"The State" as Pimp

What in Heaven's name is going on in Germany?

A recent story from across the pond points to the logical answer to the question, "What would happen if socialists and secularists ever got their hands on Welfare Reform?"

That answer, if The Telegraph is to believed, is that the government would become a pimp.

Now, I hope that one need not be a right-wing moralizer to believe the idea of the government of an allegedly western, liberal, enlightened people forcing women into the sex trade to be a distasteful, if not disgraceful, thought. Right?

And yet, here we are. When the walls between morals and policy are eliminated, when we are no longer allowed to use morals - or even the traditional norms of decency - to judge behaviours, when no one's "career choice" is to be regarded in moral terms, we are left with the situation whereby we read that a 25-year old, unemployed IT-professional is being told BY THE STATE that she either must work in a brothel (where she will be paid to have sex, seemingly against her will, with strangers) or risk losing her unemployment benefits.

What a nightmare for this poor woman. Regardless of how we feel about the welfare state, particluarly in places like Germany - which has turned unemployment into careers for generations of people - I'm pretty sure we can all agree that no woman in a civilized society should be told that her best career option is to become a whore for a living - much less to be forced into it by her government.

I ask again: what in Heaven's name is going on in Germany? Any why do so many American leftists hold these morons out to represent the ideal of a society that we (in "Jesusland") should strive to emulate?

Anyone?

"Just the Facts" on the National Debt

Can the days when Cats and Dogs start living together in harmony be far behind? We have allegedly conservative Republicans (right-wing crazies in the eyes of the MSM) spending like drunken sailors while liberal Democrats bemoan the growth of the deficit and national debt.

Frankly, I would love to see a substantial reduction in government spending (coupled with an equally substantial increase in defense spending - if we're going to fight and win the Global War on Terror, we'd better be prepared to pay for it). However, while some are getting their panties in a twist over the explosion of the national debt (my sister-in-law has on at least one occasion sent me a link to the latest "Debt Clock" as a reason - one of many, I assume - that she cannot support GWB), others are assembling facts that, in a systematic and dispassionate manner, demonstrate that the debt, while large and certainly something to be concerned about, is neither outrageous by historical standards (or in relation to most other western countries), nor is it growing in any appreciable manner.

Such a resource comes courtesy of The Skeptical Optimist. I invite y'all to go have a look - it's an interesting read - and it is, as advertised, "Just the Facts". I'd copy the graphics directly, but Mr. Conover put a great deal of work into this - and it would be unfair just to take his handiwork and move ahead. So, go see his site; you'll be glad you did (and a Hat Tip to our good friends at the Power Line for discovering this site).

Certainly, those on the left-side of the political spectrum will note that the modern icons of the right (Reagan and GWB) have all seen the debt increase during their tenures in the White House (with quite a bit of truth behind their statements, it must be said). However, I believe such a statement misses a key point that becomes obvious when one looks over the entire time history, which dates back to 1792.

Every time our nation was challenged or threatened, or whenever there was grave struggle that could reasonably be said to threaten our future, our nation was required to go into debt in order to mobilize the resources required to win. The first build-up of debt came during the Civil War. Lincoln felt it necessary to preserve the Union, even at the cost of a War Between the States. As we all know by now, wars are expensive - and they were just as expensive in the 1860's. After the Civil War, our debt dropped from a high approaching 30% of GDP to something approaching 10% - levels not to be seen after our entry into "The Great War", when our debt shot to nearly 40% of GDP (defeating the Kaiser is expensive work), only to drop back down during the Roaring 20's.

The Great Depression certainly looks like a debt-fiesta - but remember, debt in this manner is measured as a percentage of GDP. With 25% (or greater) unemployment, it suffices to say that it was not a banner period for our GDP - and then came World War II. The defeat of Nazism and Fascism required a deep commitment from our nation - and a subsequent explosion of our National Debt to over 120% of GDP. Certainly, FDR's New Deal programs were contributing to this debt explosion, but as the graph clearly indicates, with the end of the war so ended our debt growth.

The next time we would see a substantial growth in the National Debt, Ronald Reagan declared that The Soviet Union was the Evil Empire and needed not to be contained, but defeated. However, the defeat of Communism did not come on the cheap, either. Even with economic growth over 1982-1997 that was unprecedented at the time, our national debt grew from 38% of GDP to about 55% of GDP - only to bump again to about 65% of GDP with the simultaneous outbreak of the Gulf War and the 1990-1992 recession (debt up, GDP down). Our debt dropped to just under 60% of GDP by 2000 and seems to be inching up just a touch at present to a level that is lower than the debt of Japan, Italy and France, on par with Germany, and slightly higher than that of the UK.

Clearly, there is more of a correlation between the size (and scope) of the National Debt and the epic battles of our history than there is with the ideology of the President. Reagan and GWB have seen debt increases (I'm projecting a little for GWB, but no one I know thinks the debt will actually drop in the next couple of years). They also decided to take on the great challenges of their times (Reagan's was Communism, Bush 43's is Islamofascism). Compare and contrast that to some recent periods of debt stability or decline. During the 90's, the debt certainly came down. We also saw during this time the rise of Islamofascism and al Qaeda - a rise that continued unabated until September 11, 2001. During the 60's and 70's, we had a nice, stable debt level - we also fought to a draw in Korea and lost Vietnam.

Give me the debt increases, every time.

That said, I sincerely believe that GWB and the Republicans who control the entire federal government had best get spending under control. They probably have, at most, 2-years to do it. Otherwise, their own base (who was willing to give them a pass for the last 4-years largely because of 9/11) is likely to start to look elsewhere. All that is required is for some credible candidate to challenge the GOP from the right in 2008 on issues of government spending and immigration (Pat Buchanan, anyone?), suck-off say 7% of the conservative base that came out in record numbers in 2004, and we'll all be watching the inauguration of President Hillary Rodham Clinton in January 2009.

Heaven help us all if that happens.

A "F-U"

That's "Follow-Up" (don't hyperventalate, anyone) to my earlier post where I took the United Pygmys, I mean Nations, to the woodshed for their comments about our alleged "stinginess".

I'm sure y'all read PowerLine - if you don't, you should. It's required reading at least twice per day. Anyway, they link to this particular piece at another weblog authored by our foreign service folks who are doing The Lord's work in the tsunami devastated areas of SE Asia.

This clip, as well as most of the posts at DiploMad, are very instructive regarding the ineffectiveness of the U.N. in practice.

I was thinking about this while listening to the news on my way to work this morning. U.N. "officials" (some assistant deputy, under-secretaries of something-or-other) were on the radio screaming about the need for a billion more dollars NOW, in order to head off an all-but inevitable human catastrophe. The question that statement begs is, "OK, so what precisely are you doing about it, mister U.N. klepto-crat?"

Not much, it seems.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised

I find it funny hearing and reading the rhetoric coming out of the Democrats in Washington state (as opposed to the other Washington that rapes my bank account on a bi-weekly basis). If you're not aware of what's going on with the open and slow-motion theft of the Washington Governor's race by democrats supporting outgoing Attorney General (isn't that a rich irony?) Christine Gregorie, please peruse the SoundPolitics web site. Seriously, do it now - it's an education.

The hilarity comes from the knowledge that this is the same party whose US "Representatives" and Senators are TODAY (in about 2-hours, in fact) going to challenge the electoral vote tally in Congress over the vote certification in Ohio (Bush by 118,775 at last count), a largely procedural move that is probably nothing more than a bone to the Michael Moore-types.

Still, it is somewhat illustrative of the left's selective outrage over voting "irregularities", isn't it? When serious and legitimate questions are raised in WA regarding thousands of "votes" tallied (out of about 3-million) in a race decided by less than 150 votes, their answer is to "Shut up and sit down". Why? Because their side "won", of course. Never mind that the rules were changed (several times) in mid-stream - clearly in violation of the SCOTUS ruling in Bush-v-Gore.

In contrast, outrageous conspiracy theories are tossed about to question the result in Ohio, where over 110K votes (out of about 5-million, after a full state-wide recount, by the way) separate the two candidates, and the same leftists feel that we need to tie-up the Congress for the rest of the week - thereby attempting to cloud the legitimacy of the first majority elected President since 1988.

Not that selective outrage is anything new to the Democrat party. Note that they are in now way, shape or form interested in re-examining the vote tallies in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin - states which were decided for Kerry on a narrower margin (percentage-wise) than Ohio was for Bush - and were MASSIVE voter fraud (10's of thousands more "votes" than voters in Philly alone, for example) likely swung the election in those states from Red to Blue.

But Congress won't be debating this, will they. Nor will you read it in the NY Times or see it on CNN, will you.

Typical.

Stingy, eh?

At the risk of sounding very "I know you are, but what am I?" (in other words, juvenile), I find it outrageous (spoken with appropriate Tom Daschle-esque pique and righteous indignation) that some klepto-crat from the United Nations (of what, precisely?) would accuse us (that is U.S. citizens) of being stingy in our relief efforts.

Well, actually, he accused us (as in, all rich nations) of being stingy in our developmental aid to poor countries, and did not exactly single us (as in, the U.S.) out - but does anyone seriously doubt these are the sentiments of the average desk-jockey in the U.N. complex at Turtle Bay?

The awesome response of Americans to this awesome (in the true sense of the word) tragedy has already been well catalogued elsewhere - and in any case is growing faster than I could possibly keep up with here. It suffices to say that Americans donating through amazon.com have generated more relief aid than the entire nation on France. 'nuf said.

However, there are two points I wish to forward in this regard:

1) It is typical of the U.N. and they don't consider anything "legitimate" (military action, disaster relief, etc.) unless the authority (and therefore the money and power) flows from member-state governments through them. As an aside, how typical and perfectly fitting that the U.N. would unconsciously (or even knowingly) discount the nearly 1/4-billion dollar private relieve effort currently underway.

2) Perhaps our alleged "stinginess" with development aid is an acknowledgement on our part that a) such aid doesn't work very well at "developing" poor countries and, b) the U.N. has a God-awful record of disposing of such aid ("Oil-for-food", Sudan, Somalia or Rwanda, anyone?).

In fact, doesn't this affair truly point out the impotence and incompetence of the United Nations as a whole. I mean, while private organizations and a 4-nation coalition (U.S., Australia, India and Japan) are providing immediate relief to the victims of the horrible disaster in Southeast Asia, the best Kofi Annan and the U.N. can do is organize a "donor's conference" for aid to take place fully a week from now (January 11th), in Geneva of all places (And isn't it also so fitting and typical of the U.N. that such a conference will be held not in the region where the disaster they hope to relieve actually is, but in some euro-trash filled resort town where the rich, powerful and liberal can gaze from afar and poo-poo the efforts of those who are actually doing something to help the poor souls in need.).

To the extent that the United Nations serves some minor purpose in advancing our agenda abroad at little cost to the taxpayers of the United States, there is probably little harm in sticking around with this ill-tempered, churlish brood of jet-setting busy-bodies and do-gooders. The minute they start to become a hindrance to us again (vis-a-vie, the next Iraq), it may be time for us to pull the plug on the U.N. once and for all.

(revised - minor correction 20050106 1114)