Liberal Solutions

Why is it that so many liberal solutions to societal problems don't work? Now liberals generally are not stupid ... nor are they, I assume, trying to make matters worse. But all too often their well-meaning solutions to imbalances in our society end up costing a fortune and destroying an existing working mechanism. What is that old saying ... if it ain't broke, don't fix it?

It isn't difficult to come up with examples of these liberal failings here in the United States  How about their insisting on dealing with terrorists inside of our criminal justice system? How about their not enforcing many of our immigration policies (George W. Bush included)? How about their continued diminishing of our military hegemony? How about their expansion of our welfare system beyond reason? How about their creating of mechanisms that encourage voter fraud? How about their self-serving roiling of race and gender relations? How about their attempts to overthrow our gun freedoms? How about their penchant for deficit spending (ditto George W. Bush)? How about even their continued attempts to centralize powers away from the people?

To be fair, there are occasional liberal ideas that do work ... at least for a time ... like social security, and some reasonable welfare benefits. (Many might also claim that the roll-back of slavery and the Jim Crow laws were liberal wins ... but it was just the opposite.) But, when such successes are accomplished, liberals double down, triple down, and even quadruple down until such benefits are crushed under their inherent weaknesses.

Ersatz

It was recently reveled that Beyonce lip-synced the national anthem at President Obama’s just-passed inauguration … with the Marine Band pretending to play the associated music … see: Telegraph Story

Let’s see … President Obama reads someone else’s words from his ever-present Teleprompter, Beyonce mimes the Star-Spangled Banner, global-warming data is still being faked (see: Powerline Blog), and Michelle Obama is now sporting a black-banged wig.  Is everything ersatz these days?

Someone please pinch me.  I’m hoping that the last four years were also just make-believe … our huge deficit spending, Obamacare, and the Arab Spring never happened  … and were all just bad dreams.  Perhaps I might also wake up and discover that Mitt Romney is now the President?

Another Message to Our Politicians ...

Stop the spending!
Stop the borrowing!
Stop the government waste!
Stop the self-dealing!
Stop the lying!
Stop the finger-pointing!
Stop the posturing!
Stop the short-sightedness!
Stop the printing of money!
Stop the politics!
Stop the lust for power!
Stop the avarice!
Stop the demagoguery!
Stop the arrogance!
Stop the grandstanding!
Stop the propaganda!
Stop the accusations!
Stop the indifference!
Stop the bullsh*t!

Ditch the Republicans?

Yesterday at a Democrat fundraiser, our august prexy, Barack Obama, gave his partisan argument as to why a Democrat Congress deserves to win the elections in November. Basically, he said that Bush and the rest of the Republicans drove our economy into the ditch in 2008. Obama was subsequently elected and thus he [sigh] was required to patch up this accident. With that sly grin of his, he went on to say that the Democrats have gotten the car (our economy) out of the ditch and back on the asphalt. And he added with a snide guffaw … now the Republicans want the keys back. In his best sophomoric manner, he said, “No! You can’t drive. We don’t want to have to go back into the ditch. We just got the car out.”

Perhaps what he said has a modicum of metaphoric truth to it, however please allow me to modify and extend his remarks with the following observations:

- The Republicans were not alone in driving our economy into the ditch. Clearly, by insisting on the irrational expansion of sub-prime mortgages, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd and their cronies in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did their share of reckless driving. The major sin that Bush and his Republican compatriots in Congress can be accused of is not pushing back hard enough.

- Yes, the Democrats have stopped our economy from sliding further into the ditch. But to say that we are back on the asphalt is, at best, political hyperbole. At worst, it is demagoguery. Economic growth is clearly anemic and unemployment still hovers around 10%. In fact, we are in serious jeopardy of slipping back into negative GNP growth. And this is occurring after monstrous government deficit spending that cannot be sustained. Such a Keynesian economic experiment has once again been proven misguided … and if the Bush tax cuts are left to expire this coming January, it is quite likely that Obama’s stretch limo will also end up back in the economic ditch.

- Even public opinion has now decided that it is Obama’s recession. See: Obama's Fault. After 18 months in office, Obama needs to stop pushing his ultra-liberal agenda at the expense of job seekers and economic growth. He is rapidly losing Bush as a scapegoat and would be advised to start accepting responsibility for our economic malaise. Perhaps, as Obama was decrying at the fundraiser, the Republicans might make an equivalent mess of things if they win back majorities in Congress this fall, but then we would still have some hope that things will finally change. I kind of suspect that if the tea partiers have anything to say about it, things will.