The following bits of government insanity are in the April issue of Reason:
- Joe Biden spoke highly of former Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak in a PBS interview on January 27, 2011: "I would not refer to him (Mubarak) as a dictator." Let's see, Egypt has lived under virtual martial law for decades, any elections have been rigged, opposition political parties have been suppressed, Mubarak's friends and military allies own or control great portions of the Egyptian economy for their own benefit, and Mubarak ran a vicious secret police organization during his time in power to go after Egyptians who dared to oppose him. Many and various forms of torture machines and processes were found when his secret service buildings were opened up. If he is not a dictator, Mr. Vice President, I would hate to see a real dictator.
- According to an article by Matt Welch in this month's Reason, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was really not in tune with what was going on in Egypt in the early part of the year:
- On January 25, 2011, Hillary viewed the Egyptian government situation as "stable."
- However, just five days later on January 30, 2011, she said that an "orderly transition" was needed to a new form of government that should occur over a period of months. What happened to the stability of the current government she talked about five days before?
- It gets better. Just eleven days later, Mubarak resigned, the current Egyptian government structure collapsed and Clinton's boss, President Obama, said that "Egyptians have made it clear that nothing less than genuine democracy will carry the day." Therefore, we went from a stable government to a government collapse in just over two weeks. Does not appear that Madam Secretary, or her boss, were on top of this situation.
Thus, using Joe Biden's definition of what is and what is not a dictator, it is not out of the realm of possibility for a sitting President to declare a political opposition party a terror organization, an organization that would have no legal recourse. Given the President's dislike of Fox News, what would stop him from labeling Fox News as a terror organization? After all, under the Biden doctrine, if Mubarak is not a dictator, all laws of logic can be suspended by the Obama administration.
- The number of pedestrian deaths increased .4% in 2010. No big deal. While any death is bad, most people would be smart enough to realize that a .4% increase is so small that it could probably be attributed to rounding or sampling randomness, not a trend. Unless you are New York state senator Carl Kruger who has introduced a bill making it a crime to use a cell phone, an iPod, or other electronic device while crossing any street.
Talk about screwed up priorities. The New York state government is in a desperate hole financially, slashing budget in order to remain solvent. New York public schools, like most public schools, are failing to educate our kids. The war on drugs in New York and elsewhere goes on unabated. But what is Senator Kruger worried about? Whether or not full grown adults are smart enough to look up when crossing the street. Pathetic priorities. How is this ever going to be enforced? Are you going to have cash strapped police departments stationed at busy intersections to write tickets and make arrests?
And the real kicker is that even if they passed the law it is unlikely to make a difference. A 2010 study by the Institute For Highway Safety found that laws banning cell phone texting while driving actually increase the danger on our road ways. Why? When it became illegal to text, drivers simply moved their cell phones away from the windows in order to not get ticketed, which took their eyes further away from the road while texting. Thus, this is a stupid law that is likely to backfire. Politicians should not be involved in such nonsensical activities like crossing the street.
- On the good news side, a Pennsylvania law that allowed police within the state to issue summons for public profanity has been struck down as a result of an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit. As with the nutty New York Senator, we need to start running this country like adults that are serving adults. Most people do not like profanity but it should not be a crime, it is really just bad manners. With our dire financial situation, let's free up our police and other resources to do real work and not the work of grandstanding politicians.
- On the good news side, that is really not a good news side, President Obama recently announced that he wanted Federal government entities to do a review of their regulations and procedures and identify and eliminate those that are inefficient, ineffective, or outdated. Sounds great, good news, let's cut through the red tape and bureaucracy.
Not so fast. According to the Wall Street Journal, any regulations put in place under the Obama regime are off limits. I guess he thinks that anything regulation he put in has to be good, it's those other President's who put in the bad stuff. Also, more than a dozen major Federal government entities will be exempt from the exercise since they are independent agencies. Some of these agencies include the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Communications commission. Thus, in the twinkle of an eye really good news has turned into really no news at all.
This does give you an idea of how out of control our Federal government has become. If the President Of the United States cannot dictate a common sense directive to major portions of the government, who or what can control them? We are truly headed for an out of control Armageddon if agencies of the government have become self sufficient and self sustaining with no executive branch oversight.
But Reason magazine does not have a monopoly on political class insanity. Consider some recent findings from The Week magazine:
- A top state department employee, P.J. Crowley, was recently forced to resign when he voiced his opinion that Bradley Manning, the accused leaker of government documents to Wikileaks, was being subjected to cruel and unnecessary punishment. Mr. Manning is supposedly forced to stay n his very small, solitary confinement cell 23 hours a day, he his stripped naked each night, and is then forced to wear a suicide proof smock to bed every night. All of this stupid treatment for someone who has not been convicted of any crime and who reportedly has not been any kind of trouble maker. I guess the administration does not see any problem with this inhumane treatment since they did not think that Mubarak, who probably did similar things to his unconvicted people, is not a dictator.
- Many times we have discussed the phenomenon of how many government policies actually accomplish the exact opposite of what they are intended to do. Ban texting while driving and make the roads more dangerous, that sort of thing. In the United States, we pay people to purchase a hybrid car under the assumption that if there are more high hybrid autos on the road instead of traditional gas autos, less oil will be used, since hybrids generally get far better gas mileage, which will result in less green house gas emissions.
This may not be the case or reality. According to a short blurb in the March 25, 2011 issue of The Week magazine, Sweden the exact opposite has happened. Sweden apparently has been a big advocate of their citizens buying and using "green cars" such as hybrids, ethanol, and clean diesel autos. However, the Swedish government has found out that since all of these alternatives get great gas mileage, their owners tend to drive much more than they used to, resulting in many of them actually using, and burning, more gasoline than non-green car owners. Thus, we may actually be subsidizing drivers in America to burn more gas and create more green house gases then if they had bought traditional, lower mileage cars.
- As the country drowns in TRILLIONs of dollars in red ink, the political class is viciously fighting itself to decide whether or not National Public Radio should continue to receive $450 million in Federal subsidies every year. The ship is sinking in red ink and they are trying to decide which direction to point the lounge chairs in. $450 million on our $14 TRILLION deficit is to small to even be worth calculating.
To further illustrate how stupid this discussion is, in the context of the bigger issue of insolvency, the March 25, 2011 issue of The Week magazine reported that NPR has a loyal audience of 26 million listeners. If each of them contributed less than $1.50 a month to the operation of NPR, the organization would cover the $450 million easily. If a listener does not think NPR provides $1.50 worth of value a month, then why should non-NPR listeners, via the subsidy, have to pay? When will the political class get beyond such idiocy and start making serious inroads to our devastating national debt?
- The March 25, 2011 issue of The Week also printed a short blurb from a recent Wall Street Journal edition. According to the Wall Street Journal, U.S. households have cut their debt burden to the lowest point in six years. The level of debt is down to 116% of disposable income, substantially down from its peak of 130% in 2007. Thus, under tough economic times, mature adults running the nation's households know that they must cut expenses and get their budget under control. This mature adults' description does not apply to the Washington political class since rather than reducing debt over the past six years, they have set record high debts.
Some simple math: if the political class reduced it debt load from 130% to 116% (about 11%), you could make the rough calculation that over $400 billion would be taken out of the Federal government expense stream. Now you are talking real financial management if our politicians would just match the behavior of most Americans.
As always, bad priorities, bad laws, and insane views of reality, all from your political class, updated every day, every week, and every month, just like our national debt and diminishing freedom.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at http://www.loathemygovernment.com/. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
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http://www.cato.org/
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http://www.repealamendment
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