A New Book On China!

This from an old Atlanta friend and fellow memo reader. He is not sanguine about the future as long as Obama rides the tiger he help birth: "It seems to me that a Mid-East war is virtually inevitable absent the overthrow of the Iranian regime. If Pres. Obama losses, then Iran has about two months to act before a Republican is in the White House. Counting on Obama to do nothing, Iran would likely unleash Hezbollah and their missiles stored in schools, hospitals, and Mosques in Lebanon. An Israeli pre-emptive strike would meet with world-wide condemnation and excuse a non-supportive response coupled with no help from Obama; a retaliatory attack would bring in Iran and perhaps Egypt with only empty words emanating from Obama. If Obama wins, Iran can bide its time until their nuclear arsenal is ready, Egypt is in the hands of the Moslem Brotherhood, Iraq has become an Iranian client state and a new explicitly Islamic government is in control of Libya. Meanwhile taking advantage of a second Obama term, Sudan will attack South Sudan, Afghanistan will be lost to the Taliban, China will step up is aggressive actions to control the South China Sea, and Russia will be tempted to “assist” the Russians of the Eastern Ukraine to rejoin Mother Russia. Of course, we will be told by the Left that none of this really matters and maybe the Left will be correct considering Obama’s ongoing efforts which are leading to the destruction of the American economy."
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A review of an important book by Tony Blankley - close friend and early supporter of Newt. (See 1 below.)
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The more I hear Huntsman the more I believe he deserves a closer look. He is intelligent, no evidence of taint and quiet spoken. His record as governor of a small state demonstrated competence. Republicans could do a lot worse, at least on the surface.
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More commentary regarding Obama from a dear friend and fellow memo reader: "For us, Obama has indeed created a disaster in the Middle East.

For him, he has opened the door for Sharia Law to reign supreme in those countries.

I do no believe for a minute he has done it inadvertently."

And this from one of the brightest and oldest of friends and fellow memo reader discussing dredging up the '40's: "...Since you are dredging up material from the 40s now, I would encourage you to review this address by Beardsley Ruml from 1945. It is, I think, an update of a speech he gave to the New York Economic Club in 1943.

hiwaay.net/~becraft/RUMLTAXES.html


You might ask, 'Who the hell is Beardsley Ruml?' There is a brief bio on Wikipedia, but at the time of the speech he was Chairman of the NY Fed, and a strong member of the Roosevelt Administration, whose major claim to fame – that we experience bi-weekly – was his idea to invent the withholding tax. So every time I see my shrunken paycheck, I think of Beardsley. He would have been 115 last week.



I don’t think you can really say that this speech is right-wing or left-wing in today’s parlance. It was delivered to the American Bar Association and I think three things are worth noting in hindsight:



1.He noted that the past 25 years had given the US greater insights into managing a central bank, and had decoupled money from a gold standard. He called this the “final freedom from the money market” and noted that the “prime consideration” in the imposition of taxes was now the “social and economic consequences” of the tax. Although he noted as well, that the purchasing power of the dollar would be affected if there was too little taxation and too much spending.


“The United States is a national state which has a central banking system, the Federal Reserve System, and whose currency, for domestic purposes, is not convertible into any commodity. It follows that our Federal Government has final freedom from the money market in meeting its financial requirements. Accordingly, the inevitable social and economic consequences of any and all taxes have now become the prime consideration in the imposition of taxes. In general, it may be said that since all taxes have consequences of a social and economic character, the government should look to these consequences in formulating its tax policy. All federal taxes must meet the test of public policy and practical effect. The public purpose which is served should never be obscured in a tax program under the mask of raising revenue. The United States is a national state which has a central banking system, the Federal Reserve System, and whose currency, for domestic purposes, is not convertible into any commodity. It follows that our Federal Government has final freedom from the money market in meeting its financial requirements. Accordingly, the inevitable social and economic consequences of any and all taxes have now become the prime consideration in the imposition of taxes. In general, it may be said that since all taxes have consequences of a social and economic character, the government should look to these consequences in formulating its tax policy. All federal taxes must meet the test of public policy and practical effect. The public purpose which is served should never be obscured in a tax program under the mask of raising revenue.”



2.Taxes could be used to ”stabilize the purchasing power of the dollar,” but could mostly be used for what we might call social engineering today. Since the purpose of taxation was no longer to raise revenue – since that could be raised by borrowing or simply printing more money, taxes are really only useful as a way to (1) redistribute income, (2) punish or subsidize industries, people or groups, and (3) to allocate money for federal infrastructure projects. (Several states had reneged on their bonds in the 1840s after issuing debt to pay for infrastructure – similar to what is going on in Europe today. The US made the happy choice to let the individual states fail rather than getting a federal bailout. But by the 1940s, Beardsley and others had happily solved the problems of infrastructure spending – just print what you need and the infrastructure can get built.) To quote Beardsley:


'Federal taxes can be made to serve four principal purposes of a social and economic character. These purposes are:



1. As an instrument of fiscal policy to help stabilize the purchasing power of the dollar;

2. To express public policy in the distribution of wealth and of income, as in the case of the progressive income and estate taxes;

3. To express public policy in subsidizing or in penalizing various industries and economic groups;

4. To isolate and assess directly the costs of certain national benefits, such as highways and social security.

In the recent past, we have used our federal tax program consciously for each of these purposes. In serving these purposes, the tax program is a means to an end. The purposes themselves are matters of basic national policy which should be established, in the first instance, independently of any national tax program.

Among the policy questions with which we have to deal are these:

Do we want a dollar with reasonably stable purchasing power over the years?

Do we want greater equality of wealth and of income than would result from economic forces working alone?

Do we want to subsidize certain industries and certain economic groups?

Do we want the beneficiaries of certain federal activities to be aware of what they cost?

These questions are not tax questions; they are questions as to the kind of country we want and the kind of life we want to lead. The tax program should be a means to an agreed end. The tax program should be devised as an instrument, and it should be judged by how well it serves its purpose.

By all odds, the most important single purpose to be served by the imposition of federal taxes is the maintenance of a dollar which has stable purchasing power over the years. Sometimes this purpose is stated as "the avoidance of inflation"; and without the use of federal taxation all other means of stabilization, such as monetary policy and price controls and subsidies, are unavailing. All other means, in any case, must be integrated with federal tax policy if we are to have tomorrow a dollar which has a value near to what it has today.

The war has taught the government, and the government has taught the people, that federal taxation has much to do with inflation and deflation, with the prices which have to be paid for the things that are bought and sold. If federal taxes are insufficient or of the wrong kind, the purchasing power in the hands of the public is likely to be greater than the output of goods and services with which this purchasing demand can be satisfied. If the demand becomes too great, the result will be a rise in prices, and there will be no proportionate increase in the quantity of things for sale. This will mean that the dollar is worth less than it was before --- that is inflation. On the other hand, if federal taxes are too heavy or are of the wrong kind, effective purchasing power in the hands of the public will be insufficient to take from the producers of goods and services all the things these producers would like to make. This will mean widespread unemployment.”

3. Beardsley also noted that it made no sense whatsoever to tax corporations. That is interesting, given his positions, but his analysis is spot on to the analysis that would come from the Chicago School today:
“Taxes on corporation profits have three principal consequences --- all of them bad. Briefly, the three bad effects of the corporation income tax are:

1. The money which is taken from the corporation in taxes must come in one of three ways. It must come from the people, in the higher prices they pay for the things they buy; from the corporation's own employees in wages that are lower than they otherwise would be; or from the corporation's stockholders, in lower rate of return on their investment. No matter from which sources it comes, or in what proportion, this tax is harmful to production, to purchasing power, and to investment.

2. The tax on corporation profits is a distorting factor in managerial judgment, a factor which is prejudicial to clear engineering and economic analysis of what will be best for the production and distribution of things for use. And, the larger the tax, the greater the distortion.

3. The corporation income tax is the cause of double taxation. The individual taxpayer is taxed once when his profit is earned by the corporation, and once again when he receives the profit as a dividend. This double taxation makes it more difficult to get people to invest their savings in business than if the profits of business were only taxed once. Furthermore, stockholders with small incomes bear as heavy a burden under the corporation income tax as do stockholders with large incomes.

******

Granted that the corporation income tax must go, it will not be easy to devise protective measures which will be entirely satisfactory. The difficulties are not merely difficulties of technique and of avoiding the pitfalls of a perfect solution impossible to administer, but are questions of principle that raise issues as to the proper locus of power over new capital investment.

Can the government afford to give up the corporation income tax? This really is not the question. The question is this: Is it a favorable way of assessing taxes on the people --- on the consumer, the workers and investors --- who after all are the only real taxpayers? It is clear from any point of view that the effects of the corporation income tax are bad effects. The public purposes to be served by taxation are not thereby well served. The tax is uncertain in its effect with respect to the stabilization of the dollar, and it is inequitable as part of a progressive levy on individual income. It tends to raise the prices of goods and services. It tends to keep wages lower than they otherwise might be. It reduces the yield on investment and obstructs the flow of savings into business enterprise.'

Whatever you think of Beardsley, I agree that it is often helpful to look to the past to see solutions to what troubles us today. You were quoting Ecclesiastes in a recent memo, and I think Solomon said it best when he said, 'There is nothing new under the sun.'

Hope you guys are ok. All the best,"
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Sign of the times: The recession has hit everybody really hard...

Exxon-Mobil laid off 25 Congressmen.

A stripper was killed when her audience showered her with rolls of pennies while she danced.

McDonald's is selling the 1/4 ouncer.

Angelina Jolie adopted a child from America.

Parents in Beverly Hills fired their nannies and learned their children's names.

My cousin had an exorcism but couldn't afford to pay for it, and they re-possessed her!

A picture is now only worth 200 words.

When Bill and Hillary travel together, they now have to share a room.

The Treasure Island casino in Las Vegas is now managed by Somali pirates.
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More regarding Newt's prospects. (See 2 and 2a below.)
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Victor Davis Hanson on Obama's creativity and fertile imagination. (See 3 below.)
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Dick
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1)An Important New Book on China
By Tony Blankley

A just released book, "Bowing to Beijing" by Brett M. Decker and William C. Triplett II, will change forever the way you think about China -- even if, like me, you already have the deepest worries about the Chinese threat. As I opened the book, I was expecting to find many useful examples of Chinese military and industrial efforts to get the better of the United States and the West.

Indeed, there are 100 pages of examples of the most remorseless Chinese successes at stealing the military and industrial secrets of the West and converting them into a growing menace -- soon to be a leviathan -- bent on domination and defeat of America. The authors itemize the sheer, unprecedented magnitude of this effort. But the opening chapters dealt with human rights abuses, and my first thought as I started reading was that I wanted to get right to the military and industrial examples.


But the authors were right to lead with 50 pages itemizing in grizzly detail Chinese human rights abuses -- for the profound reason that after reading those first 50 pages, the reader will be impassioned to resist Chinese domination not only on behalf of American interests, but also for the sake of humanity.

Today, many people think America is in decline and mentally acquiesce to the thought that the rise of China is inevitable. Those 50 pages will stiffen your resolve to be part of the struggle to never let such a malignancy spread to the rest of the world -- let alone to America. One of the authors, Brett Decker, is a friend -- and I have never been more proud of his (and his co-author's) accomplishment of providing such a deep moral vision in this carefully factual book.

In an astounding narrative, Decker and Triplett have refuted the growing authoritarian temptation expressed for too many elite people around the world by Thomas Friedman, the senior New York Times foreign-policy columnist who wrote recently: "One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century."

The authors do not mention Friedman. In those first 50 pages, they focus their compelling narrative on a strictly factual expose of the moral horror being brought down on the Chinese people by their ever-more-powerful Chinese leadership.

The authors carefully delineate the reversal in the last decade of the previous modest Chinese movement toward rule of law and a small hint at decency. It had been the hope of everyone from Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger onward that as China came into the world and embraced capitalism it would become "a modern, progressive society that (would) eventually bring the communist state in line with the rest of the civilized world." That was the moral foundation for "engaging" with China. It was also a convenient rationalization for trying to make a fortune in the vast Chinese market.

But, grimly, the authors explicate the sad fact that the engagement was a false dawn. In the last decade, it has gotten worse and worse as the Chinese leadership has now consolidated its power. Oligarchic "princelings"-- the 200 to 300 descendants of the founders of the Communist Party -- have gained a stranglehold on both the business and government of China. They are using the incomprehensibly vast power that comes with that total control to buy off the business class, exploit the working class and peasants, and prepare China to replace America as the world's dominant nation.

Once you have read the first searing 50 pages of this book, the hope that China is becoming a "decent," liberal society is no longer morally available to you. I mention Friedman because of his claim that Chinese leaders are a "reasonably enlightened group of people." The authors' narrative shows Friedman's words to be not merely fatuous, but uniquely immoral.

Whatever one thinks about the influence of Western civilization on the broader world over the past half millennium, it can be said that the West has lived out a "reasonably enlightened" view of humanity. It would be far different under Chinese domination. Here is just one of hundreds of examples offered by the authors of the moral pit that China has become: "It is routine for children as young as 9 years old and for the mentally handicapped to be sold to sweatshops where they work around the clock in slave-like conditions. Tragically, child labor is most common in toy factories. Other workers initially take jobs voluntarily but then are padlocked in dormitories and forced to work up to 18 hours a day in a subhuman environment." Those cheap toys found on American shopping shelves come at a horribly high price.

The authors systematically assess the evil intents and consequences of the Communist government from child labor and the environment to the selection and murder of prisoners for their body parts. After a particularly riveting narrative of the Chinese regime's religious intolerance, the authors conclude with Pope Benedict XVI's soul- rending observation: "In China, Christ is living out His Passion."

Just as the authors are ferocious on the Chinese regime, they are just as tough on the Washington elites who help the Chinese. The authors name names and present chapter and verse of how China -- and their American allies -- penetrate U.S. business and government secrets. The failure of our government to even begin to resist the Chinese threat is aptly described as a bipartisan failure of both vision and will, if not patriotism. But it is fair to say that President Obama, in particular, will not enjoy reading this book, although he would vastly benefit from reading it, as would the country if he were to act on the authors' advice.
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2)Why Newt's Surge Will Continue
By C. Edmund Wright

Newt Gingrich's stumble out of the campaign gate -- causing him to lose his top advisors to Rick Perry -- might well be the best thing that has ever happened to his political career. That, along with his debate performances and a handful of other circumstances, explains why the former speaker of the House is now surging in the polls and why it is likely to continue.


And yes -- those are the words of one who has written Newt off for good on more than one occasion. And for what surely seemed like good reasons.

But those reasons seem long past now, as the former speaker has proven himself a far superior advocate to anyone else running of what it is that animates us on the conservative side. And it is this ability -- combined with our craving for someone who has this ability in light of the inarticulate Bush-McCain years -- that has convinced many to take a second, third, fourth, or fifth look at a man many of us had given up on. Yes, we know that Newt has not always acted like a conservative, and yes, he tends toward being an incessant government tinkerer. Yes, some of those marital issues are troubling, as was NY-23 and the David Gregory/Paul Ryan thing and most of all...the Pelosi global warming thing. Yes, we get all that.

Yet, even so, the daydream of Gingrich debating Obama on a stage bigger than merely the presidential contest is something more and more Tea Party folks and others are publicly fessin' up to sharing. Admit it: you were giving Newt a second look long before you dared say so out loud or post it on a message board. And this has nothing to do with how Gingrich has pummeled his Republican opposition. Because he has not done so. Not a whiff of it.

Quite the contrary, in fact. No other candidate has been nearly as openly enthusiastic about the entire GOP field as has Gingrich. Many times he has prefaced an answer with a statement to the effect that any of the folks on the stage would be far superior to the person we have now in the White House. After which he would go on and explain why this is so better than any of those others could explain it. Moreover, unlike Bachmann and Huntsman, he slammed the media when the Herman Cain harassment stories first broke and refused to join in the self-important "charges are serious and must be answered" meme no doubt written by the political hacks working for the other candidates.

All along, Gingrich, along with Cain, aimed fire at Obama specifically and liberalism in general. Newt has not so much as fired a shot across the bow of the other Republicans, let alone fired a direct hit. Interestingly, it is Cain and Gingrich who have surged. It is obvious that GOP voters are interested in only two things: who has a vision for beating Obama and who has a vision for governing the country after this is accomplished.

What voters are manifestly not interested in are the attacks that Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, and Mitt Romney have leveled at each other. Since this started, Bachmann and Perry have bottomed out, while Santorum has stayed on the bottom, and Romney has held firm at his ~25% share of party support.

Consider: Rick Perry came storming out of the gate with something like 35% of the voters favoring him in a field that was at that time dominated by Romney and Bachmann, fresh off her Ames win and strong second debate. Meanwhile, Sarah Palin was still unannounced as to her intentions, while Cain, Gingrich, and Santorum languished in the low single digits. Pawlenty had already imploded with his unseemly attacks on Bachmann. Paul and Huntsman have their own constituencies, and are not part of the fluid Tea Party non-Mitt semi-final.

Within a few days, Palin announced that she would not run, while Bachmann destroyed her campaign with the jaw-dropping over-play of the HPV issue versus Perry. That wounded Perry, but his "heartless" answer and then ridiculous overcompensation by going after Romney's lawn care service finished him off effectively -- for now. I can only wonder how much of that strategy came from Gingrich's ex-consultants.

All the while, Gingrich and Cain were ignoring the nonsense and keeping their eyes on the ball. And the voters have responded by leaving the Perry, Bachmann, and Palin camps and going to the two Georgia natives' columns. And as recently as two weeks ago, it seemed as if Cain were the man for the times and would keep most of that support. He is the man of the free market/Tea Party with a quintessentially American life story and a gift for oratory. Meanwhile, Gingrich, even with this bump, seemed destined by his personal "baggage" and political missteps to be a supporting actor to the Cain story.

The last couple weeks have been very telling, however. Cain has struggled -- not so much from the harassment charges per se, but perhaps from the mental and physical fatigue that battle has caused. Such can cause a lot of new information to "swirl around" in one's head -- Cain's head and his new supporters' heads.

By comparison, Newt has faced all of this before. We all knew the stuff about him we would not like months ago. That's why we did not like him months ago and why he stayed in the low to mid-single digits for lo these many months. The change, however, is that in every debate he has reminded us of why we used to like him. He has reminded us why we don't like the media and reminded us why we like all of the GOP candidates in comparison to Obama. He has reminded us that our battle does include the media and yet must center on removing Obama. Period.

In fact, since only Ron Paul looks worse in a suit, Newt is subconsciously reminding us that a "crisp crease" and metrosexual "cool" are really not as sexy as a command of every single issue and an ability to lace that knowledge with some pepper when needed.

By contrast, we are also reminded why we have dreaded every presidential debate since Reagan-Mondale. We haven't had a yes! moment in these things since Reagan, and we desperately need one.

But it goes deeper than just those moments. The campaign debates of 2012 will be definitive moments in our national conversation. I think many instinctively know this. We will have on display some spokesperson for conservatism debating Obama and the Occupy America vision. It will impact perhaps every race in 2012. And many are now saying out loud what they've been whispering for months.

The debate stage matters more than ever before -- and on that stage, Newt is the best. The future of the Republic is at stake. And that is why Gingrich is in the top tier to stay.


2a)
Expect Newt to be Pilloried
J. Robert Smith
Newt Gingrich, piñata. Expect it -- now that Gingrich is enjoying rough parity with Mitt Romney and Herman Cain in the polls. Expect Gingrich to start taking whacks from his GOP competitors and their allies. What's curious is if the left and fossil media join in the Newt-whacking now or wait.

Gingrich is also starting to enjoy some good ink from conservative writers. Ed Morrissey opines at The Week that Gingrich is the real deal. Jeffrey Lord, writing yesterday at The American Spectator, floats the notion that the former Speaker might be an American Churchill.

Jonah Goldberg pens a more measured assessment of Gingrich's upswing at National Review Online. While Goldberg acknowledges "this could be Gingrich's moment," he also writes:

It's an open question whether Gingrich can defeat Obama in 2012. It's taken as a truism that he has "too much baggage." Well, some of the baggage is lighter than it appears. He was cleared by the Clinton-era Internal Revenue Service of wrongdoing in alleged ethics violations stemming from a college course he taught in the 1990s. The charge that he surprised his cancer-stricken first wife with divorce papers has been, at the least, exaggerated.

Adds Goldberg, tellingly:

But, as with Kim Kardashian's attic, you can throw away a lot of old baggage and still be left with too much for one person to carry. His [Gingrich's] marital infidelities, his verbal indiscipline, the strange mix of God and Mammon that is Newt Inc., and his grandiose way of talking about himself as one of the lions of the 20th - and now 21st - century: It may just be too much muchness for voters once they're reminded of it all. And, oh boy, would they be reminded of it if Gingrich got the nomination. [Emphasis added.]

Which leads to the question: Will the liberal media, Democrat hacks, and leftwing attack dogs refrain from going after the former Speaker or will they want to join in and stir up a whack-frenzy against Gingrich now?

As Goldberg suggests, the best bet is that Democrats and the left would welcome a Gingrich presidential nomination, believing that Gingrich is a target-rich environment come the 2012 General Election. Gingrich's occasional zigzags and his checkered personal life would be the treats that Mr. Obama and the left would hope to spill out after a good whacking if Gingrich squares off against the president.

Offsetting Gringrich's baggage, though, is a crippled economy and, perhaps, worse economic trouble in the offing. Will voters be willing to overlook any GOP nominee's personal foibles and political and policies lapses if they think that man or woman can deliver on curing an economy that can't shake its long illness? In fact, an illness prolonged by Obama and Democrat policies?

That's certainly what Gingrich's bet would be. And Republican voters, if they give the GOP presidential nod to the former Georgia politician, would make the same bet.
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3)The Imaginarium of Barack Obama
By Victor Davis Hanson

The presidency of Barack Obama is full of funny things that need not follow any sort of logic. Images and ideas just pop in and out, without worry of inconsistency, contradiction, or hypocrisy. It’s a fascinating mish-mash of strange heroes and bogeymen, this imaginarium of our president.

In the imaginarium there are no revolving doors, earmarks, or lobbyists. So Peter Orszag did not go from being OMB director to a Citigroup fat-cat. Once chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel did not make $16 million for his well-known banking expertise. The more you damn the pernicious role of lobbyists and the polluting role of big money, the more you must hire and seek out both. Public financing of campaigns is wonderful for everyone else who lacks the integrity of Barack Obama who understandably must renounce such unfair impositions.

Those who now vote against raising the large Obama debt ceiling are political hucksters and opportunists; those who not long ago voted against raising the smaller Bush debt ceiling were principled statesmen. “Unpatriotic” presidents borrow $4 trillion in eight years; patriotic ones we’ve been waiting for can trump that in three.

Catching known terrorists and putting them in Guantanamo is very bad; killing suspected ones by drone assassinations — and anyone unlucky enough to be in their general vicinity — is exceptionally good. Tribunals, renditions, preventative detention, and all that were bad ideas under Bush-Cheney, but could become good ideas under Barack Obama, the law professor who often sees no need to follow the law when an immigration or marriage statute is deemed regressive.

A million Iranians protesting a soon-to-be-nuclear theocracy is false revolutionary consciousness and to be left alone; a few thousand Israelis wanting to buy apartments in the Jerusalem suburbs is subversive and worthy of presidential condemnation. And when atoning for supposed American lapses, what better place to begin apologizing than in Turkey, the incubator of the Armenian, Greek, and Kurdish mass killings? We need to deny history to make the case that America is not exceptional, and to invent it to persuade us that the Muslim world is extraordinary.

Twenty-four months of a Democratic Congress, and over $4 trillion in spending, resulted in 9.1% unemployment and near nonexistent growth. Yet the culprit for the current situation is ten months of a Republican-controlled House that has yet to approve another $500 million of borrowing. In the imaginarium, just a little more of the massive amount that has failed will not fail. But if the Republicans are to be blamed for not wanting to waste the last half-trillion, are the Democrats to be praised for borrowing the first wasted $4 trillion?

In the imaginarium, all sorts of demons and devils can unite to derail the brilliance of Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan. ATMs have for the first time after 2009 begun to eliminate jobs. But then so did the Japanese tsunami and the EU meltdown. The DC earthquake did its part, but then so did climbing oil prices and the Arab Spring. Of course, the ghost of George Bush floats over all the present mess. Economic gurus like Austan Goolsbee, Peter Orszag, Christina Romer, and Larry Summers used to write brilliant essays of what would work if they were to be in charge, and now write brilliant essays about why it did not work when they were in charge.

There are lots of ways to bring Americans together across class and racial lines. One in the imaginarium is to focus on the “teabag, anti-government people.” Another is to encourage Hispanics to “punish our enemies” — or have the attorney general lambaste Americans as racial “cowards” and to defend “my people.” Joining foreign governments to sue a fellow American state is no more red/no more blue state unity. Still another is to divide up the people between the suspect who make over $200,000 and the noble who make less, or yet again target the dubious “1%” at “the very top” who do not pay “their fair share,” a mere 40% of the aggregate income tax.

Inside the imaginarium, the way to demonize the “1%” is to vacation among them — whether at Martha’s Vineyard or Costa del Sol. Buying a corporate jet is a waste of the people’s money — unlike daily flying on a much bigger private jet paid by the people.

To encourage energy self-sufficiency, the administration lent a half-billion dollars to campaign donor insiders and got unsellable solar panels in return — as it prevents a huge pipeline from Canada that will bring “shovel-ready” jobs and fuel to the United States far more cheaply than from the volatile Middle East. We have a brilliantly obtuse energy secretary who is a Nobel laureate but who thinks California farms — a record $15 billion in exports this year — will soon blow away and that gas should climb to European levels of about $9 a gallon. In the imaginarium, the purpose of Dr. Chu’s Department of Energy is not to encourage energy production and lower prices, but to find ways to prevent its development in search of raising its cost. The attorney general must be entirely conversant in small matters like a Black Panther voting intimidation case, but was completely ignorant of large ones like Fast and Furious that saw his subordinates sell automatic weapons to Mexican drug cartels.

The president regrets that we are not innovative any more, and have gone “soft” and “lazy.” You see, his efforts at ensuring cradle-to-grave health care entitlements, of granting 99 weeks of unemployment insurance, and of extending food stamps to nearly 50 million are apparently incentives that should have led to a “hard” and “industrious” populace that was more self-reliant and willing to take risks on their own. “Spread the wealth” is a time-honored way of galvanizing people to become more self-disciplined and sufficient.

Business has failed us as well. And the way to get Las Vegas and Super Bowl junketeering CEOs profitable enough again to fund the growing redistributive state, is for them to take risks that result in the sort of massive projects that used to be an American trademark — things like the Hoover Dam, which changed the environmental landscape far more than would the apparently cancelled gargantuan pipeline from Canada to Texas. Business can be encouraged not to be lazy by a prod now and then — either by trying to shut down a big aircraft plant or a small guitar factory. And in the imaginarium, the way to gently chide the private sector is with words of encouragement like “millionaires and billionaires,” and “corporate jet owners,” along with grandfatherly advice to clueless capitalists about realizing the point at which they should cease making money.

In the imaginarium of Barack Obama there is no contradiction between smearing and shaking down Wall Street, a bunch that needs both to be told when and when not to profit, and to whom and to whom not to give tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions. Barney Frank, who helped pressure Wall Street and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to issue billions in unsound loans, and Chris Dodd, who shook down fat cats for below-market interest rates for his vacation home, logically are the eponymous heroes of the Dodd-Frank fiscal reform act to ensure others do not do as did they. Former liberal governor, senator, and Goldman Sachs CEO Jon Corzine, who both wrecked MF Global and can’t account for $600 million in lost investments, is, in George Soros-like fashion, the best emblem of the contradictory desire to be the worst pirate on Wall Street in order to make the most money in order to be its most liberal critic. In the imaginarium we receive advice about the need for higher income taxes from multibillionaires Warren Buffett and Bill Gates who have always sought to avoid them. Big government and big inheritance taxes, both magnates swear are good, and therefore the administration of their own postmortem fortunes will forever avoid both.

In the imaginarium, community organizer Barack Obama never lived in a small mansion. John “two Americas” Edwards never lived in a big one. “Earth in the balance” Al Gore never lived in a few of them, and yacht owning John Kerry never lived in lots of them. You see in the imaginarium of Barack Obama you can be whatever you wish to be. Just wishing and saying something can wonderfully make it so.


The End of Sparta

As the Thebans help the freed helots build their new city of Messenê, the Argive general Epitêles decides his men are no longer needed and will head home to Argos, leaving the Thebans and Messenians to their work:

Epitêles did not back down. “I and my Argives, we feel no better or
worse from freeing them, and hardly think their freedom is a gift. Sparta
is weak. Finished as we know it. She has no farmers to feed her phalanx,
and won’t march out of Lakonia, at least for a while. That is good enough
for me and mine. These helots can do what they like.” Epitêles laughed
and for the next few days kept patrolling with his guard to hunt down
more thieves who were stealing from the bread carts next to the scaffolds.
He knew men by nature to be bad. They would kill and worse if they were
not tired from work or scared of punishment. It was not in his nature to
build, so he did what he knew best, he punished and hoped he killed
more guilty than innocent—and worried little when he did not. “These
Thebans can free anyone they please. But then who can’t do that? But
they have no idea how to knock heads and keep these half-tamed on their
leashes. Zeus in heaven, I think these Boiotians want to be liked rather
than feared.”

That the helots slacked off from the walls was of no real concern
to Epitêles, other than as reason enough to kill those who were probably
stealing rather working. When enough were executed to discourage
the no-goods, Epitêles would head home to Argos and the hard life among
the murderous factions there. And so he did soon, and passed out of the
history of the Hellenes.

Epaminondas thought he had Epitêles right when he had said of
him, “Don’t wonder that he will leave us soon, but instead ask why this
man in fur has even come. He is a warrior, one who wakes up in the
morning promising to cut down Spartans and goes to bed each night in
lamentation that he has not killed enough of them. We won’t see his like
again in Hellas. He’s the good coin side to Lichas, though both are at
home killing and so more alike than we think. Maybe our Chiôn if he
lives, is a third who could join this cabal of Aiases. But for now thank our
One God that Epitêles was on our side.”
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