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. . . on the city streets? That's just wrong.

Over at Ace of Spades HQ, proprietor Ace has been fighting a rear-guard action against a renewed assault upon the gates by those who insist that There Is Something Going On with Obama's birth certificate.

Here's my position:

It's a snipe hunt. (Credit to AoSHQ commenter Full Moon for the first reference to "snipe hunting.")

Let's break this down to the quark level of comprehension so I can demonstrate where I'm coming from. You see, I don't know if Obama was born in Honolulu or not. By that I mean I do not have first-hand personal knowledge of the event. Therefore, I must depend on the reports of others to either confirm or deny that this event occurred.

Everybody with me so far?

And, Round One below the fold:

From Veronique de Rugy at George Mason University's Mercatus Center, who apparently had some time on her hands this weekend. Two graphs:

So, tell me again how the richest Americans somehow aren't paying "their fair share?" The top 20% of taxpayers are already the only segment of Americans who paying more by percentage in income taxes than they're making in income. They're already paying 67% of the bills, but only make 53% of the money.

The "progressives" are right. This isn't fair. But not the way that they want you to believe.

The rich pay more. That makes everybody else, to some extent, freeloaders, riding in the big wagon of the U.S. economy but not pulling their weight by paying taxes equivalent to what they're earning.

Unless "fair" somehow doesn't mean that everyone should pay for our government according to their ability to pay. Strange how "progressives"/Democrats don't even believe in the classic Marxist saying "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need." They apparently believe only in the second half of that construction, and to hell with the part about "from each according to their ability."

China's economy will surpass the U.S. in 2016

According to the IMF (International Monetary Fund--filbert) forecast, whomever is elected U.S. president next year — Obama? Mitt Romney? Donald Trump? — will be the last to preside over the world’s largest economy.

Most people aren’t prepared for this. They aren’t even aware it’s that close. Listen to experts of various stripes, and they will tell you this moment is decades away. The most bearish will put the figure in the mid-2020s.

Considering that China has 1,200 million people and the USA has 320 million or thereabouts, on the face of it, that China's domestic economy would at some point exceed the American economy is not itself unthinkable.

But what we see is that China, despite the shackles, impediments and restrictions imposed by their authoritarian government, is totally committed to economic growth, while the current American government shows over and over again that what it is totally committed to is feathering the nests of their cronies, and protecting the political fiefdoms and special government benefits of their special interest groups. The one thing that the current regime in Washington is NOT focused on is national economic growth.

Despite what some overeducated East Coast deep-thinkers may deeply think, this is not evidence of the quintessential superiority of the Chinese neo-Communist command-economy dictatorship "model." It is evidence of the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the American "progressive" elites.

But, in 2016, the globalist/internationalists in the "progressive" left, lead by their standard-bearer, Obama, can declare "Mission Accomplished." They have finally achieved their decades-long goal of bringing America back into the "community of nations."

Reward them appropriately in November, 2012. And in every subsequent election thereafter until they disabuse themselves of the "progressive" fantasy--or they fantasize themselves to historical oblivion.

That's how much we are spending on welfare programs, based on a family of four--$16,800 per person. That was in 2008, according to the Heritage Institute, as reported in the Forbes Magazine. We're spending more now.

What's that you say? Poor people aren't anywhere near that much money? Well, no, I guess they're not. Where's all that money going then, if it's not getting to the people we're supposed to be helping?

Is there maybe a reason why Washington, DC is the richest metropolitan area in the country?

Maybe it would make more sense to eliminate all of the dizzying number of government giveaway programs, and just institute a Department Of Cutting Checks To Poor People, and be done with it. It would be cheaper for the productive people, the poor would wind up getting more money. The only people such a move would hurt would be the government bureaucrats--and the politicians who live by taking money from people then turning around and buying their votes with it.

Re-focus society on using religious and charitable organizations to assist people--this strengthens those organizations, this strengthens the people they help, this strengthens all of society by binding us together in a way government can never, ever do.

The old, "progressive" ways do not work. That is obvious now to anyone with eyes to see. We need to start finding a new way.

Hillbuzz asked for suggestions about how to discuss politics at the table, this Easter holiday. Here's my suggestion:

You: "Wow, everything seems like such a mess. What are we going to do to fix things?"

Other Person: "I dunno. Make the rich pay their fair share."

You: "Well, yeah, you're right, everybody should pull their own weight. But that brings up the next question--what's fair? According to information released by the IRS (and compiled by the Tax Foundation), the top 1% of American taxpayers earn 20% of the money but pay nearly 40% of the taxes. The top 5% earn 35% of all earned income, but pay 58% of all income taxes. The top 50% of all earners earn 87% of the income, and pay 97% of the taxes, which means the bottom 50% earns 13% of the income but only pay 3% of the taxes.

"The three biggest government programs other than national defense--Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, mostly benefit the poorer people, because the richer people don't usually need them. So, poor people pay the least and get the most, and rich people pay the most and get the least. So, you know, we get back to the question--what's fair?"

Other Person: "Well, all that's well and good, but the rich are getting richer!"

You: "Actually, no, they're not, according to the latest statistics from the Treasury Bureau, they took a hit just like everybody else in the country--since 1996, the median household income of the very top earners went down, not up. But even it it were true that the rich were getting richer, is that really a bad thing? It's not like Monopoly--the rich getting richer doesn't mean that everybody else is getting poorer. It's not a zero-sum game. What do you suppose the rich do with their money? They want to earn more money, usually, which for almost all rich people means that they invest it in for-profit companies--companies that make things, companies that give people jobs, companies that will make more money for the rich people. When you take money away from rich people, you make it harder for them to invest and harder for them to give people jobs. That doesn't sound very compassionate to me, and I know you're a pretty nice person, so you wouldn't want to make it harder to make jobs, would you?"

Other Person: *sputters, probably goes negative/emotional on you* -or, if somewhat rational, comes back with- "Well, then, what do YOU think we should do?"

You: Well, it would be nice if we could start giving incentives to people to invest in companies, to go to work, to really improve themselves, rather than paying off political cronies and politically-correct companies, and bailing out failing companies--let them fail!--and start working on getting our government programs working on preparing people to find something they're good at and getting them doing that, earning their own way, being productive. There will always be those who we'll have to help, but we need to be realistic about it. People have to pull their own weight--rich people and everybody else."

(From here on out, you're on your own)

I'm going to (attempt to, once again) shut down the daily drip-drip-drip of the political/economic/world news, including and especially the daily recitation of the fundamental stupidity of Obama and the Washington Democrats. That stupidity is readily apparent to any rational, thinking person who bothers to pay attention, and it is useless to try to reach people who are not paying attention, who are irrational, and who do not choose to think. I have little patience with such people even when I am in the best of moods, anyway.

So, I'm going to focus future Whips more on descriptions and apologia for classical liberalism, along with links to sports, science/science fiction/writing, and other miscellaneous articles I come across that amuse me for one reason or another.

I've said all I really need to say about the political situation here. Additionally, author Larry Correla expands and extends many of my thoughts, perhaps more coherently and slightly less angrily than my post does. That's why this post is:
TODAY'S FEATURE ARTICLE
HAPPY TAX DAY!

. . .I’d like to talk about our nation’s current budget issues. You see, we face difficult times, and our noble president says that we are just going to need to give up just a little more.

ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME, YOU STUPID LYING GREEDY SACK OF CRAP?

Government can’t balance a checkbook. They’re idiots. I know finance math. I do it for a living. And when I look at the numbers involved here, (and the interest!) it makes my head swim. Okay, for you non-accountants, when they start bandying numbers about on the news of 4 trillion such and such, and a hundred billion this and that, I know that your eyes glaze over. You think to yourself, “Oh, it is just the same old same old, bunch of politicians spending too much money, blah blah blah.”

NOOOOO!

Saying that this is the same old same old, is like saying that gophers digging up your lawn is the same level of disaster as Krakatoa. Over the last couple of years we’ve reached a whole new level of crazy. Our spending has gone insane. We’re spending more money, faster, than all of mankind, throughout all of recorded human history. Economists aren’t sure what’s going to happen, because this has never happened before. Ever. On Earth. We’ve strayed into strange new territory here and there are many possible outcomes if we don’t stray the hell back out. And don’t for a second think that any of those possible outcomes are remotely good. No. They range somewhere between the Great Depression and Mad Max.

I got some anger to work out here. Sorry about this, but somebody's gotta say it.

TODAY'S FEATURE ARTICLE
Obama’s charity state

Democrats refuse to peer down the road and see the damage they are doing. While accusing Republicans of somehow taking something from others, Democrats have no qualms about stealing from future generations that have only the Republicans looking out for them before they even arrive.

Readers may have noticed a recent change in tone, here. Because Obama's speech this week pretty much flipped a switch for me. He's a dangerous demagogue. He is a son of a bitch. He is a bastard--quite possibly literally a bastard. He needs to be politically defeated and thwarted at every turn up to and including the 2012 election. Otherwise our children and their children and their children will be paying for our failure in the next year and a half to realize that Obama and the Democrats don't give a damn about anything other than arrogating to themselves raw, naked political power to control every single God-damn part of your life. And you will either see that, or you're a fool, or you're a dangerous psychopath who probably is not only voting Democrat but donating and/or working for the bastards. I'm done arguing about it. He needs to go. And if you disagree, you need to go, too.

This doesn't mean that the Republicans are "all that." They're not. They're Democrat-Lite. They're better than the Democrats in the same sense that having both of your legs broken is better than having them chopped off. With the one, you'll probably be able to walk again on your own two feet, once you heal from the injury. With the other, you won't, unless you get two artificial legs. And the Democrats intend to have the government provide you with both artificial legs and tell you when you can and can't use them.

So, the Republicans just want to break your legs, then sell you the wheelchair and crutches. The Democrats want to chop your legs off at the knees and then "compassionately" help you as you flop around, begging for help--and maybe, maybe, if you're very, very good generously provide you some artificial legs--if you conform to their bizarre notions of "social justice."

Which do you prefer?

Neither? You'd rather have them just leave your legs alone in the first place?

Welcome to the Tea Party.

So says UC San Francisco's Robert Lustig:

If you're fighting a weight problem, this would be an hour and a half very well spent, I think.

It's pretty much convinced me to avoid anything at all with high fructose corn syrup in it. Yuck. I already was convinced that sugar was evil. Now I know why.

Via Gary Taubes at the New York Times.