Scott Morales

I’m a software guy with a penchant for football, hockey, music, current events and politics -- mostly current events and politics. Having driven several conversations to silence while discussing the latter items, it has been intimated that I should blog about it; to purge it from my system so that we may return to enjoying social events and cocktail parties. Kind of like drawing venom from a snakebite so that the body may return to health. The body, in this clumsy metaphor, is the social life of my wife:0) So, game on! I’ve got opinions and I hope to persuade and look forward, in return, to be persuaded.

Skip, Freedom Is The Symptom, The People The Cause


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Skip, true. It is about freedom, but there’s more to it than that. I would suggest that state encroachment on individual liberties is a symptom of the problem and not the problem itself.  It’s about the people. It’s about people willing to cede their liberty and freedom to a faceless bureaucrat in exchange for the illusion of safety, for a handout, or both. It’s the values that people hold that they place themselves as a pet of the state; they willingly devolve themselves into the Burkean “flies of a summer”.

We’ve raised generations steeped in state dependency, and now we see the result of this societal mistake when there’s a problem. When there’s a problem or a challenge, the first reaction of too many people is to call in the Department of Personal Responsibility Absolution to handle it. They believe that they themselves are uncapable of handling the problem, that it’s somebody else’s responsibility.  If there are poor people, the government should handle it.  If there are sick people, government should handle it. Elderly, the government should care for them.

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Notable Quote: Stages Towards Planning

“The belief is becoming more and more widespread that, if things are to get done, the responsible authorities must be freed from the fetters of democratic procedure. The cry for an economic dictator is a characteristic stage in the movement toward planning…” –FA Hayek      

Can Using Only Tax Increases Address The Debt Problem?

This is how I understand it.

We have $16,000,000,000,000 in debt.  We’re spending $1,000,000,000,000 more a year than we bring in, and we’ve been doing it for the last 4 years.

As a conservative, I see it as a spending problem; we simply spend more money than we have. We get the money by borrowing from our children, leaving them the debt to be paid.  But hey, I’m human; I may be wrong; I just want the debt burden lifted off of my children and future grandchildren so that they may have the life my parents afforded me, so I’m open to alternatives.

So, let’s try to tax our way out of it.  And no hodge-podge right wing loon sources; we’ll use only liberal or other non-conservative sources to get our data to address our concern. We’ll assume no cuts in spending, only raise taxes, and all else being equal.

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Democrat Planning Prolongs The Return To Prosperity

Strangers create innovation. Strangers discover new ways to solve problems. Vast swaths of strangers pursuing their own self interests enable other strangers pursuing their own self interest to achieve further success.  I’m using the word strangers here to make the point that there is not any intentional cognizant collusion involved.  This is how technology and innovation bursts occur; this is how every day advances occur; this is how traditions become traditions and how civilization evolves. Pretending that there’s a mighty apparatchik with the knowledge to do the same is folly, though the Democrats and the left continue to believe in this approach.  (My hunch is that’s because they have no faith other than a Hegelian faith in the state, but that’s for another blog.)

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, working in a garage, pursuing their own goal, shaped innovation, birthed an industry, and changed the contours of human intellectual discovery.  There wasn’t a Department of Personal Computers directing them.

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Notable Quote: Democracy, Socialism and Equality

“Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty; socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude” — de Tocqueville    

Obama Admin Shoots First and Aims Later…[UPDATE and bumped]

[UPDATE: Talk about shooting first and aiming later. Every White House claim was wrong. From the Weekly Standard:

For nine days, the Obama administration made a case that virtually everyone understood was untrue: that the killing of our ambassador and three other Americans in Benghazi, Libya, was a random, spontaneous act of individuals upset about an online video—an unpredictable attack on a well-protected compound that had nothing do to with the eleventh anniversary of 9/11.

These claims were wrong. Every one of them. But the White House pushed them hard. ]

In yet another episode, Sheriff, and town prevaricator, B. H. Obama mistakenly rebukes his rascally rival Romney for acts unbecoming a gentleman, only to find that it is his own deputies that are the quick draw charlatans.

B.H. Obama said last week that Romney, “seems to have a tendency to shoot first and aim later.”  He continued, “It’s important for you to make sure that the statements that you make are backed up by the facts. And that you’ve thought through the ramifications before you make ‘em.”

Good advice, Sheriff.  Though you might want to share that with members of your staff posse. On a previous episode, your Press Secretary, Calamity Carney, was shooting wildly from the podium and not hitting a lick of truth.

Well the adventures continue…

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Notable Quote: On Powers Delegated from the Legislature to the Administrator

What is often called “delegation of lawmaking power” is often delegation of the authority to give to any decision the force of law, so that, like an act of the legislature, it must be unquestioningly accepted by the courts. This brings us to what in modern times has become the crucial issue, namely the legal … Read more

Administration Knew Embassies Were Targeted 48 Hours Before Mobs Hit Embassies And Said Nothing

It’s official.  The feckless reach of the Obama administration is not constrained by borders.  As reported in the “The Independent”, the State Department had information 48 hours before the liberty loving rabid, revenge filled mob encroached upon the embassies and murdered Ambassador Stevens and three others, but decided that news wasn’t worth dispensing to the … Read more

Obamanation. The (ever growing) List

I should have done this long ago because it’s very difficult to remember the multitudes of  disasters achieved by Obama and Democrat rule.  So here’s the first edition of an obviously non-exhaustive list of achievements accomplished by Obama and the Donks.  I plan on updating this frequently as more comes to my memory (feel free … Read more

Play Politics In Perpetuity And Pay

Today White House Press Secretary Jay Carney declared that the embassy protests, firebombs, assassinations and all out mayhem is in response to a video and not at all “… directed at the United States, writ large, or at U.S. policy.”  (h/t mediate)

“This is a fairly volatile situation, and it is in response not to U.S. policy, not to, obviously, the administration, not to the American people. It is in response to a video – a film – that we have judged to be reprehensive and disgusting.”

Political cover bordering on delusional denial.

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These Polls Too, Shall Pass

In light of the current freak out wave that’s crashing on the souls and psyches of many fellow conservatives over the recent not-so-stellar presidential polls, I think it’s a good time to dust off a classic by one of the movements pillars to remind us that this fight is forever.  These polls too, shall pass. … Read more

A Loud, Proud, ”NAY” On Stroud (Candidate, Hillsborough 21, Merrimack)

In June of 2011, I contacted current House candidate Representative Kathleen Stroud and asked her about her reasoning for not supporting Right to Work (HB474).  She replied with the usual vacuous boilerplate one expects from a politician, but what surprised me was her reasoning’s incoherence and lack of depth.  What I found most off-putting was her pat-me-on-the-head-you-silly-constituent condescension encrusted in the email exchange.  She must have thought that I was an idiot and would simply, unquestioningly bobble-head support her arguments without understanding them.  Well, I’ll share some of her reasoning, and you can decide whether she intended to be condescending by putting forth such discombobulated arguments in order to intentionally confuse, or if she is actually confused.

One of her reasons for not supporting Right To Work is that, “It is being driven by an out-of-state lobby from Virginia; and I do not believe Virginia knows (or cares) what is best for New Hampshire.”

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Fact: “Fact Checkers” Aren’t Checking The Facts! [Updated and Bumped]

[Update: Looks like NRO once again caught Dylan Matthews “fact checking” Paul Ryan.  This time Matthews set his sites on the Carter/Obama comparison that Ryan mentioned.  So Matthews decided to use his skillful, analytical intellect to compile some charts.  One problem, the characterization of his intellect just used is completely inaccurate.  A correct characterization would be something like: a bumbling, dullard confounded by logic compiled the charts.   It turns out he got busted cherry picking metrics to favor Obama and then believed his own jive and stated that the economy is doing better now than in 2009.  Problem is, “…this is the year of the fact-checkers, and under the standards set by Matthews’s editor, this sort of thing would be classified as dishonest and untrue.”  Doh!]

A few times this week, I stumbled on information about Fact Checker’s malfeasance.

First, on Tuesday, the  “Politifiction” piece by the Editors at National Review Online reported on the skullduggery of Politifact.  Among others, it demolished Politifacts flaccid refutation of the Romney ad that claimed Obama raided $716 billion from medicare.  It’s definitely worth a read because it portends what’s to come and how “mistakes”, “mishaps” and “misunderstandings” will all coincidentally benefit BHO.

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DNC: You Belong To The Government

Democrats believe that “The government is the only thing we all belong to”.  Firstly, speak for yourself you crazy old man. Secondly listen to the way he says “Government”.  There’s something eerie about it.:

Romney Talks De Tocqueville? Huh?

I saw this last night on c-span before the convention and was shocked.  How did the conservative gene skip Mitt?

This is the Romney that should be nominated, check this out:

“If I had to identify what I think is our most serious threat, it wouldn’t be in the economic area.  It wouldn’t be in the political area. It would be in the social area….”  said Romney.  On defining the  start of the problems,  ” ….well you start out with the departure from the fundamental principles on which this country was based… The Declaration of Independence…”

More…

“I’ve seen the Federal government balloon to proportions that are way beyond everything conceived by the Founders… completely in violation of the 10th Amendment…”

Check out the vid after the jump…

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