Tuesday, January 4, 2011

The buck stops where?

Oh dear . . .

"The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt
limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S.
Government can't pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on
ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our
Government's reckless fiscal policies."


"Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and
internationally. Leadership means that "the buck stops here." Instead,
Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs
of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a
failure of leadership. Americans deserve better."

"I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America's debt
limit."

--Senator Barack Obama, 2006

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Re: Empirical Proof and Documentation

Al Gore won the election in 2000
The truth conservatives COULDN'T spin in 2001
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LOL!

Damn shame 3 circuit courts, the Constitution and the Supreme Court
think you're wrong.

Gore sought relief in the wrong room, and got dope slapped.

Now, maybe he didn't know the state court was irrelevant, but that
would make him the dumbest VPOTUS in history.

Scary dumb.

I don't believe that.

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Re: Empirical Proof and Documentation

Electoral Vote:


The electoral vote was won by Bush-Cheney by 5 votes.
  • Bush-Cheney - 271
  • Gore-Lieberman - 266
  • Nader-LaDuke - 0
  • Buchanan-Foster - 0
  • Browne-Olivier - 0


On Tue, Jan 4, 2011 at 4:29 AM, Tommy News <tommysnews@gmail.com> wrote:
More Empirical Proof and Documentation From Other Sources

Gore's 2000 Victory over Bush, Overruled by the Conservative Supreme Court


http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2000/prespop.htm


http://americanhistory.about.com/od/elections/p/election2000.htm


http://www.consortiumnews.com/2001/111201a.html


http://2010.newsweek.com/essay/if-gore-had-won.html







On 12/29/10, Keith In Tampa <keithintampa@gmail.com> wrote:
> This pretty much sums up the credibility of AmericanPolitics.com,
> TommyTomTom's unbiased source for "Al Gore Won The Presidential Election":
> **
> *"According to Dash Riprock of the liberal americanpolitics.com, [Keith]
> Olbermann "tells the truth, and he does it in a sharp, subtlety stated, but
> unmistakable style. It's sad to realize that it is truly such an oddity
> these days to see someone with those qualities on TV." "*
>
> *http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Keith_Olbermann*
> *
>
> *
> On Wed, Dec 29, 2010 at 10:12 PM, Tommy News <tommysnews@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I disagree. Sorry.
>>
>> All journalists must be taken with a grain of salt.
>>
>> How Al Gore won the 2000 Election
>>
>> http://www.americanpolitics.com/2001gore.html
>>
>>  On 12/29/10, dick thompson <rhomp2002@earthlink.net> wrote:
>> >      Keith and I have already shown that the major media who checked the
>> > voting after the election all agreed that Bush did in fact win the
>> > election and all were media who were anti-Bush when they did the
>> > checking.  You then claim that they were "yellow journalists" (NYT?,
>> > McClatchey?, WaPo? - do you really want to call them "yellow
>> > journalists" since you are forever quoting them here).   What you are
>> > doing is cutting the legs out from under all the people you try to claim
>> > are unbiased.  I am not sure you really want to do that.
>> >
>> > On 12/29/2010 09:22 PM, Tommy News wrote:
>> >> No, that is the truth.
>> >>
>> >> It is you who lie.
>> >>
>> >> On 12/29/10, dick thompson<rhomp2002@earthlink.net>  wrote:
>> >>>       And I quote:
>> >>>
>> >>> All of this proves the one salient fact in this matter.  Bush was not
>> >>>>>   elected President of the United States.  All his actions and
>> >>>>>   "governance" were ILLEGAL and Illegitimate. So much for the
>> fairness
>> >>>>>   of our "Representative Republic."
>> >>> Once again you lie.
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> On 12/29/2010 01:42 PM, Tommy News wrote:
>> >>>> All of this proves the one salient fact in this matter.  Bush was not
>> >>>>>>   elected President of the United States.  All his actions and
>> >>>>>>   "governance" were ILLEGAL and Illegitimate. So much for the
>> fairness
>> >>>>>>   of our "Representative Republic."
>> >>> --
>> >>> Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
>> >>> For options&  help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
>> >>>
>> >>> * Visit our other community at
>> >>> http://www.PoliticalForum.com/<http://www.politicalforum.com/>
>> >>> * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
>> >>> * Read the latest breaking news, and more.
>> >>
>> >
>> > --
>> > Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
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>>
>>
>> --
>> Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
>> Have a great day,
>> Tommy
>>
>> --
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>>
>
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Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy

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Re: Bradley Manning: One Soldier Who Really Did ‘Defend Our Freedom’

Manning is a criminal and an idiot - and will die of old age in a
cell.

Rah rah

On Jan 1, 6:14 pm, MJ <micha...@america.net> wrote:
> Bradley Manning: One Soldier Who Really Did 'Defend Our Freedom'byKevin Carson, January 01, 2011
> When I hear someone say that soldiers "defend our freedom," my immediate response is to gag. I think the last time American soldiers actually fought for the freedom of Americans was probably the Revolutionary War or maybe the War of 1812, if you want to be generous. Every war since then has been for nothing but to uphold a system of power, and to make the rich folks even richer.
> But I can think of one exception.  If there's a soldier anywhere in the world who's fought and suffered for my freedom, it's Pfc. Bradley Manning.
> Manning is frequently portrayed, among the knuckle-draggers on right-wing message boards, as some sort of spoiled brat or ingrate, acting on an adolescent whim.  But that's not quite what happened,according to Johann Hari.
> Manning, like many young soldiers, joined up in the naive belief that he was defending the freedom of his fellow Americans. When he got to Iraq, he found himself working under orders "to round up and hand over Iraqi civilians to America's new Iraqi allies, who he could see were then torturing them with electrical drills and other implements." The people he arrested, and handed over for torture, were guilty of such "crimes" as writing "scholarly critiques" of the U.S. occupation forces and its puppet government. When he expressed his moral reservations to his supervisor, Manning "was told to shut up and get back to herding up Iraqis."
> The people Manning saw tortured, by the way, were frequently the very same people who had been tortured by Saddam: Trade unionists, members of the Iraqi Freedom Congress, and other freedom-loving people who had no more use for Halliburton and Blackwater than they had for the Baath Party.
> For exposing his government's crimes against humanity, Manning has spent seven months in solitary confinement – a torture deliberately calculated to break the human mind.
> We see a lot of "serious thinkers" on the op-ed pages and talking head shows, people like David Gergen, Chris Matthews, and Michael Kinsley, going on about all the stuff that Manning's leaks have impaired the ability of "our government" to do.
> He's impaired the ability of the U.S. government to conduct diplomacy in pursuit of some fabled "national interest" that I supposedly have in common with Microsoft, Wal-Mart, and Disney. He's risked untold numbers of innocent lives, according to the very same people who have ordered the deaths of untold thousands of innocent people.  According to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, Manning's exposure of secret U.S. collusion with authoritarian governments in the Middle East, to promote policies that their peoples would find abhorrent, undermines America's ability to promote "democracy, open government, and free and open societies."
> But I'll tell you what Manning's really impaired government's ability to do.
> He's impaired the U.S. government's ability to lie us into wars where thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of foreigners are murdered.
> He's impaired its ability to use such wars – under the guise of promoting "democracy" to install puppet governments like the Coalition Provisional Authority, that will rubber stamp neoliberal "free trade" agreements (including harsh "intellectual property" provisions written by the proprietary content industries) and cut special deals with American crony capitalists.
> He's impaired its ability to seize good, decent people who   unlike most soldiers   really are fighting for freedom, and hand them over to thuggish governments for torture with power tools.
> Let's get something straight. Bradley Manning may be a criminal by the standards of the American state. But by all human standards of morality, the government and its functionaries that Manning exposed to the light of day are criminals. And Manning is a hero of freedom for doing it.
> So if you're one of the authoritarian state-worshipers, one of the groveling sycophants of power, who are cheering on Manning's punishment and calling for even harsher treatment, all I can say is that you'd probably have been there at the crucifixion urging Pontius Pilate to lay the lashes on a little harder. You'd have told the Nazis where Anne Frank was hiding. You're unworthy of the freedoms which so many heroes and martyrs  throughout history heroes like Bradley Manning have fought to give you.Originally published by theCenter for a Stateless Society.http://original.antiwar.com/kevin-carson/2010/12/31/bradley-manning-one-soldier-who-really-did-defend-our-freedom/

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Napolitano Promises To Protect Afghanistan Border, Ignores US Borders




Napolitano Promises To Protect Afghanistan Border, Ignores US Borders

Jim Kouri 01/04/2011 During her New Year holiday trip, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano met with Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai to discuss securing the region surrounding the Afghan-Pakistani border. Secretary Napolitano reportedly reinterated America's commitment to working with Afghanistan to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda in the region. "The Obama administration remains fully [...]

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'Progressive' Journalists and State Power




'Progressive' Journalists and State Power

William L. Anderson 01/04/2011 At the end of the movie Animal House, a band tries unsuccessfully to march through a brick wall at the end of an alley. This is supposed to be a scene which reflects the absolute absurdity of the film, but it also unwittingly presents a picture of the modern "Progressive" mindset: [...]

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Department of Energy: Obama's DeepWater Drilling ban will cause oil production to fall 13%




Department of Energy: Obama's DeepWater Drilling ban will cause oil production to fall 13%

Well, Obama said his plan would cause energy prices to skyrocket. This is a promise he aims to keep. Gas prices have increased over $1 dollar since Obama took office and oil prices have increased 30% in 2010. Now the Department of Energy is claiming that due to Obama's drilling moratorium, oil production will drop 13%. This means Americans can expect $4 a gallon gas by the end of 2011.

Again, Obama continues to redistribute the wealth of Americans. Another promise he's kept.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

More than two months after the Obama administration lifted its ban on drilling in the deep-water Gulf of Mexico, oil companies are still waiting for approval to drill the first new oil well there. Experts now expect the wait to continue until the second half of 2011, and perhaps into 2012.

The administration says it is simply trying to enforce new safety rules adopted in the wake of the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, which killed 11 workers and set off the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history. Environmental groups say the administration is right to take its time because the Gulf disaster exposed the risks of offshore drilling.

If the Obama regime can't legislate, they will regulate. Remember, a federal judge overturned the moratorium twice and Ken Salavar changed the expert's report to make it look as if they agreed with the drilling ban. They only did all this to make us "safe." Forget the fact that this administration gave Brazil $2 billion of your dollars to Soros connect Petrobras

But the delay is hurting big oil companies such as Chevron Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC, which have billions of dollars in investments tied up in Gulf projects that are on hold and are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars a day for rigs that aren't allowed to drill. Smaller operators such as ATP Oil & Gas Corp., which have less flexibility to focus on projects in other regions, have been even harder hit.

The impact of the delays goes beyond the oil industry. The Gulf coast economy has been hit hard by the slowdown in drilling activity, especially because the oil spill also hurt the region's fishing and tourism industries. The Obama administration in September estimated that 8,000 to 12,000 workers could lose their jobs temporarily as a result of the moratorium; some independent estimates have been much higher.

The slowdown also has long-term implications for U.S. oil production. The Energy Information Administration, the research arm of the Department of Energy, last month predicted that domestic offshore oil production will fall 13% this year from 2010 due to the moratorium and the slow return to drilling; a year ago, the agency predicted offshore production would rise 6% in 2011. The difference: a loss of about 220,000 barrels of oil a day.

The Obama administration is making us more dependent upon foreign oil. This makes George Soros smile.

Continue reading>>>

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Constitutional authority

If a solid Republican majority rises from their seats, one by one, to say, "Nice try; but you haven't specified the clause in Article I, Section 8, 'The Powers of Congress,' that authorizes us to pass this law, and thus I must regretfully vote 'No,' " ... well, then the sun might indeed rise in the West, and the federal budget be balanced in a year.

Constitutional authority
Posted: January 2, 2011 | 12:00 a.m.

With the swearing in of new House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, the newly elected Republican majority on Wednesday will take control of the House of Representatives.

The next day, they plan to do something which has never been done before. They plan to read the Constitution aloud.

They then say they will require every new bill to contain a statement by the legislator who wrote it, citing the constitutional authority to enact the proposed law.

The Washington Post has called it "the Tea Party-ization of Congress." The steps are indeed designed to convince grass-roots "tea party" constitutionalists that Washington is going back to our limited-government roots. But are they?

"I think it's entirely cosmetic," Kevin Gutzman, a history professor at Western Connecticut State University, told the Post. But Brendan Steinhauser, director of federal and state campaigns at Freedom Works, disagrees: "It's a big deal. That's a very basic starting point for all legislation -- not only should we do it ... but can we do it?"

The 4,543-word Constitution, including all 27 amendments, could be read aloud in just 30 minutes. But the exercise will probably last longer. Many lawmakers are scheduled to participate, with one representative reading a portion of the document before yielding the floor to another representative to continue reading and so forth.

The idea is that the question of constitutional authority will restart the debate with each new bill. Republican leaders even distributed a five-page memo to lawmakers outlining how to determine a bill's constitutional authority, and hosted training sessions for legislative aides.

Sounds great. But those who continue to see an almost unlimited scope for federal action will, in all likelihood, simply append to the top of each bill some new boilerplate stating the Constitution gives Congress the authority to "make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper" to provide for the "general Welfare." Or, alternatively, that since everything either "moves in" or "affects" interstate commerce, anything can be regulated in any way desired under the "interstate commerce clause."

If a solid Republican majority rises from their seats, one by one, to say, "Nice try; but you haven't specified the clause in Article I, Section 8, 'The Powers of Congress,' that authorizes us to pass this law, and thus I must regretfully vote 'No,' " ... well, then the sun might indeed rise in the West, and the federal budget be balanced in a year.

We shall see.

http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/constitutional-authority-112768489.html

A constitutional plan

"This is the way the establishment handles grass-roots movements," he added. "They humor people who are not expert or not fully cognizant. And then once they've humored them and those people go away, it's right back to business as usual. It looks like this will be business as usual -- except for the half-hour or however long it takes to read the Constitution out loud."

A constitutional plan
Reading is a nod to tea party
SUNDAY, JANUARY 2, 2011

House Republicans will start the next Congress with a reading of the Constitution.

The planned reading on Thursday is part of a package of rule changes proposed by Speaker-designate John Boehner after he is sworn in and control of the House shifts to Republicans.

Lawmakers will take turns reading portions of the 4,543-word document with all 27 amendments, which could take a half-hour or so. In a bipartisan spirit, Democrats will be welcome to participate.

The gesture will play well with conservatives and tea partiers who believe the government has strayed from the Constitution. It will likely be interpreted as a GOP-led return to the principles of the Founding Fathers.

But others are less convinced about the significance.

Kevin Gutzman, a history professor at Western Connecticut State University and tea party sympathizer, believes it is "entirely cosmetic."

"This is the way the establishment handles grass-roots movements," he added. "They humor people who are not expert or not fully cognizant. And then once they've humored them and those people go away, it's right back to business as usual. It looks like this will be business as usual -- except for the half-hour or however long it takes to read the Constitution out loud."

Then after the grandstanding, the House can get down to business.

http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20110102/OPINION01/301029961

The Drug War Leads Us into Temptation


Thursday, December 30, 2010
The Drug War Leads Us into Temptation
by Jacob G. Hornberger

Every Sunday at church, Christians pray the Lord's Prayer, which includes the following exhortation: "Lead us not into temptation."

During the other six days of the week, many Christians continue to support the war on drugs, a federal program that continues to lead untold numbers of people, especially young people, into temptation and down the road to destruction.

Over the weekend, I happened to catch a segment of a television series entitled "Locked Up Abroad," which detailed the story of an 18-year-old American girl whose life was partially destroyed by the financial temptation offered by the drug war.

The girl hoped to go to college but was unable to do so because of the high expense, which totaled around $8,000 per year. Her roommate was offered the opportunity to transport a load of drugs from a foreign country and came back with a wad of cash for successfully delivering the load.

The roommate introduced the girl to the guy who set up the deal, who offered the girl the same sort of arrangement. All the girl had to do was fly into Bangladesh and smuggle a few packs of heroin to Switzerland.

The amount to be paid to the girl? $20,000, enough to cover some 2 1/2 years of college.

Now, we can all sit here and say that it would be stupid for anyone to take that deal. But we all know that many young people do stupid things and that they think they're never going to get caught. And even if they're caught, they don't think that anything really bad is going to happen to them.

Where else but the drug war can a young person make a big financial killing so quickly and easily? Imagine: $20,000 for doing a few hours worth of work. And it's just a one-time deal.

Well, the girl took the deal. She flew into Bangladesh and met up with her contact, who proceeded to strap the packages of heroin around her thighs. At the airport, however, government officials were conducting complete body searches, which enabled them to easily find the drugs.

The complete ramifications still didn't hit the 18-year-old girl. She explained to the government agent that she needed to go out and catch her flight because her visa was expiring on that day. The agent explained to the girl that she didn't need a visa for where she was going, which was to jail.

The full impact of she had done hit the girl when she was informed that she was facing the death penalty. When she was awaiting trial, another woman in jail was executed.

At her trial, the girl was spared the death penalty but given life in prison. After 4 ½ years in a Bangladesh prison, Sen. Bill Richardson persuaded the president of Bangladesh to pardon her, and she was released to return to the United States.

Did the girl's imprisonment help bring about the end of the drug war? After all, clearly this was another in the endless string of drug-war victories that have been claimed for the past several decades.

Of course not. As everyone knows by now, the drug war is endless. No matter how many busts are made, year after years, decade after decade, the drug war just keeps going and going and going.

What good has it all done? No good at all, except for drug dealers, drug agents, and government officials, the three groups who benefit from the never-ending war on drugs. The drug dealers make money off the sales, the drug agents have jobs, and government officials receive payoffs.

In meantime, think about all the people whose lives have been damaged or destroyed by the drug war, such as that 18-year-old girl, who was led into temptation by the exorbitant black-market price of drugs. The more they bust people, the higher the price goes up, owing to a decrease in supply. The higher prices mean bigger potential payoffs, which causes more temptation for people, especially the young.

That 18-year-old girl was lucky. Think about all the young people who are tempted to go into the drug business who end up dead. Indeed, think about the 30,000 Mexican people who have been killed by the drug war in the last three years alone.

The next time you hear a Christian expressing support for the drug war, ask him why he would support any program that leads people into temptation and destroys their lives, without any positive benefit to anyone but drug dealers, drug agents, and public officials.

http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2011-01-03.asp

Re: Fundies Claim Dead Blackbirds and Fish Mean The End of The World Apocalypse is Here

Fundamentalists' relentless threats of doomsday not only maintain rule
by fear; they also provide distraction while the unholy frauds flee
responsibility for the sin and suffering that their power trips cause
every day.

On 1/3/11, Tommy News <tommysnews@gmail.com> wrote:
> Fundies Claim Dead Birds Mean The End of The World Apocalypse is Here
>
>
> Birds Fall From Sky = Third Apocalyptic Sign
>
> In surely the creepiest of the first news stories in 2011 is the
> Arkansas dead bird phenomenon. On New Year's Eve Day, more than 3,000
> dead birds, mostly red-winged blackbirds, were found scattering
> streets, yards, and rooftops in Beebe, Arkansas, and no one knows why.
>
> Officials are guessing it's weather related, like lightning or high
> atmosphere hail, but what if it's something worse? Like the all-new
> bird flu or some awful man-made environmental mess?
>
> Or, and I won't claim to be any sort of Bible expert, what if this is
> beginning of the end of the world?
>
> Here are few well-known mentions about birds, in reference to the end
> of the world, from the Bible:
>
> Ezekiel 38:20
>
> The fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the beasts of the field,
> every creature that moves along the ground, and all the people on the
> face of the earth will tremble at my presence. The mountains will be
> overturned, the cliffs will crumble and every wall will fall to the
> ground.
>
> Hosea 4
>
> Hear the word of the LORD, you Israelites, because the LORD has a
> charge to bring against you who live in the land: "There is no
> faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land. There is
> only cursing, lying and murder, stealing and adultery; they break all
> bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. Because of this the land
> dries up, and all who live in it waste away; the beasts of the field,
> the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea are swept away ..."
>
> Zephaniah 1:3
>
> "I will sweep away both men and animals; I will sweep away the birds
> of the air and the fish of the sea. The wicked will have only heaps of
> rubble when I cut off man from the face of the earth," declares the
> LORD.
>
> Revelation 19:17
>
> And I saw an angel standing in the sun, who cried in a loud voice to
> all the birds flying in midair, "Come, gather together for the great
> supper of God" ...
>
> Revelation 19:21
>
> But the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who had
> performed the miraculous signs on his behalf. With these signs he had
> deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped his
> image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of
> burning sulfur. The rest of them were killed with the sword that came
> out of the mouth of the rider on the horse, and all the birds gorged
> themselves on their flesh ...
>
> Gulp! I mean, some of these are said to take place in Israel but Gulp!
>
> So far we have the 100,000 dead fish, 3,000 dead birds, and the earth
> trembling in Indiana of all places. Should we be worried? I mean,
> those who have faith are not worried, but what about everyone else?
>
> Maybe we should pray because it's probably out of our hands. But in
> the meantime, shouldn't everyone be locked inside their home until
> it's confirmed it's safe outside? Has anyone confirmed it's safe
> outside? End of the world or not, what if we're dealing with a toxic
> nightmare -- and we have those poor workers out nonchalantly picking
> up thousands of poisoned bird carcasses? With everything we do to our
> planet and put into our air and all the nightmares and slow
> destruction we have seen, shouldn't we be a little more worried and
> cautious about this situation? Cause we haven't treated this planet
> very nicely, and now thousands of BIRDS HAVE FALLEN DEAD OUT OF THE
> SKY.
>
> I'm a big birdwatcher, and I was just out photographing red-winged
> blackbirds this weekend. They're beautiful birds, the way they cluster
> and swirl across the sky. However, if they started dropping out of
> midair before my eyes, I'd immediately detour toward the closest gas
> mask, and once I had it firmly over my nose and mouth, you can bet I
> would then and only then begin to pray.
>
> Do you think it might be the end of the world, a huge sign from our
> ailing environment, or some weather-produced fluke?
>
>
> More:
> http://thestir.cafemom.com/home_garden/114535/birds_fall_from_sky_third
>
>
> --
> Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
> Have a great day,
> Tommy
>


--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy

--
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Freedom or Free-for-All?


Ideas and Consequences:
Freedom or Free-for-All?
Lawrence W. Reed
April 1994 • Volume: 44 • Issue: 4 •

Lawrence W. Reed, economist and author, is President of The Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a free market research and educational organization headquartered in Midland, Michigan.

     This is the first of his monthly columns for The Freeman.

Imagine playing a game­baseball, cards, "Monopoly" or whatever­in which there was only one rule: anything goes.

You could discard the "instruction book" from the start and make things up as you go. If it "works," do it. If it "feels good," why not? If opposing players have a disagreement (an obvious inevitability)­well, you can just figure that out later.

What kind of a game would this be? Chaotic, frustrating, unpredictable, impossible. Sooner or later, the whole thing would degenerate into a mad free-for-all. Somebody would have to knock heads together and bring order to the mess.

Simple games would be intolerable played this way, but for many deadly serious things humans engage in from driving on the highways to waging war the consequences of throwing away the instruction book can be almost too frightful to imagine.

The business of government is one of those deadly serious things and like a game run amok, it's showing signs that the players don't care much for the rules any more, if they even know them at all.

Don't think for a moment that by use of the term "players" I'm pointing fingers at politicians and somehow absolving everyone else of responsibility. In a sense, all of us are players; it's just that some are more actively so than others and of those who are active, some are more destructively so than the rest. At the very least, every citizen has a stake in the outcome.

The most profound political and philosophical trend of our time is a serious erosion of any consensus about what government is supposed to do and what it's not supposed to do. The "instruction books" on this matter are America's founding documents, namely the Declaration of Independence and the original Constitution with its Bill of Rights. In the spirit of those great works, most Americans once shared a common view of the proper role of government­the protection of life and property.

Jefferson himself phrased it with typical eloquence: ". . . Still one thing more fellow citizens­a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."

Today, there is no common view of the proper role of government or, if there is one, it is light- years from Jefferson's. Far too many people think that government exists to do anything for anybody any time they ask for it, from day care for their children to handouts for artists.

Former Texas Congressman Ron Paul used to blow the whistle whenever a bill was proposed that violated the spirit or the letter of the Constitution. How were his appeals received by the great majority of other members of Congress? "Like water off a duck's back," Paul once told me.

In a series of lectures to high school classes one day last October, I asked the students (most of whom were seniors) what they thought the responsibilities of government were. I heard "Provide jobs" far more often than I heard "Guarantee our freedoms." (In fact, I think the only time I heard the latter was when I said it myself.)

An organization called the Communitarian Network made news recently when it called for government to make organ donations mandatory, so that each citizen's body after death could be "harvested" for the benefit of sick people. A good cause, for sure, but is it really a duty of government to take your kidneys?

Americans once understood and appreciated the concept of individual rights and entertained very little of this nonsense. But there is no consensus today even on what a right is, let alone which ones we as free citizens should be free to exercise.

When the Reagan administration proposed abolishing subsidies to Amtrak, the nationalized passenger rail service, I was struck by a dissenter who phrased her objection on national television this way: "I don't know how those people in Washington expect us to get around out here. We have a right to this service."

When Congress voted to stop funding the printing of Playboy magazine in Braille, the American Council of the Blind filed suit in federal court, charging that the Congressional action constituted censorship and the denial of a basic right.

The lofty notion that individuals possess certain rights­definable, inalienable, and sacred has been cheapened and mongrelized beyond anything our Founders would recognize. When those gifted individuals asserted rights to "freedom of speech" or "freedom of the press" or "freedom of assembly," they did not mean to say that one has a right to be given a microphone, a printing press, a lecture hall, or a Playboy magazine at someone else's expense.

Indeed, the Founders' concept of rights did not require the initiation of force against others, or the elevation of any "want" to a lawful lien on the life or property of any other citizen. Each individual was deemed a unique and sovereign being, requiring only that others either deal with him voluntarily or not at all. It was this notion of rights that became an important theme of America's founding documents. It is the only notion of rights that does not degenerate into a strife-ridden mob in which every person has his hands in every other person's pockets.

Millions of Americans today believe that as long as the cause is "good," it's a duty of government. They look upon government as a fountain of happiness and material goods. They have forgotten George Washington's warning, "Government is not reason; it is not eloquence. It is force. And like fire, it can either be a dangerous servant or a fearful master."

Wisdom like that prompted Washington and our other Founders to write a Constitution which contained a Bill of Rights, separation of powers, checks and balances, and dozens of "thou shalt nots" directed at government itself. They knew, unlike many Americans today, that a government without rules or boundaries, that does anything for anybody, that confuses rights with wants, will yield intolerable tyranny.

We have tossed away the instruction book and until we find it and give it life and meaning in our public lives, we will drift from one intractable crisis to the next. Something more important than any handout from the State­namely, our liberty hangs in the balance.

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/ideas-and-consequences-freedom-or-free-for-all-2/

Predictions, 2011


Predictions, 2011
by Justin Raimondo, January 03, 2011

As memories of 2010 evaporate like morning mist, and the reality of 2011 kicks in, I gaze into my crystal ball, looking for signs and portents of what is to come. Amid the swirling vapors and fleeting images that illuminate the innards of this awesome-yet-not-always-reliable device, intimations of the future are unveiled, tantalizing hints of disasters in the making. I record them here, with no guarantees or apologies:

Iraq pullout, canceled – This will never be announced, but before long the media is bound to wake up and ask: whatever happened to our much-vaunted "withdrawal" from Iraq? Perhaps not in such a peremptory manner, but, nevertheless, the continuing, substantial US presence is already causing Prime Minister Maliki to press his American "allies" for a more definite day on which to schedule their going-away party, and the complete inability of his government to maintain its own territorial integrity, as well as ensure a minimal level of security and stability, is likely to motivate US policymakers to hedge their "withdrawal" plans.

This will end in a mutual agreement – haggled over for months by the US and its Iraqi sock puppets, and finally firmly insisted on by the former – that the US presence is to be " temporarily" extended, although, of course, the " support mission" will remain ostensibly unchanged.

Afghanistan "surge," Karzai out The war in Afghanistan will take a new turn: yet another " surge" will be announced, great "progress" will be hailed, and – naturally – the whole charade will end in a US "victory," albeit not enough of one to allow US troops to leave. You don't have to be Nostradamus to predict that US casualties will increase – they are already at their highest level since the start of the war – but one consequence of the "surge" is that US politicians – and the news media – will begin to take notice of this uptick in the death rate, and we will see increasing calls by politicians on the right as well as the left to declare "victory" and bring the troops home. Another consequence of this turn will be a renewed focus on the character of Afghan "President" Hamid Karzai, both by the news media and his American patrons – scrutiny that Karzai's horrendously corrupt administration is unlikely to withstand intact. My prediction: Karzai will not last out the year. Either he'll be unceremoniously kicked out in a military coup, or else he'll be conveniently assassinated in a suicide bombing that could easily have been prevented if only his "friends" in Washington had been paying attention….

Pakistan "surge," Zardari out – The US won't announce the "surge" of its forces into Pakistan proper, but it will happen – and, indeed, is already happening – nonetheless. A joint US-Afghan force will directly engage militants in Pakistan's tribal regions, as the formerly clandestine American incursion takes on an increasingly open character. This will provoke widespread disaffection with the government of President Asif Zardari, which has already lost its majority in Parliament and will inevitably suffer a vote a "no confidence" and fail to win the subsequent elections. With the threat of a supposedly Islamist government in Islamabad hanging over its head, and the fate of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal increasingly uncertain, the Pakistani military – pushed by the US – will suspend Parliament, take over the government, and institute martial law in order to meet the "national emergency." For the first time, the Pakistani Taliban will go national, gathering widespread support in all regions of the country. The return of Gen. Pervez Musharraf is a real possibility.

Assange extradited, WikiLeaks closed down – The extradition to Sweden of WikiLeaks founder and CIA target Julian Assange will take place amid an international uproar, to be followed by a "guilty" verdict in his trial on charges of " rape." The US government and its allies around the world will continue their increasingly effective campaign to close WikiLeaks down, making the site inaccessible for much of the time. In response, Assange will release his " insurance" bombshell – but my crystal ball hazes up beyond this point. Sorry….

Civil liberties in the US on the wane – With the passage of an anti-WikiLeaks bill in the US Congress – only Rep. Ron Paul dissenting – the assault on civil liberties in the US will take on a new and ominous urgency. Efforts to rein in the internet will increase, with the FCC and Congress moving in for the kill. For the first time, an attempt to impose content "guidelines" will be launched, and regardless of whether or not it succeeds, the attempt itself will set an important precedent, paving the way for more formal controls.

Return to Latin America – With the end of the cold war, US focus on guerrilla insurgencies in Latin America was de-emphasized, but that will end as Washington finds the " problem" of Venezuelan caudillo Hugo Chavez increasingly vexatious. The Americans will conveniently discover developing "links" between Mexican drug cartels, the Colombian guerrilla organization known as FARC, and the Chavez regime. Heightened tensions between Venezuela and Colombia will culminate in a military stand off, and perhaps even an exchange of gunfire, but mediation efforts will defuse an all-out military conflict. Count on an increased US military presence in Colombia, and more direct American intervention in the region in general.

Another crash – The sovereign debt crisis will spur yet another eruption of panic in the banking sector, causing the US and European economies to hurtle downward with alarming speed. As deflation continues on its devastating path, cleansing the economic system of malinvestment and other government-generated impurities, it will collide with governmental efforts to re-inflate the bubble, thus ensuring that we get the worst of both worlds. One beneficial side effect of this major economic crisis will be a temporary disinterest by US government officials in anything beyond the immediate problem of how to get through the next 24 hours while avoiding total economic meltdown.

The Return of the "Yellow Peril" – The War Party, however, will soon shake us out of our torpor with new warnings about the alleged "danger " of Chinese expansionism. Not the old-fashioned type of territorial expansionism, which the US and its Western allies have routinely engaged in, but economic expansionism of the sort we are supposed to admire when it is initiated by Western capitalist countries. With the Chinese holding much of our debt, essentially financing the course of US imperialism in the post-9/11 era, they are setting themselves up to become a major political target, and we saw some of that engaged in by both US political parties this past election season. Expect to see more, with Sinophobia becoming a major theme of both Democrats and Republicans in the coming year, as the always-Sinophobic Nancy Pelosi leads the charge from the left and Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee talk up the Yellow Peril from the right. Blaming the Chinese for our disgusting profligacy will become almost as fashionable as bashing Muslims.

North Korea/China split – Tensions between China and North Korea that have always been simmering just beneath the surface will break out into the open, with the new government headed by the second son of the Supreme Leader openly attacking Beijing as "revisionist" and having taken the Capitalist Road. While the North Koreans accuse their former friends in the Chinese Communist Party of having sold out the Hermit Kingdom and become the running dogs of US imperialism, the Chinese will counter with accusations of North Korean recklessness, threaten to cut off aid without actually doing so, and basically wash their hands of an increasingly untenable and hostile "ally." A "crisis" atmosphere will develop, and encourage the US in its campaign to isolate and basically starve out the North Korean regime, but this will be countered by a fresh upsurge of more liberal elements in South Korea seeking reconciliation and eventual reunification of the Korean peninsula.

Don't ask, don't tell, don't go there – We haven't heard the last of "don't ask, don't tell." Even as the assimilationist wing of the gay rights movement agitates for the swift implementation of the repeal, the backlash is already starting to gather momentum with the news that soldiers and sailors aboard the USS Enterprise were shown  "lewd" videos starring Enterprise commander Owen Honors: the videos, meant as "enterainment" for  the troops and shot with government equipment, feature "anti-gay" and other juvenile (i.e. sex-oriented) jokes. A scene depicting two female soldiers washing each other in the shower, juxtaposed next to two studly sailors doing the same in an  adjoining stall, are a kind of docu-drama illustrating the Straight World's worst fears. As I have said repeatedly, repealing the ban on gays in the military is a bad idea whose time has come, and we are just seeing the first stirrings of the sort of anti-gay hatred that often ends in stuff like this. What will it take for gay people to wake up and realize that straight people hate our guts, and always will – yes, even the liberals, who pretend to "tolerate" us in public, and privately (and sometimes openly) reveal their palpable disgust and fear of homosexual contagion? I fear it will take a wave of violence directed at openly gay members of the military. Sadly, I don't feel like I'm going way out on a limb in predicting yet another year in which gays are singled out for hatred and beat up by a gang of straight thugs.

Oh, damn! My crystal ball is starting to cloud up, again – I've been having some trouble with it lately. And, at any rate, this moment of unusual clarity, which only comes in the first week of the new year, is beginning to pass. Yet I can still glean … something, however, vaguely and inchoately. What I see is the continued growth of the anti-interventionist movement, on both the right and the left, and an increasing tendency to brush aside left-right blue-state/red-state prejudices in an effort to build a renewed and thoroughly modern antiwar movement in this country. As to how and why this renewal will take place – as I said, my crystal ball is beginning to cloud over, and so only the outlines of this process are visible. What I can say, with certainty, however, is that Antiwar.com will be a vital part of this burgeoning movement, and will play a catalyzing role in its development and emerging national prominence.

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2011/01/02/predictions-2011/

Congress Rediscovers the Constitution


OPINION
JANUARY 4, 2011
Congress Rediscovers the Constitution
The House Republican majority has said it will require members to cite the specific authority for any bill they introduce.
By ROGER PILON

If the new Congress to be sworn in on Wednesday is the tea party's cardinal achievement so far, its most symbolic achievement will come on Thursday, when the first order of business in the House will be a reading, aloud, of the Constitution. That event alone will not bring us any closer to limited government. But it will help get a debate going that for too long has been dormant.

Already, House Democrats are lining up to ridicule a closely related rule that the Republican majority has said it will adopt, requiring members to cite the specific constitutional authority for any bill they introduce. "It's an air kiss they're blowing to the tea party," says Barney Frank, outgoing chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. Henry Waxman, outgoing chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, all but dismissed any role for Congress in assessing the constitutionality of its actions: "Whether it is constitutional or not is going to be whether the Supreme Court says it is."

As a legal matter, Mr. Waxman is right; at least since Marbury v. Madison in 1803, the Supreme Court has had the last word on what the Constitution authorizes Congress to do. But well before that, and long after, members of Congress took it upon themselves to have the first word, often citing their oath of office.

In 1794, for example, James Madison, the principal author of the Constitution, rose on the House floor to object to a bill appropriating $15,000 for the relief of French refugees who had fled to Baltimore and Philadelphia from an insurrection in San Domingo. He could not, he said, "undertake to lay [his] finger on that article of the Federal Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents." The bill failed.

Throughout the 19th century, members of Congress and presidents alike rejected legislation because they believed there was no constitutional authority to enact it. The bedrock presumption of our polity, they understood, was individual liberty. The Constitution gave the federal government the authority to pursue certain limited ends, like national security and ensuring free interstate commerce, but otherwise left us free to pursue our ends either through the states or as private individuals. It did not authorize the federal government to provide us with the vast array of goods and services that today reduce so many of us to government dependents.

Thus the first question the new Congress should ask of any proposed law is: Does the Constitution authorize us to pursue this end? If not, that ends the matter. If yes, the second question is: Are the means we employ "necessary and proper," as constrained by the principles of federalism and the rights retained by the people that are implied by a government of enumerated powers? In essence, the Constitution is no more complicated than that. It was written to be understood by ordinary citizens.

How, then, did modern constitutional law get so complicated and federal power so expansive? One reason is that several provisions in the Constitution were written broadly to allow for contingencies. But those provisions were never meant to open the floodgates to boundless congressional power. The presumption was that any political redress of unexpected problems would be done with due deference to the larger structure, aims and principles of the document. This brings us to the main reason Congress leapt its constitutional bounds: a fundamental shift in the climate of ideas.

Early 20th-century Progressives, inspired by European social democracies, rejected the Constitution's plan for limited government, advocating social engineering schemes instead. Rule by government experts was the order of the day. As people and politicians succumbed to those ideas, especially in the states, courts would often block the schemes in the name of constitutional liberty. When Progressives later took their agenda to the federal level, however, and the Supreme Court continued to block it, President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveiled his infamous plan to pack the court with six new members.

The threat cowed the court, which in a pair of 1937 decisions (Helvering v. Davis and NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp) essentially gave Congress the power to redistribute and regulate at will, eviscerating the very foundation of the Constitution: the doctrine of enumerated powers. A year later, in U.S. v. Carolene Products, the court reduced property rights and economic liberty to second-class status under the Constitution. And in National Broadcasting Co. v. U.S. (1943), it allowed Congress to delegate ever more of its vastly expanded legislative powers to administrative agencies in the quickly expanding executive branch.

Now that one-party rule has ended in Washington, we'll see President Obama use these agencies to bypass Congress and promote his progressive agenda. On Dec. 23, for example, the Environmental Protection Agency announced a schedule for setting greenhouse gas standards for power plants and oil refineries over the next two years, notwithstanding that Congress has rejected cap-and-trade legislation. The Obama administration has also quietly issued regulations providing for the end-of-life counseling that the Senate rejected when it passed ObamaCare. Expect far more of this in the next two years.

The 112th Congress will have its hands full simply monitoring what the more than 300 federal agencies are up to. But if the new members want to get to the root of the problem­if they want to start restoring limited constitutional government­they'll have to do far more.

First, they'll have to keep the debate focused on the Constitution, not simply on policy or practicality.

Second, they'll have to reject without embarrassment the facile liberal objection that the courts have sanctioned what we have today, and thus all a member need do when introducing a bill is check the box that says "Commerce Clause," "General Welfare Clause" or "Necessary and Proper Clause."

If these clauses in the Constitution enable Congress to enact the individual health-insurance mandate, then they authorize Congress to do virtually anything. The Supreme Court was wrong in allowing Congress to exercise power not granted it by the Constitution, and courts today are wrong when they uphold those precedents­even if they're not in a position today to reverse them until Congress takes greater responsibility.

Third, Congress has to start taking greater responsibility. Congress must acknowledge honestly that it has not kept faith with the limits the Constitution imposes. It should then stop delegating its legislative powers to executive agencies. Congress should either vote on the sea of regulations the executive branch is promulgating or, far better, rescind or defund those regulations, policies and programs that never should have been promulgated in the first place (rescission may not be possible during the next two years, but defunding is). And of course Congress should undertake no new policies not authorized by the Constitution.

This is all a tall order, and it will take years. But the alternative­our Leviathan state, which recognizes no limits on its power­is simply unconstitutional.

Mr. Pilon is vice president for legal affairs at the Cato Institute and publisher of the Cato Supreme Court Review.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703384504576055632235572362.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

Interwar Presidents and the Fantasies of Historians


Interwar Presidents and the Fantasies of Historians
Monday, January 03, 2011
by Robert P. Murphy


It is understandable, though still harmful, when economists completely mischaracterize the policies of the Herbert Hoover Administration. But in his recent Salon piece on Sarah Palin's new book, historian David Greenberg distorts the legacies of both Calvin Coolidge and his ill-fated successor, Hoover. To set the record straight, it's worth pointing out exactly where Greenberg goes wrong.


The Legend of Silent Cal

Greenberg discusses very little of Palin's book, but instead uses her compliments for Calvin Coolidge to analyze the political right's fascination with the men who presided over the Roaring Twenties. Greenberg is not only a professor of history at Rutgers but also the author of a book on Coolidge. This allows Greenberg to share the following famous -- though perhaps apocryphal -- anecdotes:

To most people today, Coolidge is little more than a cartoon. If he's remembered at all, he's the grim-faced "Silent Cal," the man said by Theodore Roosevelt's daughter Alice to have looked as though he had been weaned on a pickle. His taciturn style provoked no end of jokes and anecdotes. One hostess, aware of the president's laconic reputation, was said to beseech him at an event, "I made a bet today that I could get more than two words out of you." Not missing a beat, Coolidge replied, "You lose."

Greenberg later mentions that "despite his reputation for silence … Coolidge was a skilled speechmaker -- a prizewinning orator as a student and the last president to write most of his own remarks." Although his delivery could be helped with modern teleprompter technology, Coolidge's first recorded presidential address (available on YouTube) is a wonderful critique of government taxes and spending, which at that time was the "stupendous sum" (his words) of $7.5 billion.


Coolidge versus the Progressives

After the fluffy prelude, Greenberg finally gets down to business:

Coolidge's vogue on the right goes beyond the conservative principles he extolled; it lies in his conception of the presidency. He took office at a time when Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson had transformed the executive branch, actively using their powers to restrain big business and secure a measure of fairness in economic life. Coolidge, in contrast, believed in a small federal government, a passive executive and light regulation of business. "If the federal government were to go out of existence," he said, "the common run of people would not detect the difference." The main legislative battles of his presidency were to implement the tax cuts favored by his plutocratic Treasury Secretary Andrew W. Mellon. He even balanced the budget.

In the first place, it is always interesting that the historians who are ostensibly concerned about "the little guy" revere US presidents in almost exact proportion to how many people were killed by their subordinates. Beyond Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson's wars, however, is their dismal record of economic interventionism.

It is a myth that antitrust legislation, "trust busting," was a vehicle to protect consumers and workers from rapacious big businessmen, as Tom DiLorenzo explains in this lecture. And Woodrow Wilson enjoys the dubious distinction of having ushered in both the Federal Reserve and the federal income tax. Adherents of the Austrian theory of the business cycle know that the Fed fueled the 1920s stock bubble (as well as the housing bubble in our own times), and so can hardly be seen as a promoter of "fairness." But even using empirical mainstream research, one can see that the Fed has been a source of economic instability -- as Selgin et al. demonstrate in this article.

As far as federal income-tax rates, it's true that Coolidge took the advice of his Treasury Secretary, Andrew Mellon, to cut them. But that was because they had been raised to an absurd level during World War I. As this history shows, even the rate on the lowest bracket jumped from 1 percent in 1913 to 6 percent by 1918. Moreover, someone who made $20,000 in 1913 paid 1 percent in federal income taxes, but because the brackets were redefined, someone earning the same money income in 1918 paid a whopping 20 percent in federal tax. (Note too that from June 1913 to June 1918 the Consumer Price Index rose 50 percent, so that a given money income purchased far less in actual goods and services.)

In contrast to this onerous burden created under Woodrow Wilson, during the Coolidge years the bottom bracket's tax rate was brought down to 1.5 percent by 1926, while an upper-middle-class (though hardly "filthy rich") household earning $20,000 saw its tax rate slashed to 9 percent.

As far as fiscal responsibility, Coolidge was superlative, perhaps second only to Andrew Jackson, who literally paid off the national debt (as well as slew the central bank). Coolidge had a much more modest success, in that he ran budget surpluses every year he was in office.[1]


The Myth of the Do-Nothing Hoover

Although I have disagreed with Greenberg's remarks on Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, and Coolidge, the disagreement largely stems from our differing views on economic theory. But when it comes to the Hoover record, Greenberg simply invents history:

There is another reason, of course, that Coolidge -- and not Warren Harding or Herbert Hoover, the other conservative Republicans of the interwar years -- has become a hero to the contemporary right. Harding, who was probably more conservative than Coolidge, was discredited by the Teapot Dome affair. … Hoover, who put the small-government philosophy into effect at an hour of crisis, saw it fail utterly. They do not appear in Sarah Palin's new book. (emphasis added)

This is demonstratively false; it would be akin to saying that George W. Bush sat back and did nothing in response to the collapse of Lehman Brothers. It's true, a die-hard interventionist could say Herbert Hoover didn't do enough, but it is simply not true to claim that he "put the small-government philosophy into effect."

Before looking at specifics, consider the broader picture. If it's really true that Herbert Hoover did nothing, and that's why the stock market Crash of 1929 devolved into the Great Depression, then what happened during all the previous crises in American capitalism? After all, there was no New Deal implemented during the panic of 1907, and yet the United States wasn't plunged into double-digit unemployment for a decade. And by many measures, the first year of the 1920–1921 depression was worse than the Great Depression; yet the economy bounced back quickly under the postwar budget slashing of Wilson and then Harding.

As I document in my book on the Depression, Hoover was in fact a big-government conservative. Perhaps his most fateful mistake was pressuring businesses to prop up wage rates after the stock-market crash. Coupled with the ensuing monetary and price deflation, this was a disastrous policy that raised the real wages of labor and contributed to the record levels of unemployment in the early 1930s. Yet here is Hoover's Secretary of Labor, James Davis, congratulating his boss's "accomplishment" in May 1930:

There never has been a crisis such as we have had as the stock market crash that threw … millions out of employment that there wasn't a wholesale reduction in wages. … If Hoover accomplishes nothing more in all of his service to the government, that one outstanding thing of his administration -- no reduction in wages -- will be a credit that will be forever remembered not by the working classes alone but by business men as well, because without money in the pay envelope business is the first to suffer.[2]


Conclusion

When recoiling against a leftist professor's praise for Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, there is a dangerous tendency to lavish hosannas on "right-wing" presidents. Although Calvin Coolidge was a fantastic president compared to his peers, he obviously was at least partially to blame for the massive stock bubble that developed in the final years of his administration.

Even so, David Greenberg, as a history professor and author of a book on this period in US history, should know better than to recycle the myth that Herbert Hoover was a laissez-faire ideologue. Even one of FDR's subordinates admitted -- years after -- that the New Deal had simply extended the pioneering interventions of the Hoover years.

If one wants to draw a straightforward lesson from Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover, it is this: tax cuts and budget surpluses go hand in hand with phenomenal economic growth, while tax hikes, budget deficits, and radical growth in government go hand in hand with economic disaster.




Robert Murphy is an adjunct scholar of the Mises Institute, where he will be teaching Anatomy of the Fed at the Mises Academy this winter. He runs the blog Free Advice and is the author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism, the Study Guide to Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, the Human Action Study Guide, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal, and his newest book, Lessons for the Young Economist.


Notes

[1] The federal debt fell from $24 billion in fiscal year 1920 to $17 billion in Fiscal Year 1929, though Coolidge was not sworn in until August, 1923 (after Harding's death).

[2] Quoted in Richard K. Vedder and Lowell E. Gallaway, Out of Work, pp. 93–94.


http://mises.org/daily/4882