Don’t Think of a Purple Elephant

What did I just say?

Society exists in a competition of self interests with community interests. Even if it takes a village to raise a child, you are still responsible for your own kid. Some governments work for the interests of a single ruler. Others abide by the wishes of the citizens. Mostly, people with little interest in the workings of government elect people with a great deal of interest in government. Then the voters wonder how they got fleeced by politicians. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance, and that means vigilance toward the government as well as toward others.

No system is perfect. The people who extol the virtues of capitalism admire its resilience. Socialism takes work, but when things break down the free market takes over. At the same time, a free market can become a monster. Laws work, but the more laws there are against capitalism, the more loopholes there are. Christians say that their rules create freedom by setting boundaries. Capitalism needs boundaries, not a tax code full of ways to cheat.

Then there’s socialism. Budding socialists don’t want the kind of socialism where they are told where to live, what job to take, what to eat or how to entertain themselves. The socialist paradise for many is a vision of Nordic countries with homogenous populations, little industry and a democracy where people can still vote against their better interests. All those places survive on free market trade

The United States has the worst of both worlds right now. The Republicans have spent decades keeping taxes low without strictly enforcing limited spending. Democrats have argued for tax increases (on the “rich”) and failed to pass them when they are in power. Still, they refuse to cut spending, even though the rich don’t make enough to cover the budget shortfall even at a 90% rate. Then you have Nobel Prize winner (like Obama!) Paul Krugman saying we can go 30 trillion dollars into debt and still have bond holders. They’d better be aliens, because the whole world is broke right now.

Everyone is being told not to think of a purple elephant BY a purple elephant these days. Some government benefit programs can continue for years. Others are already broke on the way to collapsing entirely. Banks did a lot of shady deals. They also planned their deeds by making deals with the government that now pretends to regulate them. Our foreign policy consists of writing checks to some allies and giving free weapons and tactical support to others.

This is not a left/right problem. It’s not even a 1%/99% problem. It is a problem of denial. Both sides have valid points and are full of crap at the same time. The worst offenders are the ones who have been in Washington the longest. If we can’t get the people we want in office, we have to get the people we don’t want out of office. Don’t worry about which “evil” party they belong to. Most likely they are almost half right.

Justice delayed

---

Wikileaks chief Julian Assange ‘thankful’ after winning right to appeal extradition to Sweden

WIKILEAKS chief Julian Assange said he was “thankful” after being granted the right to pursue his appeal against extradition to Sweden at Britain’s Supreme Court.

The 40-year-old Australian, who faces allegations of sexual misconduct in Stockholm, was present at London’s High Court to hear the ruling over his application, which he later praised as the “correct decision.”

The ruling means Assange does not face immediate deportation and now has two weeks to officially lodge a written appeal to the Supreme Court.

Assange, who denies any wrongdoing, was arrested in Britain last December on a European warrant over allegations of rape and sexual assault made by two women over a five-day period in Stockholm last August.

[...]

The transferring of the case to the Supreme Court was expected to keep Assange in the UK for several months before a final ruling is made.

---

Time wounds all heels.

---

Eye of Newt

---

There’s a lot of pixels being sacrificed over Newton Leroy Gingrich these days.

The insider-outsider divide over Newt Gingrich

There’s a deep and growing divide in the Republican world between those who are able to reconcile themselves with — to wrap their heads around — the possibility of Newt Gingrich becoming the GOP presidential nominee, and those who are not. It’s becoming increasingly clear that it is Washington insiders who are having the most trouble imagining a Gingrich nomination, while Republicans outside Washington aren’t having a problem.

Of course it’s the Washington insiders who have the most actual experience dealing with Gingrich. Just look at what Republican Sen. Tom Coburn, who served with Gingrich in the House in the 1990s, said about the former speaker on Fox News Sunday. “I’m not inclined to be a supporter of Newt Gingrich’s having served under him for four years and experienced personally his leadership,” Coburn said. “I found it lacking often times.”

“There are all types of leaders,” Coburn continued. “Leaders that instill confidence, leaders that are somewhat abrupt and brisk, leaders that have one standard for the people they are leading and a different standard for themselves. I just found his leadership lacking and…I will have difficulty supporting him as president of the United States.”

Gingrich has also taken flak from another former colleague, Rep. Peter King. “The problem was, over a period of time, he couldn’t stay focused,” King said of Gingrich a few days ago. “He was undisciplined. Too often, he made it about himself.”

It’s more than just former colleagues. If one were to survey politicos, journalists and others who lived through Gingrich’s years as speaker in Washington, there would likely be a near-consensus that Gingrich will blow up his candidacy through some mixture of arrogance and indiscipline. Those insiders simply don’t believe there is a New Newt. Old Newt, the Gingrich who alienated many of his colleagues back in the 90s, will reassert himself soon enough, they believe.

Those opinions are colored by personal experience with Gingrich during his years as speaker. That’s not the case for most voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida and the rest of the primary and caucus states. While insiders remember Gingrich’s low points from the 90s, outsiders remember his triumphs. They remember a Gingrich who had the vision to imagine a Republican takeover of the House when no one else could, and the skill to make it happen. And when outsiders think of the two greatest policy achievements of the Clinton years — a balanced budget and welfare reform — they know Gingrich can legitimately claim a lot of credit for both. So what if he was abrupt with colleagues? Or, for that matter, if he was the target of a Democratic-driven ethics attack? As far as the 1990s are concerned, outsiders remember Gingrich’s high points.

---

When I was in college in the mid-nineties I did a term paper on Newt. I still have the paper somewhere (I’m a packrat) and probably have a version on floppy disk. But I don’t want to explore my archives and I don’t have a floppy drive anymore. There was nothing really earth-shattering in there anyway.

I only bring it up to emphasize that I have more than a passing familiarity with Naughty Newtie. He is someone I could never vote for, but at the same time I have developed a grudging respect for his abilities.

More than any other person, Newt Gingrich is responsible for the Republican Revolution of 1994. By then I had been a Newt-watcher for nearly a decade and a half. I first remember seeing him while watching the 1980 GOP convention. At that time I was in the Army stationed in Germany. Newt was a freshman congressman running for reelection and was the leader of the “Young Turks.”

The Dems last hope of surviving Obamageddon

Not so much surviving the immediate annihilation, but more of a hope for a future regenesis amid the ashes of what was once the party of FDR.

Chelsea finally enters public life.

From NYT:

Chelsea Clinton, Living Up to the Family Name
…for the most part, Ms. Clinton seemed determined to keep her private life strictly private, refusing to speak to the news media and requesting the same from her loyal inner circle. Now, however, talk turned to the notion that if she was going to face the downside of being the daughter of Bill and Hillary Clinton, under the constant scrutiny of the news media, why not also take advantage of the upside?

Thus, in the past 12 months, she has joined the board of Barry Diller’s Internet media holding company, IAC/InterActiveCorp; spoken at fund-raisers for organizations like amfAR; taken an increasingly public role with the Clinton Global Initiative; presented an award to her mother at Diane Von Furstenberg’s International Women’s Day event; and hosted her father’s 65th birthday at a Hollywood benefit for the Clinton Foundation with fellow guests Lady Gaga and Bono. She has even started a Facebook page.

And in her most high-profile move so far, she has taken a job with NBC News as a special correspondent, contributing to the network’s “Making a Difference” franchise. On Dec. 12, Ms. Clinton will make her first appearance on the prime-time newsmagazine “Rock Center With Brian Williams,” with a segment she developed about a nonprofit organization in Pine Bluff, Ark.

As she headed to the airport in Little Rock, Ark., on Friday evening, after filming her NBC segment, Ms. Clinton discussed in a phone interview her decision to take on a more public role. “My parents taught me to approach the world critically, but also to approach it with a sense of responsibility,” she said.

Her move to television was a career shift she initiated, having her close advisers arrange interviews with top network executives and at one point working with the powerful Creative Artists Agency.

“For a multitude of reasons, she decided the time was right to more publicly own a responsibility she feels to serve in the public good,” said Bari Lurie, a former intern in the East Wing of the White House during the Clinton years, whom Ms. Clinton brought on as her chief of staff in September.

In an e-mail on Friday, Ms. Clinton wrote, “I hope to make a positive, productive contribution, as cheesy as that may sound.”

She added, “For most of my life, I deliberately led a private life in the public eye.”

But after campaigning for her mother’s presidential bid in 2008, Ms. Clinton realized that she liked speaking publicly about issues she felt strongly about. Her grandmother, Dorothy Rodham, gave her some advice. “She told me being Chelsea Clinton had happened to me,” Ms. Clinton said, “and outside of my advocacy work and campaigning for my mom, I wasn’t doing enough in the world.”

Those conversations continued over the next couple of years — often coming up “when Marc and I were being hounded by the paparazzi for the silly reason du jour” — until Mrs. Rodham died in November. “I took what she said seriously — that I had led an inadvertently public life for a long time and maybe it was time to start leading a purposefully public life.”

I can see how her grandma’s passing could have a deep impact on her.

She’s a good kid, and almost all of America views her fondly. I hope she stays true to her liberal roots and doesn’t get sucked into the tribal progressive world-view.

If Diogenes went to Chicago they would have stolen his lamp

---

Paul Krugman:

Lies, Damned Lies, And Elections

As we wait to see whether the GOP nominates the guy who claims that his health plan was nothing like Obamacare, oh no, or the guy who claims that Freddie Mac paid him $1.6 million as a historian, one thing is obvious: this election is going to pose a major challenge to the news media. How will they handle the lies problem?

I’m not optimistic.

Back in 2000, George W. Bush made a discovery of enormous consequence: you could base a whole political campaign on claims that were flatly untrue, like the claim that your big tax cuts for the wealthy went to the middle class, or the claim that diverting Social Security funds into private accounts would strengthen the system’s finances, and reporting would never point this out. That’s when I formulated my doctrine that if Bush said the earth was flat, headlines would read Views Differ on Shape of Planet.

All indications are, however, that Campaign 2012 will make Campaign 2000 look like a model of truthfulness. And all indications are that the press won’t know what to do — or, worse, that they will know what to do, which is act as stenographers and refuse to tell readers and listeners when candidates lie. Because to do otherwise when the parties aren’t equally at fault — and they won’t be — would be “biased”.

---

Gee Paul, you’re being a little disingenuous yourself. You work for the news media. What are YOU gonna do? Back in 2000, the newspaper you work for spent a lot of time trying to convince people that Al Gore was an habitual liar. Have you ever fact-checked their reporting?

Let me rewrite that middle paragraph:

Back in 2000 2008, George W. Bush Barack Obama made a discovery of enormous consequence: you could base a whole political campaign on claims that were flatly untrue, like the claim that your big tax cuts for the wealthy went to the middle class you consistently opposed the war in Iraq, or the claim that diverting Social Security funds into private accounts would strengthen the system’s finances, and reporting would never point this out Hillary Clinton was running a racist campaign. That’s when I formulated my doctrine that if Bush Obama said the earth was flat, headlines would read Views Differ on Hillary Lied About Shape of Planet.

---

Everything Obama says is a lie, including “and” and “the.”

You are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and stayed not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
– John 8:44

---

---