The Wanna-Be Vice Dictators
Posted by Anthony Gregory at 08:12 PM

They both want more regulation, more totalitarian “oversight,” more national socialism. So far, the only debate is centered around a lie perpetuated by both sides: That the Republicans are for smaller government.

McCain Is a Socialist, Too!
Posted by Anthony Gregory at 08:15 PM

Palin argues that McCain is anything but laissez-faire. After all, he’s for campaign finance censorship and tobacco nanny statism.

She’s Getting Away With It
Posted by Anthony Gregory at 08:19 PM

The key for McCain is to somehow run against the status quo, to run against his own party’s recent legacy. Palin says that we shouldn’t trust national health care, unless we have been happy with the way the feds have been handling things lately. Of course, she is right. Those who hate the Bush legacy — meaning, total statism — should logically oppose socialism too. But the McCain/Palin administration would be more of the same, more Bushism, more socialism. This severe ideological confusion helps both parties, and creates the illusion that there is a difference between the two.

Biden is getting away with it too, blaming the Republicans for shrinking the state. I can’t stand either one.

The Elephant in the Room
Posted by Anthony Gregory at 08:23 PM

They both support the fascist bailout. They both support a trillion-dollar foreign policy and a multi-trillion dollar corporate/entitlement state. They are debating over millions when the state they wish to run spends trillions. Even assuming the greatness of mass democracy, this is a grave injustice. They should be debating big, real issues. Not this trivia.

Meanwhile, the McCain campaign continues to campaign on the fact that for a few days they nominally stopped campaiging.

The GOP’s Embrace of Autarky
Posted by Anthony Gregory at 08:30 PM

When, by the way, did the Republicans and almost all conservatives come to champion the frightening and economically ludicrous concept of “energy independence”? What they mean, of course, is autarky and socialism: All energy produced within America, and every single form of energy — solar, coal, oil, nuclear, wind, etc. — subsidized massively by the federal government. Even the Alaska drilling issue isn’t conceived of with anything approaching market reasoning. “We,” as in the federal government, should drill.

(Although the Republicans are more skeptical of the global warming zeitgist, they seem willing to champion big government programs such as carbon emissions limits to address climate change. Hey, environmentalists, with all the Republican leaders and corporate state adopting this line, you know it’s wrong.)

Biden Just Admitted It
Posted by Anthony Gregory at 08:39 PM

Obama’s Iraq withdrawal plan is the same as Bush’s. Biden does say, however, that the Dems will end the war, eventually. Palin doesn’t even make this much of a promise. On foreign policy, the Dems still seem slightly better than the Repubs.

On the other hand, “Pakistan already has nuclear weapons,” Biden points out, and so, I guess, we should be at war with them.

A Relief
Posted by Anthony Gregory at 08:54 PM

Well, at least both say Israel must be protected at all costs, that nothing is more important, and that Iran is the greatest threat ever. Indeed, they both accuse the other of being insufficiently determined to keep the Persians in line.

They also agreed on gay marriage, just as Bush and Kerry did: More equality under the law but no marriage for homosexuals. Same exact position. Different emphasis.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/…

It’s long been my contention that if the demonrats would just jettison the relatively small elitist wing of their party–the condescending limousine liberals, the middle-America and normalcy-hating “urbane” and cosmpolitan condescending types–and just have a mildly populist, redistributionist, soft-socialist but culturally conservative platform, they could clean house and recapture all the inexplicably Republican Joe Sixpack types who are their natural constituency (but who are alienated by Barbra Streisand’s screeching). (See my How the Democrats Could Win.) But their stupidity knows no bounds. Why they need to anchor their image to the vapid Hollywood and libertine types is beyond me. Apparently abortion is all that matters to them.

Their inexplicable self-destructive behavior is on fully display in their reaction to the Sarah Palin VP nomination. A few choice quotes and examples below:

As I noted here, after Hillary Clinton’s speech during the Democrat convention, Susan Estrich admitted that because of female demonrat disappointment over Hillary’s loss to Obama, if McCain just picks a woman VP, “it’s Cha-Ching” (i.e., he’ll rack up many female votes that otherwise could have gone to Obama). So, she said, “As a democrat, I hope McCain doesn’t pick a woman VP.” So she wanted McCain to discriminate against women. Nice.

In this post on HuffPo, David Sirota explains why Palin “is a pretty smart choice”:

1. Putting a woman on the ticket is McCain’s best hope to peel off some disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters

2. Palin comes from an energy state, and specifically, an oil and gas state. With Democrats’ pathetically (yet predictably) tepid behavior on the drilling issue, the GOP senses an opportunity to exploit it, and you can bet Palin will be making the drilling case, with first-person narratives and anecdotes.

3. It will be difficult — though not impossible — for the Obama campaign to make an experience argument against Palin. Even though Palin is probably the most inexperienced candidate for vice president in contemporary American history, the Republicans have spent months attacking Obama’s supposed lack of experience. So when gnats like Rahm Emanuel issue silly, over-the-top press releases about Palin’s career, they re-open an experience debate that John McCain probably wants to have with Obama.

4. As the Nation’s Chris Hayes reports, Palin is a die-hard right-winger who could help McCain solidify the Republican base.

Sirota fails to mention, however, another important factor: the condescending the way the left is sure to react–is already reacting–belittling normalcy, middle class, “beauty queens,” “small” states is also going to hurt them.

A good example of liberal condescension (and hypocritically sexist, at that) from Jane Smiley: “If the red phone rings in the middle of the night and she’s breastfeeding, will she answer it?” The contempt for normal America–the bizarre, sneering sexism–just oozes out of this liberal vitriol, doesn’t it? Think middle America won’t pick on up on this? Why vote for those who feel they are superior to you and who relegate normalcy to peon status?

And another, by “Michael Seitzman”:”She’s never actually used the word Shiite in a sentence before. She’s never had to. She’s never given any thought whatsoever to nuclear proliferation. She’s never had to. She’s never thought about Israel, Russia, Korea, or Iran. She’s never even thought about Mexico.”

How in the world does he know? He’s implying that unless you are a federal politician, or some savvy DC Denizen, you haven’t “thought” about …. Russia, Korea, etc. Hell, even mere state governors are peons and not worthy to sit at the table with the benighted Beltwaytarians–if you are only governor of “small state”, that is. Gee, I wonder what citizens of, say, most states outside Yankeeland, California, and DC think about that snub? These condescending attacks on Palin, small-town america, “small” states, and normalism are just amazing to behold.

And what’s that say about, say, housewives and career women? I guess they’ve never “thought about” these weighty matters either? I guess they’re too busy breastfeeding or running in beauty pageants or merely being mayors of “small” towns.

Hell, Alaska is even more backward and lacking of culture and interesting people than Auburn, Alabama. And forget about liberals for a sec–how could the Kochtopus support this ticket? Jesus. Listen to these cackling hypocrites. Is dissing Alaska as some hick backwater supposed to help them with voters?

Seitzman continues: “There is not a fireball’s chance in Alaska that Sarah Palin could make that argument in a debate with Joe Biden. She lacks the gravitas, she lacks the knowledge, she lacks the experience. If she were a news anchor we’d say she reeks of local.”

Read that again: She REEKS OF LOCAL? Oh my God, if only I were a Republican so I could enjoy this self-immolation. These clueless condescending nabobs are going to just bury themselves, the condescending, these “cosmopolitan”, “urbane,” “hip” morons!

As a friend noted, “I must admit I found the statement about “mayor of a town of 9,000″ particularly stupid. If somebody could pull out a map for me and show me where, precisely, they intend to pick up electoral votes with such a statement, I would be thrilled. In fact, if ever a party were determined from the outset to find a way to win the popular vote and lose the electoral college, it would look an awful lot like what the D’s are up to these days. Of course, maybe they are trying to lose both - here I had thought that the popular vote was a foregone conclusion, but Obama, et al. are trying to lose even that.”

Finally, see this collection of demonrat comments on Palin. It’s just incredible. As a friend of mine might say, LOL Democrats!

Update: S.M. Oliva notes in a post on the Mises blog: “… it seems to me that “experience” is more about the possession of certain credentials then time spent furthering the evils of the state. Mr. Obama may not have any particular legislative achievements or “executive” experience, but he does possess an undergraduate degree from Columbia and a law degree from Harvard. Mrs. Palin, in contrast, has only an undergraduate degree from the University of Idaho - her fourth stop in an extended college career - financed partially through her winnings as a beauty pageant contestant. She is, as one Democrat told me yesterday, one step removed from white trash.”

Some people want to know how the Democrats could loose this election? This is how. Sarah Palin deserves to be criticized. She appeared to be a relatively decent, more traditional, small government Republican. Her husband and oldest son aren’t registered to a party and she talked highly of Ron Paul. Her selling of her soul to the neocons however has completely tainted her. Or at least it should. But this limousine liberal, high and mighty, attitude will likely not fly with the average voter. Obama already has this aura of elitism. This ’she’s a local’, ‘one step removed from white trash’ will just push blue dog democrats and centralists to McCain, IMO.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/…

With America fighting two wars, the 9/11 terrorists still at large, Iran pursuing nuclear weapons

and Russia in Georgia, America needs a president who gets it right the first time. That president will be Barack Obama. With a vision of foreign policy that has ranged far beyond Iraq, Barack Obama has found a kindred spirit in another leader of great strength and wisdom Joe Biden.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe we must fight the terrorists not where we imagine them to be, but where we know them to belike Afghanistan and Pakistan. We must lead a global effort to secure loose nuclear materials, not where we imagine them to be, but where we know them to be, in Russia, and the countries of the former Soviet Union.

It’s time we had a president committed to fighting poverty in the Third World and ending the genocide in Darfur; who leads international efforts to stop global warming, strengthens our friendship with Mexico and Latin America, and stands behind Israel with full-time diplomacy to achieve peace in the Middle East; a president who ends the global scourge of AIDS in our time and sets an example of moral leadership by following our constitution, shutting down Guantanamo, and ending torture.

They don’t care that we are trampling around the global like a kid hyped up on sugar and a baseball bat. They just want to make sure we do it in a softer manner. They want to make sure the public doesn’t see it so obviously. They are all on the same team though. They all pepetrate the lie about Russia, Georgia and South Ossetia. They all wish to make enemies of people who pose no harm to us and in cases where they may its deserved in that they have been threating them. They all want larger government both domestically and internationally. When the USA sumbles as a result of it’s global adventures and money minipulation don’t be supprised when the rest of the world gangs up on us and gives us (unfortunately they won’t differenciate between the public and the government, just as our government doesn’t) some of our own medicine.

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/…

Barack Obama and Joe Biden both get a perfect 100 from the big-government liberal Americans for Democratic Action, which probably tells you all you need to know. But I remember a dramatic moment back in 1991 when Biden made his commitment to unlimited government clear and dramatic. Clarence Thomas had been nominated for the Supreme Court, and Biden, then chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was questioning him. Biden bore in on the possibility that Thomas might believe in “natural law,” the idea, as Tony Mauro of USA Today summarized it, that ”everyone is born with God-given rights - referred to in the Declaration of Independence as ‘inalienable rights’ to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ - apart from what any law or the Constitution grants.” Biden singled out Cato adjunct scholar Richard Epstein and Cato author Stephen Macedo and demanded to know if Thomas agreed with them that the Constitution protects property rights. Waving Epstein’s book Takings in the air like Joe McCarthy with a list of communists, Biden demanded to know, as we very loosely paraphrased it in Cato’s 25-year Annual Report (pdf; page 14), “Are you now or have you ever been a libertarian?” As most judicial nominees do when pursued by a senator roused to defend his power like a mama bear, Thomas assured Senator Biden that he wouldn’t take the Constitution too seriously. Here’s Biden on the warpath:

Was Biden right to worry? Well, as we said in the Annual Report, four years later Thomas joined the Court in declaring, “We start with first principles. The Constitution creates a Federal Government of limited powers.” But ten years later the Court finally considered whether the Constitution protects property rights and said, “Ehh, not so much.” Thomas protested, “Something has gone seriously awry with this Court’s interpretation of the Constitution. Though citizens are safe from the government in their homes, the homes themselves are not.” Biden was right to worry that Thomas’s understanding of individual rights and the Constitution just might put some limits on the power of government.

I doubt it’s changed.

I still believe that globalistic liberal fascism will destroy us slower than the Bush/McCain globalistic neocon fascism but these types of things certainly make it no easier in the lesser of two evils descussion. Perhaps it just makes it easier to present 3rd party candidates.

http://www.iptv.org/…

Iowa Public Television will broadcast live coverage of The Des Moines Register Presidential Debates among Republican candidates for President on Wednesday, December 12, and among Democratic candidates for President on December 13. Debates will be broadcast live each day at 1 p.m., and will be re-broadcast at 7 p.m. each evening. The debates will also be available to public television stations across the country through PBS.

Confirmed candidates for the Republican debate on Wednesday, December 12 are: Ambassador Alan Keyes; former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani; former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee; Rep. Duncan Hunter; Arizona Sen. John McCain; Texas Rep. Ron Paul; former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney; Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo; and former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson.

Confirmed candidates for the Democratic debate on Thursday, December 13 are: Delaware Sen. Joe Biden; New York Sen. Hillary Clinton; Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd; former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards; Illinois Sen. Barack Obama; New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.

You will be able to watch the debates online live here and they are supposed to be shown on your local PBS station. I’m not seeing them listed on the PBS schedule online but it may not show because it’s a special program. In the least there will be on-demand streaming video of the full debate available the night of each event at http://www.iptv.org.