Right Wing Nut House

It must be a sad life living as a right wing nutcase. The entire world is against you — the media, the government, liberals, the New York Yankees (I have it on good authority that the Yankees manipulate coverage of ESPN so that they are always the lead story.)

Now, we can add to that enemies list the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The BLS vomited forth the latest jobs numbers today and despite the fact that the number of unemployed and underemployed Americans remained the same from August, the “official” unemployment rate dropped from 8.1% to 7.8%.

Let us be absolutely clear. There is very little encouraging about these numbers. About the best you can say is that 114,000 jobs created in August and a revision upward of 86,000 jobs from the previous two months saves this report from being a total downer.

Meanwhile, net monthly job growth is still below the number needed to employ those entering the job market for the first time. An astonishing 183,000 Americans took a second job last month because there aren’t any full time jobs available. Labor participation rate is near the all time low since records have been kept — it dropped one tenth of one percent from last month’s record. The growth in jobs was due in large part to an incredible increase of 600,000 part time jobs created over one month — bringing the total of part time workers to 8.6 million Americans. These are people who want to work full time, but because of the stinky economy, can’t find a job.

In short, the right has nothing to be concerned about. This jobs report stinks - a political disaster if Republicans can articulate the underlying weakness. If the Obama campaign was going to manipulate the numbers, don’t you think they’d forget to include all of these indicators of a pathetically weak, stagnant job market? Or maybe they were counting on nobody noticing?

The confusing and arcane way in which the BLS figures the “unemployment rate,” or U-3, is beyond the understanding of most of us. But that hasn’t stopped a slew of right wingers from giving us a knowing wink and opining that the large drop in the widely quoted official rate is “convenient” and that the number has “obviously” been cooked.

Here are a few of the more prominent “jobs truthers”:

The leader of the “job truther” movement: former GE CEO Jack Welch.

“Unbelievable jobs numbers..these Chicago guys will do anything..can’t debate so change numbers,” he said on Twitter.

He had some friends in Congress too. Rep. Allen West (R-FL) tweeted “I agree with former GE CEO Jack Welch, Chicago style politics is at work here.” He added on Facebook that the jobs report was “Orwellian to say the least and representative of Saul Alinsky tactics from the book ‘Rules for Radicals.’”

FOX News’ Stuart Varney apparently sensed where his audience was going. Within minutes of their release he told viewers that “there is widespread mistrust of this report and these numbers.”

“How convenient the rate drops below 8% [for the] first time in 43 months, five weeks before the election,” he added later.

CNBC host Jim Carmer said he was pilloried by viewers for defending the BLS report’s integrity.

“This is very hot. You believe the number, you must be a card-carrying Communist,” he joked on the air.

All of these paranoids have made a classic error in logic; they have put the cart before the horse by adopting an assumption — cooked books — without any evidence that would buttress and undergird that assumption. Instead, they have substituted an outcome — large decrease in unemployment rate — to “prove” the assumption is correct.

Yes, but they “know in their gut” that the numbers are cooked. “I wouldn’t put it past Obama” is another bit of fancy that passes for “evidence.” I am perfectly willing to believe that the numbers are cooked — just as soon as someone shows me how it was done. Or even how it could be done. The BLS publishes reams and reams of data along with the numbers. Show me where the data is falsified. Show me where their computations are goofy. Show me where there is the slightest whiff of collusion between the BLS and the Obama White House. Show me one tiny piece of evidence that your paranoia is justified.

In short, show me or shut up.

Is there no Diogenes out there who will carry the lantern through the streets, seeking the truth to save us from this folly? Well, Ezra Klein is definitely not Diogenes but he’ll do in a pinch:

Let’s get one thing out of the way: The data was not, as Jack Welch suggested in a now-infamous tweet, manipulated. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is set up to ensure the White House has no ability to influence it. As labor economist Betsey Stevenson wrote, “anyone who thinks that political folks can manipulate the unemployment data are completely ignorant of how the BLS works and how the data are compiled.” Plus, if the White House somehow was manipulating the data, don’t you think they would have made the payroll number look a bit better than 114,000? No one would have batted an eye at 160,000.

The fact is that there’s not much that needs to be explained here. We’ve seen drops like this — and even drops bigger than this — before. Between July and August the unemployment rate dropped from 8.3 percent to 8.1 percent — two-tenths of one percent. November-December of 2011 also saw a .2 percent drop. November-December of 2010 saw a .4 percent drop. This isn’t some incredible aberration. The fact that the unemployment rate broke under the psychologically important 8 percent line is making this number feel bigger to people than it really is.

The number could, of course, be wrong. The household survey is, well, a survey, which means it’s open to error. But the internals back it up. The number saying they had jobs increased by about 800,000. That seems high, but it’s counting 582,000 who say they got part-time jobs.

There’s precedent for this. As Daniel Indiviglio notes, part-time jobs increased by 579,000 in September 2010 and by 483,000 in September 2011. It might simply be seasonal hiring. You don’t need to resort to ridiculous theories like Democrats across the country suddenly deciding to lie to surveytakers in order to help Obama.

The idea that supposedly intelligent conservatives have eaten fruit from the tree of conspiracy isn’t surprising at all. When reason and logic are rejected and objective reality eschewed in favor of emotionalism and paranoia, the end result is always ugly and misshapen thinking.

UPDATE

My old friend John Cole at Balloon Juice has rediscovered my blog. Thanks for the link to this post, John — I need the hits.

As for his commentary…

Rick Moran, blogging at the most poorly named website on the planet, the American Thinker, letting the “paranoids” update his post:

I posted my AT blog about 15 minutes after the BLS numbers were released. As is usual with big stories like this, I added this to the post:

As usual with this number, the real unemployment data is hidden away inside the BLS report. We’ll update this blog as deeper analysis becomes available.

And indeed, as I mention above, those numbers “hidden away” in the BLS report are a disaster for Cole and his partisans.

But if John had bothered to read the masthead at American Thinker, he would know that the concept of me “letting” Tom Lifson update the blog is absurd. Tom is editor in chief and one of the founders of American Thinker. He also signs my paychecks. In what wacky world that Cole inhabits would you not “let” your boss do what he darn well pleases with your post?

(As an aside, when I disagree with Tom, he encourages me to add an update to that particular blog post registering my objections. I may do so this morning with the BLS story — time spent at my other job having been a factor yesterday in me not responding.)

Cole is as nutty as the right wing crazies. But I do appreciate the link, and welcome back, John.

It’s been a few days without race being shoved into the campaign as an issue, so we were overdue for something like this.

Daily Caller:

In a video obtained exclusively by The Daily Caller, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama tells an audience of black ministers, including the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, that the U.S. government shortchanged Hurricane Katrina victims because of racism.

“The people down in New Orleans they don’t care about as much!” Obama shouts in the video, which was shot in June of 2007 at Hampton University in Virginia. By contrast, survivors of Sept. 11 and Hurricane Andrew received generous amounts of aid, Obama explains. The reason? Unlike residents of majority-black New Orleans, the federal government considers those victims “part of the American family.”

The racially charged and at times angry speech undermines Obama’s carefully-crafted image as a leader eager to build bridges between ethnic groups. For nearly 40 minutes, using an accent he almost never adopts in public, Obama describes a racist, zero-sum society, in which the white majority profits by exploiting black America. The mostly black audience shouts in agreement. The effect is closer to an Al Sharpton rally than a conventional campaign event.

You can watch the video at the link above. It’s nothing we haven’t heard before from other black spokesmen of one vintage or another about the federal response to Hurricane Katrina. A nine minute version of the video itself had been circulating since the 2008 campaign and was widely reported on at the time.

But this expanded version features the kind of rhetoric that is definitely unpost-racial. The kind of conspiracy mongering suggested by candidate Obama is de rigueur among race hustlers seeking to whip up anger at the government or white America — usually interchangeable villains.

But I don’t understand the significance. A black political candidate pandering to the fears and emotions of a black audience? OMIGOD stop the world I want to get off! Listening to Obama and the cheers and shouts of the crowd when he scored whitey reminded me a lot of Sarah Palin and her politics of resentment.

Palin panders too. She panders to a specific group of white, middle aged, middle class voter who resents modern America and would like the country to return to the good old days when blacks knew their place, women stayed home, gays belonged in the closet, and all these annoying regulations that protect worker safety and health, as well as consumers didn’t exist. She, better than anyone on the right, articulates the incoherent rage against affirmative action, abortion on demand, gay marriage, and all the cultural issues that have divided America for going on 40 years. The growth of government is a catch all for the real issues that move this subset of righties. Theirs is a revolt against modernity — as significant as the clerical revolution in Iran (without the beheadings and dressing women in burlap sacks.).

A skewed reality is substituted for objective truth as the glorious past is framed in sweetness and light — a time before the New Deal and Great Society when America was nearly perfect and people lived in almost total freedom. As I’ve said many times, this supposed yearning for a “return” to the Constitution is no such thing. It is advocacy for an Articles of Confederation on steroids with a dose of nullification for good measure.

Palin is very good at it. Her spiel is almost liturgical in its incantations, with her admirers knowing by rote the litany of crimes by liberals and the government. In this way, her audience’s anger and resentment is purified and the listener is consecrated to a sacred task; bring back the treasured past.

Obama pandering to blacks isn’t quite as dramatic but he touches all the right buttons to get the response he wants. His anger in this video is no doubt genuine (I’ve often thought that if I was a black man in America I’d probably be a radical communist). And he is very clever in raising the conspiracy advanced by many black commentators in the aftermath of Katrina that George Bush and his government didn’t care as much about New Orleans as they did about other natural disasters because Bush is white and New Orleans is majority black. Blacks don’t want to believe that anymore than anyone else, but it is a relief to hear a presidential candidate vocalize their deepest fears. In other words, Obama descended to their level and embraced them.

Politicians who pander (Obama also panders excellently to Hispanics) are despicable but hardly a surprise. Trying to make a big deal out of this video was stupid and shows just how immune to objective reality some on the right truly are.

Join host Rick Moran and his special guest host Jeff Kropf of KUIK radio in Portland, OR for another fascinating episode of the RINO Hour of Power.

A preview of the first presidential debate scheduled for tomorrow night will be up for discussion with guest Mary Katherine Ham of Hot Air. The panel will also look at the state of the race and examine the issue of polling.

The show streams live from 8:00 - 9:00 PM eastern time. A podcast will be available shortly after the end of the show.

You can join us live by clicking the icon below or by clicking here.

Join us tonight at 8:00 PM eastern for another fun filled eposide of the RINO Hour of Power hosted by Rick Moran. Co-host for tonight will be Outside the Beltway blogger Doug Mataconis.

Polls have been in the news lately - skewed polls to be exact. The guys will discuss polling with PJ Media editor Bryan Preston. Is the GOP getting a raw deal? The facts may surprise you.

The show streams live from 8:00 - 9:00 PM Eastern time. A podcast will be available shortly after the end of the show.

You can join us live by clicking the icon below or by clicking here.

Excellent column by David Brooks who gives a trenchant analysis of what has happened to conservatism in the last 30 years.

He explains that 30 years ago, “the conservative movement itself, was a fusion of two different mentalities.”

On the one side, there were the economic conservatives. These were people that anybody following contemporary Republican politics would be familiar with. They spent a lot of time worrying about the way government intrudes upon economic liberty. They upheld freedom as their highest political value. They admired risk-takers. They worried that excessive government would create a sclerotic nation with a dependent populace.

But there was another sort of conservative, who would be less familiar now. This was the traditional conservative, intellectual heir to Edmund Burke, Russell Kirk, Clinton Rossiter and Catholic social teaching. This sort of conservative didn’t see society as a battleground between government and the private sector. Instead, the traditionalist wanted to preserve a society that functioned as a harmonious ecosystem, in which the different layers were nestled upon each other: individual, family, company, neighborhood, religion, city government and national government.

He correctly deduces that Reagan straddled both sides of conservatism and points out that today’s right wingers have no clue about traditional conservatism:

In the polarized political conflict with liberalism, shrinking government has become the organizing conservative principle. Economic conservatives have the money and the institutions. They have taken control. Traditional conservatism has gone into eclipse. These days, speakers at Republican gatherings almost always use the language of market conservatism — getting government off our backs, enhancing economic freedom. Even Mitt Romney, who subscribes to a faith that knows a lot about social capital, relies exclusively on the language of market conservatism.

It’s not so much that today’s Republican politicians reject traditional, one-nation conservatism. They don’t even know it exists. There are few people on the conservative side who’d be willing to raise taxes on the affluent to fund mobility programs for the working class. There are very few willing to use government to actively intervene in chaotic neighborhoods, even when 40 percent of American kids are born out of wedlock. There are very few Republicans who protest against a House Republican budget proposal that cuts domestic discretionary spending to absurdly low levels.

Does the right want to know why Romney is losing? Listen carefully:

Republicans repeat formulas — government support equals dependency — that make sense according to free-market ideology, but oversimplify the real world. Republicans like Romney often rely on an economic language that seems corporate and alien to people who do not define themselves in economic terms. No wonder Romney has trouble relating.

Some people blame bad campaign managers for Romney’s underperforming campaign, but the problem is deeper. Conservatism has lost the balance between economic and traditional conservatism. The Republican Party has abandoned half of its intellectual ammunition. It appeals to people as potential business owners, but not as parents, neighbors and citizens.

It’s not just the religious crazies, the economic dunderheads, the small government fanatics, or the neo-cons who have brought traditional conservatism to the state where much of the right views those who believe that government has an important role to play in society as “liberal-lites.” It is a studious avoidance of objective reality — a suspicion of intellectuals, a denial that criticism (even coming from within its ranks) is valid, a summary rejection of points of view from the other side, and a determination not to allow democratic government to work unless it is 100% on their terms.

To refer to them as corporate conservatives is unfair. Brooks may find it useful shorthand, but it hardly covers the range of right wing paranoia and dis-associative thinking that leads to many on the right taking people like Palin, Cain, and Bachmann seriously as presidential candidates.

In short, today, what passes for conservatism, lacks logic, coherence, compassion, respect, and basic analytical skills.

Other than that, the right is doing great.

On September 23, 2004, I opened an account on the blog creating site Blogger and wrote my first post for a site I named “Right Wing Nuthouse.” I called it that not because I was a right wing nut but as a tongue in cheek riposte to left wing critics I had done battle with online. I used to be a prolific commenter on blogs both right and left and thought that a little wry humor at the expense of liberals was perfectly in keeping with the tone I wanted to set for the blog.

It was a silly little post, that first one. It was about the big story at the time — the blogs vs. Dan Rather. Now, more than 3,700 posts later, I celebrate the 8th anniversary of RWNH with mixed feelings.

Originally, I thought that the blog would help me get noticed and promote my writing which would, in turn, allow me to make a living as a writer. In this, the blog has helped exceed my wildest expectations. While not strictly a writer, today I am writing for two websites as well as editing content for both. It’s been a strange journey from nameless blogger to (a still relatively nameless) successful writer. I harbor no illusions about my notoriety and whatever fame I’ve achieved has been as a conservative heretic rather than the wise old conservative sage I was hoping to be.

No matter. The right wing (I refuse to refer to most of them as “conservative”) is oblivious to their own heresy and have embraced an ideology that is rigid, anti-intellectual, anti-science, and self-destructive. It is an incoherent riot of conceits that is proudly bigoted, illogical, and bereft of new ideas. In fact, it is an unthinking, emotive ideology terrified of change, locked in a worldview that displays far more of the past than any vision for the future.

But I am the apostate, so go figure.

But while this blog has not given me exactly what I wanted as a public outlet for my writing, the returns on using my blog as a means to explore the inner workings of my mind have been extraordinary. I’m sure that sounds grandiose and a little inflated, but it’s true. One of my father’s favorite quotes was from Francis Bacon: “Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.” Starting a blog (or as it used to be referred to, a “journal”) radically sharpened my thinking. I was forced to confront the shallowness of much of my ideology and justify the basic intellectual premises I had relied on for many years. I found that what I had believed to have been rock solid assumptions undergirding my ideology dissipated in the fire of real inquiry — which included the unheard of notion that reading intelligent writing from both sides opened entirely new vistas and challenged my thinking on a wide variety of issues.

You can’t do this by reading right wing blogs. Julian Sanchez’s writing on this subject influenced me greatly:

One of the more striking features of the contemporary conservative movement is the extent to which it has been moving toward epistemic closure. Reality is defined by a multimedia array of interconnected and cross promoting conservative blogs, radio programs, magazines, and of course, Fox News. Whatever conflicts with that reality can be dismissed out of hand because it comes from the liberal media, and is therefore ipso facto not to be trusted. (How do you know they’re liberal? Well, they disagree with the conservative media!)

This epistemic closure can be a source of solidarity and energy, but it also renders the conservative media ecosystem fragile. Think of the complete panic China’s rulers feel about any breaks in their Internet firewall: The more successfully external sources of information have been excluded to date, the more unpredictable the effects of a breach become. Internal criticism is then especially problematic, because it threatens the hermetic seal. It’s not just that any particular criticism might have to be taken seriously coming from a fellow conservative. Rather, it’s that anything that breaks down the tacit equivalence between “critic of conservatives and “wicked liberal smear artist” undermines the effectiveness of the entire information filter. If disagreement is not in itself evidence of malign intent or moral degeneracy, people start feeling an obligation to engage it sincerely—maybe even when it comes from the New York Times. And there is nothing more potentially fatal to the momentum of an insurgency fueled by anger than a conversation.

The level of vitriol leveled against Sanchez for this penetrating observation was remarkable. And while I had already broken with most right wingers by criticizing what I call “cotton candy conservatives” like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and especially Glenn Beck, I suddenly realized, after reading the series of essays Sanchez published on epistemic closure, that I no longer marched in lock step. I was a different kind of conservative — or I was a real conservative and the rest were just right wing nuts. I haven’t quite decided which is true yet. Perhaps a little of both.

This site has allowed me to explore what some philosophers refer to as “the examined life” — a look inward at one’s most closely held and cherished assumptions, taking them out to hold up to the light of day, and then justifying their place as morally and philosophically true.

As I’ve said many times, I am no intellectual. And I have not been as rigorous as I should have been in my explorations. But I was struck again and again how I was forced to alter some of my beliefs — sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically — because I had opened my mind to alternative viewpoints. Those who view the world through a black and white prism are missing a lot. It may be advantageous politically to maintain a rigid ideological worldview that doesn’t stray far from the thinking of the tribe. But it was never enough for me, which I suppose has been my undoing.

If “Reading maketh a full man” in the sense that it helps one round out their thinking and give one a complete picture, then I have been well served by my curiosity. And if “writing maketh an exact man,” my curiosity has been mostly satisfied by trying to live an examined life.

I see now I would be a much different man if I hadn’t started this blog. Whatever muse was sitting on my shoulder urging me onward, I will always be grateful.

No, but he is behind and time and circumstances are against him.

The latest Pew survey has Democrats on Cloud 9, as it gives the president an 8 point lead among likely voters. My sense from reading Gallup and Rasmussen tracking polls is that it is probably half that. If the lead were really that big, there would be some reflection of that in the rolling averages. Rasmussen’s three day aggregation would almost certainly show a far bigger lead for the president (currently Obama 47, Romney 45) if the Pew survey was close to being accurate.

But Pew surveyed from 9/12 - 9/16 — before Romney’s producers/takers comments came to light. That’s another reason to distrust the margin for the president from that poll. Gallup found Romney’s comments were received negatively by a larger number of voters than those who saw them in a positive light (36% - 20%). But a strong plurality — 43% — said that it made no difference, so Democrats who declared the race “over” better go back to the drawing board.

But Romney has other troubles, most notably, he trails in several key swing states. The national numbers may not be too bad, but he is significantly behind in Virginia and Colorado while he is closer in Ohio and Florida, but still trails the president.

The reason the race is close nationally is fairly simple; states that the president won by double digits in 2008 are giving him far less support in 2012. For example, Wisconsin (+14 in 2008) and Michigan (+16 2008) show the president with a lead in single digits in both states. Wisconsin may be in play but Michigan is almost off the board. Those electoral votes will add to the president’s total exactly the same as in 2008 no matter what his margin of victory.

Romney may have been wrong in his “47%” comments, but he was right about something else:

“I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives,” he added. “What I have to do is convince the 5 percent to 10 percent in the center that are independents, that are thoughtful.”

He’s right that however far he is behind, the universe of persuadables is incredibly small. The overwhelming majority of voters have had their minds made up at least since mid-summer, leaving the two candidates to fight over that last 5-10%. So a 5 point lead for Obama in Virginia is significant. To overcome that lead, Romney must persuade about 6 in 10 of the remaining undecideds to pull out a victory. Given how close the race is, that’s a tall order indeed.

Not surprisingly, the right is in denial about the polls and many are convinced that the race isn’t even close — that Romney is far ahead and that he will win in a landslide in November. One example of dozens:

People fancy me a politico, and I’m approached by anxious Romneyites who see a tight race and wonder if Mitt’s going to be abe to pull it out. It happened on Sunday, in the halls at church. A guy pulled me aside and asked, with a note of panic in his voice, “Can Mitt really win this?”

My answer, which I now share with you, is yes. Yes, he can win this. Yes, he will win this. What’s more, he will win big. Landslide big.

This is neither bluster nor cockiness. It is a cold-eyed assessment of the facts.

“But the polls, Stallion!” I hear you cry. “The polls show a tight race!”

No, they don’t. The polls show that this would be a tight race… if exactly the same people showed up who showed up in 2008. Almost all the neck-and-neck polls presume that just as many Democrats as showed up when Obama was hardcore hopey changey will turn out this time around. In fact, some of them oversample Democrats, presuming that more Democrats will turn out in 2012 than showed up last time.

Um…no, that’s ridiculous. This fellow obviously never heard of sample weighting. He also is ill-informed about the new turnout models prepped by all the major polling outfits. Those models are based on current polling data and have very little to do with 2008 turnout.

And as far as enthusiasm is concerned, that gap appears to be narrowing. Gallup:

Voter enthusiasm in these states has grown among members of both political parties; however, Democrats’ level has increased more. Thus, whereas equal percentages of Democrats and Republicans were enthusiastic in June, Democrats are now significantly more enthusiastic than Republicans, 73% vs. 64%.

Independents’ enthusiasm also jumped substantially over this period — up 18 points, similar to the 20-point gain among Democrats; however, independents’ enthusiasm still lags behind that of both partisan groups.

Others on the right are far more dismissive of the polls, with some claiming there is a cabal of media out to discourage GOP voters from going to the polls by publishing skewed surveys showing Romney behind. This ignores the reality that if pollsters were deliberately cooking the books, they wouldn’t stay in business for long. Witness the fate of the polling outfit Research 2000 who cooked the books while polling for Daily Kos. Kos sued them and won a substantial settlement.

In this day and age, it’s just too easy to check the work of pollsters. Methodology is usually published along with each poll (although some algorithms and other means of statistical analysis are proprietary and are kept secret). A reputation for accuracy and honesty is all that recommends one polling firm over another. It would be beyond belief that Gallup, or Rasmussen, or any other nationally recognized pollster would risk it all to please partisans.

Many on the right have been asking why the race is close to begin with. They cite the dismal economy, the unpopularity of Obamacare, the still depressed housing market, and other factors that they believe should have Romney up by plenty.

Ramesh Ponnuru:

So why is Obama doing so well in the polls, if increased public dependency on government isn’t the answer?

For starters, the public at large isn’t as convinced as conservatives that he has been a dismal failure. Most people cut him some slack because of the economic crisis that began under a Republican president and kept unfolding as Obama took office. They know that the economy has changed direction. Some people think the economy has done about as well as it could have under the circumstances.

Another reason Obama is doing well might have to do with the weakness of the Republican economic message. Republicans dwell on the heroic entrepreneur held back by taxes and regulation, which must be part of the story that a free-market party tells. But most people don’t see themselves in that storyline, any more than they see themselves as dependents of the federal government. They don’t see Americans as divided between makers and takers.

To the extent Republicans do, they’re handicapping themselves.

Has anyone on the right really looked at Romney’s agenda? It should look very familiar because it’s the same one that Reagan offered in 1980. Cut taxes, cut the budget, strong defense, deregulation — I can hear Reagan talking about it now. Romney has dressed up this 30 year old agenda but it still sounds old and tired. New realities demand new answers and the GOP isn’t supplying any.

Neither candidate will realize a landslide unless a monumental gaffe occurs in one of the debates. Both men are pretty good on their feet so that doesn’t appear likely at this point. A larger possibility is that the big bad world outside intervenes to flip the election. Which candidate would benefit if Israel attacked Iran or attacks on our embassies worsen, or the euro falls is unknown, but a potential game changer from abroad cannot be ruled out.

The president is ahead and Romney is running out of time. That’s where the race is as I see it closing in on 40 days to go.

Mitt Romney’s comments about producers and takers has exploded into the controversy of the campaign. Is he right? And if he isn’t, what affect will this incident have on the race?

Tonight’s episode of RINO Hour of Power will discuss the issues surrounding the GOP nominee’s remarks. Hosted by Rick Moran, tonight’s co-host is Jazz Shaw and appearing as a guest will be Andrew Malcolm, editorial page writer for Investors Business Daily.

The show will stream live from 8:00 - 9:00 Eastern Time. A podcast will be available shortly after the end of the show.

You can join us live by clicking the icon below or by clicking here.

Next week, this blog will celebrate its 8th birthday. And despite some fitful periods where I failed to post on a daily basis, there has been several reoccurring questions that have occupied my attention during that time span — questions that need to be asked if the United States is to maintain its character as an outpost of individual liberty in a world rapidly moving toward a more statist model of governance.

Certainly the most fundamental question I have asked has been how big should government be in a modern, urbanized, industrial, diversified nation of 300 million people? The question resonates far more on the right than the left and, indeed, is at the heart of our current debates over the budget, taxes, entitlements, and even national defense and discretionary spending.

The problem for the right is that there is this superficial yearning for a “small” government as if the clock can be turned back, the entitlement society overturned, and the New Deal and Great Society repealed or drastically curtailed. I daresay that not only is this unrealistic, but the social upheaval caused by the attempt would be extremely dangerous.

The left’s problem is not only that they refuse to discuss how big government should be, they reject the entire premise of the question. There is a belief among many liberals that there should be no limits to the growth of government if it is done in service to achieving “social justice.” This is as dangerous to individual liberty as the right’s pie in the sky dreams of a Jeffersonian republic full of self-reliant yeoman farmers and honest tradesmen — updated to reflect certain 21st century realities, of course.

Mitt Romney has inadvertently gotten to the nub of the matter with his statement to campaign donors about “producers” and “takers.” Forget for a moment that the conservative narrative he posits has been exposed as just one more false talking point from the echo chamber. Wrapped up in the idea that there are some Americans living high off the fruits of other American’s labor is the very real notion that we are becoming a nation dependent on government at the expense of personal freedom.

Does dependency always result in a loss of individual liberty? If one accepts the idea that dependency closes off choices that an individual is capable of making — personal choices about life and lifestyle that the non-dependents have open to them — then one reaches the inescapable conclusion that indeed, depending on government for some or all of one’s sustenance, shelter, and peace of mind results in a loss of freedom of action. What other definition of liberty is there?

The argument over producers and takers only clouds this issue — especially since part of the reason for the increase in government dependency is the lousy economy, and a bigger part is an aging population who receive Social Security and Medicare benefits.

But that’s only half an answer. As Nichoilas Eberstadt points out in his new book A Nation of Takers, having a society of dependents eats away at the exceptional nature of the American people and destroys traditional notions of self reliance:

From the founding of our state up to the present—or rather, until quite recently—the United States and the citizens who peopled it were regarded, at home and abroad, as exceptional in a number of deep and important respects. One of these was their fierce and principled independence, which informed not only the design of the political experiment that is the U.S. Constitution but also the approach to everyday affairs. The proud self-reliance that struck Alexis de Tocqueville in his visit to the United States in the early 1830s extended to personal finances. The American “individualism” about which he wrote included social cooperation, and on a grand scale—the young nation was a hotbed of civic associations and voluntary organizations. American men and women viewed themselves as accountable for their own situation through their own achievements in an environment bursting with opportunity—a novel outlook at that time, markedly different from the prevailing Old World (or at least Continental) attitudes.

The corollaries of this American ethos (which might be described as a sort of optimistic Puritanism) were, on the one hand, an affinity for personal enterprise and industry, and on the other a horror of dependency and contempt for anything that smacked of a mendicant mentality. Although many Americans in earlier times were poor—before the twentieth century, practically everyone was living on income that would be considered penurious nowadays—even people in fairly desperate circumstances were known to refuse help or handouts as an affront to their dignity and independence. People who subsisted on public resources were known as “paupers,” and provision for them was a local undertaking. Neither beneficiaries nor recipients held the condition of pauperism in high regard.[10]

Overcoming America’s historic cultural resistance to government entitlements has been a long and formidable endeavor. But as we know today, this resistance did not ultimately prove an insurmountable obstacle to the establishment of mass public entitlements and normalizing the entitlement lifestyle in modern America. The United States is now on the verge of a symbolic threshold: the point at which more than half of all American households receive, and accept, transfer benefits from the government. From cradle (strictly speaking, from before the cradle) to grave, a treasure chest of government-supplied benefits are there for the taking for every American citizen—and exercising one’s legal rights to these many blandishments is not part and parcel of the American way of life.

A realistic notion of self reliance today is a far cry from what many on the right might imagine. Demanding that the poor become “self reliant” is a fool’s dream. Those in poverty in New York city, for instance, can’t become hunter-gatherers, shooting squirrels in Central Park or picking berries at the Arboretum. Asking those receiving welfare benefits to work for them is perfectly acceptable, although its difficult for the functionally illiterate and those without marketable job skills to get a job anywhere in today’s work force. Welfare, food stamps, housing assistance, and other needs-based entitlements are going to be with us until far more fundamental reforms in education, training, and creating habitable cities are made.

Similarly, we are not going to get rid of Social Security or Medicare, although reforms of those two entitlements will have to be made before we bankrupt ourselves trying to maintain them. As far as those two programs are concerned, very soon we will have to deal with the “producer-taker” question because the number of young workers supporting a single senior citizen who receives Social Security and Medicare will shrink from about 3:1 today to near 2:1 by 2050. Long before then, our descendents will have a revolution on their hands and a genuine generational conflict.

But Romney’s comments about takers and makers speaks to fundamental questions about the size and scope of government. Government is limited in how big it can get by the amount in tax dollars it can collect. Trillion dollar deficits notwithstanding — a number even most liberals believe is unsustainable — if the producers produce less, or resist the notion of government increasing its share of their income, the growth of government will be curtailed — theoretically. In truth, running massive deficits while government grows has been the norm for the past decade and given the paralysis that has gripped Washington, it is not likely to change anytime soon.

The problem is that the people and the politicians that represent them refuse to make choices. We want it all and we don’t want to pay for it is the reality we face. We all want politicians to do something about the budget deficit and the national debt but we don’t want programs cut that benefit us, or our children, nor do we want taxes raised (except on someone else) to pay for them. Through imprudent acts and willful self denial, we have created a crisis that is, at once, both spiritual and worldly; we are incapable of governing our desires for more of what government can give us while being unable to make the connection between what government does for us and its cost.

In the end, it is impossible to answer the question how big should government be because we don’t want to ask.

It’s the one year anniversary of that mass movement that has no mass at all to it, Occupy Wall Street.

A truly pathetic turnout in New York city, described as “hundreds” of protestors by the New York Times:

Police officers and protesters squared off at various points, with protesters briefly blocking intersections and sidewalks before being dispersed and sometimes arrested.

The police appeared prepared to counter the protesters’ blockade with one of their own, ringing the streets and sidewalks leading to the exchange with metal barricades and asking for identification from workers seeking to gain access.

Meanwhile, Occupy supporters marched through the streets waving banners and accompanied by bands playing “Happy Birthday.”

Police officers repeatedly warned protesters that they could be arrested if they did not keep moving. Most of those arrested were charged with disorderly conduct, the police said.

[...]

By midday, 124 people had been arrested. The arrests were mostly on disorderly conduct charges “for impeding vehicular or pedestrian traffic,” according to Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman. On Saturday and Sunday, the police arrested 43 people in connection with the protests, Mr. Browne said. While most of those arrests involved charges of disorderly conduct, he said that some were on assault and resisting arrest charges.

Police vans were parked on side streets throughout the financial district and helicopters buzzed overhead. Men in suits walking to work passed contingents of officers posted on corners.

One early gathering spot on Monday was the Vietnam Veterans memorial on Water Street where about 400 protesters assembled. About 200 people had gathered at Zuccotti Park, which protesters took over last year and used as an encampment.

I suppose the threat to shut down Wall Street alone required that the “demonstration” be covered. But the cult (anyone who uses the term “movement” to describe this gaggle of losers is flat out lying) of OWS has had no bigger boosters than the New York Times, and Great Britain’s Guardian newspaper. And the Guardian, as is their wont, believes that putting a prom dress on a pig somehow makes the porker more attractive:

More Occupy commentary, this time from Guardian economics writer Aditya Chakrabortty. He points to foreclosure activism as one of several surviving branches of the Occupy movement:

Finally, the dismissal of Occupy ignores what it has already achieved. The Zuccotti Park camp allowed hundreds of complete strangers to develop serious political arguments and strong ties alike. In the consumer onanism that is 21st-century Manhattan - a tiny island teeming with shoppers pleasing only themselves - that is no mean feat. Recently, Occupiers have begun serious campaigns against foreclosures of homes, for unionisation of workplaces and for reneging on unjust debts.

“Hundreds of complete strangers” developing “serious political arguments?” Who are they trying to kid? I have yet to hear anything but the most superficial whining, jaw droppingly unrealistic descriptions of issues, and ancient, tired, left wing tropes about “class” that went out when the Communists self destructed. Some people have more money than others. Duh. Part of the reason is that the rich manipulate the tax system. Double duh. Describing what is self-evident should not make one a sage or speaker of truth to power.

Since OWS lacks ideas on how to restore a modicum of income equality except by seizing the property of people who are smarter, work harder, have better ideas, and take baths more often, they can easily be dismissed. Railing against the rich is easy. Creating “the next big thing” in the economy that will generate good paying jobs and save the Middle Class is hard.

And for the arrogant few who believe anyone outside of liberal media is paying attention to them, such a task is far beyond their capabilities. They are incapable of creating anything except scenes to draw attention to themselves. The hard, slogging work of bringing an idea from drawing board to successful entrepreneurship is beyond the ken of their understanding. In fact, they’re just stupid enough to support putting roadblocks in front of producers to prevent exactly what they desire; the mass of workers having the opportunity to live better, richer, more productive lives by becoming employed in new and exciting American industries on the cutting edge of technology.

Whatever the “Next Big Thing” is going to be, entrepreneurs will be ready for it. OWS protestors will not. That’s the difference between those who truly work for the betterment of their fellow men — while bettering themselves in the process — and those who pose, posture, and throw tantrums about the unfairness of it all.

Who are you rooting for?