Last week, while Iran's mullahs concluded yet another unfair election, Obama took the courageous stand of the middle-ground by declaring "How that plays out," Mr. Obama said, "is ultimately for the Iranian people to decide." This, while those seeking democracy in Iran were being bludgeoned to death in the streets, by the state-sanctioned thug-ocracy. Apparently, it was his belief that he shouldn't mingle into Iranian politics. Fair enough, one might say, after all didn't we engage in enough meddling during those terrible Bush years?
In today's news, Honduran president Zelaya, was ousted after trying to illegally hold a referendum that would allow him to seek additional terms in office; illegally I say, because their constitution says that he cannot due this without approval from the other branches of the government. He did not have approval from ANY branch of the government, not even of his own party. When he tried anyway (getting the ballots from Chavez of Venezuela, none-the-less), the Supreme Court ordered the military to arrest him. They did, sent him into exile, and now the rightful next in line (according to their constitution, the top man in congress) is interim president until scheduled November elections.
Strangely, however, Obama doesn't seem to be in his "no more mingling" kind-of mood:
"We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras, the democratically elected president there," Obama told reporters after an Oval Office meeting with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.
Strange, how Obama won't fight for freedom, but he is so quick to fight for a dictator wanna-be. Jimmy Carter, the sequel.
Watch in disbelief (click here) at the new rules of engagement that our troops are obliged to follow under the kinder, gentler, war doctrine of the Obama administration…
One of the central lessons of high school Civics classes is that anticompetitive behavior is detrimental to society; so detrimental, in fact, that whole governmental oversight bodies were established early last century to identify and break up companies that engage in these practices. In those civics classes, we were all taught to despise the tactics of the Andrew Carnegies, the J. P. Morgans, the Vanderbilts, and the John D. Rockefellers of the world. And for good reason: without competition, a company can charge whatever exorbitant rate it wants and in return provide whatever substandard services it wants.
One model that high school student are given that allows them to visualize how anticompetitive practices work to destroy competition is that of the gas station owner. In this model, a big, rich gas station owner (think Rockefeller’s Standard Oil), sets up shop next to local Joe’s gas station. Since Standard Oil could pull resources from many other gas stations (and other businesses) it owned, it could afford to temporarily set its gas sale price below the market rate, and drive Joe out of business, thus creating a local monopoly.
