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Policy
in Politics
Why is there so little?
Shouldn't there be more?
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Section: I: INTRODUCTION (Our HomePage)
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Putting Policy Into Politics!
Specifically, Free Market, Free Enterprise Economics, and the philosophies of Limited Government and Individual Freedom.
First, back into the American Republican Party (with fundamental change), then America, and for the first time, worldwide!
With, analysis, features and commentaries (column and BLOG size)—for enhanced analysis, education, and decision making.
Classically Liberal - Fiscally Conservative!
OUR SPECIALTY:
Political Behavioral Economics
(A COMBINATION OF THE ACADEMIC DISCIPLINES OF:
ECONOMICS, CONSUMER BEHAVIOR [MARKETING] AND POLITICAL SCIENCE.)
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Policy
in Politics Commentaries ©
GOALS:
To increase the influence of public policy analysis on partisan politics.
To decrease the use of partisan political tactics in public policy debates.
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INFORMATION RICH AND GRAPHICS POOR (BY DESIGN) , WITH PLENTY OF ANALYSIS AND ARGUMENT
AND FEW ANNOYING BELLS AND WHISTLES!
LENGTH IN WORD-PROCESSING EQUIVALENT PAGES:
All six sections of this site: minimum of: 130 - This first section: minimum of: 25
LAST UPDATE: May 6, 2009
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♦ Two New
Commentaries: PolicyInPolitics.Commentaries
Views You Can Use!
(Titles and Topics) (New
additions regularly. Subscribe to FREE e-mail additions.)
#1:
Imagine Two Economies
Topics: Economic philosophies and strategies.
#2:
Social Welfare Politics
Topics: Economic Policy and the risks of Leftist politics
(Each is printed in FULL further
down in this section. Click on it to go directly to it.)
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A culture cannot exist without a constant stream of ideas and the alert, independeent minds who originate them. Ayn Rand (For The New Intellectual, p. 11)
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NEW FEATURE:
Let’s Throw the Word ‘Conservative’ on the Political Trash Heap?
We are active participants in the ongoing effort
to reform the Republican Party—to return it to it’s limited government, pro
individual freedom roots.
To those ends, we think the one good way to go
about that is the ‘creative destruction’ of the political label and word:
‘conservative’:—too vague, comprises too many disparate beliefs, and
has a contradictory dictionary definition. (Look it up. If it surprises you
that most people think those are our core beliefs, you need to to meet
more non-political voters— the majority of the electorate.)
The better and original label for our beliefs was ‘liberal’
(again back to the dictionary), but that having been stolen by the Left,
leaves us with the confusing term ‘classical liberal’. For now, we seek a
better word/term for our dynamic brand of economics and world view. For want
of a better word, for now we are, ‘dynamic republicans’. (Note the lack of capital letters in the aforementioned term.)
(Your comments would be appreciated.) (For more on this, see #8 Below.)
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PREVIEW OF SITE: NAVIGATION GRID
(Detailed summary
of Section I. immediately follows.)
SITE
MAP: SIX SECTIONS: (Linear - Sequential Layout)
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1)
WHAT WE’RE ABOUT:
Policy in Politics
is determined to do something about the declining state of politics today,
the apathy of the general public toward it, and especially the deteriorating influence
of rational thought, principled analysis, and policy studies—as politics gets more
partisan, negative and delusional. From
an American minimalist government perspective.
We lay the biggest part of the blame for
this on the public’s appalling lack of understanding of economics, particularly free enterprise, free market,
supply-side and entrepreneurial. Which makes so many so vulnerable to lies and
distortions—plus, the biased left media only
encourages it.
We believe that the best thing that can be
done is to interject more reasoned and principled thinking into the marketplace
for ideas, on this; as well as
foreign affairs such as the war on terror and free trade; domestic issues such
as education, health care, welfare, immigration and conservation; government
management and finance; political campaigns and candidates; and all of their
histories, strategies and tactics.
Policy in Politics will regularly offer
new commentaries, essays, features and comments/ BLOG (for
which reprint rights will be available for purchase).
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YOU
WILL FIND ONE OF THESE GRIDS NEAR THE TOP OF EACH OF
THE SIX SECTIONS.
(A navigation
list is at the end of every section for graphic challenged browsers, or your
convenience.)
As usual: Clicking on any underlined word will move you to it
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SUMMARY OF
SECTION I
(Introduction - Our Home Page)
(You can jump to those underlined, or scroll
down through them all.)
1) ♦ What We’re About
2) ♦ NEW COMMENTARIES Views You Can Use!
3) ♦ Free Subscription Information
4) ♦ Our Principles
5) ♦ What Every Real Election
Everywhere Is Primarily About.
6) ♦ To Confirm That We Need
Major Changes In The Way we Politic.
7) ♦ Key Quotes (14)
8) ♦ Semantic Note: “Liberal” and “Conservative” not used
here.
9) ♦ BLOG Highlights. (Full BLOG in Section VI).
10) ♦ Table Of Contents
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1) ♦ WHAT WE’RE ABOUT: (Repeat of sidebar)
Policy in Politics
is determined to do something about the declining state of politics today,
the apathy of the general public toward it, and especially the deteriorating influence
of rational thought, principled analysis, and policy studies—as politics gets more
partisan, negative and delusional. From
an American minimalist government perspective.
We lay the biggest part of the blame for
this on the public’s appalling lack of understanding of economics, particularly free enterprise, free market,
supply-side and entrepreneurial. Which makes so many so vulnerable to lies and
distortions—plus, the biased left media only
encourages it.
We believe that the best thing that can be
done is to interject more reasoned and principled thinking into the marketplace
for ideas, on this; as well as
foreign affairs such as the war on terror and free trade; domestic issues such
as education, health care, welfare, immigration and conservation; government
management and finance; political campaigns and candidates; and all of their
histories, strategies and tactics.
Policy in Politics will regularly offer
new commentaries, essays, features and comments/BLOG (for
which reprint rights will be available for purchase).
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2) ♦ NEW COMMENTARIES Views You Can Use!
■ Our COMMENTARIES are more complete, academic, strategic and of course, policy oriented,
■ Our BLOG is more concise, topical, tactical and political (from a policy wonk perspective),
■ And our FEATURES could be any or all!
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New
ones appear here regularly.
Each commentary and essay will be
preceded by the topics covered in it, an Executive Summary, and its relevance to Policy
in Politics. Most will be edited to the
neighborhood of 850 words. (Commentaries may also be
considered essays, columns, articles, reviews or features.)
You
can click on the underlined words to go directly to them:
» ALL
COMMENTARIES (INCLUDING THESE) ARE STORED AND ARRANGED BY SUBJECT IN Section
IV, "COMMENTARIES".
» YOU CAN SEARCH FOR ALL COMMENTARIES PAST AND PRESENT BY
KEYWORDS IN Section VI, "INDEX".
To
receive a FREE E-MAIL SUBSCRIPTION to them as they appear.
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FIRST OF TWO:
Imagine Two Economies
# 21-1 Topics: Economic philosophies and strategies.
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Executive Summary:
One looks forward, to give consumers better and cheaper products, which encourages
new innovative businesses and exciting new jobs. The other protects old slow
growing industries and their overpaid workers at the expense of consumers
and young people entering the workforce.
Where Republicans concentrate on promoting general happiness, Democrats
prefer promoting dependency on their welfare state, and protecting members
of their voting coalition.
Relevance to Policy in Politics©: Economics and politics
is that battle between government power and consumer power. Both can’t prosper,
only one can—it’s your choice!
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W.C.: 594
Imagine Two Economies
One looks forward, to give consumers better and cheaper products, which encourages new innovative businesses and exciting new jobs.
The other protects old slow growing industries and their overpaid workers at the expense of consumers and young people entering the workforce.
The major difference between America, the most competitive
nation on earth, and the perpetually stagnating Old Europe, is just the above.
Old Europe is made up of worker-dominated economies, while America is a nation
of consumers. Where Old Europe is more interested in protecting workers,
regardless of their productivity or relevance to the economy [making innovation
and economic growth near impossible], America has always been more interested
in maximizing consumer value, favoring the innovators over the stagnators.
The first says consumers should spend more of
their income to generate more revenue for all, including government, but
especially its citizens.
The second thinks government can best spend the
income of its citizens, often taxing the economy into recession (which in
the long run hurts everyone, including government). (Note especially the
statements by Barack Obama that he would favor raising the capital gains
tax even if it lowered government revenue, because he thought it important
to punish the productive, or some other Leftist tripe.)
The first made America the dynamo of the world,
the great economic engine of growth, prosperity and freedom. Consumers are
king, making government and businesses their servants.
The second, stagnated most of Europe limiting
its growth, prosperity and freedom. High unemployment is standard and recession
always looms. Young people can’t find jobs or start businesses, while old-fashioned
businesses and their workers are protected by government, and consumers take
a back seat to it all.
The second is the economy the Democrats want for
America—protecting overpaid haves and special interests and making the rest
dependant upon government handouts. It’s been the main idea of the Democratic
Party for decades. (Remember Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society,” when we waged
war on poverty and poverty won, and we ended up with the famous triple double
of double digit inflation, interest rates and unemployment. Adding the three
together would add up to at least thirty. Compare that to today when the
total of all three would be less than half of that.)
On the whole, Democrats want to make us dependant
on them and government by giving us everything we need, but denying us the
chance for the exciting things we want. They prefer subsistence to prosperity.
(It galls Leftists that all Americas don’t hate the productive rich as they
do. The problem is that way too many people would rather become one, than
tax them to death.)
By and large, Republicans believe that citizens
should decide for themselves, letting consumer choose what they want to purchase
with their labors, allowing for exciting futures, and innovative growth and
prosperity. Some will get rich, and Republicans won’t punish them for it,
some will fail and Republicans won’t subsidize them to the point they won’t
want to try again.
Where Republicans concentrate on “promoting general
happiness,” Democrats prefer promoting dependency on their welfare state,
and protecting members of their voting coalition. Where Republicans largely
favor the free market with its creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship—and
risks, Democrats want to return the grand old days of Roosevelt’s and Johnson’s
big government welfare states. (Even today, it can be argued that when Democrats
say they want to “change” and to “turn the country around,” this is their
real destination.)
Economics and politics is that battle between government
power and consumer power. Both can’t prosper, only one can—it’s your choice!
© 2009 Michael R. Donahue, PolicyInPolitics.com
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SECOND OF TWO:
Social Welfare Politics
# 22-2 Topics: Economic Policy and the risks of Leftist politics.
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Executive Summary:
The reason America has resisted the social welfare state fate of Old Europe
so long, despite the onslaughts of the ‘New Deal’ and the ‘Great Society’
has been that this idea of collectivism has been a much harder sell here.
We must now wonder if it can survive Obama, Pelosi and Reed.
Entitlement replaces
opportunity, collective equality replaces individual freedom, social and
economic justice replaces advancement by merit, and ‘for the common good’
replaces personal achievement, and equality of result replaces equality of
opportunity, in the new lexicon of the Left.
Relevance to Policy in Politics: The politics of the Left destroys individual liberty and initiative, and ultimately true democracy and freedom.
________________________________________________
Word Count: 638
Social Welfare Politics
Socialism and communism work if we assume that individuals do not have personal
ambitions, goals and desires beyond subsistence. The social welfare state,
socialism-lite, we see in Old Europe, and which the Left would like to bring
to America, works if we assume individuals only have collective ambitions, goals and desires.
The reason America has resisted the fate of Old Europe so
long, despite the onslaughts of it in FDR’s ‘New Deal’ and LBJ’s ‘Great Society’
has been that this idea of collectivism has been a much harder sell here.
(The pioneer sprit still clung to so many whose ancestors fled Old Europe,
resisting the predestined, ingenuity stifling, freedom limiting powers-that-be
which controlled that continent.)
We must now wonder if it can survive Obama, Pelosi and Reed,
as our socialized education system has been preaching collectivism to our
youth for several decades now. (Diversity, environmentalism, climate change
and welfare politics, which demand individual sacrifice for the good of the
collective (or the “Village” as Hillary called it) are now American education’s
bywords. They gave up stressing individual initiative, achievement and ambitions
long ago. Our public school system is not only not educating students in
things they need to understand, like economics and history, just to name
two, but propagandizing them in socialistic thought.)
The politics of this are quite simple. As the new social
welfare state “spreads the wealth around,” just convince a majority of the
voters that they would be a beneficiary of the spreading, letting the ‘evil
rich’ make the hard sacrifices.
Oh, soft sacrifices would be everywhere, in perpetual
slow growth, high unemployment and lowered ambitions. But, the people would
be convinced that these sacrifices would be so noble and altruistic—feeling
good that the plus side of high unemployment would be the way unemployment
benefits allow those stricken by unemployed to go happily about their lives—being
pleased that the long waits for health care, even when critical, allowed
everyone to get free care, even for athletes foot—knowing that while your
children might not be able to achieve their dreams, they could be assured
of an easy job, heavy on vacations, and an early, well paid retirement working
for government or as a member of a union working in some factory—it makes
them feel good that while families must live in cramped urban quarters with
little choice or opportunity, farmland is preserved like it was the nineteenth
century.
Entitlement replaces opportunity, collective equality replaces
individual freedom, social and economic justice replaces advancement by merit,
and ‘for the common good’ replaces personal achievement, and equality of
result replaces equality of opportunity, in the new lexicon of the Left.
Forget about a ‘liberal’ future, this will be a constraining, command and
control, disciplined and regimented world only a far Leftist could call ‘progressive’.
As in Old Europe today, change would then be impossible, as every adjustment
or shift rightward would gore some ox, whose constituents would take to the
streets demanding the preservation of their entitlement. In such states today,
as we saw with Sarkozy in France, Schwarzenegger in California and Merkel
in Germany, while it is possible to get elected espousing a turn back to
the freedoms of the right, actually doing so runs up against so many entrenched
brick walls. As we also saw in the last American national election, entitlement
to government largess seems to motive voters more than entitlement to opportunity
and freedom.
In Old Europe, individuals have learned, and supposedly would
learn in America, to self-actualize through avocations, not careers, businesses
and marketable inventions. "A successful industrial nation--which means a
nation with a future--doesn't allow itself to be organized as a collective
amusement park," (former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl). Must the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs of the future be content to build boats in their basement?
© 2009 Michael R. Donahue, PolicyInPolitics.com
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4) ♦ OUR PRINCIPLES
A)
We will provide commentaries, essays and features on PUBLIC POLICY and PARTISAN
POLITICS, AND the odd notion that implications of the former, should effect
strategies of the latter!
B)
We believe that POLITICS is primarily the means to implement reasoned PUBLIC POLICY, AND should not be a
process by which voters are swayed for selfish ends!
C) Good Policy
Makes Good Politics.
D)
There is nothing so practical as a good theory!
E)
Think of Policy in Politics © as an
idea workshop, warehouse, and retailer in the marketplace for ideas. One of the Right’s problems is that while it has more
and better creators and wholesalers of ideas (think tanks, columnists,
journals, commentators) than the Left, it has far fewer national merchandisers
(mass media viewed or read by apolitical voters).
F)
We strive to be reasoned and interdisciplinary in: Economics (free market, supply-side, behavioral, classical,
free-trade, political economy); Government
(domestic and foreign policy, education, public finance and management); History (American, constitutional,
world); Politics (American, world,
Republican, Libertarian, Right vs. Left); Political
Campaigns/Political Science (strategies, tactics, polling, research,
media); Business (management,
marketing, entrepreneurship, capitalism, finance, entrepreneurship, public
relations, research, analysis); and especially, and Philosophy (free enterprise, liberty, resource conservation,
ethics).
G)
We believe that it is more important what is being said, than who is saying it!
(Ideas are more important than people.)
While we would never be so presumptions as to claim that this site is
intellectual (that being a quality, it seems, only others can bestow), we do
agree with historian Paul Johnson’s definition of it, that ideas are, and
should be, more important than people. While America’s Constitution makes it “a
nation of laws, not men”—we believe we should also be “a world of ideas, not
men.”
H)
We will always strive to enlighten,
raise the debate, explain, “peer through the fog”, “glimpse into the future,”
and appeal to principle, philosophy and academics—to become a reputable
purveyor in the marketplace for ideas.
I)
Policy in Politics© utilizes a sequential linear ‘book format’, working
from a Table of Contents and Navigation Grid. We strive for no confusing branches
to get lost down; no slow loading graphics; no crowding side-bars; and
everything designed for efficient and easy cutting
and pasting with most any browser. We
eschew bells, whistles and graphics for prose, plus, with the buttons on the
far right on the Navigation Grid, you can page through the whole site, not
missing a single paragraph, as in a book.
________________________________________________________
5) ♦ What Every Real Election Everywhere
Is Primarily About:
(Even though most voters don’t realize it.)
Every real
election in every democracy is primarily about the size of the government,
vis-à-vis the private sector. The pendulum can swing to the left toward more
power to the state and authoritarian government (and correspondingly less to
the private sector). Or to the Right, and more private autonomy and less
government authority. Every political party, movement and cause is best evaluated by its position on this political spectrum
from left to right.
________________________________________________________
6) ♦ To Confirm That We Need
Major Changes In The Way We Politic.
As Rod
Serling would say: We submit to you the American Voter:
Largely
apathetic and unmotivated, frequently not knowing who to vote for—and
especially, why! They are generally disillusioned by all the negative
campaigning, and confused by the dearth of constructive information provided by
campaigns, candidates and the media. Low and declining turnouts testify to how
easily they are disillusioned, seeing so little positive to get excited about,
much less vote for.
In
addition, campaigns that spend more of their scarce resources on disinformation
than positive policy make themselves vulnerable to largely irrelevant,
personal, or even completely fallacious, campaign tactics—and disappoint
‘policy wonks’ like us who regret the missed opportunities to educate.
Today,
this makes politics too much of a crap shoot and deters far too many good
candidates—especially on the Right. We hope to help change that, not resting
until one of their favorite sayings: “There’s not a dime’s worth of difference
between the two parties,” disappears from their discourse.
7) ♦ KEY QUOTES (19)
These quotes were carefully choosen as they get to the core of our beliefs and why policyinpolitics.com© exists.
(Use them as you wish, but please give policyinpolitics.com© credit for making them so convenient for you to use.)
Many more valuable quotes, including these, are arranged by catagory and can be found in Section III.
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Life
is one fast moving train, and you have to jump aboard and hold your hat and
relish the sweep of the wind as it rushes by.
Ronald Reagan, 1985 (This has been on our
home bulletin board for a long as we can remember.)
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The
multitudes remained plunged in ignorance of the simplest economic facts, and
their leaders, seeking their votes, did not dare to undeceive them.
Winston Churchill (The Second World War, 1948)
__________________________________________
Unfortunately, most people resist even the most basic lessons of economics.
Bryan Caplan, associate professor,
George Mason University. Author of the book: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies.
Wall Street Journal, 12-13 May 2007,
P. A11.
_________________________________________
Americans are acutely aware of our problems, and their patience
is at an end for politicians who value incumbency over principle, and for
partisanship that is less a contest for ideas than an uncivil brawl over
the spoils of power.
John McCain; April 2007; Presidential Announcement speech.
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Now is the time to be bold. It’s easy whey the wind’s at your back.
But the real test is not when the wind’s in your face. That’s when we find
out if we’re tough enough, inspired enough, committed enough to do our duty.
Karl Rove, May 5, 2007 , Wall Street Journal, 11 May 2007, P. A11.)
_________________________________________
Let’s face it, our politicians
aren’t as stupid as they strive to appear. They talk to us as if we’re idiots
because we’ve shown them we want to be talked to like
idiots. When we change, they will change.
Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., The Wall Street Journal, p.A19, May 10, 2006.
__________________________________________
The Republicans are trying to appeal to the selfish greed of the people to want to hold on to their money.
Democrat Congressman Chaka Fattah; 2nd Penn; April 5, 1995, House Floor. (ADA Ratings: 95-100)
(Nice to know what the left thinks “greed” is.)
________________________________________
Behind every policy that does more harm
than good, there’s a special interest that favors it anyway…Why would the
majority favor policies that hurt the majority…because the average person
underestimates the social benefits of the free market…In a phrase, the public
suffers from anti-market bias.”
Bryan Caplan, associate professor, George Mason
University. Author of the book: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies. Wall
Street Journal, 12-13 May 2007, P. A11.
_________________________________________
What makes our politics so sensationally awful is not
just the amount of money spent denigrating the category and profession, but the
equally stunning amount of energy that is expended by party apparatchiks to
amplify the negatives in news-media coverage of politics.
In the midst of all these negative messages, one would
expect to find a broad, thematic campaign…but in America, the major parties
don’t ever think in broad, national terms… Instead they spend the hundreds of
millions of dollars they raise microtargeting supposedly
single issue voters and bombarding them with negative messages about the
opposite party’s alleged disdain for those concerns.
As more and more people are repulsed by
the political process, their number will at some point reach a critical
mass.
John Ellis, former columnist, Boston
Globe, Partner, Sand Hill Partners; The
Wall Street Journal, p.A22, November 8, 2006.
(Ah-ha, two reasons for living: to help cause that
“change” and to reach that “critical mass”!)
__________________________________________
The Democrats’ problem is this: They are
trying to beat policy with politics….
Daniel Henninger, The Wall Street Journal, September 29, 2006.
__________________________________________
The problem the Left has in articulating its
ambitions is that if the public knew their true motivations, they would never
elect them to anything. For what the Left wants is
their precious initiative and freedom.
Unknown
__________________________________________
A society that puts equality before freedom
will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a
high degree of both.
Milton Friedman
__________________________________________
If he wants to defend his culture from
wolves and snowstorms, if he wants to save it from being strangled by weeds, he
must keep his broom, spade and rifle always at hand.
Vasily Grossman, Life
and Fate, (The Wall Street Journal,
p.A10, March 2, 2007) (The
analogy of wolves, snowstorms,
weeds, boom, spade and especially rifle is very powerful.)
__________________________________________
While
today, Leftist propaganda spins even faster around the world than in the past
(due to the likes of CNN and the Moore-on.coms and their Sicko friends), we’re
finally getting our boots on.
Thanks
to Mark Twain or Charles Spurgeon for this imagery:
A lie can travel halfway round the world while the truth is putting on its
shoes.
(“This
quote has been attributed to Mark Twain, but it has never been verified as
originating with Twain. This quote may have originated
with Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-92). His words were: A lie will
go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on. Source: http://www.twainquotes.com/Lies.html.)
(“Boots” is an especially apt
word, as our political streets are still largely unpaved, muddy, and laced with
manure.)
_________________________________________
By trying to again empower the government to regulate
broadcasting, illiberals reveal their lack of confidence in their ability
to compete in the marketplace of ideas, and their disdain for consumer sovereignty—and
hence for the public.
George F. Will, Fraudulent ‘Fairness’, Newsweek, May 7, 2007, p. 72.
_________________________________________
Finally: Policy in Politics will promote some rather
unconventional ideas, in fact it’s very premise is
probably too new for some. The unconventional points below, especially the last
two, so correspond with our own, that we think it significant—and you will
definitely read about them again here!
The current political governmental system has…major
flaws…:
First, it is dominated by daily
headlines, a focus on the negative, fights rather than discussions, and sound
bites and commercials so short they can't communicate anything complex or
positive.
Second, the old system simply does not have the ideas and
techniques for being successful. Today's politicians are
trapped in old ideas, old interest groups and old bureaucracies…
Third, consultants dominate the current system,
and they are essentially technicians with very limited knowledge of fundamental
issues and historic lessons. So they tend to reduce the system to clever
commercials and fancy fundraising gimmicks.
Newt Gingrich, Six Months to
Solutions Day, Commentary, Humanevents.com, April 9, 2007
________________________________________
The New Deal is a mistake... We are living with a lot of
the damage that FDR created in changing the basic nature of America—of being
a nation of independence and individuality, to one of dependence and collectivism.
Edward Crane, President, The Cato Institute, Barry Goldwater seminar, July 12, 2007.
_________________________________________
If politics is the art of painting a sincere face on
blatant manipulation, today’s Democrats are masters of the craft.
Ben Shapiro, Democrats Host Surrender Sleepover, Human Events, July 30, 2007, p.1.
_________________________________________
The great threat to the boom is that the U.S. will
lose confidence in the free market ideology which allowed the global economy to take off during the 1990s.
All the Democratic presidential candidates are proposing protectionist trade
policies.
David Hale, Chairman, Hale Adviser, The Best Economy Ever, The Wall Street Journal, July 31, 2007, p. A15.
_________________________________________
It was fine to have a 1994 mindset in 1994. It is no
longer acceptable to have a 1994 mindset after September Eleventh. America
needs to think and act differently. We face a brutal enemy who will kill
the innocent for one purpose, and that is to gain control of the Middle East,
and that is to use the leverage of oil to bring down the West.
Karl Rove, Assistant to the President, Meet the Press, NBC, Aug. 19, 2007.
_________________________________________
Many more valuable quotes, including these (for conciseness), arranged by catagory, can be found in Section III.
________________________________________________________
8) ♦ SEMANTIC NOTE:
Liberal and Conservative are not used here!
Both terms, Liberal
and Conservative are gross misnomers,
so Policy in Politics© will try not to
further the deceptions—preferring the much clearer descriptions of: Right
and Left:
The Left side
of the political spectrum is definitely not liberal
(in the sense of, “open to new ideas for
progress” [check
about any dictionary]), having stolen
that word long ago from the free enterprise Right (who in academic circles are
now called classical liberals)—where
that description properly applies. (In fact, Policy in Politics wants to one day take it back, dropping the
“classical” adjective from our philosophers.)
The Leftist elite around the world has always had one
goal, that being to get their personal satisfaction in life out of controlling
other people’s lives (to shape society in their own image), through their large
and powerful governments and social welfare states (why we sometimes refer to
them as “socialists” or “statists”). (Everyone needs to realize
that part of their strategy to accomplish it is to not only to deny it, but to
often cleverly say the exact opposite—with a wink and nod to their fellow
conspirators.) They self-actualize by imposing their will on others, all the
while rationalizing that it will be in their subject’s best interest,
convincing themselves that everyone will benefit from
their far superior intellect and wisdom—so much so that us minions should invite
and welcome their guidance and direction. To the extent that we don’t, just
proves our inferiority, as they are so self-righteous in their superiority.
They are often arrogant about it too—after all, us
members of the great unwashed are too insignificant for them to worry about
whether they are offending us or not.
The Right
predominately gets their personal satisfaction out of individually
self-actualizing in the free market. One reason the right suffers from a lack
of good candidates, and why so many government employees lean to the Left, is
that so many of the Right’s best and brightest much prefer business and the
private sector to government. (It is the opposite with the Left.) Besides being
plagued by a predominately left leaning mass media, and all the bias they can
dream up, the Right doesn’t need the negative connotations which come with the
dictionary definition of “conservative”: “tending
to oppose change, restrained in style, cautious.” After all, the individual
freedom maximizing, supply-side, capitalistic, Libertarian leaning,
entrepreneurial, optimistic and enterprising Right, is the direct opposite of
that dictionary definition—being the true “liberals” of our world.
For further elaboration on this, refer to, Words We Don’t Bandy About, in PREFACE,
Section III.
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May 13, 2009
The Far Left Is Not As Big As The Old Media Like To Make It Seem!
Confirmation of what we’ve been saying:
We’ve been saying for a long time that the truly committed
philosophical and socialistic far Left is only about fifteen percent of the
electorate. (While many doubt it is that small, we counter it just sees
that they have such big mouths [especially note MSNBC] and buses to bring
in rent-a-crowds.) These fiendish few are occasionally able to cobble together
a wining coalition of rank and file, single women, Jews, trial lawyers, greens,
minorities and unions, via ‘buying’ their votes with promises of money, legislation
and other favors. (These group’s clever leaders, however, are all part of
the far left fifteen percent.) They are much smaller in size than the truly
committed philosophical free enterprise right (who are more than double their
size.) (This is why the Right has so many successful talk radio shows and
the Left can hardly keep any afloat on their own.)
The confirmation of the fifteen percent figure came in a House
vote yesterday to commemorate the raise to power three decades ago of England’s
Grand Iron Lady. One would think that no congressional representative would
dare vote against it and her, since she was such a personable and now deceased
true lady. Only a truly committed diehard Leftist could vote against her.
The vote easily pointed out that far left as the vote carried
339 to 64, with all (inconceivable) no’s, coming from Democrats, their far,
far, far, Left wing, who made up precisely 14.7 percent of the House. (That
left 174 democrats with some shred of decency—and possibly cooperative on
other issues. We’d only need about one in four to see reason.)
There are the fifteen percent who make up the committed socialistic
left in American, and are such good vote buyers and con artists, whom we’ll
never be able to convert to our side. This is because, as I learned in debates
when studying philosophy in college and once being an active member of the
Sierra Club, that all these supporters of socialism expect to be one of the
leaders, not the followers, who will be so happily benefiting from all their
wisdom and expertise as they run their lives. (Chiefs not Indians.)
However, many of the remaining thirty to forty percent of their
off and on again coalition, are reachable with education, logic, history
and philosophy. (Most likely bets would be intact minority families who
favor education, individual responsibility, and merit, and are entering or
verging on the middle class, where free enterprise, low taxes and keeping
government out of their hair are meaning more and more to them. These are
the people government tried to help buy their own homes for no too long ago.
But instead of doing things the right and hard way, through personal financial
counseling, encouraging saving, improving credit ratings and building down
payments, that tried for the short cut, which has now backfired on us all,
they just changed the rules in the middle of the ballgame—and the system
got ‘gamed’ nearly to death.
April 6, 2009
Lagggging Unemployment
The unchangeable proclivities of economy recoveries are soon going to dog the Democrats big time! After
perennially blaming the Republicans for ‘heartless’ ‘jobless recoveries’—as
recently as the early years of the last Bush administration—with the unfortunate
tendency for employment numbers to trail all recoveries, these self-professed
far more caring and compassionate humanitarians will be under extreme pressure
from the left to quickly pump up employment artificially.
In addition, this time it may lag further than usual, as businesses
will be even more reticent to add full time employees due to the threats
of increased taxation, regulation and unaffordable debt. Pelosi, Reed and
Obama may well be over a real barrel soon—possibly just in time for the midterm
elections!
To reduce unemployment, Democrats may well try to artificially lower interest
rates, since even they will not be able to increase government employment
by enough. (Remember when the Dems tried in legislation to make the prime
function of the FED to be lowering unemployment [we think it was to be a
tribute to the recent passing of Hubert Humphrey]—which would have meant
lower interest rates and then higher inflation perpetually. The FEDs real
role is to avoid recessions by not allowing too low interest rates to fuel
inflation, which it famously did not do during the housing bubble and the
dot.com bubble before it. Unfortunately, these government economists who
are supposed to be so wise and alert, seem to get caught up in the same ‘these
price increases are real and not just inflation’ hysteria as most of the
rest of us—even when such increases are historically unrealistic.)
March 5, 2009
“Profit Earnings Ratios” and other Ignorant Statements from the Administration
(We apologize,
as this is very long for a BLOG,
but too political for a Commentary.)
One of the first
things anyone learns about the stock market is the “P/E Ratio.” (It is even
taught in basic Introduction to Business 101 classes in junior colleges.)
It is Price, not “Profit,” divided by Earnings” as Obama erroneously just said: The Price Earnings Ratio. (The
error is possibly understandable by the Left’s obsession with the horribleness
of any and all profits—despite the fact that they and only they are the true
sources of all jobs everywhere.)
In addition, it is more sophisticated than he knows. (Remember
what Regan said about the dangers of what the Left knows that is “wrong.”)
A low ratio is not necessarily a signal to buy, as he indicated. (A typical
mistake made by young students.) True it is an indicator of relatively low
price, but it only signals a buying opportunity when the stock and the corporation
behind it is a value, not if the low ratio is justified, as they largely
are with the far Left so in charge in Washington.
(As we see when
we shop in stores, there are low priced items that deserve their low price
because or their low quality, and there are other lower priced items that
are a bargain or value and should be purchased.) With the looming socialization
of America, we see no bargains or value out there! (Too bad, we can’t by
stock in the Fed’s social welfare agencies, for they have a real future.)
The stock market is not a near term “tracking poll” as our kid President so wrongly stated.
It is probably the most accurate medium to long term predictor of the future
health of corporations (where so many jobs reside) and capitalism—and the
economy—all of whom are in peril. (We remember press reports of how just
after the Clinton Administration took office, the cheering and celebrating
in the White House after a big stock market decline. [The same anti-capitalistic
anti-free market resentment that resides in the current White House.] However,
as Clinton learned, his reelection was based on a raising stock market due
to the unforeseen dot-com bubble, as computer technology matured, and probably
most importantly, by the Gingrich revolution after his second year. We contend
that when it comes to the economy, the most powerful person in the country
is not the President, but the Speaker of the House—why the economy started
downhill once Pelosi took the office two years ago.)
Some will say
that the stock market will eventually recover, so it is still a good long-term
bet, as it always has been. However, now, for the first time since Lyndon
Johnson was President, all of that is in serious doubt, and a recovery could
take decades—and a Ronald Reagan. If the Right retakes Congress in two years,
it will recover much more quickly, but if we have to wait four years to oust
Obama too, the damage done might be irreparable, as it is in France, Germany
and California. All three, in the last few years, elected more right leaning
leaders promising a return to liberty, and all three CEO’s have been forced
to backtrack to stay in office. (It seems the people eventually come to dislike
socialistic government programs, except the ones they benefit from. This
is why the mad rush in Washington now to make us all as dependant on government
as possible before we have time to realize it.) Merkle in Germany might
have another chance later this year if their “grand coalition” comes to an
end, let’s see. The GOP has one now.
We must remember
to separate the sellers of stock, who populate Wall Street, from the nationwide
corporations that issue the stock. These sellers, and most of the money people
in New York are largely Democrats, seeking to make money off of capitalism,
as trial lawyers seek to make money off of corporations in court (Madison
Ave. advertising people too). They will make major efforts to get people
to buy stock so they can keep making money, which is why they keep insisting
politics is irrelevant, as they don’t care if people loose money, only that
they get their commissions. So ignore them.
Lastly, it
is the height of ignorance to believe that eliminating tax deductions for
charitable giving will not reduce such giving, and that to threaten to raise
taxes on the job creatures, investors and business builders will not lead
to a lot less of it. The last, will end up reducing corporate profits
(if they are allowed to have any at all), and keep the stock market low indefinitely.
We might have to get used to a DOW below five thousand, double digit unemployment
soon, double digit inflation and interest rates eventually, and learn to
be happy with one percent GDP growth—and dancing in the streets at two.
If you’ve always wanted to go to Old Europe, if the Left has its way, you will be able to, without leaving your home! (This is not just a recession we are trapped in, but a revolution!)
P.S.
I can remember when I was first learning about the stock market as a kid,
asking my father, why did it matter to a corporation if their stock price
when up, since it was new owners, not them, who benefited from raises in
prices. He told me that while that was true, higher prices make it cheaper
for corporations to expand and grow by issuing and selling new stock at the
higher price. And, that means jobs!
(We are using the word “ignorant” following its common dictionary definition of, "lacking of knowledge or education.")
______________________________________________________
March 1, 2009
Your Income is Now Really Washington’s
Barack Obama made it perfectly clear in his speech to the nation
Tuesday evening what the last election was all about—something we’ve known
all too well, and warned about mightily.
1. Your income (all of it) belongs to him, the government, the
Democrats and the Left, and allowing you to keep any of it is gift from them
to you.
2. If they allow you to keep any of it, and not give it to the
under classes where they want to ‘spread it around’ to buy votes, it is a
transfer payment of money from them to you. Since they own it in the first
place.
Where it used to be that the wealthy got wealthy buy working
all of their resources harder and smarter, it is now formalized that they
got that way by stealing from the poor—where the poor got all that money
has yet to be explained. (Possibly, it is that when we work hard and smart
we are really working for those who don’t [i.e.: socialism], so it is their
money, and to keep any of it is stealing.)
This is radical socialistic thinking. The country needs to face the grim reality!
(There is one supply side hitch in this plan, which Old Europe has
suffered from for decades. The very rich who pay most of the personal income
taxes don’t have to produce income, can sit fat and happy on the sidelines,
not investing, not creating jobs, not offering crucial venture capital and
not working. [Even draconian Soviet Communism could not get people to work
if they saw no real reason to.] Then, as tax revenue declines, Leftist
are then 'forced' to make more and more of the population pay higher and
higher taxes. The economy stagnates and goes into a permanent funk, as is
presently in Old Europe, and as happened to the Soviet Union.)
______________________________________________________
February 6, 2009
Will it stimulate the economy, or just the Democrats?
The headlines should all be reading: “Obama finally admits he’s a big spender.”
Thursday, President Obama claimed that Republicans
should go along with his much criticized “stimulus” package, because he and
the Democrats won the election, and they should now be allowed to do things
their way! Further, that the “change” he campaigned upon is embodied in his
economic “stimulus” bill that recently passed the House, and was too bloated
for even the Senate.
However, it was the Republicans, not him, who campaigned
saying that what he favored was big spending and bigger government. On the
contrary, he claimed that he was a centrist, positioned between the liberal
Democrats and the conservative Republicans. He was to lead us to a new way,
beyond politics—not the hardball, smoke and mirror kind he is now using to
immensely increase the size and power of government.
In revealing that he is not the transformational, non-political
uniter he promised, he has betrayed many of his supporters, and vindicated
and stimulated his opposition, in less than three weeks! Had he told us that earlier, he would not have been elected, so there goes his argument!
________________________________________________________
December 2, 2008
Knowing What You Don’t Know
Those who have been involved in management changes should not find what Obama is doing unfamiliar.
(While it might be the best thing under the current unchangeable circumstances
[at least for four years], it is definitely not for the organization in the
long-run.)
What he is doing, is frequently done when people are promoted to their level of ‘incompetency’, and they are smart enough to know it! (Let’s give credit to the Peter Principle as well.)
First, they surround themselves with experienced and knowledgeable
people in hopes these people can cover up their lack of skills and understanding—and
hide their incompetence from others. It might dent their egos to have to
choose and follow these people, but it is better than totally loosing ones
credibility. (We’d do the same if we were somehow placed in change of some
large medical research facility or Fermi Lab.)
Second, he will have acquired so many experts that he’ll
get conflicting opinions and will be unable to know whom to follow. (Like
when Truman sought a one handed economist. He fears being talked into a big
mistake, as Nixon did when we took us off the gold standard, or George Bush
the First did when he agreed to tax increases.)
Consequently, his administration leaks all decisions and
waits to see how they are received before acting. This hosting up the flag
to see who solutes then leads to governance by the press, pundants and polls.
Every decision can then be focused grouped, polled and run by every so-called
expert in town, hoping for a consensus, but usually ending up with too much
delayed pabulum.
Further complicating the problem for Obama is that he has
gotten so much mileage out of vague platitudes and nuance, he just might
substitute that for hard decision making—trying to be on all sides of every
issue.
(Knowing what you don’t know: It’s good that you recognize it,
but it’s bad when you are such a position that it matters.)
________________________________________________________
November 21, 2008
Obama Swallowing His Pride?
We bet the Obomiacks who last spring brought into Barrack’s post-partisan,
non-political, post-politics, a-political jargon during the primary must
be disenchanted by all the Clinton inside the beltway retreads he is appointing! Looks like the same-old same-old to us! (He abandoned that rhetoric in the general election, but few noticed.)
In his defense, it is being argued by Democrats that those are all the qualified people he has to choose from. However,
I’m sure these Obomiacks who bought his line that he was somehow a cross
between Jesus, Lincoln, FRD and JFK had hoped for more and better—for a group
of people like Obama who where were intelligent, principled and yet had not
been corrupted by Washington. (I know if I were the newly elected President,
I could fill the posts with fully capable people who had never lived or worked
in Washington for more than a couple years, had never been a campaign consultant,
nor had held a high position in the party.)
From these early appointments, it appears he will not be as bad
a president as feared, as he seems to be swallowing his pride because he
truly fears a failed presidency, like Carter. It will anger many on the far Left who recruited him to star in this campaign designed to realign the county far leftward. But, he will be content to govern from the center left with reelection his new goal.
It will be very difficult to placate every one of his party’s diverse constancies,
but we suspect he will do it with the promise that if they just hold their
guns in two years they will have far more than sixty votes in the senate,
and then in four years after he is reelected, they can really go to town.
(Fat chance, as presidential parties usually loose seats in the later elections,
and we’re counting on a new Newt.)
Further, if he brings the Clinton circus to town with all its
fireworks and exotic side shows he will be taking a big gamble, risking his
credibility, image and stature to again avoid that failed presidency. Personally, we think his ego is too big for even that! However,
if he does, which will ignite those jokes that the 3am phone calls will now
be going to Hillary and Bill’s bedroom, it will show that indeed he is a
scared young man. And we are sure that not just Putin and the Taliban will
take notice.
________________________________________________________
June 22, 2008
The Europeanization of our Gas Prices!
Any American who has been to Europe, has undoubtedly marveled at the high prices Europeans readily paid for gasoline—and did for decades.
I remember how amazed my fellow grad school students were in
Germany one year, when we calculated the cost in terms in gallons and dollars—and
it got much larger as the years went by. We considered America fortunate
to not be so dependant on foreign oil; that we seemed exempt from such unreasonable
prices; and insolated from the full effect of world prices—because of our
domestic production.
The simple reason why this discrepancy has ended—is because
we stopped looking and drilling for new supplies—because the Left used the
environment as a excuse to encourage the prices to rise—and hopefully, the
beginning of the end of YOUR personal automobile. (Not a chicken in every pot, but a bus stop on every corner!)
Remember, what Al Gore said when he called the internal combustion engine
the greatest threat to mankind [the global warming hoax conveniently came
along to help him banish it]; and remember what Barack Obama said when he
regretted the rapid rise of the gas prices, but not the present high levels!
If he had his way, these high prices would just not be reached for a year
or two down the road—big deal! When what we want is under $2 a gallon prices
again—and soon—not never, as he’s like.
_________________________________________________________
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