Our Founding Fathers Must Have Been Paranoid Too, Like Tom Perkins

Liberals are in a feeding frenzy over Silicon Valley venture capitalist, Tom Perkins’s, irate letter to the liberal San Francisco Chronicle, reprinted in the Wall Street Journal (Is a Progressive Kristallnacht Coming?). In his complaint, Perkins calls “attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its ‘one percent,’ namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the ‘rich.’” Perkins warns of “a rising tide of hatred of the successful one percent…. This is a very dangerous drift in our American thinking. Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendant "progressive" radicalism unthinkable now?

The Left has pounced on Perkins’ Kritstallnacht analogy as the “clownish” mutterings of an “aging, coddled jerk,” who has the gall to compare American “progressives” to Hitler’s Nazis! They dismiss Perkins’ fear of dangerous demonization of the one percent as the paranoid ravings of an ultra-rich guy, who like most of his kind, is “alarmingly detached from reality” (Paul Krugman Paranoia of the Plutocrats).

The faux empathetic conclusion of the Left: Pay no attention to the ramblings of this poor (but rich) fool. He cannot help himself. Imagine a rich guy, isolated in his Francisco estate and private clubs, worrying that “they are coming to get me.”

I say: Not so fast. Perkins’ fears are actually those that motivated our founding fathers to establish a limited government, secured by checks and balances and by the Bill of Rights. Our founders worried, like Perkins, that a majority can pass laws that discriminate against minorities—in particular against owners of property for the purpose of “more fairly” distributing wealth. 

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The Good Guys Have A Real Chance in Ukraine

As the two months of street demonstrations escalate in Kiev and spread throughout Ukraine, the anti-government forces’s chances of unseating unpopular president, Viktor Yanukovich, grow. A victory of the loose alliance of pro-Western and nationalist forces in Ukraine would be Vladimir Putin’s first defeat after successfully running circles around Europe and the United States for years.

Putin had counted on Russian bailout funds and low gas prices to deflate Yanukovich’s street opposition. That did not work, but worse for Putin, the Ukrainian crisis is coming to a boil as his Sochi moment approaches. He must be on his best behavior through the February Olympic games – not a good time for Putin to deploy his strong arm tricks on behalf of  Yanukovich.

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Is Obama's Team Now To The Left Of Socialist France?

France’s first socialist president in two decades, Francoise Hollande, was elected on the promise to tax the rich, promote social justice, free France from the “yoke of austerity,” and (as a sop to the nationalist right) restrict immigration. From the campaign trail, Hollande preached that, instead of  Germany’s (Angela Merkel’s) budget restraint, France needed more government spending to jump start its economy.

Hollande’s 2012 campaign was a close twin of  Barack Obama’s 2008 “Hope and Change.” As the head of a socialist party that traces its roots back to Marx, in contrast to Obama, Hollande felt no need to conceal his anti-business views and redistributional intent. Once in office, Hollande promised to restore theegalite lost in the twenty years of  conservative rule.

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Democrats Use Stalin-Era Tactics To Wreck Chris Christie's Political Career

We use names of public figures as short-hand tags for political processes or maneuvers. An example would be to “Bork” a candidate’s nomination before Congress. I propose to add to this list “Voz,” defined as “eliminating political adversaries using an escalating feeding frenzy of rumors, accusations, revelations, gossip, and investigations of transgressions that ultimately prove to be relatively minor but end the career of the victim anyway.”  According to this definition, Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey is the latest target of an orchestrated “Voz” attack.

I name “Voz” after Nikolai Voznesensky, who was “Vozzed” by a Stalin bullet to the head on March 9, 1949. Figuring that English speakers would have trouble with the long Russian name, I shorten to “Voz.”

Nikolai Voznesensky was the last major political figure executed under Stalin. He was convicted on fabricated charges of high treason after his rivals mounted a whisper campaign that Voznesensky harbored ambitions to succeed Stalin and had grown too big for his britches. Voznesensky’s fellow Politburo members stepped up their efforts to “get Voznesensky” after Stalin’s public praise of him (and not of them), and they feared his strong political base in Leningrad. 

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Stiglitz's Brainchild: Trust Government To Restore Trust!

Economists divide into those who theorize about the economy and those who use data to understand how it works. Theorist Joseph Stiglitz has impressive credentials – a Nobel Prize, appointments at the best universities and to top positions in government and international organizations. He counts, along with Paul Krugman, as the most prominent economist of the American left. 

Stiglitz’s tone-deaf article for the New York Times (In No One We Trust) argues that private enterprise and the profit motive have destroyed trust without which the economy and society cannot function. It is up to government to restore trust and to make us all better people in the process.

The timing of Stiglitz’s “government is the cure” message, amidst the catastrophic roll-out of ObamaCare, confirms the ivory-tower detachment of Stiglitz and his ilk. Just as Obama’s administrators are turning the lives of Americans topsy-turvy with contradictory, improvised health-care regulations, Stiglitz wants state planners and bureaucrats to expand their control of our lives all the way down to enforcing their version of business ethics.

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