Sometimes my trolls don’t “grok“** the concept of irony. You know who you are, and you aren’t worth mentioning here.

That said, I inject another form of irony as I submit a selection for your consideration from the UK’s left-leaning The Economist magazine — to which I’ve subscribed for a number of years.

Here, from The Heritage Foundation’s The Foundry, America’s current business state is summed up in that UK magazine:

The home of laissez-faire is being suffocated by excessive and badly written regulation.… The problem is not the rules that are self-evidently absurd. It is the ones that sound reasonable on their own but impose a huge burden collectively. America is meant to be the home of laissez-faire. Unlike Europeans, whose lives have long been circumscribed by meddling governments and diktats from Brussels, Americans are supposed to be free to choose, for better or for worse. Yet for some time America has been straying from this ideal.

Faint praise and high damning from a nation known, now, as the Poster Child for superfluous regulatory and — as admitted by the author — meddling bullshit.

I find this highlights a rather large portion of Extra Crispy Irony, considering the UK’s current status as EU Regulatory Queen.

As Anthony Kim writes in the Heritage article:

Indeed, this unfortunate drifting away from “free to choose” has been the prime culprit in America’s startling decline in economic freedom and overall competitiveness. Worse, the trend of over-regulating our economy, coupled with bloated government spending, has bred cronyism and corrupted our free market system. Each new edict means a new government bureaucracy that individuals and businesses must navigate. Each new law opens the door for political graft.

Given the deteriorating regulatory and institutional environment, it is not surprising that our economic recovery process has been so disappointingly un-dynamic and has yielded such unimpressive job creation. The latest Gallup survey, released on February 15, highlights the problem: “Health Costs, Gov’t Regulations Curb Small Business Hiring: Nearly half of small-business owners name these issues.”

Let me write what, apparently, few others seem to sense or realize in terms of our national US economic “recovery.” And that is this:

• There will NOT be a full recovery, or anything really resembling that, until the issue of ObakaKare is resolved — meaning, that ObakaKare is well and truly killed, unfunded or cast aside.
• There will NOT be a full recovery, or anything really resembling that, until the issue of CapNTax is resolved.
• And there will NOT be a full recovery until businesses large and small think that there is someone sitting in the Oval Office who believes that free market Capitalism beats government micromanagement hands-down.

Let me be clear: those assurances will NOT occur under the current president, which is why a second term with Mr Obama will end up driving this country down like the unrelenting, uncorrectable course of Flight 11.

– When the United Kingdom proffers that the US is over-regulated — ?

Then there are either flying monkeys, or there is truth.

And I don’t see any flying monkeys.

BZ

** Read Robert Heinlein’s “Stranger In A Strange Land.”

1. Gas has gone up 83% during Obama’s Munificent Reign.

2. Obama wants an 80% cut in our nuclear deterrent force.

3. Obama wants our nuclear force to be less than that of China.

4. Obama wants China to rise up and challenge us.

5. Canada wants new internet monitoring rules; — that’s coming here shortly.

6. Chicago is the most corrupt city in the nation.

7. Post offices close; small towns go dark. No one cares.

8. Obama’s deficit spending = $17,000 per person, or $70,000 per family.

9. A man is jailed for not having a dog license.

10. Arizona wants to create a law prohibiting teachers from cursing.

11. School Food Police: personal lunches, after a search, don’t meet nutrition requirements.

12. In lieu of those terrible lunches, schoolers were made to eat coated chicken nuggets.

13. Flights by US airlines hit a 10-year low.

14. $3.9 BILLION DOLLARS flowed to energy firms with cash ties to Obama’s White House.

15. China reduces US treasury holdings.

16. Obama’s donors reap big benefits, such as Soros and Douglas.

And those bullet points examined only in the course of one day.

Frog in the boiling pot.

And YOU are the frog.

BZ

From a comment in The Washington Times article “Obama Wants To Outlaw Guns In The Second Term” (well worth reading):

Dear President Obama:

Every year some new idea about how to make our streets safer via “Gun Control” arrives in New York. We’ve registered our guns. Violent crime continues. We’ve banned assault weapons. Violent crime continues. We ballistically identify our legally possessed pistols. Violent crime continues. There are 200 to 300 million firearms in this country – they are woven into the fabric of our society. For all the “wiz bang” technology that modern society has invented – rifles and pistols are still the foundation of our national and state defense. Thousands of times an hour they are used to dissuade another from pursuing an ill advised path; whether in the hand of a police officer or a private citizen. Yes – accidents and tragedies happen, and a mature society must look itself in the mirror and draw the proper conclusions from these horrible events, but to think that by passing law upon law the public at large will somehow be magically made safer via “gun control” is psychotic and dangerous.

I and many of you witnessed the attacks on September 11, 2001. Had those pilots – many of whom were ex military officers – been required to carry a side arm; that day would have ended much differently. Imagine all the lives and treasure that could have been saved but for an irrational fear of the law abiding gun owner. Can any of you honestly say that over the past few decades your collective efforts have made New Yorkers safer? If any of you answered yes then you must take a close look at the FBI statistics on violent crime – you’ll find disappointment waiting for you. No law can urge the lawless to ask permission from anyone for anything. Remember ladies and gentleman criminals, terrorists, and sub human miscreants are dumb, but they are not stupid.

The latest iteration of this policy is the idea that putting a serial number on a bullet casing as it ejects from a semi-automatic pistol will allow law enforcement to detect and thus incarcerate more criminals – this is also referred to as micro-stamping. So let us pretend that all of you are now criminals – how would you alter your behavior to avoid detection? Police your brass. Use a sawed off shotgun. Use a revolver. Gasoline and a match are very effective. Explosives work exceedingly well in motor vehicles. Poison – women seem to prefer this method – Spitzer should hire a food tester. There are very effective ways of killing people that never include a semi-automatic pistol. Not to mention the most obvious trick – remove the firing pin and file off the serializing mechanism. What about something even more devious – picking up used serialized brass at a firing range and place it at the scene of the future crime to throw off the police. Serializing casings of pistol cartridges not only will not work, but it will create more permutations of that section of the population of New York State that are hell bent on killing for profit or psychosis.

New York State currently operates a system that ostensibly should be doing what micro-stamping or serializing a cartridge would do. That system is called “The New York State Combined Ballistic Identification System,” or COBIS. To date COBIS has cost the taxpayers of New York $30,000,000 and has produced only two matches in its database. It costs $4,000,000 per year to operate. We are not the only State to have attempted such foolishness – Maryland has attempted it also. The only difference is Maryland abandoned it because firearms possessed by law abiding citizens are use to commit crimes in infinitesimally rare circumstances. I could fill five pages with all I know of ballistic identification and it’s pros and cons – I sincerely suggest all of you educate yourselves and rethink New York’s current approach – last I checked New York was running a $5,000,000,000 deficit saving a few million here or there might start adding up to real money.

Many proven methods work to prevent crime, a solid basic education in how to behave in civil society, economic growth, engaged and active parents, etc. But the most effective methods that exist for reducing crime is self defense and long term humane incarceration for those who cannot coexist peacefully with their fellow citizens. New York State concealed carry law is a mess – some counties provide permits to law abiding citizens with out much hassle while others, “you have to know somebody.” Fix this and you’ll have a safer society. Don’t get me wrong – have stringent rules and requirements that are not capricious for the officials as well as the applicants, but stop deluding yourselves in thinking that permit holders and firearms are in and of themselves the enemy – the opposite is true – concealed carry holders are the most productive and law abiding segment of society. Florida maintains excellent statistics on this point – less then one hundredth of one percent of all permit holders has ever committed any crime in its entire thirty year history of concealed carry! Before Elliot Sptitzers behavior was detected he let 200 murderers out of prison. These people did not steal a loaf of bread to feed their children – THEY KILLED AND RAPED PEOPLE. Fix this and you’ll have a safer society. Bring back the death penalty for criminals that take an officers life.

Please stop attacking me and my fellow firearms owners. We neither deserve your ire or your ad hominem attacks. Focus your efforts on what works and not what will get any of you re-elected. Stop using firearms as a means to win votes in an effort to demonstrate to your misguided constituents that you can save them from violent crime if only they surrender more of their forgotten liberty, when the opposite is true – even they at some point will recognize your hypocrisy for what it is.

Respectfully,

Joe Doakes

Mr Doakes makes much sense. But there you go, that common sense, logic, proportion and reality thingie. How terribly inconvenient for Leftists. As I’ve said many times, never let any of those aspects get in the way of Goebbels-like propaganda.

BZ

Please leave your thoughts in the comments section.

If you give up, I’ll tell you.

BZ

And it will break the bank.

That’s the point.

Premiums will, by necessity, skyrocket.

That’s the point.

RomneyCare and ObamaKare will not save money. They’re almost one and the same. Even Rush Limbaugh realized the source of ObamaKare and spoke about it on Monday.

The point of ObamaKare is to ultimately place you and me under the control of government. Its point is to eliminate private healthcare wholesale — with the slight exception of the UberWealthy, who will always find ways to acquire private care.

First: bankrupt healthcare. Price it out of the hands of the electorate. Then eliminate the insurance companies. Then government steps in as the Great Savior.

Under these Purple Skies, everyone — bingo! — is now “equal.” Everyone will now have the same shitty, underfunded, incompetent healthcare.

Except for the UberWealthy.

AND D.C. POLITICIANS.

BZ