*How to Bankrupt a Country in Three Easy Steps, by Roger Kimball.

“What is happening all around us is like a real-life dramatization of those pages Alexis de Tocqueville devoted to “democratic despotism.”  There are two sides to this novel form of tyranny. The fundamental political question, said Lenin, is “Who-Whom?” For the “whom,” i.e., for the ruled, democratic despotism has an enervating effect. It acts to reduce energy, initiative, the spirit of derring-do and entrepreneurship.  If you are more dependent on the state, if your activities are more hemmed in by bureaucracy, regulation, and taxation, you will be less likely to embark upon morning enterprises that require an appetite for risk, adventure, and ambition.

For the “who,” however, the fundamental effect of democratic despotism is a net increase in arrogance and unaccountability.”

Read the whole thing.

*Why Have We Lost Confidence? By Jay Ambrose.

“Our economy is hugely at risk, and Congress did this to us.”

Racism

*From Reverend Wright to the Sherrod Affair, by Victor Davis Hanson.

*Cry Racism! And let slip the dogs of politics, by Tony Blankley.

“In the last fortnight: 1) The NAACP called the tea party racist; 2) Andrew Breitbart called the NAACP racist; 3) Shirley Sherrod called Republican opponents of Obamacare racists; 4) Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack called Shirley Sherrod racist; 5) many in mainstream media called Andrew Breitbart racist; 6) Howard Dean called Fox racist; and, 7) it was revealed that liberal journalist Spencer Ackerman proposed calling Fred Barnes and Karl Rove racist.

Thus, through a confluence of bizarrely unlikely events, the vicious act of falsely accusing people of racism became a laughingstock. It went from being a career killer to a punch line; from villainy to vaudeville; from knife in the back to pie in the face.”

Let’s pray that it’s true.

*Our Divisive President, by Patrick Caddell and Douglas Schoen.

1^st Amendment

*Breathe a slow sigh of relief, DISCLOSE act fails to garner 60 votes.

*Our precarious 1^st Amendment, by Jennifer Rubin.

“The DISCLOSE Act — a nefarious attempt to do through the backdoor that which the Supreme Court barred by the front door, namely government regulation of First Amendment–protected speech — is dead for now. It is a lesson in how precarious (57-41 was the cloture vote) is our attachment to basic constitutional values.”

*The Left’s Crusade to End Debate, by Andrew Klavan.

*Obama: Post-Racial, Post-Partisan, or Post-Sanity, by Dan Miller.

“The beatings must continue until morale improves; besides, the beatings mean more government employees to administer and regulate the beatings which the “little people” of the country will feel but can’t comprehend. This stimulates employment and that must in and of itself be a good thing.”

*The Calamitous Effects of Obama’s Tax Hikes, at Washington Examiner.

*Rule By Decree, by Mario Loyola.

Global Cooling Warming Climate Change

*It looks as though Cap-and-Trade is dead for the moment, Thomas Friedman and Paul Krugman hardest hit.  Damn you wingnut deniers, damn you straight to carbon hell.

*How’s that 2^nd Chakra working out for you Mr. Vice President?

*No sooner asked then answered: Is it Time to End Climate Alarmism? By Mark Landsbaum.

“Global warming zealots have lost. It’s only a matter of time until they realize it and move on to a new contrived catastrophe, where doubtless they’ll be warmly received by a compliant press and amply rewarded with more tax-subsidized grants. It seems there are insatiable appetites and never-ending tax dollars for the proper causes.”

*Desperate Days for the Warmists, by Christopher Booker.

Journ-O-lism

*Journolist Debates Making Coordination With Obama Explicit, by Jonathan Strong.

*Journolism, by David Warren.

“Do journalists collude with one another on how to “spin” stories? On developing “talking points,” just like politicians? On which red herrings can be purposely thrown in, to mislead and distract readers from the truth? On how to hide hard but inconvenient facts? On how to help their friends, hurt their enemies, and generally, stage-manage the presentation of the news to advance a common political agenda?

I would say, no, they don’t have to. These are all things they (er, “we”) can do instinctively, without any need of formal co-ordination. All that is required is a profession whose practitioners form a self-recognizing class; who share a settled (and rather conformist) view of the world; and who spend most of their lives in each other’s company, hardly ever meeting, let alone mixing socially with, people of other classes with other points of view.”

*Surprise! Andrew Sullivan not the only Journ-O-List obsessed with Sara Palin’s uterus.  In Ezra Klein’s defense, he seems as disgusted by the thread as I am.

Misc.

*U.N. Threatens Second and First Amendments, at the Washington Times.

*Rauf’s Dawa from the World Trade Center Rubble, by Andrew C. McCarthy.

“Check out the spending under your guys, Senator McConnell. Notice how it doesn’t go down? This is why nobody trusts Republicans on spending: because Republicans have not earned anybody’s trust.”

RELATED: Lott Confirms He’s a Paid Tool of the Washington Establishment, by Mark Tapscott.

*American Politics Has Caught the British Disease, by Janet Daley.

*Budget reconciliation is off the table for next years congress, because no budget was passed this year.  Thank God for small favors.
*There are many, many gems in the latest VDH piece at Pajamas Media,Pity the Post-Modern Cultural Elite.  A few examples:

“Much of modern elite neuroticism derives from the combination of not working physically with the desire to look as if one did….

and

…There is little logic among the cultural elite, maybe because there is little omnipresent fear of job losses or the absence of money, and so arises a rather comfortable margin to indulge in nonsense.”

Read the whole thing.

*First the came for the bloggers:  73,000 blogs shut down by the fed with no explanation as to why.

*Shocker: Journolists conspired to minimize the craziness of Jeremiah Wright by painting conservatives as RACISTS!!!  The key word here is conspired.

RELATED: Race Card Fraud, by Thomas Sowell.

“There is not now, nor has there ever been, anything post-racial about Barack Obama, except for the people who voted for him in the mistaken belief that he shared their desire to be post-racial. When he leaves office, especially if it is after one term, he will leave this country more racially polarized than before.”

*Liberty or Tyranny? By David Solway.

*Kindle books are now outselling paper books at Amazon.

*President Haters, by J.R. Dunn.

*We Only Expected Competence, by Abe Greenwald.

“It somehow has never dawned on the Obama devotees who like to cite the administration’s “inherited mess” that this president’s failures don’t exactly reflect the over cautiousness of a leader constrained by a crisis. Taking over one-sixth of the private sector in an unintelligible health-care scheme is not an indication of tied hands; it’s a demonstration of unbridled recklessness. So too is dumping unprecedented billions into a liberal wish-list and calling it a stimulus. And so is cooking up financial reform that makes growth impossible and charges responsible banks with the task of bailing out irresponsible ones.”

*The White House Against the World, at IBD.

*The Backlash: Dems Still Don’t Get It, by Rich Lowry.

Two columns worth reading, by two very smart men, reaching wildly opposing conclusions:

*Obama’s Second Act, by Charles Krauthammer.

“Obama is down, but it’s very early in the play. Like Reagan, he came here to do things. And he’s done much in his first 500 days. What he has left to do, he knows, must await his next 500 days — those that come afterreelection.

So 2012 is the real prize. Obama sees far, farther than even his own partisans. Republicans underestimate him at their peril.”

*When Did the Rules Change? By Jonah Goldberg.

“For nearly a century now, the rules have said that tough economic times make big government more popular. For more than 40 years it has been a rule that environmental disasters — and scares over alleged ones — help environmentalists push tighter regulations. According to the rules, Americans never want to let go of an entitlement once they have it. According to the rules, populism is a force for getting the government to do more, not less. According to the rules, Americans don’t care about the deficit during a recession.

And yet none of these rules seem to be applying; at least not too strongly. Big government seems more unpopular today than ever. The Gulf oil spill should be a Gaia-send for environmentalists, and yet three-quarters of the American people oppose Obama’s drilling ban. Sixty percent of likely voters want their newly minted right to health care repealed. Unlike Europe, where protesters take to the streets to save their cushy perks and protect a large welfare state, the tea-party protesters have been taking to the streets to trim back government.”

Economy

*When Debt Flies Off the Charts, by Veronique de Rugy.

*About That Financial Reform ‘Victory’, by Kimberly Strassel.

“The financial regulation bill was cast from the same big-government, antibusiness mold as ObamaCare and the stimulus. The public turns against those laws by the day. Maybe financial regulation will prove third time lucky for this majority. They shouldn’t count on it.”

“The bottom line is that Obama’s approval ratings are almost certainly influenced by economic conditions.  But a controversial energy bill, a prolonged, contentious fight over health policy, and yes, even a “snakebit”response to the oil spill, have had a substantial effect on the President’s approval ratings.  If missteps continue, it could make the difference between a bad and awful midterm election for the Democrats.”

Read the whole thing.

*If this were a story about the GOP, we would be inundated with stories about a “Republican Civil War,” complete with references to Stalinesque purges and raging fundamentalists (market or religious).  Since it’s about the Dems, we get: Pelosi Vents About Gibbs.

*Obama’s Crisis is GOP Opportunity, by Jonah Goldberg.

“For a year or so, Republicans have been the so-called party of no. Contrary to the expectations of its critics, that tactic has been good for the GOP. It seems that the “tea parties,” America’s natural antibodies to Obamaism, have provided some vital stem cell therapy, helping to regrow the Republican spine.

But that spine is only valuable if you use it for something.”

Indeed.

*Jihadists bombing Africans makes them RACIST!  Thank you Mr. President, for continuing to obscure instead of clarify.  Jennifer Rubin at Commentary asks the obvious:

“It is this sort of thing that fills one with dread and raises this question: is there no limit to the lengths Obama will go to avoid spelling out the real motive behind Islamic fundamentalist terror?”

No Mrs. Rubin, there is no limit.  And you’re a racist Islamophobe for asking the question.

*Attacks on Freedom, by John Stossel.

*Is the Tea Party Racist, by Timothy Dalrymple.

*New Scientist declares: You can’t fight violence with violence.   I disagree, for reasons better said by the godfather of Sci-Fi, Robert A. Heinlein:

Roughneck

“But on the last day he seemed to be trying to find out what we had learned. One girl told him bluntly: “My mother says that violence never settles anything.”

“So?” Mr. Dubois looked at her bleakly. “I’m sure the city fathers of Carthage would be glad to know that. Why doesn’t your mother tell them so? Or why don’t you?”

They had tangled before — since you couldn’t flunk the course, it wasn’t necessary to keep Mr. Dubois buttered up. She said shrilly, “You’re making fun of me! Everybody knows that Carthage was destroyed!”

“You seemed to be unaware of it,” he said grimly. “Since you do know it, wouldn’t you say that violence had settled their destinies rather thoroughly? However, I was not making fun of you personally; I was heaping scorn on an inexcusably silly idea — a practice I shall always follow. Anyone who clings to the historically untrue — and thoroughly immoral — doctrine that ‘violence never settles anything’ I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms.” ]]> http://quantumconservative.com/2010/07/14/daily-right-61410-2/feed/ 0 http://quantumconservative.com/2010/07/14/daily-right-61310-delayed/ http://quantumconservative.com/2010/07/14/daily-right-61310-delayed/#comments Wed, 14 Jul 2010 23:51:25 +0000 Quantum Conservative http://quantumconservative.com/?p=3681 Religion of Peace

*I know this is going to shock you, but the artist who started “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” has been marked for death.

*The Muslim Civil War, by Barry Rubin.

*Bedtime Stories for the Muslim World, by Rich Lowry.

“The short version of the story is that in the battle between science and religious obscurantism in the Islamic world, obscurantism won in a rout.”

Economy

*Think Big: Republicans should embrace Paul Ryan’s roadmap, by Fred Barnes.  You know where I stand on this issue:

*The Disintegration of the Welfare State, by Neil Reynolds.

“Democracies produced Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, fulfilling the expectation of Socrates and Machiavelli that democracies end in tyranny. Now democracies are fulfilling the complementary expectation of Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman that democracies end in bankruptcy.”

*The Answer to Our Economic Problems: Changing Fiscal Policy, by Jeffrey Carter.

*Signs of the Times, by Thomas Sowell.

*Government Spending Cannot Fix the Economy, by Michael Barone.

ClimateGate

*The Whitewash Continues, by Patrick J. Michaels.

“Last November there was a world-wide outcry when a trove of emails were released suggesting some of the world’s leading climate scientists engaged in professional misconduct, data manipulation and jiggering of both the scientific literature and climatic data to paint what scientist Keith Briffa called “a nice, tidy story” of climate history. The scandal became known as Climategate.

Now a supposedly independent review of the evidence says, in effect, “nothing to see here.”

*The IPCC and Climate Change Spin, by Jillian Melchior.

Misc.

*Our Year 2 A.B., by Victor Davis Hanson.

“In the last two years, we have evolved also beyond the old Neanderthal notion of the “law,” as if it were some moral notion engraved on stone tablets that “deserves” our “adherence.” How quaint is that?

Instead, a higher moral calling now adjudicates legal obedience. Immigration law is a construct that at times can or cannot be followed, depending on the plight of those affected. Voting fraud is really a race and class issue: one man’s “fraud” is another man’s “activism.” Big polluters can be invited to contribute billions to remedy their errors — and, low and behold, they most certainly will if asked properly! Contracts? What contracts?”

*Health Care Rationing Obama Believes In, by Nat Hentoff.

*No one questions Bruce Dickenson Rep. Rodriguez (D-TX) ]]> http://quantumconservative.com/2010/07/14/daily-right-61310-delayed/feed/ 0 http://quantumconservative.com/2010/07/07/daily-right-7710/ http://quantumconservative.com/2010/07/07/daily-right-7710/#comments Thu, 08 Jul 2010 00:18:09 +0000 Quantum Conservative http://quantumconservative.com/?p=3660 Economy

*Dare we say the D word?

“The US is still trapped in depression a full 18 months into zero interest rates, quantitative easing (QE), and fiscal stimulus that has pushed the budget deficit above 10pc of GDP.

The share of the US working-age population with jobs in June actually fell from 58.7pc to 58.5pc. This is the real stress indicator. The ratio was 63pc three years ago. Eight million jobs have been lost.

The average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks. Nothing like this has been seen before in the post-war era.”

*Read this job chart and weep:

*Democrat’s Jobs Problem: Their Own, by Jennifer Rubin.

“The new New Deal has worked as poorly as the original, and the barrage of tax increases, mandates, and uber-regulation has left the private sector reeling.”

Oil Spill

*Heartache: Twenty Photo’s That Obama Doesn’t Want You to See, by DIRECTORBLUE.

*The BP/Government Police State, by Glenn Greenwald.

“The very idea that government officials are acting as agents of BP (of all companies) in what clearly seem to be unconstitutional acts to intimidate and impede the media is infuriating.  Obviously, the U.S. Government and BP share the same interest — preventing the public from knowing the magnitude of the spill and the inadequacy of the clean-up efforts — but this creepy police state behavior is intolerable.”

“Police state behavior.”   This is from Salon, as liberal a publication as you can get.

NASA: A Muslim Affair

First, take a look at this video of Charles Bolden, the newly appointed head of NASA discussing the Obama administrations new tasks for the agency:
If you can’t watch the video, here is a transcript of the relevant portion:

“When I became the NASA administrator — or before I became the NASA administrator — he charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science … and math and engineering.”

You read that right, NASA is no longer concerned with manned space flight, but has been re-tasked to make the Muslim world feel good about itself.  Unbelievable.  At this rate, the Jihadi’s won’t have anything left to destroy, we’ll have done all the work for them.

*The Distance NASA Travelled Over 48 Years, by Jim Prevor.

*Is It NASA’s Job? By Elliot Abrams.

“A more serious task might be to make them feel terrible about the present level of education in Muslim lands, not least for women and girls, in the hope that we could spur them to reform and improvement.”

*It Cannot Be That NASA Has Nothing Better to Do, by Victor Davis Hanson.

Misc.

*An Afternoon at the Willard, by Matt Patterson.

*The New Frontier: ‘Covering’ Conservatives, by Jonah Goldberg.

“And just what is the conservative beat?

Well, according to many of the nation’s leading editors, it’s that shadowy, often-sinister world where carbon based-life forms of a generally humanoid appearance say and do things relating to, and supportive of, conservative causes and the Republican Party. These strange creatures have been observed using complex tools, caring and nurturing their young and even participating in complex social rituals. Most worship an unseen sky god that traces its roots back to the ancient Middle East. Even more astounding, these creatures are having a noticeable impact on American politics.

And that is why many of our leading journalistic enterprises have found it worthwhile to assign full-time reporters to the task of spelunking through the dark caves of conservatism to better understand these fascinating, if vaguely worrisome, beings.” ]]> http://quantumconservative.com/2010/07/07/daily-right-7710/feed/ 0 http://quantumconservative.com/2010/06/30/daily-right-63010/ http://quantumconservative.com/2010/06/30/daily-right-63010/#comments Thu, 01 Jul 2010 00:54:49 +0000 Quantum Conservative http://quantumconservative.com/?p=3617 2^nd Amendment

*Gun Shy, by Jacob Sullum.

“In their dissenting opinions, Justices John Paul Stevens and Stephen Breyer (joined by Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor) worry that overturning gun control laws undermines democracy. If “the people” want to ban handguns, they say, “the people” should be allowed to implement that desire through their elected representatives.

What if the people want to ban books that offend them, establish an official church, or authorize police to conduct warrantless searches at will? Those options are also foreclosed by constitutional provisions that apply to the states by way of the 14th Amendment. The crucial difference between a pure democracy and a constitutional democracy like ours is that sometimes the majority does not decide.”

TEA Party

*Where Did the TEA Party Anger Come From? By Victor Davis Hanson.

“There is a growing sense that government is what I would call a new sort of Versailles — a vast cadre of royal state and federal workers that apparently assumes immunity from the laws of economics that affect everyone else.”

*The Ugly Party vs. The Grown Up Party, by Michael Gerson.

The Economy

*Spend Baby, Spend, by David Harsanyi.

* Why Obamanomics Has Failed, by Allen H. Meltzer.

“Two overarching reasons explain the failure of Obamanomics. First, administration economists and their outside supporters neglected the longer-term costs and consequences of their actions. Second, the administration and Congress have through their deeds and words heightened uncertainty about the economic future. High uncertainty is the enemy of investment and growth.”

Religion of Peace™

*Lion’s Den: Jihadi Undercuts President, by Daniel Pipes

“Shahzad’s willingness to express his Islamic purposes and spend long years in jail for them flies in the face of Obama administration efforts not to name Islamism as the enemy, preferring such lame formulations as “overseas contingency operations” and “man-caused disasters.”

*The Myth of Modern Jihad, by Robert Wright.

“Now, for a Muslim holy warrior to see his attacks as revenge runs counter to Pipes’s longstanding claim that Islamic holy war is about attack, not counterattack. Roughly since 9/11, Pipes has been telling us that jihad is “unabashedly offensive in nature, with the eventual goal of achieving Muslim dominion over the entire globe.” This notion of “jihad in the sense of territorial expansion has always been a central aspect of Muslim life” and is now “the world’s foremost source of terrorism.” That’s why you have to

respond with “superior military force.”

Now we have Shahzad suggesting roughly the opposite — that the holy war could end if America would stop using military force.”

I’m sure it comes as no surprise that I agree with Daniel Pipes in this argument.  Mr. Wright suffers from the peculiar lefty habit of appeasement, failing to realize that bullies will keep coming at you until you bloody their nose.

For a fantastic look at Jihad in the Muslim faith, as written by Muslims, read The Legacy of Jihad.

Energy

*Obama: Spill, Schmill – Where’s My Energy Tax?  By Chris Horner

“Maybe the crisis that the Obama administration itself represents won’t go to waste — and will serve to persuade the public to elect a competent government in the two political branches.”

*Paying President’s ‘Price on Carbon,’ at IBD.

“Cap-and-tax would impact almost every aspect of our lives, from higher gasoline prices to soaring utility bills, to restrictions and regulations related to the “energy efficiency” of our homes. It is a hidden tax on our freedom and our prosperity. It will limit our choices and our actions. It will reduce our supply of energy and thereby increase its costs, another hidden tax.”

*Gun Prohibition, R.I.P, by David Rittgers.

“A generation from now, legal and policy discussions will look back and see gun control for the sham that it has always been. The real shame is that it took decades of political action, millions of dollars in litigation, and thousands of lives lost to end the preposterous idea that governments can reduce the number of victims of violent crime by first taking away their means of resistance.”

Emphasis mine.

*Gun Control Laws, by Thomas Sowell.

*The New Normal: The 2^nd Amendment After Heller and McDonald, by Glenn Reynolds.

“Nonetheless, the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment decisions have made a major difference. In particular, they have offset the gun-control community’s longstanding effort to “denormalize” firearms ownership — to portray it as something threatening, deviant, and vaguely perverse, and hence demanding strict regulation, if not outright prohibition. That effort went on for decades, and received much media support. Two decades ago, it seemed to be working.

But with the Supreme Court saying that it’s clear the Framers regarded individual gun ownership as “necessary to our system of ordered liberty,” that effort must be seen as a failure now. Gun ownership by law-abiding citizens is the new normal, and the Second Amendment is now normal constitutional law. It will stay so, as long as enough Americans care to keep it that way.”

Read the whole thing.

*The NYT is unimpressed.

*Paul Krugman’s Depression, by IBD.

“Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman says the U.S. is in the “early stages of a third Great Depression.” If he’s right, it’s only because American policymakers have been following his advice.”

Heh.

*Our next Supreme Court justice thinks it’s alright for the government to ban books.  No, seriously:

*The Dodd-Frank Overreach, by John McCormack.

*New poll confirms: American’s are dumbasses

*Andrew Breitbart: “$100,000 for the head of Inigo Montoya the full JournoList archives.

*I’ve Never Seen Israel Like This, by William Galston.

“Joe Barton (R-TX) is right:  the $20 billion escrow fund is a shakedown. Not because BP isn’t liable for the oil spill, and not because BP shouldn’t help the people losing their livelihoods on the Gulf Coast.  But because Obama extorting the escrow fund from BP is an exercise of executive power outside the rule of law.”

Again, the rule of law is dead.

RELATED: An Apology to be Truly Sorry About, at IBD.

*Does Obama Want to be President? By Roger L. Simon.

“So what does this mean that POTUS hates his job? On the extremes, he could have a breakdown (as blogger David Thomson has predicted) or simply quit. Neither of these things are likely to happen, though they certainly are within the realm of possibility.

More likely he will stumble on, spending as much time as he can on the golf course or on vacation. Meanwhile, the role of the presidency will begin to diminish. More people will disregard his wishes. If the Republicans win big in November, he will retreat further. This man is not a fighter, because he has never had to fight. He lives in a very close, protective bubble, among people he has worked with for many years, most from Chicago. That will only increase as the wagons circle

Except for the most partisan among us, none of this is cause for rejoicing. America cannot thrive with a president who wishes he weren’t there. Nothing does. We can only hope that the damage that is done is reversible. Sometimes I think that it is. Sometimes not.”

*Amid Crisis, Obama Declares War…On Arizona, by Byron York.

*President Obama’s Enigmatic Intellectualism, by Richard Cohen.

*The Left’s New Enemy: Empire, by Daniel Pipes.

“The prime enemy is something called “Empire” (no definite article needed), a supposed global monolith that dominates, exploits, and oppresses the world. Sternberg summarizes the Left’s all-embracingindictment of Empire:

People live in poverty, food is contaminated, products are artificial, wasteful consumption is compelled, indigenous groups are dispossessed, and nature itself is subverted. Invasive species run rampant, glaciers melt, and seasons are thrown out of kilter, threatening world catastrophe.

Empire achieves this by means of “economic liberalism, militarism, multinational corporations, corporate media, and technologies of surveillance.” Because capitalism causes millions of deaths that a non-capitalist system would eliminate, it also is guilty of mass murder.

Read the whole thing.