By Matt Rooney | Cross-Posted at The Save Jersey Blog

How many times have we heard the old refrain?

Around the water cooler or while stranded at your cousin’s birthday party: “Com’on! They’re all the same! There’s no difference between Democrats and Republicans! It doesn’t matter which you crooked party you vote for!”

Too often your cranky Aunt Sue is right, Save Jerseyans. That’s why bipartisanship for bipartisanship’s sake doesn’t win elections. Americans don’t care if their leaders get along; if they truly preferred harmony and accord in the public arena, then “reality” television shows like MTV’s Jersey Shore wouldn’t be ratings blockbusters. Voters tell pollsters they like peace, want it, need it, and so on. No one wants other people to think they’re turned on by conflict! It’s not polite or proper, right? But rest assured that what the fickle masses are really craving is a compelling contrast between the major parties.

In yesterday’s ‘State of the State’ address, Governor Chris Christie (R-NJ) took one gigantic step towards securing his own reelection by providing such a contrast.

The centerpiece of the Governor’s 2012 plan is an across-the-board 10% income tax cut at a time when other populous states are hiking their rates rates.

God knows this is welcome news. The Garden State’s tax burden is among the worst in the nation and income taxes rates are no exception, ranging from 1.4% for residents earning only $20,000 annually all the way up to 8.97% for residents bringing home $500,000 or more by year’s end. Visit the treasury department to see where you fall.  According to the Tax Foundation, ”New Jersey’s 2008 state-level individual income tax collections were $1,457 per person, which ranked 6th highest nationally.”

The Governor’s plan will consequently reap significant benefits for every single New Jersey taxpayer. That includes the single working mother on your block and the successful business owner down the street, both of whom would see tangible relief in a bad ecomony. Compare this approach with that of a major economic competitor, New York State, where Andrew Cuomo is raising taxes from 150-to-200% on New Yorkers earning less than $100,000 while those earning over $1 million are slated for a tax cut. How can New York businesses recruit with that kind of a tax structure as an impediment?

New Jersey Democrats aren’t any more original than their Empire State counterparts. Less so, if we’re being honest. They’re already attacking Christie’s plan for providing too little relief  to low income residents. I look forward to fat cat Democrat legislators like Senate President Sweeney trying to convince young families that a few extra hundred dollars come tax time is chump change not worth keeping! And the Sweeney-Oliver proposal for 2012 is more astounding evidence of advanced tone-deafness: a massive 17% increase to the cost of doing business in New Jersey. If this plan wins out, businessmen trying to choose between Manhattan and Hoboken for a new expansion will continue to opt for Pennsylvania or North Carolina instead… or perhaps even the murky bottom of the Hudson River? Of course, I wouldn’t be surprised if the treasury department responded by hiring professional divers.

I only hope that the Christie cut makes it to the surface. Whether he can get his 10% tax cut past a solidly-Democrat state legislature is an open question, even for a man famous for inter-party miracles. It’s helpful that Americans are rapidly tiring of the Democrat Party’s cynical class warfare tactics. My fellow New Jerseyans are no exceptions. Sadly, redistricting virtually guaranteed Democrat legislative dominance for another decade by shielding incumbents from popular sentiment in embarrassingly gerrymandered districts. Bottom line: we may be treading water for awhile until real tax reform is won.

But the Governor’s proposal is hardly a fruitless endeavor even in the short term. By setting forth a bold tax reform proposal, Chris Christie is giving New Jersey voters a clear rationale to return him to Trenton next November. Taxpayers will face down an unambiguous choice in the polling booth: whether to (1) reelect a principled incumbent Governor who believes in New Jersey’s ability to generate prosperity, or (2) roll the dice on a Democrat challenger who believes in Trenton’s ability to spend your money better than you.

I’m confident we’ll make the right decision in two year’s time, just as I’m confident that growing hosts of politicians around the country will rely on Governor Christie’s courageous example in the months and years ahead. More than any other Republican leader out there today, Chris Christie continues to provide the substantive contrast we need to win the battle for America’s future. God bless him for it.

________

Matt Rooney is a New Jersey attorney, conservative activist and the founder & Blogger-in-Chief of New Jersey’s #1 conservative blog, Save Jersey. You can learn more about Matt and the Christie Revolution by visiting today!

TEN YEARS HAVE passed since terrorists hijacked airliners and flew them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.  In that period, America has fought wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, carried out hundreds armed drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen (among other locations), and conducted covert operations around the world, all in the name of what President George W.  Bush termed the “Global War on Terror.”  Terror plots and attempted attacks have been foiled, terrorist leaders have been killed or captured in massive numbers – including the world’s most wanted terrorist himself, Osama bin Laden.  All of this has combined, in the words of President Barack Obama, to “put al Qaeda on the path to defeat.”

Given all this, is it possible that America is actually losing the war on terror? In Bin Laden’s Legacy: Why We’re Still Losing the War on Terror, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, director of the Center for the Study of Terrorist Radicalization at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, argues not only that we are losing, but that we as a nation still fail to understand what kind of a war we are fighting, and what our enemies’ actual goals are.  This is a powerful indictment, and Gartenstein-Ross painstakingly lays it out in a book that is both sharply analytical and accessible to any audience.

A KEY PROBLEM with America’s attempt to wage a War on Terror while safeguarding itself from future attack, Gartenstein-Ross writes, is that our ignorance of the enemy we are facing has allowed us to pursue both goals in a profligate fashion that plays right into the hands of an enemy that sees America’s economy as the long-term target.  To understand the reasoning behind this, we must look to the Soviet Union.  Though myriad factors contributed to the dissolution of the U.S.S.R., its collapse so shortly after its withdrawal from a decade-long quagmire in Afghanistan helped convince Osama bin Laden and other former mujahedeen that they had been the cause of its ultimate defeat.

Now, al Qaeda has taken this strategy of embroiling a much larger and wealthier enemy in a long and costly war of economic attrition and has aimed it at the United States, with no small measure of success gained over the last decade.  “Even though it has lost Osama bin Laden and its safe haven in Afghanistan,” the author writes, al Qaeda’s “fight against America is broader, and al Qaeda and its affiliates are key players in more regions than they were engaged in a decade ago…Meanwhile, the U.S. economy is shattered, it faces an almost unthinkable debt burden, and its policy makers have largely been consigned to arguing with each other on the sidelines while the country’s traditional allies…are overthrown or see their power erode” (p. 200).

Read More →

TEN YEARS HAVE passed since terrorists hijacked airliners and flew them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.  In that period, America has fought wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, carried out hundreds armed drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen (among other locations), and conducted covert operations around the world, all in the name of what President George W.  Bush termed the “Global War on Terror.”  Terror plots and attempted attacks have been foiled, terrorist leaders have been killed or captured in massive numbers – including the world’s most wanted terrorist himself, Osama bin Laden.  All of this has combined, in the words of President Barack Obama, to “put al Qaeda on the path to defeat.”

Given all this, is it possible that America is actually losing the war on terror? In Bin Laden’s Legacy: Why We’re Still Losing the War on Terror, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, director of the Center for the Study of Terrorist Radicalization at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, argues not only that we are losing, but that we as a nation still fail to understand what kind of a war we are fighting, and what our enemies’ actual goals are.  This is a powerful indictment, and Gartenstein-Ross painstakingly lays it out in a book that is both sharply analytical and accessible to any audience.

A KEY PROBLEM with America’s attempt to wage a War on Terror while safeguarding itself from future attack, Gartenstein-Ross writes, is that our ignorance of the enemy we are facing has allowed us to pursue both goals in a profligate fashion that plays right into the hands of an enemy that sees America’s economy as the long-term target.  To understand the reasoning behind this, we must look to the Soviet Union.  Though myriad factors contributed to the dissolution of the U.S.S.R., its collapse so shortly after its withdrawal from a decade-long quagmire in Afghanistan helped convince Osama bin Laden and other former mujahedeen that they had been the cause of its ultimate defeat.

Now, al Qaeda has taken this strategy of embroiling a much larger and wealthier enemy in a long and costly war of economic attrition and has aimed it at the United States, with no small measure of success gained over the last decade.  “Even though it has lost Osama bin Laden and its safe haven in Afghanistan,” the author writes, al Qaeda’s “fight against America is broader, and al Qaeda and its affiliates are key players in more regions than they were engaged in a decade ago…Meanwhile, the U.S. economy is shattered, it faces an almost unthinkable debt burden, and its policy makers have largely been consigned to arguing with each other on the sidelines while the country’s traditional allies…are overthrown or see their power erode” (p. 200).

Read More →

Perspective and Principle

*The perspective of an individual is more often shaped by their skewed perceptions, not their objective observation.
*A principle is something that was, is, and always will be true.

Conservatives shouldn’t be giving in to Romney just yet

Given the state of the primary so far… I’m not so convinced that Mitt Romney is the worst of the pack by ideology, rhetoric, or record.

However, based on Principle, I’m supporting Rick Perry, because I trust him to boldly govern by conservative principles. Out of all of the candidates, his record and rhetoric squares the circle better than any other candidate in the field. I still believe this is true, even with his most recent egregious strategy to go after Romney with a populist’s class warfare argument.  Elections are elections. I disagree with the strategy, but I still believe Rick Perry is the best conservative in the pack.The media have done their part to dismiss him in the eyes of voters. The campaign handlers have done their part to fail in their messaging. The candidate has done his part to make mistakes along the way.

I am part of the “Anti-Romney” crowd by default, because I am Pro-Perry.  As such I have to recognize that time is short, and Romney has momentum that can’t be ignored. If I were a weak-minded fearful cuss, I’d likely accept the narrative of Mitt Romney’s inevitability. But I won’t. However, any other conservative out there should be aware, that if consolidation doesn’t happen sooner rather than later, Romney wins. It’s that simple.

The fact is this primary season is different, and nobody has been looking at the process. Primarily because we’re all caught up in the very dangerous game of attempting to bend reality to the narrative. This primary season has gone from weak arguments of electability to even weaker arguments of inevitability. With the first 4 major primaries completed by January 31st 8PM EST, we’re left with the presumed ‘inevitable’ nominee. THIS IS NONSENSE.

• 1,142 Delegates is what is needed to win the G.O.P. nomination before convention.

• The first 4 events leads to a total of 115 delegates (that’s with the penalties of moving primaries up)

• Super Tuesday isn’t so super this year.

• Total delegates available at the end of “Super Tuesday” is 874… Romney will not be getting 100% of all delgates up to this date.
• Super Tuesday also includes states that are less likely to pull a New Hampshire, and back a squish based on “electability” arguments.
• There are some caucus events between Florida and Super Tuesday that will likely not get a lot of media attention regardless of the results, rather I’m predicting that televised debates, and narrative will be the biggest factor in this period.

• There’s only 1 thing that causes a conservative candidate to drop out. Lack of Money.

• Consolidation will happen, because eventually someone is going to foolishly lose their mind and then become untenable to the conservative electorate.
• I’m going to go ahead and predict that South Carolina will not be the hill to die on for Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, or Rick Santorum, or even Jon Hunstman Jr. They’ll each have enough in the war chest to go on to Florida, and likely ride things out to Super Tuesday at least before they are winnowed down to 1-2 conservative alternatives.

A word concerning the Weeping, Wailing, and Gnashing of Teeth

Some conservatives are giving up. Some out of desperation are flailing about with all the negative they can, hoping that Romney will be hurt by populism, or hoping that the other “conservative alternatives” will drop out making this a 2-man and a Loon race. Look folks… consolidation will happen… the question is, when it does… will it have been too late?

I have had enough of the ridiculous bemoaning that has been going on lately. We can NOT allow the media to shape the narrative. Are you so FEARFUL that you’re willing to give in? They want to use YOUR fear, YOUR doubts, YOUR ignorance to drive you to do silly things, such as MAKE LEFTIST ARGUMENTS AGAINST CAPITALISM… Are we that desperate? I think not!

Let’s attempt to view things objectively for a moment.

Should Mitt Romney become the G.O.P. nominee, it will be the DUTY of EVERY FREEDOM LOVING, LIBERTY EMBRACING, CONSERVATIVE OF ANY STRIPE, to not only vote for Mitt Romney, but to DONATE, AND WORK WITH THE FURY OF FIRE FROM THE SKY to get him elected. Why? Because the alternative choice is President Obama for 4 more years.

This country has LOST THE SENSES IT WAS BORN WITH! All it took was 3 years of a hell bent socialist-reformer™ in the office of President of The United States to change the narrative of political battles of “how do we make the country better” to “how do we keep from driving off the cliff”. The arguments went from “socialism vs. capitalism” to “fairness vs. wealth”. Your everyday American can’t make the distinction, because your everyday American most likely isn’t wealthy… so naturally they’re going to assume that they side with “fairness”.

If the choice is between a “vulture capitalist” and a “socialist-reformer™”… I’m gonna take the vulture capitalist and be darn glad I had a choice. I’m not defending Romney or Bain here, I’m defending capitalism. There simply is no excuse for any conservative that tries to make Bain the Bane of Romney’s existence. Romney had a successful career at Bain, he did turnarounds, and slash and burns… but as an unapologetic believer in freedom and liberty… let me say this…

There is a whole lot of piss poor analysis going on. Some of it may even be dishonest attacks by ignorance or arrogance. When Romney spent his private sector career building wealth with his ability to make an enterprise prosperous or break it down and sell it off for profit… it really has little to do with job creation or destruction.

Economics is what drives job creation and job destruction. Government and Private sectors are but vehicles in the process. Capital destruction processes are just as necessary to economic systems as termites in a forest of dead wood.

The TRUTH is going after Romney and Bain is a POPULIST ARGUMENT no matter how you dice it. This is the problem with comparing a private sector record with a governance record. Romney’s comparison of Bain to GM is appropriate… the difference is, had the GM bailout been structured by Bain and not the Government. A capital investment firm would have not negotiated for the Unions, they’d have restructured the company without throwing the shareholders with preferred shares under the bus, they would have been subjected to bankruptcy laws, and all precedents in the exchange. Unlike how Obama made the tax payers the creditors, and handed the company over to the Unions, and knew going into the deal, that they were just kicking the can down the road.

The REAL Alternative

That’s just it… Obama’s plan is ‘kick the can down the road’ on any issue that can’t be fixed without inflicting some real pain on people, his plan is to kick the can down the road, and get Republicans to agree to more spending out of necessity to keep things moving. Look I’m not heartless. I’m not rich. I’m not envious. And I’m certainly not persuaded by arguments of false charity, false hope, and false faith. But I have to say it, LIBERTY CAN’T EXIST WITHOUT OPPOSITION. You CAN’T enjoy the merits of opportunity, without the realities of risk, failure, and pain.

THERE IS NO CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO A JOB. So reserve your moral judgements for moral issues. Any Job that exists… exists because someone had the liberty to innovate, create, and pursue their happiness. Government can’t exist without generating revenue from its citizens. I have empathy to those that lose their jobs. However, I don’t blame any capitalist for turning profits in any way they can, while the government does nothing to seriously put a stop to the unethical practices through damn fine policy and legislation. If you want to prevent ALL situations where someone might lose a job… You may as well have joined the socialist team. Giving credence to these narratives of the media is giving credence to their creeds of a socialist nature.

Folks sometimes you have to rely on the fact that the sparrow doesn’t fall without the Father(Matthew 10:29), and when considering the lilies of the field (Luke 12:27) in all their non-spinning and non-toiling, even Solomon was not arrayed like one of these. Populism is not conservatism. Conservatism is based on principles. It’s based on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I’m not defending Bain or any other capital firm for practices that may be unethical when you live in a Joe Biden Recession/Depression. I’m am talking about the fact that WE SHOULDN’T be involved in this narrative AT ALL. IN NO WAY is it appropriate. Joining the stream of the narrative, effectively causes us to lose sight of what is important. It causes us to view things from a very skewed perception. The more skewed our perceptions are, the more our ignorance will blind us to what is really important.

Maybe the ignorance of my youthful idealism is blinding me to the fact that we should somehow be supporting populism, anti-capitalist, and class warfare views… This narrative is exactly the medicine the media wants us to take. It deflates the T.E.A. Party, It presents Obama as a caring, nurturing, bleeding heart for the ‘little guy’ that got laid off, and had to either find another job with his current skillset, or re-tool the skillset, and go after a diffferent job. Well LA-DEE-FRICKIN’ DAH… I’m 31 and have already had to face economic realities of job loss, poor employment opportunities, and having to move from state to state, losing the value of my home to a vacuum created by the housing bubble…I don’t blame capitalists… I blame the government regulation and legislation that led to INTERVENTION of the Free Market. Call me quixotic, but I don’t have time to misdirect my energies on “Government Solutions”… I want a President that will make the best decisions from a conservative view, not from a socialist’s view.

This election is about DOOM DOOM DOOM DOOM DOOM for them… Not us…

*WE NEED TO REMEMBER THAT* Conversely THEIR ONLY WINNING STRATEGY… is to cause the base to become discouraged, demoralized, disaffected, and disengaged. If Obama wins re-election, it will be due to failure to turn out the vote… if the enthusiasm to vote against him is removed… then the incumbency wields the victory.

*IF* Mitt Romney is the Nominee… I’m prepared to fight the good fight for his election. What I’m not prepared to do is give up on nominating the most conservative candidate that we can. We do that by convincing every person we know that is age 55 and above that votes Republican to vote conservative, and not for the tall guy with the nice hair.

It’s hard to know where it began. A few months ago I read an article on the internet that claimed that the moment bipartisan amity in Congress began to end was with the uncharitable and immensely hostile denial of confirmation from eminent jurist Robert Bork. After that the tit-for-tat treatment of Rep. Jim Wright showed that the mood had soured on both parties. From that time, despite the fact that Republicans (especially) have sought to nominate fairly moderate candidates like Bush I and Bush II, Dole, and McCain, and despite the fact that even some Democratic candidates (like Clinton and Obama) have tried to at least talk a bipartisan language of rising above divisions, the hostility between liberal and conservative camps has steadily worsened.

During this time my own political views have considerably soured as the political and economic environment has gotten increasingly gloomy. As I have had opportunity to reflect on the shift in my own political approach, even if my underlying worldview has remained the same, I thought it worthwhile to share my story in the hope that it would encourage others to do the same and help us understand aspects of a darkening mood that may apply to others besides myself. I therefore beg the indulgence to talk about my own personal story.

I have never been rich. I have never even been middle class. During my thirty years of life, I have never earned even $40,000 a year. In 2010, I earned about $10,000 a year, if earnings include depleting a Roth IRA, largely through abysmal failures at trying to be a successful salesman, and I had to pay $1,000 of that out of pocket to the IRS. In 2011, I made even less, having spent most of the year as a missionary teacher in Thailand, aside from a couple months working at a company scoring essays for high school students from New Jersey.

And my family has never been wealthy either. My father, who died in 2006, came from a dairy farming family who worked as a school bus driver in Western Pennsylvania (where I was born) to subsidize the money-losing operation. My mother, who collects SSI for various ailments, had her longest and most successful job working in various clerical or lower management positions for the Tampa Housing Authority among a very corrupt group of people, many of whom have spent time in prison for their activities. My stepfather has spent most of his years working as a file clerk, in janitorial work, or as a groundskeeper (made impossible by his advancing age–he’s in his mid 60′s now–as well as a series of surgeries for a recurring accoustic neuroma tumor. Not only have I never been wealthy or middle class, neither has my family as a whole.

I first became passionately interested in politics in 1992, where my sixth grade school held a mock election and I voted for George W. Bush, despite no great enthusiasm for him. My father favored Perot, being a deeply conservative but not Republican person, although he was a secretary for the local bus driver’s union, part of the AFL-CIO until the union was busted (which was a disaster for my father, lowering his wages more than $2/hour, to below $10/hour as a bus driver). That lowering of his standard of living forced him to call the Florida Department of Revenue, Child Support enforcement, for whom my mother worked at the time, and coincidentally my mother answered the phone call from my father. That was embarrassing. My stepfather, especially after his tumors, has had an avid interest in conservative talk radio. Though I’m not generally fond of listening to idiot callers, I’m a fairly patient listener to such things–my mother is not. My mother’s political views are far more liberal, though she likes to pass herself off as far more conservative than she is. I certainly didn’t get my own political views from my family.

In looking at the political situation today, it is easy to think of the capers in Washington DC in the same sort of soap operative view which which I cynically view my own family background. Congressmen engage in insider trading, and show an utter incompetence in passing laws, loading up on the pork and passing laws that they don’t even bother to read (because each law is the size of, or larger than, Middlemarch or War & Peace, and more dull). We elect a majority in the House and Republicans there can’t even bother to hold firm for keeping our runaway debt in line, looking like incompetent bunglers with no backbone and no principles, no ability to restrain our nation from its steadfast and increasingly rapid march into insolvency and decline.

And yet we cannot blame our government for fiscal irresponsibility when we ourselves have the same problem personally. My own hands are not clean in such matters. Grimly I reflect on the $40-$50,000 I owe for college loans, the credit cards, and other debts, without seeing any ability to pay them off given the current sorry state of my personal economy. I make $33 a month teaching, and almost all of that goes for food. As much as I believe in fiscal restraint, you need resources to pay off debts, and neither our state or federal governments nor many of us ourselves (like I) have the means to become solvent. It bothers me, though, deeply, and it also bothers me how little the debt seems to bother those in Washington.

In 2008, I recognized that our Republic was at a crucial moment. I felt that difficult times were on the horizon, though I had no way of knowing how prolonged or difficult they would end up for me personally. I supported McCain in 2008, hoping that his show of good faith as a bridge between Republicans and Democrats would help provide a chance at avoiding disaster. That was not to be, as the Democrats elected the least qualified candidate for office in at least the last 150 years (if not ever) and proceeded to turn what was a dangerous societal situation into impending disaster. As 2010 turned into 2011 and a year was spent fretting over our betrayal of loyal allies, endless sensationalized unrest in the Middle East and North Africa, and a continuing series of debt crises where politicians played kick the can and refused to act like statesmen, my concern grew as the worldwide mood darkened.

Having seen that there is no interest in a principled or reasonable solution to our political and economic crisis from Democrats, nor any spine or backbone from our elected Republican Senators and Representatives, I feel as pessimistic as many people here are. And yet the spineless Republicans are spineless because they don’t feel as if their voters have their back. Will voters turn on them if a government shutdown happens and those who suck at the teat of big government (like my mother) have their Social Security or welfare checks or EBT taken away? Probably. Are the 48% of voters who pay nothing to the government willing to pay something, anything, to have a share in government? Probably not? Are those spineless politicians failing absolutely to provide a vision of why drastic (if painful) action is necessary for all of us to face and showing us an example by taking a cut themselves in their own standard of living to show they are serious about reducing unsustainable deficits? Absolutely. We all share some blame in the matter.

And so I have become convinced that when there is no choice but to either slash at the entitlements that are strangling our nation and hastening our decline as a superpower, and that day is rapidly approaching, there will be war. Those who are politically and economically profiting from corporate bailouts or subsidies, whether they be crony capitalists at companies like Bain Capital, Iowa corn farmers, Obama’s buddies at Solyndra, or ordinary people who receive their monthly check from the government or who spend a year or two on unemployment, will not accept the loss of their funding.

And sooner or later (and probably sooner), the golden goose of the taxpayer will no longer be able to keep funding endless runaway deficits as interest rates on debt service increase and as personal insolvency becomes more and more common of a threat. The only options at that point will be massive default or hyperinflation, and we will all be much worse off then. But we will still blame our Congress. We will blame the poor schmuck in office who is unlucky enough to have to explain to the American people that we are as bankrupt economically as we are morally and politically. We will point the fingers at others, like the protestors who blame the 1% but don’t see that they too, like me, helped make this situation worse by gambling that a little debt now would mean greater opportunities for wealth later. Those opportunities for good jobs at high salaries never came, those days of increased salaries to pay off student loans never arrived. And we are all to blame in some fashion, for playing along with the game for far too long.

And so, as the political mood of this country has darkened, I take a look at myself and recognize that I have done my fair share (and perhaps more) to elect people with no spine to fight against our decline. I have engaged in personal behavior that has endangered my own well being and contributed to the burden borne by society at large. And there is nothing I can do about what I have done–or what anyone else has done–and I do not know if there is a time and an opportunity left to make amends or to reverse the damage. And if that is so for someone who is highly educated, deeply interested in politics, and deeply reflective and concerned for the well-being not only of myself but also of my people, how much is it true of those who reflect less or are less concerned with the world outside of their own lives and favorite reality television shows? A republic like ours gets the leaders it deserves, and if we don’t like the mayors or the school superintendents or the state senators or the governors or the Congressmen or the Presidential candidates we have, we need to take a look at ourselves, because such candidates have to come from among our people and have to receive the support of the people. Unless we are noble and principled and honorable ourselves, and unless we value such qualities in our leaders, how can we expect good leaders to save our nation from ourselves if we ourselves cannot take our hand from the cookie jar?

We Picked the Wrong Roman Dictator

By Bill Flax, RealClearMarkets (updated slightly)

From Government Square in Cincinnati, I often sit surrounded by impressive displays of federal invasiveness, and muse that we picked the wrong Roman dictator.

The Federal Building across the street, serving primarily to dispense largesse confiscated from the workers packed into the square below. The brilliantly marbled Federal Reserve branch where regulators seek enhanced power to oversee commerce while recoiling vigorously against any attempt to be scrutinized themselves. And the block long Federal Court House, which unlike the others, has constitutional legitimacy even as its reach and depth far surpass anything our founders would have tolerated.

Taking nothing away from the many hard-working and honorable souls inhabiting these structures, but America has lost its way. My hometown was named for the Society of the Cincinnati. In ancient Rome, citizen-general Cincinnatus put down his plow to save his nation. When the battle was won, he declined a crown and returned to his farm. His self-restraint in the face of overwhelming temptation bequeathed to Rome several centuries of limited, republican government.

George Washington exhibited similar virtue after our independence. He too could have been king, but his self-denial enabled the rule of law to triumph over the rule of men. Our revolution was largely fought to settle the timeless question of whether government is answerable to the law protecting the rights of its constituents – or – are the people subject to government with a malleable Constitution bending to political pleasure.

America once enjoyed a constitutional republic where property rights were sacrosanct, contracts were conscientiously enforced and markets prevailed. Secure property rights channeled our energies into productive enterprise via the profit motive. An impartial application of the law encouraged market development which enhanced specialization and America’s hallmark: an innovative spirit propelling higher living standards for all.

Freedom and prosperity are inexorably linked. Government constrained by law and limited by checks and balances, between both branches and levels of government, birthed an economic juggernaut. Yet, another Roman general has indirectly put a more pronounced stamp on our economy.

Fabius was called to confront Hannibal after the Carthaginian warlord destroyed several Roman armies. Recognizing Hannibal was too strong to confront directly, Fabius conducted a masterful war of attrition. When Hannibal advanced, Fabius retreated. When Hannibal retreated, Fabius advanced always staying safely distant, but close enough to harass the invader. Several times the citizenry grew impatient only for a replacement to hurl the Roman army headlong into calamity.

These “Fabian” tactics became the archetype for a group of sophisticates in late Victorian England. The Fabian Society believed in socialism, not coming by revolution as Marx envisioned, but by evolution. Bored by leisure and rebelling against the strict mores of the time, they sought not to directly confront the existent order, but to undermine it from within.

As prominent Fabian George Bernard Shaw explained, “The Fabian Society succeeded because it … set about doing the necessary brain work of planning Socialist organization for all classes, meanwhile accepting, instead of trying to supersede, the existing political organizations which it intended to permeate with the Socialist conception of human society.”

These ungrateful children of wealth advocated redistribution of other’s property while they resided in decadent luxury. Similar to many intellectuals today, they thought they knew better than we how to live our lives. Unfortunately, Fabians and their ilk became the dominant force in our media and educational establishments, indoctrinating generations of Americans to a perverted view of economics and “social justice.”

The Fabian movement spawned John Maynard Keynes, an advocate of central economic planning. The overriding focus of Keynes’ theory was Aggregate Demand. Loosely defined, aggregate demand reflects the total amount of goods and services consumed at a stable price. Borrowing and spending supplanted classical economic focus on production and savings as the building blocks of prosperity.

Keynesianism was described by Zygmund Dobbs in the illuminating expose, Keynes at Harvard, “The great virtue is consumption, extravagance, improvidence. The great vice is saving, thrift and ‘financial prudence’” because, “If there are no savings there is no private money for investment. Without private investors the government must provide investment capital. If the government provides for investment it has the power to dictate the conduct and processes of those who need investment capital.”

Americans wanting to mollify temporary hardship in the throes of recession resurrected Keynes. Rather than endure uncomfortable surgery guided by the market, government injects cortisone to offset the recession’s corrective reallocations. Subsidies replace efficiency. Bailouts replace business revitalization. Entitlements replace personal savings. Statism replaces self-reliance. All these government proffered “solutions” may ease our immediate discomfort, but perpetuate economic weakness and come at the price of liberty.

Not only is it immoral to confiscate private property through coercion to redistribute to political favorites, it’s also ineffective. Market distortions inevitably harm the economy. The more control we retain over our time, resources and abilities the more closely our efforts will be aligned with productive enterprise. A far-off central planner has no ability to effectively steer this process.

We have witnessed Washington assume greater control with each injection of dubious capital. As Henry Hazlitt warned, “Keynes’s plan for ‘the socialization of investment’ would inevitably entail socialism and state planning. Keynes, in brief, recommended de facto socialism under the guise of ‘reforming’ and ‘preserving’ capitalism.”

In the closing months of his presidency, Bush crossed the Rubicon authoring vast intrusions “to save” capitalism. Bush quickened what had been a long, painstaking march to socialism. Then a new Caesar immediately began to sprint. We elected not “change,” but acceleration.

Only eunuchs were permitted to guard the harem. Entrusting power to the ambitious personalities attracted to government inevitably augments the state to our detriment. Keynes admitted his theories, “can be much easier adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state than … a large degree of laissez-faire.” We must never abjure our God-given rights to the arbitrary whim of professional politicians in exchange for economic safety-nets.

Incessantly higher spending and increasingly burdensome regulatory controls proved too much. Americans now fear this headlong rush into government expansion. Poor Obama was fooled by an adoring press. He misread the signs and awakened the masses. We weren’t yet so effete to be bought by bread and circuses.

The Fabians underestimated the resiliency of free markets and Obama over-estimated his demagoguery. Cincinnatus might be forever gone, but Fabius can still be stopped.

http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2010/02/13/we_picked_the_wrong_roman_dictator_97632.html

Other work by this author.

Back in the late 1980’s, if you hated Ronald Reagan and George Bush, you just loved Japan Inc. They were taking over the world. They were the future. They were !!TOTALLY OVERSHADOWING!! the fall of The Berlin Wall and of Soviet Communism. Japan Inc. was the stalking horse for all Anti-American pom-pom wavers from academia to the activist left.

Today, they’ve found a new un-America to root for. One that is better yet; Communist! Today, as President Hu Jintao comes to issue his American Proconsul Barack Obama his debt repayment schedule, the biggest fans of The End of America™ gaze with awe and anticipation. Yet we’ve been here before and all these same people will once again be proven wrong for many of the same reasons that they were wrong about Japan Inc.

The people who loudly and boorishly read the obituaries for the American economy were as obnoxious back then as they are right now. They were still dead-set convinced that Walter Mondale and Jimmy Carter had both lost Presidential elections because the US electorate lacked their perspicacious and lofty perceptual vantage point. However, as those of you who have read my blogging for four years can attest; obnoxious does not always dwell in synonymy with erroneous. These Death-of-America mongers managed a few meager points amid the flood of disingenuous bile.

My last car was a Ford; my new one is a Toyota. My wife has not owned an American brand name car her entire adulthood. With the exception of our PCs, and my IPod, none of the cool electronic gadgets in my home are American brand name. Japan Inc. holds sway uber alles in the realm of consumer electronics.

Japan Inc. once symbolized an evolutionary symbiosis through which government and big business formed a benevolent oligarchy more wise and auspicious than the chaotic rabble in an undisciplined market place. Investopedia describes this 1989-Era view of Japan Inc. below.

A nickname for the corporate world of Japan that came about during the 1980s boom, when Western business people saw how closely the Japanese government worked with its nation’s business sector.

Yet, what resulted from the all the complex and incestuous poli-sci copulation was the typical Aristocracy of Pull warned of in the overlong and overblown Ayn Rand novels. Investipedia condignly notes the ultimate result of the Japan Inc. public-private partnership.

The high degree of collusion between Japan’s corporate and political sectors led to corruption throughout the system and contributed to the downfall of the overvalued Nikkei.

So today, we are faced with the unstoppable rise of another wise and burgeoning power of the orient. Like a Marine Corps Private reading Sun Tzu for the first time, we are impressed with the divergent outlook we see from a foreign culture. And we are reminded in multiple Jeremiads of how China PLC owns huge chunks of US debt. We are told we shouldn’t anger the Wise and Sagacious Hu without a plan B to resolve this issue.

We are told that harmonious central planning will solve global warming. James Hansen of NASA regrets the democracy currently present in America and sees the one-party dictatorship enthroned by the Chinese Politboro as stronger than and more decisive than the bumbling American Congress. He describes how Mussolini could get those train schedules sorted out below.

“I have the impression that Chinese leadership takes a long view, perhaps because of the long history of their culture, in contrast to the West with its short election cycles. At the same time, China has the capacity to implement policy decisions rapidly. The leaders seem to seek the best technical information and do not brand as a hoax that which is inconvenient.”

Mr. Hansen, while still receiving a generous stipend from the US taxpayers, went further and demanded that China fight for the good of the planet by boycotting the US economy. Rhetorical treason follows below.

“After agreement with other nations, e.g., the European Union, China and these nations could impose rising internal carbon fees. Existing rules of the World Trade Organization would allow collection of a rising border duty on products from all nations that do not have an equivalent internal carbon fee or tax. The United States then would be forced to make a choice. It could either address its fossil-fuel addiction … or … accept continual descent into second-rate and third-rate economic well-being.”

(HT:The Washington Times)

But the decisive one-party system can also commit gaffes that go uncorrected by any loyal opposition. The one-child policy will play absolute havoc on China’s pensions system as their population reaches a higher median age far more rapidly than other developing nations that still value new children. There are currently 700 Million Chinese peasants with no mechanism for wealth creation and investment. As Jonah Goldberg points out at RealClearPolitics, Chinese economic statistics and accounting rules make the Enron Executive Board of Directors look like a benevolent association.

China, like Greece, Portugal and Ireland in Europe will be painfully exposed. When they are, they will need to buy much more; not less, American debt. It will give their creditors, burned by the official corruption of an iniquitous, Marxist Kleptocracy, access to an asset that will at least retain most of its face value over the next decade.

We will ultimately have to rescue China and rebuild them after they fail to destroy us; just as we did with Japan, Germany, Italy, Soviet Russia, and quite reluctantly, with the Confederate States of America. The sun will rise again, history’s cycle will repeat. American hegemony will continue to bestride the earth like a mighty colossus, unless or until, we screw that hegemony up on our accord.

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The Divided States of America:

I will not start this blog off with a bunch of rhetoric about what this nation was founded upon. Instead I want to impress upon my readers what this nation does not stand for as of THIS date. Because we can go tit for tat about all of the bad things the U.S. government has done, and while it may be true that those things have shaped us as a people, but I argue that it has shaped us into a better people who do not wish to repeat the mistakes of the past. This is where we must go:

On Abortion:

I personally am the exact opposite of John Kerry on this issue. Religiously, I am pro-choice because I believe that every person on earth is endowed by their creator with free will. However, legally I believe that it is the responsibility of the government to protect those least capable of protecting themselves.

No serious thinker is PRO abortion or ANTI choice. We must stop demonizing those who do not agree with our ideology on this issue. Let it suffice to say that abortion will never be outlawed, but neither should it ever be allowed to be “abortion on demand”. There is no such thing as an absolute right to do anything. Even rights which are explicitly stated in our Constitution have been limited by the Federal Government (the right to bear arms for example). Why then would a right that is implied, and not explicitly stated in the Constitution not have limitations? The fact remains that no “right to privacy” is explicitly stated in the U.S. Constitution, and even if it were explicitly stated, every right that is explicitly stated has been limited by our Federal Government; why would “privacy” be any different? Instead of running on a platform to outlaw abortion or to make it free and available “on demand”, we should strive to bring common sense limitations on the practice and end the divisive rhetoric on this topic once and for all. It’s time to stop the politicians from dividing us on this issue. If we discuss things long enough, I believe we will find that we agree on more than we disagree on. Keep in mind that with every right comes responsibility.

On Race and Poverty:

I’m not going to say that people should vote party line. I despise political parties, and if it were up to me I would do away with them completely and force people to be educated on the issues before they cast a vote. Ignorance causes poverty and it is this ignorance that war must be declared on. That being said, the American people MUST stop voting party lines based on race or financial disparity.

I find it ironic that all of the cities with the top 10 poverty rates in America have been run by Democrats 92% of the time since 1965. This isn’t saying that the new Republicans who act like little Democrats are any better, but we must see this for what it is. This is ironic because it is usually the poor who vote Democrat, and statistically, it is the Democrat that keeps the poor people poor.

I refuse to back one party over another, but I MUST point out that on this issue, history has been forgotten and misrepresented in order to foster political gains. Keep in mind that it was the Republican Party (GOP) that was founded on the premise of eliminating slavery. During the Civil Rights movement, it was the Democratic Party (DNC), and not the GOP which was responsible for racial oppression, especially in the south. I will not even go into how many Democrat leaders were members of the KKK. Yet somehow, we have allowed the DNC to paint the GOP as the party of racists because of a few people that have been allowed within the ranks of the GOP. Never mind that the DNC has statistically had more racists among their ranks than the GOP has had.  Again, I must stress that the house isn’t clean for Republicans either, but I believe it necessary to point out a lie when I see one.

On Homosexual Marriage

We must define this issue in legal terms rather than emotional terms. Those on the left have argued for years that there exists a “wall of separations between church and state”. Now, never mind that neither these words, nor this language exist anywhere in the Constitution; I recommend however that we allow those on the left to win this argument for the sake of discussion. If there exist a separation between church and state, why would the state recognize ANY marriage, straight or homosexual? If this separation exists, shouldn’t the state ONLY recognize civil unions and leave the business of “marriage” to the church?

The Constitution does give every one of us the right to contract, and civil unions are protected by that right to contract. This solution allows the government to step aside and let the church leaders fight this battle. This would allow us to get down to real issues rather than allowing career politicians to divide us and guarantee themselves life long careers in Congress.

On Economics:

While “trickle down” economics is a viable principal, there exists a certain way in which to maximize returns to the public with regard to the way that capital trickles down. With Barack Obama bailing out every corporation from GM to Bank of America, and now perhaps even the New York Times, we must be aware that it is now the Democrats who have turned over a “Pro-Big Business” leaf. Instead of being Pro-Big Business, should we not focus on being “Pro-Free Market”?

Americans believe in FAIR competition and STRONG economic growth. If liberal economic policies work so well, then why is California on the brink of bankruptcy while Texas has experienced below average unemployment and wasn’t hit as hard as the rest of the U.S. economy. The American people must ask themselves: “Economically, would I rather live in California or Texas?”.

Conclusion:

Our leaders have divided us on economic lines, religious lines, racial lines, and along the lines of sexual preference for one reason and one reason only, power. The party leaders divide up the states and draw lines in the sand to dictate political districts. How do you think they come up with those lines? You guessed it, the lines are based on economics, religion, race, and sexual preference, although the party leaders will never admit this. We MUST stop buying into their rhetoric. It is time for We the People to lead on these issues and let our Representatives know that we will no longer stand for these distractions.

This concludes Anti-Federalist No. 1