As the year comes to a close, I felt it to be a bit of a stress reliever to deliver some short rants about various things. 2008 brought no shortage of things that made me go “What the @@#$$#?!!?”, so here I share them with you in no particular order.
1. Poor selection of “Republican” candidates
I wrote about this in a little more detail here. Seriously though, you wonder why we lost pretty big in the election cycle this past year? For most of the races, it wasn’t because our candidates weren’t “moderate” enough. Rather, it was because they were acting like a bunch of tools selling out their principles for who knows what reason. Please, McCain, you aren’t a conservative. Neither are all you other politicos who pimped bailouts, financial and otherwise, as the fix the economy needs to survive. Bush especially. Epic fail.
2. Bailouts
I started hitting on them in the last section. Seriously, it’s been over 70 years now since Keynes started spewing his crack headed economic theory that the government can fix the economy. This same time frame has also shown that the theory doesn’t work. Let me repeat – THE GOVERNMENT CAN NOT FIX THE ECONOMY. Government intervention can only hurt an economy. Hell, two UCLA economists determined that (surprise!) FDR’s socialistic policies and programs known as the New Deal extended the great depression. Why the hell can’t these politicians get it through their skulls that interventionist policies into the economy are bad? I’ll tell you why, it’s because they are just plain stupid, or they are evil and purposely want to hurt it so that they can go “See?!? Not enough government! We need more power!” The latter was postulated by F.A. Hayek in “The Road to Serfdom”. A free market is not the reason for bank failures, but rather government intervention into the market was the reason.
3. Thanking America for “investing in us”.
Chrysler spent hundreds of thousands in full page ads in large newspapers thanking us for “investing” in them. I was pissed. I didn’t know what I was more mad at: The money spent on the ads, or the in-my-faceness of it. I’ve decided it’s the latter. I didn’t invest in shit, my money was taken from me. It’s almost as bad as the “click it or ticket” ads they love to run here in Michigan. Maybe I can get away with robbing a bank if I say “thank you for investing in me”. I think the only thing more stress-relieving than throwing it all out on this post would be the practice of topics covered in FM 3-25.150.
4. Jesse Jackson
Looks like your game of race card came to an end with Obama winning the election, didn’t it. Yeah, you weren’t crying on the TV because you were happy. You were crying because you’re really useless (although you were already) now.
5. No-Knock Raids / The War on Drugs
These things pretty much go together. They’ve also been going on for years. That didn’t keep botched no-knocks from going down in 2008. That’s right, constitution be damned! This drug war must go on at all costs! Of course some fools over at Red State (see link above) are like “You might wanna reconsider attacking the drug war if you want us to buy the anti-no-knock argument”. What the hell is this, some small southern town where the local sheriff is going “Now yall don’t wanna be doing that if you know whats good fer ya..” to the passers through? Hey Cletus, get the shotgun.
Yeah, I think that’s the big stuff for now. At least the stuff that I can really think about that got me going. Oh, wait, no. One more.
6. National Security briefings to the president elect
I was watching Fox news and they were talking about how Obama was getting security briefings in Hawaii while he was on vacation. Why the hell is someone who isn’t the President yet or already in governmental position that warrants such information getting it? Yeah, he got elected, but that doesn’t mean with absolute certainty he will get it. Especially with the fact that the SCOTUS is looking to discuss granting the writ of certiorari in their Jan 9th conference. Also turns out that a retired full bird Colonel is suing, with Berg as counsel. Guess what kids, the courts can’t throw the case out on lack of standing given that is part of Col. Hollister’s oath to defend the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic.
There, now I’m done.