It's Very Simple, Really

California used to be the envy of the every other state in the Union. A vibrant economy, a melting pot of cultures, the bread basket (and salad bowl) of the world, a driver of tech-innovation, and movies and art. But, that California is long gone. And it's my bet that it won't be coming back any time soon.

I really don't feel like putting the time or the effort in to a long, detailed post explaining why I'm right. I'll just relate to you what I saw when I lived there (and what I see now that I don't).

At one time, not too long ago, California's infrastructure was the best in the world: The California Aqueduct, I-5, the 10, the 405, Long Beach Harbor, San Diego Bay, Oakland Harbor, LAX, the 101...all of these massive state projects were the foundation that California used to propel its economic growth. The massive Aqueduct system turned California's Central Valley from a barren wasteland into the most productive agricultural area in the entire world. Interstate 5 (I-5) allowed all that food to get to Oakland, and LA to be transported around the world (via the Long Beach and Oakland harbors) or by train or truck.

Yet, in the 30 years I lived in California I watched year after year as I-5 literally fell apart from lack of repair. Not only was I-5 never significantly improved, it was barely maintained. What was once a true "superhighway" of smooth, continguous concrete running from San Ysidro to Yreka, became potholed, abused, cracked, and in such a state of disrepair as to be a threat to average motorists. In fact, right before I left in 1999 the freeway was in such bad shape that several bridges collapsed during a routine night rainfall, killing several people as a result.

At the same time, Sacramento was doing - quite literally - everything in its power to raise taxes on its citizens. Property tax revenues went up, sales taxes increased, California introduced the Lottery (ostensibly to pay for schools (so, query what happened to the money that the Lottery money replaced?)), instituted and (raised annually) a gas tax (to pay for aging roads)...and yet with all that money, infrastructure deteriorated from lack of maintenance. Schools crumbled, yet cost more to run.....while test scores dropped and graduation rates plummeted.

To add to that misery, the legislature started passing out money to every politically connected interest group it could: workers' compensation benefits skyrocketed (especially for government workers); liability laws were changed to make it easier to sue and easier for plaintiff's lawyers to take huge paydays. In fact, in one particular area of the law (building codes for handicap access), the legislature passed a law that allowed businesses to be sued for the tiniest infractions of very intricate state laws regarding buliding codes. In most cases, the codes were ambiguous enough that most businesses had trouble complying even when they hired experts. And, yet the potential liability (triple damages and costs and fees) along with the cost of litigation (attorney's fees, etc.) caused most businesses to settle for 5-figure sums. As a member of the California Bar, I distinctly remember the Bar becoming so overwhelmed with attorney complaints (about this issue) that the discipline section became overwhelmed.

And yet, no matter how much taxes were raised, two things happened: 1. Infrastructure crumbled because the state rarely spent any money on maintenance, and 2. the government always ran out money.

The one common thread that runs through California is that the bicameral legislature has been dominated by the Democrat party CONTINUOUSLY since 1970. The State Senate has been Dem-dominated without interruption since 1970, while the Assembly (the lower house) was only Republican-run for two years (1995 and 1996).

To make a long story short: You want to know who has ruined California? Look at the Legislature: DEMOCRATS, DEMOCRATS, DEMOCRATS.

Michael Totten on Diplomacy and Tyranny

"Understand the mind of a totalitarian. 'Probe with a bayonet,' Vladimir Lenin famously said. 'If you meet steel, stop. If you meet mush, then push.'" (Michael Totten, quoting Lenin).

What I find so intriguing about Lenin is not that he was evil. It's not that he was a totalitarian thug, or a Marxist, or a psychopath. It's not that his political strategy was so ruthless, or so cunning. No, the most fascinating thing about Lenin is that so much of what we know about him so profoundly demonstrates that he was a naked coward.

Lenin knew his survival depended on intimidating anyone who might expose his cowardice. He knew he couldn't win an intellectual debate, so rather than engage in one, he intimidated and then murdered his opponents. He knew neither he, nor his political faction, could win a physical fight, so he avoided them at high cost.

Preferring, instead to fight battles against opponents who he knew would offer only mush as resistance. Rather than stand on principle, Lenin simply exploited the soft underbelly of the courtesies and social conventions of his time. People knew he was lying, but they were too constrained by their own conformity to do anything meaningful about it. All the while, Lenin admitted, as demonstrated by this quote (among many others) that he was a weakling.

And, in time, all it took was for enough people to recognize the essential nature of all totalitarian regimes and to act accordingly in order to present an unflinching resistance instead of mush and the perverted creation he birthed crumbled from within.

The world could stand to refresh itself on the lessons taught by history. All the people of Iran need is a little steel-backboned solidarity from the West and the grotesque regime that has so badly abused them would collapse.

Not an Argument, Just a Query...

When the President says he wants America's health care system to be re-designed by "experts", would those be the same experts who run the US Postal Service? Or the same kind of experts who run Amtrak? Or the IRS?

Seriously, when was the last time you chose to use a Federally-provided service over a similar commercial service?

How often have you chosen the Postal Service instead of FedEx or UPS?

When was the last time you seriously considered taking Amtrak between L.A. and San Francisco? Or L.A. and, say Seattle?

Have you ever called the IRS to ask a question and received a competent answer, or been anything less than frustrated?

So, if you're not willing to use a federally-controlled monopoly system for something as simple as shipping a package, why would you even consider letting a federally-controlled bureaucracy get involved in life and death decisions about your medical care?

As far as I'm concerned I have yet to meet anybody more expert on my health care decisions than me and my doctor.

That's not to say I'm unwilling to consider doing something for people who aren't insured. Americans already pay for the medical treatment consumed by the uninsured. We pay for it in our current health care premiums. You don't think that hospitals really "eat" those costs? Of course not, those "unpaid" costs get moved into your bill. So, not only to do we directly pay for Medicare, MediCal, Medicaid, Social Security (with taxes) but we also pay for the "uninsured" through hidden costs.

But, telling me in order to provide coverage for everybody, I have to relinquish important legal and medical decision-making authority to a federal bureaucracy that is completely unaccountable to the democratic forces of the market...well, that doesn't have a good track record.

Absolutely Right

It's about time that SOMEONE, SOMWEHERE do something about the shameful state of post-graduate education in America. I'll just pick one example with which I have intimate experience, Law School.

The vast majority of Americans have no idea how insane Law Schools have become. Law school is no longer a place to simply learn the law. It's not a place to understand the legal and moral implications of notice pleading, or of the importance and historical foundations of hearsay and it's exceptions. Nor do students learn the importance of phrasing rights in the negative, or why anyone (much less our Founders) thought that was so important that the enumerated rights in Amendments 1,2,4,5,8,9, and 10 of the Constitution are phrased that way: "...shall not be infringed..." "Congress shall make no law""...shall not be violated...".

Oh, no. Law school and law professors now concern themselves with much weightier subjects.

Like whether animals should have the right to sue humans.

Or whether Family Law should be (somehow) forced to integrate "cultural cliteracy" into it's jurisprudence. Yes, you read that right. A female law professor actually wrote a "scholarly" law review article wherein she investigated whether failing to please your wife sexually should give a woman grounds for divorce.

Nevermind that this idea is totally insane, and would literally undo centuries of equal rights progress in the Western world, throwing our culture back to the days of spouses as chattel. Nevermind that, because instead of subjecting this lunatic idea to meaningful criticism, the legal academy politely claps and lets is pass, because to do otherwise would be "offensive" and "intolerant."

Nevermind all the high-minded reasons. The reason to get upset is that, the unfortunate taxpayers of the State of Wisconsin were actually forced to PAY THIS PROFESSOR'S SALARY while she played third grade made-up-word games and pretended to research and write a paper on this topic. Does the term "cultural cliteracy" not cause visions of Beavis and Butthead sniggering about "clit" to appear before your eyes?

"Beavis, she said, 'Clit', He-heh!"

"Shut up Butthead, you don't even know what that means."

So, now, one of these wacko law professors wants a prestigious job in the Obama adminstration and a Senator has the uncommon good sense to refuse to play the charade any longer. Good for Senator Chambliss (R, GA).

If you're a law professor and you've got nothing better to do with your time than writing a law review article for the sole purpose of seeing how ridiculous you can be, dare I suggest that you are a MONUMENTAL WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY. If you've got so much time and energy, why don't you volunteer to help a young entrepreneur file a proper articles of incorporation? Why don't you offer your wisdom on tax and regulatory law to help a struggling young business fend off illegitimate, and unnecessarily burdensome licensing requirements (that require hot dog vendors in LA to pay a $600.00/year fee and buy a $25,000.00 food cart?).

In short, instead of wasting taxpayer's money, and instead of spending valuable class time inundating your student's young, impressionable minds with radical, useless (and fundamentally dangerous) propaganda, why don't you DO SOMETHING USEFUL.

Because they'd rather feed their own egos spewing propaganda at adoring ILs. That's why. Disgusting.

L.

Radical Environmentalism or Human Progress. Pick Only One

Why only one? Because the two are fundamentally inapposite. They are matter and anti-matter. Polar opposites. Black and white. False and True.



O.K., O.K., I realize that was too provocative without an explanation. Let me explain.

Environmentalists argue that using of energy is polluting the planet, causing toxins that cause immediate harm, and greenhouse gases that cause global warming. From there, their solution is to use less. Many go so far as to argue that humans must be forced to use less, even if it means lowering our standard of living. That's where the real problems begin. Because in the rush to reach for the simple-sounding solution that feel good, no one calculates the harm that using as much energy as humans do avoids. That's right, our "energy intensive" lifestyle saves more lives than it harms.

Want proof? Think of all the life-saving progress that the world has seen in the last 100 years.

Take Norman Borlaug. Borlaug revolutionized modern agriculture, in the process he saved somewhere around one billion lives, and counting. Couple Borlaug's agricultural revolution with fertilizers, machinery, and all manner of modern energy intensive conveniences and you're looking at savings billions of lives.

Sitting in our comfy chairs in front of our televisions, it's easy to agree with using less energy, so we pass some taxes on coal, or nuclear, or gas or oil. But in agreeing to make energy more expensive, we're not only making our lives less "comfortable" we're inadvertently making it harder for the Borlaug's of the world to buy the energy he needs to research his revolutionary wheat strains. We're making it harder to make inexpensive computers and to ship them, so that poor farmers in India can google a better way to learn about Borlaug's advances. And when we've made energy more expensive, and that computer doesn't get made and the farmer never learns about the advances, and hundreds or thousands of his countrymen die, because they don't have enough to eat, no one is going to blame a "green" tax.

Don't buy it. Humans have an incredible capacity to solve problems. If you set them free, rather than shackle them.

Tea Parties

For classical liberals and legal conservatives, the very fact of the protest speaks to the degree of its seriousness.

Absolutely right. Your garden-variety Leftist has been raised to protest anything and everything. I remember endless protests at the University of Oregon, on subjects ranging from "Take Back the Night" to Graduate Teaching Assistants salaries, to Spotted Owls to starch levels in dorm food. The one thing I specifically remember is that there was NEVER a protest that could even be considered anything less than coming from some variant of the radical fringe left.

Conservatives just don't get out in the street and protest.

So, when they do, and they're respectful in the process, and they do so on short notice, with no central organization, you know it means something. What does it mean? It's too early to know, exactly. But the more the Drive-by-Media tries to ridicule the protestors ala CNN, or tries ad hominem smears ala Pelosi (who likened the protestors to Nazis) the more emboldened these folks it will get. Nobody thought Californians had the gumption to pass massive, landscape-changing property tax reform in the late 70's. But they did. And it changed the political landscape for the better for more than 20 years.

For the Children...of course

The Oregon legislature has just decided to kill off one of the State's single most successful industries - microbreweries. Why? To "help" the children. By raising taxes on beer a whopping 1900%. Yep, you read that right. One thousand nine hundred percent. From around $2.50/barrel to over $50.00/barrel. Because, we all know, when times get tough, the best thing a politician can do is tax the be-jabbers out of one of your state's biggest and most prominent industries.

I don't even know what to say. Other than to invite all those fabulous Oregon microbrews to relocate to Virginia. We could use some good McMenamin's Terminator Stout fresh from the tap.

No, seriously. The lesson to take from this is that no one is safe from do-gooder politicians and their seriously deranged fantasies and life-long leeching off the public goodwill. No politician should ever be allowed to wield the power to kill businesses and industries, no matter what.

Two Simple Rules for Deciphering Democrats

Have you ever wondered why Americans keep voting for Democrats to “reform” something, or “change” something, and no matter how long Democrats are in office, the things they were supposed to “reform” never change for the better?

Whether it’s welfare, or taxes, or schools, whenever the Democrat party is running Congress, nothing ever actually changes. Take schools, for example. Everybody wants to “reform” America’s failing public schools. But, no matter what we tell the politicians, nothing ever seems to improve. Which is strange, because Americans know what good schools look like. There are plenty of excellent – private – schools around the country. Heck, even Democrat politicians know what good schools look like. Which is exactly why every Democrat politician (and every other Democrat who can afford it) sends their kids to private school. Private schools know what makes a good school: high expectations, accountability from students and parents, and student achievement as measured on standardized tests.

But when it comes to public schools, Democrats suddenly push for “reforms” that don’t have anything to do with expectations, or accountability, or quantifiable results. When it comes to Democrats and the schools other people’s kids attend, “reform” means full employment for unions that support Democrats. It means higher pay for the teachers' unions, regardless of results. It means more employment and higher pay for service unions, electrical unions, janitors unions and state employee unions. It means more money for the Federal workers union, the NEA, and all the union workers who tend to the Federal bureaucrats. “Reform” means hiring more union teachers, paying them more money, exempting them from accountability, and buying more Democrat votes and more Democrat job security. It’s simple. Democrats talk about “reform”, but what they mean is, “You keep me in office, and I’ll keep buying your votes.” It doesn’t matter that no Democrat “reform” has ever led to an actual improvement in education.

The reason is simple. Whether something has “improved” depends on the definition of “improvement.” And we can all thank President Clinton for making the following rules crystal clear for me. Just like it depends on what the meaning of “is” is.

Here goes. If you ask a Democrat whether education reforms have “improved” schools, the answer is yes. But we all know most public schools are worse than they were 20 years ago. So, what gives? Simple. We’re using the wrong definition of “improved.” BUT! If our definition is wrong, what definition are Democrats using? Puzzling, isn’t it?

To help everyone understand what Democrats are talking about, refer to Luke’s Two Simple Rules for Understanding Democrats:

Rule Number 1: If a Democrat favors a policy, it means the policy is designed to buy Democrat votes and make people dependent on Democrats, so they vote Democrat forever.
Rule Number 2: THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS TO RULE #1.

Luke’s Rules work for EVERY policy Democrats favor. Let’s take a look:

Have you ever wondered how Obama’s “tax cuts” are going to “cut taxes for 95% of Americans,” when roughly 50% of Americans don’t pay taxes? And 97% of all taxes are paid by the other 50% of the population?

SIMPLE. Apply Luke’s Rule Number 1, and work backwards to figure out the real answer.

Obama’s tax plan is going to take taxes from people who pay taxes and give money to people who don’t pay taxes. DUH. It’s welfare. And Democrats love welfare. But why do Democrats love welfare? Everyone knows welfare was a total failure until it was reformed by Republicans in 1996. Right?

SIMPLE. Apply Luke’s Rule Number 1, and work backwards to figure out the real answer.

Everybody knows the welfare system failed to get people out of poverty. But, despite the fact that Democrats held a majority in Congress for almost 40 years straight after welfare was made into law, Democrats never reformed it. Why? BECAUSE welfare wasn’t designed to get people out of poverty. It was designed to buy Democrat votes. Which it did spectacularly well.

So, the next time you hear a Democrat hold forth about how some new Democrat policy is great, or how some Republican policy is awful, refer to Luke’s Two Simple Rules and you’ll immediately understand what they’re talking about. It works every time, for every Democrat policy.

Thanks for reading.

L.

What Used To Be

"There is a bastard kind of generosity, which, by being extended to all men, is as fatal to society, on one hand, as the want of true generosity is on the other. A lax manner of administering justice, falsely termed moderation, has a tendency both to dispirit public virtue, and promote the growth of public evils."

There used to be an appreciation for the kind of moral clarity that encouraged people to make the distinction between true generosity and the "bastard generosity" Thomas Paynedescribed in 1777.  Query, whether "bastard generosity" is even properly definable as "generosity" and, if not, what purpose is being served by confusing it so?  Who benefits by defining profligacy, waste, and moral decay as generosity?  

 

Imagine...

Imagine that our new President were afforded the EXACT treatment his predecessor got, from day one.  Imagine the howls of protest and indignation we'd hear from the very same people who have spent the last 8 years befouling our national civic discourse with their perversion.

Imagine the Republicans in the Senate illegitimately stalling his every appointment, handicapping the new administration.  Imagine the worst slanders possible being hurled at the new President from every conceivable "news" story.  Imagine every interview and every story starting off with the hostile premise that the President's authority is illegitimate, that he's an unaccomplished dunce. Imagine a never-ending stream of disdain, arrogance, hatred, disgust, and virulent prejudice and animosity. All for little or no reason, other than the media preferred the other guy.

You can't imagine it, because it's the Left in this country who are the classless scum, with nothing better to do with their lives than indulge their petty, adolescent perversions.  Not the right.

Listen, I don't particularly like George Bush.  He is what he is.   BUT.  I don't think he was an unaccomplished dunce, nor was he some incarnation of evil.  He's not the liar the Left would make him out to be.  And he's been plenty right about some important things over the last 8 years.  Frankly, he's a guy who was elected to the Texas governorship two consecutive terms during the Clinton years, and who did fairly well.  I don't care who you are, or how connected you are, you don't get elected to a governorship twice by being a fool.  If you're too big a screw-up, the people will have your neck.  Just ask the disgraced former California governor, Gray Davis. 

At the same time, I don't particularly like Barack Obama.  He's a guy who hangs around with unrepentant, cop-killing terrorists.  He has no problems being life-long friends with a guy who actively sought the violent overthrow of the U.S. Government.  And that's not my opinion, that's what his friend openly declared and still - to this day - defends.  And, don't buy that lie about, "He's just a guy from the neighborhood."  Our new President blurbed this homegrown terrorist's book back in the late '90s.  His pastor of 20 years is a radical anti-American, jew-hating, black-nationalist, Nazi.  He's a guy who, not unlike his adversary for the Democrat nomination, sees no wrong in using his political connections to destroy perceived enemies and to enrich himself and his wife, through high-paying patronage jobs.  It may not be illegal, but it's certainly indicative of a corruption of the soul.  In fact, it has Blagojevich-style politics written all over it.

He'd be dangerous if he were halfway capable of implementing his ideas.  But, he's not, so I'm not worried.  Plus, unlike the disloyal opposition, I trust that the American people will shortly see what a truly unaccomplished man they've elected, and things will be fine in 4, or maybe even 8 years.

My only worry is that, not unlike every election we've had following Reagan's landslide in 1984, the candidates Americans have to vote for in 2012, won't be worthy of the office they seek to inhabit, or of the people they seek to represent. 

Having said all that, here's the point.  As much as I disagree with Obama's policies, you will NOT find me - ever - calling him a primate.  Or a tyrant, or any of the various names those on the Left have used against Bush, Gingrich, Reagan and any other conservative they dislike.  I am not frozen in my adolescence, doomed forever to project my perverse shortcomings onto a person whose meaningless politics I happen to disfavor.

Does that make me a better person than your average name-calling Leftist.  Yes.  

Lickspittles

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." --Samuel Adams

The nation has elected a lickspittle. A cowardly man, full of "knowingness" but no knowledge. A man who confuses comfort with freedom. Responsibility with entitlement. A man who measures his righteousness by his popularity.

A man who thinks that America has fulfilled Dr. King's vision, when his very election is the strongest rebuttal of Dr. King's vision I can imagine. How can you claim to have ushered in an age when people will be judged by the content of their character instead of the color of their skin, when you were elected because of the color of your skin, not the content of your character? And, finally, in order to be judged by the content of your character, first you have to have a character to judge. And you have to be willing to stand judgment.

Our newly minted president fails on all counts.