Structural Reform: What Do You Think?

As I’ve discussed before, no matter how you measure it, government is big, and getting bigger all the time.  Comparatively speaking, Democrats are certainly the party of higher taxes, more spending, a greater regulatory burden, and more “entitlements”, but the government only ever seems to get bigger, under Democrats or Republicans. 

More Government, Less Liberty

A man named Jeremy Hill, in rural Idaho, saw three grizzly bears come onto his property.  Hill’s children were playing outside, and the bears seemed to want to eat some of the family’s pigs.  So he shot and killed one of the bears.  (The other two ran away.)  It’s a straightforward, perfectly legitimate case of self-defense, defense of others, and defense of property, right? 

Washington “a Seedy Place”

In an interview on Laura Ingraham’s radio show yesterday, Ingraham asked candidate Rick Perry about some people’s concerns that he’s a bit of cowboy, that he may sometimes “shoot from the hip”.  In his answer, he said, among other things (quote is approximate),

I’ve never been an establishment figure, and frankly I don’t want to be.  I dislike Washington, I think it’s a seedy place.

Maybe that’s not really shooting from the hip in an answer to a question about shooting from the hip; maybe it’s part of a carefully cultivated “cowboy” persona.  I don’t care, it’s still a great line.

Get this man a nomination!

Perry Passed Common-sense Pro-life Law

As I’ve suggested before, people disagree about the morality of abortion, but we should at least all be able to agree that taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to subsidize it.

Earlier this year, Texas Governor Rick Perry signed a law ending government funding of abortion at the state and local levels in Texas.  Reportedly this has left Planned Parenthood “reeling”, forced to close a number of clinics and reorganize its remaining operations in and around Texas.

Get this man a nomination!

Hat tip to Eternity Matters.

D. C. Rumbles, States Tremble

Heard on Sean Hannity’s radio show yesterday (quotes are approximate):

HANNITY: I’m joined now by the Architect, Karl Rove.  How are you?

ROVE: I’m pretty good, ’cause I’m in Texas, not in D. C.

He said it because Hannity had just been talking about the earthquake in D. C., but it’s a great metaphor for a lot of other things.

People Sell Lemonade at Capitol, Are Arrested

I don’t know whether they’ve ever heard of Mark Steyn, but this past weekend a group of people answered his call for lemonade-stand civil disobedience, albeit on the Capitol lawn, not on their own lawns, and with the stand operated entirely by adults—though perhaps civil disobedience had better be done by adults, actually.  Three people were arrested and taken to jail. 

Huh?

From the local grocery store:

Can anyone explain to me what a “Hispanic pastry” is?

Mark & Mark!

(Via Steyn Online, whence the title of this entry.)

Mark Steyn had a great line in an interview with Mark Levin about Steyn’s new book:

What I think is the difference when you talk about the divide in America is I think most conservatives exist in a kind of oppositional world.  They know every time they go and see a Hollywood movie, every time they switch on a sitcom and hear a certain kind of cheap joke, every time they happen to be stuck at the airport and they’re watching some drone on CNN—they understand the other guy’s point of view, they’re exposed to it relentlessly. 

Rick Perry, Federalist

Texas Governor Rick Perry formally entered the Republican presidential primary race on Saturday.

I think the time has come for all conservatives to unite behind him.

Section I: Why unite?
Section II: Why Perry? 

Perry vs. Obama

I’ll write about Rick Perry soon if I have time, but in the meantime, an opinion piece about him in The Washington Post yesterday, “The Texas Gipper”, has some funny lines (and a hilariously liberal point of view); here’s my favorite part, the last paragraph:

The White House now has plenty to worry about. Of course, Perry may turn out to be no Ronald Reagan. But then he doesn’t have to be. After all, Barack Obama has turned out to be no Barack Obama.

Hat tip to Laura Ingraham.

America Loses AAA Credit Rating

Well, it finally happened:  Standard & Poor’s, one of the big three credit-rating agencies in the United States, has downgraded the United States’ credit rating.  Specifically, S&P downgraded the federal government from AAA to AA+.  “The outlook on the long-term rating” is also “negative”, meaning that S&P may lower our rating again “within the next two years” if we don’t shape up and get the national debt under control. 

News Media Still Liberal, Liberals Still Uncivil

Jonah Goldberg in the Corner reviews the double standard in the liberal media’s treatment of Congressman Giffords’s shooting and the recent debt-ceiling fight.  (In the former, war- and death-themed metaphors were deemed per se inappropriate and conservatives were accused of debasing the national debate with their supposed incivility; in the latter, members of the liberal media and liberal politicians disparaged conservatives by calling them “terrorists”, etc.)  The Media Research Center discusses further and provides links to a few examples of the latter.

Hat tip to the Foxhole.

Debt-ceiling Fight Over

A final deal was passed by the House of Representatives on Monday, and passed by the Senate and signed by the president on Tuesday.  It raises the debt ceiling by $2.4 trillion, enough to get the government through the 2012 elections, as President Obama wanted.

Michael Tanner has the details on the deal (which has some things in common with the one Boehner proposed last Monday).  He also gives some helpful perspective and numbers on America’s larger debt situation, and explains that the compromise bill’s first round of spending cuts aren’t spending cuts at all, but only a “reduction from the planned baseline increase in spending.”