Unglued Idiot of the Day Award: Lewis Diuguid and "Socialist is a Code Word for Blacks"

Recently Drudge linked to a short editorial in the Kansas City Star: Shame on McCain and Palin for using an old code word for black, By Lewis Diuguid, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist, submitted October 21, 2008. [click here to go to the article]

For some reason - stupidity, ignorance, bizarre belief system, or something equally odd - Lewis Diuguid (I bet his last name is pronounced "Do good") wrote that when McCain and Palin say Obama is a Socialist, they are really saying that he's Black.

I read his article and added the following comment:

When I was young there was an all-white group we called socialists, and they went even further and called themselves National Socialists. Now there are over a billion Chinese who aren't offended when you call them socialists (or state capitalists), about a quarter of a billion of mostly white folk who were formerly in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and another billion Indians who also are slowly emerging from their long, dark night of socialism. But now we have an idiot, Lewis Diuguid, who gazes at his navel and finds an inane piece of lint to wave as a sign of Republican racism and shame. Mr. Diuguid, anyone who votes for or against someone because of skin color is racist, and by that standard, over 95% of American Blacks are well into that category.

Then I included a link to one of my recent posts about Black racism as evidenced by their almost total support of Obama. [this is the link I included]

Soon my hit counter indicated that I was getting more visitors in an hour than I usually get in a day. Linking to an article that Drudge links to is a good way to increase blog traffic.

This inspired me to add more comments, and with each comment to add a link to another one of my posts. The hits kept pouring in, and I had the satisfaction of knowing that about eight of my most recent posts about Obama and the Democrats being at fault for the financial crisis were getting good readership.

Then I got greedy, and started commenting and including links to older posts where I condemned socialism generally, and socialized medicine in particular. The hits kept coming.

This afternoon, two days after it began, Drudge dropped the link to the article from his featured items, and the hits quickly diminished.

But now that I have the taste for higher readership, I'm watching Drudge much more closely, looking for his next link to an outrageous main stream media article that I can piggy back on.

It's fun to be read.

At Plank's Constant there is agreement that Lewis Diuguid is an idiot, and his post includes a photo of Mr. Diuguid. The calm demeanor reflected in the photo gives no hint to the stupidity Mr. Diuguid exhibits in his writings. Once again the old adage proven, "you can't tell a book by looking at the cover."

Please click on the link above and sneak a peek. You know you want to.

(To go to the posts I linked to in my comments, click on the "Lewis Diuguid" Articles label below)

Another Democrat Sex Scandal - What did Pelosi Know, and When did she Know It?

Republicans always get the dirty end of the stick. Mark Foley resigned from the House in disgrace for e-mailing while gay. Even though he never got to first base with the former pages, much was made of the fact that one was under 18 when contacted by Foley.

Of course, Senator Larry Craig made endless headlines just by tap-dancing in a bathroom while gay. I wonder what higher level of coverage gay Republicans could get if they actually ever consumated their advances, like Democrats do?

Interestingly, Democrats who made a big issue of these had no problem when the late Massachusetts congressman Gary Studds plied with alcohol and had sexual intercourse with an underage, serving page.

Now the Democrat who won Mark Foley's seat, West Palm Beach Congressman Tim Mahoney, has been caught paying money and providing employment to keep a mistress quiet (and getting big bucks from FEMA to please another mistress). Although Nancy Pelosi said she just heard about his affair(s), members of Mahoney's staff said that Senior Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives, including Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), the chair of the Democratic Caucus, have been working with Mahoney to keep the matter(s) from hurting his re-election campaign.

For those whose memories are short, and I'm sure all Democrats will fall in this category, I ask you to recall the criticism laid on Dennis Hastert and senior Republicans about the Mark Foley scandal. As you recall, they were accused of doing nothing when told that Foley made inappropriate e-mail and instant messaging contacts with former congressional pages.

What then will be said of Nancy Pelosi, Rahm Emanuel, and other Democrat leaders who knew of Mahoney's affair(s), and were working with him to keep the matter(s) from hurting his re-election campaign?

Apparently these two affairs are just the tip for "Hornydog" Mahoney, the Democrats' poster boy for family values when he campaigned for and won Mark Foley's vacant seat two year ago.

The odds-on favorite answer is that nothing will be said. It's just Democrats being Democrats.

Barney Frank Accompanied by the Congressional Black Caucus Choir

The late Senator Patrick Moynihan said, “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.”

Die-hard socialists have their own facts, shaped by their views, not historical events. In a letter to our local paper, a Liberal credited the CIA for toppling the Guatemalan government with a comic-opera 480-soldier “invasion,” then averred that this ignited a 35-year civil war. Since the civil war began after Castro took power and was Cuban communist inspired, I wondered from whence came this “alternative” history?

A little Googling produced the answer. The Liberal’s version of history was displayed “chapter and verse” on socialist websites, none of which noted the civil war followed Cuban communism, and ended with the Soviet Union collapse.

However, the Liberal is not alone in having a personal version of history. Democrats have their own about causes of the financial crisis, blaming Republicans for financial deregulation. Democrats point way back to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 as the cause of the current crisis, even though it passed the Senate 90-8-1, the House 362-57, and was signed by Bill Clinton. A lot of Democrats voted for it, and it was supported by Bill Clinton.

Democrats continue their meme of blaming Republicans, even though President Bush, John McCain, and 23 other Republican Senators tried to rein in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac several times from 2002 through 2008. [click here for documented proof]

Ignored by Democrats, and the main stream media, are a score of You Tube videos showing Democrat Barney Frank, backed by the Congressional Black Caucus chorus, singing “Fannie and Freddie are Fine,” and chanting that more regulation was a racist Republican attempt to deny poor people affordable housing. [click here to see this video]

They cranked up their song’s volume after Franklin Delano Raines resigned in disgrace for cooking Fannie Mae’s books in 2004 to give huge bonuses to himself and other former Clinton administration officials. Raines signed a consent decree, Fannie Mae insurance paid his fines, and Raines and friends pocketed millions in ill-gotten gains.

Democrat crime always pays, because the main stream media are their accomplices.

Racist Republican Rascals

Republicans are doing it again. Trying to tie Barack Obama to a disgraced black man, Franklin Delano Raines, the former CEO of Fannie Mae who was fined millions, but still got off extremely light. While the Fannie Mae CEO, Raines cooked the books to reap huge bonuses for himself and friends. [click this link for more about Mr. Raines]

Then as his accounting fraud was being investigated, Raines resigned, took his bonuses, and ran. When Raines was sued for the fraud in civil court, he signed a consent agreement that only recouped a tiny fraction of his ill-gotten gain.

Who says crime doesn’t pay?

What is the Obama connection? The Washington Post reported that Obama’s campaign sought Raines’ guidance and advice on “mortgage and housing policy matters.” A Washington Post editorial followed that wrote: "Two members of Mr. Obama's political circle, James A. Johnson and Franklin D. Raines, are former chief executives of Fannie Mae." [click here for more information about the allegations]

The Post did not report, but could have and should have, that the leading recipients of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lobbying contributions are Chris Dodd, Democrat, followed by Barack Obama, Democrat. It is easily understood why Dodd receives Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lobbying largesse; Dodd is Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.

But why Obama? He has very little Senate experience, and no significant legislative accomplishments. Why is Obama a pet of the scandal-prone Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac cartel?

Which are now wards of the government, thanks to their monumental mismanagement.

Mismanagement aided immeasurably by Democrat politicians like Barney Frank and Charles Schumer, who with the rabid support of the Congressional Black Caucus blocked repeated attempts by Republicans, including President Bush and Senator McCain, to tighten the regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Interestingly, the Democrat grounds for blocking tighter regulation were their old, familiar, tired cry that Republicans were trying to rein in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac because Republicans, in their racism, didn’t want poor people to get cheap loans.

Now they have turned 180 degrees and trumpet that it was the Republicans that blocked tighter regulation. With all the evidence available of Democrats speaking their own words against tighter regulation, you would think Democrats would be laughing stocks.

If that’s what you think, you don’t understand the ability of the main stream media to spin and hide information, and the inability of the American public to get past their media manipulation.

As I mentioned earlier, “Who says crime doesn’t pay?”

Democrats Cause Financial Crisis

This Fox News video (click here) clearly shows how Democrats, particularly Mass. Rep. Barney Frank, blocked Republican efforts to increase regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

(Here is Bill Clinton agreeing that Democrats caused the financial crisis) [click here]
(Democrats in their own words covering up the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac scam that caused our Economic Crisis) [click here]
(Fannie Mae CEO calling Obama and the Dems the "Family" and "Conscience" of Fannie Mae - while Obama and other Democrats received the highest contributions and pay from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) [click here]
When you click on the above links, you will also see many other related videos that demonstrate the role that Obama and Democrats played in causing our financial crisis. Happy viewing!

Barney Frank’s comments are particularly egregious, because while he was saying all was well at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, his main squeeze was Herb Moses, who was Fannie’s assistant director for product initiatives. Moses worked at the government-sponsored enterprise from 1991 to 1998, while Frank was on the House Banking Committee, which had jurisdiction over Fannie. His "pillow talk" with Barney was worth millions.

Another interesting Democrat enabler of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is New York Senator Chucky Schumer, who is always first and loudest with Republican denunciations at any hint of a problem or crisis.

It is a tribute to the power of the East Coast liberal elite media – New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN – that Americans think that Republicans repealed the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 to deregulate financial markets. Actually, the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed on November 12, 1999, by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which passed in Congress with a 343-86 vote in the House of Representatives, before being sent to conference committee; the final bipartisan bill then passed easily (Senate: 90-8-1, House: 362-57-15) and was signed by President Bill Clinton (one of its chief supporters).

As a further tribute to the media elite, Republicans are blamed for deregulation of financial markets even though President Bush and Senators McCain, Dole, Sununu, and Heath tried several times – 2001, 2003, 2005, and 2006 – to tighten controls on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Each time the Democrats blocked reform, accusing Republicans of discriminating against low-income families by trying to tighten controls over lending practices.

Very recently Democrats still played the race game, accusing Republicans of racism by linking Obama and other Democrats to Franklin Raines, who is black, the disgraced former CEO of Fannie Mae (and until recently, an Obama adviser). This article, The Fannie Mae Gang, by Paul A. Gigot, Wall Street Journal editorial page editor, was written July 23 – over two months ago – and nails the causes for today’s financial crisis.

It should be required reading for all Americans, because you will never hear about it from the elite main stream media, who think their mission is to carry Obama and Democrats further into political and economic power.

As the article points out, the politicians and agencies that caused the mess will come out of it stronger than ever, taking us a long way towards their ultimate objective, state capitalism.

All it takes is to keep buying your votes with deceit and lies.

Blacks are Racists

In a clear case of the pot calling the kettle black (Black Congressmen Declare Racism In Palin’s Rhetoric), Blacks who are voting for a Black because he’s Black at a rate of 95 percent or higher accuse others of racism.

If you vote for or against someone because of their skin color, you’re a racist, aren't you?

Apparently Blacks feel that if you don’t agree with the politics of a Black politician, you’re a racist. Like those who criticize Obama for his long associations with two Leftists who have long been virulent, sometimes violent, enemies of America.

The New York Times recently published a whitewash of Weather Underground bomber William Ayers’ association with Obama, even though The Times omitted and overlooked the substance of their relationship. As The National Review Online notes:

There is nothing "sporadic" about Barack Obama delivering hundreds of thousands of dollars over a period of many years to fund Bill Ayers’ radical education projects, not to mention many millions more to benefit Ayers’ radical education allies. We are talking about a substantial and lengthy working relationship here, one that does not depend on the quality of personal friendship or number of hours spent in the same room together (although the article greatly underestimates that as well).

Fully in consonance with the views of Obama’s former pastor the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers’ education theory is that the United States is a fundamentally racist and oppressive nation.

Through it all, Obama acts like a man who sleepwalked through his associations with both Wright and Ayers. Although he proclaims that he was a regular attending Rev. Wright’s church, and declared Reverend Wright his “spiritual mentor or counselor,” Obama apparently zoned out during the many sermons when Reverend Wright repeatedly damned America based on what he described as his reading of the Gospels and the treatment of black Americans, including telling his congregation on the Sunday after Sept. 11, 2001 that the United States had brought on al Qaeda's attacks because of its own terrorism.

Similarly, quoting the National Review article, “Obama was perfectly aware of Ayers’ radical views, since he read and publically endorsed, without qualification, Ayers’ book on juvenile crime. That book is quite radical, expressing doubts about whether we ought to have a prison system at all, comparing America to South Africa’s apartheid system, and contemptuously dismissing the idea of the United States as a kind or just country.”

Either Obama is very thick, or very selective in remembering what he has been doing the past two decades, and who he was doing it with.

Since we all believe he’s smart, obviously he’s a liar.

A worthy Democrat successor to Bill “I never had sex with that woman” Clinton, Hillary “I dodged sniper fire” Clinton, John “I spent Christmas of 1968 in Cambodia” Kerry, Joe “Neal Kinnock plagiarist” Biden, and Al “sea levels will rise 20 feet by 2100” Gore.

Democrats Set House on Fire, Then Run to the Rescue

Alice was chatting with some friends and Sarah Palin and the coming debate was mentioned. One woman remarked about “how dumb Sarah Palin is.” At that point Alice interjected that Joe Biden was really dumb, and for an example told her friends how he had said that as soon as the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt had immediately gone on television to explain the situation to the American public.

None of the women had heard of Biden’s remark, but one of them said: “Well, of course he meant radio.”

Alice replied, “Maybe he did, but Roosevelt wasn’t President then.”

“Well he soon was, so that’s when he told Americans what was happening,” the woman continued.

“No he wasn’t,” Alice corrected her. “He wasn’t President until three years later. Do you know who was President?”

None of the women knew, so Alice answered her own question: “Herbert Hoover.”

Then Alice wondered why none of her friends had heard of Biden’s remark. Alice assumed that it was because the main stream media chose to ignore it to avoid embarrassing a Democrat.

“That’s not it,” said another of her friends, “it isn’t being reported because it’s just not important.”

“Don’t you think it’s at least as important as Dan Quayle misspelling “potato”? asked Alice. “Don’t you remember the big deal that was made of that? People still talk about it.”

“You know, you’re right,” the woman replied.

The purpose of my presenting this exchange is not to once more prove the already proven, that Americans are history illiterates. Test after test, and example after example has provided ample proof of that. My purpose is to illustrate that people are willfully ignorant, that they call something a “fact” only as it is relevant to supporting their viewpoint.

However, as the last fair-minded Democrat, the late Senator Patrick Moynihan, remarked: “Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but no one is entitled to their own facts.”

Patrick is rolling over in his grave now, as Democrats and the main stream media place the blame for the financial crisis on Republicans for favoring deregulation, when it is obvious that Democrat policies going back to Jimmy Carter caused the collapse.

To get to the core of this issue, answer one simple question: “Why did lenders loan to very bad credit risks, and make them loans which could only survive if the housing market continued to go up, and interest rates continued to stay down?”

These loans were made with no down payment, low introductory interest rates changing to variable, stated income instead of verifiable (including income not declared on tax returns), and even interest-only loans to be restructured in two years.

So again my question, why were these loans made?

The answer is obvious: because of pressure from Democrats to enable low-income families to buy “affordable” housing. Republicans recognized the potential for problems and opposed the lowering of standards, but Democrats got their way.

It started with the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) of 1977 under Jimmy Carter and the Democrats, which was “reformed” in 1993 by Bill Clinton and the Democrats. According to Robert Rubin, Assistant to the President for Economic Policy: "(In) conjunction with (President Clinton’s) Community Development Bank and financial institution legislation, which recently passed the House of Representatives, CRA reform will generate billions of dollars in new lending and extend basic banking services to the inner cities and to distressed rural communities around the country.”

Banks were to be judged by how well their statistics for loans to low-income families matched the rates for higher income earners. In other words, on a percentage basis the rates for loans to high-risk and low-risk borrowers should be the same.

In 2003 the Bush administration recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis over a decade before.

Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, and the Democrats disagreed and blocked the reforms: ''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Frank. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''

Shortly after Frank’s statement, Congress held a hearing on accounting irregularities at Fannie Mae. By the end of 2004, Franklin D. Raines, former head of the White House Office of Management and Budget under President Clinton, and then chief executive of Fannie Mae, was forced out by the board, accused by regulators of overseeing accounting manipulations to bolster his compensation.

Raines settled charges brought by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight by agreeing this spring to pay $2 million and forfeiting $22.7 million in stock and other benefits – all covered by insurance.

Some think that the distorted profitability numbers Raines reported at Fannie Mae contributed to its current slide.

Still Democrats didn’t learn, and in 2005 and 2006, Republicans including John McCain as a co-sponsor, put forth S. 190 [109th]: Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, “(a) bill to address the regulation of secondary mortgage market enterprises, and for other purposes.”

Again reform was blocked by Democrats, and three of the top Democrats blocking it – Chris Dodd, John Kerry, and Barack Obama – were the top three recipients of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

When you read the articles warning about the consequences of making loans, it is no mystery why or how the current financial crisis occurred. Democrat handwriting is on the Wall - all over the wreckage of Wall Street, that is.

Obama's Social Security Lies in Florida

The New York Times continues to be unable to overcome Liberal prejudices and report fairly and accurately. “Obama Criticizes McCain on Social Security,” headlined a New York Times article by Jeff Zeleny, September 20, 2008.

“If my opponent had his way, the millions of Floridians who rely on it would’ve had their Social Security tied up in the stock market this week,” Mr. Obama told a Florida audience.

Oddly, The Times did not include Obama’s remark that followed: “Millions of families would've been scrambling to figure out how to give their mothers and fathers, their grandmothers and grandfathers, the secure retirement that every American deserves.”

That remark by Obama was completely false, and even a New York Times reporter would have known it was wrong. Obama’s first lie was that current Social Security recipients would have been affected. Senator McCain has been very clear for over three years that all current retirees would continue drawing exactly the same Social Security benefits and would not be affected in any way by his partial privatization plan. Further, he has also been clear that his plan would be totally voluntary, and that current workers would have the option of continuing under the old system or contributing to a privatized account.

As FactCheck.org summarizes:

• The private accounts would have been voluntary. Anybody fearful of the stock market's risk could simply stay in the current system.
  
• Obama's reference to "casino culture," disappearing "nest eggs" and gambling with "your life savings" are also misleading exaggerations. Only a little over one-fourth of any workers' total Social Security taxes could have been invested (a maximum of 4 percent of taxable wages, out of the total 15.3 per cent now paid, split equally between worker and employer.)
  
• Speculation in individual stocks would not have been permitted. Workers would have had a choice of a few, broadly diversified stock or bond funds.
  
• While McCain has voted in favor (of) creating private Social Security accounts in the past, and endorsed Bush's 2005 proposal (which never came to a vote in Congress), he is not making a strong push for them as part of his campaign. In fact, a search for the term "Social Security" on the McCain-Palin Web site brings up the following: "No documents were found."

The last point illustrates how far Obama is willing to go in his panic-driven attempts to scare elderly Floridians into voting for him. Obama has to have Florida, or he will end up like Gore and Kerry, so he has chosen to demagogue and lie about an issue that hasn’t even been raised by Senator McCain.

Of course there are always two possibilities: Obama may be too stupid to know about the Republican privatization plan, or he may be intentionally lying. Since Obama is a college graduate, I don’t he’s that stupid, so obviously he’s a liar.

Still, it’s a stupid liar who lies about something so easy to check up on. However, Obama probably thinks the Main Stream Media won’t call him on it, and even if they do, the old folks in Florida won’t notice.

You know, Obama may not be that stupid after all.

Democrats have been lying about and demagoguing Social Security for decades and getting away with it.

Why change now?

Che Lives! (In Our Colleges, Anyway)

Che Lived! Che Lives! Che will never die!

Che lives. But in Guatemala, Che only lives on T-shirts sold in T-shirt shops which are usually located next to a McDonalds, a Burger King, Domino’s Pizza, etc., or a distinctive and very successful Latin-American fast-food chain founded in Guatemala over thirty years ago, Pollo Campero.

The face of Che is ubiquitous, but his beliefs aren't.

“Communism was a great system for making people equally poor. In fact, there was no better system in the world for that than communism.” Extolling Globalization, Thomas L. Friedman wrote this in “The World is Flat,” and added that “Capitalism made people unequally rich.”

Besides totally agreeing with Friedman, I would extend his assessment to communism’s bastard step-child, socialism, and add that capitalism succeeds wherever it is tried.

Of course there are many true believers in Communism, but few of them live in the former citadels of Communism, the Soviet Union and China. Even most North Koreans and Cubans have lost their Marxist zeal; they saw their countries go from the theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat to the deification of dictators. But now the Gods of Communism are either dead, discredited, or disregarded: Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Kim Jong Il, Mao, Castro, and Kim Il Sung.

I've seen some of their statues already on junk piles, and look forward to see others added to the trash heap of history. How delightful to think of Mao in his mausoleum observing China's mad race down the capitalist road Mao devoted his life and the deaths of a hundred million Chinese to stop.

Now the only place communism and socialism are valued and revered are amongst ignorant and illiterate peoples of undeveloped countries, and in the halls of academia amongst Progressive economists, environmentalists, and anti-Globalizationists.

They and Che are good company.

Many Democrats are Racists

Not only are many Democrats racists, but many others are sexists.

If you vote for or against someone because of their skin color (for, because their skin color is the same as yours, against, because it isn’t) are not you engaging in racist activity, i.e., casting your vote on the basis of race?

Of course you are!

And if you vote for or against someone because of their sex (for, because their sex is the same as yours, against, because it isn’t) are not you engaging in sexist activity, i.e., casting your vote on the basis of gender?

Let me have an “Amen, Brothers and Sisters!”

And is there any proof that this sort of thing is going on?

Of course there is!

Over 90 percent of voting Blacks – some estimates are over 95 percent – have and will vote for Obama because he’s Black. Of course, Democrats are no strangers to special interest (i.e., bigoted) voting, engaging in it far more than Republicans. Democrats expect women to vote for women, Hispanics for Hispanics, and Blacks for Blacks.

Or without a candidate of the proper race and/or sex, for a candidate who will give special attention and favors on the basis of race or sex, not on the basis of what's best for the country.

Republicans expect Republicans to vote for varying degrees of conservative political belief, because they believe that smaller government and stronger individuals are best for the country. If Mr. Powell or Ms. Rice could overcome their aversion to political campaigning, the world would hear thunderous support for a Black and/or woman from Republicans, particularly if they are followers of the philosophies and teachings of Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams.

It just doesn’t seem fair, does it? Conservatives –shunned by Blacks - have great Black leaders, Drs. Sowell, Williams, and Rice, and General Powell, for example, and Liberals have charlatans like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.

You do get what you deserve.

Democrat special interest (i.e., racist and sexist) politics was obvious in the Democrat primaries: Obama won Southern states where most Democrats are Black (and which will go Republican in the general election, anyway), and Hillary won the big Northern and Western states, with majority White (and pro-Hillary female) populations.

Now White and/or female Democrats are trying to figure out what to do with an unproven, inexperienced candidate. While world events throw cold water on the idea of electing a president with little or no real world experience, many Democrats realize they want effective leadership more than an historic first Black or woman president.

Obama is not the answer, and neither is Hillary.

Someday soon we will have one or the other, but not yet.

However, if we can get Ms. Rice energized, we can have both.

Socialized Medicine - the Dream is Alive

Socialized medicine shares a universal aspect of socialism: The believers in socialism (communism without a KGB) always say it will work if ever it were done properly. The problem isn’t socialism, they say, but the people running it.

However, the true believers in socialized medicine have eyes but will not see, have ears but will not hear. As they speak of the marvels of socialized medicine in Europe, the reality of Europe is quite different.

The population of the European Union is shrinking and aging rapidly, as it also becomes lower skilled and less educated. Europe’s birthrate is below the replacement rate of 2.1 births per female needed to maintain zero population growth, and even Muslim immigration with its higher birthrates is not enough to stabilize its population.

As birthrates fall, longevity rises. A shrinking workforce pays ever-higher taxes to pay the benefits of the rapidly growing elderly and disabled populations.

All of this is playing out to the background music of rapid Islamification of Europe, featuring hoards of uneducated, unskilled, and because of culture and attitudes, virtually unemployable Muslim youth.

But enough of Europe’s problems, which proponents of socialized medicine studiously ignore. We are surrounded right here, in the good old capitalist United States, with classic examples of the failure of socialized medicine. The San Francisco Chronicle chronicled just such failure in a front-page article, “Newsom ready to sue over cuts in Medi-Cal; Reduced payments to doctors would burden city, he says,” March 26, 2008.

Gavin Newsom, San Francisco’s adulterous alcoholic Mayor, who would be governor in 2010, was reacting to a 10 percent reduction in California state reimbursements to doctors who treat Medi-Cal patients, which he called “unconscionable.”

(Medi-Cal is California's medical insurance program for the poor, funded half by the state, and the other half by federal matching funds. The California 10-percent cut will be a “double-whammy,” since the federal contribution will be cut the $567 million no longer required to match state funding. Medi-Cal will cost $38 billion next year and serves 6.7 million patients at an average cost of $5,672 per patient. The 10-percent reduction is only for reimbursements to doctors. If it was against the entire program, it would be $3.8 billion, or 6.7 times greater.)

(Nationally, California is already near the bottom in reimbursing doctors for treating Medi-Cal patients and dead last in how much money it spends per Medi-Cal patient, according to the California Medical Association.)

Call it what you will, Mayor Newsom, but the State of California is in a bad state financially. Its Democrat legislature, and its pseudo-Republican governor, has always spent tax revenues like a New York Mayor patronizing an escort service. However, for many years the buoyant economy and ever-higher property values produced tax revenues almost but not quite faster than they could be squandered.

What happens to all those government services and benefits when the good times stop rolling?

According to Lenny Goldberg, executive director of the California Tax Reform Association of Sacramento, which advocates equitable taxation and is supported by labor and education groups, "We have such an irrational property tax system, we rely on the growing housing market, and then when it levels off, there's an awful lot of schools and services hanging out there."

In other words, when things don’t just keep rising – our “over exuberant” economy stalls – what happens next can be summed up succinctly:

“Oops.”

In California’s situation, the “oops” is about a 16-billion shortage of revenues compared to expenses. And it’s really a lot more than that, because California does what other governments all do (and what they don’t allow businesses to do), and ignores its burgeoning unfunded liabilities for future retirees. At a point in the not-too-distant future, this big chicken will come home to roost – it already has in some areas, such as Contra Costa County – and no matter how wonderfully the tax revenues revive, the rapidly growing retirement payments will deplete all other government-funded programs and services.

In particular, Medi-Cal will continue to have growing needs at the same time California will have less funds available for it. Mayor Newsom predicts that “physicians will stop treating Medi-Cal patients altogether and that poor people will be forced to visit hospital emergency rooms for all of their medical care.” Public hospitals, such as the ones funded by the City and County of San Francisco, must accept all patients regardless of whether they have insurance or what kind it is.

The cities, counties, states, and federal government, of course, are all in the same pickle of falling tax revenues, and all of them have based their spending programs on the assumption of ever-growing tax revenues.

Nowhere in any government plans are there provisions for temporary or permanent setbacks such as recessions, shrinking and aging populations, lower property transfers or values, or reduced benefits or public services.

Indeed, even as one system after another fails or approaches failure, there is a clamor for more of the same, and failing programs such as socialized medicine or social security are held up as examples of what we should have, or need more of.

It’s like we’re watching a train speeding down a track that we know is broken ahead, and we’re all congratulating ourselves for building a faster train. In a way, it makes sense. Without a real disaster, a world-class train wreck, we’ll do what Americans all do when faced with a problem. We’ll tinker it to death. We won’t do something new, big, visionary, or least of all, something that will effectively solve the problem.

We’ll do what we did to “reform” or “simplify” the Internal Revenue Service. We’ll add hundreds of new regulations, not get rid of any of the old ones, and just more deeply entrench the status quo.

I can hear Congress now: “They want reform? We’ll give them reform! Then they’ll learn to stop moaning and whining about reform, and keep their mouths shut!”

Still, Americans continue to ask, nay demand, that government do more of everything. Americans are like the socialists. It’s not a problem with the system, is just that the system hasn’t been done right yet.

In the meantime, be careful what you wish for, because sometimes wishes come true.

The Six Miracles of Socialism

There is no unemployment, but nobody works.

No one works, but everyone receives wages.

All get wages, but nothing can be bought with them.

Nothing is purchased, but everybody owns everything.

Everybody owns everything, but they are all dissatisfied.

All are dissatisfied, but everyone votes for the system.

(Purloined from Osmica Magazine, Yugoslavia, via Herb Caen’s column in the San Francisco Chronicle, over a decade ago, and probably more like two decades ago.)

Cuba? Who Gives a Rat’s Patootie?

An article in Time Magazine suggested we would blow a golden opportunity if we didn’t take advantage of Fidel’s retirement and end the embargo of Cuba. Apparently it is felt that if we take that step, Raul Castro and his clique will ease their draconian rule over Cuba, and soon Cuba will be like Key West but just further south.

Why in the name of anything and all that makes sense would we want to do that? For almost fifty years Cuba has been a laboratory study of all that is wrong, and can go wrong if a country goes and stays communist.

Every day Cuba teaches us Communism 101: “What is bad about Communism, and what is even worse.”

Even better, Cuba provides a place for our Left to go on a pilgrimage. Several old Lefties from northern California have gone there, even before Michael Moore, and have come back singing Cuba’s praises. They were particularly impressed by how everyone has an education (although they didn’t say anything about how no one was paid a living wage), and they were impressed with universal healthcare (but said little about the lack of modern medical equipment and supplies).

They absolutely fumed and fulminated when I brought up recent information that Cuban prostitutes working foreign tourist areas had incomes many times higher than Cuban doctors or teachers. Many times higher, in fact, than any Cuban except the top Cuban leaders, who have done quite well even in the face of their countrymen’s crushing poverty.

The poverty of the Cuban people is not just the poverty of material things. It is also the poverty of deprivation of the intellect and the soul. Cubans can’t read freely, can’t speak freely, can’t worship freely, can’t travel freely, can’t surf the internet freely, and have no choice of leaders or of how they are led. Cuban prisons are full of Cubans whose only crime was criticizing their leaders.

The old joke: an American in Cuba tells a Cuban, “In the United States we are free to say that our President is a fool.”

The Cuban replies: “It’s the same for us in Cuba. We are free to say that your President is a fool too.”

If we change towards Cuba and let Cuba become just another capitalist success story, where will people go to find out what a failure Communism is?

Already I hear people say that China is prospering under Communism. I’ve heard it said that China shows how much better central planning and control works than our chaotic capitalism. However, those commenters seem ignorant that the Chinese government is doing all they can, legal and otherwise, to transform or close their SOE’s (the old State-Owned Enterprises).

They are also ignorant that China, according to a recent study by the Rand Corporation, has an unemployment rate of 23 percent. Or that the Chinese early retirement system is mandatory, and that its purpose is to get older workers off government employment so they can be paid tiny pensions.

The Chinese have “put a Chinese face on Communism,” which makes it look a lot like capitalism.

If it weren’t for Cuba (and North Korea, which we know nothing about), we ignorant Americans could easily be fooled into believing that communism is succeeding where our capitalism is failing.

Even now, as socialism enters its death throes in Europe, we’re constantly urged to copy them as if they were models of success, while their under-funded social safety nets come unraveled.

That’s why we need Cuba, to have a permanent display of “Communism under glass,” a preserved specimen of how peoples can sacrifice lifetimes in pursuit of Utopian pipe dreams.

The Cuban people seem proud of their accomplishments and our Left points with pride to Cuba, so why should we pervert their idealism and contaminate their noble experiment?

Let’s honor Fidel’s wishes and let Cuba be Cuba.

It’s the least we can do now that Fidel is too old and weak to continue leading the way to socialist nirvana.

If we don’t continue to honor Fidel, it will be like Che died for nothing.

Think how that would hurt T-shirt sales.

Socialism Can’t Work

Over the Senior Spaghetti Dinner at the Druids Hall, my Liberal friends were decrying the world’s rapidly increasing population. Apocalyptic predictions were prophesized, eerily reminiscent of Paul R. Erlich’s book that bombed, “The Population Bomb.”

From the conversation at our table, possibly inspired by the Green atmosphere, Ehrlich was being recycled. According to my friends, only doom and gloom is in store for an Earth whose human population will grow from six billion to nine billion by the end of the century.

I entered the conversation by noting that wherever prosperity increases, the rate of population growth rapidly decreases. The cure to the menace troubling my Liberal friends already exists, and is being practiced. Therefore, we don’t need a great idea, or a great leader, to save us.

We’re already saving ourselves.

Of course, along our way to salvation we’ll have to discard many of our current solutions that don’t work, chief among which is socialism. Socialism sounded great when there was a large population of relatively young workers paying a large but not crushing percentage of their earnings into the pot that provided benefits of education and medical care, etc., to all. However, the percentage of the population that was older and in worsening health steadily increased over the years, creating a need for additional funds at the same time the tax-paying segment was shrinking in proportion to the whole.

The European dependency ratio – the ratio of workers to people over 65 years old – is now four to one, and by 2050 will fall to two to one. The European fertility rate is 1.52 births per female, well below the “replacement rate” of 2.1, which is considered the level needed for a stable population. However, not one European Union country has a birth rate as high as the replacement rate.

With current trends, the United States with a population of 160 million less than the European Union will equal the EU by 2050 if current trends of shrinking EU and growing United States populations hold. The negative population growth rate of the EU has already caused projected EU economic growth to be reduced about one percent per year. Anyone familiar with the effects of compound interest knows that a one percent reduction would cut growth a third by 2050.

I don't see how the effects of a shrinking and aging European Union population, which will be accompanied by ever increasing tax rates, can result in anything but a negative growth rate for GDP. Simply, there will be fewer people to make goods and buy products, they'll have less to spend because of increased taxes, and older people buy less of almost all things except medical care. And in the European Union, governments pay most of the medical care costs after they tax the money from their shrinking work force.

So what is the answer? I never thought you would ask.

Privatization of social security and medical care, of course.

The same laws of compounding interest that dramatically affect GDP when the difference is only one percent, have the same effects on funds invested for retirement or medical needs.

Medical insurance that pays for catastrophic injuries or illness, but has the policy holder pay routine medical costs - just as your car or home insurance doesn't pay for oil changes or plumbing repairs - would greatly reduce medical insurance costs.

Contributions to a private savings account for social security add up quickly. For example, 12.4% of an annual income of $50,000, if invested at 5 percent, would result in an estate of over $1,000,000 at retirement age. Invested in an annuity at three percent, the payout per year for 20 years would be $65,000, or about triple Social Security. If you didn't want to take chances, in case you lived to 105, your annual payout would be about $42,000, roughly double Social Security.

If you didn't make it to 105, the balance would go to your estate.

Under Social Security, if you're single and don't make it to 65, nobody gets anything. With a privatized account, if you died at 65 the $1,000,000 would go to your heirs.

The nicest benefit about privatized accounts, from the viewpoint of our nation, not the individual, is that you fund your own medical and retirement needs. Under our present system, and in the European Union, the ever shrinking current worker group is funding the medical and retirement needs for an ever growing retired group.

Those numbers just don't add up.

And will only get worse.

The Secret of World Peace Discovered over Spaghetti

At the monthly spaghetti dinner at the Druids Hall in Point Arena to raise funds for the Senior Center, Alice and I were surrounded, as is usual, by liberal friends. Last night Richard took the floor with a prediction that it would be all over for mankind by 2050. Peter sort of seconded the prediction, and added that the world was overpopulated, and that being far less populated very quickly would be necessary. The efficacy of a variety of plagues to accomplish that end was mentioned.

As is usual, I took absolutely the opposite side. I noted that the best cure for overpopulation was prosperity – it’s worked everywhere it’s been tried.

I also noted that the genius of mankind is to adapt to changing circumstances. Humans have adapted their environments to their needs more than any other living creature. We live in the hot and cold, high and low, wet and dry, in the sea and on the sea. Various other animals share these environments with us, but we’re the only one that occupies them all.

Humans are marvels of adaptation. What doesn’t work is mankind being led by a great leader, or leaders, or groups of leaders, or a great –ism; e.g. communism, socialism, Islamism, even capitalism.

What works best in the long run is the collective mind of the masses (I chose these words carefully - they seemed to fit our group), each rational member of which wants a comfortable present and a secure future. As democracy spreads and takes hold, the power of people over their governments increases, and with it the standards of living and security through the rule of law. Totalitarian nations lose sway as they weaken while democratic ones prosper. Soon the only means left to fight against democratization is terrorism, because oppressive nations like North Korea, Cuba, and Iran can be encapsulated like a malignant organism, and left to wither and die.

Terrorism is the last stand for fanatics who insist on theocratic or dogmatic control over peoples. Since they are unable to change the fabric of societies, they want to tear it apart and replace individual freedom and the rule of law with the tyranny of fear. However, their existence is dependent upon the very things they attack: they hide behind civil rights established by the very rule of law they seek to eliminate.

The secret to world peace then is to do what mankind always does best - adapt to a changing environment. Our primary fear is no longer the attack from abroad from another nation/state, it's the attacks from within by terrorists with no clear links to a nation/state. Since we have lost the power to deter attacks by annihilating an attacking nation, we must develop better capabilities of identifying and monitoring suspect individuals and groups.

The spaghetti-eating group I was with last night would be appalled at my suggestion, because they believe it better to have 1,000 killed by terrorists than to infringe a civil right. On the other hand, I would rather apologize to 1,000 than overlook the terrorist that kills one innocent person. Right now we're wasting a lot of time, resources, and energy checking low- or no-threat individuals and groups so we can justify also looking at higher-threat individuals.

In terms of effectiveness, the only thing that makes sense is we identify and closely monitor all potential high-threat individuals in the United States, and seeking admission.

No matter what Liberals say, we're never going to communicate effectively with them, and eliminate their grievances against the West through negotiation and dialogue. That doesn't work with someone who thinks he is an instrument of the will of Allah, and that his death while causing yours will assuredly secure his place in Heaven.

Face it, he believes Allah will reward him whether he is successful killing you or not, so you might as well speed his path to Heaven before he succeeds. That way everyone should be happy, even Allah: just like in all religions, it's the thought that counts.