Via a sympathetic Reuters reporter, President Barack Obama wants us to believe he is worried about the budget deficit:

“It is important though to recognize if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point, people could lose confidence in the U.S. economy in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession,” he said.

Most commenters have focused on what they see as the shameless hypocrisy that the biggest spender in the history of money would claim to be Dave Ramsey. Others have noted that there is no recovery, though Mr. Obama wishes with all his little heart for it to be so. But I don’t think he was hypocritical at all, and I don’t care if he wants to call government expansion a recovery, when the people know otherwise. I’d like to focus on another issue, which is Mr. Obama’s vapidity. His statement is so stupid, it’s not even wrong.

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Republicans in Illinois have had a large field to study in the primary campaign for United States Senator.  With the departure of Dr. Eric Wallace, it appears that for conservatives one candidate is standing out above the others, Hinsdale businessman Patrick Hughes.

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Major Nidal Hasan, if he did what he is accused of doing, is a traitor and a war criminal, not a terrorist.

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It has been widely reported that the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) gave Deirdre (”Dede”) Scozzafava (R-WFP) $900,000 for her abortive campaign in NY-23. It’s also worth noting that the Republican National Committee gave her at least $5000 as late as October 19.

But considering the way that money was used, coming at the expense of Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman, the true cost of those donations was actually $2.7 million and $15,000, respectively. That’s the amount of damage done to Hoffman, plus the amount of damage that he could have done to Owens, plus the amount that he had to raise to defend himself.

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Sometimes you only know you’re on the wrong road when it leads someplace the right one wouldn’t go. Logicians call that process reductio ad absurdum — the reduction to absurdity.

For instance, this thing with eating your dog. In the Marines I was stationed for a time in Korea. On liberty some buddies and I went to a restaurant and ordered the chicken … I think it was the barkingest chicken ever. There’s a moral in there somewhere.

But global warming Chicken Littles should think about where their argument is taking them (Mild NSFW).

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I was nervous about the towering height to which Barack Obama has been raised by his followers.

I had this awful feeling that Something Bad was going to happen. It’s the way myths go.  I thought Mr. Obama’s followers were going to crash from their messianic high, and when they did, they would crash hard.

I still think that.  But I don’t care.

What I care about now is positioning ourselves to clean up after the carnage.

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Americans are in pain.

We are in pain because we are being told by the government, the media, and the whiners of society, that the government must rescue us from every calamity, every uncertainty, and keep the pain away. Yet we know, deep in our hearts, what seems to be a law of nature.

Pain, for the lack of a better word, is good.

It is apparently wrong to say it out loud, but we needed the recession, and we still do.  I shall now suffer the slings and arrows of outrage, because I dare to suggest that there is anything positive in the discomfort of my fellow citizens.

Now, it isn’t exactly that the pain itself is good. But in striving to get out from under economic difficulty, we improve ourselves and society. It is the stuff of real self-esteem, this accomplishing of things. And more, it is the stuff of virtue.

Every act of virtue requires the acceptance of some relatively certain pain or hardship to spare ourselves some seemingly less certain but greater hardship, or to achieve a greater reward. We admit our failures rather than lying our way out. We save money, forgoing a new possession so that we might have more later. We deny the quick pleasure of illicit congress for the trust of a lifelong spouse. And we volunteer in some civic or military capacity for a greater good. In all of these things there is virtue, and in all of them we deny the present for the future, deny ourselves for others.

But when we look for an easy way out, we often make things worse. When we lie our way out of trouble, borrow to pay creditors, give in to the smallness of carnality, or waste our days instead of helping our neighbors, we at best forestall pain, and typically deepen it.

In the long run, pain is reduced when an individual or company has to face the music for its unfortunate decisions. If the company is too big to fail, then why, pray tell, is it failing? Delaying the pain, by saying that a company is too big to fail, will only make the problem worse.  Because when a company knows it is too big to fail, no amount of Pay Czar oversight can make it operate as it should.

And that is just the problem.  We are not facing our economic pain.  In its misguided “stimulus” plans, its Cash for Clunkers, and its runaway deficit spending, the Obama Administration seeks to apply Keynesian economic theory to the problem of economic pain.   Consumers are wisely pulling back, virtuously attempting to face their economic problems.  Because of that, the Keynesians despair a lack of demand in the economy and begin spending. But these are not mere drunken sailors, who eventually find their pockets empty, but drunken teenagers who have just found Daddy’s American Express Black card.  And they are dumping all of this funny money on the same things that caused the economic mess in the first place.

These policies will fail to revive the economy, in part because they perpetuate the conditions that led to the recession. They will fail because Keynes didn’t account for the adverse negative effects of excess spending. They will fail because they are an attempt to repair a system no one fully understands with just the right the application of brute force.

What we need to do instead is to take our medicine.  The pain may be worse for a short while, but we will be better off in the end, and much sooner than the current course will allow.

But rather than facing our problems and taking the medicine we need, wrongheaded liberal mismanagement has prolonged an ordinary economic correction into generational warfare.

It isn’t enough to say that current policies are either wrongheaded or have been bungled. The two are
inseparable. These policies have been mismanaged because they are wrongheaded, and are wrongheaded in no small part because there is no way to manage them well.  Both things are true because the government
should not be in the business of managing the economy.  It simply should not be their job, because it should be ours.

This is a good place to pause noting the left’s praise of economic pain’s power to destroy the American economy in favor of an environmentalist utopia.

And neither did I look forward last year to the coming recession with envy scantily clad by the selection of populist targets.

While imagining, imagine that the recession might somehow eventuate in a better form of capitalism more approximate to authentic meritocracy. Imagine if cancer researchers earned more than Madonna, opera singers more than basketball players, brave soldiers more than pornographers. And while we are dreaming, imagine that good people were better rewarded in this country than the current crowd of multi-culturalists and other sub humans who mis- and diseducate our people from their positions at The New York Times, television, and Hollywood.

No, I am in favor of pain for its power to instruct.

Instruction comes when people find out about failure, either their own or that of others. One of the many problems with government bailouts is that they forestall the pain and blur the instruction.

As Dwight R. Lee and Richard B. McKenzie of The Cato Institute wrote in 1996, some time before the current recession began,

The market economy is such a powerful engine in the production of wealth because it excels at letting people know when the resources they are using in one activity would be more productively used in another activity. That market communication not only provides important information, it comes in a form that no one can ignore, economic failure. Economic failure is to the economy what physical pain is to the body. No one enjoys pain, but without it the body would lack the information needed to maintain its health.

Under free market capitalism, even the watered down sort we have left today, sometimes people go in for fads.  Sometimes people start businesses with some combination of the wrong business plan in the wrong place at the wrong time. Big companies may fail to note the changing marketplace.  And people fail to notice that their professional skills are drifting away from the needs of the labor market.  All of these things require instruction, and only economic pain can give it.

Let those who are too big to fail prove it on their own.  Repeal Sarbanes-Oxley and its onerous accounting rules, including mark-to-market. Quit with the spending, so we can lower taxes without further discussion.

Then stand back, and marvel at the power of pain.

On the Wednesday edition of the Rush Limbaugh Show, a mom named Susan from Glendale, California called with the most awesome rant I have heard in quite a while.  You can read the transcript, but you really have to hear the audio to appreciate her level of frustration with the direction of the country.

Susan wanted to know what she could do, before the 2010 elections, to stop the destruction of our country.

There are lots of things we can do, but the main thing is we must infiltrate both political parties, from the inside out, and bring them back to American values. This advice applies to Democrats, too, many of whom don’t like that the Marxist wing has taken over their party.  Conservatives should become Precinct Committeemen (PCs).  More on that later.

Susan, there are lots of things you personally can do.  The political system in this country has never been more vulnerable to the power of the dedicated, smart individual, such as yourself.

• Write letters to the editor
• Make calls to Party officials and office holders
• Join Redstate.com and local blogs
• Join the team

Write a letter to the editor of every paper in the State.  Here’s a good way to write them:

Focus on one issue.  Write down your thoughts on it.  Just list them all out.  Then sort them into categories, like ones that show liberalism is bad, and our positions on the issues are good, and  so on.  Remember that you are talking to people who disagree with you.

At the top of your letter, say who you are (”I’m just an ordinary person, not a big wig Republican” or something, never been involved, etc.).

Then write the categories of reasons in one short sentence (not one per category, but one for all).  Follow that with a paragraph on each  category of reasons.  Wherever you can, say how you know what you know, so it’s not just your opinion.  Then end with a restatement of your position.  Never forget to say that conservatives get your vote, and ask people to vote for them.

If possible, tailor the letter to each newspaper, rather than sending them all the same thing.  Keep it as short as you can, even if you have to leave out a point or two.  Think of that as saving ammo for  the next round.

A lot of newspapers have online sections for letters to the editor,  with an address like “letters@latimes.com“.  Send them each a separate email, rather than sending it all at once.  You may have to log on to their web site to post it on their page.

Call all of the officials you can.  Make a checklist, starting with your Congressman, but include all of your State’s Congressmen, Party officials, State Senators and Representatives, mayors, etc.  Have your  points from your letter handy.  Send them a version of the letter afterward, whether they agree with you or not.

When talking to them, they may raise points you haven’t thought of.  Incorporate their points in your standard letter, if they’re good, or figure out how to refute them, if they support the other side.  The other side usually has weak arguments, but sometimes it is hard to know how to counter them because they rely on unstated or false premises.

(For instance, in this Brian Faughnan segment on MSDNC, the host repeatedly mentions a “health care monopoly”.  In most places there are several competing companies, but the competition is limited by State mandates, not by the insurance companies, and by the limitation against interstate insurance.  We call this offhand use the “Liberal Known Facts” or “Talking Points” technique.)

There are always local conservative or Republican (but not necessarily both) blogs in your local area. They usually cover statewide issues, as well, and typically have links to other local political blogs.

Read a site a few days to get a feel for it, maybe making a comment or two.  Then, when you feel comfortable, post a longer, more complete version of your letter as your own blog post. It’s important to participate in conservative blogs, but you should see this as preparation, not actual activism.

Try to generate discussion by asking questions. Discussion is what drags people in.

Lastly, but probably the biggest thing, is to find your allies.  If you like a particular conservative candidate, contact the campaign to find out who his County Coordinator is, and contact that person.  He may not have one yet, and that means you get to volunteer for the job.  That’s a big job, so don’t take it lightly.  Don’t be afraid to support a candidate who “cannot win”.  You have two goals: supporting your candidate, and getting a forum for your own ideas.  Being a county coordinator will further both goals, win or lose.  Just don’t burn any bridges you don’t have to burn.

If you do take that job, your most important task is to find people to take on portions of your County.  See if you can get the Precinct Committeemen on your side.  Tell them that the primary is the time to
get the right candidate, and the general election is when we all back the winner.

If your Precinct Committeeman in your local precinct won’t help you, ask your County Party Chairman for a packet on becoming a Precinct Committeeman.  I have heard rumors of County Chairmen actually discouraging people from becoming PCs, because with no one in the slot the Chairman gets that vote. If he won’t help you, or is slow, you can usually also download all of the forms you need from the State. In my case I had to gather 10 signatures from people in my precinct to get on the ballot.  Once on the ballot, you can unseat the current one Precinct Committeeman, if there is only one, or join the team if several are needed in your Precinct.

The precinct committeeman is the lowest rung in the party apparatus, but is the backbone of the party.  In most States, the PCs vote on the Party officials, including and especially County Chairmen.

Since the precinct committeemen are boots on the ground, candidates for all offices curry their favor.  I have witnessed this over and over  again.  As soon as a candidate finds out I’m a PC, they become really attentive. Their eyes unglaze, and they want to know what it takes to get my help.

I tell them: be a three-leg conservative (defense, fiscal, social) and don’t be ashamed of it.  Demand a healthy DOD, cut spending and lower taxes, and don’t support laws that foster immorality.  Get the
government back to doing what it should be doing, which is defending the liberty of its citizens.

In most States, only PCs can vote in party endorsements for candidates.  Your precinct, legislative district and county GOP organizations can vote to endorse the best candidates in the primaries. If you have a majority of conservatives, they should endorse the best conservative candidate.  He can then say on his signs and in his ads “Endorsed By County GOP”.  The others can’t.  Endorsed candidates almost always win.

When a vacancy on a school board, zoning board, or commission opens up, the PC has an inside edge.  The Party people all know him or her, and again, are busy currying favor. In some States, if a state legislator (representative or senator) leaves office, creating a vacancy,  only the PCs in that legislative district elect a replacement.  As our own ColdWarrior says:

The key is to become a PC and recruit as many other conservatives to become PCs within the Party itself. Then, create a network or the conservatives.  Have meetings on your own. Strategize to elect new conservative leadership in the next round of leadership elections. Recruit, recruit, recruit conservatives.  Go to where the conservatives go (Tea Parties, protests, gun shows, right to life meetings, etc.) and recruit them into the Party.

That is how we will take back the parties: from the inside out.

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In President Barack Obama’s remarks before the assembled nations of the world (except for Honduras), we are apt to focus on the beauty of his apologies for American power, the greatness of his self-aggrandizing manner, and the courage of his insistence that Israel has at best equal status in our eyes with the Palestinian terrorist regime.

But we neglect, at a loss of great entertainment, the fact that Obama performed rhetorically the finely-tuned Three Card Monty for the visitors to New York that they could expect from a clean and articulate street hustler, a kind that we normally believe is reserved for us alone.

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This story looks like a local one on the surface, but has implications for Senate seats across the country. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) is manipulating the Senatorial primary process, and maneuvering to retain his own power in a minority party rather than trying to win a majority.

Rep. Mark Shimkus (R-IL) endorsed Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) in Kirk’s candidacy for U.S. Senate.  Ordinarily, an endorsement of a Representative of the Senate candidacy of another Representative from his own State would not cause much of a fuss. But Shimkus says he was heavily influenced by Cornyn, Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. If what Shimkus says of Cornyn’s strategy is true, and I think it is, then I call on John Cornyn to resign as head of the NRSC.

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As a world-famous blogger and media figure, I was asked to speak at the Effingham, Illinois 9/12 Tea Party. OK, so nobody knew who I was but the organizers, who graciously allowed me to speak as long as I handed out fliers for the event. There were several hundred people gathered at the courthouse in this town of about 15,000 in Central Illinois. Click for the Picasa album:

Effingham 912 Tea Party

No pictures of me, sorry.

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From the diaries…

With no great pleasure, I must lay out the case against Barack Obama, Demagogue in Chief.

Barack Obama, as most politicians, loves the argument by anecdote.  In his health care speech on September 9 in support of government health care, he brought up several cases of people who had lost their insurance because their insurance company had discovered they’d made false statements on their applications.  If you knowingly make false statements on a government application, you go to jail for perjury.  Unless you’re an Obama appointee, that is.

The Obama speech was full of deceptions.  For instance:

Then there’s the problem of rising costs. We spend one-and-a-half times more per person on health care than any other country, but we aren’t any healthier for it. This is one of the reasons that insurance premiums have gone up three times faster than wages. It’s why so many employers - especially small businesses - are forcing their employees to pay more for insurance, or are dropping their coverage entirely. It’s why so many aspiring entrepreneurs cannot afford to open a business in the first place, and why American businesses that compete internationally - like our automakers - are at a huge disadvantage. And it’s why those of us with health insurance are also paying a hidden and growing tax for those without it - about $1000 per year that pays for somebody else’s emergency room and charitable care. [emphasis added]

We spend more per person.  So?  We are not those other countries, and they are not us.  Notice that he didn’t say we were not better off or as healthy for it, merely “no healthier”.  But we are in fact healthier for it than the people of say, Chad, which is covered under “any other country”.  And we don’t wait years for care, and are not denied care by government edict, especially for the preventative tests like colonoscopies and PSA tests Mr. Obama says will save us so much, but are discouraged under government-run health systems. More importantly, even if we were less healthy, it would still be okay with me, because we are more free because of our system.

More below...

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Q: To Democrats, what’s the difference between health insurance and being alive?

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President Obama will urge students to get out of public schools and attend private schools if they want to emulate his success.

The story was broken by former satirist and current Washington Examiner hard news reporter Scott Ott. According to Ott:

Although Obama attended public school in Indonesia early in life, he soon switched to a private Catholic school, and from fifth grade through graduation went to a private college-prep school in Hawaii. His own daughters now attend a private school in Washington D.C..

“Do you think you’re going to get into Harvard University with your one-size-fits-all public school diploma?” the president will reportedly say. “Come on! Don’t make me laugh. You’ll be lucky to survive through graduation. Seriously, you gotta get out of this mediocrity machine. Go ahead! Get up right now. Run for the door. What are you waiting for?”

w/t David Boaz