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Obama ignores nuclear threat from North Korea

May 21, 2013

Since 2006, North Korea has conducted at least three apparently successful nuclear tests. It has also orbited a satellite. Together, these events fulfill the basic technological requirements for an intercontinental ballistic missile that can deliver a nuclear warhead against mainland United States.

Miniaturizing a warhead to fit on a missile is not an overwhelming technical obstacle. North Korea requires only one ICBM capable of delivering a single nuclear warhead in order to pose an existential threat to the United States.The Electromagnetic Pulse Commission, the Congressional Strategic Posture Commission, together with several other U.S. studies have established that detonating a nuclear weapon high above any part of the U.S. mainland would generate a catastrophic electro-magnetic pulse.

Sucn an EMP attack would collapse the electric grid and other infrastructure that depends upon it. 300 million Americans would be placed in immediate and serious life-threatening jeopardy. An EMP attack would plunge the U.S. electricity-powered civilization into a black-out potentially lasting for several years. The U.S. currently has no missile defense assets devoted to stopping a missile coming from the south. All such assets currently are positioned to intercept a missile strike in the middle or late part of its trajectory coming from the north polar region. The Obama administration indeed has cancelled the only two U.S. boost-phase or space-based defensive systems.

Wake up President Obama while sufficiwnt electricity remains for you to smell the coffee.A surgical strike to prevent North Korean development of an ICBM has never been more urgent.

Hat Tip: R.James Woolsey and Peter Vincent fry, ‘How North Korea Could Cripple the U.S.’, The Wall Street Journal, May 21, 2013

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Posted in do well while doing good, nature of an autocracy, Uncategorized, war and peace | 1 Comment »

IRS targets Obama’s enemies in extraordinary scandal

May 18, 2013

“We are in the midst of the worst Washington scandal since Watergate. The reputation of the Obama White House has, among conservatives, gone from sketchy to sinister, and, among liberals, from unsatisfying to dangerous. No one likes what they’re seeing. The Justice Department’s assault on the associated Press and the ugly politicization of the Internal Revenue Service have left the administration’s credibility deeply, possibly irretrievably damaged….Something big has shifted. The standing of the administration has changed. As always it comes down to trust. Do you trust the president’s answers when he’s pressed on an uncomfortable story? Do you trust his people to be sober and fair-minded as they go about their work? Do you trust the IRS and the Justice Department? You do not.” Peggy Noonan, ‘This Is No Ordinary Scandal’, The Wall Street Journal, May 18, 2013

President Obama, albeit sheepishly, acts as though these scandals are unconnected to the White House.Like the chief of police in Casablanca he is shocked, shocked, to discover in the newspapers what has happened! President Obama, however, is deeply connected to these scandals. He is not a bystander, like you and I. This happens to be his administration. The Justice Department and the IRS are his executive agencies. He runs and oversees them.

In this column, I focus on the IRS scandal, once again. For it is much the more serious of the two. There are two parts to the IRS scandal. The first is the obviously deliberate and targeted abuse harassment and attempted suppression of conservative groups. The second is the auditing of taxes of conservative political activists.

In order to suppress conservative groups the IRS demanded donor rolls, membership lists, data on all contributions, names of volunteers, the contents of all speeches made by members, Facebook posts, minutes of all meetings, and copies of all materials handed out at gatherings. When asked what its members were reading, one group responded: The U.S. Constitution! Now I can assure you from first hand experience that these questions are not routinely requested by the IRS. When The Locke Institute applied for 501 (c) 3 status in 1994, it took about a year to secure that status. But the questions were always fair and politically unbiased. And that was during the administration of President Bill Clinton, who was not above a dirty trick or two to harass his supposed enemies.

The second part of the scandal is the auditing of political activists who have publicly opposed the administration. Such politically-oriented audits constitute the use of government power to intrude on the privacy and shackle the political freedom of American citizens. The purpose is to overwhelm and intimidate – to kill the opposition, audit by audit by audit. Such behavior is to be expected of such low-lives as Vladimir Putin, Tsar of All the Russias. Perhaps now it must be expected by such low-lives as President Obama, Tsar of the United States of America.

Shame on you Barack Obama! You disgrace the high office that you are privileged to hold.

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Posted in economics and public choice, nature of an autocracy, Personality Disorders Among Politicians, political corruption, political philosophy, pro-union policies, progressive socialism, redistributive politics, Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

The Chinese Dream of Premier Xi Jinping

May 7, 2013

During his first weeks in power, Xi Jinping, the new head of the ruling Communist Party, has promoted a slogan designed to unite an increasingly diverse nation: The Chinese Dream. News bulletins across the nation are full of his dream, evoking its American equivalent. A talent show on television is looking for ‘The Voice of the Chinese Dream’.

Unfortunately,Xi Jinping’s dream falls somewhat short of the aspirations outlined so eloquently by Thomas Jefferson in The Declaration of Independence and by James Madison in the Constitution of the United States. It does indeed encompass the pursuit of happiness: ‘To meet our people’s desire for a happy life is our mission.’ Unfortunately, it falls well short of any desire to promote individualism, and especially to advance the liberty of each individual from the reach of the Communist Party.

Instead, Xi Jinping’s dream incorporates a troubling whiff of nationalism and of a repackaged form of authoritarianism. It is no coincidence that Mr. Xi’s first mention of his dream of ‘the great revival of the Chinese nation’ came in November 2012 in a speech at the national museum in Tiananmen Square, where an exhibition called ‘Road to Revival’ lays out China’s past suffering at the hands of colonial powers and its rescue by the Communist Party.

In bowing towards a renewed nationalism, Xi Jinping is already courting China’s armed forces. In December 2012, on an inspection tour of the navy in southern China, he spoke reverently of a ‘strong army dream’. Suggestively, he told the generals that the spirit of a strong army lies in resolutely obeying the orders ofd the Communist Party. The Chinese dreams, he stated is an ideal. Communists should have a higher ideal, and that is Communism.

Of one thing, one can be absolutely certain. Xi Jinping’s dream falls well short of any notion of the rule of law. The rule of law can only come to China when dictatorship collapses. And Xi Jinping’s dream does not carry with it any notion whatsoever of a martyr’s death.

Hat Tip: ‘Xi Jinping and the Chinese Dream’, The EconomistMay 4, 2011

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Posted in nature of an autocracy, political philosophy, progressive socialism, relevance of economic knowledge, Uncategorized, war and peace | 2 Comments »

Autocracies in global ascendancy

March 30, 2013

Although Westerners like to believe that democracy is on a continuously upward trend, this is far from true. Democracy has been in retreat across much of the developing world in recent years. In its latest Index of Freedom in the World, the global monitoring group, Freedom House, notes that 2012 was the seventh consecutive year in which the survey found more declines than gains. For democracy, this is the longest losing streak in the past 60 years.

Democracy in the developing world is struggling in part because citizens in many countries, led to believe that democracy and prosperity always go hand in hand, are finding out that this is not necessarily so. For this reason, trust in democracy has waned in such countries as Malawi and the Philippines. Simultaneously relatively new democracies such as India, Brazil and South Africa, have done little to promote themselves as fruitful political models.

In politics there is no such thing as a vacuum. When democracies falter, the world’s most powerful autocracies fill the vacuum. In particular, China and Russia have become far more assertive on the global stage and increasingly are working together to promote what they view as common interests. Most especially, they are concerned to block democratic developments in their own backyards.

China has provided training over the past decade for police, judges, judicial officials and bureaucrats from a range of countries in Central, South and Southeast Asia. Initially such training focused on economic management. Increasingly they have turned to lessons on how to replicate Chinese-style legal systems, crowd control, Internet monitoring and other strategies of internal repression.

Under President Putin, the Kremlin has taken similar initiatives. In Ukraine, the Kremlin party United Russia, signed an agreement to cooperate with the pro-Russian Ukrainian leader, Vikto Yanukovych, who was unsympathetic to the country’s Orange Revolution of the early 2000s. Kremlin support, including a promise to lower gas prices, helped to secure the presidency for Mr. Yanukovych in 2010. Russia has continued to provide strong support for his repressive government.

Beijing further promotes its model of autocratic development in the nations of Africa and the Middle East as an alternative to the Washington consensus of free markets and free politics. Where China moves, Russia almost always is a fast second.

Western promoters of democracy have no cause for complacency. The autocrats are now on the march into territories once viewed as entirely safe for democracy.

Hat Tip: Joshua Kublantzick, ‘A New Axis of Autocracy’, The Wall Street JournalMarch 30, 2013

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U.S. should take out Kim Jong Eun, fat fool of North Korea

March 29, 2013

The fat fool of North Korea, victim of regressive family genes that have left North Korea under the rule of a mental defective, is staggering towards a disastrous attack on mainland America if, that is, his missiles are more effective than his little grey cells. Such a missile launch, especially if chemical or nuclear in nature, would result in the complete annihilation of North Korea as B-2 stealth bombers dropped nuclear payloads across his country.

As a warning that anyone other than an idiot must comprehend, Barack Obama ordered two B-2 stealth bombers to fly from a base in the American heartland and to drop eight dummy bombs – inert versions of 2,000 pound bombs – on a South Korean bombing range. Those bombs, if for real, and targeted on his palace, would give Kim Jong Eun quite a headache, if he woke up at all following the raid.

Of course, when one tries to warn a fool, communication becomes difficult. A muddled mind can understand little beyond the route from plate and glass to mouth as fat hands shovel food and drink down an expanded gullet into an obese belly. The danger is that the fat fool may actually do some harm before he departs the planet.

This situation appears to be a no-brainer for a targeted drone to take out the supreme leader before he leads his entire wretched people into oblivion. Take him out Mr. President. The People’s Republic of China will be eternally in your debt.They know that he is a dangerous piece of trash.

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Posted in do well while doing good, nature of an autocracy, Personality Disorders Among Politicians, Uncategorized, war and peace | 1 Comment »

Cypriot banks launder dirty Russian money

March 19, 2013

Cyprus is the third largest island in the Mediterranian, after Sicily and Sardinia. The Republic of Cyprus is a small nation composed of 800,000 people with an economy of less than $18 billion, representing less than 0.2 per cent of the euro zone’s gross domestic product.

An opaque banking system has evolved, under government influence, with some $70 billion in deposits, much of which emanate from Russia. Indeed, Cyprus has become in essence a client state not just of Russia and a number of the former Soviet satellites, but more specifically of the Russian Mafia. The corrupt financial sector, promoted by a blind-eyed government in the pockets of Russian oligarchs who use Cyprus as a mechanism to cleanse dirty money and evade Russian taxes, accounts for 45 per cent of the entire national economy of Cyprus.

Understandably, in such circumstances, the Cypriot governmentnow finds itself between a rock and a hard place. Its agreement with the euro-zone to impose a 6.7 per cent haircut on small depositors and a 9.9 per cent haircut on large depositors has provoked fury from both groups. The government may fall come election time if the small depositors are hit; and cries about the breaching of the rule of law are justifiably rife across that group. But heads literally may roll if the Russian oligarchs are robbed. So the government wavers between loss of position and loss of life as it gropes around a number of equally unappetising alternatives.

If small depositors are spared completely, then the Russians are out by 15 per cent and all their tax evasion gains go to the euro-zone. If small depositors remain on the hook, then street riots may be expected once the banks reopen, as reopen presumably they eventually must.

Anxious eyes no doubt will be glancing northwards,across the Cyprus partition, where the Turks may decide to enter the south as liberators of their oppressed brothers. A lot of chickens are coming home to roost on this beleaguered island.

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Posted in Bank Regulation, economics and public choice, nature of an autocracy, Personality Disorders Among Politicians, political corruption, property rights, redistributive politics, relevance of economic knowledge, Uncategorized, war and peace | 4 Comments »

The Woodward Ultimatum

March 3, 2013

Ultimatum: The final terms presented by one party in a dispute, etc., to another, the rejection of which could cause a breakdown in relations, a declaration of war, an end of cooperation, etc. Oxford English Dictionary.

Many readers will have heard of the Bourne Ultimatum, a Robert Ludlum-inspired movie in which Jason Bourne engages in a battle to the death with out-of-control CIA agents who are determined to eliminate a man whom they had mentally reconfigured to serve as their hired assassin, but who has now recovered his true identity. Well, last week,Bob Woodward, the pre-eminentjournalist for The Washington Post and one of the two investigators who exposed Richard Nixon for his role in the Watergate break-in, received an ultimatum from the hands of of Obama-sycophant, Gene Sperling, currently serving as the chairman of the Chicago machine-politician’s Economic Advisory Council.

I wrote in a recent column about the incident leading up to this ultimatum, namely Woodward’s fingering of Obama as the original source of the March 1, 2013 sequester. Because Woodward is known as a man who speaks truth to power, and because Woodward has exposed, in this instance, not a conservative, but a liberal lie, Obama and his White House advisers are dripping venom as they seek a way to inject their fangs into a supposed traitor to the progressive movement. Like Jason Bourne, Bob Woodward has reconfigured his own mind to understand the true nature of the sinister threat that now confronts him.

“This is no tempest in a teapot but rather the leak in the dike. Drip by drip, the Obama administration has demonstrated its intolerance for dissent and its contempt for any who stray from the White House script. Yes, all administrations are sensitive to criticism, and all push back when such criticism is considered unfair or inaccurate. But no president since Richard Nixon has demonstrated such overt contempt for the messenger. And thanks to technological advances in social media, Obama has been able to bypass traditional watchdogs as no other president has. More to the point, the Obama White House is, to put it politely, fudging as it tries to place the onus of the sequester on Congress…Killing the messenger is a time-honored method of controlling the message, but we have already spilled that blood. And the First Amendment’s protection of a free press, the purpose of which is to check power and constrain government’s ability to dictate the lives of private citizens, was no accident.” Kathleen Parker, ‘Why the Woodward matter matters’, The Washington Post, March 3, 2013

One may reasonably assume that Bob Woodward’s and Kathleen Parker’s kneecaps are safe, at least with respect to the sequester challenge. But there are other ways for a vindictive president to enforce obedience among the press corps:

“Again, Woodward’s kneecaps are probably safe, but the challenge to his facts, and therefore to his character, was unusual, given Woodward’s stature. And how, by the way, might Woodward come to regret it? Sperling’s words, though measured, could be read as: ‘You’ll never set foot in the White House again.” When reporters lose access to the White House, it isn’t about being invited to the annual holiday party. It’s about having access to the most powerful people on the planet as they execute the nation’s business.” Kathleen Parker, ibid.

Whoops, there go a pair of kneecaps!

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Posted in media rhetoric, nature of an autocracy, political corruption, political philosophy, progressive socialism, redistributive politics, relevance of economic knowledge, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Islam’s incompatibility with democracy: lesson of the Arab Spring

January 28, 2013

In December 2010, the self-immolation of a Tunisian street vendor, protesting unjust treatment by the government, ignited a wildfire that became known as the Arab Spring. Now, some two years later, that Arab Spring must be renamed the Arab Winter of Our Discontent, as each and every country torched by that wildfire has collapsed into political chaos blended with religious dictatorship, ruthlessly imposed by Sharia law.

In Tunisia – where it all started – a relatively benign secular autocracy has been replaced by malign Islamic governance. The Islamist Nahda Party captured a 41 per cent plurality of the total vote for the Constituent Assembly in October 2011. Following this capture, the tourist trade has fallen dramatically in that region of North Africa. Similar Islamist victories have followed in Morocco, Libya and beyond.

Military materiel have fallen into the hands of insurgents in Mali, threatening an al qaeda subjugation of the North, that has triggered French armed intervention.Egypt has fallen under Muslim fundamentalist political control, with President Morsi naming Isaelis as the descendants of dogs and pigs. His usurpation of political power is triggering riots and violent demonstrations in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, in Suez, Alexandria and elsewhere. Iraq and Afghanistan are riddled with sectarian violence, instability and corruption. Israel, the only stable democracy in the entire region, is preparing for what may easily end up as a nuclear defense of its country against Islamist barbarians.

The Obama administration should have understood, from the outset of the Arab Spring, that secular dictatorship by declared allies of the United States was the least worst outcome for that benighted region of the globe. Countries populated by under-educated, brain-washed Muslims of varying degrees of fundamentalism are resistant to any kind of democracy. Democracy requires religious freedom. And Islam will not tolerate such a condition. Even in Turkey, it remains difficult to apostasize against Islam, despite the secularization officially imposed upon that country by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk during the 1920′s.

Islam is a religion that does not recognize any separation between Mosque and State. Sharia law rules and democracy cannot legitimately challenge its dictates.

Hat Tip: Thane Rosenbaum, ‘A Bleak Anniversary for the Arab Spring’, The Wall Street Journal, January 28, 2013

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Posted in nature of an autocracy, political philosophy, progressive socialism, redistributive politics, Uncategorized, war and peace | 2 Comments »

Obama, second term, does not pretend to represent the nation

January 19, 2013

Barack Obama has not yet been sworn into office to serve his second term as president of the United States. He won the election by a vote of 51:49 in the popular vote, though the victory was augmented in the Electoral College. Such is often the case, especially with second term wins

With the single exception of FDR in 1936, all U.S. presidents have introduced or re-introduced themselves at the beginning of their administration as representatives of the entire people, not of a partisan subset of that population. That is an easy statement to make by any president who puts his country before his personal prejudices.

FDR choked on such a statement in 1936 because, as a traitor to his own class throughout his first term, he had gathered around him a cabinet of proto-communists hostile to capitalism and to the so-called ‘royalists’ who allegedly ran that economic system.So FDR spoke to his cabal, and destroyed the U.S. economy, prolonging the Great Depression well beyond any other country on the planet. Without Pearl Harbor in December 1941, who knows how long that depression would have continued in a country bereft of economic confidence, and assailed by job-destructive policy after job-destructive policy, rubber-stamped by huge Democratic Party majorities in both the House and the Senate.

Like FDR, Obama has already choked on those nation-healing words, pumping out venom against the 49 per cent of the electorate who voted for Mitt Romney and promising a continuous class war against them. Worse still, he has word-baited the Republican majority in the House of Representatives, claiming with a bare-faced arrogance that is beyond belief, that somehow they are a non-elected group, intent on blocking the work of the Messiah. Even FDR held back from such extremism, from the basis of a much more convincing electoral majority.

“So here is what is utterly remarkable: President Obama has been using the days and weeks leading up to his inauguration to show the depth of his disdain for the leaders of the other major party and, by inference, that party’s voters, which is to say more or less half the country. He has been spending his time alienating instead of summoning. It has left the political air more sour and estranged. As a presidential style this is something strange and new. That has to be said again: It is new, and does not augur well.” Peggy Noonan, ‘His Terms Are Always Hostile Ones’, The Wall Street Journal, January 19, 2013

By such behavior, Obama evidently chooses to suck up completely to the winning coalition within his selectorate – to those who effectively returned him to office – while using that office to expropriate the assets of those who failed to do so. Readers will recognize such behavior for what it is. It is reflective of the behavior of dictators across countries and throughout history. It is indeed the essence of the Dictator’s Handbook. Pay off your winning coalition and continuously harass those who oppose your will.

By the grace of the Founding Father’s, however, Obama is not (yet) dictator. He lives and breathes in a system fenced off by the separation of powers. Like any would-be dictator, in such circumstances, Obama is shackled to a degree from the outer-bounds of his ideological preferences. He cannot fully impose that agenda across a divided nation. Unfortunately, Obama is insufficiently smart to recognize this limitation. His unbridled behavior is an unexpected gift to the opposition that he so openly despises:

“On cul;tural issues, this Democratic president could have done a Nixon to China – the bold move that only he could make without inspiring fierce dissent, the move that could break through. Instead he did a Nixon to the Orange County GOP. Maybe the president doesn’t operate with as much good faith as he thinks, and maybe the other side isn’t as bad as he pretends. As I watched his news conference and his gun-control remarks, I thought, for the first time in a while, that the Republicans are finally getting a break. He is overplaying his hand. He does that. He’s doing it again.” Peggy Noonan, ibid.

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Posted in economics and public choice, media rhetoric, nature of an autocracy, Personality Disorders Among Politicians, political philosophy, progressive socialism, relevance of economic knowledge, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Why modern Robin Hood outlaws should be prosecuted

January 17, 2013

Many movies have been made in praise of Robin Hood and his Merry Anglo-Saxon outlaws who raided the coffers of rich Norman barons and knights in order to dispense their loot to down-trodden fellow-Anglo-Saxons during the absence, leading Crusades, of King Richard I, when his evil brother, Prince John, ruled England with a heavy hand.

Now that period of history was one of absolute dictatorship and our instincts naturally – and most probably justly – lie on the side of the severely oppressed. After all, William the Conqueror’s Normans were foreign invaders, who had seized Anglo-Saxon wealth at the point of the sword (and arrow). Rough justice requires an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

Aaron Swartz, who died by his own hand earlier this week, represents a very different kind of outlaw, even if much of the media is reporting his thefts in terms reminiscent of those episodes in Sherwood Forest. For Aaron Swartz was stealing from the rich to give to the poor within the environment of modern democracies operating under the rule of law.

In so doing, Swartz was eroding property rights. And property rights are the fulcrum of economic progress within the capitalist sector of any economy. Without clearly articulated and protected property rights, no modern economy can function. Contracts become impracticable, and a barter economy, in the absence of property rights, descends into a state of nature that we describe as a Hobbesian jungle.

In essence, if the Aaron Swartz’s of this world are allowed to prosper and multiply, they will take the advanced economies back into the Middle Ages of King Richard I and Prince John. I assure you that that is not a pleasant environment in which to fight for survival. It is not a world in which you would choose to live.

Aaron Swartz faced a lengthy jail sentence – as much as 30 years – for deploying computer hacking skills to download illegally millions of academic papers from an electronic library. Five years ago, Swartz had elected to become an outlaw by signing a guerrilla open access manifesto. He complained that the ‘world’s entire scientific and cultural heritage’ was in the process of ‘being digitalised and locked up’ by a handful of private corporations. He advised computer hackers to ‘take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with the world’.

Well, that is communism well beyond the vision of any Marx, Lenin or Stalin. When information that is costly to produce and process is distributed without charge to anyone who wishes to gain access, then assuredly such information will no longer be produced and processed. That is the nature of any market system.

Should governments then take over the role of markets in the production and dissemination of information, history tells us two things: (1) market-relevant new information will fail to appear; and (2) government-information will be produced and disseminated in a manner designed to destroy individual liberty and to promote tyranny.

So we should not judge Aaron Swartz as a Robin Hood attempting to ease the burdens of tyranny. Rather we should judge him as a promoter of communism, attempting to take down democracy and capitalism, and to replace them by absolutist government. For that crime, 30 years is a modest penalty. The gallows might be viewed as more appropriate.

In any event, Aaron Swartz delivered himself into judgment without any cost to society. And that decision ironically conforms with his personal philosophy. Aaron Swartz surely was not a hypocrite.

Hat Tip: John Gapper, ‘Aaron Swartz suffered from an illusion over research’, Financial Times, January 17, 2013

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Posted in law, liberty and classical liberalism, media rhetoric, nature of an autocracy, political philosophy, property rights, relevance of economic knowledge, Uncategorized | 10 Comments »

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