Sowell Proves Yet Again that He is Either a Dishonest Man or Incapable of Understanding Human Nature.

Today, Thomas Sowell posted to RealClearPolitics an article called the "Invincible Lie."http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/07/11/the_invincible_lie_114757.html In it, he makes a number of swipes at the Obama administration and liberals - or anyone he considers a liberal, which is most everyone outside his small circle of RWNJs - though he does make a valid point that wealth is not the same as income. He, of course, loses any credibility for making this point when he implies that people earning over $250,000 a year are somehow simply like the great mass of middle class Americans. That is simply not true. $250,000 a year puts you in the top 2% of wealth and wage earners in this country. Not the top 2% of wage earners, but the top 2% of the wealthy. So Sowell, who is complaining about the so-called "lie" of taxing this group because they are wealthy, in effect lies about it to make his point.

But it doesn't stop there: He then goes on to state the the really big lie "is that those who oppose raising taxes on higher incomes simply want people with higher incomes to have more money, in hopes that some of their prosperity will "trickle down" to the rest of the people."

He goes so far as to state that he has called for anyone - ANYONE, mind you - to name one economist outside of a lunatic asylum that has made this statement. His argument being that since no economist has ever come out and called it that that must not be what is happening or its intent, ignoring the elephant in the room that all of the GOP Congress argue just that i.e. that if "job creators" can just hold onto more of their money, they will finally create jobs. If you're looking for an Invincible Lie, now there's one you can hang your hat on.

But what really finally throws this piece of idiotic excrement into the crapper is his final argument that people will avoid taxes when taxes are higher and will pay them when they are lower and do so without fuss or complaint. Just look at Mitt Romney: he only used his off-shore accounts when taxes were high.

Oh, wait...

And that's where Sowell really starts making stuff up. Not only does he use Romney as his example that the wealthy will look for tax havens when taxes are high, but it all really depends on the circumstances, don't you know. There's no reason to be a tax cheat when taxes are low. Right?

Except, of course, that taxes have been low, and Romney still did it. Now why would he do that if there's no reason to?

Because Romney behaved as human beings are wont to behave, and it appears Sowell has no idea how human beings behave. At some point, that lower tax rate becomes the norm. It's what its always been - at least to the person now looking at it - and everyone hates paying taxes, no matter how low the rate. And when it becomes the norm, those who are apt to try to avoid paying taxes will do so because TO THEM their taxes are too high. The rate doesn't matter.

If you don't believe this, go talk to a banker who complains about the Capital Gains rate being 15%, the lowest its ever been, because he thinks it should be zero. He believes he shouldn't be taxed for doing absolutely nothing but stealing other people's money.

So, to sum, up Thomas Sowell has either no idea how the world works or he simply believes the rest of us are too stupid to know how the world works. Either way, the real Invincible Lie is that Sowell has anything of import to say. Given how frequently and massively wrong he tends to be, he is a better bell-weather for what not to think since he does so very little of it.

How Many Pedophiles can you fit on the Head of the Catholic Church

William Lynch, a 44 year old man who live in San Francisco, is accused of felony assault and elder abuse for beating his alleged abuser may receive up to 4 years in jail, while his alleged abuser Father Jerold Linder lives out his days in a nice Catholic Jesuit retirement home. Even the prosecution in this case believes that Father Linder was an abuser, yet because of the statute of limitations, Father Linder will never face a day in court. http://abcnews.go.com/US/william-lynch-alleged-abuse-victim-trial-beating-priest/story?id=16610797#.T-tD2Mhv-So

Justice would not be served, unless one were willing to take it into their own hands, like William Lynch did.


The same church that protects Linder demands that rape victims who get pregnant carry those babies to term and raise them. That same church condemns gay men and women but coddles the priests who prey upon children. They fight the use of contraception and protect those who abuse their position of trust.

But, of course, it's not the priest's fault, after all. The victims were just asking for it, weren't they.  While the flock feel sympathy and a modicum of outrage, they continue to pour into their institution of worship and continue to fund the Church which to it's very pinnacle has not only harbored but tried to protect these pedophile priests.

And it doesn't stop just with the Catholic Church. Rape victims shouldn't be allowed to get abortions because that is immoral, and everyone knows the rape victim must have been asking for it. Must have been asking for it by the way they dress, the way they walk, or even just how they look at you. It must be the victim's fault, having led their abuser on simply by being there.

There are bigger issue as well. Outraged conservatives who decry affairs by John Edwards and Bill Clinton, while Senator David Vitter procures prostitutes to dress him in diapers and manages to get re-elected on a family values platform.

Or attacks on Sandra Fluke for wanting insurance to cover birth control when those same companies cover Viagra, a product Rush Limbaugh took along to the Dominican Republic. What possible use did he have for it there, one wonders.

We glorify the prurient, dressing under-age girls in clothes meant to sexualize them, and then hold them responsible when they get attacked. We punish women for being women, children for being children, and feign massive outrage when our false puritanism is breached by reality. We hate sex, or pretend we do, all the while demanding more of it.

There is something deeply wrong with our country when pedophile priests get to retire and live out their days taken care of while their victims spend their lives battling the rage and the loathing they feel for themselves through no fault of their own. There is something deeply wrong with our country when the leaders and mouthpieces for half the nation can hypocritically call for abstinence only education and the punishment of the victim while all the while they indulge in their basest behavior.

THE FOUNDERS WERE WRONG....AND RIGHT.

The title of this post is meant to be provacative. But it is also true. Let's start with a simple idea and one really that cannot be legitimately disputed: Anyone who tells you they know what "The Founding Fathers" were thinking and that they have some inside track as to what they believed is lying. Plain and simple.

Anyone with the least bit of common sense can see that. There is just no way that anyone can say that they know clearly and unequivically what "The Founding Fathers" thought or wanted, because anyone with the least bit of common sense would notice that there is just no such thing as a monolithic group called "The Founding Fathers." So when you ascribe to "The Founding Fathers" this singular vision for what the United States was and should be, you are just lying out your ass because that never existed.

This is particularly troublesome for conservatives who seem to believe that they have some direct spiritual tie to "The Founding Fathers" and that they know exactly what TFFs wanted, just like they know exactly what God wants and everyone else is simply wrong. But, point out to them that the statement they cherry-picked from, say, Thomas Jefferson is not consistent with other statements Jefferson may have made, and they will state that 1) Jefferson never said that, 2) if he did he didn't mean it, and 3) you're nothing but a Nazi for pointing out that Jefferson contradicted himself.

Recently, for instance, that renowned Constitutional scholar Christine O'Donnell went to absurd lengths trying to deny separation of church and state. Leaving aside her hapless reasoning that it is not a tenet of The Constitution because the phrase as written is not directly written there, the Conservative Never Ever Right came to her defense arguing that she was not claiming that The Establishment Clause - the very first line of the First Amendment - was not there (she did, actually), but that her interpretation of The Constitution was an originalist one, and that those damn Liberals thought so little of TFFs that they would argue that 200 years worth of legal precedence had greater meaning than TFFs.

Now, we're talking Christine O'Donnell here, and let's face it, she has no idea what an originalist interpretation of The Constitution is. But let us discuss the idea of an originalist interpretation - just what does that mean exactly? That we should accept The Constitution on its face as complete and immutable? I doubt you will find many minorities who will willingly give up their right to vote so that we can have that originalist interpretation reinstated, conservative or otherwise. Yes, I know, that was granted by amendment and the only way to change the law of the land should be by amendment only - or so say conservatives, but only when it is not them doing the changing of the law.

For instance, conservatives never bring up the fact that The Constitution of the US was and is a compromise document, the most egregious example of that being the 3/5ths Compromise. Are we to ignore that? James Madison - The Father of The Constitution - placed within The Constitution a compromise which made a black man worth 3/5s of a white one. But, I hear conservatives shouting, he didn't mean it! We fixed it later through amendment! We gave blacks the right to vote through amendment! True, eventually The Constitution included the right to vote for all men and women, but the change didn't come because the Original Constitution allowed for it. It came because of the struggle and sacrifice of individuals willing to fight for it. An originalist interpretation of The Constitution would have kept out voting for all minorities forever.

And on the other side of the coin, we have Coroprate Personhood. The same conservatives who argue that we should follow their originalist interpretation of The Constitution - those very same folks who shout about how those damn Liberals are making up the law as they go - they will defend to the death this concept of corporate personhood - that somehow a corporation has the same rights as an individual, but with none of the responsibilities of the individual. This idea of Coroprate Personhood which came into being because a law clerk added a word which shouldn't have been added to a decision - THIS! Conservatives will defend as right and proper!

Madison - The Father of The Constitution - feared Democracy. Jefferson believed in a small agrarian society. Both men were dead set against having a standing army. Patrick Henry was supposedly a money-grubbing little worm of a man who barely passed law exams. Washington was a wealthy land-owner who wanted more than anything to keep his patrician's place. Thomas Paine and Aaron Burr wanted all able-bodied free men and women to be able to vote. There is no originalist interpretation of The Constitution. TFFs didn't know exactly what they wanted when it was written. Stating that it should remain static because you believe you know what they thought and what they wanted and that you are somehow right while everyone else is wrong is just the most appalling act of hubris.

GO GALT ALREADY!

Recently, Greg Manikow, an economist in the Bush Adminsitration, wrote an editorial stating that if the Bush Tax Cuts for the top 1% were to expire, he would not work as hard as he presently does since any income above $250,000 would be taxed a total of 4% more than it is presently taxed. This argument has been around for awhile now: Bill O'Reilly made it a few years ago; there was a brief movement of individuals who all promised to go Galt over this very issue. All I can say is: Go Galt, already, and leave the rest of us alone, for Christ's sake!

Honestly, how many of these people are actually that important that we cannot live without them? Is Greg Manikow such a great economist that there is no one to replace him? How about Bill O'Reilly? Given that O'Reilly is being eclipsed by the Insane Clown Posse that is Glenn Beck, who is going to miss him? None of these people are irreplaceable? Give me a break.

The one overriding principle of any place of work is that no one is irreplaceable. No one. Assume for a moment that Manikow stops taking every speaking assignment offered. Will there be no one to take that speaking assignment? Hardly. Or O'Reilly stops writing his books. Given the lack of thought or empathy that goes into his turgid prose, most of us would be happy if he stopped writing them altogether. There is nothing these two call their work that is of such a singular creation that we could not live without it. Neither Manikow nor O'Reilly is that unique a talent.

This, by the way, is the problem with Atlas Shrugged in the first place. It presupposes that there are some individuals that are just so unique that the world cannot live without them. Now, assuming this is so, conservatives have a problem; basically, one of contradiction. If there are individuals so unique that we cannot do without them, then not everyone can be one of these individuals. If, on the other hand, as conservatives constantly harp, everyone can do it, then these individuals do not exist.

The reality is is that overall, there are very few people the world cannot do without. In almost every instance of scientific discovery, it appears there were individuals on the same track as those who are given credit for their scientific discoveries. So under the proper circumstances, scientific, social, communal progress would continue, perhaps a bit differently, but it would continue.

So if Bill O'Reilly or Greg Manikow, or Pam Geller (who produces even less than these other two do) were to stop working altogether, nothing untoward would happen. The US would continue on it's way; there would still be bad economic policy put forth by some other RWNJ; there would still be stupid commentary on Faux News; and there would still be ignorant RWNJ blogs.

What Happens If Tea Baggers Win?

Imagine if you will that the House leader calls a vote for what is considered an important piece of legislation by the party. But instead of having a clear majority, the leader finds there is a fight going on with a large and vocal minority not only holding up the bill but in some instnaces choosing to side with the minority party against it. Is this Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats, you may wonder, given how badly Democrats have done at behaving like Democrats and voting for the poor, the working and the middle classes? No, it's John Boehner - or possibly Eric Cantor - vs. the Tea Baggers.

The Tea Baggers - I call them that since they self-identified as such - consider themselves the only ones who know the true meaning of The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution, even though most of them have never bothered to read either document. They, like their GO(B)P brethren, hate Government and anything to do with Government, so, naturally, they believe they should be the ones running the very institutions they hate. They hate Social Security, even though many Tea Baggers are on Social Security; they hate any kind of Govenrment funded Healthcare, unless it's their Medicare, they hate any and all entitlement programs, unless they are the programs which pave their streets and essentially make their lives easier. As an example, I give you Sharon Angle, who has no problem complaining about public healthcare while, it turns out in one of many fits of irony, she avails herself of it. http://thinkprogress.org/2010/09/28/angle-government-health-care/

And if that's not enough, Tea Baggers demand to have access to your bedroom. Don't have sex, don't be gay, go to the one true church (whatever the hell that means), and don't believe you can be who and what you are if you happen to be different from their belief as to who or what you should be.

Nor should you try at all to become educated. Education is for people who think, and being a Tea Bagger, that leaves most of them out. Science and Math are Liberal conspiracies against God and American Exceptionalism. The earth is 6,000 years old, evolution is just a theory, and Global Climate Change is just another form of taxation. So believeth the stupid. See Sarah Palin and Christine O'Donnell.

So back to our House scenario: either way, the GOBP loses. I'm sure the Party of No believes that once they get elected the Tea Baggers will fall into line. Perhaps, perhaps not. If they do, they will have very short political careers, as the likelihood that the Tea Baggers who turned out for these candidates turning out for them again will be close to nil. If they don't, then they will achieve none of their goals, as the likelihood that all of the GOBP will go insane, while greater than the first scenario, is hopefully also nil.

These are the optimistic outcomes should the Tea Baggers win come November. I give these outcomes a 50 - 50 chance. The pessimistic outcome is one no sane person should have to contemplate. Imagine a US run by Tea Baggers - debt spiraling out of control, social services non-existent, social protections non-existent, wars everywhere, religion mandated in the classroom, anyone who is different being hounded. The Tea Baggers speak about being for positive change, yet nothing they want is positive.

If we wish to move forward in this country, we must realize now that though they are our fellow citizens, they believe more in their ideology than they do in the concept of citizenship. They do not see any common cause. And that, by itself, should frighten anyone who has even half a brain in their head.

YOU CANNOT SPEAK UNLESS YOU HAVE THE MONEY

The Supreme Court recently ruled that if you are a corporation or union, you may pay to have political commercials put on which, while not directly calling for you to vote for a candidate, can indirectly influence your vote just before the election. They deemed this to be a Free Speech issue, protected by the First Amendment, the arguement coming down simply to money equals speech. Bench Memos at The National Review applauded this decision as a victory for Free Speech.

The Court also found that a high school student could indeed be punished for holding up a rather nonsensical sign at a high school function because he violated school rules and his speech was not in fact protected under the First Amendment. Bench Memos applauded this ruling as well, arguing that those damn high school kids just don't have the same rights as Corporations. Bench Memos, it seems, has no problem with Corporate Free Speech. It's just individual Free Speech they don't like.

I found one particular defense of the ruling in the "Bong Hits for Jesus" case completely nonsensical. The following is a quote from Clarence Thomas to defend his concurrent opinion in the case:

"I am afraid that our jurisprudence now says that students have a right to speak in schools except when they don’t—a standard continuously developed through litigation against local schools and their administrators. In my view, petitioners could prevail for a much simpler reason: As originally understood, the Constitution does not afford students a right to free speech in public schools."

Now, I'm no legal scholar. Nor did I read the entire opinion by Justice Thomas, but on its face, this is ridiculous. I did read the beginning of Justice Thomas' opinion, and even he concedes that the public school system did not exist until the 1800s, so saying that the Constitution did not originally afford students a right to free speech in public schools is absurd as there were no public schools at the time!

But beyond that, if we follow Justice Thomas' logic, he should not be handing down opinions as The Constitution as originally understood does not afford Justice Thomas any rights as a citizen. Nor does it afford women any rights as citizens. In point of fact, as originally understood, The Constitution disenfranchises a significant portion of the population. Now, while the good folks at Bench Memos may believe that that would be a good thing, I would beg to differ. Justice Thomas, as well as the four who concurred with him and Bench Memos, is wrong; plain and simple. Their position in this case is against individual liberty and for Corporatism. Even were we to read The Constitution as Charles Beard interpreted it, it is evident that The Bill of Rights was meant as a protection of Individual Liberty, not corporate liberty. It does not take a legal scholar to point out that the Tenth Amendment provides that all rights not enumerated within The Constitution to the national government revert to the people. That includes the right to put up nonsensical signs, even at a school function.

But the more important point is that Bench Memos feels this is a win for conservatives, if by conservatives we mean people who put Corporate interests before those of individual interests. This is in fact the position of the modern conservative movement - we should not protect individual rights, we should protect corporate ones. Look at the present immigration debate. Those damn dirty illegal immigrants are coming to the US to take jobs from American citizens, according to The National Review and others. But not once has The National Review stated that corporate sponsorship of illegal immigration is one of its root causes. They do not call for punishment of the corporation which employs illegal immigrants; they blame the immigrants for wanting to create a better life for themselves and their families. Something which all of our forefathers wanted to do in this country.

Or we can look to the present administration in regards to the concept of protecting the corporation over the individual. The Administration believes that it's dealings are sacrosanct and must be kept secret at all costs, while individuals' right to privacy (another issue the conservative movement does not believe in - just look at how they would like to be able to tell you what you can and cannot do in your own bedroom as a consenting adult) are simply swept out of the way as The Administration sees fit, and the Conservative Movement goes into paroxyms of ecstasy at the manliness of these cowards. You need only look at nearly every major institution of our Government under this administration to see that the underlying position taken by the Modern Conservative Movement is to protect and strengthen Corporate control while weakening individual freedoms. The Modern Conservative Movement does not believe in individual freedom. They do not believe that we can, in fact, make our own decisions. Unfortunately, they seem to be correct about at least 35% of the population. Most importantly, they are doing everything in their power to deny us what freedoms we have and to allow the entities that they believe to be the only ones with any rights to further manipulate us. The Modern Conservative Movement hates individual liberty.