“We could try liberty.”

Jerry Pournelle:

We just spent $9 Trillion we didn’t have, but we will make a $1.1 Trillion cut – over ten years.  Which is to say we will cut $100 Billion a year, having spent $9 Trillion.  The deficit will continue to grow...  Inspectors in the Department of Agriculture will continue to get "cost of living” raises and step increases in their civil service ratings.  Department of Education SWAT teams will get their raises including full health and pensions...  The EPA will continue to impose regulations, the courts will continue to accept lawsuits to harass anyone who intends to open a mine, drill an oil well, or create a business.

The only remedy will be to raise taxes.  We must have shared sacrifices so that the Washington elites can go about business as usual...

In other words, the Dance goes on...

RTWT. 


(Via: Insty)

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Making debate impossible?

Billy Hollis:

Those on the right are Enlightenment thinkers, and assume that everyone shares certain assumptions about debate and logic.  But the left denies the fundamental tenet of the Enlightenment – that there is an objective reality we can measure things against.

Since the other side is debating by completely different rules and assumptions, it’s literally impossible to come to agreement with them.  Even if you think you did, they reserve the right to redefine terms as necessary to further their objectives.

When they do these things, it’s important to understand that they don’t believe that they are lying.  Since their concept of truth is different from those on the right, their concepts of dishonesty and deception are different too.

Includes "four rules of post-modern rhetoric.” RTWT, it explains a lot.

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Post-weekend linkdump

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Exemplary, my dear Monckton

Ever have a need to call out some idiot?  Viscount Monckton of Brenchley demonstrates how it’s done:

Whereas one Malcolm Turnbull, Member of Parliament for Goldman Sachs, self-appointed leader of the Absolute Bankers’ Get-Rich-Quick, Gimme-the-Money, Subsidy-Junkies’, Profiteers’-of-Doom and Rent-Seekers’ Vested-Interest Coalition Against Hard-Working Taxpayers, has this day demonstrated wilful but indubitably profitable ignorance of elementary science by declaring that since all relevant matters of climatology are settled no one should pay any heed to a mere Peer of the Realm who dares to question the imagined (and imaginary) scientific "consensus” to the effect that unless the economies of the West are laid waste and destroyed we are all doomed;

...and that’s just the first paragraph.  Now, read on...

Related:

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“...not the new FDR, but the new Gorbachev”

Obama presiding over a doomed party?

Every vital element of the Democrats’ coalition — unions, government workers, government contractors, "entitlement” consumers — requires constant increases in payments, grants and consulting contracts.  Without those payments, they don’t sign checks to re-elect Democrats.

And when other peoples’ money runs out...?

Interesting idea, which James Pethokouris almost gets:

Obama’s tax obsession becomes understandable when you realize the long game he’s playing: Big Taxes to fund Big Government.  Decade after decade.  See, it’s an almost universal belief among left-of-center journalists, economists, policymakers and politicians that Americans must pay higher taxes in coming years to cover... all sorts of brand new social spending and green "investment.”

...although he misses all the "clients” whom such spending "buys.”

Related:

Minters via: Ace

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Seems there’s not much “hope for change” out there...

Insta-poll: So what will happen with the debt ceiling fight?

LATER: Bill Quick leads the Cynical Brigade:

Coming Up Soon

Long winded explanations from various gentry GOP shit sandwiches and RINOsaurs about how "this was the best deal we could get.  Trust us.  Vote for us next year. We have only your best interests in our hearts.”

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Decision point approaching...

Bill Quick:

Imagine if Hitlerian fascism had presented itself as a religion: "You must worship the ancient German storm gods, who require that you conquer the world in their name, and impose their rules controlling all aspects of individual living and worshiping on all nations and peoples.”

So, what is this?  A religion?  Or a ruling ideology with a religious component?  And how should you treat it in terms of American notions of freedom of religion?

These are questions that America’s current reflexive regime of diversity, political correctness, and simple-minded judgment that a religion is a religion is a religion are ill-equipped to grapple with.  But we need to face these issues - or face the potential consequences of our intellectual cowardice.

The question is Islam.  The decision point will be here much sooner than most people anticipate.

Related:

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Indoctrination outweighs education

...at the University of California:

Even as UC campuses jettison entire degree programs and lose faculty to competing universities, one fiefdom has remained virtually sacrosanct: the diversity machine. Not only have diversity sinecures been protected from budget cuts, their numbers are actually growing.

But that’s their primary mission, innit?

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All you need to know about Mitch McConnell

Stacy McCain:

Like Trent Lott and Bob Dole before him, Mitch is the Senate Republican leader, and the job of the Senate Republican leader is to make conservative voters say to themselves: "What the hell is the point in voting for those worthless RINO douchebags?  Might as well stay home on Election Day!”

It is a fact of history that no one has ever tried to assassinate a Senate Republican leader — not even the wildest madman would bother wasting ammunition on such worthless creatures.

As they say, RTWT.

Related:

Previous Mitchitude:

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Got’cher “Top 10 List of TSA Suspects”...

(Damn, I wish Kim Du Toit was still blogging regularly.)

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