Why I'm Not Voting for Romney or Obama

As those who have known for while awhile know, I've been self-identifying as a Libertarian since a road-to-Damascus moment about how there is no moral difference between nonviolent ownership of "assault weapons" and nonviolent marijuana smoking when I was in high school. Although I was too young to vote in the 2000 presidential election, I voted for the Libertarian Badnarik in 2004.

In 2008, I voted rather reluctantly for John McCain. I can't remember why--either something the Libertarian candidate that year did got on my nerves or perhaps there was something about Obama I really didn't like and I didn't want to risk helping Obama win Georgia. Although I'm drifting away from Libertarianism (more because I support government spending on education, science, and infrastructure), my views are sufficiently different from the two major parties that I'm not inclined to vote for either of them and I'm not going to vote for hard-leftists like the Greens.

However, although I haven't voted yet, I'm probably going to vote for Libertarian Gary Johnson. Although I have spoken out in favor of Republicans Jon Huntsman and Ron Paul, here's why I'm not interested in supporting either candidate.

Obama

One thing I didn't like about Obama back in 2008 was the whole cult-of-personality thing that coalesced around him, with him being "the one" who would bring "change." I'll give Obama credit that he tried to make a joke out of it rather than use it for some more sinister purpose, but that did rub me the wrong way.

One of the big reasons I didn't like him in 2008 was the born-alive controversy in Illinois. This isn't a matter of abortion in the first trimester or so of pregnancy when the fetus doesn't really have much in the way of a brain. If there's the possibility the fetus can survive outside the womb, it must be fairly far along. See this. This isn't even abortion anymore.

Although I shed no tears for Gadhafi and have flat-out recommended Obama claim credit for Gadhafi's death to look tough on foreign policy, Obama has claimed the U.S. contribution to the overthrow of Gadhafi did not require congressional approval. I do not believe that to be the case.

Obama does not oppose indefinite-detention provisions that violate the Fifth and may infringe on the First amendments.

And then there's Gunwalker.


Romney

For starters, Mitt Romney flip-flops when it's politically convenient. I have no beef with changing one's opinions based on new evidence--after all, that's what science is all about--but the timing of Romney's changing views on issues like gun control and abortion smell.

It's not like Romney opposes the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens either. If someone is killed in battle and is a U.S. citizen that's one thing, but if they're arrested, that's something else. The U.S. Constitution specifically says people can be charged with treason for making war on the U.S. and that's how to handle American members of AQ who are taken alive.

Mitt Romney also opposes online gambling, using downright nanny-state arguments in favor of keeping the ban. I don't gamble for money, but I don't care if anyone else does. If someone causes their family to suffer because they can't control their gambling, that's unfortunate, but it's not justification for the government to ban everyone from doing it.

Romney vowed to fight marijuana legalization "tooth and nail." Considering how Colorado has greatly benefited from "medical marijuana" and several states are voting on legalizing marijuana this fall, we might well have a major state-federal clash. Considering how the GOP claims to support state and local control, the federal government being aggressive on this issue is rather hypocritical.

I'll get to why I support Gary Johnson later, since I generally believe in providing positive solutions rather than just complaining.

On Obama's "You Didn't Build That" Speech

There's a lot of talk, Facebook picture-memes, and that sort of thing going on these days about Obama's speech.  In particular, the line telling business owners that they didn't build their own businesses is getting attention.

So let's see that line and, most importantly, its context.  Here is the link to Obama's actual speech, and I will post the relevant quotes here.

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me -- because they want to give something back.  They know they didn’t -- look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own.  You didn’t get there on your own.  I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart.  There are a lot of smart people out there.  It must be because I worked harder than everybody else.  Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help.  There was a great teacher somewhere in your life.  Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive.  Somebody invested in roads and bridges.  If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that.  Somebody else made that happen.  The Internet didn’t get invented on its own.  Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.  There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own.  I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service.  That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.

That "you didn't build that" line was a stupid, stupid thing to say.  He should have said "those roads and bridges" or perhaps something about how the businesspeople had help that might not be immediately obvious.  And now it looks like he's going to pay for that politically.

Why Obama's 'you didn't build that' line may bite back

Now, about the actual content of the speech, Obama had some good points.  And I say this as a conservative.

Imagine a world where:

*Anything you built or grew could be taken from you by violent men.

*Travel from place to place is much harder.

*It was much more difficult to get an education, with only the richest people able to get it.

*Said richest people would have to spend much more of their money to pay for their own security (and those of friends, family, workers), reducing their ability to invest in promising technology or patronize the arts.

Internal security and the rule of law, transportation infrastructure, and the school system are all government programs.  I will freely admit I would not be where I am today if I didn't grow up in a peaceful suburb with a damn fine school system and public library system.  An organized government maintains the internal peace conducive to having an economy in the first place (look at how trade collapsed and everyone got poorer when the Roman Empire fell in the West) and can provide for an educational system that stimulates people's minds and trains them to succeed.

As Obama said in his speech, the Internet did start out as a government program.  One of the precursors, ARPANET, was something the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency devised to maintain communications networks after a nuclear war.  Private parties built on that to make it what it is today, but the bones of it were built by the government.  I'm not suggesting taxing Internet entrepreneurs punitively out of envy and resentment, but recognizing the reality that said entrepreneurs built on something someone else built.

This is not an argument in favor of a so-called "progressive" tax rate, but it is an argument in favor of paying taxes as a means of "paying it forward" to future generations, just as prior generations "paid it forward" for you.  This isn't leftism here, this is anti-anarchism.

Marco Rubio Signs Books At Discover Mills

By MATTHEW W. QUINN

Lawrenceville, Ga.--U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) signed copies of his book An American Son at Discover Mills' Books-A-Million.

"I wrote this book American Son as a tribute to the American Dream," he said after he signed copies for the dozens of people who lined up almost to the door to see him July 5. He gave comments in both English and Spanish.

Although the book is ostensibly a memoir, it tells the tale of his parents and grandfather, Cuban immigrants to the United States.

When asked about the possibility he would Mitt Romney's running mate, Rubio said he resolved three months ago not to speculate out of respect for Romney. In response to questions about economic policy, he said the best policy would be to not re-elect U.S. President Barack Obama. Although many Americans are not interested in the presidential election at this point, Rubio said among those who are, Romney is leading Obama.

"Are you better today than you were four years ago when he became president?" he asked.

Although specific attendance figures were not available, the store sold all the copies of An American Son it had on hand as well as five cases of books purchased for the event.

Rick Milleman of Buford was among those who attended the signing. He left with three signed copies.

"I'm actually buying presidents for family members," he said. "My father, father-in-law and wife are all big fans."

It took awhile for the event to begin, but he talked with nice people in the line. It was nice to meet Rubio when the time came. He described himself as a conservative who likes the idea of Rubio being Romney's running mate. He said Rubio is someone who stands up for what he believes in, does things his own way rather than Washington's way and has lived up to his campaign promises.

Johns Creek resident Mollie Hager, 16, came as well.

"My grandmother is very involved with Marco Rubio's campaign," she said when asked how she learned about the event. "She said he was coming."

She said it was good for her to get involved in politics so early. When she turns 18, she will be able to make an informed vote. She recounted a trip she took took as a Chattahoochee High School student to Washington D.C. She met U.S. Rep. Tom Price, R-Roswell, as well as U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Galveston.

She said she hoped Rubio would accept if Romney asked him to be his running mate.

If Paul Winning Will Marginalize Iowa, Santorum Will Do Worse...

I recently noticed a slew of articles taking shots at the Iowa caucuses that seemed awfully coincidental with polls showing that Ron Paul had a good shot at winning them.  Here's one.  Some have even gone so far as to suggest that Iowans will suffer if they vote for Paul, such as this one, from the New York Post, along with another from Yahoo.  Here's Chris Wallace weighing in.

Now it seems that Rick Santorum is rising in the polls, as an alternative to Romney.  Politico confirms this.

The whole "Iowa better not vote for Paul" meme is based largely on how Paul supposedly isn't going to win the general election against Obama or even the Republican primary.  However, that argument applies even more strongly to Santorum for the following reasons:

*Santorum lost his U.S. Senate seat by a huge margin in 2006.  Read all about it here. I remember a lot of mockery about Al Gore losing his home state in 2000.  If Gore had won Tennessee and its 11 electoral votes, he'd have beaten Bush, Florida or not.  Come the general election, Obama can bring this up to attack Santorum.  And all the stuff Casey used to slam Santorum can be used by Obama for the same purpose.

*Meanwhile, a surprisingly successful Internet campaign has made the top search for "Santorum" a rather gross sexual thing.  Check out the Wikipedia article for more.  That's going to make it even harder for people to take him seriously and can you imagine all the awkward questions kids who do an Internet search for him because he's the presidential nominee are going to ask their parents?

*Santorum said he would launch a military strike on Iran if they did not admit inspectors to their nuclear sites.  Given how Obama got elected in part because he said he would end the Iraq War, even threatening to launch a new war (or even something equivalent to an old-school punitive expedition and not an outright invasion/occupation) is not going to go over well with the electorate at all.

*Santorum's very socially conservative views cost him in Pennsylvania and they're going to cost him in the general election.  For example, the public is growing more supportive of gay marriage, something Santorum is strongly against.  I am willing to say that a decade ago, a show like Modern Family featuring a gay couple adopting a child and being generally liked by everybody wouldn't have been made, and neither would the show Glee.  Meanwhile, he has advocated against contraception.  Given that Santorum is a conservative Catholic, him holding that view makes sense, but I don't think someone who intends to use his role as president to denounce contraception is going to be all that popular with female voters, especially since hormonal birth control is used to treat menstrual cramps and other conditions.  Santorum has specifically criticized the mandate for insurance companies to cover birth control, but this is something that's proven rather popular.

The United States has been growing more and more social liberal in recent years, something that's backed up by The Emerging Democratic Majority and Whistling Past Dixie: How the Democrats Can Win Without the South.  Santorum's social conservatism, regardless of whether it's morally right or not, is going to be lethal in the general election if he gets the Republican nod.

Now, I am not suggesting someone be so unprincipled as to decide on their morals due to opinion polls, but the purpose of the Republican primary is to choose the best candidate to defeat Obama in 2012.  If Ron Paul's views, the racist newsletters that went out under his name, etc. make him unelectable and if his un-electability will discredit the Iowa caucus, then electing Santorum will do the same thing--only worse.

One Area Obama Holds An Insurmountable Advantage Over Gingrich

Here are some thoughts I recently had about the electability of Newt Gingrich.  Don't get me wrong--I think Gingrich is a very smart man and if he were to win the Republican nomination, I'd probably vote for him.

That being said, for Republicans interested in nominating a candidate who can beat Obama in 2012, there is one area where Obama has an insurmountable advantage, and that's the much-vaunted area of family values.

Barack Obama's personal life.

Newt Gingrich's personal life.

It would be very hard for Newt Gingrich to run as a candidate strong on family values with a personal life this...complex.  Especially since it's more than just adultery-divorce-remarriage-repeat--in a book I bought when I was in school entitled Inside Congress, on page 133 of the 1997 Pocket Books edition, it describes how poorly Gingrich provided for his then-wife and two daughters while they were legally separated. A local church had to start a collection to pay for the family's utility bills.  Gingrich was paying $700 per month to support his family and $400 per month on his food and dry cleaning alone.

All Obama needs to do is show he has been married to and remained faithful to one woman since 1992 and there have never been any problems providing for the children and Gingrich will take a major hit.  Especially since Obama has not come from an especially stable family himself--see this article by none other than Bill O'Reilly--and yet he has managed to avoid perpetuating the cycle of dysfunction that often plagues unhappy families.

Now, as a consequence of my religious views I'm a big believer that even the most evil people can change.  Gingrich has, among other things, converted to Catholicism, which is a fairly big break from his earlier religious background and something that likely cost him political support.  If this represents a genuine change of heart, God bless him.

However, though God will forgive a sinner who repents, actions still have consequences, and his prior behavior has made him very vulnerable in certain areas.  Gingrich might make a better Cabinet official or chief of staff or general purpose eminence grise for whoever ends up winning the GOP 2012 nod rather than as the candidate himself.

Ron Paul Ad Criticizes Newt Gingrich

I'm all for people changing their positions based on evidence rather than being inflexible and rigid, but based on the stuff about money, I think Newt's approach to many of the issues herein is not based on examination of the evidence.

(I'm thinking the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac business and health-care.  I don't think the people who believe global warming is human-caused and a problem have got the money needed to sway him.)

Newt is smarter than the average bear in the Republican field at the moment and I'd support him over Paul (due to the bin Laden raid) and Romney and would probably vote for him over Obama, but this isn't a good sign at all.  And given he has written alternate-history fiction (something I'm interested in), that's saying something.

And Ron Paul's ads have gotten better.  When I supported Ron Paul in 2008, I remember a really goofy television ad featuring a bunch of people who really couldn't act sitting around a restaurant, with one of them rather unsubtly saying "I'm going to vote for Ron Paul."  In TVTropes terms, Narm.

The Patriot Act May Rise Again...

The Patriot Act, though its renewal was temporarily blocked, looks like it might be in place for another four years.

Congress to Vote on Extending Patriot Act

Not all of the Patriot Act is bad--I don't see any problem allowing the FBI access to CIA data in tracking terrorism suspects.

However, the parts that are bad are very bad.  The federal government being able to subpoena your library records and then gag the librarian to keep them from revealing this, for example.  And here's something else...

White House proposal would ease FBI access to records of Internet activity

I found the above link on my alternate-history forum.  It's dated to July, but it's relevant to this situation, since it involves the Patriot Act's "National Security Letters."

Imagine the blackmail potential being able to get into everyone's search history represents.  You could control people by threatening to reveal illegal music downloading, perusing pornographic Web sites, searches for already-written term papers, viewing Internet personal ads, wasting time when one should be working, etc.  You could say that those who avoid doing these dubious and/or immoral things would have nothing to fear, but even one slip-up could get an otherwise-virtuous person into trouble.  Say you download one song illegally and someone with access to your search history threatens to get the RIAA to sue you for a million dollars or something like that.  Even if laws and/or moral precepts have been broken, those who have done so do not necessarily deserveto be victims of a crime and that's what blackmail is.

Those blackmailed can be then used for nefarious purposes.  Here's an article science-fiction author David Brin wrote about just how dangerous blackmail can be:

The Hidden Danger to Public Servants

Blackmail can build upon blackmail--look at Brin's example of U.S. Marines blackmailed by the threat of revealing lewd photos of them with Russian girls into stealing information from the U.S. Embassy and then threatened with the revelation of their espionage to keep on doing it.

Imagine an opponent of the president or a powerful Congressman having a family member or friend blackmailed into spying on them.  Or even killing them--anyone remember the film Dial M for Murder in which a man blackmails another man into trying to kill his wife?

There's also the Fourth Amendment issues involved.  I'm pretty sure the principles still apply even though one's Internet history is not the same as one's file cabinet.  Given how the text of the amendment describes the right to be secure in one's "papers," I think you can apply that to one's personal information.

The vote won't take place until next week and many from the Tea Party movement have stuck to their small-government principles and opposed renewing the Patriot Act, at least without reforms. 

Anyone who wants to keep their privacy rights--and potentially much more--protected from government interference should write Congress via http://www.congress.org/ to let their representatives know that they don't want to be spied on.

My Column About Donald Trump...

Rather than write a column about local issues, I have decided to dip my toe in the 2012 presidential waters.

Here's a column about Donald Trump:

http://www.northfulton.com/Articles-c-2011-05-03-187113.114126-sub-Donald-Trump-not-a-good-Republican-candidate-for-2012.html

Hopefully this will be an attack on Trump from an unexpected direction.  I've heard Trump criticized on other grounds, like his divorce from his first wife, his tendency to attach "Trump" to everything (that he even jokes about), and his hair, and those attacks can be answered.

The eminent domain abuse criticism, although Michelle Malkin and John Stossel have engaged in it, has not to my knowledge hit the general public's radar yet.  However, those two wrote against Trump years ago and he was not a viable candidate then.  Trump's record is, in all likelihood, getting more attention right now than in the past.

Hopefully this foolishness can be nipped in the bud before Trump gets the Republican nomination (and is likely defeated in a landslide by Obama) or runs as an independent, which could lead to the vote being split and the Democrat winning again.

For the record, if Trump wins the Republican nomination, I'm voting Libertarian.  Even though the Libertarians won't win and I've been somewhat less hostile toward government spending in recent years, Trump's abuse of eminent domain is antithetical to everything any self-respecting conservative (or for that many, any self-respecting liberal) stands for.

In Support of the Bahraini Protesters...

Hosni Mubarak has been removed from power and the Egyptian military is overseeing reforms in the county's corrupt, schlerotic government (I hope), but here's something else potentially going wrong in the Middle East.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/world-middle-east-12471243

Bahrain is a largely Shi'a state ruled over by a Sunni royal family who employs foreign thugs to keep their people down.  It's also home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet.

There are Egypt-style protests brewing there that may well bring down the monarchy just like the Egyptian protesters brought down Mubarak.

There's one key difference though--the presence of a militarily-powerful neighbor that doesn't want its own oppressed masses getting ideas.  And I'm not talking about Iran, although that designation certainly applies.  I'm talking about our "friends" the Saudis.  The BBC article suggests the Saudis might intervene militarily if the al-Khalifa family looks like it's losing control of Bahrain, much like how the Soviets intervened in Hungary to crush the rebellion that had thrown out their Communist puppet government in 1956.

I hope Barack Obama tells the al-Sauds to keep their oppressive, terrorist-enabling fingers off Bahrain.  If the U.S. doesn't want a Saudi military intervention in Bahrain, it's not going to happen.  A long causeway connects Bahrain to the Saudi mainland and anything on that causeway is vulnerable to aerial and naval attack.  If we don't want Saudi troops crossing the causeway, they're not crossing the causeway.

I'm sure certain parties are going to go on about the dangers of radical Islam in this situation, with Iran standing in for the Muslim Brotherhood, but that would be rather foolish.  Based on the slogans the BBC is reporting, this is a non-sectarian popular uprising, not an Islamist one.

The only way terrorists will benefit from this is if the Bahraini monarchy or the Saudis crush the uprising and it appears the U.S. supported or allowed it to happen.  Then Osama bin Laden and his ilk will have a field day recruiting people who will be very upset at the United States and its allied regimes.

However, if the U.S. tells the Saudis to keep out and the Bahraini monarchy falls, something tells me that will generate a lot of good press for the United States among the Bahraini public and in the wider Middle East.

Political Hay-Making Attempts from the Tucson Shooting Have Begun

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/47338.html

The attempts to exploit the shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords for political ends has already begun.

U.S. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), who first ran for political office after the death of her husband and injury of her son during a shooting, announced she will introduce legislation intended to target high-capacity magazines.

In support of this measure, U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) said the following, according to Politico:

"'The ability to buy a weapon that fires hundreds of bullets in less than a minute,'” said Quigley. "'He had an additional magazine capability. That’s not what a hunter needs. That’s not what someone needs to defend their home. That’s what you use to hunt people.'"

How knowledgeable is Rep. Quigley about what sort of guns people "need"?

For the record, high-capacity magazines probably aren't necessary for run-of-the-mill burglars, muggers, home invaders, would-be rapists, violent crazed exes, etc.  However, I remember an account of a Korean-owned small business during the 1991 Los Angeles riots that was besieged by a large number of rioters.  The proprietors attempted to defend their business with their personal arms but found themselves outgunned and were forced to flee.

(I saw a CNN special about the riots long ago and I think it was a jewelry store--I remember seeing an older Korean lady later berating passers-by about their lack of human dignity from the ruins of the shop afterward.)

Higher-capacity rapid-fire guns would have been useful about then, since the proprietors were dealing with a much larger number of opponents who also had at least one superior weapon.  Situations like that don't happen very often, but in at least one case, such a weapon would have been helpful in defense of one's business if not one's home.

If any gun-control measures should be implemented as a result of this incident, it should be a tightening-up of the existing laws preventing those with certain degrees of mental illness from getting guns.  And "mental illness" should be defined very tightly, lest some Iraq or Afghan vet with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder be banned from owning a gun.

On a more sinister note, Politico reports Philadelphia Democrat U.S. Rep. Robert Brady said he intends to introduce a bill criminalizing the use of threatening language or symbols directed toward federal officials or members of Congress.

On my alternate-history forum, someone posted the image of a map Sarah Palin created depicting crosshairs on states whose representatives voted for Obama's health-care reform package.  I heard the map was taken down from Palin's web-site, but it can be found here:

http://www.wisepolitics.com/sarah-palin-crosshairs-map-target-list-2989.html

However, the map does not call for any kind of violence--I think the red markers are for representatives who lost elections, not their lives or personal health.

Furthermore, although certain parties (some members of my message-board, for starters) tried to pin the shooting on the Tea Party, right-wing extremists, etc., it's not just them who use allegedly-threatening imagery.

DailyKos also used gun-related imagery re: Giffords.  Scroll down to post #65 to see it:

http://boards.bengals.com/showthread.php?t=76933&page=3

Given how the shooter Jared Lee Loughner is a 9/11 Truther (among other conspiracy theories), using the same standards the loopy-lefties (not all lefties, just the loopy ones) used to blame Palin and the Tea Party for the shooting in Tucson, one could blame DailyKos and the "netroots" in general for the shooting.

However, according to the more recent events, the shooter had a personal grudge against Giffords because she didn't answer some nonsensical question about how the government is controlling people through grammar a few years ago.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110110/ap_on_re_us/us_congresswoman_shot_gunman_11

I don't see how it's really fair to blame any political faction, be it the Tea Party or the netroots, for this episode, and it's NOT cool to start infringing on people's freedom of speech as a result.  I don't claim to be a mind reader, but I'll bet Brady had Palin's "crosshairs" imagery in mind when he proposed this bill.

There are already laws against actually threatening politicians and crosshairs imagery in the context Palin's group and DailyKos used it is NOT a "true threat."

News Article Round-Up, Including a Possible Ban on Bake Sales

I had some links I wanted to blog on individually, but I was busy with my book and other tasks and they started piling up.  I'll just do them all at once...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40497637/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/

Seriously, Mrs. Obama?  Banning (or at least highly regulating) bake sales?

I can understand your concerns about the health of children and the awful overweight/obesity statistics in the United States.

However, this is a bad idea for several reasons.  For starters, unless you make following these rules a condition of receiving federal money, imposing them on state and local schools is unconstitutional.  Education is a state and local prerogative, not a federal one.  Even if it is a good idea, it is being done in the completely wrong manner.

Furthermore, this could do serious harm to organizations like bands, academic teams, etc. that depend on raising money from the local public to supplement funds from the school, if indeed they get any.  I was a member of my high school's Academic Bowl team and I remember we sold Chick-fil-A chicken biscuits to raise money to go on trips.  I'm pretty sure those didn't meet standards about portion size or what have you.

My life would be a lot poorer if I hadn't been able to go to the tournaments in Chicago, St. Louis, Myrtle Beach, etc.  Those were fun and highly educational.

I hope if Obama signs the measure, someone challenges the constitutionality of it in the Supreme Court.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/45687.html

Joe Scarborough warns the Republican Party about how Sarah Palin would not be good for them.

I share his concerns.  Something I'm afraid of is that Sarah Palin wins the primaries due to her strength in the Republican Party base and then is destroyed in 2012 by Barack Obama.  I can imagine her winning the South and Midwest, but if Republicans win only that, they lose the election.  See 2008, for starters, along with Clinton's electoral wins in the 1990s.

And that assumes the South and Midwest vote for her because she's a Republican.  If something like the Katie Couric interview happens and less-"hard core" Republicans decide Obama is the lesser evil, it could be even worse.  It'd be 1964 all over again.

And I'm saying this as someone who will defend Palin against some of her detractors, like Andrew Sullivan's baby conspiracy theories or the people on DemocraticUnderground who call her a quitter, even though she resigned as governor because her enemies kept filing lawsuits against her that had to be fought with taxpayer money.

(She fell on her sword to protect the state budget.  The lefties are condemning her for her response to something THEY did.)

Note I did say some of her detractors.  She attacked Ronald Reagan (or at least came off as doing so--I haven't seen the context of her remarks), and that's just not cool.  Given the esteem Reagan is held in the Republican Party, this might be enough to ruin her chances of getting the nomination.

Let's hope Palin's reality-TV show is tremendously successful and it keeps her and hers busy for a long time to come.  :)

Obama, South Korea, and Free Trade

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/12/world/asia/12seoul.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

Good for Barack Obama to be continuing to push for a free trade agreement with South Korea and committing to drastically increase America's exports.  The last thing we want to do is start throwing up barriers to international trade.  During the early days of the Great Depression, nations desperate to protect jobs at home threw up trade barriers, ending what The End of Globalization: Lessons from the Great Depression called the first age of globalization and making the whole situation much worse.

And we all know what happened after that.

However, Obama and Congress should make sure that any free trade agreement with South Korea enables truly free trade.  The Ford Motor Company, which didn't need governmental largesse to get themselves out of trouble when things got bad, has sounded the alarm about some of the shenanigans South Korea pulls to keep foreign cars out.

http://www.ford.com/freetrade

American consumers will benefit from having more automotive choices available to them regardless of whether the free trade agreement enables South Korea's government to continue meddling with foreign automotive imports, but more American cars being exported means more jobs in America, which will help get the economic engine of our country running at full clip again.

The article about how the current US-SK FTA "locks in" the one-way automobile trade doesn't do that great a job proving South Korea's government engages in shenanigans to keep foreign cars out, but the article about trade barriers describes them in chronological detail. 

Some of the stuff like auditing the taxes of those who buy foreign cars strikes me as repressive and undermining the rule of law.  If South Korean cars are truly competitive with foreign cars--and considering how many we buy in the U.S., I'm pretty sure they are--the South Korean government need not indulge in petty goonery to discourage its citizens from buying American cars.

Environmental Law...Or Gun Control?

I found the following link on DemocraticUnderground, of all places.  They're an example of the wacko fringe of the American political Left, with the exception of gun rights.  Although they've got some obnoxious anti-gun types (including one who bragged about calling the cops on a neighbor who had a certain model of gun illegal in California), as a whole, DU is strongly pro-individual-right-to-bear-arms and I can honor them for that.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/enviornmental-protection-agency-considering-a-ban-on-lead-ammunition-101492439.html

Okay, I acknowledge the fact that lead is toxic and could certainly be an environmental danger and that the proposed regulation also governs sinkers used in fishing.

However, even though the Obama Administration has not shown itself to be especially hostile toward gun rights, this would be a de facto gun-control measure if not a de jure one.  I'm not especially knowledgeable about the different types of ammunition that exist out there, but if this passes and the only ammunition available is either inferior copper rounds or banned in certain areas as "armor-piercing," this would place an undue burden on gun owners.

If the government wants to reduce lead contamination, how about passing some measure "phasing out" lead sinkers used for fishing and grandfathering in all lead sinkers manufactured before the cutoff date?  That will give the companies producing sinkers to come up with some just-as-effective alternative material to replace lead with.

Then we'll see if the same material can be used for bullets, both for private gun owners and for the military.  After all, if the real issue is lead contamination, wars and large-scale training exercises are far more pollutive (in terms of lead) than hunting and individual shootings.

I exhort all of you to go to http://www.congress.org/ and write the President, your Senators and Representatives, etc. in order to put the kibosh on this proposed legislation before it goes anywhere.

Taking a Stand Against "Libel Tourism"

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/judicial/112397-protecting-american-free-speech-sens-patrick-leahy-and-jeff-sessions

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100810/pl_afp/uspoliticsmediaindustrynewspapersrightsinternet

Jim Hill, a bigwig in the Spalding County Republican Party, is a friend of Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld and brought this matter to my attention.  It's not every day that I come out and praise Democrats, but it's very good that Sen. Leahy supported and President Obama signed this bill.  Ehrenfeld was a victim of "libel tourism" in Britain when Khalid bin Mahfouz, a wealthy Saudi, sued her in a British court over her book Funding Evil, Updated: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It.  Mahfouz also went after the writers of Alms for jihad and as a result, Cambridge University Press went so far as to request it be removed from libraries in the United States.  I suspect this has something to do with how few copies Amazon.com seems to have, since Cambridge University Press agreed to destroy all unsold copies.

("Libel tourism" is particularly bad in Britain, whose libel laws impose the burden of proof on the defendant and not the plaintiff.  How delightfully medieval.)

According to his New York Times obituary, Mahfouz had been libeled in the past--people falsely accused him of being Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law.  However, this still does not mean that the "chilling effect" due to fears of libel judgements does not exist.  The United Nations Human Rights Committee has taken issue with British libel laws, as have others.

The UN: http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/hrcommittee/ireland2008.html

The Global Journalist: http://www.globaljournalist.org/stories/2004/07/01/libel-tourism/

The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/books/review/Donadio-t.html?ex=1350532800&en=a46a9c67602861ee&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

In particular, the UN report and the New York Times point out that due to the Internet, British libel laws are causing a "chilling effect" worldwide.

And in many of these cases, it's rich people from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia--my least favorite Middle Eastern country, more so than Iran--who are behind it.  TGJ reports that the Saudi ambassador to Britain successfully pressured the Daily Mail to not publish an excerpt of While America Slept, which is about 9/11.

Kudos to the House and Senate for their strong support of this bill and kudos to Obama for signing it.  Freedom of speech forever.

Obama Does Good: Free Trade

I supported Ron Paul in the Republican primaries and voted for John McCain (however reluctantly) in 2008, so I'm no Obama supporter.

However, I am capable of acknowledging good decisions on the part of politicians I don't agree with.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/08/us/politics/08exports.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss

Once upon a time, it was the Democratic Party that was the party of free trade, while it was the Republicans who were protectionist.  This is a good sign on Obama's part.  Hopefully if it passes, it will increase the volume of trade between the U.S. and the other three nations and improve the overall economy.

(The Hawley-Smoot Tariff made the Great Depression worse; hopefully turning to free trade and not protectionism will prevent a "double-dip" recession.)

One would hope South Korean restrictions on imported beef and automobiles from the United States would be dealt with as part of any free trade agreement.  After all, the point of free trade is that it's unrestricted.

Of course, it's time for my perennial bugbear, farm subsidies.  I don't think South Korean farmers are in any particular danger of being dumped on by subsidized U.S. agricultural imports, but farmers in less wealthy nations like Panama and Colombia might be.  Hopefully any agreement will include action on farm subsidies.

Food and Drug Administration Being Stupid

http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/8-year-old-burn-558429.html

The FDA has refused to allow a boy who was recently very badly burned to undergo a procedure in which his own skin cells are cultured and transplanted.  Instead, they will try to fix his burns with skin from his scalp and scrotum.

(Speaking as a male, the latter part doesn't sound healthy.)

I cannot think of any legitimate reason for the FDA to refuse to allow the boy to undergo this experimental treatment, especially since the family wants it.  If they're concerned about the boy's well-being, they can always make the family sign a waiver.

This is so aggravating I rejoined http://www.congress.org/, which enables one to write one's state and federal representatives with just one click, in order to write Obama, both Senators, and my U.S. Representative (Lynn Westmoreland) asking them to put pressure on the FDA to reverse their decision.

If the rest of you can do that as well, we might see the idiocy logjam being broken.  It strikes me as a case of bureaucracy, so sufficient public outrage should be enough to force them to change their minds.

In Defense of General McChrystal...

General Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, has been summoned to the White House after Rolling Stone published an article in which McChrystal's aides mock various federal officials and claim that McChrystal said certain unflattering comments about Obama himself.  The two will be meeting today and it is possible the meeting will endw ith McChrystal's resignation or even his firing.

Here's the article:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/119236

Many people believe he should be relieved of command, as Douglas MacArthur was when he attempted to go around President Harry Truman in order to attack targets in China during the Korean War.  They say this is essential toward maintaining civilian control of the military.

Thing is, MacArthur's situation and McChrystal's situation are two entirely different things.

For starters, it is indisputable that MacArthur appealed to Congressional leaders after Truman vetoed his plans.  However, from what I've read, the aides are saying McChrystal said these things--McChrystal is not on-record as saying these things himself.  Although healthy whistle-blowing should be encouraged to prevent wrongdoing, we don't want to have a culture of denunciation like existed in Stalin's Russia during the purges.

(This was something I learned in my Modern Russia class in college--the purges weren't just Stalin commanding people be killed or imprisoned, but a full-blown popular hysteria, a witch hunt, against "wreckers" and spies.)

The most damning, insubordinate comments are not even alleged to have come from McChrystal.  They come from his aides.  The aides allege McChrystal said Obama looked "uncomfortable and intimidated" at a meeting with his generals, but it was someone else who went on arant against Joe Biden.

A member of my alternate-history forum whose handle is Skokie cited this regulation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice online yesterday:

Punitive Articles of the UCMJ



Article 88—Contempt toward officials

“Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Transportation, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Territory, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.”
 
McChrystal made some unpleasant remarks about an ambassador, but an ambassador does not fall under those rules.  Furthermore, McChrystal's alleged remarks about Obama are not necessarily "contemptuous."  In and of themselves, they aren't insulting, plus, in context, he might not have been criticizing Obama himself.
 
(Perhaps he was criticizing the generals for making Obama uncomfortable?)
 
However, the above regulations definitely nail the aides.  If McChrystal is punished, it should be for allowing his aides to get themselves into trouble (or, if the article accurately describes him as usurping the prerogatives of the State Department, for that), not for alleged insubordination on his part.

My Thoughts on The Recent Health-Care Legislation

I have decided to throw my hat into the ring and blog about the recent health-care legislation.  Here goes...

Though this may seem rather heretical to my conservative kindred, the bill was not all bad.  I personally had no problem with the ban on insurance companies dropping longtime participants when they get sick, which goes against the entire purpose of insurance companies--you pay in, just in case, and when problems arise, they pay you.

This episode here is particularly skanky:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62G2DO20100317

That being said, now it's time for criticism:

I am very skeptical of the mandate to purchase individual health insurance, on constitutional grounds.  The 10th Amendment to the Constitution states that all powers not specifically granted to the federal government are assumed to belong to the states and people.  Forcing individuals to purchase health insurance--or anything else for that matter--is unconstitutional.

(I would imagine Romney's insurance mandate in Massachusetts isn't unconstitutional, since it's done at the state level.)

This is the reason why attorney generals from many states have joiend together in a lawsuit against the imposition of these mandates.

http://www.news8austin.com/content/your_news/default.asp?ArID=269770

Also, I cannot find anything about increased reimbursements for Medicare or Medicaid patients, which is a major problem these days.  Many doctors will not see these patients because the reimbursement has not kept up with rising medical costs.

http://industry.bnet.com/healthcare/10001447/medicaid-expansion-may-fail-because-of-doctors-refusal-to-see-patients/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+bnet%2Fhealthcare+%28BNET+Industries+-+Healthcare+Insights%29&tag=content;selector-perfector

Also, I believe the reforms include a mandate for businesses to supply health insurance for their employees.  Many small businesses will not be able to afford this.  I heard on the radio this morning (it was a morning talk show on 92.9 Dave FM I believe, not some political thing, to head off the obvious retort) a comment from a small business owner whose is afraid many companies will not be able to afford this and go out of business, something that will ultimately cost jobs.

Finally, I don't think a blanket ban on not insuring people with pre-existing conditions is such a great idea.  The reason insurance companies bar people with pre-existing conditions is that it drives up the cost of the total pool.  This means the insurance costs for everyone will go up.

It would have been better to subsidize the states' existing high-risk pools--Georgia has one, although it has not funded it--than to do that.  The same effect will be accomplished, without inconveniencing every health-insurance policy-holder.

If the individual insurance mandates are declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, there is a way to get uninsured people covered that will not involve amending the Constitution or similarly radical measures that I imagine some people will propose.

(After all, there are members of one of my Internet forums who want to abolish the Senate, largely due to the ability of the minority party to prevent things from getting done.  Funny, they never suggested that under Bush when the Democrats were in the minority.)

Simply expand Medicaid.  This is particularly doable if the statistics I have heard are correct and that the number of people who want health insurance but cannot get it, as opposed to those who could get it but don't, are not especially numerous--15 million of the total 47 million uninsured.

There.  Those are my comments.  Let the games begin.