Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Good to see.
Hundreds of taxpayers took time out of their busy day to protest President Obama’s “stimulus” bill-signing in Denver today. Jim Pfaff of Colorado Americans for Prosperity, Jon Caldara and the Independence Institute, former Rep. Tom Tancredo, and several GOP officials and state legislators spearheaded the event. Count us all among the “chattering classes” appalled at the massive pork and the short-circuited process that paved the way for the trillion-dollar Generational Theft Act.
Why bother? It’s for posterity’s sake. For the historical record. And, hopefully, it will spur others to move from the phones and computers to the streets. Community organizing helped propel Barack Obama to the White House. It could work for fiscal conservatism, too.
Well, there are some Republican senators who don’t agree with that last remark. “Republicans pretending to be democrats” has such a rich, solid history of working out so swell (sarc), that they’d like to give it another go and make a national bank.
Long regarded in the US as a folly of Europeans, nationalisation is gaining rapid acceptance among Washington opinion-formers – and not just with Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve chairman. Perhaps stranger still, many of those talking about nationalising banks are Republicans.
Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator for South Carolina, says that many of his colleagues, including John McCain, the defeated presidential candidate, agree with his view that nationalisation of some banks should be “on the table”.
Mr Graham says that people across the US accept his argument that it is untenable to keep throwing good money after bad into institutions such as Citigroup and Bank of America, which now have a lower net value than the amount of public funds they have received.
“You should not get caught up on a word [nationalisation],” he told the Financial Times in an interview. “I would argue that we cannot be ideologically a little bit pregnant. It doesn’t matter what you call it, but we can’t keep on funding these zombie banks [without gaining public control]. That’s what the Japanese did.”
Actually, federal control is what got us into this mess. Federal control from zombie legislators. Sen. Graham, I revert to my age-old question about such things — as yet completely unanswered: What in tarnation is there to make a government regulator un-greedy? Or unzombified, in this case.
Founding Father Jefferson said it better:
I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That ” all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.” [XIIth amendment.] To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.
The incorporation of a bank, and the powers assumed by this bill, have not, in my opinion, been delegated to the United States, by the Constitution.
1. They are not among the powers specially enumerated: for these are: 1st A power to lay taxes for the purpose of paying the debts of the United States; but no debt is paid by this bill, nor any tax laid. Were it a bill to raise money, its origination in the Senate would condemn it by the Constitution.
2. “To borrow money.” But this bill neither borrows money nor ensures the borrowing it. The proprietors of the bank will be just as free as any other money holders, to lend or not to lend their money to the public. The operation proposed in the bill first, to lend them two millions, and then to borrow them back again, cannot change the nature of the latter act, which will still be a payment, and not a loan, call it by what name you please.
Jefferson expounds much, much further. Do go read it all, especially if your last name is McCain or Graham.
I still think we’ll survive this, folks. Capitalism will survive this. Our government has laid a siege upon capitalism before, in the 1930’s. Capitalism survived. But, it should be noted, it was scarred for life and has never been the same since then. This could end up being worse. Victory is not guaranteed.
Let the porkulus protesters be your role model. Your representatives need to hear from you, that you want to exchange goods and services freely, as the Founding Fathers decided God intended for you to do.
Maybe it’s time to storm a ship and throw some crates of tea into a harbor.
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Morgan,
I see a picture of folks who have a passion for letting their minders know they are upset about the policy.
I am curious to get your opinion: you spend a fair amount of time thinking about the political excesses of those who unfairly take from the productive. What would you say is the base amount of duty or civic responsibility a productive person has to (stop being productive and to) write to a congressman or a letter to the editor, attend a protest, or read/write a blog? Is their higher and better use simply to become more productive? Should those that cannot do simply pay those (who can) to do?
- wch | 02/18/2009 @ 12:05Of course freedom will survive. We’re only arguing about how much we’re going to have to suffer in the immediate future.
- JohnJ | 02/18/2009 @ 12:05Re: wch. If I can offer my opinion. I believe there is a proportional relationship between ability and responsibility in one sense: those who can, should. In another sense we’re all equally responsible for doing our individual best. However, none of that supports the idea that anyone should be punished for failing to live up to his or her responsibility. This is because I personally do not have the right to punish someone for failing to do the right thing. Government, since it is only a collection of individuals and does not possess any higher moral authority than any individual, likewise does not have that right. Government only has the right to do what any individual has the moral right to do. Therefore government should only interfere when one person is being forced to submit to the will of another.
- JohnJ | 02/18/2009 @ 12:14Right, and if I can just provide some underlying structure to what John said up there: Suppose a hundred men are working away in a village, hunting, gardening, whatever it is they do. Further suppose that forty of them start “organizing” in some way — forming a tax coffer and tax code, maybe a labor union, whatever, it really doesn’t matter. The other sixty refuse to go to the meetings and instead continue to spend all their time doing the work.
When those forty vote unanimously on something and start beating their chests, announcing their new plan has “unanimous” support…if the sixty knew what was goin’ down, can it really be said this display of unanimity is a false one? No, it can’t. And so we see how people who think in groups, are really the contaminant, nevermind how much they behave as if people who think as individuals are contaminants. The group-think is the contagion. Some do it, and therefore, all are forced to participate, or else submit votes virtually for things that would never really receive their support.
- mkfreeberg | 02/18/2009 @ 12:47