Not-a-Lemming : Conservative

Killing Conservatism

FutbolGuru — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:45:00 GMT

So Rush Limbaugh wants to own an NFL football team, huh? He does seem to know alot about, and have a true love for, the sport. Funny how things a person says years ago can come back from the past to haunt them later in life. Sort of like what this blog will do to my writing aspirations if ever I get the attentions of a gatekeeper (i.e., agent or editor). But for now my anonymity is doing a great job of keeping me, well, anonymous.

In reality I don't think Rush is a racist. If he were, he wouldn't make such seemingly racist comments. No, I think in this case he is a victim of his own self-honesty - at least on that subject. Then again, that Donovan McNabb comment was pretty stupid and he should have known better.

Regardless, it seems his bid for partial ownership of the St. Louis Rams has met with an untimely end in what he says is a vicious smear campaign bent on destroying conservatism. While Al Sharpton and his many detractors are definitely not conservatives, I think Rush's perception of who is destroying conservatism is skewed. Though he is right, conservatism is on the decline.

Even if the talking heads on the left are trying to destroy conservatism that sort of assault is generally ineffective. It is tantamount to Americans trying to convert Al Qaeda. Conservatives simply don't repond to those kinds of attacks. Just like Liberals don't respond to attacks from the right. In general, either camp, when under assault from the other, tends to circle the wagons. And in many cases, attacks from the opposition strengthen the base. The problem with conservatism isn't the attacks from the outside, the problem is what's happening inside the wagon-circle.

Every successful movement goes through a series of stages. There is the genesis when the group's founders carve a niche for themselves and begin attracting followers. It is their energy and the truthfulness of their message (in the ears of the converts) that builds momentum by attracting true believers. In most cases the group's founders not only preach the message, but live it as well. They become icons and examples of the ideologies they champion.

The second stage can be broadly categorized as growth. In this segment the group gains additional members not only from the truth of the message but from the appeal of a successful group. Except during this stage one begins to see that new members are less and less true believers, but simply people who want to be part of something that matters. In this stage you'll find people from the opposition flocking to the new movement like lemmings. Especially if the opposition is already in the third stage - corruption.

Success of a movement always breeds corruption because in addition to attracting true believers, success always attracts followers who have no interest in the core ideology. They just want to be in charge. It is these people who usually become the second generation of leaders. Because they have no stake in the ideology they are more free to move fluidly and are nearly always more aggressive and predatory. At the same time they are often charismatic and charming and will do whatever it takes to rise into leadership positions. For these people charisma and charm formed early in life as they realized they had nothing substantive to offer but were skillful at manipulation of others to get their way. In many cases they are sociopathic and in a primitive society would be banished because they not only offer nothing useful to survival, they demand to be served. In modern, affluent societies though they find willing followers because they personify the energy of the movement's success in themselves, and the majority of the second stage converts are only there for the party. Or rather, the partying. These leaders also tend to promote only those like themselves which but reinforces the growing problem.

Corruption of course leads to decline. A hypocritical group of leaders can only sustain the charade for so long before the acolytes doing all the work - that dwindling number true believers - get fed up and leave. When that happens the ideology collapses and all you are left with is a large group of angry people with self-aggrandizong leaders: the Republicans in 2008. It is also where the Democrats found themselves in 1994 when they were tossed out by an up and coming group passing through the second stage: Neoconservatives.

Reagan rekindled the dormant flames of Conservatism and he was, there can be no doubt, a true believer who was amply endowed with charisma and wit. True conservatives flocked to him in droves followed by millions who just thought he was a cool guy because he stood up to the Soviets. It was the second generation of his followers who took the reins of power in 1994. This included George Bush Jr., Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Newt Gingrich, Marc Sanford, and many others, as well as popular figures such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity who effectively self-monetized the swelling tide. While I won't say all these people are not conservatives, their actions do identify them as people whose personal aspirations trump the mandates of their own ideology. And some of them, such as Mark Foley and John Ensign were conservatives in name only, using the ideology only for personal gain and herding their only followers like lemmings to the cliff.

It is these people, I charge, with destroying conservatism - Not Al Sharpton, Henry Waxman, Barbara Boxer, or even Barak Obama, who in fact tend to strengthen the opposition's core. From Rush Limbaugh's drug addition to Newt Gingrich's extramarital affairs, from Dick Cheney's greed to George Bush's mistaken invasion of Iraq, from the seemingly uncontrollable sexual appetites of an endless string of elected officials, the party of Conservatism has become the party of Corruption and is being killed from within. Can the Republicans take a lesson from the Democrats who have reinvented liberalism in the form of a young, charismatic outsider? With the same old names being bandied about, I got to tell you, it looks like a trainwreck in slow motion. Or a modern adaptation of the film White Wilderness. And I for one am not going to wear a furry suit for those characters.

Futbol Guru

How Republicans Can Beat the Deomcrats

FutbolGuru — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:13:00 GMT

I'm not a Republican. But I am a conservative.

I'm not a member of any political party. It isn't because I don't care, however. Quite the contrary, I am terribly concerned about the direction this nation is taking. I just don't have the time and energy. Like many Americans that have been called "The Silent Majority" I'm too busy working and raising a family to even get down to the courthouse and register, much less attend political rallies on weekends for people who have no more business running the country than I would have participating in a beauty pageant.

Conservatism is dying fast. Conservatism. That word's picked up a lot of baggage in the past few years as has the word liberal. Conservative simply means a conservative or limited interpretation of law. The law is what it says and there's nothing between the lines. Judges don't make law, they interpret based on what the writers of the law intended.

Liberal on the other hand is a liberal or broad interpretation of law. Liberals believe there is writing between the lines of law and a liberal judge will interpret law based on what they believe the writers would have meant had they written the law today.

Personally I think both liberals and conservatives are necessary for a healthy state. Too many conservatives and the law becomes rigid, inflexible, and merciless. A terrible burden. Too many liberals and the law becomes meaningless with little or no consistency. One balances the other. Except right now things are seriously out of balance and tipping rapidly towards the demonization of conservative thought in general.

Conservatives have been damaged through their affiliation with bad leadership. George Bush II was a Republican and was supported by conservatives. Guilt by association because, in addition to coping with an attack on our soil, he completely ignored the economy. The result is a terrible recession. We can argue all day long about who's fault it really was - an after effect of Clinton, a liberal congress, etc. In the end, a Republican was in the White House so he gets the blame. That's the mantle you don when you accept power. If you don't like that fact, don't whine when you lose elections.

At the moment conservatives are rapidly losing ground. Obama is a master politician and statesman even if he is one of the most liberal politicians in Washington. I believe that in time the people will realize this and when that happens we must have a viable alternative. The current Republican Party ain't it.

The current Republican Party is the party of greed and selfishness. They cashed in big time during the 90's and 00's. I personally know at least five people who became millionaires over the last dacade and a half. Yes, they did work hard and they deserve their reward. The potential for reward is what drove their hard work and innovation. The problem is what happened after they became wealthy. To a man they disengaged from greater society, upgraded their homes, bought vacation homes, purchased luxury automobiles, and began taking expensive international vacations. Consider the governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford, who ran off to drive along the coast of Argentina because, "I wanted to do something exotic ... to get out of the bubble I am in." What?!? The bubble he is in? I'll tell you what bubble he is in - he's in a bubble of greed, selfishness, and self-importance. He's got no business advising anybody of anything and what wisdom he may have once had is long gone. What an irresponsible twit. He's living in fantasy land. (NOTE: So Sanford was out screwing around on his wife and children. Clearly the man has no concept of the word vow/oath. Just one more evidence that the elites feel they are not bound by rules the rest of us follow implicitely - further proof that the wrong people are there for the wrong reason. And he probably ran as a family values, Southern, Church going man.)

One of the reasons liberals succeed is because they put their money where their mouth is. The Jews have remained a powerful and viable ethnic group for thousands of years because they help one another, directly, in everything from starting businesses to publishing books. And I don't mean through charity to the local synagogue. And not through spreading their wealth thin across multitudes of low-class losers. No, they directly support the talented among themselves. Simply having talent and working hard is not enough. It has never been enough. Help is always required to break through. Help is how liberals cultivate emerging talent regardless of the initial standing of the talent because they know that in the long run strengthening their ideological base will strengthen themselves. Conservatives have forgotten this. Rush Limbaugh with his rugged individualism and pulling on his bootstraps is complete bunk. In the end, somebody who thought there was money to be made, set him up as a talk show host. It wasn't his radio license or his station, but listening to him you'd think he invented not just radio, but the concept of language itself. Rush agrees with me on many things but he's taught me nothing.

How many people do we know who possess great talent and ambition but who are stuck in life? Good, hard working men and women who have dreams and plans but who must spend their time working to earn money for their families. While this ethic is good and pure and necessary, a lifetime spent struggling prevents their values and ideals from percolating outward. Back to Limbaugh. Clearly the man hasn't spent much time cultivating family values. This is epidemic in our nation. As soon as plans are threatened, divorce follows. What wisdom is there to be gained from that? Though it does make climbing after success easier if shedding excess baggage is as easy as taking out the trash. How many wealthy elites do we know with children in rehab or worse? The wealthy among us have far more time to mingle and attend political functions while their lives of ease have robbed them of wisdom. I don't know how many times I've heard a conservative say, "I don't have time to go to a rally, I have to work!" Or, upon seeing a teeming multitude of fanatical liberals, saying, "Don't those people have jobs?"

We may laugh when we say this but it is exactly why conservatives are getting killed. Passion, wisdom, and a connection with the people don't come from wealth. Passion, wisdom, and oneness with the masses arise from struggle, perserverance, and commitments honored. Marx knew this when he wrote the Communist Manifesto with its emphasis on class struggle. He knew that the elite had no connection with the masses and was able to use basic principles of human nature to create a movement that shattered world peace for a hundred years. We can use these same tactics, but instead of using them to make everyone mediocre, we can use them to provide an avenue to greatness.

So how do we win?

First, wealthy conservatives must realize that their fortune wasn't made in a vacuum. Their hard work was a major contributing factor and should not be minimized, but a stable society full of hard working men and women was just as important. And somewhere along the way they received help.

Second, unbridled avarice is incredibly damaging to everyone. Indeed, the very privations that once drove innovation and ambition, once removed, contribute to rot of the soul. Down that path you once go, never enough will you have to satisfy. Better to have a bit less than enough. Better to stay lean and ready to fight than go soft. You did not create the society from which you benefitted, you are only a part. You will die and if all you leave is money for your children, your life will be a failure.

Third, stop whining about the media. It isn't their fault. Media or no media, if it was so great to be a conservative everyone would be one. Make conservatism something to be sought after. Right now, ideology for the sake of ideology doesn't pay bills. Just ask the Russians.

Fourth, wealthy conservatives must seek out talented conservatives from among the masses and aid them in their path to success. Whether young or old doesn't matter. In fact, one of the biggest mistakes conservatives make is in thinking that a man or woman must be young to contribute from their benevolence. In many cases, the best candidates are middle-aged, middle-class men and women, battle-hardened from a lifetime of raising children and working tough jobs so that they have developed deep, penetrating wisdom. You want to talk about perserverance? It is only because of their dedication to family that they have been unable to 'get ahead.' It is these people, that once turned loose, will destroy their liberal counterparts. DESTROY. Wouldn't you love to see that carnage and know you had a part in making it happen?

Fifth, and without this step, nothing will change. Directly help these talented individuals. How, you may ask? Form a non-profit and pay their salary. Hire them directly. Give them money so they will have the time and resources to succeed. Whatever it takes, because you know damn well the opposition is doing exactly that. We all know the Democrats are using our tax dollars to buy votes through an infinite number of programs. And how many liberal elites have non-profits that give grants to liberals? George Soros. Bill Gates. The list goes on. You want to win, you better get out and buy some of your own votes, and you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that you helped one more conservative to success.

Don't make the mistake of thinking this is charity. It isn't. This is war. And in the immortal words of Private Hudson, "We're getting our asses kicked right now!" Yes, you can accept your reward from society, retreat into your hilltop mansion and drive your expensive cars to and from the airport. You have the right to do that, but is it right? When you see the news and shake your head at the deplorable state of society, you have only yourselves to blame. You have the means to make a lasting change. A true legacy to leave your children and grandchildren. Will you not put aside your thirst for material goods, largesse, and a life of ease and entertainment that you have rightfully earned, and turn your resources towards saving the nation. Without you it will not last.

Barney the Congressional Dinosaur

FutbolGuru — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 19:01:00 GMT

I love you, you love me, we're a happy family, with a kiss and a hug and a smile -

Woops! Wrong Barney. I was thinking of that other purple dinosaur. The one who represents Massachusets' Fourth Congressional District. Barney Frank.

I'd like to say that nothing surprises me anymore, but everytime I reach that point something even more amazing or outlandish happens. As with this afternoon while listening to the radio. I heard, with my own ears, clips from a recent Barney Frank speech in which he actually said the mortgage crisis was caused by conservatives pushing people into houses they couldn't afford. Then he went on to say they were doing this while he, the purple dinosaur, was out campaigning for affordable RENTAL PROPERTY! It isn't really worth a blog post other than the utter contempt in which he must hold us, the fawning masses.

Under the Clinton Administration it was Barney Frank in particular who threatened mortgage companies with federal investigations under racial discrimination laws if they didn't start approving more mortgages to low income families. It was Barney Frank who championed Freddi Mae and Fanny Mac up to the day they collapsed. Since FDR at least the mantra of the liberals has been putting every family into a home that they own. And now he's lauding the merits of affordable rental housing? If it weren't so sick it would be hilarious. And that is the exact phrase he used: "AFFORDABLE RENTAL HOUSING." And, "...conservatives pushing people into houses they couldn't afford..." is a direct quote as well, though in the interests of readability I edited out the snake-like slurring and hissing so prevalent in the dinosaur's voice. For completeness and journalistic accuracy I include the actual quote now: "... conshuvativesh pusshing people inchoo houshesh zhey couldn't affowrd."

Of course the only way mortgage companies could get the payments low enough for low income people to afford the expensive houses they were buying was to invoke things like sub-prime, variable interest rate loans. It trundled along for a while because the economy was red-hot and energy prices were low. Throw in a bad war and a spike in fuel prices and the whole thing blew up like a helicopter in a Hollywood action flick. It isn't a stretch to say that Barney Frank, more than any other single person, is responsible for the current financial crises which began as a ripple from the sub-prime mortgage disaster - which he is now trying to push off on the conservatives (aka Republicans.)

Is this FutbolGuru-worthy? Not really. It's just politics as usual. But what is FutbolGuru worthy is the generalization of this incident. Barney Frank will get away with his latest lie. There are literally millions who will seeth at the Republicans for precipitating this disaster. And while I'm no fan of the Republicans either, they didn't cause this particular mess. They were too busy invading Iraq to think this one up. Yes, Barney Frank will succeed. He'll get re-elected. He'll continue to craft legislation that reflects his mendacity and contempt for us. And why shouldn't he? He sure as hell knows he's lying. But he also knows we're a bunch of lemmings and 99% of us won't stop long enough to see where we're headed. And those of us who do will get run over. And all the while he just smiles and watches the furry little bodies hurtle themselves into the void. Because he just thinks it's damn funny. That's just the way the purple dinosaur rolls.

Futbol Guru, http://mises.org/community/blogs/not-a-lemming

The Three Dirty Words

FutbolGuru — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:34:00 GMT

The late George Carlin had seven dirty words. Seven words that you weren’t allowed to say on TV. The list is probably larger now, but you can also say them on TV. At least I hear them on TV regularly. If you are intersted in what they are you can look here.

A dirty word is a strange thing. In the end it is nothing more than a sound, usually but not always, made with the mouth. And when our brains hear this sound they go into a spasm. For social, racial, religious, or other reasons, as we integrate into a society, we are conditioned against certain noises.

These taboo noises can change over time. The N-word wasn’t taboo when I was a child though it was headed that way. When my father was a child it was simply a word. But the F-word was taboo when I was a child. It isn’t anymore, partly because it no longer refers to the sexual act but more than anything infers extreme hatred – or in some cases between friends, fraternal bond. It still isn’t dinner table language, and I don’t feel particularly comfortable using it in mixed language or around children, but by the time my kids are grown, that will probably have changed, too, and there’s no reason it shouldn’t.

Sometimes in politics there are dirty words too. Americans have some. And unlike the N-word or the F-word, I can write them on a blog and not feel… dirty. These words are socialism, communism, and nationalization. The S-word, the C-word, and the N-word. Interestingly, these all have direct parallels with actual, dirty words. Few words, over the last century, have conjured up more intense emotions than when leaders throw around the S, C, and N words. Whether the talk is directed at evil nations that use these dirty words, or domestic leaders thinking about them, the response is always explosive – just like with actual dirty words.

But like actual dirty words, these political dirty words aren’t dirty everywhere. Certainly in the Soviet Union the C-word wasn’t communism, but capitalism. And much of Europe is quite proud of its socialism. Much of the Middle East nationalized their oil industries in the last century, basically taking over the capital investments of foreign countries then contracting them to run the equipment.

Why the differences? Europe wasn’t always socialist. Prior to the October Revolution Russia was capitalist. China has a long capitalist history. And for a long time the Middle East was quite happy with foreign owned oil enterprises. What changed?

What changed was the same thing that is changing here. What is happening with AIG is why words like socialism, communism, and nationalism lose their dirty feel and are replaced on the taboo list by words like capitalism, profit, and speculation. What the west forgets is that the 1917 Revolution in the Soviet Union was economic as much as it was political. The wealthy industrialists in league with the White government had run the Russian economy into the ground through the same shenanigans that AIG is up to now. The public, the working class, the struggling masses, had been completely screwed and had had enough.

One of the most hated ‘classes’ of the Bolshevik Revolution were people they referred to as ‘speculators.’ Those who through their market speculation, drove the market in ways that benefited them financially, while contributing nothing yet causing extensive damage elsewhere. They then carried off their winnings on expensive European vacations or to summer homes on the Black Sea where they ate cavier and drove around in their cars and boats as if everything were completely normal. When the market finally collapsed the government tried to protect the business owners at the expense of the working class. By the time the communists took power the people were only too glad to have them! Of course the rest is history and we don’t want to repeat that though I fear we have already begun to.

I, personally, am enraged at what I am seeing. My own ‘wonderful’ company gave me a bonus of $450 this year – an insult and an outrage. I did some damn good work last year. A single bonus being given to one of these failed AIG speculators would allow me to retire my debt – including my mortgage – and take a couple of years off to pursue my (desired) writing career. And it is my tax dollars that are paying them! This malfeasance of government is the kind of irresponsibility that drives people to redefine their dirty words. I’m just about mad enough to kill. Put me in a mob and I might. President Obama knows this. He also knows he can’t do anything to stop AIG, but by using his bully pulpit to excoriate them he at least is tempering the rage. Will it be enough?

I’m a conservative and a capitalist at heart because I believe that what a man works for, and invests in, should come back to him. Cast your bread on the waters. In America today nothing could be farther from reality. Even the people I know who have become wealthy have used government money to do it. Modern industrialists have basically locked out the common man. To many of us ‘capitalism’ has already become a dirty word. And since we’ve already become socialist because the government is taking huge stakes in private firms, I would rather have the social services I have to pay for than have nothing. Especially since our retirement is also gone. Socialism, suddenly, is not such a bad word either. I can't even believe I'm writing this.

Nationalism? We’re already doing it. And why? Because American businessmen have become so insanely greedy that even government could do a better job. And that is saying a lot because government doesn’t do anything well except kill people and break things. Despite the illusion created by the movie Armageddon, NASA is in reality a complete joke. Contractors do and build everything at NASA. NASA engineers just go to meetings all day and talk about requirements and CDRLs. Health care is headed that way, too. The entire industry from the doctors to the manufacturers of cotton swabs is completely focused on profit, which is why you get terrible service at hospitals and offices.

Dirty words. They change from one generation to the next. They change through intense social upheaval. Where is the tipping point? How far can companies like AIG push before words that used to be 'bad' become 'good' and things start burning down. I hope we don’t find out because I like the old dirty words just fine.

-Futbol Guru, http://mises.org/community/blogs/not-a-lemming

The Religious Wrong and The Republican Retreat

FutbolGuru — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:31:00 GMT

Limbaugh was calling it, “…the end of the Democratic Party.” And so it might have seemed in 1994 to a party awash in victory and full of the hubris that comes with it. President Clinton had overreached with his gun control measures and secret health care meetings. His past was catching up with him – the affairs, the secret trysts, the not-so-secret trysts. He was lifting the ban on homosexuals in the military, giving the go-ahead on state-funded abortions, and had placed a number of far-left liberals in cabinet positions. The knee-jerk was swift with the Senate and the House of Representatives swinging to Republican control in an unprecedented single election.

And what was the overriding campaign message of the Republicans who swept to power? Family values. Almost to a person they claimed strong Christian values and a need to return to honesty and temperance in politics. And they were right. The flood was vast and nationwide at all levels of government, religious conservatives took offices from dog catcher all the way to Speaker of the House.

For a few years it seemed the nation had made a good choice. Certainly honest politicians are better than dishonest ones. And the old guard Democrats, in power for forty years, had lowered the bar of corruption to new depths. But in the end it was all an illusion. The Democrats who’d become so corrupt weren’t corrupt because they were Democrats, they were corrupt because their party had been in power for forty years and that’s what happens to any party in power for forty years. The Chinese have a saying, whom the gods wish to destroy they give forty years of success. Except in the case of the Religious Right it only took about fifteen.

So what happened? How did the Religious Right turn out to be the Religious Wrong? Within a few short years the new conservatives had become every bit as corrupt as their Democratic counterparts with affairs, lies, and scandals, even to the point of invading the wrong country! That’s a pretty big mistake. For a party with God on its side the fall was precipitous and catastrophic.

The answer is really quite simple and is based on the difference between religion and spirituality. While it is unfashionable to discuss politics and Bible in the same breath in this country, it is impossible to understand either without doing so. Religion is a system of rites and practices which dictate the practices of a group. Spirituality is a deep-seated, philosophical viewpoint that defines the worldview of an individual. Religion is a group activity. Spirituality is individual. The Religious Right was religious but not spiritual, a fact that is easily proven by their habits.

There was a time in this nation when the term Christianity went hand in hand with moderation. Not moderate in the political sense, but moderate as an approach to life, which is the basis of the message given by the founder of Christianity, none other than Jesus. Whether or not one believes Jesus was the son of God, it is very difficult to deny his historicity and his message of love and moderation. Indeed, one of his more well-known statements is that it is harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go to heaven. He went on to say that this didn’t forbid wealth, but that wealth made the Christian walk very precarious.

In my experience with Christians over the last few decades however, very few of them practice moderation at any level in their lives. Indeed, they consider wealth – the very thing that Jesus said would keep them out of Heaven – as a blessing from God. From their houses, to their lifestyles, to their cars, to their kids, there are no practical differences between Christians and non-Christians. There is a lower incidence of sexual promiscuity among Christians and a mandatory Sunday morning club meeting, but that’s about it. And since they are every bit as fixated on wealth as their non-Christian counterparts, they also lack the one thing that Jesus said would set them apart from others; love.

The Religious Right that took over Congress in 1994 brought very little of the L-word to Washington. They did bring a lot of ideas about how a person should live their life, but other than their mandatory Sunday morning meeting and a strong outward revulsion to homosexuality, there was very little difference between them and their Democratic counterparts, many of whom also went to Church regularly.

I’ll go back to the Bible again. And this is important because whether or not you believe the Bible, it describes the lifestyle and philosophy that the Religious Right claim to embrace. Love, the Bible says, is essential to everything a Christian does. Indeed, without love, the scriptures go on to say, everything else a Christian might do will sound like a clanging cymbal. Now my son plays the cymbals in band, and I can tell you right now there is nothing more jarring and cacophonous than him walking through the house bashing those things together. The only thing you want is for him to STOP. And that was the reaction to the Religious Right when they came to town with their seemingly chaste lives yet were just as hooked on riches as anyone else and entirely devoid of love. They were a clanging cymbal. And it got old.

To make matters worse, they also brought a healthy dose of self-righteousness. While the Bible clearly states that it is those who are poor in spirit who will receive the Kingdom of Heaven, our new leaders and their ardent supporters across the hinterland were utterly convinced that God was on their side. And nowhere was this more apparent than in the actions of George II and many of his supporters who, I believe, felt he was ordained by the Almighty to smite the Arabs. It was on this basis that, even when it was glaringly obvious that he had invaded a nation unjustly and hundreds of thousands died, he remained convinced he had done the right thing. It wasn’t his decision, it was God’s, so how could it be wrong. After all, he prayed about it.

There are those who believe in a God and those who don’t. Those who profess Christianity and those who don’t. But for any of these groups it can’t be debated that true Christian behavior – social habits which are often practiced by other religions too – results in more efficient government, more honest business practices, and more peaceful interaction between people. Honesty, kindness, and mercy go a long way. But love and moderation are central to Christianity, and when you leave these out the philosophy becomes nothing more than a way to control groups of people and gain an advantage over them, which various governments the world over have been doing for over 2,000 years now.

That is why the Religious Right became the Religious Wrong. And why they failed not only themselves but the entire nation. It is why they are no longer in power and indeed, why so many in the country and the world look at the Religious Right and turn their eyes from Christianity in general. Are they Christians? That’s not really up to me to decide, I’m not in charge of Christianity. But the next time you see some guy quoting from the Bible while trying to get himself elected just remember what Jesus had to say about politics: “ ”

-Futbol Guru, http://mises.org/community/blogs/not-a-lemming

The Conservative Conundrum

FutbolGuru — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 14:29:00 GMT

Interesting news this week with various outlets reporting that President Obama may not be able to function in a press conference without a teleprompter. It makes me wonder exactly how much information he’s being fed, and what he actually knows. Remember the disastrous Sarah Palin interview when she didn’t know what the Bush Doctrine was? If she’d had a teleprompter with a savvy technophile on the other end she might have been able to fool us. Though Ms. Palin has great legs she wasn’t, and isn’t, ready to run the country. And despite Mr. Obama’s melodious voice I don’t think he’s ready either. I wonder who is actually running the country. Perhaps Joe Biden, Mr. Gravitas himself?

I was also a bit shocked this week when Mr. Obama signed the Omnibus Budget Bill behind closed doors. Or rather, his statement was surprising. He said it was a bad bill full of earmarks but that he was going to sign it anyway. Old business needed to keep the country running. The insinuation is that it is Mr. Bush’s old business even though it was a Democrat congress that drafted, crafted, and put the bill on his desk. He’s getting exactly what he wants and telling the country it’s a bad bill. Slick, but at least he’s being honest. It is a bad bill.

This is government at its worst. Bureaucracy run amok. Even the president is enacting legislation that he is admitting is bad. So why is he signing it? I sure wish I had someone else to vote for. But who?

The problem, for conservatives at any rate, is that there’s nowhere else to turn. Mr. Bush and his administration literally ran this country into the ground. What will crawl out of that smoking hole, if anything, no one can know. Sure there was some bad left-over, Clinton-era economic policy as regards lending, but the deregulation of the investment and banking industry let the wolves into the hen house like never before. And invading the wrong country sucked trillions from the national coffers. The combined effect along with a President who was seemingly uninterested in domestic affairs put us where we are today.

I had very high hopes in 1994. Conservatives, it seemed, were finally in control of the nation, swept to power on a wave of anti-liberal sentiment born of draconian gun control policies, nationalization of health care, and various social agendas (and other things) being crammed down everyone’s throat. But they quickly became comfortable in Washington and we soon learned they were no different than their predecessors. Newt Gingrich, Mr. Family-Values himself, was found to be having an affair even while he was leading the investigation into President Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinski. Limbaugh, the voice of conservatives, became a drug addict and, seemingly unable to have a stable long-term relationship, divorced one wife after another. The religious right became every bit as materialistic and hedonistic as their liberal counterparts with the sole exception that they didn’t practice homosexuality. At least not in the open.

The problem with the conservatives can be best illustrated by Wayne Parker’s third (failed) run for congress in Alabama’s 5^th Congressional District in 2008. He ran against Bud Cramer in ’94 and lost by a few hundred votes – mostly due to the NRA’s last-minute backing of Cramer. He lost again in ’96 by a larger margin. And when he heard Bud Cramer wasn’t running in 2008 he decided to run again.

It was a perfect opportunity for him since the opposition was weak and we desperately need a conservative in office here in North Alabama. Knowing Wayne from his previous bids, and hopeful of a strong campaign, I volunteered my writing and analysis. What did Wayne do? He went out and got the same people who led him to failure twice before, said the same things he said the previous two times, and failed again. I don’t know if my help would have made a difference but at the very least it would have been a fresh perspective on things. I have little doubt that this happened all over the country. Yes, Wayne is a decent guy and probably would have made a good congressman, but he and the Republican Party made the same fatal mistakes they made before. They’re like a bunch of lemmings – straight over the cliff.

Mr. Obama, on the other hand, is a fresh face. He isn’t from a political dynasty or a wealthy family. He’s not from Washington. He’s been a liberal all his life. But the people who control the party saw his talent and let him in. That is what separates liberal parties from conservative parties and why they stay in control most of the time. They know that new blood is the life blood of any organization. This doesn’t absolve them of bureaucratic tendencies, they have them too, but it manifests itself in different ways.

Now more than ever, conservatives, specifically the Republican Party, need to recruit new blood. They need new talent. Because the people in power right now have abused the public trust to the point that they are, in the words of Howard Dean, laughable. I can’t criticize Mr. Obama and then extol the virtues of the Republicans because they have none. They are the 2-10 coach criticizing his 1-11 replacement. There is no one to vote for. No one the average citizen can identify with or trust. No one from humble origins. No one from ‘outside’ Washington. No one ‘there’ because they are wise, and charismatic, and passionate. No statesmen. You say that Sarah Palin is new blood? We all know why she got picked. Because she’s sexy. She’s not new blood, she’s hot blooded. She got picked for the worst reason of all – Madison Avenue advertising. That’s even worse than the reason they picked George the II.

I guess it isn’t surprising the country is such a mess. The people driving the bus are only there because their daddy drove the bus. And if things don’t change, drastically, and soon, the bus is going to go right over a cliff like a giant, yellow, mega-lemming.

-Futbol Guru, http://mises.org/Community/blogs/not-a-lemming

Why Liberals Fail

FutbolGuru — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:35:00 GMT

Let it never be said that the FutbolGuru is one-sided. Lemmings are one sided which is why they run off cliffs. Or rather, why it is so easy to get them to run off cliffs. What if one of those lemmings in White Wilderness had simply stopped to smell the cameras? Not only would it have been spared the plunge, it wound probably have become a pet of the director and lived to a ripe old age. Not bad for a lemming.

Conservatives fail. But I never said they always fail. And I didn’t disparage their ideas. Conservatives are the idea people for the very reason that they are not the best leaders – because they are highly rational. Which is not to say that there aren’t conservatives who aren’t fantastic leaders, too. Ronald Reagan for instance. Agree or disagree with his politics it can’t be denied that he inspired the masses and got himself elected twice with more than a few Democrat votes. Take a rational thinker and endow him with leadership capability and you have the makings of greatness. It’s like in engineering, a guy who not only understands theory and design, but who also knows how to program the chips, is an indispensable rarity.

Liberals fail, too. And fail spectacularly. But the reasons they fail are wholly different than why conservatives fail. However, like conservatives, who fail because of their strength in one area, liberals, too, fail because of their strength.

I’m reminded of the Alamo, and who knows how many other hopeless battles stretched across the sands of time. The men in the Alamo were besieged by Santa Anna and his Mexican army. They knew they were outgunned, outmanned, outmaneuvered and could not win this fight. It is likely that Santa Anna would have let them leave without harm if they had given up the garrison and laid down their weapons. But Jim Bowie and William Travis knew that the Texas Revolution was on the line and it was important to stall Santa Anna as long as possible. They tried to get reinforcements but knew it was a long shot. Yet they repeatedly told the garrison that reinforcements were on the way. The commanders hoped reinforcements were on the way, but they didn’t know this. In fact, they probably doubted it. So, did they lie to their men? It may have been because the men believed the reinforcements were on the way that they were able to hold out so long. In the end, of course, they all died, but it gave the Texians time to regroup for the rest of the war. The leaders did what they had to do under the circumstances. They inspired their men to hold out and helped win the war, but they paid a heavy toll.

Liberals are like that. And sometimes it is a necessary trait. When a group is under tough times the truth is not always the best thing to tell them. Outright lies aren’t any better, but an expression of hope, even if it is a distant or almost fabricated hope, can inspire people to lengths they could not otherwise go. Liberals are good at this. They have a vision of the future in which everyone is equal, happy, educated, fulfilled, obeying the rules, basically utopia. And it would be really nice if we could achieve this. Unfortunately, its not real and never will be. Keeping a garrison fighting under terrible, hopeless conditions by inflating hope over despair is one thing. But running an army that way on a day-to-day basis will soon lead to disaster. At some point you have to deal with truth.

One of the things Ronald Reagan did well was give Americans back their sense of pride. We’d just lost our first war, an ugly conflict that divided the nation. Nixon had resigned in disgrace only a few years before. Carter had driven the country into the mud through inexperience and naïveté. Iran was mocking us with hostages. The economy was in the tank. Interest rates were soaring. Inflation was up. Being an American sucked. When Reagan took office he knew our biggest problem was our self image. So what did he do? He ramped up tension against the Soviets. He wasn’t a warmonger but he definitely parlayed the Cold War into a tit-for-tat game of chicken that he knew we couldn’t lose. It was risky and had to be carefully managed or it could explode into a shooting war. But it worked and gave Americans something to rally around. A few years later the Soviets folded and we reaped the rewards, the most important of which was a much improved self-image. It was great leadership even though much of it was based on stereotypes and nationalism. And with lower taxes and decreased government regulation to go along with a sense of national pride, Reagan set up the economic boom of the ‘90s.

Clinton on the other hand played to peoples’ sense of class distinction. Class warfare has never been hotter, or worked better, in U.S. politics. President Clinton was a great leader. Perhaps the greatest of our generation. And by leader, I mean his ability to galvanize people behind him. Whether you love him or hate him it can’t be denied that for those susceptible to it, he had an almost Rasputinesque charm. People LOVED President Clinton because basically, he lied to them. He told them whatever his focus-group polling decided they needed to hear at the moment. No matter what decision needed to be made, he would lick his finger and stick it into the wind. While this can work well when a group is under duress, such as during a siege, we weren’t under duress at the time. So what resulted was an entire population that claimed permanent victim status. By the end of his tenure everyone was pointing their finger at everyone else and no one wanted to work together. Predictably, the economy went into the toilet. The recession at the beginning of the Bush presidency had nothing to do with George II, and everything to do with an epidemic of paranoid greed inspired by President Clinton’s class warfare. There is a time for government to conceal the truth, and perhaps even to lie, but it should be saved for emergencies, not become standard operating procedure.

What will President Obama do? Does anyone doubt that he took office and found the economy to be much worse than he’d been told. Was he shocked? Should he be rational and tell us the truth? Do we want to know the truth? Or does it make more sense to play on hope? For the short term, I say he’s doing the right thing. People need hope. People work harder with hope. They can face more difficulties and be less argumentative when they have hope. Giving hundreds of billions to the wealthy probably sucked more hope from the average American than ten nine-elevens would have. Imagine having to overcome a debacle of that magnitude. But a time is coming when the truth must come into the light. And then we’ll need ideas. Debt will come due and bills will have to be paid and the lying must stop. Liberals have shown great difficulty transitioning from generating hope to producing practical solutions. Will Barak Obama be a great leader or just another liberal failure? I have high hopes if only because it best having low hopes.

-Futbol Guru, http://mises.org/community/blogs/not-a-lemming

Why Conservatives Fail

FutbolGuru — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:51:00 GMT

The things conservatives say make sense. They really do. Why stand in the way of people who are trying to innovate? Lower taxes on success. Deregulate as much as possible. Give people the tools they need to succeed widly. These things, conservatives say, will keep America strong and progressive. Think about how you would run a school. People who make bad grades and cause disruptions shouldn’t be rewarded for their bad behavior. And those who get good grades shouldn’t be forced to give part of their GPA to those who party when they should be studying.

So why, time after time, if their ideas have such merit, does the conservative approach fail? I will admit I had high hopes in 1994 when the Republicans swept congress. And a few things did happen. But for the most part their tenure came and went with few lasting changes. Were they responsible for the economic boom of the 90’s? Some say yes, but it is far more likely the 90’s were due to an emerging technology that generated enormous entrepreneurship. And those emerging technologies had been emerging since the end of World War II, so to give any current group credit is a bit of a stretch.

Conservatives make the mistake of thinking that people are rational. They tend to believe that if an idea makes sense that people will adopt it and their lives will improve. While this might make sense to a person that claims to be rational it ignores the dynamics of groups. Consider smoking. It is a good idea to stop but is harder than it sounds. In my line of work this is called, Systems Engineering. Just because a component works doesn’t mean it is going to work well within the system. And just because a particular configuration worked well on one system, doesn’t mean it will work as well on another system. The reasons for this can be highly non-intuitive, but if not carefully considered and mitigated, the system will fail to meet expectations, often spectacularly as the Space Shuttles Columbia and Challenger both showed.

What conservatives lack is a failure to understand groups. Conservatives are generally highly motivated people who are often self-starters, which is why they are so often small business owners. If they hear of a good idea they will put it into practice and it will occasionally pay off. They expect all people to do the same. But people don’t need good ideas, they need leadership. Never has this been better stated than by Jesus, who used over and over, the analogy of sheep. Not only will sheep follow a leader, sheep need a leader. They are domesticated animals and without care will die. They can’t survive in the wild. Show them a good idea, say, an enclosure where they can run if a predator arrives, and they will huddle together in the open and be slaughtered unless they are led into the enclosure. As K said in Men In Black, “A person can be smart. But people are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals.”

Conservatives don’t understand that people don’t need good ideas, they need leadership. People are looking to their leaders to make them feel secure. Conservatives laugh at this, but it is the reality of humans. Feelings are very important and if humans feel uneasy, they will make poor decisions. If they feel secure, they will make better decisions. To ignore this reality or dismiss it as weakness is the height of stupidity. Okay, so it is a weakness. Then you damn well better do something about it.

Mr. Bush proved this point better than I ever could. Moral in our armed forces stayed high even though he invaded the wrong country using bad intelligence and thousands of people died. Despite the fact that his military plan was an utter disaster, our military continued to function well, and even win, because he was a spirited leader. He understood that THOSE people needed leadership. But when it came to assuring the American people, he was, to use someone else’s phrase, “A miserable failure.” A great leader isn’t someone who always makes the right decisions. A great leader is someone who can inspire (and occasionally shepherd) people past the mistakes to a new dawn.

Liberals get this. Just this week President Obama is fast-tracking legislation to limit compensation for banking executives. Will this help the economy? No. At least, not directly. But what it does is show the American people – that dumb, stupid, panicky group – that the guy at the top, AKA, the leader, gives a damn. As a result they will ‘feel’ better, and in time, those good ‘feelings’ will help the economy improve. After all, that is what drives a consumer-based economy. Not good ideas, but good feelings. I don’t even like to admit it myself because I’m squarely in the rational thinking camp. But the experiment I watched over the last twenty years has convinced me that pure conservatism can’t work. Without a thorough understanding of feelings on the part of the leader, and acknowledgement that groups require and need spirited, empathetic leadership, a group can not survive. And that is why conservatives fail.

-Futbol Guru