Still more Chickenshit

I was considering renaming this blog. Unfortunately, due to recent developments, that seems a little premature.

I have not posted here for a month. That's not because there has been nothing to write about. On the contrary, reading the local paper and other mainline media, there seems to be a great need to set the record straight. In fact, there seems to be so much misinformation and disinformation that it is hard to know where to begin. The tactic of the mainstream press seems to be to overwhelm the debate. By the time there is a response, they have moved on to promulgate some other factoid (something that sounds like a fact but not necessarily is) or error in reasoning. That's why Rush calls them the drive bys.

One example of an error in reasoning is represented by a proposition that has been often repeated of late. To wit: high levels of taxation are good for the economy. Hilary Clinton said so and now all the liberals are saying it. I guess that's what they mean by a talking point. Their proof of this is that during the Clinton administration, we had much higher income tax rates for the highest brackets. During that period, we had balanced federal budgets, even surpluses, and economic growth. This is an example of the post hoc fallacy. That is an error in reasoning involving the inference that if one event follows another, the first event must have caused the second. (The full name is post hoc ergo propter hoc -- after that, therefore on account of that.)

This is where the difficulties in unravelling this claims come in. I have not checked the economic data so I do not know if it was taxes collected from these higher tax brackets that brought about a healthy federal budget and economy (I doubt it). I seem to recall that Republican, Newt Gingrich was speaker of the Republican dominated House of Representatives. He proposed his 'contract with America,' which the press called a 'contract on America.' The House cut all of Clinton's spending proposals. They passed Welfare Reform over his multiple vetoes. In other words, Clinton was dragged to a balanced budget kicking and screaming. This and the fact that not many people paid the high income tax rates due to various tax avoidance strategies was probably what happened. As I said, I need to do some more research. This is one reason why the Austrian School believes that theories based upon mathematical economic analysis are mainly invalid. Statistics can show what happened but but not why. Common sense reasoning based upon observation of human behavior can tell us more.

Much more has been happening in the politicoeconomical realm. There's the Mosque at ground zero and its opponents, who the press portray as conservative bigots. There's the fed's plan to monetize the debt (which this blog said would eventually happen in an attempt to support the dollar.) There's the talk of further stimulus bills; the liberal talking point is that we have really not tried this yet, there was only the Bush (and therefore totally wrong headed and ineffective) TARP spending plan. Seems to me I recall a lot of Obama attempts at stimulus spending also, not to mention bailout/payoffs (e.g. to the auto workers). Just lately, there was the 'teacher bail-out.' This was a multi billion federal payment to the states so they could avoid cutting teacher salaries. Along with the funds come a federal mandate not to cut education spending by the states that accept the aid, including in subsequent years. (Seems there was a post about that here; Washington State did not want money offered earlier because of the strings attached.)

There has been much on the encouraging side as well. David Limbaugh's latest book catalogues the setbacks to liberty suffered by this nation due to the Obama policies. The book apparently addresses many of the catastrophic events that have lately befallen us; even an entire book is not nearly enough. Another recent happening was Glenn Beck's 'Restoring Honor' rally in Washington, DC. I wish I could have been there.