- In the opening scene of the novel, a bum asking Eddie Willers for a handout, asks "Who is John Galt?" This and the way it was asked bother Eddie. As he walks through NYC he is also bothered by the gigantic calendar hanging from a public tower and announcing the date as September 2.
- On that date, Hank Rearden and Dagny Taggart decide to take a vacation together. On that vacation they discover an abandoned motor that should have revolutionized the use of energy in the world.
- Francisco D'Anconia makes his speech on money on September 2. He proclaims money to be the tool of free trade and the result of noble effort, not the root of evil. Those who call money evil choose to replace its use with the force of the gun.
- D'Anconia Copper is nationalized on 2 September, but the date on the calendar is replaced by "Brother, you asked for it!"
02 September 2010
September 2 is Atlas Shrugged Day!
On September 2, 1946, Ayn Rand began writing Atlas Shrugged and she finished her great novel in time for publication in 1957. Throughout the novel, September 2 is the date of a number of events:
01 September 2010
Arizona Community Colleges Sued for Asking to See Green Cards
We hear that the Obama administration has been promoting more vigorous crackdowns on employers who hire illegal immigrants. One might expect that employers would want to respond to that by checking on prospective employees more carefully before hiring them. Now when I hire someone, I have to see and copy at least two forms of identification for each hire and register them with the New Hire Registry within 10 days of their first day of work. In every case, my employees have provided a driver's license and a social security card, though other documents can be accepted. Now, as we have all read, there is a large market supplying illegal immigrants with driver's licenses and social security cards. It would seem logical that an employer, not being an expert in detecting counterfeit documents, might ask a non-citizen he might wish to employ for a green card.
Big mistake. The Maricopa Community Colleges in the Phoenix area are being sued by the Obama Justice Dept. for asking non-citizen hires to show their green cards. The Justice Dept. says that requiring any document beyond those required of citizens is discriminatory. The government is asking a judge of the Executive Office for Immigration Review in the Justice Dept. to order the Maricopa colleges to pay a civil penalty of $1,100 for each of 247 non-citizen job applicants who were required to provide additional documents. The county taxpayers probably do not have anything more important to use their income for than to replace the lost $271,700 of education money in their community colleges during this government-induced and prolonged recession!
Government-induced recessions cause high unemployment rates. The government believes that equality of outcome is the way to judge whether discrimination has occurred. Since the Bureau of Labor Statistics report of 6 August 2010 for the unemployment rates in July tell us that the government-induced recession has caused 8.7% of white people to be unemployed and 16.6% of black Americans to be unemployed, the government is guilty of mass discrimination by putting so many more black Americans out of work than white Americans. If black Americans had the same unemployment rate as white Americans, there would be 1,431,000 fewer unemployed black Americans. Since putting someone out of a job is surely at least 100 times worse than asking them to provide a green card, the government should be fined about $110,000 per extra black American they have put out of a job. This yields a total "fine" of $157.41 billion. Now the only effective way to fine the government is to force it to reduce taxes. So its penalty for discriminating against black Americans by inducing this recession should be a tax reduction of $157.41 billion. There should be additional fines for the Latino unemployment excess and for all the business losses that have occurred as well!
But of course the government lives by a very different set of rules than it imposes on the People it rules. You will not see the Justice Dept. suing the government for such a tax break due to its truly discriminatory practices, given its false definition of discrimination. That very false idea of discrimination is also behind the absurd report to the United Nations Council on Human Rights that claims that a state of the United States, Arizona, is violating the human rights of Americans. We the People are ruled by an absurd government, which with its many violations of our Constitution and our equal, sovereign individual rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness has established itself as an illegitimate government, as defined in our Declaration of Independence.
Big mistake. The Maricopa Community Colleges in the Phoenix area are being sued by the Obama Justice Dept. for asking non-citizen hires to show their green cards. The Justice Dept. says that requiring any document beyond those required of citizens is discriminatory. The government is asking a judge of the Executive Office for Immigration Review in the Justice Dept. to order the Maricopa colleges to pay a civil penalty of $1,100 for each of 247 non-citizen job applicants who were required to provide additional documents. The county taxpayers probably do not have anything more important to use their income for than to replace the lost $271,700 of education money in their community colleges during this government-induced and prolonged recession!
Government-induced recessions cause high unemployment rates. The government believes that equality of outcome is the way to judge whether discrimination has occurred. Since the Bureau of Labor Statistics report of 6 August 2010 for the unemployment rates in July tell us that the government-induced recession has caused 8.7% of white people to be unemployed and 16.6% of black Americans to be unemployed, the government is guilty of mass discrimination by putting so many more black Americans out of work than white Americans. If black Americans had the same unemployment rate as white Americans, there would be 1,431,000 fewer unemployed black Americans. Since putting someone out of a job is surely at least 100 times worse than asking them to provide a green card, the government should be fined about $110,000 per extra black American they have put out of a job. This yields a total "fine" of $157.41 billion. Now the only effective way to fine the government is to force it to reduce taxes. So its penalty for discriminating against black Americans by inducing this recession should be a tax reduction of $157.41 billion. There should be additional fines for the Latino unemployment excess and for all the business losses that have occurred as well!
But of course the government lives by a very different set of rules than it imposes on the People it rules. You will not see the Justice Dept. suing the government for such a tax break due to its truly discriminatory practices, given its false definition of discrimination. That very false idea of discrimination is also behind the absurd report to the United Nations Council on Human Rights that claims that a state of the United States, Arizona, is violating the human rights of Americans. We the People are ruled by an absurd government, which with its many violations of our Constitution and our equal, sovereign individual rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness has established itself as an illegitimate government, as defined in our Declaration of Independence.
Poison Ivy Loves CO2
Thanks to an article in the Washington Post Health & Science section on 31 August 2010, we now know the real reason why man's emissions of CO2 are a catastrophe. Jacqueline Mohan, an assistant professor at the University of Georgia's Odum School of Ecology has studied the relative growth rates of tree seedlings and poison ivy in atmospheres with what she supposes have the CO2 concentrations of 1950, 2007, and a projected level for the year 2050. The Post article by Laura Hambleton claims that tree seedlings grow 8 to 12% faster with more atmospheric CO2, but poison ivy grows 149% faster. The article neglects to tell us between which years or concentrations of CO2 these relative growth rates were measured. A chart of average total leaf area per poison ivy plant is presented, however. That chart indicates about a 2.2 times increase in leaf area in 2007 relative to 1950 and a 2.7 times increase in leaf area in 2050 using the projected atmospheric CO2 concentration. Neither number provides the stated 149% increase in growth. What is more, most of the increase in growth from the chart has already occurred as of 2007 compared to 1950. The leaf area for the assumed 2050 case is only about 20% greater than that of 2007.
Nonetheless, if you are inclined to prance about in the woods with little to no clothing on, this is the most awful example of increased CO2 induced catastrophe that I know about. Even worse, the article claims that the urushiol oil that people are allergic to is becoming more virulent. However, we should not despair too much, since Donald K. Milton, a public health physician and director of the University of Maryland Institute for Applied and Environmental Health, says children are not playing outdoors as much nowadays as they did in his youth, so increased poison ivy is not having very notable health effects.
But poison ivy is common on the East Coast, so be careful. Anecdotal evidence was provided that suggested that there is an observed increase in poison ivy in the woods. It was also noted that the increased growth of poison ivy may be partially due to the woods being more broken up with more perimeter areas which get more sunlight. Will extreme environmentalists soon use that observation as an excuse to destroy homes and businesses, so that the woods along the East Coast can be allowed to become larger with less perimeter area in which poison ivy grows better? Please do not inform them that I have suggested this argument.
Nonetheless, if you are inclined to prance about in the woods with little to no clothing on, this is the most awful example of increased CO2 induced catastrophe that I know about. Even worse, the article claims that the urushiol oil that people are allergic to is becoming more virulent. However, we should not despair too much, since Donald K. Milton, a public health physician and director of the University of Maryland Institute for Applied and Environmental Health, says children are not playing outdoors as much nowadays as they did in his youth, so increased poison ivy is not having very notable health effects.
But poison ivy is common on the East Coast, so be careful. Anecdotal evidence was provided that suggested that there is an observed increase in poison ivy in the woods. It was also noted that the increased growth of poison ivy may be partially due to the woods being more broken up with more perimeter areas which get more sunlight. Will extreme environmentalists soon use that observation as an excuse to destroy homes and businesses, so that the woods along the East Coast can be allowed to become larger with less perimeter area in which poison ivy grows better? Please do not inform them that I have suggested this argument.
31 August 2010
Politicians Are More Reliable Wind Blowers than Nature Is
The United States has more wind power generation capacity than any nation on earth. The 21 - 28 August 2010 issue of The Economist provides this graph of national wind power generation capacity in gigawatts (a 1,000 megawatts) of power and as a percent of the worldwide total:
What do we get for all this wind power generation capacity? Well, it turns out that a recent event in the state of Texas is illustrative. Texas has a big commitment to wind power with a 9.7 GW capacity, or 28% of the entire U.S. wind power capacity and just a bit less than the complete wind power capacity of India. Nonetheless, on 4 August 2010 at about 5 PM, electricity demand in Texas established a new record of 63.594 gigawatts. So, with a wind power capacity of 9.7 GW, wind power might have been contributing 15% of the state of Texas' need at that time. But, according to the Texas electric grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), wind power contributed only 0.5 GW at that time. This was less than 0.8% of that peak electric demand and only 5% of the wind generation capacity of Texas!
Perhaps 4 August was a once in a blue moon anomaly? Well no. Sadly no. ERCOT noted in 2007 and repeated the claim in 2009 that only 8.7% of the installed wind generation capacity can be counted on as dependable capacity during a peak demand period. That number was more generous than the case of 4 August, but it is still a very small fraction of the installed wind generation capacity. For this, the people of Texas are paying an extra $4 more per month on their electric bills to fund 2,300 miles of new electric transmission lines to carry wind generated electricity from rural areas to the cities of Texas. They and all other American taxpayers are also contributing to the $0.022 per KW-hr production tax credit which provides the wind-energy industry with a subsidy of $6.44 per million BTUs of energy produced. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the Dept. of Energy says the subsidy for the oil and gas industry is $0.03 per million BTUs of energy, so the wind-energy subsidy is 215 times larger than that for the oil and gas industry.
The problem of wind power unreliability is not unique to Texas either. The Daily Telegraph reported in January that during their extremely frigid period last winter, wind power provided only 0.2% of their power need, despite an installed capacity of 5%. In other words, only 4% of the installed wind power capacity produced when it was most needed.
Yet in the face of this insane expense for wind power generation which is rarely available when it is needed, more than 30 states are mandating very large increases in renewable electricity production. California, that unusually insane state, is requiring that 33% of its electricity be generated from renewable energy sources by 2020! Maryland, Connecticut, Minnesota, and Hawaii are among many other states requiring huge renewable electric energy increases. Solar power and geothermal will not be able to meet the requirements for such sharp increases in production, so wind power is expected to have to provide most of the increase.
Why are our politicians shoving these very expensive mandates for renewable electricity down the People's throats? They usually claim it is to reduce man-made emissions of carbon dioxide so that catastrophic global warming will not occur. As regular readers of this blog will know, the claim that carbon dioxide increases will cause any such catastrophe is total nonsense based on incredibly bad science and a religious commitment to ignore good science. Any likely CO2 increases are simply additions to a very good plant fertilizer, from which an ever-growing world population would benefit.
Still, our politicians and the old media largely push for expensive renewable energy sources for our electricity. Interestingly, the reductions of CO2 are actually much less than claimed or even non-existent! The reason comes right back to the amazing unreliability of wind power. Basically, a coal-fired or gas-fired electric generating power plant has to be kept on board cycling electricity to be instantly available when the wind stops blowing. If only nature blew as reliably as politicians do. Now, this idling power plant is much less efficient than a power plant operating at its optimal capacity. In other words, the power plant is generating much more CO2 per kilowatt of electricity than it normally would when in this idling mode of operation, not to mention that it is costing a lot of money as well. Additionally, it is usually a gas-powered power plant which is operating in idle mode, not a coal-fired plant. This is because the gas-fired power plants generally produce more expensive electricity than do the coal-fired power plants. From the standpoint of the claim that the whole point of renewable energy electricity is to reduce CO2, this is very bad, because gas-fired power plants produce about half the amount of CO2 compared to coal-fired power plants when each is operating optimally.
Bentek Energy released a study in April based on power plants in Colorado and Texas and concluded that wind power plants had almost no impact on the amount of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere. The repeated cycling of Colorado coal-fired power plants in 2009 caused at least 94,000 pounds of CO2 to be generated than would have been without cycling. In Texas, the net reduction of CO2 in 2008 was 600 tons, but in 2009, there was an actual increase in carbon by about 1,000 tons due to the cycling of power plants.
A study prepared by EnerNex Corp. for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in January 2010 looked at wind generated electricity and the Eastern U.S., which uses about two-thirds of U.S. electricity. If wind energy were to provide 20% of the eastern U.S. electricity in 2024, the savings in CO2 emissions would only be 200 million tons per year. A commitment of $140 to 175 billion per year in capital expenses and power generation operational costs until 2024 is necessary to provide this savings, where the higher costs come with more offshore wind power generation. This prices a saved ton of carbon at between $700 and $875! It is insane to pay so much for carbon emission reduction!
The EIA estimated the CO2 emissions reduction due to a 25% national renewable electricity generation goal, as in the Waxman - Markey cap and trade bill that passed the House of Representatives, might save 306 million tons of carbon by 2030. This is only 4.9% of the total 6.2 trillion tons of carbon emissions expected in 2030 and a paltry fraction of the 80% cut in carbon emissions the Obama administration is promising by 2050. Somehow, I do not think Obama expects to be held accountable in 2050 for the failure to meet his announced goal.
In conclusion, if wind power generation were as dependable as the babbling winds that flow from the mouths of our political class, wind power generation would be more viable an option for power generation. In reality, it cannot provide the announced carbon reductions and neither can solar or geothermal power. Of course, it is still more important, as I have argued here, to note that there is no scientific reason to believe it is important to reduce man's CO2 emissions in any case. But the grandiose plans for renewable energy use are the basis for subsidizing huge new industries at a horrible cost in higher energy costs, lower energy reliability, huge private sector job losses, and some combination of increased national debt, taxes, and inflation. The political class is not just wrong, it is some combination of evil and insane. It is also constantly trying to force the American People to join them in their evil and insane delusions while cursing them for being such dolts who do not see the world as the political class does. But reality is even more stubbornly present and existent and many more rational Americans are taking some note of that. Catastrophic anthropogenic global warming and renewable energy are both tied together and they appear to be drowning together in the minds of more and more Americans. Eventually, bad science and bad engineering must become apparent as they are put to operational tests. The goals justifying renewable energy are and will continue to prove to be unrealistic.
What do we get for all this wind power generation capacity? Well, it turns out that a recent event in the state of Texas is illustrative. Texas has a big commitment to wind power with a 9.7 GW capacity, or 28% of the entire U.S. wind power capacity and just a bit less than the complete wind power capacity of India. Nonetheless, on 4 August 2010 at about 5 PM, electricity demand in Texas established a new record of 63.594 gigawatts. So, with a wind power capacity of 9.7 GW, wind power might have been contributing 15% of the state of Texas' need at that time. But, according to the Texas electric grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), wind power contributed only 0.5 GW at that time. This was less than 0.8% of that peak electric demand and only 5% of the wind generation capacity of Texas!
Perhaps 4 August was a once in a blue moon anomaly? Well no. Sadly no. ERCOT noted in 2007 and repeated the claim in 2009 that only 8.7% of the installed wind generation capacity can be counted on as dependable capacity during a peak demand period. That number was more generous than the case of 4 August, but it is still a very small fraction of the installed wind generation capacity. For this, the people of Texas are paying an extra $4 more per month on their electric bills to fund 2,300 miles of new electric transmission lines to carry wind generated electricity from rural areas to the cities of Texas. They and all other American taxpayers are also contributing to the $0.022 per KW-hr production tax credit which provides the wind-energy industry with a subsidy of $6.44 per million BTUs of energy produced. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the Dept. of Energy says the subsidy for the oil and gas industry is $0.03 per million BTUs of energy, so the wind-energy subsidy is 215 times larger than that for the oil and gas industry.
The problem of wind power unreliability is not unique to Texas either. The Daily Telegraph reported in January that during their extremely frigid period last winter, wind power provided only 0.2% of their power need, despite an installed capacity of 5%. In other words, only 4% of the installed wind power capacity produced when it was most needed.
Yet in the face of this insane expense for wind power generation which is rarely available when it is needed, more than 30 states are mandating very large increases in renewable electricity production. California, that unusually insane state, is requiring that 33% of its electricity be generated from renewable energy sources by 2020! Maryland, Connecticut, Minnesota, and Hawaii are among many other states requiring huge renewable electric energy increases. Solar power and geothermal will not be able to meet the requirements for such sharp increases in production, so wind power is expected to have to provide most of the increase.
Why are our politicians shoving these very expensive mandates for renewable electricity down the People's throats? They usually claim it is to reduce man-made emissions of carbon dioxide so that catastrophic global warming will not occur. As regular readers of this blog will know, the claim that carbon dioxide increases will cause any such catastrophe is total nonsense based on incredibly bad science and a religious commitment to ignore good science. Any likely CO2 increases are simply additions to a very good plant fertilizer, from which an ever-growing world population would benefit.
Still, our politicians and the old media largely push for expensive renewable energy sources for our electricity. Interestingly, the reductions of CO2 are actually much less than claimed or even non-existent! The reason comes right back to the amazing unreliability of wind power. Basically, a coal-fired or gas-fired electric generating power plant has to be kept on board cycling electricity to be instantly available when the wind stops blowing. If only nature blew as reliably as politicians do. Now, this idling power plant is much less efficient than a power plant operating at its optimal capacity. In other words, the power plant is generating much more CO2 per kilowatt of electricity than it normally would when in this idling mode of operation, not to mention that it is costing a lot of money as well. Additionally, it is usually a gas-powered power plant which is operating in idle mode, not a coal-fired plant. This is because the gas-fired power plants generally produce more expensive electricity than do the coal-fired power plants. From the standpoint of the claim that the whole point of renewable energy electricity is to reduce CO2, this is very bad, because gas-fired power plants produce about half the amount of CO2 compared to coal-fired power plants when each is operating optimally.
Bentek Energy released a study in April based on power plants in Colorado and Texas and concluded that wind power plants had almost no impact on the amount of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere. The repeated cycling of Colorado coal-fired power plants in 2009 caused at least 94,000 pounds of CO2 to be generated than would have been without cycling. In Texas, the net reduction of CO2 in 2008 was 600 tons, but in 2009, there was an actual increase in carbon by about 1,000 tons due to the cycling of power plants.
A study prepared by EnerNex Corp. for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in January 2010 looked at wind generated electricity and the Eastern U.S., which uses about two-thirds of U.S. electricity. If wind energy were to provide 20% of the eastern U.S. electricity in 2024, the savings in CO2 emissions would only be 200 million tons per year. A commitment of $140 to 175 billion per year in capital expenses and power generation operational costs until 2024 is necessary to provide this savings, where the higher costs come with more offshore wind power generation. This prices a saved ton of carbon at between $700 and $875! It is insane to pay so much for carbon emission reduction!
The EIA estimated the CO2 emissions reduction due to a 25% national renewable electricity generation goal, as in the Waxman - Markey cap and trade bill that passed the House of Representatives, might save 306 million tons of carbon by 2030. This is only 4.9% of the total 6.2 trillion tons of carbon emissions expected in 2030 and a paltry fraction of the 80% cut in carbon emissions the Obama administration is promising by 2050. Somehow, I do not think Obama expects to be held accountable in 2050 for the failure to meet his announced goal.
In conclusion, if wind power generation were as dependable as the babbling winds that flow from the mouths of our political class, wind power generation would be more viable an option for power generation. In reality, it cannot provide the announced carbon reductions and neither can solar or geothermal power. Of course, it is still more important, as I have argued here, to note that there is no scientific reason to believe it is important to reduce man's CO2 emissions in any case. But the grandiose plans for renewable energy use are the basis for subsidizing huge new industries at a horrible cost in higher energy costs, lower energy reliability, huge private sector job losses, and some combination of increased national debt, taxes, and inflation. The political class is not just wrong, it is some combination of evil and insane. It is also constantly trying to force the American People to join them in their evil and insane delusions while cursing them for being such dolts who do not see the world as the political class does. But reality is even more stubbornly present and existent and many more rational Americans are taking some note of that. Catastrophic anthropogenic global warming and renewable energy are both tied together and they appear to be drowning together in the minds of more and more Americans. Eventually, bad science and bad engineering must become apparent as they are put to operational tests. The goals justifying renewable energy are and will continue to prove to be unrealistic.
29 August 2010
Past American Federation of Teachers Union President on School Children
Mark Mix just sent me an e-mail in which he noted that the late American Federation of Teachers union president Al Shanker once said:
"When school children start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children."
As I have often said, children need professional educators, not blue-collar labor unionists. Shanker also once said that many of his union members were not competent teachers. He was right about that.
"When school children start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children."
As I have often said, children need professional educators, not blue-collar labor unionists. Shanker also once said that many of his union members were not competent teachers. He was right about that.
The Race to the Top and Over the Cliff
The federal government Race to the Top program has just made its Phase 2 awards this last week. This program is designed to increase state and federal control over school systems. The states are supposed to establish changes to:
The Phase 1 awards were to Delaware and Tennessee. A total of 46 states and the District of Columbia have applied for the Phase 1 or Phase 2 awards. The Phase 2 awards were just given to 9 states and the District of Columbia. These awards totaled $4 billion at a time when many states are facing deficits due to their high spending habits adopted prior to the recession, the drop in state revenues due to high unemployment and lowered company spending, and the increased costs of expanded entitlement programs due to the same unemployment. The time was ripe for the federal government to exercise greater control over the many needy state governments. Many a state was in crisis and vulnerable to a further federal grab of control of education. The pressure for states to take more control from local school districts was a key "reform" in this program, as was pressure to put more resources into the worst schools, largely in the inner cities.
Aspects of the program try to reduce the power of the stultifying teachers unions. They are opposing education reforms in more states than not. The Race to the Top program favors charter schools, evaluating teachers based on their student's test scores, and firing large fractions of teachers and the principals of the worst performing schools. The teachers unions are critical allies of the Democrat Party. They vote solidly for the Democrats, their unions contribute huge sums of money, and the teachers can always be relied upon to donate large amounts of their time to support the Democrat candidates for office. This critical role was recognized by the House and Senate returning from their summer recess and the start of many of the congressional campaigns in order to add $26 billion of a new stimulus round expressly for teachers and schools. This was viewed as so critical, that the Democrats even reduced the Food Stamps program to find the money for it just prior to the mid-term elections! Now, few teachers were in danger of being fired due to the decrease in state revenues, since the schools are nearly sacrosanct in most school districts. Cuts are usually made elsewhere in government. But, this infusion of money will have made the teachers unions more enthusiastic about the upcoming election and was to offset their concerns about the Race to the Top program and its threats to poor teachers. If the teachers unions signed on to the proposed state reforms in the Race to the Top program proposals, extra points were given to the state in the competition.
During the Great Depression, FDR was very efficient in giving money and programs to those states which were important in his re-election plans. He drained money from the South, since he was assured of the votes of the South. He poured money into a number of western states he thought he could win with their higher ratios of electoral votes to their populations. Bearing in mind that virtually every state applied for the Race to the Top program educational money, examine the table below for a balance of Democrat and Republican governors, legislatures, and the 2008 presidential election vote:
D = Democrat, R = Republican, I = Independent, S = Split, Y = yes.
The most evenly divided category is the governor's party. Three are Republicans, six are Democrats, and one, Charlie Crist of Florida, was elected as a Republican, but is now serving the Democrats. Seven of the legislatures are Democrat, 2 are Republican, and one is split. All but two of the states voted for Obama in 2008. Apparently, Democrat dominated states are much better managers of statewide education reform, according to these results. One of the consequences of more federal control over our education system will be a continued such politicization of our schools, already heavily Democrat influenced via the control of the socialist teachers unions!
Aspects of the Race to the Top program seem to actually address some educational problems, specifically that of low expectations for principals, teachers, and students. This makes the program for more federal control seem to be less objectionable. However, this is really a Trojan Horse and that may be why at least 4 of the states were able to persuade the teachers unions to back their reform plan. Actually, in the case of Hawaii that was easy since their plan was very light on reform anyway. In the longer run, this plan will enable more federal control and that will be used to increase the power of the unions and will also be used to push the unions to give even more support to the Democrats in order to influence that power to favor the unions.
If the Race to the Top program really were very serious about improving education reform, it would have encouraged the states to produce voucher programs to replace poor performing public schools with private schools. It would have allowed schools to experiment with the curriculum, rather than standardizing just on reading and writing and that on what is likely to be low standards. It is unlikely any teachers union would sign on to support a true reform of our education system. Of course, a decentralization of power over the schools and the increased exercise of smaller local school boards would be a most critical part of any real reform plan. It is necessary to produce schools that are responsive to the parents and that emphasize the role of the professional, not the blue-collar, educator.
You cannot interest students in reading unless you give them interesting things to read. To do that, you must emphasize literature, history, economics, and science. Math is a great tool, but it is a tool. Its study is commonly best motivated by teaching its applications to science, economics, engineering, and business. Finally, programs teaching that some people are victims by virtue of their race simply provide the people of those races with excuses and encourage lower expectations. They need to be told that they will individually be judged on the basis of their character and that many people will judge that in good part on what they know and on their commitment to knowing more throughout their lives. The Democrats are not willing to deliver this essential message. Without it, their so-called reform cannot be taken seriously. Unfortunately, their grab for national control of our complete public school system should be taken very seriously.
- Adopt standards and assessments to assure student success in college and employment.
- Establish data systems to measure student knowledge and to allow educators to improve instruction.
- Recruit, develop, reward, and retain good teachers and principals, especially in the worst performing schools.
- Improve the performance of the worst schools.
The Phase 1 awards were to Delaware and Tennessee. A total of 46 states and the District of Columbia have applied for the Phase 1 or Phase 2 awards. The Phase 2 awards were just given to 9 states and the District of Columbia. These awards totaled $4 billion at a time when many states are facing deficits due to their high spending habits adopted prior to the recession, the drop in state revenues due to high unemployment and lowered company spending, and the increased costs of expanded entitlement programs due to the same unemployment. The time was ripe for the federal government to exercise greater control over the many needy state governments. Many a state was in crisis and vulnerable to a further federal grab of control of education. The pressure for states to take more control from local school districts was a key "reform" in this program, as was pressure to put more resources into the worst schools, largely in the inner cities.
Aspects of the program try to reduce the power of the stultifying teachers unions. They are opposing education reforms in more states than not. The Race to the Top program favors charter schools, evaluating teachers based on their student's test scores, and firing large fractions of teachers and the principals of the worst performing schools. The teachers unions are critical allies of the Democrat Party. They vote solidly for the Democrats, their unions contribute huge sums of money, and the teachers can always be relied upon to donate large amounts of their time to support the Democrat candidates for office. This critical role was recognized by the House and Senate returning from their summer recess and the start of many of the congressional campaigns in order to add $26 billion of a new stimulus round expressly for teachers and schools. This was viewed as so critical, that the Democrats even reduced the Food Stamps program to find the money for it just prior to the mid-term elections! Now, few teachers were in danger of being fired due to the decrease in state revenues, since the schools are nearly sacrosanct in most school districts. Cuts are usually made elsewhere in government. But, this infusion of money will have made the teachers unions more enthusiastic about the upcoming election and was to offset their concerns about the Race to the Top program and its threats to poor teachers. If the teachers unions signed on to the proposed state reforms in the Race to the Top program proposals, extra points were given to the state in the competition.
During the Great Depression, FDR was very efficient in giving money and programs to those states which were important in his re-election plans. He drained money from the South, since he was assured of the votes of the South. He poured money into a number of western states he thought he could win with their higher ratios of electoral votes to their populations. Bearing in mind that virtually every state applied for the Race to the Top program educational money, examine the table below for a balance of Democrat and Republican governors, legislatures, and the 2008 presidential election vote:
The most evenly divided category is the governor's party. Three are Republicans, six are Democrats, and one, Charlie Crist of Florida, was elected as a Republican, but is now serving the Democrats. Seven of the legislatures are Democrat, 2 are Republican, and one is split. All but two of the states voted for Obama in 2008. Apparently, Democrat dominated states are much better managers of statewide education reform, according to these results. One of the consequences of more federal control over our education system will be a continued such politicization of our schools, already heavily Democrat influenced via the control of the socialist teachers unions!
Aspects of the Race to the Top program seem to actually address some educational problems, specifically that of low expectations for principals, teachers, and students. This makes the program for more federal control seem to be less objectionable. However, this is really a Trojan Horse and that may be why at least 4 of the states were able to persuade the teachers unions to back their reform plan. Actually, in the case of Hawaii that was easy since their plan was very light on reform anyway. In the longer run, this plan will enable more federal control and that will be used to increase the power of the unions and will also be used to push the unions to give even more support to the Democrats in order to influence that power to favor the unions.
If the Race to the Top program really were very serious about improving education reform, it would have encouraged the states to produce voucher programs to replace poor performing public schools with private schools. It would have allowed schools to experiment with the curriculum, rather than standardizing just on reading and writing and that on what is likely to be low standards. It is unlikely any teachers union would sign on to support a true reform of our education system. Of course, a decentralization of power over the schools and the increased exercise of smaller local school boards would be a most critical part of any real reform plan. It is necessary to produce schools that are responsive to the parents and that emphasize the role of the professional, not the blue-collar, educator.
You cannot interest students in reading unless you give them interesting things to read. To do that, you must emphasize literature, history, economics, and science. Math is a great tool, but it is a tool. Its study is commonly best motivated by teaching its applications to science, economics, engineering, and business. Finally, programs teaching that some people are victims by virtue of their race simply provide the people of those races with excuses and encourage lower expectations. They need to be told that they will individually be judged on the basis of their character and that many people will judge that in good part on what they know and on their commitment to knowing more throughout their lives. The Democrats are not willing to deliver this essential message. Without it, their so-called reform cannot be taken seriously. Unfortunately, their grab for national control of our complete public school system should be taken very seriously.
26 August 2010
Poisonous snake bites .... itself
No place in America has support for Obama and his socialism been greater than on most college campuses. In particular, support for ObamaCare ran strong on most college campuses. It turns out that the Democrat policy wonks who wrote the badly written 2,700 page ObamaCare health care "reform" bill harbored among their many dislikes a hatred for student health care insurance offered by colleges. There are a number of reasons for this:
I believe at least 60% of the citizens of this land would also like to apply for a waiver from ObamaCare now!!!! That number will go up as health insurance skyrockets in cost under the physician shortages and the increased demand for services for every sniffle. Socialism is so strongly advocated, admired, and indoctrinated in the students of our universities that it is very fitting that the snake has been found to have sunk its poisonous fangs deep into itself. The health care costs of college students will go up more than the health care insurance costs others in America.
- These plans were not controlled by government bureaucrats who must exercise their power lust.
- The plans offer upperclassmen and graduate students inexpensive insurance due to the generally good health of these young people. But under ObamaCare the young must subsidize the older and the less healthy by paying much more for insurance than their good health should require them to pay. College health plans remove too many of these subsidizers from the national pool.
- Children will have to be carried on their parent's health insurance plans until they are 26 as a penalty for those guilty of over-populating the world. This means only a few Ph.D. candidate graduate students will be left for campus health insurance plans anyway. Half of them are foreigners, so only half of a college's Ph.D. candidates will need health insurance plans.
- The doctors and nurses of college health plans will be desperately needed to treat Medicare patients as ObamaCare gets underway. So, it is important to shut college health clinics down to provide more manpower to that program to delay some of its severe rationing of services.
I believe at least 60% of the citizens of this land would also like to apply for a waiver from ObamaCare now!!!! That number will go up as health insurance skyrockets in cost under the physician shortages and the increased demand for services for every sniffle. Socialism is so strongly advocated, admired, and indoctrinated in the students of our universities that it is very fitting that the snake has been found to have sunk its poisonous fangs deep into itself. The health care costs of college students will go up more than the health care insurance costs others in America.
24 August 2010
U.S. State Dept. Tells U.N. We Are Guilty of Many, Many Human Rights Violations
In an early move to placate the international community, Obama had the U.S. join the U.N. Human Rights Council. The current member nations of this august body of human rights exemplars include:
Angola
Egypt
Nigeria
South Africa
Zambia
China
Kyrgyzstan
Pakistan
Saudi Arabia
Russian Federation
Argentina
Bolivia
Cuba
The U.S. just delivered a 29-page report to the Human Rights Council in which the State Department said that some Americans were still victims of discrimination. In particular, blacks, Latinos, Muslims, South Asians, Native Americans, and gays are victims of high unemployment, hate crimes, poverty, poor housing, lack of access to health care, and discriminatory hiring practices.
The report welcomed "observations and recommendations that can help us on that road to a more perfect union." The American Civil Liberties Union approved of the Obama administration's submission to the U.N. Human Rights Council, but decried the fact it did not address the issues of "inhumane prison conditions, racial disparities in death penalty cases, and abuses in the immigration system." The director of the ACLU's human rights program said, "It is time for the U.S. to match its human rights rhetoric with concrete domestic policies and actions and create a human rights culture and infrastructure that promote American values of equality and justice for all."
OK, you have been wondering when I was finally going to step in here and punch this Progressive viewpoint in its sniveling nose. Did you notice that human rights are always referred to by statists and not individual rights? They ought to be the same thing, but somehow they never are. Human rights are always take to include the obligation of some individuals to serve others, usually in some collective group. So, to be clear and differentiate my viewpoint from the Progressive idea of human rights, I will address these issues on the basis of our individual rights.
Individuals have the right to freedom of association and they have the right to discriminate. They are not required to choose who they associate with or how they discriminate on a rational basis. What is more, government would hardly be the agent anyone rational would turn to for the purpose of determining who each individual shall associate with and to dictate to each individual how they should discriminate. These issues are much too complex for government, which is incredibly simple-minded and totally lacks the knowledge of how each American individual is differentiated and what their values are. Individuality and those differing values require individuals to discriminate among those with whom they will choose to associate. What is more, we should have learned long ago that no good comes of individuals forfeiting their own independent judgment to government beyond those basic protections which government provides by preventing itself and individuals from initiating the use of force against one another.
If I were to refuse to hire any black Adventist person, let us say, that is within my rights, as long as mine is a private company. The government, on the other hand, cannot refuse to hire Adventist blacks. Why? First, because government must treat every individual equally before the law. Second, government is the only agent in our society allowed to use force against individuals. That use of force must be tightly controlled to prevent its abusive use. One of the most important controls is that it must be applied equally to all citizens, so that the majority of citizens will be inclined to feel the need to protect those who have become the victims of government discrimination on the basis of race, religion, peaceful creed, employer or employee, income, or property. It is government that proves to be the monolithic rights violator because it has a monopoly on the use of force in a society. Therefore, legitimate government, as defined in our Declaration of Independence, has the sole function of protecting the equal, sovereign rights of every individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
That being the case, it is very irrational that this report did not bemoan the fact that the government discriminates against people who are more productive and those who earn more income. When the ACLU calls upon the American values of equality and justice, where is their outcry against the progressive income tax code? Or, where is the acknowledgment by the government that it has no right to discriminate against hiring white males for government positions. Where is the acknowledgment that government cannot claim to treat Americans equally and with justice when it discriminates against firms owned by white males when it lets contracts for goods and services? Where is there condemnation of the fact that employers are forced to keep employee income and tax records and submit reports to governments without just compensation?
While these awful infractions of unequal and unjust discrimination by the U.S. government go unmentioned, the ACLU bemoans the conditions of prisoners, who are treated better here than almost anywhere in the world. And what are the immigration abuses they are talking about? Apparently, our policy is only to deport people who are felons, while illegal border crossings and misdemeanors are ignored. Where is the abuse in that? When we provide most government services and force many private companies to provide free charity work to illegal immigrants, it is a puzzle to me that we can be said to be abusive.
It may be true that more blacks receive the death penalty, but that may be less because they are black than because of a combination of the nature of the crimes and their likely being poorer and less able to obtain the services of the better lawyers.
We shall have to wait with bated breath for the constructive comments to come from Cuba, China, the Russian Federation, Zambia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan on how the U.S. might achieve an admirable human rights record. Do you suppose any of them will do what the ACLU failed to do? Will they point out that the primary abuses of human rights in the U.S. are due to our government's failure to govern in accordance with our own Declaration of Independence and our Constitution? Will they point out that our progressive income tax system is a violation of every individual's equal rights to life, the pursuit of happiness, and property? Do you suppose they will demand that the U.S. government stop its baleful discrimination against the white male minority or the employer minority?
Angola
Egypt
Nigeria
South Africa
Zambia
China
Kyrgyzstan
Pakistan
Saudi Arabia
Russian Federation
Argentina
Bolivia
Cuba
The U.S. just delivered a 29-page report to the Human Rights Council in which the State Department said that some Americans were still victims of discrimination. In particular, blacks, Latinos, Muslims, South Asians, Native Americans, and gays are victims of high unemployment, hate crimes, poverty, poor housing, lack of access to health care, and discriminatory hiring practices.
The report welcomed "observations and recommendations that can help us on that road to a more perfect union." The American Civil Liberties Union approved of the Obama administration's submission to the U.N. Human Rights Council, but decried the fact it did not address the issues of "inhumane prison conditions, racial disparities in death penalty cases, and abuses in the immigration system." The director of the ACLU's human rights program said, "It is time for the U.S. to match its human rights rhetoric with concrete domestic policies and actions and create a human rights culture and infrastructure that promote American values of equality and justice for all."
OK, you have been wondering when I was finally going to step in here and punch this Progressive viewpoint in its sniveling nose. Did you notice that human rights are always referred to by statists and not individual rights? They ought to be the same thing, but somehow they never are. Human rights are always take to include the obligation of some individuals to serve others, usually in some collective group. So, to be clear and differentiate my viewpoint from the Progressive idea of human rights, I will address these issues on the basis of our individual rights.
Individuals have the right to freedom of association and they have the right to discriminate. They are not required to choose who they associate with or how they discriminate on a rational basis. What is more, government would hardly be the agent anyone rational would turn to for the purpose of determining who each individual shall associate with and to dictate to each individual how they should discriminate. These issues are much too complex for government, which is incredibly simple-minded and totally lacks the knowledge of how each American individual is differentiated and what their values are. Individuality and those differing values require individuals to discriminate among those with whom they will choose to associate. What is more, we should have learned long ago that no good comes of individuals forfeiting their own independent judgment to government beyond those basic protections which government provides by preventing itself and individuals from initiating the use of force against one another.
If I were to refuse to hire any black Adventist person, let us say, that is within my rights, as long as mine is a private company. The government, on the other hand, cannot refuse to hire Adventist blacks. Why? First, because government must treat every individual equally before the law. Second, government is the only agent in our society allowed to use force against individuals. That use of force must be tightly controlled to prevent its abusive use. One of the most important controls is that it must be applied equally to all citizens, so that the majority of citizens will be inclined to feel the need to protect those who have become the victims of government discrimination on the basis of race, religion, peaceful creed, employer or employee, income, or property. It is government that proves to be the monolithic rights violator because it has a monopoly on the use of force in a society. Therefore, legitimate government, as defined in our Declaration of Independence, has the sole function of protecting the equal, sovereign rights of every individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
That being the case, it is very irrational that this report did not bemoan the fact that the government discriminates against people who are more productive and those who earn more income. When the ACLU calls upon the American values of equality and justice, where is their outcry against the progressive income tax code? Or, where is the acknowledgment by the government that it has no right to discriminate against hiring white males for government positions. Where is the acknowledgment that government cannot claim to treat Americans equally and with justice when it discriminates against firms owned by white males when it lets contracts for goods and services? Where is there condemnation of the fact that employers are forced to keep employee income and tax records and submit reports to governments without just compensation?
While these awful infractions of unequal and unjust discrimination by the U.S. government go unmentioned, the ACLU bemoans the conditions of prisoners, who are treated better here than almost anywhere in the world. And what are the immigration abuses they are talking about? Apparently, our policy is only to deport people who are felons, while illegal border crossings and misdemeanors are ignored. Where is the abuse in that? When we provide most government services and force many private companies to provide free charity work to illegal immigrants, it is a puzzle to me that we can be said to be abusive.
It may be true that more blacks receive the death penalty, but that may be less because they are black than because of a combination of the nature of the crimes and their likely being poorer and less able to obtain the services of the better lawyers.
We shall have to wait with bated breath for the constructive comments to come from Cuba, China, the Russian Federation, Zambia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan on how the U.S. might achieve an admirable human rights record. Do you suppose any of them will do what the ACLU failed to do? Will they point out that the primary abuses of human rights in the U.S. are due to our government's failure to govern in accordance with our own Declaration of Independence and our Constitution? Will they point out that our progressive income tax system is a violation of every individual's equal rights to life, the pursuit of happiness, and property? Do you suppose they will demand that the U.S. government stop its baleful discrimination against the white male minority or the employer minority?
23 August 2010
Ignorant of Business, Uninterested in American Jobs
Obama has proven himself uninterested in American business and totally ill-informed about how jobs are created. He believes that if only government spends enough money on government programs, on subsidies for a few industries chosen for their support of socialist programs in exchange for those subsidies, and vilifies businessmen before the People for not creating jobs in America, that he can create jobs. Unfortunately, he has only created government jobs, which always create a drain on the private sector, forcing it to increase production just to compensate for that drain. When all of their hard-earned production increase is taken by government in the form of added taxes, added time for government reports, and added efforts to abide by massive and contradictory regulations and laws, the employers of the private sector no longer have the resources to create jobs. What is more, they have less desire to create jobs, which only adds to their personal sense of responsibility in an ever more uncertain hell managed by ever-growing, arbitrary government.
Obama hates business, except as a victim from which he can suck wealth. He is very comfortable in his disregard for the effort it takes to run a private business. He is careful to keep people with knowledge of business at several arms-length remove. Presidents are listed below with the percentage of Cabinet-level positions for each headed by someone with significant business experience:
Even John Kennedy and Jimmy Carter had use for the management skills and knowledge of businessmen at rates several times that of Obama. Obama's own cluelessness is continuously ensured by his creation of a cocoon with nary the slightest influence of real-world businessmen. There is no danger that this inept President will ever figure out what is needed to help the American economy recover and regain the self-assurance for which it is usually well-known. Without that self-assurance, that comes to the American businessman when he knows he resides in an intelligible world in which he can calculate probable business growth and profits, no significant numbers of private sector jobs will be created. That is a huge human tragedy, for as I showed here, the number of missing jobs in the American economy is 20.4 million!!!!! That is a great many degraded American lives.
I wish to thank iamnothere for directing my attention to these figures on Presidential business cabinet member experience.
Obama hates business, except as a victim from which he can suck wealth. He is very comfortable in his disregard for the effort it takes to run a private business. He is careful to keep people with knowledge of business at several arms-length remove. Presidents are listed below with the percentage of Cabinet-level positions for each headed by someone with significant business experience:
Even John Kennedy and Jimmy Carter had use for the management skills and knowledge of businessmen at rates several times that of Obama. Obama's own cluelessness is continuously ensured by his creation of a cocoon with nary the slightest influence of real-world businessmen. There is no danger that this inept President will ever figure out what is needed to help the American economy recover and regain the self-assurance for which it is usually well-known. Without that self-assurance, that comes to the American businessman when he knows he resides in an intelligible world in which he can calculate probable business growth and profits, no significant numbers of private sector jobs will be created. That is a huge human tragedy, for as I showed here, the number of missing jobs in the American economy is 20.4 million!!!!! That is a great many degraded American lives.
I wish to thank iamnothere for directing my attention to these figures on Presidential business cabinet member experience.
22 August 2010
Rasmussen Defines the Political Class
John Fund interviewed pollster Scott Rasmussen after he gave a speech at the American Legislative Exchange Council. Rasmussen notes that he takes care to define whether his polled people belong to the Political Class or to the Mainstream Public. The Political Class favors government in at least two of the following three questions:
On the Democrat congressional agenda:
Rasmussen points at polling questions from the Political Class that make no sense to the Mainstream Public. An example is "Should policymakers spend more to improve the economy or reduce spending to cut the deficit?" Rasmussen says 52% of Americans think more government spending hurts the economy, while only 28% think it helps. Consequently, while the pollster thinks he is asking for a trade-off, the public only sees the reduction in spending as good.
The week the bailout plan passed Congress, 62% of the voters wanted more tax cuts and less government spending. They understood from the beginning that spending bailout was unlikely to succeed in helping the economy. When Obama told Americans that ObamaCare would reduce health care spending and cut the deficit, most Americans already knew otherwise. 60% thought it would increase the deficit and 81% thought it would be more expensive than the Congressional Budget Office numbers said it would be. The Mainstream Public is much harder to make fools of than is the Political Class.
Rasmussen noted that the American people voted against the party in power in the last three elections. While Republicans will gain from this in November, 75% of Republicans say the Republicans in Congress are out of touch with the party base. Rasmussen says Republican leaders will have to move quickly after the election to convince Republicans that they have regained contact with and understanding of the party base.
- Whose judgment do you trust more, that of the American people or America's political leaders?
- Has the federal government become its own special interest group?
- Do government and big business often work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors?
- The American people, unless we mean the Founding Fathers and the Framers of the Constitution.
- The federal government is a voracious special interest group.
- Big business is often happy to use the force of government to protect itself from competition and to harm small business. Politicians are often happy to offer big business and labor unions plums for their contributions upon which the public is choked.
- 67% believe the U.S. is moving in the right direction.
- They overwhelmingly support the bailouts of the financial and auto industries, ObamaCare, and suing the state of Arizona on its immigration bill.
On the Democrat congressional agenda:
- 91% of Political Class think it mainstream
- 70% of Mainstream Public think it extreme
- 81% of the Political Class think it extreme
- 53% of Mainstream Public find it mainstream
Rasmussen points at polling questions from the Political Class that make no sense to the Mainstream Public. An example is "Should policymakers spend more to improve the economy or reduce spending to cut the deficit?" Rasmussen says 52% of Americans think more government spending hurts the economy, while only 28% think it helps. Consequently, while the pollster thinks he is asking for a trade-off, the public only sees the reduction in spending as good.
The week the bailout plan passed Congress, 62% of the voters wanted more tax cuts and less government spending. They understood from the beginning that spending bailout was unlikely to succeed in helping the economy. When Obama told Americans that ObamaCare would reduce health care spending and cut the deficit, most Americans already knew otherwise. 60% thought it would increase the deficit and 81% thought it would be more expensive than the Congressional Budget Office numbers said it would be. The Mainstream Public is much harder to make fools of than is the Political Class.
Rasmussen noted that the American people voted against the party in power in the last three elections. While Republicans will gain from this in November, 75% of Republicans say the Republicans in Congress are out of touch with the party base. Rasmussen says Republican leaders will have to move quickly after the election to convince Republicans that they have regained contact with and understanding of the party base.
19 August 2010
Sowell: Dismantling America
Thomas Sowell has written another excellent Opinion Editorial entitled "Dismantling America" in which he discusses the fact that our Constitution has always been seen as a terrible obstacle by those elitists seeking power over the People. In particular, he notes that the Progressives in America have been at war with it openly and that President Wilson was the first President to openly attack it. Progressive Teddy Roosevelt also attacked it by saying that he would do whatever he felt was necessary as long as the Constitution did not tell him he could not do what he intended to do. See p.4 of Bully Boy by Jim Powell, where he quotes from Teddy Roosevelt's autobiography, published in 1913. This is also an attack, because the Constitution says that the government and President can only exercise a few enumerated powers and makes no comprehensive effort to tell them what they cannot do in other terms. Teddy Roosevelt's statement is a clear attempt to circumvent the restrictions of the Constitution on his power. While he attacked the Constitution as President prior to Wilson, I do not know how publicly he did this while still President, so Sowell may be correct in his statement. The Progressives have steadily eroded the interpretations of the Constitution ever since those earlier days and redefined words and read the white space between lines in a mad effort to circumvent it ever since. There is now a huge body of legal precedent for doing just that.
Here are my further comments on his commentary from the Atlasphere website:
Ben Franklin clearly recognized that the American People had to believe in and understand the Constitution if the limited government republic it set up were to continue to exist. The failures attributed by some to our Constitution are actually failures of the American People to understand and support the Constitution. With due diligence, our Constitution would be strong to this day. That diligence required that each and every generation of Americans should have been educated in our colonial, revolutionary, and later history, as well as having an appreciation for the failures of monarchies, dictatorships, oligarchies, and, yes, democracies throughout human history.
Allowing the Progressives to turn us from private education to public education give them all the long-term advantages in the fight to maintain legitimate government as defined in our Declaration of Independence. Legitimate government protects the equal, sovereign right of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. All the implied rights should have been discussed endlessly in our schools and they almost never are discussed beyond the First Amendment.
The fact that Congress has only a few powers closely delineated and most of them relate to dealings with external countries and people is not taught. These powers are further restricted by the requirement that they be exercised only in accordance with the General Welfare. The power to tax is given only to carry out the enumerated powers and is further restricted in kind. The interstate commerce clause's purpose was to free interstate trade because a man in one state has a right to trade with a man in another state. The Ninth Amendment recognizes that the federal government cannot infringe upon our many individual rights or privileges and immunities. The Tenth Amendment further protects our right to local government for such other purposes of government as we may have need. The Fourteenth Amendment protects our privileges and immunities from infringement by state and local governments. All this could have been taught in the schools, but we gave the schools away to the Progressives and to the governments from which we need protection. Government-run schools have a serious conflict-of-interest. They will distort the Constitution in order to give government the power that governments always lust for.
The crucial issue of our day is the protection of our equal, sovereign individual rights. This cannot be achieved without the private education of American children with a greatly renewed interest in history and the principles of legitimate government.
Here are my further comments on his commentary from the Atlasphere website:
Ben Franklin clearly recognized that the American People had to believe in and understand the Constitution if the limited government republic it set up were to continue to exist. The failures attributed by some to our Constitution are actually failures of the American People to understand and support the Constitution. With due diligence, our Constitution would be strong to this day. That diligence required that each and every generation of Americans should have been educated in our colonial, revolutionary, and later history, as well as having an appreciation for the failures of monarchies, dictatorships, oligarchies, and, yes, democracies throughout human history.
Allowing the Progressives to turn us from private education to public education give them all the long-term advantages in the fight to maintain legitimate government as defined in our Declaration of Independence. Legitimate government protects the equal, sovereign right of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. All the implied rights should have been discussed endlessly in our schools and they almost never are discussed beyond the First Amendment.
The fact that Congress has only a few powers closely delineated and most of them relate to dealings with external countries and people is not taught. These powers are further restricted by the requirement that they be exercised only in accordance with the General Welfare. The power to tax is given only to carry out the enumerated powers and is further restricted in kind. The interstate commerce clause's purpose was to free interstate trade because a man in one state has a right to trade with a man in another state. The Ninth Amendment recognizes that the federal government cannot infringe upon our many individual rights or privileges and immunities. The Tenth Amendment further protects our right to local government for such other purposes of government as we may have need. The Fourteenth Amendment protects our privileges and immunities from infringement by state and local governments. All this could have been taught in the schools, but we gave the schools away to the Progressives and to the governments from which we need protection. Government-run schools have a serious conflict-of-interest. They will distort the Constitution in order to give government the power that governments always lust for.
The crucial issue of our day is the protection of our equal, sovereign individual rights. This cannot be achieved without the private education of American children with a greatly renewed interest in history and the principles of legitimate government.
18 August 2010
Satellite Temperature Record Now Unreliable
I have written many posts that our ground surface temperature record based on the collapsing network of weather stations around the world, is biased upward with the urban heat island effect and by obviously bad grid interpolation schemes. I had thought that the only reliable temperature records were the satellite and ocean buoy temperature records. I was wrong. It now appears that since at least 2005, the satellite temperature records have not been reliable.
This revelation began with John O'Sullivan being informed that data on the temperatures across northern Lake Michigan which were automatically provided by satellite to a NOAA website operated by the Michigan State University had ridiculously high surface water temperatures widely distributed over the lake. In fact, they implied many areas were under super-boiling conditions! A commenter to O'Sullivan's website noted that the entire lake surface was coded in black, meaning that the cloud cover was too extensive for the satellite to produce meaningful temperatures. He implied that this would keep these temperatures from being used in any other way in generating the satellite temperature record. However, O'Sullivan came back with Lake Michigan maps which were not coded black and showed that many of the temperatures in the grid over the lake were differing too much locally and changing too rapidly in time.
This led to questions to NOAA, which generates the primary temperature records in the U.S. and supplies its raw data to NASA and the CRU at the University of East Anglia in the UK. NOAA has not been very forthright with what is going on, but it has admitted that the NOAA-16 satellite has severe sensor problems. Then they also admitted that other satellites have suffered degradation of their sensors. Finally, Charles Pistis, Program Coordinator of the Michigan Sea Grant Extension admits that satellite data going back to 2005 may have been corrupted by bad data. He instructs us that the NOAA-16 satellite uses IR sensors and provides a temperature which is either the surface temperature or the temperature at the top surface of a cloud. The temperature of 604F found in one grid on a cloudy day is not likely to be either the temperature of the surface of Lake Michigan or of a cloud over it.
It is a wonder to me how one can use data from IR sensors to contribute to the global temperature record if the temperature measured is either that of the ground or of the top of a cloud or just total nonsense. Let us suppose that the data is examined against independent cloud coverage measurements, which it is not clear is carefully done. But, if it were, then all the temperature data would be shifted systematically to higher temperatures. Ground and water areas under clouds are cooler during the day and will also be cooler at night more often than not if the day was also cloudy. Charles Pistis has evaded the repeated question of whether the temperature measurement data from such satellites has gone into the NOAA temperature record. This sure suggests this is an awkward question to answer.
The satellite data is fed automatically into records and apparently as long as it showed high enough temperatures to satisfy the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (AGW) advocates, those numbers were not given careful scrutiny going back as far as 2005. It is, of course, hard to believe that no one did notice the errors. One has to marvel at either the scientific incompetence this reveals or the completely unethical behavior of NOAA and its paid researchers that is laid open before us. Possibly, in time, NOAA will provide an adequate answer to what has been going on with the satellite temperature record, but it is off to a very bad start in reassuring those of us who are not religious environmentalists, but are just interested in an objective understanding of the environment. But, at this time, that appears to be an unlikely outcome.
Given the taxpayer money spent on the satellite and the ground station temperature records and the great importance claimed by the catastrophic AGW alarmists for the unprecedented warming of the globe they have claimed was going on, these failures in generating an accurate satellite temperature record are unfathomable. What is worse, the raw data is known not to be available to reconstruct the ground station temperature record and one suspects it is not available for the satellite records either. This is a catastrophe. It is now perfectly clear that there are no reliable worldwide temperature records and that we have little more than anecdotal information on the temperature history of the Earth. There is clearly no basis for the claims that the Earth has warmed at unusual rates in recent times or that we know anything more than some local temperatures, mostly from urban heat effect zones.
This revelation began with John O'Sullivan being informed that data on the temperatures across northern Lake Michigan which were automatically provided by satellite to a NOAA website operated by the Michigan State University had ridiculously high surface water temperatures widely distributed over the lake. In fact, they implied many areas were under super-boiling conditions! A commenter to O'Sullivan's website noted that the entire lake surface was coded in black, meaning that the cloud cover was too extensive for the satellite to produce meaningful temperatures. He implied that this would keep these temperatures from being used in any other way in generating the satellite temperature record. However, O'Sullivan came back with Lake Michigan maps which were not coded black and showed that many of the temperatures in the grid over the lake were differing too much locally and changing too rapidly in time.
This led to questions to NOAA, which generates the primary temperature records in the U.S. and supplies its raw data to NASA and the CRU at the University of East Anglia in the UK. NOAA has not been very forthright with what is going on, but it has admitted that the NOAA-16 satellite has severe sensor problems. Then they also admitted that other satellites have suffered degradation of their sensors. Finally, Charles Pistis, Program Coordinator of the Michigan Sea Grant Extension admits that satellite data going back to 2005 may have been corrupted by bad data. He instructs us that the NOAA-16 satellite uses IR sensors and provides a temperature which is either the surface temperature or the temperature at the top surface of a cloud. The temperature of 604F found in one grid on a cloudy day is not likely to be either the temperature of the surface of Lake Michigan or of a cloud over it.
It is a wonder to me how one can use data from IR sensors to contribute to the global temperature record if the temperature measured is either that of the ground or of the top of a cloud or just total nonsense. Let us suppose that the data is examined against independent cloud coverage measurements, which it is not clear is carefully done. But, if it were, then all the temperature data would be shifted systematically to higher temperatures. Ground and water areas under clouds are cooler during the day and will also be cooler at night more often than not if the day was also cloudy. Charles Pistis has evaded the repeated question of whether the temperature measurement data from such satellites has gone into the NOAA temperature record. This sure suggests this is an awkward question to answer.
The satellite data is fed automatically into records and apparently as long as it showed high enough temperatures to satisfy the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (AGW) advocates, those numbers were not given careful scrutiny going back as far as 2005. It is, of course, hard to believe that no one did notice the errors. One has to marvel at either the scientific incompetence this reveals or the completely unethical behavior of NOAA and its paid researchers that is laid open before us. Possibly, in time, NOAA will provide an adequate answer to what has been going on with the satellite temperature record, but it is off to a very bad start in reassuring those of us who are not religious environmentalists, but are just interested in an objective understanding of the environment. But, at this time, that appears to be an unlikely outcome.
Given the taxpayer money spent on the satellite and the ground station temperature records and the great importance claimed by the catastrophic AGW alarmists for the unprecedented warming of the globe they have claimed was going on, these failures in generating an accurate satellite temperature record are unfathomable. What is worse, the raw data is known not to be available to reconstruct the ground station temperature record and one suspects it is not available for the satellite records either. This is a catastrophe. It is now perfectly clear that there are no reliable worldwide temperature records and that we have little more than anecdotal information on the temperature history of the Earth. There is clearly no basis for the claims that the Earth has warmed at unusual rates in recent times or that we know anything more than some local temperatures, mostly from urban heat effect zones.
17 August 2010
Broader Lawsuit Filed Against ObamaCare
In addition to the lawsuits filed by Virginia and by Florida with another 19 states including Arizona, the Goldwater Institute has filed a private lawsuit against ObamaCare on a much broader basis than that of the state lawsuits which are mostly concerned about the traditional authority of the states to regulate health care. The private lawsuit, Coons v. Geithner, makes the arguments that ObamaCare:
Nick Coons will be forced to buy government approved health insurance by 2014 or face IRS fines. He wants to continue to make his own health care decisions. He also objects to the legislated violations of his medical privacy to an insurance company, the federal government, and others without his permission.
The three U.S. Representatives object to the lack of Congressional oversight of the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which will make assure that costs are controlled and will therefore ration care and care quality. This board will also not be subject to judicial review. Unfathomably, the law also says the board cannot be repealed except for a short window of time in 2017. I cannot understand how a present Congress can override the intentions of a future Congress with any act other than a Constitutional amendment, which requires additional approval from the states.
The Arizona legislators claim they have been forced by the federal government to restore prior cuts they made to their state's relatively generous Medicaid benefits because the federal government had threatened to take away $7 billion in federal payments to the Arizona Medicaid program. They say this violates their First Amendment rights to vote in the best interests of Arizona citizens.
The Obama administration is expected to request that the lawsuit be dismissed since the federal law will not be fully implemented until 2014. U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson already rejected this argument in the state of Virginia lawsuit against the federal government.
While I am delighted that 21 states have challenged the federal government on its over-reach into an area traditionally regulated by the states, I am much more pleased with this lawsuit which seeks to directly defend our individual rights. As I have argued repeatedly, it is impossible to make the case that we have an individual right to life and to the pursuit of happiness if ObamaCare is brought into execution. We will not even be able to say that we own our own life. We will not be allowed to manage our own health care to maintain our own lives. We will not be free to help those we love to maintain their lives. We will not be free to take medical remedies to ameliorate pain, so we will not be able to pursue our happiness in a most fundamental way. We will not have the freedom to correct medical problems without the consent of the federal government, yet these medical problems may incapacitate us to pursue the interests and values we need to provide us with happiness. In short, ObamaCare is a prescription all by itself for that illegitimate, tyrannical government we defined in our Declaration of Independence. ObamaCare gives us much greater reason than our colonist forefathers had to dissolve our allegiance to that illegitimate government and to seek independence from its tyrannical grasp. The several lawsuits and/or a supermajority in Congress capable of repealing ObamaCare are the last hope of saving our Union and our much beloved Constitution.
- exceeds the powers of Congress
- violates individual rights
- interferes with the authority of the states
- violates the separation of powers with a bureaucracy lacking sufficient Congressional direction and judicial review
Nick Coons will be forced to buy government approved health insurance by 2014 or face IRS fines. He wants to continue to make his own health care decisions. He also objects to the legislated violations of his medical privacy to an insurance company, the federal government, and others without his permission.
The three U.S. Representatives object to the lack of Congressional oversight of the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which will make assure that costs are controlled and will therefore ration care and care quality. This board will also not be subject to judicial review. Unfathomably, the law also says the board cannot be repealed except for a short window of time in 2017. I cannot understand how a present Congress can override the intentions of a future Congress with any act other than a Constitutional amendment, which requires additional approval from the states.
The Arizona legislators claim they have been forced by the federal government to restore prior cuts they made to their state's relatively generous Medicaid benefits because the federal government had threatened to take away $7 billion in federal payments to the Arizona Medicaid program. They say this violates their First Amendment rights to vote in the best interests of Arizona citizens.
The Obama administration is expected to request that the lawsuit be dismissed since the federal law will not be fully implemented until 2014. U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson already rejected this argument in the state of Virginia lawsuit against the federal government.
While I am delighted that 21 states have challenged the federal government on its over-reach into an area traditionally regulated by the states, I am much more pleased with this lawsuit which seeks to directly defend our individual rights. As I have argued repeatedly, it is impossible to make the case that we have an individual right to life and to the pursuit of happiness if ObamaCare is brought into execution. We will not even be able to say that we own our own life. We will not be allowed to manage our own health care to maintain our own lives. We will not be free to help those we love to maintain their lives. We will not be free to take medical remedies to ameliorate pain, so we will not be able to pursue our happiness in a most fundamental way. We will not have the freedom to correct medical problems without the consent of the federal government, yet these medical problems may incapacitate us to pursue the interests and values we need to provide us with happiness. In short, ObamaCare is a prescription all by itself for that illegitimate, tyrannical government we defined in our Declaration of Independence. ObamaCare gives us much greater reason than our colonist forefathers had to dissolve our allegiance to that illegitimate government and to seek independence from its tyrannical grasp. The several lawsuits and/or a supermajority in Congress capable of repealing ObamaCare are the last hope of saving our Union and our much beloved Constitution.
Miron: Government Needs to Divorce the Marriage Business
Jeffrey A. Miron, a senior lecturer and director of undergraduate studies at Harvard University and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, has made an argument similar to the one I have been making for about 5 years on the issue of gay marriage and the role of government in marriages. To summarize his argument:
- Government should exit the marriage business.
- Private contracts for raising children, for the division of property, inheritance, and other purposes should be available as components to a bundled contract open to all couples.
- Opposite-sex and same-sex couples would have the same opportunities and be treated equivalently.
- Government would still define the default rules of a contract.
16 August 2010
Democrat Unemployment Policy Rewards Immoral Mooching
The Emergency Unemployment Compensation program of 2008 was initially funded by the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2008. Since then, it has been extended or expanded 7 times. The most recent extension was on 22 July 2010. It now consists of:
What are some of the effects of such long-term unemployment benefits? Here are a few:
It is sad to see many people, who were once productive workers, now out of work. Very many of them lost their previous jobs through no fault of their own in this government-induced and prolonged recession. But, there comes a time, rather quickly, when someone unemployed either finds new employment or they create their own job by starting their own business, unless they are immoral. There are unemployment programs based upon unemployment taxes. I do not think government has the right to impose such taxes, but they do and those taxes will support a rather brief unemployment period as the unemployed transition to new jobs. But, presently, there is little such transitioning going on. This is due to wrongheaded government meddling in the private sector and these extensions of unemployment benefits are one of many boneheaded actions by the government to prolong this recession. In very many ways, the Obama administration is mimicking the Roosevelt administration in the folly, erratic, and threatening nature of its economic policies.
The Tier 3 and Tier 4 unemployment benefits are analogous to the Thompson administration in Atlas Shrugged deciding to drain the wealth of burgeoning Colorado to keep going a bit longer in what is clearly a death spiral. Mooch off Ellis Wyatt with his new oil fields, Nielson Motors, and Hammond Cars so the unproductive can go on a few more days even at the expense of destroying the last healthy part of the country. This is a great way to prolong a recession which should be over by now. This unemployment compensation makes the states with fewer anti-business policies bear the costs of supporting the larger numbers of unemployed generally found in the states with poor business policies. It takes those companies and industries which are stronger throughout the country and makes them weaker to support those who will not take the personal responsibility of moving to where the jobs are, of taking a lower paying job, of learning a new profession, or creating their own job. It is often said that Obama is the second coming of Carter, but he is more like the transformation of Thompson from fiction to life.
- Tier 1: Up to 20 weeks of benefits in every state.
- Tier 2: Up to 14 additional weeks of benefits in every state.
- Tier 3: Up 13 additional weeks of benefits in states with a:
- 13-week insured unemployment rate of at least 4.0%; or
- 3-month seasonally adjusted total unemployment rate of at least 6.0%
- Tier 4: Up to 6 additional weeks of benefits in states with a:
- 13-week insured unemployment rate of at least 6.0%; or
- 3-month seasonally adjusted total unemployment rate of at least 8.5%.
What are some of the effects of such long-term unemployment benefits? Here are a few:
- The unemployed
- wait longer to look seriously for a new job.
- refuse to take lower paying jobs.
- continue to look for a job much like their old job.
- do not start their own business in order to create their own new job.
- do not move to states where jobs are more plentiful in general or for their job specialty.
- Employers
- cannot find as many qualified applicants as they would like for lower pay jobs.
- find their qualified applicants will not move to the job.
- cannot find people for training positions, even if post-training pay will be comparable to the unemployed person's previous employment pay.
- sell fewer goods and services because people will not buy due to the uncertainty created by high unemployment.
- have to pay higher unemployment taxes to the states due to the high unemployment, making it more expensive to hire anyone.
- generally are hit with more taxes by local, state, and federal government because their expenses are up and the tax base is depressed.
- watch the Federal Reserve print money, which will not circulate, but lurks about to create future investment hazards due to inflation.
- watch anti-business tirades, legislation, and regulations as desperate and befuddled government tries to find someone else to blame for its mistakes.
- cannot get business loans because financial companies are afraid of the unknown and there is much unknown.
- Employed taxpayers
- generally are hit with more taxes by local, state, and federal government because government expenses are up and the tax base is depressed.
- are more likely to become unemployed as higher taxes drive more businesses out of business.
- are more likely to become unemployed as desperate government scares, more heavily regulates, and burdens businesses with more paperwork, such as 1099s galore.
- are more likely to become unemployed as the recession drags on since the unemployed are not working productively and are dragging the economy down.
- suffer stagnant salaries and wages as recovery is delayed.
- watch the investments made for their retirement dwindle
- worry about the debt piled upon their children and grandchildren.
- worry about the many lost freedoms as governments meddle with and take over the private sector to give the appearance of having new ideas and responding to needs.
It is sad to see many people, who were once productive workers, now out of work. Very many of them lost their previous jobs through no fault of their own in this government-induced and prolonged recession. But, there comes a time, rather quickly, when someone unemployed either finds new employment or they create their own job by starting their own business, unless they are immoral. There are unemployment programs based upon unemployment taxes. I do not think government has the right to impose such taxes, but they do and those taxes will support a rather brief unemployment period as the unemployed transition to new jobs. But, presently, there is little such transitioning going on. This is due to wrongheaded government meddling in the private sector and these extensions of unemployment benefits are one of many boneheaded actions by the government to prolong this recession. In very many ways, the Obama administration is mimicking the Roosevelt administration in the folly, erratic, and threatening nature of its economic policies.
The Tier 3 and Tier 4 unemployment benefits are analogous to the Thompson administration in Atlas Shrugged deciding to drain the wealth of burgeoning Colorado to keep going a bit longer in what is clearly a death spiral. Mooch off Ellis Wyatt with his new oil fields, Nielson Motors, and Hammond Cars so the unproductive can go on a few more days even at the expense of destroying the last healthy part of the country. This is a great way to prolong a recession which should be over by now. This unemployment compensation makes the states with fewer anti-business policies bear the costs of supporting the larger numbers of unemployed generally found in the states with poor business policies. It takes those companies and industries which are stronger throughout the country and makes them weaker to support those who will not take the personal responsibility of moving to where the jobs are, of taking a lower paying job, of learning a new profession, or creating their own job. It is often said that Obama is the second coming of Carter, but he is more like the transformation of Thompson from fiction to life.
10 August 2010
Oklahoma and Arizona Will Follow Missouri Lead Against ObamaCare
The people of Missouri recently voted on Proposition C, which would make it state law that Missouri residents could not be forced to buy individual health insurance as required by ObamaCare. 71% of the people voted for Proposition C, despite its opponents spending about five times as much to block it as was spent to promote it. The state Medical Association actually opposed Proposition C.
Oklahomans will vote on a similar proposition since the Oklahoma legislature passed Senate Joint Resolution 59, despite the adamant opposition of the Democrat Gov. Brad Henry, an Obama ally in a state that voted 66% for Senator John McCain for President. The state house voted 88 to 9 in favor of putting the proposition on the November ballot, with strong bipartisan support. I have family in Oklahoma and I fully expect that Sooners will vote in an even higher percentage for a state law to make it illegal to force state residents to buy health insurance than did Missourians.
In Arizona, the Healthcare Freedom Act will be on the ballot in November. The Taxpayer Freedom Alliance was the principal force getting this put on the ballot. The Healthcare Freedom Act makes it illegal to force citizens to purchase health insurance using taxes or penalties. The Mayo Clinic facilities in Arizona have stopped taking Medicare payments already. Enthusiasm for this proposition is running high and the recent attacks on Arizona over the enforcement of immigration laws have probably made Arizonians even more inclined to thwart the federal government again.
The People of Florida would also have such an anti-ObamaCare individual health insurance mandate proposition on the November ballot, except that a Circuit Court judge appointed by Gov. Charlie Crist cut down the proposition while claiming it was "manifestly misleading." The People will now have no way to say they object to being forced to buy health insurance acceptable to the federal government, except to vote those Representatives and Senators out of office who voted for ObamaCare. Many, many of them will do that.
Supporters of ObamaCare justify the constitutionality of the individual insurance purchase mandate based upon these false claims:
Enough understand that they do not need and do not want ObamaCare, that propositions similar to those of Missouri, Oklahoma, and Arizona have or will pass overwhelmingly. We are sure to see more such state propositions in the future, with the result of more state nullification of federal government overreach beyond its constitutional powers.
Oklahomans will vote on a similar proposition since the Oklahoma legislature passed Senate Joint Resolution 59, despite the adamant opposition of the Democrat Gov. Brad Henry, an Obama ally in a state that voted 66% for Senator John McCain for President. The state house voted 88 to 9 in favor of putting the proposition on the November ballot, with strong bipartisan support. I have family in Oklahoma and I fully expect that Sooners will vote in an even higher percentage for a state law to make it illegal to force state residents to buy health insurance than did Missourians.
In Arizona, the Healthcare Freedom Act will be on the ballot in November. The Taxpayer Freedom Alliance was the principal force getting this put on the ballot. The Healthcare Freedom Act makes it illegal to force citizens to purchase health insurance using taxes or penalties. The Mayo Clinic facilities in Arizona have stopped taking Medicare payments already. Enthusiasm for this proposition is running high and the recent attacks on Arizona over the enforcement of immigration laws have probably made Arizonians even more inclined to thwart the federal government again.
The People of Florida would also have such an anti-ObamaCare individual health insurance mandate proposition on the November ballot, except that a Circuit Court judge appointed by Gov. Charlie Crist cut down the proposition while claiming it was "manifestly misleading." The People will now have no way to say they object to being forced to buy health insurance acceptable to the federal government, except to vote those Representatives and Senators out of office who voted for ObamaCare. Many, many of them will do that.
Supporters of ObamaCare justify the constitutionality of the individual insurance purchase mandate based upon these false claims:
- The Commerce Clause allows the federal government to require health insurance purchases because if someone has no insurance they will have to be treated at the expense of others anyway, which will somehow affect interstate commerce even though such insurance is purchased within one state and regulated by each state.
- The Necessary and Proper Clause of the Power to Tax allows any tax, which this is, contrary to all claims when the House and Senate passed it that the penalty for not buying individual health insurance was not a tax.
- The mandate requiring the purchase of individual health insurance approved by the government is required by the General Welfare and the federal government can do anything as long as it claims it is doing it for the sake of the General Welfare.
- The Commerce Clause was provided in order to keep the states from interfering with free trade between the people of different states, not to give the federal government the power to interfere with the free trade of the people. Besides, this actually forces someone to buy insurance and by that act, it puts them into a commerce they would not otherwise be in. Even then, the commerce need not even be interstate commerce. The courts have allowed ridiculously broad interpretations of the Commerce Clause, but have agreed that some powers it has been stretched to cover were not covered. Surely this is one of them.
- The Necessary and Proper Clause of the Tax Power only allows taxation for enumerated powers of the government in the Constitution. This restriction has been widely abused by the federal courts already. This power of taxation is also supposed to be restricted to actions for the General Welfare. There are further restrictions on the type of allowed taxes in the Constitution and none of those taxes cover this penalty tax for not buying a product.
- The People have made it clear that they do not think that this ObamaCare tax and mandate to buy a product is consistent with their General Welfare. Besides, the requirement to act consistent with the General Welfare is actually a further restriction upon the powers of government, not an enlargement. The government is allowed only to exercise the powers enumerated for it and then only in such a manner as is consistent with the General Welfare.
Enough understand that they do not need and do not want ObamaCare, that propositions similar to those of Missouri, Oklahoma, and Arizona have or will pass overwhelmingly. We are sure to see more such state propositions in the future, with the result of more state nullification of federal government overreach beyond its constitutional powers.
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