Newt Gingrich, a serial adulterer and disciple of New Age futurists Alvin and Heidi Toffler, makes a singularly unlikely Crusader. Yet apparently at some point in the past year or so Gingrich looked in a mirror and saw Don John of Austria looking back at him.
An epiphany of that kind would explain Gingrich’s perverse determination to depict the contrived controversy over the “Ground Zero Mosque” as a contemporary Battle of Lepanto. A more reasonable explanation would be that Gingrich, one of the most penetrably insincere figures in American politics, is trying to distill irrational populist resentment into a propellant for a presidential campaign.
At the beginning of his show this morning, Glenn Beck started ripping into the imam that all the talk-radio hosts love to hate, because the imam has (correctly) pointed out that the U.S. has killed many more innocent non-Muslims than al-Qaeda has.
Beck went on to defend the U.S. embargo against Iraq that killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people during the 1990s, argued that we should have fought the Iraq war “full on” from the beginning (meaning we shouldn’t have been so squeamish — as if “we” were — about killing innocent people), and claimed that the current U.S. government is the only one in the history of the world that has ever fought wars in a manner that avoided killing civilians.
Last year, Beck promoted a rally in Washington to protest the federal government’s taxing and spending. This year, he’s holding a rally to glorify the U.S. military. Can there be any doubt that by the time the Republicans regain control in Washington, Beck and his many followers will be right back where all the conservatives were during the George W. Bush years? Only it will be much worse, because they’ll have much bigger, more powerful government at their disposal, which they will not reduce one bit. And one shudders to think of what the apparent growing extreme, irrational hatred of Muslims may lead to.
Unless, that is, Ron Paul and other true libertarians can steer the Tea Party movement onto the right track before it’s too late.
As a good first step, it’s time for everyone — including some people who should know better — to stop suggesting that Glenn Beck is any sort of libertarian.
NYTimes.com has an article about, the Obama election notwithstanding, Americans’ hysterical reactions to racial issues. There have been many articles and blog postings lately about whether or not this is “post-racial America.” I think the furor over Shirley Sherrod’s speech is a clear indication that race is as much a current issue as ever. This really should come as no surprise. Race has always been a government issue in the USA. From the state-sponsored slave trade through to affirmative action, in America, race and the state have always been intimately intertwined. Considering this, it is hardly a surprise that people “never get past it.” You might as well say “why haven’t we gotten past war?”
I’d like to share a revelation that I’ve had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify statists and I realized that you’re not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you statists do not. You move to an area and you tax and regulate until every natural resource is ruined and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Statists beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. (Apologies to Agent Smith.)
His political positions and personal life are even less coordinated than he is.
In the former Soviet Union, which is a workable model for forecasting where the United States is headed, there were de facto two sets of rules: one set for the proletariat and another for the Politburo. Nothing exceptional about that, of course, as the political class always enjoys privileges which the masses do not — it’s been that way since, well, the inception of government. The Romans even had an adage to describe this inequality before the law: quod licet jovi non licet bovi (What is permitted for the gods is not permitted for the cattle). Lovely, huh?
Sen. John Kerry, who has repeatedly voted to raise taxes while in Congress, dodged a whopping six-figure state tax bill on his new multimillion-dollar yacht by mooring her in Newport, R.I. Isabel – Kerry’s luxe, 76-foot New Zealand-built Friendship sloop with an Edwardian-style, glossy varnished teak interior, two VIP main cabins and a pilothouse fitted with a wet bar and cold wine storage – was designed by Rhode Island boat designer Ted Fontaine.
But instead of berthing the vessel in Nantucket, where the senator summers with the missus, Teresa Heinz, Isabel’s hailing port is listed as “Newport” on her stern. Could the reason be that the Ocean State repealed its Boat Sales and Use Tax back in 1993, making the tiny state to the south a haven – like the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and Nassau – for tax-skirting luxury yacht owners? Cash-strapped Massachusetts still collects a 6.25 percent sales tax and an annual excise tax on yachts. Sources say Isabel sold for something in the neighborhood of $7 million, meaning Kerry saved approximately $437,500 in sales tax and an annual excise tax of about $70,000.
The senior senator’s chief of staff David Wade denied the old salt was berthing his boat out of state to avoid ponying up to the commonwealth. “The boat was designed by and purchased from a company in Rhode Island, and it’s based in Newport at the Newport Shipyard for long-term maintenance, upkeep and charter purposes, not tax reasons,” Wade told the Track. And state Department of Revenue spokesguy Bob Bliss confirmed the senator “is under no obligation to pay the commonwealth sales tax.”
Well, since he’s not docking the yacht in Rhode Island to avoid the taxes, why doesn’t he go ahead and pay Massachusetts what he’d have to if he were docking it there? David Wade is 12 times more likely to drown in his bowl of Cheerios at breakfast tomorrow than Kerry is of paying Mass. for that yacht.
Which brings us back to the double standard which is omnipresent with these guys. Public schools are good enough for your kids, but their kids attend the finest private schools in the country. You can get by using a small, energy efficient house with minimal air conditioning, but they’re gonna go ahead and own 3 or 4 or 5 energy-guzzling mansions. Feel free to get yourself a Smart Car or avail yourself of “public transportation”, but they’re gonna fly around in private jets or sail their massive yachts. Do you live in an exclusive, gated neighborhood or compound with private security? They do — and they have servants’ quarters, too. And most importantly, you pay the oppressive tax rates they burden you with, but they always find a loophole for themselves, like the yacht fiasco cited here or the Kennedy family trusts. Typical plutocrat behavior. Quod licet jovi non livet bovi.
The pertinence of the quote I launched this post with is via the observation that Kerry and his ilk have so ruined Massachusetts that he opts to maintain (some of) his significant assets outside of that state. I hope Rhode Islanders are paying attention. Here comes the virus.
