A meaningful controversy

As discussed in a previous post, Bill O'Reilly and the ladies of "The View" were involved in a bruhaha on air involving Muslims and the Ground Zero site proposed mosque.  Peter Wehner weighs in here with his thoughts with which I disagree here.  Wehner needs some serious historical background before sounding off on a subject about which he knows very little.  His critique of O'Reilly's analogy of the nation state of Japan and al-Qaeda is irrelevant and misguided.  He submits that O'Reilly's conflation of al-Qaeda with the Japanese war machine of WWII is wrong because Japan was a nation-state and al-Qaeda is simply an unaffiliated extremist element of Islam,  a peaceful mainstream religion with 1.5 billion congregants.  Is Wehner seriously suggesting that the unelected dictatorial military junta that led the Japanese people over the cliff truly represented the nearly 80 million citizens of that country who had no idea why they were being conscripted into the military and sent by force abroad to subjugate and murder foreigners? History is replete with examples of fanatics who in the name of  nation states (and in the name of religions) lead masses of people to tragic ends: Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in Italy, Stalin in Russia, Mao in China, Castro in Cuba, and let us not forget the Crusades and the Inquisition.  At one time Christianity was an intolerant and yes, murderous religion dominated by a cabal of fanatics until the Reformation eliminated Christianity's dark side.  O'Reilly is right to have made the claim that Muslims were responsible for 9/11, and not "extremist" or "extremist Muslims".  When followers of Muhammed and the religion of Islam (Muslims) expose, denounce and eliminate the intolerance and fanatical elements in their faith, the virulent evil threat to mankind we now know as al-Qeada will die out and Islam will then be a religion of peace, like Christianity. Until Islam experiences its reformation, it is merely a religion that breeds intolerance and mayhem. Only Muslims can reform their religion and until they do they are a threat to the rest of the world that has to be contained.  No one should forget that the only theocracies in the world today are Islamic states: Iran, Saudia Arabia, Indonesia.  These are nations in which the church (Islam) and state are one and the same, a description of a totalitarian regime in which the people have only the rights conferred by leaders (the Mullahs) and and live by a code (Sharia law) that has some unacceptable strictures, such as stoning. For Muslims to live peaceably with westerners in the West,  Islam must embrace the western concept of separation of church and state and reform some of the more unacceptable dictates in the Quran.  Mr. Wehner is naive.

Sharia is what it's all about

O'Reilly visited "The View", a left wing klatch of female ignoramuses, yesterday to push his new book.  The discussion ventured to the proposed mosque at Ground Zero with predictable results.  When pushed why the mosque at GZ was a bad idea (all the ladies thought it was a good idea) O'Reilly correctly pointed out that it was a bad idea because a mosque is for muslims and muslims attacked us on 9/11.  The ladies took umbrage because they alleged the attack had nothing to do with muslims or the muslim faith and everything to do with extremism and extremist behavior.  The are dead wrong and O'Reilly is dead right, even though he was willing to concede, in the interest of harmony on the program that the attack was the work of muslim "extremists", and not muslims in general.  Diana West has lived in the middle east and has written about muslims and Islam and the terrorists for many, many years.  There may be no one in the West who knows more, or understands more about muslims and islamism than she.  In the article here, having to do with the Geert Wilders trial now underway in  the Netherlands, in no uncertain terms Ms West explains why O'Reilly is right and the ladies on The View are wrong.  In short it has to do with the objectives of the OIC (Organization of the Islamic Conference) an organization representing 57 islamic countries which attempts to criminalize any criticism of the  religion of Islam, in the West! Thus, Geert Wilders is on trial for defaming the religion of Islam in a western courtroom, believe it or not.  Wilders is the head of a growing political party in the Netherlands that is trying to stem the rising tide of Islam and Sharia law in that country.  Now the real issue is what is Islam, a religion, or something more?  And the answer is something more.  Islam is the marriage of church and state under the umbrella of Sharia law.  Sharia law, a body of law based upon the teachings of the Quran, is the controlling force in all islamic states and it results in the second class status of women as well as prohibiting any dissent or other religions.  There are no churches in Saudia Arabia or Iran, for example.  The OIC can and should be viewed as the advance guard of the Islamic movement to convert the entire world to the faith and control of Sharia law.  Everything to do with Sharia law is antithetical to western traditions and value, everything.  In the end any muslim who believes Sharia law should prevail is an islamist who does not value individual rights or freedom as we understant that concept in the West.  Most surveys suggest well over 50% of all muslims believe in the idea of society controlled by Sharia law.  Once again, O'Reilly is right but lacks the courage of his convictions when he caves to the ladies and qualifies the perpetrators of 9/11 as "muslim extremists".  If muslim moderates were in control of their religion, there would be no extremists or terrorist, they would see to that.  Since they lack the courage to confront "extremists" or "terrorists" those elements are in control of their religion of islam.  Under the control of Sharia advocates Islam is not just a religion as we understand that term, but a theocracy, which puts it into the category of a political movement like communism, fascism, and the National Socialism of Germany in the '30s and 40's.  If the West does not turn back the tide and growing influence of Islamic Sharia law, we will have another world war.

Schuyler and friends' walk for juvenile diabetes

Schuyler and friends' walk for juvenile diabetes was a huge success.  Here are video clips of the beginning of the walk.  The combined total raised for the march from Battery Park to Brooklyn and return was over $140,000.  Yea everybody!!!

Phil Gramm weighs in --at last!

Phi Gramm, an influential senator from Texas during the Reagan years, and a trained economist, once famously said "Before I vote on any legislation around here I always try to think about how it would impact Dickie _____, because if it would adversely affect him I know it would be bad policy".  Dickie ______, owned a print shop somewhere in Texas that employed 10 or so people.  What Gramm was saying was: As small business goes, so goes the US economy.  I always thought there was great wisdom in this observation because at least 50% of Americans work for or own small businesses and obviously if they are doing well and expanding, there are jobs aplenty and the economy overall is likely doing well.  Most of these small businesses the senator talks about are not incorporated and therefore declare their income and pay taxes based upon their individual tax rates.  In a good year when Dickie has income after expenses of say $300.000, Obama wants to raise the tax rate on that additional 50k above $250k.  Of course common sense tell anyone other than a liberal/progressive that such a move will limit Dickie's ability to expand his business by getting more accounts and hiring additional employees to service this added business volume.  So since well over 50% of those with net incomes exceeding $250k are small business people like Dickie, how can this Obama tax policy possibly help the US economy grow its way out of this recession?  Obviously it cannot and most Americans understand this.  Oh, says Obama, we've got to find $700 billion somewhere to reduce the deficit, where do we find this except from the wealthiest 2% of the population with incomes over $250k!  Now a practical person might say, how about cutting some expenses and bring your outlays down to the level of your income, which is how most American families operate?  What's wrong with that idea?  Well, the short answer is that there is nothing wrong with that idea, and in fact that is the only logical way to proceed.  Unfortunately this path does not conform to the democrats play book of demonizing filthy profit seekers and successful producers, and pandering to those who believe the world is unfair because someone out there has more than they.  Welcome to socialism, Cuba, North Korea, Iran and the ghosts of the Soviet Union and the rest of the failed collectivist experiments.  Welcome to Obamacare and all the rest of the mess fobbed off on Americans by Pelosi, Reid, and their enablers in the media.  Gramm's column in the WSJ is here.

Margaret Thatcher by Claire Berlinski

In this video interview with the Hoover Institute, Claire Berlinski, author of There is No Alternative: Why Margaret Thatcher Matters, talks about Thatcher's leadership qualities and how she brought England back from the abyss when she came to power and remained so for 11 years from 1979 until 1990.  Since she also lives in Istanbul, and has for 5 years, she also talks about what is going on in Turkey today from an obviously informed point of view.  Although the two topics discussed here are not necessarily connected the interview is interesting because she brings expertise to both subjects.  Based on Berlinski's observations Turkey is at a crossroad in terms of its development as a democracy, and could go either way.  She didn't discuss Erdogan, the current Prime Minister, directly, however he is a fundamentalist who appears to want to take Turkey more in the direction of Iran than the West.  

Promising candidate from Florida

This is an interesting candidate who apparently is running away from the Democrat Party in Florida while running for Congress from a southern Florida district.

Tax and fiscal policies -- how they intersect

 Jonathan Chiat, a reliable liberal shilll for higher taxes and more government,  and Nick Gillespie, libertarian editor of Reason Magazine, engage in a debate below that is at the crux of the political dilemma we face in this country at this time.  Liberals want to tax the high income producers in the economy much more and have a larger "benevolent" government redistribute this wealth in order to have a more "fair" society, or whatever, while the conservatives want to lower taxes and keep government out of the picture as much as possible, in order foster a dynamic entrepreneurially driven economy that produces wealth and jobs aplenty.  Who's right and who's wrong in this argument?  From my perspective the conservative view, or in this case libertarian, prevails.  Not only does big government stifle innovation with all the rules and regulations it imposes to control business, but it also saps individual initiative and personal responsibility which are character building traits necessary for survival.  Socialism has failed all around the world where ever it has been tried, and failed miserably at that.  Why do certain types, like Jonathan Chiat, Barack Obama, et al keep wanting to come back to this failed models is an enigma to most people who have real world experience in business.  Below is the crux of this argument as it appears in Gillespie's blog::

Even more Chait:

Inflation, population growth, and a growing economy all impact the value of a given dollar sum of taxation of spending. Pointing out that the nominal size of government is growing is a nice tactic to use for the Rush Limbaugh audience. Any remotely serious economist looks at revenue and spending as a proportion of the economy.

Hey, I want to be remotely serious too! There's no question that looking at revenue and outlays as a percentage of GDP is an important measure, which is one of the reasons why I do it all the time, such as in this post. Here's how revenue as a percentage of GDP fared in the '00s (and I'm including 2001 as a sop to Chait):

2001	10286.2	19.36	a
2002	10642.3	17.42	a
2003	11142.1	16.00	a
2004	11867.8	15.84	a
2005	12638.4	17.04	a
2006	13398.9	17.97	a
2007	14077.6	18.24	a
2008	14441.4	17.48	a
2009	14258.2	14.76	a

That comes to an average of about 17 percent, a point lower than that the post-war historical average of about 18 percent.

And what about spending as percentage of GDP over the same period?

2001	10286.2	18.11	a
2002	10642.3	18.90	a
2003	11142.1	19.39	a
2004	11867.8	19.32	a
2005	12638.4	19.56	a
2006	13398.9	19.82	a
2007	14077.6	19.38	a
2008	14441.4	20.65	a
2009	14258.2	24.67	a

Average federal spending was about 20 percent, or about 3 percentage points higher than revenue.When you look at these figures, it becomes pretty obvious where the deficits come from: From spending more money than the amount coming in.

To the right is a graph that spells out the mismatch. Do you need to be a remotely serious economist to get the picture? And as AOL News' John Merline points out in the story accompanying that graph, good luck goosing revenue higher than 18 percent. It happens from time to time (in fact, it did so under Bill Clinton, who also increased total spending a relatively measly 11 percent over eight years), but it is the exception to the rule.

But more importantly - and directly to Chait's churlish dismissal that year-over-year amounts don't count for shit - I want to make the point that simply discussing amounts as percentages of GDP misses a huge amount of information. There is absolutely no reason to assume that government revenue or spending can or should stay equal as a percentage of GDP forever and ever. Various defense hawks argue, for instance, that defense spending should always be 4 percent of the federal budget. Why? Because they say so. That's as unconvincing an argument as saying that if you make $10,000 a year and food is 20 percent of your budget, it should still be 20 percent of your budget when you make $100,000. There is an exhaustible limit of how much a family or a country should spend on various goods and services. Is there any reason why Medicare should always be a set percentage of the budget? Or education? Or AmeriCorps? Or abstinence-only sex ed programs? Or anything? The short answer is no, of course not. Unless, of course, you're trying to bias the discussion toward the status quo.

Chait winds up with:

There's just a lot of vaguely anti-government, anti-Obama hand-waving, culminating in the conclusion that we should stop blaming the Bush tax cuts for contributing to the deficit. It's a telling portrait of how your tertiary anti-government type goes about deciding to sign up for Team Tax Cuts.

I am not sure if being called a "tertiary anti-government type" is more or less of an insult than being called a "conservative dupe." Given that in the past I've been called everything from an "apologist for stupefaction" to "a gay Elvis impersonator" to "the free-market Fonzie" to "a dishonest whore for the wealthy" (this last treat coming from an emailer who had just glossed Chait's post), I take insults and compliments where I find them.

Sure, I'm anti-Obama. Every bit as much as I was anti-Bush. But that's really neither here nor there when it comes to looking at how Bush spent our way to the poorhouse. It's Bush's spending policies - recall that he increased inflation-adjusted outlays by 104 percent! - that were his major contribution to deficits, not his tax cuts. While I'm not a member of "Team Tax Cuts" (whatever that is), I do like the idea of people keeping more of their own money.

After all, it is their money and I'm betting they can put it to better use than Tim Geithner or Hank Paulson. Or Gen. Petraeus for that matter. I'm foolish enough to think that government can and should live within its means, which does qualify as a tertiary position since neither the Democrats nor the Republicans (or their handmaiden journalists) seem to agree.