in the process, while stretching out the Commerce and General Welfare clauses into a penumbra so large they block the sun.

The federal government doesn't care more about your state than you and your fellow residents do.

The federal government does not care more about your kids, their education, their souls and their futures than you do.

No government can order your life better than you.  No government cares more about your life, liberty, family and property than you, and no police force is in a better position to defend them from immediate attack than you are.

Good News from Afghanistan, and Islam is in the News Again!

Good news from Kandahar, and it comes from the New York Times...

Coalition Routs Taliban in Southern Afghanistan

ARGHANDAB, Afghanistan — American and Afghan forces have been routing the Taliban in much of Kandahar Province in recent weeks, forcing many hardened fighters, faced with the buildup of American forces, to flee strongholds they have held for years, NATO commanders, local Afghan officials and residents of the region said. 

In other news, NPR fired intellectually-honest liberal Juan Williams for stating the obvious about Muslim terrorism...

NPR said in a statement that Williams's remarks - including that he gets "worried" and "nervous" when he sees people dressed in Muslim-style clothing on airplanes - "were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR."

What morons.  I think it simply makes him smarter than the average liberal.  Meanwhile, right here in the good ol' US of A, here's what a Muslim citizen has been up to...

A 20-year-old Bristow man pleaded guilty Wednesday to aiding the Somali terrorist organization al-Shabaab.

Chesser admitted that he encouraged attacks on the creators of the television show "South Park" for mocking the prophet Muhammad on their show. He also pleaded guilty to soliciting others to try to desensitize law enforcement by putting suspicious-looking, but harmless, packages in public places. Chesser admitted that he twice tried to go to Somalia to join al-Shabaab as a fighter, and once took his infant son to the airport to avoid detections.

Did you get that last part?

He also pleaded guilty to soliciting others to try to desensitize law enforcement by putting suspicious-looking, but harmless, packages in public places.

Chesser admitted that he ... once took his infant son to the airport to avoid detections.

This is insidious,using our political correctness and stupid liberal guilt against us.

Juan Williams is right!  And taxpayer-funded NPR is WRONG!

We cannot pray in publicly-funded schools because it would supposedly violate the First Amendment freedom of religion rights of those who don't believe in prayer.  Based upon that screwed up liberal illogic, NPR violated Juan Williams' right to free speech under the same amendment to the US Constitution.

For a sickening dose of what the hooting loonies in Left Blogistan really think of black people, Go Here:

This guy may have a black skin, but I have insisted for years that he is nothing but Rush Limbaugh in a monkey suit.

The author of that statement is a sick stain on humanity...

This is why liberals can never be trusted to run anything.  

They can't think straight and they must rely on bureaucratic rules and progressive judges to cram their we-say-so-ism down everyone's throats.  They scream a blue streak about Christians trying to impose a theocracy, while denying real threats exist, like a quantifiable, ever-growing debt, and Muslim extremists who publish videos clearly stating they hate America and want to destroy us.   

The lala land liberals would do well to read some Churchill:

An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile - hoping it will eat him last.
-- Winston Churchill

My Town: Liberals Hate Us

Liberals Hate Colorado Springs
I live in the beautiful city of Colorado Springs, home to five military installations, Focus on the Family and the lesser-known Cook Ministries.

For a religiousrightwing redoubt, we have a lot of diversity here as well, including liberal politicians, a famous liberal arts college, and the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission.  We even boast a thriving gay community that tends more towards quiet domestic partnerships than the bathhouse flamer lifestyle.


How we handled the homeless problem
Liberals screamed and tore their hair out over the callousness of the conservatives who advocated shutting down the homeless Obamavilles that had sprung up in the wooded areas of our fair city.  It had gotten out of hand, and it wasn't doing these people any favors to let them "camp" on city property.  The county followed suit with its own camping ban.

So, one year later, what is the result?

"We've reached out to over 600 homeless campers, all the people that were down there camping at that time, and we've managed to help 470 some. About 71 percent of the population," Holmes said.

He said some of the campers were placed on buses to reunite with family, some joined substance abuse programs, and some are back in the workforce. (Colorado Connection)

See? Nothing a firm hand up and a little tough love can't remedy.

How we handled the tax problem
The Denver hopium smokers got all giddy back in January when the city of Colorado Springs announced severe cutbacks due to us greedy tea party extremists voting down all proposed tax hikes.

Left Blogistan is still abuzz with excited tales of the decline and fall of the hated rightwing bastion known as Colorado Springs.  Dark, potholed streets, houses burning out of control, rampant crime...  In the fevered imaginings of the left.  They spin these fantasies and pass them along, never realizing they are actually describing failed liberal projects like Detroit or Chicago.




Every breathless blog posting can be traced back to a piece of liberal conjecture disguised as news in the Denver Post:

COLORADO SPRINGS — This tax-averse city is about to learn what it looks and feels like when budget cuts slash services most Americans consider part of the urban fabric.

More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled. (Denver Post)

This is my favorite part:

"If a playground burns down, I can't replace it," Schroeder said. Park fans' only hope is the possibility of a new ballot tax pledged to recreation spending that might win over skeptical voters.

I ran into a bovine herd of naive lefties in Left Blogistan who bought all this propaganda hook, line and sinker.  They tried to tell me I was wrong, about my own city!  I live here, they don't.  They finally shut up, a rare opportunity where a lib realizes they are wrong and the propaganda may be mistaken.  We had a good back and forth, here is a summary of what I told them.

The dire liberal predictions have not come true

Playgrounds and parks are green, and not one of them has burned down, believe it or not. Citizens pack out their trash and pitch in to clean up neighborhoods and common areas, which is to be expected from responsible conservatives.

Some street lights are dark, but can be turned on if you pay for it. A few weeds are growing up here and there, but we're forcing our politicians to live within our means!

Finally, contrary to what the liberal morons in the media tell you, Colorado Springs is very diverse. We've got head shops ("medical" marijuana dispensaries) all over town and we are home to Colorado College, a venerable bastion of unbridled liberalism.

We also have a thriving gay community. Gay couples actually shop, hike and generally enjoy themselves in broad daylight right here in in James Dobson's Godly kingdom! And there has never been any intolerant attacks!

This should teach you a lesson to not to believe the bullshit spewed from people with an agenda. 

Believe it or not, that shut the lefties up. 

I wrote about our tax beatdown last November. The city officials who had been threatening us with certain calamity ended up finding money to keep cops and firemen on the payroll.  Imagine that...  I guess nobody notified Left Blogistan.

Read it here: Western Hero - It Takes a Village of Angry Taxpayers

Silverfiddle Faces Down Move On Protesters

I went down to a political rally last night.  Not to stand inside and cheer, but to stand outside in support of Senate candidate Ken Buck.  I only went because a coworker told me that Move On morons would be there so the conservatives needed a big crowd.



As much as I talk about it, I hate politics, so I avoid political rallies.  Joe the Plumber was there, and Ken Buck was speaking as well, but I had no interest.  Only the prospect of lefty protesters moved me to go.

I put on my street fighting clothes, to include my Mossy Oak hunting boots in case I needed to stomp some communist protester ass, but also light enough I can run pretty fast in them as well (It's not against the law to run when you hear sirens approaching from the distance). 

The Tea Party Demographic was about 45 years younger than the lefty protesters 
Anyway, it was all a big disappointment.  The protesters were all in their 60's at least, shouting about how Ken Buck is owned by the corporations.  They were handing out "Bucks" with Ken's picture on them.  I got a rousing cheer from my side when I waved one in the air and shouted "These will be worth more than the real thing by the time Obama gets done printing money!"  But that was the only highlight.

I did have a nice, civilized discussion with the gentleman handing out the bucks.  He conceded that Democrat Michael Bennett was also owned by the corporations, "they all are," he sighed.  Maybe that's why I'm not big on political rallies.  I'd rather have a reasoned back and forth than all the screaming and chanting and shouting through bullhorns. 

Life is Beautiful, Politics Isn't
As I said before, I hate politics.  I hate that we have to talk about it so much and that it dominates so much of our time.  Life is full of so many wonderful things, and here we are wrapped around the axle over what a bunch of irresponsible statists are doing in the District of Criminals.

I'd rather be fishing, hunting, playing fiddle or guitar, spending time with the kids, all things I do now, but we have this huge shadow hanging over us all the time.  I hate all the shouting and anger and polarization and politicization of everything.  My wife has fox news on every night when I come home and I can't stand to hear it.  My values may be conservative, my politics libertarian and my neck red, but I am a peace and love hippie at heart.

If I had known the Move On protesters would be old people, I would have brought my guitar and harmonicas and played some Neil Young for them.  Maybe it would have made them happy.  I know it would have made me happy...

Liberal Whackjobs

The hooting baboons in Left Blogistan are having a field day, beating their bananas and slinging poop all over the candidacy of Christine O'Donnell


The most disturbing aspect of this is the open hostility to conservative Christianity. It's perfectly legitimate to debate moral issues and critically examine her record, but to personally attack and demean someone for her religious beliefs borders on depravity.




It's a Religious Thing, They Wouldn't Understand

Dennis Prager observes that every religion has aspects that look downright kooky to outsiders. Religious views on chastity and sexuality fall in that category, especially in today's sex-drenched, id-driven culture.

A few points in Christine O'Donnell's defense:

Her chastity campaign was conducted within the Christian community and was not directed at passing any laws.  It spilled out into the larger culture as a direct resonse to the stupid liberal "just give them condoms and birth control pills" approach.

Birth control pills do nothing to prevent sexually transmitted diseases and they have a list of side effects and potential health hazards a mile long. Condoms only prevent a small subset of STDs, provided they work properly.

Finally, sex is a big deal, especially for emotion-driven adolescents still trying to find their place in the world. I have seen adults go nuts over relationship problems, and it's worse for hormonal raging teens. They are simply not ready to deal with the baggage.

So abstenence is not the joke the laughing hyenas on the left make it out to be.

O'Donnell is also attacked for equating self-pleasure with adultery. Well, if you're playing with yourself instead of your spouse, and when pornography on a computer screen takes the place of a flesh and blood partner, there might be some dysfunction going on.

Again, I stress that this is a conservative Christian belief that no one is forced to comply with. No laws, no secret cameras, no mastubation police knocking on your door. This is advice that free Americans can follow or reject in the privacy of their own conscience.

Democrats -- The Whackjob Party

Newsweek Democratic propagandist Sharon Begly breathlessly attacks O'Donnell's advocacy of mastering one's domain, making comically absurd statements along the way. She starts by saying maybe we should just give Christine a pass and ignore it all...

... but no, this issue is so weighty, mankind hangs in the balance!

"But that would be a mistake: the stakes are simply too high, going all the way up the very survival of our species."

Terrorism, falling birth rates, dwindling natural resources... These issues pale in comparison to the towering issue of self-indulgence!  Here's her central, laughable thesis:

"Were O’Donnell’s unscientific views of the practice to spread, it would be a worrisome threat to family values."

Family values???  "OK Johnny, wash your face, brush your teeth, and don't forget to play with yourself before bed..."  And they are calling Christine O'Donnell kooky?

Unscientific?  I love it when progressives with liberal arts degrees invoke science.  They know nothing whatsoever of the scientific method, but they fetishize science and genuflect at the very word. They scream "science!" as a debate silencer, when real scientists will tell you it is a debate opener.  Science is an investigation tool, not a bullwhip for enforcing politically-correct dogma.

We're All Animals

Here's my favorite part:

"Evidence from elephants to rodents to humans shows that masturbating is—counterintuitively—an excellent way to make healthy babies, and lots of them."

"... the practice has been documented in Japanese macaques, gibbons, baboons, chimps, elephants, dogs, cats, horses, lions, donkeys, “and walruses that manage to flog the bishop with their fins.”"

Animals also eat their own excrement and sniff each others butts. I've seen dogs and cats flop down on their backs in front of God and everybody, spread their legs and vigorously lick their private parts, so I don't think animal behavior is a reliable standard for gauging human activity.

She also posits a theory of "Masturbation might remove old, worn-out, broken sperm from the reproductive tract." Regular sex with your wife will do the same thing, and if you are not married you have no need to worry about "broken sperm."   I guess Al Gore could have used this excuse instead of the "releasing my chakras" line...

Angry Wankers, Vote Democrat!

Finally, I leave you with a link to an amusing parody of this issue by liberal funny guy Andy Borowitz. He inadvertantly tags the lunatic left for what they really are: Angry Wankers.

Saving Private Hitler

"Guilt"  Artist:  Mark Nickels

How would you like to be the medic who saved Hitler's life?

What a burden for a man named Johan Jambor, who was a WW I medic and treated a wounded Private Hitler. He died at age 94 in 1985, but had told his secret to priest Franciszek Pawlar, who kept a note of their conversation.













Johan’s friend Blassius Hanczuch confirmed the priest’s account of how the medic saved Hitler’s life. He said:

In 1916 they had their hardest fight in the Battle of the Somme. For several hours, Johan and his friends picked up injured soldiers. 

He remembers Hitler. They called him the ‘Screamer’. He was very noisy. Hitler was screaming ‘help, help’.

His abdomen and legs were all in blood. Hitler was injured in the abdomen and lost one testicle. His first question to the doctor was: ‘Will I be able to have children?’.”

Blassius said that when the Nazis swept to power Johan began to suffer nightmares and blame himself for saving Hitler.

You can go read the entire account in The Sun, a British Newspaper. The article focuses on Der Fuhrer's testicular deficiency, but I found the account of the medic who saved a future genocidal madman to be much more interesting. History takes some cruel twists...

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1945960.ece

Mark Nickels' Art

Weekend Wrap-Up

I'm trying to blog less and enjoy life more, so here are some links to good stuff...

Reason Mag:  Where's Muhammad?
Our dhimmi press is pissing down it's collective leg and voluntarily submitting to angry Islam.  Go read the Reason article that details the weak excuses newpaper editors gave for not running this cartoon.

Moonbattery - Obama Vacation Photos
These pics are funny.  Go check them out! 

MSNBC "Brand Insanity"
The website msnbc.com is trying to shake the nuts off of its tree.  It no longer want to be associated with the leftwing wackadoos at the cable channel MSNBC...

The television channel has carved a space out for itself in the network news wars by moving further and further to left-leaning content, such as the Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow shows.

The Web site wants to be a strictly objective news site without the liberal bent of the channel. Already, the two groups are separate companies and now they want separate names.

Paul Krugman, Partisan Hack
Lefty gargoyle Paul Krugman caught lying again...

In his Monday “Hey Small Spender” column, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman bizarrely denied that federal spending has significantly expanded over the past two years. 

Yet for his talk about a “fact-free” disinformation campaign, Krugman curiously provides no data on total federal spending. 

This is classic fact-free Krugman, just the way his economically ignorant liberal fanboys and fangirls like him.  The Heritage Foundation sets him straight, using the White House's own numbers:

According to President Obama’s own Office of Management and Budget—the keepers of the official data on government spending—federal spending has just finished its largest two-year surge in nearly 60 years, leaping from 20.7 percent of the economy to 25.4 percent (see Table 1.2 here), the highest spending level in American history outside of World War II.Overall, Washington is spending 23 percent more today than it did two years ago.

China's Pipelineistan
Lefties worldwide scream "No blood for oil!"  Like most tropes, there is a grain of truth.  Central Asia holds mineral and energy wealth, and like everybody else, we want a piece of it.   This article does a pretty good job summing it all up.

Vote for The Ground Zero Victory Mosque!

Vote Dhimmicrat!

The View from Crazy-Land

What a bucket of crabs The View is.  I don't know why anybody is watching it.

The latest theater of the absurd featured liberal women who are so open minded their brains have fallen out.  Muslims deny women basic rights, condone rape and kill homosexuals, but the shrieking harridans on The View are all for it because a vast majority of Americans are against it.

The left has been reduced to incoherent ranting and raving, incapable of making a coherent argument for any of their crack-brained ideas.

President Obama and his propagandists regularly berate us while continuing to blame anything and everything but themselves.  The democrats are now blaming voters for being too stupid to go along with their scams and ponzi schemes.



When I tuned into CSPAN and saw Ed Schultz at that pathetic 100 person union demonstration in DC a few weeks back, I thought it was a Hugo Chavez rally. 

Keith Olbermann continues to be a bad SNL parody of a self-important tv personality, and Rachel Madcow's impersonation of a serious anchorman is the biggest joke of all.  I love it when she puts on the very serious eyeglasses.

Your house is crumbling, lefties, because it's made of BS with a foundation of ignorance.

Gays in the Military

A federal judge this week ordered the DoD to halt it's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy.  Admiral Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has already said he is personally supportive of allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the armed forces.

I support the equal treatment of all people, and if the pentagon determines it can integrate homosexuals into our armed forced without threatening national security, then I'm all for it.
(This is an update of a previous article)






My problem with the judge's ruling is twofold:  

1)  It forces the military's hand.  Secretary Gates says he is working the issue, and we should take him at his word.  He has asked for time to get it right, and for the sake of national security and the well-being of all troops, gay and straight, we should give it to him.  We are fighting two wars and dealing with the personal problems that go along with it.  Doing this in a slapdash manner could damage morale, impede our fighting ability, and end up harming the cause of the very people it hopes to help.

2)  The constitutional rights argument is specious.  The military discriminates against women, old people, the handicapped, drug users and convicted criminals.  You surrender many rights when you put on a uniform, including the right to free speech, free assembly, and freedom from search and seizure.  You go where they tell you to go and do what they tell you to do.  You shut your pie hole when they tell you to, and you submit to random drug tests on demand.

A productive debate must be grounded in fact.  Here is some perspective from a veteran.  You may come away unconvinced, but at least you will see how the military is very different from civilian life. 

If it's good enough for the JCS Chairman, It's good enough for me

I'm not a fan of gay sex, but what people do in the privacy of their own lives is none of my business.  Also, I'm a veteran, and I've been in tight quarters with men and women out in the field, and if everybody keeps it professional there's no problem.  BTW, here's combat vet Uncle Jimbo's opinion, and he's way tougher than me:

“If I am lying by the road bleeding, I don’t care if the medic coming to save me is gay. I just hope he is one of those buff gay guys who are always in the gym so he can throw me over his shoulder and get me out of there.”

I agree with Uncle Jimbo, and many other vets do as well. The new generation serving now is even more tolerant, so I am not yet convinced that allowing gays to serve openly will be the calamity that some claim.

I didn't ask, they didn't tell...
I know Army and Navy vets who say that they were in units where it was an open secret that certain troops were gay.  Nobody asked, nobody told, and everybody minded their own damned business.  The closest I ever got to that was the rumor I heard that the Ramstein Dental Clinic was full of gay airmen.  Other than having second thoughts about being put under for treatment, I didn't really care (Hey, I was young and sexy back then...)

The military is a fairly conservative place, but it's not the morally pristine environment some imagine it to be

It is full of people who cuss, smoke, drink too much, take advantage of others who drink too much, commit adultery, steal, and consume pornography.  Libido-fueled swordfights and cat fights take place, and adding gays to the mix will merely increases the number of flashpoints.

The military is different.  Here are some points to ponder as you hear this debate play out:

- Your private life is not always private. You can be prosecuted for adultery or even associating with the wrong people on your off-duty time.  

- You can be severely punished for public behavior that would be shrugged off if you were a civilian, to include showing up to work late, dressing inappropriately and visiting places that are declared off-limits

- Morale and unit cohesion are very important. Lack of it can result in tragic mission failure and even death. This is an important motivator for people to team up despite different backgrounds and life outlooks

- Dress and grooming standards are strict, right down to how you paint your fingernails, how much and what type of jewelry may be worn, facial hair and grooming.

- In a combat AOR, dress codes are strict and unisex: Either you wear your uniform or you wear PT gear.

- In a combat AOR, PDA (Public Display of Affection) is verboten. Private display of affection is too. So basically, not only is consensual sex between a single man and single woman off limits, so is an innocent hand-holding date. Making an unwelcome pass at someone can result in harsh punishment.


These factors cut both ways 
The US military has a critical mission, and distractions and controversies can result in tragic consequences.  The US military is also a very disciplined organization that is adept at getting a diverse group of people to pull together and get the mission done.

* - If I support gay rights, why did I post that graphic? Because it's funny! I also can't help laughing at John Stewart when he's busting on conservatives...

Your Politicians: Drive 'em Like You Stole 'em!

The Colorado Governor's race is tightening, but political hero worship is killing the conservative cause

The tea party fell head over heels for Dan Maes, dark horse candidate for governor.  He's since been shown to be not-ready-for-prime-time and he's sinking below 15% in the polls, but a dedicated cohort is in love with him and can't let go.  Their love affair with their hero will probably throw the race to the liberal Democrat.

Political hero worship blinded us to Bush's wild progressive spending, and it put an inexperienced community organizer in the White House.

Enough is enough!  Even if the GOP takes back the house and senate, we've got to hold their feet to the fire.  I wrote this awhile back, but it bears repeating.


I don't see a hero when I see a politician, I see a vehicle that I hope will get me from point A to point B

Like Wall Street, The Big Three, and every other welfare queen standing in line, I see a politician as a vehicle to get us where we want to go. The difference is, I want it to go down Constitution Freeway, they want to steer it down Handout Highway.

We need to stop worshiping our politicians and start riding them like a stolen motorcycle. And when it don't go no more, ditch it and grab another one. That's how the hijackers who are looting our treasury see things.


It's time we grow up and drop the hero worship of our politicians, Republican or Democrat. 

We are not here to serve our government, our government serves us. Not by giving us things but by ensuring domestic tranquility, providing for the common defense and otherwise staying the hell out of the way.

Consider this quote by George Washington:

Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.

This dangerous servant has plundered our treasure, made off with the silver and good china, and flings a few pennies at us as it leaves our house in flames.

This fearful master squeezes more and more out of us and gives less and less in return. Our country is in debt and the government just keeps creating more. The candyman just can't stop doling out sweets to the overweight trick-or-treaters. And it all goes on your tab.

Time to grab the handlebars and drive it like you stole it.


For more information and background on the Colorado Governors race, follow the links below:
Teabagged:  The Downside of Dark Horses
Caught Between the Grassroots and the Establishment

What's Wrong With Islam

The Geert Wilders' kangaroo court trial exposes a sad European sickness that is killing their admirable liberalism.  It also reveals why Islam is incompatible with Western Civilization










Islam is incompatible with Western Civilization. 

Here is what a "moderate" imam has to say about the Wilders' trial:

Mohamed Rabbae, chairman of the moderate National Moroccan Council, said outside the court that he hoped judges would force Wilders to issue an apology for his past remarks.

"We are not for getting Mr. Wilders in prison. We are for correcting him," he said. (AP Google)

WRONG, JACKASS!!!

We do not use the coercive power of government to scold people into religious orthodoxy. If your religion is so damned good and truly God's word, it can stand on its own.

Western governments divorced themselves from religious powers centuries ago, declaring a separation of church and state, leaving each to its own sovereign domain, one earthly and one spiritual.  We don't "submit" to Christianity, we worship of our own volition (or not).  We damned sure will not submit to your anti-gay, anti-woman, bigoted ideology. 

Europe's Pusillanimous pissing down its collective leg in the face of angry Islam is alarming, disheartening and ultimately destructive to the fundamental freedoms we all hold dear.

To be fair, our European cousins only realized too late that they had let in a ferocious beast, which is now becoming the master.  They cannot throw the beast out; the best they can hope for is to tame it.  But history shows there is no conciliation between Islam and the infidel.  The parasite inevitably destroys the host.  It is not "submit or die," but rather "submit and die."

Europe: Dar Al-Islam

The Archbishop of York, from the pulpit of Westminster Abbey, said the following at the state funeral of Sir Winston Churchill:

Thank God for his leadership in times of peril and for a life richly gifted and lavishly spent.

Thank God, indeed. Now, the old defiance is gone from the empire. Deep in the darkest throes of World War II, Sir Winston reassured the continent...

"It will not be by German hands that the structure of Europe will be rebuilt."

No, here in the 21st Century, it will be Muslim hands that remake the structure of Europe.

This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
-- TS Eliot

Oliver Wendell Holmes -- Progressive Icon

Exploring the Roots of Progressism

Controversy equalizes fools and wise men - and the fools know it.  -- Oliver Wendell Holmes

Oliver Wendell Holmes was an interesting man. Highly educated, intelligent and pithy.  He was the son of abolitionists, a thrice-wounded Civil War veteran, and he was put on the Supreme Court by President Theodore Roosevelt, who later regretted his decision.





Holmes also did much to break down the constitutional bulwark constructed to guard our liberties, and the progressive hordes stormed through the breach.

Law Professor Michael Arians sums up Holmes's judicial philosophy:

Holmes’ jurisprudence is the wellspring for much of current American views about jurisprudence. Holmes 1) tuned everyone to a social view of law—"The life of the law has not been logic, it has been experience;" 2) was perceived to advocate judicial restraint when (conservative) judicial activism was denounced by progressives; 3) advanced the idea of law as prediction, thus leading to the is/ought of legal realism; 4) urged a view of law from the perspective of a bad man, which led to a form of authoritarian control; and 5) argued for a thoroughgoing positivism (and opposition to moral language in law).  (Ariens - Oliver Wendell Holmes)

Holmes was in the vanguard of abandoning a strict rule of law and replacing it with "empathetic" interpretations.  His judicial restraint abetted progressives in building the state-friendly legal framework that tramples our rights to this day.

Between two groups of people who want to make inconsistent kinds of worlds, I see no remedy but force.  -- Oliver Wendell Holmes

 Progressivism is Statism

Progressivism is neither "liberal" nor "conservative."  The Wilson progressives were pro-war, anti-alcohol, and violated the rights of anarchists, smut peddlers, war protesters, and communists.

the Progressive movement was a comprehensive drive for statism and big government across the board – in every area of American life, from the economy to foreign policy to the treatment of dissent, and even to sex and the consumption of alcohol. The movement was a coalition of certain big business groups and new circles of technocratic intellectuals, devoted to a planned and cartelized economy in which they would share the rule.  (Murray Rothbard - Wilson's Raiders)

Militarism, globalism, domestic spying, and the ever burgeoning cohort of alphabet soup agencies are all products of progressivism.

When you deprecate natural rights as Holmes did, you are left with whatever the state decides you deserve.

Murray Rothbard - Wilson's Raiders
Michael Ariens - Holmes
Brainy Quotes - Oliver Wendell Holmes

Protesting the Protesters

Instead of simply reporting on conservative and libertarian uprisings, the press decided to take up the cause of the ancien regime and do combat with the tea partiers. 


“Man has such a predilection for systems and abstract deductions that he is ready to distort the truth intentionally, he is ready to deny the evidence of his senses only to justify his logic” --Fyodor Dostoyevsky









Reductio Ad Absurdum: Who gets there faster, Big Government Advocates or Tea Partiers?

The press is good at taking something an ordinary American says at a Tea party and deconstructing it down to absurdity, often going after syntactical errors or poorly constructed arguments. "See?" They say, "These people don't even know what they're protesting!"

The cognoscenti say "This lady receives social security and medicare and she's protesting big government! What a hypocrite!" This statement is itself illogical and dishonest: Protesting a system you're coerced to participate in is hardly hypocritical, but anyway...

They find one little loose thread and pick at it until they unravel the fabric.

This is a valid line of attack in logical argumentation, but these reporters are still being dishonest. Their role is not to debate newsmakers, but report the news. They expose a logical error or mangled syntax to discredit the messenger and, by implication, her message. All good and fair, but this obscures the larger truth, and I think they do it on purpose.

“Pure logic is the ruin of the spirit.”
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The Meta-Narrative: You may have discredited this particular example, but the larger truth still remains

The left makes the same cry I am now making when they find recourse in the "meta-narrative." e.g. "Maybe the latest racist attack was a hoax, but racism still exists!"

Or, "OK, so that family Newsweek claimed was driven to bankruptcy by health care costs is not really broke. They own expensive real estate. But medical costs really do bankrupt some families!"

The press eats this propaganda up and spreads it like manure, where a thousand liberal fantasies bloom. No argumentation, no logic examinations, just channeling the emotion.

Things like racism and health care problems are real, but hard to put a quantitative finger on. Bad things happen.  As Dr Sowell points out, in a nation of over a quarter billion people, improbable events are commonplace. The press can be relied upon to point out every obscure event that buttresses the liberal cry that, "something must be done!"

“Nature cares nothing for logic, our human logic: she has her own, which we do not recognize and do not acknowledge until we are crushed under its wheel”
-- Ivan Turgenev

We don't need no stinking meta-truths!
The present conservative and libertarian concerns are valid: We really are in debt, our government really has invaded every corner of our lives, and people really don't trust institutions anymore. These are measurable, objective facts. We don't need meta-truths: The real thing is on display!

* Unemployment at 10%, while the "stimulus" removes capital from the marketplace, leaving businesses unable to expand and hire more people.

* Government taking our money from the US Treasury and giving it to politically-connected banks, businesses and unions

* Government apparatchiks telling us how to sneeze, how to wash our hands, and a gaggle of nattering nannies scolding us about nutrition, compassion and racism

* A government insinuating itself deeper and deeper into our lives with endless tangles of red tape

* Government spending money it does not have, and encouraging citizens to do the same, putting us in hock to China, devaluing the dollar and eroding our savings

Politicians, liberal agitators, and their enablers in the press launch a farrago of rhetoric and argumentation to defend it all, but common sense people who know nothing of formal logic and debate do know that our nation cannot survive if this continues.

The jig is up. 


Obama picture source:   https://billstclair.com/

GOP Destroyed America!

Republicans stand guilty of collaboration with progressives

Market Watch's Paul Farrell has written a scathing critique of Republicans, entitled GOP Destroyed the US Economy, where he comments on Reagan OMB Director David Stockman's stinging rebuke of Republican economic policy.

I'm particularly attuned to Reagan criticism, since I combat so much of it in Left Blogistan.  Lefty critiques are incoherent babble, easily refuted, but the libertarian thrusts draw blood.  Farrell and Stockman, though not libertarians, nonetheless deploy classic Rothbardian arguments (excepting their advocacy for higher taxes and protectionism).

Here Are the Four Republican Sins that Set Us on the Road to Perdition

• Nixon reneging on the Bretton Woods agreement and completely decoupling the US dollar from the price of gold.  The precipitous decline of our dollar is the result
• Crushing debts, from domestic pork and overseas adventures
• Corporate welfare for Wall Street
• Addiction to cheap crap and easy money has hollowed out our economy

We are a Progressive Nation
All I can say in defense of Republicans is they worked with what they had.  Give a sculptor a pile of dung, and she can sculpt something with it.  It won't come out as beautiful as her work in clay...

Progressives built a doomsday device.  Try to dismantle it and it will explode, destroying our nation and society.  You can't starve the beast without starving granny.

But this excuse won't fly anymore.  If the GOP gets power back, they had better use it to shatter the existing system, or we are done for.

Free Markets, Free People:  Let's try it here in America
We have been suffering under the fallacy that there is not downside to government programs.  Austrian School libertarian Kel Kelly provides some guidance:

in a free market, we would not need government "protection" because we would be protected by tough competition in the marketplace. If one company tried to underpay or overcharge us, there would be many more companies we could turn to that were offering higher wages and lower prices (i.e., market wages and prices) in order to attract us.

Companies would therefore find ways to produce with lower costs, a goal they could more easily accomplish with more capital available to them. The more capital they employed and the greater workers' corresponding productivity, the higher the market wages.

Stop the Printing Presses!

And without the government's manipulation of interest rates and the printing of money, there would be no wide-scale malinvestment, and therefore no recessions and financial crises. In this case, prices would fall instead of rise most years, and our lives would generally improve through time.

You could also save your money in a safe, low interest bank account and not have it nibbled away by inflation, thereby being able to support yourself in your old age.


Failure:  Businesses go broke - Government grows bigger

No central planner can determine what is best for each of us individually or in the aggregate. The economy works only though individual decisions and choices.
No politician can help companies produce more efficiently or in a way that better pleases consumers. By using market prices and rates of profit, businesses generally best determine what we individuals want for our lives. If they judge correctly and produce what we need and desire, they succeed; if they don't, they die.

Government, on the other hand, dictates what it wants us to have, and has no system of profit and loss to determine whether it is succeeding in pleasing its "customers," or whether it is producing or destroying wealth in the process. Since it can't determine its success or failure in money terms, it is necessarily always destroying wealth on a net basis. And since government is a monopoly, it does not allow competitors for us to turn to.

Is government doing a "good job?"

The only real test of whether a "good job" is done is whether or not it has become easier for people — all people — to achieve an increased living standard from one year to the next, given the same amount of labor hours performed.

Excerpts from Mises.org: Kel Kelly - Can Politicians Help Us?