Teddy has left the building . . .

Well today was like a train wreck, I turned on the TV and started watching the funeral of Senator Ted Kennedy. I took some breaks from time to time, but always came back to see what was happening next. I had heard on one of the broadcasts that Teddy had played an integral part in planning today's events. Well it started early and it ended at Arlington after dark. The funeral was as long as Teddy's ego was large. I thought it would never end, thank goodness I took some anti nausea medication early!

At Arlington, the long awaited answer to what Kennedy had written in a letter to the Pope that was delivered by President Barack Hussein Obama back during the summer. He wrote the following to the Pope:

"I have always tried to be a faithful Catholic... and though I have fallen short through human failings, I've never failed to believe and respect the fundamental teachings of my faith."

Kennedy continued to say that he was:

"committed to do everything (he could) to achieve access to health care for everyone. "This has been the political cause of my life."

OK, that's great, now you have been absolved, I have been waiting my entire life to understand why you were such a die hard socialist, now I know. Through your lifelong "works" you are trying to right your human failings. Next time around Senator, do us all a favor, publicly apologize for any indiscretion that comes to light. Americans are a forgiving people, we love to forgive and spare us all from the rhetoric of your fight for "human rights".

Did Mary Jo Kopechne deserve simple "human rights" as she drowned? Did the women that you abused deserve "human rights". Did the waitress at Washington’s La Brasserie deserve simple "human rights"?

Numerous times today, the media stated that the halls of the Senate would never be the same. To that I say Thank God!

To the family, for their loss, I offer my condolences. To the American people I say, Teddy has left the building and we should all be thankful. Hopefully this is an end of an ERA. Hopefully it's the beginning of a new ERA, and ERA where the American people, We The People take back what is ours.

No to ObamaCare, No to KennedyCare.

I'm certain that Senator Kennedy received the finest health care he could afford while battling his disease. Poor Mary Jo Kopechne didn't even deserve to receive Emergency Medical Service and Senator Kennedy and President Obama think they know what is best for Americans? In the infamous words of John Stossel, "Give me a break!"

Yeah, I said it and you are entitled to my opinion! VN8

As a side note, I've surfed the internet a lot today and this is no reflection on Senator Kennedy, but it is a disgrace what the Kennedy family did after the Patriarch of their family, Joseph Kennedy had a lobotomy performed on his daughter, Senator Kennedy's sister, Rose Marie Kennedy (September 13, 1918 – January 7, 2005). If you are not familiar with this tragedy, do a little research and get a box of tissues. It is pathetic! If this is the type of healthcare we have coming down the pike or a reflection of "death panels", we are all going to be writing letters to the POPE!

Oh and one more thing, you know the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, Senator Kennedy's father was an anti-Semite, read it for yourself:

Kennedy was (for a while) a close friend with the leading Jewish lawyer Felix Frankfurter, who helped Kennedy get his sons into the London School of Economics, where they worked with Harold Laski, a leading Jewish intellectual and prominent socialist. While holding positive attitudes towards individual Jews, Kennedy's views of the Jews as a people were, by his own admission, overwhelmingly negative.

According to Harvey Klemmer, who served as one of Kennedy's embassy aides, Kennedy habitually referred to Jews as "kikes or sheenies." Kennedy allegedly told Klemmer that "[some] individual Jews are all right, Harvey, but as a race they stink. They spoil everything they touch." When Klemmer returned from a trip to Germany and reported the pattern of vandalism and assault on Jews by Nazis, Kennedy responded, "Well, they brought it on themselves."

Again, the Wisdom of John Stossel

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

It's exciting that the world is so excited about Barack Obama. I'm excited, too. That he achieved the presidency says something good about America.

But the excitement also frightens me. It reinforces the worst impulse of the media and political class: the assumption that all progress comes from Washington. In a free society, with constitutionally limited government, the president would be a mere executive who sees to it that predictable and understandable laws are enforced. But sadly, the prestige and power of the presidency have grown, and liberty has contracted. That is not something to celebrate.

The infatuated chattering classes now demand "action" on the economy. They use positive words like "bold steps." The insufferable New York Times suggests the choice is "between a big-bang strategy of pressing aggressively on multiple fronts versus a more pragmatic, step-by-step approach .... " There is endless talk about how FDR ended the Great Depression and how Obama will apply similar "stimulus."

Please. FDR's "bold" moves didn't end the Depression. They prolonged it by discouraging capital investment. Hoover and Roosevelt turned what might have been a brief downturn into 10 years of double-digit unemployment.

Now Obama says, "we don't have a moment to lose," and he and the Democrats insist that government must unionize most of America by passing "card check" and taxpayers must throw even more money at American automakers.

This is the conceit of what Thomas Sowell calls "the anointed" (http://tinyurl.com/6me8d4). The politicians know best how our money should be spent. The "road to serfdom" is paved with such good intentions.

Obama promises:

"We will change the world ... There is nothing we can't do, nothing we can't accomplish if we are unified."

Who is this "we" politicians always cite?

We can change the world for the better if "we" means hundreds of millions of free people pursuing their interests, inventing, building, parenting, helping.

But the politicians' "we" is different. It means government. "We" will take your money by force and order you about. A democracy can become the tyranny of the majority. That's no way to create prosperity.

Obama is an extraordinarily talented man. But there is one thing he can't successfully do: ignore the laws of economics. No one can do that. That's why we call them "laws."

Ludwig von Mises wrote that once the science of economics emerged in the late Eighteenth Century, people began to realize "there is something operative which power and force are unable to alter and to which they must adjust themselves if they hope to achieve success, in precisely the same way as they must take into account the laws of nature. This realization ... led to the program and policies of [classical] liberalism and thus unleashed human powers that, under capitalism, have transformed the world."

The resulting abundance, which so many people take for granted without understanding its source, allows them to believe that a new president can "stimulate" us out of recession.

But we cannot raise wages or create jobs or eliminate poverty by executive order. We can do so by freeing people to save and invest and accumulate capital. We can't make medical care universal and inexpensive by legislative fiat. But we can approach that goal by permitting a free market in medicine to work.

Government is force, not eloquence. And force is an attempt to defy economic logic. The consequences are often opposite of those intended. "A subsidy for medical insurance increases the demand for services and raises prices. A price ceiling makes those services less available. A floor under wages makes jobs for unskilled workers more scarce, as employers find it a losing proposition to hire them. A subsidy to production means too much produced relative to something else consumers want. A trade restriction lowers living standards at home and abroad," writes Sheldon Richman on the Foundation for Economic Education website.

What will happen when the unintended consequences hit? F.A. Hayek warned that a government serious about enacting its economic plan must be prepared to use heavy-handed measures. Is that what we want?

I fear that today's "forceful actions" will not only be a painful assault on our freedom, they will exacerbate whatever economic troubles we face.

(Oh how I love it when someone tells it like it is! VN8)