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By Scott Lazarowitz, January 28, 2010 5:11 am

President Obama in his State of the Union:

Here’s a more mature person with something more mature to say:

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By Scott Lazarowitz, January 27, 2010 4:51 pm

—Michelle Malkin: Culture of Corruption Watch: Grilling Geithner

—Jeff Jacoby on public employees rolling in the dough

….Since December 2007, when the current downturn began, the ranks of federal employees earning $100,000 and up has skyrocketed….A public-pension tsunami is beginning to inundate government budgets at every level. As more and more of taxpayers’ earnings are confiscated to fund outsize public-sector benefits, the backlash from the private sector will only grow angrier and more intense….

—Russell D. Longcore: Secession: the Third Rail of Politics

….he said that states had no chance for secession at the present time. Rather, he stated that as the Federal government implodes, the states would be able to nullify or simply ignore Washington…a “de facto secession” is what he called it….

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By Scott Lazarowitz, January 26, 2010 7:11 am

Jacob Hornberger on US sanctions against Iran

Tehran, Iran

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By Scott Lazarowitz, January 25, 2010 2:26 pm

This post is probably going to annoy a lot of people. Well, I’m not perfect, and can’t please everyone. Some of the most activist members of the “Tea Party” movement have formed a group called “Tea Party Nation,” and are having their first convention February 4-6 in Nashville.

For some reason, there is a compulsion to go beyond actual protests of government and make it into a coordinated political organization, i.e. “community organizing.” When valid protests of the political process themselves become politicized, such organizations eventually join the government forces and abandon their initial purpose of attempting to make changes in government for the better. However, given that government itself is an inherently corrupting and fraudulent institution, it cannot ever be reformed.

This community organizing aspect of the Tea Party movement will cause it to self-destruct, as did the Ross Perot “reform” movement and Reform Party did in the 1990s. Some of the reasons also are the people and for-profit group in charge of this, who are charging over $500 for people to attend the event, and worse, are preventing the press from covering it except certain conservative news organizations.

An important aspect of last year’s tea parties is that many of them were spontaneous and were actual “protests” of what the federal government, both Congress and the White House, has been doing or has been planning to do (to us). The September 12th tea party protest in Washington was a planned event, but sponsored by many different organizations across America.

One can only predict that the organization will then become a political party, which will seal the movement’s doomed fate. In their need to change government and think that reforming it is anything different from rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, the activists themselves are merging their identities into their own utopian leviathan “good government.” As RedState.com’s Erick Erickson has stated,

I think the tea party movement has largely descended into ego and quest for purpose for individuals at the expense of what the tea party movement started out to be.

The other major aspect of this problem is that many of these Tea Party Convention community organizers are supporters of the US government’s wars and invasions and occupations abroad. The activists say they support “limited government,” except they support Big Government military socialism and government expansionism into other people’s territories that has done nothing but incite terrorism and destroy lives and property abroad.

Throughout history, war has been used as a means of justifying the existence of the state, and particularly the nationalized centralized state. President Abraham Lincoln used war to remind the secessionists of the supreme superiority of the federal government over the states and individual citizens.  Will the most vocal and political Tea Party activists join the Obommunists calling out the military and National Guard to suppress and stifle the secessionists of our time who want and have a right to their independence?  (If so, they also would have stood with the British government against the American Revolutionaries, too.)

Unfortunately, so many people are moved by the superficial emotionalistic rhetoric of certain ideas and not the substance of the ideas themselves, especially the Tea Party Nation’s use of the ideas of “liberty” and “limited government.” This reminds me of the disgusting portrayal of a Big Government Republican such as Scott Brown as the “Tea Party candidate,” which couldn’t be further from the truth. I have to listen to these talk show hosts in Massachusetts who were promoting Brown as such a candidate, knowing full well his voting record, and that he supports RomneyCare and other aspects of socialized medicine, and that he’s pro-abortion and supports Roe v. Wade, and that he opposed cutting the state income tax, and more. It really does seem to be the case that these talk show hosts were soothed by Brown’s pleasing superficial rhetoric while their continued unwavering love for the state and opposition to liberty was reinforced.

Sherman's March Through Georgia (as depicted by artist Alexander Hay Ritchie), a campaign of "total war" attacking civilians and everything in the soldiers' path. It is bad enough to wage war on civilian populations of foreign countries as Presidents Truman and Bush and others have done, but Lincoln ordered attacks on civilians in his own country. That's also bad, and tells us a lot about Lincoln. It reminds one of when British troops killed civilians at the Boston Massacre, and, given Lincoln's actions defending powerful centralized government and opposing independence, it is not absurd to wonder whose side he would've taken during the Revolution.

I have no doubt that the talk show hosts and Tea Party conservatives in Massachusetts will naively support the Establishment Weld-Romney Republican candidate Charlie Baker for governor, and not the populist Anti-Establishment Republican candidate Christy Mihos. (They certainly wouldn’t support the libertarian, whoever that’s going to be.)

The Boston Massacre, designed by Henry Pelham for an engraving published by Paul Revere, with the title, "The Fruits of Arbitrary Power, or the Bloody Massacre."

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By Scott Lazarowitz, January 22, 2010 6:28 am

I don’t really watch these cable TV news and entertainment shows, so I haven’t really seen Glenn Beck and Jon Stewart on their shows. But I have seen smaller YouTube clips of their shows on various websites, and it seems to me that those two have a very similar manner of presentation and similar gestures.

Jon Stewart:

Glenn Beck:

Are Glenn Beck and Jon Stewart related? Maybe they were twin brothers separated at birth. Both are annoying, although I probably agree more with Beck on the issues. Maybe Jon Stewart is related to Martha Stewart. Actually, Martha Coakley is the one who should be wearing the ankle bracelet, not Martha Stewart, given that Coakley deliberately let an innocent man stay in jail for several more years after many years wrongly placed in jail. She should have been or should be criminally charged for that.  While I’m not a big fan of Scott Brown, I’m glad Coakley lost.

Jon Stewart has about 1.8 million viewers per night, and Glenn Beck has about 2.4 million. Perhaps they can co-host a show and get 4.2 million. I think Martha Stewart’s TV show gets fewer than that. Perhaps Martha Coakley will host a show after she loses her bid for reelection as Massachusetts attorney general.

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By Scott Lazarowitz, January 21, 2010 1:38 pm

Issues involving government these days are continually proving beyond a reasonable doubt the uselessness of government,  its intrusions and its doing nothing but cause dysfunction in the United States of America, and throughout the world.

In The Two Faces of Interventionism, Justin Raimondo questions US governmental interventionist policies in Haiti, which has recently been suffering as a result of a devastating earthquake.

…the logic of intervention will embroil the US in Haiti’s tumultuous and often murderous politics, and from that kind of quagmire there is no easy extrication….While the benevolent visage of the American hegemon is on full display in Haiti, pardon me if I question the purity of Washington’s motives, which are, as always, based on purely political calculations…If we’re nation-building in Haiti, then why not in Afghanistan, too? Such a mindset is the very essence of modern, and specifically of American imperialism: the idea that the world must be saved from itself. But the world is too big, too unruly, and too ungrateful to be saved, from itself or anyone else: this is the bitter lesson history teaches us at every conjuncture…

In Socialism and Death in Haiti, Jacob Hornberger observes the difference between America’s wealth and Haiti’s poverty.

…What is the key to the creation of a wealthy society? Capital. Capital enables people to be more productive. More productivity means higher profits and higher wages. How does capital come into existence? Through savings? When people save a portion of their incomes, they put the money into banks, when are then able to lend it out to businesses that are financing the purchase of equipment, which makes workers more productive. It is a process by which everyone’s interests coincide — those of the employer, the employee, and the consumer…. Thus, the key to a wealthier society is precisely the opposite from that advocated by liberals. Socialism is not the solution to poverty, as liberals claim. Socialism destroys wealth and ensures that people will remain mired in poverty….

In Hurting People For a Living, William Norman Grigg compares people who for a living hurt people who hurt others (but not people who haven’t done anything to others) to people who for a living hurt people who haven’t done anything to others, and compares the New Hampshire “tax fugitives” to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s tax evasions and alleged conspiracies involving tax dollars.

…Steal hundreds of billions from taxpayers, and you’re a public servant; refuse to permit your legitimately earned wealth to be stolen from you, and you’re a felon…

And in Left-Liberals on free Speech and Campaign Finance Laws, Stephan Kinsella notes a recent Supreme Court decision that struck down campaign finance laws as violation of First Amendment free speech protections, but that it should have been because the Constitution doesn’t enumerate such as a power for government in the first place.

…If the Bill of Rights were absent, and the Court had struck down McCain-Feingold on the grounds that it is ultra vires–beyond the power of Congressional legislation absent an enumerated power in the Constitution–it would be hard to argue that this “lack of power” grounds could somehow apply to the States–unlike the unique federal government, the states have plenary legislative power (see The Unique American Federal Government)…

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By Scott Lazarowitz, January 20, 2010 1:49 pm

This mass hysteria over Scott Brown’s election really does seem similar to the 2008 presidential election, when millions of Americans were swept off their feet by The Messiah. Messiah Obama was able to present himself as the candidate of “hope and change,” and of taking the troops home, and of  “open government,” and now he has disappointed so many with his escalation and expanding of wars and destruction and killing of innocents, as well as with his behind closed doors style of dealing with Congress.

The Messiah

Similarly, while Scott Brown presented himself to Massachusetts voters as the “tea party” grassroots candidate, and the “tax cutting” candidate, and who will be the “41st vote” against ObamaCare, he will eventually show that he is the professional politician that he is. People who already know who Brown is know that he opposed the ballot question to cut and eventually eliminate the state income tax, and that he voted for RomneyCare and still supports that fascist mandate and whole new bureaucracy (Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority) that was created. Scott Brown is going to be a combination Dan Quayle/Michael Dukakis/Larry Craig/ Arlene Specter—I kid you not. For you Huckabee voters out there, Dan Quayle was vice president under George H.W. Bush.

When he gets to Washington, Scott Brown will join the loathsome arthropods in Congress and together, in harmony and holy matrimony, they will pass a health care “Bipartisan Consensus” piece of legislative crap that will further erode our liberty and intrude into our private lives, steal more wealth and whatever prosperity might have remained from the private sector and further destroy a country the great Founders created. Brown will also join the war mongers (although he promised to do that) in further

Scott Brown may be another Dan Quayle.

destroying the Middle-east and weakening our military and eliciting more terrorism.

As I’ve mentioned here in this space, the real candidate of the Constitution and of the “tea parties” and cutting government waste was Joe Kennedy, but nooooooo, he’s an “outsider,” not of the two major parties, so therefore we should ignore him. Kennedy was the actual “citizen candidate,” and of the private sector. Brown is a professional politician, and an opportunist who took advantage of a special election in 2004 when his state senator, Cheryl Jacques, resigned, and now Brown has climbed up the ladder of political success. His work in the dreaded private sector was as an attorney. (Are there still not enough lawyers in Washington?)

The real craziness was last night, when Michael Savage said that Scott Brown now has the 2012 presidential nomination. I thought I was going to barf. Perhaps Savage had too much wine with lunch, I don’t know. But if people, especially conservatives, want to join the Obommunists in living in some kind of fantasy world and fall for the rhetoric of “Mr. Handsome Movie Actor Face Guy, ” and play make-believe and just continue with these statists in Washington being the dog chasing its tail until the country falls apart, that’s up to you. When Brown joins the other statists and Obama in their Lincolnesque sending the military and National Guard out after the secessionists who want out, you might then deal with reality.

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By Scott Lazarowitz, January 19, 2010 1:10 pm

Given today’s weather conditions, I was probably wrong when stating that Democrat Martha Cuckoo will likely win the Massachusetts senatorial election.

This election now reminds me of the 2002 gubernatorial election campaign between Willard Mitt Romney and then-state treasurer Shannon O’Brien. Martha Cuckoo seems to be making the same kinds of mistakes that Shannon O’Brien made, although one of Martha’s problems is her/its clear lack of intelligence and competence, although Scott Brown seems to have that problem as well. He is good at being a “rhetorician,” despite his somewhat whiny, moany tone of voice and style of delivery. Brown knows how to say, “I know how to get things done,” (but so did Richard Gephardt), “people are hurtin’,” etc.

In the 2002 governor’s race, Romney received 50% to O’Brien’s 45%, and I think the outcome of today’s election might be similar to that, but closer, maybe 50-48%.

It’s just sad to see so many people thinking they’re voting for the candidate of the “tea parties” and “low taxes and cutting spending” when, eventually they will see otherwise. It reminds me of the millions of Obama voters in 2008 who thought they were voting for the candidate of “change” and ending wars and bringing troops home and of “open governance,” etc. Candidates are good at presenting an image of themselves to get popular enthusiasm and votes.

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By Scott Lazarowitz, January 18, 2010 11:32 am

On his radio show today, Michael Graham said that somewhere in Barney Frank’s district there’s a “Scott Brown” ready to run against Barney in this year’s election. I hope not. Besides, given all the gerrymandering of Barney’s MA 4th Congressional district, there’s no way that a Republican can ever win an election there. Check out the 4th district map. Starting at the top, in Brookline and Newton and going south into the Fall River-New Bedford area, you can see how this district is carved.

Massachusetts 4th Congressional District

At the very least, what we might be able to do is find  a Democrat in Barney Crank’s district who is experienced in the private sector, particularly in finance (we know Barney isn’t), and who has the potential to oust Barney in the party’s primary this year.

In the Massachusetts senatorial election, I think that Martha Cuckoo will win, despite Scott Brown’s “Big Mo’.” First, Martha Cuckoo has two presidents campaigning for her within days of the election, and second and more important, she/it will have an army of Massachusetts state “workers” and other government “workers” as well as all the ACORN cheaters and out of state voters, and all the multiple voters and illegal aliens to help Cuckoo. Scott Brown a.k.a. “Mr. Handsome Movie Actor Face Guy” just can’t overcome all that. (The one thing Brown has had going for him is his looks, but not much else.)

It’s sad to hear these conservative radio talk show hosts and their callers actually believing that Brown will be the kind of tea-party revolutionary that’s needed in Washington, knowing that Scott Brown is not really that “conservative” and opposed repealing the state income tax on the ‘08 ballot, voted for and still supports RomneyCare, and who just doesn’t really get it as far as what’s really needed in Washington is dismantling much of what has become an oppressive leviathan dictatorial thieving state. So, when he uses such rhetoric as “cutting taxes and wasteful spending,” I say, “Where’s the beef?”

Of course, it has been an election between two statists (Cuckoo and Brown) and one Constitutionalist, Joe Kennedy. The reason Kennedy has been ignored and/or otherwise dismissed as “fringe” or insignificant by the talk show hosts and pundits is because Kennedy is the only candidate who has mentioned the Federal Reserve, monetary policy, and, oh yes, that other thing, what’s it called? Oh, yes, the… “Constitution.” God forbid.

One thing about Scott Brown, if you listen to him—and I try not to, believe me—is the tone of his voice or his speaking style sounds a little too moany groany, kind of like a child. He may sound a little like another Brown, Charlie Brown from Peanuts. (And Martha Cuckoo may sound a little like Lucy, I don’t know.)

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By Scott Lazarowitz, January 16, 2010 2:44 pm

Here is an article by William Norman Grigg on the rise of fascism in America, All the Reich Moves.

…..the Founders, who looked with undisguised alarm on the concept of a standing military, would never have permitted the consolidation of police bodies with the military…..the Obamacrats could simply have said that the Council will help “relieve the distress of the people and Reich” – a justification used by the German National Socialists during their own campaign of national “synchronization and integration.”….. Obama’s January 11 executive order is a natural outgrowth of the post-911 American Enabling Act…..the Adam Walsh Act is firmly in the totalitarian tradition of designating entire groups of people to be “socially dangerous” and thus suitable only for confinement, even in the absence of a criminal conviction or after a prison term has been served…..The definition of “socially dangerous people” will be made as elastic as our rulers desire, eventually becoming a net that will gather indiscriminately of every kind of dissident. This is exactly how the Soviet ruling elite filled the gulag…..”Mobilizing the country’s armed forces and making war to acquire territory is the only way a country can climb out of its decadence and into a stable period of growth and prosperity,” writes Odom in a remarkably pure expression of military Keynesianism……”Everything within the state; nothing outside the state; nothing against the state,” pronounced Mussolini in defining the fundamental fascist formula….

I know I’ve mentioned this in an earlier post, but it’s worth reiterating. For those who have been supportive of President George  W. Bush’s anti-terrorist policies which have been continuing during the Obama Administration, you will probably rethink your position when you see the Obommunists use those policies, many of which are unconstitutional, as a means of stifling dissent, persecuting their opponents and otherwise trampling over those who get in their way.

When you see the Obommunists use the Patriot Act for such a purpose, particularly when you or someone close to you becomes the object of such abuse, you’ll understand what I’m saying. Usually the supporters of these kinds of policies of intrusion and warrantless searches have been conservatives. Usually conservatives have been emphatic supporters of police and military. Here is another passage from Grigg’s aforementioned article:

“When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can’t help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup,” mused conservative columnist Thomas Sowell a few years ago. Sowell later defended, and elaborated on, that comment during an interview on Sean Hannity’s Fox “News” program: “I’m very serious about whether or not the country can be saved at all in the long run, especially with Iran moving toward nuclear weapons, with so many signs of degeneracy – the schools, whatnot. Heaven knows, I don’t want to see a military coup but I don’t want to see the society disintegrate, either.”

My point is, perhaps Thomas Sowell hasn’t really given much thought to the possible situation of military coups and police-state regimes of the Left, the possibility of an Obommunist-leftist military-police takeover of power, “suspension of the Constitution” and Martial Law, etc. No protection for the rights of the individual, private property, and liberty. Just look at Cuba, the old Soviet Union and now Venezuela.

One of the main ideas in Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s book Democracy: The God That Failed is that, as opposed to monarchical governments prior to the onset of democracies, democratic governments such as ours are led by “temporary caretakers,” who do not have a claim on the state’s “capital,” and  therefore do not have an incentive to engage in long-range planning. The temporary caretakers of democratic government can put the “public treasury” into as much debt as they want to, for their own temporary convenience, and whatever problems that such debts and other negative acts they would perform (such as new laws that give the government more power to seize or invade private property), is not their concern. Let their future generations pick up their mess left after their temporary use of public functions and agencies, and let the future generations pick up the tab, and let the future generations be without the liberty that we have had in our lifetime that our selfless Founding Fathers had a Revolution to preserve.

In other words, while George W. Bush pretends (as a fantasizing pleasure for his emotional immediate gratification) that he’s protecting Americans while violating their liberty, and as Obama takes as much liberty and rights away from the citizenry and grabs as much power for himself (thanks to all the new powers the Bush Administration created and expanded), I predict that within just a few years the conservatives who were duped into supporting all those things will change their minds. But, while Rush Limbaugh is constantly asserting that these acts of destruction by the Obama Administration are “on purpose,” I wonder if he’d ever contemplate the possibility that the “on purpose” began with George W. Bush.