Joust The Facts

It's Too Bad Warren Buffet's Dad Isn't Around To Teach Him A Thing Or Two

From today's Wall Street Journal's 'Notable & Quotable' feature, a snippet from a 1956 speech by Congressman Howard Buffet of Nebraska.

The last 40 years have seen a gigantic expansion of political power over economic affairs by the federal government. This change is linked by many scholars to the passage of the income tax law in 1913. This law revolutionized the taxing system in two ways:

1. It gave the government new powers over the economic status of the individual. This change has curtailed the ability of the individual to achieve economic independence.

2. The part of his production taken from the producer cumulatively increases the power of the federal government proportionately with the increase in its income. This power is not created; it is simply taken away from the people. . . .

George Sokolsky, noted columnist, says it this way: "When human beings become dependent upon the political power of the state for their livelihood, the independence of person must disappear. It is the identification of economic power with police power that destroys the right of the individual to liberty."

Or, to quote another American, our third president, in a much earlier time, “A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither.”  Thomas Jefferson also said this: “Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms (of government) those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”

Anyway, there's more at the link, including a quote that could be applied directly to the government health care grab in ObamaCare:

If the government is to guarantee you what the consequences of your actions will be in this case, security, then the government must take control of your activities. For with responsibility—even self-arrogated responsibility—must go authority

This means that if politicians are to supply your security, they must control your work, your spending, and your saving...

How To Fix The USPS

The US Postal Service (USPS) lost $3.1 billion dollars.  That's in one quarter, the last one.  Ugh.

The U.S. Postal Service posted a net loss of $3.1 billion in its third quarter and warned again it would default on payments to the federal government if Congress did not step in.

Total mail volume for the quarter that ended June 30 fell to 39.8 billion pieces, a 2.6 percent drop from the same period a year earlier, as consumers turn to email and pay bills online.

The mail carrier, which does not get taxpayer funds, has struggled to overhaul its business as mail volumes fall. It has said personnel costs weigh heavily and is facing a massive retiree health benefit prepayment next month.

"We are experiencing a severe cash crisis and are unable to continue to maintain the aggressive prepayment schedule," Joseph Corbett, the agency's chief financial officer, said in a statement.

"Without changes in the law, the Postal Service will be unable to make the $5.5 billion mandated prepayment due in September."

Does the USPS want to survive?  Well, then drop your personnel costs dramatically.  Deliver mail only twice or thrice weekly, and cut your bloated carrier staff.  And reform your pensions.  Act like a private company - you know, one that doesn't get taxpayer funds - by going to defined contribution pensions and reforming the retiree health plan.

 Technology changes everything.  The Pony Express isn't still in business.

And This Is From An Obama Supporter!

There was today an essay in the NY Times Sunday Review by Emory psychologist Drew Westen entitled "What happened to Obama," containing a remarkable few sentences.  (HT: John Hinderaker at Powerline Blog.)  Dr. Westen is a supporter, having traveled to Washington for the Inauguration, a story he relates at the start of the essay.  In musing the possible underpinnings of Barack Obama's failings as President, he wrote:

A second possibility is that he is simply not up to the task by virtue of his lack of experience and a character defect that might not have been so debilitating at some other time in history. Those of us who were bewitched by his eloquence on the campaign trail chose to ignore some disquieting aspects of his biography: that he had accomplished very little before he ran for president, having never run a business or a state; that he had a singularly unremarkable career as a law professor, publishing nothing in 12 years at the University of Chicago other than an autobiography; and that, before joining the United States Senate, he had voted “present” (instead of “yea” or “nay”) 130 times, sometimes dodging difficult issues.

I read that and, as did Charlie Brown when Lucy Van Pelt explored the psychological reasons for his malaise in "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and asked him if he had pantophobia - fear of everything - I wanted to jump to my feet and scream "THAT'S IT!!!"  Serves you right, Dr. Westen, for being "bewitched by his eloquence."

And, I might add, those of us who were not "bewitched by his eloquence," or trying to feel better about America and ourselves by voting for a black man for president, but were instead simply trying to find the best available candidate for the job recognized and acknowledged all of these items ahead of the election.  A curriculum vitae this thin would in political circles disqualify a Republican candidate from consideration, so why not Mr. Obama?

8/8/11 1750: Wherein the splendid James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal's great "Best of the Web" daily column writes in a similar (identical?) vein.  Perhaps more eloquently, but still ...

He also sizes up the additional maneuvering in Dr. Westen's essay, and it's well worth your time to have a look.

Westen and Klein, and other like-minded progressives, have revealed that they dream of a strongman uniting the "masses." If that requires vilifying selected groups of Americans, they don't mind and may even view it as a plus.

Even if he wanted to, Barack Obama could not be a strongman, in part because he is a weak man and in part because America's constitution is a strong charter of liberty. But if Obama had the means and inclination to impose a dictatorship, is there any doubt that Drew Westen and Joe Klein, at least at the outset, would goose-step with gusto?

A "strongman uniting the masses."  That thought does bring forth some thoroughly undesireable images.