Under Republican control, Congress has exercised virtually no oversight of the administration’s misconduct of the war, and the new Democratic leadership is eager to hold extensive hearings. The public deserves a full accounting (backed by subpoenas, if necessary) of how prewar intelligence was cooked, why American troops were sent to war without adequate armor, and where billions of dollars in reconstruction aid disappeared to.
A cursory look the schedules for a few Congressional committees and sub-committees shows that in the past 18 months to 2 years there were only these three days of hearings. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one in October 2005, which was described as the 30th full Sen. Foreign Relations Cmte hearing on Iraq held since January 2003. And there were the “Phase I” and “Phase II” reports on prewar intell by the Sen. Intell Cmte. And Congress created the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, which sent American occupation officials to jail on bribery and conspiracy charges, exposed disastrously poor construction work by well-connected companies like Halliburton and Parsons, and discovered that the military did not properly track hundreds of thousands of weapons it shipped to Iraqi security forces—according to the New York Times.
Keep in mind: I only looked at a few committees and sub-committees, so it’s likely there were more in, for example, the Sen. Armed Services Cmte. And with the few I committees and sub-committees I checked, I excluded any hearing that did not clearly and directly address the conduct of the war in Iraq and the topics specified by the New York Times. Thus, for example, hearings dealing only with Afghanistan were excluded.
In claiming that there has been “virtually no oversight,” the paper is simply echoing the talking point of Sen. Harry Reid. I am shocked, shocked to discover the paper did “virtually no oversight” of Reid’s claim.
And all you need to do to have oversight is hold a hearing. How did they go?
The New York Times editorial board is too fatuous to bother with anymore. The Democrats in the Senate voted to authorize this war and then seized upon the “Bush Lied,” “Bush is incompetent” slanders in order to justify reversing themselves.
The news media, especially those who take their cues from the Times, have done quite enough damage, thank you. The only fit thing to do with the Times is to burn it.
I don’t know. Neither does the New York Times, as they are apparently unaware that there were hearings.
I do know that in June—after most of those hearings—both the House and Senate rejected a timetable for getting out of Iraq, by margins that suggest that the Dems will have a tough-to-impossible time winning a vote on “phased redeployment” next year—let alone one a veto-proof margin.
That being said, I would note that the Sen. Foreign Relations Cmte was run by Lugar, who has been an Iraq skeptic from the get go. So I suspect you will not find the big rubber stamp on his desk.
I would also note the NYT itself reported the achievements of the Reconstruction IG, but forgot about them in the space of a week.
I would note that the Sen. Intell Cmte unanimously concluded that Bush didn’t lie about prewar intell (and laid out the evidence that Joe Wilson was a liar). And I didn’t even mention the bipartisan Rob-Silberman commission debunking the notion that the intell community was pressured into presenting bad intell.
As for the armor issue, the press beat the Admin. over the head with the issue, ignoring not only the historical context (the US sent the troops off to WWII with inadequate armor, too—turns out wars can be a little unpredictable), but also the trade-offs—increases in Humvee roll-overs, some troops declining the body armor, and the gunners’ safety suits. I’m guessing that neither the NYT nor actus wants oversight of those issues. That would be too much nuance.
PS: Though it took the NYT a week to forget its own reporting, actus apparently forgot it in the time between reading my post and composing his comment. He might want to see a doctor about that.
Actus:
Your comment above is the reason that you get dismissed by most at this thread and why Karl and others have no respect for you. This is a classic snipe and run comment that actually doesn’t make any sense even as it attempts to trip the entire conclusion of the comment.
Karl’s put considerable time into developing links and information. your comment was answered within the original statement:
You really need to bring more to the table if you are ever going to live down the conclusion that you are a dissembler and a shallow sniper rather than a serious commentator.
Hmm, wow, Karl. That is a s-load of hearings.
Sorry actus, the NYT appears to really have screwed the pooch again.
Stop setting yourself against us.
I don’t know, maybe if you clicked on the links and READ THE FUCKING ARTICLES you moronic reactionary moonbat.
tw: mind as in does assholius have one?
Hillary wants to be president and doesn’t need the moonbats putting on a bad face for the Democrat Party. Durbin is not going to provide a timeline to get out of Iraq, Leiberman beat Lamont, Dean is dead as DNC head. Expect the Times to be a changing their tune come January with a bunch of pro-Dem, pro-war rhetoric since Socialists know that the only way to power is to deceive the public through disinformation soundbytes.
The Dems simply used the moonbats as their Bush/Republican attack dogs via the media who gave moonbats life. Now that the Dems envision White House control they are pulling the moonbat’s plug.
By 2008 most Americans will have forgotten Cindy Sheehan’s name.
Facts? Facts?
Look punk, we’re the New York Fucking Times. We don’t need no steenkin’ facts to write our editorials.
The Times is handing Reid and the Islamocrats their marching orders … behead the infidels who started the Iraq war.
Or else.
Easier said than done. Gore, Kerry, Dean, Markos, Atrios, Hamsher, Rangel, Conyers………these people are not going to just fade into the woodwork.
The Clintons are already tring (and failing) to replace Dean with Ford, to help a Hillary run in 08.
The Congressional Black Caucus has already forced Rahm Emmanuel to back down from a potential leadership struggle, and are going to force Pelosi to put Hastings in power.
Because thats what ‘virtually no oversight’ means: No hearings.
They rejected an ‘arbitrary date.’ Just the other day the administration looked to be setting a meaningful date in discussions with the Iraqis. Interestingly, the iraqis were using hte democratic victory to gain concessions from the white house. Curious.
He searched for hearings. We know they’ve existed. Even the democrats have held some where generals have said some very mean things about rumsfeld. But people decided that its not enough to just expose poor construction work, to discover that we lost some weapons. I think people want the responsible people taken care of. And more oversight is one way to do that, if the executive is unwilling to.
Its great that Karl and all are on board with oversight, and happy about the amount that happened. Hopefully he’ll get some more for his linkfest.
Hillary has a lot more powerful friends in Hollywood and the media than Pelosi has in San Francisco.
The poet is the unacknowledged legislator therefore it isn’t the politican who has the power it’s the poet; Hollywood plus the major players in media love Hillary more than they hate the war and they control the one weapon Pelosi doesn’t, that being, the message.
My guess is that Kerry, Dean, Markos, Atrios, Hamsler, Rangel et al won’t be seen on major news networks again since they have proved in 2004 to lose elections.
Since Hillary is a Socialist she needs the Democrat Party to put on a wholesome American face and her influencial friends in Hollywood will be more than happy of oblige.
If anything this election proved one thing, Old Media won and the Army of David’s lost (they shot themselves in the head by encouraging voters to punish Republicans)
rofl. Thanks for the morning cheer up, actus.
As Actus knows, putting any kind of a time on pull out of US troops is a victory to the terrorists. It gives them an action date. They can lower the level of violence and wait. They can escalate the level of violence because the can see a finish line. No matter how you dress up an exit date, it will be a victory for the terrorists. The left wants us to lose the war. They always have. They have been predicting American down fall for decades. They want us to fail because they hate our system of government. They want slavery of the state(socialism).
It is something I noticed starting in text books. They define socialism and then talk about how it could work. They talk about the faults of capitalism. I hear idiots say “on paper it’s a good system but in real life it hasn’t worked” or idiot statements about Russia wasn’t a true “socialist” country. If socialism is perfect on paper, then capitalism must be perfect evil in their minds. They want the US to fail so they can be vindicted for worshipping socialism. Their god is government, their devil is the free man.
Oversight means a bit more than scheduling a meeting, letting a witness read a prepared statement, saying “Thank you” and ending the hearing after a few hours, which 3/4 of the cited hearings did. They were a sham with no staff preparation, limited questioning and no followup when questions were not answered. But that ‘is’ oversight if you count links.
I guess Karl is just trying to parse what the definition of oversight is.
actuse, rhetorical question: Is chronic intellectual dishonesty something one comes born with and/or is inescapably subject to as a small child, or does subsequent social conditioning and education do that to a person?
Ditto chronic egotism. And rhetorical exhibitionism. Would those be natural failures of conscience inculcated by heredity and very early social maladjustments, or would they be perfected by careful practice somewhere after the fact?
Thanks in advance for the undoubtedly earnest answer.
For the NYT head inserted = perfect hindsight, then eventually high colonic oversight – with the exception of the still higher truths revealed from bowing to its Islamic Soul Bro’s.
I guess the definition of oversight in the liberal’s tiny lil mind is wallpapering Washington in subpoenas (SUBPOENA POWER ACTIVATE!!!!!) and trying to make political points rather than fight against those who would gut you like a pig.
Oversight is a code word for “payback”…
And that “payback” isn’t directed at those who are hellbent on killing us and who have killed us in the past. Its directed at (drumroll) Republicans!
It is no coincidence that actard, Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hezbullah, AQ, North Kirea, the UN etc. are celebrating the electoral ascension of their Democrat allies in Congress.
They’re on the same side. As we’ve been saying all along…
Korea
I am shocked, shocked to discover the paper did “virtually no oversight†of Reid’s claim.
But you’re fine with the ‘doo-diligence’ of the former regime, eh? What is it? Now that you’re playing the game of defense, it’s time to payback for all the kibbitzing during your teams turn at the ball. See if you can say, ‘bi-partisan’. Saying the word aloud will be necessary before an understanding of the term rises above the phlegm
of disuse.
Hate to break the news to you, cleo. We’re on OFFENSE.
Its your turn to bend over and take the collective anal probe. Its your show now, and everything that goes wrong will be the Democrat’s fault. You want the power? Take the responsibility that goes along with it. Sorry – those are the rules you’ve been living by for the past decade, and those are the rules we’re playing by.
Bipartisan? Ask Nostrils Waxman about the definition of bipartisan, becaue he thinks its “subpoena.” Or look in the mirror. You won’t find any answers, I afraid to say.
Welcome to the game. Now get in it. We’re all watching you.
I said it before, I’ll say it again: Timeline bitches!
Do notice:
But also take note: timelines don’t have to be stuck to. We can set goals. And analyze why we’re failing to meet them. Of course eventual withdrawl is a goal, correct? Any idea as to when? Thats really what I want. Not arbitrary dates, but meaninfgul ones.
Syn. Not to worry. Hillary doesn’t have a chance in hell of becoming president. Women, most of them, don’t like her.And she reminds too many men of their wives. The dems will more likely put up Barak Obama. Hillary ,of course, will be livid.
Yes. The standard liberal reaction to anything ids to legislate through the courts.Buncha pussies.
AQ wants those dates in stone as well. Way to know anything about strategy.
By the way, I think we’re still in Germany from WWII. When’s the withdraw date? I want a meaningful one.
Ask your boys in Congress when you they plan to cut and run from Iraq. Its your war to lose, which you will waste no time in doing.
Congratulations. The Democrat party will be responsible for the second major military loss in American history. Way to go, heroes.
“We’re on OFFENSE.”
And we’re winning in Iraq……
‘Or look in the mirror.”
Will I see Bush with his ‘Leave no child behind’
smokescreen of bipartisanship?
Anyway, vampires have no reflection, (heh)
If I honestly thought there was something that needed oversight, then you might have a point, Ms Cleo.
Despite what your team has been breathlessly telling the press since the election, this isn’t about oversight. It isn’t about accountability, or checks and balances, or any of other bullshit that is being flung about and gulped down without thought by an adoring media. It’s about partisan payback.
And the fact that we are at war, and such actions are detrimental to the country means nothing to those whose only goal is payback and attaining/holding their newfound power.
my post got cut in half.. sorry.
-cont.-
Why should I? Honestly? Did the Dems EVER act in a bipartisan matter… on anything of import?
Nope. Bi-partisanship only works one way for liberals… in their favor.
So excuse me if I kindly tell anyone suggesting “bi-partisanship” (codeword for bend over and grab your ankles) to go play hackie with your ball sac.
Sounds like that “New Direction” we keep hearing so much about, but for some reason can’t get any leftists to really articulate…
Got any ideas to improve the situation or to win? Didn’t think so.
As I said, it is no the Democrats’ war to lose. And all indications show that you and your klan will waste no time in doing it. Congratulations, and thanks for nothing.
I can’t wait to see the slow-motion train wreck the Democrats instigate come January. It would be hilarious if only the stakes weren’t so high.
Any time the Dems talk about “bipartisanship” it always means to do it their way. Without fail.
If we aren’t winning, who is and why?
I am serious about this, I am tired of hearing you smug little pissants snarking about us losing. I want to know exactly who you think is winning in Iraq and what you base this opinion on.
Exactly.
Before going any further, please articulate for us exactly what winning in Iraq would look like to you.
Please be specific…
Also exactly.
And 2008 will be here soon enough. I say that not because political power gaming is what we’ve come to, all these years later, but because the ugly business of government requires the adults be on the job. Now we have none on the job.
The election of ‘06 was the kids exercising their tonsils. The Dems got a win because the Reps were fools (that ugly-government thing) and not because the Dems had Principle One. The sorry, complacent, friendly Reps didn’t prosecute thirty corrupt Democrats in the last couple of terms, now they get to pay just for playing by the other side’s rules, snapping the veto pen in half, and competing in the socialism-for-votes game.
If the tradition of scott-free Democrat fraud while in office under so-called “Republican rule” doesn’t show the inequity of principle between the two sides, I’m not sure what will.
‘07 and ‘08 will be just enough time for the Dems to out themselves all over again—Balko’s already counting up the various deceits, frauds, lies, and instances of Democrat corruption 72 hours after the fact and two months before the changing of the guard, such as it is.
I will get no end of pleasure watching the Dems go both up and down in flames. All over again. Not out of my partisanship, but because power always corrupts. And the Dems have already made the mistake—as their lackey media reminds us almost daily—of thinking this is about power. About their mob’s rule.
It’s not, or at least it shouldn’t be. It’s about preventing institutionalized power from ruining the republic, something the very foundation of petty, childish, horizontal Socialist Democrat thinking cannot grasp, all their transparent, neo-constitutional rhetoric aside.
If the Left understood and honored that, it simply wouldn’t exist.
Why in stone? I just said i don’t want them in stone. I want goals and accountability.
We don’t have one. We have permanent bases and a NATO Commitment. Thats one answer.
Why is oversight detrimental? And oh, its gonna be ‘compassionate payback.’
Can’t believe I missed this little cherry…
.
How’s that “War on Poverty” working out? Got any timelines… er… “goals” when that war may be won?
Or have you analyzed why your failing to meet those goals?
Do you have comprehension issues?
It’s not oversight if your only goal is political payback and the scoring of political points.
To the Left, “winning” fulfills their video game point of view and their partisan power-mongering: If they can define “winning” (typically by some nonsensical timeline crap) then they control the powerbase, that being all they have to institute their brand of socialist leveling. And since all philosophies are equal and all victims are likely dependent Democrats, reducing the narrative to this “winning” is a primary goal. Hold the definition of “winning” and hold the power, even if it means (or more accurately, especially if it means) duping the idiot.
The fact that extracting cultural pathology, the kind of which defines Islamofacism, is never over is something the Left can’t conceive of—doing so would obsolete them! They’re not likely to expect a mature approach when they themselves cannot even grasp it or if grasping it voids their entire platform.
So “winning” it is. And with not “winning” by their terms comes opportunity. This would cause introspection in a normal human mind. But not the pathological Leftist. The entire point of Leftism is denial.
Including the shameless, baldfaced denial of logic, simple reason, and even civility:
This shouldn’t be a surprise
According to the
DNC PR armMSM, the economy was in the shitter on 11/6 and extraordinarily robust on 11/8.Boo! He he he… If you need me I’ll be under your beds you sniveling little bitches.
Y’all missed a word, but semanticleo didn’t.
That is, miscoduct is taken as a given. If the committees didn’t find it, there was insufficient “oversight”. That’s all there is to it, and all there ever will be.
*All* of the investigations have found that there was no gross, Administration-level misconduct, and that lower-level misconduct has been promptly and efficiently addressed. That isn’t good enough, because it doesn’t meet the political objective. In fact, many of the penalities for misconduct have fallen on people who (in their view) should not have been penalized because they are their political pawns and dependents.
Example: Abu Ghraib. A lot of people miss the intersection of Abu Ghraib with the hate-feminists. Most of the latter didn’t, and don’t, want women in the military because women want to serve; they want women in the military because veteran status is an aid to gaining political office, and selfishly retaining that privilege for men only is “hateful”. The DOD’s Abu Ghraib investigation was thorough, fast, and evenhanded; those guilty of misconduct were punished, and (to their credit) the people conducting the investigation(s) and courts-martial pretty much ignored the press hysteria. The investigation revealed that the lack of oversight, training, and command ability traced back to the General in charge, and that individual was promptly O-U-T. Fine and dandy—except that the said General is female and a prime client of DACOWITS, and that’s just intolerable from a Democraticicicicicic political point of view. Therefore the “oversight” was insufficient: Q.E.D.
And personally I think it’s a good idea. I’d like to see all the investigative committees reconvened and a dozen new ones instituted. Get every Democrat in the Congress appointed to at least two of them, and start feeding them as many witnesses as can be found willing to spend time in DC on the Justice Department’s expense account. (Hell, I’ll go—I don’t have any direct knowledge of any of the cases, but I have that in common with 99.5% of the other “witnesses” anyway, and I could use the vacation.) No matter how hard they try or how fast the NYT spins they won’t find anything new or startling, and in the meantime they’ll be so busy maintaining the illusion of causing damage they won’t have time to do anything really damaging.
Regards,
Ric
First, you said:
Then you said (regarding a withdraw date for our military presence in the vanquished Nazi state):
Precisely what you’re advocating against in Iraq.
It appears that you don’t have any suggestions or ideas about what should be done, save retreating. Hence, you have no real warplan and no intention on winning.
Welcome to your hellweek, Democrat. You’re at the levers of power. Time to come up with more than spitballs from the rafters of Congress and present some tangible and effective ideas for winning. There’s an election in less than two years.
Tick tock, tick tock.
They don’t need to be in stone, they just need to be meaningful. God it depresses me that this retard has a law degree.
In this day and age of internet degrees… I could get a law degree, and I’m not that sharp at all.
Dont we? Dont we have poverty rates to gauge how well the war is going? Is it still even going?
Because I don’t want permanent bases and a NATO level commitment in Iraq. But it would be nice to hear that thats the goal. Thats why I keep asking for goals and accountability. If you think that our deployment in germany is the model, then tell me what the goal is for when our deployment in Iraq is as peaceful as the one in germany.
I want to hear what the proposed warplan is from the people who are fighting it. I want to see what their goals are and whether they are meting them so I can tell whether they are doign a good job or not. My role in this is to vote for them. Their role is to run this catastrofuck they started.
The incredible, ironic, heartwrenching beauty of the historical failure of government is in its example continually illuminating mankind’s need to transcend it. It will fail, the speed and severity of which is determined precisely by the sorts of frauds the Democrats have historically inflicted upon American society. Every damn socialist Democrat policy has failed it’s intended first effect and has instead gone on to expose the folly of any institutionalized power above the most brutally and elegantly minimalist.
As I said, this is American Socialism’s Achilles Heel: The Democrats cannot grasp this and therefore regularly run right back into the same sorts of disasters that get them slapped back out onto the street. They’re children that way.
Granted, the entire system is headed down that slippery slope together, and the most offensive example of that has actually been pre-’06 Republicanism example of competing in the socialism stakes with the Democrats.
So the Dems don’t get that either, at least the masses of idiots who voted them back into temporary “power”. But in the end, it’ll undoubtedly be that characteristic lack of principle and its characteristic lack of scope of vision that damns them all over again.
As for the rest of us, we’ll keep trying to manage precisely this damage, enough damage to occur to finally force that third party or that groundswell of revolutionary thinking to right the ship of state. I just pray it’s not enough damage to sink her. It’s a damn hard lesson but it’s how things invariably go.
Ric
And that former general is going to be in Germany next week to testilie on behalf of those trying to criminally indict Rumsfeld.
I am agog.
You tell me, Brainiac… there’s still poor people out there, right? Listening to some of the Dem rhetoric during the election, the US is made of two types of people.
1) 1% insanely rich
2) 99% living in a cardboard box with no medical insurance.
Guess the Democrat’s “War on Poverty” is being lost. Funny… I don’t remember seeing an analysis on why it’s being lost.
Any other bright ideas, Actass?
actus says he wants goals
Not that the President hasn’t laid out the goals from the beginning
just that those aren’t the goals actus wants
Just like the Left continues to say “Bush lied us into war”.
They have their own “history” and they will stick to it, regardless of facts or reality.
“But also take note: timelines don’t have to be stuck to. We can set goals. And analyze why we’re failing to meet them.”
– The instant you tell the enemy you have a date set for withdrawel, no matter how tenuous, you’ve lost. the enemy will simply sit back and adjust to each new announcement, and play you like a fine violin. That’s the sort of self-defeating insanity by your advisary I’m sure every Commander on every battlefield in history would have given his left nut for. The last thing you want to do is announce your intentions to the other side, unless of course you don’t really give a shit about winning.
– You just want to cut and run actass. Trying to gussy it up with a flood of contemporizing words doesn’t change a fucking thing you gutless twit.
– The ememy in ALL wars depends on breaking the will of America, and you and the Left, along with the lap dog press, are playing the perfect dupes, reacting in just the way the Jihadist’s stated intentions hoped you would. Either you’re too frightened to stand up against this sort of manipulation, or dumber than dirt.
Both.
acturd exemplifies the sort of tacit cultural intolerance and myopia we’ve come to expect out of the Left.
Democrats. The new Bigots.
Welfare cities, actard. Institutionalized, inescapable, generationalized dependency and hopelessness. Entire urban centers of it. Sure poverty is a rough problem, but without a shred of evidence that forced benevolence by way of government fraud is effective, seems demanding that route replace all others is not just stupid, it’s wrong.
Interesting to me how the Democrat, espousing all kinds of righteous, enlightened, socially-sensitive compassion and hope, historically hasn’t the morality or maturity to admit that failure—one that ruins hundreds of thousands of lives—and with that admission, have the actual tolerance to allow others to take care of the problem.
Good old first-effecter Socialist Democrats, the party of tolerant benevolance.
Really? I’ve over the years picked up a few things as to why incomes are spreading, but I dont’ know if anyone has ever added them all up. Things like the downfal of unions, pro-business regulations, the raising of the tax burden on labor vs. lowering it on capital. The ability of capital to organize and win at interest group politics better than labor. Things like that.
Can we tell the enemy how long they have left to live?
Hey look, I’m not the one that refuses to tolerate the results of purple fingered democracy: an al-Sadr that controls the largest bloc of the ruling coalition.
That would be a refreshing change.
It’s not going to happen though.
Congratulations. In the vacuum of nobody else having a clue, actuse, you evidently do.
Anyway, when you can pick up on the fact that incomes can spread all they “want” if the lowest continue rising, or that equalizing them by the same force of special interest corruption you attempt to illustrate in your typical one-sided, sniping, partisan, bullshit way, then come sit at the big table. From there the discussion’s likely to be how to prevent buying law that favors your interest. Or his, hers, or mine.
Oops, did I just describe libertarian principle? Imagine that.
“It’s not going to happen though.”
– I aggree they’ll try to avoid it like the plague. They’ve realized, now that the Yawhoo’s of their “mandate” has waned, they’ve bought into a lose-minimal win proposition. If they’re able to convince enough Reps to be cooperative, they may be able to do something meaningful they can point to for ‘08. Otherwise, even without any “investigations”, or braindead impeachment efforts, they’re toast with the electorate.
They will try mightily to blame it on the Right. Won’t work the next time around. They got in with no idea’s on the table, simply because of an angry electorate, fed up with the gridlock in Congress, and a ballless Gop. If they turn out to be empty suits, particularly if they fuck up Iraq even further than it already is, they’re history.
Special interest corruption? its just basic public choice theory.
But no, I dont think they can spread all they want if the lowest continues rising. I think there are big problems for democracy with large and growing inequalities of income. The unbalanced ‘special interest corruption’ of which you speak being one of them.
Looks like you’ve been caught in your own snipe and intellectual dishonesty all over again, actuse:
Ah, it’s objectively just basic public choice theory on one hand, but on the other, by more than a little implication, it’s unbalanced and presumably morally questionable special interest. Right. Had I, say, pointed out that all of it was a bad idea—and unprincipled to boot—maybe you’d have caught on.
Oh, shit; I did.
Perhaps if you were clearer … having never been clear in this space.
Anyway, when you want to drop the bullshit and converse about the fraud of Leftist wealth redistribution or even the fraud of the original topic, you just let me know.
Bearing in mind for the record that one definition of “democracy” is three wolves and a sheep voting on the dinner menu.
Democracy is one necessary aspect of a free society, but it can also be an aspect of an unfree society.
Unbelievable. Or shouldn’t I expect actuse to reason equally and fairly (and in the same
postthreadbloguniverse) the problems of no wealth in tyrannies?Public choice theory says this will happen. Not that the good guys will win out. It’s unbalenced when we have growing inequality. Which I get to hear from you is ok so long as the bottom keeps growing a bit too.
Fraud? I’d say that there’s quite real interest group politics going on, and working people are losing it. In part because the means by which they organize—unions—is being destroyed. Medicare much?
And public choice theory tells us that when one group can organize to be the wolf, it doesn’t matter how many sheeep there are. We know who’s having who for dinner.
“And public choice theory tells us that when one group can organize to be the wolf, it doesn’t matter how many sheeep there are. We know who’s having who for dinner.”
– Which is exactly the best possible argument you could have made against Socialistic “redistribution” of wealth, which is just a fancy way of saying, legal impoundment of property by the State. Socialism by it’s very nature, awarding sloth with unearned wealth, is the worst of the hungrey wolves that a free Democracy will ever have to face.
– The last thing in the world the modern bigot/racist based groups like CAIR would want, is an end to nannystate vuctimhood. They’d be out of business.
“And public choice theory tells us that when one group can organize to be the wolf, it doesn’t matter how many sheeep there are. We know who’s having who for dinner.”
– Which is exactly the best possible argument you could have made against Socialistic “redistribution” of wealth, which is just a fancy way of saying, legal impoundment of property by the State. Socialism by it’s very nature, awarding sloth with unearned wealth, is the worst of the hungrey wolves that a free Democracy will ever have to face.
– The last thing in the world the modern bigot/racist based groups like CAIR would want, is an end to nannystate victimhood. They’d be out of business.
Hey – It’s not supposed to do that —- NURSE!
actus
you’re confusing ‘democracy’ with ‘capitalism’
Capitalism is the only economic system compatible with the ideology of individual freedom. It is the only economic system that starts with the basic assumption of volunteerism, ie individuals freely can contract or not contract with each other for mutual benefit.
Wealth is not a pie to be divided. Wealth is created.
Inequities in income are no more sinister than inequities of talent. It is the “how” of the income inequity that gives context to whether or not there is a true problem.
If John struggles for several years, working low-paying day jobs as he writes his first screenplay, and it gets purchased by a studio for $2 mil, does that mean there is a problem because Steve is still struggling and hasn’t sold his novel?
Life is “unfair” from the moment of birth. Innate talents, health, the circumstances of parenting, geographical location … all are inequities. The best we can is to allow people the widest possible freedom to pursue their own talents and destinies (and make them realize that it also includes the responsibility for their own failures).
No one stops YOU, actus, from acting on your own ‘alturistic’ inclinations to give of YOUR time and YOUR money. Just don’t hold a gun to MY head to salve YOUR conscience.
Thats cute. But i think you’re missing the point that the state will be used by interest groups regardless. Whether its to distribute up or down.
To Actus and the rest of the surrender monkies;
I don’t care what meaningful dates you pick, it is a victory for the terrorists. They keep up the pressure until you pick a date to leave. If you leave because of terrorist activity, on a designated time table, you lose. There can be no time table without the terrorists winning. We leave when the job is done. Contrary to surrender monkies every where, we are in a war with terrorists that began 3 decades ago; Not when Bush took office.
I believe the left, people like Actus; want the US to lose because we are antithiem to their core beliefs. The beleive any American victory just vindicates the US way of life. So even a group of people who behead people, stone women to death, don’t allow any other religon is preferable to America.
Is that what they are calling communism now days?
You kids with all your tricky new slang……
For the third time: “Public choice theory” (in the context of your apparent socialized collective) surely implies social mob democracy. Social government for hire. Social majority rule, damn both the principles and consequences, which is to say, as BBh suggests, a moral intolerance that, as monkyspunk’s and david’s recent bigotry here on PW illustrates, might just be the Left’s most notable fraud.
The Party of Tolerance (and First Effects) outing itself as bigoted and racist and immune to the moral and practical outcomes of it’s intolerance for what basically amounts to freedom, actus. It’s some heavy shit.
From there, your “inequality”—the Socialist’s cartoon “unholy sin” of mere Republicanism, which is the strawman inverse of the Left’s literal, physical, running, victimizing experiment in the chronic failure of social leveling—is entirely subjective. Electable. Able to be manipulated. Fraudulent, regardless who’s on which end of the stick.
You’re all about manipulating outcomes. I’m about preventing the ability to manipulate outcomes, that being contrary to the constitutional ethics that created this very experiment in skeletal social government in the first place.
Does this place you’re describing in 2006 sound still like your America? See, some of the rest of us can still conceive of near-zero social legislation, which I believe I’ve been pretty darn consistent around here about. Yikes, huh?
It’d be so helpful if you’d stop with the perpetual dancing around, actuse, and start looking at the fundamentals. Or can’t you? You all about those outcomes, right? Might be the lawer schooling? Just asking.
All of these comments have been interesting but I’m curious about one thing:
Which clause in the Constitution subordinates the Executive branch to the Legislative. Far as I can tell, the most the Legislative has the right to “Oversight” is to hold meetings to make sure they like the way the money is spent for stuff and decide to defund activities. It’s still the President that is the CINC and has the authority to fight the war, which includes how to fight said war. How many congress critters voted to nuke Nagasaki and Hiroshima?
Both of them happen. There is a distributive conflict, and there is cooperating to produce more.
I’m not talking about conscience. I’m talking about power. Following your metaphor: when the distribution of guns is unequal, the distribution of who can hold guns to whose heads is unequal.
And is there really no idea of when that will be? When we hope it will be? When we hope it will be if we fight well? When we fear it will be if we fight poorly? Is there any way to tell if the people doing the fighting are doing it well or poorly?
Those are the sorts of dates i’m interest in. Not the sorts of dates that are unyielding, but the sorts of dates that can be meaningful measure.
Of course, we manage to set other dates. Like for elections. Both here and there.
Heh. And which one elevates the legislature to moral compass? As in tobacco company witch hunts? Investigating private enterprise for fraud? Subpoenaing Tom, Dick, and Harry because Shemp, Moe, and Larry fucking paid them to?
Darleen is right actus. Wealth to the Left, is this image of a large golden egg that appears out of nowhere, to be divided up, equally, among everyone, regardless of their contributions to society in any manner.
– that is a convienient construct, but totally imaginary in the real world. Wealth is created by inventive, competitive minds, working toward a common goal, within a free (voluntary) enterprise system.
– It’s the competitive part you choke on actus. You believe that to be unfair. It is. But it’s the only system that works, and it mimic’s life. I say let the people that have the talent enjoy the fruits of their labors and creativity.
– You hate that, because you don’t want to compete. That’s your choice, and by no means you can possibly cite, gives you an enherent right to rob others.
– I suspect that with people who think the way you do, it just comes down to raw jealousy/envy. You’d rather see the system destroyed, than have to watch the most capable in society succeed. You don’t understand, really do not, that if they did nothing the wealth would simply not exist. But that doesn’t matter. you need them as your demons to cover for your own poor choices in life, and the same for others that “opt out”.
Not really. Small groups can organize to rent-seek at the expense of more numerous groups. But I don’t know what you’re arguing against here. Public choice is descriptive. You’re not going to get away from it. Not going to be able to wish it wasn’t around.
“Not going to be able to wish it wasn’t around.”
– No we will not. Unfortunately, in a free society, there will always be free loaders who whine for more, and sit up nights dreaming of ways to make that a palitable proposition to the rest of society.
– You won’t really “win” of course. everyone who does contribute to society will quickly see the real agenda of your efforts, and realize it’s there hard working Ox that you hope to gore.
– And yet, such is the power of the free enterprise system, which by rights, if you weren’t such a deluded ideolog, you would embrace. It’s the one system that lets you pick all the low hanging fruit you can enveigle.
– As a thought experiment, try imagining campaigning for “equal distribution” under Sharia’. Come on. I know you can do it.
You have no idea what you’re talking about, actus, anymore than anyone around you has any idea what you’re
spinningtalking about.Conscience is precisely what prevents the gunowner using the weapon unfairly, you dig? We call that criminal law, lawyer. It appears to be based on conscience and justice and harm and restoration and stuff like that.
Those features of principle as understood in this once-constitutional republic should prevent conscience-bound self-government turning into your admitted pragmatic social mob rule. Whoa.
Now that that cat’s out of the Democrat bag, expect your personal freedom to go right down the shitter. Because, according to your own economic model of “public choice theory”, it’s for our own good, damn the long-term consequences and the examples history leaves on your doorstep.
It’s been an interesting month. We’ve all-new examples of the Left’s gross intolerance for capitalism, whites, Joos, Christians, and even Midwesterners, and now we have ample evidence that your perpetual dissembling and sophistry are tied, surprise!, to Socialism.
Clearly you do not. That would be the causes and effects of Socialism, actus. Need it a fourth time?
Wrong. I’ll vote it out. As should you. Not your little “public choice” jargon. Rather, anti-constitutional collectivism, because that’s where the Soclaist Democrats would take us in a heartbeat. If that doesn’t become clear to you, you’re simply not paying attention.
Oh? You mean like the desire of people to be able to keep what they produce?
actus
Certainly the power of state can be used to enrich any favored group over another. Almost always to disasterous effects (see Zimbabwe).
I’m speaking specifically to NOT automatically using the state as an ‘enforcer’ for whatever mob has captured it.
Our choices are not limited to only fascism or communism. Both are totalitarian ideologies that see human beings as “means” not “ends.”
If I’m risking my capital to open a new business and I hire you (you risk nothing. you are being paid for your time), why is there a “distributive conflict” if I make more money if the business is highly successful than you are in straight salary?
May I suggest you brush up on your “Little Red Hen”
– Ever notice that every Socilist/Marxist/Communist/Atheist/Fascist/SecProgg/NeoLiberal that can manage it, choose’s to live here, under this terrible Capitalistic system?
– Whats wrong with this picture?
Let’s do a quick comparison:
The Dems could not investigate Bush more than the GOP investigated Clinton’s cock even if they tried.
I think you’ve taken your metaphor and extended it to where it won’t go. Its not criminal to ask your congressman to vote a particular way. Its not criminal to donate to a campaign that you think will go a certain way. Some people think it should be completely unregulated first amendment activity.
Sure. Tell me about all those socialists at george mason talking about public choice and rational voters.
And the desire of people and interest groups to be able to keep what someone else produced.
Here’s the deal actus: In my humble opinion, the Constitution—especially when coupled with the Founder’s obvious example—has virtually no tolerance for social manipulation by government. The Nation was established with no tax system, no public schools, no free-speech legislation (manipulated to basically outlaw free speech by some folks) no federalized, governmental welfare, ditto medicine, and so on.
Naturally we’ve slid down the slope—Franklin’s admonition to keep things in check went unheeded by too many for too long.
So we’re highly socialized today. Not by formal definition (the Dhimmicrats can’t even handle omitting “ic” from Democrat) but by very, very obvious effects.
You can parse that till the cows come home up there in your brownstone but until you develop the moral fortitude to enact charity in your own household and not put that rhetorical and legislated gun to my head, you’re just a fraud. The latter I can almost handle but I sincerely hope you’re already performing the former.
Meanwhile, your Party has no such tolerance for my once constitutionally-ensured right to be held legally, practically, morally, functionally, intellectually aside from its intended choices for me vis a vis its ethics. Or lack thereof.
Getting the picture? It’s the very moral, dogmatic, intolerant Religion of Liberalism.
Because, actus, socialism—no matter how you and/or the Democrats want to define or not define it—amounts to the essential underlying components found in theft and therefore the dishonestly unnatural and unnecessary outcomes of theft. And that is indeed some heavy shit.
See, if my neighbor starves, it is indeed my moral responsibility. But if my government creates a starving class by way of enacting bogus social legislation, that’s just plain evil. Not to mention intolerant, bigoted, arrogant, unconstitutional, etc.
Make no mistake: We’re a nation of feel-gooding first-effecters who think there ought to be a law for and against virtually everything. If the purely pragmatic features of that mob strike you as the noble, conscience-bound effects of “public choice theory”, be my guest.
Just please don’t couch it in anything other than what it is: Fucking offensive to the conscience and the soul.
AJB
Subpoenas are usually produced when cooperation is not forthcoming.
How many requests for documents were fulfilled without subpoenas?
And I think you’re trying to keep your head above water. It’s not “criminal” to ask your congress-liar to abuse the rights, property, and lives of another voter, segment, voter base, demographic, group, race, or how ever you want to slice it. I’ve stood right there in chambers and watched it happen.
The average state has close to a half million laws and regulations and other social conformity measures on the varous books.
It should be criminal, or at least, illegal. At the least, it was once shunned by principled folks who understood that conscience was exactly what was neded to make the place function as evidently it was designed.
Maybe if you could define “conscience” as well as you cannot define your position on thuggish pragmatism, we’d come to some sort of other conclusion, actus, than the one we seem to have here this morning.
AJB – Do you think maybe if Slick Willy would have used his head in pursuing Usama, nearly as much as he used his dick pursuing Monika, and a host of other unfortunate victims, there may not have ever been a 9/11?
– Maybe his dick was subpoened as much as it was, because it was in the public eye, much more than his statesmanship ever was. You think?
Didn’t we have alien and sedition acts and national banks?
I hear you. Tell that to the people on the trail of tears. Oh wait. Was that before the democrats came along and caused the downfall of man? before we bit the forbidden fruit of government?
Whaddya know, another example of “personal choice theory”.
Or maybe it was just the sheer offensiveness of the Adolescent President’s Most Ethical Administration Ever™?
Or maybe Dubya bought off the Dhimmicrats by stomping his veto pen into powder six years ago?
Dang. Another Leftard without a clue. Imagine.
Sorry for not building this out in more detail for you, actus: We had no personal income tax. Such amounted to a violation of personal legal sovereignty. If you and I may ever agree, heaven forbid, it would be that corporate manipulation of government is a travesty of constitutional ethics.
The corporation is a necessary legal buffer between what should be an untaxed voter (who merely trades his time for a wage) and government. The profiting corporation should pay 100% of the tax burden, thereby bolstering my point that special corporate interest should be preventing from manipulating government for personal gain.
Of course that requires conscience all around, but there we are again, right?
actus
I’d say the Trail of Tears is a grand example of the mindset that gave rise to Kelo.
“before we bit the forbidden fruit of government?”
– Careful there actout. Now you’re starting to sound like a true conservative. That would be two slips in as many days. The other being your pleat that you lived in a high target coastal area, after months of regaling us on how ludicrous the very idea was, that there’s a real threat out there.
Oops, and alien and sedition law has to do with, gosh, national security and defense, right?
Hmmm.
– Yeh 6G -Did’cha ever notice how many of the idiotarian screeds have at their base the proposition of anti-National Defense and security, while also wanting total freedom for sedition and anti-American activism.
– I don’t want to accuse them of being unpatriotic, but it would certainly be difficult to tell the difference from those meme’s they hold, and the obvious goals of our enemies. Strange that.
maybe i’m reading this wrong.. but it looks like congress subpoened the White House.
actus:
New Sen. Maj. Ldr Harry Reid:
Ed:
That’s very insulting to Senators like Hillary Clinton, who has grilled Admin officials. And Barbara Boxer. And Lindsay Graham. And Ted Kennedy. And most of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. And the Senate Armed Services Committee.
By ed’s standard, Clinton and Kennedy should have lost last week.
actus:
Dates are inherently arbitrary, which is why the Admin has tied withdrawal to conditions on the ground.
BTW, I’m doubly amused that actus is citing al-Maliki as wanting a more rapid withdrawal when before the election al-Maliki was objecting to the notion of timetables or even benchmarks.
I’m triply amused that actus mentioned the Dem hearing with the retired generals. Will the Dems accept their recommendations of more troops, more money and more time in Iraq? So far, it appears not.
Why?
Why am I responsible for the misfortunes of others?
– The eternal question of “Am I my brothers keeper”, is best answered, to each his own enefable choices and resoning, and NEVER by some legislative bone headed governmental agency, particularly not a Socialistic robber mentality.
You’re not making much sense.
And is there any idea about these conditions on the ground?
He knows the benchmarks are of him. I’m curious as to what he’s going to extract from the administration.
Actus, just to save time, if you won’t accept that secular collectivism is morally questionable and failure-prone and all that, can you defend the obviously intolerant mindest that promotes it over the will of others and in the face of those probable initial issues?
Seems to me that if we were a truly civil, tolerant, magnanimous people, we’d have the decency to not automatically assume that the only way to overcome the abysmal failure-in-advance of our fellows out there in the profitable private sector was the greed, waste, and arrogance of a statist monopoly.
As much as we hate the institutionalized, charitable Church—that being at the least our visible metaphor for institutional morality and goodness—in this country, seems we’d be wise hate the government twice as much.
In other words, what kind of intolerance and moral tyranny must we be practicing to insist government be fair and benevolent when doing so has never worked, and to hamstring the admitted vagaries of the relatively moral private sector, when it alone has produced both moral choice and prosperity?!
Do me a favor and at least define your perspective of this likely ratio: As it concerns charity, how many practices of government are avoidably wasteful and therefore, morally questionable as to their stated intent?
Now, as it concerns the same thing, how many practices of private, enterprising charity are?
In the private sector? You’re not and that’s the point. I may be, he may be, she may be, but none of us may insist that you are.
Government per se is not the problem. The problem is the notion that government should take money from those who have earned it and give it to those who have not earned it.