Category: Politics & Economics

Politics & Economics

Victory & Grace: A Contrast in both Style & Substance

Posted on by John W Gillis / 1 Comment

There are lots of good reasons why lots of good people deeply dislike long-time U.S. Congressman Barney Frank; so many that exposing his victory speech this Tuesday night seems a bit like piling on. Yet, there it stands: a testimony to his character. Sore losers can be embarrassing enough, but what to make of such a sore winner? Here is Frank in full Barney mode: self-serving, self-pitying, self-absorbed, self-righteous; with nothing better to say after being elected to a 16th term (if my math is right) representing the people of Massachusetts than to ta...

Politics & Economics

2010 Midterms: The End, At Last

Posted on by John W Gillis / 3 Comments

So, the 2010 election campaign comes mercifully to a close. Not that the 2012 cycle doesn’t start in the morning, but I’ll still feel something of a respite – at least for a while. When I voted at 7:20 this morning, I was the 42nd person in my precinct to cast a ballot. That’s a pretty good clip compared to other times I’ve voted early (admittedly, I’ve usually voted after work, so I’m using a small sample). There was, however, no line. I tried to tune it all out over the past week or so, despite being a pretty highly motivated person politically. I’m ju...

Politics & Economics

The Plug

Posted on by John W Gillis / 2 Comments

So, the Conniver-in-Chief speaks tonight about the environmental mayhem in the Gulf of Mexico. Let’s see… The first thing he will say is that he is in charge and in command, yet simultaneously responsible for nothing. Then he will blame everyone within reach: BP, George W. Bush (!), and Congress (yes, even Congress will get at least a token whipping for this – not because they bear any real responsibility, but because almost everyone hates Congress, so they’re an easy mark). Conservative talk radio personalities may also get some blame, but I’m not going...

Politics & Economics

The Edge of Politics

Posted on by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

Richard Fernandez over at Pajamas Media posted a disturbing commentary yesterday on a couple of articles he had recently read concerning the apocalyptic economic problems facing both California and Great Britain. The root of the problem, in both cases, is easy enough to identify: the entitlement mentality that promotes the belief that something can be had for nothing (or little). The title of his article (I Want My MTV) sums the matter up neatly (money for nothing, chicks for free…). But it’s easy to hammer on the unsustainability of free lunch programs ...

Politics & Economics

The Law of Rule

Posted on by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

As the leftists in Washington basked in the faux glory of their successful healthcare reform con job last week, it was hard not to be struck by their lack of gravity. You would have thought they had just won an arm wrestling competition, or perhaps a neighborhood gang fight. Despite all the high-fiving, and the preposterous assertions that the vote portended the doom of the Republican Party, it is awfully hard not to see this as a hollow victory for Obama: a political manipulation of the worst kind, for all the world to see; watching him strong-arming hi...

Politics & Economics

A Vote with Meaning in Massachusetts?

Posted on by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

It’s quite a night for politics in the Bay State tonight. The polls closed about half an hour ago on the first competitive race for a national office that I can remember in my lifetime. My sense is that, before this night is over,  Republican State Senator Scott Brown will have knocked off once heavily favored Mass Attorney General Democrat Martha Coakley for the open U.S. Senate seat that had been held by Ted Kennedy since I was a two-year old. It has been a lot of fun over the past few weeks to feel the momentum building for Brown’s candidacy in t...

Politics & Economics

Idealism Unencumbered by Reality: Obamacare, pt.2 (Universality & Reality)

Posted on by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

In the on-going debate over how to improve the American healthcare and healthcare delivery systems, the professed intent of most of the players has been to increase “access” or “coverage,” by extending benefits to people who currently do not have such access. Ostensibly, this is because “access” and/or “coverage” is priced out of reach for these folks, on account of some combination of raw poverty, and unavailability of employer-provided/subsidized health insurance, which is the vehicle through which most non-elderly Americans access the healthcare syste...

Politics & Economics

Idealism Unencumbered by Reality: Obamacare, pt.1

Posted on by John W Gillis / 1 Comment

George Orwell, in his 1946 essay “Politics and the English Language” said: “Political language . . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” There is no more apt description of the political discourse that has defined the “healthcare” issue in this country over the past year. Now that we’ve seen what the Democratic leadership has proposed for legislation, would it be out of line to suggest that someone might owe Joe Wilson an apology? Of course, it was almost impossible to know ...

Politics & Economics

Eat the Rich?

Posted on by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

So, a majority of people in the country, at least according to this poll, want somebody else to pay for the looming health care program – you know, like those rich people,  who are most likely rich because they’re cheats, anyway. Why am I not surprised? Isn’t this just the perfect embodiment – and inevitable end-result – of modernism’s rejection of personal responsibility in favor of paternalistic political super-structures? I suppose I exaggerate though; the actual end-results of these left wing muggings of the rich have not...

Politics & Economics

“Tear Down this Wall!”

Posted on by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

Very interesting short piece linked here from the Wall Street Journal’s Opinion section yesterday by Ronald Reagan’s former chief speech writer, on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Sometimes it’s easy to forget what a dreadful threat Soviet communism posed to human freedom on many levels – not to mention world peace – and how remarkable it was that the whole odious scheme came crashing down with such a whimper. The power of words, the power of conviction, the power of resoluteness, the power of truth̷...