officially rad – Tax protest on public grounds – The irony speaks for itself

officially rad - I’ve stayed out of this argument until now, but…

The myth of conservative strength: Several not-so-conservative conservative ideals proven wrong when given the chance

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There are many examples of the failed philosophy of neo (new) conservatism, such as the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute , the Project for New American Century, and last but not least, financial ‘innovation’ in the economy.  You can argue until you are blue in the face about philosophy and theory, but some evidence is empirical.  It just can’t be argued.  The outcome, or the results, of particular programs and policies in action speak for themselves, similar to how if you mix water, milk, eggs, and Bisquick just right you get pancakes.

The WPRI was a group that had advocated for school choice vouchers in Milwaukee.  After the program was instituted and studied, they issued this report which said, among other things:

“The report you are reading did not yield the results we had hoped to find,” George Lightbourn, a senior fellow at the institute, wrote in the paper’s first sentence. 

On the same topic of vouchers but not from the same report, I spent a day in Jefferson City speaking with a local Republican State Representative at the time named Jim Lembke.  It was a very cordial conversation on education policy in the Missouri.  However, the conversation ended quite abruptly after I said to him:

My grandfather was a conservative.  (I like to call him an Eisenhower conservative.) And as I understand it, in his day, they believed that public tax dollars should not be used for private purposes.  In relation to vouchers, what ever happened to that conservative ideal?

Then there is The Project for a New American Century, a conservative think tank formed during the Clinton Administration and whose membership included the likes of Steve Forbes, Bill Kristol, William J. Bennett, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, John Bolton, Robert Kagan, Richard L. Armitage, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Jeb Bush, “Scooter” Libby, Dan Quayle, and more. They penned a letter that said some of the following (keep in mind, this was before 9/11 and a few years before W. was ever elected POTUS):

“That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power.”

“Our ability to ensure that Saddam Hussein is not producing weapons of mass destruction”

“Such uncertainty will, by itself, have a seriously destabilizing effect on the entire Middle East.”

“a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil will all be put at hazard…”

“…removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy.”

“…If you act now to end the threat of weapons of mass destruction against the U.S. or its allies, you will be acting in the most fundamental national security interests of the country. If we accept a course of weakness and drift, we put our interests and our future at risk.

Of course, we know how all of that worked out.  $150 a barrel for oil, $10 billion a month in Iraq Afghanistan, oh, and no Weapons of Mass Destruction.  Notice how almost all of the people mentioned in the letter to President Clinton seen here ended up in the Bush Administration.

The phrase that freaks me out the most from the Project for a New American Century is an excerpt from the following paper:

Further, the process of transformation,
even if it brings revolutionary change, is
likely to be a long one, absent some
catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a
new Pearl Harbor. Domestic politics and
industrial policy will shape the pace and
content of transformation as much as the
requirements of current missions.

And last but not least, the financial market.  So far, we have talked about two of the items that the conservatives are traditionally given credit for as their strength.  Taxes, Defense, and now Finance.  It is clear that their strength in these areas is nothing more than a myth, and a very damaging myth at that.  Here is the latest from Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke:

“One would be forgiven for concluding that the assumed benefits of financial innovation are not all they were cracked up to be,” the Fed chairman said today in a speech at the central bank’s community affairs conference in Washington. “The damage from this turn in the credit cycle — in terms of lost wealth, lost homes, and blemished credit histories — is likely to be long-lasting.”

Bernanke Says Crisis Damage Likely to Be Long-Lasting (Update2) - Bloomberg.com

Timothy McVeigh: The first modern day Tea Party organizer?

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I know many of the Tea Party people now, and the vast majority of them are completely harmless.  They just feel that they are paying too much in taxes.  Although their comparisons to the Boston Tea Party are ridiculously unrelated to anything they are whining about today, they are harmless.  On the other-hand, some of these people are incredibly coo-coo.  The reason why a federal agency Department of Homeland Security recently warned law enforcement of radicals on the right is because of wackos and jackos like Timothy McVeigh and his buddies who are drawn to these types of events.  If they feel at all threatened, and more importantly, empowered by this nonsense, they may just see it as their destiny to let their craziness loose.

Timothy McVeigh set the bomb which killed 168 people at the federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on 19 April 1995. The bomb, made of fertilizer and oil packed into the rear of a rented van, destroyed the front half of the building and killed 149 adults and 19 children. McVeigh, who had served in the U.S. Army from 1988-91, was an extreme conservative who later told investigators he was angry over the federal government’s clashes with white separatist Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge, Idaho in 1992 and with David Koresh and the Branch Davidians at Waco, Texas in 1993. McVeigh was convicted of the crime in 1997 and sentenced to death; he later insisted all appeals on his behalf be dropped and asked to be executed. McVeigh’s co-conspirator, Terry Nichols, was convicted but sentenced to life in prison. McVeigh was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on May 16, 2001 in a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. In early May of 2001 the FBI revealed it had withheld from McVeigh’s lawyers documents relevant to the case, and the execution was delayed one month. McVeigh was then killed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001.

McVeigh is no relation to Timothy R. McVeigh, the U.S. Navy officer who was discharged in 1997 (though later reinstated) after he was accused of being openly gay.

Timothy McVeigh: Biography from Answers.com

“Burn the Books!” – Tea Party Video

Apparently it is video day on Daddy Hogwash…

I haven’t paid much attention to these Tea Parties; however, I was so embarrassed for these people, I had to post this.  There once was a time when we actually wanted intelligent people running this country…I wonder what the Constitution Party guy has to say about African Americans being counted as 3/5’s of a person…

Want A Politically Viable Gas Tax? Make It Voluntary - Freakonomics Blog - NYTimes.com

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I am not very confident that this would work because of some logistical issues (see the comments below the story) but it is a very interesting idea that possibly could be implemented in some type of hybrid form.

The idea in a nutshell?…

The government would offer a $500 advance tax rebate each year for every car you choose to sign up for the tax. In return, you would commit to pay an extra $1 for each gallon of gas you buy. The actual tax paid would be based on miles driven and fuel economy. Thus a Chevy Impala rated at 19 m.p.g. would be charged $5.26 each 100 miles, while a Prius rated at 46 m.p.g. would be charged $2.17 per 100 miles.

For cars with average fuel efficiency (22.4 m.p.g.), you’d break even if you drove 11,200 miles a year. People who already drive their cars less or who drive fuel-efficient cars would be particularly likely to opt for the independence bonds. But even these folks would have a strong economic incentive to reduce their driving.

Want A Politically Viable Gas Tax? Make It Voluntary - Freakonomics Blog - NYTimes.com