MadFederalist's Comments

Big Government : European Model Imploding?-Hold On To Your Hats

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 14:50:14 +0000

What nobody is paying attention to, is that Greece ran up a huge deficit under a conservative government that didn't want to make an effort to collect taxes... then lost to the Panhellenic Socialist Union just in time for the socialists to take the blame for the necessary austerity measures. Ireland was running very little debt until the government made an impulsive, and in retrospect unwise, decision to guarantee all the obligations of a set of very profligate banks in the private sector. A more nuanced measure, to guarantee the accounts of individual depositors up to a certain level, would have been wiser, and let the shareholders eat their bad judgement. Further, the real problem is not that the level of debt is utterly unsustainable, but that governments have become dependent upon a private bond market which fluctuates wildly for all kinds of reasons, rational and irrational, and then government have to bow to "the market." If national debts were financed by patriotic contributions from savings (remember when every public school in America sold weekly stamps for U.S. savings bonds?) it would be a more manageable situation. One sympathizes when reading of medieval money lenders, who were periodically imprisoned by the king until they agreed to forgive large sums of debt. But, by the same token government policy should not be held hostage to the whims of private investors eithers. There is a lot to unwind here, but unsustainable social benefits has little or nothing to do with it.

Big Hollywood : Mel Gibson's Catholic Faith Completely Contradicts Story of Judah Maccabee

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 14:42:19 +0000

Ironically, the Roman Catholic Church includes books about the Macabees in their Bible, which most Protestants do not. It is one of the Apocrypha. I suspect it was originally put in their because it contains reference to the Hasmonean monarchy forming a long-distance alliance with the Roman Republic, which was good press for a church trying to kiss up to Roman authorities, and/or becoming the Official Church of the Roman Empire. I would expect that Gibson will be faithful to the Apocrypha in his presentation. I once asked an Orthodox rabbi what status the Apocrypha had to observant Jews. He replied that the Apocrypha were... apocryphal. Perhaps an equally good measure would be the hatchet job Gibson did on Scottish history with "Braveheart," in which the facts were changed to show of Gibson's manly physique and sexual prowess. Sir William Wallace WAS an adherent of the Balliols, and therefore an enemy of the Bruce's, who NEVER gave him any support. Wallace never took York, and he never had an affair with Edward II's French wife, because she came over to England to marry Edward AFTER Wallace had been beheaded. Also, Edward was not a short, skinny, effeminate homosexual. He was a tall, broad-shouldered, athletic homosexual. I expect Gibson will do something equally accurate about the Macabees. Unfortunately, people will probably not only go to see it, but will take what they see in the movies as gospel truth.

Big Journalism : Jonathan Chait: Republican Jews are Racists (Corrected)

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 14:30:55 +0000

Stereotypes and generalizations are seldom accurate, including Chait's. Pollak tacitly admits that his information is not better, then goes ahead with the same sort of stereotype and generalization. Yeah, Democratic Jews do it too, some of them, and so do some Republicans. Its a tangled tale, if we remember that tradtionally, Republican conservatives and southern Democrats considered Jews only marginally more acceptable than people of African descent, also writing off the Jews as socialists, which many were, the ones who were not capitalists, which not a few were. There is no evidence that Bibi dislikes the President of the United States for his skin color -- any more than the man's more virulent critics in his own country. Republicans dislike ANY Democrat who wins an election, because it interferes with their sense of entitlement. (Democrats feel the same way about Republicans who win states like Massachusetts or districts in Brooklyn, but Republicans fell they are entitled to a century or two of nationwide majorities, and gosh darn it people turn to the OTHER party every eight to twelve years or so). Bibi does not want to do ANY kind of deal with ANY semblance of a Palestinian state. He should, our President reminds him that he should, and he doesn't want to. That's shortsighted, and/or tunnel vision, but its not racism. In 1947, the United Nations voted to partition the former British Mandate of Palestine. That may or may not have been a good idea, but so it was voted. The UN had no troops to enforce its decision, and the British weren't going to have anything to do with enforcement. Various Arab armies thought they could take the whole ball of wax. They lost. They ended up with less territory than they would have got if they went along with the partition resolution. Fortunes of war. Now, what the Palestinian Authority can realistically expect to govern is a smaller piece of land, but by the same resolution that established the state of Israel, they should be able to establish a functional state there. Thanks to the IDF, it is no longer ruled by Jordan, or Egypt. Bibi needs to grow up. So does Chait.

Breitbart.com : Geithner says he will stay at Treasury

Mon, 8 Aug 2011 03:04:40 +0000

This is too bad. If it weren't for Geithner pushing the "responsible" Wall Street positions carrying over from the Bush administration's "economic rescue" package, Obama might have gone ahead and broken up anything "too big to fail" into pieces that could be ALLOWED to fail without generating 30% unemployment. He was so afraid this sensible capitalist measure would get him labeled a "socialist" that he let Geithner run things. Now the Democrats need to summon up the spine to honestly tell the American people what the Republicans are afraid to tell voters: we can't have tax cuts, and a balanced budget, without sharply reducing or eliminating programs that some majority of voters or other really wants. To most people "balancing the budget" translates "of course we have to balance the budget, but we shouldn't cut _______" (fill in the speaker's preferred programs, whether it is Medicare, agricultural subsidied, or the military. If we really mean to balance the budget, we can't afford the size military operation we've been running. Which may be good, Europe can pay for its own defense now. Can the Democrats summon up the courage to take this pledge? http://aintnosuchthing.blogspot.com/2011/08/tanst...

Big Government : Teachers Unions Working Feverishly to Organize Charter Schools

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 00:25:16 +0000

Sounds like free enterprise and individual initiative to me! Let the free market sort this out! If the teachers are that bad, nobody will send their kids to these schools, and they will wither on the vine. I live in a city with a well developed voucher program, taken advantage of by many religious schools, many well-intentioned dreamers of how much better schools could be, and many fly-by-night hucksters. It doesn't take too long for the latter to be out of business. On the other hand, if the teachers learn what it is like to appeal to parents and work with students and deliver a successful result, they might take what they've learned into their next collective bargaining session. I don't see what the problem is here, except maybe a bit of sour grapes.

Big Journalism : The Left's Penchant for Selectively Editing Videos

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 00:21:45 +0000

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA . This, on Breitbart's site? The man who put O'Reilly in the embarrassing position of having to apologize to Shirley Sherrod, after it turned out that the "white farmer" and his wife sprang to her defence and said she saved their farm????? You have a lot of nerve talking about selective editing here. But I agree that those ineffectual clowns trying to infiltrate Tea Party events are both an embarrassment and a waste of time. If the Tea Party is that bad, it will implode of its own weight. If not, it won't be derailed by a few bad actors. Sort of like the right wingers who waved an old Russian flag at an Obama rally, no? StopConRhetoric is right.

Big Government : Conservative Public School Teacher Calls Florida Exam 'Soviet-Style Propaganda'

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 00:15:27 +0000

Oh please. Soviet style?????? When is the last time you read about teachers unions in the Soviet Union operating independently of the government? Teachers unions pouring into Red Square to protest Kremlin budget allocations or curriculum decisions? Teachers subverting the party line by asking student to answer test questions about Soviet imperialism? There are legitimate criticisms to be made about education in America, but to call this "Soviet Style" is about as sensible as the lame jokes (mostly on the part of wannabe lefties) referencing the "People's Republic of Santa Monica." Hell, Santa Monica doesn't even have a Sergeant Schulz garden variety security service, let alone a ruthless, efficient number like the KGB. (Yes, I know, I'm mixing metaphors, Sergeant Schulz was German and his greatest fear was being sent to the Russian front to fight AGAINST the Soviet Union). Please, spare us the misplaced analogies. For both lefties and righties, the "Soviet" jokes are brought to you by our genuine geopolitical distance from the REALITIES of Soviet life. I am as frustrated as anyone by the assumption that "all right thinking people feel and think the way I do," no matter what ideology it comes from. I could, however, easily rewrite those test questions to be perfectly sound: 1) Analyze the major factors that led the United States to acquire political and economic influence outside its own borders. Analyze why it was, or was not, accurate to call this "imperialism," either in the sense embraced by Mark Twain and Andrew Carnegie, or in the sense later charged by various communist tendencies. 2) Examine the development of nuclear technology in the United States, for both military and civilian uses; analyze what the benefits and costs have been, and whether it is worth developing further, or should be decommissioned. 3) Assess the legal, social, and economic status of Americans of African descent, including those who were free prior to 1863, those who had been enslaved and were emancipated, and those born after 1863. Include assessments of Booker T. Washington, Monroe Trotter, W.E.B. Du Bois, the Civil Rights Movement, and the reasons for the emergence and decline of the Black Power movement. 4) This question is unobjectionable as is, although clumsily worded. Anyone of "pro-life" sentiments or principles could perfectly well work with it, and write their own perspective in response. Further, there is nothing "Soviet" about the subject. At various times, the USSR freely allowed or viciously suppressed abortion. 5) What's wrong with that? 6) Oh, I could argue with that one for sure. How about, examine the failure of the League of Nations to support the independence of Ethiopia? Would the League have been stronger if the United States had joined? Would this have been a good decision for the United States? Why or why not? If I were answering this, I would analyze why Woodrow Wilson was an ignorant meddler and Henry Cabot Lodge was a narrow-minded fool. The grade is about how well you substantiate your position, no? If a committed communist submitted a properly footnoted and research paper in Thomas Sowell's class, he would give the student an A+, wouldn't he? I could work that with my aged high school history teacher in 1971... don't these modern day right-wing high school students have the spine and the cojones to do the same?

Big Peace : Sunlight On The American Mosque

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 23:51:45 +0000

Oh, too be sure, this is exactly what Protestant bluebloods, both the northern and southern variants, used to say about Catholics, particularly Irish Catholics. They weren't entirely wrong either. Some of those priests and bishops were thoroughly bigotted autocratic fanatics. Read Paul Blanshard's American Democracy and Catholic Power. It was well researched and soberly presented. However, as we know, whether or not the Catholic Church offered an assimilating creed, America assimilated them, with little damage to the political fabric of the republic. Anyone less bigotted than the Ku Klux Klan had confidence that we could accept millions of Catholics into our body politic, and survive as a pluralistic democracy, without stigmatizing every individual of the Roman Catholic faith. Guess what? Most of us, at least those not bottled up in Hollywood or other closed communities, know Muslims personally, as neighbors, co-workers, and struggling business owners. They are too busy making a living and investing in America to indulge in jihad.

Big Hollywood : 'The Office': NBC Has Snubbed 'Under God' Before

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 23:26:35 +0000

NBC can apologize to Satan. It has done God a big favor. James Madison once said that the better part of showing respect for the sacred name of Jesus would be NOT to insert it into a mere legislative enactment. The man knew what he was talking about when he said that religion must be protected from "the profane hand of the civil magistrate." The words "under God" never belonged in a pledge to a flag created by men's hands, or to the mere human construct of a nation. Actually, the pledge itself borders on a violation of the Second Commandment, but at least the hubris of sticking reference to God into it has, in these instances, been blessedly removed.

Big Hollywood : Daily Gut: The Dots Connect Upward to Obama

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 00:57:42 +0000

Right after 9.11.2001, most of the government bureaucracy's talking heads were telling the mesmerized microphones of the Mainstream Media that "our world changed forever." Few to no Americans acted like it. We all went on with our merry lives, and only those families who actually lost someone in the twin towers, or had a relative serving in the ALL VOLUNTEER military (read: those who didn't, in Dick Cheney's words, have "something better to do") really noticed a difference. The truth is, an occasional terror bombing makes headlines, and provides the blogosphere a football to kick around, not to mention those in the immediate vicinity die, but life goes on, and the 300 million minus a few hundred or a few thousand people who are left really do need jobs, medical coverage, and all that mundane stuff our president has been dealing with. Not much was missed catching this particularly would-be bomber EXCEPT for half a dozen intelligence departments putting two and two together. We all know that government departments operate as they do, almost completely oblivious to whoever may happen to be president, what party he is from, who controls congress, or who is sitting on the Supreme Court. What is needed now is fairly minor: get the names of people who obviously are a real hazard onto lists to be given a thorough body search before letting them on a plane. That would have exposed the detonator on his leg, which would have led to the explosives in his underwear. Our president can handle that. Whether the intelligence community can, we'll find out. Ethnic profiling? Yeah, that would have caught Richard Reid right away.

Big Hollywood : Fidel Castro: Hollywood Screenwriter

Fri, 1 Jan 2010 06:07:00 +0000

Well, this movie is certainly making a lot less money than Michael Moore's greatest production, his first, Roger and Me, the one that really spoke for real people. I'm curious about the mention of Che's diaries. Did the movie include the events described in Che's diary of his African experience? It was kept locked up in a vault in Havana for 40 years, and it is easy to see why. Yet somehow it was eventually released, and is available in English translation. It is a fascinating read, for those with no ax to grind. For those who are either convinced Che is a sadist dripping with blood and gore and veins in his teeth, or that he is a working class hero -- the diary debunks both notions. He appears to have been a serious, committed, even humane man, who had rather poor judgment about many things. It is also obvious why communist-led revolution never got much traction in the Congo. I've read a psychological biography of Che, by an Argentine who went back to school mates and neighbors. The comments here don't fit, so I suspect there is some bitter story-telling here. Obama4Life (why would anyone adopt a name like that -- don't we all have our own lives to live? Let Barack Obama live his for himself)... but anyway, the above description of Cuba before the revolution are accurate. Castro was genuinely popular when he first took power. It didn't last of course.

Big Hollywood : Zinn, Inc.

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 03:29:21 +0000

Zinn isn't fabricated, its just grossly incomplete, like most history text books that inspired him to start writing his own equally biased version. There are enough facts out there to support what Zinn says, but there are a whole lot of other facts that are equally true, important, part of the complete story, which he leaves out. That is because it is much more work to be really comprehensive, and almost every author has an ax to grind.

Big Hollywood : Zinn, Inc.

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 03:26:46 +0000

In my seldom humble opinion, there shouldn't be ANY "assigned text books" in history class. ALL history professors should be REQUIRED to teach from their own lecture material (documented and footnoted of course -- I don't care exactly what the prof teaches, as long as s/he teaches what my fourth grade teacher taught: "It is not true because it is in a book, but you must always know where you got the information from." Then EVERY class should require reading original documents, doing a good deal of reading from a number of sources, and an original history research project. Likewise, if I taught in a public school, the day would not routinely start with the Pledge of Allegiance, which gets boring fast, but wtih each student assigned to do a patriotic presentation from original material every day -- maybe the pledge some days, but the preamble to the constitution, a paragraph from the Declaration of Independence, Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address... No correct line, just a lot of digging in to how much there is to learn and how much more there will still be when class is over.

Big Hollywood : Zinn, Inc.

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 03:20:38 +0000

History is always being rewritten, because it is always distorted, because new facts are always coming to light, and because someone is always proposing some new distortions to fit their own updated psyche. It should be some comfort to know that Howard Zinn is beyond boring to most inner city school children. Somehow, the working class never really connects to a scholarly grandfather trying to lecture them on how their great-grandparents missed the boat. There is plenty of good, bad and ugly about the American Revolution. There is plenty of good, bad and ugly about the United States Constitution. The problem with the text books I had in 8th and 11th grade is that they played up, and sometimes made up, an inspiring march of freedom and justice, which was part of the story, but not exactly enlightening by itself. The problem with Howard Zinn is he wants to present "another way of looking at it" instead of "another layer of a very complex truth." Almost every inspiring event in history had venal motives, and associated atrocities on the way to some sort of progress. Some of the militia that turned out to save the union in Colorado and North Carolina were among the most viciously anti-Indian thugs around. The Buffalo Soldiers, widely vaunted during Black History Month, were also agents of genocide against Native Americans. Kenneth Roberts's historical novels provide plenty on the ugly underside of the American Revolution, and even tell the Tory side of the story, but not at the expense of what motivated people to fight for independence, no matter how badly Congress and most of the general officers led them.

Big Hollywood : 'Law and Order' Trashes ACORN Videos

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 03:08:44 +0000

This doesn't sound like ACORN to me. This sounds like a wierd take-off on how the Irish National Party and the Land League were brought low by exposure of Charles Stewart Parnell's affair with Kitty O'Shea. But I agree that its kind of banal when dramatic shows parody other shows or recent events. The strong point of shows like Law and Order was when they showed how every day crimes are, and are not, solved, with all the complexities of real life situations that seldom make the headlines. It reminds me of "Fantasy Island" doing an episode copied directly from that Italian art film, "Swept Away..."

Big Hollywood : Che Guevara: Hollywood's Mass-Murdering Phenom

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 03:02:52 +0000

I think the southern irregular forces loosely associated with the Continental Army had similar allegations made against them by the colonial-born adherents of Tarleton's Legion. And vice versa of course. Many of the stories were true. Some were not. To get a really well balanced view of Che Guevara, read the English translation of his diary from the year or so in Africa. If you can read it in Spanish, so much the better. It was locked up in a vault in Havana for 45 years, for obvious reasons, but it is a cold hard look at what was and was not real in the guerilla movements Castro placed such hope in during that time. If it had been in print before Joseph Kabila emerged as figurehead in the Rwandan-financed overthrow of Joseph Mobutu (not a bad idea in itself), somebody else would have been leading that revolution, because Che had Kabila's number long before the left-wing press belatedly realized it. But I must warn the gentle reader, while you will come away with a clear-eyed understanding of why revolution is not always such a great boon to humanity, you will also come away with the idea that Che Guevara is no more a monster than he is a chic hero -- he was a complex human being with many admirable qualities, and considerable ability to learn from his mistakes. Not fast enough, of course, or he wouldn't have gone off on that mad adventure in Bolivia. By the way, did you say that JFK killed dogs in his youth? I didn't think so, just checking.

Big Hollywood : Obama Nation: Clash of the Titans

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 02:45:15 +0000

One of the great hoaxes of the century is posing Ronald Reagan as a "fiscal conservative." He lowered taxes while borrowing far more money than he trimmed from the budget, leaving the national debt larger than ever. The theory was that lower taxes would have such a powerful stimulating effect on the economy that net government revenue would rise, which turned out to be something of a Laughter Curve. Bill Clinton, whatever his moral proclivities, and Charleton Heston was correct that we wouldn't trust him with our daughters, did at least generate budget surpluses, and begin paying down the national debt. George W. Bush, a pale parody of Reagan, looked at the budget surplus and said "Let's give it back to the people." That would have been a GREAT idea, EXCEPT that "The People" were in hock for $5 trillion dollars of debt, bearing interest, and the main buyer of that debt was the People's Republic of China. Its like saying, let's take out a second mortgage, quit our jobs, and take an around the world cruise. Oh yeah, Cheney said, Reagan said, "deficits don't matter." So Georgie ran our debt UP to $10 trillion, and never blinked an eye. Then, when the economy tanked, since we hadn't been saving in good times for a rainy day, we had to spend on top of record debt. Bush said "We are all Keynesians now" for the simple reason that he was out of any other options. At least Obama has his eye on trying to deal with the deficit next year -- Bush went for eight years without even noticing.

Big Hollywood : Fools Wanted: A Lesson from 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington'

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 04:28:30 +0000

The operative word is "every." Anybody with an ax to grind wants the "other side's" politicians to watch this film. Ask any liberal, they will tell you Newt Gingrich and Larry Craig and Saxbe Chambliss Jim DeMint need to watch this film. Mr. Smith was so nonideological that anyone can hold him up as a standard.

Big Hollywood : Fools Wanted: A Lesson from 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington'

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 04:23:40 +0000

Sour grapes. Anyone who doesn't like current government policy can blame voters for ignorance, fecklessness, or any other bad condition that may come to mind. That's what liberals said about people who voted for George W. Bush. All it means is, somehow a majority of my fellow citizens actually supported something I don't like. That happens in a democracy. Grow up and deal with it like a big boy. There were all kinds of things wrong with my textbooks when I was growing up. I knew it, and I didn't let it define me. I knew how to check out my own books from the library. Driving a bus during both of the last two presidential elections, I had my finger on a totally unscientific pulse of the electorate. I know that the margin of victory in 2004 was voters who hadn't even made up their minds until the morning of the election. They were going to hold their noses no matter who they voted for. Likewise, I knew weeks before the election that older, traditionally Democratic, blue-collar Roman Catholic "white" voters were solidly for Obama. Not all of them. For God's sake, not all of any demographic is united on anything. Ask Thomas Sowell.

Big Hollywood : Fools Wanted: A Lesson from 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington'

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 04:17:12 +0000

Primaries were invented to get the nomination process out of the hands of party bosses, and into the hands of the voters. Of course, if only a handful of voters turn out for the primaries, then the nomination rests in the hands of those voters. And, in the modern TV era, if someone pours several million dollars into an advertising blitz, they can swing a primary, so its out of the hands of party bosses, into the hands of plutocrats. I don't like Joe Lieberman, but something about that guy who ran against him in the primary turned me off. He was rude, flat, full of himself, and hollow. Its not enough to be the anti-Lieberman. Of course the only reason Lieberman won is because the Bush staff put out the word for most of Connecticut's Republicans to support him. If there had been a real Republican campaign, Lieberman would have come in second.