The Efficiency of the Inefficient American Constitution.

The Efficiency of the Inefficient American Constitution.

It has been said the Democracy isn't efficient.

It may all depend on your vantage point. 

I'd like to make the case that our form of Representative Democracy with its checks and balances is the most efficient model out there that furthers a nations chances of becoming successful.  It does this by limiting the power any one person or branch of government can have.  In the long term it has served America well.  In the short term I agree that by limiting the power of a President for example it can become extremely hard to pass and enact a law which that President “knows” is right and in which he believes “everyone else” “knows” is “right” too.

The main theory which makes the Constitution unique was that the Founding Fathers believed when power is too concentrated in too few hands, that power will corrupt those who hold it.  They believed in that as a basic human nature.  Therefore they wrote the Constitution and created a government model that separated the power among three branches of government.  To do this they in effect put the three branches at odds with one another. 

That is why our government sometimes seems so inefficient with “grid-lock” all over the place.

This “inefficiency” however has kept us from falling prey to the popular spur of the moment uprisings from both the liberal and conservative antagonists or just the mass greediness of our human natures.  Our country does not for example in a fit of self-righteousness be-head those who don’t agree with whoever is the current President.  Nor does it blindly follow a popular uprising in the US House or Senate.  In the past it was only after much debate and a battle of give and take we would create legislation and the President would sign it.

History is full of governments who for the best of reasons ran off unchecked into the nightmare of mass killings and tyrannical oppression of the people they were trying to “better” and the countries they were trying to make great.  The Chinese under Mao, the Communists under Stalin were very efficient at mass killings for what they alone deemed was the common good.  To them what they did was so obviously good that it was beyond debate.  When I hear the phrases, “everyone knows”, “we all believe”, “no one would disagree”, or “we are beyond debate”, I start to get worried.

If it were not so inefficient we would have the trains running on time as Mussolini claimed he was doing in Italy before murdering thousands who stood in his way, or how about those wonderful sounding 5 year plans the Communists in Russia and China had.  Or the totally efficiency of a one Party State we found in Nazi Germany which managed through trial and error to kill millions of people not of their own kind in the most efficient way.

The reason I’m writing this is because of an interview I listened to through Rudaw, an internet newspaper coming out of the Kurdistan Regional Government. 

-----link-----
http://rudaw.net/english/world/02122014
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If you read my blog you will note that I’m one of their biggest fans in their fight for independence from Iraq and in forming a homeland around their Kurdish communities.  Their problem is that they have to take land from not only Iraq, but Iran, Turkey and Syria to form this country.  

Watching the interview, it soon became apparent that while the Kurds for the most part are great friends with America and they say they want a secular government modeled after the US Constitution the interviewer really had a very limited knowledge of what makes our Constitution unique.  They are fighting for their very lives, so it is understandable why they seem to put a high price on efficiency.  Why they want a strong leader to lead them with the powers to make the hard decisions quickly is again understandable.  

Looking back on our Revolution, we too almost fell into that trap.  We knew George Washington was an honorable man and a good leader, why not keep electing him President?  That would have probably happened if Washington had not after his second term set the precedent and stepped down.  A peaceful transition went forward and has ever since.  A point to this is discussion is to show how it took an honorable man with a vision firmly in mind for his country and all its people to ensure the US Constitution and its underpinning logic was cemented in place through his actions.  

What America and its leaders did was to sacrifice their personal goals and ambitions to create a Constitution and then abide by it long enough for that government to follow them and take on a life of its own.

I truly hope the leaders of Kurdistan forget not that lesson.

 

I just read a George Will article which mirrors the Rudaw interview and of course he does it far better than I or them.

-----link-----
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/will112914.php3
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Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative

Speak Softly, Carry a Big Stick

Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick

That phrase we associate with Teddy Roosevelt, incidentally he said he picked it up on Safari in West Africa.  That saying along with, Peace through strength, trust but verify and others simply mean that when people have a “big stick” to wield they can afford to talk softly.  

American Presidents have used these phrases for their benefit to achieve foreign policy objectives. These all carry the message that they were willing to use physical force to back up what they wanted to do.  But the key to that working was that their opponents believed they would use that “big stick” if needed.  The physical force when it’s threatened to be used by a super power is clear and understood.  

The phrases above are clever and catchy linguistic tools to get the point across in negotiations.  Our opponents believe we will use that force because we have in the past and proven we are willing to do it again and they know it.  We are saying to them, “Do what we want or we’ll smack you down”.  It usually works in our case because our opponent decides they don’t want to risk it and withdraws.

What happens however when a struggling region of a country that dreams of becoming a country in its own right says the same thing?  Usually they aren't believed and are attacked.  In their as in ours they have to continually prove that they are willing to go into harm’s way to achieve their end.  It is only after repeated victories in battles and strategic retreats from losses to re-group and fight again, that their opponents will start to pay the upstart of a people its due.

America started out in this way.  We had to fight battles with less troops poorly trained and equipped and we lost many battles.  But we won a few and we retreated to fight again, the point became clear that we were not afraid to fight and die if need be to achieve our dream of nationhood.  Not all countries survive that “trial by fire”.

But even though a country or people may fight the good fight and risk it all for what they believe; they may not win in the end:  However their willingness to die for what they believe strikes a chord in most people as a noble thing.  Something worth emulating.  A way we can rise above ourselves and find a higher plain.  Win lose or draw we gain from the effort. This type of action in a losing but heroic fight reminds us of our own loss at the Alamo, and as far back to antiquity of famous defeat of 300 Spartans who died saving Athens from the army of Barbarians who were threatening to wipe Athens/Greece from the face of the earth and in so doing wipe away the underpinning of the birth of Freedom which was built upon and from which Western Civilization flourished. 

When a people show this dedication to putting all else including their own lives on the line for Freedom we tend to say that they are fighting like Spartans.  In an Aljazeera article written by Michael Knights entitled Iraqi Kurdistan: the Middle East’s Next Little Sparta, Mr. Knights gives a nice account of why the military is starting to refer to the Kurdish Regional Government’s (KRG’s) army the Peshmerga as “little Sparta”.  (Link to “Little Sparta”.  http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/11/iraqi-kurdistan-middle-east-ne-2014112285055907550.html

This is a good article for background and to catch up in general with the news from Kurdistan.  This article talks to the respect the US military and the Washington power brokers have learned to afford this regional government of Iraq, and its army, and in the reverse the lack of respect the Iraqi Army has earned.  With the threat of the Islamic State in all its incarnations, it has been the Peshmerga which consistently laid down their lives to stem the tide when the Iraqi Army has thrown down their weapons and run off. 

The slant of most news articles is that this was made possible by US air strikes.  The real fact of the matter was that it was the Peshmerga and other Kurdish forces which stood up when others ran.  They stood up with inferior weapons and numbers, but like the Spartans they stopped the tide of the Islamic State giving time for the Iraqi government to save face and the US to start funneling supplies to the Kurds.  The land mass of the Kurdistani people as I pointed out in the previous articles includes parts of Turkey, Syria, Iran as well as Iraq. 
see map below.

They have their strongest most developed organization in Northern Iraq and their Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq is almost daily getting recognition now from not only foreign powers but even grudgingly from Iraq.  For example there are a couple of bills in the US House which will allow our President to give training and some pretty heavy weapons to the KRG.

http://www.hawlergov.org/en/article.php?id=1416723058

With the likes of Senator John McCain saying to the KRG delegation: “Not a day goes by that I don’t work with my colleagues to get you what you need to defeat these terrorists”. You know help is on the way.

I am too old in the tooth to believe this dream of Kurdistan wrested from parts of Iran, Syria, Turkey and Iraqi will magically appear.  It may, and it will keep trying to form itself regardless of what I believe.  As long as their courage stays the course they have a chance.  The chance comes for them as with all of us from how they handle diversity not how they avoid it.  The human race from its beginning has prospered by overcoming adversity not from shrinking away from it. 

Perhaps the deciding factor of their future success will be ideological.  They like the Spartans are fighting for the ideology of Freedom for their homeland and themselves, not in conquering people, not in tyrannizing them.  Another phrase comes to mind.  I think President Regan would agree that the Kurds could be a “Shining City on a Hill” for all of those other Mid-East countries so downtrodden for centuries under the boot of tyranny.

Even when the Kurds say they are willing to die fighting, they are doing so because they are fighting for their homes and family and their very lives.  For them to give into the Islamic State (IS) means that they will be raped, sold into slavery, or beheaded.  Not much of a choice perhaps but it constantly amazes me how many people in that same situation were unwilling to face reality and at least put up a fight and were lead to the slaughter.

So when Masoud Barzani the leader of the KRG talks softly I know and I think the world is learning that when he is talking about the Kurdish homeland he does indeed carry a big stick.

Update on Kurdistan    

(Kurdish Regional Government of Iraq)

This all has happened since I wrote the previous article.

News, 11/17/2014

http://www.france24.com/en/20141114-focus-peshmerga-fighters-islamic-state-front-line-border-kurdistan-checkpoints-patrols/

Shows pretty much how the Peshmerga (Kurdish army) has been alone in the fight against the Islamic State.  Also the video tells of the problem of refugees and the strain on their economy and how some of the Sunni refugees are not necessarily friends to the Kurds.

11/18/2014

http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iraq/181120141

Kurds repulse attack on border town.

More news, 11/19/2014

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/iraqi-kurdish-oil-deal-falls-short-solutions-26951284

Talks of the economic problems the Semi-autonomous Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq is having since the Iraq government stopped paying government workers because of the KRG going around the Iraq government to sell its oil.

11/19/2014

http://www.france24.com/en/f24-interview/20141118-barzani-kurdish-iraq-heavy-weapons-islamic-state/

Barzani, KRG leader claims they are doing most of the fighting and deserve to get heavier equipment from the coalition of forces now fighting the Islamic State.  They have been at the forefront of this fight.  They want some armed personal carriers and helicopters.

Breaking 11/19/2014

http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iraq/191120141

From the Newspaper of Erbil the capital of the Kurdish Regional Government.  Tells of the ISIS Governor of Mosul was killed in US air strikes.  The Kurds have been fighting and taking back territory the Islamic state has taken along their border with Iraq.  They are in the process of solidifying Kirkuk an oil rich city, and the biggest oil prize is Mosul.  Kirkuk is on their way to Mosul.

********************

For up to date news from the Kurdish Regional Government their newspaper out of their capital of Erbil.

http://rudaw.net/english

  

Steven Stockman, Congressman from Texas’ 36th

“I mean, these guys love America,”

“They’re tough people, but they can’t do it with sticks.”

Kurdistan a dream becoming a reality.
    

Article, 11/11/14.  WND exclusive by Garth Kant
http://www.wnd.com/2014/11/congressman-very-dangerous-to-be-an-american-ally/

I got this from the article above.

Map of what the Kurds are fighting for.  What they perceive as their homeland. Kurdistan.

As the map shows, what better place to have an ally?  Borders Iran Iraq, Syria and Turkey.

Turkey is our sometime ally and why wouldn't they want a Kurdistan as a buffer from Syria, Iraq and Iran?

From the article we see that Turkey is hostile to the Kurds.  Why?  Kurdish population in Turkey?  Find out.  Would the proposed map of Kurdistan include parts of Turkey and which parts, what would Turkey lose?  Find out.

Yes!  Map below shows Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran would all have to give up land to form Kurdistan.

Turkey being the largest loser.

What population of Kurds are in these countries and more to the point what is the population in these specific areas that would form Kurdistan?  Find out.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdish_population  This shows that Turkey also has the most Kurds at about 14 million, Iran and Iraq at 6 million each and Syria at 2 million.

Below a map from the CIA in 1992 of Kurdish populated areas which seems to roughly correspond to the map above of Kurdistan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdistan

The Kurds are and have been fighting for a re-creation of their original home state.  The Kurds are situated in a hotbed of hostilities that is called the Middle East.  The ethnic Kurds have a majority in communities in SE Turkey, NW Iran, Northern Iraq, and NE Syria.  They have carved out a semi-autonomous region in Northern Iraq which is called the Kurdish Regional Government (NRG).  They have been fighting ISIS since ISIS’ beginning, along with Al Quaida. Before that they were the only ones Americans could count on in the fight to overthrow Sadam Hueisen, they were the fighters we could count on when all else failed.  As Iraq started falling apart with attacks from ISIS, they held strong. 

  

They have encountered resistance from the beginning from everyone including those who should be helping them.  This resistance is understandable since one or more of the above countries would have to give up some of their territory to enable the creation of a Kurdistan. Turkey which has the largest Kurdish population of the Mid East Countries was actively fighting the Kurds.  It is only recently since the rise of ISIS that they have come to see an armed Kurdish separate state in Iraq as something they could live with.   The other reason is that the Kurds control a lot of Turkey’s area and the Turks are tiring of the fight. 

The big news is that the Turks have allowed Northern Iraqi Kurdish fighters and weapons to cross Turkish land to reinforce Syrian Kurdish fighters in Syria with weapons and soldiers.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/iraqi-kurdish-fighters-head-to-kobani-in-syria-to-battle-islamic-state-1414518448

Another bit of news just in hours ago is that the Iraqi government in Bagdad has agreed to pay the civil servant salaries of its northern Kurdish Regional Government civil servants for the equivalent of $500 million dollars of the North’s oil.  This is a major step showing that the Iraqi government in Bagdad is recognizing their Northern Kurdish region as a separate entity at least in regards to its ownership of its own oil.  It hasn’t in the past.  This also will help pay for the war on ISIS that the Kurds have been fighting long before Americans ever heard of the name ISIS.

All of this and the trip by Congressman Steven Stockman in the WMD Garth Kant article at the beginning of this article reminds me of the movie titled “Charlie Wilson’s War” starring Tom Hanks.  In that movie Wilson mobilized behind the scenes private and governmental efforts to fund the Afghanistan freedom fighters that eventually beat the Russians and forced them out of their country.  Both of these solutions seem so obvious it is no wonder that the powers that be would not use them;  but when bureaucrats who are experts at confounding others by splitting hairs,  have their minds faced with something so simple to understand they themselves seem confounded and refuse to act.

 

I am just happy to see that America and the President have been brought kicking and screaming to the same conclusion.  Our government is seemingly putting pressure on Turkey and Bagdad to help and allow the Kurds to do what they do so well, fight their enemy ISIS.  We have often times heard from this administration, “a crisis is too big to pass up”.  For once it is nice to see that phrase used as a reason to fight our actual enemies. 

Breaking new now is that the Islamic State (IS) and Al-Quaida have joined forces.  See Article linked below.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_ISLAMIC_STATE_AL_QAIDA?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-11-13-14-35-12

The Kurds as previously reported were given permission to cross Turkey land to travel from Arbil Iraq to Kobani Syria to reinforce that beleaguered city and help stop the Islamic State tide.  American arms are going with them.  The latest map is below showing the Islamic State encroachment upon Syria, Iraq, Turkey and most pertinently to this article upon the newly formed Kurdish Regional Government of Iraq.  Reminder from the other maps before that there is a large Kurdish population in nearly all this contested area and in Kobani.

In looking at the map above I see the city of Sinjar and I remember the stranding of thousands of Kurds on the mountain top there.  Mosul just to the east had fallen to ISIS and the refugees fled to Sinjar’s mountain top.  A helicopter made it in with guns blazing and back out with guns blazing and saved 20.  The following link tells what happened to the rest.  If you have any sympathy for ISIS read that article.  Genocide pure and simple.  If you wonder if the Kurds are fighting for their life read that article.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2792552/full-horror-yazidis-didn-t-escape-mount-sinjar-confirms-5-000-men-executed-7-000-women-kept-sex-slaves.html

This new map raises the question of how involved the Syrian regime is with the Kurdish fighters and who exactly are the Syrian rebels.  Find out.

Below is a link to a Reuter’s article
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/31/us-mideast-crisis-idUSKBN0IK15M20141031

The latest fighting in and for the border town of Kobani shows the confusing and convoluted coalitions being set up.  The Kurds in this battle have aligned themselves with the FSA (Free Syrian Army) which is battling both the Assad Syrian government forces and the Islamic State (IS).  Assad in this article condemns the Turkish action of letting Kurdish forces from Iraq backed by American war planes cross their border calling such forces “terrorists”. 

The Kurds of Syria are after a piece of Syria and indeed Assad should worry about losing some of his former country, however IS or ISIS is after the total of Syria and Iraq and all bordering countries in an effort to set up an Islamic caliphate.  I know what I’d fear more.

Although America’s current President has been vocal about the “Arab Spring” and is slow to see the reality of the Islamic Caliphate and its intolerance and brutality, the US Congress may not be, as evidenced by the efforts of Steven Stockman (TEXAS) as I related earlier in this article.

The Kurds have taken control of the Northern section of Iraq and formed a semi-autonomous region.  The area is predominantly Kurdish in population.  They are doing the same in the North of Syria.  While their aim is for a Kurdish state, they have proven the old adage that any enemy of my enemy becomes my friend.  Assad should realize the greatest enemy to him is not the Kurds, but the Islamic State.

The Kurds are all in against the Islamic State.  When I say all in I mean it.  They prove it by their deeds.  Much like the Israelis the Kurdish women have taken up arms and in large numbers.  Remember these people are defending their own families and villages.  http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/29/world/us-newest-allies-syrian-kurds/  The names they give their different groups reflect that desperate fight to the death attitude of a proud people.  The Kurdish Regional Government fighters are called the Peshmerga (translated – Those who Face Death).  They are not afraid of death.  They have seen what the Islamic State does to the women and children it captures.  These Kurdish women would rather face death than be sold into sex slavery tortured etc. 

This next link gives insight into the Kurdish Regional Government and the fight they are up against from all sides as they try to find and fight for their existence.  I think it is safe to say that they have earned the respect of American military leaders and their own people.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/29/fight-lives

The biography of Masoud Barzani the President of the KRG taken from the above link, is an example of the depths and desperation of the Kurdish people to survive and form a home state for their self-protection.

“Barzani has fought for the Kurdish cause for fifty years. During that time, the Kurds endured successive waves of calamity, mostly at the hands of Saddam Hussein: the genocidal onslaught of Anfal, which killed as many as a hundred and eighty thousand people; chemical-weapons attacks; and an unrelenting campaign of torture and imprisonment that touched nearly every Kurdish family. Barzani himself lost thirty-seven family members.”

If you want to keep up with the latest stuff on Kobani check out this twitter feed https://twitter.com/hashtag/kobani Check out the Canadian girl fighting in Kobani for the Kurds.  Remarkable.  I saw a call from ISIS for a cease fire.  Don’t know if that is confirmed but the Kurds seem to reject it.  Bravo Kurds.  If I’m in a fight for my life, I’m not going to let my attacker off so they can go out and get reinforcements.

Regards, Live Dangerously be a Conservative

Tesla's Dream Coming True ???

Tesla’s Dream Coming True !!!

No not that Tesla automobile for the dalliance of the extravagant uber rich, consumed by guilt for not earning their riches, but the Tesla from the turn of the century.  The Tesla looking to give energy for the masses.  This Tesla was an eccentric genius who seemed to have tapped into the future and desperately tried to “invent” what he saw.

Such is the fate of most seers, that they may not have the practical ability to create what they envision, nor the genius to put a reason behind it and be able to connect the dots.  Not so with Nicola Tesla who actually invented the radio and not Marconi.  The Supreme Court finally said so.  Tesla also invented Alternating Current that the world uses every day.  Before then Direct Current was the model that Edison used and wanted the world to use.  The problem was that DC current lost power over short distances.  For Edison’s power to work, there would have to be a power plant and all that entails every mile along a power lines route.

Tesla’s genius lay in his seeing a way to create alternating current which could be used, stored and amplified at will without additional power plant along the way.  Tesla’s humanity lay in his tearing up the agreement he had with Mr. Westinghouse in which Westinghouse would pay Tesla a sum per amount of electricity used in his system.  This would have made Tesla the richest man alive.  Westinghouse however was having financial problems getting the infrastructure up and running.  Tesla tore up the agreement because Westinghouse had believed in him when no one else did and Westinghouse had risked all for Tesla’s ideas; and they both went to work.  The result was that they built generators at Niagra Falls which operate still today, and electrified New York City for the first time.  The rest is history.  What is sometimes over looked is the in humanity in the way Tesla was treated by society.  He died a poor and broke person.

Now to the reason of this blog.  Tesla had a vision that seemed to permeate all his inventions which included the concepts of Laser beams, x-rays, friction less motors and a myriad of other inventions.  That vision was simply that the world, the universe is made up and filled up with (for a lack of a better term) energy.  That is what everything is made up of.  His idea was that there should be an easy way to simply hook into the largest piece of matter available, the earth and tap into the excess power of the forces that make up the matter of the earth as it radiates outward.  Simply put he hoped to invent a way to harvest that power and he also thought this power could be wirelessly transmitted anywhere it was needed
. 

Think of your local radio station which puts out x amount of signal, and our radios are tuned to that frequency.  We pick up some of that signal and our radios work.  Think of the amount of signal that is continually surrounding us and which you could say goes to waste.  In this case falls on deaf ears.

Well Tesla saw this and invented the concept of the radio – before there was a radio.  He also thought that electricity should be able to be transmitted in the same manner.  He understood the idea of waves and that all things are made up of them and all he should have to do is tune into the “force”.

This guy was ridiculed as crazy at the time, when all that was needed for his dream to come true was in my opinion a way to deal not in millions of watts ect. But to find a way to make it happen with small amounts that could be boosted later as he did with alternating current vs Direct current.

http://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/research/us-researchers-harvest-microwaves-with-a-meta-material-2013-11/

Allen Hawkes and Alexander Katko a couple of students have come up with a way to harvest out of thin air the myriad of excess electromagnetic that surrounds us.  Although the energy these students are capturing is from manmade sources such as the microwave energy already harvested by satellite receivers for TV, Radio and cell phones, which pervades us all, all the time.

Much like what the solar cell does when it collects the suns radiant energy this new invention collects excess microwave energy in the air around us.  It could be used to collect the excess energy from a WiFi set in your house, convert it to DC power and continually charge your phone.  This is done in their break through model by simply tuning a receiver cell to the frequency of the source and then through the use of Meta material and an active in this case copper conductor turning that energy into electricity of the DC variety.

This breakthrough is possible with the use of Meta material.  To my unscientific mind this is how the electromagnetic waves that are emitted are captured.  This Meta material is simply microscopically engineered material which is smaller than the waves it is trying to harvest.  I look at it in a mind game as trying to control waves in water.  Before our abilities to create things in the Meta or microscopically small world we could only block a wave entirely or let it pass.  With the new Meta technology we can take out as much water from each wave as it passes to fit our needs and let the waves continue.  This of course is pretty much pure conjecture on my part.  Here is the Wiki on it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamaterial

This is the breakthrough I think that allows us to modulate energy and make it usable to us.  Much as Tesla did with Alternating current. 

When you think of it all matter; the earth, the dirt, cement, you and me, everything of substance is made up of “energy” in one form or another and emits energy.  We consume food and turn it into energy at varying levels of efficiency why should it be thought strange to capture excess energy that permeates everything in our world and use it?  The inventors of this process say of it.  

 ““Our work demonstrates a simple and inexpensive approach to electromagnetic power harvesting,” said Professor Steven Cummer. “The beauty of the design is that the basic building blocks are self-contained and additive. One can simply assemble more blocks to increase the scavenged power.”

Professor Steven Cummer is the teacher in charge of and guiding these two inventors.

This is a picture of their Contraption in series gathering enough energy just sitting there to keep your phone charged, at an efficiency rating of a solar cell. From their article the fiberglass pieces are in effect antennas built at a frequency needed to collect energy from a source and build it through five such antennas to the voltage needed to power your cell phone.

  Before you start thinking these are just kids, anyone remember two kids working out of their garage thinking that there would be a market for personal computers.  Well there was and it along with all the variations that it generated were beyond the Steve’s conception.

This Picture below and the quote in it shows to me that great things can be had when the individual is left alone to "create" their own future.  As Tesla, as Jobs/Wozniak and Hawkes/Katko have or are doing.

“Let the future tell the truth, and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I have really worked, is mine”

  

Live Dangerously be a liberal Conservative

The Battle

Arthur Brooks is an author I really admire.  Mr. Brooks is an economist that has studied the junction where social systems, and politics meet with economics.

 

Brooks is a born again conservative, a true believer in the Capitalist system.  While he is a numbers guy, through his study of the nexus of politics, people and money he has solidified a conservative approach that before he came was only vaguely hinted at. 

George W. mentioned Compassionate Conservatism and because of his vagueness and lack of factual knowledge not to mention lack of ability to articulate his message was roundly criticized by the left and the right.

Arthur Brooks has worked his way around from a Democrat to an Independent and if you read his works you would say a libertarian or a Republican.  He is very passionate about Capitalism.  He also has a lot of advice for Republicans on how to sell the Free Market position.

Mr. Brooks has given us a path that unites the arguments of the fiscal and moral conservatives and shows how both together and the synergy they create can be a potent force.

Simply put he thinks the Democrats win because they make their argument in moral terms whereas the Republicans end up talking about money.

Early on Brooks saw the moral superiority in Free Enterprise.  Through his books you can see how he has evolved his ideas from merely studying the facts and data from countless reports and making academic style reports to making something grander.

His book "Who Really Cares"

http://www.aei.org/book/society-and-culture/poverty/who-really-cares/  

And his next book “Gross National Happiness” http://www.aei.org/book/society-and-culture/gross-national-happiness-book/  progresses us through his thought process during his political shift.  The prodigious amount of facts and figures he has analyzed staggers the mind;  however the way he writes about them will eases the mind and his conclusions he reaches will soothe it.  He writes in other words for the laymen, his conclusions while dealing with complicated and other times ill articulated maters become easily understood.

His next book “The Battle” is a short book. 

It is easy to read and brings together Arthur C. Brooks’ ideas into a cohesive vision of what’s happening and what the battle for this country is about.

His last book, “The Road to Freedom” is a blueprint for how to get out of the mess we are in and off the path to European Socialism.

Or as Frederick Hayek would say off of “The Road to Serfdom”.

This is where he comes up with the idea that this battle has to be fought on moral grounds, as he says in a speech (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_ryet5IUow) our immigrant parents didn't come over here for a better welfare state.  They came over here for the freedom to live off of their work.  To start a farm and live off of that labor.  He then jokes, they didn't come here because we have a cash for clunkers program.

In this lecture and his books he talks about how we need to talk about fairness and how our conservative programs help the individual because they are fair and the right thing to do.  He also quotes Jesus Christ “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”  Jesus Christ Mathew 25:31-40.

  The lynch pin to truly helping people is through showing at a personal level how a government that creates opportunity for entrepreneurs is a benefit to individuals.  Again the biblical idea of teaching a person to fish rather than giving them fish.  I might add not regulating and taxing a fisherman out of business too. 

He better than I writes of how Republicans and those battling for Free Enterprise if they do it in terms of moral high ground will win.  In other words, in a political setting people will be persuaded not through facts alone but facts that point to a moral conclusion, that also points to a choice that is best made not by the government but by the individual.  He talks of Earned success as the definition of Happiness and backs it up with reams of facts.

Few Republicans have been able to do that with any success in the modern age.  Ronald Reagan comes to mind.

George Will also has this quote about how big government has rigged society for big business. “But, then, big government always is most caring about the strong, the articulate and the organized.”   http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/will060813.php3#.Ubx7dfnryHs

But even Mr. Will only hints at the moral justification of smaller government.

Republicans have to learn to be more articulate about how our programs affect people on a fiscal level and how that is morally superior to what the Left has been giving them.

Clever subtleties may win the argument but will lose the war.

I think Mr. Will would read Mr. Brooks with relish.

Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Liberal Conservative

The Outsourcing of the American Dream

The Outsourcing of the American Dream.

What's the next big thing in outsourcing?  

Well there seem to be two things in the works.  The first is the fact that businesses are merging with other businesses in another country and reincorporating the new entity in that or a third country.  Why?  It’s simple; lower corporate tax rates for one or both.  Less regulation. An example from Michigan is the company Perrigo which bought an Irish company Elan and reincorporated in Ireland which has a tax rate of 12.5% compared to the US rate of 35%.  The link below lists various other businesses that are doing the same thing.  This is article #4 in the link below from Newsmax, where I got most of the ideas for this blog post.  The Thrid thing is Banking.  While we can't outsource our poor the money is definately leaving.
http://tinyurl.com/pfyxrma

To continue from that same Newsmax email, you’ll see in article #3 that Canada is in effect outsourcing health care for its citizens to other countries.  This, while a voluntary migration of Canadians to America mainly to receive quicker and better health care is being forced upon the wealthier or more desperate Canadians by their government run health care.  The article blames this on the “Free Health Care” of Canada which is anything but free and is making their service anything but workable, if the definition of workable is to provide quality medical service in a timely manner to its people.  By timely I mean that they don’t want to die while waiting in line.  With our new Health Care are we not doing the same?  Where will we migrate too?

We all have seen the outsourcing of parts of businesses to take advantage of cheaper labor found in other countries, now it is the actual companies due to our higher tax rates driving more companies and their profits off shore.  

We too know of the influx of wealthy patients from around the world who hope to save themselves from their countries health care which for the most part is dysfunctional due to over regulation or being outright taken over by their respective governments.  The thread is common, the quality goes down, services get rationed to “people who need it most for the good of all”, which doesn’t work, and is not for the good of all only those who the bureaucrats deem so.

Along the same lines and looking at Article #2 in the Newsmax email, we look at the harmful effect the Dodd Frank Banking Bill has upon poor Americans.  This bill which has regulated nearly every aspect of the banking system in America was supposed to be for the benefit of poor people.  Instead the cost of the regulations and the limits it places on the types of fees allowable only forced the banks to sharply raise the fees it was allowed and is forcing poor folk out of normal banking.

So is the main idea of the American Dream;  that in America anyone of any means is free to do whatever is within his/her means to get ahead and to do whatever they wish to pursue their wants and desires, ie. Happiness, coming close to the end?

We are seeing that with the enactment of the Left’s policies of ever increasing government control and regulation in all aspects of our life; be it our jobs, small businesses we run or hope to start up, our ability and our doctors ability to receive and to give premium health care, to our ability to do with our money what we want is being taken away.  Even our “Free Market” is being corrupted by limiting our choices in the Market place by over regulation.

The obvious based upon common sense is being replaced by those obtuse regulations and regulators based on the Left’s mantra of "Its For the Common Good”.  Which is anything but good or the “common sense” with which we ran our lives before there was even “common law” from which the law derived. 

The regulations needed to implement the laws for the “common good” are negative and while professing free choice, really in effect limit the choices we have to choose from.  Those choices we have left are because someone other than the individual censored or limited the other choices to the ones they liked.

Walter Gellhorn in his book “Individual Freedom and Governmental Restraints” quoted Yale’s President Whitney Griswold when talking about censorship leaving less choices.  “The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas”.  That was written in the 1950’s.  

Isn’t censorship by definition arbitrary and tyrannical?

After all, isn’t the American Dream having the freedom to simply put your idea out there for the public to decide on and not have it “censored” first by the government?  Isn't doing something we want to the definition of freedom. Isn’t that one of the main reasons Europeans came to America in the first place?  To flee tyranny?  

A farmer of the Free Choice ilk Joel Salatin, after butting heads with the bureaucracy on many occasions because he tried to do things outside the box wrote a book titled "Everything I Want to Do is Illegal", voicing the frustration most of us face when trying to do anything in this (Our) over-regulated country. 

While Joel would probably not call himself a Conservative, he might bite on being tagged a Liberal Conservative.  I on the other hand might balk on being called a Liberal I too might bight on being called a Liberal Conservative.  There is common ground to build upon here.

Aren’t we now after all facing a tyranny of regulation?  Where left is there to flee too accept within ourselves?  Does not the saying in the picture below seem to sum it up?

I think Breitbart would agree.

Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative

PS.  Here is a link to Gellhorn mentioned above.  http://www.nytimes.com/1995/12/11/nyregion/walter-gellhorn-law-scholar-and-professor-dies-at-89.html

 As you will see Walter Gellhorn brought together the liberal thoughts of individual freedom and how they were being trampled by over regulation through the government.  I would suggest reading further his book “IndividualFreedom and Governmental Restraints”.  

 I abhor any tyranny no matter what ideology it professes.  I would call myself an outright Liberal because I believe that by definition along Gellhorn and Hayek’s lines a Liberal is against the notion that the government should decide what we are allowed to do.  I believe in Freedom of choice in all aspects; work, health care, and money.  

However I will add to my new title (Liberal), the word Conservative because most liberals today have strayed from the original Liberal path and believe Individual Freedom of Choice should only be made between the choices defined by the government and which choices they allow us to choose from.

Even the religiously rigorous Amish allow their young adults the individual freedom of choice when they send them out to venture among the “English” to judge for themselves what they want to do with their lives.

So perhaps now I should sign my posts with;

Live Dangerously Be a Liberal Conservative  

(To my Conservative friends that indeed may mean I’ll be Living Dangerously)

Yup sounds good.