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Gary Edwards

Obama's 'Redistribution' Constitution - WSJ.com - 0 views

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    Stephen CalaBresi of the Federalist Society describes Obama's view of the Constitution, and what he means by "negative liberties" and "economic and social justice". Calabrese also discusses the situation with judicial appointments and how these opportunities for the socialists will move us towards Obama's dream of replacing the rule of law and equaility before the law with the law of Obama empathy. Calabrese's conclussion, "Nothing less than the very idea of liberty and the rule of law are at stake in this election. We should not let Mr. Obama replace justice with empathy in our nation's courtrooms".
Gary Edwards

There is nothing new about Obama's Socialism: Mark Levine in The Corner on National Rev... - 0 views

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    The "change" he peddles is not new. We've seen it before. It is change that diminishes individual liberty for the soft authoritarianism of socialism. It is a populist appeal that disguises government mandated wealth redistribution as tax cuts for the middle class, falsely blames capitalism for the social policies and government corruption (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) that led to the current turmoil in our financial markets, fuels contempt for commerce and trade by stigmatizing those who run successful small and large businesses, and exploits human imperfection as a justification for a massive expansion of centralized government. Obama's appeal to the middle class is an appeal to the "the proletariat," as an infamous philosopher once described it, about which a mythology has been created. Rather than pursue the American Dream, he insists that the American Dream has arbitrary limits, limits Obama would set for the rest of us - today it's $250,000 for businesses and even less for individuals. If the individual dares to succeed beyond the limits set by Obama, he is punished for he's now officially "rich."
Gary Edwards

Obama Socialism vs. The Constitution, The Bill of Rights, and The Declaration of Indepe... - 0 views

  • the Supreme Court never entered into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society.
  • It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution
  • the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties: [It] says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.
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  • major redistributive change
  • We all know what political and economic justice means, because Barack Obama has already made it crystal clear a second earlier: It means redistribution of wealth.
  • The United States of America — five percent of the world’s population — leads the world economically, militarily, scientifically, and culturally — and by a spectacular margin. Any one of these achievements, taken alone, would be cause for enormous pride. To dominate as we do in all four arenas has no historical precedent. That we have achieved so much in so many areas is due — due entirely — to the structure of our society as outlined in the Constitution of the United States.
  • The entire purpose of the Constitution was to limit government. That limitation of powers is what has unlocked in America the vast human potential available in any population.
  • we have never, ever in our 232-year history, elected a president who so completely and openly opposed the idea of limited government, the absolute cornerstone of makes the United States of America unique and exceptional.
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    Speaking on a call-in radio show in 2001, you can hear Senator Obama say things that should profoundly shock any American - or at least those who have not taken the time to dig deeply enough into this man's beliefs and affiliations. Read the text or Hear it for yourself!
Gary Edwards

The comprehensive argument against Barack Obama and his socialist agenda - 0 views

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    What follows is by no means comprehensive, but it does shed some much-needed light on a number of Obama's positions, statements, and associations about which he has been less than honest. We've attempted to boil each issue down to a succinct explanation with an accompanying, brief video clip-often starring Barack Obama in his own words. Before pulling the lever for someone who hopes voters will ignore his paper-thin resume, unsavory associations, and hard-left voting record, each citizen has a duty to do his due diligence.
Gary Edwards

The Surest Path Back to Prosperity - WSJ.com - 0 views

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    President Bush's speech at the Manhattan Institute defending Capitalism . All i can say is, it's about time someone stood up for American Capitalism. "All this leads to the most important principle that should guide our work: While reforms in the financial sector are essential, the long-term solution to today's problems is sustained economic growth. And the surest path to that growth is free markets and free people. In the wake of the financial crisis, voices from the left and right equate the free-enterprise system with greed and exploitation and failure. It's true this crisis included failures -- by lenders and borrowers and financial firms, and by governments and independent regulators. But the crisis was not a failure of the free-market system. And the answer is not to try to reinvent that system. It is to fix the problems, make reforms, and move forward with the free-market principles that have delivered prosperity and hope to people all across the globe. Capitalism is not perfect. But it is by far the most efficient and just way of structuring an economy.
Gary Edwards

Soros Foresaw the End of an Era - The New York Review of Books - 0 views

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    NYTImes Review of Soros Book: "The End of an Era": At the start of this year, Soros, convinced (correctly) that the financial crisis was far from over, adopted a bearish investment strategy, which he describes thus: "short US and European stocks, US ten-year government bonds, and the US dollar; long Chinese, Indian, and Gulf States stocks and non-US currencies." Initially, some of these positions didn't pay off. Between January and March, US bonds rallied and Indian stocks tumbled, wiping out gains in other parts of Quantum's portfolio. Just how Soros has fared in the past few months of market turmoil may be known only to investors in Quantum, but it would be foolhardy to bet against him.
Gary Edwards

American Thinker: Sarah Palin's Declaration of Independence - 0 views

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    A declaration of War on the status quo ..... Excellent point-by-point summary of what has to be done to restore American liberty and prosperity, and the important role Sarah Palin can play. This article presents a conservative manifesto describing wha thas to be done to save America. The points are absolutely excellent. Excerpt: Mrs. Palin, you are now free of the Republican Party. The Party needs you more than you need it. To say that the Republican Party, on its own, has a charismatic void is a vast understatement. You are now free to wage all out war on the status quo. More importantly you are free to fashion a Reagan-esque Conservative alliance on your terms. At the risk of being presumptuous, I would suggest the following lines of attack for your war against the Democrats and the Obama/ Pelosi / Frank/ Dodd Economy. Free market capitalism must be emphasized as our only true hope for recovery -- not the crony capitalism of the Democrats..... Points include Energy Policy, Term Limit Congress, Repeal of government over-regulation, Taxes, the Judiciary, Border Protection, Abortion, Foreign Policy, and Dick "the Churchillian" Cheney
Gary Edwards

If You Are Known by the Company You Keep, What do Obama's Associates Say About Him? | P... - 0 views

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    A compiled list briefly profiling Obama's most important associations.  Most of whom are radical Marxists, racists and social revolutionaries hating Christians, Jews, and the ordered liberty guaranteed by our Constitution.  The list includes William Ayers, Carol Browner, Frank Marshall Davis, Anita Dunn, Dr. Eziekiel Emanuel, Rahm Emanuel, Chai Feldblum, Patrick Gaspard, Eric Holder, John Holdren, Valerie Jarret, Kevin Jennings, Van Jones, Mark Lloyd, Cecelia Munoz, Cass Sunstein, and uber racist Jeremiah Wright.  Good cheat sheet for future reference.
Gary Edwards

GDP Is..... Better Than Expected? - Or Filled With Outright Lies? The Market Ticker - 0 views

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    Whoa!  Incredible fact filled analysis of the pre election GDP numbers released by Obama. excerpt:  Disposable personal income decreased in nominal terms q/o/q by 5.9% while in real terms (inflation adjusted) it decreased q/o/q by 7.4%!  That is an enormous swing in purchasing power and not in the right direction! Personal outlays increased $148.2 billion (5.8 percent) in the third quarter, compared with an increase of $8.2 billion (0.3 percent) in the second. Personal saving -- disposable personal income less personal outlays -- was $364.6 billion in the third quarter, compared with $533.1 billion in the second. The personal saving rate -- saving as a percentage of disposable personal income -- was 3.3 percent in the third quarter, compared with 4.9 percent in the second. So into decreasing personal income and disposable personal income people tried to spend anyway.  Best guess: most of this was "cash for clunkers", which is the worst sort of "spending" - it is the taking on of more debt by replacing a paid-off car with one that now comes with a shiny (and nasty) payment book.  The Trade: Go long auto repo outfits (aside: as far as I know there are no publicly-traded repo companies.) Nothing in here I like; to the contrary, this report sucks and on a drill-down appears to be full of outright lies.
Gary Edwards

Liberal Frankensteins - Victor Davis Hanson - National Review Online - 0 views

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    One of the best articles a concerned American can read, VDH sums it all up and puts the dilemma we face in context.   excerpt: From Greece to California, the liberal dream is dead. This Fourth of July, what remains is the Founders' vision of a limited government; the idea of a population united by common values, themes, and ideas; a republican form of checks-and-balances government to prevent demagoguery, factions, and tyranny of the majority; the sanctity and autonomy of the nation-state; and individual freedom and liberty as protected through the Bill of Rights. Everything after and against that has proved a failure. Indeed, what makes this Fourth different from recent celebrations is the ongoing repudiation of almost everything antithetical to the Founders' views - the redistributive, all-powerful welfare state, the therapeutic arrogance that believes human nature can be altered by an omnipotent well-meaning government, the postmodern notion that nationhood and borders are passé, and the utopian idea that war can be declared obsolete and the need for defense transcended. From Greece to California such dreams are dead.
Gary Edwards

Why Progressives Don't Understand And Are Enemies Of Liberty | Western Free Press - 0 views

  • For a classical liberal, freedom means that each individual possesses as a human being certain inviolable rights, those being rights to his life, liberty and honestly acquired property. And that human relationships should be based on voluntary consent and mutual agreement. For my interlocutor, freedom means “empowerment” or the ability to do or achieve certain things, without which “freedom” is not complete. These include a minimum or “decent” standard of living and the ability to attain certain potentials in life, which are everyone’s “right” as a member of society.
  • For my fellow conversationalist, society is a shared “community” of human beings each of whom owes certain things to the others, just as the others owe certain things to us. Society might be viewed as an extended family, from this perspective, all the members of which have certain required obligations to support and give assistance to their social “relatives.” I suggested that society is a network of human relationships formed between individuals based upon opportunities for mutual betterment, including both the economic and the cultural in the widest sense, the fundamental foundation of which derives from those essential individual rights.
  • French eighteenth century philosopher, Jean-Jacque Rousseau, who reasoned that man began as savages in the wild threatened by both beast and other men. Everyone entered into a social contract and formed society for mutual safety and betterment by giving up a portion of their complete and unrestrained “freedom” in that earlier setting of savagery for the order and security of shared community. The freedom given up is compensated by safety and the security of mutual aid, including the modern welfare state.
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  • British philosopher, John Locke, who argued that rights are not bestowed upon man by government or the community but belong to him by his nature as a human being. Government, in Locke’s social contract, is to provide individuals with a tool for the common defense against the violence of some of their fellow men. The role of government is the securer of liberty by protecting each individual’s rights to his life, liberty and property, and not as a guarantor of a certain standard of living or desired access to various material things.
  • The reason, I said, was that if the government undertook this latter responsibility of “social safety nets” and “positive” access to various other desired states of affairs, it can do so only by imposing through police power an obligation on others to provide the material means that some others are to be guaranteed. By doing so, government would be violating its original purpose for being brought into existence: the protecting of liberty (including people’s property rights to their own honestly earned income and wealth) rather than a violator that takes from some without their consent for the asserted benefits of others.
  • The world is to be reduced to and confined within a narrow corridor of forms of “good behavior” that people will be either penalized for violating or subsidized for doing through government regulation and spending.
  • Progressives Cling to Collectivism Here, in my opinion, are some of the essential issues and dilemmas facing the advocate of individual liberty, free markets, and constitutionally limited government. Too many of our fellow citizens do not believe that individuals have a right to live for themselves. They truly and honestly believe that “society,” “community,” the collective, is something independent of the distinct individuals who comprise it, and for which the individual is morally, politically and legally obligated to serve and sacrifice for. Police power is a legitimate and appropriate tool of enforcing these obligations and duties, if resistance or indifference is experienced among the citizens in the undertaking of these activities.
  • For the “progressive,” government is “society’s” agent to undertake the tasks of “social justice” and “entitlement” that are owed to each member and to which everyone is required to provide their contribution.  Police power is the means by which everyone is made to contribute their “social dues” in the form of either obedience to government regulations or payment of taxes for redistributive purposes.
  • Liberty and the Meaning of Society and the “Social” For the classical liberal or libertarian, on the other hand, government is considered an agency for the protection of each individual’s rights. “Society” is comprised of the networks of relationships and associations formed by individuals and in which they interact for various fulfillments of human happiness and well-being.
  • The purpose of government in the classical liberal or libertarian perspective is to assure the security and protection from private plunder and violence that would disrupt or disturb the peaceful pursuits that individuals find it useful and enjoyable and fulfilling to follow through various and diverse associations of civil society.
  • Furthermore, the interventionist-welfare state undermines people’s personal and financial ability to participate in those acts and associations of benevolence towards others that they are called by their conscience to pursue in the ways they consider best and most likely of success. The redistributive state arrogantly replaces each person’s personal judgment and decision with that of the self-appointing “experts” who claim to speak and know best for society through the coercive arm of government.
  • Matching these ethical issues of the rights of the individual to live and act peacefully for himself as he sees best, the “progressive” often demonstrates a blinding degree of ignorance and misinformation about the workings of a competitive market economy, the nature of the profit and loss system, and the “invisible hand” of competitive cooperation through the peaceful and the voluntarist pursuit of self-interest. He suffers from a confused, garbled, and contradictory grab bag of ideas derived from Marxism, Fabian socialism, nationalism, fascism, and, though it would be radically and vehemently denied, often-subtle forms of racism, as well.
  • Through all the progressive’s rhetoric about “democracy” and “equality” and “social justice” and “diversity,” theirs is a political philosophy and public policy ideology of elitism, hubris, and authoritarianism dominated by the idea and ideal of remaking human beings, human relationships and the structure and order of society into redesigned patterns and shapes that reflect their notion of how people should live, work, associate and earn a living.
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    "Conflicting Meanings of Freedom For a classical liberal, freedom means that each individual possesses as a human being certain inviolable rights, those being rights to his life, liberty and honestly acquired property. And that human relationships should be based on voluntary consent and mutual agreement. For my interlocutor, freedom means "empowerment" or the ability to do or achieve certain things, without which "freedom" is not complete. These include a minimum or "decent" standard of living and the ability to attain certain potentials in life, which are everyone's "right" as a member of society. For my fellow conversationalist, society is a shared "community" of human beings each of whom owes certain things to the others, just as the others owe certain things to us. Society might be viewed as an extended family, from this perspective, all the members of which have certain required obligations to support and give assistance to their social "relatives." I suggested that society is a network of human relationships formed between individuals based upon opportunities for mutual betterment, including both the economic and the cultural in the widest sense, the fundamental foundation of which derives from those essential individual rights. The "Social Contract": Individualist or Collectivist? My dinner companion raised the issue of "the social contract," to which we are all participants and benefactors, he said. He referenced the famous French eighteenth century philosopher, Jean-Jacque Rousseau, who reasoned that man began as savages in the wild threatened by both beast and other men. Everyone entered into a social contract and formed society for mutual safety and betterment by giving up a portion of their complete and unrestrained "freedom" in that earlier setting of savagery for the order and security of shared community. The freedom given up is compensated by safety and the security of mutual aid, including the modern welf
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