Selling it

When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators. – P.J. O'Rourke

We've all experienced this, but I didn't give it much thought until now. We are constantly bombarded with selling propositions, and we've kind of taken them for granted as one of the necessary evils of a market based society. But, there is a toll. Let me share a recent example. This week I went to a fast food restaurant. I knew what I wanted, and drove up to the window to place my order.

order gal: Would you like to try our taco sald?
me: No, thanks; I'd like a double thickburger with cheese, pickle, mustard, and onion. Diet Coke. That's all.
order gal: Do you want a combo?
me: "No."
order gal: What do you want on the sandwich?
me: (thinking: how did she miss this the first time?) "uh, that would be cheese pickle mustard and onion."
order gal: and did you want fries?
me: (thinking: didn't I just say no to the fries?) "No, no fries."
order gal: anything else?
me: (thinking: I believe I said that's all sometime back there) "No."
order gal: So that's one double thickburger, hold the mayo, lettuce, and tomato, and a diet coke, right?
me: (thinking: is holding the lettuce mayo and tomato the same thing as putting cheese pickle mustard and onion on it? I could only hope) "I guess so."

As I drove up to the second window, I realized that this operator had forced me to say no at least 3 times (most of these directly attributable to her training), and read back an order that required intimate familiarity with the standard sandwich to resolve. Frankly my appetite was not at all the same by the time I completed this transaction. Why would an organization force me to repeatedly and specifically decline what I do not want in the process of getting what I do want? All these no's have a tendency to put the transaction in negative terms, so that by the time I'm done, I feel like I've just conducted a salary review.

All I wanted was a sandwich. And a Diet Coke.

Now the relevance (this is a political blog, after all). All I want is a limited government. So, when George Bush says he wants to put more tax dollars into math and science education, I think: it isn't the governments job to spend my money. So that's a rock on the negative side of the scale. Enough of those little rocks can ruin a saner man's day. No wonder politics riles so many folks.

If I wasn't an optimist by nature, I don't know how I'd get through the day at all.

Lobbyists

Walter Williams continues to be one of my very favorite writers. I hadn't thought of this aspect of why money works in Washington. The solution is now obvious to even me.

Sam's Club

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficial … the greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding. – Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, 1928

Ted Kennedy's questions at the Alito hearing were revealing at the least. "Are you going to back the little guy?" he asked. Like John Roberts, Alito did not see a difference between the little guy or the big guy. We are all equal under the law. The law does not require that we be equal in economics, status, education, or anything else. The government does not exist as an engine for social tinkering. It's only job is to provide for the common defense, and in its most limited sense promote common good.

I don't know Sam Alito, but his rulings and his press indicate a passing deference to the constitution which is all any of us can ask. So, how can 8 committee members, and presumably 45 Democrats vote against him? The reason must be that the Constitution and the rule of law means little to these people.

Brandeis gives the benefit of the doubt to those who would encroach our rights. I no longer hold that illusion for Kennedy and his cronies who are arguably men of zeal, but not necessarily well meaning.

As for Sam, count me as a member of his club (for now).

Wizer One-Liner #7

In order for us to believe that Bush misled us, as so many of our congressman want, we would also have to believe that they themselves are a bunch of uninvolved simpletons, seriously derelict in their own duty; and they should therefore be removed from office.

"Leadership?"

"Here we are, I'm out at my third Pro Bowl, I'm about to go in and throw a touchdown to Jerry Rice, we're honoring the Hall of Fame, and we're talking about our idiot kicker who got liquored up and ran his mouth off." - Peyton Manning

News Item: WASHINGTON -
President Bush embraced Sen. John McCain 's proposal to ban cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of terrorism suspects on Thursday, reversing months of opposition that included White House veto threats. --AP

Which one (Manning or Bush) is a more effective leader? On a day when the Iraqi transformation was ratified by 68% of the electorate, and that his vision of Iraq's independence is now careening toward certainty, the "architect" of the war in Iraq is spouting off like an idiot. In recent days he's given the impression that the military intelligence leading into the war was "faulty", and now he wants to handcuff the intelligence function even more with this brain-dead scheme. Now, no matter what the terrorists do, they know they will get the country club treatment in Gitmo for all their troubles.

When McCain came up with this, George should have just said, "On a day when Iraqi independence is assured, and we are honoring the people who fought for their independence, we're talking about our idiot senators who get get liquored up and run their mouths off".

Peyton is 13-0 this season. GWB will miss the playoffs. Who's the better leader?

Wizer One-Liner #6

What's going on with the Republicans may not be that funny, but It's hard to beat the Dems for pure entertainment value.

The survey says....

The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best. – Thomas Sowell

In almost all matters, the real question should be: why are we letting government handle this? – Harry Browne

I normally don't do surveys. My thinking is if the person writing the survey is smart enough to write a meaningful survey, he already knows the answers. Today, I get in the mail, a solicitation masquerading as a survey. It was from The National Republican Senatorial Committee, and it was called the Senate Majority Leader's Survey.

Don't ask me how I got on their mailing list. I have never been a member of their party, or even much of a sympathizer. But I did fill out this survey.

Here's an example question: "Should the United States increase spending to protect its borders and coastlines?" There was no checkbox for the real answer, which is "The United States gets enough money to protect our borders. It is the only constitutional duty the federal government is responsible for, and there ought to already be enough money in the budget to manage this one thing." Hard to cover that in a yes or no scenario. Put me down as undecided.

Here's another: "Should the United States accelerate the training of Iraqi security forces no matter what the cost? No matter what the cost? I wonder what kind of answer they were going for there. Surely a "No" answer tells them very little. The whole reason for the "survey", of course is in the last section, the one where you get to fill out your Visa, MasterCard, ar AmEx number.

Gonna send it in, anyway (no postage necessary, and no contribution made). They've got my response. I doubt they'll care about the answers. They did not even get the questions right.

Small mindedness

"Intelligent people talk about ideas, average minded people talk about events, small minded people talk about people." - eleanor roosevelt

Jonah Goldberg, as usual, pretty much nails it in this article. Intelligent people talk about Freedom. Average people talk about The War. Small minded people talk about how "evil" George W. Bush is. Lets have our debates over ideas.

Meanwhile, back at home....

The Government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other. – Ronald Reagan

Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program. – Milton Friedman

While our "leaders" debate the equivalent of pulling all police officers out of the South Central neighborhood of LA, or Eight Mile Road in Detroit, (we're making more enemies every day in Michigan) the bigger issue continues to fester. We are growing the government at an unprecedented and truly alarming rate.

The president points to the growing economy, as if your finding a job were a good excuse to run your credit cards over the top. You could easily just follow the money here, and see the problem, but I worry more about the size of the resulting government. Fiscal responsibility gets only lip service from this administration. GWB has never met a spending bill he didn't like. Tom DeLay couldn't find any fat in the budget either. Well, Tom, the rest of us see fat when we see it.

George's tax cuts have been on the right side of the Laffer curve, but that will change, one way or another.

Could it be that Mike Pence is the unwavering voice of fiscal reason? The real Republican Revolution has perhaps not yet begun?

All I know is we have more government than we want today, and much less than we paid for.

High Treason on the National Stage.

Article 3, Section 3: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted. -- U.S. Constitution

Giving Aid and Comfort to the Enemy is apparently protected under the first amendment rights to free speech, because much speechmaking these days is truly treasonous. To say to the world that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction is not only false, it's recklessly false.

Are we all naive enough to believe that they never existed? There are those who say that Bush made statements about WMD that were intentionally false, yet these facts turned out to be inarguably true. This is more than simple misunderstanding. It is disinformation; a tactic often used in wartime to mislead an opponent to help reach a military objective. In short, those who say these things are working against the effectiveness of our soldiers, and our government. They are traitors.

Then Murtha, Pelosi, and the whole gang of useful idiots is doing nothing but providing hope and encouragement to our enemies. And they call it patriotism, and somehow Kennedy and Kerry and McCain salute it.

It's disheartening to see the purveyors of this crap spout off on our national stage. The terrorists are hoping and believing that maybe we'll knock our own buildings down for them. If this isn't aid and comfort, what more can we give them?

Bottom line is we are at war, and we had better start acting like it. It seems sometimes that the only one who knows this is "W", and it's pathetic that he has to stop and explain it to all those who are "stuck on stupid". Move on, people. There's no "there" there.

You don't have to like the fact that we are forced to confront our godless enemies in a foreign land, but you do have to recognize that it's where we are today. Our so called "leaders" should refrain from the overt treason that disingenuous partisan politics represents.