The title of Codevilla’s essay and book is derived from the growing anti-establishment sentiment among Americans, now furious at Washington politicians who continue to ignore their voices. Most people I know want to vote all the bums out in November. I think this helps explain the recent primary victories of Rick Scott in Florida (over establishment favorite Bill McCollum in the gubernatorial race) and Joe Miller’s victory over incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski in Alaska.
Other Evidence that Americans are turning on the establishment is found in the waning audiences of the progressive media outlets, which are losing viewers, money, and credibility faster than the bedbugs are reproducing in NYC. Unfortunately, CBS’ ratings are not dropping as fast as Americans are losing their rights, but the backlash has begun. Nov. 2 is coming.
The first wave of this anti-establishment sentiment came in response to the $700 billion “Troubled Asset Relief Program” (TARP) legislation, which passed in 2008 despite a huge public outcry against the bill. Codevilla notes that that public objected to TARP “by margins of three or four to one.” Discussing the public’s epiphany, Codevilla writes:
When this majority discovered that virtually no one in a position of power in either party or with a national voice would take their objections seriously, that decisions about their money were being made in bipartisan backroom deals with interested parties, and that the laws on these matters were being voted by people who had not read them, the term ‘political class’ came into use. Then, after those in power changed their plans from buying toxic assets to buying up equity in banks and major industries but refused to explain why, when they reasserted their right to decide ad hoc on these and so many other matters, supposing them to be beyond the general public’s understanding, the American people started referring to those in and around government as the ‘ruling class.’
Codevilla’s work is important because it helps identify and expose the fraud being committed against the American people. Most Americans now realize the government is acting as the destroyer of our economy. They realize government is a non-productive (and often incredibly inefficient) entity whose only means of getting money is through taxation, printing fiat money, or selling government securities to be paid back with future taxes.
I personally believe that Ayn Rand has a lot to do with this awakening. The intellectual elite will never admit this–they will even condemn her as they did in a recent NRO article, “The Greatly Ghastly Rand”–and maybe not all the Tea Partiers even know about her explicitly. (Some do, because I saw “Who is John Galt?” signs at the Tea Party rally I went to in Orlando.) Still, her influence here and abroad is undeniable. Her literary classic, Atlas Shrugged, first published in 1957, remains a top-seller.
Seeing the events in the economy unfold today, I am reminded of a passage she wrote in her 1974 essay “Egalitarianism and Inflation,” (from Philosophy: Who Needs It):
While the government struggles to save one crumbling enterprise at the expense of the crumbling of another, it accelerates the process of juggling debts, switching losses, piling loans on loans, mortgaging the future and the future’s future. As things grow worse, the government protects itself not by contracting this process, but by expanding it. The process becomes global: it involves foreign aid, and unpaid loans to foreign governments, and subsidies to other welfare states, and subsidies to the United Nations, and subsidies to the World Bank, and subsidies to foreign producers, and credits to foreign consumers to enable them to consume our goods–while, simultaneously, the American producers, who are paying for it all, are left without protection, and their properties are seized by any sheik in any pesthole of the globe, and the wealth they have created, as well as their energy, is turned against them, as, for example, in the case of Middle Eastern oil.
Needless to say, left unchecked, government’s economic meddling and expansion does not end well. But, as the ruling class are beginning to realize, you should never underestimate the American people.
A few years ago I had a conversation with a friend about senses of humor. She said her husband had identified a type of humor he called the “sense of the ridiculous.” You either have a sense of the ridiculous or you don’t. People who do have it are prone to uncontrollable fits of laughter or the “giggles” as they are known.
“Seinfeld” once had an episode about the giggles. It’s the one where Jerry places a Pez candy dispenser on Elaine’s knee during a piano concert. This innocuous event causes her to burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter, much to the annoyance of the pianist. Woody Allen, Larry David, and Larry Gelbert all built careers tapping into the sense of the ridiculous. YouTube built an empire on it.
The “Dramatic” animal series on YouTube that started with “Dramatic Hamster,” never seems to get old. This cat cracked me up today, which led to the one on McCain…
In yet another victory for the Tea Party, Marco Rubio, has won Florida’s Republican primary election for U.S. Senate in a landslide with over 84% of the votes. Rubio is now up against Kendrick Meek, the Democrat primary winner, and Charlie Crist, running as an Independent, in one of the most interesting races in the country.
Total voter turnout in Florida was around 21% (2.3 million out of 11.1 registered voters), but Republicans outvoted Democrats in the Senate race by about 16%. Republicans definitely seem energized and ready for Nov. 2. (Source: Florida Election Watch)
Rubio, a state politician, was virtually unknown when he entered the race against Crist, an incumbent governor. His meteoric rise is testament to the Tea Party’s clout as much as it is his own charisma. And, he does have charisma. Here is his CPAC speech, much of which he echoed in his recent victory speech:
A big surprise in the Republican primary race for Governor was Rick Scott, a self-made millionaire, beating out establishment favorite Attorney General Bill McCollum. Scott will go head to head against Democrat Alex Sink.
In my Congressional District (FL-24), Sandra Adams narrowly beat Craig Miller and Karen Diebel. Adams will now face Democrat Suzanne Kosmas.
Update: Looks like there may be a recount for the FL-24 Republican U.S. Representative primary. Adams beat Diebel by only 560 votes.
Change is an immutable force. Some of us embrace it, some of us resist it, but no one escapes it. In today’s Information Age the speed of change is accelerating at such a dizzying speed that it’s rewriting the rules of business.
“Corporate bureaucracy is becoming obsolete,” writes Alan Murray, in his WSJ article, “The End of Management.” Businesses built to thrive in the Industrial Age must now adapt to the Information Revolution. Murray observes:
Corporations are bureaucracies and managers are bureaucrats. Their fundamental tendency is toward self-perpetuation. They are, almost by definition, resistant to change. They were designed and tasked, not with reinforcing market forces, but with supplanting and even resisting the market.
Yet in today’s world, gale-like market forces—rapid globalization, accelerating innovation, relentless competition—have intensified what economist Joseph Schumpeter called the forces of ‘creative destruction.’ Decades-old institutions like Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns now can disappear overnight, while new ones like Google and Twitter can spring up from nowhere. A popular video circulating the Internet captures the geometric nature of these trends, noting that it took radio 38 years and television 13 years to reach audiences of 50 million people, while it took the Internet only four years, the iPod three years and Facebook two years to do the same. It’s no surprise that fewer than 100 of the companies in the S&P 500 stock index were around when that index started in 1957.
Hangzhou, China
Access to information 24/7 has unleashed a new era where ideas can be developed, tested, launched, succeed and fail all in the span of less than ten years. Innovations and new information can spread in seconds via new channels, rendering age-old companies or even entire industries obsolete. To paraphrase D.H. Lawrence: Cool, unlying life is rushing in and institutions are curling up like burnt paper. Industrial Age corporate rules simply no longer apply.
We all knew this day was coming. In 1970, Alvin Toffler, opened his seminal work, Future Shock, with these prophetic words: “In the three short decades between now and the twenty-first century, millions of ordinary, psychologically normal people will face an abrupt collision with the future.”
“Future shock,” as he called it, is a “time phenomenon.” It is “a product of the greatly accelerating rate of change in society.” In terms of technological innovation, where knowledge is fuel, change is measured as the span of time from idea to practical application — that is, “time-to-market” or “time-to-takeoff.”
Toffler used a study by Robert B. Young at the Stanford Research Institute to illustrate the speed of innovation and the diffusion of technology:
Young found that for a group of appliances introduced in the United States before 1920–including the vacuum cleaner, the electric range, and the refrigerator–the average span between introduction and peak production was thirty-four years. But for a group that appeared in the 1939-1959 period–including the electric frying pan, television, and washer-dryer combination–the span was only eight years. The lag had shrunk by more than 76 percent.
Another futurist, Ray Kurzweil, in his book The Singularity Is Near, asserts that the “rate of paradigm shift (technical innovation) is “doubling every decade.” (This was in 2005.) For information technologies, he says, “there is a second level of exponential growth: that is, exponential growth in the rate of exponential growth.” He illustrates his point:
Thus, the twentieth century was gradually speeding up to today’s rate of progress; its achievements, therefore, were equivalent to about twenty years of progress at the rate in 2000. We’ll make another twenty years of progress in just fourteen years (by 2014), and the same again in only seven years. To express this another way, we won’t experience one hundred years of technological advance in the twenty-first century; we will witness on the order of twenty thousand years of progress (again, when measured in today’s rate of progress), or about one thousand times greater than what was achieved in the twentieth century.
As Kurzweil points out, all this rapid evolution is not necessarily dystopian or utopian. Human traits can never totally be submerged even as we gain more control over the universe and ourselves. Reality, its existents, and reason remain absolutes. We will never be infallible or omniscient, and there is no historical inevitability when it comes to man-made things or events. Much of our future will depend on the value of our ideas and on our ability to remain free and defend against overreaching government power or despotic movements. Heavily regulated or government-run industries will always lag behind the technology curve, bogged down by their bureaucratic, self-perpetuating natures.
In a sense, we are all becoming businesses of one, each with our own unique brand, yet we are part of a vast, interconnected community. No one is quite sure what the new “Wikinomics” will look like. As our lives improve and last longer, we only know the economic rules will keep changing. Like businesses, we will have to adapt—fast.
The New York Times editorial board predictably came out in defense of the Cordoba Initiative’s Ground Zero mosque project and praised President Obama’s stance on the issue (his first stance anyway). Obama, speaking at a Ramadan dinner at the White House last week, stated that the Muslims (led by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf) have every right to build a mega-mosque at the proposed site near Ground Zero — it’s their constitutional right guaranteed under the First Amendment.
Seriously? Do the American people need a lesson on the Constitution from Obama or the New York Times? Don’t they get that the “bitter clingers” are not clinging to guns and religion so much as they are the Bill of Rights, which is being threatened daily by the Obama administration and its 32 anointed czars?
Where is the NYT editorial board when we really need them? They never have any interest in defending the Second Amendment. They rallied behind the President on the unconstitutional health care legislation rammed through on Christmas Eve and on the weekend with practically zero debate. They sure didn’t care anything about the rights of private property owners who lost out in the Supreme Court case Kelo v. City of New London or those who lose out every day under Byzantine zoning laws. They don’t care anything about the unconstitutionality of banning offshore drilling in the Gulf. And, despite their newfound concern with “religious freedom,” they don’t seem to mind that the Greek Orthodox church, St. Nicholas, hasn’t been able to rebuild their place of worship at Ground Zero for years.
Why don’t the NYT editors ask why bureaucratic red tape manages to ensnare St. Nicholas’ efforts to rebuild but so easily parts for a sketchy imam backed by foreign governments?
As Jonah Goldberg points out, why didn’t Mayor Bloomberg realize the offensiveness of having a symbol of Islam at Ground Zero, put two and two together and avoid the whole debate in the first place “with a few phone calls”? Instead, notes Goldberg, “It’s as if they’ve wanted to turn a dumb idea into an emotional and unwinnable national controversy.”
A mega-mosque at Ground Zero is beyond dumb. No offense to the millions of moderate Muslims who have to sit by and watch as fundamentalist freaks hijack their religion, but even moderate Muslims know this mosque is a bad idea.
This is not about the building of a mosque or a religious facility. It is not about religious freedom. This is about a deep, soulful understanding of what happened to our country on 9/11.
When Americans are attacked, they come together as one, under one flag, under one law against a common enemy that we are not afraid to identify. Religious freedom is central to our nation — and that is why the location of this project is so misguided. Ground Zero is purely about being American. It can never be about being Muslim.
The World Trade Center site represents Ground Zero in America’s war against radical Islamists who seek to destroy the American way of life. It is not ground zero of a cultural exchange.
None of this concerns the NYT, Bloomberg or Obama.
Sadder still, as Dr. Paul Hsieh points out so articulately in his recent essay at American Thinker, this controversy has become a major distraction in our battle against Islamic totalitarianism — a battle we are in danger of losing. Dr. Hsieh writes:
All the energy devoted to this issue of the Ground Zero Mosque is distracting us from the far more serious problem of Iran’s nuclear weapons program. If this more fundamental problem is properly addressed, then the NYC mosque issue will become irrelevant. Conversely, if America doesn’t deal with this more fundamental problem, then any legal or political maneuvers to stop the NYC mosque — even if successful — will make little difference in the long run.
Indeed, I can think of a thousand more controversial issues in America that will be moot if Iran gets a nuclear bomb.
Is anyone else horrified that it’s Mickey Mouse time with our leaders during this critical juncture in history?
Florida’s 24th Congressional District primary election race is heating up, and since this is my district I’m following the developments with great interest. Yesterday was the last day to register to vote to be eligible to participate in the August 24th primary. But, if you are not yet registered, I strongly encourage you to do so soon to be ready for the November election, which will be historic.
The House incumbent, Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (D), has voted almost in lock step with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Harry Reid. Sarah Palin named her as a key liberal to beat in November 2010.
Currently, the Republican candidates are as follows:
State Rep. Sandra “Sandy” Adams (http://www.sandyadams.com) has served in the Florida House of Representatives since 2002. Prior to 2002, she had a career in law enforcement and served 17 years with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. She also previously served in the U.S. Air Force. Her record in the Florida legislature has been consistently conservative.
Karen Diebel (http://www.karendiebel.com) is Vice Mayor and City Commissioner of Winter Park and a Verizon executive. Ms. Diebel was the leader (32-14-6) in a recent straw poll held May 11, though more recent polls show Craig Miller taking the lead. Mike Huckabee and Tom Tancredo have also endorsed her, for what it’s worth. And, she is on a top-ten list of favorites for Social Conservatives.
Tom Garcia (http://www.garcia4congress.com/), a Navy Commander and Top Gun fighter pilot, showed up as the leader in a June straw poll conducted by the Republican Liberty Caucus of East Central Florida. He could gain momentum if the Tea Party rallies behind him. Mr. Garcia was also a commercial airline pilot for 18 years. His conservative views may be well-aligned with constituents of the Space Coast district he would represent.
Deon Long (http://www.deonlong.com/) is currently a practicing attorney in Winter Park. As his website states, he was also appointed by Jeb Bush to serve on the board of the St. Johns River Water Management District from 1999-2007. Mr. Long has a strong independent streak — think Rand Paul — and he supports a pro-growth free market agenda.
Businessman Craig S. Miller (http://www.craigmillerforcongress.com), a former CEO of Darden Restaurants and Ruth Chris Steakhouse and a war veteran who served in Vietnam in the Air Force, joined the race late but appears to be the Washington establishment’s favorite. Mr. Miller’s conservative credentials are largely based on the fact that he is a businessman and, therefore, must be pro-business and anti-tax. Mr. Miller appears to have the lead in recent polls. He also has the endorsement of the regional paper, The Orlando Sentinel — though this fact probably won’t sit well with die-hard Republicans who know the paper has a liberal slant. (I’ve seen bloggers refer to the paper as the “Slantinel.”) In this day and age when voters know politicians say one thing and do another, the Sentinel’s endorsement could backfire.
I think the polls are still a bit premature. (The Orlando Sentinel, has not published its voter guide online or in print yet, if that’s any indication.) Congressional primary elections typically have low voter turnout (about 12% of Democrats and 16% of Republicans turned out in the 2008 primary). It will be interesting to see if there will be more interest this year.
In case you are not familiar with Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman’s take on our current fiscal crisis, he thinks the only way to avoid a longer recession (or possibly a Long Depression) is to have government spend our way back into prosperity. “Spend now, while the economy remains depressed; save later, once it has recovered,” he writes in his NYT article. “How hard is that to understand?”
It’s very hard, Mr. Krugman. In fact, it’s impossible to “understand” because the idea is irrational. For people who do not live in a topsy-turvy world where apparently money can be created out of thin air and has no basis in reality, it’s impossible to “understand” how spending more in the face of a massive, mind-blowing deficits is a good idea. When you are broke, you do not need to spend more. You need to stop spending and produce more. People being productive create money. Governments that arbitrarily “stimulate” the economy with future money that doesn’t exist create inflation, not prosperity.
I’m heartened to see that there is a growing backlash in the media (and among voters) against Keynesians and statists, like Krugman, who believe the only way out of a recession is to increase consumption.
Finally, voices of reason are pointing out that it was government intervention into the economy — (artificially low fed rates, a policy-driven housing bubble and government sponsored entities, Fannie and Freddie) — that got us into this mess in the first place and thus it cannot be government that gets us out of it. The following is an excerpt from today’s Investor’s Business Daily editorial:
The world is going to hell in a handbasket, Krugman suggested this week, thanks in large part to its refusal to follow his advice to the letter.
Actually, he has it exactly backward. Krugman was among those who encouraged the new Obama administration and the Democratic Congress to spend massive amounts of money early on in a kind of Keynesian frenzy to shock the moribund economy back to life.
It didn’t work. With a stimulus — a deficit, that is — of nearly 11% of GDP, our economy is barely growing, while unemployment remains shockingly close to 10% of the adult working population.
Even the European leaders are realizing that we have finally “run out of other people’s money” — Margaret Thatcher’s famous observation on the inherent problem with socialism. Obama’s insistence on implementing socialist and Keynesian policies is yet another power-grabbing tactic and a threat to liberty.
This somewhat dated but still relevant article, “U.S. foreign policy: Waiting on a Sun King,” by Edward Luce and Daniel Dombey published at FT.com in March 2010 sheds some disturbing light onto Obama’s approach to foreign policy, which is described as a highly centralized process in which “all roads lead to and from him.”
This White House-centric approach often leads to waiting (sometimes months) for final decisions on some of our most urgent matters. Further confounding the situation is the Obama administration’s lack of a strong national security adviser. Instead, major foreign policy issues are dealt with in countless lower-level meetings where no decisions are made, followed by high-level discussions involving members of Obama’s “inner circle” and National Security Council principals, including Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. After all the facts are presented to Obama, he makes the final decision.
The authors write:
When Nixon wanted foreign policy advice, everyone knew where he got it from: Henry Kissinger, variously his national security adviser and secretary of state.
In contrast, Mr Obama has no big foreign policy strategist. Even insiders give different answers when asked to whom he turns for advice on the big international questions. But almost all agree with the following observation. ‘The truth is that President Obama is his own Henry Kissinger – no one else plays that role,’ says a senior official. ‘Every administration reflects the personality of the president. This president wants all the trains routed through the Oval Office.’
This lone wolf approach to foreign policy isn’t necessarily bad until you consider Obama had virtually no experience in foreign policy matters prior to his election. Given that context, the approach seems so naive that it borders on downright dangerous.
The article also alludes to an unusual alliance between Obama’s Secretary of Defense and State (Robert Gates and Hilary Clinton) who often find themselves at odds with Obama’s “inner circle.” The inner circle itself forms an odd penumbra around the “Sun King,” and it seems to have its hand on all matters foreign and domestic. Conspicuously, the inner circle does not include Secretary Clinton.
Who exactly is Obama’s inner circle? The same author, Edward Luce, previously wrote on the core four surrounding the president: Robert Gibbs, his communications chief; Rahm Emanuel, chief of staff; and senior advisers, David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett. All, observes Luce, had some hand in the Obama campaign and, with the exception of Gibbs, all are Chicagoans.
With so many disturbing events on the international scene — the increasingly volatile state of Arab-Israeli relations heightened by the recent Gaza flotilla incident, the narrowly thwarted terrorist attacks in Times Square, the imminent nuclear armament of Iran and its alliance with Russia, the bankruptcy of Greece and demise of the European Union, just to name a few — I find Obama’s heavy reliance on Chicago friends and campaign managers to lead the free world frightening.
Perhaps sensing a novice in the White House, the forces of tyranny seem to be lurking closer these days, salivating at the prospect of a weaker, more vulnerable United States.
Fortunately for us, we have elections and term limits. And this Sun King isn’t running a monarchy.
I recently returned from a trip to Nassau, Bahamas. It was my first cruise, and it was a blast. The highlights were definitely two snorkeling trips and the exquisite views from the both the ship and the beaches at Coco Cay.
I have a slight phobia of sharks, being of the “Jaws” generation, so I was a little nervous about snorkeling. It didn’t help that I’d heard about the shark-feeding excursions in and around the islands. But the only thing close to a shark I saw was a sting ray. I was so overwhelmed by the underwater beauty that I think my shark phobia is cured. Now I can’t wait to go snorkeling again, and I am even contemplating SCUBA certification. I’ve heard the Keys have amazing diving and snorkeling.
I didn’t take any underwater photos of the colorful fish, but the pictures below are of the sunset we saw on the first night of the cruise. I can’t wait to paint these!
The yellow-tinted photo was taken only a few seconds after the first.
While you sipped your coffee or played with the kids, the U.S. House of Representatives voted today (around 11 p.m. EDT on Sunday, March 21st to be exact; 219 to 211) on passage of the Senate health care bill (yes, the one the Senate passed on Christmas Eve), and they also voted (at 11:36 p.m. EDT; 220 to 211) on their own slurry of amendments and fixes to the Senate bill using the controversial budget reconciliation process, which allowed the health care bill to be passed with only a simple majority vote and curbed debate.
The Dems were forced into using the reconciliation process (intended for revenue raising or tax bills) because of Scott Brown — the 41st senator elected by Massachusetts who ruined the Dems supermajority of 60 in the Senate. Thus, Dems can’t block GOP filibusters and would not have been able to pass the bill through normal processes.
The House Dems did back away from using “deem and pass” — a sketchy and obscure procedure that would have allowed them deem the Senate bill passed while not actually voting on it. Too many threats of challenges on the constitutionality of using such an ugly method are most likely the reason the Dems opt for reconciliation.
The bottom line is that the Dems stopped at nothing to pass this bill, which by their own words is historic in scope and on par with other far-reaching social legislation as Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. And, they are fully aware that most Americans (54%) oppose the bill. The slimy way in which the Dems passed this bill is telling enough of their dubious motives.
This bill will impact the lives of every American and give the IRS unprecedented control and access over citizens. Everyone will be forced to have health care or pay fines. (If you can get through the 2700-page monstrosity, there are other provisions equally offensive.)
The Republicans did what they could do to try to stop passage of the bill. They argued that the $940-billion-plus will bankrupt us (further), create undue burden on taxpayers, lower the quality of health care, reduce individual freedom, and dangerously increase the power of the federal government. Objectivists and other free market advocates reminded us that health care is neither a right nor a proper function of government.
The Dems refused to listen to reason. They are power-hungry and salivating over the imminent power grab like wolves surrounding a wounded deer.
And, this is a power grab like no other — one that will change the landscape of America. The Dems say they forced it through to help Americans. They say they know what’s best for us. Liberal economist, Robert Reich, an adviser to Obama, argued that socialized medicine (or state-controlled medicine) is the only way to force the private sector to control health care costs. This is absurd, and I’m no Berkeley professor.
The fact is, costs in health care are high because we already have socialized medicine — (Medicaid, Medicare and other federal laws that dictate emergency room treatment). More government control of medicine is not going to control costs. It is not a coincidence that the most heavily regulated industries inevitably see spiraling, out-of-control costs. It’s the nature of the beast. So while the price of smart phones and flat-screen TVs go down, the price of a pill or a hospital room skyrockets to cover administrative costs, subsidized health care and forced handouts.
The abuse of power and level of corruption surrounding this legislation should frighten Americans. They should vote out every Democrat who voted for this bill tonight.
It is time to question the motives of the Democrats (and liberals like Mr. Reich). The Dems and their advisers are no longer a party that respects or governs for the people. They are power mongers, out of control, hell-bent on a course that takes America away from a nation that respects individual freedom to one that sets government against the individual by use of force.
Socialism does not work. It bankrupts nations. In every country where it has been tried it has destroyed innovation and led to untold human misery — economic stagflation, inflation, civil unrest, war and even holocausts. It pits the productive against the unproductive. It creates resentment and causes the most able to flee to freer ground.
Proponents of socialism today — the liberals and the Democrats — do not have the best interests of individuals, the American people or America at heart. They are out to destroy innovation, destroy capitalism (what’s left of it) and ultimately destroy freedom.
