Obama Gets It: It's the Morality, Stupid

Guest post by Jeff Perren

Like most shrewd Democrats, one reason Obama,usually wipes the floors with Republicans is that he unashamedly defends his positions from a moral point of view.

In another biased editorial masquerading as a news report, the LA Times lays out this one gem:

"This is not just a numbers debate," Obama said Thursday in Philadelphia. "This is a values debate."

Would that the Republican leadership understood that – and had the courage to fight back the right way.

Instead of endlessly talking about jobs, haggling over deficit reduction numbers and the like, Republicans should be talking about what the Federal government should and should not be doing. Mostly the latter.
They'll only make substantial progress when they're willing to declare, as even the generally head-and-shoulders-above Rep. Ryan does not, an important moral truth: that Social Security and Medicare aren't just absurdly expensive, they're morally wrong.

No rational moral argument could justify taking from some citizens to support others, particularly at the Federal level. No taxpayer in Illinois has the moral obligation to support another in Idaho, no matter how much I might need it. Theft is considered wrong in almost every moral code adopted in the past 2,500 years.

While Progressives sometimes lose debates over economics, they've been winning the culture war for a long time, and will continue to win because of this very reason. Only if — and it's a very big if — Republicans will confidently come out in favor of self-reliance as a moral imperative, and in favor of charity as a marginal, personal matter, only then will the welfare state get significantly shrunk.

No, I'm not holding my breath, either.

Lying Muslims and Useful Idiots

Guest post by Jeff Perren

Some Muslim Brotherhood spokesman named Abdel Moneim Abou el-Fotouh has been given a megaphone by The Washington Post to lie magnificently declare:

  For Muslims, ideological differences with others are taught not to be the root cause of violence and bloodshed because a human being's freedom to decide how to lead his or her personal life is an inviolable right found in basic Islamic tenets.

Uh, huh. Tell that to the relatives of the dead 14-year old girl in Bangladesh who was whipped to death by authorities for the 'crime' of being raped. Oh, wait. They won't care, because it was one of their own who perpetrated the crime, then informed the authorities about her 'sin'.

The heroic Andrew C. McCarthy tells the story as an example of how sharia operates in the real world, no matter what its apologists might say.

In Bangladesh a 14-year-old girl named Hena was raped by a 40-year-old man, Mahbub, who is described in a report as her “relative.” Apparently — the report is not clear on how this happened — the matter was brought to the attention of the sharia authorities in her village of Shariatpur.
    You’d think this was a good thing … except, in Islam, rape cannot be proved absent four witnesses — i.e., it’s virtually impossible to establish that what happened happened. That’s a dangerous thing for the victim — deadly dangerous in this instance — because if she has had sexual relations outside marriage but cannot prove she has been raped, she is deemed to have committed a grave sin.
    In Hena’s case, the sharia authorities ordered that she be given 100 lashes. The young girl never made it through 80; she fell unconscious and died from the whipping.

Sure, it would be easy to dismiss this incident as just another savage act by the savages who occupy an unfortunate amount of land in the world. That's not the point, at least not the main one. The point is that there is a deep – but by now very obvious — connection between barbarism like this and the ideology that makes them possible.

So long as useful idiots like those at The Washington Post continue to provide a neutral platform for these thugs, and for both parties to be allowed to pretend we all just have reasonable differences of opinion, this sort of thing will continue to plague those far outside Bangladesh.

The Virtues Required for Freedom

Guest post by Jeff Perren

In general I”m not a fan of Friedrich Hayek. I think he surrenders far too much to Progressives and Pragmatists. But he had some things of value to say. In particular, this gem from The Road to Serfdom:

There is one aspect of the change in moral values brought about by the advance of collectivism which at the present time provides special food for thought. It is that the virtues which are held less and less in esteem and which consequently become rarer are precisely those on which the British people justly prided themselves and in which they were generally agreed to excel.
    The virtues possessed by Anglo-Saxons in a higher degree than most other people, excepting only a few of the smaller nations, like the Swiss and the Dutch, were independence and self-reliance, individual initiative and local responsibility, the successful reliance on voluntary activity, noninterference with one’s neighbor and tolerance of the different and queer, respect for custom and tradition, and a healthy suspicion of power and authority.

The cultural decay represented by the withering of those virtues is almost as true of America today as it was of Britain in the 1950s. (That latter makes it all the more remarkable that Hayek saw this in 1944.)

America itself won't come back unless those virtues again become dominant and are as celebrated as they were a hundred years ago.

Still, I'm not completely pessimistic. If anyone can restore them to popularity, it would be the American people themselves. After all, Progressives may currently dominate all but two of the major cultural transmission belts, but are in fact a small percentage of the population. So was the aristocracy of Britain (and their sycophants) in the 18th century and we managed to rid ourselves of them. Maybe we'll do so again with the current crop who believe themselves anointed to rule us.

Paying Debt With More Debt

Guest Post by Jeff Perren

U.S. Debt 1940-2010

The U.S. Government is staring into the maw of its self-made debt crisis. This week, it crosses a Rubicon—or would like to. As Tad de Haven at Cato explains:

The [U.S. Government’s] present debt limit is $14.3 trillion, and total outstanding debt subject to the limit currently stands at just under $14 trillion. Given that policymakers don’t have the will to cut spending immediately in order to keep the debt from hitting the limit, a political battle over raising it is unfolding.
    The Obama administration is basically warning that congressional (i.e., Republican) intransigence over raising the limit could potentially lead to the federal government defaulting on its debt, because it needs to borrow money in order to make its debt payments…

Borrowing money in order to make its debt payments. Once again we see that something the U.S. Federal Government does routinely, if practiced by a private individual (Bernie Madoff, say), would be seen as financial suicide.

The Feds get away with it, of course. You and I (and Bernie) don't, of course, because unlike the government we can't force others to pay our debts — not without going to jail, that is.

Say, that gives me an idea...

The History of the Yo-Yo

Guest post by Jeff Perren

One of my favorite pastimes is reading about inventions. About.com has a good, short article on the surprisingly long and colorful history of the Yo-Yo.

Enjoy!

They have been around for over twenty-five hundred years... Around 1800, the yoyo moved into Europe from the Orient...
     It is a Tagalog word, the native language of the Philippines, and means "come back." In the Philippines, the yoyo was used as a weapon for over 400 hundred years. Their version was large with sharp edges and studs and attached to thick twenty-foot ropes for flinging at enemies or prey...
    Modern inventor Donald] Duncan's first contribution to yo-yo technology was the slip string, consisting of a sliding loop around the axle instead of a knot. With this revolutionary improvement, the yo-yo could do a trick called "sleep" for the first time…

More Gangster Government From Obama's Thugs

Guest Post by Jeff Perren

One of the distinctive characteristics of gangster "business operations" is to make up the rules as they go along. Gangster government does something similar when they ignore courts and Congress and simply go on as if neither had said anything.

One more instance in a long line of that in the U.S. occurred with the recent declaration by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) of the Orwellian-named "net neutrality" rules. I wrote an article some time ago explaining how any such rules necessarily violate property rights and the right of free trade. Peter Ferrara now demonstrates in an American Spectator essay how Obama's thugs are proceeding Chavez-like to demonstrate how much they truly don't care about that.

On April 6, 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in Comcast Corp. v. Federal Communications Commission that the FCC does not have the power to issue net neutrality regulation. ...
    Rejecting that reasoning in an opinion written by one of the Circuit's more liberal Judges, David Tatel, the Court had to remind the FCC that "administrative agencies may act only pursuant to authority delegated to them by Congress."
    The Court said regarding the FCC's reasoning, "if accepted it would virtually free the Commission from its congressional tether." The Court added that "without reference to the provisions of the [FCC's governing] Act directly governing broadcasting, the Commission's ancillary jurisdiction would be unbounded."
    Indeed, the FCC's lawyers suggested to the Court in oral argument that in the agency's view it already has the power to impose price controls and rate regulation on Internet service providers and broadband operators.
    Yet, the FCC just flouts this decision in going ahead and issuing its net neutrality regulations by rulemaking last week.

If there is any good option at this stage for businessmen — and for us, who trade with them — other than simply ignoring the law, I can't think what it might be. It's either that or passive acquiescence to tyranny.

We in America are now ruled, in fact, by petty dictators unbounded by anything but resource limitations in enforcing their Progressive whims.

A Thanksgiving Day lesson in political philosophy

Guest Post by Jeff Perren.


Possibly you've read the story of how the Jamestown pilgrims nearly starved their first two years in America, and what saved them. In 1620, half the population of the Plymouth Colony died during its first harsh winter. The second half was close do doing so but...

the fall of 1623 marked the end of Plymouth’s debilitating food shortages.
For the last two planting seasons, the Pilgrims had grown crops communally – the approach first used at Jamestown and other English settlements. But as the disastrous harvest of the previous fall had shown, something drastic needed to be done to increase the annual yield.
In April, [William] Bradford [leader of the colony] had decided that each household should be assigned its own plot to cultivate, with the understanding that each family kept whatever it grew. The change in attitude was stunning. Families were now willing to work much harder than they had ever worked before.
In previous years, the men had tended the fields while the women tended the children at home. “The women now went willingly into the field,” Bradford wrote, “and took their little ones with them to set corn.” The Pilgrims had stumbled on the power of capitalism. Although the fortunes of the colony still teetered precariously in the years ahead, the inhabitants never again starved.

It's only one data point, but a characteristic one. The pattern has been repeated countless times in dozens of countries over centuries now. Yet, almost 400 years later, we're still debating Progressives about the practicality of Capitalism vs [Communism/Socialism/Social Democracy/You-name-it-ism].

Clearly, economic facts alone are not going to decide the issue. Progressives are immune. Time to ramp up the moral crusade. Time to declare that even if, contrary to all history, Paul PoorGuy winds up much poorer than Peter Privileged, it's still wrong to force Peter to support Paul.

When we start to make progress on that front, I'll be truly thankful.

[Hat tip: Daniel Griswold of Cato for the selection from "Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathanial Philbrick."]

Conservatives Misread Lomborg's "Cool It"

Guest post by Jeff Perren

Several recent conservative commentaries offer a sympathetic review of Bjorn Lomborg's global warming documentary "Cool It."

These well-mannered gentlemen have been snookered.

According to the approving Spectator story, "Mr. Lomborg's thesis is straightforward: Global warming is real and humanity needs to do something about it."

PC has provided countless links pointing to data that radically undermine the scientific portion of that thesis. In the past ten years it's been exposed as incoherent, evidentially weak, and often supported by outright fraud.

The policy portion is even worse. The idea that "we" should do anything about the climate - beyond leaving individuals free to adapt to any changes that occur - is the fatal flaw in Dr. Lomborg's argument. No matter what we discover about the physics of the Earth, the politics of the world — not to mention human nature — make it clear that capitalism is the best cure... if there were any problem to solve.

Lomborg may be more skeptical and slightly less statist than many of his fellow Greens, but he still accepts their basic views. He's still committed to Comtean altruism, Roussean environmentalism, and garden-variety collectivism. He still touts a highly dubious hypothesis to justify them. Running around Africa crying over the poor doesn't change any of that.

Bjorn Lomborg is more dangerous than Al Gore precisely because he appears (and is) more moderate. Obvious con men like Gore expose their own racket before long. It's those who are more apparently reasonable - but still opposed to individualism and freedom - who do most of the damage today. Smiley-faced fascism is still fascist. Nanny may intend to be kind, but it's still unwise to give her $100 Billion of taxpayer funds and the power of the State in order to 'do good'.

Which Way Now, America?

Guest Post by Jeff Perren

At Breitbart’s “Big Government” site I offer a few words on the implications of the recent election results for the future of freedom in America.

There’s much good news from the elections, but first let me wet blanket some of the fires of enthusiasm. Republican majority or Democrat, it remains the case that so long as the Dept of Health and Human Services, the EPA, the Federal Reserve, and the like still exist the Federal government will continue to do great harm. That will still be true even if a better-than-Reagan Republican wins in 2012.
    Now, for the election analysis — including lots of good news from the events of Nov. 2.
    There’s no doubt the American electorate in many, many places rejected the Obama-Pelosi-Reid anti-Constitutional approach to government, i.e. Progressivism.
    That’s clear, even though the Republican pickup in the Senate was disappointing, especially with the re-election of Harry Reid. Take a look at Republican gains in the State legislatures: 650-700 seats, compared to 505 in 1994. That’s huge.
    There’s bad news to be sure...

Read the rest here...

The accompanying graphic alone makes it worth a look. About that, one commenter said (paraphrasing): "Go one way and you walk off a cliff, the other leads to freedom. Keep going straight and you smash into a wall."

Wish I'd said that.

Thanks,

Jeff

P.S. I also highly recommend Dr. Paul Hsieh's article at Pajamas Media: GOP, Dance With the One Who Brung You. It wasn't Paul's (or my) intention, but I think the two are very complementary.

As he makes starkly clear, it will be vital for the Republicans to follow up on their (admittedly, weak-tea) promises to enlarge freedom in America. That's vital both for their viability as an alternative political party, and our futures—if we Americans are to have one as free citizens.

Jeff Perren Radio Interview Rescheduled For Oct 29

Guest Post by Jeff Perren

As promised, my radio interview with Jon David Wells has been rescheduled. Same time, new date.

I'm slated to appear on The Wells Report at KSKY radio (660 AM), this Friday, Oct. 29 (Thursday, Oct 28 in the U.S.) at 11:20 am NZ (6:20 pm ET, 5:20 pm CT, 4:20 pm MT, 3:20 pm Pacific). The show broadcasts from the Dallas/Ft. Worth area in Texas.

Here's a link to listen in. I hope you will. [Click the red "Listen Live" button near the top of the main text, roughly in the middle of the screen.]

We'll be talking about my recent Pajamas Media article, Beyond Politics: Removing the Progressive Drag On America, and presumably other things as well. It promises to be lively, since I'll no doubt be asked my suggestions for how to straighten out the mess the U.S. is in.

And it’s a big mess.

Your suggestions are also welcome.

Thanks,
Jeff

National Public Radio's Contradictions

Guest Post by Jeff Perren

The news has gone around the world about the sacking of former American National Public (NPR) radio contributor Juan Willams for these comments about Muslims and political correctness on Fox News...

NPR is America’s equivalent of Radio New Zealand, with everything that implies. With that in mind, it’s not hard to see why saying anything as innocuous as “Muslims make me nervous when I fly” in pubilc is for them the equivalent of an act of constructive resignation.

NPR's moral failures go far beyond firing Juan Williams for a politically incorrect remark. It's deeper than being irked over his appearances on allegedly right-wing Fox News.

NPR's head, like Progressives everywhere, is caught in the contradictions of subjectivism. Faux liberals that they are, they preach tolerance for everything - because according to their ethical philosophy there are no objective principles of morality - then display intolerance for a remark they regard as "inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices.”

There's no way out of this inconsistency for a faux liberal. It's built into the basic fiber from which the Progressive cloth is cut.

Not content with the NPR head getting herself into hot water by publicly remarking that Williams should've "consulted his psychiatrist" before making the statement, NPR's Ombudsman doubled down on the lunacy.

In a story headlined: "NPR's Firing of Juan Williams Was Poorly Handled" the lying fence-sitter said:

Juan Williams once again got himself into trouble with NPR for comments he made at
his other job, at Fox News.

Right. His firing was "poorly handled" but he really did bring it on himself.

She tripled the foolish factor by adding:

Instead, this latest incident with Williams centers around a collision of values: NPR's values emphasizing fact-based, objective journalism versus the tendency in some parts of the news media, notably Fox News, to promote only one side of the ideological spectrum.

That's rich. NPR is objective but Fox is biased. Um, NPR proudly upholds Progressive values (a fact favorably noted by over a third of its listeners as one reason they tune in). Those values are entirely the opposite of fact-based and by definition are not objective. Progressivism's core epistemology comes from Pragmatism, whose central premise is there's no such thing as objective anything.

Apart from all that blatant hypocrisy, the firing of Juan Williams shows that contemporary liberals never mean anything they say about black people.

Here, a black liberal gets fired for making a mild comment about Muslims. (One that even moderate Muslims in this country would agree with if they weren't too scared to speak up, and one he even qualified to nullity later in the same program.) But since blacks no longer have it institutionally bad in this country, they've outlived their usefulness to white race hustlers like Vivian Schiller. So, Muslims are now the au courant 'oppressed' group that faux-liberals can drool all over with their faux sympathy.

If it should come to pass someday that this idiotic series of wars finally comes to an end - contrary to Gen. Petraeus' belief — then Muslims will settle into being just another group whose more vocal self-appointed spokesmen yammer about their victimhood. Then there will no doubt be some new convenient 'oppressed' group that so-called liberals can use to undermine individual freedom.

Of course, the real outrage here is not chiefly the depressingly familiar hypocrisy of yet another Progressive, but that NPR - a (partly) taxpayer funded news and editorial radio program - exists in the first place. Let them compete in the open market and they can be as intolerant - and embrace as many contradictions - as they like.

Jeff Perren Interviewed On KSKY Dallas Radio, Oct. 23 [updated]

Guest Post by Jeff Perren

I'm scheduled to be interviewed by Jon David Wells of KSKY radio 660 AM, this Friday, Oct. 22 (that’s Sat. Oct 23 in New Zealand). It broadcasts from the Dallas/Ft. Worth area in Texas, but you can listen in online.

We'll be talking about my recent Pajamas Media article, “Beyond Politics: Removing the Progressive Drag On America,” and presumably other things, for 20 minutes.

It's scheduled to begin at 6:20 pm ET [5:20 pm CT, 4:20 pm MT, 3:20 pm Pacific, about 11:20am NZ Time].

Here's a link to listen in. I hope you will. [Click the red "Listen Live" button near the top of the main text, roughly in the middle of the screen.]

It promises to be lively, since I'll no doubt be asked my suggestions for how to straighten out the mess the U.S. is in.

Your suggestions welcome.

Thanks,
Jeff

UPDATE:  Hi Everyone,
As often happens with these things, the radio interview is to be rescheduled. Once the publicist for Pajamas Media lets me know, I'll advertise the new date/time.
Thanks to all those who sent congratulatory emails (and all those who didn't, too; I know you're busy).
I'll update you when I know more.

All the Best,
Jeff
Shaving Leviathan
http://shavingleviathan.blogspot.com

The Risk of Republican Betrayal

Guest Post by Jeff Perren

My new article at Pajamas Media, “The Risk of Post-Election Republican Betrayal,” is hot off the presses. It notes:

There’s been a sea change in the U.S., much quicker and more substantial than liberty lovers might have expected as recently as a year ago. Yet for some of us, it’s hard to escape a nagging question.

And asks:

What happens after January when the new congressional
session begins … ?

Answers at Pajamas Media.

Jeff

McDonald's ObamaCare Waiver Violates Rule of Law

Guest Post by Jeff Perren

Please pop over to Breitbart's Big Government and read my newest article, a short commentary on McDonald's grant of a waiver to avoid some of ObamaCare's mandates.

It begins:

In a blatantly unconstitutional move, the Feds have let McDonald’s off the hook from some of ObamaCare’s requirements. This violation of the Equal Protection clause is just one more reminder, as if we needed it, that D.C. is now completely ignoring the rule of law and deciding issues based on political pressure and pull.

I encourage you to comment, there and here. Especially there.

Thanks,
Jeff

Sebelius Pegs the Irony Meter

Guest Post by Jeff Perren

Commissar Kathleen is at it again. (For my friends nearer the top of the world, she's the Secretary of Health and Human Services, a Cabinet position, and now public enemy #2 on my list.)

Rushing to rationalize her decision to let McDonald's opt out of certain ObamaCare-required actions — violating the U.S. Constitution's Equal Protection clause in the process — she had this to say: "This is a health care model built around the private market," she said. "It might be the salvation of the private market."

I guess she's now joined the George Bush school of capitalism, where you violate it in order to save it.
If nothing else, it demonstrates that Progressives are so far gone, they can't even recognize the distinction between the free market and a fascist one.

How Many Chemistry Nobel Winners Can You Name?

Guest Post by Jeff Perren
 
To round out my Nobel Prize commentary, I highlight the story of this years winners for Chemistry: Richard Heck, Ei-Ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki "for developing a key synthetic technique to make complex organic molecules used in medicine and electronics."
I can't explain what got into the water in Sweden this year, but handing out the prize for "develop[ing] a key synthetic technique for making complex organic molecules used in medicine, agriculture and electronics" was another stroke of right on.
Similar to the Physics Nobel, the researchers earned the award for investigating carbon bonds. As the LA Times story describes it

Among [Heck's] first feats was joining a short carbon chain to a ring of carbon atoms to produce styrene, the raw material of the now widely used plastic polystyrene.
A similar process is also used in the production of the anti-inflammatory drug naproxen, the asthma drug montelukast and the herbicide prosulfuron.
...
One of the most spectacular feats was the 1994 synthesis of a naturally occurring chemical called palytoxin, which was first isolated from a coral in Hawaii in 1971. Palytoxin contains 129 carbon atoms linked in a precise three-dimensional structure that chemists were able to reproduce using the Suzuki reaction.

What's most interesting about this type of research is how even relatively mundane things like this are still part of leading edge science. We've come a long way, but there is still much to be learned, highlighting the importance of the freedom required to let it continue.
And for anyone inclined to give all this a big, fat yawn, I'll try to demonstrate its value with a personal anecdote from just yesterday morning.
I made steak night before last on my stove top grill. This morning, I sprayed the cast-iron surface with fume-free Easy Off and let it sit, where it didn't stink up the kitchen one bit. Less than an hour later, I rinsed it off, wiped it a couple of times with a sponge (no scouring), and I was done. Safe, effortless, and quick.
Multiply that savings of time and effort by a billion people for fifty years worth of days and you have some idea of just how important even ordinary chemistry truly is.
Now consider this: how many politicians names do you know versus how many chemists'? Yeah, me neither.

Why the 10:10 Video Is a Distraction

Guest Post by Jeff Perren

You’ll have seen, or heard, about the 10:10 ads, complete with exploding children, intended by British warmists to “persuade” you to conform.  No pressure.

I invite you to head to Pajamas Media and read my new article on Why the 10:10 Video Is a Distraction.

In it, I argue that the real enemy is much more dangerous, because much more benign looking.

Here's how it begins...

A British group called 10:10.org recently released (then quickly pulled) a viro snuff film. In the video, teachers press a red button to explode schoolchildren reluctant to accept the Green dogma of AGW (anthropogenic global warming) and other environmentalist fairy tales.
    There's no question that the film is revolting and its producers are vicious, no matter how much they try to claim it was intended as humor. Still, the pundits up in arms over it are making a tactical error.

Your comments are invited.

Read the rest here.

Thanks,
Jeff

The Case for Legalizing Capitalism

Guest Post by Jeff Perren

Someone called Kel Kelly, has written a book with the title of the post.

I haven't read it - and given the current length of my reading list it will be 10 years before I can even crack its cover - but I have to salute one of the best book titles I've ever seen.

From the review on Mises.org:

He considers every important topic: banking, education, taxation, labor, environment, trade, war and peace, safety, medicine, drugs, and far more. He presents the reader with a basic explanation of how capitalism is supposed to work and how society functions when commerce is free. He then turns to all the areas of life that are distorted and destroyed by the great "helping hand" of government.

Hmmm... maybe I'll bump this up my reading list.


P.S. Based on a single comment on the review, it sounds as if Mr. Kelly has the usual screwed up views about war and foreign policy. But, then, it is on Mises.org so that's what one would expect. Still, it sounds as if the book might be worthwhile otherwise, and you really can't beat that title.

Commissar Sebelius to the Rescue!

Guest Post by Jeff Perren.

The headline in a recent Wall Street Journal editorial reads: "Health insurers finally get some oversight."

The sub-head continues the theme:

In the past, these companies ran wild
with no accountability.

At least, according to Sec. of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, that is.

She must be right. There is no State Insurance Commissioner in every State of the Union. There aren't thousands of regulations dictating prices, terms of coverage, etc., etc. None of that existed until ObamaCare and the mighty Commissar Kathleen rode to the rescue of the proletariat. Missing her own irony, she lists several of them later in the editorial, including herself (as past commissioner in Kansas).

She begins:

In the last two weeks, my department has been accused of "thuggery" (by this editorial page) and "Soviet tyranny" (by Newt Gingrich). What prompted these accusations? The fact that we told health-insurance companies that, as required by law, we will review large premium increases and identify those that are unreasonable.

Nothing thuggish, of course, about violating the 4th and 5th Amendment protections of private property and voluntary trade, the sanctity of contract, etc. But who needs them? It's comforting to know instead that my 'right' to health insurance is being protected by the pure and all-powerful Wizard of Health Care, no longer bound by any such quaint notions.

Can't these idiots at least go back to telling semi-plausible lies? They're making it far too easy on me.

Do **Communists** represent the middle class?

Guest Post by Jeff Perren

Daniel Foster at National Review reports on a "confederacy of liberal groups" who plan to hold a rally in response, they say, to Glenn Beck's rally last month that galvanized hundreds of thousands of patriotic Americans to show up in Washington.

The “confederacy” against Beck claims to represent "America’s embattled middle class.”  There are some mainstream left-leaning groups (the SEUI, the American Federation of Teachers, and others). What's more interesting, though, are the groups the confederacy fails to mention, revealing the counter-rally as just so much, very stale, communist bombast.  The un-mentioned groups include:

• The Communist Party USA
• Chicago Democratic Socialists of America
• Code Pink
• Committee of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism
• Democratic Socialists of America
• International Socialist Organization

Yawn... It's clear that Progressives are out of ammunition. That won't stop them from initiating kamikaze raids, of course, but they officially now got nothin'. When you align yourself with groups like this, then so far from representing the “embattled middle class,” you're confessing you’ve lost ‘em.