Capitalism versus Free Markets

Rand Simberg has thoughts on that, and the division between statists and dynacists.

Who is the conservative — the person who wants the taxpayer to maintain the status quo at the cost of future wealth generation, or the person who favors letting the market work its course and redeploy the economic resources in a more fruitful direction?

There was another politician who abhorred "change," implementing policies to preserve wages and prices, even jailing people for charging five cents too little for cleaning shirts. In reaching back decades to the failed philosophy of Franklin Roosevelt, which was what made the Great Depression great, extended its duration by seven years, and prevented the creation of an unknowable amount of wealth that might have stood us in good stead in World War II, Barack Obama isn't offering us "change we can believe in." He isn't offering us change at all. He's simply come up with an economically destructive conservatism and stasism, as old as FDR and Mussolini — or even Karl Marx, if not older.

Know what's unconstitutional? Constitutional amendments

Ace notes something worrying brewing in California

Whether you believe in Prop 8 or not, judges, supposedly, derive their power to overturn legislation based on laws' purported conflicts with The Constitution -- it is the Constitution from which their power derives entirely.

How on earth can they claim that constitutions themselves are unconstitutional?

This is a simple admission that they do not base their opinions on the Constitution at all, but simply upon their own sense of That Which Is Good. Shorn of any theory which even plausibly hints at such a residuum of judicial power, their decisions are now lawless and themselves unconstitutional, without even a pretext of principled, limited theory of judicial intervention legitimizing their actions.

If the judiciary steps in and claiming that legally executed amendments are a unconstitutional... then that is a serious, serious breach of separation of powers.

Essentially, the courts will deny one of the few checks on their power.

That's more worrying than anything related to gay rights.

What is Russia up to?

Remember how immediatly after the election the Russians said they would put Iskander Missles in Kaliningrad as a blunt to the US-European Missle Sheild?
Strategypage goes behind the headlines and looks into the logicstics and production of the Iskander Missle

Russia now plans to send five brigades of Iskander (60 launchers, each with one missile, plus reloads, which could amount to over a hundred missiles) to Kaliningrad. Iskander is just entering production, and it would take several years, at least, to produce that many. Actually, it might take five or more years to produce enough missiles for five brigades, because Russian missile production capabilities have sharply deteriorated since the end of the Cold War in 1991. This is one reason why the current Russian government is making so much noise about this imaginary NATO plot to surround and subdue Russia. Losing the Cold War did not go down well in Russia. Rather than forget and move on, many Russians prefer to remember, and use the imagined evil intentions of their Cold War foes to explain away defects in the Russian character.

This Russian deployment to Kaliningrad is all about a unique feature of Iskander, which is that it is not a traditional ballistic missile. That is, it does not fire straight up, leave the atmosphere, then come back down, following a ballistic trajectory. Instead, Iskander stays in the atmosphere and follows a rather flat trajectory. It is capable of evasive maneuvers and deploying decoys. This makes it more difficult for anti-missile systems to take it down.

More questionable math on Global Warming

NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) announced that October '08 was the hottest on record.

Well... not quite.
You see instead of comparing October '08 temperatures to October temps of all previous years on record, they used September '08 temperatures.

It's "accidents" like this that make me wonder if there's not some sort of.. bias at work here. At the very best you can say they're doing sloppy, sloppy work.

Yes, let's make decisions that involve global industry and economics based on data of this quality. Who cares about the data being correct when it "feels" right.

This is not science.

Why does Obama want a "Civil Defense" Army?

Ace has some thoughts on the President Elect's ideas on a "paramilitary domestic security force".

Among many other problems, such a force is, frankly, creepy and dangerous. But it's difficult to express a fear of a large domestic paramilitary devoted largely to a Cult of Personality without bringing up the H-word. Maybe the H-word is appropriate-- but it sounds nuts. It Can't Happen Here and all that.

It'd would be alot easier to think "it can't happen here" if our next president did not make motions that are -well- familiar.

What is Obama's goal here if not to undermine one of the main attractors of military service? The campaign continues running on the claim that military recruitment is low. Why does he strive to lower it further?

Again why does Obama want compulsory service and to limit firearms in private hands.
Add in a possibility of a "Fairness Doctrine" and other free speech controls.

What will Obama do? What kind of Change is he talking about?

Given that there is so little upside to the notion of a permanent civilian paramilitary, the serious chance of small political mischief, and the small chance of serious political mischief, weight against this, um, audacious plan.

That is the question: Does he still want to do that, and if so, why?

Well... that didn't take long.

Prepare yourself.

If Republicans are not prepared — right now — to resist the liberal policies that will be proposed after January 20, they will get steamrolled. Waiting until January to get up to speed will be too late.

If Republicans haven't figured out from the election campaign that the powerful combination of Obama as a cultural phenomenon, a worshipful media, and a populace anxious about the economy will give liberals an almost unparalleled opportunity to enact an unalloyed liberal agenda, Republicans will be beaten before they even lace-up their boots.

As I've stated before, this doesn't mean Republicans should oppose merely for the sake of opposition. But they must be alert and prepared, they must be marshalling their arguments right now against the harmful policies that Democrats have made abundantly clear they plan to enact.

Fore example:

Mandatory "Volunteering": it's coming.

President Elect Obama is already proposing to restrict freedoms. Ironically, concentrating on some of the voters those that supported him the most.

Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year.

If you don't think that mandatory "service" is a restriction of freedom, what do you think will happen to someone that refuses to serve? Quite simply, what our would-be President proposes is the first 'nibble" at limiting what US citizens can or cannot do.

Not a good sign.

This is in addition to a Classroom Corp, Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps that the President Elect is planning.

Bob Owens has some thoughts as well.

The required service Obama proposes is nothing more than dressed-up impressment or conscription, and is unpaid forced labor. Stripping the racial overtones from slavery by requiring all to participate doesn't make it any less degrading. Involuntary servitude is reprehensible in any guise, and we should not suddenly embrace it as a consequence of "change" under the Fresh Prince of Bill Ayers.
...
A propensity towards tyranny comes easily for statists, and when Obama trumpets his desire for radical change and hope, you would be wise to listen closely to what he is actually proposing and pushing to implement as law. Is he talking about what is best for individual Americans, or is he pushing his belief of how a larger government is better for... someone?

Claudia Rosette has more

The irony is that Obama arrives at the threshold of the White House steeped in ideas that subordinate individual freedom to the collective. In his campaign and his victory speech, Obama declares that America's "timeless creed" is now, "yes, we can." This is not a defense of liberty. It is a declaration so malleable and generic that it could have applied to anything from Lenin's Bolshevik Revolution to the Little Engine that Could.

Yes, pretty words and noble ideals. They still don't cover-up conscription. Are we supposed to be grateful that it's a mere 100 hours a year? Are we supposed to be grateful that people in this program are "free" to do whatever community service they want, as long as the government approves of it and deems it worthy working off their annual service debt?

100 hours is two and a half work weeks. What if it gets bumped up to a full month? What if instead of a more "ad-hoc" style, the service is "organized". It's a short ride from mandatory community service to something much more troubling.

Ace has a more conventionally cynical view on the "Obama Youth Corps".

I think the goal here, by the way, is to demand what will be claimed to be the moral equivalent of actual military service -- thus denigrating real service by claiming that working in a soup kitchen a weekend a year is no different than putting your life on the line for your country.

Obamabots have been fond of the chickenhawk argument for eight years.
Well, boys, now that your man is in charge, and he needs to deploy three brigades to Afghanistan (which you are presumably foursquare behind), seems like it's time to sign up. And don't give me that crap about "you don't get to choose where you serve" (the left's favorite dodge). For one thing, you do get high preference as to where you'll serve if you specifically ask for combat detail."

More on what Obama's potential pseudo military may mean for the... real military.

ROTC still won't be allowed on college campuses, but I'm sure ObamaCorps will be heavily represented. And if the benefits to joining are remotely comparable to those of joining the Armed Forces — college tuition reimbursement, salary of some kind, chance to score with cute girls, etc. — you can bet that many kids will sign up to build houses in the middle of Atlanta instead of deploying to Whereeverstan to get shot at.

An even more cautionary view is the hope that these kids will only be building houses and other community service make-work and not being trained as a new paramilitary branch outside under special Presidential control (our military's primary loyalty is to the Constitution, what would the Obama Youth's be?). At what point does caution and skeptism become paranoia?
It all depends on exactly what our new President does.

Hmm... More Change!
The Obama transition team "tweaked" their community service statement. They're no longer saying it's required.

This is more reason to keep an eye on what our next President will do and how far he'll go.

Fairness Doctrine Stop it.

Fighting the Fairness Doctrine, now. Before it can get more steam.

Waiting until Inauguration Day to get geared up is too late. By that time the Fairness Doctrine Express will be at full steam— wavering Democrats will be pressed to support the new Democratic president, weak-kneed Republicans will want to display comity, the mainstream media will not be saddened to see talk radio annihilated and much of the public will be too enraptured by Obama's Camelot inauguration to notice or care.

The model for conservative activism (no oxymoron) on this is the immigration debate of 2007. Conservatives must contact senators now before the congressional holiday recesses. Email, call, write. If you're in D.C, go to the House and Senate offices. You likely won't get to talk to a senator or congressman but you can corral members of their staffs. If you're not in D.C., go to the district offices. Make sure GOP senators hold fast. Let Dem senators know that this is a major issue.

I agree and I'll be writing my congressman and Senator. It doesn't take much effort and it helps raise awareness and prepare the ground. Even if the Fairness Doctrine comes back, we'll be in a better spot having organized now, rather than later.