Alternative to the Welfare State

Click the link below to read a piece suggesting a way to continue helping the poor, but at a greatly lower cost.

http://city-journal.com/2011/21_1_income-tax.html

The Latest Banality

It's getting to the point where if I see the phrase "spot on", I immediately begin to feel ill, so I ignore whatever else that person has written. Could all of you spot-on people out there read Orwell's Politics and the English Language, and let the things he writes about there influence your writing, instead of slavish imitation of celebrity jargon?

Honesty and the Left

The truth does not care whether or not I like it

I AM ASSUMING THAT THE PALIN HATERS feel the way they do because she is an uber-conservative, and apparently proud of it. I've thought about it a lot. Why do Leftists hate conservatives? Is it because conservatives believe in God? No, most Leftists merely feel smug disdain for anyone who believes in a higher power. Is it because conservatives believe in individual rights and freedom? Or is it because we all have embraced what they struggle so vainly to deny, and so embarrass them in comparison?

What have conservatives embraced, and Leftists denied? Reality.

THE ESSENCE, THE CORE OF ALL CONSERVATIVE IDEOLOGY is an unflinching, uncompromising embrace of reality. Conservatives do not claim to have some special grasp of what is real and unreal; they are merely honest about it. That is all. That is the root of conservatism. Is this why the Leftists hate us? Because we are real, and our real-ness illuminates their pretense at everything, from self-esteem to civility?

Leftists seem to say "I wish it, therefore it is so" when they try to defend their doctrines and policies.

Honesty: leftist policies put into practice are disastrous. The experiments in socialism, for example. Can you say...(gasp!) National Socialism? Soviet Russia? Mao-ist China? Pol Pot? Despite the repeated failure of that darling of Leftist thought, Leftists continue to embrace it, explaining away the millions of people who were murdered by their government.

Honesty: we conservatives are not infallible, we do make mistakes, but what do the Leftists offer us as an alternative to capitalism? A system of government that must exile, or outright murder dissidents. A system of government that requires us to be sheep, all equal and undifferentiated, while they act as the benevolent shepherds (but the slaughterhouse is where they are leading the sheep).

I was in Seattle when the WTO riots took place there. I saw the bastards with my own eyes. They quite obviously enjoyed breaking windows at Starbucks more than they cared about their alleged agenda. Radical leftists cannot be honest, for if they were, they would have to kill themselves, because death-for themselves and for others-is at the root of their beliefs.

A College Education?

Good news: Study confirms that college is pretty much a total waste of time « Hot Air

But at least the students leave college fully indoctrinated with Leftist agendas!

The Emerald City: A Surprisingly Mild Place to Be

It is not the perfect climate, nor is it much of a tourist draw, but Seattle, Washington has a climate you would not expect for being so far up North. The latitude here is 47 degrees north, the same latitude as northern France. We are about a two and a half hour  drive from the Canadian border-yet even so, snow fall in Seattle is rare (some seasons it doesn't snow at all), and the average temperature the past few days has been in the upper forties-lower fifties (I am writing this on January 17). But don't get me wrong-ever once in a while, the temperature drops into the twenties. Also, with the prevalent rain here, winter can be cold, damp, and dreary-but rarely as cold as, say, Chicago or even New York City. Temperature-wise, it's a bit like Memphis, Tennessee in the winter time. Except for one crucial fact: in Memphis, it rains occasionally. It Seattle, it rains constantly.

Seattle has such a mild climate because of it's location in a huge valley, with the Cascades to the east and the Olympcs to the west. Running through the center of this valley is Puget Sound, an arm of the Pacific. Just off the Pacific coast, a warm current moderates the temps, and the mountains block cold Arctic air from having much of an effect.

A tropical paradise it's not, but Seattle's climate is remarkably mild. The only trouble is the rain. Anyone visiting the Emerald City should take an umbrella.

As for the character of the city itself, it is marked by an astonishing prevalence of courtesy and friendliness-Seattle is quite civil, unusually so. The setting of this city is spectacular; downtown rests upon a  hill overlooking Puget Sound, and when the sky is clear, Mt. Rainier, perhaps the most perfectly shaped volcano on Earth, looms over all like an ominous stone idol.

Beautiful, clean, high-tech, space age, and  über-liberal, Seattle is unique and distinctive.

The Politicization of Tragedy

The recent massacre of several people in Tucson, AZ has been used by many on the Left as an excuse to vilify the Right. The link below is an excellent expose of the hypocrisy of such a claim, and instructive, as well:

Michelle Malkin » The progressive “climate of hate:” An illustrated primer, 2000-2010

Revolution: The Great Depression II

by John Russell Turner

"Most disasters are politically understandable."

 -Dr. Thomas Sowell

The root cause of the present economic depression?
Left wing ideology put into practice.

The cure for the present economic depression?
Free market capitalism.

The chances that this will happen, i.e., that Congress will start the lengthy process of cutting back on the size and continued growth of government-and removing most of the regulations on the free market-are anyone's guess. The emergence of the Tea Party Movement is encouraging, for they support  a free market, limited government agenda.

But the opposition is fierce, well funded, and well organized.