Romney Is A Nannystater

Mitt Romney is vowing to go after retailers who sell violent video games.

I want to restore values so children are protected from a societal cesspool of filth, pornography, violence, sex, and perversion. I’ve proposed that we enforce our obscenity laws again and that we get serious against those retailers that sell adult video games that are filled with violence and that we go after those retailers.

Compare Romney’s stance to big-government liberals like Richardson and Obama. Both want better rating systems to inform parents as to the content of video games. That’s a common sense approach. But Mitt Romney doesn’t want that. He wants to “go after” the people who sell the games.

Which is utter nonsense.

For one thing, video games aren’t just for kids any more. There are a lot of adults (myself included) who play video games, and adults should be able to purchase violent video games if they want without interference from do-gooder busybodies like Mitt Romney.

For another, what ever happened to personal responsibility? If a violent video game ends up in the hands of a kid, is it the retailer’s fault or the parents’ fault? After all, at $300 for a video game console and about $50 per video game, for the most part it ain’t kids who are buying these games. It’s parents, and if parents buy their own kids violent video games that their fault, not the retailers.

Ratings systems? Sure. Education to help parents understand these games and the rating systems? Sure. But going after people just for selling these games?

That’s the hallmark of a nanny state candidate who conservatives concerned with individual freedom and responsibility shouldn’t be supporting.

The Union Strikes In France Are Falling Apart

This is very good news for Sarkozy:

Yesterday, the strike of rail and subway workers that has crippled France for nine days was clearly crumbling, as workers began returning to work in large numbers and union branches conceded that support for the dispute is collapsing.

The left wing stoked strike has had a crippling effect on France’s economy but Sarkozy hasn’t given in. France has been struggling with an entitlement mentality that has slowed their economy and is basically keeping them in a non-competitive sleep walk. Sarkozy wants to change that and the left doesn’t like it. But their strike tactic hasn’t worked and most of the unions are giving up:

Managers for SNCF announced yesterday that 42 out of 45 rail union committees have voted to abandon the national strike that has frozen the country’s economy, and will return to work without delay.

Think anyone on the left here in America will understand the message in all of this?

Fred Tells Rudy: America Is Not Represented By New York Alone

BRISTOL, New Hampshire (AP) — Presidential hopeful Fred Thompson said Friday that New York City isn’t a model for the rest of the country and that Rudy Giuliani should stop basing his stances on his time as that city’s mayor.

Thompson, campaigning at a New Hampshire gun store with stuffed moose and deer overhead, told reporters that Giuliani too often turns to his time as New York mayor to explain his support for stronger gun restrictions.

“He relates everything to New York City. Well, New York City is not emblematic of the rest of the country, I don’t think. I think the sentiments of those people in the rest of the country are in support of the Second Amendment — which is where I’ve always been and I don’t think he’s ever been,” Thompson said.

The former Tennessee senator and “Law & Order” actor badly trails Giuliani in New Hampshire polls, in part because Thompson has spent so little time in the state. On Friday, he planned to attend a town hall-style meeting at a Veterans of Foreign Wars hall.

Fred’s spot-on. Rudy’s record is based on getting elected, and re-elected, in a city where citizens are not only anti-gun but pro-illegal immigration as well. And so Rudy’s past policies reflected that. Now he’s trying to get elected based on this policies, but most of the country isn’t anti-gun or pro-illegals. Just the opposite, which presents terrible problems for Giuliani.

I know we all like the guy after what he did during 9/11, but as conservatives when it comes to his actual record there’s just not a lot there to like.

Another Step Toward Victory In Iraq

The New York Times is reporting that there may be a transition afoot in Iraq with American troops moving to training roles and Iraqi security forces moving to the front of operations.

This is welcome news for a number of reasons.

With Americans going to a more support-orientated role we’ll likely see fewer casualties among our troops (though more, undoubtedly, among Iraqis).

Also, this was a part of the outline for Iraq set out in the Baker/Hamilton “Iraq Study Group” report. They wanted to see a surge of troops go to Iraq and create some “breathing room” in the violence there so that Iraqi troops could be trained. We’ve created that “breathing room,” now we’re apparently moving on to the training part. Which is great, because step three is withdrawal.

Which obviously gives Petraeus a good talking point for his next appearance before Congress. Not only are we bringing the “surge” troops home, we’re also transitioning the remaining troops to less dangerous roles in preparation for bringing them home as well.

If all goes as it is now, of course, which is never a certainty. But still, after what he’s done in Iraq since taking over, General Petraeus has a lot of credibility here. Among those that aren’t blinded by partisan agendas, that is.

Exports Rock to the Weak Dollar!

Exports will buoy the 2008 economy. They’re expanding faster than imports and will generate half of the 1.5% to 2% growth we expect. That’s up from one-quarter of gains in 2007, the first time since 1995 that exports made a positive contribution to annual GDP.

A kinder, gentler trade gap is on tap. It’ll amount to about 3.8% of GDP in 2008, the smallest share of GDP in seven years and down substantially from this year’s 5.1%.

Thank global growth and the weak dollar for America’s most recent export surge. The greenback should soon hit its lowest level, on a trade-weighted basis, since the currency began to float freely in the markets in 1973.

The low buck will have a long tail. Even if the dollar were to start rebounding at this point, the lag effect of its six-year swoon would fuel exports for a few years. Why? It takes businesses a long time to adjust
to currency changes. Finding new suppliers is easier said than done. That’s why the weaker dollar didn’t instantly boost sales abroad.

I remember when I was a youngster and the doom and gloomers where claiming that we were going to sink to the Japanese. They used the falling dollar compared to the Yen to prove their point. As we all know Japan was nothing that we couldn’t handle, and neither is China.

Thinking that your currency has to be the strongest is the mark of a child. I fell for that line of thinking that time, but now I know better. I guess some people are going to be surprised again.

The US export industry is alive and well no matter what the gloom and doomsters have to say.

Governor Hoeven: Put WSI Under The Governor’s Office

He’s got this one right.

Here’s the WSI problem in a nutshell: The board has lost control and the proverbial “lunatics” are running the “asylum.”

It started back when Brent Edison was forced out of office by disgruntled WSI employees. The board let that happen, so when Sandy Blunt came in and ruffled some feathers certain WSI employees figured they could do it again. Cue the bogus criminal charges against Blunt and Romi Leingang and the subsequent accusations of inappropriate fraud denials from “whistleblowers” who are really just the disgruntled employees engaged in a turf battle with the board.

And the problem with the WSI board is that it is loosing that turf battle. Which means someone needs to take the reins over there. Someone who can’t be bullied by “whistleblowers.” And the only person who can be that somebody in the state is probably the governor.

If we are going to have a worker’s compensation insurance monopoly in the state (we’d be better off without one, but I digress) it needs to be run by an actual government agency and not some kinda-government, kinda-private agency that has accountability only to weak-kneed board of appointees that obviously can’t keep control of the agency.

We’d be better off privatizing WSI, but at the very least putting it back under the governor would return some semblance of order and control to the agency. And I would expect that the governor, upon receiving that control, would enact a thorough house-cleaning to get rid of the malcontents who are causing the problems there in the first place.

Democrats Are The Party Of The Rich

Democrats like to define themselves as the party of poor and middle-income Americans, but a new study says they now represent the majority of the nation’s wealthiest congressional districts.

In a state-by-state, district-by-district comparison of wealth concentrations based on Internal Revenue Service income data, Michael Franc, vice president of government relations at the Heritage Foundation, found that the majority of the nation’s wealthiest congressional jurisdictions were represented by Democrats.

He also found that more than half of the wealthiest households were concentrated in the 18 states where Democrats hold both Senate seats.

“If you take the wealthiest one-third of the 435 congressional districts, we found that the Democrats represent about 58 percent of those jurisdictions,” Mr. Franc said. . . .

Mr. Franc’s study also showed that contrary to the Democrats’ tendency to define Republicans as the party of the rich, “the vast majority of unabashed conservative House members hail from profoundly middle-income districts.”

“I just found the pattern across the board to be very interesting. That pattern shows the likelihood of electing a Democrat to the House is very closely correlated with how many wealthy households are in that district,” Mr. Franc said in an interview with The Washington Times.

This begs an obvious question: Why are rich people electing people who hate them and want to raise their taxes?

But then, I’m not sure the numbers mean what they appear to mean either. Raw dollar amount incomes aren’t really all that representative of much without being adjusted for cost of living.

For instance, it costs approximately $13,000 more per year to live in a place like Minneapolis than it does my middle-sized town in North Dakota. If you looked at raw dollar amounts you’d think the person living in Minneapolis was “richer’ than I am because he/she makes $13,000 more a year than I do. But if that person has to pay $13,000 more per year for living expenses and taxes than I do, are they truly “richer?”

So perhaps incomes are higher in more liberal areas (that also tend to be more urban areas) because cost of living there is higher. And what policies tend to promote higher costs of living?

Why, liberal policies of course. Meaning that these “rich” people living in these liberal districts aren’t really so much “rich” as just not very bright.