Canadian Cincinnatus

The court ruling against Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is a disgrace

While Rob Ford did not do himself any favours by allowing a minor matter to escalate the way it did (a how-not-to book could be written about Ford’s scandal management skills), let us take a moment to recall the transgression that started this ball rolling: Rob Ford had solicited a small number of donations (total value around $3K) for his football charity using his City Councillor stationary. That’s it. Ford didn’t pocket a cent from this money, or benefit in any other way except to see a charity that he believes in benefit. The interest of the city taxpayers and residents of his ward weren’t compromised in any conceivable way.

That the behind-the-scenes David Miller machine would exploit the law as it is written to overturn an election result they don’t like is understandable. That’s just what they do.

The trouble here is a truly bad law that allows the will of the electorate to be invalidated by the courts over trivial and innocuous matters such as this. The offending law must be revamped as soon as possible. 

But until then, if conservative Ontarians have any heart at all, we would go through the ruling with a fine tooth comb and use it to attack every elected left-wing municipal and provincial official in the province who hasn’t dotted every i and crossed every t. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

 

Meanwhile, in completely unrelated news, the Mayor of London, Ontario remains on the job despite being criminally charged with fraud. But hey, he’s a Liberal, or was. So it’s OK or something.

Lets all go over the fiscal cliff

I think the MSM media has sensationalized the consequences of going over the fiscal cliff - the set of automatic spending cuts and tax increases set to take place on Jan 1, 2013 if Congress does not intervene - because it is opposed to government spending cuts. 

Which is precisely why the Republicans should go over it. The biggest economic problem in the US right now is out-of-control federal spending. The spending cuts included in the fiscal cliff are modest at best. They are, I believe (and correct me if I’m wrong) only about $100 billion out of a $3.7 trillion budget - in absolute terms. (In terms of baseline budgeting, it's another matter; but that’s a phony accounting trick.) Given the divided nature of the US government and Barack Obama’s implacable hostility to decreasing the size of government, this will be the only opportunity to do something substantive about America’s core problem in the next four years.

Obviously, the concomitant tax increases will likely not bring in much revenue because their existence will depress US economic growth, but given the present composition of the US government, this is the best solution that can be hoped for. Spending must be brought under control.

Republican strategists would likely retort that if the GOP-dominated House doesn’t agree to a compromise, they will be blamed for any and all negative consequences that follow. Earth to Republicans: you will be blamed for all negative consequences regardless of what you do, and the economy will continue to suck no matter what, because Barack Obama will effectively block any substantive reform. Given this, just do the right thing. In four years, the President’s party will be blamed for the overall state of the country. And electorally, that is all that matters.

Here’s a history lesson from Canada: in the early 1990’s, government budgets were out of control. Ontario, Alberta and the federal government instituted spending cuts. The press called these cuts draconian and predicted the apocalypse. In reality, the cuts were modest caps on spending in absolute terms (much like the cuts encoded in the ‘fiscal cliff’) that lasted a few years. But that was enough to completely turn around Canada’s fiscal situation. Instead of an economic apocalypse, the fiscal sanity ushered in a period of prosperity that has lasted to this day.

So bring it on.

Why the hell didn’t the GOP nationalize the Congressional elections?

Tip O’Neill, the former Democrat Speaker of the House, famously said that all politics is local. That works well enough for the Democrats who are the party of big government. However, this strategy hasn’t worked so well for Republicans, the small government party. In a contest of who can spend the most money, the side whose stated goal is spending as much money as possible will inevitably have the edge.

In recent congressional elections, the GOP scored big in 1994 and 2010. In both years, the congressional elections were nationalized: in 1994, by Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America; and in 2010 by the Tea Party. When Dennis Hastert took over the speakership from Newt Gingrich, he shifted back to the Tip O’Neill model, bleeding senators and congressmen until the majority was finished off in the 2006 rout.

Given this, I not only ask, why wasn’t the 2012 congressional elections nationalized under a unified program, but why aren’t all congressional elections nationalized all the time?

The Tea Party’s secret weapon: MSM scorn

Last week, just after the election I was working out in the gym and had the misfortune to be subjected to CNN on the overhead monitors. The theme from that arrogant British toff Piers Morgan and his guests was that, now that the Democrats won, it’s time for the Republicans to compromise and jettison their remaining principle. 

It’s one thing to exploit your victory, it’s another to rub your opponents nose in the dirt. This is what the MSM, and the Democrats (Morgan was interviewing David Axelrod) are doing, offering condescending – and bad intentioned – advice to Republicans, calling their core supporters extremists and racists in the process. 

Humiliation is always a bad tactic. Most adults can accept defeat, few can accept degradation. As a result, conservative Americans (40% of the US population, according to numerous polls) subject to the bombardment of this obnoxiousness from the MSM, are in the psychological position they were in January 2009, when they spontaneously rose up to start the Tea Parties. 

This is another example of the Taranto principle in action, which states that MSM liberal bias often backfires because they shield the Democrat Party from the balancing effects of criticism.

Barack Obama’s reelection part 2: the good news

Yesterday I catalogued the bad news from Obama’s victory. The good news is that this very dark cloud does have a silver lining to it. The practical consequences are the bad news; the political consequences are the good news. 

In reaction to their victory, a common Democrats reaction is, ‘Obama won, America has decided, and they have chosen Obama’s big government vision over Romney’s small government vision. The Republicans should accept the will of the people. 

And if policies were like hemlines, then yes: that would be good advice.

But it is not good advice because policies are not like hemlines, which can rise and fall with public favour because, ultimately, they are not important. In contrast, for any given issue, the set of policies for one side will produce better results than the other side’s. Conversely, the bad consequences of bad policies will flow regardless of how popular they were initially. The iron laws of economics are indifferent to popularity.

As a result, good policies will be copied and become more popular over time - even if public support for them was initially lukewarm; and bad policies will become hated over time – even if they were initially popular.

This logic indicates that all those bad policy disasters that I catalogued yesterday about Obama’s second term will lead to bad political results for the Democratic Party in the future. This will open the electoral door wide open for principled conservatives. In being such a pure, unalloyed, avatar of an ideology (progressivism), Obama will have, by the time he is finished, tarnished its name for a generation; the way Herbert Hoover did for the GOP brand. 

Of course, I am not arguing that it was ultimately good for Romney to lose because it sets up an even bigger GOP win in 2016. Good policies should always trump good politics. Romney’s unideological, technocratic first term would have been much preferable to Obama’s second-term, train-wreck. But the election is over and time can’t be turned back. All that one can do is to take the good with the bad. It is therefore the job of principled American conservatives to not lose their heads in despair and fail to seize the grand opportunity that they have been presented with.

Barack Obama’s reelection part 1: the bad news

There is no sugar coating the Nov 7th election. It was a disaster for the United States - and for the world.

To date, President Obama has implemented many bad policies, whose bill is now likely to come due within the next four years. These include:

Obamacare: Most of its budget busting and job-killing aspects will be implemented within the next several years.

Dodd-Frank: ditto.

Stagflation: Obama looks to renominate Ben Bernanke. Helicopter Ben’s QE 3, QE 4, ….QE n will sooner or later destabilize the monetary system, causing stagflation and possibly even a collapse of the US dollar. Our luck can hold out for only so long.

Trillion dollar deficits: Obama has demonstrated he has no real inclination to deal with the Federal deficit. Einstein called compound interest the most powerful force in the universe. Herb Stein said, what can’t go on won’t. Within the next 4 years, the US could face a sovereign debt crisis.

Tax hikes on job creators: In all likelihood, Obama will get some kind of tax hike on the wealthy. This will help prop up the unemployment rate while doing very little for general revenues.

Regulatory explosion: There are a sea of environmental regulations – over and above Obamacare and Dodd-Frank – that Obama has implemented by executive order designed to squelch oil, gas and coal production. These will inhibit most manufacturing activity as well. Regulations are a key prop to the US’s persistently high unemployment rate.

Supreme Court: How many leftist judges will Obama nominate in the next 4 years? Scalia, the oldest, will be over 80 in 4 years so the conservative judges can probably hang on. However, look for Ginsburg and Breyer to be replaced by fresh blood. The composition will likely remain the same but a couple of opportunities for constitutional renewal will have been lost.

Defence cuts: The world is a much safer place with a benign policeman like the US on the job. Look for things to get nastier.

Iran: The ayatollahs will likely have a nuke within 4 years. How incompetent can their nuclear program be? At some point, they have to reach their goal.

Eastern Europe: What whirlwind will Obama’s “flexibility” with Putin reap? I tremble for the new democracies of the east.

But the thing that makes me fear Obama more than other Presidents is that he genuinely doesn’t seem to care if things go south. He will deflect blame when he has to, but he has yet to show any serious concern about the state of the union.

In contrast, take Jimmy Carter: Most people don’t remember this about Carter, but when stagflation started to take hold of the US economy, rethought a lot of things. As a result, he instituted airline deregulation, trucking deregulation and nominated Paul Volker to head the Federal Reserve Board, the best man who ever inhabited that position. Key aspects of the Reagan recovery started under Carter.

Take also Bill Clinton: After the 1994 rout, Clinton also had an oh-shit moment. He started listening to Dick Morris and began to compromise with Newt Gingrich. As a result, key elements of the Contract With America such as welfare reform, capital gains tax cuts, telecom deregulation and reformed farm aid were enacted, setting the stage for the late 1990’s boom.

Obama has shown no similar inclination to learn from his mistakes. I doubt his electoral triumph will improve this aspect of his personality.

As H. L. Mencken once put it, “In a democracy the people get what they want, good and hard.” The American people (and the rest of us) are about to see the truth in this matter.

An open letter from a Canadian gun owner to American conservatives (Part 2): Keep the Faith!

Persistence is one of the most important political virtues for a reason. The side that keeps up the fight the longest, without compromising on core principles, usually wins, even against great odds. 

Here’s an example from Canadian politics:

In the 1990’s, Canadian gun owners were assaulted with two draconian sets of gun laws. The first was by the Progressive Conservative (PC) Party: Canada’s only ‘right-wing’ party at the time. In other words, when this fight began in 1989, we had to take on our erstwhile allies. It got to the point when the author of the PC gun laws, Kim Campbell, became the party leader and Prime Minister. In reaction, we attacked the PC’s, supporting the upstart Reform Party (the Canadian equivalent of the Tea Party). The result was 10 years of vote splitting, that allowed the Liberal Party free reign in Parliament for a decade, in which time they came up with a second - even worse - gun law (by Justice Minister Alan Rock). At our nadir, the Reform Party threatened to divide into two factions. If that had happened, Canada’s right-wing vote would have been split into three!

But we kept at it. We never lost faith. Gun owners were instrumental in healing the right. The current Conservative Party is much more principled than the old PC Party ever was. Recently, the long-gun registry was abolished and, in the process, the careers of Alan Rock and Kim Campbell were completely destroyed.

Our secret? We just kept at it.

Want an example south of the border?

Take Obamacare. After Scott Brown’s victory in 2009 (taking Ted Kennedy’s seat!), everybody thought Obamacare was toast. But Obama didn’t. Against a gale force of negative polling data and electoral defeats, President Obama plugged away, never compromising an inch. (The truth be told, I admire him for that, even though I hate Obamacare.) The result: he got his law, and he got reelected.

You wanna win? You gotta keep at it – just like Obama, and just like Canadian gun owners.

An open letter from a Canadian gun owner to American conservatives (Part 1): Buck Up!

After Tuesday night’s loss to Obama, what I was afraid might happen to American conservatives is happening to American conservatives. Drudge has headlines like:

Rush Limbaugh: “I went to bed last night thinking we had lost the country.”

Sean Hannity: “Allure and Appeal of Socialism Has Taken Hold.”

Michael Savage: “Our society is being turned into a prison camp.”

Take a pill and relax. As bad as the consequences of Obama’s re-election will be (and make no mistake about it, they will be bad), it remains a bad idea to take counsel in your fears.

First some perspective: In 1945, Europe in general, and Germany in particular, sat defeated, destroyed and divided. Within 10 years, however, Western Europe was on the fast track to incredible prosperity. Why? Good policies instituted by the western allies. And as bad as Obama’s policies are, the destruction he will achieve will be nothing like the flattened cities of Germany and its partial occupation by the Soviet Union. The US constitution is a wise document, designed survive left-wing demagogues like Obama. The US survived FDR. It will survive Barry Soetoro.

Second, while it is absolutely necessary to analyze your defeat for lessons, you shouldn’t overanalyze you defeat either. The simple fact is, sometimes the other guy gets lucky.

How did Obama get lucky?

Hurricane Sandy took President Obama away from his counterproductive campaigning and forced him to act presidential. Instead of hurling bitter accusations, the people saw him dealing with problems and they responded. The bipartisan tour of New Jersey was icing on the cake (though it effectively kills any future Chris Christie has in the GOP). Up until Sandy, Romney was on a roll that had started with the first presidential debate. Just prior to the storm, even the polls using the 2008 turnout model showed him winning. As these polls proved accurate, Romney really was winning at that point. With Sandy, Romney was effectively banished from the media for five crucial days and never recovered. If Sandy had not hit, Romney – who ran a good campaign - would likely have been President-elect today.

Fortunately, nobody has a monopoly on luck. The Law of Large Numbers decrees that random events will, over time, be evenly distributed.

Or as Patricia Arquette’s character said in True Romance, “That’s the way it goes. But sometimes it goes the other way too.”

This is why persistence is one of the most important political virtues.

John Derbyshire is wrong about Obama and communism

A couple of days ago, John Derbyshire posted an article where he doubts that Barack Obama is a communist.

Derbyshire provides a good typology of communists:

Communists in countries where a Marxist-Leninist party is in power.

Communists living in countries where it is dangerous to be a communist.

Communists living in countries where it is not dangerous to be a communist.

In the first category, once the first flush of revolution has passed and the idealists have all been killed off, communism is just conformism. To become a party member is just a career move, as in the case of my wife’s Fifth Uncle.

Just so. With roots in Estonia, I have a number of relatives who were communists of the first kind. They all hate communism. Derbyshire then states:

Most of my own loathing of communism is for Category Three: communists living in countries where they are free to be communists.

Full agreement here. Then he states:

To be a real communist is to make a serious commitment to a cause. Communism is a hard dogma, completely at odds with the soft-handed girlish narcissism of a late-20th-century American leftist such as Obama, who has never risked, fought, struggled, or suffered.

In this he is entirely wrong. He is under the delusion, common to many people, that just because we don’t see the atrocities of communism here, we have no real communists. We do. You have to look no further than former terrorist Bill Ayers and his fiendish wide Bernadine Dohrn, or the Black Block anarchists who form the tip of Occupy Wall Street’s spear (that the White House actively encouraged). Then there is also Minister King Samir Shabbazz, of the New Back Panther party voter intimidation video fame, who may have also visited Obama’s White House twice and who shared a stage with him in 2008.

Whatever else you can say about Ayers and Dohrn and all the rest, they are not soft-handed, girlish narcissists. They are hard men (and women); they are ruthless fanatics, utterly committed to the Utopia, whose glory is so great that it excuses all their bloodthirstiness and excess.

Then there are those who say they are Marxists but whose martial prowess hasn’t been put to the test yet: the soft handed, girlish narcissist wing of America’s communist crowd if you will. This bunch includes Anita Dunn, Obama’s former communications director, who told a crowd that mass murderer Mao was her favorite philosopher; Van Jones, the former green jobs czar for Obama; and Barack Obama’s mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, a card carrying Communist with ties to Moscow. You want more? Just go to any university’s web site and look up the faculty. Marxist affiliations and sympathies are proudly listed.

Come the revolutions, many of these will doubtlessly shirk from manning the barricades, but if their confreres come to power, they will doubtlessly be most eager to help direct the people’s republic - assuming of course that the Politburo does not line them up against the wall first.

Where is Obama in all of this? Considering all of his hard-left associations, past and present, as well as his reticence, I would categorize him as that species of communist who likes to work quietly within the system, subverting it incrementally towards Utopia. Look at his presidential record. There is a meme going around conservative circles that Obama is soft and indecisive. Look again. It may be true for things like Benghazi, but for stuff that he really cares about – Obamacare, stimulus, Dodd-Frank, CO2 emissions – he has been bold, decisive, ruthless and determined.

Remember that Weimar Germany was a civilized country yet violent fanatics from both the right and left filled its streets; and that many Bolsheviks came from the pampered upper classes of Russia; and that Muhammad Atta was an engineering student from Germany. The difference between them and the revolutionaries of today is that we live in a society made prosperous by the free-market system. If that collapses, we will shortly discover all the vipers that we have been nursing in our bosom.

Pollsters vs. uskewedpolls.com: who’s right

For a while now, conservative pundits and bloggers have been noticing that the internals of many, perhaps most, polls of the US presidential election are slanted to favour President Obama. After a while it was uncovered that the pollsters were using the turnout model from the 2008 Presidential election. Considering that the 2010 midterm elections were one of the best turnouts the Republican Party ever had and that, if anything, public sentiment against Obama has hardened since then, conservatives have said, hey wait a minute! These polls are biased. Turnout in 2012 will not be anything like 2008; all indications are that conservative enthusiasm is much higher today than 4 years ago; and, even then, the composition of some polls was tilted even more in the Democrats direction than in 2008 – a complete absurdity.

The nice people at QstarNews took matters in their own hands and began to publish unskewed poll results, using the Republican/Democrat/independent composition of the electorate today (which they got from the same polling companies that issued the slanted polls) to unskew the polls. Predictably, their results are much more favourable to Mitt Romney than the published results.

The pollsters then said, hey wait a minute! You can’t unskew polls with current voter composition to weight your results. Too many methodological problems associated with doing that, they say. Perhaps that’s true. The trouble is, I never hear what exactly those methodological problems are.

Of course, basing voter composition on 2008 in an era when voter preference has changed so radically is also problematic. Using the voter composition of past elections makes perfect sense when you are in an era of stable voter preference, as America was from 1994 to 2004. The trouble is, from 2006 onwards, American voters have been changing their minds wildly in terms of which party they like. Perhaps in today’s environment, going with current party preference is the best way to go.

As somebody who spent a decade and a half at a job where I predicted the future, I can assure you that all prediction methodologies have limitations. No technique ever matches all the infinite subtlety of reality. Nevertheless some methods are clearly better than others. In my opinion, the unskewing method used by QstarNews probably adds value to the polling predictions.

Am I right? We’ll find out on Nov 6.