For the convenience of those who might wish to re-blog Gary North's outstanding post, pass it on or tweet it, I have put his complete post, and my three part commentary in one post below.
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Reproduced below is a highly significant article which, in these times of economic and social dislocation, offers a path and prescription for national renewal. Of course there are points to disagree with, but the conclusion is unarguable.
For those who are old enough to have lived through numerous cycles of economic booms and busts, the article will give pause. At "the end of history" where all the economic "isms" have been tried, Gary North shows that now is the time to pursue policies above and beyond partisanship.
North shows that through booms and busts the human spirit and the nation state survives. Sometimes abashed, sometimes ludicrously euphoric but, where a democracy includes a fairly regulated capitalism, progress evolves-despite zigs and zags on the way.
The "end of history" was about the triumph of capitalistic market forces. Later discussion considered that history was not quite done as the welfarism vs non-welfarism debate had not worked itself out just yet. However, this post Fukuyama debate, which includes high tax/low tax arguments, could be considered a minor digression, given that history has allowed this generation a unique opportunity.
2016 affords an unparalleled time for national renewal. After North sets out the argument against politics and economics as neither impediments, nor paths to renewal, his morality based prescription is expanded upon further in the discussion that follows in parts two to four subsequent to this post.
By all means visit Mr.North's site and links to his other sites
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Don't Worry About Your Kids' Economic Future, Worry about Yours
Politics / US DebtMay 26, 2012 - 05:32 AM
By: Gary_North
I read that Americans who have spoken to poll-takers express the fear that their children will not live as well as they have. Here is an example. The poll was taken in October 2011.
More than two-thirds of voters say the United States is declining, and a clear majority think the next generation will be worse off than this one, according to the results of a new poll commissioned by The Hill.
A resounding 69 percent of respondents said the country is "in decline," the survey found, while 57 percent predict today's kids won't live better lives than their parents. Additionally, 83 percent of voters indicated they're either very or somewhat worried about the future of the nation, with 49 percent saying they're "very worried."
The results suggest that Americans don't view the country's current economic and political troubles as temporary, but instead see them continuing for many years.
The usual explanation relates to the poor economy. Other explanations include the environment, the educational system, the national debt, Asian competition, illegal immigration, and moral decline.
I have not seen any poll relate this pessimism to concern over declining medical technology, rising computer prices, a crash of the Internet, rising bandwidth costs, declining automobile safety, dead spots in cell phone communications, rising book prices, declining IQ scores, or astronomical plane fares.
In other words, Americans think their children will live longer, enjoy better communications, travel more inexpensively, and not get dumber. The better informed respondents know of the Flynn effect. It appears that people born later over the last century keep getting better at taking exams, or else they are actually getting smarter. Wikipedia summarizes.
The Flynn effect is the name given to a substantial and long-sustained increase in intelligence test scores measured in many parts of the world. When intelligence quotient (IQ) tests are initially standardized using a sample of test-takers, by convention the average of the test results is set to 100 and their standard deviation is set to 15 IQ points.
When IQ tests are revised they are again standardized using a new sample of test-takers, usually born more recently than the first. Again, the average result is set to 100. However, when the new test subjects take the older tests, in almost every case their average scores are significantly above 100.This has taken place in other countries. It means that each generation does better at taking exams. Since there is no inheritance of acquired characteristics, we must seek other explanations for this rise. One explanation surely does not fit: children keep getting less intelligent.
Before a child is born, parents hope for two things: (1) the child will be healthy; (2) the child will be of normal intelligence. Parents of teenagers can be confident that the nation's children and grandchildren will live longer, be healthier, and be better at taking IQ tests. So, why the pessimism?
Let us discount the likelihood of the following: (1) a pandemic, (2) nuclear war, (3) a collision with an asteroid.
This leaves the following: (1) the rising cost of energy, (2) rising taxation, (3) Federal Reserve policy, (4) tighter job markets (immigration and Asian competition), (5) the federal debt, (6) cultural and moral decline.
I will skip over cultural and moral issues, because most of these issues are separate from government policies. I can think of no federal program that will reform Americans' morals, and I shudder to think of the bureaucracy that would be set up to try.
Oldsters have been complaining about moral and cultural decline ever since the Puritans arrived in Massachusetts. At some point, it's old news. If there is a looming tipping point, we can't forecast it accurately. Surely, an agency in Washington can't.
I am in favor of closing down government welfare programs that subsidize personal irresponsibility. This should begin with crony capitalism. Some single mother in Detroit is not the primary source of moral hazard in America. Let's start with the FDIC, the Import-Export Bank, farm price supports, Social Security, Medicare, and the Federal Reserve System.
RISING ENERGY COSTS
This threat is real, but we have a price system to deal with it.
For anyone who has invested in natural gas over the past few years, the energy crisis seems to be on hold. He has lost a great deal of money. Prices have collapsed.
There may be a technological breakthrough. I hope so. Meanwhile, the price system offers us ways to cut consumption. Worldwide oil consumption peaked in 2004. It is still high: about a billion barrels every 12 weeks. But the free market provides incentives for consumers to conserve and inventors to get busy.
This much is clear: rising energy costs are the result of increased consumption, which is the result of increased production. We have to get richer to afford expensive oil.
We will cut back on some consumer goods in order to buy energy. We will have time to adjust our budgets. This is a long-term problem.
In any case, the high cost of energy is going to hit the Third World and Second World before it hits America.
RISING TAXATION
Not for Americans. Americans will not tolerate rising taxes. The most that the federal government has extracted out of Americans since 1947 is 20% of GDP, and usually this has been lower. Here is a chart that shows this.
What about total taxation? It has risen to the 35% range. (This does not count the cost of regulation.)
Government expenditures have risen since 2000. But this has been covered by borrowing.
Parents should not worry about their children's growing tax burden. One election cycle can take away that burden. A new Congress comes in and pulls the plug on any program that a majority of voters – "the kids" – decide is squeezing them.
Think of this as the ice floe solution. Some tribes in the arctic used to stick granny on a floating piece of ice, gave her three days' rations, and wished her bon voyage.
My recommendation: Don't worry about the kids. Worry about your golden years.
FEDERAL RESERVE POLICY
Our kids are not going to take the brunt of this. We are. What the FED has created, in conjunction with fractional reserve banking and the FDIC, is a system of moral hazard and crony capitalism on a scale never before seen. Add to this witches brew the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan, and the People's Bank of China. Don't cry for the kids. Our problems are more immediate.
TIGHTER JOB MARKETS
With every extension of the division of labor since the day that Cain went off to seek his fortune, job markets have been tightening. There are more people looking for work. But an amazing phenomenon has paralleled this development. More employers are looking for workers.
Markets clear when left free to clear. Employers bid against employers. Workers bid against workers. Employment remains high as long as employers and workers are free to bid, free to choose, free to move away, and free to start a business. I mean "free" as in "under no legal restrictions."
Lots of Chinese workers want to compete to sell us trinkets that we don't need and parts that we can hire others to assemble. China is a nation that sends out boxes with this sign: "Some assembly required." The money is in the assembling and marketing. Think iPhone. Think iPad. For that matter, think "Detroit Big Three."
Dell Computers is in trouble, according to its recent share price. Hewlett-Packard will lay off 27,000. What does that mean for you and me? Cheaper computers.
Agriculture has faced this problem for 300 years. "How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm, after they've seen Paree" – or any other town larger than 500? Answer: you aren't. This is why 2% of Americans live on farms, and why food is so small a portion of our household budgets. If we were willing to stick with unprocessed foods, that portion would be even lower. A "paleo" diet – which is not paleo; it's capitalist – could be based on eggs and not much else. Eggs are cheap.
Tighter job markets are great for people who specialize. This takes productivity. There is increasing productivity. It also takes capital. It takes education. All of these are available at some price.
For unproductive people with poor work habits, low IQs, and no skills, times will get tougher. But why shouldn't they get tougher? The market rewards workers who produce efficiently. That is what free market pricing is all about: incentives to produce more efficiently.
This was what uncompetitive farmers have faced. We need incentives to go out and find some way to serve customers. Necessity is the mother of invention. Go to the Book of Proverbs for insights here. Or go to my commentary on the economics of the Book of Proverbs.
Some parents are worried about the fact that the $100,000+ they spent to send a child to college to get a degree has not paid off. The job market is rotten for people with useless B.A. degrees in the humanities. Furthermore, the child could have gotten this degree on his own for under $15,000. All this is a commentary on the lack of parental financial wisdom, not a comment on the child's future at age 40 or 50. Maybe the child will know better than to follow his parents' example.
Year after year, decade after decade, for over two centuries, economic growth in the northern hemisphere of the West has increased by at least 2% per year. This has made every generation richer than the previous one. Bad government policies have slowed this down (1929-47). World wars have slowed this down. But it has continued most of the time.
Now the process has spread to China and India. There will be more people with output to trade with. This is like getting a better class of people moving into the neighborhood. Property values will rise.
THE FEDERAL DEBT
See "Rising Taxation."
LIBERTY
Liberty is what enables people to improve their situations. Liberty is increasing.
As I wrote recently, we are not on the road to serfdom. We are on the road out of serfdom.
We have been on this road out of serfdom for a thousand years. We are not going to turn around and go back. The nation that adopted Marxist Communism first was Russia in 1917. Serfdom had been abolished in Russia only since 1861. Capitalism had barely begun in cities. It was nonexistent in rural areas, where most Russians lived.
As for Communist China, Mao's triumph in 1949 was not a triumph over capitalism. It was a triumph over traditional bureaucracy – the oldest and most developed bureaucracy on earth. The only bureaucracy to come close to matching it was the Czar's in 1917. Marx was completely wrong about the future. Communist revolutions came in nations that had not yet adopted bourgeois capitalism. The mode of production did not produce the inevitable revolution: from feudalism to capitalism to socialism to communism.
The revolutions were not led by proletarians. Educated bourgeois sons led peasant societies into Communism in the name of proletarianism, just as a pair of educated bourgeois sons invented Communism in the first place.
We are seeing the extension of economic liberty in Asia. Asia is booming. We are seeing the contraction of economic liberty in Western Europe. It is in a recession.
The United States has lower taxes than most industrial nations. It is easy to start a business here. Innovators still come here to prove their points in the market.
If California tightens the screws, Texas beckons. If Vermont tightens the screws, New Hampshire beckons. We can click a link to find out which state is where a small businessman wants to be.
CONCLUSION
Whether our children will be better off than we are has far more to do with their morals than the federal government. The federal government can be evaded. It can be replaced. It can be de-funded. It can go belly-up.
The heart, mind, and soul of a nation are the hearts, minds, and souls of its people.
The problem with big government is bad morality.
The problem with central banking is larceny in the hearts of the voters. They want bailouts. Who gets bailed out? Rich bankers. Surprise!
The problem with public education is tax funding. That can be cured by a few dozen sites like Khan
Academy's site.
What we need is a moral transformation, We need voters who will vote against "except." "Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote."
PART 2; MORALITY IN POLITICS IS THE PATH TO NATIONAL RENEWAL
Mr. Gary North in part 1 of this series has shown that politics determines economic policy, and that nations and individuals survive the ebb and flow of the natural business cycle. Nations also survive the ebb and flow of whatever prevailing political culture directs economic policy.
Thus whichever political party directs the economy people will survive whatever degree of mismanagement ensues.
Therefore welfarism will ebb and flow to a greater or lesser degree at any one time as will booms and busts. That being the case it is reasonable to state that governments should be directed by people too whom morality is their absolute touchstone. All their social and economic policies must first pass the test of their inherent ethical and moral compostion.
No matter the degree of animosity between Republican and Pemocrat partisans, surely nobody could argue with North's conclusion that a morality based political agenda is important?
Perhaps it might be argued that morality is one path amongst many, but accepting that premise leaves open whatever other prescriptions are on offer to being divorced from a moral element.
Simply, all paths to renewal have to be based on morality, and thus North's conclusions will suffice without any modification.
Looking towards the 2016 elections, on the R.S. McCain premise of a Romney "disaster" in Part 3. what might be the mechanism to effect a morality led national renewal? In the concluding Part 4. of this analysis a possible vehicle is presented.
PART 3; R.S. McCAIN AND CONSERVATIVES OBLIGATION TO THE ROMNEY CAMPAIGN
In the light of Mitt Romney being the presumptive Republican nominee, the outstanding conservative journalist Robert Stacy McCain addressed the question as to what the conservative voters response should be.
McCain firstly expressed his forebodings (AT THIS LINK) of the Romney versus Obama outcome without mincing any words;
"Yesterday, after Rick Santorum quit, my 13-year-old son Jefferson asked, “Does this mean I have to stop bad-mouthing Mitt Romney?”
“Yeah,” I said. “It doesn’t mean you have to start good-mouthing him, but you have to stop bad-mouthing him.”
Then I went on to explain that, having been saddled with a nominee whom we had opposed with all our might, we cannot be held responsible for the inevitable disaster. Therefore, on Wednesday, Nov. 7, we will be ready to demand an accounting from those responsible.
Could I be wrong? Is there actually a chance that Mitt could win? This is a possibility that must be considered, at least as a hypothetical.
In a few weeks, when I’m covering the general election campaign, I’m going to have to try to convince myself that this is not an absurd exercise in political futility, that “President Romney” is actually within the realm of the possible, and that a Romney administration might conceivably accomplish something meaningful for the preservation of the American Republic. It is nonetheless important to emphasize that today — April 11, 2012 — I am overwhelmed by a bone-deep certainty that those who actually believe such things are fools, who are wasting their time and efforts, and now asking us to waste ours, too.
Then, when it’s all over, and people ask me, “What went wrong?” I’ll point them back to this post and say, “It was doomed from the outset.”
In a subsequent article (full article AT THIS LINK) McCain then addressed the conservative's voting position in respect of the Romney candidacy;
"Here’s the thing I want to get across to our readers: Whenever Republicans lose a presidential election, the first thing the GOP Establishment does is to focus blame on conservatives. This is why Sarah Palin was scapegoated for the 2008 defeat, because treacherous swine like Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace, who get paid to win elections, don’t want to accept responsibility for their own failures.
It is therefore an urgent necessity — however painfully ironic — that hard-core grassroots conservatives give their maximum effort to help Romney defeat Barack Obama, because if Team Mitt loses this election, you will be blamed. Your honor as a conservative, to say nothing of the future of our Republic, thus requires from you even greater labors than you would have made if Rick Santorum had won the nomination.
Like I said, “painfully ironic.”
The article by Gary North that commenced this presentation, which places morality above electoral and economic considerations, would seem to lead one to support McCain's premise that conservatives should work for, and vote for Romney.
Of the two candidates Romney's recently stated positions more represents the conservative viewpoint that ethics and morality are transcendent. In the social sphere, abortion and same sex marriage are two major issues where there is an undisputed difference between Romney and Obama.
Of the two candidates Romney's recently stated positions more represents the conservative viewpoint that ethics and morality are transcendent. In the social sphere, abortion and same sex marriage are two major issues where there is an undisputed difference between Romney and Obama.
McCain's second point is that if conservatives do not support Romney in the campaign, and in November, they will be blamed by the GOP establishment for his defeat. McCain uses the clear example in the quote above of how Palin received this treatment (even though CNN's exit polling in 2008 showed that she was actually a positive influence on voters considerations).
These are powerful arguments, lets put the shoe on the other foot to show why. If Palin were the nominee instead of Romney, and the Romney supporters stated they would not work for her and would stay at home in November, the Palin supporters would, with great reason, feel aggrieved and betrayed and would blame the subsequent defeat on the Romneyite establishment.
Further, after the inevitable loss, the conservative element (blamed for "splitting the party") would be unlikely to have another shot at a candidate of their preference getting the nomination again for a generation. It took from 1964 till 1980 for the GOP to run with another conservative after Goldwater.
Further, after the inevitable loss, the conservative element (blamed for "splitting the party") would be unlikely to have another shot at a candidate of their preference getting the nomination again for a generation. It took from 1964 till 1980 for the GOP to run with another conservative after Goldwater.
Sadly for conservatives they are in a lose/lose situation. If they don't support Romney, the blame for the loss will not fall on the Romneyite faction but on the conservatives and, once again, they will face being out of power for a generation. There is however one exception to this apparent unfair rule of political life, and that is when conscience and faith supersedes all other considerations.
If Romney were of any other faith beside being a Mormon, then McCain's strictures and warnings would be indisputable, no matter how bitter a pill they would be for conservatives. If, as with Gary North morality is above politics then the moral law, which for Christians finds its base in the true Christian faith, is the one allowable exception to the demand for all Republicans to support Romney.
If a Christian advises that their faith states explicitly that "another Gospel" is hostile to the foundations of the faith (which it is as with St.Paul) then on the grounds of conscience they must be excluded from condemnation for not voting for Romney.
If Romney lost a close election because a substantial number of Christians had to follow their faith,which is above the politics of the moment, the "blame game' could not apply. It follows that the conservative element must be allowed a shot at the 2016 nomination free from such attacks. If they are successful in gaining the nomination, the establishment wing must support their candidate or be accused of putting self-interest above all moral considerations.
If Romney lost a close election because a substantial number of Christians had to follow their faith,which is above the politics of the moment, the "blame game' could not apply. It follows that the conservative element must be allowed a shot at the 2016 nomination free from such attacks. If they are successful in gaining the nomination, the establishment wing must support their candidate or be accused of putting self-interest above all moral considerations.
Part 4: AMERICAN REBIRTH 2016
The Outstanding article by Gary North which was presented in part 1. of this extended analysis explained why political and economic considerations must be secondary to moral ones when charting a nation's course. Part 2. explored the issue of morality, and Part 3. considered the options open to conservative voters in respect of the Romney candidacy.
In this concluding article, Part 4. John Hayward comments on Sarah Palin's address to CPAC, and Anand Giridharadas explores Palin's address at Indianola.These two observers present to a large degree the core of conservative "Palinism" which represents the morally grounded economic and political substance for the rebirth and renewal of America.
Of much interest is the fact that the leftist establishment journal, The New York Times, presented a report which saw much value in Palin's analysis, and even advised that it could have cross party, or even above party appeal.
I use the term "Palinism" as although Palin at present best represents the values required to bring about this renewal she is, of course, a mortal human being and these concepts are transcendent. Movement founders arise and depart and their value may be in that they commenced, or reinforced a new or incipient mood for change.
Further I want to get away from the idea that these articles are in any manner a "Palin support club" sort of thing. Certainly it would be exciting and challenging if in 2016 Palin was the nominee who as president could effect these changes. But that is not an end in itself, rather the transformative process, as initiated by Palin, is the key factor no matter who is the standard bearer.
With thanks to John Hayward for permission to reprint parts of his outstanding analysis on Sarah Palin at CPAC from "Human Events".
CPAC 2012: Sarah Palin cleans out the Washington hot tub
By;John Hayward
"The door is open."
None of the Republican presidential candidates got anything like the response Sarah Palin earned from the CPAC crowd. Not even close. I lost count of the standing ovations.
Is it easier to get the whole crowd surging to its feet when you’re not a candidate, and nobody in the audience has an axe to grind? Maybe, but no other speaker at CPAC rocked the house like Palin did, either.
Could there be some residual protective affection warming a crowd that remembers how Palin was savaged during her days on the McCain ticket, and even more brutally attacked during the Left’s bizarre and despicable attempts to pin the Jared Loughner murders on her? Perhaps. Conservative audiences honor those who fight for their ideals, and never sell out. Selling out is easy. The rewards can be rich.
There aren’t enough inspiring, uncompromising heroes for a conservative audience to applaud. There’s a reason we’re still re-discovering Ronald Reagan through lectures and panel discussions, almost a quarter-century after his presidency ended, with people less than a quarter-century old filling the audiences.
But mostly I think Palin fires up a crowd because of her sincerity. At one point, she said the Republican presidential candidate should be someone “who instinctively turns right to Constitutional conservative principles,” and it’s “too late to teach that.” She has that instinct. She doesn’t have to check off any boxes or carefully plan her oratory to please a conservative audience. She understands. She makes it look easy. She makes you wonder how her countrymen could have been foolish enough to put Barack Obama in the White House, and what he’s still doing there.
It’s possible her observation that it’s too late to teach our presidential candidate how to turn Right was meant as a veiled jab at Mitt Romney. She didn’t endorse anyone, and she repeated her desire for the primary season to continue, because “in America, we believe that competition strengthens us.” Not surprisingly, given her experiences during and after the 2008 campaign, she has a dim view of campaign consultants.
“The federal government has never cast a bigger shadow,” Palin said, “so for the past three years we’ve been waving a bold banner that says ‘Don’t Tread On Me.’ You see, the Tea Party rose up because Americans rose up.” Has any presidential contender looking for the Tea Party vote summed them up so vividly, and succinctly?
Palin pointed out that Obama’s debt pile amounts to $135,000 worth of red ink for every taxpayer. It’s getting deeper at $3 million per minute, and Obama has “no plan to stop it… no plan… no budget. Going on 1000-and-some-odd days, and still no budget. He mucked it up. Folks, this government isn’t too big to fail. It’s too big to succeed. It’s too big to ignore, and it is too big to bear any more.”
What did we get for all that madcap spending? “Eight and a half percent unemployment, and 13 million Americans who can’t find work. 46 million living in poverty. Now, government dependency has gone up under Obama has gone up 23 percent, and for the first time in our history, folks are fearing that our future is going to be worse than our past.”
The President’s dead-end defenders have been reduced to squeaking that he did the best job anyone could have done, given the “mess he inherited.” It’s hard to imagine anyone doingworse than that muck-up, Barack Obama.
Palin described our grim state of affairs as, not a failure of the American people, but a failure of our leadership. “But we know how to change that… oh, yes we do. Oh, yes we can! ‘Hope and change?’ Yeah, you gotta hope things change.” Then she swiped “We Can’t Wait” for good measure.
Someone tried to heckle Palin, but the crowd blew them out of the room, first by chanting “USA!” and then by shouting Palin’s name. “See?” she declared happily. “You just won! See how easy that is?”
Another easy gift Palin gave the crowd was a glimpse into the future, which requires nothing more than reading the headlines from Europe. “If they keep trying to tax, and take, and spend our way to prosperity, we know where we’ll end up. Just look to the Old World to see the New World’s future. It’s a future of downsizing, and downturns, and downgrades. Now that’s the future of the far Left’s dreams. That’s not the American Dream. And, so help me God, it’s not a future we will ever accept!”
She’s good at laying out the conflict of visions, noting that President Obama’s last State of the Union speech was another raft of pie-in-the-sky promises, from a man who has already broken the government’s bank several times over. She zeroed in on Obama’s imperative to create “an economy that’s built to last,” saying that the last thing we want is for his horrible economy to last any longer. Instead, we need an “economy built to grow.” Re-distribution and creation are mutually exclusive. It really is about stasis vs. growth. Leave it to Sarah Palin to notice that Obama explicitly promises stasis. That’s what comes naturally to him.
Palin noticed that Obama’s mania for regulation somehow didn’t prevent the $1.2 billion disaster at MF Global, the investment firm run by his good friend, top contributor, economic guru, and Democrat Party stalwart Jon Corzine. Recalling Obama’s comment about Americans bitter clinging to God and guns, because they were frustrated with the pace of his big plans to change America, Palin said, “Keep your change. We’ll keep our God, our guns, and our Constitution.”
Time and again, she easily reduced Obama to the absurd and preposterous figure he is. At a CPAC forum earlier in the day, the value of humor as a political weapon was discussed. Liberal comedians absurdly insist they can’t find anything to mock about Obama because they know once Americans start laughing at him, they’ll never stop. Sarah Palin understands that as well as anyone in Hollywood.
She’s not just funny, but inspirational, in a no-nonsense “if not us, then who?” way. She finds the Obamanoids’ contempt for average Americas insulting, and their refusal to project both American strength and values abroad to be dangerous. From unborn children to the state of Israel, she doesn’t think anyone who deserves America’s protection should have to wonder about whether it will be there for them. “We will refuse to accept that a weaker America means a better and safer world,” Palin declared, cutting very close to the heart of what passes for “international community organizing” these days.
Palin observed that Washington D.C. has prospered, even as the rest of the economy withered, even though Washington makes nothing and produces nothing. The “Washington of the permanent political class” should not be “the playground for the government rich,” a place where “millionaires are minted overnight.” It’s ridiculous that such a place should be able to use envy and hatred of the rich as a weapon against the rest of us.
She joked that reclassifying the Washington swamp as a “wetland” might be the only thing that could slow down its growth, as such a designation would arouse the zero-growth EPA. She returned to the theme of “crony capitalism” she has often stressed, the “capitalism of connections, and of government bailouts, handouts and waste.” She fears “how many more Solyndras might be out there” as Obama repays the rest of his campaign debts. It’s funny how so many who come to D.C. “denouncing the cesspool of corruption” decide “it’s more like a hot tub” after a year or two. “And they’re hopping in and enjoying the Jacuzzi!”
The Tea Party victory in 2010 was the first step in draining that hot tub. Although dismissed and lied about, the Tea Party members of Congress “have kept their promises to the people who voted for them,” and “now they need reinforcements.” She expects the Republican hierarchy to reward those Tea Party stalwarts with leadership positions, after the reinforcements show up.
Above all, what Palin encourages is unity. She has no truck with those who would sit out the election because their favored candidate didn’t win. “For the sake of our country, we must stand united, no matter who our nominee is,” she declared. With victory in 2012 secure, “we will have a President who defends our American way of life, instead of apologizing for it. We will have a Commander-in-Chief worthy of our troops.”
“We are the heirs of patriots, who cast off the chains of tyranny,” Palin concluded. It is freedom that makes us exceptional, and protecting that freedom is an exceptional duty. It always has been as simple as that. The guys who muck everything up are the ones who make it sound complicated. They’ve got a billion reasons why you shouldn’t kick them out of that hot tub.
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PALIN IN INDIANOLAYeah, the permanent political class – they’re doing just fine. Ever notice how so many of them arrive in Washington, D.C. of modest means and then miraculously throughout the years they end up becoming very, very wealthy? Well, it’s because they derive power and their wealth from their access to our money – to taxpayer dollars. They use it to bail out their friends on Wall Street and their corporate cronies, and to reward campaign contributors, and to buy votes via earmarks. There is so much waste. And there is a name for this: It’s called corporate crony capitalism. This is not the capitalism of free men and free markets, of innovation and hard work and ethics, of sacrifice and of risk. No, this is the capitalism of connections and government bailouts and handouts, of waste and influence peddling and corporate welfare. This is the crony capitalism that destroyed Europe’s economies. It’s the collusion of big government and big business and big finance to the detriment of all the rest – to the little guys. It’s a slap in the face to our small business owners – the true entrepreneurs, the job creators accounting for 70% of the jobs in America, it’s you who own these small businesses, you’re the economic engine, but you don’t grease the wheels of government power.
We’re here because America is at a tipping point. America faces a crisis. And it’s not a crisis like perhaps a Midwest summer storm – the kind that moves in and hits hard, but then it moves on. No, this kind will relentlessly rage until we do restore all that is free and good and right about America. It’s not just fear of a double dip recession. And it’s not even the shame of a credit downgrade for the first time in U.S. history. It’s deeper than that. This is a systemic crisis due to failed policies and incompetent leadership. And we’re going to speak truth today. It may be hard-hitting, but we’re going to speak truth today because we need to start talking about what hasn’t worked, and we’re going to start talking about what will work for America. We will talk truth.
Candidate Obama pledged to fundamentally transform America. And for all the failures and the broken promises, that’s the one thing he has delivered on. We’ve transformed from a country of hope to one of anxiety. Today, one in five working-age men are out of work. One in seven Americans are on food stamps. Thirty percent of our mortgages are underwater. In parts of Michigan and California, they’re suffering from unemployment numbers that are greater than during the depths of the Great Depression. Barack Obama promised to cut the deficit in half, and instead he turned around and he tripled it. And now our national debt is growing at $3 million a minute. That’s $4.25 billion a day.
He wants to “Win The Future” by “investing” more of your hard-earned money in some harebrained ideas like more solar panels and really fast trains. These are things that venture capitalists will tell you are non-starters, yet he wants to do more of them. We’re flat broke, but he thinks these solar panels and really fast trains are going to magically save us. He’s shouting “all aboard Obama’s bullet train to bankruptcy
Now to be fair, some GOP candidates also raised mammoth amounts of cash, and we need to ask them, too: What, if anything, do their donors expect in return for their “investments”? We need to know this because our country can’t afford more trillion-dollar “thank you” notes to campaign backers. It is an important question, and it cuts to the heart of our problem. And I speak from experience in confronting the corruption and the crony capitalism since starting out in public office 20 years ago. I've been out-spent in my campaigns two to one, three to one, five to one.
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Palinism is a blend of Jeffersonian/ Madisonian and Jacksonian democratic, states rights, and small government principles allied to modern low taxation, small government, strong armed forces Reaganism.
From Jefferson's First Inaugural Address;
About to enter, fellow-citizens, on the exercise of duties which comprehend everything dear and valuable to you, it is proper you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our Government, and consequently those which ought to shape its Administration. I will compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear, stating the general principle, but not all its limitations.
Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against antirepublican tendencies; the preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad; a jealous care of the right of election by the people—a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism; a well disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war, till regulars may relieve them; the supremacy of the civil over the military authority; economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burthened; the honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith; encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid; the diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public reason; freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected. These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety.
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