My Dream Team

Every week Barry takes away some liberty from me. I try not to think about him and day dream instead.
Many people have dream sports teams. Here is my incomplete political dream team.

President – Charles Krauthammer, but I will settle for Michelle Bachmann
VP – Bobby Jindal
Chief of Staff - Stewart Varney

Cabinet officers
State – John Bolton
Treasury – Mitt Romney
Defense – Victor Davis Hanson
Justice – Tom Coborn
Interior - Sarah Palin
Agriculture -
Commerce – Donald Trump
Labor – Lindsay Graham
H & HS – Any GP Doctor
HUD - Gary Johnson
Transportation -
Energy – Steve Forbes
VA – Allen West
Homeland Security – Richard Lugar
Education – Michelle Rhee

To be named to key posts. John Stosell, Thomas Sowell, Mitch Daniels, Jeb Bush.

Of Course Bush Was Right

The German magazine Der Spiegel on reassessing George W. Bush's view of Muslim democratization.

Suddenly it seems everyone knew all along that President Mubarak was a villain and the U.S., who supported him until recently, was even worse. However it was actually former President George W. Bush who always believed in the democratization of the Muslim world and was broadly ridiculed by the Left for his convictions. . . .

Painful as it may be to admit, it was the despised George W. Bush who believed in the democratization of the Muslim world and incurred the scorn and mockery of the Left for his conviction. Everyone was sure—without knowing any Muslims—that the Western model of democracy could not be applied in a backward society like Iraq. Everyone knew that the neo-conservative belief in the universal desire for freedom and progress was naïve nonsense. It is possible that the critics were right, albeit for the wrong reasons. The prospect of stability and order seems to be at least as important to many people.

How facts backfire

by Joe Keohane

It’s one of the great assumptions underlying modern democracy that an informed citizenry is preferable to an uninformed one. “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1789. This notion, carried down through the years, underlies everything from humble political pamphlets to presidential debates to the very notion of a free press. Mankind may be crooked timber, as Kant put it, uniquely susceptible to ignorance and misinformation, but it’s an article of faith that knowledge is the best remedy. If people are furnished with the facts, they will be clearer thinkers and better citizens. If they are ignorant, facts will enlighten them. If they are mistaken, facts will set them straight.

In the end, truth will out. Won’t it?

Maybe not. Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information. It’s this: Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite.

In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.

This bodes ill for a democracy, because most voters — the people making decisions about how the country runs — aren’t blank slates. They already have beliefs, and a set of facts lodged in their minds. The problem is that sometimes the things they think they know are objectively, provably false. And in the presence of the correct information, such people react very, very differently than the merely uninformed. Instead of changing their minds to reflect the correct information, they can entrench themselves even deeper.

“The general idea is that it’s absolutely threatening to admit you’re wrong,” says political scientist Brendan Nyhan, the lead researcher on the Michigan study. The phenomenon — known as “backfire” — is “a natural defense mechanism to avoid that cognitive dissonance.”

These findings open a long-running argument about the political ignorance of American citizens to broader questions about the interplay between the nature of human intelligence and our democratic ideals. Most of us like to believe that our opinions have been formed over time by careful, rational consideration of facts and ideas, and that the decisions based on those opinions, therefore, have the ring of soundness and intelligence. In reality, we often base our opinions on our beliefs, which can have an uneasy relationship with facts. And rather than facts driving beliefs, our beliefs can dictate the facts we chose to accept. They can cause us to twist facts so they fit better with our preconceived notions. Worst of all, they can lead us to uncritically accept bad information just because it reinforces our beliefs. This reinforcement makes us more confident we’re right, and even less likely to listen to any new information. And then we vote.

This effect is only heightened by the information glut, which offers — alongside an unprecedented amount of good information — endless rumors, misinformation, and questionable variations on the truth. In other words, it’s never been easier for people to be wrong, and at the same time feel more certain that they’re right

Powers of Congress

We are a nation that has a government—not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the Earth. Our Government has no power except that granted it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.

Ronald Regan – First Inaugural Address

January 20, 1981

 

Section 8 - Powers of Congress

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Amendment 10 - Powers of the States and People. Ratified 12/15/1791.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Reason With This?

If this is the Arab Street I am guessing that reasoning with him is futile.

Thank You Liberals

The mid-term election is closing in and all talk is about the mess the country is in and it is the fault of either George Bush or the party of No. So, I started thinking about what liberals have done for me in the past four years

First - I am much more politically aware. In the past I have liked some presidents more than others, some I have disliked, but I always thought that our country could overcome a bad one. But the constant hate of George Bush and the Conservatives by the left became more than I could tolerate. My feelings of disgust increased every time one of these people spewed hate. It increased during the 20008 election and became worse daily. If President Bush wasn't blasted, then Sarah Palin was. The media took great delight in this, but could see no wrong whatsoever with Obama. I must admit that I could not believe people wanted Obama more than Senator McCain. I feel that the president, congress and the liberal lefts must really hate America, otherwise how could they be so happy to destroy it. So thank you liberals for making me increase my knowledge of what is going on in our country.

Second - My beliefs toward Christianity have increased greatly. I use to take it for granted. Now I realize that the liberals are trying to take that away from me. You can't criticize any religion, except Christianity. There is freedom of religion for every religion except Christianity. Display of the nativity scene is prohibited. Saying Merry Christmas is no longer acceptable. So thank you liberals for increasing my faith.

Third - I always felt I was patriotic, but now I realize how important our country really is. I was raised where the Pledge of Allegiance was something that was said every day before school with your hand over your heart and men removed their hats. Never were we told not to wave our flag, but it is perfectly acceptable for illegal aliens to wave the flag of the country they were fleeing. So thank you liberals for making me more patriotic and giving me a stronger sense of America while you try to destroy it.

Fourth - respect for our Constitution and the laws of the country that should be followed. Obama wants Supreme Court Justices that think the Constitution should be a document viewed only from their "life experience", not what our forefather wrote. So thank you liberals for increasing my knowledge of our Constitution and our laws.

Fifth - Racism - I thought America was past racism. I did not care if Obama was black, white or half- black half-white. It was his beliefs that were important. So we get the first half black president. Now I see as much racism as in the first half of the last century, but it's different this time. This time it's an excuse. Any criticism of the president is seen by liberals as racism. Any disagreement with liberals is because the opposing side is racist. Obama never mentions his white heritage - is he ashamed of the people that raised him to be what he is today? So thank you liberals for creating a more racist America.

It’s About Me