At Home Defense

The mighty Brigid, of Home on the Range and Barkley fame, has a solid post on self defense in the home.

I encourage you to go over and read the whole thing, not that she'll register a couple of clicks from us.  It's easier than paraphrasing all she wrote. 

To summarize, you are the weapon.  Use whatever tool you can find to stop an attacker.  There's no such thing as a fair fight. 

I want to point out, too, that Brigid approaches the defensive use of the knife in a way that is somewhat similar to my view.  I love knives, but I don't care much for all the fancy moves as if you were in a duel.  It's not a boxing match.  It's not a game.  There is one reason to use a knife on another human, and that's if your life or an innocent life which you are responsible to defend is in imminent danger. Everything else is bull.  If it comes to that, there is, in my opinion, basically one way to use a blade.  Brigid states it quite well:

A knife is a stealth/deception weapon. Show it just to threaten, and you've already lost. Have it ready, but hidden, even in your palm, behind your shopping bag, in your pocket, on a shelf above their eye view but within easy ready. Big blades look impressive, but are only marginally more deadly than a small palmed razor knife used with confidence. [bold added by me]

Should I ever have the misfortune to be in such an unlikely life-and-death struggle, my intention would be for an attacker to realize I had a knife only after he had been cut.  Remember her words:  stealth weapon. 

I would take any knife over nothing, but there is a reasonable lower limit on blade length.  Of the knives I commonly carry, my barely-legal CRKT Crawford Kasper would be my first choice as it has a bowie-style blade just under four inches in length, plus a good deal of width with a very solid pommel for striking.  The other extreme would probably be my Folts Minimalist with its two-inch Wharncliffe blade.  I'd figure on being there a while with the little one.     

Honestly, around the house, I'm more likely to be carrying the Minimalist, in addition to a friction folder like a stockman, trapper, or one of my SAKs.  Of course, a non-locking, traditional folder can be an effective weapon.  It has two drawbacks.  First, most are not one-hand openers so it's a little more difficult to deploy.  The second disadvantage is that a non-locking blade may decide to fold up in the middle of a melee.  I would more or less pretend it was a razor and slash.  A knife with a larger choil, like a full-size folding trapper, is probably a little safer for stabbing than, say, a SAK.  I might get by with the edge up and a thumb on the choil.  After all, I'd only consider using it in a desperate situation.  I might not worry too much about a cut finger.   

Choking Off Choke Point

I'm trying to get back on track from all my recent personal turmoil.  Meanwhile, we'll talk about the news.

The Daily Signal reports that the FDIC is changing its tactics with regard to legal, legitimate business, such as gun shops, that are in disfavor with the Obama regime.  Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri's 3rd Congressional District has taken the lead in challenging the FDIC's involvement with the Justice Department's Operation Choke Point. 

Now, supposedly, Operation Choke Point was meant to target things like ponzi schemes and mass market consumer fraud.  In reality, Holder pressured the banking industry to "choke off" financing for completely legal businesses such as coin dealers, payday and title loan companies, firearms and ammunition dealers, and even home-based charities. 

Rep. Luetkemeyer had real jobs before he became a legislator, including working in banking.  He's not a lawyer.  He has a business degree from Lincoln U. in Jefferson City, MO, which is more or less his hometown.  I don't know him personally, but I know of him and his family.  They are good people.

Anyway, Luetkemeyer is on the House Financial Services Committee and has led the fight against this operation: 

Emails unearthed by investigators showed employees scheming to influence banks’ decisions on who to do business with by labeling certain industries “reputational risks,” ensuring banks “get the message” about the businesses the regulators don’t like, and pressuring banks to cut credit or close those accounts, effectively discouraging entire industries.

FDIC officials were also seen inserting their personal and moral opinions into banking decisions.

“The FDIC has allowed a culture within their agency to blossom that they believe it’s OK to impose their personal opinions and value system in a regulatory way,” says Luetkemeyer. “They are not a regulatory police—their job is to enforce the law.”

The policy change means that bank examiners will be required to put specific concerns and recommendations for termination of accounts in writing.  The accounts will be reviewed on an individual, case-by-case basis.  Industry or business sector "reputational risk" will no longer be an acceptable reason for account termination.

With regard to the FDIC's response, Luetkemeyer told the Daily Signal:

“We’re very pleased they’ve acknowledged their wrongdoing and they’ve accepted our suggestions to put in place measures to stop this activity.” 

This is the kind of stealth attack that epitomizes the Chicago Way of Holder and Obama as well as the nanny-staters and collectivists like Bloomberg.  I'm glad to see it being exposed.  

Mob Rule

I went into town last night to visit my daughter.  She gets moved to rehab today -- finally.  They've been letting her have real food, and she was craving barbeque, so I went by and got her some pulled pork, beans, and mac-and-cheese.


On the way in, I had the local talk radio station on.  It was running Mark Levin.  A caller was essentially trying to shift blame for the current fiscal situation away from Obama.  The caller said that it was "what the people" wanted.  Levin countered by saying he did not care what the people wanted.

That probably is troublesome to a lot of my fellow countrymen.  We tend to think if people vote for stupidity, they ought to get stupidity.  On a local scale, that's mostly true.  But at the national level, that is exactly why we have a Constitution and constitutional limits on the federal government.  That those limits are almost completely ignored these days doesn't mean they do not exist or that they are not binding.

On a related note, I see that the Huckster is starting to stake out his territory.  Huckabee says he experienced significant culture shock from all the “trashy” women swearing in a professional setting. ... “My gosh, this is worse than locker-room talk,” Huckabee continued. “As we would say in the South, that’s just trashy.”

Last I checked, Dallas is in the South.  I knew a number of nice, professional women when I was working down there in the '80s and '90s.  They talked like the men talked.  Now, I didn't talk that way, but I didn't think much about it.  Actually, those who knew me tended to tone it down around me, or at least throw in a "pardon my french" if they forgot.  The Huckster has lived a sheltered life.

Plus, his record as Arkansas governor indicates that he has the big-government mindset.  Sure, Huckabee Nation might be more "Christian", but it would be just as oppressive and intrusive as the current one. 

Here's the thing.  I would like to have Mike Huckabee as a neighbor.  We would get along fine.  We'd be buds.  He's got a decent sense of humor.  His taste in music isn't bad.  He has the same Christian values that I have.  As a person, I like Mike Huckabee.  I wouldn't vote for him for dogcatcher, but I like him.

 This is Mrs. Huckabee, a lovely lady.  I grabbed the picture from ABC News.

 Megyn Kelly, of course, one of Governor Huckabee's colleagues at Fox, and not even one of her better pictures (credit: Wikipedia).

Do I even need to add this?

Losers

We're the losers.

Hoft, and others, are reporting that Bergdahl will be charged with desertion.  He deserted not once, but twice and sought to aid the enemy. Obama, you recall, brought him back in exchange for the release of five terrorist leaders.  What a deal.

Meanwhile, again via Gateway Pundit, and Stars and Stripes, we hear that one thousand paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg are headed back to Iraq:

Now, more than three years after the U.S. military presence in Iraq was thought over, about a quarter of the Panther Brigade will return with a new mission to help train Iraqi forces to fight the Islamic State.

Trainers.  We know what that means.  It also means that there will Special Forces going back in.  Of course, we won't, and shouldn't, hear about that.  Stars and Stripes spoke with the brigade commander, who offered this bit of wisdom:

"It's a sophisticated enemy," Buzzard said. "There's limits to what air power can do.

"I think it's been very effective so far targeting leadership and headquarters, but it will require a ground force to control the terrain," he said. "The Iraqis have that ground force."

They have been doing so well at that lately.  I don't mind being lied to as much as I take offense at the implication that I am that stupid. 

Asking Politely

Breitbart reports Jeb Bush says we need to control the border by politely asking illegals to leave.

Mr. Bush, would you please go away?

It will probably work just as well on Jeb as it does on the illegals.

So what would that be in Spanish?:   

¿Sr. Bush, por favor márchese? 

¿Emigrantes ilegales, por favor márchese?

Spanish isn't my language, so I'll trust the translator.  I hope I didn't say something obscene.

Food Nazis

"It was all meant with the best of intentions."

That's what they always say.

A substitute teacher in the Kirksville, MO school system sent a note home with second-grader Alia Puckett to her parents, Dr. Joel Puckett and his wife.  The note read:  “Please see that she packs a proper lunch tomorrow.”   

My note would have read:  "Please see that you mind your own business tomorrow.  Whatever that is."  My father would not have sent a note.  He'd have been waiting in the parking lot.  There is just no end of people in the world today who are begging to have some sense beat into them.

See, the eight-year-old had some marshmallows and chocolate in her lunch.  She also had some ham and string cheese, but the school informer employee didn't see that.  It's a wonder that the education gestapo didn't sic Child Protective Services on Dr. Puckett, who, according to the article, is double board certified in osteopathic family medicine and obesity medicine.  Somehow I doubt his kid's nutrition is going to be a problem long-term.

One day a kid decides to eat something fun, and they come down like she was biting a Pop Tart into the shape of a gun or something.  

Ponzi Socialism

Lovely Venezuela has a problem or two:  Robbers are targeting food delivery trucks.

The late and little lamented Hugo Chavez could play Robin Hood when the oil revenue money was flowing into his resource-rich country.  Now, with the margin severely reduced, things have gotten a little tight. 

Government controlled markets inevitably end in shortages.  It's happening in Venezuela.  It happened in Argentina.  It will probably happen in Brazil and China.  It could easily happen here in the U.S., especially in the urban centers.

Dr. Copper Has Chills

Copper at $2.53 this morning.  So that means all my nickels are probably worth about a nickel or a little less.  Meanwhile silver has had a modest rebound, and gold is holding its own.  Maybe the traders who shorted oil futures had to put their money somewhere.

Not that I'm ever right about this stuff, but in a non-rigged world, it would look recessionary on a global scale. 

Whatever they do to various economies, I'm still liking low gasoline prices. 

I see that Michael Snyder is calling the end of the euro.  His predictions are about as reliable as mine.  Give the banksters their due:  they are very clever.

Gangs With Better Colors

Fox News has a report of a questionable police shooting in New Jersey.  In this case the racial issue is lessened because both the officer and the victim are black.  

You can read the report.  The dashcam video from the police car is on the link as well. 

If I had watched the video with no commentary or knowledge about what was going, I think I would have come to the conclusion that the police were after the victim, Reid, and fully intended to kill him no matter what he did.  I'm not saying that was the case, but one could get that impression. 

Reid was convicted felon.  He had shot at some NJ state troopers when he was a teenager and subsequently served thirteen years in prison.  Reid had not cleaned up his life.  The officer who confronted Reid, Braheme Days, knew who Reid was: 

Days was among the arresting officers last year when Reid was charged with several crimes, including drug possession and obstruction.

One obvious question is how Days knew immediately that there was a gun in the glove compartment.  Knowing that evidence can be planted, and is sometimes planted, it is conceivable that Reid was set up. 

I was joking about New Jersey yesterday, but it is known to be a corrupt state.  The governor before KrispyKreme was Jon Corzine.  Corzine became CEO of MF Global, a brokerage for derivatives and commodities, which collapsed in 2011.  MF Global violated its fiduciary trust by mixing company and client funds.  Clients lost at least $700 million, as I recall, but Corzine suffered no consequences and is still a wealthy man.

We would not be surprised that the police in Mexico knocked someone off at the behest of a drug cartel.  Frankly, I would not be surprised if it happened in New Jersey.  The whole thing looks rotten to me. 

Could a "bad" police shooting be a good cover for a hit?

He Says This Like It's a Bad Thing

George Lucas says that Disney didn't use any of his ideas for the J.J. Abrams version.

So maybe there's a new hope.

Star Wars was an entertaining matinee-style movie.  I watched it in the theater and enjoyed it.  I saw it once.  The Empire Strikes Back was a better movie, a feature film as they used to say.  Return, apart from Carrie Fisher's bikini, was down hill -- Ewoks, we hates them, to cross the streams of geekdom.

I saw about five minutes of whatever the first prequel was and didn't waste any more time.  People criticize Starship Troopers, which is not a great movie, but it's roughly equivalent to the original Star Wars, and not as dumb as ROTJ.  None of them are as good as Aliens.  I've only seen Alien and Aliens, so I don't know about the rest.  Of course, I'm partial to Sigourney Weaver, so that might have something to do with it.

In the end, it probably won't make any difference to me because I won't bother to see the new version, either, but Lucas doing a little bit of whining, with his $4 billion buy-out, hardly brings tears to my eyes.

 

Threatened by Pigeons

Yes, ISIS is that pathetic:

... first Patrick, then others, sent me the news that ISIS is now executing pigeon fanciers, some teenagers. I did predict it a few pages ago.

Long ago, I concluded that tyrants tend to get rid of pigeons. Not only are they a primitive form of clandestine, encrypted conversation; watching at them fly above the town is exhilarating, even subversive. If birds fly free, why not me? 

From Mr. Bodio's link to an NBC story:

ISIS has imposed its hardline interpretation of Islam on the areas it now controls, forcing women to wear all-enveloping coverings and men to pray five times a day.

 

NBC is careful to quote the man whose son was taken saying these were the acts of criminals and not Muslims.  I understand.  Those pedophile Catholic priests were criminals, too, but somehow the news always reported them as being Catholic.

This is Islam.  Call it a hardline interpretation if you like.  It happens to be a little bit different, though the same thing happened in Afghanistan under Taliban rule.  Islam means submission.  As a political system, it is about control and tyranny.  No Islamic state is successful.  Turkey and Egypt have succeed primarily as secular states with mostly Islamic populations.  The same was true of Iran before 1979, and Afghanistan back in the 1960s.

In the name of their religion, these cretins murder, destroy, intimidate, and terrorize.  In the name of Allah, they burn the birds of children in front of them.  When are the people in the Middle East, the so-called moderate Muslims, going to have enough of this?    

The Horror Is That It Makes Perfect Sense

Consensual incest is apparently legal or at least de-criminalized in  progressive New Jersey, Rhode Island and Quebec.  So some chick is going to marry her dad and move to New Jersey (h/t Patriactionary).  It's a little hard to say which of those two decisions is the more disturbing

This is what a lot of us have been saying all along:  when you let feelings and emotions and compassion override common sense and -- oh, I don't know -- thousands of years of experience and tradition, you end up undermining the very basis of civilized society.  We are going to have all sorts of deviations and degeneracy that we have to accept because once you tear down the fence, all the pigs will get out.

We've got people saying that someone can choose to be whatever "gender" they like.  If a boy decides he's really a girl, you're supposed to call him her and let him shower with your daughter in gym class.  Don't you know there have to be red-blooded boys left in California that are thinking about this.  Call me Martha, and, by the way, I'm a lesbian.

Buddy Hackett used to tell a WWII joke about a guy whose sister joined the regular Army passing as a man.  She put her hair up under her hat, strapped herself down, and wore men's clothes.  His friend says, "Yeah, but at night, the clothes come off.  She takes a shower.  Somebody is going to find out."  The brother replies, "Sure.  But who's going to tell?"

 

We Can't Afford Free

Beef prices have moderated a little but a couple of months ago, my nephew made an awkwardly worded statement about hanging onto to his cows until after the first of the year because of tax issues. But the way he said it, I started kidding him about his cattle being too expensive to sell.

You may be familiar with this Irish Canadian Stefan Molyneux and his Youtube channel.  In the linked video, one of his topics is the proposal for free community college that Obama will make in his State of the Union speech tonight -- which I won't be watching.  It happens to fall on the night when I sort my collection of used canning flats.  Molyneux makes a couple of very good points.

If you want to know why it costs so much to go to a hospital or receive medical treatment these days, consider how inexpensive community colleges are now versus what would happen if we were stupid enough to make them free.  If you dump billions of tax dollars into an industry -- as Molyneux says -- you change the economic nature of that industry.  Why would you think otherwise? 

As I have noted before, driving around rural areas where many elementary school and high school students live in trailer parks and old rundown houses, you see these temples where they go to class with all kinds of amenities and special programs.  Millions of dollars are poured into these districts every year, and it gets spent -- mostly wasted really -- every year.  The same thing has happened in traditional four-year  colleges and universities as well as in the healthcare sector. 

Now, you have people begging for government intervention to control the costs caused by government intervention.  That will work out well.

Another point Molyneux makes is this:  how is it that people are graduating from high school -- after twelve or thirteen years of free government education -- with no marketable skills?  The government indoctrination center has failed to adequately prepare students for any kind of productive work between kindergarten and twelfth grade.  But -- give them two more years, and they will get it right.

When I was in high school learning to type on a manual typewriter, making calls on a rotary phone, and driving a car with a manual transmission, one of the English teachers went on a rant one day.  In response to one of my classmates complaining about having to learn some aspect of grammar or literature, Mrs. Ledbetter said that she agreed with him.  He had no business in her classroom and ought to be out in the shop learning to weld or fix engines or grow corn or something.  She was adamant that we ought to have a vocational curriculum for those with no academic interest, inclination or ability.  As far as she was concerned it wasted her time and theirs for those voc-ed types to be in her Lit class. 

Not everybody is interested in  Shakespeare.  Not everybody is terribly interested in history.  Everybody who isn't mentally handicapped, though, should be able to read, say, Raymond Chandler or Shelby Foote.  A man ought to be educated to the point where he can write a sensible business letter, balance his own checkbook and calculate the area and volume of various simple geometric figures. 

That used to be done rather handily in eight years.  Then came teachers' unions and intervention by state and federal education departments. 

The good news is that there is no way Obama's "free community college" proposal in going anywhere in this Congress, but it is a shot across the bows and probably won't be the last we hear about this idiocy.

Je Suis Charlie

Nous sommes tous Charlie. 

Vive la France.

Mort aux tyrans islamique.

Venez me chercher, lâches!

Due to Circumstances Beyond Our Control

I may not be able to post for a couple of days.  See you when things are running more smoothly.

It's Just Weather

Ignore this because it clearly means nothing with regard to overall trends:  2014 Marks the 4th Coldest Year on Record for Illinois.

The statewide average temperature for 2014 was 49.4 degrees F, which is 2.9 degrees below average.  The year was tied with 1912 and 1979 for fourth place, according to Illinois State Climatologist Jim Angel, Illinois State Water Survey, University of Illinois.

The coldest year on record since 1895 was 1917 with an average of 48.3 degrees F.

We don't want to worry the warmists.  I'm sure the earth will burst into a ball of fire at any moment because it's really hot in the Australian Outback, Mozambique, and Brazil right now.

“Although 2014 was a cold year for Illinois, the effect was largely confined to the Midwest and was not global and it does not reflect the long-term temperature trend in Illinois,” Angel said.

Give me a temperature that is not local.  Check that big thermometer the planet is holding under its tongue.  All deviations from the warmists' model are local and temporary.  The average global temperature is derived from local measurements and depends greatly on data points.  It's rather like a poll.  How well the sample is chosen determines to what degree the results describe reality.  With regard to global temperature, I'm sure that satellites give us better data than we had prior to, say, 1969 when it became possible to measure temperature through the troposphere.  I'm also sure the proliferation of satellites and improved technology today measure the temperature better than could be done thirty years ago.

Of course, what that means is that our best "baseline" is not from the '50s or '60s and certainly not from the early 1900s or the 1800s but from probably around 1980 until now.  Anything prior to that is mostly speculative and based on a very limited number of measurements. 

Repeal and Replace

As dustbury points out, the only reason there is Obamacare is because the government had already caused chaos in health care pricing. 

At Mises, Matt Battaglioli writes "What True Health Care Reform Would Look Like".  In this piece, Battaglioli makes a point I like right off the bat.  People talk about how much better socialized medicine is and how low the U.S. rates in terms of health care "quality".  But the quality rating by the UN's World Health Organization includes criteria for "fairness".  Even the commies at the UN have to admit one fact:

[T]he WHO ranked the US as no. 1 worldwide in “responsiveness to patients’ needs in choice of provider, dignity, autonomy, timely care, and confidentiality.”

Of course we have to pay for that, because you get what you pay for.  I had a lot of personal experience with the health care system in 2014.  It was very positive, but it did cost a lot of money.  I had quite a bit out of pocket expense in addition to the very large sums my insurance covered.  I consider myself blessed to be able to afford the high-quality care given to my family.  That is the way it is always going to work.  One can ask veterans about the highly variable quality of "free" care experienced in VA hospitals. 

I put free in quotes because there is no such thing as free care.  Somebody is either donating time, materials, and money, paying voluntarily through insurance premiums, or being forced to pay through taxes.  The basic issue is that the person receiving the care is sometimes insulated to the point of being unaware of the cost of care.  This affects the fundamental interaction of supply and demand. 

Here's how Battaglioli explains it:

What Americans actually need to do to reduce costs and even improve the quality of their healthcare system is very counterintuitive. It would involve dismantling their Medicare and Medicaid programs, as well as eliminating occupational licensing requirements for the medical field. It is true that the prices of US healthcare really took off after the enactment of the programs in 1965, and it is not difficult to see why that is. When the price of a commodity like healthcare becomes too high, healthcare providers actually lose money due to there being so few people who can afford their service. They then have an incentive to lower prices to a more consumer-friendly rate. However, Medicare and Medicaid eliminate that feature of the market as it pertains to healthcare because they make it so that people will have money for healthcare regardless of the price, via subsidy. Providers realize this and then raise their prices knowing they’ll be able to get whatever price they charge.

Shut down Medicare and Medicaid today, and, for that matter, as a thought-experiment, eliminate all third-party insurance so that everyone has to pay for medical care out-of-pocket.  Will the hospitals all close?  Will doctors, nurses, and technicians go find other jobs?  No.  They will, however, start to make their pricing decisions based on real-world demand.  In that alternate universe, care would likely be scaled to match the person's ability to pay.  There would be Mercedes E-Class hospitals, and there would be Nissan Versa hospitals.  A Versa is actually a pretty good car that will safely get you where you want to go. 

Simply repealing Obamacare, as positive as that would be, ignores the underlying issues that drove the passage of such a monumentally stupid piece of legislation in the first place.  Sadly, I am not hopeful.  The economic ignorance of most of the American voting public along with the big-government bias of the media and most politicians has created an environment such that any replacement is unlikely to be able resolve the more basic problems that have corrupted the system since the imposition of Medicare and Medicaid. 

With the Theme of "Things Goin' On"

I particularly like this guy's blog header. 

One does begin to wonder if the Bermuda Triangle has moved to the other side of the blue ball.

Meanwhile, bodies are being recovered from AirAsia Flight 8501, and the reports are that sonar indicates some large objects on the sea floor at a depth of about 100 feet. They would really like to "...find the cockpit voice and flight data recorders that may explain why the Airbus A320-200 plunged into the sea."  If you have an Airbus, you may not need a conspiracy. 

Kuala Lumpar says that Bush and Co. are war criminals.   I wonder if Obama would be willing to extradite?  He might be afraid it would set a precedent.


Speaking of plane crashes, the story of the seven-year-old who is the lone survivor of a small plane crash in Kentucky is both saddening and inspirational.  I can't imagine how she felt.  She knew that her parents were dead.  A lot of us, having been so traumatized and terrified, would have given up and perhaps died of exposure.  She rescued herself.

I don't want to get too far off into a discussion of spiritual things, but reality is more than what we see.  I believe that we live on after physical death -- mostly because of my Christian faith, but I've also had some personal experience in that area.  I am sure, if it is possible for someone to intervene from beyond death's horizon, it would probably be a mother.  


(Forgot to mention:  Thanks for the links, Jamie)

What Upsets Me Most About the World in 2015

I'm on the same side as Steven Seagal (watch the video at the Western Journalism link):

Never in my life did I ever believe that our country would be taken over by people like the people who are running it at this day.

... When we have a leadership that thinks that the Constitution of the United States of America is a joke, when we have a president who has almost a thousand executive orders now, when we have a Department of Justice that thinks that any kind of a judicial system that they make up as they are going along can get by with whatever they decide that they want to do. (H/T: Conservative Tribune)

Seagal mentions "Fast and Furious", Benghazi, and impeachment.  It doesn't bother me that I agree with Chuck Norris 90% of the time.  Norris got his acting advice from Steve McQueen, something along the lines of "less talking and more punching".  But Steven Seagal?  I have never made it through thirty minutes of a Steven Seagal movie. 

Of course, another way to look at it is when Steven Seagal makes more sense than anybody in Washington, D.C., maybe it's time to start paying a little more attention to the people who are supposed to be running the federal government.

GDP and Government Spending

On the Mises Daily, Joseph Salerno explains how a reduction in GDP can be positive for the productive.

As far as I am concerned, Keynesian economic theory was developed to justify what socialist/fascist governments wanted to do, which was to grow and gain more power.  It is a foundational principle of big, intrusive government.  Without the quantitative arguments of Keynes, statists would have to rely on qualitative, greater-good, human interest anecdotes to further their curtailment of individual liberties and property rights.  By including government spending in GDP calculations, the statists can point to how much more prosperous everyone is in a socialist world.

If we reduce government spending by cutting back on defense, welfare, the DEA, the ATF, grants to climate change researchers, funding bogus green energy companies, and buying MRAP vehicles for Mayberry, we'll have a recession.  We might also balance the budget without raising taxes too much, but the Krugmans of the world will be screaming that "austerity" is killing the economy.  Government employees -- i.e., women and minorities, will be hit hardest.

So, "for the children", we have to keep adding to the debt those children will have to pay.