Justinology

• A Libertarian Defense of Social Conservatism
  Social conservatism is taking a beating lately. Not only did it lose in the recent elections, it is being blamed for the Republican losses. If only the religious right would get off the Republican Party’s back, the GOP could win like it is supposed to again. I beg to differ.

• Balkanized Party
  Before the Republican Party even begins to think about curing what ails it, members have to recognize the fact that the party is Balkanized.

• The New Deal Didn’t Always Work, Either
  MANY people are looking back to the Great Depression and the New Deal for answers to our problems. But while we can learn important lessons from this period, they’re not always the ones taught in school.

• November 22, 1963
  I doubt that most Americans will recall that, 45 years ago, on November 22, 1963, the President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.Clearly, part of the reason is that a lot of Americans have been born since then, but the other part of the reason is that, according to a newly released study, most Americans simply have not been successfully taught American history or civics since the 1960s. They have no real knowledge, facts, dates, events, to call upon.

• Halperin at Politico/USC conf.: ‘extreme pro-Obama’ press bias
  Media bias was more intense in the 2008 election than in any other national campaign in recent history, Time magazine’s Mark Halperin said Friday at the Politico/USC conference on the 2008 election.

• Obama’s Shock Doctrine
  Paging Naomi Klein. In her book The Shock Doctrine, the left-wing polemicist claimed that right-wing governments — which she defined very broadly — take advantage of crises, or “shocks,” to implement their dastardly policies of free trade, privatization, and tax cuts. Well, one government has now announced its intention to take advantage of an economic crisis to implement “things you could not do before.” And since this government no doubt includes a lot of people who have read Naomi Klein, she may very well be able to take credit for giving them the idea.

• Geithner choice is ‘more of the same’ — was Paulson’s bailout cohort
  If news accounts are true, and Presidet-Elect Barack Obama has indeed decided on Timothy F. Geithner to be his Treasury Secretary nominee, it represents a giant step away from Obama’s promise of “change you can believe in.”

• What Went Wrong?
  Well, it wasn’t conservatism.

• Don’t Get Depressed, It’s Not 1929
  Why all those Great Depression analogies are wrong.

• Vicious Vaccines

• Georgia congressman warns of Obama dictatorship
  A Republican congressman from Georgia said Monday he fears that President-elect Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist or fascist dictatorship.

• Defining Jew-Hatred Down
  The curious response to Ahmadinejad at the U.N.

• GOP Branding
  There has been a lot of talk over the last few years about the GOP “brand,” but few people have gone into any sort of depth on the subject. So, let’s take a little time to think about the GOP and branding.

• Even Before Obama, I Already Knew That I Could
  Apparently, to almost every member of the media, the election of a thoroughly unaccomplished man to the presidency is a definition of the American dream for the sole reason that he is half black. Even President Bush has said that Barack Obama’s election is a “triumph of the American story.”

• We Blew It
  A look back in remorse on the conservative opportunity that was squandered.

• Election Questions No One Asks
  No doubt everyone is relieved to have the election behind us, even if some of us are less than ecstatic about its result. The president-elect and Democrats in Congress very much want to move forward, talk about the future and get busy on their agenda. After all, the oceans aren’t going to stop rising on their own.

• A Long Term Strategy for a Free Market Bailout
  We have been told that we must do something to save our credit markets — and we must do it now. We have also been told that the only viable solution is the recently passed bailout bill financed by the taxpayer and piloted by the Treasury Department. Perhaps there are other alternatives.

• Financial Bailout Vote: House Members Voting ‘Yes’ Received 54% More Money from Banks and Securities

• Financial Crisis and Recession
  The severe financial crisis and resulting worldwide economic recession we have been forecasting for years are finally unleashing their fury. In fact, the reckless policy of artificial credit expansion that central banks (led by the American Federal Reserve) have permitted and orchestrated over the last fifteen years could not have ended in any other way.

• Glenn Beck: What happened?
  This is an email Glenn sent to a family member that does a pretty good job explaining what got us into our current financial situation.

• Obama and the Attempt to Destroy the Second Amendment
  As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama must demonstrate executive experience, but he remains strangely silent about his eight years (1994-2002) as a director of the Joyce Foundation, a billion dollar tax-exempt organization. He has one obvious reason: during his time as director, Joyce Foundation spent millions creating and supporting anti-gun organizations.

• Do You Know the Real Barack Obama?
  As the 2008 presidential campaign hurtles into its final days, John McCain confronts a choice: He can either start telling the public about the real Barack Obama, or he can lose.

• Is This a Replay of 1929?
  Watching the slipping economy and Congress’ epic debate over the unprecedented $700 billion financial bailout, it is impossible not to wonder whether this is 1929 all over again. Even sophisticated observers invoke the comparison. Martin Wolf, the chief economics commentator for The Financial Times, began a recent column: “It is just over three score years and ten since the (end of the) Great Depression.” What’s frightening is not any one event but the prospect that things are slipping out of control. Panic — political as well as economic — is the enemy.

• Damn It Feels Good To Be a Banksta
  Sometimes the cartoons say it best (language warning)

• Is Era of Dominance Over for Conservatives?
  Shadowed by economic peril, the two major political parties enter the election homestretch a study in contrasts of philosophy, strategy and confidence.

• The Do-Something Congress
  It has not been a good week for the Republic.

• The Real Obama
  Critics of Senator Barack Obama make a strategic mistake when they talk about his “past associations.” That just gives his many defenders in the media an opportunity to counter-attack against “guilt by association.”

Yeah, I’m a day late, but it’s still good stuff!

• Why the Jobless Rate Held When We Lost Jobs

• Vanquishing the Islamist Enemy and Helping the Moderate Muslim Ally

• The Bailout: An Owner’s Manual
  Congratulations. If you’re an American taxpayer, you’ve just become the owner of a brand-new $700 billion attempted bailout of the U.S. financial system. After a 263-171 vote by the U.S. House of Representatives Friday, President Bush signed the legislation, aimed at rescuing the freezing credit markets in an effort to shore up the failing economy.

• Important Article about Credit Card Fraud funding terrorism

• Analysis: What’s killing the Russians?
  Predictions that Russia will again become powerful, rich and influential ignore some devastating problems at home that block any march to power.

• Chaos — Mathematical and Financial
  The most honest and productive answer to questions about the effects of economic policy is rarely heard: “Duh, I don’t know.”

Being a fan of Austrian Economics, I provide the following links to articles at LewRockwell.com:

• What Hamilton Has Wrought
  The current economic crisis is the inevitable consequence of what I call Hamilton’s Curse in my new book of that name. It is the legacy of Alexander Hamilton and his political, economic, and constitutional philosophy. As George Will once wrote, Americans are fond of quoting Jefferson, but we live in Hamilton’s country.

• The Political Class Crosses the Rubicon
  Many of us are at a loss for words to describe the significance of the billionaire banker bailout. We wish Murray Rothbard was still here to paint a vivid picture for us.

• The Bailout of Abominations
  As a rule, we may assume that any statute containing the word “emergency” in its title, preamble, or statement of purposes is a bad law. If you want an apt example, consider the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, which the president signed into law on Friday, October 3, 2008, soon after its approval by the House of Representatives. Back in 1828, opponents of the tariff bill enacted in that year felt such outrage that they dubbed the law the Tariff of Abominations. With this precedent in mind, we might well refer to the bill just enacted as the Bailout of Abominations.

• We Will Berry You!—The Flaky Socialism of the Crunchy Cons

• It’s Not as Though Anyone Saw It Coming
  Who’s to blame for the current meltdown of the financial sector, caused by the dependence of so many corporate balance sheets on defaulting home mortgages?