Abortion and Contraception: A Humanist Approach

Contra Abortion and Birth Control: Making the case for making the case

I don't expect to convert anyone here on the subject of birth control or abortion, but I do hope to convince you that those who stand in opposition are not just making stuff up and being hateful about it, but that they approach the debate firmly rooted in history, charity and a coherent moral philosophy.

The case against abortion is simple:

It takes a human life. Even the humble one-cell zygote (a human cell, human life! Hello!) has a complete unique human genome.  We didn't know that back in 1973, but the Roe ruling did stipulate that if personhood could be established, the case would be closed. A fetus would be legally considered a human being entitled to constitutional protections:

If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, [p157] for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment. (Cornell LII - Roe v Wade, IX A)

The majority also admitted in it's Roe v. Wade ruling that it did not know when human life begins, so it erred on the side of "who cares?"

We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer. (Cornell LII - Roe v Wade, IX B)

So the pro-abortion argument rests upon the tenuous hope that a fetus is not human life, and it takes a narrow legalistic view instead of a broader prima facie and ontological one. It ignores legal precedents set in various state supreme court decisions as well as historical English jurisprudence, as cited in William Blackstone's Commentaries.  This is the foundation of our law:

I. THE right of personal security consists in a person's legal and uninterrupted enjoyment of his life, his limbs, his body, his health, and his reputation.

1. LIFE is the immediate gift of God, a right inherent by nature in every individual; and it begins in contemplation of law as soon as an infant is able to stir in the mother's womb. For if a woman is quick with child, and by a potion, or otherwise, killeth it in her womb; or if any one beat her, whereby the child dieth in her body, and she is delivered of a dead child; this, though not murder, was by the ancient law homicide or manslaughter. But at present it is not looked upon in quite so atrocious a light, though it remains a very heinous misdemeanor.

An infant in ventre sa mere, or in the mother's womb, is supposed in law to be born for many purposes. It is capable of having a legacy, or a surrender of a copyhold estate, made to it. It may have a guardian assigned to it; and it is enabled to have an estate limited to its use, and to take afterwards by such limitation, as if it were then actually born. (Commentaries - Book 1, Chapter 1)

So the anti-abortion position is not a recent invention; the pro-abortion one is. For those who spread the lie that abortion used to be ok; that Christians just recently started "making it up as they went along," I suggest you go read The Didache, a first century Christian document that specifically prohibits abortion.

Defending contraception is much dicier...

...so I won't even try to make the argument.  I will point out that everything the contraception foes predicted would happen if it became ubiquitous has indeed come to pass:  Family breakup, out-of-wedlock births, venereal disease, dehumanization and sexual objectification of women and all the moral rot and societal decay that goes with it.

The simple fact that unwanted pregnancies have exploded in this era of the miraculous birth control pill should give everyone pause.  It that doesn't do it for you, contemplate Europe's below-replacement fertility rate.  A people that refuses to biologically propagate itself commits slow societal suicide.

I leave it to The Catholic Church to argue that artificial birth control is evil.  I am merely pointing out that the moralists are not full of it.  Their morality is grounded in reason, religious self-discipline, and a profound respect for the intrinsic value of each human being, which as Kant explained should always be treated as ends unto themselves and never merely as a means.

Then there's the more sinister side of abortion and contraception...

Jonathan Freedland explores the left's Eugenics Skeletons in the Closet. The original progressive aim was to abort and contracept the "inferiors" into extinction. Thankfully, the left has given up their sinister plans that included "lethal chambers" and have now progressed to merely enslaving and imprisoning the poor in fetid inner cities to more easily harvest their votes.

So although you may not agree with them, can you at least acknowledge that people who argue against artificial contraception and abortion do so from a firm historical and philosophical foundation?

Blackstone's Commentaries on The Laws of England (Avalon)

Blackstone's Commentaries on The Laws of England (LONANG)
Legal Issues of Roe v Wade

Supervillain Sunday! Foster Freeze vs Abortion Man!

"It's Rick Santorum's misfortune that his main moneybags has a name that sounds like a Batman villain." 

Yesterday we were treated to another of Jersey's wretched and vulgar outbursts.


Most of it is incoherent and unprintable, but I will provide a few counterpoints.

Jersey ignorantly blurted...

"In fact, until the mid-19th century, most of you Cafeteria Christian Conservatives didn't believe that. And not until the mid-20th century did it become a focal issue for the right wing Protestants among you."

Wrong-O, angry and intolerant one.  I refer you to The Didache, a first century Christian document written by men who knew Christ...

Chapter 2. The Second Commandment: Grave Sin Forbidden. And the second commandment of the Teaching; You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not commit pederasty, you shall not commit fornication, you shall not steal, you shall not practice magic, you shall not practice witchcraft, you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is born.  (Didache)

You can disagree with the teachings, but it's authenticity is universally accepted by historians.

Jersey continued with some more gay bathhouse profanity, then closed by defending abortion as legitimate because "abortion has been around for at least all of recorded history."  Well, so has murder and theft, so I can't imagine what his point could have been...

Selective Outrage on the Left

It's Rick Santorum's misfortune that his main campaign moneybags has a name that sounds like a Batman villain.  Foster Friess had the temerity to tell women who didn't want to get pregnant to keep their knees together and liberals everywhere collapsed into hysteric vapors.

This is the same left that...

... Gleefully mocks and dehumanizes conservative women, from Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter to Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin, to include cheering when liberal men make "jokes" about them that include their children and the prospect of them being raped

... lionized lady-killer Ted Kennedy and his fellow carouser and serial sexual-harasser Christopher Dodd.

... batted not an eye when Bill Clinton abused his power by seducing a star-struck, barely-legal intern into performing sexual favors on him in the oval office

Illiberal, Intolerant Left

And the left dares to sling charges of hypocrisy? Not living up to one’s beliefs? Has anyone checked out the “tolerant,” “diverse,” and pro-choice” left’s illiberal, intolerant gang rape of the Komen foundation for making the choice to not hand free money to abortionists at Planned Parenthood ? It was the very antipathy of true classical liberalism.

Yeah, they're pro-choice, so long as they are the ones choosing what the rest of us will pay for:

In a society that thinks itself free, how dare the government force employers to provide health insurance? How dare it mandate that coverage include contraception—or any particular service? How dare it mandate that any coverage be free? (It can’t really be free; the coverage necessarily reduces employees’ cash wages.) How can contraception use be insurable when it is a chosen act, not the kind of low-probability, high-cost event that insurance was designed to protect against? (Obama’s Big Government Mandates)

So yeah, get your freak on, but do it on your own damned dime.

* - If you had fun today, tune in tomorrow.  This was just a warm-up...

Other fun links:
Birth Control Yes, Government Control No
The Audacity of Power
Explaining Conflicting Poll Data
Commerce is the Culture War
Birth Control Mandate: Unconstitutional and Illegal
Careful what you wish for

"Congressional Corruption," but I Repeat Myself...

Well, the practitioner of The Religion of Peace who roasted his chestnuts on a Christmas day flight bound for the US was sentenced to life in prison yesterday.

In other news...

Our corrupt congress, having again been caught with it's grimy mitts in the cookie jar, is now taking the brave, heroic step of attempting to pass a sham law to make it appear that elected officials will no longer profit from insider trading...

“The house of representatives…can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as the great mass of society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interest, and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny.”  -- James Madison

Do you feel the bonds that connect you to the imperial DC grandees?  Do you really believe they share with you a "communion of interest, and sympathy of sentiments?" 

Missing Bush White House e-mails Found

Things have been way too intense here lately. Time to lighten it up with a blast from the past. This is probably the last year Obama can blame Bush, so lets savor it while it lasts...

Dick Cheney Must Be Behind It!

Computer experts have recovered 22 million Bush White House e-mails previously thought lost or destroyed (22 million!) and Bush foes who had filed lawsuits to have them handed over are jubilant.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Computer technicians have found 22 million missing White House e-mails from the administration of President George W. Bush, according to two groups that are settling lawsuits they filed over the failure by the Bush White House to install an electronic record keeping system.

Bush haters have been devouring the e-mails like a pack of ravenous wolves.  One Cheney e-mail to the president has them particularly excited:

Well, George, I'm off to my secret, underground, undisclosed torture chamber.  Got a fresh shipment of jihadis in and I want to test out the new cattle prod.  The bullwhip just ain't cutting it anymore.  I want 'em pissin' their pants when I get my torture on!  Bwahahahahaha!  -- Dick

White House Manipulated Gas Prices

Other e-mail traffic reveals the source of the gasoline price spike in 2007:  President Bush accidentally bumped the secret dial under his desk that he used to control global petroleum prices.

He had purposely turned it down in 2004 to get reelected, then eased it back up slightly to keep the Big Oil cronies happy.  But he apparently got excited while eavesdropping on an ordinary citizen's phone call to Sweden and slammed his knee into the dial, sending prices skyward.  The impact was so severe he had to give up mountain biking for a week. 

Despite that, he didn't realize what he'd done until campaign money began gushing in from corrupt oil companies with thank you notes attached.  The event prompted this e-mail to the energy secretary:

Hey Tater!
Damn, still can't believe I did that...  Can we blame the gas price increase on France?  Just askin'  heh heh heh...  -- The Decider

More Embarrassing E-Mails

There are supposedly other embarrassing e-mails, including one where the former president compares Nancy Pelosi to a washed up drag queen and threatens to lasso Keith Olbermann and pull him behind his horse like Ben Cartwright did to a bad guy on a Bonanza episode.

It is also rumored that in one piquant missive, Vice President Cheney offered to "Butcher that fatass Michael Moore like the hog that he is," and unfavorably compared Senator John Kerry to a flaccid male appendage, but that has yet to be confirmed.

Don't believe me?  Go read the story here:  Breitbart

Collectivization Leads to Mob Rule

Pope Obama of the Secular Church of State (click to embiggen)

"But I'm not anti-religion...  Some of my biggest admirers are Catholic!"

Despite the toady nun marched out by Obama to declare that all was now good, the US Catholic Bishops rejected Obama's economically ignorant and transparently tendentious sham offer. I will admit that trotting out Sister Carol Keehan was a nice touch by the president, but why did it remind me of the racist who when cornered defends himself by saying that he has black friends?

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote. – Benjamin Franklin

The standard liberal/left argument in favor of Obama dictating to church-run organizations can be boiled down to tyranny of the majority:  Over 50% of citizens think businesses should give away birth control pills and abortafacients, therefore all women have a right to it.  Period.

This is an insidious line of argumentation:

The pivot point is how you see this. Is it a battle over birth control -- used by 98% of U.S. women at some time in their lives -- or over government intrusion into the right of religious organizations to live by their teachings?

58% of all Catholics agree employers should be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception. That slides down to 52% for Catholic voters, 50% for white Catholics. (USA Today)

This contradicts more authoritative, less agenda-driven polling, but we’ll ignore that for now.

Stated another way, “If half the Catholics don’t care, then why is this an issue?”

The logical outcome of this would be that the government can overturn any lawful religious belief or practice that a majority of adherents don’t agree with. It’s an ad populum argument crafted to skirt the more fundamental constitutional issue.

This is an unconstitutional infringement on the free exercise of religion, but that is drawing the issue too narrowly. Remove “Birth Control” and replace it with “Iced Tea” and the larger problem would be the same: The government usurping the freedom of individuals by telling them what to do in their personal lives.

"A resolution to this issue cannot only cover 'religious' employers," Pavone said. "Religious freedom, which includes freedom of conscience, does not belong only to religious entities but to every American. There are many non-religious reasons to object to the administration's policy." (USA Today)

Yes! And that cuts to the issue. Government is binding your conscience, in an age and place where religion no longer can.  How the worm has turned.  It is one thing to take your tax money and spend it on wars, or abortions or wasteful green schemes. Elections revolve around such issues. It is quite another for the government to put a gun to your head and demand you buy something and give it to someone else, regardless of whether it violates your moral beliefs.

Here’s another line of liberal argumentation along the same line…

More generally, as Kevin Drum points out, one price for engaging with secular society is living by the rules of secular society. (Cohen)

Sounds good, but it is fraught with error. Who sets “the rules?” Where do they come from? What is the arbitrating authority when there is a dispute over “the rules?” What rule is the Catholic Church violating?  Is the rule valid when measured against the US Constitution?

Collectivizing our Rights 

This is really about the relentless march of collectivism. Throw all our money and liberties into the public pot so that state panjandrums and public policy poobahs can dole them back out.  As a state-sponsored bonus, it all belongs to the federal government now, not you, so the wolves have a right to vote to eat the sheep.

When health care is thus “collectivized,” when we’re “all in this together,” we’re forced to fight for every “carve-out” of liberty. (CATO)

USA Today reports that Obama’s Retreat is not enough. The article details the tangled nest of thorny problems this has opened up. What about a small-business owner who objects to providing insurance covering the morning after pill?

It’s a snarled up mess because government doesn’t belong in this arena. It has chained businesses and organizations to itself, insisting they provide services to individuals. This sets up a situation where a person is beholden to their employer for not just medical, but dental and other services that used to be the purview of the individual.

The easy solution is for the government butt out

The federal government need to get its fat, intrusive ass out of this private issue and turn its attentions to creating a clean, well-policed space for a free marketplace of health insurance to bloom, independent of employer participation. Americans will be able to shop for what they want, and if a majority want birth control pills, sterilization and morning after drugs, the free market will set up a competition to see who can provide them at the lowest cost.

Women who work for Catholic organizations can be free to choose their health insurance without the church snooping on them.  That respects the liberty and consciences of all, and that is what America is all about.

Catholic Bishops: Don’t Revise; Rescind
Cartoons
WaPo - “Compromise”

Operation Enduring Quagmire

I don't have a lot of commentary to offer on Afghanistan.  I was there, I served, and I came home.  Mine is the typical Air Force Fobbit story:  I worked on stuff, had a few harrowing convoy experiences, and found myself in the random rocket attack, one of which hit the sewer dump and also blew up two British Harriers at Kandahar.  I even managed to sleep through a few...

People who have spent a substantial amount of time in the field are calling BS on the official government story.  Afghanistan is a hopeless cause.  The latest damning report from the field comes from Lt Col Daniel Davis, who just got back from a one-year deployment.

"That murder took place within view of the U.S. base, a post nominally responsible for the security of an area of hundreds of square kilometers."

There's more...

I saw little to no evidence the local governments were able to provide for the basic needs of the people. Some of the Afghan civilians I talked with said the people didn’t want to be connected to a predatory or incapable local government.

Through the interpreter, I asked the police captain where the attack had originated, and he pointed to the side of a nearby mountain.

“What are your normal procedures in situations like these?” I asked. “Do you form up a squad and go after them? Do you periodically send out harassing patrols? What do you do?”

As the interpreter conveyed my questions, the captain’s head wheeled around, looking first at the interpreter and turning to me with an incredulous expression. Then he laughed.

“No! We don’t go after them,” he said. “That would be dangerous!”

According to the cavalry troopers, the Afghan policemen rarely leave the cover of the checkpoints. In that part of the province, the Taliban literally run free.

No, it's not a Hollywood farce, put on for our entertainment. Karzai and the Taliban are playing us for fools as they rob us blind. Time to leave them to their own devices.

I am not a warrior, but I served with quite a few. I can tell you that leaving that God-forsaken place to whatever fate awaits it would not be a betrayal to anyone who died or was wounded there. We kicked the Taliban’s ass and then we gave the benighted inhabitants a chance to improve their lot. They failed. Our fighting forces, especially the Army and the Marines, fought like the heroic lions they are. Nothing to be ashamed of. We win, they lose. Our forces return to the greatest country in the world, and they remain stuck in the toilet we tried to pull them out of. 

James Traub concludes US Can Live with an Afghan Loss

And it's true. Despite the heroic efforts of our warriors, Afghanistan will continue to be a 6th century Hobbesean world ruled by ignorance and the sword. No better and no worse than before. China, Pakistan and Russia will feel the negative consequences, as will the Taliban, who has been feasting off of our largess all the past years.

We, on the other hand, will be materially better off. Richer because we no longer dump billions down that South Asia toilet, strategically smarter, and militarily stronger for the experience.

Having said what I said earlier, I have to admit that Afghanistan has haunted me, less and less as time goes by, but I was shocked to see how many posts I had written about the graveyard of empires where I used to live...

Many a crisp mountain morning I would view the snow capped Hindu Kush and sadly ponder how this would be a great tourist location if it weren't for the people trying to kill you...

Afghanistan: Moving towards a distant endgame
http://armedforcesjournal.com/2012/02/8904030

Natural Rights and our Constitution

We've had some spirited conversations here over Church and State this past week.  I am thankful for all of you who visit here and contribute to the conversation.

I am writing this not so much to preach to the progressives, but to establish what I believe and why I believe it.  It scares me when I encounter people, especially conservatives, who believe our rights come from the constitution.  They do not.  I also want to say that I get wound up sometimes, but I genuinely respect the views of all my interlocutors and I greatly appreciate that you take the time to come here and debate.

A Living Document or Carved in Stone?

Progressivism depends upon a "living document" constitution, malleable and subject to modern reinterpretations, while strict constructionists insist the only valid manner of "reinterpretation" is to go through the amendment process.  I am a strict constructionist, but I can see the other side's point.

But anyway, here is my argument...

Natural Rights:  The Philosophical Foundation of our Constitutional Republic

Our founding fathers were born in the age of the divine right of kings.  The ruler was the lawgiver.  Some were tyrants about it, others were merely capricious, while some were downright enlightened in their rule. England's Glorious Revolution restored some power to the people, but Parliament came to be seen as capricious, issuing commands that violated personal sovereignty instead of discovering and enshrining broadly applicable principles as they existed among the people.

The founders based their political philosophy upon concepts explained in Locke's Second Treatise. All people possess the natural rights of life, liberty and property. Man exists in a state of nature, but as Hobbes observed, life there is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,"  so people gather in clans and communities where mores and societal norms spring forth and evolve.

Further, societies make rules to guarantee the rights of all. As such, Enlightenment minds considered "lawmaking" an abomination. "Law discovery" is a concept more fitted to a free people, for it presupposes that laws naturally exist by history and custom of a people. Lawmakers and judges merely discover and enunciate them as the need arises. A radical concept, but our founders were radical men.

Our Constitution Binds the Government, Not the People

They wrote the constitution to charge the federal government with specific responsibilites like national defense and regulating certain activities among the states. It was written to regulate the behavior of government, not that of the citizens. It was also written with man's natural rights in mind, which is why it is short on strictures on human behavior.

In the founders' minds, there were two spheres, the public and the private. Man is the sovereign of his personal sphere and government may not intrude upon it so long as a man does not intrude upon the personal sphere of another. Government may not compel a man to surrender property to another man, or press him into involuntary service unless it is specifically stated in the constitution, such as military service.

It is significant that the only positive rights mentioned in the constitution are legal rights that protect the citizen from the state, such as habeas corpus, representation, speedy trial, etc. All other rights mentioned are negative ones, essentially the right to conduct your own affairs as you see fit so long as you allow others to do the same.

There are no rights to food, or shelter or other material things. Indeed Hamilton and others argued against a Bill of Rights because they feared craven officials would use such a list to claim that other rights were excluded since they were not mentioned, or that listing them would give a pretext for government to claim to be the source of them and therefor subject to the whims of presidents and legislators.

We have no positive rights granting us the property of others

There is no right to health care, and there is no right to have others pay for it. It doesn't exist. To those who insist it does, I ask you then why you are not vociferously arguing against any religious exemption, especially the one that exempts churches from providing these services to employees? If it is a right, it may not be violated.

Does the federal government have the authority to tell a business to give things away?  That's what Obama's tissue-thin fig leaf of a compromise does.  It commands insurance companies to give stuff away.  If the government can do this, why not command grocery stores to give food away?  Better yet, solve the birth control issue by decreeing that all birth control products are free.  All someone has to do is walk in and take them.

This is the lala land we find ourselves in when government intrudes upon our personal sphere.  It has no business there, it violates the constitution, and leads to much illogic.  If goverment can tell you what kind of insurance you must provide your employees, why can't it tell you what kind of food to eat?

The reason it cannot is because nothing in the constitution authorizes it to invade the private realm of the individual.  To say otherwise is to expose us all to the whims of our elected officials and their army of bureaucrats.  It is tyranny.

Links:
Second Treatise of Civil Government - John Locke
US Constitution
Federalist Papers
See also Chapters 11, 12, and 14 of Hayek's The Constitution of Liberty (Sorry, no linky love!)

State Sponsored Suicide

We've lost the concept of shame.  Or more rightly put, we're only allowed to use it in socially-approved ways now 

The President and the left can scold their greedy conservative enemies about social justice, The First Lady can lecture us on eating our vegetables, but woe to those who enter the public square and preach time-tested, millennia-old Judeo-Christian morality like hard work and being true to your spouse and children.

We can no longer shame "men" who would rather mooch off of the rest of us than get a job, or those serial impregnators who have fun and run, leaving us to foot the bill.  We can no longer shame people for out-of-wedlock births that produce litters of children in single-parent government-provided apartments that are really gang-controlled cell blocks.  Irresponsible adults condemn children to a life of poverty, crime, ignorance and social dysfunction, and the responsible adults who work hard and pay the bills simply keep their mouths shut and go about their business.

MTV’s Sixteen and Pregnant is damn near the only entity publicly calling out bad behavior.  Unfortunately, it is swimming in a sewer of sin and societal decay, diluting its effectiveness.  Despite this, Sixteen and Pregnant shows the consequences of irresponsibility, and does so gently, by example, without preaching.

But we need to start preaching and getting in people’s faces over their behaviors.

"Wanna act like a stupid cracked-out Hollyweird pig?  Then get a job that provides you enough money to do it on your own damn dime and you won’t have to put up with the rest of us excoriating you for staggering through life brain-dead and tapping the rest of us to pay for your mistakes.  Pull your head out!!!"

That's what I want to say, and others bigger and smarter than me are saying it as well, only in nicer terms.

Klaus Schwab, whom I gather is some kind of international plutocrat and a Davos Man, ventilated this lament at the latest global cognoscenti conclave:

"We have a general morality gap, we are over-leveraged, we have neglected to invest in the future, we have undermined social coherence, and we are in danger of completely losing the confidence of future generations," said Klaus Schwab, host and founder of the annual World Economic Forum.

"Solving problems in the context of outdated and crumbling models will only dig us deeper into the hole. (Breitbart)

A Moral Morass

We are in a moral morass, and the elites have led us here.  By their own venal behavior in the world's marketplaces of business and finance, but also by their tacit approval of destructive behavior.  Throwing state money at the poor salves some consciences, but it's done nothing to help the poor pull themselves out of poverty.

State-sponsored social projects have resulted in a split between Belmonters (the haves) and Fishtowners (the have nots), according to the central thesis of Charles Murray's new book, Coming Apart.

Murray notes that before the 1960's, the rich and the poor shared many demographic traits, common mores and shared American values.  Now, they are miles apart.  Percentages in both groups were comparable for marriage, out of wedlock births, unemployment, crime, and church attendance.  All of these social indicators have gotten much worse for Fishtown, while the Belmonters enjoy stability.  Both groups are in a feedback-fed spiral, one virtuous and the other corkscrewing ever downward.

Preach What You Practice

Progressives have generally accepted Murray's observations, but they disagree vehemently with his conclusion:

The best thing that the new upper class can do to provide that reinforcement is to drop its condescending "nonjudgmentalism." Married, educated people who work hard and conscientiously raise their kids shouldn't hesitate to voice their disapproval of those who defy these norms. When it comes to marriage and the work ethic, the new upper class must start preaching what it practices. (WSJ - Murray)

Progressives want more redistribution and government programs.  Niall Ferguson explains why this is folly:

So what is to be done to heal the rift between Rich America and Poor America? There are two obvious problems with the standard liberal prescription of increased welfare spending, financed by higher taxes on the rich. The first, as Murray points out, is that the welfare programs of the Great Society era were in many ways the cause of the breakdown of social order in working-class America.

The second is that this is a very strange time to want to import the European welfare state, with its aspiration to provide everyone with comfort and security from the cradle to the grave. In case you hadn’t noticed, that system is currently on the brink of fiscal collapse in its continent of origin.

Murray’s conclusion is that Americans need to steer clear of Europe and instead get back to their roots. We should scrap the institutions of the New Deal and Great Society and replace them with the system of guaranteed basic income he first proposed in In Our Hands (2006). And we should pin our faith on the four traditional pillars of the American way of life: family, vocation, community, and faith. These, Murray argues, were the true foundations of the American project, from Kennedy all the way back to Washington. (Ferguson)

If You Love Someone, Set Them Free

A little shame wouldn't hurt either. The fear of shaming myself and my family is what kept me from stealing when I needed more money, or from engaging in other behaviors that were fun at the time but could end in destruction, tragedy or... shame...

My parents also taught me that the bird with the broken wing and the sick fox I captured and nursed back to health had to eventually be let go. We are financing societal dysfunction that has condemned millions to crime-infested neighborhoods and failed schools.

More money and more government has only made things worse for the poor. For the tens of millions on the bottom, The War on Poverty has been lost, and it's not a Great Society. It's time to try something different.

See Also (Walter Russell Mead is especially thought-provoking):

The Welfare State is Destroying America

David Brooks - The Great Divorce
Walter Russell Mead - Crisis of the American Dream, Pt 1
Walter Russell Mead - Crisis of the American Dream, Pt 2

Progressivism's Pernicious Holy War

A Church - State battle is now engaged...

Obama declared jihad on the Catholic Church by decreeing it must pay for birth control and abortions of its employees, and the Holy Roman Empire is striking back.

This is not just a Catholic issue, it is a religious freedom issue. Make churches pay for stuff that violates their doctrines and bedrock beliefs, and you can next force them to perform gay marriages or declare their doctrine hate speech under pain of losing their tax exempt status.

But wait, there’s more! Once the federal government establishes the precedent that it can violate this First Amendment right, it is then free to violate the free speech rights of individual citizens. First Amendment gone.  All for the greater good, dontcha know...

Libertarian Steve Chapman recalling the church's losing battle against birth control pills back in 1960's, comes to liberty's defense:

But many of those who think it's wrong to forbid Americans to buy contraceptives think it's just fine to require them to buy contraceptives. In this group, unfortunately, are President Barack Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who are hell-bent on enforcing that mandate on nearly everyone. (Chapman)

Statist Toady Joan Venocci argues for the constitution shredders:

But not all employees of Catholic institutions are Catholics. Why should their employers impose their religious beliefs on them and deny coverage for birth control and other medical care? As long as those Catholic institutions are getting taxpayer money, they should follow secular rules. That’s the Obama administration’s argument, and it makes sense.  (Boston Glob)

The obvious answer is, of course the Catholic Church is not denying them these things.  Employees of the Holy Roman Empire are free to go out and purchase them.  No inquisitions, no fear of being burned at the stake, just a free decision... Paid for with their own damned money!

All Your Cookies are Belonging to Me!

Venocci's argument encapsulates the progressive long march. As government increases, we decrease. They lure us in with favors and suborn private institutions with government money until the individual becomes indistinguishable from the state. Take government money and not only must you dance to their tune, you become government property, bought and paid for.

That is what the progressive argument hinges upon: If you take from the government pot (which consists of money confiscated from you), you surrender your rights to the state. The linchpin of this nefarious government plot is getting every little doggy's paw to reach into the pot. Progressive mission accomplished.  Checkmate. You are bought and paid for. With your own money.

* - For a deeper explanation of the legal justification progressives use to defend Obamacare and other similar incursions on our liberties, see this:  WH - Of Course Government Can Put a Gun to your Head...

An Ebbing Tide Lifts Obama’s Boat

Giving up is the key to Obama’s reelection. Giving up on looking for a job, that is...

4 million Americans are so disgusted with Obamanomics that they have permanently abandoned the nation’s tattered workforce since the president took office, helping to keep the unemployment rate out of scary double-digit territory where it more properly belongs.

The simple calculation for unemployment before all the seasonal adjustments and so forth, is:

Unemployment Rate = Number of Unemployed / Total Labor Force

So the easy way to get unemployment down is to reduce the numerator in proportion to the denominator, and the easiest way to do that is to declare that the greatest number of unemployed workers are no longer looking for work, and therefore no longer “unemployed.” This shrinks the numerator relative to the denominator, making unemployment go down.

Obama is on track to be the only president to lose jobs during his term

This impressive feat beats even Herbert Hoover. He produced this horrible historic milestone by stopping drilling, shutting down pipelines and plane factories, and liberally slinging shovel-ready bureaucratic manure all over the place.  His economic record is abysmal.

There’s a right way and a wrong way to talk about just how catastrophic Obama’s job destruction record is. Here’s the wrong way:

Looking at the U-6 unemployment rate, which includes the discouraged and part-time workers, really doesn't tell us anything, because the ratio stays pretty much the same in good times and bad, so it’s a comparative wash to point out that “real” unemployment is closer to 16%. 

The same goes for trying to point to statistical tricks like seasonal adjustments, which explain how the economy could shed 1.5 million jobs between December and January yet still claim that unemployment fell from 8.5 to 8.3 and added 234,000 jobs. All administrations have played by these rules, so it’s not really a good point of criticism.

Here’s why Obama is a horrible president...

The absolute number of total jobs in the US has shrunk since President Obama was inaugurated; a catastrophe considering our population continues to grow. The shrinking participation (taking frustrated job-seekers out of the equation) is the key to masking Obama’s jobs destruction. Just this past month Obama's regime sliced off 88,000 job-seekers, sending them to statistical oblivion and improving his bottom line.

If the size of the U.S. labor force as a share of the total population was the same as it was when Barack Obama took office—65.7 percent then vs. 63.7 percent today—the U-3 unemployment rate would be 11.0 percent.

As an analysis from Hamilton Place Strategies concludes, “Most of the shift of the past year is due not to the improvement in the labor market, but the continued drop in participation in the labor force.” (8.3 Unemployment Rate is a Phony Number)

Here’s the bad news for Obama:

If the participation rate does level off at its current rate, according to HPS, the economy would need to generate 231,000 jobs per month to get below 8 percent unemployment by Election Day (8.3 Unemployment Rate is a Phony Number)

Now for the good news for the hopium smokers:

If the participation rate continues its downward slide, however, that number would be much lower—perhaps as low as 131,000 jobs a month (8.3 Unemployment Rate is a Phony Number)

So as long as the overall number of jobs continue to shrink and the government continues to kick more and more workers out of the statistical labor force, the jobs picture will continue to look up for Obama, even as the economy sags and the number of Americans out of work increases.

And they say the GOP field is unelectable?

See also:  O-Man the Destroyer

Attack on Catholic Church is an Attack on the Constitution

President Obama has decreed that the Catholic Church must provide birth control and abortifacients in the health care plans it offers to its employees

Here’s a statement from government suckerfish Planned Parenthood:

“This is good health policy and good economic policy,” said Dawn Laguens, vice president at Planned Parenthood. “It increases access to affordable birth control, but it is up to an individual employee to choose it or not. That’s very much the American way.” (El Lay Times – Contraceptive Mandate)

No.  It's not the American Way, as if a statist trained monkey raised and sustained on free taxpayer money would even begin to understand the concept. This is a terrible idea because it is a federal government telling private citizens what to do when it has no authority to do so.  A true free choice is one you make on your own and then pay for on your own without picking someone else’s pocket. That’s the American Way. The constitution was written to prevent such abuse.

Kevin Drum wrote that if you take government money you march to the government’s tune. It's a valid argument.  However, the violator here is not the Catholic Church; it is the US Government that is charged by We The People to be the guardian of our God-given rights. By ensnarling every last person in its tangled web, it has created a hopeless situation for anyone wanting to order their own lives and business free from the unblinking government gaze.

What gives the federal government the right to issue such dicta to churches? What gives it the right to command any organization or business in this way? What part of the constitution sanctions this?

The federal government is in bald-faced violation of the first amendment

You see, our rights are innumerable and bounded only by those outer limits where they interfere with the rights of others. Government’s rights are enumerated and limited; restricted by what that mandate from the people to their elected government, the US Constitution, says. This is what we need to be telling our politicians, our kids, and our family, friends, neighbors and coworkers who may have forgotten it. We also need to say it loud and proud when the smartass statist gargoyles in the press shove microphones in our faces at tea party rallies.

The US Constitution protects our God-given rights to life, liberty and property and it limits the actions the federal government may take against them. The very idea of mandating such everyday minutiae of our personal lives makes a mockery of our constitutional form of government.

Even Liberty's Defenders get it Wrong...

Oxymoronic ObamaCatholic Doug Kmiec proposes a speech Obama should give that admits the government was wrong. This phrase stuck out at me:

While the constitution doesn't mandate religious exemptions from general laws, I believe we should accommodate as many beliefs as possible and to the greatest extent possible without jeopardizing the purpose of the law. (Tim Reidy)

Firstly, we have no more general laws, as great jurists of England and the United states from centuries past would understand them. Our government no longer operates under the constitutional Rule of Law.  Rather, it now barrages us with stern commands and dictatorial edicts.

Religious Exemptions are a Warning Sign

Were our government’s lawmaking still in conformance with the constitution, there would be no requirement for “religious exemptions,” since the First Amendment bars government from prohibiting the free exercise of religion. The fact that our discussions of law and regulations are now so shot through with talk of exemptions is an indictment against our government and the craven batwinged legislators and bureaucrats who haunt its once-hallowed halls.

Federalist 84 eloquently expresses this concern, as Publius argues against a Bill of Rights. He saw the danger to all our rights that would be caused by enumerating certain of them. Hamilton proved to be quite prescient:

They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?

Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed?

I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power. (Federalist 84)

Back when the constitution still mattered, honorable lawmakers would observe that this or that proposed legislation protrudes into the private lives of citizens, and thereby abandon the project.   Our post-constitutional government suffers no such scruples.  And the ignorant subjects stand up on their hind legs and applaud.

Tuesday News Day

So much news and so little time...

Liberal Outrage forces Komen Kollapse

Nothing outrages lefties like taking their free money away.  Just look at how the public union leeches turned things upside down in Wisconsin and Ohio at the prospect of having to pay for their own pensions and health care like the rest of us.

The New York Times called Komen cutting off Planned Parenthood "a painful betrayal."  Liberals, accustomed to other people’s money, were outraged, Outraged! At the Susan G. Komen decision to cut off funding to the abortion mills.

It only took a couple of days for the Komen people to surrender to The Sisterhood of Burning Rage. They will restore the funds even though Planned Parenthood does not perform breast cancer screenings.  They've managed to piss off both the right and the left in the span of three days.  I predict Komen's demise.

As usual, Mark Steyn has the absolute definitive take on the issue, The Liberal Enforcers.

Holder says there was no cover-up

…and I believe him. He’s not smart enough to hide anything, and why would they need to? There are enough genuflecting servile subjects in this country who believe government can do whatever it wants, so if Obama wanted to give Mexican drug gangs free guns, who are we to question it?

Vampire Capitalism

Mitt could be the nominee, so we will be hearing more about Vampire Capitalism from the Marxoids of all parties. The New Yorker has an excellent and concise article not about Mitt Romney, but Venture Capital, and surprise of surprises, takes a very even-handed view. Their beef with it is the same as mine: Government tax policy and perverse incentives encourage the demons of the venture capitalist's nature:

If private-equity firms are as good at remaking companies as they claim, they don’t need tax loopholes to make money. If we capped the deductibility of corporate debt, and closed the carried-interest loophole, it would not prevent private-equity firms from buying companies or improving corporate performance. But it would reduce the incentives for financial gimmickry and save taxpayers billions every year. (New Yorker)

Hillary Guns for Syrian Dictator Basher Assad

The Brits wonder if Hillary is styling herself as a classic Bond villain, and this right after she unleashed a blistering tongue lashing to Basher Assad at the UN.

Assad had better watch his back.  Hillary made a similar statement about Ghaddaffi and look what happened to him.  If recent history is any basis, I predict Assad will be dragged from a rat infested sewer pipe and sodomized with a piece of rebar as Hillary stands laughing maniacally at how she came, she saw, he died.  And before the election season is all over, Obama will be bragging how he shot Assad like a dog in the street, just like he single-handedly parachuted into Pakistan and took out Usama bin Laden as Joe Biden circled watchfully above in the batcopter.

Buffett Rule:  a $50 billion loogie in a multi-trillion dollar ocean

The Congressional Research Service estimates that the Buffett Rule, requiring millionaires to pay at least the same rate as most middle-income taxpayers, would affect about a quarter of all millionaires, or 94,500 taxpayers. Citizens for Tax Justice, a liberal policy group, says the bill’s 30 percent rate would bring in about $50 billion per year.  (NY Times)

So for the $4 trillion annual federal budget, that’s about a 1.25% savings; a rounding error for our profligate federal money wasters.  And this meager savings depends on millionaires just sitting there as government plucks them like chickens.  I’m offering 50-1 odds they don’t…

This Explains the Obama Vote ...

Professor Jonathan Zimmerman explains that universities have no way of measuring success or failure, and when independent studies attempt to, the results are not encouraging:

My New York University colleague Richard Arum and the University of Virginia's Josipa Roksa recently tracked several thousand undergraduates as they moved through two dozen U.S. universities. They found that almost half of them didn't significantly improve their reasoning or writing skills during the first two years of college.

And after four years, subsequent research showed, more than one-third of students still showed no significant gains in these areas. (Are College Students Learning?)

But I bet their self-esteem is high…

Obama Declares Jihad on the Catholic Church

Obama Cult "O Loko Haram"

Obama’s Holy War

Two years ago when Obamacare ordered the Catholic Church to include birth control and abortions in its health care plans, the nation’s Catholic Bishops threatened to shut down or sell off all hospitals, and it appeared that the threat had staved off our imperial government.

Catholic hospitals are an important component of our nation’s health care system, providing the only source of medical care in some areas, and only a fool would want to see them shut down.  That was the prevailing wisdom at the time.

Now, I believe that thinking was wrong, and it appears that the Obamistas do want them shut down, provoking a crisis and providing a pretext for more government intervention.  This is about the state breaking one more private institution to its will.  Progressivism is an inexorable march to absolute state control, and this is just the next step.

What’s Obama’s end game?

Employers that furnish health insurance have to cover it. But employers don't have to furnish health insurance -- and some of those with a religious mission may decide not to. When the District of Columbia passed a law that forced Catholic Charities to provide medical insurance to the same-sex partners of its employees, the agency elected to simply drop coverage for spouses.

Anyone left without health insurance under the administration's rule can go to new state-run health insurance exchanges to buy individual policies. But here again, the administration rejects freedom of conscience. The only policies available will include coverage for contraceptives -- including those the church regards as "abortion drugs" -- and sterilization. (Steve Chapman)

The end game is to herd more human cattle and sheeple into the Obamacare box canyon, while trampling our old fashioned morals and ushering in a new era of progressive utilitarianism, freed from fusty shibboleths like human dignity and sanctity of life.

And the Catholic Church, which snuggles up to big government at every opportunity instead of preaching the Catholic doctrine of Subsidiarity, should learn a lesson from all of this:

Get in bed with Uncle Sam and don't be surprised if you get more than a good night's sleep  -- Ronald Reagan

Contraception Mandate Outrages Religious Groups

O-Man the Destroyer

We conservatives get queasier by the day watching the slow-mo car wreck that is the GOP primary.  We don't all agree on who the nominee should be, but that's OK.  That's what primaries are all about.  I want to take a break from the internecine rock throwing and refocus our attention on what a dismal failure President Obama and his Obamanomics have been for this country.

Obama is a Jobs Destroyer

Thanks to the usual partisan government statistical manipulation, the unemployment rate supposedly inched lower, but the Obama economy remains a wreck.  Maggie at Maggie’s Notebook smells cooked books as well.  Check it out to understand the statistical games the Obamacrats are playing to hide just how bad the unemployment crisis really is.

Zero Hedge does an excellent job breaking it down it down as well.  The secret to Obama's jobs numbers is that the workforce has shrunk by millions, keeping the official unemployment rate artificially low.

Obama is a job destroyer, and he is on track to be the first president to have a net job loss during his tenure.    An impressive feat given the Democrat presidencies of FDR and Jimmy Carter.  The press will try to talk up the still sagging Obama economy, but that will only get him so far.  People out of work can't eat hope and change, although the OWS'ers are rolling it up and smoking it...

It’s no wonder Gallup’s electoral projection map that is based upon Obama approval reveals a vast sea of red dotted on the fringes by a few small blue islands of ignorance.

What’s Obama going to run on?  

Wasting billions on green energy failures?

Stealing $23 billion from taxpayers to reward failed Detroit Automobile tycoons and their Union Cronies?

Maybe he can run on giving us the Worst Economic Recovery Since the Great Depression, and we can all sing “Crappy Days are Here Again!”

For even more evidence that Obama is the Worst President in the History of The United States, see Daniel J. Mitchell's Obamanomics vs Reaganomics.  Reagan had America on a skyrocketing trajectory by this point in his presidency, and the reason is simple.  He did the opposite of what our Bumbler in Chief Obama is doing.

If you're still hungry for more evidence that Barack Hussein Obama is Caligula on Crack, read Quin Hillyer's His Abominations Accelerate.

Yes, Newt is a Republican progressive who makes my ears bleed, Romney and Santorum are big government statists, and Ron Paul is playing to the OWS rabble, but it's even worse for the Democrats.  Obama is all they got.

Weekend Humor

Why?  Because we need it...

I know I do.  If Romney vs. Obama doesn't make you want to gouge out your eyes, light yourself on fire and run screaming off of a cliff, I don't know what will...



Nuthin' some Jack Daniels, BBQ and playing music with friends won't solve.  One of my buddies is bringing over a banjo he just inherited from his grandpa.

My new favorite thing is Cracked.com.  I remember Cracked from my childhood as the alternative to Mad Magazine for the discriminating pre-teen boy, and I didn't realize until the other day that they had a web site.  Who doesn't, I guess...

Anyway, here are a couple of snippets that had me laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes, and that hasn't happened for a long time.  It's a little racy, but nothing too over the top.  As a bonus, since it has Cher in metal underwear I can tag this as a Rule 5 post!

What follows is all from Cracked, not my cracked brain.  I only wish I were this inventive.  Chime in and let us know which were your favorites ...

The 19 Most Hilariously Failed Attempts at Sexy Album Covers

# 6.  Whitesnake - Love Hunter

There's a lot going on in this album cover, and all of it is awesome. But what you can't see is what happened moments later. The snake actually got this woman pregnant. Nine months later, she gave birth to a full-size 1978 Ford Econoline Van with an airbrushed picture of a Viking riding a fire breathing dragon through the night sky on the side of it.

# 10.  Cher -  Take Me Home

Nothing turns on a man like metal lingerie that, by our count, has 13 different points capable of tearing open your scrotum if she makes an unexpected move.

8 Impressively Sarcastic Amazon Product Reviews (Part 3)

#5. Ready America 77100 Cat Evacuation Kit

Your first thought might be, "Is this a joke product?" No, you asshole. Some people, when faced with a fire or earthquake, might want to leave the house with their cat safely restrained and well-supplied instead of releasing it into the street to be run over by an arriving emergency vehicle. Maybe this product isn't for you if you like to throw your cat into the path of approaching fire trucks, but some people can make use of it.

Sorry, I'm supposed to be presenting sarcastic reviews, not writing them. As you can guess, most of the jokes come from misunderstood instructions, although each of these reviewers decided to go a different direction.

Globalism Comes Home

Globalism's next stage could actually be good for America and the world

Like the proverbial blind squirrel, every once in awhile ChiCom fanboy Thomas Friedman rises above his simplistic pseudointellectualism and mixed metaphors to produce a column that makes sense.



His latest outing is full of CEO quotes about how the global economy continues to evolve, and how America is uniquely poised to take full advantage of it.

The Global Elites are losing their Grip

Continual fragmentation of ideas, manufacturing, and tastes, along with markets fracturing into micro-markets and specialty niches all conspire to make it harder for the global elites to homogenize every last aspect of our lives.

Fellow New York Times columnist, David Ignatius, a liberal who passes for a conservative over there, notes that the Davos Men are more disconnected than ever from us normal people, but he is instead pessimistic. I discount his gloominess because he himself is disconnected, a man in awe of the world elites.

Ignatius is cheered only because the ranks of the elites now include the red and yellow, brown and black, slowly wrenching global thought leadership from the Western White Man's oligopolistic grip.  Reading it makes me long for times past when reporters hated the rich and powerful.

What you see here are some of the smartest business and political leaders in the world gathering to discuss common problems. It's a heady feeling, to see so much global talent in one place.

It's an inclusive elitism: The magnet draws the rising tycoons from developing countries and fuses them with the once-dominant Americans, British, Germans and French. That's the most likable feature of the forum, the way you see Chinese and Indians and Egyptians and Pakistanis shuffling down the streets in their snow boots, along with the Swiss hosts. They are part of the connected world, just as much as the old-line bankers and CEOs from the West. (David Ignatius)

What Ignatius fails to realize is that the global geniuses may have outsize influence, but its the ingenuity of the locals that powers an economy, and we have plenty right here in the good ol' US of A.

Ignatius rightly laments the societal destruction globalism has wrought, but he's singing yesterday's tune.  Friedman has the forward-looking view on this one...

Many C.E.O.’s, though, increasingly see the world as a place where their products can be made anywhere through global supply chains (often assembled with nonunion-protected labor) and sold everywhere.

These C.E.O.’s rarely talk about “outsourcing” these days. Their world is now so integrated that there is no “out” and no “in” anymore. In their businesses, every product and many services now are imagined, designed, marketed and built through global supply chains that seek to access the best quality talent at the lowest cost, wherever it exists.  (Friedman)

He cites a Hong Kong CEO...

Now, said Fung, the rule is: “ ‘Source everywhere, manufacture everywhere, sell everywhere.’ The whole notion of an ‘export’ is really disappearing.”

Words from other CEOs:

Mike Splinter, the C.E.O. of Applied Materials, has put it to me this way: “Outsourcing was 10 years ago, where you’d say, ‘Let’s send some software generation overseas.’ This is not the outsourcing we’re doing today. This is just where I am going to get something done. Now you say, ‘Hey, half my Ph.D.’s in my R-and-D department would rather live in Singapore, Taiwan or China because their hometown is there and they can go there and still work for my company.’ This is the next evolution.” He has many more choices.

Just like Toyota and other foreign firms manufacture products here for our consumption. That is the future. Less import-export of final products, and more build and sell in place when it makes economic sense.

America can thrive in this world, explained Yossi Sheffi, the M.I.T. logistics expert, if it empowers “as many of our workers as possible to participate” in different links of these global supply chains — either imagining products, designing products, marketing products, orchestrating the supply chain for products, manufacturing high-end products and retailing products. If we get our share, we’ll do fine.

The world is on the cusp of an information age equivalent of the Industrial Revolution, and America above all others is best positioned to take full advantage of this decentralize future.

Few deny that technology fuels economic growth as well as both social and lifestyle progress, the latter largely seen in health and environmental metrics. But consider three features that most define America, and that are essential for unleashing the promises of technological change: our youthful demographics, dynamic culture and diverse educational system. (The Coming Tech-Led Boom)

We don't need no stinking national strategies

As usual with the rare Friedman column I agree with, he closes with a conclusion so absurd that I end up wanting to tear my eyes out in frustration...

"If only — if only — we could come together on a national strategy to enhance and expand all of our natural advantages..." (Friedman)

Poor Progressive Tommy, always longing for the Strong Man to make the trains run on time... 

National Strategy? How about a low tax, low regulation environment where you can manufacture things again in this country without 200 government bureaucracies crawling up your ass? That's the strategy we need.

Restore the Rule of Law and give the American workers and entrepreneurs a stable, predictable environment to invent, create and be free, and they will lead this nation again to the sunlit uplands of economic greatness and personal liberty.  Personal liberty and economic freedom:  You can't have one without the other.

Made in the World

Politics is Dirty Business

Mitt Romney won Florida, and Newt fans are throwing rocks at Marco Rubio for taking sides.  Some are also  accusing Mitt of politically offing Rep. Allen West by urging the Florida GOP to turn his district blue.  Heads are getting hot, and the GOP contestants have barely limped out of the gate...

Conservative fans of Allen West are becoming aware of his redistricting woes. He will be running in a district that is much more liberal this fall.  Did he get crossways with the Florida political establishment?  Did he not kiss the right *ahem* rings?

Others are convinced that RINO Mitt Romney is behind it all, but I doubt it.  Dark speculation about Mitt’s nefarious mitts in all of this is a little overblown.

These are state matters, and usually more parochial issues are what drive stuff like this. Redistricting is fought over tooth and nail, and an outsider presidential candidate who barely has a 50-50 chance of being president is not going to swing that much weight. Somebody wants to carve out a district for a favored politician, or trade it for a political favor, or something like that. There is a lot of “go along to get along” in state politics, and a state politician is not going to expend political capital to satisfy a weak national candidate.

I’m an occam’s razor guy, so I gravitate towards the least convoluted answer. Also, it is most logical to go with the answer or opinion that explains the most data

Sean Trende has the best explanation I have seen. West’s district is already jerrymandered to the max; a patchwork of small conservative enclaves in a sea of urban liberal blue. He’s boxed in by redistricting rules and other districts that cannot be encroached upon. This may be the best they could do for him.  Trende does a good job illustrating what he is talking about with color-coded maps.  Go read it all here:  The Trouble with Saving Allen West’s District

H/T to Bunkerville

See also:  The Shark Tank - Redistricting Goes Awry?