Redistributing Income is Great - Someone Else's Income

This letter to the editor from the Chicago Tribune (last item, by one A. Hart) is simply hilarious:

On my way to lunch recently, I passed a homeless guy with a sign that read "Vote Obama; I need the money." I laughed. In a restaurant my server had on an "Obama 08" tie. Again I laughed. Just imagine the coincidence. When the bill came, I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Barack-Obama-redistribution-of-wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need—the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight. I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I've decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful. At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment, I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual recipient deserved money more. I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application.

All that needs to be added is that the Obama model is even worse, because the inappropriate redistribution of wealth means that those who generate wealth and jobs in our economy will have fewer resources to do so. This is change you can't believe in.

Guess Who He's Voting For

Not who you might normally think, but as you'll see he's in his right mind!

McCain the Stalwart

This is a great article by Charles Krauthammer, explaining why he's sticking with John McCain this voting season.

Thanks for the Warning, Joe the Senator!

This past weekend, as many of you may have heard, Joe Biden warned a crowd that something bad would happen if Barack Obama gets elected:

"Mark my words," the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."

"I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate," Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. "And he's gonna need help. And the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you--not financially to help him--we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."

Of course Biden doesn't think this is a good reason to vote for McCain, but what should those of us who aren't going to serve in an Obama administration think about it? Unless we think the same sort of "test" will be given to McCain, the obvious answer is: don't vote for Obama! Some interesting reflections from James Taranto are here, here and here.

Barack Obama, Abortion and Infanticide

Here are two articles by Princeton ethicist Robert P. George that are worth reading, though the subject matter is very grim. The first one focuses primarily on Obama's views on abortion and public policy, the second (co-authored by Yuval Levin) goes on to examine Obama's position on infanticide. Obama's positions are so extreme that they should give even committed pro-choice advocates pause before electing him to the highest office in the land.

Should Jews be Pro-Obama?

If one is a religious Jew (a phrase which, sadly, is no longer a redundancy) or a friend of Israel, then the answer is no, according to Ben Shapiro.

Let's Avoid Partisanship By Agreeing That I'm Right

Republicans have often cited the National Journal's 2007 Vote Ratings, according to which Barack Obama was the most liberal Senator for that year. (And Joe Biden was third.) Another popular stat alleged to show Obama's extreme partisanship points out that he voted with his party 97% of the time.

That all sounds impressive, but Obama has repeatedly declared that he will go across party lines, appealing not only to his fellow Democrats but to Independents and even Republicans. There's not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America. Take that, National Journal! (And Jonathan Edwards, too.)

There are a few ways one might take this. If one is a naive Obama supporter, he might be inclined to think that the National Journal rating is wrong. Some have fussed over the Journal's method, but it's clear that by any objective metric, Obama is quite safely ensconced in the liberal camp. A second way to interpret our data is to declare Obama a liar (or more kindly, a "typical" politician). Blathering about bipartisanship wins elections, but he blathered thusly before becoming a Senator, too, and to no avail. As a matter of policy, however, we believe in taking Senator Obama at his word. But how then can we put this together with the fact of his (very) liberal voting record?

The answer: Obama really is inviting everyone to join him, and really believes in his ideas. These ideas all happen to be liberal - indeed, sometimes radically so - but everyone's welcome to join in supporting them. So you see, one can get beyond partisan politics. (Yes you can...yes you can...) All that's necessary is to agree with the ultra-liberal Obama. But we wonder: if a Republican proferred a similarly "post-partisan" approach where the right ideas just happened to be the Right's ideas, do you think that even if he rejected it, he'd call it non-partisan? (If your answer is: not before the Cubs win another World Series, then you're probably right.)

Playing the Race Card?

We've been amazed during this campaign to see talking heads wonder if people will vote against Barack Obama just because he's black. Nevertheless, it has been a common conjecture, rendered even more prevalent thanks to Obama's pre-emptive warning that his opponents would say that he's inexperienced, has a funny name, and by the way, he's black.

You don't say!

But seriously, folks, how can anyone with half a brain take that charge seriously, except under the banner of political correctness? Most blacks vote Democrat anyway, so the anticipated Obama landslide among that community won't be a surprise. But how do we explain the 90%+ poll numbers Obama had among black voters when he was competing against Clinton in the Democratic primaries? There were some relatively minor differences between them in terms of policy, but nothing that would even come close to choosing one candidate over the other on purely racial lines.

Now, it's an open question as to whether or not one should vote for a candidate based solely on race. Maybe in some hypothetical circumstance where all else is equal, it would be worth voting for a black (or a woman, etc.) on the grounds that it would provide uplift to the members of that community. Maybe, maybe not, but only if there's absolutely no other basis for making a decision. Are we really going to pretend that's the case here?

So to white voters out there, if your only reason to vote for McCain is that Obama is black, then shame on you. But to blacks who are guilty of the opposite, shame on you, too. Looking at polling numbers, one must say that race-baiters are right: this is a racially divided society. Unfortunately, most of the racial division, percentage-wise, seems to be taking place on the black side of the equation. Whites are pretty evenly split between the candidates, pretty much as they have been in the past two elections. That's not what one would expect from a racist society. But blacks going for Obama over not only McCain but Clinton by better than nine-to-one? Yeah, that's beautiful. No racism here.

See all this article for more on the Obama team's race-baiting shenanigans.

Obama's Magic

Change you can't believe in.

A Brief ACORN Video

Nothing like documentary evidence to show what ACORN did, how it worked (or didn't), and who(bama) was behind it.

Barack Obama, Trickle-Down Economist

Part of the Democrat party's playbook is to refer to normal free market economics as "trickle-down" theory, followed up with a smirk, laugh, eye roll or statement making it clear that trickle-down economics is a nutty theory. Spelled out a little, the Democrat narrative runs like this: Republicans, who are rich and pro-rich, want the rich to pay as little in taxes as possible while not giving any special breaks to the poor or middle class. That's OK, say the Republicans, because prosperity at the top will "trickle down" [you know, like urine] to the less well off. Everyone wins. This theory is "obviously" crazy, to Democrats, because those nasty, greedy rich Republicans will want to keep as much of it for themselves - thus the mere trickle. As Barack Obama recently said, "it's not enough just to help those at the top. Prosperity is not just going to trickle down."

This is an effective rhetorical trick, but it's poor economics. First, unless the rich cannibalize each other, they can only get their "more" from the financial activities of the less wealthy buying their products. And that, in turn, can only happen if they have money, which requires jobs. And there are only jobs if those with some money are able to invest it. In short, we're all interdependent - as a random politician recently noted:

Well, Oliver, first, let me tell you what's in the rescue package for you. Right now, the credit markets are frozen up and what that means, as a practical matter, is that small businesses and some large businesses just can't get loans. If they can't get a loan, that means that they can't make payroll. If they can't make payroll, then they may end up having to shut their doors and lay people off.

And if you imagine just one company trying to deal with that, now imagine a million companies all across the country. So it could end up having an adverse effect on everybody, and that's why we had to take action. But we shouldn't have been there in the first place.

Guess who the speaker was? Obama, of course. What he's saying is sensible and basic Republican economic theory; in fact, it's basic economic theory, period. If they would stick to the truth and avoid the class warfare, this country would be a much better place.

HT: The Wall Street Journal's "Best of the Web"

The Obamajünge

Lawrd, this is creepy. [Update: The Obama people have removed this video from YouTube and everywhere else, apparently recognizing what's obvious to normal people; to wit, that having pre-teen children singing hymns to a political candidate is somewhere between creepy and cultic.]