Links and Minifeatures 2009 01 27

Carnival of Personal Finance

Carnival of Real Estate

Obama is sounding an awful lot like Bush. At least in some contexts.

Even John Stewart has noticed.

The Return of Carterism?

Among the first duties of the Obama presidency, all agree, is the restoration of America's standing in the world. Poll after poll has shown how unpopular America is overseas, from London to Damascus to Beijing. Nor is there much disagreement as to the reason. As Fareed Zakaria puts it in The Post-American World, the reason is the "arrogance" displayed by the Bush administration--an arrogance that has blinded Americans to the fact that they can no longer push other nations around at will, and that their country now inhabits a multi-polar world.

Read the whole thing

All in all, to listen to Bush's myriad critics, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had it just about right in assailing "the arrogant course of [an] administration which hates criticism and prefers unilateral decisions."

Translation: he wouldn't give despots what they wanted: the ability to enslave their people even further and expand their influence so they could enslave other people.

Do we really want these detainees on American soil?

Those policies, however, were always preferable to bringing detainees here. Under current law, once a detainee sets foot in the United States, it's possible that he eventually could be walking the streets. Obama's executive order commits to closing Guantanamo in one year and, in addition to calling for the continuation of efforts to repatriate detainees, directs administration consideration of the possibility of bringing some detainees to the United States. Because most of those detainees who could safely be sent to other countries were dispersed long ago, the new administration will be hard pressed to find appropriate countries to take the roughly 245 who remain. That means a ticket to Kansas, or perhaps, as Representative Jack Murtha suggested, Pennsylvania.

Or they could be found innocent by civilian juries who don't understand the international law of war. I know I don't - which separates me from 99.9% of the "close Guantanamo!" and 100% of the ACLU lawyers who have been trying to win this one by attrition. Civilian judges who have no idea and no willingness to learn the relevant treaties. And then we end up with truly dangerous people released to strike again, possibly from within the country.

Is there anyone willing to bet me $10 that none of these people will join our enemies once again? That none of them attack civilian targets here within the United States?

Thus far, of the detainees released, a minimum of 61 (out of about 450) have been confirmed as once again fighting American troops, and those are the ones we thought were more or less safe to release. It's like if we repatriated the Afrika Corps to Germany just before D-Day. There is a reason enemy combatants are held until there is no longer a danger they will re-join the fight. If you want an example as to why, look up how many Japanese soldiers were still fighting World War II ten years after the surrender was signed, and the cost in lives to finally end it (some were still out there in the 1980s). Then consider that the Japanese lived by the code of bushido, as opposed to what most of the Guantanamo detainees fight by. Consider not just the danger to our military, but also to our civilians. Our previous president wanted to close the detention center at Guantanamo - but thus far, nobody has yet come up with a better idea.

It's not reality, it's Scrappleface:

Pelosi: Cutting Poor Babies Accelerates Economic Growth

"Poor people are a luxury we just can't afford,' said Rep. Pelosi, "They cost us a lot of money to maintain; what with food stamps, housing and health care. So if we can rapidly reduce the number of poor people through contraception and abortion, that's a net gain for federal and state budgets, and a fast track to economic recovery. Every poor baby prevented is like money in the bank."

But all good humor has a core of truth. "Nice" people might not want to talk about it in public, but it is there.

Michael Barone: Democrats' Support of Teacher Unions Has Worked Against Inner City Kids

Whitman notes that the kind of people who run these schools tend to be politically liberal, the sort of people who enthusiastically back Barack Obama. Yet Obama and the Democrats have to a large extent supported the teacher-union, education-school model of education which has so dismally failed inner city children and which the people who have created the schools Whitman and Mathews describe have profoundly rejected. The teachers unions and education schools have done a great job of feeding money into the Democratic Party, and the Democratic Party has generally done a great job of feeding money back to the unions and their members. But they have done much less for the kids.

Victor Davis Hanson: Unreal Expectations? President Obama Asked for Them

For nearly three months since the election, we have been warned by President Obama, his staff and the media not to burden him with unreal expectations that no mere mortal could meet.

But why then consciously borrow from Abraham Lincoln's speeches? And why re-create Lincoln's historic train ride to his inauguration especially by flying back from Washington to Illinois to then return to D.C. by slow-moving railcar? Lincoln took the train because it was the only feasible way to get to Washington in 1861, not to copy the grand arrival of some earlier American savior.

I admire Abraham Lincoln quite a lot. But the President who led us through the Civil War and issued the Emancipation Proclamation is the same President who suspended habeas corpus in the entire United States, instituted the first draft, caused the biggest riots in US History, used federal troops to put those riots down with grievous casualties, instituted (unconstitutionally!) the first income tax, and unconstitutionally dismembered the state of Virginia. It is to be noted that even the Emancipation Proclamation was arguably a violation of the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment. My point is this: While Lincoln's achievements were worth the constitutional price we paid, that price would have been too much for any lesser achievement, and Mr. Obama has already demonstrated that he's no Lincoln.

(Mr. Lincoln was very unpopular near the end of the Civil War. Had he lived to the end of his second term, he might well have been impeached himself - as Andrew Johnson was, mostly for continuing Lincoln's policies towards the South - and it might have taken until the 1960s to rehabilitate Lincoln's reputation. Sound like any recent president to you?)

If this doesn't ruin your whole day, I don't know what would: Good news: Iran to be nuke-capable this year, says think tank

I laughed when Drudge put the siren up for this, not because the news is predictable but because the think tank that issued the report actually has been predicting it for years. How slow has this slow-motion trainwreck been? May 2006: IISS pronounces Iranian nukes "inevitable." January 2007: IISS warns that Iran could have the bomb in two years. May 2007: IISS describes how Iran's built its own nuclear black market, one which, if the Times of London is to be believed, is now suddenly running low on yellowcake. Too late, alas:

Amazing how two years is up in only two years. Congratulations to all those who wanted to tie President Bush's hands; we now have a nuclear Iran.

Obama nominee got Constitutional issue wrong in testimony

Boy did he. By his thinking, if sex is legal, the government should pay to provide it for any citizen that wants it (and it's amazing how many want their sex from supermodels...), and require all citizens to engage in it. If porn is legal, the government should pay for that, too.

Obama post partisan? Not so much. It took him less than a week to attack a political opponent personally - something that "horrible partisan" George W. Bush didn't do no matter how personally they attacked him.

Data point two: Wizbang

In an exchange with Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) about the [$825 billion stimulus] proposal, the president shot back: "I won," according to aides briefed on the meeting.

"I will trump you on that.

Can you imagine the hullabulloo that would have resulted had George W. Bush ever said something like that?

Sorry, Mr. President. Things haven't worked that way in Washington for eight years. Democrats, of superior values and virtues we are told, fought tooth and nail to destroy every one of President Bush's policy proposals that did not come pre-approved by the DNC. Republicans have every right to embody the values and virtues of Democrats and fight tooth and nail to stop Barack Obama's dangerously large and ill-conceived debt-funded government give-away.

Dissent is the highest form of patriotism, remember?

Datapoint: For eight years, Democrats fight George W. Bush tooth and nail, no matter how much he tried to work with them, and despite the fact that he won election - twice. Datapoint: As soon as President Obama is inaugurated, Democrats want all dissent from his policies to stop.

Not even George Washington expected that. He included his smartest, strongest political opposition (Thomas Jefferson) in his cabinet - and listened to him. No, the presidents who wanted to stomp out all political opposition were the ones like LBJ and Richard Nixon. Great antecedents there. Even while I lamented their irrationality, I was supporting the Democrats right to disagree - and I will lament the irrationality of Republican opposition every bit as much (assuming it happens, which I am certain it will)

But then I'm a libertarian. It's not exactly difficult for me to find things I disagree with both major parties about.

Via Instapundit, 10 Reasons to Whack Obama's Stimulus Plan

Here's number 11: false report turns out to be pretty close

From what I can observe of the "stimulus bill" it appears to be an attempt to create another permanent constituency dependent upon government aid. Guess which party such constituencies favor at the polls? Motive - Opportunity - Method. It may not be good enough for a conviction, but it's good enough to establish reason to investigate. Unfortunately, the press that was so rabid about its "watchdog role" with regards to President Bush (and before him, Presidents Reagan and Bush pere, although not President Clinton, for some reason) is declining to fulfill that role with President Obama. Do you notice any trends there? Any correlations?

How Modern Law Makes Us Powerless

Americans don't feel free to reach inside themselves and make a difference. The growth of litigation and regulation has injected a paralyzing uncertainty into everyday choices. All around us are warnings and legal risks. The modern credo is not "Yes We Can" but "No You Can't." Our sense of powerlessness is pervasive. Those who deal with the public are the most discouraged. Most doctors say they wouldn't advise their children to go into medicine. Government service is seen as a bureaucratic morass, not a noble calling. Make a difference? You can't even show basic human kindness for fear of legal action. Teachers across America are instructed never to put an arm around a crying child.

You cannot remove the ability to do evil without also removing the power to make a positive difference. A small number of determined people is the only method that has ever changed the world for the better - but entropy assures us that it will get worse. Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty, and we have decided as a society that the price is just too high, so we're going to deny anybody the opportunity to improve things.

1) Law sets boundaries that proscribe what we must do or can't do -- you must not steal, you must pay taxes.

2) Those same legal boundaries protect an open field of free choice in all other matters.

The forgotten idea is the second component -- that law must affirmatively define an area free from legal interference. Law must provide "frontiers, not artificially drawn," as philosopher Isaiah Berlin put it, "within which men should be inviolable."

For instance, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Feel Like a Chump?

If not, you will. Soon.

Security Theater

Much scarier than anything Stephen King ever dreamed up.