Update Schedule

Posted on October 18, 2012 by Dude Where's My Freedom?

When Tom Woods speaks, I listen.

I saw a video that urged people to start a blog, and I did.  Recently in a live chat, he suggested that to grow an audience, you had to provide content on a consistent and predictable basis.  Therefore, I am officially committing myself to a Monday-Wednesday-Friday update schedule.  On each one of these days, I will aim to put up a new post, even if it’s a simple link to another blog or YouTube video with brief commentary.

These are all work days for me, so the posts will probably come late in the evening (Pacific Time).  So checking the blog on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings would work too.  Thanks to everyone who has read, liked, or commented on any of my stuff over the past year or so.  Much more to come!

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Politics: The Dismal(er) Science

Posted on October 17, 2012 by Dude Where's My Freedom?

Those unfamiliar with the specifics of Austrian economics are often suspicious or critical of its rejection of complex mathematical models.  Mises refutes these objections and explains the basis of this reasoning in Human Action, and I won’t go into the exact specifics here.  The basic premise is that models rely on historical data, and historical data cannot tell us anything conclusive about what will happen in the future.  As they say in every investment prospectus, “Past performance is no guarantee of future results.”  Correlation does not imply causation.  Economics cannot be compared to the physical sciences because controlled experiments where variables are isolated are impossible.  Many economic statements start with “all other things being equal,” but in the real world of acting individuals, all other things are NEVER equal.

So, during the “debates” the candidates take historical observations and somehow, both spin historical facts to suggest different conclusions.  Romney says “The economy sucks, it’s Obama’s fault.”  Obama says “It’s getting better, but to whatever extent it does suck, it’s Bush’s fault.”  Because there can be no controlled experiment, we cannot conclusively assign fault either way, therefore such arguments are irrelevant.  Economics is derived logically from axioms, not from historical data.

I present this as background information to the specific issue I’d like to address, the question of “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”

The politicians keep asking us this.  The Romney camp wants us to answer no, the Obama camp wants us to answer yes.  Realistically speaking, for many people the answer will be no and for many others the answer will be yes.  The relevant question should of course be, “To what extent has the quality of your life been affected by the policies of Barack Obama?”

I would venture to guess that for the average American, the specific policies of the President are a statistically insignificant factor in the quality of life someone enjoys.  Personally, I AM better off than I was four years ago.  I’ve been promoted at work since then, so I make more money.  I was able to relocate closer to my friends and family, so my social life has improved.  Of the more money I’ve made, I’ve saved more, so my net worth has increased.  I’ve continued my education, both in formal terms (close to finishing my degree, which will increase my earning power), and in informal terms (four years ago, I couldn’t have told you what “Austrian economics” is and didn’t know anything about libertarianism other than that they want to legalize weed).

From those facts, can someone logically conclude that I should vote for Obama?  That would be insane.  None of those things had anything to do with Obama.  I would guess that 99% of someone’s quality of life is dependent on their actions as an individual and fate/luck/random chance/God.  Depending on your personal philosophy, you will think those two factors impact you in different ways.  Of the 1% I am leaving left over for politicians, I would say the Executive branch of the United States Federal Government specifically is probably only responsible for about one-tenth of that.  That’s .1% that Obama has affected whether your life has improved or not.

Of course, this is all pure conjecture on my part.  It is absolutely impossible to prove to what extent the President of the United States affects the quality of your day to day life.  And that’s the point.  It is entirely possible for someone’s life to improve in spite of Obama’s policies, not because of them.  Conversely, it’s entirely possible for someone’s life to get worse even if Obama does a great job.

This is significant because the very notion of this being an important question is a subtle form of state-worship.  The unspoken implication behind the constant parroting of the question is, “The President is the main factor in determining how good your life is.”  This is an obvious lie, and it needs to be exposed as such.  It’s the type of propaganda you might expect to be taught in re-education camps in North Korea, that Dear Leader is directly responsible for your own personal success and happiness.

It is time to stand up and wholly reject this line of questioning.  The next time someone asks you if you are better off than you were four years ago, demand they justify why we’re using a four year period, and insist that you are better or worse off due to your own choices, or due to luck, and not due to the inept sociopaths aspiring to rule the world.

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Inside the Mind of a Propagandist

Posted on October 12, 2012 by Dude Where's My Freedom?

So, this video has been making the rounds lately, apparently as evidence of how stupid conservatives are or something.  “Look at this dumb old lady, she thinks Obama is a Communist, WHAT AN IDIOT!”

But I think the real star of this film is state-sponsored propagandist, Chris Matthews.  As you watch this video, look at what he does here, as it’s rather interesting.  He starts off interviewing some random baby-boomer parasite who is supporting Obama.  This woman has worked all her life and has a lot of kids, which apparently makes her entitled to unlimited free medical care (insert comment about the 47% here).  But then, someone off-camera yells out “He’s a communist!”

You can almost see Chris’ ears perk up.  “Aha!” he thinks.  “Now I’ve got a live one!”  He quickly dismisses the old lady that he was about to sympathize with to go get some proof of how racist those who oppose Obama are.  You see, to Chris, everything is about race.  The only possible reason to disagree with Obama is because you’re a racist (nevermind the fact that Chris himself was once really impressed with Obama’s ability to make him “forget he was black”).

So he asks the lady, “What do you mean by that?”  That seems like a rather odd question to ask if you were an honest journalist, doesn’t it?  Does Chris not know what a communist is?  Or, is it possible that he’s trying to lead the witness.  The lady tells him to “study it out” and scolds him for not having done his homework.  But he’s not satisfied yet.  “What do you mean by Communist?” he asks again.  Once again, is it not a little bit odd that he continues to ask this?  So she correctly challenges him on it, “You don’t know?”  But he won’t answer that.  He won’t correct her, or debate her on what communism actually is.  He just keeps leading her down a certain path.

But she’s not cooperating, so he has to just go for it, and finally, he makes his intentions clear and asks “Is he an American?”  Ahhhh, so THAT’S what he was aiming for all along.  He thinks he’s got a real live birther that he’s going to expose on national TV.  Isn’t that an odd follow-up question to what she means by saying he’s a communist?  Can someone not be both an American and a communist?  By asking that question, Matthews implies that you cannot.  So she answers no.

Now he’s REALLY got a thrill running down his leg.  He’s now completely convinced he has trapped and exposed a birther.  So he asks “What country is he from?”  Obviously this stupid lady is going to say Kenya, right?  Unfortunately for the race-baiting propagandist, she explains her answer more fully, that just because he was born here doesn’t mean he thinks like us.  Now, at this point, Matthews could choose to have an intelligent and reasoned discussion with the woman about whether simply being born on American soil automatically makes someone an American, or whether a certain amount of shared values is necessary.  But of course, he’s not here to have honest discussions.  He’s here to attempt to embarrass conservatives.  So she once again states her position that Obama is a communist, and he quickly aborts the mission and sulks away.

So enjoy this video, focusing on how Matthews makes no attempt at any point to have an honest, intellectual debate.  He doesn’t want to discuss what communism actually is (to him apparently, it is self-evident that Obama is not one and the only reason to call him one is because you’re a racist and MSNBC has already decided that communist and socialist are racial “code-words”).  He doesn’t want to discuss exactly what it means to be “American.”  He just wants to smear and villanize anyone who would dare suggest that Dear Leader isn’t exactly on our side.  This video exposes him for what it is – a paid propagandist completely uninterested in honest debate.

 

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My Case for Gold

Posted on October 8, 2012 by Dude Where's My Freedom?

This video by Bob Murphy is a couple weeks old, but makes a very significant point about the purposes and intentions behind QE3.  Murphy provides a brief history of what the Fed has tried to do during the recession, and sketches out their plans for the future, but he seems to stop just short of describing exactly what this might mean, particularly in regards to gold and precious metals.

After the housing bubble collapsed, aggregate demand fell as consumers stopped spending and wanted to save their money.  Time preference fell as uncertainty caused the average American to increase their net cash holdings.  Obviously, this is completely unacceptable to the Keynesians who run both political parties and our national banking system.  To them, consumption spending must remain as high as possible at all times for an economy to be considered healthy.  So, in an effort to convince us all to stop being paranoid and actually saving our money, they dropped interest rates to near zero.  The thinking behind this is that if you eliminate the return from savings, people will stop saving, and spend their money on consumption instead.

Of course, the overlords were wrong.  The recession had freaked people out and undermined confidence to such a large degree that people kept saving.  They kept their money in a 0.3% APY savings account or a 0.5% CD, not because they were salivating over the interest they would gain, but because they were uncertain about the future.  They were worried that they might lose their job, or have their hours cut, or that friends and family might need their assistance.  They saved, not as a means of generating extra income, but to protect themselves from an uncertain future.

So now what do you do if you’re Ben Bernanke?  You used your hammer of lowering interest rates as much as you could, and it had no effect.  Those stupid consumers still refuse to spend.  But perhaps, by flooding the market with even more money, and announcing that you plan on doing so indefinitely, you can freak them out.  Perhaps you can convince them that high inflation is on the way.  If you can successfully convince people that not only will their meager savings account not make them any money, but that they will actually lose money as the purchasing power of the dollar falls, then they have to spend their money, don’t they?  The stated goal is to make savings as unappealing as possible, so that consumption rises.

To a certain extent this may work, but the Fed commits an egregious error when it ignores the prospect of an alternative:  precious metals.  After all, the Fed only has the power to devalue the dollar.  Even if it could get all central banks around the world to devalue their currencies as well, this still only affects fiat money.  Assuming the average consumer still has a great deal of uncertainty about their economic future and a strong urge to save their money, these consumers may be pushed, not out of the dollar and into consumption as Bernanke hopes, but out of the dollar and into precious metals.

The mainstream media has been fervently anti-gold for, well, basically ever.  They’ve proclaimed that it belongs in the category of tin-foil hats and iodine pills, an unnecessary distraction only considered by crazy people.  They’ve decried its volatility, and claimed it is the next bubble waiting to burst.  But those who have studied Austrian Economics firmly understand that the main objection to gold by the central planners is that they cannot control it.  They cannot manipulate it, and this is why its appeal to the average American is growing every day.

Even economic illiterates are largely aware that an argument for owning gold exists.  If nothing else, they know that Glenn Beck thinks they should buy it because it protects against inflation and is a tangible store of value that you can hold in your hand.  They might not be familiar with the history of the gold standard, of the specific details behind quantitative easing, or any advanced monetary theory.  But they don’t have to be.  To be pushed into gold, all that will be required is for someone to desire to save (already exists) and to be afraid of leaving their money in dollars (the Fed’s new stated goal).  Once this happens, I expect a whole new wave of Americans who have up until now sat on the sidelines and abstained from entering the precious metals market to give it increased thought due to rising inflationary pressures.  So long as the economy remains sluggish and the purchasing power of the dollar remains suspect, precious metals will transform from being the obsession of a few paranoid cranks to a widespread and socially accepted form of protection and security.

So, in a very strictly limited sense, Bernanke and Krugman are right.  QE3 will raise demand.  It will raise the demand for gold and silver.

 

 

 

NOTE:  I am not even close to being any kind of professional financial advisor.  I have no degree in Economics.  If you are considering buying gold, please get some advice from someone with a lot more expertise than I.  Peter Schiff would be a good place to start.

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Vote for Obama because he made your cost of living go up!

Posted on September 21, 2012 by Dude Where's My Freedom?

Behold!  What may very well be the worst campaign ad of all time.

I saw this on the TV at the gym this morning and nearly fell off the elliptical machine.  Surely this can’t possibly be a PRO-Obama ad bragging about the massive tariffs he levied on Chinese goods.  They can’t possibly think the American people are this stupid, can they?

Well, apparently they can and do.  You see, those stupid Republicans who claim Obama never accomplished anything clearly don’t know what they’re talking about.  By raising tariffs, he accomplished the significant achievement of raising the price of consumer goods.  Those evil, no good Chinese had a nefarious scheme to sell us products for low prices.  Well China, that may fly when the Republicans are in charge, but Obama heroically stepped up and said “NOT ON MY WATCH!!”  Our fearless leader took the brave step of protecting us from those low-cost Chinese tires.

After all, he’s a man of the people.  He’s all about fairness.  And nothing says “fairness” like high tariffs.  You know, those things that enrich a tiny fraction of the population at the expense of the overwhelming majority of the population.  Tariffs that raise the price of tires (something nearly all Americans buy) so that those who work in the American tire industry (a fraction of Americans so small as to be statistically insignificant) could continue to charge unnecessarily high prices for American tires.  What a hero!  Mitt Romney would never allow such a thing!  Because he loves those evil Chinese!  He would just LET them ship their affordable goods over here so we could buy them for less money than American goods.

Sarcasm aside, this ad is incredible.  The fact that they think being pro-tariff is a winning message makes me weep for the sorry state of humanity.  Tariffs are a relic of 18th century mercantilism.  They are nothing more than transfers of wealth away from the consumers to the privileged and protected industry insiders and corporate fat-cats.  Free trade is not evil.  Low cost Chinese goods are not evil.  Government is evil.

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OMG! Mitt Romney made another gaffe! He’s a gaffer! A gaffe machine!

Posted on September 19, 2012 by Dude Where's My Freedom?

Romney’s 47% gaffe shows more than being out of touch – National Policy & Issues | Examiner.com.

I believe I’m on the record as being no fan of Mitt Romney, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to give the mainstream media a free pass on their complete failure to even ATTEMPT to treat the election with anything resembling objectivity.  The linked article above is just one example of many in which his recent statements regarding 47% of Americans not paying taxes is instantly labeled as a gaffe.  Assumed to be a terrible thing that will certainly cost him the election.  This of course joins other memorable “gaffes” such as when he questioned whether the Olympics in London were running smoothly (they weren’t), and when he responded to the U.S. embassy attacks in the middle east by calling the administration’s response (which consisted of apologizing for a video that was made) pathetic (it was).

Of course, even if we could just assume that his statement in the video will be universally condemned and hated by all (it won’t), that doesn’t make it a gaffe.  The statement was made at a private fundraiser.  There would be no reason to assume that at such an event, someone would be secretly recording him in order to hand it over it to a radical communist website who would then sit on it for a few months and wait until an opportune moment to release it (I assume they picked now because it had been a week since his last gaffe and they hadn’t been able to manufacture a new gaffe just yet).  When you are speaking to someone privately about concepts you clearly agree with, it is not a gaffe to say something that others may disagree with, period, end of story.

The mainstream media’s pathetic attempt to spin everything Mitt Romney says and does into the worst and most offensive things uttered since Jimmy the Greek is completely transparent.  Even if you disagree with Romney’s analysis, this was not a gaffe.  It was a correctly reported statistic communicated to an audience of like-minded individuals in the context of discussing campaign strategy.  Any attempt to characterize it as somehow proof that Mitt Romney hates poor people is the height of dishonesty and shoddy journalism and should be condemned as such.

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Glenn to Ron Paul supporters: Ron Paul is NOT RUNNING! – Glenn Beck

Posted on September 17, 2012 by Dude Where's My Freedom?

Glenn to Ron Paul supporters: Ron Paul is NOT RUNNING! – Glenn Beck.

Glenn Beck seems awfully upset that Ron Paul supporters are not following in his example by completely abandoning their principles and values in order to support Mitt Romney. I believe this merits a response…

Ron Paul supporters to Glenn Beck: We will NOT support Mitt Romney.

Mitt Romney is a big government progressive. You believed that a mere ten months ago when the primaries were in full swing. During the primaries, when you were supporting Rick Santorum, you pleaded with potential voters to ignore any rhetoric regarding someone’s “ability to win” and to simply vote for whoever they agreed with the most. Apparently you have since changed your mind. Now, you urge people to ignore their principles and values to support a candidate because you think he might win.

Problem is, he won’t. Romney has no chance. We told you as much during the primaries. We told you that the only Republican who had a chance at defeating Obama was Ron Paul. We were very explicit about the fact that the only reason we were in the Republican party in the first place is because Ron Paul was there, and that if you failed to select him as your nominee, we would leave.

Unlike you, we have not changed our minds. The Republican establishment rejected Ron Paul, so now, we reject the Republican establishment. We reject Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. We’ve told you from the beginning that we would, and now we are. We have no intention of destroying America. We intend to destroy the two party system which has been subverting the constitution and squelching individual freedom for the past 150 years.

You ask whether I want someone who believes in the free market in the White House? I do. That is why I’ll be voting for Gary Johnson.

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RNC Live Blog – 8/30

Posted on August 30, 2012 by Dude Where's My Freedom?

Watching pundits on The Blaze. So far they’ve complained about outsourcing. One guy who isn’t worth naming referred to Chinese manufacturing as “slave labor.”

Because one John Boehner appearance just wasn’t enough…

And now, Newt Gingrich. Are these people serious?

That’s right folks, it CAN get worse. Jeb Bush. Really?

It’s like every day they try to get WORSE speakers than they did the day before. Thankfully for Mittens, this is the last day. Perhaps he’s hoping to look good by surrounding himself with idiots, like an ugly chick who only hangs out with even uglier chicks.

If Jeb Bush is one of your party’s “great leaders” your party MAY be terrible…

And now, a nice calm man whose sole purpose is to reassure you that Mormonism is NOT a cult.

The only thing worse than constant applause breaks is when the speaker pauses expecting applause and gets none. Awkward!

And now, a lineup of people who you’ve never met or even heard of and have no particular reason to believe or listen to come out to tell you what a nice guy Mitt Romney is. As if that’s the critical issue here.

Not many updates, because there isn’t much to say about a bunch of random businessmen declaring that Bain Capital was the greatest thing to ever exist.

Somehow it took this chick 10 minutes to say “Hi, I was in the Olympics, vote for Mitt Romney.”

Someone should remind the Republican party that the Olympics are one of the pre-eminent experiments in globalism, complete with incompetent bureaucracy and unnecessary government largesse. Perhaps this ISN’T something you should be highlighting…

Seriously, ENOUGH about the Olympics. This is completely the WRONG message if you’re trying to emphasize small government and individualism…

This is quite the video package. Reminds me of a pre-match hype video in Pro Wrestling!

And now, for an 80-year old man whose natural solution to every problem is to try and shoot it or blow it up. No, not John McCain but that’s a good guess!

Did Eastwood actually write a speech? It sounds like he’s just making it up off the top of his head…

He’s arguing with an invisible Obama. I’d say this is cringe-worthy but anything is an upgrade from McCain, Rice, and Jeb Bush.

This is embarrassing. TERRIBLE idea.

Marco Rubio up now. This guy gets a LOT of hype but I’m not sure what for. Let’s see if he says anything meaningful…

If Rubio really wants Cuba to be free, the first step towards that is to normalize trade. Is he in favor of that?

This guy isn’t half bad, especially in comparison to the neocon dinosaurs that have dominated this convention.

“Your rights are whatever your rules allowed you to have.” He DOESN’T think this is true in modern day America?

This is going downhill fast. Is he somehow suggesting that Romney will ensure every college graduate gets a job? What?

There sure have been a lot of people speaking Spanish at this convention. I thought the GOP wanted English to be the national language…

“We chose more government instead of more freedom.” LOL freudian slip eh?

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere’s Mittens!

Enough with all the handshakes. Is this really necessary?

They should just start a big brawl in the convention hall and the last man standing becomes the nominee. That would be a LOT more entertaining.

Where’s the part about ending the fed?

So, there’s been a subtle repetition by a few speakers about college students living with their parents. I wonder if that’s going to be effective…

“We deserve better.” Yes we do Mitt, yes we do…

Really? Pandering with Neil Armstrong?

Where’s the part about balancing the budget?

If Mitt wants to avoid going to hell, perhaps he might consider ending the drone strikes in Pakistan?

Sending jobs to China is not a bad thing Mitt. Defend outsourcing. Division of labor is good. You know this, why are you lying about it?

If Mitt wants a future where seniors don’t fear for their retirement, he should abolish social security.

Vilifying China is stupid. Mitt knows better. This is all populist garbage.

What EXACTLY is he going to do about Iran? Launch a ground war? Specifics plaz.

Lame. Way too general. Standard “rah rah America is great” fare.

Well, that was a pretty giant waste of time. Mitt has little to offer lovers of liberty. Goodnight folks!

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RNC Live Blog – 8/29

Posted on August 29, 2012 by Dude Where's My Freedom?

Rand Paul up now.  I think it’s a mistake for the GOP to invite him.  More on this in a minute.

Rand opens by talking about Obamacare being unconstitutional.  Now moving back into last night’s dead horse, “You didn’t build that.”

Rand is now talking about Tang… or something.

Pundits were speculating as to whether Rand would try and branch out to bring his father’s supporters into the GOP.  Absolutely none of that so far.  Just standard talking points about how Obama hates the free market.

Rand now talking about the debt.  That’s good I suppose, of course, it’s not like Romney has a serious plan to reduce it…

“Republicans must acknowledge that not every dollar spent on the military is necessary or well spent.”  MUCH BETTER!

Camera just found a guy in the crowd with a Ron Paul Revolution t-shirt.  Pretty sure that cameraman will be fired within minutes.

Now time for some standard GOP Reagan-worship.

Rand now becomes the 47th speaker to say “We did build that.”

“You, the individual, are the engine of America’s greatness.”  Not a bad closing line.  Too bad Romney probably doesn’t agree.

A pretty boring speech by Rand’s standards.  Virtually all of them have been.  If the GOP’s goal is to put people to sleep, they’re succeeding wildly.

So, the coverage I’m watching is on Glenn Beck’s online network, The Blaze, they’re asking if this speech “puts to bed any concerns that Ron Paul’s supporters won’t support Mitt Romney.”  LOL.  NOBODY in the media understands the Ron Paul movement.  A lukewarm endorsement from Rand changes nothing.

Rand did absolutely nothing to reach out to libertarians and/or encourage his father’s supporters to vote for Romney.  His speech was only marginally different and more interesting than Scott Walker’s…

Waiting for that Ron Paul tribute video so I can turn this off for awhile and go do something more productive…

A couple wounded warriors are now talking.  “We need leaders who will invest in defense and not abandon it.”  Right, that’s the problem our country has right now, not enough investment in defense.  What a joke.

John McCain now up.  I honestly can’t believe this guy was even allowed in the building, much less invited to speak.  What are these people thinking?

Seriously, why would you want anyone to associate you with this failure?  All it will do is remind people of the similarities.  McCain and Romney are both big government progressives.  They are both Keynesians.  They both favor military aggression and wars of choice.  And they are both losers who are going to get destroyed by a socialist.

“It is our willingness to shape world events for the better that has kept us safe.”  Yeah, sure John.  All those military bases in the middle east sure kept people in New York safe didn’t they…

Now he’s talking about helping prevent disease and poverty.  Is that code language for foreign aid?  Yeah, that’s another thing that we certainly need more of…

I honestly don’t know what Republicans dislike about Obama’s foreign policy.  He hasn’t ended the wars.  He hasn’t closed Gitmo.  He hasn’t repealed the Patriot Act.  McCain is speaking in generalities but won’t name a single specific thing Obama has done that’s supposedly so terrible for national security.  Presumably because he can’t.

Now he’s complaining about the potential future cuts.  That’s not Obama’s deal.  That was due to Congress completely failing and setting up the unconstitutional “super-committee”  Congress, you know, where John McCain works?

Now he’s complaining about Syria.  What does he want exactly?  A ground invasion by the US military?  If that’s what you want John, just say so.  Stop skirting the issue.

This speech is a disaster.  I’d say that it’s going to cost Romney in the polls, but fortunately for him hardly anyone is watching this crap…

If people in the audience don’t like the fact that Obama is President, they should be booing this man out of the building.

Rand did nothing to convince Ron Paul supporters why they should vote for Romney. McCain then came in to remind them why they absolutely shouldn’t.

How many decades have politicians been insisting that government has to “live within its means just like Americans do.” And yet, if you propose a budget that balances the budget IN 20 YEARS they call you a dangerous extremist. The more they say it, the further from reality it gets. When will people wake up?

Okay, I’m done waiting for this video. I’ll catch it on Youtube later. Taking a break from this for a bit…

John Thune was surprisingly good. Kept it simple, promoted individualism, bashed Obama, stayed very personable.

One of The Blaze’s pundits just described Obama as using “the fatal conceit.” I don’t think anyone else on the panel got the reference.

So apparently the Dr. Paul tribute video aired while The Blaze was having their pundits talk about nothing. Remember that the next time Glenn Beck describes himself as a libertarian.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZ1aXD3_cVw – Why would you air this at a Romney party? To remind us of all the greatness we COULD have had?

If the GOP was really interested in courting former RP supporters, they’d be better off not inviting Rand and not mentioning Ron at all. Their best hope is that all the RP supporters just plain forget who he is. Any and all references to him will instead, just remind them how much better he is than Romney, and motivate them to NOT support Mitt, but stay home, write in Ron, or support Gary Johnson. They don’t understand that we’re actually serious about this, and that we won’t be won over by some little video or by throwing a bone to Rand.

Apparently Tim Pawlenty is next, so feel free to take a break and do something more interesting for the next twenty minutes, like bang your head against a wall.

And now we have Mike Huckabee. Yet another reminder why lovers of freedom are not welcome in the GOP.

It’s incredibly appropriate that tonight, with a speaking lineup that highlighting John McCain, Tim Pawlenty, Mike Huckabee, and Condy Rice, the theme is “We Can Do Better.” Yes, we can. It’s called Paulfest.

Huckabee complaining about the national debt. What’s Romney’s plan to fix it? Is he going to balance the budget? Did Bush? What are we talking about here?

Just in case John McCain wasn’t enough to remind you of the failures of the Republican party, here’s a Bush stooge!

This speech by Condoleeza isn’t even worth commenting on.

Condy is complaining about how China is signing many trade agreements and the United States is not. You do not need a treaty to have free trade. In fact, the exact opposite is true.

“Energy Independence” is a nonsensical goal. Global division of labor is good. Nobody is demanding food independence or clothing independence, are they?

Also, that pink dress is really not very flattering…

What hard decisions? The Patriot Act? The Iraq war? What? Why are these Republicans who are supposedly so proud of their achievements refusing to name them? Why not stand by them with pride?

Enough about the Hurricane. Totally immaterial to these events. Stop trying to prove how compassionate you are.

Okay, the New Mexico governor earns points for referencing concealed carry…

This lady actually seems pretty decent. Keeping it simple, not saying anything ridiculous.

“He did build that” (in reference to the national debt). One of the better spins on a tired theme!

Here comes Paul Ryan. Actually in a suit.

“Opportunity for the young and security for the old” are conflicting goals. The only way the government provides security for the old is by stealing from the young.

“I’ve never seen opponents so silent about their record,” Well I can certainly agree with that.

Too many applause breaks. Really interrupts the flow of the speech.

Here comes the promises of job creation. Government does not create jobs. This is a false premise perpetuated by both parties and the media.

Ryan keeps harping on the stimulus. I’d like to see him promise that the Romney administration would never engage in stimulus spending. He won’t, because they won’t.

I was wondering when Ryan was going to get to professing his undying love for medicare, a socialist ponzi-scheme.

“The greatest threat to medicare is obamacare” then I guess we should keep Obamacare!

“Medicare is a promise and we will honor it.” Remember, this is the RESPONSIBLE guy who is going to balance the budget.

“It ends with a housing crisis they didn’t correct.” And how exactly is the government supposed to “correct” the housing crisis, Mr. Ryan?

More boring cliches. Hate on Palin if you want, but at least she was interesting.

“Our rights come from nature and God and not from government.” 100% true. But do Romney’s policies reflect this?

“We can make the safety net safe again.” No you can’t. It’s a ponzi scheme. It will collapse.

I was pretty unimpressed with that speech. It offered little besides the standard GOP talking points.

Well folks, that’s it for tonight. See you all back here tomorrow for Mittens himself!

 

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Live Blogging the RNC

Posted on August 29, 2012 by Dude Where's My Freedom?

DWMF will be live blogging during the speeches of Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney.  That’s right, I listen to the neo-cons so you don’t have to!  Join me tonight for my thoughts on Paul Ryan and tomorrow for Mittens himself.

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