The Foundation

“Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.” –John Adams

Opinion in Brief

“[Michelle Obama is] back on the campaign trail, and for some reason is returning to the same hardball politics. The other day, she thundered, ‘Will we be a country that tells folks who’ve done everything right but are struggling to get by, "Tough luck, you’re on your own”? Is that who we are?’ Given that the federal budget has increased by $2 trillion in just a decade, entitlements are at record levels, and this administration is now running $1.5 trillion annual deficits, it is hard to imagine that any government has told anyone ‘tough luck.’ And it is even harder to suggest that nine months of a Republican-controlled House – voted in as part of the largest midterm correction since 1938 – has had much effect on the Obama employment agenda of nearly three years, the majority of which time Obama controlled both houses of Congress and borrowed nearly $5 trillion in sending unemployment over 9 percent. And when Ms. Obama charges, ‘Will we be a country where opportunity is limited to just the few at the top? Who are we?’ one wonders, why, then, in the past three years of hard times, did she insist on vacationing, in iconic fashion, at Vail, Martha’s Vineyard, and Costa del Sol, the tony haunts of ‘the few at the top’? In these rough times, surely a smaller staff, less travel, and budgetary economies would have enhanced her populist message of some at the top enjoying perks at the expense of others. In short, even if she does not revert to 2008 style and restart her lamentations about life in her country being unfair, I think it a mistake for any president to put the First Lady out, in highly partisan fashion, on the campaign trail to attack her husband’s political rivals. And, I think, the public unease with it will soon prove the point.“ –historian Victor Davis Hanson

Government

"Free market capitalism is unforgiving. Producers please customers, in a cost-minimizing fashion, and make a profit, or they face losses or go bankrupt. It’s this market discipline that some businesses seek to avoid. That’s why they descend upon Washington calling for crony capitalism – government bailouts, subsidies and special privileges. They wish to reduce the power of consumers and stockholders, who hold little sympathy for blunders and will give them the ax on a moment’s notice. Having Congress on their side means business can be less attentive to the will of consumers. Congress can keep them afloat with bailouts, as it did in the cases of General Motors and Chrysler, with the justification that such companies are ‘too big to fail.’ Nonsense! If General Motors and Chrysler had been allowed to go bankrupt, it wouldn’t have meant that their productive assets, such as assembly lines and tools, would have gone poof and disappeared into thin air. Bankruptcy would have led to a change in ownership of those assets by someone who might have managed them better. The bailout enabled them to avoid the full consequences of their blunders. … The Occupy Wall Street protesters are following the path predicted by the great philosopher-economist Frederic Bastiat, who said in ‘The Law’ that ‘instead of rooting out the injustices found in society, they make these injustices general.’ In other words, the protesters don’t want to end crony capitalism, with its handouts and government favoritism; they want to participate in it.” –economist Walter E. Williams

Insight

“This country wasn’t built by men who sought handouts. In its brilliant youth, this country showed the rest of the world what greatness was possible to Man and what happiness is possible on Earth. Then it began apologizing for its greatness and began giving away its wealth, feeling guilty for having produced more than its neighbors. … Examine your values and understand that you must choose one side or the other. Any compromise between good and evil only hurts the good and helps the evil.” –novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand (1905-1982)

Culture

“The trouble with the [Occupy Wall Street] movement is that it’s centered around two concepts, both of which are abject lies. First and foremost, it doesn’t represent ninety-nine percent of anything, no mater how many time the protesters themselves, their enablers, or a corrupt mainstream media repeats the slogan. Second, there is nothing inherently virtuous about being poor or middle class, any more than there is anything inherently evil about being wealthy. … And make no mistake: it is a virus that infects every ethnic group, both genders and, as you may have guessed, every income class. Until some kind of national integrity is restored, everything else comes down to dealing with the symptoms of the problem instead of the problem itself. How do you restore integrity? One self-aware person at a time coming to the realization that without it, you’re nothing but the member of a mob, whether that mob resides in Zuccotti Park, a bank boardroom, or the Beltway in Washington, D.C. You want to camp out all winter and rail against the inequities of the world? Knock yourself out.” –columnist Arnold Ahlert

Halloween News Alert from the Publisher: We’re hearing unconfirmed reports that Obama’s Occupy Zombies are now occupying pumpkins. Beware!

Essential Liberty

“Conventional wisdom is that government must run the schools. But government monopolies don’t do anything well. They fail because they have no real competition. Yet competition is what gives us better phones, movies, cars – everything that’s good. … In 1955, [economist Milton Friedman] proposed school vouchers. His plan didn’t call for separating school and state – unfortunately – but instead sought a second-best fix: Give a voucher to the family, and let it choose which school – government-run or private – their child will attend. Schools would compete for that voucher money. Today, it would be worth $13,000 per child. (That’s what America spends per student today.) Competition would then improve all schools. … Vouchers aren’t a perfect solution, but they are better than leaving every student a prisoner of a government monopoly.” –columnist John Stossel

The Gipper

“Those nations and states which have secured man’s highest aspirations for freedom, opportunity, and justice have always been those willing to trust their people, confident that their skills and their talents are equal to any challenge.” –Ronald Reagan

Re: The Left

“According to the Taranto Principle, first identified by distinguished Wall Street Journal writer James Taranto, the mainstream media concocts false truths that actually encourage liberal Democrats to extravagance; thus, Al Gore hyperventilates over Global Warming, Jean-Francois Kerry presents himself as a Vietnam War hero, and Barack Obama sits awash in red ink and promises more. Operating in accord with the principle, the liberal Democrats abandon themselves to a riot of fantasies far removed from the American consensus, and the result is catastrophe for them and much amusement for the rest of us. … It doesn’t sound like the Occupiers are making much headway with the average American. But they are making headway with liberal Democrats. White House adviser David Plouffe says, ‘The protests you’re seeing are the same conversations people are having in living rooms and kitchens across America. … People are frustrated by an economy that does not reward hard work and responsibility, where Wall Street and Main Street don’t seem to play by the same set of rules.’ And the brightest president in American history has said, ‘I think people are frustrated. And the protesters are giving voice to a more broad-based frustration about how our financial system works.’ Once again, the Taranto Principle is vindicated.” –columnist R. Emmett Tyrrell

For the Record

“If I were a liberal, I would have spent the last week in shock that a Democratic audience in Flint, Mich., cheered Vice President Joe Biden’s description of a policeman being killed. … Biden’s audience whooped and applauded … when he said that without Obama’s jobs bill, police will be ‘outgunned and outmanned.’ … What is liberals’ evidence that there will be more rapes and murders if Obama’s jobs bill doesn’t pass? Biden claims that, without it, there won’t be enough cops to interrupt a woman being raped in her own home – which would be an amazing bit of police work/psychic talent, if it had ever happened. (That’s why Americans like guns, liberals.) Obama’s jobs bill tackles the problem of rape and murder by giving the states $30 billion … for public school teachers. Only $5 billion is even allotted to the police…. [D]id Flint [Michigan] use any money from Obama’s last trillion-dollar stimulus bill to hire more police in order to prevent rape and murder? No, Flint spent its $2.2 million from the first stimulus bill on buying two electric buses. Even if what Flint really needed was buses and not cops, for $2.2 million, the city could have bought seven brand-new diesel buses and had $100,000 left over for streetlights. … The ‘green’ buses were never delivered because the company went out of business – despite a $1.6 million loan from the American taxpayer.” –columnist Ann Coulter

Reader Comments

Publisher’s Note: Every four years at this stage in the Republican presidential primary cycle, we publish a brief summary of candidate pros and cons, and thus subject ourselves to contemptuous criticism from graduates of the “shoot the messenger” school of politics. Notably, however, the “highest ratings” this year were no better than John McCain received four years ago – just a thin notch above average, which is far removed from an enthusiastic endorsement of any of this year’s candidates. By our assessment, though each candidate has their own subset of outstanding qualities, there is no candidate of the standing of Ronald Reagan among the GOP contenders, and even he would not have rated a perfect 10. If we have learned anything in all the election cycles we have endured, it is that there is no “perfect candidate,” though if we could combine the strongest elements from the GOP contenders we could construct a very good one. That notwithstanding, let us repeat our conclusion: “At the end of this primary cycle, we WILL throw our full support behind the victor in order to defeat Barack Hussein Obama.” We hope each of our readers will do the same.

“RON PAUL!” –numerous commenters

Alexander’s Reply: As for RON PAUL!, predictably, a full third of the comments posted were from RON PAUL! supporters, and a number of those provide ample evidence why I noted that he doesn’t pass the “nut job” test among most conservative voters. Based on those responses, it’s clear that most respondents didn’t even read the essay. They just scrolled to their candidate and started flaming, though we accurately identified Paul’s strengths (which are admirable) and his weaknesses, and assigned him an overall ranking accordingly.

“As usual, with Obama’s plan to use executive orders to enact his agenda, he still thinks he’s above the law. Rules apply to the little people, not to him. He takes this attitude in an attempt to make himself look like the hero and to demonize Congress. Well, guess what? He’s no hero; never will be.” –Kathy

“As far as President Obama is concerned, it’s ‘What Constitution?’ He has already TRAMPLED the Constitution as we know it and now he thinks he can run things without going through the House of Representatives and the Senate. I just don’t understand how he and his cronies think!” –Malinda

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The Last Word

“I had thought that at this late date, Obama had apologized to every nation on earth, but I heard a rumor that he wanted to apologize to Japan for our having dropped the A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but that Japanese diplomats had nixed it. I don’t blame them. It might call to attention the fact that Japan never apologized for Pearl Harbor; for the death march at Bataan; for the American, British and Australian, POWs they slaughtered; for their butchery in Manchuria, Burma and the Philippines; and for kidnapping thousands and thousands of Chinese and Korean women for use in their military brothels. But you can’t really expect patriotism or even perspective from Obama. In the history lessons he received from his radical professors and his demented religious mentors, it’s only the United States that has ever been guilty of crimes and atrocities.” –columnist Burt Prelutsky

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team