Hoping, like DeVine Law Gamecock to hear a Commander-in-Chief tonight, for the first time since President George W. Bush’s farewell?

Don’t count on it.

It appears that President Barack Obama already leaked the warrior-related details Monday, before the Charlie Brown Christmas preemption speech in prime time tonight:

President Obama issued orders to send about 30,000 additional American troops to Afghanistan as he prepared to address the nation Tuesday night to explain what may be one of the most defining decisions of his presidency.

Mr. Obama conveyed his decision to military leaders late Sunday afternoon during a meeting in the Oval Office and then spent Monday phoning foreign counterparts, including the leaders of Britain, France and Russia.

Mr. Gibbs told reporters at the White House that Mr. Obama would discuss in the speech how he intended to pay for the plan — a major concern of his Democratic base — and would make clear that he had a time frame for winding down the American involvement in the war.

No mention of victory as more troops get sent into a war zone. Oh no, merely ending “involvement”. Sounds like Obama thinks America was mere bystander as Afghans on horses scared Obama into Pakistan.

As we discussed yesterday, when Democrats speak of “exit strategies”, they really mean surrender/cut and run. They give the enemy a time schedule so they can better prepare their supply lines and plan their next attacks.

Why overdo it now, when the Great Satan is telling you when attacks will be more fruitful.

And oh yes, we finally get to the real crux of this speech: Taxes.

Let’s raise taxes and call it exit strategy.

For the Democratic Party, taking the fruits of one’s labor trumps all other issues, even including, ah hell, especially including war.

President Obama, would you please surprise us and your advisers tonight and deliver a Commander-in-Chief call for victory in this war against those that put holes in Manhattan, the Pentagon and the Keystone State?

Isn’t winning this war and thus deterring enemies from more attacks at least as important as socializing America health care for everyone but you, fellow D.C. politicians, federal employees and unions?

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

Gamecock just announced the dawning of the first Black Friday in his memory that won’t be black and Cockstradamus crows at the dawning of the feared double-dip recession; but JimmyCrackCorn and ObamaDems don’t care.

Red Friday I

DeVine Law won’t be in the North American shopping mall equivalent of the Running of the Bulls today, but he never is nor will be. His three main goals in life are to never get hot; never be forced to speak to a Police between Dusk and Dawn; and never, ever go to a shopping mall (Drug stores on Christmas Eve have plenty of presents to choose from, but I digress.)

But now that Thanksgiving Day 2009 (brought to you by Pilgrims, Washington, Lincoln and God) is over, can we get serious about how much more we would like to be thankful for on Thanksgiving Day 2010 so that Black Friday 2010 has a darker hue than today’s in the red one?

Character Test

We spoke last year of being tested as a people no matter whether Obama or McCain prevailed, given the loss of so much housing and other wealth and given the state of debt held by individuals and government.

The test was going to be bad enough without a government, at one hostile to the Liberty that leads to wealth creation and enamored of economic-crisis driven blank checks for government growthulus.

Porkulus is more caring than Govenment Growthulus

Then we were served up a Dems Don’t Care about the poor and middle class non-Stimulus better characterized as Government Growthulus, not the more ubiquitous epithet of “porkulus.”

Cockstradamus laughed on January 13th of this year when Hugh Hewitt’s wide-eyed economic optimist Brian Wesbury announced the “most intense” period of the recession behind us. We hope that HH. BW and Larry Kudlow-ites have enjoyed moving the shells of the Dow Jones game around as they have followed the wave of deficit spending on saved and created pencil-pushing state, local and federal government jobs as well as Bernanke’s assault on the once Almighty Dollar. Hope that 2.8% downward revised GDP in the Third Quarter warmed your soul for the intensity of accumulated long-term unemployment that will make January 2009 look like salad days even to Wesburyites, as they read CBO Director Doug Elmendorf:

CBO Director Elmendorf said today the country has not yet seen the worst of joblessness, despite some encouraging signs of economic growth.

Speaking at the American Association for Budget and Program Analysis’ fall conference, Elmendorf said the CBO projection of this past summer, which saw the unemployment rate peaking at 10.5 percent next year, underestimated the autumn’s rise in jobless numbers. The rate hit 10.2 percent in October.

“We are weighing our precise forecast going forward,” Elmendorf said, adding that the employment picture is expected to get worse before it gets better.

CBO has forecast that it will take years before unemployment falls to a “sustainable” level of 5 percent, Elmendorf said, because the current jobless numbers are so high.

“If one judges the pain of a recession by the excess of the unemployment rate over the long-run level … this picture is very clear that most of the pain of the recession is ahead of us, not behind us,” he said.

All things Stimulus

Stimulus I consisted of several parts:

a) safety-net unemployment and COBRA health insurance for the truly needy;
b) one-time, approx. $400 individual tax cuts for incomes under $250K;
c) public works pork; and
d) Government Growthulus increases in the federal bureaucracy and aid to states, who used them to retain government employees.

Ford has a better idea

Ford Motor Company and many other non-bailed out companies have so far weathered the creative destruction of this Great Recession to post profits with less employees. But never let government have to do that. We all know we need every last school administrator backing up the lowly teachers.

COBRA

But, Gamecock favored the extensions of unemployment and COBRA and favors even further extensions now. Unemployment comp has been extended, but I urge all to support H.R. 3930, introduced by Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., on extending COBRA.

We also favored a massive public works program to put people to work IN 2009! But instead, we got a puny public works program that mainly printed signs in 2009 with most all of the tiny budget for public works to be spent in the few months before Election 2010, so that voters see a shovel beside a “This project funded by the Recovery Act” sign.

ObamaDems don’t care about the poor

ObamaDems didn’t care about the suffering of the 10-17% unemployed in 2009 and the first half of 2010. They do care about getting re-elected and hope they have made enough of the unemployed victim dependents by next Election day.

I only wish Stimulus I had served up more pork, as we await the likely servings of no better than Tofu with the Jobs Summit and Stimulus II.

Yes, I would love for a real stimulus to come out of Obama’s December Jobs Summit and that it be called Stimulus II, or even, Barack Obama We Love you II, if it were a real stimulus.

While I don’t share the optimism of Rush Limbaugh and others that even the supply-side tax and regulation cuts that have always worked in the past (see 1920s, 1960s and 1983-2006) would work as quickly as in the past, until we start laying the foundation for wealth and job creation, we are simply prolonging suffering unnecessarily.

Or is the suffering necessary?

Maybe it is necessary that we suffer so that our minds are concentrated on the hideous results of Big Government and failed liberal Democratic Party policies.

Democrats took over the House and Senate in January 2007. The Great recession started in December 2007, nine months before the credit crunch. The repeal of Bush Republican policies on taxes and regulations is the reason, even before the Dems’ Fannie Mae protection plan via Senate filibusters took hold.

Is it possible that fears of a massive Gingrich-like 1994 repeat could get ObamaDems to rethink the spread the wealth already accumulated strategy and actually enact policies that would encourage, rather than demonize private sector job and wealth creation?

I doubt it, but if we are to have more to be thankful for next year, the Reagan, JFK, Coolidge way is the only way.

Savings are key to future growth

But one other way will also be a necessary part of any recovery, and that will be the way the author of Thanksgiving set out in his Holy Bible, and that will be to build houses on solid rock rather than sand and to store up goods for rainy days.

The fact is that Obama can push housing tax credits (and I favor them); small business loan subsidies (and I favor them), but until people save up money that makes them feel secure enough to risk money on a business and until lenders see the likelihood of profits being earned from new loans, there won’t be any real, REAL job producing loans. Instead, all we will get are the next moves towards the next bubbles.

Want to have a more stimulating 2010 with more to be thankful for on the last Thursday in November and really, really Black Friday?

Dare ObamaDems

Dare Blue Dawgs to vote for any health care bill that doesn’t end state monopolies and enact federal tort reform. Dare them to pass an energy tax assault on the poor and middle class cap and trade. Dare them lest we cap them and trade them in for Republicans that won’t make Pelosi and Reid sycophants for ObamaDems and JimmyCrackCorn, because them don’t care.

We do remain thankful for God’s Providence, especially including Obama’s inexperience. Can you imagine the threadbare clothing we would be in crisis over if the Obama Administration were actually competent?

We are also very thankful for the good work that Rush Limbaugh (no thanks to Newt) has done over the years in exposing the hoax of man-made global warming, which forms the latest basis for post-Berlin Wall socialists to tear down Liberty and the wealth it produces that makes us lemmings less dependent on Obamas.

Yet, even in the face of the exposed hoax, President Obama is going to Copenhagen to vow the continues assault on American Tiny Tims this winter.

The Ghosts of Christmas past, present and future await Scrooge in 2010 and 2012.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.

Before disabusing readers of Drive-By Media-driven notions that moderate Democrats and extremist Republicans actually exist [portions of this column originally appeared as, generally, "Moderate Democrats and Extremist Republicans don't exist" at Modern Conservative, as well as Examiner.com and here at Redstate.com] in the modern world, let this Gamecock’s announcement of his Modern Conservative dawn (debut) also crow of what modernized this former liberal Democrat into a proud Reaganite.

DeVine Law will conclude with suggestions of how social conservatives and libertarians must strongly ally themselves to prevent the de-modernization of these United States.

Pre-modern conservatives lost elections

From the 1950s debut of William F. Buckley‘s National Review magazine and Whittaker Chambers‘ publication of his ”Witness” autobiography; through the Barry Goldwater and Gerald Ford defeats in the 60s and 70s, the only Republican bright spots were Richard Nixon‘s electoral victories, which were basically devoid of any conservative policy triumphs.

The most conservative events before the 1981 Dawn of the Modern Conservative Era, were President John F. Kennedy‘s recovery-inducing supply-side income tax rate cuts and blockade of Russian missile-laden Cuba.

Fortunately, America was able to survive and prosper in the pre-modern era due to many shared conservative values among the members of both, then moderate, parties. That circumstance basically ended when Lee Harvey Oswald‘s magic bullets found their mark in 1963.

The left took over the world’s oldest political party while the still-moderate Grand Old Party eventually secured tennis court passes from Speaker Tip O’Neil, but were unable to prevent the betrayal of the Hmong, South Vietnamese and the kicking of the black man out the house so Uncle Sam could be daddy.

Then came Reagan, Newt and Rush

Modern conservatism has incorporated all, and I mean all, that was good about classic liberalism, whether it be President Ronald Reagan‘s acceptance of the “safety net for the truly needy”; Martin Luther King’s content of character mantle; or the liberty to retain most of the fruits of one’s labor so as to maximize happiness pursuits.

Unapologetic and unabashed conservatism wins every time it’s tried. I know, for, as a county chairman, delegate, and activist in the Democratic Party during the 80s and 90s, I waved good-bye to national security, pro-life democrats wracked by the failed policies of the filibuster-proof Democratic Party majority James Earl Carter years, as they joined the Gipper and saved America and the World from inflation-caused economic disaster and the Red menace.

But it wouldn’t be until my 2001 move from trial lawyer to corporate work/column writing and from Spartanburg to Atlanta that my conservative epiphany would be made manifest.

After 5000 years, conservatives have reached some conclusions

Unshackled by the parochial concerns in my hometown, and educated for 12 years by Rush Limbaugh’s EIB network, this former JFK Democrat proclaimed himself a Modern Conservative before September 11, 2001. After all, I had:

• Always called the Soviet empire, evil;
• Experienced the fruits of supply-side throughout the Reagan recovery, including the Newt-induced continuation during the Clinton years; and was
• Repulsed by the Borking of Judges Robert and Clarence.

I eschewed the failed policies of Democrats from 1964-2000, including those of President Bill Clinton before the 1994 Rush/Gingrich revolution; was repelled by merely bombing Afghanistan night watchmen after the 1998 African embassy bombings while seducing near-minor interns; and favored George W. Bush’s tax cuts to McCain’s crooked-talk and Gore’s multiple personalities.

One of my favorite quotes of William F. Buckley from his Firing Line PBS talk show, was that one of the main differences between liberals and conservatives is that “after 5000 years of human history, conservatives have reached some conclusions.”

After 38 years, DeVine Law reached those same conclusions.

Then came the ObamaDem assault on all things exceptional about America

I, like Charles Krauthammer in the latest National Review cover story (dead-tree magazine only), don’t mind self-identifying as a “neo-con”, given my support for a robust and aggressive foreign policy that liberates Grenadas and makes Iraqs into Connecticuts after removing evil regimes that threaten American security. I see national security conservative as a synonymous label.

I usually self-identify as a social conservative, though, due to the ubiquity of false stereotypes in the media and even within the conservative movement, and because this country was founded upon Judeo-Christian values that are under assault, and have been since the 60s.

But in truth, conservatism is most aptly defined economically by a preference for as small a government as we can stand, for whenever we hand over responsibilities to the government, we necessarily give up a portion of our Liberty.

Conservatives and Americans of all stripes that still share a love of Liberty and a belief in American exceptionalism, now face an unprecedented threat to our liberty that requires that we all ally ourselves electorally behind a force that can not just arrest the advance of ObamaDem socialism (much as Reagan with Boll weevils and Newt with a triangulator), but that can REVERSE it.

For that one must coalesce in ONE PARTY in a filibuster-proof Senate, strong majority House of Representatives and the White House. It begins in Election 2010.

The loss of Liberty will not be reversed by a third party nor by a coalition of Republicans and Blue Dawg Democrats

You dreamers of a new third-party GOP rising from Whig ashes, wake up. Ain’t gonna happen.

Dreamers that Blue Dawgs in the Senate (There is only 1-8 real blue dawgs in the joke of a House, so we skip it.) will continue to protect us from high energy taxes via Cap and Trade and a Public Option, wake up.

For ObamaDems and Bernankes that are destroying the U.S. dollar with trillions in non-stimuli (that passed the blue dawg House and Senate btw) as we speak, don’t you know the lessons of Louisiana (Landriue) Purchase II, will not be lost on Nelsons, Bayhs and Lincolns. Start the bidding at $300M.

And abortions will be banned to give some dems cover. But don’t worry, you can count on one hand, the number of abortions that won’t happen because of that. Its a non-issue the dems will use to get socialism writ large as we all thank God that “only” 49,000,000 more abortions will be had in the next 26 years as since 1973′s Roe v. Wade, rather than the 49,000,004 that would be had if government paid for them. Not even enough lives saved to put 5 basketball players on the court, but I digress.

But what of Independent Democrat Senator Joe ‘don’t need no stinkin’ public option’ Lieberman? The ObamaDems will find nomenclature and devices to satisfy Joe. I hope he proves me wrong, and I certainly admire his career-long hawkish national security defense stances and his moral voice against Bill Clinton, but somehow I think a provision protecting the insurance industry (See stronger mandate threats of imprisonment if you don’t get the Colonial Life rider?) will be inserted that will re-write what “public” and “options” mean in Merriam-Webster.

Bottom line: We face permanent deconstruction of America if WE THE PEOPLE don’t reverse, and I mean REVERSE (not just stop further advances) the policies put in place by ObamaDems before the 2010 election.

The GOP is the ONLY vehicle to save America short of a Revolution

And given the action against the Navy Seals and the KSM trial, I think the ObamaDems are perfectly capable of instigating a revolution. In fact, one could argue that Obama already fired on Fort Sumter equivalents.

I said all the above, in part, to say this to my social conservative friends

In some cases, in order to win super, filibuster-proof majorities in Congress, we will have to support economic conservatives that are libertarian on social issues. Do the math.

But not to worry, most social policy is made at the state and local level or the courts, and as of now, we have a 5-4 majority on most social issues. Yes, on abortion, we need another vote, but let’s cross that bridge in 2012 by retaining the pro-life plank, pro-traditional marriage plank, federalism advocacy; and nominate only a pro-life presidential nominee.

But conservatives can re-take the GOP only with libertarian help, and an appeal to federalism is the ticket to satisfy both sides. I don’t think this media and Frum-Brooks supposed schism is actually very real, and don’t think social conservatives will have to compromise on this matter very often. But let us embrace the John Stossel’s of the world who share our abhorrence of the far left meddlers that would take away all of our liberty unless we reverse this slouching towards Gomorrah, NOW!

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.

Dick Morris echoes Gamecock’s 2006 crowing of the Myth of Moderate Democrats

The man who saved Bill Clinton from the far left of the Democratic Party but who was unable to get him to carpet bomb Osama bin Laden’s lair, wrote this week of the myth of the moderate Democrat. Naturally, this author of the 2006, Drawl and that’s all: The Myth of the Moderate Southern Democrat in D.C., was intrigued by the echo.

Dick Morris wrote mostly of a more specialized version of the rot of the party Andrew Jackson made famous, with his description of the Pelosi cloakroom bargaining for the right of her “blue dawg” subjects to vote against socialized medicine, so long as the bill could be passed to the Senate.

My three year old column was compelled by my experiences of:

• The disconnect between the election years’ rhetoric of MSM and self-described “moderates” like House member John Spratt and Senator Ernest Hollings of my Palmetto State home;
• The voting records of nearly all (the very few exceptions, see Alabama’s Parker Griffith, prove  the rule) Democrats as compared to nearly all Republicans, including their most liberal;
• The Democratic Party’s unpatriotic launch of the “Bush-lied Era” after 911; and
• The musings of the most famous moderate Democrat of the all.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

I do not deny that in many, if not most ways, Bill Clinton’s presidency was a success. I give much credit to Bubba’s Southern-learned pragmatism, but most of the credit must go to the Reagan slayings of inflation and the USSR, as well as his wealth-producing tax and regulation cuts.

This elephant’s ears haven’t forgotten the DNC, supposed moderate, Donkey-in-Chief’s broken middle class tax cut promise; Justices Breyer and Ginsburg; missile technology to China; and the pardoning of FALN terrorists during his last days.

Our Oscar Wilde side is also still repelled by the disconnect between the picture of what WJC did after Newt weilded the Speaker’s gavel, and what he has said walking the earth like a 21st century Dorian Gray, from his:

1. 2003 praise of Iran as the foreign nation’s government most akin to his values;
2. Conversion to the pagan religion of man-made global warming scare merchant-in-chief;
3. Recent admission from the signer of the Defense of Marriage Act under the Gingrich guillotine that he was “always for gay marriage”;
4. The womanizer-in-chief’s recent  public utterance characterizing small-government tea party advocates as gay orgy “tea baggers”; and
5. The public airing of his cynical permanent campaign ideology (shared by President Obama and the late communist Saul Alinsky) admonishing congressional democrats to “pass anything” so they can claim political victory since, after all, they can amend it later.

And that is the best “moderate” the Democrats have?

Yes, it is.

My former party is vile and wrong. It is a vampire that needs a stake driven through its heart in the sunlight. The closest it gets to being killed is usually by the Carter and Obama-like suicides induced by the re-education of mostly non-political independents and duped useful idiot Democrats in the failings of liberal economic and domestic policies as well as the aggression-inviting weakness all Democrats exude to enemies abroad.

I refer to conservatives that vote for Democrats by Lenin’s “useful idiot” term because, given that the left has made Democratic Party its home base for 60+ years, and given their takeover since 1963 (and especially since 2001), any vote for a “D’, empowers the left from the time of their first vote for a Jack Ass speaker to their procedural votes to ram through non-stimuli.

Modern conservatives must disabuse themselves of the notion that there  is not a dimes worth of difference between the parties.

My last calculation found a $1.4 trillion difference between ObamaDems’ first budget and George W. Bush’s worst. It is ObamaDems that want to hike energy taxes on the poor and middle class; usurp your right to choose health insurance; and retreat from defending our Liberty abroad.

The policies of the ObamaDems are extreme by any objective, substantive measure, against nearly any American government from George Washington through George W. Bush.

And if our only hope to keep the City Shining on the Hill are so-called Blue Dawgs, then just go ahead and turn off the lights. I have every confidence that Bayh, Nelsons and Lincolns will let me down again. In fact, the only time I have ever had any expectations met by a Democrat of any kind since 1963 or by a Blue Dog, ever, it has been by this one:

Yet, it is Republicans that always get called “extremists”

Extremists have never held sway in the GOP. Ever. Oh DeVine, you may say, but what about Nixon’s “southern strategy” and those religious right “nuts.”

The Republican Party was born to oppose slavery; was prevented from granting civil rights to Blacks by the Democratic Party for decades after the Civil War; and voted in greater numbers than LBJ’s democrats for the 1964-5 civil and voting rights acts.

Nixon sought votes in the South? Who knew? Yes, former segregationist, mostly southern democrats bolted the Democratic Party in the 60s and 70s, but they never got the first quid pro quo in terms of legislation, judges or policies from the Party of Lincoln.

Most Americans disapprove of abortion as birth control and a majority self-describe as pro-life.

Modern conservatives will only enjoy a governing majority that can turn back ObamaDem socialism by allying themselves with social conservatives. We win with the Reagan-Rush message. We lose with the McCains and Rockefeller country clubbers whose wives and daughters forget to take the pill.

But then, are moderate Republicans of any use?

Yes, but only if they are followers and/or joiners on conservatives’ terms. If moderates lead the GOP, the nation is pulled to the left. The liberals already have a party. Its called the Democratic Party, and as we have seen, it is controlled by the real extremists of any substantial numbers, i.e. leftists.

Moderates, by definition, don’t stand for much of anything, and so are drawn into parochial and institutional concerns, rather than the national interests on substance.

Hence, the supposed “need” to pass something. The use of the anti-conservative mantra that to do “nothing” is unacceptable. The bringing home of the pork. The “need” to reach across the aisle and find a compromise solution. You know, the kind that solve no problem; actually makes the problem worse; but does allow for “maverick” re-election campaigns.

But, given that the northeastern United States continue to enjoy statehood status despite my “reverse-Secession” call for returning them to territorial status and requiring that they pass some Constitution Amendments to rejoin the Union, we must abide the presence of a certain number of moderates after they defeat conservatives in primaries.

We must win a majority in the House and a filibuster-proof super-majority in the Senate if we are to actually reverse the century-long trend to the left that has us slouching towards Gomorrah.

And then there are the “appropriators” that Redstate’s pilgrim describes as under the “moderate” label. I invite that persistent cuss to expound on that sub-category for our enlightenment.

[Portions of this column originally appeared in my debut column with Modern Conservative dot com.]

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

[Part one of Mike DeVine's report on Fox Business Channel's, John Stossel's speech last week at Atlanta's Emory University Law School may be reviewed here.]

No more Emmys for you

John Stossel made a name for himself at ABC as the nation’s best consumer affairs reporter. Last Wednesday, before  his “Bashing Business” lecture at Emory Law School’s Tull Auditorium, John Stossel was introduced as a six-time Emmy award winner.

After describing his metamorphosis from big government liberal to free market libertarian, Stossel advised the audience that he won no more Emmys when he started defending private business. He thinks that the fact that market competition actually protects consumers more than government is just too counter-intuitive for too many people in an affluent society that take wealth creation for granted.

DeVine Law agrees, but during a conversation with Atlanta’s guest, we both also agreed that possibly the best hope for a political education in the incompetence of Big Government is taking place as we speak, courtesy of the ObamaDems.

Americans don’t like meddlers

Your humble rooster greeted Stossel as a conservative fan, and even after he described his radical libertarianism (favors abortion on demand; same-sex marriage and drug legalization), we still welcome his philosophy with open arms as his consistency in opposition to government meddling in the affairs of adults, is quite impressive.

No, DeVine Law is still a pro-life defender of marriage who favors a go slow approach on surrendering in the Drug War, and would a oppose such libertarian GOP primary candidates who face strong conservatives that share Stossel’s pure conservative economic views.

But we can’t build a governing majority at the federal level without libertarians, and Stossel is as good an advocate for the free market in economics as one can find. Stossel recently on the Health Care Bill now before Congress:

The 1,990-page bill is breathtaking in its bone-headed audacity. The notion that a small group of politicians can know enough to design something so complex and so personal is astounding. That they were advised by “experts” means nothing since no one is expert enough to do that. There are too many trade-offs faced by unique individuals with infinitely varying needs.

Government cannot do simple things efficiently. The bureaucrats struggle to count votes correctly. They give subsidized loans to “homeowners” who turn out to be 4-year-olds. Yet congressmen want government to manage our medicine and insurance.

Competition is a “discovery procedure,” Nobel-prize-winning economist F. A. Hayek taught. Through the competitive market process, we producers and consumers constantly learn things that force us to adjust our behavior if we are to succeed. Central planners fail for two reasons:

First, knowledge about supply, demand, individual preferences and resource availability is scattered — much of it never articulated — throughout society. It is not concentrated in a database where a group of planners can access it.

Second, this “data” is dynamic: It changes without notice.

No matter how honorable the central planners’ intentions, they will fail because they cannot know the needs and wishes of 300 million different people. And if they somehow did know their needs, they wouldn’t know them tomorrow.

His opposition to “meddlers” reminds of what I consider the sine qua non discourse on same at Hillbilly Politics:

We all know at least one person who meddles in everybody else’s business… and we hate them. There are any number of reasons why we hate them but the most frequent answer to such a question as why is we are adults, not children, and can handle our own lives just fine without interference…

So what does that have to do with politics, you ask?

Simply, if we hate that kind of interference in our daily lives, why did a majority of Americans elect to office a bunch of meddling mothers and mothers-in-law?

* You can’t stimulate the economy by restricting it. If you’re lucky you merely maintain the status quo. If you’re unlucky, as is usually the case, the meddlers make things worse. Propping up failing businesses that didn’t tend to the business of business, aka customer service, only closes the window of opportunity for others to do it better. Entrepreneurship languishes in limbo in this case.

* You can’t replace existing energy with energy that hasn’t been developed yet and you can’t force it by restricting the use of existing energy resources…

You can read all of StephC’s essay here.

After that, check out John Stossel’s 2006 bestseller,  Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel – Why Everything You Know is Wrong (now in paperback).

Liberals prefer to pass new laws when existing laws are more than adequate

One of the most prescient points that Stossel made in Atlanta last week, that was also made by Bob Barr of the AJC, echoes something I discerned about liberals long ago, when in my trial lawyer heyday. Someone would commit a crime or someone would be hurt at work or by a product and the liberal (and, to be fair, not a small number of Republicans in legislatures) knee-jerk response would be to pass a new law to “solve the problem.”

No matter that the “problem” is us. Since Eve bit the apple or, to be more specific, since Cain slew Abel, man has killed, stolen, and been negligent. Moses gave us the Ten Commandments and England gave us the Common Law, and there hasn’t been much improvement on them over the past 3000 years.

But that doesn’t stop leftist Utopians from thinking they can meddle with Titanic deck chairs and make man perfect, and it surely doesn’t stop politicians from the goal of being seen as “doing something” in order to keep the cushy job that requires them to hold their hands out like beggars 24/7 365.

The (Bob) Barr Code:

At a recent Commerce Committee hearing, during which concerns were raised about the constitutionality of such legislation, and about the principle of “federalism,” Rockefeller proudly proclaimed his constitutional disinterest thus — “I don’t really give a hoot about states’ rights or federal rights on this one.  I care about results.”  The “results” include another nail in the coffin of constitutional governance in the United States.

Meddlers will never cease, so neither must we small government conservatives and libertarians. Let us reason together at the federal level and compete over social issues at the state level.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.

One week after President Obama’s speech to Congress, opposition to his health care reform plan has reached a new high of 55%. The latest Rasmussen Reports daily tracking poll shows that just 42% now support the plan, matching the low first reached in August.

A week ago, 44% supported the proposal and 53% were opposed. Following the speech last Wednesday night intended to relaunch the health care initiative, support for the president’s effort bounced as high as 51% (see day-by-day numbers). But the new numbers suggest that support for health care reform is now about the same as it was in August.

Seventy-four percent (74%) of Democrats now support the plan while 80% of Republicans are opposed. Among those not affiliated with either major party, 67% are opposed.

The latest figures show that, overall, 23% Strongly Favor the plan and 44% are Strongly Opposed. In late August, those figures were 23% and 43% respectively.

This diary is cross-posted on The Minority Report.

Boehner: “The More [President Obama] Talks About This, the Less People Support It. And They Are Deeply Skeptical About the Government’s Involvement.”

Washington, Jul 30 - As congressional Democrats fight with one another over what to do next on health care, the American people are growing increasingly opposed to the idea of a government takeover of health care that will raise costs, destroy jobs through a small business tax and onerous employer mandates, and put bureaucrats in charge of decisions that only patients and doctors should make.  In the last 24 hours, no fewer than five national public opinion surveys have registered similar results: Americans don’t support the Democrats’ government-run health care plan.  Take a look:

1. WSJ/NBC News poll: “In mid-June, the public was evenly divided when asked whether it thought Mr. Obama’s health plan was a good idea or bad idea.  The new poll, conducted July 24-27, found 42 percent calling it a bad idea versus 36 percent who said it was a good idea.  Among those with insurance, the portion calling the plan a bad idea rose to 47 percent from 37 percent … [T]here was another worrisome sign for the president: Only two in 10 people predicted the quality of their own care would improve under the Obama plan, and just 15% of those with private insurance thought it would.  Twice as many overall, and three times as many with private coverage, predicted their own care would get worse.”

2. National Public Radio poll: “When asked about the plan now moving through Congress, a plurality of 47 percent was opposed and 42 percent said they were in favor, based on what they had heard about the plan so far.”

3. New York Times/CBS News poll: “President Obama’s ability to shape the debate on health care appears to be eroding as opponents aggressively portray the effort as a government-takeover that could limit Americans’ ability to choose their doctor and course of treatment, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.  Americans are concerned that overhauling the health care system would reduce the quality of their care, increase their out-of-pocket health costs and tax bills and limit their options in choosing doctors, treatment and tests, the poll found.”

4. Time Magazine poll: “By significant margins, survey respondents said they believe the final health-reform legislation is likely to raise health-care costs in the long run (62 percent), make everything about health care more complicated (65 percent) and offer less freedom to choose doctors and coverage (56 percent).”

5. Gallup poll: A plurality of Americans believes a new health care bill will “worsen” their health care and “reduce” their access to care. Bottom line: “Whether the focus is access to healthcare or the quality of care, less than a majority of Americans are convinced that health care reform will be beneficial to either the country or to their own personal situations.  Americans are less likely to believe health care reform will result in improvements to themselves personally than to the national healthcare situation.  Americans believe that health care reform will increase costs rather than lower them, both nationally and for themselves.”

In a Christian Science Monitor forum yesterday, House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) discussed Americans’ growing opposition to the Democrats’ government-run plan, noting that the more President Obama talks about his proposal, the less Americans like it:

Americans’ opposition to a government takeover of health care is bad enough on paper, but as Congress prepares to leave Washington for the August break, Democrats are about to see that opposition firsthand when they return back to their congressional districts.  The American people support real health care reform – a plan that reduces costs and expands access to quality care.  The Democrats’ proposal does neither.  And unless Democratic leaders agree to work with Republicans on a bipartisan plan that achieves real reform that Americans are seeking, it will be a long, hot August for Democrats in Congress.

wideawake123 @ YouTube had these comments:

“Growth and Progress”…”New ways”…”unique opportunity”- empty catch-phrases that hide the agenda. The more unemployment and chaos the easier to sieze power. “Never let a good crisis go to waste”. “…encouraging their efforts” = raising taxes on small independant oil companies doing offshore exploration. He’s lying and the media is lapping it up. An 11 YO kid just created an math app. for the I-Phone and will make millions. That’s more than Obama has created in his entire life. Empty Suit.

And

To replace the millions of jobs we lost since you took power? “We are deeply concerned” with the fact that you are an empty suit “celebrity” POTUS who’s showing that “Hope” and “Change” were as hollow as the man who offered them as his plan to “fix” this great country. Well he’s “fixing” us all right…unemployment at a 25 year high, and all he can do is blame Bush, who’s unemployment average was 5.19% for 8 years. How about creating the jobs you promised instead of excuses. “Blame Bush” is BS.

Barack Obama told an audience on Wednesday that the stimulus is working.
Back in February he said the stimulus must be passed or the unemployment rate would reach 9.0%.
The unemployment rate is at 9.4%.

Thanks Barack.