April 29, 2012
New Political Designs for sale
I have a new political design for sale at Zazzle.com. Just in time for the conclusion of he GOP primaries and the start of the Presidential campaign.
Available as a t-shirt and a bumper sticker.
If there are additional products you would like to have this graphic on, just let me know in the comments and I'll make it available.
Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 12:37 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
April 25, 2012
About the Constitution
It's time to share another survey. This one is from the Heritage Foundation asking for my money about my views on the Constitution. One of the great things about this survey is that it's online so I don't have to type the questions.
Do you believe it is important for the government to abide by the Constitution as it is written, or do you believe the Constitution needs to be reinterpreted to reflect current political and economic circumstances?
This is supposed to be a nation of laws and the Constitution is supposed to be the highest law in the nation. I believe it says what it means and it means what it says.as it is writtenneeds to be reinterpretedundecided
Do you think that every piece of federal legislation should cite which clause in the Constitution authorizes the legislation?
At the very least it would force legislators to actually consider the Constitution. I'm sure they would engage in boat load of linguistic spin but paying lip service to the Constitution would be an improvement over completely disregarding it.yesnoundecided
Do you think the federal government has taken on more power than the Constitution allows?
yesnoundecided
I think "taken on more power than the Constitution allows" describes at a minimum 70% of what the federal government does.
Do you think the federal government has taken on powers that belong to the states?
yesnoundecided
What power they haven't usurped from the individual they have taken from the states. Starting with, but certainly not limited to unfunded mandates.
The Commerce Clause of the Constitution gives the federal government the power "to regulate commerce…among the several states.” Do you believe this power includes requiring individual citizens to buy health insurance and targeting "green companies” for large government grants?
yesnoundecided
Not just no but HELL NO! The government is working very hard to take over more and more of our lives and eliminate more and more of our liberty.
The Bill of Rights lays out what the federal government is forbidden to do to citizens, such as abridge our freedom of speech and religion. Do you agree with President Obama that it should also list what the government must do for citizens, such as provide education and jobs?
yesnoundecided
I think the government should not be doing very much of anything other than protecting us militarily, enforcing just laws, and being our agent dealing with foreign countries.
Listed below are the federal cabinet-level departments. Which do you think might have no mandate in the Constitution? (You may check more than one.)
StateEducationAgricultureDefenseEnergyHousing and Urban DevelopmentJusticeCommerceTransportationTreasuryLaborVeterans AffairsInteriorHomeland SecurityHealth and Human Services
Do you think it is important for children to study the Constitution in school?
I think they should study the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence every year.yesnoundecided
Do you believe most elected officials understand the Constitution?
yesnoundecided
If they did, they wouldn't do three quarters of the stuff they do.
Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 07:58 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
April 22, 2012
Celebrate Earth Day
Today is Earth Day. You should celebrate it. You should celebrate all of the things that make life on Earth livable. You should celebrate all of the things that make life on earth more pleasant. You should celebrate all of the things that make life on Earth a joy.
Look around you.
Look right in front of you. You're looking at this on a computer. Think of all the human activity, all of the benefit to humanity, from all of the work that went into making every bit of that computer. Celebrate the electricity that flows through it's circuits and every thing it took to create it.
Celebrate Life on Earth Day.
And try to imagine some of the things that would be possible if we got the nanny-state fascistic ninnies out of the way.
Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 02:53 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
April 10, 2012
Making the Opponents Case
I was going to leave this as a comment to this post at Hot Air, but but by the time I got there the thread was long and it would have likely gotten lost in the noise. The post itself was about Cardinal Raymond Burke making a statement the for a Catholic employer to comply with the ObamaCare birth control and abortion pill mandate would be a sin.
The comment I particularly wanted to respond to was this one by someone commenting under the name social-justice.
What about amnesty? It it sin to break the laws of a sovereign nation?
How does the good cardinal feel about it?
This clever socialist (Social Justice is liberal code for no one should have more than me so we're taking yours) Thinks he/she/it is poking a big hole in the Cardinal's position by pointing out a Catch 22 created by the Cardinal's statement.
Here's the thing. Conflict between laws of the government and teaching of religion is one reason why the First Amendment protects the the right to the free exercise of religion. I know the logic is beyond you and you have no understanding of the concept of Liberty but could you at least make an effort?
Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 06:09 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
April 07, 2012
Unprecedented Asshattery
Before you start reading this I want you to take out your copy of the United States Constitution. You have one right? If not hang your head in shame and go Google it yourself. I want you to read the part of the Constitution that establishes the judicial branch of our government. (Article 3). I'll wait here...
Back already? It's not a very long section is it.
Did you see the part where the Constitution expressly describes the Supreme Court's authority to rule on the Constitutionality of legislation? Of course you didn't because it's not there. The principle of Judicial Review was established by the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Constitution in the case Marbury vs Madison. Never heard of it you say? Once more in shame to Google you go!
Got it? OK. Now for today's lesson basic civics and jurisprudence.
When a principle of law is clarified by judicial ruling such that this ruling becomes the basis for future application of the law, we call that a "precedent." Dictionary.com defines precedent as:
noun1.Law . a legal decision or form of proceeding serving as an authoritative rule or pattern in future similar or analogous cases.2.any act, decision, or case that serves as a guide or justification for subsequent situations.
Marbury vs Madison was decided in 1803 thus the concept of the courts ruling that a law is in violation of the Constitution and therefore invalid has been the operating precedent for over 200 years.
I knew all of this without having to look it up because I learned it when I was young. I'll confess to having to look up the 1803 date because having the right year was better than "the early 1800's" which my memory of high school history was able to recover!
Now imagine that a hypothetical student went to law school. Not just any law school but the most prestigious law school in the country, if not the world. Imagine that same person while a student became editor of the school's Law Review an extremely prestigious position at an extremely prestigious publication at this extremely prestigious institution of higher learning. But don't stop there. Imagine that after receiving a law degree from the university at the pinnacle of legal education this person went on be an instructor of law. And not just any law an instructor of Constitutional Law.
You would think that person would have a better understanding of the concepts of precedent and judicial review than I can conjure up from my memory of a class I took in high school {cough} years ago. But what if this hypothetical person said:
"Ultimately I am confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress"
You would have to wonder if perhaps a degree from the most prestigious law school in the country is worth the paper it is printed on. Or maybe our hypothetical student was absent the days they covered Marbury, the concept of precedent and any of the hundreds of cases over the last 200+ years in which laws have been overturned as unconstitutional.
Or maybe the hypothetical student knew that what he was saying was a massive pile of horse excrement but thought he could get away with it.
I'm not a lawyer and didn't go to the most prestigious law school and edit its law review and I never taught Constitutional Law. But it seems to me that with the 200 year history of judicial review arising out of the decision of Marbury vs Madison the Supreme Court overturning a law it judges to be unconstitutional would be the textbook definition of precedented.
If you want to have nightmares or watch your blood pressure spike imagine this hypothetical student grew up to be President of the United States.
Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 08:34 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
April 01, 2012
One Man. One Vote.
Watching the spin coming out of the Supreme Court hearings on ObamaCare has been disturbingly amusing. The only thing we can be sure of is that after three days of oral argument we know what the outcome will be with as much certainty as we did before three days of oral argument.
I do think there is some cause for hope. During the first day of arguments Justice Anthony Kennedy noted:
Here the government is saying that the federal government has a duty to tell the individual citizen that it must act, and that is different from what we have in previous cases, and that changes the relationship of the federal government to the individual in a very fundamental way.
We just have to wait and see what The Court - or in particular Justice Kennedy - thinks about the constitutionality of that transformation.
The left has been spinning furiously that the the overturning of ObamaCare would be the best thing that could happen for Campaign to Reelect The One.
This of course is complete BS and why the right isn't calling them out for using people's healthcare as a political football escapes me. The Vice President at the law's signing ceremony proclaimed that it was a "Big F'n Deal." If they think the crowning achievement of their ideology is so great and wonderful for the people why are they telling everyone that it's being overturned by The Court would be a good thing politically?
Is it possible that they are trying to influence the court with this crap?
Are they just trying to lower expectations because they think they are going to lose?
Is it possible that they are more hypocritical, more venal, and more lacking in principles than I imagined?
I'm going to go with D. All of the above.
One supporter of socialized medicine was so taken aback by the arguments against parts of the law that he added a little bonus to the hope that ObamaCare is overturned. He spelled out a scenario that in focusing on the case at hand I had not previously considered: (emphasis added)
"I was baffled the court would even hear that argument, let alone take it seriously," said Ron Pollack, executive director of the pro-reform Families USA and a health-care activist for three decades. If that goes, federal programs to improve education, the environment, transportation. and more could suddenly be under fire, he said -- creating the potential for the wholesale gutting of the New Deal and the welfare state.
That is indeed cause to hope for change.
The overwhelming (perhaps unanimous) consensus among those watching and commenting on The Court proceedings is that whole thing hinges on the decision of one justice. One man, one vote, will decide if there will be a fundamental transformation of the relationship between the individual and the government.
In case you have forgotten what that means and what is at stake, I would remind you how one man once described that relationship: "government of the people, by the people, for the people." Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy apparently will be deciding if it "shall perish from the earth."
Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 07:09 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
March 24, 2012
Busted. Broke. Broken.
I have explained my outlook on life to a friend as cynical optimism. By which I mean I always look for the ray of hope, the silver lining. I just don't always expect to find it and I'm not terribly shocked when I don't. I always give everyone the benefit of the doubt until they prove they don't deserve it (though I will will admit that anyone with the title Congressman, Senator, Governor, President, Secretary of etc is usually regarded with significant skepticism). These days I find it difficult to maintain any degree of optimism when looking at things from a big picture i.e. the future existence of the United States as a semi-free country perspective.
I suppose it would be easier if I just didn't pay attention and took more of an ignorance is bliss approach but that's just not my nature. Nor am I capable of waltzing through life on wishes and good intentions - which would make me a Liberal - which is not in my nature either.
We have devolved from a nation of free people with a government that derived its just powers to protect life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness from the consent of the governed to a land of subjects commanded do as we are told regardless of our consent.
The federal government now exercises virtually total control over the healthcare industry. They are dictating what insurance we can buy and and that we must buy the insurance of their design. We do not have the freedom of consenting. We must obey or pay a penalty.
The federal government now dictates to churches that they must provide services in direct contravention of their beliefs.
The federal government has decided what we will be allowed to use for energy. They hamper and block the production of efficient and effective energy sources and pay subsidies to favored companies backed by campaign donors.
The federal government funneled billions of dollars to well connected banks to protect wealthy campaign contributors from suffering the consequences of their poor and corrupt decisions.
In ways large and small the federal government increasingly makes more of our decisions for us, regardless of our consent. Every decision the government makes for you means that you are that much less free to decide for yourself.
The nation is $15 trillion in debt and there is no sign that the growth of debt is going slow.
There is no one in the government who seems either able or willing to do anything about it. In 2000 we elected a Republican President, a Republican Senate and a Republican House. What did we get? Expansion of government dependency and control in Medicare part D and expansion of federal control of education with No Child Left Behind.
We have come as a nation to a fork in the road, a metaphor I prefer to "Tipping Point" as it implies that there is still a choice. And do believe there still is a choice. That there still is a chance. Thats the optimist speaking.
The cynic notes that while there is a choice to be made it is not my choice. It is not your choice. It is a choice that will be made by the nine justices of the Supreme Court. The Court begins to hear arguments on ObamaCare next week.
9 people or more precisely 5 people will decide if the wishes of those who believe that it is the role of the government to make our individual decisions for us trump the limits placed on government by the Constitution.
The optimist on one shoulder notes that just last week this Court slapped down the EPA for trampling the rights of property owners. The pessimist on the other shoulder whispers in my ear "Kelough v New London" to remind me that the Court is not always going to rule in favor of limited government.
I am hoping. But I will not be surprised.
Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 09:41 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
March 17, 2012
Hacked
I have been hacked!
Friday morning, along with the usual assortment of SPAM, my inbox had three payment receipts for iTunes In-App purchases and three alert messages from iTunes Customer Support. The three transactions totaled about $120.00 one at 1:53 a.m. and two at 1:54 a.m.
At 1:53 a.m. I was in bed sound asleep and not up making In-App purchases from a company called Giant Mobile.
The alert from Apple read:
Your Apple ID, [redacted (duh!)], was just used to make a purchase in 江湖行2 from the App Store on a computer or device that had not previously been associated with that Apple ID.
The app in question is a Chinese Language game that Google translates into: Rivers and lakes line 2. I do not speak or read Chinese.
At 11:00 p.m. on Friday (less than 24 hours after the hack and about 16 hours after I reported it) I received the following communication from iTunes Customer Support:
We have issued a refund for the items purchased without your permission. The decision to issue a refund was made after a careful review of your case. Please note that this refund is an exception to the iTunes Store Terms and Conditions, which state that all sales are final. A refund in the amount of $119.07 has been issued to the payment method(s) that were used to pay for the items.
I have no answer to the question of whether the problem mine or Apple's. Given the speed and ease with which they were willing to issue a refund in exception to their Terms and Conditions I'm inclined to think that it was not I who was hacked but iTunes.
Regardless, I have taken the following steps and suggest that if you are an iTunes user you do as well. I have changed my password and security questions. I have gone into my iTunes account settings and de-linked all forms of payment so that a purchase cannot be made without entering additional third party information.
The username and password for iTunes is also the password for my Apple ID. Apple helpfully uses one name and password for everything. So when a hacker gets one thing they get everything. Which means it was also the password for iCloud. Which means that whomever had my credentials had access to email, calendar, bookmarks, contacts. They wouldn't have had direct access to my system through Back to My Mac without the system password, but those passwords are changed as well just in case. And an extremely close eye will be kept on all financial resources.
There are bad people out there. Have fun on the internet, but stay safe.
Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 11:01 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
March 10, 2012
Rush Breitbart
In the early days of this site, two or three different hosts ago, there was a little widget in the sidebar I called "Calendar Thingie." At the start of a month all of the numbers were grey and any day I posted something the numbers turned blue. In those heady days I made it to the end of a lot of months with nothing but blue days. I'll grant that some of it was utter tripe just to get something posted, but I wrote EVERY day. Now I'm that much older and much wiser (?) or just more tired I seem to have settled into writing something once a week.
That's OK because in general it means I spend more time thinking before I start typing. Before I sit down at the keyboard the central idea of a post has been through several mental drafts. The result, I like to think, is a clearer more cogent presentation of the point I want to make. And also that I more often actually have a point to make rather than just spouting off. It also gives me the opportunity to question my own thinking and my own assumptions.
At the beginning of this week I had begun to mentally construct an argument that Rush Limbaugh was an idiot. That the left dangled some bait and he swallowed it hook, line and sinker. The premise of the post was going to be that the left played him like a fiddle and it was disappointing that he allowed it to happen.
I couldn't care less about Sandra Fluke and I couldn't possibly care less that Limbaugh called her a prostitute and a slut. I understand the use of absurdity and hyperbole in trying to make a point. In the post below, I suggested that if Ms. Fluke's recreational pleasures were going to be paid for by someone else through the provision of free contraception, then my choice of recreational pleasure should be paid for by someone else as well. I tried to frame it as a mental health issue, but I think my chances are rather slim!
"Rush blew it" was Monday's conclusion.
By midweek that conclusion was beginning to soften. I still thought that it was stupid for Limbaugh to walk into such an obvious trap but conservative efforts to use the Left's faux outrage to shine a little sunlight on Liberal hypocrisy were starting to become effective. What at first sounded like a five-year-old's justification for calling his sister names had begun to change the focus of the issue. And it was the President's turn take the bait and give the other side a quote to use as a weapon.
The reason I called Ms. Fluke is because I thought about Malia and Sasha. One of the things I want them to do as they get older is to engage in issues they care about, even ones I may not agree with them on. I want them to be able to speak their mind in a civil and thoughtful way. I don’t want them attacked and called horrible names because they are being good citizens.
Given the propensity of many on the left to do just that, Obama helped conservatives transform the issue into one about Liberal double standards. I'm not going to bother with yet another recounting of what an Obama SuperPac million dollar donor has said about Sarah Palin, you can google that for yourself if you haven't read it already, but Obama accepting a million dollars of support from someone famous for calling people horrible names because they spoke their mind on issues, effectively removed the focus from Limbaugh and put it on Bill Maher.
By Thursday I was thinking that Limbaugh, with a lot of help from other conservatives, and an unexpected assist from The One, had managed to turn a stupid mistake into a positive. And with the news that Louis C.K. was not going to host the Radio and Television Correspondent's Dinner after conservatives shined the light of liberal civility standards on some of his past comments, it seemed that Limbaugh's stupid mistake was turning into a win for the right.
Then I started to think. Did Limbaugh just Breitbart everyone? Did he do this on purpose? Did he take one for the team knowing that the howls of self-righteous outrage by the left could be turned against them? Operation Chaos 2.0? He seems to have played them equally as well as I originally thought they had played him.
One thing is tragically missing in all of this back and forth over who insulted whom the most and even in the above analysis of who played whom like fiddle. It's all fiddling while Rome burns.
Let's recap.
The issue started when the Secretary of Health and Human Services issued an ObamaCare Edict that all employers - even religious organizations outside of actual churches - would be required to provide insurance coverage for birth control. (I am using "birth control" to cover both contraceptives and pregnancy terminating drugs.)
There was a lot of push-back on this as a violation of religious freedom as guaranteed by the First Amendment. The administration then revised their edict by decreeing that religious based organizations would not be required to pay for such coverage but that insurance companies would be forced to include it in coverage for free.
Many people, myself among them, noted that this was really a difference without a distinction. Myself and many others argued also that the core of the issue was not birth control, nor was it religious freedom. The core of the issue was individual liberty and the desire of the Obama Administration to be free of the constraints of the Constitution.
The left then worked hard to portray opposition to the birth control mandate as a war against birth control, a distraction which was effectively countered by those of us who argued that they do not oppose birth control, they just don't want to pay for someone else's.
The left raised the distraction stakes by trying to position opposition to the administration's assault on individual liberty as a "War on Women." They trotted out a political activist student who chose to go to a Catholic run university precisely to agitate on this issue. They held a press conference staged to look like a congressional hearing and the woman argued that she and her fellow Georgetown Law School students were going broke paying for birth control because the Catholic run university they chose to attend did not provide it for free.
Then Rush Limbaugh either stepped in it or pulled a masterful prank and the issue was transformed once again. This time as a battle of incivility. As it stands now, conservatives may actually be winning that battle. But it begs the question have they forgotten about the war?
The dictate of the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services that is an affront to the First Amendment and an assault on individual liberty still stands.
Conservatives may yet succeed in forcing the Obama SuperPac to give back or give to charity the million dollars they got from Bill Maher. And if they do it will be a win for the cause of civility and at least for a while there might actually be less of a double standard.
But as long as the HHS edict that started it all still stands we are all less free. That is something about which we should be very much less than civil.
UPDATE: Fixed a couple of typos thanks to an Army of Proof Readers.
Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 10:08 AM | Comments (26) | Add Comment
March 02, 2012
My Right to Mental Health
Mental health is just as important as physical health and if healthcare is a right that must mean mental health is a right. Therefore I can claim that my mental health must be maintained and that because securing my mental health is costly, I could go broke paying for it, it should be provided to me for free.
Here's what it would take to secure my peace of mind and make me happy.
| Standard J/24 Base Boat Faired Keel and Rudder finished in Epoxy Primer Topsides in White Gelcoat Single Axle Galvanized Trailer, Lift off Choice of North or Quantum class sails |
$49,900.00 |
| Faired Epoxy Bottom | $3,500.00 |
| Tiller Upgrade to Karl's Boat Shop | $375.00 |
| Spinnaker Pole Upgrade to Carbon Pole | $390.00 |
| Spinnaker Launching Bag (installed) | $150.00 |
| Tacktick Race Master Compass | $999.00 |
| Outboard Motor, Mecury 4hp, 4 stroke, long shaft | $1,085.00 |
| J24 Equipment Package | $450.00 |
| Rudder Cover | $170.00 |
| Keel Cover | $220.00 |
| Tiller Cover | $62.00 |
| Mast Bag with cutouts and zipper | $340.00 |
| Deck cover with skirt | $1,330.00 |
| Rachet Straps (pair) | $45.00 |
| Lifting Strap | $52.00 |
| Tandem Axle Upgrade | $570.00 |
| Bow Stop and Ladder | $190.00 |
| Forward mast Carrier | $85.00 |
| Rear Stabilizing Jack (each) | $75.00 |
| Front Coupler Anti-Theft Lock | $30.00 |
| LED Light Package | $90.00 |
| Tire upgrade to Goodyear Marathon | $170.00 |
| Spare Tire Upgrade and Mount | $215.00 |
| Float Off Upgrade with Brakes | $1,275.00 |
| Total |
$60,868 |
Club membership and regatta fees will be another additional $5,000 per year. I will also require a vehicle with adequate towing capacity that's another $30,000. Associated taxes and insurances probably another $10,000 per year.
If it's not too much trouble, I'd like the hull to be blue.
Thank you.
P.S. Do this for me and I promise to name the boat Fluke.
Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 09:18 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
February 20, 2012
Redefining the GOP
Acronyms are great. Not only do they make typing less work for the typing challenged and the lazy, they make it easier for the creatively minded to mock a given institution by decoding the acronym in words other than originally intended. Take for instance the GOP. It would be hell to have to repeatedly type Grand Old Party - and it would quickly sound absurd as well. It does however lend itself to new and inventive meanings.
Today GOP stands for Grandly Obtuse Party.
The One and his healthcare commissar, Kathleen Sebelious, announced that religious institutions outside of actual houses of worship would be compelled to pay for insurance providing employees with birth control and abortifacients. Things their religious beliefs hold as immoral. When there was strong objection to this, they deemed that such institutions would not have to pay for this coverage, but that insurance companies would have to provide the coverage for free. Pretty much everyone on the planet could see that this amounted to six of one or a half dozen of the other. So people continued to object to the violation of religious freedom.
Then the left, i.e. the administration and their media allies, sprung their trap and turned the issue into a debate about the morality of birth control. They began to shriek and wail the Republicans wanted to ban contraceptives. And the Grandly Obtuse Party fell for it and began discussing the morality of birth control.
The debate about the evisceration of the First Amendment is over and we are now discussing the morality of condoms and the pill. The Left has given the Right a can of paint and brush and the Right has obligingly painted themselves into a corner.
The left wants a debate about birth control. They do not want a debate about the Constitutional protection of the right to exercise one's faith freely. They know they will win the condom debate. They know they will lose the freedom debate.
They know if the issue remains focused on religious freedom before long some brilliant commentator will offer the paraphrase:
First they came for the religious freedom of the Catholics,and I did not speak out because I wasn't a Catholic …
Conservatives need to escape the trap. They need to remind everyone that this is not a fight about birth control but a fight for individual liberty and a Constitutionally limited government.
Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting free exercise thereof …
Allow the destruction of freedom for one and you accept the destruction of liberty for all.
Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 11:43 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
February 15, 2012
Editing Jim Carney
At Hot Air this morning I read this quote from White House Press Secretary Jim Carney:
I think it must just be a bad transcript. There is a lot missing. So I feel it is my obligation to fill in the gaps just to clarify the point he was trying to make.‘Let’s be clear about what’s at stake,’ said Carney. ‘The proposal being considered in the Senate applies to all employers — not just religious employers. And it isn’t limited to contraception. Any employer could restrict access to any service they say they object to. That is dangerous and it is wrong. Decisions about medical care should be made by a woman and her doctor, not a woman and her boss.’
I hope this helps to clarify the statement for the White House on this issue.‘Let’s be clear about what’s at stake,’ said Carney. ‘The proposal being considered in the Senate applies to all employers — not just religious employers. And it isn’t limited to contraception. Any employer could be free to restrict access to not pay for any service they say they object to and people would be free to decide if they wished to work for that employer or not. That Such Freedom is dangerous and it is wrong. Decisions about medical care should not be made by a woman and her doctor, not or a woman and her boss but by the President and the Director of Health and Human Services.’
Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 12:57 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
TANSTAAFL
The headline is an acronym from the Robert Heinlein novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. It stands for "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch" and its original meaning was that you can't get something for nothing.
As the tyranny of government interference in our lives continues to grow we learn the new meaning of TANSTAAFL.
If as a parent I choose to send my child to school with two slices of cold pizza, a bag of Dorittos and a Kool-Aid it is none of the government's damned business. If I choose to provide my child a snack of carrot sticks or a Snickers Bar, it is none of the government's damned business.The mother, who doesn’t wish to be identified at this time, says she made her daughter a lunch that contained a turkey and cheese sandwich, a banana, apple juice and potato chips. A state inspector assessing the pre-K program at the school said the girl also needed a vegetable, so the inspector ordered a full school lunch tray for her. While the four-year-old was still allowed to eat her home lunch, the girl was forced to take a helping of chicken nuggets, milk, a fruit and a vegetable to supplement her sack lunch.
You so often hear public officials who oppose such incidents of tyranny ascribe "well meaning" intentions and motivations to the tyrants. I've heard it said often in regard to the imposition of ObamaCare.
Every time you hear that you should call it what it is, Bullshit.
Anyone who believes that they have the power to make your choices for you and applies that power with the full coercive force of government does not have good intentions and is not well meaning.
Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 06:17 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
February 12, 2012
Obama's War
I have been following the Obama administration's decision to force religious institutions to provide insurance coverage that violates their fundamental beliefs. The initial edict was that such institutions must pay to provide this coverage to their employees. Then they decreed a "compromise" that said religious institutions don't have to pay for the coverage to which they have a moral objection but that the insurance companies must include that coverage for free. It's not really much of a compromise. It's kind of like saying if you don't like 2+2=4 then we'll go with 2x2 instead.
One of the most troubling aspects of the whole issue is the focus of the debate and criticism on "Obama's War on Religion," or more specifically "Obama's War on Catholics." This belies a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation. This is not Obama's war on religion or Catholics, this is the religious/Catholic front in Obama's War on the Constitution.
In his own words:
"The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And to that extent, as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, as least as it’s been interpreted, and Warren Court interpreted in the same way that, generally, the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties, says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. And that hasn’t shifted."
Obama added, "one of the, I think, the tragedies of the civil rights movement, was because the civil rights movement became so court focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change, and in some ways, we still stuffer from that."
The President finds the Constitution that he swore to protect and defend a too restrictive collection of "negative liberties." Explaining quite succinctly the argument for Constitutionally limited government. he notes the Constitution says what the government can't do to you, and that is the point. It places "essential constraints" on the government. Constraints that Obama does not like.
If your goal was to eliminate the essential constraints of the Constitution so that the government was free to do whatever it wanted whenever it wanted, how would you do it?
A full frontal assault would generate a backlash that would make the Tea Party look like … a tea party. To borrow the President's budget metaphor you don't go after the Constitution with a chainsaw, you use a scalpel.
The wedge issue the administration has chosen is Sex. Positioned by the administration as access to preventive health measures. Birth control will prevent unwanted pregnancy and in the case of condoms prevent the spread of sexually transmitted disease. Who, aside from a few old-fashioned rigid religious believers, is against Safe Sex?
But safe sex is not the issue. And health is not the goal. The target is to draw a line through that clause of the First Amendment that reads, … or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Succeeding in that, destroys not just the First amendment, but blows a big hole in the essential constraints of the Constitution.
That is what the Obama administration is trying to accomplish.
That is what we must fight.
ABO 2012.
Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 09:16 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
February 05, 2012
Congress Shall Make No Law
I spent some time exploring a few atheist web sites curious to see what they had to say about the Obama administration forcing religious organizations to provide medical services they morally oppose.
The administration has issued a ruling that under ObamaCare all employers, including religious organizations, must provide health insurance that includes coverage for contraceptives and abortifacients.
The atheists, at least those who organize politically around their atheism, claim to be fighting to protect First Amendment rights. They focus (obsess?) on that clause of the the First Amendment that says the government shall not establish a religion.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…
They use that language as the basis for protesting and filing law suits against having the language "In God We Trust" on our money and the phrase "One Nation, Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. They want "freedom from religion" and are offended by any expression of any faith by any level of government.
Now the government is trampling the First Amendment protected right to freely practice religion.
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
The government is attempting to dictate the contents of faith and practice of religions organizations.
And from the atheists?
Silence.
If there is a politically organized group of people who should be outraged at this action, it should be these people.
They claim to be fighting for the Constitutionally protected freedom from a government imposed religion, but remain silent about a government infringement on the free practice of religion.
If you can fight with righteous indignation for one clause of the the First Amendment, then ignore the government trampling the very next clause, you are the worst kind of hypocrite there is, and a complete idiot with no understanding of the meaning of rights and freedom.
Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 07:07 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
February 04, 2012
Real Aching and Virtual Sailing
In non-political personal news my virtual yacht, the Hold the Mayo, has finished leg three of the Volvo Ocean Race Game. This was an interesting and challenging leg from Abu Dhabi to Sayna, China. There were a couple of large open water passages, which don't seem to be my strong suit and a couple of close to shore sections where I did much better.
I did fairly well sailing out of the Persian Gulf. Exiting the Gulf of Oman I was in the 5,000s and very happy. It didn't last as I chose a more northerly route across the Arabian Sea and by the time I past the turning mark at the southern tip if Sri Lanka I was up around 20,000, and not very happy. (Even though that represented a comeback from being as high as 32,000)
The passage across the Bay of Bengal was pretty straight forward. In fact I set of heading of 90° and left it there all the way across until I had to maneuver to pass the rounding mark at the top of the Malacca Straight. in about 12,000th place.
As usual I did much better sailing in the narrow passage between Indonesia and Malaysia. By the time I exited the bottom of the straight I had fought my way back to the high 8,000s.
I continued to do well sailing up the coast of Vietnam and crossed the finish line in 7,818th place. There are currently 177,866 boats in the race so I greatly exceeded my goal of finishing in the top 10%. I have to wait for the other 170,000 boats to finish (or they declare the race over) to find out what my overall rank is. After the first two legs I am 5,033.
As for the real aching mentioned in the headline, we enrolled the boy child in a Taekwondo program. To help make it more fun for him, and to provide more motivation, we signed up for the parent and child class. This morning was our first class. There are two different movie quotes that can sum up the experience. On the way to the class it was from Star Wars: "I've got a bad feeling about this." On the way home it was Lethal Weapon. Not because I learned some mad ninja skills on the first day, but because: "I'm getting to old for this shit."
Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 11:48 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
January 28, 2012
The Problem With Romney
I have repeated it often, but I'll say it again. I don't like any of the current Republican candidates for President, but I like them all better than the socialist in the White House today.
Of all the GOP candidates, I have particular disdain for Mitt Romney the reason for which was perfectly encapsulated in the most recent of the endless series of primary debates.
Rick Santorum, about whom I remain utterly apathetic, went hard after Romney for RomneyCare and its individual mandate. I like that Santorum went after this issue. It should be a huge red flag (with a hammer and sickle?) for every conservative voter who thinks of Romney as "electable."
Santorum gets to heart of what I have said about Romney all along:
"Think about what that means going up against Barack Obama ... You are going to claim [about the Affordable Care Act], ‘Well, it doesn’t work and we should repeal.’ And he’s going to say, ‘Wait a minute, governor. You said it works well in Massachusetts.’ Folks—we can’t give this issue away in this election. It is about fundamental freedom ... It’s going to be on your ballot as to whether there should be a government mandate here in Florida. According to Governor Romney, that’s OK.”
Here's a video of the exchange.
The problem with Romney:
"First of all it's not worth getting angry about."
Apparently Mitt doesn't view government mandated heath insurance as an issue of fundamental freedom. Apparently he doesn't see de facto government control of the entire healthcare and health insurance industries as an issue of fundamental freedom. Apparently he's just fine with all that. Apparently he has missed that whole thing we call the Tea Party which consists of a very large number of voters who are very angry about ObamaCare and its erosion of liberty.
He opposes and pledges to repeal ObamaCare because it plays well in a speech. Not because he has any philosophical or moral opposition to the idea of ObamaCare. His argument in this response that 98% of the people in Massachusetts already had insurance so not much changed is a meaningless dodge of the issue.
First of all if 98% of the state's population had insurance, why enact legislation that infringes the liberty of all, to deal with the 2%?
But most importantly, Mr. Romney, it is not a matter of math and percentages. It is a matter of Individual Liberty. And if you don't see that as something worthy of getting angry about, you're no better than the man you seek to replace.
Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 10:15 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
January 20, 2012
What if The GOP Loses?
In the wake of the Tea Party limited government wave in the 2010 election the GOP primaries are a bit of a disappointment.
Romney is a supporter and advocate of government run healthcare. That he thinks, for now, it should be the states running healthcare and not the federal government is a difference without a distinction. And I say for "for now" because the man seems entirely bereft of core principles.
Gingrich is an unprincipled, ethically and morally challenged bombast who though he occasionally makes sense, just as often leaves me scratching my head asking WTF? He also likes government solutions to everything, as long as they're his government solutions.
Rick Santorum is a party politician. That is all he is. He is not a leader. He is not a thinker. He is a politician. In my book that makes him slime.
Crazy old Ron Paul? I like his fiscal policy of don't spend any money you don't have. Unfortunately that same idea is the core of his foreign policy and it leads him to some outright looney positions. Positions that seem to be based entirely on short-term budget savings, but with no reference to what those policies might mean in the real world.
Republicans have managed to narrow the field down to this entirely uninspiring foresome, along the way reminding me of why I am not card carrying member of the Republican Party.
To borrow phrase from another GOP also ran, here's my unconventional endorsement. I unabashedly and whole heartedly support whomever the GOP nominates to run against The One.
I will support Romney despite RomneyCare. I will support Gingrich despite everything. I will support the party politician Rick Santorum. I will support Crazy Old Ron Paul despite his misguided isolationism.
There is simply too much at stake. Another four years of an administration that rules with complete disdain for its subjects and utter disregard for the Constitution is something from which we as a nation might never recover.
If The One wins reelection there will be no chance of repealing the federal takeover of healthcare.
If the example of Kelo v New London is any indication we cannot necessarily rely on the Supreme Court to uphold the Constitution and protect individual liberty from the rapaciousness of government's quest for power.
ObamaCare includes not only the liberty killing "individual mandate" but panels of government bureaucrats whose job will be to review healthcare treatments and determine if they are cost effective. Government will be involved with, if not directly making, every healthcare decision for every individual in the country.
Those individuals, all of us, will have no say in who is making those decisions. The One has clearly shown his complete disregard for the advice and consent authority of the Senate. The Constitution clearly states that one house of the Congress cannot be in recess without the consent of the other. The House of Representatives did not consent to a Senate recess over the Christmas and New Year holidays, therefore Constitutionally the Senate was not in recess. The One decided that since that interfered with his wishes he would simply ignore the law and the Constitution and make "Recess Appointments." The Constitution be damned he will have his way.
We cannot survive four more years of a lawless and unconstitutional government.
I don't have a high level of confidence that electing any of the current GOP hopefuls would result in reducing the scope and reach of the federal government. I would be pleasently surprised if they managed to stop its growth. Much more likely we will see what we always see, that once elected their need to go along to get along will result in merely a slowing of the rate of government expansion.
A second term for The One, however, would mean full steam ahead and don't look back at "what it once was like in America when men were free."
Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 07:06 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
January 07, 2012
Virtually Sailing Around the World
Leg two of the Virtual Volvo Ocean race is complete. Cape Town South Africa to Abu Dhabi.
At times I was feeling poorly about my prospects. It is hard sometimes to pick a strategy and stick to it while your position in the fleet keeps getting worse and worse. But there is a valuable lesson to be learned in keeping to a long-term plan instead of going for the quick easy short term gain. Still, doubt creeps in when you see yourself fall to 48,000th place!
I stopped looking at leg rank and forced myself to focus on the weather, both current and forecast. THe point was not to be as close to the lead as possible sailing past Madagascar, but to be as close as possible to the lead at the finish line.
I knew for the start of the whole virtual adventure that winning a leg was probably not in the cards. I don't have the time to do nothing but virtually sail around the world. I wanted to finish as many legs as possible and the whole even in the top 10%. It's a goal that keeps getting easier, in part because more people keep joining the race!
My finish in Abu Dhabi? 9,089 with a total of 164,478 boats competing.
My current standing after two legs: 14,594. I'd love to get this number under 10k.
Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 09:40 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
December 31, 2011
Another Year Older and Deeper In Debt
The year is over. I just had a birthday. That means it's time for quiet reflection and evaluation.
Or not.
With very little fanfare and an appalling lack of public awareness, let alone outrage, the public debt of the United States recently exceeded the U.S. Gross Domestic Product. Let that sink in for a moment. The national debt is now larger than the value of every good and service produced in the nation.
Upset yet?
The President is about to ask the Congress to increase the U.S. debt limit by $1.2 trillion, raising the "limit" $16.4 trillion. Congress is expected to approve this increase. And even if in a rare spasm of fiscal sanity they vote down the increase, the President has the authority to veto their disapproval.
Angry yet?
The Socialist solution to this is to raise taxes on the wealthy. They argue that if the wealthy pay their "Fair Share" the problem will be solved. Not quite. If the federal government seized every penny of wealth from those on the Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans the $1.5 trillion they got would do little more than cover that debt limit increase.
Dismayed yet?
When Congress gets around to budget issues, this is how it goes. (I'm using made up numbers.) The left wants to increase spending by 6%. The right says "no way" and proposes increasing spending by only 3%. The left screams and howls about how the uncaring right is slashing government and how people will suffer. They then reach a bipartisan agreement to increase spending by 4.5% with a promise to reduce spending in the future. The right crows about how much they "saved" and the left continues to howl about how much people will suffer from the draconian spending cuts. THEY DO NOT CUT SPENDING. EVER.
Angry yet?
A debt is an obligation to pay. How are we going to pay back the $15 trillion we currently owe if we're about to up that limit to $16.4 trillion? The answer is we can't. Certainly not as long as we continue to pile up massive annual deficits. The only options we have are to massively inflate the currency and pay our creditors with worthless dollars, or just simply not pay. Cutting spending to a level at which we can begin to buy back the debt is not something we as a nation appear to be willing to contemplate.
Consider your own life. What would happen if you decided that you were going to pay your mortgage or your car loan with Monopoly money or just not pay at all. Your creditors would come after you and seize the assets. One of our largest foreign creditors is Communist China. A nuclear power that recently launched it's first aircraft carrier. We owe them $1.16 trillion. OPEC nations, on whom we remain dependent for energy, currently hold a combined $229.8 billion in U.S. government securities. How do you think they will react when we stiff them on that debt?
Worried Yet?
As a nation we have been riding the gravy train of government social welfare systems for decades. We're quickly running out of track, and the derailment will not be pretty.
Do you care?
Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 10:36 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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