According to Gallup, the percent of Americans who identify as "very conservative" or "conservative" stands at 40 percent, more than double the percent who identify as "very liberal" or liberal." Americans have not moved left on a single question asked by the Gallup organization during the last year. A majority of Americans now call themselves "pro life," 41 percent believe global warming to be exaggerated, and 45 percent say there is too much regulation of private business. On every hot-button issue polled, save one, there is a wide chasm between the attitudes of Democrats and Republicans. Party identification doesn't seem as indicative of one's attitudes on the question of immigration, of which 61 percent of Republicans and 44 percent of Democrats would like to see decreased. "All of this has potentially important implications at the ballot box, particularly for the 2010 midterm elections," the pollsters editorialize. "The question is whether increased conservatism, particularly among independents, will translate into heightened support for Republican candidates. Right now, it appears it may."

Republicans won't even come close to recapturing congress in 2010. The party of private vice and selfishness still doesn't poll well with Americans. There's a wide chasm between apolitcal people who don't follow politics identifying as conservative in a scientific poll and those same people actually going to the polls and voting Republican. Americans might be conservative, but they still hate Republicans.

Not if Newt does the recruiting.

from Michael Emmett Brady's Amazon review of Dr. Dean Baker's Plunder and Blunder

"Academia provided the intellectual fig leaf with a pseudo scientific theory called the Efficient Market Hypothesis(EMH).This pseudo theory was the brain child of a number of University of Chicago economists from the economics department and business school, such as Milton Friedman,George Stigler,Gary Becker,Robert Lucas,and Eugene Fama.This pseudo theory claims that there can never be a bubble in finacial markets.It assumes that all financial markets can be modeled as being Normally distributed.Benoit Mandelbrot has continuously demonstrated that this is false numerous times since 1958.All goodness of fit tests demonstrate that the distributions are a long way short of close to being normally distributed.In fact,they are all Cauchy distributions,which means that the risk of negative outcomes is a 100-1000 times greater than specified by the Normal Distribution.

Unfortunately,the bubble makers will simply lie low for 10-15 years and then try to start all over again,just as they have successfully been doing for over 400 years."

I think part of the reason why conservatism is dead or dying is because many of its most cherished tenets have been proven false, specifically market fundamentalism. I agree with Patricia Buchanan's proposal for a new industrial policy, and the biggest impediment standing in the way of this essential reform is market fundamentalism (Randian Objectivism, Misesean and Austrian economic theory, Royal Libertarianism). As long as Limbaughians and Beckians continue to denigrate the American worker and attempt to justify private greed and selfishness as a virtue, America will continue its decline as a debtor nation and victim of trade deficits. You can't create wealth without wealth production.

Here is an excerpt of Patricia Buchanan arguing for an industrial policy in the United States:

"Since 1982, the United States has run $5.7 trillion in trade deficits in manufactured goods, and $2.1 trillion in trade deficits in auto parts, trucks and automobiles. In the Bush years alone, the United States ran more than $1 trillion in trade deficits in auto parts, trucks and cars.

These statistics, these realities—factories closing in the United States, manufacturing jobs being outsourced in the millions to China and Asia, enormous, endless trade deficits in goods—testify to a painful truth: America is a receding and declining world power.

And in dealing with this systemic crisis, Obama's stimulus package is as irrelevant as were the Bush tax cuts.

How do we correct those "trade-related imbalances" of which Volcker spoke? We must export more and import less, save more and spend less, produce more and consume less. We need to emulate the ants and behave less like the grasshoppers of summer.

But how do you tell that to two generations of Americans who have been raised in an era of entitlement?

America needs an Industrial Policy."

Funny PMA, you sound just like one of those obtuse leftists who pretend to understand and interpret what Limbaugh and Beck have to say without ever listening to them for more than five minutes.

What has gone wrong for the free market is that it has never been given much of a chance. Government encroachment is like mildew, it always comes back.

The poli-economic idiot speaks again. If he had half a clue he would know, for instance, that the Austrians are the chief critics of that very flaw in the Chicago School, and that the Austrian theory of the business cycle answers this common problem to all Keynesian- and neo-keynesian derived economic schools.

IOW, PMA once again brings out the broad brush, sticks it back down his pants, and throws a whole bucket of paint around the room. But no need to rehash this further. It's been demonstrated conclusively in this thread: http://www.flynnfiles.com/archives/politics2009/bail_out_then_barge_in.html

Don't worry, Eric. The distinction isn't lost on me and I mentioned that quote which lumped Milton Friedman because Flynn has quoted him in the worth-repeating section of the blog. I know it's painful for you to have to admit market fundamentalist crimes and their destruction of true wealth-production sectors and turning the greatest production apparatus in the history of the world into a service economy. I know you market fundamentalist love bloated, parasitic finance sectors, but they've ruined our country and I know it's difficult for you to come to grips with it.

www.bea.gov is a good place to start and you can look at the charts that show our trade deficits (which I'm sure you Austrians and Miseseans just explain away, it doesn't matter to you guys!). Good luck learning a few things and hopefully you can confront these indisputable truths honestly.

One thing here is bloated for sure, and that's PMA's chest. If he drops enough names, perhaps people will think he actually does have a clue! Meanwhile, the redundancies are just too much: "you Austrians and Miseseans" -- but he repeats himself! And he continues to step in it...

Ignorance can be excused, but not when it is the result of deliberate subterfuge.

Hey asdf,

I've been listening to Rush Limbaugh since I was 12 and was a pretty big fan of his for a long time. Remember the Rush Limbaugh line of ties? Do you remember his television show, during which in one episode he called Chelsea Clinton a dog when she was an adolescent? My grandparents have a tape of an episode in which they were cheering in the studio audience.

I know what Rushie stands for, and those stances won't do anything for the beleaguered American worker. Yes, he paid lip service to the bailouts on Leno saying Wall Street shouldn've have been bailed out, but he also has been a tireless champion of these unregulated institutions that destroy our country. Until our country turns away from the principles outlined in Ayn Rand's "The Virtue Of Selfishness", where she sophomorically assaults probably the most logical and beautiful secular justification of protestant ethics ever conceived, and begins to honor and uphold the dignity of the American worker and every human being as a precious end in themselves (and not a means to personal wealth maximization, or a means to buy cheap kitchen utensils at Walmart), our country is going to continue bleeding to death by the wounds inflicted upon her by the committee to screw the world, led primarily over the past 3 decades by a Randian Objectivist, Alan Greenspan.

Alan Greenspan is a dye in the wool libertarian.

Lawrence Summers is a dye in the wool libertarian.

I know Eric will dismiss this as name-dropping while he continues to burrow his head in various orifices or the sand (these truths must be very painful for him), but it doesn't change the fact that Austrians, Miseseans, and their ideological brethren and cousins are the cause of the decline of America as a wealth-producing nation, turning it into a debtor nation and victim of trade deficits.

Greenspan describes himself as a "lifelong libertarian Republican."

Upon the death of libertarian economist Milton Friedman, Summers wrote an Op-Ed in The New York Times entitled "The Great Liberator" arguing that "any honest Democrat will admit that we are now all Friedmanites." Summers wrote that while Friedman made real contributions to monetary policy, his real contribution was "in convincing people of the importance of allowing free markets to operate."

I actually agree with you on something PMA.

It's horrendous what many big businesses have done with the blessing of our government to export our economy overseas.

Respect for the American worker? Ain't none. And the elites who operate comfortably and successfully with the full cover of American rule of law and business standards within our borders but do business outside of our borders to enable them to increase the bottom line is a tragedy for Americans who should be part of that profit and the raising of all boats.

But it all seems to be going according to the Global Plan. No borders; no nations; no specific citizenry. Just one world and one world economy.

Meanwhile, the flag wavers in business and government continue to sell off pieces of our identity for a few dollars more.

But, but, but....fixing these problems will not be accomplished through government takeover of private business or anything else for that matter.

Greenspan *was* a Rand acolyte, and then was seduced by power and severely violated libertarian (and certainly Austrian, though no one ever accused him of being that) principle with his heavy handedness and easy credit policies while chairing the Fed. Clearly, if he ever was a “dyed in the wool libertarian” he has long since stopped being one.

Larry Summers chairs Obama's economic council. Enough said.

When people consistently violate central libertarian principles, and even hold views that clearly go against those principles, they are not libertarians. No matter how often lefties like Bill Maher and PMA claim themselves or others to be. When people support "positive rights" such as health care, when those "rights" can only be distributed by violating the negative rights others have, and then only through the threat of a gun, they are not libertarians, no matter what prefix they creatively attach to the label. Just as folks who deny Christ's diety and resurrection are not Christians. Just as Redskins fans are not Giants fans. And just as the factually incoherent and deceitful sputterings of PMA don't make his claims suddenly credible.

Just as folks who deny Christ's diety and resurrection are not Christians.

Would Christ recognize a positive human right to food, shelter, clothing, an education, and medical care?

Would Christ say "Depart from me, I never knew you" to a person who advocated a philosophy that was apathetic toward the least among us, adamantly refusing to have their right to superfluous resources infringed, giving rhetorical firepower to those who embrace selfishness and dominate and exploit the weak, his precious children?

I'm glad I'm not a Christian so I don't have to live up to the standards outlined in the Bible, but I can sure as hell say I advocate a philosophy that adheres to the baseline teachings of Jesus Christ, which is much more than what your scumbag libertarian can say for himself. Randian Objectivism and "The Virtue of Selfishness" might as well be canonized in the Satanic Bible.

* 1 Corinthians 5:9-13 -- We need to drive the greedy out of the church.

* 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 -- The greedy will not inherit the kingdom of God

* Ephesians 5:3-5 -- The greedy will not inherit the kingdom of Christ and of God

* Colossians 3:5-6 -- Greed is part of our earthly nature and brings God's wrath

* Romans 1:28-31 -- Greed is a result of idolatry.

* Luke 12:13-21 -- Jesus warns us about wanting more.

* Mark 7:21-23 -- Greed comes from within us and defiles us

And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Matthew 25:40 (KJV)

*your typical scumbag libertarian, not saying Eric is a scumbag, I don't know him and he seems like a good guy, although wrong on just about everything.

I don't care for Rand either for much the same reasons: esp. her atheistic exaltation of the ego. And her following is cultlike. Worse, they have usually come down in favor of the worst aspects of the "war on terror" -- including the worst elements of the Patriot Act and the Iraq War.

I am a Christian. And I find positions that amount to a bunch of people hiring thugs with guns to take by force (read: steal) the wealth of some to give to some select others , or that compel some to support ideas and practiced against their consciences or better judgments, to be repugnant to Christ's teachings. Esp. when experience has shown again and again that everything the state touches gets worse, and the good intentions are never realized, but replaced by the greed and avarice of special interests and bureaucrats, and the endless power struggles, ineffiences, and fraud that always follow.

BTW, the "baseline teachings of Jesus Christ" are such as these: "I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but by Me" …
… and … "All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." …
…and … "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. "

What they are not are some "social gospel," whether of the leftist or rightist variety.