I like him alright, but I was never a supporter of Pat Buchanan. I particularly differ with his longstanding emphasis on the menace of immigration: with typical reference specifically to Hispanics crossing our southern border. Obviously, immigration needs to be legal and orderly: the first lesson to immigrants shouldn’t be that the law is not a very serious matter. Isn’t it a little ironic that those who most indulge illegal immigration are many of the same who seek all manner of virtue in the words of the law: I find that striking.
But anyway, folks who call themselves “conservative” make a deadly mistake when they line up, supposedly on the side of America, opposed to Central and South Americans. A man like Pat Buchanan seems to be wistful for his youth in the fifties, when American society exalted faith, family, community and a work ethic along with peace and prosperity. As it happens, the community he recalls was mostly white. Leaving out the white part, if you are looking for a part of the world where faith, family, community and a work ethic are most deeply held, it is in Central and South America. Oh, the last several decades has seen great advance in that regard in South Korea and some African nations: even in China and India in fact, though it’s still a small fraction in those billion+ countries.
But those values are centuries deep in Catholic Central and South America When the frightened or baleful stare of conservatives chases these people into the arms of Democrats pandering with a bread crust of government benefits, those conservatives are not just shooting themselves in the foot. They are shooting themselves in the gut. Of course we should legalize and order the immigration process. But, conservatives should meet these immigrants at the border and take them by the hand to English training and job opportunities, and to their homes. When we register Hispanics, we should be registering them as Republicans. Pat Buchanan and others should consider this: You have a problem with liberalism, right? As for liberals of influence who threaten to impose those views on America, they are largely WHITE! Relatively few are black (Republicans have already booted the relatively conservative black population in a BIG way). Less than a handful are Hispanic.
You want to build a wall on the border? Walls of themselves are ugly. This idea is especially odious. If America has a growing infection of malignant ideas, the problem is not out there, the problem is in here. Pat Buchanan once famously asked whether we could better assimilate a million Europeans or a million Hispanics. The implied supposedly obvious answer was A) Hispanics and B) WRONG! It was from Europe that we imported the socialist infection. Maybe the Europeans could plug in faster to business and commerce. But, the malignant infection is now deep in the European bloodstream. I was always amused when John Lennon fled Europe because the taxes were too high, only to land in America extolling leftism and writing a paean to communism (Imagine). Similarly, when I lived in New Hampshire nearly two decades ago, it was all Republican. Now, it has elected a Democrat governor, Republican John Sununu’s Senate seat is widely expected to turn Democrat, and McCain trails Obama in NH . More than simply media and culture, this is largely owing to liberally-inclined people fleeing Taxachusetts for tax-free (no income or sales tax, only property).
During the primaries, Republican Presidential candidate Tom Tancredo actually called for a moratorium on legal immigration! Clean up the immigration process, sure. But frankly, we don’t need fewer Hispanic immigrants. We need as many as we can possibly process! He’s a bright and able writer and seems like a decent guy, but while I disagree with Pat Buchanan on immigration and a few other issues and sometimes on his mode of expression, his description linked below of the consequences of a President Obama and a Democrat Congress, merits serious and sober consideration.
Obama's First 100 Days
Showing posts with label Florida. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Florida. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Saturday, January 26, 2008
"Huckanomics" and Fair Tax More "Vertical Politics"
The Mike Huckabee for President Campaign website, on Saturday, posted a useful explanation of Governor Mike Huckabee’s economic perspective which justifies The Fair Tax: What is Huckonomics?
The principles of trade discussed here, could be put in a lined yellow cover and called, "Adam Smith for Dummies." The point of course, is not literally that people are "dummies." It is that the immediate social context is one where the perception of reality is distorted by the very assumption of government "commanding" an economy, from either a supply or demand prejudice.
The summary is that we should pull our heads back from the immediate social context and apply common-sense principles to American society.
What 18th century Scottish philosopher Adam Smith wrote about, was the natural human and social moral principles that underlie the creation and distribution of wealth. America was founded as a nation that respected the natural and unadulterated respect of freedom and the economic forces of supply and demand. Of course, this also led to the creation and accumulation of great wealth, which accrued to the general benefit, though more extravagantly among the investing minority.
In concert with the accelerating development of macro-communications, first through widely distributed print and literacy, this cultivated a great development of the natural human tendencies to horde among the wealthier minority and to envy among the more modestly rewarded minority: this was the seed of class identification and the “demand-side” economics that this Huckanomics article speaks of.
Democracy developed governmental means to impose supposed fairness (in reality it calcified economic divisions) for a dissatisfied majority. These “socialist” developments dominated most of the 20th century throughout Europe and less extensively in America. Its most extreme manifestations were in the ostensibly rightward (see Jonah Goldberg’s recently released book, “Liberal Fascism”) National Socialism (or Nazism) and the acknowledged leftward socialism of Karl Marx (communism), that spread even to the East with the expansion of communications.
This acceleration was intensified with the spread of the electronic communications of radio in the early 20th century and television in the mid-twentieth century. With this electronic couriership, the majesty of the economic “commander” became the status quo social understanding in America, embodied in Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 30’s. As marginal tax rates reached 90% in the sixties, production incentives waned and libertarian impulses swelled. In the early sixties, Democrat John Kennedy cut taxes to provoke economic growth, and Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater insolently repudiated expanding and intrusive government, suffering a landslide defeat at the hands of the still status quo stewed public. Goldwater was defeated by Lyndon Johnson, who introduced new government activism with his “Great Society.”
But of course, Goldwater’s campaign was the birth of the National Review-driven conservative movement. Ronald Reagan had recognized the excesses of the New Dealism that he had supported as a young man, had come to harm the America and its people that he had grown to love. After he had risen with this message to the presidency in 1980, he introduced the command reaction of “supply-side” economics, to which establishment conservatism now frantically clings.
“Huckanomics” and The Fair Tax represent the true economic conservatism that would remove the command element of the economy, returning it to the natural and dynamic unsullied forces of human commerce. Though untamed and potentially volatile, these principles restore the fertile soil of prodigious production and the broad expansion of wealth and economic prosperity. The century of command economics was not just one of muzzled production, but one that also provoked unprecedented acrimony and bloodshed. It is a legacy the passing of which should not be mourned.
It is true that, as many challenge, Congress could never be expected to voluntarily cede its massive its power to negotiate and manipulate the tax system, and implement The Fair Tax. That is why an executive is required to inform and inspire the public to hold Congress to account. The Fair Tax is well-named, because taxation would be imposed on the level of consumption rather than the level of production. More extravagant consumption means more extravagant taxation. The poorer are untaxed by a universal “pre-bate” which monthly provides each household with the tax rate of the poverty level. So, you start the month with that AND you receive the entirety of your earnings.
Using rough current numbers, each family starts the month with over $5000 dollars. If of four earns $8000/month, there is $13,000 to spend for the month. Retail tax on spending will be 23%. Burt remember that the average 22% taxation will be removed from the imbedded cost of goods produced in America, lowering those prices dramatically, and making them more competitive with imported goods, which would be taxed equally. This represents a huge boost to American commerce, which also may sell their untaxed goods in foreign markets. Additionally, the untaxed underground economy is eliminated. Illegal members and illegal earners like pimps, prostitutes, drug-dealers, and gamblers will pay taxes on purchases like everyone else. Of course people will barter and bootleg around the system. But at least then, cheaters will be cheaters, not just expert gamers of an arcane system: street-corner hustles not luxurious tax-exemptions. This is no upper-class bonanza.
One very important thing is left to say. And, if we should embark upon this change without resolute attention to it, I fear that it is inevitable that the hording, envy, and acrimony will surely rise again. The mass-culture dampened uninhibited commerce in an effort to impose a social morality. But, an “imposed morality” is an oxymoron. And along with economic limitation, a macro-morality brought a dereliction of personal morality. What Americans must tend even more urgently than free and un-commanded markets, is the resolve to become better people. Even more important than the heightened creation of wealth, is that we support and encourage each other as moral and considerate people in the face of the irregularities of such an unregulated society.
In addition to the market-liberating principles of what the article calls, “Huckanomics,” Mike Huckabee strives to exemplify a model for such consideration that is the provocation of many of his “conservative” critics who have come to hear the idea of compassion only in terms of expanding and intruding government. That disposition is also illustrated in Huckabee’s frequent statement that “I’m a conservative, but I’m not mad at anyone about it.” Conservatism recognizes the value and prudence of personal and market freedom while commending an empathetic application of that freedom. In Christian terms, it respects but exhorts a virtuous rather than errant expression of a God-given freedom.
Huckabee also advocates what he calls a vertical rather than horizontal politics that is directed not at the triumph of the left or right but at the elevation of American society. Conservatism is virtuously applied to this objective, and ignobly applied to the conquest of fellow Americans.
The principles of trade discussed here, could be put in a lined yellow cover and called, "Adam Smith for Dummies." The point of course, is not literally that people are "dummies." It is that the immediate social context is one where the perception of reality is distorted by the very assumption of government "commanding" an economy, from either a supply or demand prejudice.
The summary is that we should pull our heads back from the immediate social context and apply common-sense principles to American society.
What 18th century Scottish philosopher Adam Smith wrote about, was the natural human and social moral principles that underlie the creation and distribution of wealth. America was founded as a nation that respected the natural and unadulterated respect of freedom and the economic forces of supply and demand. Of course, this also led to the creation and accumulation of great wealth, which accrued to the general benefit, though more extravagantly among the investing minority.
In concert with the accelerating development of macro-communications, first through widely distributed print and literacy, this cultivated a great development of the natural human tendencies to horde among the wealthier minority and to envy among the more modestly rewarded minority: this was the seed of class identification and the “demand-side” economics that this Huckanomics article speaks of.
Democracy developed governmental means to impose supposed fairness (in reality it calcified economic divisions) for a dissatisfied majority. These “socialist” developments dominated most of the 20th century throughout Europe and less extensively in America. Its most extreme manifestations were in the ostensibly rightward (see Jonah Goldberg’s recently released book, “Liberal Fascism”) National Socialism (or Nazism) and the acknowledged leftward socialism of Karl Marx (communism), that spread even to the East with the expansion of communications.
This acceleration was intensified with the spread of the electronic communications of radio in the early 20th century and television in the mid-twentieth century. With this electronic couriership, the majesty of the economic “commander” became the status quo social understanding in America, embodied in Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 30’s. As marginal tax rates reached 90% in the sixties, production incentives waned and libertarian impulses swelled. In the early sixties, Democrat John Kennedy cut taxes to provoke economic growth, and Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater insolently repudiated expanding and intrusive government, suffering a landslide defeat at the hands of the still status quo stewed public. Goldwater was defeated by Lyndon Johnson, who introduced new government activism with his “Great Society.”
But of course, Goldwater’s campaign was the birth of the National Review-driven conservative movement. Ronald Reagan had recognized the excesses of the New Dealism that he had supported as a young man, had come to harm the America and its people that he had grown to love. After he had risen with this message to the presidency in 1980, he introduced the command reaction of “supply-side” economics, to which establishment conservatism now frantically clings.
“Huckanomics” and The Fair Tax represent the true economic conservatism that would remove the command element of the economy, returning it to the natural and dynamic unsullied forces of human commerce. Though untamed and potentially volatile, these principles restore the fertile soil of prodigious production and the broad expansion of wealth and economic prosperity. The century of command economics was not just one of muzzled production, but one that also provoked unprecedented acrimony and bloodshed. It is a legacy the passing of which should not be mourned.
It is true that, as many challenge, Congress could never be expected to voluntarily cede its massive its power to negotiate and manipulate the tax system, and implement The Fair Tax. That is why an executive is required to inform and inspire the public to hold Congress to account. The Fair Tax is well-named, because taxation would be imposed on the level of consumption rather than the level of production. More extravagant consumption means more extravagant taxation. The poorer are untaxed by a universal “pre-bate” which monthly provides each household with the tax rate of the poverty level. So, you start the month with that AND you receive the entirety of your earnings.
Using rough current numbers, each family starts the month with over $5000 dollars. If of four earns $8000/month, there is $13,000 to spend for the month. Retail tax on spending will be 23%. Burt remember that the average 22% taxation will be removed from the imbedded cost of goods produced in America, lowering those prices dramatically, and making them more competitive with imported goods, which would be taxed equally. This represents a huge boost to American commerce, which also may sell their untaxed goods in foreign markets. Additionally, the untaxed underground economy is eliminated. Illegal members and illegal earners like pimps, prostitutes, drug-dealers, and gamblers will pay taxes on purchases like everyone else. Of course people will barter and bootleg around the system. But at least then, cheaters will be cheaters, not just expert gamers of an arcane system: street-corner hustles not luxurious tax-exemptions. This is no upper-class bonanza.
One very important thing is left to say. And, if we should embark upon this change without resolute attention to it, I fear that it is inevitable that the hording, envy, and acrimony will surely rise again. The mass-culture dampened uninhibited commerce in an effort to impose a social morality. But, an “imposed morality” is an oxymoron. And along with economic limitation, a macro-morality brought a dereliction of personal morality. What Americans must tend even more urgently than free and un-commanded markets, is the resolve to become better people. Even more important than the heightened creation of wealth, is that we support and encourage each other as moral and considerate people in the face of the irregularities of such an unregulated society.
In addition to the market-liberating principles of what the article calls, “Huckanomics,” Mike Huckabee strives to exemplify a model for such consideration that is the provocation of many of his “conservative” critics who have come to hear the idea of compassion only in terms of expanding and intruding government. That disposition is also illustrated in Huckabee’s frequent statement that “I’m a conservative, but I’m not mad at anyone about it.” Conservatism recognizes the value and prudence of personal and market freedom while commending an empathetic application of that freedom. In Christian terms, it respects but exhorts a virtuous rather than errant expression of a God-given freedom.
Huckabee also advocates what he calls a vertical rather than horizontal politics that is directed not at the triumph of the left or right but at the elevation of American society. Conservatism is virtuously applied to this objective, and ignobly applied to the conquest of fellow Americans.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Why Florida Should Support Huckabee
For those in Florida concerned about the Republican options:
I just want to remind Florida to view videos at http://mikehuckabee.com , http://hucksarmy.com , and elsewhere on the web. They are easy to ingest and also give you a sense of the man, of whom I think there is more than of his competitors.
The sentimental right's favorite candidate, Duncan Hunter, has endorsed Mike Huckabee for president after getting to know him on the campaign trail. This stunned and shocked the Piranha right which can't reconcile Huckabee's support for border order and integrity with his lack of spite for immigrants. Both things are true. But, that's a contradiction in terms for coyote conservatives.
Also, John Steinberger of Florida State University and the Institute for Conservative Studies, has endorsed Mike Huckabee, as I posted below: Leading Social Conservative in Florida Switches From Thompson to Huckabee.
Huckabee is also the clearest and most consistent on the right-to-life and the 2nd Amendment. He's questioned the prudence and effectiveness of McCain-Feingold, calling it "campaign finance DEform. And, Huckabee sincerely appeals to populations that have been historically dominated by Democrats. Republican victory is almost guaranteed by modest inroads among minorities and unions, may of which are available if Republicans will just TALK TO THEM.
I just want to remind Florida to view videos at http://mikehuckabee.com , http://hucksarmy.com , and elsewhere on the web. They are easy to ingest and also give you a sense of the man, of whom I think there is more than of his competitors.
The sentimental right's favorite candidate, Duncan Hunter, has endorsed Mike Huckabee for president after getting to know him on the campaign trail. This stunned and shocked the Piranha right which can't reconcile Huckabee's support for border order and integrity with his lack of spite for immigrants. Both things are true. But, that's a contradiction in terms for coyote conservatives.
Also, John Steinberger of Florida State University and the Institute for Conservative Studies, has endorsed Mike Huckabee, as I posted below: Leading Social Conservative in Florida Switches From Thompson to Huckabee.
Huckabee is also the clearest and most consistent on the right-to-life and the 2nd Amendment. He's questioned the prudence and effectiveness of McCain-Feingold, calling it "campaign finance DEform. And, Huckabee sincerely appeals to populations that have been historically dominated by Democrats. Republican victory is almost guaranteed by modest inroads among minorities and unions, may of which are available if Republicans will just TALK TO THEM.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Remember This In Florida And On Feb. 5
Of course, Thursday, Jan. 24th at 9 Eastern, 8 Central is the Florida Republican Debate on MSNBC. Watch Huckabee and believe what he says. There will be just Huckabee, McCain, Romney, Giuliani and maybe Ron Paul intermissions. They all may support one or two of them but, Huckabee is the only one that pays mind to The Constitution, supports the Republican platform on the right to life, and recognizes the threat of Islamofascism.
Duncan Hunter endorsed Mike Huckabee, today. Hunter’s views are very similar to Huckabee’s , minus the sense of humor and the expressed empathy for Main Street America
A Florida blog posted Huckabee presents the best choice for Reagan supporters by Georgia’s Rep. John Linder. I wish everyone in Florida could read this!
Also, go to http://www.hucksarmy.com/ (also linked at left)
Click on the videos tab at Huck’s Army, and view any videos you like, but specifically, look at that 5 Glenn Beck videos of an hour long video, which covered a range of issues and I think revealed the man. Huckabee is not weak on immigration, American sovereignty, or the nature and urgency of the conflict with “Islamofascism.” There are also videos at the campaign web site: http://mikehuckabee.com
What is the source of these ideas?
Well first and most simply, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson were competitors and it’s about votes. They were not principled conservatives and their criticisms were pure pragmatism.
Secondly, Big money managers (I mean big: the kind where single trades affect projects and jobs and corporate fortunes) and traders don’t like The Fair Tax. All luxuries now written off as business expenses, shifting the tax burden downward, will be taxed under The Fair Tax though savings and investments won’t. That’s why they call it “fair”: taxes are based on consumption, not production. If you buy, you pay. If you save or invest, you don’t.
Thirdly, conservatives who are sentimental more than intellectual, are traumatized by merely speech that is sympathetic, or to groups traditionally dominated by Democrats, like minorities, labor unions…etc. Again, human equality (not preference) is really a conservative issue, and conservative policy is really the best for working people (many labor unions are 40% Republicans).
And frankly, most establishment Republicans don’t fancy the idea of evangelicals at the head of the table. For them, “low church” means LOOOOOW church, as in to be looked down on. Actually talking about your beliefs is in poor form.
http://www.hucksarmy.com/
Duncan Hunter endorsed Mike Huckabee, today. Hunter’s views are very similar to Huckabee’s , minus the sense of humor and the expressed empathy for Main Street America
A Florida blog posted Huckabee presents the best choice for Reagan supporters by Georgia’s Rep. John Linder. I wish everyone in Florida could read this!
Also, go to http://www.hucksarmy.com/ (also linked at left)
Click on the videos tab at Huck’s Army, and view any videos you like, but specifically, look at that 5 Glenn Beck videos of an hour long video, which covered a range of issues and I think revealed the man. Huckabee is not weak on immigration, American sovereignty, or the nature and urgency of the conflict with “Islamofascism.” There are also videos at the campaign web site: http://mikehuckabee.com
What is the source of these ideas?
Well first and most simply, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson were competitors and it’s about votes. They were not principled conservatives and their criticisms were pure pragmatism.
Secondly, Big money managers (I mean big: the kind where single trades affect projects and jobs and corporate fortunes) and traders don’t like The Fair Tax. All luxuries now written off as business expenses, shifting the tax burden downward, will be taxed under The Fair Tax though savings and investments won’t. That’s why they call it “fair”: taxes are based on consumption, not production. If you buy, you pay. If you save or invest, you don’t.
Thirdly, conservatives who are sentimental more than intellectual, are traumatized by merely speech that is sympathetic, or to groups traditionally dominated by Democrats, like minorities, labor unions…etc. Again, human equality (not preference) is really a conservative issue, and conservative policy is really the best for working people (many labor unions are 40% Republicans).
And frankly, most establishment Republicans don’t fancy the idea of evangelicals at the head of the table. For them, “low church” means LOOOOOW church, as in to be looked down on. Actually talking about your beliefs is in poor form.
http://www.hucksarmy.com/
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Information For Those Mislead About Huckabee: Detroit Economic Club Video And The View from the Back of the Bus
Mike Huckabee’s very important speech at the Detroit Economic Club broadcast by C-SPAN, which shows a lot of what Governor Huckabee is about and stands in contrast to the charges that have been lodged against him.
Also, Ken Connor’s important article about contesting elements of The Republican Party, “The View from the Back of the Bus”
Also, Ken Connor’s important article about contesting elements of The Republican Party, “The View from the Back of the Bus”
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