5 posts tagged “election 2008”

Mr. Justin Raimondo at Anti-War.com writes about "The Bubble Boys."

“The Greenspan bubble benefited the banks, the real estate moguls, and, most of all, the war profiteers.”

***

Monetary socialism is an evil not only because it generates----through the Federal Reserve's artificial lowering of the interest rate via credit expansion----chaotic booms-and-busts in the economy, but is also an evil because it's an essential part of the military-industrial complex and the U.S. Empire. They rely on the Fed for sustenance.

This is why I believe it is very important for those of us who value liberty and, as a corollary, peace to point out to the public the need to eliminate the Fed and unbacked fiat money. We must all show the public the importance of a 100 percent gold dollar (or other equivalent free market money).

Ending monetary socialism is the only way to severely limit the State in its war making powers. If there is something the peace movement should rally around, it should be this. It would take away what feeds Leviathan's wars. It would help extirpate the fascistic influence of neoconservatism. Future neocon (and left-liberal) elective wars would not be an option as easily as they are today.

And ending monetary socialism is the only way to cure our credit addiction. It is the only way to promote the conservative work ethics of thrift. It is the only long-term solution to our current financial crisis. To paraphrase Mr. Lew Rockwell: We must all stop living in and believing in an illusion and a lie.

Government bailouts and other regulatory interventions can only result in prolonging and deepening today's recession. But the recession is not the problem. We should not be getting angry about that. The problem was the bubble that was created by the Fed in the first place. It was that creation that made the recession inevitable. And it is the recession that leads us out of our current mess. This is how the market is trying to correct the economy. The market must bring man back to reality and away from the unreality of the Keynesian fairyland of bubbles.

I thought this for many, many months now (actually, maybe longer), and I very much hope I am wrong, but I think it is 50-50 in terms of some kind of depression developing. My fears seem justified. Today's politicians appear to be copying what Hoover and FDR did. They tried to stop the market from correcting the socialist distortions, as readers of the late Murray Rothbard know. But by continually not allowing the market to fix the economy, it resulted in the Great Depression.

All of you one or two regular readers of The Paleo Blog know the economists of the Austrian school predicted this entire mess. There is a library of scholarly and popular work on this subject available at Mises.org for all to read. Correct ideas do not spread on their own. They need educated men to spread them.

I think it is about time to listen to those who have been right all along, like the Austrian economists and like Dr. Ron Paul. They all say that the bailouts and regulations are a wrong move. The default reaction by the statist establishment to "prevent" any kind of recession is a wrong reaction. What the politicians are doing now will be felt in the future, and it will not be pretty. Hopefully the politicians will not do any more destructive intervening. If they do implement more socialist schemes, well, the Austrians can say "We told you so" ...again.

Watch, Read, and Listen:

• Ron Paul on what the State is Guaranteeing.
• Read Ron Paul's Statement.
• Put the Time & Effort into Reading American's Great Depression by Murray Newton Rothbard.
• See The Bailout Reader at Mises.org.
• See The Recession Reader at LewRockwell.com
• Mr. Charles Goyette on Anti-War Radio. (Charles, please come back to radio soon.)
• Listen to Dr. Frank Shostak at Mises.
• Listen to Dr. Joseph Salerno at Mises.

Picture Old Rightist H.L. Mencken in today's election season... He would have a blast of fun laughing at the stupidity. It is little more than a fight between kindergartners on the playground. Men will spend hours and hours----days even----on the "lipstick on a pig" comment. All the while the more important news and issues get a back seat. Though, the supposed dividing lines of the battle field in the kindergarten playground are sharply set. One side you have the Democrats and the other side you have the Republicans. Each member of one or the other is as partisan as he can be, drinking the usual talk-radio style kool-aid; cheering on their sports team. Both sides, now even the Republican side, pledge revolutionary "change" in Washington, D.C. if only their side is elected. The major political party heads tell the masses to swing the pendulum, which confines itself in motion to the two major establishment parties, their way. By doing so, they say, major happenings will happen and the masses will at last be rescued from the usual unchanging confinements of Washington as usual. But, then, I am still not sure what the word "change" means. No one will tell me. Maybe this word----this shibboleth----has a different definition when it is applied in a political context (thereby making the word vacuous.)

Sen. Barack Obama (or is that "O-bomb-a"?) desires an expanded role for the U.S. military in the world. In no way does he fundamentally question or challenge the presence of an American empire, with troops in over 100 nations. This, to him, should be conserved, not changed. He wants no cessation. Parallel to Sen. John McCain (or is that "McNeocon"?), Obama has voiced support to extend empire and to antagonize Russia, and hence to get going Cold War II, by expanding NATO to places such as Georgia. He claims that we must only "end the Iraq War responsibly." (Hmmm, that sounds familiar.) The dreadful pick, in both an overall sense and even in a narrow strategic-political sense, of Sen. Joe Biden, Obama's choice for VP, is someone who voted for the Iraq War and vigorously opposed antiwar voices. Biden is a Washington "insider" politician if there ever was one, with his original acclamation for the war. Any troop withdraws from Iraq, according to Obama's so-called "anti"-war point of view, should be sent into the constitutionally undeclared Afghanistan War. (Funny, I thought it was Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda that caused 9/11----not Afghanistan or its former government.) He is all for taking the fight in the drug war international; for example in South America. And, yes-yes, he has kissed the ring of the Israel lobby. There's your man of "change"! Oh, democracy. Isn't it wonderful and grand? We get the great "freedom" to pick between him and John McCain. What a great beacon of liberty. All nations should have this great liberty, even if they do not want it. (We will show them!)

And Sen. John McCain? No need to iterate that he presents no fundamental changes in respect to the issues of empire and illegitimate wars. A couple of years ago, by the way, many GOP card carrying members would curse his name. Well, that was then. Gov. Sarah Palin, I suppose, has washed him clean. [Although, I must say that the partisan left-liberal reaction against this woman has been very amusing. Now from a narrow strategic-political perspective, picking her I feel was a brilliant move. Obama is in trouble.] But where is the mainstream anti-war left today? With O-bomb-a. Well, now we get to see their attachment to an anti-imperialist stance in its true mephitic light. The great paleoconservative Paul Gottfried, author of After Liberalism, seems to be correct when he says an anti-empire coalition alliance with the left is impossible. Their anti-war views are illusory. (Notable exceptions excluded.)

Even in domestic issues, the similarities outweigh the dissimilarities. And most of the "dissimilarities" are rhetorical in nature, nothing more. Paleolibertarian Thomas Woods, co-editor of We Who Dared to Say No to War, has said that: "On taxes, the Democrat favors a top income tax rate of 39.5 percent, and the Republican favors a top rate of 35 percent. Well, ain't democracy grand! We get to debate a whole four and a half percentage points." Although, in the big picture, it has been asked, are taxes in fact the big issue in the economic debate? Is not the monetary issue of more importance, more urgency, and of a more fundamental nature? The answer looks to be most definitely yes. Then again, is there any disparity at all between the two major presidential candidates? No, there is no difference at all. Neither of the two have any idea----but if they do, they will not say anything because the solution would demand that they have less power----of why there is a recession now. They do not understand what caused the housing bubble and what to do to prevent another bubble in the future from developing. After all of these years of statism and its socialism, economic problems will continue apace. (Sadly, though, the economically illiterate will always blame the "free market.")

A local talk radio station in my area has a promo that says that this election "is the most important election of our lifetimes." (Didn't they say that the last presidential election?) It probably is the nature of democracy, in a quintessential sense, to be one of picking between "two evils," as they say. Since mass democracy has the strong tendency for mass centralization of governmental power, it seems that such a thing is destined to happen. Thus all attempts at mechanical reforms are futile reforms trying to fix something that is inexorably bonded to democracy.

One of the goals of the sacrosanct and "progressive" form of government known as democracy is to divide men up so as to pin them against each other. The masses as a potentially cohesive bunch must not see the government, and the entire freeloading establishment, for what it really is, after all. It must do this especially when this divided up division expressed through the democratic election process (Democrat vs. Republican) is, at least for the most part, deceptive in actual existing differentiation (which was suggested above as a natural development in democracy). The masses must not think of the (non-fictitious) distinction between civil society and the government, but only to think about the (fictitious) division that is created in mass elections to give the illusion of self-government or self-rule. That is, the public must become blind to power and their newly focused eyes must become diluted in their cognizance of democracy. The masses must be made to think there is no distinction between civil society and the government. As the distinction between civil society and the government ceases to exist in the minds of men, the divisions created from democracy must become front and center in the minds of men. The latter pushes men to think of democracy as a form of government that in reality takes the former distinction completely away. That government, as the Marxists would say in a different context, withers away under democracy. That government is the people. That we all rule ourselves. That might makes right. That majority say so makes right. And so forth.

And so, as Joseph Sobran says: "Democracy has proved only that the best way to gain power over people is to assure the people that they are ruling themselves. Once they believe that, they make wonderfully submissive slaves."

So it does. Men then start to be more open to the use of the apparatus of government. They become more accepting to an enlarging Leviathan. Infighting, in democracy, is created in terms of using the state in, for example, wealth redistribution within civil society. All of this feeds the growth of the state in an accelerating manner. Consequently, the so-termed intermediate institutions of family, community, church, voluntary groups and associations start to diminish to the degree to which the government conquers them and takes over their functions and roles in society. The isolated and lone individual that remains becomes increasingly dependent on the government. Society thus becomes atomized, and increasingly political. Edmund Burke's "little platoons" crumble.

Another way the establishment system sustains itself is by having the masses convinced that they very much need a Leviathan State. Or else, chaos would be unleashed. The establishment needs to protect the population, they say, from freedom. It also needs to protect the population from "terrorism," "racism," "sexism," "discrimination," "big business," "the Church," "global climate change," etc. "The whole aim of practical politics," wrote H.L. Mencken, "is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." This, in addition, gives an important perceptiveness of how empire maintains itself with a supportive public. To excuse its existence it needs some enemy, any enemy.

Democratic elections are about numbers. It is about quantity, not quality. This was helped brought about and strengthened via the shift from a more hierarchical-aristocratic republic to a free-for-all (one-man, one-vote, one-woman, one-vote) democracy. To note again, it is also this shift that has helped generate the acceleration of power, as described above. Today, though, this is too taboo to talk about. Democracy has become a god.

The Democrats Must be Stopped!

In a way, it is somewhat amusing, when I turn on talk radio, how many political partisans say that we require a Republican in the United States Empire's imperial thrown in 2009 because that would, allegedly, turn around the current economic recession (and it is one) sooner rather than later or perhaps even end it in contrast to a president with a "D" by his (or her) name. And all this time I thought there was a Republican currently in the thrown, with the economic results and consequences of his policies before our very eyes.

Dr. Clyde Wilson, over at Chronicles Magazine, is right. As usual, Republican grassroots will drop any sense of principle (if we grant that they ever had such a thing) because Obama/Clinton must be stopped. They must be stopped at all costs! So forget about upholding the notion of having any real principles.

Because, well, we might see welfare increases which would knock your socks off; a new, Great Society might get through; taxes might increase (a good rule of thumb: taxes, in the long-run, are equal to the amount the government spends----which, of course, helps to show Bush's tax "cuts" in a new light); God forbid we might see Dictator Hillary Clinton believe that she is above the law; who knows there might even be enlarging of the Marxist department of education and D.C. dictating to all local schools what to do; there might be increased welfare for the rich; or camping finance reform (oh wait, doesn't McCain somehow fit with this?); the State might even think about getting into the private affairs of families; maybe the airports will be further socialized; foreign aid would most definitely increase; there might even be more protectionism; the Mexico-US borders might become wide-open; and who does not fear Obama at the helm of a future police state? And, my goodness, there might even be housing troubles with a Democrat's economic policies!

But we all know the truth about why the Republican grassroots, made up of what Mr. Llewellyn Rockwell has fittingly called "red state fascists," will support John McCain. Because, behind all their rhetoric, their commitment to the principles of limited, constitutional government is pusillanimous and vapid. There is one paramount thing that amalgamates today's self-described conservative Republicans, and that is war and the police state. It annihilates any of their fictitious devotion to the Old Republic. For war, as the great Old Rightist Frank Chodorov said, "is the apotheosis of power, the ultimate expression of the faith and solidification of its achievements."

While I have not been won over, a few traditional conservatives have given some reasons why paleos should support Barack Obama. I grant that he would probably be relatively better than McCain, who is not tough competition. But picking between the "lesser of evil," to me anyway, is playing a game of Russian Roulette. My advise is not to play. I have no intention to vote in November, even for a third party. And do not believe I will ever vote in any future election. Nonetheless, if you must vote, my advice (for what it is worth, if anything) would be to vote for either the Constitution Party guy or the Libertarian Party guy. But I would not recommend anyone to vote for McCain.

Sen. McCain is the embodiment of militarism, empire, and all-around Bush-type policies. It makes him a fitting descendant of the Bush administration. Even if we could imagine---by some miracle---that McCain would actually be a good "economy president," war is the most important issue. Things like taxes do not compare with State murder. Taxes hurt but they typically do not kill. War, on the other hand, does kill. After all, you cannot bring back the dead. They have a different weight, and we must rank our hierarchy of values correctly. Too bad that the "booboisie" cannot easily do that in the modern world.

Abortion: Statism vs. Private Property Society.
Pro-Life Should Not Use Leftist Rhetoric.

It goes without saying that as an individual I am sympathetic to the "pro-life" side and consider myself generally on their side, opposed to the "pro-choice" side in the abortion conundrum. Insofar as abortion relates not to personal morality versus immorality but with common/natural law and ethics, my libertarian views are derived from the principles implied in private property, although this makes my views somewhat more "nuanced," I guess you could say, contrasted with your average pro-lifer.

I should mention that the great libertarian Dr. Walter Block has outlined an argument that puts libertarianism, properly speaking, in the middle ground. It "compromises the uncompromisable." It makes barbaric practices like partial-birth abortion illegal. Listen to this [mp3].

(Either way, if you agree with Block's position or the late Rothbard's, one thing all libertarians should agree on is the fact that the issue should be localized as much as possible and be out of the hands of the federal government.)

In terms of morality I am pro-life. Moreover, as I argued in this entry (please take a look at it) I believe that a stateless society gives pro-lifers the best environment. Not only would there be no collective reinforcement or subsidization of abortion in a free society, private law agreements and covenants can ban the practice and help cut it down, and more so than the current statist environment. A free society with a variety of authorities and group associations increases "social power" away from the centralized, top-down, and all-or-nothing managerial State. There is nothing more conservative than this feature of a free society. Libertarianism does not mean, as some suggest, a democratic or egalitarian free-for-all or an ideology of saying that all life -choices or -styles are "equally" good.* Neither does it necessarily reject a natural moral order making it "relativistic."

*[It is a clear confusion when a conservative, paleo or otherwise, says that anti-State libertarianism is for getting rid of stop signs or saying that something as despicable and evil as child pornography is a good and would be allowed all over a libertarian society. The first one does not need much comment. It does not take much thinking to see that a private road would lay down rules to maximize profits and minimize costs and traffic accidents. The second one should be thought of like this: If you were to enter into a private law enforcer would you sign up with one that said this was okay? Also, would you move into a community covenant that said this was okay? Or would your senses tell you not to do such a thing? My guess is that your senses would tell you not to do such a thing. 99.9% of the population agrees with you and me that it is an evil. The remaining one-tenth of a percent would find themselves having to conform with standard morals. They would have to civilize themselves or would be banished from society. Not only would private law agreements and community laws ban the practice, there could be other methods of public ostracism as well. A private property society would have "bilateral law." This would mean people would have to assimilate to more traditional norms of the community. There should be little question that child pornography would be at the top of the list to condemn and "fight against." See, especially chapter ten, Hoppe's Democracy – The God That Failed.]

(And as Mr. Joseph Sobran has said, in an essay about ending the war on drugs: "Informal social sanctions, as always, did most of the work of governing society." Today, unfortunately, we think that everything should be political.)

Exploring my newly received Nisbet book from Amazon, Prejudices, he has some very illuminating comments on abortion, even though I cannot say I agree with his position fully. (Paleoconservatives should note, Robert Nisbet was one of the three leading lights in traditional conservatism and he was not what we could call anti-abortion. According to Nisbet, antiabortionists "strike at the very heart of both family and individual rights.") One of the things he says is that State laws against abortion is a sign of how the State has weakened the family's authority. Once the State interferes in internal family affairs, says Nisbet, this is a sure "sign of despotism."

Never have so many laws been passed, first by the states, then the federal government, prohibiting so many actions which for thousands of years had generally be held to fall under family authority. It can be fairly argued that the present infirm state of the family in Western society is the consequence as much of moralistic laws assertedly designed to protect individual members of the family from one evil or another as it is of anything else. Current efforts to prohibit abortion categorically and absolutely might be viewed in this light. It is not so much the "women's right to choose" that is being assaulted as it is the ethic of family and its legitimate domain. . . . But all such attention by law and religion has to be seen in the context of the considerable number of actions along the same line----against alcohol, tobacco, prostitution, sex for pleasure, profanity, and others, all novel utilizations of the law and religion which would have been deemed egregious by earlier generations. . . . The use of sovereign powers of the states to achieve success in this crusade was manifest in the epidemic of so-called Blue Laws in America. . . .

Abortion became front and center, he says, when the issue was nationalized. States have used abortion "to weaken the hold of the family over its own."

Instead of internal disputes in family households being rightfully settled by the head of the house who lays down the rules, there has been a shift to the democratic State. We have replaced family patriarchy with politics. An attrition of the family occurs. And instead of internal extended family disputes being attempted to be solved internally within its hierarchy, we have the democratic State. The natural bonds and connections, inequalities, societal institutional frameworks, autonomies and social pluralities have been replaced by the anti-plural State to atomize the individual so that it has authority and power over him. In the name of "freeing" the individual, what we have left is Leviathan. Without a multitude of bonds and institutions of various authorities all that is ever more left to confront situations and challenges in life is the political. In absentia is the State.

While abortion may be debatable vis-à-vis the State, I would say that many traditional or paleo-conservatives (e.g., Mr. Patrick Buchanan) have only hurt their social and cultural causes by powering Leviathan versus what Nisbet would label social pluralism. Say what you will about "natural rights," individualism or John Locke, it may be time to think about rejecting statism and its entire work, like great conservatives as Mr. Sobran. If not be a "libertarian," then, I exhort, be a conservative anarchist.

[Maybe time permitting in a few weeks...I'll get around to typing up an extended blog entry on this important subject and some of its related subtopics. So, as always, please stop by The Paleo Blog once a week.]

Anyways, now what I would like to point out is that Mr. Marcus Epstein, over at Taki's Magazine, is giving some good advice for pro-lifers when it comes to arguing for the pro-life position. There is this sad tendency that you find in the framing of arguments so that they are politically correct and egalitarian. This is no way to defend the pro-life position, if you come from a paleoconservative perspective or, like me, a paleolibertarian-Blockian one.

Hail, Discrimination! in Insurance (and everywhere else)

A Leviathan filled with hundreds of politicians is a sure way to guarantee liberty and security, huh!? (Ha-ha. Who in the world thought this?) Politicians are always looking for new ways to be busybodies so they can expand the political circus in civil society. That's their job. How many times do people (left-liberals, for example) complain about politics only to ask for politics to enter more areas of life? This will only result in one thing: A process of accelerated increase in the politicization of society. And as the politicians get more power their potentiality to abuse it, as monopolists, increases.

But of course anything in the name for "evil" discrimination... Who could allow that? That would mean that people would have the freedom to choose. It would be too pro-choice, wouldn't it?

The House of Representatives, according to Dr. Rozeff, voted in favor 414-1 and the Senate 95-0 for a new bill banning discrimination based on genetics. With those bipartisan numbers it is a fair bet that the bill, as one conservative would say, is both evil and stupid. (But thank you, Rep. Ron Paul, for your lone vote against it.)

Something like this, I am positive, definitely feeds into the emotions making it an easy sell for the public. However, this is not something that we should want at all; on the contrary because it will just result in ever more problems in health insurance. Ceteris paribus, there will be ever higher costs, more waste, less private research, and the collective subsidization of sickness.

(Ms. Karen De Coster on her blog adds: "Of course, the most notable aspect of this debacle will be how 'genetic disease' will be defined.")

In brief, insurance is about pooling homogeneous risks because otherwise what would be happening is not insurance but redistribution. The groupings of persons in health insurance, as far as everyone could tell, would have the same individual chance of getting sick and thus needing insurance money. The less these groupings are homogeneous, which means that certain subsets get sick more often, premium rates will be higher for the bulk of those in the given group outside of that particular subset. Therefore, if we had a free market in insurance, those companies that became more and more precise in groupings would tend to out-compete those that did not. One way these groupings would be done is through genetics. And there are many positive things that would come with this. The tendency would be that there would be no net redistribution, the lowering of expenses, the lowering of premiums, increased research, and so forth.

I'll point out that Dr. Hans Hoppe has given a lecture on this. You can listen here [mp3] In it he explains, the mountain high stack of statist regulations has pushed into motion a situation where expenses continually rise because discrimination has become less possible. This promotes increased costs and hence higher premiums. A side effect of this is a relative increased number of those dropping out of the system. Hence prices are pushed up even more. Next, it can be expected, that the State will force, by the point of the gun, everyone into the system. Then you will see price controls because of public outrage of these artificially high prices. Gross misallocations will happen, including shortages. And then political (mis)allocations will dictate everything that happens in healthcare. Et cetera. . . .Although, I am sure, these problems are just a sign we need more socialism. . ., according to those that worship the nightstick.

(This is not to mention all the other problems in healthcare, like the statist/fascist AMA.)

The Death of the West.

In cerebration I do not find it any surprise that Occidental society is committing suicide. Today we find a corrupt culture filled with lots of bad ideas and values, a massive welfare and managerial state engineering society, and a massive warfare and empire state. Combined with this is a wide open border, which is only asking for trouble. And, in my view, it seems that it is only natural that there is a wide open border with today's perverse statism. It is a sign of a falling civilization, and for this reason nothing will probably be done about it. In Mr. Buchanan's seminal book The Death of the West he explores our age of Cultural Marxism and how birthrates have fallen to the point of where the West will perhaps be no more.

Buchanan writes in a recent article of his:

Hopefully, the peoples of Asia, Africa and the Middle East, who are about to inherit the earth as we pass away, will treat us better than our ancestors treated them in the five centuries that Western Man ruled the world.

Otherwise, we all go out with a bang.

But, alas, the "libertarian" magazine Reason is not celebrating.

[In addition, I bought Prejudices: A Philosophical Dictionary by Robert Nisbet and The Commercial Society: Foundations and Challenges in a Global Age by Samuel Gregg. Both of these books I'm looking forward to as well. The late Robert Nisbet is one of my favorite conservative intellectuals. As Mr. Daniel McCarthy, an editor of The American Conservative, has said, while Nisbet never called himself a libertarian, nonetheless, the implications of his work is highly libertarian, be it a kind of (and, I believe, rightfully so) "anti-atomistic-individualistic" libertarianism. Just read, for example, Twilight of Authority to see what I mean. His work has had a great impact on my thinking about a free society and what that means.]

Oh, Fred Thompson will save us! He's the conservative. He's back, leading the way, and ready to take charge.

Well, during one of those previous (and forever endless in number ---- I can't stomach it anymore) "debates," Ron Paul once again gave everyone a lesson in money, inflation, the value of the dollar, and government spending. Laughs and giggles followed, their best intellectual attack at his understanding of the importance of a free economy. Oh they were having a gay old time. Then Thomson got his turn and was stumped. He then replied (paraphrasing) "Ummm.... If I got this right, then if we stop printing money the war will just end."

No wonder Richard Nixon called Thompson "dumb as hell." Say what you will about Nixon. I know it is fun, especially for the left-liberal, to attack him as a strange "anomaly" of corruption. But, as far I can see, you could not call him dumb.

Mr. Thompson was lost in following the not so complex economic lesson that Dr. Paul was giving. A government that spends a trillion overseas is a trillion minus domestically. Paying the bills by printing up the money (which its free market value, without fraud and coercion, is equal to worthless paper) will decrease the value of it. The greater supply, all things being equal, the less value it will have. Increased money does not and cannot increase value to society. Only actual production of goods and services does that. All that will be done with control over the paper money supply is the forced redistribution of wealth. A hidden tax, in other words. One the left-neocons will not dare talk about.

(By the way, in the more recent debate, Dr. Paul explained how the monetary issue relates to the business cycle.)

Being "dumb as hell" might actually explain why people like Mr. Rush Limbaugh like Thompson. He is another man, like President George W. Bush, who can be spun like a top.

What are some of his other so-called appeals?

One angle to his appeal to some is his masculinity. This feature of his personality has been a big selling-point for youth conservatives or, as they have also been referred to as, kiddy cons. Thompson looks like a fatherly figure. More importantly, he looks mean and tough; like he is ready to kick some butt. (I'm sold!)

Finally there has been the vision of Thompson as an actor-like figure akin to the charm of Ronald Reagan. Reagan might have had "charm" and some good rhetoric, but so too of many people that thought (and still think) Bill Clinton had "charm." Both, though, were empty. Reagan had some rhetoric but nothing backing it up.

Why, yes, Fred Thompson is going nowhere. But it is still interesting to observe.

***

On another note, maybe my original prediction on John McCain becoming the Republican Party's nomination was right all along. Maybe I should have stuck with that prediction. On the Democrat side, it will still probably be Hillary Clinton and not O-bomb-a. As for the general election, it will be a Democrat that wins the presidency----hence, be ready for the Clinton administration.

The pendulum swings back, ever hopeful, as the voters are, that this time corruption, war and business cycles will end.