Dakota Beacon

August 18, was a hot and humid day.  The temperature was more than 100 degrees and the humidity must have been nearly 100%.  It was also family day at Fort Jackson, South Carolina.  Anxious Moms, Dads, siblings, boy friends, girl friends, grandparents, and friends waited in the grandstand for the ceremony to begin.  The grandstand faced a large grassy area with a dense forest beyond.  Suddenly there were loud sounds and smoke began rolling from the forest.  Dense green, red, and yellow smoke blotted out the view of the forest.  Mortar rounds were going off.  As the spectators watched, the recruits began to appear in the smoke.  Cheers and applause filled the air as the recruits ran through the smoke and fell into formation in front of the grandstand.  There they were... the young men and women who for weeks had been in basic training for the US Army.  Upon dismissal there was chaos as recruits searched for their loved ones.  Emotions were soaring and tears were falling as families were reunited.  This was only the beginning.

August 19, was graduation day.  Another hot and humid day.  Private Kyle A. Markwardt and about 1500 other recruits were graduating from Army Basic Training.  Families again filled the grandstands.  Tension was high.  In the distance were many white buses.  The recruits were standing at attention.  What a sight to see.  Six companies of America’s greatest and brightest young men and women who have committed themselves to service to their country.  Soldiers one and all.  Standing tall and proud in their camouflage and black berets, ready to serve when called.   Willing to make the extreme sacrifice for their country.  They are American Soldiers.

Never have I been more proud to be an American.  Never have I experienced the emotion I felt as I watched my grandson, Private Kyle A. Markwardt, shout out the Soldier’s Creed.  “I am an American Soldier.  I am a warrior and a member of a team.  I serve the people of the United States of America and live the Army values.  I will always place the mission first. I will never accept defeat.  I will never quit.  I will never leave a fallen comrade.  ............”  There’s more but I can’t remember the words.  The creed ends, “I am a guardian of freedom and the American way of life.  I am and American Soldier.”

Stand up Americans and be proud of who you are.  Be proud of our Military men and women who leave home and family to serve the people of the United States.

The liberal or "progressive" dogma of moral equivalence produces some of the most absurd comparisons imaginable. Let's briefly analyze questions asked recently by Michel Martin, who works for the taxpayer-funded outfit known as National Public Radio.

In a discussion of the Ground Zero Mosque on CNN, Martin asked:

Did anybody move a Catholic church? Did anybody move a Christian church after Timothy McVeigh – who adhered to a cultic, white supremacist cultic version of Christianity – bombed the Murrah building in Oklahoma?

Martin's ridiculous questions are emblematic of the stupidity of the doctrine of moral equivalence. Equating the deeds of one murderous zealot (McVeigh) acting with one accomplice (Terry Nichols) in one lone event with the murderous rampages of millions of fanatics over 1,400 years across seven continents shows that liberals are capable of stooping very low indeed to vilify the Western culture that they so detest.

Martin's outlandish comparison is just one of thousands that we could discuss. Let's recall two other assessments that demonstrate the depth to which the American left can sink when demonizing opponents--especially when the opponents champion Western culture.

In her 2005 end-of-year message, Amnesty International secretary general Irene Khan wrote, “The detention facility at Guantanamo Bay has become the gulag of our times...”

The U.S. and the U.S.S.R morally equivalent?

Stalin and his successors imprisoned 20 million people over 40 years in brutal forced labor camps. Millions were killed after being assessed as political threats. At Gitmo, the United States jailed 775 enemy combatants and terrorists, 340 of whom were released. Criminal cases were made against about 100, sending some to their home countries. In October 2006, no country would accept 110 detainees set to be released. About 75 were to be tried, while 250 were believed to be a threat or have knowledge of valuable intelligence. By June 2008, detainees numbered 270. All detainees had and still have clean cells, medical care, and three healthy meals a day. Many had problems with weight gain. Three detainees died—from suicide.

So let’s see, millions murdered versus three suicides. Sleeping in rat crap and eating the rats that produced the crap, versus healthy conditions and fattening food. To the progressive thinker, moral judgments cannot follow from data. Right, wrong, good, and bad are silly concepts. Thus, thenceforth, theretofore, and because Kahn felt like it, any of our actions that she decides to label as wrong or bad are automatically as wrong or as bad as those of the U.S.S.R. By the liberal doctrine of moral equivalence, America is on moral par with the Soviet Union—period, end of discussion.

In our final case for today, concerning America's treatment of a Gitmo detainee, Senator Dick Durbin said,

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was… what Americans had done to prisoners… you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime—Pol Pot or others—that had no concern for human beings.

 
Author and former Washington Times reporter Rowan Scarborough pointed out,

The Senate’s No. 2 Democrat has compared the U.S. military’s treatment of a suspected al Qaeda terrorist at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay with the regimes of Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Pol Pot, three of history’s most heinous dictators, whose regimes killed millions.

Nearly 13.5 million innocents were murdered by Hitler, Stalin, and Pot. Three terrorists voluntarily checked out of Gitmo. No staunch liberal would seriously doubt the equivalence. Size doesn’t matter. America is every bit the monster that those murderous regimes were, simply because a liberal says so.

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© 2010 Chuck Rogér

We've got to stop beating around the bush. Economically, America may be in a life-threatening situation and getting out of trouble is going to be not so fun.

Monty, of Monty Pelerin's World, paints the stark reality of the predicament in which we find ourselves.

If the Government confiscated all the wealth in the private sector, the social programs would still be $50 trillion short and the Government would still be bankrupt. Furthermore, no company or individual would be left with anything.

So if Obama grabbed every single penny from every person in America, we'd still have $50,000,000,000,000 in unsettled debt left over.

Irresponsible, vote-hungry politicians have promised far more in the way of taxpayer-funded "helping" programs and other government munificence than can possibly be delivered. Monty makes another troubling point.

At the time of the Depression, neither governments nor individuals were deeply in debt. We were a nation of savers. Now we are a nation of spenders, living beyond our means. Individuals and governments at all levels are over their heads in debt, some literally drowning.

Big government progressives have created a nightmare, mainly because of the ridiculous level of government debt. And Obama and Congressional Democrats itch to make the problems worse.

At the most fundamental level of reasoning, we find truths that cannot be argued away with all the inspired, pie-in-the-sky hand-waving in the cosmos--truths like 1+1=2.

Mathematics is an unforgiving discipline. No matter who on planet Earth subtracts a larger positive number from a smaller positive number, the result is still a negative number. This reality stands firm despite wishful-thinking Democrat legislation. So when straightforward arithmetic treatment of today's government finances shows that it is, in Monty's words, "impossible to get out from under the level of existing debt," all clear-thinking, logic-based human brains (non-liberals) take notice.

To pay off the debt that our politicians have racked up, each man, woman, child, and infant in America would have to file a tax return and send in $381,000 along with the return.

Monty sums up our dire straits.

The Federal Government is in what is known as a Debt Death Spiral. They are unable to pay the actual and implied interest on their debt. Hence, the unpaid balance is added back to the amount owed, making the problem worse next year. This debt spiral grows exponentially. There is no way to escape a certain mathematical end — BANKRUPTCY.
...
Are the politicians nuts? Yes. Is the country heading for bankruptcy? Yes. Is there any way to avoid this end? No! Not unless you repeal the laws of mathematics! That cannot be done, despite legislators’ inflated opinions of themselves.

Since I have no way to counter a mathematical reality, let me add a "bright" spot.

The American people and the politicians could decide to bite the bullet. We could cut way back on Social Security and Medicare, eventually phase out both programs, and return responsibility for retirement income and care of our bodies to us and the free market. We'd have to slash and burn the bloated federal government and state governments and cut taxes in order to free the private sector to return us to prosperity. If--and this is a huge "if"--we do all of these things, then we'll have a shot at getting out of the mess into which we have gotten ourselves.

Doing what I've just described would take 30 years and would be tumultuous, but not nearly as painful as letting the whole unsupportable superstructure crash on our heads, making life generally miserable for most Americans for a lot longer than 30 years.

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© 2010 Chuck Rogér

Democrats including Kent Conrad and Earl Pomeroy voted against the Bush tax cuts. They claimed they were bad for our economy. They blamed our current economic mess on them. While campaigning for President Obama and the Democrats, the mainstream media echoed these lies. Now out of fear of losing their jobs because of a pending economic disaster, a couple Democrats like Conrad want to extend these very same tax cuts.

When people can keep more of what they earn, they work harder. They buy more goods and services. Businesses hire to keep up with demand. Investors invest. The Bush tax cuts ended a recession and we enjoyed 52 consecutive months of job growth. The unemployment rate hit 4.7%. Tax revenue increased as the unemployment rate decreased.

When government takes more from businesses and corporations, they have less money. Some cannot hire, others must lay off employees. Businesses have spent the last couple years preparing for the tax cuts to expire.

Democrats loath tax cuts because they make people self reliant. Demand for their entitlement programs drops. People other than politicians and the ruling class become wealthy.

Kennedy’s tax cuts increased tax revenue. Reagan’s tax cuts doubled tax revenue. The Bush tax cuts generated record tax revenue and when they expire, tax revenue will likely decrease as the unemployment rate increases.

Spending is our problem. Since tax hikes will decrease tax revenue, no tax hike can cover our budget deficit. On top of this we have politicians like Pomeroy and Conrad who actually believe that creating massive new spending programs (like socialized medicine) actually cuts spending.

These economic policies are nothing new. It’s not change. The Great depression was caused by massive tax hikes and government trying to spend us out of a recession. It’s these failed policies of the past that Obama, Conrad, Pelosi and Pomeroy are trying today. The economic policies of Karl Marx have failed every time they have ever been tried because they were designed to fail.

The arrogant liberal intellect has a knack for putting on a show. Columbia University economist Joseph Stiglitz is a showman. I have dissected Stiglitz's illogic once before, in an early 2009 column titled "Clowns behaving badly."

Presently, we treat the matter of Stiglitz's recent proclamation in Financial Times that:

The blame game continues over who is responsible for the worst recession since the Great Depression–the financiers who did such a bad job of managing risk or the regulators who failed to stop them.

After this opening line, Stiglitz proceeds to argue that nothing short of a "new economic paradigm" can set the world right. The wizard spends 865 words pontificating on economic modeling but dedicates not one word to the biggest cause of the recession: irresponsible lending to irresponsible borrowers driven by liberal government ideologues.

To the liberal, when people mess up, it's one oppressor or another, one victimizer or another, that has oppressed, victimized, and goaded the people into messing up. Stiglitz lays the blame for our economic condition at the feet of "financiers" and "regulators." Foolish people who accepted unaffordable mortgages don't make Stiglitz's list of suspects.

Even more noticeable, the Barney Franks, Chris Dodds, Bill Clintons, and other home ownership "fairness" mongers who pushed lenders to lend to bad risks do not appear on Stiglitz's list.

Stiglitz's statement is most telling about the liberal mentality. Libs are all about central planning. The authoritative mentality holds that government "regulators" could have stopped the greedy "financiers." Never mind that the politicians in charge of the regulators were the same politicians who pushed the financiers to make bad loans in the first place.

In the FT article, Stiglitz carries the silliness further by insisting that if "economists" had come up with models that more emphasized government control of markets then the financiers would never have been allowed to act in the greedy manner than caused massive mortgage defaults. The financiers could have been controlled.

It's all about control--centralized big government control of every aspect of our lives.

We could analyze the rest of Stiglitz's Financial Times article. But we have already covered the main theme. One can take only so much "intellectual" nonsense in one sitting.

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© 2010 Chuck Rogér

"Sen. Tim Flakoll, R-Fargo, said he thinks there would be little Senate support for the projects if the same list had campus names and communities deleted, thereby neutralizing legislators' loyalties to certain schools."  Flakoll said, "It lacks vision and inspiration to take us to the next level".

 

He asked for objective information of how the priorities rankings were created.  He said some of the projects are good, but wants to see more projects that would help generate new wealth, business development, and diversify the economy.

 

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in USA Today.

The recent poll by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life is generating much discussion over its provocative finding that an increasing number of Americans (nearly one in five) believe that President Obama is a Muslim. The survey was completed before Obama's recent comments endorsing the construction of a mosque near Ground Zero.

While this no doubt is a fascinating development, consuming most media coverage of the poll, and unprecedented in presidential history, the figure of greater interest to me—and not surprising—is the percentage of Americans unsure about whether Obama is a Christian, or, more generally, about his faith at all.

"[T]he proportion saying [Obama] is a Christian has declined," reports Pew. "More than a year and a half into his presidency, a plurality of the public says they do not know what religion Obama follows." Pew added: "Only about one-third of adults (34 percent) say Obama is a Christian, down sharply from 48 percent in 2009. Fully 43 percent say they do not know what Obama's religion is."

This confusion is not confined to Republicans. Pew notes: "fewer Democrats today say he is a Christian (down nine points since 2009)."

The numbers among Democrats are telling. Indeed, it's easy for Obama defenders to lash out at this data as allegedly reflective of narrow-minded anti-Obama conservatives. In truth, there is confusion about what Obama believes because, in fact, there is—rightly so—confusion about what Obama believes.

Uncertainty builds

I say this as someone who studies faith and politics, and who has written books on the faith of Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Hillary Clinton—books that hit upon the faith of just about every president.

For the record, in one of those books—the 2007 one on Hillary Clinton, who I described as a "lifelong, committed Christian"—I wrote briefly about an emerging political dynamo named Barack Obama. "Obama is a Christian," I reportedly confidently, seeing no reason to say otherwise.

As November 2008 approached, I wrote similar things, though acknowledging the growing uncertainty about Obama's beliefs. I recall speaking at a church near Pittsburgh where one liberal couple practically jumped out of their seats when I dared mention a June 2008 Newsweek poll that found 12 percent of Americans believed Obama is a Muslim.

Those perceptions, already evident then, have only intensified. And for those Obama supporters enraged by this, please try to understand the legitimate confusion, including for someone like myself who carefully studies these things:

Generally, when it comes to faith, Americans accept whatever self-designation offered by a president, especially as his background leaves little doubt. President Jimmy Carter called himself a "born-again" Baptist from Plains, Ga., which the record easily supported. President Woodrow Wilson referred to himself as a Presbyterian in the "Reformed" tradition, and a mere cursory examination revealed precisely that.

Sometimes, we dig deeper. My experience in the case of Ronald Reagan is especially relevant now, as I'm being cited by liberals who point to Reagan's infrequent church attendance as support for their insistence that Obama's infrequent church attendance doesn't mean he lacks faith. (Ironically, in the 1980s, it was liberals who questioned whether the president was really a Christian.) That comparison, however, is misplaced, for reasons that underscore the questions about Obama. Consider:

Reagan attended church his entire life, from the First Christian Church on S. Hennepin Avenue in Dixon, Ill. in the 1920s, to churches in Iowa in the 1930s, to varying churches in California from the 1940s through the 1970s, and again after his presidency. As a new president, he immediately began attending the National Presbyterian Church, present for all but one or two services prior to when he was shot by John Hinckley. I interviewed the pastor of that church, the Rev. Louis Evans, at length, plus other witnesses. Reagan's attendance declined only after the assassination attempt. He cited security reasons, and the record supported his explanation. Beyond that, Reagan's personal life, family background, writings, speeches, and much more, revealed a deep, pervasive Christian faith throughout his entire life.

The record

For President Obama, a similar evidentiary record does not exist. Unlike Reagan, Obama was not raised by an intensely pious mother, nor was there an extremely influential pastor in his adolescent years. As noted by an excellent Newsweek piece during the campaign, Obama was reared by a "Christian-turned-secular mother"—herself a product of "two lapsed Christian" parents—and was the son of a "Muslim-turned-atheist African father" and a stepfather with a "unique brand of Islam."

As Obama himself candidly admits, he meandered his way through Islam, Buddhism, Catholicism, Protestantism, asceticism, with, along the way, smatterings of Augustine, Graham Greene, and Nietzsche, just for starters.

Amazingly, the only Christian church to which Obama could have been considered a consistent member was the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church. And if we are to believe the disclaimers of Obama and his supporters, he rarely attended Wright's services, and even more rarely listened or paid attention.

Likewise, Michelle and the girls have not attended church regularly, if ever. Newsweek reported a remarkable fact for a major presidential candidate who would win the presidency: "Obama is a little spiritually rootless again."

Our puzzling president

All of this, from rare church attendance to the lack of other conventional displays of faith, has persisted well into Obama's presidency. Think about the oddity of this one fact alone: The current president has neither a church, nor, to my knowledge, even a denomination. When I'm asked questions about his faith, by sincere people not looking to attack, I sincerely can't give a good answer. It's a problem I didn't have with any of the Bushes, the Clintons, Reagan, Carter, and on and on.

In short, and I don't mean this to be disparaging, with Barack Obama we are witnessing the most unconventional faith profile of a president in arguably 200 years. The assessment we're getting from a curious public is not a crass misperception by a bunch of intolerants, but, rather, natural puzzlement.

Of course, it shouldn't be difficult to rectify misperceptions. Throughout American history, presidents have been asked about their faith and sat for lengthy interviews sharing their thinking, explaining precisely what they believe. Why doesn't Obama simply do the same? This isn't rocket science.

Will some people still not believe him? Of course. But Obama's problem isn't a tiny fringe that believes he faces Mecca to pray five times a day, but an increasingly large number of Americans that aren't sure what he believes. Until he makes that clearer, confusion will understandably reign.

— Dr. Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College and executive director of The Center for Vision & Values. His books include “God and Ronald Reagan,” “God and George W. Bush,” and “God and Hillary Clinton.”

Which approach draws out the best in the human organism?

1) Allow people the freedom to think, produce, earn and interact in ways that benefit everyone who chooses to think, produce, and earn.

or

2) Expect thinkers and producers to think and produce, but cap earnings at a level considered "fair" and then confiscate "excess" earnings to redistribute to people who choose not to think and produce.

Revealing, it is, that today's Progressive-in-Chief, Barack Obama, boasts of delivering "the most progressive legislative agenda" in decades in order to "shape history for the better." Obama's pronouncement summarizes the mission that progressives see in life. Yet every single attempt by progressives to "shape history for the better" has consisted of social engineering that produces misery.

Obama's words highlight the most fundamental difference between progressives (or "liberals") and conservatives/libertarians. Conservatives and libertarians allow people to make history without government interference. Progressives/liberals use government to force people in directions set by progressives/liberals.

"Shapers" of history have painted pictures that turned out ugly. To "shape" is to control. History's shapers have one predominant mode of operation: control.

History's heroes, on the other hand, were tapped by desperate people in times of great need. The heroes didn't set out to lead and rarely sought control, but instead wanted the people to be in control.

Think shapers and think Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez. Think misery, great misery. Hundreds of millions starving, suffering, and dead in the name of centralized visions of perfection.

Think heroes and think quiet men on whose shoulders fell the task of setting people free to save themselves. Think Washington, Lincoln, Coolidge, Churchill, Reagan.

Think of Barack Obama's "most progressive legislative agenda" in decades put forth to "shape history for the better." As the Heritage Foundation documents, Obama made the remarks

…at the Beverly Hills home of  “West Wing” producer John Wells, after the string quartet quieted down, President Barack Obama told the assembled Hollywood elite, who paid $2,500 a person for cocktails and $30,400 a couple for dinner: “We have been able to deliver the most progressive legislative agenda – one that helps working families – not just in one generation, maybe two, maybe three.” Half an hour later, after the President concluded “Even as the other side wants to offer fear, we’re going to offer hope,” the Beverly Hills crowd responded with loud applause.

Beverly Hills crowd indeed. And the hopey crap once again. Enough.

Elitist snobs without any economic worries have a nasty habit of looking down their noses at the unenlightened masses. The behaviors we are seeing in our arrogant ruling class is scary similar to the behaviors of the "visionary" elitist shapers in the list four paragraphs above.

Damned concerned, we ought to be. Damned determined, we must be, to kick the progressives out of power this November and the Progressive-in-Chief out of the White House in 2012.

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© 2010 Chuck Rogér

   1.  To  the Great  American   Generation ,   the  treacherous ,  unannounced  military  Jap  attack  on  the  US  Fleet  stationed in  Pearl  Harbor  ,  Hawaii  on  7  December  1941 ---  the  day  FDR said  would  live  in  Infamy ---  is  etched  in  blood ,  memory & sorrow .

         The  Jap  bombers  sneaked  into   Pearl  Harbor  , dropped  their  bombs  on  an  early  Sunday  morning .  Those  bombs destroyed ,  or  sank many of  our  Great  Battleships ,  and  other ships ,   incurring  thousands of  Americans  deaths .  The  doomed  battleship  Arizona  became  the  symbol to  commemorate  the  Infamous Jap  Sneak  attack . An  Arizona  War  Memorial  was  erected  at that site  in  Pearl  Harbor  to  remind  us  of  the  hideous ,  onerous Jap  treacherous  Event .

         Now , if  you  will ,  hypothetically consider  a  scenario wherein  the  Japs  desire  to build  a  Shinto  Temple  Shrine  --- either ,  over  ,  or  next  to  the  Arizona  War  Memorial .       ///  The  debate  would  be , as  to  whether we should let  the  Japs ,  and  their  cowardly sneak attack  on  Pearl  Harbor that  brought  the  USA  into  the  midst  of  WW  II  ---  build  a Shinto  Religious  War  Memorial  Shrine  ---  over ,  or  near the Arizona  WW  II  Memorial  ?

         We  perceive  the  Great  Generation  would  resoundingly  say ...  not  only ,  "NO"  !!!  but  ..."Hell No  !!! "  to  such  a proposal .

         2. Moving  fast  forward  ---  By  allowing  the  Muslims  to build a  NEW  MOSQUE  ,  within  the  Shadows  of  the  great  former NY  Twin  Towers  Ground  Zero ,  that  were  destroyed  ---  by  also an  announced ,  treacherous ,  Jihad  mentality  cowardly  Muslim Group  ---  is  an  insult  to  the  brave  innocent  American  victims of  the  9/11  Sneak Assault .

         3.  We  are  not  aware  of  a  single  apology  by  a  Senior  Global   Muslim  for  the  conduct  of  those  Jihad  barbaric  murderers .  The  Muslim  silence  was  deafening .  It  was  as though  the  Muslim  silence ,  after  9/11  ,  was  indeed  a  sign of  their  cumulative  contempt  for  Non -  Muslims .

         It  is  Food  for  Thought

Eugene Graner

Mark it down. At 2:15 p.m. on Tuesday, August 10, 2010, the U.S. Federal Reserve made a historic announcement. It signaled that the central bank was going to “preserve the size of its balance sheet.” The announcement didn’t sound all that dramatic, but don’t be fooled. In the two subsequent days, the stock market fell over 300 points, and the price of gold rose $20. 

The Fed’s balance sheet, which historically consisted of nearly 100 percent U.S. Treasury securities, has grown in size from about $850 billion to a towering $2.3 trillion (or $2,300 billion) currently. In the middle of the financial crisis two years ago, the Fed expanded its holding of securities by purchasing lower-quality, mortgage-backed debt securities primarily from our nation’s domestic banking system. The need for this balance sheet expansion was to provide massive liquidity for our entire financial system.

The cash used to purchase the debt securities was literally created out of thin air, or in other words, the Fed simply printed the money. Two years ago, the financial emergency was deemed severe enough to require this dramatic money-printing exercise by the Fed. There was never any intent to make the vast expansion of money injected into the banking system anything other than “temporary” due to the financial emergency. There was always discussion in the financial press and among Fed policy makers of an “exit strategy.” The “exit strategy” discussion implied that the inflationary (or even “hyper-inflationary”) potential of this massive expansion of the banking system’s base reserves was being monitored closely. The financial markets took comfort that the Fed was standing at the ready, to withdraw the cash, should there be any sign that the central bank’s monetization exercise was having a negative effect on investor inflation psychology. That feeling of comfort has been dealt a blow with the Fed’s announcement on August 10. There is now no “exit strategy” being considered, and the size of the central bank’s balance sheet may very well become permanent.

Historically, the U.S. Federal Reserve has been given two primary objectives: one is the preservation of the purchasing power of the U.S. Dollar, and the other is to conduct a monetary policy that supports full employment. It is not an easy task to serve two masters. Additionally, in its role as a central bank, the Fed is to remain an independent institution that resists political influences. This, too, is not an easy task. The Fed’s track record as an independent institution that has preserved the purchasing power of our currency and maintained full employment is fully open to challenge. The central bank has not always demonstrated a firm independence from political influence, and the purchasing power of the U.S. Dollar has significantly diminished over the past 40 years.

An independent central bank, free of political influence, has always been a critical corner stone supporting confidence in whatever the currency the bank is charged with managing. Confidence is the one and only real currency of a central bank. What has just transpired here with the Fed’s announcement is that, in no uncertain terms, the central bank has explicitly stated it is prepared to “preserve the size of its balance sheet.”  And I would add, what it didn’t say explicitly, but did signal to the political class in Washington, is a willingness to “further expand the balance sheet dramatically if need be.” The fancy term being used to describe its intent here is called “quantitative easing” or “QE.”

The real inflationary (or hyperinflationary) risk that the financial markets will calculate very carefully going forward is that the central bank, with this announcement, has now opened itself to being fully co-opted by the political process in Washington. Consider, why make hard political decisions on taxes and spending when the central bank has, in effect, just announced that it stands at the ready to print the money to finance any deficit of any size in order to underwrite any amount of future debt accumulation?

The political class in Washington will see the Fed’s announcement as a potential gold mine. They will no doubt attempt to mine it for all it’s worth. The significantly rising risk is that the accumulation of future government debt attended to this process will result in hyperinflation rather than a garden-variety, modest inflation.

Hyperinflation occurs when there is a total collapse of confidence in a currency. A central bank that is willing to simply print money out of thin air to finance unlimited amounts of debt will eventually undermine the confidence in the currency being managed as lenders eventually seize on the realization that they will never be paid back in anything other than worthless paper.

The road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions.

— Fred A. Kingery is a self-employed, private-equity investor in domestic and international financial markets from New Wilmington, Pa., and a guest commentator for The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College.

The American people have trusted tyrants. 

In 2008, Democrats campaigned on promises to change the way Washington conducts business. But now amid the worst economic times since the Great Depression, the tyrants are indulging a job-killing ideology in a war of wills against us, the people. The government of the people has betrayed the people. Government by and for the people is a memory. 

In commandeering control over our bodies with Obamacare and over our finances and private lives with financial “reform,” Democrats have carried betrayal to a level that will be neither forgotten nor forgiven. 

In order to realize a “benevolent” totalitarian vision, progressives have long sought to control the nation’s consciousness. But what the tyrants have now done is anger the people. Barack Obama and congressional Democrats feigned compassion and vision, but proceeded to unleash a reign of terror aimed at managing every aspect of our lives. 

And now traditional America is waking up.

For decades traditionalists remained passive while zealots like Barack Obama hid flawed thinking and defective character behind Hopey-Changey vision. Today’s Democrats offer the same theoretical nonsense pushed by past collectivists that promised to perfect the human race by decree. 

Many Americans knew all along that the radical Obama would drive radical transformation. But as the man campaigned for President, he used speechwriter-written eloquence to explain away malignant associations with a racist anti-American minister, a violent radical who bombed the Pentagon, an anti-Israel Islamist sympathizer, and a dedicated communist. With the media running interference, evidence of an anti-capitalist, anti-American worldview went unheeded—and people clung to hope. 

Twenty-one months after voters elected hope and change, hope has decayed to fear and anger, while change has metastasized into upheaval. We now face daunting challenges: gargantuan debt and escalating taxation, indoctrination posing as education, federal burdens on manufacturing and investing, continuing disastrous lending mandates, a government health care takeover, and still the possibilities of suffocating energy taxes and voting rights for illegals-turned-citizens. If America stays on the road built by tyranny, with government attacking the people, prospects for prosperity will fade. 

The tyrants have betrayed us, and retaliate we will. 

In November, voters will hire a government that rejects fallacy and acknowledges human nature. Traditional Americans will insist on the reestablishment of government set forth by the Constitution, a government that frees people to pursue happiness and doesn’t demand subservience that destroys freedom and precludes happiness. 

Voters who want to choose their own cars, doctors, schools, and bankers will punish the ruling class for government intrusion. Elected know-it-alls who want to control our dinner menus, electricity usage, and thermostat settings will find themselves unelected. Achievers want to be free to achieve, not forced to bow to collective “equality” in the interest of “fairness.” Tyranny is on notice. The purge is coming. 

The tyrants are easily identified. Left-ideologues in unions and in socialist, “social justice,” “economic justice,” and “environmental justice” groups are partnering with Democrats to impose über-controlling agendas on the people. With the alliances now obvious, the people have begun to rebel and insist on a return to the principles that drove the biggest expansion of freedom and prosperity in the history of the world. 

Traditional Americans grasp the wickedness of “helping” the poor so completely that motivation to rise from poverty dies. Clear thinkers see the injustice in robbing earners to reward non-earners. The American people sense that if the progressive menace isn’t stopped, then more tyranny and betrayal await us. 

Since Marx’s time, people who misinterpret history and ignore human nature have hatched social programs out of illogic and contrived compassion. Today’s progressive elites follow the same broken compass, pushing new misguided programs. Critics who expose failed old ideas are accused by elites of rejecting wonderful new ideas. But now after the great betrayal, the people will dismiss the betrayers. 

History is written by courageous heroes, everyday people whose lives are bettered by the heroes, and cowardly tyrants who betray the people’s trust. Voters will write the next pages of American history by electing men and women to squash the tyranny that threatens to kill a noble and exceptional country. The newly-elected had better not betray us. We are in no mood for more betrayal.

The light of the world has dimmed, true. People all over the planet wonder if America has gone mad, if freedom, prosperity, and leadership will be extinguished by treachery. But Democrats’ treachery has awakened a giant, for the people will not tolerate iron rule. 

Few actions possess tyranny’s power to fill tyranny’s victims with resolve. Nothing motivates more than betrayal.

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© 2010 Chuck Rogér

New media have shaped our political culture. Some, like talk radio and all-news cable stations, are developments of older, established technologies. Others, like internet blogs, are based on comparatively new technologies. Yet, both venues have provided congenial habitats for that enemy of reasonable, constructive political discourse: the ideologue.

What exactly is an "ideologue?" Merriam-Webster defines it as "an often blindly partisan advocate or adherent of a particular ideology." Everyone, of course, works from a certain set of assumptions and argues for particular policies based upon their presuppositions. Nothing is wrong with that. But the ideologue is blindly loyal to certain partisan positions, regardless of the facts. As political philosopher Robert Nozick explains, "The moment a person refuses to examine his or her beliefs is the moment that person becomes an ideologue." Sociologist Daniel Bell argued in The End of Ideology (1960) that ideology's role is to mobilize mass movements by inflaming popular zeal; therefore, ideologues "simplify ideas, establish a claim to truth, and, in the union of the two, demand a commitment to action." Unfortunately, this zeal and oversimplification often overwhelm rational debate. They produce a lack of civility in political discussions and a loss of focus in seeking the common good.

In the 1960s and 1970s, most of the ideologues I encountered were on the political left. Some were Marxists who refused to accept the existence of political prisoners in China or Cuba. Others were radical feminists who declared that all men were potential rapists. Recently, however, conservatives seem to have become more like the ideologues they criticized 40 years ago. They have long excoriated "knee-jerk liberals," but have many conservatives actually become knee-jerk ideologues on the right? There are a few warning signs that the transformation may be well underway.

For instance, conservatives denounced Clinton for intervening in Bosnia but championed Bush's intervention in Iraq. Or, as another example, conservatives supported cutting taxes when the country was fighting two expensive wars but, soon after, denounced dangerous deficits.

These are merely two examples that point to the triumph of blind partisanship.

One last example: Participating in anti-Vietnam protests during the late '60s, some protestors carried pictures of Lyndon Johnson decorated with swastikas. Today, a few Tea Party activists carry placards with President Obama portrayed as Hitler. Refusing to consider complicating facts, ideologues assume that their opponents are demonic.

It is sad to see conservatives morphing into rigidly partisan ideologues, enabled by a mass media that generates more heat than light by seeking the lowest common denominator. Some programs on Fox News sound more like Jerry Springer than they do Bill Buckley's old decorous debate show, "Firing Line." Some of the founders of the post-World War II conservative renaissance would be horrified. Russell Kirk argued that conservatives, with their realistic recognition of human limitations and their preference for prudential, incremental change, were fundamentally anti-ideological. The conservative, commented Kirk, "thinks of political policies as intended to preserve order, justice, and freedom. The ideologue, on the contrary, thinks of politics as a revolutionary instrument for transforming society and even transforming human nature. In his march toward Utopia, the ideologue is merciless." Facts don't matter, and character assassination is permissible. The shouting, weeping egotists who speak on behalf of the conservative movement today don't strike me as very, well, conservative.

Besides conservatives, I can think of at least two other (overlapping) groups who should scrupulously avoid becoming ideologues:

First, are academics. I encountered a few examples of this sort of animal back when I was an undergraduate. A teaching assistant in political science refused to discuss the Soviet Gulag; an historian wouldn't acknowledge that religion ever served any positive role in history. There still aren't many conservatives in American academe today, but the solution to that imbalance isn't to import right-wing ideologues to replace the left-wing ones. Again, Daniel Bell can help us understand how the authentic scholar differs from the ideologue: "The scholar has a bounded field of knowledge, a tradition, and seeks to find his place in it, adding to the accumulated, tested knowledge of the past as to a mosaic. The scholar, qua scholar, is less involved with his 'self.' The intellectual [i.e., the ideologue] begins with his experience, his individual perceptions of the world, his privileges and deprivations, and judges the world by these sensibilities." Accordingly, ideologues seek to make the world fit into their tidy personal molds, regardless of untidy facts.

A second group: Christians should also be the least inclined to embrace the approach of the ideologue. Though they are prepared to be dogmatic about the core essentials of the faith, they should wear human-devised systems very lightly. While Christians should be prepared to defend those propositions contained in Holy Writ, they hold no special brief for man-made systems. Though they recognize that some systems have had a more benign influence in human history than have others, they should refrain from absolutizing particular historical arrangements in a fallen world. Although certain social, political, or economic structures may be superior to others, Christians need to remember that they are only relatively better.

In many ways, I am preaching to myself. As a professor at an evangelical college, I have found it salutary to reflect on the pitfalls of ideology. American conservatives these days might do well to ponder the dangers as well.

— Dr. Gillis J. Harp is professor of history at Grove City College and member of the faith & politics working group with The Center for Vision & Values.

People say some dumb things. I've said my share. But when it comes to sounding truly clueless, over-the-top, shrill, or hyperbolic, liberals win hands down.

For instance, take something that ABC substitute news anchor David Muir said recently.

…the President marked quite a week in Washington. The [Deepwater Horizon] oil, for now, is finally stopped, and on the political front, his financial reform package finally passed. So why such low poll numbers?

It is astounding that a member of the species of Homo sapiens can be so dense. Dishonest? Yes. Ideologically blinded? Yup.

We move on to the following performance by lovable lefty "journalist" E. J. Dionne. After the NAACP was caught leveling dishonest racism charges against the Tea Party, Dionne wrote,

Good for the NAACP. We need an honest conversation about the role of race and racism in the Tea Party. Thanks to a resolution passed this week at the venerable organization's national convention, we'll get it.

Dionne's contemplative and frowning face peered at the computer screen. Puffed-up elitism wandered through the brain. Inability to judge right from wrong raced to the fingertips, which tapped out praise in place of duly-deserved criticism.

We have NBC's Chuck Todd asking Obama about the decision to avoid the Senate confirmation process for an insufferably smug Marxist, Harvard elitist Donald Berwick, as head of Medicare and Medicaid.

Do you think Washington is broken? And the reason I ask you this, because when you appointed—you did the recess appointment of Donald Berwick. You seem to send a message of one of two things. Either you didn't wanna debate about healthcare again on Capitol Hill—it got a little raucous a year ago—or, you know what? The Senate process is broken and we gotta go around them.

Even the Democrats in the Senate aren't crazy enough to confirm a Marxist to run American health care and redistribute wealth. Obviously, with an insufficient number of crazies, the Senate is "broken." Liberal-speak: Crazy = good; sane = bad. Welcome to America 2010.

Up next, one of the most arrogant liberals in the media today, Time's Joe Klein. CNBC's Trish Regan states:

His administration that [sic] came forward with an $800 billion stimulus package. And Americans are now sitting back and saying, ‘OK, where did that money go? Why is it that we’re still looking at an unemployment rate that is near ten percent’ They’re angry, they’re frustrated, they want to get back to work. And it’s clear that the spending didn’t work. So he’s facing a real challenge…

And in jumps Klein,

Who says the spending didn’t work? Who says the spending didn’t work? …It might have been 15 percent unemployment!

Klein's "reasoning" illustrates a logical fallacy that I call the "nonexistent negative." In the nonexistent negative, lack of disproof constitutes proof. Klein's "logic?" Since it can't be proved that the stimulus didn't work, then the stimulus must have worked. Okay then. Since it can't be proved that I am not a space alien, then I must be a space alien, or at the very least, much smarter than Joe Klein.

And finally, we have a gem from MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan.

...the tea partiers were nowhere when it came to ending the mass extraction in Wall Street, so I think they're actually full of crap.

Oh my.

What does Joe Six-Pack want? Freedom to prosper under limited government. But Joe didn't stop freedom-stealing big government ideologues from pushing a feel-good agenda on bankers, who then created investment tools that derived from loans given to people who had no way to repay. Joe didn't stop the ideologues from pressuring the bankers to issue the loans. Joe didn't stop the people from accepting the loans. Ultimately, Joe didn't stop Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and irresponsible inventors of irresponsible investment instruments from bringing America to her knees. The conclusion that follows in the "mind" of Ratigan? Joe is filled with human fecal matter.

NEWSFLASH: Hexagonal rugs eaten by chartreuse bricks are paddling toilets to Jupiter.

To say that liberal "logic" is childish is to insult children.

Hat tip to the Media Research Center for four of the quotes used in the current post.

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© 2010 Chuck Rogér