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Saturday May 19th 2012

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The 2012 election is not a choice between war and peace

Here’s a letter to the Washington Post:

I share Eugene Robinson’s disdain for “apocalyptic rhetoric”, amongst other speech, that comes from GOP presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum on the issue of war with Iran (“A Field of Hawks” March 9). While I share his concern about the beating of war drums, I question why Eugene Robinson is not using equal space to question President Obama’s actions of increasing war around the world.

Has Mr. Robinson forgotten that Obama has escalated the number of troops in Afghanistan? Has Mr. Robinson not noticed the drone war raging wild on the Aghan-Pakistan border under Obama’s watch? Did Mr. Robinson notice that President Obama authroized the U.S. military to get involved in the civil war in Libya? Has Mr. Robinson not paid any attention to the Obama administration’s actions that seem to indicate the growing possibility of war with Iran?

When Americans head to the ballot box in November and are faced with the choice between one of the three GOP candidates not named Ron Paul against Barack Obama, voters will only face a choice for war and not for peace. Obama has already proven that he is quite willing to wage war.

Sincerely,

Adam Bitely

Alexandria, VA

CPAC

Each year, thousands of conservative activists gather at a swank hotel in Washington D.C. for the purpose of telling each other that Democrats are coming after their freedoms and that the country as we know it is facing immediate doom from the left. Sure, most of the threats are real, but not just from the left but Republicans pose a threat to freedom as well but that is lost on the conference. Instead, they spend days using lofty rhetoric slamming the woes of the progressive version of Big Government and the need for limited government.

Oddly, the popular speakers at this conference are primarily politicians–politicians that are usually in direct violation of the purpose of the convention. But that goes right over the heads of most CPAC attendees. They stand and applaud the politicians as they file through the convention saying to each other that the cause of limiting government will be successful if we just get more of these folks elected…

These conferences sicken me. The hero worship of people that are doing absolutely nothing other than collecting a paycheck from the taxpayer while deciding where to spend other people’s money is disgusting.

An interesting speaker at CPAC would ask the crowd if they know how much government has shrunk or how government has been specifically limited since the conference began over 30 years ago. I’m assuming there would either be crickets or the crowd would boo the person that poses that question.

As I sarcastically posted on Twitter earlier today, “Thank God for CPAC. If not for this yearly meeting, government would be growing like crazy, and government spending would be out of control!”

Why do U.S. taxpayers fund prosperous allies?

This is a question I have pondered for a long time. Christopher Preble has a pretty good write-up on this issue. Check out the intro and the rest of the article:

For some time now, Republican hawks like Sen. John McCain and Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon have been saying that our military budget is inadequate for the threats we face. They like to gripe that President Barack Obama is orchestrating the decline of American power.

Some of this is pure partisanship. Republicans criticize Democrats just as Democrats criticized President George W. Bush. The hawks, though, have a special devotion to the military budget. In their view, some military spending is good; more is even better. But if overspending on the military and promoting the United States as global policeman are benchmarks of approval, they should have little to complain about with our current president.

Contrary to his rhetoric of change, the president sounded like a neoconservative when he declared during his recent State of the Union address that the United States was, and would remain, the world’s “indispensable nation.” Obama’s proposed Pentagon budget, released last week, affirmed his intention to retain most of the U.S. military’s current missions, even when they aren’t needed to safeguard the United States’ vital security interests.

Click here to continue reading.

George W. Obama

For all those that think Republicans and Democrats are miles apart when it comes to foreign policy, think again. During the Presidential election in 2008, Republicans were very concerned that Obama was going to shut the military down and call up Osama Bin Laden to let him know that the U.S. will no longer fight back or for that matter have any military presence anywhere on Earth. Of course, that was just dumb propaganda peddled by charlatan Republicans to scare you into supporting John McCain.

And remember when Obama promised he would stop torture and close down Guantanamo Bay? Remember when he was against troop surges? Well, that too was propaganda peddled by Democrats to trick you into supporting the supposed “peace” candidate Obama. Of course, that wasn’t true. He surged the number of troops in Afghanistan, he escalated the drone war in Pakistan, he has kept the power on at Guantanamo Bay, and went to war with Libya. That doesn’t sound like a President who is anti-war now does it?

It is completely true that Republicans typically favor big government when it comes to the foreign policy realm. There can never be enough government action when it comes to the military and dealing with other nations according to most conservatives, Republicans and all neocons. Same goes for Democrats. The only difference is that each side likes to belittle the other side so that they look stronger to voters on foreign policy issues.

Check out this great article from Steve Chapman over at Reason:

Read the rest of this entry »

Three absurd reasons for banning drugs

Check out more great stuff from Learn Liberty

Everyone is an expert

Be sure to read George Mason University economics professor and CafeHayek.com blogger Don Boudreaux’s latest in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Here is a teaser to get you to read it:

Economics — unlike chemistry, electrical engineering and almost any other subject matter you can name — is a discipline that people routinely opine on even if they have zero formal exposure to it. No taxi driver or movie star offers, for example, his opinion on the molecular structure of radium or the process by which the magnetron led to the development of microwave ovens. On such matters, that person defers to trained chemists and engineers.

But that same cabbie or movie star is often eager to give his opinion on matters such as the causes and consequences of expanded international trade, the effect of minimum-wage legislation and the appropriateness or inappropriateness of the salaries of professional sports stars.

I’m embarrassed to confess that I often get annoyed at non-economists making pronouncements on economics. After all, I’ve devoted my entire adult life — 35 years so far — to studying, pondering and researching economics. Most economics is, I admit, “common sense applied consistently” (as I like to describe it). But some of it is actually pretty complex, requiring for its mastery deep reflection, extensive reading and intellectual discipline.

And handling even that large portion of economics that is “common sense applied consistently” requires practice. To apply common sense consistently to economics demands more than listening to your favorite TV pundits and reading more than just newspaper columns. (Yes, that goes even for my column.)

Read more: An economist’s lament – Pittsburgh Tribune-Review http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/boudreaux/s_780447.html#ixzz1lvHVfaIV

As a student of economics myself at GMU, I am always amazed by the sheer number of self-proclaimed economic geniuses I seem to always run in to. When I inquire as to what their depth of knowledge on economics is it is usually minimal at best. If I’m lucky, the person may have taken a 100 level Econ course at one point in time. To say the least, it does annoy me when these people make broad and sweeping policy proposals based on absolutely zero knowledge of what they are discussing.

This is also the case with most politicians–thus leading to many of the problems we see with government routinely.

Out of control pork barrel spending

By Adam Bitely — In Washington, D.C., Congress holds the distinction of being the least popular group according to the people of the United States. Second only to Congress is the most hated form of government spending — the earmark.

I’ve always wondered why so many people focus their disdain on earmarks more than the larger and more conventional forms of spending.  However, I do believe that a healthy skepticism of how Congress manages the money they take from the people is a good thing, no matter if it’s just focusing on the smallest form of Congressional spending.

Congress, convincing people once more that they are possibly the worst managers of other people’s money outside of Obama’s Department of Energy, has now found itself in the public ire once more after a new series of reports from the Washington Post.  The Post revealed that the earmarking going on inside of Congress wasn’t necessarily done to benefit the greater good of the congressional district but rather to benefit the members of Congress and those connected to them such as the institutions and companies that employ friends and family of the Members of Congress themselves.

Read the rest of this entry »

Republicans have worked the defense rhetoric pedal on their organ quite enough

If you haven’t read George Will’s latest column, do so now. Here are some key paragraphs:

The U.S. defense budget is about 43 percent of the world’s total military spending — more than the combined defense spending of the next 17 nations, many of which are U.S. allies. Are Republicans really going to warn voters that America will be imperiled if the defense budget is cut 8 percent from projections over the next decade? In 2017, defense spending would still be more than that of the next 10 countries combined.

Romney says: “It is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon,” that if he is elected, Iran will not get such a weapon, and if Obama is reelected, it will. He also says that Obama “has made it very clear that he’s not willing to do those things necessary to get Iran to be dissuaded from” its nuclear ambitions.” Romney may, however, be premature in assuming the futility of new sanctions the Obama administration is orchestrating, and Panetta says Iran acquiring nuclear weapons is “unacceptable” and “a red line for us” and if “we get intelligence that they are proceeding with developing a nuclear weapon, then we will take whatever steps necessary to stop it.” What, then, is the difference between Romney and Obama regarding Iran?

Osama bin Laden and many other “high-value targets” are dead, the drone war is being waged more vigorously than ever, and Guantanamo is still open, so Republicans can hardly say that Obama has implemented dramatic and dangerous discontinuities regarding counterterrorism. Obama says that, even with his proposed cuts, the defense budget would increase at about the rate of inflation through the next decade. Republicans who think America is being endangered by “appeasement” and military parsimony have worked that pedal on their organ quite enough.

What is classical liberalism?

Check out Learn Liberty for more great stuff

Reason Saves Cleveland

Here is the first episode from Reason.tv of Reason Saves Cleveland with Drew Carey:

You can watch all the episodes here.

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