Santa Clause and Barak Obama

There was an election in November.

It went badly.

Santa Clause, running on a Robin Hood platform, beat the Republican challenger.

The Republican, Mit Romney, promised prosperity through hard work.  This did not sit too well with an electorate that wanted to rob the rich to support the welfare state.

The nation has sold it's soul for ObamaPhones and ObamaCare.

A cheap price for a once rich nation.

Heaven help us.

What Is Your Country? - The State Department Vs The United States Of America

See: Reagan Readied U.S. Warship for '82 Falklands War

The article details how President Reagan was ready to lend England one of our warships in the event that they lost a carrier in their fight with Argentina over the Falklands.

The article has a curious tidbit:

Lehman and then Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger agreed to support U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher with the loan of the amphibious warship USS Iwo Jima , he said.

“We agreed that [Weinberger] would tell the President that we planned to handle all these requests routinely without going outside existing Navy channels,” Lehman said in a speech provided to the U.S. Naval Institute he made in Portsmouth, U.K. “We would ‘leave the State Department, except for [Secretary of State Al] Haig, out of it.’” 

It was as if they were deliberately treating the State Department as if it had trouble understanding where it's loyalties should be.

I was reminded of something that I had heard about Secretary Of State, George P. Shultz.

LAMB: Is there anything that didn't make it into these 1,188 pages that disappointed you -- you ran out of time, space?

SHULTZ: Oh, no, I think that the important things are all there. There's one incident that somehow or other is not in there, and I don't know why it got left out. But it's an interesting thing that happened. When I was -- in the first period when I was secretary of state, there was in my office a big globe. And when ambassadors, who were newly going to their posts or in their posts and coming back to visit me, would get ready to leave, I would say to them, "Ambassador, you have one more test before you can go to your post. You have to go over to the globe and prove to me that you can identify your country." So unerringly, they would go over and they'd spin the globe around and they'd put their finger on the country they were going to, pass the test. 

So Mike Mansfield, great elder statesman in America, former Senate majority leader and who had been ambassador to Japan for a while before I was there, and he was a close friend of mine from back when I was in the Nixon administration -- so he was visiting and he got ready to leave. I said, "Mike, I got to give you the same test I give everybody else. Before you can go back to Japan, you got to show me that you can go over to the globe and put your finger on your country." So he went over and he spun this globe around and he put his hand on the United States, said, "That's my country." 

So I've told that, subsequently, to all the ambassadors going out, "Never forget, you're over there in that country, but your country is the United States. You're there to represent us. Take care of our interests and never forget it, and you're representing the best country in the world."

It is an important caution.

It would be far to easy to work in the section for a particular country or region and forget that you are working to promote what is best for the United States of America, not necessarily what is best for that particular country or region that you are assigned to.

Another issue that comes into play is how a person's world-view fits or conflicts with role of State Department. Those that look at themselves as more of a "citizen of the world" than a "citizen of the United States of America" would be in conflict with the State Department role of protecting and promoting the interests of the USA over and above the interests of other countries or of "the world."

For the Constrained, the question of "What is your country?" is not confusing or difficult to answer. For the Unconstrained, the "citizen of the world" concept confuses and makes difficult a question that if answered wrongly, puts their country at risk.

Is government using "obesity" to justify growing fatter?

In a word, Yes.

See: Hinkle: Drop and give Uncle Sam 20

At a "Harvard Thinks Big" confab earlier this year, evolutionary biologist Daniel Lieberman offered his own bright idea for tackling the nation's obesity epidemic. Merely medicating it won't do, he said, and education is well-meaning but ineffective. His answer? "Coercion. … We should start telling corporations what to do." But not just corporations. He also advocated — "to hearty applause," the Harvard Gazette noted — "requiring people to exercise."
Lieberman's idea sounds radical. For now. But in fact, he is (pardon the term) only slightly ahead of the curve. Yale's Kelly Brownell has long advocated taxes on Twinkies, soda and other high-sugar snacks. That idea has gained support from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, along with the mayors of Philadelphia and Baltimore, and state lawmakers in numerous states. The New York Times' Mark Bittman likens foods with added sugar to tobacco, and asks, "How do we regulate the consumption of dangerous foods? … We need the government on our side. It must acknowledge the dangers caused by the most unhealthy aspects of our diet and figure out how to help us cope with them." Bittman's colleague, Frank Bruni, agrees. In a column lamenting America's spreading waistline, he concludes that "we need to rethink and remake our environment much more thoroughly."

It is in the nature of government and government agencies to want to regulate and to control. There is no limit to what a government agency will think it has the right and the duty to control. That is why governments are dangerous and why our founding fathers set up a constitution that specifically limited the powers and scope of our government.

But the constitution itself is not enough. What is even more important than having a constitution that limits the powers and scope of government, is having a people that want to be free.

If the people that make up our nation want a government that controls what they can eat and how much they exercise, then constitutional limitations on the powers and scope of government are reduced to nothing but a string of nice sounding words.

We are sliding into an age where eating a chocolate bar will become a revolutionary act.

Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
George Washington

Who wrecked the UK?

A Reuters Headline that caught my eye this morning.

UK has changed for worse under Queen Elizabeth: poll

Sorry folks. You can't blame the demise of the UK on the Royals. You did it yourselves. You voted to have the state give you things for free. Now you are learning that "free stuff" is more often than not, worth exactly what you pay for it.

Socialism sucks. It destroys wealth. It destroys people. It destroys everything but want.

The execrable "give back to the community" guilt-trip.

I really hate the guilt-trip phrase “give-back” the way that it is used here and in the post that it links to.

See: https://twitter.com/#!/SeattlePD/status/189419396429643776

And: http://spdblotter.seattle.gov/2012/04/09/spd-officers-give-back-to-the-community/

The term is loaded with the implication that something was wrongly taken and that the taker has “given back” to make amends for their aggression against those that they have victimized.

People need to call bullshit on this crap.

These police officers did not take something wrongly. They did not victimize "the community" by taking something from it by force or by fraud. Neither they nor any of us should allow ourselves to manipulated by the cult of victim-hood that promotes that damnable “give-back” crap. It demeans all of us when it is used.

Vote for Obama and get FREE STUFF!

About that Free Healthcare, . . .

See: BAD WEEK FOR FREEDOM

Only a deceitful government busybody do-gooder would actually argue that forcing insurance companies to cover millions more Americans and cover pre-existing conditions would result in lower costs for the average family. I wonder what will happen in 2014 when 30 million more Americans are guaranteed “free” healthcare under Obamacare. The saddest part of this oncoming train wreck is that millions of willfully ignorant people actually believed the blatant lies and false storyline fed to them by sociopathic politicians who desire to control every aspect of their lives. These people believe they know what is best for you. They believe they are smarter than you. They do not care what means are required to achieve their ends of absolute domination over your life. Personal freedom, individual liberty and a critical thinking populace are the antithesis to the desires of the governing elite.

And about all of that other Free Stuff that you are being promised . . .

See: Can Obama Win Re-Election by Promising Free Stuff

Mr. Obama says he is not waging class warfare against the wealthy in America. He is, of course. His campaign slogan might as well be: ” Vote for Me … I’ll Give You Free Stuff.” This is enticing. Imagine if you pay no federal income taxes and one of the candidates says, “I’ll take money from rich people and give it to you to pay your mortgage – even if you were irresponsible and bought a house you couldn’t afford. Vote for me, I’ll make sure you get unemployment benefits for almost two full years. And, oh yeah, vote for me and I’ll make sure you get birth control pills — free of charge.

The most important, underreported story in America is the one about who we Americans are becoming. As Bill O’Reilly put it: President Obama is “calculating that the American voter has changed into a person who wants free stuff from the government and is willing to sacrifice some freedoms in order to get the free stuff. And you know what? The President might be right.”

Like Bernard Goldberg, I am not convinced that this election is a slam-dunk for the Republicans. I think that when a large enough portion of the voting population is dependent on the government for their material comforts and wants, our mandate to be "a free people" devolves into pleading to be "a people of free stuff."

We are becoming more and more like the serfs of our feudal past.

Obama's Illegal Appointments And The End Of "Advise and Consent."

Obama's illegal appointments will create havoc with the appointment process. If they are allowed to stand, the President, whoever it happens to be from this day forward, will be able to "declare" congress to be in recess for the purpose of bypassing the constitutional requirements of advise and consent.

See: Manhattan Moment: Expressly illegal 'appointment' violates Obama's oath

The president cannot require Congress to act on his priorities. To the contrary, Congress acts independently of the president as a check and balance to his power.

Obama's view that he may decide when the Senate has gone into recess virtually nullifies the Senate's advice and consent role. Under this rationale, what would stop the president from declaring recesses every weekend so that he can make unilateral appointments?

Precedent is a bitch. If this abomination is not slapped down now, there will be no stopping any future President from using it.

Any-time that the Senate or the House goes quite for short holidays and weekends will become an opportunity for an opportunistic President to make a "Recess Appointment."

So what will voters do about this in November? Will they reward Obama and his enablers in the Democrat Party by returning them to office?

Ultimately it is we the voters that are the last line of defence of the constitution.

It is up to us.

Vote them out.

Damn the constitution! Full Steam Ahead!

From the illegally appointed Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Standing Up for Consumers

By John Cordray, Reader Supported News

05 January 12

Today, I was appointed by President Obama to serve as the first Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I am honored by this opportunity to continue my work on behalf of consumers. And I am energized by the responsibilities and challenges facing the Bureau.

He is a true believer.

The appointment of John Cordray is illegal on two counts.

1) Obama declared this "a recess" appointment. Congress was not in recess. Obama is entitled to his own opinions, but he is not entitled to his own facts. He can not make this "a recess appointment" by just declaring it so. Congress has to actually be in recess in order for Obama to lawfully make a recess appointment.

2) The Frank-Dodd act, which created this unnecessary office, specifically requires that the appointee be approved by the senate. It is a weird little oddity in the legislation that is most likely due to sloppy legal work on the part of the legislations drafters. But it is there none the less. The Frank-Dodd act does not allow for recess appointment.

More importantly the “recess” appointment of Cordray doesn’t solve the President’s problem. The Dodd-Frank Act is very clear, even a law professor can probably understand this section, that authorities under the Act remain with the Treasury Secretary until the Director is “confirmed by the Senate”. A recess appointment is not a Senate confirmation. Now don’t ask me why Dodd and Frank included such unusual language, they could have just given the Bureau the new authorities, but they didn’t. So even with this appointment, the CFPB won’t be able to go after all those non-banks, like the pay-day lenders and check-cashiers that caused the financial crisis (oh wait, those industries didn’t have anything to do with the crisis).

(Emphasis is mine - Syrah)



See:

Obama’s Constitutional Gamble on Consumer Finance Nomination

Doubling down: Obama follows Cordray recess appointment with three more to NLRB

Obama to Congress: I’ll decide what’s constitutional

Obama Reelection Strategy Seen in Cordray Appointment

Is the Senate in recess? The Constitution says no.

Obama Oversteps His Limits with Cordray Recess Appointment

Cordray's Recess Appointment Sure Doesn't Look Constitutional To Me

#OWS is going to the Rose Parade . . .

And at the front of their little parade in LA . . .

Activist Leading ‘Occupy the Rose Parade’ Is a Convicted Thief, 9-11 Truther, and Former Democratic Assembly Politician

They have "float" for the parade too.

It is made of garbage bags.

Rather appropriate.

$15.00 Movie Tickets And Declining Movie Theater Attendance

See: Warner Bros Wins 2010 Film Market Share; Year's Box Office Grosses Not A Record; Overall Movie Attendance Down Sharply; Should Studios Slash Number Of 3D Pics?

I like going to the movies. There is something magic about seeing a movie on the large screen. I like to sit near the front where the image on the screen fills your whole field of vision. With the sound up loud and surrounding you, you can shut out everything and put yourself in the movie.

Last weekend, I bought a ticket to see Tron: Legacy. I enjoyed it. Jeff Bridges overacts a bit. I don't know if that is Jeff's fault in this picture of it is the director's fault. The story was interesting. (It had elements of the "constrained" weltanschauung to it which was unexpected.)

What I did not like was the $15.00 price for a single ticket. What the (****) is Hollywood thinking? At that price, I will be spending fewer of my dollars at the movie theater. It is a hell of a lot cheaper to wait a few months and buy a DVD in the bargain bin somewhere then it is to shell out that kind of money for the "theater" experience.

At half the price of the ticket, I would have recommended that my friends go see Tron: Legacy in the theater. At $15.00? Screw that. I will tell them it is worth digging out of the bargain bin when they find it, but I won't recommend that anyone spend $15.00 to see it in the theater.

I make a hell of lot more money now then I did back when I was a teenager. I used to be able to afford to go to the movies on my weekends. Not anymore.

About The Republican Redistricting Advantage

See: Will Redistricting Be a Bloodbath for Democrats?

Republicans took control of at least 19 Democratic-controlled state legislatures Tuesday and gained more than 650 seats, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The last time Republicans saw such victories was in 1994, when they captured control of 20 state legislatures.

Republicans haven't controlled as many state legislatures since 1928.

Across the country, the map for state legislatures has turned noticeably red as Republicans now control 55 chambers, with Democrats at 38 and the remaining yet to be decided. At the beginning of this week, Democrats controlled 60 of the country's state legislative chambers and Republicans 36.

Tuesday also was a historic day for many state legislatures. In Minnesota, Republicans won the Senate for the first time ever, while in Alabama, they took control for the first time since reconstruction.

The answer to the headline writer's question is yes! (Sort of.)

There will be a bloodbath, but if the Republicans forget about the future, they will just piss away the brief and ephemeral advantage that redistricting will give them.

Republicans will have a unique opportunity to shape the political landscape for the next decade. Redistricting in the States where Republicans now dominate will help adjust the balance of political power at both the state and the federal levels.

Red States will become more red. Blue states will become more blue.

The end result will be a deeper divide between the Constrained in the Red States and the Unconstrained in the Blue States.

Think San Francisco versus Boise.

Republicans should not get too full of themselves over their truly monumental and historic win. Republicans need to keep in mind that the opposition is still convinced that their Unconstrained world-view is the one that should dominate our nation politically and they still have a sizable following.

The main challenge for Republicans over the coming decade will be to seize this historic opportunity to reshape the political landscape by arguing forcefully and confidently for liberty as the best solution to our nations problems. On the other side, the left will argue for Statism as the solution to our nations problems. They will do so boldly and self-righteously. They will not just wither up and blow away.

Redistricting will help Republicans on the margin, but it is not a long term solution to our nation's problems. Our nations's problems are in our culture. Only by reshaping our culture will we be able to help our nation step away from the Statist precipice that the left has brought us.

With every issue that comes up in our nations future, we must argue for increasing individual Liberty as the best solution. Whenever our counterparts on the left offer Statism as a solution to a problem, we must aggressively challenge them and their assertions that surrendering our liberties to the state will solve our problems. Make them defend their assertions. They aren't used to being challenged on their core principles, so this can be fun too.

This is a long term generational project. Do not expect or even hope for quick results. Changing a culture takes time, patience and persistence.

Look to the future, not to just tomorrow.

November Is Coming

Found over at The Correspondence Committee today.

From Breitbart TV

Obama And The Politics Of Failure

An interesting question from the other side of the pond.

See: The great Obama-Axelrod-etc. mystery

Here's one of the big questions, really, one to chew on over the weekend, one that's asked a lot around this town. How could a bunch of people who ran such a brilliant campaign be doing such a lousy job at the politics of governing?

The answer is actually very simple.

Obama and his team have successfully rammed through a number of measures through the congress that would, and will, fundamentally change the nature of our government and our relationship with it.

Obama's plummeting popularity is a consequence of his political success.

Confusing President Obama's popularity with his political success is a mistake. He has been very successful. Obama is very unpopular now because of his political successes.

Borders Versus The Quest For World Peace

See: Memo outlines backdoor 'amnesty' plan

With Congress gridlocked on an immigration bill, the Obama administration is considering using a back door to stop deporting many illegal immigrants - what a draft government memo said could be "a non-legislative version of amnesty."

The memo, addressed to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Alejandro Mayorkas and written by four agency staffers, lists tools it says the administration has to "reduce the threat of removal" for many illegal immigrants who have run afoul of immigration authorities.

On the surface, it is about the politics of illegal immigration.

But there is something happening here that is working below the surface. It is a "Big Picture" thing. It is something that is working on an emotional level in the Modern American Left.

It explains much of the way the modern American Left feels about the problem that we have with illegal immigration.

*Primarily, the Modern American left. along with their European counterparts, have a problem with National borders. They see Nationalism as the cause of much of the warfare and strife of the last one hundred years. They believe that a world without borders would necessarily be a more peaceful one. Without countries, they reason, there could be no war, there could only be peace and love.

John Lennon's Imagine is not just a silly pop song. It is their prayer, their hymnal, their anthem. It is a dream that the Modern American Left hopes is our future and the whole worlds future.

(Yoram Hazony's Israel Through European Eyes explains why Israel is hated by much of the European, and by extension, the American Left. The core of his argument is compelling and it has important implications for all of the Western Nations that fought in WWII.)

The BP Gulf Oil Spill, Regulatory Capture and Government Failure

As the BP Gulf Oil Spill crisis drags on, the calls and screams to have people criminally prosecuted will become ever more shrill and demanding.

Who and what is ultimately to blame?

Looking at BP's role and lobbying efforts in American politics reveals something very interesting about the nature of political systems and the human condition.

See: Feel the Rage

The liberals' fury at the President is almost as astounding as their outrage over the discovery that oil companies and their regulators might have grown too cozy. In economic literature, this behavior is known as "regulatory capture," and the current political irony is that this is a long-time conservative critique of the regulatory state.

The Nobel economist George Stigler of the University of Chicago was one of the concept's main developers, and it is a seminal plank of the "public choice" school of economics for which James Buchanan won the economics Nobel in 1986. Ronald Reagan warned about this in different words in one of his farewell speeches.

In the better economic textbooks, regulatory capture is described as a "government failure," as opposed to a market failure. It refers to the fact that individuals or companies with the highest interest or stake in a policy outcome will be able to focus their energies on politicians and bureaucracies to get the outcome they prefer.

See: Once a government pet, BP now a capitalist tool

While BP has resisted some government interventions, it has lobbied for tax hikes, greenhouse gas restraints, the stimulus bill, the Wall Street bailout, and subsidies for oil pipelines, solar panels, natural gas and biofuels.

Now that BP’s oil rig has caused the biggest environmental disaster in American history, the Left is pulling the same bogus trick it did with Enron and AIG: Whenever a company earns universal ire, declare it the poster boy for the free market.

Making government more powerful, makes it more corruptible.

Government is corruptible because people are corruptible. There is no getting around or away from that fact.

As government grows and is given more control over the details and minutia of our daily lives, the scope of corruptibility of the government grows with it.

When the government makes a law, a rule or a regulation regarding a behavior, it affects peoples lives. Laws, rules and regulations are created with the specific intent of affecting peoples lives. Since laws, rules and regulations affect peoples lives, they create an incentive for those most affected to be able to influence those that are making the laws, rules and regulations.

There is a give an take to this. Everyone has things that they want. Everything becomes negotiable. Anything can be bought if the price is right and a seller has something that a buyer wants.

The process that this all gets worked out in, where the negotiations are made, the horse trading is done and back room deals are dealt, we call politics.

People's property and lives are at stake. The costs and prices become greater as the scope and power of the laws, rules and regulations increase.

The end results can be disturbing and very predictable.

Public Employees Unions & Bankrupt Governments

We may soon see a wave of city and county governments file for bankruptcy in the near future. Bankruptcy gives the local municipal governments the means to deal with a significant source of their problems with their budgets.

See: Bankruptcy talk spreads among Calif. muni officials

Despite its stigma, bankruptcy has paid an important dividend for Vallejo: It has forced public employee unions to the negotiating table, providing city leaders an opportunity to rein in compensation, which city officials said accounts for more than three-quarters of Vallejo's general fund spending. City Councilwoman Stephanie Gomes said the effort has led to concessions from three of four city unions.

Like Vallejo, Los Angeles is suffering from weak revenue at the same time the cost of its pensions and other retirement benefits are rising. Former Mayor Richard Riordan said those factors put the government of the second largest U.S. city on track to declare bankruptcy between now and 2014.

Riordan sees bankruptcy as a necessary tactic for squeezing concessions from the city's public employee unions. It could also pave the way for 401(k) retirement accounts for new city workers instead of defined pension benefit plans with escalating costs, he said.

"The threat of bankruptcy is really the only way you're going to get them to make major changes," Riordan recently told Reuters.

The public employee's unions are the most powerful lobbies in existence. They own most (particularly the blue) local governments, lock, stock and barrel. They are an organized block of votes and campaign contributions that dominate local elections. They get their people out to vote. They control huge heaping gobs of money that get donated to (almost exclusively Democrat) campaigns. They are the deciding factor in blue districts. They own them.

The end result? The municipalities that have been generous with the compensation packages that they have given to their public employees unions are now broke. There is little or nothing left in the private sector to loot. Their economies are in the toilet, the rich are fleeing the state, and the low end private work force that remains earns next to nothing and pays next to nothing in taxes.

In such circumstances, filing bankruptcy can look like a good idea.

Too bad it won't work.

Dealing the unions a setback only leaves them in place to again manipulate elections so that they can again vote themselves ever larger portions of the public purse. So long as Public Employee Unions are able to influence local politicians, they will own those politicians. Nothing will really ever change.

~

See Also: Soak the Rich, Lose the Rich

We believe there are three unintended consequences from states raising tax rates on the rich. First, some rich residents sell their homes and leave the state; second, those who stay in the state report less taxable income on their tax returns; and third, some rich people choose not to locate in a high-tax state. Since many rich people also tend to be successful business owners, jobs leave with them or they never arrive in the first place. This is why high income-tax states have such a tough time creating net new jobs for low-income residents and college graduates.

See Also: Best and Worst States for Business 2010

How is it that the nation’s most populous state at 37 million, one that is the world’s eighth-largest economy and the country’s richest and most diverse agricultural producer, a state that had the fastest growth rate in the 1950s and 1960s during the tenures of Democratic Governor Pat Brown and Republican Governors Earl Warren and Ronald Reagan, should become the Venezuela of North America?

Californians pay among the highest income and sales taxes in the nation, the former exceeding 10 percent in the top brackets. Unemployment statewide is over 12.2 percent, higher than the national average. State politics seems consumed with how to divide a shrinking pie rather than how to expand it. Against national trend, union density is climbing from 16.1 percent of workers in 1998 to 17.8 percent in 2002. Organized labor has more political influence in California than in most other states. In addition, unfunded pension and health care liabilities for state workers top $500 billion and the annual pension contribution has climbed from $320 million to $7.3 billion in less than a decade. When state employees reach critical mass, they tend to become a permanent lobby for continual growth in government.

Are we having fun yet?

Federal Courthouses Should Command Respect.

Our Federal government has spent itself into a huge gaping hole.

There will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth as scape-goats are sought to be slaughtered as offerings on the alter of public opinion.

We can see an example of this happening now with a new report that has come out that complains about the costs of building Federal Courthouses.

See: Building oversize federal courts wastes millions

Federal courthouses built larger than necessary have cost taxpayers $835 million in wasted construction funds since 2000 while the extra space requires $51 million annually to maintain, the Government Accountability Office told a congressional committee on Tuesday.

The GAO found that the 33 courthouses or courthouse annexes completed in the past decade contain 3.56 million square feet of unnecessary space, said Mark L. Goldstein, the GAO's director of physical infrastructure issues.

Larger than necessary? That is the value judgment of someone that does not understand the role of the courthouse in making the law worthy of respect.

Should a Federal Courthouse be a grand and impressive structure? Or should it be a cheap and unremarkable building?

This is not a trivial mater.

Some may argue that over-sized and overbuilt courthouses are a waste of money. They make a serious if not a fatal mistake when the think this.

The over-sized courthouse, with its high ceilings, stone walls and polished marble floors set the stage for the ritual, the ceremony, the drama and the consequence of the law. People's lives and property are at stake in these buildings. In such halls, people's fortunes are saved or destroyed. Even their very lives can be at stake, balanced on the fulcrum of evidence and the rod of the law, with their freedom or death to be decided by judge and jury.

There is a certain stage-craft to the law. It must command respect. Its edifices and facilities should and really must convey to those that are made to stand before it in judgment and appeal, the full majesty of the law as well as the might and authority of the state.

There is ritual and ceremony in the adjudication of the law. There is also the stage that the ceremony and the ritual is set. The ceremony, the ritual and the stage make the legal process stand apart and separate from the everyday events of working, shopping or playing that we all engage in our daily lives. The seriousness of the ritual, the ceremony and the stage that the law is dispensed in can help make it respectable, or help make it a farce.

Think about what a different perception we would have of the law if it was dispensed from triple-wide mobile-home type structures. Can you picture it? Imagine the nine justices of the Supreme Court trying to be taken seriously in a low ceilinged room with plastic coated fake wood paneling.

The law must be respected. Having it dispensed from buildings that scream “cheap” and “disposable” does not make the government that it represents worthy of respect.

Our government is not going broke because it is building grand courthouses. It is going broke because it has turned away from being a protector of rights to a dispenser of welfare benefits. The welfare state is bleeding us dry, not over-sized courthouses.

This may seem like a small thing to some people, but it is not a small thing.

Again, think about how much respect you would have for a court system that was run from disposable buildings. How can you take the legal system of a government seriously that thought its laws should be adjudicated in courthouses that were no more impressive or respectable than trailers in a mobile-home park?

Raise Taxes Or Cut Spending – Two World-views

Democrats in California have put together a plan to tax California out of their spending problems. They can't afford what they have promised, so they will take more from the productive to finance their shortfall.

See: California Democrats unveil tax-increase package

The plan by state Senate Democrats would raise $4.9 billion by raising California's vehicle registration fee, suspending corporate tax breaks scheduled to begin next year and boosting the state's tax on alcoholic beverages.

Democrats control both chambers of the state's legislature and have said they would seek new revenue to help plug the shortfall.

Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, by contrast, has ruled out tax increases and is relying largely on deep spending cuts in his plan for balancing the state's books. He has called for $12.4 billion of cuts and would scrap the state's welfare system, a plan Democrats have rejected.

Arnold Schwarzenegger's approach would be to cut spending as the best means to solve the state's spending problem. Arnold may not be the best representative of Republican philosophy, but in this example, he does so well.

For Democrats, raising taxes to solve an over-spending problem is the right thing to do because of the good intentions that drive their want to spend. They really do believe that raising taxes on the productive is a good way to support the poor and the disadvantaged that they want to help.

For Republicans, raising taxes to solve a spending problem is a little bit to much like shooting up with heroin in order to solve a drug problem. Its nuts. It only makes things worse. Reducing the incentive for the productive to produce will not only reduce how many people that the productive can employee, but it will also reduce the amount of profit that they will have that can be taxed. Everybody loses.

The road to hell is paved with . . .

Should American Immigration Law Be Enforced?

We are being put to the test.

Should American Immigration Law be enforced? Do any of our laws mean anything beyond the capricious whims of the momentary elite?

These are the questions that Arizona has put to the nation.

The Democrat-Left would like to make it an issue of race. Will they succeed in confusing the enforcement of our immigration laws with racism?

We will see over the next several days and months if Americans will be cowed by the fear of being called racist by the welfare pimps and whores in our midst, or if the Rule of Law will be respected and upheld as a core principle that guides our nation.

If the the concept of Rule of Law is subverted by the welfare pimps and whores of the Democrat-Left, we will be left with a nation that pretends to respect the law, but in fact bends to the Rule of Men.

Democrats Will Destroy California

The Democrats are inherently incapable of stopping themselves from destroying California.

See: California is a greater risk than Greece, warns JP Morgan chief

Mr Dimon told investors at the Wall Street bank's annual meeting that "there could be contagion" if a state the size of California, the biggest of the United States, had problems making debt repayments. "Greece itself would not be an issue for this company, nor would any other country," said Mr Dimon. "We don't really foresee the European Union coming apart." The senior banker said that JP Morgan Chase and other US rivals are largely immune from the European debt crisis, as the risks have largely been hedged.

California however poses more of a risk, given the state's $20bn (£13.1bn) budget deficit, which Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is desperately trying to reduce.

I have serious doubts about California coming to grips with it's debt problem. The Democrats own that state's legislature lock, stock and barrel. Even if Arnold Schwarzenegger were inclined to be a fiscal conservative, there is damn little that he could do to stop the Democrats from running the state smack into the ground.

The Democrats will not become fiscal conservatives. It just won't happen. Their very reason for existence is to create an ever expanding welfare state. It's what they promise to get elected and it is what they believe is right and good.

Given the Democrat's visceral hatred and fear of the concept that lowering taxes increases tax revenue, and their willingness if not eagerness to raise tax rates for both revenue collection and for social engineering purposes, what can we foresee them proposing to get themselves out of the mess that they have spent themselves into?

Can we really imagine for a moment that Democrats will seriously even entertain the notion of tax cuts and social spending reductions?

Tax cuts and social spending reductions, real tax cuts and real reductions in social spending, just won't happen.

Unfortunately, California is such a large part of our nations economy that when they hit the wall, the rest of us will feel it.