Food for Thought

As we look into the face of what could be the largest boom in regulation and unnecessary government intervention since the New Deal, Paul Johnson in Forbes asks "Can We Afford Liberalism now?" (H/T Instapundit):

The financial crisis, detonated by greed and recklessness on Wall Street and in the City of London, is for the West a deep, self-inflicted wound. The beneficiary won't be Russia, which, with its fragile, energy-based economy, is likely to suffer more than we shall; it will be India and China. They will move into any power vacuum left by the collapse of Western self-confidence.

If we seriously wish to repair the damage, we need to accept that this is fundamentally a moral crisis, not a financial one. It is the product of the self-indulgence and complacency born of our ultraliberal societies, which have substituted such pseudo-religions as political correctness and saving the planet for genuine distinctions between right and wrong and the cultivation of real virtues.

India and China are progress-loving yet morally old-fashioned societies. They cannot afford liberalism. Their vast populations have only recently begun to emerge from subsistence living. Their strength is in the close, hard-working family unit in which parents train their children to work diligently at school and go to university when possible so they can acquire real and useful qualifications to then go out into the world as professional men and women determined to reach the top.

Moral of this story being the same as Richard Weaver's seminal work: Ideas Have Consequences. Certainly food for thought as we consider the financial and regulatory trainwreck that will face us if Obama wins...

Lost in the Cacophony

Lost in the midst of reports of Democratic violence and the return of the incessantly whiny urban liberal set, there is actually, you know, an election going on. In case you forgot, the Obama campaign spent millions on a particularly milquetoast propaganda piece might have jolted you back into that reality.

What has been lost in the cacophony of whining and relatively irrelevant issues is the fact that this election next Tuesday could realistically be on of the biggest fundamental changes in the American body politic. While Obama plays make believe and runs as a centrist (or, if you watched his little movie, damn near a Republican) his campaign has been running on a platform that is possibly as far to the left, as far outside of the political mainstream as any "major" candidate for President since Henry Wallace. This is a fundamental shift in American politics, and a fundamental shift in the American ideology. Obama's campaign to date essentially boils down to the following points:

• Government spending will increase: With all of Obama's pie-in-the-sky rhetoric about all of the new programs that he is going to implement, government would need to exponentially grow in an Obama administration. Which means....
  
  
• Your taxes are going to go up: if you earn a paycheck, your taxes are going to go up. There is no earthly way with all of the programs and increase in government spending that tax hikes are not going to be part of the equation. You can forget a $250,000 threshold, or a $180,000 threshold ; if you make money, your taxes are going to up, as Barney Frank recently promised the Democratic congress will pass.
  
  
• American Retreat: Precisely at the time when the U.S. needs to become more engaged in fighting international terrorism and to work to stop nuclear proliferation, an Obama administration would signal retreat, not just in Iraq but also in the international arena. That's not to say that we would be isolationist, but that Barack Obama cannot be trusted to be tough with our enemies, something that has given pause to our European allies (immature is what Nicolas Sarkozy said).
  

While we argue about stupid who struck John stuff, these issues that matter to American voters are still out there on the table. Those are the issues, the issues where Barack Obama falls substantially out of the mainstream, that we need to be talking about. These are the issues that are lost in the cacophony that we need to be focusing on; that fact that on the issues, Barack Obama policies will make the American people less secure and threaten to bankrupt American middle and working class families.

What else matters besides that?

A Well Articulated Position

I missed this yesterday, by Eric Hartley, very nicely articulatingthe anti-incumbent position regarding the Anne Arundel County School Board Farce Retention Elections:

A win for "no" would stun the school system and send a message that people want some changes in a board that's accountable to no one - a fact readily demonstrated by some of its actions.

For example, this is the school board that recently voted in public on a move it actually made behind closed doors nearly two months ago, approving a $5,000 bonus for schools Superintendent Kevin Maxwell, which followed his $6,000 bonus last year.

This is also the board that has overseen an astonishing explosion (from 213 to 450) in the number of six-figure school system jobs.

If board members had any fear of voters, they might have thought twice about such raises and bonuses in tough economic times. They might have cared more about how it appeared. But they don't have to.

For a long time, the school board was entirely appointed, its members picked by the governor after public vetting by a "nominating convention." Now, at least, voters have a chance for an up-or-down vote after those appointments, thanks to a 2007 law.

But if voters unthinkingly approve these two appointees, the retention process will serve as only a faint imitation of democracy....

....This year, Ms. Birge was picked and Ms. Johnson was reappointed under a suspect process. Joshua Greene, the politically connected Democratic lawyer who chaired the School Board Nominating Commission, told me the deliberation and vote would be entirely public.

Yet when the time came, the commission deliberated secretly before voting on recommended candidates, from whom the governor picked two. Mr. Greene said he wanted to keep the debate open, but was outvoted by members who thought they could talk more candidly in private.

That's not how public officials should be picked in a democracy.

I'd be hard pressed to write anything better than that. The fact of the matter is that the farce we call an "election" that was thrust upon us by John Leopold and his Democratic allies does not subject either the incumbent Tricia Johnson or unregistered Democratic lobbyist Teresa Milio Birge to the rigors of a real campaign or real scrutiny by the voters. It is merely a way for Annapolis liberal insiders to retain control of the day to day operations of county school boards throw a non-public, non-accountable appointment and retention process. The decision to reward Maxwell's poor performance with a bonus is one of just a number of questionable and downright bad decisions that continually and continuously endanger the educational well-being of Anne Arundel County's children.

Eric Hartley is spot on. We need to send the Anne Arundel County School Board a message on November 4th..

Another Satisfied Customer

Looks like once again the Maryland Transit Administration really steps up and makes us proud of our transit apparatus here in Baltimore:

We always ride the front car, thinking that it is the safest. Much to our surprise, this time we were the only female riders and were confronted by nine men using crude terms in front of us. All of the terms were sexual in nature, and they were announced in a loud and abusive in tone of voice.

After two stops, I went to the back of the car and called 911. The 911 operator attempted to transfer me to the Maryland Transit Administration police, only to give me a nonworking number. I called 911 again and explained that I felt threatened by these riders.

It took the 911 operator some time to identify whether we were in the city or county. By that time, we had arrived at the Mount Washington stop and an MTA employee boarded the train. At that time, the abusive riders bolted off the train....

....Over the last six months, I have seen fewer police at the stations, particularly at night and more riders jumping off the train at their first sight of an MTA employee.

And the MTA wonders why that, even with the earlier rises in gasoline prices, people refuse to ride Light Rail, Transit Buses, or the Baltimore Metro.

I have been chronicling for some time the general incompetence of the MTA, but this is getting beyond ridiculous. The state of Maryland, particularly in the Baltimore region, is not serious about Mass Transit. It is just a complete impossibility for Martin O'Malley and his administration to take the problems seriously when MTA Administrator Paul Wiedefeld still has a job. The private sector would never allow an organization this incompetent, and organization that seems to find new and creative ways to alienate its customers, to operate like this without serious and significant changes.

Since my optimum choice of privatization is not likely, O'Malley and Transportation Secretary John Porcari can start to address this problem by sacking Paul Wiedefeld and the rest of the Senior Leadership over at MTA. To replace them, recruit competent leaders from the private sector to get the system back on track, back on budget, and to a situation where people can feel safe on public transit. Without a feeling of security and safety on buses and trains, there is no need to expand the system and no need to continue to develop the system.

Without massive changes, allowing MTA to operate in its current state and with its current senior leadership is throwing good money after bad. When will O'Malley and company learn that?

Who Needs Freedom?

If you read the Baltimore Sun on a regular basis, you read a lot of editorials which are trite, juvenile, unenlightened, and asinine. But not many of those columns were as disturbing as the one in this morning's paper penned by Roy Gothie of the Maryland State Highway Administration. While Gothie makes valid points about the need to protect the health of the Bay, what he writes is a frightening vision into an O'Malleyian dystopia.

In Gothie's world, people only have property rights at the whim and call of the state:

The modern concept of property rights substantially contributes to the Chesapeake Bay's continued decline. At this point, tinkering around the edges of the issue with minor changes to laws and regulations will no longer be enough to save the bay. Only a societal decision to redefine an individual's rights regarding property can restore the bay and other critical ecosystems.

Developers, industrialists, homeowners and farmers have long assumed that the core bundle of rights attached to a piece of property exists to benefit the property owners. This is not exactly the case. Property rights are creations of the state, designed to ensure a stable, civil society and a functioning economy. Thus, any property rights a land owner possesses exist mainly to serve the greater public good.

Read that again.

Thus, any property rights a land owner possesses exist mainly to serve the greater public good.

In the warped mind of this state bureaucrat, your property rights are valid only so long as what you do with the land conforms to what the state decides is in the state's best interest. If this guy had his way, you would not be able to do anything on your property, property that you have purchased, property that you rightfully have paid for, unless the state allows you to do it in the name of the state and the name of the citizenry.

Rarely, if ever, has the Baltimore Sun ever printed such a direct and vicious assault on the American way of life than it has with this column. I am extremely disturbed by the fact that an individual who has such an anti-American, anti-freedom view of private property rights is, in fact, employed by the state as a planner. What decisions are being made by the State Highway Administration that deal with your property rights and the property rights of your neighbors? In what ways does Roy Gothie believe that the state can put your land to better use than you can? Perhaps it's time for a full and comprehensive investigation into SHA's land use activities

Private property rights are a basic human right, one that has been a part of civilized societies for thousands of years. Unfortunately, sometimes you get delusional folks such as Roy Gothie who believe that humans can't handle our basic human rights. I think maybe the state of Maryland should ship him back to Michigan, whence he came. We can certainly use our state resources better than employing people with such radical views...

Why ACORN Matters

It took long enough, but finally we are starting to go somewhere with the fraud being perpetrated by the folks at ACORN, with the launch of an FBI investigation on Thursday. The Examiner is suggesting using RICO on ACORN. It took a while, but finally we are moving in the right direction on this.

A lot of people on the left seem to not understand why this fraud being perpetrated by ACORN matters. But when you come down to brass tacks, the issue goes to the fundamental nature of elections in our representative government. The people of each district, the people of each state get the opportunity to vote for their representatives and government officials. One person's vote is worth no more than the vote of another. The ballot box is the ultimate equalizer in that regard.

But that equalizer only works if everybody is playing by the same set of rules. If you are registering people illegally, or registering dogs, or children, or fictional characters (all of which have been done by ACORN employees) then you are undermining the basic premise of our representative government. At the end of the day, what matters most is that the person elected to serve best represents the will of the people. When you are talking about voter fraud, the entire process gets questioned.

Don't believe it happens? Read what David Kyle has to say on the matter:

Having personally witness a car with three people going to three different polls in the 2004 election, I know it takes place. At the third polling place I went up to the Head Judge and pointed them out. Two of them saw me and frantically tried to get the third to leave the table where he was already trying to vote. Because of my challenge they made him cast a provisional ballot. There is no way of knowing how many times these people voted before being challenged. The car was registered to a person in Crofton, and there are many precincts between there and Pasadena.

And this was before Maryland Democrats jumped aboard the Early Voting Bandwagon, a mechanism that will provide even greater opportunities for perpetuating voter fraud.

Legitimate organizing groups should be encouraged to undertake legitimate voter registration drives, regardless of their political slant. The problem is that ACORN has proven time and time again to lack legitimacy in this area, particularly troubling when they are being investigated in several states, the yes they were represented by Barack Obama and received funding from his campaign.

Until we implement common sense laws such as requiring voter identification at the polling place, bad things like this are going to continue to happen. And that's why ACORN's scandalous and nefarious activities need to be exposed.

A Slap in the Face

This feels like one giant smack coming from the Anne Arundel County Board of Education:

The Anne Arundel County school board unanimously approved a $5,000 bonus last night for Superintendent Kevin M. Maxwell.

Several board members prefaced the vote by noting the recent economic downturn and the fiscal challenges facing the state and county, but added that Maxwell deserved to be well-compensated.

"The superintendent deserves, in my opinion, much more than $5,000, but this is a tough economic time," said board member Eugene Peterson.

Referring to the possibility of layoffs or furloughs for school employees, he added, "We are going to fight for every single employee in the school system."

Now don't get caught on the fact that the bonus was "only" $5,000. But look at the symbolism of this award. A Superintendent who complains about budgets incessantly, a Superintendent who cut classroom jobs instead of reducing overhead, a Superintendent who wastes money on dumb projects, a Superintendent who has doubled the number of high-dollar employees, and a Superintendent who refuses who would rather raise the piggyback tax than do a thorough review of the effectiveness of School System programs, got a bonus for good performance.

I am stunned.

All we have seen from Kevin Maxwell is the inability to get the job done. An inability to plan to spend money within the means of our county budget. An inability to review program effectiveness before demanding more money be spent on unproven project. An inability to make schools a better value for our teachers, parents, students and taxpayers. Frankly, Kevin Maxwell should be reimbursing the county for some of his failures, not receiving a bonus for work not well done.

This is a slap in the face to everybody who pays attention to schools in Anne Arundel County. But it is the symbolism, not the dollar amount, that is most damning to members of the School Board, and just another reason by members of the School Board should face the public in competitive elections every four years.

Welcome to the Real World

We have noted for some time the general fiscal incompetence of the O'Malley Administration, and the generally morally reprehensible ideology that is O'Malleynomics. So I am somewhat (but only somewhat) relieved that the O'Malley Administration is finally moving forward with plans to cut state spending due to the current economic climate.

But as I said, I am only somewhat relieved by this track. The fact of the matter is that most of the reductions in state spending would have been completely avoidable had O'Malley and Company not increased discretionary spending in the first place, particularly while simultaneously passing devastating and historically large tax cuts during times of fiscal trouble.

But what is less relieving, and frankly more disturbing, is the fact that O'Malley and Company will not admit his shortcomings when it comes to fiscal matters:

"Until we see some signs of rebound on the horizon, this is going to be a constant exercise in cutting," O'Malley, a Democrat, said yesterday. "So much of this depends on the economy."

The problem with this statement has been the fact that the economy has been in decline for some time now, certainly at least prior to the tax increases and spending hikes that O'Malley championed. Only now, with O'Malley facing a tough re-election campaign two years off, and with voters finally ready to hold their leaders accountable for the economic situation, is O'Malley going to act. This is far from a Profiles in Courage moment for O'Malley, as the responsible thing to do would have been to take steps to make sure the budget never got this far out of whack in the first place.

O'Malley's lackey Rick Abbruzzese didn't do much better in trying to distinguish the Administration's position, either:

O'Malley spokesman Rick Abbruzzese dismissed the minority leader's criticism. "Did Tony O'Donnell predict the banking crisis? Did he predict Lehman Bros. would file for bankruptcy? Did he predict the federal government would have to step in with a $700 billion bailout for Wall Street … while a Republican president was at the helm of our national government?"

To be blunt, anybody who thinks that the failure of insurance companies and investment banks, and the governments ill-advised and risky bailout scheme has a large impact on Maryland's budget woes is either ill-informed or dishonest. Maryland's budget situation is a self-inflicted wound inflicted upon the people of Maryland by a Governor who thinks government cannot be large enough and that people cannot be taxed enough in order to implement his dystopian vision of an all-encompassing government. Maryland's budget woes are not due to the irresponsibility of Wall Street, but to the recklessness of State Circle.

I welcome O'Malley and his Administration to the Real World, where he can now deal with the painful economic choices that he subjected the taxpayers of Maryland too with his irresponsibility. But nobody should trust the judgment of O'Malley or the judgment of the General Assembly's Democratic leadership when it comes to dealing with our state's toughest economic matters.

Dispatch from the Orwellian Services Department

The more I try to convince myself things are going to be OK, the more I wind up seeing stuff like this (H/T Instapundit):

When readers first alerted us to the camps, we thought it might be another hoax that migrated into inboxes. But it's for real.

The unsolicited pitch goes like this: "Camp Obama attendees will receive real world organizing experience that will have a direct impact on this election. Graduates of Camp Obama will go on to become Deputy Field Organizers who will lead this campaign to victory in crucial battleground states around the country."

The letter continues, "By participating in Camp Obama you'll get the kind of experience that Barack got as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago, where he learned that real change happens from the bottom up."

While the letter neglects to identify the source of that "experience," a slide on a camp blog linked to the Obama Web site offers a clue. Underneath a "Welcome to Camp Obama" banner, a trainer at Obama headquarters in Chicago is seen speaking next to a wipe board with the words "Saul Alinsky" scrawled across it.

Alinsky is the late Chicago socialist and street agitator who is considered the father of community organizing.

Read the whole thing.

Then we get this:



I defy any Obama supporter to justify either of these two completely and terribly creepy things.

Weldon on the Mount

Yeah, there is video of Weldon leaving the Republican Party (H/T to Wally Edge for this find):



Digest that for a second...

Now think about it for a minute.

Rick Weldon's "soul searching and contemplation" led him to decide he needed to leave the party because leaders "focus on ideology rather than ideas." He worked for Republicans and supported many core principals on the party. And now he doesn't I guess.

If Weldon wants to focus more on "doing what's best for Frederick County" as opposed to politics that's fine. But as an elected official he should have been doing that in the first place; any elected official regardless of their party or ideology should support positions that believe are in the best interests of their constituents, even if I don't agree with them.

But this holier than thou attitude is a little too much to swallow. What a self-serving load of crap.

Good Riddance

Delegate Rick Weldon has left the Republican Party.

As the guy who told Weldon to not let the door hit him in the ass on the way out of the party last year (it's about two-thirds of the way through the broadcast), I'm not exactly sad to see him go. It's about time Weldon showed his true colors....