TSowell - Random Thoughts 09-09-11

 

Random thoughts on the passing scene:
I have never believed for a moment that Barack Obama has the best interests of the United States at heart.

At one time, it was well understood that adversity taught valuable lessons, which reduce the probability of repeating foolish decisions. But, today, the welfare state shields people from the consequences of their own mistakes, allowing irresponsibility to continue and to flourish among ever wider circles of people.

 We seem to be living in an age when nobody can be bothered to answer their telephone, but everybody has a recorded message telling us how important our phone call is to them.

Amid all the concerns about the skyrocketing government debt, a front-page headline in the Wall Street Journal said: "Families Slice Debt to Lowest In 6 Years." It is remarkable how differently people behave when they are spending their own money compared to the way politicians behave when spending the government's money.  

President Obama often talks about wanting to raise taxes on "millionaires and billionaires"
but -- in his actual tax proposals -- higher taxes usually begin with couples earning $250,000 between them.
Apparently that makes you a millionaire or a billionaire.

It doesn't seem very scientific to have a good-looking nurse taking a man's blood pressure.

As the British have lost their empire and, more important, lost their respect for laws and standards, Britannia has gone from ruling the waves to waiving the rules.

The difference between mob rule and democracy was never more sharply demonstrated than by labor unions' attempts to prevent the Wisconsin voters' elected representatives from carrying out their official duties at the state Capitol. What would it matter what the voters want if any mob can stop it from happening?

My favorite birthday card this year said on the outside, "Ageing is Inevitable" -- and, on the inside: "Maturity is optional."

Theodore Roosevelt said that his foreign policy was to speak softly and carry a big stick. Barack Obama's foreign policy in Libya has been to speak loudly and carry a little stick.
Too often Obama's foreign policy around the world looks like children happily playing with fire.

Class-warfare politics is bad enough when it is for real. But often it is as phony as a three-dollar bill, when the same politicians pass high tax rates on "the rich" to win votes -- and then get financial support from "the rich" to create loopholes that enable them to avoid paying those high tax rates.

 Three little words -- "We the people," the opening words of the Constitution of the United States -- are the biggest obstacle to achieving the political goals of the left.
For that, achieving liberal goals, they must move decisions away from "We the people" -- from individuals to government; from elected officials to unelected judges; and from national institutions to international institutions like the United Nations -- 

all safely remote and insulated from "We the people."